#using gay as an all encompassing term here | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mejomonster · 5 months

Text

Modu by priest was truly such a good read. If you like romance? It has a sweeping romance, with a well done bisexual and gay lead (and straight best friend) all written in ways that manage to feel realistic, it's got features people likely found it for when looking for a danmei - rich manipulative younger man, older investigator who's got a hero streak, and yet those categories don't really do justice to them (and of course tao ran is the more grounded detective story lead who keeps his theories to himself and worries about dragging others into his mess).

They're so much more... Fei Du is a traumatized young man who's worried he's as monstrous as the people who scarred him, who is preparing to take the leap and cross the line to become an even more terrifying version of himself if it will destroy the corruption poisoning this city and harming so many, Luo Wenzhou is a cop that used to want to be a hero and learned he will fail people and be unable to save people and holds onto Fei Du as someone who reminds him he DOES fail but also reminds him why he wants so hard to keep Trying to help people even when it seems impossible... why trying and putting in effort to care and help Even when its too late to fix things is Worthwhile. Tao Ran is a contrast to them both, Fei Du living in a world where there's only monsters and victims and Luo Wenzhou desperately trying to force the world to be a place where justice CAN prevail and win even as he sees it fail over and over, trying so hard to believe all people have the capacity for everything and are worth trying to save. Even though Fei Du doesm't believe that, being around Luo Wenzhou makes him want to consider it. Tao Ran, their contrast? Believing the world can go either way, and its up to people like him to create any justice at all, any structure at all, or else everything is just meaningless suffering chaos. As characters, the three of them serve to explore how the world works and views on it in terms of a detective murder mystery encompassing the whole city, the small scale version of the world. Modu is a romance, but its also fully commited to being a murder mystery that wants to tackle the kind of themes that come up in the setting it's created. Its characters are so much more than Insert Character Ship types here. These characters were made this way to explore these ideas (just as the villains are all made to parallel and contrast Fei Du to explord these ideas in comparison to our point of view Fei Du moments, our impressions of Fei Du from Luo Wenzhou and Tao Rans varied perspectives, all of them are different lenses to view humanity and how it works, if the world is just or if we have to make it good, if we can be inherently good and if good people will reach out to us if we just keep treading water to survive, if its luck and chaos, and how much... and much more frankly).

Modu is like. If you want a story about a corrupt city and its victims, symbolizing a corrupt world and all of us at its mercy, and you want to see the heart of the people doing something about it. First the main trio, but also every victim Fei Du recruits to help, every murderer recruited to the corruption, all the people in the cases swayed to some side. Thats what Modu is about.

The romance is just one facet of exploring that, the personal debate about what these things mean about the world as told through two people who view this world incredibly differently. Yet find some way to exist in the same space, same mutual world, when together. It hooks you in and doesn't let you go and youre wondering right there with them, left to draw your own meaning in the end. Hopefully that its worth trying, that doing something is worth trying even when its just the trying you can do and not the succeeding, at least thats what I got from it (at least in regards to Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou meeting each other, unable to live up to the pillar they put each other on but trying anyway, is what I felt from them).

Then like? Modu gives you THAT story, which in its own right is enough to make you contemplate.

And if you're like me and care about people, about characters? Well it gives you, like I said, those big themes and a city's nightmares symbolizing the world, and brings them down to an individual level. You read from the mind of the little girl who grew up in this (one of my favorite scenes and when I felt this novel was going to not shy away from dark psychological moments and bringing them to you). You read from the mind of Fei Du when he knows himself, when he doesn't. You read from the minds of all kinds of people, and the heart of much of the investigation is peoples motives and things they'd gone through and how that shaped what they'd do next. Why they'd do it. Leaving you to wonder who's right. Jaded idealist Luo Wenzhou who wants to believe in the goodness of the people he loves, but also is willing to risk that strangers may have good intent? Fei Du who thinks theres only victims and perpetrators and everyone is going to fall into one in the right circumstance? Tao Ran, who feels the world is too messy to dare declare predictable, who thinks even your closest can betray you and even you can accidentally hurt them, nevermind strangers, and the only thing you can control and rely on is your own choices? Some mix? None of them? The side characters as they come up, grow and evolve, do they understand the world better or worse, and is the world they experience different than anothers and justify why their worldview is likewise different? Modu gives you that up close and personal, over and over. Im still thinking about it. And the way its done, they all get to feel like lived in people. Not structures to tell the themes only. But on their own, there's a personal struggle between Fei Du feeling like a monster who'll destroy Lup Wenzhou if he loves him, like his dad destroyed his mom, and Luo Wenzhou carrying the guilt he could never save Fei Du and desperate to believe in Fei Du (and keep trying to save him in that way if only that way) as person who can do good despite not being saved and despite Fei Du's fears. You could cut the entire city's plot away, all of the crimes and make the city calm, and still that core of their plot would be carrying a Lot of weight. Theyre playing a game of "enemies" to lovers sure, or whatever romance story structures they fit into. But they're also made to be deeply rooted into each other, their personal beliefs tied into the outcome of what they hope or fear happens if they are close together. Modu made me care about that. Its like the fears many people might have, abiut theur own flaws, about getting close to others, about trusting and being unsure if that trust is safe to give. Its that and magnified into bigger form, in this landscape of a fucked up city and the tragedy of Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou's meeting and former lives.

Its like. Id love to to read another danmei (Ive got a lot on my to read list). But what's going to give me roo

#modu #silent reading #lb #meta #like... modu was so fucking good.#it was 3 characters symbolizing their city symbolizing the world in terms of worldviews morality justice and if theres a point to #trying to help at all. like damn #i want to read ANOTHER danmei that makes me weigh those questions. that uses the characters this personally and intimately with the readers #because the Characters weigh the themes in their OWN lives so heavily.#like... i know priest can probably give me this kind of huge delivery in can ci pin and sha po lang (at least i estimate #priesr probably can as theyre very popular novels by priest)#and 2ha can (because ive read half and know its themes)#but like. what other danmei can? can thousand autumns? can peerless? can wu shang jie?#can Mistakenly Saving the Villain?#like... the only non priest danmei i read was svsss and i got supremely lucky #cause i personally LOVE satire and critique commentary affection for the topics it explores #and svsss AS a satire is incredibly well done. having read 2ha first? and seen Eternal Love?#svsss does an amazing job at critiquing webnovel culture and flaws. at the way capitalism effects writing #at the way some tropes have become staples of certain genres and when used well yeah you get 2ha but when used badly you get #the fake novel svsss was making fun of that there Are many real novels like

53 notes · View notes

spideykisser · 2 months

Text

Is Captain America gay. I use gay as an all encompassing term here! I get that he had Peggy or wtvr but. What about. What happened to Bucky??

Bucky and Steve literally are made for eachother??? Steve almost let himself die just because his brainwashed-man-best-friend-who-shouldve-been-his-love-interest was about to kill him because he didn’t remember who he was and Steve was literally just going to let him???

plus Bucky is hot idrk who wouldn’t be in love with him 😍😍

#Deadpool speaks #preaching #stucky #deadpool #captain america #steve rogers #bucky barnes #the winter soldier #steve x bucky #just a little innuendo

27 notes · View notes

pk2317 · 9 months

Text

On shipping "erasure" in fanwork

Might as well throw some of my thoughts together here, for easy reference later. For all 5 people who may read this. Right off the bat I'm going to admit that there will be a lot of caveats included, as opposed to absolute "truths". Also I'll be using the term "queer" to encompass LGBTQIA+, if that term is something that bothers you then just be aware of that. And “straight” (in quotes) generally refers to “straight-presenting”. I'll primarily be referencing The Owl House, just because it's a point of reference that I'm very familiar with the source material and the fandom.

I want to come out right from the beginning and state clearly that *ARTISTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO CREATE WHATEVER ARTWORK THEY WANT, AND INDIVIDUALS HAVE THE RIGHT TO CONSUME WHATEVER ARTWORK THEY WANT*. Fan art, fan fiction, whatever. This is NOT an attempt to police what others do or enjoy, or an invitation to harass anyone.

With that being said, when someone makes artwork, they make decisions on what to include, or not include, and it's not unreasonable to analyze these decisions and question why they were made. Especially when those decisions are counter to established "canon" aspects of the character(s).

Shipping is one of the biggest examples of this. When you boil it down, "shipping" is focusing two (or more) characters and their relationSHIP to each other. Generally, this is going to be a romantic (and/or physical) relationship, which may (or may not) be "canon". Shipping has always existed within fandom, and it's not an inherently bad thing. It's a form of character analysis - based on what we know about Character A and Character B, how might they interact in this specific situation, or what would it be like if they were attracted to each other?

In a largely heteronormative media landscape, this can (and often is) a vehicle to explore queer relationships that otherwise aren't (or at least aren't likely to be) depicted in the source material. But, as we (finally) start to get some explicitly, canonically queer characters, we start running into the issues of "erasure". This will *usually* come in the form of canonically lesbian characters being shipped with guys (for some reason, gay men being shipped with women doesn't seem to come up nearly as often - there's a whole tangent about sexism and misogyny there that I'm not even going into right now).

For a specific example, I'll go with Amity from TOH, who (not infrequently) gets shipped with Hunter. Now, I'm sure there are some people who are genuinely interested in this pairing, and their character arcs do have similarities that could provoke some interesting interactions. But - Amity is explicitly, canonically a lesbian, and (canonically) in a relationship with Luz (another woman). So, the majority of time when I see this pairing, the reasoning behind it usually boils down to one of three things:

Outright homophobia, to reject the canon, same-sex relationship between Luz and Amity (just because they don’t like seeing two women together)

Outright homophobia, to insist that Amity "should be with a man, instead"

Trolling, because it'll "trigger the snowflakes" (which is just homophobia with extra steps)

Of course, all of them will (conveniently) hide behind the excuse of it being "just an interesting pairing". (Some of the same issues arise with "Lunter" (Luz / Hunter), except that considering Luz is canonically bi, it actually is a more logical pairing. So that gets tied up in biphobia, which is {once again} an entirely separate tangent that I'm not addressing here.)

The other excuse that gets trotted out time and time again is "Everyone has always changed canonically straight characters into gay ones for shipping, and that isn't a problem, so why is this?" Which might sound "reasonable" on the surface, but is a near perfect example of a false equivalence for two reasons:

There are no "canonically straight" characters. I mean, *maybe*, but 99.99% of the time when a character has a canonically establish sexuality, it's not "straight". Just because someone may be visibly/textually attracted to just one or more people of the opposite sex, that doesn't in any way preclude them from being bisexual or pansexual. It's a very obvious display of heteronormativity to just assume everyone is straight by “default”, and no, it's not "just the same".

Even if it were, queer characters are *VASTLY* underrepresented in media. Yes, things are improving. Yes, we have more overtly, outwardly, explicitly, canonically queer characters (and relationships) being portrayed in all forms of media that we ever had historically, but it's still considerably outnumbered by "straight" (or at least straight-presenting) characters and relationships. When some shows (not all) have the "token gay character", that means that your average show is basically 0-1 queer characters. Not really great numbers. So let's say there's a show with 10 main characters, one of whom is queer and the rest are "straight". If we reimagine another one to be queer so we can ship them, there are still 80% "straight" characters on just this one show alone. Whereas if you reimagine the one queer character to be straight...it's not hard to see why a queer person might take offense at those decisions.

Let's take a look at The Owl House. This is one of the queerest shows targeted at a wide family audience. Most of the "main cast" (series regulars - I'll define this as being featured in the opening credits sequence) is queer in one form or another, either canonically or implied (in the show or by the crew). But let's take a look at the relationships of the characters. Among our main characters, there are three "canon" (explict or heavily implied) relationships:

Luz / Amity (queer F/F)

Eda / Raine (queer F/NB)

Hunter / Willow ("straight" M/F)

Yes, I know that neither character in the last one is straight, but their relationship is "straight", or straight-presenting. Still, 2/3 is good, right?

Now, let's extend it to all named characters that we see in a visible relationship, with a named partner, in the show:

Vee / Masha (queer F/NB)

Harvey / Gilbert Park (queer M/M)

Alador / Odalia Blight ("straight" M/F)

Dell / Gwendolyn Clawthorne ("straight" M/F)

Manny / Camila Noceda ("straight" M/F)

So, one of the queerest shows on television doesn't even break 50% of relationships being visibly queer. And this is the exception, not the rule, for visible representation. Most shows are vastly more skewed to straight, or straight-presenting, characters and relationships.

So, no, it's not "just the same". And that's why it's not at all unreasonable to see queer people be offended when, out of a plethora of "straight" characters and relationships to choose from, they feel the need to take one of the few visibly queer ones and make it "straight".

I do want to reiterate my first statement again, just to be extra clear. I do *NOT* believe in trying to police what people create, or consume. I will fervently defend artists to have that right, no matter how objectionable I may find their content (as long as it's appropriately tagged/categorized/labeled/etc.). Yes, this even applies to even more "problematic" ships (another tangent I won't go into here). I would like people to do some self-examination and make sure they are being honest with *why* they may be creating/consuming that content, and I absolutely expect it to be clearly labeled, but in no way am I going to try and prevent them from doing so on an individual level.

TL;DR - Make/consume whatever artwork you want, but be conscious of your motivations behind doing so, don't be surprised when it offends people, and don't try to rationalize it as being "the same" as putting "straight" characters into queer ships.

#shipping #erasure #analysis #the owl house #toh #lumity #raeda #huntlow #long post #sorry for the rant #seriously don’t harass artists #if you don’t want to see something then YOU block it #I’ll probably regret posting this #oh well #fanart #fanfic

61 notes · View notes

absolutebl · 8 months

Note

Heyy it's me again lol .

So in the post about your Gmmtv predictions of 2024 you talked about Gmmtv making gay versions of Kdramas , right? I have been thinking about this for a long time too and I have a question for you somewhat related to that. What are some tropes/dynamics/setups you'd like to see more in BLs which are less used or has not been used at all in BL as of yet ? You said you are busy in the last ask so take your time :)

Also thanks for answering your asks in details . Your answers are extremely interesting everytime.

Hi hi!

Kdrama Tropes/Archetypes/Dynamics I'd like to see in BL?

AKA what if Korea just actually made Kdrama's gay

Hum, most Kdrama's (I watch) are pretty much love stories and romances just like BL. It's just that they get longer treatments and better scripts. KBL in its current form, isn't long enough to encompass the true value of its own het genre. Thai BL, which is long enough, rarely has the story structure or production values or aesthetic.

So, it's more that I want the BL romances to be given Kdrama respect in terms of narrative and packaging and length or treatment (money money money). And style. I do love Korea's very fashionable, mannerly, repressed way of pimping romance.

So I lot of my choices have more to do with that, I suppose?

Here's some I'll just throw out:

Historical (serious political or romcom)

Martial Arts / Sports / Teams (olympic hopefuls?)

Fantasy (cultivation/progression)

Suspense (like proper murder investigation)

Super Hero (esk) - special powers

Fictional alt-world (like isikai)

Medical drama (not just setting)

Military

Political thriller (corruption)

Supernatural creatures (like Kumiho)

Soldier/healer

Capers (think Leverage or something like Taxi Driver)

Small town up in EVERYONE's business

Idol boy band romance (of course)

A lot of these are too expensive for BL (either because Thailand who would do it, can't afford it, or Korea doesn't find gay bankable enough) in costumes, setting, cast size, and so forth. A couple are out because of content (neither country would ever do military BL, and Thailand can't do political stuff).

I did do a pull on Kdrama's I really want remade, and many of these contain the things I named above:

Some of my favorite Kdramas (so you know my taste/perspective):

And here's:

10 Famous Kdrama Actors Who’d Never do BL but I Want ‘em To

#asked and answered #true KBL #what if Korea really did just make gay kdramas?

23 notes · View notes

stormysapphic · 8 months

Text

[disclaimer: i have no intention to hurt anyone's feelings or start fights with this post! i would, however, really like it if people of any and all viewpoints on this topic commented on it and shared their thoughts with me in good faith! thanks. <3] i've been thinking about "bi lesbianism" lately - not in terms of whether i'm "for it or against it", because i frankly don't think it's my place to say. and because ultimately i have no problem with someone i don't even know identifying as a bi lesbian if that's truly the combination of words that they feel best describes the complexity of their experiences. but i also think that piling labels upon labels in an attempt to fully encompass something that'll never be fully dissected and simplified anyway - sexuality is complex for everyone in one way or another - is a futile attempt and not really how labels work in wider queer communities outside your super insulated discourse bubble anyway. understand that, while you're out here on tumblr fighting tooth and nail explaining to people why you're valid, there are already bi women out there in the real world who go to lesbian support groups and call themselves lesbians in that context and no one cares. there are wlw who think they probably have some sort of attraction to men but never want to date one so they call themselves lesbians and no one cares. there are wlw who aren't attracted to men but are in long term partnerships with them and therefore identify with the bi community and are welcomed there. and i've seen some people use all of that as an example for why identifying as a bi lesbian is logical and without issue, but i kind of feel the exact opposite. like, we already get that bi and pan for example are overlapping labels and someone chooses which one they use based on their preference and the (social, political...) situation they're in. we don't need you to say you're Bi-Pan, we'll get it from the context. in my mind, that has always also applied to the overlapping of lesbian and bi experiences. in addition, i see many of the people in the mspec lesbian/gay circles say stuff like "sexuality is fluid and not binary or clear-cut" but then treat their own labels as if they're all static identities. shouldn't that philosophy of fluidity and complexity make it easier than most to understand that you can go to the lesbian support group wearing the label lesbian & then go back home to your (male) boyfriend and exist under the bi label? and in the same way, understand that calling yourself a lesbian right after mentioning you're dating a man doesn't really make sense? because i can assure you that in the wider world of queer communities no one minds. when my friend says "i love being a lesbian" even though they're technically bi and usually identify as such, or i say "i'm a lesbian but also kind of a guy", people understand. but if my friend was pushing semantic arguments like "actually, lesbians who are attracted to men exist and here's why" at the lesbian support group meeting, or if i were to write on my dating profile that my gender is male and my sexuality is lesbian, sure, that would confuse and frustrate people & understandably so, imo. and if the reason you use a million different labels at once is bc it makes you feel connected to yourself and your identity and community, more power to you, honestly! i'm seeing more and more dykefags and fagdykes lately, so why not bi lesbians too, i guess. but i hope you know that having words to describe every aspect of yourself isn't what makes your experiences valid or invalid.

#personal

17 notes · View notes

bi-kisses · 1 year

Note

hi may I ask what do you think about this tiktok? https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMY5UdYSV/ personally I find that they’re only trying to explain that NB/Queer people have always existed based on different cultural backgrounds but I wanted to ask what do you think of it

originally I was just gonna say what I always do about these ancient third genders being examples of homophobia, transphobia, and sexism. But I decided to actually prove that.

Their first point: Mesopotamia, 2000 BC. They had "neither male nor female" individuals who were "created by god".

In actuality: the gender roles were incredibly strict in their culture. Any form of deviance from "men stronk hunter, active and virile" meant you couldn't be a real man. If you actually look into their "neither male nor female" figures, you're met with:

feminine men who were forced under the "third gender" label to maintain strict masculine/feminine divide

an ambiguously-bodied cult god(dess), changing men to women/women to men as a way to again maintain masculinity and femininity's rigidity.

castrated castle servants

(source)

Second point: Egyptian "Sekhet", a third gender.

This one is SOOO funny because it just... isn't real? If you search for it online, the only thing that turns up is this absolutely referenceless "wikidata" article with a fun flag.

Did you mean: Sekhmet? Sekhmet is an Egyptian goddess, not at all ambiguously gendered, and not at all related to non binary genders.

Third point: Hijra, the Indian third gender.

I've talked about Hijra before but if you want the full breakdown;

This article's very first line says that Hijra are trans women. But the actual history of Hijra, the one that dates soooo far back historically, is of a god merging with his wife and becoming ambiguously sexed.

If you look at what makes someone Hijra, it's just... being LGBT. And in India, they're seen as vagabond and entertainers who roam around begging for money because of the discrimination and exploitation they face.

The New York Times goes into the modern Hijra, where their example is a bullied AFAB groomed into sex work at the age of 8. I'm not going to touch that. It is explained, however, that many Hijra exist in a sex work pyramid scheme with a top-dog Hijra getting all the money and offering protection to her many "chelas" and continue recruiting.

In fact, India legally recognizes all "transgender" people as being a third gender. Make of that what you will.

Fourth point: Scythians, a nomadic who heralded gender non conforming people as priests and warriors.

First of all, I'd like to say just how misleading the poster's segue into this point was? As if all Scythians were non binary? When that obviously wasn't the case. They had one form of "third gender", called Enarei or Anarya, which, I shit you not, translates to "unmanly". Telling on ourselves with this one.

From what I could find, this role was actually adopted by men who specifically couldn't have sex anymore for some reason. In legend, they came to be from an effeminacy curse from Aphrodite. There's very little information about this group and yet we can already see it's more of the same.

They also claim that Scythians had early HRT by using licorice root. I could find zero evidence for this, only an article that explained they used licorice root to stay hydrated in the desert.

Fifth point: Two Spirit, the native "umbrella" for non-"western" genders

I don't even want to explain at this point because it's such a dry topic, a long-beaten dead horse, but the term Two Spirits is a modern invention and the "genders" it encompasses are, likewise, ways to other or "explain" LGBT people.

You can look into any one of these genders for the proof, as I will do here: Take the wíŋkte, a contraction of a term that translates to "man who wants to be a woman". It's just... trans women. In the modern day, the same term basically just means gay man. Deviance from the typical male role meant you were classified as something totally other, as we can see, and if a trans woman wanted to, well, be a woman, she was instead ostracized from both sexes.

I've even had a native explain to me that 2S is a secondary role that has nothing to do with your sex or gender and is purely spiritual, not relevant to LGBT discussions whatsoever.

Their final point was literally "woman with a [penis] weapon", which derives from anglo-saxon history and was... insulting, from the little I could find. It wasn't an epic cool third gender, it was something to call trans/intersex people.

So we've reached the end. Now, the video itself isn't wrong, we've had the notion of non-binary genders and sexes for ages, but we also have the hindsight to understand these categories were sexist reinforcements of gender roles and a way to move the homosexuals and transsexuals into their own box that wouldn't disrupt the rest of society by trying to actually be perceived as, like, normal human beings.

Non binary today isn't overly different, unfortunately! For every person that claims it's a scientific phenomenon with androgynous dysphoria, there's a hundred more who describe it as not feeling like they "fit in" with other girls/guys.

Which is, again, just sexism and the enforcement of gender roles.

#anonymous #enbies #source post

38 notes · View notes

bathroomchained · 2 years

Text

seeing a couple of posts on my dash about using the word queer instead of gay (or vice versa) got me thinking some thoughts

i can definitely see why some people do not want to call themselves queer. i don’t think anyone should be forced to use a label they’re not comfortable with. if they don’t want to use queer, or even gay, for that matter, i see absolutely no problem. there’s no way of knowing why they chose a word over another, and it shouldn’t be something we absolutely need to let others know.

but personally, i love the word queer. me, being strictly aromantic and asexual, i don’t feel comfortable calling myself gay. because i am not gay. this is in no way seeing the word as negative, or anything like that, but i literally am not gay. i don’t feel attraction at all.

i am aromantic, asexual and i don’t fit into any of society’s boxes of how my life should be. i am queer, and i love that. this is the word that truly encompasses my identity. (and also one of the reasons why i identify as lovequeer! you read the original post coining this term here)

being aroace can be pretty isolating. when i see people using the word gay in lgbtq spaces, i don’t see myself in it. as it was said in jaiden animations’ being not straight video: “everyone else and their orientations are able to bond and relate to the love and romance aspects and we’re over here like, we don’t do that”.

being aromantic (+lovequeer) and asexual is a big part of myself. i am not gay, i don’t feel attraction. i’m queer. as an aspec person, labeling myself as queer, but not gay, is comforting and freeing.

again, this is my personal experience. some aspec people may want to identify as queer while some may not, and that’s okay. i fully believe that you should identify as what’s better for you, as long it’s not harmful.

also, this is a view from someone who’s strictly aro and ace. maybe angled and oriented aroaces (or even those who are stricly aroace, who knows) want to call themselves gay, and i’m not trying to police other people’s identities.

#queer #aromantic #asexuality #aroace #aro #ace #lovequeer #ana.txt #we should let others just live their lives!!#queer discourse is pointless. why are we doing this to ourselves

159 notes · View notes

dekusleftsock · 2 years

Text

Hi, hello, I did a whole meta post on Izuku and now it’s katsukis turn! This is, how the mha fandom completely misunderstands a character. Stans or antis don’t really matter since they’re usually both wrong.

I only touched on this briefly in the other post, but this all stems from the complete inability to understand a story and character. Because it isn’t just Izuku, or Katsuki, or even Uraraka, it’s all of them. Everyone in the story is misunderstood when you can’t even get a basic understanding on storytelling. I don’t wanna destroy anyones fun, that’s bad, but I will say that if you can’t even get the bigger message by this point in a show, you seriously need to go do some research on storytelling. Because art is EVERYWHERE, understanding art is such an important thing no matter how much you wanna say it isn’t.

Not to mention the hate on art in general stems from nazi propaganda and the general alt right disliking art as a whole. A lot of art is political and most of it is left leaning. Stop it guys. Please, listen to your English teachers. For the love of god please just get it through your heads so that you don’t fall for nazi bs AT THE VERY LEAST.

Okay, this part of the meta is over, let’s get into the nitty gritty.

Katsuki’s possibly most misunderstood quality is the fact that he is the perfect mix between a superiority and an inferiority complex. Over and over again I’ve seen people use both terms for him, but it comes out in two ways: they either excuse Katsuki’s actions with deku, usually by either saying that it was bc he was insecure or through making up backstory that simply was not given to us. Like how in many fanfics, I’ve seen people “add” to bkdk by showing Izuku possibly being in danger, and that Katsuki was “protecting him” from other bullies actions. Even though this was never the case in canon because the entire point of Katsukis character is change and growth. Even in his apology, there is no actual excuse. It just happened and he realized he was shitty for doing it. He then apologized for his actions and has lived through the remainder of his first year (after dvk2) doing everything in his power to atone for it. He worked extra hard for Izuku to learn ofa, he made sure that Izuku was safe and even sacrificed himself. And that all built up to his apology.

But I ALSO see people who understand this, but completely miss the point or outright ignore it. They don’t believe that Katsuki will ever change, and if he tries then he’s still bad and bkdk is inherently toxic.

I wanted to fit this in somewhere, but I honestly don’t know where it would go so it’s just going here. It’s just important context that people often miss. In the very first chapter/episode, when Katsuki is introduced and we get that oh so familiar scene, people often see it as a glimpse into bkdk relationship throughout middle school. Even though, the whole point of this was to show the absolute worst thing that Katsuki ever did. It’s why it’s right at the beginning; if you’re at rock bottom, there’s no where to go but up. I’m kinda mad that two specific scenes that were made as extras alongside the manga were never animated, because it gives so so SO much context to deku, Katsuki, and uraraka. But I also kinda feel like it wasn’t animated BECAUSE of how gay it is? Anyway, not the point.

I really do recommend reading it, just look up “deku and bakugou rising part 1”. Anyway, this scene is soooo interesting. For one, it feels a little too real for bullying lol, but two, it completely encompasses their middle school relationship. I’ve seen people show a graphic story with Izuku and Katsuki’s relationship. One where Katsuki was a terror to Izuku in every way, that fully physically abused him.

But that just isn’t the case.

Katsuki is a middle schooler. A fucking kid. Not only that but he cares about Izuku, even if he tries to deny it. He would never actively burn him and leave him with scars. He wants to make deku get away from him, make him feel like shit too, but never outright HURT HIM. And this is proven even more in this panel!

First off, the translation is wrong so keep that in mind while I talk. But, there’s two things I wanna point out. 1, that this behavior is out of character for Katsuki, and 2, the soda can.

It’s ooc for him because the fingers kid is pointing out (pun not intended) that he wouldn’t normally go this far.

And as for the second thing, let’s take a closer look.

It’s hard to read the blurry image, but it says “lip service”. It’s a subtle callout on Katsuki’s words saying that Izuku “deserved it” for “getting in his way”. He knows deep down that this was wrong and is trying to cover it up with his normal “Katsuki attitude”.

Why am I bringing this up? Because it’s something that’s never pointed out, even though it’s the perfect argument to combat the people that think Katsuki is wrong. That he is bad in every way. That he will never grow up or improve because he just doesn’t deserve it. EVEN IF he SHOWS to have cared about Izuku, SHOWS that he’s grown, and SHOWS that he both regrets his actions and apologized for them.

Now, I think a reason of many as for why Katsuki is such a hated character even with development is because people project onto him. Simple as that tbh. He presents a very relatable and traumatizing problem for the mc, so people relate him to their own bullies. I can’t blame them either, I did too. Probably up until dvk2, and that’s just when I really looked into his character. So, yeah, he’s hated because he’s relatable.

But I feel like there’s another reason.

I mean, it begs the question: why is Katsuki so targeted by EVERYONE? I mean, think about it. Bullying is common, sure, but there’s got to be more to it if even bullies hate him. If the only reason for him being targeted is projection, then shouldn’t those bullies actually LIKE him? He’s a dislikable character! Half of those people are still like the edge lords from 2015. Of COURSE they’d like a problematic character.. right?

But I think it’s because Katsuki presents an immediate problem to the mc’s love interest. The girl. Uraraka Ochako. And it’s so blatant that even homophobic fans have to DEFEND it from being gay by either making up stuff that’s not in canon (like saying Izuku and Katsuki view each other as brothers), or by talking about how it’s a shonen and that would “never happen”.

EVEN IF both of these arguments are wrong and never really built on “real evidence” I feel like it’s still important to talk about. The brother argument is simply about perspective. Tbh it’s just as valid as any other way people view their friendship. All about the viewer until proven otherwise in the story. So, when people say that argument, it’s literally pointless because it’s SUBJECTIVE to how you view evidence. I saw my own sibling dynamics in them but I still don’t see them as brothers because I purely see them as romantic.

As for the shonen anime argument, yeah it definitely has some basis I’ll admit that. But that argument DID NOT work in 342 or 348, and it DID NOT work in the literal basis of the mc, and it did not fucking work when horikoshi made the female love interests “competition” a queer woman who’s not jealous and actually in love with both of them.

I and many other people still have that nagging thought in the back of their head, what if we’re wrong? What if the antis are right? But that’s why us on the internet, tumblr, tiktok, or any other social media you can think of, TALK about it! We’ll never really “know” until the author reveals it ofc, but it doesn’t change the fact that what we CAN CONTROL are our own personal thoughts and ideas? What can we make of the stuff given to us? That’s why I’m doing this. Partly for my own hope and sanity but also for the sake of others. That there IS hope, it does exist.

It looks like I’m gonna have to make a whole other post for him because I still have more to say, but Jesus Christ this has taken me almost a week to make and it’s ungodly long compared to my other metas. I want my stuff to be easy to consume and read but that kinda requires me to keep these things relatively short and worded as best as I can. So sorry for the wait sisbosndojsa ty all tho <333

(ALSO AI GENERATED BKDK PAINTING??? I THOUGHT IT LOOKED SICK AND IK I USUALLY PUT A MANGA COLORING OR SMTH AT THE END OF THESE BUT LOOK AT IT!!! ITS SO COOL!!!!)

115 notes · View notes

ukrfeminism · 11 months

Text

5 minute read

On 1st May this year, Johanita Dogbey, a 31-year-old Ghanaian British woman, was killed in broad daylight in Brixton, London. The man accused of attacking her, Mohamed Nur, a 33-year-old Somali British man, is currently in police custody and awaiting trial. Her death adds to a long list of Black women who have been found dead due to or under the suspicion of foul play in recent years: Darrell Buchanan, Blessing Olusegun and Valerie Forde, to name a few. With growing discourse surrounding the prevalence of Black femicide in the United States, following shocking revelations like the fact that Black women are four times as likely as white or Hispanic women to die a violent death, it’s time Britain recognised its own epidemic. On the surface, the data indicate no apparent racial disparities but a deeper look into the context of how these figures are produced points to a more complex and even dangerous reality for Black women in the UK.

Understanding Black femicide

The World Health Organization (WHO) generally defines femicide as the “intentional murder of women and girls because they are women” but allows for broader definitions encompassing any killings of women and girls. The vast majority of women’s murderers are men, with ‘intimate femicide’ (i.e. intimate partner violence) being the most typical form. Worldwide, over 35% of all women’s murders are reported to have been committed by a former or current husband or boyfriend. Conversely, just 5% of male homicides are committed by a current or former intimate partner (this includes gay and bisexual men). Other common types of femicide comprise honour killings (occurring mainly in the Middle East, South Asia and their respective diasporas), dowry deaths (most prevalent in India) and non-intimate femicide — often with a sexual motivation. Accordingly, Black femicide can be understood as the intentional killing of Black women and girls on the basis of their race, gender or both; it can also include any Black female homicide victims.

Looking at the global stats, we can see that in the US, Black women’s risk of homicide rivals that of Black men, with one dying on average every six hours in 2020. In South Africa, an average of nine women are killed every day, making it one of the most dangerous places in the world to live as a woman, particularly a Black woman. Predominantly Black Caribbean countries Antigua & Barbuda and Jamaica have the second and third highest femicide rates in the world, respectively, with El Salvador topping the list.

I n the UK, we know that a woman is killed on average every three days but the frequency of said violence happening to Black women is unclear, given a dearth of intersectional reporting on the issue. For example, the 2020 Femicide Census, an archive of the “women who have been killed by men in the UK and the men who have killed them”, records the ethnicity of just 22 out of 110 victims. Of this figure, 16 were white and six were Asian. Without further context, the takeaway here would be that no Black women (or at least a much smaller proportion) were killed by men within this dataset, which could then be extrapolated to apply to Britain’s population as a whole. When speaking about this to a representative of nia, the anti-violence against women and girls (VAWG) charity that oversees The Femicide Census, they acknowledged this is a problematic conclusion: “The lack of meaningful, verified (i.e. official public record material) data on ethnicity is an ongoing problem. Data on race and ethnicity is drawn from police responses to Freedom of Information requests (FoIs). Ethnicity was provided in only one-fifth of police FoIs, and even then, the terms used are inconsistent, arbitrary, sometimes meaningless, archaic or downright offensive, for example, ‘Dark European’ or ‘Oriental’.”

‘Global majority’ is used as a collective term to describe those racialised as non-white, who make up approximately 85% of the world’s population. Anecdotal evidence and interpersonal experiences from anti-VAWG service providers and service users alike suggest femicide disproportionately impacts global majority women in the UK, including Black women, according to nia. However, without more precise figures to back up these ideas, the ability to identify culture-specific risk factors, barriers to access and best methods of providing support is limited. “Without such data, there will be no evidence base for the need for specialist by and for organisations, additional targeted resources and overhauling practice and policy which may reflect racist and sexist attitudes or institutional racism and sexism,” nia concludes.

Inter-community issues present overlooked risk factors

Like other forms of violence against socially minoritised people, the line between what is and what isn’t an act of discrimination is often ambiguous. Dogbey’s death, for instance, has been framed as a completely “random attack” by media reports. Perhaps it simply was a case of wrong place, wrong time; perhaps not. Latoya Dennis, the founder of Black Femicide UK, thinks not, believing Dogbey’s killing to have been influenced by an underground culture of online inceldom and inter-community tensions between Somali and non-Somali Black groups. “I think there’s a strong incel community and I believe that a lot of Somali men are a part of that, from what I’ve seen online. I wouldn’t be surprised if the man who killed Johanita was a part of that community,” she tells us. Nur is reported to have (non-fatally) assaulted two other women and a man on 29th April, showing a gender bias in his crimes. When asked to expand, Dennis references hostile online encounters with Somali men on her platform after profiling the story of a Somali Bolt driver allegedly attempting to abduct a young, non-Somali Black woman. “That was the most backlash I’ve received through my work. I received a lot of threats and harassment, and I was also doxxed,” she explains.

Sistah space

W hether or not this sentiment is correct, it highlights a valid sense of intra-racial rift within Black Britain that the media and institutions alike fail to interrogate in depth, leaving Black women at risk. Unbothered Editor L’Oréal Blackett speaks to an overreliance on the UK’s few Black journalists to cover Black stories as a partial factor in these gaps in mainstream coverage: “When I’ve worked at major publications, these kinds of stories are looked at as an inter-community issue. There’s a sense of ‘we can’t touch that’ within these white (and male)-dominated newsrooms.” She continues: “UK media is relying on a handful of Black journalists to cover everything that goes on in our communities.”

Sistah Space, a domestic violence charity advocating and campaigning for Black and mixed-race British women of African and Caribbean descent, also cites racial and cultural prejudices as major reasons why Black British women’s deaths don’t receive as much attention as the deaths of white British women: “The media categorically does not give Black women and domestic abuse enough attention. For example, media coverage of the Sarah Everard case was on every news source for a period of time. Can you name any Black women who have had the same amount of coverage or outcry?”

It’s not just the media at fault here. As detailed above, there is an oversight when it comes to the interrogation and provision of race and ethnicity-specific insights from the government and police that potentially reflects apathetic and even racist (and sexist) attitudes towards female global majority concerns in this country. In March 2014, Valerie Forde, 45, and her 22-month-old baby were brutally murdered by Valerie’s ex-partner after her cries for help had been either downplayed or ignored by the authorities, exemplifying such failings. Six weeks prior to her death, Forde had told police that the then 53-year-old Roland McKoy had threatened to burn down her house with her and her baby inside. Instead of Forde’s warning being recorded as a threat to life, which would have required much closer monitoring, it was deemed a threat to property — a serious but far less urgent risk. Furthermore, BBC News reports that a civilian call handler failed to fully record and communicate critical information in the 999 call from one of Forde’s daughters on the day of the crime. Were it not for the “inaction” of authorities, Forde may have been alive today.

Sistah Space believes this to be the case and is advocating for Valerie’s Law, a proposal which would implement “mandatory cultural competency training that accounts for the cultural nuances and barriers, colloquialisms, languages and customs that make up the diverse Black community”. In 2021, the organisation launched a video campaign to illustrate the unequal treatment of Black and white female domestic abuse victims by law enforcement. Research conducted by Sistah Space reveals that in the UK, 86% of women of African and/or Caribbean heritage have either been a victim of domestic abuse or know a family member who has been assaulted. Only 57% of victims, however, said they would report the abuse to the police, likely due to a historic lack of confidence in law enforcement among Black Britons. Meanwhile, March 2020 to June 2021 figures from Refuge, the country’s largest specialist domestic abuse organisation, show that Black women were 14% less likely than white survivors of domestic abuse to be referred to Refuge for support.

Implementing meaningful change

The man accused of killing Johanita Dogbey will not be standing trial until 29th April 2024, joining tens of thousands of backlogged cases in London alone that will not be fully reviewed for an average of over a year. With Dogbey’s story falling out of the mainstream news cycle just over a week after her death, it’s hard to imagine a society where Black femicide is given the consideration it deserves. As things stand, we rely on specialist media platforms like Unbothered to do the work in platforming these narratives and organisations like nia and Sistah Space to push for more comprehensive statistics and cultural awareness among governing bodies. A greater emphasis on Afrofeminist data will ultimately be the building block for more informed insights into the realities and concerns of Black women in the UK. We must continue striving to make this issue a top priority, not just for us but for everyone.

13 notes · View notes

wishingicouldfly · 1 year

Text

Louis Tomlinson - LGBTQ icon

A moot on Twitter asked me for some sources, so I decided to put them here in case it was helpful to others. I don't claim that this is all encompassing or definitive.

There isn’t only one instance of Louis alluding to being a part of the LGBTQ community. It’s repetitive and continuous across years. It’s the cumulative instances that make it definitive for me. While he has said that he’s straight a couple of times, it’s been in writing (most notable on Twitter on 11/10/14, and detailed in this article: 'F***ing ridiculous' 1D Louis in meltdown after wrongly thinking reporter called him gay - Daily Star, which was notably the day after he wore this shirt in support of Apple CEO Tim Cook and a couple days AFTER Harry Styles said "not that important" in reference to a dream date being female--there's some debate as to whether Louis was in control of his SM that day, but I digress), and he never once adequately denied being in a relationship with Harry verbally. It’s important to remember he’s closeted.

Adding a cut cause this got long.

While I personally think he’s been in a long term monogamous relationship with Harry, most of these aren’t about Larry. I think it’s important that both men stand as strong LGBTQ icons/role models apart from their connection together.

Nothing here proves anything about his sexuality or how he personally identifies. I don't claim to know how he identifies. This is simply a list of ways he seems to message that he aligns himself with the LGBTQ community. For me, it’s the cumulative moments that make it impossible to dispute. Anyone reading this is entitled to make your own opinion of what he means.

A few times Louis has alluded to being close to gay/LGBT culture

This is a good post that talks about his casual athletic style being a nod to gay “chav” fashion. it’s wild to me that ppl don’t realize Louis... | Facts, Queer Fury, And Spite (tumblr.com)

He uses LGBT symbols in videos, such as rainbows and pink triangles. First one is We Made It. Second one is Miss You. Screenshot by me on 1/16/23.

Links to video: We Made It: https://youtu.be/XWXRh6icAzQ

Miss You: https://youtu.be/inZzcTXYowY

There are a lot of allusions to gay history in the Just Like You lyric video including George Michael Lyrics: https://youtu.be/qvXXMsiQBDg

An analysis of Louis’ songs and his use of pronouns by @bluewinnerangel: it's subjective - Louis using pronouns in his lyrics (tumblr.com)

There are a lot of allusions in his lyrics to being “different” and about his love for his significant other being made to keep secret.

His triangle ankle tattoo, which coincidentally (or not) aligns nicely with a tweet once made by Harry Styles.

This tweet was made literally a day or two after the tattoo reveal. (as of 1/16/23 that tweet is still live on Twitter, screen shot taken by me).

The Rainbow Bears during the last year of 1D before Hiatus—if you’re not aware of this, it’s too much for me to put here. But basically, it was widely accepted that Louis and Harry were behind the bears which alluded to a lot of LGBT history, as well as shaded BabyGate. A couple of links:

It’s a beautiful war 🌈 (tumblr.com)

https://youtu.be/sCNVPRNzmuE

Louis has been closely associated with the Polari brand, which takes its name from a language created by gay subculture in the 1950s. Polari - Wikipedia

A companion post with times Harry has come out: (32) Wishing I Could Fly on Tumblr

#louis tomlinson #LGBTQ icon

28 notes · View notes

homophyte · 1 year

Text

it is interesting to me that ive seen lately (n yknow this is subjective and likely not any real social force just what ive seen) many queer people simultaneously talking about taking back and embodying unpalatable and ‘unmarketable’ queerness (the recent return to the terms faggot and transsexual come to mind) which i think is pretty evidently shaped by the conservative moment were in of demonizing queer ppl and especially gnc and trans people as predators--it reads as a return to queer isolationism in the face of external hostility, imo--while at the same time ive seen a lot of rallying around the “original” 6 stripe rainbow flag as opposed to any of the purportedly ‘factional’ flags of different queer identities, with the assumption being different identity flags divide us while the rainbow flag encompasses everyone and its kinda fascinating to me bc the rainbow flag is probably the single most marketable and palatable and uncontroversial symbols of queerness which has been seamlessly uptaken by those who wish to sell it back to us as gets pointed out every pride month with all the cringey pride merch.... i dunno you could maybe take that as a point of hypocrisy and claim the queer community is itself in a conservative moment rn where its returning to a sense of history and historical continuity (perhaps even out of that sense of external threat) or even that the queer community has for some time been in a conservative moment given the like, decade of identity discourse and lashing out at any people deemed to not have a sufficiently established history or however we should categorize the bihets/ace discourse/transtrender-tucute discourse/pan discourse/bi lesbians discourse (because lets be frank its essentially all the same discourse just keeping up its momentum by leapfroging from one target to the next) which i think is, like, SOMEWHAT true but not entirely? its more interesting to me, in any case, as an expression of a conflict the queer community is facing given that current state of affairs RE antitransness and that very recent history. like, the simultaneous need to retreat to a safe sense of community which is welcoming to the very things the outer world is demonizing ie mutable gender, complex or contradictory experiences of gender, gender expression which is hostile to the cis binary, but also the ways in which it has to grapple with those discourses which have largely defined the community infighting for again the past decade. its queer people begging the question ‘how can we make the queer community welcoming to the girlfags and genderfucks and tboys who are being threatened when we have spent so much time making the queer community a hostile place for anyone with a non-conventional or not easily (or even just palatably) sortable sense of queer identity’. and the answer it seems to be grappling with at the moment is like, welcoming all that diversity of experience but being absolutely averse to naming it. yes we love all the fuckery with gender and sexuality never be marketable but like, ew, why are you calling yourself [insert microlabel here]. you can be genderweird but you cant call yourself genderweird. you can only exist as queer in the broadest possible way (the all-inclusive gay pride flag!) but if you try to name the specifics or use those identity labels weve been fighting over for years youre doing it wrong (the progress pride flag is now ugly and cringey and ‘too much’). i think theres something also to the way (at least on this site) transmisogynistic discourses have really taken hold as legitimate (though yknow i wont downplay how much a problem transmisogyny has like. always been in queer spaces no matter what) in the name of protecting n defending trans people. like its just regurgitated transmisogyny but its being mobilized supposedly in the service of helping trans people. idk its definitely getting a little late for me to string this together fully coherently but theres a throughline there, in the ways certain ideas are being consolidated and reified as ‘yes were more progressive now!’ when i think theres definitely something to question there in terms of like...are we? are we actually? are we doing better by the people were trying to help or are we setting strict standards and forcing ppl to adhere to them again?

#myposts #this is long and honestly probably Nothing #i dont even really have a way of proving its the same group of people saying both things except fro anecdotally seeing it #and even thats not proof either is a real social force with like power. i could be entirely wrong on every count here #but i do think theres something to the idea that like #as ive seen said #yknow 'ace discourse never ended you all just accepted ace people didnt deserve support and then moved on w those views internalized'#i think thats more broadly true for like. all those discourses i mentioned. and for the transmisogyny i alluded to #but honestly i dont even want to name the specific phenomenon im talking abt there bc those people. scare me.#but yknow ill say it ive felt way more pressure lately to not call myself pan than i did at the height of pan discourse #before it became cringe to care about it and instead of actively shitting on pan ppl we moved on to passively doing it #ive largely started just. calling myself bi to avoid the arguement. which i predicted i would have to do years ago #and now look at me doing it! not really a fluke that its happening now. i think #which isnt to say were moving 'backwards' per se but that these ideas are not now and never have been really challenged #so weve just internalized their logics--reactionary logics--and its having an interesting effect now that we need a progressive community #for our safety.#now we cant say anything about it because to bring it up is jeopardizing everything weve built and the people were keeping safe!#cause we dont count as people deserving of safety were disruptors who only belong when we dont make noise. idk. or thats how i feel #again i dont really know if this is true at all im more just...thinking through it i think #basically like what im seeing--i think--comes from simultaneously that need to be unmarketable in the face of hostility #coming into conflict with a decade of momentum to make queers solely marketable. and i think thats producing some interesting--but sucky #--discourses in the current moment #last disclaimer that i might and am likely totally wrong! okay lauren out. post send *nervous sweating*

21 notes · View notes

doonarose · 8 months

Text

Oh the romantic/platonic, sexual/not, queer/gay/neither discourse is getting complicated and I am not qualified to really wade in except EXCEPT, at the base of all this, are human social constructs that cannot actually exist as universal facts but are instead personal beliefs and thoughts and the most of us (here at least) are just finding a way to coexist with the least harm and the most happiness (kinda). Universal facts are like math and gravity, all this human feelings stuff is... mostly bullshit unless you can quantify it down to neurons and electricity and no one wants to do that.

Not to poke at the actual difficult stuff, but to go after something easier: All this debate about when Aziraphale fell in love and when Crowley fell in love and I'm just like, what are you (what am I) qualifying as love? What if they have very different definitions of love? Does that disqualify or limit one of them? Probably not, because it's all human social construct. All of these very complicated feelings and social constructs are wrapped up in humanity (for the most part, animals and plants and amoebas don't go around falling in love or trying to define a sexual relationship or a queer one (although there is increasing evidence that some higher primates, and some random other animals, have more humanity traits than human billionaires (I joke (kinda))))

I can see the kiss as sexual because I think Crowley and Aziraphale have a natural, human instinct to kiss each other (I'm projecting, welcome to media consumption). In the moment, I don't think either of them saw it as leading to sex, or even being romantic or loving (although, again, projecting, I think they are capable of, and wanting, sex and romance and love (other interpretations are equally valid)). But my personal definition of the very vague and entirely human definition of sexual is informing that analysis, and I much prefer to think of it in terms of wanting and response, in which case, yeah, sexual. Otherwise it could have been an interpretive dance. I mean, play them off as sexless and ace, but then why the kiss, why on earth is food-holes pressing together a form of communication, unless it's leaning into a (to them) irrelevant human social construct. They may as well have just shot fireballs of unromantic, unsexual, but very strong, feeling at each other. This was humanity manifest and it was sexual if you consider sexual to encompass want and longing and pining for sex beyond the moment, and it wasn't sexual if you're going to tie yourself in knots to be a super pragmatic biologist who defines sex in the third, scientific way (I teach college biology, mind you). Okay, I googled it and internet is on my side:

Anyway, 40k fics on AO3 disagree, too.

#doonas rambling

17 notes · View notes

jumpscaregoose · 1 year

Text

x laws propaganda time

alright this is the big one buckle in nerds

@ungodly-amounts-of-godly-trauma poll crash course in x laws and also lyserg diethel. all encompassing longpost, tangents included

this is probably going to be too monolithic to work as propaganda but I can do what I want

(read more for courtesy because. abomination)

we’ll begin with some light housekeeping!

Shaman King 101 real quick for those unaware: shamans are people who can see and communicate with ghosts and spirits. every 500 years there’s a big tournament to decide who gets the biggest, bestest spirit, the Great Spirit. there are two versions of SK, 2001 (a heavily manga divergent anime adaptation considered to be better on both nostalgia and writing principles) and the 2021/manga version (written by this guy hiroyuki takei who’s really not the best at writing plots and tends to forget important details. this one’s his intent for better or worse and is more canon).

IMPORTANT TERMS (that I use here but forgot to explain first oops)

spirit ally: a shaman’s primary spirit they use for combat and various tasks

over soul: putting a spirit into a physical medium to allow them to interact with the living world

mana/furyoku: interchangable english and japanese terms for a shaman’s power level. can be measured numerically

shaman king: the person who has the great spirit as their spirit ally

the original shaman king manga was written by a man named hiroyuki takei. takei is. certainly a writer ever. he’s very good at writing fun characters and character dynamics. he character designs and art are very nice (when he’s not being stupid with them. there are some CHOICES). he is very bad at most other things. like remembering timelines and plot details. or research. I will be referring to him occasionally

my area of expertise is the manga version, so assume anything I mention is from that one unless otherwise stated (most general statements do apply to both). HOWEVER, there are some x laws related things that are SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT (more traumatic) in 2001, and I will bring those up as well.

the main antagonist is this guy hao, an onmyoji from 1000 years ago who reincarnated himself to become god (the shaman king). also btw an onmoyji is a type of spiritual leader person who practiced the traditional chinese wuxing (five element) concept, that’s important later. the main protagonist is his twin brother/split part of his soul yoh. they’re really interesting but not the point of this post so

enter lyserg diethel, blorbo no. 1 for this poll (I highly recoommend starting to type his name into your search engine and clicking on the first chemical looking thing that comes up in autocomplete. I could just tell you but it’s way funnier if you find this out how I did)

when we meet lyserg he’s 14 years old (I think. the SK timeline is very broken around this part of the story and dates can vary by a couple years) and he’s joined the shaman fight (big plot tournament) to get revenge on hao, who killed his parents and burned his house down when he was 6. also he’s british, uses dowsing with a pendulum, and his spirit ally is the fairy morphine (funny if you looked up the thing from before), who’s been his friend for his entire life (comes up in trauma later keep notes). he’s also frequently depicted with poppies in the manga (infuriating when combined with the name thing and morphine. why. why is he named that. why he not opioid. this makes me so irrationally upset). lyserg meets the protagonist gang (yoh, this gay emo kid, gay emo kid’s shonen rival boyfriend, and this other guy with a hilarious running gag of summoning this guy billy with magic hitchhiking powers all the time in 2001. it’s implied hitchhiking guy and billy make out once. this show is insane). lyserg’s goal at this point is to find strong allies to beat hao, so he tries to invoke the let’s-fight-to-become-friends trope and it does work but not until he gets decked in the face for being an idiot and pays for everyone’s hospital bills. which are a thing because btw everyone got dropped out of a plane into new mexico breaking bad style for a tournament test.

while journeying with the protagonist gang, they encounter one of hao’s minions, a man named boris tepes dracula. boris is able to use his spirit ally to possess people and temporarily turn them into his vampire minions. the concept of becoming a servant to hao is so horrific to lyserg that, in the 2001 version, he begs yoh to kill him if he ever becomes one. with 100% sincerity. spoiler alert he does at one point, does not get killed, and is confused. this is also when the main event of this poll shows up.

X LAWS BACKSTORY INTERLUDE!

back in the day there were these two dudes luchist and marco lasso. marco was an orphan who grew up at luchist’s family orphanage and they had a very close paternal relationship. so close that they founded an independent supercar dealership together. enter hao, here to find minions for the shaman fight in what was at this point probably about 10 years! arson and murder! the car dealership and orphanage get burnt down, and luchist and marco swear lifelong vengeance on a kid who couldn’t have been more than 5 years old and form the x laws. they gather more people who also think a small child is the ultimate evil, including… who’s that? our next competitor!

iron maiden jeanne, blorbo no. 2 for this poll!

jeanne was a young orphan girl on the streets of mont saint michel in france (my high school functions teacher claimed to have almost drowned in quicksand there writing his name during low tide), that marco and luchist picked to become their ultimate weapon and convinced her she was sent from god to defeat hao. key point here: iron maiden jeanne is genuinely just some random little girl, no divine connection beyond that of the average shaman of her power level. and about that power level. manga/2021 shaman king has this weird little detail, where if a shaman dies or is gravely injured, their numerical power level (I’m glad 2001 only brought in numbers to surprise us with hao’s strength later on, because aaaaaaa) will increase drastically. the x laws exploit this system by having jeanne swear and oath on an iron maiden (the fake medieval torture device, not the band) and stay inside it almost 24/7. real spikes, too. blood pours out of it during her introduction.

being so close to death for probably half her life has given her immense power, and her spirit ally is shamash, the god/spirit who… issued the first laws to the babylonians in mesopotamia? wasn’t the x laws supposed to be a catholic thing?

don’t. worry. about it. normal Takei things.

real quick on religious imagery: the x laws’ over souls are “angels” these robot things (think eva unit but #aesthetic #angelcore or whatever) that they activate by shooting guns. can range from small handguns to bazookas. the second ed of the 2021 anime is also this:

youtube

take it as you will (I love the 2021 eds so much btw, my favourite pieces of shaman king animation. ed 1 for the win)

jeanne’s over souls are all also medieval torture devices (of various levels of accuracy), for example guillotines, gibbets, and the statue of apega

(also, when I say “god” in this, unless I’m referring to hao, the great spirit, or winning the shaman fight, I just mean a powerful spirit ally. it’s weird and confuses even me)

and while we’re talking about jeanne, she’s clearly named after joan d'arc, the revolutionary who heard visions from the archangel micheal on mont saint michel. jeanne wholeheartedly believes she was sent by god to defeat hao, and in the x laws’ twisted views of justice

all those who stand in their way are irredeemable sinners who deserve their gruesome deaths. the x laws are justice incarnate. hao is the ultimate evil who must be defeated at all costs (hao is spotted doing such things as. hanging out with his adoptive little sister/daughter on top of big rocks. engaging in polite conversation with his brother at coffee shops and hot springs. eating a baguette at their match. taunting his brother’s fiancée over a book)

returning to the timeline, the x laws appear and immediately kill boris (turn him into actual dust and all). resident good boy yoh and the other protagonist guys are obviously icked out, because they’d just shonen battled boris, learned his tragic backstory, and taken him out as a threat. lyserg, however, is entranced by the x laws and their gun angel robots… gun angels… angels with…

no…

*I am pulled away from my computer and executed by the comedy police*

anyways, this is the start of a somewhat out of place shakespearean tragedy for our boy. is comparing hiroyuki goddamn takei to william shakespeare a stretch? yes. so much of a stretch. does it feel right in this case? also yes. this is the start of a beautiful, fascinating, deeply frustrating spiral (this character arc has made several people I know hate lyserg diethel at some point lol)

our guys make the final walk to their destination awkwardly walking behind the x laws, who are pissed they didn’t do a murder. eventually they separate and we randomly meet god in southwest colorado. god as in the great spirit in this case. some plot shit happens and lyserg ends up separated from the rest of the protagonist gang, and he wanders into the x laws. there’s this absolutely heartbreaking scene of lyserg, this young boy mourning his parents, crying into marco’s shoulder to ask him if, just maybe, the x laws can defeat hao. and because this is a cult he says yes.

the reveal of lyserg joining the x laws is another very nice and painful scene. it’s been heavily implied to have happened (see above) but had not yet been confirmed. it’s a really good scene but I think you can only really catch the ~Vibes~ by seeing it so

important context: the guy getting sliced was lyserg’s opponent in an officially sanctioned tournament match, where you absolutely do NOT have to kill people. this is after around 3 months of being with the x laws (in the dumb manga timeline. holy shit I hate the manga timeline. in 2001 it’s different, I think it’s even less time)

so, in roughly 3 months with this group, our boy went from “standard anime revenge plot” to “actual cult member. who will kill people”. like he was fucked up before but not in a godly way. also there’s more fucked up now.

real quick jeanne thing. in the manga, most of the x laws get killed by hao (either in a tournament or while shooting a giant space laser at him, setting off a criminally underutilized subplot). some more shit happens, and jeanne ends up discovering that she’s not sent from god, but just and ordinary girl. she is surprisingly unfazed by this. I blame takei

the 2001 and manga versions both have a mutually exclusive godly fucked up thing about them so we’ll be going over those after a quick word from our sponsor: child abuse! yeah lyserg gets slapped around a lot. for not being 100% murder cult 100% of the time. it’s fucked up in a godly way yeah.

in the 2001 version, the spiral is even worse, including lyserg abandoning morphine (best friend fairy who he had a whole filler episode getting back from some goons. that morphine). and he doesn’t really stop being culty and the worst until the very end. and he’s also a lot MORE culty and the worst. he straight up kidnaps someone to use them as bait in an elaborate plan to send hao’s soul to the shadowrealm called the Gate of Babylon, this thing that’ll send everyone in a small vicinities’ souls there. I’m gonna be honest I forgot the details and the wiki was really unhelpful but that’s the gist. he does eventually get less cultish in 2001 though.

in the manga lyserg goes to hell. this isn’t actually that weird for shaman king, I haven’t mentioned it yet but at this point in the manga death has kind of lost all meaning (this comes up with a jeanne thing later. do I need to touch on red crimson jeanne in here? not really. but I’m gonna. “world is mine” -hatsune miku). 4 other guys go to hell at the same time as him he isn’t special. BUT. the hells in shaman king are pretty clearly tied to past events of their beholder’s lives, or worries they might have. for example, a character who’s hometown was flooded when they were young goes to a flooded forest (for THREE PANELS. justice for the hororen hells). lyserg’s hell is london, what looks like some weird time dilated tudor/modern london crossover (or someone not knowing what london looks like). in weird london, lyserg is attacked by a demon he calls Mastema (who, according to my beloved wikipedia, is a fallen archangel and the personification of hatred) takei clearly did at least that much research for once, because Mastema follows lyserg wherever he goes and only attacks when he thinks of his parent’s deaths and his hatred for hao. at one point, he does this to try and defeat it…

…and immediately gets pummeled

now, I’m not entirely sure this was intentional, but like. becoming an “angel” to defeat something. and that doesn’t work. 2+2, people. he comes back from hell btw. death has no meaning and all

in 2021 there’s also this scene where yoh comes to visit lyserg (because he’s the goodest boy ever and is worried about his friend) and jeanne shows up to ask yoh to join the x laws. he refuses, and she immediately switches from hello friend join us to well. murder

and we should also probably talk about zeruel. zeruel, according to google and evangelion, means “arm of god”. zeruel is the angel lyserg recieves as part of the x laws (and who he ditches morphine for in 2001). zeruel itself isn’t really that relevant overall but I felt I had to bring it up. in the manga he uses zeruel (car form) and morphine to form his armoured over soul, mastema dolkeem (flames of enmity)

oh right

five warriors

is a thing

in the manga, they introduce this concept of the five warriors, each representing one element (annoyingly, not the actual wuxing elements but instead water, earth, fire, air, and lightning?). hao’s spirit ally throughout the series has been the spirit of fire (there are spirits for each element btw) so it’s poetic that lyserg gets the flames of enmity and fire, or something.

let’s talk about the impermance of death in shaman king real quick. for most of the second half of the manga, death has basically no meaning

oh shit I just realized I forgot to mention jeanne can resurrect the dead. she can do that btw

the death-has-no-meaning train gets started when jeanne brings this one emo guy who died for emo reasons back from the dead and it’s introduced as a concept. over the course of shaman king that emo guy dies. four times. the entire main cast has died at least once (we will get to that later). by the end there is no reason to leave someone dead at all, and doing so would be really fucking stupid. guess what happens to jeanne in red crimson (shaman king spinoff manga. also the best shaman king spinoff manga my beloved)? she dies. permanently

(this screenshot was apparently what broke the post? jeanne dying too powerful for tumblr?)

it’s an ok (?) ending to her character arc (and shows how fucked up she got from the whole child cult leader thing) but it irks me somehow (there’s also a scene in the manga after jeanne discovers she’s not sent from god where she refers to suicide as “there being no act more wicked”)

resurrect my girl

jeanne’s whole thing in red crimson annoys me to no end and if I went off about it here you wouldn’t believe that red crimson is Good Actually. so I won’t. but just know that the wasted potential is off the charts

and now, for what feels like a technicality to me: asakura hao kills everyone!

at the end of the manga, hao becomes god. he also proceeds to attempt his genocide of the human race and offs the entire main cast almost instantly. it is my favourite scene in shaman king ever and I love it dearly. what matters here is that both of our guys here got killed by god himself. that’s also godly trauma. the fact that THAT’S in a lil footnote shows how fucked up everything else is tbh

and uh that’s all I can think of for lyserg and jeanne religious trauma. if you’re curious just ask me somehow and I will be glad to infodump

but really you should just go shaman king (I recommend reading the manga first and then watching 2001. the reboot anime too if you really like the story but it’s just the manga but worse)

do it

there’s some bullshit and bad writing in there but it’s still pretty good (and stupid)

#shaman king #lyserg diethel #iron maiden jeanne #dear god can this post just work #tumblr I hate you sometimes

11 notes · View notes

rainbowsky · 2 years

Text

Happy Pansexual Day of Visibility ✨🌈

A little known fact is that I actually identify as pansexual. On this Pansexual Day of Visibility, maybe I’ll talk a bit more about that...

I have identified as pansexual for many years, and most of the people closest to me know that, but I don’t tend to talk about it much outside that inner circle. I usually refer to myself as gay in part to spare myself the annoying conversations (of which I’ve had many).

Here are some of the more frustrating myth-based attitudes I’ve personally encountered:

People who treat pansexuality as a ‘novelty label’ (just a candy-coated way of saying bisexual) and will tell me all about what they think of that.

People who think pansexuality means I’m attracted to everyone all the time (sex addict) or that I’m seeking to ‘play the field’ as much as possible and ‘sample all the types of people’ (slutty/pervy) rather than simply being ‘attracted to people regardless of their gender’.

People who genuinely believe that pansexuality encompasses age and not just gender (i.e. that pansexuals are pedophiles who are attracted to minors as well).

People who believe that pansexuality is a kink for certain identities rather than an interest in/attraction for people regardless of gender.

People who believe that unless I’ve dated or slept with people of various identities, the orientation is theoretical.

People who believe that if they’ve never personally witnessed me expressing an attraction to other genders, the orientation must be theoretical or even ‘put on’.

People who assume that because I’m married to a man, I’m obviously gay and can’t be bi/pansexual.

People who believe that because I’m more attracted to men than other genders, I am gay and can’t be bi/pansexual (aka attraction to people of various genders must be equal rather than existing on a spectrum).

I’m sure I’m probably forgetting a bunch. There’s a phenomenon of “being pushed back into the closet” and wow, does it ever apply to talking about being pansexual. At least for me. So many times I’ve thought, “Why, oh WHY did I have to mention this?” 😅

So to clear things up for those who might be holding some of the above misconceptions, here’s what pansexuality is:

Experiencing attraction for people regardless of their assigned gender, gender identity or gender expression.

That’s it.

Pansexuality and bisexuality are largely interchangeable labels for many people, it’s true, but there is a lot of controversy about those two identities and what makes them the same and what distinguishes them from one another. Not everyone agrees on those meanings, and not everyone understands them as interchangeable. To this I say: use the term that you feel comfortable with. No one else gets to define or describe who you are.

No, pansexual people are not ‘oversexed’ or ‘promiscuous’ as a group. Just as being heterosexual doesn’t make you suddenly want to fuck everyone you see, neither does being pansexual.

No, just NO about the whole pedophile thing. It’s just another example of bigots trying to demonize queer identities and scare people away from accepting and supporting them.

No, pansexuality isn’t a kink.

No, there is no requirement for any sexual orientation to be ‘test driven’ in order to be valid. The idea is completely absurd. That would be like saying that you have to date everyone on the planet before you know for sure you’re in love with a particular individual. Crazy.

No, other people’s identities/orientations are not defined by whether you’ve personally witnessed them.

No, the fact that I’m eating an apple doesn’t make me allergic to all other fruits. I'm capable of enjoying a wide variety of fruits 😏.

Everything exists on a spectrum, including sexual/romantic attraction. Every person has their own particular leanings and interests, and no two people experience them in the same way. As Robyn Ochs put it, “I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.” We are the only people who get to define and describe who we are. No one else has any right to speak over us on that stuff.

I personally tend to be attracted to men much more frequently than to other people, and I also tend to have romantic attractions to men more frequently than others. But I have had both sexual and romantic attractions to a wide variety of people (*cough*Kirsten Stewart*cough*cough*), and I even explored some of those attractions in my younger years (no, sadly I haven’t dated KS 😅) .

But for whatever reason, men are my gravity, and always have been.

That doesn’t make me any less pansexual. It just makes it easier and more convenient to describe myself as gay. In fact, I identify strongly with both labels. I view myself as both gay AND pansexual. Both feel true. And like I said, we get to define ourselves in whatever terms resonate with us. This is my truth.

I encourage everyone to explore and define your own truth, and never let anyone else try to tell you who you are.

There are always going to be some struggles between people as we get to know each other and try to come to terms with our differences.

Just a reminder to everyone that we all have much more in common than we have differences between us. If we are struggling to get our heads around the idea of a different identity or orientation, it’s always best to start with the assumption that in all major ways they’re just like us, and work outward from there. The same is true for any ‘difference’, be it race, religion, social background, etc.

Of course there are differences between us, but starting out from a perspective that someone is like us - as opposed to focusing on the differences - humanizes others and makes us more compassionate, more open and more realistic as we grapple with understanding those differences. Everyone is human first, and (X label, trait, experience or identity) comes after that.

Anyway, wishing you all an empowered experience of identity/orientation, whatever that might be for you. 💖🦄

#lgbtpride #personal #pansexual day of visibility #queer calendar

95 notes · View notes