#but also caricatures of themselves

[haterlain]

Been going through season 6 of Rick and Morty (don't laugh) after not realizing it had released throughout 2022. I've never been more than a passive fan of the show since being introduced to it in middle school by a friend when it first came out, but despite its criticism and notorious reputation it honestly always had a bit of a sentimental place in my heart. Like, watching it throughout the years yeah it's not exactly the best show ever but I guess it's just one of the few things i've somehow managed to pretty consistently follow along since its beginning. Anyway, I'm really surprised by how much I'm enjoying this season. Especially with the notable decline in season 5... I remember finishing like 90% of its episodes not being able to even pity list a good quality about it. But every episode of season six has honestly been able to impress me in some way. Maybe I've just become a bigger sucker for stupid smartass humor and sci-fi tech animation but I really did find every single episode really fun to a very embarrassing amount. I don't know how to describe it but I feel like the season also exemplifies a sort of "sweet spot" the show has been able to find in itself. The biggest critiques of the show are undeniably its reliance on metahumor and the inconsistencies of the capabilities of Rick, but something about s6 makes these elements "work" to me in some way that that wasn't able to be done in s5. Sure, it's still lazy but it didn't take away from my enjoyment like the last season did. Anyway, I just wanted to put my thoughts out since I'm wondering if any other people felt the same way?

#perhaps my enjoyment of really weird dimensional plotlines and dynamics is just bc i grew up being a homestuck fan #idk how to describe it but both medias use their characters in a way where they exist both as three dimensional beings #but also caricatures of themselves #something abt it morphs the experience . idk #rick and morty #it kind of feels like they let go and just did what felt right to them even if it was ridiculous #like it kiiiind of feels like some select people really wanted certain things to happen and they were like ykw sure whatever #whereas maybe building up to season 5 they approached the series in a way where they felt confined to provide what they believed was expect #idk man my ritalin is kicking in #im going to rewatch the series and realize that my humor just devolved and s6 is just as shit as s5 #also omfh say what you want abt the show but i absolutely love the visual design #the background art is rlly well done #and the stupid little gimmicks and scifi tech do unfortunstley make me soyjack and clap my hands like tom cruise #SORRY FOR THE YAPPING SESH LMFAOOOO

[tanadrin]

genuinely curious what the guys running boeing think the problem with boeing is. bad press blowing up safety concerns out of proportion? revenue-maximizing ideas were sound in principle, but they were failed by their underlings? i certainly doubt it is genuine self-critical remorse. but i would be curious to know where they think they went wrong.

#maybe those that made bank and got out while they could just feel smug? #i suppose that's also a possibility #though i think most people don't conceive of *themselves* as villainous caricatures

[greensaplinggrace]

it’s kind of strange going back to sab s1 after s2. like the writing and atmosphere and characters are noticeably better. i mean season 1 was still camp ya fantasy, and it had it’s own problems, but it was really solid. it was genuinely fun to watch and it felt consistent. the characters acted like real people. all of that is lost in s2. it legitimately feels like the writing changed hands.

#this is honestly genuinely confusing to me #like i dont understand what happened #s1 is actually decent #like it's not a great feat of writing but it's solid and fun and the characters feel real #and then s2 is just... some of the worst writing i've ever seen #i mean the characters dont only act like one dimensional caricatures of themselves #they're also just different?? where they shouldn't be? #its not even character development its just bizarre changes #myramblings #shadow and bone #sab #grishaverse #sab negativity #negative #kinda

[lastparty]

reading the review of yellowface in cleveland rb these bits are wild to me how do you critique the publishing industry and avoid talking about capitalism...

#i dont think i will read yf and probably not babel either but its interesting that both have gotten similar critiques #of racism being presented in a caricatured and villanish way that ignores the subtleties of instiutional racism #which also seems to exonerate white readers who can reassure themselves they aren't like that(?) as if it isn't Systemic #not to 'who is this for' but: who is this for. thats my haterism for today

[aroceu]

honestly shout out to girls who have no actual depiction of them in most (if any) form of media. girls who can't see themselves physically represented by any fictional characters; girls who can't relate with the largely tropey writing of any female character that exists. womanhood--and frankly, general personhood--is not restricted to how it is depicted in fiction or on screen. your identity as a person and as a woman is not tied to what other people think women should be like; it is tied into your acceptance and love of yourself.

#terfs dni #(rb ok) #this is kind of an extension of my other reblog with the tags talking about how people don't know how to write female characters as flawed #people. they only know how to write female characters as flawed women #and therefore there are a lot of caricatures of women across different fictional media that can look the same #because many of them are written to be women before they're written to be people #therefore not only do many people (women included) walk around with this kind of mindset but they also think real life women fit into these #categories. and if they don't feel like they fit into one then they will try to make themselves fit into one #but the thing is women are as diverse as any other demographic #and particularly for women who DON'T see themselves represented as one of these fictional caricatures of a woman #then they tend to feel out of place. not woman enough or too weird to be a woman feeling on the outskirts of being a girl and being human #of course a huge part of this comes from my own experiences in feeling this Otherness as well #but people as a species love to generalize and categorize in and gender roles and presentation is like one of the oldest forms of this #but there are no 'rules' to being a woman beyond identifying as a woman in some way #the same way there are no 'rules' to being anything else

[agentgreenbean]

the bar for good youtubers is on the floor at this point. the 2 standards i still have for a youtuber are dont be a bigot and dont be a creep. and preferably dont be annoying as a person either but sometimes i'll take what i can get

#green speaks #i also just stopped watching most gaminf creators in general. bc they Almost Always either turn out to be creeps or #become caricatures of themselves to get more views

[lesbianyosano]

Literally so real for kousano!! I never rly liked it also for that exact reason uhhhhh round 4 except these are just semi popular ships i don’t really care about about: fukumori taniatsu sigma/Nikola

fukumori: there was that post a while back that went ‘oh fukuchi is the ex husband and mori is the side piece that got too attached’ and that’s basically it to me

taniatsu: it’s cute and i don’t mind it but sskk/atsulucy are my favourites

sigma/nikolai: i think sigma would rather kill himself than date this freak, also i’m a biased fyolai enjoyer <3

#sorry this took so long afsgsgsghsdh easter dinners took me out </3 #and the kousano thing: god i’m so glad someone agrees i feel like an insane person when i say i dislike it bc i think it the most popular #lesbian ship but it also feels like ppl only ship them bc they’re similar age #and because they can easily be girlbossified and made into shallow caricatures of themselves #thank you again :3 #ask

[cacaitos]

generally yk when male mangaka writes a 'trans' character bc it's always like. hey i write male and female characters in markedly different ways(visibly unaware), heres a trans dude in my grimmy darkcore series, despite me not ever giving a fuck about any of my cis male characters' asses i am very invested on getting my trans dude in sexually compromising and assault-y situations for no particular reason.

#txt #when it's transfem charecters and it's not the automatic caricature it's gender affirming the they write them #in the same useless weak (also sexually compromising) way they do w their cis female characters i guess. #so like Hole (with more steps) and Hole (exotic). #greater comonality noticed in ones written by male mangaka That Are Weird is that they just wanna fuck whatever. #female mangaka That Are Weird want people to kill themselves instead.

[hostilecityshowdown]

if all you can do with your luchadors is repeatedly unmask them on television, you're already too far gone and need to seriously rethink even agreeing to book these people in the first place.

#[ colour commentary ] #hard break up after being so excited for the stories they used to tell but we're cancelling cable because... we only have it for aew #idk man. at least the whole mysterio unmasking at wcw was intended to further ANYONE'S career and it sort of worked? #in terms of how much... anything Could work at wcw at that time #i really respect lucha libre and an unmasking spot shocks me as much as a serious injury work or a big spot #but. it is a Bad sort of shock. i do not want to see it. i don't care if the lucha brothers consented/scripted it themselves hypotheically #they're my favourite modern tag team and they are luchadores and i am so fucking tired of seeing the AAA belts around ftr's waist #in the same promotion as mexican people and luchadores. idk man! #somehow aew is doing ruthless aggression wwe and attitude era wwf and the death of ecw and Stop He's Already Dead wcw at the same time #long post #[ not wrestling ] #i also think a lot of viewers don't like marina because she's a woman who is a person. not a woman playing the caricature of a woman.

[mabelsguidetolife]

the 1900 hot dog guys critiqued slash fic somebody wrote about their former coworkers at cracked…….

#he wouldn’t fucking say that: rpf edition #it’s so uncomfortable because these dudes were playing extremely caricatured personas of themselves for the site #and this person seemed to think this dynamic was real #also they noted that they were breaking the social contract of pretending you don’t know dirty fic about you or your friends exists #u don’t think I have to say this but it was really bad

[linabirb]

OK BUT NO YOURE SO RIGHT????? LIKE IM A FIRM BELIVER THAT IF THEY WERENT GOING TO DO GLOMAS PT2 (which I will die on the hill that wasnt yanna's decision, no source just theory cause we all know how the mouse is) THEY SHOULDEVE AT LEAST DONE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Like Oggie Boogie would've been thousands times more interesting the whatever the hell ferro was. Although his brother was cute and can do no wrong in my eyes.

i genuinely want to write glomas part 2 just for fun because they literally gave us a WHOLE NEW LOCATION AND A WHOLE NEW SCHOOL AND ACTUALLY COOL-LOOKING NPCS and then they just. yeah, they ended it there. i mean, at least we got playable rollo, but still. and yes, a nightmare before christmas event would be so cool! idk, like if disney wanted more money, they could've just. made glomas part 2, i think that would be a better decision and it would also sort of.. make sense, i guess? first of all, rollo did say to malleus that "they will meet again", it could also give a better reason why rollo is in nrc now and also the first two halloween events were kinda connected (you know, same outfits and all), so i think it would also be better for glomas to be like that? i don't know, the playful land event just felt very underwhelming to me and also, the cards are just.. not it for me. the untrained versions of the ssrs basically scream "YOOOO ISN'T THIS SO DARK AND EDGY AND SCARY" to me. and also, choosing the hunchback of notre dame for glomas was such a good decision, because it's definitely a classic, but still very underrated (i've literally watched it only once in my entire life jdkdslls), so it feels like something cool and new, meanwhile. pinocchio. we got SO MANY PINOCCHIO MOVIES RECENTLY. LEAVE THE PUPPET BOY ALONE.

#i really want to watch the translation of the event but also i just. can't be bothered #like the first two episodes made my brain go numb. why are they so stupid. #there's nothing more frustrating than seeing these characters go from “huh ferro is kinda suspicious” to “HE'S SO COOL” in like two minutes #and no i hate the “oh it's bc they're so silly <3” and “it's because of magic!!” explanations #most twst characters literally don't feel like themselves to me anymore. it's like they're just.. caricatures #idk maybe i'm just getting bored i've been into twst since 2020 jfdkslsls #[ 💌 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬 ] #[ 💕 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐚'𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 ] #[ 🧇 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝: 𝐯𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 ]

[definitelynotplanetfall]

@max1461

My hot take is that travel is an Extremely Neurotypical hobby, in the sense that if you are constantly pissing off people from "your own" culture for reasons they cannot articulate, the prospect of going somewhere that you possibly don't know the language to potentially piss off more people (and as has been kindly shouted from the rooftops your entire life, it is more assholish per person you piss off from cultures other than "your own.") will be a very unpleasant one. This is of course stunting in the obvious ways but it reflects a real trauma - Morlock recently wrote about this substantially more eloquently than I have here. Moreover the non-resource-intensive methods of traveling (by which I'm guessing you mean, like, backpacking/hitchhiking) rely on a lot of outdoorsiness, a lot of winging things, and a lot of "your lodging is dependent on your ability to navigate Socials with a new stranger every night." Which is not so good if you hate the outdoors, need something reliable to fall back on because your improvisations reliably fail, and have trouble convincing even people you have an existing rapport with that you experience your experiences. Doubly not so good if you're constantly having this shoved down your throat as Living The Life or The Only Way To Be A Full Person. It's like, lamenting that there are all these fucking normies to sift through.

…

My scorching thermonuclear uncharitable take is that crooning about the edifying and transformative power of travel and if only republicans traveled abroad they would immediately repent switch party affiliation (but they won't travel because they know travel would fix them and they are intrinsically evil and want to remain evil, and for absolutely no other imaginable reason), and treating your dating profile as a resume where you should sculpt yourself to be someone you hate in order to be more median-appealing and if you don't you have no right to complain about loneliness, are both coded to a specific type of 2010s libbish thinkpiecista who holds others to standards they would never hold themselves to while forgetting that other people don't have unlimited money and time and does the "live monastically without any pleasures until you hit it big" thing republicans like to do but emotionally instead of materially speaking. In this case the insult is closer to "you are a shallow person who is treating this like a checklist of how to be the one allowable person instead of a search for compatibility." If this is the motivation it's super unwarranted based on just someone liking travel but also it is kind of hard not to go "yeah same" on some level.

#your own is in quotes because while i am immersed in this culture i do not really identify with it and think it sucks #i am kind of a travelhater for the former reason and also bc i hate airports #also my parents dragged me along to a lot of vacations full of stuffy museums when i was a kid so i have earned the right to dislike it #they considered themselves more morally pure than non-travelers and tourists and were noisy abt it. #in canada we stayed in a bunch of family bed and breakfasts and my dad made a point of telling every one we were travelers not tourists #he was a caricature of himself even back then

[masterhallmark]

Rant incoming

I feel like the problem with a lot of Disney's live action remakes (and arguably Wish) is they're trying to appeal to a crowd that no longer exists, namely the people who used to claim that the Disney Princesses were sexist.

All the interviews tend to include, "Well she's not chasing a MAN anymore" which...almost no one sees the princesses like that, anymore. Virtually NO ONE still believes the princesses are man-chasing sexist caricatures of women.

Cinderella is now hailed as an abuse victim who stayed strong long enough to get help to get out of her situation. Anyone who says she should have saved herself is basically regarded as a victim blamer. And it's very clear in the film she wasn't looking to marry the prince, she just wanted a night off. She was the only one who wasn't in line to meet him. She didn't find out she met the prince until he went looking for her!

Snow White is now hailed for her negotiation skills, ability to calm down after extreme stress (she had a moment of panic and had to cry for a bit, but who wouldn't after finding out The Queen hired someone to kill you?), and ability to take charge of a house of adult men. And again, she was an abuse victim, this time trying to escape ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS. While she dreamed of her prince, it was secondary to her main goal of SURVIVAL. There are also entire video essays about how Snow White gave hope to people during The Great Depression.

Everyone acknowledges that Ariel wanted to be human BEFORE meeting Eric. We all know she was a nerd hyperfixating on humans, and also standing up to her prejudiced father.

We understand Sleeping Beauty wasn't the main character, the Three Good Fairies were, AND PHILLIP WOULD NEVER HAVE BEATEN MALEFICENT WITHOUT THEM! He literally depended on them! WOMEN SAVED THE DAY! But even then, is it really such a sin for a girl to fantasize about romance and fall for someone with corny pickup lines?

We all understand Jasmine just wanted someone to treat her LIKE A PERSON. She rejected every Prince before Aladdin because they treated her like a prize. So why did they need her to want to be Sultan? How did that make her more feminist when she already wanted to be treated like an equal and have a say in her future? Is it only empowering if you want a career in politics?

We admire that Belle, despite living in a judgemental village, was kind to everyone (even though she found the village life dull), and her story teaches girls that the guy everyone else loves isn't always a good guy. What's sexist about teaching girls about red flags? And she didn't start being nice to The Beast until he started treating her with respect and kindness.

Do I really NEED to defend Mulan or Tiana? I think they speak for themselves.

Rapunzel was yet another abuse victim who just needed a little help to get out of her bad situation. In this case, she also needed to learn that she was an abuse victim, and that what Mother Gothel did WASN'T normal, much like many victims of gaslighting.

And don't get me started on the non-princess animals.

Perdita had a healthy relationship with Pongo to the point she was open to express her pregnancy fears to him, and was ready to TEAR APART Cruella's goons for daring to touch her puppies as well as adopting the other puppies. Like, she was so ferocious the goons mistook her for a hyena! She's basically that "I AM THAT GIRL'S MOTHER!" scene from SpyXFamily if Yor were a dog. She and her husband were a TEAM.....but they made a Cruella live action to turn her into a girlboss?! The literal animal abuser!? THAT'S the woman you wanted to put on a pedestal when Perdita was RIGHT THERE!?

Duchess kept her kittens calm after they had been catnapped and was classy as heck. Nice to everyone regardless of social class during a time period where that was uncommon.

Lady stood up to Tramp when she believed he had abandoned her and didn't really care about her. She found out he was a heartbreaker and was like, "Nuh uh. No. You are not doing that to me! You put me through enough."

Miss Bianca from The Rescuers was IN CHARGE the whole movie, and was willing to risk life and limb to save an innocent child. THAT TINY MOUSE TOOK ON ALLIGATORS! And she picked Bernard to accompany her because he was the only one who wasn't ogling her. And then in the sequel SHE DID IT ALL AGAIN! I wish I were as brave as her.

Like, the public haven't accused these ladies of being sexist caricatures since 2014 (Actresses and actors don't count, they're out of touch like the rest of Hollywood) yet Disney is operating under the assumption that the public still thinks that way, hence all the "sHe'S nOt AfTeR a MaN iN ThIs VeRsIOn" talk.

The live action remakes are trying to attract an audience that doesn't really exist much, anymore, and back when it did exist, was comprised mainly of people who didn't actually watch the films. The Disney princesses are no longer seen as sexist, and feminine qualities are no longer seen as weak or undesirable.

#the rescuers #disney #101 dalmatians #perdita #miss bianca #rapunzel #tangled #princess and the frog #tiana #the three good fairies #flora #merriweather #fauna #snow white #sleeping beauty #Cinderella #ariel #the little mermaid #beauty and the beast #belle #aristocats #duchess #lady and the tramp #jasmine #aladdin #long #wish

[txttletale]

genuine question--would you mind clarifying why the use of trans lesbian is bad in reference to a trans person who is a lesbian? am i missing some context? i tried googling but i got mostly just a lot of vile garbage. nw if you're done talking about this topic, that is understandable. have a nice day (saluting emoji which i dont have but please imagine it here)

sure. 'trans lesbian' is, like, a compound word that means specifically 'a trans woman who is a lesbian', and not just 'someone who is trans and a lesbian', in the same way that idk a 'little finger' isn't just 'a finger that is small'. & obviously i am all for recognizing that labels are just labels, that words are not the things themselves, but 1. this is not, like, some weird backformation or super restrictive definition that people make up to mean arguments, it's how that word is used in common practice by queer orgs, media outlets, the UN, and 2. i think that there is context here that makes it pretty important to be extremely clear about who is and isn't a trans lesbian in this sense.

the context is that trans lesbians (ie, trans women, who are lesbians) are like at the center of the hurricane of transphobia across the world right now. ray blanchard, the fucking pioneer of modern pseudoscientific transmisogyny, specifically singles out the 'autogynophiles' (as opposed to the 'homosexual transsexuals, who are trans women attracted to men') as dangerous perverts. TERF's most hateful transmisogynistic caricatures and canards of trans women as dangerous sexual predators who are threat to Women's Spaces are implicitly about the Trans Lesbian. it's a term that sent the entire transphobia industrial complex into overdrive when it was used in some UN org's tweet:

these headlines are not about Trans people who are also Lesbians--both these articles are filled with all the usual bile about how trans women are really sexually predatory men who want to infilitrate womanhood. neither of the people writing these articles would like leslie feinberg for sure, but they also wouldn't think of hir as a Dangerous Predator Infilitrationg Women's Spaces. & so when the trans lesbian is the fucking like cultural boogeyman that politicians are determined to performatively target and punish, i think that using that language to describe people who aren't transfem is diluting our ability to talk about this kind of transmisogyny.

& i mean like, this is not just an abstract concern, right, because the instant that i initially took issue with was someone essentially saying 'wow, why do you think that people who obsess over SBB specifically and The 80s more generally as the end-all be-all of Queerness and Lesbianhood tend towards a transmisogynist view of thoes things when leslie feinberg is literally a trans lesbian.' like it is explictly and obviously a rhetorical sleight of hand which is why i treated that ask with the contempt it deserved.

#ask

[tbposting]

I've started One Piece but frankly am very cautious with actually continuing and investing a lot of time and energy into the work because I'm aware of the transphobia and the general... everything surrounding characters like Brook. I haven't chosen to invest in a long running Shonen since about 15 years ago, before coming to terms with my sexuality, and I fear that a lot of stuff I'll find to be inexcusable. Are the allegations blown out of proportions, or should I be worried?

Well, I don't think I can help you on what you'll find inexcusable or excusable, that's a very personal line that everyone draws for themselves, ultimately. I love One Piece deeply, but I refuse to make excuses for its shortcomings. Like all great works of art, it is flawed.

For something like twenty years, One Piece's primary depiction of visible queerness and transfemininity were the Newkama.

Which... fucking sucks, frankly. Visually, these are designs based 100% on "ha ha ha ugly men in dresses who think they're feminine, ha ha ha" as a joke. They are ridiculous caricatures, and you are meant to find them funny and laugh at their delusions of femininity.

It's a depiction that derives from extant stereotypes of transfemininity and homosexuality in Japanese culture, which... aren't really my place to speak authoritatively on. I know that there are some complexities re: drag culture, reclamation and performance culture, and Japanese queer and trans people have a diversity of thoughts and opinions on both One Piece and the "okama" stereotype more broadly. I can't speak to any of that, that's not really my lane, so I'll just say that from MY perspective, the depiction of the Newkama as visual designs comes across as a dismissive, mean-spirited and frankly cruel depiction of transfemininity.

In addition to that, it should also be said that the Kamabakka are unequivocally heroic and explicitly depicted as correct and morally right in their identities and culture.

This is Bon Clay and Ivankov, two major okama characters in One Piece. If Ivankov looks familiar that's because he's based on Dr. Frank N. Furter from Rocky Horror Picture Show. Ivankov is a major heroic ally of the Straw Hats, and Bon Clay is commonly considered one of THE most beloved and heroic supporting characters in the entire story. One Piece fans will DIE for Bon Clay, you can find tiktoks of people openly weeping with love for this man. If I ever appeared on camera, I would be one of them.

Setting aside their presentation as designs, One Piece goes out of its way to show these characters fighting, sacrificing and standing up for their friends and their communities. It goes out of its way to present their humanity, their compassion and their kindness, and to humanize them to the audience.

The ultimate villains of One Piece are the World Government, a hyper-authoritarian militaristic feudal government with a policy of absolute conformity to authority, and the Newkama and their queerness are explicitly framed as standing in opposition to that evil, and as representatives and avatars of freedom.

Freedom is one of One Piece's central themes, and it very explicitly includes freedom from gender roles and gender norms in that idea. The Newkama, among other things, also stand for freedom of presentation, freedom of gender, and freedom of self-determination. Whatever gender you want, whatever you want to wear, who and whatever you want to be, the Newkama say you can and should be those things, and damn what anyone else thinks.

Newkama Land where these story scenes take place are literally a haven of freedom carved out by queer people inside the walls of a deep-ocean prison that the World Government tried to throw them into to torture and destroy them, which is, objectively speaking, metal as fuck.

I think these story ideas are extremely queer-positive and trans-inclusive, and I think it reads like the work of someone who has queer people's backs and wants them to be part of the worlds that he makes.

...

Which makes it all the more frustrating that the Newkama are the only explicit depictions of transness and queerness in One Piece for literal decades. On the one hand, the story is vocally accepting and inclusive, on the other hand, everyone everywhere is presented as cis and straight with vanishingly few exceptions. Queer people exist in One Piece, but only really in the designated Queer Person Faction, rather than as an endemic presence in the world. It's very Planet of Hats in that way.

(inb4 yes I know Luffy is shown essentially as aro-ace, yes I also agree that Nami definitely has a thing going on with Vivi and projects hella lesbian energy. Yes you can absolutely do a queer reading of the story and its characters, and I do that and I love to do that, but there's a difference between something being open to queer interpretation and a story actually telling explicitly queer stories)

It's not until we reach the Wano arc, one of the most recent story arcs, that Oda really gets around to depicting forms of gender non-conformity and transness outside of the boundaries of the Newkama and the "okama" visual stereotype. He's been rightly praised for making those new creative choices (and Yamato is MY BOY I fucking love him), but it still took a quarter of a century for One Piece to even HAVE a transmasc character.

On the one hand its explicit text is quite radically inclusive, the themes and what the story SAYS presents queerness and queer people as good things that make the world a better, richer and freer place. People who try to eradicate or oppress queerness are, without exception, the enemy.

On the other hand, it just hasn't been very good at actually depicting queerness, except as cartoonish stereotypes and very, very occasional exceptions to the cishet status quo.

The portrayal of the Newkama, visually, arrive from a tradition of transphobic, homophobic stereotypes, and I don't blame anyone from being alienated by that. Placing them on the side of the good guys doesn't cancel out the problematic aspect of using those kinds of depictions in the first place, and I am not interested in making excuses for it.

I love One Piece, deeply, I think it is a wonderful story, and I find it very affirming of queerness as a mode of being. But I'm not going to argue with anyone who feels differently.

#tb answers #one piece

[ominous-sunshine]

In the world of TLOU, same sex marriage was never legal. We are talking time stopped in 2003- the most visible queerness was Will and Grace and the like. They didn’t get to see themselves in that world like we can sometimes today.

Bill and Frank’s marriage is even more meaningful in that context.

Edit: Some additional context- in 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act ( DOMA) became law of the land in the United states. DOMA defined marriage as a the union of one man and one woman, and it further allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states, areas.

On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state and the sixth jurisdiction in the world to legalize same-sex marriage but against the back drop of DOMA there were of course complications. Other states such as Vermont had civil unions.

A supreme court decision in 2013 found DOMA unconstitutional and in 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges found that states must license and recognize same-sex marriages. Bill and Frank were probably very aware of the debate in the early 2000's and they absolutely were alive for the AIDs epidemic. There is a lot of history here- much more then I intended to get into with this post. Also, to be clear, the government does not need to be involved to validate anyone's love. What I really wanted to say is that Bill and Frank exist in a time when gay representation was extremely limited. They didn't get to grow up seeing themselves in media. When you saw a gay character on screen it was often a caricature. The world stopped for them fall 2003 and at that time, gay rights were very much a hotly debated thing. To make one of the last things you do in your life to get married in light of the world *they* grew up in just hit me hard.

#the last of us spoilers #hbo the last of us #the last of us #Bill and Frank