#there’s so many horrible content out there that is against anything non-cis it makes my heart warm that theres good stuff out there

[stardewfarmboy]

the game im playing acknowledges nonbinary people and i can’t stop smiling

[codename-adler]

Dear Tumblr toxicity,

Hi. Adler here. We need to talk.

- TW: mental health issues, depression, bipolar disorder, self-harm, homophobia, transphobia, coming out, xenophobia, islamophobia, racism, implied sexual content, rape, non-con, addictions, abuse, parental negligence, depictions of violence, swearing (please message me kindly if I forget anything)

- What prompted this message: The release of Skam France S7 teaser (emphasis on teaser, will get into that below)

- Where I’m coming from: I will talk from the pov of a white, cis and queer 22-years-old woman (she/her); this is the pov that affects my experiences and the opinions I will share below; but my message comes from a place of deep hurt, and love

- What this is about: My goal is to share a recurring experience that has hurt me in order to spread a message of awareness, maturity, peace and love

- Central content: Skam France, Skam Wtfock, and Skam/remakes in general

From now on I will assume people have enough information for me to talk about the topics without explaining every plotline/character. There are plenty of wiki pages to help you out and I will gladly answer any (respectful) questions asked if a plothole bothers your comprehension of my message. I’m only making these assumptions in order to alleviate the text.

January 9th, 2021.

The francetv slash YouTube channel releases an unexpected teaser video for an equally unexpected seventh season Skam France. The video features Tiffany, a white, cis female teenager, going into labour from denial pregnancy just after winning what appears to be a gymnastics championship. Overall, the video and its release are very dramatic.

The character of Tiffany, also called Tiff, was previously seen on season 6 of Skam France as a bully who persecuted the main character, Lola, both at school and on social media. Outside of this characterization, nothing is known about her. It is majorly accepted that Tiff is not a liked character; she rather poses as one of the antagonists of Lola’s arc.

Now you know the details of what happened, in the most objectively possible way. 

Now I’ll speak for myself.

Before I went digging around for people’s reaction, here is what I initially thought of this video.

1) Shock: I thought Skam France was over, so... Big, big shock.

2) Excitement: I hold this web series very close to my heart. It has gotten me through depressive episodes, anxiety attacks, coming out to my best friend. To see this new development? It couldn’t bring me more joy.

3) Curiosity: I recognized Tiff immediately. I was intrigued as to what would happen to her to set off a new season in true Skam Fr fashion. As soon as she started gripping her stomach, I knew she was pregnant and wasn’t aware of it. Big, big surprise here again.

4) Numbness/Overthinking: As I stared at my screen, motionless, my mind went off. What did it mean? How did she not know? Who is the father? Do we know him? Will the baby survive? Where are the other characters? Will Lamifex be present? What? How? When? Why? Who?

5) Disappointment: No, I did not like Tiff one bit in S6. Yes, I sincerely wished for a season on either Jo (ambiguous and funny teenage girl, cis + white), Sekou (seemingly neurodivergent teenage boy, cis + black), and my favorite, Max (mysterious and grave teenage boy, trans + white) So why Tiff? It felt to me like a missed opportunity, but I did not lose hope.

So, these were the five stages of my emotional process. And then I made the terrible mistake to go look for the fans’ reaction. I didn’t even look at the YT comments, I didn’t go on Instagram, I went directly here on Tumblr. Why? I’m still asking myself that. From S1 to S6 of Skam Fr, I kept my love for the show to myself and only looked at ig and video edits. I tried once, and only once, to look it up on Tumblr, and was greeted by fervent agressivity, disrespect and hate. Why did I ever forget that after watching the S7 teaser? I still don’t know.

The reactions on this platform were wild. People are furious (I get that). People are disappointed (I get that). People are anxious (I get that). People are also verbally agressive, insensitive, hateful, disrespectful and bullies. I don’t get that.

Comments along the lines of “What she gonna do with a fucking baby?”, “Are we gonna watch the baby do nothing all fucking season?”, “Wowwww, teenage pregnancy, so new and relatable!” (note the sarcasm made in the comment here), “Who gives a shit about Tiff?”, etc. 

And then all the mistakes Skam Fr ever made flooded back onto the feed. The wlw misrepresentation, the whitewashing, the overdramatization, the dubious sex scenes between minors, all of it.

Let’s take a break here. Do I condone these mistakes? Nope. Am I a white-bully apologist? Nope. Did I forget every horrible action Tiff has made in the past? Nope. She manipulated a whole school against Lola, she profited from Lola’s mother’s death, she bullied her, harrassed her, pushed her deeper into mental distress. Tiff was a despicable character that I never once liked. The way she was played by the actress made it clear that Tiff was not intended to be a good guy. If I could replace her as the main of S7, I would, in a heartbeat. I’d choose, as I said, Jo, Sekou or Max.

Skam France deeply lacks diversity and made mistakes when attempting to diverse the issues represented. This is not an opinion, it’s a fact. 

Poc representation is very, very low. Only one season has a woc of Islam beliefs as mc (Imane, S4) with poc entourage/family. Only 2 other characters not related to Imane were poc (Sekou and Sarah, S1-S2). These 2 characters were very in the background and served to further the mc’s plotline, they had no real content. (I am not a poc, and so my opinion does not matter here. If you are not poc, your “opinions” don’t matter here, this point is not for you to debate. These are facts.)

While I do not particularly find the wlw representation bad, I do understand how it hurts/bothers other queer women. From my perspective, the bar was very low regarding my expectations of the Lola/Maya pair (none of them died *yay* they had a happy ending *yay* they were not typically overfeminized or overmasculinized *yay* Lola  and Maya were respectful of each other, understood each other, accepted each other with all their flaws and their beauty *yay* I truly believed in their love and it gave me confidence and hope *yay* I ould really go on but this is not my main point so I’ll stop here) Regardless of my opinion on Mayla, I understand that to some queer women, it was bothering/hurtful. (If you are anything other than a woman / wlw, this point is not for you to debate. Keep your “opinions” to yourself, it does not matter here. These are facts.)

Like every remake of the original Skam where the S4 was given to Sana/Imane, the Muslim community was not represented at its best, at its most beautiful and respectfully. The character of Imane, although she is my favorite girl of the series, was not portrayed in a way that respected the majority of the Muslim community. (If you are anything other than Muslim, this point is not for you to debate. Our opinions do not matter here. These are facts.)

And so the same goes for the portrayal of sexual assault and child pronography in S2, of mental illness and homophobia in S3, of disabilities in S5, of addiction, transphobia, self-harm and neurodivergence in S6. Again, if you are not part of these communities, your opinions do not matter on these issues. These are facts that are not up for debate.

In other words, Skam France, as well as the original Skam, Skam Wtfock, Skam España, and probably all the others I haven’t watched in their entirety, are NOT perfect shows. They (maybe) tried their best to portray issues of the younger generations that are ugly, shameful, taboo, hard-to-swallow-pills. Of course they made mistakes. Of course they have to be held accountable. Of course they can and should do better. Of course it must be spoken about.

Here is my problem.

The so-called “fans” shamelessly SHITTING on the WHOLE show because of ONE TEASER TRAILER. (btw, this is where I get angry)

I am not talking about the fans making fun of the show and this season’s premise like “Better MCs than Tiff for S7: a romance between the car that almost hit Lucas S3 and the car that hit Arthur S5, or the school’s nurse, or Imane’s dad, or Elu’s rabbit” (that shit’s funny and I’d watch all of these).Or the joke about Wtfock and Skam Fr shaking hands while signing the same contract to disappoint the fans with white MCs (it’s funny cuz it’s trueeeee).

I am not talking about the fans criticizing the producers’ choice of Tiff as MC. There is a difference between shitting on issues and adressing/discussing them. I WANT to talk about how this season’s issue would have been so much better if a woc, specifically a black woman, had been the MC, because black women and doctors are a whole different level of issue than white women and doctors. Add on top of that an unplanned teenage pregnancy? It would have been IMMACULATE. I WANT to talk which wlw couple was better represented, Mayla or Croana/Crisana, and why is that. I WANT to talk about disabilities in black and poc communities. I WANT to talk about headcanons, AUs, to rectify the missed marks. I WANT to talk about our takes on seasons about Max, Sekou and Jo, instead of Tiff’s.

I DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT YOUR SHITTY, NEGATIVE, UNHELPFUL, HURTFUL COMMENTS.

Just because the protagonist is white, doesn’t give you ANY right to dismiss the issue that is unplanned teenage pregnancy. This is a problem that affects countries WORLDWIDE. Do you know how many deaths are related to minors giving birth? Do you know how many babies die at birth from these pregnancies? Do you have any idea the trauma it puts you through, to go into labor without even knowing you were pregnant in the first place, and then giving birth, and then having to care for a defensless human being? The dilemma of keeping it, or giving it away? The fear that lives in every person able to give birth, that one day they’ll become pregnant, because society turns sych a shameful look to that? No matter your ethnicity, your gender identity, your sexuality, your political stance or whatever shit you bring up to justify your disgraceful and downright degrading comments, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SAY THAT A MINOR GIVING BIRTH IS NOT AN ISSUE. 

You think the topic has been covered plenty before? Yeah, because shows like “16 and pregnant” and “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant!” are such good examples and show the reality with such an objective point of view! 

Bullshit. Teenage pregnancy is still a taboo, it still kills, and people are still morons about it. 

“Well I guess everybody is secretly pregnant now!” No, Jessica, but you wouldn’t know about it, would you? Because I wouldn’t tell you shit if you were my “friend” and I was going through it. The whole message of all the Skams is not that it presents super relatable issues of teenagers, although it is a big topic of the show. They present some issues that affect the youth in an authentic light, but that’s not it.

Tous les gens que tu rencontres mènent un combat dont tu ignores tout. 

Sois indulgente. Toujours. x x x

//

Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

Be kind. Always. x x x

THAT’S THE MESSAGE. THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE SHOW.

And you all missed it.

All of you making dead baby jokes and death threats, degrading people who give birth, shaming teenagers for their pregnancies... Listen to yourselves.

“Well she deserves it, she was such a bitch!” No, Michael, you shit stick. Let’s rewind a bit for you, yeah? It was a GOD DAMN TEASER. We literally know nothing! Nothing at all! Why are y’all getting mad when we saw 3:25 minutes representing a whole ass season! Listen to yourselves. Y’all judge so fast for people pretending to love Skam and its authenticity and its motto.

You say Tiff is irredeemable?

Emma cheated on her boyfriend.

Manon lied and manipulated her friends.

Lucas was homophobic and prejudiced agaisnt mentally ill people.

Imane was homophobic too and went behind her friends’ back to get what she wanted.

Arthur cheated on his girlfriend too.

Lola dragged Elliot down with her in her addiction, lied, was verbally abusive, etc.

ALL THE MAINS ARE PROBLEMATIC.

Any guess why?

BECAUSE THEY ARE TEENAGERS. THEY ARE STILL GROWING AND LEARNING.

Yet we still loved them all. 

So don’t you dare tell me that Tiff deserves this, that her baby deserves to die, that teenage motherhood is irrelevant. Motherhood is not a curse in the first place, nor is it something to wish to inflict upon anyone. Motherhood is different for every single person and nobody except the person living with it can have an opinion on that. We don’t even know if the baby survived, for God’s sake!

There is no excuse for this kind of behavior..

It makes me so angry. Women are discriminated against in a fandom I thought was safe, again and again and again. 

I have to stop here because, well, this is just too much. There is much wrong with Skam (the original AND all the remakes), but there is even more wrong with the fans. I’m done.

You don’t support the show anymore? Fine, then don’t watch it! If I really am wrong, the number of viewers will go down and the show will die, just like you wished. There is no need to be vicious about it. 

I hope y’all are proud of your misogyny. 

Sincerely,

Adler.

[pointsofpride]

I do not tend to make posts of my own here, but I happened across this, and I have seen far too much of this same horrible rhetoric, and this was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, and I felt that it warranted addressing. I’m blurring this person’s name and avatar, hopefully to avoid any unnecessary drama, because I do not want to invite it, and, looking at this person’s blog, they have made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that they are not willing to concede or consider anything in favour of the a-spec members of our community. So, instead of making an attempt to bring awareness of our community’s history and purpose to one person who’s demonstrated they are unwilling to receive it, I’m just going to use this person as an example, to talk about this virulent attitude toward a-specs.

“There is n o  g o o d a r g u m e n t for w h y aces / aros are a u t o m a t i c a l l y L G B T”

Every single one of those links is a reason. There are many. Some statistical, some anecdotal; some made by a-specs, others made by the trans and bi members of our community; some historical, and some current; some examples of why a-specs are already a part of the community, and some examples of what’s wrong with this kind of gatekeeping rhetoric.

Now, if I were to outline every point in all of those links, this post would be obscenely long, and I’m already concerned it will be, as is, so I will just hope that leaving all of those points in the links will be enough. But I’m still going to talk about this problem as a whole.

Aces and Aros are - and always have been, whether you’re aware of that history or not - a part of our community. They’re already here; they already belong. They are, by default, included, and they do - whether or not you personally decide to not believe or even listen to them - face more than enough to warrant their place in our community, without people in that community adding onto it like this. And their place in our community already exists. It is not an issue of whether they're automatically LGBT, because they already are; this is an issue of “why are you trying to remove them?”. And those who want to exclude them, either by lack of knowledge of LGBT history, or by lack of awareness (or by, as seems to be the case here, direct and intentional denial) of what they face, or by lack of understanding of what our community represents, or by true malice, are in the overwhelming minority within the whole community. The community, as a whole, categorically includes and respects a-specs, but some people. Some few extremely unpleasant people... defy the community.

In spite of this, there very much is infighting, and this is a direct example of it, and it is severely disheartening to keep seeing people - people who ought to know better than this - trying to remove a-specs’ place in this community. And using Stonewall as a gatekeeping rhetoric device, firstly, profoundly disrespects what those riots meant, and, secondly, ignores not only the full extent of our community’s much more detailed and extensive history, but also the fact that the Stonewall Inn itself, right at this moment, celebrates a-specs as a part of our community. That remark also belies a misunderstanding of a-specs’ preexisting place under the LGBT umbrella (which is mentioned in several of those links), and of the community’s purpose. This community is one of support. It does not exist to exclude a-specs, and absolutely exists to support and include them. They are marginalized for their sexual identity in many ways, regardless of people burying their head in the sand to those issues. Members of their own community treating them with this kind of willful disdain does no service - no benefit of any kind - to anybody, in or outside it. The until-very-recent (and still current, in other parts of the world) pathologization of asexuality, the sexual violence, the dehumanization, the emotional abuse and trauma, the harassment and aggression, and the outright fear that a-specs face are not some fabricated myth. No person capable of reasoned thought, knowing what a-specs deal with with, would think they should be excluded. And, as evidenced by this example, exclusionists have catastrophic misunderstandings and/or gaps of knowledge that lead to their insistence on a-spec exclusion. Unfortunately, often those gaps of knowledge are voluntary, due to willful avoidance and wholesale refutation of LGBT history and of a-spec voices, and, perhaps even more bizarrely, of the voices of the non-a-spec members of the community.

Nobody “wants” to be ostracized. To think a-specs are dreaming of stigmatization is nothing beyond a mentality that is, in totality, ignorant. Nobody “wants” to be stigmatized. They simply are. A-specs are. The refusal to listen to their voices, or, perhaps worse, the disturbing outright zeal for denying them, that some seem to have, is telling. It comes not from a place of any real understanding of our community’s history, or of its purpose, or what it faces, but from a place of genuine contempt. It is that contempt that leads people to simultaneously convince themselves that a-specs face no forms of oppression, of any kind, while in the same breath bemoaning the fact that a-specs are now pointing out the validity of their inclusion in this community, in direct response to exactly this kind of exclusionary rhetoric. And that very citation of the fact they face those issues, made in response to people like this saying they don’t, ends up getting called “fearmongering” in an attempt to further delegitimize a-spec voices.

If a-specs say they’re part of the community, aphobes will say they’re fantasizing their oppression, or “fetishizing” oppression. They very obviously are not. Hell, if you’re so eager to tell a-specs they don’t face real oppression and that your oppression somehow has more “value” or whatever, then it sure sounds like you’re the one fetishizing it. And if a-specs point out their oppression in response to being told they don’t experience any, then aphobes will call it fearmongering. And if a-specs benignly make positivity posts, apbobes react with “all you talk about is being ‘valid’” without the self awareness that they are a direct example and contributor to why a-specs are now having to vocally fight back against those people trying to invalidate them. If a-specs point out the hypocrisy of this exclusionism and its direct parallels to rhetoric used against trans and bi people, aphobes (in spite of the vocal concurrence and solidarity of the other members of the community) dismiss that too.

Hell, I sure as fuck am not cis or straight, and I’M telling you your opinion is fucked to hell and blindingly ignorant. Just goddamn listen to a-specs. And learn your history. Don’t pretend Stonewall is the only history we have, and don’t use it this disrespectfully as an excuse to hate on a-specs, because if you knew your history, or gave a single damn about what we actually stand for, you wouldn’t be so fervently trying to kick a-specs out of a community in which they very clearly belong. People like this have just... totally shut themselves off from any willingness to consider why a-specs are a part of the community. Actively, intentionally refusing to consider anything said on their behalf. And when all of this behaviour is pointed out to them, they say “you’ll call people aphobic over nothing”.

The willful ignorance against, and intentional attempt to exclude, a-specs is not “nothing”. It is against everything this community stands for, and this mindset is flat out, in every possible way, morally wrong. The fact is, people like this demonstrate a complete unwillingness to concede anything said in favour of a-specs, regardless of sapience or content, so, more than likely, all those links above would not change their mind. And that, I would hope anyone can see, is a detrimental mentality to choose. I have seen too much of it. Most of what I see is positive solidarity and support. But, even though this disgusting hate is far between, it is still happening far to often without contradiction.

And this hatred of a-specs that aims to remove aces and aros is an incredibly recent, bewilderingly sudden thing in the community. They seem to think a-specs are “invading” our community. They’ve been here the whole time; there’s no “invasion”, but this sure is an attempt to exile.

I would hope that most people that are hesitant to include a-specs are not that amount of closed off to being corrected on this issue. I would hope that most are either just repeating what they see, because nobody’s telling them anything otherwise, or because they just don’t know much about a-spec issues. But I assure you, A-specs are very much LGBT. The acronym doesn’t end at four letters, and it was never created to be an unchangeable prescription of who we are as a community, and I very much doubt that Stormé DeLarverie or Marsha P. Johnson or Sylvia Rivera or Miss Major would have shown this kind of disdain for aces and aros during the riots. I mean really, just... really think about it... for a moment. When you reduce the community to only the L, G, B, and T, you ignore the fact that most of the contemporary terminology surrounding gender and sexual identities either did not exist or was almost entirely unknown, until well after Stonewall. Agender people are LGBT, and many don’t consider themselves trans, but I don’t see the same hate toward them. Those riots were not about a prescribed definition of the community. They were about getting respect for those who weren’t given it. They were about acceptance and fighting back. They were about pride, and the community existed before those riots, and during other demonstrations, but even if you believe Stonewall is the only history we have, those riots were about demonstrating for all identities that didn’t fit inside the heterosexual, cisgender idea of “normal” gender roles. The purpose of the community is to represent and support, and it exists for a-specs as well. Do you think those who rioted would harbor this level of contempt and exclusion? Really? Do you believe you represent what they stood and stand for by trying to be a gatekeeper? You absolutely do not represent their spirit. And you benefit nobody by doing this.

A-specs belong, and they always have, and they have always been a part of this community, and will not be cut off from it by hatekeeping. I won’t allow these people to get away with trying it. Not without pointing to, and shaming, this piss-poor behaviour.

Also, just... fuck this person for spouting this during pride month. PRIDE MONTH. Of all times to say this. Fuck’s sake. Fuck. Fucking hell. Wow. During pride month, you do this. Holy hell. It’s just vicious and making pride month into the rest of the year, condensed, but coming from people who really should know better. Support your a-spec community members. I am sick of people like this thinking they speak on behalf of all of us. It’s gross, and it’s malicious, and harmful.

There is no good argument for why aces/aros aren’t automatically LGBT. There is only the bad argument “aces and aros being included makes me feel bad :(”.

Links and additional resources under the cut:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/20/asexual-discrimination_n_3380551.html

http://sveriqueer.tumblr.com/post/143833364554/my-favourite-thing-is-when-aphobes-try-to-tell-me

http://asexualawarenessweek.com/docs/AsexualityBias.pdf

https://www.zotero.org/groups/950137/asexual_research

http://twilightalpha.tumblr.com/post/138052104372/when-people-accept-sgamganon-cis-aces-and

https://asexuality-and-aphobia.tumblr.com/post/148413220633/hey-about-the-data-on-asexuals-there-has

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/without-prejudice/201209/prejudice-against-group-x-asexuals

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/without-prejudice/201508/attitudes-toward-asexuals-ata-prejudice-scale

https://fuckyeahasexual.tumblr.com/post/144810204477/the-ace-of-weasels-it-really-annoys-me-when-i-see

http://redbeardace.tumblr.com/post/141092188480/mainstream-lgbtqqueer-support-for-asexuality

https://acephobia-is-real.tumblr.com/post/145731848039/just-a-thought-how-many-straight-people-do-you

https://asexualsurvivors.org/tag/corrective-rape/

http://train-heartnet-xiii.tumblr.com/post/141269386225/a-lot-of-what-i-see-in-regards-to-lateral

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/18/asexual-disorder_n_3361472.html?1371562287

http://asexualmew.tumblr.com/post/143692156709/youre-not-protecting-me-by-being-an-acearo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ5pbNj73jg

http://courteousmingler.tumblr.com/post/148002580835/courteousmingler-yknow-i-typed-this-up-a-while

http://officialqueer.tumblr.com/post/147848132058/ace-discourse-is-really-a-tumblr-only-thing-and

http://theasexual.com/article/2017/8/7/most-asexualace-people-identify-as-queer-or-lgbtq

https://acephobia-is-real.tumblr.com/search/conversion%20therapy

http://queeraro.tumblr.com/post/143069633039/corrective-rape-in-relation-to-asexuals

http://www.utdailybeacon.com/news/article_c3ada048-6d60-11e5-821c-db75108bfbc3.html

https://autismserenity.tumblr.com/post/142035894961/the-acesaros-were-part-of-the-bi-community-until

https://theacetheist.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/religion-and-asexuality-overview/

http://the-ace-of-weasels.tumblr.com/post/146275488100/okay-you-wanna-know-why-im-for-including-all

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

https://prismaticentanglements.com/2011/04/05/do-you-want-to/

https://kaz.dreamwidth.org/249758.html

https://findyrway.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/asexuality-and-victim-blaming/

https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/07/asexual-erasure-mental-health/

http://www.asexualityandislam.com/2015/09/im-queer-grappling-with-orthodoxy-as-an-asexual-muslim-woman.html

https://epochryphal.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/grey-and-nb-in-therapy-on-cbt-and-the-sneakiness-of-therapeutic-abuse/

https://acephobia-is-real.tumblr.com/tagged/suicide

https://wetwareproblem.tumblr.com/post/141923181706/thisisntgoodbi-thisisntgoodbi

http://dukeofellington.tumblr.com/post/144725858535/invisibility-is-not-a-privilege

https://banal-adventures.tumblr.com/post/143619386105/anyway-since-i-see-people-harping-on-this-heres

http://historicallyace.tumblr.com/post/146262756292/where-were-you-when-a-history-of-asexual

http://historicallyace.tumblr.com/post/146268437437/where-were-you-when-a-history-of-asexual

https://prokopetz.tumblr.com/post/142851841977/im-not-ace-myself-so-im-coming-at-the-whole

http://www.asexualityandislam.com/2016/02/coercion-violence-and-queerness-in-the-context-of-islamic-orthodoxy.html

https://stepchildofthesun.tumblr.com/post/131766997010/feathersmoons-autismserenity

⁂

Many of these, and further additional resources can be found here (this list, however, is not regularly updated, and some links therein are defunct):

http://theasexualityblog.tumblr.com/post/148745974859/the-aphobia-masterpost