#might make another about the trans woman episode | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ottogatto · 9 months

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I would like to submit two ideas because I think I'm poking something but not going in fully, so I would very much like your opinions and additions about it (of course, as long as they remain in good faith *side eyes possible antis viewing my post*).

Marauders and surface-level rebellion

I've finally put to words something that really bothered me with the Marauders, though I don't know the name for it.

It started when I read a reblog that said:

I remember Brennan saying “laws are just structured threats made by the ruling socioeconomic class” during an episode of D20 and we truly just had to stan immediately

This is something dear privileged white woman Rowling didn't realize/understand well, since she held a high socioeconomical status even during her """poverty""" stage. It's known that, despite seeming to be defending ideas of fighting against fascism and "pureblood" supremacy in favor of acceptance of the other, her books reek of colonialism/imperalism. The story of the Marauders, a gang of privileged boys like her, is an in-world replica of that problem where Rowling betrays yet again her actual mindset.

The Marauders adopt the "bad boys who break rules" to get style, while completely losing/staining the moral sense in it.

Let's take piracy.

Some people pirate stuff because they consider that the stuff they'd like to get comes from unethical companies that abuse their employees or use modern slavery, or people who spread harm against certain minorities (like Rowling against trans people and thus the LGBT+ community), so while they may want to access the content, they don't want to give them money and might even encourage pirating their stuff to make them lose money.

Some pirate stuff because otherwise it's lost due to unfortunate "terms of use" -- see video games companies like Ubisoft (deletes gaming account after a while), Nintendo (does not bring back old games), etc.

Others pirate stuff because they just don't have the money but they still want to try the stuff that might make them happy and forget that they're poor -- reasoning that the company isn't losing any money anyway, or not much, since they wouldn't have been able to pay for it in any case.

Others pirate stuff because they consider the price ridiculously high or they consider it shouldn't be something to pay for at all. (Like education stuff -- isn't education supposed to be free for all, so that it can actually uphold everyone's fundamental and unconditional ( = not conditioned by wealth...) right to have an education? Oh and before anyone asks: I've DEFINITELY bought the ~15 expensive books that's roughly worth 500€ in total and that my uni asked I buy to study and get my degree...)

Rowling's Marauders is a group that would pirate stuff just because they'd think it would give them an edge, because they'd think it would make them cool to be seen as "talented" hackers who "defy" companies. Companies... that their own friends and families would own, and as such, would find that kind of behavior funny and entertaining (while they would trash other people around for considering it).

Another example. In society, in history, it's been proven time and again that breaking rules -- going against the law -- is an eventuality that's important for everyone to consider, if they want to defend their rights. Anti-racism, feminism, LGBT Pride, etc, advanced because people broke rules. In USA states where abortion is currently being banned, women and minors (+ their close ones) must now consider breaking the rules to get an abortion. (Privileged people don't give a fuck about those people, and if they suddenly decide that (moral) rules don't apply to them and they will get an abortion, they will just take a plane ticket to a country where abortion is legal, fiddling with legal stuff if necessary thanks to the lawyers their fortunes can afford and the lobbies that they're instituting.)

Revolutions happened because people broke rules too. I particularly like the 1793 Constitution in France Because it asserts that the people have the right to break rules and riot if the power in place threatens their fundamental rights:

Article 35. - Quand le gouvernement viole les droits du peuple, l'insurrection est, pour le peuple et pour chaque portion du peuple, le plus sacré des droits et le plus indispensable des devoirs. Article 35. - When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of rights and the most essential of duties.

(Of course the power in place would state and enforce and make use of propaganda to say that it's completely illegal and illegetimate and that those who riot for legitimate rights are terrorists!)

Breaking rules is at the core of anti-fascism, anti-dictatorship, anti-totalitarianism. Breaking rules is essential when those rules are abusive. Too often, those who put those rules in place really are only setting their rules of the game to establish their power over the others. Or as the reblog says: "laws are just structured threats made by the ruling socioeconomic class".

Rowling's Marauders break rules because they are the socioeconomical class in power. As such, no one can do anything about it, no one will really tell them down for it. They get excused and justified and romanticized by their peers, just like billionaires & politicians are excused by their peers and notably mainstream media (which is owned... by other billionaires). They break rules -- not because they think it's necessary and the morally right thing to do despite the dangers it puts them in -- but because it makes them feel powerful, important, invincible, which for them is very fun. As Snape says: James and his cronies broke rules because they thought themselves above them:

“Your father didn’t set much store by rules either,” Snape went on, pressing his advantage, his thin face full of malice. “Rules were for lesser mortals, not Quidditch Cup-winners. [...]”

They break rules because they're allowed to.

Which is why, in reality, the Marauders aren't really breaking rules or defying anything or opposing an actual big threat. They're a bunch of jocks who are having fun in the playground that's been attributed to them thanks to their status and family heritage (others wouldn't get the same indulgence because they don't get that privilege).

They break rules because they want to look cool, to be the "bad boys". The message has been compleyely botched. Especially with Lily actually finding this hot.

Because Rowling finds this hot:

[...] I shook hands with a woman who leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, 'Sirius Black is sexy, right?' And yes, of course she was right, as the Immeritus club know. The best-looking, most rebellious, most dangerous of the four marauders... and to answer one burning question on the discussion boards, his eyes are grey.

(Anyone has an eyes washing station?)

Another quote:

"Sirius was too busy being a big rebel to get married."

(Nevermind the eyes washing, anyone's got some bleach instead?)

Stanning James Potter for being the leader of a gang that prides itself on breaking rules and always getting away with it -- it feels like stanning Elon Musk for being "innovative" and "a daring entrepreneur" despite being a manchild who exploits workers and modern-world slavery to play with his billions while always getting away with it.

They're not being "rebels" -- they're being bullies and flexing the fact they can get away with it thanks to abundance of privilege. Those are the tastes of a posh British white woman. She wanted the facade -- not the substance (that is, if she ever understood it).

You might say that they did oppose a big threat, the Death Eaters, but again, it's botched because:

they target a lonely, unpopular boy who's best friends with a Muggleborn Gryffindor, rather than baby Death Eaters like Mulciber, Lucius, Rosier, Avery, Regulus, etc.

The leader sexually harasses the Muggleborn Gryffindor because he's sexually jealous of the unpopular boy who dared not take the insult about his chosen House and shut up. Lily is treated as an object, they don't listen to her, and they barely speak about her later. (Lots to say to show that, which I won't do here because this is not the main subject.)

When the Marauders do join the Order, they do it... because they primarily want to adopt a rock-n-roll style and play the "bad boys" again. Or at least that's the message that's given to the reader:

They seemed to be in their late teens. The one who had been driving had long black hair; his insolent good looks reminded Fisher unpleasantly of his daughter's guitar-playing, layabout boyfriend. The second boy also had black hair, though his was short and stuck up in all directions; he wore glasses and a broad grin. Both were dressed in T-shirts emblazoned with a large golden bird; the emblem, no doubt, of some deafening, tuneless rock band.

(God, the Prequel is so cringy.)

They don't choose Dumbledore as the Secret Keeper, they don't tell him they changed to Pettigrew -- even though he literally was their war leader -- James uses the Cape to fuck around even though he was supposed to be hiding with Lily and then Harry (until Dumbledore takes the Cape from him)... and eventually, their group exploded, with James killed off, Sirius thrown to Azkaban, Peter (the traitor) hiding as a rat and Lupin going off to find jobs to survive.

Why did that happen? Because they thought of playing their part in the Order like going on a teenage adventure rather than engaging in a resistance organization. It was, first and foremost, about playing "the bad boys" and having fun.

(Harry half-inherits this. While he doesn't break rules just to look cool, and actually has several moments where he does break rules because it's the right thing to do -- like under Umbridge or, of course, when Voldemort takes power -- he does often get pampered when he breaks them in his earlier years. By Dumbledore, but also McGonagall, however much Rowling tries to sell her as a "strict but fair" teacher. Or by Slughorn, now that I think about it. That's something that enraged Snape, as it brought up memories of Harry's father -- Snape's own bully -- getting the same treatment.)

It's not a coincidence that Rowling not only failed to properly convey through the Marauders the true value of breaking rules, but also lusted over them for adopting that "bad boys" trope. It speaks to her own privilege -- she who never had to put herself in danger and go against the law in a risky attempt to protect herself or other less privileged people.

(Here's a useful read to expand on those worldbuilding issues.)

2. Dark Magic, obscurantism and conservatism

For context: Opinion: The Dark Magic/Light Magic Dichotomy is Nonsense (by pet_genius).

The idea of "Dark Magic" as something that's repeatedly told to be "evil" magic and where you cross the line of the forbidden, while hardly putting in question that notion that was (for some reason) enforced by wizard society, is another blatant example of Rowling betraying her mindset of privileged British white woman.

Rowling couldn't put herself in the minds of a society of "outcasts (witches & wizards) deeply enough to consider they would not see any magic as "Dark" at all (being a ""Muggle"" concept), or that Dark magic is only magic that requires something unvaluable to be traded off -- like one's soul or health or life or sanity. Instead, she has Dark Magic defined as "evil" magic, even though her own books show that you can do evil stuff with normal magic, and that you can do morally good stuff with Dark magic. This thing happened because Rowling could not think past her own little world and instead she poured a conservatist mentality (+ typical "Muggle", anti-witch prejudice) into the HP (wizard society) worldbuilding without considering that there could, in fact, be fundamental differences between the two worlds that include thinking of magic differently. (This has a lot to do with Rowling's wizard world being a pro-imperalism fest.)

"Dark Magic" feels like a lazy, badly-executed plot device to tell the reader who's a good guy and who is not. Because of course, that's how things work in real-life, huh… (Did she ever hear of "don't tell, show"?) It's used as an excuse to define who's evil (teen Severus) or not (James), who's worthy or not -- not how their magic was used. Which is a BIG problem:

“I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.” The intensity of his gaze made her blush. “They don’t use Dark Magic, though.” / “Scourgify!” Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape’s mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making him gag, choking him —

Even worse, Rowling doesn't follow her own in-world moral framework. Dark magic is acceptable for some people (Rowling's partial self-inserts: Dumbledore, Harry, Hermione to Marietta...) but not for those that Rowling hates (Snape, who ironically represents the closest thing to rebelling by unapologetically obsessing over the Dark Arts). Again, this is at best unadressed in-world hypocrisy, at worst an expression of in-world and out-universe privilege (I get to do this and stay a good guy, but you don't).

There could have easily been rightful criticism of whatever could be defined as "Dark Magic". What if Dark magic was just something defined as "Dark" usually because the power in place doesn't want the people to touch it? Is abortion or contraception or a sex-altering or a goverment-threatening spell, Dark Magic? Is foreign or ethnicity-specific or female-centered or queer-centered magic, "Dark"? How about showing why (Muggle-raised but also neurodivergent) Severus thought Dark magic was so great, showing his point of view, while also establishing where the true limits are? If Lily can't be the one who sees past the "fear-mongering anti-intellectualism/propaganda", how about Harry being the one who does, thanks to him relating to Snape on a personal level? How about making Hermione go from someone who condems Dark Magic, to someone who entirely changes her point of view and understands that this is all bullshit -- effectively showing the dangers of only following what the books say, without putting them into question or thinking by yourself? How about a nuanced view of Dark magic as something that requires a significant sacrifice, which is conceivable for something they see as equally or even more important [Lily's life for Harry; Snape's soul integrity for Dumbledore]? How about making the Death Eaters, people who deviate that legitimate interest, rather than just evil guys who thrive in Dark magic for its supposed added evilness? How about showing that Dark magic was just a notion invented by Muggles to throw "witches" (real or not) to the burning stakes -- later taken by the witches and wizards in power to define, in the magical community, what was okay or definitely forbidden because it's the trademark of those who represent a threat to the magical community (understand: people who riot or strike or protest against the ruling socioeconomical class' politics)?

But there was none of that.

"Dark" magic in HP merely seems to be a weird concept that at best accidentally takes the form of an in-world obscurantism, at worst is just the trademark of someone who cannot imagine a "hunted, ostracized" community with a different culture and mindset than her own. Aggravating is the fact that she used "Dark magic" as a plot device to magically cast some people as good and others as never bad – again, probably reflecting her own questionable mentality.

The fact Rowlnig invented the notion of Dark Magic and had her world consider it seriously as an evil thing instead of being open-minded seems to be less telling of her wishes to show a wizard society that can be as prejudiced as the muggle one, and more of her own bizarre world where you must be evil if you are knowledgeable in or interested in certain "taboo" things (RIP neurodivergents).

Rowling glorifies the Trio and the Marauders for breaking rules. Yet when it comes to actually breaking expectations and norms, notably in the wizarding society -- like the use of another magical species as slaves, or the blatant anti-Muggle prejudice held by everyone including "good guys" (or anti-centaur while we're at it), or stupid anti-knowledge prejudice like "Dark magic is evil" -- there is none of that. At best, it's surface-level opposition that comes out as white savior syndrome. At worst, the protagonists make it their noble code to enforce those norms, and "sinful" characters (Snape, for one) are punished for not conforming. Too often, those sinful characters are punished by the "good guys" with the very thing that they apparently oppose so fervently.

Without ever adressing the fact that those characters were ("morally") allowed to do that because it was just, in the end, a matter of who gets the privilege to do that, and who does not.

There.

Do you have anything to say to develop on those ideas? I feel like I'm reaching my knowledge limit and I'd like to see if those ideas can be expanded.

#pro snape #severus snape #harry potter #dark magic #sectumsempra #anti marauders #anti jkr #fuck jkr #classism #imperalism #colonialism #hp #hp books #hp prequel #obscurantism #bad boys #piracy #virtue signaling

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pinkandpurple360 · 4 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/crooked-wasteland/726843568652697600/how-many-times-does-a-writer-have-to-poorly-write

I feel Millie had so much potential, this would have been such an interesting take.

I think it might still be explored since Sallie May is coming back soon in season 3. Hopefully Millie’s non too because she’s a favourite of mine just for being a mom who is actually alive, and for having a personality.

But damn is it sad to see a main character not get focus until over halfway through the shows runtime. I’m sorry but more than any other character Moxxie just hogs the spotlight. And Loona gets very very little, even though Loonas episode was about her and another big female character, it was so focussed on male approval and male feelings that it was just plain ridiculous. Just like Vias episode was about male feelings. Why not have Loona and Bees rivalry be about Bee being rich and social, versus Loona growing up poor and isolated. That’s the only reason they’re so different.

Bee: “Don’t be so awkward girl! Let your guard down! Forget your worries! Being all nervous like this is just silly!”

Loona: “That’s rich, coming from someone who’s never had to put up her guard, living in a nice big house like this at the top of the food chain, where you don’t even have to work a day in your life I’d bet!”

Bee: “what’s that supposed to mean? You think I don’t have pressure! I was nice enough to let you come here to my home you little—“ but then Bee notices Loonas slightly scared face and stops herself…and there we go. This ain’t hard. Bee got mad at a compliment ffs.

I think the accusation that Millie’s mom is abusive is kindve…much? She clearly states that Millie gets too violent and carried away, seeing red, and she’s unlike Sallie who can keep her cool and hide things better. That’s not good either, but it’s not like Millie’s mom gave her different treatment for no reason. And it’s not idk “trans privilege” or whatever op was implying. (??) Isn’t that what the scene was trying to say? Millie goes too far and makes a mess? She’s very intense. And man I wish it was Millie who gave that speech at the end to get her own parents approval, not fuckin moxxie. And people are going to lose their shit if Viv doesn’t rewrite the lines about Mills being afraid moxxie will find someone better and “she should just jump”

These below, are all such facts. Viv needs to stop writing women and let another woman do it, because her own very deep misogyny is cartoonishly 1950s, it is coming through at every turn. There needs to be more non-Viv non fujoshi female presence in the writing team, grow up and stop calling this a show ‘about boys’ , it’s 2024. Since Viv has said herself that animation is a male dominated field, she should be the change she wants to see in the world.

“Women are just sadistic angry bitches and men are really delicate inside and need to be taken care of” stfu…some women are mean, some are soft, some men are tough, some men aren’t. Cmon. It’s 2024 soon.

Also:

STOP. KILLING. OR. ERASING. MOMS.

#helluva boss critical #misogyny in writing

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wordgirlexploration · 21 days

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Now that we have two new ref line ups, allow me to share with y'all some headcanons for some of them!

Rex/Kid Math

Most of our Kid Math takes are based off of FountainPenguin's two Kid Math fics: Factor It In and AlgoRythym. We just love those fics <3

Last name is Pemdas.

Non-binary. Really I just imagine most of the aliens in the show are some flavor of non-binary and Kid Math is no exception.

Autistic and has synesthesia. Same as Becky :) Comes with the territory of being from a subject obsessed planet and gaining superpowers on another world that overstimulates the senses.

His birthday (equivalent on Earth) is Pi day

He is so, so small. 3'7" (or exactly 110 centimeters!) tall. He looks more like he should be in Kindergarten/1st grade than 3rd grade.

More of a Hexagon headcanon than a Kid Math specific one: Hexagon is a very logical planet and as a result, when they do superhero work it's always 1) track down villain 2) get rid of villain 3) day is saved! Wordgirl's way of being a superhero would baffle ANYONE from Hexagon. Kid Math is just a product of his environment.

Mr Big + Leslie

Mr Big is trans.

His orientation is queer because we can't quite pin down what it is but he's definitely not straight.

Stands at 6'5". He's not called "Mr Big " for nothing!

Sees Dr Two-Brains on the weekends ever since their team up in Invasion of the Bunny Lovers. >:3

Leslie is a lesbian. We think she and the Mayor's assistant should kiss but not sure if it's canon to Exploration.

She's only 5'5" but wears 2 inch heels so you can't immediately tell.

Leslie's last name is Little. She's Leslie Little.

Both are in their early/mid 30's. Mr Big is only a couple years older than Leslie.

Granny May

She's been a villain the longest. Being a petty pickpocket since her late teens. Her "career" as a supervillian really took off though when she met her future husband.

Her husband was a man named Walter, who she met after charming her way into some fancy event. She stole his heart and his wallet that night <3

Walter made most of her gadgets that she uses today. Her suit of armor was his wedding present to her.

They got married later than most people from their time. Granny May was very hesitant about marriage at first. Worried it would affect her crime career since she relied mostly on her charm, which works better on suckers men when they think you're single.

Note: I really could go on and on about Granny's past but I'll leave off here because we have a whole episode planned for exploring her past ;)

Granny May has always been very small. In her prime she only stood at 5'1". In her old age she's now only 4'11".

Victoria Best

Dyes her hair. She's a natural brunette but since the rest of her family is blonde it's for the best (heh) that she match her family.

Her eyes are naturally blue but have an unusual red tint to the pupils and iris.

As of Exploration, she's currently taller than Becky at 4'9".

On the aroace spectrum but hasn't figured it out yet. She's the best at ignoring her feelings <3

We have big plans for her :)

Beatrice Bixby/Lady Redundant Woman

In her mid 30's.

Beatrice herself is aroace. Her clones are not. It drives her insane when one of them develops a crush because she doesn't get it.

Her clones are not perfect copies of her. She's had to recall one or two because they refuse to help in her crime sprees.

All her clones are effectively vegetarian because they can only consume ink. Ever since she became Lady Redundant Woman, Beatrice has had to supplement her own diet with ink every now and then. She can just change out her ink cartridge, but it's surprisingly cheaper to just eat ink. Also less of a hassle.

Lady Redundant Woman herself might also just be vegetarian. We haven't figured that out yet.

Tall woman. She stands at 6'1" plus her boots make her appear a couple inches taller. She looks shorter as Beatrice because of her Customer Service Slouch(TM).

She's ambidextrous.

Todd "Scoops" Ming

Hitting him with the trans beam. Came about because of that one episode where, aside from Bob, he was the only boy in the scouts group. We think he joined before he transitioned, and then when he did come out as trans the group wanted him to stay <3 Now he's one of the exceptions because it'd be rude to kick him and also all the other scouts will defend his place with their dying breaths.

Aside from Eugene May (because no one is gonna catch up with him), he's the tallest kid in 7th grade right now at 4'11".

While currently dating Violet, Scoops is bi and has had a couple crushes before Violet. His type seems to be blondes with weird eyes...

ale: we gave him ugly shoes because his top half is the only thing that needs to look presentable.

we obviously also fixed his skintone and haircut. we love you wordgirl, you did this kid so incredibly dirty.

we made his shirt blue because he's a little older now and Raven thought he deserved to have a different shirt.

Violet Heaslip

Her eyes are an unusual pinkish-purple color. Becky and Scoops think it's really cool.

She's currently the same height as Victoria.

Back in 4th grade/beginning of 5th grade she had a crush on Becky. She outgrew it halfway through the school year.

ale: we really just gave her an all-new detailed outfit because, as we realized after we finished her, her outfit is so.... plain for an art kid!

her pockets full of flowers are inspired by a piece of fanart showing the worg kids as elementary schoolers. the doodles on her skirt are inspired by a Dear Evan Hansen lyric.

gets a beret because she's an artist <3

i gave her warmly rainbow socks because i thought they'd look like something i'd see in a Justice as a kid.

TJ Botsford

"TJ" is short for Tim Jr.

His birthday is May 4th.

He's gay but hasn't figured it out yet. Got more important things to worry about such as how to grow the WordGirl Fan Club.

ale: made his skin darker to match with his parents, and his hair darker to match with his skin. and gave him a fade because, like. look at him. he would.

Tim and Sally Botsford (Do not separate <3)

Both are in their late 30's but Sally is older by a couple years.

Tim is just a little taller than average at 5'10", while Sally is close to average height at 5'4", but wears 3 inch heels to give herself that extra height. Makes her a little more intimidating at her job.

They met in college at the ice cream parlor from Whammer Anniversary <3 it was for some get together/study group and the two just clicked.

Their wedding anniversary is October 13th.

Tim is pan.

Tim's family specifically is of Ethiopian descent. It's why his spicier meals pack such a punch.

We mostly just like Sally the way she is <3

As we've mentioned before, Sally is Afro-Latina.

Shown in the episode That's Entertainment, Sally's hair actually becomes poofy and curly when not "blow-dried." Her hair is still like this (it's what inspired us to make her Afro-Latina), but we've decided that her hair becomes straightened through normal straightening means.

ale: made Tim's hair more afro-textured for obvious reasons. also it's canon that it used to look like that. also, he's graying more.

made Tim more brown because we couldn't live with keeping him orange.

i INSISTED that he keep his horrible outfit. everyone watching me draw him hated it, however, he is my "horrible fashion sense" king.

we mostly kept Sally the same, just made her skin more skin-tone like. also, we turned that weird line in her hair into a gray streak, because she's a little older now, and we couldn't figure out why it was there.

#wordgirl #raven rambles #ale announces #kid math #mr big #leslie #granny may #walter may #victoria best #lady redundant woman #todd scoops ming #violet heaslip #tj botsford #tim botsford #sally botsford

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itsclydebitches · 10 months

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On the topic of the Curious Cat: As an enby, I don't know how to feel about the fact that the first major characters in RWBY who were canonically enby were a) animals from a whole different world b) killed off in the same volume that introduced them.

Actually, no, I do know how I feel about that.

Little: A mouse who has, by their own admission, no purpose in life and thus swears to help the group on their quest... except they don't. No time is spent developing Little or demonstrating how they're beneficial as an ally. They're squashed to death by the villain during a pseudo-suicide scene and then magically reappear as a totally different person, which is presented as a good thing. They're left behind by the story, presumably never to be seen again.

Curious: A cat who is first presented as an annoyance that the group doesn't want to deal with, then as an outright villain who has been manipulating them this whole time. The story refuses to engage with the ways in which their situation is both relatable and sympathetic, instead having them suddenly gain the power of possession/physical transformation for a lackluster fight scene. They're torn apart by the illusion of another villain that only existed for one episode and, for obvious reasons, will likely never be seen again.

Yeah. I wonder why fans, particularly enby fans, would be unhappy with this representation...

You know, I've brought this up before but I think it's really important to keep in mind that RWBY is an ongoing series. Any representation that's introduced to the canon is, for a significant length of time, the only representation we have and that severely colors our feelings towards the show as a whole. Lately there have been some angry posts about people calling Blake/Yang queerbaiting and they're right, by definition it can't possibly be queerbaiting because they were made canon... but we thought it might be for several years. That's the criticism. The later you're introduced to RWBY and the more you have to binge watch, the less likely you are to understand the issue with these portrayals—especially with a fandom that will talk up what you have to look forward to if you just keep watching to X Volume. Why would I be upset with a stalker, villain lesbian when Saphron and Terra are so cute and just around the corner? Why would I think trans rep is an issue when Mae is arriving in Volume 7? How can anyone possibly claim that the queer rep is bad when the flagship, main character couple kissed on screen and I've already seen the beautiful, romantic GIFs of the moment? Putting aside other issues here (how long queer characters last, the lack of rep for men, etc.) fans ignore the staggeringly long time we were not only waiting for rep, but then waiting for what many would consider positive rep. For years all we had was a lesbian who wanted to kill the parents of the woman who didn't return her affections (notably with the implication that Blake was might be straight...) and a super duper minor character who isn't actually gay because they wanted to kill him off. For years all we had was Coco leering at women behind her sunglasses in the novels, or the hint of gay side-characters in other teams, while Blake and Yang continued a multi-Volume will-they-won't-they dance. For years we've had queer character appear for a few episodes only—the cute couple, the trans activist—before disappearing from the story because they're not important enough to make a core part of the tale. The fact that we have Blake/Yang now doesn't erase those feelings leading up to their canonization.

Now here we are again. "How can you be unhappy with the nonbinary rep?" someone might ask in a few years time, if RWBY continues and we've gotten another cute, minor, short-lived character who uses they/them pronouns. Well, it's because in 2023 everyone was waiting to see if the show would even return and in that uncertainty all we had for rep were two literal animals who were horrifically killed by the story and then left behind, one a full-fledged villain whose death we're meant to celebrate. I'm all for a diversity of representation—I'm by no means saying all your queer characters have to be heroes, or even decent people. I love me a queer villain—but when that's all you've currently got in a show that's struggled both with its rep on screen and its treatment of queer employees... it doesn't feel great.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

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maccharliedennis · 9 months

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Charlie is CANONICALLY, IN CONTEXT, some version of trans/nb and it is great

<3 sorry to say but if you disagree with that then you are just disagreeing with literal actual canon and might also be bad at media analysis!

Just because Charlie does not look directly into the camera and say "I, Charlie Kelly, identify as a trans person" doesn't mean that it is not CANNONICALLY TRUE.

He literally identifies as a woman occasionally. Sorry if you don't like that and not sorry if you don't like trans people existing in your media.

Does Charlie look like a complete weirdo when he says he only identifies as a woman when he goes to the bathroom? Uh yeah dude. That is because....Charlie Kelly? IS a complete weirdo. The joke here is not "lol trans women are freaks!" Its "charlie is a weirdo" and also (IN CONTEXT) "charlie is blurring the lines between what the gang thinks to be an Acceptable Trans Person and a Weirdo Trans Person". And in the end, the Gang has to concede to Charlie. They realize that the lines are SO BLURRY and SO UNDEFINIABLE that they determine the only way to make things fair is to create gender neutral bathrooms.

The ending of this episode is meant to be PRO-TRANS.

"But but but!" You may say "the whole point of the show is that they are bad people! Which MEANS that their debate is being framed to be ANTI-TRANS since they end up being accepting!"

Sorry but thats also false! And again, not good media analysis! Yes, The Gang are horrible people. But are they ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS in the wrong??? NO! They are not ALWAYS in the wrong! A stopped clock is right twice a day!!

Here's a great fucking example: The episode "Dee Gives Birth"

Y'all remember THIS MOMENT?

Awwww! This is beautiful, touching stuff! The Gang has their breath taken away by the idea of a baby being added to their weird little family. <3

But if the Gang is meant to be ALWAYS IN THE WRONG, then....this is saying what exactly?? That it's wrong to be emotionally touched by the birth of a child? No. Because that would make no fucking sense. (And also this is another huge pro-trans moment in the show. Dee's baby is adopted by Carmen and everyone agrees that she will be a wonderful mother)

Apply that same logic to The Gang Solves the Bathroom Problem and you can clearly see that the Gang are meant to be WEIRDOS but not CURRENTLY IN THE WRONG.

If your understanding of this show begins and ends with "The Gang is Always Wrong so anything they say and do must also Always be Wrong" then you have an extremely surface level take on it.

And y'know what else? Charlies gender is affirmed AGAIN in "A Womans Right to Chop" during the conversation with the veterinarian! Mac says that "Gender is so old school" and Charlie adds "Like, I dont even identify.,,.," before he trails off.

What could the ending of that sentence be, I wonder? What is the ONLY THING that could make sense IN CONTEXT that has already been confirmed previously about his gender???? If you cannot INFER THAT INFORMATION FROM THE CONTEXT OF THE CONVERSATION, then maybe you are not very good at picking up on subtext.

And again!!! The joke here isn't meant to be "haha they are dumb and so are trans people, dont they sound stupid?" The joke is "Mac and Charlie are having a bizarre debate about this dogs ability to give birth in front of a complete stranger and are forgoing dozens of societal conventions to do so" and "Mac and Charlie are projecting their own feelings about gender onto a dog whom is not even able to conceptualize gender".

Long story short: Charlie is canonically trans/nb and it was confirmed TWICE and it is not meant to be portrayed as a bad thing to be and the creators are all pro-trans so suck my fuck! If you don't like it, you can go jerk off ur friend dumpledore or something!!!

#iasip #charlie kelly #always sunny #its always sunny in philadelphia #moi

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demadogs · 10 months

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Do you know any good wlw movies/ TV shows on netflix? I've watched a few, I am not ok with this, Carol, duck butter, but im LESBIAN DEPRIVED!

~🌈

YOU AND ME BOTH GIRLY.

unfortunately almost all my favorite sapphic shows have been canceled especially the ones on netflix but i do still think theyre worth your time. but it might also kill you bc the story isnt finished. all these shows are also just amazing plots too. like i would love them just as much even if there wasnt wlw relationships.

heres what i got for shows but not all of these are on netflix.

the wilds. this is an AMAZING SHOW. its on amazon its about a staged plane crash where 8 girls are stuck on an island but they dont know that its all a fucked up social experiment. a lesbian relationship became established before it got canceled after s2.

cable girls. this is on netflix and it actually DIDNT GET CANCELED HALLELUJAH. its an amazing show but it actually doesnt really count as sapphic bc one of the characters in the wlw relationship ends up being trans. but its still a great queer love. this shows spanish and set in late 1920s madrid at a telephone company. its one of my favorite shows ever literally every season is better than the last plz watch it.

everything sucks. this is on netflix and it did get canceled but the lesbian relationship was mostly established before the end of the first season. its set in the 90s and its just a really cute show im mad it got canceled.

paper girls. this is on amazon and ngl this is one of the most painful sapphic show cancelations ive ever suffered through so if you dont wanna watch it just bc of that i dont blame you. its about these four young girls who accidentally time travel from the 80s to current day and meet their future selves. the gay girlies are heavily implied and foreshadowed but they dont get together before the end of the show :(

the last of us!!! not canceled its still going!! this show has an episode that shows a past sapphic relationship with the lesbian main character but the first season doesnt introduce a new relationship yet. the second season will tho. im sure youve heard about this or already watched it but its about a zombie-like pandemic from a deadly fungus and its total post apocalyptic. also AMAZING found family father/daughter trope. dare i say i actually think i like them more than el and hopper.

i really need to find more great sapphic movies.

my favorite lesbian movie of all time is portrait of a lady on fire. its a french period piece and its just beautiful and THERE ARE LIKE ZERO MEN IN THE WHOLE MOVIE. i think the only line a man has is “bonjour” and thats it. MY KINDA MOVIE!!!!! INSTANT 5 STARS!!!!! i love this movie. the initial premise is that a woman needs to be painted but she cant know that shes being painted so the other woman has to just study her while hanging out and then paint her from memory. it ends up being much more than that but gaaahhh if you only watch one of these make it this movie.

another iconic sapphic movie is but im a cheerleader. way different tone much less dramatic and more comedy but still never gets old.

you didnt mention books but im gonna give you book recs anyway.

seven husbands of evelyn hugo!!!!!!! im sure youve heard about this. i dont think its overrated at all it really was such a good book and dont let the title fool you its gay as hell. if youre really not a reader tho this is going to be a netflix movie soon.

an amazing duo book series is criers war. i LOVE scifi and fantasy and this is my favorite sapphic scifi story ive ever read/watched. i want this to be a movie or show so bad. its about a world where some people are people and some are what they refer to as “automa” which are essentially cyborgs but they look just like humans. crier is an automa and the daughter of a king and ayla is a poor human and she has a vendetta against crier bc her father was responsible for her familys murder but crier doesnt know this! so then ayla gets the job as her maid for the goal of killing her basically but of course it gets super gay instead. its such an interesting take on the enemies to lovers trope bc its one sided, cryer has no idea ayla considers her her enemy. also neither of them are white i think crier is brown and ayla is black.

i hope you like these! and if anybody else has lesbian story recs plz put it in the replies or rbs cuz i also need more lesbian content!!!

#people plz give me more recs im begging #every new gay shit that comes out is mlm and i still eat it up usually but god where are the gay girlies :((#byler #bc a lot of you guys are lesbians #sapphic #lgbt movie #eden answers

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 4 months

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youtube

"Is Religion Inevitable?" - Richard Dawkins Reveals All

Is white privilege the modern day Original Sin? How is mass denial about the truth of gender, any different from Catholic transubstantiation? Is woke culture today's dogmatic religious mob? Join me and @drpeterboghossian as we explore these questions and more in another episode of The Poetry Of Reality.

Peter Boghossian: I wrote, you know, "A Manual for Creating Atheists," and I was trying to make the world more sane and more rational. And I was trying to help people become more thoughtful and reflect on their beliefs, have reliable epistemologies upon which they could rely. And one of the things that I noticed since maybe 2013, maybe 2012, was that as religiosity decreased, deranged woke beliefs increased. And I guess my first question to you is -- uh, I don't know who came up with this, I might have come up with this, I don't know who came up with this -- but the Substitution Hypothesis.

Richard Dawkins: Yes.

Boghossian: So, do you think, and I honestly do not know the answer to this question, do you think that as one religion fades another -- like default is the belief state for humans, they just have to believe something -- and as one, as the old religion fades, a new one has to come in?

Dawkins: Yeah. Gullibility expands to fill the vacuum.

Boghossian: Exactly. Precisely.

Dawkins: I suppose that's right. I hadn't really thought of it before, but it sounds plausible to me. I think G.K. Chesterton, who was a very religious man said, "when people stop believing in God they they believe in anything." And he was a very witty, clever man, although he was a devout Roman Catholic. There's something in it I think, and there's no doubt about it that we seem to have exchanged one form of superstitious religiosity for another, and the analogy goes pretty deep. I think John McWhorter pointed out that there's a strong relationship between original sin in the Christian religion...

Boghossian: No, that was me pointing that out. 2014, with my article with James Lindsay. "Privilege is the original sin," but yeah, go ahead.

Dawkins: Good for you. So, original sin being we're all born in sin, we all inherit the sin of Adam. And we white people inherit the sin of slavery and colonialism and because we're white we have to feel guilty for what are, not necessarily our ancestors but people of the same color as us, in past centuries did. So that's that's one analogy. And then, well, transubstantiation which in the Catholic religion you know, the wine literally turns to blood, where "literally" doesn't quite mean literally, it means what Aristotle called the "accidentals" stay wine but the true "substance" of the wine becomes blood. So when somebody stands up and says "I am a woman," although they've got a male body, that's transubstantiation. In the accidentals they still have a penis and they still have Y chromosome, but in the true substance, they have become female. So trans -- that's where the word transubstantiation comes from, the transubstance, and there's a very strong analogy to transubstantiation in transsexualism.

Boghossian: Tell me more, how so?

Dawkins: Well, the wine becomes blood where the priest simply declares it as it is. And a male person becomes female when he declares himself to be female. And in the Aristotelian terms, the substance has changed, the substance of wine has changed to blood, the substance of maleness of changed to femaleness, but the accidentals, the incidentals are what are regarded by Catholics as trivial and by trans people as trivial. So they really believe that they have become the other sex.

Boghossian: It's remarkable how obvious it is that those are delusions. I mean it's crystal clear to anybody not caught in the orbit of the ideology that that is a delusion.

Dawkins: Yes. They get around it by this word "gender," which is separate from sex. And there are some who I think even think their sex has changed.

Boghossian: Correct.

Dawkins: And others who think that, they admit that their sex hasn't changed but their agenda has.

Boghossian: So, I guess I have two questions. One is, it seems to me that there are degrees of delusion that one can have. So, if we accept that, like there are certain things that are -- if I told you those books are really aliens from another planet and they've come down, okay that's another level of delusion. And so, I often think -- this is the thing that that's been causing me to think about this. I'm utterly incredulous at the sheer madness that people believe now. In a way that I was not incredulous, you know in 2010 or 2000 or so. So, let's take a look at, somebody walked on water. This guy named Jesus, he walked on water, you know, this is intervention in the space time continuum by a supernatural being and it caused this individual to walk on water. Okay, that's clearly a delusion if somebody believes in it, if someone accepts that is true. And then you have the belief that men can get pregnant. That to me seems like a significantly more profound delusion. Or am I wrong?

Dawkins: Yes. But doesn't it come from the postmodern belief that feelings are more important than facts?

Boghossian: Yeah, standpoint epistemology. And it comes, I guess they could just say that it's the redefinition of the word. But they actually like, they literally believe men can get pregnant. And the thing that I've been thinking about is, kind of goes back to Plato, is it better to let people believe benign delusions? I mean, in an ideal world, people wouldn't believe, people would proportion their confidence in the belief to the evidence they have for the belief. But humanity is sloppy and messy and the thing that I've been thinking about recently is, if it's true that there are degrees of delusion and if it's true -- and I don't know if it's true -- that there's a substitution hypothesis, then should rational people step out of the way or -- not encourage people to believe things that are false, because I would never do that and I think that's grossly unethical -- but there are certain delusions that are better for people to believe in en masse than others.

Dawkins: Yeah, so if you've got to believe in a delusion, if there's something, some law that says there's a certain quotient of deludedness that everybody's got to have, and certainly some are more harmless than others.

Boghossian: Correct.

Dawkins: I mean, I sort of feel there's a little bit about Islam and Christianity that -- Islam is such an evil at the moment, or Islamism is such an evil at the moment, that in Africa especially, maybe Christianity is a better alternative and it may be that it's no good trying to preach atheism in Africa, and Christianity might be a better a better alternative.

[..]

Dawkins: I think Stephen Pinker in his latest book has evidence that when we make our political judgment -- we, I mean humanity -- it tends to be not based on evidence, but tends to be based upon tribal loyalty, And that's a very depressing conclusion. And, by the way, one of the things that's been depressing me about my being sort of anti-woke and anti-the militant trans lobby, is that people think I must be right wing. And I've never been right wing. I voted left all my life and, I mean, I detest Donald Trump, for example, but there are people out there on Twitter especially who think that because I detest Donald Trump, therefore I must be an apologist for trans-wokeism or vice versa.

Boghossian: Yeah, so let's talk about that. I think that that is an intentional tactic of people. I think that that is what woke people use, people who have fallen -- have had their cognitions hijacked to this ideology, and I think it's very easy to write you off entirely if they say, "oh Richard Dawkins, he's just a right-wing extremist," you know, "Pinker he's a right-wing extremist," although he's the second largest donor to the Democrats and Hillary Clinton and Harvard, or who whoever it is. I've never voted for Republican candidate my whole life. I'm constantly getting that I'm on the right, but I think it's a tactic both because they don't have to do the intellectual work to rebut the arguments, so they can just a priori say that's not true. And it's a tactic because the left-wing media won't have me on, for example, so left-wing media won't, it has a kind of allergy to any self-criticism. So, then I'll go on the on the right-wing media, and the people on the left will say, "well look Boghossian's a right-winger." Well, no I'm only going on the right because -- I'm more than happy and nobody's ever invited me. I've actually invited myself and they won't have me. So, I think it's a kind of strategy to not do the intellectual work to rebut the position. Because it's hard to rebut the position.

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nocaffeineforlevi · 5 months

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right. So I've seen the episode now. (Also not to keep talking about this and at the risk of sounding obsessive but I was sitting behind Katie and we talked and she fist bumped me during the episode so)

Anyway, SPOILERS FOR THE DOCTOR WHO 60TH ANNIVERSERY SPECIAL: THE STAR BEAST UNDER THE CUT (I am as excited about this new era as anyone, but I will be saying what I didn't like about the episode as well, be warned)

Okay so I loved being able to watch this episode in a room full of whovians. We were all cheering and laughing and making confused noises and everything. It was truly an amazing experience.

I got very excited when I realized Rose was trans (it was somehow quite a few minutes after the deadnaming part, I only realized when Sylvia messed up and used he)

Also relating to Rose her inheriting the metacrisis indirectly gave me some Canon support for the concept behind one doctor who oc I have but that's for another time.

We all know that the Boss is probably, definitely, the toymaker.

Buut now we have to get into the part I didn't like about the episode, and it's probably exactly what you expect:

That final part.

Many other people have already gone to tumblr before me to type on their keyboards and talk about how the emphasis on the gender-switching and the "binary binary non-binary" part, but I also have to throw my hat into the proverbial ring.

Really, before I started thinking about how strange the emphasis was and how that bothered me as a trans person, I was already annoyed by the fact that NOBODY TALKS LIKE THAT.

That scene is just full of "oooh you switched genders oooooh you would understand this if you were female-presenting but your male-presenting" and while, yes, those are terms and phrases that might be used in a conversation, the way its set up is just... strange.

And while I'm at it, this might be just my view on thirteen, I haven't rewatched as many of her episodes as I have other doctors so I might be misremembering some things, but Donna saying that if the Doctor hadn't changed he would understand, because only a female-presenting time Lord could understand the concept of letting go... is just so funny to me?

Like... I'm unsure if Donna got thirteen's memories when the metacrisis was reawakened, or if she just somehow picked up that the previous incarnation had been a woman, but thirteen was NOT about letting go. She was running around for all of her seasons with lifelong grudges and was quite unique for the new seasons in the fact that she was COMPLETELY done with the Master's bullshit. She did not forget and forgive, she held onto that, and I love that about her.

Anyway, this post is stupidly long, I really did enjoy the episode, and I'm excited to see what comes next.

#doctor who #doctor who spoilers #doctor who special #the star beast #doctor who 60th anniversary #60th anniversary specials #60th anniversary #The star beast spoilers #I'll be making a seperate post eventually just talking about stuff that happened at the con because it was WILD #The post was originally made at 2030 but I got interrupted in the middle so I'm finishing and posting it now

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gaygoetia · 3 months

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Background Details in Helluva Boss S1 E5 - The Harvest Moon Festival

Millie's Family

We can see from the family photos in Millie's parents' home that Millie has three brothers in addition to her sister Sallie-Mae, though their names aren't mentioned in the episode. We see two of them briefly helping load pumpkins into their dad's truck, looking visibly older than in the family photos.

Also this isn't a background detail as such but unlike most female imps shown in the series, Sallie-Mae has striped black and white horns and her hair is white at the roots, implying that she dyes it. This suggests that Sallie-Mae is a trans woman, something which I believe has been confirmed by the show creators and/or the trans voice actress who plays her.

Moxxie being a theatre kid

There are several fun references to Moxxie's love of musical theatre in this episode, including the music notes on his wallpaper and alarm clock and theatrical posters in his bedroom. His phone case says "I don't cry, I sing" and the stickers on his suitcase also reference the theatre (one says "break a leg" and the other is a picture of tragedy and comedy masks)

Striker's Motel

The Motel Striker stays at is called "The Hideaway Motel" and the guy that tried to kill you definitely isn't there.

Blitzo's Car

Once again the little horse decoration makes an appearance but we also see that the back window includes a decal of Blitzo, Loona, Moxxie and Millie.

Stolas being horny for imps

Just a couple of Stolas details this episode but both relate to him having a thing for imps.

The book he's reading at the dinner table while Stella is openly making arrangements to assassinate him is called "Imps in the sheets".

He's also fanning himself pretty emphatically when Blitzo and Striker (both of whom he's canonically attracted to) are wrestling in the mud. This may or may not be for horny reasons but knowing Stolas it probably is.

Blitzo's Horse Thing

Blitzo's thing for horses manifests in this episode mainly as him admiring Striker's hellhorse Bombproof. Don't have much to add to this except look how cute his lil face looks! If Stolas witnessed this he would probably buy Blitzo a horse on the spot.

Blitzo and Stolas' bedroom scene

I wasn't sure whether to include this because once again it's more foreground than background details, but I thought while I'm talking about this episode I might as well.

This scene is probably the most insight we get into Blitzo and Stolas' sexual relationship. It starts with Stolas tied to the headboard and absolutely beaming so clearly something kinky has just gone down. This is also apparent from the harness he's wearing and the ball-gag around his neck (which additionally references the fact That Blitzo doesn't like it when Stolas talks about/during sex)

Another thing I thought was interesting in this scene is that Stolas stubs his cigarette out on Blitzo's horn to no visible reaction on Blitzo's part. This leads me to believe that imp horns either don't have pain receptors or that they have some level of fire resistance even within Hell which is preventing this from harming him.

I also think this moment and this scene in general is a great example of why Blitzo thinks that Stolas views him as a novelty and a plaything. This gesture is so casually objectifying and Stolas' tone of voice comes off as quite condescending. I don't think either of these things is intentional on Stolas' part but it shows that Blitzo's cynical view of their relationship hasn't come out of nowhere.

That's it for episode 5 but you can see all my other Helluva Boss background details posts here.

#helluva boss #hb background details #hellaverse #hellaverse background details

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thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis · 6 months

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Every Epic Rap Battle of History ranked

All right folks, sit down and strap in, cause this is gonna be a long one. So I recently got to rewatching Epic Rap Battles of History, as I do once a year or so. As I was watching through them all, I started to feel tempted to rank all the battles in a tier list. However, once I had ranked them, I felt like I needed to explain my reasoning for each battle's placement, and one thing led to another until eventually I had churned out this 14k word monstrosity. So here we go, I will be ranking all 86 current Epic Rap Battles of History from worst to best, explaining my thoughts on each one, as well as giving my opinion of who won the battle and what I thought the best line in each one was (which is not necessarily delivered by who I think the winner is):

F TIER

86. Sarah Palin vs Lady Gaga

Winner: Lady Gaga

Best line: "Governor of Alaska? That's like the principal of a home school."

This one is just terrible, plain and simple. I honestly don't think many people would disagree with me that this is one of the worst. The best I can say about it is that the person they got to play Sarah Palin looks and sounds the part pretty well. But everything else just falls flat on its face. A matchup with no chemistry, lyrics that are purely surface level with no deeper meaning, oh, and some poorly-aged jokes about "transvestites" for good measure. Frankly I'm surprised that Henry VIII vs Hillary Clinton was scrapped because it didn't meet Peter's and Lloyd's standards, yet this somehow managed to make it through all the way to becoming a finished product.

(For reference, I won't be officially ranking Henry VIII vs Hillary Clinton since it wasn't released as a finished, official episode, but it's honestly better than anything I'm putting in D or F tier. It'd probably fall somewhere near the bottom of C tier.)

85. Adam vs Eve

Winner: Adam

Best line: "It ain't Summer, Eve. Don't try to play me like a douche. You wanna bite on my fruit? Well, you can swallow the truth."

Honestly I would consider this the most painful episode to watch. As bad as Gaga vs Palin is, I would rather sit through that than this shit any day of the week. The only reason this ranks higher is simply because the lyrics are a bit more clever. Emphasis on "a bit", because only 5% of the lyrics have anything to do with the titular Biblical characters, and the other 95% are generic "man vs woman" lines using the most tired stereotypes you can imagine. "You're a slob", "Well, you're naggy". There, that's the whole battle summed up for you. What a waste of Jenna Marbles as a guest star.

84. Bruce Banner vs Bruce Jenner

Winner: Bruce Banner

Best line: "After battling me, you're gonna always be pissed. So the Hulk will stay forever, neither Bruce will exist."

There's a reason this video has the highest dislike-to-like ratio of any battle in ERB history. I mean, part of that is probably transphobes being mad at the existence of a trans person being acknowledged, but that alone wouldn't make it so hated if the battle was otherwise good. But as you can probably guess, it's not. For a video that was meant to show allyship to the trans community, how did no one on the staff point out that it might be a bad idea to directly compare a person transitioning to a comic book character transforming into a monster? This was just a bad idea from the start.

The first half of the battle is decent, but once the two do their transformation scene, it completely falls apart. On one hand, it feels like they were too scared to make Hulk really pack a punch with his lines out of fear of coming off as transphobic, so they just gave him barely any lines at all. But one of the lines he does have honestly still comes off as pretty transphobic: "That painted face don't give you class, just one more thing Bruce do for cash". Yikes. And then Caitlyn proceeds to have the most long, rambling verse in ERB history that doesn't have a single line that says anything with any substance except for the last one.

Look, I appreciate that at the heart of this battle was an attempt at showing love for the trans community. It had good intentions, but it's pretty clear that the idea and writing came from two cis dudes who were out of their element, and it really should have been shot down at the concept phase.

D TIER

83. Justin Bieber vs Beethoven

Winner: Beethoven

Best line: "There's a crowd of millions waiting to hear my symphonies. You wanna be a little white Usher? Here, show 'em to their seats.

Man, remember when hating on Justin Bieber was a whole-ass personality trait? I would know, that was me. From the start, this is clearly made to be a one-sided battle with how deliberately annoying Bieber's portrayal is. Peter's version of Beethoven is actually pretty decent though which is what stops this from slipping down into F. It's also a nice touch that a remix of Beethoven's 5th symphony is the background music, though it does get points deducted due to the music not even attempting to switch to something different when Bieber is rapping. Just goes to show how much this battle was made to be stacked against Bieber.

82. Ash Ketchum vs Charles Darwin

Winner: Charles Darwin

Best line: “Your shit-talking mouth is the origin of feces!”

From one annoying portrayal to another, we have Ash Ketchum. I don't think that this one was intentionally made to be bad though. But God, Ash is insufferable here. Completely interrupting the song to make a joke about barnacle dick, and let's not forget the cringiest line in series history - "You've got candy raps, Reese's pieces", a line that has absolutely nothing to do with either character and could have at least been marginally fixed by just changing it to "Rhesus pieces", as in Rhesus monkeys, which Darwin actually did study.

I was actually one of the many people suggesting this matchup before it happened, and I remember when the battle finally came out, I tried to convince myself that I liked it more than I actually did, because hey, cool, they did an episode about Pokemon! I love Pokemon! But the more I look back on it, the more I realize how disappointing it is as a Pokemon fan. Mat4yo of the YouTube series "Chisel This" (which does in-depth analyses of the lyrics and musical structures of ERBs, highly recommend checking it out) was brought in as a Pokemon expert to assist on this battle since it was a series Peter and Lloyd weren't too familiar with, and while that did result in a couple of semi-obscure Pokemon references such as the old man glitch or how Ash had not caught a Ghost type up to that point, ultimately most of what he wrote ended up being scrapped, and the rest of the Pokemon jokes ended up being the lowest-hanging fruit that Pokemon fans had been hearing jokes about for over a decade at that point. "Haha, Pokemon battles are like dog fighting". "Haha, Professor Oak fucked Ash's mom". "Haha, Pokeballs, it's funny because we said balls".

Just like the last one, Peter's portrayal is the one thing keeping this from slipping down to F.

C TIER

81. John Lennon vs Bill O'Reilly

Winner: Bill O'Reilly

Best line: "You're Paul McCartney's bitch with less talent than Ringo, and I'd rather suck George Bush's dick than Yoko Ono's."

The battle that started it all ranks near the bottom, but that does go to show that they just went up from here (for the most part). Probably ties with Gaga vs Palin as the matchup that most makes me go "How did anyone even think of this, what link do these two even have". I'm guessing the theme of both battles is meant to be a conservative vs a liberal? I dunno. There's really not much to say on this one. It's pretty basic, but I get it. It was the first of its kind and was apparently produced on a budget of only $50. By those standards, it's all right.

80. Donald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge

Winner: J.P. Morgan

Best line: "Don’t panic, Scrooge, but you’re about to crash. I’m J.P. Morgan, the Ghost of Rich Dudes Past! Who’s properly rocking the Monopoly mustache! Yo, I own the railroad, I run these tracks!”

This one is weird in hindsight, made in a time before Trump's voice and mannerisms became burned into everyone's minds. I don't think anyone would disagree that Lloyd's later portrayal of Trump was way more accurate. Peter's impression here is basically just yelling. Speaking of portrayals as well, this is the first battle involving frequent guest star Zach Sherwin on this list, and I have to say, even in mediocre battles like this one, he always knocks it out of the park as whoever he's playing. I don't think there's been a single bad Zach appearance.

This is a battle where I think the idea was really solid, it just didn't turn out as good as maybe it could have. Telling the story of A Christmas Carol through rap battles, while also switching out the ghosts for other iconic rich people was a pretty brilliant move on paper. Just, I dunno, I feel like this is the weakest of the ensemble battles. I think what it comes down to is that it was a bit too ambitious for the budget they had at the time. Something like this would have benefited from being in season 5 or 6 when they could really go all out with sets and special effects. I mean, they go through the iconic scene of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showing Scrooge his own grave, but it all takes place in Scrooge's bedroom and we don't even get to see the grave.

A sidenote about this one too is that Donald Trump actually saw it and responded to it. I wonder if he ever saw any of the later ones starring him.

79. Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg

Winner: Mark Zuckerberg

Best line: "I've been looking up your family, it gets dark, my God! Couldn't clean your daddy's laundry with Apar-Tide pods."

It's kinda funny that these two actually have more in common now than they did when the battle came out thanks to Musk's takeover of Twitter. I feel like I'm placing this battle lower than most would. Lyrically, it's very clever (rhyming "sprinkle tossed in" with "Winklevoss twins" may just be the smartest rhyme in series history), but I just don't really like the portrayal of either character in this. They're both just kind of obnoxious, which is true to life admittedly, but still.

I was going to say "This was the first battle after they broke off with Maker Studios and went independent, and it definitely shows in the visuals department, because the special effects are rough". And while still think the shots of Musk flying to Mars look pretty bad, I don't think it has to do with the split with Maker Studios; because the very next battle that came out after this one was Freddy Krueger vs Wolverine, and that is still possibly the most visually impressive battle they've ever done. It probably had more to do with the fact that this was considered a "bonus battle" rather than the true season 6 premiere, so it probably was just given a shoestring budget so that the actual effort could go into Krueger vs Wolverine. It's gonna be a while before we talk about that battle, so I think it's safe to say that sacrifice paid off.

78. Columbus vs Captain Kirk

Winner: Columbus

Best line: "Why don't you boldly go someplace you've never gone before, like India, or any destination you actually set sail for?"

I'm noticing I'm saying "I think this character's portrayal was annoying" quite a lot in these bottom 10 spots, but it makes sense that that would really sink a battle for me when I find half of it hard to even listen to. So, yeah, Lloyd does a William Shatner impression that completely breaks the flow, and it's funny as a joke but not very fun to listen to as music.

A sidenote about this one is that I always misremember it as being a season 2 battle. I think for whatever reason it was the one season 1 battle that never popped up in my recommended until season 2 was already underway.

77. Gandalf vs Dumbledore

Winner: Gandalf

Best line: "I leave mics in flames, torched by Gandalf. Touch mine, Dumbledore, and scorch your other hand off!"

This was another battle that could have benefited from coming later, both from a writing and visuals standpoint. Early ERBs were very short with lyrics that didn't run too deep, and both of these characters come from universes with such rich lore that there's so much more you can do with (this was the first battle where both rappers were fictional, actually). Fortunately, both universes would get time to shine with more clever writing, thanks to JRR Tolkien vs George RR Martin and Harry Potter vs Luke Skywalker. The visuals for a video between two masters of magic also definitely leaves something to be desired. This was another one that should have been held off on until about season 5 or 6. They probably would have relied less on the "Dumbledore is gay" jokes if that had happened too, so that would have been another plus.

76. Batman vs Sherlock Holmes

Winner: Sherlock Holmes

Best line: "You're shamed and traumatized and haunted by the vast disgrace of watching like a passive waste as momma died and daddy was dispatched with haste!"

And here we have another bad portrayal, one that's so infamous that even ERB itself has acknowledged it. Peter is not a good Batman, just plain and simple. It's a shame that it brings an otherwise good battle down. Zach Sherwin kills it as Sherlock Holmes, and the actor for Dr. Watson also does a great job. Even Robin's part is fun. Outside of Batman, the only part I don't really like is how Sherlock interrupts the song to think about what he's about to do for his second verse. I get that it's in-character for him, but it kills the pacing.

75. Hitler vs. Vader 3

Winner: Hitler

Best line: "Screw you, you big black cunt! I'll kick your balls and your face: a war on two fronts!"

The final entry in the iconic Hitler vs Vader trilogy, and the weakest one in my opinion. I think it's pretty clear that they were running out of things to say about this matchup by this point. I mean, hell, part of Vader's verse is taken up by Boba Fett coming in and just bragging about himself rather than saying anything about his opponent. Feels like it was just there to take up time.

74. Donald Trump vs Joe Biden

Winner: Donald Trump

Best line: "Your campaign's like your family: crash and burn."

This was a battle that was very clearly affected by Covid. Aside from the animated Harry Potter vs Luke Skywalker, this was the only battle to come out in 2020. I appreciate that the team put together what they could in the midst of the raging pandemic, but as a consequence, it doesn't have the spectacle of the other presidential battles. What was once planned to be a battle royale with Bernie Sanders and Ronald Reagan joining the fight was cut down to a simple one-on-one, with Abe Lincoln not even making an appearance. As such, while the matchup does feel more fairly written than Trump vs Hillary, it also just has less overall to remember.

Some parts of this battle have aged interestingly looking back on it three years later: Trump condemning "looting and violence" right before January 6th happened; also him saying that Roe vs Wade would get repealed, which ended up happening despite Biden winning. And 200k being given as the death count for Covid at the time, woof, if only it had stayed that low.

73. Oprah vs Ellen

Winner: Ellen

Best line: "So if battling me is your intention, I better mention, you're bout to get licked by a lesbian."

Well, this one hasn't exactly aged gracefully with what we now know about Ellen DeGeneres and how she ran her talk show, but I'm not going to hold that against this battle. What I will say is that this is a battle that I constantly forget exists (side note: in the time between writing this and going back through the list to insert the images, I had already once again forgotten this battle existed). Two current-day celebrities who are both rivals in the same field just isn't much of an exciting idea for an Epic Rap Battle of History; there just isn't too much you can do with that and it shows here. I will say though, the casting on both Oprah and Ellen was great, the two actresses definitely exude all the charisma that the real women do on their shows.

72. Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton

Winner: Hillary Clinton

Best line: "You wanna talk about misogyny? Your Bill's worse than Cosby. He left a mess on that dress like you left in Benghazi!"

And just squeaking by the previous Trump election battle, we have the original one. This one is clearly much more biased against Trump, barely saying anything bad about Hillary and making Trump out to be a massive prick. Which, okay, is true, but in the context of a rap battle, a rapper's own lines generally shouldn't make them look worse. Honestly though, this battle is just more fun and energetic than Trump vs Biden, and that's why it's slightly higher.

71. Hulk Hogan vs Kim Jong-il

Winner: Hulk Hogan

Best line: "You're a freak, a phony, a Rice-a-roni jabroni! I'm gonna bounce you like a check for my alimony!

Before every fanmade rap battle beat the idea into the ground, this was the OG of introducing a surprise third rapper into the mix. This one is just funny. "Beijing is in China, you blond asshole" still gets a kick out of me. This is another early series matchup where the two rappers have absolutely nothing in common, but this one turned out better than you'd think from just looking at the title. Also love the re-edited version of this that brings the special effects up, though sadly it couldn't make Peter's muscle suit look good.

B TIER

70. Billy Mays vs Ben Franklin

Winner: Billy Mays

Best line: "You following me, camera guy? Cause it's about to get furious. You're gonna love my nuts 'til you're bi-focal-curious!"

I wonder if younger fans of ERB even know who Billy Mays and Vince Offer were. It's a sad thing to think about. The ending of the battle where Billy Mays just straight-up dies and Vince comes in to close it out is iconic. Ben Franklin's lines are kinda whatever, it's the salespeople that steal the show, but that's kinda to be expected. Also the person they got to play Billy Mays is perfect.

69. Doc Brown vs Doctor Who

Winner: Doctor Who

Best line: "You're not a cat with nine lives, you're a pussy with thirteen."

Admittedly I'm not too familiar with Doctor Who, so I'm certain some references went over my head on this one. Despite that and my love for Back to the Future, I've gotta hand it to the Doctor. Having him die and regenerate halfway through the battle was a cool idea, and both actors that portray him are really fun and embody the charisma I know the character is known for. The joke about how Doctor Who's special effects suck and you can see a hand manipulating the TARDIS in the background I think is one of the funniest jokes the series has ever done.

68. Dr. Seuss vs Shakespeare

Winner: The Cat in the Hat

Best line: "You bore people to death! You leave a classroom looking like the end of MacBeth!"

This is a battle that would be a lot higher were it not for one thing. Well, two things actually - Thing 1 and Thing 2. The first three verses are utterly fantastic - Shakespeare's first verse written in iambic pentameter, the Cat in the Hat hitting with some of the most clever lines in season 1, and of course, Shakespeare's iconic rapid-fire second verse. And then… Thing 1 and Thing 2. Purely awful. Painful to listen to. Any time I rewatch this battle, I turn it off once Shakespeare is done.

67. Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD 2

Winner: EpicLLOYD

Best line: "I'm trying to make art, motherfucker, you're trying to find a rhyme for 'erection'!"

This battle feels like it was made more for the crew of ERB than the audience with all the inside jokes about production. It's also noticeably meaner and more personal than NP vs EL 1, and I remember it made me worried just how much resentment the two apparently had underneath the surface. This battle was put out to announce that the series would be going on hiatus, and the way it came off with how sick and tired Peter and Lloyd were of everything, I honestly thought ERB might never come back. Thankfully that wasn't the case. I'm sure it was all in good fun, but man, the frustrations the two expressed in this felt so raw, and I'm sure a lot of that anger was genuine.

66. Frederick Douglass vs Thomas Jefferson

Winner: Frederick Douglass

Best line: "You got a self-evident truth of your own: You let freedom ring but never picked up the phone!"

Like Banner vs Jenner, this is another battle that felt afraid to throw any real punches towards one of the rappers. Jefferson's first verse is mostly just talking himself up, then the whole thing kinda just becomes a soapbox about slavery. It's really kinda lame how Jefferson's entire second verse is solely dedicated to defending himself.

This battle was ERB's one real attempt to push themselves as an educational series, as evidenced by the fact that this is the one and only battle to release a censored version so it could be shown in classrooms, and I think that's kinda why this one comes across a little preachy. That being said, it's certainly not bad.

65. Frank Sinatra vs Freddie Mercury

Winner: Freddie Mercury

Best line: "So kiss my ass, Frankie, but you'll have to wait in line."

Here we have a great performance paired with a lackluster performance to make a middle-of-the-road battle overall. Obviously Freddie had more charm than Sinatra, but man, Sinatra's portrayal in this is so boring. The fact that more than half of his disses are just gay jokes doesn't really do him any favors either. Peter's Freddie Mercury though is amazing, and I love how Freddie gets to rap in a style unlike anyone else in the series that mimics the iconic sound of Queen.

64. Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD

Winner: Nice Peter

Best line: "I drew a mustache on your face and you played a mean Hitler. Take the mustache away, you look more like Bette Midler."

This was the season 1 finale and it was a perfect tribute to everything that had been done so far. Seeing flashes of every character the two had played up to that point was so cool, and it was fun to see the two creators duke it out, albeit in a lighthearted, clearly joking way. It's very interesting to compare the tone of this to the rematch, showing how attitudes change when a fun project with your buddy becomes your job, and how that can leave you feeling jaded over time.

63. Bob Ross vs Pablo Picasso

Winner: Pablo Picasso

Best line: "I am the greatest, the modern art Muhammad Ali. I melt faces, call me MC Dali."

Peter and Lloyd both make really funny foils here, and the visuals of this one really stand out, as to be expected from a battle with two painters. Picasso giving out his ridiculously long full name followed by a deadpan "Back to you, Bob" will always be hilarious.

62. Sir Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye

Winner: Sir Isaac Newton

Best line: "You wanna battle, guy? That's a crazy notion! When I start flowing, I stay in motion!"

Been a fan of Weird Al since I was a young one, so obviously I loved seeing him in this. He definitely stole the show here as he so often does. Not too big of a fan of Bill Nye or Neil DeGrasse Tyson's verses though, and I don't really know why Peter went for that kind of voice with Bill Nye.

61. Jeff Bezos vs Mansa Musa

Winner: Mansa Musa

Best line: "Here's a nugget of advice to get your union problems handled: Want workers that don't piss? Hire some camels!"

Another battle where one rapper blows it out of the water while the other is just okay. Scru Face Jean, a YouTube rapper who had previously done reaction videos for ERB, portrays Mansa Musa and had a hand in helping write his character's verses, and it definitely shows. Every one of Musa's lines is brilliantly crafted with super clever wordplay. Jeff Bezos meanwhile… ehh, more misses than hits in my opinion.

60. Abe Lincoln vs Chuck Norris

Winner: Abe Lincoln

Best line: "I read up on your facts, you cure cancer with your tears? Well tell me Chuck, how come you never sat down and cried on your career?"

This is a certified classic. This is also another completely random season 1 matchup but I think this battle is so iconic that I don't even question it. While Chuck Norris jokes aren't exactly funny anymore, I still get an ironic kick out of the absurdity of this battle. I actually got introduced to ERB through a teacher showing some videos to the class. While we got through Einstein vs Hawking with no issue, the teacher immediately turned it off at the line "I wear a black belt on the beard that I grow on my dick" in this video.

59. Miley Cyrus vs Joan of Arc

Winner: Joan of Arc

Best line: "Je suis la fille en feu; call me Katniss Everdeen!"

This was the absolute favorite of a high school friend of mine, she's probably the only person to have listened to this battle enough to be able to recite it by heart. Can't say I particularly love it, but I also don't seem to hate it as much as most people. I think it's pretty good! Joan of Arc being a devoutly religious person really contrasts well with Miley Cyrus and kind of acts as a stand-in for the moral outrage that Miley was facing at the time. Both actresses also nail their roles. As much as this battle was clearly a "headline of the moment" battle, I still think it holds up decently today.

58. Stephen King vs Edgar Allan Poe

Winner: Edgar Allan Poe

Best line: "Masque of the Red Death? Barely blood-curdling. Pit and the Pendulum? Not even unnerving. Perving on your first cousin when she’s 13 years old? Now that’s disturbing.”

My main disappointment with this battle is just how many more lines King gets than Poe does. Especially with Poe's second verse being so fast, it just leaves King feeling like he's taking up way too much screen time. King's second verse also isn't all too great. That said, both of Poe's verses are good, and King's first is really fun with all the puns he makes with his book names.

All right folks, so I’ve actually gotta split this list up into 3 parts since Tumblr only allows 30 images per post. Click here for part 2!

#epic rap battles of history #erb

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freddy-fazbears-wonderland · 2 months

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I just (almost) read the entirety of Happs and I see why people would consider it transphobic.

It just reeks of a trans story written by a transphobe.

Now, keep in mind that I am not a trans person myself. However, I noticed certain things you'll often find in transphobic stories.

And expect me to ramble. A lot.

Also, keep in mind that this is my interpretation of this story. This is what I got out of it.

Trigger warning because I will be talking about transphobia and suicide will be mentioned.

One of the first things I noticed is that it focuses a lot more on how it affects the people around the character as opposed to the character itself.

I'm guessing this is to guilt people who are trans or at the very least questioning their gender into not exploring their identity because the people around them might not accept it.

But to me, nothing is more selfish than expecting someone to fit the idea of them you have in your head. If anything, keeping these people around more often than not causes harm because while there may be genuine concern, they also tend to care a lot more about their own feelings and how it affects them as apposed to how you feel and how it affects you.

Hell, this isn't even an experience unique to trans or queer people. Even cishet folks have gone through the experience of finding themselves only for the people around them to not accept it and try to make them feel bad for changing.

In this story, Billy gets made fun of (though he doesn't care), his father leaves him because he can't have a normal son, and it takes a toll on his mother physically, emotionally and mentally until she ends her own life when he comes of age. There's probably more examples I didn’t list.

Another thing these kinds of stories tend to use is having said character transition into something inhuman, very like insinuating that if we this is what will happen when we become more accepting of people who simply want to change their gender identity. And that's bad because... *checks notes* it's weird.

Look, while I wouldn't call myself a radqueer, I tend not to give a shit about a person's identity a lot of the time.

Anyways, a very blatant example of this in media is in South Park. In the same episode where Mr. Garrison transitions into a woman, we get Kyle transitioning into a tall black boy in order to play basketball, and eventually, his dad transitions into into a dolphin because he always wanted to be a dolphin.

Of course, this doesn't work out for any of them because they're not really what they transitioned into. But Mr. Garrison keeps identifying as a woman for a while because they used his balls to make Kyle's kneecaps, and they exploded after he makes a slamdunk (or at the very least jumps).

While B-7 isn't as blatant as that South Park episode, I couldn't help but notice it as I read further and further. Especially when they start insinuating that he is mentally ill and needs to be sent to a ward.

The final point I will bring up which probably does ties into the last one has to do with trans surgeries.

As someone who used to be an anti-sjw, I know firsthand how transphobes try to make trans surgeries out to be horrible when it's really no different from any other surgery when you really think about it. Well, maybe aside from regulations, but that's due to a society that's still not accepting of trans people as opposed to the problem with the surgeries themselves.

They will go on about how irreversible it is and how it may lead to complications. But like I said before, this isn't unique to trans surgeries.

For example, choosing to donate your kidney is irreversible, and there will be complications, especially with the kidney you have left having to work overtime.

Hell, even the person you gave your kidney to is gonna deal with stuff because your kidney will still function like your kidney even if their body accepts it.

But anyway, Billy eventually decides to have his limbs cut off and replaced with prosthetics to be more like an animatronic. While he is questioned about this decision, he does ultimately get what he wants.

If only it was that easy for trans people irl... But from what I gather from trans people who have gone under the knife, they have fight tooth and nail to medically transition. Not to mention, the lack of regulations makes them more likely to run into complications.

The last thing I wanna go over is how Billy feels more like he wants to be a robot than an animatronic?

This has nothing to do with anything else. I just wanna ramble

Sure, animatronics are still a type of robot. But they tend to be used for entertainment purposes like portraying characters in film, games, and attractions.

The animatronics in FNaF do fit this definition. Regardless of whatever funky shit they have going on, they are still built as characters made to entertain people.

So, if they really wanted to sell us that Billy wanted to be an animatronic, it would make more sense for him to want to find a way to entertain people.

I feel like the plot point with him forgetting how to feel also doesn't make sense?

Because especially with this being tied to Security Breach, we know that the animatronics are fully sentient beings. But even if they weren't, they're still programmed to act like them.

I think it'd make a lot more sense for Billy to slowly turn into his Freddy Fazbear OC and start acting more and more like a fictional character.

Which reeks of one of the writers clearly not being familiar enough with FNaF but I guess this could also be another piece of transphobia since an argument transphobes like to use is that trans people will never truly understand what its like to be the gender they want to be.

I've wasted enough energy on this, so I'll end it here. Thanks for listening to my ramble if you even bothered. As you could probably tell, this is my least favorite story in any fnaf book.

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #security breach #tales from the pizzaplex #b-7 #long post #tw transphobes #tw sui implied

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rjalker · 5 months

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"https://www.tor.com/2023/11/25/doctor-who-celebrates-60th-anniversary-by-reuniting-one-of-its-greatest-teams-in-the-star-beast"

I've left this as a comment on the site, but, you know, they might just not publish it so here you fucking go.

= = =

I'm sorry but it's very ironic that this review brings up the Doctor asking for the Meep's pronouns and respecting those pronouns, only for this review to misgender the Meep by refering to the Meep as "it". The Meep explicitly uses nameself pronouns -- ie, the Meep/the Meep's. The Meep doesn't use it/its pronouns. I see so many people celebrating that this episode is "making TERFs mad", but then in the same breath they misgender the character whose pronouns we are explicitly told.

The Meep is not an it, he, she, or they. The Meep is always "The Meep", as is demonstrated in the episode. But I guess people only care about neopronoun users when our existence will make TERFs mad, but not when it comes to actually using our pronouns! I wish I could say I'm surprised, but by this point the Doctor Who fandom has proven to me they don't actually respect neopronoun users, they just hold us up to scare away TERFs, immediately followed by misgendering us -.-

As many people have pointed out, Rose being trans *because* of the metacrisis is just the "nonbinary alien" stereptype all over again, as a tripple whammy with the Meep also being the only character in this episode using neopronouns, and here's something I haven't seen anyone else point out--

If Rose were being written like a character who makes sense, why wouldn't she have just asked the Meep's pronouns when she first met the Meep? Why didn't she introduce herself to the Meep with her own pronouns? If she's the sort of person who corrects other when they assume someone's pronouns without asking...then if she were a real person not meant to set up a tired, transphobic joke ("Did you just assume my gender?!?"), then she would have literally just casually asked for the Meep's pronouns in the first place, instead of only randomly getting upset when the Doctor assumes he/him for the sole purpose of being corrected.

No parts of this scene was written in a way that makes sense for the characters as we're supposed to believe they exist. If we accept that Rose is willing to go to bat for other people about asking for pronouns instead of assuming, then she would have asked as soon as she met the Meep! She would have asked the Doctor! She'd be introducing herself to everyone she meets with her pronouns!

But no, that would mean that Russel T Davies didn't get to use the "Did you just assume my gender???" joke in 2023 while pretending to be progressive about it. And it very much is pretending to be progressive about it, because if he actually wanted to show that asking for pronouns is normal, he would have had Rose and the Meep introducing themselves with their pronouns in the first place!

Imagine if Rose had asked for the Doctor's pronouns! Imagine if we'd gotten to have a legitimate conversation about the Doctor's pronouns and gender identity outside passing jokes! Imagine if the Doctor had been given the real opportunity to think about the answer and genuinely choose, rather than having everyone else assume based on whether they think the Doctor currently looks like a man or a woman! Imagine if we'd actually gotten to see the Doctor allowed to truly express a preference or even just saying "all pronouns are fine with me"!

But no. We get another iteration of the "trans people are unreasonable and get pissed off over things that don't matter" joke but this time...pretending to be progressive so now people aren't mad. Even though it makes no sense for any of the characters and is clearly only here because the cis man writing the episode thought it'd be funny.

And seriously, does Russel T Davies think all trans people are inherently nonbinary? Because there is a massive difference between purposefully creating representation for nonbinary trans women / transfeminine people, and assuming that all trans people, no matter their gender identity, are inherently nonbinary. And because Russel T Davies doesn't seem to understand the difference, he gives no explanation to the audience, which is made up of millions of cis people, for whom this is their first introduction to trans and nonbinary people! So now are they gonna think all trans women and trans men are inherently nonbinary? Are they gonna think all AMAB nonbinary people use she/her pronouns?

RTD has a responsibility to represent trans people in a responsible way, and this episode is just failing that. Rose is presented as being trans and nonbinary only because she's not fully human, as though being trans is something unnatural that happens to you rather than something you are.

And even if we ignore the rest of the problems with the way trans issues were handled in this episode, you know the thing that's causing the most lasting damage?

Russel T Davies teaching millions of people, cis and trans alike, that assigning other people "x-presenting" terminology is Progressive™ and Cool™ and Fun™ and Acceptable™. When trans people have been talking about how harmful assigning other people these terms is for years now.

It's literally just misgendering but masquerading as progressive, and placing the blame on the person being misgendered, rather than asking the perpetrator to check their own biases and learn not to assume people's genders or pronouns just based on appearance.

No one has ever asked the Doctor what pronouns to use, or what gender-terms, or anything. All everyone does is assume based on the gender of the actor who currently has the role. And that's not how gender works. And calling it "gender-fluidity" is just completely false. Gender fluid people aren't literal shapeshifters who magically change their sex when their gender shifts, and saying that the Doctor is inherently genderfluid because a woman had the role one time is just, plain biological essentialism and assuming that everyone who looks like a man is a man, and everyone who looks like a woman is a woman, and all aliens are magically cis to whatever their current society-assigned sex is.

Which is something trans people have also been talking about since Jodie Whittaker took the role. Just because the Doctor is being played by a man at the moment does not make the Doctor a man. That's just reinforcing cissexism and shoving trans people under the rug so you don't have to think about us anymore. Why do you think the Doctor has to be a man because David Tennant is in the role? Why do you think the Doctor has to be a woman because Jodie Whittaker had the role? It's because considering the idea that gender is separate from sex is uncomfortable for you, so you decide that the alien shapeshifter Must Always Be Cis To The Sex I Think They Are Right Now.

And I was hoping RTD would maybe address this when he came back as showrunner, but we've all seen where that's taken us now. So I guess we're just gonna keep playing this game of "everyone's always cis because I don't want to think about gender" for the next few years.

And no, the Doctor is not “male-presenting” just because David Tennant is in the role. That’s not what those terms mean, and it is absolutely negligent for Russel T Davies to have characters assigning these terms to other characters without permission, while portraying this as Progressive and positive and funny. It’s literally just misgendering. It’s not okay.

And again. Cannot stress enough how painfully ironic it is that this review is praising the show for respecting the Meep's pronouns while misgendering the Meep with it/its pronouns that the Meep explicitly does not use.

There's absolutely no excuse for misgendering the Meep after you praise the show for not doing that. Come on, people, please at least pretend you respect neopronoun users if you're gonna hold us up as anti-TERF shields -.-

I need absolutely everyone reading this comment, whether you’re cis, trans, nonbinary, or other, to swear on all you hold as holy that you will not ever call someone any “x-presenting” term unless you’ve explicitly been told by that person that that’s how they identify.

Do not call trans women who haven’t transitioned “male-presenting” or “masculine presenting”. Do not call trans men who haven’t transitioned “female-presenting” or “feminine-presenting”. Do not call gender nonconforming men “female-presenting” and do not call butch women “male-presenting”. Do not call nonbinary people any of these terms unless you’ve explicitly been asked to do so. “male-presenting” is not a synonym for “looks like a man” or “wears men’s clothes” or “assigned male at birth”, and vice versa for “female-presenting”.

These terms are strictly for self-identification only. Assigning them to other people is literally just misgendering. Do not do it.

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