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rikeijo · 1 year ago

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I can very well see your points, and probably as you've said there are people, who due to lack of interest or education can't imagine a different relationship dynamic than "a man" and "a woman".

But in my experience, it's often just that, well... the fact is that most women on Earth are to some degree attracted to men, so it's not that surprising at all that in "yaoi ships", there is the super attractive seme and there is the "fangirl self-insert avatar" uke (I'm aware that men also can enjoy those tropes, but at least in Jp, they are tiny minority). It's, of course, not just YoI. The exact same tropes can be seen in a lot of fandoms. I've said it before, but just to be clear, I don't think that fangirls fantasizing about being Victor's wife and doing house chores for him as super girly uke princess Yuuri is, like, a crime... But it's also not "LGBT+ activism", as some people try to portray it (like "shipping same-sex couple" = "🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈allyship", like nah... Imo, it's the same as straight men watching lesbian p0rn).

The thing is "uke/seme" tropes are yaoi or BL tropes, YoI is neither, and it was the creators choice not to make it a yaoi or BL. Whether or not Y&V are romantically involved is left for interpretation, whether they've ever had sex is left for interpretation and if they have, we really have absolutely no way to know in what position... That's the objective truth. So for example, if someone is dead-fixed that YoI is "VicYuu" then they need to push their own ideas, that yes, YoI is yaoi/BL and the creators also subscribe to the idea of semes and ukes and the stereotypes associated, that yes, Y&V are a couple, that they have sex, and that when they have sex, they have sex in this exact position that they want them to, on the creators themselves. That's a lot of levels, on which the creators can have a completely different opinion, and YoI still belongs to the creators, even though fandoms often erase them...

It's not that the words "かっこいい" or "かわいい" are gendered, absolutely not. It's just that in the situation where, well... the truth is that "VicYuu" is simply not canon, some people became obsessed with things like whether Victor's eyelashes aren't too long etc. because if they are, then it threatens their view of the characters and their ship, because there isn't anything else to go by. Well, unfortunately for them Victor's eyelashes are just that long, and Avex&co. didn't seem very keen on being bullied to change that to appease fujos.

And somebody reading this may think that it's just some petty fandom drama, but imo, the non-stop war between fujos and Avex&co. (the war was also about Yurio being treated as the main character, and Yuuri being according to them "mistreated") is at least a part of the reason why Avex doesn't even care enough about this IP to want to make money from it. And I still can't (and probably never will) get over the fact that we haven't seen anything directed by Sayochin since 2017.

Today's translation #460

Go Yuri Go!!!, Yuri!!! on ICE official fanbook, Jun'ichi Suwabe interview

Part 4.

-- Please tell us about a scene, in which you had trouble playing Victor.

S: The honest answer would be "all the scenes", but if I have to pick up some, then I will say it was the beginning of the show, episodes 1~3, I think? It was really tough for me, trying to understand the nature of Victor Nikiforov. It seemed to me that I didn't have enough information to create the character as one realistic, living human being - well, one reason was that it is an original anime. I don't usually have to worry a lot about how I should express emotions of characters I play, but as I've mentioned before, in case of Victor, I often was asked to play him in a completely different, almost opposite, way to what my image of the character was. It was me, who played the role, but I don't really feel that I did. Probably because often I was expressing [in my performance] different emotions than those of Victor that lives inside me.

-- What the directing was like during voice-over recording?

S: If I played the character going based on the context of the lines I was saying and additional information written in the screenplay, Victor would become a cool (かっこいい) character. But I think that the directors wanted Victor to be, first and foremost, not so much a "cool character", but "a genius that don't fit the standard". I think it was like a trial and error method for us to get that right. I was often asked to do multiple takes like: "It wasn't bad, but lets try something different".

-- Victor's "Vkusno!" was so cute. Was that you who came with the idea to say in that way?

S: I said it that way during a test recording and I wasn't told anything about it, so I said it in the same way during the actual recording.

[Notes: I must have stop reading this interview on the Makkachin vs. Yuuri answer, because it really surprised me that he has said that Victor wasn't supposed to be a "cool character"...

A large part of YoI fandom in Jp were fujos absolutely obsessed with gender norms and who is seme who is uke blah blah... (I've ranted about this before).

Seme should be cool (かっこいい) and uke should be cute（かわいい）period... And based on that cute Victor arts were according to them "against canon".

It's really interesting, because before this guidebook was published uke-Yuuri fujos had a massive meltdown over the art that was drawn for it, with Yurio in the center and no rings.... It was then slightly redrawn (but Victor still has gloves, so "no ring").

There was so much anti-fujos dog-whistling in YoI, and reading this interview I wonder if maybe this "Victor not cool, but cute" and the weird, slightly anti-Yuuri answers (the Makkachin vs. Yuuri etc.) were because of that... It would take me a lot of time to summarize for you the whole history of this behavior from Avex&co., but one day I'll do that 💀]

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gildedmuse · 3 years ago

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To be honest, I feel we need to just stop everything so we can have a conversation about how 90% of the biggest, baddest pirates in the world of One Piece either refuse to or are unable to dress themselves in anything half decent.

[I mean.... What!?]

And it somehow gets worse the more powerful and infamous they are. I mean, like, when we meet Shanks he's is dressed, more or less, like your stereotypical pirate:

[You know, all the pirate basics: open white shirt, red sash, brown pants, open tied flip flops, Strawhat.... Well, I did say more of less.]

I mean, he doesn't actually do much at this point. He's a lovable rapscallion uncle who ruffles Luffy's hair before sailing out towards the sunset and the literal future.

At which point....

He decides that the pirate look isn't "cool" enough, and what he really needs to complete his style is a pair of Bermuda shorts you would hide from your father. He has gone all pirate up top, but bellow the waist? It's all Florida cousin who's been crashing on your couch for the last six years.

But, hey, Shanks can't always be in Yonko mode. Maybe he's like trying out some new styles. I mean, not that new, all he did is get a pair of patterned pants (and yet they are so much worse...) It's better than say ....

I know what you're thinking. "Haha, I get it. The joke is that Benn Beckman clearly only owns the one outfit."

But no, that is clearly not the case.

One pair of boots? Yeah, seems so (they may not look it here but in the same art style, they are very much the same boots). Same sash? There is every chance. But there is no way in HELL that is the same outfit.

I mean, Benn's muscle mass like doubles in this time frame, but his short has somehow gotten baggier? No, that is not how it works. And you know that feeling of trying on jeans from high school, and they barely go over one thigh? Benn Baby-Got-Back (And Arms, And Chest) Does.

So this man, one of the most feared pirates to sail the seas, who's wanted poster reads DEAD ONLY goes out every couple of years, and finds an EXACT REPLICA of his clothes from over a decade ago. And who knows how long he's been doing this? And in a that time the only change he's made is adding what is definitely either the cape of a man he killed OR the rug of a very fashionable but not super expensive hotel. It's a 50/50 toss up to which of those is true.

Hell, he's not even replacing the sash. Notice it use to wrap around him with some to spare but not anymore. Who knew men bulked up so much going into their 50s?

Look, nothing about this makes sense and yet there must be a reason. Is this some kind of emotional thing? Is Benn especially picky about fabrics and the way clothes feel? Did he just really like how he looked in his first Wanted Poster and thought, "I'm doing that. Forever." Like.... What....

But.... But what about those cool outfits they always dress the cast in? You know, the ones where even Shanks gets to look fly.

I mean, check out little demon Luffy! And Law, you should just buy that coat. Actually, don't buy it. You're a pirate. Steal that jacket and claim it as your own, it's amazing. Ace I like that you've stayed true to your refusal to own a shirt, no notes. Shanks.... Not really sure what you're dressed as? A guy who went through his rival friend old enemy bestie through MIHAWK'S closet, maybe? It didn't even matter, it's still a huge improvement.

Even Doffy is dressed up (and of course looks fabulous) and Corazon is so magical! And...

Okay, that might just be Perona and Mihawk's day clothes, it's hard to tell. But you know what, they still rock them, and I'll bet they've dressed the third member of their little house hold up in-

... damnit Zoro, what even is this? (Do love your trick or treat bag though. You keep protecting those booze.)

So everyone gets in on the act. Like, I don't know how "Canon"y you would consider these, but clearly it's a party everyone is invited to and even Zoro put on a top hat! So Benn must....

Same. Goddamn. Outfit.

For all we know this is his Halloween version. Maybe he has like fifty of these stashed in the ship. They are cards! For Halloween! AND HE IS STILL IN THE SAME DAMN OUTFIT!

Benn. WTF!?

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strangertheory · 4 years ago

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I'd love for Will to be able to have the power of reality alteration because him being the most powerful one would be a very nice plot twist. But. Do you really believe they make him more powerful than El? I keep finding crazy comments on social media, suggesting it's the "El show" 😪 *sigh*. And I know some people who say it'd be anti feminist since Will is a boy. Thx

That’s a lot of interesting questions to think about.

I’ll attempt to address each thought that you’ve shared one at a time and provide you with my own opinions and theories about each:

You said: “I'd love for Will to be able to have the power of reality alteration because him being the most powerful one would be a very nice plot twist. But. Do you really believe they would make him more powerful than El?”

I have a lot of conflicted feelings about the way that the fandom often talks about characters’ powers and supernatural abilities in Stranger Things. (I also really dislike the way that the fandom has decided that they can’t appreciate and support both El and Will’s happiness and that their happy endings and successes are somehow mutually exclusive, but I’ll address the topic of their powers first.)

Fans often focus on the abilities and superpowers of characters as something desirable and cool but fans rarely spend time considering what it cost those characters to develop their abilities in the first place. Neither El nor Will suddenly woke up one day and had superpowers that they had conscious control over.

Certain impressive skills that people have in the real world might also be developed under extremely traumatic and undesirable circumstances and not because they wanted them: the powers represented so far in Stranger Things are very much like that variety of skillset.

El’s powers and her ability to control them are canonically shown to have manifested during her imprisonment, abuse, isolation, and manipulation at the Lab. As Kali says “They stole your life, Jane!” Due to El’s isolation from society and from love and affection and from having a family and from everything else in the world beyond the Lab she has a significant amount of early childhood social and psychological development that was stolen from her that she can never truly get back. A healthy, loving, safe environment for development and self-actualization that children deserve to have was not provided to El and she has suffered so much and she has had significant delays in her opportunity to grow and become her own person because of what was done to her. So yes, El has psychic powers that give her a variety of unique abilities that are very useful. But at what cost? If El were given the choice to abandon all of her powers in exchange for a loving family, a community of friends that she’d had the opportunity to know and spend time with since early childhood, a variety of passions and hobbies that she chose for herself over the years as she was growing up and engaging with the world, an extensive understanding of the world outside of the Lab based on her own exploration of the world and not only what people tell her or what she sees on television, and most importantly a sense that she is treated kindly because people truly love her and not because they want to exploit her and her powers for their own purposes: wouldn’t she make that trade?

Do I currently agree with the theory that Will’s subconscious mind created the Upside Down, the Mindflayer, the demogorgon, and even most probably created many other characters and fantastical plotlines that exist in the story? Yes. But I believe it has (so far) been unintentional, entirely subconscious, and is a mental coping mechanism in response to extremely traumatic circumstances that Will has faced throughout his life. Would Will’s subconscious mind creating significant parts of the Stranger Things universe represent a certain level of “power” that is greater than El’s? I don’t personally think they’re comparable. There are things that Will can probably do that El cannot, and vice versa. They will surely each have their own strengths and weaknesses and their own limitations that we may or may not always be shown in the series.

But what does "more powerful” really mean to us, and why does that question even matter? It was not El’s choice to have powers and it was not Will’s choice to have powers. Much of what I believe Will has incidentally created is creating a lot of confusion and suffering for him and for others that he cares about. If the story were about real people I’d be offended at the question of who’s more powerful and feel as though that question and debate is the sort that Dr. Brenner and his colleagues would have: “How useful is this child to me? Which child is more powerful?” I dislike the question because it feels like asking a parent which child is their favorite. I care about them both, and I don’t care about them because they happen to have superpowers: I care about them because they are nuanced characters that are very well-written and that I can empathize with as if they were real people. I respect why it’s a popular thing for fans to debate over which X-Men is the most powerful, for example, but that’s never been what draws me into scifi and fantasy stories. What characters choose to do under unusual circumstances and with unique resources (such as superpowers) is far more important to me than the nature and intensity of the powers themselves. I believe that the Stranger Things fandom does these beautifully written characters a disservice by focusing too heavily on their abilities and not enough on their feelings, choices, relationships, dreams, goals, and experiences that humanize them.

I love Stranger Things because of the humanity of each of the characters and not because some of them can throw cars through walls.

You said: “I keep finding crazy comments on social media, suggesting it's the "El show"”

El is definitely an important character in the story at this point in the show and she has some really fascinating abilities in the Stranger Things universe that often give her iconic moments and provide her an opportunity to be in the spotlight.

I believe that there is a reason that the writers have decided to develop many characters in the story and in my opinion it can seem hard to pin-point a “main” character at times. I think this is absolutely intentional on the part of the writers, and I predict that we will learn how Will’s, Hopper’s, and El’s storylines intersect in season 4. I think we will learn something new about each of the characters.

I do not personally believe that it is the “El show” any more than it could be argued that this is the “Steve show” or the “Hopper show.” But I do appreciate that fans have grown to love El’s character.

I strongly disagree with anyone in the fandom that insists that Will is not important. I can tell that the way that he was quieter in season 3 inspired some fans to dismiss his role in the series entirely, but I think they’re mistaken. Quiet and less assertive doesn’t mean irrelevant in a story like this one. I believe that much of what Will has been through is at the heart of the entire series, and I think that he will play a very critical role in future seasons. If some fans passionately dislike Will then they might need to steel themselves for some severe disappointment.

You said: “And I know some people who say it'd be anti feminist [for Will to be more powerful than El] since Will is a boy."

I would argue that El embodies many traits that are often presumed to be stereotypically masculine by certain incorrect and outdated schools of thought: assertiveness, the ability to win in combat, determination, resilience, and bravery (among others.) There were eras in which these traits were not always valued and respected in women, and arguably there are still many circumstances under which they still aren’t. El is a complex character who is not written as a gender stereotype and I think that is powerful and important.

We need more characters of many different genders that are written as people. Complex, multi-faceted, and capable of many different things regardless of their gender.

Yes. Will is a boy.

Will is a young boy who has been bullied for having certain traits that are very often stereotypically seen by society as feminine. As being “womanly.”

I believe that feminism needs to be intersectional and seek to address the ways that all people and all genders are harmed by a society that devalues women and devalues traits, work, and skillsets that are associated with femininity.

Feminism should not be reduced and oversimplified to “girl power.” Anyone that reduces feminism to that does not, in my opinion, understand feminism.

“Feminism is the belief in the social, economic, and political equality of the sexes.”

Devaluing admirable traits when someone of one gender expresses them but then deciding to value those exact same traits when they are expressed by a person of a different gender is prejudiced and anti-feminist because it maintains the false idea that certain traits only have value in people if they are a specific gender.

El is a wonderful, empowering character and I appreciate that she is very well written and admired by many fans. But I worry when certain fans are more willing to appreciate a kick-ass fictional young woman that defies outdated and incorrect gender stereotypes but are not also willing to embrace gentler, more sensitive, less stereotypically masculine young men like Will with similar enthusiasm and affection.

Will is bullied and devalued by his small-town community for having traits and interests that are perceived as feminine and therefore, according to closeminded bigots like his dad, not allowed and are deserving of abuse and bullying. Will is arguably also devalued and dismissed by the Stranger Things fandom because he has traits that are perceived as feminine and undesirable in a young teen guy in the eyes of certain fans, too.

The devaluing and dismissal of gentle, kind, emotional young men is a feminist issue.

A character doesn’t have to be a girl in order to represent feminist ideals within a story. I know that there are probably plenty of feminists that will disagree with me (because there will always be people with their own opinions) but I strongly believe that Will's story is feminist as it has been explored so far (just as El's is.)

Anyone in the fandom that considers themselves a “Feminist” but that spends significant amounts of time criticizing Will Byers by dismissing him as “boring” and criticizing him for being quiet, sensitive, gentle, and emotional should take a good look in the mirror and reflect on what their personal brand of feminism stands for and whether their goal truly is “the equality of the sexes” or if their goal is simply hating men and only valuing and promoting stereotypically masculine traits in our society.

Feminism’s goal is not to make women more powerful than men or to make men less powerful than women, it is about the promotion of the “equality of the sexes.”

Stereotypes are constructs our society has built and that impact the way we all currently relate to each other. Until society stops treating traits associated with society's currently constructed idea of femininity as something weak or bad then it is important to appreciate these traits in characters of many different genders and to value these traits in men (both in real life and in fictional stories) too. Anyone of any gender can be sensitive and sensitivity should not be seen as a weakness but rather as a strength and as something that's a valuable aspect of our humanity, and the same can be said for many other beautiful traits that society has wrongly decided to put into boxes and assign gender stereotypes to.

This complicated topic is incredibly important to me as a fan of both El and Will. I believe that both El and Will are feminist characters and that the series is very empowering and is challenging society’s gender biases through both of their stories. I hope that my response to your question was successful in communicating how I feel and resonates with you and with perhaps other fans who also care about El and Will and feel their own experiences, feelings, and identities validated by their story arcs.

Will some fans still whine and cry “sexism” and attempt to brand Stranger Things as “anti-feminist” if their hope that El will be the solo main character of the story and not have to share the spotlight with a boy is dashed? Sure. But I think they’re wrong, that their concept of feminism and sexism is incorrect, and that their priorities and their understanding of El’s value as a character is unfortunate. El is more than her superpowers. El doesn’t need to be “the strongest” or “the most powerful” in order to be an inspiring, complex, well-written, relatable, and empowering character.

Thank you for your Ask! I hope you don’t mind how long this response is. You mentioned a few things that I have some very complicated opinions about.

#will byers #el hopper #stranger things #stranger things analysis #stranger things theories #will byers is a feminist character #el hopper is a feminist character #feminism is for everyone

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jitteryjive · 3 years ago

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Ok so I dont really use Webtoon because Im not much a comic read/reading in general. So what up with High Class Homos? Is it like the High Gardian Spice of Webtoon?(Ie: has a lot of LGBTQ+ representation but 1.) has horrible story telling or 2.) doesn't represent the LGBTQ+ comunity respectivly)-C

oh my god. okay. I’m gonna do an entire rant underneath the cut because it’s really bad

tldr: it’s horribly racist and stereotypical and it is basically a way to lure queer people even further into shitty stereotypes. stop praising it for being like progressive or whatever the fuck it’s supposed to be

okay where do I start. basically I may not be allowed to say most of this stuff since it was so bad that I stopped reading it around like. episode 15/16? inform me if I need to change anything

okay so. I don’t remember anyone’s names except for augustus and sapphia so I’ll nickname the other important characters as knight [mlm love interest], maid 1 [first wlw love interest], and maid 2 [second wlw love interest, one with the lighter hair]

first of all: the fucking RACISM oh my god.

so basically here’s the main cast okay? all of them are white. the same exact skin tone [except for maid 1 who’s tanner but white]. except for knight, who’s black.

repeatedly throughout the panels, knight’s skin tone is always saturating and lightening and usually never stays a darker tone? which is? very blatant whitewashing??? dude just pick a fucking tone and stop being weird

and then. god okay. so the main “character trait” of knight is that he’s stupid. he’s described as being like teehee I’m so ditzy and gay and stupid and there’s a scene where I have no idea what gay means or what it is!!!!! which is fucking awful and racist already. and I do understand that in medieval times it wasn’t uncommon to be illiterate but every other person in the cast can read and write and yet the knight’s ENTIRE plotline is having no idea how to read or write which. if you’re following that’s just. literally why the fuck are you emphasizing that the ONLY black character’s stupid and illiterate. literally what the fuck is wrong with you.

second: the horrible stereotyping and further fetishization + demonization of orientations. + bad trans rep

alongside that, every single character except for the transhet character and the trademark #”evil nasty cishet” character are gay or lesbian. unless something was stated that I missed in the more recent episode, a webtoon that’s praised for having amazing “””lgbtq+ themes””” only has gay and lesbian, not??? arospec or multiro or any other romantic orientations????? not to mention that they are pretending aspec people are nonexistent and everyone is definitely allosexual without a fault. but the thing is. this tiny representation of a huge community is. so. just absolutely awful.

prince augustus and knight are both represented by being uwu soft boys because they’re gay and always being nervous oh no!!! what if he thinks I’m weird >~< type of characters. honestly just say you fetishize gay men to be crammed into your soft owo yaoi boxes and get the fuck out of here.

princess sapphia and the maids are either fetishized or demonized as well. princess sapphia plays into the disgusting stereotype than lesbians are furious, violent monsters due to her constantly destroying things and yelling at everyone and generally being a huge asshole. maid 1 isn’t as bad and has a grasp on sense but she’s still incredibly rude. then maid 2 is forced to be like a soft cute lesbian who’s clueless to the fact that maid 1 loves her!!! she’s so cute and sweet and has no idea she’s in love with the lesbeans!!!! god grow up is it not hard to treat lesbians like real people.

and oooh yay they’re pretending [identity] doesn’t exist again! assuming from webtoon’s ads spoiling everything, there was a heated love triangle between the maid characters and the princess oh no!!!! as someone who’s polyam I think I’m gonna lose my mind if media keeps mislabeling weird love corners as love triangles and ignoring the fact polyam people. exist?? like it’s not weird for three or more people to enter a relationship????

with that said, every single mlm buildup scene is soft and >w< and completely non-sexual while there’s a fucking scene where maid 1 walks in on sapphia with only a bra on and she freaks out because OMG!!!! with that being the only chemistry at all between them.

plus that. from what I read of course the author mainly only focused on the mlm relationship and only made sexual/weird jokes about the wlw relationship as it was pushed aside. at least make the attention equal if you’re gonna ONLY make cis gay and lesbian characters.

finally the trans character has fucked up rep. fortunately they aren’t pulling the sad depressing #brocken💔 “I don’t fit in this body……….” trope or having every character misgender them repeatedly until they’re “””fixed””” but instead he mysteriously says “once upon a time I wasn’t called lucas….!” and then it’s. never mentioned ever again. hey, if you’re gonna make an amazing webtoon with fantastic queer rep maybe you shouldn’t vague the entire trans umbrella and never talk about it again

and it’s not super related but they’re making the only cishet character portrayed as some sort of evil antagonistic person which. is a shitty thing to do because it shows that in media with good queer rep there’ll never be a cishetallo character who isn’t repetitively seen to be some sort of monster

okay. rant over. I hope more people stop getting into high class homos and blindly praising it with so much love

#rant #ask #I hate it so much I hate it so m #strong language #swearing #racism #homophobia #fetishization tw #stereotypes tw #ask to tag

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diversetolkien · 4 years ago

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I decided to take down and repost my “Racebending Pros & Cons” essay.

Before I continue, I want to emphasize two points:

1) Everyone is allowed to write mxm, explicit or not. My intention wasn’t to communicate that you couldn’t, rather to clarify that there’s a danger of people who are not gay men dominating that aspect of writing as it may cause a harmful stereotype of gay men. This is the same concept as when on-wlw write wlw, and typically oversexualize us. We can write we want, it’s just calling us to be aware of how harmful it can sometimes be.

2) You can headcanon Fingon black and still ship him with Maedhors and even write him as Maedhros’s primary caretaker. That’s completely fine, as long as his role isn’t JUST reduced to that. I talk about how that’s reminiscent of the Mammy. But if you aren’t doing that, than don’t worry about your writing. Again, these are comments based on my own experiences.

I’m also going to take a real step back (lmao not a two second step back), because while there were people who brought up valid criticism and held me accountable to past actions, there were just as much being disgustingly racist and anti-black. The vitriol directed at me for things I’ve seen others do is just proof of this, the lies and accusation, and the need to demand black creatives to do the emotional labor for other groups, despite them being rude and anti-black has taken a toll on my mental health.

The fact that people felt so emotionally charged to misread my essay to the point of falsey paraphrasing it and claiming it said things it didn’t, just do direct hate my way, is another example. The lack of respect and anti-blackness has been a lot, and because of this (as I said before), I will take a temporary hiatus off of tumblr.

If you’re knee jerk reaction is to skim this and make assumptions, than I can’t stop you. But a lot of anger would have been sated if people actually READ the article rather than jumping to conclusions based on others incorrect interpretations.

The sad thing about this is a lot of the people who were so hateful in the way they disagreed with me have treated others that they disagree with way better. A lot of what they hold me accountable to I’ve seen them let slip in their circles, as well as promote a lot of incredibly harmful beliefs. The way people criticized me for doing the exact same things that others done was completely different, and disgustingly misogynistic and anti-black.

The fact again, that people made up lies, exaggerated aspects of my characters, called me a bitch, and showed me absolutely no iota of respect despite expecting me to politely interacting is incredibly anti-black.

It was also stated that I didn’t care about racism or had some hidden agenda in running this blog. I don’t. I care about racism. That’s literally all I talk about. There’s no hidden agenda, this blog is just to discuss racism from my perspective in Tolkien’s world. That’s it. I’ve admitted I’ve been biased in the past, and have addressed this going forward, but the blog has completely about attacking racism.

And even when I source, even when i’m as polite as possible, people will always find a way to get under my skin. I can spend hours talking about how unfairly i’ve been treated, can provide print screens of fans going specifically after my content that had nothing to do with them while being anti-black as hell. But I really, really hate discourse and am taking a step back.

I’ll be queing most of my stuff, and consequently Fantasy Friday will be put on hold until I feel better about returning to tumblr. If you’re on twitter, feel free to submit content to me through there, but i’ll only check my twitter once or twice a week.

Regardless, once again the Tolkien fandom has showed me how incredibly anti-black it is. The sad fact is I'm following the foot steps of other black creatives who’ve put their activism on hold due to fandoms vehement anti-blackness.

I also ask if you share/reblog this, please don’t argue on it. I won’t be checking this for notes too much, but when I do come back to tumblr, the last thing I want to see is arguments. My ask and submission boxes are open if you want to argue or disagree, but please just thoroughly read the post and if you have any valid questions or concerns, place them below.

#fandom racism

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charincharge · 4 years ago

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I’m also a different anon and I’m pretty sure I’m bi too and I get not knowing who or how to tell people like my family would be fine with it but I remember mentioning something to my mom about being bi three years ago now I told her I didn’t know since I hadn’t dated anyone before still haven’t lol but bi was a possibility and she just said “isn’t that just what people say when they aren’t ready to come out as gay” I quickly corrected her and even named people I know who are bi 1/?

But now that I’m mostly sure I’m bi I don’t know how to tell them/don’t want to because last time my mom didn’t believe in bisexuality(I don’t think I actually convinced her it’s a thing I think she may have just sensed that it was a touchy subject and dropped it) as for my city it’s a strange mix of accepting and really judgmental like I’ve carved out the good people but I know the majority wouldn’t be on board or be like my mom and think you can only like one gender. (2/5)

Mentioned it to my sister too years ago and she gets that bi is a thing and I have bi and Pan friends so like I know they’ll get it but to tell my family is just not an option right now and I don’t know when it will be they accept gay but they’re also kinda weird about lgbtq like they think all drag queens are trans women and can’t comprehend/dont entirely believe that they can just be men gay or straight or non binary (3/5)

I’m don’t think they would understand non binary either they probably think nail polish on a boy means he’s either gay or trans but they’re good with people being gay or trans but like only see the very shallow end of lgbtq and I just don’t want to have to justify my sexuality to my family yet or have to fight for them to see bi as bi and not she’s gay just not ready to be out or she’s confused I also don’t want to become the token “gay/lgbtq” member of the family. (4/5)

Because I feel like if I told them I’m bi they would tell the extended family and some of those people are fine to know but I don’t want all of them to know I don’t want to be the novelty at family events or in my own home I’m scared that they’ll treat me as a stereotype like the “gay cousin” because I’m not gay I’m bi and I’m just me it will also turn into an oh I knew you were gay/bi because you like these hobbies or things that are stereotypically lgbtq. (5/5)

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to this, but you unloaded a LOT of feelings, and I wanted to give them proper consideration. Because, I think this is the struggle of many many people, who feel the exact same way about their friends/family. Unfortunately, biphobia is still hugely real. I was just talking with someone last night whose friend was dating a bi guy, and they wanted to tell their friend he was definitely just gay and lying to her. Which is... so so so untrue.

A lot of discomfort comes from ignorance and just not knowing different people who span across the LGBT community. They’ll meet one gay man and be like - I get THAT, but can’t wrap their head around liking men and women or that gender is a societal construct. My best advice is that, if you don’t feel like you’re ready to be the Bi Person they know, you don’t have to come out to them yet. Because once you ARE ready, it’s going to require a lot of teaching and informing them and constantly justifying your identity, and that... is exhausting. Just know that the more they know, the more understanding they’ll hopefully become, and over time.... it will get better.

But that said, don’t feel pressured to come out if you’re not ready to deal with that just yet -- you don’t OWE anyone an explanation of your sexuality, and you have to do what you’re most comfortable with. It’s YOUR identity, not theirs, and if don’t think you can make them understand or stop them from putting you in a box, they don’t have to know.

Sending you giant hugs and support on your bisexual journey. xoxo.

#ask #sexuality discussion #bisexuality #coming out

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basketballandtextbooks · 5 years ago

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disaster take

i saw this discourse on other blogs and come to the realization that most people probably won’t agree with me but... here’s my two cents:

wendy and kyle are very similar characters, not identical, but the character writing in south park is usually quite shallow (for any character in the cast) and normally any depth that can actually be found in any one character is entirely coincidental or accidental on the part of the observer. For example, in a previous post I mentioned that Kyle probably learned to dance after the events of the rain forest episode, and we know he must have because of highschool musical. This creates and interesting nugget of character depth that fits with his overall character but the connection is most likely entirely accidental. Did the writers think that deeply about Kyle’s character, or did they just forget the throwaway joke they kin-assigned Kyle for one episodes purposes?

for me these gaps between writers intent and interpretation are entertaining and it’s very fun for me to play detective, putting together the whole characters through the lens of ‘death of the author’ and figuring out how the characters behave based on not only their behavior in any one individual episode, but how the inconsistent and shallow character writing makes an overall character-arc (no character is more fascinating in this fashion than Eric Cartman, who has the most cohesive and entirely accidental character arc that spans from episode one and showcases a fascinating and horribly flawed individual)

All of this stated, the similarities in how Kyle and Wendy are written may not be intentional, but the fact is that given the same exact situation they respond similarly and to varying degrees. A good example of this is when they are jealous or their ego is bruised, they both have a tendency to have excessive if not murderous reactions (teacher into the sun, nuke canada, burn down the school, bully your friends)

I don’t think anyone can really make a good faith argument denying that they have strong similarities. There are of course differences, during the smurfs Wendy showed a much cooler head than Kyle would in the same circumstance. They do not need to be identical to share strong similar characteristics

Now for how fandom has perceived Wendy.

There is good reason that some individuals feel that the fan-reaction towards her isn’t entirely based on her writing being inherently ‘worse’ than Kyle’s. It also isn’t true that everyone who loves Kyle and hates Wendy is sexist or suffering from a case of internal misogyny.

That said, Wendy is held to a higher standard than Kyle is. Or more accurately, she is held to account for her actions in canon and Kyle is not. A primary example that I’ve heard multiple times in explaining why she’s a ‘bad’ character or a ‘bad’ person is that she broke Stan’s heart by dumping him. Some accuse her of cheating on him (with either Gregory or Token, pick your poison).

We can dismiss the cheating accusations immediately, there isn’t even a sliver of evidence she ever cheated. The times where she pursued other love interests they were either broken up or not together.

But the underlying message that hurting Stan makes her a bad character and not holding Kyle to that same account when Kyle, as early as the super best friends episode and as terribly as the assburgers episode, has a pattern of hurting Stan and in worse ways.

Wendy dumped him, that’s awful, but she’s allowed to have different feelings for other people and she’s allowed to end a relationship with a boy who constantly vomited on her. But the fan perception of this is “what a bitch” while the reaction to the style friend breakups is “oooh the angst”

This is only one of the ways we can see her being held to a different standard than Kyle. Not every fan is guilty of this, but enough people share this sentiment that is entirely justified for people to point out what appears to be underlying misogyny in how the characters are treated.

There are arguments based more on her writing than her actions, I have heard the ‘she’s always right and that’s not realistic’ on at least four different occasions now. But not only is this factually untrue if you’ve actually watched the show, it ignores the many times Kyle has also been right for seemingly no other reason than the writers convenience. Making him the moral center of the episode or a center of a joke. I find the ‘she’s too perfect’ to be a bad faith argument because the research behind it is shoddy and even when the person behind it acknowledges cases where she was wrong (killing her teacher, bullying, petty grudges to name a few) it’s always hand-waved away as ‘oh, okay, that once, but other than anything that disagrees with me, she’s too perfect. This is a very clear case of confirmation bias. Any evidence that backs the argument that she’s too perfect is guarded and anything that refutes it is discarded.

There will be some fans that hate her and love Kyle for completely unrelated reasons to holding her to a different standard, sexism, or internalized misogyny. But it is a fact that a significant amount of the fandom holds her to a completely different standard and a very possible reason for that is either her gender or how she disrupts their precious ships.

I would make the argument that she has a far stronger and more engaging characterization than Clyde using the same standards I set above where I judge characters based on the totality of their appearances rather than on individual episode. A even removing that framework and basing solely on episodes that focus on them individually, she has a stronger character. And yet I have never once heard or seen anyone making the argument that they dislike Clyde because his character is too flat. This is another case where she, and the majority of the female cast, is held to a different standard. I’ve never seen anyone say ‘it’s hard to write Gregory because he has very little character and the writers only created a flat stereotype’. But I see that sort of perspective all the time for female characters that have more screen-time and development than Gregory ever had.

I love all the characters above and I find their characterizations and lack thereof to be a fascinating puzzle that I spend my free-time putting together.

But female characters in South Park do suffer from what I would consider a form of internalized misogyny. Most fans don’t do this on purpose (thus internalized) but the society we’ve been raised in has a tendency to put men and women on different scales.

This isn’t a scale that’s fair to either sex. The unconscious mentality that “its okay if he has no personality because he’s a guy” does men a disservice too. If you do fall under the category of someone who judges the female characters more than the male ones, I’m not trying to say you’re a bad person or even that you’ve done a bad thing. I want you to reconsider your opinion. Take a moment to actually think about it. I know I’ve been guilty of holding men and women to different standards. In both real life and fiction, I expect less from men. I look down on them in an unhealthy fashion that if I don’t address, could lead to ending up in harmful situations or harming someone else.

fiction is a lens that we can use to better understand reality. I am an advocate that you can treat fictional characters in any way you like and it doesn’t fucking matter. You want to kill Wendy because you think she’s an annoying bitch? Go for it. It doesn’t matter. Wendy is not real.

I don’t want you to change your fandom behaviors, I want you to reexamine them and ask yourself how deeply the disparity in how you view men and women goes. If you use fiction as an outlet for misogynistic or even misandrist feelings, I think that’s valid, but I want you to know that you’re doing it.

If you hold men and women to different standards, whether in fiction, real life, or both, I want you to be aware of it.

Now the elephant in the room.

Damien is one of the most popular characters in South Park and he has one episode focusing on his character. His personality is frequently discarded because in canon, he’s an uppity little git who is both petty and weak. He wants to be liked, is affected by bullying, and cries to his daddy about it.

In fandom he is frequently portrayed as a cool and collected impervious person who, yes, has a temper but instead of how petulant and bratty he appeared in canon, fandom portrays this as ‘badass’.

To put it simply, fandom has a tendency to ignore canon entirely in the name of what’s ‘hot’. They want the prince of hell to be sexy and dangerous, so he is just that.

The majority of popular fanon characterizations fit these same molds. They want Butters to be cute and sweet, so every character flaw he’s ever had is hand-waved away.

How does this relate to my topic?

Fans of the female characters are not impervious to this. Heidi Turner is an extremely flawed and vicious individual who would stoop to any low to protect her damaged pride. She is also a victim in a toxic relationship that put her through a horrible experience. And so the fandom either acknowledges one half, how cruel she can be, or the other, how pure a victim she was someone protect her. And neither combine her to a whole character. A person who was in a bad situation, had a lot of positive traits, bad things happened to her, and she didn’t bad things in return. Her penitent for cruelty in some earlier episodes when she was still a bg character is completely hand-waved away by both camps.

She’s an interesting character and she’s dumbed down for the pleasure of the audience, isn’t this the same treatment the men receive and thus invalidates my entire thesis that they’re held to a different standard?

For starters, the idea that an argument is entirely invalid because of one exception is in itself a fallacy, but to avoid acknowledging her existence would be confirmation bias. She is an anomaly, a female character given the same treatment as the male characters. Is it because she’s deeper or better written than the other female characters? I would argue no, critically watching her episodes she has tons of the same troped behavior that the fans love to despise in the rest of the female cast. Although unlike the other characters (both male and female), where I must do an in-depth watch of the series over the course of 20+ seasons in order to create a whole understanding of them, the majority of her arc happens over the course of two seasons.

An easily digestible amount of content. No one needs to put together the puzzle pieces to understand her like you do with the majority of the cast, it’s all there.

Except it isn’t, and this is why I mentioned her behavior in earlier seasons is discarded. The way people frame her is solely from the seasons where she’s a primary character, ignoring the clear characterization we got from her in earlier seasons that do help to create a more whole understanding of her personality and character.

That all said, there are still portions of the fandom who hate her purely because she blocks their kyman or style or insert-gay-ship-here. There are fans who hate her not because of her flawed personality or even that they find her character flat, but purely because they want to see ‘two hot boys kiss get the gross girl out’. Which is a pretty common mistreatment of Wendy as well.

Now, male characters are on occasion given this treatment but nowhere near as often. While creek shippers and crenny shippers might fight until their last breath, neither group seems to actually hate Kenny or Tweek. But in the ship wars of a ‘het ship’ vs a ‘gay ship’, the female character is frequently trashed by the gay side.

I could go into an aside about the troubling fetishization of gay men that borders on outright homophobia at times, but this has been surprisingly alot.

I guess my point is that any which way you fandom, try to at least understand that sexism is real and be aware when you might be perpetuating messages that can appear unbalanced. And maybe, ask yourself why you do that.

#meta #and this is when everyone unfollows #sometimes when you're being perceived as problematic #it's because there's a problem

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serenagaywaterford · 5 years ago

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Hello, I really don’t know who to talk to but I’m realizing I’m a lesbian after identifying as bisexual since 2016, I came out to my parents and they’re both supportive and happy for me. I’m a highschooler and it’s awkward being gay and no one knowing as ppl tease me to date my guy friends. Any tips or advice in general on being a lesbian? It’s still so weird to talk about but I wanna grow to be very open with my sexuality

Been there. (I used to insist I was straight (for YEAAAAARS I was with the same guy), then bisexual cos I thought I had to be since I was “straight” and not particularly conflicted about it for so long. So it’s a process and a journey getting here no matter what, and everyone takes different routes.) And I’ll be honest, you’re way ahead of the game already. Good for you and you should be proud and happy with yourself for being so self-aware and in touch with yourself. That takes a lot of insight and courage.

I think generally… people will say a lot of things but until you are comfortable being around your friends and family as yourself, it’s never going to be easy. It’s not easy when you’re out either but at least you’re not stuck hiding who you are and adding that level of tension to every interaction. To be honest, I was never particularly comfortable with myself. Not even when I got married to another woman. (My issues with the institution of marriage aside…) But in my job I basically am forced to come out daily to complete strangers, constantly, with the words “my wife”. It gets way, way easier and I’m lucky enough to be in a place and a position that affords me that freedom. Not everyone is.

Are the people teasing you your friends? I mean, high school fucking sucks. I don’t even care how people want to romanticise it after the fact, or in media, or whatever. Even the best experiences are littered with a bunch of drama. We’re all idiots in high school and we all treat our friends like shit half the time, even our best friends. I didn’t have a bad time in high school. In fact, I’d say it was pretty good overall. (I wouldn’t do it again, mind you.) But still, the shit you put up with from friends is just excessive, and also the shit you give friends–or at least the shit I gave my friends lol. It’s just so… ugh.

So, I mean, without knowing much more about the situation, I would confide in my good friends. Unless, for some reason that endangers you in some way. And yes, unlike some hardcore people, I do think social ostracization in high school is damaging. I don’t buy into the whole “Well, if they don’t like it fuck them, all you need is you!” cos that’s bullshit. You DO need friends in high school, even if they’re not perfect friends, even if you won’t stay friends with them in a few years. Having social support is incredibly important and to be alienated completely is lonely and leaves you vulnerable, and you miss out on stuff too. I mean, if your friends are complete total assholes, then by all means, drop them cos that won’t help and you may be better off alone, but if they’re only sort of annoying, well… That’s life, lol. Until you get out of the fishbowl of high school and people being to calm the fuck down about every tiny drama, there aren’t a lot of options. I found my best friends annoying af sometimes, and some of them had views on certain subjects that fucking pissed me off. But hey, at the end of the day, we still got along and had a bond, and worst came to worst almost all of them would be there for me, and me for them, despite some differences.

Are those the type of friends you have? Or do you think your friends would turn on you if you confided in them?

It’s so lonely to hold onto a secret like that, and constantly put up with what I’m sure they think is harmless teasing about boys. It can hurt you, and god, it’s fucking irritating on top of everything else. And, I hate to say this, but that sort of thing NEVER ENDS. It gets less and less, but I’m literally married to a woman for like 2 years now and a dude friend of ours just last week asked us if maybe we both just hadn’t found the right men yet. And on the subject of sex, he said, “Well, how do you know if you haven’t tried it?” to my wife. Interestingly, she is not a gold star and knows very well what hetsex is like (she fucking HATES it on every imaginable level), but she’s just never volunteered that information for public consumption. Still, as you can see, you’ll always have stupid imbecile friends who say stupid ass comphet shit to your face, even when you are blatantly a lesbian. Unfortunately, it one of those things you just have to… learn to deal with. I hate that we must.

I know that’s not exactly helpful or hopeful, but it’s reality. So these dumb friends of yours, maybe they’re not doing it to be hurtful or annoying, they just genuinely think you like boys. There’s only really one solution to get them to stop (and even that isn’t going to be a guarantee) and that’s to come out to them–only if you can. Tell them how it makes you feel. Share with them what you’ve said to me. It’s hard enough to exist as a lesbian right now, let alone having to hide and be shamed for it. Friends should get that. But all of them may not…

I had one friend who was super open with her “sexuality” (she’s an attention whore, lbr.) who, when I told her finally that I think I wanted a girlfriend, she was super supportive. Then when the group of them were going to a gay club, I said I’ll tag along and she told me no. And her exact words: “You look too straight. Nobody will talk to you and I don’t want people to think I’m straight too.” (SHE IS STRAIGHT, just for the record. But she likes to steal girls’ boyfriends by doing threesomes, pretending to be into girls, threesomes, and poly, and then manipulating the boys into dumping their gfs. She also likes to breakup girlfriends just to prove she can. She has NEVER been in a relationship with a woman, only breaks lesbian couples up and then fucks off. She tried it with me and my girlfriend once. Nice friend. Just so we all know what she’s like.)

Note: These were my high school friends, and I was in my mid-20s at this point. We’d been friends for over a decade. And they still said shit like that. (And I mean, in some way, I get it cos when we’d go out to non-gay spots I’d get picked up by men CONSTANTLY, and women never looked at me that way. It was super aggravating.)

Which, it turns out, was her way of saying “You’re competition and I don’t want you around.” (and she’s obsessed with stereotypes), cos when I started going to gay clubs and parties with other friends who weren’t douchebags about it, NOBODY judged me like that. And I remember meeting my wife for the first time and telling her that story and she was just like “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOUR FRIENDS?! You do look super straight but I like you and I’m super gay”. And then she took me to a lesbian bar, and I didn’t change a thing about myself, and was picked up by all sorts of girls, and really hit it off with the cutest butch girl I’ve ever seen to this day. (It didn’t end up going anywhere but still, it was nice to learn that sometimes your friends are just insecure assholes.) It really is dependent on who they are, where you live, etc. etc. And those are only things you know. I can’t comment on what the best course of action is without knowing the nitty gritty.

SO, that’s a long way of saying, people suck. Even your friends sometimes. It’s going to be difficult for a while as you weed those sorts of people out of your life. Being an open lesbian is rocky, especially at first when everything is sorta all over the place. But it does settle down, and you make better friends. And since your parents are supportive that is a HUGE hurdle you don’t have to deal with, which is absolutely AMAZING :) It’s so nice to hear.

But if you’re not able to come out and get support IRL, that’s fine too. My advice is what you’ve already done :) Come online and reach out to older lesbians. They’re the ones with the experience. If it wasn’t for the older lesbians in my life (either online or IRL that I met, including my wife), I’d be so much more insecure. I would probably still be walking around feeling a lot of shame, embarrassment, anxiety, shyness, confusion, etc.

But there’s something comforting about talking with women who have lived the same struggles, and hear about all the paths they all took and the ways they’ve dealt with specific issues. And they’re generally more calm, more realistic, and more compassionate than other baby dykes who aren’t in a privileged, secure position yet. Not that there is anything wrong with bonding with others of the same age. That is also INCREDIBLY important because those experiences will directly reflect your own, and there’s built-in support with peers. The things older lesbians have been through may not translate as well for you. A lot of us didn’t have the same pressures of social media, etc. But we also didn’t have the same online resources available either. So, it’s an interesting balance. I will say my friendship with my best friends from university (one is a lesbian too, one is straight as an arrow but a huge ally) are just as important cos age is a factor.

You can get insight from older women, but you need peer bonds too.

Online I think is very important nowadays, especially when you’re not able to go to spaces like gay clubs and bars yet. And surround yourself with positive lesbian representation. If that whole soft cottagecore thing does it for you, keep that in your orbit. But also never be ashamed or fearful of the sexual part of your sexuality. Just like it’s natural to romantically love women, it’s natural for lesbians to physically love them too.

I feel like as toxic overall as tumblr is, there are corners of it that have been incredibly supportive and nurturing even to me. Especially lesbian positivity blogs and women’s arts, etc. Poetry written by lesbians is beautiful and inspiring to me. It’s a whole genre I had no idea existed, and that has given me a great deal of peace because I can finally relate to words. Music, written and performed by gay and bisexual women is the same. It may seem trivial or cheesy, but it’s powerful to hear about women like you in songs. I have to say Mary Lambert, for one example, helped so much. I remember listening to Alix Olson in secret too when I was much younger (maybe that should have been something of a hint to myself, lol.) King Princess and Girl In Red are current faves, Saara Aalto, Shura and Brandi Carlile are a constant faves I always love (not that I even knew that about Brandi’s sexuality til recently cos I apparently live under a fucking rock lol), but I have whole lists now and it’s wonderful to have taht access.

When you’re all alone, seeking out lesbian musicians and writers can make so much difference in easing that isolation, and confusion, and fear. They speak to you and about us, as a whole. It’s affirming and less lonely.

Same goes for well-written fanfiction. Things that avoid the drama of fandom (cos there’s so much drama even when you have canon f/f pairings), because fandom is really just microcosms of society at large with all the same morons in it. But fanfic was such an escape where I could learn and explore all the things that most everywhere wouldn’t show me. TV shows touched on it (especially back 10 years ago there was like nothing), but fanfic made it real.

Even when you’re feeling secure, I think it still helps to have all the representation we can, and just… you know, revel in it.

Do not watch porn. Don’t. It’s awful and horrible and not at all realistic. A well-written fanfic by actual gay or bi women is way more helpful. Avoid porn at all costs. It will never teach you anything your body doesn’t already know about how to be with a woman (although I’m sure for you this isn’t a pressing concern at the moment). I just know that I made the mistake of it, and also stupid ass magazine/how to articles. Ignore ALL that junk. When you get a girlfriend there’s only ONE thing you need to know how to do, and that is communicate honestly. Everything else falls easily into place.

When you say it’s so weird to talk about it, I feel that. It took me YEARS to even really be able to comfortably say the word, especially in relation to myself. That feeling will pass. It’ll take time and don’t push yourself into any sort of thing you’re not ready for. You’ll feel weird about it probably, and that’s on society, not you. “Lesbian” still does have a stigma attached to it that a lot of people are afraid of or dismissive of. Just… try your best to tune that out. That’s all you can do. You’ll feel comfortable eventually. :) Give it time. You’re already doing well. The fact you can say it to me, even as anon, is beautiful.

You’ll be very open one day if that’s what you want and being a lesbian, and being seen as one, will be second nature. I mean if I think about myself at 20 and now, there’s a very big difference. I used to shy away from so many things, and dress particular ways to avoid things, now I’m definitely not giving nearly as many fucks. Also, I’ll say here that I own a bar. It’s not a gay bar, but almost every day we’re open, at least one lesbian couple will come in. And honestly my heart grows so big and warm every single time. (Gay men come in too, ofc.) But there’s something particularly ecstatic in me that I get to see that everyday. (I don’t actually have many gay friends at all.) I love the openness and acceptance and comfort. And I love telling people there that I own it with my wife, and see people’s faces light up. (Some don’t… but, meh, that’s real life too. I’ve had a few shitty fucking people come in too.) There are a lot more lesbians and bi girls around than we probably know. :)

You are not alone. Even if it’s only talking to people online, you’re never alone.

And never get discouraged that other people seem to having an easier or better time at it. Everyone moves differently, and for some it is easier, some it’s way more difficult but that doesn’t mean you need to pressure yourself, or change. I took my way exceptionally slowly and awkwardly, but ya get there eventually if you surround yourself with genuine people.

It sounds cliche but it does get easier talking about yourself as a lesbian as long as you surround yourself with positive lesbian content/people, and it takes practice (sometimes a lot of it as I’ve learnt), especially dealing with internalized stuff. But you’ll get there. You’re still super young and you have so much ahead. :D

I don’t have specific personal advice about how to handle it all in high school cos I didn’t have to deal with that. Just that there’s a whole world outside high school, even though it may not feel that way sometimes. If you’re in a small town or in a country where it’s not accepted, you’ll have a harder time finding love but it is ALWAYS possible, somehow. Never feel like there is nobody at all. There is. There’s some cute, hot, smart, interesting girl somewhere that will be into you as much as you’re into her. It’s just a matter of time til you find each other. If nothing else, in the mean time, you can form friendships and bond with people online in various ways.

I wish somebody had told me in my teen years that it’s possible to be in love with a woman, that I’m going to kiss girls one day and suddenly everything else is going to make sense and feel right after so long of things not quite fitting together, that it’s just as possible to be fulfilled with a woman as it is with a man. I wish someone would have told me I’d be loved by a woman in ways that nothing else would ever match. That I’d touch women and feel at peace with myself, and being intimate with them will change my whole life, and it’s something I was meant to do and feel. That loving women will help me love myself in a way that I never realised, and that just goes back and forth forever cos if you love yourself, loving other people is so much easier. And not to fight that cos I’m too scared to face the not so nice parts about being out. Bad shit is gonna happen no matter what, but better stuff will make up for it. I wish someone had told me that “lesbian” isn’t a bad word (I grew up with a lot of homophobia everywhere, including my family), and that I will cringe when people call me that initially but that should force myself to use it at first, cos it’ll get way better and feel right the sooner that happens. It is what I am, and I can’t avoid it forever. Own it. Cos as soon as you do, the sooner they can’t use it against you the same way anymore. But nobody said any of that to me.

And never, ever let anybody ever guilt, shame, manipulate, or pressure you into anything you don’t feel is right for you or your body. You’ll feel it deep down what you want and need, and what you don’t want and don’t need. Don’t ignore that. Don’t let anybody talk, guilt, scare, or shame you out of that. It may be hard but you already seem very strong and self-aware.

You’re not thinking wrong, you’re not made wrong. There’s a lot of that around in our society and lesbophobia is very alive still, everywhere.

You don’t need to find the “right man”. Ever. There’s no perfect high school boyfriend waiting for you if you’re a lesbian. There’s a girlfriend waiting for you. More than one, probably! You’ll love many women throughout your life and they’ll return it back to you. You’ll have friends that love you and support you. And when you say, “I’m a lesbian” it’ll roll off your tongue as easily as your name. Or your wife’s name. :) And you won’t feel any twinges of awkwardness or shame.

I wish you nothing but love and kindness, anon. Xx

And, also, anybody can ask me anything, btw. I generally really fucking suck with advice but my askbox is always here, if anybody needs it.

#Anonymous #baby lesbians are my fav precious beans and i am here for you 100000%#tho i am hardly an expert tbh. just an idiot finding her way through it all too.#long post

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lactosecarrotsoup · 6 years ago

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My thoughts on Sean & Finn’s kiss

This will be long and of course contain spoilers, as if you can’t tell by the title... thingy. So, be warned. This will also contain my opinion(s); which is a very sensitive subject in this fandom.

We’re all entitled to our own thoughts, opinions, beliefs, etc.

With that said, let’s get started!

For those who are new to this game... I will give you a short summery. Life is Strange is a video game series ran by DontNod. A great company who loves to make players cry. This season has new characters from the other season and DLC. This season takes place in Washington where you play as a 16 year old boy, Sean Diaz, who’s a regular teenager. He loves drawing, skating, and of course stereotypical teen stuff such as drugs and parties. Taking away the partying and drug usage, he’s your typical shy-ish guy. He also has a little brother named Daniel, he’s 9 years old.

Both of them are Hispanic, including their father (Esteban), making this season’s cast more diverse than the first season, where the main characters were mainly white.

Speaking of their father, he dies. Yep. After Sean forces Daniel out of his room, Daniel runs to their hot-headed neighbor and accidentally spills homemade zombie blood on him. Sean over see’s the neighbor about to hurt Daniel and rushes out the house, protecting him. After a few racial slurs/crude remarks to Daniel, Sean decides to fight him. Sean shoves the neighbor onto a small rock (which I still dont understand how that injured him), and he lays on the ground in shock/going unconscious.

A cop shows up and hell breaks loose. The cop only see’s the “blood” on the neighbors shirt and Daniels, thinking nothing but the worst of the situation rather than questioning them. The dad comes out, trying to reason with the officer and he gets trigger happy, shooting Sean & Daniel’s dad, killing him. Daniel screams in shock/anger/horror and Sean blacks out. Whenever he wakes up, the entire street is destroyed and more people are dead/unconscious. He grabs Daniel and they runaway, not wanting to get involved with the crime. It’s later found out that Daniel has powers (similar theme to LIS season 1) and can move objects with his mind.

More shit happens, yada yada yada.

NOW.

Episode 3 just released. In episode two, the brothers meet quite a few people. But most notably for this post, Cassidy and Finn. These two are regular friends (or maybe even “fuck buddies” as Finn and another girl described their relationship), who are a lot like Sean and Daniel. Cassidy left her old home life to live on the road. Finn, I can’t remember if he said anything or not. But I would think it would be for the same reason or something crime related.

Anyways, point is, they all group together and live in the woods. But, they all also work for this dude who runs a farm with nothing but pot.

Yep.

A nine year old and sixteen year old kid are working at a pot farm.

This leads to Finn, Cassidy, and Sean to get high, drunk, etc.

Finn get’s a hair up his ass and decides; “Hey, why don’t we steal all the cash from our boss? Who cares if he may know about Sean & Daniel’s backstory, has security footage evidence of them, and shotguns?!”

Cassidy is against this. But you, the player, have the option to accept or refuse his plan to rob the big dude with the cash.

And in the words of Chloe Price from season one; he’s got some “hella cash”

SORRY I HAD TOO.

But still, you can either rob from the guy or go against it. But HO HO HO! This choice doesn’t matter that much. Finn does it anyways (with a fUCKING NINE YEAR OLD HELPING HIM AND RISKING THAT KID’S LIFE) and Cassidy gets upset and worried. So, if you disagree with Cassidy, you end up meeting with them anyways so you can stop them. You get in trouble either way, btw.

But, let’s back it up.

If you agree to join Finn’s plan, he’s happy and you have the chance to romance him. Which, at first thought (including mine), was great! In the first season, Max was bisexual. You can flirt/romance with Chloe and/or Warren. With Sean romancing Cassidy and Finn, the developers made him bisexual.

But... it’s not all roses. Let me give you my first reaction. I do actually have it recorded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGJ8lg5clHM

2:29:55 - 2:34:24

If you don’t watch it, basically I was excited and shocked. I didn’t like Finn at first but in that moment, I shipped them. I wanted Sean to be happy and happy enough to open up about his sexuality, if he hadn’t already.

But, I realized something.

Finn is most likely 20+. Sean is still 16. This means Finn is an older guy kissing a minor, which is of course, illegal. Not to mention that earlier in that episode, he was teaching Daniel to throw knifes and such. He smokes and drinks and admits his sexual relationships in front of a kid, too.

Speaking of his sexual relationships, it would be highly toxic if Sean and him dated/had casual sexual intercourse. Just based on Sean’s personality and how he had a crush on that Jen girl in the first episode, and how close him and Cassidy warmed up to each-other, he wears his heart on his sleeve. One thing this season has done WONDERFULLY is not distribute toxic masculinity. Sean and Daniel have both cried several times. Most men don’t like to talk/show their feelings because they feel weak and such, which is horrible. No guy should feel that way and should openly express them-self.

Sean does this, which is amazing. Yet, still can harm him.

Right after you agree to Finn’s plan, you can kiss him. Throughout the episode, he also flirts with Sean. Of course you have the CHOICE to kiss him... but it’s only after you accept his agreement. You can kiss Cassidy (and sleep with her) but she will storm off, angry, without kissing you, if you agree to Finn’s plan. Which is reasonable. Or, you can lie to her, saying you thought his plan was dumb, and she’ll kiss you. Both reasonable (in my opinion) responses to each situations.

But, how come you can’t kiss Finn regardless? Sean can say no and they could still talk about their feelings, leading to a kiss. Instead, they do nothing.

Finn is manipulative. He used Sean’s emotions to get to him. He probably noticed how close him and Cassidy were and how much love he has for Daniel, openly saying it every now and then, and wanting to protect him. Finn noticed how open Sean is and took advantage.

Imagine if this wasn’t a choice base game and the story automatically follows Sean agreeing with Finn.

He flirts with him throughout the episode and is very charismatic. Since Daniel notices how close Sean and Cassidy are getting, he rants to Finn. Finn takes in this information and uses it against them. He becomes “cool” in Daniel’s eyes by being super chill, rebellious, and showing him how to violently protect himself/hurt others. In a sense, he becomes Daniel’s temporary older and “cooler” brother, making Daniel look up to him. With Finn’s flirting, he admits (once again, if your choices didn’t matter) that he has feelings for some guys.

Finn takes note of this.

The idea pops into his head to steal from the man who runs the pot farm... thing. I’m an innocent bean who hasn’t done anything harder than prescribed drugs for anxiety and stuff. So forgive me if I’m getting these terms wrong, LOL! But, the point still remains, he tells Daniel who is automatically on board. I doubt a 9 year old boy truly cares if they have enough money or not. I bet his main thought was “If I do this, then Finn will think I’m cool! He’ll treat me like an adult and so will others.”

In fact, I bet you that was his exact thoughts, just based on what he said to Sean and how he acted towards others.

If you really look at it, guys... it looks similar to a Mark Jefferson/Nathan Prescott relationship in season 1. I’m not going to go into many details for the people who haven’t played/watched season 1 yet, but I’ll give you guys a basic rundown by what I mean.

Nathan was mentally ill. He suffered from possibly multiple disorders and had an abusive father. His father wanted him to be the best of the best, not for his sake, but for the families sake. This got to Nathan and he hated his father. Mark Jefferson was a teacher who noticed this, befriending Nathan, and becoming a fatherly figure. The two teamed up to do sickening plans and crimes together which ended up getting them caught in the end.

Now, who does that sound like?

Daniel just lost his father and he’s angry. He probably has PTSD and anger management issues, based on how he’s acting and the situations he’s been through. Finn is an older figure and tricks Daniel to follow his plans and crime, as they’re stealing. They end up getting caught by the boss no matter what they, Sean, Cassidy, or the player does.

Sean is in the same boat, minus the anger issues. He probably suffers more from depression and PTSD (since he talks about the past a lot to others and how they know their story). Since he does talk about his feelings, Finn uses to his advantage.

When Sean agrees to the heist, Finn and him (can) kiss as an award. An award for falling into his trap and doing whatever he wanted.

Nathan got fatherly love and praise from Jefferson, resulting in him to continue their disgusting plans in order to feel loved.

Sean (and Daniel) and becoming the Nathan of this season.

We have to watch out who will be our jefferson.

I also have to address another elephant in the room.

We’re the reason this happened.

If you go through old DontNod/Life is Strange official posts (I suggest instagram or facebook, where i saw mine), I saw nothing but comments saying how much they want Chloe and Max back. I assume this is because of how you can romance Chloe. They want their love story/friendship to continue. Even though we did get a comic series based on them, it wasn’t good enough.

DontNod probably got sick of it and forced this to happen. While they were probably writing Cassidy as a love interest in the beginning, and Finn as probably just a random stranger or a brother of hers, the noticed all the hate and said “fuck it!”

As a result, we got the chance to kiss Finn... before you could write him off by injuring or killing him. Which, many people were pissed about.

But if you REALLY think about it, we were the cause of that. They probably didn’t want that, wanting to focus on Cassidy and the actual story. But many people wanted LGBTQ+ moments (which is understandable) but didn’t want Sean and Daniel’s story. Or they did get involved in their story but wanted a LGBTQ+ character.

The story of Life is Strange (both seasons + DLC) is nothing more but teens/young adults finding themselves through very difficult times. This with the responsibility of super powers, which are hurting those around them. It’s not meant to be a romance. It’s meant to be a drama, sci-fi, and angst story. (And thriller bc of Max’s nightmare bc that shit scared me)

While yes, I was happy and excited at first about Sean & Finn kissing. I was happy that there was potential for things to be “normal” and Sean to be happy, there was a lot of red flags. The age differences, the manipulation, the parallel's, and how forced it was.

Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk! Before you leave a hateful response, please know my opinion is valid like yours and others. Not only that, but I’m not the first to point some of this out. :)

#lis #life is strange #lis 2 #lis 2 spoilers #life is strange 2 spoilers #sean diaz #daniel diaz #life is strange 2

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harrynightingales · 4 years ago

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i wrote a whole bit on the ~discourse that was immediately banished to my drafts but now i have something else i want to talk about, mainly ~the list~ and the constant question of, if top!joe isn’t inherently problematic, what is the point of collecting and publishing the data?

many people have rightly pointed out that collecting data about who tops and bottoms (the methodology of which was clearly laid out so that readers could assess it for themselves) is simplistic and doesn’t take into account the other concepts we’ve been talking about since almost day 1 - namely, the tendency for joe to be written in a way that feeds into orientalist tropes and stereotypes about MENA men. again, no one on this “side” disagrees with the statement that there is nothing wrong inherently wrong with writing joe topping, or as a dom, or being masculine or violent - that can be done in a way that still treats him with respect and isn’t reductive!

so then people argue that the top/bottom data is meaningless, and they demand to know whether the conclusion is to “fill the gap” and write bottom!joe. these people are not satisfied with the non yes-or-no answer of “maybe” “not necessarily” or “i don’t know”

the way i see it is this: the top/bottom data is not conclusive. its not meant to be! the conclusion has never been “more top!joe than top!nicky” --> fandom is racist”. pointing out TRENDS is a way for us to step back, think about thought processes, challenge them in ourselves and in the content we consume in the context of information about harmful stereotypes and tropes that others have kindly provided background on over and over.

an analogy: let’s say we’re looking at data about representation of gay men in TV in a given year. we're going to track how many of those characters fit the trope of being your stereotypical effeminate gay man (think kurt from glee). this is a subjective category but let’s assume we come up with some standardized method to decide. say we find out that 75% of characters fit this trope. is that an inherently bad thing? well, going backwards, a gay man being effeminate is not a bad thing! there are plenty of gay men who fit that category and that is them being authentic and being their best selves, awesome. that being said, it doesn’t reflect all gay men, and there is an unfortunate history of gay men being stereotyped, where that effeminate gay man is also rude, unfaithful, aggressively forward with straight men, etc. once again, the existence of the harmful stereotype doesn’t negate the existence of validity of an effeminate gay man in real life! but we have to consider that in media, these things can very easily get tied up together. so back to our original question: are our findings bad? is this something we have to change? maybe, maybe not! its a starting point for us to look deeper, to look at the quality of the writing, to see if these characters are being written fully-dimensionally, to look at the writers room to see who is reflected there. and even if all those characters are being written wonderfully, the reality is that that one experience of being a gay man is not reflective of the population, and so, without claiming there is something “wrong” with writing effeminate gay men, there may be encouragement for writers to have more variety within their characters.

and to be clear, this is looking at it from one direction. the opposite could be just as harmful! if all our gay men in media are basically carbon copies of the straight men except they happen to kiss dudes, that can also be reductive and not representative of actual gay men. if that is what our findings showed us, that would ALSO spark a conversation for what those trends mean, where they are coming from, and how to move forward productively.

people have said that top!nicky can also be harmful and feed into stereotypes - absolutely! if we did this top/bottom data and found that consistently there was more top!nicky than top!joe, it would start another conversation about trends, where we could critically reflect on the tropes we are seeing in fandom content and if they are feeding into anything hurtful.

as an aside, this is why the argument of “make a bottom!joe discord! run bottom!joe events!” doesn’t make sense to me. the call to action has never been “write fics in a way that we have a perfect 50/50 split all the time” because that is frankly impossible! i have never identified as a “bottom!joe” or “top!nicky” fan and i think there are very few people who do. from what i have seen, people making similar arguments to mine are interested in joe/nicky as a BALANCED, healthy, loving relationship with an incredibly wide variety of sexual dynamics they could play into to reflect their 900+ year history (i.e. they’re the switchiest switches to ever switch). somehow demanding more top!nicky content is not at all the point.

from the very beginning of this ~discourse, the point has ALWAYS been about being mindful and thoughtful about how fandom content can feed into harmful stereotypes and tropes, with top and bottom as a shorthand because, unfortunately, those concepts can never be fully separated. my previous long-ass rant hiding in my drafts is specifically related to this idea of “people who prefer seeing content in which joe tops” vs. top!joe only fans. the sparknotes version of that one is that, from my experience reading fic and seeing posts from self-identified “top!joes” and the discord, there is a lot of overlap between that identifier and content that focuses significantly on joe being masculine, aggressive, dominant. again, those traits in and of themselves are not problematic and you can write a joe who is all of those things and not be harmful. but when you reduce his character to only those things and/or simultaneously consistently feminize nicky, overexaggerating their physical differences and arguing until the cows come home that nicky is smaller, weaker, and less physically competent, that’s a problem. that doesn’t even begin to touch the constant power-imbalance fics i see coming from self-identified “top!joe” fans including age difference and slavery-related fic/content. i personally have never been in the discord and never intend to, so i may have a flawed understanding. again, i have a whole other post about this topic specifically but i don’t want to start shit.

that being said, circling back to the data: when we had these early conversations is july/august, with folks saying the exact same things (being mindful of trends and how top/bottom “preference” can potentially tie into more harmful tropes) the concept of the self-identified top!joe arose, and the discord was created because apparently there was “too much” top!nicky content in response to fandom-wide discussions and the fans who enjoyed consuming content where joe tops needed their own space. on a most basic level, this data shows that that was not the case. if nothing else, it has value to me for that by simply tallying what otherwise is a gut instinct about what kind of content is out there, which the brain can notoriously misrepresent.

#am i going to regret this?#mayhaps #please don't rb bc i don't want to set anyone off #i'm assuming my followers are reasonable and if you disagree #we can have a mature discussion in good faith #kay i need to go be a professional now bye

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siryouarebeingmocked · 3 years ago

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>Hello, but men BENIFIT from lower parenting standards. Men are allowed to fully pursue their careers and their dreams after having children. Women have doors slamming in their faces.

I want you to explicitly say "men are generally considered lesser parents compared to women" or "I disagree with your belief that men are generally considered lesser parents compared to women, and here's why I disagree" before we go on.

Because it seems like you're deliberately ignoring the core belief that the lower standards for men actually come from. Which was my central point. I specifically included one of the comic pages that makes the comparison directly.

>Here’s some reading material on the parenting gap and how it hurts women. How are the men here suffering exactly?

Off the top of my head, women are more likely to win primary custody in a divorce, even when the father contests custody.

The Forbes OP ed literally says "men lose out on feeling accepted as caregivers" and links to another article by the exact same author about sexism - whoops - stereotypes against men. (Because "sexism" is just something that happens to women, I assume. )

The writer of the article you linked still says men can be limited and disadvantaged by gender roles, like being seen as lesser parents. Including in the article.

I also like how the opening study of the original oped is literally just an opinion poll about what people think happens to moms. That doesn't prove much about the reality of the situation.

The medium article is by Jessica Valenti. A longtime feminist, and one infamous for this;

I think it's safe to say she's a tad biased against men. Especially when she's written an article defending misandry. In short, there are few feminists who you could've chosen who would make me more inclined to immediately disregard their opinion.

But I won't.

Raising a kid is a big time investment, even for couples. Claiming it's just from a lack of men doing their "fair share" - when single motherhood is increasingly common - seems remarkably traditionalist for a feminist.

She also assumes that fathers and mothers aren't agreeing ahead of time who spends more time with kids. And assumes the 'invisible work' of parenting applies solely to women, and doesn't consider how much time the father may be spending on things like home maintenance, which is men's traditional role. Maybe the dad's doing some invisible parenting work of his own.

The elephant in the room is that mothers are more likely to take time off work than fathers, partially because moms are the one getting pregnant. And even after she has the kid, she's still more likely to become a stay at home parent. Women are also more likely to prioritize family over career than men.

This has to have an influence on how people treat women in their career. If a woman becomes pregnant and plans to keep it, no sensible employer is going to give her more responsibility when she's going to take a few months off.

It's hilarious how feminism has gone from "sisters are doin' it for themselves" to "why aren't the men helping?"

The American Progress article keeps getting caught by my site filter, and I can't be arsed to find a proxy. But I'm familiar with the publication, and frankly it's a leftist rag. As the name would indicate.

As for the military, why don’t we see y’all MRAs talking about THESE inequalities? I can play this game too.Sexual assault in the military-

I'm not an MRA, and I've seen MRAs talk about rape in the military a lot. Specifically, how the majority of sexual assault reports in the military are from men, yet society still ignores them and focuses on the women.

Of course, MRAs have little reason to complain about rape against women as part of their advocacy, unless doing so benefits men's rights.

By contrast, feminists love to complain about women being seen as lesser, but rarely do so when it provides women with an advantage. Feminists will complain about the idea that men should protect women, but they don't care much about the actual guy risking his life to protect women, even when discussing 'toxic masculinity'.

In fact, feminists love to demand protection and support from men. You yourself linked to articles doing precisely that.

Feminists - like society in general - treat rape and sexual assault as a male-on-female crime, with rare exceptions. Which is bad for any group of victims who doesn't fit that mold. And good for the perps. Even when mainstream feminists discuss male victims, they take pains to emphasize how the perps are almost always men.

And when someone scares up evidence to the contrary (EG the CDC's NISVS 2010 and the "Made to Penetrate" stats, where men said they were MTP'd by women 20% of the time), many feminists will rush to buttress the Narrative, even to the extent of ignoring the CDC's sexist definition of "rape".

(EDIT: Correction; 80% of the time. Assuming the lifetime relative numbers were accurate, that meant women were at least 16% of total rapists.)

I already said that a situation that's overall worse can still have benefits in some areas. And I said women's lower standards were sexism against women.

Also, "NO U" is not a counterargument.

>Unequal health care in the military-

Are you actually planning to address whether women's lower qualification standards are a privilege or not? Or are you just trying to score points with "look, women have problems in the military, so they can't be privileged in any way, because I'm a binary thinker!!"

Because as I pointed out, the standards were lowered specifically to benefit women and women alone. That's a privilege in that specific context.

My beliefs are consistent. It's all about that 'nuance' stuff.

This is insane. If women aren’t passing this test about what you need to do to be physically fit, then so fucking be it. The battlefield won’t lower its standards, so neither should we.

#long #female privilege #euphonism

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valamerys · 7 years ago

Note

I really enjoy your blog so is it okay if I ask you top 10 pet peeves in novels? It can be tropes or even a niche moment in a particular book. I like writing myself and would appreciate the help.

hmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM sure, I can come up with some things! bear in mind I read almost exclusively fantasy, and mostly “low” ie not game of thrones fantasy at that, including a loooot of YA, so my items will reflect that.

Top (YA, Fantasy) Fiction Pet Peeves:

1) Unnecessary post-apocalyptic setting WHY THE FUCK. DO PEOPLE KEEP DOING THIS. WHAT DOES THIS GAIN ANYONE. WHAT IS THE POINT. Red Queen, The Selection, The Queen of the Tearling, and that weird TV show The Shanarananaharahahananaaa Chronicles all do this. It’s, frankly, a cheap-ass bid for Dark and Gritty points, and also an excuse to set things in America But Fantasy, and it’s always bad and awkward. This isn’t planet of the apes, just make your damn fantasy world; you don’t have to try to make it more ~realistic~ by putting the ruins of the statue of liberty in the background. That’s stupid and you’re stupid.

2) One-note characters Mostly present via The Bitch or The Bully stereotype, but also seen in The Bratty Brother, The Sweet Sister, The Spacey DGAF Parent, and the Eccentric Wise Elder. I get that there’s not time to flesh out every single person your protagonist comes into contact with, but certain archetypes are so fucking boring and done to death that I tune out immediately. It’s not 2004 anymore. The game has evolved. We can do better. We can be more interesting.

Related to the sweet sister trope, I’d like to bring up this text post from my other blog:

3) When the protagonists’ actions/ choices do not affect the plot Alright, this one isn’t even a pet peeve, it’s basic narrative construction. Your story is supposed to be about your protagonist (or your two or three protagonists, in a multi-pov story, but for simplicity’s sake we’ll talk about one) and their arc, how they change and grow. a) If their actions never have consequences, how the fuck do they, like, learn things? and b) if their actions have no bearing on the climax of the story, how the fuck does the story demonstrate that they’ve changed, or come to a meaningful conclusion that’s related to that? Sure there’s weird literary exceptions, and certainly some fantasy in particular is more plot than character driven, but if your character is honestly never proactive, particularly through the ending of the book, uh, i have a major problem and so should you.

4) The Mandatory Feminism Stuff we should all know these by now. “Not Like Other Girls” is bad. Hating on corsets and other femme paraphernalia is bad (and moreover i personally resent it because I love corsets). A book with a female protagonist and no other important female characters (or only evil female characters) is bad. A high fantasy series that builds its worldbuilding on a raging patriarchy for the purpose of elevating a few specific women into positions of power for superficial RAH RAH FEMINISM points while not addressing systematic oppression is really, really bad. Defining female empowerment as only one thing (IE picking up a sword and Proving Yourself just as badass as all those scoffing men!!!) is bad. I’m very tired and I want to read about women-- different kinds of women, with different moral alignments and interests and abilities and ethnic backgrounds and ages and sexualities and beliefs-- helping each other and being forces in the world and in each others’ lives. That’s it. That’s all I want. I have no clue why that’s so elusive.

5) Characters being flippant to the point of stupidity because........ that’s cool, i guess? Homygod, I am so sick to my teeth of characters who would get their asses kicked IRL for being obnoxious and overly glib be appraised with “wow, you’ve really got some nerve! I like you, kid!” or some variation therof. Mouthing off to superiors/ royalty? Charging into a fight on a stray heroic impulse despite everyone with a brain and their mom telling you you’re going to die because you just picked up swordfighting on tuesday? flagrantly and thoughtlessly disregarding engrained cultural things because they don’t align with your conveniently 2017 sense of social justice despite you living in an analogue-medieval world? Not cute. It will get you fucking killed. If your character doesn’t seem to grasp that, I’m going to think they’re a dumbshit, and if the book rewards rather than punishes that, I’m not going to take it very seriously. (obviously there are exceptions to this, particularly if your world doesn’t take itself very seriously, but if you expect to instill a real sense of danger in day-to-day life, your protagonist doesn’t get to be exempt from that because they’re hot and witty.)

6) Also, characters being stubborn. This goes with my last point, because it’s another trait people seem to think is like cool, or something? That stubborn people are stubborn because they’re Strong? that it’s a flaw but it’s actually a Cool Flaw, like in job interviews when they ask your weakness and you say “i’m just TOO hard of a worker, ha ha ha”? U see this a lot in female characters written by people who are uncomfortable writing female characters, i think because, again, it mistakenly reads as Strength on some really superficial level, and because the banter and petty conflict that arises from it temporarily distracts from weak overall characterization. If you’re going to write a character being stubborn, that’s great! But understand that a) it’s a real flaw that can genuinely blind them to good ideas and cause unnecessary friction that shouldn’t be treated as endearing, b) it’s not a replacement for other elements of characterization!! and c) it’s the flipside of being assertive, which is a good thing: no trait is only a flaw or a strength, and so any trait a character possess in abundance should both help and hinder them at different times, with maturity level tempering the bad, to a degree. stubbornness is no different.

7) Sexual assault (or the threat of it) all over the fucking place. Do i have to explain this one? Of course ownvoices books about sexual assault survivors are good and necessary but we are all sick to death of "fun” fantasy worlds where the female characters exist under the constant and unending threat of rape, where sexual assault is common as window dressing and the love interests are Super Special Feminist Snowflakes for being so revolutionary as to take consent into account. fuck that. that should be the bare fucking minimum. i am so tired.

8) The Six-Pack Sex Appeal Golem Honestly, I am not here to hate on love triangles, because I am ALL ABOUT the romance and the more the merrier. But what i do really, really loathe is the incredibly narrow parameters that have come to exist for male love interests, to the point where they all tend to feel like the same guy in need of anger management: a little broody, smart, serious, jealous and protective to a fault, if we get his POV we get real creepy sexual thoughts out of nowhere while he acts vaguely standoffish and probably a little patronizing to a woman whose Attitude gives him a boner. This man does not experience emotions that can’t be interpreted as darkly sexual, or possibly A Little Bit Vulnerable, just for that one scene of mandatory backstory reveal. I recently reviewed a real bad romance novel and described the hero as “a barely-consistent golem of toxic masculine ideals” and that’s what I’m talking about here. MAKE YOUR LOVE INTERESTS WELL-ROUNDED AND UNIQUE CHARACTERS LIKE ALL YOUR OTHER CHARACTERS. Forget what’s “sexy,” I wanna see the male love interests be Soft and Weird and cry in an unattractive way. For further reading/ a great case study of the Masculine Golem, please just read this article about how abysmal the romance in ROAR is. (For what it’s worth, I actually think SJM manages to avoid this in the ACOTAR series. Rhys and Tamlin suck but they are still mostly consistent characters, not just shells inhabited by the spirit of heterosexuality. your mileage may vary, though.)

9) Secret Superpower/ She Was The Missing Princess/ Queen All Along I think this is a trend that’s slowly but surely passing from YA, but for a while you couldn’t throw a rock in a bookstore without hitting a trilogy where a long-lost missing princess was established in chapter 1 and you spent the whole fucking first book knowing the orphaned heroine with a murky past was gonna turn out to be the princess and you were always right. Queens are also a huge fucking thing right now, although they don’t tend to follow that exact formula. See also the character’s discovery of a superpower catapulting them into a new exciting life-- basically any discovery of a Cool Sexy birthright as a catalyst for a plot is kind of played out and boring, at this point in time? This ties into my earlier point about wanting characters’ choices to shape the plot; it’s so much easier to have them reacting to external forces, especially dramatic, aesthetic ones, i get that, but you’ll get a more original and interesting story the more you resist that urge. And everyone is fucking tired of secret princesses and can spot them a mile away, y’all.

10) OMG magic is outlawed!!! BUT WAIT THE PROTAGONIST HAS SECRET MAGIC! CAN SHE RISE ABOVE PERSECUTION AND HER PROBABLE ROMANCE WITH THE PRINCE OF THIS POORLY-THOUGHT-OUT TOTALITARIAN REGIME TO LEAD ALL MAGIC-HAVERS TO FREEDOM AND ACCEPTANCE???? If you do this i’m going to come to your house and pour a cup of soda on your head. This is dumb and I can’t believe I’ve seen it multiple times. I’m not even explaining this it should be obvious.

Honorable mentions go to: Excessive mentions/ descriptions of eye color, really tired ways of describing kissing, elemental magic is super fucking overdone, instalove, and Training Montages

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old-aout-save · 5 years ago

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Reidentified woman

Frequently asked question that I will leave the very long response to here, “How did you go from being deeply entrenched in gender ideology and mainstream transactivism to being what many would call a terf?’

Here’s my first draft, not super coherent but I’ll probably edit it down at some point: You may notice it getting less coherent as it goes on lol

Basically a lot of stuff just didn’t add up and I couldn’t maintain that level of cognitive dissonance.

Sexuality: –If sexuality is about an inner sense of “gender” and not what sex people are, how and why have homosexual relationships have been and are still persecuted? –Doesn’t it make everyone bisexual? If everybody can be attracted to anyone who looks like anything as long as they “identify” as the “gender” they are attracted to, what even defines sexuality? How can you be attracted to a gender? As in, what’s the difference between a male who calls himself a man and a male who calls himself a woman who both look the same that would supposedly cause a lesbian to be attracted to the later but not the former? –Is it possible for a woman to be only attracted to vulva? To be not attracted to any dick ever? Surely it has to be possible, claiming it’s not possible sounds exactly like forcing women to like dick, denying their own attractions and how they know themselves. Claiming everyone must like dick. That’s fucked up! And that’s what happens when sexuality is about “gender” instead of sex. Sexuality being about sex just makes sense, it makes the categories of heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual have actual meanings –What rights do a male and female in a relationship lose if the female identifies as a man? They are still legally allowed to have sex, get married, and be together in public, all the privileges that come with a heterosexual relationship. Is it not wrong to claim that that relationship is homosexual? Doesn’t it make a cruel joke out of the actual gay experience? –It just kept sounding like sick conversation therapy to hear gay people called horrible names and bigots for saying that they are only attracted to the same sex. Especially those posts about how gay people can “learn” how to love/enjoy sex with a trans partner Sexism –No one could provide a solid explanation for why it’s alright for a male to claim to be female but bad for a white person to claim to be black –No one could provide a solid definition of woman. If anyone who “feels” like a woman is a woman, what does it feel like to be a woman? Do little girls forced into marriage and fgm all “feel” like girls? Do the women who experience acid attacks and sex trafficking “feel” like women? How is it not sexist for men to say “I always liked playing with barbie and I want to have long hair and wear makeup, therefore I must be a woman” or worse “I’m quiet and prefer doing my nails to sports so I must be a woman” They are taking stereotypes and making them the definition of woman. –I realized, there are as many different ways to be, look like, have interests, act, feel, dress like, a woman as there are adult human females on this earth. The only thing you can say all women have in common, is being born female, otherwise it’s just sexist. –Socialization is a thoroughly studied subject. Trans identified males still commit crimes at the same rate as other males, not at the same rate as women. If there is one way to “act like a man” science says so far the way to do that is to be violent, and transwomen fit the bill. Basically no scientific reason that having dysphoria actually makes someone the opposite “gender” or sex. –Following the last point, I kept seeing information on women’s spaces being taken away. If transwomen were “women” theres still plenty of evidence that being female-bodied is an axis of oppression. And yet, any female only spaces are continuing to be taken away, they don’t care about female oppression and deny it even exists. Transwomen wanting access to female-only spaces just displays their male entitlement even more, goes to show they aren’t women. –For example, bathrooms, prisons, sports. Women fought for these spaces and now men are invading them, and we can objectively see it’s causing harm and danger to women and girls. Even if transwomen were women, they would still have male socialization, and be literally physically male, and that would still make them dangerous to women. –The way transwomen sexual predators are treated. They are treated like victims as well, people defend using women pronouns for them and criticize you for not doing the same before they criticize the transwoman. They are still famous. Or, people claim that those weren’t “real” trasnwomen. Which makes me think, how do you tell the difference? How do you tell who to let into the bathroom then? And really, no true scotsman fallacy. –The way they claim an inverted penis is the same as a vagina. It shows a deep carelessness for the true nature of female biology, what it’s meant for. It shows they think of vaginas as just sockets to have sex with and nothing more.

The way Dysphoria is treated –The checklists to take to see if someone is trans are the exact criteria you could use to tell if someone is gay or will grow up to be gay –Statistics show that children who are very nonconforming and uncomfortable in puberty will most likely grow up to be gay. Transing these kids seems like a way to make them straight, like how gay people are forced to transition in Iran. –In the community any questioning of one’s “gender” is met with You’re Trans. This doesn’t account for the fact that gender roles is what’s used to oppress women, to make them weak, small, submissive, restricted. Of course women are uncomfortable with their gender! Also consider that all sex characteristics of women are plastered all over the place in ads, movies, music videos, extremely sexualized, degraded, objectified, ogled by everyone. So of course women develop in puberty and then feel like they Don’t Want that, they don’t want to be a walking object! Breasts for many women are a cage, a sign that you are for male consumption, it’s hard to be reminded of being a woman in this society. But transactivism doesn’t care about that. If you question the norm, you’re actually a man. –The community is full of ways to get transition materials Fast without questioning the other reasons for dysphoria and without trying other methods of recovering from dysphoria. They say, if you have dysphoria you must be trans. No one says, talk therapy can help you recover from dysphoria the same way it could help you recover from anorexia. Just change yourself! –By getting materials Fast I mean, access to binders, hrt, and surgeries. They tell 14 year olds how to buy binders and encourage them to do it without encouraging them to talk to older butch women, older dysphoric women, detransitioned women, anybody. They don’t talk about how even binding “safely” can still cause permanent damage, about how optimally a person should be able to love their body just the way it is. They talk about how to get hrt without even having to see a therapist, about how young it’s possible to get hrt. How young it’s possible to get a mastectomy. While you’re young do it now as soon as you can never talk to a therapist go for it! –How detransitioned people are treated as never having been trans, as never having been truly dysphoric, as people who are trying to trick you and deceive you into denying your true trans nature, as people who are denying their true trans identity in the same way that christian homosexuals are denying their homosexuality. They act like saying therapy should be the first option is the same as trying to “pray the gay away”. –Hrt and surgery is treated as glamorous and the details are hidden. Just take “top surgery” and “bottom surgery” for example. Never “mastectomy” or “colo-vaginoplasty”. Experiences in my life that added to what I saw in the news –I was identifying as a “gay trans man” for a while. I have/had dysphoria and have been dating a man. What basically never made sense to me was that we could go out in public, get married, etc and never face any discrimination. So what makes our relationship gay? Furthermore, homophobes I met were perfectly fine with us dating. Even after they found out I identified as a man, they didn’t care that we were dating or see it as a sin, they just hoped I’d learn to accept myself one day. What they care about though? That my boyfriend is bisexual. Because Same Sex Attraction is what makes someone gay or bi, it’s what homophobic people hate. They were against my boyfriend’s same sex attraction, not his supposed same “gender” attraction. –A transman in a support group I went to would complain that people don’t see her (heterosexual) relationship as gay! imagine that, complaining that people view you as a straight couple, a safe, socially accepted, straight couple. –I saw a gender therapist and basically said I hate my breasts and enjoy being referred to and seen as a man, and she was like “that’s valid” and told me where I could get hrt. I could have even gotten hrt without having to see a gender therapist, as an 18 yer old! That was 11 months ago, and look how much as changed. If I had decided to take hrt, I would have regretted it so soon, simply because I have since been given actual information on the topic. 18 is really not old enough to make that decision, especially when the trans community has so much thought control and discourages questioning. I needed a therapist who could talk to me about the pain of being a woman in this society, about Why I want to be a man and not just accept “I feel like it” as an answer. In summation, so many questions I had but nobody could answer or would just call me a terf for even asking, so much blatant sexism and homophobia. It just didn’t add up.

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feminon · 7 years ago

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The reason why the mindset “transmasc people suffer jst as much from misogyny if not more than cis/nb/trans women and therefore can speak over them with authority on misogyny because they sometimes ‘pass’ as women or are treated like women by cis people” makes so me so fucking uncomfortable is like. It almost always seems to have the extended meaning of “also trans women don’t stop benefitting from male privilege and start suffering from misogyny unless they ”“”“"pass”“”“/are out as trans women/unless i say so and ur an entitled fucking bitch if you try and tell me woman-aligned people have it worse than me and tht I need to check my own misogyny”

Being read as/treated as a certain oppressed group ≠ being just as oppressed in the exact same way as tht group

Straight cis men tht are read as “feminine”/“effeminate” don’t have it worse than actual gay men for the homophobia that’s levvied at them, bcz at the end of the day they can say “I’m Straight” While they may experience harassment from being “read” as gay, in every other aspect of their life (marriage, health care, social inclusion, media representation, etc) they benefit from being straight where an actual gay person does not (see also: str8 women who are read as gnc gay women/butch lesbians)

Gay cis men who do drag/act “feminine” aren’t the main target of transmisogyny, while they can experience harassment tht is rooted in transmisogyny, and they are in no way Privilieged in the same way tht a cishet man is, at the end of the day they can say “I’m a man”/“I’m not a trans woman”, they don’t experience the full breadth of transmisogyny tht trans women suffer under, and they contribute to it. (Just like! A cishet woman who dresses androgynous/masculine isn’t an expert on the transphobia trans men experience lol. She might still get shit for it, but thts an issue of misogyny/misdirected transphobia/lesbophobia more than anything else).

Being a trans man and being the target of harassment/stereotyping/being denied agency tht is rooted in misogyny is not the same as being oppressed as a woman/woman-aligned person.

Yes not being “out” as a trans men is a complex experience and I’m not ever claiming tht trans men walk thru life unscathed from misogyny because, it affects everyone, we live in a patriarchal society tht punishes Anything remotely associated w being “woman”/“feminine” - and not knowing that you’re trans/not having a space where you can be openly trans/a man online or otherwise means it certainly feels like thts all tht defines your experience.

But claiming tht trans men experience the same breadth of misogyny tht women-aligned people do - even in trans spaces, is harmful and opens up concepts like “trans men can’t harmfully wield misogyny like cis men do” “trans men are less privilieged than trans women for being ”“"socialized”“” female" “trans men are allowed to wield misogynous slurs and harassment unchecked because they are targeted w them in cis spaces”.

At the end of the day your identity As A Man, as A Male-Aligned person is consistently rewarded and considered superior in our society, whether this be through indirect affirmations you receive thru just existing as a male-aligned person, or being directly prioritised and allowed agency where women are Not in spaces where you pass/are out as a trans man.

Women-aligned people (gnc or otherwise) don’t get that satisfaction regardless of how they present.

#do n/t reblob #psnlt #again im not saying tht trans men cant discuss their complicated relationship w misogyny #its jst tht theyre not the main target of it and them speaking over woman-aligned ppl is so fucking uncomf

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