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topduck48 · 9 months

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Hiiiii! I saw you enjoy reading other people's headcanons for Duck so I am sending mine! Let me know what you think! 💚🚂🌻

Hello! This is slightly irrelevant but I like your art. It has a very earthy, oaky, autumnal colour scheme. It feels like I am jumping into a pile of leaves, with the crunch and all.

Anyway, on to the headcanons. I like your reference for him. I especially like the “rambling, rambling, rambling” and “socially awkward” part, it is definitely Duck.

For the first headcanon on your list, I headcanon Duck as 34, so our headcanon ages for him are quite close. I also agree that he worked on the GWR for ten years before moving to Sodor.

I agree that Duck is English (I think that he was born in the west country), and I personally think that he has been to Scotland with Donald and Douglas to visit their family. I personally don’t think that Duck knows Emily very well, and has only heard of her because of Donald and Douglas. He does briefly see her around, but they haven’t spoken to each other much.

My opinion on the third one is basically what I said for the second headcanon. I personally headcanon Duck as cisgender, but that is merely my own headcanon for my own version of him. Every headcanon version of Duck (and other characters in general) is different, and I really like that. I have seen quite a few people headcanon Duck as trans, so you’re definitely not alone when it comes to having that headcanon.

My opinion on the fourth one is basically what I said for the third headcanon. This headcanon does suit your version of him well.

For the fifth one, I personally headcanon Duck as grey ace. However, he is definitely close to Donald. While I do see the two dating, I think that it would take a very long time before they do. Also, I think that Duck is not one to talk about his romantic relationships (or even friendships) with anyone, so only a very small amount of people (probably only Douglas for a while) would know that they were dating. The people that do find out only find out because the two are holding hands or talking to each other in a way that they wouldn’t normally do with other people, not because Duck has specifically told them. Duck is a very private person to me, and he is private about absolutely everything, to a large degree. Donald understands this though, and he also doesn’t tell anyone about them dating.

For the sixth one, your version of Duck would definitely do this. Duck is a fatherly figure to those that he likes, and Percy is the biggest example of that. Whenever Percy is upset about something, he immediately goes to Duck, and Duck lets him get it all out, then offers a logical and practical solution to the problem. Also I am intrigued in that story of yours for “another day”…

He is definitely proud of his branch line. He takes it very seriously and always strives to make it the best that it can be. Oliver is also proud of working on said branch line, but his pride isn’t quite the same as Duck’s.

He still doesn’t get on with the big engines due to that very reason. The big engines have a large dislike for him due to the fact that he doesn’t bow down and blindly obey them. Therefore, they sieze any opportunity to make up a reason to dislike him. Duck doesn’t like the big engines due to their incompetence, lack of work ethic, and large amounts of entitlement. Duck doesn’t care about them or what they think of him. He likes the way he is, and that’s that. No one else’s opinion is going to change his own opinion of himself.

I agree with the ninth one. While I don’t think that he cared about the big engine’s opinions, he did care when The Fat Controller sent him away. The Fat Controller’s opinion is one that Duck does care about, due to him being a good source of authority that Duck acknowledges and respects. Therefore, that brief moment when he thinks that The Fat Controller believed Diesel was heart breaking to him, and I think that is why he got so distraught to the point of crying (and also because I think that he has quite extreme emotions and struggles to control them sometimes). Not because of the big engines, or Diesel, but because a good and fair authority figure immediately seemed to believe and take the side of the one who was obviously lying.

His special interests are definitely trains and the ocean. I also think that his other special interests are vintage fashion, the great western railway, boats, smart, vintage fashion and birds.

I think that the final one is true for your version of Duck, and I think that your headcanon would also apply for when he was in school.

These are all just my opinion. While some of my headcanons are different to yours, that doesn’t mean that yours are wrong. I think that your headcanons are well thought out, realistic, and suit your version of Duck very well.

#ttte #ttte duck #my headcanons #my opinion #ttte headcanons #my rambles #ttte donald #ttte douglas #ask answer #ttte gordon #ttte henry #ttte james #ttte diesel #ttte the fat controller #ttte emily

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jakedamikasa · 10 months

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Continuation Mommy Issues

Mikasa x Male trans

– I was afraid, afraid of the conversation we would have, a million thoughts appeared about, could it be that she saw me smoking? I don't even smoke. Did she see me drinking? I don't even drink. Did she see me walking the streets at dawn? she doesn't even go out at that time. Did she find out about my relationship with Mikasa? Did she find out I'm not a mama's girl? All these thoughts were running through my head, but the last two scared me, a lot. I keep my bike in a corner of the garage, my hands were sweating cold, I was shivering a little, I sigh and open the door slowly but unfortunately it makes a noise -I know it's you, come here now- says a voice coming from the kitchen, I knew it was the woman, I take the backpack off my back and leave it on the sofa, I walk to the kitchen door, but I don't go through, I didn't want to go through, I didn't want to go, I knew something would happen , I knew it was all going to start again. I go through the door, the woman was sitting in the chair at the table with her cell phone open, from afar I couldn't see straight -Sit down- the woman asks, I pull the chair and sit down in front of her, the woman looks at me, her gaze red from crying -Why?- she asks -Answer me [Dead name], why?- she asks again looking deep into my eyes capturing my every movement -Mom, I don't know what you're talking about- I answer -Now you're going to pretend to be silly with your mother!!?- She raises her voice making me shrug -You need to calm down and seek therapy to help you- I say trying to make my voice steady -Me? Why do you say that, I'm fine! - she exclaims - You, besides being destroying your psychological, are also destroying mine too – the woman raises an eyebrow -What do you mean? I give you everything, I give you water, food, clothes.- I just keep silent, it wasn't worth arguing with that kind of person - I found out everything, [dead name] or [name]- when my name comes out of your mouth , I feel my heart racing, she slides the phone towards me, when I flicked my eyes across the screen I just wanted to disappear in the moment, there were pictures and videos of me and Mikasa, I couldn't move -Explain to me [dead name], ME EXPLAIN WHAT THOSE ARE!!- the woman gets up slamming her hands on the table with force -I give you everything, I gave you love, affection, attention for you to be with a disgusting woman and still keeps saying that she is a boy, that she identifies as a boy- said -Do you give me love? kindness? attention? You never gave me any of that, NEVER- I retort raising my voice -And you respect my girlfriend, unlike you they respect me!- I mean referring to my friends -You lower your voice with me! I'm your mother and I was the one who brought you into this world! - She says starting to approach me, I quickly get up and leave the kitchen being accompanied by the woman -You say mother but you don't even know how to do the least that every mother does! My father, even though he was absent, he certainly wouldn't be an idiot like you - the woman is surprised by the words, her eyes transmit anger, the angry woman hits my chest hard, pushing me hard, catching me off guard, I fall to the ground scared, shaking , with a pain in the chest and an enormous desire to cry

-IF YOUR FATHER REALLY CARES ABOUT YOU HE WOULD ASK YOU TO LIVE WITH HIM, DO YOU REALLY THINK THESE FRIENDS CARE ABOUT YOU? THEY WILL JUST USE YOU AND YOUR DISGUSTING LITTLE GIRLFRIEND WILL LEAVE YOU AT THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY - she spits out all these words, it hurt me, it hurt me deeply like it was knives with sharp blades, still on the ground I scream back -YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT THEM THAT WAY YOUR BREAKDOWN- I curse her, something I never had the courage to say in front of her, the woman approaches me and grabs my neck - HERE'S THE NEXT, YOU DON'T TALK TO YOUR MOM THAT WAY, I PUT YOU INTO THIS WORLD AND I CAN IF I WANT TAKE IT OUT!!!- Loosen my neck -You will never be a real boy, you were born a girl, a woman!! I will always see you as my daughter, if you have these things about being a boy, let it be far from my house, far from me- she walks away and goes back to the kitchen, I get up from the floor, grab my backpack and run up to my room, I open my wardrobe and take my clothes and stuff them in my backpack. I run out of my room with my backpack ready -I HATE YOU, I JUST WANTED A MOM- I shout for the woman to hear and slam the front door hard

– Tears were running down my cheeks, I wiped them off but they wouldn't stop, I don't care about the speed of the bike my mixed feelings, anger, sadness, thoughts of self-harm, feeling useless, disgusting, stupid. I desperately knock on the door which is soon answered by Eren, his expression of boredom turned to one of concern, he pulls me by the arm putting me inside, he sat me on the couch and started asking me countless questions but he did not receive any answers, he looks for on the cell phone but he doesn't think so, he runs to his room to get it but when he returns to the room he notices me disappearing, he goes into despair and goes to the bathroom but when she tries to open the door it was locked. Was it true? Are they using me? My father didn't care about me? Would I ever get to be a real boy? SHIT! THE TALKS OF THAT WOMAN HIT ME, I hold my hair pulling the strands hard -You useless, you useless- I started repeating in a low voice, my body was shaking like hell, I couldn't breathe properly, when I least realized it the bathroom door was open and a female figure enters, Mikasa without thinking twice hugs me tight, her warm and warm arms gave me a little comfort -She's right, I never I'll be a real boy, I'm a complete useless- I comment -Hey, hey, hey who said you're not a real boy?- Mikasa asks -That woman, she said horrible things to me, she said she never I'll be a real boy, that my father never cared about me that my friends and you will abandon me, she assaulted me… - my throat dry, failing miserably to continue, I just bury my head in her chests and cry even harder -That bastard you don't know what you're talking about, she's not your real mother, if she really was, it wouldn't be such a stick up your ass. Baby, I will never, never leave you, me, Eren and Armin will never do that, Eren called me desperate saying that you locked yourself in the bathroom crying and saying something, Armin and I came running here. We all care about you just like you care about us- she says stroking my hair, she sits on the bathroom floor and puts me sitting on her lap -You are our big boy, I love you so much honey, you are the boy more and stronger than I know, every day I remember how lucky I am to have you with me, I wanted to protect you and all the bad, from the break-ins that hurt you.- your words comfort me, my heart warms and little by little I I stop shaking, I just stay silent listening to every beat of your heart, I snuggle closer into your chest and I feel a huge desire to sleep, I'm happy to know that even everything was falling I had people by my side, I'm totally grateful for them - I love you too- I speak softly, soon falling asleep, the only thing I remember was his low laugh and his grip around me tightening.

#attack on titan #aot mikasa #mikasa ackerman #mikasa x reader #male reader #transmasc #attack on titan mikasa #mikasa x you

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dat-eyebrows · 2 years

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im so fucking disappointed with john mulaney… basically i really wasn’t into comedy much at all before i saw some of his sketches because his style of humor really meshed with me and my values. humor centered around punching down and making fun of other people is just not appealing to me and never has been. i was actively interested in going to see him one day, saying it would be a dream of mine.

then the stuff with his divorce with his wife, i was like… well, that’s certainly a dampener on my opinion of him. makes me respect him less, however i’m going to try and remain neutral and reserve some judgement because it’s relevant to his personal life and i can’t have the full scope of the situation. but i went from really being super into the comedian to feeling about as neutral towards him as most other celebrities. cautious, you could say. i wouldn’t not go to a show… but i wouldn’t seek it out. if the opportunity arose i wouldn’t turn it down, though.

now with this shit with dave chappelle, i’m just stunned. he has historically had a large LGBTQ+ fanbase, that fact can’t have been lost on him. from the perspective of a trans person, as a trans person, i’m personally hurt. not as deeply as if he’d done this back when I still felt really positive about him, but hurt nonetheless. however, from the perspective of PR, i’m also simply baffled as to why he (and anyone involved with his team) would ever think hosting chapelle was a good idea.

the only ways i can reason this making sense is that:

1. maybe after the whole situation with his wife his PR team has decided to forego the whole ‘wholesome/good boy’ visage of his public persona, since it was now clearly impossible for him to hold to that standard. hosting chappelle was seen as a valid option to firmly bury the old persona. ironically, this option leaves the possibility open that mulaney might not actually be intrinsically as transphobic or shitty a person, but he’s willing to let his new, more mature public persona be associated with ‘meaner’ comedians, and is now facing an unexpectedly immediate but inevitable backfiring of that decision. i hope this is the actual situation that happened here, but obviously there’s no way to know, but we know that we should take whatever him/his PR team says in the future with a grain of salt.

2. mulaney’s friendship with chappelle is strong enough for him to disregard caution/ PR in lieu of just having a friend on with him. which means he’s great friends with that kind of person, which says something about his personal beliefs and ethics. if this is the case, it also says something about him & his PR team - either everyone, mulaney included, is just that ignorant/naïve, or mulaney is in conflict with them and didn’t care to listen to whatever warnings he was given. given his background in writing on the production end of things, i find it confusing (and worrisome) if this is the reason behind chappelle’s appearance at his show. however, i most likely see PR trying to spin it this way, with a “we’re friends, but i didn’t know he’d do this!” type response coming in the future.

i dunno. just my thoughts on the whole situation. i’m curious as what everyone else thinks and if anyone else has any theories on why anyone thought this was even remotely a good idea not destined for disaster.

#john mulaney #dave chappelle #my shit #idk just my thoughts

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spacerangersam · 1 year

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I recently saw your NB4ProblamatocT Julian pat post, and it just made me cry!! You're so talented, and I'm just obsessed! I was wondering if you could tell us some more about NB/Trans femme pat (or trans masc!!) Or the hc you have! It's okay if not! Sorry to bother :^)

thank you so much!! and im sure I can scrounge up some ideas! (and trust me, this is no bother at all. i am always up for the opportunity to rattle on)

She knew she was trans (even if she didn’t have the language for it) when she was fourteen and started going through puberty. the second her voice dropped she was like 'oh I hate this actually, no thanks'

In my Pat lore that’s consistent regardless of Pat’s gender, she has a twin sister Gabrielle who’s also trans and realised a lot sooner when she was around ten, so the second Pat started to feel a bit off, they talked to Gabrielle about it

While they didn’t totally click with womanhood, it felt more comfortable than being perceived as a man, so they started growing her hair out and nicking Gab’s clothes.

All her family just kind of rolled with it. (let us, for a moment, live in a world where transphobia doesn’t exist)

She didn’t even think of a new name until like two years down the line when someone asked her for it at a party and she was like right, probably shouldn’t be going by Patrick anymore. So on the spot, she blurted out Patricia. She’d always been happy being called Pat/Patty, so it worked out

I don’t imagine her being a particularly femme person. She might have worn the occasional long skirt or a nice dress to a party, but otherwise, she had like two pairs of mum jeans she lived in and a variety of bright, colourful button-ups to pair with them. Shoes-wise, she’d stick to trainers and boots, with some jelly shoes for summer.

I also imagine she wouldn’t have worn much makeup, but she cared so much about her hair. So much. And she is forever grateful she died with her hair freshly permed, and with like, three different scrunchies on her wrist that she can swap out (and just like transphobia, we will be ignoring ghost canon)

obv she's a guide leader rather than a scout leader, and I think to believe she had beef with the local scout group/their scoutmaster and was always trying to one-up him. she's forever miffed about kicking the bucket before getting one over on him

(one day his group visits the button grounds, and she gathers up all the ghosts with powers to make his life a brief living hell even though he's like, ancient now and not even the scoutmaster anymore, just there for old times sake. still, they do it, and she's so happy. revenge? pretty cool, actually)

I imagine after she died, she was pretty hush-hush about being trans, just in case. But when she clocked onto Cap struggling with his sexuality, she decided to take a leap of faith and tell him. He was a bit confused but took it in stride, and while he didn’t come out to her, it definitely made him feel more comfortable about himself

She didn’t come out to anyone else until Alison made a comment about him being nb themselves, leading to them giving all the ghosts a lesson on everything LGBT

Pat found was just overjoyed there was a better word for how she felt, that she wasn’t ‘faking’ being trans because she didn’t connect with the idea of being a woman, she was just trans in a different way

She came out, everyone was obviously accepting, and Alison even got her a little nb flag for her room. Which does lead to questions when people visit and are like? why is there a random pride flag in this empty room?

Alison never comes up with a good excuse

Pat uses she/they/he pronouns, but you're only allowed to use he/him if you’ve been given permission. So far the only people who’ve won that right are her mother, her sister, Cap, and somehow, Julian/Julie.

Also, it's very important to me that she's surprisingly strong. I just really like the image of this titchy trans femme picking up the blokes of the house and moving them aside whenever they're in Alison's way

um. that's all i've got, i think

#ask #ghosts posts #transfem pat

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dragynkeep · 2 years

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I think he saw your posts.

Why hasn't he blocked you yet?

oh he has me blocked, i guess he just can't take responsibility for himself. however big tw for transphobia / nbphobia, ableism, victim blaming & rape mention because actually looking at the post is a major yikes.

i don't care that you made an anti rwde post, crimson. i care that yet again you're using ableist terms & phrases, once again proving that alongside your "apology" for doing so was utterly conditional but that you also just. can't take responsibility for your own actions. no one is forcing you to go into the rwde tag or see our "cold takes", you need to manage your social media consumption better. no one is going to do it for you.

but also by reblogging a post dripping with radfem rhetoric that directly impacts those with bpd, especially genderqueer people with bpd, you've shown that so long as the views are right, you will platform terfs. & considering that you couldn't even believe that i was the target of the transphobic bigotry from the confessions blog you reblogged & not my trans brother, & you accused me of co-opting that when it was never directed at him in the first place, you need to realize how harmful your words & assumptions can be. you need to stop doubling down when you're proven wrong.

people like me are not why borderlines, not "bpd", get so much hatred. we're hated because neurotypicals & non cluster b neurodivergents think that we're fundamentally "non human" because of the way our disorders exhibit. there's multiple instances of just how these attitudes harm us & kill us, we're killed as a result of this ableism.

i haven't blamed anything on my bpd, i've actually been quiet about my mental health diagnosis outside of instances where i felt it helpful or supportive. you're the one pulling the "i have a black friend" in regards to your brother, friend & mother. i am not them. if you've met someone with bpd, you've met one person with bpd. we are not all the same & it's abhorrant you would use this as an opportunity to further stigmatize those with bpd after being told that the post you reblogged from a terf was from a neurotypical transphobic woman who exploited our experiences for money. you can't divorce the terf aspect from your "support" for the ableism, they're entwined.

also "stick your head in an oven" is certainly something to say to a jewish person but i'm definitely not going to assume any antisemitism & just ascribe it to the far more likely instance of you telling me to go kill myself. thank you for the suggestion but i'm fine.

this one was almost kind of funny because i was waiting for a self proclaimed rwby fan to use the instance of me having to flee my house in the middle of the night to escape a situation of domestic violence from the man who was supposed to love & raise me. the man who's same abuse was part of causing my bpd. right now i am homeless because that same bpd, alongside the physical disability i have that prevents me from moving for long periods of time, is the reason i don't "have a job."

you would think that someone who "had to relearn how to walk" would have more sympathy in this type of situation but once again you are proving that just because you are trans & disabled, does not mean that you cannot perpetuate transphobia or ableism. these screenshots & your vile words show that.

it's also hilarious that all 11 notes on your post are further comments of these vile words. it's all you, no one else wants to pay witness to this downward spiral of disgusting bigotry & hatred.

thank you for being inclusive in your unhinged tirade of insults, it really warms my heart after you reblog ableism from terfs against borderlines & prove that your "apology" a few weeks back was completely spineless.

i'm not engaging in your attempts to bring up any "rape smut" i have written, i implore you to see beyond whatever bubble you've trapped yourself in & actually read some literature on how these kinks occur & just how sex, gender & trauma play into it.

your brain damage does not allow you to perpetuate ableism against other disabled people; that's not how power reclamation works. this is not 'pc shit', these are legitimately harmful views you're espousing because you hate me that much, you think you're validated in doing this because i'm a "bad person." because i "deserve it." which unfortunately is the same technique of invalidation & dehumanization that plenty of bigots use, & will use against you.

i'm not angry with you, or pissed off. i was when all of this started weeks back & you invalidated the transphobia i faced, when you called into question my status as a rape survivor & when you refused to take any accountability for your ugly words.

now i just want you to find some peace & learn coping mechanisms that allow you not to blow up & harm other marginalized people whenever they bring up something harmful that you've done. all of this came from one ask that pointed out that you had reblogged harmful rhetoric from terfs, & all of this hatred came from it. what if i was in a worse place, like i was a week ago? what if i actually had killed myself? would you be able to live with that?

i don't think so either. do better.

#rwby #rwde #crimson-caracal #ableism #transphobia #nbphobia #victim blaming #ais.txt #answered #long post /

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valfeathers · 2 years

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dr:t pride headcanons, written edition

so i’ve recently received some asks about whether or not i headcanon any of the characters from dr:togami as lgbtq+ or not and, as a very queer person, you know i do!

since i’ve been struggling to put out art recently, i figured that i’d take the time to write down my pride headcanons in honour of pride month! i want to apologise for not being in the proper headspace to post even though i promised i would, i hope this gets my thoughts across in some form!

(if i neglect to mention anyone just assume that they’re either straight or unlabeled!)

and if i word this post firmly, please remember that these are my opinions and you’re well within your right to disagree so long as you’re respectful.

spoilers? maybe. gay people below the cut!

so let’s start it off with our volume 1 cast!-

byakuya: gay & gender-fluid. now, i feel very strongly that during the events of the novels he was still far far into that closet, but believe me it’s there. remember when he had to dress up as that nun? and how he was vibing in that convent, a place that celeste mentions doesn’t allow men? he was very trans in that chapter. and let’s not even mention polaris p. polanski. this kid is so transgender it makes my eyes hurt.

shinobu: lesbian. she’s a lesbian. this is partly due to projection and partly due to the way that she describes female characters, but i’m not gonna tether my opinions to canon so i’ll leave it at that. i feel like she’s actually a little bit of a hopeless romantic.

satomi aoba: lesbian. i promise they’re not all lesbians, it’s just that i’m a lesbian and i love satomi. but also it’s the way that she interacts with the mole in volume 1, as if she’s moved past having patience for men. and that’s very lesbian of her.

hiroyuki: pansexual trans man. now these are purely headcanon, but i characterise hiroyuki as not giving a damn about gender in the slightest. if he likes you, he likes you. and i don’t remember when exactly i decided to make him a trans man but i get the feeling that it’s because he’s a twin. i get that they aren’t identical but i saw the opportunity and took it, what can i say. like shinobu, i’d like to think he craves love and romance but he tends to mask his emotions with humour so you’d have to be able to read him to know that. good lad, in all.

yuika: pansexual. they’re twins! they match! kidding, there’s more to it. now, at some point i decided that yuika would also go for personality other than gender, since she values someone who unflinchingly cares about her, especially since her fleshed out backstory in my rewrite reveals that her peers didn’t exactly treat her well. but that’s for another time.

taeko: lesbian. last one, i swear! i’d argue that taeko & yuika are slightly girlfriend-coded in the novels, but that’s beside the point. the second i read taeko’s dialogue and scenes i got hit with a strong femme-lesbian vibe. she really values femininity, she kicks ass and she’s the hyper to yuika’s calm

andou (A54) naoki: bisexual. honorable mention! he plays a bigger role in my ver. which is why he’s here. i can’t exactly put this one into words without explaining his entire character and, my god, i want this post to be brief. so just trust me on this one. once i actually post about him hopefully you’ll get it.

and now for the dead siblings!-

now, i’m aware of just how strict this family is, but as you all know (hopefully) you’re gay regardless of your situation, and like, mathematically there’s no way that every single one of them is straight.

ichirou: bisexual. again, this one mostly fits my characterisation of him, which i’ll elaborate on later! for now all i’ll say is that he’d be kind of nonchalant about it? like ‘oh you know, uneventful work day, saved a life, repaired an artery, kissed a man, et cetera.’ and he’s not stupid, at all, nor is he uncaring, it’s just that it’s such a natural part of him that he doesn’t question it at all.

saburou: asexual. this only relates to my interpretation of him, which is very different from canon! he’s the type of kid to make the most out of left field, egregious sex joke imaginable only to be the most asexual person you ever did meet.

takaya: aroace. now, if he had gotten to live longer and work his shit out he’d realise that is the definition of aroace. he, for his whole life, simply had no interest. a common experience for aromantic people (coming from an aro person!) is the classic ‘pick someone to have a crush on’ experience but in all honesty, i dont think he even did that. he simply didn’t care in the slightest and wasn’t afraid to let people know it.

#i developed these hcs from talking to buddies in dms btw!!#i cant Not make my stories gay its a compulsion #again be respectful! i have a block button and im not afraid to use it #headcanons #headcanon #dr:t #danganronpa #danganronpa togami #shinobu togami #byakuya togami #togami siblings

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army-of-mai-lovers · 3 years

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in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough.

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.”

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role.

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all.

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.”

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.”

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~”

y’all WHAT.

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back.

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai.

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too.

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!”

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse.

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.)

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out.

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show.

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.”

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring.

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what?

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her.

Conclusion

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked.

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here.

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice.

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us.

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littlemixnet · 3 years

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To me, a good ally is someone who is consistent in their efforts – there’s a difference between popping on a pride playlist or sprinkling yourself in rainbow glitter once a year and actually defending LGBT+ people against discrimination. It means showing my LGBT+ fans that I support them wholeheartedly and am making a conscious effort to educate myself, raise awareness and show up whenever they need me to. It would be wrong of me to benefit from the community as a musician without actually standing up and doing what I can to support. As someone in the public eye, it’s important to make sure your efforts are not performative or opportunistic. I’m always working on my allyship and am very much aware that I’ve still got a lot of unlearning and learning to do. There are too many what I call ‘dormant allies’, believing in equality but not really doing more than liking or reposting your LGBT+ mate’s content now and again. Imagine if that friend then saw you at the next march, or signing your name on the next petition fighting for their rights? Being an ally is also about making a conscious effort to use the right language and pronouns, and I recently read a book by Glennon Doyle who spoke of her annoyance and disappointment of those who come out and are met with ‘We love you…no matter what’. I’d never thought of that expression like that before and it really struck a chord with me. ‘No matter what’ suggests you are flawed. Being LGBT+ is not a flaw. Altering your language and being conscious of creating a more comfortable environment for your LGBT+ family and friends is a good start. Nobody is expecting you to suddenly know it all, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a perfect ally. I’m still very much learning. Even recently, after our Confetti music video I was confronted with the fact that although we made sure our video was incredibly inclusive, we hadn’t brought in any actual drag kings. Some were frustrated, and they had every right to be. You can have the right intentions and still fall short. As an open ally I should have thought about that, and I hadn’t, and for that I apologise. Since then I’ve been doing more research on drag king culture, because it’s definitely something I didn’t know enough about, whether that was because it isn’t as mainstream yet mixed with my own ignorance. But the point is we mess up, we apologise, we learn from it and we move forward with that knowledge. Don’t let the fear of f**king up scare you off. And make sure you are speaking alongside the community, not for the community. Growing up in a small Northern working-class town, some views were, and probably still are, quite ‘old fashioned’ and small-minded. I witnessed homophobia at an early age. It was a common thought particularly among men that it was wrong to be anything but heterosexual. I knew very early on I didn’t agree with this, but wasn’t educated or aware enough on how to combat it. I did a lot of performing arts growing up and within that space I had many LGBT+ (mainly gay) friends. I’ve been a beard many a time let me tell you! But it was infuriating to see friends not feel like they could truly be themselves. When I moved to London I felt incredibly lonely and like I didn’t fit in. It was my gay friends (mainly my friend and hairstylist, Aaron Carlo) who took me under their wing and into their world. Walking into those gay bars or events like Sink The Pink, it was probably the first time I felt like I was in a space where everyone in that room was celebrated exactly as they are. It was like walking into a magical wonderland. I got it. I clicked with everyone. My whole life I struggled with identity – being mixed race for me meant not feeling white enough, or black enough, or Arab enough. I was a ‘tomboy’ and very nerdy. I suppose on a personal level that maybe played a part in why I felt such a connection or understanding of why those spaces for the LGBT+ community are so important. One of the most obvious examples of first realising Little Mix was having an effect in the community was that I couldn’t enter a gay bar without hearing a Little Mix song and watching numerous people break out into full choreo from our videos! I spent the first few years of our career seeing this unfold and knowing the LGBT+ fan base were there, but it wasn’t until I got my own Instagram or started properly going through Twitter DMs that I realised a lot of our LGBT+ fans were reaching out to us on a daily basis saying how much our music meant to them. I received a message from a boy in the Middle East who hadn’t come out because in his country homosexuality is illegal. His partner tragically took their own life and he said our music not only helped him get through it, but gave him the courage to start a new life somewhere else where he could be out and proud. There are countless other stories like theirs, which kind of kickstarted me into being a better ally. Another standout moment would be when we performed in Dubai in 2019. We were told numerous times to ‘abide by the rules’, which meant not promoting anything LGBT+ or too female-empowering (cut to us serving a four-part harmony to Salute). In my mind, we either didn’t go or we’d go and make a point. When Secret Love Song came on, we performed it with the LGBT+ flag taking up the whole screen behind us. The crowd went wild, I could see fans crying and singing along in the audience and when we returned it was everywhere in the press. I saw so many positive tweets and messages from the community. It made laying in our hotel rooms s**tting ourselves that we’d get arrested that night more than worth it. It was through our fans and through my friends I realised I need to be doing more in my allyship. One of the first steps in this was meeting with the team at Stonewall to help with my ally education and discussing how I could be using my platform to help them and in turn the community. Right now, and during lockdown, I’d say my ally journey has been a lot of reading on LGBT+ history, donating to the right charities and raising awareness on current issues such as the conversion therapy ban and the fight for equality of trans lives. Stonewall is facing media attacks for its trans-inclusive strategies and there is an alarming amount of seemingly increasing transphobia in the UK today and we need to be doing more to stand with the trans community. Still, there is definitely a pressure I feel as someone in the public eye to constantly be saying and doing the right things, especially with cancel culture becoming more popular. I s**t myself before most interviews now, on edge that the interviewer might be waiting for me to ‘slip up’ or I might say something that can be misconstrued. Sometimes what can be well understood talking to a journalist or a friend doesn’t always translate as well written down, which has definitely happened to me before. There’ve been moments where I’ve (though well intentioned) said the wrong thing and had an army of Twitter warriors come at me. Don’t get me wrong, there are obviously more serious levels of f**king up that are worthy of a cancelling. But it was quite daunting to me to think that all of my previous allyship could be forgotten for not getting something right once. When that’s happened to me before I’ve scared myself into thinking I should STFU and not say anything, but I have to remember that I am human, I’m going to f**k up now and again and as long as I’m continuing to educate myself to do better next time then that’s OK. I’m never going to stop being an ally so I need to accept that there’ll be trickier moments along the way. I think that might be how some people may feel, like they’re scared to speak up as an ally in case they say the wrong thing and face backlash. Just apologise to the people who need to be apologised to, and show that you’re doing what you can to do better and continue the good fight. Don’t burden the community with your guilt. When it comes to the music industry, I’m definitely seeing a lot more LGBT+ artists come through and thrive, which is amazing. Labels, managements, distributors and so forth need to make sure they’re not just benefiting from LGBT+ artists but show they’re doing more to actually stand with them and create environments where those artists and their fans feel safe. A lot of feedback I see from the community when coming to our shows is that they’re in a space where they feel completely free and accepted, which I love. I get offered so many opportunities to do with LGBT+ based shows or deals and while it’s obviously flattering, I turn most of them down and suggest they give the gig to someone more worthy of that role. But really, I shouldn’t have to say that in the first place. The fee for any job I do take that feels right for me but has come in as part of the community goes to LGBT+ charities. That’s not me blowing smoke up my own arse, I just think the more of us and big companies that do that, the better. We need more artists, more visibility, more LGBT+ mainstream shows, more shows on LGBT+ history and more artists standing up as allies. We have huge platforms and such an influence on our fans – show them you’re standing by them. I’ve seen insanely talented LGBT+ artist friends in the industry who are only recently getting the credit they deserve. It’s amazing but it’s telling that it takes so long. It’s almost expected that it will be a tougher ride. We also need more understanding and action on the intersectionality between being LGBT+ and BAME. Racism exists in and out of the community and it would be great to see more and more companies in the industry doing more to combat that. The more we see these shows like Drag Race on our screens, the more we can celebrate difference. Ever since I was a little girl, my family would go to Benidorm and we’d watch these glamorous, hilarious Queens onstage; I was hooked. I grew up listening to and loving the big divas – Diana Ross (my fave), Cher, Shirley Bassey, and all the queens would emulate them. I was amazed at their big wigs, glittery overdrawn make-up and fabulous outfits. They were like big dolls. Most importantly, they were unapologetically whoever the f**k they wanted to be. As a shy girl who didn’t really understand why the world was telling me all the things I should be, I almost envied the queens but more than anything I adored them. Drag truly is an art form, and how incredible that every queen is different; there are so many different styles of drag and to me they symbolise courage and freedom of expression. Everything you envisioned your imaginary best friend to be, but it’s always been you. There’s a reason why the younger generation are loving shows like Drag Race. These kids can watch this show and not only be thoroughly entertained, but be inspired by these incredible people who are unapologetically themselves, sharing their touching stories and who create their own support systems and drag families around them. Now and again I think of when I’d see those Queens in Benidorm, and at the end they’d always sing I Am What I Am as they removed their wigs and smudged their make up off, and all the dads would be up on their feet cheering for them, some emotional, like they were proud. But that love would stop when they’d go back home, back to their conditioned life where toxic heteronormative behaviour is the status quo. Maybe if those same men saw drag culture on their screens they’d be more open to it becoming a part of their everyday life. I’ll never forget marching with Stonewall at Manchester Pride. I joined them as part of their young campaigners programme, and beforehand we sat and talked about allyship and all the young people there asked me questions while sharing some of their stories. We then began the march and I can’t explain the feeling and emotion watching these young people with so much passion, chanting and being cheered by the people they passed. All of these kids had their own personal struggles and stories but in this environment, they felt safe and completely proud to just be them. I knew the history of Pride and why we were marching, but it was something else seeing what Pride really means first hand. My advice for those who want to use their voice but aren’t sure how is, just do it hun. It’s really not a difficult task to stand up for communities that need you. Change can happen quicker with allyship.

Jade Thirlwall on the power, and pressures, of being an LGBT ally: ‘I’m gonna f**k up now and again’

#jade thirlwall #lgbt

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thechekhov · 4 years

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Hi! I saw on a post that you're agender and I'm kinda questioning my gender (again) but what interested me more about that post was that you said you believe that gender is a social construct and I'm not really familiar with that theory. I was wondering if you could explain to me what the whole idea is? (bc I kinda only feel like a have a gender in social situations? In my head, my dreams and how I picture myself in the future, I'm genderless idjskahwksjejensj) Sorry for bothering you if I did.

This is a BIG topic and it opens a LOT of wormholes.

We’re gonna do this in pie slice statements that will hopefully help explain what I mean. Please keep in mind I’m going to simplify many things for the sake of readability.

1) What is a social construct?

Social constructs are ideas that are negotiated by social groups. Something being a social construct does not make it ‘not real’.

For example, money is a social construct. Yes, we have cash - coins, credit cards - but these are physical props that are REPRESENTATIVE of the idea of currency. You have some form of credit to your name - the money is a socially agreed-upon idea of value being represented by bills in your hand, by numbers in your bank account.

[Description: Two humanoid figures are standing side by side. The right-side figure is holding a rock in its hand.

Right side figure: Let’s agree that this shiny rock is worth 2 sheep.

Left side figure: Sounds fake but ok.]

Technically, countries are also social constructs. We, as a society, negotiate what a country is, and this can be changed.

[Description: Two figures are standing on either side of a dotted line drawn on the ground. The left figure is pointing down at it while the right figure watches, its arms crossed.

Left figure: Let’s pretend that everything on this side of the imaginary line is mine.

Right figure: ...ok but my house is over there.

Left figure: ... for 3 shiny rocks you can come visit.]

Does that mean canada isn’t real? No. (I mean, obviously canada ISN’T real, but we all agree to pretend it is.) The thing that makes it real is that we are in agreement, and all follow the social rules of pretend to make it seem like the Canadian border, the idea of Canadian citizenship, etc... is an objective fact. (It’s not. These are in fact, negotiable limits and parameters. We have laws in place to define it in legal terms, but those laws can be changed, or may change in the minds of communities. That’s why it’s a construct.)

By that same token, I hold the view that gender, as we largely perceive it in modern society, is a construct. Why? Because it is not inherent; we, as a society, negotiate its meaning.

2) What is gender?

People will probably fight me on this and that’s fine, but here’s my (simplified) understanding of gender (from someone who personally has none)

Gender is a social category negotiated by cultures based on your assigned or desired role in your community that influences, among many other things, your physical appearance, your role in family units, your expected position in jobs, etc.

How I think it happened:

[Description: Two figures are standing on either side of the panel, both holding children-looking figures. The one on the left is wearing purple. The one on the right is wearing green.

Green figure: Hey, I’ve got an idea. What if we separate the babies into two groups based on physical traits they have no control over?

Purple figure: Wh-- okay...?

Green figure: And then limit the jobs they can do and the community ritual involvement available to them based on that!

Purple figure: ... I feel like this is going to backfire on us someday.

Green figure: Nah, it’ll be fine.

The past panel is a dramatic closeup on the purple figure’s face - which is featureless - betraying a deeply doubtful emotion. It says nothing.]

Important points to remember: what gender looks like, what the limits are, what the expectations are... are not inherent to any human biology. We make up gender roles. This is evident in the fact that across the world, gender roles differ by culture. The positions people of a certain gender are allowed to take up are different. What is perceived to be ‘girly’ or ‘boyish’ is different across cultures.

Simply speaking - currently the (western) model we have, dumbed down, is:

You are assigned male at birth because of physical characteristics

You are raised being told to ‘toughen up’ and ‘boys don’t cry’ and encouraged not to show emotions

You are taught to wear male-coded clothes and discouraged from female-coded fashion choices

You are given more opportunities to participate in sports, encouraged to engage in physical activity, etc

You are not expected to need time off for child-rearing

Here’s where gender as it works in society breaks down into being not a real thing but instead something we thought up:

Nothing about having a penis necessitates wearing pants. Nothing about having XY chromosomes means you need to keep your hair short. Nothing about your genome makes the experience of nail-polish different for any human being.

All of these are arbitrary traits we decided were allowed or not allowed to a specific group of people based on entirely unrelated physiology.

Even if we delve deeper, there is MORE variation among individuals of the same ‘sex’ than there are, on average, of members of the ‘opposite sex’ when compared to each other.

Many people use the excuse ‘women are physically not as strong as men’ to say that this has an evolutionary aspect driving these cultural, historical, socially-constructed gender requirements.

But if there was a physical reasoning behind the culturally-set gender-limited job expectations, then we actually WOULDN’T need a traditional binary gender system to sort ourselves into categories. It would simply be decided as a meritocracy - stronger individuals, regardless of gender, would be given physically-demanding jobs. (Also we know that many jobs thought to be ‘traditionally male’ are just the result of sexist bullshit, so this reasoning doesn’t fly any further than I can throw it which is, coincidentally, not very far. Politics is one such area. Doctors are another. We can go on but I think you get my drift.)

My own example of this is an anecdote when my grandparents came to visit my partner and I in Japan. While we were driving down to Tokyo, my grandmother - who has a PhD in entomology - began to say that driving is a masculine activity and women shouldn’t be driving as it was ‘un-woman-like’. My partner almost immediately fired back that in Japan, studying insects or having any interest in them whatsoever was considered a heavily masculine-coded activity. In Russia, there is no such assignment, and my grandmother was left silently blinking in confusion, unable to come up with any excuse except ‘well, all cultures are different, I suppose...’

Do either of these things inherently have a gendered aspect? Of course not! But we assign gendered ideals to them anyway.

3) If gender is made up and constructed by society, then does that mean trans people aren’t real?

No.

Even if you agree that gender is a social construct, trans people are still real. TERFs don’t get a pass. Why?

Because gender - as a social construct - still affects our everyday lives, dictates our social position in our community. Transitioning is still a thing that has to happen. The fact that you are NOT easily able to decide your own gender and are ostracized for wanting to transition, abused for dressing the way you want to be perceived, and bullied for wanting people to refer to you with different pronouns - all those are the effects of a social construct that has very REAL impact on our lives.

This is also why I dislike defining trans-ness by dysphoria. Because transgender people are not only their suffering - the suffering is coming from the outside!! Many trans people remember not being concerned about their gender identity in their childhood, because they did not yet perceive the world as being hostile to their desire to fulfil a specific role in society. The issues and self-hatred and dysphoria begins when they express wanting to be themselves - a life which they are forbidden from pursuing based on physical characteristics they were born with.

Does this mean we should try to remove gender from society? If we constructed it, we can deconstruct it, right?

Realistically, I highly doubt this is possible. Gender is so ingrained in our daily lives that it would be difficult. Nor, I would say, would it be necessary to achieve world peace.

Having social groups - having gender - isn’t inherently a bad thing. The bad thing is when we limit those social groups to specific basic human rights, like voting, or when we forbid them from transitioning from one to another based on things that are out of their control.

Also, I’m not saying genitals and secondary sexual characteristics aren’t real. Please don’t bother sending me that angry message, I’ll ignore it, I promise.

But the concept of gender IS something we thought up and maintain and negotiate with each other to this very day. It’s not granted to us by a higher power, nor is it a constant, unchanging thing. It’s a part of the human experience and like everything, it has the potential to evolve - as a concept in our communal memory, as well as on an individual level, for people who feel they want to be perceived differently.

Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk!

#hiimholalate #gender #agender #queer stuff #gender is a social construct #social construct #genderqueer #long post

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raeynbowboi · 2 years

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Animation Analysis: Centaurworld

When I first saw the trailers, I initially wrote off Centaurworld as a mindless, stupid kid’s show. You know the sort. The kind that talks down to its audience and treats them like they’re braindead morons. Like Teen Titans Go. The entertainment equivalent of dangling keys in front of your baby to distract them. But I’m surprised to find I enjoyed... aspects of it. Wammawink and Horse had a great foil dynamic and their duets were often really compelling character explorations. I also found myself laughing at Glendale and her kleptomania bit a lot. Glendale was easily the funniest character by a wide margin, followed by Wammawink and Horse. The final villain of the Nowhere King and his backstory was also quite engaging. He felt like a tragic mix of Beast and the Little Mermaid, loving his Beauty from afar, and changing to be with her. I found all of these elements to work and be compelling. The music was also really good, having an almost disney-level quality in some of them. The show was also clearly written as a musical, as like a normal musical, there would often be reprised versions, or repetition of instrumentals from one song in another, which makes it less of a show with songs, and more of an animated musical where the music strings together quite nicely. However, there were other aspects that bogged the show down as a whole. I won’t knock the tone, since that’s going to be more subjective, but if you asked me what the actual theme of the story was, the only one I can really point to is Horse changing and having to learn to love and accept who she’s become, and also kinda sorta reads like an allegory for being trans or coming out as gay? You’re noticeably different, but hope not to lose the people you knew before you made that switch. Other than that, the only other theme I really came away with was maybe the juxtaposition of cutesy silly cartoons next to dramatic serious ones, trying to prove that even a silly cutesy cartoon can get dark and complex. But this is sort of where the show falls flat a bit to me, at least. It may have these ideas or themes like togetherness or acceptance, but doesn’t really explore these ideas thoroughly enough to make it clear that’s the moral we’re supposed to take away from the story. Yes, connections and family is certainly important, but why they’re important is never explored. Not in any way that doesn’t come off as comedic. The scene where Durpleton meets Chet certainly does a decent job at demonstrating found family, but it’s immediately undercut by the comedy of Wammawink arriving on a helicopter and Zulius appearing out of nowhere. That’s my other issue with the show. The characters are rather static. Aside from Horse and maybe Wammawink, nobody really changes by the end of the story. Durpleton has an arc about becoming a father, but it comes off more like Stabby developed Stockholm Syndrome, especially because his sudden change into a weird chibi baby form is never explained. Glendale is still a Klepto, Wammawink is still an overbearing hyperprotective guardian, Zulius is completely disregarded as a joke because we never see his backstory and he just... makes up with Sublime effortlessly, to the point where it basically becomes a non-issue. The only character I felt shows some growth is Ched, expect it’s not so much that he grows, as much as we learn his origins. And once we learn his origins, he keeps acting like an obnoxious tool, which fails to redeem his shitty personality. He’s not a Tsundere, he’s just an obnoxious bully who negs Horse at every opportunity. Some of the ending is also slightly contrived. The purple-haired lady (I think she has a name but I swear they NEVER say it in the show, they just call her ‘my lady’ or ‘princess’.) just knows to stab her husband, even though we’re not really sure how much she knows about who he is. We sure did have time for a dumb fandom/con plotline but not time to flesh out and actually explore her relationship with the general. Because we literally never see any part of their actual marriage. If you’re just looking at the flashbacks in sequential order, we see her marry the general, her lead the elk out of the dungeon through the sewers, and then the three of them together in the rift. That is literally all we see of that phase of her life. There is no indication of how she felt, or how she came to learn what was going on. We don’t get to see that change of mind, that ‘aha’ moment, which causes the Last Lullaby to feel weak. It lacks the weight it should have because we barely know who she is as a character. She’s in 4 episodes, and most of her screen time she just kind of... exists. We don’t really know how she feels or what she wants. And that’s sort of where Centaurworld falls flat. It spends so much time being whacky and colorful it forgets to really develop its characters. Which is why I have to sadly put Zulius into the box of bad queer representation. He’s just a joke character. He’s comedic relief. He’s just a bad gay stereotype with no deeper nuance or deeper character. He’s a surface-level cliché, and that’s so disappointing for a show that seems to want to present itself as progressive and open-minded. But being a gay stereotype is 99.9% of his character. Season 2 is also rather aimless until the finale movie. There’s this subplot of Horse needing a win, and to feel like her decision to stay was the right choice, but the main plot surrounding this subplot are kind of boring. The Horse thing is great and makes terrific sense for her character, but the episodes that facilitate this arc are rather uninteresting. Glendale helps a bunch of arctic centaurs with their anxiety, but I can’t really say this feels like any sort of conclusion to an arc. There was never this fixation on Glendale being hyper fragile to the point that she broke under any kind of pressure and would never be the type to lead or inspire others. She had running gags of anxiety and nervous break downs, but they don’t feel resolved by this episode. It just sort of comes off as a weird joke that Glendale has actually managed to turn a bad situation around to her benefit. At the end of the day, Centaurworld was... interesting. I’d be willing to give it a B- if only because there are plenty of shows more boring, soulless, and lacking any form of identity than this one. But character arcs stall out, and some side characters who feel like they should be explored end up sidelined. I would have bumped the show up to a B if it had committed to the major character death. But no, stupid kid show logic dictates we must treat a death scene with the utmost seriousness and then immediately undercut it by going “just kidding”. It’s to the point now when a character acts like they’re dying, I’m just looking at my watch wondering how long they’re going to milk this before playing an Uno Reverse on the whole thing. Centaurworld is honestly a mixed bag. It has good music and the main character is interesting, as well as the villain. But it’s also kinda rushed, and filled with side characters who are either stagnant or underdeveloped, leaving it as a decent and memorable show, but held back by lack of depth and focus on further details. I’m satisfied with giving it a B-. It’s above average. But, I doubt I’ll rewatch it more than once or twice in the future. Kinda like She-Ra. It was fine, but I’m probably not going to go out of my way to rewatch it again and again now that I know how it ends. Would I recommend it to others? Maybe, but they’d have to be people that I know would appreciate the show’s tone and aesthetic.

#centaurworld #spoilers #spoiler tag #season 2 #centaurworld season 2 #horse #wammawink #glendale #zulius #ched #durpleton

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wagner-fell · 3 years

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I am still very new to this website and I don’t know how link a post but this fic is based on a post by @sandersgrey

(If someone reading this knows how to link a post please either explain it to me or link it in the comments because that post is *amazing*)

“Hmmm,” said Tessa, depositing Mina into Kit’s waiting arms and examining her buzzing phone critically. She shot a quizzical look in his direction.

Jem looked up from his novel. “What is ‘hmmm’, my love?”

Kit mimed vomiting but stopped dead in his tracks when she replied, “it’s Astrid’s mother. You remember her from parent teacher night, don’t you, my darling?” Kit swears they were being extra insufferable just to mess with him but he didn’t have the time to be annoyed when Astrid’s. Mom. Was. Calling. Tessa.

To understand why Kit was panicking as much as he was, you must know that Astrid’s mom was incredibly chill. She never got mad. The worst punishment she’d ever given her daughter was taking away her iPod for a week so she couldn’t listen to Mitski.

Was she calling about last night when Astrid, Mari and Kit threw eggs at the Shadowhunter’s that were giving Mari’s pack a hard time for no reason? No, that couldn’t be it. She’d given them the eggs.

Could the call be about the day before yesterday when Kit and Astrid got distracted doing homework and ended up snapping the coffee table clean in half while battling gladiator style with pool noodles? No, that wasn’t it. She’d just handed Astrid a twenty and told them to go to Kevin’s parents' shop and get a new one. Was she pissed because they ended up spending the money on ice cream instead? No, they ended up finding a table for free in the rubbing bin outside a fancy hotel.

Kit clutched his sister to his chest and prepared for the worst.

“Seo-yoon! What can I do for- Oh, hello Astrid!” Tessa paused briefly, presumably to listen to Astrid speak, and Kit sighed in relief.

“Kit is occupied at the moment but I can relay the message.” Another pause. “Oh don’t be frightened of me. I’m a tots rad mom. Your secret is safe with me.” Kit felt his face flush red as he heard his best friend’s laughter echo across the living room. “Okay! I’ll let him know. He has to get Mina to sleep before he can leave though. Lord knows he’s the only one who can these days.” Tessa chuckled at something Astrid said before wishing her good luck in her endeavour and ending the call.

She turned her attention back to Kit. “Astrid needs your help breaking into your teacher’s home to retrieve her cell phone.”

Kit blinked at her, dumbfounded. “You aren’t mad I’m going to go break the law?”

Because of course he was doing it. Astrid’s dad had bought it for her and he was extremely cautious about money. That was one of three things Kit knew about her dad. He was cheap, he lived in America and he loved the movie Fight Club.

Tessa ruffled Kit’s hair affectionately. “Please. I’ve raised two other Herondales. At least I know about this particular adventure beforehand.”

Mina began snoring softly and Kit handed her back to her mother. He grabbed his bag and started his journey to the door when Tessa added, “she also told me to say hi to a ‘daddy Kit’. Are you ‘daddy Kit?’”

‘Daddy Kit’ closed his eyes and wished for the sweet release of death.

“Why is Kit a daddy,” Jem asked, genuinely confused. “Aren’t I the daddy?”

Kit swung the door open so fast not even a speed rune could have aided him. But not before I heard Tessa reply, “Lily Chen certainly thinks so.”

Mrs. MacNamara clapped her hands together. “Why don’t we all go around and say a few things about ourselves?”

Kit buried his face into his hands. He’d been relieved when no other teacher had fulfilled the Disney channel stereotype of making every student introduce themselves to the new kid. But Mrs. MacNamara didn’t even seem to realize what she was doing.

All Kit’s fellow classmates groan. Expect one. Her hand shot up immediately. She was short, like smaller than Clary short. She wore a baggy pink shirt with the words ‘Queen Glimmer of Etheria’ sewed on with purple sequins and tight black jeans. Her colourful, choppy hair was in a low ponytail and she flew a few strands out of her eyes as her hand wiggled in the hair.

Mrs. MacNamara pointed at her. She stood up and smiled at Kit. “Hi. My name is Astrid. My hobbies include making my little cousin’s girl Barbies kiss, as it should be, and watching television shows where everyone is a terrible person so you can love all of them!”

“And what shows might that be?” asked Kit, already in the process of pulling out his phone and opening the Notes app.

“Grey’s Anatomy, Glee, Grey’s Anatomy again because it’s seventeen seasons as of right now. And to be fair it practically became a different show when they killed off Mark Sloan.”

“That’s enough, Miss Yang,” said Mrs. MacNamara. Astrid sat down and winked at Kit. Then she took out her phone and airdropped him a complete list of all her favorite shows, along with her number.

After Blessica’s pre-birthday birthday party, they went to Cirenworth and stayed up till four A.M. binging them.

They met outside a queer dry bar called Aries Not Welcome, the unspoken gathering place of the Merry Hoes. It was run by a poly lesbian couple in their mid-thirties. Quinn, Sydney and Aliyah may not have served alcohol but at least they were open 24/7.

“Did you bring the shit?”

Kit gave her a look. “The shit? How conclusive.”

“Shut up. You know, the shadowhunter thing.”

“The shadowhunter thing?”

“The, the, the glow stick that you draw with.”

“The glow stick that I draw wi-“ Kit closed his eyes briefly. “Do you mean a stele?”

Astrid snapped her fingers. “That’s it!” Kit shook his head in exasperation, smiling fondly. “I borrowed a torch from Quinn, let’s move.”

“Should I be worried that you know where Mr. Smith lives?” questioned Kit as he followed Astrid’s lead through the park.

“Should I be worried that your mom was fine with us breaking and entering?” she shot back playfully. Kit pushed Astrid and she fell off the path, laughing all the way.

“You called me ‘daddy’ to my mom’s face.”

She just laughed harder, slinging her arm around Kit’s shoulder. “It was over the phone, Christopher. And as I should.”

“Pffffttt. Why did you get your phone taken anyway?” She put her hands into her jumper pocket and looked at the ground. “Astrid.” She remained silent. “Astrid?”

She mumbled something under her breath. “What?” asked Kit.

“I WAS READING NINEJ FANFICTION!” she shouted.

Kit gasped. “I thought you were a die hard Kanej shipper,” he whispered.

“I’m a multishipper, okay?!” she replied, equally quiet.

“Does Blessica know?”

She shook her head. “And she will never find out.”

Kit saw the opportunity and he seized it. “She’ll never find out as long as you never call me daddy in front of either of my parents.”

She removed her arm from his shoulder and guided them out of the park, in the direction of the many apartments that lined this side of town. “I hate you.”

“Well, so does Mari. You're not special, Ast.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know Mari doesn’t actually hate you, right?! They’re just still in the enemy phase of your enemies-to-lovers romance. She only dislikes you because they feel something for you but they don’t know what so she interrupts it as loathing. In reality, her inner soul knows you’re hot and shmexie.”

Kit didn’t know how to process this so he just nodded and follow Astrid in silence to Mr. Smith’s house. (Plus, he was kinda glad that, according to his best friend, he had a little more time for Mari to ‘discover their true feelings’. If Kit screwed this up, he was out of countries to run off to.)

“Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“What,” asked Kit, turning around to face Astrid and closing the drawer he was rifling through. “Did you find your phone?”

“Yeah. But I also found Blessica’s. She was Snapping Kevin. Platonic my ass. But he took the fucking trans flag out of her phone!”

Kit snatched Blessica’s phone out of her hand to examine it for herself. She was telling the truth. Where the glitter pride flag usually rested was just a clear purple case. Kit couldn’t believe his eyes.

“It’s one thing to misgender her every day.” Blessica had forced all four of the other Merry Hoes to sign a contract saying they wouldn’t do anything to harm him because of it. “But this is the last straw. You know what we have to do.” Oops.

“Yeah, but we don’t have any spray paint.”

Kit eyed Mr. Smith’s pink sofa, blue bar stool covers and white picture frames. “I think I have something better in mind.”

It would have been easier for both parties to just zip off the sofa cushions and tape them to the wall but by ripping them off in strips, they ensured he would have to buy new ones. And judging by the car he drove and the fiji water in his fridge, Mr. Smith could definitely afford it.

That reminded him, “I’ll finish up with this. Go put all his fiji water into my bag.” Astrid saluted him and ran off. “Wait.” She stopped and looked at him. “Steal all the remotes you can find.”

“How is he not awake?,” asked Astrid as they ripped the fabric of his seating from the stool.

He shrugged. “Don’t question it.” He shoved the bundle of cloth into her arms. “Glue this above the pink. I’ll handle the frames.”

“Say the magic word,” she sang.

“Please?”

“No. Lesbian. Come on, I thought you knew me better than that.”

Kit laughed quietly. “Can you lesbian glue this above the pink?”

She grinned at Kit. “It would be my pleasure.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hello! Sorry I haven’t written anything in so long. School just restarted and it has been…a lot.

@adoravel-fenomeno @thechangeling @the-blackdale @the-wckd-powers @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @im-not-ruined-im-ruination @ithurielkeepsgettingkidnapped @noah-herondale-lightwood @arangiajoan @shelvesofgold @maxboythedog @book-dragon-not-worm @hardlymatters

Very sorry if I forgot anyone. Lmk if you want to be addEd/removEd from the tag list.

#mari the werewolf #mari machado sotomayor #mari machado #kit rook #kit herondale #astrid yang #blessica reyes #Kevin chu #tessa grey #jem carstairs #lily chen #mina carstairs

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massivedrickhead · 3 years

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ive been obsessed with the Olympics and can totally picture beca being an Olympic skateboarder for some reason? please could you do bechloe at the Olympics?

Read on AO3

Chloe knew that the cameras would find her in the stand, so she tried to keep the fear and, let’s admit it, lust off her face.

The fans loved hers and Beca’s relationship, and she knew the commentators would make a point to mention it.

How often did it happen that two Olympic athletes fell in love with each other? Yes, the Olympic village was usually a sex fest, but that didn’t always translate into long lasting relationships.

Not that Beca and Chloe had met in the Olympic village, for one this was the first time that skateboarding was an Olympic event. They had met at a party almost five years ago, introduced by mutual friends, and now here they were. Engaged to be married.

Chloe, at her second Olympic Games, had secured herself 2 medals for swimming - a silver medal in women’s 50m freestyle and a bronze in the 4x100m relay - and now Beca was about to skate in her first Olympic final.

And as calm and collected as Beca looked, rolling her board back and forth beneath her foot, Chloe couldn’t have been more nervous.

And watching Beca lift the bottom of her shirt to wipe the sweat from her eyes, showing off her toned stomach in the process, her tattooed arms visible thanks to her rolled up sleeves, Chloe couldn’t have been more turned on.

Chloe saw her crack a joke at Emily - the other American competitor - and then it was her turn to skate.

There would be three runs, the highest score wins. Beca would be the last to skate each time.

She watched Beca wave at the crowd, and roll her shoulders back a few times.

She had come off her board a few months ago, and Chloe knew her shoulder was still giving her trouble.

And then she was off, moving quickly around the Park course.

A DJ was playing music, but Chloe knew Beca had her own AirPods in, hidden under her helmet.

The commentator was calling out the tricks as she did them, but Chloe couldn’t follow along.

She knew there were some grinds, some flips, some grab tricks, but if she’s honest she’d never quite understood all the names of all the tricks. She’d tried to learn, and Beca had tried to explain it, but it just never sunk in.

Beca’s first run was almost at an end and then the board got away from her, and she hit the ground, skidding on her knees.

Chloe heard her shout of frustration from the stands, so she knew the cameras picked it up too.

Beca got up, grabbed her board, and skated out, back towards the other competitors.

They all patted her back, and Emily gave her a hug and said something that made her laugh.

Chloe watched as she took off her helmet and took a drink, her eyes never leaving the scoreboard.

Her score was okay, not medal winning, but not terrible. Beca nodded to herself, and then shrugged at the camera when she realised it was on her.

Sensing an opportunity, she picked up her board and flashed her ‘Trans Lives Matter’ sticker at the camera, hoping it got on TV before it cut away to the next competitor.

From the stands, Chloe continued to watch her with pride. She watched her talking with her coach and joking with the other athletes, and all she wanted to do was run down there and kiss her.

“Which is exactly why you’ll be in the stands and not sitting with the coaches,” Beca had told her the night before. “How am I meant to concentrate if I know you’re there waiting to kiss me?”

Beca’s second run was up, and this time Beca aimed her wave directly at Chloe. She made a heart sign with her hands that Chloe returned eagerly, before blowing her a kiss.

A few years ago, Beca might have complained that Chloe was ruining her street-cred, but she was past the point of caring about that now.

Her second run went much better, and she stayed on her board the entire time.

Her score shot her into first place, gold medal position.

Chloe was on her feet screaming and cheering as she watched Beca get mobbed by the other skaters. Emily was practically jumping on her back despite being a solid foot taller than her, and the American fans around Chloe were drowning out the commentators.

Once the cheering had calmed down, Chloe saw Beca wipe her face on her shirt again, this time to get rid of tears, not sweat.

This was more than Beca had expected. More than any of them had expected. She wasn’t predicted to be in the top 5, let alone gold medal position.

Chloe knew Beca was aiming for bronze at best. The two kids from Japan were going to dominate it, according to Beca, and Emily was predicted to place higher than her.

Watching the other girls skate was now almost as nerve wracking as watching Beca skate.

Predictably, the two Japanese girls crushed it, but Beca was still holding onto bronze.

On her final run, Emily fell, and remained in fourth place. Beca gave her a tight hug, and a small kiss on the side of the head. Chloe knew better than to feel jealous. They had been best friends for longer than Chloe had known either of them, and they saw each other as sisters.

Finally, it was time for Beca’s final run.

“Come on Beca,” Chloe muttered, not bothering to keep the fear from her face now.

Beca had a shot at gold, she was only a couple of points away. Chloe watched as she glanced over to her coach and nodded, and her stomach twisted.

That nod meant pull out all the stops. It meant trying tricks that were a bit more risky. More dangerous but, if she pulled them off, more impressive.

Beca was guaranteed a medal, but now she was about to find out which colour.

Chloe held her breath as Beca dropped into the course.

It was all going well. Beca was executing her tried and tested tricks without fault, but Chloe knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with that.

She watched as Beca shot up into the air, her knees close to her chest, her hand on her board, as she spun in mid air.

And then as Beca came down, the board slipped from underneath her and she fell backwards, her helmeted head hitting the concrete wall of the drop. Hard.

Chloe didn’t remember standing up and gripping the edge of the railings as she waited for Beca to get up. She also didn’t remember running down the stairs of the stands, pushing past people in order to get onto the course.

She definitely didn’t know how she got down the surprisingly intimidating drop to where Beca was currently lying, but she was at Beca’s side quicker than she thought possible.

She was awake, blinking slowly against the bright sunlight, but she didn’t seem to register that Chloe was there.

“Bec?”

“Don’t move her!”

Chloe turned to see Beca’s coach and the medic hurrying towards them.

“Ow,” Beca muttered.

“Beca!” Chloe said, tears of relief flowing down her cheeks. “You scared me, you asshole!”

With the help of the medic, Beca sat up, and they gently took off her helmet. “I didn’t get gold then?” She asked as they shone a small torch in her eyes

“No,” Chloe said, half crying, half laughing. “But you did make me look like a crazy person. How the fuck am I gonna be able to get out of here?”

“Hey, there are kids about,” Beca said, grinning and gesturing to the other competitors who were looking at her with genuine fear in their eyes. “And TV cameras. You’re gonna get a reputation as the bad girl of competitive swimming.”

“Shut up,” Chloe said. Now that the medics had moved out of the way, Chloe cupped Beca’s face in her hands. “Are you okay?”

Beca shrugged. “I fell off. No biggie.”

“Are you okay, though?”

“Well that depends, how many of you are there meant to be?” Beca asked, before letting out a snort of laughter at the panic on Chloe’s face. “I’m kidding! I’m fine. I’m just hurting a lot, all over.”

“Can you stand, Beca?” The medic asked.

“I think so,” Beca said. Chloe stood and held out her hands for Beca to take. Beca did, and Chloe pulled her to her feet. “You’re so strong.”

“Thank you,” Chloe said.

Beca was a little wobbly on her feet, but she still made sure to wave at the crowd and give them a thumbs up.

“Did I just win a fucking bronze medal at the Olympics?” She asked Chloe quietly, watching the fans cheering after she and Chloe were helped out of the course.

“Yep,” Chloe said, allowing herself to relax a little. “That’s really very sexy of you.”

“I know right?” Beca said, grinning as she draped her arms around Chloe’s shoulder again. “I’ve always said bronze was the sexiest medal.”

“And silver, obviously,” Chloe said as someone wrapped an American flag over their shoulders.

“Obviously.”

“Do you have your Pride flag with you?” Chloe asked.

“Obviously,” Beca said again, grinning as she pulled Chloe over to her bag so she could fish it out.

“Can the cameras see us here?”

“Dunno.”

“Eh, who cares,” Chloe said, before pulling Beca into a bruising kiss.

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