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prettycottonmouthlamia · 6 months

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So there was a conversation about queer representation in video games, and this got said in response to the perception that lesbians are more represented in video games compared to other LGBT identities (particularly gay men):

"Lesbians are fetishized by straight men, so that's why they're more common"

I'm going to be honest and say it's never really sat right with me from that point on. Not because I don't think there isn't some truth to the matter, but because I think it lacks a lot of nuance and a lot of much more important feminist thought. So let's just, break down my thoughts alright?

What does it mean to fetishize lesbians in this situation?

This is actually something I think is worth examining in a lot more detail, because when you talk about lesbian characters in media, there's usually one of two responses from predominantly cishet men regarding them:

The character(s) in question are vehemently disliked, often getting little attention, or as is common in fandom circles, having their character and the content surrounding them relentlessly criticized.

Strong affirmations that the characters involved are Definitely Not Gay and that it's reaching to insist they are.

This, to me, is kind of strange? It's in obvious contradiction to the idea that lesbian characters are getting the most representation. So what exactly is going on?

In truth, both responses highlight some truth, and to understand this, we need to look at the primary way men fetishize lesbians, which is through porn. When it comes to porn, often there is not an overt need to deal with the people involved as wholly unique individuals with their own feelings and thoughts and what not. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, porn actors are sex workers and that's going to be the result of that. It's just kind of a natural result and porn can handle this either gracefully or not.

But as an interesting side result, this means that it becomes very easy to decouple the actors away from the content. The second reaction becomes a dominant factor here: it becomes very easy to view the women involved as being available and often the primary way this developers from there is the idea of performance: a girlfriend and her friend performing for the boyfriend, or maybe two girlfriends etc. Now, again, there's nothing strictly wrong with that in concept as a sex act as long as everyone involved is aware and consenting and happy with it, but it's how it crops up in regards to how lesbians are viewed.

Lesbians are only tolerated when they're viewed to be available to men, and are often violently disliked when that's shown to not be the case. The world has not stopped oppressing lesbians for being overt in their affections towards other women just because of porn videos. This often has the effect that lesbian characters in media are rarely very explicit in order to preserve that illusion, or the much less comical and honestly perhaps somewhat grosser option I call the IntSys method where you just make your characters all bisexual.

To be clear, I find this really disrespectful and cowardly on principle. It really illustrates the extent that the creatives involved just see bisexuality as a convenience and not actually its own important identity. It becomes a way to still sell your lesbians to men, and frankly, eugh. Lesbians and bisexuals really deserve better than that and IntSys are still in fact tremendous cowards.

Fetishization does not correlate to representation either.

Guess who else is also fetishized by straight men its trans women babyyyyy! This is a very known quantity and its curious how that hasn't also caused a similar explosion in the number of trans women in video games. Actually what it has seemingly actually resulted in is more of the "trap" archetype, the transphobic and homophobic character who exists primarily as a joke.

Which is honestly a nice segway into the next point.

Lesbians do not necessarily represent a threat to masculinity.

If you wanted to know why so many lesbians in media are extremely femme and often conform to straight women beauty standards, this is it. It all has to do with masculinity. In fact, this really ties the knot with the problems with both lesbian representation in media (the absolute dearth of masculine women and butches (sorry that Genshin character is not butch)), the lack of representation of trans women, and the lack of representation of gay and bisexual men.

To transgress against masculinity in general has a habit of making you way more hated in our society which worships masculinity as a golden standard. If a woman is too masculine and is trying too hard to be like a man, she's often virulently hated. For trans women, the rejection of masculinity and the embracing of femininity makes them beloathe, and for gay and bisexual men, having sex with men is embracing what is seen as the female sexual role. We can even circle back here to the fetishization and lesbians and the anger of exclusion: it's okay for women to kiss each other and have sex as long as a guy is involved and enjoying it (and very bad if that's not the case). That doesn't even work with gay men, even though statistically more men are enjoying it.

There's an entire thesis that could be written about the stigmatization of the sexual role of the bottom in homosexuality, or on the eventual estrangement of the femme gay men in queer society. Ideas of masculinity are inextricably tied to straight men's perception of gay men, and unfortunately, gay men are often viewed as directly transgressive. A straight man being hit on by a gay man is often viewed as a direct assault on that straight man's masculinity, and as a result, gay men are just directly hated a lot more. There's a reason violence towards gay men is still staggeringly common. It's not like the video game industry is making any progressive waves in combating any of this either.

But there's one point as well in addition to this I would feel remiss not to bring up:

Are we really laying at the feet of a lot of good, honest queer representation in video games the burden of appealing to fetishistic straight men?

This one in particular bothers me because it is actually worth noting that there is a lot of lesbian representation that has nothing to do with fetishization at all. Not because it isn't sexual in any way, but because its created by queer lesbians wanting to see themselves in the media. So one must ask if there's something else involved.

For me, I have a general pet theory that's called Cluster Behavior of Exclusionary Qualities. The gist of it is that I've noticed that outsiders to a community often do not have one single defining trait that separates them from the majority, but often have more of them. The primary reason for this is that people who are already excluded will generally start to re-examine a lot of the other norms they take for granted. But I think another aspect of it as well is that the more reasons you have for not being accepted, generally the more it just makes you stubborn and angry. What are they going to do, exclude you harder? Ultimately, the industry is still really, really sexist and it's harder for women to even make a foothold in the industry at all to begin with. You're not fighting any less uphill, so why not just make something authentic to yourself and resist a lot of the bullshit?

This isn't to say there aren't gay men in the video game industry, there absolutely are, but I think the pressure to conform is probably a lot stronger, because acceptance really is just right around the corner. Sometimes it is easier to just go with the flow when its beneficial, and I don't judge for that its a bitch of a world and we all gotta eat somehow.

So what do I think at the end of all this?

I think that the fetishization of lesbians actually results in us getting a lot less authentic, well-written lesbian characters and stories, and what it does produce are a lot of ambiguously written characters and token attempts at inclusion that often fall flat. I do think it's likely even then that still outweighs a lot of other representation in video games, but I think there are much stronger factors to explain that.

At the end of the day, we're all fighting for fucking scraps out here. We're not going to get better representation by taking jabs at each other about this. But maybe, one day, we can live in a world where a Final Fantasy 19 has two women absolutely destroying it so I no longer need to see the straight couple from 16.

#video games :(

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absolutebl · 2 years

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Hi, me again. So you speak quite highly of my beautiful man...And I really don't get it😭😭. I've tried watching it twice and could never make it through the 3rd episode. I just couldn't get past how mean the guy was. So I guess my question would be what about it makes you like it so much? Maybe it's because I'm not that familiar with Japanese comics and BLs?

Maybe.

You have to get bully romances and the whipping boy dynamic and then make if far enough to realize this is a subversion of those tropes. For example, did you know Hira is the seme of this narrative? Oh yes.

It’s a harsh show, but that’s the point of it, it’s harsh on its characters, and it’s harsh on the viewers. Because it wants us to really think about what’s going on here, not the actions, but the emotions behind those actions. Why is Hira the way he is? Why is Kiyoi? And why does Hira never consider either?

It’s exploring different interpretations of love, kink, and power dynamics, but also loneliness, social ostracism, and isolation.

If you stopped half way through, you stopped right before the GOOD time jump.

After they part ways and Hira goes to university and grows up (away from the object of his obsession)... everything changes.

Also we get a penultimate episode entirely from Kiyoi’s perspective and after that our audience perspective also morphs.

We suddenly realize how oddly similar these two are, and how they have reacted to hostile society, queer desire, and the companion disenfranchisement in different but complementary ways.

The beauty of Utsukushii Kare is exactly what you started to experience but rejected in frustration (probubly because of the raw ugliness).

We are suckered into thinking it's one kind of horrible narrative (stalker, obsession, advantage, and abuse). When in fact, once you're given perspective, it turns out to be something entirely different.

We’re left not thinking so much about bully versus worship, and tired old tropes but about the emotions guiding human behavior:

What is the nature of true affection?

How can the wrong kind of love damage?

What is the meaning of the “right kind of love” when contrasted to the warped desires of an individual?

The narrative and personality twists are ALL based in character.

On a rewatch, after completely finishing it this show, it will become a whole new story - you’ll never be able to unsee the inherent pain that Hira's own worship is causing him and everyone around him, particularly Kiyoi, who has been forced onto a pedestal and into a god-like role that he wanted, yes... but not from Hira. Not from a boyfriend.

It’s the ultimate emotional reveal. Like how if you know the twist of Crying Game or Flight Club or Sixth Sense it will never be the same movie it was the first time around, but Utsukushii Kare DONES THIS AS A ROMANCE.

It’s so fucking clever.

It's not victim blaming, it's a dialogue about the nature of emotional responsibility and an examination of what it means to truly love someone as they are (and not as you idolize them or want them to be).

In an odd way, this show is a pretty profound criticism of parasocial relationships.

The other thing about My Beautiful Man is that it’s for Japanese audiences and, somewhat accidentally I think... us. International BL & yaoi super fans. This is not a show that anyone outside the community would understand. This is not intro level BL. We don’t show this to our friends to get them intersted in the genre (unless those friends are heavily in the kink community).

Here I am losing my mind over it, but notice that this didn’t really happen until the final episode?

Now, I don’t mind the bully aspect because it’s so much a part of yaoi DNA, so it was never a matter of me dropping this show. But it did take the ending for me to love it as hard as I did.

If you can’t make it through I ENTIRELY understand. But I do feel sorry you won’t get to experience such an amazing piece of narrative and character dexterity.

This is the kind of BL that can ONLY come from Japan. No other BL producing country has the chops, depth, or talent to pull this off. Nor are they willing to push as hard or as dark. You have to walk the edge of the knife for this kind of story, and as a result it will cut. It’s whether you like the pain or not.

There is a reason this show won awards, and it is ENTIRELY different from why, say, ITSAY or Semantic Error won awards. All of them are beautifully acted and filmed, but while ITSAY is about honesty in an ugly world, and Semantic Error is about perfection and ignoring all ugliness, Utsukushii Kare is about connection despite (or perhaps because of) our own ugliness.

“My Beautiful Man” is both subject and irony.

Utsukushii Kare is about embracing what is flawed, and examining that as something to be honored because it is flawed. Which means that ultimately, like all the best of the Japanese romances, it is about hope.

#Utsukushii Kare #My Beautiful Man #defending bl #bully romance #kinky romance #japanese bl #live action yaoi #adapted from a manga #best bl #my favorite bl

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tuiyla · 3 months

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NATLA Ep. 1 "Aang" thoughts

It might not be the Avatar but it's still an Avatar show which means I'm giving it the respect of not doing anything else while watching, so I'm not gonna liveblog, as such. BUT, I do have many many thoughts after just episode 1 so before I proceed I'm gonna digest a bit and do a word vomit of those thoughts. Maybe I'll get around to a more in-depth and critical examination later after watching the whole thing but for now, a few thoughts here and there. Spoilers inbound.

The opening

The first huge difference is of course how the whole thing kicks off. Trust me, despite having been a huge ATLA fan for over 15 years I'm not trying to approach this in a way where I automatically shit on everything the new show changes. It's a different era, different medium, different audience. Well, in a way. So some changes are outright necessary and, in some cases, even good! Therefore I don't automatically roll my eyes because we don't open with Katara's narration and the Southern Water Tribe. Modern audiences, Netflix audiences are more fantasy savvy than Nick's target audience in 2005 so it makes sense to open with the war's beginning. I'll even take the Sozin scene, though it feels a bit wrong, in a way, to introduce a character like him so early on. I wanted to say, without much sense of threat, too, but it's not live action movie Ozai levels bad and we do get our arguably most brutal scene when Sozin straight up burns an earthbender from pretty much inside out. This level of violence is something I'll perhaps get into more in another post but long story short, I think it's the right amount. This ain't a Nick cartoon anymore but it's also not gratuitous. What it is, is war.

Part of the opening is the intro, of sorts, a twist on the beloved opening sequence as narrated by Katara. The twist itself, I'm okay with, but I have Feelings on Kyoshi being our narrator that are again for a more in-depth look. In short, it makes no thematic sense for it to be the Avatar from before the last to narrate this. I know Kyoshi is the fan favourite, pun intended, but that's all the justification they have. If anyone other than Katara, who is done dirty by taking her narration away btw, it should be Roku. You know, the actual last Avatar? Having it be Kyoshi is fan service as much fans are symbolic of her. Bad pun, I know. I haven't seen ep 2 yet but do tell me we're shifting to Katara, pls pls pls. Another gripe I have is the title, "Aang", since the OG show has such beautiful symmetry with its first and last ep titles but this is a nitpick. Also, nothing to indicate that this is the season of water? Titling the seasons after the elements matters very much.

And then, just when I think we're jumping to 100 years later, we meet Aang. I'm already going into more detail with thoughts here than I intended but I just do not like how we drag this on and on. Show Aang's backstory and the details of the attack later, mid-season. Yes, like the original did it, because the original did it for a reason and that's to not info dump in the very first episode and have sloppy exposition that would have felt more natural had it been delayed for later. We don't need to know everything about the world and the role of the Avatar right away. I do like how the Aang and Gyatso relationship was established but we didn't need All That, and we could have had the vast majority if not all of this as a flashback later on. Random idea, but maybe even in the episode where Zuko's backstory is covered. I'm really innovating here, I know. I'll explain why this was too much in another post, maybe, but for now I'll say the positive that I do think these scenes are done well, I just don't like their placement. And I don't like what we're doing to Aang's ch in terms of his responsibility and role so far, such as him not actually wanting to Run Away run away, but I'll wait and see where they take him for the rest of the season.

Wolf Cove

Omg what, the Southern Water Tribe? Finally. The ch who started off the whole thing in the OG appears 21 minutes into this episode, almost the length of an entire ATLA ep. So far, the sibling dynamic is Fine. Again a bit too heavy on the exposition but what can you do when you cut Katara's opening narration about their family and tribe. Some things I take issue with include the way Katara breaks the iceberg open, i.e. lack of feminist rage and in general her lack of strong presence in this first installment. It feels like they're trying to give Sokka more but you can showcase Sokka without making it feel like Katara is less of a presence, less of a driving force, and frankly more of a kid than she is in the OG. I do like her and the actress, her interactions with Aang and role in the story just feel lacking so far. And then they actually include her intro word for word, just said by Gran Gran! Like yeah we know Katara tells the story like Gran Gran told her but damn, straight up theft.

I'm also not satisfied with Kanna's place in the story. Her breaking the news to Aang feels flat and devoid of the tension that was present in the OG where Aang and Katara put two and two together on their own. Also no goodbye to Gran Gran? No big sendoff to her grandkids? No speech about destiny? Disappointing. What is done well is the sense of dread when the Fire Nation ship arrives at the village and Zuko's whole entrance, that's good. But again, he and Iroh give away way too much way too early about his mission and banishment and such. You guys, you have a whole season to get into it, why rush. I have a fear as to why they're rushing but we'll see. It just feels like a rookie mistake to try and shove so much into the first ep. We get it, the world is so much bigger and these chs so much richer than they first seem but that's the point, the audience will watch and learn as the season goes on. Just because Avatar has all this lore way beyond the first installment doesn't mean we have to go back to Wan and explain everything before we can head to the North Pole. I joke and exaggerate, but there were times I rolled my eyes at the dialogue. Again, not Shymalan levels bad but that is not where the bar should be.

Overall

I have less to say about the Southern Air Temple as it is quite brief, all things considered and because we already got so much of it before even making it to the present. I do think it's funny people thought the live action would let the story breathe more just because the eps are longer because look, here we are, three 23 minutes eps shoved into less than an hour with expanded stuff from the very beginning. This is not it breathing more because there aren't 20 eps to work with. They have a lot of content to get through and as a viewer you can feel it, which doesn't bode well. The whole script does have this first/second draft smell which is sus, when this thing has been in development since at least the end of 2018 and the OG eps it's based on just turned 19. Yeah, that's right, nineteen.

As for things like the visuals, the costumes, the acting, the score, bending, I think it'll make more sense to pass a judgement at the end of the season. Besides, what I'm most interested in is the script and I don't pretend to know much about things like costuming. First impression, it looks good. CG is a bit stifled at times but I like how oversaturated it often is, especially with the nations' colours. It's probably the closest we'll ever get to Avatar in live action and I'm okay with that, since I still believe they should stick to animation anyway. But yeah, good. Nothing mindblowing and bending so far but I'd also rather it didn't try to razzle dazzle with just flashy CGI and no substance. As is, there's not too much substance so far anyway so I'm waiting for subsequent eps to be more confident in what they're doing, whether that's building on or steering from the source material.

#natla #natla initial thoughts #netflix avatar #aight lemme simp after suki now

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esther-dot · 2 years

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I agree with the anon who was agreeing with the anon (ha!) that we shouldn't use a character's trauma to diminish or excuse their actions and crimes, but I want to point out that our corner of the fandom can be guilty of this, too. Cersei and Lysa's trauma is often held up as more important than the trauma of other villains, as if they somehow deserve more compassion and leniency for their crimes than the others, which is something I disagree with (certainly they don't deserve more hatred or criticism than the other villains either). For that matter, and I know this will be an extremely controversial thing to say, but I also think we sometimes cross the line into using Catelyn's trauma over Bran's accident to diminish the cruelty of what she said to Jon ("Well it was just that one time, and she was so tired and upset..."). I'm not saying any of this to make anyone feel bad. Our corner of the fandom is loving and kind and usually makes a sincere effort to be fair. But we're human, and we have our own biases, and sometimes we can unwittingly slide into the same behaviours that are so frustrating to see in the rest of the fandom. It takes vigilance and the occasional honest self-examination to make sure we don't become like them.

In summary, we should have compassion for all abuse victims, including the ones we dislike, and we should at the same time be careful not to use that compassion to excuse the actions of the villains we do like. And last but not least, Sansa fans are wonderful, my beloveds.

Sansa fans are wonderful! 💗

I received several responses to that post and another one also pointed out what they felt was hypocrisy in how we respond to Cersei’s abuse in comparison to other villains, so, you’re not alone in your feelings! (@ my other anon, I will respond to you as well, so look away or don’t spontaneously combust when you read this 😬)

I’ll just say again, it’s very difficult to respond to asks like this because I have such a different impression of what Sansa fans do, I am either reading the same thing and taking it in a totally different way, or I am just not seeing the content that is troubling you. In general, I think that we have to think about the author’s purpose in writing what he does and also the purpose of the fan when reading what they write. As in, is the author saying, “here is why this person is behaving this way” or is the author condoning that behavior? Fans disagree on that a lot. Is the fan writing the meta saying, “yes, Cersei and Lysa are villains, but let’s all acknowledge how they were mistreated” or are they saying “...and because I sympathize they are no longer villains.”

When I think about what I’ve seen written about Cersei and Lysa, it’s trying to push against the fandom, and even against the author at times, and say, “these women deserve sympathy too. It doesn’t change who they are, but their past should allow us to see their humanity.” Sympathy is the end goal. My issue with the fandom at large is that they go further and want to use sympathy to argue something else, want to move, say, the Hound from one role and shift him into another. Suddenly, sympathy means pretending he didn’t assault Sansa, he wasn’t a threat, she didn’t think he might kill her. I don’t feel like it’s more important to sympathize with Cersei than the Hound, I just don’t have an issue with sympathizing with her when that’s all anyone asks, but I do have a problem that half the fandom rewrote who the Hound is because they sympathized. To me, that is a radically different thing to do.

Now that you mention it, I can see how my resentment of how fans woobified the Hound (and therefore rewrote Sansa’s story and denied her trauma), means I do dislike discussing his trauma because I know how it is used by the fandom. I suppose my reaction means that I have a much higher tolerance for reading takes that are incredibly sympathetic to Cersei, because I know where that begins and ends, her story isn’t being distorted beyond recognition, we all get it. But, I do see how that can begin to feel like we’re giving more weight to her trauma than another character, so I’ll keep that in mind.

But something for people who share your concerns to remember is that, the discussion of how women are treated in Westeros interests a lot of us so we hone in on that more than specific acts of violence. It isn’t that we think their trauma is more important exactly, it’s part of a discussion overall that we’re interested in. The series is quite violent, most characters have suffered violence, but I think our corner likes to talk about the suffering of women, specifically, likely as an extension of our real life concerns. I don’t talk about the physical abuse Sansa suffered as much as I do her forced marriage. That’s objectively weird if I were interested in weighing suffering against suffering, and deciding who has the greatest trauma, but it’s a specific kind of terror for women to lose bodily autonomy, to be married off or forced to have children or forced to undergo an abortion on the whim of the man who happens to be in charge of you at the time. I’m guessing that’s why certain forms of abuse/trauma preoccupy us. We’re interested in a larger conversation that drives some of what we’re examining in ASOIAF.

Something that draws me in to certain villains rather than others is that I always liked feminist criticism of literature, so taking a story and looking at it in the most compassionate way you can to the female villain, is a path I’m very used to. This applies to Cersei and Lysa, not really Dany as much because the author and the fandom already is very sympathetic to her. Of course, I have always been very responsive to female suffering in entertainment, so I truly feel for Dany, in spite of what she does. Reading about this little girl being abused and raped, the loss of her child, her desire for home…I feel for her in a way that I don't for Tyrion or the Hound. That doesn’t change the fact that I think she’s done bad things and will do more bad things, it just means there are facets to her and my experience reading her. When I read about Cersei being forced to marry, her grief for her children...I feel for her. I like those facets to who she is, and I appreciate people talking about them.

I did a whole long post about the Catelyn and Jon scene which of course, I can't find now, and I think it's one of those instances when we're meant to feel for both characters. People like to pick sides, it's so instinctive it's a marketing ploy to pit two things against each other to drive sales, so we really have to put effort into looking at all the realities that exist in any given scenario, not just the one of the POV character. To me, the point of that scene was the grief and pain of each, they pain they feel over Bran, the pain they cause each other, their shared love for Bran that could and should connect them, but it doesn’t, because of the situation, their society. Because the reality of Cat’s world and the very real threat Jon is to her children (not because he would ever hurt him, we know he wouldn’t), isn’t widely recognized as a valid thing, people miss the entirety of Cat’s perspective, and the fact that the story isn’t a straight up condemnation of her concerns/feelings. In that specific scene, Cat’s words were cruel, but Martin didn’t intend for the fandom to react the way they did and declare Cat abusive and hate her. (I think he’s far more forgiving of certain things than we are, so I try to remind myself of that.) And, it’s important to the story that Jon is unwanted in Winterfell although he is a beloved brother to most of the Starks. It’s important to the story that his longing for his mother is near the surface, a never satisfied need, even though he’s part of a family with a devoted, caring mother. There are reasons Martin wrote the Cat and Jon interaction the way he did to communicate things to the reader and lay groundwork for other things, and I really don’t think the takeaway was ever meant to be what the fandom has settled on which seems to be: that bitch.

So, I guess the issue here is, sometimes the fandom wants to argue right/wrong when we’re meant to be asking how the author is using this? Why was this included? Do we approve of the author’s choice? Even, we don’t like this so this is what should have happened! And depending on what you’re focusing on or think the next person is arguing, we come to very different conclusions about the characters or about each other based on how we speak about the characters.

Again, I’m flying blind here because I really don’t know the examples you’re thinking of, possibly it was my post about Cat! But, even though I don’t feel that what you described accurately reflects my experience in our fandom, I am going to keep your perspective in mind, as I know I have my own tendencies that predispose me in one direction. I prefer villains where the threat is something other than molestation/sexual assault. That means, even though I know Cersei is a villain, I know she does bad things, in the Sansa context (which is mostly how I view other characters), I find it much easier to deal with Cersei, because I'm not sitting here panicked the entire time. Since the threat she is to Sansa isn't as upsetting to me, I can be more sympathetic. However, now that you’ve mentioned the issue regarding how we treat her, I will try to be self-aware.

I absolutely agree that the author wants us to be sympathetic to all these characters and that, “Our corner of the fandom is loving and kind and usually makes a sincere effort to be fair.” --they really are and do! I have had so much fun in this corner of the fandom.

Thank you for the message, anon. <3

anon this anon is agreeing with

first anon on the abuse victim issue

#ask dot #fandom critical #< tag to filter

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bookwyrminspiration · 1 year

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If it’s not too much trouble, can you explain what’s going on with poc vackers? I’ve seen there being some discourse and i have no idea if it was about people reacting negatively to adding rep, or criticizing how certain types of characters/families are more widely accepted as poc because of stereotypes, or if people were using poc vackers as an excuse not to examine the racism the Shannon messenger has incorporated in both her attempts at diversity and just in the general content of the series.

It's not too much trouble, I can explain. Essentially, one tumblr user--who appears to be new both to the fandom and tumblr as a whole--made a post asking why people often drew Fitz and Biana as poc when they're canonically said to be pale. They included official art and such as sources. (warning: there is some racist rhetoric under the cut)

I, assuming good faith, was the first to reply explaining that it was a way for those of us not represented in the series to see ourselves in the characters, to make the series more inclusive. And that it caused no harm, and didn't have any real impact on canon; if they didn't like the headcanons, they didn't have to engage with them.

They then responded proposing the hypothetical of what if they drew Tam, Linh, Wylie, Maruca, any other characters of color as white people? That they thought the series was already really inclusive, so we didn't need to add more diversity. That they found it offensive when characters' ethnicities are changed when the characters look like them (when they're white, I assume). That was the beginning of more concerning thoughts they shared, as they went on to say poc were a "protected class" and that you weren't allowed to say anything about them without being called racist or homophobic. They claimed white people were being fired so companies could hire for diversity instead of for talent (though they later admitted they could only find one source for that, and it was a very biased, opinionated, and emotional-language heavy one). When I shared a statistic about what percentage of authors are white (75-90% depending on the source) to further my point about how media is catered to white people (because they'd said it wasn't) they asked why that mattered, and suggested maybe black people just don't write as much, and that's why there are more white authors.

After I talked with them in the replies where they said all that, other people also found the post and starting chiming in, hence why talk of it has spread to some places. Anyone referencing recent poc vacker discourse is most likely talking about this person and these views they shared. I hesitate to share the original post because I have no interest in call-outs or drama, but I also do not want you to just take me at my word. So please be responsible about this, anyone looking further. But here's the post in question so you can verify on your own and see exactly what they said (it's all in the replies) if you want to.

I hope that helps explain it! I think I covered pretty much everything, but i may have missed a detail or two.

#kotlc discourse #quil's queries #the-one-and-only-aroace #they seem young and privileged and like they're repeating things they've heard without thinking about them #and coming to the wrong conclusions #but that's what people are talking about #or at least the extent to which I know about it #after I finished my convo with them I moved on #but it may have developed further afterwards #I can't see anything new? just more people sharing their thoughts. and the op hasn't said anything more #but that's what's up. no trouble at all to explain :)

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llycaons · 2 years

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I rag on jc a lot but I think ppl should keep in mind he was in a difficult position in the flashback arc. and he's never been a risktaker. sure, he could have given his starving brother and his commune some money during his visit since they're apparently on the same page. he could have offered to take a-yuan, literal toddler, away from near certain death. he could have defended the wens more using his political power. he could have even used to his debt to them to justify why he would defend a bunch of wens. and it's upsetting to see this because there really are fifty-odd elders here who are absolutely innocent and jc is the only one with the political power and any reason to make a real difference in their extermination campaign

but he was a teenager with a lot of unprocessed trauma and emotional issues being actively manipulated by older cultivators, he had an incredibly important responsibility to his dead parents and to his family, and neither he nor wwx were willing or able to talk it out, and I hate to say this but wwx made choices that did not make it easier...at a certain point pushing blame around seems like like exercise in futility. wwx and wen ning at least, would have been targeted by the jins anyway. I don't think jc could have stopped it without destroying his own sect, he wasn't an experienced or powerful or politically savvy enough leader. and I don't think it's fair to reduce his motivation down to personal self-interest or wanting to maintain his political status or his privilege, which is what a lot of haters seem to be doing

so yeah he definitely could have done more, but it's more his postres actions that really piss me off. for one, it's frustrating how he only cares about how he feels and rarely extends any empathy and compassion to anyone else. very self-centered...that's why I like lwj so much more postres, since he actually underwent self-reflection and examined his actions and then changed his behavior and worked to improve his sect. thats why a lot of people like him, including wwx! but I honestly find 1:1 comparisons of them reductive because they're in very different situations. even if that's kind of the point of their characters

jc is like...hes a very well-written and compelling character and I get why people want him to have done better than he did. and there's a lot to be said for jc not having the social and material support structure, and the tools to handle his emotions, that lwj had his entire life. imo it's not productive to blame jc when they're in such different positions, and I think its unfortunate that hardcore haters only focus on the ends and not examine the process with some compassion. lwj did what he could, but he was protected by his sect and elders as jc wasn't. the tradeoff is that he legitimately had very little power in his sect to do anything on a larger scale even though he wanted to. we see how much he was punished for even visiting wwx, not to mention his three YEARS of seclusion after attacking his elders. giving wq money, leaving cultivation meetings he didn't approve of, speaking for the wens right before they turned themselves in, and saving a-yuan...these were small things (except saving a-yuan, actually that was huge), but they mattered. wen ning remembered. and jc could have done some of them had he wanted to

something that impedes the discussion is that I think both the story and the fans are encouraged to think of skill as a moral triumph. wen ning refutes this mindset a little, but of lot of jc criticisms seem to imply that being bad at cultivation means he's then a bad person. it's something that frustrates me about the story, and another reason I love wen ning. I prefer to analyze how characters react to being poor at a certain desired skill, and what commentary on the social structure the text is providing

#hmmm this is rambly jc gets my brain juice flowing #I dont like or dislike him but a secret third thing #I am annoyed by how hes unable to see anything past his own feelings esp postres #and I hate when fans act like hes actually SUCH a good brother and everything he did was for love #etc. nah I saw him try to strangle wwx snd then never apologize for it #he was primed to blame wwx for everything of course hes acting like this #man I wonder if he even remembers that moment #if he was so delirious and out of it that it just didnt register #or that hurting wwx was something so unimportant as to be forgotten :(#not that theyll ever talk about it :(#cql txp

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christiantolstrup · 2 years

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stonerosenkilde · 2 years

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marcussenjansen · 2 years

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Gregory H Denysschen Christian Literature Fund Useful Resource Channel

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tobi-smp · 2 years

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can we even say that c!dream has adhd? like just because cc!dream is diagnosed doesn't mean his character is (i don't mean this to be weird but I just find it very strange when people make arguments based on the streamer's conditions)

Context: [Link]

well ! yes and no. I think there are at least times when it's at least worth acknowledging the cc!s neurodivergency or mental illness when we examine the characters Because Of the ways that unconscious biases or ableism can filter in how we talk about the characters. because whether the characters are Intended to reflect the creators on those aspects or not, the creators are still acting out these scenes live, so their real personalities and traits can and do slip through.

for instance, there's a tendency to describe c!technoblade as having a Monotone or Emotionless voice, and this trait is sometimes paired with the portrayal of c!technoblade as an Emotionless Person. whether that's Neutrally/Matter Of Factly in the context of characterization for fan content, or as overt criticism for his character.

and, of course, this is problematic Because neurodivergency often comes with difficulty regulating tone (which can manifest in a couple ways, with a relatively monotone voice being one of them), which Often comes with the reading of neurodivergent People being incapable of experiencing emotion to the same degree as neurotypical people. this take would have ableist roots in general, but it's amplified by the fact that cc!technoblade Is neurodivergent and this trait that's being demonized ties back to a real person's real adhd.

that’s why it’s worth bringing technoblade’s adhd into a conversation solely about his character, because this aspect of his character is influenced by the real person whether c!techno is intended to have adhd or not.

however, the problem comes in when apologists try to assign traits that are Not associated with neurodivergency or mental illness and bring them into the conversation.

for a real world example:

I made a post pointing out that techno Knowingly investigating tubbo in the direct aftermath of his best friend’s death is a clear example of techno not acting in the best interest of the people around him, pointing out that this was an emotionally insensitive thing for him to have done. this garnered a response from someone who insisted that this was a Demonization of neurodivergent traits, because c!technoblade Could Not Have been expected to be aware that the death of a “traitor” would have an emotional affect on someone else. [Link]

the problem here is twofold.

Firstly, we have the over-extension of and conflation with what we discussed at the start of the post being used to strip away c!techno’s agency and cow the critic (in this case, me) into silence.

“c!techno is emotionless because he’s so monotone” is ableist because it’s moralizing an involuntary trait and presenting it as if it’s indicative of someone’s humanity. it looks at a trait that someone deems strange and saying “you are less than me because of it.”

“c!techno didn’t consider someone’s feelings when he made this action, and this reflects poorly on him” is criticizing an Action that c!techno voluntarily took. it’s not describing a passive trait, but an affect that c!techno had on someone that can be used to extrapolate about him as a person.

to conflate these two things is either Knowingly trying to muddy the waters and use accusations of ableism to squash criticism because you’re hoping it’ll scare people into shutting up, Or assigning these choices that a character made to an inherent trait of neurodivergency (thus stripping c!techno of both agency and guilt).

in this case, the insistence is that because technoblade has adhd he can’t ever be expected to understand that other people can have attachments to people when he doesn’t, and that when someone he doesn’t like dies people who Do like him will be emotionally affected by his death. tubbo is a traitor and tommy is a traitor, so therefore techno cannot even begin to conceive of either of these people as human beings capable of having full lives and social circles. therefore it is Ableist to point out that techno harassing tubbo in the direct aftermath of his best friend’s death because you are moralizing an Unchangeable Trait Connected To Adhd.

the problem here, of course, is that this isn’t true. while neurodivergency Can affect your empathy, you don’t need to Intimately Understand Someone On An Emotional Level for an adult to connect the fact that The Death Of Friend would hurt someone. and presenting it that way Actively Removes Agency From And Infantilizes people with adhd.

which is to say, the problem with apologists referencing cc’s adhd in discourse about their characters is that it is Often Used To Strip Agency Away From The Character in order to strip them of Personal Responsibility For Those Actions. and Because they’re connecting that act with an accusation of ableism they get to pair this accountability dodging with the demonization of said criticism.

it’s weaponizing ableism with an accusation of ableism, which is sure. Something.

that said ! with dream apologists in particular we Also see cc!dream’s neurodivergency utilized in another way, albeit in a way that can be connected back to this. the problem with c!dream apologists’ posts about adhd headcanons isn’t the fact that they Have adhd headcanons, you don’t even need a Reason to headcanon someone with adhd or autism, or anything really.

the problem is this stripping of Agency seems to be a part of a wider problem with how some dream apologists view adhd. with many posts taking Genuine Traits of adhd and Outright Infantilizing Them. presenting them as “cute” because, in their minds, it highlights dream’s helplessness and Childishness that is the core of the lack of agency that they ascribe to him.

dream couldn’t help himself when he killed tommy in prison because he didn’t have the agency not to. likewise, Isn’t It So Cute That Dreamie Can’t Read 😍

the problem isn’t the headcanoning of c!dream with adhd, it’s the ableism with how they treat adhd that’s honestly indicative of how they treat cc!dream.

#dream smp #technoblade #dreamwastaken #fandom critical #c!techno critical #c!dream critical #discourse

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not-a-space-alien · 3 years

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Watch Your Step: Chapter 1

Hey everyone, I have written a little story I wanted to share, it’s for people who like giant/tiny, fairy stories, and hurt/comfort! I might write more depending on what kind of response I get, please enjoy!!

UPDATE: I did decide to write more, so here is a link to the masterpost with all the chapters. Masterpost link.

Title: Watch Your Step

Word count: 7k words

Rating: T

AO3 link

Summary: An entomologist finds an injured fairy while out in the field.

Btw! I didn’t know this was really a thing people did, but if there’s interest for it I’ll start a tag list so you can be alerted when I post updates! Feel free to ask me to add you to the list however you like!

Author’s note:

I wanted to put some disclaimers on my story because I haven’t published much outside of the Good Omens fandom (which, if you followed me for my Gomens fic... :’) sorry)

I was browsing a bunch of different giant/tiny blogs recently because some of the concepts are really cute. Every fandom has its own specific issues that can crop up, and I’m not extremely aware of what the common ones tend to be for giant/tiny, but I saw a few posts about different trends perpetuating racism in g/t scenarios. Unlike fanartists, as an author I can sidestep this issue by not specifying character appearances in too much detail, but I think there can be problems with portrayals like this no matter what race you make the characters. I don’t know what the answer is, but I want to encourage my readers to think critically about these things and try to imagine how we can make our fandom spaces more welcoming for fans of color.

Another note: I had a sensitivity reader look this over for ableism, because ableism is a common criticism of fans of whump. One person can’t speak for the entire community so there might be different opinions on it, which I would be happy to listen to if you’re interested in helping me do better in the future, but just know if I’ve made any mistakes it wasn’t because I didn’t care.

And finally, my last note before I stop wringing my hands like an overconcerned aunt: For any readers who are young and inexperienced, I want you to take caution while reading stories that romanticize relationships with huge power imbalances. It’s fun to think about things like this, but even if there’s no real life equivalent of an injured tiny, please learn how to recognize and understand power imbalances. I think it can actually be a really useful and fun exercise to examine how different factors like that can impact a relationship of any kind in the safe space of fiction, but it’s not a substitute for the skills to recognize healthy and unhealthy relationships irl.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story! It took me back to my days of working in E&E as an undergrad x) and like I said, I might write more if there is interest <3

*****

Watch Your Step

*****

Thistle was mincemeat. He’d been resisting the thought for the past few hours, but he couldn’t avoid it any longer. The mounting anxiety in his stomach was too much to ignore.

A particularly large praying mantis had mistaken him for a particularly large bug and helped itself. It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable assumption when you were five inches tall and had gossamer wings, but that didn’t make Thistle feel any better about it.

It had caught him by surprise while he was peacefully enjoying the sight of a tiny waterfall in the creek, the babbling of the water masking the sound of its approach. He knew it had been stupid...Mother always advised him not to go on the ground at all when he was out of the hive, but he had been so delighted by the tiny fish and the little copeopods and wanted a closer look. He knew the ground was dangerous, but it had gone okay the last few times he had done it, so he hadn’t thought...

A mantis couldn’t normally kill a Pixie--not directly anyway. But the ragged tears its raptorial forelegs had left across his chest and arms still throbbed. The wounds were starting to make him lightheaded, exacerbated by the scorching sun overhead and the unfamiliar effort of walking over difficult terrain.

But it was what the mouthparts, not the arms, had latched onto that would do him in at the end: his wings. Before Thistle had managed to dislodge it, it had taken several very decent bites out of his left wing, the mouthparts rhythmically moving in and out, back and forth, up and down, mechanically, coldly, as its bulging, soulless, alien eyes had stared into his when he frantically writhed and kicked and flailed to free himself.

Dragging himself painfully over a fallen log, he half-heartedly fluttered his wings one more time, in the hopes that maybe, somehow, this time he would be able to fly and not make it worse. Pain lanced through his wings as he did so. He hissed and went rigid, panting and waiting for the sensation to recede.

He couldn’t pass out. Not here, not this far from the hive. Motion-based predators like birds and cats wouldn’t touch him lying there on the ground, but animals attracted to anything that smelled warm and helpless would surely get him before any of the other Pixies could find him. Snakes...It would definitely be a snake.

Thistle had always thought being eaten by a snake would be the worst way to go. They were like the mantis. Beady, lifeless eyes. Not equipped to even understand the pain they were causing you, let alone regret it. Wrapping you in a cold, vicious simulacrum of an embrace before swallowing you whole, without a second thought. Without a first thought.

Maybe if he could at least get close enough to the hive before he passed out, someone would find him before a snake did.

***

Marcella hated going to the field by herself.

First of all, it was an hour to drive up to the farm, and she never collected enough specimens by herself to make it worth it. The lab had an army of undergrads that usually fell over themselves for the opportunity to accompany her and spend the day romping around in a field with aerial nets for college credit. But it was currently summer, so most of them were out of town.

Normally she would put off going to the field to collect more insects until someone was available to help her, but her dissertation defense was coming up and she really wanted to have enough timepoints to have a solid defense of one of the key points her entire paper rested on… That meant this week she needed at least twenty more wild caught butterflies, ten moths, a handful of beetles, and whatever aphids she could get her hands on. Which sucked when she was also basically the only one in the lab to make sure all her labmates’ spiders got fed, which was a laborious process that involved coercing them with a fine-tipped paint brush towards a wingless fruit fly.

She cursed Jackie, the lab’s only other doctoral student, for going on vacation this week, adding more work onto her already overworked shoulders. Still, her office didn’t have a window, so it was nice to get out in the sun...even if it was hot out.

Marcy allowed herself a brief moment of diversion near the creek, splashing around in it and stopping to catch a mantis. She didn’t really need mantises for her work, but she thought they were neat and this one was particularly large. Its swollen abdomen let Marcy know it was gravid, and if it laid an egg sac she might be able to use that to entice more undergrads to come and do her busywork for her by convincing them it was exciting.

She approached the cabbage field--the lab had an agreement with the farm nearby that they could come catch pests on their property as long as they were careful not to damage the crops. The cabbage always had a ton of Pieris around them, which were easy to catch. It was a bit hard to avoid trampling the cabbage though, with them being so low to the ground… But she could usually find something good out there.

She just had to watch where she stepped.

***

The cabbage field also happened to be where Thistle was, his agoraphobia battling with his desire to get close to the hive as quickly as possible. Through the cabbage field was the most direct way back, and it would also be easiest to flag someone down for help if anyone happened to pass by due to how open it was.

Normally he would use the opportunity to take a slight detour through the apple orchard. If he could find one small enough to carry, he would always filch an apple to take back for everyone else...But all he could think about now was the straight shot being the fastest way home.

But oh how he hated being out in the open. The cabbage field barely had any cover taller than his waist, and the wretched rows of cabbage heads were planted in a space little more than bare dirt on the ground.

Open space was the enemy. Small, confined spaces were comfortable. Safe. Home. The hive was cozy, enclosed, covered...when you were outside the hive you were in danger and had to be on guard. The only thing that offered any safety outside the hive was cover, exactly the kind the ground in front of him did not have a lick of. Even birds, those silly things he could pretty much always outmaneuver in the air because they were so clumsy and couldn’t keep up with his agile flying, had a decent chance at him out there. Even humans, those gigantic creatures Thistle had barely ever worried about in his life, might be able to catch him out there.

He knew they ran the farm, but it was easy to avoid them and stay out of their sight. They barely ever left their own hive--their own strange, oversized, square hive that only four of them lived in. Mother seemed particularly worried about them finding her hive, but Thistle had never really understood why. They didn’t seem that dangerous...They ate vegetables for goodness’s sake, how could they be scarier than a snake? ...Right?

He peeked out across the field and swallowed nervously. He really was not confident in his ability to go around, on the winding path through the bramble.

But he was also not confident in his ability to go through. He struggled to hold his tears in, wishing he had just listened to Mother and tamped down his curiosity. He wanted to be at home, working on the fabric he had left in his space, safely at home sewing or building something that everyone else would love…

If he managed to get back, he thought he might never leave the hive again. He’d always enjoyed exploring to look for materials before now, but it wasn’t worth this.

He kept his head down and ran. He had never felt so exposed. The grass was barely up to his knees in some places. The wide open space seemed to physically press down on him, like a creature trapped at the bottom of the ocean, and a surge of fear and adrenaline pushed him on.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had ever actually run. His burning legs apparently couldn’t remember it either. If he wanted to go fast, he would always just fly.

Puffing miserably, he reached the relative safety behind a head of cabbage and fell to his knees, gasping and sweaty. He felt like throwing up.

He took a moment to sit there and catch his breath, when he heard something approaching...something big. He peeked out from behind the leaves in the direction it was coming from.

Oh. Now Thistle understood why Mother had been afraid of the humans finding the hive. Because he noticed something that he hadn’t before: they were fucking terrifying.

It had always been easy to brush off the scale when you were far away and safely up in the air. But now on the ground, Thistle was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the approaching creature--a giantess specifically by the look of it. He was suddenly acutely aware of how much food such a gigantic creature would need to eat, of the size of the head of lettuce next to him, of how easily such a being could easily just bite him in half if it felt so inclined.

But that seemed less likely than simply being crushed by its feet--its stomping feet that were easily the size of his entire body moving way faster than he would expect something that size to move. It could crush him with a thought for looking at him funny. It could crush him by accident and probably not even realize.

The possibility played in his mind over and over with each giant thud signaling a footstep closer. Thistle drew back behind the cabbage, crouched down, making himself as small as possible. If he just stayed still and out of the way, it would probably pass right by him without noticing.

They didn’t usually look at the ground. Didn’t look where they were stepping. Right?

The ground started to shake as it got closer. Thistle clapped his hands over his ears, each footstep spiking the anxiety in his chest higher and higher like a hammer to a nail.

Thud thud thud....

Any one of those movements could basically break every bone in his body if the foot came down on him. But he was out of the way. It was passing on the other side of the cabbage. And it was too late to get further away, because then it would see him. Right? Should he cut his losses? Should he get further away? Was he far enough away? Was there still time to move?

Sweating, trembling, he balled up and stared at the ground.

Thud thud thud...

For a split second, it was right next to him, inches away, the sound positively deafening, the enormous boot right there mid-step. He was so sure in that moment he was going to die if he didn’t move, with such force so close, a wave of panic overwhelming him.

He darted out.

Swiping the net was basically muscle memory at this point for Marcy, a reflex to seeing something tiny within reach. Her logic was she could always just let it go if she didn’t want to keep it.

Marcy of course didn’t know that Pixies existed, so her first interpretation of the blur of motion she managed to scoop up with the net was that she had somehow caught both a mouse and a butterfly at the same time.

The technique for making sure your catch doesn’t fall out of the net was to swipe and then flip it so the bottom of the net looped around to rest on top of the ring, and the snapping of Marcy’s wrist to close the exit tossed her prey up.

Thistle landed softly, not really hurt except for whatever panicked scrambling was tangling him further up, but he gave a startled yelp all the same.

Upon a closer inspection, Marcy’s second interpretation was that she’d caught what looked like a very, very tiny person, as ridiculous as it sounded, trembling in the net and looking up at her with wide eyes.

“Whoah,” Marcy breathed, drawing the net closer. “What are you?” This was the exact same way she phrased it when she encountered a new bug she’d never seen before, which, being an entomologist, hadn’t happened in quite a few years.

Thistle very quickly decided having the giantess’s full attention was much, much worse than waiting for it to pass by. His imagination ran wild with what kinds of awful things such a creature could do on purpose, and it dwarfed his previous thoughts about what could happen by accident.

The giantess shifted its net, speaking excitedly in a language he did not understand, voice bellowing like a huge bell. He wriggled wretchedly, aware that if he actually succeeded in getting out of the net his reward would be plunging to the ground at its feet.

Would it be angry with him for taking that apple last time he was out? He’d honestly thought none of them could even notice a detail that small. There were so many trees with so many apples. But why else would it be hunting him? Were they that defensive of their food? They had so much of it!

Thistle had seen the ones that lived here occasionally taking measures to kill or drive away insects he knew ate the food they grew--had they brought this new human here specifically to catch him? To drive away the hive?

That’s why Mother was always so insistent it was important to not let them see you… Because they could-

“Oh no,” he wept, tears spilling over in his eyes as the giantess’s hand came up and touched him through the net. “Please--please, if-if you can--Please take pity on me, if I’ve--If I’ve offended you in some way, or taken something of value, or trespassed, it was--it was an accident, I swear, please be merciful.”

Marcy watched as her curious catch opened its mouth and started to babble in a tiny voice, squeaking out in what she quickly figured out must be a language she didn’t speak. “You can--Are you talking? You can talk?”

It stopped at the sound of her voice, eyes watery, and lay there paralyzed.

Thistle figured out he and the giantess did not share a language after his plea garnered a response in gibberish and more gentle manhandling. He wasn’t sure if that made the situation better or worse. Worse, right?

The giantess continued to speak as it walked, possibly in what it thought was a quiet voice. He craned his neck to try and see forward where they were going. There was a small blue box sitting in the field, with more of what looked like the giantess’s equipment lying next to it.

Marcy took the strange little creature back to the Igloo cooler she’d brought. It didn’t have any ice in it, but it was convenient for carrying everything and making sure nothing escaped if the cups popped open while she was transporting them.

She gently set her catch down, keeping one foot on the netting to make sure it didn’t dart away. The little thing wriggled and thrashed its wings, trying very hard to find someway out.

“I can’t,” she said to herself, rifling through her supplies to find a cup big enough for it, “I just can’t--what is this thing? Am I going crazy? Should I call someone? I should call someone. Should I?”

She knew damn well no one was going to believe her unless this thing was right there in front of them like it was for her now. Maybe it’d be best to wait...and make sure this whole thing wasn’t a weird dream from being overworked.

You’ve been out in the field too long...you’ve been pushing yourself too hard lately…. You should have listened when your mom said you needed a break…

She pushed the cups with the insects she’d already collected aside and pulled out an empty one.

Thistle saw the giantess’s hand come out holding a clear container of some sort, one with a lid, and dread lanced through him.

“No,” he said. “Please don’t--Please don’t put me in there--Please let me go, I-”

Marcy flipped the net with a practiced hand. She was used to handling tiny creatures that wanted to get away, and were fluttering around after you caught them. This one was a bit meatier than a butterfly though, and she was also not used to them babbling in an unknown language as she did so.

She expertly plunged the cup into the net flush with the fabric, then carefully slid the lid over the top, snapped it shut, and took it out.

She held it up. The little creature’s wings quivered, and it put its hands up against the plastic.

To think she had been excited about the mantis before this.

Her brain was unsure how to process what she’d thought was impossible, so she just thought, should I try and catch any more butterflies?

Which was ridiculous. Of course not. Get out of here. Don’t worry about your thesis. Something weird is happening.

She put it into the cooler and shut it.

***

Thistle had never experienced an enclosed space that upset him quite as much as this little plastic cup he found himself in. He’d thought that not being out in the open any more might make things better, but this….this wasn’t like the hive, or even hiding inside a tree or next to a cabbage. It had the worst aspects of both being out in the open and being in an enclosed space. He couldn’t maneuver well, fly, or run away, but he was also so terribly exposed. Cover that didn’t cover him. He had never felt so profoundly unsafe in an unnerving, unfamiliar way.

He steadied himself on the side of the container to avoid falling down as the giantess jostled him, placing him down into the blue box he’d seen earlier beside some other cups.

They were full of butterflies. Most of them were just placidly sitting there, uncomprehending, their bulging eyes, fuzzy bodies, and rolled up proboscises now looking impossibly large this close to him.

He heard something larger moving behind him, so he turned around and saw the mantis, that green monster, yes, even exactly the same one that had put him in this predicament, he could tell by the dent in its right eye where he had elbowed it earlier. Electric fear surged through him, and he pressed himself against the wall, as far away from it as he could get, and held his breath.

Its mouthparts moved idly, forelegs resting on the wall of its own cup, not seeming to notice or care about any of the easy prey around it. Maybe it knew there was an invisible barrier between them it couldn’t get through. Maybe it was smarter than he thought. Maybe it was just biding its time, maliciously planning whatever other horrible things it could do to him. Maybe it was in cahoots with the giantess.

The lid of the box came down, plunging them into darkness, leaving him with only the sounds of the occasional scrabble of insect legs on plastic and his own heart hammering in his throat.

***

Marcy had to try very hard not to speed on the way home. It didn’t work, and she got back to the lab in about 45 minutes when by all accounts it should have taken at least an hour. She also had to resist the urge to open the cooler every few minutes to take a peek to make sure what she had caught was still there. She half expected to get back to the lab and find the cooler empty somehow.

She’d hoped that maybe the head of the lab would be there when she got back--but no, it was 7PM, he’d gone home. So had everyone else. It was just her. No one to confirm she wasn’t hallucinating.

She unlocked the lab, switched the light on, and put the cooler on the benchtop. She re-locked the door for good measure, then stood staring down at the cooler.

Okay. So assuming she opened it up and saw the same thing as she had in the field, and she hadn’t just wasted the rest of her day on some silly mistake, she had caught a...fairy? It had to be a fairy. Weren’t fairies magic? If it had been magic, surely it would have been able to escape from her. Right? Unless it wanted to be caught? Was this a test, and she was failing it? Was she about to suffer some ironic and appropriate punishment from the universe?

She reigned in her wild train of thought. Back up. Start with the basics. You have caught some unknown creature that, superficially, looks like a tiny person with wings. You do not know what it actually is. You cannot make any assumptions about it. It seems to be able to talk, but you can’t speak its language, and you don’t know if it can understand yours.

Given these very basic facts, assuming they were all true, what would be the best thing to do? Document it, right? Show someone else?

Maybe she could start by just taking it out and confirming it was real.

Thistle honestly hadn’t been sure what to expect to see when the giantess opened the box and took him out, but the reality of it was so much worse than he’d thought.

It was a room, square--he must be inside one of their big, weird hives, which Mother had advised against since it could be dangerous. Every surface was flat and bare and cold, no plants or grass, nowhere to hide, and the whole thing was littered with giant’s tools he couldn’t even imagine what they were for. Strange boxes in every imaginable size, basins and cups and small metal tools. Those were the worst part--most of them were almost as long as his entire body, and some ended in sharp points and others had fierce-looking clamps and still others he couldn’t even guess how they could move.

No... the worst part was actually what was up on the wall: a box full of dead insects, wings spread and pinned for display, labeled in a language he couldn’t read but he recognized what he saw. It was a collection, one he had just been added to. And right there in the center was a mantis, that fearsome predator, pinned up and decorated as easily as Thistle might pick up a particularly pretty pebble and take it home and put it with his others.

“Please,” he begged, voice thick with tears, “please have mercy.” Was there any way to make the giantess understand that he was a person? That he felt pain and emotions? That this was unthinkably cruel? Would it even care? Did it think of him like a bug? He pushed his hands against the clear container, shaking and swallowing huge, panicked breaths. “Please don’t do this to me.”

Could he convince it not to? “I can--I can grant you wishes.” He couldn’t, of course, he could barely use any magic beyond what it took to assist in flight, but he might be able to convince the giantess otherwise if it could understand him.

The giantess moved about the room, rearranging objects with ease that Thistle thought he would never be able to lift at all, pushing them aside with dreamlike speed. It didn’t seem to be listening to him.

He stepped back against the wall as far as he could go, wringing his hands anxiously. With a sinking heart he thought, Well. At least it’ll probably kill me painlessly, to avoid blemishing my corpse… unless it wants to dissect me first.

Why hadn’t he just listened to Mother?

Marcy cleared some space by pushing the pipettes and forceps away from the dissecting scope and set her catch down on the counter to examine it.

Yes, it was real. Her curiosity ignited like a flame, eager to know more about what the hell she had just found. It was a tiny person, and it had wings--but looking more closely now, it looked like one of them had been torn pretty badly...might explain why she had found it on the ground.

Was it a person? Maybe it was just the scale, or its limbs looking just a bit too long and thin, or its herky jerky and frantic movements, but something about it seemed strangely insectoid.

It put its hands together in front of its body, rubbing them together like a fly. She brought a light over to get a better look, and it crouched down and shielded its head with its arms, shaking.

It had a ribbon of wavy black hair from the top of its head, framed by two pointed ears. Its eyes were just a little too big and too wide set, triggering her uncanny valley response looking at its face. Its mouth definitely looked more human than insect though, as did the chest and limbs.

And it was wearing clothes, though she couldn’t tell what they could possibly be made of, but she could see the lines where they had been very finely stitched together. She wondered briefly how it managed to wear a shirt with its wings, but then noted with excitement the construction. The top had two long slits in the back, which when the shirt was pulled over the head, would just drape around the wings and allow them to move freely.

Another thing she couldn’t tell was the sex of this creature, if it had one. She thought about removing the clothes, wondering what such an impossibly tiny person could even look like in its more private areas.

Then she imagined herself actually doing that. Getting the scissors, or the forceps, and gently removing the little clothing while the creature struggled. That thought was finally enough for the realization of what she was actually doing to smack her in the face.

That would be an immensely fucked up thing to actually do, because she had caught a tiny person and brought it back to the lab. It was absolutely at her mercy and this whole time she hadn’t even thought about the possibility that, unlike everything else she’d brought back from the field, it understood what was happening and was terrified.

She finally noticed for the first time its puffy, red eyes and splotchy cheeks. The details were so tiny she hadn’t even seen them, but it had probably been crying the entire time it’d been in the cooler. And she glanced over her shoulder to see what its saucer-wide gaze was fixed on and saw the insect collection she had put together from all the cool bugs her first cohort of undergrads had collected in the field and brought excitedly to her.

It was a treasured memory of hers, and she had never in a million years thought anyone could find it threatening. But now she was imagining herself trapped in a little plastic cup and kidnapped and brought who knows where and seeing that and trying to guess what was in store for her. She had been so caught up in the excitement of discovery, and absorbed in her own feelings, that she hadn’t even questioned her instincts to snatch it up like a research sample.

It started speaking again in that tiny voice, a mellifluous little sound in a language that sounded like it was mostly vowels. She’d been so gobsmacked by its ability to speak earlier that she hadn’t even considered what it might be saying. Watching it cower now, hiding its face in its hands and sobbing, it was easy to guess.

Guilt washed over her. “Oh my god. I’m sorry. I’m...oh my god. Fuck.”

She leaned over and drew her hands around it, which only seemed to scare it more.

She should let it out. But what if it ran away? But she couldn’t keep it trapped under there. Right? It wasn’t ethical to keep someone trapped like that. She should start by undoing the damage she had already done.

She snapped the lid off and lifted the cup off the creature. It darted out and away towards the edge of the counter.

Thistle had never run so fast in his life. Every instinct in his body, every muscle was working together to get him away. He dashed towards the edge and hurled himself off.

Pain lanced through his shredded wing as he tried to fly. He managed to glide for a second, but then-

The hand came around him.

“Shit!” she yelped, diving after it. “No, no, nope, don’t-” Years of working with small creatures had honed her reflexes to grab anything running away from her to stop it from falling and hurting itself--but also, to stop it from getting loose and lost forever somewhere in the building.

So she lunged. And grabbed it. Too hard, she realized too late, as her fist closed around it and it gave a yelp of pain. And its wings--they seemed sturdier than, say, butterfly wings, maybe capable of tolerating being folded like a beetle’s wings, but she winced as she realized she had crumpled them against its body, which at the very least couldn’t be comfortable.

“Shit,” she said. “I’m sorry--fuck, fuck, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.”

Now moving as gently and deliberately as she could, she lowered it onto the benchtop and set it down, keeping her hands around it. She was relieved to see its wings unfold back into shape, undamaged--well, except for what it already had.

Thistle lay on the counter breathlessly, one hand raised as though he could possibly shield himself from anything, the other hand propping him up. He was embarrassed to hear a pathetic whimper escape his lips, but the giantess’s hands cupped him and prevented him from crawling any further away.

It started speaking to him in what sounded like it was trying to make a quiet, soothing voice, and one of its thumbs came forward and rubbed the top of his head, ruffling his hair. Was it...trying to calm him down? Feeling his hair?

He dared not try to dart away again lest he get another terrible squeeze.

“There we go,” Marcy cooed, stroking the little creature in what she hoped was a soothing manner. It trembled under her hands. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

She felt terrible, like a bull in a China shop, a big dumb animal that took way too long to realize the hurt it was causing. She’d found this little creature when it was at its most vulnerable and did exactly the wrong thing.

Could she fix this?

She very gently moved one finger from the creature’s heaving chest to its wings, delicately splaying the injured wing outwards to examine it. It was ragged, almost half of it completely torn up.

“Do you want me to try and fix this?”

It looked at her uncomprehendingly, flinching at the movements of her hands.

She cursed herself. It seemed thoroughly cowed to stay in place by the way she’d grabbed it so hard. Was there any way to communicate that had been an accident?

She removed her hands and put them on her chest. “Marcy.”

It looked at her.

“Marcy.”

She very delicately moved forward and pinched its tiny hands with her fingers, moving them to its chest in the same way she had placed hers on her own.

Thistle watched the giantess speaking slowly and deliberately, making some unknown sound and gesturing to itself. He panicked again when it reached for him, but it was suddenly doing something very strange with his hands. He fought through the static in his brain to try and figure it out.

The way it was waiting silently now, as though it wanted an answer, almost politely now. Was it...asking for his name? Was it introducing itself?

He swallowed and said with as much courage as he could muster, “Th-Thistle?”

Marcy was delighted when the little creature seemed to try and figure out what she was doing, struggling for a moment before making a small sound, a single word.

Had she done it? “Is that your name?” She moved her hands back to herself. “Marcy.”

It repeated the gesture and the sound, which she could hear more clearly this time, though in still such a tiny voice. “Ardo.”

“Ardo,” she said.

“Marcy,” it said.

The giantess seemed happy that he was repeating back what it said to him, a clear expression of delight breaking over its face. “THISTLE,” it repeated back to him, in a very broken-sounding and far too loud version of his own language.

Thistle wobbled to his feet, looking up at the giantess with renewed desperation. “Can you understand me? Please let me go. I- I want to leave. I want to go home. I can’t fly.”

“Y’vipoaomeni mi? Bonou lasiiniri. Mi-mivolaoriri. Miolas iriemei. Miniovaslui.” Marcy bit her lip as the little creature stood and apparently took their limited communication attempts as a go-ahead to start babbling again, word vomiting in a clearly anxious tone.

“Okay, okay,” said Marcy, waving her hands, and it clamped its mouth shut. “Uh...sorry. Marcy. Ardo.” She moved her hands from herself to it. “Nice to meet you. Sorry, I can’t really...Oh, how about this.”

She took a step away, watching out of the corner of her eye to make sure it didn’t run off the edge of the counter again. It stood watching her, hands kneading the air.

She turned towards the whiteboard and uncapped a marker. She made sure it was watching her, then created to the best of her very limited artistic abilities, a drawing of a little person with wings, lying down on the ground. She erased part of the left wing and drew the ragged edge.

“Ardo,” she said, pointing to it.

It nodded, gesturing to itself. “Ardo.” It pointed to her and said “Marcy?” this time its tone questioning, as though to say Haven’t we established this already?

Marcy turned back towards the board and used the marker to draw a new circle on the broken wing, overlaying what she hoped would communicate the outline of a new wing overtop of the ripped one. “Fix?” she said.

“Fix?” it said.

She held her arms out and moved them up and down, hoping to give the impression of flying. It gently wafted its wings, watching her, a tiny look of hope dawning on its face.

She used the marker to draw an arrow pointing downwards, like a motion line, towards the drawing of the person lying on the floor. The little creature slowly knelt, then lowered itself down and lay on its stomach, wings upwards.

Marcy was absolutely delighted her attempts to communicate had been going so well, but the excitement started to fade as she realized she wasn’t sure how to make good on her promise of fixing the wing, if it had understood that's what she'd meant. Her eyes wandered over to the insect display…

The mantis was the biggest one, and its wings were about the same size as those of her little friend here...could she…?

They had body-safe glue in the lab, and it was pretty strong stuff. Could it…?

Could it be that simple…?

It lifted its head slightly to watch with apprehensive eyes as she uncorked the mantis from the board and brought it over, setting it on the table. Very, very gently, as delicately as she could, she snapped the mantis’s wing off at the joint where it was connected at the abdomen.

She grabbed a pair of self-closing forceps and moved them over towards it--Ardo, she supposed, she should start thinking of it as, since that was its name...Their name?

She opened the forceps and maneuvered it around Ardo’s wing.

Their body started to shake again, and they put their head down onto the back of their hands splayed flat against the table. “It’s okay,” she said, gently rubbing their back between the wings. “I promise it’s OK. I’ll be gentle.”

“Gentle.”

“Yes, gentle.”

She closed the forceps and lowered them onto the table, securing the wing in place. Ardo flinched as Marcy put the glue bottle down on the table, seeming like they were starting to regret letting her do this. “Gentle.”

“I’ll be gentle.”

“Marcy?”

“It’s okay.” She eyed the ragged edge of the wing. Was the wing innervated? How much did it hurt? She imagined it was going to be hard to secure all those loose ribbons of what remained to a new wing. Could she maybe...trim it? Would that be tolerable or not? Would that be more akin to trimming fingernails or performing surgery on someone while awake?

She reached for the scissors. Ardo exploded into a hysterical onslaught of pleas, begging so intensely Marcy didn’t need to know the translation to know what they were saying.

“Okay,” she said, closing the scissors, putting them down and sliding them far away. She put her hands up to show they were empty. “Okay, don’t worry, see? It’s okay.”

“Gentle,” they said, voice trembling.

She picked up a pair of tweezers, the dullest ones she had so they wouldn’t pinch, and a dull poker with an edge the size of a toothpick. She rolled a chair over and sat, leaning over him and starting to feather-light pick at the edges of the wing with a dexterous hand.

“This is probably going to take a while,” she said. “But it’s okay. I’ll do my best.”

Marcy started by using the glue to secure the base of the mantis wing to the base of Ardo’s wing, delicately drizzling the glue onto the mantis wing and maneuvering it onto Ardo with the tweezers. She moved the self-closing forceps to clamp them together, waiting for them to dry a bit before continuing. Ardo’s body was stiff, probably with nerves, but he wasn’t making any noises of pain, so she continued cautiously.

Next she slowly worked her way up the wing, spreading the glue with an even hand and pressing them together, clamping them to dry.

The evening started to wear on as she worked, determined to do it slowly and right, but feeling her eyes start to get heavy.

She reached the top of the wing, where the shredded edges were. It really would be a lot easier to secure the wings together properly if there were a smooth edge and not a lot of leftover damaged tissue there. Could she…?

She quietly moved her hand to the drawer, opening it and retrieving the smaller pair of scissors there, moving them up and behind Ardo so they couldn’t see them.

She tried to steady her hands and moved the scissors onto the wing, moving so slowly it was barely visible.

Ardo gave a whine of pain as the scissors grazed the wing, biting their hand, and Marcy withdrew the tool immediately and stowed it back in the drawer. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I thought maybe it wouldn’t hurt and earlier you were just scared-”

Ardo lay there miserably.

“We’re almost done. Don’t worry.” She dabbled some more glue on the mantis wing, spreading it around, and gingerly moved the threads of the damaged wing onto it, pressing as lightly as she could. Ardo squirmed a bit, whimpering. “We’re almost done. You’re doing great.”

She pressed the final bits together, so Ardo’s wing was entirely connected to the mantis wing, and while it dried she worked on securing the base of the mantis wing to the skin on their back next to the base of their own wing as best as she could.

She removed the clamp. “Okay, I think we’re done.”

She moved her hand down, pinching their little hand between her thumb and forefinger and helping them stand up. They looked back at their wing, moving it experimentally.

“How does that feel?”

She removed her hands and let Ardo walk around, flapping gently. They reached the edge of the table.

“Maybe let’s take it slow, okay?” she said, getting up. “And not jump-”

He jumped, up into the air, wings whirring into action. Her fix seemed to work a little too well, because he rocketed up and away from her, through her hands, and into the corner of the room.

“Please come down,” Marcy said, opening her hands. “Come here?”

Her heart sank as she watched the little creature dart away and into the ventilation duct, wriggling between the grate and the wall, disappearing.

“.....Ah.”

She dropped back into her chair, exhaustedly looking at the clock. It was 11:35pm. She wasn’t any closer to finishing her thesis. Now without the proof directly in front of her, it was easy to think that maybe she had just hallucinated the past few hours.

She looked at the grate. It looked just barely big enough to get her hand partway into it. She had no idea how she could even possibly start finding a tiny person in there, or coaxing it out.

She wanted to go home. She’d been up since 5AM. She collected her coat, her bag, and her keys, and locked the door behind her. She hoped that little creature also found its way home, wherever home was for creatures like that.

#giant/tiny #gt #gianttiny #fairy #my writing #fearplay #angst #hurt/comfort #angst with a happy ending #my original writing

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