#i've never 'felt' any sense of community within my school grade of all things

[grape-eating-vampire]

so where I live, it's tradition for a graduation class to make a hoodie/pullover with a phrase including the word abi/abitur (this is what the level of graduation is called) among other things. everyone gets one and wears it for photos and stuff.

we're all now in the process of taking our last exams and today I looked at all the names on the back of the hoodie, all those people who I've gone to school with for like 7 years or more, people who grew up alongside me and. it's weirdly bittersweet. like there's over 150 of us and I probably never talked to half of them, but we all have that godamn hoodie. when asked what year and school we graduated from we'll have the same answer.

[mirabel-on-a-bicycle]

“We find our community when our community is visible.”

There's so much more to this scene than what's going on actually. Elle visiting Lambert and meeting Naomi and Felix, I feel, also alludes to this ongoing conversation about the difference in queer visibility and acceptance in the arts and in STEM.

I FELT that scene btw, I so strongly did. Stem has been my whole life. I've only ever been surrounded by the culture in these fields. And it's rigid. It hardly leaves any room for self expression (istg u do something as low tier as cutting your hair short and suddenly you owe 10 billion people an explanation). Even full fledged scientists like Dr. Daniel Pfau, Joey Nelson, Jarrah Dale and a whole slew of others on places like 500 queer scientists, OSTEM and Queer in Stem still talk about feeling unwelcome and alienated in their own academic spaces growing up and grappling with losing a sense of community within the very thing they had so much interest in as a kid.

I've been holding onto my favorite science podcasts and films so strongly since the last few years of school when my love for science was slipping away from me at an alarming speed, because they were the whole point of continuing, everyday, to face engineering as a future— to somehow sperate it as a living breathing thing from the dead system it was taught in, to still see beauty in it despite everything. They're incredibly important to me.

Last year I went to visit a friend studying at a very similar prestigious art college and.. its just that roaming around the whole place with her was like an ache getting heavier and heavier. High ceilings and walls plastered with concept art, personalised desk spaces and boards full of self expression—like you could look at a board and clearly tell what kind of person they were, rooms full of music, shaved thermocol lining the floor like snow, open galleries where the students had sleep overs, people in the middle of easy flowing conversations about films and gender and academic approaches, art pieces and statues in every bend of the road that completely dismantled every traditional assumption about them— it was all real. And it just. felt so right. It felt like something was glowing so so beautifully and strongly in me by the end of the day that if I ever left that place itd go out of control and set everything on fire.

And I distinctly remember my friend saying, matter of fact-ly, that half the faculty was queer.

In all the spaces I've ever been, I found the people I grew and bonded and learnt about myself with in friend circles, lab partners, and group project members. And in mentors especially. It was my 6th grade eng teacher who had stopped a student mid sentence and taken 5 minutes to patiently explain to us what being gay and lesbian actually meant and what words that we could've been picking up from here and there were hurtful and weren't to be said ever. It was Mr. Ajayi and Mrs. Singh who were trying to be the mentors to Nick and Charlie that they never had. I can't help but wonder how different it could've been for me and every other queer kid in my school and college, if we'd had even a single mentor we could've confided in like that.

The roads from my home to pretty much anywhere in the area are lined with arts colleges and galleries, and each day on my way to college, I pass the workshop I took courses in in middle school and its students, knowing that it's all within arms reach and yet so far away. I've (not very kindly) felt this contrast too, but I'm still nowhere near feeling what Elle and Naomi must've felt when they said that to each other.

And it really sucks that people can't have that no matter what their academic background is. That the sciences keep pushing out people willing to learn, that minorities in these spaces have always had it much harder because the system was so rigid that it left no place for community within education. It's a serious and very widespread issue. Black, disabled and queer students and professionals keep dropping out every year because of this.

And I don't know if this was intentional or not but I love love LOVE how heartstopper touches upon this subject as well. It truly left no stone unturned.

[mellometal]

Hey, everyone.

If you saw the post from earlier, I had to delete it. There were things I forgot to discuss and things that didn't get saved into my drafts. Sorry if you have to see this again.

I've been WAITING to talk about Glee. Not in the good way either. There's so much wrong with the show, and it's sickening. Yes, I've watched the show last year. Against my will, but that's because of other people refusing to put on anything else besides Glee. I can say that I hate Glee with my entire being. (My initial reason for hating it was because they covered "SING" by My Chemical Romance and turned it into a slow, patriotic song when it's a song about rebellion. NOTHING about "SING" is patriotic. I hated the show since I first heard about it...for that very reason. I was like thirteen or so at the time when I first heard about Glee? Despite it being out since 2009.

Though it's been over for several years now, it's a show that many people have mixed feelings about. From what I've seen, you either love Glee or you absolutely hate it. There's no in-between that I've seen. (If you can't already tell, I hate the show.)

The show is a literal dumpster fire, the characters are all fucking awful people and all of them are poorly written, the script pisses me off, it literally makes me feel disgusting, and don't even get me started on the covers. Most of the covers aren't that good. A lot of them sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. The pacing of the show makes NO sense in certain areas (like when Blaine was initially made to be a grade above Kurt, but was then changed to be like the same grade as him so he'd stay). It just feels like everyone in the show is either a Mary Sue, a Gary Stu, their whole personality is just that they're from a minority group or they're EDGY AND HARDCORE DELINQUENTS BLEEEEHHHHH, creepy as fuck, bigoted as all hell, or they're just background characters who occasionally have the spotlight.

TW: The following post and any other posts that I'll make about this show contains subject matter that may be triggering for some audiences. It will go into subjects like racism, homophobia, ableism, outing of a person in the LGBT community, bigotry in general, statutory r@pe (between teachers and students), teachers being creepy towards students, mentioned past child m0l3stati0n and invalidation of the victim's trauma, making fun of su1c1d3, making fun of overdose, making fun of drug addiction....a lot of fucked up things.

If anything mentioned above is triggering for you, please feel free to scroll and consume safe media instead. I'd rather have you be safe than to be triggered by anything I'm gonna talk about.

Let's start off easy. The characters. It's easy to tear them apart. At least the most problematic ones.

Rachel, the Main Character™️, is textbook definition of a Mary Sue. Instead of calling her Rachel, I'm gonna call her Mary Sue for the whole post. She's almost completely perfect (like too perfect), her flaws are minor if anything, she gets all the special treatment....you get the picture. When Mary Sue does anything fucked up or she says anything fucked up, it either goes unnoticed, people make up excuses for her being a shitty person, or it gets twisted so it looks like Mary Sue is the hero! (I hate her. So much. I cannot stand her.)

Aaawwww, Mary Sue didn't want some OTHER GIRL (Sunshine) to steal HER spotlight, so she SENT THIS GIRL TO A CRACK HOUSE. A FUCKING CRACK HOUSE, OF ALL PLACES. A PLACE WHERE THIS GIRL COULD HAVE BEEN PUT IN SERIOUS DANGER. THIS GIRL COULD HAVE BEEN SERIOUSLY INJURED AT BEST AND KILLED AT WORST. Yes, I'm aware not all drug houses are the same, but still. It doesn't matter what this girl did. What Sunshine did is irrelevant. It's not okay to send people to strange places where they don't know anyone, and are put in danger, even to the point of either getting injured or killed. But it's okay, because at least it's not an "active" crack house you sent Sunshine to, RIGHT, Mary Sue? You still sent some poor girl to a place where she could have been put in serious danger, even to possibly get injured or killed, all because you didn't want her to steal YOUR spotlight. You fucking disgusting, entitled, bratty cunt. You don't need the spotlight all the time anyway. THAT'S HOW THEATRE WORKS. YOU DON'T ALWAYS GET THE LEAD ROLE. YOU DON'T ALWAYS GET THE ROLE YOU WANT. AND THAT'S OKAY. YOU WORK WITH WHAT YOU GOT. Sincerely, a theatre kid.

There are other fucked up things Mary Sue has done, but this is the one thing I could find anyone talking about. If I remember correctly, she hurt her Gay Best Friend™️ Kurt in some way. All I remember is that Kurt was mad at Mary Sue about something. Mary Sue is annoying as fuck. What else can I say about her?

Next, we have Finn, who's textbook definition of a Gary Stu. I'll call him Gary Stu throughout this post. I hate this fucker too. He's the Main Character's Boyfriend™️, the Hot Quarterback™️, and The Good Guy™️. Yet....he's not a good person. He's treated like he's a good person, but he's really not. His flaws are fairly minor and excused (and any major flaws aren't even talked about much), he's almost completely perfect, and every fucked up thing he does is ignored or is justified in some way. Like how he outed Santana as lesbian in the hallway WITHIN EARSHOT OF EVERYONE. HE DIDN'T EVEN APOLOGIZE FOR THIS.

As a woman who has struggled with her sexuality growing up, this really brought back shit I went through. I "dated" boys when I was younger to cover up the fact that I'm only attracted to other women. I wasn't happy with these guys at all. I acted like I did so nobody would suspect anything. I felt nothing for them, except for in a platonic way. I've been outed twice. Once when I thought I was bisexual with a strong preference for other women (by my dad's girlfriend at the time), and when I came out as lesbian (by my brother). It sucks to be outed. The people who outed me in real life could have put me in danger. They could have made it so I had no place to go back to. They could have had me get hurt. It's a scary feeling. Like, it doesn't matter if you're supportive or if you're in the LGBT community. You don't fucking out people without their explicit permission. You especially don't out people to their abusers or to people they don't trust, let alone out them publicly. That's what happened to me. I don't wish this on anyone.

***By the way, for anyone who's closeted, you're valid, I love you, and I know how it feels to be stuck in the closet. You don't have to come out right now. Come out whenever you're ready to. Whenever it's safe for you to do so.***

Or how about the fact that Gary Stu made fun of Kurt's voice because he's gay? Gary Stu apparently has ✨anger issues✨ and that's pretty much the excuse they use to justify him doing fucked up shit to people.

They treat the characters who are from minority groups (i.e., BIPOC, AAPI, LGBT community, disabled people) like absolute garbage, put them through all this horrific shit, or they put them on a pedestal simply for being in a minority group. The teachers and other school staff are either written to be total bigots (Sue), or they're total pr3dators (Mr. Schue, the school nurse, and another teacher who I can't remember her name off the top of my head).

Sue pretty much only exists to be a poorly written villain who's a bigoted bitch just to be a bigoted bitch. Yes, there were some things she WAS right about (like how "Blurred Lines" wasn't an appropriate song choice for the Glee Club™️, but Mr. Schue The Pr3dator™️ downplayed it). Other than that...that's all I can think of. Because everything else that came out of her mouth was bigoted bullshit. Like these right here, for example:

Or how she drugged the principal, date r@ped him, and blackmailed him?

How about them making a tasteless joke about Sue committing su1c1d3 and having her "overdose" on multivitamin gummies?

DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN HOW FUCKED UP ALL OF THIS IS? I do? Well, first of all, she called people racist, homophobic, ableist, and otherwise disgusting names. She boiled them down to their race, sexual orientation, their disability, and their appearance in general. Second, SHE DRUGGED, BLACKMAILED, AND DATE R@PED SOMEBODY. I don't think I need to explain how that's bad. The evidence is right there. Third, she said she was committing "sue-icide" by overdosing on multivitamin gummies. (Yes, you actually can OD on vitamins in supplement form, and it can cause serious symptoms and even death. Specifically with vitamins A, D, E, and K, and Iron. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble. They're a lot harder to remove from the body. The B vitamins and vitamin C aren't as severe if you do OD on them because they're water-soluble, but still be careful. You can't OD on vitamins and minerals you find in food. If you take supplements, vitamins, etc., only take what's on the bottle.) As someone who has su1c1d@l thoughts on and off, this is extremely insulting. Yes, I do use humor and I joke about my own experiences to cope, but this? Nah. Nothing about this is funny or cute in the slightest. Enough said.

Do I need to explain how fucking terrible it is to make light of a serious topic like this? It was never funny to see Britney Spears' mental health be at that low of a point in 2007. It was never funny to see the abuse the paparazzi inflicted on her. How the fuck was this ever okay? You can dislike Britney Spears all you want, but this was never it.

This is all I have for now. I'll probably make a part two because there are way too many things to talk about.