#who were grasping at straws for representation

[mixedbag-o-beans]

dan and phil and the queer joy that is radiating from this new era on the gaming channel is my roman empire. the older i get the more i realize how important it is to see older queer people that are happy

#dan and phil #dan and phil games #it’s so nice #i’m like an ‘old gay’ now #(comparatively lil 13 year old me did not expect to live this long) #i didn’t know any old gays then #it was just me and gaggle of other mentally ill gay children #who were grasping at straws for representation #clinging to ruby rose and laverne cox like our lives depended on it #it just makes my inner child happy #maybe i’m assigning meaning where it doesn’t belong #but it means something to me #dan howell #phil lester #queer joy

[neon-moon-beam]

Not Again: Ableism Post-Teal Mask Edition

Hey, how about NOT being ableist towards Carmine and Kieran?

We've already dealt with N and Submas experiencing this since Gen 5's initial run, we've dealt with Volo and then Nemona, and definitely more but those are the big ones.

Lately there seems to be this tendency of people to want to diagnose every character and you don't actually need to give every single character an armchair diagnosis right out the gate. While representation is important and some characters have enough in their characterization to suggest an illness or disability, or even seem outright coded, not every character is, or needs to be. If a character strongly resonates with your experience with an illness or disability, that's one thing; many autistic people feel seen and validated by Submas, for example. But if you're grasping at straws or stretching a character's actions or situations to make them "fit" a diagnosis, it often comes across more as pathologizing characters rather than humanizing them. It's important to not only think about why you want to portray a character this way, but whether or not it fits with their characterization and if you're using it to show an accurate portrayal, or if you're just using it to excuse/dismiss their hurtful actions, or even demonize the character.

Spoilers for the Teal Mask DLC ahead. CW for ableism.

There's a huge difference between say, Submas who are so heavily autistic-coded you'd have a harder time arguing they aren't, and someone like Kieran who shows rejection sensitivity that may or may not be a symptom of something else, or Carmine, who appears explosive and a cruel bully, but it turns out her anger comes from places of worry as well as being angry about innocent people and Pokemon being wronged. Her decision to not tell Kieran they met Ogerpon was because she knew how much Ogerpon meant to him and how bad he would feel knowing he missed her. People have been quick to decide she has low or no empathy, when the game literally shows her having a lot of it! We also don't know Carmine and Kieran's whole stories yet. We're going to see them at Blueberry Academy next (and Kieran does tell the player that Carmine does everything for him there, which is a reason he wants to get stronger). We don't know why they're going to school there, if they have friends there or a community or if they’re outcast and bullied, or where their parents are. Their attitudes, actions, or even potential symptoms may be situational. Carmine certainly appears to be acting out to the threat of her hometown being overrun by tourists (and considering how tourism tends to impact places and its locals IRL, can you blame her?) Kieran has the conflicting situation of his sister looking out for him at school for reasons we haven’t seen yet, while also verbally cutting him down. He also identified with Ogerpon even before the player arrived at Kitakami, and maybe even projected onto her for a reason. There’s a potential for a lot to be going on here without either of them needing an instant armchair diagnosis before their story arcs are complete.

A character desperate for friends doesn't necessary indicate a personality disorder, especially when their backstory is that they were left out, bullied, or even considered an outsider to a degree in the town they grew up in. Someone like Nemona or Kieran wanting to have friends after experiencing a lot of rejection and isolation doesn't instantly mean they have a personality disorder, and even if the story ended up indicating that they did, that does not give anyone the excuse to write them as "scary" or "yandere". Personality disorders are complex in potential causes and how they manifest, and using them as shorthand to write a character being a "yandere" or abusive is ableist.

And once again, it is time to bring up the subject of “feral” or “unhinged”. Whether or not Carmine has anger issues that can be given a diagnosis or Kieran has a personality disorder or anything else that can be diagnosed doesn’t matter here. Making characters “scary and unhinged” for experiencing basic human emotions is…dehumanizing. When you decide Carmine should snap and go around hurting people, you actually sound just like the people in Kitakami who are ostracizing her and whispering behind her back, making her feel like she has no place in her own community. And the same with Kieran. The last scene of the storyline in Kitakami has him vowing to defeat the player. It comes off as a bit creepy, but it doesn’t mean he’s supposed to have been a creep all along or is turning into one; from a developer/storytelling perspective, it’s literally just creating suspense for the Indigo Disk story. While Kieran is shown to be rejection sensitive, jealous, self-isolating, and at times inconsiderate (Carmine had to remind him that Ogerpon’s feelings on who she should travel with mattered too), he’s also a kid. We don’t have an exact age, but my impression was he might be a bit younger than the player. Carmine does mention him having “teen angst” but it could be a joke as she herself is a teen claiming to be over it, and it could be one of those “older kid jokes about younger kid as though older kid is an elderly person” type of jokes. But if he is a teen, he’s a younger one, and he still has a lot to learn about managing his emotions and expressing himself constructively. Nobody is always mature about that at 13 (heck, there are adults who lack emotional maturity altogether). He shouldn’t be expected to react maturely every time to things that upset him, and he shouldn’t be pathologized or considered “unhinged” every time he doesn’t. Depicting him as “unhinged” also detracts from his positive traits that we see in conjunction with, or even in spite of his negative ones. He’s jealous of the player character’s strength and skill, but he doesn’t actually resent them, despite becoming obsessed with the idea of defeating them. Ogerpon was bonding more with the player, but he still decided to help with the situation with the masks and the Lousy Three. He’s jealous that Ogerpon wanted to go with the player, but he’s still happy for both of them. It’s much more likely that we’ll see him mature as a person and recognize his own strengths independent of Carmine and the player at the end of the Indigo Disk then see him become a “madman consumed by jealousy and pursuit of power”, because Pokemon doesn’t really tell stories like that, and certainly not with non-villain characters! And if Carmine and Kieran end up fitting a diagnosis for an illness or disability, continuing to depict them as “unhinged” based on those traits is very ableist. I and others have said it in regards to Submas so many times, but it’s true for other characters too.

And this is by no means an exhaustive list of examples of the ways people are being ableist after the Teal Mask DLC has released.

With all that said, a headcanon diagnosis doesn’t excuse a character’s actions that have hurt others, and neither does a character who’s acting out is situational. Carmine still lashes out at Kieran and hurts him, even when her intentions are to protect him. Kieran still ended up causing the revival of the Lousy Three and put the player and Ogrepon in an uncomfortable situation, and will likely put the player in an uncomfortable situation at Blueberry Academy. In the end, they’re characters being portrayed with virtues and flaws, and that humanizes them much more than slapping on a diagnosis and absolving them of every hurtful action, and certainly much more than slapping a diagnosis on them and in turn using it to demonize them. And if you’re really interested in writing characters with mental illnesses and/or disabilities, and especially if it’s not based on your own experiences, you need to do some actual research, not just watch a few short videos listing symptoms by a non-professional on the video app du jour. If you’re not sure where to look, Wikipedia articles cite their sources at the bottom of the article; you can read the page you’re interested in, but please check out the cited sources too!

Sadly, this is at least the third time in just under three years that people have immediately started depicting characters introduced, or reintroduced in Pokemon, in ways that have ended up becoming ableist. It’s disappointing and disheartening to see, and to be honest, it gets tiring for those of us talking about the issue to keep talking about it. Many of the people making the ableist depictions aren’t personally affected by the issues they misrepresent, and they can just post their art or fic, and continue on their way. But for those of us who have the illnesses and/or disabilities being misrepresented, even misrepresented as entertainment, we can’t just log off and go on our way. The reality is a series, characters, or even fandom that could be our break from everyday life, and should be our refuge, instead has a fandom that  just plays out our everyday difficulties for laughs, brings up our trauma as an excuse to write a character as “haha unhinged! ooh feral!”, treats characters the way so many of us were treated by bullies, by parents and teachers who didn’t understand, and ends up alienating us from a space that should be ours, a space some of us helped build, only to have to leave as others made it unfriendly to us. It gets so tiring to have to avoid content that should be enjoyable but isn’t, to have friends ask, “Is this really how others see me?” when yet another autistic-coded character is portrayed as unhinged and creepy, or to have them tell you how yet another fic or art dehumanized them via their favorite characters, to watch people describe a character the way your peers once described you as they made fun of or ostracized you for your neurodivergence. It’s tiring to have other fans of the same series make a space alienating, inaccessible, or even antagonistic towards you, instead of fostering community.

Come on people, please do better.

Thank you for reading my post and your consideration. And if you think other people would benefit from reading this, please give it a reblog. Likes don't do anything as tumblr has no real algorithm.

#cw: ableism #I'm neurodivergent but not autistic and I'm tired of seeing the ableism impact my friends and community so negatively #People see themselves in these characters and then they see the fandom dehumanize them via the same characters #carmine pokemon #kieran pokemon #teal mask dlc

[sobeksewerrat]

Okay so- if you saw my aroace chr headcannon list, you probably saw Adam from Hazbin Hotel on there! It's been a while since I have written an essay, but honestly I really wanted to expand on my asexual Adam thought and @kiichu asked me to so here we go ;)

[ Just. Don't expect any actual thoughtful analysis. I am mostly just grasping at straws and projecting because I kin the dude ]

[ Oh yeah and I will reference the Trans Genesis AU a lot. Nope, Stanley and I did not abandon it. Sorry not sorry ]

First things first, let's look at his first appearance in episode 1.

Needless to say, he was a bit of an asshole. But something really stuck out to me.

In one of the scenes, he was recounting a date/one-night-stand he had to Charlie (because of course he was).

He clearly seemed to be describing the dinner date itself in detail, but he literally just caps it off with "and then we fucked, and it was awesome".

This line can be read in a few different ways, depending on your view.

1. They didn't actually fuck, the woman ditched him or didn't exist to begin with and he's lying to seem cooler.

2. It wasn't awesome (*at least for him, but yk could go both ways) and he wasn't about to go into detail about his less-than-stellar sexual encounter (I feel. Really uncomfortable writing this, I am too ace for this shit).

3. The logical explanation of the writers not wanting to include it for rating reasons and because of the episode's already short run time and also because we as the audience don't really need to know that. Though I think that if that were just that, a better alternative would've been that Adam either continues describing the date or starts describing the sex and either Lute or Charlie (or both) stop him.

For my interpretation of the ace Adam, we'll go with the second interpretation.

Allos love pointing out how "asexuals can still date/have sex" but they always neglect one thing: that's not exactly how sex-favourable and sex-neutral aces work.

I can't speak for everybody on the spectrum (especially since I am mostly repulsed), but wanting to have sex doesn't mean you feel sexual attraction.

So yeah this doesn't disprove him being asexual, though I am aiming for a very different interpretation.

Sex-repulsed Adam.

NOW, PLEASE HEAR ME OUT I KNOW I SOUND CRAZY!!

Ace men rarely get any representation, and a lot of men (especially cis men, but trans men too) don't realize they're ace or are actively in denial about it because of this thing called ✨toxic masculinity✨

I don't think it's too much of a hot take to say that Adam clearly falls into a lot of toxic masculinity stuff.

Being literally the first man, the original dick (or the original pussy if we're talking about the tgau), he is probably expected to uphold these harmful beliefs of masculinity or at least thinks he has to to be taken seriously (or be percieved as cis at least-).

Therefore, he's probably is in deep, deep denial of his asexuality and tries to cover it up by, well, sleeping around I guess (*hopefully not with human souls because i don't need any of the implications that come with that).

But that doesn't necessarily mean he enjoyed it, you know.

Now I don't wanna go too deep into this honestly quite depressing line of thought, so to keep it brief that's probably why he wouldn't go into detail about that one night stand- even though he totally seems like the type of guy who would talk about this stuff in excessive and unnecessary detail (can you tell I love torturing this guy. I mean if yk the TGAU you probably already know but shush).

That or because a lot of aces literally cannot talk about sex seriously. It has to be a joke or about an ao3 smut fic.

*ahem* Moving on-

The infamous "Now, I'm going to FUCK you" scene that every Adamsapple shippers love (no hate to Adamsapple shippers btw, except @roryheart fuck you Rory /lh silly (I love you buddy don't take this seriously)).

Just. Just look at his face when Lucifer says it.

It could just be pure confusion, which is quite understandable tbh.

Or we could go with the funny interpretation of Adam being so autistic and ace, he thought for a second that Lucifer was actually hitting on him this whole time and he just didn't notice. Purely because this has actually happened to me before and I wanna project-

Moreover, he looks lowkey disgusted by it and just attacks Lucifer immediately.

Whatever, now we get to the ✨angst potential✨ of ace Adam.

Elaborating on the bit of toxic masculinity from earlier, maybe he thinks that his aversion to stuff like is why both Lilith (and presumably Eve) cheated on him with Lucifer, because he wasn't a real man.

And if we wanna get really depressing, all we have to do is just remember that his only purpose was to have as many children with Eve (and previously Lilith) as possible to populate the Earth.

Yeah, sounds like a total nightmare scenario.

I have a few other ideas, but they're really half baked and not really well put together and stuff- idk I just think ace Adam is a cool idea.

Sorry if this wasn't exactly the essay any of you were looking for but I genuinely just think it'd be fun and kinda interesting to explore really.

Btw gonna make "sobek rants" exclusively for angry rants and gonna repurpose "brainingsewer" for essays and analysis and stuff. Not that anybody really cares about my tagging system.

#brainingsewer #sewer dump #tw sex mention #the only guy in the bible #idk i am just throwing words into the world

[elliespuns]

hi! i just saw ur post on how it’s hypocritical for people to criticize making ellie straight but not to criticize making straight characters lesbian, i’m not sure if i misunderstood what you were trying to say but as a lesbian i think that the reason why people (myself included) would’ve been so offended at that is because to make a lesbian character straight isn’t the same as making a straight character lesbian. we already have so little representation in media and in life in general so we are (righteously imo) very protective of lesbian figures in media. the reason why it’s different is because (obviously) lesbians and the lgbt community has been oppressed for centuries, whereas the straight community has not, and by making ellie straight one would erase not only representation but also disrespect lesbians in general. i’m sure you meant no harm and i’m not trying to critique or be rude or anything 💀💀 just trying to educate. feel free to ignore this lmao

First, let me explain. I definitely did not mean any harm to the lesbian community (I myself am attracted to girls, even though I prefer not to label myself and stay out of any community). If I were disrespectful, I'd be disrespectful towards myself too.

I would have never said anything if there weren't people attacking me for absolutely nothing. I just got angry, that's all. What threw me over the edge was that the lesbians were grasping at straws, seeking conflict. I literally just wrote (in this dialogue) that Ellie was in her room with her boy friend (every normal person knows it means a friend that is a boy, hence the space in between), yet they went ballistic. And for what? For nothing. I'm just not a fan of people who use their identity to seek out conflicts, so they'd feel good about having positive feedback from others online (and they had it; even without context, even without having to understand the whole thing).

It just felt too much, and I hate drama (as if I didn't have enough of it in my own personal life, lol). So I kind of just needed to vent through that one ask that apparently caused another misunderstanding (am I just prone to it or what?)

Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with lesbianism. It's just that I've encountered a lot of maniacs in this community that it sometimes makes me feel like most of them just seek anything to defend (again, I am not aiming this at every one).

Anyway, sorry for the misunderstanding. Hope I won't have to explain myself again in any of my future posts, because, c'mon, we live in the 21st century. Everyone has the right to have an opinion, even if it is the opposite of what we stand for :)

#let's move on #ellie williams #ellie tlou #the last of us #tlou #elliespuns answers

[brightlotusmoon]

I don't understand the concept of pro shippers and antis. Like I have some ships that are really problematic and some that aren't. Like I get people hating certain things like, I have certain things that I don't like. Am I weird though? For it? Cause I have some weird ships. Age gap doesn't really bother me. Especially if they fictional. Or like cartoon characters. In live action things I get if if the characters were actually kid actors. That I get. But most of the time I'm just shipping the adult actors with who their characters are playing am I making sense? Most of the time for cartoons and shows they usually have adults playing the characters. So why is it a big deal to write smut or other stuff? I don't know. Am I making sense or is their something wrong with me? Just all this pro and anti stuff just makes me paranoid and my ocd bad. Like am I bad? I don't see myself as either cause I feel lik it's broad a term.

I'm with you. These concepts didn't exist when I entered fandom. I'm still trying to figure things out.

All I know is that the phrase "these turtles are underage and brothers" is something I never expected to see with my own eyes from when the antishippers infested the Ninja Turtles fandom. I got accused of being complicit in pedophilia and threatened with a purging or whatever they thought would scare me. This is a fandom based on a parody, with animal humanoids that barely have human type biologies, let alone ones that can be compared to humans. Do you understand how ridiculous this sounds? I just typed it and I'm completely baffled.

From what I gather, the anti side is desperate for control over something, anything, and flailing for the flimsiest straws they can grasp. The pro side appears to be chilling, playing with fictional representations of the human (ish) condition, occasionally declaring little wars over which ship is better. Really fun analytical threads. Sometimes I feel squicked by a ship or a theme, so I stop reading.

And the neutrals - I guess that's me - are standing off to the side passing around popcorn.

*hands you popcorn*

In conclusion, I have no goddamn clue, but I'm here for the ride.

(But I will say this: I will write that poly smut fic one day and damned if a whiny threat from a miserable teenager halfway across the country will give me pause.)

#antis are a cult #fine you can devour my knees because i ship something you hate #let people have their headcanons #stop blaming fandom creators for your morality problems #mikey and donnie are in a polyamorous triad #bring back squick

[zumurruds]

Choose violence ask game: 3, 4 & 9… for tic

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

oh god there are so many, and it's been a while...

people who label eragon as "creepy" for his pursuit of arya, often overlooking the context of his actions.

yes, the writing was cringy as hell, but his attempts at courting arya were not predatory or malicious; they stemmed from him being a sixteen year old with genuine affection and a desire to express his feelings. his interactions with arya were limited, including a simple compliment in a garden and an incident where oromis exposed his feelings through a magical fairth without his consent and without eragon meaning to create it. additionally, eragon's behavior while intoxicated with magic during the agaetí blödhren was not representative of his normal self, and he later expressed regret for his actions. arya not only accepted his apologies but also continued their friendship.

people who argue that arya only sees eragon as a friend and deny any romantic subtext in their relationship, failing to grasp its nuances.

people who misrepresent arya and eragon's age gap.

eragon is considered an adult in his medieval human society at sixteen, where individuals of his age were already taking on adult responsibilities such as marriage, parenthood, and ruling. arya, despite being older, is still considered a child by elven standards. elves mature at a slower rate than humans, so making direct comparisons between their ages is inaccurate and misleading. arya isn't a 100 year old human woman, she's a rebellious teenage elf. comparing their ages to those of different species, like dogs and cats versus humans, helps illustrate this disparity more accurately.

it's important to remember the unique context of their ages within their respective races. by the conclusion of the series, eragon has significantly caught up to arya in terms of experience and maturity. his journey, encompassing growing up amidst war, undergoing a transformation into an elf-human hybrid, living as a fugitive, and delving into the politics of various nations, has profoundly shaped him. through his travels to diverse regions and exposure to different cultures, as well as inheriting the collective memory of the dragons, eragon has undergone immense personal growth and development. this growth has closed the gap between himself and arya in terms of life experience and maturity, establishing them as equals, as paolini intended.

sympathizing with morzan and painting selena as the abusive figure in their relationship. (yes, i have seen this, and it was awful.)

people disagreeing with paolini's statement that eragon inherited his mother's instinct to constantly debate the morality of her actions, but have no issues with comparisons made between brom and eragon, even though eragon wasn't raised by him either. just say you hate selena and go!

depicting faolin as arya's first love or mate. paolini said they had a relationship of convenience, and that neither faolin or arya shared their true name with each other in the twenty years they were together, indicating a lack of mutual trust and intimacy. paolini also said arya didn't give faolin her true name because he wasn't soulmate material, implying eragon was. sis couldn't even say she loved faolin in brisingr, she skirted around the issue and called him a friend, so it strikes me as funny that people think faolin was the great love of her life when in reality he was a warm body in an otherwise foreign war-torn country.

i don't think tic is revolutionary or doing anything particularly amazing in terms of representation, be it poc representation or female representation, and gets far more credit than it deserves.

4. what was the last straw that made you block that annoying person

it was a few people who had particularly bad takes about characters i liked, and kept spamming the tag with asks and long posts that weren't hidden behind cuts or tagged for tumblr savior.

9. worst part of canon

the writing.

arya being allowed to become both rider and queen.

the omission of selena's significance from the narrative and her portrayal as a mere prize for brom's actions.

katrina being a non-character who exists only to fuel roran's story and character.

the lack of planning and outlining of arya and eragon's relationship was evident, resulting in a clumsy, unsatisfying, and poorly executed romance that spanned four books yet ultimately led nowhere.

the lack of onscreen development for all romances: roran and katrina's relationship feels static, as it predates the events of the books and receives little exploration. murtagh and nasuada's romance is entirely offscreen, leaving readers disconnected from their dynamic. as for arya and eragon, their relationship suffers from inconsistent writing and execution, fluctuating unpredictably throughout the series. overall, the lack of onscreen development for these romances undermines their depth and leaves much to be desired in terms of emotional investment from the audience.

disappointment with the one-dimensional portrayal of galbatorix, morzan, and the forsworn despite paolini's saying he doesn't write cardboard villains.

wanting more exploration of murtagh and eragon's relationship and closure, especially regarding their parents.

lack of scenes or details on elva and eragon's training and bonding in tftwtw which was prime material for their ongoing rocky relationship arc.

paolini's tendency to prioritize action over character study and relationship depth.

writing arya as a stereotypical "strong, independent woman" who must sacrifice love for duty, and cannot have both.

#the inheritance cycle #eragon #choose violence game

[spockula]

i finally finished shameless and i need to get at least a few things off my chest, won’t make sense

it feels only right to do it here on tumblr where in 2013 i came across the series through a gif set of ian and mickey’s first spicy interaction at the og milkovich house

which was back when there was so little gay representation in tv shows that i was grasping at straws and would watch just about anything

and i think everyone who’s seen will say that particular storyline was incredibly hard to stomach

as was pretty much everything in the show tbh, one of the reasons i stopped watching after getting caught up sometime in 2015ish? picked it back up during the first round of miss rona, then waited for s11 to come out, watched half the season, dropped it again, came back to it this week since it’s been on my mind a lot lately

s11 made a lot of choices that i’m not entirely sure i liked or not, i just let it happen to me, though i think the first half of the season was better

william h. macy deserves every award and nomination for his role, wish the rest of cast were appreciated as much, especially noel fisher, jeremy allen white and emmy rossum, though i guess they were fan favourites

i will most likely never ever rewatch the series as i mentioned it’s a lot (hence why i never rewatched the earlier series when i picked it back up in 2020)

it’s been a wonderful car crash of storylines and human misery to watch, jogging my blood pressure which is otherwise akin to that of a dead person

loved it, hated it, obsessed over it, never going to forget it🖤

and i privately thank everyone involved, i’m in awe they kept going and delivering for so long

#shameless us #gallavich

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

it’s like. the owl house crew definitely wants to explore the huntlow ship. they have hunter blush any time willow acknowledges his existence. like 30% of promo arts and the crew art show the same thing. if you squint there are some narrative parallels between caleb and hunter, in that they both developed romantic feelings for a witch. (although i still maintain that LUZ is the caleb out of her and hunter and LUMITY, not huntlow, is supposed to parallel caleb and evelyn) the people who argue that hunter doesn’t actually have a crush on willow are straight up wrong imo.

just because characters blush at each other in non romantic contexts in the show doesn’t mean hunter blushing at willow isn’t in a romantic context. whether or not the ship gets together they’re definitely going to address it at some point - it’s not just fans desperate to ship hunter with someone. there’s definitely groundwork laid out that he has a crush on willow. (and i agree with a point by huntlow shippers - teasing that a character has a crush on a fat asian girl and revealing that actually, he never found her attractive to begin with is. not great. like representation wise.)

that being said i dont think the ship was well written like. at all? after the episode they met hunter and willow have never had another on-screen conversation. there were a few scenes where they talk AT each other, but like. hunter and gus had a heart-to-heart about gus’s dad and the emperor’s coven in thanks to them. willow confronted amity about how amity’s still treating willow like she did when they were kids, even though she’s a different person now. where’s that emotional vulnerability for huntlow?

they imply that hunter sent willow a picture of flapjack. (though hunter wasn’t surprised at how illusion willow was wary of him in labyrinth runners so i don’t think they talked THAT much after the flyer derby episode) then they show pictures of hunter, gus, and willow hanging out. they show willow giving hunter a haircut but don’t give us them talking about it. like yes if there were a full season 3 they probably would have had more episodes of them bonding but the crew already cut out like 20 other subplots that feel more important than a ship. (like the blight parents divorce arc or whatever was going on with the bat queen) imo if they didn’t have time to write a good romance, then they should have cut out the romance.

it’s like the writers are going out of their way to avoid hunter and willow having any meaningful interaction. hunter definitely has a crush on willow but willow seems like she doesn’t see hunter as more than a friend. people point to shots where willow looks at hunter fondly and say that’s proof that she reciprocates his feelings which i think is grasping at straws. not only is gus with hunter in those scenes, but willow looks at luz and gus that way too. yes they show emphasis on her being upset when hunter’s in danger sometimes but thats like. what she does to all her friends. willow is just a protective friend. the fact that they SHOW willow worrying over hunter is a point towards teasing the huntlow ship, though. Even so, a few (dubiously) longing glances and helping each other in battle still doesn’t make up for how they LITERALLY have not had a conversation in 9 episodes.

like neither of the other two actual romance plots in toh have been this subtle. the moment raine comes back into eda’s life they both become flustered messes and every conversation they have is extremely romantically charged. even before amity started turning into a tomato around luz, they had a bunch of opportunities to bond over shared interests. and more importantly, luz actively sought out amity multiple times to get to know her, something we never saw willow do for hunter after the flyer derby episode. and this is with the mouse breathing down dana’s back, yelling about how children would explode into rainbow glitter if they so much as see two girls look at each other. you’d think building up a m/f couple would be easier even with less episodes, but they don’t show willow liking hunter romantically at all. if they do get together in the end, it’s definitely not going to be well written.

i personally really like the theory that willow would reject hunter’s love confession. i think it would be good to portray someone being rejected romantically, but it not being the end of the world and the two still being friends after. it would be like dipper and wendy in gravity falls, except willow doesn’t have a “good” reason to reject hunter other than the fact that she doesn’t like him back. it would be nice to show that that is a good enough reason to reject someone. if this IS what theyre planning, then the lack of substantial interactions between hunter and willow would make more sense, since it shows willow doesn’t have any reason to have a crush on hunter.

(that one stream the owl house crew had also makes me think this will be the case. dana terrace’s reaction to someone asking if huntlow will happen seems too extreme for them just to get together without anything going wrong. dana likes to subvert expectations in her show, so this tracks for her.)

however, even if that happens, the amount of ship teasing from the crew in their promo arts would seem kind of...cruel to people who ship huntlow? like i don’t think a romance plot fits into either of their character arcs, but the show and the crew seems to be shoving them together, even though they have next to no chemistry in the show. for them to build up this ship, only to have willow reject hunter or even to never bring it up, feels like theyre trampling on the fans who took it in good faith. it feels like they’re making fun of the fans for thinking a ship would happen, even though they were the ones that told them so in the first place.

like don’t get me wrong, after decades of queerbaiting in media it would be HILARIOUS if the crew straightbaited the huntlow ship. but i disliked the ship from the start. i never invested time into looking at how this ship would play into the bigger story by presuming it would happen. its pretty much agreed that queerbaiting is cruel. to queer fans but also to people who invested time into the pairing in general. while straightbaiting isn’t necessarily cruel to specifically queer or straight fans bc there are other queer ships in toh and other straight ships literally everywhere, it still feels mean to people who like the ship. if huntlow doesn’t get together, it would have to be handled in a respectful way. otherwise the crew will lose the goodwill from a lot of fans, including me.

anyway my point is whether or not the huntlow ship gets together by the end of the show every single tag relating to hunter and willow will be completely unusable for like a month after each episode comes out. because either all the huntlow likers will be yelling about how it doesn’t make sense that huntlow didn’t get together or all the huntlow dislikers will be yelling about how it doesn’t make sense that huntlow got together. i personally will be making memes ahead of time for both occasions and posting them as the situation demands.

what im hoping is that they do what they did in thanks to them. which is have something else ABSOLUTELY AWFUL happen to one of them. so everyone is screaming about THAT instead of the huntlow ship. preferably something awful happens willow bc hunter already Went Through It like 20 times so willow should get a turn for character development purposes. like when thanks to them came out willow tenderly cradled hunter’s head in her lap and gave him a desperate hug after he almost died and for like 24 hours after the episode pretty much no one was talking about it. because everyone was talking about the belos possession and flapjack dying. i want that energy for the next two episodes. hopefully that will make the tags usable no matter what happens to the huntlow ship.

#toh #the owl house #huntlow #hunter toh #hunter noceda #willow park #shut up pandora #i really dont want hunter and willow to get together but if they do #i dont want them to be hunter and willow park when they get married #i want them to be hunter and willow noceda clawthorne whispers deamonne park #hunter spent his whole character arc collecting last names he isnt going to stop just because he marries someone #lowhunt

[vincent-marie]

Rant Time: SUCKER PUNCH

-_-

Okay, so I have a BIG problem with a lot of the defenses for SUCKER PUNCH.

Now, this isn't about the die-hard Zack Snyder fanboys grasping at straws for the vaguest of symbolism to "prove" that their senpai can do no wrong. (Those people get blocked on sight cuz they clearly can't have a healthy relationship with fictional media.)

No, what concerns me is when I have seen women defend it as a power fantasy. That these are feminine-dressed sex workers kicking ass & taking names.

The biggest problem I have with that argument is, in the brothel reality, these ladies ARE NOT doing sex work cuz they want to. This isn't THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS. This isn't the Chicken Ranch were sex workers WANTED to make a living there & were given a modicum of respect, at least for the time period.

In SUCKER PUNCH it's human trafficking at best, & I fail to see how that can be sexually empowering in any way.

Much of why I hate this movie is that it has this underlying condescending subtext that these women have no other choice than to live through their suffering & any attempts to escape will either have them killed or lobotomized. Not helped that all the ladies have such infantilizing stripper names that you KNOW they didn't choose for themselves.

And Sweet Pea "escaping" does nothing cuz it seems to be happening in one of the non-reality realities, & only exists so the movie can have it's own version of the ambiguous spinning top at the end of INCEPTION.

I think the biggest reason folks defend this as a sexual power fantasy is because we are, in fact, STARVING for some decent, humanizing representations of sex workers. Or sex worker characters as a power fantasy that aren't written by dirty old men.

That's why I fell in love so hard with the character of Angel Dust when I discovered HAZBIN HOTEL.

Here was a sex worker character who WANTED to get into sex work. He's not ashamed of it, he doesn't need to be rescued a la PRETTY WOMAN, & it's a profession he legit enjoys.

As demonstrated in ADDICT & the prequel comic closest thing to "rescuing" he needs is a positive support structure to help him get away from his shitty boss, not unlike how Harley Quinn needed a supportive friend in Ivy to help get away from the Joker.

And it's also why I created my own character of the succubus Velvet Ophelia. An asexual sex worker in a steady relationship with her supportive & encouraging sex-positive husband Johnny Long-Legs.

We need more media that de-stigmatizes & normalizes sex work & NOT through the filter of cishet men trying to cater to those with the empathetic capacity of selfish, horny teenage boys.

#sucker punch #sex work representation #hazbin hotel

[gmanwhore]

//minor vent

Every time I see tags that are like ‘oh you’re homophobic if you read the relationship between [insert two characters of the same sex] as anything other than romantic’ I feel the need to punch a wall.

Like, a post absolutely TRASHING people who don’t like a certain wlw ship came by my dash today, and some of the tags were downright aphobic about it. Most of the points they brought up about the whole ‘there’s no way they just care in a friend/family way’ idea literally only proved that they care about each other, they only really had one tidbit said in an interview later that described anything romantic, and the idea that the only reason two women who used to hate each other would care about each other is if they’re romantically/sexually in love is amatonormativity at its finest. Let me have my robot found family for crying out loud. (I’m literally a lesbian and want more wlw in media as much as the next queer, but that doesn’t mean I have to grasp at straws and ship every two fictional women who vaguely care about each other, ‘I think there should be more wlw representation’ and ‘I prefer to interpret these two female characters who are often interpreted romantically in a platonic/found-familial sense’ should not be contradicting statements, for sparkles’ sake!

Oh god exactly. I have gotten that so bad in different fandoms and it just sucks so bad like just leave people alone!!!!

[twosentencereviews]

Is Spider-Gwen trans?

I saw Across the Spider-Verse when it came out recently. It's fantastic, you should go see it. I did note while watching that Gwen's room has a trans rights flag in it, but didn't really think anything of it.

But then, I saw this article on CNN saying that there's a fan theory that Spider-Gwen is trans. They point out the trans flag, as well as other details like the pink-and-blue pastel shades, and just like, the general vibe of the character, you know?

Let's dissect this take from a few angles.

The first thing to observe is that Spider-Gwen is not real. She's a fictional character. Her existence is a delusion that the filmmakers put in our heads, and we as audience members choose to suspend our disbelief about. This means that "is Spider-Gwen trans" is the wrong question to ask; she isn't anything, because she just isn't.

But that's not the end of the discussion, now is it? Just because she isn't real, doesn't mean she doesn't matter, because discussions about art affect the people who are real in the world.

One question that has a refreshingly simple answer is "does Spider-Gwen's story resonate with trans people?" That seems to be yes, according to the CNN post. That's not surprising; Spider-Gwen is an incredibly well-written character, and the struggle of being open about your true self with the people around you is relatable to a lot of people with marginalized identities. If a trans person watches Spider-Gwen and says "this feels true to my life" then that's great.

But a muddier question is "did the creators intend for Spider-Gwen to be trans"?

The "yes" argument is backed up by the fact that they took the time to put the trans flag in her room. With how insanely elaborate the Spider-verse animation style is, that is far from an accident, and it's framed in a way that calls attention to it.

They didn't explicitly say it, though. They have (at least so far; maybe Beyond will change this) left it in the realm of coding and plausible deniability. You don't have to be trans to have a Protect Trans Kids flag, just like you don't need to be black to have a Black Lives Matter flag. Her world's background art has a lot of pastels, but pinks and soft blues are also just, like, feminine colors. They could just be there to highlight the fact that Gwen is a teenage girl and Miles is a teenage boy (his surroundings tend to have more oranges and reds). And Gwen's relationship with her dad is deliberately juxtaposed against Miles and his parents, as parallel Spider-person arcs.

If they didn't intend Gwen as trans, but the reading comes through anyway, they might choose to stay silent because saying "no, this character you're excited about isn't trans, stop having fun" is kind of a dick move. This paints either paint the creators as oblivious ("whoops, we did a trans") or the fans as ravenously starved for good trans representation (justifiably so, but still) and grasping at straws.

So, what if they did intend Gwen to be trans? Then why not make it explicit?

There is one possible, mostly okay justification. One of the differences between being LGB and being T is that, if you're gay, you want other people to recognize you as gay, and have uniquely gay experiences (namely, same-gender romance). But if you're trans, you just want to be treated like the gender you are, and have the fact that you were assigned differently at birth be something forgotten or deemed irrelevant. With this in mind, if Gwen is intended to be trans, then not signposting that and letting her just be a normal teenage girl (with superpowers, obviously) might be trying to treat this with respect. That's the charitable reading.

A disappointing justification might be that the creators wanted to be more explicit, but corporate said no. Trans rights are a current political battleground, and Sony might have vetoed to cover their ass. Or, alternatively, maybe it was no-go because it violates Marvel canon--Gwen Stacy has never been trans before in the comics. This would make the hints and innuendos the creators pushing in as much representation as they were allowed.

But the worst justification is, simply, queerbaiting. If you hint that a beloved character might be trans, you get all the attention from pro-trans people but can maybe duck the heat from the bigots. (Note: this never works. Fox News sees "the trans agenda" everywhere; they are hypervigilant and keyed in, same as trans people and allies, just for all the wrong reasons.) Queerbaiting is frustrating and stupid and bad, because it treats LGBT issues as useful for boosting sales and viewership...but not worth engaging with honestly or openly.

Which leaves me with my last question. Assuming no further developments in Beyond, should we accept Spider-Gwen as a trans icon? Should we point to Spider-Gwen as "good trans representation" even without explicit confirmation from the creators (in-story or meta-textually)?

I don't think we should. This isn't enough. Whether Spider-Gwen is trans-coded by accident, stealth trans to slip past the censors, outright queerbaiting, or just a really good character that trans people happen to emotionally connect with...this isn't isn't what representation means. Representation means taking a stand, saying "trans experiences are normal and healthy; transphobia is abnormal and shameful". As long as an average person can leave the theater oblivious to your coding, you aren't moving the needle of public perception.

Don't take this as a condemnation. Across the Spider-verse is a truly excellent film with tons of other good representation. I particularly like the fact that there's a Spider-man actively parenting his kid, and a pregnant Spider-woman kicking ass. And, of course, the lead is still a black Hispanic teen. All of that is good and rare and awesome. But I'm not going to give them more than they've earned on Gwen maybe being trans.

#across the spiderverse #spider gwen #trans

[kitsu-katsu]

That person is and I are around the same age -- full blown adults in fandom! and they're still spewing the same stuff that made me feel uncomfortable in fandom spaces for a decade.

There's two issues here 1) they're spouting off like the mere acting of shipping a couple somehow making them amazing iconic representation. I loved Legend of Korra and Catradora is the same old thing that happened there. Two female characters that had amazing potential that weren't allowed to do anything until the last episode of the series because no one wanted or was able to actually rock the boat and develop them beyond them beyond the big reveal. Shipping doesn't fix that the canon material fell short. It just means you liked the potential and fandom did something with it that the show didn't. 2) The constant squawking about how how romantic relationships ARE found family is incredibly missing the the point. Like, this isn't even about our little Minecraft dudes and I don't think they've realized this, but they've expressed some level of disdain about every. single. platonic. pairing. Even the platonic pairing of John and Sherlock versus the romantic one got a digital equivalent of an eyeroll. Like, for people not interested in romantic relationships they aren't the same. For people who are interested in romantic relationships they're not the same. A romantic relationship is NOT a fix all that covers every single other type of dynamic and then adds something more (which is how it comes off). It makes people feel like they should just be happy with the romance because it should already cover whatever other emotional need they have, or that they're missing out on something if it doesn't include it, and I don't anyone realizes it comes off.

Saying friendships in fandom, or even media in general, isn't neglected or shoved off as something less shows a complete disregard for fandom history. Every tv show and movie shoves in a romance. Fandom will fucking make a popular ship out of demon hunting brothers if there's no other romance option. Fandom will have only 6 platonic relationships in the top 100 and go "why do you guys care about these all of these romance pairings ALSO consider themselves family" and not see the issue.

FUCKING PREACH

It gets me mad, for real

And the fact that all of these people saying stuff like this act in that twitter activism "I'm more morally righteous than you because I ship poc lesbians and think they should win" type of way only makes it so much worse

I do not give a damn if fandom went off the walls and did amazing things with them while the canon material held off until the end kiss, I don't give a damn if they started off as bffs or wanted to kill eachother, I don't give a damn if they were always canon. You are not morally superior to me because you ship gay ships that were canonized in the last episode

Breaking news! Gay ships are always the biggest ships

Breaking news! We are not doing "what event in media changed the game for representation" olympics anyway, we are talking about fandom space which functions differently to talking about the media landscape at large, so I don't particularly care how hard it may have been to get a canon gay kiss in, fandom has fanon gay kisses of every character under the sun galore

Breaking news! Romance is ALWAYS put over friendships and platonic relationships of any kind. You are not a radical, you are not revolutionary, and saying that not voting your poc lesbians is "racist and lesphobic" is quite frankly ridiculous and typical "twitter user is grasping at straws to morally condemn something they really dislike for a petty reason" behavior

The undervaluing of platonic bonds while romance means "more than friends" is not an act of revolution. It is literally the voice of amatonormativity. You are not bringing home some big W for the queers that you think you are, and calling very possibly aro people homophobic again and again because your sorry ship is for once losing is not the gotcha you think it is

I don't care about your "found family" if it's actually "these two are in love and they kiss passionately, then there's the other filler guys, anyways, have I told you that the lesbians kiss yet??" And I also don't care about your found family if it's actually "3 monogamous romantic pairings in a trenchcoat"

Can you call them found family? Yeah. Is it the type of platonic-centric one that would ACTUALLY be a surprise if it won in a fandom context? Hell no

Because fandom ships. Romantically. It is just what fandom does. As you said Firesnap, every tv show and movie shoves in a romance and fandom will ship two brothers if left out of options

Saying that the little, rare, purely platonic dynamics there are worth an eye roll because "oh these are also found family" when what people actually care about is the romance aspect is so infuriating

I don't want your romance. I don't care. It is not revolutionary like you think. Fandom always ships gay anyway. Society at large always undervalues friendship and platonic relationships of all kinds because it means "just friends". And holy shit, wanting a platonic dynamic to have a W for fucking once in a largely romance-only space does not make you homophobic or racist, what are you on about?

#kitsu rambles #amatonormativity #aro #aromantic #aroace #this is so /neg #I will start biting people again. whenever they use the homophobic argument I see red #like bro. shall I bring my girlfriend with me to testify to you that gay ships are always king in fandom? as if you didn't know?

[stolen-stardust]

swinging at the hornets nest again but god imagine netflix witcher fans are coping so hard that geralt/jaskier isn’t canon. it’s honestly so funny at this point besties just admit you’re grasping at straws to make these two men who clearly can barely stand each other’s presence… i love a good “grumpy man and his golden-retriever-energy boyfriend” vibe as much as anyone but the show is Not giving that lmao it is not the gay representation u think it is

side note, if book!geralt were to abandon dandelion on the top of a mountain, it would 1. not be a thing he did willingly and 2. regardless of the reason he would spend the next two actual years apologizing profusely and insisting that dandelion accompany him for as long as he (dandelion) can tolerate him

#choosing more violence again today idc anymore #the witcher

[beebrainedstudios]

Forgot to add the numbers

For the ask meme Eli ever 1, 2, 3, 10, 16 and 27

Hi, thanks for the ask! I’m going to insert a page break after a few questions btw just because some of these might get long!

1. My first impression of them.

This guy gives me weasel vibes- not just sneaky insomuch as “cute, small outward appearance that hides an incredibly calculating and dangerous creature that is one of the best hunters on the planet” vibes. 

2. When I first truly started to like/dislike them.

Perhaps a less popular opinion, but I’ve always liked Eli. He’s a lot of fun to read about even if he’s a super twisted, messed-up, terrifying dude. The first time I can remember recognizing this though is in Chapter 6 of Part 2 of Vicious (pg 219 of the hardcover). On this page, you learn that he actually killed the janitor who caught him snooping around at Lockland after he killed Professor Lyne. The way he goes about justifying it to himself is just so messed-up, where he says that technically it was probably ok because there were so many circumstances that could have changed- “God wanted to intervene he would have,” basically- and that technically he didn’t mean to, even though he looked up the guy’s schedule to make sure he was on the road the one time the guy worked at night. I’m pretty sure I laughed at it the first time- not because it was funny, but because it was so off-putting and deeply wrong and I was amazed that he was making those kinds of mental gymnastics. Eli’s mentality is a fascinating subject to read, because he’s grasping at justification straws for 99% of his decisions, and half the time the conclusion he comes to is just... well, God didn’t stop me. It’s a great paragraph even if it’s creepy as heck.

3. A song that reminds you of them.

As with Victor, I’m going to cheat and do a few because I think it would be fun. A mild profanity (all songs) + drug mention (second song) + violence mention (last one) warning for these btw!

A Mask of My Own Face- Lemon Demon

A mask of my own face, I’d wear that...

A lot of Lemon Demon songs work for Eli, but this one takes the cake; it’s a perfect representation of Eli’s deceptive qualities and approach to life- fake it till you make it, even if that means hiding your personality and never having a genuine conversation with anyone but your similarly sinister nemesis.

Giver- K Flay

I’m learning to live, I’m trying to be better...

When you remember that all of Eli’s decisions basically revolve around trying to atone for his actions while also trying to keep himself alive/not in anguish, this song makes a lot of sense; his idea of “atonement” is just incredibly skewed. He’s a very desperate character, in more ways than one, and this song gives me “desperately trying to stay afloat” vibes.

I am not a beast, I’m not a monster,

I don’t care what you say,

You can’t have the bad guys without a hero,

And I’m the only one who’s got a cape...

This song is really Eli-like to me. Soft, sad, but also deeply angry and even menacing at one point. It also speaks to longing for the past and not wanting people to change, which is true to his character as well.

10. Describe the character in one sentence. 

When his mother called him an angel, I don’t think she meant the inhumanly terrifying, avenging, obsessed with justice kind; I don’t think he got the memo.

16. A childhood headcanon.

Eli was actually a really nice kid growing up; he was good with animals, sweet to his neighbors, that kind of thing. Unfortunately, that kind of behavior doesn’t help you climb up the social pecking order very fast when you’re inherently shy and constantly being shoved from home to home. All it did was convince the other kids that Eli was trying to curry favor with their parents (which, he was, but not in an attempt to push others out). Eli quickly tamped that niceness down and eventually dropped it in favor of a more confident and ruthless personality- he essentially went from a follower to a leader. When he could get away with it Eli would gladly make others look bad (such as by blaming them for accidents or accusing them of bullying); he would do anything to look good to others, but adults always took priority over the opinions of other kids. He was very much a “teacher’s pet” to any adult who would give him attention, and while he was sometimes able to get away with having decent-if-distant friendships in school or in his foster homes, he also burnt a lot of bridges trying to impress the authority figures in his life. 

27. If they could meet another character from another show/movie/book/etc., who would be the most fun for them to meet?

I honestly think a situation where the Criminal Minds BAU was called to Merit would be very entertaining (it’s a concept I’ve played around with recently), because this random civilian is just being allowed to assist the cops for no reason, his girlfriend has somehow convinced the entire police force to listen to him, and he is very obviously putting on some sort of facade. Like, I know Eli is supposed to be very charming in canon, but it seems to be a fragile illusion considering Sydney, Victor, and Stell all seemed to see through it really quickly. Eli’s “hero” persona wouldn’t stand a chance against the BAU.

(Plus, imagine Reid reacting to the existence of superpowers. He’d have a field day.)

Thanks again for the ask!

Ask game here!

#Eli: terrible but entertaining #like an explosion in a movie #he's the worst #He's like Rhy from ADSOM but religious evil and in a constant state of denial #vicious #ve schwab #villains ve schwab #villains duology #vengeful #eli ever #eli cardale #victor vale #bee asks #ask bee #also I'm still playing around with that crossover #because Eli is NOT prepared for a trained team of behavioral analysists #but Serena kind of is #and stuff would go down #violence mention #drug mention #profanity warning

[bookishfeylin]

For me it’s a little bit weird with all the “golden skin”/“golden brown”/“brown” skin discourse because knowing white people my entire life, listening to them talk about themselves and each other, and reading the way they write really puts you off any type of grasping for straws. And I hope I’m not coming off terrible or rude to you or any other anons (cause I know tone gets lost in text), but I feel like the reality is all of these characters are white unless extremely explicitly said otherwise. White people’s definition of brown (and its variations) is simply different from the rest of the world’s. White people will go to Italy or Brazil for the summer, come back and call themselves brown because they’re temporarily a Fenty 330 instead of their usual 220. And Sarah is ABSOLUTELY using that to her advantage so she can have half a foot in, half a foot out with how much POC rep she has in her book. Golden skin, golden brown skin, and even flat out brown skin are all white unless she straight up says they’re not. Bryce Quinlan is a white woman. People drawing her as pale is wrong descriptively, but not whitewashing because she’s already white. And it’s not fans acting like we can only have white women MCs, it’s SARAH AND THE AUTHORS WHO ONLY WRITE WHITE WOMAN MCs acting like that. They’re the ones writing all their MCs as white women, it’s not some mass delusion going on in fandom, it’s a deliberate choice being made (which I’m actually not too upset about because I’d rather white women authors who have SERIOUS issues writing POC and especially WOC not make their MC black or whatever so that I and other black or whatever women don’t have to suffer through a wildly popular series being violently racist at its core instead of just in the periphery).

Again not to seem aggressive or rude, but that anon’s sweet naïveté just doesn’t work here. Sarah writes white women and white characters first, then after she gets backlash, darkens their skin a smidge to some variation of golden or brown so she can get away with POC rep without actually making her characters POC. It’s giving very much “Dumbledore was always gay” and I don’t want anon or others to get caught up in what Sarah is trying to do (and succeeding to do with some of her fans who don’t think critically).

I fully understand your frustration. Some white friends of mine went to Hawai'i a few years ago and after coming back they were tanned and did the obligatory 'compare skin tones' by holding their arm against mine and were like "look we're almost as dark as youuu!" Which, no. They weren't. So yeah, I get what you're saying about white people's definition of "brown." But here's the thing:

The vibe I got was that anon was a) young b) a POC and c) a reader, or at least someone who's read enough™️ to notice that most book protagonists are explicitly white, and someone who sought out representation. I know when I was younger I used to interpret characters described as tanned or "golden" as lightskin if they weren't too thoroughly described by the author, to fill the void of the lack of Black girls in escapist media.

So I don't think anon was trying to give Sarah undue credit or anything, I think they were simply someone seeking representation from a popular author with a large fandom an author who could've used her popularity to provide good representation but has chosen not to

#ask #anon

[savetooru]

the miracle of french pipes

for the past couple of years i've been incredibly transfixed by all the things rené magritte's 1929 painting the treachery of images manages to make me question just by fucking existing; but i've never put any of these thoughts out into the open because, like, when and where? it's less a fun conversation topic and more a spiral of awe and delight that makes me feel crazy and fucked up and glad to be alive and exactly the thing a blogpost is good for so. i mean. here we go. 1

to start off, the only thing you need to know is that ceci n'est pas une pipe is french for this is not a pipe. we'll cut to the painter himself for the rest of the basic rundown:

The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe", I'd have been lying! — René Magritte

it's not particularly hard to understand, but what really gets me is that the treachery is only really revealed through the very thing magritte pokes fun at. he basically cautions us about conflating an object with its image; but the same thing should apply to the text below it. the word 'pipe' isn't an actual pipe either, but merely a representation of it. does that make the whole piece a double negative? what right does a representation have to undermine another's authenticity? 2 (cue: coyote meets road runner. it is at this point the canvas goes KABOOM.) an attempt at a reasonable and valuable line of questioning: in a truly objective world, words and images are separate from their actual meaning— so what's the point of making art? of taking a thing and diluting it for other people's consumption so that it's the same but slightly off-kilter, merely an abstract-impressionist approximate of the proverbial real deal? 3 the best answer staring at a ceiling fan whirl can get you: well, the miracle of french pipes is that we don't live in a truly objective world. we accept and trust that other people will leap through rings of fire and prickly hurdles to grasp at our own humble straws. in fact, we're assured of it. we buy into the treachery ourselves. where there isn't meaning before, we fill in the gaps accordingly. see: mom leaves her dishes unwashed for once, so you massage her temples before she has to get up for work. a friend asks if you're busy so you make time you don't have for a call to check-in. you come across a painting of a pipe and you hate the thought of smoke but the veil lifts anyway. the illusion reveals its comedy. and i get you might be thinking— well, we all know this. cavemen knew this because why else would they carve pictures on the wall for us to dig up centuries later? it's the definition of fundamental. what the hell makes magritte so special? nothing! nothing, save for the fact he exposes the glamour. magic tends to lose its shine when you live and breathe it, you know? like, i knew we lived in a reality where wanting to make sense of each other was the default setting. we were always born to grasp at meaning. i just didn't appreciate that for what it was before. i imagine him sitting in a parisian café nearly a hundred years into the past giggling about this stupid painting he's sitting on, having no idea how hard it's gonna body-slam a twenty-three year old living out in the tropics with a lightness only previously observed in white women who have seen eat, pray, love. i laugh often about this— it's a great thought for when i'm feeling down.

1. if it wasn’t obvious yet, i know nothing about actual french pipes. this is not about them. i’m sorry. 2. for a painting that explicitly rejects meaning it is BURSTING AT THE GODDAMN SEAMS WITH IT. i wanna pull magritte aside just to be like bro what is wrong with you. bro you’ve got to stop. you think too much. your humor is too witty. your surrealism is too swag. they’ll kill you 3. your choice as to how you'd like to describe the umbrella of spoken words, texts actually sent, and communicative mimicry you've accumulated in life but imo it's all organic if it at any point lived in your head. gross, right. all the poets are like yeah nothing's original and that's fine. and it is, but implies what we do is regurgitate like birds at an unprecedented rate. like okay nature is beautiful BUT EWW!?!!?

#004 #nearly talked myself out of posting this entry #but i realized that if you can't gleam the sort of fool i am from it #next to nothing will make it as clear #goofy art appreciation