#to clarify I don’t always hate feminine terms

[identityunfounded]

my gender is decidedly not female 99% of the time but when my therapist calls me a brave little lady and acknowledges my struggles I feel very special and elated anyway

[certifiedsexed]

hey there! i don’t mean this in bad faith at all, and i’m not trying to use a term that’s a fascist dogwhistle. i promise i’m just confused😭

so i’m not a guy, nor have i ever been perceived as one, but in one of your recent posts, you said that men can’t experience oppression solely based on the fact that they’re men. which was kind of confusing to me — i don’t think you’re wrong, i think it’s me but i don’t know how to get to how you see it like that.

because in my experience, men can experience oppression because they’re men, although i don’t know if i’m saying that right or conflating the meanings of certain terms. i’m probably wrong, and would just love some clarification?

for example, my brother and i were always held to different standards growing up — it was expected of me to always cry and be emotional, and i was a ‘stone cold bitch’ if that wasn’t the case, but if my brother wanted to show negative emotions like sadness he was treated like there was something wrong with him too. and i know it wasn’t my brother — i spend a lot of time working with my high school’s diversity team, and in a lot of the events we organise, guys talk about how they feel enormous pressure to be angry and never sad, and to have stereotypically masculine interests and never deviate from that norm.

i also know men who’ve struggled to get jobs such as teaching as those are viewed as ‘female’ jobs and it’s a common view that men who want those jobs are ‘only in it to be around kids’. i’ve heard many women around me perpetuate sentiments like that, so i know they’re not making it up, even if it isn’t equal to the systematic oppression women face in almost every aspect of their careers.

i’m not providing these examples to prove you wrong, since i do think you’re right. i’m hoping that a window into the way i’ve always thought might help you clarify this in a way that can help me to change my mind, since i just think i’m lacking some clarity or context here. i think i’m conflating abuse and stereotypes with oppression, but i’m really not sure. any advice would be really appreciated!

i’m so sorry if this comes off badly, i don’t mean it that way. i’m just trying to learn, i promise i’m not trying to promote the kind of hate and close mindedness you’ve been seeing in your inbox as of late.

Hi! As always, I do not mind answering genuine questions!

The things you're talking about growing up and seeing boys around you pressured to present only certain emotions, that's part of the patriarchy!

Certain emotions are supposed to be "feminine" and thus boys shouldn't show them, while girls are often always considered "emotional" in some fashion. That's not oppression based on those boys being men that you're talking about.

It's the backlash that the patriarchy, and by addition trans/misogyny has on men. It's boys being pressured not to show certain emotions because those emotions are "feminine" and they're supposed to associate feminimity with weakness and shit.

What you're talking about there is also trans/misogyny!

The idea that men who do things perceived as feminine are predators, the idea that specific jobs are "female" jobs [while even in those specific female jobs, men are generally paid better and find it easier to get into those jobs than women trying to get into traditionally "male" jobs"]

[Though obviously this varies based on race and whether they're trans, etc, etc.]

To be a little more clear, all of the things you're talking about don't primarily affect cis men/boys. They fuck up transfems, because it's trans/misogyny.

You're right! It's not systemic oppression.

You might wonder if it's social oppression, which is also a no. Social oppression would require a historical/systemic oppression behind it. But that doesn't exist in this case.

What it is is the common issue oppressors run into. While they benefit greatly from oppression, there is also backlash they face from their own systems of oppression.

Like white people who fall into suicide cults trying to work towards white supremacy, or TERFs who fall into groups where they slowly pick each other off as they discover they're not all exactly the same and wind up accusing each other of not being "real" women, systems of bigotry simply do not work out perfectly even for the oppressors.

They never do.

To create the patriarchy, you must establish trans/misogyny, you must establish intersexism and you must push people to conform to those ideals, even if they hurt your own.

It's similar to how white supremacy can harm white people, despite white people obviously not being oppressed racially. The backlash of oppression hits even the oppressors sometimes.

Suppression, as a term, would honestly work far better to describe what you're talking about.

So yes, it's stereotyping, yes it's abusive to tell your children not to show/feel their emotions but it's not oppression based on these guys in your life being men! It's part of how trans/misogyny, transphobia and intersexism are enforced.

I understand exactly where you're coming from! It doesn't sound bad and I genuinely don't mind answering questions! Especially since you've got some good ones!

I'm not sure if I rambled too much to explain this properly but I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions and/or need me to clarify anything here. <33

[mundanemoongirl]

Tropes I don't like

I was reading this book lately with this trope that really annoyed me and now everyone has to hear about all the tropes I hate. Btw, I’m not saying it’s bad to like these tropes or write about them. I just don’t like them. Does anyone else feel the same?

staring at someone’s body + fingers accidently touching

This one is two tropes because it was the combination of them that made the book so annoying to me. I wouldn’t mind as much if the characters interacted in other ways between the staring and finger touching, but nope. That was the only way we could tell they were interested in each other. What I really can’t stand is when two characters meet for the first time and the female mc just stares at the male mc’s body and describes every detail to the readers. It just feels like the author is holding up a sign that says they will get together, and that takes away from the excitement of romance for me. Especially when it’s the second these characters meet.

love triangles

First of all it’s never an actual triangle. It’s more like an angle. Second of all, it’s always so toxic. I have yet to see a girl choose the guy who actually cares about her instead of the one who treats her like garbage.

pick-me girl

I hear people toss around this term loosely so let me clarify. I’m not talking about a girl who has non-feminine interests. I’m talking about a girl who thinks she’s so much more interesting than other girls because she like to talk about war and eat meat. (I’m looking at you, The Last Dragon King)

giving up powers

Is it too much to ask that my favorite characters are special and powerful? (I’m looking at you, A Court of Silver Flame)

writing current events

This makes sense in some cases, like if a story takes place in the 1920s you will have some 1920s references. But if I see a character say “rizz” or mention covid, I’m done.

[hargrove-mayfields]

Harringrove April Day 30- Lily of the valley

There are very few things Billy actually remembers about his mother.

That can be pretty hard for him to swallow at times, the fact that he lost so much of his childhood to trauma, his mind blocking out even the good memories because of his father.

He still remembers the way she smelled when she held him, but he didn’t know the name of the scent she wore, and he remembers the sound of her voice, though he had long ago come to terms with the fact that he’d never hear it again, but the one thing he remembers so clearly about his mother is the lily of the valley tattoo on her forearm.

Neil had hated it from the day she got it, always making her cover it up with bracelets and long sleeves and makeup, but as a kid, Billy was fascinated by it. He would trace over it with his little fingers, the tiny flowers tattooed dark on his mother’s arm, connecting the dots between moles and freckles and petals.

One thing he doesn’t quite remember though, is the way she had cried when he asked if this mark hurt when he touched it like the ones his daddy left on her.

Neil seem to remember it just as well, deliberately mowing over valley lilies when they sprouted or spraying them with weed killer, so one day Billy decides, fuck it, he’s tired of seeing the one thing that truly reminds him of his mother get destroyed.

On his eighteenth birthday, Billy gets the same tattoo.

His is on his shoulder instead, in his head he thought it would look a little tougher there, at least as tough as a flower tattoo his hippie mom used to sport could. Of course, Neil is just as angry with him as he was the first time when his girlfriend came home with the same thing, probably even more so now that it was his son.

The bandage is only off for like, a week before Neil’s punishment comes, which, Billy guesses he should be at least a little grateful that he waited for all the bleeding and peeling to be over before he kicked his ass.

His dad’s not the only one that has a problem with it though, the first time Billy shows up at work without it covered, Billy gets lots of comments and sneers behind his back, all sorts of people who don’t know him saying they thought he was soft, feminine, a huge fucking pansy.

He didn’t think he should have to justify it to them, he lost his mother, he’s damn well allowed to get something on his body to commemorate her if he pleases, but it’s hard not to get a little defensive about it. He almost regrets it, not thinking it through more before he got these delicate flowers emblazoned on his skin, but that’s very much an almost.

Because one night he stands in front of his mirror and traces over the stems, the delicate petals, connecting them to the light freckles around it, blood that soap wouldn't quite reach still dried under his fingernails from the number Neil did on him earlier, and he cries like a damn baby, but he lets go of all that other stuff.

He got it for her , for his momma wherever she was still waiting for him, maybe still looking for him even, not for all of those assholes, and not to prove anything about himself.

So he wears it with pride, he tears the damn sleeves off of his shirts and wears jeans instead of a jacket if it’s a cooler day, and the comments stop coming, because it’s not as fun to say shit that doesn’t get a reaction anymore.

But the rumors don’t stop, and everyone knows as they spread, they change, and suddenly instead of Billy Hargrove being a pussy bitch, the mills churning out nastier shit, like Billy Hargrove’s a faggot, and it’s not safe to have him at the public pool.

There’s a long battle between him and Heather and the managers, and the pool begrudgingly lets him stay, but it’s not without lots of rules. He’d almost rather quit, with how short a leash he’s kept on, but he needs that job if he doesn’t want kicked out.

That’s what he’s complaining about to Steve one day over a smoke, sitting in the back room of the Harrington’s with the sliding door cracked so the smoke could drift out, not that Mr. and Mrs. Harrington would be home anytime soon to notice it.

Steve’s the first person other than Neil to know it was for his momma, and the look he gives him, the sadness and concern in those big brown eyes, it’s enough to make him want to laser that damned tattoo off himself.

He’ll blame the weed for what he does next, lacing his fingers through Steve’s before he can start the pity party, but he hopes Steve doesn’t do the same when he makes the choice to lean over and kiss Billy, delicate fingers barely gracing the dark ink on his shoulder, the others getting lost in tangles of blond hair.

It helps him feel not so bad about the whole thing, getting that burden off his chest, and the kiss with Steve didn’t hurt either, but the next day it’s back to the same old thing at work.

After another week or so though, he notices the gossip has changed, and this time they’re saying Steve’s name instead of his. Steve Harrington’s the pansy faggot now, and Billy has to pretend until he can get out of that chair that he isn’t terrified for the both of them.

He goes straight to Steve’s house after work, tells him as soon as he finds him, “I swear I didn’t tell anybody , I don’t know how it got out.”

And Steve doesn’t look panicked at all, but rather he gives this little smug smile at Billy and says, “I do.” calmly enough that Billy can actually feel his heart shatter, even worse than it had when he woke to find his mother’s car missing.

Steve doesn’t let Billy stew in that heartbreak too long though before he clarifies, “I didn’t want you to have to deal with all that bullshit alone, so I got this.” He holds his wrist out, and shows Billy that he has his own tattoo now too; a sunflower in the same style as Billy’s, thick black outlines with no color.

“I figure, once the initial drama blows over, now that there’s two of us, they won’t be able to say as much.” Steve explains further, looking hopefully at Billy’s face

“Maybe. But until then, you could be in danger, and you’re going to be in even bigger trouble. Seriously, what’s John gonna say?” Billy scolds, panicking on Steve’s behalf whether or not it was necessary.

“And what did Neil say?” Steve argues back, but he knows that’s not productive, so he switches to trying to be comforting instead, “Look Billy, I wanted to do this. For you and for me.”

“It was stupid of you.” Billy says under his breath, taking up Steve’s pale wrist in both of his hands, gently brushing his thumb over the just healed barely healed tattoo, “Sunflowers were your aunts favorites too, weren’t they?”

“Mhm, and I don’t regret it, Billy. I love you too much.” Steve says, the first time he had ever said those three words.

Billy smiles and bends down, bringing his lips to that little monochrome image, and mumbles against soft skin, “Love you too, sunflower.”

[aropinions]

So What Is Exclusionism, Anyway?

As I've looked through inclusionist circles, I've come to a startling realization that most of them have an extremely skewed understanding of what exclusionism is (along with its various offshoots, subtypes, and related beliefs). They equate it to hatred of whatever group is being excluded, and they don't think people part of the excluded group could ever support exclusionism.

So, I've decided to write a long post to clear up some of those misconceptions. This post is mainly targeted to inclusionists and people wondering where they stand on the inclus/exclus sides of various types of discourse, but if you're exclusionist already, please feel free to reblog or boost it. <3 Thanks in advance for reading!

I'll start by introducing myself. Hi, I'm Ivy, or at least that's what I go by on here. I am a heterosexual, aromantic female. I am neurodivergent (ADHD, so forgive me if I ramble or write in a scatterbrained way) and have several other mental illnesses that I don't wish to talk about online. I do not have gender dysphoria, but I do not "feel feminine," and my personality has been described as rather masculine. In fact, many people in the inclusionist trans community have tried to convince me that I'm nonbinary because I don't feel a strong connection to a female gender, and I'll talk about that more later in this post.

I'm going to put all my relevant discourse opinions on the table right now. (In the next paragraph, I'm going to explain what all these labels actually mean and why they don't automatically make someone a horrible person.) Contrary to popular belief, I am not a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF), an aphobe, a transphobe, or a bigot. I am ace-exclusionist, aro-exclusionist, trans-exclusionist, transmedicalist, pro-LGB, and gender-critical.

Now here's the fun part. Bear with me -- we're about to debunk the myths about these opinions, explain each term's real definition, and talk about some of the reasoning behind the beliefs.

Exclusionism, as a blanket term, is the belief that gatekeeping is necessary to make any group or community meaningful and safe. Various types of exclusionists fight against the lumping together of various marginalized identities or groups, because they believe that letting different types of people into spaces meant for more specific groups will detract from the safety and functionality of those spaces. They do not hate the groups they are excluding, and they typically want to exclude both ways. For example, ace exclusionists don't want allosexual LGBT let into ace spaces any more than they want asexuals let into LGBT spaces. Many exclusionists in LGBT discourse support the exclusion of groups that they themselves are part of, because in addition to the idea that it's harmful to the main LGBT community to lump them into it, they also think their group deserves its own recognition as a separate thing from the LGBT community. Exclusionism is not hatred.

Time to get into more specific terms. Let's start pretty simple, with truscum and transmeds. Someone who is truscum believes that people must have dysphoria to be trans. Someone who is transmedicalist believes that gender dysphoria is a mental disorder, and that transness is a medical condition synonymous with gender dysphoria. All transmeds are truscum, but not all truscum are transmeds. Most truscums and transmeds are against MOGAI, neopronouns, gender microlabels (e.g. genderflux or demiboy), and xenogenders. Most truscums believe in nonbinary people. There are some transmeds who don't believe nonbinary dysphoria is real, but they're not the majority.

The direct opposite of truscum and transmed is "tucute," which denotes a belief that dysphoria is not required to be transgender and gender identity is completely unrelated to biological sex or medical disorders/conditions. Tucutes also generally support MOGAI, xenogenders, neurogenders, microlabels, and neopronouns.

Next, we have bio-essentialism. Bio-essentialism is the belief that oppression is based on biological sex, not gender identity, and that identifying as a different gender than your birth sex doesn't automatically mean you are oppressed. This doesn't necessarily mean bio-essentialists believe that gender doesn't exist or that you can't identify as whatever you want, just that your social oppression is based off your biological sex. Not all bio-essentialists are truscum or transmeds, but most are. Bio-essentialists prominently use the terms "male" and "female" to describe biological sex rather than gender identity, and non-radical ones will use "man" and "woman" as blanket terms that include transmen and transwomen while maintaining "male" and "female" as words for biological sex only.

Then, we have the big bad term, TERF. I've seen a lot of people misuse the TERF label, so I'm going to try to clarify its actual meaning. The acronym stands for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist." It's important to break that down into two main parts -- TE and RF -- because trans-exclusionists are often called TERFs when most of them don't fit the "RF" part of the acronym at all.

Trans-exclusionism (TE) means that you believe transgender issues/discourse/activism should be separated from LGB issues/discourse/activism because they are fundamentally different. L, G and B all have one thing in common: being attracted to people of the same sex as you. T is about someone's gender, not their sexual orientation, so trans-exclusionists believe that the LGB and the T should not be lumped into the same community. It doesn't mean they think trans people deserve less respect or are not real. Most trans-exclusionists are also truscum or transmedicalist, but not all are. Many trans-exclusionists who are also feminists are gender-critical, but not all are. Pro-LGB is a synonym of trans-exclusionist, but in my experience, people who describe themselves as "pro-LGB" are more likely to also be gender-critical than those who identify themselves as "trans-exclusionist."

Radical feminism (RF) is a subset of feminism that -- in addition to general feminist beliefs -- is anti-porn, anti-kink, against the makeup industry, and very often openly misandrist. Radical feminists are not always trans-exclusionist, and trans-exclusionists are not always radical feminists (in fact, most aren't). Most radfems are anti-capitalist, and all are against pink capitalism and rainbow capitalism (the commercialization of feminist ideas, gay rights, etc.) Most radfems are truscum or transmedicalist, but not all are.

All TERFs are also gender-critical. "Gender-critical" people are bio-essentialist, but they go a step further to say that gender identity is a meaningless term, and that biological sex is the sole basis of oppression. However, one can be gender-critical and still support trans people if one is a transmedicalist. GC transmeds believe that trans people are still oppressed in society according to their biological sex, not their gender identity, but that social/physical transitioning is acceptable as a treatment for the mental disorder known as gender dysphoria.

Neither trans-exclusionism nor radical feminism is inherently transphobic or hateful toward transgender people. To differentiate a regular trans-exclusionist from a TERF, ask yourself if the person fits the radfem beliefs outlined above. If not, they aren't a TERF.

Now that all of that is covered, we can talk about the last couple types of exclusionism I want to touch on -- asexual exclusionism and aromantic exclusionism. These almost always come together as a package called aro/ace-exclusionism or aspec-exclusionism, but it is technically possible to be ace-exclusionist and not aro-exclusionist (or vice versa), though I've never personally met someone with such beliefs. Aspec-exclusionists believe that aspec people should not be included in the LGBT community because the lack of sexual or romantic attraction is a completely separate struggle and involves separate experiences than having attractions that exist, but are not heterosexual. Some more extreme aro/ace exclusionists strongly gatekeep aromanticism and asexuality. These ones don't believe in microlabels on the "aro spectrum" or "ace spectrum" such as demisexual or grayromantic. They maintain the belief that if someone has sexual attraction (regardless of whether they actually pursue people sexually) then they are not asexual, and if someone feels romantic attraction at all (even if they don't pursue romantic relationships) they are not aromantic.

Aro/ace-exclusionists, regardless of their beliefs on aromantic and asexual spectrums or microlabels, are not inherently aphobic. They only want aromanticism and asexuality to be separated from the rest of the LGB or LGBT community, and treated as their own distinct identities.

I hope this post was informative, and if anyone has feedback on anything I should edit, they should let me know in replies. Regardless of your beliefs, if you actually read this whole post or even just scrolled to the bottom, I'd like to offer a sincere thanks for bearing with me thus far. If you are an inclusionist or otherwise disagree with the things in the post, but you read it anyway, I have a lot of respect for your willingness to hear opinions other than yours rather than blindly blocking out everything you disagree with.

No matter who you are, I hope you have a great day. <3

[tundrainafrica]

hi, maybe you're tired about this kind of convie regarding hange's gender but i really need your opinion. is it that wrong if i consider hange as a she? istg i'm not anythingphobic, i'm just still stuck with female hange in anime. i stan aot since 2013 and felt just fine to open up about my preference in hange's gender but lately, considering hange as a she is like the most sinful thing in the whole planet and even being attacked and i don't know what to feel about it. 😩

Thank you for the ask anon! 

Lmao, I am tired of this discourse but I’ve kinda accepted that it’s never gonna end really so I’m still happy to give you my opinion about this again. 

I have written about it here.

Before I go into this long ramble again I’d like to clarify some terms which tend to pepper the discourse of gender, sexuality etc etc etc. 

Biological Sex: What genitalia where you born with? Either born male, female or with both genitalia. 

Gender: What do you identify as? CIS, Trans, Nonbinary etc.

Sexuality: Who are you attracted to? Homosexual, Heterosexual, Bisexual, Asexual, Pansexual etc. 

Gender roles: Where do you fall on the gradient? Feminine, Masculine etc. 

And the point of this is, the discourse on gender is soooo complicated. Like very complicated because Hange being interpreted as NB to some people only covers the question of gender. Like these do not cover every other facet of the gender sexuality discourse. 

Because everything up there is ‘mutually exclusive’ to a degree because everyone is so complex. Like you can take a random option in each of those, fit it together in our heads and you would still come up with a realistic person. Because that is how complex human beings are. I have friends who decided to get a boyfriend, realized they were trans, transitioned to male but had both boyfriends and girlfriends. I have a butch lesbian friend who dated a few guys then decided to date girls then decided to transition. You have me who literally tried everything on the sexuality spectrum, crushed on a few girls in high school, crushed on a few more girls in college, thought I was asexual for a while, fell in love with a guy and realized I love dick. 

You can actually have a biological male who identifies as nonbinary but is bisexual  but has feminine tendencies. 

And that’s why even I find it so confusing to address the issue of non binary Hange vs female Hange. Because they are not even in the same bracket. Like we can have a non binary female feminine bisexual Hange all at the same time if you think about it. 

If you have read all my fics and all of my meta about Hange, you would see that I refer to her as a ‘she,’ but at the same time, I do not portray Hange as overly feminine. I headcanon that Hange has tried dating women and I also head canon that Hange has female genitalia (yo, I write preggo Hange fics). She actually falls somewhere in the middle. And what makes the gender part so hard to consider is because usually whether someone decides to identify as CIS, NB or Trans is up to the person. 

And there are just so many other hcs I want to tackle as a fanfiction writer and as a Hange stan beyond her gender and that’s why I don’t really headcanon the whole discovery part because even as a kid, I have never been so particular about my gender. I know I’m a biologically a woman, I have feminine and masculine tendencies. I have loved both men and women. but gender just seemed like just a decision which I just didn’t want to think too hard about.

I mean where I live, my first language doesn’t have gender pronouns so I can avoid the whole discourse altogether by just using Tagalog. I’m the type of person who will just have this person think I’m a man all the way until they meet me because I just wanna get things done and I feel no need to correct people. My first crushes were all women, despite my being a woman and the first people I have ever loved were women and I didn’t want to decide whether I was bisexual, heterosexual, homosexual etc. yet because even teenage me just found it way too complex and too final and just went around saying I liked this girl or I liked this guy and generally because I’m that type of person, I don’t spend a lot of my time thinking about gender even in a fandom space unless somebody asks.   

And does it make me homophobic/LGBT-phobic etc etc for deciding to use ‘she’ and deciding to tackle questions about Hange beyond her gender? No. Like this conclusion is inherently flawed. I was hella gay for a huge point in my life. 99% of my crushes were women. Then there was this period where I didn’t enjoy romance The only guy irl I have ever crushed on is my current boyfriend. But even when I explored my own gender, sexuality, it was always an ‘in the back of my mind’ thing. I didn’t have huge personal metas about what exactly my gender was or where exactly I fall or what pronouns I prefer.

And nobody is obliged to look so deep into this discourse. The important thing is in real life, we respect people’s pronouns, we respect the names they want to go by and we respect people’s preferences (as long as they aren’t dangerously criminal.)

And the thing is, this isn’t even real life. This is a fandom space. And in a fandom space, everyone is literally interpreting characters however they want. We have people literally pairing off Levi with both men and women and technically we’re assuming Levi’s gender, sexuality etc. Sure it might diverge from canon but does that make our headcanon any less than the others? Like Levi’s sexuality has never been confirmed and technically we’re all just assuming what kind of person Levi would have wanted to fuck right? Like every yaoi pairing, every ship is just fans assuming someones gender, assuming someone’s sexuality. 

And sure people could argue, ‘Yams’ didn’t confirm her gender. But Yam’s didn’t confirm anyone’s sexuality either but here we are pairing Mikasa off with Annie then pairing Mikasa off with Eren. Like same energy with ships, are there ships which are inherently superior to others? And technically, I could headcanon Levi as a woman if I wanted to and no one could stop me. I mean sure let’s celebrate that some of our headcanon and preferences have been acknowledged but what battle are we trying to win here really. 

To answer your question, it is not wrong. Having any opinion and having whatever headcanon you have about any fandom in this space is not wrong.

Sure, Hange is a comfort character to many people for various reasons. Hange is a comfort character for me but Hange is not any single person’s comfort character. Hange is a gift to us by Yams to interpret and play with however we want. Hell, every other character we’ve ever grown to love was a gift to all of us by the author. And we can choose to hc them however we want. That is the magic of fandoms.

If I wanted to, I could make some eruri and ereri mpreg fics for the kicks, I could interpret Levi as every single gender, sexuality on the spectrum and it would be just as valid. I mean I won’t because I don’t jive with those headcanons or those types of ships but I would respect people who have those types of preferences.

This space is free for everyone. We can choose what we want to consume and we can choose how we want to interpret characters. 

The only responsibility we have as fans is to use the right warnings when we post shit and to respect everybody else’s preferences. 

What I would consider ‘sinful’ is just dropping some unnecessary hate into a place which is supposed to be our safe space or pushing an agenda or an opinion and being hateful about it in the process. Like sure, spread your agenda, spread your opinions and your headcanons but please be nice about it.

We’re all just sad people trying to survive in this crapsack world.

[worldoshaking]

i loved this video so much that i decided to make a post talking about the things i liked!

this is a brilliant very loving look at fb (a series with a Lot going on) and i think it’s a seminal piece of scholarship. i could tell at every turn how well you know the series and how much thought and care went into this analysis

there are so many interesting and important things here but most importantly: lesbians are stronger than god!

(these might not be in order lmao)

the beautiful messy nuance of loving imperfect formative media! that was really well put and i felt it in my soul 

love the way you talk about reconciling queercoding as a framework in originally anglophone contexts with narrative language as cross-cultural and universal, it’s really well done!

this is a really good clarification and contextualisation of what we mean when we talk about queer subtext and queer headcanons… i know those clarifications have to be there partly to forestall the bad faith readings (which is a shame) but also fandom plays with queering media in many different ways and from the pov of scholarship i find it genuinely helpful to clarify what we’re talking about!

love the ’no they’re not related’ clarification and how done you are XD it’s been over 20 years! really wish anglophone audiences put more thought into how they interact with translated media lmao

nodding along with all your comments on the characters they’re very on point and those are great panel selections! cracking up at the ’ayame might be into guys’ section

shoujo heroines are bisexual, except when they’re lesbians 😌 wise words

the yukikyo section :DDD ✨ homoerotic ✨

LESBIANS ARE STRONGER THAN GOD clapping and cheering!!!!

this got me thinking about how takaya’s style of comedy is sometimes grating in a way that’s amplified when it comes to topics that require more care… sometimes those comedic exchanges function as a way to explicitly direct audience attention to queerness but the way it’s done can also feel queerphobic (to take one example i’ve always winced at canon kyo calling tohru’s popularity with girls a problem but i liked your read of it as canonising wlw romance in the story!)

love the description of akito :D she really is all of them. all at once

the discussion around akito and femininity is so on point… on the one hand the potential transfem resonance and how it could be freeing for akito to explore femininity on her own terms vs the narrative presumption that of course that’s what she (and every other girl in the story) should want! in a way that doesn’t explore how they feel about it. and the implicit equating of gnc with villainy coupled with the lack of other gnc women (you put this much better in the video haha)

i think this video really nails an issue that comes up a lot in fb fandom discussion. the distinction between ’this is perhaps healing and liberating to these characters in their context’ and ’the wider narrative doesn’t allow the characters to want anything else because heteroamatonormative gender roles’ which i think are sometimes simultaneously true for many of the characters. especially because like you say the narrative doesn’t centre their feelings on the matter (i don’t hate akito’s canon ending outside of how it plays into wider narrative patterns since i found it resonant in other ways but the pattern with characters ending up conforming to cishet norms is troubling as an indication of author intent, even if what we get out of it isn’t what she intended)

akitohru <333 

the testimonials were really moving, i loved your akito gender euphoria story and all the stories about people finding hope and confidence because of fb and fanart… genuinely such an important reminder that even imperfect queer representation in media can mean so much and that fandom is magical

oh god i am long-winded hahahaha as this comment confirms

also, love the cosplays!!!

i thought this video was a very fun combination of a balanced scholarly overview of all the different flavours of queer subtext in the series (which is very cool since the series means so many things to different people) and things you personally are excited about (always a joy to watch!)

overall this video was such a pleasure to watch and got me thinking really deeply about so many aspects of furuba, thank you for sharing! 

The Complicated Queercoding of Fruits Basket

Do YOU like long video essays? Do YOU like Fruits Basket? Well this one is about just what it says in the title!! This is my first video essay and I worked super hard so please watch, share, and tell me what you think!!

[vampiresuns]

Portrait Of The Lawyer As A Young Man

3k words. All of Julianus’ life has been about fulfilling social expectations. Not any more.

Note: This fic contains some time changes. They’re all separated but they’re not linear. This pieces art is the cover of the centennial edition of James Joyce’s ‘Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man’.

CW: Superficial discussions of unhealthy family dynamics.

The song for this piece is Expectations by Belle & Sebastian. Saoirse, Meredith and the Crew of The Jagged Ruby belongs to @apprenticealec​.

Part 4 of Secrets Of An Ancient Moon series; you can read the rest of it here.

Dusk fell in the sky making the colours of the water change. Meredith whistled at Jules to get their attention, calling them aside. When they reached port again in four days, they’d reach Jules’ original destination, marking the end of their voyages in The Jagged Ruby. Julianus didn’t need Meredith to tell them this, they already knew: they had been counting the days obsessively, watching them slip by as they found a chance to speak to the Captain.

Meredith had found them first. It was now or never.

“Hopefully this,” Meredith said, raising the legal study Julianus had made for her a couple of months ago, “will help us with our Syd problem. I’m not going to pat you in the back, Sanlaurento, so just let me say this: you’ve got it in you, you’re a pain in my ass, I hope whoever opposes you in a court shit themselves. Now, leave.”

When Meredith looked back up, Jules was still there, looking at them with a frown and an intensity which the Captain had seen in them before, but never directed at them. Jules had been travelling with them for months. When they had manifested on the ship to become Meredith’s personal pest and unlikely legal advisor, the Quinquennial meeting was in the long term future still, they had time for it. Now, the meeting would happen in three months.

In all that time, Meredith had had time to watch them, even if they didn’t want to. She hated to admit it, but the asshole had guts. J.C. was clever, a fast learner, and seemed to know themselves well enough to anticipate their shortcomings. Analytical and strong-willed, in other circumstances they’d make an excellent addition to the crew.

They learnt the basics of sailing faster than Meredith had given them credit for, their basic knowledge of sword-fighting was getting honed by the week. They had never taken a shot against an actual person, but their aim had gotten notoriously better. Julianus got treats for the crew if you left them unsupervised, and somehow, always, found someone to help with legal advice, no matter were they were.

So yes, Meredith had seen that intensity before. She’d seen it when they put themselves between a vendor and a guard, suddenly carrying more presence and even a slight high-society touch to the way they conducted themselves. She’d seen it whenever they tried, again and again, to perfect something, never expecting to be handed anything. She’d seen it whenever they talked about Injustice, or the Sea Palace, or Freedom, or People.

It all shone through, even through the many flaws or annoyances Meredith saw in their character — anxious, irritable, high-horsed, mysterious for no damn reason.

“I said leave, why are you still here.”

“Meredith?”

The Captain raised an eyebrow. Sanlaurento never addressed her without an honorary.

“I didn’t remember us being friends— You smooch my quartermaster and…” Meredith stopped, a grimace overtaking her face. “This is about them, isn’t it. No, I’m not having a heart to heart about fucking Saoirse with you. Sanlaurento, I’m still your fucking Captain.”

“No, it’s not about Saoirse. It’s about me.”

“Right, because that’d make me care.”

J.C. frowned back at Meredith, trying to resist the urge to roll his eyes but failing to do so. “Even if they are a factor in my considerations. I’m well aware that if I talked to them, I could manage to see them anywhere and write to them even, given they write to Jacqui all the time.”

“If you’re going to talk anyway, at least do me the favour of going to the point, Sanlaurento.”

“Captain, I want to stay.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

The sky was clear in the island of Sirenia, a cool late winter evening as Sanlaurento walked around a patio in a black, formal attire, with a green jacket with golden buttons. 

“You’ll do great, stop worrying. You already did great in your dissertation.”

“But my dissertation was just me talking about International affairs.”

“One last viva, and you’ll be a lawyer.” 

Julianus exhaled. “You’re right, one last viva. This ends today.”

“Did someone Come with you?”

“No.”

Their friend snorted. “You didn’t tell anyone about today, didn’t you?”

Feigning disinterest so the conversation could end, they looked over some handwritten diagrams.

Julianus sighed. “Actually, this time I did.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

“Do I have to apply to the Sea Palace? I know I said I wanted to, but I don’t know any more.”

“Of course, Cleo,” their mother said, “it’s the best academic institution around, you might have a chance. You lose nothing by trying”

“They were weird though, you know? Off. Like, they give me a bad feeling.”

Their mother no longer sounded patient when she spoke: “You’re going to have to let go of turning down opportunities at every chance you don’t like everyone in front of you, or everyone in front of you doesn’t automatically think you’re brilliant. Besides, you insisted, and this is a matter about your education, your safety and your future. You’re applying.”

Julianus tensed, curling their toes inside their shoes, trying to ball them like they would their hands. They couldn’t ball them into fists right now, that’d give them away. If they gave themselves away, their mother’s reaction would be worse. “It’s not— that’s not—”

They exhaled, giving up. “You’re right, Mama.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

In their 27 years, Julianus had been called a lot of things.

Weird by their classmates, dense by their parents. Unnecessarily complicated, dramatic, attention seeking, stupid. All of them also by their parents who said things in annoyance and in anger without measuring any reaction, nor waiting for any explanation. Stupid, perhaps, was the funniest.

They never called them Julianus, only ‘Cleo’, too, to the point their mother often said they made a mistake in choosing their first name.

Their Cleo was a lot of things but never what they themself said they were. ‘Intelligence’ was arrogance, ‘mistakes’ stupidity, or worse, something unforgivable; a lack of consideration for everyone around them and the marking of their mother in their failure to raise a child who wanted to do anything with her. 

Too loud, too quiet, too stiff, too needy, too this, too that, too weird, too feminine, too masculine, too much.

Academic settings were different. One of the few places they had some control over themself. Yes, their classmates might’ve thought them closed off, weird and even a bit of a “lunatic” when they were growing up, but their classmates also knew they were passionate about defending what they loved, including their friends. A willing ear to listen, offering food, advice and comfort to whomever asked, without thinking too much about it. Quick to rile up but never one to deny help. Their teachers and professors always knew they tried, that they wanted to learn, that they wanted to go to further, deeper horizons. 

Their own self, learning and what they could do with that education was their constant ongoing project. Their poems and stories, a constant conversation with the world. Not self-centredness, not absent-mindedness.

Only twice they had been told in academic settings that they weren’t enough. One was in the Sea Palace. The scholars called them an histrionic, low-pedigree charming but insubstantial kid, with poorly honed magic and more enthusiasm than capacity. Others worked better, others could sit still for longer, others had more steady grades — not the valleys of those subjects which did not interest them, with good but unremarkable grading, versus the stellar records of those subjects which obsessed them needlessly. A nice attempt, but a definitive rejection. 

The other was in that last Viva Voce in Firent. It hadn’t gone terribly, they had passed, but with meagre first level honours in comparison to their full honours approved dissertation. They were expecting to do worse, that was true. They weren’t expecting to have three examiners who did not let them finish a single explanation, one even laughing at their face for asking for a question to be clarified. 

“If you keep this way, I doubt you will have it in you to be a good jurisconsult,” one of them had said.

Julianus had looked at them with icy, saccharine sweetness, eyes like daggers and making apologies they didn’t mean as they took their diploma. They left the room thinking what did they know? What did any of these people know about Julianus Cleopatra, who wasn’t born with the Surname Sanlaurento, but had chosen it anyway? Nothing. They knew nothing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Julianus had never been in many places they belonged.

The night was clear as The Ruby made its way through the waters in the night.

“What about you?”

“Yeah, Jay, tell us a story. All you do is work, kid. Grab a glass! Cut yourself some slack from those books, lest your vision becomes worse.”

Julianus couldn’t see why not. With a bright smile on their face, they grabbed a glass of beer, before joining the Crew that was lounging around on the deck, enjoying the night. 

“Does it have to be something I’ve heard, or does it have to be an original?”

“Right! Saoirse did say you wrote.”

Julianus blinked. “Saoirse mentioned me?”

An echo of warm laughter rang between the crew. Someone patted their back. “You’ve got it bad for the Quartermaster, don’t you? But tell us your story.”

"My story?” They snorted. “Oh, you don’t want to listen to that.”

After taking a drink, they let their own play on words slide, and chose a story to tell. “You know how they say that those who are the most impertinent have the best chance. Well, this cabin boy risked it all for a venture in a ship from the northern seas, whose flag it was under was at war with an Empire. The cabin boy, well, we’ll call them boy, had been searching for a place to fulfil their ambitions, and saw in this ship the right chance. The kind of person who wished to be remarkable, and do what’s right

“So one day, the ship runs into an enemy ship. Goes the Captain and says: ‘If we fight them, this ship might be sunk and we might not live the night’. So goes the cabin boy, who had developed a fondness for this ship; the fondness one does when one loves a place, but the place does not love one back, and yet one clings to the nostalgia of the good things. The cabin boy did not realise this yet, so the cabin boy goes and says: ‘If I time it right, I could sink it.’

“Though often trifled with silencing commands, the cabin boy was intelligent and daring so the cabin boy repeated: ‘If I time it right I could sink it. Was this not why I trained all these years as a cabin boy?’ 

“The Captain said: ‘No, you are just a cabin boy’, but at the insistence of our protagonist, the Captain said: ‘If you destroy that ship, I will give you silver and likewise gold, here in this very sea, and I will give you my only daughter for you to marry, if you make a renowned Captain out of me—’”

The story was not a happy one. It was a story of betrayal and disappointed hopes. It finished with the cabin boy, who making himself one with the night, went to sink the enemy ship, under the very noses of the unsuspecting crew. Yet, when the cabin boy came back and demanded their acknowledgement, the Captain denied them. Though the cabin boy had no interest in claiming the bounty, the Captain had not expected them to live, but fearing the Cabin Boy would take the credit and disrupt the order of things, the Captain slew them, and the sea took them in. 

Someone gasped with indignation. “And no one aided the cabin boy?”

“No.”

“Did the Captain kill them then?”

“That’s for you to decide.” 

“So the cabin boy didn’t die? Or did they?”

“In a way. It’s less about physical death, though it can be about it.”

“Isn’t this the Raleigh story?”

“Of the Golden Vanity?” Said Sanlaurento with a smirk. “Perhaps, but everyone tells it differently.

“If you don’t make it as a law person, I say you become a writer.”

Julianus laughed. “Why not both?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

The last time Julianus Sanlaurento had seen their parents was when they sailed off to an apprenticeship. There had been no grand goodbyes, no heartfelt words. They had all fought around a week before, and J.C. was not yet forgiven. It was, perhaps, one of the biggest fights they had had with them, and the memory of it, along with the cold shoulder they were given would cling to them for some more time.

Nothing was worse than the hypocrisy, though. Or the pity. Too much to everyone around them, a brilliant child when they weren’t in the room.

Before they left, their father had pulled them aside to tell them they were brilliant, and that they were proud. Jules had wanted to say thank you, and just thank you, from the bottom of his heart, but they couldn’t, not after last week. Instead, they said:

“You always say that, until I’m brilliant in a way which neither of you like even if you still let me do it. You’ll hate this, but I don’t exist comfortably anywhere, and perhaps, I’ll never exist comfortably here.”

“That’s not our fault, Cleo.”

“It’s not about whose fault is it— it’s— you know what, Dad? Nevermind.”

Their only comfort was Maricus, whom they clung to at night when they were alone in their quarters, with only their things, their cat and an acceptance letter as they realised they were completely, and utterly alone. They were alone, that was true, but at least, they were themself and they had had enough.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Not wanting to try the Captain further after she dismissed them, Julianus retreated to the crew’s quarters. They sat against the wall nearest to their bed — if one could call a hammock a bed — picked up their notebook and began writing. They wanted to be left alone, so they buried their nose in their writing.

They didn’t expect seeing Saoirse when they looked up, leaning against a column as they watched them write. 

“Raleigh again?”

“No, I’m leaving the fictional man rest for a minute or two.”

“Meredith told me you were staying.” At this, Jules stopped writing. “Said you were on permanent crew member probation until you defended your case and your position in Ethari. Then, if she didn’t change her mind, she’ll make you try as a permanent member of the crew, if you also haven’t changed your mind about it.”

Saoirse snorted. “If I was told I’d meet a human like you a year ago, I would’ve thought the person telling me such was drunk.”

Julianus raised an eyebrow at them, wanting to ask what that was supposed to mean, but Saoirse’s eyes were full of tenderness when they met them.

“Meredith also told me you asked. Did you because of me?”

“No,” Jules said as they closed their notebook, standing up to stretch their legs. “I don’t want to part from you, that’s true, I care… a lot about you, and I hope you care about me just the same. I don’t want to stop seeing you everyday, and I don’t want to stop kissing you everyday, and I don’t want to stop learning from and about you. I haven’t mastered the language yet, and there’s more of the Code to study, there’s so many things I haven’t done yet, but it’s not about you, it’s about me.”

Saoirse watched them as silence fell between them, Julianus’ dark eyes looking everywhere but at them. When they did look back at Saoirse's ice-blue ones, their eyes were clouded with tears. “This isn’t quite it, either, but do you know what’s like feeling you’re unwanted everywhere? Because who you are has a big red ‘wrong’ sign attached to it?

“I just don’t want to go. I see, I can see a future here, and I think I’ve been in enough places where I have been unwanted, or wanted wrong, for me to deserve to have a shot at the future I say I want to have. Not the future I was supposed to have by whomever thinks knows me better than I know me.”

Out of all the reactions Saoirse could’ve had, J.C. wasn’t expecting them to stop leaning on their column, and open their arms for them. 

Their smile was just as tender as their eyes. “I know you enough to know that if I ask if you want a hug, you’ll say no, but in about five seconds you’ll change your mind.”

Jules’ half laughed, half sobbed. Unable to fight Saoirse’s logic they closed the distance between them, wrapping their arms around their waist, as they felt Saoirse’s arms sling under their arms to hold them close and safe between their arms. Like they were protecting them — from what? Neither of them knew; neither of them asked.

Instead, Jules was happy to bury their face against Saoirse’s chest, taking in the smell of them mixed with linen of their shirt. Saoirse’s cheek rested against the top of their head, only moving to plant a kiss there.

“Julie?” Saoirse said. “I know more about cages than you’d think.”

“I never said anything of—”

“You don’t have to say it for me to know. Before I was what I am now, I was in one, so to speak. Trapped, perhaps, is a better word. Cages all look different, but they all feel the same. There are no cages here, you deserve better than that.”

“I know, I know that now.”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Only if you keep calling me ‘Julie’.”

“Were you never told not to make deals with strange Gods?” 

As they spoke, Saoirse brushed their lips against theirs, themselves an offering for Julianus to chase. Chase them they did, pressing their lips against Saoirse’s over and over again. 

“You’re not a strange God. Or rather, you’re not a stranger to me… You know? You don’t have to tell me what you were before, but I will say this: whomever decided to trap you, is or was a fucking coward.”

Saoirse laughed, the sound ringing around the room on its own accord. Soon enough, Jules found themself laughing too.

No, of course they didn’t want to go. 

[yekistraight]

Hey, could you explain what being a feminist means? I’ve heard all these terms before, and there’s this huge stigma around it. So do you think there’s a way you could clarify at least what your beliefs are, and what you believe it to be? I’m simply trying to study stuff and see what it’s become or is. Thank you.

Sorry I wrote so much i just wanted to make it comprehensive:

General definition of feminist is someone who believes in the socio-economic equality of the sexes. In the beginning this was a straightforward ideology to follow. Women needed to be equal to men. It’s only fair, there’s no reason not to be. But sharing power is not something the ruling majority particularly enjoys so there’s been some bumps in the road. Decades and decades of bumps.

The feminists of the past started this push a long time ago with one message: “we want to be taken seriously, we are humans too and we need rights that benefit us and protect us from you[men]” and they were right. Sex based crimes against women were happening at an alarming rate. So much so that it had become part of some cultures and traditions, meaning it would be defended and men would be protected while women basically died, physically and socially. Women lived in fear and helplessness, being sold a dream of subservience promoted by religion and ego in exchange for protection from men. What about the women that still, despite the odds, wanted to choose a different path? Well, they were brave enough to step out of line and others followed. They exist throughout history, inspiring other women will their bravery and confidence, proving that it was possible to have the power and authority that men had. Now imagine giving every woman that access to power? They’d have everything right? Well feminism didn’t start like that (it was racially exclusive actually) but fortunately the ideologies spread out through cities, across oceans and into continents where women wanted, no, NEEDED such power; the power to change their destinies that had been set upon them by another mere human being.

So feminism is like a sisterhood, where we’re only related by a common goal to protect each other while trying to defeat our common enemy. Here’s where the simplistic ideology begins to mutate based on strategy and cultural progression.

Feminism is a sisterhood, but not a monolith. There’s been different waves (eras) of feminism where each sisterhood used different tactics to achieve their goals for equality. Its like making a new checklist after the old one gets checked off. However there’s been one item that still needs a lot of work before ticking off and that’s dismantling gender roles. Gender roles are the root cause of every.single.thing. Toxic masculinity, performative femininity. Gender roles were created to control humans and keep them in their place. For a feminist to push her way into male dominated spaces, she must first acknowledge that gender roles have been constructed to work against her and break through it. So take note, everything is the way it is because of gender roles.

In this era, the sisterhood has been split into two major groups, two warring tribes if you will: libfems and radfems.

Liberal Feminists accept everyone. They use the tactic of assimilation, where they water down feminist ideologies to make it inclusive for everyone. They follow the lead of oppressed minorities who reclaimed slurs and instead reclaim methods tused to oppress women that past waves of feminists fought to dismantle. Remember what I said about gender roles? These women are bringing it back and think they’re reclaiming it. How do you reclaim something that hasn’t been dismantled yet?The only power they’re concerned with is the feeling of superiority that comes from thinking bowing down to the patriarchy is their idea. Their feminism tackles issues like rape, victim blaming and misogyny, things that affect them personally, while taking on the burden of other marginalised groups as their own, pushing their own goals to the backseat while feeling a self-righteous high. Basically, they’re activists who have lost the plot but would keep pushing blindly than admit it. The second group was born from libfems that wanted more than a feel good pat on the back from the patriarchy for not being too interfering.

Radical feminists are still following the original objective of their predecessors. They still have their eyes open to sex-based oppression and are aware there’s still a lot of work to be done. They don’t put the opposite sex’s needs above their own or let other group’s ideologies influence theirs and because of this, other groups as well as libfems have dubbed them as enemies to progress. Ironic isn’t it? The group that still fights for sexual equality has been silenced by none other than their own. Of course hatred for this group of feminists didn’t come out of nowhere. Radfems and their female-only values are presumed to hurt trans women, as trans women are biologically male and don’t have the same sex based experiences as biological women. Trans activists took these as transphobic fighting words and ostracised radfems, silencing them and their ideologies, claiming that everything they fought for was an attack against the trans community. Conservative americans also share some radfem values, basically the one on keeping the movement focused on female only issues, and because the right is notoriously bigoted (ironic because conservatives are the ones who uphold the gender roles feminists fight against so a conservative feminist is paradoxical) this is enough to tell people that radfems can’t be trusted. That they’re all racist, transphobic white supremacists. Because all groups that share similar ideologies are bad. The public, not wanting to be on the Unpopular Opinion side of history, shifted away and further pushed radfems into the background while libfems and their blind acceptance values were hailed as the patron saints of feminism.

So what feminism was and what it is now are vastly different. It started as a movement in different countries with different goals, then it graduated and took on more serious topics. It was like a game where every level gets tougher to prepare you for that last boss, the one who holds all the power you need to physically change your reality.

Today in the year 2021, young girls are being told that it’s feminist to enjoy selling their bodies for money. That it’s the same as working in a mine (a common comparative statement). That it’s feminist to look as womanly as the gender roles men created dictate. That it’s feminist to watch porn and be happy your romantic partner watches it to; this means you’re sexually liberated. Grown women go to Tiktok full of minors in the style of pimps to show off stacks of money they’ve made from pleasing men. They say “i did it because i wanted to and so should you”. Minors are all over twitter trying to lure men with financial dominatrix tags. They can’t wait till they become legal to start selling their nude bodies to men. They were told it would make them feel powerful. People who are skeptical are shamed into silence, because the popular crowd is always in control and no one wants to be the odd one out.

Now compare that to women who spend time researching horrifying news of sexual violence still happening today. Women still having to sell themselves to survive in 2021 is a clear indicator that we’re still not taken seriously. Sex buying, pimping and displaying women as commodities is the reason little girls are being stolen off the streets and shipped off to a disgusting dreg who think he’s owed sexual satisfaction.

Radfems want to end child sex trafficking, sex slavery, wedding night virginity checks, honour killings, femicide, sewing up little girls vaginas to avoid them exploring their sexuality before their wedding night and bring attention to way more hardcore shit being run by top dogs who are cooperating with the old powers that influence the governments.

Whose side do you think the media will be on? Whose side is worth not risking ruffling feathers?

Feminism has become many things now. You can choose the one that reminds you of the cruelty of man or the one that creates a comfortable fantasy of false empowerment while women’s violence continues. Both get stigmatised anyway.

If it wasn’t obvious already, I’m a radical feminist.

I’m an autistic radfem living in a backwards country where the lgbt community can’t thrive so there’s no pride parades, no trans movement, nothing that can be publicised anyway. I can’t create a fantasy where everything works because nothing works. Women are dying around me everyday for being female, my best friend is trapped with an abusive father who hates her for being a female firstborn (something babies get killed for), I’m not worthy of basic respect without a husband, a poor woman from a muslim state gets death threats from her fellow muslims for wearing a backless top while a rich married one gets praised and women can’t apply for anything important without a man’s permission.

Now why on earth would i want to pamper the gender that made and uphold those laws? The battle here is still greatly a battle of the sexes. Despite this stale level of progress, our movement, like many others have allies. Male allies are great, allies are great, we need them to push buttons yes but also remember they can never fully understand what we feel. All they can do is try their best to help and in return we give them acknowledgement and support; so no we’re not supposed to be misandrists or transphobes. We just hate anyone who uplifts what we and our ancestors have been fighting to destroy.

That’s all

[miraculouscontent]

Askplosion #12 3/4:

.:Asks Referring to Previous non-Miraculous Posts:.

Anonymous said:

Hi! I saw you mention that you have Asperger’s syndrome in an earlier post. I’m just wondering, how did you find out? I’ve always thought I was neurodivergent (adhd and maybe asperger’s), but I’m not quite sure how to go about finding out, and my parents never had me screened as a kid. Feel free to ignore if this is too personal!

(the post this anon is referring to)

It’s not too personal, don’t worry!

Though, I would really say that it’s something to look up more than for someone to tell you. I know that’s not a satisfying answer but I think it’s different depending on where you live and what specialists you have near you.

Anonymous said:

Remarried Empress Anon Again, a whole post? What an honor! I burnt my food and this made me so happy.

(the post this anon is referring to)

You deserve it! Thanks a bunch!

Anonymous said:

Remarried Empress Anon Again, thank you for answering my asks and for reading Remarried Empress! I honestly didn’t expect much to come of it but the fact you read the comic and saw what I was talking and came to your own conclusions was amazing! I’m sorry if I’m bothering you by bombarding you with asks, and will try to stop doing so. Heck, this doesn’t have to be answered! Just know you are a fun creator and thank you for making my day a little better with your amazing responses!

You weren’t bothering me at all! I’m glad I brightened your day!

asexual-individual said:

I don't know how big the trend of "Magical Girls are made to suffer" is, but after watching Madoka Magica I did notice a few Magical Girl shows where the creators obviously went "Hey, this anime where the Magical Girls suffer and it's all angsty made Shaft a lot of money, let's do our own", and "subversive=money". (Even though many have pointed out that MM isn't actually subversive, since older MG shows have dealt with dark themes plenty of times.)

Yeah, it’s probably one of those inevitable things. People immediately jump on wherever the money’s going.

Madoka Magica probably got so much attention specifically because of the episode three shock value.and all the twisted imagery, plus things like Kyubey with bullet holes all over him made it seem like, “WHOA, DARK.”

Anonymous said:

Remember when I told you about the teenage-bashing in the Star Vs. Fandom? Well, rewatching the show, I'm beginning to think that most of the time, when people in a certain fandom have these opinions, more often than not, the show backs it up for whatever reason. Like, there's one scene where Eclipsa is put on trial and is asked if she's ever eaten any babies(which is just a rumor), and she says no but that she has eaten a few teenagers but, psychologically, they always deserved it.

And in another episode, Star says that teenagers are great at causing problems, which I at first laughed off as a joke, but then in another, Tom and Star were talking about how they broke up, and Star said "Of course we broke up! That's what people do! That's what teenagers do! Teenagers are dumb!" And Tom was just like "Yeah, I know, I know"; there are a lot more examples but I don't care to revisit them. I'm just saying that the teen-hating in the fandom would have to have come from somewhere.

omg I don’t remember that stuff at all; I guess it just blew right past me when I was initially watching it.

I don’t understand the trend of being like, “teenagers are dumb and that’s what they do,” and then either over-punishing or not punishing at all. Are we supposed to believe that all teenagers are just going to “be teenagers” and so we shouldn’t do anything, or that they’re all idiots who don’t understand their own feelings but we should also punish them for it?

I don’t get it.

Anonymous said:

I'm the "tomboys in anime" anon, and yes, I totally agree! It especially irks me(as a girly girl who has a lot to say) when the shortcut to making a girl tomboyish is simply by making her loud/tough/like gaming or machinery, or when a female character is told she isn't enough of a girl because she's like that, but otherwise doesn't look or even act all that "boyish". Even TV Tropes does it, as if the second a girl shows any proactivity or is tough she's a "tomboy".

It really annoys me and almost makes me want to erase the term "tomboy" altogether since it leads to an idea of "I'm not like other girls, I'm better 'cause I do boy stuff"(which I know not every tomboy thinks, but some do). The only reason I don't is because I very proudly embrace the term "girly girl" and terms are meaningless without an opposite(not that you can't like both girly and tomboyish things). So I think the key to fixing this problem is that we shouldn't label people unless they want to be labeled that way.

And I know fictional characters can't speak for themselves, so just to figure out if a female character is a tomboy, I just say that if her only "tomboyish" traits are "proactive" qualities or liking something that's for guys, just don't call them a tomboy because it looks ridiculous and acts like women are inherently passive and weak, so for a girl not to be like that is acting like a man.

I would love to see a tomboy character who likes those things but is actually shy/a wallflower. That avoids the stereotype of "aggressive, hard-hitting tomboy, weak-willed, shallow girly girl" and challenges audiences expectations that "but but but she's a tomboy so she should be loud and strong because strength is for MEN". I also hate when tomboy characters are given no curves because the writers know they're doing something wrong, tomboys can have natural curves too. It's like they think tomboys just don't want to be girls. So, yeah. So over the "tomboy in-name-only" stereotype.

"it makes me feel weird saying that when I’m all for girl power shows with an all female cast, but in this show’s logic, it’s a different ball game". Oh, phew! That's good. Because, like I said before, I'm working on my own magical girl show in which most of the female characters are(black) girls and only girls can use magic in this world, and someone I know keeps telling me that it's not fair that the guys don't get to have magic, so it's good to know that there's someone out there who doesn't think it's "sexist" that magical girls tend to only let girls have powers(unless it's for fanservice or like in Madoka Magica because ick). Because guys get to be in the forefront all too often, so why is it so bad when girls get to be in the spotlight? I know I can't change everyone's opinions but it's good to know someone gets it.

(the post this anon is referring to)

Honestly, I feel like the fact that there’s a label at all is the issue, like you suggested? It might just be a “we have to get ride of the label ‘tomboy’ and ‘girly girl’ altogether” thing, because it’s not like we do the same thing with guys?

Oh wait, we do; guys who do “girly” things are called “sissies.”

I hate this planet. :P

Point being, having to say “tomboy” inherently implies something, which might be a problem all on its own, y’know?

(the below ask is incomplete but the asker clarified after I asked them, so clarification is below:)

Anonymous said:

I just thought back to our little "tomboys in anime" argument and about how you can't really think of any tomboys. So I looked up "tomboys in anime" on Google and clicked on the first link, and literally the first character on the list was a girl with...a flower in her hair and a bikini. The reason she was a "tomboy" according to the list? Was because she is "aggressive" and "competitive". In fact, most of the examples on the list were "she's tough/a good fighter/challenges male supremacy".

(part of this ask is missing and clarified below)

girly girls, while the girly girls always have to be the weak and shy ones(not that shy=weak but you get the idea). But while I may not know most of the characters on the list, and some of them DID look pretty tomboyish, I'm very bothered by the idea that it's their strength and ambition and excellent fighting skills that are branded as masculine. And you know what? I'd actually be offended if someone called me a tomboy, especially if it was based of these reasonings. Because it sounds like they think being a tomboy is the only way to be strong and vice versa. Like I should take it as a compliment that I need to be separated from my femininity in order to be respected. Like, if you're a tomboy, cool! But it shouldn't be used for just any girl who isn't a weak-willed crybaby doormat. I actually don't know why people seem to think being a tomboy or "masculine" for a girl is some sort of badge of honor to wear with pride for rejecting your femininity and being "cooler" than other girls.

the clarification:

Anonymous said:

The missing part was talking about the various tropes having to do with contrasting masculinity/femininity, either in two different characters, with one being masculine and one being feminine(ex. Tomboy and Girly Girl, Sensitive Guy and Manly Man, Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy, Masculine-Feminine Gay Couple), or one character who has traits of both(ex. Girly Girl With a Tomboy Streak, Tomboy With a Girly Streak, Real Men Wear Pink), and how TV Tropes always talks about them as if the "girly" character(or girly side of the character) is weaker or inferior(like how for Tomboy and Girly Girl they might say that the former is tough, competitive, and can fight, while the latter is vain, a priss, and a Damsel in Distress.

Or for Tomboy With a Girly Streak, they might say that the tomboy dresses in a masculine way with their "girly" streak being that they're a doormat or dream of being a housewife. Not that it's wrong to be a housewife.).

To be fair, they don't always do this: For the pages on Magical Girl they talk about how those shows can appeal to multiple demographics, and almost all the quotes on them, they talk about how they're empowered through their femininity and are just as much legitimate threats to their opponents as other heroes. Still, they fall in this trap even then, as on the LoliRock Awesome page, they say "You gotta admit, for a Magical Girl show, LoliRock does have its awesome moments", which ignores that Magical Girl is SUPPOSED to have awesome moments, it's literally an action subgenre! Just because it's frilly and pink and girly doesn't mean it doesn't--or shouldn't--still have badass fight scenes. Just look at PreCure. Shonen should take notes from those shows. But no, whoever wrote that clearly dismissed it as just frivolous and was SURPRISED that the fight scenes were good, just because it's girly!

It’s 2021 and people are still struggling with this concept that girliness isn’t bad and it’s not embarrassing to watch such a show.because GIRLS.

It’s so tiring. I watched Dragonball Z, Inuyasha, and played Pokemon; got a few looks about it at times but people ultimately were like, “okay I guess” (I did get bullied for the Pokemon one but that was more for the “it’s for babies” kind of deal, not a “you can’t like that because you’re a girl,” thing). I can’t really relate to the world of girls who get looked down upon for being “girly” but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand that it must be awful for them.

Don’t even get me started on “Tomboy Lesbian,” I will scream about it and it won’t be happy screaming.

[urimaginespimp]

Michael Gray: Better Man pt 12

The long overdue talk between Michael and Olivia finally happened, and the heavy tension that came along with it was out of the window.

She couldn't deny that it made her feel like a heavy weight was lifted off her. And he himself seemed to be happier and less tense.

But now what?

Though their talk ended with them being in genuinely good terms, there was something they didn't really get to discuss: where do we go from here?

It was as if both of them were now playing a dangerous but lighter game. The way they'd treat each other was in no means how a purely platonic pair would, nor was it crossing boundaries to a territory where intimate couples would be in.

He would kiss her often, when he's going out of the house or just getting settled in; to greet her in the morning or when he's about to sleep. But it was only either on the back of her hand, her cheek, or her temples.

She would get close to him, maybe lean in for support when she was doing something next to him, to rest for a while, or just because she felt like it; enjoy his cologne while he'd put his arm around her, or even lock arms together when walking down the streets. But she wouldn't give his jaw little pecks like she used to, nor would they intertwine their hands together.

--- Olivia was combing her wet hair in the mirror by the living room when she heard him say good morning. Looking at him as he appeared on the mirror's reflection, he was going down the stairs already dressed up for the day.

"Good morning, Mikey" She answered back with a grin.

"There wasn't enough supplies in the cupboards. I'm heading out for some groceries, and I'll see you in your office." Michael said, approaching her with a grin, then giving her a quick kiss on her cheek.

Every time he did so, she couldn't help the blood rushing to her cheeks. But it was also followed by that annoying little voice of reason at the back of her mind, asking her what in heavens were they doing.

"New York better be careful when you're on the loose in it's streets." She smiled slyly at him.

He laughed at what she said and poked her on the side, causing her to yelp and drop the comb. And before she could make him pay, he was already out the door yelling a quick goodbye to her.

Michael can't deny to himself that he wants to do more than just kiss, touch, and hold her on zones a really really close friend could. But he was doing a great job at containing himself. He wasn't going to cross the line unless she asks him to.

"Well if it'll all be up to her , we might as well just buy friendship bracelets." He muttered to himself, chuckling as he was walking down the streets of New York.

Olivia back at their apartment was just about to finish tidying up the place when there was a knock on the door.

Nobody else in the city except for Michael and Ginny knew where she lived.

That's odd. Ginny rarely leaves the diner when it's daytime, and Michael finally has a spare key. She thought to herself, approaching it slowly as the knocking continued.

Pressing her ear against it, she asked who is it.

"It's the young widow you left in Small Heath." A familiar feminine voice replied.

Ada.

"Linda?" She asked, acting clueless.

The audible gasp and scoffed that followed from the other side of the door was enough to make her break into laughter and finally open the door, to the unamused face of one of her oldest friends.

"Of course I knew it was you!" She laughed at her, opening her arms open for a hug.

Ada rolled her eyes as if in annoyance but nevertheless caved into the hug.

"I've missed you so much, Livy." Ada said into the hug.

Pulling away from each other, Ada's sweet face turned into an angry one, and she gave  Olivia a pinch on the forearm.

Yelping, Olivia asked what the hell was that for. Rubbing the small area that was already turning pink.

"Well we made a pact never to pull each other's hair, scratch faces, or go over just pinching, remember?" She replied, crossing her arms together and shrugged.

"Of course I remember! But why?" She asked incredulously.

"You made me miss you, and you never called." Ada answered shyly, looking anywhere else. "nor wrote." She added.

Olivia smiled at this. "Well, would you please come in so I could start making up for it?"

"You better." Ada threatened, trying to hold back from smiling.

"Does anybody else know my address now, then?" She asked, closing the door, and hanging Ada's coat on the rack.

"All it took was making Karl fake cry in-front of Thomas because he was really missing his auntie Livy." She answered, placing her one piece luggage down.

"Yet Karl's not here with you?" They were now sitting on the sofa, facing each other.

"Oh he might actually need a little refresher of who you are. So he's back home with aunt Poll." Ada replies sheepishly.

The two women shared a laugh.

"So... I see that devil cousin of mine isn't here right now. Tell me everything I need to know about you two here in New York." Ada asked excitedly. Oh it felt just like the times they spent sharing about each other's love life back in Birmingham.

By the time she was done, Ada had never had her mouth gaping like it was now.

"W-wait. What the hell are you two doing?"

"We're co-existing in this apartment?" She answered.

"Oh I'm happy you two made peace of the past. But I'm talking about now." She clarified. Olivia then understood what she meant.

"I don't know A, but is it weird to say that I'm enjoying it?" She smiled shyly at her friend.

"Of course you do. And I'm loving how it's like you're trying to see who'd give in first." Ada winked at her.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well it does sound like a type of foreplay. You-l"

"No it's not" Livy cut off her laughing friend.

"Oh it definitely is, Livy. And you need to win."

And just when she was about to respond, the front door opened again. This time, the person that was subject of their conversation walked in with a paper bag with him.

"Your office was still locked so I figured you're still here." Michael called out loudly, and stopped in his tracks when he realized who was with her.

"Michael." Ada acknowledged him, but any hint of the smile she was sharing to Olivia earlier was gone and replaced with coldness.

"It's good to see you, Ada." Michael nodded at her.

Olivia was confused. Michael and Ada were close. He was a great uncle to Karl, and she was always up to tag along the both of them when they asked her.

"I'll uh- arrange these in the kitchen." Michael said awkwardly to her, and left.

"What was that?" Olivia asked her quietly.

"Well, I have been mad at him after what he's done to ya." Ada whispered back in defense.

Olivia groaned. She hadn't anticipated how their own relationship problem could affect Michael's relationship with his family.

As if reading her mind, Ada called her attention.

"Oy. It was his fault. Not yours."

Olivia nodded.

"But since you two made up, I might just go and talk to him right now." Ada stood up, and motioned for her to stay seated so she could talk to him alone.

When Ada got to the kitchen, Michael was just about to throw the brown paper bag into the bin, when she cleared her throat.

This was enough to get his attention.

"I heard you two made up." She started, fidgeting with her fingers.

"Yeah. Livy's a saint to even listen to me." This has been the longest exchange of words they've had for the last two years.

"That's good to hear, Michael." She nodded.

"I'm sorry for hurting your best friend and driving her away from our family, Ada. I completely understand why you've been hating me."

"Well I don't hate you anymore." She gave him a small smile.

"Thank you." He broke into a smile, almost tearing up at the fact that she was the first of the Shelby siblings to actually forgive him for what he'd done to Olivia.

Sure, Arthur and John still spoke and joked around him, even Finn when they got past the time they almost got into a fight. But it never felt the same. He knew deep down they were also disappointed with him. Thomas was as usual all business talk.

"I said I don't hate you anymore. But that doesn't mean you're a hundred percent forgiven." She smiled at him.

"What do I have to do then?"

"I'll let you both enjoy this weird foreplay you both got going right now, but I want you to be the one to actually ask what she wants from this." She explained. "It's for the both of you. You can't just be stuck in this weird phase forever."

Michael nodded in understanding. "I'll talk to her about it when you go back." He promised.

"Good. In two days then." Ada nodded back in approval. "Now give me a stupid hug."

Michael chuckled and approached his cousin, engulfing her in a bear hug.

When the cousins came back from the kitchen, Olivia was still seated and now immersed in a book.

"Livy I wanna go sightseeing by myself. I'll be back by the time you're back from the office." Ada told Olivia while grabbing her coat from the rack.

"Oh that reminds me. How long are ya planning to stay?"

"I'll be out of your hair in two days, luv." She answered, putting her coat on and fixing her hair. "So you owe me two days worth of catching up."

"I'd be glad to, A."

"Oh except for Night times."

"What?" Michael asked what she meant.

"Remember when before he passed away, I promised Freddie that I won't be sharing a bedroom or let alone a bed at night with anyone else but Karl?"

Both Olivia and Michael nodded but was confused. What the hell was she talking about?

"Well it was a romantic promise yet I didn't realize it lacked detail such as exempting family and female friends, and Freddy isn't really here to discuss it with." She opened the door.

"It's still up for a year, so you two better pick which room to share now BYE!" She hastily answered with a wink, already leaving them both.

[transqueerquestions]

Hello! I’ve had this concrete idea of my ideal self in my head for years but in the past few months it’s started manifesting in dreams as well? I never considered I might be trans (nb maybe)? I’m afab and I want to be a guy who can pass as a girl. I want to be a guy who can put on makeup and a wig when he wants and go out and be seen as a cute girl (but use he/him) but at the end of the day come home and take all that off and be!! A guy!! I want to have a female “persona” but (1)

but be an androgynous-leaning guy! In the dreams I have at night I come out as a guy and go by he/him pronouns and in the dream I get this rush of euphoria I never felt in my life before? But I don’t know if I’m cis and this is just a phase or normal bc I never considered being trans? I hate my chest and always cover it and I’ve wanted to get a binder but I don’t think I’m trans so I never got one, but I want my body to be as androgynous as possible? I’ve done wigs+makeup to look male but idk?(2)

Tobi: Hey nonnie! From your asks I’m hearing that you’re having a bit of difficulty distinguishing your identity due to how you want to express yourself. It seems like there’s a bit of cognitive dissonance happening between your ideal self (being male identified and using he/him pronouns) and how you currently see yourself because of your wish to express yourself in a feminine way being “abnormal” for a male-identified person.

There is no reason that someone who is male cannot/should not express himself in a feminine manner. There is nothing wrong with being male and adopting a feminine expression because gender identity and gender expression are separate entities within “gender”. There is nothing wrong with cisgender men expressing themselves in traditionally feminine ways, so there is nothing wrong with trans men expressing themselves in traditionally feminine ways.

In terms of figuring out your gender identity, I’m also hearing a bit of hesitancy in the validity of wanting to push towards being your “ideal self”. When considering your own gender, I have found it best to ask oneself not “what am I?” but instead, “What would make me happiest?” This allows your thinking to put weight behind your own wants to be who you are instead of just how others will respond to those wants. There is value in choosing to be your happiest self, regardless of only other’s response’s to it.

Unfortunately I can’t necessarily give you any definitive answers, as I cannot tell you what your gender identity is or what would make you happiest, but I hope this helps clarify your thoughts and aid in your journey to find who you are!

[hillarykylie]

With all due respect to Lana, I’d like to politely and respectfully dissect her ig post and address the loopholes and fallacies in her arguments, in hopes to clarify why it’s inherently problematic for some, and hopefully bring people on both ends of the spectrum towards a middle ground :-) x

(in no way, shape or form, am I attempting to invalidate Lana’s struggles. Her feelings are completely valid and just like everyone else, she has every right to express herself unapologetically.)

(I do not condone any immature individuals sending her threats, but where dissenting arguments are presented on a factual basis by well-meaning fans and the general public, I’d like people to understand that not all criticism is bad or irrational. Criticism, when constructive and logically sound, can often serve as a fuel for self-improvement and advancement.)

Lana’s fundamental gist was her frustration in being unable to sing candidly about “morbid” issues in society without being censured or harped on by the media for her melancholic lyrical content.

She feels stifled and is tired of critics being critical of the way she unintentionally ‘glamorizes’ abuse and the pathologies of society, and proceeded to incorporate some of the biggest names in the music industry - many of whom were WOC. (Beyoncé, Nicki, Cardi, Doja and Kehlani), and goes on to speak of feminism and how she feels contemporary feminism doesn’t cater to her ‘aesthetic’ and singles her out.

There are so many reasons why her following arguments are deeply flawed and erroneous:

1. By name-dropping and bringing in stars in the industry who’ve been through the same level of scrutiny and castigation as her, if not worse, completely defies all logic in her paragraph and her purpose of cultivating acceptance.

Her comparison is not analogous.

These women have all bore the brunt of Hollywood and a predominantly whitewashed, chauvinistic music industry, and have undergone years of tabloid stings, scandals, controversies, to widespread denigration and misogynistic subjugation by men in the industry and the wider public.

Beyoncé has been in the industry for more than a decade, from her innocent Destiny Child days to her solo debut, where there was never a moment where she was spared from the media vultures, who preyed on her and slammed her for her music, to her looks, to her alleged “anti-feminist” lyrics, to her stance on Police Brutality, to her ‘glamorizing’ Jay-Z’s infidelity in Lemonade and to inconsequential things like the way she dresses her daughter, Blue.

Cardi and Nicki both, have been victims to years of media disparagement for their sexually explicit lyrical content and for proudly embracing their sexuality and their body confidence and self-love. Their music have been subject to relentless cynicism, with many arguing that their lyrics ‘promote promiscuity’ and what not.

More importantly, the fact that they’re WOC already puts them at an incredibly unfair disadvantage from the get go, as they’ve had to challenge not only misogyny, but institutional structures such as racism and xenophobia.

WOC have been known to be systematically and historically OPPRESSED by our patriarchal Eurocentric society, where andocentrism and white superiority takes precedence over everything else.

We like to think that society is becoming progressively ‘equal’, but that cannot be farther from the truth. There are always underlying race relations and power struggles at play, even if one denies it.

The reality is that it is completely out of character to compare her struggles to Women of Color, who not only face the same austerity of slander and retraction as her, but have had to deal with institutionalised discrimination and racism their whole lives.

She cannot pit herself on the same level playing field as these women for she’s not of ethnic descent, and is a fairly wealthy white cis female herself who already is privileged from the beginning.

These women Lana mentioned are and have been DOUBLY oppressed - in terms of their gender AND race, and have had to work TENFOLD as hard to even make a breakthrough in the industry, let alone set trailblazing records of topping charts - which is why their success is not only monumental, but legendary and should be commemorated.

If you’re not a person of Color, you would never understand, but you don’t get to tell people of Color what consists of racial microaggressions or undertones or not when you do not walk in the same shoes as them.

Just like there exists capitalism, racial discrimination and ostracisation has stood the test of time. POCs have never had anything easy, and have been systematically stigmatized since the dawn of civilisation.

What makes Lana, or anyone think, that people like Bey, Nicki or Cardi have never faced scrutiny for their lyrics, or are somehow precluded from criticism or hardships?

Drawing them as examples is a ridiculous analogy and reeks of white privilege. Lana cannnot compare her experiences of being “slammed” to what POC women have to go through to even be recognised or respected for their craft. Her race automatically puts her on the pedestal in life, where she doesn’t have to be affronted with the same level of systematic subjugation or suppression that the WOC have undergone.

For years, the contemporary feminized ideal was the ‘soft-spoken’ and ‘delicate’, overtly feminine white woman.

Black women have had to cope with being mislabeled as “aggressive” / “loud” for literal decades even up till this day, while the conventional, soft-spoken white woman archetype is celebrated all around the world. Today, the stereotype has been refuted thanks to the contribution of our WOC - who‘ve shown that there is femininity in being strong and charismatic.

Aforementioned, Bey’s lyrics have been dubbed as “anti-feminist” for ages, and the amount and magnitude of calumny bey received is simply, and unquestionably UNPARALLED to Lana’s.

America, the world, and feminism as a whole, have always CATERED to white women, while WOC have categorically had to bear the brunt of their unequal/restricted access to opportunities.

There’s space in feminism for Lana - she is not oppressed in any manner.

The problem doesn’t lie with these artistes, the problem lies right with patriarchy and the workings of a heavily male-dominated industry.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Women will always be scrutinised, judged and censored for whatever they do or say. Whether it be WOC or not, most women in lucrative industries have had to put up with shit from their male counterparts - it’s nothing new.

I hope this post highlights the hypocrisy in Lana’s statement in the most amicable way possible, without discrediting anyone in the process.

It is imperative that we are receptive to different viewpoints, and not class every dissent in opinion as a form of “hatred”, and not allude ourselves to ignorance.

Cheers x

[actuallyrandomperson]

I wanna ramble about how I experience dysphoria as a genderfluid person for a bit, and my identity in general, so I figured Tumblr was a good place to do it.

So, for starters, I should probably clarify how I'm fluid, as all of us are a little different in how we experience gender. I was assigned female at birth, and, to be completely honest, I wish I was amab. This shocks some people, especially as I tend to sit on the female/demigirl/nonbinary side of things, but it's true. Realistically, I know my life would be a lot different if I had been, and I would have experienced a different set of struggles, but in an idealistic world, where nothing would change about me except the way my body looked and what pronouns were used for me, I'd want to be assigned male. I could not care less what genitals I have, especially since I'm ace so it has no real effect on how I'm gonna live my life, this relates back to the two other most obvious issues with being afab: Periods, and boobs.

I hate getting my period. As most people do. I don't even have particularly painful ones, just some semi-bad cramps on the first day or two, but I hate it anyway. 9 times out of 10 I'm non-binary on the first day of my period. Whether that's related to hormone levels or some subconscious part of my brain whispering "hey periods suck being a girl sucks why were u born a girl", I do not know. I just know it happens.

I also hate my boobs whenever I'm not female. Including when I'm demigirl. I don't hate the idea of boobs in general when I'm demigirl, and don’t think I need to be completely flat-chested to feel happy when I’m non-binary (but that could come back to me doubting I’ll get fully flat without surgery), I just hate my boobs. That is because I am incredibly busty, especially for someone who is 5'1/155 cm tall. I'm an Aus 10G/US 32I, I have small shoulders (my straps slip down no matter how tight we pull them), and a large part of what made figuring out my gender identity hell was the constant question of whether me hating my boobs was an ace thing (not wanting to be constantly sexualised) or a gender thing. My best fitting bra actually helped me figure that out, as reportedly it made me look smaller (i.e. technically less likely to be sexualised) but it had the side benefit of making my boobs, well, actually look like boobs, and when I looked at myself in the mirror I wanted to claw my eyes out. So. 90% of the time I hate my boobs because they're so big, and 100% of the time I hate my period.

You might be sitting here, reading this, and going "but Em, are you sure you're genderfluid? Not just demigirl or nonbinary or agender or any of the other non-binary identities?" My answer to that is, well, sorta no. And sorta yes. No, in the fact that I've never been sure about anything in my life. Maybe time will go on, and I'll begin to identify with some other label, or no labels at all. Yes, in the fact that genderfluid feels right right now, and that's all that matters. Humans change. In turn, labels can change too. Hell, as a genderfluid person, my labels technically change on almost a day to day basis! That doesn't make my feelings and my identity at any single moment any less valid. It also doesn't mean that long term, I'll wake up one day and realise that I actually just identify with x gender. It just means that it could happen, and that’s ok, just as it's okay that my identity is changing constantly at the moment. Side note, while we're talking about labels- you also don't need to identify with one! I personally like to use them, as they bring me comfort, but everyone is different, and y'all who choose not to use labels for whatever reasons are entirely valid.

I have 4 main types of day, gender-wise. Days where I feel like a girl, days where I feel kinda like a girl, days where I feel non-binary, and days where my gender is that 'women' shrugging emoji (that I use all the time because long hair babeyyyy also their shirt is purple on iOS and purple rules). Day 4 I mostly lump under demigirl, as with day 2. Day 3 could probably be most accurately described with agender, or a similar identity label, but I find it personally easiest to just refer to myself as non-binary on said days.

In a hard to explain way, I feel as though I experience less dysphoria on days where I am demigirl than on days where I am fully female. This is not entirely accurate, and is almost certainly as a result of me having unintentionally put in place coping mechanisms for said days in terms of how I present myself for years now, and probably isn’t the right terms for me to use, but it's true.

You see, I dress in a fairly gender-neutral way. My presentation has still always come off as feminine, as I love my long hair and enjoy nail polish, but I've always hated shaving, and I avoid wearing dresses and skirts as much as possible in my day-to-day. I don't mind wearing dresses etc when I'm demigirl, I just don't gravitate towards them, and when I'm demigirl I generally present as a not-overly feminine girl whose a little uncomfortable with their body shape and likes to be comfy, and wears heels in an effort to be taller rather than as a fashion statement.

But when I'm fully a girl, I often love being feminine. I usually want to wear dresses/skirts, and jewellery, and lipstick (not any other makeup though, years of dance and stage makeup ruined me- if someone puts it on for me and it's not heavy/powdery I'm not actively adverse, though), and have my hair braided, and generally just to Get Prettied Up. But that’s not 'me' to other people. That’s not the person I've presented myself as for years. I've spent my entire life catering to my demigirl and non-binary days because they're more common, and whenever I do lean into my feminine self on girl days my family and a lot of my friends are kinda surprised. I wore lipstick and nice clothes to two separate movie hangouts with two different friends, and one of them (who I hadn't seen in a while, to be fair) commented on how it was unusual for me while the other looked visibly surprised. It's not a coincidence that the two irl people I'm out to outside of my schools lgbt+ club are my brother and my best friend- both of whom complimented me (in a non-creepy way with my brother slvjfk) when they saw me wear lipstick for simple things last year, without making a big deal out of it. My mum still acts shocked and gets excited about me being feminine when I express an interest into buying clothes from a particular brand (Princess Highway/Dangerfield in general, for my fellow Aussies, as I don’t think they exist in the US) even though I've been getting presents from there for a few years now. She's talked about slowly starting to replace my clothes with 'fashionable stuff' from places like Dangerfield as the years go on now that I've 'expressed an interest in nice clothes' and I feel anxiety start to ball up in my stomach, because I don't want to wear fashionable clothes all the time, because fashionable for me, closeted and big-chested as I am, means feminine. When I present or show interest in presenting in a more feminine way on my female days, my mother and a few people I'm surrounded by unintentionally make me feel guilty about not wishing to present like that all the time, make my dysphoric for my future and past self, and make me doubt myself as a genderfluid person because I wish to present as my birth gender on one day.

So rather than dealing with all that, I don't present in a more feminine way unless I'm going out, and even then, avoid wearing lipstick if my mum is home, or coming with me. If I can, I'll stick a tube into my bag to apply when I get to wherever I'm going, but it's not always possible. I have Safiya Nygaard’s colourpop collection hidden away in my room. I continue to present myself in a way that aligns more closely in my mind to my demigirl days, with the slight change of being able to actually look at myself in the mirror for extended periods of time, being ok with my slightly more tight-fitting tops, and being chill with wearing my best bra. And I feel, as a whole, dysphoric on these days. I am not happy with how my gender presentation is, because it does not reflect how I want to present. Dysphoria is probably not the exact right term to use to describe these feelings, given I'm afab but it is the easiest way for me to put it, as it most closely reflects the unhappiness I feel with my presentation on my non-binary days, it's just my non-binary days come with a whole lot more body-related dysphoria piled on top. A song I like to listen to on female days is Platform Ballerinas, by MIKA, as it helps remind me that I am a girl, and the way I'm presenting as a girl is valid even if it's not exactly how I want to (it doesn't actually fully come back to societal expectations placed on women because I might shave my armpits but my leg hair still stays, and I genuinely want to get prettied up rather than feeling like I should to be seen as a girl, it's just something I want to do and not being able to makes me feel whack, but the song is definitely more focused on the whole 'societal expectations suck y'all are all valid' thing).

Non-binary days suck in the same way I've heard a lot of trans people of all varieties discuss. I hate walking past mirrors, if I have to wear feminine clothing for whatever reason I feel like I'm going to cry, she/her pronouns kinda make me want to die (generally I'm chill with she/they, and on female days they/them is okay, but she/her on nonbinary days makes my dysphoric as hell), and I generally Do Not Have A Great Time dysphoria wise. But hey, one day I’ll have enough money for a binder. Eventually. I always feel weird about entering giveaways given there are people who experience extreme dysphoria around their chest every day, I can deal on my demigirl days and survive on my non-binary ones.

So, that’s been me rambling into the void about gender for almost 2000 words, how are y’all doing? Also, if anyone actually read all of this I’d appreciate like,,, a like. Or something. I kinda want to know if people have actually seen and read this.

[agentravensong]

Why Frisk, Chara, & Kris Being Non-Binary Is More Than Just a Headcanon

An UnderTale/DeltaRune Analysis

Since DeltaRune came out, I’ve been sucked right back into the Undertale fandom. Unfortunately, while I’ve seen tons of great fanart and interesting theories relating to the game, it seems the introduction of a third playable human character who isn’t explicitly male or female has also somewhat re-sparked the debate about whether the genders of Frisk, Chara, and now Kris are up to the player’s interpretation. 

On one side, you have people saying to just respect everyone’s headcanons about these characters, down to deciding their pronouns. On the other, you have people saying the three characters being non-binary is part of their thematic purpose in the games, on top of being positive canon representation for a rarely recognized group.

I fall into the latter camp, and this post will explain why. (WARNING: long and text-heavy post)

NOTE: This post was written in late 2018. Since then, I have made an updated version with additional points in Google Docs, which I then used as the script for a YouTube video. As such, this post should be considered an incomplete, though still sound, version of my argument. If you have the time, rather than continuing to read this post, please click the above link(s) to read the Google Doc and/or watch the video for a full understanding of the topic.

If you find yourself repeatedly coming back to this post for whatever reason, remember that my ask box is always open! I’d be more than happy to clarify my position :D

A quick definition to start us off: if a person is “non-binary”, it means that a person doesn’t see their gender as being exclusively male or female. Many non-binary people prefer to be referred to by the pronouns “they/them/theirs” instead of “he/him/his” or “she/her/hers”, since “they” is already a gender neutral pronoun.

 Also, just in case someone doesn’t understand this, a person’s gender identity is not necessarily related to who they are romantically or sexually interested in.

This post will be split into six sections of unequal length, with the focus progressing from literally interpreting the text to Toby’s intentions and the outside impact of having these characters be non-binary.

1. The basics: All 3 characters are referred to exclusively by gender-neutral pronouns in the games.

Let’s go character by character, shall we?

FRISK

It’s admittedly hard to find examples for this, since most of the time people are talking about Frisk in-game, they’ll be talking directly to them in second person. However, while looking through screenshots provided by the UnderTale Text Project, I found these:

Thank you, Alphys!

EDIT: Hey look, a more obvious example I somehow forgot about!

CHARA

All of the following quotes come from the character Chara was supposedly closest to in the entire Underground, Asriel. As you read, think about this: if Chara’s preferred pronouns were anything other than they/them, why would Asriel not use their correct pronouns here?

“Chara hated humanity. Why they did, they never talked about it. But they felt very strongly about that.”

“When Chara and I combined our souls together, the control over our body was actually split between us. They were the one who picked up their own empty body. And then, when we got to the village, they were the one who wanted... to use our full power.”

I’ve seen some people take Flowey’s mentions of Toriel in his New Home Genocide monologue to be confirmation that Chara goes by “she/her”, since he doesn’t refer to Toriel by name... even though Chara wouldn’t have been awake at that time, and when Flowey DOES talk about Chara in this monologue, it’s in second person, since he believes YOU are his old best friend. This misconception isn’t common, especially these days, but I figured it was worth addressing.

KRIS

Out of the three humans, I think Kris is the one who people are most likely to associate with a specific gender based on their name. But despite the theory videos and such you may have seen where people referred to Kris as “he”, this is not reflected anywhere in-game.

(Got these screenshots of DeltaRune’s code from this tumblr post) 

The lines in the first photo are what Susie says when she’s trying to break Kris and Ralsei out of prison, and you have the option to suggest to her which way to go. The second example. according to Kris’ page on the DeltaRune fandom wiki, is said by Ralsei earlier in the game, if you do not run to complete the clock puzzle to open the door right after reuniting with Susie. Unlike the first example, it is clear in this case that Kris is the only one being referred to. 

I remember seeing someone somewhere argue that Susie and Ralsei don’t know Kris well enough to know their “proper” pronouns. When it comes to Ralsei, I can see that argument... but did you notice that he knows both Kris and Susie’s names without asking? It seems he knows more than he lets on... and while Susie certainly wasn’t friends with Kris before this, the fact that they’re in the same class is enough for me to think she would have heard Kris be referred to by their preferred pronouns at least in passing by this point.

And that’s it. Frisk, Chara, and Kris are never referred to by other pronouns... with, admittedly, one exception:

Why does Chara use “it” for themself here? If I had to guess, it’s likely a combination of them being a ghost of their former self without a soul of their own (Flowey’s shown us how much your personality and sense of self is tied to having a SOUL) and the corruption from the Genocide run (remember that gaining LOVE affects a person’s mentality). They see themself as a demon, no longer a person. Whether that’s literally true to any extent or just how they feel after everything they’ve been through doesn’t really matter, I just wanted to cover this point before anyone else could bring it up. It’s not like it makes them not non-binary or anything.

To be clear, not all non-binary people go exclusively by they/them pronouns. Some prefer to go by masculine or feminine pronouns for their own reasons; some go by “neo-pronouns”, ones invented specifically for those who identify as non-binary; and some people go by more than one set of pronouns. However, in the case of Frisk, Chara, and Kris specifically, the fact that they only go by they/them pronouns makes them non-binary, and using any other pronouns for them would be incorrect (even if you have them go by they/them AND he/him or she/her).

Really, that should be enough to prove that the three humans being non-binary is canon. After all, you never have any of the other major characters in Undertale or DeltaRune explicitly state “I’m a girl” or “I’m a boy”. We know their genders because of the pronouns everyone refers to them by. Sure you’ll see gender-bends of those characters, but no one ever claims that those are on the same level of validity when it comes to canon as the actual canon.

But I know that isn’t enough for the people who came into this post disagreeing with the premise, so let’s actually get to countering some of their arguments, shall we? The main argument, of course, is that the humans’ are all meant for the Player to at least partially craft identifies for, including deciding which pronouns they use. But first...

2. Small Fish First: Other characters who are obviously not meant to be self-inserts use gender neutral pronouns.

...I want to cover the easier to counter idea that they/them pronouns are meant to just be, for lack of a better term, “placeholders”; the pronouns you use when you don’t know a person’s gender, rather than being valid permanent pronouns on their own.

If this were true in the case of Undertale and DeltaRune, you’d expect the humans to be the only ones referred to by these pronouns. They’re the ones whose identities are left ambiguous so the Player can project onto them, right?

But that couldn’t be father from the truth. In fact, the majority of the monsters you encounter in both games are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns (they/them and/or it), if any pronouns at all.

Now one might say, “But none of those monsters are really meant to be individual characters.” I get why you’d think that. But you’re forgetting at least one person...

Yup, Napstablook, despite what many fans have assumed from what I’ve seen, does not go by he/him pronouns, but they/them. And it’s not just in the narration either. Undyne does too in certain phone calls with Papyrus. ...Then again, she barely knows Napsta, and we see in DeltaRune that she defaults to they/them when talking about people whose gender she doesn’t know (specifically in that game, Alphys). 

But that isn’t my last example. One of the few people who was ever close to Napsta was Mettaton (before he became a celebrity). And what does Mettaton say after Blooky calls in to his final show?

What this proves is that Toby recognizes they/them pronouns as valid for an individual in his work, which I hope makes buying that he purposefully made all three humans canonically non-binary easier for skeptics to swallow (we’ll get back to whether he DID purposefully do that later).

But I’ll acknowledge that there IS a difference between the three humans and the other characters in the games who use they/them, due to their relationship with you as the Player. So with that tangent out of the way, time to diffuse the “everyone can have their own headcanons about the kids’ genders” argument.

3. Thematic Context: All 3 humans have moments of asserting their agency, and part of the game’s subtext is how they each relate to the Player, rather than them all being blank slates.

Again, we’ll go character by character.

FRISK

This section is, admittedly, the one with the least evidence compared to the rest. But here’s what we have, and it’s pretty obvious:

After this moment, as was shown earlier, the other monsters know Frisk’s name and will refer to Frisk in the third person with they/them pronouns. Now, consider this: If Frisk used other pronouns, wouldn’t they have corrected the monsters here? Sure Frisk don’t talk without being prompting much throughout most of the game, but considering how they just shared their name, something equally as personal as their pronouns, I don’t think it would feel too out of place here.

Alternatively, if Frisk’s gender was up to the Player’s interpretation, the Player could have been given a prompt to correct the other characters with the “proper” pronouns for Frisk. You could argue it would be pointless this late into the game, but couldn’t that logic apply to the reveal of Frisk’s name as well? In this case, the lack of such a moment speaks more to me than having such a moment would.

Now, I totally get why people would project onto Frisk up to this point in the narrative, including assigning them different pronouns. It wouldn’t be a plot twist otherwise. Even their design seems to lend to that, with the unrealistic bright yellow skin Legos and emojis have to make them more race-neutral, and their emotionless, unchanging facial expression (though it’s worth considering that most of the other character’s overworld sprites don’t change expression much either; I’m pretty sure Alphys’ overworld sprite keeps her dopey smile even when she’s talking about the depths of her depression and failure at the end of the True Lab section). And this actually works to UnderTale’s benefit through most of the game, making the connections you forge with the monsters feel more personal.

The significance of this moment is that it asks the Player to be willing to change their perspective. Throughout the True Pacifist run, you help Frisk to change the mindsets of the characters you come across; this is most obvious with Undyne, who has been raised to see all humans as the enemy, but comes to admit that at least “some humans are OK, I guess” after befriending you. Along the way, you learn that there’s more to these monsters than first impressions may suggest (again, Undyne being a great example). Now, the game is asking you to look deeper one more time, and presenting you with the challenge you’ve posed to all the other major characters: are you willing to recognize Frisk’s autonomy; to understand there is more to this person than you first saw?

EDIT: Hey, remember that screenshot from earlier where Flowey asks you to “let Frisk live their life”? He’s literally asking you to let Frisk be free and truly themself, rather than resetting and taking control of them again. So there’s some more food for thought.

CHARA

While you are the one who names Chara (the reason for which will be considered in the fourth section of this post), consider these points:

1. If the purpose of Chara’s entire character was meant to be just a reflection of you as the Player, then why give them a “true name” at all?

2. Chara’s backstory is integral to the setup of UnderTale’s plot, and provides a good amount of hints at their original personality, easily making them less of a “blank slate” for the Player to project onto than Frisk.

3. Chara makes a clear distinction between the Player and themself in their monologues at the end of the Genocide route. In case you forgot, here are some reminders.

First meeting:

“Your power awakened me from death.”

“My ‘human soul’, my ‘Determination’; they were not mine, but YOURS.”

“With your guidance, I realized the purpose of my reincarnation.”

“Together, we eradicated the enemy and became strong.”

If you agree to ERASE the world: “You are a great partner.”

In the abyss:

“Interesting. You want to go back.”

“You want to go back to the world you destroyed.”

“It was you who pushed everything to its edge. It was you who lead the world to its destruction.”

“But you cannot accept that. You think you are above consequences.”

“Perhaps, we can reach a compromise. You still have something I want.”

“Then, it is agreed. You will give me your SOUL.”

Second meeting:

“You and I are not the same, are we?”

“This SOUL resonates with a strange feeling... You are wracked with a perverted sentimentality. ...I cannot understand these feelings any longer.”

“I feel obligated to suggest: should you choose to create this world once more, another path would be better suited.”

To say there is no connection between Chara and the Player would be unfair. I mean, if they hated humans their whole life, why do they end up taking out that rage on the monsters, the ones who were actually kind to them, in the Genocide run? Like Chara says themself, you guide them, teaching them definitively that “in this world, it’s kill or be killed”; and the influence you have on them is much more obvious if you subscribe to the Narrator Chara theory (but that’s a whole other can of worms).

Like with Frisk, Chara presents the Player a challenge, but in a more subtle way: can you recognize that YOU are at fault, rather than blaming your actions on a damaged kid who learns from your example and never got the chance to grow beyond their mistakes? And part of meeting that challenge is recognizing that Chara is, or at least used to be, their own whole person.

KRIS

Now we get to the really fun part. DeltaRune as a whole seems to be delving even deeper and more explicitly into the relationship between the playable character as an unwilling vessel and the actual Player than Undertale did. Outside of the prevalent message that “Your choices don’t matter” (which I’m guessing will end up more like the “kill or be killed” of this game rather than DR’s intended final moral), the main evidence towards this is how the game starts.

1. A red soul appears on screen when the unknown speaker (presumably Gaster) asks you if they’ve successfully connected with you. The soul is what you control throughout this sequence. The implication? The SOUL in this game is a manifestation of you as the Player. In fact, considering some of the Chara quotes I mentioned earlier, this could be true of UnderTale as well.

2. You spend time making a vessel, only for it to be discarded, because “No one can choose who they are in this world.” This lack of choice is actually foreshadowed when you choose which legs you prefer, since all but the last choice are the same. The game is pointing out right away how superficial these choices are.

3. The speakers says “Your name is...” and Toriel seemingly finishes the statement by calling out “KRIS!”

The message of points 2 and 3 combined is pretty obvious to me: we don’t get an empty vessel to put ourself and our ideas into in DeltaRune. Kris is NOT an empty vessel; they have an already established backstory and personality, which we get multiple hints at (mostly when going around town at the end of the demo).

The fact that you have to go through this creation process on every new file, even after beating the game, suggests it’s more than just a framing device, but directly tied to the game’s narrative and/or themes in some way. So, let’s keep this scene in mind as we look at Kris’ defining moment at the end of Chapter 1.

In the middle of the night, Kris is wrestling with themself in bed until they fall out. Their walk is very stilted and jerkish, reminiscent of a zombie, or someone possessed.

Kris opens and closes their hand a few times before digging into their body and pulling out their soul, their eyes blank. (Notice how this doesn’t seem to actually leave a hole in their chest or anything? Almost as if the soul was never a part of them in the first place...)

They go to the wagon and harshly YEET the soul into the cage (the flavor text for which mentions it has already seen a few crashes... has something like this happened to Kris before?).

Kris walks back to the middle of the room, as if to purposefully stand in the center of the DeltaRune symbol on the floor, then pulls out a knife from seemingly nowhere, and turns to the camera with a red glow in their eyes.

Now, I totally get why most people will immediately assume that Kris has been possessed by a post-Genocide Chara here. I’m pretty sure the visual similarities between this scene and the one that plays if you choose to stay with Toriel in a soulless pacifist run in UT are intentional.

But remember how we mentioned the red SOUL, at least in DeltaRune, is a manifestation of the Player? This is actually reinforced in this scene, because you’re able to move the SOUL back and forth within the cage.

We’ve been controlling Kris via that SOUL the whole way through the game, and now? Kris is done with us. THIS is their prime moment of agency in Chapter 1 - reclaiming ownership of their own body - and I doubt that it will be their last.

There’s a ton of other stuff I could mention about Kris, like how:

* they had their own save file, which you overwrite at the first save point

* multiple NPCs in the town will comment on Kris seeming more talkative or looking off today, because YOU’RE making them interact with people

* Kris’ ability to play the piano is worse than normal with you controlling them, according to the hospital receptionist

* the narration says Kris feels bitter if you throw away the one possession in their inventory, the Ball of Junk (”bitter” isn’t the emotion one would feel if they did this of their own free will)

or all the hints at Kris’ true personality as an introverted, codependent prankster. But that could be a post in itself. My point is that, if Frisk and Chara’s individualism from the Player was subtle in UnderTale, this is pretty straightforward, if you know where to look.

And if these three humans are all their own characters, then shouldn’t we consider what seemingly little we DO know for sure about them as canon? We all take their names to be canon, so why not their pronouns?

That’s the bulk of the argument done. But when discussing canon, there is one thing that always has to be considered:

4. Can We Know The Creator (Toby Fox)’s Intentions?

Well, not really.

Some may bring up the one tweet where Toby suggested to name the fallen human (Chara) “your own name” as evidence that you ARE meant to project yourself into these characters. 

However, I think you could just as easily argue that doing this ADDS to the impact of when Frisk, the character you physically control, confirms themself to be their own person with their own name, rather than a mold for you to pour yourself into. 

And though Chara does make it clear that they themself as a character are separate from you, the whole Genocide ending monologue does hit harder when the person reprimanding you for their sins, who describes themself as “the feeling you get when your stats increase”, shares your name.

While putting this post together, I came across this interview Toby did about Undertale back in September 2015, and took particular note of this section:

While this technically doesn’t confirm or deny anything either way, how hard would it have been for Toby to say, “Well the protagonist is meant to have their gender be up to the player’s interpretation”? I doubt he would have gotten more backlash for that then he would have for definitively saying that Frisk is MEANT to be non-binary (though I doubt that would have stopped people from making them male or female anyway).

Then again, the article does start with the interviewer saying this:

“I told Toby Fox to skip questions he didn’t find interesting, and boy did he take me at my word.”

So maybe he just didn’t have anything worthwhile to mention.

I can’t say with certainty that Frisk and Chara’s genders were never meant to be up to the Player’s choice, even after what I mentioned in section 2 (and I doubt Toby would want to make a statement on it at this point). Same with Kris, for now.

However, if the rest of DeltaRune ends up going in the direction I suggested in the previous section, I honestly would not be surprised if there’s a moment where Kris confirms they are nonbinary, as a show of agency and individualism akin to Frisk telling Asriel their real name. I wouldn’t really call it a “theory”, and it’s hard to speculate what the other chapters of the game will at all be like based on what relatively little we have... but I wouldn’t have mentioned it here if I didn’t think it had any validity.

5. Why Does This Matter?

Outside of the previously mentioned stuff relating to the games’ themes/messages about choice, agency, and individualism, there’s one big reason: representation.

How many games can you think of where there are any explicitly non-binary characters? How many where that character is a major one, who doesn’t get treated as particularity different from the others just on the basis of the pronouns they use? And how many of those games are even close to the popularity of Undertale in its hayday? Even expanding these questions to media other than just video games won’t net many more results.

For people who are striving for representation, seeing posts like “Just let people have their headcanons :)” can come across as the OP not understanding how much that representation means. Even worse, coming back to the point I made in section 2 of this post, it could be seen as the OP denying that being non-binary is just as real and concrete as being male or female (a problem which more mainstream representation of non-binary people would help solve!).

But don’t just take it from me. After all, as a binary cis girl myself (”cis” meaning not trans), I can’t speak generally for all the trans and non-binary Undertale and Deltarune fans out there. So allow me to link some posts which provide their perspectives:

This first post is from before DeltaRune was released, and mainly focuses on Frisk, but goes in-depth on the topic (and the OP provided me some feedback on my post, so if they see this, thanks!)

I came across this post just while scrolling through the DeltaRune tag about why this stuff matters to non-binary fans.

This post is specifically about how using they/them pronouns for the kids is preferable whether or not it’s literally canon.

Here’s another post from the same person covering some common counter-arguments.

And if the other posts are too long for you to bother reading after going through mine, this one sums up the point in one sentence.

I know some people flinch at the mere mention of the word “representation”. I know that some will argue you shouldn’t need to see representation of a group you belong to in a piece of media in order to be able to relate to the characters and/or feel validated yourself - because I’ve seen people make this argument. But, I mean, I certainly find it easier to relate to characters that I share traits with; that’s just how humans work. It’s probably the main reason why people assign different genders to Frisk, Chara, and Kris in the first place! Besides, who does it hurt to include more diverse characters?

Oh right, there’s the idea that “forcing” creators to include representation is bad for creativity or whatever. Well good thing that’s not what this is about! As far as I know, no one is telling Toby he has to ADD new characters to fulfill a quota; the characters in question (Frisk, Chara, & Kris) already exist in his work. The point of this post is to show that the three of them were MEANT to be non-binary from the start (assuming I provided enough proof to convince you), so people won’t continue to erase that representation. By making them binary cis boys or girls, you’re only taking away from the original text (and giving people more to “complain” about).

Honestly, what does one even have to gain story-wise from assigning different genders to the human kids? I can’t remember a time I saw where making them strictly boys or girls added anything to their characterization or opened up different story possibilities (I’m sure you could could up with a theoretical example, but compared to the endless fanworks that DON’T do that, they hardly make a dent). Speaking beyond just Frisk, Chara, and Kris, characters being non-binary shouldn't affect how you ship them. You can give such characters more overtly masculine or feminine designs/appearances, but still have them be non-binary and go by they/them pronouns (most people don’t naturally look androgynous after all). In a work with voice acting, casting someone with a more masculine or feminine voice to play a non-binary character shouldn’t stop you from portraying the character as non-binary either - just refer to them with the right pronouns! 

And if people who find your work continuously misgender your non-binary characters or ask what their “real” gender is, don’t let them get to you. You don’t need to respond to every such comment, but when you DO respond, clearly state that these characters are non-binary, politely correct the people who refer to those characters by the wrong pronouns, and, if worst comes to worst, block the people who won’t respect that. Before you (using “you” for the rest of this paragraph to refer specifically to my fellow binary cis peeps) can even think to argue “that sounds like too much work” or “it’s not worth the potential controversy”, remember that non-binary people in real life have to deal with this crap far more often than we do, and for them, it’s personal. If they can handle it, why can’t you?

Yes, Frisk, Chara, and Kris are fictional characters, not real people. But more representation of non-binary people in media helps others learn to understand and respect them, both in fiction and in real life. Honestly, it’s beyond time for people to accept that “they/them” aren’t “placeholder pronouns”, and the genders of people who use them aren’t up for others to judge. It’s just who they are, and really, how hard is that to respect?

If nothing else will convince you, think of it this way: if you’re not in the group being affected by a discussion like this, and you don’t care about the people in that group, keeping yourself out of the conversation saves everyone time and energy, without hurting anyone.

6. Conclusion

So, to briefly summarize this essay-length post’s main points:

1. Frisk, Chara, and Kris all go solely by “they/them” in their respective games, so having them go by any other pronouns is technically diverting from canon to the same extent that gender-bending any other character would be, NOT a valid interpretation of the original text. 

2. There are other individual characters in these two games, such as Napstablook, who are referred to by they/them pronouns, even by those who were close to them.

3. The three humans are all shown to be more than just blank slates for the Player to project themself onto, making the stuff which IS definitively said about them (specifically, their names and pronouns) canon parts of their characterization unless directly proven otherwise.

4. We can’t assume Toby’s intentions, but even if he didn’t initially make Frisk, Chara, and Kris gender neutral for the sake of giving non-binary people representation, many people have taken it as that. Thus, seeing others say that the humans’ genders are up for interpretation is interpreted as those people not respecting non-binary identities as valid on their own.

The one other point I can think people might bring up would be the idea that kids as young as Chara or Frisk wouldn’t identify as non-binary because they wouldn’t understand the concept. To that argument, I’d suggest looking up videos about people who realized they were transgender as kids. In general, if there are concepts in this post you didn’t quite get or agree with, research is your friend!

Speaking of which, as this post I came across in the DeltaRune tag yesterday pointed out, fun fact: “non-binary” is an umbrella term that still leaves some slight room for personal interpretation when it comes to the humans’ genders! To use myself as an example, I personally headcanon Chara as firmly agender, Kris as a a demi-boy (someone who only partially sees themself as male), and Frisk as genderfluid (meaning that their sense of gender regularly changes). However, despite the nuances in their gender identities, I only have them go by they/them pronouns, their canon ones, in my fanworks. Doing otherwise not only goes against canon, but can be considered misgendering, and thus should be avoided.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t make up ANYTHING about what Chara, Frisk, and Kris are like either. People have plenty of headcanons about the backstories and other quirks of characters like Sans, Undyne, Mettaton - basically the whole cast of both games - and there’s nothing stopping you from doing that for the human kids. I certainly have my own ideas of what Chara and Frisk’s lives were like before they fell into the Underground. The difference is that those are speculating on things not outright said in canon. But Frisk, Chara, and Kris going by they/them pronouns IS canon, and should be respected as such.

At the end of the day, neither I nor anyone else (not even Toby) can outright stop people from having their opinions about these fictional characters. But since I had some free time this weekend, I figured I could take a stand for something I care about relating to a fandom I’ve emerged myself in for the past few years. My main hope in making this post is that you’ll understand why certain people disagree with the seemingly righteous stance of “It’s all up to interpretation, just let people do what they want!”. And if you knew nothing about non-binary identities before, hopefully this was educational for you!

If you have any remaining questions or suggestions relating to this post, feel free to reblog with your feedback or send me an ask. Until then, this is Agent Raven, signing off.

[suechoiart]

Captain Marvel (2019) and Demolition Man (1993)

I am marinating the portions of Dada’s Boys that I’ve read over the weekend. In the meantime, I wanted to practice some writing and ramble about two movies I’ve watched over the weekend.

Captain Marvel (2019), and

Demolition Man (1993) 

((If anyone has a high-res copy of the poster...I’d be eternally grateful)) 

Incoherent rambling ahead

Summary: Captain Marvel wasn’t a good  great movie (it was a fine movie); Carol Danvers is pretty cool but very similar to Cpt America’s character; looking forward to the second half of Infinity War; Demolition Man does a *lot* of things a *lot* better than Captain Marvel. Was Captain Marvel feminist? Lessons from good action movies. 

I don’t explicitly mention plot points but /educated readers/ could probably deduce some spoilers both movies. (I’m being sarcastic. I definitely mention movie details without any regard to spoilers.) 

I have a soft spot for both Marvel Studio movies and fun, cheesy, action flicks. I love the behemoth that MCU has become, something they could not have known when Iron Man was created 10 years ago... and I love the purity of action films - of good guys ‘beating up’ bad guys - and the heart actors and directors bring to it shown in movies like Die Hard. Some of the Marvel movies are right in that spot - and their strength shines more in the ‘character interaction’ department; whereas pure-action-comedy movies like Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong productions and The Matrix have great characters but the action sequences, where the actors themselves have to train at significant amounts, shine the most. 

The more I think about Captain Marvel, honestly the more disappointed I am. Frankly for the big breaking International Women’s Day release it was not rich enough. I thought Black Panther had done marvelously (I still tear up thinking about the themes of disaphora in BP), nor was a pure comedic genius like Thor: Ragnorak .... It was a very, very, very average Marvel film. The first Ant Man is better than CM; the second Ant Man is not as good as CM. 

Which is to say that CM is not a bad film, but unfortunately disappointing for what it was ‘supposed to be.’ I don’t feel bad thinking this way, because BP was a great success in my heart; it spoke to a universal theme while championing a targeted audience (of race and origin). As I am an immigrant, although I cannot associate with Black History Month, I can still relate to it deeply in terms of diasphora and displacement. (Wakanda forever!)

I’m urged to clarify again that CM was not a bad movie, but I think it failed because it placated a lot of the villains and conflict in favor of ~Carol Danvers~. 

So, good parts of CM: Carol Danvers is pretty darn awesome. I really think that she brings hope to the Avengers, -- she symbolizes what the humans have better than any of the outer-Earth lives that are out their in the MCU: she gets back up. No matter what she’s told, whom she’s told by... She always gets back up. I did tear up here. I really did like that notion that she, and her humanity, is how the Avengers will win. 

So.... That falls pale in her co-cast:

Nick Fury, who spends 75% of screentime cooing over a cat, and apparently too young to be the badass Fury that we know and love;

Kree mentor who tells her “u ahve 2 much emoshuns 2 be a gr8 kree” 

Best friend whose character is only to tell Carol how great she is 

Cat, saves the day probably more than she does 

Somewhere between those lackluster sidekicks and Carol Danvers’ overpowered ‘superpower’ ... You basically get women are cool and funny and get over it as the central theme of the movie. 

I think the “Carol Danvers gets back up” is problematic, because I read it in a very gender-neutral language (see above: I’m framing that as the HUMANITY’S reason to win, not WOMEN’s) -- potentially because this movie is situated in a world where the Avengers lost half of total lives in the universe... But also because the wOmyN aRe StRonG idea was so, SO obtuse, especially as response to CD’s Kree mentor (played by Jude Law) -- who, again, emphasizes how much weak Carol is because she lets emotions control her. Except it’s not about emotions. Emotions are not why Carol Danvers gains strength! (It’s her humanity!)  

I think the emotion thing *could have* worked, had Carol not been very, I’d say extremely level-headed in spite of a lot of the weird stuff that happened through the movie. She never broke down, never threw a tantrum.... She was just a very secure person with a sense of humor that Fury even enjoyed. 

So then, what was Jude Law even talking about? I find the “emotional is bad, logical is good” construct very gendered and extremely problematic, especially in our political/internet-driven social climate. In words of misogynists and keyboard warriors(who tend to be young males), being logical and rational is obviously superior; and emotional bad; and as a consequence many women (or emotional men) suffer through invalidation of their experiences. When Carol Danvers, as seen in the film, does *not* have issues controlling her emotions.... why does he even say that? Why is that even written in the script? 

In short, .... Considering that this is supposedly Marvel’s stake on feminism (yikes, it didn’t even register to me as feminst) ... I have to borrow the words of this great Mashable article by Jess Joho: 

The only thing that feels truly retro about Captain Marvel's '90s setting is its shallow take on feminism that we should be moving away from, not using as a crutch. It's not just that so many of the movie's heavy-handed Feminist Moments come across as disingenuous. Those moments also tap into an old conceit of equality as a sort of revenge fantasy, mixed with the undertone of a battle of the sexes. [...]  The feminist-ish sentiment of "girls are just as good as boys" defines and measures women's empowerment as it compares to men. Consequently, it devalues and trivializes feminine power in its own right.

... so considering that this is, the first and only solo female movie in MCU...... They really, really could have done better. I hate to say this but (because MCU > DCEU), ...... Wonder Women did it a LOT better. 

Onto Demolition Man. It’s past my bedtime so I’m going to just rush through random thoughts via bullet points: 

Wesley. Snipes. (Probably doesn’t help that Blade is also one of my favorite movies.) 

Sylvester Stalone was great in this movie. He had great form in all of the shots he was in. Commandeered every scene. 

ALL OF THE CHARACTERS! They were so lively. Everyone had motivations that drove them, instead of being basically houseplants that can drive spaceships (ahem...CM...) 

I definitely have another soft spot for movies with ridiculous plots. “LAPD gets cryofrozen as a criminal for failing to save citizens, but in tern DEMOLITION MAN-ing an entire complex throughout his career. When big bad evil Wesley Snipes gets parole, only one man can stop him --- the very Sylvester Stalone, The Demolition Man, who put him in jail!” “oh and this is a weird 2023 where you have to pay fines for cussing.” 

Oddly enough this movie has a great example of ‘secure heterosexual male protagonist’ and ‘female love interest with her own motivations’.. They actually agree to (CONSENT TO!) make love, and she starts and finishes in her own terms. 

Sylvester Stalone’s character is actually very caring and understands his role in the world he wakes up to; he is not at all gross (”back in my day” is never said) and he understands his position as a guest to all of this, while asserting his own views of morality onto the world. 

Also I’m very upset that this movie achieved themes of displacement, utopia, and “who is the real bad guy?!” a lot, LOT, better than CM. 

Denis Leary plays the rebel in the movie and also made this music video, which actually aligns a lot with my thesis interests (masculinity, prescribed notions of American life, suburbs....) 

I just have to reiterate again that (1) Sylvester Stalone did not have to prove his masculinity to anyone, but his humanity is acknowledged by even the heroine in this character - (2) why must women still be *acknowledged* by man of our competence in 2019!?

OH, this movie makes SO MUCH BETTER 90s REFERENCES THAN CAPTAIN MARVEL!!! This is important. Captain Marvel makes 90s references as much as it nods to feminism. There’s a Blockbuster. And a Radioshack. Do they even realize those stuck around into the 2000s? 

To conclude... I understand the constraints put onto Captain Marvel, sandwiched between freaking Infinity War 1 and Infinity War 2. But had Marvel Studios not learned their lesson from the tragedy of Age of Ultron? Even Joss Whedon, who arguably is a very well accomplished director, could not make AoU work. It was not a good movie. And he freaking set up the entire Avengers franchise! 

I can’t know what lead to the underwhelming result that is Captain Marvel, but it is not a great product to stand on its own. 

DEMOLITION MAN IS STILL RELEVANT! Captain Marvel will still only be relevant in the future if we don’t, as a society, move on from “girls can do anything boys can do” mentality.