#anyways always love to see some non-cishetness in the media I consume | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morepopcornplease · 5 years

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hi! i just want to start by saying that i love your blog so much! not only do we both love lena luthor and thirteenth doctor, but as a side b bi catholic, your blog has also been super helpful. I have a question that i’m not really sure how to explain. Like i know that i’m bi, and i don’t really know how to phrase this but idk how much i should relate to the lgbt community. Like i often feel myself drawn more towards people than people in traditional circles. (1/3)

And i think a lot of that has to do with the fact that my views towards other subjects (equality, universal healthcare, immigration etc) align much better with those of the many people in the lgbt community, and my faith is strong and nothing is going to change that, but idk if i’m too accepting of my sexuality like this is so stupid, but i don’t even know if i should be shipping gay couples (even though they are almost always the ones i seem drawn to in the shows i like lmao). (2/3)Idk i just don’t want to go too far? Is there even a too far as long as don’t have a relationship with a girl?This is kind of rambly and i don’t really know if it makes sense, but if i’m going to give up being with another girl, i don’t want to be sinning anyways and i don’t want to upset God. (3/3)

There’s a lot to unpack here! Sorry it took me a bit.

The queer community doesn’t have a gatekeeper hold over the concept of equality, universal healthcare, or immigration.

In fact, before Roe v Wade, Catholics mostly voted democrats, because they protect all other interests that were grounded in Catholic morality, not to mention Catholics were immigrants to this country like the Irish, Italian, and my beloved Polish.

So I just don’t see how this is an issue. If you want to talk to me about why I’ve voted Democrat and will continue to do so, talk to me off-anon. I’ve already angered some conservative Catholics I’m sure *distant hiss*

I’m not sure what grade of “too accepting” of your sexuality is. Even the wording feels Ex-Gay in this context (the idea that you should always, always be fighting against your sexuality if it is anything other than “cishet”).

But this is what I don’t think I’ve stressed enough about my sexuality: by accepting that this is what I have been given, and the crosses I must carry with it, I am far more at peace than I ever was before, and I can focus fundamentally on my actions. Escaping the very concept of gayness is just….insane. That leads to general unhappiness even if you’re straight (ie straight guys not wanting to appear gay and so aren’t affectionate with other men in a way that is ultimately unhealthy).

Shipping.

Truth be told, I am not the best person to ask this question, because I am just TIRED of trying to moralize not just shipping, but the media we consume in general.

We could talk about how I shouldn’t cheer Sansa on when she watches her rapist get eaten by dogs in Game of Thrones, because it’s not perfectly aligned with Catholic morality.

We could talk about how later Gospels, John in particular, openly blamed Jews for Christ’s death, and how director and open anti-semite Mel Gibson chose to downright REVEL in this when he made Passion of the Christ.

We could talk about how even the media we love, like The Lord of the Rings, chose to depict all vaguely-human races that sided with Sauron and the forces of evil as…you guessed it!… non-white. And then Peter Jackson chose to keep that in the movies. Maybe even embellish it a bit.

And yes, we could even talk about how on a Catholic geeks page, a mother was frightened at the thought of her children watching Alex Danvers’ coming out story, and when I asked her how she felt about the hero of the show having premarital sex, including a naked man post-coital onscreen, she went on a long explanation that started out with “yes, but….!!”

I’m so tired.

If you want to really know how I justify loving Supercorp as much as I do, I almost always frame it in a way that this gifset sums up quite well. There’s a reason it’s become THE Side B Angst ship: the coming out metaphor of being a super in disguise, the weirdly gay tension surrounding their interactions despite it not being obvious to either character (hell maybe even because of it), the fact that neither of them ever really felt comfortable and have had childhoods of ostracization and impossible expectations to live up to, the fact that said coming out metaphor has a real chance of breaking up their friendship, or damaging it in a severe way….

And ultimately why I identify so strongly with it: Two friends, in love, in a way that the show will never make happen or allow to happen. Yeah. For all my genuine confidence in my choices and general happiness that I’ve found, that right there sums up the Side B story pretty damn well.

I have no idea if this was helpful. I hope it was.

I guess in general all Catholics should make sure to not be too obsessed with media. We are called to care for, worry about, and fight for greater things.

#Anonymous #side b #side b Catholic #side b Christian #gay as the rainbow over noahs ark #supercorp #THE side b angst ship

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janiedean · 6 years

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Fandom and politics, that's the topic of this message and a request for your opinion on fandom and politics. In recent days in polish fantasy fandom one of the prominent figures, a writer, asked why can't we all just talk and be fandom and leave politics behind, like in "good old days". And explained how he and the wolę fandom just doesn't like ideology pushed at him in media. (1/2)

(2/2) The problem is, what he calls ideology, is often media not being as racist, sexist or homophobic as usually (i.e. the feminist head of the team of writers of The Witcher netflix show, black Heimdall in "Thor" etc.)Or women in fandom demanding to do sth with t-shirts that was sold at one convention, with a print that goes sth along the lines of "I love burning villages and raping virgins". Because those are the prominent scandals of polish fandom.

hmmm the thing is, I think that fandom shouldn’t meddle with politics when it comes to fans period and when it comes to authors, it should but to a certain point. what I mean is:

when I say fandom shouldn’t be meddling with politics when it comes to fans I mean that whole part where you’re judged as SOMETHING just out of your fandom preferences. I mean, people saying you’re homophobic because you don’t ship the slash ship, people assuming you’re racist because you ship two white guys or the likes, people thinking you’re pro-pedophilia because you ship underaged characters and so on. that imo is a thing that regardless of the media in question should die in a fire because you cannot judge people on their fictional preferences. no one should assume I’m okay with incest in general if I ship thor and loki, no one should assume I’m racist because I like stevebucky better than stevesam and no one should assume I’m homophobic if I ship a m/f ship and so on. especially when it comes to people who ship/like problematic stuff for whichever damned reason and they get told they’re monsters when they just wanna do their thing. like that imo is a thing that has to die in a fire right now especially when it becomes a fandom-wide thing and you get people basically going like ‘if you’re white you can’t engage with a fandom with black/poc characters because you’re gonna be racist anyway’ and then complain when they get zero content. or worse, the star wars lists of problematic people that you need to avoid because they ship rey/lo and are therefore *insert problematic word here* and such things. fandom should be a place where fans are free to do whatever they like and explore whatever subjects they like without being judged for it. obviously if someone fucks up MAJORLY (see: the infamous j2 haiti fic of doom) calling them out should happen, also because it means that if they’re ignorant they’ll learn, and using fandom as a platform to learn stuff about people different from your social/ethnical background is always great, but people shouldn’t be shamed for what they do in fandom as a general rule. that is my general opinion when it comes to fans. you can’t go on and judge someone on whether they like noncon in fiction or not. like. no.

what you’re talking about instead is the media itself being more progressive, and in that case I don’t agree with the *good old days* thing because more diversity is good and honestly if someone’s problem is that heimdall is black in a marvel movie that isn’t even accurate per se because in theory thor and loki aren’t even odin’s sons then like, you need to get over yourself.

and like, one thing is having reservation over a shirt such as what you said and another is telling other women they can’t like kink or m/m porn, so like that is a kind of politics that needs to be discussed and absolutely should, but that’s not what I mean when I say I’d really like politics out of fandom space. one thing is fandom space, one thing is the original content. I’m entirely down for diverse original content of whichever kind, what I don’t think should be done is fans engaging with it just looking at the politics and judging it based on the politics only and not on the plot, and mostly judging it on whether it’s progressive enough or not and judging other people for liking it if they don’t think it’s progressive enough, not fans asking for more diverse stuff in general and/or wanting to feel included in fandom spaces, and I think creators should acknowledge that.

like, the polish fantasy writer obviously doesn’t care for diversity - but no one forces him to. but saying that FANTASY IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS WAS JUST WHITE PEOPLE is also ridiculous bc diverse fantasy has been around for ages like ffs.

what I mean is that we absolutely should have politics - if by that you mean more diversity - in the original media we consume, though I don’t think authors should be forced to do that because you get better things when the author actually wants to write them, and fandom should engage with more diverse media absolutely, but fandom can’t also judge what people in it do all the time based on how *they* engage with the content in case, because everyone will like different things and you can’t force people to engage with that specific thing just because you think it’s woke. and you also can’t trash the author for things you might perceive as problematic but actually aren’t.

examples of what I mean: I, author, write a fantasy story.

not so ideal case of politics in media: I, a white cishet female author, decided to write a fantasy story. I don’t know much stuff outside standard fantasy and I don’t feel like writing people who aren’t what I am. I write your usual standard lotr-ripoff, everyone is white, cis and hetero, there’s one romance, a couple bromances, no social or political hidden commentary. it has a good story. it’s an okay book. the fandom most likely will ship the guys in the bromances. no one feels challenged. tumblr declares me problematic for not writing diverse stuff and then ignores me.

ideal case of politics in media: I, a white cishet female author, decided to write a fantasy story. I don’t want to do the same usual lotr rehash and I know that diversity is important and I want to make a good job. I make my character list. I decide who’s white and who’s not, giving a decent balance. I make some of them non-straight. I don’t see many trans characters in fantasy, so I decide one of them is. I spend months talking to anyone belonging to the aforementioned categories asking them what they think of my approach - ie I find a number of trans people to discuss what I want with the trans character, I talk to a number of black people if I want the character to be black possibly not all from the US and I pick people from all over the place. I write my book. I make sure every character has a meaningful relationship with the others so that all their interactions are interesting. I try as much as possible to not have stereotypes. I get a bunch of betas and I change anything they find improvable. my book gets published. everyone loves it.

now, ideal fallout of the above which is what I mean with healthy fandom consumption: I get a fandom made up by diverse people because I have a diverse book. people enjoy that I gave everyone some space. they might interact with me on twitter and asking me ships headcanons. I tell them that they can ship whatever they like write whatever fic off it they want. every character gets some fic or moodboard and everyone enjoys whatever they like in whichever dynamic. not-trans people who had never run into a trans character in fantasy might go like ‘wow I hadn’t realized that’s how it felt’ and might get informed. if I based it on some specific historical period people might get informed on that. people belonging to the minority categories educate the others in fandom about what they might not know, nicely. everyone writes all the porn in the world. everything is great. if someone asks me why I have black/lgbt+/etc people in my book I reply them that minorities exist so why shouldn’t they be in my book and that’s the most twitter hate I get. life is great. my publisher wants more. that book becomes a series. rinse and repeat.

not so ideal fallout, ie what I mean with fandom shouldn’t be about politics: somehow, there’s a fanon ship that gets most fans for a reason. it happens to be idk, bisexual white guy + gay white guy who are not together in the book. they get more fic than dunno, hetero black woman with hetero asian guy. people start calling the first group problematic because they don’t ship the poc couple and THEY’RE RACIST. the trans character isn’t a stereotype/isn’t *good enough* for fandom standards so they decided that idk, feminine straight guy I put in because feminine straight guys exist is actually the only trans one because HEADCANONS and suddenly all fics with a trans character for that book are about the headcanoned character that’s actually a stereotype if you go for that, not the one I actually spent six months researching, and if you don’t agree you’re suddenly a transphobe. someone sends me a twitter message asking me what I think of HEADCANONS and I answer that I’m okay with HCs but I put canon characters that aren’t white, straight and cis for a reason and suddenly I’m THE MOST PROBLEMATIC AUTHOR EVER and people decide that my efforts aren’t good enough and that as a cis woman writing gay men is problematic and everyone in fandom who writes m/m and is a woman is shit. then people decide that shipping the black cis bisexual guy with anyone white is racist and writing porn where he’s on top is racist but then another side says that if he bottoms it’s racist (guys LOOK AT SW FANDOM I DIDN’T MAKE THIS UP), so no one ends up touching the black character out of fear of being dissed. six months after the book is out, the only thing there’s a fandom following for is a problematic as hell crackship in between two cishet white guys that hate each other and barely interacted because it’s the only fandom space where people don’t get shamed for what they like.

I, the author, look at all the hate messages I get on twitter and think fuck it, next time I’m just doing high fidelity 2.0 just with cishet white female protagonists so no one can tell me I did it wrong since I’m white, cishet, female and I hang out in record stores all the damned time or at least I used to when I was younger and they existed. I never write a diverse cast again. I never write a trans character again because that wasn’t what I wanted to do, I just wanted people to have fun and enjoy a more diverse cast of characters without fans murdering each other over it.

like, that’s what I mean with politics shouldn’t be in fandom that much, not that politics shouldn’t be in fandom spaces/in the media we consume period XD ;)

#janie rants #yes my fantasy book is the upgraded version of the sw ST fandom #I MEAN THAT WAS AN EXEMPLAR CASE WHAT DO YOU THINK XD #fandom for ts #valentinevilleforts #ask post

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