#have actual criticisms or shut the fuck up

[chantylay]

What in the shrimp colours of drama is this? Granted that I've only been transitioning for three years and don't know all the drama but this is ancient history drama. Background first so that I'm not vagueposting, in 1980 an arch-TERF arch-SWERF bastard wrote possibly the most transphobic book in existence and in one note in there credited Adrienne Rich with being 'supportive' of her personally. People put Rich on blast for this at the time, but Rich never publicly commented her thoughts on it. Leslie Feinberg (a trans person, communist, and pro-Palestine activist, mind you) put a similar note in their book Transgender Warriors in 1996, 16 years later. This seems to have led some people to think that Leslie Feinberg somehow palled around with every TERF going. Feinberg counter-protested MichFest for years, in case it needs pointing out, and we have no idea if their relationship to Adrienne Rich was personal or purely professional. Or if Rich simply realised that she had been a shitbag in the intervening years, assuming the endorsement is accurate (which it might not be). bell hooks is an even stranger case because afaik she talked about Paris is Burning (a documentary about Black drag queens) only in an essay in 1992, which she spends most of critiquing white feminism, white supremacist construction of white women as the standard of womanhood and Black women as Other, and white voyeurism of the (especially Black) queer condition, which alone is half the essay (I don't know how that ever could be relevant to a world in which RuPaul exists /s). The only time trans people are mentioned in the whole thing is in the second paragraph where hooks says that drag, and transsexuals and transvestites (which were still commonly used in-community words in '92 and don't convey offensiveness) all are transgressive to gender norms and credits us with challenging gender before any feminist ever did. After a paragraph where she talks about what sound like some pretty trans feelings tbh. She criticises the queens in the film, after a statement of how much she approves of queen in general, for aping white women and treating black women as undesirable. That's really the only time she criticises anyone even tangentially associated with queerness. Background out of the way (holy fuck I hate ancient drama) what in the fresh hell is this shit? Have we come to vagueposted denunciations of shit that happened before anyone under 30 was even born? About bell hooks' earlier essays and a note in one of Feinberg's most important books no less?

If you understand anything about systems theory, then you know that society is structurally transmisogynistic in the same way it is structurally racist, and that transmisogyny simply pervades society. People have to break down their entire world view before they can work out some of the more casual or ingrained aspects of transmisogyny. An occasional fuckup happens, and honestly isn't unexpected, but we can't go looking for transmisogyny in every shadow because a, we'll find it, society is transmisogynistic, of course we'll fucking find something, and b, we're going to push out everyone that isn't a trans woman and turn out no less isolated and curmudgeonly than the fucking TERFs. Their "misogyny! misogyny EVERYWHERE!" attitude turned them into pieces of shit, and I don't want to see the same happen to trans women who are new to this whole 'everything is a little bit transmisogynistic' thing.

Besides, if we're going to start doing denunciations of transmisogyny then I would've started with Julia Serano. Whipping Girl has a bevy of transmedicalist opinions and the idea of 'subconscious sex' misses the mark so badly that it almost wraps around to being a parody of a transmisogynistic position. Plus, the entire work has no idea about the difference between sex and gender in an incredibly frustrating way. I almost stopped calling myself transsexual for half a second to distance myself from the association.

struggling to understand how people can act THIS shocked whenever another TME theorist/activist (especially a cis 70s feminist) gets revealed as having written super transmisogynistic texts and palled around with TERFs. surely this cannot come as this much of a surprise. people are so incredibly reluctant to question the politics of the Established Feminist theorists. maybe someday having been "kink critical" and talking about the Unique Oppression of (cis) Lesbians and repeatedly drawn trans woman and lesbian as two separate categories and having attended fucking michfest will be enough for people to realize that without acting so surprised like come on now.

[drag0nagedatingsim]

I love how people's response to critiques about the companions not noticing or being supportive of Rook's mental health is "you're too stupid" and "you don't understand the game like I do" and "here's my headcanon why you're wrong."

Why are y'all doing all the heavy lifting for the writing and then giving all the credits to the writing.

"Emmrich is taking you to the graveyard to help with Varric's death."

WHERE IN THE TEXT DOES IT SAY THAT. Does Emmrich even know how close Rook was to Varric? That's a nice headcanon to infer, and it would make a LOT of sense. But this is literally the "tell don't show" game, where they tell you everything three times, unless it has to do with Rook's mental health, and then it's suddenly secretly an understated genius story that I just don't understand because I'm too stupid? Okay?

No, it's once again the framework of something great that is ultimately unfinished and underutilized and a lot of people are doing the heavy-lifting for the plot and seeing their heavy-lifted headcanons propelled across the fandom, and then thinking that's just what the text says. When it does not.

I do think this is also a result of the later half of the 2nd act and all of the 3rd act being really good. Like, the later parts of this game are so good that it has me doubting my sanity about the first parts, but then I replay it and go "lol no it was bad."

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine if you were a gay or bi man who tried a certain firefighter show because of all the attention it was getting for one of its mains having a later in life bi awakening.....and between seasons you ventured into its fandom in search of material to tide you over til the next one. And you're greeted by a deluge of posts and fics that are just cheerfully homophobic towards one half of the newly out bi character's canon relationship on the basis of 'well he's not the RIGHT gay guy' and pushing the idea that actually its fine to cheat on him because Reasons and he's sexually predacious based on......behind the scenes implications people have divined like they're reading fucking tea leaves.

But don't get it twisted....this fandom, like all fandoms, really cares about representation!

Sorry not sorry, but we really need to kill this idea that fandoms are welcoming and inviting and inherently progressive when they're frequently insular and reductive as fuck. Every single fandom I've been in has had major trends of people doubling down on their own headcanons and fanon interpretations of the characters and willfully enacting trends aimed at running off people who like the 'wrong' characters (usually characters marginalized along one or multiple axes), like the characters in the 'wrong ways' or other bullshit.

Scott is a Bad Friend fics overtaking Teen Wolf fandom was not incidental, it was a FEATURE of the fandom, because the vast majority of that fandom did not want to share its space with anyone who had the nerve to like its main character. Survivors complaining about or criticizing the prevalance of rape fics in a certain fandom has in my experience always led to a reactionary UPTICK in those fics, with gems like 'this character can, will, must be raped' in the tags making it crystal clear that some of these fics exist because how fucking DARE anyone try and push forth a narrative not agreed upon by Fandom Main.

I could cite examples for so many other fandoms, with the commonalities always being that vast majorities in these fandoms are explicitly reacting defensively to being asked to be more mindful of fandom trends revolving around or exacerbating racism, homophobia, transphobia, rape or abuse apologia, ableism, etc....

With the most prolific fucking rallying cry across countless fandoms being "No the fuck we will NOT be doing that," because lolololol.....

Fandom is an inherently progressive space, didn't you hear?

[andi-o-geyser]

something about the show treating percy's use as only being to serve vex's joy kinda fucking hurts. like vex is distraught, she was in the stream and she was here, that's true. but they are framing this as if it's a romantic loss only and it's making me lose my mind. people don't lose their use to others when they enter a relationship. they don't just become somebody's partner. they're still a person. percy was a full person and vox machina is a family and everyone loved him. that was the point of tearing ripley apart in the original glintshore fight, they were nothing but pure rage because they just watched somebody they love die and at the end of the day, past the monsters and world ending threats everything is about their love with each other, as a group; platonic, familial, romantic, but love as a FAMILY. that is critical to understand. they are who they are because they all love each other, they love each other to the ends of the earth. and the show just. doesn't acknowledge that. percy died so vex could feel sad and that's it. truly what even is the point if nobody else cares. the death doesn't matter if nobody else cares. so percy's death doesn't matter.

[eye-of-yelough]

oh and on the subject of johanna hezenkoss i think she would’ve been SO MUCH FUN as a campy comic relief villain if the other veilguard villains weren’t also ridiculously shallow and impossible to take seriously

[luna-the-cretar]

I’m nearly 100 episodes into campaign 1 of critical role, and I’m just now realizing something;

Vax is the ONLY one to have any real nicknames for each individual party member. And I’m not talking about everyone calling Percival “Percy” or Taryon “Tary”, but cute little nicknames that are based on his relationship with that character.

And literally NOBODY ELSE does this. Hell, Keyleth’s nickname (Kiki) wasn’t something that the rest of the party started using until like halfway through the campaign, while Vax had been calling her Kiki since the Briarwoods Arc.

And I know that Pike’s nickname for Grog is “Buddies”, but that’s almost solely a cartoon Pike thing. Granted, we don’t see Pike often in the campaign, but when we do see her, she still doesn’t have a nickname for Grog (not that I noticed, anyway).

The ONLY exception to this “rule” (I guess?) is Tary, who has nicknames for each party member right off the bat. But even then, that was because he didn’t know their names (aside from Percy, but I think that was because those two are basically clones of each other). But I think that also helps drive home the fact that Vax’s nicknames for his friends come from a place of love, while Tary’s aren’t (plus, Tary isn’t staying with the party for long, he’s there for a little over 13 episodes).

Idk, it’s just a neat little thing I noticed, ig. I love these characters so much and I’m so close to the end of the campaign, and I don’t want to let go of them quite yet. And I’m ABSOLUTELY gonna be analyzing each party member and their overall character development after I’m done with the campaign because OH BOY, there’s a lot to unpack here.

[s1xseasonsandamov1e]

i love when people pretend that not liking taylor swift is some crazy controversial thing like bitch you know damn well

[the-maladjustedjester]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAASJHDJSJAHJSKDHSJSL

FUCK

Fuck harry potter fans and FUCK the marauder fans

IT DOES NOT MATTER IF “oh haha we changed the original canon so this character is actually trans uwu” STOP COMPARING MALE CHARACTERS TO REAL TRANSFEMS OH MY FUCKING GOD HOW STUPID AND TONE DEAF CAN YOU BE

Like take a step back and think just for a second. Use some critical thinking here. And imagine a world in which a trans person might be uncomfortable being compared to a character who is not the gender they id as. Maybe just for a second.

IN NO UNIVERSE IS YOUR FANFIC-IFIED SIRIUS BLACK AN OKAY CHARACTER TO COMPARE A TRANSFEM TO 💀 I DONT KNOW HOW TO MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS

“Oh everyone thinks he’s like transfem or nonbinary or gnc now” DOESNT FUCKING MATTER 😭 “we took out the basics of the original story so how people react to being compared to a character should take into account how I think about it and they shouldn’t be upset, you’re just not getting it, maybe read some fanfiction and you’ll understand” FUCKING CHOKE HOLY SHIT DO YOU HEAR YOURSELVES

[bueris]

okay maybe I should seriously reconsider my path in life and sell my soul to marketing or journalism instead

[wawhii]

Being able to say "this is fucking stupid" and move on from something on the internet has been instrumental, but oh my god it's still such a pain in the ass to think about it nonstop for the next 20 minutes

[co27]

i guess my question is why DOES nuance immediately become looked down upon when it comes to that one webcomic

[burntblueberrywaffles]

OH MY GOD? You don’t like Taylor Swift???? You’re so cool!! And so original!!!! I’m sure your taste in music is impeccable and so much smarter and more refined that those dumb Swifties!!! Here’s a sticker.

[the-casbah-way]

the best writing advice i can give you is to ignore all of those people who insist there are a bunch of rules you need to follow in order to be a Good Writer, or are so painfully terrified of doing anything that has been done before or could be deemed cliched that they end up shoving themselves into a tiny box they’ve invented that completely restricts them creatively and stunts any kind of genuine growth they might get to experience as a writer. i ignore the rules of grammar fucking constantly if i think it serves the tone of my narrative better, because i think a sentence that’s ‘too long’ and doesn’t have enough punctuation is a GOOD thing if you want to illustrate a frantic or stressed person’s mindset. i WILL write the most stereotypical cheesy ending to a story because sometimes it just makes the most sense to do that because of the themes and conflicts im working with and im not going to force myself NOT to do it just because it’s ‘predictable’ or someone else did it before me (guess what everything has been done already and doing something that has literally never been done before is not actually what originality is). stop scaring yourself away from exploring and finding your own unique writing style just because someone is telling you you need to obsess over and memorise a load of non existent rules that people often just throw around to make themselves sound intelligent (it’s not working. you are dumb)

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

My roommate and I had a conversation last night and I keep rotating it in my brain and I Don’t Like It

[jaycetclis]

.

..

...

[thisismyworldyeah]

.