#like personally. ok. lesbian opinion so take that for what it’s worth. but i don’t understand all the lucanis thirst

[mabaris]

no youre completely right - im a gay (trans)man and i legit wanna see so much more about the women bc There Is So Little. I wanna make a lesbian oc who gets bent in half by taash. im very normal.

i’m just tired man!!!! it feels so obvious how disproportionate it is when you’ve got. a cast of characters that we know almost equally little about. and a few of them explode in popularity and it’s like spongebob sticking his hand out the curtain. literally all a character needs to do numbers is to be a light-skinned man

[cowboyjen68]

Recently I’ve been debating getting top surgery. I know that some butches get top surgery and seem happy with the results but I’ve also met some who grew out of their discomfort with time. So I guess I’m debating if I should wait to see if maybe the discomfort around my chest will ease with age or if I should look into getting top surgery. The ones I’ve talked to also had this discomfort about their breast growing during puberty but they said after some time it decreased but for mines it seems like a problem that hasn’t gone away.

I am so sorry for the delay, seems work and side gigs are taking up a lot of my time lately. 

I can only speak from my experience with my body and from other lesbians I talk to... and I talk to a lot. I have many friends across generations. Many of my younger friends are butch but not all. My older friends are a myriad of types of lesbians and as diverse as the greater population. This weekend now that we are all vaccinated we had a campfire with 12 lesbian, 5 butches present. We have definitely had discussions about our breasts, discomfort, and the mourning over loosing breasts to cancer (or the danger of cancer).  Most of my buddies, from 19 to 68 share similar stories about learning to be at least “okay” with their bodies in a world where our physical attributes are often used to define our personality, and our worth. 

One thing we ALL share, as women, not just lesbians, is that we were at best dissatisfied that we have breasts starting as soon as they begin to form. I was 7 when mom told me I had to wear a shirt outside. Wow was I pissed. AND as a 7 years old I knew it had nothing to do with me but everyone seemed just fine with the fact that men were the issue but since we can’t change them we must change our own behavior.

 I remember thinking “how is me not wearing a shirt a problem”. Breasts had been neutral for me at that point. Just another part of my body. Once I realized “they” made me different, more vulnerable, more controlled, less “human” than those around me without breasts I turned my hate on my body instead of the people who really were to blame. Just like I was taught, I can’t control the men but I perhaps I could control my body. 

I have raised at least 10 teenage daughters (2 are lesbians now) my youngest adopted is 15 and when her other mom told her to put on a shirt in the summer of her 8th birthday, even in our rural yard she looked at me dead in the eye and said “why haven’t you fixed this yet?” (meaning women’s bodies being subject to the eyes and opinions of men). I wonder.. why haven’t we? She is the youngest, but all the others grew from hating their breasts to at least neutral, some really love their bodies and that is lovely. 

Lesbians are unique in our dealings of men’s opinions because we never need or want the approval of men in relation to our bodies. The opposite in fact.. we would prefer they see us void of anything they find sexual. Many women, straight, bi, lesbian eventually either learn to give no shits about the opinions of men or they learn to work around that feeling.

Ok.. all that being said, my story. My breasts are B cups, perhaps C’s when I was a bit heavier weight wise. I wore regular bras WITH padding and always as tight as a could to make them less noticeable. When I came out i switched to sports bras because i was embracing being butch and no longer wanted to play the game of wearing  “pretty bra” . I never wore tight shirts, always baggy. I wore the tightest bra I could wear to keep my breasts smaller, less visible. FOR YEARS. 

Going to a women’s festival opened my eyes to the many ways bodies can be. The many ways BUTCH bodies can exist. Women went topless and NO one sexualized them. (except when appropriate-- like while flirting etc when it was welcomed). Thousands of people, many topless and no one, not one person was oogled, cat called, teased, or otherwise treated as different than someone wearing a shirt.  What did they all share? Why was it different than in other places? Women. All women and mostly lesbians. However that did not automatically translate to “I am going back to the real world and giving no fucks about the reality of existing with breasts in our world”. It took time.

I no longer wear a bra just an undershirt. BUT I am in control of where I go, who I interact with most of the time. If I was still at my retail job, I’d probably still wear a bra. I no longer dislike my breasts. I love them. They bring me pleasure, they bring my girlfriend pleasure. They are a lovely part of me BUT that does not mean I am not very aware in public of my nipples being visible or of people noticing I am braless. And I imagine it is harder for women with larger breasts. 

Had binders been a “thing”, had I had access to a double  mastectomy, or the idea of it i cannot say that would have pursued either. The pattern suggests I would have. But again., neither were on my radar, not options presented to me or encouraged as a way to solve my discomfort.

 I have  three friends who have had elective double mastectomies. And many who had one to prevent or remove cancer. Several of them suffer consistent and painful nerve damage that is not treatable, is quite common, is unpredictable (they can’t know who will have it) and possibly life long. Of the three who were trying to alleviate the distress of dysphoria, all three regret the decision and none of them are over 30 yet. These women are all lesbians. Those who had the surgery because of cancer are thrilled to be happy and alive with less worry, although they do deal with nerve issues and mourn the loss of a part of their body. 

I have a few trans men friends, although we are not close. A  couple of them have had double mastectomies but their thoughts or feelings have not come up, we are just not close enough for such a personal discussion and none have had the surgery for more than 2 years.  I have had lots of older lesbians friends (and a few younger) who did get breast reduction surgery and their health and mental health were both improved. Their backs are better, their clothes fit better and they feel more active, less self conscious with out the physical risks of a full mastectomy. 

The easy answer and what I WANT to say, is be patient, find lots of older lesbians friends to show you your body is neutral, men are the problem. Give yourself time to understand that your breasts are as butch as the rest of you. They are a natural part of your body and how you are meant to be. Also, I know there is not an easy answer. Men will continue to exist. They will continue to sexualize lesbians (with or without breasts). I didn’t outgrow wishing my breasts could just disappear(in public settings) until my 40′s but it got easier and easier to sort of “live with it”. I am many times over grateful for my healthy breasts now. 

Seek therapy.. and not someone who will just go along with what ever you say. My therapists works me hard. She makes me answer the hard questions. She has me vocalize things that I don’t even want to admit in my head let alone out loud. Find one like that. Find one who is willing to explore all the reasons your breasts cause you distress. Then, if you decide to proceed, you can do so knowing you were worth the hard work and you can feel more confident in making an informed decision. Don’t make any decisions based on the opinions of men. Your body. YOUR decision. Write that down on a post it and keep it somewhere you will see it. 

If you would like to speak to some others who are struggling with how you feel or want to talk to lesbians who can tell you about their double mastectomies, DM me, perhaps I can connect you. 

If  anyone wants to add their experience in the notes please be kind. No judgement for anyone making such a difficult decision. 

One last thing to this long post. From one butch to another.  I care about you and I am saddened and angry at  bull shit you have to wade through in this world. I get it. You are not alone. 

[salamoonder]

alright so i was talking about this the other day in the groupchat and i cannot get over how good for each other caleb and beau are?? like there’s something...i don’t know there is something absolutely next level about empire siblings. like. okay. (under a cut bc this got so FUCKING long, what the fuck. also i talk about essek for a bit and how i think he will change their relationship.)

i’ve said it a million times but i think beau had the best possible reaction to caleb’s backstory reveal. she didn’t discount it; she didn’t treat it like nothing. she basically went “that’s fucked up, man, but you can and will do better” which i think is exactly what he needed to hear. caleb has this tendency to wallow in guilt and when you wallow in guilt it’s very easy to fall into a trap of inaction or only wanting to focus on things that will make that guilt quiet down (i.e., working on the very dangerous and perhaps impossible task of going back in time to save his parents. it’s kind of like people who are intent on doing relief work in far off countries where “real” poverty exists but who don’t wanna help the homeless people living in their own city.) beau pushes him to take his focus off the guilt quieting plans and put his focus on things that will actually be doing good for the sake of doing good. i think that’s sometimes a very difficult distinction to make and tbh beau has a very good grasp on it.

i also think this plays into part of the reason caleb still hasn’t told jester (or cad?) like okay number one, he’s scared. number two, i literally don’t think he can handle the easy forgiveness he would get from them (especially jester) and i think it would send him into a spiral of “no you don’t get it i did a bad bad thing i’m a terrible person” that might be hard to pull out of. and beau is extremely critical in general. she sees a thing she doesn’t like, you don’t have to wonder about it. “well that’s fucked up” are going to be the first words out of her mouth. caleb doesn’t have to worry about her misunderstanding the heaviness of what he’s done the way i suspect he does with the others. beau is never going to diminish how bad he feels about doing a thing; all she’s going to do is say “okay, and what are you gonna do about it?” which is THE BEST. THING. action is the best thing for depressed people oh my god. anyway.

honestly like. ok my favorite thing about beau is that despite the social awkwardness/prickliness she is genuinely *really good at people*. she understands people. i literally still cannot get over how good she is at handling caleb’s panic attacks. i think a lot of people’s first instinct w handling panic attacks is to smother, or, worse, to get just as worked up as the person panicking trying to calm them down. beau is very detached, calm, and levelheaded. she provides physical comfort/stimulus, water, and someone to talk to, and she waits. ( @thedarklordsnicklefritz pointed out recently that she’d be a very good nurse.)

now, caleb to beau: he so clearly, so obviously values her opinions and what she has to say. for all that he is “the smart one”--for all that the wheels in his head are constantly turning and for all that he has a plan for everything--he sits quietly and listens to her whenever she has something to say. he asks her about herself. he wants to know her plans and her goals. not only does he treat her like an adult with agency and ambition and ideas worth hearing, he treats her as a colleage. as a fellow scholar. and i think that beau was sorely lacking that kind of respect, especially under zeenoth. i think it’s something that she craves. even when they are at each other’s throats, he doesn’t interrupt her arguments. he listens till she’s done, and then he speaks. even if he’s growling at her through clenched teeth. he still gives her that respect.

another thing about caleb is that he mirrors the kind of love that beau shows him right back at her. leaving molly’s grave? the shit in kamordah? hand on her shoulder. here is frumpkin. here is frumpkin again. and again. and again--here is some quiet show of support, some small comfort. nothing to embarrass her or cause undue awkwardness. just, there, always. they are each other’s constants and i will literally never be over this oh my god--

okay another thing is, and this is going to be a bit touchy and i might word wrong so please be patient with me and ask questions if you have them, there is something to be said about the friendship of two people who are fundamentally romantically and sexually incompatible. like there’s a reason why “gay best friend” is a trope and there is some not great stuff surrounding it. but i also think that there is a kind of value in a friendship where you never have to worry about romantic or sexual shit coming up. there’s a certain security there, a kind of...safety. there is a safety in "i have no interest in your sex life." there is a safety in beau being a lesbian. both of them have some real baggage/struggles surrounding relationships, and this is not to say that they will never have a meaningful or secure or safe romantic/sexual relationship again. it’s just that there are unique problems that both of those will bring to them--unique problems that i think may bring them each a unique beauty and growth in working through--but nevertheless, unique problems that neither of them have to worry about with each other. their friendship is safe from that.

alright, now onto essek: i am really worried/intrigued for what he will mean for their friendship when they get back to xhorhas and have to deal with him. i think they both see him very differently, and i can’t see them getting through...*waves hand* “punishment” and whatever that means, without another blowup fight and serious hurt feelings.

i think caleb quite clearly sees himself in essek; i don’t think i need to lay that comparison out for anyone, honestly the whole 97 speech sums it up pretty well. what i would like to say is i think caleb has found hope in essek, for essek, in a way that i don’t quite think he’s managed to do for himself yet. like he’s gotten a lot better, but i think a symptom of getting better is that you see your flaws more clearly, and i think that’s very much happening to him right now. i think he sees himself as the same (or possibly even worse), regardless of how far he’s come. (see “i am ruined” to fjord.) i think essek is a mirror for him in which he sees himself more clearly without even realizing that that’s what he’s doing. he sees a selfish person who has done selfish things and hurt people in the process. and he also sees someone with a conscience and empathy who is extremely capable of doing real good. he sees someone with potential. someone with kindness in his soul. someone who could take his guilt and turn it into action, maybe to soothe some of that guilt the way caleb started, and maybe to eventually leave that behind, and do good for the sake of doing good. he sees someone in pain who is in need of support and a friend like beau to nudge him in the right direction.

and beau sees someone who has done selfish things for selfish reasons and does not show nearly enough remorse for it. she sees someone who has caused death and pain out of carelessness and pride and misplaced judgement. she sees someone who values his own gains over the lives of others and justifies that to make himself feel better, and i think that’s exactly the kind of authority figure that beau hates most. she sees someone who better fucking prove that this remorse is real or so help me god i’ll show you what remorse is.

and i think caleb (unfortunately like so much of this fandom with various characters) has latched onto essek as this mirror of himself, and i think at this point any judgement that beau passes on essek will reflect unfortunately on caleb. and the worst part is, beau isn’t going to see that. she wasn’t there for the razor speech. i think to her it’s obvious what she thinks of caleb: he’s a person who’s done some fucked up shit, sure, but he is someone who cares deeply about getting better and has proven himself to be a kind, unwavering person over and over again. he’s more than alright in her book. whereas essek hasn’t really done anything to win him anywhere near the same kind of rapport with her. clearly, in her mind, they are different. why should they be otherwise?

but caleb is going to hear any criticism and, i think, just apply it straight on to himself. i think he thinks that he and essek are so similar that any cut towards essek is a cut towards him. i think he is going to be deeply hurt, i think it’s going to feel like a betrayal--like a revocation of the trust that beau has in him--and i think beau is going to have no idea.

[woolydemon]

TFA Shocks? Or tfa Sari =3

Tfa shockwave thoughts

First impression

Would it be bad to say I was actually kinda fooled by him </3

I knew shockwave existed but somehow managed to not spoil myself abt the longarm part so im watching TFA like "wow longarm is so nice to bumblebee I like him :]]!!!" then the end of the episode i :0,,

So. I may be stupid

Impression now

Hes one of my top 3 favorite characters babyyyyyyyy!!!! I adore his design (i have a huge bias towards any design that had funky obscured/lack of facial features + its rlly cool just how monstrous he is) and i think he's got the potential to be very interesting!!

I just think he's a emo nerd (with severe gifted student problems) and that's pretty neat :]

(except the gifted student problems. thats not so neat)

I also simply don't see any interpretation of him that doesnt fit the way I see him <3

Favorite moment

I think his moments in Autoboot Camp a lot, he's genuinely nice to bee!! That's not a facade he put up (he defends bee when wasp was like "way to go numbnodes", helps him out of the locker, etc)

Idk despite whatever the Allspark Almanac or fandom interprets Shocks, hes not a cold heartless deceiver and the small details from this episode rlly show that

Also think his bumbling attempts to try to preserve his identity are funny, what a dork

Idea for a story

i would love to see a redemption arc for my man!!!! I want him to be able to move past his need for approval (especially from ppl like megatron) and find a sense of self worth for himself!!

I think he were given the chance to leave the decepticons, he would be end up being a neutral since he has personally witnessed the fucked up shit the Autobot government is up to. And then he could maybe like dedicate himself in trying to overthrow this corrupt government, not for the decepticons this time. Or maybe he can just finally do whatever he wants to do and pursue a career in the sciences

(Also it would be cool if he changed his eye color to yellow to indicate his departure from the faction)

Unpopular opinion

I HATE SADISTIC ASSHOLE SHOCKWAVE :[!!! it's just... Not fun?? At all??? Especially when a lot of that sadism is directed towards blurr

And also I think that Shockwave is not an old creepy man, I'm pretty sure there is never any mention of him in of being in the war ever in any media?? So I think he.. was not around during that

Now I'm gonna really rock the boat here and say I hc him as younger than Bumblebee (but not by much!! Hes like the equivalent of a couple months or year younger than bee). I just think it's a little funny ok?? Shockwave's like "ur just simply not mature enough to understand bumblebee" and bee is "IM OLDER THAN U >:["

Favorite relationship

Shockbee.. shockbee good. I think their interactions in Autoboot Camp are rlly sweet and their dynamic is fun!! Emo nerd and lil trouble man holding hands... very cool

Favorite headcanon

I constantly think about how Shockwave's first instinct while panicking is just. Violence

So like... What if he was conditioned as a decepticon to just to resort to violence if things go really South??? I can only imagine that while he was becoming friends with Bee he was thinking in his head "THIS IS NOT OK. THIS IS NOT OK. IM NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FRIENDS WITH HIM. I HAVE TO KILL HIM"

This ... Is not healthy btw. This is a shockwave problem moment. hope he gets well soon,,,,,,,,,

Sari Sumdac thoughts

First impression

I was a little worried she was going to be an annoying human character :[ unrelated to that I recognized tara strong and was like "TWILIGHT SPAR-"

Impression now

She's definitely one of the best human characters I've seen so far in the tf franchise!! I like her and I hope good things happen for her <3

Favorite moment

I think abt how she says "if u wanna mess with my city ur gonna go through ME first" like hell yeah u go girl!!!!!

also love how the autobots take care of her when her dad went missing, like bro... They're family..

The BEST family moment though was when she finally broke down from the stress and grief of losing her dad and not having any record of her identity and then bumblebee picks her up and is like "it's ok!! cry as much as u need to, we'll always be there for you" and GOD THATS SO SWEET IT GENUINELY MAKES ME TEAR UP

Idea for a story

Ok I know I kinda already did this with the seinfeld fic comic but I would love to see a much more genuine look into about how she realizes that she's a lesbian by being around the autobots, since they're from a homonormative society, and then they're like "HELL YEAH!! CONGRATS ON UR LESBIAN"

and maybe they all go together to a pride event or smth

Unpopular opinion

I don't think I have any unpopular opinions?? Wish ppl respected her skin tone more maybe

Favorite relationship

Still haven't finished tfp but I love seeing Sari x Miko... Very cute <3

Favorite headcanon

I once joked with my friends about how she has a inhuman tolerance to spicy foods as a result of being Indian and also part robot.

She carries those mini siracha bottles And also makes lesbian earrings out of those bottles!!

On the completely opposite side of the spectrum, Bee has little to none spice tolerance so he's bawling his eyes out while Sari is pouring more hot sauce on her food

[aguecheek]

knocking politely on your door. do you have any twelfth night hot takes it's okay if not im just hyperfixating on it so intensely rn

bro listen to me i ALWAYS have twelfth night hot takes. BIG DISCLAIMER that all of this is completely subjective and absolutely not authoritatively true in any way shape or form. if you disagree with me at all, you’re well within your rights to do so, and I don’t feel the need to convince you otherwise. This is ONE POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION. What I’m talking abt in this post is one way I think I’d like to see the play interpreted and performed one day, because I think it adds a lot to the dynamics and gives the actors a ton of new things to explore in a way that could keep the play fresh, especially for actors or audiences who have potentially seen it done a bunch of times. Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeares most openly and explicitly lgbt plays, and I love thinking about new ways you could explore that. 

Anyway my hot take of the day is that Olivia is a lesbian experiencing comphet!! More below the cut.

I think that one of the reasons she’s spending so long mourning her father and brother is (yes, obviously she’s in mourning, I don’t mean to undermine that) at least partially because it’s a viable excuse to turn away suitors like Orsino. She spends all her time cooped up inside, turning away any men that come to the door, spending all her time instead with Maria, Malvolio, Feste, and Toby. Andrew only comes in later, and honestly I’m gonna talk about her relationship to a few of the aforementioned people and how it fits into this narrative in a hot sec. 

In my opinion, she latches onto Cesario because she perceives him as nonthreatening, sort of a “safe” man. Then, later in the show, when she mistakes Sebastian for Cesario and marries him, I feel as if it’s because she doesn’t actually love Cesario, and nor does she actually love Sebastian. So when she gets married, it feels very much like she’s marrying a Man, not a Person, you get me? 

Okay, now I wanna talk abt Toby, Maria, Andrew, Feste, and Malvolio. Toby and Andrew first! Toby is Olivia’s uncle, and he’s pretty invested in marrying her off to Andrew.  There are two different interpretations of that intention that could fit into this narrative. The first is the obvious route: homophobic toby. the second is, i think, a much more interesting one, which is the consideration that toby and Andrew may or may not have been having a thing. This is when you get into the possible potential story that Toby’s somehow figured out what his niece is dealing with and is trying to be helpful by taking her off the market but remaining with Andrew himself, giving all three of them that freedom to be in their proper relationships, while keeping up appearances. This also possibly explains one of the reasons he’s so willing to throw Malvolio under the bus for Olivia’s love. Because he knows she can’t ever accept his advances. Do i think he’s right for trying to set Olivia up with Andrew in this hypothetical subtextual narrative? No, not really, but do I get where he’s coming from? Yeah.

Feste is interesting, because he’s a clown. And clowns are ALWAYS interesting. Feste is, I think, slightly more interesting than most clowns. Because he actively influences the plot, and has relationships within the circle of characters. He and Olivia have this wonderful teasing relationship, where he sometimes seems almost to take on a mentor-like figure for her? I don’t know if anyone else picked up on that when reading it or watching it, but there are a couple moments that make me go Hm, that was kinda cute and uncle-y, yknow? Anyway, clowns always strike me as strange fourth-dimensional genderless beings, not bound by the confines of the fourth wall or the world of the story. Feste ESPECIALLY, though. Like touchstone’s just an asshole, Lear’s fool is mostly just fourth-wall breaking and goofy, and feste like……..knows things. This is my really roundabout way of saying i think feste is olivia’s personal GSA LMAO

Maria I don’t have much to say about, like I think there could  be something between her and olivia, but that would just depend on the actors playing them. There are a few moments textually, but not so much that it’s a super easy read of things.

Now, Malvolio is Interesting. Because take this narrative and then put in the cross-gartered stocking scene. I’ve been trying to put my emotions about the way this could play out down for a really long time, and I’ve having a hard time doing it. I just think it would be really awful for both of them. If you took my quiz you probably know that I have a lot of sympathy for malvolio and that i think what was done to him was unforgivable. But i have a lot of sympathy for olivia too, and I just think that this scene could be very funny or very heartbreaking or both and I’d love to work with two incredibly experienced actors to see what they could do with it.

Ok ok ok now let me talk about olivia, viola, and malvolio, because they all have something super interesting in common—the ‘vol’ root, meaning ‘wishing.’ It shows up in words like benevolent, and in other characters like Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet. Twelfth Night is about a lot of things, but with the fact that three characters have the vol root? It’s interesting to think about. Olivia spends most of the play wishing for Cesario, Viola spends most of the play wishing for Orsino, and Malvolio… well, his name is a literal direct converse to Benvolio’s name, Malvolio means ill-wishing and benvolio means good-wishing, but that’s tangential. Malvolio still spends the play wishing. What he’s wishing for is up for debate, is he wishing for Olivia? For status? For love in general? Up to the actor. But I think the important point I’m trying to make here is that Viola is the only one who actually gets what she’s wishing for. Olivia marries someone, yes, but she doesn’t marry cesario. Cesario who is...wait for it...Viola. (Not including potential interpretations that present Viola as trans or nonbinary, I LOVE those interpretations and absolutely don’t mean to undermine them in any way with the point I’m making here. For the purposes of this narrative, I feel the need to present Viola as a woman or female-aligned.) Olivia spends the play wishing for a woman and then marries the closest male equivalent that’s available. If that isn’t a narrative that could easily be presented as a lesbian with comphet, I’ll eat my sword.

Final thing I wanted to point out is Olivia’s direct parallel to Antonio. She spends the play pining for Viola, while Antonio spends the play pining for Sebastian. I think it’s made pretty clear in 5.1 that Sebastian returns Antonio’s feelings, at least partially, which often gives me pause to wonder about what tha means for Olivia and Sebastian’s marriage. All i’m saying is that if olivia’s a lesbian, and sebastian’s with antonio, they’ve essentially accidentally achieved what toby hypothetically set out to do with sir andrew.

Basically, I guess all I’m saying is that theres a ton of meat there for actors to sink their teeth into, and I’d really love to put on a version of this show that follows this narrative when im in college, because i think there’s so much to explore with lesbian olivia that mostly isn’t all that touched on. When people think of lgbt themes in twelfth night, often their minds will leap to sebastian and antonio, or orsino and viola, and I absolutely know why, and to be honest I do the same. But i think theres a fuckton to be explored with lesbian olivia, and that it’s worth spending some time contemplating, even if you ultimately decide that this interpretation of the character is not your cup of tea.

[piracytheorist]

I watched and react to Lindsay Ellis' 100 minute long "apology" video so you don't have to

First of all, the word apology is in quotes because she herself on that video mocks the whole concept of an apology video, which is fair cause truly that whole concept is fucked up, but I didn't want to call it excusing either because that's not what she does either... for some parts. Long post ahead.

So into the video, homegirl starts by saying she was recently in a restaurant. Recently. Restaurant. I'm not gonna make a deep research to find out where she lives, she mentions she's from Tennessee but idk if that's where she lives now, so unless she's somewhere in like Australia or New Zealand or any other place with significantly low numbers of covid cases... what is she doing, not only going into a restaurant during a fucking pandemic, but also telling it to her entire 1 million subscribers specifically and the whole world in general? I think it shouldn't be said it's irresponsible as it is, it's also a bit insensitive considering so many of us don't get to have that kind of luxury as it is now, either as customers that don't get to enjoy an evening/night out or as restaurant owners that watch their businesses collapse. Small thing to complain, but still.

That said, personal note, because I know some of my followers live down there in Australia or New Zealand; I'm happy for you, but I'm also jealous, and in a weird way right now being in a country with few covid cases is kind of a privilege. So enjoy that for yourselves.

Ok, second, introducing the concept of cancel culture, she goes on to talk about some cases where two white people made some well-intended but overall insensitive jokes and she talked about how their behaviour was, particularly, white privilege. Ignoring the fact that she's showing her own privilege by saying that she went at a restaurant during a pandemic, she says it all in the whole meaning of how cancel culture focuses on targeting, bullying and verbally lynching a person who acted on their privilege instead of looking out to tell them "Yo what you did was shitty but look out to do better" and how that either originates or is strengthened by nazis who pretend to be cool progressive lesbians of colour on twitter (that latter part is my own description, but similar to what Lindsay said). And the whole point about cancel culture is valid - she the use of the ol' "Listen to voices of POC" and that it is not valid because behind those "Queer progressive POC" accounts hide nazis... but she ignores the fact that another way to see that is "Are you white? Have you considered shutting the fuck up?"

And I say that as a white woman myself. I am very well aware that there are topics I cannot touch upon. Like, I have my thoughts, ok? About all races, religions (at least the major ones), sexualities, gender expressions. I can't help the thoughts... but I try my best to control my actions. There are times that I think something and I go like "Wow, can you realize how much the internet would drag you if you said that on a post?" so I shut the fuck up because a) I recognize my privilege and b) I'm mostly uneducated on most things I may have problematic thoughts on. Lindsay... idk exactly how educated she is, I know she has degrees, but in this case that doesn't seem to matter because she doesn't seem to have the concept of Shutting the Fuck Up White Person. That's what the "Listen to voices of POC" started for. Because historically POC have been the ones to be silenced and ignored by white people. So it doesn't matter if you're a woman, if you're bisexual, if you're educated, whatever whatever. If it's not your area, learn to shut the fuck up. And it's there that the problem begins, that Lindsay doesn't seem to get that idea.

Later on she says that a person on twitter compiled a thread of Lindsay's "sins" aka screenshots of problematic (or not) tweets, and though she (tbh rightfully so) considers making that compilation weird and creepy, she goes on to address every tweet on that thread.

I'm not gonna go down all of them cause from my judgement, some were legitimately very far-fetched to make her look problematic. And look, I don't think she's problematic. It's just that she has a lot to say and sometimes it feels like she has a need to say it all.

At the beginning, she mentions that twitter is garbage. Which, agreed, I've hateposted about that hellsite tons of times. But she's been knew it was. She had people bully her about her tweets before, and she kept at it, white person speaking, and like at some point you're like... is it fucking worth it? You know twitter is garbage. Is the clout you'll make on it worth it? You know people will judge you. You know they will take your sayings out of context. You know there are people obsessively following your page just to spot the tiniest piece of stuff you didn't think three hours on before posting so that they can crucify you over it. You been knew, we been knew. So I'm asking again, is it fucking worth it?

She even said it wasn't the first time she was cancelled, it's just that this last time has been the biggest one (... yet). So... why are people fucking obsessed with that fucking site? I'm a former bully victim, I detest and oppose bullying of any kind, but after a point, when you see a minefield, you gotta know that if you go skipping around without a second thought... ya gonna get hit. I may understand some people staying on twitter out of spite and/or in the hopes of "fixing" it... but again that's kinda hopeless and we all know that. There’s a saying in Greek that translates to “No matter how sugar you pour on it, shit won’t turn into lokum.” And that’s exactly what twitter is. Shit that people try to make functioning. It won’t.

I know the Shut The Fuck Up may be a bit excessive but... we all have opinions, yeah? It's a bit frustrating too considering she makes long videos that clearly have a lot of thought put into them, and then she goes on twitter and posts whatever the fuck comes up in her mind like... you should know better. In a way, Shutting The Fuck Up is also a way to avoid being seen as a bigot when you're not. Let oppressed groups do the talking for you, 'kay?

On another "receipt" she admits she was wrong, quote: "It was insensitive and careless. I definitely should not have said that." At the same time she says that she was influenced by her environment, and she also doesn't actually apologize. In a way she's sincere because a good sociopath would have searched and found that a good apology includes the words "I'm sorry" or some variation, and not trying to explain yourself by the circumstances surrounding you. So, it's sincere, but it feels a bit void. No-one cares what brought you to do this, we only care to see if you’ve changed from that.

I'm also putting the word receipt in quotes because I just think the whole concept of "receipts" is fucking weird, and as I said, some of them are completely pointless and taken out of context to make Lindsay look like the next Hitler. But I don't have another word for it so I'll go with that.

The next "receipt" is about her tweeting about the film The Prince of Egypt and mentioning the scene of killing the Egyptian first-borns, and being accused for anti-semitism because of it. First of all, your problem there ain't the film, it's the Bible, a work that was created by people who thought that a woman is a man's property, and then later on translated and modified by people with similar or worse problematic ideologies. The Prince of Egypt is a film that is inspired by the book of Exodus but at the same time... it doesn't fully excuse the plagues. They're portrayed as a necessarily evil, but whether that bothers you or not depends on whatever your relationship is to God and the fact that he allows covid to be a thing right now. But on the video, Lindsay talks about the portrayal of the plagues and how they're excused so that the Jewish people can be free.

But... it feels a bit... maybe she hasn't watched the full film in some time, and considering she doesn't really like it, I understand why she's making the mistakes on thinking it does. Yes, the film shows the plagues as a necessary evil. But the whole song The Plagues is about Moses being torn in two about the whole thing. "And even now I wish that God had chose another. Serving as your foe on his behalf is the last thing that I wanted." When he warns Rameses about the last plague, the "camera" shows the depiction of the previous massacre of the Jewish children... and Rameses' son is at the bottom of the children being dropped in the water.

It not only foreshadows the boy's death, it also compares the two massacres. It's like "Your father did that to the Jewish people, so the God of the Jewish people will do the same to your people." The scene where the Egyptian first-borns are being killed is haunting. It's dark, without music, eerie... you're not supposed to be happy about it. So I don't see how all that's excusing. In a way, to a people that at the time was enslaved and even now still faces discrimination, it could feel like vengeance. There's a big talk about morals that can be done there but again; WE'RE WHITE. We should consider shutting the fuck up. At least on our own, if talked about with someone who’s part of Jewish culture, that’s another thing.

Lindsay also says that in the film it looks weird that from the moment we see Rameses lamenting the loss of his son, the film cuts to the Jewish people singing about Miracles. And like... again I guess she hasn't seen the movie in some time, cause that's plain out wrong. At the time Moses sees that the son is dead, he already looks depressed. When he hears the cries of the people crying for their children, he breaks down and cries too. When the Jewish people walk out and sing for not being slaves anymore, that's when he starts smiling a little, and more when they're finally out of Rameses' kingdom. And again, it's about the liberation of an enslaved people whose culture we're not presently a part of. Like, the death of the Egyptian children was a bad thing - in retaliation of the same thing happening to the Jewish babies - but whether it’s being excused or not has context behind it.

I'm also talking a lot about it because she mentions she likes the film Noah from 2014, and she shows a small clip from the flood scene where the people on the Ark are depressed (that's not the right word but I can't find it right now) because they witness the deaths of the people who weren't on. I haven't seen the film, so I don't know how much that impacts the survivors later, but she's completely ignoring the fact that The Prince of Egypt also frames the death of the first-borns as tragic and that also Moses breaks down over it.

On my own opinion; I'm agnostic and anarchist af so while I also disagree with the depictions and the actions that God took to free the Jewish people... it's a fucking fantastic film. Animation, voice acting, music, directing... But at the same time, I've watched a bit of her videos and I may be a bit sarcastic here but I don't trust the taste of anyone who watches Treasure Planet and only refers to it as "Disney's space pirate flop" instead of the underrated masterpiece that it is. But I'm also mentioning it not-so-sarcastically, because underappreciated as it is (because Disney deliberately made it flop by the way), Treasure Planet has not had a widely massive impact. Speaking as someone who adores Treasure Planet, it has had a huge impact... to those few who've watched it. So while I meh'ed at her calling Treasure Planet what she did, it was just that; a meh.

But The Prince of Egypt? It has had an impact on ME, an agnostic anarchist. I cannot even begin to imagine what impact it has had on the millions of Jewish people worldwide. So when someone who has studied Media (or whatever, I'm not gonna search through the "Lindsay Ellis is cancelled" results on gοοgle just to see what she has studied), and decides to make a... while a bit understandable, not so well-studied critique on a film with that kind of impact... Have you considered Shutting the Fuck Up? She says that on twitter, she got responses on said tweet where people talked about how important that film is to them. Is that what she needed, to learn about this film's impact? For her to not know that... it's a bit hard to accidentally be that blind about that aspect, especially with her studies.

It's once again difficult territory to wade through - and she deliberately placed herself in it. And as I said, her problem is with the Bible. Not with the film.

So... yeah. I don't think it was anti-semitism on her part, but definitely not a good, well-thought move to make.

Next is her talking about the time she wore a niqab in a non offensive (I guess) way on an old video. She mentions she addressed it on a stream where they laughed about how... cringe-y of the time the whole concept of the video was. And again, the "Not thinking before acting" as well as White Privilege comes out, both in the video and in the way she presents the circumstances behind it. What inspired her to do it doesn't fucking matter. What matters is that she didn't think. Though she says she regrets it, she seems she only does so because she got responses from Muslim followers that told her "Please don't do that." Again, the fact that she needed someone else to say it... that's uninformed. And honestly, when you have such a following, you have a responsibility to know better. Money from patreon and youtube ads carry that. She does say she regrets it though.

Next, is her being called out for her "Dear Stephenie Meyer" video. In it basically she talks about how a lot of the earlier hate for Twilight was because of the fact that society hates teen girls and hates what they like and consider it inferior, and since a lot of teen girls like Twilight, the society had to hate Twilight. At the end of the video, she even said "I'm sorry" towards Meyer. That's a very quick summary and she had some good points, but this is Stephenie Meyer we’re talking about.

Oof. There's a LOT to unpack here.

For those of you who don't know, Twilight as a whole franchise has a ton of issues with racism, particularly against indigenous people and the very real, existing Quileute tribe. Lindsay says that at the time she made that video (2018), the backlash on Meyer was not so much about said racism. And boy, that's plain out wrong. She just didn't do enough research for it. And again, it's not deliberate. I'm not accusing Lindsay of racism. But Twilight was problematic (and even I as a semi-follower of the Twilight Rennaisance, as well as most of the fellow fans I've seen, admit that openly and we hate Meyer for it), and as I had watched that video, I know she did research on it. I find it outright impossible that a search for "Twilight criticism" wouldn't turn up some mentions about the Quileute racism, especially in 2018 with the fandom’s resurgence. There's an entire page from the Burke Museum in Seattle talking about the misconceptions of the tribe in the books and how little benefit the tribe has seen from having their culture appropriated by a white woman. Saying that it wasn't a common criticism is either a poorly put lie or an open confession that she didn't search much. Maybe she only searched about Stephenie Meyer and misogyny. I don't know.

Look, it is true that at the time of late 2000′s, the criticism was what Lindsay said; all about hating teen girls. I'm sure that there was criticism on the racism, but it was either less promoted or was trumped by the former type. But ignoring it completely, when at the time she made that video the criticism on racism was already getting more and more recognition... just why, Lindsay?

So again, I don't think it's deliberate. But it's poor pre-thought, poor work on it, and again when you have such a big following (and while Lindsay keeps saying how she's not that much famous on youtube, when you have a million subscribers and ten thousand patrons... ya ain't unheard of either) you have a responsibility to know better and research better before you do anything on it. Youtube is Lindsay's job, and she doesn't do a very good job at it when it comes to recognizing her white privilege and working beyond it.

Then she says that she talked with some indigenous (she doesn't mention they're Quileute btw) people about it; some said they hated the depiction, some said they liked that they were represented. Although why you would like to be represented by Jacob in Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, I have no fucking clue. In any case, it feels like because there were indigenous (no mention of Quileute talking with her, again) people who were okay with the inclusion, she felt that it was okay to make the whole Meyer apologia video without a single mention to the racism fact.

She also showed a video of a Quileute woman talking about how after Twilight, they were able to get back land that was taken from them. Given back by Obama, by the way. And... including this clip feels like... an excuse. Saying that Twilight, despite being racist, was somehow okay because it brought attention to the real Quileute tribe, and I hope y'all see why that is messed up. Meyer could have handled the issue better, and included the characters with much more respect and given them credit and some idk money from the millions she made appropriating their culture (though Lindsay mentions that last thing), but Lindsay thought that apologizing to Meyer anyway for being against her due to internalized misogyny in the late 2000's was the right move. It is true that at the late 2000's little of the known criticism was about the racism, but it's still a big fucking problem and purposefully ignoring that to apologize to Meyer... not a good look.

Again, blind due to white privilege, and acting without trying to see the whole picture. She says that Meyer, a white, rich, Mormon woman does not deserve the harassment she got, and again I'm against bullying but like... Meyer fucking sucks, and we ought to at least recognize that. She's not the one who deserves an apology - the Twilight fans *cough*me!me!me!*cough* who just wanted to enjoy the books and films (horrible as they were) in peace are.

By the way, the Quileute tribe has a fundraiser so that they can move their land to a higher ground where they won't be affected by tsunamis (and to her credit, Lindsay mentioned it and shared the link, but she said that another youtuber brought that to her attention, and again, where's the fucking research, Lindsay, pretty much every Twilight Renaissance post I've seen about the anti-indigenous attitude mentions that fundraiser and you're telling me it didn't come up in your searches) so if you can donate you definitely should: mthg.org

I mention around how Lindsay doesn't say "I'm sorry", and while as most people, I'd rather have no apology that a performative apology, it feels a little icky, that while she recognizes some of her screw-ups... I'm not sure if she recognizes that said screw-ups that-veer-towards-but-are-not-exactly-or-intentionally racism, ableism, anti-semitism, and transphobia... that shit is the shit twitter nazis thrive off of - and not to cancel people, but to build their own bigotry and take the attention away from actual hate crimes happening. And as a youtuber with a million subscribers and ten thousand patreon supporters, again, she should recognize her privileges a little more. Am I blaming her for nazis using her poorly thought tweets? Should she be super duper careful and spend a lot of time on her tweets to make sure nothing remotely problematic is on them?

... I mean, why the fuck do y’all think I hate twitter?

Next, she mentions being called out for "saying" that "trans-men are less oppressed than cis women" which she says is not what she said, but instead that "she's spoken to trans men who told her that they experience less misogyny after coming out". She even openly mentions it as "anecdotal" in her original tweet. And while I get that, my question is.... what's your fucking business about it? You're cis, shut the fuck up, let trans people talk about it.

Like, fuck. We haven't reached a time where acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people, is at such a high that cis people by themselves can openly discuss about the experiences of trans people. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Just show your support for trans people, let them do the talk about their lives and experiences, and share their content if you want your followers to know about trans experiences. If trans men experience less misogyny after coming out (and like, I understand why that would happen in some cases), that's not your area to gather twitter clout from. Think before you tweet.

~

TW: suicide mention, skip to after the ~ symbols if you want to avoid.

Next one is not problematic, it's just proof that Lindsay has no filter on twitter... which is probably the core of all the issues on this post. So condensing the whole thing; a Zack Snyder fan said "I don't like when people say that Zack Snyder hates his mother". A film critic was discussing with Lindsay about Snyder fans, and Lindsay, having never seen any Snyder fan actually say what the fan above said, responded in an obviously sarcastic way "I have it on good authority that Zack Snyder hates his mother." The next day, Zack Snyder's daughter killed herself, and twitter flooded to hate on Lindsay. Of course by the video, Lindsay seems to be upset by the whole thing and how bad the timing was for the post she made - and it is irrational to blame her on that. But! Zack Snyder's mother died in 2010, btw, from what I saw, and like... I think that some discussions around celebrities should be kept private, and this specific conversation between Lindsay and the film critic should have been private. Again, not problematic, but seems to show how Lindsay doesn't think before tweeting.

~

~

Next, she admits she was wrong about defending yellowface on the film Cloud Atlas and saying that it wasn't as bad as blackface. "My bad", no "I'm sorry". Again I don't know if an apology is what I "wanted", after all I'm also a privileged white woman, but idk some recognition that stuff like what she said are what twitter nazis thrive off of would have been nice. Because again, the good intention is there, especially by acknowledging how bad blackface is.

Anyway, some final thoughts, no I don't think she's problematic, or racist, or transphobic, or anything the twitter nazis like to label her as. I just think she's bad at tweeting (like many many people including yours truly, twitter sucks we've established that), and that as a youtuber with such an audience, she should understand her privileges a little more. Though she said she’ll step off from twitter and only use it to promote her books and other creators, so she did learn something from that.

As I said, we all have problematic thoughts. We all think of stuff that, if given a bit more thought, we’ll go like “why the fuck am I like this”. Our actions, on the other hand, is something fully on our control. And twitter thrives on people not putting too much thought on their actions, and letting their quick thoughts control them.

In conclusion, know your privilege, fuck twitter, and STAY THE FUCK AT HOME (except for you, Aussies and Kiwis, go all out - literally)

[asexual-means-no-attraction]

Hi this is the anon who asked about oriented aro aces. First of all, I agree with you 100% and thank you so much for replying. I wanted to know your opinion because my friend who is aromatic and asexual came out to me, a lesbian, as “lesbian oriented” because she (in her own words) “hasn’t had many platonic relationships with guys”. I don’t know how I can explain to her that the label doesn’t make sense and is homophobic. I personally feel really uncomfortable as a lesbian with her using the word to describe… literal friendships. What should I say to make her understand?

I am not a professional by any means. This advice isn't garenteed to work. I don't know your friend. I don't know how to best communicate with her. That said there are a number of ways to approach this kind of situation:

1. Consider if the friendship is worth it. Sometimes friends drift apart. If you're not comfortable being friends, sometimes its best to just end the friendship.

2. Communication. This could end up in an argument. It could blow up in your face. But there isn't any way around it besides doing option 1.

You can sit her down and say you want to talk. From here, you know her better than me.

-you can start by asking her to explain why the thinks the platonic attraction she feels towards women is different from how you might feel platonic attraction towards men, or a straight women feels platonic attraction towards other women. Would she actually seriously date a women?? If not, then it's homophobic to call yourself a lesbian.

^^ no idea how she'd take it. But sometimes you gotta rip the band-aid off.

General tips when trying to talk to someone about an issue:

-get them to talk about their point if view. Make them feel heard. They'll be more open to listening to you if they feel like you're actually giving them attention and understanding what they're saying.

-ask for further clarification on things. Again, listen to their POV.

-once they've had a chance to talk a bit, you can poke holes in their logic if there is any. It can be easier to help her come to the realization that it's homophobic to call herself a lesbian when she is only platonically attracted to women. Rather than starting anything that'll result in yelling.

-let her know she hurt you when she started calling herself a lesbian because she wanted to be friends with women. Talking about how you're hurt to a friend will often help them listen to you more.

-be honest. It's good to be nice. But if you gotta be stern-- be stern. Tell her she's being homophobic. Tell her you can't be friends with her if she's going to continue being homophobic.

The right time to talk to her is going to have to be up to you. You can do this all at once or do it in small bursts. Asking why she thinks her platonic attraction is different than normal platonic attraction. Saying ok. And then bringing it up again another time. It's a mix of doing what makes you comfortable and pushing yourself to talk about stuff you know isnt going to be fun or comfortable because letting it fester like option 3 is always a bad idea.

3. I wouldn't suggest this one. But the only other option is to stay dead silent and don't bring it up ever. This'll make feeling fester up and honestly just ruin the friendship. I speak from experience, staying silent when you're upset never works out. Communication is best. Even if it's taking some time to calm down and sort out feelings and thoughts before communicating.

Again, don't take this as professional advice. It's just the words of a random person on Tumblr. Treat it as such. Do what's you think is best. Good luck.

[bellablue42]

Myself as a writer and Death of the Author

I’m trying to write a novel, and it’s really hard. I feel like I’m not getting anywhere, I’m on my fifth draft and trying to create a lengthy enough narrative that doesn’t feel like filler. It is difficult, to say the least, and I really admire people with the ability to write quickly and well. 

But there’s a lot about She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named going around again, and it made me think. We all know that she’s not the best person, but she is a writer, and she is a creator, and her works are widespread. And that... causes problems.

Is it ok to consume her work? How much do her opinions reflect in her work, and can we spot it? I have no idea, but here’s my best shot, as an aspiring writer and a high-school literature student.

Please be warned I have no experience, and I’m kind of making this up as I go along, but here we go.

Last year, at the start of the school year, in Literature, my class watched Midnight in Paris. The movie was written and directed by Woody Allen, who is... well-known for all the wrong reasons, namely allegedly assulting seven-year-old Dylan Farrow. One of the girls in my class pointed out this fact, and my teacher nodded and said that we were discussing Death of the Author.

Death of the Author is an interesting topic. It holds that an author’s intentions and background should have no impact on interpreting a text. It is interesting, and it is really bloody hard to do.

Keep in mind that if you pick up a book by a relatively famous author, you will know something about them. If you take Mrs Dalloway, for example, if you’ve ever heard of Virginia Woolf, you will doubtless know that she was a writer and that she committed suicide, even if you know nothing else. The fact that she did commit suicide will influence the way you read Mrs Dalloway.

If you read Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath, for example, you will probably know that Plath was not mentally healthy and committed suicide by sticking her head in an oven. And that will influence the way you read Lady Lazarus. If you read any of Lovecraft’s work, you will come to the conclusion that he is a racist. It’s not hard to figure out.

Death of the Author means separating these facts from the way you interpret a work. It is really hard, trust me.

Because we look for links, everywhere we look for these links. We know that Sylvia Plath committed suicide, so when you read Lady Lazarus, you make connections. Go read Lady Lazarus now, go read it knowing that Plath committed suicide, and keep that fact in mind. Here’s the link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49000/lady-lazarus

Now read it again, and try to forget it, all the connections you made knowing that Plath stuck her head in an oven. It is really hard to do, because you know, and you remember. Death of the Author is forgetting the context of the author, forgetting their impact on the text.

Here’s a thing, I write a lot. Like, a lot. Not published, obviously, but I write about as much as I read, and that is a lot. And I believe, that when you write, you put a bit of yourself into it. It doesn’t have to be obvious, maybe just the way you connect to a character, or your views on a topic. I can’t say I don’t do this - my main character is an asexual lesbian who panics a lot and loves her girlfriend. Her competence doesn’t come from me, but the gender, the sexuality, the panic? All of that is inspired by, you know, me. My experiences, my opinions. I am conscious in my word choices, I’m trying not to use gendered language for the soldiers, because they are men, women, non-binary, genderfluid and others, all together, so my main character can’t call them her men, they are her soldiers. It’s hard. I’m aware that I have biases, and my reading experiences are usually texts that ... do not do this. 

Sorry, I’m rambling, and no-one wants to know. 

But I as a writer, put a bit of myself in my work. And I think that’s what makes Death of the Author so hard to do, so hard to remember. 

And now onto HER. I can’t remember what brought my attention to her in the first place, maybe a post about a Harry Potter tv show?

The problem about JK Rowling is that she wrote Harry Potter. And Harry Potter is... huge. The problem is that we grew up on Harry Potter. 

Looking back, there are big problems with the series; plot holes bigger than my fist, a lack of original plot lines, and little creativity. Harry Potter is a mishmash of already well-established genres and archetypes, and it... doesn’t fit together particularly well. 

(Take Dumbledore, at once the mentor archetype from the fantasy genre and the authority figure in the boarding school genre. The problem is that being both causes a bit of dissonance. He mimics the typical ‘wise old mentor wizard’ from fantasy, like Gandalf, but he is also a school headmaster. He is a grandfatherly teacher who takes an interest in the son of two of his past students, nothing particularly new, but at the same time, he’s a figure out of legend, an incredibly powerful man, both magically and politically. It is hard for my brain to fit them together well because they are two different archetypes and they don’t mesh. They belong in different genres, because the way he is written can’t seem to decide which one he is. I might write more on this later if anyone’s interested)

But Rowling’s a TERF. And she’s been on Twitter and said all sorts of bizarre things about the odd mish-mash of genres she’s created. I’m not really a fan of Harry Potter anymore, I grew up with it. I have seven books in a shoebox under my bed. I have read far better books, I have read many, many books with more interesting stories, better internal consistency and characters with actual depth, who don’t need fandom to be interesting. 

And yet I still have all seven books in a shoebox under my bed. It’s hard. I genuinely liked the books - when I was twelve. I’d sooner recommend the Discworld books by the late great Sir Terry Pratchett than Harry Potter, and not just because of HER. They’re better books. Harry Potter is average. 

But we loved them. 

And Rowling’s a TERF. Her views on trans people are... not okay, by any measure. I don’t have words for ... how great the cognitive dissonance is. She wrote a series, a seven-book, eight-movie series, about the power of unconditional love. Over a million words, just under 20 hours about acceptance and tolerance. And yet she doesn’t believe that trans women are women. 

The problem is that it is hard to apply Death of the Author. Once you know that JK discriminates against transgender people, it is hard to read Harry Potter without remembering that. 

Then you get into other issues about how all of the endgame couples are straight. And Dumbledore’s only gay when the series is ended. And there’s a lack of diversity in the books and the movies. And once you start reading into it, it gets ... iffy. Because it’s not meant to be read into, not meant to be analysed. It’s a children’s series. But it’s problematic, not for the things it says, but fo the things it doesn’t say.

The thing is that SHE is impressive. As a writer, at least, not as a person. Because it is hard to write, and she managed an extensive, relatively-coherent storyline across seven books, released over ten years. But her first book got rejected, again and again. 

Her net worth is somewhere between 650 million and 1.2 billion. And she earns all that money off a book series whose main themes are friendship and love. And she’s a TERF.

I can’t say I hate her - I don’t know her. She might be a genuinely nice person, but she’s a TERF. She doesn’t believe that trans people are the gender that they say they are. I cannot understand how you can believe that, but. She does, apparently. She wrote so much about love conquering all evil, and friendship saving the day, but she doesn’t think that trans women should be allowed into female bathrooms.

I hate her ideology. 

Go read Discworld instead. Think about Death of the Author, then read Night Watch. It’s a great book. Or go read Good Omens, because Pratchett co-wrote that. 

The thing about Discworld is that you can tell what Pratchett thinks is worth paying attention to. Small Gods is primarily about religion, about belief, and about people. The last one is the most important, because Pratchett believed that the greatest thing you can be is human and kind, and he’s right. The witches on the Discworld are... perhaps not nice, but they are decent, and they are fundamentally people. They are human, and they are kind, and that is what makes them good people. 

The thing about Harry Potter is that “Muggle” sounds like a slur. There’s all this attention paid to the whole “mudblood” thing that people forget that behind all the blood purity nonsense - which sounds a lot like eugenics - the purebloods, the rich entitled kids, believe that non-magical people are less than animals. The Wizarding world is stuck in the Middle Ages, not even the bloody Renaissance. Human history has passed them by. It is so hard now to read Harry Potter without finding problems, like how all the magicals are fundamentally stupid, how a literal one-year-old is praised for supposedly killing an extremely powerful mass-murdering psycopath. A one-year-old. The Wizarding World is not a functional society, and it’s not meant to be. It’s not meant to hold up to scrutiny.

Look, Harry Potter is average, at best. Ask me for good kids books and I will point you in a dozen different directions, and I will point you in a dozen different directions - but not there. 

Because Death of the Author is hard. Not taking the creator’s intentions and background into account when interpreting a work is hard. You can know that an author is queer, or a person of colour, or of a certain religion, but once you know it, it is hard to not see it. 

You see, all the main characters in Harry Potter are white. They’re also all straight. Everyone not Harry Potter is flat. There is very little depth to anyone in those books, because they don’t matter. Hermione is defined by her relationship with Ron because her relationship is the most debated part of her character. Ron - in the movies at least - is seen as stupid because he is written stupid, he is written as comic relief. Book-verse Ron is a strategist, but that’s only really shown in the first two books. They’re not written with depth, they don’t need it. Harry’s the protagonist, Hermione’s the smart one, Ron’s the dumb-but-loyal comic-relief best friend. Ginny is the love interest, Luna’s the crazy one, the twins are comic-relief pranksters. Draco is the racist antagonist, Voldemort is a more extreme mass-murdering version. There are exactly zero trust-worth adults in a whole seven-book series, there are three? characters with depth in the whole series, everyone else is defined by a role and a single characteristic.

It is so hard to look critically at Harry Potter and not see everything that relates to Rowling. It is problematic as a series, and problematic as content created by a TERF. It is problematic as literature in the first place. It’s written as a kids book, but for all its ‘adult’ themes, it can’t stand up to scrutiny.

This got long - I got a bit carried away. Sorry.

Tell me what you think, tell me your opinion. I’d love to discuss this with you because it so hard to write about. Argue with me, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m right if you think I am. Have I said anything problematic? Please lets start talking about this because it’s interesting and a difficult topic, and I think we need to start looking closer at authors and content creators. 

[meruz]

some asks - sorry some of these are kind of old. I only get around to answering stuff once in a blue moon.

I do not! Nothing against it but I just don’t personally enjoy the process so I don’t use it in my personal work. Too much transforming and filtering.. too little actual drawing. I have however used it for professional work and sometimes I will sketch things individually and collage them together to make it easier for me to work depending on the scale. But yeah, no photobashing normally.

Thank you! (post in reference) I didn’t use any perspective grids for that drawing but occasionally for bigger pieces that require a stronger adherence to perspective I’ll use the Perspective Tools extension by Sergey Kritsky which is ABSOULTELY worth the price here on gumroad if you’re a photoshop-user - makes grids very easy to set up. You can actually see some of the grids in my process work if you’re looking for it lol

I used to be such a square abt it like “bluh perspective is just a bunch of lines i dont need a tool to do it for me like a DUMB BABY. I can just draw the grids myself and itll be good enough!!! :\” dont be like that LOL, I started using perspective tools for work last year and ported it over to my personal work so damn fast its like one of the best artistic decisions ive made. If you can make less work for yourself, PLEASE make less work for yourself.

I don’t remember what post this is but I’m like 90% its these brushes because these are like all the brushes I use LOL

hi yes thank you i LOVE grookey.

Thank you! They’re the best family!! KAROL IS MY FAVE........

you’re SO welcome. I recently watched Last Evolution Kizuna and [spoiler] WILLIS WAS IN ONE (1) SHOT...  [/spoiler] so whoever was in my comments section telling me toei would never bring willis back, I think you owe me like $20

Yep! My Instagram, Twitter... I don’t have a patreon because I’m too lazy to set up tiers but I have a ko-fi if you want to drop a lil tip in my metaphorical buskers hat

You’re probably done by the game by now given how old this ask is but I’m flattered my art got you to play!! And I’m glad you love Akechi though I’m curious to know if your feelings on him have changed since sending this LOL. His latter act character stuff is one of those things that can really turn an opinion one way or another.

Thank you! Though I want to preface this by saying I don’t take requests but you can always contact me for commissions at isellhotdogs@gmail.com.

I will probably draw naruto again because like every 4 years of my life I go through a naruto phase. I have drawn dangan ronpa before many many years ago and I gotta say the only time I will ever draw it again will be if I’m commissioned to lol...Nothing against it personally, it’s just not really my thing. Kiritetsu+Colossus.... I would but honestly I don’t even know what I’d draw, I feel like I covered it with that one drawing. But if you’ve got an idea... you can always commission me!!! And I’d be happy to.

Uhhhh they’re good! I like them! Yusuke’s character arc is maybe like my favorite or second favorite in the game and I love Ryuji first and foremost for max mittlemans voice acting and secondly because he is just so...so much better than P4 Yosuke who I truly could not stand.

I’m not big on Mishima but I think he’s an incredibly well written depiction of like. that dude in class who you didn’t really mean to talk to but ended up talking to and now its a little weird. I really like that event where you run into shinya while hanging out with mishima and shinyas like “whos this your friend” and ren is like “no, king, hes no one” LOL this is mostly because I just really like shinya. 

ships.... I like yusuke/ryuji a lot, just aesthetically and personality wise its an interesting dynamic. I like ryuji/ann bc theyre good friends. I like ann/yusuke if I close my eyes to all the early plot stuff and just pretend theyre like.....fujiko and goemon from lupin III LMAO. ryuji/makoto? kinda woke?? I mean I feel lesbian makoto deep in my bones but also their showtime opened my eyes a lil. I think they could bond over action movies. mishima/protag is kind of fun in like a sad pathetic way.. I’m a little interested in mishima/JOKER actually bc i like identity porn plotlines lol.

YEP GO AHEAD I’ve been getting a lot of messages like this lately so I want to lay it out here and I’ll probably copy paste it into a FAQ later lol.

8Tracks and Spotify Playlists: Go ahead! please credit me either meruz.tumblr.com twitter@automeru or ig@automeruz -  AND SEND ME THE PLAYLIST this is not a requirement really but I would love to listen to it.

Twitter/Tumblr Layouts/Headers: Good by me! but again PLEASE credit me somewhere VISIBLE on the layout. If it’s a twitter header/icon credit my twitter @automeru and if its tumblr credit my tumblr @meruz​

Phone BGs, Desktop Wallpapers: definitely ok!! Any personal and non-commercial use of this nature, I’m cool with. If you ask me, I may even send you a hi-res version of the file but you have to promise to not scam me and sell it lol...

Instagram Reposts: A lot of artists would say no but I’m gonna say go ahead as long as you credit and tag me in the post, again my ig is @automeruz - if you don’t, and I find it, I will bug you about it in the comments and possibly even report you. Nothing personal, its just standard procedure.

Twitter/Tumblr Re-posts: Don’t?? Just RT or RB it from me?? whats wrong with you? I will report this.

Other site re-posts: I’ll probably say yes but again please credit and for this one PLEASE ask me first. It’s nothing personal really, I just want to know where my work shows up.

Video edits/fancams/comic dubs: Yes! Absolutely go ahead! And please send me a link I especially love to see this stuff!!

I also reserve all rights have you take it down if I do not agree with the usage or context, especially association with politics on the webpage/app/etc. 

Thank you!!!!!!!! ;-; These are all so nice.. tucks them into a little pocket near my heart. I love drawing and I will keep trying my best to make art...! Hope you guys can look forward to it...!

[salty-lesbians]

hi i’m a 16 year old lesbian, i’ve always sort of related to terf talking points but i don’t want to take part in being mean to people for no reason yk? like i don’t ever wanna touch a dick but i think calling people by the wrong pronouns on purpose is really mean yknow. not that radfems have to be like polite when people are harassing them but i don’t want to be someone who targets random trans people like i’ve seen sometimes? is there a place for me here?

//sorry same lesbian here. do you think it’s worth it to be open about stuff like this even though it can have such bad consequences? i’m probably just a coward but it feels easier to just sit back and pretend i agree with everyone else. like it just feels safer idk i know that’s bad. do u have any advice for me?

hi sorry me again i’ve never really talked abt this so i’m just kind of dumping but feel free to ignore me. anyways the more i think about it and the more radfem blogs i look at the more it feels like. the stuff y’all talk about like actually matters and is bad stuff? while a lot of other blogs feel so weirdly performative like “you can or can’t use this super specific gender word” “destigmatize m/f relationships” stuff like that. idk feel free 2 ignore like i said i’m just blabbing

ok i’m going to sleep now but i hope you have a nice day or night depending on where you are//

No need to apologise, we’ve all been where you are and chances are a lot of us rambled in someone elses ask box, I know I did. I’m glad you’re reaching out and asking questions 💖💖

“Terfs” aren’t inherently mean, you have some asshole radfems and radfems who are angry at the current political climate revolving women and gay rights who may come across as mean but radfems aren’t mean on the basis of being a radical feminist alone. Some don’t mind using preferred pronouns, some absolutely do not. Also, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to interact with trans people at all, radical feminism covers so many other aspects that you may wish to focus on. But all in all if you agree with the basic radical feminist beliefs (women are oppressed on the basis of our sex, men are the oppressor class, make up/shaving is harmful. porn/prostitution is not empowering and is very harmful, being critical of religion, anti BDSM etc) then there is absolutely a place for you here 😊😊

Some people may disagree with me but it’s essentially up to you to decide if you want to be open about it, if it truly isn’t safe to be open about certain beliefs then don’t feel pressured to be open about them. That being said you’d be surprised with how many people agree with radical feminism when not called that by name, there are a lot. Personally I’m fairly open about my beliefs, my friends know I’m anti porn and they know why, they know I’m gender critical and a few even know that I’m a “terf” (they didn’t know what it meant beforehand) and I haven’t had any issues with it. I have people disagree with my opinions but I haven’t had any issues in my day to day life about it. If you want to and can be open about it I definitely encourage it, but I also realise it’s not always the easiest thing. My advice is to start small, start mentioning radical feminist beliefs but don’t name it and to start with stay away from mentioning gender related issues, people are more than likely agree than you’d think.

I noticed that too, a lot of mainstream feminism seems to have become completely performative, it doesn’t seem to be fighting for women’s rights anymore but instead seems to be teaching women to enjoy our oppression. It’s one of those things I’ve found that once I noticed it I couldn’t unsee it, for a lot of people it’s easier to to call everything empowering than it is to fix certain issues and men have an invested interest in backing mainstream feminism (they encourage porn/prostitution and bdsm for example).

I hope I’ve been able to help a bit and my asks/inbox are always open if you have more questions, I hope you have a good night too 😊😊💖💖

[artgurusauce]

So, how was Pokemon Shield?

Before I start, this is going to cover the main game, not post-game. Sorry, no talk about Dickhead Swordward and Shieldbert. Also, if it wasn’t obvious already, massive spoilers ahead. 

IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED, DO NOT READ THIS POST

I’m not going to ramble for hours about this, because to be honest, my thoughts about this are much briefer than they are for gen 7/Alola. Not to say there’s not much going on in this game, just that if you were expecting a super professional and profound review of the game from me, you may or may not be disappointed.

I will do my best to be articulate, though.

I’ll start with the rivals, the most obvious choice the begin with being: Hop.

Hop is definitely not like Hau like so many people were desperate to make me believe pre-release. In fact, while their arcs are similar, there’s a biiig difference. That difference, to me, is their changes in character. Hau had a big ass crash, yes, but his character change was pretty damn gradual. With Hop, after Bede puts him down, well, you can pretty much tell he’s not the same guy right off the bat the next time you talk to him. I absolutely adore Hope and I’m glad he got as much screen time and focus as he did. His arc was fantastically written and beautifully handled all the way to the end. All I can say is, another cinnamon roll for the collection.

Then there’s...Marnie.

Now, I don’t hate her, far from it. I adore her very much as well. The problem is that it seems she doesn’t get much time to flesh out like Hop did. A problem that goes both ways between her and Bede. Of course when I got to the seventh gym and met big brother Piers I actually did like the dynamic they were going for. Buuut I really wish they had given Marnie just a little more time to herself before that. I just didn’t feel like they did enough with her and...that’s a damn shame considering how popular she was upon her first reveal. Of course, again, this isn’t to say I don’t think she’s still just the cutest little punk goth button ever.

Sigh...and now it’s time for me to talk about Bede.

Look, from what I could tell, half the fandom was nuts for him, the other half was sick to death of a generic douchebag rival that adds no flavor to the table. But I’m a little torn on this one. Like I said, him and Marnie share an awful side effect of Hop’s arc being the most prominent...they don’t get enough time or everything that happens in their arcs feels...rushed, by comparison, at least in my opinion. So the thing is, when Bede gets disowned by Chairman Rose, of course my first reaction is “You had it coming, you were being a shit.” But then Opal...takes him in? And...acts as though Oleana manipulated him? I guess I could perhaps see what they were going for here, and, I’ll admit it, I kind of adored their dynamic, albeit a short interaction between them. And I did find it rather cute at the League when he was all flustered about being trained by Opal, having to continue training because everyone was cheering for him. But the thing is...his arc is kind of...broken? Like, I want to feel bad for him, and I want to feel invested in Opal taking him in and showing him the ropes of the Fairy Gym but...it just doesn’t work like it should. Which is odd considering Bede gets considerably more time to flesh his arc than Marnie, at least, that’s how it seemed to me. I do think the general story and Hop’s own arc really just forced the writing’s hand in sweeping Bede’s arc by as fast as possible. He could’ve been an interesting diversion of expectation, but...oh well.

Speaking of gyms, how do I feel about the gym leaders?

Well, Milo is a fucking cinnamon roll, and I do think I’ve settled on shipping him with Nessa because...I mean...c’mon now. Short bean boy, toll ocean gal? Perfect for each other ♥

I don’t really...feel anything towards Kabu. His design is bland, his personality didn’t stick out to me at all, but I guess they can’t all be iconic gems when you think about it.

Then...there’s my baby boy Allister. And lawd, my dudes, if Hop ain’t my new son well then Allister sure as fuck is. I did HC that he was mute like Red before the game came out and, well, his personality and dialogue are pretty good despite not being what I was hoping. I mean, c’mon, how can you not love that adorable little face? Or that he’s so socially introverted he keeps a collection of masks to make absolute sure his face is hidden? I am going to be quoting “Crumbs, that’s aces” forever now.

Opal was an interesting woman, I definitely think there could’ve been more to her relationship with Bede but I already discussed that. My dad thought she was kinda scary and creepy but she reminds me of that old lady from Spirited Away so I ain’t bothered all that much lol. She was nice enough, I do like her humbleness and that she’s willing to admit it’s definitely time for her to call it quits. And yes, I have seen that official art of her when she was younger. She is a fucking QUEEN  ♥ ♥ ♥

Then comes Melony...hoooo boy my lesbian ass is fallin’ so hard it physically hurts me in ways you will never imagine in your life. Wicke wishes she was this thicc. In all seriousness though, I am pretty curious about that son of hers. I heard you can meet him in Sword but I’ll have to wait and see that for myself. Aside from being the newest love of my life, she’s absolutely adorable and wholesome. I know her card reveres her as strict, but, she just looks like a cinnamon roll.

Piers...oh Piers, where do I even begin? His design is fucking on point, for one thing. And his relationship with his sister Marnie is just so cute and so much fun to watch. As unfortunately left field as it was for me, I did like his arc about not being a good Gym Leader and wanting his sister to take over for him. It was sweet and kinda sad but I just love him so much. For the first Dark Type Gym Leader, not bad guys, not bad at all. Also omg Piers slay me with your metal, king plsssss

Finally, there’s Raihan and...omg he’s so great. This mother fucker not only takes selfies in the middle of a match, not only bombards you with weather effects therefore making him a fun and challenging opponent, but this dude is also beefin’ with our head champ? SIGN ME UP, FAM. For real though, like, I loved battling with Raihan the most out of anybody that I fought. I definitely haven’t felt this much fun battling a Gym Leader in years. And I will forever be torn as to whether or not I want to ship him with Leon >3>

Speaking of the chadster, I ain’t talked about ‘im yet. Or Sonia, for that matter. Honestly, they’re both pretty great. 

But Leon is the fuckin’ MVP this gen, I’ll tell you what. He’s such a bro he tells Rose his “Day of Destiny” bullshit can fuck off til our match is over. Of course, I do like his ditzy and dorky sides too. Like his snapback collection or how easily he gets lost seriously Leon it’s just a straight fucking line to your house how do you fuck that up. But he ain’t just a bro to the main character, naw, he a bro to his actual bro, Hop. And I fuckin’ love it. Their interactions are so investing and entertaining and wonderful to watch. It’s almost kind of magical, in a way. I think he is without a doubt my number one favorite Champion of all time now. 

But as for Sonia, well, I dunno...maybe I’m nitpicky or remembering things wrong but she seemed to drop her disdain for researching the legend of the “Darkest Day” like a hat at some point. Granted, I still think her character arc while it wasn’t even needed was very well done. I loved listening to her dork out about the legends, her research, all of it. It was spectacular. And ever since I first found out she was childhood friends with Leon before the game even came out, ladies and gents, these two have dun been my OTP. The only one still challenging that notion is Raihan at this point, lol.

And now...we get to Oleana and Chairman Rose.

Oleana is just...kind of a nothing character for me, personally. Even after knowing about her Garbardor and all that, sorry fam, she ain’t doin’ it for me. She was a red herring so overblown and obvious it has since been laughable that anybody thought she was gonna be this gen’s Lusamine. She is just...some really crazy lady who happens to be passionate about her job. Ok.

Rose, however, is an absolute bastard. And I love it. However, I do have a problem with this, as it sort of connects to my earlier point with Bede. His relationship with Bede is...I don’t even know if I could call it a father-son relationship. I mean, yeah, he basically adopted him, but he disowns him at the drop of a hat. Granted, what Bede did was wrong, but...really? I guess that’s just how much of a dick he is, but, there’s no closure to that. Even after finding out what a horrible, deplorable man Rose is, Bede never talks to him after he’s disowned. Maybe this was meant to be a “Well it’s better he moves on to the next chapter of his life as soon as possible” sort of thing. But his sudden taking under Opal’s wing did not accomplish that feeling with me. So it feels sort of...hollow, to me. There’s no conclusion, follow-up, it’s almost as if Bede didn’t even know who Rose was anymore after Opal scooped him up. And yeah, Bede says “Everything has gone wrong since I met you” but...here’s the problem; That’s as much as he goes into being affected by Rose. It’s not too important, I guess, but it’s something that bothered me, personally. Rose’s motivations seem...ok, I guess. It’s about what I was expecting. Seriously though, his battle theme has no business being that good.

Those are all my thoughts on the characters, at least any that were all that worth talking about. Without further ado: Allow me to introduce y’all to my babies...

As I mentioned on Monday, my team consists of an Appletun, Centiskorch, Greedent, Hatterene, Inteleon, and an Eiscue. And I only just now realize like 5 out of 6 of them have names that start with a “C” lmao.

First up, we have my very first darling: Chastity

There’s a few things one should know about this slick little bitch:

Big shock, she was a huuuge cry baby as a Sobble. Like, mortified of pretty much everybody. Total mama’s girl. But as a Drizzile she was just a total grump goth binch. The only one of my Pokemon in my camp she would give the time of day is her dear friend Chariot, who at the time was a Hattrem. They pretty much grew up together and they’re besties now.

But now that Chastity is fully grown, well...she’s a little...flirtatious. Oh, no, not with the boys on her team. No no no. Every camp we step onto she’s just flirtin’ like a mad woman. She even managed to seduce my dad’s Cinderace who was already a huge playboy

Still, I can’t stay mad at this cute little brat. She’s still a total mama’s girl at heart and I love her to death. Btw, her Snipe Shot is ridiculously strong, though that’s probably because she’s still holding a Mystic Water haha

Up next is our resident lady in waiting: Chariot

I found Chariot in the Motostoke Outskirts and she has always been a picky snob even as a Hattena. She only ate small portions unless it was Whipped Cream Curry. Though nowadays I’m sure she only eats in such small portions to maintain her figure...

As I said before, she and Chastity have pretty much always been best friends. I definitely love to imagine her always hassling Chastity for her less than lady-like behavior though, haha. Chariot was weirdly sleepy as a Hattrem, though. Like...she dozed off a lot. She must’ve been getting plenty of beauty sleep for her evolution lol. 

I used to have a Toxtricity on my team named Ripper before I found an Eiscue for the League, and she seemed quite enamored with him. At least for the long period he was with us, she talked to him 50% of the time when I stopped for a little break. It was incredibly adorable, though I fear what might happen if I leave them alone at a daycare for too long...  <(⚆_⚆;)>

As a grown Hatterene, she’s rather dainty and conversative. I’m actually surprised, lately she’s starting to talk to some of her other fellow team mates lately. I suppose she’s not as stuck-up as she pretends to be, haha.

Up next we have our looonnnggg boy: Mushu

I picked up Mushu at Kabu’s gym. He was pretty shy as a tiny Sizzlipede and often avoided talking to most of his team mates. He was pretty spooked by a lot of them, actually, particularly Ripper for reasons I never quite understood. I guess when Ripper was still a baby, Mushu didn’t understand why he cried so much and was terrified of the loud noises he made lol.

However, he grew into a long boi rather quickly and he’s pulled us through some pretty tough spots in the gym challenges so I like to spoil him with lots of play time. He’s got a Jolly nature and honestly, it shows a lot more now that he’s all grown up. He loves to play and races with his team mates pretty much all the time. Rip Caramel, your utter annihilation will not be forgotten. He’s a very sweet and almost gentle boy and I honestly feel bad for all the battering he’s had to take before because I was a little too eager to take on opponents way out of my league.

A couple of fun facts about him before we move on:

His favorite curry in the curry dex is Smoked Tail Curry, which he always eats in gigantic portions. He freaking loves camping on Route 6 or in Stow-On-Side, I guess he really loves the heat.

Up next is my precious dumpling baby: Caramel

I first caught Caramel on Route 5, and I love love looove my baby apple pie. He’s such a chill and adorkable little dragon and I’m not one to pick favorites but...oh, who am I kidding? He’s totally my favorite.

As an Applin he was just too cute. He was a little slow and none of his team mates seemed to understand him so they tended to leave him by himself. So I ended up having to give him lots of attention so he wasn’t too lonely. And gosh was he just the cutest little baby apple. Of course, he wasn’t an Applin for very long, so there’s not much to speak of regarding his early stages.

However, once he evolved, he became a fucking tank. Caramel can take hits like a freaking champ and since I gave him Draco Meteor he’s practically an unstoppable beast. Of course, by heart, he’s a Lax boyo and enjoys the littlest things in life: Like the nice breezes in the Wild Area, or his Apple Curry, even if it’s snowing something fierce outside he’s all about it. And I just- argh he’s so fuckin’ cute!  ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Up next we’ve got the chunky cheeked baby: Peter Griffin Conker

Conker is a Gentle boy who’s been with me since the very beginning at Route 1, and it fits since objectively he’s probably the weakest Pokemon I’ve got on my team. But that’s ok, because he’s definitely scored us a couple of hard gym challenges just like Mushu has. He was definitely useful for buying some time when I needed it, that’s for sure.

He was pretty chattery as a Skwovet, even if some of his team mates weren’t all that talkative looking at you, Chastity. This probably comes as no surprise, but he’s always had a bottomless stomach. Seriously, he’s eaten large portions even as a baby Skwovet and it baffles me. Guess he’s just a really hungy boy, lol.

As a fully grown, chunky Greedent, he’s pretty slow. Like, really slow. Even when he runs it’s like a snail tracking through peanut butter and molasses. And it’s too cute to watch. I really wish I could give him belly rubs tbh, he looks like the type that’d enjoy those, haha. These days he’s best friends with my Eiscue, Cubert. They usually race each other after they have lunch.

And finally, one of my greatest MVP’s: Cubert

Cubert joined us very late in the game on Route 10. And while unfortunately he ended up taking Ripper’s place, I knew he’d be a good addition to the team. I’ve given him Hail and Aurora Veil, which is super useful for battle prep. It’s pretty lucky I was able to find this little guy waddlin’ around up there on my way to Wyndon.

As I said before, he was pretty anti-social with everybody at first. Though I’m sure that’s because he was so new by the time we got to the League. Thankfully, Conker got him out of his shell and they’re best friends. He still seems a little shy around the others, and even myself, but I’m just glad he’s got somebody to talk to. Not much to say about him unfortunately, since he’s so reserved and tends to keep to himself, but I’m sure that’ll change eventually with time.

Now that’s everyone that’s on my current team, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my boy Ripper at all, so, allow me to introduce an old friend who’s been livin’ in retirement for the past few days:

I first picked up Ripper at a Nursery while I was omw over to Hulburry, I believe. So Ripper was with us for a damn long time until I picked up Cubert. Initially I had hoped he’d be a High Key Toxtricity, but I’ll take what I get. Besides, he was more than helpful with quite a lot of battles, especially Opal’s gym.

He was pretty loud as a Toxel, which should come as no surprise. Always throwing tantrums and never really seemed to eat anything bigger than a small portion of whatever curry I cooked, so he was picky just like Chariot was. All around a bastard baby, really. He didn’t really start getting onto the battle field until he evolved, in all honesty.

But once he did, hoo boy, he was killin’ the competition like a pro. I feel pretty bad I didn’t take him into the League with me, but I felt like Cubert would’ve been more useful so I swapped ‘im out. I’ve been pulling him back out of the PC box for some more training lately to help him catch up to make up for it, though. And he seems pretty happy about it, so bygones are bygones I suppose.

And it seems he’s still very much taken with Chariot. Sigh, young love, so adorable. Anyways, respects to the OG madhouse that got me through some toughies, you did good out there buddy. ;w;

Alright, well, that’s just about all I have to discuss, for now. I hope this wasn’t too droning of a post or anything. But before you head out, I’ve got a little surprise. Since this was such an interesting experience, I’m opening a new Tumblr based on my journey that will follow my Trainer OC Luna and her adventures through Galar. If you’re curious to check it out, click here. I don’t really have an upload schedule, so just keep your eye out for any posts in the future. Hope you guys enjoy it!

[ladyshilya]

Batwoman: Grinning from Ear to Ear

Let’s see what this episode brings especially when it comes to Alice and Kate.

Well that is one way to start an episode with body dismorphia issues and cutting ones face.  Both Sophie and Kate are on a high from their kiss.  Luke of course is warning Kate about the complications of having a gf.  Yes, we all know Batman pushed everyone away.  Even though he shouldn’t have with Catwoman but that’s a different topic. Kate tries to do the right thing and end it with Sophie but they wind up kissing again.  Only to be interrupted but a surprise visit from Sophie’s mom.  Thank goodness she didn’t see. “Dog ate my breakup,” great line.

With social media influencer’s being attacked Kate decides to pay a visit to Mary to make sure she is alright.  Mary let Kate know that Dr. Campbell would be worth looking into.  Mary wants to help Kate because she knows about her being Batwoman but she is not saying it. Batwoman gets help from Sophie by having her visit Dr. Campbell.  It seems Sophie is having to deal with her mother and all her opinions about the job and her relationship failing.  Her mom does not approve of Batwoman because she is a lesbian but Batman was ok because he was straight which aligns with her values.  I am sure hooking up with a Catwoman, Talia, and Poison Ivy does not aligned with her values. 

Sophie finds out about the girl Dr. Campbell treated 8 years ago with scars on her face.  The girl is none other then Duela Dent, yup the niece of A.D.A Harvey Dent.  Harvey has not made D.A. yet so he has not become Two-Face. Then this would be earlier in Batman’s career or mid, I don’t remember him disappearing. Unless the Crisis changed stopped Harvey from becoming Two-Face.  This does help give a possible point in when it could be in Batman’s career.  It would also help explain Duela possibly having a mental disorder since Harvey was known to have Schizophrenia. Batwoman goes to Duela’s house where she find her possible next target.  She runs into Duela who slashes mother’s face and next. 

Batwoman visits Mary who is able to ID the next target when the Batcam equipment couldn't because she changed her name, nose and chin.  They are able to track down the van but Duela already had her.  Sophie was able to find Batwoman because she is being tracked.  Sophie and Batwoman both saved Veronica and stopped Duela.  Batwoman also ends things with Sophie because she deserves better then to be with someone who she has to keep a secret.  Apparently Sophie deserves better then to always be wearing a mask herself.  While Sophie has been getting better as a character I am still not here for her and Kate.  I want Kate to have someone better. 

Mary visits Kate and pretty much tells her that she never worried about Kate turning her in for running an illegal clinic because she trusted her. Mary hopes that Kate will trust her one day as well. I really hope Kate got the message that Mary knows. 

Alice is pissed off about her obituary and the fact there is no service planned for her. But she now she knows the face Mouse’s father is using. Alice has a therapist brought to help her work through the block she has been having. Unfortunately she has to kill him so he doesn’t tell anyone she is alive. Alice seems to realize that one of Dr. Campbell’s patients is the girl cutting up the influencers. Lets all remember Dr. Campbell is Mouse’s dad who is gassing Mouse back at what looks like the house. 

Alice takes supplies from Mary figuring Mary owes her for saving her life which Mary didn’t know about.  Alice also taunts the fact she knows who Batwoman is. Alice goes to Duela and takes her face so she can visit Dr. Campbell. Alice knocks out Dr, Campbell where she has him taken to her lair and removes his face. She wants to get her revenge but he is the only person who knows where Mouse is.  Who is being gassed with fear toxin. Are they trying to turn him into the Scarecrow or someone like him?

Papa Kane has to deal with the fact the person who saved in jail is looking for his favor.  It seems he is the person who killed Lucius Fox, of course he is. Looks like Papa Kane is looking into the murder of Lucius Fox. I guess he has to pay that favor. It seems there is lost security footage from the attack. There was also a restoration payment made by the crows. Papa Kane thinks that it might have been for the missing footage and that a crow might have helped hide the footage. Which means there was someone in the crows helping cover up a case. Well most of the cops in Gotham are on various payrolls so it would make sense that a some of the Crows are the other day.  

Now Papa Kane wants Sophie back because he can trust her. Sophie finally comes out to her mom who is very disappointed but that is not a shock. I do appreciate the concern Sophie’s mom had about that being another struggle Sophie has on top of being a woman of color.

That was an interesting episode which had a great message about being true to yourself.  I feel like the villain was just there for a plot point and to help bring Alice and Dr. Campbell together so she can find Mouse. I am hoping that Kate can learn that she doesn’t have to be like Batman and keep everyone out. It would be nice to Mary to know because she has been a great help. 

Looks like in the episode we find out that they were trying to bring out Mouse’s inner fears with the toxin and they are going to do the same to Alice. Kate tells her father that Alice is alive and they both go on hunt for Dr. Campbell.  Papa Kane is not to happy with Dr. Campbell when he finds him.

[saraa-lancee]

So what issues would you like them to tackle that hasn’t already been done on the show before?

(I just want to say this is my first ask ever and I've been here since... God maybe 2013? So thank you!!)

I would LOVE to see a new dimension to sexuality. I'm also casually of the team that's "Sara herself should say Bisexual" because Bisexual has only been said once on screen and Nate said it casually.. We have a scene where Sara says tells Nurse Lindsay that Lesbian isn't a bad word yet the show kinda doesn't act that way about Bi. Bi erasure is an issue that would be interesting-- since Sara is with Ava, it would be neat to have some line of "i didn't pick a team" or just along the lines of Still Bi With A Woman.

(They also missed an opertunity with Charlie to use neutral pronouns of some kind)--> a discussion further on gender identity would be cool too. There are casual set ups for this with Charlie, like in the Shakespeare episode, but nothing is ever really taken completely seriously or honestly even explicitly. I would really enjoy a nonbinary or intersex narrative in this particular context because I feel like the team of legends (as the people the characters are) would fit really nicely with that. But it would be cool to have a trans character that Gideon helps? Because the arrowverse trans character (in Supergirl-- Nia) is already transitioned. It would be cool to have a transitioning characer in a really casual way even (a particular scenario would be New Character leaving sickbey while someone else walks in. Other person asked if New is feeling OK and New just says like "oh yeah, just my hormones.). But yeah anything with gender identity.

I always hunger for more disability stories, but based on how they Wrote Sara's blindness... yikes. I remember watching a panel or something on YouTube about how Caity was hoping that Sara was at least going to have a cane or be shown to struggle with some stuff, but the writers ignored all of that. So its kind of touchy based on that but I think it would be really neat to have someone with a prosthetic (or even just an amputation, someone born without a limb, etc.)-- it would be a beautiful narrative about 'Gideon can literally grow you a new arm' and that character firmly saying no, this is me, having this difference doesn't make me less, you aren't "fixing" me because I'm not broken, I like myself, etc, whatever.

I know that for me personally one of the best things about the show is that Sara and Ava don't have to come out, and everyone just treats them like normal, but I think some kind of homophobia narrative would be good, not to a big extent but just to the extent like in S1 when Kendra and Ray move in 1950s and that dynamic only with the girls. Like, for the show to acknowledge homophobia in such a direct way, as they did with interracial relationships. This beyond the obvious homophobia of the Nazis. (I personally can't think of an aspect where its implied, but sometimes I can miss or misinterpret implicated stuff like that).

I would love to see a return to POC cultures and narratives (narratives outside of racism) S1 with Kendra and Carter and the Egyptian culture aspect, Amaya and Zambesi aspect. We see a tad bit of this with Zari and the bollywood scene, and Japan post WW2, but they are more side aspects now. It would be neat to go to India or other places in southeast Asia (culturally), or Central/South America. Overall, I would just like to see more of that cultural aspect because human culture is something that interests me a lot and I feel like can be easily casually thrown in with time travel--- traditional clothes, buildings, and ideals (an example of the ideals is the discussion in feudal Japan about the cultures views on death).

I feel like there was a lot of potential with Hank and Sara to continue that discussion about women in power. Yes, we have discussed this before. We do it a lot in second season with the JSA and even Jonah Hex but I think Hank had a lot of potential to add a dimension to that discussion. (honestly see next paragraph for more). That whole episode with the Minotaur i would have loved if they'd been a bit more explicit with that-- yes, obviously a woman can be in charge (in Hanks mind) but he has the right to walk in there and take over because her experience doesn't matter and also we will do whatever he wants. Sara spends almost the whole time just rolling her eyes and bitting her tongue besides a light quip in the beginning asking if a girls ever punched him. in the past Sara has literally exerted dominance over men so I was just kind of disappointed with that dynamic. I love the character of Sara as an "unconventional woman" or a "strange friend" and I've noticed comments like that pretty much stopped after the 3rd season. I know some people hated those comments but I think they can be good. I enjoyed them and would like to see them again because it's literally just Sara being unapologetically herself, a strong woman, doing whatever she does, no matter how weird or unconventional it is. (Which is an integral part of Saras character to me)

BUT its also not necessarily "new" issues. Issues don't go away in real life-- we had multiple issues about Race in America with Jax, from different points in history (Slavery and the 1950s). Jax even mentions how he still experiences Rascism today. The issues don't go away and just because they are mentioned once doesn't mean they can't (and shouldn't) be examined from other points in history. IE just because the show has talked about it before doesn't mean we can't talk about it again from a different angle and/or perspective.

I see a lot of potential with Astra with the racism thing (people are nicer to me in literal Hell) but it also would have been interesting with Mona, to show a different type of racism would have been INCREDIBLE.

I also can think of maybe a scene or two that would have just been a nice touch with Zari (either one, but I have a soft spot for Zari 1.0, and I think with her life as an illegal Muslim would have been an enriching perspective) as a Muslim. They are very good to her character in the way that she obviously abstains from Liquor and Pork, and observes Ramadan. But one thing that would have been interesting is for Zari to experience early 2000s (or honesty still right now) xenophobia. Especially Z1 since being a Muslim is Illegal in 2045 there was a lot of emotional potential there. (Although I feel like I can understand why the writers didn't want to touch that because of current conflicts).

Since we're going to outer space (that was actually confirmed right? Or was it just hinted and I misread??), I think issues will have to be character driven rather than time period driven. But therin we have a lot of potential-- a race of aliens without distinct genders (wait, so your worth can be dictated based off of your genitals?? Plus sexuality stuff there), aliens confused about race (I don't understand some of your skins are different colors... and your people treat each other differently based on this?). We could introduce a matriarchal society, which the crew with Captain Lance feel particularly unphased by. Perhaps we have a completely pacifist society or aliens made of inorganic materials (debates about what constitutes as alive, what lives are meaningful, etc.) You get the idea(I adore star trek so you can imagine my glee thinking about some of those scenarios).

I think for me, the hard shift to comedy was at the expense of some of my favorite aspects of the show and also things that set it apart. This Found Family is so rewarding because they are all so so different but those differences enrich each other. They become better people and feel at home without having to change who they fundamentally are. And they are whoever they want to be. I feel like now the show has simply had an incredibly jarring tone shift thats trying too hard to be a comedy. (This one is just an opinion but a joke among all the serious is always just a lot more funny to me. I find myself laughing more at one liners and random stuff in the early seasons. Now it feels like 'ok, what's the next ridiculous thing.')

I think... humanity is pretty dark. But humanity also rises above. This is why I adore the episode from post WW2 Japan and to me it personally really stands out from other episodes in s4/s5. The idea of creating and destroying, pain and sadness locked inside, terror and hatred for the beings you share the planet with. That pain creates monsters. Sometimes by accident. (Sara's pain turned her into the version of herself she called a monster.). And also about embracing your passions (Mick hiding his writing). In that episode, we still have jokes about Godzilla. Garima appears and its hilarious. But it's also an incredibly powerful narrative about pain and fear and shame and gives a perspective that the western audience wouldnt... necessarily think about (the actual consequences and what the bomb actually literally did.).

That darkness makes the light so much more meaningful. If everything becomes light... than why are we still fighting?

Sorry if this is jumbled, I'm on mobile so.

Also, sorry if this is a rant or whatever. I am very passionate about this topic and oh boy if I was on a computer and had the time I'd probably repondd with a link to a doc.

[terfslying]

All longanon answers:

also why does nobody care that gc men/radfems talk positively about intersex issues FOR THEIR OWN SAKE not just to confuse people about sex. Some of us have CAH or AIS, PAIS. 2nd, a GC opinion: men want uteri & to go by she? Go for it. I think it's reactionary, & I'll be open about that, but it's not my choice. But pushing lines like "lesbians like dick, afab-exclusive=fetish" is WRONG. My family has already brought up transdick as a gotcha. Too few of yall care about fallout for gnc/gay people.

Not sure if this is out of order however: “afab-exclusive = fetish” is wrong, it’s not a view I support, and I agree there’s fallout for gay people, so why are you telling me off for pushing it when I don’t?

where do I see lesbians like dick? everywhere. Not explicitly here, though implied with referencing that some lesbians might like no-op transwomen. You are carving out a niche balanced view, and I appreciate that. Don't pretend like it's the majority of the trans/nb community, or the liberal or leftist take on things.

Why are you talking to me as if I am speaking for the entire liberal or leftist ‘take’? You’re talking to me, you get my viewpoint.

there's a lot more going on with ‘erase women’s anatomy and oppression’ than I even have knowledge of. But for me some big ones: it's no longer women's reproductive justice. It's pregnant people, despite us all knowing damn well the intersection between our potential reproductive system and how woman has meant (still means) property too often. Femininity isn't social control, it's fun! It's expression, medically necessary, a part of womanhood. Rapes/assault being covered up.

“Pregnant people” vs “pregnant women” is important in medical contexts to prevent female people being denied medical care on account of not being ‘women’. It also makes self-help resources more inclusive for gnc female people.

“Femininity isn’t social control, it’s fun!” - femininity is social control for female people. Non-female people practicing femininity are literally breaking their prescribed gender roles and undermining the patriarchy.

“Rapes/assault being covered up” - specific examples?

And I'm sorry but I've seen some of the same trans-activist people in threads you're on, who you interact with positively, say shit like "anyway terfs die". Now, maybe someone they perceive as a terf has threatened them. Someone I know to be trans has threatened me. Is it ok for me to go online and say "TRAs, die"? Ofc not. So you tell me you call hateful TRAs out equal to calling out terfs, and I have doubts. Perhaps you could title your blog Terfs and Misogynist TRAs lying, and work on that.

I like how manipulatively you have phrased, “someone they perceive as a terf” vs. “someone I know to be trans”. I’ve also seen hundreds of TERFs online post shit like “Trannies die”, and had death threats personally from people I KNOW to be TERFs. Both sides behave like shit in that sense, and both sides feel like they are on the defensive. The only way to end that nonsense is to STOP participating in “well they do _____ so it’s okay for me to do _______”. But guess what? I’m also not the Tumblr police. Do you personally check the blog history of every person you interact with on Tumblr to ensure they’ve never said anything Problematique? Because I don’t, sorry.

re: erasing women's oppression, there's also a deliberate attempt to chuck out all the shit from the 70s you apparently hate. God forbid we misgender a rapist, or "cancel" any man for misogyny, but reading even excerpts from old radical feminists? Heresy, evil, invaders. Quite fucking honestly, I'll look into the history, but this calling some women political lesbian and thus dead to us thing has all sorts of potential as antifeminist slander. Especially if men think they can talk on it.

I’m talking about actual events in the 70’s that set up the trans-discourse-in-lesbian-spaces-non-stop situation, not whatever shit you’re talking about here.

Also, I have literally done readings and annotations of many radical feminist texts on this site. Stop using me as a puppet to argue with every person you’ve ever thought was a TRA.

I’m also curious if when you became "ex-" radfem, does this mean you also became against being critical of porn and critical of the sex industry? Note - critical of the INDUSTRY and culture, as in the corporations and bosses, pimps, traffickers, johns, and the academics, "art", and media who cover it as queer or fun or sexy or a good way to pay off student loans... not the workers or the prostituted (i'm differentiating here based on a spectrum of how much autonomy and liberty is retained)

No, it doesn’t mean that. I’ve said before - I am pro sex-worker and believe in evidence based rules for helping women in that situation, which means no Nordic system, but I don’t believe that you can ‘manage’ any sex workers in a brothel-type situation without it being dangerous.

I also am passionately opposed to all kinds of trafficking and slavery for personal reasons, and that obviously includes people trafficked for sex work.

at the end of the day I'm still just like... why can't women who love cis and trans women (or men who love cis and trans men) just say you're bi and that's your preference? Why does gay and lesbian have to always theoretically be flexible? It's obviously used against us, in a biased manner (again, does anyone really expect and go after straight people to be flexible?) ... and is it really worth it? Is temporary relief of a social construct borne pain worth it?

It’s not for ‘relief of a social construct borne pain’ - it’s just to accurately describe myself.

Because I’m not bi. I’m a lesbian. I exist in my city’s lesbian society, as a lesbian who dates lesbians. Then later, I became trans-inclusive. ‘Lesbian’ has to be flexible because human beings are flexible.

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 6-13 [the rest of Epilogue 2]

I’m told that there are 40 chapters, and a postscript, in Candy - and also that it’s split into 8 individual ‘epilogues’ within that, of varying length. ‘Epilogue 2′ began with chapter 4, featuring Rose and Kanaya. So I kind of cut it off in exactly the wrong place. Oops!

Anyway I’m going to split these up by Epilogue section from now on. This one covers the rest of Epilogue 2, which mostly concerns shipping, and processing of feelings.

Here are the irons in the fire at the outset of chapter 6:

Gamzee is back! he claims to be setting out on a ‘redemption arc’

Terezi is in space somewhere looking for Vriska, but set to return at some point, and not all that happy that Gamzee’s back

Dirk has perceived some bad news. And briefly spoken about it with Jane, though without explaining anything.

But that’s all Epilogue 1 stuff - old hat!

Rose has suddenly recovered from her illness, and is patching things up with Kanaya

Jade has attempted to push Dave and Karkat to admit they’re into each other, but really just made things worse

Jane attempted to run for President of Earth C - to the trepidation of the Karkat, who hyperbolically suggested this would amount to troll genocide - but abandoned the idea

That’s all interesting but let’s talk about money! This is something I didn’t pick up on in the last post:

KARKAT: OK, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. YOUR PRIORITIES ARE: NUMBER ONE, THE ECONOMY, WHICH LET ME REMIND YOU IS BUILT ENTIRELY ON INFINITE, FAKE MONEY THAT WE CAN MAKE AS MUCH OF AS WE WANT.

Elsewhere, Jane’s megacorp and stocks are mentioned.

One wonders why, given the machinery to manufacture just about anything by means of alchemizer, the forms of money, stocks, and corporations are retained... what sort of productive and reproductive labour is regulated and mediated by these markets? Or are they merely acting out the vestigial forms of capitalism as a bizarre drama...

As for the consequences of an infinite money supply, let’s not get into the ‘modern monetary theory’ debate on a Homestuck post, maybe.

on to chapter 6+

This is a Jane chapter. It opens almost immediately with economic discussion; Dave apparently once accused Jane of ‘neoliberal corporate welfare’ for trying to bolster the ‘struggling locksmith industry’ rendered unnecessary on a planet without crime.

She’s visiting Jake, who’s probably my least favourite Homestuck character (who’s not an alpha troll). About Dirk... Jake (Jane says) seems to still have a bit of a thing for him, and Jane, meanwhile, still “has no idea why she can’t get [Jake] out of her system, even after all these years.”

The reason Jane cancelled her run was, it turns out, because Dirk said ‘cancel everything’. She gets drunk, very quickly... and hits on Jake, who is completely oblivious to her advances. She speaks of wanting to abandon business to raise a family, which Jake himself notes is something rather new for her (though the whole traditional gender thing she does isn’t lol)

Jake/Jane isn’t a ship I have any sort of opinion about, honestly. Dirk/Jake’s terrible collapsing relationship was kind of interesting but yeah, here’s a thing. What even are heterosexuals though? “I want to clean your giant house and have a lot of children”... incomprehensible!

One thing I will give credit for is the narration: it creates pretty strong images of like, these characters as fully embodied people, being intimate in like, subtle physical ways. that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense... whatever lol. it works

chapter 7

...brings us back to Gamzee. fittingly, i’m listening to the friendsim soundtrack as i read this, and i just hit ‘take me to clown church’.

anyway since this whole story basically seems to be an exercise in developing ships along the lines of ‘A is into B, B is obvious to their advances’... Roxy’s hot for John now I guess? or at least, so Callie thinks. she insists they’re all going to be ‘very, very happy’ despite her disappointment.

anyway, then we get Gamzee saying a bunch of casually misogynist stuff to John about Roxy. in this context, basically two interpretations are shown: a shallow ‘oh he’s redeemed now’ attitude from Roxy and Callie, and a ‘oh god i hate this person keep him away from me’ attitude from John. Gamzee’s repulsive qualities are underlined by the narration (from John’s perspective): he’s unhygienic, he’s casually misogynist (which seems like a new element, and rather out of keeping with the gendered-but-somehow-theoretically-not-patriarchal Alternia)...

chapter 8

Rose and Kanaya chapter. Jane’s possible presidency is once again the subject of discussion. Jane apparently wanted to apply some kind of anti-troll eugenics policy, and tried to bring Kanaya on board - and got told to fuck off for it. Our two good lesbians agree that, if Karkat were president (and Dave running the economy), things might have worked out ok...

We are briefly introduced to a new character, a jadeblood troll called Swifer Eggmop. Her character archetype, we are directly told, is ‘1920s newsboy’.

We bear witness to an egg hatching (in prose, anyway). This particular baby grub out closely resembling Vriska... which Kanaya says is because she comes from a slurry based on the original 12 trolls. Rose notes this would make Vriska the troll’s Ancestor, which raises an interesting question of whether Ancestors still exist as a social concept on Earth C. Anyway, Kanaya wants to adopt baby Vriska, which can only be a fantastic idea...

KANAYA: There Are Two Things Of Which I Have No Doubt

KANAYA: That You And I Are Going To Be Happy For The Rest Of Our Lives

KANAYA: And That We Are Never Ever Going To See Vriska Again

I think we can safely assume that neither of those things are true. The emphasis on ‘happiness forever’, voiced by multiple characters, is interesting... also the turn towards reproduction.

I went to uni with people who have kids now. Heck I have friends who have a child (who they are trying to spare from gender)... but for most of my social circle, which is to say almost entirely 20-to-30-something trans women, even the idea of adopting is incomprehensible? It’s somehow weird to think of ‘wanting kids’ as the narrative of 20-something year olds...

Kanaya is right. Vriska is dead, and despite everything, she died a hero. Vriska was a complicated figure of contrasting extremes; her heroic actions were matched in scale only by her monstrous ones, and since no one had actually witnessed her end, it was impossible to say which side the pendulum swung and judged her death—Heroic or Just.

It would be a fitting memorial for her and Kanaya to raise a version of Vriska who would be given every chance to make good on her noble characteristics. A true, symbolic redemption arc. Something about the thought appeals to Rose’s taste for the dramatic flourish. It would be proof that this was all worth it in the end: the destruction of multiple universes, the death of Kanaya’s friends, the circuitous rites of suffering experienced by the nearly infinite splintered versions of every being to inhabit Paradox Space...  

Once again, the notion of a ‘redemption arc’ enters the narrative explicitly, directly echoing fandom discussion. Unlike Gamzee, this is studiously neutral on the Vriska Question: steering exactly between ‘Vriska did nothing wrong’, nor ‘Vriska is a monster’. Regardless... I think it’s probably safe to say that everyone’s prophecies are wrong and we haven’t seen the last of the ‘true’ Vriska.

chapter 9

More of Jade trying very hard to ship her friends, to the discomfort of everyone involved. Jade kisses Karkat, and Karkat explicitly names what she’s doing as sexual assault, a violation of boundaries and consent - Jade attempts to convince him that no, it was really Dave who kissed him!

This prompts a long monologue from Dave in which it’s obvious that he has put some thought into kissing Karkat. Point seems to be: they sure are into each other but Jade’s intervention is not at all welcome. At least I hope that’s the point. I would prefer not to see Jade vindicated by the narrative.

Anyway, other things of cultural note: grub spaghetti is apparently still eaten on Earth C. I always thought it was implied that ‘grubs’ in Troll food were like, actual troll babies, but maybe they’re just ordinary (for certain values thereof...) bugs bc I don’t think Kanaya would stand for that.

chapter 10

The ‘Jane running for president’ subplot has largely disappeared, because what we’re really here for is... shipping! This time, a John/Roxy chapter. I think they call it Roxygen or something? Terezi explains the ‘pair the spares’ logic of the ship (dequirkified):

TEREZI: Um, yeah John.

TEREZI: We are not idiots. We can all do the math on this.

TEREZI:  It’s not like you were going to fuck your human mom or human sister.

TEREZI: And you are “not a homosexual,” which takes Strider dick out of the equation.

TEREZI: And Kanaya is the only girl troll left, and she lesbian married one of the two remaining eligible human females.

TEREZI: Oh and Jake is a double threat. A human dad with a human dick!

TEREZI: So by a process of elimination, of *course* you were going to “fall in love” with Roxy.

Equation of ‘dick’ with ‘male’ there terezi but whatever... (god is this fic going to get into the question of what a ‘nook’ and a ‘bulge’ is...)

(lol i’m calling it a fic...)

Anyway, my position on this one is: Roxy/Calliope was a fine ship worth upholding, and I do not see any reason why anyone would be into John. Though I may be biased on that front.

Terezi also brings up the Calliope question. John is trepidatious on that front.

There’s an interesting line from Roxy here, when John tries to assure her she doesn’t have to wear makeup:

ROXY: john...

ROXY: do u ever think about like

ROXY: gender???

JOHN: ???

JOHN: uh. not really, i guess?

JOHN: but i don’t think girls should feel like they HAVE to wear makeup just because they’re girls.

ROXY: lol

ROXY: thats not what im getting at

JOHN: what do you mean then?

JOHN: are you, like...

ROXY: like what

This is where I’m conscious of the ‘trans character’ tag on this one.

They talk about adulthood, as a performance that they do not feel ‘ready’ for. At that point Dave shows up, clearly aflustered after Jade’s intervention:

DAVE: anyone can be a dude if they really want thats part of the beauty of living in this brand new world with none of the baggage our old world had like gender and sexuality and relationships only involving a very specific number of people

chapter 11

So yeah now to pick up the torch on Dave starting to understand he’s gay. here for this

DAVE: theres a metric fucking ton of shit about to come down on me because i dragged my heels on doing some serious self reflection

JOHN: is this just some more stuff about...

JOHN: being gay?

DAVE: maybe yeah

DAVE: ok definitely yeah

DAVE: its 110% about being gay

JOHN: i thought you’d already worked all that stuff out?

DAVE: turns out it takes a long time to figure out your sexuality after a childhood filled with repression and abuse

nice to see it named as such i guess

the dialogue in the last couple of chapters has been really good. i’m getting properly drawn into this, the characters feel extremely well-realised. threads which were long latent are finally being made explicit.

Dave is struggling with very abrupt self-realisation: he definitely has feelings for Karkat, he has complicated feelings for Jade, but the ‘simple’ solution of just entering a non-mono relationship both is not feeling ‘right’ to him. John isn’t really able to help... he’s gonna talk to Dirk.

This chapter does a lot, I really like it, but at the same time I’ve not got a tremendous amount to add to it.

chapter 12

in our latest chapter of ‘homestuck but they fuck now’, Jake and Jane did that - while up on various substances, including at least alcohol and the trickster lollipop. Jake is having second thoughts but when he tries to back out, Jane looks sad, so he decides to go for it. This can only end well.

Also damn I guess someone on the team thought ‘what would it be like to fuck while high on the trickster lollipop’ so uh, that’s a thing now.

chapter 13

Back to the Strider boys. There’s a heavy intro...

Dave and Dirk don’t talk that much about the heavy stuff. They don’t need to. Dave can hear his brother’s voice in his head.

Not, like, literally. That would be insane. But Dave knows what his bro is like. Dirk, or a version of him, instilled in Dave a way of living and thinking that would, for better or worse, persist far beyond the first thirteen years of his upbringing.

Yeah huh.

Can’t believe Rose and Kanaya have the dubious honour of being the most ‘together’ characters in this.

Anyway in this case Dave still feels like he needs to talk to Dirk - who we know has gone awol, for some mysterious reason. He meets... Gamzee, who says some religious clown stuff, and offers Dave a redemption arc (really running this joke into the ground huh), but Dave brushes him off. Then he finds a fembot that Dirk was working on, with a note.

We don’t get to read the note yet. I would guess that’s the end of epilogue 2.

Sure enough it is.

Epilogue 2, taken as a whole

I quite enjoyed this, Gamzee sections notwithstanding. The prose is tight, the dialogue is hitting its flow, and a lot of relationships that were left vague in Homestuck proper are finally being given time to develop.

Obviously it’s kind of risky bringing in explicitly sexual themes, but I think they approach them in the ‘right’ way: focusing on the emotional meaning of relationships that now might - now we’re dealing with 23-year-olds - include sex, rather than just porn lol. It does slightly strain credibility that, in all their time on Earth C, none of them have made any meaningful friendships or relationships outside the core group of 8 kids and a handful of surviving trolls, but I can also understand the desire to focus on the already-developed characters. That’s a common problem for ‘endgame’ ships: in truth dating exclusively within a tiny friendship group is probably a recipe for disaster, but in fiction it makes a work manageable.

I am enjoying just how gay Homestuck has gotten. If Homestuck is the comic for Very Online kids who were around 13 in 2009 when the comic began, it’s somewhat fitting, because our cohort has, at least to a degree, done the same thing lol. Of course, that’s shaped by my personal experience of like, transitioning and moving to a friendship group that’s like 99% trans lesbians and bi women, but I suspect statistics would bear out the idea that more and more people are comfortable identifying ourselves as not-straight in some way. I could be wrong about that though lol.

Of course, it’s too much to hope that this trend - insofar as it exists! - is like, the beginning of the end for Gender as a system of social relations, violent exploitation and coercion - especially since periods of ‘more acceptance’ often seem to precede violent repression (c.f. Weimar Germany and then, the nazis; the period just before the AIDS crisis; much earlier, the construction of colonial/modern gender in the first place on the bones of less rigid gender systems...)

Anyway, let’s see what’s happened to old Dirk. I’m still wondering who the “trans character” is going to be, and how they’re going to handle that. It’s going to be tough to match fic like @rememberwhenyoutried‘s An Earth-Shattering Confession, but we shall see.

[jusadode-blog]

Honestly. I love OKKO more than SU just because of the relationships. They're real and natural and don't have to blossom into anything. Meanwhile in SU everyone who is gay is an alien part of a species that, mind you, is only women anyways. And most of the relationships aside from Garnet fall apart or are abusive/manipulative and just hurt both sides. And so far no one has reconciled with themselves, rather going through Steven (STILLGODDAMNIT) or another gem and acting like they reconciled.

I don’t know if this is directly related to something I’ve reblogged but if so please mention it in another anon mate! I’m assuming this is just a friendly discussion as it stands.

Please note: My next few comments are pointing out things I’ve seen evidence pointing otherwise to some of your statements, but they are not meant to be considered an attack on you. You are welcome to have your own opinions on SU vs OKKO, but please note coming into someones inbox and starting a conversation like this may be taken as inflammatory due to the nature of text nuances versus verbal nuances. My response may come off angry or insulting due to the nature of text speech, however I assure you that I am merely pointing out things I have noticed that counterpoint what you are stating and not meaning to infringe on your person. You may have noticed some entirely different things, which is wonderful! It shows how complex the show can be, as well as how complex the human mind can be. Anon, I hope my responses don’t come off rude in any way to you, and I apologize in advance if it does.

Now for my counter arguments:

Not everyone who is gay in SU is gem though,

like Lars and Sadie both showed attraction to Stevonnie (a nonbinary character) as well as the cool kids, Kevin had a unhealthy “crush” on Stevonnie, as well as the pink-haired girl who gave Pearl her number was human (as far as we can tell). There is also the concept of Vadalia having some form of attraction to Amethyst (especially using her as a muse so much), as well as all the male zoo humans who crushed on Gah-Reg when they realized they could chosen someone their selves. Most of these are “casually gay”, with little focus on it and makes it feel more normalized and super nice. Some of it sticks for a bit, but not really.

Also only one of the gay characters in OK KO is a human, and that’s Elodie (Red Action is technically a cyborg). Enid is a witch were-bunny, Rad is an alien, the skeleton dude is a skeleton and his boyfriend is a *bear*. This isn’t a bad thing! We as a species love to identify with non-human characteristics and concepts to help express ourselves in more unique ways, and that’s fine! I think recently Boxman might have a crush on a humanoid dude, but I don’t know if either really count as human, but my point still stands. Elodie

None of the gems are “women” All the gems are nonbinary with female pronouns, excluding Stevonnie who is nonbinary with they/them pronouns but is also 2/3 human.  (Garnet/Ruby/Saphire may be considered nonbinary she/her lesbians)

As for all the abusive/manipulative, the only real big ones there are Lapis/Jasper(which was one of the best depictions of an toxic relationship that children could still understand), as well as Rose/EVERYONE(showing how someone you could hold so high up could hurt you, and let you down time and time again and you just have to figure out how you feel about it). Lapis/Peridot is super painfully realistic, as it shows how if you don’t handle your problems it can hurt you and everyone around you. Pearl/Garnet shows how you shouldn’t lie to get together with someone, and Amythest/Garnet shows how just because you have fun together a romance may be unhealthy.

Also like, the show is just really good at showing how everybody is capable of both good and evil? Jasper can be interpreted both as a victim (for being held in a forced fusion with Lapis) as well as a villian (for trying to force Lapis back into it), Rose is very humanized in her whimsical behavior yet also literally got a ridiculous amount of her soilders destroyed, Blue/Yellow both are shown to be pained by Roses actions, WHITE COULD BE CONSIDERED PISSED AT PINK FOR FAKING HER DEATH AND GETTING AN UNTOLD AMOUNT OF GEMS DESTROYED (yet also heavily abusive/manipulative/gaslighting). I could go on and on about the whole Jasper/Lapis relationship or the WhiteD/PinkD dynamic, as goddamn they’re so intensive and complex and I’m painfully in love with their depictions, but that’s literally a 6 page essay and for another day.

 On for reconcile, it shows how you can hurt someone and they don’t have to forgive you. Garnet’s reaction to Pearl manipulating her and ultimate decision to just allow herself to feel angry, but to also not let it stress things more due to the delicate nature of their situation. Like, they’re all essentially in one big clusterfuck of a polyamorous relationship raising Steven, and if anyone continued holding negative feelings it could jeopardize his family situation.You don’t have to have a hug-it-out scene to reconcile, most times in real life you won’t.  Sometimes, you reconcile with someone before you even forgive them, cause you know it’ll happen when it happens and it’s not worth pausing a friendship over. It’s an internalized thing, and most people expect a grandiose gesture but in reality it’s more of a deep breath and a sigh.

End note:

OKKO is super cool for how it depicts gay relationships, it’s fun, it’s sweet, and it’s cute, but SU goes farther to show the darker side to things that kids also need to be aware of. We need to see ourselves as complex individuals, but also retain happy hopes to ensure we can continue to go on.

I have been in abusive gay relationships, I have been hurt countless times by partners because I didn’t believe you could be in a toxic or abusive gay relationship, I just thought I was being stupid and all the issues in said relationships were ultimately my fault.

Showing the gay characters in unhealthy relationships that aren’t inherently over the top abuse is a great way to introduce gay kids to the possibility that their future relationships won’t always be healthy. Steven Universe teaches us that we can talk out most issues in a relationship, but sometimes we won’t always get to and must deal with the feelings on our own, as well as sometimes it’s best to just break ties with people. If I had representation like Lapis and Jasper when I was younger, I may have gotten out of my abusive relationship sooner.

All in all, enjoy either one or both if you want! Both are fantastic shows with lots of love poured into them by their creators, and it shows. I understand you may not like SU as much due to the darker nature of it, which is valid! It’s also got quite a bit more popularity than OKKO, which is a shame due to how underappreciated it is. Just be careful to not take out your anger at the show or the popularity of the show onto people on accident, and instead express yourself in methods that are positive (I.E. Drawing fanart, oc’s, headcannons etc. etc. that don’t harm anyone.)

Thanks for writing in anon! Feel free to P.M. me if you want to gush over something though, I’m always down for happy stuff!