#this means absolutely everything to me rep in media means so much to me bc of how little i understood myself as a kid since i never saw

[sunnywalnut]

I miss when autistic rep was on accident. I feel like every time a neurotypical/allistic person tries to write somebody with autism on purpose, it just comes off as "he's a total jerk, but he's REALLY GOOD at what he does" instead of "this guy's facial expression doesn't change very much, but I promise you he's absolutely happy to help. Also talk to him about birds. He fucking loves birds."

And I don't mean "he loves birds" as in "this guy wears bird shirts 24/7 and corrects you if you accidentally call a pigeon a dove." No. I mean "he loves birds" as in "he's able to name the sound of the bird just by it's song and point to it and it's just sitting on the rooftop next to you" and if you ask questions he gets this little smile to his face and answers them all and even tells you about some drama about two researchers who were unsure of they could call two birds different species since they were so similar and then gives you the answer of they can, because their beaks are different and that means their diet is different or whatever.

Not every autistic dude in media has to be "UwU save me from the world and take care of me bc I'm just a smol beannn✨"

Sometimes they're just Chad from maintenance who seems to love his job a bit more than he should, but it's all good bc everything that's fixed works even better than it was before it was broken. He's not creepy or anything. But he WILL call you over if he sees you walk past in order to show off his latest repair and talk to you about what he did. Everyone loves Chad. They're happy that he's as dedicated to his job as he is. Plus it makes the office a lot more bearable to have him around because he always seems to wear this gigantic grin and talk with his hands.

You're absolutely able to have "cute" autistic characters. I have cute autistic characters.

I have a little elf girl that counts each individual strand of her hair when she's nervous and climbs trees. She loves baking, so much so that she will make everything gluten free, kosher, dairy free, vegan, whatever you need in order to make sure you're included. As soon as she steps into a garden, she's completely covered in dirt. And yes, she's extremely friendly and doesn't understand social cues. And sure. She has her boyfriend take care of things for her, like keeping her safe from creeps when she's in public, and shutting down scammers before she can pay them, but it's not because she's dumb. It's because he elected himself into that space. And he knows full well that if she decides to scurry off to whatever wonderful thing that has caught her eye, that she'll wander back to him when she's ready. She knows how to defend herself. And he trusts her. And she does things for him as well. Which is something I don't see in autistic/allistic relationships in media at all.

Like do y'all really think our partners are just our glorified babysitters???

We're not just there to sit still and look pretty.

We're there to be your emotional rock. We tend to have high empathy. We can listen to your problems and validate your emotions. And sure, we might give you some advice that seems a bit wonky at best, but anyone can do that. Not just autistic people.

Sometimes we take over financial decisions, for one reason or another. I had a partner that would always come to me for financial advice despite living on their own and having more than enough money to do what they wanted with, but they knew that I could budget better. I'm good at math. And no, not a "math wiz" all A's kind of good. But a "I can do big number addition/subtraction and sometimes multiplication within seconds in my head" which was also really helpful in my culinary class when my teacher would put me in charge of making sure we were on target with how many servings of food we had. Not every autistic person has to be leagues above the rest academic to be autistic. My allistic brother had straight A's for YEARS. Much longer than I did. I had A's and B's.

You can come to us if you need a hug. Or to cuddle. Or to body double. Or just to hang out. Some autistic people like touch. We crave it. I can guarantee you that if we were friends and you climbed up on the couch next to me and laid your head in my lap, I would let you. No questions asked. I'd even pet your hair. And I'd ask you about your day. I can't count how many times high fives have turned to hand holding with my friends because they needed a loving talking to about how great they are. Or a back rub when they're crying. Not all of us are going to stand there, staring down at you while you're curled up on the floor and be like "STATISTICALLY SPEAKING-" yeah no. And the people who DO that likely are trying to relay information that they know that they think will help you feel better. We're odd, but we're not heartless. Let me get down on your level. Sit with you. And then I'll talk to you about how tears are actually really healthy and it's good that you're able to cry. And also I'm proud of you and let's get you some water, okay?

We can take care of you too!!

I give all my friends hair care advice bc I've spent too much time watching hair stylist videos. I tell them to make sure they lotion after every shower when they complain about dry skin or body acne. I tell them to drink water after they cry. Or wash their face. Or alternate ways they can get around invisible barriers and still get what they need done. You know how many times I've had to sit down problem solve with my loved ones for over an HOUR bc their ADHD decided not to let them brush their teeth or take a shower? I have a whole ARSENAL of advice to give you. And yeah. If you're close enough where I can head over to your place, I WILL do your dishes(bc somehow they're less gross than mine). I WILL wash your hair for you, or fold your clothes or clear the counters of trash. Not because I think you're lazy or nothing. But because I see something that needs to be done, and I do it. Because I love you, it's simple, and hey, I'm here anyways, right?

Like shit. Every night I have a sleepover with my best friend, I do the dishes that were in her sink before I even came over while she starts on dinner. Because I love her. And that's my way of paying her back for picking me up. I clear all our trash, and the scraps of tea bags that she missed in the mornings. Because I love her. And it's simple enough I can do it myself. I chop the garlic as we cook together because we're working as a team. And yeah. After it's all over. We sit on the couch like a bunch of lazy dogs and watch TV and chat and do whatever. And sometimes. We don't do anything but just enjoy each other's company. Because as adults, we don't get a lot of time to just relax.

We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. And sure. Being friends with an autistic person isn't always sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes our behaviors or our tenancies can be stressful. Like sensory meltdowns, or our bluntness(which is honestly usually just us saying exactly what is true without sugar coating it. Like if you said the sky was purple I'd be like "nah it's blue rn" and people find that blunt and rude. But to me, that's just a fact. I'm not saying you're dumb. I'm just saying it's blue right now.) or sometimes, even when we get super hyper about our interests. I would know. I'm autistic myself. And I irritate myself.

But it seems like in media, the irritation is all people can see. Even in "supportive" families that I see in shows and such, everyone's always stressed all the time.

You're telling me ONE LITTLE CHILD is tearing this entire family apart? (*COUGH COUGH Young Sheldon COUGH*) Not only is that stupid, that's just inaccurate.

If you wanna be accurate, maybe don't have every autistic person you write be a "high functioning" male in a doctor's coat who's transphobic as fuck and his excuse being he's autistic.

If you know the bitch is outwardly transphobic, don't fucking put him in the room with trans people.

And also?

Autistic people are allowed to learn the difference between sex and gender. We're ALLOWED to learn about queer identities. And we're ALLOWED to be queer ourselves without being labeled as idiots who don't know any better.

I've YET to see a show about an outwardly queer autistic girl who is able to make awesome friends and overcome her challenges WITHOUT succumbing to being an asshole on purpose.

Except for The Owl House. And Luz isn't even canonically autistic. It's just speculated.

THAT is good autistic representation.

Not whatever the fuck "The Good Doctor" is supposed to be.

My Personal List Of Good Autism Rep Recs(non canon, sadly):

-Good Omens(not explicitly canon, but multiple characters behave in a way that could be labeled as autistic. Plus Neil Geiman, the writer himself is autistic)

-The Owl House(again. Not explicitly canon. But great. The whole show is about accepting yourself as you are and is kinda along the lines of Gravity Falls. In fact, she was in a relationship with Alex Hirsh, creator of Gravity Falls. And also she's bisexual with a CANONICALLY BISEXUAL LEAD!! Also is lovely for mental health allegories too)

-Gravity Falls (the whole Pines family just REEKS autism to me. Noncannon.)

-How To Train Your Dragon(Hiccup is autistic as hell and you can't convince me otherwise. Non canon)

-Adventure Time (some of the humor is dated, but enjoyable. Also Princess Bubblegum. Need I say more?)

-We Bare Bears (slice of lifey. Sometimes childish. Sweet as hell though. Grizz feels very autistic to me, but that could also be because I enjoy how huggable and easily excitable he is. Everyone loves him. He's loud, he can absolutely be obnoxious, but he loves his bros and tries his best to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. He also does his best to fix any problems he makes. Which in my book, makes him a good guy. Some people also claim Ice Bear is autistic. But personally, I feel like he just doesn't talk much. What do you guys think?)

#actually autistic #autism #autistic #autism representation

[crunchycrystals]

this makes me want to cry

#crunchyposts #pjo #pjotv #guys i also have been obsessed with this series for years it means so much to me that the actors are also fans of the book #it doesnt mention it here but i know leah's said that she was so excited to play annabeth to be 'the girl in her brothers books' #since she got his old copies when he left for college (?) #this means absolutely everything to me rep in media means so much to me bc of how little i understood myself as a kid since i never saw #anyone like me and pjo was the first time i saw someone whse brain was kidna like mine and so many things clicked into place after that #and as a queer girl and someone who's south east asian i rarely saw anyone like me on tv and ive still never seen any demiro char on screen #but now they actually have a non white nd character and its /my/ favorite character and its gonna mean so much to younger black girls #100 #150 #200 #300 #400 #500 #1k #1.5k #2k

[altschmerzes]

Hey! Just wanted to message you to say how much I love your fics, and also ask a question... no pressure on answering though :)

I've noticed you've previously posted about having autism, and was wondering if you'd ever thought about writing about an autistic character, or somehow incorporating it into one of your stories. I was recently diagnosed (and OH BOY does it explain so much of my life), and the lack of positive/accurate representation of autism in, well, pretty much everything is shocking! If you have any recommendations for good stories with autistic characters I'd love to hear them!

It's just something I've thought about after seeing everything else you've written about, and how much it's meant to me (and certainly a great deal of other people). One thing in particular being that I'm sooo eternally grateful for the constant aro rep in your stories, especially seeing as it feels basically impossible to find it anywhere else (though I'm sure I don't need to tell you that xD)

Anyway, sorry this is kind of long, I think I mostly just want to reiterate how much I LOVE your fics, and how you're such a talented author... I'm going to get back to rereading The Same Story for the 15th time now xD

Have a great day!!

hey hey!!! thanks so much this is so lovely of you to say <3 <3 i'm so glad you enjoy my work and that it's meaningful to you, that's absolutely everything to me to hear <3 aro rep and writing from an aro lens in the way i depict relationships and feelings is SO important to me so when i hear from other people who that matters to it feels really special :')

as for autistic characters, i've written a few of them directly and intentionally!! there's also a lot of headcanons and coding that go into the background noise of my writing tbh. for example, jamie is a character i often write as autistic without being explicit about it bc that's not really like. the focus of the story, but that's how i tend to see him and so that's how he tends to show up in my work. isaac is another character who i have the world's strongest autistic headcanon for, so whenever he shows up i'm writing him that way. this goes for pretty much every media i get into, i tend to hand out autistic headcanons like candy and then they manifst in my fic whether i mean for them to or not XD i don't always make it clear, but it's often in there!!

#gav gab #gav answers #long post

[nochiquinn]

last time on dragonball z: sam was moved to the ICU with a sudden fever and possible bacterial infection. she was intubated and sedated, and we were waiting on blood cultures to figure out what was up.

today we learned she has e. coli. yes, that e. coli. no we don't know how she got it. could be from contaminated food or a uti that digivolved when her immune system couldn't fight it off completely. but now that they know what it is, they can fight it better instead of just throwing antibiotics at the wall.

she's on a lower dose of the blood pressure meds and her ventilator's at 30% (meaning she's breathing 70% on her own), both very good. all her scans and tests came back clear. she's having her PICC line (the thing they use to give her chemo) removed and possibly a new port installed. just a big day all around.

(look if I sound flippant or nonchalant or whatever it's bc 1. I have typed this same update three times already on the various social medias we've made and at least here I can talk like a person instead of a PR rep 2. I am so tired. I am actively dissociating 75% of the time. I am in If I Don't Feel Feelings Nothing Can Hurt Me mode. is that healthy? absolutely not. is it getting me through the day? for now.)

I haven't really talked about Kiddo much - she's a rockstar in every regard and has done her best to keep our and her mom's spirits up. (and yes, we're keeping an eye out for Toxic Positivity; she's also very open about when she's sad or scared or worried, so it's not all stiff upper lip all the time.) her aunt who lives nearby steals her away occasionally to let her play with the chickens and cuddle their big dog, and they got to do first night of Hanukkah stuff together. we take pictures and videos of her opening our tNBC advent calendar to send when Sam comes off the sedation. we're trying.

sincerely, genuinely Thank You for everyone's help and donations. every dollar is one less thing we have to worry about, and everything taken off our plate is an enormous boon. 🧡🧡🧡

GoFundMe

#text #update #I am Tired and Sad and would like to Sleep for One Million Years Please

[juneviews]

Okay so I started the Warp Effect a few days ago, I saw it going around on this platform when it was airing but I didn’t start because there was a lot of BL airing that I was watching at that time and to be honest straight-leaning drama (even if I knew there was GL and BL rep) is no longer my thing. However I decided to give a try because I have seen glowing reviews and now I come to you because obviously as I am late with the watching, there are not much people talking about it and there is an aspect of this show that deeply bothered me and I wanted to talk with someone. I found the Alex/jean storyline really upsetting. I thought that Jean and the situation as a whole was extremely, extremely unfair. It might be the biggest form of gaslighting that I probably have ever seen in media.

First of all, I don’t consider that Jean was R-word by Alex that night and that’s a big issue because it shouldn’t be up to debate but clear for the viewers and I have seen multiple viewers debating about it. It’s not that Alex didn’t listen to her when she told him to get off, it’s that he either couldn’t hear what she was saying or understand because immediately after he fell into unconsciousness because he was too drunk and that should have been the focus of this storyline ; I mean it kind of was touched upon but it should have been the theme of their storyline, how drunken sex is not safe and can lead to multiple issue as consent is not being given fully by the TWO PARTIES as they are too drunk.

However for this storyline, Alex was blamed for the pictures being taken of her and going public, he was blamed for being drunk when she was as drunk, he was being blamed for not being there for her when she got pregnant when she never told him, he was blamed for absolutely everything and I don’t think it’s right. I understand what they were trying to do with this storyline but it was poorly made in my opinion and once again seeing the viewers reaction to it because I went to check the comments to get my head around this confirm to me that this was poorly executed as it’s going all over the place : multiple people understood things differently, they saw the storyline differently than others did and for me the education part is losing its meaning if viewers can’t comprehend fully. It just doesn’t give feminist storyline with male accountability that I am sure they wanted to do, it’s giving a woman is the responsibility of a man in every situation because honestly that’s how they made Jean see things, Alex was supposed to be responsable for her in everything and to stop her when he was as drunk when she gave consent. That’s what he is doing in the future but that’s because he already know the situation and was gaslighted to being the sole responsible. And that’s not education for me.

Sorry it got longer than what I wanted to say, I know you probably don’t remember everything as it ended two months ago but I can’t wait to have your opinion on this.

hi, so I've talked many times about the alex/jean storyline kinda ruining the show for me on my blog (I still love the show, but less than what could've been), but I think your ask is very interesting bc it put its finger where I couldn't. I was bothered about alex hurting jean in that way but also couldn't call it r*pe as it's clear in the show he's just way too drunk & didn't hear her, yet this is still a fucked up scene to witness & makes the viewer rightfully uncomfy. imo alex was definitely blamed for everything as a sort of plot device to advance the show, but moreover my issues with the jean/alex storyline was that 1) they ended together despite it all, when it's okay to end up in bad terms, especially for a high school romance, & 2) the entire universe that we saw in the show when they're 30 is rendered useless once alex goes back & changes the past, which felt very empty for me. and yes, while I think the education aspect is very good for the other characters, there's no lesson to be taken from jean & alex. bc the thing is, when you drunkenly violate consent like alex did & give the woman lifelong ptsd like jean had, you don't get to go back in time & make that not happen. you have to live with the consequences of your action and take responsibility, even if you didn't intend for it to happen. so yeah, the warp effect was good & very important for many topics imo, but not the alex/jean storyline.

xxx

#answers #the warp effect #the warp effect the series #also bold of you to assume I forget about shows after 2 months lmao I have a separate brain for shows I remember them all (mostly)

[thedeadflag]

I’m so confused! I know it’s not your responsibility to educate me but in your post bringing awareness to the negative aspects of g!p fanfic you say

“Why do these g!p characters rarely if ever involve experiences reflective of trans/intersex women? Why are they so utterly cis and perisex-washed? Why do nearly all writers have zero idea that tucking is a thing? “

Doesn’t that answer your original question? The reason they don’t reflect those groups of ppl is bc g!p isn’t trying to represent those groups of people or else it WOULD be transphobic to limit them to one specific fetish right? it just refers to a canonically female character with the addition of a penis (I don’t argue the name “g!p” should be changed bc that’s a no brainer why that could be offensive). But the fanfic in general, how could it be harmful? I’ve noticed in my time reading it as a non binary person it’s given me great gender euphoria reading a reader insert where reader has a penis while being a femme representing person just bc that’s a reflection of my personal experience. I don’t see anywhere where g!p fanfic ever references or tries to emulate the experiences of trans or intersex people so how could it be offensive?

Sorry this is way too long I’m just very confused

I'm going to try and lay this out as politely as I can. It's after 3:30 in the morning here, so this could be a bit disjointed and rambling. More under the cut:

In real life, ~99.999999% of women with penises are trans women. Which puts us in a tricky situation of (A) being the only women with penises around for media involving women with penises to reflect back on, and (B) being in the lovely position of precious few people actually having had meaningful real life exposure to trans women, meaning (C.) all those stigmas and all that misinformation are going to purely affect us and it’s going to be uncritically gobbled up by the masses, since they don’t have any meaningful information to fill in the blanks with instead.

When we peer into the depths of femslash fandoms and see all these folks who aren't trans women writing about women with penises, and using cis women’s bodies as platforms for these penises, it’s the simplest thing.

I mean, some of those folks might actually be struggling and confused about why they’re into it, what the real appeal is, why they get off on it, why they might have some feelings about wanting a penis of their own…

…but from our vantage point, it’s really easy to gauge 99.99% of the time. We can generally see valid, legitimate yearning to have a penis pretty damn easily in a piece of art/writing, and we can also see when people who create this media are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization.

And 99.9% of the time, the creators are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization, and see trans women’s bodies as a perfect vehicle to tap into that, generally due to deeply held cissexist views that link us and our bodies and genitals directly to cis men, to maleness. As if penises are rooted in maleness and masculinity (which is absolutely not true).

And I have sympathy for NB folks (certainly TME ones who have reached out to me in the past about this) who might be struggling with that, but just because they’re non-binary, it doesn’t mean they get to appropriate our bodies and reproduce transmisogyny and trans fetishization in their attempts at feeling better. Shit doesn't work like that.

Because again, the only women with penises in this world, essentially, are trans women. Meaning any woman with a penis in media is a trans woman, implicitly or explicitly. Meaning that when people who aren’t us want to write us, intent doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it’s just the writer’s fantasy, it’s still going to attach a variety of messages directly onto us.

And more often than not, due to cissexism, those messages are linking us to maleness, to toxic masculinity, etc..

While I do want to believe they're a fairly small minority, a lot of NB folks in fandom spaces like g!p characters in part because they see penises as male and the rest of the body as female and think that duality is interesting and would be comfortable, and is a nice balance of “both worlds” or a nice position “between male and female”, but that’s a wholly cissexist, transmisogynistic view to have, and it’s one that absolutely cannot be supported without directing sexual violence against trans women and invalidating our entire existence. Certainly not all NB folks into g!p like it for that reason, but holy shit a fair bit of them do and it’s weird and wrong and fetishistic.

g!p emerged from the idea that women can't have penises, and drew on the transmisogyny and cissexism of tr*nny porn to structure that frame of desire and the core patterns and trends within these works. It's always been trans women's bodies being used as a vehicle, whether or not the writers of these fics are explicitly aware of it, because the trope itself still holds true to its original patterns and cissexism. It's not the name that's the problem, it's the content; changing the name would be a surface level change that wouldn't affect anything.

g!p objectifies women with penises (trans women). A woman with a penis is more than just a woman with a penis, but the use of the term and trope is literally to (A) remind people that women don't have penises, otherwise the g!p term wouldn't be needed if people actually accepted women with penises as women, and that (B) this is a story centered on a scenario where there's a woman with a penis, with key focus on that genitalia specifically. it's the drawing point, it's the lure, it's what everything is centered on. It is a means for folks to write lesbian sex while also writing about penis in vagina and getting off to it. It's also no surprise that the penises so clearly emulate cis men's penises in these works, that is by design.

As I’ve said many times before, if you’re only writing trans women’s bodies to showcase cis men’s penises, you’re not respecting the womanhood of trans women, and this ultimately has nothing inherent to do with penis-owning women, it has to do with (cis) men and their penises, because trans women are just being used as a vehicle to emulate them. When NB folks do the same thing, and imagining themselves as those g!p characters, they are ultimately embodying cis men, their maleness, and often toxic masculinity, in a way that feels safe and distanced enough for them, a shell that they often code as cisnormative due to their own unprocessed cissexism.

And trans women don’t deserve that.

You seem caught in the idea that if something doesn't directly perfectly reflect trans women, that it can't be linked to us., which ignores the long long history of media being used to misrepresent marginalized peoples and cast us in insulting, dehumanizing lights. You show a lack of understanding of the g!p trope and the long history of its usage across a few other names, even if the content and patterns remained the same. It shows a lack of understanding of tr*nny porn and transmisogynistic stigmas, which the trope draws heavily from.

I think we can all recognize that most 'lesbian' prn that's made does not represent actual lesbians, it's overwhelmingly catered to the male gaze. We can also recognize that this category of porn has led to a lot of harassment towards lesbians from cis men who at the very least want to believe lesbians are just like they are in the porn he watches, that lesbians just need the right man. Lesbians are being used as a vehicle for a fantasy that was created externally to them, and doesn't represent their realities.

It's the same kind of situation here. The way g!p fics play out overwhelmingly doesn't reflect trans women's realities, but they are inherently linked to us regardless, as we're the vehicles for those fantasies, as unrealistic and harmful as they may be.

g!p characters are built in our fetishized image that’s based on a deeply cissexist misunderstanding of us, of the gender binary, and of bodies in general.

I mean, when 99% of cis folks don’t understand how trans women tend to be sexually intimate… when they don’t understand what dysphoria is and how it works and how it can affect us physically and emotionally…when they don’t understand almost any of our lived experiences…then they’re not going to be able to accurately portray us even if they wanted to.

And I’ve read enough g!p fics where authors wrote those as a means of trying to add trans rep, but because they didn’t understand us at all, it wasn’t remotely representative, and it was ultimately fetishistic, even if there was an undercurrent of sympathy and a lack of following certain common g!p patterns there that differentiated it from the norm.

If g!p fics were at all about reducing dysphoria or finding euphoria, then it wouldn’t be explicitly tied up in the performance of very specific sex acts, very specific forms of misogyny and toxic masculinity, very specific forms of sexual violence and exertion of sexual power, etc.

But it is.

So the notion that creating g!p fics helps NB folks? Nope. It CAN certainly prevent/delay those folks from facing a whole boatload of shit they’ve internalized, and coddle them at the expense of trans women.

Because if it was really about bodies and dysphoria/euphoria, there would be a considerable push (allying with out own) to end our fetishization and to represent us in and out of sexual contexts with accuracy, respect, and care. Because they wouldn’t care what sex acts were performed and what smut beats were hit, they’d just want to see someone with a body like their ideal being loved, being sexual, connecting, being authentic, etc. Which very much is not the case in the overwhelming majority of g!p fics. That's what we want, and it's not what g!p writers want, it's nothing they give a shit about.

Like, a ways back I started doing random pulls of g!p fics from various fandoms and assessing them for certain elements to provide some quantitative clarity. I started on The 100 here, and did OuaT here. Never finished the 100 one since the results leveled out and stayed pretty consistent as the sample size grew, so I didn't really see the point in continuing any further after about 140 fics when the data wasn't really changing much at all.

Lastly, media influences people. I've read countless posts and comments from people who use fanfiction as a sex ed guide, in essence. Which is ridiculous, but I also know sex ed curricula often isn't very accurate or extensive in a lot of areas, so people take what they can get. Representation in media can be powerful, and when it overwhelmingly misrepresents people, that's also powerful. Just because fandom is a bit smaller than televised media, it doesn't make that impact any lesser, certainly not for those whose primary media intake is within fandom.

Virtually all trans representation in f/f fanfiction is misrepresentative of us. That has a cost in how people understand us, how people react to us, and how people treat us. Not just online, but in physical spaces, and in intimate settings.

I invite you to read that post you referenced again, or perhaps this longer one which is a response to a trans guy who seemed to feel something similar to you with this trope.

All I can do is lay it out there and try to explain this. It's up to you how you handle this. All I know is whenever there's a big surge in g!p in a fandom, trans women generally leave it en masse, because it's a very clear and consistent message that we're not valued, respected, and that people value getting off on us over finding community with us.

#g!p #creative responsibility #trans fetishization #trans representation #intersex fetishization #intersex representation #genitals tw #genital mention tw #intersexism #transmisogyny #fandom meta #long post #cissexism #t slur tw #media representation #media literacy

[spade-riddles]

"Adjusting Expectations" Post

This submission received a lot of responses and 120 notes, so I thought I would compile the comments here.

Anonymous said:

Adjusting expectations anon was so good. If their timetables are right and we do just need to be patient a little longer, can Kaylor please send us a sign? I guess it would be too loud to slip "adjusting expectations" into social media posts, but maybe they could both do something with playing cards? To show they are card sharks right now but they'll find their way home eventually? That would reassure people. And it would fly under the radar.

casuallycruel131313 said:

I agree with a lot of this but I think the main issue right now is that moral and ethical lines have been crossed and there's no coming back from that. In these post-Trumpian insurrectionist times it's unfathomable that they could continue the Kushner narrative I no longer care if or when they come out, I enjoy the music and I'm happy to observe from a distance because I'm interested from a PR/marketing point of view but my opinion of T &K as people has changed irrevocably and I don't see how they can clean the tarnish off.

@theprologues said:

Agree with most of not all if this but I would like to say as a Kaylor the toe Grammy stunt didn’t phase me. I was not crushed by that by any means. I just shrugged and honestly expected it. It was the attributing Betty and exile to him during the LPSS in November that bummed me out and really made me go...really?

rockcrow20 said:

Have to say I also agree with most of this.

I no longer have any expectations on anything changing any time soon and have not been surprised by the recent events its to be expected after everything over the years really

Nothing has really changed (bearding narrative wise) since I fell down the rabbit hole in 2017 (except that great night in nashville 2018 rep)

Honestly I can't say I am as invested anymore about them ever coming out as I was.

I think the wb/Joe thing was the last moment for me and the continual kushner connection just troubles me like many others.

I mean my kaylor motto for awhile now has been hope for the best but expect disappointment.

Low expectations = limited feelings of disappointment.

original-cypher said:

@rockcrow20 the WB was a breaking point for so many. You are absolutely right. There are just so ma'y contradictions that feel like absolute whiplash. (I know I seem to have been the only one experiencing that with Gorgeous but... that was a big one for me, too) But like. You go on a whole PR campaign about speaking up and standing up for yourself. You say you're capable and tired of men trying to take ownership of your success and profit off of your name. And you credit you literal damn work to a bloke? Bitch, 'consistency'? Look it up. It grossed me out. It would have felt iffy if I believed they were real. But since I wasn't born yesterday it just sent me the message "this is how far I'm willing to sacrifice my principles to not be queer".

rockcrow20 said:

@original-cypher exactly why it bothered me and I know alot us so much. Such mixed messaging of being a strong fighting for your rights female and then oh hey let me attribute some of my best work to my pr boyfriend and the pr pics where she is walking behind all the time like 🙄 The Betty thing that was big one for me too!

rainbowdaisy13 said:

This write up and the comments are spot on. I don’t have much to add other than like @original-cypher said, Miss Americana is tainted for me now and seems like at the very least, it was released too soon in the plan. I get we think they have had to pivot but man, that doc, and including her literally saying “gay rights make me me” at the end was such a false flag. To see her wax poetic about not taking shit from men anymore and then see her do the same old hetero weak woman song and dance routine with the WB shit for albums that are of her genius mind has been so disappointing. I still believe Kaylor is real and I hope they get a chance to show the world that. Karlie posting that cardigan pic in the woods before the folklore release cemented for me they are still together. Adding a baby makes me feel all kind of weird ethical things but I hope I live long enough to see it play out and wear my I Told You So shirt 😁

@kellykaylor said:

agree with your post... I dont care about toe stunts but what really pissed me of was hetwashing betty 🤮! beautiful post tho anon!!

roameroo said:

Totally agree with these all comments especially the strong messaging of MA only to turn around & pull that WB = my "bf" crap. I was disheartened by her mentioning him at the Grammy's only bc he's getting credit for sh*t he doesn't/didn't do. That is what irks me the most about this, giving him credit for her life's work.

always-the-last-word said:

Can I throw my pennies in the pool ?? Taylor will put out the big three first Fearless, RED then 1989 that should bring us to about August. This is where the excitement should begin. If Taylor preps and waits for National Coming Out day it's a no lose for her. Lover her money making machine will go through the roof !! If things go bad or good in the public eye she'll have REPUTATION Taylor's Version ready to release. It will be epic and she'll own it and be FREE.

@karlie-what-you-want said:

always-the-last-word I like this take a lot! I try not to be too optimistic but if she wanted to come out sooner rather than later, I think this plan would satisfy both business and PR needs (at least on Taylor’s end). Remains to be seen how Tay will help Karlie dig her way out of the mess they made together regarding the K*shners.

always-the-last-word said:

Always remember that Taylor has a PLAN. Some of her plans are year's old (easter eggs). Taylor's one and only LOVE is her music, everything else comes second. If KK wants to change and be with her full time she'll make moves around the same time frame. That's if she chooses to. In any event Tay will be open and own all her music. I've seen this film before and WE might not like the ending.

chosetherose said:

I’ve been going back and forth for a day trying to figure out what I wanted to say when I reblogged this post. I’m tired. I’m frustrated. I understand I’m owed nothing by Taylor or Karlie. I understand that circumstances out of their control have caused the girls to pivot over and over again.

But, the root of my frustration in the past months stems not from me battling with the trivial (e.g. pap walks, etc.) but with my personal principles. I fiercely believe credit should be given where it is earned and I uphold this in my career regularly. To see Taylor crediting Toe with her art was deeply disappointing. Watch the 1989 and folklore acceptance speeches back to back and tell me it doesn’t upset you. I believe the K******s have blood on their hands and that their actions during the pandemic have killed people. To see Karlie still associating with one of them disgusts me.

I can’t help but think back in frustration - Would you really fall from grace to touch her face? (And in the brilliant words of @9w1ft) But would you die for her in public? I go back and forth feeling like questions like this aren’t fair at all and thinking they are sort of valid. At this point, it sort of feels like Taylor would only fall from grace for her lover if all the stars and facets of her life aligned perfectly. But perfection like this does not happen. Such is life. So why am I here?

I do question why Spade left certain messages in their final days. I am still holding hope a fervent revolution exonerates everyone. I so desperately want Taylor to regain control of her masters or re-records. Maybe this is the plan they thought was best with multiple goals in mind (re-records, having a family, coming out of the closet one day etc). I’m trying to remain patient because Spade told us to trust her endless yearning. But WOW it is asking a lot of us at this point.

Anonymous said:

Despite being a pragmatist kaylor and oftentimes getting into arguments with fellow optimistic kaylors (owner of this blog included) I think it's quite unfair -at this point- to say to the optimists who have patiently sat through the worst kind of stunts with the most terrible kind of people (yes I'm talking about the Kushner's friend group too) that they should have seen it coming. Besides, if it weren't for the optimists we the cynicals would have burned this fandom down by now.

Anonymous said:

Even if we ignore that an insurrection happened partially because of the family karlie's still working for and getting paid from, she literally said before the pregnancy debacle unfolded that j*sh was her last client while talking about cutting hair and doing a cutting gesture. How should we have interpreted that? 😤That a year later she would be more stuck with the Kushners than ever? We don't wake up on day and decide to have unrealistic expectations. She feeds into them. 😠

Anonymous said:

I have no expectation of Taylor coming out anymore. Zero. None. I have no expectation of her dropping Toe or even of Kaylor publicly reuniting. It doesn't even matter that much anymore. But I - do - expect 1 thing. Karlie to drop and completely dissociate herself from the Kushners and this has nothing to do with kaylor. It was everything to do with me being unable to support a person who willfully assists (now using her baby too) and receives money from a family that has made so many suffer.

Anonymous said:

A quick word from an ex-kaylor (who will never become an anti). A year ago, when the Trumps were still in power and untouchable and there was no baby, I was excusing and turning a blind eye to many things Karlie did for the K*shners. Even that dinner in September. I had also made peace with the truth never being revealed. But a year later the Trumps are gone, Karlie is still on full stunting mode now with a baby in the mix, a baby that is already being used by the Kushners, and I've really run out of excuses. Now the only thing that could possibly keep me on board is if I knew there was a good chance that the full truth would come out, so that Karlie's inexplicable and honestly borderline immoral actions could eventually make sense. But as your sub said, this is an unrealistic expectation, thus I became an ex-kaylor and I'm not planning to come back even when they reunite. 😕

Anonymous said:

What baffles me is that Taylor has explicitly expressed her regret about not giving her lover the credit she deserves and her doubt whether fame is worth hiding her true love: "when I walked up to the podium, I think I forgot to say your name", "what's a lifetime of achievement, if I pushed you to the edge". But yet again she didn't do anything to change this. I didn't expect her to acknowledge Karlie, but a nod or at least not falsely crediting her beard would be a good start.

Anonymous said:

1🙁 Let me chime in re: "expectations". I'm one of the kaylors who ever since the pregnancy reveal was trying to tell everyone there's NO way she was gonna dump him soon after birth let alone before that. It would bring too much unnecessary attention and Jerk would have never agreed to something that would make him look like a bad guy/husband. For the exact same reasons, I was also saying there's no way he wasn't going to post about the baby. All the above against the popular opinion back then.

2🙁 So I agree that the day of the birth post was known to T, not the timing though. Simply bc Kushner-leaning outlets made sure to note that detail. If they wanted it to go unnoticed, why draw attention to it? That being said, kaylors would have been more patient with this mess, if Karlie hadn't gone overboard with her freedom "smoke signals" last summer and Tay's "insiders" hadn't been insinuating that the end is VERY near. Both of them SHOULD have known by then how we would react to these.

3🙁 So it's natural that everyone feels played and has no patience for any more bullshit. Another sore point is how Jerk AND the Kushner-Trump klan monopolize the baby news. This isn't just to make it realistic, it's an abuse of Kaylor's baby's name to garner good pr for the worst family in America, with Karlie's blessing. In order for her marriage and split to appear realistic she's putting a LIFETIME burden on her child's back. Unless you believe she's eventually gonna say Jerk isn't the dad.

4🙁 So "we’re in a position we should realistically have been able to see coming". But we did see it coming, that why some made these extreme scenarios, bc this is the worst possible outcome. "Good people try to make it work, even in bad relationships." Ultimately this isn't just a "bad rs". It's a horrific association that should have been resolved ages ago, not one to bring your child into, doom it to suffer a similar fate, and expect people to sit idly and watch. That's what frustrates most.

[mexicancat-girl]

Ok guys, I can't take it, I’m seriously at my limit here.

Uraraka vs Bakuboi was a sham of a fight and none of it makes any goddamn sense.

Uraraka deserved her win, for multiple reasons.

Shout out to @bnhasalt, who’s post reminded me how indignantly furious this arc makes me.

More under the cut over both how salty I am, and how Uraraka losing against Explodo Kills makes absolutely no sense, even narratively.

(Warning ahead for a discussion on sexism, misogyny, forced fanservice, the blatant favoritism towards That One Specific Character even if unearned in the narrative, and the general incompetence on how to write female characters.

I call B/kugo “Bakuboi” in this analysis bc I don’t want to write his Actual Name out and have it pop up in his character tags. Also, heads up, I’m sorry for how messy and long this rant is )

First, can I just say that Horikoshi is uhhhh Bad at writing female characters?

Which I’m sure many female fans already have an inkling about, but goddamn is it never more obvious than in the Sports Festival Arc. Because hey, at least the female characters are THERE and PARTICIPATING and have their own time to shine! This ISN’T one of those arcs that just stars THE BOYS, so that MUST mean this arc is equal opportunity! Right...?

God, I wish. I wish...

See, the girls are the minority of the Sports Fest in general. It shouldn’t be this way. And quite frankly, the fact that the classes (and UA in general) isn’t closer to being a 50/50 gender split also makes no sense, considering all children are raised in a society that values heroism EQUALLY and almost half the population is male and half female.

But, okay, let’s say I actually believe in the most illogical character ratio imagineable of there being a 2 boy to 1 girl, like this is another round of Naruto But It’s Superheroes So It’s Different I Swear.

We all know that there is going to be an emphasis on Izuku, since he’s the protagonist and he wants to make All Might proud during the Sports Festival.

Pre-Festival, there’s the reveal that Uraraka wants to do her best, with her main motivation of becoming a hero to give her parents a good life. Iida also wants to make his own family proud, specifically his brother, because of his family legacy. 

Since these three are a trio, you’d think they’d all get some time to shine, right? Since they’re Izuku’s friends? And Izuku considers them his equals?

Yeah, no. Wrong.

This arc is dominated by Izuku, Shoto, and Bakuboi. That becomes clear very quickly. 

I knew I shouldn’t expect much, since these three are powerhouses and also the most popular characters of the entire franchise (just look at the popularity polls) but still. I’d thought at least Uraraka would get a chance to shine! Since we get some character development and motivation revealed from her!

But the female characters in general get done so dirty this arc, despite it being first set up as a perfect arc to let the girls have just as much opportunity to participate as their male peers.

The most significant part of the female characters all getting an ‘equal time to shine’ is when He Who Must Not Be Mentioned and Kaminari trick the girls into dressing as scantily-clad cheerleaders. Which is both Tiring and Unncessary.

(This scheme also shouldn’t have worked because Momo is Vice Rep and she is an intelligent girl, top of her class. She would be smart enough to go to a teacher and actually double-check to see if Class 1-A girls really needed to cheer in the activities portion of the Sports Festival. 

But noooo, Horikoshi can’t pass up a chance for FANSERVICE and forcing his underaged female characters to be uncomfortable for The Funnies! Thanks! I hate it!)

The female characters that move onto the final round of the Sports Festival, and thusly have the most attention, are: Uraraka, Mei Hatsume from Support, Momo, Mina, and Shiozaki from 1-B.

Wow, I sure wish these girls could like...show their worth. And maybe NOT get steamrolled and easily tossed aside in their matches because they’re facing Boys and Boys Have Strong Offense-based Quirks, That’s The Rules Folks.

(Before you come at me, I know that isn’t a rule that applies to every single male character in the series, but the strongest and offense-based Quirks tend to go to the male characters, while the female characters tend to get more support-based Quirks. It’s both sexist, but also an inherent trend in media in general. Please Just Let Women Punch Shit To Smithereens And Control The Elements.)

Yes, Mina and Shiozaki won their first rounds easily! And that’s great to see! But then we turn right around, and they're eliminated just as quickly in their second matches! Without even a fighting chance!

Good God, Shiozaki is literally PUSHED OUT OF THE RING. That’s it, that’s how she lost. Same thing with Momo in her match! And Mei straight-up forfeits because her character is based more on advertising her inventions/babies, so she doesn’t even fight.

So essentially, the female characters are shucked away if they’re not used to make the male characters look good, or there for fanservice, or there to show a shallow form of ~feminism~ so Horikoshi can pat himself on the back and say “See! Girls strong! I can write girls!”

And now we get to the meat of things: Uraraka.

Oh, poor Uraraka. Out of all the female characters, your potential was the greatest, and also the most squandered...

As a reminder, at the start of the arc, Uraraka speaks with both Izuku and Iida about how she wants to do well in the Sports Fest. They all promise to do their best. Izuku’s friends admit that they want to face him in later matches, because they want to be his equals.

Uraraka wanted to stand on the same level as Izuku and Iida, but she's the only one that doesn't move on past her first match!

And man, what an absolute bogus match it is.

Is it emotional? Yeah. Did I tear up when I watched it? Sure, every single time! But that's more because Uraraka is one of my favorite characters and I feel empathy for her and thought she deserved better.

The match gets to me because I also hate how Bakuboi is so fucking entitled and gets everything handed to him on a silver platter.

Bakuboi himself is written as, essentially, a Gary Stu. He always wins. ALWAYS. And even when he ‘loses’, he still manages to beat his opponents to the point that they need to be hospitalized (see Izuku vs Kacchan pt 1) or he makes his losses ALL ABOUT HIMSELF by twisting logic to fit his own narrative.

Remember how Bakuboi won against Todoroki in the final match? And was so pissed at him he was ready to Physically Assault Todoroki for him not being able to Get Over His Trauma to go 100% during their match? And even though Bakuboi LITERALLY won the entire Sports Festival, he’s so entitled that he demands a rematch because he feels like he “didn’t actually win”?

Not wanting a rematch for Todoroki’s sake, because Todoroki has been through a rough time and Bakuboi overheard Todo’s Tragic Abusive Backstory. Oh no, that would make too much sense and show too much character growth, we can’t have that! Bakuboi, even when winning the Sports Festival, demanded a rematch because he wanted to beat the shit out of Todoroki AGAIN to assert his dominance.

You see, Bakuboi is always rewarded in the narrative. Even when he loses it’s not seen as his fault. He’s never really punished for it, and he never learns any lessons from his losses.

Ah, and let’s not forget, Katsuki Bakuboi has the Best And Strongest Quirk Ever. Strong enough to even do the impossible and work to his advantage when it shouldn’t!

Like how he SOMEHOW manages to ‘beat the odds’ by breaking the laws of physics to win in Round 2. He manages to PUNCH THROUGH A QUIRK THAT CREATES A SOLID WALL from 1-B’s Tsuburaba in order to get back his team’s headband and move on to Round 3.

Or hey, his finishing move, Howlitzer Impact? Doesn’t make any sense either. It shouldn’t work as a...cyclone? Tornado? Drill thing? 

Look, the logistics of it shouldn’t work. Yes, this is anime, but do you HONESTLY think that a teenager YEETING himself in a fast spiral will somehow accomplish anything more than spreading out some explosions in a circle around him? You honestly think any other character would be able to pull that bullshit off WITHOUT upchucking their entire lunch?

But because it’s Bakuboi, it works somehow. Because Bakuboi’s Quirk is The Shining Beacon Of Quirks. 

Drawbacks? Sure, he SUPPOSEDLY has them. They’re noted in his character profile and everything. But very rarely do those supposed “drawbacks” ever actually come into play and actually, like, stop him. Or slow him down. Or, yknow, ACTUALLY WORK LIKE DRAWBACKS ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK.

Because apparently, human limits don’t exist for Katsuki fucking Bakuboi, nope, not at all!

One of Bakuboi’s "drawbacks" is supposed to be that he can't overexert himself or he can fuck up his wrists/his forearms will start to ache. 

Cool cool cool, except...This rarely slows him down or effects him at all. 

It’s actually astounding he hasn’t given himself Carpel Tunnel, because that would be a natural consequence to over-using his Quirk. Hell, he should be fucking up his arms almost as much as Izuku does to his own arms with a destructive Quirk like OFA! Explosions are dangerous and cause massive destruction, and that should be fucking up his arms SOMEHOW!

But, nope. Bakuboi is as fresh as a goddamn daisy. He can Never Have A Weakness.

(Another drawback is cold weather/Winter season is supposed to weaken his Quirk. Makes sense, since heat would help him produce more nitroglycerin sweat, and the cold would make it hard to sweat. But that sure as hell didn’t stop him during the Joint Training Arc in the future, and he didn’t struggle whatsoever to almost singlehandedly win that for his team.)

Not ONCE does Bakuboi’s Quirk ever effect him negatively and forces him to weaken! He keeps using his Quirk like it's nothing!!

And that’s the crux of the entire problem with Uraraka vs Bakuboi’s match.

Bakuboi apparently has “drawbacks” and “limits”, but he keeps somehow managing to break them without a sweat (ha) and without consequence, essentially PULLING WINS OUT OF HIS ASS.

Bakuboi was using his Quirk LITERALLY NONSTOP during Round 1, and kept using it to throw himself around in Round 2. Logically, he should’ve fucked his arms up and been at the very least SLOWED DOWN by the third round of the Sports Fest because he went past what were SUPPOSED to be his Quirk’s canonical limitations and logic!

It would've taught Bakuboi that he can't fucking steamroll through all his problems! He has limits! There are consequences to over using his Quirk! He’s a human being and he doesn’t have endless stamina like some sort of God!

Hell, every other character has these limits very clearly shown and outlined with their Quirks! Uraraka throws up when she over-uses Zero Gravity. Shoto, before using his fire side, would get frostbite. Iida’s Engines will stall after using Recipro Burst.

The other characters have limitations to their Quirks that slows them down, shows consequences for their actions, but Bakuboi NEVER HAS ANY.

THIS is why he’s a Gary Stu. THIS is why he won his match against Uraraka.

Not because of any logic. Because HIS QUIRK HAS NO FLAWS. And on top of that, THE NARRATIVE KEEPS REWARDING HIM, EVEN WHEN HE HASN’T EARNED IT.

Bakuboi SHOULD have been weakened from using his Quirk non-stop. Bakuboi SHOULD NOT have managed to pull out that “one final big explosion” that ruined Uraraka’s final attack.

Bakuboi was literally hissing about his arms hurting earlier, before their match started. And Uraraka forced him to use his Quirk so much that she managed to amass a ton of debris to knock him out and win the match. HIS EXPLOSIONS SHOULD HAVE SPUTTERED OUT, AND NOT SAVED HIM WITH THAT LAST-SECOND ASSPULL.

Like, I’m preeeeetty sure the entire reason Horikoshi wrote Uraraka vs Bakuboi in the first place was because he was attempting at writing Feminism.

See, Bakuboi Hates Everyone Equally, he’s not a violent misogynist for beating up Uraraka! It’s a Match, he Respects Women And Sees Them As Equals! The Crowd of Pro Heroes are the ones being Misogynistic and Judging The Match Early!

And look at Uraraka, she’s a Strong Woman! She keeps getting back up! That’s the Shonen Spirit! And she’s smart, too! Look at her amazing plan to win--

Oh, wait. Wait, nope. She didn’t win at all! :) Because our shining beacon of perfection Katsuki Bakuboi never loses!! :)) Look at all her hopes and dreams being blown to literal smithereens, because of Bakuboi’s ass pull, even though he shouldn’t have had enough time, sweat, and strength to muster up that last explosion!!! :)))

Can ya’ll feel my incandescent fury right now?

Because Horikoshi can NEVER write Bakuboi losing, Uraraka COULDN’T HAVE WON, even if her winning makes THE MOST LOGICAL SENSE.

This scene was supposed to show Uraraka’s strength. But it feels like Uraraka is being literally spit in her face, for even DARING to TRY to win against Katsuki fucking Bakuboi.

How much more impactful would Uraraka’s breakdown have been, if she had moved onto the Second Round with Izuku and Iida? How she would feel ashamed that she couldn’t keep up with them, with how Powerful their Quirks are? Especially after seeing Izuku and Todoroki’s amazing match, and seen how destructive and close a match it had been?

How DEVASTATED she would have felt, beating BAKUBOI--one of the strongest of their class!--and then STILL managing to lose the Sports Festival?

That would have been SO much more interesting! And even SADDER!! C’mon!

Uraraka SHOULD have won her match! It would’ve provided both character development for herself, and for Bakuboi! Bakuboi would realize he has limits to his body and Quirk, and realize not to underestimate his opponents! Uraraka would realize that she’s strong in spite of her Quirk not being necessarily combat-oriented, but still has a long way to go in being a Pro Hero!

But, nooooo. We can’t have CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, can we? We ESPECIALLY can’t have THE FEMALE CHARACTERS IMPACTING THE PLOT IN SOME WAY, either! Or--what’s this? FEMALE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY HAVING THE SPOTLIGHT FOR ONCE? Perish the thought!

The only good parts about this godforsaken arc are 1) Mei Hatsume 2) Hitoshi Shinso and 3) Izuku vs Todoroki fight and Todoroki’s Tragic Backstory Reveal. Everything else is hit-or-miss, if not completely hot garbage.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED Talk, and for reading this entire thing! Four for you, reader. You go, reader.

#Ochaco Uraraka #Ochako Uraraka #bnha meta #bnha analysis #Sports Festival Arc #Izuku Midoriya #bnha quirks #Quirk Logic #Misogyny #Sexism #Tenya Iida #Shoto Todoroki #bnha salt #salt #bnha rant #im not tagging bakuboi bc i dont want his Stans/apologists flooding my ask box to yell at me #Momo Yaoyorozu #Mina Ashido #Ibara Shiozaki #Mei Hatsume #antibaku #me being dumb #please read this ive nearly spent 2 hours writing it out #mexicat writes #fuck it this took me forever to write I'm putting it in my writing tag

[lichfucker]

Hi! (feel totally free to ignore btw!) I used to looove starkid back in avpm days, but I haven't seen anything since Starship. You posting abt Black Friday is making me want to go back tho! What starkid/tcb shows should watch vs skip? I know twisted, saf, (&apparently bf) are great - which of the others have you seen & liked? Thanks! ☺️

twisted, saf, and bf are all TOP TIER and you absolutely should watch them

the guy who didn't like musicals is, like, technically kind of a prequel to black friday? they take place in the same town and there's a handful of overlapping characters (and since black friday is generally a lot. heavier in tone, a lot of the Jokes that get big audience reactions are just references to tgwdlm). you don't HAVE to watch tgwdlm to enjoy bf, and in all honesty I really didn't like tgwdlm very much (it's just not my kind of humor personally and the ratio of songs I liked to songs I didn't is just a little too low, y'know?). you'd be missing out on a LITTLE bit of context my watching bf without watching tgwdlm but not even really that much, they do a good job of re-explaining all the plot-relevant details and the relationship between the shows isn't quite as straightforward as prequel/sequel. so it's up to you whether you'd think it's worth it to watch tgwdlm in addition to bf

you mentioned starship which I LOVE. worth rewatching. starship and holy musical b@man are maybe the most underrated shows in the company's oeuvre. I love hmb so much it makes me insane. I'm so sick of superhero media that takes itself really seriously lmao the concept is inherently absurd and ridiculous, and hmb really leans into the idea that, like, this is all dumb as hell. the characters don't THINK it's dumb as hell, and they DO take it super seriously, but it's still very much dumb as hell

trail to oregon has a lot more potty humor than I usually like, but I absolutely fucking love it. tto makes me so happy makes me go 🥰🥰 turn my brain off and watch ppl be dumb abt The Frontier. (in case you couldn't tell, most of starkid's shows revolve around people being extremely stupid and they're soooooo good at it.) trail to oregon also has a choose-your-own-ending thing which is fun and because I'm me I have extremely strong opinions about which one is the best lmao but I won't tell you which bc I don't want to influence your decision-making

AND THEN THERE'S FIREBRINGER. the perfect lauren lopez vehicle. dumb idiot cavepeople my BELOVED. if you were On The Internet in 2017 you probably saw clips of the song 'work to do,' the "I don't really wanna do the work today" song. 'twas a big meme. it's very very good. and the music?? my g-d. heavenly harmonies. firebringer is just... fun. it's fun and very bisexual, if that means anything to you

don't watch me and my dick. it's good for corey dorris having a solo and bad/uncomfy for almost everything else. most people dislike ani; I have mixed feelings abt it. I'm not THAT into star wars so a lot of the references were lost on me, and a lot of people really didn't like that they don't sing (they did it in rep with tto, and tto took most of their best singers). that's not to say there's no music-- there is!! but the band does it all, movie soundtrack-style, instead of the characters. a lot of the songs are really good, though!! and clark's voice is soooooo 🤩. but it's, y'know, stylistically a very different experience than most other starkid musicals, and it's steeped in the granular details of star wars canon far more than the other parody musicals are in their source material. and in all honesty I haven't really watched much tcb beyond saf so I don't feel qualified to rec any other tcb stuff, though iirc people seem to really love solve-it squad

thank you for allowing me to ramble abt starkid lmfao :3

#anonymous #bluh bluh #long post

[fratboykate]

Lmfao I was literally thinking about those demons who go on about Bloobert/Bellini, it’s why I looked this instance up. I love how they decided she was Asian in comics bc the recent face illustrations *look* stereotypically Asian. I’m Filipino so I actually would’ve been THRILLED & of course I know Hailee is proud of her heritage even before all this obsession over rep & diversity became “trendy”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that the conversation has started & is on-going especially in media, but of course within fandom in particular it’s just ppl learning buzz words & trying to seem woke (nuanced conversations — I learned — is too much to ask for on the internet). How much do you wanna bet those ppl throwing those “Wait, isn’t she Asian in the comics?” lines 1) never touched a comic in their life 2) think all Asians look the same [I hazard it was the very slight vaguely-could-be-probably-not-really “slanted” eyes in the recent illustrations that made them think: Asian] and 3) are whiter than snow thinking they’re being great “allies” & could never be racist ever [intentionally or not]. And I def agree Hailee has been looking more mixed lately, I’d say Bumblebee was the turning point for me where she looked a bit in-between depending on the angle & her make-up lol but I get like say Pitch Perfect era where she was very much white-passing 99% of the time. To me, she actually looks like a full-blooded Filipino lately, especially in the recent Dickinson interviews.

Doesn't she?! Okay, I thought I was losing my fucking mind because every time I see her lately I'm like "the older she gets the more Asian she looks". Her brother has always looked verrrryyyy "mixed but HEAVY on the Asian to me" even though she used to be the opposite and lean more on the white genes but I don't know what happened lately. Homegirl's gene cocktail got a shake up and her features look even more Asian than his now. At least in my opinion.

But anyway, yeah. The internet is incapable of nuance. Never has and it's only getting worse because there's a whole new generation that's come up not understanding that not everything is an absolute. Gray areas exist. People fuck up and that doesn't immediately mean they should be written off forever. Not everything is black and white. Not everything is abuse. Not everything is trauma. Not everyone who is a piece of shit is a narcissist. Etc etc etc. You don't need to die on every hill. Sometimes people thinking a character is not "aroace" is fine lol. The world is not crumbling around you. I promise. Saying that character playing by a half-filipino actor is actually white because character =/= actor doesn't make the person racist. Everyone will survive. The internet has turned even the smallest shit into nuclear wars and it's so pointless. It's all so fucking absurd.

#kbishop #hsteinfeld #fandom #anonymous #answers #Hawkeye

[bloody-wonder]

Every time I read a fic where Nicky just inexplicably ~understands~ Andrew or is the one to explain Andrew’s actions *TO* Neil, my suspension of disbelief automatically snaps. I get that people want to like Nicky and therefore make their versions of him more palatable for themselves, but it’s annoying. That’s not who he is. He doesn’t make any more of an effort to understand Andrew than anyone else and he doesn’t have an inate knack for it either, which some fics would have me believe

the all consuming, uncritical, absolutely blind love for nicky in the fandom is one of my biggest pet peeves. welcome to another rant.

i remember when i read aftg for the first time and dived into the tumblr fandom i very much expected to see posts calling him out at for what he did during their first trip to eden’s bcs isn’t it the bread and butter of tumblr discourse - taking one problematic thing a character did and cancelling them for it forever. however i was surprised to find not a single such post. seriously i’ve been in the fandom for almost a year now and i have been lurking on the old blogs and following the new ones and i have yet to see such a post. here’s the one i wrote back then

https://bloody-wonder.tumblr.com/post/189107928398/so-nicky-discourse

there i mostly talk about the eden’s incident but the point i tried (and probably failed) to get across was not that what he did is Problematic but rather that why he did it is. bcs like with roland it’s self-evident that nicky did a bad thing and it’s also framed as such by the narrative. but taken out of context this single incident can be easily dismissed as a mistake commited by a young inebriated person which they realized was a mistake and apologized for. the fandom is certainly ready to dismiss it and to accept nicky’s apology to neil. fair enough. in fact it would be an example of some very mature thinking on the part of the fandom - if the context of nicky’s behavior and personality wasn’t discarded along the way.

and the context is this: nicky has very rigid and one-sided views about what’s normal and what’s not and he acts accordingly. he thinks it’s normal to feel attraction like he does and to strive for a romantic relationship - hence the “neil you have to date someone or you’ll die unhappy” pep talk. he thinks it’s normal to casually kiss a guy he likes at a club despite him being very obviously uninterested. he thinks it’s normal to comfort people by touching them, so he will do it to andrew although it’s common knowledge that andrew doesn’t like to be touched. when andrew lashes out at him for it - it must mean andrew’s not normal bcs “normal” people like to be touched. andrew doesn’t behave like a “normal” person would, ergo andrew’s crazy. how do we “fix” andrew? how do we make him “normal” again? apparently by forcing “normal” things and behaviors upon him until he’s magically healed by the abundance of care and hugs.

instead of trying to understand andrew and connect with him “from below”, he’s dead set on imposing “normalcy” on him “from above”. like i said in my old post, he doesn’t even seem to give andrew credit for defending him against those jerks and winding up on the pills bcs of it. nicky just doesn’t get andrew to the point of calling him soulles, but seems to be under the illusion that he does everything in his power to understand him. well, on second thought, is it in his power though? i had some hope that after nicky finds out about the nature of andrew’s trauma, he’ll realize some things and his treatment of andrew will change. that didn’t happen as far as i remember. when the gang returns from the easthaven with andrew, nicky’s like “andrew won’t you ask neil why he’s all beaten up? well that’s just rude”. in fact, now i’m remembering that nicky and aaron were telling everybody that andrew’s much worse when sober but?? what’s worse about him? that he isn’t smiling at them? what a scary behavior indeed. or that he isn’t chatting with them? well it’s their problem that they aren’t as stellar conversationalists as neil. i digress. what i’m getting at is that it may very much be not in nicky’s power to understand andrew bcs they are very differend people and come from different circumstances. i’m not saying that you can’t write a plausible arc where nicky learns to communicate with andrew but most people don’t even try. as far as i understand nicky is seen as nothing but kind and if sometimes he makes mistakes, well, they don’t count bcs his intentions are good. but there’s a road paved with good intentions. you know where it leads.

that’s the insidious thing about nicky, that’s why i think he’s one of the most well-crafted morally grey characters and why he fills me with rage - the problematic side of him is hidden beneath the good intentions, the kindness, the jokes, all the other little things that make him nice and relatable, that the fandoms tend to latch on to. we have no problem engaging with characters like andrew critically, it’s easy for us to separate his good sides from his flaws bcs he’s upfront about it. we sure love andrew but we don’t romanticize his bad boy attitude and his knives bcs the media shift in recent years has taught us that “bad” boys tend to be Problematic and you have to watch out. andrew is hard to swallow so you swallow only if you absolutely want to, but nicky is so palatable you don’t even have to drink anything to wash him down, all the while oblivious to what you just swallowed. the “good” boys you have to be critical of as well.

sorry, this metaphor was weird.

lastly, we have to address the elephant in the room - nicky’s gay as the fourth of july. he’s the uwu gay cinnamon roll that has to be protected at all costs. we’re still at a point where, despite gradually getting more and more media rep, gay people feel like the characters they’re represented by have to be paragons of virtue lest the general public think that all gays are like this one imperfect character. so i can see how the aftg fans would want to overlook all nicky’s flaws because they like him and relate to him so much. i can also see how, if he were straight but otherwise retained the uuh... lets say “sexually enthusiastic” facet of his canon personality, he’d probably be burned at a stake by now. there’s this wonderful trend where people rehabilitate seth and aaron by treating them as complex characters. i can only hope that the same thing will happen to nicky some time soon.

so yeah, i 100% agree with all you said. nicky doesn’t understand andrew and the fics where he magically does are ooc. or, you know, those where nicky explains demisexuality to neil. don’t. make. me. laugh. nicky who has forced himself on neil and when that ended in a disaster tried to allo-splain the joys of a romantic relationship to him? nicky, who, upon seeing that neil doesn’t seem to be interested in girls, thought that the only possible conclusion must be that neil’s gay? all of this after neil explicitly told him that he doesn’t “swing”. i’m sorry, writers who hc nicky as some kind of wisened by life sexuality mentor, but he doesn’t know a thing about the ace spectrum.

tl;dr nicky really needs to do some self-reflection but, since he isn’t a real person but a fictional character, the readers need to reflect upon his canon behavior instead, before declaring him to be the kindest, most perceptive and tolerant person in existence. 

#nicky hemmick #andrew minyard #neil josten #all for the game #the foxhole court #asks #aftg mine #i feel so personally attacked by all the blind love for nicky bcs basically he's my mom #my mom loves me very much and would do anything to make me happy #but she also doesn't understand a lot about me #and her version of happy isn't relevant to me #which she has trouble getting cause she's an entirely different person #nicky stayed in the us for the twins and bought them a house #it's very nice but so what #my parents have done comparable things for me #but it's not like they also haven't unintentionally damaged my psyche forever #people are complex #relationships are complex #the good deeds don't cancel out the bad #aftg ask

[janiedean]

Hi! I'm the Plato anon for before. First of, thank you so much for your offer, but I think I managed on me own. Second, could you elaborate on the "analysing as YA" vs "analysing as an adult" approach? I assumed that "discourse people" on this website generally don't go beyond "antagonist is bad because they are against the hero!" out of ignorance/lack of interest except to score Internet Fame Points, not that it was due a specific mindest. I also don't really read YA (except Tiffany Aching)

TIFFANY ACHING!! T_T ANON LET ME HUG YOU it’s like the only YA I actually liked in my entire life apart from nick hornby’s one book but that wasn’t typical lmao

THAT SAID, well your discourse people point is pretty much part of it but since I’m here and I can rant have the entire thing I was too tired to hash yesterday ;) so, in order:

first thing, we need to establish that ya books and **adult** books generally have different target audiences which is fine and good because obviously if you want to write a thing you’ll do that for An Audience That You Have In Mind; this doesn’t mean that adults can’t read ya or that teenagers can’t read **adult books** because everyone can read what they want (and personally for one I never cared for ya in my entire life not even when I was the target audience), but it simply means that some books are meant to be liked by one category first and eventual others later and they need to be talked about in that specific context first and everything else later - then there might be books that are aimed for kids/young readers or sold like that or that can be read on more than one level which can be appreciated for different things later in time (for example I read huck finn at sixteen and I absolutely loved it but it was a book that here is seen as good reading material also for eight year olds, and at eight I wouldn’t have liked it for the reasons I did at sixteen, and if I read it now I would still like it, while a bunch of the books for kids I read when I was seven is stuff I enjoyed then but forgot now and probably was good for that age but didn’t stick with me);

second thing, that means that when I discuss a young adult book aimed at teenagers I will never hold it to the standards I would hold a book aimed at a general adult audience, especially if it’s the kind of ya like dunno as stated the vampire diaries aimed at teenage girls which is obviously the kind where you have the fantasy world with the hot dark guy who swoons the high schooler protagonist off her feet etc because that stuff is basic teenage girl fantasy 101 and like... I’ll expect a bunch of romance tropes, the usual push and pull, the guy eventually being into her, the protagonist being someone a fourteen year-old can see herself in, probably a few sexual elements thrown here and there and so on, because that’s the shit marketed at fourteen year-olds who want to read that and like... it’s really not that deep. I can’t ask the vampire diaries to be moby dick because it’s not meant to be. or, if I read percy j/ackson - which is another thing I have zero interest in but I know about because I see tweets from the author - I expect to have a bunch of teens coming into their own coming from different backgrounds because the author wants to represent properly a lot of categories so most of his readers can have someone they can see themselves in and like if a thirteen year-old who suspects being lgbt or whatever sees themselves in the gay kid from per/cy jackson guess what that’s what that book is for, so I won’t judge it on like... being a faithful representation of greek myths or how good the style is or whatever, because even if to me it’s not top notch writing or has a plot idc about it has to be for teenagers and pre-teens, not for me, a thirty year old who again didn’t even like pre-teen aimed literature when she was a pre-teen;

third, I can extra clarify it using the damned hp discourse, as in: when I say I’m tired of people not reading anything else or reading everything like hp, it means that they read it when they were growing up/were teens and it was aimed at them which is fine, but then twenty fucking years later when the people in question are way beyond their twenties (guys I’m almost 32 and I remember when the first one came out come on) when talking about any single piece of media in existence (movies, comics, other books) use hp characters/situations as the terms of paragon - like guys I had to read sn/ape comparisons with theon and ky/lo ren on the basis that THEY’RE GREY CHARACTERS as if sn/ape is the only grey character that ever existed, people keep on talking about vold/emort as the only bad guy that ever existed and so on, and like... you can’t talk about, idk, asoiaf or any book aimed at an adult audience like you’d talk about hp, because at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if I read comparisons between sn/ape and ivan karamazov and I think I don’t need to specify how completely nonsensical that would be;

now, with all of this explained, what I mean is: ya in general - which is not a fault per se of the genre since it’s aimed at teens and pre-teens - tends to have... very fixed narrative schemes depending on which teens it’s addressing - like, stuff like tvd or twilight is obviously the romance teenage girl fantasy where you have the girl fighting to be with the dark beautiful supernatural creature in question, per/cy jackson is more like I’ll give you a bunch of relatable characters having cool adventures against bad guys with the occasional redemption so we can see that people are redeemable but you still have right vs wrong, hp is sort of like that in the sense you get relatable-ish protagonist with relatable friends growing up throughout the entire thing and fighting on the good side vs the evil side including the usual death of the mentor plus people who seemed bad actually not being bad™ except that PJ has more povs and better rep from what I gather but that’s not the point so it’s basically the growing up journey for the young protagonist(s) the kid sees themselves in, then there’s stuff like hunger games where you actually have the dystopian worldbuilding just written to be enjoyable by younger people who don’t want to get too depressed (and ngl I haven’t read the books but I’ve seen the first two movies and guys the way everyone ignores the classist commentary in thg to discuss the love triangle is... a staple of the problem tbh) but still try to introduce deeper themes and have more nuanced characters and at the same time are still written to be enjoyed maybe by the more adult side of the target, and at the same time I can’t say that thg is the same as 1984 when it comes to target audience because 1984 doesn’t make the ugly dystopian themes more accessible using the love story/teenage protagonist etc;

at this point the problem is: if you only ever read ya and nothing else in your life (which is what a lot of people here do - guys again when I got here in 2011 if people didn’t discuss hp they discussed john gr/een, the only *adult*-aimed book I see discussed on tumblr is asoiaf... because of got X°DDD) then you end up seeing every other piece of literature expecting what you do out of a young adult and then you expect adult literature out of young adults/ya to approach certain implications the way an adult novel would, which is... frankly ridiculous;

specific examples: I see blogs which are principally about like ya fantasy books ie acotar or shadow/hunters or whatever shitting on grrm because AAAAH HE’S PROBLEMATIC/MISOGYNIST/HE HAS VIOLENCE AND RAPE IN THE BOOKS BLAH BLAH and like... spoilers: if I wrote a fantasy series aimed at fourteen year-olds who want their fantasy romance with the hot dark guy who is maybe a tiny bit problematic but turns their leaf for them I would hold back on blood and violence, if I wrote a fantasy for adults where I want to be realistic about misogyny I will not, and the fact that grrm gets judged on what happens and not how he writes it (and again, saying that a guy who has 1/3rd of his pov characters female except that it’s actually 50/50 because there are no throwaway povs except for mel while guys have a lot more of them and all the female povs have narrative weight [and mel has it before she gets one] and all of them have a different personality and he also has the same trope [brienne and arya] in two people with wildly different personalities and needs which is basically a goddamned miracle is a misogynist because there’s misogyny in his fantasy world is ridiculous imvho) which is.... exactly expecting of asoiaf what you’d expect out of acotar, when grrm and acotar’s writer write for wildly different audiences. now, if I had read acotar at 15 and asoiaf at 15 I’d have had no doubt re asoiaf being more my thing because again the subgenre acotar goes for is not my thing because I never related to that fantasy while brienne is my rep, but in general a 14yo girl who likes the acotar-like stuff will not care for grrm.... which is normal because grrm writes for adults of both genders, not teenage girls (I mean teenage boys also have their own subgenres for which the same rules are valid), and someone who likes percy jackson (aimed at both genders but like... pre-teens early teens) who doesn’t gaf for grrm won’t because it’s not aimed at them unless they like grrm for other reasons ie idk they realize that they relate to jon snow idk but you see my point, so like tldr that’s what I mean with if you only read ya you’ll expect adult writers to handle their themes like ya writers would and like... sorry but if I write stuff for adults I won’t feel the need to specify that the bad guy is B A D with neon lights because an adult should grasp that from the narrative, I don’t need to make sure it’s obvious bc it’s aimed at kids;

reverse: when I see people saying ‘the vampire diaries is problematic because it’s about people who are a hundred years old preying on teenage girls so we need to stop teenage girls from reading that kind of thing because it makes them think it’s okay to go with someone that much older than them’, we’re at the opposite problem in the sense that you’re asking a young adult novel what you would ask of AN ADULT NOVEL when there’s no point in it. like, a teenage girl knows perfectly that damon salvatore doesn’t exist and vampires don’t exist and werewolves don’t exist - the entire point of tvd is that she gets to fawn over the hot supernatural dude who changes for the better thanks to the female protagonist she most likely sees herself in and she gets to have a few nice fantasies about that which is like... normal for people who are developing their sexualities, most people wouldn’t actually want damon salvatore the way he’s exactly in canon irl because they know it’s a fantasy and so it should stay. like, sorry but as someone who watched the show because ian somerhalder is hot in her twenties and tried the first book and gave it up at page 30 because I couldn’t do it, I can 100% assure anyone that the biggest issues with tvd books are that the writing is really fucking bad (for my standards at least), with the tvd show that from S4 the writing spiraled downwards and no one wanted the magical vampire pregnancy witch twins ridiculousness, but none of the content actually was shit that anyone would take seriously like that and I wouldn’t expect tvd to approach that subject realistically. if I read a vampire book aimed at adults who actually wants to write such a relationship as creepy WELL YES OF COURSE I’D EXPECT IT TO BE OBVIOUS ABOUT IT BEING CREEPY, but if it’s aimed at freaking teenagers... it’s a fantasy and not really that deep, take it for what it is and let teenage girls enjoy thinking about smooching damon salvatore (or stefan or whoever) without assuming they need to be protected from Horrible Vampire Fiction™, same as no one goes bitching about unrealistic sex scenes in serialized romance books because people read them because they’re unrealistic and escapism, not because they expect nobel prize worthy exploration of themes from them;

now, ^^^^^^ would not happen if people actually read variedly and studied some decent lit analysis in school - but like, after I had to read I think at some point that of mice and men is ableist... THAT’S the damned point - with ya you can take a lot of the plot at face value, with adult lit you can’t and you have to see motivation beyond the action of the characters and you can’t do that if you only read books aimed at pre-teens/teenagers where obviously that’s... more spelled out than it would be in a book aimed at an adult audience;

that by the way also means wildly missing actual adult themes discussion in ya, because again, I haven’t read thg but from the two movies I’ve seen it’s fucking obvious that the whole thing is an anti us-classism commentary from how the districts are built to how the games are rigged to pretty much everything in the worldbuilding, but all the discourse I see on tumblr is about either the love triangle or katniss being miscast or president snow being a jerk and whatever else, but I never once saw anyone saying ‘heeeeey the people in katniss’ district are an in your face metaphor of poor people in the us of a belonging to certain categories while the first few districts are absolutely the 1% and the entire point of it is that she wants to tell you A CLASSIST SOCIETY IS BAD AND WILL LEAD TO REVOLUTIONS’, which to me was... like, glaring, it was literally what 90% of the entire thing was about and no one ever discusses it in a fandom-wide sense (I mean... I saw a bunch of hg posts back when the movies came out, I never saw this brought out), which... is a problem because it means that the moment people are put in front of a ya product that actually tackles that kind of issue.... they go and worry about the love triangle (which seemed to me the excuse to draw the people in the story) not about the social commentary, and like, maybe a twelve year-old won’t catch on the social commentary, a twenty-year old especially from the us should, and I don’t see that happening;

and sorry but that is because if you only engage with content aimed at a younger audience than your target first you assume that every piece of literature should be consumable/readable/enjoyable by a younger audience (and sorry but no, some of us don’t want to write stuff making sure teenagers like it) and then ask of actual ya media to cater to their *adult* needs and not to the needs of the target audience because wow obviously if you’re 25 you won’t want out of literature what you wanted at fourteen;

and this also is valid for children’s media because again, I’m cutting it short, but adults watching st/even universe and sending people death threats because they don’t agree with their opinion of a cartoon aimed at an audience that’s at moooostttt eight years old is a thing that shouldn’t even fucking exist, and if you think steven/universe is that important at an adult age you need to re-assess your priorities;

tldr: adults should not expect media aimed at kids/teens to cater to their interests and shouldn’t analyze it the way they’d analyze a piece of media aimed at an adult audience and should not presume that every piece of media should have the scope/schemes of medias aimed at kids/teens because some of us don’t want to read that.

now, I’ll leave you with a nice short anecdote which hopefully will further clarify what I mean and add to another point which would be, kids and teens don’t give a fuck about what you, an adult, do: when everyone was in a frenzy about my little pony back in 2013 or so I had to see a ton of posts like ‘AAAAAH MEN/BOYS WHO ARE INTO MLP ARE STEALING THE SHOW FROM YOUNG GIRLS HOW DARE THEY ENJOY IT WE NEED TO KICK THEM OUT’ with added people saying that a ten year old male kid who tried to kill himself bc his friends bullied him bc he liked mlp deserved it and the likes, my only thought was that... when I was 8-10 in elementary school and was actually the target for cartoons and stuff, sailor moon was the rage between all girls my age me included, we’d spend recess playing pretend (and I’d get stuck playing sailor mars bc no one wanted her, sad) and our hugest first world problem in existence was that we needed technically a mamoru and of course no self-respecting boy in elementary school would have admitted under death threats to watching sailor moon because it was a girls’ thing (aaaaah gender roles in the early-mid 90s, how fun) so everyone despaired because ofc no one wanted to play mamoru... and the few times any guy actually showed up like HEEEEY I WANNA DO IT BUT PLEASE DON’T TELL MY FRIENDS I LIKE SAILOR MOON we’d all be like OMG YOU’RE OUR NEW FAVORITE PERSON PLEASE YOUR SECRET IS SAFE because we couldn’t believe we found the magical boy™ who wanted to do it, and if anyone had told us that the kid in question was stealing sailor moon from us we’d have laughed in their face.

like.

kids don’t ask of media what you, an adult do, and it’s unfair of you, an adult, to ask children’s/ya media to cater to your damned interests, which are amply catered to by the tons of adult literature around which also forces you to push on your views and read more challenging things and to not read/watch stuff at face value, which is why I would really appreciate it if the amount of 20yo people on here who I consider adults engaged with more adult media and let themselves be challenged instead of just going back to ya/kids’ things, which are good for teens and kids and can be enjoyed by everyone but should not be the only goddamned genre you measure all other literature against because then you get people saying that lolita is pro-pedo when it’s exactly the goddamned contrary, but if you think that pov character = protagonist = good guy (which is... staple kids/ya stuff for obvious reasons) then you decide that humbert humbert is someone you’re supposed to root for. too bad that you’re not and the author was an actual csa victim so it’s a completely ridiculous reading that wouldn’t happen if you didn’t read lolita the way you read hp.

... okay, I’m done, sorry for how long this was, I hope it cleared things for good xD

#literature for ts #janie rants #idek #Anonymous #ask post #suicide attempt cw

[under-druck]

I think it’s ~also~ possible to discuss the need for more diversity and wlw representation in the skamverse and across all media with a little more nuance, and maybe have a more productive discussion than everyone just saying “that’s the tea” and patting themselves on the back. And I found it strange that you called Isak’s season problematic for simply existing, while also conceding that it was important and necessary? Not really sure how both can be true but oh well.

I agree! As much as i absolutely adore when people shower me with affection, I’m not necessarily looking for total absolute agreement and approval. one of the things i love about skam fans is their willingness to talk about everything all the time from every angle. hearing ppl say “i see what you’re saying but consider it from this perspective” is infinitely more interesting to me than talking into a void. and here’s a short essay in response to the second part lmaoooo:

 If you inspect isak's story in a vaccuum, ignoring what show it is or who directed and wrote it or who the actors are, its fine. its respectful, doesn't vilainize its queer characters or put them through unnecessary strife, and its sympathetic to the lgbt experience.

HOWEVER, my post is not criticzing the story itself, but rather the context surrounding the season. By that I mean who wrote it and why, who consumes it and why. Julie Andem wrote a story that follows a group of highschool girls, the pressures and struggles they deal with, their relationships and friendship with each other. the show is made with girls in mind, i think that’s clear. (calling myself out here bc i’m not a girl and i watched all of it lhsgjkhsd) specifically, it catered to a straight female audience (and prior to s3 that WAS the audience, save the wlw and the dude here and there). the straight female audience felt that it was a show made for them to represent them and their lives. it was the shy “losers” going to parties and falling in love and coming out on top. because it was. Julie andem wrote it for that purpose.

so then obviously if you give girls a show made by them for them, everything in it is for them. including the season about the attractive gay man and his equally attractive boo. (some of) the female audience watching the season would have watched even if it didn’t explore internalized homophobia, religious acceptance, gay pride, coming out, or even if they had done these themes badly/harmfully. on purpose or not, i think that inserting a story about mlm in the middle of a tv show meant to represent girls’ and their lives bred an energy that said it was more than ok for them to objectify the mlm in said show. up until that point, the show had never been to educate the audience, it was always to represent them and their wants. so of course the girls watching will feel allowed to objectify it, even if the season makes fun of these kinds of girls the entire time lmaoooo. Because its FOR THEM.

and this objectified nature of isak’s season has nothing to do with the contents of the story itself. skam made these girls feel entitled to this gay storyline, it was their show and their gay boys. i mean i’ve seen it so often how angry cishet people get when we point out people fetishizing our stories and objectifying our experiences for their own satisfaction. the problem with this energy is that everytime queer fans asked to see different kinds of stories represented, we got backlash. i mean it’s always like that. we get shit when we ask for our stories to stop valuing the cishet audience’s opinion over ours. cishet people feel entitled to be included in the tellings of our stories and our happy endings. it feeds into this bigger issue of gay people being just popular enough to get views and make the Straights money, but rarely ever important enough if it sacrifice cishet people’s comfort in the process.

You couldn't give isak’s gay storyline to vilde or to some other female character because then the female audience wouldn’t watch it, and instead of doing it anyway, skam catered to it. and hey, Julie andem heard what people were saying. she was involved in skam austin and one of the biggest decisions she made was making isak a queer girl of color and making an effort to show lesbophobia in a way that wasn’t making it the butt of a joke or unimportant. but yeah, that’s what i mean when i say that isak’s season can be good rep even if its existence in skam had some problematic undertones and consequences.

#il mio #domande #meta #offbrand

[prussiasboxerbriefs]

me yelling about angel dust and why he’s not a bad character

regarding angel: with gay rep we get either child predator from the homophobic stereotype corner of the ring or soft uwu gay boy from the tumblr corner. I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how fucking refreshing it is to see a gay guy that’s not “soft” but still framed as a desirable, cool protagonist.

@/the-spider-in-the-kinky-boots made a post about this–it’s so so so nice to see him being open about his sexuality in an environment that LETS him.

with regards to him being predatory: i have only seen the pilot and a few animatics. what I’ve gathered from those is that he’s just kind of a smart-ass and likes making sex jokes? he lives in hell. they ALL live in hell. in real life that would fall under like consent problems and would be really annoying. but they live in hell so i feel like that’s a non-issue. also his fight scene with sir pentious made me laugh

he feels like a vent character, and I think that’s why a lot of people either connect strongly with him or think he’s a fucked-up caricature. one of the main themes of this show is extremes. to me he comes across as the extreme of that feeling where you believe your queerness makes you bad and say, “fuck it, guess i’ll just be bad then.” if you’ve been told your whole life that an inherent, harmless part of you makes you a demon, one coping strategy is to go be evil because at least you’re happy? but that only works for so long. and I think that’s where his signing into the hotel and “rehab” comes in–him realizing that his queerness isn’t a sin and that he can live a happy life without trying to suppress that part of him OR coping in extremely destructive ways.

also, watching a character live out the “fantasy” of self-medication is a way of living vicariously through them, and it makes the urge to do it in real life, at least for me, lessen for a while. 

he is queer and some people give him a hard time about it and he has the license to go absolutely apeshit with no consequences. talk about living vicariously

which leads me into power structures: he’s powerful. he’s in control (not with regards to Valentino, but ex. during the turf war). he does bad things and doesn’t receive punishment because the show’s creators aren’t looking for an excuse to punch the gay guy. how many shows have a queer character do something terrible just so they can beat the shit out of them and then say they deserved it?

did you guys catch when alastor referred to him as “effeminate” because it was an objective assessment and not something he saw as disgusting…did you catch that……..that got me

like what do i want MORE. than to be referred to as an “effeminate fellow” in a non-sarcastic, goodwilled manner. i can’t think of anything.

the VALIDATION

in general, a lot of people seem to be bothered by the blatant sexuality and innuendo in hazbin hotel? i’m pretty sure a key part of this project is that the creators get to be lewd, because it’s fun, through their preferred medium (which is either used exclusively for children’s media or stylized to be butt-ugly). if the sexuality in the show bothers you, then don’t watch it–it’s certainly not intended for young audiences, and, like my friend said when i was talking to them about this–not everything has to be baby proof!!!

that said! the characters here and their “sins” are obviously based on a conservative idea of what gets you sent to Christian hell. and I wonder if the implication that sex work or suffering from addiction are sinful and immoral is going to be challenged.

the other thing is that the story isn’t done. we haven’t seen any of the character’s redemption arcs, and that means most of the show’s meaning and stance on the questions it raises hasn’t been defined yet. a story where every character is unproblematic from the very beginning is not a particularly compelling story because there’s nowhere left for them to go except down in terms of character development (which is absolutely crucial). and y'all wouldn’t like THAT direction either bc then the canonically gay character gets a sad ending. I don’t want that either. but if you want a character that represents you, they’re gonna have to develop throughout the plot somehow, otherwise there is no story to tell.

another reason why I like angel is that he has many of the problems/anxieties that bother me, and I want to see him overcome them. that’s representation.

so. sir pentious.

his egg henchmen are so dumb i love them

also love that angel’s humor bounces directly off of him. there’s probably some like mockery of autistic traits hiding in there or whatever but i’m autistic and i don’t want to think about it too much bc he’s funny and i love him

great character design!!! his hair/cape thing is so cool (yes i know it’s like the hood of a snake)

why “serpentious”. that’s not a real word why not “sir pentine” or something

felt like an idiot spelling “surpentious” five different ways in the merriam-webster search bar before realizing the first part of his name is “serpent” and the last part is random adjectival suffix

#hh #hazbin hotel #angel dust

[jlf23tumble]

Hey Jen! Happy Birthday first of all!! As my favourite TXF-era Louis hate-watcher/enthusiast/scholar (and one of my all-round absolute fave bloggers) I 1) would love to hear your thoughts on his post-TXF comments and 2) Remember when there was this nice nerdy boy auditioning on XF? Simon said he lacked personality, but Louis defended him passionately saying that just bc he wasn't the bad boy Simon was looking for didn't mean he didn't have any personality. And then fast forward to... 1/2

Louis’ interview with Satan Cowell’s #1 provider of anal unguent… his answer about having been a “party boy” was so interesting to me. He seemed uncomfortable and said “yeah there’s a responsibility at both ends, to be good and also to be a little bit bad, a little bit mischievous sometimes”. Super interesting choice of words… “a responsibility”. And DW, transparent as always “that’s what we want from our rock stars”. Mmh. What Simon wants for sure. 2/2

——–

Hey, thanks for the birthday wishes!! I’ve had a few (got drunk on you, etc.), so I’m gonna try and answer this, but if it comes off as incoherent, let’s all just blame sweet lady vino. As you (correctly!) suggest, I’m so here for all XFUK talk, and I’m curious to hear more about Louis’s experiences on the show as we get deeper into promo that neatly swerves Louis’s personal life. Olivia got some GREAT INTEL from him, but he’s hinted in previous interviews about being nervous or having to be a certain “character,” and a LOT of it is tied in to this Sun-perspective, which is more or less run by the people running Simon (I don’t like to give him coded language because that gives him more attention and power, like we’re watching a shitty soap villain, when in reality, he’s a sad, vain little man whose “empire” is imploding faster than his cheap tit job). Make no mistake, XFUK was a calculated risk to salvage Louis’s rep in the UK (the demo that engages with it is the demo that reads the Sun, and he’s been trashed there for years), but it WORKED, and part of that is Louis’s natural charm, but it’s also down to the edit, both on screen and in print. And Louis knows it, calls it out with Wootton, the whole thing about the responsibility, as you say, but also that most of those shit articles are Dan’s work (just like Niall hinted at, with pretty much the same smirk). They all know it’s part of the game, but it does do some damage, and he’s in damage control mode…seemingly, everyone’s on board with it, but the shrapnel (at least in print) is Zayn, and that’s because Louis didn’t throw Harry under the bus like he was supposed to (Dan needed a headline about someone Louis hates in the band, so he took Louis’s sad resignation about Z and puffed it up because there’s literally nothing there about H…and don’t even get me started on the whole “party boy” image and who it was originally intended for). I have so many thoughts on all of it, but you have to watch everything to talk about it, and I’m not here to engage with anyone who hasn’t. I’m drunk enough to share some of my random unpopular onions, so here you go, in one go:

El’s definitely “vital” for selling an album about long-term love for an artist who’s closeted, and she’s the best fit for it (they get along, they’re coworkers, “she’s” been there through all the ups and downs, so get ready for those long-term love songs because they ain’t about her)

bg won’t end anytime soon, so if you’re one of those who’s constantly screaming ‘end it’ in tags, you’re only upsetting yourself (I think it WILL end eventually, but with a whimper, and trying to push for a scream is not worth your own personal angst)

That said, look at the negative space here, there’s less and less and less talk about him having a son, seeing him with a son, but he can still talk about his “boy” and do all kinds of other things that play with that narrative subversively (is it his bf, his son, his brother? an emotion? we’ll never know)

Simon has an outdated idea of what “sells” for rockstars, but so does Irving Azoff (Louis’s media rollout with his team is on POINT, and it hits all platforms, but he still has to deal with shit related to the Sun, Metro, etc.; the Azoffs are notoriously not plugged into SM, they use print like Billboard and a fairly outmoded form of non-print pub PR, but Harry has a lot of charm that bleeds out into OTHER PEOPLE’S SM…oh, and p.s., he STILL has to deal with the Sun, Metro, etc. from time to time)

But this is why Louis’s current media push is so GOOD, you don’t even know…all platforms, all of the biggest ones, there’s a strategic plan here, please stop pretending like you have this more figured out than they do, my god, he has GOT THIS

XFUK was an intentional move to repair tab damage in the UK, and it worked (it was fucking SMART, and he smashed it, so much damage was repaired, and on an actual schedule)

I don’t know any BTS arrangements (before you @ me, let me stop you right there, neither do you), but clearly, more than one party/contract is at play here, and you really should do yourself the favor of listening to ALL OF IT, because he drops hints all over the place (that Olivia interview alone had so much happening that wasn’t excerpted or giffed)

There’s a very real possibility that Louis and Harry don’t WANT to come out because of the invasive interest in their lives, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! But it might also explain when things appear that aren’t aimed at the gp

Argh, I’m rambling, and this is getting too long/too boring, but yeah, I’m probably drunkenly blanking on even more fantastic thoughtsTM, but XFUK was a game changer in a lot of ways, for everyone involved.

#whooo this wine is catching up with me and i hope i answered your ask okay #i really do have more thoughts but these are what's coherent at the mo #lmaoooo

[nightingalesighs]

Raphael or Isabelle? :)

Make me choose between…

First of all, RUDE.

Secondly, HOW DARE???

Third, you’re really gonna regret asking me this cuz I legit just spent a ridiculous amount of time writing a small essay. Because I will literally always jump at the chance to talk about Raphael Santiago and Isabelle Lightwood. Sorry not sorry.

Fourth, this is so hard. I’m sitting here paralyzed at my keyboard. Like literally. My brain is setting itself on fire trying to choose between them. Because on the one hand, Isabelle…Isabelle is everything I needed in a character. Here is this seemingly strong, badass, intelligent woman and she just completely breaks under the pressure of her family’s expectations. A woman, that is seemingly perfect, is in fact, not perfect. Far from it. She is messy and she is insecure and she doesn’t have her shit together. I…did not realize how much I needed that in a character until I watched her struggle with addiction. Plus, god, I know Em is not by any means fat, BUT TO SEE A CHARACTER THAT HAD BOOBS AND HIPS AND THICK THIGHS JUST OWNING HER BODY AND BEING ABSOLUTELY CONFIDENT IN IT. WOW. I NEEDED THAT BODY POSITIVITY TOO. And? Even better?? Nobody? except her parents (mostly Maryse), shamed? her? for it? I mean, we see Alec use it against her when he lashes out in anger but that’s different, I feel than Maryse just straight up maligning her daughter for sleeping around. Like. Jace just explains it as Izzy being very comfortable with her body? Aside from the few times Alec lashes out, he just accepts it as Izzy being Izzy and he loves his sister so much. THEY ACCEPT HER CLOTHING CHOICES AND HER SEXUALITY. And for all the other complaints I have about Clary and Isabelle’s friendship? Clary DOES NOT SLUT SHAME HER EITHER. Do you know how rare that is to find in media? Like wow. ANYWAY, I digress. Isabelle is just a character that I deeply identify with and honestly she means so much to me, I couldn’t even put it all in words. AND SHE’S A WOC. LIKE…WE ARE BLESSED TO HAVE HER.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Raphael was the ace rep I didn’t know I needed. And if I hadn’t had his rep, I probably wouldn’t have figured out I was ace when I did. It was through researching asexuality(for a Rizzy fic bc yes, I am trash) and diving down into the rabbithole that are internet forums that I realized I wasn’t “weird” or “abnormal”, I just don’t experience sexual attraction. Because, while I had heard of it and I knew on a very basic level what ‘asexual’ meant, I didn’t realize that asexuality, in and of itself, is a very broad identity with aces coming in all different shades. I didn’t realize that just because I have had and enjoyed sex, I could still be asexual because I don’t experience sexual attraction to anyone. And if I hadn’t seen that scene in 2x10, I wouldn’t have realized asexual fit me sooooo much better than demisexual, so soon. And it has honestly been such a comfort to have that label. To know that, there isn’t something wrong with me. To know there are other like me. To know there’s a word for my experiences. I have found a community because of Raphael. I have found acceptance. I have found a piece of myself that I can honestly say I love and am proud of. All because of one small scene with an asexual vampire in a fantasy TV show. HE IS A BLESSING WE ALL DESERVE.

AND IT’S NOT JUST EVEN THAT RAPHAEL EXISTS. That’s most of it, yes. But there’s also his relationship with Isabelle; an extremely sexual person that is proud and vocal about her sexuality. NOT ONLY DOES SHE ACCEPT HIM, NO IT GETS BETTER. She tells Clary that Raphael’s asexuality and their lack of a sex life, was what set their relationship apart and elevated it from all her previous relationships. I MEAN

[image description: a captioned gif of Isabelle from Shadowhunters 3x04 as Izzy talks about her relationship with Raphael. She is saying, “With Raphael, it was everything but that. He made me feel like I wanted so much more.” End description.]

DO YOU KNOW HOW HUGE THAT IS? Part of my fear of being asexual is a drastically reduced dating pool. I was afraid that allosexuals would not want anything to do with me because I couldn’t guarantee there would be a sexual element to our relationships. And then to hear Isabelle accept Raphael and even embrace his asexuality…it meant the world to me. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. I know I criticize this show a lot, but god, they handled Raphael’s asexuality and his relationship with Isabelle so well. I will forever be grateful for them making the effort to represent aces in such a meaningful way. 

Wow, that got long. Whoops. And this is honestly just scratching the surface of their characters. Don’t even get me started on their sense of duty or their fierce love of their family or sense of style and OMG RAPHAEL IS BEYOND SMOOTH. LIKE HOW ARE THEY REAL? WOW. And I didn’t even answer the question lmao. So I guess…all this to say, that I could never choose between the two? It’d be like choosing between two parts of my identity. I just…can’t. I have an extremely emotional attachment to both characters. Thank you for this ask though, I didn’t mean to write an essay, I swear :D

#raphael santiago #isabelle lightwood #rizzy #asexuality #shadowhunters #i tried really hard not to write an essay #and absolutely failed #but like...Raph and Iz are probably two of my favorite characters of all time #so like...can you blame me? #don't ever mention them if you don't want an essay #sorrynotsorry #sh meta #meta mine #meme me #answered #intezaarlily #asks