#intersectionality and more

[echodrops]

If the "straight women are much more likely to write a spicy and well-written m|m romance with complex male characters because they're naturally attracted to men" claim is correct, then why do straight male authors have acquired the stereotype of writing one-dimensional female characters and lame romances if they're naturally attracted to the opposite gender? Why do they prefer to focus so extensively on the male characters and their bromances then?

First, I think we need to clarify: Absolutely nowhere did I say the spicy mlm fanfics were uniformly "well-written." 😂 There are beautiful gems among fanfiction that have moved me to tears like nobody's business, but there's also just a whole lot of... not very... philosophically deep works out there. I don't want to sound mean, but just being brutally honest, I'd wager if we considered all fanfiction across all fanfic sites, a pretty solid majority of it wouldn't meet most people's definitions of truly "well-written." (Which is completely fine! Fanfic writers aren't getting paid! They're usually amateur authors who are writing for fun and often include younger writers just learning the ropes of grammar and character building for the first time! A fic doesn't have to be perfect to be enjoyable for readers!)

On top of that, let's also just be real--a lot of the explicit-content-for-explicit-content's-sake fics out there aren't really trying to write the most realistic and three dimensional male characters ever. They're trying to write sexy fics; realistically depicting men with life-accurate emotional depth and nuance is often... not the goal. 😂

Of course there are standout fanfics and incredible fanfiction authors. But, if we're being 100% transparent, I think a solid majority of fanfic authors don't actually write male characters that well. A lot of them have limited development, unrealistic or unclear motivations, out-of-character behavior, or a lack of interiority to their thoughts and feelings. A lot of times male characters in mlm fics are even reduced to caricatures of what women want men to do and feel. (I'm not judging here though--if a woman author is writing for women and her women readers want to see men who meet women's expectations, then hey, give the audience what they crave!) Just like Disney princes, a lot of men in fanfiction would seem very unrealistic and flat if you compared them to actual men from the real world!

I think we fanfic readers are just a bit biased, you know. If you're an average fanfic reader, I'm sure you've had the experience many times of being willing to give fic writers the benefit of the doubt even if their works aren't perfect--far more than you would give an actual published author or TV showrunner.

We don't scrutinize fanworks to the same extent that we scrutinize published media. Most people aren't grabbing someone else's fic and writing a ten page essay on how their male love interest wasn't properly fleshed out. Fanfic is full of poorly written men too, we're just not looking for the writing flaws when we read fanfics, at least not to the extent that meta analysts notice flaws in published media.

Side note that I also think is worth thinking about here: Because most fanfiction readers are female (and statistics suggest that a majority are even cisgender women), I think we're already at a slight disadvantage. Do female readers really have the most accurate perspectives on what realistic and three dimensional men would feel or act like? People are people, of course, but my perspective as a cisgender woman is never going to be as "100% genuine" as the perspective of someone who actually identifies as a man.

Second, and sorry, I know this is already long, but I think it's actually a mistake to buy into the stereotype that a majority of male authors can't write believable and interesting female characters. I think this illusion comes because fanfic fandoms congregate around very specific types of media, and often (though of course not always) that media is geared toward younger audiences. The bulk of the fandom claims that "male authors suck at writing women" come out of the shounen anime and young adult genres which are so prevalent in fandom spaces.

The target audiences for both these types of media are teenagers, who (I'm going to be completely honest) are usually not that picky about the development of the characters in the stories they read. I don't mean that no teenagers care about well-written stories (obviously there are many who do!), but that the typical standard for philosophical depth and nuance to which media for young adults is held is, for better or worse, lower than the standard we hold media for adults to.

We don't expect Twilight to be as deep as Moby-Dick. We don't expect My Hero Academia to be Maus.

This isn't an insult to young adult media; we have different genres of content for different reasons, and I definitely would not have wanted every single manga I read as a teenager to be as mentally or spiritually challenging as Moby-Dick. Content for teenagers should be designed to resonate with teenagers, both intellectually and emotionally. Many works for teens can have excellent writing and punch above their target audience demographic too. But the bulk majority of teenage readers are not (yet) going to be experts in literary criticism and sociocultural theories, capable of pounding out advanced meta analyses of the gender dynamics of characters in their favorite stories. Some will, but most won't.

Stories for young adults just don't have to hold up to that level of scrutiny, at least among their target audience.

At its core, however, the issue with the lower standards for depth of character building in young adult media is that it corresponds with lower standards for becoming popular as an author in fields such as YA lit and shounen manga. You don't have to be Leo Tolstoy or Emily Brontë to gain recognition among younger audiences. Sometimes, you don't even have to be good. Twilight was a roaring success, even while people lambasted it for being poorly written.

You don't have to be a literary giant whose books will be short-listed for addition to the canon of classical literature to develop a massive online fandom; Voltron was insanely popular despite being terribly written. 😂 You don't have to be god's gift to storytellers to become a popular shounen mangaka; Naruto is still one of the most popular manga in history and I hope no one genuinely thinks its characters were masterfully developed.

I'm not saying it doesn't take talent! It absolutely does! What I believe is that there's just not a guaranteed correspondence between "this author is popular and has a huge fandom" and "this author is actually good," especially in genres where the target audience is younger and therefore a little less likely to deeply critique the media they consume. Even if your characters--male or female--aren't that well-written, you can still get very, very popular in internet fandoms, especially with younger and more forgiving audiences, where only the rare few in the fandom will dedicate hours of their lives to performing meta analysis of your work, picking apart the writing quality and development of your characters.

So, long story longer: It's not that male writers overall are incapable of writing women. It's that a lot of fandoms spring up around kind-of-poorly written stories in the first place, and male authors who are not great at writing in general are equally unlikely to be great at writing women.

In fact, I'd suggest that male writers who are poor at writing women are probably also not great at writing men. Like, come on, don't tell me you think Bakugou and Midoriya's writing was good by the end of My Hero Academia.

Many popular authors with big fandoms are just being given more of a pass when it comes to writing poor male characters than they are with their female characters, and I'd argue that's likely because of the same reason I highlighted before: Their fandoms are dominated by women who like men and are willing to do more work to flesh out/fix the male characters they're interested in.

(It also helps that, with an overwhelming number of fic writers being female, they have less insight into truly depicting the male experience in authentic ways in the first place; if you are a woman, you're more likely to recognize a poorly written female character on the spot, while having at least slightly less ability to identify the unrealistic or inaccurate elements of male characters.)

Essentially, it's confirmation bias in action: We think men don't understand women, so we scrutinize male writers' depictions of women very closely, all while giving a pass to the fact that a lot of these writers just kind of suck at writing men too.

The "lame romances" in stories written by men aren't exclusively lame because of flat female characters--if the female character is flat, half the time the male character is flat too, and the romance is lame because the writer overall is... kind of lame... 😂

But why all the bromances? I wrote about this in my big long essay before, and I think there's plenty of very complicated reasons that men write so many male-male friendships and relationships into their story (re: coming from genuinely misogynist cultures, deliberately baiting fans with hints of BL, an actual internalized desire for greater emotional connection with fellow men due to perceived male loneliness, self-projection into their own characters, having been told they aren't good at writing women so they've given up, etc. etc.), but I honestly think one of the simplest reasons is genre. The majority of these "bromances" are coming from shounen manga, and shounen manga has some very common recurring tropes, chief among them being the whole "me and my ~RIVAL~" dynamic.

A lot of mainstream shounen stories have had such enormous success with this "young male protagonist and his best bro/rival/arch-enemy" dynamic that, frankly, I think many modern manga are just piggy-backing on the trope. "Dudes who beat each other up and become besties" has worked for so many series now that it's just become a staple of the entire genre.

I also think the market for Japanese manga in particular is very unique, with male manga artists recognizing--and capitalizing--on the power of the "fujoshi" reader early on. It's easy for shounen manga artists to see the benefits of over-stocking their stories with male characters and queerbait, because hinting at mlm ships they have no intention of ever paying out on 1) rarely reduces their male readership and 2) actually broadens their readership dramatically by deliberately bringing in female readers.

Basically, so long as the endgame is a het ship (or at least no ship), male readers will still read a story even if it has mlm shiptease, while more women will be drawn to the story for the mlm shiptease when they otherwise might not be that interested. There's no way to lose.

In essence, on the topic of queerbait, the shounen manga artists were just really savvy and realized faster that "having your cake and eating it too" is possible by incorporating a higher number of male-male relationships in their stories in order to broaden their readership and sales. Comparatively, western media was just much slower to cotton on to this technique, and I'd say it wasn't until relatively recently that western series have begun hyper-emphasizing male-male relationships specifically to appeal to women readers and viewers (see Supernatural, Good Omens, probably Teen Wolf [I don't actually go there so I can't confirm but I feel like this is true lol], etc.).

And, one final sidenote: I think it's difficult to compare published media to fanfic in terms of "featuring what you're sexually attracted to" because in published media, people are at least supposed to pretend their own sexual preferences aren't entirely warping the story, especially in young adult series (which have the biggest fanfic fandoms). Like... Compare: If you're a shounen manga artist you can get away with some panty shots but you can't be a flat out gooner--conversely, if you're a fanfic writer, you can write hardcore porn without hesitation. If we want to make an actual comparison in how much sex appeal sways character gender ratios in fanfic versus published media, I'd say the only comparable match would be comparing the ratio of female characters in harem anime and straight up hentai to the ratio of men in fanfics. We can't be out here comparing like... the original story content of Harry Potter (made for children, cannot be overly sexual) to its AO3 content (where nearly 40% of all HP fics are labeled explicit/mature). You gotta compare 18+ apples to apples.😂

Phew, sorry, that was a lot.

tl;dr: Tons of factors--yes, including misogyny--affect how men write women, but the issue of male writers being bad at writing women is likely being exaggerated in fandom spaces because 1) Fandoms are overwhelmingly female and women are better able to identify and critique poorly written female characters than anyone else, 2) Most of the biggest fandoms on the internet center around stories for younger audiences who haven't had enough time to develop strong media literacy and literary criticism skills, allowing writers to become popular without necessarily needing to be of highest quality, 3) Female fans are more willing to forgive poorly written male characters because they're more likely to be interested in and attracted to those male characters, and 3) A lot of writers just suck in general; it's not localized to just being shitty at writing women.

[freyadragonlord]

Finished Heavenly Tyrant and my first comment is.........

......... Qin Zheng was WAY too funny for how much he sucked. Made me feel so conflicted.

Anyways, Heavenly Tyrant is an amazing book, highly reccomend!!!

Power to the people ✊️

[tealvenetianmask]

I've been noticing four kinds of takes on Stolas and privilege:

The correct one: Stolas has privilege because of the status he has in society. He can walk right into a club that's always booked way in advance without a reservation. He's never had to worry about money or his physical safety and doesn't know what that's like. He can get a one on one meeting with the King of Lust and ask for a rare and powerful item to give to his man. He was raised to take his privilege for granted. This does not mean he hasn't suffered or hasn't been made to feel small or weak by other people. It also does not mean that Blitz can't hurt him. He ALSO LACKS PRIVILEGE as a queer neurodivergent man forced to conform to a traditional role. These things are not contradictory. I repeat. Both can be true, and THEY ARE. That's what intersectionality is. He's a good person, and he's gradually becoming more aware of his own privilege, starting with his relationship with Blitz.

Well meaning/maybe a bit uninformed: Stolas can't have privilege because he's a victim of domestic and familial abuse.

Shit: Stolas has privilege and isn't aware of it, and that means he's a bad person.

Even shitter, like, are we even watching the same show? Stolas is maliciously using his privilege to abuse Blitz.

[notaplaceofhonour]

thread

[thewhizzyhead]

okay with the knowledge that the warriors film actually had no strong anti-cop message in it and that it focused mainly on being an action piece of gangs traversing the violence of new york, I now feel extremely validated in my thoughts of warriors (2024) being a LOT more intersectional than I first thought it would be. Rather than just riding on the coats of genderbending gimmicks and popular play-safe and shallow "woo girl power" semantics, the album deepens the context through emphasising their struggle and the choice to partake in it not just as women but as a member of marginalized misfits once united under the promise of collective resistance against the police - the 'baddest gang in the city' - and a better future for their constituents.

I dunno I just,,,perhaps I was just surprised to see something quite ballsily critical from lmm's repertoire - transferring a 70's movie loved for action and slight social commentary but ultimately catered to the macho twt filmbros, into a timeless piece that holds no bars in actually featuring intersectional struggle.

[theweeklydiscourse]

Recent twitter discourse on choice feminism/liberal feminism has made me realize that choice feminism is popular because it asks nothing of you. It doesn’t ask that you question anything, instead, it gives people a convenient escape hatch they can turn to whenever they feel uncomfortable. Choice feminism is a comfort that lets you push the harsh realities of patriarchal conditioning out of your mind. It doesn’t challenge you, or hurt your feelings, or force you to think deeply about the world around you. It just lets you feel content in your own ignorance.

[lckydog]

the only “hardworking” americans who weren’t blindsided by trump and his administration and who warned you of the terrible things to come were poc; specifically BLACK americans.

but god forbid you actually listened !! although time and time again has shown that you still hate us more than losing those same rights and dignities we’ve had centuries dealing with..

[mala--draws]

it's may again, may first and pony keeps looking over his shoulder– expecting to find johnny somewhere. strewn over the sofa, jostling at the slightest noise but catching up on lost sleep in the only place he felt safe.

sitting at the kitchen counter, sharing a quiet but undeniably comfortable moment with darry.

leaning into soda, who slung his arm around johnny's shoulder like it meant nothing and everything.

snickering under his breath as twobit jokes with steve, theatric and smirking.

sipping away at a milkshake in those rare moments the gang all gathered to go to the diner.

waiting by the church's tall doors as pony walks past, faster.

a glimpse of him through the cade's kitchen window, hunching in on himself– giving a small grimace when he meets pony's eye.

he's everywhere in the places that hurt and nowhere pony needs him to be.

johnny isn't though, in any of those places, and the world keeps spinning.

[...] the black night// is huge, mute, and you are further forever than that.

death and the moon - carol ann duffy

johnny cade

1967

[saints-who-never-existed]

Y'know, one thing I really appreciated about the Scott Polar Research Institute was the emphasis placed on Inuit culture and knowledge.

There's a large section of the space devoted to Inuit artworks and artefacts, and it's the very first one you see as you enter the building proper. You can't miss it!

They also currently have an exhibition called 'Hidden Histories' which comprises additional labelling throughout the museum focusing on the skills and contributions of specific members of the wider Inuit community, as well as female figures in polar history and notable individuals like Matthew Henson.

I do think this could and should be expanded upon and pushed further in future - in some places it provides fascinating additional context for the items on display, but in others comes off a wee bit more like an afterthought.

Nevertheless, it's a fantastic start that I noted and very much appreciated!

[meerawrites]

*Hangs this up on the door.*

There much better.

[avichor]

i rlly wish ppl would stop engaging in eastern media with a western mindset. have u considered that honor, admiration, and respect are massive factors in most relationships and that such relationships operate with a different nuance? have u considered that closeness =/= romance? someone having a high level of admiration for someone =/= wanting to bone? or that misogyny ( and other bigotries ) manifests in very different, subtle ways than how the west depicts it?

[mxjackparker]

Are you someone who would say "sex work is work"? Does your understanding of sex worker experiences go beyond simply recognizing that we're workers? When you say you support sex workers' rights, do you know what those rights are that we're fighting for?

Supporting sex workers is about more than just saying a few slogans - you need to understand why full decriminalization is necessary, our need for the right to use payment processors and banking free from discrimination and forced closure of our accounts, our need for stigma to be eradicated, and protection from discrimination for our history of selling sex when seeking other jobs.

[gods-favorite-autistic]

Something very interesting about a lot of ya dystopias is that they love to focus on a society seperated by one issue and then forget everything else unless the author is a member of another minority

[daydark4k]

thinking about how tied queer and autistic experiences are. queerness by definition is something or someone strange or odd, which is obviously something autistic people are used to being viewed as by allistic people. and so many of my experiences are caused by a connection of my strangeness through being a lesbian, by being transgender and nonbinary, and by being autistic. i think thats why despite my own narrower labels that define me, ill also still always identify as queer because i feel like it perfectly encapsulates who i exist as. like yes i am weird, i am strange and i don't exist in the traditional sense that people expect me to. i am queer, not only because of my gender identity or who i am attracted to, but because of my strange existence in a world that expects and hammers in normalcy that will never fit inside my body. even if i was cishet i would still be considered weird because of my autism and thats a solidarity that is not only there due to a large overlap in queer and autistic identities, but because we are both used to being forced into a box of societal norms that will never work on us

[tangents-within-tangents]

Local Ace overthinks headcanon and shipping culture

Happy ace week, my friends! Imma be posting some aspec hc's this week so I felt the need to overexplain my personal stance on orientation headcanons and such

To start, as with any and all fandom things: to each their own. People can do whatever they want, and (for the most part) I can choose what I do or don't engage with. I know that hc and shipping and stuff is mostly for fun, or for seeking/creating representation, no hate to anyone who does it and enjoys it.

But also sometimes things can be problematic and I can still be bothered by those things. Even things that are 'just for fun' or 'not for you' can impact and reflect our views and behaviors, so it's still worth speaking about.

Aro/ace-spec identities are really diverse and complex, and we're really underrepresented as is. We have historically and chronically been plagued by problematic misconceptions and tropes, both in canon representation (or lack thereof) and fanon mindsets. Some of the main issues to be aware of with this topic specifically:

The majority of (sometimes unintentional) representation being non-human characters (like aliens and robots) implying that sex/romance = humanity and/or a fulfilling life. (Here's some video essays that touch on this: X X)

Related stereotype issues like racist or ableist de-sexualization and infantilization of certain groups like Asian men, physically disabled people, or people with autism. (It's an intersectionality thing bc yes those people can be aro/ace as well but it's still complicated) (more video essays! X X)

Common erasure of historically aspec characters in favor of allo plotlines bc that's "more interesting/realistic". Or ignoring canonically established aspec characters in favor of allo shipping (often excused by the fact that some aro/ace people do have sex/relationships, which is true but the complexities and nuances are often ignored and there's lots of double standards) (Here's some posts that touch on this: X X X)

Amatonormativity's over emphasis on sex/romance as a fundamental and necessary part of life, which is often reflected in how media and shipping culture are generally allo-centric, and it can just get pretty pervasive at times (note: we aren't a monolith obv, some aro/ace people enjoy it and participate too, but others don't and it is hard to avoid) X X

So while I know there's lots of reasons for shipping and headcanoning, and for the most part there's nothing wrong with it and people aren't trying to do these things, there are still issues that exist. Honestly seeing posts talking about these things has been really validating for me bc it let me know like yeah this is a problem other's have noticed too and I don't have to just accept it.

So with respect and awareness of nuance, ship and headcanon however you want. The rest of this post is about my own personal preferences and such. I'm not necessarily trying to persuade anyone here, I just have some thoughts I want to put into words:

For me personally, when it comes to characters' sexualities/gender identities/etc, I prefer just to stick to whatever is established in canon (or in confirmed intentional coding), and, if nothing is specified, headcanons that are based in canon evidence (more like theories I guess, as opposed to reimaginings or straight-up projection that knowingly ignores parts of canon. Which is fine and fun if that's what you like but to me there is a distinction). This is because:

1: While fandom culture is all about freedom and creativity, I do think it's important in this day and age to recognize actual canon representation and strive towards that because that is what will reach more people and have impact (and personally I think that writers' intentions should actually be given more thought/value)

2: I think that shipping/hc/fandom culture in general tends to perpetuate amatonormativity (specifically in devaluing/erasing friendship and non-romantic love), and sometimes leads to harmful parasocial queer speculation in real life (though again, I know that's not the intention but it's still a thing).

3: Generally, unless it’s explored as a part of a reimagined fic or something, just saying a random character is aspec (or whatever identity) when they did not present that way at all in the actual media doesn't really help me feel seen.

For example, I've seen a lot of people headcanon Mabel Pines as aromantic and that really threw me off bc in the show she is obsessed with romance. Like if other's see themselves in her that is great I won't stop you (the idea is that her crushes are comphet, which is not something I personally struggled with, and maybe I could see it if I rewatched the show with that in mind) but when I watched the show, I specifically did not connect with or relate to Mabel BECAUSE of my ace identity (yeah this post was mainly about her lol) so it just doesn't do much for me to claim her as aspec, in fact it feels counterproductive.

Sometimes it can feel really tacked on too, like 'well it's not confirmed that this character has sex so they could be ace', or 'some ace people do have sex so they can still be ace.' And like sure yes they could be but often it's like a kid show or something so none of the characters' sex lives are relevant or explicitly confirmed. Just bc they aren't not ace doesn't mean that they are, or that saying they are is meaningful if the character/story doesn't actually speak to anything related to the ace identity or experience. (This can happen with canon characters too, like Sponge Bob being asexual means absolutely nothing to me, especially since I get the sense that the creator said that more in a 'sea sponges reproduce asexually' type of way :/ )

So basically, in terms of representation I prefer the theory/interpretation type of headcanons that have supporting evidence of some kind, because that evidence is what makes me see myself in a character and feel represented in some way by them. So that's the type of headcanons I'll be posting, and that's why I'll be discussing evidence and explanations, even though I know plenty of people have fun and find value in just claiming identities without any of that.

Another thing I feel the need to overexplain is kinda the reverse of that. I think it's important to recognize that a character does not have to be a certain identity for you to see yourself in them. Like that sense of relatability and representation is still valid even if they aren't, and I think it's good to leave space for that ambiguity.

This is coming mostly from the fact that I have always valued platonic relationships (between any and all genders) long before I ever knew I was ace. I've always wished that was better normalized and represented in media and real life. I think that is just as important as queer representation, and sometimes they can counteract each other.

Like yes Min and Ryan could be gay and if that's what the writers were going for despite restrictions, or if people see themselves in that, great! But I would also love for this story to give a close friendship this much narrative value for once.

Merida does not HAVE to be aro/ace (or lesbian) to not want to be forced into marriage with a stranger at the age of 16 (in fact she specifically says "I'm not ready" and "not yet"). But regardless, aspects of her story are still really relatable to us and applicable to living in amatonormative society.

Mako and/or Raleigh do not NEED to be aspec for this glorious refreshing no-romo moment to happen (nor does one need to be aspec to appreciate it)

And maybe claiming them as aro/ace could even undercut the power of this platonic bond (like saying the only way they could not be interested in each other is if they are not interested in anyone (same if you said they are gay, as if that's the only possible way for a man and woman not to be attracted to each other)). But it's still a moment lots of us aspecs love because platonic relationships AND aro/ace characters do go hand in hand and BOTH are so rarely portrayed in media.

So these ideas also play into my preferences, and I want to acknowledge that my headcanons don't have to be definitive (which like I know that is normal amongst fandom culture anyway) but are more about pointing out aspects we can see ourselves in and relate to, especially in a media landscape that is so lacking in representation and understanding of our identities.

[babacontainsmultitudes]

Hehehe just went to see my first burlesque show (I've seen a pole dancing show or two with burlesque elements but this was the first purely burlesque show I've been to) and it fucking RULED AGH everything I was hoping it would be gaaah <3333