#moving on from their misogyny and moving on to. i don’t know. homophobia i guess

[comfychomps]

wait damn i just realized why is stellan and mochi rated so badly lmfao

[aizenat]

I’ve been listening to Reddit stories recently and like there’s this one where a man is talking about how he thinks his wife is in love with her female best friend. He talks about how his wife is the love of his life but cold and shy and doesn’t have a lot of sex and shit and he thought that was just her until some hs friend came back into town whom he never met or heard about until this. And his wife is apparently so much happier and bubblier since she came into play and how she spends so much time with the friend. He eventually finds an old picture of them from hs and they are apparently hugging like a couple and he felt like there was more.

When he eventually confronts his wife, she admits that her and her best friend did date in hs but that when her parents found out they beat her and forced them to break up. Her friend moved and that was that. She met op and while she “loves him like a friend,” she doesn’t really love him overly and she even says when they met her parents pressured her into marrying him. They also live in a conservative country. Based on some language he used, I’m guessing either Mexico or Brazil, though I’m leaning towards the latter. You know, countries where gay bashing and shit is common and OP was the type where she wouldn’t be able to move out of her abusive family home without getting married. And she says when he says he wants a divorce and to take everything that she’ll have to move back with her parents.

For her, she doesn’t understand why anything needs to change because it’s not like her actions or behaviors have changed and she wasn’t cheating on him with her bff. Obviously it’s not good to stay together, but I have so much sympathy for this woman who literally had her sexuality beaten and shamed out of her and felt she had no other choice but to marry a man.

But of course because we live in a patriarchy, everyone is vilifying the wife. Despite the man saying they live in a religious and conservative country and that she’d been beaten by her parents for being with a woman before. And that they pressured her into the marriage. But she’s a “morally” bankrupt person for doing it. It’s so annoying how obnoxiously homophobic and sexist this world is.

When stories of men being with women then coming out as gay and the relationship with the woman being a lie and cover for his sexuality comes out, everyone is all sympathetic to the man. Well he just couldn’t come out and his family and society expect him to be a husband and a man’s man and all this shit. No one vilifies him at least and laments in what a horrible person he is for “deceiving” his wife and shit. And if he had kids, god forbid he have kids who are mad their gay dad suddenly wants to break the family up then the kids are the little selfish shithead brats. But never the man.

And let alone the fact that the pressure on women in societies, especially ultra conservative ones, to marry and have kids is such that it’s barely a choice. If you have parents low key threatening to hurt or do worse to you if you don’t marry a man and not be gay (essentially), and you do just that, then as a woman, YOU’RE the horrible and cruel person.

The lack of sympathy this world had for women is so disgusting and frustrating. It’s the very reason why women don’t complain and put up with and tolerate so much shit. Because no one had sympathy for us. And when you add other marginalized identities in that—being black or brown, being gay, being gnc, etc etc—then you get even less empathy.

This world is filled with psychopaths who try desperately to make men look like sweet little puppy dogs while men are the ultimate evil shrews looking to figure out how they can make men’s lives miserable or some shit. Y’all live in a fucking dream world that doesn’t exist just so your unchecked misogyny and homophobia is never challenged seriously. Fuck anyone who said that woman was wrong for marrying that man. If he wanted a more affectionate wife he should have looked for one. You “accepted” she wasn’t that affectionate or sexual with you until you saw she could be that way with a woman and then want to cry foul. And leaving her with nothing in the divorce and knowing you’ll be sending her back to her homophobic parents who are just going to pressure (force) her to marry another man is spiteful, vindictive, and disgusting. But no, she’s apparently the monster.

This is why I go so hard for women and will excuse them for almost everything they do. Because we are NOT equals in this world and pretending we are is only HURTING women.

[castielmacleod]

the thing with destiel is how actually heteronormative it is as perceived by the shippers. the need in creating gender roles in a gay ship, the desire for a heternormative like ending with dean and cas' character where they get married, have kids and shit. if i wanted to watch that i'd just watch it a casual straight romance, not this boring ass heteronormative narrative that got slapped into a gay ship. and it is so projecting too... and it's very telling. they imagine destiel to be like this because that's what the shippers want to have themselves, pure projecting and nothing else that much and just boring undertones.

No you’re honestly really correct. Like I know heIIers will swear up and down that D*stiel can’t be heteronormative because it’s two men and I men… yes and no. Because yes it’s two men, but the way you’re treating them in your little invented narrative is so fucking mad that it genuinely seems heteronormative, and that’s in the best case scenario. Worst case scenario is that it’s just flagrantly homophobic lmfao. That is my official Gay Man™ opinion here.

Because it’s not even *just* the idea of two men being married and having a family that’s heteronormative (as unsettling as the whole D*stiel white picket fence thing is—I’ll get to that). It’s the bizarre spin heIIers tend to put on the aforementioned men’s dynamic, and it makes me feel insane.

Readmore for length lol

Like I can’t count how many times I’ve come across D*stiel posts that are supposed to be funny? I think? Where the joke is that Dean feels the need to either “be”, or to treat Cas like, “the woman” in their relationship. Like it’s Dean being weird about who does the housework or takes out the trash, or being all “old ball and chain” about Cas, or Cas being Dean’s “wife”, and shit like that. That is heteronormative as well as homophobic in my opinion, not to mention reductive as hell. But aye sure even Dean’s gross misogyny and homophobia has to be woobified I guess 😐

If these jokes are coming from actual mlm then that’s one thing (still not anything I’m into, still indicative of more than a few issues, but… it’s one thing). A lot of the time though this stuff is just straight up coming from f/u/j/o/s/h/i types which means not only is it heteronormative and homophobic but now it’s also a fetish thing. Especially when it comes to men expressing femininity in any way shape or form, or at least expressing what said fetishists think is feminine for men (i.e. bottoming during sex). It all makes me feel so gross tbh I don’t even want to get into it really.

Then there’s the glaring fact that the two men heIIers are cramming into this Stepford white picket fence ice cream sundae family barbecue suburban Americana rubbish in the first place, are Castiel and Dean Winchester, and that makes it even more insanity-inducing to me personally. Cas is a billions of years old angel. Dean is both a serial killer and a serial abuser. I literally can’t think of a trope more ill-fitting for either of them, especially for Dean. Happy, married, dad!Dean is wildly ooc and quite obviously pure unfettered self-indulgence on the part of Dean fans who just wanted him to be happy for whatever reason, and like. Self-indulgence is fine! We all do it! But let’s call it what it is!

Something that’s also self-indulgence is the “with kids” angle because every aspect of it is just…. simply not what it is in the show. Like obviously there’s the whole making Jack a literal baby thing but in particular my jaw simply drops when not only is someone posting about suburban domestic D*stiel, but is also implying that Claire moves in with them and is just literally their daughter or something?? You have to be wilfully ignorant of soooo many things, not least of all everything Jody’s done for Claire, to make that work and it just blows my mind that people can write this stuff without batting an eye. But if you’ve already invented a completely new Dean anyway then I guess everything’s in the air isn’t it.

There’s also something to be said about how the apparent *epitome* of a happy, peaceful ending for any and all fictional characters is Stepford white picket fence ice cream sundae family barbecue suburban Americana rubbish. But that’s for another essay 😭

[blouptalking]

Run Away With Me, Girl

Kakeochi Girl

Battan

19 chapters (finished)

drama, romance, slice of life

TW: abusives relationship, internalized homophobia, misogyny, nudity, rape

“Maki's first love was her high school classmate, a girl named Midori. But Midori broke up with Maki at graduation, saying they were now "too old to be fooling around dating girls." Ten years later, Maki still can’t get Midori off her mind, and when the two women reconnect after a chance encounter, Maki realizes that, while her feelings haven’t changed, Midori has long moved on—in fact, she's engaged. Yet the more Maki hears Midori talk about her soon-to-be-husband, the more red flags she notices. And Midori has another secret, one she hasn’t yet shared with Maki. Will it be the last blow to Maki's hopes that their romance might be rekindled? Or will it be the push that sets them on a new path—one they'll travel together?”

(resume from Kodansha USA)

Story: 7/10

Second GL I read about some sort of infidelity where one of them is already married (or will soon be married in this case). Is this a common trope is GL Josei? Maybe... I don’t really know. I don't really appreciate NTR or anything that tries to excuse cheating (like Even Though We’re Adults) but for this story, it does seem different. I’m not saying that the man deserved to get cheated on, but he kinda does, taking into account that he is misogynistic (and probably in agreement with andrew t*te ideals). He’s just such a big asshole. The drama is really interesting in this manga and everything moves smoothly. It doesn’t feel rushed, even if the story is short. The topics discussed are interesting and well written. The three main characters being cowards and saying so on each page seemed somewhat repetitive and annoying (yes we get it, you feel lonely and you’re a pussy, me too but please stop…). What I didn't appreciate was how Tama justified his actions and toxic behaviour toward Midori, because he had some "childhood trauma". This made me very uncomfortable like… Side eye…

Cast: 7/10

A very good cast. There are characters that you may like and characters that you may hate (Tama). Midori’s coworker was such a bitch. I wish she had a bad ending, but unfortunately she didn't. She was just a nuisance. Except for that, I didn't understand the character of Midori until chapter 11. At the beginning I really felt like she was really just fooling around, taking advantages of Momo and her affection, but I guess I was wrong. It might have been better if her character had developed sooner.

Art: 6/10

Again, not my favorite type of art but it is still very pretty and easy to understand.

Enjoyment: 6/10

Really enjoyed this story. A very well written and strong intrigue. It is a very good GL which explores a lot of triggering topics but important and modern in our society at this time.

Overall: 8/10

[ilynotes]

okay i first want to say i really really like your take on the whole superhero situation in season 4 because i have never seen anyone view it like that before and it actually puts a whole new perspective on a lot of things. specifically mike restricting el’s independence too, because i feel as though most of the main audience, including mike&el shippers, don’t actually pick up on that when it’s sort of been a theme for a few seasons now. the most popular take on that situation was that mike reduces el to her powers, yet there was always a part of me that felt like that take was off in some way. like, the idea of mike “losing feelings” for her once she loses her powers just felt very fake and not in character for mike at all. but as established in season 4, el’s entire arc is independence and her learning to love herself and choose herself and make choices of her own. which backs up your take very well. we see that with dr. owens offering her the choice of going to nina or going home, and previously in s3 with max helping el discover herself outside of mike and hopper. el choosing to be a superhero on her own violation makes SO much sense and i really love that for her.

i’ve personally never been a fan of the idea that mike never held feelings for el because i always thought it was too much and didn’t make sense but honestly i definitely can see your pov of him using her as a way to try and grow up faster and hide from his sexuality. because if there’s any internalized homophobia coding mike has it definitely comes from s3-s4 most obviously. pointing out that he might’ve realized something at the end of s2 falls in line with that very well. it also gives explanation to probably the biggest question everybody in the main audience has about mike’s character: and that’s why does he act so different in s3-4 compared to s1-2? why is he almost a completely different person, going from being there for will and looking out for him, to shutting him down and being mean, etc. ? like you said, mike never had problems sticking up for will against homophobic remarks in s1, so something has to happen to cause such a transition of that to his own homophobic remark during their fight in s3. and while i think that honestly is genuinely just an unfortunate product of boys growing up and slowly being fed things like misogyny, homophobia, etc. which would especially be more prominent in the 80s, mike still realizes his mistake after he says it to will, and immediately tries to fix it. so it’s not like he isn’t self-aware of his actions and where they’re coming from. especially if where it’s coming from is a place of fear and confusion.

i guess rather than thinking mike realized his feelings during the pre-s4 period, you could say he just sort of came more to terms with it? via him going back to his interests and the things that made him comfortable in himself and actually embracing himself and his self-expression. that or maybe you could argue him going back to d&d was definitely his way of showing he misses will since his and el’s absence both definitely probably forced him to confront his personal feelings for them both more.

i also want to point out something in regards to you mentioning him at the end of s3: i had rewatched the ending scene to season 3 just the other day, and i noticed that the camera focuses on mike’s reaction to the byers moving away specifically, and nobody else’s. like, the camera slowly zooms in on his reaction, and he is the only one that lingers there behind everyone for a few seconds, looking back at the house, etc. you’d think we’d also get lucas and dustin or even max’s reactions but they only really put a strong emphasis on mike’s. definitely trying to show to the audience that something more’s going on with him than we think or can see.

so you’re kinda based!!! i definitely love these theories because it puts a new perspective on all the seasons and really mixes things up. i’m definitely curious to know what exactly is planned for season 5 in regards to this situation with mike; if they’ll make him reveal he’s known something about himself the whole time and he can’t force himself to love el, or if his feelings for her faded away and he feels guilty for having those feelings for will instead.

honestly the whole mike being gay theory kind of parallels el’s character story in a way as well, with how they’re both slowly learning to accept themselves for who they are and that there is nothing about them that makes them bad or wrong. it definitely provides solidarity to platonic elmike which i’m a sucker for. :)

i think people have been very deeply misinterpreting mikes character and struggles in s4. his relationship problems with el aren’t about him “trying to be normal” and fearing abnormality, it’s about his codependency and his fears of being alone.

mike wants to be someone’s favorite person. he wants to be someone’s special person. he wants someone to need him, to rely on him, just as he can do the same to them. i see a lot of people say mike needs to learn it’s okay to not be needed because you can still be wanted without being needed, and sometimes that's enough, but i disagree. i don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be needed, because that’s what literally all of us want deep down. it’s easy to be wanted by anybody. to be loved by anyone. to be liked by someone. but to have somebody love you so much that they need you in their life, that they need you around, and cannot live easy without the presence and love you give them — that’s a whole different thing. to need each other is a much more intense and raw form of love. when mike tells will so many times that he “keeps telling himself el still needs him,” but he “doesn’t believe it” that he thinks they really might not come back from this fight, will tries to reassure him and say, no, of course she needs you. how could she not? but will is misreading els feelings for mike, when the truth is, mike is right. she doesn’t need him anymore. not in the way she used to or the way he wants her to. and that’s a soul crushing thing for anyone; to realize the person that made you feel like you had a purpose, that looked at you like you were something so special, that made you feel larger than life — doesn’t feel that way anymore.

the thing about mike is he doesn’t know how to live for himself, he doesn’t want to. he lives and shines when he has someone to love with his whole being, and to lose something like that is worse than dying. mike is so codependent on el because he so desperately does not want to lose her, does not want to lose himself through the process of losing her, he is terrified of her not needing him anymore because if he isn’t needed then who is he? where is he supposed to go? so he projects onto el and desperately wants to believe that el needs him the way he needs her. but she doesn’t.

mike doesn’t realize will is that special person for him, he doesn’t realize will is the one that needs him the way he wants to be needed and desired. that will cannot live easily without mike in his life, just like how mike couldn’t live easily without will and el in his. and el and mikes relationship isn’t toxic, or fake, either. el loves mike, she always has. but she doesn’t really need him the way he does. and mike needs el, but does he love her the way she does?

i just think people have been missing the point. mikes feelings and actions make sense when you consider everything he’s bottling up and worrying about inside. it’s hard to read how he feels when he hides everything but what he wants more than anything else is to belong, to be loved and needed so unconditionally, to have that special relationship with someone. he’s deeply insecure of himself and always worrying he isn’t enough, he craves reassurance, he tries so hard to be enough and hide from his fears of being alone or rejected that he fucks everything up. mike doesn’t even have all his feelings and emotions figured out for himself — so of course it’d be hard for us to understand them too.

[hoediaz]

who is agn? i've seen loads of posts about 'her' but idk who she is or what's going on

sorry to be an absolute bitch but she is the worst blog on this website for real. putting this under a read more so people who don’t suffer rage black outs don’t have to deal with this.

chelsea mentioned some of her highlights before which include some overt racism and homophobia but last night she really decided to up her game. first, she spent weeks pulling the word retcon out of her ass and slapping it on every plot point she doesn’t like or understand instead of rubbing together two brain cells to even attempt to comprehend how narratives might work (including eddie ana’s break up since, according to her, eddie was Clearly in love with ana in 4x13 during the follow your heart scene and yet at the same time he was a misogynist and treated her terribly :/ did you know panic attacks are misogynistic? shame all those panic attacks i’ve had have been out of misogyny and not mental illness if only i had known id be able to attend agn’s school of feminism and cure myself). but then with the end of bt (aka the departure of her most beloved girl boss who can do no wrong, since i don’t think she cares about bt at all past taylor since she actively hates buck) (and yet. while she hates buck she never treats him with the same vitriol she gives eddie. now i’d say that’s racism but according to her eddie’s white so! guess it’s texas phobic or something :/) she went completely off the rails.

part of this was of course! saying it was a retcon despite the multiple references to dosed but what can we expect from someone who learned the word retcon last week and never bothered to dig up the meaning. it’s ok i get it i did the same in the ninth grade with words like pathetic fallacy and i don’t think you need anything higher than a ninth grade education to work at fox news. anyway! that led to saying anyone celebrating the bt break up is a misogynist! bc idk if you knew this but apparently 911 is the taylor kelly show and everything should be about HER development, not buck’s, and if you celebrate buck’s development you’re a woman hater just like eddie ❤️ now EYE am actually a woman hater because i think taylor kelly and owen strand should move to ohio together to start a bed and breakfast, the bt bones celebration was just a bonus.

and when that wasn’t enough absolute bullshit stupidity for one night, she decided to use her time to type out a post onto oliver stark’s internet in which she called buck a “dirty firefighter” for not wanting his gf to report on an incident that involved his family, equating him to dirty cops that protect other corrupt cops. because that’s a totally fucking proportional reaction to having your fictional ship break up, because police corruption is not a genuine thing that happens in real life and impacts real people who aren’t taylor fucking kelly. i fr even hours later don’t even have the words to put together to express how fucking stupid and insensitive and offensive that is. it is genuinely beyond me how you could ever in your life see a FICTIONAL couple break up and become so fucking unhinged you think it’s ok to make light of real issues to force a fictional character into some make believe villain role just so you can avenge a side character on a ryan murphy production. get some fucking help for real.

anyway last night when she posted i reblogged it calling her an idiot and she immediately blocked me, just like she blocked every other person who tried to reblog it to point out how offensive that was which is always a good sign that you’re being rational.

oh also she said taylor and lucy should be together which was just personally offensive to me, a lucy understander, and then also, since miss agn can’t go three seconds without being generally offensive, she has to say taylor/lucy would be better than buddie bc buck and eddie are [checks notes] white men and taylor and lucy are oh dear…. yeah :/

in conclusion agn is racist, homophobic, terminally fucking stupid, and also cowardly to boot and i hope she has an absolutely terrible day. i hope fox news fires her. i hope megan west never has a job again just to spite agn. bt is finally bones and the fact that that makes agn feral is all i need, get fucked agn.

[azaleavi]

Woman Like Me Part 2 - Bucky Barnes

Summary: y/n gets to talk to the person who gave her the serum and the others learn more about her

Set in the second half of episode 3 of tfatws

Warning(s): a little violence nothing too strong

Word count: 2.5K

Author’s Note: Part 2 is finally here! Thank you so much for loving part 1, i didn’t expect so many people to like it! I’m actually pretty proud of this part and i would love to write a part 3 and actually make this a series if you like it so give me feedback or tell me what you would like to see in the next part. Thank you!

Part 1

“Okay I have clients coming in a few minutes so enjoy the party and stay out of trouble” Sharon stands up, walking out of the room.

“Trouble” Zemo holds up his glass of whiskey.

“I think we should change” y/n looks at the clothes hanging by the wall, noting that they are still wearing their combat clothes. She can see multiple dresses but there are men’s clothes as well.

They all change out of their older clothes, the men giving y/n space to do it. She chose a simple black dress, appropriate for a party and she looks mesmerising. Bucky couldn’t see with the tactical gear on but she has a really nice figure which makes him stare at her a little longer than he should. Sam notices and decides to speak up.

“You clean up nice y/n” he smiles at her. This shakes Bucky out of his staring, realising what he was doing.

“Thanks. I’ve never really wore something like this before… you know with the whole Harcos thing and all” she shows a small smile.

“By the way, what language is that? I’ve never heard it before” Sam furrows his eyebrows, confused.

“Oh, it’s Hungarian, it means warrior” she rolls her eyes, clearly not amused by the name “I’m hungarian so I guess they thought it was fitting”

“Ah Hungary, what a nice place” Zemo speaks up “nice people too”

“If misogyny, racism and homophobia is nice to you I guess you’re right” y/n sends a sarcastic smile to him.

“We should go up into the party” Bucky intervenes before the conversation can escalate.

“Won’t people recognise you?” Sam asks y/n.

“Nah, I had a mask when I was forced to do the things I did. Not many people got to see my face and lived to tell about it” Bucky shudders, knowing exactly what she was talking about. Sam nods, holding the door open for her “thank you Sam”

The party is already in full swing, groups of people dancing to the music and others looking at the artwork that is displayed across the room. The three men with y/n walk over to the bar, trying to not bring any attention to themselves. They order drinks while waiting for Sharon to get the information. Bucky catches y/n looking at him from where she is sitting. He lifts his eyebrows in question.

“What are you looking at?” he shouts over the loud music.

“You” she is teasing him. He knows it, but that doesn’t mean he can’t play along with her.

“And what about me is so interesting that it got you looking at me instead of the party that’s happening around you?” Bucky tilts his head.

”That will be my secret” she winks at him. Bucky feels like he can’t breath for a second. She suddenly drowns her drink in one swift motion and stands up “I’m assuming you don’t want to dance with me” she grins.

“How can you even dance to music like this?” he asks, genuinely confused. The music back in his days was much better and what they did was actually dancing and not this… thing they are doing now. She looks away laughing. Her eyes catch something that makes her laugh even more.

“I think you should ask Zemo about that” she points at the man showing rather questionable dance moves. Bucky looks at him barely being able to hold his own laughter “well I’ll go mingle with the prime citizens of Madripoor” she does a small wave with her hand, walking away. Bucky watches her leave and doesn’t take his eyes off of her until she disappears in the crowd.

“Does our cyborg man have a crush?” Sam speaks up, having watched the whole interaction between them. Bucky whips his head in his direction, just realising that the other man was there the whole time.

“Definitely not” he answers “we were just talking”

“Talking? Sounded awful lot like flirting to me” Sam grins, making fun of the older man.

“We were not flirting” Bucky shakes his head and looks away to watch the crowd again. Sam only smiles to himself and stops pushing because Sharon appears next to them.

Y/N walks through the dancing people, just looking around and trying to absorb everything. She has never been to a party before, at least not while she was in control of her actions. She caught sight of Zemo again, who was still dancing. It was weird to see the very dangerous criminal just tearing it up on the dance floor. Suddenly someone grabs her hand from behind and turns her around. She almost hits the stranger in the head, but she quickly realises that it’s Bucky holding her. The crowd around them continues dancing, not paying any mind to the two super-soldiers standing among them.

“Hi” she smiles at him. They are standing so close to each other that their chests are almost touching and he is still holding her hands to his chest. Y/n has to tilt her head up so she can look in his eyes. She’s never been this close to a man before that wasn’t during a fight or in a threatening situation. She decides she likes it. Y/n doesn’t know if it’s because it’s Bucky who’s here with her or she would feel like this with any man, but she suddenly gets the urge to stand on her tiptoes and press her lips to his “You came here to dance with me?” she jokingly asks to get the image out of her head.

“You will have to wait for another party for that, Sharon got the information we need so we have to go” Bucky looks into her eyes his pupils slightly dilated, almost as if he was thinking the same thing. He starts lightly pulling her along, out of the crowd.

The next morning they are walking through the containers looking for the one that has Dr. Nagel in it.

“Okay this is the one” Sharon stops them in front a container. She hands them earpieces. Y/n feels a little nervous about meeting the man who turned her into what she is today. Bucky notices her fidgeting and puts his hand on her shoulder to reassure her. She gives him a small smile, grateful that he is here for her. She is wearing the same tactical gear she did when they first met which, crazy enough, was only yesterday. They walk through the door only to find it completely empty. Sam asks Sharon if she is sure it’s the right one and she tells them that it has to be. Zemo walks to the end of it and pushes only to find a hidden door.

“Fancy” y/n remarks, walking through it after Sam. They walk up the stairs and find a lab with music playing from a record player. Sam takes the needle off the record. Nagel turns around, scared.

“Dr. Nagel? We know you created the super-soldier serum” Sam says calmly.

“Get out of my lab” Nagel starts walking towards the door, but then sees Y/n standing there with a gun in her hand. The anger in her eyes is enough to stop him “Harcos” he says and she grits her teeth together.

“Do not call me that” she tries to stay calm.

“Jelentsd a feladatod, Harcos” he starts talking in Hungarian. State your mission, Warrior. She falters for a second, not having heard her language in a while. Selby only talked to her in English. Bucky looks at her worried as she points her gun at Nagel and takes the safety off.

“Az nem fog megtörténni” she answers. Not gonna happen. Sam looks between them, also worried for her. He thinks they shouldn’t have brought her with them, they didn’t think this through. What if Nagel knows the words and uses her against them? “Now why don’t you tell us about the serum you’re working on?” she switches back to English and pushes him back into a chair, her gun still pointed at him.

“I was brought into Hydra’s Winger Soldier program to pick up their work” he starts talking “after that I was recruited by the CIA. They had a blood sample that had semi-stable traces of serum in it” he looks at y/n who is still pointing her gun at him but this time he doesn’t cower in fear “after much labour, I was able to isolate the necessary compounds in it and that’s when I made her. The only successful outcome from over 40 tries” he stops for a second and Bucky can see a hint of something in his eyes. Before he can pin point what it is Nagel speaks again “Tizenhét” he says suddenly and y/n is immediately in front of him with her gun under his chin. Seventeen. The look in her eyes show that she is ready to kill.

“Say another word and you get a bullet in your head” she says through her teeth trying really hard to not shoot him right then and there.

“What did he say?” Sam asks not understanding the reaction from her.

“What do you call it? Trigger word?” Nagel smiles at her even though his life is on the line. The three men tense at the mention of that. Bucky steps next to her and for a moment she thinks he is going to pull her away but instead he also points his gun at Nagel.

“I will not hesitate” he says gesturing towards his gun.

“Do not worry, I only know the first word” he says, amused, but his eyes seem honest. They think about it for a second but pull their guns away from his head. Bucky looks at her, trying to catch her eyes. She looks back with a very small hint of tears in her eyes. He gets the urge to hug her but he knows he can’t do that right here so he only shows her a small encouraging smile.

“As I said: you try to say something about this and you won’t have time to finish that word” she starts walking away from Nagel “And you didn’t make me”she says as she stands next to a table, referring to his earlier statement “Continue” she orders him. So he does. He tells them about Karli and the woman called Donya Madani. He finishes with details about his serum, how it’s not like the ones before.

“I was a god” Nagel smiles like the crazy person he is “before I turned to dust and then Karli stole it” Y/n feels her angel boil and she lets it loose again.

“You are not a god” she shouts and slams her fist down on the table, a few vials falling down and breaking on the ground. Nagel flinches and tries to make himself smaller in his chair, immediately sensing the danger he is in. She lifts up her hand, realising that the table is now bent and you can see her fist’s outline in it “You are not a god” she repeats a little more calmly, but the anger can still be seen in her eyes “You never were and never will be. You just took in children who had nothing and tried to turn them into your version of the Winter Soldier” Bucky can’t help but feel like it’s his fault that she is in this situation. If the Winter Soldier didn’t exist y/n wouldn’t have had to go through these horrible things. She walks closer to the doctor “We were never asked if we wanted this. You told us it was some vaccine you were giving us and not the serum” while she is talking none of them see Zemo go around and get a gun from under one of the tables.

“Guys we are seriously out of time here” Sharon comes in and as soon as the rest of them don’t pay attention to Nagel, Zemo shoots him. Sam immediately takes the gun from him but it’s too late.

“What did you do?” he shouts at the other man but before he can answer the place blows up sending all of them backwards to the floor. Their ears are ringing and they can barely breathe. Zemo is the first to get up and he leaves them behind. Bucky gets back his senses quickly and searches for the rest to see if they are okay. Y/n is next to him trying to make sense of what happened and being a super-soldier she gets up at the same time as Bucky and helps Sam up while Bucky helps Sharon. They run outside as quickly as they can and realise that they are surrounded by people who are ready to kill them.

“Alright wait for my signal” Bucky speaks up, ready to take lead. Sam doesn’t listen to him and just runs out to take shelter “damn it” they start shooting with their pistols that they got from Sharon. Bucky stands next to y/n as his gun runs out of bullets. The both of them retreat to where Sam and Sharon are with y/n protecting his back.

“I thought we were gonna go left?” Bucky shouts at Sam.

“You went the wrong way” Sam answers, also shouting.

“I was clearing the way”

“I came out first. You were supposed to follow me”

“And where are we now” they go back and forth in the middle of the fight, like an old married couple.

“Can we talk about this later? We are kind of in the middle of something here!” Y/n interrupts them, trying to get them to focus. She and Sharon are still shooting.

“It’s in every action movie” the two men don’t even acknowledge her. Zemo appears on the top of a container in a purple mask and shoots at a pipe that blows up, giving the others enough time to get away. There are still people shooting at them as they run through the alleys. A man appears behind them and y/n kicks him hard enough that he flies across the open space and hits one of the containers. He falls to the ground unconscious. Another woman is in front of them and Bucky rips one of the pipes from the door and impales her with it. Y/n looks at him, impressed.

“You’ll have to teach me that” she grins. Bucky rolls his eyes, grabs her waist and pulls her inside. They punch the door open on the other side and Zemo shows up in a very nice looking car. It’s supercharged he says. Sam is ready to send him back to jail but Bucky reminds him that they need him to find Karli. Y/n agrees so she goes and sits behind Zemo. Bucky gets in the passenger seat while Sam sits next to her. They say goodbye to Sharon and Sam promises her that pardon. Before Zemo starts driving Bucky turns to y/n.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah” she answers with a little smile.

[comedicreliefonlyworkswhenfunny]

I am against the "Americanization" of fandoms.

What this applies to

Holding non American characters (and sometimes even fans) to an American moral standard. This includes

Refusing to take into account that, first things first, America is NOT the target audience, so certain tropes that would or would not pass in the west are different in Japan.

Like seriously, quite a few of the jokes are just not going to pass or hit, because they require background information that is not universal.

Assuming all American experience is standard. (This could mean watering down just how much pressure is placed on Japanese youth irl by saying that sort of thing is universal (while it is, to a degree, Japanese suicide rates are pretty fucking high because of how fast paced and work heavy some of their loads tend to be), and it's really annoying and rude when someone is trying to speak out about how heavy and harsh the standards are placed on them to succeed just for some American whose mom occasionally yells at them to do their homework dropping by to say "it's like that everywhere")

Demonizing (or wubbifying) a character using American morals, including and up to harassing fans over their interpretations or gatekeeping whether or not a character "should" get development (while you shouldn't do that fucking period, it's rude and annoying- this is specifically for the people who use American standards without acknowledging the cultural gap between them and, you know, the fucking target audience) ((Like seriously, saying "It's different in Japan" is not the end all be all excusing someone's actions, but sometimes the author didn't immediately think that maybe (insert vaguely universal thing) was that bad or that heavy of a topic before they put it into their media. If you don't want to see things like that? Pick a different series and stop harassing the fans))

Getting mad at or making fun of Japan's attempts to satirize their own culture. (A good example is Ace Attorney! To most of us, it's just a funny laugh can you imagine if courts were actually like that- guess what? Japan's are! (Not that America's are actually that much better, they just look good on paper))

Making America/American issues the center of your fan spaces

(Usually without sharing or bringing light to the issues that other countries are going through)

Your

Experiences

Are

Not

Univseral!

Seriously, very few things across America, even, are universal. Texas things the hundreds are nothing while Minnesota's like "oh it's only thirty degrees below zero"- so for fucks sake, stop assuming that all other countries work in ways similar to America.

It's good and important to share Ameican issues with your American followers, but guess what? America isn't the only country out there, and it's certainly not the only one going through bullshit. Don't pull shit like "why's no one reblogging this?" or "why should I care about what's happening in (X country)?"

Don't assume everyone lives in America.

Stop assuming everyone lives in America.

America is not and has never been the target audience for anime, and it's certainly not the only country outside of Japan that enjoys it.

Like I said above, sometimes Japan attempts to satirize its own culture. We can't tell what is and isn't meant as satire, because it's not our culture.

Social media activism can be tiring and maybe you don't have the energy to focus on things that are out of your control, but, if someone tells you about the shit they're going through, don't bring American politics up.

For the neurodivergent crowd out there thinking, "But why?" it's because a lot of social media, especially, is very heavily Americanized- sometimes to the point where people assume that everyone is American. Not to mention, it's disheartening. I'm sorry to say, but you're not actually relating to the conversation, you're often diverting the focus away from the topic at hand. Even if you mean well, America is heavily pedestaled and talked about frequently, and people from other countries are tired of America taking precedent over their own issues.

Don't divert non-American issues into American ones. Seriously. It's not your place. Please just support the original issue or move on.

Racist Bullshit

This especially goes for islanders and South Asian characters, as well as poc characters (because, yes, Japan DOES have black people)

Making "funny" racist headcanons. Not fucking cool.

Changing the canon interpretation of an explicit character of color in order to fit racist stereotypes.

Whitewashing or color draining characters. Different artistic skill sets can be hard, yes, but are you seriously going to look at someone and say "I don't feel like accurately portraying you or people that look like you, because it's difficult for me." If someone tries to correct you on your cultural depiction of a character and/or their life style, don't be an ass. (If possible, it would be nice for those that do the corrections to be polite as well, but it does get really frustrating).

Seriously, no offense guys, but, if you want to persue art, you're going to need to learn to depict different body types, skin colors, and/or ethnic features.

On that note, purposefully, willingly, or consistently inaccurately portraying people or characters of color (especially if someone in the fandom has "called you out" or specifically told you that what you're doing comes across as racist and you continue to do it). If you need help or suck at looking things up, there are references for you! Ask your followers if they have tutorials on poc (issue that you're having), whether it be bodily portrayal, facial proportions, or coloring and shading. Art is so much more fun when you can depict a wider variety, and guess what? Before you drew the same skinny, basic, white character over and over, you couldn't even draw that!

Attempting or claiming to DEPECT CULTURAL ACCURACY within a work or meta, while being completely fucking wrong. ESPECIALLY and specifically if someone calls you out, and you refuse to fix, correct, or change anything.

*little side note that the discussion revolving art is a very multilayered conversation, and it has quite a few technical potholes, which I'll bring up again farther into this post.

Fucking history

Stop demonizing or for absolute fucks sake wubbifying Japanese history because UwU Japan ♡0♡ or bringing up shit like "you know they sided with Nazis, right?" It's good to recognize poor past decisions, but literally it's not your country keep your nose out of it. And? A lot of decisions made by countries were not made by their general peoples. Even those that were, often involved heavy propaganda that made them think what they were doing was right.

Seriously, it's not your country, not your history. Unless you have some sort of higher education (but honestly even then a lot of those contain heavy bias), just don't butt in.

^^^ this also goes to all countries that are NOT Japan (specifically when people from non American countries talk about their history while in fandoms and someone wants to Amerisplain to them why "well, actually-"). When we said, "question your sources," we didn't mean "question the people who know better than you, while blindly accepting the (more than likely biased) education you were given in the past."

What this does NOT include:

Fanfiction

FANfiction

FanFICTION

FANFICTION.

Seriously, fanfiction is literally UNPAID WORK from RANDOM FANS- a lot of which who are or have started as kids. ((No, I'm not trying to excuse racist depictions of people just because they're free, please see above where I talk about learning to grow a skill and how it's possible tone bad and get good, on top of the fact that some inaccuracies are not just willful ignorance))

"Looking it up" doesn't work

"Looking it up" almost never works

Please, for fucks sake, you know that most all online search engines are heavily biased, right? Not to mention, not everything is universal across the entirety of Japan. You want to look up how the school system works in Hokkaido? Well it's different from the ones in Osaka!

Most fanfiction is meant to be an idealized version of the world. Homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, and racism are very prevalent and heavy topics that some fan authors would prefer to avoid. (Keep in mind, this is also used by some people in those minorities often because thinking about how relevant those kinds of things are is to them every day).

A lot of shit that happens in writing is purely because it's an ideal setting. I've seen a few arguments recently about how fan authors portray Japanese schools wrong- listen, I can't tell you how many random school systems I have pulled from my ass purely because (I need them to interact at these points, in these ways). Sometimes the only compliment I can think of is 'I like your shirt' or sometimes I need character A to realize that character B likes the same thing as they do, so I might ignore the fact that most all Japanese schools require uniforms, so that I can put my character in a shirt that will get someone else's attention.

Sometimes it's difficult to find information on different types of systems, and sometimes when you DO know those things, they directly rule out a plot point that needs to happen (like back on the topic of schools (from what I've seen/heard/read- which guess what? Despite being from multiple sources, might still be inaccurate!) Japanese schools don't have mandatory elective classes (outside of like gym and most of them usually learn English or another language- I've seen stuff about art classes? But the information across the board varies.), but, if I need my character to walk in and see someone completely in their element, I'm probably not going to try and gun for accuracy or make up a million and two reasons as to why this (non elective) person would possibly need something from (elective teacher) after school of all things.)

Some experiences ARE universal- or at least overlap American and Japanese norms! Like friends going to fast food places after school doesn't /sound Japanese/ or whatever, but it's not like a horrible inaccuracy to say that your characters ate at McDonald's because they were hungry. Especially when you consider that the Japanese idolization of American "culture" is also a thing.

Also I saw someone complaining about how, in December, a lot of (usually westerners) write Christmas fics! Well, not only are quite a few of those often gift fics, with it being the season if giving and all, but Japanese people do celebrate Christmas! Not as "the birth of Christ," but rather as a popularized holiday about gift giving (also pst: America isn't the only place that celebrates Christmas)

But, on that note, sometimes things like Holidays are "willfully ignorant" of what actually happens (I've made this point several times, but (also this does by no means excuse actual racism)), because, again: plot convenience! Hey what IF they celebrated Halloween by Trick or Treating? What if Easter was a thing and they got to watch their kids or younger siblings crawl around on the ground looking for tiny plastic eggs?

Fanfiction authors can put in hours of work for one or two thousand words- let alone ten thousand words, fifty thousand words, a hundred thousand words. And all of these are free. There is absolutely no (legal) way to make money off of their fanworks, but they spent hours, days, weeks, months- sometimes even years- writing. It is so unnecessary to EXPECT or REQUIRE them to spend even more hours looking up shit that, no offense, almost no one is going to notice. No one is going go care that all of my combini prices are accurate or that I wrote a fic with a Japanese map of a train station that I had to backwards search three times to find an English version that I could read.

Not everyone has the attention span or ability to spend hours of research before writing a single word. Neurodivergent people are literally a thing yall. Instead of producing the perfectly pretty accurate version of Japan that people want to happen, what ACTUALLY happens is that the writer reads and reads and reads and either never finds the information they need or they lose the motivation to write.

^^^ (This does NOT apply to indigenous or native peoples, like Pacific Islanders or tribes that exist in real life. Please make sure that you portray tribal minorities accurately. If you can't find the information you need (assuming that the content of the series is not specifically about a tribe), please just make one up (and for fucks sake, recognize that a lot of what you've been taught about tribal practices, such as shit like human sacrifices or godly worship, is actually just propaganda.)

Not to mention, it often puts a wall in front of readers who would then need to pull up their OWN information (that may or may not be biased) just in order to interact with the fic ((okay, this one has a little bit of arguability when it comes to things like measurements and currency, because Americans don't know what a meter is and no one else knows what a foot is- either way, one of yall is going to have to look up measurements if they want to get a better understanding of the fic)). However, a lot of Americans who do write using 'feet, Fahrenheit, dollars,' also write for their American followers or friends (which really could go both ways).

On a less easily arguable side, most fic readers aren't going to open up a new tab just to search everything that the author has written (re the whole deep topics, not everyone wants to read about those sorts of things, either). Not only are you making it more difficult on the writer, but you're also making it more difficult for the reader who's now wondering why you decided to add in Grandma's Katsudon recipe, and whether or not the details you have added are accurate.

Some series, themselves, ignore Japanese norms! Piercings, hair dye, and incorrectly wearing ones uniform are frowns upon in Japanese schools- sometimes up to inflicting punishment on those students because of it. However, some anime characters still have naturally or dyed blond hair some of them still have piercings or wear their uniforms wrong. Some series aren't set specifically in Japan, but rather in a vague based-off-real-life Japan that's just slightly different (like Haikyuu and all of its different prefectures). Sometimes they're based on real places, but real places that have gone through major changes (like the Hero Academia series with its quirks and shit).

Fandom is not a full time job. Please stop treating it like it is one. Most people in fandoms have to engage in other things like school or work that most definitely take precident over frantically Googling the cultural implications of dying your hair pink in Japan.

Art is also meant to be a creative freedom and is almost always a hobby, so there are a few cracks that tend to spark debate. Like I said, it is still a hobby, something that's meant to be fun (on this note!)

If trying new things and expanding your portfolio is genuinely making you upset, it's okay to take a break from it. You're not going to get it right on the first try and please, please to everyone out there critiquing artists' works, please take this into account before you post things.

I'm sorry to say, but, while it gets frustrating to see the same things done wrong over and over again, some people are genuinely trying. If it matters enough for you to point out, please offer solutions or resources that would possibly help the artist do better (honestly this could be said about a lot of online activism). I get that they should "want" to do better (and maybe they don't and your annoyance towards them is completely justified- again, as I said, if this becomes a repeated offense and they don't listen to or care about the people trying to help them, yeah you can be a bitch if it helps you feel better- just please don't assume that everyone is willfully ignorant of how hurtful/upsetting/annoying a certain way of portraying things is), but also WANTING to do better and ACTUALLY doing better are two different things.

Maybe they didn't realize what they were doing was inaccurate. Maybe they didn't have the right tutorials. Maybe they tried to look it up, but that failed them. Either way, to some- especially neurodivergent artists- just being told that their work is bad or racist or awful isn't going to make them want to search for better resources in order to be more accurate, it's just going to make them give up.

Also! In fic and in writing, no one is going to get it right on the first try. Especially at the stage where we creators ARE merely in fan spaces is a great time to "fuck around and find out", before we bring our willfully or accidentally racist shit into monetized media. Absolutely hold your fan creators to higher standards, but literally fan work has so little actual impact on popular media (and this goes for just about every debate about fan spaces), and constructive criticism as well as routine practice can mean worlds for representation in future media. NOT allowing for mistakes in micro spaces like fandoms is how you get genuinely harmful or just... bad... portrayals of minorities in popularized media that DOES have an impact on the greater public. OR you get a bunch of creators who are too afraid to walk out of their own little bubbles, because what if they get it wrong and everyone turns against them. It's better to just "stick with what they know" (hobbies are something that you are meant to get better at, even if that is a slow road- for all of my writers and artists out there, it does take time, but you will get it. To everyone else, please do speak up about things that are wrong, but don't make it all about what's wrong and please don't be rude. It's frustrating on both ends, so, if you can, please try not to escalate the situation more.)

Anyways, I'm tired of everyone holding fictional characters to American Puritanical standards, but I'm also tired of seeing every "stop Americanizing fandom" somehow loop into fanfiction and how all authors who don't make their fics as accurate as possible are actually just racist and perpetuating or enabling America's take over of the world or some shit.

Fan interpretation of published media is different than fan creation of mon monetized media. Americans dominating or monopolizing spaces meant for all fans (especially in a fandom that was never meant for them to begin with) is annoying and can be harmful sometimes. Americans writing out their own personal experience using random fictional characters (more often than not) isn't.

[struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor]

Kpop fans who excuse any social issue in SK, and any idol accused of unethical behavior, by saying it’s part of their “culture” are, not only being terrible human beings, but also being really fucking racist. Misogyny, racism, fatphobia, homophobia, etc. are part of any country’s culture. Yet, if an American says something blatantly sexist, we know it’s not okay; we don’t excuse it away as being part of America’s “culture”. There are countries who have been at war for years, yet no one will say war is part of their culture as a way of excusing violence and downplaying their people’s suffering, right? Understanding that idols have grown up in a different environment than most Western young adults, and accepting, forgiving, or giving them a second chance, does not mean excusing or downplaying their actions and blindly giving them a pass. You’re not helping anyone by doing this. 

Are the US and SK at the same level when it comes to human rights? No. But one thing is to ignore archaic sexist stereotypes in an American movie from the 80s which everyone knows are archaic now, and another thing altogether is ignoring those same sexist stereotypes in a drama from the 2010s or 2020s, knowing they prevail to this day. The former attitude is inconsequential while the later is harmful and irresponsible. How do you think we moved past, for example the prejudice against working moms? It wasn’t by accepting it as part of our culture, even though there was a time where working moms were judged and considered bad moms. Society evolved because we fought back, not because we went “Okay, this is our culture, I guess.”. 

Imagine going up to a woman in SK and saying the sexism she’s experienced,  and all the opportunities she’s been deprived of, are nothing to complain about because it’s in her country’s “culture” and that’s just how things are... Can you fucking imagine doing that? 

And funny thing is, fans who do this don’t even realize how racist it is to say sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. are a part of someone’s culture. No one thinks those issues are a cultural aspect of developed countries, right? Even though they're still a problem in even the most “developed” countries, and were a huge problem only 30 to 50 years ago. Calling social issues a part of someone’s culture is the same as saying you believe they are too stupid and backwards to ever improve so they shouldn’t be judged for being the way they are. It’s condescending, infantilizing, racist, and straight up harmful. Us people from “developed” countries instead of criticizing bad behavior are supposed to look the other way and excuse it as part of someone’s culture. What about the victims? Is their suffering meaningless because they should be “used” to it? What about all the activists and reporters fighting for a fairer society? Are they efforts in vain and they should just embrace their “culture”? I understand the sentiment of not holding a country like SK to the same standard as a country like Sweden. There’s no point in nitpicking or calling out every single little thing that’s problematic. But issues and attitudes that are normalized? Those are the most dangerous ones and should absolutely be called out, even if it seems pointless, even if our voices aren’t heard - it’s literally the least we can do. 

[lesbianelinordashwood]

for the aks meme; the vampire diaries

I sent my ask before I saw yours one I swear lol. I guess your asking because you saw my post and sorry it took so long for me to respond but I’m using this as an excuse to rant about tvd as you probably know I’m rewatching and like I have so many opinions and no one to share them with. So thanks so much for asking and giving me an excuse.

my favorite female character: So Caroline Forbes holds a special place in my heart and she is my favorite character in the early seasons Bonnie shifted to being my favorite later on though I always loved Bonnie as well.

my favorite male character: this is a tricky one because it comes down to more which male characters annoys me the least at the moment it’s Stefan.

my favorite book/season/etc: hmmm it’s probably season 3 though season 7 had its moments I think the supernatural elements in the show nose dive around season four.

my favorite episode: 5x04 its a true colors showing episode.

my favorite cast member: Kat Graham omg she deserved do much better one of the best talents on the show and she had to deal with so much anti blackness, antisemetism and misogyny from some of her coworkers, the audience and especially her bosses. And she is a triple threat amazing actress, dancer and singer. I’m still mad that they didn’t feature her music or just have her sing in the show when she was actively pursuing a music career but (no disrespect to Candace) they would give any excuse to give Caroline a music number.

my favorite ship: unpopular opinion time Steroline while I have a lot of issues with how it’s done in cannon especially in how Stefan treats Caroline (who definitely deserves better), I felt like they dragged the Stelena drama(like IMO the doppelgänger stuff in the later seasons just doesn’t make sense and just feels so unnecessary and like the logic don’t make sense because it was obviously not planned) and it made no sense for Stefan to be so hung up on her after everything with Damon and everything it’s like Julie can’t fathom the idea that anyone could get over Elena or move on from her like how Elena can’t despite everything it felt like they didn’t want to end it till they coffins Elena and couldn’t continue with it because of that the over lap between the two and Elena constantly being inserted in there romance was annoying and I felt like a lot of the angst and drama once they got together that felt unnecessary and repetitive at times (I could go one about the Valerie stuff for days like seriously the second they get together they got to do everything to keep them apart like can you give them a moment) and I don’t like how drawn out and how they went about starting it like dragging out Stefan realizing his feeling and the whole Caroline turning it off because she thought he didn’t love her which was wildly out of character and unnecessary and there ending was just so sad and despite that they still dragged it out but despite that I think it’s the ship with the most potential, I enjoy there dynamic (I’m a sucker for friends to lover ships and though I think that Julie doesn’t get what people want in a dynamic like it) and I thought they had really good chemistry (personally I think both actors had pretty good chemistry with basically everyone they worked with anyway). Also because picking one would be impossible honorable mentions to the ships that would have been cannon if not for homophobia Bonnora and Klefan the lack of love triangle that feels weirdly romantic in the crossover episodes miss opportunity truly.

a character I’d die defending: Caroline and Bonnie

a character I just can’t sympathize with: okay I couldn’t pick one so I just had to drop a list Damon, John Gilbert, Isobel, Bill Forbes, Sybil, Cade, Esther and Mikeal, Wes Maxfield, Shane, Lily, Julian, Guiseppe, Elijah, Tristan, Richard Lockwood, Silas(but at least he was fun), Alaric, Joshua Parker, post season 2 Elena and later seasons Matt

a character I grew to love: Stefan I just found him kind of boring in the beginning and his relationship with Elena being creepy didn’t help but the dialogue writing and the acting I think got better over the seasons. Hayley was another character like that but that took the originals to do that (I truly do not get what Julie was thinking introducing her and portraying her like that in tvd if she planned on making her the leading lady in TO.

my anti otp: yes this is another list sorry, Steferine, kalijah (sorry), Marcel x Rebekah(like who okayed that one), Stelena and any ship with Damon.

Please send TVD ask because I obviously need someone to talk about it to lol.

[thechangeling]

Ok so a conversation @littlx-songbxrd and I were having made me remember something I was ranting about to a friend of mine once.

Brace yourselves this is going to be long. I'm sorry.

The sexism, homophobia and racism of the shadoworld straight up doesn't make sense and here's why. So if we start chronologically with the infernal devices. There is sexism towards Charlotte right? People don't want her running the institute and they don't want her becoming the consul because she is a woman. But the Clave has no problem letting women train and fight. This doesn't really make sense in my opinion.

Now you could argue that it's because they believe woman can be string capable fighters just not rational thinkers. Which is weird because in my experience you don't meet a lot of people who are "partially sexist" in that way. Like if a man believes a woman can't do high profile, high paying jobs then they usually also don't want them in the military. Anyways moving on, there aren't any mentions of homophobia in TID, mostly because they're arent any queer characters except Magnus and Woolsey.

But something interesting to point out is that none of the characters who know about Magnus and Woolsey ever comment on it really. And following this point, none of the mains display any signs of misogyny either really. (Except for what Will says to Tessa at the end of CA but that was because of the "curse.") You could argue that this is because they're the protagonists so they are supposed to be better then that. But accidental microaggressions are pretty common especially during that time period. More on that later.

Moving onto racism, this is the interesting part. Jem says to Tessa that shadowhunters believe that you are a shadowhunter first and your nationality or eace second. Actually Jem doesnt mention race but he says this while talking about being half Chinese so it's kinda relevant. Shadowhunters rarely tall about race throughout the books in general except for a few instances. When Jessamine criticizes Jem to Tessa, she calls him a foreigner and says some other racist shit that I can't really remember. Something about the yin fin and calling him lazy. That directly contradicts Jem's statement about them all being shadowhunters first. Also Will and Jem actually constantly talk about being Welsh and Chinese in the books so that statement is kinda bogus in general.

And if CC didn't want her mains being sexist or homophobic to show them as good people then why was it ok for both Jesse and Gabriel to say questionable shit about Jem? Anyways moving on to TLH. Sexism is still running rampid with their cultural customs and people being shitty about Charlotte being consul. Bots have to ask the girls to dance, girls cannot have sex before marriage or else they will be ruined or whatever you know the drill. But again, they let the girls fight. Cordelia is allowed to carry around a giant ass sword but she can't get some????

IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE CASSANDRA!!!!!

Sorry I'm losing it. Anyways. Regarding racism. Alastair and Cordelia have experienced micro aggressions from the mains (Matthew and Anna) but it's never addressed. I'm pretty sure if memory serves, the inquisitor makes a nasty comment under his breath about persians when the Carstairs family sans Elias arrive. And then we have the whitewashing of Ariadne/Kamala by her parents.

But none of this stuff ever gets brought up really. Exceot for Kamala talking about her past and who she was before and sharing her original name, but she still doesn't talk about how it effects her potential coming out. Alastair doesnt mention race when he talks about the bullying he went through at the academy and none of the white characters ever stop to think about how Kamala and Alastsir's races play a part in their crappy situations.

There's probably more I could discuss with this but I'm moving on to homophobia. It's a thing in terms of the heteronormativity and people's judgement of Anna but it's not illegal like in mundane societies at this time. But all of the mains are totally cool with it which brings me to, I'm sorry but fucking bullshit! There is no way every single adult would be totally fine with it in this time period. Like I'm not saying outright homophobia but maybe some questionable comments you know? (CC is perpetuating this idea that good people never commit microaggressions which is untrue and harmful.)

I don't think there's any mention of whether or not gay marriage is allowed in the shadowhunter world at this point. Because the issues surrounding Magnus and Alec getting married were about Magnus being a warlock right? Because Helen and Aline got married before them in TFTSA because she was only half fae. So that brings me to when was gay marriage legalized in the shadow world?????

Is there any mention of this because I don't think there is? Anyways moving onto TMI. This is where everything goes to absolute shit in terms of world building with the standards for these things. Misogyny isn't really a problem in tmi anymore from what I remember. Nobody has issues with Jia as consul (from what I remember,) and that's that. But homophobia is still rambid throughout shadowhunter society so much so that Alec is terrified to come out because he believes that he can't be gay and be a shadowhunter in peoples eyes. Also there is pressure to "carry on the family name" which doesn't make sense because if the sexism has died out then women can have babies with whoever and not even be married and carry on their family line. And not everyone needs to have children, ergo there is less pressure on the sons to carry on the family name or whatever. This also doesn't make sense because homophobia literally cannot exist without sexism!!!!

This is because of colonial gender roles being forced on society. And men being with men and women being with woman totally smashes the whole gender roles, "woman do this and men do that" idea. There's more that I could say on that but this is already so freaking long so please just look it up. And speaking of gender roles it's literally mentioned that Maryse didn't teach Izzy to cook because she didn't want her to be forced into a housewife role like she was (although there's no evidence to suggest she was?) But then Maryse is lowkey homophobic?

It doesn't make sense Cassandra!!!!!

CC doesn't get that you literally don't have homophobia or transphobia without sexism. Indigenous societies pre-colonization didn't care about any of that stuff. Literally two spirit people were revered and respected and no one gave a fuck about gender until my ancestors literally came along and ruined everything. (I'm so sorry.)

But anyways there's no mentions of racism amongst the shadowhunters in tmi. Just Maia talking about her experiences with mundane society as a black girl. When Clary confronts Valentine and basically calls him a n*zi, he laughs at her and basically says that shadowhunters don't see race the way mundanes do which yikes @ CC. Granted this was 2007. This kind of sounds like what Jem said in TID. Only it clearly wasnt true.

Anyways I'm just super confused at this point. In TDA there was basically nothing in terms of all the isms and phobias. (Oh we arent even discussing ableism because my fucking head will explode!) But we do discuss transphobia a bit with Diana. But again it doesn't make fucking sense because transphobia exists because of sexism and clear gender roles (and homophobia.)

Society is still shown to be pretty heteronormative though which I guess makes sense but the Blackthorns have multiple queers in their family! You would think that they would be less so. When Livvy mentions all the reasons that Annabel could have a forbidden love she doesnt even think to mention that it could be a lesbian relationship. When Mark finds out that Jaime was in Dru's room he freaks out but I guarentee you, he wouldn't have if Jaime was a girl. I mean you could argue that it's an age thing and not a gender thing but idk. That scene always bothered the fuck out of me. Because Mark is literally half fae like why is he caught up on bullshit "boys and girls can't just be friends" hetero bullshit.

In QOAAD we see Dane Larksoear being sexist so randomly for no reason. Like it's so strange because CC literally created a caricature of a sexist villian with him. And it makes no sense because no one else seems to feel the way he does. Like Zara is basically the leader of the cohort right? And nobody gives a fuck. It makes no damn sense Cassandra!

And finally, why is the faerie world sexist with gender roles WHEN EVERYONE IS LITERALLY BISEXUAL AND THEY'RE FAERIES CASSANDRA!!!???? THEY'RE LITERALLY FAERIES WHY IS THERE A CONCEPT OF GENDER AT ALL CASSANDRA????!!!!

Ok lol now I'm done. Sorry this is so long. But yeah I'm so confused.

Tldr: CC's world building in regards to sexism, homophobia, racism and transphobia is very inconsistent and contradictory and it makes no damn sense.

[nightswithkookmin]

still same anon. this was another one of my asks from months ago. basically it was a comment I made about jikook's intimacy. it was from this interview: https://youtu.be/T--BOS8oTec the moment I'm talking about happens from 3:00 minute timestamp onwards. i was saying how despite this moment being "skinship" or whatever, it kinda hit different? there's also intimacy there. bc you see how jimin doesn't have to say anything and jungkook immediately understands what to do and starts massaging his neck. jimin literally threw a glance at him, tilted his neck a lil and jungkook didn't need a second more to know what to do. I wanted to talk to you about it since I know that you're not big on skinship defining jikook's relationship, but I think there ARE jikook skinship moments worth noting and this is one of them imo.

Oh ok. Thanks.

SKINSHIP IN CONTEXT

I think skinship by it's very definition is an intimate act depending on the level of familiarity between the parties involved in the act.

From my understanding of skinship, it's basically interactions that would otherwise be viewed as sexual outside of their culture but viewed as acceptable platonic behavior between the same sex or even the opposite sex.

The objective of skinship is to be intimate with another person on a level that's only next to romance.

I remember my sister telling me how shook she was when she found out for the first time, around 2011 when she first moved to Seoul, how she couldn't even keep her pants on at a 'Jimjirban' because all the gals in there were expected to walk around butt naked in the spa. No towels, no pants, no robes butt nakedttt.

'Mehn, this doesn't happen where I'm coming from' she said to her companion.

A. I'm black.

B. I'm not flat.

C. I'm wearing my pants.

Her very naked friend, a native SK, whom she says she'd only met for like a week, then grabbed her underwear and pulled it down her thighs exposing her deforested vagina to the winds and a dozen other curious gazes. All females.

'For a second, I thought I had been tricked into an orgy of a sort. I was very naked without my consent. Wind whistling through my shy butt cracks. Watching very naked females of varying ages stare on with pride and smiles on their faces as if I had just saved a village or something and when I jiggled when I walked I could hear them gasp, amazed- Goldy, how is this not gay?'

'You think skinship between their men is weird, wait till you see their women. Wait till a very attractive Korean girl is breathing down your neck and caressing your nape and complementing your skin while showing you pictures of her boyfriend on her phone.'

She says it took her a while to get used to the skinship between women in SK and seeing the men interact in a certain way messed with her brains for a while. She said she felt her intelligence was being played with most of the time.

I guess if you want to look at Jikook's skinship as intimate then there's nothing wrong it.

Skinship is intimate at the very least.

But skinship, for all intent and purposes, is platonic and nonsexual in nature. And maybe this is a fatal flaw on my part. Or maybe thanks to my sister, I'm desensitized to this form of interaction but I have a hard time seeing Jikook's intimacy as platonic or even seeing most of their skinship as romantic- in anyway. It will make sense in a bit, hold on.

I have a hard time equating skinship with romantic intimacy. But that's just me.

I wasn't able to click on the link you sent but I'm guessing this is the moment you are talking about?

I wouldn't call this skinship. I mean it is but I wouldn't call it that. Skinship is meant to show how close two people are. How familiar they are with eachother.

This doesn't show how close Jikook are. But It shows how caring and affectionate JK is as human being, as a dongsaeng, and as a boyfriend.

I'd rather we celebrate that. JK doesn't get highlighted enough. He caters to the people he cares about. He is an attentive person.

Hate to be a grinch but I can pull up a couple of times JK has done that very gesture with Jin or Tae or Hobi. Remember Soop? Remember when Jin complained of feeling cold and JK went up to him immediately and 'warmed' him up?

Of course, Jimin kept stealing glances at him like he could throw a shoe at the back of his head if he could but that's beside the point.

The man is an empath. He's said several times he feels a lot of pain watching his hyungs go through it. Fact is, Jk cares about people. He's kind, loving and he shows this aspect of him through gestures like these.

He does it for Jimin. He does it for all the members because as he's said, they are all a family.

It's stressful hearing people claim he doesn't give a fuck about Jimin, that he doesn't care about JM because he shows affections for others besides JM.

At some point we would have to make a distinction between what acts flows from their unique personalities because of who they are at their core and what act flows from them being a couple.

Most people who see Jimin as a natural nurturer and what not are able to separate this identity from his ship moments but JK isn't accorded the same privilege. It is why most people are quick to lash out at him when he interacts with others in the same way he interacts with Jimin.

When JM acts nurturing towards V or RM or Suga he is seen a good, kind person.

When JK does something affectionate it's seen as a beautiful Jikook moment or Taekook moment or Jinkook moment and is soon swept under the carpet, soon forgotten and never tied to the personality of JK- perhaps because most of these shippers don't care to know who JK is as a person and as a human.

When Jimin does something affectionate its 'awww Jimin is such an amazing person' even if that act is merely performative sometimes.

I try not to engage in conversations that perpetuate this horrifying discrimination against either of Jikook. They are both individuals.

There are a lot of Asks sitting in my box highlighting the various ways JM is awesome and kind and amazing as s boyfriend to JK and not a single out of 500 plus posts talking about how empathetic JK really is. How thoughtful he is to even pack motion sickness drugs to go on trips even though he doesn't get motion illness and JM is the one that often complains about motion sickness on trips.

The heteronormative lens, on opposite ends of the spectrum in the shipping community, which dictates we perceive on Jikook as either feminine or masculine is a telltale sign of the misogyny and misandry prevalent within this fandom.

The fandom's heteronormative lens filters Jimin as the wildly feminine archetype, wildly fragile, sexy and womanly right down to the way we praise him as the 'good woman' in his relationship with JK- loyal, faithful, nurturing, kind, silent in that he continues to perform Jikook even when Jikook are not in a great place. etc.

Yet because he is seen as womanly or feminine, the part of the fandom that hates women hate Jimin. That's where all the slut shaming, bullying and harassment stems from- misogyny.

Jk is viewed as the opposite of that. By most, he is very masculine man and as such harbors all the traits of masculinity the modern woman detests- toxic masculinity, cheating, disloyal, fuckboy who treats women like shit. All forms of hatred and intolerance towards men is projected on to him especially by male intolerant people or dare I say feminist women within the fandom.

And you see them in the way they are always fighting for Jimin against JK as if Jimin were a fragile faithful woman whose man don't treat him right thus further perpetuating the heteronormative stereotypes of Jimin.

What's disconcerting is Jikook are both men and yet depending on how their masculinity or femininity is perceived, they are both treated very differently.

You hear Tuktukkers talk about how Jikook is as a result of heteronormativity and thus prescribe Taekook as the ideal homonormative ship- because to them, Tae and JK are both seen as two whole men.

To them Jimin is just not man enough to even be gay- isn't that the foundation of homophobia?

Gay men not seen as men at all?

Whereas amongst Jokers, Jimin's manliness is often forgiven and JK's is abhorred. Jk is too much of a man and men just ain't shit.

This may sound like an over simplification but Tuktukkers hate women, Jokers hate men and either side suck. In my opinion.

Jimin is a nurturer he cares about people including his boyfriend. JK is an empath he feels the pain of those close to him including his boyfriend and is often moved to ease or take away some of that pain.

It's thus annoying to hear people out here yell and complain on every turn each time JK interacts with the others how JK 'doesn't act exclusive' with Jimin or how he doesn't care about Jimin.

Should he not care about anyone besides Jimin just because he is dating Jimin?

It's annoying when they say the same about Jimin. Jimin nurtures everyone ergo there's nothing special or exclusive about the way he nurtures JK.

Nonsense such as these are spewed without taking into account that those acts in themselves speak directly to who these people are as human beings first and foremost; secondly, to how they feel about the person at the recieving end of their affections.

If they are treating everyone the same it's probably because they love everyone too- in a non romantic way of course. It's their love language. They love others with the same heart they love eachother with.

It doesn't take away from how they feel about eachother. JK admiring another member does not mean when he admires Jimin it's nothing. It just mean he admires Jimin too.

Not everything has to be romanticized or given a romantic context. They are each expressing themselves and their feelings for their bandmates. It's about them not their bandmates or their relationship with said bandmates.

Certain moments are just attestation to their love language be it platonic or romantic and it says more about who they are as people than what their relationship with the other person is. It's not all about their relationship.

People need to start treating Jikook as individuals. They are humans first before a ship. Shipping them shouldn't take away from their authentic expressions of self.

That's how they each end up getting cussed out in these streets left and right.

It's ridiculous.

This is JK being JK. Imma leave it at that.

This is from the same interview where Tae was talking about how they love showcasing their bond.

It's ok to celebrate it. Just see it for what it is- as flowing from JK's kind self. This is not Jikook. This is JK. Jeon Jungkook.

Don't fume or act disappointed when you see him do the same kind gesture for another member just because of the meaning you are imposing on this moment. Know what I mean?

That being said, there are certain Jikook 'skinship' moments that crosses the line of skinship right into sexual foreplay.

If 'skinship' leaves you 'sexually excited' it's not skinship. Nobody can tell me nothing.

Make of this moment what you will. Just be responsible with it. I think. But don't mind me. I'm grumpy.

Signed,

GOLDY

[clairenatural]

Hm. I know this is fandom stuff so whatever it’s not that big of a deal but misha is a grown 40+ year old man who CHOSE to make a post trying to defend one of the most blatant “bury your gays” moments in modern tv AND Jensen has a history* of homophobic behavior (saying brokeback ruined cowboy movies for him, ‘real men don’t use straws,’ writing no on the bi dean thesis, the booing issue). like. they’re not the victims here. and you’re bisexual too so I know you understand that the lgbt fans who were denied good rep but still expected to praise the show regardless are the ones harmed, and I wish everyone talking abt this would stop trying to empathize with grown adult men who made thousands off a homophobic, racist, misogynistic show and instead actually offer genuine criticism for the ways the show screwed everyone over

here’s the thing.

i really debated not answering this, but after the knee-jerk response I ultimately do want to be held accountable for things and if I fuck up I want to know, so let’s talk.

First of all, I *do* want to remind you and everyone that while fandom stuff definitely can be a big deal, I’m also just someone having fun on tumblr dot com and how critical i choose to be/not be isn’t indicative of my real life ability to critically consume media or view the celebrities I follow as flawed humans. Personally, this is my safe space, and I choose to celebrate the show rather than focus on tearing it down.

That being said, we do need to hold this show and the people involved accountable for their homophobia, racism, and misogyny. I honestly believe (or, i guess, believed) I’ve been doing that--I’m incredibly angry with how we’ve been treated, and I feel like I’ve done a good job voicing that. If I haven’t made it clear enough that this show massively fucked over everyone, I’m genuinely sorry. I’m very much of the mindset that the CW should burn. At the beginning when all this was going down I was very clear on that, I’ve participated in the twitter campaigns, i’m boycotting the show, etc. Recently i’ve been shifting this blog back towards being more positive (not about the ending, but just in general) for my own mental health, but please don’t think my stance on any of that has changed (and I am ready to go back into battle the moment I’m called on).

I also don’t believe I’ve ever glossed over Jensen’s problematic past--he absolutely needs to be held accountable for his past behavior. I honestly don’t have the spoons to go track down long thinkpieces on how his behavior has changed drastically recently and as to why fan opinion on him being homophobic has largely shifted but he has markedly changed his tone in the past few years and has shown himself to be an ally. If this is specifically about the post I made on the booing thing, I clarified in the tags that I wasn’t trying to defend Jensen; a lot of antis use that incident as an example of “Jensen thinks bi!dean is gross, nyah nyah” when it’s a bad example of that because he didn’t really know what was going on (as reported by the fan who asked the question). That wasn’t supposed to absolve Jensen of how he reacted in that situation or ways he has handled other similar situations. On Misha--I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t really think the CW forced him to make that video but I do believe it came from a good, if misguided place. I also believe his response to the backlash, where he listened and learned, was the best it could be. Not everyone has to accept that apology and I obviously can’t on behalf of the entire community, but I personally do, and he also is bound by an NDA + probably has guidelines on how to address the bury your gays issue so yes I will cut him some slack because of that. In fact, his statements on bury your gays specifically varied SO wildly over the past few times he’s mentioned it, from “I know this was bad and I’m sorry, it’s a conversation we should continue to have” to “It wasn’t bury your gays” that....yeah, I do believe there was some sort of consensus reached on how to approach it that he had to stick to. Overall I just genuinely think that the actors aren’t the enemy here when all the (most recent) signs point to them trying to give us as much as they can--actors aren’t showrunners or writers or producers and don’t have ultimate power over the narrative.

But I do really want to apologize if anyone following my blog feels like they aren’t allowed to be angry or that they need to celebrate the show. I’ve been vocally angry here and while I’ve been shifting more towards positivity for my own wellbeing I would never tell other fans--particularly LGBT+ ones--that we need to praise the show. I am also deeply hurt by this. I’ve expressed how hurt I am by this, and now I’m trying to move on to a more positive place, but that does not mean everyone has to! And on that note, honestly, while I may advocate against people sending hate and attacks to the actors, I’m not here to police anyone’s feelings. If you feel like you need to be angry at Jensen and Misha in order to process and move on.....it’s not my right to tell you that you can’t be. We shouldn’t let them silence us and if I’ve participated at all in the silencing....there’s not much I can say except that I’m sorry and I’ll be better. 

[transsexualhamlet]

the many sins of tokyo ghoul :re

or: 13 reasons why :re is fucking terrible not clickbait

Disclaimer: I think no matter how long this post gets I’m missing something, so let’s just outline the worst ones. And I mean to be transparent, the only reason I actually read :re was so I could make this post... (and bc i wanted to see the what, five panels of hide) Well, I couldn’t stand hating it without evidence beyond hearsay and General Vibes. But I knew it was gonna be bad, I knew it was going to ruin me jesus christ. Obviously I’m not hating on people that like it, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with genuinely enjoying it (I do genuinely enjoy parts of it, and by parts i mean chapters 1-50 with exceptions and 75) I think it’s wonderful if you can derive joy from it (lmao) but I can say that through my lens in life, there’s so much fucking wrong with this goddamn fucking piece of shit manga and I feel the need to yell about it because i am ✨autism✨ so let’s get going (this is r e a l l y long just a warning)

tl;dr Ishida stay in your fucking lane

1. Transphobia and Homophobia:

alright here we are first off with the big one and if I had to choose, one of Ishida’s greatest sins here. It’s quite unusual in mangas like these to have any sort of representation for such things in and of itself, and yeah of course that annoys me, but having no represntation at all is like so much better than getting actively harmful representation. Most manga that aren’t specifically about those things shy away from those topics, and it’s tiring but it’s normal. You wouldn’t want a mangaka to try to write about something like that without experience or informed opinions. So I say if you can’t write something correct, just don’t write something like that in at all. Ishida clearly,,, does not get this.

And it’s not just the case of Mutsuki, who, well, gets it bad enough, there are three full fucking trans characters Ishida made like, just to shit on. 

Big Madame- god, made like that specifically to perpetuate the predatory trans woman trope jesus christ is Ishida friends with JK fuckface Rowling. Ah yes the ugly, human trafficking, predatory, pedophilic killer that tried to make their male child more feminine? Has a dick. Really? Could you be a single bit more transparent about your fucking agenda here? I really don’t have to say much here.

Kanae von Fuckwald- Technically Ishida says here that basically this bitch was just like??? Pretending to be a guy for years just to what?? I don’t even know?? Get together with Tsukiyama? Cause he’s fucking gay or something? I don’t even get it but like i read this post yesterday and that’s a whole ass thermian argument. It’s like “oh well this is fine because well this person’s not actually trans and therefore the representation thing doesn’t apply”... it’s useless. You created the character that way and you made it intentionally to for whatever way promote this idea that people would “pretend” to be a different gender and that eventually they’ll realize that it’s a “lie” and they never really wanted it. This is what you’re saying about the real people who are,,, actually trans? Jesus christ. Also thinking that a twink like that would be trans? God yeah trans guys can be feminine but buddy that’s clearly not what you’re going for here.

And of course, Mutsuki- There’s just... so much wrong here. I mean like. Before we even get into anything about his character and what they did to him let me just discuss his entire design. Buddy like if you had to choose one person in that show to be trans that’s the least likely one. Ah yes, the feminine one. With the androgynous haircut and the shy disposition and the physical weakness compared to the others. God that’s like, a fujoshi’s take on ao3 of what character should be trans. As much as yeah of course, trans guys can be feminine, they are in no way obligated to be such and you shouldn’t make them more so to be more “believably” so. Ask any actual trans person ever. A character like that is just perpetuating the notion of trans guys being inherently more feminine or trying to pretend to be otherwise.ThEn, of course, there’s the ridiculous sexualization, infantilization and fetishization of this character, going through a thousand plot hurdles to make him constantly stripped, put in girls clothing, chased by perverts, assaulted, ET FUCKING CETERA. Give him a fUCKING BREAK. Creating this character the way he’s portrayed in canon (including so called backstory of murdering parents because of sexual and physical abuse) is perpetuating a notion that someone would be a trans guy because of internalized misogyny and/or trauma instead of because they’re just... a guy. It’s just it’s just it’s just Really bad. Plus taking his character, demonizing him and making him like, supposedly love haise (which i Really hate for a thousand reasons, god that’s like, a parent and child type relationship they have there not romantic,,, god,,,) try to like fucking murder touka and stop seeing sense, and then just... return him to being infantalized. God. Jesus christ fucking goddamn it I love Mutsuki and he deserves better.

Oh yeah and then the homophobia, this one’s smaller because... most of the trans people are here to go “it’s gay... wait it’s not Really gay so it’s ok” but I would like to leave a small note here for all the gay characters who got thrown under the bus not just in re but in the original, like, you know, Nico and shit? I really do not know shit about Nico but all the things about Jason? God if I had a thing for one person that you shouldn’t try to portray as representation it’s Jason. IDK what’s up with him and Naki but god it wasn’t healthy. (i’d like to say here that i love naki and i think naki deserves the world but honey there are better heroes than yamori) Anyway yeah I think that’s also bullshit and Ishida should stay in his fucking lane. (or her i guess, i just feel like it’s probably a guy bc of just... so much sexism)

Ok, now that we have the big one out of the way-

2. The mishandling of portrayals of various mental illnesses:

I’m not an expert on this one like I can say about the gays TM but just like in general, the whole manga’s very messy and portrays a lot of gritty stuff, and Ishida clearly attempts to throw in some mental illness for fun, but god fUcking damn it they’re bad. I couldn’t really even give you examples bc it’s pretty widespread and i’m stupid, but it was really like trump throwing paper towels “and you get a demonization, and you get an infantalization, and you get a butchered character, and you get a fetishization-”

3. Ishida having no fucking clue how science works

This particular factoid led me to have a very hard time reading this manga because it went from being about like, yknow, torture and fights and crying and stuff to weird experimentation bullshit and mutated whatever and everyone’s a hybrid now I guess. When I heard this thing about the quinxes, I thought that made no sense, because I was like “yeah but wait,,, how tf does that work didn’t Ishida say earlier that kagune literally were fueled by human meat isn’t that like the entire point the ccg is against?” and then Ishida’s explanation of how they’re not just exactly like Kaneki is that “oh yeah well there’s like, metal around it, so it’s different.” OH YEAH OK THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE NOW, THANKS.

The thing is... there’s no way of actually regulating that. You couldn’t move a kagune unless it was attached to your cells, and if it’s attached man, it’s attached and it’s part of you. Also yelling “frame two” won’t like make it any bigger lmao, either you’re gonna have it based on theoretical science in this universe or you’re going to have a dumb supernatural magic pokemon fight deal. The whole thing makes no sense. The science issue isn’t just about this either, it’s also about how the entire thing basically undermines the point of the whole story. When you blur the lines between human and ghoul with little to no real rules or basis in real science, every rule kind of just becomes cheap plot convenience.

So the Quinxes can eat human food unless they use their kagune too much, alright, but Kaneki couldn’t eat human food before he’d even ever used his though the only difference between their bodies was this,,, theoretical metal thing?? And Haise... was never really covered, before he went black hair emo bastard and like vored Eto, did he eat human food like the rest of the CCG? He certainly cooked it. And the squad that lived with him wasn’t aware he was a ghoul until he pulled out the kagune. So I’d assume so, but then how could he have a kagune, how could he survive when his body still was like that?

Is it the RC suppressents? Then couldn’t he just have taken those and lived as a human the entire time? Is that all he fucking needed, is that the only difference between human and ghoul? It doesn’t make sense and the rules are bent so much they don’t function anymore. Ishida like write down your rules somewhere even if they’re bullshit, they shouldn’t contradict each other.

Damn man I’m not even going to go into the dumbass rules of the half humans or the special fast aging thing or the fucking,,, folded up cells deal,,, or the Imagination Kagune, or the fucking,,, Dragon, or the zombie ghoul apocalypse or the “whole new species made of just kagune” i don’t even have the time it is fucking ridiculous and I can’t even with it. Physics. Laws of physics. If not biology, at least follow physics Ishida??? Please???? And if you’re not you need to do that consistently??

4. character glow ups actually being character glow downs 

(with the exception of nishiki, he baby now, and akira, i think her development was valid af)

God, this one gets me every time. Touka was cool. Touka was fucking badass, she had a complex character with many motivations and wants, and in the original having her eventually kind of soften bc of Kaneki is valid. But taking her and turning her into like literally nothing but Pretty Housewife Yearning For Husband At War? God, kill me. She’s a strong person. She can like Kaneki without the guy being her only character trait. Also uh, Touka and Kaneki being a couple was valid before this change, now I honestly can’t stomach it. Like they were the kind of “both bisexual” m/f couple that we stan. No longer I guess.

She’s the most egregious example, but I’d also like to point out Juuzou, not everything they changed about him is bad, honestly we fucking stan his knife legs, but he’s kind of like a rip off L now? You got rid of his ~unhinged~, we do not stan. I’m on the fence about him bc i think that kind of is a valid transition to adulthood and I guess he’s grown up, but again, why change his fucking hair color? What is the explanation for this?

Also Hinami. I mean, I don’t really care about her a lot in general, but it’s weird to see her as like an adult when Ayato emo boy looks like exactly the fucking same and they’re like,,, supposedly the same age. 

There are definitely more I’m missing here. Honestly, Hide was valid. God him with his fucking burlap sack. With a fucking lenny face on it. I can’t with him. That’s so Hide. But there were some bad ones.

5. one hair color change was my limit, enough said

black white black and white black white more white god bitch get some variety

6. Showing me great new characters and then promptly ruining them

And you can tell this one’s about quinx squad, my favorite bastard children. God, I love them. They’re the only good things about Re other than Hide and Haise and like everything else, Ishida took them and went “what if i *guts*” god why. I love these kids with all my heart. Why. Why. Why did you do that to Mutsuki. Why as soon as Haise isn’t in the room they all get themselves tangled up with pedos. Why they gotta break up the squad. Why make all of them lose all the wholesomeness and lessons they learned from Haise. Why do you ruin them all with weird unreciprocated random crushes on each other when they’re like basically siblings. Why fuckinG KILL SHIRAZU HE IS THE APPOINTED CHIEF DUMBASS OF THE SQUAD WHY HIM. WHY. WITH SO LITTLE IMPACT. YOU COULD FUCKING MISS IT SO EASILY. THAT’S NOT RIGHT. AND KANEKI JUST FUCKING ABANDONS THEM BC HE HAS HIS MEMORIES AGAIN N O ? NO ACTUALLY NO.

7. the casual racism and sexism :)

i just :) can you stop having girls constantly bring themselves down for being female :) and making them be oversexualized, less full characters :) always in some way connected to a guy :) more weak and hurt more often :) my fucking god :) also yeah it’s way less prevalent but there were a few racist caricatures thrown in there for taste if you don’t know how to draw lips just don’t

8. Ishida being too much of a pissbaby for a real death scene

Basically: undermining the impact of “deaths” fom the first series while also randomly and badly killing off new characters. Oh that character that died in the original in a really cinematic way that made you cry and think about the meaning of life and how beautifully tragic this story was? Oh lol they’re not Actually dead. (x10) Doing that with Hide (at least in the manga, not the anime, god root A really did it with him but we’re not talking about that) was valid, seeing as I love him your honor and in the manga one of the lessons that his character hinges on was like in chapter 75 to live on instead of giving up even if it hurts and all that... (this is obviously kind of the opposite from root A where his character was like more about sacrificing for kaneki since kaneki had already done so much, i think both are valid but we’re Talking About The Manga) he was done well. That was right (even though i think they should have done More of it) but there were so many characters this kind of thing was done to without the proper adjustment in the handling of the messages given here. 

Like with Koma and Irimi, who,,, honestly should have stayed dead because their entire character arc kinda ended there and showed how they were sorry for their actions and this was how they were making it up. And then they just like... come back. And fight more. Really? This wasn’t the only instance either, same deal with Shinohara (though him coming back made me cry) it like, kind of undermines it if you’re going to have Juuzou derive his character development from that. Either Juuzou gets to keep his unhinged and his dad, or he loses his dad for real and he also grows up. God guys choose. What’s the message you’re playing here. (at least they kept Yoshimura dead, his death made me cry and I would have stabbed something if it wasn’t real, probably Ishida.) And even with Kaneki himself, god, if he can’t die from being stabbed straight through the fucking eye, what COULD kill him? It really diminishes the anxiety you feel about “omg is this person gonna die i want them to be ok” if they basically evade the laws of physics and their own previous character arcs 70 times. I’m definitely forgetting more of the same, Ishida can’t write a good death, he needed the anime writers to do it for him.

9. Kaneki. Just. Kaneki. 

God they fucking butchered this man. I could go on about his character is weird and confusing in the manga from the beginning, but we’re focusing on mostly all his weird :re character development, the bad handling of Haise and his memories, and all his iterations.

Before I read :re, what I could glean from fanart and the occasional fic that wasn’t tagged properly was really confusing and kind of a mixed bag. I knew Haise was Kaneki but without his memories, now in the ccg trying to be a pacifist and going :DDDDD a lot yknow. And what I came up with in my own mind for that change was a deal of (this makes more sense with the anime canon tbh, the manga honestly doesn’t do any of this well) like Kaneki after The Shit Went Down With Hide (whichever canon you’d like to interpret that as) he basically realized that he really couldn’t be a ghoul, he didn’t want to be, he didn’t want to hurt people and he wanted to be happy and make other people happy instead of what he thought was right before (trying to fight to protect others on his own etc) because that mentality had gotten people he loved hurt, and well subconsciously I guess that kind of factored into his development into Haise and maybe caused his memory loss (along with the, yknow, shanked eye.) So when I started to read it that kind of checked out, this is what he’s trying so hard to be now. But then this whole bullshit of the whole other like, 37 different versions of kaneki complicated things. 

Haise was scared that when he got his memories back he would cease to be, well, Haise, and he would just like revert back to what he was before everything. Which I can understand him being scared of and I think was a good point in the plot for him to worry about that, but I was like “oh honey don’t worry that’s not how it works” and was kind of vying for him to eventually get his memories back, come to terms with the fact that those were his memories, he did do those things, he was half a ghoul, and maybe come back to his original fight of wanting to bring the humans and ghouls together, still caring about his human people in the ccg and all. That development was real, and it wouldn’t just go away if he got his memories back, he learned a lot and grew a lot and he has a different outlook on life now. Right?

Fucking wrong I guess. Dude gets his memories back (very ambiguously, it was really hard to tell when that even happened tbh) and like. Turns into a flaming ass looking like ebony darkness dementia raven way. Haise gone. Fucking completely. No trace left. Doesn’t care about his kids anymore. When he’s done with that and goes white again he’s just Kaneki again and there’s really not enough left of things that like, really wouldn’t go away? He loses the flair? The dumbass? The :D? The Extra? WHY? Why would those things go away? Haise shouldn’t have been right that he would disappear when he got back his memories. That killed me. I love Kaneki and all but H a i s e. He is my b o y. H i m. With his e n e r g y  s h o r t s. And his m o m. And his c o o k i n g. And his k i d s, I l o v e him. And Ishida doesn’t seem to realize that they’re... literally the same person. Haise isn’t just some stupid bastard occupying Kaneki’s body, he’s a valid part of Kaneki himself and to be honest, peak Kaneki. Should have stayed that way. Would have been great for Hide tbh. Not just having him pretty much revert to his old self, but basically respond equally to both names and balance the world between human and ghoul. I would have loved that. What happened for real? It doesn’t make sense and it breaks my heart.

Some people on the interwebz try to kind of even that whole deal out by trying to say he like, has DID, which although is obviously a valid thing, like, so does not apply to him. God I’m like so not an expert on this but I feel like it’s not that hard to tell. His 87 little Kanekis in his head aren’t separate personas, they’re metaphorical representations of his past morals, experiences, and ideologies that all conflict. Again Haise here is peak conflict because when he gets his memories back, he has all these different conflicting ideas that were all previously separate. They’re all him. Tortured Kaneki constantly yelling at him in Jason’s chamber is basically again, a metaphor for how he’s denying his ghoulhood and the trauma that he’s been dealt. It’s not that this dude still exists just the way he is ready to show up at any moment lmao. Ishida kind of dealt with that badly too because Haise really said

after his memories happened so I can see why people might, but it’s... not right, and it’s Ishida’s fault about that which is Incorrect

Also just blanket statement, black reaper Kaneki? Fuck him and all he stands for. 0% valid. I can excuse literally every other version of him. But wh y. God he leaves the room and Urie starts misusing his power and getting groomed by a pedo, Saiko is just, left behind and sad, Mutsuki gets captured by a perv and mentally destroyed again, Shirazu dies and the bitch is like like “lol it’s your fault” yeah helpful, die

10. P- the- the porn chapter-

Idk about you but that was so fucking unecessary??? Not even going off of how terribly awkward and weird it was to have it there when the opening was “i’m sad about my best friend who’s gonna get executed what do you do when you’re sad about your best friend” “i simply do not think of him or i might actually just curl up and die” “yo lmao same” “wanna fuck” Like ok um I’m biased bc i’m not straight but I like, really hated that. Even just flipping through the pages as fast as I could to get to the end of it like. God. It’s not a fucking hentai. I’m here for the plot. If you’re not gonna release the director’s cut of kaneki fucking voring hide, i don’t think i need to see 20 pages of straight fucking sex. And if you absolutely must have porn, kaneki is a fucking bottom. That man gets pegged do not try to prove otherwise. You started it out that way god I love how they’re like “oh god wait that looks kind of gay, the woman being dominant, better stop that right now” god Ishida not having a single iota of knowlege about his own characters aND THEN SHE GETS PREGNANT? NO. Excuse me. No. I just. I. Why. This isn’t. A fucking porno. This isn’t tentacle porn i swear oh my god kill me

11. Giving the wrong characters attention

Basically, redeeming characters that should have been redeemed and not going into/discussing characters that should have been redeemed/had more backstory. For example, Tsukiyama can go fucking die. I like, do not even care rich boy. I don’t understand how anyone could think he needed to be redeemed he’s just a gay attention whore who really needs to let this kid get on with his merry fucking life. I don’t care. I literally did not need to read three whole books about his dumbass hangup over eating Kaneki. Kaneki doesn’t fucking want you bitch move on. He didn’t need to be redeemed or seen to be in any way sympathetic, no one wanted it. Same with that bitch ass Furuta, he wasn’t really redeemed but he was given w a y too much time to play out his sob story. God man Rize doesn’t fucking want you. These gross ass simps. I swear.

On the other hand, I kind of liked Eto even though she’s a pile of shit, and I got mad when they didn’t really go into much about her. And you know who could have gotten much more screen time/development? TOUKA. God, I love her and she was just sitting around in the background being straight. Let her have some spicy development. Also obviously, Hide. He was... so underappreciated and underexplained? What happened with him? He didn’t just pick himself off the ground in the sewers and go ‘well i’d better get back to the ccg now’ we have a whole two years which are completely unexplained, most of which he was off mysteriously being involved in things but completely missing the eye of Haise and other major players. Where tf was he? How did he get around? What was he even doing??? I wanna know about that! Not all the characters I hate’s tragic backstories that make me feel 0% more sympathetic towards them :)

12. ARE WE ALL JUST GONNA COLLECTIVELY IGNORE THE WHOLE VORE THING???

Ok like i know i say “the entire reason I read :re was __” but like to be honest this was the turning point, I saw pictures of hide’s vore face and went like

So I was like “god fucking damn it ok, Ishida would you care to explain this to me” *cracks open re*

And then they DIDN’T.

Like. It’s actually laughable how much that entire situation was just glossed over. They gave that maybe like two pages. Like what. I. This manga has more sex scene than no homoing that. They just don’t even bother to. I feel like Ishida had that as a plot point but realized halfway in how it looked (i.e., really fucking gay) and decided that was something that he was just gonna, not deal with. Just act like that’s a completely normal heterosexual bro thing to do. Like of course anywhere would be pretty gay but Kaneki chose his face. His face. Like his face and his wholeass neck and his shoulders and nowhere else. (and assumedly like, his tongue, seeing as how the dude can’t talk... bruh) Dude really said extreme hickey. French kiss to the max. Ishida clearly did realize that generally, you can only get a bitten off face by,,, having your face bitten off, which is just inherently really fucking gay. Like, I’m just at a loss as to how it even makes sense. You wouldn’t think that the skin off his face, and specifically around his mouth, would really be the most nutritious thing to consume? I can get like the shoulders but generally you’d think something like his arm or leg would be 1.less inconvenient, and 2.much more logical and nutritious? But NO, Kaneki was like “you know what i’m gonna do? eat your Face” and hide’s like “lmao sounds cool”

(not to mention, wasn’t there another guy with a vore face somewhere? like that old guy in the ccg with the bigass turtleneck, i wanna know about him) But like... my bro Ishida went “yeah this happened but i’m going to cover it up with speech bubbles and the ends of panels guys they clearly had their socks on” Dude didn’t even TRY to explain otherwise. Like hey man, that’s pretty damn gay, you are kind of at liberty to either tell me why otherwise, or accept those implications and acknowledge them?? It’s really hilarious when you ignore it cause it’s like

kind of

pretty damn

WEAK of you to leave it at that fucking pissbaby

hmmmmmmmmm however could this happen i guess we’ll never know

13. What the fuck was even the plot omg

God I’ve been writing this post for like five hours so like, I’ll keep it short but like it made sense in the original, not to be like an anime fan but the anime made fucking sense (not re i mean like the original) this lore is so fucking stupid god, the horrors of the entire fucking dragon arc bleach my eyes, unresolved plotlines who???? (the whole ‘oh yeah also ur dying of old age’ thing etc, is kaneki like??? still doing that?? or was that randomly resolved with the whole spewing ovary bullshit i’m going to fucking kill myself) and to top it off, good job Ishida at a real fucking cheap ending. 

You gave them. Fake human. Really? They just come up with artificial human at the end. Kind of undermines the entire fucking story my guy. Ah yes throw out our whole plot. That was the whole tragedy. You gotta eat human. The ghouls have to eat human and that’s tragic bc they have to kill people or whatever. Or i guess they fucking don’t well fucking ok. God you could have just had them negotiate a kind of peace where the ghouls can get dead humans and such, there are plenty of them and no one has to kill anyone then, there could be a rule system for it, it would be messy but eventually everyone would be ok with it, and I think that would work a lot better than “quick fix i made some hamburger helper human you can eat it fine” guys wtf. It’s like Ishida started plotting out the ending for re approximately 2 hours before his deadline. Anyway yes I hate re and I love yelling about it thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[acloudofsparklingdust]

hi

I was also raised 7th day Adventist and I’m a closeted lesbian. I don’t hate my religion..because I personally didn’t have a bad experience with it in my childhood, but it clashes a lot with my beliefs and well parts of my identity. I’m feeling a bit helpless because this religion has been a big part of my life, a lot of strong women I look up to in my life are sda, and my local sda community is very wholesome. And by now you can sense my reluctance in letting it go. I’ve been coping by thinking I should find a gay-friendly sda church once I move out.. if I ever get married. What’s your journey been like? 🪴

Hey! I don't meet a lot of sda online, it's interesting to hear a different perspective. I'm gonna go into everything, bc my experiences with sda really shaped me, and yeah, it's been a wild, not so fun ride.

Basically I was baptized catholic as an infant, but my family isn't practicing catholic. My mom is very religious, and wanted me to have a good education... In Brazil, we have very poor public education in primary and secondary school, and the best schools are the private ones... Which are also religious schools. So I wound up studying in a sda school from kindergarten to highschool graduation.

So from a young age (4 yo) I was raised on my school's religious beliefs. I was really involved, and my childhood best friend was also sda, she lived a couple floors down from me and we'd hang out often, and her family would bring me to church on Saturdays (there was a sda church across the street from the apartments we lived in). I was the staple Christian child, I prayed every night and every morning, apart from all the prayer at school ofc. At 8yo they did a talk at school about the importance of baptism, and I asked my parents to allow me to be baptized as sda. My mom surprisingly didn't want me to be baptized again, not so young, but my dad said I should do what I wanted, so I was baptized again at the school's church. Literally the school had an auditorium for our weekly religion-related classes, which we called "chapel", and was basically like going to church – but mandatory, as it was during school time. This specific school also had a church built on the side, so yeah.

During my early childhood through preteen years I had no issues with the school's teachings and sda ideology. It was all I had ever known, my family encouraged religion and we'd also sometimes (rarely) go to catholic church. I honestly didn't even realize people could not believe in god until I was 12/13.

I had never really heard much about being gay, or being anti gay during primary school - I may have forgotten having ever heard it from teachers. I only heard about homophobia from peers, and so I knew that being gay was a bad, evil, gross thing.

When I was around 11/12 we moved to a smaller town, and I started at a smaller Adventist school. I was the only one in my small newly found friend group who was baptized, and moving was very traumatic for me, so I started becoming less active in church. I became severely depressed because of the move and other stuff at home, and turned to the internet for a distraction.

I first heard about atheism from a youtuber, and he was known for his controversial takes (he's pretty nasty, it's only gotten worse with time but anyway). I guess a mixture of depression, becoming a teen, having my rebellious phase, I started researching into it.

My religion teacher (we had "religion" classes, but they should really have been called "7th Day Adventism classes") was much harsher than the one I had at my first school. This was around the time that Twilight was a big deal, and I read those books sooo many times for comfort, I got into Harry Potter etc. Not long after I moved to this school, we had a religion class about how Harry Potter was inspired by the devil. My books were often confiscated during class, even if I had already finished my assignments and was reading quietly, even if they were just on my desk. Being super depressed and introverted, with very few friends, books were my refuge. Having the teachers look down on them and literally say they were devilish and evil really started to shift my view of the religion. I knew these were good books, I loved them. So how could they be evil?

I have a very strong memory of praying and praying once and begging Jesus and god to help me, to give me a sign, because I was terrified of losing my religion, of losing god. All I had learned my whole life was that god is good, god is love etc. How come god wasn't helping me, my family, through some of the worst times? How come I was alone?

At around 12/13 my cousin came out to me as bi, and soon after another cousin came out as gay. I barely fully understood what that meant, and the internet was again where I researched about it. I realized I liked girls at the time, but I never understood you could even be married to a woman, as a woman. Even though I knew I liked and was attracted to girls, I never let myself think too much on it. The school was pretty obvious about how marriage is between a man and a woman, our "sex talk" was a class with our religion teacher. Bio talk was split, the boys left the room so we could learn about female anatomy and stuff, and then the boys had the room, etc. Our religious teacher was very adamant about how one shouldn't have sex before marriage, and marriage was between a man and a woman so...

Honestly the basework they laid was to erase homosexuality. I didn't even grasp that I could be anything but attracted to girls, I didn't realize I could do anything about it.

And then in highschool, I guess bc we were old enough, they finally started being outspoken about their hatred of gay people. There would be snide comments from the Portuguese/Lit teacher, a disgusting talk from the History teacher about how gay men's sexual activity leads to anal incontinence, the Religion teacher saying it was wrong, comparing it to criminality, the school's vice principal giving us a lecture and making sure to hammer in the worst thing anyone could turn out to be was homosexual.

At this point I thought I was okay with my same sex attraction, I thought these things weren't getting under my skin. But then I learned about being trans, and I came to the conclusion that since I was into girls, I couldn't be a woman. I identified as trans from around 15-19. That was internalized misogyny and homophobia, that was me actually letting all the snide little comments settle deep in me, and shape who I was.

Anyway, at around 14 I was done. School was teaching us that bastard kids aren't blessed by god (me and my siblings are all "bastards" as my parents were never married). They told us couples who lived together and we're never married were not blessed by god, and implied they were bound to have issues for their sin.

I was a teenager living in a broken home, my father was emotionally abusive to me and my mother, and honestly at the end of the day I had to choose if I wanted to believe in a god who was supposedly love itself, yet didn't protect me and my young siblings and my mom... Or not believe in god at all.

Leaving the church and coming to terms with not believing in god was one of the toughest times in my life. My depression was in the gutter, I was self harming, I was struggling. I remember thinking of my cousins, whom I was very close with growing up, and knowing they were good people, so how could god not love then? I remember thinking of myself, of all I had done for the church, for god, and wondering how could god not accept me.

For me, the church was poison. I only saw hypocrisy, I saw people who judged each other, who cared more about their own concepts of right and wrong than being mindful of others. I saw my teachers who preached being kind, but ridiculed and laughed at other religions and those who believed them. When I was questioning religion, I always had sooo many questions for my religion teacher and so often she just told me that some questions were too big for us to understand, that only god could fully comprehend himself.

I'm proud to have come out the other side, but I won't lie. The community that church represents does seem so lovely and welcoming. I wanted to be a part of something, and church offered that.

But at the end of the day, there's no space for me, a lesbian, in there. They don't believe gay marriage is okay, they don't condone our "lifestyle". They think this is a choice we're making, and a bad one at that.

The childhood friend I mentioned earlier, who I used to go to church with, actually came out as a lesbian a couple years ago as well. Her sda family is giving her a really hard time. She's left the church, last I heard.

Honestly, my advice would be to find other community. Find community with other lesbians, people who can accept you unconditionally, who can offer you support without small print. That's what I'm trying to do.

I personally am against christianity for a lot of other reasons besides my very negative experiences. Maybe that's not you, and in that case I guess finding a church that is LGB friendly can be the answer. I couldn't judge anyone for choosing to stay, because like I said I really understand how nice it can feel, how it's like you belong in this community, how it can feel like the church is family.

But I really suggest deep soulsearching, because in my experience all they ever did for me was suck all my energy, all my devotion, and spit me out when I was never going to be the heterosexual good girl they expected me to be.

Sorry for the super long answer, I hope this helps some? If you wanna talk more in private you can hit me up through DMs, I'm very willing to listen and talk about it.

[mahoushojoe]

okay first of all: this is not me starting any kind of discourse or anything, just me talking about an issue that affects me specifically and just thinking out loud really

idk i don't like the "high school mean girl is actually a closeted wlw with internalized misogyny/homophobia" trope

bc idk i just. i don't like that shifting of responsibility, i guess? its cool when it's fictional characters but idk like. i feel like its never addressed that yes, this Meanie With Internalized Misogyny had unresolved issues that made her act the way she did, but then we never address the victims of that Meanie, and just. idk

im not saying this for any particular reason so much as a few days ago, one of the people who bullied and alienated me to the point of severe mental illness in my adolescence came out as bisexual now that she's living abroad, and made this long post about how she had so much internalized homophobia and it "infected her interactions with other women"

and it's like, okay, that's good for you, and i'm glad you're discovering that, but like...god. you are responsible for so much of MY trauma. like, i, too, am a young sapphic experiencing internalized homophobia and misogyny in a conservative society, and you traumatized me so badly that you permanently impacted my ability to trust other women. you ruined my childhood. you were responsible for a time in my life that was so bad, so intensely horrible and mentally draining, that my mind has literally blocked out parts of my memory of it as a defense mechanism. like... it's not NORMAL to take out your baggage on other people, other, more vulnerable people, like....god knows, I didn't. like...i PAID for your inner turmoil.

and obviously not everyone who was in this situation was as bad as my abuser- because really, what was going on there was just constant abuse i was forced to deal with for years- but like. idk. it's why i can sympathize with god-knows-what kind of villain but i just. cannot stomach bullies, of any kind.

i don't know where i'm going with this honestly but idk being neurodivergent and queer was something those people and that person specifically took advantage of so, so badly, and seeing them like, justify what they did to me with their own inner turmoil just made me feel. bad. in a way i'd never felt before. maybe i'll talk about it later but just. this has to be trauma because i can't talk about this person without feeling cagey and weird and i can't even like....go to bath and body works, or something else she used to like, without remembering her and feeling how gross and shameful and ugly and humiliated she used to make me feel, and i feel so angry, all the time, at all the time she and her ilk stole from me, because i was this vulnerable and earnest person that trusted them so completely, and now they've permanently impacted my ability to love but they get to go out and move to a new country and freely start a new page and i'll just never get closure. and i don't want revenge or anything, i never have, i just want someone to acknowledge that these people abused and bullied me for years and i just want to be able to permanently close the door on that trauma and finally just be able to trust again.