#will says IF YOU'RE QUEER YOU HAVE TO LIVE!!!!

[makingqueerhistory]

":')))))))) you realise that gen AI is available to everyone though right??? Queer creators can use it just as much as anyone else??? I just don't understand this post... It really feels like a cheap way to get on the 'AI Bad's bandwagon, and coming from such a thoughtful and insightful creator that's incredibly disappointing... It's okay to not comment on subjects you're not an expert in y'know...?"

Y'all know the drill, I am replying to this publicly but that is not an invitation to send any negative messages to the person I am replying to.

Anyways, let me start by saying that the original context of the post you're replying to is discussing an event where a queer org used generative AI to steal an interview with Keri Hulme. So let's start there. To be clear I don't even know if the original interviewer was queer so let's put the identities of stealer and stolen from to the side. I want to explain the harm done in this example specifically and I hope this is illustrative of what harm generative AI can (and does) do.

The original place I saw generative AI was a queer org that explicitly says they are using generative AI "for good", and as a way to bring more queer history to light. So let's take them at their word, and assume they are not out to cause harm. This is the best example of generative AI that I can imagine, so I hope that makes it clear that I am not coming at this issue from bad faith in any way.

Here is the harm they are causing:

Decontextualizing and rephrasing an interview: I am not going to pretend that I am an expert in academic best practices, but I do believe one thing, if a person is speaking on their own identity and lived experience, it is always much better to directly quote than it is to rephrase. As I read this source, I initially didn't know that it was AI, and I was already upset. An interview that is widely available on the internet with no pay wall, was poorly sourced and made more vague than it was in the initial text. By creating one degree of seperation between the original words of A WRITER (whose literal job was largely based in choosing the right words to describe experiences they had) harm is already done. It makes vague what was once clear, and removes Keri Hulme's voice from her own narrative.

The original interviewer is not paid, or given proper recognition: I get it, sometimes just copy pasting an interview doesn't feel transformative enough, but something that one would learn if they worked in the queer history field and weren't a literal robot rehashing what has already been said, is that not everything needs to be transformed. In those cases, we give credit to the person who said the original words (in this case Keri Hulme), and the interviewer who facillitated the conversation (in this case Shelley Bridgeman). This case (again a best case scenario), takes the attention and byline away from the original interviewer and gives it to an AI.

The original publisher of this story is deinsentivised from paying interviewers in the future: The original publisher of this interview has ads on their website. As a person who also has ads on their website, taking an article like this and rephrasing it for no good reason (the orginal word count was not prohibitive and the rephrasing did not make it more readable), takes money from the publisher. It's pennies, but it's also removing numbers could have been used to justify further interviews with asexual people and archiving of asexual stories. The org that stole from this publication does not interview people themselves so the money and numbers that could have gone to continue to preserve asexual stories goes to stealing them instead.

These are just the active harms that I saw in this specific case. As you said, I am not an expert in generative AI, and will not be speaking as if I am. But I will say that asking me not to speak out on active harm that is being caused in queer history spaces, is disrespectful to my many years in this field.

To illustrate this even clearer: if you were a patron, you would know I recently took down an old article. I have been rereading and editing our backlist of articles, and I found one that no longer fit my standards of sourcing. My standards had recently raised due to a video made by HBomberguy about someone in the queer history space who was stealing from other creators. I watched this video not as a work project, but because I watch most of HBomberguys videos, and this one made me think more critically about sourcing. An AI can't do that. All an AI has is what has been inputted, and it is right now impossible to input every available peice of information about ethics into an AI and get a coherent ethical basis on which it will function.

It is a distinctly human trait to absorb information and change in that way. AI can rephrase information that already exists, steal it, recontextualize it even, but it cannot create something altogether new.

Do I believe that there one day might be an ethical use for Generative AI? Maybe. Do I believe that coming into a queer history space, stealing the words of a Maori asexual author, rephrasing them, and giving the original interviewer and publication no form of compensation for their work, is accomplishing that? No.

On a more personal note: I am coming at this issue with a bias. As a queer history creator, I do not want AI in my space, because it is literally damaging to my financial prospects. It has been like pulling teeth to try and get patrons in the current state of the global economy. I don't blame anyone from that, but I feel very disrespected that I am being asked to compete with a machine now. Not only that, but I am being asked to shut up and be fine with it? No, absolutely not. I cannot and will not stay quiet as space that I have fought tooth and nail to create in mainstream discussions is taken and given to AI.

AI was not supporting me when I was sent gore to try and scare me off of discussing queer history. A person did that. AI was not there to tell me I had written too many sad stories, and I needed some happy endings to remind myself of the good in the world. A person did that. AI was not there when I was being harrassed for supporting and including asexual stories on my website. A person did that.

And after all that, I am being asked to lie down and take it when my ability to pay the people who supported me in those ways, is being threatened. Nope. Not going to happen.

An AI doesn't have to make rent. An AI doesn't understand what it feels like to have to stop holding their wife's hand in public. An AI didn't get calls from people needing comfort in reaction to the election. Pay me for my work, and get this AI nonsense out of my face.

[renthony]

If you haven't heard the news, it recently came out that Disney pulled a trans-empowering episode of the show Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. In the time since the news came to light, I've seen a few people say Disney can't accurately be accused of censoring queer content, because "censorship is only done by the government."

Let's talk about the Hays Code a bit.

The Hays Code was a major form of American media censorship. The Hays Code was also not a government policy! While former American politicians were involved in the creation of the Code, they were not acting in capacity as United States government officials by the time the Code was enacted.

The Hays Code was enforced within the Hollywood studio system, never by the United States government. It was successful because the same studios that owned the films also owned the cinemas, which allowed them to enforce which films were shown. (This is called "vertical integration.") The Hays Code ultimately fell apart when anti-trust legislation separated cinema ownership from the studios, meaning filmmakers did not have to adhere to studio censorship in order to show their films to the public.

(If you're interested in reading more about the Hays Code, I recommend the book Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934, written by Thomas Doherty. It'll get you started.)

Corporate censorship is very much a form of censorship. Companies such as Disney have immense political and social power. Disney owns obscene amounts of intellectual property. It employs a couple hundred thousand people globally according to Statista. Disney is a political entity, especially in regions it operates theme parks (such as Florida, where I live).

If the Disney company decides something is forbidden, it has a hell of a lot of influence. Disney absolutely has the power to enact censorship. I wrote a five thousand word essay about how Disney nearly killed the Nimona movie, and that's just one recent example.

Corporate censorship is absolutely censorship, and it's important to call it what it is.

[genderqueerdykes]

my moms bisexual in denial but i dont think that counts

you know, it's an interesting conversation topic, because i just brought up my own mom who was in denial/in the closet about her identity, too. i do think it counts, even if someone hasn't come to accept it, themselves, because it's there and it's happening whether or not that person accepts it. obviously you don't want to tell your mom who they are and how they identify, but it can be pretty easy to pick up on someone who is queer but hasn't accepted it

my mom was exactly that, too. my mom was a closeted butch lesbian in denial. she would constantly tell me that she wished she could live with, date, and marry women. she told me numerous times throughout my life that she wished she could just marry a woman and surround herself with women. she was very butch, never wore makeup, barely wore accessories/jewelry, almost always wore men's clothes, or women's clothes that looked androgynous. always wore her hair short. she got very scared when i started presenting like a butch lesbian because she saw something reflected in herself that she was scared to admit. she even told me as a kid that i needed to not dress butch because people would assume she was a butch lesbian and call her out for it. you can see that the denial ran deep with her.

it's unfortunate because i feel like we really could've bonded over that, but she's not with us anymore. so all i can really do is think back on how she was too scared to live her true life, and how i just can't do that to myself. my mom lived in a progressive enough state that she would not have had much issue marrying another woman. but she was unfortunately scared to step out of the closet, and many people live those lives. my sister is the same as my mother. she has parroted the exact same things my mother has said, plus, when i was in high school, we had a day where we were supposed to wear a specific color to show support of queer students. when i asked my sister if she had a shirt in that color and explained why, she actually asked me

"Why would you support people who choose to be gay?" in utter confusion, i blinked at her, and went "What, do you wake up every day and choose to be straight?" and i kid you not, she proudly put her hands on her hips and said "Yes, I do!" it was so painful to witness. i wish I had told her "So you... aren't straight." i wish i had had the courage to tell her that's not normal and that if you have to wake up every day and choose to be a specific sexuality, you're lying to yourself. her perspective on queerness never really got better, espcially after i transitioned, but that's a story for another day. my sister blew my mind that day... i realized i had 2 queer family members who were scared shitless to admit it and instead of accepting it, they took it out on me.

sorry for the ramble, but i just wanted to bring up my own experience with this because i'v eknown my mom has been a closeted butch lesbian my entire life and it's something that moves me. she lived her entire life in denial, start to finish, and was never able to be herself. i'd say it saddens me, but it doesn't. it motivates me to always be my most authentic self. because living a life that's not yours isn't living. my mom could've potentially have been a much happier person, but fear kept her trapped in her misery. i don't want to do that to myself

[thezombieprostitute]

So I’ve been wondering for a long time, what is the deal with the double g’s in Tech Tuesday?

That kinda depends on what "the deal" you're asking about is.

In terms of characters, they're Geralt of Rivia (Cavill in The Witcher) and God the Bounty Hunter (Stan in Ghosted).

In terms of their job, they're the quality assurance checkers. They hunt down all the possible bugs that the programmers wouldn't even think to look for. They live by the motto:

"Whenever you make something foolproof, God just makes a bigger fool."

In terms of their relationship, the best label I could probably give would be Queer Platonic Partners. They have no sexual or romantic interest in each other but they're probably as close to soulmates as you can get. They're each other's emergency contact, reliable support, check in person, etc.

They do share an apartment because it makes sense for them. Cut the rent in half, only need one car to get to/from work, etc.

They're very comfortable with each other which is saying a lot for them. Geralt used to get bugged by his buddy Jaskier to be more sociable. Meanwhile God's bullies would always hound him about "how weird" he is. Together, though, they can just be themselves without judgment and that's something they're willing to fight to keep.

If you were asking about something else, please let me know!

[arimiadev]

finished (re)reading episode 7 with my bookclub where I ranted to them about lion and will and fantasy vs mystery so I'm dumping it here. obviously, umineko spoilers below!

in ep6 we're presented with a very clear way of how to view the ep from both a fantasy and an anti-fantasy (technically mystery but) perspective - fantasy is accepting what we're shown, that featherine invites ange to witness it, and anti-fantasy is accepting ange found the author hachijo who created this forgery on her own. however, we can still apply similar logic to ep7.

we're presented a funeral for beatrice, a final nail in the coffin for her, delivered by an angel from the high court of heaven who specializes in killing fantasy - someone smart enough to solve who she is but compassionate enough to realize her struggle. he is an inquisitor, someone who is there to judge her for her sins, guided by a perfect version of herself - a version that's not mutilated by the fall, who is (mostly) loved by the family and happily the successor.

we can view ep7 through both a fantasy or anti-fantasy lens.

as fantasy, then what we see is truth - bern invited an inquisitor to help her answer check with featherine. lion is a miracle version of beato who exists in an alternate world, no matter how slim that chance is. furthermore, even in a miracle world, there is still a piece of beato that is queer - lion openly has a "gender complex" and is gnc, someone who doesn't think highly of gender norms. even in that miracle, though, beato is fated to die but is rescued at the last second by a better "battler".

if we view ep7 through an anti-fantasy lens…

ep7 is a guilt-ridden dream derived by sayo as her confession. she wanted battler to be the one there for her, but because he wasn't, she had to create an idealized version of him. she sculpted will out of her religious fervor from a child, as he is an angel sent specifically for judgement. even though he's an inquisitor created to destroy fantasies, he's still compassionate. his phrase "don't forget the heart" is something that sayo loved about battler, as battler was big on mysteries that focused on the motive (the "heart"). we can also attribute his namesake (willard h. wright and s.s. van dine) as her thinking of the murder mystery writers she possibly loved. will embodies her religiousness, her passion for mysteries, and her love of battler.

on the other hand we have lion, her idealized self, someone that she believes most likely will never exist. she cannot perceive herself as not having gender dysphoria, and so lion is dysphoric. even in this idealized world as the perfect successor, she knows the ushiromiyas would never fully accept them - even krauss is against lion being successor. lion is that fantasy for her, but because she is in such a tight cage, she cannot fully envision a truly "perfect" world. being a rich queer in 1986 is still being queer in 1986.

you can also take this ending as a representation of queer hope - even though lion is fated to die, there are still people out there who understand them and want to see them live because they should live. you are a person. and for that, you deserve to live. it doesn't matter if you family doesn't fully understand you. it doesn't matter if your family will kill you. you are a person and you deserve to live.

we can see the ending of ep7's tea party continue with these themes. she cannot envision a world where she grows old, so lion has to die. but there is still hope. will saves them at the last minute - the better "battler" saves "her" - and insists that they live. you can interpret this as clair having the last bit of hope that somewhere, in some world, she is able to live happy - even if it's not with battler, it's still with someone who understands her. someone who accepts her, especially with her issues on gender (remember, will and lion specifically come to an agreement that gender doesn't matter). "lion" will never be able to live in reality as they aren't real, but maybe they aren't dead in some meta world because they're with a "battler"…

hell, you can even interpret it as her knowing she would never be able to pursue a relationship with battler in reality so she had to create a fake version of him for her perfect self to be with. someone similar enough to battler (who isn't related to her) who can sweep them off their feet and kidnap them to a happy ending (which brings in the "battler" stand-in "kidnapping" beato trope).

that's part of why I like lion so much - they can be read as queer hope. if someone approaches you with kindness to truly understand you, then they can accept you and want you to live. we don't get the ending of ep7 without will understanding sayo & lion's queerness, where he fights tooth and nail for them. even if the world wants you dead, you have a right to live because you're a person. you should live. there are people out there who will understand and accept you. live for them.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?

I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.

disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.

this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.

what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.

with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.

from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.

with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)

[hexastitchimera]

How genuinely fucking sick in your rotten heart do you have to be to not only be intimidated by queer children, but to hurt and even kill them.

You're grown ass adults who are terrified of CHILDREN. That's the most fucking pathetic thing I have ever seen. Take your own advice and "grow the fuck up, snowflake."

[hussyknee]

In one of the 647968 posts going "What You Like Says Nothing About You" (broadly agree) the first comment in the reply section was, "well I'm never going to apologize for being a Swiftie and a Reylo and Destiel shipper and Snape fan and loving ACOTAR and LOTR and Hamilton and B99" and I'm like, actually being this much of a pathological white liberal makes you the exception to this rule 😭😭

[unproduciblesmackdown]

omgg lol [guy who won't stop going "more like scapeGOATED" voice] now hold! on!! lmao [same guy just saw encanto voice] Hold on!!!

[hazel2468]

Just my personal opinion but I think that if you are a Jew and also a TERF/rad-fem/transphobe then you're a fucking disgrace and a shame unto us all.

[04tenno]

Listen to me.

Funny little yuppie

Considered very handsome and "moderate"; capacity for violence is underestimated, as such

Psychological issues, erratic behavior, at least semi-unprompted extreme emotional reactions

Has a secretary who is implied to have feelings for him

Has no interest in his female partners

Hates nearly all of his colleagues

Kills one of said colleagues

Specific murder method of beheading

Shares many of the same interests (baseball, American whiskey, working out, dining at expensive restaurants, acts of torture, etc.)

Sound familiar?

Either way, I'll let you in on a little secret: making comparisons between Patrick Bateman and Yoshitaka Mine shouldn't be about making either of them out to be Cool or Scary or Intriguing. It should be about the bit.

It should be about being able to say Mine WOULD have a routine that can only be explained by him having an excess of executive function. It should be about being able to say Mine WOULD seethe over minor (some would say imperceptible) differences in color and font choices between everyone's business cards. And it should be about being able to say Mine WOULD pop a boner at a U2 concert.

[queers4years]

I just keep thinking about august when I had 2 nonbinary kids talking to me about how scared they were. One told me she might have to go back into the closet for safety.

[sureuncertainty]

if i have to see one more post about disney from people who don't work here or at least live in the area i'm gonna lose it

[shmowder]

just need to vent about the Olympics

[sammygender]

the thing thats always missing in conversations about gender in general is the fact that 'cis', as an identity, is not a innate Thing Some People Are, but rather a state of acceptance society grooms us into from birth

[keeps-ache]

DARN, missed it again! 2nd anniversary of being a they/themer :D