#in general has been anti-trans for a long time like. some trans guy had a baby and the newspapers were so angry about it and 9 year old me

[inkblot-skyz]

Thinking about how Undertale literally saved me from being a terf like. Damn this game has everything, great storyline, amazing music, terf repellent, great queer rep-

[wirewitchviolet]

A Teachable Moment

So I hopped into some freshly minted Discord server, maybe a month ago, and the norms of it still haven't settled into place. It's open to the public and focused on a game, so there's a bit of a mixed crowd, let's say, and prior to the incident I'm setting up the backstory for, there hasn't really been a test of their ability to moderate their damn public spaces.

Also when I say there's a mixed crowd I mean there's both a good number of trans women (because if you are making a deep game for a niche audience, we're gonna make up a shockingly high percentage of that audience every time), and a few right-wing extremists doing their best to "hide their power levels" (because if you create and promote literally any sort of social space, they WILL show up to test for whether local conditions are suitable enough to build a nest). In the early days of things they mostly kept their masks on aside from using the nazi frog as a reaction image to things (which IS something everyone should have a zero tolerance policy towards, but I feel like I need to know someone fairly well before I can explain that one), and their eyes lighting up when they see the server rules include "no politics" (a perfectly fine policy to have but you need to understand that if you post it you WILL have to constantly ban nazis who think you're using "politics" like they do- a euphemism for all the people they want dead).

Anyway, there's a few people on my radar here, but everyone's been civil enough, and it's a pretty relaxed vibe. Pretty quiet. Mostly just icebreaker talk. The most prolific poster is this one guy who saw there was a pet photo channel and just kinda sat down and made a point of posting several images a day to it, of a particularly uncommon sort of cute pet. Naturally this lead some people to ask some follow-up questions about whether these are his and how long he's had them, and this yielded the pretty damn weird in retrospect response that no, he has no pets at all, but would like one of these some day.

Now, this isn't at all the main thrust of this, and I wouldn't like, start keeping vigil for this as a sign of troublemakers, but a thing that undercover bigots do all the time as can be seen here is set up in a community and just kinda spam harmless generic platitudes and such to try and establish themselves as a known chill person. This goes double for anywhere that has a general public/trusted community members split. Never just go by "well he seems pretty chill" for giving people access to more private spaces, they can wait as long as they need, generally, as long as they don't have to improvise a normal person response to a situation where bigotry is in play.

Anyway, getting to the main event, a few days ago in this server, someone posted some cute little comic which... you know let me just find it.

Clever little subversion there. Got a polite chuckle out of the bulk of those paying attention, but seeing a nice wholesome bit of trans positivity incensed pet-poster guy, who immediately shouts "I've seen another version of that comic!" and posts a variation I am absolutely not going to share where the girl in the last panel is dead.

That is as clear cut of a do not pass go, do not collect $200, ban that piece of garbage permanently without a word and delete the post as soon as you can before anyone has to see that sort of hate directed at them offense in absolutely any community. Even moreso in this case as in the time it took a moderator to notice, this creep was going full mask off and responding to everyone's horrified reactions with grotesque anti-trans propaganda of a particularly hardcore "my other hangouts have openly posted swastikas" variety.

Here, people did delete the profoundly offensive comic, but then, to be blunt, otherwise handled this like a kindergarten teacher seeing a kid grab the blocks another kid was playing with and just nonchalantly explaining some basic manners. First off, nobody goes that hard on hate speech accidentally, and more importantly, showing a lack of willingness to dole out any real consequences for such an open act of hate has an emboldening effect. Sure enough the other sleeper agents present jumped up to try and push things farther, encouraging them to also remove the comic above, ban any mention of trans people, and jump the gun with prepared responses that don't work in context (you call everyone you don't like a nazi! Both sides are wrong! etc.).

I came pretty close to just quitting the server on response to that, but stuck it out a bit to double check if this wasn't just one particularly green mod trying to put the fire out before double checking if that's ban worthy when someone else was awake, or if I needed to explain the code-talk in the following conversation, or hell, if they just need more mods. I'm decidedly overqualified for that sort of thing.

Anyway, moderation policy handled that poorly... and to be clear, I'm not pinning that on any one person, basically everyone who ends up in a position of authority has a gut instinct to moderate as laxly as possible and needs some real training, reading, or tragic experience to learn how vital a firm swift hand is if you don't want people like this to show up and drive everyone else away. Especially not going to put this on the one green volunteer awake at 4 AM or whatever.

Still, the ball was dropped here, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how the rest of the community stepped up to hold their ground. Over the next couple of days, people just started casually dropping every cute trans positive thing they had handy in there, agreeing with each other that it was all nice and sweet. This both reestablished that chat as a relatively safe place to exist with a kind general vibe, and really got under the skin of these mask off nazis who started throwing tantrums. Apparently they just started privately messaging the mods to flag every single wholesome little image or comic as offensive to the point where people higher up the food chain came in, did some more serious reprimanding, and added an explicit policy against transphobia to their TOS... and threatened to ban these people if they pull this crap again.

Now, that increased firmness plus the community in general making it pretty damn clear they don't tolerate hate does seem to have scared the bigots into hiding (the one guy made this pathetic desperate effort to retake power by threatening to stop posting the animal pictures... that he's just pulling out of an image search, it was pretty funny), but... they're still there. The people they were threatening both broadly and as specific individuals still have to be careful not to share anything these scumbags can screencap and weaponize against them, and I'm sure at some time in the future when it's clear there's no mods awake they're going to pipe back up to do as much damage as they can in a blaze of glory if spying on all the queer people doesn't pay out for them, so while it is nice to see how just actively rejecting this sort of ideology can at least temporarily shut this crap down even without people in authority taking real action, I want to reiterate what responsibilities those in authority are neglecting here.

As a moderator of literally any sort of space, your basic duties are to keep things safe and to keep things civil. Those are two separate duties. Don't ever try and merge them together, and don't ever forget that safety must always take priority over civility.

If you see a situation where people are just getting randomly heated and angry over something inconsequential (happens a lot), yes, by all means, try to just deescalate things by stepping through just taking a stern tone, formal warnings, timeouts, 3 strike rules, temporary bans, etc. These are situations where we can hope that people who otherwise get along just let their emotions get out of hand and will hopefully shake hands and make up after having some time to cool off.

If on the other hand you see a situation where someone is threatening/antagonizing/intimidating someone else, especially in a case like this where the reason is transparently that the offender is a bigot who genuinely wishes harm or death on the target, there are no steps to escalate through. You remove the dangerous person from the community immediately, no exceptions, no warnings, no escalating response scale. That nazi posting crap about trans women in nooses, Jews in ovens, black people holding spears, women being raped etc. is not a friend having a rough day. There can be no reconcilliation no matter how much time you give. You just have a predator here to whittle your community down, and a vulnerable person who needs you to reassure them that they are safe in your community. The only option that should be on the table is the permanent zero appeals ban, and you should have no hesitation in deploying it.

Oh and here's the part where I remember that I am going to lose my home by the end of the year if I don't ask people to throw more money at me (this is a link). I hate doing this, but my other options for income went up in flames so completely I don't even know how to start to rebuild.

[agent-felix]

WELCOME!!!!!!

Welcome to my little corner of the universe!! Happy to have ya!!

My name is Felix! Short for Felixian, long for Ian. You can call me any of the three, but I'm most used to Felix. I'm a trans guy who uses he/they/it pronouns!!

My persona (and IEYTD fan character) is Agent Felix! He's an agent-in-training with no handler, and is mostly working at solving stuff without using technology. He used to work for Dr Zoraxis in that field, not really caring if he got paid or not since he was doing what he loved. Eventually, he turned to be a reformed villain after hearing about Agent Pheonix's work. He's pretty gullible, and could switch back to the evil side if persuaded enough, but since he constantly wears an agency t-shirt he'll stick with the agency for a long time. (The agency knew they could manipulate him into staying for that reason.) He doesn't have a handler- in fact, he's been mostly self-training since everyone's kinda scared of him. (He has REALLY sharp teeth and can't bite anyone because of that. He has bit people in the past out of reflexes. He's working on it :D ) He's startled really easily and can barely remember simple things- he jumps at any loud noise, forgets where he puts his shoes, etc., yet somehow he remembers where people leave their stuff and forget. He's really helpful like that. He's always loved helping people, good or bad. He doesn't have telekinesis... yet. He's trying to replicate the kinesium device implant so it can be used for new agency members like him. He's also trying to figure out a safer, less terrifying way for it to be implanted.

By the way, if Felix hugs you then you are special to him in some way!! He loves hugs but is generally touch-repulsed UNLESS he really wants to hug the person. So it's really rare for him to hug anyone. Congrats to anyone he's hugged already!

Agent Felix is basically just me as a goober agent!! So please be nice!! If you're mean, we'll probably take it as a joke or something-

Oh, and feel free to be weird around me! ...Not like. Sexual weird or anything- I'd like to keep this PG/PG-13 :'D (Horror stuff is accepted!! I love that stuff)

Fanart is also highly appreciated and encouraged!! You have no idea how much my day gets brightened up when I see that stuff. (It's like anti-depressants for me haha)

Asks are accepted!! You can ask about anything as long as it follows the rules!!

Rules:

-Nothing sexual (Flirting is ok but there's a good chance it'll fly right over my head)

-Nothing that is like. Super weird (simping is- well- I'm not sure?? I've never had it happen before so...)

-Be nice!! No bullying!!

-Don't be LGBT-phobic because I'm trans and bi + ace and so is Agent Felix!!

-Don't like.. ask for art because I'm very tentative about it and only doodle what I really want to doodle unless I get something in return (Art trades are okay sometimes!! Just ask!!)

Felix reference!!!

Please don't steal like actually I will start sobbing

If you need to contact me more efficiently my username on Discord is telekinesium !!

random Agent Felix facts under the cut hehe

-He's a teenager, but the agency has no idea. He was known by Zoraxis and his operatives as the Teen Prodigy. Sometimes used as a compliment, the rest of the time used as a spite name.

-Self-taught in everything he believes he needs to know- science, math, art, English and Spanish. Science includes all forms of science but mostly geology, technology and psychology. He loves researching mental disorders, for some reason. (Some of the things listed were taught by Zor himself.)

-He also loves playing piano! He overheard someone playing it when he was about six years old and managed to convince them into giving him lessons.

-He's very sensitive to sound so it's likely that if an alarm goes off he'll just be stuck there covering his ears.

-He loves singing, too! His voice is high-pitched and gives him disphoria pretty massively, so he sings to relieve it. (He loves his singing voice!)

-The Death Engine actually traumatized him. He refuses to talk about it :')

-He's very weather-sensitive. As soon as it gets colder than usual he'll be wearing clothes for winter while it's only fall. He'll keep that outfit for a few months then switch to something less heavy. Same for summer- as soon as it gets hot he'll be in short sleeves and shorts, maybe flip flops if it's 5⁰ above normal. Then he'll ease back into regular clothes.

-He's the reason why Dr Zor is evil

[heyftinally]

I mean the video with the trans guy in it was filmed before the anti hero (and even if it wasn't it still would have been filmed months before the anti hero video came out)

While her allyship has always sucked etc she didn't directly used the trans actor to deflect from the anti hero criticism. She used him to make herself look good in general

I think often people underestimate how long it takes to create things and how long in advance things are created

No no, I know the video was *filmed* before that, but the timing of the release (VERY soon after the Anti-hero release when usually she spreads it out) combined with the fact that it was specifically the song/video that would give her faux ally points, plus just how much it was made a point that she/her team cast a trans man as the lead all combined is what made it seem suspicious to me.

News about the whole thing came out just a few days after she got called out for AH. Instead of apologizing for making a shitty fatphobic reference in her video, they removed it without comment and dropped a convenient little "hey look Taylor Swift cast a trans man to play her love interest, isn't she SUCH an ally?"

Nothing about it was the correct way to handle the situation. Using the fact that you cast a trans person in your music video to sidestep apologizing for being fatphobic isn't acceptable, and it doesn't make her a good person. It makes her a self serving performative slactivist (bordering on bigot imho) who can't take criticism even when it's warranted, and is incapable of apologizing for her mistakes even if she doesn't believe she's wrong.

How hard would it have been to tweet/post/say in an interview "I didn't think about how seeing something like what I put in the video might effect people who have had a different experience than I have. Looking back, I wish I'd asked the people around me, y'know, "hey, does this seem insensitive? Can we get some other perspectives one this?" I'm really sorry that I wasn't more aware of the impact it would have, and I really want to try and do better in the future. Have some more diversity in my feedback pool and really make a point to listen to voices besides my own".

But she didn't do that. She rushed a release to cover her ass and make herself look good again.

[dylanndr]

TL;DR:

Trans Izzy headcanon is not universally accepted by all trans men and can be traumatizing to some of us (even us Izzy stans!), so don't assume that any given trans man is into it. Figure out where someone is before tagging them in to Trans Izzy stuff.

The long version:

[CN for frank discussion of gender dysphoria]

I understand that Trans Izzy is a popular headcanon, and I understand that a lot of trans guys feel affirmed and validated by that headcanon. This post is not about bursting that bubble. If it's working for you, fine. Do your thing.

I want to make clear, though, that it is NOT a universal headcanon that all trans guys are on board with. I keep getting tagged into Trans Izzy stuff by well-meaning people who assume I must be all about it, when what it actually does is trigger a massive dysphoria spiral that can flatten me for hours or days after.

I was sincerely hoping I could desensitize myself, but it turns out "have you simply tried not having dysphoria" isn't working any better this time than it did when that first therapist I ever went to offered that as a solution when I told him I thought I was trans.

So: Trans Izzy headcanon stuff is a SEVERE dysphoria trigger for me and I can't engage with it at all. I can't look at the art, I can't read the fics or meta. I don't click on Izzy tags or join Izzy groups because of it.

If you've read this blog at all, you know I love Izzy and I have spent a lot of time thinking about him. I have never encountered one single thing about him that gives me trans validation feels (no, not even his height relative to the other characters). I have encountered several things about him that are the polar opposite of my experience as a trans person. Obviously a lot of other trans guys are having a very different experience of the character, but for me, for my own experience there is N O T H I N G relatable about him from a trans perspective, and a number of things that feel actively wrong to me when put into a trans frame. It's like having my gender experience anti-validated.

In addition to the dysphoria, I'm just generally grossed out by the idea of a cis* actor playing a trans character. There's no excuse for that in our current era. [*AFAIK Con is cis, given that he self-labels as an ally when posting pro-trans content. He's clearly pretty chill about the HC. But either way he is not a trans man and should not be playing one on TV.]

So: I am asking people please do not tag me in any Trans Izzy stuff, and please don't make a blanket assumption that all trans guys are into Trans Izzy HC.

Final word: from the stuff I have seen, not a single one of you has the faintest clue how trans men on HRT experience menopause. That's not really your fault, since our culture barely acknowledges menopause in cis women as it is. Finding accurate info on trans man menopause is nigh impossible. So here are some basics:

If you've had a hysto before you would have hit menopause, you will not go through menopause. There's nothing to wind down.

If you haven't had a hysto but are on masculinizing levels of T, you are unlikely to experience any menopause symptoms at all. The T suppresses them. If you've been on HRT for a long time, your body will stop absorbing it as well as you get older, and you could experience some lessened symptoms if your levels drop low enough. But all you have to do is increase your dose and you're back to T overriding menopause symptoms. My doctor specializes in trans medicine, has been in practice for over 30 years, and has had almost none of her trans man patients complain of menopause symptoms in all that time.

As far as sex-in-the-front goes, T dries you out to some extent, menopause dries you out even more. You're almost certainly not going to be making puddles, and you're going to be running through a lot of lube. Get a few barrels of it and use them as ballast if you're going to be at sea for awhile.

[wirewitchviolet]

The older I get, the more exhausted I get with people's naivety about "callouts." Nearly everyone will unquestionably believe and pass on the most obvious, easily disproven lies about anyone, without having any clue who the subject is, who the person making the accusations is, how they came by the knowledge they are passing on, and never research anything. Not only is this true of anyone you know who "always knows what's up with things like this," it's even more true with them.

It is also absurdly common for people to just straight up make up horrible things about people. Not even people they have a particular grievance with. And of course, for whatever reason, people are extra extra prone to both make up and spread the most horrible things about trans women. Like, prior to coming out as trans, I don't recall ever having to deal with any of this, but since coming out a decade ago my life has been an absolute hell as people I have never had any form of interaction with in my life have gone around claiming, amongst other things, that I...

am a cis guy pretending to be trans for some reason, am a cis woman, am a hot and popular girl in the grand hot popular girl conspiracy, am a virulent racist, am a nazi, am the leader of my own personal terrorist organization, co-lead a terror-organization with along with some particular nazi, own several newspapers, launched the career of a certain TV writer turned full-time cartoon villain, slept with said villain to get ahead in life, slept with said villain to help him get ahead in life (I think I was supposed to have received like, free proofreading in exchange or something?), spurned the affections of said villain prompting his fall to evil, am actively conspiring with some guy's mom to have him re-committed to some involuntary in-patient psychological treatment/incarceration of some sort, have a long and storied history posting things on the Something Awful forums, have a burning hatred of a good number of random strangers, as well as several people I have only ever been on the best of terms with, am this guy, am some manner of billionaire heiress, am a cop, am a CIA operative, am specifically a Brazillian cop, am being payed by George Soros to do something or other, lie at the heart of some vast conspiracy involving both DARPA and DiGRA, live in Texas, California, Washington, Brazil, England, and Russia, am some sort of "skinny little bitch," weigh over 500 lbs., have a beard that reaches the floor, have no hair whatsoever, have blue hair, have, and I quote, "breast milk sack implants," all manner of terrible horrors in place of genitals, every fetish under the sun, and I'm sure some laundry list of violent and sexual crimes along with just generally being super mean to who even knows how many people.

And I am just... as dull and unimportant as people come. I live alone with a cat in the middle of nowhere, talk to practically no one ever, don't even have... whatever people use to message people these days, and kinda just sit here minding my own business, updating this blog, designing niche little games, working with electronics, and managing my growing list of health problems. But I'm trans, see. So people make up all this crap, and people, including self-styled anti-harassment who've known me for years, and people at least pretend to take enough of this obvious nonsense seriously enough for me to be both publicly shunned, blackballed out of multiple industries, and has necessitated me to completely lock down my whole life, never share any personal details that could be used to identify me, or even share pictures of this super photogenic cat next to me, and I've still had to move to new undisclosed little boltholes more than once thanks to in-person violence.

So I don't know, maybe when you hear someone talking about how terrible someone is, rather than just assume by default that that is legit, you instead maybe make it a policy to assume someone is arbitrarily making up nasty rumors about someone, and honestly unless the subject is running for some political office you can vote for or you're contributing money to someone directly funding hate groups or something (in which case, you should still take the time to independently verify things), just sigh at how people waste their time with stuff like this, don't acknowledge it, and move on with your life.

God, it's fucking remarkable how people claim to support predstrogen and oppose transmisogyny, while still participating in transmisogynist harassment campaigns like the one against the co-host co-founder.

Like that's literally what the scandal is about. Predstrogen was the victim of years-long harassment campaign which used mass-reporting and got her account banned. And tumblr let her harassers blogs stay up while deleting her accounts. And the ceo took criticism of tumblr's transmisogynistic moderation practices as a personal insult to his self-image as a cool dude, so he has repeatedly personally justified it. Matt Mullenweg isn't the only villain here, the hate mob driving harassment against her is too.

I remember the callout posts against predstrogen, sometimes thy were outright terfs, but others justified the harassment in the same coded ways they do for every trans woman. "She was into problematic kinks or defended them, and therefore basically a pedophile sexual predator." Or "she is a transfeminist, therefore she is a transandrophobe that hates transmascs."

Like it's the same pattern of bullshit, it doesn't explicit target her identity as a trans woman, but these callouts repeatedly happen to transfem after transfem every fucking time. And they always use the same bullshit accusations that just so happen to line up with the widespread transmisogynistic image of transfems as sexual predators who oppress real wombyn.

The reason predstrogen's story resonates is because it vividly shows what it is like to be a transfem on this platform.It didn't just happen to her as an individual, It's part of a larger systemic pattern of transmisogyny.

If you participate in these transmisogynistic callout harassment even by just reblogging the callouts, you are also a villain here. And you can't claim to support predstrogen while participating in the process that drove her off the platform.

You can't condemn Matt Mullenweg when you are a willing cog in the same transmisogynistic hate machine that he is defending. The only difference between you and Mullenweg is not that you lack his bigotry, it's that you lack his millions of dollars, and the immense individual power and influence that brings.

[softceleste]

thank you for responding to my previous ask. you eased my mind a lot because we evidently have similar feelings about this. i dropped a lot people last year but i’ll be honest that with everyone else it was easy. when it comes to her, it isn’t easy. it has been a decade for me too. the story in the screenshot you linked is what set me on this train of thought in the first place. i saw a screenshot of it for the first time last month and devastated doesn’t even begin to cover how i felt. it doesn’t help that i know how horrible the person the post was shared from is.

thank you for bringing up the point about the lack of support for trans people. i did notice that but i thought it was just in my head. i didn’t know about her interactions with vocal transphobes until just now and i’m deeply hurt about that fact. i am trans and knowing that there’s a very real possibility someone i loved and supported for so long believes that my existence is some sort of aberration is just.. i don’t think i can even bear to think about it right now

Of course, love! But yeah honestly I get it, like when you follow someone's career for so long, watching / giffing literally everything they're in - with how parasocial relationships are sometimes, it genuinely feels like having to say goodbye to a friend. Like... god I got into Kat like right after a near successful suicide attempt, and giffing her has brought so much joy to me in periods of my life when I was at my absolute lowest, and I think a part of me will always still be a bit grateful for that, you know? But yeah... yeah, no that IG story and noticing that trend I mentioned in my last post were personally outside my comfort zone and personal limits. And tbh I know she's really close to the guy who played a werewolf on a very popular children's show from the 2000s about wizards (...I'm trying to keep this out of celebs searches to avoid distressing their fans okay, I think everyone knows who I'm on about though, I hope) and he's always been an extremely vocal zionist, I unfollowed him years ago because of it - and he's not the only questionable friend, and I get a huge part of that is "Hollywood politics" but... I dunno, her taste in friends definitely is... not who'd I pick to associate with if you asked me to pick a list of people from Hollywood to associate with. And like looking at this as a person who's never really been able to have friends with people who's values misalign that much from mine I do find it hard to disassociate friends behaviors from someone, personally. I know a lot of people who are able to do that, it's just not a skill I personally possess, so knowing her friends politics does make me uneasy. That's just a personal limit, you know? It wasn't easy to drop her, and I've definitely had really weird emotions about it, so I get it. I'm sorry you're going through it too, anon

And yeah, like I don't know if she's still doing it because I don't follow her on Twitter anymore (I definitely hope she isn't - I'd love the news she stopped tbh) but she was liking/supporting the woman who wrote a certain set of children books very often, none of her explicitly transphobic tweets from what I saw personally, but I can't imagine that's it's possible to not know her political views by now. And she's like extremely close to a certain dc actor who also is the voice of a beloved Disney character from 2010, like "calls him whenever she has issues and needs advice" close we know is very transphonic and republican leaning in general, etc etc etc like... I obviously want to think/hope for the best because she's always been vocally supportive of gay rights, but there are a lot of terfs who are pro-gay rights and anti-trans ones so it was hard to not be like "oh I don't like this pattern" personally, you know? The most trans-positive thing I've seen (I had this linked to me by a fan of hers after posting that ask), is this tweet. But yeah, my personal experience was noticing that trend - I'd love to be wrong and just have missed stuff, but that's just my experience and I think as a trans person myself that I have a right to feel uncomfortable with the trend, that's all I'm saying.

But also another general reminder to everyone reading this - please don't send her fans anon hate, or any messages about this for that matter. Like seriously, I'm not cool with being mean to fans of people whatsoever, and I don't think anyone who follows her is a bad person or anything (like a lot of my friends still are kat fans and they're all great people). I know you didn't do it, but someone who saw my answer did, and if they also need to talk about their feelings right now (they must be intense if you're sending hate), my anon is open to them as well to hash them out productively (and I think my dms are too, but if they're not please lemme know and I can open them fast <3). Like I'm not making any hard accusations, I don't have any solid evidence, it's all just... observations, you know? Take everything I'm saying about her tonight as speculation based off my gut instincts and what I've personally witnessed (unless it's like a screenshot or a linked tweet) because that's literally what it is.

[talkingpointsusa]

Walshed Up; November 21st, 2023

As per usual, Matt Walsh was in a rather transphobic mood on the 21st, this time arguing that anti-trans violence simply does not exist and that the trans day of remembrance is completely nonsensical. Matt seems to think that “I don’t like them” is a valid excuse to minimize violence a group of people that he doesn’t like. Before we truly pick apart the full episode, I’d like to provide some statistics that show just how full of shit this guy is;

According to Human Rights Campaign, at least 41 transgender people in the US were fatally shot in 2022. In 2021, 59 were shot.

71 percent of these people were killed with a gun.

This number is staggering given that trans people make up only 1.4% of the  population of America.

And just in case someone like Matt asks who the victims are, fear not, Human Rights Campaign has a full list of all of their names and their photos which I encourage you to check out.

Also just to let you all know, there’s a lot of viscous transphobia, misgendering, and general bad takes in this document. If that kind of stuff triggers you, stop here, it’s perfectly understandable why you wouldn’t want to go further. I also obviously don’t share these opinions with Matt and if you are trans, you're valid and amazing. People like Matt are the problem, not you. Now with all that out of the way, the actual episode Starts at 2:06

2:22 - 

“One of the easiest ways to find out what is important to a group of people is to look at who they honor in death. The ancient greeks built shrines to heroes and kings who won great battles, nearly every culture until recently has honored people for similar reasons”

It’s unsurprising that Matt Walsh, a guy who is very much an advocate for keeping up statues of Confederate Generals, views “winning battles” as the bar for values that society should uplift. In Matt’s world, winning battles and conquering people is the only way society can move forward. He believes fully in the “law of conquest”....at least as long as it’s not him being conquered. I wonder how Matt would feel if he was brutally uprooted from his home and 'conquered' only for people to say "Well, they won fair and square". This section also applies to his segment on thanksgiving.

2:58

“Don’t want to reward thugs, criminals, and other degenerates”

It’s extremely telling that Matt lumps trans people simply trying to live their lives without, you know, getting shot in with “thugs and degenerates”. Trans people aren’t thugs and degenerates, but they are four times more likely to become victims to them. Also, while we are on the topic of rewarding criminals let’s not forget that Matt has made a career out of defending them. How about the time he devoted an entire episode to defending Enrique Tario, the leader of the Proud Boys who had a role in planning the January 6th insurrection. Ooh, how about the time he ran cover for pedophile priests by saying the real problem is that there are too many gay preachers and that pedophilia in the church isn’t an issue. But yeah, keep talking about trans people.

3:05 -

“If you care about the future of this country, at least it’s disturbing”

Some lovely fear mongering here. Heaven forbid that we start accepting trans people, they’ll destroy our country. Again, this is the guy who ran cover for pedophiles and insurrectionists. 

3:50

“Of course the trans day of remembrance is very important because it had been about 3 ½ days since the last day set aside to celebrate trans people and you know we need to have at least two a week or it’s a genocide”

What in the actual fuck are you talking about Matt?! November is trans awareness month, similar to black history month, so of course there are going to be more trans related events. Furthermore, outside of this month there is only one other day devoted to trans people, the international trans day of visibility on March 31st. And even if there are a lot of trans related days, which there aren’t, who gives a crap?! Does it seriously affect him that much? The second the months over he doesn’t have to think about trans people for the rest of the year if he doesn’t want to, although that’s not gonna happen since Matt Walsh thinks about trans people more than most trans people do. Also I’m not even going to begin to unpack how stupid that snippy little genocide comment is. 

6:19

“What none of these statements from the Biden administration or these corporate media outlets ever get around to clarifying is this; why exactly are we honoring these 26 dead trans people who were killed?”

Picture if you will Matt, that white males with beards were a minority that frequently got killed in violent incidents. Wouldn’t you want people to honor people like you who died due to bigotry and hate?

7;13

“Like any other trans activists they lie about everything all the time” I could make an easy joke here but instead I’m gonna just link this completely unrelated definition here.

8;26 

“What you're not supposed to do is go and look at these cases. And I did that thing that you’re not supposed to do and here’s what I can tell you…there is not a single instance among these 26 so-called trans and gender nonconforming people where it has been proven that the killers were motivated by transphobia or sexism or ableism or any other ism or phobia.”

Interesting how Matt didn’t mention racism despite the large number of black transgender people on this list. You would think that racism would come to mind before ableism since disability plays, if any role, a minor one in this discourse whereas racism plays a major role. 

And how about Unique Banks who, along with another trans woman who thankfully survived, was targeted in a mass shooting and died. Considering that two trans women were in that house (one of whom claims to have a personal connection with the shooter), I doubt it was a coincidence. Besides, as mentioned prior, a lot of these crimes could have been racially motivated leading to them STILL BEING HATE CRIMES. 

9;17

“We know from the surveillance tape that Banko Brown, who is a female I believe who identifies as male, tried to rob the Walgreens. A security guard tried to stop her and then Banko started fighting with the guard and then when she turned her back towards the guard while threatening to stab him, the guard opened fire”.

First of all, I am sorry for this misgendering here. That’s Matt being a dick, not me. As for his argument, look, theft is a crime. You know what’s a bigger crime? Police brutality. Matt even is forced to admit that Banko was shot with his back turned. Surely this guard could have physically restrained him. While Banko threatened to stab the guard, he was unarmed at the time. Now you can say the guard didn’t know that, and this is true, but keep in mind that Banko was a homeless person who was only 5–foot–four whereas the guard was listed on the police report as six feet tall. Even if the guard couldn’t overpower him, he could have shot him non fatally. Thoughts on the actual incident itself aside, a much more constructive discussion might be around what drove Brown to homelessness (and whether or not THAT was caused by transphobia given that apparently he’d been experiencing it since he was 12). But Matt doesn’t want to talk about that because it gets in the way of his “Hurr, hurr, trans bad” narrative.

9;32 “Now it’s not exactly a story about a virtuous transgender person who was murdered simply for being themselves”

Who said Banko was purely virtuous? Nobody said he was murdered just for being himself. Matt’s rhetoric that the world is portraying these people as “heroes” is stupid as hell. The world is portraying them as what they are, victims of hate crimes and violence. Now I understand that not understanding nuance is a requirement for working at the Daily Wire, but here’s a newsflash, not everyone is purely good or purely evil!

10:08

“If you're thinking along those lines, you should know that it only gets worse from there. Another so called trans person on the white house list goes by the name Tortuguita”

Alright, so Tortuguita was killed by the police during the Stop Cop City demonstrations after he allegedly shot a state trooper. What Matt here doesn’t mention is that the city of Atlanta released footage that suggested that this trooper was injured by friendly fire. Whatsmore, they were shot 57 times which is clear overkill even if they injured this trooper. Furthermore still, autopsy reports showed that they had their hands up implying they were trying to surrender. What happened with this demonstration was a complicated situation for sure, but Matt is leaving out crucial details to make the narrative that all trans people are brutal thugs more easy to digest for his audience.

15;34

“Now at this point you have to take a step back and ask; did anyone on this list of 26 trans people die because of transphobia?”

See 8;26. Matt still hasn’t brought up racism by this point.

16;12

“Several others were out walking in the middle of the night in conspicuous locations like highways and motel rooms which suggests prostitution might be involved”

I go out walking at night all the time. I live in a big city and sometimes I like to stretch my legs a bit. That doesn’t make me a prostitute, but since I’m not trans Matt wouldn’t likely assume that I am a prostitute.

Even if they are prostitutes, is Matt saying it’s ok to murder prostitutes? Because it really sounds like he’s saying it’s ok to murder prostitutes

Most importantly HOW CAN YOU BE OUT WALKING IN A MOTEL ROOM!? That doesn’t make any sense. Matt says that walking along a highway is conspicuous, fine. But the inside of a motel room is a secluded space that you are renting out with the expectation of privacy. Not to mention the fact that a majority of the people on this list were disenfranchised in some way meaning it likely wasn’t prostitution so much as it was that a motel was a cheap option at the time. I get that motel rooms are commonly associated with prostitutes, but when you stop and think about Matt’s argument and the way he’s framing it, it doesn’t make any sense.

17;23

“21 year old Unique Banks meanwhile, died in a mass shooting so the odds that Unique Banks was targeted for being trans are pretty low.”

As mentioned before, a mass shooting seemingly targeting trans individuals. 

19;00

“Even if all 26 of these transgender people were killed by right wing bigots solely because they’re transgender, it would still in that case be safer to be transgender than any other demographic group in this country.”

This is such a ridiculous ass thing to say. 375 transgender people were killed in 2021 worldwide, over one a day, and the statistics show that the number of transgender hate crimes is rising. Furthermore, anti-trans legislation is on the rise making it a struggle to be a trans person in the United States. Not to mention all the loud bigots like hmmm…Matt Walsh to use one example, who whip conservatives into a frenzy regarding trans people leading to more violence and anti-trans legislation. It’s a cycle of abuse and Matt is very much a willing participant in it, and him acting like it’s so extraordinarily easy to be trans in the USA is shameful.

21;57

“You know, most societies throughout all of history would call this kind of celebration a form of cultural suicide. A guarantee that the worst among us will be rewarded and propagated until society itself can’t exist anymore. But the Biden Administration, corporate media, trans activists, they have a different name for this. They call it the trans day of remembrance.”

What a fitting way to end this segment. Matt basically reveals his insane belief that saying “Hey, maybe all these trans people being killed is bad” will lead to the total collapse of society. If Matt was around in 1964 he’d be saying that the civil rights act would lead to the total collapse of society.

23;53

“The Matt Walsh Flannel”

As a Canadian, please stop ruining flannel. 

26;09

“Even as the country is run by these globalists”

Hang on, let me check if I’m still watching Matt Walsh because I heard the voice of Alex Jones ringing through my computer there. The fact that Matt is now using Alex's favorite buzzword shows that while Alex Jones is way less polished than the Daily Wire and people like Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro will deny up and down that they are anything like Alex Jones, they are spreading the same conspiracy theories at the end of the day.

27;16

“In the military it’s not nearly that easy (as leaving a corporate job). And so you are helplessly subjected to it (diversity training)”

Oh my god, the horror. It’s so terrifying that these poor soldiers are being subjected to….training to be a bit more empathetic to other cultures (many of whom include their fellow soldiers)? The way America treats its soldiers and veterans has historically been poor at best so I find it kind of amusing that diversity training is the horrific thing in the military that Matt is hanging his hat on. What’s more, the military is in clear need of diversity training. The military has a long and well documented history of fostering a racist culture in its ranks that should be addressed.

27;37

“So this is a guy in the army leaving the service and revealing how when he went to turn his gear they charged him $4,000…he was told by his superiors to leave it behind (in Afghanistan)”

There are some major holes in this guy's story. First of all, if this was the case there would be more than one guy reporting it and it most likely would be a national news story instead of some video being reposted by Matt Walsh and Chaya Raichik. What do you think the odds are that the military just decided to charge this one guy specifically on gear turn in day? Second of all, soldiers have to do kit layouts and training inspections. Between the TWO YEAR PERIOD this guy allegedly was told to leave his gear in Afghanistan, surely he had to do something with it post withdrawal. I’m not saying his story is impossible, but it seems highly unlikely. 

Even if this was a rare isolated incident, this isn’t exactly Biden’s fault as much as it would be an unfortunate side effect of the complications that arise from a large scale military withdrawal. Some things slip through the cracks and if this is the case it absolutely should be dealt with, but to blame it on the president is stupid unless Biden was directly behind the counter asking for the money.

32;50

“Do I want them (his kids) to be potentially sent off to die on foreign soil in defense of some foreign nation that has nothing to do with us”

While not wanting your children to die is obviously valid, Matt’s really telling on himself here. Gotta love how he doesn’t care about who dies in wars abroad because “Hey, they have nothing to do with us!”

(The next segment is stupid but relatively unimportant, just Matt talking about some news clip from MSNBC where one of the hosts is talking about Donald Trump being authoritarian. Trump is very clearly really authoritarian leaning and Matt’s arguments against it are really dumb as he seems to think Trump isn’t authoritarian enough. Matt comes pretty close to saying Trump “might as well be Hitler” because the media portrays him as Hitler anyway at one point, which is equal parts stupid and horrifying. Check it out for yourself if you wish, I guess it shows how much these Daily Wire people seem to live in an alternate universe, moving on)

45;43

“We have programmed them (teenagers) to look inwards, always…constantly staring back at themselves…thinking about how they’re feeling.”

In this segment, Matt’s using a New York Times Article (which doesn’t say what he thinks it says, and also is somewhat up in the air anyway due to some studies showing that suicide rates among teens actually plummeted during COVID.) to justify his long streak of mental illness denialism. Naturally, Walsh seems to hold the belief that teenagers shouldn’t think about their feelings and just “man up”. Don’t believe me? Here’s a tweet where Matt Walsh confesses that he doesn’t believe that depression and anxiety are real mental illnesses while fundamentally misinterpreting what depression and anxiety actually are. Where is Matt Walshes psychological training that allows him to make such a bold statement? Oh wait, I forgot, Matt just sees tweets and thinks “I’ve been sad and I didn’t complain about it”.

This rhetoric is extremely vile and dangerous. Think about all the parents who watch Matt Walshes show. Now imagine their child comes to them and confesses that they are suffering from depression or anxiety. Now instead of giving them the support that they need, these parents will likely tell them to toughen up because depression and anxiety are not actual mental conditions. Hell, let’s apply this logic to another group Matt likes to crap on. Let’s say a child of a Matt Walsh viewer comes out as trans to their parents. Chances are they won’t be accepted because remember, all trans people are degenerates.

Far-right clowns like Walsh never seem to think about how their actions affect other people's lives, mainly because they don’t care. 

47;51

“You’ve got young people that don’t understand that suffering and discomfort, anxiety, sadness, these are all normal.”

There’s that “I’ve been sad before so depression isn’t real” argument again. Now, sadness can be a SYMPTOM of depression but depression itself isn’t sadness. Depression is an overpowering and all consuming pit of despair that consumes a person with feelings of sadness and lack of motivation 24/7, it’s not something you just simply cry out. Depression is all encompassing, sadness is passing. 

49;59

“That’s what's at stake here. What’s at stake is a society of people that don’t know how to be people”

Acknowledging mental illness helps people be better people, not worse ones. I shouldn’t have to explain why this is the case.

50;20

“We need to speed the realization process up, because pretty soon we are gonna live in a country where literally everybody is on a psychiatric drug and has been numbed into basically unconsciousness”

Matt regularly does this thing where he makes ridiculously grim predictions for the future of humanity. You see, if we begin doing things that Matt doesn’t like such as acknowledging mental illness and trans people, society will begin to implode upon itself until total anarchy ensues. 

(The next segment is the “comments section”, stealing Brett Cooper's MO but whatever, which is where Matt just snarkily replies to selected comments on his videos. Unimportant)

59;16

“Well you know, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time. It’s my favorite holiday. It’s a time for celebration, gratitude, time to gather around the table with your family…unless you are a deranged leftist in which case you will insist that thanksgiving is not so simple. There are nuances, as you like to say”

Here we go, since it’s Thanksgiving it's time for Matt to engage in some defense of the brutal treatment of the American indigenous population. Lovely. 

1:04;32

“I guess they’re right. How many times, countless times, that we’ve all been sitting around the thanksgiving table…and then everybody says ‘I’m thankful for murder and death.’ ” 

Matt, nobody is saying that people are intentionally celebrating the genocide of native Americans. What people have a problem with is the downplaying of the sheer brutality of European colonizers towards the natives that goes on every Thanksgiving. This is such a ridiculous argument when you think about it. “We shouldn’t be forced to confront our problematic history because we don't think about it. After all, what you don't know can't hurt you". Give me a break.

1:05;55

“I don’t know if you saw there…the woman's name was ‘chief ladybug’ and she was dressed as a ladybug. This is apparently what the day of mourning consists of. First of all, I don’t think it’s appropriate to dress up as a ladybug for the day of mourning festivities…the tonal shift doesn’t feel right”

Despite saying “first of all”, Matt never does bring up that second point. Anyway, if Matt cared to look into the group he’s mocking in this segment he’d find out that ladybugs are considered a symbol of healing in some native American cultures. Considering that this is, as Matt calls it, “a day of mourning”, a symbol of healing is actually a pretty fitting symbol for healing from the traumas of the past. But Matt doesn’t know this because he relates to different cultures like a sneering middle school bully. 

1:08;35

“First of all, it’s true that the traditional story of thanksgiving that they used to tell young children in school decades ago is simplistic. And there’s probably a certain element of legend to it”

I can assure you that a lot of schools in more right-leaning states still teach that quote-on-quote traditional story of Thanksgiving so don’t give me this “They used to tell it decades ago” crap, as if nobody tells it anymore. Secondly, myths and legends aren’t real. Having a myth taught in school is insane. What if they started teaching the legend of Zeus and the Greek gods as pure fact? Matt then continues to conflate history with myth by saying that “Stories are passed down and details are changed to fit the key message” implying that he seems to relate to ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY as if it were a myth. 

The issue here is that since many Americans are taught that America is this perfect nation that does no wrong and treated the natives wonderfully without getting that worldview challenged, something which Matt and his cronies want to preserve if their complaining about critical race theory is anything to go by, many people go through their lives without being educated about the horrors of the past. And how are we expected to learn those lessons if we don’t understand the realities of the past? 

Anyway, that’s all for Matt Walsh's deranged program. I could have gone a little deeper into his bizarre thanksgiving take but I’m tired of hearing him speak and I’m not crazy about the idea of transcripting Matt’s ghoulish white man's burden tier arguments. If you want to check it out for some godforsaken reason, it’s on his Twitter. Happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans out there and I’ll see you in the next one!

[canmom]

re: the news from the states (abortion, assassination, state violence etc.)

apparently there has been only one attempted assassination of a sitting US Supreme Court Justice, of Stephen Johnson Field in 1859 over a personal matter (Field had ruled against the attempted assassin in a divorce case), which failed. the list of successful assassinations of US judges in general is pretty short. kind of surprises me honestly, given how many of their Presidents have been shot.

hard to imagine what would happen. the ruling party could presumably appoint a replacement, as with any death, so assassinating a judge belonging to the far-right faction would theoretically benefit the centre-right faction which is more permissive of things like abortion if they’re the ruling party.

but regardless of whether a hypothetical assassin was acting alone, and the fact that the US religious far-right has already frequently used terrorism against abortion providers, it would presumably function as an escalation towards outright civil war, right? i really don’t know what would happen but the possibility seems so obvious, and ‘die but secure abortion rights for potentially ~30 years’ seems like a sacrifice people might be prepared to make in a population the size of the US. of course the state machinery will know that full well, and have all those guys well-guarded. if there was a serious riot, though, and a justice got dragged out and beaten to death in the street? ...well, presumably the resulting crackdown would make the violence used to suppress Black Lives Matter look like nothing, but sometimes such an uprising is successful, at least at changing who’s in power and putting the shits up them.

i’m afraid this speculation is crass, compared to the very real danger that my American friends may be in as these attacks on bodily autonomy advance. i’m always drawn to expect more overt political violence than tends to happen in reality, i guess. in countries where affairs have settled into a long-term balance of power and the state has plenty of accepted legitimising narratives, the police don’t tend to massacre protestors, Peterloo-style, for fear of inciting further uprisings (not to mention, not wanting to kill the workers they depend on); using ‘less-lethal’ weapons like baton charges and tear gas allows them to clear the streets, and then they can quietly kill whoever they identify as a leader afterwards and cover it up if necessary.

in return, most protestors uphold our side of the bargain and don’t go to the protest with lethal weapons or attempt to kill policemen or politicians. escalation is unpredictable and risky for everyone involved. we even exploit the police’s reluctance to harm our bodies, with sacrificial tools like lock-ons where an activist may elaborately attach themselves to a car in the road with layers of concrete and metal, forcing the police to take hours carefully cutting them out without injury. arrest is inevitable, and we likely trade years of someone’s life in prison for just hours blocking a road. it seems like a battle of attrition rigged in the state’s favour.

but at some point the equilibrium will break, right? this seems like such a naked show of force by the ruling apparatus in the US, especially in conjunction with all the anti-trans bills being pushed at the same time, and it ought to be answered in kind. but I don’t really know how ‘normal’ people, who believe in the legitimacy of states, see it! every time i think “surely they’ve pushed it too far, surely people are gonna riot about this” in this country, i’m disappointed. and i have even less idea how things work in the weird ideological dimensions of the US political imagination.

[nicanario]

this post is a product of its time

tw: discussion of racism, homophobia, misogyny and a short mention of sexual abuse.

ok, this is basically gonna be a very long rambling post about my not fully developed thoughts on the justification many people give to bigotry when talking about the past: "it was a product of its time"

it would be fair to say, with me being a raging SJW socialist scumbag, that I don't think this is a very good argument and is most of the time actually an excuse to not think about the problems inherent to our society, historical or not, and, by extension, the problems with ourselves. but I do think that sometimes, just sometimes, this can be a valid point, or at least one that raises some interesting questions.

I'm going to cite examples from several pieces of media, but fear not, I'll try to make this as accesible as I can.

so, let's take Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) as our first case study. this show has, correctly, been called progressive by everyone except for clueless people who don't know much about Star Trek's history, Star Trek's crew, Star Trek's cast, or, frankly, Star Trek. because if you ignore the clear, sometimes in-your-face political history and present of the franchise, I don't think you know much about it at all. I do think you can call yourself a fan if you like it, you may have watched every single episode for all I know. but lots of mental gymnastics are needed to ignore the political progressiveness Star Trek has had since its very beginning.

episodes like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield are obviously anti-racist, at least in their intention. but the episode in question really is "a product of its time," and at the very end fails to uphold its ideals. the episode ends with the two aliens (who are LITERALLY. BLACK ON ONE SIDE. AND WHITE ON THE OTHER. BUT IN THE OPPOSITE SIDES.) fighting each other on their devastated planet, and the crew is like, "oh yeah if they both would give up on their hatred that they both share both of them equally" when it has been firmly established that one is the oppressor and the other one is the oppressed.

and that's a lot of Star Trek, not just TOS. even Discovery, one of the most recent series, has done Bury Your Gays (and Trans) TWICE (though both times literally rectified it, which is cool). there are episodes of the franchise that are overtly racist, or misogynistic, etc. TOS is lauded, mostly justifiably, as very progressive, especially for the standards of the time. they put a woman of colour as one of the senior staff, for fuck's sake. of course, when you analyse that same character, as with most of their intentions at being progressive, you'll see that she was relegated and sometimes even outright mistreated when she had the potential to be much more. but, at that time, it was a lot.

I had a friend (emphasis on "had") who, after I told him about TOS's both progressiveness and constant misogyny, told me something like "imagine feminists trying to complain about a show from the 60s." so, with unearned spite, he was, in some way, trying to make the argument that it was a product of its time.

you could say Star Trek, all of Star Trek, is "a product of its time" in the sense that it's not always perfect. uh, yes, I would agree. but that doesn't mean people have to accept it. well, I mean, the show is kinda over, you have to accept it's that way. but you don't have to accept that it's not wrong just because it was a product of its time.

H. P. Lovecraft, as another example, was a greatly influential writer whose works still shape a lot of people's ideas to this day. I have only ever read like one of his stories, so don't expect me to have an opinion on his works. but I can have an opinion on what I know about him as a person (he did have a life outside his writing, after all). and, yeah, he was a huge asshole. if you want to know more in depth about the subject, please watch Hbomberguy's video on him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8u8wZ0WvxI

but basically, he was incredibly racist & homophobic. some people might even say, "he was a product of his time." well, there are two possible rebuttals to that. the surface level one, and the one that examines why that argument is wrong to the core.

The Surface Level Response to "it was a product of its time": um, no it wasn't. Lovecraft was more racist than a lot of people even in his time. he wasn't just a guy who carried the racist beliefs of his society like everyone else, he was a reactionary who actively thought and discussed how racist he was, and how right he was for being that way. but that's only applicable to Lovecraft. one can't argue the same for Star Trek: TOS, because TOS did try to be more progressive and more anti-racist than the rest of its society. that leads us to the next response.

The Response that Actually Deals with the Fact that No Matter How Progressive You're Trying to Be, Your Failings Can Still be Criticized: the thing is, trying to excuse Lovecraft's or Star Trek's bigotry because they were "products of their times" misses the fact that racism is still wrong, and some people knew that in those times as well. people from these times weren't all naive or stupid or whatever. they had the capacity for rational thinking. they could stop and think, "hey, maybe what we're doing is wrong." and the fact is, some people did. not perfectly, not to our standars, but they did. everyone could have stopped and think. but most of them didn't, and we can criticize them for it. racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. HURT PEOPLE. horribly. massively.

also, even if you agree with the "it's a product of its time" argument, some people aren't criticising people's or work's bigotry: they're explaining why they don't want to experience it.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang is a 1977 Doctor Who serial, and it's one of the show's more racist stories. almost all the villains are Chinese, every single Chinese person is a villain. there's yellowface, slurs, stereotypes, the Doctor speaking nonsense words instead of actual Chinese, and a general belittling of Chinese culture.

note that I'm neither Chinese nor of Chinese descent. I have been searching for hours for a few posts I've read a while ago (some by people who are of Asian descent) about this episode and I can't find them. sorry.

suffice it to say, even though I love Jago & Litefoot (the audio series and the characters), it's not an acceptable episode at all. but it's also important to remark that, because of it, some people aren't going to want to watch it. sometimes, people aren't saying "the episode shouldn't be this way," which causes others to answer that it was "a product of its time." sometimes, people are just saying, "this is an episode that attacks real people. I don't want to see it. I don't care if it was common in that era to be racist, i don't want to experience it."

however, there is an interesting point to the "it's a product of its time" argument. after all, everything is influenced by its society, for better or worse. and we can't change it anymore. TOS sometimes didn't quite understand the political themes it wanted to explore. Lovecraft was a horrible bigot. Talons was racist towards Chinese folks. and that's that. I don't think we should change the episodes/stories or anything. edit them in any way. that would be, in a sense, changing history. and we wouldn't learn anything from it, about how we can do better.

I think there are two solutions to this:

1. warnings before starting the text: this was done with The Talons of Weng-Chiang. on Britbox, where you can watch Classic Who, this serial has a content warning before the start. that's good.

2. the removal as a whole of the text from some places: I think before applying this one, there should be a lot of thought put into each case. I don't think removing a whole serial of Doctor Who or Lovecraft's stories from anything would be, well, fair. especially on tv episodes a lot more people worked on those, not just the writers and the directors. Lovecraft's writing influenced thousands. we shouldn't erase them or anything. but sometimes, for some cases, we should.

those in the US might seen a Confederate statue being taken down. that is, in a way, a form of removal of a piece of history.

but that is a good removal. statues glorify. one sees a statue and probably thinks "this was a person worthy of admiration." they should be taken down, maybe even with a permanent mark of why this was done (a plaque that reads "a statue of X was here, but he didn't deserve it because of Y" could be put in place of the statues, for example).

another example is the removal from DVDs of the short episode A Fix with Sontarans, a Sixth Doctor minisode that featured Jimmy Savile, a presenter who was later found out to be sexually abusing children.

the removal of that minisode is good, actually. it's not a full episode (it's not even Doctor Who). some might say that's "erasing history" but, like, you can still find it online or information about it if you want. this minisode deserves removal from DVDs and Blu-Rays and whatever more than content warnings. it's not an important part of the show and it prominently features a horrible person who did horrible things during that time.

so, after all that, I have explained why I don't like the "it's a product of its time" argument. it is an interesting point that deserves to be examined, but it's not very good.

I have had this in Drafts for so long I've probably forgot some of the points I was going to make, but eh, what can you do? hope you enjoyed reading this.

bye

[dogslayslaw]

Okay I took a very quick nap when I got home after a long school day of burned out tiredness due to the election results and the thoughts of my future.

A few months ago (actually 5 at this point), I got into a relationship that really got me out of my depression and gave me hope for the future (immediate and long term). This hope shaped into an idea of my life after highschool and college and it fueled me (and fuels me, I'll get to that!). The last 5 months have been the greatest in my life, depression free and not AS anxiety ridden. I do actually have diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder + social anxiety, so it hasn't been perfectly whooshed away, but there have been little to no vomit inducing stomach aches due to it, which is a win to me.

This future I'm talking about it one with my partner where we both have well paying STEM focused jobs and are able to travel around in a nice camper with wood panelling inside, and I'm allowed to create comic books on the side. And we'd explore nature and go on adventures literally anywhere without many limits. Even pay TAXES together and get MARRIED. That future has been fueling me and I had been so confident it will exist.

When the election results came out, that future I'd been imagining for the past few months didn't seem so sure. All day I'd been stressing about that. Part of that future was me getting testosterone and top surgery and being able to just pass as a guy and go off and be gay with my boyfriend, happy and free. The threat to that part of it made it all shatter for a second. My perfect future not so perfect.

I live in a Republican state with some of the most restrictive anti trans gender affirming care laws in the country, and I already can't get anything done in state until I'm considered of age in this state. Out of state, I would have to get a grant to get help (the closest under 18 trans care state to us is over 500 miles away). So I'm getting stuff when I turn of age, and the threat of "we might ban it completely in this state" scared me so badly this morning. My state also bans abortion, and considering I'm a TRANS guy, that's also scary! And a nationwide ban, which is somewhat unlikely but not impossible, also scared me this morning. My future does not have children (most likely) and definitely not at this time.

But I took a nap. I was on the verge of tears all day just thinking about this and my rights being taken away. So I took a nap, 40 minutes long, before a meeting I had.

Well, now that I'm refreshed, I have much better thoughts about this-- neutral mostly. As scary as this all is, we really do have each other. We have love and compassion for everyone and a significantly smaller amount of prejudice compared to Trump and adjacent people.

There is a lot to fight for, but when has there ever been a time where we haven't fought? Now, reinstating, as a teen trans guy, as a US citizen, and as a human living in this world, I will fight for my future alongside my fellow human beings and remain hopeful for what is to come.

I'm scared. So scared. As a teen trans guy who is still affected by anti-abortion and anti-trans laws I'm scared. As a US citizen I'm scared. As a human living in this world.. I'm scared. How did that many people vote for Trump? Why is there a Republican majority in both the Senate and the House?

My future is being decided by people working directly against people like me.

[goldenchan-fx2thepeacock]

Friendly Neighbourhood Phantom

rKay, y’all remember how I said I would write a fic for that one post I reblogged? Well, Wattpad still hates me, but here ya go.

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Danny was bored. He’d finally mastered the powers that decided to show up when he ‘died’ in the portal accident, but nothing was happening. Not that it was bad, just boring. He felt like he should do something. And when he overheard Sam talking about volenteering, he got an idea.  “Sam, what was that thing you were talking about volenteering for?” He asked. “Oh, it’s a soup kitchen not far from here. You thinking about helping out?” she replied. “Well, yeah. I was thinking about using these powers for something useful,” “Danny, that’s genius. But volenteering is a big step. Maybe you could just help out people in ghost form?” “Huh, that’s not a bad idea. Thanks Sam!” He ran to class.

After school, he put his backpack down and changed. The first few times it was painful, but now it was a numb tingling sensation. He knew about the more sketchy areas in town and sped off. 

He set down in a playground with a bunch of kids. There was one sitting off on her own. She was glumly playing with the sand.  “Hey kid, want to play a game?” He asked. She stared at him. At first, she seemed startled, but she smiled. “Yeah! Let’s play hide and seek!” She giggled. He smiled. “Okay, I’ll count to ten and you go hide. Just don’t leave the playground,” He turned around and closed his eyes. She giggled and ran off. Once he finished counting to ten, he turned back around. He heard giggling from her, but decided to wander when looking for her. “Oh my gosh, you’re so good at hiding. I wonder where you could be,” He heard giggling behind him. After looking around a few trees, he acted like he’d just spotted the play structure. “Maybe you’re hiding in here?” He peeked under the structure. She giggled up at him. “You found me! Now it’s your turn to hide!” She ran off to the tree. He dashed into the slide and hid just in view. She spotted him immediately. “Ha! I found you!” “You did!” they played a few more rounds. 

They were the only ones left when her dad showed up.  “Iliana? Where are you?” He yelled. She dashed out from the play structure.  “Right here daddy!” She yelled and ran over to Danny. He smiled at her and waved goodbye.  “Iliana! That’s dangerous, don’t play with demons,” The dad snatched her away from Danny.  “He’s not a demon!” Iliana said. “I’ve heard about things like you,” The dad narrowed his eyes at Danny. “Stay away from my daughter,” “We were just playing hide and seek!” Danny protested. “And I’m not a demon,” “Preying on children is wrong. Go back to hell,” Danny held back the tears and left. He knew the feeling. Transphobes liked to tell him to go to hell, but this was horrible. 

Once he got home and finished his homework, he looked through his insta. Then he got a random idea. He went to the account blurb and clicked “make new account”. He took a selfie in his ghost form and set it as his profile pic. What to call it? He drummed his fingers on the desk and an idea came to him. He typed it in. Danny Phantom. He posted a bunch of anti bullying posts and selfies. He’d take pictures when volenteering as Phantom and put them up. 

When he got to school in the morning, there was the usual buzz. Sam looked at him. Tucker was on vacation for a few more days.  “So, how’d ‘volenteering’ go?” she asked. “Pretty good. I played hide and seek with a little girl. Is that a good start?” “Sounds good to me. But pretty good with you usually means that something happened,” She knew him too well. “I got called a demon,” He snapped. She grimaced. “Oh, Danny. I’m sorry. What was it?” “I think it’s just the whole ghost thing. I doubt he could tell I’m trans,” “Well, that’s gotta count for something!” “Maybe,” He sat down in Lancer’s class and pulled out a notebook.  “Anything else happen?” “I started an account on Instagram for ghost me. I called it Danny Phantom. Should be easy enough to find,” “Don’t you think anyone’ll notice the parralels between that and Danny Fenton?” “The people here are too stupid to guess that. Besides, no one’s gonna connect the dots between me and a random ghost,” “Good point,” Lancer walked into the class.  “Alright class, you know the drill,” Danny pulled out the novel they were reading this week. 

Danny spent the rest of the week helping out in random ways and putting the pictures up on insta. Maybe it was kinda cheap, but unlike some accounts he’s seen, he was doing it solely for the purpose of raising awareness, not to make a good face. There were a few other derogatory terms thrown his way, but it wasn’t horrible. Today, he was going to start volenteering for real. He set down in front of the soup kitchen.  “Listen, we don’t have soup till later. Come back then,” A guy wearing a big apron said. “Actually, I was going to volenteer to help out,” Danny said. The guy turned around.  “You got a bit of a look going on there. Why do you wanna volenteer?” “To help out the community. And I can’t help looking this way,” “Huh. Well, get an apron on and help me make this soup,” The guy turned around. Danny obliged.  “Uh, you never told me your name,” Danny said meekly. “Milton’s the name. And since I gave you mine, I’m gonna need yours,” “Danny,” “That all? No last name?” “You didn’t give me yours,” “Nah, but the kids like you usually boast about it. For a teen, you’re pretty humble,” “Thanks?” “Okay, enough small talk. Help me stir this while I get the other ingredients,” Milton thrust a long wooden spoon into Danny’s hands and walked off. Danny started stirring the big pot on the stove. He smiled and hummed a little tune to keep his attention. Milton walked back in. “No picture taking? You really are humble,”  “I guess it just didn’t occur to me. I mostly made my account to tell people to be nicer to the less fortunate,” (Yes, the first part is a Toph line, but less condesending in this case) He kept stirring but didn’t pull his phone out.  “You kids these days. Always an ulterior motive,” “I mean, I’m a ghost, so I could’ve been dead for hundreds of years for all you know,” Milton stared at him. “A ghost?”  “Jeez, don’t panic or anything. Not all ghosts are malevolent. And I’ve only been ‘dead’, per se, for about a month,” “I thought it was just dumb hair dye and contacts,” Milton gaped.  “Yeah, teenager just casually floats and nothing’s weird about that. Got the ingredients?” “Wha- oh yeah. Here,” Milton dumps the vegetable in the pot. “Sorry to scare you like that. I just didn’t want you calling me a demon or something when you found out,” “Why would anyone do that? Seems cruel,” “People don’t often care about anything but their prejudices,”  “Generalization or stereotype there?” “Stereotype. I guess. Let’s just make soup,” He wasn’t about to spill his troubles onto a random stranger. 

He stood in the window giving out soup. Sam was standing not far off taking pictures. He wasn’t completely sure if he should keep posting. But it was kinda late to do that now. Danny Phantom had started to gain attention Danny Fenton never would.  “What the hell? I didn’t know Milton was the type to let freaks help out,” One skinny teenager in ripped clothes said.  “I didn’t know there was a reason to not let a person help the less fortunate,” Danny handed him a bowl of soup.  “Sorry man. I guess the stress of having to come here everyday is starting to get to me,” “It’s okay. When Milton takes his turn, wanna talk about it?”  “Thanks dude,” The skinny guy sat down at one of the many tables set up. “No problem. It’s the least I can do,” Danny smiled at him. Milton walked up behind him.  “I’ll take it for fifteen minutes. Ghost probably don’t need breaks, but I’d feel bad if I made you do all the work,” Danny nodded and ditched the apron. He phased through the wall and floated over to the skinny guy. 

The guy looked startled.  “You’re floating,” He stared at Danny’s feet.  “Ya know, probably could’ve told you that myself,” Danny smirked.  “Danny! Is your shift done or something?” Sam ran over.  “Nah, I just was gonna let this guy talk about his problems to someone,” “You’re a ghost,” The guy looked lost. “Yes and no. Semantics. Listen, I’m not here to tell you about my weird life. I’m here so you don’t completely lose it from having to support yourself,” “Thanks again for that. So your name is Danny?” “Yeah. This is Sam. What’s your name?” “Jack,” Danny held back the snort that came with thinking of his bumbling father. Bumbling couldn’t have been more accurate. Jack Fenton gave Danny bumblebee vibes.  “Nice to meet you Jack. What did you need to talk about?” Sam snorted behind Danny. “Shutup,” Danny slid into the seat across from Jack.  “What’s funny?” Jack said. “Nothing. My dad’s name is Jack and you look absoloutely nothing like him. Sam is drawing certain parralels that don’t need to be there,” “Your dad? Do ghosts have dads?” “Half ones do,” Sam said.  “We’re not talking about that. Why do you have to come here. You don’t look much older than 15,”  “If it weren’t for the glowy hair and eyes, I’d say you don’t look older than 12,” “I’m fourteen,” “Close enough,” “Whatever. Why do you come here?”

Danny became a hit with the soup kitchen users. He’d talk to people about they’re issues with an air of concern. He didn’t shut anyone down no matter how small the issue. Soon, he wasn’t a freaky prospect, he was the ghost who listened to people’s issues.  “I think we should get Jazz to help you out at the soup kitchen,” Tucker said one day at lunch. “I mean, she knows, so it can’t be that weird. It’ll give her some field experience with helping people out too. Yeah, that’ll work,” Danny took a bite out of the glowing sandwich.  “Are you sure that’s safe?” Sam poked it.  “Eating ectoplasm won’t kill me anymore than I already am,” “Touche,” Tucker said. “That’s not how touche works, at least I don’t think so,” Danny replied.  “And you’re in academic english,” Sam laughed. “You are too! And english is like, my worst class,”  “Fair enough. But yeah, getting Jazz to help out is a good idea,” She forked her veggy lasagna. “Okay! I’ll tell her tonight,”

The soup kitchen wasn’t the only place Danny volenteered. He kept up the random helping and stopped a few crimes when he came across them. It wasn’t like he went looking for crimes, but it came with the territory. He stopped a car crash one time. Danny Phantom slowly became a hit on Instagram. Danny had to turn off notifcations at night. He opened it and gaped.  “500 followers overnight! And it’s going up?! Holy shit,” He turned the notifications back off and did his morning routine. It was break day, so he glared at the sports bra he knew he’d have to wear.  “If I find that ghost boy, I’ll tear him apart molecule by molecule!” Jack Fenton said. Danny winced. It was normal at this point, but he didn’t like it very much. “Oh Jack. You know we should study it,” He head his mom say. Danny didn’t know what was worse, his dad’s threats of death or his mother’s dissociation.  “Dann-o! We’re going looking for the ghost boy today!” Jack said excitedly.  “What did he do wrong?” “Nothing, but he probably has an ulterior motive to all this helping stuff!” Jack replied. Danny sighed and pulled out the cereal.  “That’s the ecto contaminated cereal Danny,” Maddie said. Mom, that’s what he meant.  “Oh, whoops,” He put it back and grabbed a new box. “Why’re we keeping it anyways?” “It’s an experiment!” Mom replied.  “You guys and all your ridiculous ghost stuff need to stop it,” Jazz huffed as she walked down the stairs.  “But we have proof of ghosts now! And some of them can get they’re hands on human tech,” Jack- er Dad, said. “You mean social media? People could just taken random picture of a random guy doing that and made something out of it,” “He’s floating Jazzibear, that means something!” J- Dad said loudly.  “Photo editting,” Jazz knew it was hopeless, but she did it for Danny. “Believe what you want,” Dad grabbed some fudge from the fridge. 

Jazz and Danny walked to the soup kitchen. Well, Jazz walked and Danny floated. It was Saturday, so they were taking an all day shift.  “500 followers Jazz! That’s crazy for one night!” “That’s great!” “I know. Oh look, we’re here,” Danny sped over to the kitchen while Jazz sat at one of the tables. “Hey, it’s my favourite ghost,” Milton said. “More like the only ghost you know,” “Yeah, let’s stir this pot and make soup,” Milton laughed. Maybe everything wasn’t great, but Danny was okay with that. He smiled and stirred the pot of soup. 

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And, la fin. Maybe it sucks, but I felt like writing something for this. My first oneshot actually. Let me know if you want more of this! The idea came from a post I read by @redrobin-detective. I reblogged it for those who want to see the original concept. Sorry if my grammar is a little strange to you. I’m from Canada, and grammar here is different than the States. 

[terpia]

Early Modern Drama Rec List (Non-Shakespeare)

So I just spend a year reading a lot of early modern drama and I thought I might as well put my degree to a good use and make a list of some of my favourite lesser known (i.e. not written by Shakespeare) early modern plays. All of these plays are in the public domain, so it should be very easy to find them online.

Comedies:

The Roaring Girl by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker - a fictional story featuring a dramatized portrayal of a real person, Mary Firth, also known as Moll Cutpurse. Moll was a notorious pickpocket, wore a doublet and breeches, smoked a pipe, cursed, and was generally infamous for her 'mannish' behaviour. And she's a character in this play!

It is open to interpretation how positive the play's depiction of Moll really is, but she does play a very important role in getting the main pair of lovers together and ends the play happily continuing to live her life the way she wants, which is in itself pretty incredible. Overall, just a really fun read.

Galatea (or Gallathea) by John Lyly - a 16th century play that is both gay and trans??? Sign me up! In a village where the fairest virgin needs to be sacrificed to Neptune every 5 years (or he'll drown everyone), two fathers decide to disguise their beautiful daughters as boys and hide them in a nearby forest. While wandering around the forest the two girls meet and, falling for each other's disguises, fall in love. In the end (spoilers for the ending, but this is not exactly a play you read for the plot, lol), Diana stops Neptune, the two girls find out each other's true identities and decide they're still in love, and Venus turns one of them (we never find out which one) into a boy so that they can get married.

As must be clear from this summary, this comedy plays around with gender a lot. To add to the gender cocktail, remember that the two girls would have been originally played by boys. Although the ending was seen as heteronormative by early queer critics, the emergence of trans criticism within queer theory has led to a lot of interesting readings of the play. Well worth a read.

(also, if you have a device on which you can play DVDs and some money to spare, consider buying a DVD of the Edward's Boys production of the play. Edward's Boys is a group that replicates the format of early modern boys' companies, with all roles in their productions being played by boys. I will admit, when I bought a DVD of their 2014 production of Galatea, I expected to watch a glorified high school performance, but it turned out to be so good. All the boy actors were amazing, way better at performing Shakespeare than a lot of Hollywood actors. This just straight-up felt like a professional theatre production, I highly recommend it.)

The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont - I don't even know how to describe this play other than 'fantastic and fun'. A meta-theatrical city comedy, which starts with a pair of audience members (who were actually two dressed-up boy actors from the boys' company performing the play) jumping onto a stage and demanding to see a different play than the the one being set up. Things get only wilder from there.

A genuinely really funny play. I don't know of anyone who has read it and hasn't immediately loved it.

The Sea Voyage by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger - one of the least well known plays out of this list, which is unfortunate because this play is really fun. Short and sweet, it's a story of a bunch of (surprisingly honorable) pirates, who get shipwrecked on an island inhabited by a tribe of Amazon-like women. Predictably, hijinks ensue. An interesting look into early modern gender relations (apparently the main reason why living without men would be difficult for women is because of how horny they would get? I think Fletcher and Massinger need to take a lesson or two from Lyly).

The Alchemist by Ben Jonson - want to see three assholes con a bunch of idiots in increasingly ridiculous ways? Then this is the play for you.

Jonson's city comedies, which satirize the people of early modern London, tend to be much meaner in tone than Shakespeare's comedies and the other comedies on this list, but in many ways, that's what makes them fun. Viciously clever and at times really funny, there's an edge to the writing that makes it very entertaining. I had a lot of fun reading this (Jonson's Epicoene is also great, if you want a comedy that's even meaner and also has some very questionable gay stuff in it).

Tragedies:

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe - probably the most famous non-Shakespeare early modern play, and for a good reason. It has everything; pacts with the devil, a melodramatic anti-hero protagonist, homoeroticism (I mean of course, it's Marlowe), and a suitably gory and tragic ending. What more can you ask for?

The Tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Cary - this play is more interesting than fun, but I think it's still well worth a read. It's the first original play written in English by a woman. The play takes place in ancient Palestine. It looks at the way Mariam, a Jewish queen, reacts to the news of the death of her husband, the tyrannous Herod (yes, the baby-killing guy from the Bible). Most people seem to be relieved. Except oops, Herod is not actually dead.

A fascinating look at gender ideology in the early modern period, with the play centering around the conflict of a woman who tries to live up to the ideals of a perfect wife and woman, while stuck in a marriage to a tyrant. This play would also be a great read for anyone interested in how gender and sexuality intersected with race in early modern England, because this play uses a lot of racialized language to describe women.

The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster - a classic revenge tragedy. A recently widowed Duchess wants to marry her steward, but her asshole brothers throw a fit. Intrigue and death ensue. At one point a fake wax hand and some fake wax corpses appear on stage.

This play basically reads like a good thriller. Fucked up in a way that only an early modern revenge tragedy can be, this is a fun and thrilling read.

The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley - speaking of fucked up. If you're planning to read it, be mindful that this play contains sexual assault. It's a story of a young noblewoman called Beatrice, who wants to get rid of her fiancé after falling in love with a visiting nobleman. To do it, she enlists the help of her villainous servant De Flores. Things end up going extremely badly.

This play can get very uncomfortable at times, but just like The Duchess, it's as gripping as any good modern thriller. Very engaging. The ending is as engrossing as it is stomach-churning, although probably not for the reasons it was originally meant to (reading criticism about The Changeling, it is genuinely shocking and disheartening to see how long it took for critics to start addressing the clear issues of consent in the play). The story also includes a bizarre virginity test that uses a potion which makes you drowsy or which makes you sneeze and laugh depending on whether you had sex or not, so hey, at least that's fun?

Antonio's Revenge by John Marston - ok, so this is definitely the least... good of the plays I've recommended so far, but listen. Do you like trainwrecks? Do you like violence so over-the-top that people to this day wonder whether it's actually supposed to be a parody of the revenge tragedy genre? Are you looking for a reading experience that will make you go 'what the fuck' throughout? If so, this is the play for you!

Very much in the so bad it's good category. Ridiculously gory. The only thing that makes it better is knowing that it was originally played by children (on a related note, I haven't seen this production, but I know that this play has also been played by Edward's Boys). If you like horrible, gory horror movies, you'll probably enjoy this play.

That's it for now! Hopefully at least a few of these plays catch your interest.

Btw, LibriVox, which is an organisation that makes public domain recordings of public domain texts, has most of these plays available as free audiobooks, if you're interested!

[bro-strider-hate-blog]

YOUR TAGS ON MY SIS POST??? IMMACULATE

I will include my tags again but only because i cant get enough of myself and not to sound like im tooting my own kazoo but this is the one time in my entire life that ive been objectively correct in every way

Lengthy and unrelated thing under the cut: 

Let me talk about canon bro for a second 😌 even though its barely and tangentially related to this and you dont have to read it <3, in fact i would encourage you not to read it i just wanna run my mouth. People love to use him as a cheap villain in their dave angst fics which is like... hilarious to me. Like i get it, since hes abusive he must also be misogynistic and homophobic and transphobic and also genuinely hates dave and revels in his suffering right? Lmeow no, hes just some guy and despite everything he is in fact trying his best. Hes naturally intense and aggressive and this doesnt translate well to child rearing, especially since his one goal is to make dave strong enough (physically and mentally) to Survive whats coming. The random sneak attacks ? The traps littered around the house ? To keep dave on his toes and buff his spatial awareness. The cameras ? To monitor his progress (if hes not up to standard then we’ll just up the “training”) and / or film some puppet snuff (puff ? Snupp?) so he can keep running his dumb website and like provide for them or some shit , or ig to buy random crap and throw it around the house. Who cares if the kid sees the porn anyway its just puppets, plus hes seen way worse at that age and turned out fine (no he didnt). Dave has to be resourceful , he has to be creative and think on his feet , lets have impromptu rap battles and scrabble games. He has to know numbers like the back of his hand (idk why this is even a phrase do any of you memorise what the back of your hands looks like) to effectively utilise his sylladex.... actually nobody even uses that shit idk why bro was so insistent on it. Dave is his protege, his charge, dave is NOT his friend and hes not gonna let him forget that. He teaches him all he knows, in the way he knows. Making comics, mixing music, ironic jokes, being cool and getting shit done. Actually its GOOD that the kid is terrified of him, if hes the scariest thing in the room then dave wont fear anything else. Lets spar then, if dave wins then hes trained him well. If dave loses then hell become resilient. Either way he has to be strong or else hell die, training is necessary. Its either this or failure and failure equals death. Do your own laundry, ration your own food, become independent as fast as possible because i wont be around to take care of you forever

Nothing bro does is without reason, neither is it “sadism”, its all very logical to him despite being horrific to any sane person because his only friend is the mansplain-manipulate-manspread puppet that raised him and he has awful coping mechanisms that barely stretch past beating himself 1. up 2. off. Like he kept his baby alive to the point where it could keep itself alive (kind of alive) and thats a win to him.

That was my thesis on why bro is not a bigot like ,, he makes porn of fucking smuppets, that gives him zero chance to fetishize The Ladies. I doubt he has porno mags littered around the house its just endless plushie dicks and asses (and the two puppets handcuffed together were legit kinda funny like Why). So why would dave have internalised homophobia if it did not stem from his brother ??? Acting as if his only friends werent exuding anti gay vibes, like christ, john “im not a homosexual” egbert, him and rose’s competitive flirting gag (before they found out they were related >.>), just generally the three of them accusing each other of being gay, yknow, as kids do (jade is exempt from the argument we love jade here). Things were just more homophobic back then and its not like bro and dave had a sincere talk about gender and sexuality in the 13 or so years they lived in the same house like why would you even come out to your younger sibling if you could just not !!! Lol !!! I could be getting all this info wrong lol so correct me if im wrong but bro has this cute comic artstyle and it was about someones charge (? Sibling?) straight up dying and the saw guy makes an appearance the end , like there was no sex or gore or whatever but if you look at sbahj the second page literally has an incest sex joke like where does dave even get his material from , which online sites has he been trawling , well haha its not bros job to monitor his kids search history lets ignore it and move on if the kid wants to be gross and make dumb jokes who is he to judge , spread your problematic wings and soar into the cancel clouds little guy

Anyway heres a disclaimer: if youre gonna clown on this post and tell me im an abuse apologist or some shit just understand that i have a lot of free time and love being a huge asshole when provoked but like youre so welcome to add to the discussion i love bullying my favourite character bro strider by steamrolling him we’ve talked about trans rights for too long now is the time for trans wrongs

[void-botanist]

Thanks for the tag! I had to think for a bit about what customs I'd built around weddings and funerals themselves since neither have had much opportunity to feature in my work (yet) but I came up with a few things.

Zalen, Zel, and Keearo are all Toru-Kavran, though their experiences and practices vary due to the specific contexts they're from. But one thing that they all do share is the matrimonial choker, which you can see Keearo wearing (Aza wears one too, but I apparently never drew that). It's a black leather band with a metal ring in the middle that acts as the clasp. Where Keearo is from, it's common to have a gold ring for the engagement period, a silver ring when you're married, and in the case of his widowed parent, a transparent ring. One idea from Triad that I still really like is Aza and Keearo putting their gold engagement rings on a leather cord for Kirnus as a token of their affection and a going-away present when he heads back home. I suspect based on other worldbuilding that the custom in Zalen and Zel's part of the world is to swap out the band itself instead of the ring, with different colors and possibly shapes associated with different stages. There are also specific intricate ceremony hairstyles that their grandmother has always been in charge of crafting upon their heads (in their cases, for graduations).

But the most unique perspective on marriage as an institution comes from Hoven's society. Sha-nawwenn are bipedal goat people based on chamois, and because chamois generally divide themselves based on sex and age, the small country, Litroj, that sha-nawwenn come from is similarly split: women live in West Town, men live in East Town, and River City, built around the river in the middle of the country, is where they come together (figuratively and literally - it's where you go for both grand libraries and grand love hotels). (Both towns include trans/nonbinary people who have chosen to live there, though many opt to live in River City long term.) Marriage was initially conceived as a way to codify connections between West Towners and East Towners, which in some ways was just a legal system for getting dibs on the person you planned to have kids with. The Elders (panel of government leaders, who are in fact actually old) added other incentives over time to help encourage people to have more kids, which eventually made the gays go, "hey can we have that too?" They got it after a lot of hemming and hawing that had nothing to do with anti-gayness and everything to do with the Elders not wanting to lose the power of their incentives.

The more contentious thing about sha-nawwen marriage now is whether this legal marriage should apply to couples made up of different sapient bipedal species. People like Hoven's brother, who married an orea-nawwen guy (like Cirrus, a bipedal goat person based on mountain goats), currently have to get their legal marriages done elsewhere, and usually end up living there. So anytime someone sees a sha-nawwen outside of Litroj the first thing they look for is the horn rings that would suggest said nawwen left Litroj for a marriage.

HAPPY WORLDBUILDING WEDNESDAY!

I’ve been doing a lot of cultural worldbuilding for a couple of my wips, and something I’ve really come to appreciate are fictional wedding and funeral customs! So, what are, if any, some traditions and/or customs when it comes wedding and funerals in your world? Do the societies in your world look at death or marriage in a particularly unique way?

This is a little late arriving for Worldbuilding Wednesday, but it’s here nevertheless! I wanted to put something out there for all of the new writeblrs I’ve gotten to check out over the past couple of days, so, if you’re one them, then definitely this applies to you! Tagging is a nightmare, but I’ll try my best! And, this should also go w/o saying, but if you see this and you just want to participate, then please feel free to!

Tagging some new followers (with no pressure, obviously!): @toribookworm22, @calicojackofficial, @westcountrygothic, @mz-elysium, @wearfinethingsalltoowell, @leighvalentin, @happystarfishnightmare, @an-elegant-void, @littlepatchofhell, @spookyceph, @thatndginger, @aesa, @theskeletonprior

Also tagging some OGs (again, with no pressure): @thetruearchmagos, @cryptid-s-wips, @citruswords, @reowrites, @highlycosmic, @make-the-heteros-upseteros-2022, @blackwidow2005, @ellatholmes, @floppydiskdoc

[inmyarmswrappedin]

How does SKAM build a LI?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and even gave speeches to my long suffering friends about the topic. Now that we know what happened to Josh to make him the way he is, I feel like I can finally post about the way SKAM built love interest characters. 

When it’s good, SKAM is a very tightly written show because every clip, and every storyline, advances the themes that make the main character vulnerable. I would call this their “shame” but DRUCK fans don’t like that term because the show is called “pressure” and not “shame”. In the end, whether a character’s issues are internal (”shame”) or external (”pressure”) is irrelevant to what I want to talk about, so let’s just call those themes a character’s vulnerability, shall we? 

How does SKAM make every storyline relate to the themes of the season and what makes a character vulnerable? Well, one way it does that is to make the love interest the personification of a character’s fears and issues.

To wit: In season 1, Eva is called out on having no opinions of their own. If you read @skamenglishsubs‘ culture and context posts, they have listed every instance in which this theme is portrayed by having Eva follow someone else’s opinion (I recommend you do this, because there are way more instances than I picked up on!). So, who is Jonas? Jonas is an extremely opinionated person who feels he’s not a follower at all. 

In season 2, Noora is afraid of opening herself to a boyfriend, both emotionally and sexually, because when she was 13 she had sex with a guy she thought she was in love with, who then dumped her as that was all he was interested in. Who is William? William is the school’s fuckboy who dumps girls after having sex with them, and doesn’t seem to care about the girls’ feelings, but rather is just interested in them advertising his sexual prowess via hoodies. 

In season 3, Isak’s strained relationship with his mom makes him believe that it’s impossible to have a functional relationship with a person who has a mental illness, because they’re not in touch with reality. Even has bipolar disorder.

And then, in possibly one of the most simplistic ways to perceive one’s own character, in season 4, Sana is a hijabi out to prove she can do everything a ~normal Norwegian party girl~ can do. Yousef is... not a Muslim, lol. (Note that the Yousef storyline was not originally planned by Julie Andem, and in fact came about because of feedback she received from Muslim fans that they wanted Sana to have a LI. Sana’s main storyline isn’t so much about her religion, but rather her furious desire to prove the haters wrong.)

In general, most of the SKAM remakes have not tried to reinvent the wheel, and have more or less stuck to these character profiles in order to build their own seasons. Most of the changes remake stans will point to when they talk about a remake season don’t really qualify as changes (under this definition) because they don’t change the conflict between the main and the LI. 

I was pretty interested in whether the remakes had picked up on this way to build a LI, and most particularly, how the remakes that have done original seasons built their LIs. Thoughts on these after the read more.

Out of all the seasons that remade SKAM’s four seasons, I would say there are only four that didn’t stick to the character profiles as outlined above. In my opinion, it’s these seasons:

Eva’s season in SKAM España changes this because Jorge is never set up as an opinionated person. He’s a good guy, for sure, a good friend to his friends like most Jonases, but you will never catch Jorge acting like his opinions are better than Eva’s. He never calls Eva out on not having opinions of her own. Their break up scene doesn’t deal with this, and most importantly, Eva could never get the upper hand in that last conversation like the other Evas have, because Jorge is the only Jonas to kiss Eva first.

Matteo’s season in DRUCK changes this because while Matteo is afraid that his mom won’t react well if he comes out to her, we have no idea what he thinks about having relationships with people with a mental illness, as a general rule. We don’t know because David doesn’t have a MI (that we know of). He is trans, and DRUCK wisely avoided making David’s gender identity the personification of Matteo’s issues (gvgvvh imagine how shit that would’ve been!!). Matteo and David’s major conflict is that Matteo has abandonment issues and David a tendency to peace out when things get hot.

Cris’ season in SKAM España changes this because Cris’ mom doesn’t have a mental illness. In fact, Cris doesn’t know much about MI in general. While Cris does have some internalized ableism, it comes from ignorance and buying into societal prejudices against MI, rather than personal experience. Cris’ vulnerability isn’t her ideas about MI. Her issue is that she has bought into the idea that she’s an unintelligent party girl who can’t ever be responsible or dependable.

Nora’s season in SKAM España both keeps and changes the conflicts as presented in SKAM. Nora fails to trust Alejandro because he’s a fuckboy who would have sex with girls and then mock them for getting their hopes up. But, unlike Noora, Nora’s issue is that her lack of trust in Alejandro throws her into the arms of the seemingly ideal boyfriend despite the red flags, whereas Noora’s lack of trust in William made her withhold sex. 

As you can see, all Sana seasons so far (Amira N.’s included) have kept the original conflict by having a non Muslim Yousef. Under this definition, Martino’s season in SKAM Italia isn’t a subversion, because while he does live with his mom, he doesn’t think he can have a functional relationship with her. Aside from Eva Vázquez, all of the Evas kissed their Jonas first. However, I should note that while SKAM Austin kept the Eva/Jonas conflict, they’re the only other SKAM that doesn’t open with Jonas’ essay. (Which I chalk up to facebook not wanting their show to open with a blatantly anti-capitalist speech lmao.) 

Now, how did the remakes with original seasons build their LIs?

Arthur’s season in SKAM France is an interesting example, because Baguettes picked up on the LI personifying the main’s vulnerability. If Arthur is vulnerable about his (lack of) hearing, Noée embraces it, takes pride on it and bases her identify around it. So far, this is exactly how SKAM/Julie Andem built her LIs. However, Arthur rejects Noée and mocks her language. Noée disappears after s5. Alexia has no hearing issues, or any disability.

Lola’s season in SKAM France similarly picks up on the concept. Since Lola is an addict, Maya’s father was one as well. However, this conflict isn’t really explored amidst the thousand other ideas that were thrown at the wall during this season. It’s fair to say Lola and Maya’s clips don’t develop the theme of addiction throughout the season. Unless you want to count Maya telling Lola that Lola is Maya’s addiction, I suppose. 

Kato’s season in wtFOCK (oh yes I’m going there) could be said to have picked up on the concept, although not in any real elegant way. Because of fan feedback for Moyo to get a season (which they declined to do for super valid reasons I’m sure), the team decided to have Moyo be the LI and worked backwards to build the main. It is similar to how SKAM approached Sana’s LI.  Moyo is a black guy, so Kato would be a racist! Genius!

Given these precedents, I was really curious what Nora’s season in DRUCK would do with their first 100% original love interest (so, not counting David). If they decided to go with SKAM’s standard way of building a LI, there were several possibilities. Nora’s mom has addiction issues, and this is a vulnerability of Nora’s. Would that mean that Josh would have substance issues? Or maybe his dad? His mom? Nora has a mental illness. Would that mean Josh would have issues around mental illness or therapy? Would he maybe have a mental illness himself? Nora was set up from the start as a liar. Would Josh be honest to a fault? And so on. 

In the end, it seems like DRUCK has taken the same approach they did with David. That is, Nora doesn’t have to accept something about Josh that she has preconceived ideas about (Noora, Isak, Sana), neither are Josh and Nora extremes in one character trait (Eva and Jonas). With this clip, it appears that their conflict is that Nora has a problem sharing her vulnerabilities (reminder: she didn’t come clean in English class out of a desire to be vulnerable, but to prove a point) and Josh has abandonment issues that make him prefer to try to change a person or even be hurt, rather than be left behind. 

DRUCK’s approach to building a LI in s5 (and probably beyond) might end up making the season less cohesive than SKAM seasons were. On the other hand, you can argue that the way SKAM built LIs could end up being too predictable (Isak is afraid of MI so Even has a MI, Sana is a Muslim so Yousef isn’t, Noora is afraid of being used for sex so William uses girls for sex, etc) and perhaps lowkey reductionist. And that’s without getting into the issues of making a character’s mental illness, religion, gender identity, sexuality, ethnicity or race, etc... the source of another character’s vulnerability (or “shame” or “pressure” if you will). This is particularly clear in the hands of lesser writers, as seen on wtFOCK and SKAM France. 

I will also get yelled at by @dusuessekartoffel if I fail to acknowledge that DRUCK is now doing original seasons and, though based on SKAM, should therefore become its own thing, develop LIs how they will, without taking SKAM as a model for anything. Iiiiii... think that DRUCK still owes a lot to SKAM even in this generation, and I kind of feel like the way SKAM built LIs is like the real time aspect of SKAM, something that is embedded into the very concept of the show and not something you can just discard when you buy the adaptation rights, but this is certainly up for debate.