#clearly my blog doesn't look queer enough

[galactic-rhea]

Friendly reminder that....TERFS, QUEERPHOBICS, ANTI-LGTB+ PPL, BIGOTS, EXCLUSIONISTS AND RACISTS AREN'T WELCOMED ON MY BLOG ='D

Seriously you give me the ick, if i somehow missed blocking you this is your sign to leave right now, thanks.

[catboybiologist]

So.

Re: tumblr bans of transfemmes.

Let's ignore PhotoMatt for a moment. Manbaby tech CEO doubling down on a stupid decision and making himself look like more of an ass doing so is not a new phenomena.

Tumblr has consistently said, in both public statements and leaked internal communication, that they're essentially running a skeleton crew.

They keep saying that they don't have the resources to moderate, manually review posts, have any kind of appeal process, or anything. So, as people have widely received communications about, they seemed to have automated a significant portion of the moderation to operate solely on the quantity of reports (probably with a basic filter, eg quantity of reports regarding a certain post, within a certain timeframe) to automatically ban or shadowban accounts.

And so, they wipe their hands, both to the users, the public, and their own consciousness, and go about their automated operations.

All of this is likely true. Tumblr, at this point, is essentially abandonware internally, a kind of weird vanity project/dumpster ground for server infrastructure for Automattic. Likely, they don't want the bad press of "shutting down" fully. Or maybe the trickle of revenue they get here just barely exceeds operating costs, so why not keep it around?

Whatever is the case, the bans are a result of an automated process working in the background. I'm giving them some benefit of the doubt here, of course, we can't know anything for certain- but it seems like the individual bans are not based on any specific, manual action.

And that doesn't fucking excuse anything.

Because at some point, multiple people sat down at tumblr, and decided how to cut costs.

And they decided that the bare minimum of report abuse prevention was one of the first things on the chopping block.

Before the boops. Before GUI reconfigures.

They decided to cut something that is necessary to manage online communities.

They decided to cut something that ensures any targeted group will have any kind of community online.

And then, after all of that, the only manual intervention is doubling down on the shitty decisions that the automated systems make, and plucking reasons out of their ass for why they were the right decisions all along.

It's pure silicon valley brain. Blame the computer often and always. Use it to shield the active decisions you made when designing the computer that way. Treat it as a fact of life as opposed to something they actively made decisions for.

Is tumblr staff hitting the banhammer on each transfemme one by one? No.

Is tumblr staff deliberately crafting a system that allows TERFs and other conservative bigots to get rid of the "undesirables" for them? Yup. But they sure as hell are trying to not say the quiet part out loud. If they can always point the finger somewhere else, to the advertisers, to the automated systems, to the TERFs, then they can always have juuusssttt enough plausible deniability.

But being the "queerest place on the internet" requires concious acknowledgement that queer people will be targets of harassment, and you will have to protect against that.

Side note, this is why I do try to keep my blog at least somewhat SFW. Its one of the main reasons why I choose not to reblog all of the posts I'm tagged in- if the post is overtly NSFW, I've probably seen it, appreciated it, and consciously decided my level of interaction with it mostly based on how "tumblr friendly" it is. Is that bowing down to them? A little. It's also my choice. I value the community I have here. The pushes that y'all have given me gave me the strength to transition, and honestly gives me a lot of motivation to research HRT biology as much as I can, among many other things.

Yeah, I post pictures that are clearly meant to be found attractive in ways that are generally not socially acceptable , but never actual NSFW. I would like to think that I'm pretty safe from bans, but hey. Who knows. I don't want to lose my follower base, and the community around it.

And yeah, I'm gonna annoyingly remind you of the other places to find me, make sure to check my pin. If you don't know where to go, just find me on reddit and go from there, I'll post about it if anything happens.

[kanmom51]

Hi Kanmom,

I have a theory I would like your take on. Of course as a theory, it’s my opinion, yet I rarely see any Jikook blogs or obviously Army blogs speak to, actually I see most Jikook blogs vehemently deny the notion.

My opinion is that the Tae kook ship acts as a protection for Jikook. (I know you must be tired of hearing of taekookers)

Here is the moment that made me have this opinion solidified, well enough that I have it in my head as a theory.

In the infamous New Jersey Live. I remember watching it for the first time after seeing an analysis video that someone was in the room.

Anyway, like I always do I watch OG content and noticed something strange, which was Tae’s actions.

He came in the room, for the first time to me as a viewer, considering he didn’t know who’s room it was.

Anyways, fast forward someone speaks in the background and Tae in turn says “Weren’t we sharing the same room?” to JK.

Of all questionable Jikook moments this is the one that has me like ?????? and it isn’t even Jikook lol.

But then I thought about it from Tae’s perspective.

He clearly knows JK whispering to someone in the bathroom(fact). And, honestly like a good friend, he tries to cover it up (my opinion).

What I find interesting is that his way of kinda “not revealing” the secret or divert attention is by drawing attention to him and JK. That’s interesting, and I don’t understand why there is no thoughts on that.

My opinion is that Tae maybe was trying to normalize the behavior, and he thought well if I say we’re sharing a room, then ppl will focus on that instead of the secret rendezvous in the bathroom.

Which leads me to a bigger theory: Taekook normalizes Jikook.(totally my opinion)

imagine Jikook being a strong force, imo taekook is a strong force in the opposite direction.

I think if taekook wasn’t around, Jikook would stand out like a sore thumb. There are the first to negate even the most obvious Jikook moments. In my baby army stage even when every logical part of my brain was screaming there’s something up with these two, I watched taekook videos to shut it down. Like oh it’s just shipping, and move on.

I mean no one wants to even acknowledge the notion taekook acts a diversion for Jikook why? “If taekookers say this. Then I can’t think like this cause tkkers are crazy”

My point ^. The presence of tkkers make Jkkers so insecure all of a sudden they forget Jimin bit JK’s neck and JK sucked his ears.

Anyone feeling like Jikook could be real? Lemme just watch a Taekook video to remind myself I’m just a delulu shipper like them. Hence why I think RM said film a video with Tae after JKs very sis GCF in Tokyo.

Anyway, it’s clear as day to me when vminkook are together. Take the ppyong live. JK came in and the atmosphere changed. JK does a very imo bf thing and moves Hobi to sit next to jimin, then you know it’s all over.

All of a sudden they are kekekeing in a corner and what is Tae’s response? “JK didn’t you and I do boxing something like that”

Which wasn’t true as they said in the same live “lying is his charm” JK just shut it down,

I think Tae is “protecting” them in the best way he knows how, by absolutely trolling the hell out of army.

I think if Jikook accidentally kissed on stage. Hobi would freeze, namjoon would die, yoongi would stare, Jin look away and Tae would just kiss Jk or Jimin to even it out and divert attention lol. Either that or smile idk.

I think that’s his way of protecting them and now that he’s possibly in a relationship, maybe protect himself.

My 2 cents.

@jacha101 I hear you. I do.

I even want to say that in the past I thought it to be somewhat of a possibility. And not in the TKKs sick way of thinking that one queer relationship is showcased (JKK) to protect the second queer relationship (TKK), but more like Tae inserting himself into the mix to balance out the JKK interaction (like putting them on the same level so their interaction doesn't seem too suspicious). More like showing "we're all friends here, nothing queer going on..."

I thought it might be a possibility, even as close back as late 2021 (and only on certain occasions, because on other occasions it was as clear as day that Tae was there to troll them, as in to get in their faces and piss them off, lol).

I have also seen moments where Tae will be gatekeeping Jikook, but I don't think it was in a sense of pushing TKK, but more nudging the two out of a moment.

This one I'm not sure if is policing or trolling, lol.

And if we are talking about trolling...

There are so many more examples of Tae 'inserting' himself or policing Jikook or trolling them, whatever the reason may be.

In any case, unlike you, I don't think that TKK as a ship was ever there to protect JM or JK.

Ok, I think I have to start from the beginning here though.

Shipping two people together does not necessarily mean you see them as a couple. It is a slippery slope and many do ship that way, but as a whole a ship can mean you like the connection between two people, and it can be a totally platonic one at that. Many Vminers are not about Vmin being a couple, and more about their close friendship (although there are those that still live in a dream that it has even been more than that).

So, when we talk about TKK as a ship, if we were talking about normal human beings and not a fucking cult, they could totally be perceived as a cute ship, AS FRIENDS, partners in crime (in the past), and more recently too (bowling buddies, gaming buddies, not going live buddies, cause that was just way too awkward).

If this fandom was constituted from mentally stable people, indeed I could maybe say that at times TKK as a ship can even out the JKK interactions and be used by them to balance things out a little and take the attention off JKK and their very suspicious interactions. Although, while writing those lines I can't help but think to myself that Jikook's chemistry and closeness cannot be compared to TKK's. They are just not the same, no matter which what way you look at them. If you are a person with common sense and life experience (including a basic level of emotional intelligence) you can see there is clearly a difference between the two couplings.

But in any case, you and I know that is not the case. This fandom is flawed, no secret there.

And we also know that the members and company know exactly who TKKs are and what they do and are capable of.

The vile hate JM gets from them is not an unknown. The harassment of whoever shows some sort of closeness or support for Jikook is also not an unknown. Their verbally violent behavior towards anyone who does not fall in line, and that includes JKKs (I'd say that is inconsequential to the company), people that may have interacted with Tae or JK or the two (including different brands or professionals) or even total strangers that they deem relevant to their sick fantasy about JK and Tae. All known to the members and to the company.

I really don't see JK nor Tae going to the lengths of promoting TKK as a ship to hide JKK knowing what they do about the consequences of pushing this ship.

That, by all means, does not mean the two will not interact and showcase their friendship. But JK, for one, has been trying for some time now to make sure the line in the sand is clear, that it's friendship and no more. Tae does not tread as carefully as JK does.

I'll go back to my initial statement. I do think that at times Tae pushed the TKK to 'change the subject' if you may. Or as you put it, take the attention off the Jikook elephant in the room. But many a times it's just Tae being Tae. Trolling both JM and JK and Army at the same time.

I kind of think at times that Tae is an anarchist at heart, lol. Or more so an agent of chaos. He loves to throw the stones and just see where they fall. He'll do it with JM ("I think JM likes men"), he'll do it with JK (take that NJ live and him unwilling to leave all while JK is doing everything possible for him to leave other than say "get the fuck out already"), he'll do it with Jikook ("JM is hanging out with JK") and he does it constantly with army, and I'd say even more so with TKKs. And here comes into work his lack of care as to the consequences of riling them up. I kind of think he, and I'm going to be careful with my wording here, doesn't care for big parts of this fandom (cough TKKs cough), and definitley doesn't think much of them.

If Tae was doing this out of the kindness of his heart or wanting to protect Jikook as a couple or JM and JK as individuals, if that was his objective, then he wouldn't, for instance, post a Jikook photo for Hobi's birthday, for example.

One thing I want to add here.

If TKK were being used to nullify JKK why is it that JK is constantly continuously doing things to show us that Jikook are more than friends? If JK himself wants to show us they are closer, they are just MORE, why would the whole TKK ship be used to nullify that? JK sucked on JM's ear in front of 10s of thousands of fans, knowing he's also being filmed. He wanted us all to see it. JK signed "I love you" to JM at the TMA's, knowing everyone saw it. JK tattooed the J over the M on his ring finger. JK outright said "I love you" to JM for all of us to hear it during the LV tour, and so much more. They have both done so much more to showcase their relationship. They don't want to be balanced out. And even more so knowing what they know about TKKs. JK doesn't want to be thought of as Tae's boyfriend, not when he's going out of his way to show what JM is to him.

At the end of the day, I do get what you're saying, but I don't think that JK nor Tae, nor JM for that matter, are people that would play along with this kind of game.

Ships are a thing, there is no escape from that. And the members know it. I mean they themselves have thrown around ship names once in a while. They are aware of the ships, they are aware of the shippers. Tae doesn't have to go live for 3 minutes, mention JK's name and leave for TKKs to be TKKs. If you get my drift. He didn't do that to balance out some kind of Jikook interaction.

Pretty much since the Busan concert we had close to no Jikook interactions. We got a few Run BTS episodes, which were mostly filmed before the concert. They themselves, until JK's Feb lives, were in radio silence. And once they became loud it was of their own accord, they wanted to be loud. They wanted to show us stuff. They didn't want or need Tae to balance out whatever we were getting from them (and all of this happening without even seeing them in the same frame). Tae showing up in JK's Feb live and the IG TKK live, all those happened during that radio silence period. During a time where the rejoicing sounds of "Jikook are over" were ever so loud. There was no need to push TKK to balance out non existent interactions or suspicions (cause they just weren't there at that point).

What I'm saying here is that Tae is doing whatever he's doing, not to balance out JKK.

And for those that will be coming at me, I'm not saying he did it necessarily to push TKK.

I'm saying he didn't do it to balance out JKK.

His reasons are his, whatever they may be. And there could be a plethora of them: he was bored, he wanted to do the live with a friend, he feels awkward doing the live alone and doing it with JK was a good way of being in touch with army all while not having all the attention on himself, etc.

I will end by saying that they all do love each other dearly. They have over 10 years of together, and although there might be ups and downs in their relationships, they do care greatly for each other and are good friends. Said care/love/friendship is showcased in their interactions with each other. Mostly good, at times not so much (we obviously do not get to see the full picture, and the big fights or blow ups we won't be privy to too much, I mean we just discovered from JK, and still not getting the whole story, that the dumpling fight was way bigger than what we were told for years). JK and Tae are good friends. Mates. And we will be getting a lot of them in the near future, mainly because the others won't be around soon. We need to overcome our adversity to TKKs and remember that this is about TKK, their bond, their friendship, not their shippers.

Karmy know how to enjoy their interactions. We need to be able to create a disconnect between the cult and these two people. They are friends, they interact, they most likely will be supporting each other through their solo debuts. It's about them and us supporting them. Not about demented fans that don't know boundaries or lack common sense. And we also need to remember that both JK and Tae have zero control over these fans, their behavior or actions.

Let's enjoy what they give us before they leave us.

[whimsicaldragonette]

Blog Tour: Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places by Claire Kann

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Publication Date: May 21, 2024

Welcome to the Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places Blog Tour with Berkley Publishing Group. (This Blog Tour post is also posted on my Wordpress book blog Whimsical Dragonette.)

Synopsis:

Lucky Hart has an affinity for the supernatural, but almost no one takes parapsychology seriously. She’s estranged from her family, has lost her friends, and has been rejected from graduate school—twice. But her big break finally arrives when she gets insider info about a troubled production company. Every actor on their new show mysteriously quits after spending three nights inside Hennessee House, an old Victorian with a notorious reputation.

This May, Claire Kann, the author of The Romantic Agenda returns to the page with LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE HAUNTED PLACES (Berkley Trade Paperback Original; May 21, 2024), a heartwarming, fun, and thrilling supernatural romance for fans of scary stories and love stories alike. Kann’s debut was loved for its asexual representation and diversity wrapped in a delightful love story. Her newest features the same things her fans know her for but adds an unforgettable paranormal aspect.

In the book, Lucky Hart falls in love unexpectedly on the set of a paranormal investigation show. But she’s soon forced to choose feelings or career when the mansion she’s examining doesn’t want to share her attention.

LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE HAUNTED PLACES is a sweet take on a haunted house story, giving readers a charming single-dad, workplace romance setup and highlighting the experiences of an Ace, Black heroine. If you can’t get enough Halloween all year round, or like your romance with some mystery on the side, this is the perfect novel for you.

My Rating: ★★★

*My Review and Favorite Quotes below the cut.

My Review:

I enjoyed this story. It was sweet and wholesome and just a tad spooky, with a plucky protagonist, a super sweet single dad, and an adorable kiddo. Plus some other really great characters I wish we'd gotten to know more about. And Hennessee House of course.

While I for the most part enjoyed reading this, it was far too long and sometimes really dragged. It took me forever to finish reading it. If it had been shorter, I think I would have enjoyed it more. There's not enough substance there to warrant the length imo.

I really liked Georgia and Xander and I wish we'd gotten more of them. They balanced out Lucky and Maverick's intense insta-love thing they had going on.

I liked the asexual representation, although it sometimes got a little preachy and didn't always 100% make sense to me. But I'm willing to chalk that up to "everyone experiences asexuality differently." That's definitely a type of queer rep we don't often get in romance books so kudos to the author for including it as an integral part of Lucky's romantic experience and not just a sidenote.

The supernatural aspect I enjoyed but found to be very confusing at times. There were multiple times while I was reading that I got tripped up and had to stop and go 'wait, what?' because suddenly I had no idea what was going on.

The first time it happened was at the very beginning when Lucky is lying to Xander and team in hopes of getting the job. She tells the reader that she's lying, but not what the truth is or why it's important for her to lie, and I never felt like the lying was necessary. Lucky doesn't always explain herself very clearly, and she sometimes assumes that people will understand things when they (and the reader) definitely don't.

It was a fun story, not too scary, with just enough supernatural elements to be really unique. I think cutting a little of the length and adding in more of Georgia and Xander could have made it even better.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for providing an early copy for review.

Favorite Quotes:

A year ago, if someone told Lucky her experience being a nanny would inevitably lead to making a ten-year-old her partner-in-crime in a sentient house, she absolutely would've believed it.

[fandomfluffandfuck]

Hi S! I’ve been wondering. I know some (gay/bi/…) men hate it when women write m|m. And well as a woman. I love to read and write m|m. I find it way more intriguing than m|w or w|w. (I don’t even know why.) I mean, I love Stucky and Evanstan and I’ve been writing my own OCs story (without smut, cos I can’t know how it feels to be hard and shit like that, and heterosexualisation)

Anyway so this got me thinking about how you might feel about this. Because I don’t want to hurt people and your opinion kinda matters to me. I look up to you even though I think we’re the same age.

Bye and thx 💙❤️

Hey, sweets!

First, I have to stay, I can completely relate to this. I've had--few and far between, but still, it's happened--people ask/request me to write smut with genderbent stucky with Steve and Bucky both as women. And, yeah, I always have hesitations about it. So, I've never actually done it, lmao. I, personally, always feel weird about it because of the history of men (usually straight men, but, I'm clearly not that 💀 so we'll go with men who are attracted to women exclusively or otherwise) fetishizing lesbians.

Realistically, going outside and touching grass, I'm of the opinion that this is fiction. We're writing fictional stories. It doesn't bleed into my real life. I understand the difference between fantasy and reality, and I try to assert that on my blog. So, in theory, it is harmless. But, funnily enough, just like you, I also don't feel qualified to make that judgment. I always try to mark my fics appropriately--whether it's me, as a man, writing about women or it's me writing about a subject I am not an expert in like history, specific careers or jobs, legal issues, exact timelines of canon, etc., etc.-- that way, appropriate readers will continue if it doesn't bother them, and other readers will move on if it does. Of course, there will always be people who ignore those tags or are outraged by it existing to begin with and... there's no pleasing those people. So. They don't bother me. The tags are there. The warnings are present. So, it's their responsibility as a reader to act appropriately from then on. I can't do it for them.

Anyway, my ramblings aside--

It doesn't bother me when straight, cis women write mlm fanfiction! It doesn't bother me when women write mlm fanfiction at all.

Obviously, there would (and probably will) be outliers in women who have unchecked homophobia/transphobia/general queerphobia that is expressed through their writing but... I have yet to come across that. So, I don't really care.

Think of it, like, I don't have a problem when straight, cis women talk to or about gay/bi/queer men. It only crosses a line for me when those women start to think they know better about the the queer community and talk over queer men. (And the fact that you're concerned about it being strange points toward you not being like that. Not crossing that line.) Or, because I like to explain everything to death, think of it like like acting. I am of the opinion that I don't need every queer character to be played by a queer actor--what I want is fair representation and job opportunities for queer actors in Hollywood across the board, not necessarily the ability for only them to own those roles. Some straight and cis actors might not have the range or ability to play a queer character, and so they don't. However, straight and cis actors exist that can portray queer characters in vibrancy and outside of harmful contexts. What makes those actors good? Their ability to learn and understand queer people as people. Clearly, you, anon, want to learn and understand. That's good!

Fetishizing, I obviously understand, can be some people's fear but with fanfiction... again, it's fantasy.

(That, and, my understanding, is that mlm ships are more common because of men often being written more in-depth and more readily available in media within the patriarchal society we have constructed and because it can be refreshing to completely take yourself out of fantasy and pleasure and that sort of thing when it is so taboo in our society (especially women's pleasure). Which, mlm relationships provide more so than mlw or wlw. So, I can understand the appeal!)

I will say there's a layer to my answer, too, of how much a lot of fandon spaces can feel like women's spaces to me. Obviously, it's not all women, and I know that well. There are lots of nonbinary people and men around here! Though, fandom has been something that has, from my knowledge, been dominated by women historically. And while I love seeing more diversity in fandom as people of all types embrace and love the art that speaks to them with wild passion, I still see a lot, lot of women. So, I don't feel like it's my place as a man to police the space and say what belongs or doesn't belong, y'know? I'm just here enjoying my time. And with all the incredible fanfiction that's out there that has been written about mlm ships by straight women, cis or trans, I wouldn't want to change that.

So, TLDR; I don't mind when women write about queer men, whether they themselves are straight or not. Obviously, there are limits to that, and harm can be done when straight women try to speak over queer men (queer people generally, too), but it seems like with your concern for the topic you'll do just fine. So, go out there and write!

P.S. thinking about sensations in smut... you might be interested in these two drabbles I've written 👀

[hopeymchope]

Do you think you can help me out? I don't understand why everyone loves Ibuki so much. I mean, I don't want to hate her, but the one thing I don't like is her music. It's been bothering me ever since I learned that she's a fan favorite, I want to know if anyone doesn't like Ibuki because of her music. I get that her popularity has to do with her jokes and fashion, but some of it feels like dark humor to me. You can read my blog for more info if you want (some of it doesn't make sense though).

I don't think anyone likes Ibuki's music aside from Hiyoko, lol. (Unless, of course, you're talking about that amazing fan recording of what "I Squeezed Out the Baby But I Have No Idea Who the Father Is" could sound like, which I would say is an absolute jam.) Just look at everyone else's reaction to it in-game! So you're definitely not alone in such an opinion; I'd be stunned to learn if ANY fans legitimately liked her in-game/in-anime music, actually. I always thought the whole POINT was that it's supposed to sound like a cacophony of garbage. But having some crap musical preferences isn't usually enough to hate OR love somebody, y'know? Whether they're real OR fictional.

(But please, y'all: If any of you legitimately love — or, like @dangan-kagura, totally hate — Ibuki for her.... eccentric musical style, I'd love to hear about that. I want to know you exist!)

But ultimately, I think Ibuki is beloved by the DR fanbase because of three main reasons:

A) Yes, she's funny and cartoonishly positive and speaks in the third person, but she also runs deeper/smarter than she usually acts. We do tend to really dig characters with layers to them that run deeper than our first superficial impression.

B) We also love someone who is relentlessly individualistic and shows no signs of caring what other people think of her. There's an admirable quality to her, particularly in how she's pursuing her music when we meet her.

C) A character with queer undertones (overtones?) is always a character that fandoms will gravitate towards.

Let me go a little more in-depth on those points.

Regarding point A: Obviously, Ibuki acts like a goofball a lot of the time, which can be endearing. But she also surprisingly pulls her weight in the class trials by catching others in lies, pressing people for answers, reporting on exactly what sounds/voices came from where at what points during Chapter 1's murder, and so on. She can be quite insightful — remember that in DR3's Despair Arc, she's the only person in Class 77-B who points out that there's something between Fuyuhiko and Peko — that they're clearly closer than they pretend to be. All of the above speaks to how lowkey observant she is, which supports how she can drop some legit wisdom, such as her mini-speech about "finding oneself" during her final FTE in Island Mode.

Regarding point B: As we gradually learn her background in-game from various conversations and FTEs, we find that she once wrote and co-performed a song with her Light Music Club that became a top-charting single. That fact combined with her incredible guitar skills helped her get scouted by Hope's Peak as the "Ultimate Musician." Even so, she ditched her club and quit pop music so she could make the heavier, harder music SHE wanted to make. And... it's not exactly being well-received, but she doesn't seem to give a damn. She left behind the easy route to praise and loads of cash so she could maintain her artistic integrity and do what she's passionate about and loves doing. That's easy to admire.

Regarding point C: At the end of Island Mode, if the player/Hajime suggests they could now be "lovers," she rejects that notion with a strong "DENIED!" Plus she talks about her heart pounding hard when she sees the other girls in their swimsuits. And there's her request for Mahiru to take picutres of Mikan in compromising positions when poor Tsumiki falls in Chapter 1. And, y'know... the infamous "Welcome to the world of girl love!" quote. All this together has made her be popularly believed to be gay or at least bi/pansexual, and characters with those kinds of hints just always get a lot of love from fans. Geeks do love their slash.

I hope this helped you understand why people are fond of her — including myself. I'd probably put her anywhere from tier 1 to tier 3 of my favorite characters, depending on the day. She's not a lock for the top level by any means, but I'm still a fan and enjoy her presence.

[meraki-yao]

thank you so much for your reply <3 i think grief is a good word to describe what i'm feeling. it might sound silly to some but the book has been one of my favourites since 2019 and the 'what could have been?' aspect of the movie's promotion devastates me bc the crew and the fans deserved more. i think im also a bit terrified of ppl moving on from rwrb to nick's other projects meanwhile i can't (and don't want to) do it, ugh it's just a mess of weird feelings and sadness and longing for something we've never had. not to mention how some people already talk about his new projects being upgrades from rwrb. that hurts me on so many levels bc henry is a complex and beautiful character, rwrb is a wonderful story and i genuinely think that even with all the changes they created something amazing.

Glad I could help <3

It's not silly at all. I'm in a similar position: if you've followed my blog you might have seen this but long story short my irl life is a bit fucked up and I was really, really depressed. (still kinda am) July and August, waiting and watching RWRB release became the happiest I've been since January 2022, and in the following months RWRB and the fandom (well, and my sister) nearly became my sole reason for hanging on. So trust me when I say I get the feeling.

I understand your fear, and I'd be lying if I say I wasn't afraid that the rwrb tag will be full of George instead of Alex and Henry, but please remember that liking something new doesn't necessarily always lead to leaving the previous fandom: I know for a fact that me and a couple of my mutuals are going do both. We're gonna be happy to watch M&G (personally not interested in the idea of you but the same applies) but we're still going to make RWRB content. M&G will be a great show but it won't have nearly the same emotional weight to me as RWRB. It's been five months, so those of us who hang around and are active are active for a good reason.

As for the comments about "upgrade", that's ridiculous and a very surface-level assessment. One of my best friends is studying to become an actress and we talk about acting often. Here's the thing: there isn't a thing called "easy" acting. Every genre of acting has its own challenges: for comedy many times you need to sacrifice your personal dignity; Sci-fi blockbusters you need to interact with nothing and make it look believable; even for things like kid shows you need to be hyperactive so the kids can focus and find it entertaining, which can be so draining. M&G is a historical thriller, TIOY is a romance, and RWRB is a rom-com. These are three different film genres, and each set out to achieve different things. For example in terms of relationships: TIOY needs to make the romance believable, RWRB needs to make the romance believe, funny, and be a fair representation of a queer relationship, and for M&G if history serves there's no "true love" relationship at all. You're right: Henry's a complex and beautiful character, and Nick clearly put all his heart into him. But you cannot take Henry's layers of grief, love, fear, and self-esteem, and say it is lesser than Geroge's cold ambition. Funnily enough, while Henry is so careful with his power as the prince, George rose to the same if not a higher level of power and abused it so badly, that it caused his assassination and downfall. A well-written character is ultimately, a human being, and there isn't truly a human being who's "easy to be". So don't listen to those haters.

I'm all ears if you still want to talk <3

[naoko-world]

I posted 5,451 times in 2022

That's 5,451 more posts than 2021!

668 posts created (12%)

4,783 posts reblogged (88%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@omgcheez (Like of course)

@encantoisawesome

@immabethehero

@neon-green-eyes (Of course)

@sleeplessdreamer14

I tagged 4,163 of my posts in 2022

Only 24% of my posts had no tags

#encanto - 2,468 posts

#bruno madrigal - 1,628 posts

#encanto fanart - 805 posts

#mirabel madrigal - 534 posts

#fanart - 480 posts

#pepa madrigal - 392 posts

#julieta madrigal - 384 posts

#bruno fanart - 285 posts

#isabela madrigal - 264 posts

#camilo madrigal - 257 posts

(I guess we can see where my interests goes XD

Longest Tag: 115 characters

#they'd argue about me being queer like some people thinking i'm straight and some others thinking i'm totally queer

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

OMG I love it! Yeah they all need therapy but not all of them would agree to go. Don't be shy! Seeing a therapist isn't sooo bad!

Oh and... Fic ideaaaa!!!!

(Which I ended up writing! 3 chapters for now!)

289 notes - Posted May 28, 2022

#4

Analysis: Disney Princesses were never bad role models

Like a lot of people I grew up with Disney movies. Snow White even gave me my love of apples (true story!). My favorite was Beauty and the Beast because I thought "Belle looks like me and we are fond of the same thing." Even so, like an awful lot of people I thought the Disney princesses were weak girls only waiting for Prince Charming to save them without doing anything to help their situation.

I was wrong though: Disney Princesses were never weak or dumb! They're great characters with deep and various personalities! I'm here to argue that point to you in analysing the old ones + Ariel because she's known as the first strong one + Rapunzel because she's an interesting case.

Sorry, it's a really long essay... And thank you to my proofreader for proofreading it this time, you're the best!

Snow White case

First one to be analysed... Snow White... Aka "The one I can't stand". Yet I'll defend her because I don't like her but I can't let people talk badly about her!

To defend her, anyone would have replaced the movie into its context as if it was the only way to defend the character to be a bad one. From what I know of and searched, at that time most women were housewives and Snow White gives them some credits so of course it can be used to defend the movie, I won't deny it! However that would mean she's still a bad role model today and I don't think it helps her case. Intention doesn't matter when one criticizes something so I won't talk about the context and you'll see I don't need it to defend Snow White!

Yes, Snow White is a kind princess that talks to animals. We even see her in the beginning talking to a nestling that fell from its nest to help it like we help a human child. We also see the animals of the forest helping her many times like cleaning the house with her. How thoughtful of them!

Yet no, she's not weak of dumb. During the movie, she even do some sensible things as:

Fleeing when meeting the prince when he approached her at the start of the movie

When the hunter tells her to flee she is trying to understand what is happening and actually understand once he pronounces the queen's name.

Yet she hesitates, clearly wondering if it is true, but ends up fleeing because she knows her step-mother and knows she's capable of trying to kill her.

When she starts acting as a mother to the dwarfs she's kind, smiling, but strict enough to ask them for proof when they tell her they washed their hands. Seeing it not being the case, she pushes them to wash them if they want to eat. Which is what a good mom would do, to teach some manners to their children.

Before that, when arriving at the Dwarfs' house she starts cleaning because she thinks doing that will maybe make them want her to stay. The girl is interested and clever! A bit rude too, you don't clean people's houses without asking permission.

Then when the dwarfs discover her, after guessing (correctly) their names she starts to negotiate so that they would permit her to stay in their home. She even answers every concern of them with actual good arguments, such as The Queen not having any way to know where she is, and suggesting she could cook. Well, she showed how useful she was in cleaning so cooking wouldn't be a problem for her either. I can understand they agree. I tell you, negotiating well is a quality requiring intelligence!

At some point she laughs at Grumpy for being... Well Grumpy! It's his name and when she guessed it she made a big angry voice to joke about it. Good humor is a sign of intelligence!

Snow White is a sensible woman then, who takes smart decisions and thinks before taking them. I'm pretty sure that, if she ever existed in our world, she would fight fake news. Actually the dwarfs are the stupid ones! Yes guys... It's water so, yes, it's wet.

I'll conclude my part on Snow White in talking about her supposed weakness. To do so, I'll talk about an interesting part of the movie: Snow White eating the apple the transformed Queen gives her.

What I didn't remember (since each time I wanted to watch it as an adult I quickly stopped because of how I couldn't stand her) is how Snow White was basically forced to eat that apple. And wouldn't have if the circumstances had ever been different. I mean, if the animals didn't attack The Queen for example, Snow White wouldn't have made her enter the house to help her recover. Actually she refused at first to eat the apple but The Queen argued a lot, insisted, and I honestly know a lot of people at her place who would have been confused enough to be convinced. It's how conspiracy theories as the flat earth one works! Snow White was convinced by the same way that conspiracy theories work: a lot of arguments and not letting your opponent think so they can be convinced in the moment. Some will stay convinced, others won't because they would have thought about it afterwards or simply done some research.

Snow White shows little girls they should learn to adapt, looking for proof when in front of a claim, and not acting without thinking before! I say it's good to teach them.

About personality Snow White is a sensible 14 years old girl that can be kind or strict depending on what is needed. She can act, like when she makes the animals go away from the disguised Queen or when she decides to clean the house so the dwarfs would want her to stay, and she mostly stays positive.

Cinderella Case

For Cinderella I'll try to avoid talking too much about Cinderella III where she's at her best since we can see her use her cleverness and bravery. It's the best of the trilogy and where she's the most active but that movie was made to respond to the critics about her being too passive in the first movie.

See the full post

342 notes - Posted June 8, 2022

#3

I'm bored... So here are some of my favorites take of Bruno from when I watched and made a lot of screenshots!

Because I'm obsessed with him!

See the full post

467 notes - Posted April 22, 2022

#2

My commission by @kinschi is ready! I'm so glad I could have Bruno holding the Pan Flag drawn by her, she's one of my favorites fanartists!

Because in my head Bruno is Pansexual!

I'll see to put it as a profile picture, I hope it'll fit well and we would be able to see well Bruno & the flag!

769 notes - Posted August 8, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

First part of the pages of the Encanto book that got released recently in France

See the full post

1,249 notes - Posted April 8, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[clarasghosts]

thanks @duplicitywrites for the tag! i'm finally responding a little into 2023, but i am responding!

this also made me realize how little i actually posted in 2022...

rules:

post the top 5 works you're most proud of that you released in 2022 (not necessarily your most popular),

your top 4 current WIPs that you're excited to release in the new year,

your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year,

your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year,

and your number 1 favorite line you've written this year!

tagging: not sure who to tag, really, since the fic writers i know that haven't already been tagged (i think) are in different fandoms than the one i wrote in this past year. so please, respond if you'd like and tag me!

five works:

turns out i actually only posted for two different works in 2022, so i'll share those:

the garden walls grow quick (15k, wip)

my tomarry hill house au, where harry, hermione, and luna are invited by tom to take part in a supernatural experiment. this is that rare fic i went into without any real plan at all, but writing it was necessary because it's calming for me. hill house (the novel), strangely enough, is like self care for me, so writing a tomarry au of it is like self care, too. (turns out i actually last updated this at the very end of 2021, but whatever, i'm using it here. it doesn't feel like it's been that long because 2020-2022 is actually just one long year)

2. you in my life (3k)

ginny/luna post canon fic i wrote for the background tomarrymort fest. i've always loved the idea of ginny and luna, and i really wanted to write something very human for luna. it's canon compliant apart from the hints of voldemort's survival (since 'tom' is in an established relationship with harry)

works in progress:

the garden walls grow quick

this fic still means a lot to me, and i look forward to continuing it.

2. a hollow grave (20k so far)

i only have one last chapter to write for this tomarry sleepy hollow canon divergence! but endings are the hardest to write. i promise i have not abandoned this fic, and i know how it ends. the ending is actually the idea that inspired me to write the first two chapters.

3. she sought death (14k so far)

whouffaldi, post hell bent. i actually just posted the penultimate chapter of this fic last night! i originally plotted out this murder mystery in 2016, so it's really great to see it finally come together. i fully plan to post the final chapter this year, hopefully within the next month (again, endings are hard to write).

4. in these times (6k so far)

whouffaldi first wizarding war au. i last updated this fic in 2020, but it still lives in my brain always. there's so much in it that i love writing: clara being friends with the other companions, queer rose, bill & heather, magic, and a dark atmosphere.

improvements:

i really thought a lot about what i really meant when i used words like "realize", "knew", etc., and rewrote at least some of the sentences that used those words so i could make the reader realize or know them instead.

a lot of the writing i do doesn't get post on ao3 (academic, poetry, etc.), but i have discovered over the past year that when i have limitations (time limit, specific poetic form), my writing gets stronger because it forces me to really focus on what i'm trying to say, and how i can craft a way to say that as strongly and clearly as possible. i also found out that in poetry, i naturally tend toward 6 or 8 syllables, and that 10 syllables (pentameter) results in me writing garbage lines.

i wrote things! literally writing at all last year was such a win for me. for those of you that have been here for a while, you know that before i finished grad school, i wrote constantly and in abundance. but since 2018, i've barely been able to write anything at all. i've worked a lot on it, and i feel that my biggest obstacle now is my own inner critic who keeps me from writing so i don't write awful things (when writing awful things is a very necessary part of the process). when i try to write, my brain just stops seeing the story, the world, the characters, so i can't get more than a thought or two down. moving through that and writing things at all is a success.

resolutions:

write! write anything and everything. write badly. journal. note down overheard conversations and describe people/places. the only way to write is to write.

don't force something to happen. if a certain project isn't working at the moment, set it aside and work on something new. completing things is important, but there's no joy to be had in throwing yourself against a wall. the momentum to write builds on itself, so this year i just want to keep writing.

one line:

this is actually really hard because i secretly hate pretty much everything i've written over the past few years.

"[Tom's] older than them, though she’s not sure by how much, and the most forward he’s been about his work is that he had left a political career behind for new ventures." (you in my life, because writing dramatic irony can be fun, and 'tom' here is very much voldemort barely pretending to not be voldemort.

[ms-demeanor]

I believe in a lot of things but because I’m not gung-ho about murder and the destruction of the system, you’ll always say I don’t believe strongly enough. I know there’s nothing I can do to get you to respect me, I just want an answer to the question: where are these new, lefty voters going to come from, and why is “preventing total collapse into fascism” not a good enough reason for them to vote? To do this really minor thing? Why do you all default to guillotines?

And, like, as far as I can tell, your position is that I should die, everyone I love should die, all the fucking poor and queer and black people who live in this red state hellhole should die, so that you can build the beautiful anarchist future in our ashes and maybe call us “martyrs.” It’s cold fucking comfort. We have no chance of winning a fight and you want to force us into a fight because you “believe in something” and are therefore morally right, I guess.

"As far as I can tell, your position is that I should die, everyone I love should die, all the fucking poor and queer and black people who live in this red state hellhole should die, so that you can build the beautiful anarchist future in our ashes and maybe call us “martyrs.”

If that's what you can tell about my political positions then I don't have to respond to anything you're saying because I am *very* vocal about my positions and they are mostly "form parallel structures" and "join unions." (I will respond anyway because I'm a contentious fuck)

@politicalmissdemeanor and @how-to-do-activism are were I store my politics reblogs. You can go check them out. On both of those you will find several reblogs of the essay "against the logic of the guillotine," which I reblog frequently because my OTHER big political stance is prison abolition and prison abolition doesn't exactly sit comfortably alongside the idea of *any* executions; suggesting that I - or most anarchists - default to guillotines suggests that you're not familiar with many anarchists. It is, of course, not your responsibility to be familiar with many anarchists, but if you're going to accuse me of wanting you dead and a utopia built on your ashes then it IS your responsibility to be familiar with *me.*

Also I think that everyone should be clear, when I talk about "fully automated luxury gay space communism" that is a tongue-in-cheek way of discussing a post-scarcity world. I don't think we're actually going to *get* fully automated luxury gay space communism, but I also think that scarcity in the modern era is largely constructed and political, and that is something that should be addressed.

I mention that because utopianism is controversial among anarchists and if you see me talking about "in the future anarchist utopia" you should read that in the same tone that I am using in discussions about "fully automated luxury gay space communism." I don't think we're going to *get* a future anarchist utopia (and I actually think the idea of utopias specifically is harmful) however I do believe a better world is possible and that people should work toward that.

But what it sounds like is you've looked through my blog for the past week only and see me talking about the democratic party attempting to retain white, educated suburban voters instead of reaching out voters on the left or attempting to retain them and have extrapolated my entire political philosophy from a single paragraph and a link to an AP story.

So, point by point:

I believe in a lot of things but because I’m not gung-ho about murder and the destruction of the system, you’ll always say I don’t believe strongly enough.

Then you should probably base your arguments on why you support the system and think it works instead of building an argument out of "well it's better than what republicans want." I clearly exist within this system and I have posts about how it could be improved (postal banking, automatic voter registration, ranked preference voting, universal ID) even though I don't particularly want to perpetuate it.

You don't act like you actually believe what you're saying, you act like you're clinging to it out of desperation. You are not positively arguing for your system, you are holding it up as a shield against something worse. I'd recommend taking some time to sit down and think about what you consider the merits of this system are. "Checks and balances" are one of the things that people seem to like about the American political system; I will agree that it's good that presidents are not kings and can't just will law into existence (it's part of why I'm so critical about the use of executive orders!), and that a legislative system doesn't have to be terrible. However my criticism, as an anarchist, is that these checks and balances don't actually seem to be checking or balancing anything and that presidents *as a concept* are bad and there are probably ways to make this system more democratic while still protecting people from the tyranny of the majority so perhaps if you want to keep the system going you should investigate what ability you have, as a supporter of the system, to change those things. (the thing is, you don't actually have the ability to change those things and it's part of why I don't think the system works).

I know there’s nothing I can do to get you to respect me,

Friend. Buddy. Pal. I think that all humans are inherently worthy of respect. What I am never going to *agree with* is your political system.

I just want an answer to the question: where are these new, lefty voters going to come from, and why is “preventing total collapse into fascism” not a good enough reason for them to vote? To do this really minor thing?

I'm not sure if you're aware of this but, as time passes children stop being children and eventually gain rights as individuals, including the right to vote.

And actually, I am arguing that leftists and young voters already ARE voting for you, but they're doing so because - as you have stated - the other choice is fascism.

But "vote to prevent fascism" is not a party platform and it is a concession to let the fascists control the conversation. It enables the ratchet effect. Republicans get into power and drag politics further right and then Democrats run against them on the bare promise to "hold the line." Progressive candidates within the party rarely get support from the party because of the need to keep the centrist voters, to "heal the soul of America," and when progressive democrats DO get elected they are often blamed for falling approval ratings or low voter turnout or people switching parties.

I have been explicit about the fact that I voted for democrats; that was the harm reductionist stance in 2020, right? "Hold your nose, vote like hell, then hold their feet to the fire." You see why this doesn't actually work, right? Because I can't hold their feet to the fire. Because all I can say is "support policies I believe in or you'll lose my vote" but they don't have to worry about losing my vote because my alternative is to vote for the lesser evil or "not voting is a vote for republicans." So either I was going to vote for them anyway or I wasn't going to vote at all, so they don't have to give a shit about my vote, which is why many anarchists see voting at all as harmful.

You are saying "not-fascism is good enough, I have to accept what I'm given and be grateful that it isn't worse" and honestly take a look at what you're saying. That's slop. That's dreck. They are feeding you garbage and that should be more radicalizing than it has been. You deserve better than that. EVERYONE deserves better than that.

Anyway yeah the new voters are going to be young people. Young people have historically participated in elections at a lower rate than the rest of the population and your job as a supporter of electoralism is to convince them that voting for democrats will do more than not voting. That's kind of a hard sell when the democratic party pitch since at least 2017 has been "stop the fascist creep in America" but fascism has kept right on creeping (which I don't think is the democrats' fault, per se, just that they don't actually have the power to do anything to stop it so it's a bad pledge to campaign on).

Well, and also this:

"stop fascism by voting for dems" is also a hard sell when you can't raise the minimum wage but you can increase funding for police.

Here's the thing: you've got your votes. Leftists hold their noses and young people are voting in historically high numbers, and are generally voting for democrats. There you go. You've got the votes. People ARE doing this tiny thing. And democrats are still yelling at leftists and young people to vote harder while courting center votes.

Who are you mad at? Who do *you* think is not voting? How much do you think it's worthwhile to compromise your political goals to get their votes? Clearly the democratic party thinks that centrist suburban white people aren't voting for them and they're willing to compromise enough that "better than the other guy" is a platform.

Why do you all default to guillotines?

I've been over this but I don't think that support for execution is a coherent anti-state position. Again, here is Against the Logic of the Guillotine.

And, like, as far as I can tell, your position is that I should die, everyone I love should die, all the fucking poor and queer and black people who live in this red state hellhole should die, so that you can build the beautiful anarchist future in our ashes and maybe call us “martyrs.”

Did you *look* at any of my political positions? Or did you make up an anarchist to get mad at?

I've gotten yelled at kind of a lot for "well obviously your politics state that my people don't have value and should die" from people who seem to have never interacted with me or my politics. Do you think that all anarchists are anti-civ? Do you think that doctors and factories won't exist in an anarchist system? Have you ever looked at ANY mutual aid projects? Are you not aware of black anarchism? You know what I'm just going to post a quote from that link on anti-civ views because that seems to be the center of a lot of the belief that anarchists want all queer and disabled and marginalized people dead:

Civilisation comes with many, many problems but it is better than the alternative. The challenge for anarchists is in transforming civilisation to a form that is without hierarchy, or imbalances of power or wealth [...] To do this we need modern technology to clean our water, pump away and process our waste and inoculate or cure people of the diseases of high population density. With only 10 million people on the earth you can shit in the woods providing you keep moving on. With 6 billion those who shit in the woods are shitting in the water they and those around them will have to drink.

Of all your off-the wall statements in these asks this is the one that makes it the most clear that you don't know who I am or what my political positions are and are just yelling at a stranger.

anyway, back to your asks:

it’s cold fucking comfort. We have no chance of winning a fight and you want to force us into a fight because you “believe in something” and are therefore morally right, I guess.

I think there's a broad misapprehension that all anarchists are militant insurrectionist anarchists. I think that this is because most anarchists are operating from the belief that the existing system cannot be reformed, which people often interpret to mean "it must therefore be torn down in a brief and violent revolution and replaced only with the system that I say will work best."

I don't believe in reforming the system (though if you've got it and you want to yell about improving people's lives you might as well make it better but that is not what I'm putting my energy toward because even a united states with universal healthcare, postal banking, and constitutionally protected abortion is still a hierarchical power structure that will serve capital and its interests) but I'm also not a fan of violent revolutions (I am not 100% critical of them either; sometimes revolution is self preservation - the world is complicated and it's hard to model history and regional differences on different places in different times).

What I am a fan of is creating local networks of people to do things in their community for themselves, without anyone's permission or approval. I'm a fan of meal shares, I'm a fan of mutual aid, I'm a fan of libraries and free stores and community gardens set up in empty lots that nobody gave you permission to use.

If you want an example of this with something where a real-world need was not being met by a government and individuals took initiative to address it, look at the FIRST Collective in Columbus. Shelters were not providing adequate housing so a group of people have worked together to create a safe, sheltered environment for people who were not being served by the system. Is the solution ideal (where ideal is 'permanent safe housing with no limitations on residents')? No. Is the solution better than what was being provided by the state (limited-stay shelters with restrictions on possessions, pets, couples staying together, and whether residents would be locked in at night)? For the people in that camp, yes. It was a better solution. Does it replace the shelter system? No. Does it suggest an alternative to what is provided by the state, and by its mere existence illustrate that what the state provides is not enough? Yes.

Is this sort of thing possible on a large scale? And possible to improve on a large scale? Yes. Is it possible to do that *tomorrow*? No. Is it possible to *start* tomorrow so that you have a better place to work from in a week or a month or a year? Yes.

I am tired. I am tired, you are tired, we are all tired. My back hurts and I don't get enough sleep and if shipments of certain medications were stopped for three months my spouse would die. Quickly and inescapably. I don't know who you think I am, but I am not somebody who is shouting about guillotines and advocating for the immediate overthrow of society in all its forms.

I think the world is broken and needs to be fixed. Do I think that burning down everything wrong with the world and picking through the cinders to build something better is a good idea? No. I think it is possible to seek revolution without wholesale destruction, and I don't think that you need to tear the world down to ashes in order to rebuild.

I'm not trying to raise a gallows, I'm trying to grow a garden. If you are looking at one of those things and seeing the other, that is a failure of your understanding, not of my philosophy.

Also if anybody wants to donate to the FIRST Collective this is their GoFundMe.

[regardingjenmish]

Thank you for being a voice of reason in this whole cluster. As a bi person, would it have been awesome for Misha to be coming out? Hell yeah. But he wasn't (yet who knows what the future holds). He messed up, he apologized and meant it. It was (I believe) an honest mistake. We've all been there, said something that came out wrong or made a joke that didn't land right. We may never know why he said what he did but he knows he messed up and apologized. I've seen (and blocked) people who were acting like he ruined their lives and killed their family. And it just seemed... like overkill? I get being upset he said it, or that he seemed to be making a joke out of being bi (which I don't think was his intention). I get being sad we can't claim him as "one of us" but this one mistake doesn't invalidate all the good he's done and will continue to do. Nor does it invalidate anyone who is queer? I'm still bi even though he isn't? Him being straight doesn't make me less bi nor does him being straight ruin my life in anyway? (not that I speak for all queer people obvi) Thankfully, I haven't seen too many people overreacting (and blocked those who were), but I just wanted to thank you for being rational. I love the blog, keep up the good work!

Anon, you said literally everything that I've been thinking and feeling for the past two days. I am already sorry in advance for the long ass response this will get. (All of this is clearly my own opinion so if someone reading it disagrees, cool)

It would feel amazing if we could say that he's one of us but even if he is not that doesn't change a lot of things in my opinion.

He messed up and he will learn from it and he immediately took ownership of that fuck up. He didn't blame it on anyone else except himself. He clearly realized his mistake and you can tell he feels horrible over it just from how the apology is worded. This is a person who cares a lot about us and would never do something to hurt us on purpose. There are celebs out there who when they fucked up, their version of apology was 'my bad..but like eh shit happens' so in my book, his apology was good and enough (for me).

For all we know maybe he did retract once he realized this is getting too much attention from media and everyone else. Maybe he did think that a little 'im all three' comment would stay in the fandom. And yes maybe the reason why I am having a different reaction or opinion to this is due to the fact that as someone who is bi, I have never been able to (nor will I probably be able to) say that outside of tumblr. And unfortunately I've had moments where I said something that could've revealed a glimpse of my sexuality and Ii had to retract and turn it into a dumb joke. And it fucking sucks.

And I fully agree with you, I don't think he meant to make this a joke. I think it was just a shit ton of bad timing and bad luck. And the way some fans have been treating him is horrible. The fans who have decided that this somehow ruins their lives, need to take a step back and take a deep breath. Because like you said, it does look like overkill. I understand there are fans who are upset and I won't tell them not to be. But there is a side of fans who decided that this gives them the right to practically wish death on him. I hate to say it like this but it's not that deep. And I fully agree with you. None of this changes shit. We're still bi. People are still queer. We are still fucking amazing and loved (which we have always been). I think this kind of opens a look into that maybe we as people shouldn't measure our value by celebs that we relate to however, I'm not gonna go into that.

And this also does not erase the amazing things he has done for us. In the end of the day he's still Misha. The same dude who has fought for us and stood up for us. And has done so many other things for our community. Again I am so sorry for the long ass response but I didn't want to give you some shitty short answer because everything you said has been on my mind.

[shadowmaat]

tumblr 101

OK look, kids, let me explain how tumblr works. You post something and it circulates. Sometimes it stays in your little friends circle and sometimes it goes beyond it. Heck, sometimes it goes viral and is everywhere.

So if you're making a jokey post that's "just for my friends" and it winds up outside that circle of friends, people aren't going to know it's "just a joke." Also? "Oh, but I posted a link right after this" doesn't do a lot of good because it would require people to actually go to your blog and see it. First of all, the vast majority of folks who see it on their own dash aren't going to bother to do that. Second, depending on how long ago you posted it and how prolific a poster/reblogger you are, that stuff could be buried. It isn't reasonable to expect folks to dig through your entire blog on the off chance you might have explained yourself in a secondary post.

What this means is: don't get hostile and condescending when someone finds your out-of-context post and reacts to it at face value. You may have known what you meant when you posted it, but people who don't know you won't and that it isn't their fault. It's just how things are. If you want to make sure you're understood clearly then make sure the context is in your original post where people are most likely to see it.

Now.

Whenever you decide to post a quote, an article, or some other snippet of someone else's words, it's always a good idea to CITE YOUR DAMN SOURCES. Yes, even if it's a joke. Maybe especially then. That way when you decide to- for example- take someone's words deliberately out of context and heavily edited so you can snark about it, everyone is able to click the link and see what was actually said and how it was phrased. This is really important.

There is an entire industry of misinformation and propaganda trying to get people to believe things that aren't true and manufacturing false outrage over nothing. It's malicious and far too commonplace. So while you may be posting "just a joke" you have to look at the larger tapestry of lies, hatred, and carefully-shaped disinformation that is literally everywhere these days. One little "just kidding" post may seem harmless enough, but when dozens or even hundreds of others are also "just kidding" it starts to add up. To say nothing of the fact that "it's just a joke" gets used to justify some horrific things. Look at all the people with "comedy" routines that rely on attacking trans folks, the queer community, and other identities. They really want you to believe it's "just a joke" as they get away with spewing vitriolic hatred intended to stir up violence against people who are already marginalized and threatened. Sure, maybe your bit really is "just a joke" and "totally harmless" but think of how it might look to other people. People who aren't your friends and don't know you. And remember that what's "harmless" to you can still hurt others. Just because you don't intend it doesn't mean someone can't be hurt.

Honestly, I'd advise against deliberately misquoting someone and taking stuff out of context, even as a "joke." While there are circumstances where it can be funny, it's usually a minefield of bad.

I also want to reemphasize that you really need to go into this with the expectation that something you say might wind up far, FAR beyond your usual reach. Try to make it easier for everyone to understand you, not just your group of close friends. And if something you posted does go viral and people aren't understanding the context because they don't know you, try to be understanding instead of lashing out. And keep the personal insults in your head where they belong.

Don't be a dick.

[autolenaphilia]

I'm happy that you were able to take my criticism, and take responsibility and apologize for instances where you agree that you made mistakes.

And you have a point, an ideology doesn't need to have books published to be a real thing.

I still think you abdicate responsibility in significant ways.

The reasoning you give for not linking to the baeddel posts as sources for your post on them is "they tend to be quippy one-liners that don't spell things out super clearly, and tend to exist more as part of a larger contextual understanding- or are intentionally phrased in such a way as to appear inoffensive at first glance. The other problem is that the other posts are mostly just vague bigotry, without explaining the internal logic."

That does present a problem for analyzing an ideology. You have to not just link, but also quote and analyze those posts, re-contextualize them show how they express an underlying ideology underneath the surface and why it's bad. Do that second glance at them, if they look okay at first glance. It's hard work to be sure. But I think you still have the responsibility to your readers to do that work before you write a post like this. You need to do that work to back up your claims and arguments, for other people to take them seriously. Dismissing it as "handholding" is an abdication of responsibility.

And honestly, from what you are saying you don't even need to do tumblr archaeology to find posts expressing that material online. You are claiming the beliefs the baeddels had are still common. The "ideas didn't go away", it's "a set of common beliefs that already existed and continue to exist", they have 100k note tumblr posts. So you don't need to go on deleted blogs to find posts that express this ideology, you can just look at posts that are popular now. And that might even be more effective than something many people would view as ancient tumblr drama (not saying that was all the harm the baeddels caused, but many people would view it that way).

And again, I think you are insufficiently critical of these bad sources I talked about. Like these posts are spreading essentially queer recruitment/trans grooming propaganda, and have no sources themselves. That makes them not just biased, but bigoted sources, and thus utterly unreliable. If they are transmisogynistic, I don't think they are good sources about what a trans woman believes. And that's true even if that trans woman is a bad person.

You can't just "contextualize" them and still use them as factual sources. Whatever you might agree with them about, their claims about MYC's ideology are used to build an accusation of grooming vulnerable cis men into becoming trans women. That is another way they are "consistent enough with each other's claims."

And the reason I associated "their bigoted bullshit" (as you so aptly put it) with you is because you linked to them, and you are still defending their value as sources. The way you properly distance yourself from them is not by a toothless "contextualization" in which you still use them as sources of fact, but by not linking to them to back your argument. Bigots lie, especially about the people they hate, they are not trustworthy.

You justify using the terf post with how "the fact that radical feminists themselves connect Baeddelism to radical feminism does seem significant here." But again, bigots lie. Radfems believe that they are the one true feminism, and all other feminisms are but pale reflections of their ideas. I've seen them claim trans people's posts on gender abolitionism are plagiarisms of gender critical ideas. So let's look at that quote you said was the reason you linked to the terf post again.

"the earliest mtf theorists on tumblr like radtransfem and ciscritical-not-cisphobic – drawn to radical/lesbian feminism "

Let's check this quote, because Radtransfem's blogs are still up, both here on tumblr and on wordpress, and she has a uselul FAQ regarding her connection to radfem ideology: "I am not a radical feminist, and my feminism is not radical feminism. It’s not radical feminism done trans, but transfeminism done radical (and before you get clever, no, the “radical” does not mean the same thing in those two phrases)."

So yeah, terfs claim radtransfem is a radfem, but she explicitly does not. I suppose this is a question of who do you see as more trustworthy. I trust the trans woman herself about what she believes, even if I have my disagreements with her. Of course, you can claim that radtransfem is a secret radfem. But I think it's a more believable claim if you analyze her writings to find the radfem ideology, not trusting the word of a random terf blog.

And that gets us nearly back to my original point. When you are saying person x believes y, You should source that claim back to what person x actually said, not what person z says they believe.

Let's Talk About Bæddels: A Comprehensive Retrospective

(This post on Medium)

(@thequeer-quill's video reading)

Disclaimer

This post is not claiming that trans women do not suffer, or do not suffer as much as other groups of trans people. It is not claiming that all trans women are Baeddels (or adjacent), nor is it claiming that trans women oppress anyone else.

Transmisogyny is real, and requires much more acknowledgement than it currently receives. The trans community is very much capable of transmisogyny, and often does enact or enable it; likewise, trans people also often enact and enable transphobia against other parts of the trans community.

If you take only one thing from the following, take this:

We all need to work on being better allies to each other. None of us can gain anything without the rest of us.

Setting the Stage for Baeddelism

We can’t talk about Baeddelism without talking about Tumblr user @monetizeyourcat (“Cat”), and the ideology she popularized on the website in the early 2010’s.

Cat was a loud voice with a huge blog in the early days of Tumblr. Most of her popular content was humor-based, but she also championed an ideology that synthesized certain aspects of feminism, transfeminism, and communist ideals. Cat’s ideology is better explained here, and can be further explored here, but this is the foundation:

Manhood is inherently oppressive, and cannot exist outside the context of oppression.

Gender can be, to some extent, a choice.

Because of the above, one’s gender is an ethical choice with ethical consequences.

Being a man is, therefore, ethically harmful and wrong; particularly if you are giving up womanhood in order to be a man.

Being a woman is, therefore, ethically correct; particularly if you are giving up manhood in order to be a woman.

You may recognize some of the ideas here as a version of Radical Feminism: namely, the idea that manhood/men are inherently oppressive, and that womanhood/women are inherently victims.

All Cat had to do was map Radical Feminism onto the trans community. If manhood is Bad, and men are Bad, then trans men who reject womanhood in favor of becoming men are Bad. If womanhood is Good, and women are Good, then trans women who reject manhood in favor of womanhood are The Best. Which, of course, would also explain why society hates them more than any other trans person (something taken for granted by Cat and many others at the time).

This foundation was built upwards into a more complicated system of beliefs: cis men were viewed as “potential trans women”, people who did not yet know whether they were trans, had not made that choice, and could, conceivably, still choose to be women. As such, cis men were often seen as “better” than trans men. Trans men were encouraged to detransition, men in general were encouraged to reject their manhood in favor of womanhood, and “sissification” became a hallmark “joke” that the community forming around Cat latched onto.

The “gender is a choice” part of this ideology is a bit hard for most trans people to swallow, and Cat herself did not entirely ascribe to the idea that gender was always a choice. Still, even if men were intrinsically and inherently men, and even if they couldn’t simply choose not to be men the way she had, the idea remained that the so-called “ethical consequences” of being a man, and the harm this did to The Collective, vastly outweighed the personal harm suffered by “remaining” or “becoming” a woman. It was, in short, more ethical to suffer dysphoria in pursuit of womanhood than it was to accept one’s manhood.

It’s unclear whether Cat ever identified as a Baeddel, and she certainly didn’t begin the movement herself. She was definitely close to it, though, and many attest that her ideology constituted the building blocks of the Baeddelism movement.

Establishing an Ideology

The first post on Baeddelism was by Tumblr user @unobject, on October 2nd, 2013, and liked by @lezzyharpy, also one of the original Baeddels:

(Credit to @AcesArosandEnbies)

This post first provided the name and defining ideology of the Baeddel movement. The conclusion drawn from the post was, essentially, that because the root of the word “bad” was “baeddel”, and because “baeddel” referred to intersex people and “womanish men”, this old English slur was proof that transmisogyny was the worst form of bigotry; and even, perhaps, the root of all bigotry. (It’s worth noting that this etymology is likely inaccurate and ahistorical, along with problematic in several other ways.)

While @unobject was the first person to make this connection, @autogynephile (“Eve”) eventually became, in essence, the figurehead of the movement. Of the other Baeddels, some of them were explicitly aware and supportive of the ideology behind Baeddelism, some of them were young or newly-out trans women seduced by the personalities involved, and some of them were tangential enough to the movement that they didn’t really even know what it was. Baeddelism was a sort of trend, for a time, and many participants wore the name without entirely knowing what it meant.

It’s important to acknowledge that as much as there were dedicated members of Baeddelism, and as much as there was a unified ideology behind it, there were also individual Baeddels who did not understand- let alone support- the ideology.

That said…

The Belief System

Baeddels essentially built upon the foundation of @monetizeyourcat’s ideology that had been gaining traction on Tumblr in the years prior, with some additions that ultimately defined their movement:

Transmisogyny is the form of oppression from which all (or most) other forms of oppression stem.

Privilege is granted on the basis of assigned sex. (“AFAB” or “Assigned Female at Birth” vs. “AMAB” or “Assigned Male at Birth”)

These fundamentals of Baeddelism were essentially a rebranded form of Radical Feminism, much like Cat’s ideology. In particular, they drew from the Radical Feminist idea that misogyny was the “primary” form of oppression; that which all other oppression stemmed from. Baeddels only tweaked this idea to replace “misogyny” with “transmisogyny”, which led to the rest of the conclusions Baeddels drew:

Men are inherently oppressors, and women are inherently oppressed.

Trans women are inherently victims.

Because only AMAB people can experience transmisogyny, they are inherently more oppressed than AFAB people.

“AFAB Privilege��: The idea that within the queer and/or trans community, AFAB people receive unique privilege and positions of power that AMAB people do not.

There is no “transphobia” separate from “transmisogyny”. All transphobia stems from transmisogyny first, and transphobia as it impacts non-transfeminine trans people is incidental at most.

It’s important to note that these ideas were not all as universal as the first two, and different individual Baeddels held them to different extents.

Trans Lesbian Separatism

… was what the movement was ultimately defined by, as the logical conclusion of their other beliefs (much like Lesbian Separatism was the logical conclusion of Radical Feminist beliefs).

Baeddels believed that only trans women can understand, or be truly safe for, other trans women; therefore, contact with anyone who was not a trans woman was deemed “dangerous” and highly discouraged.

Trans Men

… also played an important role in Baeddel ideology, and the resulting treatment of trans men is what is often remembered today. Baeddels generally believed the following, either explicitly or implictly:

Trans men are not oppressed, nor marginalized at all.

Trans men do not experience transmisogyny.

Trans men do not experience misogyny, even prior to transition.

Trans men have access to male privilege.

Trans men have an easier time passing, and frequently go “stealth”; thus benefiting from male privilege as well as cis privilege.

Trans men are often (or always) misogynistic and transmisogynistic, and are not held accountable for this.

Trans men actively “choose” manhood even when presented with the “option” of womanhood.

Trans men oppress cis women.

Trans women enacting violence on trans men is “punching up” at oppressors, and therefore not only permitted, but encouraged.

Trans men become aggressive and violent when they go on testosterone HRT.

Nonbinary People

… are often overlooked when summarizing Baeddelism, but Baeddels did have plenty to say about them. Baeddel ideology relied on the idea that privilege was granted on the bases of assigned sex, and nonbinary people’s genders were thus treated as irrelevent; they essentially did not believe nonbinary people truly existed.

CAFAB nonbinary people are either trans men attempting to invade women’s spaces, or cis women pretending to be trans.

CAMAB nonbinary people are actually just trans women who haven’t accepted it yet. They must transition, or they are transmisogynistic.

Intersex People

Intersex experiences, and intersex history, were often co-opted and erased by Baeddelism. This was often more a byproduct of their beliefs than an overtly-stated idea, but most notably, the term “Baeddel” itself is likely more applicable- if not exclusively applicable- to intersex people, rather than trans women. Making their reclamation of it as a “transmisogynistic slur”, or their claim that the word’s existence means that “transmisogyny is the root of all oppression”, incredibly ignorant- if not actively harmful misinformation.

Notably, Baeddels also believed that intersex people- being “more androgynous” (a harmful misonception)- were able to pass more easily as the opposite assigned sex, and that intersex people even within transfemme spaces had “intersex privilege”. Some even believed, and openly claimed, that intersex people were “hermaphroditic”; a slur against intersex people, and typically implying that the individual has both sets of reproductive systems simultaneously.

Trans Women

… did not receive universally positive treatment, either. Baeddelism was very much a cult-like group built around the firmly-held conviction that they were absolutely correct, and that anyone who disagreed with them was The Enemy. Trans women who disagreed with them were generally seen as brainwashed and self-hating, and trans women who did agree with them were expected to subjugate themselves to the ringleaders of the movement.

Within Baeddel circles, trans women were most frequently victimized by the abusers allowed to run rampant because “trans women do not, and cannot, harm anyone else.” - Including, apparently, each other.

“They were also bad shitty abusive people in general. “… a bunch of them passed around a pile of smear campaigns and false rumors about virtually any trans woman that they had a even the slightest animosity for. Including the victim of the kinkster rapist. They’ve done other fucked stuff, like chased two twoc off this site for trying to make a zine, but yeah. That’s like, just some of it. I’m not up for going over the messy details of the whole shitparade “Full disclosure, I made a lot of excuses for these sacks of crap, even while they were out there spreading false crap about me […] I wasn’t aware of the worst shit they were doing until much much later." - @punlich

Inside the Movement

Though individual Baeddels often existed in vastly different social circles from each other- particularly offline- those who lived through the movement highlight commonalities in their experiences.

One interviewee recounts the manipulation present in their initial involvement with the movement:

“It came to me at a point where I was very quick to weaponize anything anyone told me about their experiences, because I was always a fighter. I’ve been an activist for a long time, you know, and when these trans women would come to me with their experiences I would believe them. I wanted to. But the way they acted didn’t add up when compared to what they were saying. I felt really lonely there, and stupid all the time. I felt like I was being a bad trans person.” […] “Online they were more willing to say things that were, for lack of a better word, stupid. They would say things that lacked any kind of logical sense. But in person, they would go into this kind of toxic femininity- this weaponization of weakness. And I think that’s because online they were often in these echochambers, but in person they had to rely on much more subtle manipulation.” - Vera

It seems at points that the environment created within this movement- and the social circles that composed it- was almost cult-like in nature and in need for control.

“It was very isolating. I didn’t see my friends for a while, I was kind of just living with them, cooking and cleaning for them, starving myself, and slowly growing crazy. I was just being consumed by this weird academia and theory that had no basis, because everything was online and Tumblr-based.” - Vera

When Bæddels Took Them: An interview and reflection on the Bæddelism movement

Perhaps most chilling, however, are the patterns in their attitudes toward sexual assault. One interviewer recounts being subject to sexual assault, and upon posting about their experience to a Facebook group, being met with hostility from Baeddels present in the group- who quickly used their social influence to have them banned from some of their only support systems at the time.

“I ended up with pretty much no one to talk to about the experience at a time when I was already really, really struggling, and it’s one of several factors that led to me dropping out. “The Baeddel who got me banned also messaged me directly at some point during all of this, and I tried to get her to understand the pain she was causing me. She basically laughed it off and said it was my fault. She seemed to find a lot of joy in how much it hurt me, and blocked me soon after.” - Anonymous

Another recounts sexual consent violations from a friend-turned-Baeddel:

“[My ex-friend] had previously been fetish-mining me for her mommy kink. I was freshly estranged from my own mum, and she stepped in to be like, “I’m your new mum now,” and would pester me to call her “mum” in Welsh- as at that point she was going by a Welsh name. I played along, but it transpired that she was basically using that to get off, and she had a thing for infantilising transmascs and being this mum/mom figure.” - Luke

And yet another interviewee discusses verbal sexual harassment during interactions with another Baeddel:

“I had one [Baeddel] directly tell me that I’m beneath her as a trans man, and that I should “Shut my smelly cooch up” and only use my voice to uplift trans women. I was a minor at the time. “She then sicced her followers on me, and they bombarded me with messages telling me I’d “never be a real man”, that I needed to “sit on the side and allow them to have the spotlight”, and even telling me to kill myself- because I was inherently toxic to them. I was 16 years old, pre everything, and I couldn’t even pass at the time. They didn’t seem to care that I was a minor, or a newly hatched egg.” - Anonymous

Brushes with Bæddels: Recalling the Bæddel movement

While Baeddel ideology itself does not explicitly condone or excuse sexual assault, it’s striking how common these stories are; especially considering how small in numbers actual Baeddels were.

It was, in fact, this exact problem that would eventually cause the movement to dissolve.

The Downfall of Baeddelism

Sometime between the group’s formation in 2013 and their downfall near the end of 2014, @autogynephile (also “Eve”), the defacto “ringleader” of the Baeddel movement, began what Baeddels referred to as a “transbian safehouse”.

This was apparently intended as a place for unhoused trans woman lesbians and trans women who, in general, had sworn off contact with men; the ultimate goal of the lesbian separatist ideology at the core of the Baeddel movement. It was thus also referred to as a “commune” by some, and as a “cult” by others.

One occupant of the “safehouse”- Elle- later posted to Tumblr that they had been raped by Eve during their stay, and detailed their experiences.

The Baeddels, rather than believing the victim and ousting the rapist from their movement, chose to close ranks around Eve.

Various reasons were given for this:

The victim must be lying

The victim- and anyone who believed them- was simply transmisogynistic.

Anyone who disagrees with the Baeddels is an Enemy Of The Movement, a “carceral thinker”, and a danger to trans women as a whole.

Trans women are incapable of sexually abusing anyone.

“Standing with Eve” was the ultimate sign of loyalty to the movement, and thus a mark of pride and honor.

It was okay to keep being a Baeddel no matter what, because Rape Accusations Should Be A Personal Matter.

(You can read more about Eve’s own denial of these events here and here.)

Years later, even people involved in the initial group have spoken out against the movement and actions of those involved:

(@lezzyharpy was one of the original Baeddels, and one of the first people to like the first “Baeddel” post by @unobject).

This was not the only instance of abuse by people associated with Baeddelism.

Elle posted their statement on August 4th, 2014; between that time and September of the same year, another user by the name of Quinn posted about her own experiences with abuse at the hands of @monetizeyourcat. Cat’s roommates in Seattle posted about their experiences with Cat shortly after Quinn did. Both parties alleged that Cat had been a manipulative and abusive roommate, friend, and partner.

Cat first attempted to argue the accusations, then later admitted that they were true and left the site. Her blog still contains her parting message. It has been pointed out that this is not necessarily an action taken in good faith and desire for growth.

The reception of her abuse allegations followed a similar pattern to Eve’s: people who ascribed to her ideology, Baeddels included, believed that Cat was not and could not have been abusive, as a trans woman. Others ignored warnings about her past and potential future actions, citing transmisogyny as the reason she must have been accused at all.

It has also been pointed out that Cat’s ideology (and, relatedly, Baeddel ideology) was extremely conducive to abuse- if not entirely constructed in order to allow abuse.

Why It Matters, and Why Baeddelism Never Really Fell

Baeddelism itself has seen multiple attempts at resurgences by various individuals, including documented experiences with self-proclaimed Baeddels as recently as 2018- well after the movement first “fell” in 2014.

Most proponents of “Baeddelism 2.0”, a revival of the original movement, argue that the abuse that occurred within the original movement was either completely fabricated by detractors (sound familiar?) or, at minimum, not actually inherent to the ideology.

And, of course, there are some original Baeddels still active on Tumblr today.

Baeddelism never actually went away.

“Baeddelism” was only one name for a set of beliefs that existed long before the specific term did, and hasn’t gone anywhere since the original Baeddel movement died down.

What the Baeddels did was put a name to the ideology @monetizeyourcat was cultivating before them, and what Cat did was popularize, centralize, and justify a way of thinking that had existed before she ever made her blog.

This ideology has since been referred to, loosely, as “TIRF-ism”: Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminism.

It is rare that anyone actually refers to themselves as a “TIRF”, and there is no real centralized TIRF movement; rather, a loose collection of radical feminist beliefs circulates various transgender spaces. The validity of these beliefs is generally taken for granted: of course (trans) women are The Most Oppressed People; of course (trans) women are Inherently and Unequivocally Victims In All Situations; of course (trans) men are Inherently Oppressors; of course (trans) men are Dangerous and Evil… and so on.

Like Radical Feminism, and subsequently Trans-Exlcusive Radical Feminism (TERF-ism), those ideas are fundamentally dangerous.

The defining tenants of radical feminism are that misogyny is the root of all oppression, and that rather than misogyny being an issue of power and control on a society-wide level, it is instead, or also, a matter of oppression and privilege on an individual level: men are always oppressors, and women are always victims.

These beliefs fundamentally exclude and erase the experiences of other marginalized people.

Namely, people of color and indigenous people, who’s experiences with and concepts of gender do not fall within the strict and rigid lines that white, western, colonialist people’s do.

Radical feminism is not a redeemable ideology. It cannot be reshaped into something good. It is fundamentally broken, and the movements born from it- lesbian separatism, political lesbianism, TERF-ism, TIRF-ism, and Baeddelism- are proof enough of that. They each promote only surface-level variations of what is fundamentally cult-like thinking: only the in-group can be victimized. Only the in-group is safe; the out-group is inherently and universally dangerous. Only the in-group understands you. All members of the in-group are, fundamentally, incapable of abuse.

We cannot allow these ideas to be perpetuated within or without the trans community.

Learn the Signs & Prevent the Harm

Here’s what we can do to prevent this from happening again:

Learn what Baeddel ideology and TIRFism look like, even detached from the name.

Learn what radical feminism looks like, even detached from the name. Even from people who claim to oppose radical feminism.

Act on dogwhistles. Call them what they are.

Do not allow people to downplay the harm all forms of Radical Feminism have caused. Remind each other that Radical Feminism is not a redeemable ideology, and seek out other branches of feminism instead.

Remember the harm that has been caused. Remember that it will be caused again if these things are allowed to go unchecked.

Listen to and uplift marginalized people. Allow them to speak to their own experiences, identify their own needs, and name their own oppression.

Remember who the real oppressors are, and do not pit marginalized people against each other. The people perpetuating and benefiting from transphobia are cis people- and more specifically, cis people in power.

Build solidarity with other marginalized people. One group of trans people cannot gain liberation without liberating all trans people, and one group of trans people cannot be targeted without the rest of us suffering as well.

Remember that there is no group or identity incapable of enacting abuse, violence, harassment, or other harm against another. Victimhood should not be determined based solely on an individual’s identity.

Remember that there are no acceptable targets for violence, cruelty, harassment, and abuse.

Red Flags to watch out for:

Using, or interacting with people who use, “Baeddel” as any form of self-description.

Downplaying the harm original Baeddels did: calling them “misled”, their actions “mistakes”, etc. without acknowledging the specific issues.

Obfuscating, ignoring, or erasing the abuse and rape allegations against members of the Baeddel movement.

Obfuscating, ignoring, or erasing the harm done to other transfemmes by Baeddels.

Dismissing, erasing, punishing/ostracizing, disavowing, or treating with suspicion transfeminine people who do not agree with Baeddel or radfem ideology. Insisting all or most transfemmes agree with Baeddel or radfem ideas.

Claiming TERFs only target, harm, or have ill will for trans women/transfemmes. Using “TWERF” or “TWEF” instead of “TERF”.

Claiming transmasculine people should not have any say in conversations about misogyny, transphobia, and/or TERFs.

Talking about “AFAB Privilege”, or otherwise implying that AFAB people share any qualities aside from being assigned female at birth.

Referring to trans people by AGAB, TME/TMA distinction, or even transfemme/transmasc frequently or exclusively; actively erasing or not allowing room for nonbinary and intersex experiences that do not fall within those binaries.

Implying men- cis or trans- would be better if they were made into women instead.

Implying attraction to men, or being a man, is somehow a “curse” or a “burden”, or otherwise unfortunate.

Implying a fear of men, including trauma-induced phobias, should never be healed from or sought treatment for. Implying men, cis or trans, cannot also experience trauma around men.

Treating trans men or transmasculine people as “acceptable targets” in any way; for harassment, for abuse, for misgendering, for inducing dysphoria, etc.

Implying transmasc dysphoria is “toxic masculinity”

Characterizing transmascs as hysterical, whiny, delusional, crazy, or otherwise using feminine stereotypes.

Implying it is femininity, specifically, that is targeted by the patriarchy; that feminine people are targeted more than masculine people, etc.

Using “listen to transfemmes” to silence other groups of trans people, and otherwise implying transfemmes are a monolith who happen to agree with you.

In general: espousing the ideas, fundamental or otherwise, that defined the Baeddel movement. (including TIRF and radical feminist ideology)

This list is not comprehensive, nor is any one thing on this list 100% certain to indicate that someone is a Baeddel- or if they are, that they are necessarily dangerous. It’s important to keep in mind how many people are groomed into this movement and abused within it; some of those who espouse Baeddel rhetoric may themselves be victimized by others.

But until we recognize these ideas for what they are and where they’ve come from, history can only repeat itself.

Educate Yourself and Others

It would take a long, long time and a lot more space to detail all of the damage done, the people hurt, and the dangers of continuing to allow these ideas to be perpetuated. Instead, I have compiled some resources and references.

I urge you to check these out, bookmark them for later, or whatever else works for you! (They’re also all much, much shorter reads than this has been.)

@baeddel-txt and @rejectedbaeddeldiscourse, two blogs dedicated to documenting various posts and beliefs held by original Baeddels.

Another blog’s tag for Baeddel history.

Baeddel.net, another archive of Baeddelism.

@AcesArosEnbies thread, and @gothmyths thread, on Baeddelism.

@quinndolyn’s recount of Baeddelism.

My own post on the origins of the Baeddel movement.

My own post including posts from Baeddels (and others) as recently as 2018.

An archive of assorted Baeddel posts.

[migleefulmoments]

So... Abby responds to her family's intervention by obediently telling them she'll stop (ie. lying to them). She then immediately tries to find ways to keep the blog in secret, hiding behind various usernames, lurking on her coven's blogs, more time deleting posts from both blogs we know about. Meaning, instead of getting help, she spends even MORE time online engaging in more batshit crazy crap to cover her ass. Yeah, sure, that doesn't signal dire need for mental health intervention AT ALL.

It looks like that is what is happening.  We will have to see what the future holds. What does Abby do? 

So far the fandom is flailing. Cassie got a couple of anons- one that reads like those anons Abby used to send herself as it covers all the issues they are most upset about so perfectly well (My comments in parenthesis and italicized:: 

Anonymous asked: Even if I am unsure about CC itself, I don't buy M*arr*n. I just don't. And the other side is using doxing and the fact that you and others say things they don't like about M as an excuse to do so and as a way to detract from the fact that their couple goals have some pretty big, glaring plot holes in their love story. I've not seen anyone on this side of the fandom out or dox anyone publicly as a way of humiliation. M gave up her privacy by dating D, but Abby didn't and they were wrong. Period. 

cassie1022 answered: Nonnie, I swear every time they diagnose us as mentally ill or say we’re bitter hags, an LGBTQ angel gets his or her wings. We all know my beliefs, but there are MANY people that are like you and don’t know for sure about CC but sure as hell know Miarren isn’t a normal, healthy relationship. (Funny thing, I don’t remember anyone diagnosing Cassie as mentally ill. Cassie is alwasy the wallflower that nobody wants to dance with and she tries so hard to be part of the fun people. Last week she was sad because I hadn’t sent her a “hate” message (See comment in last post below) 

Even if I remove D from the situation, I would still think M is a lazy, spoiled toddler with no discernable work ethic coupled with a superiority complex that rivals the Cheeto in Command of the US.

You are absolutely correct. Our fandom just wants to be left alone. We don’t send hateful asks to the other side. We don’t have to. They feel they have the right to dox CCers because they don’t like what we say about M, a woman that would light a cigarette from the flames engulfing them and not call 911 to help them. I mean, honestly, it doesn’t get much lower than mocking someone’s death. Plus, as you correctly said, M put herself in the spotlight “dating” D. If she didn’t want that attention, she would have stayed in the background. There are plenty of celebrities married to non famous people and we don’t see them at every event like we do M. (It is BAFFLING to me that they can’t comprhend something as simple and obvious as the reasaon they “see Mia everywhere” is because they fucking stalk her and they hyperanalzye every photo Darren is in looking for her. If they started stalking Ben Feldman they would see his wife just as much as they see Mia).    

Bottom line is what they did to Abby was deplorable, but, just like their kween, they feel justified in doing whatever they want. This isn’t the first time they’ve crossed a line with regards to my friend, but it was the worst.

notes-from-nowhere Anon, they love to throw the guilt of their actions on our shoulders, it’s how they justify what they do to themselves. They need us to be the bad guys otherwise what is the only option left? (I never know what the hell Notes is trying to say- throw the guilt of our actions on their shoulders? I’d love an example of that. I can’t imagine what guilty action I put on their shoulder. As for needing them to be the bad guys or what do we have left? OMFG are you kidding me? We critcize the cc fandom for being misogynistic, homophobic, bullies who attack  Mia, Darren, Ricky and their own Nonnies. They have viscioulsy attacked people in their own fandom who dared to question them. But the biggest reason we push back is because THEY LIE. All the damn time. So what do we have left? Being on the right side, being correct, not lying, not needing to lie, and the joy of watching Darren live his best life)   

Leka got a couple of asks but her answers were weak, confusing and pointless. It’s clear she isn’t ready to take over as their leader. She repeated Abby’s main talking points, tried to use big words to sound smarter and basically ended up not making a lot of sense:

Anonymous asked: I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but I think the character on the HW poster holding the girl is D's character, it would fit if you look at the other guys on the poster, maybe this is already the first hint to show D's character is not gay and so technically not breaking the no more queer roles rule his team set for him. It won't make it any better because it's still a career on the bag of LGBTQ+ people with it's teams but it's technically not a broken rule. I just really need for things to change, I want them to so bad, it kills me seeing someone so kind in a situation like that, and I truly believe D is one of the kindest people in that horrible town. He deserves better than M, I wouldn’t even mind if he goes onto another beard but she and RR just need to go. I really think it’s crazy people still think everything HW is real and PR relationships don’t exist, I wished that place was just better and had a moral compass, people deserve more it kind of shows just how jaded this situation has made me, I can’t even enjoy amazing promo material without directly twisting it into something negative, I don’t want to be this way and if I feel like this I can’t even imagine how D must feel. He is stronger than I’ll ever be living through hell every day, even if he’s not ok he’s still here and holding on, I don’t know if I could in his position. Sorry for the long message and the unneeded negativity, I guess I just had to vent a little

*********************************

Leka answered: So let’s look at the way HW is described:

“Each character offers a unique glimpse behind the gilded curtain of Hollywood’s Golden Age, spotlighting the unfair systems and biases across race, gender and sexuality that continue to this day. Provocative and incisive, HOLLYWOOD exposes and examines decades-old power dynamics, and what the entertainment landscape might look like if they had been dismantled.”

I do consider this the very intriguing thing about the news. (And it just goes to show that believing everything you’re sold is being utterly and completely ignorant.) Let’s say you’re right because ofc it’s possible. How does R/aymond fit in here? Given the excessive way team shit has pushed that article, a technicality won’t be good enough. There has to be a better plan. This doesn’t match what’s been said in his name.

What I think is this doesn’t necessarily have to mean much. You know very well what you see doesn’t have to be the (full) truth. That doesn’t just apply to the real HW. Especially considering the time period of this show. And let’s not forget the pap pics we got at a gas station. This doesn’t rule out SB as an inspiration. I would advise anyone to read up on him. We don’t know at this point. As we keep saying, the best thing to do is to wait and see. I’m certainly interested in finding out more.

As time goes on, the danger of this situation keeps becoming even clearer to me. D deserves much, much better. He���s incredibly strong, but the most toxic person in his life needs to go and she’s more than welcome to take the jumping jackass with her. That’s definitely the most important thing right now. (I’m curious what the danger of Hollywood is?)

awesome-fanfictionada: @leka-1998I’m just wondering - it must have been D who got himself this job on HW, right? Couldn’t this have been done on purpose to counter that ridiculous statement - which wasn’t even accurate, if the source was that interview where he stated that he wouldn’t want to be a casting director? Could in this case RM be a friend?

leka-1998:  @awesome-fanfictionada Yes, he did that himself. Again. And he said the show’s been sold late in 2018. According to an article that came out later, it happened in February 2019. Not true.

HW has been a thing before that statement was made, which is indeed very different from the answer D himself gave during the interview. That’s what makes the article seem like sabotage by team shit. And standing in RM’s way is never a good idea. So while I will obviously never like him, I’m reserving judgment on his current role until we know more.

Anonymous asked: The underlying issue in general is really that social media has made it so people think they get an accurate glimpse into the lives of celebrities, when in reality social media, like everything else that is publicly released about them, is used as a marketing tool. People are actually more inauthentic than they've ever been because they feel pressure to maintain a certain image for social media at all times. So anyone who decides D is living honestly, it's because they want to believe he is.

Leka: True, nonnie. Just look at the text lines that are becoming more popular again. Not nearly as genuine as people want to believe. In D’s case, what has to be brought up? M. Oh Halloween and her amazing shopping skills praised on SM. The work fam honeymoon pic promoting the place they stayed at. Coa/chella for the H&M ad. Mardi Gras posted shortly after the mockery to promote the designer. I could obviously go on. Most of what we see on SM shows the person the 10 year crew wants him to be. And what looks like a split personality if you compare certain posts. Which brings me back to ‘they want to believe’, as what you’re saying clearly isn’t a secret. Anyone can choose to ignore it but at this point, if that’s the case even though you’re more or less paying attention, it’s really a conscious decision.

Oh btw, there’s a HW IG account now and it already has a D follow. Imagine that. R/oyalties co-stars, anyone?

Flowers didn’t get any asks. Amazing since she has more followers than I do and she bragged about getting more “notes” than me.  She did answer azscc who posted an odd rant that baffles me.  Who the fuck is azscc and who is posting anything about her? I realize I am not the only person in this fandom posting about ccers But I just checked all the blogs that I know of and nobody is talking about her; 

azsc  its so weird how chillarrens call me a bully while i only say something rude towards them if they write bullshit towards me. and its just ironic how chillarrens go around calling people bullies while they are the reason why tons of cc accounts use their accounts private or don’t post their opinions and etc. the real threat to the fandom are people like you. so instead of going around throwing shit on people and calling them “mental, delusional...” get a life. no cc believer goes around hunting for chillarren pics and insult the account owner so why don’t you all grow up and realize no one has to agree with your opinions. every crisscolfer blog/twitter page/insta acc basically stan accs never asked for your opinions on their pages so why don’t you just let it go? no one cares about what you all say or do so why are you forcing it this much?

call me a bully i am pretty much okay with that. its obvious that people are unable to understand basic sarcasm and irony and i am not judging because to actually understand what people say you have to at least have an average IQ level. and if you don’t have it, it’s okay but that doesn’t mean you can twist people’s words and post them all over the internet. but its lowkey really funny that i only had my instagram acc for something like 4/5 months and i received over 300 hate/insult/blackmail/death wish messages and etc. and who are you people to call us bullies? (Nobody is a Chillarren. Darren and Mia are married and Chris and Will are in a long-term relationsihp,  Nobody has to “ship” them in order to believe they are together. In America, we accept that when someone introduces their wife or their boyfriend they are telling the truth. It is customary to address that person as their wife or boyfriend respectively. The crisscolfers on the other hand, must use a fandom ship name because they are shipping two people who are not in a relationship and never were. All evidence indicates Chris and Darren are no long friends; they are nothing more than former co-workers-friendly and polite when they see one another but no longer involved in one another’s lives. Chris and Darren both have denied (more than once) that the were ever in a relationship).  .   

flowersintheattic254 I have never in my whole time here posted an anon to a Miarren account. I have no desire to. I’m confident in my beliefs.

The interesting thing for me is that I’ve been here for about four years now and in that time I’ve seen the head of the fandom disappear, other people disappear because their families have been doxed, established long-term cc blogs with a wealth of history deleted without warning. I myself have had my daughters threatened.  This sort of stuff doesn’t happen anywhere in the fandom but here here. If we are a bunch of delusional crazy middle-aged women then this shouldn’t happen. (Who was doxed? Who dissappered? It’s all “liar liar” with everything ccers say. In the last 4 years Abby has been the only leader of the cc fandom. Michelle left between 4 and 5 years ago because her outrageious cc comments threatened her ability to raise money for her little Klaine-fanfic rip-off movie. I vaguely remember someone asking flowers how her daugther’s would feel if they read what she writes- hardly a threat. If there was something more she never posted any proof. As for blogs being deleted- so was D-Criss News.  It happens. The only cc blog that I know of that disappeared was DisneyPrincessModelWorld’s original blog which had was a hot mess of lies and catfishing. She visciously bullied Mia. Hardly someone to mourn their blog being deleted). 

It’s shocking that an actor may lgbt causes such drama. (HUH?)

Flower’s comment is so disingenuous. While it is technically true -she hasn’t sent me anons, she HAS instead publically ridiculed me and frankly, I can’t see how that is any different? I’d say it’s worse because they wanted their followers to see what they wrote and the only way to ensure that is to post it on their blogs. Flowers and Abby posted many public “Michy” posts.  Here is her most recent: 

flowersintheattic254Oh and I guess Michy sent us all some hate today.

I guess I have way more followers than you and only about 4 that send hate. You haven’t for ages.

I think I have over 70,000 hits currently to my blog. I must be saying something interesting.

He’s been married allegedly for a year and people still doubt. That’s gotta hurt you. Anyway......

✌️

ajw720 Michy told me today today that the outing couldn’t possibly be promo, because JS was only cast in September!  What a moron who clearly doesn’t know how HW works.  Sweetheart, it was ANNOUNCED in September;)

I was waiting for a few more months, but in 4 years, since i have been tracking, i have almost a million! (976,695 to be precise).

It is amazing that so many people care about what us bat shit crazy, irrelevant, psychologically unstable, threatening, hateful tin hats have to say!  And that does not include people reading on their dash or that hit you on the app!  So yep, Michy, clearly what we are saying is being monitored by someone.  And clearing making people think!! But you keep wasting your time writing for your audience of 4:)

cassie102 I feel left out, Michy didn't come at me today. Must hurt like hell knowing you're a joke that perpetuates a bigger joke.

leka-1998 Birds of a fake feather flock together. When the right person says tomorrow’s Christmas, tomorrow’s Christmas. Get ready, everyone.

If I narrow it down to the last six months, about 10,000 btw. Hm strange.

flowersintheattic254 @ajw720 the number of hits you have give me oxygen. If Michy thinks they are haters then she is delusional. People know when they are being sold something fake and they look for answers.

[wantedu]

quick question here, why is there so much fuckin discourse within the LGTB+ community? I personally use queer to describe myself and I've been told I can't use it???? Like I'm sorry it offends you but A.) being offended doesn't get you anything and B.) I understand it was once used as a slur but you can't reclaim it if you don't accept it? You know what I mean like I'm not forcing my views on anyone I just think if you want to reclaim it then be okay with the proper use of it? Or no?

honestly it’s because of the ace discourse. it’s with ace people inserting themselves in lgbt spaces, being violently homophobic and transphobic yet still so strongly insistent that they belong in this community that they clearly have so much hate towards. but i’ve had enough of that, if anyone needs receipts on that just go look at this blog’s ace discourse tag because they have everything and i’m too tired to argue over this. ace/aro people aren’t lgbt. but yeah like as long as you’re lesbian, gay, bi/pan, or trans, then you can reclaim the word queer for yourself as long as it’s only for yourself and you’re not using it to describe other people ???? 

[galactic-rhea]

Actually found the best image for this post

Friendly reminder that....TERFS, QUEERPHOBICS, ANTI-LGTB+ PPL, BIGOTS, EXCLUSIONISTS AND RACISTS AREN'T WELCOMED ON MY BLOG ='D

Seriously you give me the ick, if i somehow missed blocking you this is your sign to leave right now, thanks.