#do you not understand that people are still very much violently homophobic……..

[harrylights]

hooooooly shit

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

Man, this pisses me off so bad. If you're a woman who relates more to males than other women, it's because you've decided to focus more on how you're different from other women rather than how you're like them. You will literally never have more in common with males, and males do not feel the same way about you. These cute little posts that you write about how you love males more than your fellow women? They do not write the same thing about you. They hate and mock you constantly. Anyone remember "Cis women need to shut up"

"As a cis woman, I agree"

"You need to shut up, specifically"

?

Yea, that's how they feel about you and your solidarity.

The difference between lesbians and trans women in female spaces is the fact that lesbians do not have high rates of violence. There is no group of women that outclass men in terms of violent tendencies. Trans women retain the rates of male violence that regular men do. I'm not saying you have to treat trans women like they're all violent beasts, but if you can't see why female people would be uncomfortable with male people in their spaces, you're either naive or genuinely unsympathetic towards the very real fear that women have of being subjected to male violence. You can't say trans women and lesbians are similar because, unlike males, there is no statistical evidence that lesbians are highly likely to take advantage of a woman. If it turned out that 98% of rapes were committed by lesbians, I would 1000% understand why straight women don't fucking want to be around me. Have some fucking empathy, holy fucking shit. Even if you are completely on board with trans women being in female spaces, at LEAST acknowledge that it makes sense for women to be concerned about who is allowed in their spaces. It's crazy how I could tell someone I have a fear of dogs because one bit me when I was a kid, and they'd put their sweet pooch up, but God forbid a woman be cautious around a demographic who commit 90% of all violent crime. Oh no. That woman is suddenly a terf bitch.

I have nothing in common with trans women. I don't care how much pain they have experienced. We are not the same. When I was twelve, I cried and I cried as I put my palms together to pray to a God I hoped would be able to take away my homosexuality. I didn't even grow up in a particularly homophobic family. Both of my parents were accepting of me, but I still sat in the dark of my room, tears streaming down my face, as I prayed to have my sexuality changed.

Two years later, one of my friends made a joke about me dressing to impress my crush. She said my crushes name---a feminine name. A girl sitting in earshot heard her, turned to me, and asked me with disgust if I was gay. I said no without even thinking about it. It absolutely did not help that we were in a locker room with other girls. I was aware of my sexuality by that point, but I was 14 and unable to hold my own against a girl looking at me like THAT. For a few weeks after that, that girl made comments about how she was "watching me".

I know pain, I know discomfort, I know what it's like to feel predatory. Seeing feminine women, especially if they're white, makes me feel like an alien. I look at them and think "how are we so different? I see none of myself in you."

Sometimes I'm right. Sometimes we're not similar at all. But guess what? That doesn't mean I'm similar to a straight male. Fucking hell, sometimes I'm not similar to other lesbians. That's completely normal. I think OP needs to read better work by cishet women. If you think that there is not a single piece of cishet female writing that can move you more than something written by a male, you're not looking in the right places at all. I don't understand why some LB women seem to think that the very act of someone being a straight woman makes them incapable of relatability. Of course it makes sense for you to be cautious. Lesbians deal with a lot of alienation and predatory feelings, but if the very ACT of a woman being cis and straight makes you feel like she has absolutely nothing in common with you...? The issue lies with you. YOU are the one othering THEM. Not the other way around. You're the one who has decided that a few cis straight women othering you means that they ALL will so you'd better beat them to the punch. You're the one who has decided that your relationship to womanhood is so astronomically different from straight women that nothing they say speaks to you. That's INSANE. Do you realize how much you have to alienate yourself from womanhood to feel more relatability with a male person than a female one? Idk how to tell you this, but it is highly probable that the most cis, most het woman you have ever met has had a period. It's highly likely she's been harassed by a man. It's highly likely she's been made to feel inferior by way of being born female. No, they can't relate to the experience of being a lesbian who is made to feel predatory for no reason, but to say that nothing a cis het woman says/experiences can move you at all? Nothing they say can make you feel like your experience with womanhood and hers are similar? Do you realize how you sound? "Trans women have been harassed by men and made to feel inferior, too!!" Okay! So you should be able to relate to cis women in the way you do trans women, right?

I told my discord server that I was nervous about my future roommates. I showed them photos and someone said "all this tells me is that they're feminine and white" and I literally think about that all of the time. I was projecting. I was so scared that these white, feminine, probably straight women were going to judge me for being a black lesbian that I didn't even realize that I was the one violently judging them based off of nothing but their skin color and their femininity. I knew nothing about them. I STILL know nothing about them. I've barely spoken to them. But already I had labeled them as unrelatable judgemental women because of how they looked. Hold on. Wasn't I the one afraid of them judging ME? How could I be so afraid of them judging me for being a black lesbian when I was the one judging them already? What sense does that make?

You guys are so busy writing off cis straight women as unrelatable bigots that you've failed to see that you're the one who is extremely prejudiced against them. And I absolutely fucking know someone is gonna read this and say "well, you can't say that all trans women have male violence patterns and dahdahdahdah" and it's like. But YOU can say that cis straight women are so unbelievably different from lesbian women that you'd rather say you're more similar to a straight up fucking male???

I'm not saying it's not a little jarring to see women who are so different from me. I'm not saying I haven't been burned before and there's no reason for me (or other lesbians) to be cautious. But I will literally ALWAYS have more in common with cishet women than I ever will a man pretending to be a woman.

One time I had a professor. She was on the older side (I'd say 40's) and white. Not the type of person I'd think I'd click well with. She was straight and married with children. One day we talked after class, and the only thing that ended our conversation was the fact she had an event she had to go to. We would've talked longer if not for that. She emailed me a little while later to tell me that she enjoyed our chat. After that, she actually hugged me on two occasions. You wouldn't think we'd have common ground. An older, straight, married white mother and a young black lesbian. Both of us are "cis" but I can tell you I relate to her much better than I ever could someone born male.

I once had a personal trainer who was a feminine woman. She had acrylic nails and everything. One time she said that she couldn't hug her male friends anymore because she had a boyfriend (he wasn't the one enforcing that rule. That was something she personally felt). Also not someone I thought I'd click well with. But we did. One time we had a really productive discussion that was actually derived from the conversation with my professor. I felt very close to her in that moment. Our conversation came to a close because she had another client, but I still think about that convo.

There have been so many fucking times where I thought "this woman is not like me. Look at her." But what I realized was that I was the judgmental one. I was the one deciding we were different, not her. I was the one writing her off. I was the one convinced we had nothing in common.

I am BEGGING you not to alienate your fellow women. There are no inherent traits that make you unable to relate to other women. No amount of whiteness or cisness or straightness can make a woman completely unreachable. I am NOT talking about political parties or views so don't fucking try me with that shit. Obviously that puts a wedge between people, but someone simply being born cis and het does not make them alien from you. For God's sake, look at the fucking MeToo movement. Women from all fucking backgrounds who share an experience that an unfortunate amount of women go through. Women from all different races, sexualities, etc. who came together to talk about how they've been subjected to sexual violence. Ellen degeneres was one of them. How does that fit into your "lesbians and cishet women cannot relate to each other" spiel?

OP's post has 130k notes and it makes me fucking sick. Holy crap y'all, we need more solidarity than this. Other women are not your enemy. I'm begging you to reconsider your approach to women who are different than you. You are missing out on people who can love and support you in a way that literally no male can. You are depriving yourself. Just because a few cishet women in the past alienated you, does not mean that you have to continue their legacy. Let it go. Everyone on earth can see you embracing your hatred of women, and you wonder why your fellow women never hug you? They fucking can't! Put your hatred down and make space for the love that comes with realizing that you absolutely are like other girls!

[magicrainbowkitties]

Some of y'all never learned the difference between queerbaiting and queercoding and it really fuckin shows. And even more than that some of y'all will sit there and call something queerbait just because they don't kisskiss.

Characters should not and do not have to actually kiss and/or fuck nasty on screen for a queer and/or romantic reading of their relationship to be valid. Not the least of which reason is that not every relationship such as that involves kissing or sex, but more importantly:

Relationships are more than that. You know this. I know this. We wouldn't be shipping people otherwise, or be so invested in the relationships between these characters we love.

Why is a movie where the characters of the same gender love and care deeply for each other and complete each other's worlds, and yet never kiss or fuck, bait, while the one where the characters are underdeveloped and have no real reason to be together or even like each other than because the plot says so but they kiss and fuck like rabbits NOT bait?

Queerness deserves nuance, it deserves different shit, it deserves messy and toxic shit, it deserves to be scrutinized and analyzed, rather than simply consumed and sanitized.

Would the former film have a kiss/sex scene if the world it existed in didn't force it to be a product in a violently heteronormative society? More than likely. But we can't say for sure.

Queer media has survived since forever thanks to queercoding, which was used to let representation of queerness and queer culture exist AT ALL under homophobic corporations. Queer PEOPLE have survived their actively hostile homes and communities thanks to codes and signals that identified each other and where was and wasn't safe.

That legacy won't go away, even as we gain more acceptance in society. Even if the day comes in my lifetime where queer people all over the world are free to live out our lives in peace and comfort without our very lives and bodies being targets for violence and repression, that tradition STILL wouldn't go away. Because it's INTERESTING and FUN and DYNAMIC and GOOD CHARACTER WRITING.

Not every deeply loving and caring relationship is romantic, just as not every buddy-buddy relationship is platonic. There's so much grey area, so much to look through, to analyze with different lenses, to understand about how we conceptualize relationships.

Queerbaiting is NOT just a stand-in for queercoding you didn't like. And it's not bait just because they didn't kiss or get together or fuck. Queerbait is when something is MARKETED to queer people, but doesn't actually have any queer rep in it at all.

Does that mean some queerbait is queercoding in and of itself? Yes. But not all.

But when it's characters building a deep abiding love for each other over the course of the story, one that changes them and how they see the world, regardless of the fact they don't actually kiss or fuck or say "you are now my partner/spouse..." I'm sorry, that's not bait. That's a love story. And regardless of what kind of love it is, platonic, romantic, sexual, eldritch, whathaveyou, that's what queer stories ARE.

Especially when the characters in question are literally canonically queer, but their relationship isn't made EXPLICITLY romantic. Like guys. Really?

Please read anything at all about the history of queerness in your medium of choice before you start shouting "queerbait" at things that are literally made to be complicated.

[bengiyo]

Marahuyo Project Eps 7 & 8 (Finale) Stray Thoughts

Last time, the kids struggled to pick a name for their LGBTQIA+ organization while discussing their strategy before the school board. They eventually decided to focus on connecting their hopes for the island's future with its past, and set about researching. Archie gave Venice some files from the church, Lorie looked through files her dad had, and Ino suggested interviewing people after providing equipment. We learned that Archie is struggling with the path to holy orders (manifested in his neck scratching), Ino said aloud that he was gay and kissed King, and Lili is probably intersex. Each of our our kids is holding confidence about this. Lili read Marco for filth, read him for blood, but unfortunately we left at Marco outing her.

Episode 7: Aswang

You know King isn't the violent type, because some of my people would have curb stomped his ass by now.

Oh, Ino. I understand.

Okay, Lili's story is so sad and lonely. I'm glad she told Lili before this.

Oof, Lorie was not ready for the friends to lovers kiss.

That was difficult, but King is right. He shouldn't ask Ino to come out, but it doesn't stop him from getting hurt.

King's grandmother is great. It's making me sad that Ino has no one else to talk to after that.

Wow, Marco is really doubling down on being an asshole.

I appreciate this show now disguising the kinds of casual homophobia you run into.

It's hard to recognize when you need to give someone you love space when you want to help.

I do like the idea of them reclaiming the balagtasan as a way to present their ideas to the island.

I knew it was Ino who graffitied the mural.

Gay people really will turn their relationship problems into a public spectacle.

This poetry is beautiful.

Oh, Ino, I'm proud of you.

My boy is bleeding!! Marco, it's on sight!!

Man, what a concise breakdown of how it feels to know your truth and have your caregivers try to stifle that in you for the sake of appearances.

Episode 8: Babaylan

Ino and King opening up old wounds.

Yes, King, tell your mom. Shame is learned at home. A kid can face the world if they're safe at home.

I love King so much for not sugarcoating how bad public scorn can get.

Swimming at night is very dangerous, but I'm always happy to receive an underwater kiss BECAUSE IT STILL BELONGS TO THE GAYS.

Oh good. Lorie and Lili are finally talking.

See, this is the thing about doing queer media versus making QL sometimes. Apologizing for loving someone is such a queer experience. Your love isn't something that you should be ashamed of, and you shouldn't have to apologize for caring a lot about someone.

This feels like the right place for these two as friends to possibly more.

Oh shit Lili got me when she held back tears at getting best friends.

It really is exhausting how hard authority works constantly to police and enforce heteronormativity. There are so few of us. Why is it always this constant bullshit?

Oof, I actually like this choice to have Archie vote to impeach Ino, become the new president, and then immediately return to the site where they honored Christina to cry about it. Venice understands that taking care of other queers is a long term project. At least Archie said her name.

Many of my beloved elders have passed. I wish I could talk to them sometimes. Especially Barry.

I love that Venice is eating in almost every scene.

Hey! They finally picked a name!

I love how homophobes talk about history, and then storm out when confronted with uncomfortable truths.

Crying over these outfits. They're so right. Formal acceptance by the status quo doesn't erase our existence, or the bonds between us. We will make space for ourselves and those like us.

Oh, Archie. I understand you, too. I hope you find peace with yourself and others.

I love Sue Prado, but does the mom really deserve to be here? I'll accept them trying to extend grace to struggling parents since Grandma has been with them the whole time.

This march works though. Before it was only three of them. Now look at them.

A post credits scene! Wait, I love the idea of Juvy and Jose going to visit them!

Final Verdict: 9.5, Finally Some Good Fucking Food. I am just so relieved to have another show from JP Habac. It's clear he and his friends have such strong ideas about where queer people fit in our society today, and I love that his work is never about defeating homophobia and is instead about connecting others to queer joy. Despite how this show stirred up all sorts of old hurts in me, I feel so much love for these characters, and I'm so thankful that I can point to a show with a wide spectrum of queer experiences delivered in such a beautiful package. It's so rare to see a show treat the closet seriously, and I will be thinking about this show forever, alongside JP's previous work: Gaya sa Pelikula (aka Like in the Movies).

[heretherebedork]

The worst is Dohan wasn't just afraid of coming out, he had a very realistic fear of being outed by his evil sister which is a million times more violent and traumatizing than deciding on his own to come out. And Dohan's fear of being out is 100% justified by the narrative, yet somehow the writers still treated it like a character flaw. He started the show being sent pictures basically threatening to out him, he is from a very homophobic society/country, he has siblings who hate him and Jihan and want to ruin their lives, his Grandfather has been trying to marry him off for years, we find out the Grandfather wanted him to stay in the closet, and he was suddenly forced into the public view without much warning and really without his consent at the beginning of the show because his Grandfather decided Dohan needed to take over the company. Dohan had literally every piece of control stripped away from him throughout the entire show. He was consistently threatened and pressured and he knows he's at risk. OF COURSE he tried desperately to hold on to the marriage plans?? And again Jihan doesn't take a single second to think about how Dohan must feel or what he's going through. No, instead Jihan and the writers try to convince us that having a secret, even if that secret could put you in actual danger, is the most selfish thing you can do.

And on another note, I think you've discussed this before but the people saying Jihan and Ahjeong had no reason to suspect they would be followed on all their public romancing must've been watching another show than I was. It was literally established that both Ahjeong and Jihan knew reporters were looking for Ahjeong, they even found her house!!! If I remember right Jihan knows Dohan was being followed because Dohan mentioned pictures of him in New York. Jihan literally sent a photographer after Dohan in the first episode. Ahjeong got recognized by a famous actress who hates her when her and Jihan were together. They were later chased by a reporter and had to go on a whole car chase! AND Jihan knows his siblings are angry schemers. And yet neither of these people stopped for one second to think that there's some possibility they could be followed or recognized? That the siblings would send someone? That the actress could spread rumors? And somehow people think I should go "well their faces haven't been plastered on the 9 o'clock news yet so obviously they won't think this could happen!" ??? They even kept having public meet ups AFTER knowing they were photographed!!! The writing on this show is genuinely just bad. There's really no other way to put it. I've seen more coherent writing and characterization in BLs that got about $15 and a dream to make them. What a let down.

Yeah.

The fact that the show starts with someone threatening to out Do Han seems to be mostly forgotten by the narrative and completely ignored by the narrative in terms of emotional connections and emotional reasons for narrative choices.

Because the show had no idea what to do.

I really want to be clear that this show was not good.

Yeah, Ah Jeong and Ji Han made like no sense. Ah Jeong was stalked by reporters, Ji Han had hired reporters before and knew his half-siblings were looking for ways to take Do Han out of the inheritance line up so like... it's nonsense to think that they had no reason to believe they might be followed. None! Of course they were followed.

Ugh.

It's over!

Let's start daydreaming about a Thai remake.

This remake will add in a romance for Do Han, make Ah Jeong a better friend and focus on their friendship and her understanding of why Do Han doesn't want to come out, give Ji Han an actual redemption arc including a lot more sympathy for Do Han not wanting to come out and for the fake relationship and just generally be much more friendly to the whole storyline and make us very happy.

Let me dream, okay?!

[alisdump]

ok now let me do a quick and >personal< review since we reached this point which was crucial for me

differently for everyone i had such a negative reaction per knowing we had gained a remake for gmm2024 but my stand is because i truly disliked the original version back then. like it was that serious for me at that time

i didn’t like the execution of idas character at all but kept pushing (mind you i was watching it weekly like everyone else, cm had just finished airing and i had hope for what japan was giving) then that teacher plot came up and it left me so disgusted, i literally had to drop because it made me angry, year was 2021 things were changing a lot everywhere else, so getting a plot like that was very much a regress but everyone was so ok with everything (and still is somehow ????) i didn’t like how every little thing ida did was a major reason for aoki to drop him and discard everything they had been building (manga and series) is like they don’t even try and the get together wasn’t even believable anymore, i eventually came back when last ep dropped just to see the outcome, left even more displeased, i have such a hard time believing they liked each other (in series) or at least aoki truly liked ida (in manga) at all in the end

so that’s where i was coming from, took my time (one hour that day hehe) and told myself to trust them because Every Time gemini and fourth makes me bite my tongue (not different this time i’m so happy) and i love the way gemini portraits kongthap, he took good look in the original material and said Well not for me, and did his own way, kongthap truly feels so fresh and real, he’s just your average quiet nerd boy that knows very little about life, is easy to see him fall in love, and those things felt more heartwarming, atom’s way for falling in love is so real and quite pure too, they’re confused about a lot but never about each other, love they have more time to talk and open their hearts to each other, they’ve so much more understanding of what it means, this very little thing they insert themselves into, a daring step, but so beautiful nevertheless, kongthap never belittling atom or making fun of his attraction for him, understanding his quirks and finding it cute the way he express himself, atom seeing the serious side of kongthap that he says that everyone finds it as a flaw and then atom is here embracing it fully, the very thing that makes him enchanted for him in the first place, they love in different ways but on the same frequency! no one is left behind, everyone should have a place to love.

[kongthap’s ‘isn’t what we are facing right now already a problem?’ fills with so much joy!! he’s my little boy who wants to solve things, find a common ground so they can have a healthy relationship!! he failed once in letting atom slip away, but now he knows, they both know!! “i will discuss things with you before i do anything” i was about to get the fireworks and lit them myself]

if you truly take a minute to the minutiae of it, on kongthapatom’s reality they’re very much alone, atom didn’t have to fight his affection for kongthap growing inside him but acknowledged them very early and pursued it, but there’s no one else like him there, no one he can look up to, he had mudmee of course, and after much internal fighting, half, but they can only do this much about this path he’s walking now. it looks like his fears is his alone but he fears so much more about kongthap, he’s desperately trying to shield him (like kongthap did for him in episode 2) he doesn’t want people to think bad about thap, that’s why things inside the school are harder for him, he would take the blame, says he’s the one at fault, that he’s the one who tarnished kongthap’s pristine image, we have seen it twice, with mudmee, with kongthap, he would choose his loved one happiness before his own in a heartbeat always

striping a homophobic teacher plot that would only make everything more violent for atom and instead giving him (and us) intergenerational queer couples!! everything that atom needed, to see he’s not alone! he’s not the odd one, somebody to look up to, the fact that one is his teacher, that he valued so much, the fact his partner is the one that makes atom find his career path is so important to me (and to him) like this little chance is so much bigger i’m so happy for this adaptation choices, always so on point!!

[hunter-sylvester]

I know you do character analysis, would you be alright elaborating about Hunter and his relationship with his parents? Everyone says he has mommy issues, but it looks like it could be a mixture of daddy issues as well.

I would fucking love to, Anon.

(Ao3 Character Analysis Series about Hunter)

I do think it’s very clear that he has mommy issues. From the small handful of references there are to her, it’s obvious. While he has clear on-screen issues with his father, he still keeps a picture of him and his dad on his bookshelf. His mother- however, is violently ripped from it. Something that can easily be read as a visual metaphor for how he feels about her absence from his life. Although I personally tend to write her as having been directly abusive which creates a slightly different whirlwind of issues, in either case she abandoned him. And we clearly see him display a fear of abandonment around Kevin. There’s a clear cause and effect there.

But I entirely agree that he also has daddy issues. It’s a noxious cocktail of neither parent being someone that understands him or knows how to make him feel at home. And it’s precisely that cocktail of issues that makes Hunter make so much sense to me as a character.

It’s not exactly my style to give fathers a lot of sympathy, but even without doing so, it's easy to see that everything Alan Sylvester does in canon shows he just has no idea what to do with Hunter. (Most notably when he literally gives up on parenting him in favor of dumping him in rehab).

He completely fumbles any weak attempts he does make at connecting with/parenting him and they all end in screaming matches.

“Sorry you’re just a little late with the whole ‘parenting’ thing” (when I tell you I feel that line)

Growing up with a parent (partially more, since his mother was around until 7th grade) present without anyone actually bothering to parent you, you end up growing crooked.

Can’t go any other way. Even if his parents were never mentioned, we’d know they were shitty parents based purely on Hunter’s issues.

In my mind, they’re both obviously neglectful. Evident both from the aforementioned quote as well as just the way that Hunter acts.

Each in their respective ways. His mother by literally removing herself from his life. His father by neglecting him emotionally, not hugging him, etc. (I'm assuming he never hugs Hunter based on the deeply awkward shoulder tap during the last scene of the film.) Also, this is a bit of a stretch based on vibes alone. But can you picture Alan cooking for Hunter? Can you picture them having dinner together? I can’t. It’s a bit of a headcanon but I personally believe Hunter has been making his own food for years. (note: this does not necessarily imply that he is a good cook)

Let’s also not forget that Hunter is just a seventeen year old boy. He is still a child (in canon). And a fucking troubled one at that.

One that likely grew up with nobody telling him it was ok to be him. No-one telling him he belonged. No-one showing him how to healthily handle his emotions. (This is one I blame heavily on the father.)

He had to figure everything out for himself. Reinvent the wheel at every step. Of course he’s gonna fuck up along the way. He’s just a kid.

Of course he freaks out when he thinks he’s losing Kevin, he’s already been shown that he can be discarded- and by one of the primary people that are supposed to be there for him.

Of course he’s a bit of a bitch about alcohol when he watches his father drink all the time and he would probably rather die than turn out like him.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Alan also contributed to Hunter’s inability to accept his sexuality. At the very lightest he’d be homophobic in that casual way dads are. The “I don’t care what they do behind closed doors” followed by the most homophobic ‘joke’ you can think of twenty minutes, if not seconds, later. But I wouldn't rule out more blatant queerphobia.

In any case, it’s a clear & constant signal that being queer is not something that’s acceptable for a Sylvester. And as much as Hunter fights his father, as much as I think he dreads being like him, he’s the only parent he has left at this point.

He still wants to be loved. He’s a kid. He needs a loving parent. Even if he, realistically, doesn’t really have one that’s worth appeasing.

Consciously, he’ll rebel. Subconsciously, he still looks up at his father and wants to be told he did well. He wants someone to be proud of him, he wants to be enough.

Call me a pessimist but I think at this point, even if Alan tried, the relationship is so laden with barbed wire that nothing is possibly getting through.

Anything would be too little & too fucking late.

Sorry that got a little fucking bleak...it's me, it's what happens lol Thank you for asking, Anon 🤘

[acorpsecalledcorva]

Oh yeah one more thing worth elaborating on I think, what happens if you view behaviours and actions of system members through the lens of a child? Not to baby them or talk down to them or dismiss them, but simply "if a 7 year old child was doing this, why would they be doing it? What would be going through their mind? How would they feel and what would they think about what they're doing?"

Tw for abuse, CSA, and COCSA

I don't think there's really any action an adult is capable of that a child isn't also capable of doing. Children can steal, they can lie, they can commit arson, they can say racist and homophobic or transphobic slurs, they can torture animals or other children, they can kill, and they can commit sexual assaults. Hell, give them a chance and they'd commit tax and election fraud in a heartbeat.

I think most people understand, though, that these kind of behaviours don't just appear spontaneously, they're in response to something. Something has happened to them or is happening to them that they're mimicking or feelings that they don't know how or are unable to express are manifesting in specific ways and that intervention can be vital during this developmental period to ensure that things don't carry on into adulthood when embedded beliefs are much harder to undo, not least of all because adults are afforded much less grace.

DID is a developmental disorder, the response to traumatic events that wall off parts of our Psyche to protect them disrupt our psychological development in different ways to different degrees across the entire brain. We all have a basic understanding of what a little or child part is supposed to be and why they're the way they are, and understand how a fragment can be perpetual trapped in trauma time reliving events over and over again, but I think very few of us realise the true extent of this developmental disturbance and how it can affect the entire system.

To get personal and detailed, when I was 11 or 12 my mother was addicted to coke and having an affair with her dealer. My dad was having some kind of midlife crisis and joined a band of 18-25 year olds and kept bringing their friends of the same age to our house for house parties where everyone would get drunk and high and play loud music till the early hours of the morning on school nights. When my parents would viciously and violently argue, they would burst into my room to guilt trip the other about how they were upsetting me or try to use me as a shield hoping the other wouldn't do something in front of me, to no avail.

No one was looking after me or my brother, no one was protecting me, no one was being a parent for me. So I became my own parent, because I needed to be. I created an adult protector part to be my parents when my parents weren't my parents. Just one problem though, what's the template that I used to do that? Who could I base this part on? What were my available resources? I couldn't just spawn a magically perfect parent from another universe, I had to use my parents. The protectors that I made at that age, and still have, are my 11 year old brains interpretation of what a parent is supposed to be, and the only version of a parent that I had are my own. It may have been an idealised version that used more of their good traits than their bad, but could never be absent of the bad.

When I was being abused or sexually assaulted as a teenager and needed to create female alters that it happened to because "this doesn't happen to boys, it happens to girls" the girls I created are my teenage brains interpretation of what a girl supposed to be, and i went to an all boys school so you can imagine how much exposure i had to them and the problems that creates to this day.

Some parts might commit violent acts because they're angry and at the time they were made that's what our younger mind thought people did when they were angry, others might think that what they're doing is how you show love because that's what the people who should have loved us did to us, others might do things or believe things because those are the opposite actions or beliefs of what we did or had at the time of abuse and we thought not being that could save us.

Regardless of what it is, there's always a logic to the manifestation of parts no matter how convoluted or nonsensical it may seem, and at the very least asking "why might a 7 year old brain think this made sense?" can provide a way in to meet them where they are and afford them the grace you may have been denied at the time that you made them

[horizon-verizon]

I feel like a lot of fans of the show have unfairly internalized all the disrespect that Laenor goes through and he ends up getting way too much hate as a result. Which is disgusting because he’s a Black man and the ONLY gay character in the show. For example, Alicent claims that he was busy “entertaining his young squires” at his sister’s funeral (and basically conflating homosexuality with pedophilia) in the Driftmark episode, and people take that at face value, even though we saw him in deep, deep grief, completely broken, and nearly drowing himself earlier in the very same episode.

Imo a very underrated part of what Laenor has to deal with during this time is that ontop of all of the pressure that is on him, he essentially has to live everyday in the same place as Joffrey’s killer, and can’t do anything about it because Cole is a Kingsguard. His wedding, one of the most disastrous nights of his life. Not only did he have to marry a woman but he had to see the love of his life get violently murdered and the man go off scott free because of the Queen. The same Queen who humiliated him by calling him and his wife and mocking how his children don’t resemble him.

100%, agreed. Part of that is because this show doesn't explore these people's lives and how they interact with each other before the beginning of the war because it already positions the war--the host of spectacles, canon and whatever they will adapt--the thing where they can characterize them all. But fans also tend to not think much about this anti-authoritarian series in its anti-authoritarian-ness either and interrogate the world's effects on its characters for all sort so reasons, so...it's a feed-feed situation.

I already wrote about what I think Laenor and Rhaenyra's relationship could have been HERE, but I have also come to feel that the show still unfairly made Laenor a little less present than his bk!version might have been.

With how the show (stupidly) made Cole a Kingsguard even though he clearly killed one of the groom's family's man (any nobleman, but this makes it worse) under the king's roof (guest rights), we should have witnessed how Laenor deals or not deals with the fact his lover's killer is always so close. We should have seen how this explains why he is so distant w/Rhaenyra and so eager to leave, adding onto how he wants to be a knight and leave on his own instead of making room for the impression that he's just being selfish. I think this would have been a lot more interesting and even with me still thinking this doesn't totally exonerate him, it'd definitely generate more understanding. In the book, Cole also is very homophobic when he says to the green council that they shouldn't allow Rhaenyra to be queen because her sons would inherit Laenor's sexual "perversion", which I think the show sorta used when Alicent made that comment. This could have been expanded and further impressed by including bk1cole's words into the actual show's green council moment. Why not? Because it'd make people uncomfortable? this whole story is about how these people usurped a woman because she was a woman and they wanted power! It's meant to make you uncomfortable and confront these ways people justify their prejudiced power-seeking.

[johnslittlespoon]

stop this adhd and john being misunderstood stuff makes me so sad. if u think of john’s dad as someone who will occasionally lay a hand on him in a bad argument (ex. the slap) but is not as violent and physically abusive as people sometimes headcanon gale’s dad to be, john’s childhood trauma with his adhd actually makes it make perfect sense why he would be so terrified of his dad. like imagine being a little kid who doesn’t understand why all the kids around u can sit still and focus and you just can’t and ur parents response to it is to punish u. i could even see john’s dad as being the strict traditional type who would use physical punishment such as spanking and other punishment that people now think of as cruel towards children and it just makes john’s fear of his dad make that much more sense because imagine being a little kid who essentially is constantly being disciplined, even physically, over something that u don’t understand and can’t control ☹️

context | me too :(( i promise he'll get his healing and happy ending when he finds someone (gale) who is willing to take the time to be patient and gentle with him though okay :')

but yes you get it! that's exactly how i see his relationship with his dad being. i think people sometimes underestimate how bad having a few incidents of physical violence with a parent can mess someone up, because yeah, it's not like you're going through it daily, but you're always walking on eggshells wondering if there will be a next time, because they've done it before so why won't they do it again?

and i feel like that's very much how john's life would be– a lot of waiting for the other shoe to drop when he's at home. he grows up being physically disciplined (and yelled at) for stuff that's out of his control instead of getting help for it, and he doesn't have a trusted adult to talk about anything with, so he spends a lot of time frustrated at himself and the world and then of course it leads to more conflict with him and his parents when he gets old enough to talk back and act out.

and i think the slap would be such a jarring/pivotal event for him because john's dad is the type to lean towards corporal type of punishment (like you said– a traditionalist. spanking, wall–sits, planks, nose to a coin against the wall, going without dinner, etc). he can probably count on one hand the amount of times he's ever been actually hit like that, so for his dad to do it so openly over something like who john is seeing (and for his mom to watch and do nothing), it would kinda be john's final straw in that house.

and yeah, john's still young despite being an adult, so his parents have every right to be wary about who he's seeing, especially with gale being older (and maybe having a reputation, depending on how i set up his backstory). but there's a difference between worrying and being protective versus hurling slurs and disliking john seeing a man specifically; he's not dumb, they can mask it as them being 'protective parents' all they want, but it loses its believability when homophobic comments are thrown into the mix.

it's an emotionally reactive (and tad bit rebellious) moment when he calls gale to come get him, because maybe he can go stay at curt's or another friends, and after cooling down his dad might walk back his decision to throw john out, but john's mind goes straight to comfort and safety and that's what gale is as a person to him. and gale feels so honoured even in the whole stress of the situation, because john trusts him enough to ask for help, which is something he knows john has trouble doing, and he's glad he can be there for him. <3

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

So there was a conversation about queer representation in video games, and this got said in response to the perception that lesbians are more represented in video games compared to other LGBT identities (particularly gay men):

"Lesbians are fetishized by straight men, so that's why they're more common"

I'm going to be honest and say it's never really sat right with me from that point on. Not because I don't think there isn't some truth to the matter, but because I think it lacks a lot of nuance and a lot of much more important feminist thought. So let's just, break down my thoughts alright?

What does it mean to fetishize lesbians in this situation?

This is actually something I think is worth examining in a lot more detail, because when you talk about lesbian characters in media, there's usually one of two responses from predominantly cishet men regarding them:

The character(s) in question are vehemently disliked, often getting little attention, or as is common in fandom circles, having their character and the content surrounding them relentlessly criticized.

Strong affirmations that the characters involved are Definitely Not Gay and that it's reaching to insist they are.

This, to me, is kind of strange? It's in obvious contradiction to the idea that lesbian characters are getting the most representation. So what exactly is going on?

In truth, both responses highlight some truth, and to understand this, we need to look at the primary way men fetishize lesbians, which is through porn. When it comes to porn, often there is not an overt need to deal with the people involved as wholly unique individuals with their own feelings and thoughts and what not. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, porn actors are sex workers and that's going to be the result of that. It's just kind of a natural result and porn can handle this either gracefully or not.

But as an interesting side result, this means that it becomes very easy to decouple the actors away from the content. The second reaction becomes a dominant factor here: it becomes very easy to view the women involved as being available and often the primary way this developers from there is the idea of performance: a girlfriend and her friend performing for the boyfriend, or maybe two girlfriends etc. Now, again, there's nothing strictly wrong with that in concept as a sex act as long as everyone involved is aware and consenting and happy with it, but it's how it crops up in regards to how lesbians are viewed.

Lesbians are only tolerated when they're viewed to be available to men, and are often violently disliked when that's shown to not be the case. The world has not stopped oppressing lesbians for being overt in their affections towards other women just because of porn videos. This often has the effect that lesbian characters in media are rarely very explicit in order to preserve that illusion, or the much less comical and honestly perhaps somewhat grosser option I call the IntSys method where you just make your characters all bisexual.

To be clear, I find this really disrespectful and cowardly on principle. It really illustrates the extent that the creatives involved just see bisexuality as a convenience and not actually its own important identity. It becomes a way to still sell your lesbians to men, and frankly, eugh. Lesbians and bisexuals really deserve better than that and IntSys are still in fact tremendous cowards.

Fetishization does not correlate to representation either.

Guess who else is also fetishized by straight men its trans women babyyyyy! This is a very known quantity and its curious how that hasn't also caused a similar explosion in the number of trans women in video games. Actually what it has seemingly actually resulted in is more of the "trap" archetype, the transphobic and homophobic character who exists primarily as a joke.

Which is honestly a nice segway into the next point.

Lesbians do not necessarily represent a threat to masculinity.

If you wanted to know why so many lesbians in media are extremely femme and often conform to straight women beauty standards, this is it. It all has to do with masculinity. In fact, this really ties the knot with the problems with both lesbian representation in media (the absolute dearth of masculine women and butches (sorry that Genshin character is not butch)), the lack of representation of trans women, and the lack of representation of gay and bisexual men.

To transgress against masculinity in general has a habit of making you way more hated in our society which worships masculinity as a golden standard. If a woman is too masculine and is trying too hard to be like a man, she's often virulently hated. For trans women, the rejection of masculinity and the embracing of femininity makes them beloathe, and for gay and bisexual men, having sex with men is embracing what is seen as the female sexual role. We can even circle back here to the fetishization and lesbians and the anger of exclusion: it's okay for women to kiss each other and have sex as long as a guy is involved and enjoying it (and very bad if that's not the case). That doesn't even work with gay men, even though statistically more men are enjoying it.

There's an entire thesis that could be written about the stigmatization of the sexual role of the bottom in homosexuality, or on the eventual estrangement of the femme gay men in queer society. Ideas of masculinity are inextricably tied to straight men's perception of gay men, and unfortunately, gay men are often viewed as directly transgressive. A straight man being hit on by a gay man is often viewed as a direct assault on that straight man's masculinity, and as a result, gay men are just directly hated a lot more. There's a reason violence towards gay men is still staggeringly common. It's not like the video game industry is making any progressive waves in combating any of this either.

But there's one point as well in addition to this I would feel remiss not to bring up:

Are we really laying at the feet of a lot of good, honest queer representation in video games the burden of appealing to fetishistic straight men?

This one in particular bothers me because it is actually worth noting that there is a lot of lesbian representation that has nothing to do with fetishization at all. Not because it isn't sexual in any way, but because its created by queer lesbians wanting to see themselves in the media. So one must ask if there's something else involved.

For me, I have a general pet theory that's called Cluster Behavior of Exclusionary Qualities. The gist of it is that I've noticed that outsiders to a community often do not have one single defining trait that separates them from the majority, but often have more of them. The primary reason for this is that people who are already excluded will generally start to re-examine a lot of the other norms they take for granted. But I think another aspect of it as well is that the more reasons you have for not being accepted, generally the more it just makes you stubborn and angry. What are they going to do, exclude you harder? Ultimately, the industry is still really, really sexist and it's harder for women to even make a foothold in the industry at all to begin with. You're not fighting any less uphill, so why not just make something authentic to yourself and resist a lot of the bullshit?

This isn't to say there aren't gay men in the video game industry, there absolutely are, but I think the pressure to conform is probably a lot stronger, because acceptance really is just right around the corner. Sometimes it is easier to just go with the flow when its beneficial, and I don't judge for that its a bitch of a world and we all gotta eat somehow.

So what do I think at the end of all this?

I think that the fetishization of lesbians actually results in us getting a lot less authentic, well-written lesbian characters and stories, and what it does produce are a lot of ambiguously written characters and token attempts at inclusion that often fall flat. I do think it's likely even then that still outweighs a lot of other representation in video games, but I think there are much stronger factors to explain that.

At the end of the day, we're all fighting for fucking scraps out here. We're not going to get better representation by taking jabs at each other about this. But maybe, one day, we can live in a world where a Final Fantasy 19 has two women absolutely destroying it so I no longer need to see the straight couple from 16.

[atla-recluse]

About That One Moment in "Another Five More Short Graybles":

Content warning: A few references to abuse and abuser-victim dynamics, plus some images/artwork that some may find very disturbing or triggering.

Conclusion:

I truly believe that this moment, and maybe more-so what likely happens after it, are the moment that solidified Lemongrab 1's complete shift into tyranny and unlimited cruelty. When I say that, I'm not just talking about the toy and his anger over it. It's not and was never (just) about the toy (seriously, this dude could and would have snapped over anything).

It's about OG LG's increasingly intense need for control over everyone and everything and his ever-growing layer of extreme rage over...stuff from the past...that is always there. Taking is a bit further, it's actually about how LG viewed himself and his impulsive/compulsive behavior at that point.

Background:

So, a lot of people seemed to have thought/still think that LG is lacking in self-awareness, but I think this couldn't be further from the truth. LG is hyper-aware of himself and his actions. He knows there's something "wrong" with him. He (and those around him) just don't know what. So everyone in and out of universe find it easier to just be vague about the problem or not touch it at all.

I'll tell you what I think is wrong with him though: He's can't figure out how best to showcase empathy with others, or even fully decide if he truly wants to at all, so he typically just chooses not to.

(Also, he seems to be naturally more persnickity and "intense/passionate" than others, including LG2 even. At least when it comes to his beliefs and convictions. People irl who are like that can imagine, because of how we sometimes come across to others, even if we're trying to change.)

Wait, what? I'm actually arguing that LG1 is/was capable of empathy, you ask? YES I am. Because he was. The moments were small, but they were there and were very significant to those who care. OG LG had what I'd call "limited" empathy as well as "optional" empathy. He wasn't the best with others' emotions at initial meetings but he could understand concepts like that of insult, bonding (but couldn't do it himself at first) and not wanting to die or get hurt. (I might finish a post that explains some examples in the near future.)

He also chose who it was he would bestow his empathy upon for random and not-as-random reasons. In this sense, he's not that different from many of us. I also feel as though he could have had his sense of empathy increased and smoothed out with proper nurturing. But as we all know, that didn't happen.

Conclusion Expansion (1):

We see throughout his arc, that LG1 increasingly worsened over time. Not solely though. For a blip of a period, he seemed to be improving, happy even. That period was of course when he was still close with LG2. Then, the fight happened.

Slight (Noteworthy) Sidetrack:

It was so violent, even without showing us the gore. I'm actually a little shocked that there are people who think that scene is mainly or even only hilarious. It's terrifying to me whenever I see it, to the point where I often prefer to avoid it. That scene, to me, was yet another example of how much of an abuser LG1 has become, since his physical or emotional abandonment and/or since his creation. Is that obvious yet? LG1 was not just "lol random11!! hahaha craziiii!". He was insanely abusive. He was arguably abused himself, but that doesn't change the fact that he was an abuser, too.

He even showed all the classic signs of an abuser as far back as "You Made Me" but, really, it was truly first shown in "Too Young".

Conclusion Expansion (2):

His brother (Which I think was meant to be seen as being to LG1 whatever you wanted to see him as, homophobes!) along with Lemonhope, got the worst of it and perfectly illustrate two different types of lives and mentalities of many abuse victims.

One becomes, in a way, very self-centered and wants to escape no matter what, but stops thinking about what the rest of his family may be going through, also. The other wants to help others going through the same and won't leave them behind until the they have escaped on some level, even if it kills him (assuming he had the option to leave).

And tell we don't know plenty of irl examples where other families also went through an older sibling or partner taking advantage of and mistreating a younger sibling or partner. (Don't think too hard about the LG's being "brother-lovers", alright? It's all symbolic, anyway.)

Now a big question I and likely others have is this: Is he really "just like that?"

Frankly, I think he partially or fully either inherited it or learned it from his experiences. Or someone else... But I digress.

So yeah, I don't believe LG was just/solely born that way. Something about him changed sometime after he was born, I feel. But again, I can't quite say what because it was left ambiguous.

When he attacked his best friend for the first time and in such a gruesome manner... Well...ask yourself how that scene probably continued for the two of them? We actually saw the least scary part. Here's what I now headcanon as being the "right after":

LG has always had issues with his view of self and it causes him much pain. He doesn't know how to express the problem, so he basically just spazzes out. He seemed to have improved once his brother/partner came along, but in fact, this was only an illusion.

LG never properly healed from his trauma or bad habits, because no one—not himself and certainly not others—worked with him to treat and eventually heal that trauma and reverse those bad habits. (It doesn't mean they didn't want to, though.) It was only a matter of time before he lost it on his brother and people over something petty. Two beings can never be exactly the same anyway, "twin" or not.

(I'm not sure what the name of the artist who made this is. It's an amazing and very emotional piece, though.)

So with those awful images in mind, I think LG1 after devouring most of his own partner, may have paused for at least a moment, as LG2 managed to crawl away and look at him with such fear and hurt (perhaps looking like a reflection of himself) that LG1—if his self-awareness was on 100 that day—looked back at the mess he'd made of LG2's body and how their relationship would never be the same now, and decided "Haha wow...I AM a monsteerrrr!!!!".

And from there, he decided to just lean into the persona completely. After all, what did he have to lose? What important figure in his life up to this point didn't see him that way, anyway? Now even the partner he once loved and who once loved him, did too. Might as well accept it and just solely act like what everyone already knows him to be. Which to LG means just act like his usual self, btw. Control freaks like him can only relax for so long...

And that, everybody, is why that scene in AFMSG is so significant; and imo, devastating.

It should also be noted that despite what we see LG1 do to LG2, that he doesn't completely devour him (why, we don't know) and that he gave him (likely created for him) a tool that would allow him to still move around and didn't give him a shock collar. So LG2 is still a cut above the others in LG1's mind, it seems, but that doesn't mean that things hadn't reached rock bottom for them. They just had further to go, is all.

LG1 clearly no longer pedestalized LG2 anymore (and vice versa) and on some level likely blames LG2 for how he himself chose to react (pretty on-brand for both of them). Hence why, like some abusers, he seemed to now be withholding affection from LG2, wouldn't hear or accept LG2's own thoughts and opinions, (may have) starved him and why he pushed him down into and kept him in a subordinate position (something we once actually see him physically do to him at the dinner table).

Oh and here. Have another self-aware Lemongrab, far beyond post brother-attack:

This wild lemon man knew he was the monster/villain of the story at this point. 🍋 🥲

"Looking for something?

Well, you found me; Fat Lemongrab." - Original Lemongrab

[vacantgodling]

personally bothers me when ppl are like uwu Iago is gay for othello and completely ignore his racism let alone the racism throughout the play

lmao thank u for stopping by to talk old books with me :3c

but tbh thank god i’ve never seen this take in the wild because i just 👁️👁️ did we read the same play? are you okay??

iago’s like not even subtly racist. like the whole play is very racist in general when you start deconstructing it and thinking about it with a critical lens.

(such as: black/dark skinned men are going to come around and seduce your pure white daughters with either “magic” or their physicality, abuse them, black men are inherently violent and angry and good for their physical prowess, the only reason a white woman would love a black man is because she pities him… like i can go on)

however, aside from desdemona’s father, iago is the Most and honestly only maliciously racist character, and it’s not even just towards othello lmao (looking at his speech about how a black woman who’s smart would only be of value if she married a white man 😒) like, i understand the ideology behind wanting to read homoerotic jealousy into his actions because why is he so fixated and jealous of this (1) man who has “everything he wants” and tbh perhaps it could work if the play itself wasn’t saying, in part, that othello cannot be trusted with the things he was “freely given” stolen because he’s black/dark skinned/from the Moors, however ya wanna put it.

like it’s easier to read homoeroticism into fucking julius caesar (the play, and i suppose the man) than this play. in hamlet, CLEARLY, than this one. and then it creates a whole host of other issues with the play IF iago is gay because then *insert a slew of homophobic stereotypes here*

however, what gets me is the play already does give reasoning behind iago’s actions. like as i was reading wiki and analyses of it after i finished my first pass of it, there seems to be a lot of “discourse” around iago’s motivations and how they’re not clear… but they are? at least to me? like, he’s egotistical, and big for his britches. he’s petty and jealous and feels that he deserves things simply because he wants them. he wants the lieutenant position because he feels he’s owed it for being done the disservice of having to serve a Moor in the first place and for being a tenured soldier for so long; and whether or not cassio is competent are neither here nor there, the point is if you get passed up for a promotion at work: work harder, accept it, or just fucking quit. but iago decided to make it everyone else’s problem. it really didn’t have much to do with desdemona herself (though i could argue that he was perhaps jealous that othello had a pretty wife who actually loved him; because even though i mentioned the racist sentiments about white women and black men earlier i don’t think desdemona is a racist character in the slightest: she fell in love with othello for who he is and she is faithfully in love with him to the end. that doesn’t change the outside perspective of those who see their interracial relationship, which is very translatable into real life in how interracial relationships are viewed but that’s a whole different conversation), nor do i think did it have to do with this weird homoerotic tension people want to force into the reading.

whenever iago says that he ‘loves’ othello, people should understand that in this time period the word “love” was (1) more freely used to describe a wide variety of positive emotions (2) in this context probably meant something more akin to “loyal” that he wouldn’t betray othello or that he values him as a subordinate should (which is clearly sarcasm) and (3) be read with heavy damn sarcasm especially when iago is not talking directly to othello. he doesn’t care about othello in the slightest; and i would argue that even if iago was made lieutenant from jump he would be scheming about how to become general. we would still have a play about how iago hates and wants to “dethrone” othello. like he’s just fucking selfish in how he treats everyone throughout the play lmao. he doesn’t even describe othello in a “i hate that i yearn for you” type of way like there is Nothing that can construct this narrative to me in the text.

so like long story short (i didn’t mean to rant but yknow ya got me going) i think a homoerotic reading of iago is just kind of out there at best and just irresponsible at worst. there’s plenty of other characters you can read as gay in shakespeare’s works, even fucking desdemona and emilia in this play itself have a better gay reading than iago and othello lmao.

obviously shippers gonna ship and like do you but i just don’t see it.

[most-canon-non-canon-ship-poll]

literally hoping they break up in the last season

Why Mileven is shit - a submission-based essay, part 2/3

Mileven - a currently canon het ship from the Stranger Things fandom between Michael (Mike) Wheeler and Jane (Eleven) Ives/Hopper/Byers/IDK

they NEED to breakup (AGAIN) in the final season let's start w their character arcs rn. el was born in a lab and was raised VERY strict to be a weapon and shit. she escapes and now her whole arc is finding herself and being who she is separate to what people tell her she is. mike comes from a lowkey conservative family with parents who are married only to fit into the normal, not because they love each other. his arc, similar to his sisters' struggle in earlier seasons, is to not fall into conformity just because you feel like you should. both of these stories line up with the main moral of the show: be who you are even if it isn't "normal" ot whatever now how does mileven go against this? mike, and a bunch of ppl around el, in the earlier seasons keeps telling el what she should do/be. even in the later seasons we see mike refering to el as a "superhero" (which she doesn't like). neither of them feel free to be themselves around the other (shown by el lying to mike and mike being WAY out of character around el, etc). mike literally can't tell el he loves her while not under pressure. mileven sometimes parallels mike's parents' and sta.cy (a failed conformity relationship) and other bad relationships ANYWAYS it also reallyyyy pains will byers (who's been canonically in love with mike for like years, and mike's best friend) to see this. also, milevens keep harassing will/mike shippers on anon even months after the last season. like they have a hate discord server just for it. anyways i love mike and el but ohhh my god there is still SO much i haven't mentioned about how bad they are together (and how bad shippers often are, sometimes being violently homophobic and calling bylers delusional and shit)

OOOH IT FUCKING SUCKS THEY ARE SOOOOOO BAD FOR EACH OTHER JESUS THEY DON'T COMMUNICATE LIKE EVER THEY ARE BOTH CLEARLY IN IT BECAUSE OF THE EXPECTATION OF A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE THEY CAN'T CONFIDE IN EACH OTHER THEY DON'T SHARE ANY INTERESTS THEY'RE HAVING CONFLICT MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THANK *GOD* I AM UTTERLY CONVINCED THEY ARE HEADING FOR A CANONICAL PERMANENT BREAKUP. NOT TO MENTION THEY ARE BOTH GAY AS HELL TO ME. YOU SEEN THAT "THIS SHIP IS SO CANON AND IT'S A LESBIAN AND A GAY MAN" TWEET? YEAH. FUCK THIS STUPID FUCKING SHIP NOT TO MENTION THE SHIPPERS ARE FREQUENTLY OPENLY HOMOPHOBIC. UGHHHHHHH KILLING BITING (this is my fave btw)

they have no chemistry or buildup unlike the other st couples. they kissed season 1 right after she asked if he would be her brother. hes very obviously compensating for something. i think i gagged when they made out in season 3. speaking of. thats all they do. make out. they dont really have meaningful conversations. this also comes from the fact that when mike met her she was fresh out the lab that abused her for like 11 years. she was not socially ready to understand the bounds of a platonic relationship let alone a romantic one. anyway mileven break up s5 will happen i believe it. if nothing else. cross ur fingers gamers

the sheer homophobia and general toxicity that the fans of this ship create is absolutely insane when their perfect (read: mischaracterized) straight (read: homosexually-coded) couple is judged for having toxic or incompatible elements is insane. the only good romantic aspect between these two characters is in a cringefail "wow this really doesn't work at all" i-want-to-put-this-dynamic-under-a-microscope-and-study-it-because-it's-an-absolute-trainwreck" kind of way. el has been abused and cut off from society her whole life and at 12 years old she immediately gets together with this guy at whose earth shattered after his best friend went missing who then has surviors guilt after she almost does which is misconstrued as romantic rather than unhealthy obsession and trauma. and so on and so forth.. there's just so much wrong they lie to each other So Fucking Much despite truthfulness being very important to them and they ignore their friends to make out (which is filmed in a way that is meant to feel uncomfortable btw lmao) and el doesn't understand mike's trauma from bullying and he doesn't understand how she doesn't want to be built up into being a superhero etc etc. and it's just so increasingly bad I want to rub my temples just thinking about them. they're just so bad for each other and their relationship has done nothing but make them worse in general but for some reason their ship is viewed as fluffy or cute or whatever the hell. anyway mike is so heavily coded to be fucking gay and in love with his best friend (and el can be interpreted to be lesbian coded) and I just need to get them out of there amen

I'm gonna make a list bc the reasons are many: 1) their first casual interaction they get together but in the same conversation she asks him if she can be like a sister to him 2) all their "cute moments" are them making out in the 3rd season with still absolutely no chemistry 3) their only actual cute scene is them dancing at the snowball yet in the same scene they portray the same way two couples that are not romantic 4) mike becomes a terrible person when he's with eleven 5) eleven literally GOT OUT OF A LAB SHE WAS RAISED IN and this is the first guy she dated 6) she can't even say he's a good kisser 7) mike can't tell her that he loves her (bc he doesn't) and the only time he does he makes this whole ugly ass speech up about how she's his "superhero" even though she doesn't want to be seen only for her superpowers 8) in said speech, while listing the things that he loves about her, he only names her superpowers + he lies multiple times 9) EVEN AFTER SAID SPEECH she is still mad at him and won't talk to him (probably bc she saw right through his bs) 10) she spent a whole 6 months lying to him about all of her life 11) mike is clearly gay and is meant to be with his childhood best friend will 12) mike idolizes her and doesn't see her as an actual person 13) eleven needs to be her own person (ffs she just got out of a lab) 14) the ship sucks and even the authors and actors say so

they have NO chemistry. they kissed after one week of knowing each other when they were 12 and eleven didn't even know what a romantic relationship was at the time, given the fact that right before mike kisses her she says "will you be like my brother?". they spent the entirety of season 2 apart with mike calling el on his walkie and el watching romantic movies on the tv for a year (then will is in trouble and mike says 'fuck it' and goes full protective boyfriend mode but this isn't about byler so i digress) and start dating soon after they meet again even though they haven't had a SINGLE conversation and are barely friends. season 3 comes along and the writers do their utmost best to show us how incompatible they are. their makeout scenes are uncomfortable, they break up at the beginning of the season and neither one of them seems particularly bothered that their first relationship is over. in fact, the happiest we see el in the entire series is during the time they're broken up, when she gets close to max (who she actually has chemistry with, by the way) and finally experiences freedom, being a teenage girl and etc since mike had been "keeping her all to himself" for like, a year. aside from that, he doesn't go after her at all after she dumps his ass (literally) but when he and will have a fight, he bikes across town in the rain just to apologize, that boy is GAY. finally, the theme of season 4 is lies and once again, mike and el spend the season apart (once again, mike spends the season with WILL) and right before they part ways, they have a big fight about mike being unable to so much as WRITE "love, mike" on his letters to el, let alone say it, and he bullshits his way through it and refuses to say the actual reason until vol. 2, when he apparently "confesses" that he's afraid he'll lose her if he says it (okay, amigo, you're gonna lose your girlfriend who was literally begging you to say 'i love you' not even a week ago, aham, totally valid excuse). conclusion: they don't know each other and they don't act like themselves when they're together. mike hides his nerdy nature, el feels like she has to be the amazing superhero he's always viewed her as or else he'll lose interest and it just feels like they're both grasping at straws because this relationship has been dragged on for too long that they don't know how to break up permanently. they are afraid of losing each other, but not romantically, as mike was el's first semblance of family after escaping the lab and mike feels like it's his duty to protect and care for el. also, mike is gay. in other words, FREE THEM.

[the-lark-ascending69]

Any headcanons for the "Vickie instead of Eddie" AU?

Thank you sm for asking im so excited abt this au

In one hand I feel like I'm just genderswapping Eddie, or replacing him with an OC, because we know so little about Vickie that I'd be mostly making things up, so in order to avoid that I want to take a moment to properly analyze what we have on Vickie so far:

She's in band.

She volunteers to make food for the homeless

She feels selfish for complaining about her boyfriend with everything going on

She rambles when nervous, apparently, just like Robin.

She likes Fast Times and left her boyfriend over it, because he said it had no plot (possibly indicates a deeper understanding of movies)

It's little but I think it'll do. What I want to focus on is her kindness and selflessness, which already sets her apart from Eddie. Not that I think Eddie is particularly selfish, but "kind" isn't the first word to come to mind when you want to describe him.

However, in order for the AU to work, we need to translate some Eddie Traits, or Eddie Situations, onto Vickie, those being:

A reason for her to be accused of Chrissy's murder.

A reason for her not to go to the police.

A reason for the town to fear her.

Living in the trailing park, near Max's trailer.

Some loose connection to the Hawkins Crew to explain why they even care to dig deeper into the case.

The obvious connection to draw there would be Robin's crush - she notices when Vickie doesn't show up at school the next day, she talks to Steve about it, Steve dismisses it as her skipping school, etc. One interesting thing to work with is Robin's tendency to both project on other people and idealize them, which is very present in her book and podcast. She thinks she can just "observe" people and make a perfect image of them in her head, often based on her own biases, despite reality being different. She did this when she was 15, so idk of she'd still do it at 18, but I do think she idealizes Vickie a little, even in the show - she calls her the girl of her dreams without knowing her, for fuck's sake.

So now she's making up explanations as to why Vickie couldn't possibly have killed Chrissy when Max shows up and tells them she saw her running away from the crime scene. Everyone is confused as to why Robin keeps defending her despite not knowing a thing about her. She later asks Steve if she was too obvious ("Maybe a little obvious," he says "but they probably still think we're secretly dating or whatever, so you're good for now").

Now, a reason for Vickie to be accused of Chrissy's murder... I have a few ideas:

A) They were friends, and she was with her when she died (only explanation as to why she wouldn't tell the police is that she killed her).

B) She was a drug dealer, much like Eddie, and Chrissy went to her (most interesting scenario in my opinion. The juxtaposition of "cute petite girl" and "drug dealer" is very sweet to me, and it would really defy Robin's expectations).

C) She was a rumored queer, and the persecution has a strong homophobic edge to it. They only think she killed her because she's a lesbian (which is pretty much the same as a man in their eyes), and she didn't go to the police because she knew they'd think she did it.

I like B and C, I'm going with those.

So, Robin insists this couldn't possibly be, and Dustin is like "dude, she ran from the police. From the police, man" ("to be fair, I think Nancy did that like a fifty times", Steve says), and Max will say something like "actually, there is something", [insert peculiar observation + plausible alternate expalantion as to what that might mean and how it could make Vickie innocent]. More focused on figuring out whether or not this is Upside Down related or not, the Hawkins crew begin looking for Vickie, find her at Reefer Rick's etc. She doesn't react violently like Eddie did - she's small and meek and curled into a corner, crying softly. Robin finds her, and talks to her. Things unravel from there.

Idk how different the story would be. Vickie wouldn't die, for starters, because part of the point in doing this is creating a complex love interest for Robin. Another thing to take into account would be Vickie not being confirmed queer until the very end. Keep Robin on her toes. She has no idea whether or not they're just ugly rumors, and honestly she just feels worse throwing herself at her with the entire town calling her a murderous dyke, stalking poor teenage girls.

Her personality is entirely different from Eddie's too. While Eddie is loud, selfish, cowardly and likes to be an asshole to kids, Vickie is kind and sweet and treats kids very well. She becomes friends with Max and Lucas and always checks on them. Being in band, she's been to all of Lucas' games, so she's seen his progress, she knows he's great. And being neighbors with Max means she's knocked on her door with a cacerole in her hands whenever Max's mom wasn't there for the night - she figured Max might be hungry. They don't know how to feel about the drugs thing, but they like her.

I think it would be nice to make her... not as similar to Robin in personality. I wouldn't make her as talkative or rambly, rather, I'd make her introspective and introverted. Soft-spoken. Also, with a lot of trauma. Something something mom also sold drugs, got arrested, now she keeps doing this to survive because she has no other way to make money + she probably has debts, etc. Give her a more melancholic edge. I think that would be quite fitting.

She and Robin develop a friendship through the season, getting together somewhere in S5.

[transinclusionary]

You hate Terfs so much but make ur whole blog about them and obsessing over them Lmao pathetic get a life

wait okay let's get the hypocrisy straight. By your definition, you would also be making men your whole personality because you "obsess" over it by discussing sexism (towards cis women lets be honest).

So what you're saying is that you complaining about men isn't obsession it's social justice. But me complaining about terfs terfs is obsessing? But if a blog was kill all men you wouldnt see a problem with that? It's cause you genuinely can't see the benefit in advocating for male rights for marginalized men. Yes becky, that does exist. Men can be marginalized while also benefitting from the patriarchy. Dont understand why I gotta remind every terf to the concept of intersectionality.

See it's the fucken hypocrisy for me with you terfs. I cannot stand how your rules only apply to you and no one else. You do realize that that rhetoric is literally used to devalue discussions led by marginalized communities towards their oppressors.

You know why? It's because you are literally the hate group. But you're even worse than other hate groups because of the amount of emotional manipulation. You accuse people of the same things you're guilty of because you know 'if I accuse someone of being obsessed, it will cover up for the fact that I'm literally foaming at the mouth thinking about trans people.'

I genuinely do not understand why you think you're better than a conservative transphobe. It baffles me that you wholeheartedly believe you're better than anyone when you are literally the WORST parts of every discussion you're apart of outside of your echo chamber. Without fail every discussion you have with someone who doesn't agree with you falls back to 'very homophobic or sexist of you.' But never catch you saying the word cissexist, racist, or intersexist. If something doesn't match your world view, you discard it.

You say "women can be more than what society tells them they can be!!" Then turn around and harass women online because they're trans. Make it make sense. The whole terf movement is laughable because of how polarized it is. You don't have an identity. You can't believe what you say about sexism and homophobia if you perpetuate your "justifiable" bigotry. Get real. No one respects you because you're a bigoted "social justice" group.

Can you fucking imagine if neonazis advocated for anti homophobia but still hated different ethnic groups? Or violent transphobes (you) railing against sexism? Time and time again, when I make this comparison a terf will say "not you comparing women to nazis" and not listen to a word I say. I stand by that comparison however. You are dangerous to the well being of trans people, thus you are no better than other hate groups.

Your willful misconception to human nature is baffling. I have no idea how every terf has an argument against why women committing crimes isn't indicative of all women but what one trans person does somehow means all trans people are like the one (1) person you talked to. Go fuck yourself for real and get the fuck off my blog.