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thegayclarinetist · 1 year

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this is gonna be a long one, probably with a bunch of trailing points, but I feel like I need to write this down.

truly sucks how the widespread availability of the internet has just… fucked over the youngest members of the lgbtq community.

PLEASE HEAR ME WHEN I SAY THIS IS NOT AN ATTACK ON PUBLIC SUPPORT GROUPS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT

I think a big problem that many of the ~20-30 year old tumblr thinkpiece writers have been unaware of is the actual state of lgbt youths. It’s a problem of marketability politics, feelings of social isolation, mental illness, social media systems, and our good ol’ friend Capitalism.

I will state here that I have firsthand, personal experience with this stuff. i’ve got a severe case of “ADhD where it makes me think a lot about stuff that i’m not exactly an expert on but i have a lot to say about”, so I may be wrong in some parts or leave off on topics that i meant to come back to.

First, i want to talk about Mental Illness and LGBT identities! When I was a tween/ early teenager, i figured out I was gay. Many children like me figure this out, around the time when we have a need for personal identity, but not an amazing grasp on the systems that shape our world. so when we take to social media to communicate about this, we have a strong desire to seek out others similar to us. I’ll get to social media a bit later.

social media is built out of, and constructs it’s own, systems that shape our understanding of the world. And as queer people, young(12-14) queer people fall into these systems in ways that they don’t yet understand. but they have a very strong desire to understand themselves and their identities, the communities around those identities, etc. as an insecure young Gay boy, i found myself on twitter and Discord servers, desperately trying to find a way to participate.

here’s where I’ll talk about social media! It sucks. it truly, really fucking sucks. and i’ll get to why eventually. so we have these young queers. they join some social media group and look up some gay creator or trans artist. they look up and follow these people that share identities. the algorithmic nature of social media reccomends them more. and as Young, malleable minds, they start to pick up on

THE DISCOURSE

hmm. shit.

and because they don’t understand said discourse, they pick up the first few most reasonable posts, add it to their idea of “what this identity is/means/should be”. they see the posts that are targeting and harassing certain creators. so they pick up why these creators are bad. and then the algorithm pushes them to the logical endpoint of this system: the Echo Chamber.

I’ve been through this cycle.

it’s scary, BUT I DIDNT KNOW WHY I SHOULD HAVE BEEN SCARED.

because as a mentally ill gay teenager, I didn’t need to worry about the minutia of transgender infighting based on philosophies of gender. no teenager does. but I was pushed towards these communities and I was adding these ideas to my head. And it’s happening exponentially more, and more severely, to each group of 12-13 year olds because of the growths of these communities.

and being 12-13 sucks, because you are old enough to be subject to some of these systems I mentioned, old enough to feel the need to _do something_, but not old enough to understand that they’re not talking about YOU. the algorithm on twitter doesn’t give a shit if you’re 12-13 and you follow gay people. it shows you the discourse meant for 23-27 year olds. and you don’t know that your mind is being influenced in these ways!

I’m gonna talk about my specific experience with this to maybe clarify what i mean a bit.

I, newly gay, previously a Gifted Education kid, with a lot of ideas and the stubbornness to match, download twitter and discord. I am immediately greeted with discourse. I had already educated myself a bit about how social media twists narratives from watching things like Contrapoints, etc, so i had at least a little bit of a safety net. so i read the discourse, i am subjected to trump tweets and political rants and righteous anger. I, as a 13 year old on the bus rides home from school, start to “learn” about slur discourse, transmedicalism, reaganomics, etc. i start to argue with MAGA dumbasses. i start to try and help people figure out their identities. i memorize all the pride flags.

on discord, i see all of the pronoun roles and the identity roles and emojis. overloaded. i think to myself “it is my job to learn these all, because Twitter told me I am a BAD PERSON if i don’t learn ALL THE LABELS”. I am confronted with these people who i talk to on VCs, text chats, etc, who all have gone through the same pipeline as me. i start to hang out on there a lot. i start to think of myself as a Knowledgeable Expert on queer identities(as a 13 year old). some of the people I was online “friends” with left. some of the popular users leave. i think to myself,”I am one of the Popular people on here. I know what’s up”.

i am exposed to more discourse about binding, tucking, transgender surgery, etc. on twitter.

at some point, i came out to my parents, and i soon stopped interacting on Discord and deleted twitter.

i finally made some queer friends IRL. the kind, who, like me, were subjected to that pipeline.

but i started to realize that the way they were acting was… too much. trying to fight some other friends of mine because they said the wrong microlabel. so i decided to let the overly concerned friends go. i re-educated myself about queer identities. i read a book! it was great. i realized that i wasn’t mature enough to need to give a shit about any of that yet.

i’ll continue this in a reblog i need to get a fresh post open.

#identity #social media sucks #social media #mental illness #echo chamber #lgbt #lgbt youth #society

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viscountessevie · 2 years

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Do you think that the Peneloise break up could finally give us Francesca and Eloise in action? I can't believe how she's not shown to be close to at least one sibling. And I heard that in the books it was Eloise who she was the closest with. This could finally be the perfect opportunity to let her shine. What is your theory about this?

Ohmygod anon you read my mind - this is exactly what I want in S3!! Thank you for this ask - it's a much needed break from all the Pelican and racial thinkpieces. Let's get into some S3 headcanons with these two!

Before I do the HCs, you're absolutely right that Frannie and Eloise are the closest in the books because they are Irish twins! They have the same birthday a year apart. They also look scarily alike in the books that in TDAI Simon actually keeps mixing up the two at the Bridgerton family dinner. It was hilarious. It makes sense with their age and also being witty in their own ways that they are close. I've always found it funny that the most outspoken Bridgerton and the quietly witty one were the closest in the books.

The lack of Frannie in the show is really sad because along with Kate, she's my favourite character and fave Bridgerton sibling - like yes I adore Anthony but mainly because I relate to him shshhs whereas Frannie truly is the BEST Bridgerton imo.

She deserves to shine along with her siblings, I just hope Bridgerton and Lockwood & Co. Are a bit more accomdating of Ruby for S3's filming. She was supposed to have a bigger arc and storyline in S2 but she got cast and started filming for Lockwood & Co. Tbh I was a little sad we missed out on a Frannie story (God knows it would have been better than Cousin Jack's storyline 🙄) but I'm just happy Ruby is busy and getting booked! Especially now as the lead in L&C.

Anyways onto the S3 headcanons/predictions under the cut because Frannie deserves more screentime and Eloise needs better friends next season!

- Eloise storms in Frannie's room once she's back from her crime ring in Bath (I still cannot believe they didn't even bother to give Frannie an in-show excuse this season 😭 so we'll maintain she was running her crime ring in Bath.) and immediately tells her about LW because if anyone can keep shit to themselves it's Frannie.

- Frannie is just like "I know."

Eloise goes 👁👄👁 "Why didn't you tell me?!"

"You're smart El I thought you'd figure it out."

[Btw we were robbed of Fran and El looking for LW in S1 and then halfway through Frannie figures it out and keeps looking at Pen pointedly while El is being a total dumbass about the signs right in front of her.]

- They basically bicker for a bit about Fran not telling her and El being smarter than that but having Pen as a blindspot. Also I feel like while they essentially have no connection, Fran did write to Marina a couple times to check in on her because she's just so lovely like that.

- Fran totally would have exposed Pen as LW once the Marina thing happened if she wasn't so busy with her crime ring sigh. She's also just really glad that El finally saw sense and got away from Pen.

- It was hard watching the sister you're closest to be best friends with an insipid wallflower who relished in ruining people's lives and reputations.

- The Pen of it all aside, Fran will be debuting this season and while Fran has seen both her sisters go through their debuts and knows how she'll handle herself, with grace and class as always, she welcomes the advice from Daph and El. Kate also gives her tips on how to avoid men who make her uncomfortable and to dress down rude ones.

- El is the first person she goes to when she meets the Stirlings. She gushes about John and then at the next ball El accidentally points out Michael, "Oh dear, he is gorgeous. You picked well, Fran." Ehehhe the foreshadowing of it all

- Fran can't do anything else but blush and be flustered because "El, that's John's cousin."

"Oh, my mistake." Then they go to formally introduce El to the cousins.

Stellar Additions from Trivia @hptriviachamp :

- All of that is a B/C plot of course and Bridgerton really needs to start using the sideplots to prop and support the main plot because CAN YOU IMAGINE EL AND FRAN TRYING TO GET BENOPHIE TGT??

- Like of course Francesca Bridgerton, the smartest sibling, figures out immediately that Sophie is the Lady in Silver and keeps dropping hints for Ben to realise it

- Eventually one by one everyone in the family figures it out and they all stand by watching in amusement at Ben's face blindness.

- El and Fran with their hints and shenanigans to leave Benophie in rooms alone together. Them recruiting Kate too who ends up becoming Sophie's bestie and helping her out.

- S3 I'm begging you to give me the El, Fran, Sophie and Kate fiercesome four sisters/sisters-in-law. El needs better women and friends in her life as do the other women and also more screentime for all! And especially our main couple next season Beneophie!!

This was such a fun ask to answer anon, thank you so much!! Now back to answering ships I'm not super into; Philoise/Marina/Theo Edition.

#bridgerton #Eloise Bridgerton #Francesca Bridgerton #Frannie my beloved #kate sharma #sophie beckett #Bridgerton S3 speculation #GC Stamp of Approval #Trivia Tag #Asks

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tartagluvr · 3 years

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you dumb motherfucker, i loved you.

(aka a lucifer thinkpiece i wrote back in december to vent)

warnings: none really, big words bc i love them, use of she/her pronouns because i wasn't fully detatched from them and im too lazy to rewrite all of them lolz. as always no beta. we die like lilith.

word count: 1.15k

the concept of lucifer existing has always lit a fire behind my eyes.

a little girl untouched by sin finds comfort in a man fallen from grace. the headline you cannot look away from and wish to seek out the article for. let me give you the synopsis, in case you have missed it by chance.

'children know nothing of pain and sadness until it is introduced through familial relationships. if a child is to scrape their knees on concrete, they will not cry unless they hear their parents utter concern. pain is not given, it is taught and etched deeply. across our legs as we learn to ride a bike, across our arms as we learn to control emotion. and from then on, we do not actively seek out such harm. this little girl, as the story goes, did. in fairytales and whispers of folklore she has come to know of an angel- that ultimately fell from his highness. he fell all the way to a place of only fire and sin. and the little girl lit her own matches on the fires he fell to. in a tragic and unfortunate series of happenings, the sweet little girl fell for the man, the man who had also fallen.'

as life goes, there is not always an ending that we seek. there is no publicized follow up to give us an insight on where our dear girl is now. is she nurturing her own little girl, teaching her kin of the fallen angel? is she out there in the thick of the world, lost in tall trees?

allow me to spoil the story just this once. she's in hell.

our little girl, with too many sins to speak seeking refuge in her blood, is bickering with her beloved fallen angel.

we are far beyond the line of catching you up to speed, my dear reader. do proceed with an open mind.

the two often sparred verbally, it was just how the human and demon communicated it seemed. no brother in the house would dare to step in during these fragile moments, not wanting to become a tragedy in the aftermath of the category five hurricanes they spoke to life.

this particular disagreement had begun just as every other, yet was dangerously walking the line of being the final do all end all. our dear girl with dark fascinations is in the middle of finding out why they are called dark fascinations.

i must admit i have never seen a soul so blind to its own trauma. how do you sleep at night, the weighted blanket of your past pressing into your chest?

a push towards the cliff. just a slight, warm breeze pushing his chill farther. moving him as if she wants their contrasting temperatures to fraternize. she is well aware of his capability to push back, bracing herself for impact.

there is no scenario in which a human would possibly be able to grasp what i, the avatar of pride, have been through.

left not getting at what she intended, the girl sighs quite loudly. and so she pushes again. for he is squeezing her mind dry as if a ripe grape, and she refuses to become a demons wine. she will be damned before she succumbs.

there is a human, and she has been in your eyes this whole time. can't you see her?

being faced with laughter is not uncommon when you are in the presence of a demon. that does not make it any less unsightly, especially given the context of this latest talk. though many a time lucifer has laughed in the face of confrontation.

you are the human in question, i presume? i should apologize for laughing, it is not often i am so confounded.

words do not find our girl until a moment later. if lucifer wishes to dance, then she best put on her scuffed red heels and bow.

then tell me, from those glistening red eyes have you seen through me this entire year? have you truly no sight, your crimson corneas just exhibiting the flow of your blood?

she has grown in a home with everything placed before her; been given familial beings and sweet creatures to warm the comforter. there are faces in front of green eyes, with warmth and love. yet she spent the saved up love on people the likes of the demon before her. part of her succumbed to the greedy nature of his brother, growing hungrier for just one more taste of love each time it walked out the door. with every nail pressed deep into her distorted coffin, she was there. outstretching her scarred left hand to hold the nail steadier. the man before her would be a blind fool to have not seen the unfastened empathetic nature she holds.

ah, let me rephrase: the man before her is a blind fool.

let me put it this way, for your human concept of understanding to grasp it-

precisely say it. do you believe me to be a sheltered child? you've never been one to back down from a power show. so do not begin now.

why are you still pushing? do you not know of your own limits?

you are just that, a child. and i will not stand in this office and fight a child who has no knowledge of my words.

there is a child inside of me, you are not inexact with your words. but that child is utterly exasperated. you are not the man she spent years learning of, you are a fractured grenade of honor and loss.

as an aggrieved man would, lucifer strides towards her. for only a second of time- before turning his face and retreating to the ever so messy desk. long, pale fingers graze the dark wood before words leave his lips.

i admit that i may have let down many when i fell. but i do not see why i should distress myself that i let down one of billions of humans.

you should be so distressed that it brings you agony. she is knocking on your door, and begging for despondency.

and why so?

he speaks so effortlessly that his eyes do not catch their opposing states fusing together, the language exchanged setting them into motion. the hurricane has blinked open her eyes, unblurring hues of red and brown wood. and these two stand right in her line of vision.

because she loved you. i loved you, lucifer. and we have just concluded the book for good and all.

you may presume when a human and demon come into contiguity, the higher being has higher vigor. there is no chance in favor of the one who holds no true authority or sorcery.

my dear reader, learn to fight for the underdog. for she is the one exiting the room, leaving a vengeful storm in her wake.

her match has yet to be blown out.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me lucifer #lucifer x reader #obey me luci x reader #think piece #god i was going thru it #the avatar of pride learns shame #obey me x reader #obey me imagines

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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You are your top 5 Shadow agents

I don’t talk about the Agents as much as I should, even though I constantly try to stress their importance, because I’m working on essays for them individually. To be honest, I think about the Agents practically every day to the point I have a hard time separating my headcanons from the actual canon material, but I have to stay true to it, and the lack of material regarding them means that the only way I can truly talk about their characterization is by diving deep into the novels and taking notes, which I don’t have much time to do, and then finding the right books or moments to talk about, which is even more difficult.

This by no means constitutes my big thinkpiece on them, but it’s a start, and ultimately narrowing it down was a lot harder than I expected. This order is by no means final, if you asked me this question next week or next month I’d probably have a different answer, but it’s the 5 that I find myself thinking on the most.

Honorable mentions: Jericho Druke and Myra Reldon, who are incredibly awesome characters conceptually and who have great moments each, and whom I definitely think deserve big turns on the spotlight if the Agents ever get put on the spotlight again, but are held back by issues with their presentation and lack of prominence. Margo Lane, whom only just narrowly missed the cut because, as much as I like her and think she gets an underseved bad rep and definitely has great things going for her, I sadly have to concede isn’t as consistently great or well-written as she should be. Clyde Burke, whom I definitely like a lot based on what I’ve read and consider an integral part of the line-up, but haven’t read enough of the novels he’s in to really solidify him as one of my favorites just yet. And Slade Farrow, who is a bit too complicated to talk about superficially.

Allright, so here they are

Number 5: Burbank

As the center of all communications within The Shadow’s network and the only character in the series who is even more mysterious and elusive than The Shadow himself, Burbank is fascinating and the kind of character who simultaneously seems to be both begging for an in-depth exploration and yet who also should be dead last on the list of mysteries about the series we want spoiled, because nobody wants the mystery ruined. He’s a bit of cipher personality-wise compared to the other agents, but he kind of has to be, and I think it helps to illustrate the many forms the agents of The Shadow can and should take, that one of them is this total mystery whom we know nothing about and yet is so vital to the whole thing. And it’s interesting also because, for all the many variations we’ve had on The Shadow’s life and thoughts and feelings and etc over the years, Burbank has stayed more or less the same. Whatever variations he’s had in design aside, Burbank just is.

The pulps did often have moments where we would get to see moments that told us a little more about Burbank, gestures he did, capabilities he had and didn’t have, little details Gibson would sprinkle in to keep people fascinated. Several scenes with Burbank are almost presented like you’re watching a movie, in the way Gibson keeps describing his face being mysteriously blocked from view by objects or lighting, like not even in your mind you are supposed to know what he is. And it’s all the more fascinating because, unlike The Shadow, as far as we know, Burbank is just some guy who’s good with tech, who was only recruited in the 2nd story but apparently knows The Shadow from before it, and whom The Shadow entrusted with virtually every secret necessary to keep his operations running.

It’s kind of a sign as to how utterly neglected the agents are that, to this day, few writers who’ve ever touched The Shadow has ever come close to giving us any sort of explanation or backstory or anything on Burbank, and I refuse to believe these people had that much self-control. Of course I have my own ideas for Burbank, but even I would hesitate to put them on a story, because Burbank epitomizes that double-edged sword that comes with a solid narrative mystery. Burbank just is, and hopefully he will stay that way.

Number 4: Dr Roy Tam

Mention of Dr. Tam meant much to Sayre. He was acquainted with Roy Tam, the Chinese physician. He knew that Tam was a power in Chinatown; one who worked for good

Unrolling a map, Tam showed the entire Manhattan area, studded with tiny dots in districts quite remote from Chinatown.

"These represent my outposts," he said soberly. "They are places, owned by Chinese - restaurants, laundries, curio shops, other places of business. In each of these places, I have a friend."

The Shadow understood. Dr. Tam was the motivating factor among the Chinese who adapted themselves to American ways. His mission was to create good will among races, to put an end to prejudice and superstition.

A newer and more sober spirit had replaced the old and dangerous festivities. Feuds in Chinatown were a thing of the forgotten past. Dr. Tam and his associates had done much to bring about the present sentiment; but there were persons - even among that group - who felt regret at the passing of old traditions.

Dr Tam is a remarkably layered character for one that only appears in about ten stories, and he’s one of the agents I’m most eager to discuss in-depth. He’s another one of those agents that Gibson introduced by tricking you into seeing him as a villain, as a Yellow Peril cliche, until he is revealed to be in fact a good man. Not just good, Roy Tam is presented as a powerful, influential and cunning Chinese man with a lot of assistants secretly working for him, and who is consistently presented as a progressive, pacifistic, benevolent civic leader and ally, even friend, of The Shadow.

Tam is very much westernized and the stories paint that mostly as a good thing, and this is one of the areas that I think could very much result in an interesting story that looks at the ramifications of his role, because of course not everyone is going to agree with his viewpoints, of course him being an advocate against superstition and tradition isn’t necessarily a good thing (and it’s not how Yat Soon, The Shadow’s other major Chinese ally, works, which puts the two at odds), and of course it’s a complicated situation, but the fact that Tam invites this kind of debate at all I think is something very interesting

Largely because of the movie, Dr Tam is one of the few agents of The Shadow who’s managed to sustain appearences in modern stories, and none of them have ever really went with his original angle as a powerful civic leader. Instead he’s been largely painted as either a scientist, like in the movie, a general practitioner, and a psychiatrist, and his age has been all over the board.

I prefer him in his original form but I also very much like the idea of Roy Tam being, like the Chinese supervillains he was created to be a subversion of, an incredible genius who’s got skills in all fields that can fit under the “Dr” part of his job and is also an incredibly capable leader able to unify splintered communities under a cause of unity and cooperation, someone who absolutely could be the adventuring genius so many other pulp heroes are, except he dedicates himself wholesale to his community and the fight against prejudice and the betterment of lives, even if he’s misguided or wrong at some of the causes he takes up. I really think this character could partake in really great stories if ever brought back.

Number 3: Cliff Marsland

(Fan-art by @cryptixcreations)

Cliff may have actually been the first agent I really fell in love with based on concept alone, even before I read the stories he was a part of and started loving all of the others. He’s one of the few agents who has prior history with The Shadow and we get ever so tantalizing hints at his background that we ultimately never get to learn about in full. He’s the resident tough guy and underworld contact of The Shadow, which in any other series might have made him the biggest badass and a loner action hero who’s too cool for things like thinking and relying on others for help. But here, trying to be that only gets Cliff into trouble, and circumstances gradually morph him into the series equivalent of a Team Dad.

He was one of the agents who we got to see develop as a character. As he appears more frequently past his introduction, he grows from a headstrong, careless jackass, mostly interested in the action parts of the job, who “resigned himself to an adventurous career with violent death as its inevitable termination”, into one of the most reliable and capable agents, taking the lead during action scenes but otherwise fully defering leadership to Harry, and being the agent most likely to partake in gunfights and rescue The Shadow out of trouble, joining in missions like infiltrating circuses or high-society clubs and forming very strong friendships with Harry, Clyde & Hawkeye, who almost kills a man with his bare hands when he thinks Harry’s been killed. He’s the hardass, square-jawed ex-con who plays the reputation of a brutal killer, and is in reality a great friend, ally and husband (Arline has sadly only been mentioned in three stories), on top of being an invaluable fighter and secret agent.

Cliff could have easily been the protagonist of a long-running series all his own and that’s one of my favorite aspects of The Shadow’s agents. They are people with agency, goals and dreams and relationships and lives beyond the roles they play, they all have strengths and weaknesses and faults and positives that bring them much closer to us than The Shadow could ever be, with no end to the variety of roles they can take, and Cliff in particular is a character I’m very attached to.

I do hope that he eventually found peace in a quiet life with Arline once his business with The Shadow was over.

Number 2: Harry Vincent

The Shadow as a franchise has been vastly worse off as a result of Harry Vincent being completely sidelined and mischaracterized in virtually every adaptation since, and the sheer love that Shadow fans hold for Harry purely may be the closest thing to a true universal opinion in the fandom.

Harry is a lot of things: the audience surrogate, the protagonist of much of the early stories, the leader of the agents in field duty, the dude in distress who gets kidnapped far more than even Margo, a hopeless romantic, an action hero, the one who gets sent to recruit agents because all The Shadow has to do is send Harry on an assignment and wait for him to come back with a new friend. He is a competent, resourceful, strong, extremely kind ball of sunshine who's got the potential for greatness, even if he can't see it.

And for this post I’m going to highlight this: Harry is, on top of all that, the ultimate embodiment of what The Shadow strives to protect, help and uplift. He is the living proof that The Shadow's mission has a good, positive effect in the world, long after criminals are brought to justice and plots are failed and victims are rescued, purely by the fact that he’s alive and helping others who were once like him. Someone who, despite having so much to offer, could have easily been swept away by the world’s callousness and cruelty, if The Shadow wasn’t there to rescue him and uplift him.

I liked The Shadow pretty much at first sight after seeing the character’s design and listening to episodes of the radio show, and my appreciation for the character grew after reading The Shadow’s Shadow, but it wasn’t until I encountered @oldschoolcrimefighters and her brilliantly informative writings on The Shadow and Harry that I not only fell in love with the series, but decided to do everything in my power to try and get other people to love it too and see the potential it has. I think a lot more people should at least be aware of why Harry matters.

Number 1: Moe Shrevnitz

I was honestly a bit surprised when I rounded up all of the agents to make this list and Shrevy here ended up in Number One, but in hindsight, it may have been obvious all along.

My reasonings as to why Shrevy is my favorite agent do get a bit too personal, especially because of something that happened to me as I was writing this post, so I’m putting it on a separate post here.

#the shadow #pulp heroes #pulp fiction #replies tag #harry vincent #moe shrevnitz #roy tam #cliff marsland #burbank

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thatwasthenightthingschanged · 4 years

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"In retrospect, you could say I was beginning to question things.

But then it was 2018, and a couple of things happened. First, Love, Simon came out in March, which was one of the most electrifying, unforgettable, truly extraordinary experiences of my life. But having your book adapted to a film brings a lot of notoriety and attention, especially online, and it’s not always the fun kind. Unsurprisingly, there was quite a bit of discourse about my identity — how could there not be? Love, Simon was the first gay teen rom com to be released widely by a major film studio, and it was based on a book written by an allocishet woman. Yes, the film’s director was openly gay. No, not everyone cared (frankly, a lot of people still don’t know Love, Simon was based on a book). But in many online spaces, my straightness was a springboard for some — legitimately important — conversations about representation, authenticity, and ownership of stories. And for some people, my straightness was enough to boycott the film entirely.

Then Leah on the Offbeat came out about a month later, and the discourse exploded all over again. There were thinkpieces based on the premise that I, a straight woman, clearly knew nothing about being a bi girl. There were tweets and threads and blog posts, and just about every single one I came across mentioned my straightness. And when Leah debuted on the NYT list, authors I admired and respected tweeted their disappointment that this “first” had been taken by a straight woman. Of course, Leah wasn’t the first f/f YA book to hit the New York Times list. And maybe people were wrong about the other stuff too. But the attention and scrutiny were so overwhelming, and it all hurt so badly, I slammed the lid down on that box and forgot I’d ever cracked it open.

At least I didn’t remember I remembered.

I deleted the sexuality labels from my website. I declined to answer certain questions in interviews. I’d get quietly, passionately indignant when people made assumptions about other authors’ gender identities and sexualities. And I’d feel uncomfortable, anxious, almost sick with nerves every time they discussed mine.

And holy shit, did people discuss. To me, it felt like there was never a break in the discourse, and it was often searingly personal. I was frequently mentioned by name, held up again and again as the quintessential example of allocishet inauthenticity. I was a straight woman writing shitty queer books for the straights, profiting off of communities I had no connection to.

Because the thing is, I called myself straight in a bunch of early interviews.

But labels change sometimes. That’s what everyone always says, right? It’s okay if you’re not out. It’s okay if you’re not ready. It’s okay if you don’t fully understand your identity yet. There’s no time limit, no age limit, no one right way to be queer.

And yet a whole lot of these very same people seemed to know with absolute certainty that I was allocishet. And the less certain I was, the more emphatically strangers felt the need to declare it. Apparently it was obvious from my writing. Simon’s fine, but it was clearly written by a het. You can just tell. Her books aren’t really for queer people.

You know what’s a mindfuck? Questioning your sexual identity in your thirties when every self-appointed literary expert on Twitter has to share their hot take on the matter. Imagine hundreds of people claiming to know every nuance of your sexuality just from reading your novels. Imagine trying to make space for your own uncertainty. Imagine if you had a Greek chorus of internet strangers propping up your imposter syndrome at every stage of the process.

The thing is, I really do believe in the value of critically discussing books, particularly when it comes to issues of representation. And I believe in the vital importance of Ownvoices stories. Most of the identities represented in my books are Ownvoices. But I don’t think we, as a community, have ever given these discussions the care and nuance they deserve.

Consider the origin of the Ownvoices hashtag. It was created in 2015 by author Corinne Duyvis, with the purpose of highlighting stories written by authors who share the same marginalized identities as their characters. But Corinne has always emphasized caution when it comes to using Ownvoices to determine which authors can tell which stories. And she’s been incredibly clear and emphatic about not weaponizing the term to pressure authors to disclose private aspects of their identities.

So why do we keep doing this? Why do we, again and again, cross the line between critiquing books and making assumptions about author identities? How are we so aware of invisible marginalization as a hypothetical concept, but so utterly incapable of making space for it in our community?

Let me be perfectly clear: this isn’t how I wanted to come out. This doesn’t feel good or empowering, or even particularly safe. Honestly, I’m doing this because I’ve been scrutinized, subtweeted, mocked, lectured, and invalidated just about every single day for years, and I’m exhausted. And if you think I’m the only closeted or semi-closeted queer author feeling this pressure, you haven’t been paying attention.

And I’m one of the lucky ones! I’m a financially independent adult. I can’t be disowned. I come from a liberal family, I have an enormous network of queer friends and acquaintances, and my livelihood isn’t even remotely at risk. I’m hugely privileged in more ways than I can count. And this was still brutally hard for me. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for other closeted writers, and how unwelcome they must feel in this community.

Even as I write this, I’m bracing for the inevitable discourse — I could draft the twitter threads myself if I wanted to. But I’d rather just make a few things really clear. First, this isn’t an attempt to neutralize criticism of my books, and you’re certainly entitled to any reactions you might have had to their content. Second, I’m not asking you to validate my decision to write Simon (or What If It’s Us, or mlm books in general).

But if I can ask for something, it’s this: will you sit for a minute with the discomfort of knowing you may have been wrong about me? And if your immediate impulse is to scrutinize my personal life, my marriage, or my romantic history, can you try to check yourself?

Or how about this: can we all be a bit more careful when we engage in queer Ownvoices discourse? Can we remember that our carelessness in these discussions has caused real harm? And that the people we’re hurting rarely have my degree of privilege or industry power? Can we make space for those of us who are still discovering ourselves? Can we be a little more compassionate? Can we make this a little less awful for the next person?

Can you tell I’m angry? Because I’m angry.

But I’m grateful, too, for those of you who understood the hidden (and not-so-hidden) threads of my books before I did. I’m grateful for the writer whose vulnerability made all of this finally click into place for me. And the ones who put their hearts on the line to hold space for people like me. And the ones who made me feel like I was allowed to care about this. And, of course, I’m grateful for the books. Some of you have no idea how much your words have helped me find mine.

Anyway, all of this is to say: I’m bi. Sorry it took me so long to get here. But then again, at least the little red coming out book I needed was already on my shelf (in about thirty different languages).

I think I finally know why I wrote it."

author Becky Albertalli ("Love, Simon", "Leah On The Offbeat") on her coming out process and the harsh criticism she had to face for he books (whole article here)

I think this perfectly illustrates why we, as a community, should stop assuming other people's identity

#becky albertalli #love simon #leah on the offbeat #love victor #svsthsa #wlw #mlm #lgbt

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mcustorm · 4 years

Text

Thoughts on Jamie Johnson 5x08

I actually don’t even know what to think. You guys don’t understand. Do you know how serious this episode was? It was so serious, that my afternoon nap was delayed so I could write this post. And only important things stop my head from hitting the pillow.

Last week was Dillon’s glorious coming out, a beautiful moment to put an apex to all the tension between Dillon and Elliot. This week, Dillon’s coming out continues, for better or for worse.

I love how *all* of this episode centered around Dillon coming to terms with being out/being outed. It underlined the significance and severity of the moment. Somebody check up on Patrick Ward’s back because he was carrying this episode, and I know we’re all here for Dillon but he truly is the most fascinating character on the show.

Delliot getting ready to see each other after the previous day’s shocking events was such a cute scene. We all know that the characters on this show tend not to feel any way about anybody romantically, so just seeing those two try to look/smell nice for somebody they may feel some-kind-of-way about...ah, there goes those memories of mine again, haha.

And of course, I for the most part like Elliot’s role as someone who’s a little bit more experienced and can help out a baby gay like Dillon. Elliot being so different from everybody else we’ve met thus far on the show not only makes him fascinating to us, but to Dillon as well. On the other hand, I did not like that 1) Elliot almost immediately went and told Ruby and 2) after helping out Dillon with his gay journey, he mayhaps yeeted off into the sunset.

Ya know, if Hansard and Harry and Indira and Molly and Savage and Wozza and Jethro and Jack’s awesome dad and the different-somehwat-prominent-black-male-extras-on-the-team-each-season didn’t exist, I would have more faith that Elliot might have more of a role in the story moving forward. But this show has proven time and time again that if the character’s name isn’t Jack, then once the story is done with you it’s done. At this point in his journey, it maybe isn’t the best idea that Dillon get involved in a relationship. That makes sense. But to maaaaaybe reduce Elliot to a m*****l n***o? I don’ like det.

It *seems* from what the show has presented thus far, that the only narrative purpose for Elliot to tell Ruby about Dillon is so that [both in-story and in the writer’s room] Dillon can have a reliable shoulder to lean on who is [and this is the important part] not Elliot. With him out of the picture, now Dillon’s go-to is Ruby if he needs a sounding board. And I have no idea why that’s the story-angle they’re going for. Perhaps Elliot threatens the status quo, which is “all of our characters are hopelessly, eternally single.”

But who knows, maybe I’m completely wrong and these last couple of paragraphs are irrelevant. Maybe not.

SN: Seriously, this show’s ships is definitely an interesting writing decision. Thinking about all the ship inequality thinkpieces that came out of the Andi Mack era, let’s talk about how the only canon het ship on this show that may give you feelings like Delliot is Jack and that rich guy whose name I’ve already forgotten.

Do you wanna know what? Today was the most sympathetic I’ve ever been for Liam, and yet in this episode he did the most despicable thing he’s ever done. Well, maybe I’m not sympathetic per se, but at least I realize that he’s just another victim of his father’s emotional abuse. You know, Joseph’s brothers felt neglected too, and I never said “well maybe their father could’ve treated them better” when they sold their brother into freakin’ slavery. There has to be a line between seeing Liam as a victim and seeing him as just plain evil. Or maybe it’s a Venn Diagram. Either way, I’m still not a fan. I wonder what redemption for this character looks like.

I just like that this show was so unafraid to go there. It is completely unprecedented in any TV show intended for children/young teens...at least to my knowledge. I’m gonna make it very clear that I’m not trying to downplay other shows’ accomplishments, but coming out really is an internal and external journey. One is how you feel about yourself, and the other is how others react. This is my opinion, but some shows have really got the internal part down (DOAFP was GOAT-tier with this one); however, when the time comes to do the external part, the show either doesn’t go there or kinda just limps over the finish line. Does that make sense? Am I just rambling?

I think of all the programs that I’ve watched, this show has already done the best job of reconciling those two aspects of coming out. Besides The Fosters, perchance. Some people will be right by your side, others may need time. Despite all of the blatant and frankly disgusting homophobia that we saw on the program, the show made it clear that this is just what I said: a journey. There may be hope yet.

Also in this episode: Eric feels bad, because he did wrong and also because his “friends” are being generally dickish to him, and Jamie is also here to tell Dillon he did phenomenally at the cup (which, just a portion of that energy would’ve been great yesterday for the entire team, but go awf Mr. Johnson). I guess I should take away that Jamie and Dillon are in a way better place than they’ve been before. Great.

So there ya go. I must say, that was probably a Top 3 episode of this TV show. Which is why that preview for next week made me say, “Okaaaaay…” So wait, are Boggy and Jamie just like BFF’s again? Are we gonna address the nonsense that Jamie was spewing last week? Are Kat and Zoe just friends like that now? Are we gonna address the nonsense that Zoe was up to last week? WAIT, Freddie wants to spend time with just Alba and Eric? ARE WE GOING TO ADDRESS THE NONSENSE Y’ALL WERE ON LAST WEEK?

I will keep going to bat for Eric, idc idc.

See ya next week. Off to take my nap.

#jamie johnson #jamie johnson spoilers #5x08 #dillon simmonds #delliot #elliot

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jellydishes · 4 years

Text

5 Questions for Writers

i was tagged by @theaiobhan! thank you for thinking of me, darling, it made me really happy :>

i’m tagging anybody who wants to play, and i apologize for not tagging people directly but i am starring down the barrel of my third double shift in four days and i am dying

anyway!! first question: 1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

i honestly really love writing most characters, but i’d i had to pick a VERY favorite character to write, it might be inquisition era leliana. which was a surprise to me, because she’s not actually a favorite character of mine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

oh man i’m so bad at remembering tropes to describe my own writing, but i really do like writing characters being evasive about what they really mean, or saying a lot with very little dialogue, which is tbf a related trope

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

probably this description of sebastian as a god, from my thinkpiece ascension:

Sebastian is a god with two faces. in one of his forms, he is a god of love and pleasure, of taking joy in the present because the future is not certain and certainly not a promise, a god for those who are afraid and find comfort in the warmth of others. this side of sebastian does not judge those who take pleasure in the flesh or in modifying their bodies or in turning away from the roles expected of you, because he knows what it is to refuse a call. sebastian in this face is independence and planting your feet upon the ground. “this is me,” sebastian tells the world before you. “the words i choose define me, not yours.”

Sebastian's other face is a god of change. he often has feasts devoted to him at the turning of the seasons (especially autumn), but he is just as easily found in choosing to live by a self-ordained set of rules when your old way of life no longer satisfies. a god who, when faced with loss, redefined what loss means as well as what remains. when faced with restrictions and pain imposed by others, his worshippers find meaning in what remains. asexuals and the chase also turn to him, knowing the choices he himself made in his mortal life, and he welcomes them. sebastian is a god of dichotomies, but those stark differences do not mean that either side of him does not have meaning - on the contrary, both sides are made that much more meaningful by the contrast and how they inform the other. this side of sebastian is also about defining yourself. “you make take my home and my family and everything i thought was true about myself,” sebastian tells all those arrayed before you, “but you cannot take away the heart of me. that determination that drives me forward. i was here before you, and i will be here after you are gone.”

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

probably this exchange from its just a jump and a twist:

Leliana's face grew hot, and she resisted looking at the smug expression she knew she would see on Amleda's face and instead hurried her steps to catch up with Morrigan. She was followed by a peal of delighted laughter, and Leliana did her best to look completely at ease when she greeted Morrigan. Looking at her raised eyebrows, though, she knew she'd failed. "Feeling a trifle under the weather, Andrastrian?" Morrigan's smile was slow and knowing, and Leliana huffed.

“You don't know everything, you know," she muttered, and was answered by a low hum that made Leliana's hands curl tight.

"Do I not? Please, regale me with those things that have escaped my notice."

"The other half of your shirt, perhaps," Leliana said archly, not because she truly had any negative opinions about how Morrigan dressed -far from it- but more as a simple distraction. That, too, failed, as Morrigan gave a laugh that seemed to roll up from her toes, low and amused and curling in Leliana's belly like mulled cider.

“Been looking for it, have you? Well, I can assure you that you will not find it between my breasts, though I am certain that would not stop you from looking."

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

i’ve always meant to write at least a short piece that’s morrigan/zevran because of how much they truly do have in common, but that is not this day

again, thank you, these are always fun

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thesinglesjukebox · 4 years

Video

youtube

DIXIE CHICKS - GASLIGHTER

[7.67]

Well, we're ready to make nice...

Jessica Doyle: I made the mistake of reading some of the hell-hath-no-fury-like-Natalie-Maines-on-vocals early publicity, and ended up expecting something a lot less jaunty. If you played "Gaslighter" for a non-English speaker, I'm not sure they'd hear the angry breakup from the music and vocals alone. That stray "Look out you little--" heading into the chorus at 2:05 sounds downright affectionate. This makes for a less emotionally clean song, and the video feels like overcompensation (was the "Daisy" ad really necessary?). But it makes a certain sense. This isn't a fictional story à la "Before He Cheats"; the Chicks chose to eschew the luxury of marinating in two-dimensional righteousness. Adrian Pasdar, as much as he will now forever be known as That Guy Who Did Something on Natalie Maines's Boat, is also presumably tied up irrevocably with Maines's two sons and a couple decades' worth of her memories; she's allowed to refrain from hating him straightforwardly. "Gaslighter" is less cathartic than it could have been -- it might get bellowed into karaoke mics less often than it could have been -- but truer. [6]

Katie Gill: Someone please just tell me what Adrian Pasdar did! I suspect that part of my love of this song is sheer nostalgia. I adore the Dixie Chicks and I'm so happy to see them make a comeback now, even if I worry that, with the current state of country music, it won't go anywhere. And I am here for the big divorce energy this single has. It's wonderful to see that the Dixie Chicks can summon up the beautiful cathartic anger that made their last album, Taking the Long Way, so good even over ten years later. And that anger is matched with gorgeous harmonies (that, granted, are a little bit too hidden by the arrangement), a cathartic chorus, and a brief moment of wonderful vulnerability from Maines near the end. Top that off with one of the best lyrics in 2020 in "you're sorry but where's my apology" and, look, I just can't wait for this dang album to come out already. [8]

Alex Clifton: "Gaslighter, you broke me/You're sorry, but where's my apology?" has rung in my ears for nearly two weeks. I wrote a boatload of bad poetry for years around that sentiment, and the Dixie Chicks sing ten words what I couldn't do in a thousand, and I love them for it. [10]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: "You're sorry, but where's my apology?" So many lines in "Gaslighter" speak truth to my experience of being emotionally and psychologically manipulated, but every time I hear this one in particular, several things happen. First, my blood starts to boil and race and I feel my hands get clammy. Then, I instinctively clench my teeth and get the urge to pump my fists in the air. Finally, I remind myself that if the Dixie Chicks can get through the past decades, I can too -- and my anger dissipates like air from a balloon. That's the argument the Dixie Chicks are making here: winning the argument means not letting anyone else's actions consume your emotional state. [7]

Tobi Tella: "Repeating all of the mistakes of your father" cuts like a knife, the harmonies are tight, and the lightness of the production makes it clear that they can still do fun. If there's any justice in this world, this would be a hit on country radio. [7]

Michael Hong: "Gaslighter" is the Dixie Chicks' first single in fourteen years, and by virtue of being that, is interwoven with each thread its own narrative: 1) the story of the Dixie Chicks -- the rise, the fall, the good, the bad, all of it always culminating in the idea that the women had something to prove. 2) Jack Antonoff on writing and production, straying into bold country territory, furthering his influence in modern music. 3) The rampant use, and in some cases, overuse, of the term "gaslighting," and how it's already led to thinkpieces on whether or not Natalie Maines was actually gaslit. And finally, 4) the politicization of the Dixie Chicks, broadcasting the political as a mirror of the personal. All of these narratives matter, and yet, none are necessary to understand "Gaslighter." The track is compact in all the right ways, with tight harmonies on top of fiddle and banjo arrangements and verses that pick up right where the chorus lets off. The Dixie Chicks package the gleeful realization of the truth into a chorus so jovial you can't help but sing along. All that's to say, even divorced from every narrative that you can throw at "Gaslighter," "Gaslighter" still demands you turn the volume up when you hear it through your car stereo. [7]

Alfred Soto: The inevitable emphasis on the dropped hook is purest Jack Antonoff, not Dixie Chicks, but the best of their tunes relied on outside help anyway. "Gaslighter" squeaks by on chutzpah, skill, and nostalgia from the silent minority of lib country listeners. But Antonoff's infatuation with percussion gives the Chicks the gaslighting urgency necessary to sell the songs in Labelle, Lynchburg, and Mena. They're still not ready to make nice -- except with Taylor Swift's producer's platinum cred. [7]

Joshua Lu: Jack Antonoff is perhaps the last producer I'd expect or want to produce a Dixie Chicks comeback song, largely because his limited palette of plinky pianos and muted synths isn't something I'd think I'd like to hear in country music. To Jack's credit, though, "Gaslighter" is a veritable romp, even in spite of how unfulfilled some of the instruments are and how the chorus sounds like it's coming from a couple of rooms over. The real charm, though, is in the lyrics, so full of the charm and wit that really signify that this is a Dixie Chicks song -- "you know exactly what you did on my boat" alone makes the song a perfect addition to the sizable "My Partner Cheated on Me and Now I Must Destroy the World" section of the country music canon. Fourteen years might've been a long wait, but at least it was worth it. [8]

Jackie Powell: So while 2020 has absolutely been an abysmal year, here's it's one redeeming quality: it set up an absolute glorious return for the Dixie Chicks. Their new single "Gaslighter" comes in at the right place at the right time. So do we have Taylor Swift to thank for this? Is it fair to assume that their vocals on "Soon You'll Get Better" (which might be the most beautiful song on Lover) were an introduction to Jack Antonoff? His signature drums on the second chorus and beyond provide the track with the train that will entice stans of Spacey Kacey Musgraves. A divorce anthem that is also reflexive to frustration with the world in 2020 is so on brand I want to cry. But tears of joy this time. The Dixie Chicks were some of the original victims of cancel culture. But really they were gaslit by their entire genre. Tomato-gate didn't happen until 2015, but the sexism the Dixie Chicks faced preceded the incident. What's fascinating about their return is they won't be in this fight with their genre and the country music establishment alone. Since the Dixie Chicks' hiatus, Musgraves, Maren Morris, The Highwomen and others have taken a spot on the no bullshit mantel next to the trio. It's refreshing. In classic Natalie Maines fashion, she regrets nothing, calling the repercussions of "Not Ready to Make Nice" a "blessing." But really, in 2020, we are the ones who are really truly blessed. [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: "Gaslighter" is triumphant both in its specificity ("you know exactly what you did on my boat"!!!) and its broadness (the harmonies, Jack Antonoff's shiny-as-hell production.) Despite that glory, though, "Gaslighter" feels a little empty at its core. It's the rush of the breakup without the consideration of the fallout, the thrill without any crash. [8]

Edward Okulicz: On first listen, this sounded too small, too restrained, too modest for its concept. These aren't things that you would expect from the big ambitions and big voices of the Dixie Chicks. But when the chorus comes in a second time with the drumbeat, it works as a mantra for a protagonist no more ready to forgive than she is to forget. And, as if you needed to be told, their voices still sound gorgeous together. [8]

Oliver Maier: A tumbling boulder of rage for a chorus and Jack Antonoff graciously refraining from turning "Gaslighter" into a big echoey 80s-inflected synth pop confection. "We moved to California and we followed your dreams" is such a great opening line for the verse, charging the events of the song with a mythological, Dust Bowl-era resonance and signalling the relationship's disintegration before it even occurs, like something out of a Steinbeck novel. Maines rattles off each charge against her ex just vividly enough to get the raw emotional beats across, without fixating long enough to stall the song's momentum. A relationship is cremated and catharsis is achieved; no need for an autopsy when there's no ambiguity left. [8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Dixie Chicks #country #pop #music #music review

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16ruedelaverrerie · 5 years

Photo

SOUND THE HORNS, RAISE THE ALARMS, it’s time for THE WAR ON STARK PROPAGANDA haha that’s a severe way of putting it, “Stark propaganda.” But it really is a case of emotional allegiances affecting the interpretation of narrative events; the first trouble is that the audience loves the Starks too much, and that Theon loves the Starks too much (for a given value of “love”).

It’s not like the show never points out that Theon’s position in Winterfell is one of hostage! But the centrality of the Starks to the show makes it really difficult to look at things through anything other than Stark-tinted glasses-- and because the show primes the audience to think of the Starks as generally good and noble and kind, it’s not easy to see that even those who are good and noble and kind are perfectly capable of inflicting harm on others. Just because Ned Stark seems like a really nice dude doesn’t mean he won’t take a child hostage. In fact, it is absolutely because Ned Stark is a... nice dude... that he takes a child hostage; this is a kind of niceness that has very strict limits on what kinds of mercy are allowed and when. Taking Theon hostage means that the Greyjoys can be kept in check instead of being eradicated off the face of the planet, but just because that minimizes overall bloodshed doesn’t mean that Theon can’t be rendered precarious and miserable by it.

Also, it’s extra hard to remember that Theon doesn’t need redemption when Theon himself is constantly looking for redemption. Even though the only real human connection he has with the Starks is through Robb, Theon does DESPERATELY want to belong to the family that he’s grown up in. So, you know, I get it! I understand why a lot of people would watch the show and think that Theon’s betrayal of Robb’s trust is tantamount to turning on one’s own family! That his taking of Winterfell is some sort of INTERNECINE CATASTROPHE!

But that’s a conclusion that comes from adopting the show’s viewpoint as your own. Again, I get it. When a text wants something, it tries to make you want it too. My concern is that reading against the text is a skill that we're not really given the chance to learn very well or practice very often, but that it’s such an important skill to have in order to be thoughtful, critical interlocutors of both fictional and nonfictional materials. Saying that Theon needs redemption is to take for granted a lot of assumptions that undergird GoT’s diegetic worldviews (some of which are also ASoIaF’s); that the Starks are “good,” that family must come first, that one has to pay for one’s wrongs with suffering and death. But none of these are inviolable truths! The Starks are just people, a family is nothing but a socially constructed unit, and punishment is not the only possible response to a misdeed.

The last point, especially. In a Renaissance revenge tragedy, things don’t end when vengeance has been served and everyone is satisfied with the state of affairs. They end because vengeance has snowballed freakishly out of control and there is no longer anyone left alive to pursue vengeance or be avenged upon. Suffering can never adequately pay for suffering. How the heck does Theon lying dead in the Godswood do anything to unstage the Red Wedding? What does Theon being flayed in the Dreadfort do to unkill the miller’s boys? To think of Theon’s story as a redemption arc is also to place his torture and abuse within that framework, and the rhetoric of “he got what he deserved” presupposes a moral economy that operates on the principle that punitive measures are necessary to right a wrong. But suffering can never adequately pay for suffering. I read the Reek section of Theon’s story as being in large part about the inherent failure of this sort of punitive moral economy; you may want to see someone punished, but the problem is that once you start punishing them, there’s no clear point at which to stop.

What’s so vile is that setting up Theon’s story as a redemption arc also made a lot of people react to trauma with a fantastic lack of compassion! This is why Peter Sagal can call late-season Theon a loser, and why a major-outlet thinkpiece can state with confidence that no one stans Theon. In a redemption arc, you serve your time and you stand back up and you finally do good; Theon’s inability to rise to the occasion in the aftermath of Ramsay was therefore a source of frustration for people who were expecting a glorious moment of redemption for Theon. Under this framework, his failure to fight Euron was a failure to seize that redemption when it was offered to him.

But why is violence the only way to answer violence? Why can’t Theon respond to his own wartime deeds in some other way that doesn’t involve more war? When I said that I wanted Theon to have a fleece blanket and a bowl of soup, it wasn’t that I wanted him to withdraw from the story or to cede control to Euron. It was that GoT has never been interested in imagining a truly viable alternative space to the theater of war, and I wanted to see what it would look like to turn some swords to goddamn plowshares without waiting for the current war to run its course. When I say this, people keep telling me that the world of GoT is a harsh one and the only way to survive is to fight. But literally there is nothing to stop anyone from imagining otherwise! That’s what fiction is-- the act of imagining otherwise. But all GoT wants to do is imagine the same thing over and over again; Sam wants to fight, little girls want to fight, everyone wants to fight because D&D have created a world in which there is nothing outside of fighting. Sansa tells the Hound her suffering did her good because she now knows how to fight better (not physically, but more shrewdly; more mistrustfully). Theon is worthless until he fights again-- and eventually dies fighting, because having regained that violent worth, his arc is ended and he is no longer needed for any further violent purpose.

I’m not a very good watcher of the show. I don’t think I ever cared who sat on the Iron Throne, I don’t instinctively understand the desire not to be spoiled for plot developments, and I’m mostly skeptical of spectacle. It’s probably the case that I’m not the person all this was meant for! So my opinion counts for very little... but here is the opinion that counts for so little, @hurlumerlu. These are my tangled feelings. There is also a side branch argument about how I find the redemption arc to be uninteresting as a narrative shape because it is too neat, but that’s a different aesthetic argument for another time.

Oh my god I’m sorry @we-return-in-waves, just to get here you had to scroll past ten thousand lines of me wishing that someone would establish a women’s shelter in Westeros or something kl;dkhglk actually I’m sorry to @hurlumerlu as well, in fact I’m sorry to everyone for making the previous answer part of an askbox post and not its own separate entry. But I DON’T KNOW, I JUST STARTED DOING IT AND THEN I REALIZED THAT MY ANSWER WAS TOO LONG BUT BY THEN IT WAS TOO LATE AND ALSO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?? ME TYPING TOO MUCH = A PROBLEM THAT RECURS IN EVERY AREA OF MY LIFE EXCEPT FOR IN MY SCHOOLWORK, UNFORTUNATELY ENOUGH

Which is a segue back to your message. You are truly an infinitely better human being than I, firstly because you are generous enough to derive enjoyment from my shitty DBH posts; but secondly because you are disciplined enough to use fandom as a motivation! If I were you, I would just end up staring at a blank Word document for two hours, thinking but what if Gavin wins a Grand Prix and instead of celebrating like a normal person he just breathlessly yells NINES, MEET ME IN THE BACK into the interviewer’s microphone before flipping off the entire crowd and walking backwards offstage

Fandom hinders me from getting schoolwork done and schoolwork hinders me from getting fandom stuff done. It is a vicious cycle of no great consequence but I am despondent over it anyway. Thank you very much for dropping me this note, @we-return-in-waves! I do it all for you.

No bruh you. What?

#askbox #game of thrones #asoiaf #theon greyjoy #detroit become human #gavin reed #rk900 #reed900

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flopgoblins · 5 years

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Ocelot Emperor

We emerge from the mists of Ireland - where we’re on retreat with next to no internet - to lay this offering at the feet of one of our favorite people and wish her a very happy birthday! @brazenbells we love you, thank you for two consecutive years of helping us write our boys, and for letting us throw them at your own.

Without further ado, the crossover smash the fans (us, mostly) have been clamoring for! Thanks, Ted.

King Abran's throne was as vast and glorious as his kingdom. Made of teak, varnished until the wood seemed to glow with an inner fire, inlaid with gold and etched with scenes from myth and legend and the founding of his dynasty.

And upon it, his wrists heavy with bangles, his fingers dripping rings, his eyes dark with kohl, lounged the crown prince, golden and glorious as a lion at rest. His eyes were lion-tawny too, and his neck was straight and proud, easily bearing the weight of the shining crown that rested upon his brow.

“See,” said Matt, angling his phone so Nico could get a better look at himself. “You look way better in all this sparkly shit than I do.”

Nico slid off the throne with a gentle chinking and untangled the gold-ish polymer crown from his hair. Beneath the gilt, it was dark brown, but for the stark white streak Makeup had sprayed there two hours ago. “Yeah, the casting choices feel a little strange. I can see why everyone on Twitter was pulling up those fanart comps to complain about it. Still not as bad as the, uh - ”

“I know,” Matt said morosely, taking the crown back and putting it on wonky. “I don’t even tan.” They’d dyed his hair again but thankfully drawn the line at trying to make him any less pasty. Manufacturing sexual tension with someone who looks like a stretched out Oompa Loompa might be beyond even Nico’s prodigious talents.

“I’m billed above you though. That’s progress.” Nico tried to get the crown to sit right but succeeded in tilting it drunkenly to the other side. “And, hey, it’s not every day you get a big-budget fantasy epic with a queer romance.”

“They cut out the incest. And most of the sex.” Around them, the studio walls yawned tall and green; the only solid things onset were them and the throne, and the throne was mostly resin.

“There wasn’t that much sex in the book,” said Nico, who’d picked up the novel as soon as the casting call went out and gone through making characterization notes on every page.

Matt, who’d read the first draft as it was posted on AO3, complete with thirteen chapters of kink that hadn’t made it into the published version, sniffed and forbore from commenting. Some hauteur was probably in keeping with playing Gael anyway. More in keeping with Tigris, though, which was further evidence Ted Nord couldn’t cast to save his life.

“I mean, I love it, it’s a really interesting role, but I’m finding it hard to get to grips with,” Nico had said, on the first day of shooting. “Spending your whole life pretending to be being vain and shallow, because it’s not safe to be anything else. Wearing a mask so long you must start to wonder whether you’ve become it. What does that do to a person?”

“Dunno,” Matt had said. “Did you see Ray Lelacheur’s Vogue cover yet? Terrible shoes.”

Now that Nico had abandoned the regal warmth that had settled on him as if it was second nature while draped over the throne, he was stirring the pages of the script again, frowning at his lines. Tigris had been the most he’d had to stretch for a character to date, he’d told Matt, though he’d earnestly added he liked the character’s ‘chewiness.’

Matt, who’d struggled equally hard to locate the generosity of spirit and ease of power that was Gael, continued to think that Ted was just as bad at casting to type as he was to aesthetic.

Nico tossed his white-streaked hair back from his forehead and dragged on his black velvet cloak. “Will you run this scene again with me? I keep not getting the timbre of his ambition right.” He mouthed a few lines, twisted a green gemstone on his finger, and cast an agonized, kohl-rimmed look at Matt. “How do I channel the appropriate volume of petulance, the feeling of a man deprived what by all rights should be his?”

Matt draped himself over his rightful throne, trying to arrange his limbs with the same boneless grace Nico had achieved so easily. “Remember when we were at that falafel truck last week and it took twenty minutes for your order to come and you started cursing god?”

“Suck my dick, Rose,” said Nico reflexively, but looked thoughtful.

“Later,” murmured Matt, and closed his eyes to wait.

“Spy,” snarled the prince, rounding on his cousin. Tigris stood his ground, jaw set against the taller man’s fury, lip curling with defiant derision. “You intrude here, in my father’s house, not content to be left to your life of indulgent luxury, so desperate for attention -”

Tigris’s eyes flashed, enraged despite himself. “Attention? You think that is what I crave? Heavens forbid I seek a world beyond the gilded cage my uncle keeps me in, indulging me like a spoilt puppy and giving me just as much freedom. Attention? I would give my eyeteeth for less! If one could trade condescending oversight for actual knowledge of how our kingdom is run-”

“Our kingdom,” repeated Gael. He cocked his head to the side, curiosity warring with the outrage in his noble features. “You truly think it so, do you? But our father-”

“Uncle,” said Tigris, under his breath.

“Our uncle -”

“My uncle,” said Tigris helpfully. “Your father.”

“My - okay, your -” Matt stopped. “Gawd. This doesn’t work at all.”

“See? It doesn’t work half as well without the incest.” Nico flicked a gem-encrusted finger at Matt’s nose.

Matt wrinkled it and adjusted the hang of gold chains over his collarbones. “You say this like I’m the one who made the script changes. And for the record, Cindy was as cut up about it as you are.” Cindy, script doctor extraordinaire, had also lurked the story on AO3 as it sailed up the ‘Original Fiction’ rankings, and was as distressed as he was about the loss of the throne sex scene. “It’s not my fault transgressive familial kink hasn’t crossed over from the hets yet.”

“Kink shmink, it totally shifts the dynamic.” Nico flapped his cloak emphatically. “Adopted cousins isn’t close to the same sort of layers of resentment and entitlement being a bastard half-brother would be.”

“Right,” said Matt, who’d definitely only re-read chapter 12 seven times for the entitlement, and not the way Tigris hissed ‘brother’ while bound to a bedpost. “The morality groups would lose their shit, though. Probably it was the right call.” It was impressive enough his agency had let him sign the role at all; he’d already rocked the boat enough asking if his casting was whitewashing.

“The morality groups are gonna lose their shit over the gay factor anyway,” said Nico stubbornly. “In for a penny...”

“What about the negative associations of homosexuality with sexual taboos?”

“What about double standards?”

“Sure, it’s a double standard and it sucks, but you gotta start somewhere. It’s a story about being an outcast and fighting for scraps of dignity, fighting to be seen as human by people who want you to be less than that, and that’s gonna resonate with a lot of kids. You gotta lay the groundwork then fuck your brother.”

Nico raised an eyebrow and Matt shut up quickly; he, or rather his agency, had made a point of never letting him be drawn into these kinds of debates. “And I think compromise robs art of its power. What does the author think?” They both glanced across the set to where a woman in a peacock-print dress watched as Ted struggled to coral the child actors for the carnival scene. Her expression, behind her glasses, was unreadable.

“Dunno.” Matt ran his hand through his hair. The dye had dried it out and he winced at the brittle, dead-grass feel of it. “Only time we spoke, we both tried to get each other’s autographs and it was really awkward. Bet she’d have some notes for you, though.”

“D’you know, Rose, that’s not a bad idea.” Once resolved, Nico was all action and he stood, script pages fluttering to the floor, velvet cloak swirling around his ankles. The jut of his jaw said that nothing short of poor falafel truck service would defeat him.

“Ask her to show you the predicament bondage scene,” Matt told him helpfully. “There were some really important character beats in that, I thought.”

“You think you’re too good for me, don’t you?”

“What?” Matt looked up, taken completely off guard. He was stretched out in Nico’s window seat, deeply absorbed in a thinkpiece on why Kai Bourke would have been a better casting choice for Gael, and thoroughly agreeing with it. Seeing his boyfriend prowling towards him with a look of cold fury and a bare chest was enough to stop him mid-anonymous comment.

Nico stalked across the room towards him, the taut anger etched in every muscle creating a frayed grace that was almost violence. “That’s the worst of you, your highness. It’s not that you hate me. It’s not that you think less of me. It’s that you think nothing of me at all!”

Finally cottoning on, Matt swung his legs around and tried to remember his lines; it was hard, he truly couldn’t remember what part of the script this was. That in itself was unusual. Matt would hardly claim himself a natural thespian or even a diligent professional, but memorizing lines had been a skill drilled into him since he was eight years old and it was a tough habit to shake. Still, while Nico’s words - Tigris’s words - sounded vaguely familiar, he couldn’t for the life of him place them in Ted and Cindy’s script.

“But I’m going to make certain you don’t forget me, brother,” whispered Nico, and that was just it, Matt realized. It wasn’t the script at all. It wasn’t even the book. It was the original.

“You read it?” he mouthed, as Nico’s hand wrapped around his wrist.

“Shocked to learn I’m literate?” spat Nico, but favored him with the shadow of a wink. No shadow around his eyes this time, no gold woven into his hair, but he was more Tigris than he’d been on the soundstage.

It was, simultaneously, extremely Nico.

Matt tried, experimentally, to free his wrist and found he couldn’t. He shivered, feeling his pulse jump, knowing Nico could feel it too. “Was that an attempt to dig deeper into the artistic truth of the work, or to mine it for weird, kinky shit?”

“Yes,” said Nico, bearing him down onto the cushions, beautiful and vengeful and careful not to knock Matt’s laptop off the seat.

One of the advantages of shooting a gay film with your boyfriend - one Arose had certainly never intended - was that when Nico turned, grabbed Matt by the lapels, and kissed him on the red carpet, everyone laughed and smiled and Matt knew the gossip mag headlines would be jokes about dedication to the craft and not shock sexuality scandals. His father probably wouldn’t- okay he’d definitely mind but it’d probably be a side note in a meeting about how to capitalize on the film’s success.

And it was a success; some desperately hot sex aside, reading the story - the real story - had apparently been what Nico had needed to pull it together. All the pride and fear and desperate clawing longing of a tiger caged that had risen like a heat haze from Tigris’s story, and Nico had captured it, had reveled in it, and put it on the screen for all to see.

Matt straightened his tie and winked to the paps - just a joke between bros, nothing queer here - and resolved to fuck Nico senseless in the restrooms after the premier. Nico laughed and stuck his tongue out. He’d left the white streak in his hair for the red carpet, as stark as the collar of his suit, and Matt had to say, it was growing on him.

#tiger prince #brazenbells #star boys #incest mention #HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELSI WE LOVE YOU

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moviemunchies · 4 years

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Avengers: Endgame

I sort of hate the culture that’s popped up around massive franchises. A little more than a week after Avengers: Endgame came out, everyone was like, “Alright you’ve had ten days to see it, now we can talk about spoilers in public!” And that’s stupid--you do realize that there are some of us who have lives outside of Marvel movies and maybe don’t want to have to go through the insanity of crowded theaters that we’d be go through if we saw it opening weekend? The movie’s not going anyway for a while, so I’ve got time to see it. It’s ridiculous that we’re expected to see a movie the week it open or else we aren’t “real fans.”

And I’m bloody tired of people asking me about the movie. “Have you seen Endgame?” I get it that you want to talk about it and all, but after getting the question approximately fifty thousand times, I think you people you should get something else to talk about. Watch other movies! Read some books! Just… stop obsessing about these movies.

Anyway I saw Avengers: Endgame and it was good. There! Are you happy fanboys and fangirls? I’m not going to spoil it in case someone reads this who hasn’t seen it, because I don’t always expect everyone to have seen movies in the first week or so that they’re out.

I suppose a lot of my friends might have been asking because when Infinity War came out I sort of kind of absolutely hated it. I’ve mellowed on it since then, but I still don’t think it’s good, in part because it’s not really a complete movie. Everything good about Thor: Ragnarok was ruined in the first five minutes of Infinity War, and for all the hype of how important Civil War was the conflict there has little to no effect on Infinity War. And it’s hard to care about fights that you know the heroes are going to lose, and despite all its attempts to paint Thanos as a sympathetic villain he’s clearly an insane moron who actually thinks wiping out half the universe’s organisms is a rational solution. It’s also more baffling that everyone loved it. There were thinkpieces about how Thanos was actually a really clever and relatable antagonist, and how this movie is a masterpiece, and it really wasn’t.

So sitting in the theater during Endgame, I found myself saying, “Now this is more like it!” This was a movie that actually felt like it was actually aware of the fact that Thanos was nuttier than Mr. Peanut’s family reunion and it referenced past Marvel films in a way that’s more than just “Here’s this character who was in this past movie.” Things that happened in the past mattered, and that’s kind of all I asked for in the culmination of the Avengers story arc.

That being said, the movie kind of shows exactly what’s wrong with Marvel Studios’s long-running continuity. By the end of the film, the illusion of everything being connected it well and truly broken, as it sort of rules a lot of the supplementary shows and such really don’t work after this movie. If the Marvel Netflix shows had not been cancelled, I can’t help but think they’d need heavy re-tooling to fit at all in the post-Endgame universe.

There are other criticisms I have relating to that, but that has more to do with Marvel’s whole universe and individual projects in it that aren’t Endgame. And it wouldn’t necessarily be fair to hold those against this movie--which, for the most part stands on its own.

The movie’s not without its faults. It’s treatment of female characters is, at best, okay? For all the hype around her inclusion this time around, Captain Marvel really doesn’t contribute much to the story at all. There is one case of what can be termed of a character being Stuffed in a Fridge, and while in-context it might feel not so bad, it’s not a great way to send off that character. That being said, there’s one female character from a past film that’s given an important role in this one, and I appreciate that she’s given some more development despite being mostly forgotten by the fandom. But still at best, it’s a mixed bag.

There’s also one male character’s storyline that wraps up in this movie, and, uh, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. It’d be a lot less egregious if the film hadn’t spent a lot of time explaining the mechanics of how things work. It’s frustrating and just feels like a cheap way to get rid of a character without thinking of how it would make sense.

It sounds like I disliked the film, but I didn’t--there are a lot of things I liked. The film actually treats Thanos like an unstable sociopath, unlike the previous film. And the battle with him is actually interesting and fun to watch? It felt like a fight you’re actually invested in, where you don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know who is going to win, which is more than I can say for Infinity War which felt pointless. There’s even this point in that film when Thanos even tells Thor that he should have gone for a more deadly blow, which felt as if it was rubbing in all our faces how silly the characters were all being.

And the final battle in this film is a spectacle to behold. It doesn’t feel as ridiculous as the one in the last movie, which was cinematic but lacked a lot of common sense. There are some ridiculous tactical moves in this one as well, but not as many, and some can be excused as it being a bit of a hurry to prepare. Seeing that many heroes on screen at once is one of the most memorable big screen experiences I’ve had.

If you’re invested in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s a film that’s made to cap off the story arc started all those years ago. It’s built heavily on references to past films in the franchise, though, and without knowledge of those it’s probably going to be a little difficult to follow. Even if you are a Marvel fanatic, or just one who knows enough to keep up, it’s not a perfect film, but it’s enjoyable. Is it the movie that will change your life? Probably not. But you’ll have fun seeing it.

#Avengers: Endgame #MCU #Avengers #movie munchies #movie review

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thenextchapterbegins · 5 years

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Hrm lets talk about spooks

“Hello, everyone's favorite resident eldritch horror has come from his fun time life of destruction to have a serious discussion. Now im sure to those who have interacted and those..who are beyond the screen you've seem and learned much about me and where I come and the basics of the void.”

“I was browsing my blog when I saw a wonderful little thinkpiece on eldritch horrors and while their ramble on eldritch horrors was correct in the sense that viewing one in its true and most horrifying form could render most minds to mush and most if not all of our kind view mortals and humanity as the smallest of germs in the multiverse there was one piece that was quite wrong. Literature and lore and video games have proposed that since we eldritch are so large so powerful that merely interacting with the mortal realms we would render it all to destruction. Now sure that can be true if the eldritch potato is but a youngling and can't control their power.”

“But if you truly believe the oldest, most powerful and most terrifying don't know how to control their power in the mortal realms you need may get your brain checked. You may ask then why don't they come out and play more often now I can't speak for them all but I know from the ones I communicate with...Its honestly boring sure you come out everyone goes insane and die and then..nothing. It's fun for a point 5 seconds and then it's just meh. Now influencing and telling mortals that if they sacrifice, kill and drive people insane in our names will release us well that's endless enjoyment and usually, those cults end up driving themselves insane and dying and then the cycle continues. Also, there are some eldritch gods that simply don't care and enjoy whatever mindless thing they do. Now I can't say this is the case for all timelines and realities and etc but if this timeline can contain these set rules surely others can as well so simply keep an open mind.”

“The instant you think you've figured us out that’s when you are your weakest and most vulnerable and remember not all of us are eldritch horrors some like myself take the pure and handsome form of a human so if you hear whispering that ancient and old language that causes insanity you may be alone..or I might or another of my kind may be the one whispering to you without you even noticing. hahahaha”

#uccidere #musings #lore?

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tanadrin · 6 years

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There is an attitude I am going to call LRBish, which is perhaps unfair, but which has received that name because every time somebody talks about a “really good LRB article” that I have to read, this is the thing that makes me hurl the magazine across the room in disgust sooner or later. But perhaps it is not endemic in the LRB, only in the articles I occasionally am recommended; and god almighty knows it’s not unique to that publication. Most recently I was reminded of it reading (re-reading?) Amia Srinivasan’s piece on EA which, on paper, is one philosopher disagreeing with another on some very high-level stuff about where the proper locus for conceiving of the fulcrum of moral action is: is it within the individual or society? For Srinivasan it’s in the latter, which means that to her EA (at least at the time of writing) felt insufficient to her as a philosophy. That’s an interesting discussion! It’s worth having. Alas, it was mostly confined to the end of the article.

The rest--and this is typical for LRBish pieces--was a journey through EA, not through the eyes of a curious observer, but through a thick piece of jade that must have been cut from the rarest of stone found only in the Pessimism Mines of the planet Hyper-Cynicon 7, deep in the heart of the Ennui Cluster. If EA and its attitudes were truly alien to Srinivasan--like, if she found them actually repugnant--it would be one thing. That invites many stylistic attitudes, like polemic or strenuous argumentation or invective or exquisite takedown. That’s not what the article is, though. There seems to be almost nothing on the concrete level Srinivasan disagrees with about the subject of her piece. It’s just that their attitude is wrong.

The heart of LRBishness is interrogating everything for evidence that it is not one hundred percent morally pure and clean, by whatever standard you like (if one standard doesn’t suit, discard it and use another), and, when you find some little smudge of uncleanliness, you hold it up, point, and loudly announce, “See?? I told you everything was terrible!” Srinivasan coyly adumbrates a half-dozen sins that she never states outright--EA is too tainted by capitalist individualism, EA is too white and too male to be taken seriously, EA’s leaders don’t follow their values to their logical conclusion--some of which are nonsense and some of which might be the beginning of a good critical essay on the movement, but she refuses to be nailed down on the particulars of any of this, because that would involve an actual argument, taking a stand, having a thesis--and this you are absolutely not allowed to do when being LRBish.

LRBishness is, at heart, a kind of cultural Calvinism where no cause, idea, or work of art is sufficiently good, no effort sufficiently heroic, to be laudable. You are never allowed to be enthusiastic about something, even if that enthusiasm is tempered by reservations. Indeed, you must never be hopeful, or determined, or even exactingly precise and thoughtful, for all of these qualities would betray an unspeakable naivete on your part. To be hopeful or determined would imply that perhaps you do not believe All is Lost And Doomed. To demand thoughtful precision is even worse--for it would imply that you cared enough to be precise and thoughtful! And anyone who claims that all is, in fact, not Doomed is either themselves deluded, or is participating in a Machiavellian plot to sell you something.

This is the attitude of drunks at a party at 3 AM, when the hour of productive conversation has passed, and the lack of sleep and fading buzz of inebriation means that everybody’s starting to feel a little depressive. Or the attitude of that one friend who repeatedly mentions in casual conversation, ha-ha-only-serious like, we’ll all be dead in fifty years due to climate change. Heck, this is my attitude when I forget to take my Lexapro for a week and a half and suddenly I’m wondering why I’m irritated all the time and video games have lost their savor. And perhaps that offers some clue as to why I am so tired of it: not only do I get enough of it from my own brain (though, admittedly, my internal monologue isn’t as good a prose stylist as your average LRB columnist), but it speaks to me of a fundamental dysfunction in how you relate to the world.

Once, I mistook it for wisdom. When I was fifteen, the LRBish attitude felt impossibly refined. Perhaps this is the universal fascination teenagers have with ironic detachment. Perhaps it was that, in general, LRBish writers did in fact know a lot more about the world than I did, by virtue of being older and better-read, and I labored under the misapprehension that their attitude was a product of their intelligence. But I have grown exhausted by it. I have come to understand it as a defense mechanism: a cognitive armor worn to protect against a world which does indeed often disappoint, and which, if you are unguarded against it, might lead you to falsely conclude nothing is worthy of your faith or your enthusiasm, your energy or your give-a-fuck. And that’s not true. There are a great many things in this world that are beautiful and worth investing our passions in. As for the columnists--whether of the LRB or the New Yorker or the NYT Book Reveiw, or merely of internet thinkpieces--please, figure out what you do give a shit about, then write about that. I promise the results will be about a thousand times more interesting for everyone.

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clarenecessities · 6 years

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Queerquiggle/Cybunnypoop

Subtitle: This Again

It’s been around two years since the shit hit the proverbial fan, but seeing as the individual in question has since deleted & remade, some of you may not be aware of whom you’re interacting with.

Queerquiggle & queerneopets are the latest installments in a series of urls belonging to one person, hereafter referred to as the original url, cybunnypoop. Other former urls for his neoblog include (but are not limited to): gaygelatin, shewhoneopetswiththee, neobloq, and candypaintbrush.

I should tell you all off the bat that he’s a Trump supporter, a “recovering” transphobe, and extremely Islamophobic, so this post may contain some upsetting information. There are some instances of misogyny, antisemitism, homophobia, and racism, as well. Oh, and ableism. Honestly, pick an -ism.

None of the information in this post should be a repeat of my first post regarding the matter. Warning: this post is even longer.

As before, I’d be remiss if I didn’t lay out my bias: I don’t like him. He’s been downgraded from “nemesis” to “nuisance,” as he’s no longer harassing minors (as far as I’m aware), but we’re never going to be best buddies.

We’ve spoken several times, though never to any resolution, and with each interaction it became increasingly obvious that it was futile. I ultimately blocked him following repeated propositioning and an unwillingness to engage beyond casting any disagreement as bullying and telling the kids to go back to their safe spaces.

Cybunnypoop is now 25 years old, and he hasn’t started anything major in a while. His posts remain fairly unpopular, though whether that’s the result of the quarantine or simple bad content, I couldn’t say. You’re under no obligation to take my word for any of this. Though I’ve provided links and screenshots where I can, what you make of that evidence is up to you.

TRANSPHOBIA

As it so happens, Cybunnypoop has recently tried listening to another human being, and has been educated about trans issues in a way that ~100 people on the internet offering resources apparently couldn’t accomplish.

What this means is that Cybunnypoop is now IDing with various names (itself nothing new, pseudonyms are an old hat here), gender identities, and pronouns, depending on the platform. I’m sticking with he/him for this post, as those were the last requested on his neopets blog. His description says shey/shem but unfortunately I have no idea how current that is, and his about says “whatever”–so if I’m misgendering here, I apologize; it is not intentional.

I, Clare, Author of This Post, am cis. So it’s not my place to gatekeep or say whether or not he’s ““really trans””. And, as he has expressly admitted to being transphobic in the past, none of this section is really up for debate. I’m just going to provide the information, including his apologies and the redaction thereof. I don’t know that he truly understands everything he did wrong, but he’s explicitly stated he thinks transphobia is bad, so hey, maybe we can all learn something.

I’m gonna try to keep this chronological, so here we go:

A fun little addition to a post via an anonymous terf, “You are still males, you have male privilege, you KNOW NOTHING & NEEVER [sic] WILL KNOW of our goddamn struggles.“ which Cybunnypoop began with “So much agree!”

When asked about the “trans bathroom debacle,” he stated he was, “just afraid it’ll result in sacrificing handicap-accesible bathrooms.” which is only tangentially transphobic but bears addressing: Why would it ever mean that?

Cybunnypoop has something of a preoccupation with the potential negative impact equity would have upon him, and ableism is a convenient vehicle for this–lord knows this country is appalling in terms of accessibility. However, no proposed version of “trans bathroom”s leads to the dissolution of ADA-compliant spaces. Whether it’s allowing trans people to use the bathroom they identify with, or installing/redesignating gender neutral spaces, it remains an issue of improved accessibility, not diminished. A disabled trans person has as much a right to use a bathroom as an able-bodied one.

When he graduated he was questioned on his political beliefs, specifically how he could support Trump and remaining uneducated about trans issues while claiming to be an LGBT ally–and congratulated on graduating. Rather than answering the questions, or thanking them for the congrats and ignoring the rest, Cybunnypoop declared it “harassment”. This is about the standard for what he deems harassment/bullying: Anything that disagrees with him.

Reposted a quote from Dixon Diaz, the alt right guy you may remember him quoting in several citations from my last post, which read, “Liberal: a person who tells you that you’re a bigot if you’re afraid of having weird men in the ladies room, but becomes traumatized if they see “Trump 2016” written in chalk.“ [sic]

trans people bad, diversity bad, children bad & trauma fake

An ongoing problem with fetishizing trans people, dating back long before his identification as trans, and indeed, during the period in which he was a self-avowed transphobe. (Warning: link contains slur!)

This grew more pronounced as he came to understand what it means to be trans, and zeroed in on transwomen in particular. This is itself a complex issue: When is a kink flattering and when is it dehumanizing? Are immutable adjectives inappropriate to fetishize, or is it positive representation?

Again, as a cis person, it isn’t my place to say–I’m just letting y’all know what he’s said, and you can determine how you feel about it. This post isn’t a thinkpiece on my opinions.

Select quotes from The Apology:

“I was transphobic. I was resistant to that term because I felt it was a misnomer. I was more…trans-ignorant, I felt, than “transphobic.” […] I couldn’t see what I was doing because I was too busy, I felt, being attacked.”

“I had a warped view of trans people, and I was too ignorant and stubborn to acknowledge it–to see it, even.”

“[…] it’s hard not to let a jerk taint your view of a minority, especially when that jerk was your introduction to the minority.“

I’ll be honest, my problem with this apology is in how it’s structured, not in its content. It seems to convey genuine remorse, but focuses the bulk of the message on excuses, including that last point, which… isn’t relatable.

Even this I could forgive (after all, he’s new to apologies) if it had heralded a change in attitude–but nothing changed. He continued on as before, and continued to refuse discussions of other issues (which we’re getting to soon).

Which brings us to The Second Apology:

Posted some day and a half after the first, it opens with the artfully passive aggressive line, “I thought this could be over but it’s obviously going to stick around.” And it’s all downhill from there, folks!

“What do you want? What more can I say? There isn’t anything left to say. Nothing will satisfy some people.”

“I never bullied anyone like some do to me.“

“If you don’t want to believe I am different,[…] then the problem is not mine. In these cases, it is a good idea for you to stop talking about me and lying about me“

Here is a glimpse, perhaps, into what he expected. He was waiting for accolades. Commendation. He’d just apologized–and unlike earlier attempts, it was genuine! I don’t know that he anticipated forgiveness, but the outright rejection of that apology by several individuals drove him almost immediately into a bitter tirade, once again foisting the blame onto the people he had hurt or offended.

Aaaand a redaction of former apologies. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a date on this one, so it may be referring to the older apologies, but its content bears addressing:

“Yeah, I apologised like a year ago […], and they refused it, so I’m done apologizing–not that I even have anything to apologise for.

“I’ll sooner die than acknowledge and apologise for their demented reconstructions of my words.“

Which, if this is about the older apologies–oops!

“I won’t deny I said some things that people found offensive, […] but they just took everything and ran apedoodie with it. It amazes me that, for all they claim to hate me, they have this obsession with everything I do and say.”

This is actually fairly emblematic of my own interactions with Cybunnypoop: Specifically, the characterization of all attention as both positive, and obsessive.

What is it about being held responsible for his actions that leads him to cry wolf? Historically, an unwillingness to debate his political beliefs. Oh, he’ll espouse Trump’s “virtues” for paragraphs and paragraphs, but anyone who criticizes him is obviously a liberal idiot who just loves to hate him, and I’ll bet they say “lame,” right? It’s these assumptions about other people that lead him so often to tilt at windmills, rather than addressing the subject at hand.

RACISM

“Obama spending $21 million to put refugees to work…why not spend that money in the inner cities to put young blacks to work… once again Obama and the Democrats have proved the black community is their who’re [sic] because we always come back to them after they screw us” a quote he posted from a Facebook page I won’t even name, because it’s literally got the N-word in it! But he’s definitely not a racist, right?

Obama being (literally) booted out of office, by a Confederate battle flag, symbol of white supremacy since the 1960s. (There’s been some suggestion it’s in the classic minstrel show style. Though he forwent the traditional depiction of red/pink lips in favor of purple, there remains the possibility that he just can’t draw caricatures).

I’m going to address this post more in the ableism section, but it’s worth noticing how often, and how readily, he uses the word c*lored unprompted. This is not the first occasion.

More lambasting of whitewashing as a concept, sarcastically proposing we paint a black person white and mutilate them to better portray Michael Jackson (whom he refers to as ‘Wacko Jacko’, an ableist and derogatory nickname) apparently under the impression that there are no other black men with vitiligo.

I think it’s important to cover this, as from Cybunnypoop’s posts suggesting we be outraged at the “yellow-washing” of Joan Watson (see my previous post) it’s clear that he has no idea what whitewashing means.

It is not literally painting POC white.

The term whitewashing is derived from cheap white paint of chalked lime, used for a long time to refer to a specific means of censorship, “to gloss over or cover up vices, crimes or scandals or to exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of data”. Simply put, it’s revisionist history, and the methods used to maintain that illusory timeline.

It isn’t difficult to see how the term came to be applied to the representative censorship in Hollywood.

Shared a Facebook graphic, “Black people who were never slaves are fighting white people who were never Nazis over a confederate statue erected by democrats, and why, because democrats can’t stand their own history anymore and somehow it’s Trumps Fault? [sic]“

“Also, you see Blacks everywhere, but they’re still considered a minority.” (He appended some context but frankly it’s even more damning.)

The term “spirit animal” is annoying but not because it’s racist, I guess

ISLAMOPHOBIA

Cybunnypoop’s Islamophobia is tied in pretty heavily with his support of Trump, so I’ll be citing a few of those posts in this section as well.

“Ban seven countries’ worth of ideology which promotes violence against women, LGBT people, animals, and nonworshippers? Sounds good to me!”

The cognitive dissonance of a self-avowed Catholic posting this is… incredible.

“Sorry to inform you, but the terrorists who attacked New York, Boston, Orlando, our embassies, and others weren’t Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, or atheists. They were Muslims.

“It’s not Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, or atheism which oppresses women, slaughters animals, kills gays, and calls for the conversion or beheading of nonbelievers. It’s Islam.

“Until the ideology evolves to be as peaceful and tolerant as it claims, it doesn’t belong in America.”

There’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s begin by refuting Trump’s claims that “the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.” Plain old xenophobia, not even in the ballpark of truth. Over the past 15 years, none of the self-described Muslim terrorists committing crime have come from the countries on Trump’s ban list. Zero. The country producing the most successful attacks against the USA is the USA itself.

A basic look at the data further reveals that white supremacist, self-described Christian terrorists actually lead the rate of attack and death toll by about 2:1. Yet, bizarrely, nothing from Cybunnypoop about the ‘violence and intolerance’ of Christianity, or even white supremacy… Who saw that coming?

It speaks to Cybunnypoop’s prejudice that he would believe such a blatantly false piece of information with no investigation or critical thought whatsoever. Although, it may speak more to his unwillingness/inability to use Google. We have had some problems with that in the past.

“Dear Liberals: [sic] You claim to protect women. You claim to protect LGBT. [sic] You claim to protect animals. You claim to protect people who don’t ascribe to the dominant faith. But you’re protecting a violently misogynistic, homophobic, intolerant ideology which still slaughters animals in the name of their god and beheads people who worship otherwise. What the *** is wrong with you?”

Man, for derailing conversations so often to complain about perfectly valid modal grammar he sure loves breaking the English language.

When asked how he could still support Trump, he replied, “Because he hasn’t actually said or done anything wrong. The only thing with which I disagree was the transgender military ban, and that has been shot down, so it’s hardly relevant.”

Particularly in conjunction with his condemnation of liberals on the basis of not like, banning Islam, this is an explicit endorsement of everything from repealing the Alternative Tax Minimum to his sexual misconduct. Everything, except the one thing that directly affects one of Cybunnypoop’s demographics, was right.

HOMOPHOBIA

“I’m not like others in the LGBT spectrum. [bolding mine]

“I hadn’t cared for gay marriage nor had I especially cared to support the cause. […] I’ll fight for the welfare of the many before I’ll fight for the wishes of the few.”

(Well, historically, no, he won’t). Even without the implication that all the gay people who want to get married are selfish, this ignores the reason behind the push for the legalization of gay marriage: The AIDS crisis. Terminally ill gay men were forcibly evicted from their homes after watching their partners die, horribly, because they couldn’t inherit the lease/property. Their partners’ remains were the custody of parents who often wouldn’t allow the survivor to attend the funeral.

Up until gay marriage was legalized on a federal level, these incidents still occurred. One Indiana woman had to pay over $300,000 in taxes upon the death of her wife, and was told by the funeral home she could not arrange for her wife’s cremation as she was an “unrelated third party,” despite having the power of attorney. This is a significant concern.

“I don’t care for "pride.” I’ve actually started to loathe the undertones of the pride movement. […] is it truly worthy of a month and a gold star? […] I think it’s losing relevancy. Can we really celebrate something that’s no longer legally unique? Can we really have pride for… wait, what is it we’re proud of, anyway? We’re legally equal now; we’re socially equal, for the most part.” [bolding mine]

I don’t know if he forgot the homophobia he’s experienced, or if it just doesn’t matter unless it happened it to him.

“The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride marches exist or why Gay Pride Month is June tell them ‘A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.’“ -Tom Limoncelli

“Another thing–and the most loathsome part–about the “pride movement” concerns the very word itself. “Pride” …be proud of who you are, and be proud of not caring what others think of you. Fine. Sure. It’s fun to wildly flaunt your differences. But what’s the opposite of “pride”? “Shame.” So, if gays are to have pride, does that mean straights are to have shame?”

So why are we to be entitled to pride–why are we allowed to feel good about ourselves and they are not? […] The majority are not oppressive, and even if they wanted to be, they legally couldn’t.

Good news guys, homophobia is dead and definitely super illegal.

“(Never mind the fact that pride is a negative, narcissistic trait and one of the Seven Deadly Sins.)” [bolding mine]

(We interrupt this post to bring you his “Antipridist Pride”)

“While it seems most of the LGB world makes their sexuality their entire identity, I leave it as just one facet of many.“ Once again, he’s not like Those Other Gays.

“ I’ll bet I pissed off a lot of gays with this post, but I don’t care, and I’m proud of not caring.“ (proceeds to describe the LGBT community as loud, angry, straight-bashing, etc. for a good paragraph or so, obviously very much caring)

That’s enough of that post, huh? Let’s move on.

“I know that a lot of the LGBT community is hypocritical–and intolerantly, angrily so. They scream about others giving them tolerance and respect while they don’t give others such basic rights.

“If there’s Black Pride, why couldn’t there be Caucasian Pride? Gay Pride, Straight Pride.“

As I broke down in my last post, Caucasian≠white, and was first misapplied by white supremacists and popularized by actual, literal Nazis. He evidently doesn’t care, and claims I “created” it. (I can assure you, I haven’t been alive since 1785).

“Is it me, or are there actually very few good gay celebrities?”

Doesn’t like the term “lesbian” because its “image is too pornified”. As I understand it this is fairly common among those who were raised in more conservative or religious families, so it’s not an issue per se; it just becomes weird in conjunction with his wanting to be called a dyke at one point (though I can’t find the post where he said that explicitly, only ones where he describes himself as such).

Said he’d expected Ted Cruz to be a “gay prostitute” because he gave off untrustworthy vibes.

MISOGYNY

As I’m sure most of you are aware, Cybunnypoop is pro-life. From certain parties, that can be motivated by misinformation rather than misogyny (though certainly the misogyny drives that misinformation). In his case? Well, actually only about 75% misogyny. The other 25% is empathizing with fetuses just until they’re born. Idk if it’s because of his parental situation or his existential dread or what, but we’re not here to psychoanalyze him; we’re here to review.

“It’s a point which I make constantly. It’s not hard to not get pregnant. You have a variety of options. There’s birth control. There’s getting your man snipped […]. And there is one absolutely fool-proof, sperm-proof way: ABSTINENCE. It’s stupidly simple, but there are self-righteous women and men out there who say–if you’ll pardon my pun–screw that. Free sex, rah rah. But if you don’t want to “risk” a baby, don’t do the do. There are plenty more things to do in life.”

Yeah, it may be “stupidly simple” for an “asexual homosexual” but other people do, in fact, get horny. “There’s birth control.” Where? You gonna pay for it? You gonna talk their “man” into getting a vasectomy? Pay for that?

I want you all to keep in mind that this is the same person who waxed poetic about his addiction to porn. And hentai. Which he downloaded in a public library, because he was just that addicted. But if someone (god forbid) “does the do,” and their birth control fails? Well, too bad. You should have been able to control your libido.

When Trump was elected he had the following to say:

“This is a time for healing.” No, this is a time for you to suck it up. You may not have wanted this result, but I and half of the country did. So, instead of bitching and moaning and trying to undo what I and half of the country have been working hard for, you need to shut the fuck up, go to school, work, or volunteer, and stop being an intolerant, selfish, hypocritical asshole.

Frankly this could go in a lot of sections but it’s using bitch pejoratively so…

Honestly there are more instances but I feel like you get the picture and this thing is already absurdly long, so we’re going to move along.

ANTI-SEMITISM

On screenshots of a neoboard discussing the origins of the ichthys symbol (the Jesus fish), Cybunnypoop added, apropos of nothing, “Hey, how about the fact that Christianity was originally illegal while Judaism was lawful, and the early Christians had to hold some Jewish mores so they wouldn’t be arrested and executed? Interesting, isn’t it…” and tagged it “two can play at that game”.

Christians weren’t being persecuted for not being Jewish; they were being persecuted for refusing to participate in state events from which the Jews were exempt via religious tradition. Christians were too new to be considered traditional, and were therefore considered in contempt of the state when they refused to, say, make a sacrifice on behalf of the Emperor. Also, we called each other brother & sister but still got married, and spoke weekly about eating a man alive, so people were kind of concerned.

Also, like, it was an explicitly socialist religion in an empire. That was never going to end well. The “mores” they had to hold were “don’t be anti-fascist” and “stop meeting in secret, we don’t know who you are and it’s freaking us out,” neither of which is explicitly Jewish and neither of which you can blame the Jews for.

Pretty minor, but in a poorly executed attempt to be inclusive, he wished everyone a happy Easter & Passover at the same time, only to be informed that Passover wouldn’t be happening for a month. So more about the assumption that Jews are lesser Christians again than any direct hostility. Perhaps better evidence of his ignorance of Jewish customs/how to hit “search” on Google.

ABLEISM

Here there be slurs!

Alright. We’re going to begin this with a breakdown of the “lame” issue. Here’s the thing: Cybunnypoop hates it. He compares it (ceaselessly) to the r slur, which he uses liberally in his own defense.

I’m certainly not saying it isn’t a slur, or that you should use it, but to be frank, he’s wrong.

In both severity and time in which it’s been part of the English vernacular, lame is far more akin to other ableist slurs like “dumb,” “stupid,” “moron,” “idiot,”–all words which Cybunnypoop uses on the regular. The closest comparison we have to the r slur would be “cr*ppled”–which Cybunnypoop quotes on the regular.

Dumb is the closest analogue, as those middle three weren’t really popular until the American Eugenics Movement kicked in, but hey. If it bothers him so much, why say any of them?

Simply because, it only bothers him when it affects him directly and is said by his enemy.

For example, no problem whatsoever quoting Trump’s book, Cr*ppled America.

Here he calls someone ableist scum for calling him the r slur, yet here he mocks another’s offense at the term by comparing it to modern medical jargon.

Atheists and Liberals [sic] are “dumb”

“entirely okay” with the R slur

This post, which was also in the racism section, littered with fun slurs and what’s either blatant hypocrisy (see: his regular use of words like dumb/stupid) or one of the most incredible point-dodges I’ve ever seen.

Now we get into a recurring theme, with a recurring character. The problem with most of Cybunnypoop’s legitimate criticisms (e.g. lame is a slur, accessibility is bullshit) is that they’re never even googled, let alone researched, and that they come, 9 times out of 10, at the expense of another minority. Or, through sheer ignorance, one of his own.

“Trans people get [famous trans people]. Gay people get [famous gay people]. Black people get [famous black people]. Who do I get? I get Joe Swanson.”

“While everyone’s battling over how to bend backwards and make others comfortable, I’m just sitting here, cursing out the ungrateful bastards because there are places I can’t even ACCESS. […] And never mind the fact that there is no good disabled representation out there. You know who I get to look up to? Joe frickin’ Swanson. It’s so nice to be a forgotten minority. [bolding his]

Joe Swanson, for those of you who (like me) have no idea who that is, is a character on Family Guy in a wheelchair. This begs the question: Why do you need to shit on other groups and their representation to acknowledge how bad you have it?

There are dozens of famous disabled people I can name off the top of my head. Stephen Hawking, Hellen Keller, Beethoven, Lord Byron, FDR, Frida Kahlo, Sudha Chandran, John Milton–a cursory Google search reveals even more. Saying there are no famous disabled people is a shitty fucking thing to do, both because you’re erasing their accomplishments and you’re depriving other disabled people of that representation by pretending it doesn’t exist. Spreading misinformation so you can complain that everyone else is better off than you specifically is just plain cruel.

“I’m so sick and tired of society catering to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, but never giving a thought to people with disabilities. We don’t get a slice of the “diversity” pie.“

Catering to. … Catering to.

“Until our society can grow to acknowledge, accept, and represent the diverse world of disabilities, then we don’t have true equality and diversity.”

Like… he could have just made a post saying this. I mean, we have diversity regardless of equality, but that’s semantics. We don’t have to tear down other minorities to be heard. There’s enough “pie” for everyone.

Society: You should accept everyone regardless of sex, culture, gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, economic status Person: What about disabled people? Society: Huh?

I’m not a big fan of his little infographics, primarily because he uses them exclusively as a platform to strawman himself, but this one in particular is uh, frustrating. If he’s speaking about popular society, very few people accept all the groups he listed, particularly class/economic status. If he’s speaking about our country….

Federal protected classes include: Race, color, religion/creed, national origin/ancestry, sex, age, physical or mental disability, veteran status, genetic information, citizenship.

It’s the same story.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

BLOCK HIM. Do not reblog his content. Stop him preemptively from reblogging yours. Do not engage with him.

If you try to debate him, he will probably call you a bully, and you will probably get some not-so-mysterious anons. You will definitely be unable to reach a resolution. I know of at least one individual who’s attempting to “rehabilitate” him, so I guess we’ll see how that goes? I’d be genuinely delighted.

Reblog this post if you can, to spread the word.

Educate yourself about the issues addressed in this post. If you have questions, my inbox is always open.

I am not infallible, and I will also make mistakes. Please bring these to my attention immediately and they will be addressed.

This is a much less urgent situation than the previous post, as he’s (mostly) stopped harassing people, but you have a right to be aware of whom you’re interacting with. Whether you block him or befriend him or whatever is up to you, and I hope whatever choice you make is the right choice for you.

#neotag #cybunnypoop #not mentioned: art theft so that's cool #q slur

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