#incorrectly quoted queers

[incorrectly-quoted-queers]

If I stopped being old and figured out how to do chat meme posts on mobile so I could write incorrect queer quotes on the go, it'd be *over* for y'all

I'd be unstoppable

[sayokou]

men cannot be lesbians. (no im not talking about GNC lesbians) no real lesbian, elder or young, is saying men can be lesbians. gender non conformity has always been apart of lesbian history, and always will be, but not men.

and here are some arguments yall lesbian "men" love:

- "read Stone Butch Blues" Stone Butch Blues was actually NOT about being a man, you read the book instead of repeating misinformation spread by others who also haven't read the book

- "leslie feinberg was a man" so close! ze wasn't a man at all. "I am female-bodied, I am a butch lesbian, a transgender lesbian-referring to me as "she/her" is appropriate, particularly in a non-trans setting in which referring to me as "he" would appear to resolve the social contradiction between my birth sex and gender expression and render my transgender expression invisible." this in no way is saying leslie identified as a man. to finish off this quote: " I like the gender neutral pronoun "ze/hir" because it makes it impossible to hold on to gender/sex/sexuality assumptions about a person you're about to meet or you've just met. And in an all trans setting, referring to me as "he/him" honors my gender expression in the same way that referring to my sister drag queens as "she/her" does." [forgive me if i used 'ze' incorrectly]

- "trans men feel safe in this space, away from xyz" and what about the lesbians who use the lesbian community as a safe space away from men? why do they have to compromise their safe space for the sake of a man?

- "trans men feel an attachment" and that's totally fine! it's okay to feel an attachment to a community you've been apart of for a long time. but there is a difference between attachment and identification. wanting to aide the lesbian community is totally fine, welcomed even! but this does not equate to identification.

- "gender is complex" as someone with a complex gender identity, i agree! but again, i am talking about men 'being' lesbians. not about gnc/gender complex lesbians.

- "it's not your business what a trans person identifies as" when it gets to said person invading my community, they make it my business. the same way it would be if a cis person claimed to be t4t

- https://africasacountry.com/2014/03/africa-has-always-been-more-queer-than-generally-acknowledged "see! it exists outside of america!"

wrong again! "Whereas the term ‘male lesbians’ is an attempt at translating the Hausa (e.g. Northern Nigerian) for ‘passive’ male partners or ‘yan kifi, who have sex with each other, ‘lesbian men’ in Namibia designate women who play the dominant ‘butch’ role in a same-sex relationship. Even though the terms ‘butch’ and ‘femme’ are not known in (Namibian) Damara culture, the various sexual practices and dress codes find some resonance in the admittedly Western butch-femme dyad." as you can see, the term 'lesbian man' is a place holder for the term 'butch' seeing as that term does not exist in those cultures, aka, lesbian 'men' are not a thing and this debate is solely american

I am in no way belittling trans people or the things the trans community has done for the LGBTQ+ community. This post is strictly saying men cannot be lesbians, again, men not gnc lesbians.

[goodeyezine]

24.09.2024. a bit shit, but it’s my first one in this series, and i had to get something out there. i did it standing up in the 10 minutes before my english class, cut me some slack.

pg 3 - not sure where my wires got crossed here, but i incorrectly attributed that quote to albert camus. it’s an andrew theroux quote, from his book “darconville’s cat”

pg 4, 5 - from radio silence by alice oseman, and heartstopper by alice oseman, respectively. good stories regarding queer youth and mental health

pg 6, 7 - “gimme something better: the profound, progressive, and occasionally pointless history of bay area punk, from dead kennedys to green day.” a book by jack boulware and silke tudor

[mutantjellybeans]

Not to go on about this again but like it does get a little frustrating sometimes when people incorrectly announce that something is 100% canon for real in the comics based solely on like a single panel they saw someone else post online, it’s mostly harmless because, yeah, they’re fictional comic books but yall should know by now people can make jpegs do anything they want so next time you see a panel with someone insisting that its contents are 100% canon for real:

Have you read the comic the panel came from? The panel could be taken out of context and have an entirely different meaning within the story itself or it could actually say something completely different all together

Did the OP provide a comic name and issue number? If OP doesn’t provide an issue number that’s a major sign that the panel could be edited, especially if the character is saying something particularly outlandish

Speaking of outlandish: is the text in the panel a reference to another piece of media or do you think it might be a reference to another piece of media? This could be a sign it’s taken from an incorrect quotes account and not an actual comic

Does the text look weird? Is the text different sizes/fonts or weirdly spaced in the bubble? This one might be hard to notice if you’re not into graphic design or typography so no judgement if you don’t but things like letter/word spacing, text size, font, bubble shape, etc is something that’s taken very seriously, bubbles need to be easy to read, pleasing to the eye, and take up as little space as possible, that’s why lettering is a whole separate job in the comic book industry. For example, in these panels “sons…” would not be left on it’s own in one line, “ya basic” would be given more impact, and all the text in the bubbles on the second panel are way too squished together (notice how the words are basically touching the outside of the bubble and how “devastating” is squished and small)

Similarly, is the text a higher quality than the rest of the image? In the infamous “I know you’re here Dracula, where’s my goddamn money?” Moon Knight image that a lot of people thought was real, for example, there’s a certain graininess to the image that doesn’t extend to the text bubble, which is notably clean-looking, in higher quality versions of the image you can even see the pixels of the text bubble that was slapped over the original text (which shouldn’t be possible considering the comic came out in the 80’s)

Did you look at OP’s page? Are they a fanartist? Some extremely talented fanartists dedicate a lot of time and effort to mimicking the comic book style, and they can be really good at it, though unfortunately these fanartists’ work are often reposted without credit which can lead others to believe they’re canon when they’re not, in this case remember: 1. look for an issue number, 2. reverse image search to see if you can find where the panel came from, and 3. keep in mind…

An A-list superhero being canonized as queer is a huge fucking deal, like mainstream news big deal, if an A-list character was confirmed as queer it would be absolutely goddamn everywhere, from IGN and comic book YouTubers to fucking Joe Rogan and late night talk shows, you wouldn’t be able to hear the end of it, so if you think “hey, shouldn’t this be a bigger deal?” stop and investigate further

And finally, the most annoying question: are you sure this is the right version of the character? Comics are filled with alternate timelines, parallel universes, clones, shapeshifters, and so on, are you absolutely positive that the panel you’ve found is the classic character from the main timeline? For example, people frequently used to use Harley and Ivy’s kiss in Bombshells as proof that their relationship was canon in the main DC timeline (it wasn’t, but it is now!), and people still use Logan and Hercules’s relationship in X-Treme X-Men #10 as proof that Wolverine is bisexual in the main 616 universe, which he is not, though it is kind of implied sometimes

I know a major part of this is me being an annoying, nit-picking comic book elitist and, yes, this is all mostly harmless BUT I also think this could be a really great way to exercise your media literacy skills as well as a good, harmless lesson in not taking everything you see online at face value and, hey, it might even get you to read some really great comic books in the process!

Improve your media literacy and critical thinking skills one edited comic book panel at a time! K thx, love you, bye!

[rainbowsky]

hi rainbowsky, love your blog and your very articulate and sane view of things. It’s been very calming and comforting when there’s so much noise (and hate) in the world. So, thank you!

Curious your take on wyb wearing a bandana hanging from his left belt hook, at the Shu Uemura event today. And not a designer bandana, like the Chanel one he had on his backpack on recent trip to Japan.

I immediately thought of 1970s San Francisco gay culture, men would signal their orientation by hanging them from left side, right side, back pocket (L/R). Not thinking too much about color significance since red is Shu Uemura’s brand color. I don’t know anything about the new ad campaign he’s doing with them, but 1970 and 1971 were on 2 posters behind where he was seated.

It just flashed on me so I’d thought I’d ask. 🧐 🤡

Hi Hellopedey! Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying my blog! 😊

Inquiring minds want to know: is DD trying to signal to the world that he wants to stick his fist up their ass for Shu Uemura?

You aren't the only person to take note of this. I've seen people mentioning hanky code in the tags of reblogs of my post of the photos from that event, and I've seen people talking about it on Twitter, too. It's become quite a topic since the event.

This is a question that has come up a few times in the past, but alas - it's often impossible to find old posts on Tumblr, so rather than being able to point to my previous post about it I will just re-answer.

Fake, fan fiction, CPN.

Long story short: I don't believe for one hot second that DD is using hanky code. There are a lot of reasons I feel this way, and I'll get to that in a minute, but the number one thing I want to bring home for people is that:

Everyone is allowed to wear hankies without assumptions being made about their sexual activity/preferences.

Including you, Hellopedey, and every other reader. Maybe that's not as much of a relief to some readers as it would be to those who happen to be queer and heavily sexualized by others, but it should take a load off some minds. 😅

You know that old saying, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar*?" Well, sometimes a hanky is just a hanky. I'd go so far as to say that a hanky is almost always just a hanky. Even if worn by a gay man.

*Incorrectly attributed to Freud, the origin of that quote is actually unknown.

Here are just a few reasons it's obvious to me DD isn't signalling (and I can't believe I have to say this, because it seems obvious to me):

Location, location, location. Please remember that hanky code is used when people are looking for sex. DD is at a brand event. He's not looking for sex.

His outfit is likely put together by a stylist, and that stylist is unlikely to be trying to hook him up with people for sex.

Hanky code isn't much of a Thing with young people these days. There's no need for it, since now all anyone needs to do to hook up with someone based on preferences is tick off a few boxes on Grindr or other apps (even in China).

Hanky code is pretty Western-centric. It's unclear whether it's even used in China.

As was discussed in the notes, bandanas are popular in hip hop fashion and in other fashion styles DD often wears.

Hankies are a very widely/wildly popular fashion accessory worn by people from all walks of life. Both GG and DD have worn hankies a lot, including for their fabulous Happy Camp dance, and in this context, it really is just a fashion accessory.

I'm going to say this as gently as possible, because I get it that people are just being clueless and oblivious, and that they don't intend to offend, but it really tweaks something in me as a gay person that so many fans are casually willing to make the assumption that DD is sexually signalling at work.

This goes back to the whole oversexualization in the fandom thing that I often lament.

I think fans - especially turtles - get so used to scrutinizing everything for signs and signals of GG and DD's sexual and romantic proclivities that common sense and GGDD's basic humanity are often overlooked. Fans could also stand to do a bit more to reflect on how their behavior and attitudes might (unintentionally) come across as offensive and homophobic* to queer people.

*Not saying this is where you were coming from, Hellopedey, but I hope all fans will reflect on it.

Please read this post for more info on that, because it's important.

PS] For those looking for something salacious about GG and DD, how about checking out the lyrics for the song they danced together to on Happy Camp? That's a pretty racy song for a couple of 'straight' guys to be dancing together to. 😅

[himbosuplex]

I don't like to wade into fandom discourse and at the risk of upsetting any of my followers, if I do, I'm sorry, but I have to say my piece:

I deliberately abstain from involving myself in "pro" vs "anti" 99% of the time, but it really bothers me how I've watched the definition of just a regular shipper become "pro-shipper" and then further be deliberately skewed by folks in real time. Like, listen, I'm in my late 30s, I come from a time where shit like Wincest was just kind of a joke and people who didn't like it ignored it, if you get squicked you don't look. Nowadays people treat that sort of thing as being as bad as real-life murder. Nowadays people act like two *fictional* stepsiblings who weren't raised together falling in love is equivalent to real world incest. Do I like Wincest? No. Do I like step-sibling love stories? No, not really. Do I think either warrants peoples lives being ruined or enduring rampant harassment? Absolutely NOT.

The worst part being is that any time anyone speaks up about this shit, people will crawl out of the woodwork to say "so then you're okay with (real life) pedophilia?" And like... to quote the classic tweet... "No b*tch. Dats a whole new sentence. Wtf is you talking bout?"

Like nowhere else but Tumblr would I be called a "groomer apologist" because I ship two consenting FICTIONAL, NOT REAL adults that just happen to have an age gap. Or a "literal serial killer" because I enjoy horror stuff. Someone once called me a predator because I drew queer smut of adult Digimon because "its a kids show" even though I make deliberately clear to tag and label it and note that my work is not appropriate for nor meant for consumption by minors. Like how fucked up is that? To be an actual real survivor of sexual assault and then be called a predator because you drew Etemon with a dick once?

I don't think pro-shipper is a term that can be salvaged, as it has gone too long being used incorrectly. Maybe it shouldn't be. Nor do I think just not being a cop about fiction should really need a label.

But I think at the very least people should understand that pro-shipper was never about being "pro adults with minors" or "problematic" or "pro [insert rancid thing here.]." It came from a time where ship wars were a regular occurrence, and folks were pushing back against people trying to force others to conform to their tastes instead of curating their own space. It was always about "live and let live", and you didn't HAVE to 'be okay' with gross ass stuff, lord knows I'm not, but you didn't have to see someone who wrote a fanfic and could honestly have some real trauma they are sorting out and equate them with real world predators who hurt real people.

Nowadays, people acting like this in fandom is just so normalized and it genuinely terrifies me in this current fiction climate. In the modern era of the increasing pushes for censorship in fiction and book banning that is a deliberate move by conservatives to make people complacent when they continue to ban books for being too queer. You never have to be "okay" with people writing things that gross you out, or make you uncomfortable, but you can block them and continue on. You don't need to be a cop about it. Curate and block what you can, and if anything, encourage people to responsibly tag their media so it can be more easily avoided and encourage spaces to offer the tools to do such things.

So yeah, there's my thoughts. I'll probably regret posting this, but hey, these are my opinions, and I think I'm allowed to have them.

Uh- are you aware of the meaning of proship?

Proship has never meant anything except a combination of three ideas:

Ship and let ship (your ships don't harm me and vice-versa) and YKINMK (your kink is not my kink, and that's okay; my kink stories don't harm you and vice-versa)

Harassment over fiction is not acceptable

Censorship of fiction is not acceptable either

Any other definitions are made by antis, not proshippers, and are an attempt at revisionism to justify harassment based on false claims.

[majorasnightmare]

Wym by non-standard attraction? I'm unfamiliar with the concept

so its not an academic term or anything, more me trying to discuss a particular concept in a very general way using simplistic vocabulary, because brainfog gets too bad to pull up the more specific, detailed word while im tryin to make a fandom post rip

generally you can understand the idea of non standard attraction by understanding its inverse, the concept of a standardized attraction. in the real world this is the cultural system of cisheteropatriarchy and the ways it allows attraction to be expressed and what it allows someone to find attractive in the first place. its the invisible standard that makes up the guiding hand that designs every vapid boring sexy-lamp female character design. its what makes up quote unquote Normal Attractiveness. its gender conforming, its heterosexual, its monogamous, and any other number of social norm upholding traits.

non standard attraction then is engaging attraction "incorrectly" for the culture you are enmeshed in. using a very specific example, its how a bisexual woman can express attraction to men but still be called homophobic slurs even when trying to remain closeted, because of violating an invisible standard for what shes SUPPOSED to find attractive and desirable in a man, and thus STILL trip the triggers for being flagged as gay. as you can probably tell this is an incredibly vague term (almost to the point of uselessness) and there ARE better, more specific and useful terms for identifying and discussing these systems and their underpinning sociological institutions, however by nature of their specificity and accuracy, they are not broadly usable when making fandom posts about a fantasy culture!

so when discussing the influence i feel mintharas sexuality had on her experience in menzoberranzan, i cant ACTUALLY cite the influrnce ofcisheteropatriarchy because, well, menzoberranzan in a watsonian sense just does not have that. from a doylist perspective its useful when discussing the influence of real world politics and social structures upon the writing of a fantasy peoples who, in some variations of lore, literally had their skin darkened by Original Sin and went on to make a man-hating misandrist society of bondage loving dominatrixes, like in that discussion, using the term cisheteropatriarchy to discuss the real influences on the collection of authors who made decisions to write menzoberranzan Like That, is very helpful because its a specific term that lets you point your finger at a very specific concept and its consequences.

but when discussing the society from within its own fiction and the effects it has on characters within that society. well. less helpful. thus we turn to vague handwavey terms like "nonstandard attraction" to discuss mintharas specific brand of queerness, really to more or less have a placeholder concept in the sentence while we move past it onto the rest of the post

sorry for leavin you with this big ass text wall!! thanks for askin for clarification!!! ouo)/

[lit-crits]

(2022) The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath (Illustrated Edition by Beya Rebai). 28/08/2024 - 01/09/2024

First time reading? Yes

Rating: 9/10

Favourite quote: "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

Gift from my boyfriend! Been on my reading list for AGES and this edition is sooooooo pretty. I loved this book and will definitely be reading it again. The fig tree analogy is my favourite thing about this book, so many things can be taken from it and the whole thing is beautifully written. Esther is such a good character (loads of discussions I've read online say she is a badly written character but I don't see it), she is immediately morbid right off the bat which sets her up as different to the rest of the women she lives and works with. She sees how hypocritical societal standards for women are, how she has to remain a virgin till marriage but Buddy (her boyfriend/fiancé to be?) can have sex with other women with little consequence. Sex is a key theme in the book which I didn't really expect, I think it was really interesting that when Esther gets on birth control (due to her supportive female psychiatrist, Dr Nolan - a lot to say about her) and does finally have sex (not with Buddy) she literally haemorrhages and has to go to hospital - this bit is never really fully explained by Plath. She bleeds a LOT directly after sex and then the doctor in the hospital says she is one of a kind and winks at her when he is examining her - I did not get what this meant and I can't find any answers online either? Either way it is INTERESTING that when she finally gets to have sex it is bloody and destructive. Back to Dr Nolan, she was obviously written to be the shining example of what Esther wants to be: an independent, professional woman. Nolan actively helps Esther become more independent by helping her get on birth control which gives her the sexual freedom she has always envied men for. Nolan is arguably the key reason Esther even gets better at the asylum, she is a progressive woman who supports Esther's way of thinking and she convinces Esther to try shock therapy again (after it was done incorrectly by a male doctor previously). Nolan is there right at the end of the book too, when Esther is about to go in for her review with the board of doctors, to help guide her back into society. The bit with Joan being heavily implied to be a lesbian went right over my head, had to go back and re-read that bit once I saw that analysis online. I had just read it as Joan was a mirror of Esther, and what she would have become if she hadn't gotten better which I still do think, but Joan was quite obviously crushing on Esther. I really really really did not expect Esther to make an assumed full recovery from her mental illnesses, I had presumed she was going to kill herself and that would be the end of the book. My one complaint is that Esther's descent into becoming mentally unwell seemed really quick to me, which I guess is how it can actually be in real life, like one chapter she was feeling a bit disconnected and emotionless then the next she was self-harming and planning her suicide. Overall, great book that I really recommend!

[closetsof-backlogged-dreams]

favourite tropes? least favourite tropes in shows, movies and/or books?

FAVORITE TROPES

this isn't necessarily a trope, but i LOVELOVELOVE seeing Outsider POV, where someone outside of the main couple just watches/reacts to the main couple. i love seeing characters react to my ships, idk why

i love the whole patching-them-up-after-a-battle trope, except only if its with two queer and repressed ppl. something abt it, man. kills me.

like everyone else on this hellsite, enemies-to-lovers. BUT! only if it's queer. to (mostly likely incorrectly) quote that one random tiktok i saw like three years ago and think abt daily, "if i want to watch a man and a woman yell at each other, i'll just go downstairs and eat with my parents"

the "two sporty people on a sporty team are gay and in love"

idk how common this one is but the "we're childhood friends and we just graduated high school and we're going to different colleges and i rly fucking miss you and omg im in love w you" and then they have a big ol' confession scene over summer break or smth

road trips. road trips. road trips.

NOT FAVORITE TROPES

oh! he kidnapped her!! and she's falling in love with him!!! it's so sillyfunnyquirky!!!!

we met in an airport and we fell in love (idk what it is but i hate it, it's so boring to me)

the like "you're sick and i'm taking care of you" trope. get it away. it's adorable and i hate it.

the "i'm the nerdyquirkysilly girl and he's the popularjockwhitebrunettefootballplayer" fucking kill it with a spoon on FIRE

the "oh i've been bullying you so badly for the last ten years that you were at home 'sick' more days than you were at school because i was iN lOvE wItH yOu."

the "they're so cool and hot and sexy and witty and funny" but they're rly just super mean and bitchy. being a total dickhead aint cute, guys.

[spocks-smokey-eye]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box of the last 10 people who reblogged something from you. Learn to know your mutuals and followers ✨

oh!!! i don’t get asks often thank youu <3 

1. Practising my violin (which I really should do more often oops)

2. Making playlists *cough* my Spotify has 100+ lol don't @me

3. Baking!! looove baked goods

4. Singing/dancing/generally prancing around the house like an idiot

5. Painting my nails. it's mildly therapeutic :’) 

[incorrectly-quoted-queers]

I am a co-founder of a gaming journalism site now? And we have a Twitter and  TikTok where I’m the social medai manager???

Life’s wild guys 

[yaaasshunnay]

Tan: I want to see my little boy.

Karamo enters holding Antoni: Here he comes.

Tan: I want to see my little boy.

Antoni: ☺😊

[badnewbie]

hi i have a brain that can’t shut up and here’s my little pet theory on what i like to call the joker’s trick: the fact that the joker is gay and we all know it, but we cannot ever say it out loud or acknowledge it

this is literally his picture on the wiki btw. also i feel like if you’re here i don’t need to argue that the joker is gay because he literally is. we’re doing gay joker analysis 2.0 here, sir

please note that i’m about to use a bunch of sexist and homophobic language, as i generally find that the most effective way to communicate the cultural norms that i’m about to touch on.

obviously, i’m using the word ‘gay’ when i’m talking about joker as a bit of an oversimplification. i’d use ‘queer’ or maybe even ‘queercoded’ (ugh), because it’s more accurate to how joker is actually portrayed, but when i grew up, gay was still very much a slur and gay-as-a-slur, an f-word, is in fact what the joker needs to be. this is for a reason: to me, the most important aspect about the joker is that he is a creation by straight men, meant to appeal to other straight men. 

so yeah, problem solved right? the joker is the symbol for ultimate evil, so he generally represents whatever his writer thinks is the worst thing that exists and for a lot of straight men, that’s a gay dude. kinda sucks, but checks out. 

except, that’s not the whole story, because straight men friggin’ love the joker. they’re dressing up as him, they’re quoting him, kinning him, coming up with elaborate backstories for him, leaving really intense youtube comments about how he’s the only one who really gets batman about him. in other words, they think the joker is cool. they think he’s really, really, really cool. They want to be the joker

why? that actually doesn’t check out at all. sure, he’s a villain who does whatever he wants, but most villains do and most of them haven’t been able to capture the hearts and minds of straight men the way the joker has. and joker has gotten more obviously gay over the years as he’s gotten more popular, not less. straight dudes love that the joker is gay! 

time for some academic perspectives: our cultural attitude towards gayness are deeply interlinked with our attitudes towards gender roles and masculinity. and masculinity is a deeply strange concept and it is something that a lot of comics concern themselves with (see: straight men appealing to other straight men). while most comic book men are usually examples of hegemonic masculinity (the culturally ideal form of masculinity), the joker is at his core a failure of hegemonic masculinity, and him being gay is the easiest shorthand to straight men for communicating this. a true man is a straight man is a masculine man is a man who is not feminine is a man who is not attracted to men. queercoding men and failing masculinity is usually one and the same in practice.

here’s another thing about manhood: it’s often precarious. with ‘precarious manhood’, we refer to the phenomenon that manhood for men often feels like something that can be taken away from them. while being a woman is often conceptualized as something innate, for men it is much easier to be accused of not being a ‘real’ man. as such, men tend to be more pre-occupied with their own masculinity and often remain in a more anxious state in which they constantly try to re-affirm their manhood to both themselves and their surroundings.* this is what many people incorrectly refer to as toxic masculinity btw. It should also be noted that hegemonic manhood is a cultural ideal and therefore attaining it is fully impossible and this is leaving a lot of men frustrated. they reach for an unattainable goal under the treat of cultural punishment if they fail. also, this effect is generally stronger in straight men, as queer men generally already ‘know’ that they will never reach hegemonic masculinity, as it is defined through being attracted to women only, and therefore, in this aspect, they can walk the mile

so what is a frustrated straight man who is feeling like a failure of masculinity to do? well...what if there was a role model for you who is on every account a failure of masculinity too and he was thriving? what if there was a guy who’s laughing about all these gender rules and breaking them and maybe it made him even more badass? maybe there’s this complete failure of masculinity, not just walking the mile but running directly in the opposite direction and he’s scary and powerful and maybe that’s true power and maybe you are in some way even more powerful (masculine) than all those other guys who are effortlessly performing their masculinity. what then?

but is he gay? don’t worry straight men, of course he isn’t :) 

(is he gay? yeah)

(but is he?? no, he isn’t (although he is))

seriously, is the joker gay? yes! but also no! because his purpose is to be a (lol) safe space for straight men to project their anxieties about their own masculinity on. the joker has to be gay in order to be an effective failure of masculinity, but he can’t be gay because then he’s just some gay guy whose nature is just naturally different from straight men/real men and straight men can’t project on him anymore.

so yeah whoops, it’s still homophobia. but at least it’s weird homophobia. it’s what the joker would have wanted * this also can lead to much greater difficulty for women to go against their assigned gender role, which is often constricting and oppressive. i blog about this a LOT on my main, so please don’t come for me on this

[wirewitchviolet]

On the Vocabulary of Bigots

I would say somewhere around 2.3 times a day on average, I see someone who ostensibly works in political news or with a PhD in sociology or whatever quote a statement from some unrepentant bigot shouting about something like “the W*** media is censoring Govenor Big Oted!” and add a cheery little note that says “no, what people are criticizing Big Oted. His ability to say whatever he wants is completely unimpinged, and you in fact just linked to a televised interview with him in your post. Censorship is when the government passes laws restricting what people can and cannot say, like the new law banning teachers from saying anything at all regarding queer people or the slave trade, which the governor here is being criticized for signing.”

The apparent goal of these sort of posts is to go “ohoho! I have defeated you by pointing out that you are using the word ‘censored’ incorrectly! Surely you will now see the error of your ways and cease using it in the future!” Which they have to know isn’t going to happen, right?

Meanwhile if the bigot being quoted is inclined to reflect on this at all, their thoughts are just going to be “Ha! These idiots still get tripped up when we say ‘censored’ and don’t push back at all!”

See, horrible bigots don’t care at all what you think about them, or how words are normally used. They are motivated purely by a desire to convince everyone they can that everyone who isn’t a bigot is sub-human, and therefore should be treated worse than bigots. They are laser-focused on this. Everything they say and do is attempting to make progress along these lines. This especially includes the vocabulary they use, and the way they use it.

Ideally, bigots would love to just say out loud how much they’d like to beat people to death, using only the most horrifically vile and dehumanizing language to describe the people, and the most vivid and explicitly violent language to explain the specifics. You can see this for yourself if you look at old racist propaganda materials. Once upon a time (and still today if you’re on a sufficiently dedicated hate website) you could get away with depicting various minorities as literal monsters and demons and openly talk about the urgent need to exterminate them all.

You don’t generally see that in public, because if you’re sufficiently clear and articulate with horrifying hate speech, sensible people rightfully see you as an existential threat and react accordingly. So the big game for bigots has always been, “what’s the closest we can say to what we literally mean that the average person will give us the benefit of the doubt on?”

Since I opened with it, let’s start with “free speech/censorship” as bigots use it. Somewhere over the years, bigots got the idea to willfully misread the first amendment of the U.S. constitution as saying that bigots have a constitutional right to say those most absolutely horrific things possible, and that any effort to criticize them for it is against everything the country stands for. This is, of course, totall bullshit. I’m fairly confident everyone in the world understands that this is total bullshit, but the sort of academics I’m criticizing above the fold are entirely too happy to smugly explain how that’s not what the amendment actually says rather than to actually address how hey, we’ve got some unrepentently evil monsters here who ultimately want to murder a bunch of innocent people lying to everyone’s face to try and recruit people into attacking anyone who opposes them.

There’s an extra simple version of this you can teach to less intellectually-minded bigots: “hey anytime anyone pushes back about anything you say just shout ‘free speech!’ or how you’re being censored,” and this worked pretty damn well for a good number of decades, only about now really hitting a point where they’re getting lazy enough in deploying it to be regularly using it in situations the average person is going to notice “wait this is just a euphemism for you wanting to call people slurs,” but we still have the ACLU and EFF being absolute marks and offering to defend absolute hatemongers because they lack the reading comprehension to see that no, nobody is actually defending their first amendment rights here. Once organizations like that clue in and it’s clear the population at large understands that anyone talking about being “censored” just doesn’t want to be criticized, and “free speech” means “I want to use slurs that would clearly violate hate speech regulations” they might finally retire it.

Meanwhile we have the term “political correctness” to describe bigots’ collective frustration with the cycle where they collectively imbue terms with so much raw undeniable hatred that all of society recognizes them as slurs, and they are forced to switch to relatively new slurs people haven’t yet caught onto. Basically, what’s the most horrible thing a bigot might use to describe, say, black people without it being so obvious they’d lose a political campaign for saying it. Perhaps ironically though, “political correctness” itself has kind of reached that level of infamy at this point.

It would be very nice if we could actually reach a point where we all stop playing this game completely, and fully remove unrepentant bigots ability to participate in society, rather than give them infinite chances to focus group a new set of dog whistles and use them unopposed until the next time people catch on. Until we reach a point where people have the stomach for that though, we can at least focus on shortening up the cycles as best we can, and start responding to this crap based on the actual clear meaning of what bigots are saying rather than pretending they’re using words the way a functional member of society would.

“SJW” got a lot of play over the past decade, but I feel like it was decoded pretty quickly. Theoretically there was a brief period where some people might have used it to describe some particular flavor of irritating person, but most people never heard it until straight up neo-nazis pushed it into the mainstream, and it was easy enough to just start explaining “it’s code for Jews.” Certainly helped along by how often they’d give the game away and actually leave the E in.

Presently, bigots are really going hog-wild with the hip new slur “W***.” And I’m genuinely baffled that it’s still managing to fly to any degree. Like with SJW, there was a pretty damn narrow window on when anyone used the term in any context other than as an explicitly hate-filled and dehumanizing slur.

See back in the summer of 2014 there was a particularly horrific incident where an innocent 18 year old was murdered in the middle of the street by a cop, who when questioned on why he shot an unarmed child who was over 20 feet away 12 times, explained that he was a demon with superpowers pulled from various video game and comic book characters who in fact became more powerful when shot repeatedly in the chest.

Local law enforcement, right-wing media figures, and prominent neo-nazi groups fervently backed the legitimacy of this utterly absurd defense. The murderer faced no real consequences, and the understandable protests and memorials were met with a nightmarishly militant police response. This kicked off a lasting public discussion of how yes, police do in fact routinely murder black children without consequence, mostly associated with the better known phrase Black Lives Matter.

However, as efforts to villify anyone uttering that particular set of words never really managed to crack into the mainstream, horrific bigots eventually began to instead create a negative association with the phrase “stay woke” which had a brief stint of popularity among activists as efforts were being made to metaphorically lull people back to sleep with absurd revisionist revisions of what was quite clearly a massive racist murdering a child. This peaked around 2016, when the phrase worked its way into the chorus of Childish Gambino’s Redbone, and it’s around here that bigots began to use “w***” as a slur, first alongside, then replacing “BLM” to... quite frankly, vent their anger over anyone daring to object to racists gunning down innocent black children in the middle of the street, but in a way that they could attempt some plausible deniability that they were in fact perhaps just angry at the vague concept of people “disliking right-wing values.”

For reason of, I assume, being totally checked out on the horrific murder that initially popularized the term, we are presently some 6-ish years into bigots just openly using “w***” as a slur, largely in a general catch-all sense applying to all marginalized people, but primarily targeting anyone opposed to the “right” to shoot black children on sight. I kinda feel like this is a real easy one to bury as the obvious monstrous slur it is. Just any time you see someone bust it out, ask them what the hell whatever subject they’re on about has to do with objecting to police murdering innocent children, and feel free to bust out this here history lesson as they sputter and try to come up with some alternate definition on the spot.

[trans-rights-peeps]

Why are you so angry people don't want to date trans ppl? Like. This literally all came out of people being harassed to the breaking point by trans ppl demanding they say they're attracted to them, which, tbh, is not very attractive behavior. Super straight and super gay etc etc are people trying to set boundaries in a way y'all will understand. It's not hate to not want to date someone and if y'all can't understand that maybe it's because you've never experienced actual oppression? Something to think about.

>This literally all came out of people being harassed Actually, believe it or not, it had originiated with far-right (anti-trans) trolls on 4Chan to get you to associate with Nazism. It was then that the whole situation started blowing up when a TikTok user by the name of Kyle Royce made a video claiming to be the founder of the Super Straight community. The whole thing was based on transphobia and antisemitism; Not because people were supposedly ‘harassing others to date eachother’. Please check your resources next time. What you are stating would be an example of what you would call a “straw man argument”. The technique often takes quotes out of context or, more often, incorrectly paraphrases or summarizes an opponent's position. Then after "defeating" the position, the attacker claims to have beaten the real thing. >It's not hate to not want to date someone Of course it’s not hateful to not want to date someone. But to exclude someone’s existence and/or identity from a “sexuality” is not preference, that is discrimination and exclusion. Preference in gender (in your case, specifically) would be whether or not that person has biological female genitalia, or biological male genitalia. Gender and sex are two different concepts. Sex is what you are born with, or what is on your body, and/or your reproductive organs. Gender is one’s identity. This would be in reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female. Most people transition from their biological sex to the other sex so that it matches their gender identity. So to seperate trangender humans from cisgender humans regardless of their genitalia (transitioned or not) or how they specifically identify, you are claiming that trans women aren’t real women, and that trans men aren’t real men. And that is the basics of transphobia. Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence, anger, or discomfort felt or expressed towards people who do not conform to social gender expectations. >maybe it's because you've never experienced actual oppression? You have no place to tell us whether or not we (as queer individuals) have or haven’t experienced opression. I personally (as one of the admins) do not owe you an explanation, or my stories regarding direct and indirect oppression regarding homophobia and transphobia, with the occurances that I’ve experienced in my life. That was an completely ignorant statement for you to even 1. think in the first place, 2. to have the audacity to write this out word for word. Your priviledge is really showing through regarding how you do not realize what social/physical/economic advantages you would have being heterosexual and/or cisgender. Thank you for your time and patience if you considerately chose to read this out; It may not change anything but I hope to spread something inheritly far more greater than what you are spreading yourself. -😼

[kaypeace21]

Rebel Robin podcast (ep 3 &4 analysis)

For those who haven’t read them yet. Here’s the analysis for podcast ep 1&2. Analysis of Rebel Robin book-here. And eastereggs from rebel robin novel- here.

So the main things I noticed in ep 3 was how Robin spying was shown as a huge NEGATIVE-and Mr Hauser got upset over her doing so. Robin listens to mr. Hauser’s phone call (like Karen with Mike in s3/ us gov spying on calls in s1) & on a different occasion Robin also eavesdrops on a private convo he is having with someone else in his classroom ( like El spying on Mike talking to Lucas in s3). And when he finds out about this he tells her how wrong it was to spy on other people like that. In the past, I also talked about how the theme of spying is shown for many other st characters ( in the show) and how it  isn’t romanticized like people think it is- here .

Anyways , Ep 3 ends with a call from a h*mophobic teen( Dash) telling Robin to “stay away” from Mr. Hauser cause he’s “dangerous”. Why he thinks he’s dangerous is solely for the fact he’s gay.I think this theme may come into play in s4 Hawkins (in relation to the satanic panic). In ep 4 Robin jokes to (gay) Mr. Hauser  : “ So what are you into... satanism?” (Sadly most queer people have been told over and over we’re going to hell for being gay/lgbt+. it’s sadly an almost universal experience.) For those unaware- the ‘satanic panic’ was a right wing christian movement in the 80′s that WRONGLY associated certain things with supposed satanism.  Just some of the many things they demonized : rock music , stephen king , wearing black,  horror/fantasy media, and of course queer people and d&d (hellfire club - the name is a a xmen ref but in the show it’s probably an inside joke about the satanic panic and people being scared of d&d). We see foreshadowing of the satanic panic hinted in s3 (in relation to d&d)- on tv the narrator asks if “satanism” (pans to d&d set) is to blame for the odd occurrances in Hawkins. And given how the s4 el-trailer had the clock say 3:00am for the “witching hour” also called “the devil’s hour” since it’s supposed to be a subversion of jesus dy*ing at 3:00 pm. And the possibility s4 may take place around Easter.  I think we’ll see that religious (Christian) extre*sm  causes many people in Hawkins to interpret the supernatural as ‘satanic’. And no , I’m obviously not talking poorly about all religious/christian people).

After this Mr. Hauser jokes how Hawkins is like “lord of the flies” and how he “worries” what would happen if teens were left to their own devices-like in the book. The themes in the book mostly focus on the dangers of ‘mob mentality’ and how human beings can become v*olent and turn on each other- if the safety of civilization disappears...

This I believe is foreshadowing - i mentioned in a post a while back (here). How movies on the s4 list had the theme of :  a supernatural event indirectly causing towns people to act irrationally and turn on eachother v*olently. Despite literal monsters attacking them from outside (they chose to turn on eachother instead). In the end some townspeople become the real monsters via mob mentality/v*oence/false witch hunts (the mist, the birds, etc). In ‘the birds’ (while people are hidding in a store)- they wrongly  blame certain characters for the supernatural chaos. Similarly, in ‘the mist’ (crowd of townspeople are trapped in a store) and some  start interpreting the monsters as being sent as punishment by god- some town’s people start quoting the bible and saying the only way to stop the punishment is to start “sacrificing the s*nners and nonbelievers”. BIG YIKES.ST references mapple street (where the wheelers and sinclairs live). It’s based on the twilight zone ep of the same name “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” .The ‘monsters’ of that episode -were the townspeople turning on eachother because they incorrectly think their own neighbors are part of an invading supernatural army. The enemy was actually the paranoia/mob mentality-not the supernatural force they feared.  And yes i do think this concept is linked with 80s satanic panic and will cause some town division/obstacles for our heroes to deal with . **I also think the s4 bts of the Hawkins blood clinic-may be used to show h*mophobia (linked to satanic panic) in the town. Like in one s4 movie “paradise lost”the punk rock boys who were into black clothes, rock music , horror/stephen king books- were accused by the town’s people of being gay AND have demonic powers that are k*lling fellow town’s people.

Mr Hauser says he thinks steve Harrington is Ralph from lord of the flies. And Robin disagrees saying he’s Jack. Personally- since this was when Robin didn’t know/hated Steve. I think Mr hauser is right that Steve is Ralph (one of the oldest boys) who’s “commitment to civilization and morality is strong”. But Jack  (perhaps the popular s4 kid Jake?) and his savage crew take control of the group and start trying to attack Ralph and his friends (steve’s crew- over satanic panic?). How this begins is -

 Jack, torments Ralph and others. And some kids begin to develop savage personalities, after someone claims to have seen a Beast (demongorgan?) in the woods. This creates fear among the boys, which allows Jack to access more power.Ralph gets into an argument with Jack, who splits from the tribe. Many of the other boys follow Jack, who uses fear to manipulate the boys into leaving Ralph. And Jack’s crew begin attacking Ralph and his friends.

----------------

Ok, next topic of ep 4- the sentimental part of my brain got emotional when hearing how upset Robin was. And than Mr Hauser-telling her she’s wrong and she’s not “broken” or “rotten” and “nothing about her needs to be fixed’” (got me right in the feels) . As a queer person- I feel like every lgbt+ kid/teen needs to hear what Mr. Hauser said to Robin. 

However,  the analytical part of my brain -did notice some easterggs/ series parallels.

The convo starts with them talking about music Mr hauser likes (such as Bowie). And transitions to Mr Haauser asking about things she likes, whether she’s being bullied, and he later tells her “ DON’T let other people’s small mindedness make you fell bad about yourself. you don’t need to change yourself-no matter what anyone else says” . And Mr Hauser than says him calling her the “weirdest girl in Hawkins” was a compliment (not an insult-like she initially assumed). 

This is remarkably similar to certain scenes in s1/2. In s1, Jonathan mentions musicians he likes such as Bowie, asks Will about what he likes,  and tells Will “don't like things cause people tell you you’re supposed to-especially not him (their dad who called him h*mophobic names)” . In s2, Jonathan tries to cheer Will up after asking if he's being being bullied. And calls Will  “a freak” (and says it’s a good thing) and he should be content with being a “freak “ and compares Will to Bowie ( who was openly queer since the 70s) . 

In ep 4, Robin also mentions how sad she is that her parents won’t let her ride her bike anymore cause their paranoid about her safety  (like what happened to Will in s2).

Robin (before Mr. Hauser comforts her) says she feels like she has a “rot” inside her  . This is a s2 eastergg that could be linked to either Will or El. Will says his now-memories are “growing”, spreading”, and killing.” Later Kali says the emotional pain caused by her father  caused a “wound” to “spread”. Later allusion-Brenner tells El she has a “terrible wound “ (“a rot”) that Will “grow, spread, and kill.”

The reason Robin rants about feeling like she has a “rot” inside her is because she’s being bullied, and  lost all her Hawkins friends and says  “maybe I’m broken maybe there is just something about me that drives people away? I’m the only common denominator-there’s something wrong with me! There’s something inside of me that’s just rotten and there’s nothing i can do to fix it”. Which 1)-poor Robin. 2) I feel like could easily be How Will feels in s4(who will be the same age as Robin is here in the podcast)- his dad abandoned him, all his hawkins friends are gone , the st s4 movies have h*mophobic bullying in them (and he was bullied in the past). In a interview Noah said Will in s4 “doesn’t really get along with people-it’s just him and Mike.”  I think it fits more so with Will than El . But they may feel similar:  it’s implied in s4 audition tapes she’ll be bullied too,  she moved away from her friends,  and her father (Hopper) fake “passed away.” It could easily be how both Will and El feel in s4- that there is  something “broken”/ “rotten” about them . In fact, in the rebel Robin novel there is even a character named Sheena. Sheena reminds me a bit of a mix between Will and el . She is very quiet, queercoded, and is often bullied. And she finds mean notes and other things stuffed  in her locker- placed there by bullies. A bit like how Will found the zombie-boy note in his locker. A teacher doesn’t stop her bullying just blames her and says “ This wouldn’t happen if you made it just a smidgen easier for PEOPLE to understand you.”(sort of reminding me of that Noah quote about s4 Will not getting along with most people/Jonathan saying not to change himself cause “people” say to). But sheena can be another name for Jane (there was also a 80s show character named Sheena who was psychic) so ...maybe foreshadowing of el/jane being bullied in highschool? Along with Will?

*It’s not a eastergg/parallel...just speculation. Unlike the rebel robin book... in the podcast (in multiple episodes) almost every time she opens up to Mr Hauser about her problems she says it’s ok for him to do the same and she’ll be supportive and listen. However, Mr Hauser (so far) always rejects her offer-much to her hurt/frustration. In ep 4, she asks if he has someone his “own age” he can talk to about his problems-which he says he does. Now... since in ep 4 Mr hauser is paralleled to Jonathan maybe Jonathan will have someone his own age to talk to about his problems (maybe his new friend Argyle?) We see similar to Mr Hauser giving advice/pep talks to (gay) Robin. Jonathan is always giving advice/peptalks to our (gay-coded) Will. But so far- Jonathan has no one he really emotionally leaned on in the same way (Will does with Jonathan). I also wonder if Will in s4 starts gets tired of how he always confides in Jonathan (but Jonathan never does the same with Will  in return)? Like Robin with Mr. Hauser?