#i'm the only one. i'm the only cis person of some of my friend groups!

[genderqueerdykes]

One of my friends went on a whole rant about how they hate men and think they're all bad, it made me feel super unsafe and scared. I don't know how to go about telling her to just... Not? (I'm a trans man btw and she knows this)

that sucks so bad, i'm sorry that she did that. right now people are taking things out on people who haven't hurt them and it needs to stop. she needs to care about how that affects you.

some talking points you can use would be

You're still a person. It might be good to gently tell her things like "Hey, I'm still a person, and my feelings matter," and "This is making me feel unsafe. I'm not sure if you realize that you are also creating a hostile environment and it's not fixing anything."

Pointing out that pathologically avoiding men will keep her trapped in her trauma indefinitely and that all she's doing is avoiding coming to terms with the specific injustices she has faced so she can move on to a happier, more complete life.

Pointing out that is paranoid thinking, and it might be good to point out that she's not the only woman on planet earth and the men around her are not salivating to assault her in specific.

Pointing out that this is catastrophizing behavior and black and white thinking. Instantly assuming the absolute worst about of group of people is catastrophizing, which is not a healthy thinking pattern. "Woman good" "men bad" is black and white thinking, which is also not a healthy thinking pattern.

Pointing out that hurting someone else just because you have been hurt is perpetuating the cycle of abuse, and that she as a woman is capable of abusing other people, including men.

This is judgmental behavior and she would be hurt as fuck for strangers to assume she's stupid, pathetic, weak, can't think for herself, can't defend herself, can't ever do anything for herself strictly just because she's a woman. Doing it to someone else doesn't make it right.

The people she is profiling as men may not be men- they may be closeted trans women, transfems going stealth, intersex people, and so on. they may also be queer. they may be a trans man, a gay man, a bisexual man, an intersex man, a polyamorous man, an aromantic man, an asexual man, a bigender man, a genderfluid man, a nonbinary man, a genderqueer man, or any other kind of queer man. She does not have special laser vision and cannot tell strangers' genders just by looking at them no matter how they present outwardly.

Claiming that one gender is wholesale better than another is exactly why we have misogyny & woman hating in the first place. Demonizing and villainizing a gender is where this all started.

Surrounding herself with women will not keep her safe because women are 100% capable of abusing, hurting, torturing, bullying, sexually assaulting, injuring and killing her. Women can be and are dangerous at times as well.

Women are not defenseless soft pathetic weak little waifs who can do no wrong and are constantly victims in every single scenario. Women should not be allowed to dodge accountability by virtue of being pathetic scared defenseless weak women, as this is misogyny, and women are accountable for their actions just like everyone else.

Women are not inherently comforting or nurturing. Women are not always focused on taking care of people and sometimes do enjoy hurting people who haven't hurt them.

Women are capable of lying, manipulating, stealing, and gaslighting.

The most dangerous people in the queer community right now are cis women, in the form of terfs and radfems. Women do not always have everyone's best interests in mind.

Pointing out that the concept of manhood and the existence of men isn't what hurt her, and that specific individual men were the ones that hurt her, and that she's not holding those specific men accountable by blaming their genders instead of their actions.

Doing this to and showing hostility toward men will not motivate them to treat women and femmes any better.

Saying that all men are inherently evil and predatory is allowing them to dodge accountability for their actions by saying "men are just like that". It doesn't give them a chance to improve and grow, which is something men are 100% capable of doing.

and if you can't bring it up to her, don't feel bad. people are literally proud of being judgmental assholes right now and it's sad as hell. treating men like this isn't going to fix any of this. best of luck to you, i hope she smartens up and learns that this isn't helping her at all. it's just turning her into a bitter, jaded asshole

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita for calling out someone for being manipulative towards a trans friend? Names have been changed for privacy reasons and TLDR at the end because this is long.

I (24f) am cis but have had a lot of trans friends (binary, nonbinary, and neopronoun) throughout the years and am very supportive so i take this very seriously. So I met this girl my first year in college (we were 18 at the time) and we became friends. We're polar opposites, she talks a lot and I don't, she parties a lot and I like to do more sophisticated things, she's a typical extrovert basically, and I'm more introverted. Anne (24f) was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I don't know when, she just told me this years ago. I've seen tiktoks about bpd and researched Google about bpd a little so I know all about how they have fave persons and will "mimic" people in the friend group and become clingy, manipulate, etc. I've seen pics of her in high school, noticed that she was a theater kid, she said she was good at acting and even said she thinks her bpd helped with her acting although I'm not sure how, but she said she only joined the theater club because a boy she had a crush on was in theater. That should've been my first red flag but I was naive. She has a degree in something else (not theater) because our second year in college her favorite character in a TV show did a certain job, she got interested in that, and now she also does that as a living. She doesn't talk about her bpd, she's only mentioned it a handful of times. I can count on one hand how many times. And I get it because she said someone once told her people with bpd should be sterilized and not be allowed near children. Which is really messed up and I hate that someone said that.

However on with the situation. One of our friends Mike (25m) is a trans man. We met him four years ago. He's very handsome, broody, introverted, intelligent, great listener, very accepting and understanding, similar to me but opposite to her. Now we didn't know he was trans until two years ago, because I asked him on a date and he turned me down, and when I asked why he told me that he was mostly T4T and only viewed me as a friend. We were like woah you're trans, okay that's cool, etc. He explained that he was lucky enough to get on puberty blockers and transition young etc which is why he passes. I said okay I'm not trans and you're mostly T4T fair enough.

Well last year Anne suddenly tells us that she is trans too. She says she's bigender. She says she is okay with either she her or he him because she feels like a man and a woman at the same time. Some days she's a woman, some days she's a man, and some days she's both, according to her. She says she does not like they them pronouns. Suddenly her and Mike are spending all this extra time together. Last month he confided in me that he thinks he's in love with her, after years of him only seeing her as a friend, and then they started officially dating.

Here's the problem: she has not changed her outward appearance, her name, started any kind of medical stuff, joined any groups, bought a binder etc. We all continue to call her she and her because she fully presents as female and doesn't have a problem with it. Also she's very effeminate in body language, the way she talks, etc. I know technically I could call her a he or a him, too, but she never asks me to or corrects people when they call her she because well technically she is a she too. Mike is the only one who uses he and him pronouns with her as often as she and her, but she has never thanked him. It really feels like she's saying she's trans and then going about her life exactly as a cis woman simply to convince Mike to date her.

First off, Anne and Mike are NOT compatible. She likes to party, smoke weed, talks a lot, I'm not sure how she graduated with such good grades or why she does so well in her job because she is honestly a LOT to handle and I'm saying that as nice as possible. Mike would never touch weed or go to clubs and he says he would be fine staying home while she does those things but how could you trust someone to party while high and not hook up with others? I've seen her make out with five people in one night at a frat party. They also had wildly different childhoods, such as she grew up in a conservative community and doesn't speak to her family, and he grew up in a liberal area and is close with his family. But more importantly she has a history of joining theater because she had a crush on someone in theater (plus she admits she is good at acting, so maybe she is acting now?) and getting a degree and job in a field because a favorite fictional character did that and now this? It feels like she was attracted to him, found out he usually dates other trans people, and found a way to continue being cis but claim to be trans without having to do anything trans related, basically mimicing her favorite person. As soon as they met they hit it off, or should I say she clung to him and pretended to have the same likes and dislikes whenever they were alone I assume.

It sounds terrible I know, which is why I discussed this with a group chat first that neither of them are in, and the group chat not only agreed that she is far too "obnoxious" for him (those were NOT my words!) but that she is faking being trans in an attempt to make him fall in love with her (which seems to be working.) I would NEVER have gone further without making sure with them first. So then a few of the people in my group chat and I held an intervention with Anne alone. The six of us (the others don't live close enough to come) met up with Anne at her place and told her what she was doing was wrong and gross and that she needed to get help for her bpd and to stop catfishing Mike. She didn't take well to what was said, which I anticipated, but she went crazy. She was screaming at us, insulting us, sobbing while yelling etc, literally said if we ever contacted her again she would call the cops, so we left.

I immediately called Mike before she could and asked him to meet me at a restaurant nearby and that it was very important. Since Mike doesn't know anyone in the group chat I went alone and I explained EVERYTHING before she could gaslight and manipulate him even further. He left, did not finish or pay for his food. I messaged him several times, but a few hours later he texted me to never to speak to him again, and then blocked me on everything. I showed up to his house and Anne was there. Mike said if I ever contacted him again he would get a restraining order on me so I left. I've discussed this with the group chat and now suddenly half of them changed their mind and don't want to talk about it anymore. Several of them left the group chat. Not only that but several of my friends who know either Mike or Anne or both have blocked me on everything. When I've tried to contact these friends through other means and explain everything, they either didn't respond or said for me never to contact them again because I was being transphobic. Listen I know under NORMAL circumstances you shouldn't question when someone comes out but this is NOT a normal situation, and now I am concerned Anne is unsafe for Mike but also an unsafe person to know, as she literally is trying to destroy my life because I called her out on some seriously messed up and abusive behavior.

TLDR am I the asshole for trying to protect my trans friend from a potential stalker?

What are these acronyms?

[drdemonprince]

sorry if this is too long but i really appreciate your perspective and would love some advice

i have a mixed gender friend group irl, however i am the only transmasc in the group (the rest of the group is queer transfems, queer cis women, and our token cishet guy) and ive run into a little issue in that im quite close to one of the cis girls of the group, and we occasionally have deep chats about our queer identities (we're both aro, im ace, shes bi) . these chats are great and i really appreciate her as a friend but one thing shes always bringing up, even in unrealted conversations is how much she hates men .

im not a transandrobro so this isn't gonna be one of those "im one of the good ones" or "i feel guilty for being transmasc" asks dw. the issue came up when i was discussing how i was going to start T pretty soon (i pass decently well without it already but as more of a butch/androgynous type look) and as we were talking about the changes she was acting... genuinley scared and disgusted??

especially when i talked about how i will likely grow more body hair, and how T affects scent and stuff. she was almost horrified. "yeah but you dont want that right? youll shave it?" . i already dont shave my body hair (she does) and i cant help but feel scared that one of my closest friends is going to find me revolting once i start transitioning medically.

i didnt even mention bottom growth after that because i was so scared of what her reaction to that would be.

idk if you have any experience or advice for this? or any reading on the subject? ive found that its only the cis women in my friend group who are acting this way as well. i feel like maybe its because theyve secretly been viewing me as "just" a masculine woman this whole time. i id as nonbinary with the group, but secretly i really do think im a trans man, but based on the disgust with those things im reluctant to come out again.

Honestly this is a really common way that cis women microaggress against trans mascs! Those two identities have competing privilege/oppression intersections and a lot of really wild shit can play out as a result, as well as due to the projection that can happen because both groups have shared a social identity at some point (whether we liked it or not). It may not be fixable, but I think you need to set the tone that this kind of negative commentary on your transition and body is NOT acceptable, and to do so EARLY, so that you are establishing ground rules for how you will be treated.

Example conversation:

You: So I started getting some hair on my neck around my Adam's apple.

Her: Ewwwww, but you're going to shave it right?

You: (pause and look at her seriously). Gender transition is something I'm very excited about and that's very good for me, you know. I am happy about everything that's happening and I hope that as my friend you would be happy for me too.

Let's say that she continues to be somewhat shitty about your transition multiple times. Here is how you might escalate without totally blowing your lid.

Her: Wow, your [voice is so deep/your acne is getting so bad/your hair pattern is changing/whatever thing she is being shitty about].

You: (stop whatever task you're doing if any to give this full attention. lock eyes with her, maybe even sigh). I have told you multiple times not to comment on my appearance. It makes me very uncomfortable. I don't enjoy spending time with people who comment on how I look.

I think your focus should be not on correcting her feelings, which she needs to go like stare at a pond and reflect about on her own, but instead reign in her shitty commentary completely -- and if she won't do that for you, then you will need start ending conversations/walking away/not inviting her to things/whatever other boundary setting strategy you like. I would prioritize nipping the personal comments in the bud over the "men are so disgusting and evil" kind of commentary, because I think that matters more and seems to bother you more -- but if it were me? I would also be pissed that she wasn't including me in the category of "men" when she was talking about them, and would say things like "I'm a man too, you know." Or "Yeah, WE can be kind of annoying/boorish/smelly sometimes." This isn't some transandrobro NOT ALL MEN thing, it's an anti-transphobia don't misgender me thing. And perhaps by taking accountability for all that manhood is -- the good and the bad, the euphoric and the just neutral, you will influence her in a positive way to think about these things more neutrally. If not, well, that's her fuckin loss.

[pawberri]

thank you for all the posts you've made, your takes are always so refreshing to hear.

I want to know your thoughts (if it's okay with you, you can also totally ignore this) about all the "men hate" I see online. like I (poc transmasc non-passing) get it, there are genuine societal gender problems. transmisogyny does exist-women face more challenges than men do. but it genuinely hurts when women, especially trans women, think it's funny/quirky to call men trash or say they want all men dead or whatever. idk I just am hoping someone else understands, you know?

There's a lot of nuances to this question. First, I just want to caution against focusing too much on trans girls as the perpetrators of this. A lot of the asks I get from trans men seem to really fixate on trans women as the perpetrators of hard line gender essentialism. I really think trans girls are not the main people we should be focusing on here. If a trans woman is saying this stuff, take the time to analyze her ideology outside of that pithy comment and consider how much trauma and how little power she has in the world. That said, trans women are affected by this kind of ideology just like us, and they rarely have the power to wield it against others in the way cis people can. I know it hurts to feel isolated by your own community, but that kinda gets into my second point.

Part of dealing with this is learning an impulse progressive cishet dude have had to get used to over the decade. Sometimes, "men are trash" or even "kill all men" are not literal phrases. They are things women say when they're in the throes of trauma to vent their frustration. "Men are trash" in particular is generally pretty lighthearted and used to complain when you have a bad date or something. You have to get used to analyzing what someone actually means and airing on the side of empathy. You, as a man, are the one with some amount of systemic power over that woman, so you are the one who needs to prove you are dedicated to not being a misogynist. The same thing happens when my friends say they hate white people. I have to assume they don't hate me given that I'm their friend, but that I still have some of the negative traits of whiteness. I need to care enough to be a good friend by being anti-racist and checking myself on my behavior. I need to be willing to prioritize their comfort over mine. That includes not becoming this meme:

Now that that's established, there ARE times when "all men are evil and should die" is an actual ideology. It's an ideology that hurts tons of minority groups before it hurts the most powerful, but it's also not really great if we assume it only hurts cishet white guys. Following it to its logical conclusion, it just proposes a reversal of oppression dynamics. This gender essentialism is a key part of radical feminism, trans exclusionary or not, but it leaks out of that community to general feminism all the time.

As a young person on Tumblr and Twitter, this deeply affected me. I internalized the idea that you can "just be a girl." It was repeated by some trans girls, but also a LOT of TME people. It was framed as trans inclusive, but it's trans inclusive in the way "political lesbianism" is lesbian positive. It posits gender as a moral choice that is completely up to the individual and unrelated to biology. It's the lazy version of "gender is a social construct." I felt sick and disgusting for wanting to be a boy because tons of well-meaning friends of mine had made it clear that "being a boy" was a choice, and it was the wrong one. "Boy" was a social category that could and should eventually be eradicated. Trans women were conditionally supported because they, in theory, made this future possible. This didn't amount to actual support, of course. It was an ideology mostly spread by afab queer people that mostly benefited afab queer people. There were a few trans girls who spread it, maybe some due to genuinely believing in the ideology and some due to social pressure, but there were also a lot of people straight-up grifting as trans girls who used this thinking to feel powerful in a niche community of teens. Remember fucking Yandere Bitch Club???

At a certain point, I genuinely thought of being a man as an unambiguous moral failing, and I lashed out at out trans men because of it. I wanted to feel powerful, and here was a type of man in my community I could shame and exclude. I still feel bad for making a bunch of ~girls only~ stuff in HS that excluded the one out trans dude at our school, my friend, because he was just a ~binary man~ and leaving him with no friends and no community. I treated transphobia like it wasn't a real oppression on its own and, in doing so, perpetuated transphobia. It happens a lot.

I wasn't really able to accept that there was nuance to the concept of manhood until I read this article while struggling to accept my own gender:

This is a pretty seminal piece of writing. It has its flaws, of course, but the empathy and intersectionality it highlights was life-changing. It also shows that this kind of thinking is largely perpetuated by TME people and hurts trans women greatly.

Gender essentialism is a bad ideology, it's a transphobic, transmisogynist, racist, etc etc ideology. It's literally essential to patriarchy. But it's also very easy to repackage into leftism and easy to dogwhistle. As a result, it's natural to be hesitant when you see someone saying they hate all men, but you have to tread extremely lightly and actually care what they're attempting to express. Because, yeah, men as a social class still hold power over women. They still have reason to fear and hate men.

I'm writing a comic about this stuff, actually, so look out for it in the future..........

[transfemme-shelterdog]

Hi sorry I don't want to be another bummer in your inbox but you're just. One of the only people listening to us. Please ignore if you're not in the right headspace.

It hurts and is fucking infuriating that transandrophobia as a concept has nothing to do with transfems really. It's just a word for us to describe our experiences with.

But now because a couple motherfuckers decided to blame another group of trans people for their struggle instead of. Like. Cis people. None of us can talk about our struggles without being forced into a conversation about trans women and how much we must hate them.

We have to justify ourselves and our struggles to people who weren't invited to be part of this conversation, in fact there's a general conclusion that transmasc people are the LAST people you should listen to on the topic of transandrophobia.

It's our word, for OUR experiences and struggles, but we're the ones who aren't allowed to talk about it without being harassed. And we've heard everything from being called TMRAs to being told "Yes trans men have struggles but actually 'transandrophobia' is a transmisogynistic dogwhistle so you can't have that word"

We've had many words and ALL of them have been branded wrong, I've lost friends and mutuals for not budging on the idea that transmascs should be the ones to ultimately choose how to talk about their own issues.

But no. We're ugly disgusting oppressive MEN. We're gender traitors. We just want attention. We're whiny. We're just hysterical bitches.

We're hated and turned away by the queer community for our masculinity while being treated like the women cis society wants us to be.

We have both cis man and cis woman privilege so we should shut up.

We can't win. No matter what we are or how we present ourselves we're WRONG.

I don't know what to do anymore. Society won't have us because we're queer, the queer community won't have us because we're not queer in the 'progressive' way.

Sorry if this is incoherent. I'm tired.

Yeah it really is upsetting that people out here try to claim that transmascs and trans men can't talk about their own oppression, using words that they choose.

There is absolutely nothing transmisogynistic about the discussion. Sure, some trans women may come along and try to talk over trans guys, or say that you're somehow a bad person for using a word that you want. Then trans guys may be like "hey girl, this isn't your place to be correcting us, please stop". But that's not transmisogyny, that's reminding someone of common decency.

I absolutely agree that you should be allowed your own word, and to talk about your own experiences without people coming along to "correct you", and call you names. It's unfair, and reeks of sexism.

Nobody I've talked to has been transmisogynistic towards me, which is telling because I am very active in the discourse. Total bullshit, easily disproven by my own experiences.

[velvetvexations]

i wanna say this is not said in anger or an attempt to say nonbinary people are privileged over binary trans people, thats certainly not the case, im just here to state my thoughts. the "binary trans people having the resources and genes to pass perfectly to match a changed gender marker in the eyes of cis society affords privilege to binary trans people" is disturbingly reminiscent of "if trans men pass perfectly they get cis male social privilege meaning trans men are oppressors" and ignores it for what it is - conditional hyperspecific privilege that a grand majority of binary trans people will not be able to access. it largely depends on where you live, access to hrt, and access to gender marker changes - being able to change one but not others(extremely common) is an instant out no matter how cis you appear.

as for spaces being less understanding of nonbinary people, i believe thats also a vary-by-location thing. ive been iced out of friend groups for being gnc and not wanting to id as nonbinary. ive been to trans groups and a trans event that was geared for trans women and nonbinary people without advertising that fact. seeking out community irl in the previous two states ive lived has left me usually the only binary trans man, and isolated and shoved aside for it.

it also inherently implies binary trans people's goals are to assimilate perfectly into cishetero society which is also rarely ever the case. and when we don't, we're punished for it by both cis and trans people. binary as an identity does not mean upholding the gender binary, like any other its a personal identity term, typically just meaning "a man" or "a woman". the "gnc binary people(too far from the binary)" feels like its missing the point and trying to other binary people who dont wish to perfectly assimilate which again, is not the grand majority of us.

again im not saying nonbinary people are privileged as a class above us. i dont believe any trans people are privileged above any others. some of us may have specific, rare access to conditional privilege in some situations but i feel like its splitting hairs to try to afford that some tangible place to split apart trans people, who are all one messy glob of Other Freaks to cis society. ive seen so much "binary trans people are privileged because they experience X and nonbinary people experience Y" when ive been living my whole life experiencing Y. i think a lot of us subconciously invent a new gender binary thats "binary(cis assimilationists)" and "nonbinary(everyone else)" and cling to the idea that binary people could never be treated as weird outliers and freaks.

one final go of this was not said in anger to that person's ask. i genuinely mean no ill will or attempt to shutdown discussion or claim that nonbinary people are privileged instead.

Yeah, like, I'll say that I am an example of a binary trans person who does not fit very well into the binary by virtue of my identification with being male and being proud of my "male" traits, so I don't have access to most of the relative benefits. Even being called "male" and having the symbol I like so much on all my shit is not necessarily the best because that always comes with the idea that I'm also necessarily a man, which I'm not and I really do not like being tagged as.

[red-hibiscus]

BL characters I relate to most as a mentally ill gay trans man

Daisy from SCOY

Surprising no one, I, a trans person, relate to Daisy. They're outgoing and seemingly don't care about how people view them. They know they're visibly queer and they normally don't mind it (from what I see). But at the end of the day, society does affect them. They're hesitant to believe Touch genuinely cares and is attracted to them despite Touch being an absolute green flag who is very direct with his flirting. Even after, Daisy was worried about people would view their relationship with Touch and tried to become Day, a more masculine version of themself. Impossible of course and they broke down emotionally exhausted. I feel that so much because I also don't believe it when people, especially cis gay men, are attracted to me. I've caught myself trying to change my behavior to be more masculine (as I'm a bit on the nonbinary side of things). It's bad, but I know how Daisy feels.

Wang from 180 Degree Longtitude Passes Through Us

As a 26 year old trans gay immigrant in a country that doesn't want me, I have a shit ton of pent up anger that has been building up since I was a child. I've calmed down over the years, but I can still be stubborn and argumentative when it comes to politics and human rights. I'm also a linguistics major, thus an academic.

Wang is so much like myself and like a lot of people around me. Like me and Wang would be close friends irl I know it. We're young and stubborn. We're angry at the older conservative people around us, too much sometimes. So he lashes out. Many of his points are correct, but they're not hitting. Partially because the people he's talking to don't want to change, partially because he himself is stubborn. People like us yearn to be free, to be ourselves and to learn. Wang has a passion for the humanities like myself. Yet he knows society really only cares about STEM fields. I've compromised and am getting a master's in computational linguistics. Even though really I just wanna learn as much as I can about sociolinguistics.

Karl from Gaya Sa Pelikula

I haven't watched GSP in a hot minute, but I do remember feeling very seen.

So in the show Karl has his gay awakening, tries to internally and externally deny it, and eventually let himself be free to feel everything and be himself (at least in private).

Now I didn't have a gay awakening, but I guess you could say a trans awakening. In middle school I felt different, I suspected maybe some flavor of LGBT, but wasn't sure and I was too afraid to think about it too hard. Come high school I secretly wanted to join the LGBT club, but was afraid. Then I was essentially adopted into the LGBT club and dragged into the friend group during lunch because I was a loner like everyone else. At the time still "identified" as a cishet woman. As time went on people started to suspect. "Why are you in the club?", "why did you cut your hair", "why do you dress like that?", "your voice is low for a girl haha", etc. Much like Karl, I was not ready for any of that. I was still struggling to make sense of it all and come to terms with it myself. So I kept rejecting it and every time it hurt.

I kept rejecting it until I couldn't. Until someone I resonated with so much came out as trans and it clicked. My trans awakening was complete. I became able to be more myself, but only in private safe spaces. I wouldn't come out and live as a man until after high school and it was terrifying.

Adachi from Cherry Magic

I've only watched the jpn ver, but I'm sure that character remains the same.

I'm anxious and used to be quite shy. Now I'm just awkward. I'm really bad at seeing the good in myself cause I feel like I'm wandering around aimlessly in life. Not that impressive. So when people compliment me I think "haha they're just being nice" (refer back to me never believing people are actually attracted to me).

Adachi is the exact same. He has the same routine every day. Just going through the motions and not really thinking anything of himself. But then Kurosawa comes along and the ability to read minds. Adachi then realizes "wait, someone I respect so much actually loves me? And thinks I have a lot of good qualities? Makes me wanna cry." And me too Adachi. I'd be the same.

Jared from 7 Days Before Valentine

Jared, my precious baby, is described throughout the show as kind, but weird and different. We later learn that he has dyslexia, and honestly he seems to be somewhere on the autism spectrum. Even if he isn't, he has a behavioral difference people pick up on and then shun him for it.

I too was seen as kinda weird growing up. Maybe it was the autism, maybe it was the social anxiety. Probably both. And then of course there was the gnawing feeling that I was different than everyone else and it turns out it's because I'm trans.

So when Jared said that people didn't talk to him because he wasn't like other people it hit me so hard.

Myungha from Love For Love's Sake

The whole show is sad yet cathartic for me. Myungha is depressed yet spends his time comforting others. He has a hard time loving and receiving love. If you give him a fictional character who is very similar to him he will love them and see all the good, but he doesn't see it in himself. Relatable as hell.

I have an incredibly hard time being honest with my emotions and letting people love me and express attraction. Mostly in a romantic/sexual context. Dpdr is cockblocking me. So dating is hell, but I'm lonely and yearn to not be.

Probably if you put me in a situation like Myungha I'd also go "yep, that right there is my blorbo" and then not realize that all the things I like about the person and make me care about them are things I have.

Honorable mentions:

Both Akk and Ayan from The Eclipse

Nozue from Old Fashion Cupcake

Oh-Aew from I Told Sunset About You

Cher from A Boss and a Babe (I headcannon him as autistic)

Amber from DNA Says Love You

Uea from Bed Friend

Mitsuomi from Restart After Come Back Home

Jao from SCOY

Maybe I'll make another post for those later

[the-great-ladyg]

So, I watched the James Somerton second apology video so you don't have to, this are my highlights, feel free to add more if I missed something important:

He monetized the video to donate to HBG's team and Wikipedia, apparently, he said also he has reached some of the people who he plagiarized but still, if he did he would have explicitly said "I'm donating to them"

Did he really said "well, I'm a white cis gay man, I don't have the same experiences as others in the community" as an excuse on plagiarizing others' works? And the "I thought I might be able to won over some people" sounds like some white savior shit

He still throws Nick under the bus, it really shows that James doesn't regret any other times he did that and it sounds like he hired Nick as a shield for criticism and not to have a more diverse work team

He apologizes to Jessie Gender and many others, but doesn't explicitly addresses why he might have offended them on first place (except for the police incident), yeah, he says he was reactionary, but he has been on many occassions. I'm not expecting a full detailed explanation, but at least he could have said "for the Nebula drama" or something like that

James says that at one point, due to covid economic consequences, he and Nick became poor and that led him to plagiarize more since they had to upload more videos, and look, I suck at organizing my time, I tend to do everything with little time before the date, and I wrote most of my thesis on the last minute with one or two days of investigating and I still didn't plagiarize, I could cite all of my sources the correct way, if my early 20s procrastinating ass could wrote a 70 page thesis on my own without plagiarizing, he could write a script with a second person without stealing but he prefered to do it anyway

Also the alegedly head injury, I'm not going to say that's a lie, but knowing how this guy uses any card on his favor, this might be something he pulled from his ass to justify himself

I don't know why but some of this Telos drama explanatiom sounds again like he didn't even know how to do all of this, and I get what is to start a project having little to no idea on how to start or continue, but he tried to do so much with so little without asking for any help when he clearly needed some help other than Nick, and also sounds like another excuse to justify plagiarizing

"Misinformation made its way into our past videos", no, my friend, it doesn't make its way when you investigate or check a site other than the first one you see, James loves to say he likes to investigate but still says things like this. "It wasn't malicious", (seriously, the audacity of this bitch), oh yeah, there's nothing malicious coming from the mysogynist biphobic and transphobic dude who misgenders trans people and erases a woman's bisexuality, specially when this lady told you she wasn't a straight woman as you said and this was a known fact for a few years

The ADHD thing feels like some ableist shit, like "don't blame me, I have ADHD uwu", James has offended many groups and communities through his youtube career and in his apology video he still finds the way to insult another group that suffers from many harmful stereotypes

As I said on a post addressing his first apology video, James can't create a space for everyone if he's transphobic, mysogynist, acephobe and racist, and he pretends he's convinced he was creating an "inclusive space"

Just as many people have said before, he didn't address anything of the things he's been accused of except plagiarism, he only says "I'm sorry to everyone who I have offended", no dude, you don't address mysogyny, racism or transphobia this way, James is a piece of shit and a coward.

And this idiot has put on public display some of his videos, specially the ones that show his racism (yeah, the Killing Stalking and Painter of the Night videos), I'm not clicking on them but I'm pretty sure he didn't cut his racist mysogynist rants, because they might not be plagiarized (if James is to be trusted) but they show the worst parts of him when he's trying to be original, and putting this shit videos on public shows he regrets nothing on being a piece of shit.

[genderqueerdykes]

your post makes no sense? all of the identities that you named are NOT cis men??? and quite frankly it feels transphobic for you to consider them that

i'm a trans woman so i'm part of the group i'm commenting on. you do realize that a bigender trans woman who identifies as a trans woman and a cis man is still partially a cis man and that's not transphobic and it doesn't invalidate their trans womanhood, right? you do realize that a transfemme cis man is still a cis man and that doesn't invalidate their femmehood, right? you do realize a transfemme genderfluid person who identifies as a cis man is still partially a cis man and it doesn't invalidate their other genders, right? being bigender doesn't completely erase 1/2 of the identity. being a woman doesn't cancel out being a man. are you seriously saying that because that person has a queer identity means that it totally erases the fact that they are literally also identifying in plain english that they are also a cis man?

immersing yourself in the transfeminine community will help with this drastically. i don't know you or your history, but most of my IRL friends are transfeminine, myself included. there are many of my transfem friends who never want to be considered a man, and that's perfectly fine. however, i would say a good 1/3rd of the trans women i've met have also still identified as a cis gay man on some level. without shame, without it taking away their womanhood. existing alongside each other; parallel. if you meet and befriend a good number of transfeminine people you will find out that a lot of transfems identify as cis men and trans women at the same time. that's not new. many trans women identify as cis gay men and trans women at the same time. like, it's an extremely common thing. bigender means having two genders- one is trans woman, the other is cis man for people who identify this way. this person is a trans woman, a cis man, and a bigender person.

this doesn't make that person a bigender person, and a trans woman only. why do you think it's okay to completely erase that person's male identity? why do you think it's okay to completely ignore someone's manhood for the sake of their other identity? cis manhood isn't "icky". it doesn't get cancelled out by queerness. them partially being a cis man does not invalidate their trans womanhood. wake the fuck up, you're being transmisogynstic as hell right now and it's embarrassing.

a question you must ask yourself: why are you insinuating that it is transphobic to refer to someone correctly? my post specifically referred to trans women who also identify as cis men in their own words. why, in your mind, is this a bad thing? you MUST ask yourself why it's "transphobic" to acknowledge these identities and refer to these individuals correctly. you must ask yourself why you're putting your comfort before someone else's representation. there are transfemme cis men. there are transfeminine genderfluid people who identify as cis men when they are men. there are non binary cis men. why do you think that cis men cannot be queer, or trans? why are you assuming that a trans woman being a cis man at the same time is transphobic? why

this reeks of "woman cannot be man at the same time or else woman get cancelled out"

what is confusing about trans women having multiple genders? what's wrong with a bigender, multigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, genderfuck, gender non conforming, and/or intersex trans woman having a male identity that's also cis? what's wrong with that? how does that erase or "conflict" with the rest of their identity in any capacity?

there are bigender trans men who are cis women and trans men at the same time. there are bigender trans women who are cis men and trans women at the time. literally how does that not make sense. please explain to me how it doesn't make sense. every single person who has told me i'm not making sense hasn't told me why. please explain to me why you proudly and loudly saying that bi/multigender trans women don't exist is okay, but me fighting for people to understand that they do is transphobic.

stop virtue signalling and shoot the cop in your mind dead. in your attempt to look like a hero and earn brownie points all you did was show that you literally don't understand multigender, genderqueer, non binary, and other gender vast experiences. trans women won't magically like you more now because you decided to show everyone that you think it's transphobic to call someone who overtly in their own words identifies as a cis man, a cis man.

cis men aren't the devil. calm down and stop freaking the hell out over the fact that you can in fact be a cis man and a trans woman at the same time. the sun will still rise. the world will keep turning. it's not transphobic to refer to someone by the terms they ask you to use. get over yourself on this one, anon. that's your cross to bear: you are the transphobe. do yourself a favor and look into multigenderism before you decide to comment on trans theory again

you thought yourself into a corner and you can't find your way out.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for accidentally outing my fiance?

I (27F) am engaged to a 24M guy. He is trans, but he doesn't identify as trans anymore - he's post-everything, passes 100%, lives stealth/as a cis man, and no one who didn't know him pre-transition knows him as anything but a cis man. I know keeping that up is very important to him, we've had a lot of conversations about how happy he is just being seen as cis and being able to pass. I know getting outed and 'found out' is also a big worry of his, for example for our upcoming wedding he's rushing around trying to make it clear to his family that they shouldn't mention him being trans or refer to him as she/her at our wedding because he has so many friends coming who don't know he's trans. It's not that he doesn't trust them or he's ashamed of being trans or anything, he's very supportive of his trans friends, but he just doesn't publicly live as trans.

We're in a big Discord server of friends that have been quite close for about a year now, enough that we've met multiple of them in person and two of them are going to be in his wedding party as sort of 'best man' equivalents (we're not really sticking to bridesmaid best man stuff just our mixed gender friends). He has kept his Facebook very private for as long as I've known him, the only people on there are IRL friends and family because he has in the past posted trans stuff on there, like transition updates, it still has old pictures of him pre-T or in early transition, etc. I knew he didn't want this found. He also hadn't told any of this group aside from the people he was especially close with and had invited to the wedding his surname and location in case they looked him up and found something.

People in the server were sharing their Facebook profiles and I shared mine so people could add me. My fiance messaged me right after pointing out that me sharing mine would dox him as I had him in my relationship status and friends list, but I unfortunately didn't see this message for a while as I was distracted and doing other things. By the time I saw, everyone in the group had already clicked and gone through my profile and found his.

He tried to go through and speed-delete everything he could find that was public that mentioned him being trans or showed him pre-transition, any comments from family referring to it, etc but pictures that were set to friends only were still popping up in previews on the side and some of his family have public profiles that show cover images with him pre-T and things like that.

Our friends were making jokes about finally knowing his surname, going through his whole account down to the time it was first made back in 2018, commenting on old statuses of his, so they definitely saw his profile and went through all of it. He was panicking because he had no way of knowing if they'd seen that he's trans or not and got super upset and freaked out about the possibility, and he couldn't ask without outing himself or making them suspicious.

I apologized and deleted the link but obviously by then it was too late.

I do think it's not a huge deal as much as he thinks because I know our friends would be supportive and wouldn't think of him differently, but I know it was still important to him. I'm not sure they did see because some of our friends are the type to have just blurted out "You're trans?!" in the server without thinking about it (not because they're malicious or judging it, but some of them aren't as online and don't really know how to talk about it sensitively if that makes sense) and they didn't say anything. However he thinks they did because they were talking about statuses older than the ones he managed to get to deleting in time.

Like I said i did apologize but I feel like he's still upset with me for not thinking before sending my profile. On top of that I have kind of a habit of doing things impulsively and without thinking (I have bpd and bipolar) and not always taking into account how it will affect him or what consequences it will have,which I've been working on for years but I worry this is just adding to that which I know already wears on him.

What are these acronyms?

[opossumanon]

I just got reminded of an experience of mine a year ago now that serves as a pretty good example of the kind of shit trans men, transmascs, and transneutrals often go through.

(Full yap session ahead)

So I'm sitting with my new friends at the same spot in the hallway as always. We aren't exactly a small group. We're all different, but one thing that's obvious is that in the eyes of bullies we're all fucking losers.

So this one group comes up to us and starts to make fun of us. Every fucking day. Like clockwork. They're puny little shitheads who have barely started puberty. Their leader, who was shorter than me, couldn't even say "cavalry" correctly and was pronouncing it as "chavalry" for some fucking reason.

Every day, this kid and his buds come up and try to harass us, often by asking us about gay shit and asking me about my pronouns. Every day, I roast him and the group into oblivion and they sulk away to regroup and come back the next day.

One day, this kid is mad enough about me making him look like a small-dicked loser in front of his friends, that while walking away he calls out at me "I would fight you but I don't know if you're a boy or a girl"

He never acted on the threat thankfully (Probably cuz I literally chucked him out of a classroom), but the point still stands that this fucker and his friends were threatening to attack me for being trans.

This fucker and his friends looked at me, someone they knew had a vagina and tits, but used a deep voice and had short hair, and they couldn't tell if I were a binary tranny, a nonbinary tranny, or an ugly dyke. They wanted to beat me up for it, and also cuz my tranny/dyke self was making them feel emasculated.

This is the kind of shit that trans men, transmascs, and transneutral people put up with more often than some of yall realize.

(To clarify right now NO, I AM NOT SAYING THAT TRANS WOMEN, TRANSFEMS, AND FEMININE CIS WOMEN DON'T GO THROUGH THIS. THEY DO. WE ALL KNOW THIS. I AM SIMPLY POINTING OUT AN EXPERIENCE THAT MASCS, AND NEUTRALS TEND TO HAVE THAT THE REST OF THE COMMUNITY TRIES TO DENY THE EXISTENCE OF)

We're still threatened with violence. Our existence makes perisex cis men uncomfortable, makes perisex cis women disgusted, and makes both scared for one reason or another. The more masculine an "afab" queer person is, the appropriate it is to beat the shit out of them. Because she's a man, right? If she wants to be a guy and wear guy's clothes and speak with a guy's voice, then she can take the fucking beating that we give her, because that's just what guys do.

So transmascs will walk into a queer space and become the emotional punching bag of insecure queers, and then turn around and walk into a cishet space and become the literal punching bag of insecure cishets. We just can't win.

Obviously the queer space is still safer, which is why we're still invading with our disgusting testosterone-filled bodies. But it isn't exactly fun to try and engage with people we see as "like us" (queer) only to be pushed away because we're men, and if we're men we never deal with oppression, right? We can handle violence, cuz that's what men do. As men, it's our job to let the ladies and fems verbally diminish us because they were hurt by men and so they have a right to take out their pain on us. If we don't agree to this, then we're misogynistic pigs, and then "trans men really are the men of the trans community".

Transmascs with functioning uterus' are conveniently left out of abortion rights discussions, and when we try to announce our presence we're told to shut up. Transmascs who are passing are conveniently left out of trans discussions, and when we try to announce our presence we're told that we don't count because we aren't oppressed because we fully pass now. Transmascs who don't pass are conveniently left out of safety discussions, and when we try to announce our presence we're told that we don't count because we pass as cis women, and cis women have more privilege than trans women. (That last one is a real line I've seen on this site btw)

Trying to say "I want acknowledgement" as a transmasc present at a more friendly queer space doesn't result in vitriol, but what happens instead is that there will be a "transgender recognition" night that has maybe one trans man if we're lucky, and then dozens of trans women and more feminine-looking nonbinary people.

I'm gonna cut this post off right here before I accidentally type out a full-blown book of all the gripes I got, but the point is that you can't apply the baby-level radfem idea of "man bad, woman good" to the queer community. It's dumb as fuck in the cishet world, and it's so much worse in lgbt spaces. Literally the point of being queer is to fuck with gender roles. This doesn't just mean everyone is feminine. You can't walk into a queer space and go "men are evil" without it affecting half of the queer population. Trans men aren't attacking trans women by saying "I want to be respected as a human being, please". Trans men aren't trying to trick gay men into fucking them by saying "I want to be respected as a gay man, please". Trans men aren't trying to trick lesbians into fucking them by saying "I want to be respected as a boydyke, please".

If everyone in the community were to take a fraction of the energy and love they dedicate to feminine queers and use it to "reach across the isle" and try to connect with and understand masculine queers, the community as a whole benefits. Also masculine queers deserve to be treated well even if it doesn't give good things to the entire community, cuz we're people too. We deserve decent treatment because we're human. Who woulda thought.

(P.S. I still see the leader of the dumbfuck squad walking around sometimes. He's still shorter than me, but his hair is taller. I swear it looks a little more tall every time I spot him.)

[bloggingboutburgers]

cw: discussions of bullying and aphobia

Hearing aroace peoples' existential crises over their friends discussing crushes, as someone who was socially isolated and severly bullied for their whole childhood and most of their adolescence so had NO friendgroup until adulthood and NO community or inclusion in literally anything (and when it came to sex and romance the other kids explicitly considered my potential involvement in either to be impossible / laughible because of how "weird" they found me (my autistic traits before I even realised I'm autistic)), felt like starving while listening to someone else complain about the food they're actively eating.

Food intolerances and dislike of different foods (as metaphor for being aro/ace) ARE important and difficult to grapple with when you're expected to eat specific foods in specific proportions at different times - but man did it sting until I realised why I felt that way and gave myself a talking to since my trauma doesn't justify belittling the very real struggles of aroace people.

I guess since the choice between 'stay alone or conform' was never really a choice because I was rejected no matter how cis straight or allo I was it taught me to go "fuck it" and accept myself regardless of what other people do or say (which ironically has lead to me becoming dramatically popular all of a sudden at uni, which has been weird to get used to since I have literally no experience with any of this - platonic or otherwise - which did lead to some advantage being taken of me but f*ck it we ball ^^'). And I guess it's just been difficult understanding why anyone would care so much about whether they're "normal" or not? You really have nothing to gain from that, safety is not guaranteed in conformity so best to live aroace and damn all aphobes to hell if they have a problem with that.

It's a mindset I'll never understand and that's only ok now insofar as that lack of understanding no longer results in misplaced anger at people who, for a time, I had once considered spoilt, ungrateful and out of touch. Basically, I'm full of sh*t and to every aroace person reading this you deserve good friends that actually respect you for who you are and do not even TRY to get you to change your mind about sex or romance. Have a lovely day x

Sincerely,

An aggressive emotional support anon

I'm genuinely sorry for all the hardships you went through. I don't mean to equate at all, truthfully from reading you and considering I WAS asked some of those questions as a kid regardless (the "who's your crush" bullshit and whatnot), it definitely sounds like I had it less hard than you did, but... I was bullied in elementary school and middle school, also not necessarily because I was aroace (I don't know why it happened really, I don't know if anyone ever knows, I boil it down to... me being me and there being something fundamentally wrong with me ig), and I definitely also get some of those feelings of "oh boo hoo you call that struggle" boiling in me when people discuss their own past struggles sometimes, so... Yeah, every one person's experience is unique, but I can at the very least very much sympathize.

I think a way it manifests in me is that I now have that compulsive, debilitating fear of being "othered" in any way, shape, or form, so I guess being aroace doesn't help my case. But at the same time... Well, like you brilliantly put it, when you're in a situation like that, no matter what you do, you won't be accepted anyway, and having that knowledge back then is probably also what lead me to figure myself out as aroace so early in life. Because I was treated as this much of an outsider, I ironically had that much room in my own head to form my own identity, far apart from others and the need to conform. Yeah, that identity may include a "piece of shit that doesn't deserve to be supported of part of a group" side that's been forced in, buried deep down and can't be erased, but... It also includes asexual and aromantic, and it's been cemented so hard from so early with such self-affirmation that later down the line, it saved me from a lot of stuff. I never had to force myself into a romantic or sexual relationship because I was undoubtably aroace – and people saw me as an outsider and an eyesore anyway. I spent years of being scared to go to school or out in the street every day, but later down the line, somehow, I feel it saved me from doing so many things I wouldn't have wanted to do.

...Bleh, sorry, didn't mean to turn this into me-me-me crap when you had the courage and sincerity of not only showing your experience, but finding the strength to show more love, understanding and support than a lot of people probably cared to give you for so long, despite all the pain you felt for so long. I guess I just wanna say... This take is definitely inspiring, so thank you on behalf of myself and others I'm sure, but also... I hope that, for yourself, you're also managing to own what you lived through in a way that allowed you to affirm yourself more strongly (it sounds like you are, I hope it IS the case), and most importantly, I hope you're in a much better place in your life now and you'll never have to return to that level of loneliness again.

[reddthekingg]

Yall not to be edgy and vent on main but it stresses me out so much being around people now in terms of being trans cause like. My most recent friend group that I no longer talk to for personal reasons were all queer and or trans aside from one guy and I feel so much more confident in that setting cause like. i don't have to worry about my identity at all I'm just a dude with them and it's fine. But when I'm in spaces with people little to no queer people and no trans people I feel so much more uncomfortable because like. As soon as gender/love life's are brought up I'm never included when they speak about men, if that makes sense. And literally like an hour ago my friend was talking about how she loves specifically cis men and like. I'm not saying that women can't be romantically attracted to only cis men I get it people have preferences it's just. It's hurtful, I guess???? Also I was talking about how me and one of my friends have a date planned (romantic or not I don't actually know) and the same girl went "oh I didn't know blank was into girls?" And she corrected herself afterwards but like. I don't know sometimes it just hits me that outside of queer spaces I'm not seen as a man at all and it's really hurtful dude like. These people KNOW I'm trans like it's not a secret I'm openly out and everyone knows me as redd, I never get deadnamed but like. Some people don't realise there's a difference between calling me the right name and respecting my gender identity. Because people call me the right name and call me girl or use she her and it's. So infuriating. Or people default to they them for me, which isn't inherently a bad thing but I know most people I know use it as a scapegoat from using he him for me and I. I really don't like people using gender neutral pronouns for me anymore since I came out as trans because it seems like such a cop out from using my preferred pronouns 😭😭😭. Sorry to the 3 people who see this I just had to yap.

[seoulciology]

some of my fav video essays + comments

although i don't take in 4 hour thesis papers through youtube, i do enjoy the occasional deep dive especially when it comes to something korea or sociology related, so i'm here again. this post includes some youtube videos i personally enjoyed and any extra information i feel is important to add.

chapter 1: behind asia's forceful plastic surgery obsession

this video is incredible. i really enjoyed how the creator focused it towards collectivism, and i feel like this theory is pretty well proven. i appreciate the empathetic approach and how the video doesn't demonise western or east asian culture, simply explains the motivation for surgery within the 2. i've never seen research delve into appearance and culture so deeply, even though i'm sure all beauty standards have a cultural explanation. (if you have please share, i would love to read it.)

i have nothing to add, just that i reccommend you watch it.

chapter 2: squid game: ideology and the new soviet man

i promise this blog focuses on korea + sociology in general and not just squid game, but in my defense, it is a pretty good show and has a lottt to unpack.

moving on, another blogger ( @queercodedangel ) recommended this video and after watching it i can confirm i really enjoyed it! i like that the youtuber brought out marxist sociologists to cite theories and i feel like the analysis was really neat.

nothing to add. i would not recommend this to someone that hasn't watched squid game or who doesn't care about marxist theory though, cuz it is a little niche.

chapter 3: squid game's trans character

after watching squid game s2, i saw a youtuber that i've followed for a while (jammidodger) had released a video about it. personally, i thought the trans character (hyun-ju) had been represented pretty well, despite the actor being cis. however, i am not trans, so seeing jamie release a video talking about it intrigued me.

the video is honestly pretty well researched. i know in most marginalised communities a character represented by someone who does not identify with said labels is very tricky territory, as it can become a caricature and potentially hurt the reputation of these already oppressed individuals. jamie recognises this, but also agrees that it was not offensive in a range of ways and researched into exactly why park sunghoon was chosen for the role.

his opinion is pretty simple, it is always better for a trans character to be played by a trans actor for authenticity, but! korea is extremely unaccepting of trans people.

having a trans actor in such a popular show could have put the actor herself in danger. it is also very hard to find an openly trans korean actress. jamie delves deeper into the subject, but overall i enjoyed seeing his genuine opinion and as someone who is really interested in korean culture, i appreciated how he took time to look into cultural factors and was respectful.

there is one thing! and only one! that i found wrong with this video (it is really minor, but this is a blog where i yap after all). in minute 5:38, jamie doubts wether the six-legged pentathlon was truly realistic because of the small amount of time.

i would argue it is! i think something people tend to forget, especially with this game in particular, is that these are children's games that the participants probably spent their whole childhood playing. if you've ever picked up gonggi (korean jacks / the colourful pebble throwing game) you'll see it is hard. if you spent every day practicing it with your friends for your childhood years, you'll see it is not unrealistic to win on your second or even first try.

in terms of hyun-ju's character, i would also like to recognise that it does not feel forced at all. since s1, squid game had been showing marginalised groups in korea and just how horrible life can be for them. (in the same way capitalism is worse for marginalised groups irl) this is consistent in s2. also i agree with the general public that saying "squid game went woke" is crazy. i invite anyone who believes this to take a step back and consider how a miniseries about capitalist dystopia could never not be woke in the first place.

overall, i would recommend this video if you've watched s2 because it's always important to get a trans person's opinion on a trans character. i like how understanding jamie is of all topics he covers, so if you're interested, check his channel out!

chapter 4: how south korea saved autism representation

this video is similar to the last in the sense that an autistic person gives their opinion on a k-drama with an autistic character that is played by a non-austistic actress. once again, as a non-autistic person, i watched this to gain some valuable perspective.

when i watched extraordinary attorney woo, i loved it. the representation felt authentic, un-caricature-like and woo young woo was very likeable. i felt identified with her perceived 'clumsiness' and her love for something niche (hello,, this blog??)

by the fourth episode, i had seen online that the consensus was that this show was pretty good representation. i was quite bummed when i found out park eun-bin was in fact not autistic.

meg puts the rest of my thoughts into words, and i like that she does not hold back from giving criticisms for things she found were lacking or incorrect in the miniseries.

i have no other comments other than i recommend this video for anyone who likes video essays in general and i would definitely recommend extraordinary attorney woo if you need a show to wind down and relax with at the end of the day (it's my comfort show, i loved it)

chapter 5: south korea is over

this video is honest with its statistics and also has a touch of humour. definitely more depressing than the last two ones i commented on, especially if the country you're from also has a declining birth rate. (...)

its quick, straight to the point and nice if you're curious about censuses (basically only i am but either way) or the situation of the world.

conclusion:

i love video essays! sociology is so interesting! enjoy my reccommendations and opinions!

[silvercage]

(  luka sabbat  •  cismale  •  he/him  )ㅤ ›ㅤ still here, still making things happen — would azure isle even run without ꒰ hugo martin ꒱ ? the ꒰ twenty - seven ꒱ year old ꒰ kids sports coach ꒱ has been a part of the island’s rhythm for ꒰ two years ꒱, ensuring that everything flows just as effortlessly as it appears. you’ll find them at ꒰ le petit club ꒱, where they handle every detail with the kind of precision the island’s elite have come to rely on. they’re known for being ꒰ affable ꒱, always having their ꒰ polaroid camera ꒱ nearby — and spending time at ꒰ favorite le jardin café ꒱ to unwind after work.  

personal record.

full name — hugo william martin .

nickname(s) — marti , will .

date of birth & age — november 22, twenty-seven .

gender / pronouns — cis man, he/him .

sexuality — biromantic / bisexual .

occupation — kid's sports coach .

astrology — sagittarius .

songs that hugo listens to while definitely not hiding to avoid working — cuntissimo - marina ; tricky disco - discotronic ; from paris to berlin - infernal ; zero for conduct - block b ; arriba - ateez ; SOS - ABBA ; run the show - kat deluna ; be our guest - beauty & the beast OST (blame his work actually tyvm) 

general disposition — patient and stubborn .

interview.

what’s the trick to keeping the island’s elite satisfied?  

" lie to them . " hugo cackles , seemingly being the only one to find it funny , actually . " oh , c'mon . jokes , obviously . but also kinda not , you know . I'm telling you , some of them truly want to be lied at . they don't care for honesty , or genuine answers . they want what they want and they will get it in the end - that's all . they just park their kids , expect me to sorta fix them or some shit and then they pick them back up or . . . not . let's be honest , majority of the time they just sent their nanny or something . so , yeah . guess in my field of experience simply taking their offsprings from their hands for a couple of hours is enough to make them happy . but generally speaking . . . " the man leaned in , nose scrunched in a jest not yet to be shared . " you know what I'm about to say , don't you . "    

what’s one part of your job that no one realizes is harder than it looks?  

" oh , pfft . okay , listen . like everyone knows it , probably . I don't know , is it common knowledge at this point ? huh , anyways . nobody prepares you just how sticky the kid's hands are . like , child what have you been grasping so hard for it to squish up both your palms like that . gross , wash your paws . the last part I actually say to 'em . get's a giggle everytime " and with his voice fading to the backround of waves crashing , hugo finds a new focus . " nah , but really . one time there was this kid crying , inconsolable . the whole group tried to cheer him up throughout our session , some kids even brought him snacks afterwards . man , so sweet - asked about his faves and all . but he wasn't budging . later found out his parents split right before the trip here . kinda fucked to just let that go over your kids head 'cause , guess what ? the kid had to figure out themselves . yeah , they didn't even tell the poor dude . they just packed his stuff and left without his mother . just like that . so , yeah . also that . those little buddies bring everything and you either deal with it or ignore it . but . . . how could someone actually do that ? I personally can't . those are my tiny friends , you know . gotta care for them . "  

they say the staff see more than anyone else. what’s the most interesting thing you’ve observed?  

" don't know if it's interesting persay , but there was this one guy who notoriously stole things from staff and visitors . told everyone he had to , kleptomanic or some shit like that . so he had his own little corner in the shops where he stacked the stuff he was allowed to steal . paid prior to it all , of course . but you can't fathom the hassle we all had to go through before we found out what was going on . the real kicker of that is . . . he stole and then gifted the things to people close to him or sometimes even people he'd just met . so , naturally when someone noticed their necklace , that conveniently went missing , on someone else's neck . . . hell went loose . took staff three days to piece that scheme together . but we vibe with dave now - actually a pretty harmless dude . "  

sagittarius : adventurous , optimistic , independent , playful , easily excitable , loyal , impatient , blunt .  

some lil hc about the man , the myth , the legend :  

if things didn't work out the way they did , he'd definitely be working as a freelancer in photography . he loves to snap pictures of everything ( like . . . literally , everything's worthy to capture . beauty of life and all )  

he's very very close to his sister , back in their childhood days everyone thought of them as twins but hugo is younger by two years . 

if you look up the word 'unserious' in the dictionary there likely be a picture of hugo william martin popping up next to it . literally the chillest guy and I don't say that lightly - it's actually so hard to yank him out of his skin . he's here for a good time or whatever .  

adding to that . . . he's part of two (2!!!) d&n groups and very proudly presents that hobby (try and guess his characters I double dare you)  

notable mentions in the hobby departement : gaming ( cozy games 'cause everything else feels like labor to him ) , collecting pokemon cards , playing basketball , tattoos (he has many himself and also owns a tattoo machine . don't snitch to his sister pls )  

once , at the age of five , stole a pack of chocolate peanuts - felt so bad that he cried so hard he threw them back up . . . right in front of the store  

apologises everytime he stumbles into something (i.e the corner of a table) and always says thank you to ai generated devices (i.e chatgpt) and in the back of his mind believes that this will spare him if artificial intelligence does take over one day  

has an alcohol intolerance and even one sip could knock him off his feet 

wanted connections .

wip :((

[mortal-kombat-1]

Is it that bad?

Oh buddy, it's that bad yes, lol. You got one dude who refers to himself as an actual robot who admitted to liking AI women (he talks to an AI chat bot daily) over real women because women won't have anything to do with him, which no shit considering the way he's afraid of 'em and has his mother bring food to his lazy ass 💀 Also, downright homophobic and only likes *gay folks* if they make him laugh. An actual thing he said to me... (some of us have the screenies of this ofc).

Another grown man who publicly admitted going through age groups starting with teens (he's 40 mind you) because his (and I quote) wife won't have anything to do with him.

Most guys in the modding group can't handle being told no. Being told we have a mental illness because we're not straight or because we refuse to give these dudes attention when they try. I've blocked a few because of said reason, then ofc we get told we're too old to even enjoy the thing we grew up with --- I'm 38, which ofc isn't old, lmao (has happened to a few of us gals in there.) And God, if they find out you have kids suddenly you're a terrible person for having a hobby (my kids are grown, but I still get pissed seeing others having to see/hear that when it's said towards them).

I hate saying this, because this sentence shouldn't even exist: but the amount of cis gay men who joined the fandom (and hide behind their lewd mods) to bash women or trans folks in the MK community is sad to fucking see, ngl.

You got the bunch who's obvious racist or scared of any person of color making mods to conform to white standards. Basically using the old excuse "but I have a black friend" to try to justify it when its called out.

Let's not forget they're still crying tears because they ain't showing some pixelated titty in a fighting game... so cue more horrible things said about anyone who isn't straight or white.

They're always going on about any gay ship they may run across -- instead of blocking it, they seek it out ofc and scream about it.

Like, I have zero fucking respect for these idiots nor do I care about their feelings.

There is so much going on in the modding community as a whole (not just MK) that would take me a good bit to type out, but really, just be weary of who you interact with in it. That's pretty much all I can say. There are some good modders out there still, and as I said it's sad seeing an active/fun community go to shit because these fucks are ruining it for others.