#so I don’t think I’ve actually reblogged many lesbian positivity posts recently | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mayabruhbruh · 4 years

Text

Stranger Things 4 Analysis and Theory

I don’t know if anyone else has done posts on this stuff yet (it’s really likely, but i’d not want to take the credit if i’m not the only one who’s thought of this)

I know @kaypeace21 has made tons of posts on the s4 movies from Video Store Friday, and many others have theories and analyses, but back in July I took it upon myself to research more into the very last few scenes of s3. Specifically the three months later time stamp, where Steve and Robin are in search for a new job.

My main focus was the four movies that they mentioned for Keith at the counter. “Animal House”, “The Hidden Fortress”, “Children Of Paradise”, and “The Apartment”.

(reminder that if you read this, it could be spoilers for the final cut of the actual show if i end up being correct about some of this, so read at your own risk)

My first theory, which I’ve already discussed in a separate reblog, is about The Hellfire Club. But i’ll say it here too.

Basically,

(sorry for the sucky quality)

Animal House is about two awkward freshmen going into college and joining a fraternity of rejects. It matches Mike, Dustin and the Hellfire Club perfectly! Personally, my lowkey theory is that they’re going to have to go though an entirety of initiation activities (possibly drugs too, if what we’ve heard is correct) and Lucas and Max will be in their own storylines up until the supernatural threat brings them back together again. This could be wayy off, but still its my idea.

As for Max and Lucas...

I’m not sure about the entirety of the plot of this movie, but the last line sounds a lot like something that would happen between Lumax. Lucas is a basketball jock now, I think that’s crystal clear now seeing from the Pep Rally poster, and how he’s always been the one in the group to be able to mask his nerdy side. For Dustin and Mike, I know it’s much harder for them. Anyways, Max, I’m pretty positive by now, is going to be extremely distant and defensive from everyone just like she was in the beginning of s2, since she just had a big change happening in her life. It’s the same now, except with the grief and loss of Billy. My guess, from the hints of this movie and other stuff, is that Lucas is going to come face to face with his reputation as a popular kid, and his love for Max. Like the summary says, he must decide between the advancement of his career or the girl that he loves. Real hard hitting stuff.

Onto the next one. MIKE WHEELER. (or will byers)

I watched an analysis video on this movie, because I haven’t seen it yet, but again the very last line is what I’d like to focus on.

My. Jaw. Dropped.

I’ve read many analyses of Mike Wheeler being gay (courtesy of @kaypeace21 @hawkinsschoolcounselor and MANY others), but I dunno, I was always just so skeptical no matter how much it made sense. But when I saw this WHAT THE HELL?!?’);/&? It’s stupid of me to not have believed it sooner, but I hope this is the movie that foreshadows Mike’s storyline this season. I’m assuming Mike will have to “prove his expertise in battle”, or perhaps prove he can go through with all of the initiation shit for The Hellfire Club, while hiding his growing revelation that he might be gay/bisexual.

BUT a possibly more likely scenario would be that this movie connects with Will Byers’ storyline this season instead. Perhaps the hardships of a new school and a new town has Will shaken up, and he also has his sexuality awakening that he has to hide from new people. I say that it’s more likely for him, because Will has always been more heavily queer-coded (not exactly heavier, but just extremely much more apparent and obvious opposed to Mikes queercoded subtext that we really had to dig for).

I also didn’t mention this in my reblog from earlier, but I want to address my opinions on the apparent cheerleader that meets Mike and befriends one another. One of my friends on twitter said Chrissy (her name, or so we think lmao) might be a key component to Mike being able to discover and come to terms with his sexuality. But then again, a different friend of mine thinks that the amount of content were getting is oddly suspicious, and that the Duffers are feeding us all the wrong information to lead us to all the wrong conclusions. But, at this point, why not both. At the moment, everyone thinks that Chrissy is Mikes new love interest, but what if she really isn’t, and they’re pulling a Robin on us (i call it a robin because it was technically straight-baiting in s3 LMFAO). I’m not saying that she might be a lesbian (although 👀 it says on her character info that she’s 18 (robins got some game to work with now ahaha)) but it could be a straight-bait up until she helps Mike realize his sexuality (i would have said realizes his love for Will😍😍 but recently ive been trying not to input byler into everything i fucking say, so theres how that’s going). Anyways. Last movie!

Now, I’m currently not super concrete on this one to be completely honest. I have a few in mind...

Okay, so don’t attack me, but this could possibly be a mileven storyline. It sort of fits. They have an undeniable connection, but “their fortunes shift considerably and they’re pushed apart” aka the misfortune of the mindflayer and hawkins not being safe for them leads them to moving away and literally being pushed apart. I don’t know about the pursuing other relationships, but we still have no idea what’s going on with El Hopper tbh, i havent a single clue what’s going to be happening with her storyline atm. But either way, that could be it.

ORRRR the MUCH more likely scenario, Jancy :)

Bloggers on here have already predicted that they wouldn’t be endgame, and I was only slightly skeptical because although their relationship was built on shared trauma, a very unstable foundation to have for a ship tbh, i still hung onto the fact that they cared for eachother a lot :,( But the entirety of their season 3 bickering and this summary kind of sealed the deal.

Just like Mike and El, Nancy and Jonathan have been pushed apart aswell. It was already seen in season three that they’d be better of leading separate lives, aka Jonathan was doing fine at the internship, whereas Nancy could have been somewhere better for herself. I doubt they broke up at the end of season 3, but there’s bound to be new relationships for them seperately. It sucks bc I love Jancy, but s3 showed how badly they snap at one another when there isn’t a life threatening event at hand. Jopper on the other hand, I thought their bickering was adorable, but i’m getting off track, sorry lmfaoo.

Once again, I probably am not the first to talk about these, but jsyk if you steal this from me specifically i will track you down and end you. I’ve been speculating about these things since April and July, which is pretty weak tbh, but that was when i had nothing better to do LMFAO. i hope i got at least something right, but i haven’t seen many of the video store friday’s movies, which sucks bc those could really help. But whatever.

(i wrote this really late at night, and it’s poorly edited bc my eyesight sucks lmfao, but i hope you get what i mean)

And that’s it! I hope you like it, or had some sort of impact from it idk, just sharing my thoughts tbh. Anygays, if you have any questions/added ideas/thoughts of any kind, my inbox is always here, you can private message me, and comment if you want!! i love y’all sm lmfao, so excited for the upcoming content were about to get soon, byee!

58 notes · View notes

uh-drarry · 3 years

Note

Can i ask what the difference between ace and aro is? If not thats totally fine! I was just curious, have a lovely day ♥️

Of course!! I hope you are having a lovely day as well, nonnie. Thanks for the ask! I’m not an expert but I have done a lot of research since realizing I was both ace and aro but I only recently realized this within the last six months so I’m going to give kind of broad terms and they both definitely have more definitive terms depending on the person using them. Ace is short for Asexual. Aro is short for Aromantic. (As I type this Aromantic is showing as a spelling error, and if that doesn’t tell you anything about how underrepresented that community is idk what will). This got a bit long, so I am putting it all under the cut.

Asexual people feel little to no sexual attraction. The opposite of this is Allosexual, meaning you do feel sexual attraction. Asexual is an umbrella term and there’s many micro labels under it as well. This doesn’t mean aces don’t have a libido though. Some people have high or low libidos and are still Ace because it’s about sexual attraction. Asexual people sometimes define themselves as one of the following, sex favorable (does enjoy sex, but possibly won’t initiate it themselves, or they could live without it but are happy to partake as far as I understand), sex positive (this can mean the previous, or, like me, they encourage others to have sex if they want it, and believe safe sex should be taught, etc.), sex neutral (they might enjoy sex, but eh, that’s cool if they never do it again, or ever), and sex repulsed (might get nauseous at the thought of it, never wants to partake, depending who they are they might not want to see it, hear it, watch it, etc even within media, nothing). Back to feeling or not feeling sexual attraction, for example, I have never once looked at, say Chris Hemsworth or Zendaya, and thought “Yeah, they turn me on, I’d have sex with them.” (Honestly the fact that I really had to think to come up with names there, which I think it very telling, I’m laughing at myself). *oversharing probably but trying to help people understand, sorry* Despite the my lack of sexual attraction to anyone, I do feel things, for example, when I read smut or something similar. Ace people might get themselves off, have sex, or never do anything of the sort down there. That kind of thing is about feeling good, you don’t have to think your partner or whatever is sexy in order to do that. If anyone wants to do their own research, AVEN.com (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) is probably a good starting point, or I can rec some blogs here.

Aromantic people feel little to no romantic attraction. Very different from feeling sexual attraction, yes? Basically, take all of what I wrote about being Ace and exchange sex with romance and that’s an aromantic person. I will explain anyway. Just like allosexual, alloromantic people are people who do feel romantic attraction. Romantic attraction is when you want to do romantic coded things with people. Of course romance is a bit harder to define than sex, so it can mean a lot of things to different people. Kissing can be seen as romantic to one person, and another aro person could really enjoy kissing others for example. Personally, I get pretty uncomfortable in romantic situations regarding myself and someone else, which I would probably define as being Romance Repulsed. After learning what this term meant and reading some about it, I really thought of my experiences. I’m pretty sure I’ve never had a crush on anyone, relationships (the brief two that I’ve had) really just felt like friendships. I didn’t initiate anything besides maybe handholding because I didn’t know what to do, or I didn’t even realize that was a thing that most people in that situation would be doing at that point in a relationship. I felt very uncomfortable when a ex tried to take a kiss further than a peck, among other things. Again, being Aromantic doesn’t mean aro people automatically will never have or want romantic relationships. They just don’t feel those feels for people usually. Like AVEN for asexuals, there’s Arocalypse.com for aro people. I have less blogs to rec here, but I can rec some if someone wants it.

There are good examples of different types of attraction, I personally feel platonic attraction which would be the desire to be someone’s friend, as well as aesthetic attraction which is defined below.

People can be one, or both, or neither. I am both, AroAce. People in these communities often use the Split Attraction Model (SAM). Which would be like someone stating that they are Asexual Homoromantic, or Aromantic Heterosexual, or Aromantic Pansexual, among many other combos.

Because I do feel aesthetic attraction, pretty much solely towards women, I define myself as an Oriented AroAce, or Lesbian AroAce. If I ever did end up in a relationship with someone, I can only ever imagine it to be with a woman. Again though, that’s just one microlable among so many that are out there.

This is a huge list of identities and labels, it overwhelms be tbh, but I’m linking it here anyway because it’s very informative.

I assume this ask was in response my reblog here. Yes I get very annoyed when people treat these two orientations as the same thing, despite me identifying as both. As I hope you can now see, they are very different things. A lot of the time, I enjoy reading about romance and sometimes sexual relationships, but sometimes I want to read other peoples thoughts, fics, posts, etc about only one of these and the Aro/Aromanticism tag is flooded with posts about asexuality which really doesn’t help people who are trying to learn about aromanticism or wanting specific content.

One more point before I wrap this up. I read a book because I wanted to see if it’d help me know for sure if I was demisexual (definition can be found in the huge list I linked two paragraphs up, or on google), and it actually made me realize I was aroace and I am forever grateful for it so I will rec it here. It’s called Loveless by @aliceoseman and it has quickly become my favorite book. So if anyone wants to read about a fictional character realizing they’re aroace, this is a fantastic book. I related so much to Georgia, it’s crazy. Also her other works are fantastic.

Remember you are not alone! Experts believe that 1% of the population is ace (and I think it’s the same for aro people) and that might sound like no one but, guys, theres 7.8 billion people on this planet. That means theres 78 million people like us! I ended up finding a lot of ace people to follow on twitter as well by the way.

This might be a hot take to some but the A in LGBTQIA+ does not mean ally! It’s for Asexual, Aromantic, and Agender! And we do belong in the queer community because the queer community is for people who aren’t straight, cis, or amatonormative. Wow, I hope this all makes sense, if any of you are confused or have more thoughts, or I messed something up, UNLESS YOU’RE BEING APHOBIC, add your thoughts, or message me!

Side note: Do please send me recs of people to follow, books, fics, shows, whatever, I am always searching for new content within these orientations!

#this was a lot #I've spent more than an hour on this lol #asexual #asexuality #ace #aro #aromantic #aromanticism #split attraction model #queer #lgbtqia #lgbtqia+#aven #arocalypse

31 notes · View notes

ofdreamsanddoodles · 3 years

Note

if you don't mind me asking, how do you deal with consuming content with 'problematic' aspects? for example, i see you reblog posts criticizing things like racism in tma, and you can still make content while being able to recognize those things. it's hard for me to continue enjoying something when it has even 1 thing slightly bad in it, but i know that's not a healthy way to consume content. is there anything you keep in mind when interacting with a given series? u don't need to answer ❤️ ty

also a note on my ask -- of course you don't need to answer, and you aren't a therapist & etc. i just admire your ability to both recognize flaws in works but still enjoy them, and thought since you seem to have critical thinking skills you might have a perspective that you could offer. being on tumblr from a young age seems to have affected my ability to separate things in my mind, lol. thanks so much for reading even if you don't feel comfortable answering.

I mean... you’ve kind of answered your own question? The only way to consume media is to remember that everything has flaws. My brother came by while I was typing this up and told me the answer is to “just vibe” because everyone is more or less terrible in one aspect or another but obviously, that’s not the answer you’re looking for.

I guess the short answer is just... you have to learn how to trust your own set of morals and understand that you shouldn’t feel guilty if a story you like betrays you. And yes, that’s hard, especially when you grow up surrounded by very rigid rules on what’s “okay” to watch, but if you’re just looking for some tips, here’s a list that I hope will help:

Find people you trust and see what they think of the situation. Think about whether or not they’re coming from an informed place. A friend of mine asked me if I knew about a Jewish tradition a while back. I had no idea what they were talking about. Turns out, it was something popular with German Jews. None of my family is from Germany. Sometimes, just being Jewish doesn’t mean I’m the right person to ask.

Find people who are complaining & see why they’re upset. Think about who is annoyed by this and how many of them there are. Think about what they think the proper response is, if any. Think about whether you have the right to wave off their concerns. Think about how those concerns are treated, both in-fandom and by creators. I saw a lot of people in the tma tag complaining about twitter “overreacting” to MAG 185, but if Jonny felt the need to issue an apology and specifically say that he realizes he’s crossed a line, chances are, the complaints were probably warranted (a thing I’d like to add is that apparently, RQ also issued an apology for a fluff episode they released, which I thought was kind of silly, because the episode was essentially just joking about martin forgetting a word. But also, as a neurodivergent person who sometimes struggles with speech, I do understand why that might upset people. not all apologies have to about incredibly important topics, but even the ones who aren’t show a lot about the cast behind it. Alternatively, if RQ had only apologized for this episode, and not MAG 185, that also says a lot about where there priorities are, and what fans they care about keeping)

Think about what will happen if you continue watching/reading etc. It’s not so much “is it okay if I keep watching this?” but “if I continue to watch this, will I convince myself that this problematic aspect isn’t actually a big deal? Is it so ingrained in the show that I can’t watch an episode without seeing the problems in it? What will I say to others, if they want to watch this?” For example, if someone sees you’ve reblogged a scene from a show you like and asks what it’s about, how many excuses are you going to give? How many trigger warnings are there, and can you justify them? There’s a difference between a piece of media having a character say homophobic slurs, and a piece of media saying a gay person should have homophobic slurs thrown at them. Also: If you think you cant justify getting someone else interested, you probably shouldn’t justify contributing to the show. This might be obvious, but there’s a very big difference in pirating a tv show and buying its merch.

Think about the fandom. If you continue talking about this, who are you surrounding yourself with? Like, there are a LOT of weirdos making content for kids shows, but that doesn’t always mean the show itself is weird. What it does mean, though, is that you should be careful navigating your enjoyment. Sometimes, the only way to enjoy something is to talk about it with a select few friends. Sometimes, it’s to enjoy it by yourself. I do believe it’s possible to enjoy a show in spite of the canon, but at the same time, if you’re watching a show that’s attracting a lot of racists, think about why that might be.

some more thoughts under the cut, because I already wrote them out before I realized I could just make a list.

The thing about consuming media is that it’s very subjective. I know a lot of people who have given up on tma recently and while that’s not wholly because it’s “problematic,” it definitely plays a part in it. People have different meters for what they can excuse in media. The important thing to remember is WHY they left, and if you’re able to keep that in your mind while also continuing to engage in contact with the media. Will you be able to remember that Daisy traumatized Jon more than any other avatar if you consume context calling her Basira’s hot murderwife? Can you talk about the Flesh and acknowledge the racism in the creation of the Haans?

Personally, I don’t think you can produce positive content about Daisy and also acknowledge the harm she causes. You can’t point at a character and say, yes, she has committed actual police brutality, but I think she deserves a cute lesbian romance anyway. That’s not really a thing tma has done wrong as much as it is a problem with the fandom, but like, at the end of the day, it’s all just a matter of critical thinking. Who is being hurt by these portrayals of the characters? How? Most of the problems with tma aren’t things that are, like, baked into the actual worldbuilding and for a lot of people, that’s enough for them to still justify making content for the show.

If your complaints sound like “oh, if only they didn’t do xy, this would make for a good show,” then you’re probably fine. But if it goes into “i like this, but only if I can ignore (major plot point)” think about why you feel the need to keep watching. There are shows I’ve stopped watching based on principle. There’s manga I read that I only talk about with my brother and no one else, because I don’t want to be exposed to the fans. It doesn’t have to be as simple as “well, this artist did a bad thing, so now I’m going to ignore it forever.” If you think the creators of something are bad people, don’t support them. You can still pirate it or whatever, but if it’s something like hetalia, where the point of the show is just “let’s put all these stereotypes in a room and see how they react” then yes, for your own sake, you should stop watching because this is how stereotypes become normalized, and no one should be consuming media where nazi germany as the protagonist.

Really, at the end of the day, it’s just a matter of becoming media literate and that’s a process that takes time. Remember that being interested in something that isn’t 100% doesn’t make you a bad person, and listen to the people around you. Try and be a safe space for the people who do have complaints and remember not to place your enjoyment of something over the comfort of others. Other than that, just... do your best, I guess?

#this is far much more detail than you asked for i think but thats what you get for coming to me #asks #apologies if this took a while to answer i worked all day and needed some me time before i could tackle this #Anonymous

19 notes · View notes

jaskiersbard · 4 years

Text

The Fantastic Beasts Franchise and JK Rowling

Alright, so...hi everyone.

I don’t know how many people follow this blog anymore because my main blog of operation is now @alwaysahiccupandastrid - I still try to keep this blog relatively active though, just because it was my original blog, I’ve had it since I was 13, and I have so many memories attached to it.

I’m aware that a lot of the people who follow me, especially since late 2016, do so because a) I was a loud and proud Fantastic Beasts fan, b) I wrote some Newtina and Jakweenie fic, and c)...I don’t know. I literally don’t know why people bother following me anywhere because I don’t feel like I have a lot to say. But, anyway, many people probably follow me due to Fantastic Beasts and my posts/fanfics within the fandom.

Those who follow my active blog will already know my feelings and thoughts, but because of the fact many things about this blog - me, the posts for the last four-ish years, the url itself - are Beasts related, I felt it was necessary to come and write an actual post here instead of just reblogging things and calling it a day. I’ve always been very outspoken online, but I’ve been avoiding a certain topic of conversation on this blog for years now, and I’m finally in a place where we can discuss it.

I am, of course, talking about the hot topic that is JK Rowling.

Back in the days between FBAWTFT and FBTCOG, I was a very outspoken defender of JK Rowling and her decision to defend Johnny Depp’s inclusion in the films. Now, this is something I still stand by to this day, and due to the evidence that has since come out, I’m even more steadfast in the opinion that keeping Depp was a great decision. I am fully in support of him and the way he’s currently battling against his abuser. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about right now. As I was saying, back in the day, I was outspoken about the opinion that “we don’t know the full story” etc., and as a result I received very colourful anon messages. Now, to my knowledge, none of these were about JKR being a TERF/transphone, but I think it’s important to mention that at the time I scoffed at the idea she could be one. I openly admit that I didn’t listen to what other people - including actual trans individuals - were saying about JKR and her transphobia because I frankly didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to admit that the person who wrote something that saved my life could be so hateful and a bad person - that, and at the time I passed it all off as “wokeness out of control”.

It is now 2020. Up until last Saturday night, I was still in support of JK Rowling - I didn’t agree with some of the stuff she had said, but I was trying to be positive and have hope by telling myself that she didn’t mean to be transphobic, that she just didn’t know what she was doing was wrong, even though the evidence clearly showed otherwise (I.e. her liking transphobic / radfem tweets). I said to my followers on my Beasts page that instead of cancelling people outright, we should be attempting to educate them instead, and if they choose not to learn then fine. And, being 100% obvious, I didn’t want to admit it because I frankly already was feeling annoyed at two different Beasts cast members for different reasons: Ezra Miller (for choking a girl) and Dan Fogler (for his tweet about BLM - admittedly that was probably him being well intentioned but not saying it right). So yeah, I didn’t want to cancel another member of the Beasts “family”.

I had JKR’s tweets on notifications, and for the most part over the last few weeks, it was all about the Ickabog. However, on Saturday night I noticed that she had suddenly tweeted something completely different, and I looked at it. Given that I had adamantly defended her and said “freedom of speech” for so long, it’s telling that my first thought upon seeing her tweet was literally “for fuck sake, Jo, why”.

I won’t post her tweets here but to sum that first tweet up, it was her being annoyed over the term “people who menstruate” being used in an article instead of “woman”, and mockingly saying “there used to be a word for that” before pretending she didn’t know the word. She knew that tweeting it would start arguments and anger, and yet she still made the decision to do so. Her follow up tweets frankly dug the hole deeper; she tried to defend herself by saying, to sum it up, “I have a butch lesbian friend who agrees with me” “I just care about women’s rights!” And “IF trans people were marginalised I’d march with you!” (“If”, of course, being the real kicker here because what do you mean IF. They ARE. Every DAY.)

Since then, JKR has written an essay on her website defending herself and her opinions, and yes, I read it. I read it a few times, in fact. At first, I felt my anger simmer and felt I had been too hasty to make anti JKR jokes, that I was wrong...but then I read it again properly and realised that what she had written was a piece that turned herself into the victim, and that despite putting on the appearance of her saying she supports trans people, including the phrases “I support trans people” and “of course trans women are real women”, she still spewed much transphobic vitriol and hate. She cited no sources for any of her proclamations or statements about statistics, implied that trans men transition to escape their “womanhood”, that trans women are men in dresses, that trans women are dangerous to “real” women (aka cis women) and shouldn’t be allowed into women’s changing rooms or toilets. There was also the autism comment, and the implication of autistic girls somehow not being able to make decisions or whatever.

I’m going to get straight to the point: I don’t support JK Rowling or her radical feminism.

As someone who is a proud feminist (libfem?), I can honestly say that never have I felt threatened or like I was being silenced by the inclusion of trans women in feminist spaces or conversation. Never. In my second year at sixth form, I was in charge of the LGBTQ+ club until a new leader with better leadership skills could step in, and - put simply - that year, the club was made almost entirely of first year transgender students. Even though I had called myself a trans ally for years, I realised there was a lot I didn’t know, and I learnt quite a lot from these students. I continue to still learn today. They were some of the nicest and most intelligent people I got the chance to meet, and I can truly say that at no point was I ever worried to be in a room alone with a trans woman, nor was I concerned about which bathroom they went in - bathrooms are bathrooms. Speaking of bathrooms...when I was at uni during a particularly tense rehearsal a few weeks before our final show last year, a guy in our group made me cry and I ran to the women’s bathroom to escape. Not only did the other girls come to comfort me, but you know what? The guy came in and apologised profusely to me. Did any of us girls give a shit about having a guy in our toilet? Absolutely not. It’s a fucking toilet. And, on that note, I was never worried about a trans woman or even a cis man attacking me in the toilets. You know who DID attack me in the toilets regularly? Other cisgender women.

As a feminist, I fully support trans women and am not threatened by the inclusion of trans women in women’s spaces or in women’s rights discussions. While I agree that cis women and trans women inevitably go through different struggles, at the end of the day, we all identify as women and are women. I think that if your feminism is so threatened by the existence of trans women - TERFs, RadFems, JKR, looking at you - then your feminism is flimsy and not feminism at all.

As a woman, I find it highly offensive that JKR and many RadFems focus so much of womanhood and feminism on an involuntary biological function that, frankly, many of us would rather do without. Yeah, I’m talking about periods - no matter how proud I am to be a woman, I still fucking hate periods and would get rid of mine if I could without erasing my chance of having kids someday. I can hear the RadFems accusing me of “internalised woman hatred” for saying I hate my periods, but you know what, they suck and they hurt and fuck them. The fact that JKR (also the the radfem movement) reduced “women” to just people who menstruate and can have children, and vice versa, is incredibly offensive and misogynistic. For a start, trans men menstruate, intersex people can, non binary can etc. Next, not even ALL cis women have periods - women who are menopausal, young women who haven’t started puberty yet (some do start very late), some women don’t have regular cycles, some women have medical problems that affect their cycle, some women are on birth control that can stop their cycles. So the idea of women being defined as “those who menstruate” is offensive not only to trans/intersex/non binary individuals but also to cis ones too.

As I write this, I’m a 22 year old woman who is still learning and changing every day, and one of the things that I’ve found myself thinking about recently - especially since we’re in lockdown and we have nothing BUT time to think - is about myself and my identity as a woman. What prompted this was when I saw Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved book, “Little Women”, which I’ve since read, for my birthday back in January, and I left the cinema feeling exalted and powerful with my own identity as a woman. (I’ll be returning to LW in a bit)

After some thinking, I’ve realised some things. For me, my identity as a woman is not just because once a month my uterus decides to shed; I do not identify as a woman just because I have certain physical features. I am not a particularly feminine person either, and I’m what some may call a “tomboy” (a phrase I actually don’t mind but I know a lot of people do for understandable reasons since it’s a phrase designed to differentiate people who don’t conform to society’s expectations etc) because I prefer video games and more geeky stuff to shopping or dressing up or make up.

For me, there is no one way a person has to be or appear in order to identify as a woman. Women are beautiful, complex human beings; we are not defined by our genitalia, by an involuntary biological process. Women are strong, intelligent, and interesting people - no two are the same. For example, some decide to raise families, some choose to pursue a career, some do both - all of these are valid and none are more “feminist” or “womanly” than the others, because it’s our as women. I guarantee that if you lined up every single woman in the world - cis AND trans - no two would be the exact same.

I mentioned “Little Women” earlier, and as I was pondering over what makes me identify as a “woman”, I thought a lot about a certain quote from the 2019 film that has stayed with me since it was first said in the release of the trailer. It’s spoken by Jo March to her mother, and I’ve started to understand what for me makes me a woman.

For me, being a woman is all of this: having minds, hearts, souls, ambition, talent, and being beautiful each in our own ways. Women are capable of love and empathy, capable of desire, capable of the most complex and human feelings and emotions, and coming out the stronger for it.

Sex is one thing; gender identity is another.

I won’t dissect every single thing JKR wrote in her essay, but I will just say this: her comments regarding autistic girls are extremely tone deaf and she does not speak for those with autism. I’m going to be honest and admit something here I haven’t before: I have not been diagnosed with autism or aspergers but I AM currently on the waiting list to see someone who COULD diagnose me. Apparently I show signs of a potential diagnosis, so...we’ll have to see. But I have friends who are autistic, and they’re disgusted by JKR trying to use them to support her TERF arguments. Autistic and other neurodivergent people are absolutely capable of making decisions and are NOT people who need to be babied or have their hands held, to be told who they are. It’s incredibly ableist of JK Rowling frankly.

I would also like to point out... I’ve seen people saying “but she doesn’t hate autistic people, Newt is autistic!!!” - yes, but JKR didn’t write him as autistic. Eddie Redmayne chose to play Newt as autistic - JK Rowling didn’t do shit.

It’s also time that I acknowledge that both Potter and Beasts inevitably hold JKR’s problematic views, and that by denying her ownership of her work, we’re not holding her accountable for the horrible things she’s done. This includes - but is not limited to -:

Anti-Semitic stereotypes in the goblins

Lycanthropy being used as a metaphor for AIDS - an illness that is heavily associated to the gay community, and also there was the panic of the AIDs crisis in the 90s where much misinformation and homophobia was generated and spread because of it.

Adding further to the lycanthropy point, one of the infected individuals - Greyback - is stated to have a sick preference for infecting children. Not only are werewolves tied to harmful gay/AIDs stereotypes, but also to the disgusting and frankly wrong notion that gay people are pedophiles.

The only Asian character is called Cho Chang. Cho Chang. That’s two steps away from outright just calling her “Ching Chong”. It’s not a name an actual Asian person would have.

The Goldstein sisters are probably distantly related to Anthony Goldstein, who JKR confirmed (on Twitter of course) is Jewish, meaning that Tina and Queenie are most likely Jewish too (and Goldstein is a Jewish surname). However, despite the fact that the first FBaWTFT is set DURING Hanukkah in 1926, there’s zero signs of them celebrating or observing it. Maybe that’s more on set design than anything else, but come on - if I, a fanfic writer, can do some research, JK/the crew of a major movie can too!

Adding on from that, gotta love how one of the JEWISH main characters then decides to join the Wizarding world equivalent of Hitler. I already had problems with Queenie’s characterisation in CoG, but that’s the icing on the cake.

POC/Black characters - in both series but since I’m a Beasts blog... Seraphina Picquery, a Black female president serving a term during a MAJOR wizarding world crisis, is severely reduced to have only 3 lines in CoG. Nagini’s only purpose is to be the only friend of Credence, a white man, before he joins Wizard Hitler and abandons her; she’s also an Asian character who we know one day permanently becomes a SNAKE, and who goes on to actually have a piece of Voldemort’s soul inside of her?? And some do see her as his slave, though you could argue that she’s actually the only being that he holds any love or respect for. Leta Lestrange is a half-black woman who is killed/literally sacrifices herself for TWO WHITE MEN, and who’s death was literally confirmed to have been added in last minute.

Also, the whole Lestrange storyline was fucking nasty: white Lestrange Sr imperius-ed a black woman (Yusuf Kama’s mother), raped her, and she then died in childbirth. I’m sorry, what the fuck??

In Harry Potter, Seamus is a terrible stereotype of an Irish person - he likes to blow things up. Look up the IRA and their bombings. Fucking Irish stereotype. As someone with Irish grandparents and who is proud of their Irish heritage, this really pisses me off.

Let’s not forget the whole Native American cultural appropriation. That truly speaks for itself.

So here is where I speak candidly to everyone who follows me and/or sees this post. While Beasts is no longer my No. 1 fandom these days, it and Potter still hold a huge piece of my heart. I have 5 wizarding world tattoos, so much merchandise, and I can safely say that being a fan of both series has shaped me as a person. Both of those series helped me get through the darkest days of my life, including bullying at school, my Nan passing away, and my mental health struggles.

This is why what’s happened has impacted me so much and broken my heart. For me, it feels like it’s tainted now because of Jo and her views. I know that we should separate the art from the artist, but when her views are so clearly woven into the very fabric of the Wizarding world, it’s a huge problem.

Here’s another part of the dilemma - I do not wish for the Beasts films to be cancelled. I’m well aware that the *cough* people who dislike me will say I’m trying to be negative, trying to boycott the series blah blah blah, but that’s truly the last thing I want. I still love the story, the characters, the soundtrack, and I want to know how it ends, if only for my own piece of mind. It’s also important to add that by boycotting Beasts, it’s also harming the hard working thousands of others who worked on the films: the cast, the crew, the extras, the musicians, etc., not to mention the fans who actually are invested in the series and have taken solace in it. It’s not fair for them to all suffer over the actions of one TERF.

This is one of my biggest worries, however: the Fantastic Beasts films do NOT have a good reputation as it is. The second film was boycotted by some due to Depp, and now there’s talk of people boycotting number 3 because of JK Rowling. Lots of people already talk hatred about it, and this will only fire that hatred up even more.

There’s also talk of Eddie Redmayne potentially being kicked from the franchise due to a “leak” that he doesn’t want to work with JKR anymore, but this could be sensationalist news reporting. But if it came down to it, I can honestly say that I would rather continue to have Eddie play Newt than keep JKR as a writer. Eddie has done more for Newt than even JKR has, and if he goes, then that will be the last straw for me within the fandom. That will be when I take a sharp exit out, sell my FB merch and have my tattoos covered.

To add, the Fantastic Beasts scripts are...not great. Or, at least, what we saw on-screen wasn’t. Maybe that’s David Yates being the literal worst (fuck you, Yates, you suck) and cutting all the parts with strong female characters, but I honestly don’t think that JKR can write screenplays well at all. I think she’s clearly better at writing books, and that’s fine - books obviously allow for more time to explore characters and story/plot arcs etc, and film scripts offer way less of those chances. I don’t think screenplays allow her to write what she needs to in order to tell the story she wants to, hence why CoG was kind of a hot mess. So maybe it’s just that she’s not suited for screenplays and should stick to books.

Honestly, I kind of just wish that WB would hire another person to finish writing the Fantastic Beasts movies - obviously they’d have to keep JKR on board to tell them the actual plot, but get someone who can actually write screenplays and not be problematic to write them.

By now I’ve gone on long enough that I’ve forgotten my original intent while writing this, so I’ll try to sum up and end now. In short, I am extremely disappointed in JK Rowling and do not support her or her views any longer.

I don’t know how any of you guys are feeling but I would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts, especially other Fantastic Beasts fans. I want to also add that, as always, my DMs and inbox are always open - if not here, then always at @alwaysahiccupandastrid where I’m more active nowadays.

Finally, you guys don’t need me - a white cis woman - to tell you this but you’re all valid and magical and fuck JK Rowling. Her characters would all be ashamed of her, and the characters we grew up with would not stand for the bigotry and vile hatred she spreads under the guise of ““protecting women””. Several of the amazing actors from Potter and Beasts have spoken out against her and her tweets: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, Katie Leung, Chris Rankin, Eddie Redmayne. Some have been...less inspiring (Tom Felton, Evanna Lynch, looking at you two 👀)

I’m sending love to everyone right now. I wish I could say something more useful but I’ve spoken enough - I’ve made my opinion clear. I love you all, please stay safe.

#fantastic beasts and where to find them #fantastic beasts: the crimes of grindelwald #jk rowling #harry potter

24 notes · View notes

incarnateirony · 5 years

Text

Terms and Conditioning and Meanings

Okay, so it’s something a lot of people heard me bang on about several times over the last few years, but recently I found a thread (x) by yet another lit professor -- this one in another fandom.

I’m sure some people will choose to reactively and malignly pick at parts of what they say without reading the heart of their body of work, in a blazing display of self-blind irony, but well-- I went off on my usual tear I go on ‘round these parts and unsurprisingly they went through and liked every single one while QTing other Typical Fandom Asshats to shoot them down, so let’s roll here.

I’ll start with the TLDR edition but then break down the actual content behind a cut -- because this? This is something this fandom DESPERATELY NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCES OF, and how they DO and DON’T relate.

CODING = CONSCIOUS CHOICE OF CONSTRUCTION BY AUTHOR SUBTEXT = THEMATIC RESONANCE THROUGH MOST OF OR THE ENTIRE WORK THAT EMBOLDENS THE TALE INTERPRETATION = LITERALLY WHATEVER YOU WANT BUT STRONGER IF YOU KNOW WHAT THE OTHER 2 ARE AND WHERE THEY ARE. THANKS KIDS DEATH OF THE AUTHOR = NOT AN EXCUSE FOR EIGHTH-ASSED READINGS CANON = WHAT EXISTS WITHIN A WORK, OR AN AGREED UPON BODY OF ACCEPTED WORKS (episodes, books, etc not part of the ecclesiastical body) NO, it is not a MAGIC WORD for “NOW THEY KISSED” and there are MANY FORMS OF WHAT IS CANON WITHIN AN ACCEPTED BODY OF WORK. QUEERBAIT = VERY FEW OF THESE THINGS AND YET CAN BE ALL OF THESE THINGS AND THIS IS THE MOST BUSTED WORD Y’ALL HAVE FUCKING RUINED.

(Edit: I saw someone reblog this with “really aggressive in an offputting way” before a tag of “but I agree” so I’ma put this out here: Yeah. It fucking is. Because this fandom is fucking exhausting. And I am tired. Of having to fucking repeat things. That are literal common sense. In a fandom that insists on flushing common sense. Of otherwise intelligent people sending themselves into destructive spirals. Of even friends losing friends to people sliding off into bitter pits these problems lead to. So if you’re someone that favors common sense, maybe you actually should feel this frustration in your soul. The lit folks reblogging this with commentary so far seem to.)

To quote the linked OP and give credit where credit is due for resparking this conversation in my mind and realizing I haven’t said this for a long time and new followers may not know, even if this is familiar to like 90% of people who follow me -- but I feel they touched aptly on parts I haven’t even really done more than brush over.

queer-coding is quite sinister in a lot of ways (though can be employed subversively to great effect) but also very interesting! studies have shown that children who like or identify with queer-coded villains are more likely to be lgbt, even if they don't realise what's going on.

during the hays era it was mostly a way to show that a villain was bad (because gay = evil), but it could also be a way for closeted queer creators to sneak lgbt representation into their work, which is why so many queer-coded villains are so damn *likeable*.

what's also interesting is that lgbt creators would sometimes explicitly *straight-code* their villains - gaston from disney's beauty and the beast is a great example of this. highly recommend that you read up on the story of his creation!

all of which is to say: queer-coding has a meaning, it's not the same as queer-*baiting*, and it DEFINITELY isn't the same as "I'm gonna read this character as gay because I wanna imagine him as gay" - the name for that is fanon, and some trek fans

there are lots of academic works on the history of queer-coding if you want to spend an afternoon down a google scholar rabbit hole! just, you know. terms have meanings.

that's the thing. coding literally is intentional. what you're talking about is an alternate or resistant reading, or a world-context-centred critical approach.

you're right that it's got nothing to do with representation, but unlike semiotics, which is text-centred but may or may not rely on reading into intentional authorial choices, queer-coding refers specifically to an authorial choice. it's a defined term.

I didn't just take AP and honours english. I *taught* AP and honours english. for y e a r s.

--by @jaythenerdkid who I just accidentally found the tumblr of by preparing to make a twitter link but I checked and it’s the same person.

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

Okay so let’s pick through this a little bit before people start spinning this up in their heads.

TO START: QUEER CODING

I’ve seen people say “This character has villain attributes or dark attributes ergo he is queer coded.” That is absolutely not the way to apply this history, this works in reverse. As handled here, villains were either malignly codified to make queer characters evil and/or were then used as a slip-in of representation. A villain being a villain is not in fact itself an actual queer coding point. A dark history is not itself a queer coding point. Addiction stories are not themselves a queer coding point. In fact, trying to apply itself in this order is like BLAZINGLY homophobic and gross as hell and if you’re doing this, you should stop now. Yes, I’ve seen this.

I fucking promise you Gaston wasn’t consciously “queer coded” in being a villain, being a villain does not give him a Magic Gay Point.

Are we good on that point? Have we figured out the direction these Magic Gay Points fly in and don’t? Cool. If the author consciously added elements that will harmonize with a straight audience as queer to make them seem bad, that’s malignant queer coding; if an author consciously added elements that will harmonize with a queer audience to make them somehow familiar or likable, that is subversive queer coding.

An example of subversive queer coding: In the Legend of Korra, the creators had limitations on what the network would allow them to do. Later, they confirmed their intent was a WLW couple being portrayed at the end, but it hovers in the area of a hand hold that people can unfortunately choose to negotiate away into bestest friends despite all the other story flags for them along the way.

People have/can/will call queerbait about this. In this case, this is not queerbait. This is attempted representation to bypass restrictions and is not malign, but are authors doing their best to give their queer audience something, anything, in the case of it. Yes, it was post-air acknowledgment but it was what they were goddamn trying to give us gays out here. It’s not hiding their gays on the creator’s part -- it’s hiding their gays on the network’s part -- WHICH IS A STEP A LOT OF PEOPLE GET VERY CONFUSED ABOUT.

Hell, just because *one* show or property on a specific channel even allows X Amount Of Gay in it doesn’t even mean they’ll allow their other properties that amount of gay every time, and can and WILL step in and block creators. It happens even on premium networks like HBO or Starz. Because they have their ideas of what the demographic they dump a bunch of marketing money into is okay with, half-educated and half massive fiery balls of projection from whatever old white dude is reviewing the data. So no, never just bank on “well X network made the Gay Bar exactly This Tall To Ride here so all their other shows can be Exactly This Gay.” -- you do that, you’re gonna set yourself up for a FUCKTON of disappointment.

Hell, LGBT aren’t even treated equally to other LGBT. Bi men have like 1/3 the representation of bi women because media is held in a largely male gaze corporately and well, bi women are sexy to straight guys, give them some of that lesbian action. But oh, nono, don’t put the bi dudes near their network, no homo. If you drape a rainbow boa on this lamp post though we’ll let you have a gay guy run around that is there to make other characters uncomfortable as a stereotype, that’s fine. LITERALLY do *NOT* simply assume for *ANY REASON* that because one kind of LGBT person cleared on one show that others will too, there’s so many ways that drops through the floor.

That small aside about network bullshittery handled, let’s get back to the terms.

Negative queer coding I can think of with things like, I dunno. Jafar. Honestly very few LGBT people will actively associate with most of these attributes because a great wealth of them are attributes in the eyes of straight creators villainizing gay people, rather than gay people making gay people that just happen to be villains, and this distinction *DOES MATTER.* The long, snaky body -- the coy, venomous tone, embellished gestures; I mean sure, some people are like that, and that’s fine, you be you, but it’s a stereotype most try to shed rather than play into. It’s not the sum of who we are but put into the wrong creator’s hands, they *make* that the perceivable sum of who we are, + villainy.

But queer coding CAN be suggestively used to paint positive role models in situations they can’t necessarily be written as Overtly Gay, and the list of those reasons is unfortunately Very Long. But they are always things that are active choice, and your interpretation of what is Active Choice is not the same as Proven Active Choice.

For example: “The wallpaper was green and blue in this scene so Dean is thinking of Castiel even if he isn’t saying it.” Okay. We’re gonna go to Subtext and Interpretation later, but summarily: no. Hell, maybe it even is, but that’s a huge vault you actually have to exorbitantly prove and you can’t just say “but movie lighting theory” because I promise Dean = Green Cas = Blue isn’t general lighting theory.

An alternate example: “Bobo Berens, the first LGBT author on Supernatural, affirmed that Castiel was written in place of Colette, Cain’s wife, in Dean’s mirrored life; this is recurring symbolism and reflects often in Beren’s work, wherein his first episode showrunner Carver opted them to act as jilted lovers, and made a vast wash of content involving bold partnership ideals such as ‘at the altar’, ‘secret admirer’, and more that mysteriously hit the cutting room floor, but resonates very loudly through several directly connected seasons and all future work by Berens such as classic romantic partnership gifts and ideas [mixtape, heart connect, etc].”

This is simultaneously coding and subtext. We could frankly make 200 page dissertations about this chain of text -- and most of us already have -- that doesn’t require loudly extrapolating interpretation of external elements or single unrelated lines.

“But subtext is just QUEERBAIT. It’s JUST SUBTEXT, it’s NOT CANON.”

Okay honey let me stop you right there. This is like the most common bad hot take in this fucking fandom. Like every part of it is bad but everybody kind of strings it together into one big Ball of Bad.

Subtext is, summarily, a hidden body of text that is felt in the work. Beyond Who You Want To Be Gay, subtext is a lot of things. Subtext is the value of humanity above all powers and principalities, in Supernatural. And there’s all kinds of other subtext. Whenever you see someone blink and have black eyes in SPN without them saying “I’m a demon” and you know they’re a demon, that’s... kind of subtext too. I mean, we know textually demons have black eyes, but nothing ever said only demons have black eyes. So what if I wanted to say it’s the ghost of big bird? It’s MY INTERPRETATION and MY INTERPRETATION IS VALID TOO.

Shit you can even cobble together half assed unrelated extrapolations--some demons have yellow eyes and Jack had yellow eyes so he wasn’t a demon so clearly not all black eyes are demons and uh... the angel blade kills lots of things, that black eyed thing still wasn’t a demon.

See how easy it is to absolutely BULLSHIT around it with decontextualized BULLSHIT? It almost passes at a glance until held up to the smallest bit of scrutiny and following episodes.

Okay, so look, “It’s my interpretation, and my interpretation is valid” is only as far as it holds up soundly to *you.* As long as it is truly valid to *you.* And that doesn’t mean big brave faces you put on For The Twitter Stan Wars because you don’t want to lose digital clout when the newest episode falls through and blows your entire house of cards out of the water because you weren’t reading the actual subtext being hewn into the story by the authors -- or even forming a resilient resistant read of your own subtext that can hold -- but once that interpretation leaves your mouth to try to bounce off of other people’s viewpoints, you’re now indirectly challenging their viewpoint with theirs. If you stay in your cabal where you think the spirit of big bird has black eyes, and never subtweet or @ or whatever anybody else about this Hot Take, that’s fine, just don’t be surprised when you’re left defending that to whatever followers you pulled into the Big Bird Cabal.

Or you all sit in angry silence with each other and then start helicopter swinging at the writers for ruining The Spirit Of Big Bird that was never fucking there. Because you’re trying to apply patchy, unstable, and generally very piss poorly founded readings to a still released work.

So THAT lead in shoved off to the side about interpretation and keeping your interpretation to yourself if you don’t want to be challenged by far more solid interpretations, Because that’s how content discussion works,

SUBTEXT IS OFTEN A FORMULATIVE PART OF CANON, ESPECIALLY IF IT IS CODED, WHETHER WE ARE TALKING QUEER CODING OR ANY OTHER KIND OF CODING.

Subtext is a thematic undercurrent. Subtext is the unspoken soul of a piece, what lies in the blank space between the lines, but not just whatever you take the lines to be. If you sit down and write a lit paper, you’re gonna have to explain where you pulled your subtext out of.

You can either go the “Death of the Author” route where you summarily erase any commentary ever made and build your own, but you still need to be able to read the sum of the text and present what it all is. And most importantly you can’t just present what it’s not. If your entire reading of a work is trying to explain away common sense bullshit and it ends up reading like All Work No Play Makes Johnny Dull Boy because you had to build 82 nonlinear explanations around what you don’t want, and those all lead to nowhere, that professor is going to flunk the shit out of you. And if you use Death of an Author DEFINITELY don’t simultaneously try to appeal to authority with other quotes convenient to you.

Not Wanting something to Be So and going completely over the river and through the woods in completely disjointed intentionally maladapted readings of refusal doesn’t mean you’ve found subtext, it means you’ve chosen to make a reading -- an interpretation -- that is not really thematically sound with the body of work but for whatever reason, you’ve chosen to make that the meaning it has to *you.* And that’s fine. Unless you’re trying to impress a professor. Or jousting your opinion off of somebody else that isn’t doing cartwheels around the content to avoid the parts they don’t like (and get mad about it later.)

Removing all genuine thematic subtext and disregarding it from any part of the canon discussion of a piece is, however, devastating and essentially rips out the foundation of a piece. This has become all the more common as junk TV gets junkier and continues to appeal to the lowest common denominator that need to be reminded that 2+2=4 every three episodes before they accept that 2+2=4 in their respective canon universe, because otherwise they’ll claim it’s just subtext or someone else’s opinion that it equals 4.

And that’s not what these words mean and I am left eternally climbing up walls, because in this fandom, like... subtext, interpretation, coding, queerbait have all become one amorphous blob that just gets hurled around like four stuck together balls of Gak at a grade school party and just seeing where they splatter.

It is entirely possible for content to be subtextual and canon, if it is thematically resonant with the piece and a loud and fundamental part of its storytelling that it can not operate without acknowledging. Discussion of queer content aside, there’s a lot of shit this applies to. There’s a certain sense of good faith most authors put in their readers/viewers/whatever that people will have an fundamental understanding of the spirit of a work they’re conveying. This good faith amount varies depending on their projected demographic, but let me assure you, if your respective creator essentially has the characters stop and do “today I learned” narratives, or interruption explanation inserts over everything, there’s one of two reasons: 1. It’s a literal parody/comedy 2. It’s either geared for kids or they think you’re all fucking idiots.

As I don’t tend to watch parody, comedy, or kid shows, I tend to favor shows that don’t feel the need to handhold me through every instance of the show. Because I am not nor do I appreciate being treated like an idiot.

Subtext is a valuable part of canon as long as we are talking by virtue of “coding” not “random unfounded interpretation.”

Now, to the topic of queer coding, is it fundamentally gratifying to our primitive lizard brain survival instinct if we see characters kiss or whatever your personal landmark for gratification is? I mean, sure. Does the romance leading up to the kiss absolutely not matter at all until the kiss, or was that early state of subtext, dance, and non-consummation itself a valid romantic journey?

Because honestly this is something I feel current LGBT dialogue is missing. We’re so wounded from being caught in the subtext veil that we want confirmation, but everybody wants to skip the journey to the sweet stuff. I’m not saying every story needs to be a years long slow burn, but y’all. You know how we talk about het romance being boring as fuck because it’s like “dude/chick look at each other and they fuck and now they’re insufferable, hahahah is this what het culture is like is this what they call romance what kind of standards--”? Yeah, we’re rapidly snowplowing towards that.

I’m also not saying quick confirmation is bad either. There’s shows and stories where even pre-confirmed LGBT couples are GREAT to see, just existing in the population. Not every story needs to be THE grand romance, or THE great coming out adventure, some can have already had their adventures just like the Totally Het Neighbors Next Door and that’s... fine. That’s great, even.

But we are approaching Absolute Bottom Barrel Trash Content at terminal velocity, mostly just being exploited and monetized by corporations that are virtue signaling us to give at best sub-par turnout. The amount of currently airing shows with quality queer content can probably be counted on your two hands.QED there’s hundreds of shows, thousands depending on which networks you’re counting in your numbers. Off the top of my head, Legends of Tomorrow has a fabulously queer cast that Just Is without being defined only by having a partner nor being a rainbow lamp with a sticky note of plot directions.

But we are also signaling creators that it’s no longer safe *to* give us gradual, slow burns, or genuine romance either. And we’re ALSO signaling creators -- INCLUDING QUEER CREATORS -- that it is no longer safe to make subtextual or coded content.

“Well good!” you probably say.

NO, THIS IS BAD, THIS IS REALLY, REALLY BAD.

Because while you may live in a fantasy universe where X Network had Y show exactly This Gay To Ride, it’s in blatant disregard of inconsistent landmarks and limbo sticks different shows, creators, and products have to go through, and some people in some shows are trying REALLY REALLY HARD to give you resonant queer content and you’re just shitting all over them and yelling that it’s queerbait.

I mean, queerbait is the idea that someone is giving queer content without intent to follow through and generally to exploit a queer audience. The problem is, all queerbait accusations are launched in default bad faith. Some of that bad faith is earned. Some of it is not. Sometimes there’s a lesbian with a network executive breathing down her neck that just wants to let her girls be together so she has them hold hands, even if she knows The Straights will talk it away as best friends, no matter how many canonically romantic storylines they’ve wedged into the subtext through loudly recognizable tropes.

Queerbait is a VERY DANGEROUS CARD and MUST BE USED WITH EXTREME CAUTION. Because depending on the longevity of what you’re crowing about, without understanding of what’s going on beyond the production veil, you can very easily even get creatives and creators hard shut down on a network level for wanting to protect the product. I’m sure you think “make it gay!” is the one answer to that, but no, it isn’t always, not depending on what the old white guy network exec I mentioned a while ago has in his papers about what or who he interprets pulls his income and what they like via demographics or inconsistent marketing test groups.

That’s not to say never call out queerbait, but the internet desperately needs to be more conscious about when and where they fling it around. What if Korra fans started horrifically screeching about queerbait and blasting it all over the internet and @’ing production or even network people and making devoted articles to make it a shitshow that even hit GA impact zones? Do you really think Nickelodeon would look at their demographic paperwork and throw it in the air and go “Oh! Well we make it gay then.”

Or do you think they’d have left a hard feedback note to further divide those characters with a strong warning about limits and restrictions.

We are slowly moving out of the area of things like queer coded villains and have more migrated into an area of subversive queer coding, but a great deal of subversive queer coding has people lose their SHIT because Some Idiot On The Internet With A Shitty Take And Quarter Assed Interpretation told them “it’s just subtext so it’s not valid until they kiss”, setting out this roving goalpost everybody keeps running after like a goddamn donkey chasing a carrot on a stick, and in some cases completely unable to be reached, despite the LITERAL BEST INTENTION of the authors.

I’ve heard “well if they can’t Bring It All The Way, they shouldn’t at all.” What the FUCK? What kind of UNBEARABLY STRAIGHT WASHED WORLD do you want to live in? What kind of world do you think we’re living in right now? I regret to inform you, Trump got elected to office somehow and reversed a lot of LGBT protections somehow and it’s not just “because Russia,” it’s because there’s still a SHITTON of assholes out there that make corporations that bankroll TV SHITTONS of money and whether we like it or not, TV is a BUSINESS and we’re all DOLLAR SIGNS.

Stripping subversive queer coding, especially from the hands of queer authors, sets us back into a weird offset of primitive ages and extremized content, where the latter becomes poorly packaged lesbians dropped as a marketing plan to upsell Trendy New Teen Show without daring to rattle the middle aged demographic of a split political demographic in another show. No. Absolutely fucking not. Use some responsibility and apply some critical thinking before yelling queerbait and figure out where a problem is in any given situation, that’s all I fucking ask.

Hell for all you know those queer creators could be pitching it again and again behind the scenes, or baited on that side with maybes, or being stalled out by being told to wait for test marketing groups, and generally tugged around on their own leash where corporate is summarily watching the feedback to the blatant but subtextual and coded queer content.

--------

Now, ALL OF THIS becomes a fucking mess in discussion when people don’t box off these definitions and issues.

If people don’t realize the value of subtext to canon,

And people don’t understand the difference between coding and interpretation,

And people confuse queerbait with any of this,

You end up with some giant VAT of literally EVERYBODY sounding like dipshits because Anti A told Shipper B who loves queer author C and relationship D that It’s Just Subtext, and then Shipper B turns around and yells ITS NOT CANON YOU’RE IDIOTS FOR LOVING IT in their pained bitterness, but then Anti A brings Anti B back and they decide they optically prefer relationship Z that has no actual coding or subtext, but they’ve strapped together their own interpretation, but they confuse interpretation and subtext, and break out all interpretations are equal even if they are not in the body of the actual canon work, but now everybody is yelling it’s not canon because nobody even fucking knows what any of these words mean anymore, and then Shippers A-Z turn around and start yelling queerbait at a gay author just trying to write his little gay heart out-- you see the problem, right?

On the other hand, there’s fandoms where people confuse these same points and think their uncorroborated interpretation is subtext simply because they chose to interpret it that way, and with enough voices drawn into it in the vat of “all interpretations are equal”, turn around and yell queerbait at authors who are scratching their heads going “the fuck are you on about”

-------

Other bad takes: The opinions of actors really don’t fucking matter. I don’t care if they’re pro-relationship or anti-relationship or just pro/anti any idea other than a relationship. This is like taking the opinion of some dude who played Hamlet an eternity ago for Shakespeare while Shakespeare was still alive and writing about what Shakespeare’s writing meant. His opinion may be meaningful to him, but it is his own interpretation. If Shakespeare wrote Hamlet The Sequel the actor could turn out entirely wrong about what he was babbling about.

Actors are just interpreting the art to screen like you are. Acting is an interpretive art. They’re just. Interpreting. Just like you. So stop whipping out statements of actors against each other. You might as well be quoting jared-uwu-cest.tumblr dot com as an authority for your bad fucking take. Stop it. If actors on the same set have conflicting opinions and are just talking about their opinion, their opinion doesn’t mean shit more than any other fan of the source content, unless they are hand delivering statements, cited, from specific authors they’ve communicated with about the work they’re interpreting from (coming to mind, the time Jensen Ackles went to showrunner Jeremy Carver confused about the romance with Amara feeling right, only to tell us that Jeremy Carver told us that Amara wasn’t his romance, she was his kryptonite).

Now if you’re choosing death of the author NONE of this is relevant, obviously, because you shouldn’t be citing ANY of this, because then you’re just playing to discussion points for convenience. But if you are looking for actual intent, the actor’s interpretation is only as valid as any other dedicated interpretation, albeit possibly more or less sounded in awareness of the text, but is otherwise only as valuable for how direct of a voice box they are being for what authors said about specific scenes. Hell, most things are filmed out of order and many actors don’t watch the whole piece. It already consumes their work life, it won’t consume their home life, no matter how much they love it, they haven’t reviewed the full body of the piece externally as a finished product, just processed emotions out of sequence.

THERE WAS A NEW AVENGER THAT DIDNT EVEN REALIZE HE WAS ACTING A NEW AVENGER UNTIL HE TOOK HIS KIDS TO THE MOVIES AND WAS LIKE “OH SHIT I’M AN AVENGER.” Stop BANKING on actor statements.

This also gets more complicated in group writing projects such as TV shows with multiple authors. And MORE complicated explaining that complication to fandom when they get positive statements from the creator of a show who is the *only* author and then turn around and yell “WHY DIDN’T [OTHER FANDOM]” do that when like, IDK, 6/40 authors have over the course of however long it’s been written on, most have been radio silent and one other had a different opinion and then you just expect some group borg rising of everybody who’s ever written on the show to come and hand deliver you individual hand-fed statements about what they meant.

This entire thing also foregoes the import of directors and how they work with their set dressers as part of the creative process; they’re what manifest the text into a visual medium of the story, which may or may not be identical to the author’s intent. Again, to hearken back to Supernatural as my root fandom here, it’s been mentioned Sgriccia knew how to work with everyone and get what they were meaning to convey with how long he worked on set, so generally, authors and Sgriccia cooperated really well in a full art. Whereas that nightmare of an episode Don’t Go In The Woods was directed by a VFX guy as his first directing experience and we could see he barely knew how to work with actors much less the spirit of the text; he just had great understanding of environment.

These things, these opinions, these takes also matter. Because TV is a different form. I generally don’t see people arguing Pride & Prejudice on twitter, it’s usually TV/movies. Lit theory is incredibly valid for understanding the pace and flow of a body of work but you also have to understand what authors are deeply plugged into that, what directors are deeply plugged in, who’s an experimental folly they’ll patch up the work of afterward, it’s not the same as just reading a novel by one author or, at most, a few co authors in immediate harmony.

Like I don’t know if people think I did my Crazy Pagan Magic to come up with the season 14 ending like I had a pages-long rant reel of direct quotes and shots that literally predicted that Jack was going to lose his soul, become faux-god, and Dean was going to be given an ultimatum of shooting him, probably after killing Mary, because getting the yellow eyed thing was the point right--but that the true scarlet letterman wasn’t their lost child, but the absent father. The Great Father who left all questions--the god of control. But dad told you to put a bullet in me, and you didn’t.

Like, anyone remember me spouting literally all of these things across different posts? It’s not magic. So while Christians in fandom are turning themselves into pretzels making shitbrained theories trying to explain why it Wasn’t Really Chuck Or Chuck Isn’t Really God, I’ve got a few hundred pages of thesises here talking about this being exactly where they were going because of SUBTEXT. Because it’s PART OF THE CANON AND BUILDING THE FUNDAMENTAL STORY.

If it comes to a textual head like Chuck, great. But people have to recognize whatever landmark they set for what they consider a textual head is entirely subject to the creators or, worse, a network. The same way in season 11 they got told they couldn’t kill God, here we go on take 2, maybe the network changed it’s mind, we’ll find out.

These things all interplay VERY IMPORTANTLY with each other and also, this issue goes WELL BEYOND Supernatural fandom. At some point in history a bunch of people in multiple fandoms started slinging these words around without understanding them and bounced them off of more people that don’t understand them and it turns into a goddamn hot mess because nobody’s using words like they mean anymore, just vaguely beating each over the head with it, and it’s driving me i n s a n e. Hell, y’all are undermining YOURSELVES half the time by the way people have taught you to misuse words.

ALSO WRT “CANON”

Most of the above covers what canon is within the way it’s abused in fandom, but I’ve seen some people take the idea of it being accepted into a body of work by the authors as meaning like, every reading of the material needs to be acknowledged by the authors. I already detailed what it means. It’s absolutely not that. 100%. I don’t give a shit how you choose to interpret that. Because there is literally no way on planet earth an author has made a full statement confirming every detail about every part of their book and that goalpost doesn’t just magically manifest when we’re talking about, say, gay shit. Or powers you don’t like. If it’s thematically there, it’s thematically there, you can’t hackjob it out of canon just because This Specific Idea doesn’t have a Canon For Dummies statement attached to it, or worse, one attached to it specifically to your liking, since people like interpreting away ones based on their preferences rather than reason.

Similarly it doesn’t mean there’s a magic goalpost of a vagueblogged percentage of people that must accept the content for it to be canon. Hell, like half the fandom still tricked themselves into thinking there was a reaper retcon in season 9 (x) that NEVER FUCKING EXISTED IN ANY DAMN CAPACITY. Large groups of people choosing to miss the point doesn’t mean the canon didn’t hold the point, simply that they chose to draw another point out of it. Generally, in a still releasing work, that also leaves them disappointed and confused later (such as when someone claimed they retconned the nonexistent reaper retcon, because I heard you like retcons.)

There is no magic percent, no magic statement. These things are nice, but they aren’t what makes canon. Canon is the actual accepted body of work such as seasons, episodes, books, movies, or whatever else as part of the universe. (Eg: Supernatural’s novels are officially noncanonical and not part of discussion of canon content. They are not accepted into canon. That’s what this means.)

Also if you’re talking about canon quantify it. You can be as tired as you want about bad rep, but bad rep quality has nothing to do with the canon source content. You can be as tired about lowkey gayness as you want but are you saying the canon material isn’t romantic at all, or are you saying the characters aren’t consummated yet. If the canon material isn’t canonically romantic why are you yelling queerbait; or acknowledge the value of queer unconsummated canon romances even if you aspire for more, but don’t bounce that goalpost around for convenience, fuck sake.

DID U KNOW that things can be CANONICALLY ROMANTIC without being CANONICALLY CONSUMMATED? Or that even a queer author’s idea of what reads as consummated canon may not be the same as yours? Did you know that a MLM LGBT author in his 40s may have very different ideas of how to express an MLM romance than a bunch of WLW LGBT women of any age, because there’s intersectionality at play? If you don’t want bi men determining how lesbians should be represented we need to apply that all around, kids.

-----

So sure, your interpretation can be valid, for you. But once you joust others, or pin your interpretation on the show without careful exploration of the actual intentful themes, you’re gonna probably be disappointed as it releases and uproots your ideas. Now the question is if you are willing to hold mature intelligent discourse about other people’s potential interpretations and readings, or if you’re going to grapple onto your old, broken interpretation like Gollum with the Ring because it’s your precious and you’ll let it send you crawling into a moldy cave hissing at anyone happily walking by.

Is Your Interpretation worth your anger when it falls through Do you even WANT to like the show? Do you literally prefer staying angry over reviewing your take compared to people who are still happy with it? Why AREN’T you willing to figure out where you went left of canon?

And furthermore, is your anger and broken interpretation/expectations worth holding onto a damn ring/show that clearly isn’t what you thought it was, or can you toss your fiery stan rage into Mordor before you turn into a twitter goblin and find a place you can interpret differently that makes you happy?

---

Lesson: Stop being fandom goblins

Also @tinkdw

117 notes · View notes

cassolotl · 5 years

Text

The story of when I went French-viral and the French lesbians were mean to me

Friday 5th July 2019

Last month I posted a tweet promoting my Pride flag handwarmers.

I don’t really do custom orders, so I just posted what I currently had in stock from knitting in front of the TV. I hadn’t had many sales recently so there were quite a few pairs in my handwarmer box.

Pretty much right away I got quote-tweets, in English and French, from French lesbians complaining about lesbian erasure, pointing their friends at me to draw attention to the lack of lesbian pride flag in my range. I also got many replies specifically saying things like, “I can’t support you if you don’t have the lesbian flag” or “it’s disgusting that you represent every group except lesbians” or “yet again, another person who doesn’t care about us.” Some were even directly very nasty. (It was a very stressful time, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Going viral is the worst and I didn’t even get that many RTs.)

To begin with I tried telling them that the reason I’ve never made lesbian flag handwarmers is because no one has ever requested them, and so I’ve never been able to justify investing in buying several new shades of yarn for handwarmers that I had no reason to think would sell. The implication was that if you wanted some lesbian flag handwarmers you’d just have to request them. This didn’t seem to work; they just told me it was all very disappointing. Okay, time to change tack.

I considered telling them that the original lesbian flag was designed for lipstick lesbians only, is widely considered problematic, and has resulted in many adaptations and alternatives, none of which is the “standard” flag, and so when someone requests the lesbian flag (which, again, no one has ever done) I have no way of knowing which one they mean.

Instead, I started replying in English and broken French, asking people if they would like to put themselves down on my waiting list for a pair of lesbian flag handwarmers. I said something like, “would you like to buy some lesbian flag handwarmers? If I make them they’d be £15 plus P&P from the UK to your country,” or, “would you like some lesbian flag handwarmers? You can fill in this form to be notified when I make them, so you can buy them before anyone else. [URL]”

When asked to justify myself, I explained that every flag has to be requested first so that I know people actually want to buy it, and that if I get enough requests that would be evidence that lesbian flag handwarmers would sell, which means I can safely buy yarn knowing I won’t lose money. I am absolutely open to making lesbian flag handwarmers and would love to do that, but I’m a random queer disabled indie knitter, I can’t afford to go around buying yarn for handwarmers that no one wants to buy!

I got replies in the following rough categories. If you have ever had anything go viral on Twitter, none of these will surprise you.

No, I just think you should have them in stock anyway. It’s really sad when lesbians aren’t represented.

No, thank you.

[no reply]

[enthusiastic French swearing and insults]

For the entire time that I was getting extra handwarmer attention and all those lesbians were getting pissed off that I wasn’t stocking lesbian flag handwarmers, one person enquired privately about lesbian flag handwarmers, on Mastodon rather than on Twitter, for their friend. I still have no reason to think that a lesbian flag handwarmer design would sell, at all. None of the people demanding I make things for them wanted to actually buy those things. My stance remains the same: If you’re only willing to hypothetically buy the thing, I’ll only be willing to hypothetically make it.

But this is the point of my post, right. While I was going viral on French-Twitter for being a lesbian-erasing monster, I had more sales of handwarmers in one month than I have ever had in years. Every sale but one was to France.

So what I’m basically getting at is, when you highlight oppressive behaviour in order to make fun of it or raise awareness or stir up outrage, you are heavily promoting oppressors. Angry lesbians advertised my wares better than anything else I have ever done, better than any positive attention has ever managed. Personal endorsement to interested followers is something brands pay big bucks to influencers for, but outrage does this for free.

Think about this before you reblog/RT homophobia, transphobia, racism. Don’t give bigotry attention without a really good, hard-hitting reason. If you have to do that, make it as difficult as possible for the bigots to find each other and benefit from your post by blurring out names and avatars and URLs. Social media is powerful. Don’t use it to give more attention to TERFs and white supremacists.

#original posts #my words

163 notes · View notes

pepperstrawberry · 5 years

Text

Heavy post...*waves to frens*

Warning: Long post... but not putting it under a cut because I specifically want new followers to read this. Mutuals and long time followers? Nothing new here, feel free to hit that page down button a few times XD

So, over the last few weeks, I’ve gained a lot of new followers... and lost some too. Now of course, I generally don’t worry too much about it (or try not to). I know some folk unfollow maybe because it’s been a while and their interests have changed, or maybe in some cases they were dealing with some frustrating things that I happen to be also talking about at the time and so they wanted to get away from it all for a while and it wasn’t really a personal thing. No judgement on that stuffs...

But, I do want to make some things clear for those that have recently followed me and might have followed just because of a cute image or two I made for magic stuffs with the new set dropping:

First: I am a trans woman. I support the full LGBTAQ+ spectrum. Yes, this includes Non-binary, Asexual, Aromantic, and all. I’m not going to argue with folks on the inclusion. It’s just that way. Oh yeah, and Bisexual, both being and supporting. This means even when a couple is not with who you think they should be with (a straight person seeing a ‘bi’ with the same or gay seeing ‘bi’ with different, you know that whole thing... no matter who a bisexual person is with, they are still bi)

Second: I’m anti-capitalist. Yes, I live in a capitalist world, and have to abide by the current machinations of it. I mean, consider things like Patreon, Go Fund Me, and the like. Those are not ‘capitalist’ (though can and have been used in that way), but are a way a community can help creators make a living without having to worry about making every product ‘marketable’. (which is why I’m against the recent shift that Patreon is doing for it’s creators, but that is a whole other post).

Third: I am a supporter of things like Black Lives Matter and other inter-sectional things. Look, the same sort of oppressive arguments, and often even the same people, are used against both people within the LGBTQA+ community AND people of color. It just makes sense to back them up as much as my fellow lgbt friends.

Fourth: Which leads me to being Feminist. 3rd wave specifically. Yes, there are crap folk that claim to be feminist, but that is the case with any group. I mean there are lesbians that are against trans woman, soo... Anyhoo, the bottom line of 3rd wave Feminism is inter-sectional support. Women, LGBT folk, People of Color, and everything like that. And before you go ‘but what about white males?’, consider that that is who holds the power right now. Well, White, Male, and Rich. But many of the things that real feminism fights for also covers things that would help out men as well. Things like better therapy and psychological help. The idea of ‘toxic masculinity’ isn’t the idea that ‘masculinity is toxic’, but that there are ways that being a ‘guy’ has been pushed that are toxic in nature, both a danger for others as well as the men themselves. Remember the idea of ‘real men don’t cry’? That’s toxic. It teaches men that being sad isn’t a manly thing, but to express anger is okay. Which is why we get a lot of these shooters doing what they do.

Fifth: I’m... I guess I’m agnostic? I used to be christian, but I have found that some threads within that faith are... problematic lets say. But I find ANY system of belief (or non-belief in the case of Atheism or however you want to define it) has fringe folks that are... problematic as it were. I judge less on religious affiliation and more on how that religious faith is expressed. I would have more to say on that, but really that is the bottom line. If your faith is more about proving others wrong/judging others over just living the best life you can and helping others, then your faith is garbage. end of story. Don’t matter which god, gods, or even no gods at all you follow.

Sixth: I tend to be a bit of a critic about things. Sometimes I blow things out of proportion, sometimes I don’t go quite far enough. But in the end, I try to be as honest as I can and as clear as my rambly nature lets me. Though, as I always emphasize, I never mean to judge a person on their love of a thing. There are rare exceptions of course. Like, I will judge you if you love “Birth of a Nation” or “Triumph of the Will’ as they are both KKK/Nazi movies and white supremacist in nature. There is nothing in either to be lauded save that they were likely the first movies in their era to pull together several film elements that had already existed (really they were more a triumph of budget then of talent). If you like Game of Thrones because of how ‘realistic’ it is to do -that- to so many women (you know what that is), then yes, I’m judging you. But If you like Game of thrones for all the other reasons -in spite- of -that-, then no judgement at all. Those moments shouldn’t be enjoyed. At best, they should effect you will a visceral disgust as the moments are intended.

I used to (and sometimes still do) reblog the heavier, more ‘polictical’ posts to my other blog @pepperolitics, but after the purge messed up my adult blog, it’s harder to bother with a side blog these days. So there are times where my more direct political aspect comes to play on main.

And really? That shouldn’t be that much an issue when you think about it.

I mean, I try to stay positive and light on my main blog. That usually means the heavy subjects get put to my other blogs. Adult subjects to my adult blog (which is now effectively gone even if I haven’t actually deleted it yet) and the POLITICS go to the political blog...

But that would be the seventh thing on the list of getting to know me:

NOTHING IS EVER NON-POLITICAL.

Nothing.

Now, I will say there is a difference between ‘political’ and ‘POLITICAL’, that is to say: we are human, the way we interact with each other is inherently political. How we agree, disagree, compromise on a day to day basis is political. Manners are political.

All ART is political.

But then there is the capital ‘P’ POLITICAL, where we are talking about government, the big policies, the big moments, the major events.

Where we switch from political to POLITICAL is when we go from things that are inherent, inferred, or basically subtext to straight up text and direct.

In otherwords: I refuse the idea that me suddenly talking about politics is me “becoming” political. I have always been political, we all are. it’s just sometimes, you have to make your politics clear.

Or in other other words: White, capitalist, hurrah! jingoist soilder of things like C.O.D/battlefield is just as POLITICAL as a Woman with a girlfriend and a trans side kick or something... it’s just we have been so surrounded by the former over the latter that we think of it as the accepted norm rather then one flavor of story hero among so many others...

...okay, I’m getting extra rambly and tangental... But that was kinda the point of this post.

Some of you will disagree with some of my points for one reason or another. Sometimes in shades, and sometimes in full... But my base point is, many of my long time followers already know this about me, but some of the new folk might not. And if you are going to stick around, this is the sort of lady you are following.

Hi. I’m Anita Priscilla Barton. Many call me Strawberry, or Pepper, or even just Pep. I am a Bisexual Trans Woman, I love magic the gathering, coffee, and all my wonderful friends and mutuals. And yes, I am a political entity who’s beliefs, shape her art and critique. Just as all of ours do.

#pepper rambles #pepper rants #getting to know me

30 notes · View notes

fujoshidefender · 5 years

Note

giving you the benefit of the doubt and hoping you don't know/don't follow her but f*mmetay is like a known transphobe. i know you're not actively part of the fandom so i could believe that you didn't know this but she aggressively hates trans people and has referred to them as liars and abusers for like...existing in the same spaces as her. i loved her blog but she posted gross transphobic rhetoric as recently as the rep release so like... i'd stay away from her if you care about trans people

like she’s literally dangerous lol i like your blog and we’re actually mutuals but there’s a subsection of the kaylor fandom that’s transphobic, biphobic, and racist, and they just get away with it because they’re so insulated from the rest of the fandom. i’ve tried to stay out of it when i’ve seen you reblogging from them before but f*mmetay has crossed so many lines and i can’t comfortably follow someone who interacts with her - even indirectly. this isn’t like a weird ultimatum like if you

want to keep reblogging her stuff that’s fine obviously i’m not going to try to police who you like and reblog from, and i’m sure you don’t particularly care about an anonymous person’s follow or approval but i know there are new baby gays joining the fandom who think some big kaylors are harmless, and i’m just letting you know that’s not true. especially not in her case. it’s up to you what you do with this info i’m legit not trying to come for you but i thought you should know (if you didn’t)

i’m sorry, i do appreciate you telling me this but that you said we’re mutuals but messaged me on anon feels weird to me, like if we’re mutuals why not just message me directly you know? i know the tumblr search function isn’t the best but i just searched her blog for 20 minutes with different keywords and the only thing i’ve seen about trans people is ALL positivity, and reblogging things directly from trans people in regards to supporting protecting and uplifting trans people, especially trans lesbians? it just feels to me like you’re trying to start drama, because you came to me on anon and do not have any concrete evidence or proof. just to quote one post of hers: “i am 100% in support of trans individuals and cannot think of a single reason why i would ever change my mind regarding this. i respect any identity, gender, or, sexuality.” i’ve followed her for several months and have never seen any kind of transphobic vitriol, only trans positivity. i would feel differently if u would talk to me off of anon and had anything concrete, but because you’re on anon and literally the only things i can find on her blog that mention anything about trans people is positivity and uplifting trans people in the fandom….. so like, for now, i’m really sorry, but i just do not believe you. like do you have screenshots? will you at least come off anon? also i 100% know that there is a large subsection of the kaylor fandom that is transphobic/biphobic/racist, but i have not once seen femmetay post anything even remotely in that vein. also, one more thing: i do care about trans people and want to do my best to be a good ally, but i cannot comfortably take the word of an anon who has no proof or evidence, i’m very sorry. if you want to talk to me off anon and have like…actual proof, then please please please do. but i’m not okay with cancelling people off of one anon’s word, like that’s very damaging and it has happened in every fandom i have ever been it - people start getting anons about a big figure in a fandom about how they are awful but there is never any receipts, you know? so i just cannot comfortably take your word, i don’t know you, you sent me these messages on anon and there is no evidence about what you are saying, i’m very sorry.

#tw// transphobia #ask #anonymous #discourse

1 note · View note

sophiainspace · 6 years

Text

‘Disability fic’ is not niche: On not erasing disability in writing.

(Plus links to advice on writing disabled characters.)

The following post is an opinion. You may not agree. Not even all disabled people will agree with me on all these points. But this is my take on some disability issues that recur again and again in fandom and fanfic.

And, y’know, we’re all adults. Choose to do all these things if you want. I can just stop reading the fic like a grown-up. But, if you care about ableism in fanfic and fandom… here are some things people could be doing about it.

I’ve been thinking and talking to people again, recently, about disability and ableism in fandom and fanfic. And since this is kind of the point of my blog, I’m going to talk about it again. Call me repetitive if you like.

I’ve had people tell me they won’t write disabled/neurodivergent characters - or won’t write them as ND/disabled - because they’re not disabled/neurodivergent themselves. I’ve seen (lots of) erasure of disabled characters.

The next time I hear this, I’m just going to ask what you would think if I wrote a lesbian character as bi because I’m bi.

If you won’t write a disabled character as disabled because you’re not disabled, that’s erasure. And, if you write nothing but non-disabled characters, presenting them as the default, that’s arguably erasure too.

I’ve also heard people say they didn’t read a fic because it’s ‘disability fic’ and they’re not disabled. (I… have trouble believing that I have to explain why that sucks, so I won’t even bother.)

Another thing. A lot the shows that we watch are full of ableism (we can love them while being aware of that). If you write ableist shit and use the excuse ‘they did it in the show,’ you’re reproducing ableism. And if that’s what you chose to do - well, it’s your choice. But I think it’s worth considering whether you want to do that.

Just as a lot of us (try to) have no truck with the racism in the Flarrowverse, I think we could be considering whether we’re replicating the ableist outlook of the shows in fics. And oh boy, do I see a lot of it being replicated.

I’d love to see more disabled characters in fic. One relevant opinion here is ‘write marginalised characters, but don’t write stories about that marginalisation unless it’s your story to tell.’ But there are two parts to that advice. Yes, I think people should think carefully before writing a disabled character - but I don’t think they should shy away from writing them. You can write disabled characters without needing to write in detail about their experiences of disability.

A few of us have been talking about issues in the Flarrowverse recently, including its eugenicist, ableist worldview. One possible way of fighting back is writing the opposite: disability-positive fic. And I think we need more people to write it. Including non-disabled people. Everyone can be anti-ableist.

Writing disability-positive fic doesn’t always mean writing disabled characters, specifically. It might mean some of these things:

Refusing to use the ableist language that’s common in the Arrowverse (and elsewhere on TV). That includes some lines that have recently been celebrated around the fandom (I’m sure you can figure out what those are). And calling characters ‘stupid’ within the narrative, etc. (If you’re going to do it carefully, and actually address the impact of those things for characters, that’s different, but harder to do.) Goes for ableist behaviour, too. If you make fun of neurodivergent-coded characters, f'ex, it might be worth looking at how they feel about that.

Not writing disabled villains. Unless you’re very careful about it*. And not using facial or bodily appearance differences (‘disfigurement’) as metaphors for evil. See also: being careful about describing disabled characters as ‘bitter’ or ‘resentful’. Some disabled people are, like, happy… You could substitute a disabled hero!

Not using situations from the TV shows that were patently ableist. Writing a fic where Oliver berates Diggle (again) for the crime of being injured? Or where Barry returns from the speed force with some form of dementia, and comments are made about how we might never get the ‘real’ him back (and then he gets another miracle cure)? Maybe think about the impact of that, and maybe look for ways of doing those things better than the shows.**

Not always using neurodivergent-coded characters as comic relief. Ray and Mick and Felicity can be funny, but that’s not all they can be.

Not always writing fic where all your characters are non-disabled and neurotypical, as the default. In my opinion, that’s erasure.

*I say “unless you’re very careful about it” because I can imagine, for example, someone writing a Leonard Snart who’s neurodivergent (he’s sometimes coded that way) and then you’ve got an interesting issue - a well-rounded character who’s ND and a villain. One way to deal with this might be to avoid suggesting that the neurodivergence is the reason for the villainy. But generally, it’s tough to write disabled villains well unless you’re aware of the tropes and can reverse/play with them. **Again, this can be done carefully and well (see one fic rec below). But it’s rare.

Below the cut are some great things happening in Flash/Legends fandom right now that are disability positive. Enjoy! (They’re good stories! The existence of disabled characters will not spoil your reading pleasure…!)

I’ll end with links to advice on writing disabled characters, by disabled people.

But (and again this is just my opinion which not every disabled person would agree with) - I’d love see more disabled characters written, by everybody. It would be a really positive response to the ableism that comes out of some of the shows we love. Writing disabled characters is not ‘niche’. We’re not ‘special’ or ‘different.’ We’re everywhere - you just might not have noticed.

- @terrayoung just wrote a lovely set of mini stories focused on a Ray Palmer who’s explicitly autistic called ‘Sending Out Flares’ (gen). Terra is the monarch of tiny drabbles!

- @lacommunarde is writing a fic where Mick Rory had a stroke in childhood and has aphasia as a result, called ‘A Stroke of Bad Luck’ (gen?).

- @trufflemores is writing a ‘neurodivergent Barry Allen’ AU series of fics called ‘This Everything Between Us’. It’s beautiful. You might cry, but it’s less likely to be triggering than the show was for so many of us, because it handles the topic well. Truffles is also writing a recurring Deaf character in their fics, who I’m excited to see more of! (westallen)

- I’m always promoting @jewishzsasz‘s story ‘A Hand of Metal And Wheels,’ about a Leonard Snart whose hand was never replaced. There’s also ‘Oculus’ and its sequel, both fantastic disability-positive fics (coldatom). There’s lots of disability representation in Meira’s other fics too!

- There’s @dubiousculturalartifact’s great Legends stories - she always writes Ray Palmer as autistic.

- Here’s my autistic Ray Palmer fic if you haven’t read it and are interested (gen), and here’s my ‘Mick Rory deals with ableism’ one (also gen), and I just wrote a tiny one with autistic writer!Mick. I have other ‘disability fics’ planned with other characters - but also, I’d really rather not describe them as ‘disability fics’ now that I think about it. Fiction featuring disabled people is just, you know, fiction. Except with real people in.

- There have to be more! I know there are other excellent examples but I’m drawing a blank. I bet there are people writing these characters with depression, PTSD (which clearly a lot of them should have), other mental health conditions, physical impairments, comics-canon disability that was erased in the shows, chronic illness… lots of things. I’m sure there are people writing a Jax with chronic knee pain, a Nate with haemophilia, a Hartley whose parents cured his deafness without giving him a say in it. If you know other good examples, please let me know and I’ll reblog!

A few handy guidelines for writing disabled characters:

- Here’s a couple of lists of preferred disability terminology. Not everyone agrees on terms, but there are terms to be avoided that most of us agree on. - Please SAY DISABLED and SAY AUTISTIC. We are not afraid of the words. - Four tips for writing disabled characters. - More good general tips. - Writing D/deaf characters. Here are my thoughts on sign languages in fiction. And here’s some Deaf culture information. - ‘So you wanna write a blind character?’ - Writing autistic characters. More advice on this. More. Also, scriptautistic is a great blog entirely about writing autistic characters. - Writing non-verbal characters or with speech difficulties. - 5 common mistakes when writing characters with mental health problems. - More on writing characters with mental health problems. - Avoiding romanticising mental illness. - Writing wheelchair user characters. (I’m a wheelchair user, not wheelchair ‘bound’. Wheelchairs are tools for freedom!) - The ‘evil albino’ trope (yep I’m looking at you, Black Lightning…) - Lots and lots of links on writing disabled characters! - Reflection on SF writers who write characters with invisible disabilities well. - Some reasons not to erase characters’ canon disabilities. - This is the social model of disability. Worth learning about. - Avoiding ableist phrases, which you can do when writing about any subject ;) - If you want more info, I can link you to more. Drop me an ask.

If you ever want advice about writing a disabled character, please come and chat to me. I’m definitely no expert, and there are loads of impairments I don’t know anything about - but I’ve got an MA in disability studies, I’m physically disabled and autistic and have mental health issues, I have a deaf parent and another (capital-d) Deaf family member, and I’ve been doing disability rights campaigning for 20+ years. If I don’t feel comfortable advising on the situation you’re writing, I might be able to find someone who will.

#the flash fandom #disability #recode the matrix #more of my controversial opinions #is this my story to tell #writing disabled characters #writing autistic characters #disability in fiction #disability in media #disability positive fic #ableism #written in my classic long-winded autistic style sorry #my post #long post

187 notes · View notes

bluethepaladin · 7 years

Note

What do you have against Bex? (Can u also provide evidence thanks 💜)

When I first got this ask, I was tempted to play it off as a joke and say “the fact she exists,” and leave it at that. But I feel like it’s important to stay informed. And if you genuinely don’t know, I’ll give you the complete rundown. It’s long, it’s messy, and it’s nasty, so bear with me.

First, and introduction. When I talk about Bex, I’m referring to the actress Bex Taylor-Klaus, who is the voice actor (or VA) of the character Pidge in the show Voltron Legendary Defender on Netflix.

It all began a while ago when Bex liked a comment of a picture. The picture involved a ship called Shei//th. I censored the name so it doesn’t show up in the tags of that on tumblr. But essentially it’s a ship between two characters, Takashi Shirogane, a 25 year old pilot who is the leader of the team, and Keith Kogane, one of the other “paladins” or fighters on the team. People like me find this ship to be distasteful, since Shiro is an adult, and the others are teens (it’s actually a bit messier than that, since an official Voltron source listed Keith as 18, but the producers of the show, Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos, said they were not consulted on the book so there’s some question as to whether it’s canon or not). Either way, the consensus by most reasonable people is that it’s probably not a healthy thing to depict in children’s media, when you consider the considerable age difference, the power imbalance (leader, senior officer with someone they are in charge of), and finally, the iconic line by the character of Keith himself when he defines their relationship as a familial one.

Nonetheless, the ship persists, as nasty things on tumblr are wont to do. There’s a lot of shipping discourse on tumblr between two distinct groups which can be labelled as “antis”–people who are not in favor of any Shiro/paladin ships, or what has become to be known as “shaladins”–people who ship any variation of Shiro with the paladins.

Here is where Bex got involved. On Instagram there was a picture of a black shoe and a red shoe together and the joke was about the shoes being a prophecy that Shei//th would be canon. A joke, mostly, considering all the evidence above. But here’s where Bex got herself in trouble. She liked a comment on the picture where someone said “Keith is a power bottom confirmed.”

Obviously, this caused a bit of an uproar within the fanbase, especially between the discourse between antis and shaladins. Shaladins were celebrating that an Official Voltron Source liked their ship, and antis were angry about that acknowledgement of the ship at all by official sources, and the sexualization of a kid’s show (more on this later.)

So of course this sparked the discourse on tumblr. One user, @lancehunks, who was receiving asks about Bex, tagged her in the replies.They were definitely unfavorable.

and

and a few more.

Bex, being the big strong, adult, woman she is, decided that she could not take this obviously grievous insult to her name [sarcasm], and decided to reblog them all and respond to them. Keep in mind, that @lancehunks was just 13 years old. And Bex (22) decided that these were appropriate responses:

Yep, you read that right. Not only an adult but employed on a kid’s show! To a 13 year old! The target audience of the very show she’s a part of! (Oh, the hypocrisy). But wait, there’s more:

Just in case you’re confused, let me tell you the many, many reasons why this is unacceptable.

Bex is an adult. You’d think she’d be a little more mature by now just in general. It’s the internet and there are trolls.

The person she was addressing was 13!!!! Do I think it was mature to tag Bex in all those posts? No. But it’s… behavior that you can expect from 13 year old’s on the internet. If we swore at and tore down every single one of them every time they did something dumb, we would need a lot more therapists for teens in the world. Plus it’s really disingenuous to pretend that we wouldn’t have done something similar when we were younger if we were in that position.

Bex is famous. While she’s certainly not on the caliber of massive A-List stars like Tom Holland or Zendaya, she has a fanbase that exceeds the normal person’s friend group. Just because she’s been on TV before, she has groupies that will support her no matter what, who will troll for her, who uncritically and unconditionally worship her. I’m not a Bex fan, nor do I really care to know her well enough to know just exactly how many fans she has, to be certain she does have them. When she publicly reblogged those words, that “motherfucker,” those fighting words, she weaponized her fanbase. What I mean when I say that is her behavior gave her groupies permission to behave the same way. By targeting someone who didn’t like her (a thirteen year old!!!!!), she opened the gates to her fans and groupies doing the same thing, to a kid.

This lead to some terrible things happening. The 13 year old was getting death threats, sexual violence threats, and nsfw content, all because Bex just couldn’t let it go.

What does this mean? Finish it? Finish the kid? If you’re so sick of the fighting, then why did you even respond in the first place? Bex is the one who escalated the situation. Bex is the one who caused the fighting in the first place (by that I mean the fighting between the two that night, the fighting between antis and shaladins has been going on for as long as the show).

There we go. Now he have something resembling dignity. But unfortunately the damage was done, and user @lancehunks deleted their blog. As a direct response to Bex’s actions. Bex caused a 13 year old to leave tumblr.

When hearing this news, Bex offered a half-assed apology:

This is the most insincere apology I have ever seen. “The internet has Bad things on it and it’s YOUR fault for seeing them” is not an apology. The best part is that she’s a big fat hypocrite. “Sometimes, when it’s harmless, the best thing I can do is shake my head and keep scrolling.” So why didn’t you Bex? Why didn’t you keep scrolling instead of targeting a 13 year old?

In light of recent political events, though there’s one thing that stands out to me:

Sound like anybody you know? The esteemed President, perhaps?

*disclaimer* I am in no way claiming that Bex is a Trump supporter. I don’t know enough about her–and I don’t want to know enough about her–to know where she leans politically. I’m just drawing the attention to the similarities in moral equivalency going on, here.*

Sure you targeted a 13 year old and weaponized your fanbase, but someone tagging you in a snarky post is just as bad, right? (Wrong.)

You’d think that would be the end. You’d think that Bex would be capable of living and learning, or maybe even just taking her own advice, and keep scrolling. But here we go again.

The next bit of drama started when the possibly canon guide book was released, stating Keith’s age as 18. There was a big celebration on the shaladin side because technically, that would make it “legal” for Keith and Shiro to have sex. Besides the fact that legal ≠ moral, again, Voltron is a kid’s show. But on tumblr this time, Bex posted this.

This time, the discourse surrounding Bex was a little different., This time, the discourse mostly focused on the fact that even if Shiro and Keith disregarded canon and morals and the fact that it’s a kid’s show ever did get in a relationship, the only thing that matters is how they like to have sex.

This is a problem for a lot of reasons. There’s a culture, pretty prominent on tumblr of women, mostly white, who are obsessed with gay sex. They write fanfiction and p*rn solely for their own personal gratification. This, of course, is a gross misinterpretation to wanting LGBT+ representation. If you aren’t a mlm (an acronym for men-loving-man, that includes many sexualities) then writing p*rn about is sexualizing them, using them as a tool to get yourself off, and not like complex human people. Mlm are more than how they like to have sex. In fact, that shouldn’t be a part of a discussion for anybody except between willing partners. This also feeds into the popular and damaging stereotype that gay men are predatory by nature.

So, as a whole, not good.

And again, we have a whole situation escalated by Bex. The worst part is, to people who tried to explain this to her, the only response they were given was a gif:

So once again, a minor dared to express their distaste for Bex on tumblr. But this time, they didn’t tag her. This time, they censored her name. But Bex found it anyway. And she decided to do the exact same thing that led to a minor leaving the website, and to stop watching the show.

Have no fear, this time though. This time, Bex is going after a 14 year old, at least she’s not going after kids anymore, right? [sarcasm]

Some final notes.

Bex claims to be an LGBT+ rights activist. I’m also pretty sure she’s a lesbian herself (again, I already know too much about her, I’m not looking to get to know her better.) So, you’d think, as someone who wants equality for LGBT+ people and communities, she’d have the wherewithal to listen to specific subsets of that group when they say something about themselves, like, for example, young mlm who don’t appreciate being sexualized by a white woman. So I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I saw this on her blog:

Now, I happen to agree with the above statement, but it’s so ironic, so hypocritical that Bex is talking about the sexualization of anything. Because kid’s shows aren’t safe from her sexualization and mlm certainly aren’t. How can one person be so incredibly oblivious? A mystery that I don’t have any interest in solving.

I also want to address something a little more devious and a little more dark. I personally know of at least 12 different people who sent Bex asks, politely explaining some of the things I’ve talked about here, or relaying how her words hurt them personally. Bex never answered any of them. But she did answer this:

Just to be perfectly clear, I do not condone or encourage hatemail. Do not send people anything wishing them death or harm in any way. I have never sent nor do plan on sending hatemail, and you should be ashamed of yourself if you do.

However, this is incredibly nefarious. Bex doesn’t answer any of the many asks she got that were polite, but proved her wrong. She didn’t answer any of the young mlm who gave her their personal stories and who weren’t anonymous. Instead, she publishes this. And she did this on purpose, to make her look innocent, to make her look like she’s the one being attacked. I get hatemail every single day too. Things along similar lines to this. I block the user. Delete them, One, because I don’t want to expose my followers to that kind of negativity on a daily basis, two, a mature person knows that deleting them is the best kind of revenge because the user will be constantly looking for a response and they will know they had no effect on me and three, because if you do that, eventually they stop. This is intentional on Bex’s part to make the people who don’t like her look bad. I don’t like Bex at all, and I certainly do not support that message. Any reasonable person wouldn’t. Also the fact that it’s an anonymous message adds a certain air of doubt as to who sent it.

The point is, Bex is purposely ignoring polite and well-meaning people and posted this to “prove” she’s the one on the “good” side because no good person would send that message.

This is also worth noting:

This was posted after the lancehunks debate but before the power bottom comment she made. In this post, Bex admits that a relationship between Shiro and any of the paladins is predatory in nature. She said that. Her words. And then after that she said that Keith was a power bottom.

The last thing I want to say, is that Voltron is a kid’s show. It’s rated US-TV-Y7. Which means for years 7 and older. Regardless of the ship, there should be no sexual content, be it fanart, of fanfiction of Voltron characters at all. We are all collectively responsible for keeping content age-appropriate for the target audience. So, stop it. All and any ships.

For minors, this is my advice to you:Bex is a predator, a hypocrite, and a liar. Do not engage with her. Block her. Do not tag her in any of your posts. She has a history of targeting minors. Protect yourself. Do not engage.

#Unlike Bex I take my own advice and I have blocked her so she can't target me #but you never know with these ones #she can find a way #bex taylor klaus #anti bex #anti bex taylor klaus #voltron legendary defender #long post #anti shaladin #bexcourse

3K notes · View notes

morozovastarkovs · 7 years

Text

chishio-san said: That’s putting words in sarah j maas’s mouth. Just because one character is portrayed that way doesn’t mean she was portraying all of the LGBT community that way. What kind of thinking are you even using? Plus, this Character is FICTIONAL, calm down. additional to that, i bet if there wasn’t any LGBT representation in the books (which is desired by a lot of the LGBT community for everything ever) LGBT would have been on sarah’s ass about it.

First up, I have no idea how old/recent this is, since I made the post this is referring to months ago and it still gets liked/reblogged from time to time so I don’t always check it whenever I get a notification for it.

Secondly, I don’t really know what you mean by “putting words in [her] mouth” since I never quoted SJM, neither directly nor indirectly, so that’s a poor choice of words.

Next up, you are aware that people have actually, like you said, wanted LGBTQ+ representation from SJM and been “on her ass about it” for years. And it was probably because of this insistence from her fans/readers that she even included a lesbian character in the first place, otherwise - and forgive me for the audacity in saying this - I’m not sure the thought would have crossed her mind. Because then she probably would have already had the idea to do so for one of her 9289123849 characters that exist in her Throne of Glass series. (I think I’ve heard about one gay couple in that series that was mentioned, like, once and then never again but that’s about it).

Lastly, I’m not sure how to tell you that SJM has, thus far, from what I have heard, been very ... disrespectful with how she’s handled LGBTQ+ themes and characters in her books. On top of the inherent lack of representation (with pretty much every character being straight and cis), she goes and makes her lesbian character sleep with men in the pursuit of “heterosexuality”, thinking that if she sleeps with enough men, she won’t be gay anymore. This is very harmful, and potentially triggering, to lesbians/wlw everywhere. Why do you have to include something so ... gross, frankly? I mean, yeah, it’s an aspect/experience that some wlw go through, but the way she wrote it (and especially as a straight cis woman who couldn’t possibly understand) was, from what I’ve heard, extremely offensive. Yes, representation is great, but why can’t it just be positive, unproblematic rep, especially since this is “just” a fantasy world and not a think piece about internalized homophobia or whatever. It’s not that hard. Plus, fandom’s reaction was absolutely disgusting as well, with some blaming Mor for “leading on” whatshisname, because she didn’t tell him that she was struggling with her sexuality and criticizing her for “not giving him a chance.” Wtf.

Not to forget the fact that she has also described a lack of sexual attraction (so, asexuality) as “soulless” and has heavily implied that the two (possibly) asexual characters are involved in twincest (?). Which is .... yikes.

Let me end this by saying that this is, of course, hearsay. I read Throne of Glass ages ago, hated it, and moved on. When ACOTAR came out, I thought maybe this series might be more for me and tried to give SJM another chance, but I still wasn’t happy. I saw some potential, though, which is why I continued on and read ACOMAF, but I ended up hating that one too and ultimately called it quits. I doubt that I’ll ever read another book by her, especially since there is so much controversy surrounding her; it’s not just this disrespectful treatment of LGBTQ+ characters, but I’ve also heard some stuff about her being known for killing off most of her POC in particular. You are of course free to put your own judgment to good use and if all this doesn’t bother you, that’s your prerogative. I just have no time for bullshit such as this, so I’ll be staying away.

(Since I haven’t read ACOWAR (and ToG beyond the 1st book) myself, I can’t personally attest to how badly she’s fucked up, but I have heard from multiple sources - especially from wlw themselves - that they were genuinely upset by how Mor was written, so I’m taking those accounts at face value. Same for the asexual and racist issues.)

PS: Also, I just hate her writing style. I think she writes like a pre-schooler with way too many ellipses and exclamation points.

#anti sjm #anti acotar #anti tog #chishio-san #text post #replies

9 notes · View notes

the-extra-space · 6 years

Text

hey @abandoned-monarchy, since we’re still here and I’ve come across a few new things, I thought I’d go ahead and share them while I have a moment.

most of these things just reinforce some points I made in my last reply, but I feel like they’re far better examples than the ones I had at the time, such as;

how apparently, in the UK, where they still have and use things like titles “lord, duke, ext) a first born male child who transitions will not lose any inheritance or title that are their birthright as the first born son, but will also gain anything given to the first born daughter (robbing the actual first born daughter of anything she would have gotten or already had), as by transitioning they become legally the first born daughter, and a female child with no older male relatives will not become the (legal) first born son and not gain any titles or inheritance.

I firmly believe there is no better example of identity being meaningless when it comes to privileges. I mean, this pretty much speaks for itself. male individuals regardless of identity never have to give up anything, while female individuals not only can never gain anything, but have what little they do have taken from them simply by the whims of others. it doesn’t get any more cut and dry than that.

but on top of that, I also want to share how a women’s only pond is being attacked for being women’s only, as including transwomen wasn’t even actually enough. if you read to the bottom, the actual end goal is for there to be a “gender fluid” pool, a mixed pool, and a men’s only pool, the “gender fluid” one being what was once the women’s only. this pool was used as a space for women to be completely free of the male gaze, used by movie stars as well to help them unwind from the harsh male-dominated and controlled world we live in. to attack this bathroom and want for there to be absolutely no space for women by themselves (regardless of who you include in the definition of “women”) is...well, once again it speaks for itself.

these also better illustrates our point that we feel much of trans(women’s) activism is entirely based on male people not wanting anything to exclude them, and not wanting females to have anything to ourselves, or really, ever being denied anything they want, or ever being told no.

you can also see this in how we’re not allowed “cis women only” or even “afab only” groups where we’d be allowed to talk about things like periods, FGM, abortion rights, ext, in a space away from those whom such topics might “trigger” (quotes because I don’t believe they really do) all because everyone else finds the very concept questionable, believing that a space without men/males is inherently “transmisogynistic” and that those involved could only possibly be involved because we collectively want to undermine transwomen’s rights, while there’s plenty of trans-only events, such as how the original “cotton ceiling” event was a male-only event hosted by PlannedParenthood in Canada (notice how the big story states it was bringing “cis and trans women together” but the original invite lists it as exclusively for “trans women and MAAB genderqueer folks”) to discuss ways to get around the “cotton ceiling”, aka the cotton panties of lesbians in particular, but women in general who would dare deny these “non-cis” males sexual access to our bodies (it was originally started when a “cis” lesbian porn actress declined making a movie with a transwoman, who became enraged at a woman daring to say no, and starting this entire thing)

another great example of all of these things, men never losing their male privilege, wanting no space to be free of them, and homophobia/woman-hating being a large part of all of it, I want to share these three links, and I want you to take a close look at the number of notes, and also remember this any time you see a post about “cis” lesbians, if you even find them. provided you don’t, I’ll point this out. every time someone makes a positive post about “cis” lesbians, it ether A) only gets about 300 notes, which is the number of lesbians in the circle those posts are made, B) gets taken over by everyone else and completely derailed (most recent example), or C) someone comments ether asking if it includes transwomen, or deciding regardless of the OP’s intent, it does now, and only that version gets reblogged however many thousands of times.

(also, a little something further on that last point)

anyway, I digress, I have two last things to share:

this....is something particularly scary. remember when I said a lot of us are scared of transwomen, because of how common male violence is among them? how common fantasizing about harming us is, along with actually doing it? well....if the comments on that post isn’t warning enough...it’s hard to read. hold off if you’re not in a good mental place or don’t want to have a good mood ruined. it’s...intense. I only read little snipits, and that was all I could handle, so no shame if you can’t ether. I only link it because I hope it helps you understand why we’re afraid. it isn’t because we just think transwomen are inherently evil rapists by virtue of being trans, or whatever BS anti-terfs can come up with, but because..well, have you ever heard the phrase “when a man tells you what he is, believe him”? it’s a feminist phrase referring to how often people claim men as a class don’t actually hate women, that it’s only a few, and yet the internet and other spaces are overrun with men who literally say “I hate women” and go on to explain why and how much they want to hurt us because of it. “when men tell you they hate you, believe them the first time”. it’s also intended to help women escape abusive relationships before they get too far into them, as most abusers have early tells that women are groomed to ignore (”when you’re wearing rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags”). we believe firmly to take what men/males say at face value, and believe them.

and then, this.

it’s a sort of master post of all the lesbians who died this year. from my count, as a few are repeated, it’s about 120.

now, as I know this could be seen as me trying to rub it in, like ‘oh look, ya’ll only had 23 deaths and we had 120, who’s the most oppressed now’, but that’s not at all why I bring it up. (the closest thing to that would be looking at the notes compared to posts about the deaths of transwomen/people, it’s another example of no one giving a shit about “cis” lesbians except the rough 300 of us lesbians in this social circle)

the reason I share this is because it’s New Year’s, and I want to share their names with those I believe care, so that they will be remembered into the next year, as all our dead deserve to be remembered.

though this is all very dark, I post it now in the hopes that, with this knowledge, we can start the new year putting all this darkness behind us and start the new year fresh, focusing only on the things that will actually help both our communities, and ending the policies that harm us.

Happy New Year🎉

#also trying to find your URL I saw you apparently PM'd me and fuckin tumblr nevER NOTIFIED ME #so I just want to add here that I feel the same #you've also brought up points #or at least made me think about my own points from a different perspective #and helped me ground myself and get out of the black and white everyone's-evil mentality that echo chambers create #and I hope to take what I've learned from you and put it towards how I treat and view people going forward #I hope you have a good new year #or at least as best we can with all this shit going on^^U

0 notes

hidingbehindaglasswall · 6 years

Note

1/5/10/13/22/25/34/33/46 :3 I rlly love your thoughts, advice n blog. Thank you 🤗

Awh thank you! I’m glad I can help in any way! I’ve reblogged a few ask things recently, I’m assuming you’re asking for the most recent one, but if not let me now and I’l do the one you meant!Lesbian Asks!

1.Femme or butch? As in myself - I’m definitly femme, though I tend to dress more athletic/’tomboy’ if you could call it that, being a dancer I live for my nike and adidas! Regards to a partner, I deffo love a girly girl!

5.Describe your aesthetic As I said above I tend to wear a lot of athletic wear, and I have a deep love for my denim jacket, and I love a shirt, but I also love getting dressed up in pretty dresses and spending hours on my make up/hair etc. I have a deep obsession with trainers, i love me a smart pair of nikes! I think I’m one of those people who changes between looking a compleate stereotype and the most girly princess ever!

10.Describe the best date you’ve been on Gosh I’ve been on so many good ones! My girl knows how to spoil me! I don’t have a favourite but can I do top 3? Both this year and last year for my birthday my girl took me to London for a couple days, to see a show and explore, last year was Les Mis and this year was Dreamgirls and god they we’re brilliant! We went to the museums (which I absolutely love because I’m actually he bigest nerd ever!) this year we went for afternoon tea which was so lovely, she always finds such nice hotels as well and it was just so nice to explore London hand in hand with my love! So yeah those two for sure, and last spring we went to the beach one eve - I’m a student in brighton - and had chips and hot chocolate with a blanket and talked the hours away whlst the sun set, and it was so simple but god it was so perfect!

13.If taken, talk about your girlfriend/wife! I am indeed taken, by my beautiful girlfriend Ashleigh! We’ve been together just over 1year 8months and it’s been the best time of my life! We matched on good ole tinder, but turned out we had a mutual friend and the rest they say is history. She’s the love of my life and I know at 21 people might think I’m too young to know, but I do, and I’m gonna marry her one day! She’s got the most gorgeous blue eyes, they’re the first thing I noticed about her, and everytime she looks at me I swear she can see into my soul. She’s the kindest most thoughtful person, always looking out for others and is so beautiful inside and out. She makes me a better person, I don’t care how cliche it sounds! I have a hard time with feelings and opening up about things, but she’s always there, patiently waiting for when I’m ready and I couldn’t be more grateful! It’s just like she gets me, I have all these different sides to my personality, as everyone does, my childish side, my vunerable side, the student, etc, and she always knows exactly how to deal with them, she just gets me. (her tumblr is http://ashleighgrey-blog.tumblr.com but please ignore the hideous picture of me!)

22.What lesbian stereotypes do you fit into, if any? I’d say I dress quite stereotypically, as I’ve said above, I love a shirt and I dress quite athleticy. I’m also very into sport, I used to be captain of the football team in both junior and senior school, I used to swim a lot, I did running and athletics and danced ridiculous amounts, which is something I now do profesionally. Not sure if it’s still considered a stereotype these days but yeah!

25.Be positive! What do you like most about being a lesbian? I mean, girls are just so gorgeous arent they?! Honeslty, I don’t now, that’s a tough one, I struggled for a long long time to accept myself, its only a recent thing that I have, so it’s not something I’ve ever really thought about. I’d say it’s nice that the person you’re with understands what it’s like to be a female! It’s nice to have someone who understands when you’re having super bad cramps or you’re having a bad hair day, all those things that (in the nicest way) most males just don’t get! I don’t know if that sounds weird, I’m not sure, it’s just nice to be with somehtine that gets it fully!

34.Ever fallen for your best-friend? Oh boy, fallen, I wouldn’t say fallen, at the time I thought I had yeah, but it was definitly more of a first crush situation and nothing more. There was a girl in my friendship group in school that I was crushing on, hard, and she knew about it. It might seem like a silly comparison, but pre season 1 PLL Emily crushing on Ali, yeah that was me. In short, because it’ s a story I could write thousands of words telling, I was crushing, she found out, and played with my heart in every way, slowly breaking it more that I ever thought possible. And this was a time I was still coming to terms with who I was, so it fucked me over for a long long time. I spent from year 9 until about halfway through AS levels, letting my heart be screwed over by her, it took me a long time to pluck up the courage to say no more. Looking back I can see that I was definitly an experiment, but I made my peace with it a long time ago, and I’m more than over it now. And it’s kinda weird, because our friendship group still is, and we’re both very much a part of it, and honestly it’s something that we’re both very aware that happened, but I think it’s a kind of mutal silent understanding that it’s somehting that happened but will never be brought up.

33/43, not sure if you meant 33 or 43 but either way! 33 Do you love easily or does it take time for you to warm up to someone? I pretty much answered this in an ask I did yesterday, in short yes, but once I’ve fallen I’ve fallen hard! 43 Can you drive? I mean, I know how to, I had lessons, I’m just very very bad at it and failed my test monumentally and kinda just never went back to it!

46 At what age did you come out (if you have)? I have indeed, I’ve been out for a long time, and tbh I came out to various people at various times. The first time I admitted it to myself was kinda early year 9, so age 13 and not long after I told a couple of people, end of year 9 was when my above mentioned crush found out so I’d have been 14. That was it for a while, then I told my parents the summer before AS so like 16, although it was out of nowhere and I fully wasn’t planning on it (in the middle of Epcot in Disneyworld, but that’s a story for another time). I told the rest of my friendship group not that long after, so still 16, and then one of the boys took it upon himself to go tell an ex boyfriend, thus rumour spread around college and everyone found out. However, and I think it’s important to say, throughout all of this, I still hadn’t accepted myself, I was still struggling with who I was and yeah it made it easier on me that people knew and were okay with it, however, the most important person to me, my mum, wasn’t okay with it and that destroyed me. Even then, it wasn’t something I was open about, I wouldn’t willingly tell anyone. It took me starting stage school/uni (so 18) to feel comfortable enough about it to be open about it, and even then I wasn’t straight away. I told, a couple of friends a few weeks in, and then about a week later I told a guy on my course, who then drunkenly told the whole college at a party i wasnt at, which left a rumour for me to confirm when I went to college on the Monday. Since then I’ve been pretty open about it, but even then my fmily didn’t know. Started talking to my girl at the end of first year (June) and we became a couple that august. I moved to Brighton when I started second year that same summer, (literally 3 days later) and that’s when I told my mum I was with someone, (and that kinda screwed some things up but it’s all chill now) and a few days later I plucked up the courage to make it facebook official as they say, thus coming out to my family, my dance friends, everyone else that I knew. Now, I’m compleatly accepting of who I am, and so is everyone around me, my mum had a hard time with it but it’s all good now, but yeah! It was a very long and slow coming out, and honestly in a way a lot of it was done for me, which as much as it hurt, and sucked majorly, it took a lot of pressure off me, and I kinda wouldn’t change it. This has a been like an essya in an answer, so sorry about that, but, like a lot of people, my coming out wasn’t as simple as just doing it, it was a very slow and long, painful process.

Thank you for asking, and like I said at the beginning, assumed this was the post you meant, but if not hit me up and I’ll answer the questions you meant! PLus, if you ever have any questions you wanna ask or need advice, I’m always here, just ask away!Luce :)

0 notes