#it feels very lacking and frustrating when it comes to the characters' gender identities

[theirwolfbicanthrope]

also if anyone has urban fantasy, high fantasy, and/or monster romance book recs that really break down the gender binary I would be most appreciative!

#book recs #gender issues #as a bisexual enby who leans femme and identified as female most of my life i am a sucker for traditional monster romance #but sometimes i really really wish FANTASY and SCIFI books weren't so overwhelmingly focused on male and female #even some of the ones that have queer romances #it feels very lacking and frustrating when it comes to the characters' gender identities #also yes I can enjoy me some breeding kink but also all the breeding and pregnancy shit and gender stuff is also exhausting #idk if this makes any sense #I myself am still struggling with my own identity and learning #which might be why I crave outside the box fantasy books when it comes to gender rep

[haus-mom]

8, 9, 16 :)

UNAAAAAAAAAAAA THANK YOU SM <33333

8. Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

Gonna get my ass kicked for this, but Mizuki is not confirmed nonbinary and their arc is actually very far from being about that. "But they use they/them pronouns!" In the English translation, sure, but I feel like the translators have gotten themselves in some sort of loop they can't come out of. I understand that their gender is officially "?" but others referring to Mizuki with they/them doesn't make sense, since they're fem presenting.

It's so incosistent too! Kanade uses she/her for Mizuki to herself ONCE and then resumes using they/them

I think I've mentioned this a few times, but I would've done it very differently. N25 is not aware of Mizuki's genderfuckery, and they're fem presenting, so it's likely they'd use she/her. Same with people who are vaguely acquaintanced with them, like Tsukasa, Shizuku or Emu. Akito is aware of the rumours, but him not telling Ena means he couldn't care less, so it's likely he'd use she/her too.

What about An and Rui, who are aware of Mizuki's identity? That's the complicated part, since they'd give away Mizuki's gender. I guess I'd do my best to avoid using gendered pronouns? It'd be kinda hard, but at least it'd MAKE SENSE. If they're talking about Mizuki to other characters, they'd probs use she/her too regardless.

I haven't really read the new JP event, but they probably don't clear anything up when it comes to Mizuki's gender. I was hoping Mizuki's sister would say something like "oh mizuki's my sister/whatever" but in the summary I've read, as sweet as it seems, we're still kept in the dark. Oh well.

"But that'd be misgendering!" YES! THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T TELL PEOPLE ABOUT YOUR GENDER! PEOPLE TEND TO ASSUME! Plus, if Mizuki's not a trans girl not saying pronouns = gender, that's not what i'm going for here or nonbinary, and they're just an otokonoko (unlikely, but they can still pussy out, even though they had Mizuki singing villain, but whateeeeeeever), wouldn't they/them be misgendering them too?

It's frustrating, like, if you hc Mizuki as nb that's fine, but can people please stop going for the throats of those who use she/her for them? Not that hard, I promise!

9. Worst part of canon

Canon seems to be hellbent on having some duos as default, with little to no deviations. Leo/Need does this the least, but sometimes they do fall into Ichika+Saki/Honami+Shiho territory.

WxS also doesn't do this often, as it's very well balanced, but when it comes to mix events it's... Not that great. Rui+Emu is surprisingly lacking in content as well, I feel like they're in the background, which is a shame because I like them a lot.

MMJ is truly neutral. We have fun interactions all around, but Airi+Haruka is even worse than Rui+Emu. Please they are THE STRONGEST!!!! give them an event together. I'm sure they'd crush it.

N25 sucks so bad, like so, so, so bad. Most of the time it's Kanade+Mafuyu/Mizuki+Ena. I think they're trying to fix it, but since Mafuyu and Kanade are now roommates, it's... Not really working. Last Kanade event barely had Mafuyu on it, and that's something I really don't like about canon? N25 is overreliant on Mafuyu and sometimes it feels like the other member's problems take a backseat because Mafuyu's are more important. And that sucks. Kanade has it the worst of all because even in events where she miraculously gets away (? from her, she's still thinking of saving her. I get Kanade is very goal-driven and is determined to save her, but... Just Mafuyu? Like in Spojoy when Minori tells Kanade she should take time to herself because she's also important and that she'll be there for her, Kanade instantly thinks "Of course... I want to see Mafuyu smile!" and canon portraying this as a good thing and Kanade improving as a person SUCKS. SUCKS SO BAD. Thanks Kaito for telling her to snap out of it. Samsa is one of the greatest comm songs imo but it's about Mafuyu. The whole event was about Mafuyu's story.

I get it, but they've left Kanade's dad's plotline untouched for TWO WHOLE YEARS, it's what i said about the other member's problems taking a backseat. Mizuki I get, running away is their thing and they seem to be doing good by relating to Mafuyu, but... Augh.

VBS is the poster child for duos. They're the only group where the members don't all use their first names. Just look at their card cameos. And their mix events too... Free them please...

Once I saw someone say "VBS isn't just duos, they have dynamics!" and they sure have them! Wish they got moments to develop them besides card stories and area convos!

16. You can't understand why so many people like this thing

Unironically? Akito x Toya. They're the most milquetoast, boring ship imaginable and nothing interesting ever happens with them. Sometimes you need fluffy ships and I get it, but you can get the same dynamic better within the game itself. To me they're that kind of friends who are super close and thought of dating but they're just so close dating just feels out of the question lol

The way they met doesn't make sense. Like, Akito saw Toya singing and went "oh i want this one", even though he was doing street music just to piss his dad off. Then he sees Kohane and goes "i want that hamster OBLITERATED", because she "wasn't taking it seriously", it just doesn't make sense! If it was called out sure, but Akito being a hypocrite is never brought up ever again. Their conflict in the main story was pretty dumb too. And from then on they just. Go with the flow. I love Toya and Akito separately so please let them be apart.

Whoever has talked to me about proseka for more than 5 minutes knows 2 things: I love Tsukasa Tenma and I really, really dislike Kanade x Mafuyu. The fact that they're the most popular ship for one another evades me. Kanade and Mafuyu aren't good for each other AT ALL.

"But Kanade is doing her best to save Mafuyu!" That's exactly the thing! At the beginning of the game, Kanade was constantly trying her best to save Mafuyu, and Mafuyu in exchange worried about Kanade... Because she's trying to save her. Kanade saw Mafuyu as a big wall, something to prove she's capable of saving others with her music.

"They got better! Kanade sees Mafuyu as a friend now!" ... And Mafuyu is still the same. Ena told her that the least she could do is thank her in Carnation Recollection, but did she? No, she but she was nicer... To Emu. Mafuyu, at least up until Ena's second focus, still wants Kanade to keep composing for her sake. I know she's been bending over backwards to please others since forever and N25 is her safe place to rest, but Ena is right. The least she could do is thank her.

"Since they're living together, Mafuyu is taking care of Kanade!" ... Is she really? She just cleans around a bit, but as for eating and having a better sleeping schedule, Mafuyu is just as bad. Does Mafuyu have to take care of Kanade? Not really, it's not her obligation. But Mafuyu never does anything to stop Kanade from indulging into her unhealthy habits, including overworking herself. Some people keep talking about toxic yuri and... There it is! I have no problem if it's being portrayed like that, but most portrayals have it be wholesome and good, and it isn't, not at all.

Like with Akit-ya I can see why people ship them! They're cute! Kan-mafu though... That's another story.

#proseka #do i want this on the tag. do i want people kicking my ass. maybe. #mizuki akiyama #kanade yoisaki #project sekai #don't like bringing negativity into the tag but #eh #alma rambles #alma answers #feel free to educate me but i know i'm right (???

[thottybrucewayne]

Speaking of Do the Right Thing, here's some companion films to watch with it!

Uptight (1968) Dir. Jules Dassin ||A drama based on the novel The Informer, Uptight is a film set post-MLK assassination, focusing on a group of Black revolutionaries preparing for a race war and betrayal from within their ranks.|| Like Do the Right Thing, Uptight is about a cast of young Black folks struggling with the society they live in being built on white supremacy and how they navigate that, whether it be through resistance or assimilation. Basically, it is a mediation on Black American identity (Another movie I recommend watching with this one specifically is The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973) dir. Ivan Dixon is based on a play by the same name that deals with the same themes through the POV of a Black former CIA agent)

Cornbread, Earl, and Me (1975) Dir. Joseph Manduke ||"High school basketball star Nathaniel "Cornbread" Hamilton (Keith Wilkes) is the pride of his urban neighborhood, and he appears destined for big things on the court and in the classroom. But a dare leads to a fatal misunderstanding when Nathaniel is shot dead by police who take him for someone who's just committed a violent crime. As police officers try to protect one of their own, members of the oppressed African-American community do what they must in order to find justice."|| This film is the one I feel has the most in common with Do the Right Thing, there are many parallels to be drawn from both Radio Raheem and Cornbread to the way cops are presented in both films. Both tell stories that are unfortunately prescient, a misunderstanding that a Black person pays for with their life is the sad reality of the society we live in. Each film also feels like a time capsule, which makes the reality that things haven't changed that much hit so much harder. Each film paints a sobering picture of Policing, race relations in America, and the demonization of Blackness.

Higher Learning (1995) Dir. John Singleton // A group of incoming freshmen at Columbus University -- including varsity athlete Malik Williams (Omar Epps), awkward outcast Remy (Michael Rapaport), and wide-eyed Kristen Connor (Kristy Swanson) -- struggle to find themselves and adjust to newfound independence. When Remy finds acceptance among a group of neo-Nazis, tensions rise even higher on a campus already divided along racial, socio-economic, and gender lines.// John Singleton's Higher Learning pulls no punches when it comes to the depiction of the banality of evil and the alt-right pipeline years before we even knew how to define it. In the character of Remy, we see the effects of white supremacist dogma coupled with white male insecurity. Like Do the Right Thing, Higher Learning mainly focuses on race relations on and policing. I do think its view of misogyny and gender was extremely lacking and not nearly as fleshed out. (like spoiler alert the Black girl that dies in this barely was a character like she's not very well written at all) but this movie is still very much worth the watch for the discussion of race alone.

La Haine (1996) Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz ||When a young Arab is arrested and beaten unconscious by police, a riot erupts in the notoriously violent suburbs outside of Paris. Three of the victim's peers, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Said (Said Taghmaoui), and Hubert (Hubert Koundé), wander aimlessly about their home turf in the aftermath of the violence as they try to come to grips with their outrage over the brutal incident. After one of the men finds a police officer's discarded weapon, their night seems poised to take a bleak turn|| I first saw this movie during my freshman year of college and WHEW! It's best to go in with little knowledge on this one but just know it is a VERY hard watch. This black-and-white French film brilliantly tackles police brutality, racism, classism, and the frustrations of youth demonized by a white supremacist system.

#Uptight (1968) dir. Jules Dassin #Cornbread Earl and Me (1975) dir. Jopesh Manduke #Higher Learning (1995) dir. John Singleton #La Haine (1996) dir. Mathieu Kassovitz #thotty speaks #thotty goes to the movies! #The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973) dir. Ivan Dixon #tw police brutality

[todomitoukei]

Okay, yeah, I didn’t contradict your interpretations with the intent to be rude, I was trying to actively forment discussion with someone who I think has an interesting interpretation of the characters, that perhaps might lead to even more in depth discussion of these issues and how they could play out not only within the story at hand, but by also examining the situation within several hypothetical spaces. Like, nature versus nurture, and what your takes perhaps are on how much that can affect a person’s sexuality, their openness and awareness, as well as freedom to explore themselves as opposed to feeling like they have to hide themselves. I didn’t make my own post, as it were, because a discussion of such issues is just that… a discussion. As someone who has an excellent bead on the character, as well as their own very clearly held takes, it was less about purposefully ‘disagreeing’ with you and far more in the interest of starting a dialogue. I simply stated my own take as a starting point, a place from which a discussion could go, as I was feeling curious about what led to your particular reading of Touya. Not everything that doesn’t agree with your own stated opinion is meant as a disavowment of that take or to antagonize or belittle your take on a character. I kinda thought people post and ask questions and such because we like talking about characters, exploring their dynamics, exploring the things about them we connect with, or the things we feel reflect ourselves. I could understand your ire if I had used rude language or was deliberately trying to bait you into an argument, but all I did was start with how I had personally seen Touya and then presented the question of seeing Touya through a different lens, how his possible development could have otherwise have happened, and explored that scenario. I also presented the question of what we can interpret of Fuyumi from the little we’re given of her, and how the Todo-kids seem to mostly eschew romantic pursuits in general, except notably, the one kid who received the least attention from their father. I simply thought it was an interesting point.

Maybe in the future just delete those questions you dislike rather than making earnest people, just interested in discussing the characters and the opinions of others, feel like total dicks just for being interested in what you have to say.

It seems you missed the part in my previous response where I said "I don't see the point in arguing with people's headcanons, especially when I didn't ask." - I'm still not asking. Me making posts or answering asks is not an invitation for other people to share their opinions. I did state that to me, Dabi and Shouto are aroace. Nowhere did I imply that I was interested in what other people think about this topic.

Headcanons are often very personal to people, especially when it comes to sexual/romantic/gender orientation because more often than not, people project their own identities onto characters, which is why it is so very frustrating that there is not a single post of someone interpreting a character as ace, aro, or aroace without there being at least one person saying "No, they're clearly something else" - again, there are many reasons as to why I find this problematic, starting with the lack of representation there is for aro/ace people. And even when people aren't outright disagreeing, then they're still often trying to "negotiate" so that their characters are still shippable. "Yeah, maybe they're ace, but they could still fall in love-" "They're ace, but then they meet THIS character and-" and many many more arguments that absolutely piss me off because yes, not every ace person is aro and both asexuality and aromanticism are spectrums, but people tend to make these arguments to justify completely ignoring the ace/aro aspect of the character and ship them with other characters, which is not the point of representation. So when I say "X character is aroace to me" and someone says "But-" it's an immediate red flag to me because I've seen this conversation too many times.

My headcanons aren't me trying to state facts. I'm not saying that either Dabi or Shouto is 100% aroace in the canon story. That is simply my personal headcanon and partially so because that is my identity and I relate to these characters in ways that I can't with other characters and that gives me comfort because it makes me feel less alone. And when someone tries to argue with my headcanon, it's just like people IRL dismissing my identity and that's not a fun experience. So whether or not it was your intention, it came across as rude and you don't get to argue with that unless you're actively trying to be an asshole.

Again, this is my headcanon. You can have a different one, but that's why I said make your own post. In that post, you could say "this is my take, what's yours?" and actively ask for people to share their opinions. But that's not what I did. In fact, there have been multiple occasions before, where I told people to make their own posts instead of arguing with my interpretations on my posts. Believe it or not, not everything people say online is an invitation for a discussion and if you disagree with someone, keep it to yourself or make a post without shoving your opinion down someone's throat.

What's more, when someone says that they didn't ask for someone else's opinion, the right thing to do is to just apologize and move on. Instead, you decided to send me another ask, claiming that I made you feel bad, whilst it's obviously you trying to make me feel bad for not humoring you.

For some reason, you were allowed to share your opinion on the matter without my consent, but now you claim that I am in the wrong and hurting your feelings? Then go find a blog that will just agree with everything you say, but this is not the blog. Never has, never will be.

"Maybe in the future just delete those questions" see, that's the thing with sending an ask, though. While me making a post isn't an invitation for other people to share their takes, sending an ask means you expect me to reply. But you don't get to choose what that reply is. This is my blog and if I don't like an ask, the tone someone uses with me, etc. I get to say and do whatever I want. You don't get to just walk into someone else's home, say "I don't like what you've done with this place" and then get offended with how they react. If you don't like people setting boundaries and whatnot, don't send asks. It's as simple as that. You don't get to be butthurt over this and I suggest you think a bit more about how you interact with people and that maybe it's you being the asshole and not the person you came to.

If you think you made an interesting point, make the post. But I don't care why Dabi is aroace. I don't think it matters if Endeavor hit the sexual and romantic attraction part right out of him, brainwashed him into being aroace to focus on becoming a hero, or whatever else you think happened here. The Dabi we see in the story with everything that has happened to him is the Dabi I'm talking about. Not a fanon version of him. In my interpretations, I focus on canon because I want to understand his character as best as possible, and thinking about fanon versions doesn't add anything to it because it's simply not relevant. It may be interesting to you, but it's not to me and that is something you simply have to deal with.

That being said, I kindly ask you to fuck off. Further asks will be deleted/blocked because I've said everything there is and if you still can't accept that or respect my boundaries, it's a you problem and I'm not gonna waste any more time on you.

#ask

[bluejayblueskies]

an ill-fitting definition

rating: M words: 4.3k relationships: jongeorgie, jontim, jonmartin, background wtgfs additional tags: canon compliant, pre-canon, scottish safehouse period, canon asexual character, fluff, kissing, implied sexual content, rumors and misconceptions

written for weeks two/three of @archivalpride for the prompts identity and doubt!

cw for misconceptions about asexuality, assumptions made about somebody’s sexuality, rumors and outing somebody without their knowledge, non-explicit/implied sexual content, mention of canonical character death, mention of canonical stalking and paranoia, gossip (including of the sexual nature), food, very mild blood, mild internalized acephobia

ao3 link in source

.

It’s three weeks and two days after they began dating, when Georgie picks up Jon’s hand where it’s clasped in hers and asks with plain curiosity in her voice, so does the ring, y’know, mean anything?, that Georgie hears the word asexual cross Jon’s lips for the first time.

It’s not a word she’s unfamiliar with; she’s run in enough LGBTQ spaces in her time in uni that she has a good idea of the breadth of identities that are out there. She rubs her thumb across Jon’s ring and thinks, in the voice of the gender and equality training instructor with sharp red heels and a “fun” black dress who’d stood in front of the seminar she’d been mandated to take for one of her courses:

Asexuality. A lack of sexual attraction. An aversion or repulsion to sexual activities.

It had been a small word on a large black-and-white slide, crammed in next to aromanticism and overcrowded by a myriad of other sexual identities discussed at length. It had been… quite a comprehensive training, Georgie thinks as she quits fidgeting with Jon’s ring and instead threads their fingers together. For a moment, she considers asking what he means anyway, but she quickly dismisses the thought. She wants to be supportive, and as Jon looks at her with open, trusting eyes and a faint smile, she decides that she knows enough. She doesn’t want to make it awkward, and with things like these, she’s found that asking Jon to explain his feelings in plain terms can be… well, awkward is certainly a word for it. Best just not to bring it up, she decides.

Still, she feels the need to ask, “Can I kiss you?” because the red no sex sign blinking on and off in her head is frustratingly vague on what, exactly, is contained within that stipulation. When Jon voices his assent, she tips her head up and presses a quick kiss to his chin before kissing him on the lips, wiping the disgruntled look off them.

So yes to kissing, she thinks, tucking that away next to no sex. Yes kissing, no sex. Yes holding hands, she adds as she squeezes Jon’s hand in hers and he smiles at her, warm and soft, that special side of Jon that she only sees on occasion. No pet names, she adds a week later when she tries out sweetheart and Jon’s nose wrinkles with displeasure. No foot rubs, when Jon swats at her and says, between giggles, that he’s awfully ticklish. Yes back rubs. Yes cuddling. No PDA. No touching with wet or sticky hands. Yes brushing hair.

That’s as far as she gets before, one year and two months after she begins dating Jonathan Sims, she stops. After which point she stops keeping track, because, well. There’s really no point anymore, is there?

.

.

.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, burying his head in his hands.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Tim says quickly, holding his hands in the air in a placating gesture. He scoots a few inches away from Jon on the couch for good measure, unsure just how much space Jon needs right now. “It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize—I should apologize. I should have asked first.”

“It’s just—” Jon makes a frustrated noise, and when he takes his hands away his cheeks are dark and he won’t meet Tim’s eyes. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s okay,” Tim repeats, watching with a twisting feeling in his stomach as Jon apparently notices that the button of his trousers is still undone and quickly goes to redo it. His eyes follow the movements of Jon’s hands automatically, and just as automatically, he notes the distinct lack of a tent in the front of Jon’s trousers. The same… cannot be said for his own. Particularly after nearly twenty minutes of kissing, which Tim had very much enjoyed.

Christ, had Jon been uncomfortable with that as well? All in a rush, Tim says, “Was the kissing bad too?” Then, he winces—fuck, that sounded accusatory—and adds, “It- it’s okay if it was, I just- I didn’t know, and I don’t want to do something that makes you uncomfortable, Jon.”

“No, the- the kissing was fine, it’s just...” Jon makes an aborted motion with his hands, like he’s trying and failing to find the words.

“... complicated?” Tim supplies.

Jon nods mutely.

“That’s okay,” Tim says, and he finds that he means it. “We don’t have to do anything more than kissing if you don’t want to.”

“I- I don’t…” Jon worries his bottom lip between his teeth. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, like he’s searching for the right words, the crease in his forehead deepening every moment he fails to find them. Finally, he lets out a long, labored breath, pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers, and says, “Yes, that… that might be best.”

Tim studies Jon’s face. It’s pinched and a bit stiff, like Jon would very much like to crawl out of his skin or melt into a puddle and disappear. “You sure?” he feels compelled to ask, placing a hand carefully on Jon’s knee. “You, uh. You seem a bit unsure.”

Jon sits there a moment more, spine straight and rigid, before melting slightly against Tim’s hand, his face slipping into something more relaxed but no less unhappy. “Yes.” He hesitates a moment, then says, a bit stiltedly, “I’m, um. I’m asexual. Since we’re already talking about this, I… I may as well get that out in the open as well.”

Oh. A few pieces slot into place, and Tim says with perhaps a bit more enthusiasm than necessary, “Oh. Why didn’t you tell—?” He cuts himself off and offers Jon a sheepish smile. “Sorry, sorry. That was rude of me. Thank you for telling me.”

“We’re dating,” Jon says bluntly. “It was going to come up eventually.”

“Still.” Tim shrugs, then reaches for Jon’s hand and holds it tightly in his. “Thanks.” He hesitates only a moment before leaning forward and pressing a quick kiss to Jon’s nose. Jon makes a disgruntled noise, which Tim thinks is adorable. Then, because it feels appropriate, he says, “Y’know, Danny… Danny was asexual. Aromantic too, actually. We had a big talk about it a few years ago where he sort of… laid it all out for me.” No sex, no romance, no thank you, had been the overall gist of it. Tim makes a new box for Jon and fills it in with the words no sex, yes romance, it’s complicated.

“Oh,” Jon says quietly, with that same sort of sadness in his eyes that he gets every time Tim mentions Danny, something much gentler than pity and significantly less cloying. If Tim notices the faint discomfort that accompanies it, something that whispers that isn’t my definition of asexuality, we’re not the same, you don’t understand if one were to listen closely enough, he doesn’t let on.

Tim does, however, notice the discomfort in Jon’s eyes—now mixed with anger—when two years, six months, and seven days later, he accuses Tim of murder. But by then, their days of hand-holding and nose-kissing are far, far behind them.

.

.

.

“Maybe he just needs to get laid,” Melanie says with a groan, lying on Georgie’s couch and staring at the ceiling. The Admiral is curled up on her lap, purring contentedly. She scratches absentmindedly under his chin.

“What, Jon?” Georgie appears in Melanie’s field of vision, wielding a damp wooden spoon and frowning.

“No. No.” Melanie shakes her head emphatically. “Martin. He’s been all… sulky lately. I think he’s still upset that Jon came to me instead of him for help, but I don’t know why he has to be all… touchy about it.”

“Ah. Well, you know, he is a bit hung up on Jon. At least, according to you.”

“I don’t see how that’s my problem,” Melanie says grumpily. “Besides, didn’t you say that Jon went on about Martin, like, all the time? Sounds like he’s got it bad as well. Maybe they could just… y’know.”

“Melanie.”

“What?” Melanie tries to shoot Georgie a glare, but it’s obstructed by the back of the couch. “I’m on my last nerve, Georgie!”

“I know, honey. But Jon’s really not… well, he’s not very open about these sorts of things. Getting him to talk about his feelings was like pulling teeth when we were together.”

“It still baffles me that you used to date.”

“He’s very sweet when you get to know him!” There’s a pause, a few clatters from the kitchen. “Besides, even if he and Martin got around to talking, Jon… well, he doesn’t.”

Melanie frowns. “Doesn’t what?”

“Have sex.”

“Really?” Melanie sits up, disturbing the Admiral, who lets out an irritated mrpp before adjusting himself accordingly and curling back up on her lap. “So when you were together…?”

Georgie shakes her head. “Nope. Never.”

“Huh.” Melanie thinks for a moment. “Is he like… religious or something?”

Georgie chuckles. “Jon? No, not at all. He’s asexual.”

“Isn’t that like… that thing that sponges are? Where they self-reproduce?”

“Seriously?”

Melanie scowls at the incredulous look Georgie’s giving her. “What? I’m not being a- a dick, I’ve just never heard of it before.”

“You were a YouTuber. Your job was to be internet famous.”

“Okay, now you’re just making fun of me.”

Georgie shoots Melanie a grin. “Sorry. Basically, it means that Jon doesn’t do sex. Like… at all. He just… doesn’t.”

“Huh,” Melanie says again.

“Yeah.” Georgie turns back to the stove. “Now, come here. Tell me if there’s too much salt?”

“Sorry Admiral,” Melanie whispers as she deposits him onto the floor and crosses the room to wrap her arms around Georgie’s waist from behind and take the bite of sauce on the spoon Georgie holds out for her. “Mm, tastes great. As always.”

And in the back of her mind, Melanie adds another line to the section labeled Jonathan Sims and writes, with careful handwriting, he doesn’t.

.

.

.

Although… according to Georgie, Jon doesn’t.

Martin pauses the tape and rubs his hands over his eyes. His cheeks are burning red, and he takes a few minutes to just breathe.

Doesn’t what? Doesn’t date? Doesn’t kiss? Doesn’t—

Martin stops that train of thought before it goes any further, the flush on his face growing in intensity. It’s none of my business, he tells himself as he ejects the tape and turns it over in his hands a few times before sliding it back into the small box it had come from.

He still can’t help but think about it. He thinks about it before the Unknowing, when Jon hesitates just a moment before wrapping him in a tight hug and whispering, I… I’ll be back, Martin. Then we can talk. He thinks about it when Jon’s in his coma, when Martin sits at his bedside and loses himself in daydreams and what-ifs. He thinks about it when Jon’s hand is clasped in his and he’s leading Martin out of cloying white fog and sea-salt air, his shirt speckled with bits of dark liquid that Martin tries to pretend isn’t blood. He thinks about it on the way to the safehouse, Jon leaning against his side, Martin’s hand clasped firmly in his.

He thinks about it a lot, in the confines of the wooden walls that let in the growing chill of the Scottish countryside.

Jon doesn’t.

He knows what Jon does. Jon makes him breakfast most days, eggs and toast and sometimes waffles, which Martin’s always considered a guilty pleasure but that he’s had more times in the past week and a half than he’s had for the past ten years. Jon puts his head on Martin’s shoulder when they sit on the couch and read, flipping through the dusty novels they’d found tucked in cardboard boxes underneath the bed that Jon had wrinkled his nose at but has been slowly making his way through nevertheless. Jon clings to Martin like his life depends on it when they sleep, and Martin will wake in the morning with one arm slung across his chest, a leg between his, and a sizeable portion of hair tickling at his nose.

And, nine days into their stay, Jon smiles at Martin as he shuffles into the kitchen in the morning, stands on his toes, and presses a soft kiss to Martin’s lips.

“Um,” Martin says eloquently, still half-asleep and trying to process what he’s 98% sure is their first kiss. He’d be 100% sure except for the fact that Jon kissed him like it was nothing, like it was easy, like it was something they do every morning.

The smile slips from Jon’s face, and he looks nervous. “I- I’m sorry, I should have asked first—”

“No, no, it’s- it’s okay,” Martin hastens to say, taking one of Jon’s hands in his and squeezing gently. “Just- just surprised, that’s all. I, um. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to kiss me, given that we haven’t…” He gestures absently, his face heating up. Stop talking, Martin. “Yeah,” he finishes lamely.

“Oh,” Jon says with a frown. “I… apologize for giving you that impression. I- I love you, Martin—I have no problems with kissing you.”

Warmth courses through Martin, as it always does when Jon tells him that he loves him. It all feels so unreal sometimes that he’s here, with Jon, away from it all and living in quiet domesticity. “Oh,” he says, face flushed. “A- all right, then. Great!”

“Great,” Jon echoes.

“Just- just thought maybe you didn’t—”

Martin clamps his mouth shut, face heating up more, this time in embarrassment. Shut up, Martin.

Jon raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t… what?”

“Um.” Martin rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “Kiss?”

Jon looks at Martin blankly. “Oh. Well, I- I do.”

“Right, yeah, I- I put that together. When we, um. You know.”

Jon looks amused. “Kissed?”

“Yep, that,” Martin squeaks out.

They look at each other for a moment before dissolving into giggles. Jon presses another kiss to Martin’s lips and finishes making the waffles and kisses Martin again when he hands Jon his tea, and it’s really quite lovely indeed.

So Martin adds Jon kisses to his mental list of Jon does and finds a sole remainder on the list of Jon doesn’t. And it’s fine with him, he decides, if Jon doesn’t want to have sex. He just wants Jon, in whatever way Jon will have him.

Jon doesn’t do sex, he thinks as he kisses Jon goodnight.

So, three days later, when they’re on the couch and they’ve kissed until Martin is red-faced and breathless and Jon pulls back with a pinched expression on his face, Martin assumes—with hot embarrassment coursing through him—that he’s somehow gone too far and strayed into sex territory and made Jon uncomfortable.

Then, Jon says with cheeks dark and eyes focused resolutely on Martin’s chest, “Martin, would… would you like to move to the bedroom?” and Martin’s thoughts grind to a halt.

“Sorry, what?” is all he can think to say.

Jon’s cheeks grow incrementally darker. “I am asking,” he says slowly, like the words are clunky and unwieldy in his mouth, “if you would like to have sexual intercourse. With me, of course, I- I hope that was implied.”

Martin’s aware that his mouth is quite literally hanging open in shock. He closes it quickly before swallowing and saying, “I… yeah, Jon, I- I’d love that, but I thought you—”

He clamps his mouth shut again, a touch too late. Jon’s forehead creases in confusion and he says, “I what?”

Martin hems and haws for a moment before biting the bullet and saying, all in a rush, “I thought you didn’t like sex.”

Jon’s frown deepens. “What? Why?”

And god, Martin doesn’t want to admit that he’s been thinking about office gossip for nearly a year, but he’s dug his grave—he may as well lie in it. He sighs, worries his hands on his lap, and says, “I… may have listened to a tape where Melanie said that Georgie said that you… didn’t.”

Jon looks at Martin blankly for a moment before his expression flattens into something that’s equal parts irritated and resigned. “Ah. Right. That… that makes sense, I suppose.”

“I’m sorry, Jon,” Martin says emphatically, placing his hand atop Jon’s and squeezing. “I- I didn’t mean to hear it; I was listening to the statements and it was just there.”

“No, it’s… it’s not your fault.” Jon sighs and rubs a hand across his eyes. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”

“What?”

Jon makes an aborted, dismissive gesture with his hand. “I’ve… never been good at explaining my own preferences. I never did with Georgie, just… told her I was asexual and left it at that. I suppose she took that to mean that I, er. Didn’t.”

Asexual. Martin has a vague notion of what that means—he’s been in enough online LGBTQ spaces to have encountered the word before, but he’s never really looked into it much himself. If pressed, he thinks he’d also assume it meant that Jon didn’t. Something a bit guilty twists within him at that thought, amplified by his next thought that Georgie shouldn’t have assumed, because, well, that’s a bit hypocritical, isn’t it? Still, he feels the need to voice it; he squeezes Jon’s hand again and says, “It’s not your fault that she just- just made assumptions about what you wanted, Jon.”

“Yes, but it’s my fault that I never corrected her.” Jon makes a face. “Or Tim, now that I think about it. I… I suppose I’m just not very good at talking about these things. Particularly because my own preferences are…” Jon’s pained expression deepens. “Christ, I don’t want to say complicated again, but there really is no other word for it.”

That’s not your fault either, Martin wants to say, but he knows Jon will just contradict him again, and he’ll repeat himself, and then they’ll just be talking in circles, and that won’t help anything. It’s frustrating, but it’s the truth. Still, Martin finds the words waiting on his lips when he opens his mouth, so he shuts it again and thinks for a moment, promising himself later. I’ll tell him later. Finally, he says carefully, “Do you… do you want to talk about it? We don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I don’t want to assume.” He lets out a humorless laugh. “Well, I don’t want to keep assuming, I suppose, given that I’ve already assumed quite a lot.” Quieter: “Sorry, again.”

“It’s fi—” Jon cuts off, takes a breath. “Th… thank you, Martin.” He hesitates a moment, then says haltingly, “I- I do want to talk about it, but I don’t—” He makes a frustrated noise. “—I don’t know how.”

“Okay,” Martin says after a moment. “You said it’s complicated, yeah?” When Jon nods mutely, he continues, “Would it help if you described how you feel right now? That’s- that’s less complicated, right?”

Jon’s mouth flattens into a thin line. “I… suppose.”

“All right, then.” Martin makes a go-on gesture, then rests his hand atop Jon’s and applies a gentle pressure.

Jon takes a few deep breaths, squints at nothing, makes a few wordless noises, then says bluntly, “I want to have sex with you.”

Martin tries really, really hard not to blush, but he doesn’t think he quite succeeds given how hot his face feels when he says, “Right, okay.” His voice is a bit higher-pitched than normal; he hopes that Jon doesn’t notice. “And, um. Do you always… want to have sex with me? Or just right now.”

Jon grimaces. “That’s where it gets complicated.” He makes an I-don’t-know gesture with his free hand and says, “No? Yes? I don’t know, Martin. I’m told that not wanting sex all the time is- is normal, that- that you have to be in the mood, but apparently I’m just supposed to know when I’ll be in the mood and when I won’t be, and that- that doesn’t really work for me.”

“Are you—” Martin cringes internally, but forces the words out. “—in the mood right now?”

“Well,” Jon grumbles, “not anymore, but I was. And it’s complicated, because even if I am, I- I don’t always want to be touched, but how do you explain that to someone, how- how do you tell someone that it’s mostly no but sometimes yes and there’s a very good chance that I might change my mind halfway through and decide that it’s no after all?”

“I think,” Martin says patiently, “that you just say that.”

Jon gives Martin a look. “Martin.”

“What? It’s true!” Martin gives Jon as reassuring a smile as he can muster. “It made sense to me, at least.”

“Yes, but that’s not—” Jon makes a frustrated noise. “It’s not whether or not it makes sense, it’s whether or not somebody is willing to put up with a sexual partner who doesn’t know whether or not they’re going to want to have sex on any given day, whether they- they’ll be repulsed or interested or want to give but not receive or the other way around or- or something else that I haven’t thought of but that will likely happen because consistency is, apparently, off the cards for me entirely.”

“Hey, hey,” Martin says gently, placing a hand on Jon’s shoulder and rubbing gentle circles with his thumb. “Jon, look at me.” When Jon looks, albeit reluctantly, Martin continues, “I can’t speak for other people, and I- I can’t tell you how to feel, but I can tell you how I feel, and I… I’m willing. No, more than willing—I love you, Jon, all of you, and if this is how you feel, then I love that about you too. Whatever you’re willing to give me, it… it’ll be enough. You’re enough.”

Jon’s cheeks darken and he looks away. After a long moment, he says in a stiff voice, “Well. Thank you, Martin.” Then, a bit softer: “I… I love you too.” He looks at Martin then and offers him a small, weak smile. “It’s… well, it’s still awkward, but it’s not quite as bad—talking about all of this—as I thought it would be.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. Talk to me about it, that is.”

Jon’s smile turns a bit hesitant. “So you would really be okay if I… if I never asked again? To, er. To have sex.”

“Yes,” Martin says, without hesitation.

“Oh,” Jon says quietly. “And- and if I said that I did? Want to? That… that would be okay too? Even if I’d already said that I didn’t?”

“Yep.”

Jon looks down at his hands where they’re twisted tightly in the hem of his jumper, then back up at Martin. “All right.” He hesitates a moment, then says, “And if… if I said that I wanted to have sex… now?”

Ah. It looks like Martin’s not done blushing quite yet. “Yep, that- that’s fine with me,” he squeaks out, then cringes internally. Fine? Really?

Thankfully, Jon doesn’t seem offended; if anything, he seems amused, his mouth quirking up into a small smirk. “All right, then.” He leans forward and presses a kiss to Martin’s lips, soft and chaste and ever-so-slightly lingering before he pulls away. “I, er. I think I’d like to just kiss for a bit, though.” His smile turns teasing. “Foreplay is very important, after all.”

Martin groans and gives Jon a look, his face likely fully tomato-red by now. “Jon.”

“Need to make sure we’re fully in the mood before beginning proceedings—”

“Yes, yes, you’ve made your point,” Martin says, a giggle slipping out around the words. Then, because he’s nothing if not a little mischievous himself, he leans forward and captures Jon’s lips in a kiss, significantly less chaste and a touch more insistent, pressing until Jon is leaned back against the arm of the couch and Martin is hovering over him. Martin disengages from the kiss so he can marvel at the flushed, wide-eyed expression on Jon’s face. “Like that?” he says innocently.

Jon blinks up at him for a few seconds, like he’s not entirely sure how to process everything in front of him, before he smiles, a warm, happy thing that captures Martin’s heart entirely and steals it away. “I do believe that was adequate, yes. Perhaps you should do it again though, just to make sure.”

So Martin does. I love him, he thinks as he kisses Jon on the couch and kisses him again on the bed, kisses him in the spot between his shoulder blades where he always carries tension and in the dip of his clavicle and on the inside of his thigh. And when he’s curled up next to Jon after, he presses another kiss to the crown of Jon’s head and wraps his arms around him and quietly discards his mental lists of does and doesn’t. He’ll start from scratch, he decides, and after a moment’s thought, he comes up with two more lists, upon which it’s surprisingly easy to add item after item after item.

Jon likes to be kissed. Jon likes eggs and toast, but not jam, and likes his tea black and slightly oversteeped. Jon doesn’t like wool because he finds it itchy. Jon doesn’t like white wine, but he likes red, the kinds that are too dry for Martin’s tastes.

Jon likes Martin, and Martin likes him too. So, so much. And even when things change, when Jon finds a white wine he likes at a restaurant they visit and he takes his tea once with honey and enjoys it and he goes through a period where he doesn’t enjoy open-mouthed kisses and Martin adjusts his lists accordingly, that remains.

#archivalpride #the magnus archives #jongeorgie #jontim #jonmartin #tma #jonathan sims #tim stoker #georgie barker #melanie king #martin blackwood #my fic #my writing

[kamipixel]

On the, tiring, subject of “queerbaiting” in Good Omens

I’m aware the lack of nuance on this website is well known by now, but sometimes I still have to ask a very loud and very confused “what?” at some of the takes I see on here. Since Good Omens came out over a year ago, every few months, like clockwork, I inevitably see a post talking about how this show is just really “queerbaiting”, or “queer rep lite”, or “bad queer rep” (the sentence “SPN and Good Omens are just as bad” comes to mind as a recent example. Please note that this is not an invitation to bash on SPN). And not only do I have to sigh, because I guess people still haven’t learned what “queerbaiting” means (and I’ve no intention to define it here, there are so many posts on the subject already), but I also have to sigh because, inevitably, there’s always some lovely bout of queerphobia (or internalised queerphobia) that comes prepackaged with these takes.

The language used in these posts is always very “woke”, as the kids would say, and everything is all laid out much more comprehensively than I could ever do. And every time, it’s always an incredible slap to the face. And I’m so incredibly tired of seeing it that I figured, at this point, might as well write my piece on this mess and address what I’ve seen.

I’ve no intention of naming names and putting anyone on blast because that’s not what I’m here for so I’ll paraphrase very simply. These posts always say something to the effect of “the characters aren’t explicitly, canonically, queer, meaning this is queerbaiting”. And yes, said this way, well, why would I ever disagree? Don’t I want confirmed queer representation? And sure, of course I do. But I’m pretty sure that most queer people whose identities are a bit of a moutful, like mine, could tell you that this isn’t what this phrase really mean.

Because what these posts forget to mention is that by “explicit” they mean: “these characters are in a romantic/sexual relationship on screen, these characters kiss (on the mouth) on screen, these characters mention their orientation on screen, these characters say “I love you” in a romantic way on screen...”

Because what these posts forget to mention is that by “queer” they mean: “these specific letters in the LGBT+ alphabet soup and nothing else.”

And so I’ll ignore the fact that most of these arguments brought up when talking of “explicit rep” would feel, to me, incredibly out of character for Aziraphale and Crowley in the context of the show and instead say this for a moment: Good Omens should have the queer rep that I want. Yes, specifically me and only me. I’m going to watch the show again and if Aziraphale and Crowley’s identities are not explicitly moulded to what I want, I’ll make a second post and tell everyone I’ve been led on and that this is just queerbaiting, really.

“Well why the hell should this queer rep fit only what you want to see?” you may rightfully ask. “There so many queer experiences that differ from yours.”

And I’ll tell you: “oh it absolutely shouldn’t, but this is exactly what these posts are insinuating, isn’t it? Only in a very reasonable manner, and with very nice words indeed.”

Let me tell you three things about myself for a moment. I’m aromantic and don’t care much for romantic relationships, I dislike kisses on the mouth very much, and for complicated reasons it took me years before I openly told my girlfriend I loved her.

Curious, isn’t it? That’s the exact opposite of what these queerbaiting posts say I should want to see.

Let me tell you one last thing about myself. I cried when I first watched Good Omens because for the first time ever, I saw characters and a relationship in mainstream media I could identify with.

Not to mention that apparently, I guess, to the people who write these posts, gender doesn’t exist anymore either. Was Crowley switching up his gender expression a whole lot, not “explicit” enough? Or did no one think it mattered because it wasn’t a romantic/sexual orientation? Have we really gone back to the “if they’re not gay nothing else counts” takes now? Really?

So next time I see someone whine about queerbaiting and Aziraphale and Crowley not being “confirmed” gay, or in a romantic relationship, I think I’ll just laugh and say: “why did you think they were? Where did you even get that impression?”

Honestly I have a lot more to say on all of this, but I’m not quite sure how to write it so I suppose this will do for now.

I really do understand the frustration with shows that give you nothing but crumbs, and I know it’s tempting to buy into the whole “all or nothing” trend with queer rep that tumblr likes to push. And It's understandable to be disappointed by the lack of representation you want to see. And you can make as much art, and headcanons, and posts, and stories as you want to fill that gap. And you're free to find other shows that suit you better or make your own thing as well. But don't come to my door crying wolf, wrongfully saying that Good Omens is “bad rep” or “queerbaiting”, and essentially spit in my face by telling me my idea of representation isn't queer enough. That I’m not queer enough.

#good omens #queerbaiting #long post #fandom nonsense i guess #thanks for coming to my tedtalk #i'm so tired you guys #i write stuff sometimes #i didn't have this on my spn ending consequences bingo but i guess here we are #again...

[mischievouswritingblog]

Meta Essay: Medivh The Bisexual Icon

As of the time of this post, there’s going to be an update coming to World of Warcraft where the once all female ghosts in Karazhan will be changed to include male varieties as well.

Full details on the update can be found here: https://www.wowhead.com/news/female-only-ghosts-in-karazhan-updated-to-include-male-versions-324371

This has caused a lot of fun posts and people to take this as an ‘accidental confirmation’ by Blizzard that the character Medivh is bisexual. Pair this along with how some of his portrayal in Hearthstone was made into Warcraft canon, and in my opinion, it’s an excellent update to his character.

It’s no secret that Blizzard’s had a massive lack in LBGTQ+ representation for the longest time. Often when such subject matter did show up it was treated more as a punchline in some quests or was kept conveniently to the sidelines, with nonconsequential, blink and you miss it text, side characters, moments. It’s insulting, to say the least, and is the source of a growing frustration from the LBGTQ+ members of the audience. What’s more, whenever this frustration gets voiced it’s always talked down to. We are told that to ‘keep politics out of gaming’ and that we are too sensitive, when these are the same people that get bent out of shape when even a single thing changes or is called out in their game. It’s bullshit. LBGTQ+ people exist and the act of existing isn’t a political issue.

But of course, with people even making lighthearted jokes or posts of Medivh being a ‘Bisexual Icon’, there’s folks crawling out of the woodwork with reasons from “But the loooooooore!” (as if the lore isn’t constantly changing and being retconned from one expansion to the next) to “Well A-C-T-U-A-L-L-Y, those male guests were just for the female nobles that visited and attended his parties, Medivh was very straight”. To that, I’m going to say: “Nah, Medivh is a bisexual icon, deal with it”.

In my personal opinion, Medivh is an excellent character to explore queerness  with. He’s a character that’s been around since Warcraft 1 and the effects and ties from his story are still felt throughout World of Warcraft in various ways. Medivh is also a character that’s gone through a large amount of evolution and various portrayals. My personal favorite being the One Night in Karazhan take on him because it’s so different from the usual ‘brooding, grand powerful hermit-mage’ that his type of character usually is. Medivh in One Night in Karazhan is instead, vibrant and is a thriving social butterfly that loves to have and treat people to a good time. His reasonings for being this way make a lot more sense when you really think about what Medivh’s situation was.

Now, I have to mention that I do a much deeper dive and deconstruction of Medivh’s circumstances and just how messed up they were in this self indulgent essay/headcanon dump: ‘My Completely Self-indulgent Medivh Essay’. Feel free to give it a read but here is the basic gist for this essay:

Yes, Medivh was the Guardian, one of the most powerful mages to exist at the time. He was also possessed by Sargeras and was the one that created and opened the Dark Portal that brought the Orcs to Azaroth and changed Azeroth forever. But here’s the thing, Medivh had no choice in any of it.

To be the Guardian means you have to put your life on the line for Azeroth’s sake. This is a role that had to be kept to secrecy, people had to make a lot of sacrifices to be the Guardian. You gain phenomenal powers and it is a great honor but none of this was anything that Medivh ever asked for. He was literally born to become the Guardian, there was no other choice for his own future. 

Then you have Sargeras, he had his plans in play long before Medivh was even a thought. A sliver of Sargeras had entered Aegwynn (Med’s mother and the Guardian before him) from a battle between Aegwynn and his avatar. This influence hid within her and made its move when she decided that she wasn’t going to allow the Council of Tirisfal to choose her heir for her title and powers for her. Ignoring Chronicle’s softening of her, she used Medivh’s father, Neilas Aran, the court magician of Stormwind to sire a child. In TLG she let him know she flat out used him and felt nothing for him then came back later and tossed baby Medivh to him for free childcare. What neither of them knew at the time was that Medivh was possessed by Sargeras while he was in the womb. Sargeras would then screw him over even further by causing his powers to lash out when he was fourteen, causing him to accidentally kill his father and fall into a near 10 year coma, and wake up mentally and emotionally fourteen in a twenty-three-year-old’s body. So from the very beginning Medivh was always set up for failure.

So with this summary out of the way, the point of the matter is that Medivh is a character that had little autonomy for most of his life. His career and his fate were chosen for him from the start. Sargeras was in his head messing with him throughout his life, in TLG Medivh even tells Khadgar that he tried to fight it as much as he could. His story is a tragic one but with his reappearance in Legion there’s potentially a ray of hope.

I think there’s a lot of aspects in Medivh’s story that can tie well with the feelings and experiences of queerness. Not so much the being possessed by discount space Satan, but more so the struggle of trying to have autonomy and hanging onto who you are as a person. Being queer myself and looking at it through that lens, I see Medivh being vibrant and throwing parties as an attempt for him to seize what autonomy he could for himself. To exist, to be seen, and to have an identity of his own that had nothing to do with being the Guardian of Tirisfal. I think that it’s also something that separates Medivh from Sargeras. There were likely times where Sargeras may have forced the lines between them to blur as he gradually poisoned Medivh’s thoughts and twisted his soul throughout the years. Medivh likely had to struggle a lot with separating who he truly was from Sargeras. This being inside him, who wasn’t him but would at times take over his body suppressing Medivh’s true self. It’s a horror story where some elements can really hit close to home.

Medivh I believe surrounded himself with like minded, free spirited people like Barnes and the theater troupe (while there’s the joke Medivh’s only seen three plays, I choose to headcanon he’s a theater kid, given how he has a theater to begin with and his own love for theatrics). Whether you picture Medivh as aro, ace, gay, bi, pan, or trans, with the upcoming changes he clearly accepts many kinds of people into his home.

This also has the interesting effect of changing some of the tones for some events in his lore. One example being the titans sending down the Maiden of Virtue to punish Medivh and make him live a more ‘pure’ life. The Titans are Azeroth’s closest thing to a pantheon of gods. They are beings of order, having taken Azeroth in her rawest form and molding her into something they saw fit. Apparently, Medivh’s parties and behavior was seen as something that required ‘correcting’.

On one hand, it’s really easy to read it simply as Medivh being a selfish, spoiled brat. But with looking at it through a queer lens one can put a more positive spin on the situation. The Maiden of Virtue was sent to shame and punish him into conforming into something the Titans believe someone like Medivh should behave. It clearly didn’t work. Looking at this situation, one can read it as Medivh refusing to relinquish his identity because a ‘higher power’ wanted him to. In the real world there are so many that have to hide their orientation and gender thanks to people using religion and belief as a cudgel. So having a character like Medivh as queer, with the power and willfulness to flat out refuse and shut it down is a refreshing power move.

Medivh’s story and the way he is in general has elements that I believe many people of the LBGTQ+ can relate with. He’s a complicated character that has dealt with abuse and being forced into roles without his consent, he made identity for himself and it was stripped away by an oppressor (Sargeras), and, depending on if Blizzard decides he’s actually resurrected/alive instead of being a ghost, is a survivor.

So to me, I love the idea of Medivh being a queer icon in Warcraft. It hasn’t been officially stated by Blizzard at the time this essay was posted but it has started a fun conversation. There are and will be the haters who will scream and tantrum about the LBGTQ+ touching their precious (when convenient) lore with their filthy paws and tarnishing ‘their game’. But in the meantime, I’m going to continue having a blast with the idea and enjoy working the story potential it gives into fanfics, speculations, and essays.

If you enjoyed this essay, I did a few other bits of meta, headcanons, and speculation for fun: My Completely Self-indulgent Medivh Essay

A Bit About Wizards and Sorcerers

Headcanons: Medivh is Alive and Currently Uses ‘The Guardian’s Study’ as his Home

#World of Warcraft #Medivh #warcraft headcanons

[yellowocaballero]

I know next to nothing abt utena but I. I kinda am extremely curious abt the utena vs mcu comparative analysis? if you feel like sharing lmao absolutely no worries if not

I love all of you because I will post obviously bait and someone will always indulge me in asking about it. NO I don’t want to unprompted just start rambling about my opinions, YES I will share them though. I will make this as short as possible because I can talk about Utena all day. I will add a disclaimer that I don’t super like the MCU so I’m very sorry to any MCU fans, Winter Soldier was good. Slight, vague spoilers for Utena ahead. 

TL;DR: MCU is constantly selling feminism in the form of palatable #bossbabes and Strong Female Characters, while Utena’s form of feminism is a more systematic and nuanced interview of how the patriarchy limits, exploits, and controls women. It posits that a woman CANNOT be a #bossbabe while she’s within that system, and only by leaving it can she find independence and identity. MCU is sponsored by the Air Force.

So for the uninitiated, Utena is a magical girl anime that I’ve been jokingly calling Evangelion: For Her. It deconstructs magical girl anime and fairy tales, and critically examines Japanese society, the patriarchy, heteronormative culture, and IN MY OPINION boarding schools. It deals with themes of trauma, toxic relationships, toxic masculinity, gender non-conformity, queerness, abuse, maturity, coming of age, gender roles, memory, and narrative. 

I’ve joked recently that Tumblr would find Utena problematic if it actually talked about the show beyond the killer aesthetic and sword lesbians. Every female character in it is obsessed with men. Most of them are in abusive, or at least toxic, relationships. It has several gender nonconforming, queer women, who view gender nonconformity as adopting the role of a man in society and thereby idealizing/controlling/abusing women, as men do. Every character is a hugely complicated person who hurts others. Men control women and women are either subservient and controlled by men, or they use their position of assumed subservience to manipulate men, or they attempt to regain power by taking the role of men. 

On the flip side. Utena demonstrates how every character is turned into this through the rigid and restrictive nature of (it’s Japanese, so Japanese, although it’s broadly applicable) society. Women who do not fit into these pre-set molds are punished and ostracized. Young boys are groomed by older men in order to fit these abusive molds, and otherwise well meaning men hurt women because they are not taught how to interact with women in healthy ways. The show is basically about how society takes the genuine need for love, intimacy, and human connection among children and beats them into societally accepted molds that keep power in the hands of powerful men. The patriarchy is ultimately a tool of powerful men that abuses and controls both men and women. Ever hear of no ethical consumption under capitalism? Try no ethical love under the patriarchy! 

So, no, Utena doesn’t really have a lot of ‘strong female characters’. But that’s really kind of the point - how can a woman be strong in this system? When a woman tries to gain strength, does she just try to imitate masculine values that we’re brainwashed into perceiving as strength? Is masculinity healthy? Can Utena really be gnc, or will a gnc woman never be accepted as a man by a society that profits off the victimization of women?

I’m not asking the MCU to analyze all of this, because they’re blockbuster movies and I don’t want or need them to get #deep. However, superhero movies will never look at the systematic and societal structures that build heroes and villains so long as the nature of superheroes inherently hinges upon the ‘Great Man’ system (basically an obsession with heroes and salvation through singular men instead of communities and movements). The MCU Spider-Man movies were so frustrating about this: it goes through the effort of saying that capitalism and injustice created the Vulture, but all that does is make a sympathetic villain - it never goes so far as to say that Peter is being fed into this system (by Tony Stark) like meat into a meat grinder that continues to prioritize the special over the collective. I don’t even need to get into Far From Home. The MCU constantly acknowledges these injustices (the way it acknowledges that the Air Force in Captain Marvel is sexist and racist) but it twists around that acknowledgement into assertion that superheroes and good guys CAN exist in this unjust system, and that they can utilize the power of this unjust system in order to provide salvation. Utena has Japanese Buddhist roots over this Christian ideal of the saviour/messiah: it encourages saving ourselves, and says that we cannot be saved by others, only aided and guided in that journey. 

Captain Marvel cannot be a ‘feminist’ film, no matter how much it celebrates Carol for embracing her individuality and autonomy in a discriminatory system, so long as Carol remains within that system. In contrast, the only way that Utena was able to live in gay happiness with Anthy was by rejecting the patriarchy, structure, and society completely. Carol is a shining, premier, ‘ideal’ example of a woman in the Air Force - tough and independent yet obedient and responsible to her system. Utena is also masc and gnc, but it actually explores how performing that masculinity isn’t a repudiation of the system, it’s just striving to attain status as the oppressor instead of the oppressed (absolutely crucial note that Utena doesn’t strive to be a man, she strives for masculinity). The #girlbosses in Black Panther are characterized by their complete and total loyalty and lack of ambition to authoritarian male figures and autocratic systems (Black Panther is really good and I like it a lot, this isn’t a criticism). Judi in Utena is also completely obedient and loyal to the male-dominated structure of the Student Council, but it’s shown as preventing her from accepting her lesbianism and pursing her desires. Black Widow, #girlboss extraordinaire, is devalued as a woman through her infertility and this is completely played straight and uncritically in a move that’s stunningly 1970s. Nanami in Utena (metaphorically) is confronted with her perceived lack of suitability for maternal life - and how the reason why she’s desperate for this is because it’s the promised unconditional love she never received. This isn’t even getting into the men - Tony Stark using tools of war to end war, which is an oxymoron. Peter Parker’s divorce from his working class roots into mindless imitation of authoritarian paternal figures and him literally being handed the cutsey drone strikes. Women in the MCU are ‘cool’, women in Utena are complex, flawed, and nuanced. 

We know the MCU isn’t woke. I don’t want it to be woke. But it keeps on pretending to try and it’s frustrating me. It continually just gets enough there to make me think about it and give the shiny sheen of that feminism while refusing to engage meaningfully with what they’re doing. I’d rather they didn’t try at all, because they consistently raise the question (hey it’s fucked up that the working class is getting screwed over and the Vulture’s doing what he’s doing for a reason!) and then refuse to answer it authentically or genuinely (but he’s evil so we don’t gotta touch that). I’m not gonna use the word pandering, but...that #girlboss shot in Endgame, come on...

Utena meaningfully treats the women as women who Live In A Society, and how that fucks them up, and how the only way they can be free is if they realize there’s no wizard behind the curtain, recognize the injustices, and repudiate the game. MCU says that a woman can be liberated and strong if she achieves specialness and strength within the system - if she ‘wins’ the game. But women don’t win this game. That’s the point of the game. Because when women win, men perceive themselves as losing, and that’s unacceptable. Captain Marvel and the MCU is a consolation prize for what women are consistently denied: complex and flawed characterizations. 

I’m normally uninterested by #feminism but Utena gets it. Thanks for the ask! 

#revolutionary girl utena #utena #marvel cinematic universe #meta commentary #mcu critical #TERFs do not interact with this post utena does not say men are inherently abusive it says that men are also damaged by toxic masculinity #utena did not give us touga saionji and miki to say that men are not hurt and abused by powerful people #i'm watching wandavision and I will say that it is the CLOSEST look the mcu's taken since jessica jones into this #but it's still falling a little short for reasons i'm still mulling over #also i forgot to mention jessica jones but jessica jones is more about 'spooky one evil guy' then talking about rape culture #im sorry this is so long im incapable of being concise it's in my bio #i write about gender a lot but kinda subtley #i mean except for the roleswap series where I hit the reader in the face with a 2x4

[kitkatopinions]

Can we talk about the rampant bi/panphobia surrounding Yang "looks at guys like they're fresh meat in the first 3 volumes and chibi" Xiao Long? Blake's gets brought up a lot as 90% of her reason for existing is to be the romancable NPC, but it's hardly talked about with Yang. She has shown express interest in guys. Even if Bees goes canon, it's not a Bi/Lesbian ship. It's a Bi/Bi or Bi/Pan ship or what ever other possible identity that doesn't erase Yang's attraction to men. I get the whole wanting rep thing but there's more lesbians in RWBY than any other LGBT identity and they aren't really that good in terms of representation. Do we really need another angry/aggressive/problematic lesbian in RWBY? And whenever it does get brought up, Lesbian!Yang fans always go "oh, it's just comphet". Um, excuse me? Isn't comphet not supposed to be a thing in Remnant?

Okay, so there's a lot to unpack here, and I do get why you're so frustrated because as a bi person, it gets so frustrating dealing with not only a huge lack of representation, but also feeling boxed out of, undervalued by, and invalidated by your own community sometimes. I myself have been really frustrated and even hurt by the way many RWBY fans (and specifically Bumblebee fans) have talked about Blake and Yang's sexuality, like they would be less gay or less rep if they were bi, how shipping them with men is 'wrong' because it's 'straight behavior' and 'validating the straights,' and I got particularly annoyed once by a post that claimed that people only shipped Yang and Weiss so that they could force Blake - who they claimed was a canon lesbian - into a relationship with a man. I think it's clear why people talk about Blake's status as bi more than Yang's - Yang has one moment in eight seasons where she acts clearly attracted to men, whereas Blake has had two canon romantic relationships with men, Adam being her ex and her having gone on a date with and kissed Sun on the cheek. When people dispute Blake's status as a bi, sometimes they (rightly) come at it from the point of view of 'this is just my own personal headcanon for my own benefit.' But too often, Blake's attraction to men is dismissed outright and fans try and find every excuse to invalidate it so that they can insist that Blake is a canon lesbian. That's pretty openly biphobic imo. (Also I don't agree that 90% of Blake's character is a romancable NPC. I think maybe she's become mostly not an active character who only really exists as support and romance, but the idea that it's 90% of her overall show character is weird to me, Blake is done dirty by the show but that doesn't mean she's not a character for the first five seasons.)

But Yang is also worth talking about. Because of the fact that her moment of displaying clear attraction towards men is brief and early in the show, many fans have just... Thrown it out entirely, and decided that not only does it not count, but that anyone who brings it up is living in the past and is stupid for paying attention to the early seasons. That's obviously really dumb. The idea that after the first five seasons, Yang is displaying clear romantic attraction towards a girl for the first time, she is now one hundred percent a lesbian in canon because she's only displayed romantic attraction towards men once... That's also rooted in biphobia. Being attracted to men doesn't just suddenly go away because you're attracted to women and vice versa, no one chooses to be bi, gay, straight, ace, whatever. If Yang was sexually attracted towards men at seventeen, that part of her doesn't stop existing just because she's sexually attracted to women too. The thing is, headcanoning Yang (or even Blake!) as a lesbian is totally fine. I think the RWBY creators did say that sexism, racism, and homophobia doesn't exist in Remnant, but like ??? Idk why they'd decide something like that if they were gonna make jokes about Jaune and Qrow wearing skirts haha laugh at the non-gender-conformity of men, and if they'd write the first five seasons with literally one gay character, while tons of straight relationships that get credence, everyone else expresses no clear romantic inclination towards the same sex for five years of the show running. And we're supposed to think there's no heteronormativity at least? Cardin and Jaune both have clear toxic masculinity problems that Jaune grows out of, but we're supposed to think that toxic masculinity has nothing to do with any sexism or homophobia, however internalized? I think if people want their fans to believe there is not sexism or homophobia or racism in their fake world, they need to make good and sure their own internalized issues don't leak into their work. So I don't think it's wholly invalid when people decide that in their headcanon, they think Yang just acted like she was attracted to men because she thought she should. I especially think it's valid for people to headcanon that Yang had acted like she attracted to men because she thought she was. She was only seventeen, seventeen year olds put on behavior that they think is cool and she is the niece of Qrow 'wink at Winter to piss her off' Branwen, and Yang could've realized maybe during school that putting on behavior was all that was, and that she isn't actually attracted towards men and likes girls - specifically the girl dancing with Sun at the school ball. That's perfectly valid as a headcanon. But that's all it is, a headcanon.

Yang is not a canon lesbian and it's perfectly valid and supported by Yang's canon interactions for people to consider her bi or pan, and people can even headcanon her as ace if they want. Trying to demand that other people see fictional characters as the sexuality you prefer them in is just going to drive wedges, especially when so much venom seems to be directed towards bi characters, with others acting like they're literally less rep if they also have romantic interactions with people of the opposite sex. Like, people literally have the idea of "I love that Blake is bi, but I hate that people are shipping her with men or talking about Blake's romances with men and idk why the show put any focus on her romantically interacting with men." Like, sure, okay, so you support bi characters so long as they don't be bi too obviously. But... I'm getting off topic.

Here's the thing... I would caution not to get too deep in this "there's too many lesbians," concept. We're supposed to all be one community, supporting and fighting for each other. The problem isn't that there's too much representation for lesbians, the problem is that there is not enough representation for bi people, or pan, or ace, or trans men, or trans women, or non-binary people, etc. We don't have to wish less for other gay people to wish for more for ourselves. I agree that disregarding Yang's moment of attraction to men maybe isn't the way to go, but it's not that there are already enough lesbians in RWBY. There are only three side characters (by the way, two of them aren't confirmed lesbians, just because they're in a relationship with each other,) two of whom made a very minor appearance in all of two or three episodes and will likely never return to the story. As you say, the rep that lesbians have gotten in RWBY isn't very good. Them desiring more representation is perfectly valid, and I even get them wanting that representation from Yang, despite her single moment of lusting after boys in season one. That's a perfectly understandable desire. I myself want gay Neptune despite him expressing interest in women. It's not wrong. The only thing that's wrong is villainizing and mocking people for their own very valid ships like BlackSun or Yang x Jaune or Yang x Mercury or Blake x Ren or whatever ships people like. I'm sorry that I can't agree with you here, but if there was a scene in RWBY where Yang discusses her feelings for Blake and says that she realized she's a lesbian... I might not be particularly happy with the writing staff, because I already heard there's an element of disregarding Blake's former relationship with Sun in things like the comics, which is frustrating as a bi person. But I would be happy for the people who would find in this something that speaks to them and makes them feel like their own experiences are represented. Sometimes I can feel excluded from the LGBTQ+ community due to my attraction towards men, and that's hard, but I'm not going to start devaluing the victories of other gay people because of it, I'm not going to start getting upset when they get representation, or when a character they love claims an identity that reflects their own.

I do get where your frustration is coming from though, and it's perfectly valid to feel upset and exasperated both with the way MKEK write their queer relationships and in how people in the fandom tend to disregard the bi identity of characters.

#rwde #anti rwby #rwby criticism #rwby critical #representation in rwby

[inkmyname]

The Ember Island Players: performing toxic masculinity and narrative complicity in propagating misogyny

Initially I wasn’t going to respond to concerns about Katara’s racist/misogynistic portrayal in the Ember Island Players with anything more than snarky tags, but apparently I can’t keep my mouth shut, so I’m posting my response as a standalone meta about how the writers’ insistence on creating drama for drama’s sake leads them to--in lieu of actual character development--fall back on lazy narrative shortcuts whereby a performance of toxic masculinity against a gendered heternormative background is used to create tension in a romantic relationship, presumably with the goal of keeping the audience invested.

The Ember Island Players is problematic for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the pervasive tone-deaf misogyny, including racialized misogyny, directed at Katara. There’s a lot of meta on this, so I’d like to focus on something different: Aang’s relationship with gender and romantic attachments.

Aang seems so uncharacteristically chagrined the whole episode: “I’m not a woman!” Based on his previous characterization up to this point:

The Fortuneteller. This is the same Aang who makes a necklace for Katara when she loses her mother’s. Observe how he responds to Sokka’s jibe about jewelry-making, which can be seen as a feminine pursuit: Sokka: Great, Aang. Maybe instead of saving the world, you can go into the jewelry-making business. Aang: I don’t see why I can’t do both. Femininity isn’t presented as being mutually exclusive with narrative pursuits like saving the world which have traditionally centered male protagonists (especially if we take the entire canon of anything every written in any genre that’s not specifically, say, something like shoujo or jounen which are directed and young girls and women, the narrative focus on male personalities is overwhelming).

The Warriors of Kyoshi. Oh, and this is the same Aang that dressed up in full Kyoshi gear, kabuki makeup and all, without complaint. Why would he? After all, she was him in a past life. (There’s a whole meta here about gender-critical analysis of kabuki productions where male actors typically assumed female roles and how Avatar both takes inspiration from this real-life kernel and subverts it in Rise of Kyoshi where Kyoshi’s signature look is not only an homage to her parental heritage but also a reimagining of who can inhabit what roles. Her legacy, though imperfect, is also notably feminist, taking face paint worn typically by men IRL and expanding it into war paint for women warriors.) (There’s also great headcanon-adjacent meta here about gender non-conformity and non-binary identities in Avatar. Avatar was not overtly explicit about its feminist or gender-progressive mindset outside of episodes like The Warriors of Kyoshi or The Waterbending Master, but it was still way ahead of its time. If anyone was to be presented or headcanoned in such a way, it would be the Avatar who’s lived a thousand lives, inhabiting a thousand skins and a thousand identities, including gender identities. There’s also cool crossover meta here about the Legend of Korra depicting a female Avatar in Korra with masculine tendencies and visible muscle vs Aang as a male Avatar with a gentler pacifistic spirit and gender nonconforming tendencies.)

The Cave of Two Lovers. Aang wears a freaking flower crown and is generally wholesome and adorable, even leading up to the “let’s kiss lest we die” scene with Katara. He’s not pushy or overly concerned with appearing masculine and it is in fact Katara who suggests the kiss and Aang makes a fool of himself. From the transcript: Katara [Shyly, blushing.] Well, what if we … kissed? Aang [Very surprised.] Us … kissing‌? Katara See? It was a crazy idea. Aang [Dreamily.] Us … kissing … Katara [Fake-jokingly.] Us kissing. What was I thinking? Can you imagine that‌? Aang [Fake-jokingly.] Yeah. [Awkwardly laughs.] I definitely wouldn’t want to kiss you! [Beat.] Katara [Insulted.] Oh, well! I didn’t realize it was such a horrible option. [Angrily.] Sorry I suggested it! Aang [Realizing his mistake.] No, no, I mean … if there was a choice between kissing you and dying … Katara [Disgusted.] Ugh! Aang [Desperately.] What? I’m saying is I would rather kiss you than die - that’s a compliment. Katara [Enraged.] Well, I’m not sure which I’d rather do! [Slams the torch into his hand and storms away.] Aang [Miserably.] What is wrong with me … Aang, sweetie, this is not what you say to a girl you want to kiss, but generally, this is Wholesome™ and narratively, this is Good™. Eventually, they do kiss and that’s perfectly acceptable because there’s a whole conversation beforehand with humorous romantic framing. There’s consent and communication and initiative by the female protagonist. So solid A on the sensitive writing.

General Air Nomad culture. We don’t get a lot of Air Nomad culture in the show (and what little we do get what presented in such a misguided way, especially the whole commitment to forgiveness/pacifism which was handled in such an amateur black-and-white way from a writing perspective in season 3). But I digress. I really, really don’t think that Air Nomads who were so concerned with the spiritual side of bending and general existence had stringent notions of gender and romantic relationships–at the very least, they had very different notions of these issues compared to, say, the Northern Water Tribe. Canonically, even though AN philosophy emphasized detachment, Air Nomads practiced free love. Same-gender romance was freely accepted unlike in the homophobic Earth Kingdom (which even Kyoshi, a bisexual woman, wasn’t able to change) and the militant Fire Nation (Sozin outlawed homosexuality after declaring world war, essentially). And though the temples were gender-segregated, it seems that the burden of raising children fell to the entire community instead of just the women. Both male and female Air Nomads are revered. In the case of the former, Guru Laghima who unlocked the power of flight through achieving complete detachment from the material world. And in the case of the latter, Avatar Yangchen, who has statues everywhere because she came to be revered as a deity not just among Air Nomads but in the physical world in general. Nowhere in Air Nomad philosophy is the concept of gender, romance, love, sexuality, relationships etc. etc. tainted with jealousy and possessiveness (especially towards women) or rigid binary heternormativity.

So this was Aang for the better part of the first half of the series. Not overly concerned with gender roles. Pretty much fumbling his way through his first crush like a lovesick puppy and it’s all very wholesome. Supposedly a classic product of Air Nomad upbringing.

Meanwhile, Aang in EIP:

Checks out Katara’s butt as she’s sitting down.

Gets mad at being portrayed by a woman.

Accuses Katara of being the racialized misogynistic version of herself depicted on stage ([sarcastically]“Yeah, that’s not you at all.”).

Nods in agreement when the misogynistic stage production of Katara presents her as the “Avatar’s girl.”

Unable to differentiate between fiction and reality and puts the onus on Katara to do the emotional labor to justify something she never said (”Katara, did you really mean what you said in there? On stage, when you said I was just like a … brother to you, and you didn’t have feelings for me.”)

Assumes they would just… fall into a relationship… just because he forcibly kissed her at the invasion and again pressures Katara to do the emotional labor to justify why their relationship is not how he wants it (“But it’s true, isn’t it? We kissed at the Invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we’re not.” / “Aang, I don’t know.” / “Why don’t you know?”)

Forces a non-consensual kiss on her even though “I just said I was confused!”

So, there’s so many things wrong with this, most of which are a laundry list of behaviors typical of toxic masculinity:

Ogling

Outdated misogynistic humor (what’s wrong with being a woman?)

Verbal abuse

Offloading emotional labor

Gaslighting

Pressuring a potential romantic partner

Lack of direct communication about romantic desires

Lack of sensitivity

Lack of active listening

Lack of emotional intelligence and empathy

Lack of consent and sexual assault

I could go on and on.

My question is Where and when did he learn these toxic behaviors? What happened to the wholesome boy making necklaces, wearing flower crowns, and generally being adorable in a kid with a first crush kind of way when it comes to romance?

Now, you can argue that EIP players Aang has been through a lot, including being shot by lightning and actually dying, and after the failed invasion, he’s stressed out with the weight of the world on his shoulders and maybe not expressing himself or his desires in the best way and taking out all of his frustrations on Katara.

Except… that is all just conjecture because the actual writing of the show doesn’t put in the hard work and make those connections. Instead, they fall back on misogynistic tropes and toxic heternormative romance tropes and a forced love triangle subtext and they just, to put it politely, fuck it up, two and a half seasons’ worth of work, gone, in the space of one episode. And even if it weren’t conjecture, it would still be wrong of Aang to act the way he did.

Let’s list Aang and Katara’s interaction in relation to each other in season 3:

The Headband. “Don’t worry about them. It’s just you and me right now,” Aang says as he pulls Katara into a dance. I have qualms about the writing of this episode: the creators wasted a golden opportunity to flesh out the Air Nomad genocide because they were too busy playing footloose in a cave, they wrote Katara–the same Katara would said fuck you to Pakku, freed enslaved earthbenders from a Fire Navy prison, and became a spirit goddess ecoterrorist to help a village in an enemy nation–as uncharacteristically shy just so Aang could sweep in and pull her into a dance. But like fine, whatever. It’s cute and really well-chreographed and there’s actually appropriate romantic framing here for once and at the end of the dance, look at Katara’s face–she’s happy! Positive Kataang interaction, and I don’t actually mind it. 7/10.

The Day of Black Sun Pt.1. He forces a kiss on her on the mouth, taking her completely by surprise. A chaste kiss on the cheek and a wistful pining last look and “Be safe” might have been acceptable, but given Katara’s shocked and uncomfortable body language, the kiss on the mouth was not. Worse yet, the show just… forgets… to follow up on it for several episodes and when it’s brought up again, it’s used as a sledgehammer to punish Katara for not magically being with Aang. 0/10.

The Painted Lady. Let’s look at the transcript: Katara [Using a disguised voice.] Well, hello Avatar. I wish I could talk, but I am very busy. Aang Yeah, me too. I hate that. [Looks at Katara’s face from behind the veil.] You know, you’re really pretty, for a spirit. I don’t meet too many spirits, but the ones I do meet, not very attractive. [Looks at Katara suspiciously. Tries to look under the hat.] Katara [Giggles nervously.] Thank you, but- Aang You seem familiar too. Katara A lot of people say that. Aang [Suspicious.] No, you really seem familiar. Katara Look, I really should get going. [Covers her face and runs, but Aang uses his airbending and blasts her hat up into the air, exposing her.] Aang Katara? Katara [Guiltily.] Hi, Aang. Aang [Shocked.] You’re the Painted Lady? [Pointing at Katara.] But how?Katara I wasn’t her at first, I was just trying to help the village. [Takes her hat off.] But since everyone thought that’s who I was anyway, I guess I just kinda became her. [Drops her hat on the ground.] Aang So you’ve been sneaking out at night? Wait, is Appa even sick?Katara He might be sick of the purple berries I’ve been feeding him, but other than that he’s fine! Aang I can’t believe you lied to everyone, so you could help these people. Katara I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have … Aang [Happily.] No, I think it’s great! You’re like a secret hero! Katara Well, if you wanna help, there’s one more thing I have to do. Aang gives her a curious look. Cut to the Fire Nation factory. Aang and Katara run along the river’s edge toward it. Aang looks at the polluted water. Aang You wanna destroy this factory? Katara Yes. Sokka was just kidding, but he was right. Getting rid of this factory is the only way to help these people permanently. He helps her blow up the Fire Nation smelting plant! Yes, he does call her pretty, but more importantly, this is one of the few times he acknowledges her faults (lying, deception, putting the mission at risk to help the enemy nation etc.) and still thinks she’s so fucking cool. He calls her a secret hero! There’s a lot of admiration and support here from Aang. He’s raising up Katara (instead of putting her down as in EIP) not because he sees her as a potential love interest but because he admires her and her compassion! This is great. Solid wholesome Kataang interaction. 10/10. But all good things must come to an end…

The Southern Raiders. I’m not going to spend too much time on this because there’s a million pieces of meta on this episode. He’s completely out of line asking Katara to be forgive her mother’s killer, the source of her greatest trauma as a victim of targeted ethnic cleansing. Given that he’s a victim of ethnic genocide himself, although he personally wasn’t there for it/didn’t actually witness it unlike Katara, he should have understood. He does say “You need to face this man,” which is good and supportive and he should have stopped there, because he continues on to say, “But when you do, please don’t choose revenge. Let your anger out, and then let it go. Forgive him.” Stop. Stop stop stop. No one should tell a traumatized victim of ethnic cleansing how to deal with their trauma. By the end of the episode, Katara doesn’t kill him–but she crafts a third path as the conclusion to her hero’s journey and it is not the path of forgiveness that Aang preaches. Ironically, it is Zuko, who also confronts Ozai, the source of his greatest trauma, who never tells Katara what to do but follows her lead instead: even though he redirects lightning at Ozai and could have killed him, he doesn’t go through with it. He understands Katara and he understands that she needs to this. Kataang interaction rating: 0/10.

So that’s where we are with Aang and Katara in Ember Island Players. Some positive interactions that are appropriately romantically framed and some that are just wholesome and good… but all ruined by forced kissing and moralizing about Katara’s trauma instead of offering understanding. So that still doesn’t answer when Aang would have learned all of the toxic masculine/heternormative behaviors he displayed in The Ember Islands Players.

The only answer, I’m forced to conclude, is bad fucking writing, where the creators were not only tone-deaf in portraying Katara in a racist/misogynistic way or, you know, in writing solely for the male gaze because fuck half the audience, I guess, but they just wanted to create drama for drama’s sake. They completely disrespected their female lead and I would argue they disrespected Aang’s character too in making him a stereotypical self-insert Gary Stu who displays toxic masculine behavior without consequences because that’s what’s expected of a toxic heternormative romantic plot device.

And worse yet, they never follow up on this, just like with the kiss at the Invasion. In the last five minutes of the finale, Katara looks up at him with admiration for saving the world and then kisses him. This is not only a missed opportunity for character development for Aang, but also a big fuck you to the female audience because the message is clear: the guy gets the girl as a trophy for saving the world, and fuck input from the female half of the partnership because that’s just not important and is not worthy of screentime. But I guess screentime dedicated to displaying toxic masculine/heternormative behaviors without ever condemning such behavior as a follow-up is just fine! :)))

If the EIP was supposed to make an argument for Kataang, then it failed. but more important:

By the show’s own high standards, The Ember Island Players is a failed episode, full of bad writing and worse characterization. For a show that was so ahead of its time, this episode is a narrative black mark, a failure of progressive representation and a disservice to its main characters.

There’s some wholesome Sukka and Zuko/Toph interaction, but even that doesn’t manage to save this episode, especially given there’s no resolution to the central conflict: the relationship between Aang and Katara. The entire unnecessarily OOC and forced Kataang drama drags it down.

We know Aang is capable of lifting up Katara and being supportive of her, as he was in episodes prior. We could have had honest, supportive, and open dialogue between Aang and Katara that actually followed up on the Invasion kiss, with Aang clearly expressing what he wants, Katara expressing that maybe she didn’t want that right now, and Aang completely respecting that and them hugging at the end because their friendship/connection is much more profound than pre-teen romance. This is an instance where Aang could have chosen to center Katara’s feelings, for once, instead of his own out of selfless love. If this happened, I would have been okay with a Kataang ending. But that isn’t what we got, obviously.

Part of what appealed to me about Aang as a male protagonist in media aimed at young audiences is that he–at least initially–did not start out as a toxic self-insert Gary Stu lifted from every problematic heternormative romance film ever. In fact, given his playful trickster archetype, general kindness/gentleness, and his stance against violence (a typically masculine trait), he both subverted expectations of and expanded the boundaries of what a male protagonist in children’s media can look like. Unfortunately, the creators don’t go all the way with Aang. In fact, they took a step back with his portrayal in The Ember Island Players, where the creators not only rely on misogynistic tropes to create drama but also make him complicit in propagating said misogyny. And that’s just a damn shame because we could have had a wholesome Kataang storyline and a sensitive male protagonist who cares not about your outdated gender roles and respects his partner’s autonomy!

#atla #aang #katara #kataang #eip #meta #my meta #aang deserved better #katara deserved better #queer #heteronormativity #toxic masculinity #misogyny #feminist criticism #kataang critical #but only in the sense that the writers messed it up #nothing against kataang personally

[with-my-murder-flute]

Hi everybody, thanks for the asks letting me know I made the top of @yusuftiddies’ list of Homophobes in TOG Fandom, you can stop sending them now.

So.

I can make mistakes and fuck up and own that. I am serious about listening to marginalized people. But... in this case, while @yusufstiddies generally describes factual events that happened and factual posts that exist, I have to say that I can’t actually apologize for the things I’m called out for because I don’t think they’re homophobic. The things he criticizes me for are things that come from a lot of personal experience as a queer bisexual cis woman, as well as a lot of reflection, research, and study. I believe in them really strongly and stand by them.

I’m really sorry if this makes TOG fandom too hostile, because it is not my intention to make this place so unpleasant that anyone feels driven out. I understand if my stance means people no longer want to follow me/read my stuff/participate in projects I’m involved with (though I’d rather hand off the Research Hub to someone else than see it go down with me). I’m posting this so people can know where they stand before they decide whether to keep interacting with my blog, or “deplatform” me as @yusufstiddies recommends.

I would recommend, for anyone who doesn’t want to see my posts, using Tumblr’s new post content filtering feature. If you type a username (like star-anise or with-my-murder-flute) into it, Tumblr will hide all posts featuring that specific string of characters, and therefore any post or reblog of mine.

To address the accusations against me:

I am an anti-anti: Yes. I’ve reblogged posts of mine about this before. I care passionately about preventing child abuse, but I think there are better ways to prevent child abuse in fandom (like concrete harassment policies so predatory behaviour can be reported and stopped early, and education about digital consent and healthy relationships) than attacking people who write “bad ships,” not least because the first people it hurts are abuse survivors trying to work through their trauma, and because the research says you cannot actually tell who’s a sexual predator based on what they write about.  Fiction affects reality, but not on a 1:1 basis. My mainblog, @star-anise, has a really extensive archive of my writing on the subject.

I said cishet men aren’t more privileged than gay men: Kinda. What I actually did was question whether Every Single Cishet Man benefits from more privilege than Every Single Gay Man. If a man is cishet but gets beaten up because people perceive him as gay, he’s not exactly feeling the warm toasty glow of heterosexual privilege in that moment. Oppression is complicated and there are times when someone’s lack of privilege on one axis is way less important than someone else’s lack of privilege on another axis.

The post above also includes me reblogging someone else’s addition about how straight men can be included in the queer movement: I’m queer. @yusufstiddies has made it very clear that he isn’t comfortable with the word “queer” and doesn’t like it. Therefore I think it’s understandable that he might not understand that the queer community sees ourselves as a coalition of people dedicated to dismantling the structures of sex and gender that oppress us, not a demographic of people whose gender identities or sexual orientations can be neatly mapped. However, I would say that doesn’t make queer theory inherently homophobic.

There are also some related points @yusufstiddies didn’t level at me specifically, but I would like to address:

The constant focus on the unsafeness of cishet people:

I’m not cishet. I’m a bisexual woman who’s dated women. Sixth-light is a queer woman married to a woman. This is not an issue of non-LGBTQ+ people blundering their way into something they don’t experience the daily consequences of. This is an issue of people from WITHIN the LGBTQ+ community who sincerely disagree with @yusufstiddies about the pressures we experience and how best to deal with them. I think that even if @yusufstiddies were to filter his fiction input to only LGBT-written work about LGBT experiences, or even only trans-written work about trans people, he would still find a lot of things he finds upsetting or transphobic, because sexual and gender identities are really diverse and not everything will suit one person.

The contention that saying “’Queer is a slur’ is TERF propaganda” is transmisogyny because it dilutes the definition of “TERF”:

People who point out the phrase is TERF propaganda are not calling every person who says it a TERF, and we are not trying to argue that telling a queer person that queer is a slur is inherently equal to the kind of damage a TERF does when she attacks a trans woman out of transphobia. Queer people being able to use the word “queer” does not have the same importance as trans women being able to live, work, and survive in public. Rather, we are literally saying, “This is a thing TERFs say when they take a break from attacking trans women and try to recruit new members to their group, so it’s in our best interests to not give it too wide a currency.”

Some people have experienced the word “queer” used as a hateful word hurled against them and don’t want to hear it ever again. I get that. It happens. Where I grew up, “gay” was a synonym for “shitty” and it took me a lot of years out of high school before the word “gay” wouldn’t shoot my blood pressure through the roof.  I actually do understand that and think that’s valid (and again, support using post content filtering for that word).

One of the things I do at @star-anise is argue with young people who are headed into full-on transmisogynistic TERF territory, and work at reeling them back and deradicalizing them. I use a tag called “weedwhacking” so my followers can filter out the sometimes lengthy back-and-forths we get going.

Something I’ve learned, interacting with so many TERFs and proto-TERFs, is that one way they frequently get recruited into harassing trans people was through discourse around the word “queer”. For one, it encouraged them to want to distance themselves from any perception of LGBT people as “weird” or “not normal”, which led to seeing trans people as “weird” and “not normal” and therefore not good members of the “gay pride” community. For two, repeating “queer is a slur” predictably causes a lot of queer people to react in a defensive manner, so by teaching young or new people to say it, TERFs can set them up to feel alienated from the larger LGBTQ+ community and more open to TERF propaganda.

The next issue isn’t mentioned in the original callout post, but I think it’s key to this entire issue:

@yusufstiddies has made several posts about what cishet people should and shouldn’t write. For example, cishets shouldn’t write Nicky experiencing internalized homophobia.  Another is a detailed post of things cishets shouldn’t write about trans people, including which sexual positions only trans people are allowed to write. I would imagine that part of his frustration with fandom has been the lack of traction those posts have gotten. I know I very deliberately didn’t reblog them.

That isn’t because I don’t agree that the things he complains about are rarely handled well by cishet authors. I agree that there’s a lot of bad fic out there that contributes to negative stereotypes against LGBTQ+ people and is basically a microaggression to read.

I have two very deeply-seated reasons for my position:

LGBTQ+ identities are different from many other political identities because most people are not born identifiably LGBTQ+. It’s something we have to figure out about ourselves. And one really important way that we do that is using the safety of fiction to explore what an experience would be like, sometimes years before we ever admit that we fit the identity we’ve written about. So banning cishet authors from writing something is really likely to harm closeted and questioning LGBTQ+ people. It will lengthen the amount of time questioning people take before finding the identity that really fits them, and force closeted people to be even more closeted. 

There’s a lot of undeniably shitty stuff in fandom. However, I fundamentally believe that trying to target the people creating it and forcing them to stop doesn’t work very well, and has the serious byproduct of killing the creativity and enthusiasm of the rest of fandom and resulting in less of the actual thing you like being produced. I think that it is infinitely more productive to focus on improving the ratio of good stuff in fandom than trying to snuff out every bad thing.

Like I said: I understand if this means former followers, mutuals, or friends no longer want to interact with me. I’ll be saddened, but I’ve obviously chosen this path and can deal with the consequences. 

I wish this could have worked out differently.

#my stuff #the old guard

[uomo-accattivante]

Great comprehensive interview with Elvira on the making of The Letter Room and filmmaking, in general. One interesting tidbit mentioned: she is currently developing a podcast about sex. 👀🤔

For most of her creative life, Elvira Lind has been behind the the lens compassionately capturing true stories as a documentary filmmaker. Her debut feature, Songs for Alexis, observes two young lovebirds navigating a long distance relationship and challenging views on gender identity in the modern age. While her sophomore feature, Bobbi Jenne, explores the life of a famous dancer fighting for her own creative and personal independence.

Despite her prolific doc work, a story that couldn't simply be told in its raw form kept circulating in her head: a dark prison comedy about the secret life of a correctional officer trying to bring humanity to the prison system. When he gets transferred to a job in the letter room, he finds himself a little too involved in the private lives of the inmates.

Far along in her second pregnancy, and with the support of an incredible team of collaborators, Elvira took on the challenge of writing and directing her first narrative short, "The Letter Room." The film stars Oscar Isaac and Alia Shawkat, and has had an all-star festival run, screening at Telluride, Tribeca, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Here, Elvira reflects on the joys and challenges of creating your first short film—putting empathy first, reshaping the tropes around pregnancy, and screening in the COVID era.

FTW: How did you become a filmmaker?

Elvira Lind: I’ve always loved film. I was very drawn to documentaries because it felt like you were entering something that was really happening. You opened a door and were already inside the film. You’re just trying to keep up with what’s being thrown at you. As opposed to fiction where you have to conjure it up from nowhere. I loved imagining and writing stories when I was little, but I didn’t have the confidence to pursue it.

I didn’t come from a family of filmmakers. And I came from a time when people had a little shitty camcorder that you borrowed from someone’s uncle, and buying film was expensive. Things opened up and changed a lot when cameras became more accessible.

I could only afford one year of film school in Cape Town, where I met some amazing people and learned about so many different ways of storytelling. I came back to Denmark and found myself working for free a lot for other filmmakers while doing a side job. The paid work was very hard to get, but I’d rather work for free with filmmakers that I loved and have more responsibilities than have access to nothing. It wasn’t easy to find my way in, but it’s so worth it. 

And now you live in New York. How does this global background affect your general filmmaking style and approach?

I definitely bring a lot of Danish documentary traditions with me and hold it very dear. There are a lot of kick ass female documentary filmmakers in Denmark that have taught me a lot. There’s a good support system for women there. It’s an incredibly privileged place in that there’s funding from the government to make films. You can make things that, in my opinion, are often far more interesting because it’s not reliant on how it’s going to make money in the box office.

You’ve shot many of your documentaries in the past. So what was it like this time to be working with a cinematographer?

I always wanted to work with a cinematographer on my documentaries; we just couldn’t afford it. Now for “The Letter Room”, I worked with Sam Chase, who has got such a brilliant eye and it was wonderful to have someone to work with on composing the look of the film because I’m usually doing it by myself. It is kind of like a marriage. I work with the same editor on all my projects as well. You enter this symbiotic sort of dance together. For me, it also means you have to fight about things and disagree and then make up and hear each other out. My editor, Adam Nielsen, is the kind of guy who just comes up with genius ideas while in the shower or on the way home from work on his bicycle. You have to find these key people in your life where you can bounce ideas back and forth with.

Where did the idea for “The Letter Room” come from?

It was a story that was brewing in my head for a long time, but I wasn’t sure how to put a narrative film together. I just started to write it down and then it kept developing.

There was a podcast that I listened to that really inspired me. It told the story of different men who were all unknowingly writing love letters to the same woman. She started to ask for money and help with rent, but the letters she wrote were so wonderful and all these men were very in love with her. These very lonely men felt like magic had entered their lives. They all eventually found out that the woman was actually a man writing to different people trying to get their money. They were all heartbroken, but one of the men said that the worst part was losing these letters and that the fantasy was gone. He wished they could just keep writing to each other. So much of life is fantasy and trying to live through other people’s lives. I’m very drawn to stories of loneliness and bottled up feelings.

And then I am firmly against the American prison system. It’s heartbreaking, frustrating, and I can’t make sense of it. How do you even begin to explain this system to a child?

It’s a society that doesn’t care about humanity. I wanted to show the monotony, the repetition, the sadness. I don’t see the bigger goal or purpose of locking people away for countless years  and taking away all the things that makes you feel human, that makes life joyous. I really believe that we can all change and this system teaches people nothing. “The Letter Room'' is the combination of these two concepts that I’m very passionate about.

And then I got pregnant for the second time and I hadn’t made a film between the two. It was a crazy feeling to be taken over again by pregnancy. A wonderful friend of mine, Sofia Sondervan-Bild, came to me and said, “I think you should make this film and I’ll make it with you.” Initially, I freaked out and thought I didn’t know how to do fiction and doubted how I could make a film in a prison, but she inspired me and told me to do it. She’s just one of these incredibly powerful people that you want to go on an adventure with. She made me feel like my pregnancy wasn’t going to stand in the way of me making this film. We ended up shooting while I was far along in my pregnancy in a prison in the middle of a summer heat wave. It was crazy, but it was the best thing that I could’ve done at the time.

When you were directing on set at that stage of pregnancy, did you feel like you were reshaping tropes of what women are capable of? 

It was insane. The funny thing was that the crew was like, “we can’t complain that we are tired because she is extremely pregnant and still running around.” I was so high off of that experience. When we finished, I collapsed. I fell straight onto the couch and then I have a two and a half year old screaming my name. That was more work for me than directing the short. I edited the film right before I gave birth actually, and then I gave birth and did sound right after. I was pumping breast milk in the corner in the darkness during the sound edit.

I’ve learned a lot from surpassing whatever I thought was physically possible with being pregnant. I learned that being in a creative process gives you so much energy that it allows you to be in whatever shape, size, form, mental space you can. People are ready to give you their support, if you choose the right people. I’m really grateful that I chose such wonderful collaborators who supported me through it all. Even when people were questioning my choice to direct a film while being pregnant in a prison. Why not? Women get pregnant and then we still need to be supported so that we can continue to make the things we want to do.

What was your experience with getting “The Letter Room” funded?

It’s really hard, let’s be honest. There aren’t a lot of people sitting around waiting to fund a short film. We ended up working with Topic, which is a part of First Look Media. They are just incredible and really support filmmakers with whatever their vision is. I’ve had great experiences and some really bad experiences with funding, so I know this was an ideal scenario.

Having a short that is over 30 minutes long seems like a feat. At what stage in the process did you know this was going to be a longer piece? And how did that decision affect the shoot in both positive and difficult ways?

It was way too long at first, and when I shortened it, it was still 32 minutes. We could only afford five days of shooting, and a lot of it is shot on active prison grounds, which have an insane amount of protocol. We almost used everything we shot.

I’m not used to being able to have different angles to choose from in my doc work, so I think I just knew exactly what I wanted. I know that my producers were worried that I wasn’t getting enough, but to me, I was like, I’m getting double of what I usually get on a documentary! Everyone was quietly concerned, but everything worked out when we got to the edit.

The short’s length hasn’t done any favors for me so far, but you need to breathe as an audience, you need to pace it out. If I cut out certain minutes, it would’ve felt rushed and you wouldn’t have believed the arcs that the characters had.

I loved the concept of placing a very empathetic character in a setting that is contrary to that personality type. You included so many details that made the world feel so three dimensional and cared for. Can you talk about those decisions to create that feeling?

It means so much to me that it made you feel that way. What frustrates me about the prison system is that it lacks any empathy or understanding of human nature and nurture and who we are. What we need to become better people. It takes all of that away.

I spoke to people who have spent a lot of time in prison and they told me that you have to hide your feelings and that showing any signs of weakness will be a disaster. It’s the worst possible scenario you can imagine yourself in. Being robbed of every privacy, anything that makes you happy, anything that makes you feel like yourself. I imagined the character of a caregiver in this setting who wants to help and finds a silly way to do so. I was very inspired by that story of the love letters that I talked about earlier. What does it mean to lie if you’re making someone else happy?

It’s the morning of your first day of the shoot — how do you feel?

I was very nervous. I had never said ‘action’ before. I’ve been on a lot of sets, but I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t know what I was doing, but it’s also okay not to know. Mistakes are going to happen, and sometimes they become gifts. At the same time, I was very excited. You come in and there are all these people there with you who are there to make this thing you’ve written come to life.

What are some things you would do on set to create a safe space and vulnerable environment?

We did everything we could to make the set a safe space. It was very difficult and stressful to shoot in an active prison, but we made sure to actively ask our crew if everyone’s feeling okay and if we can do anything to make the situation better. I’m very vulnerable and encourage all of my crew to be vulnerable with me. Mistakes are welcome.

It's a short film, people come and work on this not because they’re making a million dollars, but because they want to be there and are being incredibly generous with their time and energy. It was such a good environment that even when challenging things came up, it was still a lot of fun.

What was it like working with actors for the first time?

That was one of the biggest challenges for me. I’ve heard so many different stories in passing of the least helpful note or worst thing to say to an actor. You want to be respectful and actors have their way of working. Ultimately, they are all really talented actors and all of them came with so much energy and a lot of ideas.

I spent time with each of them talking about their character. Those 1 on 1 conversations helped me a lot in the writing process as well because you’re bouncing ideas off of each other and they’re asking you questions about how they would respond to a certain situation.

I had always imagined Alia Shawkat as Rosita and she ended up wanting to do it and came from LA to film it. I had tears in my eyes when we were filming the scene of her and Oscar. They were excited to do the scene together. It was all a dream.

What was the experience of working creatively alongside your partner like?

We were joking a lot about it before because there was already the stress of being so pregnant and we have a 2 year old at home, and now I was putting us in another highly intense and demanding situation. Either it was going to be great OR we would drive each other nuts. But we had so much fun. It was wonderful to work together. I was so happy to be on set and make my film and he’s just so talented and fun to be around. Those little moments where you know each other so well—I’d give him notes and he just kept surprising me and was so respectful of my directions.

He found this photo for him to connect to the character and it became very fundamental to me. It was this incredible black and white photo from the 70s of a prison guard. I had always imagined that he would have this inner salsa soundtrack playing in his soul and we would play Rubén Blades and 70s salsa music and Oscar just morphed that into music into everything and created this unique character. 

And he was wearing a fat suit the entire shoot and I was pregnant and Alia Shawkat had her pregnant belly on. The three of us—it was so funny.

It seems like the perfect first experience of going into narrative with people that you really trust and support you.

Definitely! Find the people that you can team up with that really believe in your vision and who will push you to do exactly what you had in mind. People who never try to push you into these conventional routes. Our creative voices are so fragile. You want to be on the same page so that they see what you’re trying to do and want to bring that out of you. Where they’re treating your film as a sacred thing that you’re creating together.

How do you know when a film is done?

Fiction is very different from documentaries. With documentaries, it never feels like it’s done because there are so many options. That’s also why I love fiction so much; It’s so much faster. It’s a whole different beast to tame a documentary with hundreds of hours of footage where you’re reinventing the wheel every day.

How have you built up your own confidence as a director and your unique voice?

Stubbornness. I’ve had many experiences working with people who didn’t believe in my project. You have to stick to your guns and trust your instincts. Once you find your voice, you find people that want to go on that ride with you and find your vision interesting. It’s a miracle when any of us gets a project made, so your confidence can’t come from how much money your movie made. It has to come from somewhere else. Did you do justice to the people you portrayed in your story? Did anyone walk away feeling like something had changed within them?

What is a good director to you?

Someone who is driven with passion without letting that passion take over and become any source of frustration that’s taken out on other people. It should feel like a collaborative effort. And having gratitude every day that you’re making something with other people who are donating their time. You’d be nowhere without them. One of the most important things is making sure that your crew is treating everyone equally. It depends on the size of the production, but having someone who can sense what’s happening in all different departments and having department heads that are there to protect everyone. Listen to each other, and make sure everyone feels safe and is in the best place to be creative.

With COVID, what has the adjustment been like to being in an online space for this festival run? 

I’m really deeply saddened by not having the human interaction aspect of it. It feels so crucial to be in the room together, to meet and see each other's projects and share the experience, to cry and laugh next to people you don’t know. I’m grieving to be honest. We just gotta get through this time. It reminds us of how sacred it is for us to gather and how that feels, and I hope that all of that will come back after this and that cinemas will survive. We really need them.

What’s next for you?

Right now I’m writing more fiction and working on a new documentary feature that I am kind of researching and shooting at the same time. I am also creating a podcast about sex, called “The List” with my friend, writer and photographer Kirra Cheers, based on a book and play she wrote. My husband and I just started a production company together, Mad Gene Media, in order to develop and produce our own material. So. lots of exciting things to continue with in the new year.

Born in 1981 in Copenhagen, Elvira Lind graduated from School of Media and Creative Arts in Cape Town in 2006 majoring in documentary film where she received two awards for her final year achievements. She has worked within that field since directing and shooting documentaries of various lengths for TV, cinema and web on 4 different continents.​In 2020 she premiered her first fiction project, a 32 min short film she wrote and directed. The film was sold to Topic and was invited to various festivals including Telluride and Tribeca FF. Elvira's feature doc BOBBI JENE premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2017 where it won all awards in its category including Best Feature documentary, best editing and best Cinematography. The film had theatrical release in US, Spain and Scandinavia.​Elvira's first documentary feature Songs for Alexis premiered at Toronto HOT DOCS in 2014 and screened and competed at a long list of international festivals. Her 8 part documentary TV series "Twiz and Tuck" was bought by VICELAND and launched in 2017. Elvira now lives and works out of New York.

###

#oscar isaac #elvira lind #the letter room #mad gene media #interview

[viiicestlavie]

RANT AHEAD! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED:

Look, I am getting frustrated with certain producers now and just about as pissed as anyone is allowed to be, given that they CANCEL all the damn shows that I actually LOVE.

I recently just finished watching Anne with an E so, for those who have not seen it yet imma just give you a little background about it: Anne with an E is based on the book Anne of Green Gables by Canadian author L.M. Montgomery, published on 1908. It revolves around a young, red-headed orphan named Anne Shirley who was mistakenly sent to unmarried siblings Matthew & Marilla Cuthbert, who lives in a fictional farming town called Avonlea in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Anyway, Anne has endured a very rough and abusive childhood. Being in an asylum/ orphanage half of her life and the other half being passed around in strangers' homes as their help. Anne is spirited, creative, empathetic, an idealist and always has such a way with flowery words (i think that's one of the reasons why I love this series so much, I identify with her personality being an INFP myself). So, the siblings are supposed to be adopting a boy to help them with farm work and you can imagine the disappointment she feels when Anne learns that the Cuthberts "do not" want her. But Anne being the unusual yet genuine person that she is, the Cuthberts decides to keep her after all. There are so much more in between what I have just narrated. In fact, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

But that is not what this rant is about. Nope. This rant is about how I passionately fell in love with the series only to be completely screwed over by the producers when they decided to NOT renew it for another season.

The show is mature, wholesome, sensible and it tackles real-world problems in the most subtle yet impactful manner that I cry like an infant watching majority of the episodes.

What I love about Anne with and E is that it is refreshing and it strays from all that TV cliché that netflix is so popular for. It has substance and the characters have depths and incredible arcs (which is OBVIOUSLY LACKING in most of the shows netflix is advertising right now, no offense to those who actually enjoy them, i mean they are entertaining to say the least).

Anyway, the plot is very much enjoyable. I love how in the beginning (Seasons 1&2. It ends after 3 Seasons-- a huge bummer to find out if you've been super invested in the series like I had been) they were only focused on the important things like Anne finding her place in the world with the Cuthberts, coming to terms with her flaws and imperfections, her friendships, adventures and misadventures, how Avonlea had changed her and how she had come to change the lives of people in her community as well.

And then, on Season freaking 3 they had to drop the romance like such a bomb and I'm just so happy and so sad all at once knowing I could not and will not be able to get enough of it. Sigh.

Anyway, CBC had to cancel the entire show because they claim "it wasn't reaching their desired audience."

I know. What a load of crap.

Anne with an E is an absolute gem. And I abso-tively posi-lutely recommend it if you're ever looking for a series to binge-watch. It's a historical coming-of-age drama that talks about love, adventure, friendship, family, and important societal topics like: education, race, equality, gender identity, feminism and even death in the most gripping and astounding way possible.

!! So, #SaveAnneWithAnE !!

Okay. End of rant.

#anne with an e #historical drama #cbc #netflix #save anne with an e #this rant cost me my coffee but it's worth it #i want season 4 damn it!

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 6 of 26

Title: The Killing Moon (Dreamblood #1) (2012)

Author: N. K. Jemisin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, First-Person, Third-Person, Female Protagonist, LGBT Protagonist, Asexual Protagonist.

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 2/07/2021

Date Finished: 2/13/2021

Peace is sacred in the walled city-state of Gujaareh, and must be maintained at any cost. The Gatherers are a priesthood tasked with maintaining this goal. In the name of Hananja, Goddess of the moon, they walk the city at night and harvest Dreamblood-- the magic of dreams-- from Gujaareh's denizens. They bring the peace of death to those who need it... and to those judged criminal or corrupt.

But something else haunts Gujaareh's streets. A Reaper, a rogue Gatherer driven to endless madness and hunger from Dreamblood, is preying on the innocent, casting their souls into an eternal nightmare. Ehiru, one of the elder Gatherers, finds himself caught in the middle of a political conspiracy between his priesthood, the holy Prince, and the monstrous Reaper. An insidious corruption runs deeper than Ehiru knows-- and it may be too late to stop. 

The Gatherer’s eyes glittered in her memory, so dark, so cold--but compassionate, too. That had been the truly terrifying thing. A killer with no malice in his heart: it was unnatural. With nothing in his heart, really, except the absolute conviction that murder could be right and true and holy. 

Full review, major spoilers, and content warnings under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Graphic depictions of violence, gore, death, warfare, and murder-- including death of children and mass murder. Discussions of p*dophilia/grooming (nothing graphic). Brief reference to r*pe. One character is a minor infatuated with a much older character-- not reciprocated. Rigid gender and social roles, including slavery. Magic-induced addiction and withdrawal. Loss of sanity/altered mental states/mind control/gaslighting.

Last year I read N. K. Jemisin's short story collection How Long 'Til Black Future Month?  One of my favorite stories was The Narcomancer, which explored a vibrant, ancient Egypt-inspired world with themes of faith, dreams, violence, and duty. I wanted to read more from the universe, and finally got to do so with The Killing Moon, the first book in the Dreamblood duology.

Jemisin's creativity in worldbuilding is, in my opinion, unmatched in the fantasy genre. I thought Gujaareh was super interesting and fleshed out. While the ancient Egypt inspiration is obvious, it's also clearly an original fantasy culture in its own right. Everything from religious practices to social castes to gender roles to the fucking architecture felt methodical and thought out. The base premise of assassin priests compassionately harvesting magic from people is a fascinating idea and totally gripping. The pacing is a little slow, but I didn't mind so much because learning about the world was so fun.

While there's a hefty amount of worldbuilding exposition in the story, Jemisin doles out information gradually. Bits and pieces of Gujaareen law, etc are introduced at the beginning of each chapter, and usually have a thematic connection to the events of the story. Information is sparing at times, meaning that one doesn't have a full picture of how everything ties together until pretty far into the story. Even something as crucial as the dream-based magic system isn't fully realized until near the end. I like the mystery of this approach, and I can appreciate how difficult it must be to keep the reader invested vs frustrating them with a lack of info. Jemisin consistently does a great job with this in everything I've read by her.

I did want a little bit more from the narcomancy aspect of the story, since dream worlds are such a huge part of Gujaareen religion and culture. In The Killing Moon we see just a few dreamscapes, and then only briefly. There's so much potential with narcomancy as a magic system, yet most of what we see is an outside, "real-world" perspective, which isn't terribly unique compared to other kinds of magic. Dreamblood being a narcotic (heh) with some Extra Fantasy Stuff is interesting, but I wanted more. Perhaps The Shadowed Sun expands on this. 

Characterization is the other Big Thing with this book, as it's very much a character-driven story. Overall I'm torn. There's some things I really liked, and others that felt underdeveloped. I'll go over my favorite things first.

Ehiru is probably the strongest of the main cast, and I really enjoyed his character arc. Here's a guy who is completely devoted to his faith, regardless of what others may think of it. Yet he's not a self-righteous dick. He sees Gathering as a loving and holy thing, so when he errs in the line of duty, it totally consumes him. And things just get worse and worse for him as the story progresses. Say what you will about the Gatherers and the belief system of Gujaareh; Ehiru comes off as intensely caring, devoted, and compassionate, and I genuinely felt bad for him throughout the novel. I'm not religious but these kinds of faith narratives are super interesting to me.

Looking at characterization as a whole, I appreciate The Killing Moon's gray morality. No one in the story is wholly good or evil. The Gatherers are an obvious example, considering they murder people in the dead of night in the name of their Goddess-- but do so to help those in need. Despite being a megalomaniacal mass-murderer, the Prince has believable reasons for his horrific actions, and they’re not wholly selfish. Even the Reaper is a clear victim of Dreamblood's addictive and mind-altering nature; it sometimes regresses into the person it used to be, which is sad and disturbing. There's a lot of moral complexity in the characters and the laws and belief systems they follow. This kind of nuanced writing is much more interesting to read than a black and white approach.

Beyond this, though, I struggled to connect with the other leads. Nijiri's utter devotion to Ehiru is basically his whole character, and while the tragedy of that is interesting for its own reasons, I kept wanting more from him. Sunandi is a good "outsider perspective" character but I had a hard time understanding her at times. For example, the two most important people in her life, Kinja and Lin, die in quick succession. Yet besides a brief outburst when Lin dies, this barely seems to affect her. I get people mourn in all kinds of ways but it seems odd. Her sexual tension with Ehiru is also weird and underdeveloped. Perhaps this is meant to be a callback to The Narcomancer, but it doesn't accomplish much in this narrative.

Another issue I had was emotional connection to minor-yet-important characters. Kinja dies offscreen before the story, yet is supposed to be a big part of Sunandi's past (and thus emotional arc). But he's never even in a flashback, so I never felt WHY he mattered to her. Una-une is the big one, though. It's pretty easy to figure out he's the Reaper by process of elimination, but he's barely in the story outside of a few early mentions. There's this part near the end that's clearly meant to be an emotional moment; Ehiru realizes his (apparently beloved) mentor Una-une is the horrific monster, and thus a foil to the situation between himself and Nijiri. But we never saw the relationship between Ehiru and Una-une, and nothing really established this prior... so there's no emotional payoff. It felt at times like this book was part of a much longer story that for whatever reason we never got to see. In some ways that can be useful to make the world and history seem vast, but here it made me feel emotionally distant from several characters. Perhaps flashbacks with these important characters would have helped bridge the gap. 

Credit where it's due, though; it's clear a lot of the dark, often brutal tone and stylistic flair in The Killing Moon was adapted into Jemisin's fantastic Broken Earth trilogy. Probably the most notable are the cryptic interlude chapters told from the perspective of a mysterious character whose identity is unknown until the end. We learn bits and pieces of the beliefs and lore of the world through excerpts of common laws and wisdom. I also liked the occasional stream-of-consciousness writing during tense or surreal moments. The Broken Earth is an improvement overall, but I can appreciate The Killing Moon for establishing some of these techniques early.

I enjoyed this book overall and am planning to read The Shadowed Sun. While I have some criticisms about The Killing Moon, I think it just suffers in comparison to other works I've read by Jemisin. It was still an entertaining and intense read, with a captivating and original world. It's not a story for the faint of heart, though, so please mind the content warnings.  

#taylor reads #8/10 #2021 reading challenge

[drake-the-incubus]

This is a gift for @striderhell from the Homestuck Secret Santa 2020 (@homestuckss). I was aiming for 3000 words but uh, Dirk as a muse didn’t want to continue exploring the concept of gender given his rigid but philosophical nature.

I hope this was good, and if not just gimme a shout and I’ll try and come up with something better. 

Word Count: 1521 Fandom: Homestuck Characters: Dirk Strider, Roxy Lalonde Relationships: Dirk Strider & Roxy Lalonde (Platonic/Friends)

Additional Notes: Roxy uses He/Him and They/Them, I’ve never finished the epilogues but I love NB Rox. Dirk uses no pronouns in this, as I wanted to try that out. 

Please enjoy Dirk exploring his gender. 

Sometimes in an effort to define ourselves, we feel trapped to conform to some rigid aspect or label in hopes to reach an understanding of who we are. At times this process can be frustrating and dissatisfying. Other people take weeks or days, and some of them take years or never figure it out. 

Perhaps gender, as a construct, can’t be fully understood, but we can understand ourselves as people without it. The tale before you, is only a short of someone who wishes to take a journey many end up doing, and most have never encountered.

Dirk was sitting in a cafe on Earth-C, sipping on a coffee in between tinkering with another pair of shades. The goal was updating and adding a better set of graphics, hoping to add some additional features to make things easier.

It had been a while since the Prince of Heart had seen the rest of the gods. Jake would visit once in a while, and they would have a friendly spar or talk. Roxy would message once in a while, letting Dirk know any spicy news about the rest.

Dave would randomly show up, they would stare each other down before both Striders would give a thumbs up and go their separate ways.

Rose would often come by, trading witty banter and wisdom. Both of them struggled with the massive impact of their god tiers and would often talk about it to one another.

Today though, Dirk decided a change of area would suit this project best, specifically needing to leave the workshop and enjoy some caffeine. Recently a problem developed that would continue to nag at the Prince even through the night. Lack of sleep was the reason why Dirk had picked a coffee shop. It made the most sense.

Gender did not.

Dirk had been going through a lot lately, and when Roxy had come out as trans, it had been taken pretty well by most of them. Not that it would be different if Dirk came out either, but rather that would take knowing what was going on.

This was a laughable moment, since they all had beaten the game, made it out and enjoyed their own little home in the midst of nothing. Creating entire worlds and civilizations with the help of their space and time players, but Dirk was sitting there, in a cafe, trying to figure out what gender even was and how it related to the god’s own identity.

Pronouns were hard, but so was even figuring this shit out. Making a copy of your brain at thirteen was much easier than figuring out if you’re cis or not, and Dirk didn’t know.

The more it was thought about, the more the thought cropped up, what if it turned out the being Cis wasn’t the result. Dirk was absolutely sure about not being a chick, nothing really appealed about that, but then again there was a very similar feeling over the current gender.

Man, agender or woman. Those were the categories that presented themselves currently. Working harder to connect the shades to the newly built chip, Dirk jolted when suddenly Roxy sat down across the table.

“I called out to you, but you didn’t answer.” He said leaning over and looking over the project. “I was wondering what made you change location, you’re pretty adamant to work in your workshop Dirkie.”

“I needed to think, which I was doing when you were calling out to me. Thinking so hard about creating a new line of orange pop with more caffeine than this cup of coffee that the world died out and I was left to only the one set of thoughts for once.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, and crossed his arms. “Really now? You think that I can’t tell something bigger is going on in that Strider head of yours? You’ve come up with projects while having a philosophical discussion with Rose and texting Dave a rap battle. You’re the king of multi-tasking, which also means your attention is usually divided more, and you’re attempting to put a wire on the wrong side of that.”

Dirk frowned and sighed, putting the project down. “Well, I can’t get nothing past you I suppose. I guess one thing that’s on my mind is how much I miss AR, since he was a good source of introspection, then again I have no idea if that would have helped in the first place.” Tapping fingers filled the space between them as the Prince looked outside at the billions of humans and trolls walking over the streets.

“I’ve been contemplating what gender is and how I relate to it since you came out as nonbinary. It’s been making me think about what is my gender, and I’ve come to the conclusion none of them really fit, but that’s also something to worry about since that means I don’t relate to any of the options-“

“Before you go on a long tangent, I want to ask, what are the options?” He interrupted Dirk while cocking his head.

“Agender, man and woman.” Dirk said bluntly, staring at Roxy. The laughter that resulted made the god tip the iconic shades down to stare at Roxy with deadpan orange eyes.

“I get greeted by your eye colour, score! But no, you got it all wrong, gender isn’t rigid categories, it’s a spectrum. You can’t define it by strict labels and there’s too many to count. So you don’t fit in three, there’s millions of genders. Some might not have a word for it right now. I’m nonbinary, but that’s because I’m not a man or a woman completely, I’m somewhere in the middle, closer to a man if I were to describe it as like, a sliding scale. So don’t be in a hurry, and don’t worry if you don’t figure it out.”

“I need to. Not knowing makes things difficult. I know it might be unhealthy to obsess over, but ever since I made Auto Responder, I had the need to understand myself fully and everything about myself.” With an elbow on the table, Dirk took a hand and raked it through the mess of hair. Having done so more than a hundred times earlier, the Prince was sure it was a complete and utter mess at this point, and would need to be taken care of at home.

“Well, I have a list of some of the other more known ones, maybe one of them check out for you?” He offered a tablet.

Dirk took it, and looked over the list of options and each description of it, mumbling under breath before placing the tablet back down with a definite, “I’m going to use Genderless for now and see what happens.” It looked interesting, the excerpt specifically outlined not having a gender at all due to neurodivergence, rather than lacking a gender or having no gender, different from agender. It didn’t feel much different from everything else, but nothing did. Having several of the entries be defined by one’s neurodivergence was weird, but the more thought placed into the concept, the more it felt real to Dirk. Rather it meant that the Prince would have to take Rose up on her offer to get a fully evaluation soon, even if both of them came to the conclusion Dirk was probably neurodivergent and that it wasn’t impactful with how the god had lived life before the game. 

“Are there any pronouns I should use for you?”

Pursing lips, Dirk gave a shake of the head. “None preferably. I think I need more time to actually think everything over. I have no positive or negative feelings for anything on there, and so I’m debating on if I’m everything or not. I can figure out how to make an exact replica of my own brain as a teenager, create robots, plot out the exact way I can kiss Jake and even save everyone's lives getting into the game. I’ve designed complex interactions to lead to the outcome I desire, and I can’t even pick a gender. This is quite frankly, ridiculous.”

“You don’t gotta. Dirk, it’s not about just picking a gender, it’s about figuring out a big part of yourself, and something most people don’t do for yours. You figured out you’re gay, now you’re figuring out what else you could be.” He placed a hand on Dirk’s and gave him a smile. “Whatever your result, I’m here for you. Even if you later think you’re a Cis man I’ll still be here for you. We might be siblings but we were friends first and that matters the most to me.”

Dirk gave a snort. “This is so fucking corny, but thanks Rox. I appreciate the love and support. Maybe I can treat you to another coffee since I feel like if I don’t buy one soon I’m going to be kicked out for making a mess of a window table.” Motioning towards the table, and standing up, the god stretched out. “What are you in the mood for?”

“Caramel Macchiato please.”

“Gotcha.”

#homestuck secret santa 2020 #striderhell #I fucking was gonna make this christmas eve but I got busy the past two days #Glad I waited because this Idea was much better #trans nonbinary characters #dirk is amab

[homenum-revelio-hq]

Welcome (again) to the Order of the Phoenix, Karli!

You have been accepted for the role of BENJY FENWICK with the faceclaim change of Nick Robinson, along with the requested bio changes! I loved how you dug into and fleshed-out Benjy’s ills and issues without obscuring the bright, optimistic (naive) core of him. I also adored reading the relationships section and how you wove so many other members of the Order into his life and perspective. I can’t wait to see him interact with everybody on the dash! I’m so glad you’ve decided to bring us the rest of the Chaos Trio!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Karli

AGE: 29

TIMEZONE: CST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: Same as it has been, fairly active. Less so in the fall when school starts up again.

ANYTHING ELSE: None.

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Benjy Fenwick

AGE: 19 | September 18, 1962

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cis-Male, Him/Him, Heterosexual. 

Benjy is very comfortable with his sexuality and isn’t afraid to be friends with people who are not heterosexual. In fact, a majority of his friendships are with people who are discovering their sexuality or already identify as LGBTQ. With a gay father, he sometimes considers himself “knowing” and forgets that his experience is very privileged. Just because he’s accepting and aware doesn’t mean he truly gets it and, being young, that’s sometimes hard to remember.

BLOOD STATUS: Half-Blood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Ravenclaw

ANY CHANGES: Even though I wrote the bio and the FC originally, the more I solidified Benjy in my mind, some of the things I originally wrote ended up needing to be changed. For instance, I would like to change my FC to Nick Robinson. As I got to know Benjy, I realized that KJ’s expressions and resources didn’t really fit the mold I’d created with this portrayal. Also, I think it might be important to change the “he’s the newest member” thing in the second part of the bio, as he is no longer the newest member - just started that way when the roleplay began. I would also like to change the Caradoc connection up a bit - I will include it below under “relationships.”

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY: 

The first thing many people notice about Benjy Fenwick is his energy. He is very talkative and likeable in the sense he’ll not only talk to someone, he wants them to talk back. He’s a good listener, even if he doesn’t always look like it. With that energy needing to go somewhere, it’s not always easy for him to sit still (something that the healers were frustrated by during his recovery) and often will be found moving around or doing something with his hands. This can be offensive to those people he’s supposed to be listening to - but he does keep his ears open, even if his eyes aren’t concentrated.

He likely has a mild case of undiagnosed ADHD - which sometimes shows up in the form of struggling to stay focused and hyperactivity. This happens, typically, with those things he cares less about. He could talk for hours about Quidditch without needing a break (or used to, anyway, it hurts a bit more now that he’s on the outside of the sport) and even the art of healing has become important enough to him to have much of his attention. The program at St. Mungo’s is harder for Benjy, given his need for extra support that wouldn’t be given in the Wizarding World, but he manages to stay afloat, even if he’s not at the top of the program.

Benjy is accepting and loving, but sometimes has the complex that he doesn’t really have to do much soul-searching - or doesn’t really have to grow. In modern terms, Benjy thinks himself to be “woke” without realizing that his naivety means he still has a lot of self-awareness left to find. Just because he sees an experience doesn’t mean he knows that experience - and he might need someone to force him to take a step back and really look. 

Currently, he’s in a bit of an identity-crisis. For years, Quidditch had been his focus. It had been his life. He chose healing, not because of passion, but because of a lack of other things he could think of. When Quidditch ended, the hospital visits began and the healing program sort of fell into his lap. He is learning to find a love for healing, but it hasn’t fully developed yet. 

Benjy is curious and creative. There is a reason he was sorted into Ravenclaw - and it isn’t the stereotypical “booksmart.” He learned that Ravenclaws often have an open-mindedness about them that allows for thought in different ways. While he’s not very artistic, his creativity comes in the ability to think outside the box and look at things from a new perspective. This helped him with his Quidditch skills and it could help within the Order, too. 

He doesn’t always come off as though he truly cares, however. Because he picks and chooses what to really put his heart into, sometimes he might seem indifferent to others’ suffering or what they have to say. He’s got a bit of that British-polite in him and doesn’t always stick up for what’s right without someone backing him up. For this, he is a follower. He was pulled into the Order by Dorcas - and doesn’t really do much within the organization without someone telling him what to do. He might get radical at times, but that’s only because Dorcas is telling him to be. He’s a Yes Man in that way and often struggles to make his own decisions. Without her pressure, he likely wouldn’t be in the Order right now and just safely hiding under the radar as a “normal” half-blood.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY: 

(Once again, this isn’t brief and it’s about his whole life, not just family WHOOPS!)

Benjy was seven years old when his father, Jaison, came out as homosexual. Benjy’s mother, Maeve, had been mildly shocked for a bit before praising her husband for his true acceptance of self. They promptly divorced, but remained friendly and shared custody of their two children. Benjy’s sister, Haley, was too young to ever remember a time where their parents were together - so the situation of co-parenting and blended family structure had always been her normal.

For Benjy, it was a bit tougher. He was confused by the fact that Daddy and Mummy weren’t together anymore, but still spent time together. He questioned a bit about love in the capacity a child could. Until he met Lucas. His dad had taken months with Lucas before feeling comfortable enough to introduce his kids, but Benjy learned a bit about love watching his father with his boyfriend. Eventually, Lucas became a staple in the Fenwicks’ life, moving in with Jaison despite their inability to get married.

What won Benjy over about Lucas was Quidditch. While Maeve worked for the Department of Magical Games and Sports, it wasn’t until Lucas entered his life that Benjy actually got to go see a Quidditch match. They would go to as many as they could, buying food from the stances and watching the players fly high into the air, shooting the Quaffle or knocking the bludger or catching the snitch.

He learned to fly early. With his mum at one home and his step-dad at the other, Benjy always had someone to practice with. He grew to love the position of Keeper best. The idea that he was in charge of surveying the entire pitch - that he was the final defense against the opposition and the goal - was exhilarating. He lived and breathed the sport and, by the time he went to Hogwarts, he had his life planned out.

Ravenclaw was surprising until he met some friends and learned the house was about creativity along with intelligence. It helped with his game. Benjy didn’t need a crystal ball to tell him his future: he would get on the team his second year, he’d be promoted to captain by fifth year, get scouted during seventh, preferably by the Falmouth Falcons.

But then a bludger hit towards him by the Gryffindor team’s beater, which caused Benjy to roll the wrong way - he’d practiced the Zelig Flip a thousand times, but he’d positioned his hand a bit too much to the left and slipped. The fall from such an incredible height should’ve killed him - he was lucky, they said. You should be dead, they said. And Benjy wanted to shout but a life without Quidditch is death! 

Perhaps the worst thing of all - besides the injuries and healers and learning to put weight on his leg again - was that the Falcon scout had been there. He wouldn’t play again - he couldn’t play again. And the person he most wanted to impress witnessed it all.

He was back at Hogwarts by the time N.E.W.T.s rolled around, but spent the better part of the year between St. Mungo’s and the school. It was because of this he recklessly - and without much thought - applied to the healing program at the hospital. He got in, accepted, and mourned the loss of who he was supposed to have been. Perhaps Dorcas recognized his identity-crisis because he barely thought about it before agreeing to join the Order with her. Searching for something to fight for again.

OCCUPATION: Healer-In-Training at St. Mungo’s. 

Benjy applied for the healing program upon graduation because he just didn’t know what else to do. It had never been a real passion for him - but the idea of Quidditch was over and he’d been spending so much time at the hospital lately that he went for it. His N.E.W.T.s were just good enough to get him accepted. Looking back, it’s actually a good fit for him. It’s always different day-to-day, which keeps his interest, and learning all the new healing techniques quells his curious streak.

Currently, he’s still in year one of the two-to-three year program.Recently, he began the portion of the training that involves rotations, where he gets to spend some time in each of the wards of St. Mungos. During his third year, he will have to declare a speciality, but he has no clue what that will be. Right now, his favorite bits of healing have to do with the Order and working with Emmeline. 

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER: 

Benjy is a lower level member who joined the Order in September 1981, through Dorcas Meadowes’ pushiness encouragement. At the time, he was the newest member and knew little about the organization. As the months have passed and they’ve failed missions and lost members (most notably, one of Benjy’s idols, James Potter), he’s learned to grow more and more passionate about the cause.

He typically stays back during missions, both to help with healing given his qualifications, but also because he just physically can’t do all the dueling. His leg injury makes him slower and the slight tremors in his wand hand can be controlled in moments of healing, but not necessarily high-energy duels.

He believes in the Order, but isn’t overtly vocal about it. Given his nature as a Yes Man, he is known to nod and agree and go ohhh, so that’s how it is depending on whichever person is “explaining” things to him. This makes him fairly susceptible to manipulation - and often spouts Dorcas’ words rather than making his own opinion on the matter.

SURVIVAL: 

Benjy survives through his “normalcy.” He’s not rich, but he’s not poor. He’s not loud, but he’s not quiet, either. He’s a half-blood from a few generations back; nothing really special about it all. Had he become famous like he anticipated, the spotlight might be on him more. But, as it is, no one really cares much about the could’ve beens of the world. 

He lives with his mum in his childhood home, in his childhood room, and is more than ready to get the fuck outta there! It might be easier to sneak away if his sister wasn’t off at Hogwarts, but all his parents are worried about their son that nearly died. Since the fall, they’ve had eyes on him more than they might’ve had things panned out differently for him. Once allowing him to be fairly independent, now his mum wants to know where he’s going at night - and, whenever he’s at his dad’s, he has two sets of eyes watching over him. It’s rather exhausting making up lies or avoiding the question with the teenage-angst shout of I’m of-age now, Mum!

Still, he’s mostly under the radar and, if any of his parents suspect anything, no one has mentioned it to Benjy. He knows what they’d say if they do find out about the Order, however; they’d want him to stop. Maybe in the beginning, he would’ve listened. Now, especially with James’ death, he’s in too deep. And he likes that.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Dorcas Meadowes. Having been friends since their Hogwarts days, Benjy listens to her maybe more than anyone else. He’s very much the “Yes Man” when it comes to Dorcas - he joined the Order for her, helped with the creation of the Phoenix symbol before the explosion of the Atrium, and is willing to do more destruction for her. Benjy thinks of Dorcas as his best friend, though in truth, she might just be using him. He’s blind to it, whatever it is, and he’s bound to get himself hurt following in her footsteps.

Emma Vanity. A newer friend, but closer than most of the ones Benjy used to have in school (which mainly consisted of the Quidditch team and a few outliers, like Dorcas) these days. While the rest of his friends have moved on to other things not regarding the war, Emma found her way in it. She doesn’t need to fight - she’s a pretty, rich, pureblood, after all! - and Benjy admires that she is. 

Emmeline Vance. What started out as an odd pairing (seasoned, weary war healer and over-eager trainee with a limp) has become something really special. Benjy values Emmeline’s guidance more than any of the other “adults” (he’s an adult too, but different sort of adult!) in the Order. She’s sensible and level headed and nothing seems to shake her. She’s taught him more in battlefield healing than he learned in his first 6 months of healer training and he respects her. She might get a bit annoyed with all his antics, but he can make her smile! He knows she’s fond of him!

Caradoc Dearborn. Benjy judged Caradoc too harshly at first - a product of finding the Marauders so cool and knowing that at least half of them didn’t enjoy Caradoc’s presence. Once he learned that Dearborn did, in fact, play Quidditch in school - and once he actually talked to Caradoc - the tides have changed. They’re not close friends, but he’s not as much of a stick-in-the-mud as Benjy thought. 

(This is the connection I’d like to change, please!!)

Sirius Black. He’s very cool. Benjy bought a leather jacket because he saw Sirius wearing one, but then felt like an idiot, so it’s never been worn outside his own bedroom (and he’s sure Dorcas will make fun of him, if she ever sees it!). Benjy knows he’ll never be as effortlessly awesome as Sirius Black - the bloke always looks rather careless and that’s just so killer, man! - but he likes taking tips anyway. Maybe he’ll get a girlfriend if he’s more like Sirius. Now that James has died, the easy, cool bloke from before is shifting to something darker and that’s scary. Benjy doesn’t want to get rid of his old idol, but he also doesn’t want to die for Sirius. 

Dedalus Diggle. It might be calling the kettle black, but Diggle sort of annoys Benjy. He talks a lot - tinkers a lot - messes with things. And maybe that’s just Benjy seeing himself in Dedalus, but two people who are this energetic together can sometimes be a bit of an explosion.

Daisy Hookum. Benjy doesn’t know Daisy well at all. She was years ahead of him in school and was off on some Muggle retreat when Benjy joined the Order but, now that she’s back, he’s interested in some of the things she learned over there. Especially the Muggle sporting! 

Remus Lupin. Just before the disastrous event at the party, Remus was outed as a werewolf. Benjy never really got to know the bloke - he, too, was on some mission when Benjy joined up - but now he’s almost afraid of him. Benjy himself doesn’t realize that’s internalized prejudice coming into play… but he doesn’t want to become a werewolf!

Severus Snape. Benjy doesn’t know how to feel about Severus Snape. It’s clear that Sirius hates him, but Dorcas loves him. Those are two people who could really sway Benjy over to their side if he doesn’t quickly form his own opinion. Severus doesn’t really seem to care about Benjy, though, so it’s not really a priority. But if Severus does want people on his side in the Order, Benjy could be an easy target for loyalty. 

Isla Selwyn-Macmillan. She actually played Quidditch professionally for years - Benjy has old magazines with her picture in it! He’s a bit too afraid to ask her about her experience on the major league pitch, however - not just because he’s a bit starstruck, but also because it hurts to talk about what he might’ve been able to have, too. He doesn’t realize it wasn’t Isla’s choice to leave the sport, however. If he were to find out, they might be more kindred spirits than anyone would think.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: Benjy/Chemistry. Since I made him straight explicitly for the goal of providing that “oh so woke, but not exactly” cis, white, straight dude, any ships would have to be heterosexual. But I’m open for whatever within that realm!

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

Benjy is right down the middle of privilege, meaning he doesn’t really get the perks of being a pureblood, but doesn’t get the prejudice of being a muggleborn. He’s a halfblood, white, cis-male wizard. His family grew up fairly middle class and, while his parents are divorced, they managed to stay friendly and Benjy never had to go through the trauma of feeling as though he had to choose.

With accepting parents, one of which is gay, Benjy has grown up learning about the importance of tolerance and acceptance. Because of this, he believes he’s (in modern terms) “woke.” However, there is still internalized prejudice in all of us. While he would never dare to utter the word mudblood and would scoff at someone who does, he still might look at a talented muggleborn with a bit of wow, look at that! as though it were surprising they could be just that good. He also wouldn’t fight the person using the word Mudblood. He would likely tell him it’s not cool, but forgive and move on easily. Not realizing that it wouldn’t be his place to forgive. It’s not his story to tell.

While he doesn’t hold the rhetoric of all werewolves are bad and all house-elves should be servants and other things along those lines, he inadvertently acts on it without knowing. It’s very naive -- “You mean werewolves don’t have canine teeth and claws in their human form?!” and “But don’t they like not getting paid?!” -- but Benjy is willing to listen and grow. He just sometimes forgets he still has room to grow because he generally does try to be accepting to all people and creatures. He also doesn’t always care enough to seek out more information because he doesn’t really think he needs it -- it doesn’t affect him. And that’s privilege. 

Being a straight bloke with a gay dad and a lot of LGBTQ friendships, he really thinks he understands sexuality. And maybe he gets some of it, but he doesn’t really “get it.” It’s not his experience. He’s also very confused about bisexuality, which makes sense given the timing of the world as well. What he saw in his life shaped his understanding of sexuality - his dad presented straight until he accepted his sexuality and then he was gay. Benjy gets that, but struggles to understand that there are sexualities in-between the two. For instance, Emma and Dorcas -- if they get together, he’d assume that means they’re lesbians, despite sexuality not being so clear cut as that. Once again, it doesn’t come with malicious intent or the desire to erase anyone… it’s just naivety. People need to teach him because he’s willing to learn. 

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? It’s the roleplay I created and I love how amazing it’s become. It’s honestly a bit eerily relevant to our life right now and I’d like to explore that with a different character than Regulus. Benjy more closely resembles James, but he’s still his own and he has a story to tell.

PLOT DROP IDEAS: All chalked out, sorry! All my ideas are already in the process through admin stuff. I’d love the chaos trio to fuck some shit up together, but that’s all I’ve got! 

ANYTHING ELSE? I’m not sure where else to discuss Benjy’s injuries, so I’ll just do it here. When he fell from his broom, he landed on his left side, which also happens to be his dominant side (he’s left-handed in both writing and wand). He walks with a limp all the time - it will likely never go away. For a while, he was forced to use a cane, especially during the healing process, but hasn’t needed that since prior to graduation. If he pushes himself too hard, there’s the possibility he may need that again, but he likely would just rest on those days more than bringing out the old cane full of unwanted reminders. His wand arm’s muscles had torn in the fall and, despite the ability to put them back together through magic, there are some lasting effects. He sometimes has tremors, especially if having a wand raised for long periods of time. Typically, this can be remedied with some techniques taught to him by the healers, but in extreme cases, he needs to put the wand down for an hour or so. This is most difficult when he’s in the middle of healing, otherwise it doesn’t get in the way much. 

#homenumaccepted #harry potter rp #hp rp #marauders rp #marauders rpg