#this is specific to a specific demographic btw not at a specific person

[temikoangie]

if i see someone call tenko a radfem or a terf one more time im gonna drink gasoline and spit it out at them like a llama

[martianbugsbunny]

So a political ad that I've seen a lot recently has smthn in there about how one of the candidates supported (quote) "gender-mutilating surgeries" (unquote) and honestly that is just like so telling of...certain people's views on gender. It's something that they pin so deeply onto these arbitrary bodily characteristics, which can be fairly neatly changed by a good surgeon anyway, that to them gender is something that can be mutilated, because it's housed solely in a physical form. From my point of view it's impossible to "mutilate" gender because it's a part of the soul, the spirit, the anima of a person, which can't be touched by corporeal procedures and exists separate from the physical characteristics that are generally used to describe it.

[edwinspaynes]

You know, I've been mulling over how the streaming business model - specifically the @netflix business model - actively discourages the creation of diverse shows.

Netflix's idea that everything has to be a Big Hit caters to the concept that everything that's worth making should be mass-streamlined for the largest possible audience. That audience is, of course, going to fall into majority demographics - straight, cisgender, neurotypical, probably white (though I don't really feel comfortable speaking about that so much as a white person myself. If a PoC wants to add onto this post, I'll reblog it.)

Anything with queer representation is going to be heavily watered down or tailored to a cishet audience if we are to follow the Netflix business model to its natural conclusion. Shows like Dead Boy Detectives, Ratched, First Kill, Shadow and Bone, and Warrior Nun include nuanced stories about queer characters and their journeys, and the sad fact is that many cishet people simply don't even care to try to relate to these stories. They're overlooked in favour of straight-made, straight-majority shows like Bridgerton, Never Have I Ever, or Stranger Things. All three of these shows include a queer side character, but that character is either never fleshed out or made queer in the most perfunctory and performative way possible. Straight audiences still care to watch them for the straight characters. This leads to the cancelation of authentic queer shows because they don't "have the numbers" to be hits.

(Btw, I can say with confidence that Dead Boy Detectives at least did have the numbers needed to be a hit, and they're ever-growing. But walk with me and take Netflix's stupid ass claim at face value for a second.)

No shit queer shows are going to get canceled if you're basing everything on "hit" numbers.

According to the Williams Institute, 5.5% of US adults identify as LGBT. That's a pretty huge minority, which is surprising for most of us queer people who tend to hang out in groups like little queer magnets. But it's true. Even if half of the cishet population is happy enough to watch queer shows, that's still only 55.5% of people who are maybe going to watch. And we can't expect everyone to watch every Netflix show. That's unreasonable.

So, to summarize, you're going to only make hit shows? That means you're only catering to majority-audiences. That means that we are going to have NO diverse media that doesn't get the ax.

It also really sucks that Netflix seems to use Heartstopper (a great show!) as its "bbbut we're not homophobic" billboard. Like, okay! You have one cute little coming out show. And we love it! Doesn't make you an A++ Ally, though.

But what about other queer stories? Ones that aren't about queerness? Why can't we see ourselves as supernatural detectives or vampire debutantes or morally gray psychiatric nurses?

In the immortal words of one of the best, most complex queer characters ever to exist, "it's so fucking stupid it's unbelievable."

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for sleeping with a 20 year old?

tw: mentions of potential grooming, age gap relationships, nsft/nsfw, vague discussions of sex

So, me (38m) and my wife (39f) are in an open relationship. Basically, we’re both bisexual and not quite ready to limit our sex lives to one person yet. So, we decided to allow friends with benefits situations outside of our relationship. No romantic stuff, no dating, just sex.

In January, my wife went to stay at her best friend’s (28f) house and have some fun together. I don’t mind at all, I was kind of glad to have our apartment to myself for a week. Now, there’s this queer bar that me and my wife frequent and it’s a good mix of all age demographics and identities.

There’s this one trans guy, I’ll call him M, that most people in the local community know because he’s very attractive. He reminds me of a very short Eric Draven mixed with Eddie Vedder. (Oddly specific, I know) Like, he has long-ish curly brown hair, big brown eyes, the sweetest smile ever and he dresses very well. A little grunge here, a little rockstar there. Good jewelry. You get it.

I always catch people staring at him when he’s at the bar with his friends. (We live in Europe btw, legal drinking age is 18.) In short, I find him very cute. He’s basically a micro celebrity among the community and he doesn’t even know it.

So, while my wife was away I went down to the bar and his friend group invited me to come sit with them. We started talking, he’s super funny and we began talking about Pearl Jam because of the shirt I was wearing. Found out he’s obsessed with the music scene of the 90s, specifically rock and grunge, and I happen to have a collection of merchandise of the big 4. I invited him to come check it out and he eagerly accepted. None of his friends wanted to come, so it was just us two. Showed him the stuff, he got super excited about it and I even let him keep one of my Soundgarden shirts and some CDs.

I offered to cook dinner, we ate and then had some weed brownies for dessert. We got posted on the couch, talked for a good while and he began confiding in me. I’m not gonna go into detail because that’s shitty, but he basically told me he’d never had a positive sexual experience up to that point. Apparently all of his exes were switches leaning submissive and he’s purely submissive, so things never really worked out and he never finished with any of them.

I told him about me and my wife’s arrangements and some other stuff about our sex life. (Don’t worry, my wife is 100% okay with this. Even in this context.)

Here’s where I might be the asshole, if not the creep:

Now, I was pretty high at that point and I joked about how I could give him a positive experience. To my surprise, he actually eagerly accepted. I was a bit hesitant because we were both buzzed, but he kept reiterating that he’s consenting and that he’s sure he wants this. So, I made sure he had a good night and he actually ended up sleeping over and we cuddled. It was super nice and he seemed genuinely ecstatic about it the next morning, it was adorable. I was honestly just happy that I was able to give him a positive sexual encounter.

We exchanged numbers, kept texting for two days and he ended up coming over again. Had some more fun together and he went to go sleep over at a friend’s place. At that point, I sort of realized that I may be catching feelings for him. Which is against me and my wife’s rules and also just a horrible idea, especially considering the age gap. So, I let him know that I need some distance and he was super understanding. He was understandably a bit disappointed but didn’t complain or anything.

Once my wife came back, I told her about everything. This is just a thing we do because it helps avoid speculation and unnecessary jealousy. We always tell each other about what happens with our other sexual partners, but only if they consent to it. Which most of them do because they’re our friends. She seemed a bit unnerved by it, not because of the fact that I had feelings for him, but because of the age difference. She said it’s weird and predatory and told me she needed some time to think.

Apparently, she went to go check in on M and asked him if I pressured him into anything. He said it was a 100% mutual thing and he’s very much into older guys, so he enjoyed it quite a lot.

This put her mind at ease but I’m still quite shaken by it. I never stopped to consider the fact that the age difference is quite concerning. I can’t help but feel like a nasty creep that bribed some poor 20 year with old band shirts to come sleep with him. I don’t like that I didn’t even think about it. Talking with M came so easy and we share a lot of interests. I’m not about to go and say he’s 'mature for his age' because he isn’t, he acts like any other 20 year old.

I was just so focused on how attractive and interesting he is to me, I fear I might’ve acted extremely selfish and should’ve stopped to take his lack of experience and his naivety into account. Of course he’d sleep with me, he’s 20 and doesn’t know any better. It should’ve been my job, as the older adult, to put a stop to it. Please don’t hesitate to give it to me straight.

AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[rochenn]

hello!!! sorry if this is a personal ask, but i was wondering if you would be interested in talking about some of your region's language and dialect? its difficult to find information on specific demographics and how their dialects relate to the language overall, and im also in a lot of trouble with the german teacher crime syndicate and if i remain unable to roll an r they might get me - anon

Not personal at all! I'd love to talk about my dialect and I'm holding back from writing a whole essay about it rn :'D

If your German teachers make you roll your r they're either trying to make you sound Southern* or they're not even trying to teach you the uvular r. Neither one of these options is ethical. Standard German (TM) doesn't include rolled r sounds, the uvular r is way more common! I hear it's hard for Anglos to do, but just think of the k and g sounds - they get your tongue in the right position for that guttural non-rolled r :) (check this video, it explains pretty well)

I'm a Saxon speaker. This dialect has the same unfortunate connotations as deep Southern or Midwestern US accents; uneducated, bigoted, small-minded and all that, and it's considered unprofessional to speak it on the job (top 10 things that make me yearn for violence btw).

Anyway. Saxon my beloved!! It's very laid-back and fun. Whimsical, even. Your tongue kinda just stays at the back of your mouth, pronunciation is incredibly lazy, soften all the consonants. Since it's a Middle German dialect and not a High German one, some words are closer to English, too! Apfel becomes Appel, for example.

Saxon is also universally used when ppl satirize/mock East Germany or the entire region ig even though the dialects here are super diverse, too. And I'm not even from the state of Saxony but whoever drew the new state lines after the reunification had to have been WASTED cause wtf is Sachsen-Anhalt?? Whenever I open my mouth ppl just clock me as Saxon or maybe Thuringian but NEVER as Anhaltian.

Hope this helps, feel free to ask more! Good luck with your teachers 💥💥

[dykeulous]

what do you think of this? https://www.tumblr.com/pillarsalt/766446559743377408?source=share

this is the post anon is referring to btw, for those who can’t be arsed to type the link out lmao.

anyway; transmisogyny is real, and attempts at mocking it in this way are imo very unnecessary. i guess some radical feminists could find gaps and holes w/ calling it transmisogyny, but having language & terms specific to unique experiences & struggles is important, and arguing over semantics when real life people are being discriminated against, is very redundant. you can refuse to call it transmisogyny, but at the end of the day, the experiences that trans women face will still be real, even if you personally dislike the term “transmisogyny”. the bigotry that falls under transmisogyny will be real regardless of if you personally want to call it transmisogyny or not.

i have no issue with “tma/tme” being a thing. i have no issue with this language, and i don’t care to police trans women’s language when they are speaking of their specific oppression. i don’t think acknowledging that a specific demographic is primarily affected by a form of bigotry somehow assumes other demographics cannot also be targeted in some situations & circumstances [trans men can be affected by transmisogyny in the cases where they are assumed to be transfem, trans women can face female-specific misogyny when they are assumed to be female, etc etc], which is why i take issue with all the whataboutism going on in spaces advocating for the acknowledgement of transandrophobia/antitransmasculinity/transandromisogyny (“a person with ambiguous sex characteristics & a fluid gender presentation stands before you!! quick!! determine whether they’re tma or tme!!”)– however i also believe putting “tme” in your bio seems very strange and off-putting (and same goes for tma). that would be like demanding people to put racism-affected or racism-exempt in their bios. or homophobia-affected and homophobia-exempt. it reeks of performative, i don’t like it. i also don’t like the way that so many advocates for the usage of this language seem to be very misogynistic themselves towards transmascs & even all female people broadly, taking advantage of language that could be exceptionally useful for naming transfem-specific oppression. tma & tme are useful terms. misogynistic & more specifically anti-transmasc behavior circulating around the usagers of the terms is not.

you can rightfully critique the undermining of female-specific misogyny & denial of sex-based oppression without undermining & denying another very legitimate & tangible form of oppression. mocking someone’s real life experiences, experiences that often lead to death, is not pro-feminist, even if you personally don’t want to include those people in your specific female-only activism. that’s my two cents.

[not-goldy]

So you are very ok with JK given everything by the company while Jimin is mistreated af ? You said JK AND JM. But what JM is getting ? Dust ?

Just like JK, you are being greedy only wanting him to the succeed while JM is always ignored by the company. But ofcourse JK is successful so you are ok with JM being his trophy husband, who works hard but with restricted success and won't go above JK, isn't it ?

I'm open to discussing the various ways in which one member's career could be hyped up more or invested into more by us or their company. I'm open to discussing all the ways in which their company could be abusing them or the ways in which they aren't being treated fairly.

What I would not do is hate on another member just because while secretly yearning for what he has for my bias. That's bad karma so you are on your own.

I can't and don't need to hate Jungkook in order to love Jimin.

I can't wish evil for Jungkook in order to wish well for Jimin. I'M NOT DERANGED NOR SLOW LIKE THAT.

They can both be successful artists, their individual successes don't take away from each other's.

They can both be great

They can both coexist as icons.

There's so much room and space for them to inhabit as they each speak to unique demographics. Different talents, different audiences.

I don't need to bring one down to lift one up. You are weird for that shit.

Also these are SOLO artists which presupposes they have separate deals and contractual rights and obligations with the company and I'm tired of explaining this over and over- get yourself some legal education will you.

They are both free to contract and if they are not happy with their contracts they can sue the company.

I'm okay with Hybe performing and fulfilling their obligations under their contract with Jungkook. If that contract stipulates they give all their resources to him then that's what they must do.

Jimin needs a better lawyer to negotiate a better deal for him then if the contract is not serving him because believe it or not hybe is not a charity and they don't operate outside the limits set by their contracts🙄

We know this because they refuse to get into matters that fall within the privacy clause of their artists and as Jimin said, even the food they give them comes straight out of the artist's pay.

We can talk about the different value they place on each member - which of course, they don't place the same value on the members equally. Some are valued more than others. But we been knew that. It's been that way since day one.

It's business though. Nothing personal. Companies do take risks on others more so than others because they look for different things in artists and have specific target markets in mind from the get go.

It's the reason Jungkook may not work well for Dior but Jimin does. They are unique brands and require unique artist's brand as well.

It's up to that artist and their fans to prove them right or wrong- which us and Jimin keep doing every single day. Let's focus on that. The more we sell out, the more numbers we have the better for his market value.

Jungkook is the GOLDEN MAKNAE. he has that going for him. You can't take that away from him. He's managed to capture a portion of the market that most music companies struggle to break through. He could well be the next Justin Beiber or the JB of Kpop but then again he is his own person and a unique phenomenon on his own just as BTS.

Don't underestimate his influence. Don't make that mistake.

He has all the qualities that makes A GLOBAL POP ARTIST and right now there is a gap in that market. I have several posts on this explaining this phenomenon please find any and read for further clarification on my other blog.

Btw, Jimin stans are mostly adults most of whom are lawyers and legal practitioners with the JDs and shit who understand the ins and outs of the entertainment industry. Get real and quit embarrassing us💀💀💀💀

[cios-correct-opinions]

also hot take: making the blanket statement of "i hate men" IS STILL BAD and DOES NOT HELP YOU RECOVER FROM YOUR TRAUMA!

if you truly hate men, if you truly don't ever want to learn how to not hate men (do not put words in my mouth btw i'm not trying to imply you need to be attracted to men but hating an entire demographic is seriously not healthy), then have you perhaps considered, idk, privating your social media so only approved people can see it, and/or only existing online in spaces meant solely for specifically binary cis or trans women? and not going in spaces where you know men will be and will be able to interact with you???

the answer is, for those of you who continue to say these things publicly: no, you haven't. because you don't actually see us as humans with lives and personalities, the vast majority of whom have never and will never harm you. you see us as all the same as your abuser(s), or abusers waiting to happen, and therefore believe your treatment of us is somehow justified because we just so happen to belong to the same gender group as the people or person who hurt you.

and there is a word for that kind of hatred towards someone simply for being a man. but you think it's okay because you're "traumatized." and i'm really not sure how to explain how fucked up that is. just remember one thing:

victims can be abusers too.

[silverview]

hI it just clocked for me that you wrote that tlw smut fic - absolutely loved it btw 👏🏼 ngl i'm just as fascinated about this episode as you are, and am honestly *obsessed* with your thoughts on it so please Tell Me More 👀

aahh thank you so much!!! i'm so glad you liked it!! 🥰 (for anyone who might be interested, my the last weekend fic is here, but obviously it's pretty dark so PLEASE read the warnings)

thank you for the opportunity to rant some more. i hope i'm coherent. if you have any thoughts yourself i would LOVE to hear them too!! and pls feel free to dm me any time about this or any other episode! (this goes for anyone, my dms are open, i am very friendly and i live to yap about shows)

actually, to talk more about tlw, i need to talk more about its similarity to simon says. at their cores, they are both interrogating what creators owe to fans, and they are both horror stories about what your fans might do to you if you disappoint them. if your work doesn’t please them, if you hurt their feelings online – what will the fans do? will they weave an elaborate web of lies around you, ruin your life, and trick/coerce you into sex? in these episodes they will!

nobody talks about how chas's punishment is in kind. i don't mean the nine years. i mean the specific nature of the punishment, the tables turned against him. "loving someone who hated you." he failed to honour the parasocial contract with his fans, and so he is subjected to the ultimate parasocial rejection. manipulated into caring deeply for someone, believing in a real mutual emotional connection, only to discover it was just a facade. that the person he loved never even said i love you back.

it's a dark revenge fantasy for the fan who's had (for example...) their tv comedian crush be a little mean to them on twitter. a nightmare for the tv comedian in question. i think, consciously or unconsciously, it's a very personal story for them and especially for reece, who is on the receiving end of a lot more obsessive fan behaviour and understandably has a much stronger reaction to it.

i mean, who's really being queerbaited in tlw? not the viewers, not in the traditional sense. chas is being irl queerbaited to death. some people say the deception was too obvious – that he shouldn't have accepted only seeing his partner on weekends, for example. but the humiliation of being easily deceived, of accepting scraps, is important to the punishment. like 🤡 when you let a showrunner transparently string you along.

a little over seven years ago, i sent some fanmail to one of my favourite creators, and we started dating. we are still happily together now, and i am still a fan. but the transition was hard. we self-aware parasociality enjoyers like to think we have things in perspective – that we know we're just projecting and we actually have no idea about the real, flawed human being who exists in private. but knowing that intellectually and being confronted with the reality of it are two very different things. creators and their fans, regardless of positive intentions or demographic similarity or anything else, inherently approach each other with different mindsets which inevitably create discomfort for one or both parties. it's a really interesting and fertile kind of dynamic and i think tlw and simon says are both fascinating explorations in that space.

i think simon says is reasonably authentic and respectful to the fan perspective (never forget they did enough research to drop their own ship name in the podcast about it 🫠) but i see it as a major oversight that simon's reaction to the mention of fanfiction is to say dismissively, "no, it's more sophisticated than that." my partner – who seven years ago would have been confused by or dismissive of this sort of fan culture, but who has learned a lot by living with me – turned to me and said, "a real fan wouldn't say that."

i don't have a neat segue here, i just have one more dumb thing i wanna add about tlw, i'm crazy about this comment from someone on reddit:

he is a prettyboy!! a very pretty boy!! 🥰 but here it's clearly being used as a euphemism for slutty, which i love. oh chas. you poor little pretty monster. you will always be famous. i wonder if reece would be more comfortable with his own attractiveness if he was handsome instead of pretty.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2023: #14 & #13

14. ESTONIA Alika - "Bridges" 8th place

Decade ranking: 40/116 [Above Circus Mircus, below TBA]

Tweak some bangs, Alika's Shart.

It is amazing how a few on-point tweaks can make a song significantly more appealing. I went up and down on Alika throughout the months, but a year after I've put her low on the pre-show ranking I am ready to lock in my final verdict: Bridges is kind of really good.

Ofc there were huge problems down the road cuz you know, vocal masturbation ballad in a BorisBubbles ranking, and also, clear jury carry the year after Marius Bear and Nadir Whatshisgjon, but Estonia ironed out their most glaring flaws, so what else can I ask for? I got what I wanted.

Estonia's problem for me, as I've come to realize once I started liking Alika again, was always one of aesthetics, and specifically visual aesthetics (keep that in mind when I rank Europapa low for the lack of bags-over-head (lol if I rank ESC2024 to begin with (I mean, I probably will (I am not readly to enter that discourse yet tho (regardless, that haircut is a capital offence))))). A big inherent flaw of vocal flex ballads like "Bridges" is the lack of dynamism and emotional gravitas (as the vocal technique goes against these principles - "loud" is a pitch, not an emotion) - it's a flaw that comes with the genre and that's something only charisma can fix. Pre-show Alika looked like she'd been dragged out of a river and then SHOUTED into a mic without moving, so yeah, that's where I bail. Slimane your way into someone else's simple and easily-impressed heart please, I Am Not The Demograph. (-- Alesia Michelle).

The version in Liverpool though was - by textbook definition almost - a glow-up. Alongside her Jenevelle hair, Estonia actually put Alika in a beautiful gown and made her move around. Observe:

NOW I SEE MAHSEEL BEELDING UP A WOALD OF BREEECHEEEEEEEEEES

Apparently a lot of people were mesmerized by the self-playing piano but for me the biggest factor in selling "Bridges" was just Alika herself. Props are nice embellishments but the true art of live performance is when score and vocal come together via the power of Personality. Which she finally showed in Liverpool after what felt like an eternity.

By allowing Alika to just do... idk, Alika things with her body lang, face and hands, Estonia broke the monotony of "three minutes of loudness" and made it fun, camp and digestible. If theres anything The Gays (me) like, it's a neat lady doing silly things with fierce confidence. Yasss Go Slay Queen.

Ultimately, a lot of people think Alika's top 10 is nonsense and a strike against juries and here I disagree. That a strong glow up and performance such as Alika's went unappreciated by the televote is a huge strike against the televote, not the other way around. I am happy she got her spot in the limelight, and 8th place is a good, if somewhat generous representation of what she brought. I'll never be a huge fan of the song "Bridges", but at the end of the day Alika really ate that live, and that's something worth rewarding.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

13. POLAND Blanka - "Solo" 19nd place

Decade Ranking: 39/116 [Above Alika, below Stefan]

"ARIANA GRANDE IF ARIANA HAD NO TALENT" -- my immediate instinct when i first heard "Solo"

Were my instincts wrong, though? Her lack of performance skill and talent, the online response, the severed heads of Jann and Iru she keeps mounted on a pedestal in her boudoire. Blanka was the Mery Bass of 2023. She has no business being this good.

btw yes, lmao so hard that THIS ENTRY was somehow one of the more controversial ones in recent ESC. Honestly, the 13th place I'm giving here is at least half thanks to the controversy which made "Solo" feel iconic - it is exceedingly funny to me that it caused so much outrage for... existing? What did Blanka ever do? Certainly not rob better acts - Listen to Jann and listen to Iru and tell me straight-faced they were better.

BEJBA! IS KINDA KRAJZA!

As a song, "Solo" was always fun femmetrash. Ever since Eleni the majority of the Eurovision girlbops have been attempting to recreate Fuegos with varying successes - Competently staged with intricate choreographies to commemorate our inner faggotry. "Solo" represents a style of girlbop that's gone out of fashion - the "Aphrodisiac"-like basic bop by useless bitches for useless cigs. (Fuego is what gays see themselves as, Solo is what they actually are). Aphrodisiacs have become nearly extinct at Eurovision because they nearly always lose the NF nowadays. So thank you Jann for performing 'Gladiator' in Scooby-Doo vocals so that we could witness Bejba fullfill her beautiful destiny in Liverpool.

And what a destiny it was. In a way, most of the things I wrote about Alika also apply to Blanka. A few small tweaks to the performance can make the whole a lot better. Unlike Alika though, who ampted up the sophistication, Blanka went a route I respect more: She listened to fan feedback.

Slight paraphrasing:

Fans: "EWW BLANKA HAS NO TALENT, CAN'T DANCE, CAN'T SING, WON BASED ON MONEY!!!" Blanka: "... so? 🙂"

I don't know WHEN Blanka decided to be everything the fans accused her of (talentless, washed-up, plastic), amped up to comical levels, but thank fuck she did because it made her instantly epic. It is rare for a Eurovision artist to address her online haters by Now I Betta Troll'em, Troll'em, and Blanka as it turns out is masterfully skilled at trollery. She elevated it into an art.

The Cheap VFX <3

The badly performed wooden choreos <3

The Dutch angles <3

Doing the Eleftheria thing of having your backing vocalist sing over you, while you mug the camera with semi-fierce faces and placeholder hairflips.

Accused to having no performance skill or talent? Add in a cheap dance break anyway, and enjoy every second of it, live your dream while they fume on Twitter, angry that Poland qualified over Georgia.

Guess where I am, honey? 💋 I'm in the final. 💋 And I'm here to stay 💋 :dramatic cymball:

"Solo" was incompetent, plastic and a huge mess, and that was great because it was all deliberate. That made it epic. Poland really took all the negative criticism they received and yanked it up to 11 and it made the entry better. If that isn't a taunting flex in the face of toxicity, I don't know what is. Given how venomous the fandom has been since the pandemic, that is an approach to life I can totally get behind.

THE RANKING

AND WITH THAT WE MADE IT OUT OF THE MILD LIKE ZONE, HOO-fucking-RAY. Now bear in mind that the next few eliminees are very LOW lush greens and there's quite a few of those before we get to the really good stuff, but eh. Soon I'll be able to talk about the songs I loved, and that's always a treat.

[phantom-chirp]

Oh sorry the last part was exaggerated as a joke I didn't mean it in like, a combative way? Idk if It came off that way I also like Crow btw fhfjdkfkf. But I mean I do strongly feel his det. Prince teen idol persona is nominally "supposed" to encourage the public to Support The Police's Valiant Fight To Capture Those Evil Phantom Thieves (TM)! (and increase support for shido but when the PT enter the scene those become intertwined). of course we later know that akechi doesn't really give a shit about the police as anything more than a stepping stone for his eventual revenge against shido (he calls them incompetent), but I mean, the public is supposed to think he earnestly believes in his justice as a police detective, aren't they? And he makes some comment in his first TV station appearance about how he's helping the police to capture the Phantom thieves because their existence is a threat to society or something (I'm sorry, I don't have the exact wording on me) and I dont think fact that he is technically using the detective position to cover up crimes changes the fact that it's his day job or anything yknow? But that's because they had to have made him part of law enforcement in some sense since he's joker's rival and at some point plays the part of an antagonist, and joker is a criminal rebelling against the justice system etc (even if akechi doesnt like that system in the end – the Detective Prince has to)

So I also do think that the police, who don't KNOW who akechi really is, are using him and his prettyboy persona to appeal to the public and to a teenage demographic in particular (though we know that some adults supported akechi as well, of course). The phantom thieves case IS a police case, after all. It's because they need to sway the public to their side and away from supporting their thieves – even when that stops being necessary after okumura, they can still take advantage of akechi to generate more hype for the arrest

W/ the romance thing, it makes sense to appeal to his fans there because it makes him sound like someone who’s knowledgeable about romance. I hate what im about to say but it feels like. Kind of supposed to mix the princely goodboy act with an undercurrent of like. "oooooh he'll play with your heartstrings isn't that spicyfjekgkfk I hate typing that I hate thinking about teen idol tropes /lighthearted. I mean I don't Think that to be clear that's the reaction I think the TV show is trying to provoke augh. But anyway I'm not trying to say this is the only interpretation or that he's not gay and sad 24/7 LMAO, it just works for me because especially after killing joker he has to establish himself as a hero and an icon and. The whole celebrity thing of a desirable/unattainable boyfriend to keep appealing to that audience... Oh my god is this too many words I'm so sorry

(ask related to this post and this post)

The amount of words is fine no need to apologize, honestly I like longer written things in discussions like this because it leaves less room for misunderstandings. I also write a lot often so I don't mind

Thank you for clarifying. Specifically in relation to the Phantom Thieves it makes more sense to me what you were getting at, I see. The distinction between the Detective Prince and Goro Akechi is important here, because personally those wouldn't be his motivations and his personal feelings regarding the Detective Prince thing play into his childhood and such so that's why I had a more negative reaction to that part of your original ask so I apologize for that

With the romance thing, again I can understand that reading of those lines but it still isn't an interpretation that fully makes sense in my brain? The idea that it's intentionally meant to play more into the... as I can best word it right now, badboy-esque behaviour (I understand anon I hated even typing that lmao) but that's also never really an aspect of his Detective Prince persona that he ever actively played into before I don't think? Might be forgetting and even if I'm not it doesn't mean it's impossible for him to ever actively do so, but still

The public opinion of the Phantom Thieves had already gone basically fully down by the time that interview happened so I just don't see how likely it is for Akechi to play into an aspect of his fame he himself didn't even seem to like from what I recall since I feel like it would be easy to get the public back on his side and all that without doing so. Though Akechi's emotions were probably all messed up after killing Ren so it's hard to say, Akechi is a real difficult character to try to look at analytically because we get very little insight into some of the aspects of his character and he's really complicated

As I said in the tags of the original post I do have an interpretation of it that I think somewhat works and can explain why he made that connection but I do worry it could just be because I'm biased towards shuake. Despite all I've said I will say that your interpretation does make sense as a way to view why he said that, especially with the added information from this ask, but personally it just doesn't click with my brain for some reason

[reorientation]

(This is the "centering" anon - btw, such a fantastic reply, I've been shaking since I saw it.) Slightly veering into real talk, do you think it's realistic to hope for someone who sees all of me? Instead of just someone who seeks to use my lapse in judgement as weakness to control me? I'd like to be controlled but in a sexy way; even in my "I'm a woman" moments (additionally I'm definitely still genderqueer) I can't separate my feminism from that experience of womanhood. Are there men out there wanting this mess of juxtaposition? Everything about what I want feels wrong, and it's ironically resonant to how I felt as a teen. Really tired of feeling this way and hoping for advice on how to engage in a healthy way (instead of constantly feeling drawn to return to anonymous cam sites where I have the best orgasms of my life then panic that the wrong men will find me or expose me). Thanks for your time and for your skill with word-weaving! If you don't feel equipped to answer this, no worries, I know this is probably a Lot.

(Previously)

Okay, a sharp swerve into seriousness: this kind of advice is definitely beyond my personal experience as a cis man (albeit one with many non-cis friends). However, on general principles and based on my knowledge of kink, I think I can offer this:

...do you think it's realistic to hope for someone who sees all of me? ... Are there men out there wanting this mess of juxtaposition?

What you're asking is the wrong question. It's very tempting to add up all your faults and complexities and ask yourself "who's looking for this?" - but people don't fall in love with bundles of abstract attributes, and they also don't add up complexities until hitting some threshold and going "nah, this is too confusing, I'm out".

You find someone who likes you as a person - your sense of humor, your taste in books, the way you smile - and who you like in return, and then you try to make it work. Sometimes it doesn't, due to circumstances or communication problems or personality conflicts or any number of other things. But sometimes it does. And when someone cares about you as a person, they're willing to learn your nuances and contradictions, because they're part of someone who they could come to love.

And as to your situation specifically:

I'd like to be controlled but in a sexy way; even in my "I'm a woman" moments (additionally I'm definitely still genderqueer) I can't separate my feminism from my experience of womanhood.

I'm biased by my experience with disproportionately queer friend groups in a liberal city in the US - so YMMV a lot based on local demographics - but "AFAB genderqueer feminist sub" doesn't seem unusual to me in the slightest, or something that would be a barrier to finding partners! Also, in my experience, people into real-life kink are disproportionately liberal (and nerdy - if you're trying to locate people who are into BDSM without going to a munch, find a D&D group), so the feminism part really shouldn't be a problem.

Gender play specifically requires an understanding partner, but with mutual trust and a bit of explanation, I don't think it's all that taboo or hard to understand - not more than e.g. a feminist woman wanting to be treated like property in the bedroom.

Really tired of feeling this way and hoping for advice on how to engage in a healthy way

As with most things in life, the healthy approach involves spending less time on the internet. If you want a romantic partner, find hobby groups or other social venues. If you want to explore kink specifically, you can visit some munches (non-sexual regular meetups for people involved with kink) to dip your toe in. Pursue things you're interested in by forming personal connections with people who you can trust, and you'll probably find things a lot easier.

[shoujoboy-restart]

angela davis herself wrote about how the obsession with "true womanhood" always has a white supremacist agenda behind it. she remarked on the obsession the right-wing has with trans women and compared it to the bigotry she and other black women have experienced.

needless to say she was 100% right about the connection transphobia has to white supremacy. anti-trans lobbyists have direct connections to white supremacists.

Oh yeah, ironically enough they also harassed her some years back, she had a interview with two drag queens on the GLAAD youtube, and when asked to introduce herself, she called herself a queer lesbian, i believe, queer nonetheless, and during it she also said she saw black trans women as the most oppressed demographic out there.

Of course TERFs lost their fucking minds, did the usual "ANOTHER SELL OUT THE LIZARD ELIT-i mean, QUEER LOBBY!" and said Angela Davis, the woman who who became a targeted by thee FBI for saying racism bad ad was put on the death row multiple times and became a political refugee on the USSR, was scared of becoming a hashtag, the trending topics and anime profiles.

Is amazing, when they believe you are siding with them or can become useful as a tool to attach themselves for PR reasons? Oh such a strong woman with conviction, courage and determination to fights against oppression and the patriarchy

The moment the are like "ummm i don't think hate criming trans people is gonna them sex trafficking victims or make tampons free" OMG A TRAITOR A SELLOUT YOU DON'T KNOW THE TEAL OPPRESISON OF GETITNG RATIO'D ON TWITTER.

And it really tells how terminally online these people are, because when they aren't out here making parades with their neo-nazi boyfriends and calling black women dirty(Posie Parker), they legit think being a hashtag or cancelled on Twitter is the end of the world, they become so obcessed with numbers they really think women who stared death down are gonna give a shit what some fag with a anime profile is gonna think of them.

And btw "they were Jesus on our side, but the Devil on the enemy" is also a tactic used by scientology compulsively in their own scripture, from the average members to chairmen, the moment they come out the church and have criticism, whatever was good about them is ignored and replaced with them being satan on earth, and I'm not joking with the charimen part, an actual chairmen who was adored by thousands, appeared on the biggest events and has footage and general information about him talking about how great he is, then the moment he spoke against the church, HORRIBLE, LAZY, HARD TO WORK WITH, POISONED THE WELL AND WE WERE LUCKY TO CLEAN IT ON TIME.

The person you ideolized and believed was figuring for a better world just supported a democraphic of people you hate getting rights? Pfft, don't self introspect, just call them dumb traitor, sellouts and mock specific violent think they went to right in life, you are such a good person for that.

[anamelessfool]

Why 70s music?

It's one of the types of music I really enjoy. I know it's weird that I have a Ghost hyperfixation but there's roots there.

70s Rock/Proto-Alt/Proto-Punk to me doesn't have a self-consciousness to it. It's narrative and feels produced by very few people. The music feels sorta cozy to me. The narratives feel very personal, sincere and vulnerable. Like they aren't trying to please as many demographics as possible by being as generic as possible.

The odd thing is (or maybe it's the important thing to note) the more specific and personal the narrative is the more enduring the work is.

I'm on a Harry Nilsson and Roy Orbison kick right now btw

Thanks for the ask! I will rec songs to anybody who asks 😜

[marciabrady]

explain to me the heteronormative angle of tngled in particular, sounds fascinating. i thought by their narrative structure most disney films were hetnorm in nature due to the inclusion of a love story, sometimes unneeded. you see it most in movies where the romance plays secondary like fox and the hound or jungle book.

While I have a different take, I can definitely see where you're coming from! From my perspective though, none of the original four princess movies had forced "obligatory" straight side-ships or main ships (I think they all develop in a way that makes so much sense) and the models of all the characters- from the Princesses to Sebastian to the fairies to the Dwarfs and beyond- offer so many different perspectives and methods of expression and identification. I think the relationships all the characters have regarding their gender is healthy and varied. They're all nuanced individuals that are distinct and different from one another, with some productions even having gay coed characters (Triton and Ursula are the main ones that come to mind- I'm not including the remake btw because that's been so straight washed it's sad). The women in all these films can be themselves openly and freely (more on this in the next reply I'm about to post to another question, because it's pertinent to my opinion on Tangled).

Tangled, to me, reads differently and just reeks of an all straight writer room and such a lack of diversity of thought. With the earlier princesses, they all had something different to offer and were unique flavors, for lack of a better word. By the time we got to Tangled, Disney had been so self-conscious of how to portray a Princess and had essentially reduced their leading ladies to women that held their own against contemporary, live action counterparts to...baby sitters for children and creating, explicitly, what they thought would be a good role model for children and aging the prime demographic drastically done? ALSO I think, by this point, they only knew how to portray a female character in one way because they were so weighed down with the overwhelming criticisms against Disney Princesses. (Which, btw I think it's fine that they're taking into account how children are going to perceive the character but like when the character is mostly only written to appease straight suburban moms who find anything to complain about, it's creatively stifling and results in a lack of art and more of a commercial product in my opinion; it robbed these characters of being natural in their depictions, in my opinion). And I think, also, the way the characters of Rapunzel and Flynn are treated, even Mother Gothel, it just. Yeah it feels like a straight person's fantasy lol

I'm sure you've heard of the "hot guy meeting" where straight women were asked to come in and pitch the most desirable features, in their eyes, of what a man should look like and how that ultimately resulted in Flynn? One of the features mentioned was thin upper lip...yeah lol and also just like. I think Rapunzel is so limited in her portrayal. She's meek and submissive and feminine enough to appeal to the traditional quotient of the audience, and doesn't really do anything to move the needle one way or the other, but she has specific things stated in the narrative to appease the angry mothers ready to condemn Disney (she's turning 18 so she's legal!!! if Flynn met her a day prior she won't be, but they intentionally made her right at the legal age of being an adult. Not 19, not 20, not 25, but 18) while also still giving her attributes that would check off the "feminist approved list" that every female character is subjected to now (she runs! she's barefoot and active! she has hobbies, as evidenced in her opening number, though not many of them ever really get brought up later in the film). And it just rubs me the wrong way that she has to quantify all of her character traits that are "flaws" or "negative"- if she's emotional, she has to look silly so it's funny to the audience because nothing's off-putting like a woman just candidly showing emotion from what we've seen regarding the reaction to Snow White! (like I've seen people try to say that her whole monologue between "I am the worst daughter ever" and "THIS THE BEST DAY EVER" is coded in itself and super realistic but please be honest with yourselves and acknowledge that it's showcased in the film as part of her being zany and we're meant to laugh at her, especially when you take into account the way Flynn is responding to her). She's naive and sheltered and innocent, but guess what! She can save Flynn from the ruffians and thugs who were ready to stab them because they'll listen to her!! Yeah, she's the same Princess who's been trapped in a tower but GUESS WHAT. She can do karate with her hair! She can fling it around like a lasso and toss herself around huge landscapes and breathe under water for periods of time even though she's never left her tower! It's so funny to me that people are so openly misogynistic in their critiques of the classic princesses, when they were human characters. I think the princesses, starting with Rapunzel on, show us how ridiculous our society has gotten with the expectations they've placed on women. Princesses went from being realistic women whose stories were allegories for finding your place in the world and they took these characters and turned them into superheros? Rapunzel's magic hair and healing incantation, Elsa's ice powers, Moana's connection with the ocean. It's not enough for women to just be themselves anymore- in order to have any value, they literally have to be superhuman. And if you doubt this point at all, just look at the difference in reception and popularity between how the public and children perceive the character of Elsa (magical) and Anna (more human).

Back to what I was saying though, where Rapunzel has to be Jesus incarnate and all things to all people, Flynn is allowed to be a bad person. Imagine if the story was reversed and she was the thief that lied and stole and he was the sheltered good boy whose tower she snuck into and he was the one that beat her with a frying pan. It would never work and that shows how straight it is imo? Because honestly, say what you want about the original princesses, but their stories work if you flip the roles. Cinderella being a Princess whose Mother put on a ball so she could meet a suitor? Snow White searching through the forest for her lost love? Aurora working with the fairies to escape being entrapped by a fairy, to awaken her love with true love's kiss? Ariel and Eric essentially have the same storyline, but in reverse. Meanwhile with Rapunzel and Flynn, it's so uncomfortable...the way she hits him with a pan and threatens to keep doing it if he doesn't listen to her gives me the ick. BUT IT'S CUTE WHEN SHE DOES IT! Because she's a short petite straight woman! It's so annoying to me too to see straight ships, or even straight couples, where the men are essentially programmed to believe their wives always know better than them and they have to listen to them and, in order to keep peace in the household, they have to just agree with whatever their wife is saying because it just feels SO disingenuous on the men's part (the whole happy wife, happy life principal). This would never work in a non-straight dynamic because it's so unequal. And just like...again, the fact that a naive, sheltered, short woman is hitting a man- a dangerous criminal who never strikes back and just takes it and seems afraid of her is just soooo unrealistic and lowkey dangerous to depict to me? And the whole, how she's good and responsible and he's suave and charming and he's the bad boy that she turns good just UGH I hate everything about it, get me out of here!! Ultimately their compulsory hetero dynamic is "the cute quirky responsible good petite girl who's the embodiment of the "x3" face turns a bad guy good and she wears the pants in the relationship!!! being too much for me. Even the ending where he's joking that she asked him to marry her and she has to correct him from lying...no.

[milkyway-ashes]

What reasons could you give as to why prog rock seems to attract a mostly white and male audience? Further more, do you think it's true that most prog fans are white and male? Do you think the demographic of prog fans has changed over the decades?

I'd almost forgotten that this ask is in my inbox...sorry for answering it so late!!

Starting with your second question first, I honestly don't think that most prog fans are white and male. Well, when watching the videos of prog performances or even having a look at modern-day prog fans on the internet, most of them are white people. That might be because in the 70s, the golden age of prog, there were numerous musical waves around and they were often influenced by a specific culture/race/nation/etc.

It should also be noted that back in the time, people from communities that hadn't been represented enough in the media before that (such as African-Americans or the LGBT+ community) felt the need to have their own movements be noticed...sth exclusively for themselves. That can be a reason for why most of them preferred to stay out of a zone that had white pioneers; especially that the lyrics of many prog songs had references to white people's lives and everything that was rooted in their culture.

But from the other side, we've got the press that wasn't always kind to prog musicians. In my opinion, music journalists sometimes really exaggerated about how "pretentious" prog was trying to be. These negative views on prog music still continue today and it obviously has an impact on society's imagination of how boring prog can be, specifically for people that have grown in a different place and situation from the ones who make this music.

As for the "male" part, I don't know about how the fandom was at past. At least nowadays, I believe that there's a balance of genders among the fans. The main reason for prog fandom being represented as a white male space is probably that 1) the majority of prog musicians are/were white and 2) the male musicians in this field have received more attention.

However, there has definitely been a change in the demographic of prog fans! Let's imagine it's the 1990s/2000s. It's not the prog heyday anymore and at the same time, people don't have access to a big variety of information in media. They usually just know what they've read in the papers or have seen on TV. All they see from prog is a bunch of young cis men playing music together. Wouldn't they think to themselves "why didn't they ever let a woman in their groups??" ? For some hardcore feminists at the time, wouldn't it be a little bit offensive or perhaps questionable?

But today, we have the internet. It's easier to explore the unknown and people get to discover many prog musicians who'd been forgotten due to the merciless world of show business wanting to hide some ones in a basement. And it turns out, there were a number of female musicians as well who created magical prog pieces. Isn't that enough to change some of the views on prog and attract particularly young girls and the rest of the rebellious youth with various gender identities to itself?

These are all my personal opinions btw, and I hope it was enough for your question <3