#or at the very least understand others queerness

[phantom-of-the-memes]

⚠️ The general election in the Republic of Ireland is happening tomorrow, November 29th⚠️

Here’s what you need to know if you are a leftist/ just want Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael out of government.

Firstly, why do we need to get them out?

Because they have been in power for almost 100 years! 100 years of a “centre” right government. We have not even had a centre left government in all this time, never mind a left government. Something has to fucking change. Even if you’re not a socialist like me, you have to acknowledge that all the problems currently in Ireland have been caused, or at least not dealt with by them. They’re the ones in power! And yet they talk about the issues in Ireland and how something has to be done… Simon Harris is a joke with his “a new energy” signs. Cunt you’re the current fucking Taoiseach!

So, who should you vote for?

If you truly want change, and a government that is for the people, vote People Before Profit number one. They are actually putting actions behind their words. They have explicitly said that they will refuse to go into government with FF or FG. They want the other left parties to form a left coalition with them, and also make a stand to refuse a right government. Other left parties, however, are quite lukewarm on the situation, and won’t join the coalition. But still put other left parties for number two and three. Some are more preferable than others. But change is change.

Ok if you’re not a socialist like me, there are other options. Sinn Féin is centre left, so if a bit more conservative than others. This makes it the third most voted for party generally. It’s a bit more palatable to the general public than the commies I vote for lol. I don’t agree with the majority of their policies, especially with them dialling back their support for trans people. I assume to appeal to FF and FG supporters. As a trans person I wouldn’t personally vote for them. But I understand the logic of being strategic about your vote. They’re the most likely to win out of the left parties.

Why should you still vote for parties that likely won’t win the overall vote?

Because they will still get seats! This isn’t a presidential election where it’s all or nothing. The majority winner gets to be the ones in power. But this is a democracy. More votes for a party means more seats for them in the Dáil. So it does matter.

What is each party’s stance on taking action against Israel?

Here’s a very helpful graphic from the ucd bds group on Instagram (ucd_bds):

See FF and FG’s stance? Exactly.

Who you should definitely not vote for?

Aontú are literal nazis. Their main selling point is that they hate immigrants. They want to strip their rights and practically stop immigration all together. They also hate women, and want to criminalise abortion again. The members of the party were big parts of the pro life movement that tried to stop the abortion referendum. Of course they also hate trans and queer people. Basically any and all minorities. They aim to bring fascism to our government. Don’t let this happen. This is also why voting is so important, so we can prevent this.

And this should go without saying, but don’t fucking vote for the joker independent candidates that have signs around saying shit like “make crime illegal”. It’s not even a joke to vote for them. You’re an asshole if you throw your vote away like that.

Remember to find out where your local polling station is, and bring your polling card, on Friday the 29th of November.

[bicheetopuff]

Dudebro Deku fans have gotta be the worst part of the fanbase. They genuinely hate everything about this series. I just saw one of them talk BS about Toga and call her creepy/killer, so many of them are happy she died. They hate Ochako and Toga's connection and story, they hate the queer subtext in Toga's character and her character in general. If there is one thing that I am at least glad is that Hori didn't give these dudebros the ending they wanted, he at least didnt make Ocha//Izu canon. Ochako's thoughts were primarly all focused on Toga and the time skip shows us her dedication to fund a program in Toga's name. Thank god these incels lost and I hope they will not see the light of the day for eternity.

I actually saw comments about this earlier today. Specifically people hating Toga, and one comment just admitting that everyone ended up gay. I don’t like that they hate for no real reason, but I’m glad a lot are willing to admit that there actually is queer subtext in the story.

I hope they find a heteronormative, cookie cutter piece of media that they can enjoy in peace so that they can stop hating on and harassing queer people

[doubletrucks]

it is so cool and definitely not insanity inducing at all how no matter how i personally feel about my own gender or how hard i try to present myself a certain way everyone including other queer people are going to make assumptions abt me and my identity that are pretty much completely untrue based on the way my body looks 👍👍👍 something i did not ask for at all 👍👍👍

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

Dorothy being assaulted at 17 and then trapped in a marriage for the next 38 years really makes the queer subtext heartbreaking rather than funny. It also adds a whole lot to how barbed she gets when they discuss her sex life and how vanilla it is or how little sex she had, no wonder it would be a sore subject (and no wonder its consistent that she had very little sex with Stan in her marriage and said she didn't enjoy it when they did).

Yep, that's part of the reason why I think that queer subtext is so insightful!

A queer reading of Dorothy is not necessary to understand the gravity of what happened to her, to be fair. Stan is very clearly depicted as a bad lover in general and an especially inattentive lover to her -- take eg what she says of him in S1E22 Job Hunting:

"It took three seconds. I wasn't sure that we had done anything, actually… until nine months later, when the baby came. Then I figured out that we had."

Which... doesn't seem like a great experience. Add onto it the fact that a) this is a recollection of her first time, b) she was coerced into performing the act either via emotional manipulation or alcohol/substances (as well detailed in this post by @eeblouissant), and c) her situation didn't improve at all during her marriage; if anything it got worse, since Stan was always out cheating on her -- no wonder she has a bad relationship with sex! Actually, I've said before that I think she has a remarkably open and healthy attitude towards sex, all things considered.

Thinking of Dorothy as queer (especially as a repressed lesbian) makes it all even more tragic, though. I think it's very likely, considering that she's a Catholic of Italian origin, that she hadn't even realized she liked women by the time she got involved with Stan -- I myself reached that conclusion in my early 20s! However, by that time Dorothy was already married and a mother; can you imagine how painful the mere idea would have been, for her? Of course she'd never even consider it while still married to Stan, and she'd have a hard time coming to terms with it after her divorce. It adds a thick layer of suppression and self-sacrifice to her whole story that I think is very thematically appropriate for her character (and that personally destroys me lmao. I cannot think about it for too long or I'll cry my heart out).

I think her whole experience with Stan also justifies her enthusiasm for some of her lovers in the show, even in a queer reading. I mean -- after all that, her standards must be on the floor! The bar is so low, she's dancing the lambada with the devil! Even a modicum of attention to her needs would blow her mind, I think -- even if it didn't come from her preferred gender, and especially if she wasn't ready to confront the truth about her sexuality yet. A lifetime of suppression isn't easy to get over -- she'd probably blame her bad experience with sex during her marriage on Stan alone (instead of considering that maybe she'd rather not be with a man at all).

Sorry, anon -- you probably weren't expecting a ramble in response, haha! But yeah, you make a great point; reading Dorothy as queer adds even more depth to her character and greatly enhances the tragedy of her story.

(Just for the record -- I've never thought the queer reading of Dorothy was funny! Maybe I'm reading this wrong, I just wanted to clarify.)

[invinciblerodent]

>person writes a post about how being a fan of a female fictional character means also needing to be her defense attorney, and generally an expert at explaining all her nuances

>hmm yes, i agree, I too am frustrated by fandom misogyny, I shall reblog that

>I glance at their username

>it's calling a canonically bisexual female character a lesbian

(i don't know how many more times i can scroll past casual bi erasure, folks)

(i don't know how much more i have in me)

[deus-and-the-machina]

ngl the worst thing about the xenoblade fandom (which I think is the root cause of a lot of other issues) is that it’s mostly on twitter. I have to subject myself to twitter for any real consistent fan talk or content. legit there's always some new stupid topic of argument ive noticed in the past few weeks on there and its all very silly and frustrating and what im saying is everyone should move to Tumblr. please. for me. 

[autistic-shaiapouf]

I should start rb'ing the pride art I've done, those wings, happy pride moth, and that post I made colorpicking the nonbinary flag from Pouf's main color palette

[wishbonedean]

Supernatural *is* a horror show first and foremost.

it has been said before but i feel the need to state again that the finale of supernatural is not only the most insane case of accidentally making a soul crushing psychological horror while trying to make a satisfying conclusion but the only case of that happening ever (at least to my knowledge.) i’ve seen bad tv endings, but never a tv ending that was trying to be comforting instead telling me that all of my worst nightmares are true and that me and the ones i hold close will never ever love openly without fear. again, so many before me have made this point but god. they killed him on rebar. he never got to be free

[atissi]

i don't really like when people say dungeon meshi is accidentally good autistic representation, because while i understand not wanting to make conclusions without explicit confirmation from the author, there's always the weird assumption that non-western authors somehow don't know about things like neurodivergency/queerness/etc. (on top of the assumptions that east asian authors are somehow more naive or oblivious to "western" social issues).

given that dungeon meshi started being published in 2014, it's not really a "work belonging to its times"—it's as contemporary as any other media we discuss on this site, which means it should be fair to assume it engages with contemporary topics (and at the very least, you shouldn't say that the representation is accidental with so much confidence)

but anyways, the chapter "perfect communication" in ryoko kui's "terrarium in a drawer" is some of the most straightforward autistic representation I've seen, and from now on I'm going to assume that laios's character writing is absolutely intentional in that regard:

[spookiat]

Had allos smugly assume a close silly friendship was romantic: 10,000 dead 900,000 injured, I am exploding them with my mind

[bicheetopuff]

I don't believe iz/ch is canon bc like why would you forget abt the tragic intense sapphic romance you had and build an entire system to help that girl that died for you for some gay boy you had a crush on in hs 😭

same goes for izk. why would you forget abt the intense rival friendship with your devoted childhood friend that died (twice) for you and declared that he wanted chase after you forever and funded your power to make it happen for some gay girl you were friends with in hs

(i'm joking, obv)

Wdym you’re joking? You’re literally right.

[sinister-sunray]

I am a queerplatonic nightsun truther and anyone with anything to say against it can meet me behind the bins

[centi-pedve]

annoyed forever & always by people who ask for "more woman authors" like !! women have very consistently been in the majority for the last decade at the very least when it comes to author demographics. what you need to show us is some sort of proof that women get worse offers or less readership on average or something! because raw author demographics are very obviously not the issue!

[bridoesotherjunk]

so I saw this article today

That says "5 years later, Sony still doesn't understand why it's biggest spider-verse hit worked"

And the article mainly talks about how the Venom films are self contained and don't try to be films in a cinematic universe. They have a clear identity. Yes, there is no Spider-Man in them, and that's okay because they knew what they wanted to do without him when they made the films. They even say at one point "the Venom films are not for everyone, but at least they know what they are"

This is something I personally have talked about many times. And I've seen other Venom fans talk about. And what I'm seeing MCU fans starting to say more and more now. The movies work when they have a clear story and identity and don't feel interchangeable or formulaic.

You could take any Disney plus marvel show or 'phase 4' movie and switch the characters around and the story would probably stay largely the same, or at least feel the same. We all know what I mean right? The characters all make quips like Tony Stark no matter if it is in character or not. They talk and act the same.

But the Venom films? You couldn't take Tom Hardy's Eddie and swap him with the mcu cast. He acts so differently than 90% of them, he wouldn't fit in. He's fucking weird and unhinged and is very much Tom Hardy's brain child.

.

Also the Venom movies worked because queer people liked them. The films were hugely popular with LGBT audiences but you didn't hear that from me 👀👀👀👀

[giritina]

Lately I've been dipping my toe into the mess that is transandrophobia discourse, and in the process I've been presented with one question in many forms:

"Do trans men experience misogyny?"

My initial answer was "these terms are all theoretical frameworks for a vast range of human experiences, why would you choose to frame your pre-transition experiences as that of a woman?" This makes sense to me, but clearly isn't satisfactory to many of the people sending me anons. As much as I might want to use my own life as a case study, I can't very well tell these people in my asks box "no, you've never experienced something that could be categorized as misogyny." Still, the question bothers me.

I think that's because the question obfuscates the actual debate. It's clear to me the question we are debating is not one of "experience" but "authority." That is:

"Do (binary) trans men understand what it's like to be a woman?"

My answer? No.

How can I justify that when we have, since birth, been raised as women? Well, because we also have, since birth, been trans men. If we cast aside the idea of transness as a modern social construct or anything other than an innate and biological reality, this has to be true. Even before you ever came out to yourself, you were transgender. Transphobia has dictated every moment of your life. Your idea of what "womanhood" is is not at all the same as a woman's, be it cis or trans. Why? Because a woman does not react to "being a woman" with the dysphoria, dissociation, and profound sense of wrongness that you do. [If you do not experience these things, a cis or trans woman, at the very least, does not identify as a binary trans man.] A woman sincerely identifies as a woman, and identity plays a pivotal role in how we absorb societal messaging.

Let's take homophobia as an example. While any queer person has probably experienced targeted episodes of bigotry, the majority of bigotry we experience must necessarily be broad and social. Boys learn to fear becoming a faggot as a group, but the boy who is a faggot will internalize those messages in a completely different way to the boys who only need learn to assert the heterosexual identity already inherent in them through violence. All of them are suffering to some extent, but their experiences are not at all equivalent. This is despite the fact that they've all absorbed the same message, maybe even at the same moment, through the same events. Still, we don't say that a straight boy knows what it is like to be a gay boy. Similarly, cis women do not know what it is like to be a trans man despite being fed the same transphobic messaging in a superficially identical context. It isn't a stretch to say the same can apply to misogyny.

Because I can't speak for you, I'll use myself as an example for a moment. I'll give my bonafides: I am a gender-nonconforming, T4T queer, white, binary trans man. I am on T, and I have recently come out to my family. I do not pass. My career as a comic writer is tied to my identity as a trans man. I can confidently say I have never been impacted by misogyny the same way as my friends who actually identify as women. This manifested early on as finding it easy to shrug off the messaging that I needed to be X or Y way to be a woman. In fact, most gender roles slid off my back expressly because breaking them gave me euphoria. I was punished in many ways for this, but being this sort of cis woman did help me somewhat. It's easy to be "one of the guys" in a social climbing sense if you really do feel more comfortable as a man. It also helped me disregard misogyny aimed at me or others because it seemed like an shallow form of bigotry. It was something you could shrug off, but it was important for building "unity" among women. I thought this must be the case for all women, that we all viewed misogyny as a sort of "surface level" bigotry. However, for whatever conditional status I gained in this role, there was a clear message that if I did "become" a man, every non-conformist trait about me would just become a grotesque and parodic masculinity.

That was the threat that was crushing me, destroying my identity and self esteem. That was what I knew intimately through systemic, verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. I could express my nonconformity as a cis woman, but if I took it so far as to transition to male? I would be a pathetic traitor, a social outcast. I truly believe that throughout my life people were able to see that I was not just a failed woman, but an emasculated man.

I do partly feel that the sticking point for many is the idea that the sexual abuse suffered by trans men is inherent to womanhood, and therefore inexplicable if trans men are men from birth. While this disregards the long history of sexual abuse of young boys, especially minority boys, I do see the emotional core. I'll offer that the sexual abuse I suffered was intrinsically linked to my emmasculation, my boyishness, despite the fact that I was not out to myself or anyone else. I believe many trans men have suffered being the proxy for cis women's desire for retribution against cis men, or for cis men and women's desire for an eternally nubile young boy. I also believe they have suffered corrective assault that attempts to push them back into womanhood, which in itself is an experience unique to transness rather than actual womanhood.

I'll note quickly that many, many trans men cannot relate to the idea of feeling confident and above it all when it comes to womanhood. Many of you probably tried desperately to conform, working every moment to convince yourself you were a woman and to perfectly inhabit that identity. I definitely experienced this as well (though for me it was specifically attempting to conform to butchness) but I can concede many of you experienced it more than I did. I still believe that this desperate play-acting is also not equivalent to true womanhood. It is a uniquely transgender experience, one that shares much more in common with trans women desperately attempting to conform to manhood than with true womanhood.

One key theme running through the above paragraphs is the idea that "womanhood" is synonymous with "suffering." A trans man must know what it is like to be a woman because he suffers like one. It should be noted that actual womanhood is not a long stretch of suffering. It often involves joy, euphoria, sisterhood, a general love and happiness at being a woman. It wasn't until I admitted to myself I had never been a woman that I was able to see how the women in my life were not women out of obligation, but because they simply were. The idea that you are a woman because you suffer is more alligned with radfem theory than any reality of womanhood.

When I admitted my identity to myself I was truly faced with the ways that my ability to stand up to misogyny did not equate to being anti-misogynist. I was giddy to finally be able to admit to being a man, and suddenly all that messaging that "slid off my back" was a useful tool in my arsenal. Much like cis gay men feel compelled to assert their disgust for vaginas and women after a life of being compelled towards heterosexuality, I felt disgust and aversion to discussions of womanhood as an identity. I didn't even want to engage with female fictional characters. I viewed other people's sincere expressions of their own womanhood as a coded dismissal of my identity. Like many people before and after, I made women into the rhetorical device that had oppressed me. Not patriarchy, not transphobia, but womanhood and women broadly. It wasn't explicit bigotry, but the effects were the same. I had to unlearn this with the help of my bigender partner, who felt unsettled and hurt by the way I could so easily turn "woman" into nothing but a theoretical category which represented my personal suffering.

This brings me to another point: I sometimes receive messages from nonbinary trans mascs telling me that it's absurd to think they don't understand womanhood and identify with misogyny in a deeper way. I would agree that, if you sincerely identify in some capacity as a woman, you are surely impacted by misogyny in a way I am not. However, why are you coming to the defense of binary trans men like me? Less charitably, why are you projecting a female identity on us? Perhaps my experience frustrates you so deeply because we simply do not have the same experience at all. Perhaps we are not all that united by our agab, by our supposed female socialization.

So, no. I do not believe that binary trans men know what it's like to be women. I don't believe we are authorities on womanhood. I do not believe that when a trans woman endeavors to talk about transmisogyny, your counterargument about your own experiences of misogyny is useful. I ESPECIALLY do not believe that it is in any way valid to say that you are less misogynist, less prone to being misogynist, or-- god forbid-- INCAPABLE of misogyny because you were raised as a girl. I also don't believe your misogyny is equivalent to that of a woman's internalized misogyny in form or impact.

For as much as many in this movement downplay privilege as merely "conditional," those conditions do exist. They do place you firmly in the context of the rest of the world. Zoom out and look at the history of oppressed men, and you'll find the same reactionary movement repeated over and over. Attacking the women in your community for not being soft enough, nice enough, patient enough, rather than fighting the powers that be. Why do I believe your identity is more alligned with cis manhood than any form of womanhood? Because this song and dance has been done a hundred times before by men of every stripe. Transphobia is real, and your life experience has been uniquely defined by it since birth. This is a thing to rally around, to fight against, but you all have fallen for a (trans)misogynistic phantasm in your efforts at self-actualization. You are not the first, and you will not be the last. Get out of this pipeline before it's too late.

[splatoonpolls]

a really long analysis about fanon Marina and the flanderization by fandom she has gotten

fanon marina (the version created by the fans) mainly focuses on two things, her being autistic coded and her being basically confirmed to be a lesbian. And I do think this has to do with her being VERY much like a typical splatoon fan in many people’s eyes. Her being a nerdy queer neurodivergent person. This is also why other parts, especially her relationship with her being an octoling gets often locked away. Subconsciously at least

if Marina was a book, several chapters would focus on her identity as a dome octoling. Her being autistic would probably pop up here and there, but it wouldn’t be a whole chapter. But her very much gay relationship with Pearl would definitely have a few chapters. But with people focusing on those few lines and chapters rather than the whole book. People would slowly ignore the other chapters, get shocked like Adam Sandler learning Pac-Man was the bad guy in the hit movie pixels.

the splatoon fandom’s western side is mainly white Americans and Europeans. Which is one reason why the fanon Marina doesn’t focus on her identity as an octoling, but also on how many details are not really told to the player. Marina barely shows her ears, which can both be read as her having sensory issues (which is a super valid headcanon(, but also her not feeling super comfortable with her body. With her ears being a reminder of her “you are with people who still think you are only going to steal stuff”. Her tentacles may be weird, she may lack the eyeliner an inkling has. But those things can simply be a stylistic choice. Her ears can’t be one. They are too different. I also know the DLCS focuses more on her identity as a dome octoling. However many can understand how her arc as a whole can be paralleled to the real life experiences of people belonging to marginalized ethnic communities. I also want to point, while writing this. I realized (which many people probably already did). Dome octolings you see outside of the domes (splatoon 2 octolings, Marina, Acht, Paul), are all refugees. They are all characters who grew up in a society that had been shunned for decades, even centuries. That society ended up being oppressive both due to external and internal issues. They know the society they’re living in is no longer a good place to live in. So they escape. Hoping to find a place that will take them on. For agent 8, Marina, and Paul. They found a safe place. Acht wasn’t super lucky however. They were told they could find a “promised land” only to be left in even more ruin before. So not only does Marina’s character arc focus on her being a part of an ethnic minority, but a refugee at that. so why does fanon marina usually avoid that part of her? Well as a mentioned before. Marina has three things that makes her very relatable. While the more backstory focused things are less relatable to a way smaller margin of the splatoon fandom. A way smaller part of the fandom are poc in a very white country. And a very small percentage are refugees.

if we removed Marina’s backstory. We would still be left with the fanon version. A nerdy autistic lesbian who deeply loves Pearl. I love how Nintendo got a game that also isn’t afraid to show a society that cares about queer people if not is queer centric itself. Which is probably why many people cling to that part of Marina. But if we removed that part. What would we be left with? Well, we would have an octoling refugee who is a trained soldier and can create weapons of destructions (and she would still be in love with Pearl, it is an important part of her backstory). im not saying the splatoon fandom’s openness to lgbtq and neurodivergent people is a bad thing just because they boil down one of the most plot heavy characters down to those things. It is actually a really great thing to have a fandom that is open to these marginalized groups.

i just want to say, due to this love for Marina being a character you can relate to. It feels like certain parts of Marina’s character (which can also be very relatable to some) is being drifted away to the more lore centric side of the fandom. Which will lead to a sort of fandom flandarization which is very unintentional and just done due to a love of Marina as a character.

If you’ve read this an disagreed, that is fine. Character writing is a very subjective thing