#this is an issue i have with white queers as a whole. assuming their experience is the default

[indi-glo-archive]

but also... it is kind of hard to watch them talk about the queerness of Black people and continue to ignore how their Blackness might impact them. like at all

this is a good time for all of us to remember when I said I would be ready to sing the show's praises if it got better at the things i disliked it for

[jesncin]

In a recent post, you talk about how certain media will have QPOC characters that "feel white." Are you willing to explain more on how that happens? I'm a QPOC person that writes a decent amount of QPOC characters, and it's always interesting seeing other people's takes on how to handle that in stories.

Sure! Most of the time when I say a QPOC character "feels white" is that it lacks intersectionality. Intersectionality is about acknowledging how different marginalized identities manifest in a person, creating a unique experience. Most writers assume QPOC are just "white queer person with a palette change" instead of "we go through similar things but in an entirely different way".

A good example is Heartstopper (A show I like btw!! I can only speak for the tv show and season 1!). It's often incorrectly dismissed as fluff/escapism when it's actually a show that talks directly about marginalization (transphobia, homophobia, etc.) specific to Britain, and some really dark topics come up sometimes. But I was surprised at how little (if not at all?) racism was brought up as something QPOC struggle with. The plot with Tara (a Black girl) and Darcy (a white girl) coming out as a lesbian couple but Tara ended up struggling with the backlash was the perfect opportunity to talk about how she deals with compounded racism, sexism, and homophobia (perhaps even from her own community). But it wasn't brought up at all in that season. I'm sure this gets expanded on in future seasons but it did feel like a huge missed opportunity to me, especially since the show was so open to directly talking about queerphobia. It ends up looking selective about what issues the writer is comfortable talking about.

Intersectionality connects with everything, including joyful stories. A queer paradise to me is a world where we reclaim indigenous queer culture that was suppressed by colonialism, a place where we don't have to cut our cultural ties and end up embracing a westernized version of queer identity, where our language expands to include queer people, where we acknowledge that things like "body positivity" and disability acceptance are inherently linked with racial justice, where we can be whole. In these narratives with QPOC that "feel white", something is always lost. Whether that be culture, language, religion, anything. In She-Ra, the QPOC are just that. We get a dumpling once and a while as "representation" but that's it.

[leikeliscomet]

Flop and Bubble Part 2 - The Response

The responses to my original thread matter just as much as the episode itself. What is the audience taking away from the commentary? What have they learned? How is this racism commentary shaping the Doctor Who fandom for the better? Ironically, I got told my thread was bad because I critiqued the fandom as if I couldn’t tell the difference between the two. For an episode praised for showing microaggressions, there seemed to be a lot of it in my replies and quote tweets. Lots of white users were quick to tell me I misunderstood the episode and replied by explaining the plot to me even though the first tweet said I’d already rewatched it. Others explained to me how systemic racism functions and how white right-wing echo chambers hurt Black people as if I wasn’t the ‘Black people’ in question. Some white users needed to explain how much they disagreed with me because they interpreted the episode better than I did but still wanted to ‘boost marginalised BIPOC voices’ anyway. Some white users congratulated a Black woman’s response to my thread and said her take was better than mine as if it’s impossible for two Black people to disagree on the same topic. Some white users said I was wrong then wrote their own threads on mine using the exact same points I brought up and got praise for it. Some white users wrote whole threads and paragraphs on how they weren’t racist or bad people for liking Dot and Bubble, assuming my original post from a Black POV was a personal attack or restriction on them personally. Some white users thought I was banning white writers from having Black characters. Some white users were so surprised at how ‘well-spoken’, ‘articulate’ and ‘civil’ I was and congratulated me for this, assuming I wasn't capable of being those things in the first place. White queer users told me RTD did his best and as long as they got their queer representation it was A-okay. Non-Black POC said they didn’t see why I was so upset and because they liked it there was no issue. And others did what they usually do everytime I critique anything racial and RTD: Say I’m attacking white people.

Being told that as a Black person, my criticism of an episode that’s supposed to represent my own oppression and experiences is wrong, that I lack the experience, intelligence and media literacy to talk about the antiblackness that’s haunted me throughout my life and that I should be grateful for white people to lecture me because those other white people are only resharing it because they’re scared of me as a ‘POC’ is one of the most egregious forms of antiblackness I’ve heard in a very long time. And there was no shortage of it in my thread. Lots of users chimed in to dismantle my thread piece by piece. Apparently, only casting POC in the main cast for the past 15 years out of 61, just around a quarter of the show’s life counteracts the predominantly white casting of most of its run. Excluding Black writers in the writer's room apparently is the best and only way to represent the exclusion of Black people in the episode because none of them can write about their own experiences. Apparently, all the moments where the Doctor stood up against bigotry don’t exist anymore. Apparently because this is the Doctor’s first time being Black they don’t know anything about Earth’s anti Black racism anymore. Apparently it’s puritan censorship and infantilisation to question the ethics and optics of having your first Black actor playing the Doctor perform for white validation in the script the first day on set. Apparently you’re the antiblack one for questioning any of RTD2’s antiblack optics. Apparently, ignoring 60s racism in Britain is good because who the fuck cares about Black British history in a British show and a British cultural staple. Apparently Doctor Who’s just the silly blue box alien show and I’m overreacting because this show has never attempted to handle deeper political themes before or anything. Even in the follow-up thread and tweets talking about the racism I’ve personally experienced, which I didn’t even plan on making because I didn’t expect thread 1 to do numbers in the first place, white and non-Black users of colour took it upon themselves to remind me ‘that’s the point’. I know Dot and Bubble’s themes are echo chambers, white supremacy and privilege. I know the racism episode is about racism. I’m saying the themes were handled like shit. That’s my point.

Antiblackness in the Doctor Who fandom is nothing new to me. I’ve been told I make up racism in my head and that I look for it when it isn’t there. I’ve been accused of bullying Russell T. Davies. I’ve been accused of bullying David Tennant. I’ve been accused of being rude to Rose Tyler and her fans by her stanbase. I’ve been accused of being rude to queer fans because I don’t support the RoseMartha ship as if I’m not one myself. I’ve been accused of attacking the fandom. I’ve been told Freema Agyeman’s harassment was deserved because her name is ‘foreign’. I’ve been told Freema Agyeman deserved to be called Aunt Jemima and an affirmative action placement because Martha was ‘written badly’. I’ve been told I am a white supremacist for critiquing Dot and Bubble. I’ve been told I don’t understand racism even though I’m Black. I’ve been told I’m just like Lindy Pepperbean and just like her I should hop on ‘my boat’ and essentially die. I’ve seen my Black mutuals harassed by anon trolls, public trolls and called slurs for defending Martha Jones and other Black characters and critiquing other racism commentary episodes. Attacking, bullying, harming and hurting. Violent violent violent. The Black Bogeymen living on the space station that is the Doctor Who fandom. If every story has its hero, it’s very clear who the fandom imagines as its villains.

The most jarring part about the backlash to my thread wasn’t just the antiblackness itself, ‘subtle’ and explicit, but that the white and non-Black fans in my mentions genuinely believe their antiblackness doesn’t exist. They genuinely think they’re not like Lindy despite using her points word for word, bar for bar. The only difference between Lindy and the Finetimers and the white fans in my mentions is that Lindy had the balls to say she was racist with her chest. Doctor Who fans watched a whole episode about a white person assuming a Black person was unintelligent and threatening, praised it, then turned around and projected the exact same antiblackness on me because I didn’t kiss RTD’s nyash. They can walk away with their antiblackness unchecked and actively supported whilst still being the heroes of the story, the real so-called antiracists, over the Black people like me they’ve thrown under the bus. Or boat in this case. And this episode does absolutely nothing to challenge that.

I’m not surprised by any reaction from right-wing white fans of the show, as their hatred of ‘Doctor Woke’ has been ongoing since 2017. The reactions from left-leaning white fans, though not surprising in the slightest, still felt disappointing. From Queer as Folk to It’s a Sin RTD’s helped shaped queer British representation for decades and those flowers are deserved. It’s no surprise to me why white queer fans feel attached to him for that reason. But he isn’t Black and he hasn't shaped the landscape for Black British TV and Film despite his work for queer representation. RTD didn’t pave the lane for Black British representation. Why it’s controversial to state that is beyond me. The Doctor Who fandom, despite being diverse in gender, sexuality, disability and neurodivergence, region and class is still a predominantly white fandom and from this, a clear hierarchy of representation is built. Crediting cishet writers for the work queer creatives have been doing would never slide. And it didn’t. There was heavy pushback on the idea of crediting Chibnall for queer representation over actual queer writers like RTD when it came to Thasmin and I support those POVs still. Series 11 launching with no women in the writer's room would’ve never been supported by feminist sides of the fandom. If the Thirteenth Doctor had cried and begged for Jack Roberston or any other misogynist, Jodie’s singlet would’ve been torn to oblivion. It didn’t matter Thirteen wasn’t a human woman or that she’d spent most of her life presenting as a man then, she had the agency to call out her misogynists. The idea of any queer character in this show begging for a queerphobe wouldn’t be considered let alone debated. But when it’s Black representation, suddenly there is room for error. Suddenly it’s ‘Well they��ll get a POC writer next season!’ and ‘Well what about the sensitivity readers!’ Suddenly, there isn’t ‘space for all’ after all. The fandom has consistently celebrated the advances in representation for people that are women and/or queer behind the screen but treats the inclusion of Black writers as a taboo. Representation matters until it’s Black. White marginalised fans can accept and excuse the flaws of this episode and RTD2 on our behalf because they don’t consider Blackness as something worth getting right, unlike their own marginalisations. It’s disappointing to be stood with when speaking out about the issues people that are women and/or queer face and how they’re handled in the show and fandom but essentially stand alone (with other Black and mixed fans) when it comes to Black issues. Similarly, this sentiment is present with non-Black fans of colour. The importance of Demons of the Punjab, Yasmin Khan or Bel for example wouldn’t affect me in the same way it would for a South Asian or East Asian fan. I’d never centre myself as the authority on those experiences because being a ‘POC’ doesn’t automatically give me those experiences too. So it’s confusing and frustrating when Black fans aren’t centred in conversations about Black representation, anti Black racism and our specific experiences. I’m not speaking through a POC/BIPOC/BAME POV. I’m speaking from a Black one.

Post BLM-2020, there’s been a greater push for Black stories but this isn’t out of love. The white creative industry essentially wants Black stories and representation without Black people. RTD boldly claimed TV is so diverse nowadays but what is he talking about? Seriously? Dark-skin representation especially of marginalised genders is still lacking and Black British shows are still getting cancelled. As already written, Dot and Bubble appeals to the bias white fans hold already. It’s easy to create a binary between the ‘good’ racism episode written by the well-meaning super radical white guy than the ‘bad’ racism episode co-written by a Black woman aka Rosa. This comforts white fans because it’s an excuse to ignore Black art. The ‘good’ racism episode written by a Black person doesn’t exist in this framework. It’s hilarious but also peak that after all those posts about the anti-racist genius of RTD that when I suggested 4 Black British shows all created by Black British writers, all dwtwt could say was ‘Who?’. It’s easier for RTD and the fandom to think representing racism in the future is a big brain move to counter racism as a thing of the past, whilst continuing to actively ignore the racism in Britain’s history they so boldly claim has already been addressed in the present. It’s comforting for dwtwt to imagine me as an unintelligent, illiterate, angry and aggressive Black woman on the hunt for poor RTD, whether it’s my old work, that thread or even this piece I’m writing now because they’d rather him be the authority on Black British stories… than Black British people. It’s easier to imagine only white people could hate Dot and Bubble, that its critics are just white SJWs, blue hair, pronouns and all yapping on behalf of the real POC™ who all fall in line and love it, than that a Black person could ever reject a white interpretation of a Black experience. It’s easier to claim the episode is a good representation of the Black experience and antiblack racism because it’s been cosigned and created by white voices, when I’m a whole Black person literally telling you it’s not (in my opinion), alongside other Black fans who’ve critiqued this episode. It’s easier to imagine that Black fans hold irrational grudges against RTD for superficial reasons than that he could ever just have flaws in the way he handles Blackness in his works and that he could come off his pedestal to walk the ground just like the rest of us. This is where we go beyond racism in the Doctor Who fandom to antiblackness. The idea that not only we’re lesser but that our thoughts and ideas don’t even exist because they’re not worthy of existence.

To have Black writers in the room wouldn’t just mean filling a quota. It would mean the ability for us to tell our own stories. It would mean being actively involved in the creation process from beginning, middle and end instead of idly watching by the sides of sensitivity reading. It would mean Black writers writing for a Black audience as opposed to a white one. It would mean for our work to be considered art. It would mean allowing Black art to fail outside the idea of ‘go woke go broke’ and be bad without Blackness as a factor for its badness. It would mean Black art being held next to that of white creatives and even, held higher. It would ultimately mean Black creatives having full creative autonomy over our messages, representations and stories, engaging in creation for ourselves. And that is something, deep down, white audiences don’t want to happen. And the Doctor Who fandom is no different. Who needs enemies with ‘allies’ like these?

<- Part 1 Part 3 ->

[nightmare-deer]

I’m not sure that I have any followers where this is going to be a thing they actively care about. I’m not going to explain the whole situation/context this is going to be a If You Know You Know thing. 

But on the topic of Dee Snider I just find it increasingly obnoxious how cis straight, I'm assuming, people will come into our community and feel like their opinions are equal to people who are in the community and have queer experiences. 

Cis people will speak on trans issues when they cannot see beyond their mindset of being a cis person who has never struggled with dysphoria. So to them waiting on treatment is seen as a neutral choice but for people who experience transness waiting is not neutral, it takes them through real bodily changes that can have a physical and mental effect on them that are excruciating and could possibly affect them for a lifetime.

The point of puberty blockers is to halt undesirable characteristics that come out of puberty like voice changes. Because going through puberty also gives trans kids physical changes that are harder to change after they happen. It’s not like  hormone therapy is the only thing that can do that.  No matter which path they decide they are making a change to themselves, the only reason it's seen as neutral is because cis people see being cis as normal or baseline. Trans youth know what they need more than a cis person who is completely removed from the lives of trans people. 

Trans healthcare has been implemented for trans youth for decades it's not a trend, it's just that certain people are just now hearing about it and it’s a new concept to them.  Trans youth who have parents that support them on their journey to receive gender affirming care are incredibly lucky because there are so many kids needlessly suffering, who were going through changes they don't need to be going through because their parents refuse to support them or because their state will not allow them autonomy over their body and that is a bigger tragedy to me. 

I find it so frustrating to see these older white men believe their opinion on something they are not educated about is as important as the people in that community and then bristle at the thought of someone not letting them claim the title of ally.

It reminds me of a tumblr post that has since been deleted from  makingqueerhistory. https://www.tumblr.com/dear-indies/175855407461/makingqueerhistory-ally-is-not-a-word-you-can?source=share

Ally is not a word you can take, it is not something you stab your flag into and declare you have earned because you found it. Ally is a word given. A word that is not trustworthy if it only comes from your own mouth.

Ally is a passport; you may travel in these spaces but you must follow the law of the land. The word has no meaning if it has not been approved by the proper authorities. And the authorities are us.

We are citizens of this land and we continue to live here when you have gone home. You can read every travel guide, and know every intersection in our roads, but if you are not a citizen you are a visitor.

Ally is not a ticket, a pass to sit down and enjoy the show. Activism is not a spectator sport, you are either playing or you are on the opposing team. If you want to enjoy the game you are going to have to shoulder some tackles for the players. Because we have bruises all over our bodies and you are wearing a suit of armor.  

Ally comes with a class. We are the teachers and you are the student. You will listen and will only participate when you are called upon. If you want to be an ally you have to first realize that your voice is not the most important one in the room. You are there to listen, and we will know if you didn’t do the reading.

Ally is not a part of a gift bag you get for coming to the party. If you want the word you must come to the funerals as well as the parades.  

The word comes with work. It comes with struggle, inconvenience, and time. Ally is something you do. Not someone you are. It is a job, not a title.

So thank you for your application. We will review it and get back to you in a couple of weeks.

I need people who want to call themselves allies to throw less temper tantrums that they are not being allowed to occupy queer spaces and instead get serious about understanding queer issues and understanding that it is not us who needs to fall in line with your privileged cishet white man worldview but it is you who needs to educate yourself about the struggles and issues our community faces and to listen to our stories and our history and our past and where we are coming from. Because this is not about you. This is about us. 

[bathtimeboy]

let’s check off the list here and hear about the gay subtext in blurryface

okay so I have this gay or queer reading of polarize.

on a basic level the lyrics are about Tyler pleading with God for an answer to a problem, or more broadly to separate life into black and white "good" and "bad".

which makes sense considering that's the whole thing with Christianity from my experience. There's clear wrong and right and even things that seem gray can't actually be gray. that's what they tell u.

also its interesting to note that black and white thinking is psychologically considered a bad thing and also a tool for indoctrination.

around blurryface era was when Tyler made that puzzling and strangely worded tweet about gay rights and not being able to handle talking about it right now. I know people assume that just meant he was homophobic but I know the perspective of someone who was in that kind of religious community, it's kind of assumed if u are the least bit progressive in your beliefs you aren't a real Christian. (again based on that type of xtian community). So even if Tyler personally wasn't homophobic, he was basically raised to endorse homophobic beliefs in spite of his own doubts.

Tyler talks a lot about doubt in lyrics. so that is a connection to, a lot of people doubt because they realize the church's stance on LGBT rights is fucked up and hurts people. it's a crack in the foundation.

I think he was struggling with the idea that the church told him people harmlessly being themselves was a sin. and that god hated it. and he's asking god about that.

But ALSO it's not just an issue separate from him he's talking about in the song!

To the Lyrics:

"help me down, those stairs is where I'll be hiding all my problems" it's HIS problems not just other people's.

"though I am running to you all I feel is deny, deny, denial"

to me this obviously read as him running to God. but like, what if it was also running to a person? what's a common emotion people with internalized homophobia feel? denial. they deny their feelings.

If it were both these meanings at once, it paints a picture of chosing between god and a person he loves.

then later "I have none to show to the one I love but denial" god that's so fucking raw and sad!!! I have none to show but denial!!! to the one I love!!!

Christian dudes also write songs about God that sound gay too so keep that in mind

"Polarize is taking your disguises / Separating them, splitting them up from wrong and right / It's deciding where to die and deciding where to fight / Deny, deny, denial"

"my friends and I we got a lot of problems"

this is the crux of it. it's not just him anymore, he's got people who live by his words. his fans, who he refers to in music as his friends. He has to chose when to give in to pressure from his religious community and when to stand up and fight for his fans.

We can't forget "Domingo un Fuego". He lost his halo he's losing his religious identity!! he identifies more with the so called dirty sinners!!! the heathens!!!! us!!! the gay ppl!!

Final point: what's the blurryface pattern for polarize?

A fingerprint. What do fingerprints do? They identify someone. It's about identity.

Also, if each song is about a different aspect of blurryface, of his insecurity, then this is saying hes insecure about who he is, who he loves, or his religious identity.

[musclesandhammering]

Hey, here's my take /as/ a queer man. anyone, gay, straight, etc...can dress how every they want and how ever they feel expresses themself. to me it's a non issue, even if like, you think someone is being disingenuous, I don't think it's an issue and i find it more harmful to me and people like me to have this debate in the zeitgeist to begin with. more straight girls have argued with me about why xyz behaviors is problematic and i find it exhausting. It is more destigmatizing to not put barriers around fashion in the first place & focus on uplifting queer gnc men than tearing other people down.

This is from a couple months ago but I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to answer it until now (sorry).

I appreciate you for responding with your perspective. Like I said, I’m not a queer man (I’m a queer woman), so I really don’t like speaking about the experiences of queer men as a generalisation.

And I agree with you actually! Men (cishet or lgbt) should 1000% be able to wear whatever they want with zero comment from anyone! And if we were debating whether or not Harry Styles dressing in a gnc way was problematic in general, then that would be a pointless conversation. But that’s not the the issue.

My argument was that- while he’s valid a million times over for however he wants to dress or act or whatever- the media and mainstream pop culture fans are wrong for elevating him into this unprecedented progressive icon of masculinity because of the way he dresses. And Harry (imo) is wrong for allowing it and playing into it.

Listen, if Vanity Fair or Vogue (or whatever magazines it was idk I don’t read them lol) regularly gave cover photos and full page profiles and stuff to other gnc people praising them as sort of new age icons for their gnc-ness (specifically gnc openly gay men, or gnc poc, or gnc people who are not stereotypically young and fit and traditionally attractive), then them also giving Harry that treatment would not be sus at all…… but we all know they don’t have a history of doing that. And we all know that when Billy Porter (an older black gnc gay man) or Sam Smith (a plus size gnc genderqueer person) etc live their truth and dress in gnc ways, they do not get as much adoration and adulation and worship and excessive praise by mainstream pop culture media as Harry (again, a young white skinny traditionally attractive most likely cishet- or at the very least not openly queer- man) and the reactions from the general public are always far more mixed. And that’s definitely sus.

It’s almost like the societal establishment realised that newer generations are accepting and celebrating gnc-ness, and knew that they had to pander to that, so they decided to elevate a gnc person….. but because the societal establishment will always edge as close to the conservative status quo as possible, they picked the blandest, whitest, most basic male model type (again- young and fit and noncontroversially hot), who is as close to cishet as they can get (because he refuses to categorise himself as queer, has not shown any evidence of being queer, and thus allows folks with complex homophobia to assume he’s not) while also still allowing them to get half a queer rep point (because, hey, he doesn’t categorise himself… so he might be queer, right?) without having to earn it at all.

And if Harry is just completely Head Empty I’m Just Vibin In My Flower Skirt oblivious to this whole issue, then that’s fine I guess lol- let him vibe! But considering how he’s made it part of his brand to be an lgbt ally and how his fans attack anyone who says anything about this problematic conundrum by screaming that Harry is extremely socially aware and has supported the queer community more than anybody, How Dare You Accuse Him Of Anything!!!- …..Like, it’s either one or the other bro.

If Harry really does know that much about the lgbt community (enough to insert his opinions on in-community issues such as how he thinks gay characters being portrayed as sexual beings is wrong), then he HAS to know that it’s problematic for him to be accepting all these fat ass magazine cover checks and skyrocketing his personal brand with glowing profiles and grasping at more fame and positive recognition for himself via fashion choices, and generally just basking in the praise he’s getting for being a bOuNdArY bReAkInG hErO,.. that other minority gnc people with much less privilege than him have been struggling to receive for decades and STILL struggle to receive.

It’s not like it’s a capital offence or anything. I’m not saying he’s a complete and total worthless piece of shit……. It’s just grating.

[lunarsilver]

We're all different, but the fact we can understand each other, empathize with each other, relate to each other is what makes us human ngl. And like, c'mon, a lot of messages in art are pretty universal, and pretty much everyone can relate to them to a certain degree.

My first thought was Chappel Roan's music, because of the whole "dOn'T bRiNg YoUr CiShEt BoYfRiEnD tO hEr CoNcErT" drama (which was just straight-up biphobic). It's pretty obvious that "Good Luck, Babe!" is about lesbian comphet. The lyrical subject sings about a woman who "can kiss a hundred boys in bars" but she'd "have to stop the world just to stop the feeling". So, obviously, lesbians will relate to the song. But hey, gay guys can relate to this as well, just change genders. Other queer women (or people in general) can experience comphet, too. And cishet women may relate to the fear of "[waking] up next to him in the middle of the night" and being "nothing more than his wife" in a patriarchal society. And guess what, cishet guys can relate to the song, too. Because the feeling "I love you, but for my own well-being I have to leave, because you'll never give me what I need, and you keep pretending you're someone you aren't, and make yourself miserable despite me trying to help you, and so you make me miserable as well" is pretty universal, and can also apply to non-romantic love. And so, a song with a pretty obvious meaning and context can still be relatable to people who didn't experience this exact situation.

Sure, it's good to have safe spaces where you talk just with people similar to you. Gals gonna need to talk together about girls' things without any guys sometimes. Cishet guys (or at least straight-presenting; you would be surprised how many guys, who you assume are straight, are actually bisexual but scared of social reaction and therefore coming out only to like three people who they trust to keep it to yourselves (yes, I'm the people)) gonna have some conversations only with each other. Because, guess what, they also have unique experiences of being raised in a specific setting, and patriarchy is also harmful for them - just in a different way than for girls or non-binary folk. However, while it is good to have such spaces or conversations, it's also really important to understand that acting like we cannot understand each other is harmful to all the people in the long run. You know, we cannot act like we're some other species, literally othering ourselves and, therefore, dehumanizing ourselves to people who aren't like us. Don't act like you have to prove yourself to be "worthy" of their attention and empathy, of course, but also don't practice the "we vs. they" rhetoric. Dunno about you, but instead of isolating and othering myself, I prefer to make fun of people who claim they cannot relate to Turning Red because they never were a second-generation immigrant Chinese girl living in Canada in 2002. And you can do only one or the other.

 I guess that's why I didn't really vibe with "Felix Ever After" by Kacen Callender - because while I totally understand all the problems the book talks about, it sometimes does so in a rather condescending manner  (probably not on purpose, but still). Like, I've read the conversation between characters where one of them stated something among the lines that they could never be friends with a straight person because they wouldn't understand each other (read it quite a while ago, don't remember the exact quote) and no other character disagreed with this statement. I just thought about how I am friends with cis, nonbinary, straight, bi, gay and aroace people and thought "skill issue".

I'm also kinda tired of all these "USA vs. Europe" vids, or the, quite condescending and infantilizing, "you expect a white person to pronounce this Indian/Chinese/[insert here anything that applies] name correctly?" jokes, because you just know people making these vids think about only a few West-European countries, or only about a specific group of white Americans. POC people aren't a monolith, white people aren't a monolith, queer people aren't a monolith, straight people aren't a monolith, no group of people is a monolith, and acting like they are only dehumanizes everyone.

This came out longer than I expected, but tl;dr "don't dehumanize yourself or other people".

hot take apparently but i think it's good for white people to relate to poc's art. i think it's good for straight people to relate to queer art. stop acting like we're different species who could never possibly understand each other what the fuck is wrong with you

[lunarflare64]

Hello! Disability ask meme: 1, 3, and 8 please

(Disability ask meme)

As promised, the chatterbox train got rolling, you're welcome for the read more

1. Ooooooh boy here we go, its a whole ass List.

Autism, ADHD, OSDD/DID (we aren't certain enough to find out which on our own), ARFID, Non-24 sleep/wake disorder, anemia, Raynaud's syndrome, POTS, and arthritis (we're not sure which type specifically yet, we're on a waiting list to see a rheumatologist)

2. For mobility aids we primarily get around on crutches, on a good day at home we use our cane, and hopefully soon we'll be getting our wheelchair for the bad days. Our first set of crutches got the full sticker treatment, the second set we just haven't gotten around to yet (but we do have the stickers ready, they're neon). Despite us getting the cane first its remained customisation free, every time we consider decorating it we chicken out because unlike with the neon stickers we wanna put stickers from fandoms on it, and we're worried about wasting them because the cane.....we should get a better one, its really not good.

For sensory aids we just have our headphones, we mostly just use them when we're out and about because unlike outdoors where we're tense and on guard all the time and thus hypersensitive, indoors we NEED to be able to hear lots of little things, we freak out otherwise (and having headphones on all the time while you're a glasses wearer........."fucking OW" is putting it lightly)

We also uses braces sometimes, mostly for our wrists and knees (thats where the arthritis is), but we tend to use compression more, since the stiffness from braces can cause its own issues. And as for meds, we've got a low dosage of Ritalin for the ADHD, and some opioids for the arthritis pain. We also need iron infusions once every year and a half or so, since our body isn't the best at absorbing it in our diet (and to make things worse our diet isn't very rounded, thanks to the eating disorder)

8. Oof, identity question for the freshly hatched egg carton (do you like that term? We love it, what a fun term for a plural egg), this is already confusing. I mean, obviously the plurality affects every aspect of our identities in a large scale, its a given, so we'll brush past the specifics of that one. How our disability affects our gender? I'm not one of us who has that, gender is such a hard thing to define, the others have gender in the sense that they are pulled to masc or fem presentations, but I don't know if any of us really understand it. But we HAVE heard that not understanding these concepts isn't an uncommon thing for autistic people, so I guess that's one way it can be affected. Queerness (in terms of attraction) is the same, generally we're aroace (with some oriented-ness from some of us), that's also a common autistic thing, a decent portion of aroace folk are autistic, its no biggie to us.

Culture? We're assuming culture here means "the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society", but we're white and Australian through and through, not much there to be culture-y about. If we were to pretend Australia had a culture that was found though its own community and not theft from others, there is a MASSIVE issue with foods. A lot of "classic Australian foods" are the exact things our eating disorder wants us to avoid, family gatherings (which are ALWAYS barbecues, don't laugh its just how it goes here) are miserable for us (and it was so so much worse when we were a kid and people would yell at us for not eating), we can't eat anything, and even if we CAN find something its always a pasta salad that you can only eat so much of before you want to curl up in a ball and wither away, its an isolating experience, not being able to bond with family through food. We don't even feel that big of a draw to our family and it still hurts to miss out on eating with them

Aaaaaanyways, hobbies and life goals. We're not so good at the life goal thing, picturing the future is literally impossible, we see nothing and we want nothing, we very much live in the present (is that the autism, the ADHD, or the plurality? Hopefully we find out one day), but hobbies? Oh boy here we go

We have many. Many many many many hobbies, and dream hobbies too. The dream hobbies aren't really possible for us anymore, things like surfing, gymnastics, archery (chronic shakiness and sharp flying objects sounds like a bad combo), pole dancing, skateboarding, canoeing, dancing, hiking, and trampoline tricks (you could say all of these are possible with the right accommodation, but its too much for us now). One hobby we do have that we don't get to do often now is baking, we loved baking so much, we would do huge batches of cakes and cupcakes and cookies and breads and then give them out to people we knew, we didn't really keep much of it for ourselves, we just liked baking for the sake of baking, and the joy of giving treats to others was a great bonus. Nowadays we can't really do that much even on the rare occasion that we CAN bake, the heat makes us pass out and all the movement and standing sets our arthritis off so bad, its best to save any baking for when someone can be there to make sure we don't get hurt.

We don't let it get us down too much though! We have so many other hobbies, drawing and writing and knitting and crochet and loom weaving and the guitar (even if we haven't touched it in a while 😬) and drums and animation and architecture and gardening and photography and sculpting and woodworking and candle making and learning about oceanography and biology and physics and so so much more, our hobbies list is a literal list, we have it in front of us now, the ink has faded into odd colours and it COVERS the page, top to bottom, no space wasted, we have a lot of things we like to do and want to try, some things cant be done anymore but it doesnt even cross half the list off, our disabilities shape what we can do, but its hard to let it get to us when we have so much to do

[0xo]

ughhhhh long rant incoming

gender feelings as a two spirit Indigenous person who's reconnecting are just.,, it's something. i am doing my best. i don't really have anyone nearby irl to talk to about this really bc like. my family situation is complicated. i know who i come from and i have ppl to talk to about it and yes it is very community based but i also feel very alone sometimes. bc most everyone immediately around me irl is white or not Indigenous and like, they're cool, love my friends, but... like... there's things you don't and shouldn't share with outsiders. and im so young that it's not my place to share at all really, im not an educator, im still learning every day. but it's kind of hard to not even really be able to explain this stuff to my wife/girlfriend/close friends. and i don't really like to be that open on the internet abt specifically being two spirit bc it opens up Assumptions and Questions from strangers about shit that really is not their business at all.

it's weird! i can say that i enjoy keeping my hair in the way i do, a style mostly associated with men in my tribe, it feels good. to rest in that masculinity. i really hate ppl trying to assign me as femme or butch when like... mmm... any masculinity or femininity i have is squarely outside of what most people around me can even conceptualize. my gender is so entangled with my spirituality that it's almost pointless to try explaining it to ppl who aren't already knowledgeable. and i find a lot of comfort in seeing two spirit people talk online openly, and then i feel like a coward for not being able to do that. but im not... like... a spokesperson or representative for my people, i am not qualified for it and i honestly just don't want to be. i just want to exist. but maybe exist in a space with other people Like Me. because as awesome as my trans friends are i still feel outside.

i don't even really know how to go abt finding two spirit ppl in my area to connect with and it's nerve-wracking to even approach bc so many ppl don't mask anymore and that's a whole other issue. i guess i just feel isolated on the whole and like. online connection has been great but. i want more people in my physical life who understand queerness through an Indigenous lens and are also considerate of physical disability and that just feels like asking toooooo much.

idk just in a weird spot. i don't talk about it a ton. everyone assumes i'm white bc like, i am, i am racialized that way and i know that and that's fine. highly aware of the privilege that comes with that and how i gotta be careful. but it also leaves me very little room to talk about my actual experiences and life and My Actual Gender Identity, without people getting way too invasive or just straight up racist / on some high horse about blood quantum / bullshit bullshit bullshit. so much bullshit.

i know it's not even a fraction as bad as what other ppl deal with, i know. and i will always stick up for other Indigenous people, especially Black Indigenous people who have their "validity" as Indigenous people questioned. bc it's all just a white supremacist way to disconnect us from our family and our heritage and our traditions. Indigenous is Indigenous is Indigenous and i know that.

just struggling a bit to find where i fit in with a local community. i hate feeling like i have to give up such an innate part of myself to participate in my local queer scene without being questioned/hounded 24/7 by (mostly white, 99.99% non-Indigenous) people. like please god quit treating me weirdly or like im some unerring fount of mystical knowledge, it's not For You, im really very tired of it. im so tired.

[hogmilked]

long post and i’m sorry, i’m on mobile and tbh i don’t know how to do the keep reading thing.

ok i wanna just rant real quick about how i am once again tired of the eurocentricity of what i will tentatively call gen z queer music (and culture as a whole but i wanna focus on music here). i wasn’t gonna rant any further until i decided to do a uquiz and i don’t wanna put op of the quiz on blast but like

(img description in alt) i was gonna answer and move on and then stopped myself. spot the issue here.

while of course there are plenty of non-white artists in the listed genres, they’re overwhelmingly dominated by white artists. you might note that a large amount of mainstream genres that i guess are “obscure” are ones populated in large part by non-white artists. rap, soul, r&b, even metal and electronic (genres that have been gentrified) are just as popular and mainstream, if not more so, than more than one genre here, but they’re “obscure.” i’m stating this from a black perspective so of course my main focus is on the very active exclusion of primarily black genres, but i also wanna add that i often see these kinds of quizzes either leave k-pop off like this one or even actively shit talk it, and that’s mad fuckin popular.

the other thing here is that yeah i know exactly the genre they call “gay” is, and it pisses me off. what i assume they mean by “gay” music is what i like to call “quirky white people” music because that’s what it is. they’re talking specifically about the tik tok theater kid energy music. artists like lemon demon, wil wood, the orion experience, mother mother, tally hall, etc, which i’m not saying are inherently bad artists (been a cicerega fan since i was a kid and i like what i’ve heard of several of these acts), have become the official sound of gen z queer culture, and while i’m glad the kids have found music they identify with and i know online queer culture has been whitewashed to hell for years, i can’t help but be a little alienated by the sheer whiteness of “gay music.” i know i’m not alone and i know it hurts the artists too, just look at what’s happened with mitski - this attitude towards what is considered “gay music” actively pushes non-white members of the lgbt+ community and non-white musicians out. it also pushes entire sectors of cultures and genres out. when people like the op of this uquiz say “gay” music, you know they’re not talking about kehlani or frank ocean or kali uchis or syd or kaytranada or arlo parks or rina sawayama or big joanie or moses sumney or bloc party or even lil nas x. narrowing all queer music down to lemon demon and mother mother is disingenuous at best and fully racist...period, actually. and it’s not just the op of that uquiz. i’ve noticed this as a general pattern in younger queer spaces. it saddens me deeply.

if you mean white gay culture when you say gay culture, just say so

[chaotic-queer-disaster]

i will say first this is not the fault of autistic people on tikok (or other social media platforms but im using "tiktok" as the example for this post), it is the fault of society as a whole. tiktok autistics choosing to only talk about certain parts of their experiences aren't at fault for what neurotypicals assume (though sometimes low support ones can contribute to the erasure of MSN/HSN autistics on purpose, but... that's a different issue).

what tiktok autism looks like (to neurotypicals, i mean)

ooh flappy hands (and other calm or "cute" stims)

i like steven universe or another cartoon!!! isn't it fun how i'm very into my interest at a quirky level, but still a normal one

i give off the vibe i can live independently (it does not actually matter if they can; neurotypicals will assume)

fully verbal, only occasionally loses speech

has sensory issues but isn't "annoying" about it

meltdowns are mostly being sad, not angry or weird

disassociates, maybe

has cool skills (good at academics, art, whatever)

all of those things are, of course, things autistics can experience. some are also infantilized (like liking children's shows or having "cute" stims). the problem is not that those autistics exist and talk about their experiences--the problem is neurotypicals assuming this is all autism is, "removing their biases" on these tiny groups of symptoms and experiences, and not destigmatizing:

being semiverbal or noverbal

incontinence issues or difficulty remembering/realizing you need to use the bathroom

needing a carer, part or full time, or being otherwise unable to live independently

being "weird" about our special interests or obsessed with them in a way that isn't palatable (like me)

having an interest that isn't "fun" or "cute"; something to do with horror or gore, something "strange" like stamp collecting or corgis, something "boring" like the war of 1812, whatever (like me)

autistics who grunt, rock, hit things, etc to stim ("weird" stimming) (like me.)

autistics who frequently dissasociate, have trouble remembering things, or can't follow instructions (like. me.)

meltdowns that are angry, loud, screamy, full of movement, or some other "inconvenient" meltdown (LIKE ME)

how their racialized, queerphobic, or physically ableist biases intersect with their view of non-white, queer, or physically disabled autistic people (e.g. thinking black autistics are scary, for some reason)

autistics who have difficulty using the right words or sentence structure and thus often say odd or technically incorrect things (like me--ok ill stop now)

intellectually disabled or otherwise non-high-IQ autistics, as well as autistics who were/are in special ed

not understanding danger/doing "reckless" or "stupid" things

autistics who are monotone, lack facial expressions, or appear not to show emotions (we are often called "creepy" or "scary" for this)

and more

none of this is destigmatized. i deal with several of them on a day-to-day basis. the autistic that is destigmatized is the "cute", inobtrusive, i-choose-not-to-discuss-my-bad-days, low-support needs, often white and/or physically abled autistic experience. an autistic experience that does not even truly exist, i'd wager--bc again, even those autistics who seem "destigmatized" will often immediately be stigmatized if they talk about any of their more negative or strange traits.

even i, a white low-support high-IQ autistic person, find my autism to cause people to make horrendous assumptions and say awful things about/to me very often. autism is not destigmatized.

gonna swing a bat at a hornet's nest and say autism as a whole is not destigmatized, tiktok autism is

[theowlsarequeer]

So on Twitter especially, there's been a lot of "The Owl House has better queer representation than x," or "x's representation sucks" and here's why that really bothers me in a full essay on tumblr dot com.

Quick disclaimer: This is about queer representation specifically. A lot of popular queer shows have a lot of other issues with different types of representation, or lack thereof, and that can and should be criticized, and many of them include stereotypes or harmful tropes WITH queer rep that also can and should be criticized. This post is about painting queer representation as a black-and-white thing and calling certain shows' representation "bad" without any nuance

First off, what makes queer representation "good" is subjective. The LGBTQ+ community is an amazingly diverse community in both identities and personal taste, and queer representation in media should reflect that with a variety of different stories to choose from. One queer person might like stories where bigotry isn't a huge plot point, while another might want to see their struggles reflected on screen. One might like the show to be about being queer, while another might like a character's queerness to be a side plot at most. Additionally, there are so many different identities and experiences under the queer umbrella that it's unrealistic and impossible to expect a single show, book series, or movie to include them all, and that could very easily result in certain stories being swept under the carpet. Again, this is why a variety of queer shows to choose from is important. There could be a show with amazing, well-written queer characters and storylines, and you as a queer person might just not like it for whatever reason. That's perfectly fine and normal.

Second, I almost never see differences between studios and networks taken into account. Some networks and studios have a long history of loud and public homophobia (cough cough, Disney, cough cough) and queer representation is going to be significantly harder to include without your show paying the price. While The Owl House is facing a significantly shorter run for a variety of reasons, the decision was made towards the end of Season 1, right around the time of Grom and Wing It Like Witches, and especially considering that Disney funded Florida's Don't Say Gay bill, we can assume that queer rep was at least part of it. Considering that before TOH all we had coming from Disney TVA was the cops from Gravity Falls (correct me if I'm wrong) and after TOH got such a positive response from it's online fanbase Amphibia ended up including some queer characters in it's third and final season, we can already see the impact it had. (Which is why it's still important to watch TOH legally if you can-it shows that there's interest in both story-driven shows that skew older AND queer representation! Unfortunately, money is the only way to get through to Disney.)

At Netflix, however, it's a little bit different with a lot of shows because Netflix originals can often come from other studios (Dreamworks, See Saw Films, etc,) and Netflix is their distributor. This can make it a little hard to determine where queer rep is either coming from or being blocked by. For streaming services as a whole, there tends to be more representation, which is partially because of the major switch to streaming happening right now. I also have a feeling that the general theory is that for a kid to watch Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (fantastic show btw) they'd have to either actively search up the show or at least choose it from their recommended or whatever, while if a kid turns on Cartoon Network or Disney or whatever and a show is playing then they basically just watch it, so for streaming services there's more ways for parents to regulate what their kids are actually seeing. (At least from what I've seen, queer representation is more likely to get a show for kids cancelled but is more likely to be either stereotypical or have a plot that relies on bigotry in shows for adults. And I haven't seen a lot in shows for teens, other than Arcane and Heartstopper.) But whichever way you look at it, queer representation, how hard it is to include, and the variety of stories varies from network to network.

Additionally, shows like The Owl House and Heartstopper are from 2020-2022. We as a community have come so far in the last couple decades, and it's simply not realistic to expect a show from 2012, or even a show from 2018, to be on par with a show from 2021. And the success of shows like The Owl House is largely due to the positive response to previous shows' representation. Same concept as rainbow capitalism: companies are starting to realize that there's money to be found from queer representation and that queer stories are profitable. Which, yknow, is not really the mentality that I'd like to be put into telling my communities stories, but it's better than nothing.

Especially with media for kids, even if a character or story is not the best written, the fact that it was there can be monumental. Looking back as a teenager, the scene in House of Hades where Nico is outed is not really the best or healthiest representation and is not how I would write it in 2022, but at age 8, before same sex marriage was even legalized, I could read about a queer character in an easily accessible and age-appropriate book series that I loved, and that was such a huge step in my acceptance journey. There were multiple copies of almost every Rick Riordan book in both my elementary school library and my local public library, my parents and teachers were already comfortable with me reading the book (even to this day, I'm not really supposed to read books that are visibly queer,) and it was a prominent, three-dimensional character in a series that was my whole life for years. Nico, and later Alex, were the representation I didn't even know I needed, and while today a lot of people agree that they were not the best-written queer characters, the fact that they were there changed my life.

For my brothers, shows like The Owl House and Kipo and books like Trials of Apollo are their Heros of Olympus. And even if they don't turn out to be queer themselves, they at least weren't assholes when I came out. Hell, She Ra taught them how to use they/them pronouns (one of my brothers doesn't quite get it but he has a lot of trouble with spelling and grammar bc of a learning disability and he's trying, which is what matters.) And my brothers, who are 12 and 9 years old, cannot remember a time where they couldn't go to Netflix, Disney+, or their school library and read or watch stories about characters like me. Which, guys, I can't get over how far we've come. I'm 14-16 (not revealing exact age for privacy reasons,) and I can easily remember a time where same-sex marriage was illegal in a lot of states and I had never seen any media with queer characters. And I've watched queer representation get better and better over the years, which inspired me to want to create my own stories too. And while we still have a long way to go, I'm so happy with the way things have been changing.

In short, here's a list of things to consider when comparing and contrasting queer media:

When was this piece of media made? How would this have affected the way these characters are written?

What studio, platform, network, or publishing company is this media from? What is this company's stance on the queer community? What was this company's stance when the media was created?

Has this company or author created any queer media since this particular piece? What does that representation look like?

Are the creators of this media queer themselves? (A little off topic, but always something to consider)

Is it actually queerbaiting, or were parts of this character's story cut in production?

Is this queer representation actually bad, or do I just not like it?

Is this queer media actually bad, or is it just for a different age group (if you don't like shows like She Ra or TOH because they're 'too childish'... they are actually for kids. absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying them, but if they're too childish for you then you might be ready for an adult show)

Did the crew or author face any backlash during production? (For a lot of media, this is a 5-second google search.)

Criticizing media is good and healthy and I 1000% support it, but contextualizing the specific book, movie, or show you're talking about is a necessary step that I very often see skipped.

[writingwithcolor]

Biracial (B/W), Trans, and Cultural Disconnect

I’m a biracial college grad who grew up in a very white, rural area in the northeast US and within the last four years made the realization I’m trans ( or masculine-aligned agender but that’s for another time ). My mother is black and my father is white.

Beauty Standards

Beauty standards haven’t really been something I’ve paid attention to growing up, mostly because dresses and skirts always made be uncomfortable and I didn’t like the weight of makeup on my face. I am very stubborn and so I stuck to not wearing them as much as possible, even getting into arguments with my mother about wearing a dress to a funeral when I had nice dress pants and a blouse to wear instead.

My mother did have a bit of an obsession with my hair growing up; she loved my curls to the point that if I mentioned cutting them she adamantly said no. My hair isn’t the usual tight black coils but rather “banana curls” as my mother described. It was only in my senior year of high school that, out of the blue, she told me if I wanted to cut my hair I could.

Culture / Family Life / Identity Issues

This is the biggest struggle I find I deal with and sort of ties in with like four topics, so this section will be long. I don’t have any attachment to a culture, not even the African-American culture developed in the US. I grew up in a very, very white area and until 5th grade, went to a private religious school where as far as I can remember, I was the only PoC in the whole (under 100) student body.

Both of my parents have no siblings and due to some things, I only actually met my dad’s extended family three or so years ago when we went for a visit aside from phone conversations I had with his father when he was alive. My mother’s parents were gone before I was 5 and she didn’t really have any extended family aside from a couple of cousins up in New York who I saw every so often when I was really young. I had an “aunt” who my mother knew for many years along with her son whom I consider an uncle, but that’s about all the extended family I have. My (half) brother is 13 years older than I, so by the time I was 7 he was out of the house and visiting only a few times a year. So even despite not being an only child, I was raised like one.

Even in the public school I went to, there weren’t a lot of BIPOC and the few that showed up in high school in my small grade and I didn’t really talk. My university had a majority white student body and I found I couldn’t quite relate with the BIPOC community, mostly because it felt like you had to choose between the BIPOC community or the LGBTQIA+ community and most of my classmates, because of my major, and friends were part of the latter.

When I studied abroad, I became good friends with a BIPOC queer group, especially with a black individual from NC. But sometimes they would make references to me and such that I wouldn’t understand and at one point this individual said “How do you not get that, you’re black!��� I had to pull them aside and explain my environment growing up and thankfully, they understood immediately and apologized. But it was alienating, and exacerbated the feelings I have of “I don’t belong anywhere”.

I’m not light skinned enough to pass as white, but I don’t have the experiences of growing up in a black community to connect with other black folk. I just feel like I stand alone in that respect.

Micro-aggressions

I don’t know if this counts as a micro-aggression, but the thing that comes to mind immediately happened when I was 14. I had an online friend and we had been voice-chatting for awhile. One night I turned on my camera and the first thing out of their mouth was “You’re black? You don’t sound black!“ 

I don’t speak/use AAVE because I didn’t grow up around people who did, and don’t have any sort of understanding about it, etc. This also adds into the whole identity crisis thing.

Misconceptions

I am frequently assumed to be Hispanic and, on one occasion, Indian. I’ve had people ask me if I’m Mexican outright. At one point I worked in a nursing home and the dementia unit had a lot of nurses who spoke Spanish due to some of the residents forgetting English. One of these nurses spoke to me in Spanish. I gave him a blank look and he sorta paused and went “You don’t speak Spanish?” I was also on a train once and an older Indian gentleman was standing near me? Or took the seat next to me and I believed he asked me if I was Indian outright.

I don’t have enough Workplace experience to make it it’s own category, but I once worked in a Dunkin Donuts with a primarily Indian and Haitian staff and I had these older POC women repeatedly asking me “Where are you from?” when I started. I told them “oh, the western part of the state” and they did the “but where are you from.“ I don’t know, I’m sorry.

Also as a kid my dad picked me up from school and this one girl asked me if I was adopted lmao. Nobody ever thinks biracial.

Self-esteem

I have pretty low self-esteem. While I don’t necessarily think I’m ugly, my struggle with my identity both gender and racially make it hard to be confident and outgoing, at least with strangers. I dunno, existing is hard sometimes.

Things I’d like to see more of

More mixed kids in stories and media as main characters or main supporting characters

More interracial relationships of all kinds, not just black & white.

I don’t know if it’s right to ask for this, but also.. more small families. 

More people whose families are like mine: just myself, my parents and my brother, with an occasional family friend showing up for holidays. All these stories with plenty of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents always make me feel alone and like I missed out on a lot.

View more POC Profiles | Submit your own

[hyperfixation-hideout]

i actually like hearing your thoughts on the show even the critical ones cause im scared to say my thoughts if there not positive sometimes cause when i do i get people angry at me and thinking im hating on rwby for fun or being nitpicking or ect. ive been folowing you awhile and i know you like the show and are nice about things and give benefit of doubt but you still get fought when you dont like something so i think ill keep keeping my mouth shut haha

I'm glad someone likes what I have to say, thank you, that means a lot <3 I've also been (and still am tbh) pretty scared of sharing my thoughts on RWBY, even the posts that are mostly positive and just have one or two qualms sit in my drafts for ages out of fear they'll be taken as hate. It's part of why I've found some solace in the r/RWBYcritics sub recently -- there are myriad positions, opinions, discussions, etc., both positive and negative, and people are generally open to having their mind changed and giving other perspectives a real chance before responding with theirs. Whereas my personal experience (and anecdotal from others) in the main RWBY sub has been very much that if someone has an opinion (positive, negative, or neutral), others often feel the need to argue the "right" opinion and react angrily if theirs doesn't align, calling people stupid for not interpreting things the same way or liking the same things/characters.

A lot of the time parts of the FNDM can feel consensus-based. Like there are right and wrong ways to think, feel, interpret, and discuss any given thing that happens in the show. Even things like people who headcanon Yang as bisexual being called lesbophobic because the FNDM decided she's a lesbian. I got called lesbophobic for saying I headcanon Weiss as aroace, or that I would love for her to not end up in a romantic relationship. Or black people voicing issues with how the White Fang was presented being called racist, only to reveal they're black, at which point they're told they're being sexist or homophobic instead for criticizing a show with female leads, written by straight cis men. There's a lot of assuming morality when it comes to how critics are seen, when a huge portion are critiquing it because they're women, queer, people of color, disabled, neurodivergent, or otherwise marginalized, and want to address how certain things regarding them were handled. But the first assumption is hate. It can get overwhelming and frankly unhealthy.

Not all of the FNDM is like this, of course! And I've made a lotta friends here! As a whole though, it can be a bit... unwelcoming towards critique to say the least. And as such, a lot of fans feel pressured to shove down and swallow our thoughts on the show if they deviate in any way from the majority consensus. There's nothing wrong with enjoying things that happen in RWBY; there's nothing wrong with disliking things that happen in RWBY.

I do feel that often when posting more critical analyses or opinions that my points are automatically taken in bad faith (which is kinda ironic since that's the accusation levied against critics wrt the show), especially if I tag with "rwby crit" or "rwde" or even "crtq." I tag so people who don't like seeing these takes can blacklist, and people who do like thinking about this stuff can find it and have a discussion. But some people seek out these tags with the intent to argue and act as though every critic has the same opinions, intent, and morality. Fans are not a monolith, nor are critics, and we need to all recognize that we're diverse individuals and not diametrically opposed. I consider myself part of both.

I will say this: to my knowledge, I've never lost a follower on this blog for speaking my mind on things I find personally confusing, disappointing, problematic, etc. And I am so grateful that this community, this cozy corner of the fandom, is more open to hearing thoughts that might differ from their own, and even sometimes changes their minds, or changes mine!

I'm sorry you don't feel able to express how you feel about a show you enjoy without getting attacked. I hope the RWBY FNDM grows more open-minded and collaborative as time goes on, because I really LOVE analyzing the show from a meta and storytelling standpoint, especially as a writer, and fostering discussion is fun for me. One of my favorite parts of RWBY is engaging with the community. Theorizing, analyzing, discussing, critiquing, reacting, creating... and it's unfortunate that I feel I'll drive people away the moment I say I don't like something. I am open to people responding with their own thoughts, and always try to see it from their pov, but more often than not the replies to critique I've seen are aggressive and make assumptions about the critic as a person, coming from a place of wanting to defend the show and showrunners rather than genuinely wanting to have a conversation. It feels very us vs them, and I don't like the polarization that attitude simultaneously feeds on and nourishes.

So thanks for sticking around, y'all <3

[soulvomit]

stuff with gender anguish about not fitting in with today’s current gender constructions

From another post I made: I need to talk about 20th century gender norms at some point as a living breathing 20th century fossil and how different it was. To most straight people, being gender non conforming meant gay, trans was on the far end of the gay spectrum, and gay was associated with being socially Not Normal at a time when you had to be Normal to get a white collar job. (The whole Normalhood thing im gonna talk about is VERY connected to mid-late 20th century construction of the white middle class.) Apropos of gender specifically... I’m not sure how 90s/00s genderfluid/genderqueer map to NB, or whether they do. It’s a big reason I am weird about IDing as NB - because it seems to mean something else than my particular understanding of my identity as it was formed in the 1990s. (Another thing is my social world being more people over 45 at this point and also I’m in a hetero relationship.) Part of 90s GQ stuff was that you could identify as a man part time, a woman part time, you could contain multitudes. “Woman-identified person with a male side” was a legit identity within that, so was “man-identified person with a female side.” You could be one person in the streets and another in the sheets. You could be several people in the sheets, especially if you were aligned with kinky culture. (And for a long time... I was.) There was a greater sense in the 90s and early 00s in genderqueerness culture that you could be GQ for no other reason than wanting to be and it wasn’t assumed to be bundled with physical dysphoria or even desire to change your public social identity. Some spaces - like West Coast geek culture and goth culture - had enough flexibility baked in that we didn’t really need to go to LGBTQ culture to explore our identities, and there was a whole geek queer sensibility that was evolving alongside of the broader LGBTQ culture that was definitely its own... thing.  And while people *say* that NB doesn’t mean any one particular thing or any of these things, that’s not always the message I get when visible NBs on TV/in film are almost always at present one very specific image or “type” of person, and that doesn’t resemble me. NB representation on TV amounts to presenting NB as a third gender with very specific codified behaviors (androgynous AFAB person who binds and has body dysphoria).   The message I get is that whatever my experience is, is better described some other way. Also the discourse around relationships with NBs is that a relationship with an NB is necessarily a queer relationship yet having been in relationships in and out of LGBTQ culture, I’m not really sure how to distinguish “a queer relationship.” My relationship is non-traditional in lots of ways and we’re both gender non-conforming in lots of ways though it doesn’t parse to most people because it’s along the lines of stuff that shouldn’t have ever been gendered in the first place. What my partner does not ever question however is his actual gender identity.  The thing is, actually publicly identifying as anything but a woman would create weird problems in my life in terms of social dynamics, and other stuff, and probably an unpredictable series of ripple effects downstream. But - that... just means I’m closeted, right? And closeted doesn’t mean your identity doesn’t exist or isn’t as unreal as someone who isn’t? And what if - as a “shapeshifter” - my relationship to myself within my relationship *is* part of that shapeshifting?  One of the things is that I’m in a heterosexual relationship. My relationship *is* one of my few spots where I’m happy in my skin, let alone happy in the world and I have no complaints with how I’m perceived in this relationship, and part of it is that practically every assumption about my gender is true, or has been true at some point, including the fact that I’m fine with being seen as a woman in the context of my relationship.  It’s in other spaces besides the intimate, that gender stuff makes my skin crawl. My deep interior gender identity is “pixels floating in the ether, which can assume any shape or form.” My gender identity among other people in non sexual friend spaces is “friend.” My partner identifies as a cis het man. I don’t feel like my relationship has any special quality that’s different from queer relationships I’ve been in, other than identities people have. If my partner doesn’t feel our relationship is queer then I don’t feel it is, either... though it’s not exactly *traditional.*  I don’t feel like our relationship is different from our hetero neighbors’ relationships regardless of whatever history I have. I have no way of knowing what my ostensibly-female ostensibly-heterosexual neighbors’ interior identities really are, or what their history is. And because we’re monogamous, it just never ever comes up. Our social world is about half queer and half not so nothing has changed. After decades of only dating people who had LGBTQ identities, and having a particular social world, now I’m with a cis het man from that same social world and nothing really has changed about the shape of my life.   I’ve moved between different spaces my entire life, sometimes I perceived myself as a boy in a girl’s body, but sometimes I didn’t, and don’t. And gender is one of the spaces in which I feel like a chameleon. There seem to be a ton of gender expression based communities that disappeared since the 90s that either disappeared or were erased from discourse and that makes this weirder/harder to talk about.  Another thing is that a lot of the discourse around pronouns (if pushed I’ll say I’m she/they but I am literally comfortable in anything, depending upon context) makes me really uncomfortable. Even in LGBTQ spaces it makes me uncomfortable. There’s the me that my friends know, and some of my family knows, and it’s a big enough world to contain that part of me at this point. I would rather not put my identity under a microscope in any space that matters. It’s weird but I wish I could just be “they” in the work, creative, etc, spaces, without the loading of what “they” means. I wish it meant nothing about the people who love me, or who I love, or how I love, or how I live my life, besides what pronoun I use. But it doesn’t mean nothing. That is why I hope more cis identified people will actually identify as they in the public sphere. There are plenty of spaces in the public sphere that I don’t think should be gendered at ALL. My wanting to be a “they” is in some ways more about wanting public anonymity and having formed my sense of self - at a tender time - online, than about my gender identity. Which means I’d be potentially appropriating “they” from people for whom it IS a deep identity, and yet... haven’t I spent half of my blog talking about how I’m not exactly the gender identity I advertise?? Haven’t I spent a long time up to now advocating for “they?” Isn’t feeling like a they, evidence that I’m a they?  And the thing is, this is such a YMMV issue and the problem is that EVERYONE has competing access needs with EVERYONE ELSE. Anything one queer person wants or needs seems to oppress some other queer person, and it sucks. But sometimes I wonder if I even need to just recognize how cis het passing my life is and acknowledge my privilege. The thing is though at that point... is it how much oppression we’ve experienced or are currently experiencing, that alone makes our identity? That’s as silly an idea as saying I’m less of a Jew because I haven’t personally experienced a hate crime. And yes there’s a lot to shared oppression experiences forming group identities, but I’m not talking about group identity. I’m talking about personal feelings of identity.

[nightswithkookmin]

Goldy I never thought I would reach out to any Jikook blog but after your last post I have to. I am an east asian american and trans. I have never spoken on this issue, commented or posted about this. I am a Jikook supporter but sometimes Jikook supporting blogs don't feel like the friendliest place. I want to thank you for changing my opinion on that. It is an insult to BTS to say Jikook don't know they seem gay or that they don't know what gay looks like. It is an insult to fans like me to say it would be OK to do the things they do if they were cisgendered straight men. I personally saw a few people say or dance around this and they got intimidated by big blogs for it. I would never name names because I beleive in free speech and the right of people to express themselves, as long as it isn't hate speech. Supporting lgbt people and making sure they don't feel endangered is MORE IMPORTANT THAN STANNING A KPOP BAND and I say this as a 4 year long bts and Jikook stan. So many people don't want to touch this issue and I understand why.

But thank you for supporting ACTUAL lgbt people as well as bts and showing stubborn people that BTS mean gay rights when they say gay rights.

I don't know why but this Ask made me cry...

I've been reading it over and over for the past two days and each time I feel humbled by it. Thanks so much for sharing this with me.

I think the era of the obsessed 'kids' and '13 year old shippers' in this space is coming to an end. I think it's time for a more nuanced mature conversation on what it means to ship and stan our faves in today's sociopolitical climate.

Let's intellectualize shipping and use it as a vehicle for social change not just pleasure. Sabotaging political hashtags is a start. Trending and donating to BLM is equally important. Fighting for gay rights and recognition is the next step and a natural progression from here- and about damn time!

Gone are the days where celebrities and idols were immune to accountability and personal responsibility. We live in a world where everyone is required to be converstant in and sensitive to social issues. Awareness is woven into our collective consciousness and for some of us we cannot divorce that from our pleasure receptors.

Hate to quote my pastor but, 'As a kid, I spoke, thought and reasoned like a kid. As I grew up, chilee darling, I put my ghetto ways aside. You feel me?' Lol. Yea, my pastor hood like that. Lol.

The fact of the matter is, BTS has a higher mature demographics now. Majority of us grew with them, if not past them. They are not seventeen anymore, Jin is almost thirty, the youngest in the group is past twenty three and majority of their fanbase are breaching Young Adult well into Adulthood and beyond.

We simply cannot view them with the same lens anymore. If we did, we would be infantilizing them if not enabling them.

We ought to be able to have certain conversations that reflect our age, hearts, backgrounds, experience, values and beliefs.

We can't sit behind our television sets and smart phone screens in this day and age and assume BTS sat through a performance like this and did not for a second think about what it meant, why the crowd cheered at certain moments or even understand the impact, message and intent behind it- especially not when Halsey, an openly bisexual woman and advocate for LGBTG rights is an acquaintance of thiers.

I don't know how a fraction of this fandom can assume BTS would have a collaboration of this nature and not know anything about the gay rights discourse or what queer baiting is or not consider how their actions may or may not be contributing to the marginalization of persons as these- to not have agency and personal responsibility or empathy.

JK cannot stan a gay artist such as Troye Sivan and divorce his music from his sexuality because it flows from it. Not when Troye has openly spoken about the struggles he went through as a closeted gay man, coming out and how that affected his mental health.

JK knows what gay is, he is aware of the struggles queer people face on a daily. His decision to cover, license and recommend songs by this artist is a deliberate act coming from a place of being informed on the matter.

Jimin knows. RM knows. Suga knows.

BTS cannot prepare a speech like this while oblivious to the plight of the LGBTQ plus community. I refuse to believe that simply because it's not true. Anyone who says otherwise is a scammer. Lol.

And I think they are intelligent enough to have cognisance of the fact majority of the world view certain aspects of their home culture as problematic and non-progressive and that this same world is watching them and what they do in this space matters.

They are part of the conversation. And it's in their interest to present themselves as queer a queer friendly band and company by distinctifying themselves from these 'traditional' Kpop bands.

I believe they know that being woke gives them a competitive advantage as MCs and advocates for the youth in today's world.

I believe they are aware certain things in their 'fan service culture' doesn't fly in the space they compete in and want to compete in. They are competing and rubbing shoulders with top LGBTQ plus advocates, sharing seats with them at awards, standing next to them- they best to look sharp.

It's obtuse for anyone to fall on the 'culture' rhetoric to excuse certain behaviors of their idols when actual queer people from and within that same culture fight against it.

Most S. koreans I know and have come across complain about their 'culture' and some even harbor strong resentments against this whole fanservice culture.

Holland, an openly gay Idol from South Korea, has equally spoken out against the 'fan service' culture prevalent within Kpop on several occasions and laments how it depoliticizes queerness and affects actual queer people within S.K.

And isn't it funny that the same conservative Christian population who strongly oppose homosexuality in S.K often lead online campaigns against Jikook for 'promoting homosexuality' because of certain fanservice and skinship they do?

If skinship is normal and fanservice is culture, why does conservative S.K keep pushing back against it? It's their culture uno?! Lmho.

Queer south Koreans and conservative Christians hate fanservice culture and yet here we are using their culture to defend it as if it's all black and white. Lmho.

Did they or did they not see South Korean's reactions to this performance by Jikook? The mixed feelings most had about it?

Men can nibble on men's ear but God forbid they toss them in the air and catch em💀

South Koreans are not a monolith. Their culture is nuanced like any culture. It's not static and not clear cut black and white either.

It's one thing to respect other's culture, it's another to perpetuate it in ignorance. Perpetuating their culture and being religious about it does not allow for the dynamism inherent in their culture.

Troye Sivan talked about how he'd stop in the middle of his concerts and performances upon seeing the hyper fangirls in the front row and then think to himself, 'I know they know I'm gay, so why are they still here...'

And this was before he came out.

Jikook know we know they are queer or that we think of them as queer. When Jimin talks about 'those that love me for me' he knows exactly what he is talking about or rather who he is talking to- it's not these hets I'm afraid.

Troye also talked about being privileged because he lived in a rather queer friendly neighborhood where everyone is gay and so he'd always felt safe coming out.

Isn't that what JK is doing?

Now this is a person who's without a doubt had a lot of influence on JK in his early formative years as an Idol right down to his decision to move into a much queer friendly neighborhood of Itaewon.

They know we know. Jikook is gay.

Thankfully, there are reports of a rising number of LGBTQ plus in South Korea, a lot of allies, a lot of queer folks coming out and a lot of companies opening up to working with gay idols and aspiring idols.

It's such a relief but a lot of work still needs to be done and I stand with them on behalf of Jikook and any queer folk in SK.

My sister is helping me reach out to an LGBTQ plus advocate from Seoul for an interview for my blog. If everything goes well, I'd love for her to share her thoughts on queer passing, queer baiting and fan service within Kpop and how that affects LGBTQ youth in South K.

It's a conversation I'm really passionate about and interested in.

I love me some ships, but I also love me some queer advocacy and human rights uno? Lol.

Thing is, I may quit BTS one day, but I can never quit being me. Being human. Always put the human first is my motto.

Oh and I hear people are plotting to cancel me? Chilee. Y'all do that but:

Let it echo.

Signed,

GOLDY