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saltpepperbeard · 4 months

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Call It Through as a Crew: Alleviating Some Phone Anxiety

Hello everyone! So as you probably already know, there has been a recent call to make, well, calls! Another member of our crew figured out that the max customer service line (855-442-6629) is a very effective way to get our feedback heard, as the feedback gets transcribed and shared to a multitude of teams.

I already sort of briefly shared my experience on this post, but I wanted to go a bit more in detail to offer some solace for those who are also phone averse, as well as share resources and get the word out even more.

And y'all, when I say I'm phone averse, I mean PHONE AVERSE LMAO; MY FEET WERE SWEATING JSDKLS LIKE I WAS FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE. So I totally, TOTALLY get it, and am here to walk you through everything in detail!

So I called that number and was on a brief hold--probably like 5 minutes or so. The customer service representative (Margot my bestie Margot) then picked up, and asked for the email associated with my account as well as my full name.

I was extremely extremely worried and anxious about being bothersome/annoying the person on the other end and just being able to feel it in their tone, so I was shivering and sweating all the while. But then when she asked for my reason for calling, I said, "Oh, it's actually in regard to some feedback," and she went, "Is it for Our Flag Means Death?"

And we both laughed, and I was like, "Haha how did you knooooowww?" And she laughed some more and was like, "Let me tell you, I have never seen anything like this in all my years working here. We are getting so many calls. It's incredible."

And by that point, a large weight was off my chest because she was friendly, I was friendly, EVERYONE WAS FRIENDLY.

I laughed and told her that we were a very passionate and concerned bunch, and she told me that she thought that was so cool and also super important. She then allowed me to tell her my feedback, and she transcribed it as I talked. This was the little script I had prepared in case you'd like to reference it:

I just wanted to call and express my disappointment, dissatisfaction, and concern with the recent cancellation of Our Flag Means Death on Max. As a queer person myself, this show has a tremendous impact on me. And in a climate where so many diverse and LGBT-centric shows have unjust ends, I’d just like to express my wish for reconsideration, and just the hope that…Max will allow LGBT stories like ours to live and flourish. And I’m really worried about there being some kind of…homophobic angle to the cancellation, so it would mean the world to myself and so many others if the decision could be reversed, and we could get our third and final season.

I went a little graver than originally planned, because I saw talks that taking a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) angle, as well a "hey I'm a queer person and this feels like a decision made for a nefarious purpose" angle, are supposedly more likely to be noted.

Anyway, she allowed me to say my piece and wrote it all down, and then actually stayed with me on the line to chat a bit more. So, the phone call didn't feel rushed or anxious which was SO so huge to me; it felt far more conversational.

She was like, "I don't want to toot our little horn or anything, but Max really takes all this feedback into consideration. It will be passed to the properties team (or something equivalent, I can't remember the EXACT term she used), and they're in charge of what goes on Max and why. So, I really feel like you guys have a fighting chance with these efforts."

And of course I was thanking her profusely for telling me all of this, and for listening; polite menace, that will be my brand!

But man, the coolest part of all? She told me that she was POC, and a queer person herself, and that this was all so cool and so amazing to see. She applauded our efforts, and expressed interested in the show. I laughed and said, "Well uhhhh I might have a BIT of a bias, but I cannot recommend it enough."

And then she proceeded to tell me that it might be even MORE effective to hit from different angles. So, keep calling (they're available 24/7), and also keep utilizing the online feedback form. Basically just keep FLOODING them with how much this means to us and why.

I then expressed a lot of gratitude, we exchanged pleasantries, and there was a brief survey at the end. I don't think the survey is necessary, so you can probably hang up by this point, but I stuck around for a little more horsepower. It tells you to rate the customer service on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the highest, and you know I gave my bestie a fivvvveee. It also tells you to press 1/2 if your issue was resolved or not. I said HELL TO THE NO, DUDE SJDKLS. And THEN, it asks you to leave a voice message after the tone describing your experience. I said that I was with the customer service representative Margot, and that she was extremely friendly and helpful, but that the issue at hand will not be resolved until Max reserves their decision about the recent cancellation of Our Flag Means Death (I'm also always saying the show title in full as opposed to just the acronym, just for more OOMPH).

...And thennnn I proceed to shake it/shriek it all off LMAO.

Buuuut yeah! Probably took a total of 10 minutes or so. @xoxoemynn also shared with me that she's seen people say that these customer service representatives likely deal with older folks who need help with technology, and are subsequently stunned (and maybe even excited) to talk to younger people who just want to voice concerns instead of chew the poor customer service people out lol! And Margot also mentioned that they were eager to take calls no matter what, so as long as we're all polite and succinct, I don't think we'll have to worry about a very tense and awkward call.

I hope this alleviates some fear a bit! We got this, crew. We're doing so, so much. And it seems like it's being heard all over the place; it also seems like we've got so many people on our side, too. Big big hugs, and I'll share the necessary resources once more-

Customer Service Number: (855) 442-6629

The Online Feedback Form:

The original tumblr post with all the information:

The tumblr post where Fox and others were sharing even more information:

#OFMD #Our Flag Means Death #OFMD Season 3 #Renew as a crew #SaveOFMD #RenewOFMD #Be a lighthouse #WHEW LMAO #WE'RE TRYING #i told em this but you KNOW it's dire when all the anxious/nd individuals are cALLING PEOPLE SJDSHDLKS #WE SIMPLY: DO NOT DO THAT EVER <3 SKDJLSDS #IF WE CAN HELP IT #SO IT'S REALLY SAYING SOMETHING #And also again-- just want to reiterate that this is great practice for calling local representatives and politicians too!#ESPECIALLY if you're phone averse #It just gets you used to the whole process in a BIT of a less formal scenario

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redgoldsparks · 3 months

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I did a short interview for an alumni spotlight on the CCA website. You can click through but I'll also just copy my answers below the cut.

Maia Kobabe (e/em/eir) is a nonbinary/queer/trans author and illustrator, a voracious reader, a k-pop fan, and a daydreamer. You can learn an astonishing number of intimate details about em in Gender Queer: A Memoir and in eir other short comics, published by The New Yorker, The Nib, The Washington Post and in many print anthologies. Gender Queer won a Stonewall Honor and an Alex Award from the American Library Association in 2020. It was also the most challenged book in the United States in 2021 and 2022.

Maia shares more about eir life as a full-time artist and activist, fighting to protect diverse literature and the freedom to access information.

1. What is your current practice/business?

I am a full time cartoonist. My job consists of days working at home writing and drawing mixed with days speaking out against book banning and censorship, and in support of the freedom to read, the freedom to teach, and the freedom to access information. I spend a lot of time talking with other authors, teachers, and librarians about protecting diverse and queer books from the current wave of conservative attacks. The first piece I drew for the comics journalism site The Nib was about the rise of fascism in the United States; my later writing about queer, trans, and nonbinary identities has led me into consistently political territory.

2. Why did you choose CCA?

I chose CCA because I was looking for a MFA Comics program, of which there are very few, and I wanted to stay in the Bay Area. Because I'm a local, I was able to meet the majority of the MFA Comics faculty before I applied and felt immediately welcomed into their community. The fact that a majority of my professors for the first year of the program were queer was a huge draw as well.

3. If you could share one piece of advice with current or future students, what would it be?

Every single person has a story only they could tell. No matter what media you are working in, do your best to tell the story which is uniquely yours. If you aren't ready to tell it yet, just keep making art until the time to share that story arrives. No time spent creating is ever wasted.

4. What's your secret to staying inspired and creative?

I realized fairly early in life that my very favorite way to spend the day was drawing while listening to music, a podcast, or an audiobook. I like making things! I would rather be making things than doing almost anything else. I created a life in which I can spend a lot of time creating things and even if I don't particularly know what I am making, I am happy.

5. What do you have coming up?

My second book, Breathe: Journeys to Healthy Binding, written with Dr Sarah Pietzmeier, is coming out in May 2024 from Dutton. It's a nonfiction comic about chest binding as an aspect of trans healthcare. I'm currently drawing my third book, Saachi's Stories, written with Lucky Srikumar; it's due out from Scholastic Graphix in 2026. I am also working on adapting Gender Queer: A Memoir into an audiobook.

#maia kobabe #gender queer a memoir #interview #comics #making art

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butchabouttown · 13 days

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how can you be a lesbian who’s attracted to/fucks all genders? genuine question no hate just doesn’t align with my understanding

hi!! thanks for asking I LOVE this subject and am so happy to talk about it!! This reply might get kind of long so I apologize in advance hehe <3

I assume you're sending this in response to the ask I got the other day asking about if bisexual women can say dyke, to which I said that I am bisexual & also a dyke (woman is debatable). That's the first place I want to start—that bisexuality does not necessarily equal attraction to all genders. It can! And I have no problem with someone who is attracted to all variations of all genders identifying with the lesbian label if that's what makes sense for them. But for me, I am attracted to women, and men, and people who fall outside of that binary—but I am not necessarily attracted to gendered expressions.

Personally, someone's gender identity really doesn't impact whether or not I might be attracted to them. I am specifically attracted to people who's gender expressions align with or reflect my own in some way—so as a butch, as someone who moves through the world as a lesbian, as someone who identified as trans masculine for several years, who has been on T and may go on T again—that is pretty expansive. For me, I am attracted to queer versions of masculinity—in all its shapes & variations. I don't think that experience precludes me from using the lesbian label! There is not one person that sees me move through the world that does not immediately clock me as a butch lesbian. I cannot change that (and nor do I want to). Does the fact that sometimes I fuck & fall in love with men mean that they're wrong? Or that I am for feeling comfortable with that label?

And that really isn't a new experience!! I am absolutely not alone in that kind of attraction model, and I am not the only person who gets clocked as a lesbian that is attracted to people who aren't women.

I can think of many significant figures & authors & activists in lesbian history who have really traversed what has been coined the "butch/FTM borderlands" by author C. Jacob Hale in 1998. Identity categories do not have hard borders—there's a liminal space that exists between them, and it's impossible to draw a distinct line between them. Hell—even the poet & lesbian icon Sappho wrote about both same-sex and different-sex relationships.

I think of communist, activist & author Leslie Feinberg & the exploration of being a leftist, working class butch in the 60's & 70s in Stone Butch Blues. That novel in particular, although fictionalized, is very much a reflection of their own life and details relationships with many different kinds of people while being very much rooted in lesbian culture.

I think of Jen Manion's article in Transgender Studies Quarterly titled "Transbutch," (article begins on page 213 of the linked pfd) where they write the following:

‘‘Transbutch’’ signifies a gendered embodiment that is both butch and trans, not tied to any singular definition of butch or trans but rather falling somewhere in between. Transbutch marks a liminal space that embraces both the historical legacies of the category of butch and the more expansive possibilities created by the transgender rights movement for recognition, community, and empowerment."

(italics my own) In other words, transbutch is about that sticky place between two identities. Someone can have ties to both of these identities at once—particularly since they have been so historically tied in terms of community.

And the argument being made by Manion I think really connects to the discussion here - being a lesbian is about more than who you sleep with. It's a political identity, it is a gender in of itself, it's about your community and how you connect to it.

Many of the lesbian icons that the community holds dear trouble the "woman loving woman" definition of the identity. And besides—it's not like lesbian is a finite resource. We have infinite space to welcome all kinds of people, anyone who wants to be in community together. There are so many ways to move through the world and so many ways to come to this identity.

Anyway! I don't know how to end this! I hope it was helpful <3

#asks #lesbian #bi lesbian #butch #other recommended reading that I couldn't fit into this discussion is butch is a noun by S Bear Bergman #or Female Masculinity by Jack Halberstam #^ these are more about the butch/transmasc borderland and not lesbian/bisexuality. but yknow. I think they still elucidate something about #this conversation

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widthofmytongue · 1 year

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The other night I had drinks with coworkers. I increasingly dislike all of them. The topic of the Coronation came up, unsurprisingly. One of my colleagues said ‘we should have done what the French did’, and me and one other kinda went ‘haha yeah!’ and I thought for a moment that maybe I wouldn’t be in the political minority, even if these people will never be dedicated to the pursuit of global communism. My boss said, unironically, ‘what did the French do?’

Now I knew this was a bad sign, but me and person who initially referenced the French Revolution tried to sort of extol a few key details of the abolition of monarchy and formation of the First Republic, with probably disproportionate attention on the Terror. But anyway, my boss said something like ‘my knowledge of history isn’t great before the war’, and I asked genuinely ‘which war?’, which was interpreted as a sarcastic joke.

Anyway, this led to talking about WWII. Someone said something like ‘well the Second World War was unique among wars because it was essentially good versus evil’, to which I interjected ‘well kinda more like evil versus evil, right’. The response to this, from all three of my colleagues in the conversation, was ‘oh right, the Soviets’. I think if you follow this blog (or especially my politcal sideblog) you may have encountered my generalised view of the Soviet Union. Keeping in mind that it was Gevurah ShebeHod (since most of my personal posts seem to mark some significant point on the Hebrew calendar), I tried to rein in my response, and just said ‘interesting that when I mention the evil superpowers of the Allies in WWII you say the Soviets but not Britain or America.’ So the following dialogue came out of this:

Colleague (with history degree): Well I don’t know much about Roosevelt’s policy or ideological allignment... Me: Well he kinda committed genocide against the Navajo. C(whd): ...Churchill may have been a shitty guy... Me: Well he kinda committed genocide against India and Palestine. C(whd): ...But Britain essentially had to go to war with the Nazis. Me: To safeguard their material interests though, right, not for the altruism of saving the brutalised people of Europe. C(whd): Well Britain didn’t have any interests in Poland. Me: Well I think upholding a status quo is a very strong material interest for imperial Europe, but I was really talking about North Africa and the Middle East. C(whd): But those regions weren’t threatened by Germany, but by Italy. Me: Do you honestly think Churchill or whoever was thinking in such a two-dimensional way as to see these powers in a vacuum? [I wish I’d said ‘I think they were pretty threatened by Britain too, and remain so.’] Colleague who’d followed silently: Well every government has done horrible things at some point. Me: And yet when I mentioned evil versus evil, you all glanced right past the genocidal empires of Britain and America to look at the Soviets. Boss (unironically): I didn’t think when I mentioned the war that we’d be talking so much about genocide.

Now I wanna leave this on a couple crucial points. One is that I am very overt about being Jewish. I mention observing religious festivals; I use lots of Yiddish and occasionally Hebrew phrases; I have a hamsa and a Star of David badge on my backpack, as well as on the jacket I was wearing that night (I also have a Lenin badge on the jacket). The idea that these three white English men entered this conversation about WWII with a Jew and then were surprised (it was very clear they were all surprised and uncomfortable) at the mention of genocide is baffling to me, but I think all too common. I didn’t even mention the Shoah (although I think I did eventually say something like ‘I don’t think invading other countries is the greatest evil for which Nazi Germany is remembered’).

At some point later in the conversation I said something like ‘for all the negative views abounding on the Soviet Union, speaking as a queer Jew, I think I’d have preferred to live there than in Britain at the time’, to which my colleague with the history degree replied ‘well I obviously can’t speak to that’. It was very clear that he meant he can’t speak to Jewish and I guess queer identity. Now this is not the first time I’ve encountered this, but I think it’s an important phenomenon to observe. I once said to another colleague ‘well, there are lots of people in this country who want me dead because I’m Jewish or nonbinary’, and she said ‘well I can’t even imagine what that’s like’.

What I want to rhetorically ask is: why can’t you imagine it? Why do you imagine you’re safe from these same people? First they came for the communists, then they came for the Jews, then they came for that guy who wrote the poem! Eventually they’ll come for you too, when they drum up some new group to hate and mobilise against. If you can’t imagine what it’s like for fascists to want you dead, maybe you should try?

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panicroomsammy · 4 months

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I just saw some takes on “queer coding” that make me want to scream so I am going to post (part of) a paper I’m writing on queer coding in Supernatural that some of my mutuals encouraged me to post when I talked about it a few days ago. Tl;dr is that queer coding is a negative thing done by othering and/or vilifying a character - this is undisputed in academia and if you use the phrase “queer coded” to mean otherwise you are misusing the phrase.

Fandom has a long-lasting tradition of reading queerness into works of fiction – dating back to the original airing of Star Trek in the 1960s. Supernatural’s fandom has been no different. The show has, in fact, influenced the fandom subculture as a whole more than any other individual TV show this century – though to explore this in detail is beyond the scope of this paper.

The popular queer readings by fans largely center around the intensely macho elder brother, Dean Winchester. While the character’s overperformance of masculinity may lend itself to such readings, it is important to note that he is not traditionally queer coded at all. The vast majority of the traditional queer coding which goes on in the show instead applies to the more sensitive younger brother, Sam Winchester. The extent to which fans refuse to engage with this queer coding is what this section of the paper sets out to explain.

I propose that this reluctance stems from the fact that queer coding is negative. Characters are queer coded through Othering – a process by which they are shown to be different from their communities and from the heroes. The use of this in queer coding is well established – “all the analyzed [queer coded] characters somehow fitting the form of an outcast” (Svobodová, 2022) exemplifies queer coded characters as outcasts. There is also the theme of “monsters as the Other, representing queer people” (Mudry, 2022) and that “[queer coded] characters are meant to symbolise everything that is bad. In the process, they also become the Other,” (Veera, 2023). Queerness and monstrosity are linked through the process of queer coding, and this link makes queerness villainous. Historically this has been used to discourage deviant behavior and encourage conformity to the norm.

The way that this Othering is almost always part of the process of setting up a character as a villain is well established by scholarship that has focused on queer coding broadly (“queer-coded characters are almost always villains,” (Kim, 2017), “most of these [queer coded] characters are villains,” (Brown, 2021)). While many queer people have become fans of villains in response to seeing representation in them as the Other, villains or the monstrous do not appeal to everyone, and queer people are no exception.

While this may very well be a matter of preference, preferences do not form in a vacuum and, especially in the context of politically fraught topics such as queerness, are often indicative of deeper political issues. Even those who are Othered may recoil at unpalatable representations of the Other in fiction. In The Big, the Bad, and the Queer: Analysing the Queer-Coded Villain in Selected Disney Films, it is stated that “Seeing villains that behave in particular, perceivably queer ways creates “a psychological association” between ‘queer’ and ‘evil’ in the minds of children.”” This psychological association has been created through decades of queer coded villains in media and applies to present day characters that exhibit traditionally queer coded monstrous traits. The negative perception of queer coded and monstrous characters can apply to queer people as well as straight people.

Sam Winchester is a traditionally queer coded character. His arc over the first four seasons focuses on him having supernatural abilities that work to Other him. In the world of hunters – those who hunt supernatural beings – all supernatural beings are considered to be evil and are indiscriminately killed. Sam is one of these hunters, as are his family – his brother Dean and his father John. The development of his supernatural abilities over these seasons Others him in relation to his community and his family. The narrative positioning of such abilities as evil also work to position him as an anti-hero in a traditional queer coded villain role.

The show focuses on themes of the monstrous in its monster of the week format, broader plot arcs, and in relation to its main characters. This is often done by paralleling Sam with the monster of the week, done with the werewolf Madison in Heart (2.17) and the rugaru Jack in Metamorphosis (4.4). These parallels further work to place Sam in the role of the monstrous, even while working to humanize the monster of the week.

Queer people who have internalized the messages of queer coded characters as “everything that is bad” from other queer coded media are likely to dislike characters that are queer coded and may wish to distance their own queerness from such portrayals.

#supernatural #queer coding #sam winchester #this is just part of the paper and I do have more it is just a) not presentable yet and b) I plan to publish this and idk how I feel about #posting writing that will be affiliated with my irl name on tumblr

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aita-blorbos · 7 months

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Am I The Asshole for not telling my QPP that I (sort of) came back from the dead?

My Queer Platonic Partner (4595 M), who I'll call F, and I (~300k M) got together in the late eleventh century, and we've basically been married since the sixteenth century. (Not legally, obviously, but we lived together and pooled our finances and all that.)

While doing some spy work in France during WWII (on behalf of the Allies) I got another future vision showing me getting killed by this cult of weird supernatural obsessed rich people, and I could tell it would happen sometime in the next year or so. Now, there are ways to shift small details of the stuff I see in my future visions, but I'm pretty sure trying to change anything too major would break the fabric of spacetime, if you could even manage to make a change in the first place, so I accepted pretty quickly that my demise was inevitable and started making preparations (writing a will, etc.)

Obviously after all this time I know F pretty well, and he tends to struggle dealing with grief; most of his friends are other immortals and he only really interacts with mortals professionally. I also know there would be absolutely no way he would just accept the fact that my death is inevitable, and would end up spending the next however-long-I-had-left trying to find a solution and would probably really beat himself up about it when he failed.

On top of that, telling other people too much about my visions tends to lead to bad stuff happening (like an immortal cult leader/dictator from my home dimension, who we'll call C, massacring 60+ planets, attempting to take over Earth multiple times, and basically turning his kid into a living weapon), so I don't tend to tell people about them, a boundary which F knows about and usually respects.

So basically, I didn't tell F what I saw. I got kidnapped, he tried to rescue me but was a bit too late, I bled out after getting stabbed by a magic sword, etc., etc. Now, when people of my species die, we get reincarnated. We're reborn in an entirely new body, and with our memories suppressed, we grow into entirely new people with entirely new experiences. You keep your magic powers and basically stop aging around 20, but that's about it. It's a bit different for humans for slightly complicated deific political reasons, I think? F knows this because I told him about it at some point.

After I died, the wife (? F) of one of F's old friends showed up and told me she was Death and that C was gonna try to invade Earth again at some point in the future and my help would be needed, so she was willing to let me sort of... stick around in my reincarnation (now 78 NB)'s brain. So obviously I agreed.

My reincarnation, E, was born somewhere in the US shortly after I died. For context, F and I previously lived in the UK. I hung back for most of E's childhood because I wanted to let them live their own life, but I did help them out a few times with bullies and shitty teachers and stuff. (They're queer and neurodivergent and grew up in the 50s, so they didn't exactly have the best childhood).

There wasn't exactly a whole lot I could do to contact F when E was younger, and even when they got older, there still wasn't much I could do without fucking up their life, so basically I spent several decades only showing up when E was asleep or everyone involved was super high, so even E didn't know I existed.

Sometime around the early 80s E started getting into superhero stuff, which isn't really my cup of tea, so I ended up sorta taking a nap for a few decades. I woke up in the mid 2010s to find out that F and E had apparently become friends? Again, I don't want to mess up either of their lives, and it seemed to me like F had moved on, so I continued hiding.

Recently, C started trying to invade earth again, so I started sneaking out at night to try to stop them with the help of R (18 NB/M?), the literal only other person who knew I existed. (He accidentally ran into me getting a late night snack while breaking into E's house for prank reasons. It's a long story.) We ended up running into some other people, including F's dad (4622 F), so eventually a total of like, 4 people knew about my existence. None of them knew I was me, as in F's dead ex QPP/E's past life. Fortunately, I was able to convince everyone not to tell E or F about me.

Fast forward to a couple months ago, C launched a full scale attack on the city where basically everyone involved in this mess lives. I won't go into too many details, but during the attack E ended up getting hit with a "sleeping spell" which basically just knocked them out, leaving me in control of the body by default. My fighting style is pretty different than E's, so F recognized me almost immediately.

We ended up getting into a pretty big argument about me not telling him I was still around, during which I ended up finding out that after I died he basically lost all faith in humanity and tried to destroy the world a couple times, and he basically admitted he still wasn't over my death, but he was also really pissed at me for not telling him that I was still around. I tried to explain but F still insisted I should have told him. We're both fairly stubborn and quick to anger, so the argument ended up getting a bit out of hand, and now we aren't talking to one another. I understand why he's angry, but I still feel like I didn't have any other choice.

Am I The Asshole?

(Side Note: E is now aware I exist and is trying to act as a mediator. They understand my reasoning for not outright telling them, and had a pretty good laugh over all the signs of my existence that they missed, but F is still pissed on their behalf about me not telling them.)

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

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allsadnshit · 3 months

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i hope this is okay for me to say please ignore if it’s not but you make me feel so much better about myself and my gender identity and not really having a desire to label shit let alone share something so personal w strangers on the internet. there’s such pressure in society to put everyone into boxes and then loudly proclaim your label to others or else you’re “not really queer” you’re like a light of common sense in that you don’t feel a need to label yourself and if you did then guess what ITS NO ONES BUISNESS. and that makes me feel so much more secure in how i approach my gender and sexuality because i so often question myself and if i’m actually legitimate because i keep these things so private when to me it just seems natural? i’m not ashamed of myself or my identity but i also don’t feel like just anyone deserves to know the details of how i identify. and that seems like such a normal thing to me but online it’s like if you don’t detail your entire trauma history for the internet then you’re not really queer.

hmm yeah it can feel like a lot of pressure to socialize the same way as other people and I think the label of "community" can feel insincere when what's popularly accepted doesn't feel fulfilling or true for you personally

I think constantly having experience that exist outside the narratives of how to "be me" through the expectations for the communities I would fit into (asian, mixed, queer, mentally ill , chronically ill, etc) has helped me see a lot that if you aren't "allowed" to exist in an honest harmonious way to yourself, then identity politics isn't serving you, and if they don't serve you then you don't need to grab onto them for support since they don't give that to you

I used to think for a while I'd never be understood by anyone who hadn't experience life more similarly to me but I've come to find it's not about having shared experiences that makes me feel seen and loved, it's just by being around other people who want me to authentically be me and they don't need to have anything in common with me for that

I think a lot of the queer community polices itself and others which doesn't represent everyone in it, but it can be painful when you hope to find belonging through connection to it

Personally, it's not really something I feel bonded over right now, it hasn't held me in my complexity in a way where I'd say I feel deeply a part of it anymore even though I am so thankful for lots of the queer friends in my life as individuals

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kvothe-kingkiller · 1 year

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Edit: No longer looking for Alpha Readers but I’m keeping this up for posterity and info

I’m looking for alpha readers for an ongoing fantasy project which I am currently releasing chapter by chapter. I’ll also make a post when I finish it in case you are the type to prefer to read it in one go.

You do not need to have editing skills or experience. I am only looking for basic commentary.

Blurb: In an unsteady time of peace following a generations-long war, Mila, an 18 year old farmer, finds herself unexpectedly thrust into the world of nobility upon discovering she can wield a power thought only to be possessed by the upper class. Struggling to find her feet in this new environment and shunned by those around her, she juggles learning about her abilities, her identity, and the truth of the war behind the propaganda. When her equally ostracized mentor gets a tip about a plot to assassinate one of the country’s leaders, it’s down the dysfunctional teacher with a shady past and his apprentice who can barely control her powers to prevent the country from falling back into conflict.

(This is adult fantasy, not YA)

tags/highlights/themes: non-european-based fantasy world, adult fantasy, many queer characters and relationships (including aces), discovering sexuality, struggles with mental health and addiction, physical disabilities, dealing with trauma and taking responsibility, race relations, eat the rich, government propaganda, political intrigue, war is for money, war hurts the most vulnerable, etc

more info under the cut but if you’re interested or have questions, please DM me

(scroll down for info about setting, plot, and characters. content warnings and ‘rating’ under plot)

General Info:

Like I said, no experience needed. All I want to hear about is what you like/dislike, what is clear/unclear and any theories you have (for foreshadowing). You can be as detailed as you want or you can leave a single sentence comment for each chapter, anything helps.

This is a first draft to be clear. I want alpha readers so I can make large changes to plot before rewriting everything for the second draft. On one hand it’s still fairly rough, on the other hand you don’t need to know anything to help. I just need opinions on plot and pacing and characters and foreshadowing etc etc. Again I am still writing it, I usually do ish a chapter a month sometimes faster sometimes slower. The chapters are usually ~10k, and I already have 27 out. (it is long)

This is going to be done through google classroom (yes, google classroom) because I need it to be inaccessible to anyone not invited and because I want people to be able to comment without being influenced by others and google classroom was literally the only thing I could find to do that for free. This does mean that whatever name you have on google will be seen by me and possibly others, just as an fyi. Also I have to add you to the ‘class’ but I can send you the prologue first if you want to try-before-you-buy (tho be aware the prologue is a bit more action packed than the start of the plot)

misc. pros for doing this: it already has art! because I do be an artist as well and I only ever draw my characters because motivation be finicky. Also, if you get through the entire thing I’ll do a commission for you (for free). plus I’m always looking for art ideas so if you say ‘it would be funny/cool if x did y’ then chances are I will actually draw it lol. also, free book ig?

Setting:

Magic: Low fantasy with scarce/rare magic. The magic is called forging and is basically element magic but I wanted to explain all the hand movements people do with those so I incorporated more rules and ‘science’ to make it more rigid. there are ten basic ‘facets’ (air fire water stone earth wood iron copper blood bone) and people can be born knowing any number, or special different ones, but it gets exponentially rarer with more facets. the magic is genetic and mostly confined to the upper class and has become a way of oppressing the lower class. this actually gets addressed rather than mentioned then ignored (cough, korra, cough)

Culture: The culture of the main country, Odrad, is based on african, middle eastern, and mediterranean cultures, with a bit of southern asian. However most of that is simply due to the setting being dry and hot, and so developing dark skin and loose clothing and making most things out of stone and plaster due to the scarcity of wood. Religion is polytheistic based around an all mother type goddess and the god of the sun with the biggest festival being the start of the wet season. Other important countries include Acrait, the biggest on the continent, which is more south asian based, and Sheiro, which is steppe-type culture. Odrad is an ex-monarchy ruled by a council that has morphed into capitalism and feudalism’s horrid little baby with ‘nobles’ controlling everything.

Queer Culture: First of all I use the word queer a Lot lol so if you aren’t into that, might not be for you. There is oppression since I am one of the queers who prefers an overcoming story than a setting with no oppression, but it is similar to current western culture in the sense that it’s not Horrible (so no like legal death sentences for gay sex etc), not As bad as it used to be, is worse in rural areas, and is rapidly changing in the cities. for the most part people hide their queerness but there is underground culture. Most of the characters are queer so there’s a lot of rep including ace and nb

Plot:

So far, it is Long. I am 200k words in at chapter 27 and probably only halfway through and this is only the first book. A lot of the first bit is just Mila’s struggles at the school where she’s learning forging. It is taking a turn into much more political intrigue than I planned but I’m leaning into it. so just know that its long and not just constant action, there is a lot of downtime since I enjoy my character interactions and developments and fluff etc.

It is very R rated. Mostly due to dark subject matter, blood/gore etc, and lots of swearing (I come from a family where they’re just used as emphasis words really lol, so that’s somewhat leaked in...and it’s a first draft so I can’t be bothered to spend that much time removing them). There is a Lot of discussion around sex but no actual sex scenes. It has many things which could be triggering so just lmk if you want me to warn you about anything specific. It is dark and has dark themes, however, it is not a grimdark vibe, the vibes are actually fairly light all things considered. The characters have a lot of bantz and mess around and have fun, so it’s much less constantly serious than most ‘dark’ adult fantasy. I wanted to make them more relatable as people rather than just ‘whatever badass magic user’ (they’re actually mostly fairly pathetic pft)

General CW list: violence, gore, emotional abuse, abusive relationships, child abuse, sexual harassment, bullying, homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism, frank depictions of mental illness, alcohol/drug use, addictions, intrusive thoughts, self harm, suicide ideation/attempts, war, war crimes, torture, mind control

CW list of things mentioned and discussed or that happen but not shown directly ‘on screen’: rape, pedophilia, forced pregnancy

Characters:

I’ll just give a very brief (and not great) description of the main three

Mila: (pron. ‘mee-luh’) the MC, disaster lesbian but more in a cringe fail way than a messy bitch way. tiny (4′10) but v powerful, just can’t quite use it yet. country kid way behind on the times. needs a break so badly

Ardev: imagine if you gave a wet rat the power to take over the world but he couldn’t be bothered. gay/ace and has so many things deeply wrong with him. short king

Endel: the only competent one. bi. BDE. femme. a slut. perfect at everything. his biggest flaw is that he likes Ardev. also has things deeply wrong with him.

thx for reading and again, DM if you’re interested or have questions <3

#ymg #young mans game #my writing #my characters #i Will be self reblogging this many times so watch out

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vv-ispy · 15 hours

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Ooo, ty for the detailed reply! (Asking instead of reblogging because of that first tag.)

To be fair wrt Zhongli, the AQ plot is him deeming his position of power outdated and letting an all-female trio fully take over the country from him (and in a way that had them as active participants instead of passive recipients even if Zhongli masterminded the whole thing). The cutscene introducing Ningguang also sort of frames her as a godlike figure, and I feel like the Jade Chamber pushes that further, resembling a mini manmade Celestia from a distance.

But even if so, the points about Zhongli being designed to be an ultimate patriarchal figure make complete sense. Especially when he's the mascot for the devs' home country: genshin edition.

Standard disclaimer I am not an expert on chinese culture or china and I'm drawing on my experiences with immigrant conservative chinese parents. Putting it under a read more bc politics and personal experiences in my silly escapism game

Actually in a sense, I really liked the liyue archon quest! I did really enjoy the idea of 'the leader is stepping down, it is time for the people to shine.' 'The world is modernizing, liyue needs to keep up' 'There's a lot of stories about the adepti but I want to tell stories about humans in the age of humans!' And from someone whose parents tried to uphold tradition on me, I loved that story! I still enjoy that view of it — China does need to modernize. There's such strict expectations of people playing their Role in society, the expectation to conform — and hence disabilities, mental illness, being queer, not starting a family, not being unquestioning loyal to your parents/family, not going into a STEM field well paying respectable job, is all looked down upon. If you have mental illness, get over it don't make it anyone else's problem. If you deviate in any way, don't talk about it. Chinese people care so much about saving face and putting on a good image. Chinese culture talks so much of respecting their elders, but elder scam is so common in China. A lot of the good parts of chinese tradition feels like empty words to me, and the bad parts… they're dumb. And being raised by conservative parents who were immigrants and didn't know what they were doing meant I experienced more of the bad parts/expectations/things they try to push on me, as opposed to the good parts and the culture you'd get in china Which is to say, a story about how we need to move on from all that and modernize? I love it! We do need to care for the common folk, acceptance and supports for those who are disabled and cannot work, acceptance for those who deviate from the norm. China needs to modernize in that sense, and need stories about regular people who don't fit the image of an Model Chinese Person. I really like that reading, I really like that narrative, heck initially I was surprised that was allowed in a chinese game if the government is represented by the adepti

But that's one reading. I feel like liyue can have a lot of readings depending on how you want to spin it, who represents what, etc since China does have a really long history. Obviously some readings have a lot more justification to it and I am by no means an expert or even very knowledgable in chinese history so. But at the least, I don't think my initial reading of the quest is how it was intended.

Happening upon this reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/q2na5e/an_oversimplified_explanation_for_the_liyue/), I think it's a pretty compelling argument for the intentions and historical influences — after all genshin puts a lot of historical influences in its game so why not for its home country of China? Saying that, I don't know enough about chinese history/mythology to give much of an opinion on it other than yeah I can see it, since Zhongli is a literal god who can bestow approval on Ningguang and the humans

But I also concur with the comment that another possible reading of the archon quest is the end of the imperialist Qing empire and creation of the PRC, if you instead want to view Zhongli and the adepti as representative of imperial rule, and the Qixing and representative of the communist party. And I think the reason I get these vibes is more the way the transition is talked about — that it's time for the gods to step down and the people to lead. CPP ideology includes a people centric approach ie. the communist party represents the will of the people, so time for the people to rule -> support for CPP rule? Or the constant 'we need liyue to modernize' to me is quite reminecent of China's current race to modernize technologically. The idea of a new era of liyue, the age of humans, also really reminds me of those children's songs with lyrics that tell of the rise of the communist party with lyrics such as '没有共产党，哪有新中国' (without the community party, how could there be the new china?) <- sung during the 2010 cctv new year gala. Actually every new year gala there's at least one or two 'look how great China is' songs(okay nationalism is very standard across every country) and one 'Yeah! Regular people working together for progress!' song. Liyue being the economic center of Teyvat….well China sure wants economic prosperity in real life too(<-again nationalism and desire for prosperity is not china specific but we're talking about china here), Chinese people sometimes call themselves 唐人 where 唐(tang) refers to the Tang dynastry during which China was very prosperious. And the conflict between liyue as it was ruled by gods vs the age of humans, reminds me a lot of China's current traditional vs western conflicts, eg. if you're queer a common conservative shutdown is 'that's a western idea'. Put together it makes me go 'yes I see liyue is a reflection of current china striving for prosperity and (technological) progress, but shouldn't we strive for social equality and acceptance instead?'

Saying that, of course not all chinese people are a monolithic with the same thought, and there's many chinese who're critical of the goverment/culture of conformity/outdated traditions. Considering hoyo's japanese influences and general in depth research they do for their world and characters + suspiciously lesbian characters in their games + the voice actors themselves look at gender bent zhongli art (I'm not kidding, from chinese lumine VA's stream), I wouldn't be surprised if the inspiration is the chinese mythological references -> imperialist rule + they're writing stories of China needing to modernize from outdated traditions, but for government-support reasons they put an emphasis on The People and We Need to Modernize part of Zhongli's stepping down. I do realize that my negative reading of liyue's story hinges only on two points (even if those two points come up repeatidly) and the rest of it is very vibes/personal experience based

Again, Gaming's lanturn rite story is a very chinese family conflict, but a more traditional chinese story to teach Values definitely would have involved conceeding that his parents know best and put emphasize on how he's now going to be a good child through consistent consideration and respect to his parents. As a child I've learned quite a few chinese aesop children's stories about kids who are fair and take the smallest pear to let parents and elders have the big ones, or warming bamboo mat beds as appreciation for parents who work hard all day. So the fact he reaches a halfway agreement with his dad is…it's a sweet story that's sympathetic to both sides, and I can see hoyo taking a more modern approach to chinese society. On the other hand, Xianyun's 'the elders must look out for the youth' is a pretty traditional chinese sentiment — elders look out for the youth, and when the youth grow up they take care of the elders. Not to say it's necessarily a bad sentiment, ya know support each other and all. But still a more traditional one.

Anyway, in summary Liyue is a story of change. It can be read in many ways. Either a retelling of historical change, or a call for change. I still really like the hopeful 'We need to modernize' reading of it, just certain parts of it gives me a bad impression due to personal disillusionment with chinese culture. Besides, it's not as if american media is free from nationalism. But we're talking about genshin here

Hm. Moving on

Agreed on good representation doesn't have to be intentional, I may just be overly critical over intentions. And that Furina is written really well! I love her! She also doesn't get sexualized which is v cool too! And absolutely agreed on the sort of constraints that being gatcha puts on the characters — though I would like to toss in, again, how being a chinese game affects the characters. Many people rightfully point out the colourism issues which is a cultural issue as asians really value light skin and. can be quite racist. there is a racism problem in asia despite asians also being poc. With regards to LGBTQ rep, China does censor it (shoutout to tamen de gushi ending due to it) — which again isn't an excuse to call china homophobic there are many queer and trans chinese people (shoutout to trans activist Chao Xiaomi). Arlecchino who is given a whole backstory to explain 'she's called Father because of mother issues not trans reasons' like. Yeah that's what I'd expect from a cis-normative game from a society that adheres to gender roles. Sure. Of course. I wonder a bit if the recent trend towards more buff man have anything to do with china's recent thing against effeminent men, like. Diluc and Kaeya are built very different compared to Alhaitham or Wrio, but that could also be early game limitations (and I know people like to say Venti is dressed like a femboy but he's likely based off the Colongne Carnival prince https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_Carnival). General boy-could-be-mistake-as-a-girl seems to be a consequence of the anime style, but also part of the appeal of anime style is pretty girls and boys. Anyway genshin girls I'm glad you're saved from having to find a man due to game target audience

And yeah I do enjoy how genshin does have female characters like Xinyan who are dark skined chinese + rebellious and it's not presented as a bad thing apart from offhanded mentions of getting into trouble with the law, and Yunjin's relationship with her plays around with the idea of elders being stuffy about traditions and expectations of her to be a refined young lady. It's interesting the sorts of different things they try with their characters, despite the gacha/don't-be-so-rebellious-it-catches-the government's-eye limitations. Genshin has some well developed female characters for sure. It's just also interesting to me how as a chinese game, their chinese characters really carry chinese values. Sometimes you get those weird people saying that genshin would have been better if it wasn't chinese but I think it's really interesting viewing genshin/liyue as an attempt at a story/character driven game filtered through chinese views filtered through chinese politics filtered though live service and gacha demands.

Uh, this probably sums up all the culture thoughts i currently have on it though. until the next lanturn rite and I start heaving deep sighs over people complaining about hoyo never missing a lanturn rite look lunar new year is as big as christmas and new years combined in china there is no way lanturn rite is ever getting skipped genshin is still a chinese game at its core even if it uses a japanese slant to advertise to a western audience

#i'm so so so so sorry how long this ended up #i still really like the game and the characters i just also have Thoughts about how culture affects it #but try not to focus on that too much bc it is still a game meant to appeal to the masses for fun and casual play #besides it's much more fun making headcanons about the nation of freedom than getting into the nitty gritty real world relations #i would say back to regularly scheduled wisps and nb and venti except not because i'm going on vacation soon irl instead!!!#so back to regularly scheduled wisps and nb and venti once i'm back #windcarvedlyre

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lilareviewsbooks · 1 year

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The Teixcalaan Series: 5/5

Book 1: A Memory Called Empire & Book 2: A Desolation Called Peace

I’d pitch this as Game of Thrones in space. Full to the brim with plots and with politics, this series follows Mahit Dzmare, an ambassador from the tiny Lsel Station as she navigates her new life in the Teixcalaan Empire -- the culture Mahit has been in love with for years, but that is slowly swallowing up her home one. The first book sets you up with a murder mystery with a romantic subplot -- and what a subplot!! Sapphics in space yearning for each other? Sign me the fuck up!! -- and then expands into so much more with little warning, kind of like you’re on an intensely political roller-coaster. The second one plays out kind of like the movie Arrival, and to say anything else would be to spoil it.

I loved every single second of it.

I think what calls out to me the most in this series is its almost anthropological approach to describing culture. It’s almost hard to explain if you haven’t read it, yourself, but the detail given to every cultural decision is impressive. From the way the Teixcalaani smile, to their language -- which is described in detail in a post-script -- and their naming conventions, Ms. Martine tackles every single cultural avenue she can find. The result is this brilliant, vibrant, Meso-American Indigenous-inspired culture, that you get to understand so deeply, almost as if you have studied it. And you get to watch all these moving pieces of this world you barely understand with a main character who doesn’t truly understand it, either, which is a great device through which to world-build.

I’d highly recommend this for anyone who’d like some gay yearning, some good characters with nice development, and lots, lots of politics. Plus, of course, questions of anthropological nature, that tackle language, culture, colonialism -- but in space!!

(And for the second book, get ready for some aliens!!)

Reminded me of...

- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K Le Guin: anthropological/sociological approach; an envoy coming to a different planet than theirs and trying to understand it; queer, kinda?, BUT this one is more political, if I’m remembering correctly

- A Song Of Ice and Fire/A Game of Thrones, George R R Martin: the politics; morally grey characters; what the fuck is going oh my god am I going insane who is this character the cast is so huge; world-building being absurdly good, BUT this one is gay and in space :)

- Gideon the Ninth/The Locked Tomb Series: the gayness; lyrical writing; SPACE!!; yearning; i’m so fucking confused what is going right now, BUT this one has like cultural stuff involved???

and the movie Arrival, dir. Denis Villeneuve: can’t tell you why without spoiling both of them, BUT it’s basically the second book with more time-travel and less politics!

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gillianthecat · 1 year

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GAP — episode 2

It seems like my GAP reactions have become the space in which I wax philosophical about various matters political and personal. But it's an excellent show nonetheless, I'm starting to really like it!

below the cut are my thoughts while watching:

- So does Sam know that she has a crush and is flirting like mad? I honestly can't tell how self-aware she is.

- Sam's friends! I love them all already. I appreciate that this show is populating Sam's world with interesting queer women. It feels like they've studied the boys' shows and are applying all the lessons carefully and skipping over a lot of the growing pains. So if Sam already knows she's queer, maybe she does realize she has a crush, she's certainly waiting by the phone anxiously. Then again, she seems not very in touch with her feelings in general.

- Ok. I hate grandmother. I love both the sisters. And Freen is great at portraying the two versions of Sam—young, open and vulnerable, and grown up, hard and walled off.

- On the one hand, I’m guessing that Sam just wants an excuse to keep bringing Mon into her office. Which is adorable. On the other hand, I’m having to actively work to not get annoyed at how bad a boss Sam is being. Not so much the meanness, that I can handle, but at how unskillful she is at it. Just telling your employee (who is brand new to the office and to the working world in general!) "change it" and "it doesn’t wow me" without giving any specifics? That is not the way to get the results you want with any efficiency. On the third hand, I am relieved not to hear them rambling on about "influencers" and marketing." So possibly a win overall. And their dynamic is great.

- And Mon called her out for it it! Bless you, darling. Sam tried to pull that boss bullshit are you just lazy? thing, but at least I know the show isn't ignoring it. And that is enough for me to be content, I think.

- I think I may actually really like this show? I was going to watch it regardless as long as it wasn't completely terrible (and I made it all the way through fahlanruk, so clearly my tolerance for terrible is high) just to a) support Thai GL, and b) see what they would do, but it's turning out to be very good. A solid story, good characters, lots of really good details, and it feels genuinely queer. I'm so pleased.

- The one sticking point for me is the whole influencer social media thing, but thinking about it, I can see how that was the best choice. If they want to make a billionaire romance with a cruel boss and and an ingenue employee, which I fully support because it's a genre with a lot of delicious potential, especially when made lesbian (I have no interest billionaire romance when done straight á la Fifty Shades of Gray, but love it when it's played with in some way) then they need a company for the billionaire to run. And they need to find something that a) could realistically become profitable in this day and age, b) Lady Sam could plausibly be passionate about, because the tension between her love for running a business and grandmother's pressure on her to live a traditional heterosexual life is crucial to the story they're telling, and c) feels cool and hip to fit the aesthetic of the show. So it can't be a paper company or something boring, and advertisers have always been the sexy creatives of the business world. "Content Creators" aren't as interesting, but they are more modern and more plausible as a start up business. And so while social media marketing still makes me recoil, and I honestly think is responsible for a lot of ills in this world,* I do understand their reasoning and I think that will allow me to tolerate and ignore it. I just hope Sam learns how to be an effective boss at some point along the way too!

*I didn't find Mad Men's ad agency setting off-putting in the same way. Perhaps because the creativity is more obvious in what they were doing, perhaps because it was all set in the past so it had that nostalgic fascination rather than watching people work at something that is actively making the world and my own life worse today. Not that advertising in the 60's didn't do a shit ton of harm to the world that continues to fuck over the planet. But I don't personally feel it as viscerally. Plus I think there is less creativity in the sort of content creation that Lady Sam's company seems to be doing, although to be honest the whole show is keeping it all pretty vague for now.

- Tangent over. I love how full of queer women this show is! It's not just the main couple, it's both of Sam's sisters, probably all of her friends, and even the villain and/or faen fatale! The only heterosexual couple (besides the parents) were kicked off the show in the first half an hour, in a loss for workers' rights but a victory for gay rights. And the only confirmed straight guy is Mon's creepy friendzoned neighbor, who is all but discarded. (Kirk may be straight, but it's not confirmed yet.)

- Speaking of which, I'm kind of excited to see what this villainous woman is going to do.

- I suspect most people associate Heng with Sky and expect him to be good, but my strongest association is with his character from War of Y so I keep waiting for him to be at least mildly evil.

- I actually really appreciate that this migraine is a situation in which taking medicine actually makes sense to me. Characters in Thai shows keep taking medicines for ailments that don't seem fixable with medicine and it always slightly annoys me. I don't know if that's part of the general Thai approach to health, or if it's just a shorthand for caretaking that dramas have developed, but it is so different from my approach.

- Oh how tender. Her head on her lap. I like this rendition of the caretaking trope. It uses the tropes, but puts its own spin on it to make it feel interesting and real.

- (I feel like I had that shirt pattern as wallpaper as a child. I'm not knocking Mon's outfit, I love her workwear style! But it definitely has a late eighties/early nineties vibe, especially combined with the oversized blazer in that shade of pink.)

- I love how even half asleep and knocked out with pain and drugs Sam (pardon me, Hon. Lady Sam) is still bossy and prickly and rude.

- Sleepy taxi head to shoulder slide my beloved! (I don't know what to call this trope, but it's always a good one.)

- I don't think I've ever seen That Fucking House 1.0 from the street before. I always pictured it somewhere more suburban and quiet.

- I love their dynamic so much! And I'm glad that Mon is getting the stars knocked out of her eyes—it makes for a much more interesting story (and a healthier relationship) if she has to fall back in love with the real Sam, rather than coasting on hero worship.

- Omg, I adore prickly bossy Sam. She is so cat coded. Be polite. Why are you so formal. Text me. Why are you texting me, you should call. Why are you calling me. 😸 I thought maybe it was because I'd just watched Choco Milk Shake so I'm imagining cats everywhere. But no. Mon really is another cat. I love her. And just like Milk, she is totally confused by her feelings and has no idea how to act around her crush. She sure sat up quick though 😹

- Oh Mon baby. My darling. How heartbreaking to find out that your idol, your forever crush, is not the person you thought she was. That she's actually mean and rude and confusing and is a terrible boss. And you're just trying to be a good employee but you have no idea what she wants from you. Oh my darling.

- Oh my god, Sam has zero social skills. I mean, it makes sense why, but she is a disaster. Mon is doing a great job of telling her when she's being hurtful or confusing, and every time Sam doubles down on acting like an asshole. Sigh. I still love her though.

- I am glad that Mon has the spine to keep standing up to her. Otherwise their relationship would be doomed and hard to root for. She does it kindly, but clearly and with a strong sense of her own rights and needs as a person. That's hard to do for any brand new intern to their powerful asshole boss, let alone one who's been nursing a hero worship crush for over a decade.

- Oof this scene! Mon kneeling as Sam walks by glammed up with sunglasses on, and completely ignores her.

- I do like this accountant. And I'm inclined toward Kirk. No matter what his role ends up being. I appreciate his rich boy charm here.

- Omg. Of course she hand delivers the snack to Mon. In the rudest, most awkward manner possible. My favorite feral cat. And yes. The battle of wills has begun. ngl, I was nervous about the whole hero worship angle last week, but they're crushing that underfoot quite nicely.

- Does Kirk know about her crush? Maybe even before she does, lol. Also I'm so relieved that Sam has all these friends who tease her when she's got a stick up her ass and treat her like a human being and also genuinely care for her.

- What a spiky kitty cat. Calm your fur, girl.

- This courtship is going to be amazing. I'm so excited to watch Sam flailing around trying and failing to act like a human around Mon. Kirk is all of us in his reactions. 😹

- Date date date! Wingmanned by the fiancé! Which, honestly is necessary at this point. They cannot handle being alone together yet.

- Jesus Christ Sam. You are the embodiment of that Get out of my school meme. I cannot believe the things coming out of your mouth.

- Oh no. Kitty cat, sweetheart, you're going to burn off the roof of your mouth. Stop trying to act cool in front of your crush. Mon's face 😂

- Lol. Well she fooled all of us. I guess she really is cool after all.

- Look at them! Managing to have an almost civil conversation! I'm liking this Kirk-Mon allyship that's developing. I don't know if it will withstand the pressure of the angst to come, but it's something Mon, and their developing relationship, need right now.

- Cat cat cat! She is such a cat. She refuses to look at Mon even though 100% of her attention is focused on her right now 😸 ooh and the boyfriend comment made her gruum-py!

- I can't tell what Kirk knows (I can't even tell what Sam and Mon know about themselves at this point) but I love him for playfully calling out Sam about posing on her car 😸

- Damn! Sam is already asking who Mon is sleeping with. My beloved ill mannered alley cat. And she's so proud of her little joke 😸

- Aw. Mon's crush is back and she is giddy with it. And what an ending moment.

I'm excited about this show now. They're doing so many things right! The story seems solid and well structured, a good base to carry the relationship through to the end. And I feel like they're hitting the right balance for Mon and Sam's dynamic. Sam is spiking and mean and awkward, and a terrible boss, but we also see her with her friends so we know that she can take teasing and be human sometimes, and that she has people in her life that love her. She's mean enough to build that delicious tension, but vulnerable enough that I can see why Mon likes her, and I don't feel like I need to yell at her to run away. And Mon has a good balance between being open and awestruck, while still having the backbone to stand up to her hero. It reassures me that their relationship is going to feel equal, not like a creepy boss taking advantage of her employee. Those sorts of extreme power dynamics are not what I'm looking for in a story; what I like about subverted billionaire romance is seeing how the characters manage the power dynamics in order to have a real relationship.

Based on the trailer and the grandmother's everything, I'm pretty sure this series is going to get angsty and sad. But given the nuance with which they've been treating the characters so far, I trust them to handle it well.

#gap the series #gillianthecat reacts to gl #kind of like liveblogging #gap the series ep 2 #office settting ql

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existentialqueer · 1 year

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Tranny Bladder

In light of the renewed wave of transgender bathroom bills being pushed and passed, I thought I would share a relevant chapter from S. Bear Bergman’s Butch Is a Noun. "I have a tranny bladder. You know what I mean, right? The amazing ability to go approximately forever without needing to pee? I am the person who leaves the house, has two meals with a soda and a glass of water at each, returns home eight hours later and finally pees, after having stood around several times, at least after each meal, trying not to look like a sexual deviant (you know, in the bad way) while hanging around the restrooms waiting for my date to finish up. I wait to pee until I can get to a "safe" bathroom, safe bathrooms being the kind in which I am not screamed at to get out immediately, where I am not followed in by the lurking-outside-waiting-for-his-daughter father looking to kill me slowly, and that I can use without an NYPD officer and an Army private on Homeland Security detail (just, you know, for example) being called in to look at my ID. This mostly means waiting until I am no longer in a public place, and so I just wait. The years and years of waiting, and holding it, have taken their eventual toll, it seems. And so, like so many butches I have known, like so many of my trans-siblings, I have developed this miraculous ability to just... wait. I mean, we are also probably dehydrated. You do not see deviantly gendered people walking around with Nalgene bottles, getting our sixty-four recommended ounces as we go through our days. I am sure that somewhere there is an argument to be made that the trans community as a whole is a little cranky because we could all use a nice big glass of water. It makes both my grandmothers crazy to the point of neurosis, by the way. They think there is something the matter with me (you know, in the bad way). They look at me with eyes full of the measuring, medical expertise that apparently comes with being a Jewish grandmother, and they shake their heads and quiz me like a six-year-old with an unfortunate habit of wetting myself. Did you go? Do you need to? Are you sure? Did you try? What do I say? No, Nana, I don't need to use the bathroom, and I will not for the entire forseeable future because I'm sure as hell not using a women's bathroom here in South Florida, which is populated entirely by slender blonde girls and elderly women with failing eyesight? This is leaving aside entirely, for the moment, how angry it makes me to write about these things - drinking water, and pissing it out - as though they were not the most basic kinds of freedom, as though even political prisoners both here and abroad didn't have more and better freedom to drink water and piss it out than most of the transfolk I know do, or did at some stage. This is not engaging what it feels like to be quietly peeing in a women's bathroom and hear, after a knock at the stall, "Sir?" or pounding and then, "What the fuck?" No matter how I pitch my voice when I answer, even when I use the most head-resonant and high-pitched voice I have available to me that doesn't make me sound like Flip Wilson on helium, I still have to open the door and show someone my ID and smile my beta-wolf smile at them, while the alpha inside me is tearing a hole in my chest trying to get out and teach them a lesson about manners and respect. When I get harassed in the Ladies' room, or the cops are called, I can produce ID with the telltale F and add the story to my collection. Transgressing in the Gents can have its consequences, legal or chillingly illegal. Men's rooms can be more forgiving because the culture of a men's bathroom insists that men not look at the others in the restroom lest they be labeled fags. Most curious looks can be deflected with a quizzical but hostile glance that seems to convey the idea that a man looking at you as you enter might have some sort of queer gaze. Transfolk wait for the day that they can use the restroom with members of their chosen genders without problem or comment, and swap pissing stories and methods like trading cards in the meantime. I have heard arguments made that bathroom experiences are the defining measure of trans-ness: have you ever had anxiety, apprehension, or problems using the restroom which corresponds to you assigned-sex-at-birth? Then you're transgendered in some fashion. It's not the worst idea I've heard. The bathroom is where gender performance meets public perception with a resounding thwack, one that sometimes hurts and sometimes reverberates down my butch life in unexpected ways. It's where I have to make a public declaration and I can never be sure which one might match what people are expecting from me, and the consequences for being wrong are always so unpleasant, because the wrongness is so basic. I am wrong in the world, they're saying, wrong to have fooled them, to be a coyote among dogs and cats, to stand in gender's doorways and whistle, and they'll make me pay while my pants are down, if they can. When I use a bathroom in public, I piss with one hand on my belt buckle so I can make it into a weapon if I have to. Tranny bladder is my saving grace."

#trans rights #queer #lgbt #butch is a noun

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rainbowsky · 2 years

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I need your help with asks 🙏🏻

There's something I could use your help with, those of you who write with questions or comments.

I have been getting a lot of very lengthy asks, and it's been getting a bit too much for me. It would be helpful if you could keep your messages and questions brief, and if you have multiple unrelated questions, please send each one in a separate ask.

I'll explain a bit of why this is important to me.

Asks that aren't questions

I really appreciate people taking the time to write me and share their detailed thoughts on an issue, unfortunately I cannot share people's long, detailed thoughts on my blog. The ask box is meant for people to ask questions or share tidbits of info or thoughts, not to share what is essentially another person's blog post.

When someone sends me a string of asks, or a really long ask, that just contain very detailed, complex thoughts on an issue, the only way for me to properly deal with that as a blogger is to respond point by point in detail myself, and I just don't have time for that. Not if I want to get some of my bigger projects (such as why I believe BJYSZD) done.

If you instead share such things in a reblog or on your own blog, it will be easier for me to respond in a more condensed way without feeling this burden of a massive detailed thing I have to handle.

Let me be clear: I love hearing from you and I am fascinated to hear your thoughts on things, and I read every single message that is sent to me, whether I post it or not. But if you send a long detailed response to a post as an ask, or some long detailed thoughts on an issue as an ask, it's highly unlikely I'd post that here.

The rare exceptions would be if the Anon was sharing highly politically or personally charged info that was of special interest to my readers, and the Anon wasn't at liberty, given their situation, to post it themselves (eg. someone living in a region where sharing political or queer content is risky for them), or if the information shared was of particular interest and not available elsewhere.

Long messages outlining someone's personal opinions, theories, general comments, etc. aren't something that fits into my blog. Not because they're not interesting - they almost always are - but because it's not really my place to share the thoughts and theories of other fans. I don't feel comfortable doing it without responding with my own thoughts, and I don't have time to do that.

If you have something more to say, I really think you should. I encourage people to please do so in the notes for a post, or if it's something longer, reblog the post you're replying to and share your thoughts there. Better yet, why not post it to your own blog? We can always use more BXG bloggers here!

Asks with multiple questions

If you have multiple unrelated questions, please send in multiple asks rather than put it all in one long ask. That makes it easier for me, because I can quickly fire off answers to the easier questions and set aside the more complicated ones for when I have time.

When I get multiple unrelated questions in one ask, I have a couple of options:

I can separate out the easier questions and answer them right away, but that means editing that person's ask and posting just the individual questions, and somehow trying to save the other ones for later. It's a lot to keep track of. Plus, when I edit someone's ask I worry it leaves people wondering what I left out of someone's words. I only ever like doing that when it's absolutely necessary (when redacting anti info or something).

I can leave some things unanswered, which I'd really rather not do. Especially if it's a question I have an answer to but it will just take longer than I have in the moment to organize and get my thoughts down.

Putting multiple questions in one ask is putting all your eggs in one basket. It means that I will feel compelled to answer it all, and like Amazon waiting to ship until all items are at the same warehouse, that might take a long, long time for me to get to. Asking them each separately just increases your chances that at least some of your questions will be answered right away.

I don't mind getting more questions in separate asks. I actually prefer it - for your sake and for mine.

A personal note

To be really candid, I also just find some of this stuff a bit overwhelming. It's hard for me to keep my head clear sometimes when I'm confronted with long, complicated asks or big passages of text sent in multiple broken up parts. Bite size, self-contained messages are just much more digestible for me.

I don't know which platform is ignoring the standard character limit, but I wish it would stop doing that! 😅 (If anyone knows the culprit, please let me know so I can complain to Tumblr).

I was actually reluctant to say anything at all about all of this, because I don't want to lay out a whole bunch of rules or appear to be criticizing. That's not where I'm coming from at all. I don't want people to feel scared to send an ask. At the same time I don't want to leave it unsaid and then have a bunch of people feeling like their asks were ignored.

So I'm giving you these tips that will help me out a lot, in the hopes that you will understand why and not take it in a negative way.

Please take this in the affectionate spirit it's given, and don't feel bad if you're one of the people who has sent in longer stuff. I'm not upset with you!

I will always prefer to hear from you even if it's longer or doesn't follow some guideline I've given, than not hear from you at all, so please know that I love you all, I love hearing from you and I appreciate your taking the time to write in. 💛💛💛

If you are someone who has written in lately with one of those longer asks or with multiple questions, I will still be trying to get to some of that in the coming days. But if you would like to redo some of that by separating into individual questions or shorter snippets, please feel free. It will definitely mean some of it gets responded to sooner.

#personal #ask

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elpublico · 2 years

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Hello! I've been following you for a while and have been wanting to ask you: who exactly is this Federico Garcia Lorca, you seem to like him a lot and I was wondering if you might want to explain why you love him so much. Also why don't you like Salvador Dali (cause I think that has something to do with Lorca? lol) Anyway no pressure if you don't want to answer. I like your blog a lot, have a nice day! :)

first and foremost, thank you very much :-) <3

ive written an absurd amount here, so uh tldr lorca is a spanish writer whose work i enjoy very much, i dont like dalí because of his support of facist systems and because he was an asshole plain and simple, and they are related in that they shared a weird intense homoerotic bond from roughly 1924-1929

and a more in depth explanation below should you care to read! warning it is quite literally 1.5k words. sorry

okay. let us begin

a very basic bio: federico garcía lorca was a spanish creative best known for his plays and poetry, though he was also a talented musician, draftsman, and theatrical director. he was born in 1898 and is considered part of the generación del 27, a loosely defined collection of spanish creatives and intellectuals interested in modernism emerging in the 1920s and 1930s. he was assassinated at by francoist forces at the start of the spanish civil war in 1936 due to his support of and connections to the republican government, leftist politics, and his somewhat public homosexuality.

i have serious, academic answers for why i like him but also silly ones so i’ll start with the silly ones. he was a weird fucking guy. most modernists are weird guys but he’s weird in a unique and dare i say somewhat charming way. he played a game with his friends where he’d pretend to be dead and everyone would pretend to have a funeral for him. when he was a kid he play Catholic Mass and make his family cry during his sermons. he had a jesus complex and wrote a play about his jesus complex. weird guy i love studying his weird brain. also he was that fun type of 20th century homophobic homosexual that was like “guys relax im a cool homosexual i dont like drag” thats extremely easy and fun to ridicule (see: ode to walt whitman). this is especially bold of him since he has the world’s worst taste in men.

on a more serious note i do genuinely enjoy his poetry (and plays, but i’m not well-versed enough in theater to give an informed review), and i think its a particularly poignant and unique version of modernism. and it is both easy and fun to make fun of his loser ass homophobia, but i think generally his work portrays a far more nuanced and compelling depiction of struggling with internalized homophobia that what you see in “ode to walt whitman.” as i am interested in both modernism and queer art, he’s one of those touchstone creatives that forms the basis of this line of inquiry in my personal research interests. also, i think his drawings are severely underrated as examples of spanish modern art and in terms of the material culture of modernism and warrant more in depth scholarship than what currently exists, which is generally just as a coda to his written work.

this is something of a meta-reason, but something i’ve also become interested in as i learn more about lorca is the way in which he has become martyrized in historical and contemporary discussions. i mean like people really create Narratives out of this guy’s life. even as early as 1939 we have people like william carlos williams championing him as the martyr of the spanish civil war to galvanize support in the usa among the literary community (if anyone is interested in reading williams’s essay hit me up i have a pdf). ian gibson’s (lorca’s biographer and the guy who uncovered the details surrounding lorca’s assassination) biography is very much constructed as a narrative of an smoothed over and idealized character. i started thinking more seriously about this after watching the film bones of contention, where lorca is shown as patron saint of lgbt people oppressed under francos rule and of all those who killed during franco's rule. the director of the fundación lorca, who is his niece (great-niece?) expressed in this documentary that the family did not want his bones to be found and reburied, because there is such a strong symbolic connection to him amongst those still fighting for government recognition of the true devastation of facist rule. if they find his bones and rebury them with family, there is the concern that the government will use this as propaganda to suggest that they have dealt with all the repercussions of facism and will not diligently follow up with how fascist power is still a systematic issue. i don’t know if this makes sense, as i haven’t articulated this yet and i still don’t really know what to make of it. there’s just something about the loss of humanity here, that his family could not and cannot properly grieve him because in this horrific death he has become a symbol of resistance. and even as people use his image to delve into queer art and history and as facist resistance, there are also people working in the opposite direction, claiming him as like, a neutral historical presence that like, whether he would have wanted that or not, just isn’t true or even ethical when talking about him today.

and as we talk about narratives i feel this is a good time to shift to dalí who is like The Narrative Guy. as mentioned previously, lorca and dalí were doing some type of gay shit for a little while there (what kind of gay shit is still up for debate). they met in madrid at the residencia de estudiantes, then became very close around 1925, when lorca first visited the dalí summer home in cadaqués. lorca visited again in 1927. they kept a regular correspondence, of which we have relatively few letters, esp those penned by lorca to dalí, and had a particularly fruitful artistic exchange in the years they were friends. lorca drew more (and exhibited his drawings in barcelona), and dalí wrote more. they shared symbols and had this sort of theoretical artistic dialogue through the analysis of saint sebastian. lorca’s head and references to lorca can be found in many of dalí’s paintings of the period, and lorca wrote his "ode to salvador dalí" (which unfortunately kind of slaps) some scholars even go as far as calling this dalí’s lorca period and lorca’s dalinian period.

in 1928 (i think?) luis buñuel (spanish filmmaker who was friends with both of them) begins to turn against lorca, supposedly because he found lorca’s work too traditional/conservative but also probably in large part also due to the fact that he was gay and that he was being gay with dalí. buñuel goes up to dalí, goes “hey i hate lorca don’t you hate lorca haha,” dalí pens this really critical and kind of rude letter to lorca saying his freshly published gypsy ballads was too traditional/conservative and he needed to be more modern etc etc it’s all very high school. dalí pulls away from lorca, goes to paris and collaborates with buñuel on un chien andalou and l’age d’or, lorca goes to new york, and they don’t see each other again until 1935 or 1936 i don’t remember the date. i guess now is as good a time as ever to say at this point in time dalí had ostensibly communist politics and affiliations, but going into late 30s/early 40s as he becomes more successful financially, he cozies up to the fascist franco regime and catholic church and other such institutions so he can live comfortably in spain. he espouses a lot of racist shit that (in my opinion) he only said to further his own career. later on in his life he does a lot of sketchy stuff relating to prints to earn a quick buck. so you know. i dont like him LOL

anyway to bring this back to lorca and narratives, dalí is understandably a key component in understanding the development of lorca’s work but a lot of what he’s said following lorca’s death just cannot be taken at face value. he claims lorca was entirely apolitical in his 1942 autobiography (obviously to make dalí’s own horrendous politics easier to swallow), and in a later interview he presented their relationship in a way that makes lorca look like a pining fool and kind of predatory. this has very clearly influenced lorca scholarship, though i think more and more people are looking at dalí’s comments more critically. in trying to manipulate his own self-image, dalí has had an insane influence over lorca’s narrative, which. grinds my gears.

i hate to end on dalí but i have no more to say lol. but at least i am spreading the word that dalí fucking sucks. gonna cite/link some shit here in the interest of transparency:

biographical details for both mostly pulled from my recollections of ian gibson’s biographies of the two (frederico garcía lorca: a life and the shameful life of salvador dalí) i will also say my understanding of dalí’s personal motives comes pretty much exclusively from gibson’s biography and its thesis, that dalí’s entire life revolved around masking and coping with his own personal sense of shame. very biased point of view but i don’t care enough about dalí to bother reading more about him. even just writing this post bummed me way the fuck out. too much dalí. i will also say i encourage everyone to NOT read gibson’s dalí biography, there’s a really transphobic section that violates the privacy of someone in dalí’s life. she’s a public figure and i’m sure it would not be hard to find speculation elsewhere, but you know. it’s just gross and all i can do is my best to prevent more people from speculating about this woman’s genitals

read a good article a while ago that sums up dalí’s racism but i can’t find it so here are some other articles providing more details, some of which i am only learning about now lol:

el pais: https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-06/the-day-dali-invented-a-racist-religion.html

vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/8qwp9v/its-really-surreal-how-salvador-dal-was-a-fascist-who-hit-women

if you are ever looking for a painfully mediocre period drama, i suggest little ashes in which robert pattinson plays dalí, making some of the most confusing acting choices of his entire career.

if you’re gonna read a lorca biography i suggest leslie stainton’s lorca: a dream of life. i haven’t read it all the way through, but it’s written more for a general audience than gibson’s hyper detailed version, and stainton isn’t afraid to point out tomfoolery on the part of lorca.

a selection of lorca poems:

fable and round of the three friends: https://hellopoetry.com/poem/623292/fable-and-round-of-the-three-friends/

ballad of the spanish civil guard: https://www.poesi.as/index214uk.htm

the guitar: https://poets.org/poem/guitar

if you made it this far i'm sorry

#ask

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