#literally anyone who isn’t a straight cis white male

[aclawthorne22]

Things will not remain this way forever *said to warn*

Things will not remain this way forever *said to comfort*

There is a difference

[butmakeitgayblog]

Just to throw in a couple points real quick (because I can never keep an opinion to myself 😔 sorry), I personally kind of dislike the idea of a male and female gaze — not because I disagree with the concept of fetishism and objectification existing, they ABSOLUTELY do, but because of what people, particularly online, have come to accept they mean.

There has recently been discourse surrounding Love Lies Bleeding, a film created almost solely by queer women, “catering to the male gaze” which… I’m sure I don’t need to explain how silly that is lmao. I think this new wave of leftists clutching their pearls over literally any sign of sexual attraction and considering it to be synonymous with objectification has distorted people’s views of what these terms actually mean and have resulted in their gross misuse. Not to make this about me 💅🏻 but I see a lot of this similar discourse about trans people BY CIS PEOPLE whom are trying to be good allies by basically claiming that any sign of sexual attraction towards a trans person’s body is inherently fetishistic which I can’t lie… I kind of consider to be transphobic itself lol? You’re allowed to be sexually attracted to trans people and express that, no matter how their bodies look! The point at which it becomes fetishistic relies primarily on the WAY you express that and the language used — and I think that can apply to queer people in general too. I personally (and others may feel differently!) have zero issue with cis people enjoying trans NSFW content, and I also have no problem with straight women enjoying MLM content; because most of the time, I can tell from the LANGUAGE they use whether or not they are fetishising.

Point being, fetishism and objectification can go ALL ways and I don’t think people need to give excuses as to why they enjoy a certain type of content as long as it isn’t actively harming anyone. But I obviously can’t speak for everyone (especially queer women, I only identified as one for a year or two when I was a preteen lol) and people’s experiences tend to shape their opinions on these things 😅

Right and that's why I firmly stand behind my initial post about how it's no one's job to police people for what kind of content they consume! Because we don't know their motivations for how ot why they personally are interacting/consuming the work. It's incredibly easy to write off all enjoyment of a specific brand of content as fetishizing or sexualization when in reality, for the consumer it isn't that at all. My only point on the last ask was that sometimes, sometimes, it's easy to actually be doing exactly that (fetishizing etc) and not realizing it.

Intentions matter absolutely, but they're not the be-all-end-all of reality. It's like if I as a white person were to say something racist without realizing it was racist. That doesn't negate the racism, and it doesn't absolve me of my culpability, because my ignorance to my actions doesn't supercede my impact. You can be guilty of something without knowing that you are, and that's something you as person have to evaluate and confront on a personal basis. That was my only point in relation to what that anon said.

Again to reiterate, that is NOT saying that everyone who prefers queer work to straight work is guilty of that, because they're not. Full stop. And that alone is why I don't think anyone has or should have the authority to pass judgment on who can and can't consume certain kinds of media. Because, like you said, then you start wading into the murky waters of painting everyone with a broad brush, throwing accusations around that are universally damning despite not actually being universally true. And considering we're living in a period where puritan anti-sex brainrot is on the rise (alongside a deeply unsettling culture of condemnation over every little thing), opening that door can become very dangerous very fast. We're seeing it already.

I will tack on just as a thought regarding the trans character issue, I think that's kind of a perfect example of all these ideas aligning. Just in the most bare bones way of putting it: there is nothing inherently fetishizing about a cis person enjoying work including trans characters. There's nothing inherently fetishizing about a cis person enjoying, specifically, smut involving trans characters. There is nothing inherently fetishizing about a cis person preferring trans character stories over other kinds of media. However, if all they as a cis person consume is extremely sexualized renditions of trans characters, if their only interest in trans characters is porn - generally mostly devoid of complex storylines that create a fully rounded character -, then yeah I do think that's something they on an individual basis need to evaluate about themselves, because it's the difference between having a sexual attraction to a subsection of people versus seeing those same people as purely sexual objects. Does that make sense?

Same can be true for any other queer content being consumed by people that aren't historically the target audience.

But again, it's not really anyone else's place to make that call for anyone else.

[feminist-bitches-only]

My current belief system (always subject to change) in case anyone found my blog and is wondering:

I am not a libfem

- I don’t find centering men in my feminism as empowering (ex: it is a myth that men’s mental health isn’t taken seriously while women’s is. When has women’s mental health ever been taken seriously??? We should be able to label our oppressors as men without being labeled as bigoted generalizers, as any other oppressed group is able to label their oppressors).

- Plastic surgery, makeup, and shaving are absolutely not empowering and I truly don’t believe there is any woman out there who truly deeply believes that these are simply personal choices that you would make regardless of social influence. In fact, certain plastic surgeries being considered as gender-affirming care is extremely misogynistic (ex: if you are on estrogen and grow breasts, but you’re unhappy that they are smaller than you want them to be - that is a symptom of misogyny & insurance should not be covering additional breast implants under gender-affirming care, thus enforcing the idea that something like breast size makes a woman).

- Sex-based oppression is VERY real. Thus, spaces for afab people should exist in addition to spaces for all women because of this & afab imagery is empowering to afab women and should not be shamed or called trans-exclusive - it is for the purpose of empowering afab people. Who are oppressed.

- Gender abolition is the goal. Gender has been constructed for the purpose of oppressing women, and has been clearly show to be used as a tool of oppression against trans people as well. Additionally, considering gender is constructed, it is perfectly valid for some to experience attraction based on sex vs gender.

- Gender-neutral language can sometimes borderline on offensive (but usually not as bad as radfems make it out to be). Additionally a woman’s issue can still affect people who are not women (ex: abortion access IS a woman’s issue [affects women mostly and is an issue of discussion only because it’s used as a tool to oppress women], but also affects trans men/enbies). If you would not say that poverty & underfunded schools are faced by the Black community just because there are also white people who face poverty, do not try to say that calling issues like abortion women’s issues is a problem.

- Misogyny against straight women/cis women/white women/etc. is still misogyny. While intersectionality increases the burden of oppressions, misogyny is still a very VERY real oppression that is often not even labeled - it’s just seen as part of living in this world as a woman (ex: rape, sexual harassment, and stalking are often not considered hate crimes; cunt, bitch, and slut aren’t considered slurs by the general public).

I am not a radfem

- There is literally no reason to misgender or deadname trans people. I cannot ever read posts on this site with purposeful misgendering without believing it is in bad faith (I don’t consider sex-based terminology as misgendering [it is perfectly okay for someone to have female/male biology but identify as a man/woman], but I ascribe to afab/amab terminology since it seems so be more affirming/less dysphoria-triggering to the trans community).

- Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people are non-binary. While it is completely fine for you to base your gender off your sex [ex: I am a woman because I am an adult human female], it is not okay to act as if everyone’s gender needs to be determined that way. This is a major flaw of radfem ideology - if gender is a social construct, why would people be forced into a gender identity based on their sex??? Makes no sense.

- Queer is a good, empowering term. Anything can be used as a slur, doesn’t mean people can’t identify with it. I ascribe to the belief that slur reclamation greatly decreases a slur’s power. It is perfectly okay for people to not want to put their sexualities/genders into very neat boxes. Who cares if you could get a more specific understanding of someone’s sexuality with a gay/bi label?? Why is it any of your business to get a specific reading of someone’s sexuality?

- Trying to insinuate that you know someone’s sex based on shit like their facial features is embarrassing as fuck and incredibly misogynistic. I can’t imagine the embarrassment of being anti-patriarchy to only go to a cis woman and claim they’re trans because you think their shoulders are too broad or something lmao. Or, in the case of trans women, claim you know they’re trans because of *insert feature that many cis women also have here.*

My main interest: bringing communication and building relationships between the feminist & trans rights movements. Both of these groups are fighting their own oppression and I genuinely believe that they misunderstand each other’s concerns, goals, and experiences. I think that we are stronger together and as oppressed groups, we are not each other’s enemies. We can work together to stand up to the patriarchy, without dismissing the trans experience, and stand up to the gender binary, without excluding the afab woman experience. But as oppressed groups, we need to listen to each other. Lateral oppression is not, has never been, and never will be cute. ***For this reason, you will not see me tagging posts as “radfems dni” or “tras dni” or any variance of the two. People need to be able to interact and understand each other’s thoughts and concerns to be able to bridge this gap. I will not tolerate bad-faith conversation, however.

[ot3]

I looked over what I could find of your thoughts on asexuality, and I THINK I understand your core argument—it’s hard to say because a lot of the posts I found kind of talked around the ideas, and I can’t exactly search “ace” on an ace attorney fanblog and see success haha

But if I pieced things together correctly, it centers around kind of … using the same narrative as other queer identities to [I couldn’t find a conclusion from your posts, just the premises saying this did the ace identity a disservice as well as grossly undercut the gay/trans narratives they pull from].

I’m not sure there’s room for asexuality in the queer narrative, if that’s the problem. If, because everyone experiences sexual violence and shaming unless they’re a part of a small minority, the oppression/pain narrative doesn’t fit.

Every June, people celebrate pride and the exclusion of ace identities immediately follows, usually because those who are ace haven’t suffered in the ways other queers have. The gate is kept for those who think queerness is defined by oppression first and foremost. The gate will continue to be kept regardless of any argument of suffering, no matter if it’s original or ripped—primarily, I assume, because the argument isn’t that aces haven’t suffered enough, but because people genuinely think they aren’t queer, and they’ve picked the one point ace individuals might have a hard time navigating around (because as you said, all sexual expression or non-expression is punished if it is not part of a small celebrated minority), and if they DO argue that they’ve experienced sexual violence, it’s easy to reject.

I’d like to hear your thoughts, if you can spare them, on whether aces are queer—and what queerness is, in the case that it excludes them.

Because once we get into suffering politics, I feel like we inevitably find ourselves in radfem territory. One queer experience is often going to be drastically different from another. A white lesbian knows not the struggles of a trans black woman, but both of them are queer.

So yes, let’s say the ace community is erroneously using language that is disingenuous to everyone’s experiences. The queer community is demanding pain from them in order to be valid. The pain is not exclusive but nearly universal, but oddly never enough. What changes? Are the aces not queer? Or is queerness as an exclusive pain narrative the core of its identity?

Perhaps I missed something in what I read and you aren’t using pain narratives—the concept of transforming queer narratives for acceptance and therefore discrediting all identities involved read as protective, which raised some flags. What I can see of your argument I don’t even necessarily disagree with.

But if the argument is that everyone suffers sexual violence if they’re not part of the celebrated sexual minority, doesn’t that neuter the whole sexual spectrum? That’s bunching everyone into a massive subgroup of not cishet white male. The aces are saying they experience a different sexual violence from straight cis Carla and gay Jerry. Or, not using a pain lens, the aces are saying they experience a different sexual identity from others. Is that not queerness?

Maybe that’s what you’re asking for. But if we’re excluding sexual violence from the narrative because it’s too general a premise, then that HAS to be excluded from your definition of queer.

i have been so, so, so, so clear, over and over again, that i do not care who wants to use the word queer for themselves. i'm not sure how much clearer i can be on the subject and i don't see a point in trying to explain anything beyond that when no one will even listen to that much. i am not going to have these discussions with tumblr anons anymore, it is a waste of my time. if anyone is really pressed to know my opinions they are free to talk to me by literally any method other than anonymous tumblr asks.

[cretaceousundead]

Honestly what even is the point in pride month anymore when what used to be the LBTQA+ community is now literally just the oppression club for bullies?

Trans people aren’t welcome. Transphobia is so fucking accepted now, not only from conservatives but even liberals.

Bi people are on ‘thin ice’, as the saying goes. We’re seen as Queer Lite. Only valid if we’re in a same sex relationship, but then we get told we’re basically gay anyway. When someone comes out as bi, let’s say a celeb comes out as bi, their fans celebrate, but it never comes across like they’re genuinely happy that this person felt comfortable coming out, it’s more like they’re just happy the person isn’t straight, cause we all know the only people gays hate more than bi and trans people are cishet people. Gays celebrating a celeb they like coming out as bi has always felt more like a “oh thank GOD they’re not straight” rather than a “I’m so happy for them”.

Recently I’ve seen LGBwithouttheT trending on Twitter allot, but let’s be real if they succeeded in booting the trans people out they’d start trending LGwithouttheB next.

Growing up I saw the community, back then simply called the LGBT community, as simply a community of people who were anything other than straight or cis.

If lesbians and gays ever succeeded in claiming this so called ‘community’ for themselves they’d start fighting amongst each other as well over whose more oppressed. Obviously the general consensus would be that lesbians are more oppressed than gay guys because “US POOR OPPRESSED WOMYN!!”. So then the fighting would begin between lesbians and other lesbians.

White lesbians vs lesbians of colour. The lesbian of colour would be the winner of ‘most oppressed’.

Then it would be lesbian of colour with mental illnesses or trauma ve lesbians of colour without mental illnesses or trauma.

It will never fucking end.

When I was younger, before I even realised I was part of the community myself, I thought it was just a community for people who weren’t cis or straight at a time when those people often didn’t fit in with people who were cis and straight.

But now it’s the oppression club. It’s not about acceptance. It’s not about equality. It’s not about having a community to feel at home. It’s a “you must be THIS oppressed to ride this ride”.

The LGBTQA+ community barely exists anymore. There’s no sense of community anymore. There’s no kindness. There’s just hatred and bullying so honestly what’s the point in pride month? Why is it still a thing, what ‘pride’ are you people talking about? Because I don’t see anyone with anything to be prideful about anymore. Trans people are referring to as ‘things’ and ‘freaks of nature’. Bi people are either gays with internalised homophobia or straight people trying to be special. Gay guys are oppressing lesbians just by being male. White lesbians are oppressing lesbians of colour.

The whole point of the community was that at a time when we actually were hated or the very least not understood by cishet people, we needed a community of our own to feel at home in and safe.

But cishet people are not out biggest enemies anymore, most decent cishet people support us. I, as a bisexual woman, feel more comfortable around my cishet male friend than I did at the most recent pride parade I went to because I spent half the time there wondering how many of the people waving around rainbow flags spend their free time on the internet being transphobic and/or biphobic, whereas I know that my friend doesn’t care about my sexuality and loves me for me and supports me for who I am however I am.

Speaking of cishet people, I’m sick to death of being told by my own so called community that I simultaneously don’t belong here AND that y’all are the only people I can trust because cisheta are my enemy. When I reality the majority of the bigotry I’ve ever experienced has come from gay people not straight people.

It reminds me of radical feminists telling women that men are the ones we should be fearing while they simultaneously abuse us and bully us when we want female abusers acknowledged or when we even so much as say that we don’t hate men.

You use bigotry by cishets as a way to shield yourself from critisism for your own bigotry.

Where’s the fucking pride? Theres no pride. There’s just hatred. There’s no sense of community or belonging. The community doesn’t fucking exist anymore. So what’s the point in pride month. According to the self appointed leaders of the community, A.K.A the people who see themselves as the most oppressed, pretty much nobody actually belongs in the community. And if we don’t belong here then what’s the point in pride month? Who does pride month exist for?

[transmisogyny-explained]

I would really appreciate if TMEs didn’t scroll past this post.

Generally, people (who aren’t transmisogynists that speak over trans women and brush aside our issues) seem to understand at this point that “f*mboy” is a transmisogynistic slur and transmisogyny-exempt people shouldn’t reclaim it. But I think it’s important to have a discussion about how the meme itself also ties into transmisogynistic fetishism, so that’s what I’ll be attempting to explain today.

CW/TW: Transmisogyny; perisexism; misgendering; talk of porn, fetishism, and genitals; uncensored slurs; homomisia mention; minor p*dophilia mention

The origins of the current mainstream image/meme of the femboy can be traced back to the anime/manga trope of the futanari, which is the Japanese word for hermaphrodite. In anime/manga (particularly hentai), a futanari character is a woman (or feminine humanoid) who is often quite voluptuous/attractive and who possesses a penis (sometimes in addition to a vagina and sometimes without testicles). The perceived “discordance” between an attractive woman and her possession of a penis is what the people attracted to futanari (usually cishet men) find at once jarring and enticing. It’s the simultaneous perisexist and transmisogynistic fetishization of the idea of intersex people’s and trans women’s bodies and denial of the idea that our bodies could even exist outside of these fantasies, rendering them “safe for consumption.”

However, our bodies can, of course, exist outside of fiction and fantasy, which leads us to the discussion (which is deeply rooted in homomisic anxiety) of whether or not it’s “gay” for men to be attracted to “real life futanari” — Are you gay if the woman you find attractive turns out to have a penis? Enter the concept of “traps.” In anime, a trap is a boy who disguises himself as a girl, intentionally leads others to assume he’s a girl from his appearance, and often reveals himself to be (or is sometimes forcibly outed as) a boy only after other male characters (and, by proxy, the assumed straight male audience) have expressed interest in or attraction to him, shocking and embarrassing them. It is meant to be a source of comedy much of the time, but the narrative rarely questions the possibility that this character may identify as transfeminine and deserves to have their identity respected. They are always assumed to be cis boys who either simply enjoy looking like girls or have an ulterior motive for tricking people into thinking they are a girl.

When people started to realize that this was and is an extremely transmisogynistic trope (the idea that gay men will disguise themselves as women to “trick” straight men into sleeping with them is often applied to trans women and frequently seen as the only way a cis man could possibly be attracted to us), they decided to change the name of the game: Enter femboys. Femboys often look exactly like the standard trap — a very young, semi-androgynous, flat-chested, thin, white anime girl — though they’re frequently depicted even more salaciously because the artist has no reason to “conceal their masculine traits,” instead drawing attention to their genitals.

The default reasoning people use as to why this concept isn’t transmisogynistic is that femboys are gender-nonconforming boys who aren’t trying to trick anyone into believing that they’re girls. Unlike futanari, they aren’t meant to be women, and unlike traps, their appearances aren’t meant to be “deceptive.” However, this argument completely ignores that half of the issue with traps and futanari is that they are a fetish. In every instance, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the penis — it’s shocking and unexpected; it’s connotative of a cis boy in disguise; it’s accentuation goes hand-in-hand with male femininity, designating male femininity as inherently erotic. Trans women on this site have discussed this before, but the term “femboy” is literally used in porn to denote a fetish of transfeminine people. And it’s used right alongside other transmisogynistic slurs.

And these concepts — that trans women can be summed up as “women with penises,” that we’re an erotic curiosity to be simulated, that we’re inhuman, hermaphrodites, or “in-betweens,” that we’re men who want to trick other men into sleeping with us, etc. — are what get us reduced to our genitals, reduced to our assigned genders, dehumanized, and even killed. This is what you’re contributing to when you normalize the fetishization of “femboys,” the fetishization of the juxtaposition between a feminine presentation with a so-called “masculine” biology. If supporting trans women and fighting against transmisogyny matter more to you than just the appearance of being an ally, cut it out.

[Image ID: A banner of the pink trans woman flag with white text that reads, “I don’t want to see or be seen by transmisogynists” next to a green check mark /end ID]

[danggerine]

i made the mistake of reading the notes on a lot of trans naoto posts so now y’all get responses to some of the bad takes i keep seeing. buckle the fuck up

• “naoto’s arc is about sexism specific to the japanese workplace and calling her trans erases that to fit it into a western lens!!!”

you guys do know that there are japanese trans people right. like i agree that there are lots of issues with workplace sexism and gender roles in japan, but there’s also lots of issues with transphobia. y’all do know that you do not have to be white and/or live in a western country to be trans, and that queer stories and issues are GLOBAL stories and issues right.

• “naoto isn’t a man, she just pretended to be one to get respect in a male-dominated field, if you say she’s a trans man you’re ruining that whole character arc about accepting your true self!”

here’s the thing! the way that character arc was done was fucking transphobic! the trope of a woman going into disguise as a man for safety/respect/etc is tried and tested, it shows up literally everywhere, and the trope itself is not inherently transphobic. HOWEVER, when persona 4 incorporates Really Obviously Trans elements into that trope, like chest binding and literal gender reassignment surgery, then we have a problem, because now you have a cis character going through a trans narrative in the name of insecurity.

p4 does everything it can to embody the typical narrative of a young transitioning trans guy: binding, changing your name, revising official documents to be known as a man in work and school records, dressing masculine, and forming a shadow literally based on transitional surgery. plus the stuff naoto’s shadow says isn’t about being “a weak little girl” or “no one will ever take you seriously when you’re just a little girl” like you would expect it to be for someone who’s arc is supposed to be about dealing with misogyny, it’s all “you’ll never be a real man,” “you can’t cross the boundary between the sexes,” “no one will ever see you as you are” comments. you know, textbook trans guy insecurity. but the game backtracks on that and says naoto was just insecure about being a female detective and wanted people to take them seriously, and that they should get rid of these feelings and accept their true, female self.

and this is where the problem lies. when you write an obviously trans-coded narrative, but make the character experiencing it an insecure cis person or someone trying to avoid discrimination, you say either 1. trans people are really their assigned gender and are just insecure, but accepting the gender they were given at birth will make them happier and more confident or 2. being a trans man is a way for cis women to escape misogyny. 1 is obviously stupid and has been talked about by plenty of people, but 2 is a BIG problem and a wild assumption to me. being a trans man is seen as an “out” for naoto, or a solution to a problem, as if once they’re a man they’ll face no discrimination whatsoever, when in reality things like getting their gender marker changed in official documents that would allow them to go by “he” and wear the boy’s uniform at school and passing well enough to be seen as a boy in public would be a HUGE ordeal that includes a lot of stress and rejection and danger. realistically, naoto is putting themself in a really precarious position, because if they are exposed as actually afab to the media, to the detective agency, or to the school, they are set for a hell of a lot of ridicule, discrimination, and potential physical danger. but persona 4 doesn’t reflect this at all, because it’s transphobic and thinks that being trans is the easy way out for cis women experiencing misogyny!

• really any argument that boils down to “naoto is a cis woman in canon whose struggle is about sexism, not being trans”

like i already addressed enough of this, i think, but what really gets me is that kanji’s arc is fucked up in a lot of the same ways naoto is and no one is clowning on posts about kanji being gay? his shadow is a very clear (and offensive) gay caricature, and his narrative is very much one about a mlm guy experiencing homophobia from his peers and acting out because of that. and yet the game backtracks to saying “oh no it’s not about liking men, kanji is insecure about his femininity and softer hobbies because of toxic masculinity” and then literally uses naoto to refute his queerness because “look the only guy kanji was ever shown as attracted to was ACTUALLY a woman all along and now that kanji knows she’s a girl he can be openly attracted to her!” in canon, naoto is about as cis as kanji is straight, and yet EVERYONE is on board for portraying kanji as gay in fan works like it’s not even a question, but there has to be a huge debate anytime anyone wants to call naoto trans. legitimately, i think i’ve seen someone argue about kanji being mlm on a post...once? ever? meanwhile every post about naoto being trans has to have a horde of discourse, i’m literally already prepping for the bad notes this post will get because y’all cannot leave this ALONE

in conclusion, i am not saying that everyone has to think naoto is a trans man or forcing anyone to stop liking a character in the way they want or anything like that. i am saying that the naoto’s canon character arc is transphobic and if you’re trying to fight with trans people about how they want to reclaim something that uses a lot of their experiences, don’t.

[jron]

I guess the cynical way to look at Skarsgard’s casting is that “dystopian movies typically show us when dehumanization also happens to straight white people.” But the Murderbot Diaries are more than simple dystopian fiction. To me, they’re primarily about someone’s search for their place in the universe after suddenly freeing themselves from slavery. It’s about its struggle to blend in with others, and its surprise at doing so. It is the only one of its kind (that we know of) who is free, and this is a constant fact. The other characters have no idea how to treat it, and it doesn’t seem to know either.

In that regard, casting a cis white male in its role seems a little odd and not what I expected, but certainly not unusual in the recent history of dystopian tv and movies. Still, that trope is also something we should’ve moved past by now. It literally could have had anyone’s face.

Murderbot is also not human, and doesn’t seem to like to be considered as human. It never really describes its own appearance but I’ve always pictured it to potentially look “average” and its gender unclear. (Ive only read the books, so I’ve never heard the male voice of the audiobooks.)

Perhaps author Martha Wells sees it differently. It’s certainly taller than average, and it’s possible humans might consider it attractive, but that concept repulses it so much that it’s unlikely it would bring that up in its narrated diaries.

Skarsgard doesn’t look average, as this video mentions, but then no one on TV usually does. There’s also one scene where a character is concerned it may be romantically involved with its favorite human, which Murderbot finds exasperating and ridiculous. While it isn’t necessary, giving it a gendered face could bring something to the screen that Murderbot itself is unwilling to see, and make the other characters’ suspicions and fears more understandable. Murderbot admits that Gurathin was right not to trust it, but we as readers already do. On the screen we might not as readily.

Film means we see its face at the same time the other characters do. It can’t hide behind its own narration, and so we may ultimately have to see it as something that it does not. By its nature, the screen puts us into the story as an observer, and takes us out of the narrator’s mind, which upends a lot of what makes these books appealing to me.

As I mentioned before, that means it could look like anyone, and I expected it to look like how it described itself. But now that it’s cast, and I’ve had time to think about it, I’m hopeful to see the show deal with an asexual nongendered character who cannot help but look like a specific gender, like many people in real life. There are a lot of emotional issues going on in these books however (especially when you really look for them, since our narrator is only starting to learn how to understand them itself), and I’ll be surprised if the show can grapple with them all.

But here’s to hoping! I love these books and I can’t wait to see it.

Murderbot diaries is gonna be a show????

New video!!

[quitealotofsodapop]

MvA assorted headcanons

General:

So many years together has made the core monsters inseperable. If something affects one member, it affects the group.

All. The. Monsters. Are. Family.

It takes Susan a while to understand inside jokes and past incidents because of being the most recent addition.

There are Other anomalous creatures kept in Area 5X, but they are either non-sentient and/or are too dangerous to be kept around the more human-friendly monster group.

Area 5X is so gotdang big because they were expecting a lot more kaijus like Insecto to crop up. Sadly not many have surfaced to justify the space.

There’s a hangar in Area 5X full of wrecked UFOs. Some are spacecraft wreckage while others are stuff like weird meteors (Susan’s is in there), and at least one alien creature that got crystallised upon entering Earth’s atmosphere.

There’s significant difference in staff employed at different points throughout the past 50 years. There are far more women on the Area 5X worksheet than back in the 50s, and the guards are generally more sympathetic towards the monsters. Many modern staff members have been reprimanded or let go for failing to uphold secrecy, or for unnecessary cruelty towards the monsters.

Budget cuts were a legitmate concern up until the Battle of Golden Gate Bridge. The facility was far more barebones and sterile before the government had to formally recognise Area 5X’s importance. There have been a lot of redecorating at the facilty since the fat checks started coming in.

Putting individual characters under read due to length.

Susan:

Enjoys many hobbies considered stereotypically feminine; baking, sewing, cosmetics, etc...

Grandparents and extended family are farmers or are atleast connected to the business. Modesto is the agricultural centre of California after all. Her parents were the first of their generation to go against the mold and seek out white-collar careers.

Studied cosmetology in school and was working at a beauty salon to save up for her and Derek’s wedding.

Is very athletic and grew up doing a number of physical extracurriculars like cheerleading, dodgeball, and roller-derby.

Grew up being teased for being the shortest kid in her class/family. They still tease her for it.

Greatly fears causing collateral damage and/or harm to others through her size.

Has issues with anxiety, worsened only by her new job as “savior of earth”. She wishes for a confidant to tell her worries to.

Married life with Derek was doomed to fail. Susan had a plan in place for what came after the marriage, and focusing 100% on Derek’s career was not it. There’s also the line from Derek’s mother about Susan being “the weatherman’s wife”, implying that she was to be the homemaker and not have a career of her own. It’s possible that Susan was planning to settle down and have kids with Derek, but the lack of control she had in moving to Fresno implied that more was going on.

Is currently “taking a break” from love and dating, despite gaining many new admirers.

Tries her best to return to Modesto to visit her family and friends whenever possible, though work often keeps her away for weeks at a time.

If she retains her height-shifting abilities as in the series; Susan goes through really bad “growing” pains.

Link:

Was frozen in his relative late-teens during a cold snap. Got shifted around until he ended up somewhere in Greenland before being discovered by modern humans. Post-thaw he went a bit wild, swimming frantically back south to try and find his old enviroment.

Was one of many scrappy youngsters in his troop, with a number of adoptive parents. The strongest ruled the troop, and Link was fairly weak in comparision to the leaders. He had gotten into a fight the day of his freezing (over something silly in hindsight) and swam away to sulk. When he didn’t return after the cold snap - the troop accepted that he had likely died out on his own.

Likes to freak out humans by making up weird biology facts about his species and ones he’s fought against - like joking about laying eggs or having his tail dettach and regrow like a lizard. However there’s some things he has to ask about, because he doesn’t have medical knowledge or words to describe something.

A lot of his macho behavior came from imitating the guards who kept watch on him. 1950s violent military alpha males aren't a very good role model for someone who doesnt know what societal norms are yet. Link was a lot more insufferable back in the day but chilled out as he began interacting with other walks of life.

Has a high paternal instinct and immediately becomes softer around kids and smaller animals.

Has body language similar to a cat/alligator. Slaps his tail when angry or in deep thought. And yes; Link purrs/rumbles when happy.

Loves monster movies - especially the ones where the monsters “win”. He cried when he saw “Beauty and the Beast” and then immediately booed loudly when the Beast turned human.

Does Not Trust doctors or scientists due to bad past experiences. Will only go to Dr Cockroach and Monger if he ever gets hurt/ill. Gets stressed fast if he has to be in a waiting room or doctors office.

Link had no idea what gender indentities or orientations were until recently - he did come from a pre-human civilization that really didnt mind/care about the schemantics. It took him some time to wrap his head around it. He identifies himself as bisexual after much thought and many hours alone on the computer.

Don't press him about his body. He's built different from humans and cis people. He will punch anyone who doesnt respect his or anyone elses identity.

Has been in love before. It didn’t end well.

Will occasionally wear clothes, but finds it a challenge to find anything that fits him. Will give any shoes he finds to Dr Cockroach and BOB to eat.

The best driver/pilot out of all the monsters.

Dr Cockroach:

True name is Jaques-Yves Herbert. Prefers to just go by "Dr Cockroach" because he dislikes the association with his birth family.

Picks up human languages very easily, although not as quickly as he can understand animals.

Parents were a mixed scientist couple. His father was an aggressive “Strong British Man” that would beat him son down for not following orders or for not meeting his standards for a man. Dr C turned down both chances to attend his parents funerals.

This man isn’t straight. He probably uses old-fashioned slang when asked about romance such as; “I am Uranian” or “I wear a green carnation”. It took Susan a few times to realise what he meant, as she is used to a more open minded enviroment.

Got the idea of transforming into a cockroach from reading Franz Kafkas “The Metamorphosis” as a child. He sympathized with Gregor’s abusive situation, and began considering the possibilties of how one could survive better as a creature like a cockroach.

Studied in biology and entomology in the Uk before moving to the states to follow engineering. Obtained his degree in Dance as a “side gig” in University.

Has been barred from free access to the coffee maker/machine due to overnighters. Once stayed awake so long that he forgot the letter “R”.

Owned a terrarium of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches throughout college. He mourned each of them when his roommate’s iguana got into the tank.

Was a "beatnik" back in the day and still kinda is. Embraces and encourages modern counterculture as he himself was not given such acceptance in his youth. He has however shamefully eaten his old Lenny Bruce album.

Hasn’t actually aged physically since his transformation. He attributes this to the fact that certain athropods can’t age physically beyond maturity. Link is very jealous.

Has obtained more degrees while in captivity, as Monger allowed him access to research and learning materials. He has however had his allowances revoked for previous escape attempts/doomsday devices.

Does still enjoy human food, but the cockroach instinct of "eat detritus" tends to overrule his eating choices. Can’t cook either.

Ironically a terrible driver. The damages from previous drives has made Monger restrict him from operating even a razor scooter.

BOB:

Pretty much considers himself human. Was created by them, raised by one (Monger), and talks like one. Gets sad when he's reminded that no other humans are blue blobs like him.

Absorbed some dna from the scientists present at his "birth", leading to his eye, speech, and omnivorous diet.

Doesnt actually need to breathe (as he can just absorb oxygen through his mass) but the fact that humans Do means that BOB thinks he has to as well.

Shares some physical characteristics with tomatoes/nightshade plants, as he is technically half tomato. He refuses to eat tomatos for this very reason, considering it cannibalism.

Attracts garden pests looking for a tomato plant. This unwittingly makes BOB a pretty good bug zapper.

Still retains his "mental broadcast" ability from "BOB's Big Break" although at a more subtle level. He tends to parrot the things he accidentally "eavesdropped" on.

Is empathetic, and can tell when others aren't doing ok emotionally. Will flop down on someone who’s really sad to comfort them. No brain, only heart.

Best cook out of the monsters. If he doesn’t forget what he’s making at least.

"Whats a gender? Can I eat it?"

Insectosaurus:

Core body is that of a Japanese Silkmoth, although she ended up being spliced with other animals present on the island during her initial mutation; namely ants and ground squirrels.

Eats over a literal ton of mulberry leaves per day. Also enjoys oranges.

Secretly wishes to be more humanoid.

Was only able to pupate and transform due to physical trauma. It seems that her transformation was like a “power-up” that required her to be in geniune distress for it to activate.

First language is Japanese. She learned it from the intial recovery team, and later developed an understanding of English from years in Area 5X.

Goes into torpor in cold weather. Pretty much impossible to wake her up for missions during Winter, as she needs to “rev up” before becoming mobile.

Still very much Link’s best friend. Still enjoys sports, chicks, and beer.

Monger:

Full name is; Warren Rex Monger.

Is very protective of the monsters and will defend them to the death.

Pretty much raised BOB (as seen when BOB was a baby blob in “Night of the Living Carrots”), and considers him his “freaky gelatinous son”.

Has a reputation of being a “control-freak” due to his aggressive overseeing of the monsters’ containment. This toughness is partly because of incidents that occured without his knowledge. Lets just say some scientists have been wedgied/fired for running experiments on the monsters without Monger’s approval.

Has a very “Ron Swanson” emotional response and view of the world. Crying is acceptable only at funerals and at the Grand Canyon (if he hadn’t lost his tear ducts in the war).

Has been married multiple times. Will not confirm or deny if he is currently seeing anyone.

Invisible Man/TiM:

Legit got out but no one at Area 5X is sure how. He suffered a geniune medical emergency and disappeared after surgery. The other monsters were informed that he died from complications to deter them from getting escape ideas.

Is able to be detected in Infrared light. Dr Cockroach managed to rig up goggles to view TiM in case of injury and to foil pranks.

Was a scientist working on an invisibility potion for the military and used himself as a guinea pig. Hasn’t actually been able to replicate his results since - thinks the effect may have been caused by a genetic abnormality.

Dr Cockroach and him are massive rivals. Both actually met eachother pre-transformation through a CalTech expedition. This makes the pair one of few people that have seen the others human face.

Is 100% naked. Was forced to wear clothing once this was discovered.

A massive prankster and a cynic. Him and Link were a force to be reckoned with.

Has revisted the facility multiple times and has started a number of ghost stories.

Any additions are welcome! I proably have alot more to dump about. Might make one of the alien characters from the series

[hellyesbro]

it's literally so wild how TERF's have managed to build an entire ideology out of not wanting to have sex with someone. You can literally just do that. You can literally just never fuck a trans woman. Most people don't. But they can't see literally any trans person without going on some tirade about how unfuckable they find us. The first thing they do is go on about how “They can’t be forced to like dick” The first assumption being that all trans women have dicks, the second being that they all want to use their dicks during sex, and the third being that they assume it’s always going to operate like a mans and penetrate(spoiler alert, it doesn’t). Is being completely unwilling to overlook the genitals in someone who is otherwise attractive transphobic? Who knows! that’s a whole topic of debate even within the trans community, but that doesn’t even matter, because before you could even get an answer out, they’re prattling on about how they wouldn’t have sex with a post-op woman either. Ok so it’s clearly not the genitals, so what would their reasoning be now? Usually something about being “Male bodied”. What does that mean? In their playbook, it disproportionately means someone who is tall, broad, has a strong jawline, and small curves. It doesn’t take a cultural analyst to notice that these are A: beauty standards that happen to fall in line with the patriarchy and B: entirely present in cis women as well. I’d ask the question “So what about tall broad cis women? are they males too?” but TERF’s have already answered this with a resounding “Yes”. You don’t need to look further than Caster Semenya, a cis woman with high testosterone that became a target of TERF’s and other rightwingers alike. Clearly, because she didn’t fit their petite white definition of womanhood, she needed to be expelled from that definition altogether. To add on to that, if you were to talk to more than 2 trans women in your life it would become immediately obvious that “Oh, their bodies are varied to the point of many overlapping body types between cis and trans women”.

Okay so it isn’t the dick, and it isn’t the body that makes us unfuckable, so what is it? The fact is it doesn’t matter, because even if they find a trans woman who is post-op and as a feminine body and face, it isn’t simply enough to not fuck us, they need to ensure nobody else does either.

Anyone who publicly admits to dating trans women is immediately has their sexuality questioned and shamed. Cis lesbians who date trans women are accused of bisexual, as clearly if TERF’s find us to be too mannish, any woman who is attracted to us must secretly like men, no matter how many times they insist otherwise. Sounds a lot like when men insist that lesbians who date butches must just really want a man.  When trans women date other women, they have to be a straight man, because the mere implication that something like us could be a woman makes them sick to their stomach. And when trans women date each other they clearly have to be gay men. The idea that something that doesn't fall under their narrow definition of womanhood could be treated as a woman, and loved and respected as a woman, reviles them. It’s done to women of color by white people, it’s done to gender non-conforming women by straight people, and it’s done to trans women by cis people. It’s the same colonialist patriarchal shit repackaged.

This entire time I’ve talked about TERF’s as if they were lesbians, but the truth is the majority of them are not. They’re straight women and bi women just as much as they’re lesbians, they touch penises and sleep with “male bodied” individuals in the forms of their boyfriends and husbands. But all of a sudden when trans women are mentioned even the TERF’s that like men talk about how gross dicks and “male bodies” are. They love to harp on about how they wouldn’t date or fuck trans women, because if anyone disagree’s it seems like they’re trying to force something on them. But it’s never about that, it’s about alienating a vulnerable class of women for failing to meet gendered expectations

[lucianalight]

Also, I don't know who keeps asking but I will answer the question of how and why taika grew a cult and why Valkyrie is loved and why her fans give her a pass for being a hypocrite and why Thor is "God of lesbians".

Before I answer, I will say that yes I'm a poc because I know people love to exclude opinions of non poc as if it really makes a difference 😒

Anyways, the answer is Pandering.

That's literally it. Taika panders because he knows most people will gravitate towards and love anyone who isn't straight, if they are or are deemed a cuz straight white male he just has to let everyone know that he values poc/lgbtq+, etc (as seen when he introduced himself to Valkyrie and ranted about wanting to be a warrior) and ofc any character that is a poc.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but unfortunately most of those fans only care about WHAT the characters are, instead of WHO they are, which clouds they're judgements. One example, was when Rose from star wars sister died in the beginning of SW: The Last Jedi. People were t r i g g e r e d and upset and going after the director because they felt that Rose's sister, wasn't allowed to die because of her race (even though they were PLENTY of other poc characters that died as well). They didn't stop and think "Roses sister is a non important side character so ofc she's gonna die along side the other non important side characters". No. They only commented on her race and that poc are not allowed to die and should get special treatment BECAUSE they're poc and nothing else.

And when they think that way, they allow poc and non straights get away with their terrible actions, which is why Valkyrie gets away with everything. Even if she was to get rid of Thor completely, no ones gonna bat an eye because of what she is. Why would they? They clapped and cheered when Tessa responded to the question "What's your first duty as King of Asgard?", saying "I'm going to find me a Queen." They didn't sit there and go "That's nice and all but shouldn't that come much later? AFTER, you've rebuilt Asgard and turn Asgard culture back to being scholars and take away Odins ways of War and teach everyone to be peaceful with everyone else, especially their neighbors????" No. Because her finding a Queen as a priority will always be better than trying to turn a not so good culture, into a good one. Even if she takes Odins teachings and agrees with them and keeps everything the same, the fans won't care. They care more about sexuality, gender and race than an actual story arc or plot or trying to get out good lessons.

I'm not saying representation isn't important, what I'm saying is the point of creating characters, it's to relate them because of the things they do through. It's why soooooo many main characters are "zero to hero" or "anybody can be the hero" because literally ANYBODY can be the hero. It could literally happen to ANYONE. or if it's a sad backstory, it may have already happened (which in most cases, is true).

Taika, just like many other directors and companies, etc love to pander because they know that's the quickest way to gain fans by being "woke" and yes there is the saying "Go Woke, Go Broke" but that couldn't be farther from the truth 🤦

I don't mean to offend anyone but based on many many many reactions, especially on Tumblr and Twitter, yes, this is exactly what it is.

The thing is TR isn’t even a good representation, if what you’re saying about some fans is true.

The line Thor says about liking women, maybe sometimes too much, which started the whole god of lesbians thing, is downright creepy. If someone tells me that I would feel really unsafe and try to stay the hell away from them.

The queer-coded characters are either villains(GM and Loki), or being guided to the right side by the the cis hetero man(Loki and Valkyrie). There is also the trope of dead lesbians(Valkyrie’s lover) which wasn’t even addressed in the movie but explained by the director. Same as Valkyrie’s bisexuality.

So I don’t really understand what is there for queer representation in TR that fans defend it.

Personally I like Valkyrie but I don’t ignore her wrong actions and I think she would be great if she didn’t suffer a case of bad writing and the hypocrisy that exists in the movie. I also think Tessa was probably trying to make fans happy rather than giving a serious answer.

I like to see more queer and poc representation in MCU but I agree with you that they also must be relatable in case of characterization and actions and the things they go through. But I also don’t think it’s wrong that people care more about the representation aspect in a character and love and sympathize with them based on that. Everyone want different things in a fandom and I respect that.

[littlesystems]

For the people who are out there “fighting the good fight” and “trying to make fandom a better place,” I have two important questions for you:

1. Is the author dead? x

2. Is your baby in the bathwater? x

What do I mean by those things? Let’s start with #1. The Death of the Author is a type of literary criticism, the extreme cliff notes version of which is that art exists outside of the creator’s life, personal background, and even intentions. I’m using it slightly differently than Barthes intended, but that’s okay, because the author is dead and I’m interpreting his work through my own lens.

In fandom, the author is dead. In fact, the author was never alive in the first place, not really. The author has only ever been the idea of a person, because unlike published fiction, the only thing we know about a fanfic author is that which they choose to tell us about themselves.

Why is that important?

Because it might not be true. Hell, that happens in real life with published authors, who have SSN’s on file with their publishers, who pay taxes on the works they create and have researchable pasts. If the author of A Million Little Pieces could fake everything, why can’t I? Why can’t you? Why can’t the writer of your favorite fic in the whole wide world?

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: “you can only write about [sensitive subject] if [sensitive subject] has happened to you personally, otherwise you’re a disgusting monster that deserves to die!!” Or maybe “you can only write [x racial or ethnic group] characters if you’re [x racial or ethnic group] otherwise you’re racist/fetishizing/colonizing!”

You can play this game with any sensitive subject you can come up with. I’ve seen them all before, on a sliding scale of slightly chastising to literal death threats.

Now, I could tell you that I’m a white-passing Latina whose grandmother was an anchor baby. I could tell you that I speak only English because my family never taught me to speak Spanish, something which I’ve been told is common in the Cuban community, though I only know my own lived experience. I could tell you that I’m mostly neurotypical. I could tell you that I’m covered in surgical scars. I could tell you lots of things.

Are any of these true? Maybe! I could tell you that my brother has severe mental development problems, so uncommon that they’ve never been properly diagnosed, and that he will live the rest of his life in a group home with 24-hour care. Is that true? Am I allowed to write about families struggling with America’s piss-poor services for the handicapped now?

Am I allowed to write about being Cuban? After all, I did just say that I’m Cuban. But is it true? Can I instead write a character that’s Panamanian? Maybe I really am Panamanian, not Cuban. Maybe I’m both. Maybe I’m neither. Maybe I’m really French Canadian. Should we require people to post regular selfies? I can’t count the number of times I’ve had someone come up to me speaking Arabic, and I’ve been told that I look Syrian. What’s stopping me from making a blog that claims that I am Syrian? Can you even really tell someone’s race and ethnicity from a photo?

Am I allowed to write about being a teenager? Am I allowed to write about being a college student? Am I allowed to write about being an “adulty” adult? Can I write a character who’s 40? 50? 60? How old am I?

All of this is to say: you can’t base what someone is or is not “allowed” to write about on a background that may or may not be real. No matter how good your intentions. And I get it - this usually comes from a place of well-meaning. You’re trying to protect marginalized groups by stopping privileged people from trampling all over experiences that they haven’t suffered. I get that. It’s a very noble thought. But you can’t require a background check for every fic that you don’t like.

If you say “you can only write about rape if you’re a rape victim,” then one of three things will happen:

Real survivors will have to supply intimate details of their own violations to prevent harassment

Real survivors will refuse to engage and will then have to deal with death threats and people telling them to kill themselves for daring to write about their own experiences

People who aren’t survivors will say “yeah sure this happened to me” just to get people to shut up

Has that helped anyone? I mean really - anyone??

So now let’s get to point #2: is your baby in the bathwater?

If your intention is to protect marginalized people from being trampled upon, stop and assess if your boot is the one that’s now stamping on their face. Find your baby! Is your baby in the bathwater? Which is to say: find the goal that you’re advocating for. Now assess. Are you making the problem worse for the people you’re trying to protect? Does that rape victim really feel better, now that you’ve harassed and stalked them in the name of making rape victims feel safe?

Let’s say you read a fic that contains explicit sex between a 16 year old and a 17 year old. Is this okay? Would it be okay if the writer was 15? 16? 17? Should teenagers be barred from writing about their own lives, and should teenagers be banned from exploring sexuality in a fictional bubble, instead of hookup culture? Is it okay for a 20 year old to write about their experiences as a teenager? Is it okay for a 20 year old to write about being raped at a party as a teenager? Is it okay for a 30 year old? How about a 40 year old? Is it okay so long as it isn’t titillating? Is it okay if taking control of the narrative allows the writer to re-conceptualize their trauma as something they have control over? Is it okay if their therapist told them that writing is a safe creative outlet?

Is your author dead?

Is your baby in the bathwater?

Now let’s take a hardline approach: no fanfiction with characters who are under 18 years old. None. Is the 16 year old who really loves Harry Potter and wants to read/write about characters their own age better off? Should they be banned from writing? Should they be forced to exclusively read and write (adult) experiences that they haven’t lived? Will they write about teens anyway? Should they have to share it in secret? Should 16 year olds be ashamed of themselves? Should we just throw in with the evangelicals and say that the only answer is abstinence, both real and fictional?

Let’s say that no rape is allowed in fiction, at all. None. What happens to all the hurt/comfort fics where a character is raped and then receives the support and love that they deserve, slowly heal, and by the end have found themselves again? Are you helping rape victims by banning these stories? Are you helping rape victims by stripping their agency away, by telling them that their wants and their consent doesn’t matter?

Is your baby in the bathwater?

Fandom is currently being split in two: on one side, the people who want to make fandom a “safer” place by any means necessary, even if that means throwing out all of the marginalized groups they say they want to protect - and on the other, people who are saying “if you throw out that bathwater, you’re throwing the baby out too.”

The whole point of fandom is to be able to explore all kinds of ideas from the safety and comfort of a computer screen. You can read/write things that fascinate you, disgust you, titillate you, or make your heart feel warm. This is true of all fiction. People who want to read about rape and incest and extreme violence and torture can go pick up a copy of Game of Thrones from the bookstore whenever they want. Sanitizing fandom just means holding a community of people who are primarily not male, not straight, not cis, or some combination of those three, to higher and stricter standards than straight white cis male authors and creators all over the world.

There is nothing you can find on AO3 that you can’t find in a bookstore. Any teenager can go check out Lolita, or ASOIAF, or Flowers in the Attic, or Stephen King's It, or Speak, or hundreds of other books that have adult themes or gratuitous violence or graphic sex. The difference is that AO3 has warnings and tags and allows people to interact only with the types of work that they want to, and allows people to curate their experiences.

Are these themes eligible to be explored, but only in the setting of something produced/published? Books, movies, television, studio art, music - all of these fields have huge barriers to entry, and they’re largely controlled by wealthy cishet white men. Is it better to say that only those who have the right connections to “make it” in these industries should be allowed to explore violence or sexuality or any other so-called “adult” theme?

Does banning women from writing MLM erotica make fan culture a better place?

Does banning queer people from writing about queer experiences make fan culture a better place?

Is M/M fic okay, but only if the author is male? What if he’s a trans man? What if they’re NB? Who should get to draw those lines? Should TERFs get a vote? What if the author is a woman who feels more comfortable writing from a male character’s perspective because she’s grown up with male stories her whole life, or because she identifies more with male characters? What about all the trans men who discovered themselves, in part, by writing fanfiction, and realized that their desires to write male characters stemmed from something they hadn’t yet realized about themselves?

How can we ever be sure that the author is who they say they are?

Who is allowed to write these stories? How do we enforce it?

Is it better for none of these stories to ever exist at all?

Have you killed your author?

Have you thrown out your baby with the bathwater?

[willowlark369]

Let’s Do MATH

This is actually about writing. It is specifically about writing diversed characters and even more narrowly, by creating it by changing a canon character to have whatever trait.

The majority of canon is an unfortunate ensemble of neurotypical, straight, cis, white Christian males. I probably messed up the adjective order there, but you get the point. Very bland Wonder Bread there.

Fanfiction has a tendency (and pretty much since its conception) to change aspects of canon for whatever reason suits the author’s fancy at that moment. Fic writers literally exist because they looked at canon and went “hm. I have a few notes.”

What if these same sex characters got together? What if X character was female? What if Y character actually dealt with their canon trauma/issue?

Like a cat stalking a mouse, fic writers have been edging towards adding towards adding more diversity to the diversity they add to these Wonder Bread fandoms.

What if X character isn’t gay but is bi/pan/ace? What if the character was only assigned male at birth? What if the character was assigned female and appears male in canon because they’re trans? What if they’re intersex?

What if the character deals with canon trauma/issue the same way that RL people with it would? They’re in therapy and may take meds.

What if X character was Jewish? Muslim? Pagan? Atheist?

What if X character was deaf/HoH or blind? What if they were mute or autistic? What if they had arthritis or needed a wheelchair?

None of these tweaks to canon are seen as inherently inferior, even if there are already a canon character who might have that particular diversity trait. Or at least I haven’t seen anyone complaining about fic writers doing so, unless the writer made something that is outright bad representation or a prejudiced trope. And then, they’re calling out the bad/harmful rep and not the change from canon.

It’s acknowledged that changing a character in such a way adds diversity.

You start with 10 WASP characters, take away 2, and add 2 diversed characters, you’re gonna be left with 8 WASPs and 2 diversed. If you were starting with 10 WASPs and 4 diversed, when you take away 2 WASPs and add that to the diversed group, you will get a higher number of diversed characters just the same as you would when starting with 0.

That’s how math works.

Clint Barton isn’t less deaf because Echo exists.

James Rhodes isn’t less Black because Sam Wilson is as well.

Ana Jarvis doesn’t spontaneously become fertile just because Natasha Romanoff isn’t.

Spock isn’t less Jewish if James Kirk is.

John Rainbird isn’t less Native if Charlie is, too.

And the Patil twins aren’t less Desi if Harry Potter is.

Neither is Dean Thomas and Angelina Johnson less Black if Hermione Granger is.

It is not taking away diversity to change a character’s traits like this. When an author adds diversity to the characters they want to write, they aren’t taking away anything from the characters they don’t but who has the diversity in canon. Those characters still exist, elsewhere in canon if not in a particular fic, and they aren’t less what they were just because they’re not in a particular fic.

That’s not how math works.

I know it’s a big joke that writers can’t do math, but it’s time to lay this argument to rest. It’s not a debatable point because there’s nothing to debate. There is nothing inherently wrong with racebending a character just like there hasn’t been anything inherently wrong with any other kind added diversity.

Adding diversity will always add to number of diversed characters.

After all, that is how math works.

[alrightsnaps]

i am VERY sorry for the rant and i usually manage to be patient but is anyone else getting so fed up with some saphne stans (on twitter especially) ??? like jesus christ i have seen some of their tweets sayin they were waiting for people to hate on jonny because he hasn’t talked about simone in his latest interview (and because people sent hate to regé for not talking about phoebe apparently at the time so jonny deserves the same treatment in their eyes) and im just like ???? it’s not jonny’s fault regé got hate? even if jonny or simone don’t talk about each other in a single interview, it doesn’t mean it’s something bad? and it’s kinda weird how the same rege stans say jonny is completely privileged when clearly being an openly gay man can be extremely dangerous because 80% of cis white straight people cannot accept diversity. i am just tired of these stans. all they do is being negative towards jonny (as if he could control how people perceive rege or him for that matter) or season 2 or kathony like…just drop it?? kate and anthony have always been popular so sending hate to the actors isn’t going to change things lmao. that said i am just going to block them at this point because istg they’re so tiring. so tiring and sorry for the rant lol.

Whaaaaat, I thought we had put Saphne stans behind us by now... isn't the Bridgerton twitter fandom like 90% polin stans?

This is total fucking bullshit. Regé or Jonathan would deserve to be criticised (emphasis on the word criticised, not being sent hate by trolls on twitter) if they were heavily prioritised in promotion over their co-stars, but as far as I remember both Regé and Phoebe have done individual covers and photoshoots, as well as a shared one for Vogue, so the hate is just absurd. As for Jonathan, the GQ photoshoot has literally been the first piece of promo either of the s02 leads have gotten so far. He definitely deserves it as the male lead, just like Regé before him!

I'd get criticism towards Nicola, who's become the face of the show in spite of being a secondary character and given covers in EW and Elle, but bashing Jonny for finally getting some visibility when he's been practically nonexistent in all the promo material for his and Simone's season?

Don't even get me started on how it's apparently cool to pretend gay men are just as privileged as your next straight dude (I wonder where that energy was when Luke N featured in the EW photoshoot even though he's a total rando at this point, being neither a protagonist or a particularly popular minor character).

If a few weeks pass and we don't see Simone getting a similar treatment and her own cover and photoshoots I'll be the first to call it out, but maybe just give it more than ONE DAY??

[bisluthq]

That's the thing about people who are not from Asia, you all talk about privileged as if you really know the definition of it haha!

You might consider yourself poor but here in the Philippines, you will know what the poor really looks like. I just probably so fed up with how you judge people. I experienced not being able to buy new shoes to school, just wore slippers did you experienced that? But I'm not being bitchy about this people. Anyway, shame!

Bro I’m literally from Africa lmfao do you genuinely think I don’t know people who didn’t have money for shoes? I do. That’s why I acknowledge my own privilege.

I really encourage you to read some local academics that talk about class and also like… Angela Davis because everyone should read Angela Davis.

At the end of the day believe what you want, but no I haven’t formed my current opinions by living in a bubble. I’ve like fucking watched friends be arrested at Fees Must Fall protests, I’ve run from the cops (while knowing as a decent looking white girl I’ll probably be fine), I’ve had a gun pointed at me in an activist space specifically because I’m overprivileged. Like I promise you I do know, and I am aware that my life is like 100x better than most people’s and because of that I recognize that it is easier for me to do stuff than it is for other people. Pointing that out in others isn’t shaming them or insulting them or hurting them. Privilege can’t hurt anyone. And everyone pretty much has some. And that’s okay, but acknowledging it is important because acting like other people must just “work harder” is not it tbh. Like no it’s easier to do stuff if you’re white and ~comfortable and straight and male and cis and able bodied and neurotypical and Christian (or Muslim in Muslim majority countries or Jewish in Israel) and thin and good looking and shit.

It doesn’t make you lazy, but it’s just… true.

[sotorubio]

I'm really confused cus ppl are attacking tiff for taking control of her life, saying she doesn't need to be rescued. I thought that's a good thing? But people are saying it's fake feminism because she was so mean to lola before. But isn't that the whole point of skam? People have this "shame" in their life that they grow from? Like how everyone wanted lola to be forgiven for stuff she did to other people in s6, (eliott, lucas, daphne, etc ,) because she had her own struggles but had grown /was growing from it? But with tiff we're not supposed to support her? It's hilarious how people have decided there's a right and a wrong way to react to clips and it you don't fit the "right" reaction box then you're some kind of heathen 😔

well if we're talking real life ofc something like that is a good thing, finding ur strength after going through trauma is always good n a common "feminist" trope is that a girl recognizes that she needs no man or whatever. i haven't been that active on here recently so i haven't seen the reactions to it but this season has not been a feminist one in the least no matter how many catchphrases they throw in there

above all this season is abt a cis, white, straight and rich girl so. failed step one. ppl need to understand that if feminism isn't intersectional it's worthless n this doesn't just mean they should've picked someone else for the role (which they should've, but there's more to it) u can't make a feminist season abt a white girl if ur gonna villanize all ur woc especially the black women. u can't make a feminist season abt a cishet, rich girl if ur gonna make the bisexual poor girl ignore the fact that this is the person who played w her trauma just a year before. u can't make a feminist season abt a rich girl if the previous season she was overworking her privilege to show how classist she was (which the fans love to forget bc they don't see poor ppl as oppressed lol) and again u can't make a feminist season abt a white girl if all her Cool Feminist Moments only happen when she's talking to a black man such as her snarky "that wasn't an invitation" when aurélien tried to kiss her or her physically attacking him bc he? cares abt their daughter? being consider a Powerful Mom Thing

if all this didn't exist sure it would be considered feminist for her to not need saving, but when we put it in the context of literally everything else we can see that this is yet another poor attempt at taking a cliché feminist phrase that u could see written by a male avengers movie director for woke points. ppl need to understand that tiff has huge amounts of privilege over both aurélien (being white) n max (being cis) so her being a woman doesn't even automatically place her social status "beneath" these men. even just outside of fandom shit ppl should understand that supporting certain women will inherently be anti feminist, just bc ur cheering on a woman doesn't make u feminist.

then second abt the shame thing & lola. the "shame" in all skam seasons has always been smth "innate" due to the lack of a better world. smth that the society shames u for. the isak seasons r abt being gay bc society makes ppl ashamed of gayness, but u don't think being gay is a "shame" do u? neither is being a muslim, but the sana seasons r abt that bc again the "shame" is smth society perpetuates. the fact that tiff was "mean to lola" (she was a classist, she told her to kill herself, she made her trauma n mental illness into her own little joke) is not her "shame" bc that was her choice....that's smth she chose to do she isn't misunderstood or oppressed bc she hates poor ppl lmao. if they made made a season abt the nico character would u say his shame is sexual harassment? i doubt it. bc that's not smth he's involuntarily shamed for that's an action he chose to take.

also tiff n lola's "forgiveness" or lack thereof isn't comparable. first of all i'm not sure why u mentioned lucas? she never rly did anything to him but he on the other hand has a shitload to apologize for to her. abt eliott & daphné i also don't quite understand bc as for daphné they had a mutually toxic sibling dynamic, both failing at communication n treating each other badly but like.. even in that situation daphné was literally stalking her sister so again not sure what blame lola has on her here. n for eliott i also don't get what she should've apologized for like if u mean the club clips then u r in the wrong place bc lola didn't even do anything bad other than be rude which every other character is also guilty of smfjlskd

like see the difference? tiff & lola's conflict wasn't mutual, tiff chose to harass n stalk her based on nothing at all, she was only able to do that bc of the privilege n power she (a white cishet rich girl) has over lola (a bisexual mentally ill poor girl). i don't see how those two r in any way comparable.

so i guess that's my explanation for it. as for ur last point i do agree i don't know why it's anyone else's problem how others react to clips but even then i do think we need to understand that skam remakes take pride in their "diversity" n "representation" so sometimes certain reactions actually r objectively wrong. like saying "i liked this clip" or "i didn't like this clip" is all cool n no one should get hate for that but if ppl watch a clip where certain stereotypes r used unironically n their decision is to actually enforce the harmful message n not waste any of their three braincells for critical thinking bc It'S jUsT FiCtiOn then u r not immune to me thinking ur a brainless idiot