#I didn’t get what ppl were talking about before with representation but it really does make a difference!!

[ralofofriverwoods]

Seeing an actual important character with a lazy eye makes me so happy

And one they take seriously too! This person is a serious threat and nobody even mentions that they have a lazy eye(at least not in a way meant to be an insult)

Ryoko Kui, my favorite author ever, thank u for making this person so fucking badass and also so fundamentally weird. They’re perfect

[kwyw]

I don’t get the concept here where this fandom thinks Taylor is not in charge of her own PR or why she is getting in her jet to fly to KC . She is rich beyond anyone’s dreams and ppl want to believe she is doing this for money?

Anon.

I don’t get the concept here where that fandom thinks Taylor is solely in charge of her own PR or why it’s news she is getting in her jet to fly to KC. She is rich beyond anyone’s dreams and people have to believe she’s a specific way that appeases them so she can make money and be successful.

If Taylor were solely in charge of her own PR, then why exactly does Tree Paine have a job? Public relations is literally the job of her publicist. Taylor is her boss, yes, but Tree is responsible for how she appeals and relates to the public.

We typically don’t exactly know why she is in her jet flying anywhere unless it’s for a tour stop because that’s already public knowledge. However, we can assume if it’s Florida, it’s to see her father. If it’s Nashville, it’s to see her mother or maybe even Abigail. If it’s New York or LA, she’s going to her own house or working. However, every time we’ve seen an article that she flew to KC, these websites by default attach it to Travis.

And we literally see an article every single time she goes to Kansas City. Every day there’s a new detail of this “relationship” we didn’t ask for.

That’s your first example of PR here.

I need you and others to grasp the concept that PR isn’t always based around money. PR is mainly for image reasons. If a celebrity has a scandal come about, you almost always see how People or ET for example will say they reached out to that celebrity’s team and they either didn’t respond or did not offer comment.

Travis JUST signed to CAA in May for off the field representation. He is building an expanded brand for when he retires from football. He’s 34. That’s “old” for his position in the NFL. So ask yourself—why does a 2 time Super Bowl champion (his last championship being won this past February)

Did you even watch Miss Americana? Where her Dad and another person on her team tried to gaslight her by using a potential decrease in ticket sales to stop her from talking about politics? Guess why—because PR has taught you that Taylor Swift™️ does not talk about politics.

PR taught you for 6 years that she was “extremely private” with Joe, but you always got an article before one of their projects released, right? Either the day of, or the day before Midnights was released, what picture just so happened to be released?

Taylor and Joe in NYC furniture shopping.

Remember how it was dead silent before CWF was released but a month or so before, engagement rumors popped up? Because PR had to make him seem interesting enough during his promo for the show.

Before the Reputation Tour arrived on Netflix—PR gave you pictures of Taylor and Joe with his friends in NYC on NYE.

PR is what got you the pictures of them on the balcony in Nashville before the rep tour started when paparazzi don’t camp in Nashville. Which you know because most country artists live in Nashville and you never see them unless they’re papped in LA or NYC.

PR relationships have always existed, but for some reason, y’all seem to think it’s beneath Taylor to engage in them.

So yes, she is “rich beyond anyone’s dreams”, but at what cost? Because PR is why y’all can’t fathom that she could possibly be queer—because to most people, she doesn’t “look” queer.

Not to mention, given all PR has taught us about her for the past 17 years, you have to question why this Travis situation is so odd and sloppy. No one really who Travis is outside of football—but now they know him as “Taylor Swift’s boyfriend” and now everyone wants to capitalize, right?

This 👆👆👆

[mrsmiroir]

i finished all the grishaverse books over the summer and tee bee aych all the races based on poc were a lil weird. there r like 3 ? zemeni (black ppl) that we talk to in all the books, the shu han (basically all east asians) are murderers, the suli (based on romani stereotypes) dont have a country are "mystical" performers etc. its a ya book i really cant be talking but it seems the author wanted to throw in hashtag representation. plus fjerda is the only nation other than ravka to get good worldbulding and theyre all (imo) caricatures of racists lol

let me preface this by saying that i am not an authority on this matter nor should i be considered as such. also im pretty sure ppl have talked abt this before so im not rlly adding anything to the conversation. anyway here goes.

it’s pretty clear to me that bardugo has a comfort zone when it comes to her fantasy worlds. she writes vibrant urban areas like ketterdam and it feels so vivid and real, hell even the little palace has a certain liveliness, but rural areas? fjerda’s description feels almost as barren as its landscape. i think something similar can be said abt how she writes cultures. she can incorporate diversity into her cities (or the little palace) and work with it, albeit not always perfectly or even well, but when it comes to writing groups based off of non-western (euro-american) cultures? it feels like she relies on stereotypes.

basically what im saying is it feels like she’s better at writing cultures dominated by white people. the shu feel anachronist at times and while i haven’t read kos or row, i find it odd how… malicious? they’re presented as? also how kuwei is treated by fans… yikes! the suli are a mix of various cultures but are pretty clearly based off romani stereotypes, which is only compounded when bardugo decided to make them straight up mystical in row (maybe there’s a logical explanation later in the book but it was very Weird and i didn’t care enough to find out whoops). someone (i want to say zemenipearls, but im not positive) pointed out that the main things we know about novyi zem harken back to some pretty. :/ tropes (guns, pearls, and jurda farming). if i find the post i will rb later but rn i have a migraine. also kerch/novyi zem relations… and the historical parallel… hm.

i would argue that kerch (mainly ketterdam) also had good worldbuilding, because you can tell bardugo is in her element writing it, and i also don’t think fjerda is a caricature (but that’s a whole thing). basically soc is fun and it does read as an attempt at representing a nuanced society with people from various backgrounds (and ethnicities), but it’s not the paragon of diverse YA that people say it is and should be read, like anything else, with a critical eye.

[claudeleine]

Did it ever occur to anyone that Wanda’s Roma background in the comics was BUILT on racist stereotypes? Similarly to M’Baku but also several others. And maybe that’s why the show runners stepped away from that..?

okay, so i think what we have here is someone who skimmed the original post in question (paragraph 2) and likely didn’t ready any of the links attached because that first message has been addressed already... but for anyone else in the same boat:

from gavia baker-whitelaw’s article:

Wanda and Pietro's Romani heritage was canon for decades (including in their non-mutant backstory), although this depiction often had problematic undertones. Wanda is literally a mysterious foreign witch, a damaging stereotype that acquired more nuance in later comics. But instead of updating Wanda and Pietro as modern Jewish/Romani superheroes (much like how Black Panther's charismatic M'Baku started out as a villain named "Man-Ape"), Disney whitewashed them. This casting choice was divisive in 2013, when The Atlantic highlighted the negative connotations of casting a white blonde actress as Scarlet Witch. Roma people are a marginalized ethnic minority, and Disney chose to erase their presence from the MCU.

...This rewrite was rather tone-deaf, because it involved Wanda and Pietro volunteering for neo-Nazi experiments. In the comics, their original parents were Holocaust survivors. Whedon also ignored the most obvious solution to Wanda and Pietro's non-mutant backstory: Django and Marya Maximoff, their Romani parents from the comics.

white washing characters is never the best solution. it doesn’t address the issue in so much as it just sweeps it under the rug. as well as perpetuating the idea that white is some unproblematic neutral that ppl can just default to. like can you imagine if in an attempt to “fix” how m’baku is portrayed in the comics, they just...put a white guy in the role? you can’t just remove a characters racial or ethnic background. no one is saying that her comic background hasn’t been problematic, but this isn’t the way to remedy that.

@scarlet--wiccan has an amazing post about the erasure of this whole family’s ethnic identity in the fox x-men films (x).

@villyns also has a good post outlining some examples of the mcu white washing rather than actually fixing the problem (x).

and here’s a decent article on white washing in media and why it’s a problem (x), quote from this article below:

Making a movie is not an easy feat; there are many things to take into account and even more people that you have to please, but there are also standards and morals to uphold. Whitewashing, blackface, brownface or yellowface is not just about denying jobs to minority actors, appropriating the stories of these groups, perpetuating stereotypes or keeping them invisible, it is about undermining their value as human beings and turning them into stepping stones, props, for white artists.

as for the second part. i think that’s entirely possible, actually. it’s done a lot to characters, where they won’t explicitly state their ethnicity but give them attributes from one (often stereotypes) and make them a caricature without making it, like i said, explicit. take the concept of jewish-coded villains in media. no one from disney has ever said that mother gothel in tangled is jewish, but it’s been pointed out by everyone that she’s jewish coded through stereotypes, ones specifically often used for “evil” witch-type characters, which is no coincidence: large, hooked nose, curly hair, greedy, etc. edit: hollywood uses coding like this often for racial/ethnic groups and the lgbtq+ community.

the maximoffs in the mcu and xmcu have never been explicitly made romani, with disney going so far as to change their parents romani names (django and marya) to oleg and irina. the name changes were unnecessary, except to distance the maximoffs from their original romani identity. the mcu changed their origins stories and cast non-romani actors to portray the maximoffs, and considering they went as far as to remove their jewish heritage as i mentioned before, it’s not a stretch that this is all an attempt to veil their romani background too. while they often joke about stealing and fortune tellers and poverty (the wv halloween episode really put it all in one place, but they’ve been doing it forever in the xmcu and mcu), i wouldn’t say this is an attempt to make them romani as much as it is to use a romani-esque caricature, to use it as a sort of “aesthetic” for the twins without acknowledging that it’s an ethnicity. the aspects they choose to keep are often either negative or painted in a negative light. i think the fact that el*zabeth ols*en continuously uses the g-slur to talk about wanda and costume design, speaks to that. 

and even if the mcu came out and said, “oh, our wanda is romani,” that wouldn’t change the fact that she’s played by a non-romani actress (who continues to use anti-romani slurs, despite knowing she shouldn’t) and that so far, they have not explicitly stated in the mcu that she is.

from gavia baker-whitelaw’s article:

Wanda and Pietro's whitewashing feels like an attempt to "neutralize" them. It frames their ethnicity as a problem to be avoided, rather than an opportunity to celebrate an under-represented group. This also meant that Marvel could cast famous white actors instead of sourcing an unknown Romani actor, during a period when the MCU was visibly uninterested in racial diversity.

But Marvel Studios wanted to have its cake and eat it, too. While Wanda is now white and Sokovian, her role isn't completely divorced from its Romani origins. It can't be, because everything in the MCU is informed by the comics. That's how we end up with El*zabeth Ols*n describing her Age of Ultron costume as "kind of this g*psy, vagabond feel"—terms that usually wouldn't come to mind for a simple black minidress and maroon jacket. Wanda's Romani heritage remains visible through veiled references and superficial costume choices, sidestepping any hint of meaningful representation.

from jessica reidy’s article:

Today, some Roma do call themselves witches, and serve as healers and spell-casters in a community, but make no mistake, being a witch is a job like any other. I was trained by my grandmother, I studied hard, I started a business, and I take bookings in my Google calendar. This is the context that most people miss when creating (or, in this case, adapting) Romani witch characters like Wanda Maximoff, and while the Scarlet Witch has plenty of magic, she does not need to fall into the stereotype, nor have her identity erased.

Representation matters. Wanda’s Romani ethnicity has been well-stated in the comic books, sometimes capturing the discrimination and violence that Roma face, and other times falling flat and stereotypical. Marvel also owes us, as Roma are often rendered as mentally unstable thieves, such as Dr. Doom, Wanda and Pietro’s community, and Wanda herself, and the entertainment giant capitalizes off of these stereotypes, reinforcing them all the while.

Every opportunity we get for accurate and positive representation is essential to us because it shapes the way people understand us.

linking the post i made again, because it has a list of articles and posts i’d recommend really taking the time to look through and engaging with them, as well as following folks like jessica reidy and @scarlet--wiccan​ on social media for more info from romani folks. 

[egyptian-sun-god]

Never Have I Ever (mildly critical lens)

1. BIG THING. NHIE is not a show that was made directed at me. Yes it has similarities with my heritage as Indian but I am not American. Not born there nor raised. I am a diaspora Tamilian though, and my schools throughout most of my life have had very little Indians and even fewer Tamilians in them. Usually its just me.  So while there is overlap, Devi and I would have innately different experiences and worldviews.

2. Why is her last name Vishwakumar and her Dad’s name Mohan? Where that coming from. Correct me if I’m wrong, but most to all Tamil people use patronymic's right? Like am I right or am I tripping? Someone correct me. I checked Mindy Kaling’s bio and she took her father’s last name so I might be tripping? 

3. Okay straight off the bat, Devi annoyed the hell outta me. Like no joke...I really dislked Devi. But she’s a traumatized teenager who has no common sense and too much hormones. I’ve seen ppl like her so I’m fairly happy we have a flawed and messed up portrayal of a POC and doesn’t feed into the idea of perfection. But also Devi’s mom is suprisingly lenient to Devi’s disrespect man. like I see why but woowowowowo....she’s uncharacteristically tolerant sometimes. 

Now even though I get that Devi is supposed to be flawed and unlikeable. Because she is immensely selfish and bitchy with shitty communication skills. Devi’s friends forgive her waaay to fast. Like ladies, what are you aiming for? SAINTHOOD? Like at least let her grovel a little bit for being such a bitch. 

4. Love interest. Y’all heard me. WHY THE FUCK IS BOTH OF HER INTERESTS WHITE or at least definitely white passing. Like they did Paxton dirty man. Like was it too much? Was it too much to wish for Devi to have more Indian friends or like an Indian/POC love interest? I feel personally that it is such a weird precedent that has been set with POC centric love stories. And this definitely should be a critic that has come up before. 

You know which love stories resonated with me? Nalini and Mohan. Because it represented the possibility of like marrying someone (going off the assumption they were arranged to be married) and falling in love after marriage. A very real scenario for many many couples. Kamala’s entire shenanigan with Steve and Prasanth and having to choose between the uncertain boyfriend situation but losing family but keeping family and going with an arranged marriage. Also props to Kaling for not demonizing arranged marriages. Please please let season 2 explore Kamala’s struggle more. Hell even that one off thing with Eleanor and the tech crew boy was funny. 

5. Kamala’s whole character was many vibes. Because counting down and stressing about marriage is such a goddamn relatable feeling. I ain’t that much younger than Kamala and let me tell you the anticipation/fear is REAL. And like her talking in Ganesh puja and like weighting the options of being a social outcast or going with the arranged marriage and with the hope that like you’ll find someone cool.

6. I don’t like how Devi tries to reject her Indian culture and I really really hope they develop that next season or something and get her to find a balance. Because at the end of that season she did get a good talking to about trying to be Indian enough or too Indian and finding that balance but it doesn’t feel like she’s finding that balance and her being jealous of the other Indian girl does not bode well for me. 

ALSO THEY FUCKING MISSED OUT SO BAD. You make a series about a Tamil American girl and you don’t name drop any famous stars. Thala Thalapathy, Superstar??? VJS?? Surya? Dhanush? Nobody? Why? Like Devi doesn’t know them...makes sense. But like Kamala is from town right? She has to have carried some of that. Like that scene when she called them for a movie right? Why not name drop some famous ass classic like Baasha or Sachein or Roja? Like a cool nod to the Tamil kids out there watching this series to see parts of their culture and language included. Like even the soundtrack and songs have no Tamil songs? Like not even one for the heck of it?? WHY? IS THAT NOT SO SO MUCH MISSED REPRESENTATION? Like typical Tamil things like making a beat out of random shit, Tamil kuthu songs, Typical Tamil mega serials, food and enjoying food together. Like why wasn’t the food stated or name dropped. 

Personally, NHIE was really really really white palatable and it didn’t really get it into any roots of our culture especially for a girl struggling to find roots as in where she fits. Like you gotta show both cultures and let the audience and Devi figure out where she fits. If you show long Netflix shows like Pretty little liars, show alternatives like mega serials such as Chitti or Mudiyaathu Karuppu or Mettioli? Or if you wanna be more modern name drop Tamil webseries’s? If you wanna show English pop hits, show Tamil album songs and kuthu beats. IF YOU WANNA REPRESENT, THEN ACTUALLY REPRESENT. Don’t pull this generic ass BS on me!

5. I hope the lack of tamil culture in the series gets corrected next season somehow. I don’t have ANY ANY faith that it will. But I can be hopeful. Also I lowkey like that Devi has like a “rival” of another Indian girl. I don’t like that is is rivalry cause brown sisters gotta support each other and that’s sort of been the general motto from where I’m from. But like I get why and it would make complete sense. 

I really really hope that Aneesha is like super super Indian. Proud of her culture and brings a lot of her culture and its facets to discussions and not afraid to make her culture a focal point of herself.  It would be a really good foil to Devi and it might spark some thought into her and accepting or at least recognizing the cool shit about being Tamil. I wanna see that mainly cause I used to be lowkey ashamed for having a strong accent when I speak cause I was made fun of and I didn’t like having different lunches or listening to different music and not being part of the more Western culture. But I learnt to ignore that and became like 3000 times more proud of being Tamil and wore like traditional clothes to school, ranging from kurti tops over jeans at first and eventually wearing full on chudidaars and saris (saris to proms at least, I couldn’t wear a sari on a daily, half sari probably, sari would be hard). Bringing traditional sweets and food and distributing them to anyone who would ask and trading lunches.  Please let me see a brown kid who is proud to be brown and straight up in your face about it at times. 

(Unrelated but to Tamil/Indian ppl who had other Indian/Tamil kids in your school like was trading lunches or like sharing lunches common? Like its a pretty common Tamil thing to do and I brought that culture of taking some of everybody’s lunch and giving everybody a part of mine everywhere I went. But like was that a thing? )

[arodabi]

(This is not hate but i want to say sorry in advance if i’m being rude or anything) maybe it’s because I’m a cishet woman so I have no experience of the discrimination the people in the lgbt community suffer. but I wanted to say: if some people in fandom love to ship aro and/or ace characters with other characters or change a character's sexuality in general just for their ship, this does not take away the fact that that character is of that particular sexuality in canon, it doesn’t take away the representation. So I don't see where the problem is if the person in question is respectful of real people sexuality. For example I know that Shiro from Voltron is canonically gay, but at the same time I like to ship him with myself and I see a lot of people in the fandom who keep self-shipping with him or even ship him with Allura. and I don’t see a problem because he is just a fictional character and he still gay in the canon universe. Same goes for aro/ace characters like Alastor. And i think that most people will keep shipping this characters in romantic relationship regardless of their canon sexuality because it’s just fiction and ships make them happy. Again, sorry if I sounded rude, I hope you won't take this aks as hate or anything!

so i kno u said this isn't supposed to b rude, but I feel like u didn't read my post and came here to complain that I said “don't ship aro characters” (which i really didn't even say, the main point is to just listen to us and be a better ally) which is kinda rude. I literally talk about how aro character's identities are like barely ever respected. I talk about how people put shipping before us constantly. I talk about how many creative spaces, not just fandom, are hostile towards us. I've literally had people insult my work to my face multiple times because I'm an aro storyteller who won't focus on shipping in my own content. I've had multiple people in the notes of that exact post express surprise that the characters I listed were actually aro. 

i want you to imagine for a second, and since u brought up Voltron ig ill use that, what is shiro was one of like 5 popular gay characters in fiction, but every fan work of him presented him as straight, to the point people did not know and were surprised he was gay. Like do you think that's okay? because that is like classic erasure. why is it suddenly okay to do to aro people? bc we don't matter?

a small group of fans making a gay character straight is like not something ppl generally worry about because its not enough to even effect anything. like sure some people will take offense, but at the end of the day they can just ignore a small group of fans. but that's not what I'm talking about here. most fans are erasing aro characters identities, which leads to either people not knowing that character is even aro, or (worse in my opinion) thinking that erasing an aro characters identity is just How You Write Aro Characters. “aros are just like every other alloro person, except I have to throw in a few words like qpr once and then never actually research what that means!”

like I don't participate in fandom stuff for a lot of reasons but one of them is that those spaces are hostile or completely unaccommodating to me. and one of the major ways they're like that is centering romance and shipping above all. even when a character is like me and is not interested in that stuff. “nope they actually are bc if they weren't itd be boring!” I've literally seen ppl make aus where an aro character isn't aro and the tag for that is “X character has a heart” that's uhhh fucked up? i can call myself heartless all I want but random alloros have LITERALLY NO RIGHT TO DO THAT WHAT THE FUCK. you realize that in popular fandoms there are usually more fanworks than there is actual canon material right? so if something has a scene or two (or outside tweets from creators) talking about a character being aro, but 99% of fanworks portray that character as alloro, then they are written predominantly as alloro, and people will interpret them as such. why the fuck do i have to have the few scraps of canon content to see myself in while everyone else gets to rip that to shreds and interpret the character as not like me.

also at this point I literally do not give a fuck if erasing aro characters identities is someone's prime mode of happiness, it's a shitty thing to do and it shows that they do not care about us.

[chocopvffz]

My Problems with Fandom

It’s been a while since I’ve kinda just let out my thoughts and feelings on this stale hell site. It’s just now more than ever I’m having the weirdest realizations while I’m participating in any Fanbase. This topic may piss ppl off. But to that, I say fuck it, I’m gonna do it.

Around 2 years ago I took a backseat to actively participating in fandom. So I’d be more of an onlooker rather than someone who contributed. Just reblogging stuff rather than making my own content. Usually in fandom, things are said in the heat of the moment, with little thought and more emotions. Taking a step back I started to realize that while that’s fine in and of itself, You’re entitled to what you like and what’s interesting to you, but I’ve realized that people kinda settle for the bare minimum. Especially now that representation for marginalized groups is becoming the norm. Which is great, but there are still problems that plague us as a community.

I just finished watching Unicorn of War’s video on RWBY, and they delved into the absolutely garbage writing that surrounded The White Fang subplot. I highly recommend you watch the video, it’s about the bad representation of minority oppression and how it relates to RWBY as a whole. While this post doesn’t stem from that in particular. what did was though is how UoW confessed that they were guilty of completely ignoring how harmful the writing was for pocs, as well as downright silencing and downplaying poc that had a problem with the writing. Unicorn of War is not racist, the fact that they realized the type of systemic racism they’ve been inadvertently spreading is so harmful is a a step in the right direction. Here is where the problem lies. UoW said that they were a perpetrator of this because they were to focused on the representation the show did give the fans. They said that they lumped all of the genuine criticism of the problems with homophobes and bigots because they didn’t want to hear any of the criticism at all. RWBY has some pretty shit representation in ever field. UoW said that they were settling for the stuff they did get because they get so little, and their whiteness blinded them to listening and trying to understand why so man poc had an issue with the show.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that, a lot of the time In Fandom, ppl would rather settle for what they do have and what caters to them, rather than criticize a product of its faults and ask for more.

I’ve been scared to talk about She-Ra because the fandom is pretty scary. I liked the show. To me it wasn’t anything special. But it was a fine show, and I can’t wait for what the crew does next. But here’s where a lot of the issues come from for me. There are some problems both w/ the show, and the representation. Catra and Adora have been queercoded up until the very end where it does get revealed that they are in fact lesbians. Which is great and all but at the end of the day. They kiss at the very end of the last episode, nothing was explicit before then. But the thing is that Catra is an abusive manipulative person, that kinda just gets a pat on the back, and all is forgiven when she realizes she’s alone(both in the fandom and the show). I mean glimmer got more hate than Catra. The point I’m trying to make is that I’ve seen way to many ppl ignore the fact that they side stepped the development of Catra and Adora, and kinda get mad at the ppl that criticize that we could have gotten better rep. For a lot of the fans, at least from what I’ve seen, yall are okay with the problems the show has as long as you get some form of rep. Which is valid, but when that complacency spills over into silencing ppl with criticisms. This usually happens when someone has had another experience with the show where the thing that represents them isnt done as well. it rubs me the wrong way. Someone could see Catra’s behavior, liken her to a toxic person they knew, criticize how the show kinda ignores that. I can bet that some ppl would tell this person that they’re wrong, because she ended up where she did at the end.

This brings me to my last example, during my watch of Infinity Train, I started getting a little bit more involved in the fandom; reblogging, commenting. During the show I noticed a small amount (larger than I would have liked) making passive aggressive remarks toward Grace (the only black girl and protagonist of the season). They were all in regard to her having a redmeption arc. At first I was kinda in denial. Like most ppl are immediately after suffering an injustice, cuz despite her being an awful person at first. She gets better. And there are so little black women that are protagonists. I felt represented. But then I’d see ppl demeaning her in order to make her friend Simon (basically the antagonist) more sympathetic. Mind you he’s white. And after the show ended I had a weird encounter. There were many posts about how enthralling it was that Grace, a black women, telling Simon, a white man, that his problems were his own, and she doesn’t have to be the one to fix them. Most of the ppl that made these posts were woc. The show isn’t about race, but the fact that the character is black resonated with a lot of ppl.

Under ever single one of these posts, I saw multiple people, getting weirdly angry at them. Like “this has nothing to do with race, why are you bringing it up here.” Which I guess is fair, but no one says it as much to ppl when the post is about sexuality. So getting fed up, I responded to one of these ppl explaining how odd it is that the characters that get really popular are always of the same archetype. White Sad Boys, it’s the same with ships. Instead of critiquing the show or anything I wanted to call attention to subconscious biases in fandom. The person accuses me of calling them racist, tells me that race isn’t an issue in fandom, and tried to gaslight me into thinking that what I was talking about doesnt apply to how ppl choose who their favorite character is.

This issue here isn’t about the race, or the actual content in the show. It was about the person telling me that the empowerment I and other woc experienced while watching infinity train s3, doesn’t exist and we shouldn’t criticize ppl putting her down in order to uplift the antagonist.

Which leads back to the point I’m trying to make. So many ppl in fandom settle for whats there instead of trying to make things more representative of everyone. Representation can always get better, we just have to stop fighting ppl that give constructive criticism to the things we like.

And I’m completely guilty of this too, that’s why I took a step back. I don’t like silencing ppl when they try to criticize something that resonates with me. So I try to sit back and let them tell me what can be done better based on their experiences. I’m still struggling. I’m pretty sure I was ultra defensive with the person telling me that race doesn’t matter.

This happens a lot more with white ppl than it does with people of color. And this isn’t a dig on any white person at all. It’s just that white have a vastly different experience than a poc. A white LGBT person is going to have a completely different experience than a black lgbt person. Just like a cishet white person is going to have from a poc cishet person. And since we have different experiences, there are aspects of my life you won’t understand and vice versa. An abuse survivor is going to be more equip to tell us what works better than other things in a story that tackles those subjects. You see what I mean.

I just want everyone to take a step back and consider the criticism that is being made. And try to understand why this person may see it that way.

TLDR; We need to stop silencing marginalized ppl just because they criticize things we relate to, especially when it pertains to their experiences. It’s settling for the bare minimum when we deserve better. Just because we’ve got a gay character doesnt mean the show is perfect. It happens way more than we think. Especially now more than ever.

Sorry this is so long, and full of typos. I just needed to rant.

[silver-wield]

FF7R: The Cloud Narrative

While in the middle of one of my replays that involved making different choices for Cloud to get other stuff, I started thinking, “What would Cloud choose?”

And that got me thinking some more about the fact we say it's all what Cloud would choose, but really, it's what we pick to get the best story that suits our preferences.

And since I'm that kind of dork, I decided to replay and let Cloud's personality and development lead me to make the choices so I could try and see what Cloud would've chosen if he had autonomy. It makes for a slightly different game than the one I usually play, but it was fun really thinking over the options and deciding how Cloud would react to every situation and whether he'd choose to engage with it or not.  

I didn't actually remember to grab every screenshot of my playthrough, so some of these are from Youtube, but the decisions I say I made are the ones I made because why would I lie?

Ok, let's mosey...

Spoiler warning for ppl who haven’t played – do I still need to do this? Eh ok, (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it’s gonna be long.

The opening decision is in Chapter 2 when we first meet Aerith. None of these decisions affect anything within the game to do with the resolution, it just makes either girl react differently to Cloud.

I'm sure some people would argue he'd buy it because Aerith, but he doesn't know her, has no obligation to be nice to her – especially compared to the Avalanche crew who he needed to rely on back in the reactor and he was a dick to them – he's in a rush and has no reason to buy flowers unless people want to assume he already had Tifa in mind the moment Aerith mentioned it. If we do choose the option to buy it right away, Aerith flirts a little and slots the flower into Cloud's shoulder strap over his heart. We get none of the extended dialogue if we choose this option. For those people who say the more someone talks is a sign of canon, this would make the “how much” option the non-canon choice because it contains the least amount of dialogue and time they spend together.

If we choose “I'm good,” then we hear Aerith insisting he takes it by saying, “When was the last time you saw a real one,” and adding that “it'll make your girlfriend's day.”

Then we get the automatic line from Cloud that happened when we originally chose “how much.”

After some more dialogue from Aerith another choice occurs, one which can make Cloud sound like a royal shitbag or not.

I think everyone would agree that Cloud purposely pissing off a total stranger is out of character, and if you choose the second option he doesn't actually speak and Aerith goes straight into her line about how “lovers used to give these when they were reunited.”

For my choices as Cloud I said, “I'm good,” and then when she insisted, I agreed to take it because to me – and this is how I always answer – it feels the most Cloud kind of answer.

Chapter 3

The next choice Cloud's presented with is during chapter 3 when Tifa offers him a drink. No matter which choice you make he calls Tifa beautiful as the outcome.

By answering “something hard” Tifa goes into her cocktail making routine before pouring Cloud a drink that looks suspiciously like piss, but is actually meant to represent the colour of his hair. Hard and bitter. Like him. He doesn't like it. Colour me shocked. She then goes on to make the red drink that's a representation of her eye colour. This is when Cloud raises the glass and makes the “beautiful” comment.

If you choose the refuse option, Tifa replies that “if you were in the mood” and then goes into the same drinks making routine as the first option, with the exact same dialogue and outcome between them. (And now I know it's almost identical I wonder why the devs did it? It seems like a straw man option tbf. There's no real choice or changes to the dialogue and it's like it's been put there to give the illusion of it being optional).

Since Cloud is secretly into Tifa I figured he'd choose “something hard and bitter” as a way to try and show off how tough he is. However, it’s worth noting that Cloud isn’t a big drinker and only drinks when he’s in a low mood. He’s pretty happy here, so I’d say in general he wouldn’t drink, but because he’s only recently reunited with Tifa he still wants to impress her. So yeah, to drink.

The next chance for Cloud to have a choice concerns the chapter 3 side quests that open up the alone at last which goes towards choosing a dress for Tifa later in chapter 9. If you don't finish the quests or miss alone at last you always get Tifa's blue dress and moon charm earring. That is her canon outfit.

The quests for chapter 3 are all monster related apart from one – which I'll get to in a minute.

Chadley's report involves scanning monsters for data and killing them. Rat problem comes from the item vendor and involves killing doomrats.

Nuisance in the factory involves killing drakes.

On the prowl involves going after a shinra dog thing

Just flew in from the graveyard involves a larger drake.

These are all the type of job that Cloud would accept without thinking about it too much. He's a merc, he's getting paid to kill monsters. It'll show off his skills and build his rep and as Tifa says, the better his rep the more he gets paid. These five quests are ones Cloud would take because that's the type of person he thinks he should be. The monster slayer.

As for quest 4, lost friends, I initially said that Cloud would avoid this because it involves two things he isn't good with: kids and animals. Now, I've heard from people that by AC Cloud is actually pretty good around kids, and I agree, he's got a lot of love from them by this point. But that's at least two years away from now and he's not even slightly good around kids and actively avoids them. Cats seem to have a grudge against him, too, at this point in the game – though Wedge's cat mellows towards him after he helps out. These were my reasons for deciding to avoid this quest because Cloud just wouldn't do it. Then, once I got to it, I realised the reason why Cloud would do it.

Tifa.

Tifa likes kids and animals. Now, as a respectful type of girl, she doesn't usually push Cloud to do things he doesn't want to. She's always considerate to his feelings and to others too. In this case, though, she's not focused on Cloud and if he'd want to do this job, but on helping out a little girl. Cloud's been running around doing jobs all morning, so Tifa's related him to the task of finding the cats.

Usually Cloud would refuse to something that's so obviously beneath his skills, but because it's Tifa who's asking, he agrees.

Alone at last triggers and we get to view a moment between Cloud and Tifa that ends in him choosing a dress for her. Alone as last is narrative canon whether we choose to see it or not because of other hints in the game that refer back to the conversation they had. While they talk about the past we get an above view of the rug that has a reunion flower pattern on it. Tifa and Cloud both take steps towards each other during this scene, which symbolises their closing the emotional distance that's between them.

This choice changes nothing about the game and only matters if you want to go for the dressed to the nines achievement.

If you choose the top option – for her canon outfit, Tifa replies “Yeah, I guess we aren't kids anymore.” If you choose the second option she says, “That's not much different to my regular style.”

If you choose the exotic outfit she says, “really?” and acts a little awkward about it.

She then asks Cloud to dress to match her. The dresses he wears during wall market all have a similar style to Tifa's options, showing he did dress to match her. The narrative canon choice for which dress Cloud eventually went with is something I'll be bringing up later.

By choosing the canon outfit option and getting Tifa's canon dialogue we get a reference to the fact they've known each other for a long time. This ties into the conversation they had which also touched on their shared history. This is a background development scene between them, but isn't necessary to know because we get other info about them over the rest of the game. This extra bit of dialogue is to increase our knowledge of Cloud and Tifa, both separately and together.

Chapter Four

Jessie’s bike ride, which isn’t optional in the sense you can choose how it goes. The result depends on how good you are at the minigame. However, since there’s three endings, this is a choice based result.

Are you, Cloud? Really? When did you get that SOLDIER mandatory training? Of the three optional endings, the narrative canon that makes the most sense is Cloud being really bad at it. This is his first time doing any of that, but it gives him the crash course he needs for later in the Shinra building when he does all those fancy moves. Cloud owes Roche some props for observational bike stunting. 

Chapter Five

And our next canon narrative choice is between making Cloud look incompetent at his job or choosing to have an intimate moment with his one true love. Well, seeing how the cloti roll is in the ultimania we know this is the correct narrative choice.

Chapter 8

There's a long gap between chapter 5 and the next option we get for Cloud. Once we meet Aerith again and get her back to Sector 5, we go into her side quests and optional discovery. Aerith's side quests are tied to what dress she later wears during chapter 9.

The side quests for Aerith's chapter are split into groups of 3. This means that by unlocking one, you get the further quests on that branch. One branch is more of a Cloud oriented style set of quests, while the other involves the thing he doesn't do well around: kids.

Kids on patrol → A verified hero + Angel of the slums

Weapons on a rampage → Paying respects + moogle merchant.

If you don't complete kids on patrol first then the other two don't unlock. One of these further quests involves more kids and playing with them. Not really Cloud type activities and unlike with chapter 3 where he'd do something because Tifa asked, he's not got that type of relationship with Aerith that he'd be willing to do stuff that he doesn't want to just to impress her.

Breakdown of sidequests in sector 5 and NPC background dialogues.

Weapons on a rampage is more his style of quest, which leads to the NPC who set it to ask a further favour. This links to the next quest where you have to pay respects for the old man. The thing is, he doesn't have the graveyard key, which leads to the next quest where we have to go buy it off Moggie. This is the only kid related quest on this branch and it's over in moments. Cloud has the minimum amount of contact with Moggie and doesn't show any kind of tolerance towards her while he's talking. There's also no apology for his behaviour – unlike when he said to Tifa he was doing his best when she scolded him for being rude.  

The way these quests are set out in blocks of three and the fact one half is heavily reliant on child interaction – which Cloud wouldn't do at this point in his development or association with Aerith – leads me to believe he wouldn't agree to these quests. This means the language of flowers discovery doesn't trigger and Aerith ends up in her second option dress – which I've theorised is her canon outfit because of its design similarity to the OG version, her reaction to the dress, the fact that in OG, Aerith chose her own dress, the hairstyle and accessory match the OG style and Cloud's reaction is a very Cloud reaction to have, compared to the other two outfits – the bad dress has dogs and rats following her and the red dress is so ott she's swarmed by fans, a red carpet and so on, but also her accessories don't fit her symbolism theme of flowers because she's wearing stars.

With all of the above in mind, I surmised Cloud would do the monster hunt branch of quests and quit while he was ahead.

Chapter 9

Where before we had a few choices happening, once we hit Wall Market we're inundated with options that affect Cloud's outfit later on. They also showcase what kind of morals Cloud has. Either way, it's canonically easier to get Chocobo Sam's pts higher than Madam M's, leading me to believe he is the canon narrative choice for this section and that Cloud's black and blue corset dress is the one he ends up wearing.

This contradicts my previous theory about the ultimania in which Cloud is shown very uncomfortable in the loli outfit, which led me to believe that was the one he ended up in if he made the choices in Wall Market. I now believe it's because if you pick this outfit it's his “bad ending”, worse than if you don't make any effort and get the plain black and grey dress.

The maximum amount of pts you can get from Chocobo Sam's options is 6.5, compared to Madam M's 5.

There are several people who offer you options during Wall Market.

The love hotel owner (not a Nojima self-insert lol).

Johnny (discovery) + before the first coloseum match – there's a bottle on the table and the choice is to drink or not.

Madam M x2

Sam x2

The first option you get in Wall Market happens before you've even entered the place. Sam asks you what the girl you're searching for looks like. No matter which option you choose, Sam says that Cloud has a crush on Tifa – which he doesn't deny.

If you choose the first option you get 1pt with Sam.

If you choose the second option you get 0pts

If you choose the 3rd option you get 1pt with Madam M.

I chose the first option because Cloud's a guy, with eyes, and the other two choices don't offer anything in the way of a physical description and if he's describing her to someone then he needs to actually describe what she looks like in some way. This is the only option that does that. It's also the only option that gets a different reaction out of Aerith, whereas the other two options have the same reaction from her.

This is the second option we can choose from and it's the love hotel guy (still not a Nojima self-insert). If you choose “no thanks,” this gets you 1pt with Sam and Aerith flirts with Cloud.

If you choose “how much?” you get a surprised “Cloud!” from Aerith and 1pt with Madam M.

If you choose “back off” you get 0pts and Aerith apologises on his behalf.

Of the 3 choices, I picked “back off” because it's the most Cloud appropriate choice.

Next, we have the Johnny discovery when he literally runs past you as you try to go to Don Corneo's for the first time. By following him to the Honey Bee, we get a lecherous dialogue from him and then a question about Cloud's own preferences. Would he go into the Honey Bee? If he agrees with Johnny, we get a slightly self-loathing assumption of a reply, whereas if we disagree, Johnny says that Cloud hasn't experienced anything yet. Either way, he runs off once he's finished.

By agreeing with Johnny you get 1pt for Sam.

If you don't agree you get 0pts.

I chose to disagree because Cloud isn't a lecherous pig and is actually pure af with no experience.

We learn from Leslie that the only way to get into an audition with Corneo is through the trio. Andrea Rhodea has a 3 year waiting list, so we don't even see him. So, we go back to Sam.

This is a hint that the following event with Sam is a load of bull. Johnny telling Cloud – if you interact with him – that he should've followed his gut is a hint that Cloud should trust his instincts. It’s also confirming that while Cloud is a total cheapskate who doesn’t do anything for free, he’s also a betting man who’ll think little of dropping 1000g on a sure thing (why 1000g? because that’s the amount he says to Barret in chapter 6, showing that while Cloud appreciates having money, he’ll also spend it.) Then it's around the corner to where Sam waits. Who, despite having already endorsed Tifa, says he's willing to help Aerith if she can guess the result of a coin toss.

Ofc it's rigged. But if you choose to gamble, it impresses Sam. You get 1.5 pts for choosing heads or tails. If you refuse to gamble then you get 0.5pts.

I believe the narrative choice is to pick heads, like Johnny suggested because he is the inner voice of Cloud and gives us hints as to real Cloud’s feelings at different points in the game. Either way, Cloud gets the coin and says he had a hunch about the result.

After this it's away to Madam M's and the most hilarious choice I've ever seen! I have to wait until the room's clear before choosing because it's a watch from behind a cushion moment lol

Madam M won't help Cloud unless he agrees to a massage. Since our SOLDIER boi doesn't like being forced into decisions and has issues around touch and intimacy, not to mention he's stingy af and wouldn't drop 3k on a massage when he's previously hounded people for a lot less money. But, he also doesn’t stop to think about spending money if it’s worth this while. 1000g doesn’t seem like much of a big deal to him, if it’s his standard amount of bet on a sure thing. He wants to save Tifa, so he’d likely go with the standard course. The other one alludes to him being a cheapskate like Aerith accused and there’s no reference to the luxury course anywhere in the game except here. This isn't something he's doing for pleasure, he's in Wall Market to save Tifa, so the things he's doing are a means to an end.

If you pick the luxury massage you get 2pts with Madam M.

If you pick the standard massage you get 1pt with Madam M

If you pick the poor man's massage you get 0pts.

I chose the standard course massage because I believe that's what Cloud would choose just to get Madam M to agree to help them.

The next choice comes right off the back of the massage at Madam M's and involves Cloud giving an opinion of Aerith's outfit.

If you choose the first option it gets you 1pt with Sam and a pleased reaction from Aerith.

If you choose the second option you get 0pts and an angry retort from Aerith.

If you choose the third option you get 1pt with Madam M and a middle of the road comment from Aerith. No matter which you choose, Madam M scolds you.

Since by this point in the game Cloud and Aerith are friendly enough for him to pass comment on her outfit, I could see him answering with the second choice, but not the first since he doesn't even notice what anyone's wearing let alone have an opinion on it. The third option sounds the most Cloud-centric choice, so that's what I picked.

The last option is for Cloud to drink an unknown substance or not while waiting for his match to start at the coliseum. Johnny gives the explanation of what it is, who it came from and what it potentially does.

By choosing to drink the mystery substance you get 1pt with Sam.

By ignoring the drink you get 0pts.

Since Cloud is the last person to put weird shit in his body I went with not drinking it.

The final tally for the options that Cloud gets set him on Chocobo Sam's side quests for the blue corset dress that matches Tifa's canon outfit – she said dress to match, remember? It's also the one that in the ultimania Cloud looks the most at ease in.

Chocobo Sam's sidequests are the ones that I got as a result of choosing the options I did. I believe this is the canon narrative that Cloud would take if he were choosing. After several playthroughs I did waver on whose quests seemed more the narrative canon. I began thinking Sam's were, but then the ultimania illustration of Cloud embarrassed in the satin dress led me to think Madam M's were the narrative canon. After playing both sets of side quests, I've come to the conclusion that Sam's would be the narrative choice if Cloud were making the decisions.

Having Cloud's choices result in Sam's side quests we get burning thighs (appears in both), the party never stops and a dynamite body.

Burning thighs is the squats contest that echoes the OG storyline. We meet Andrea's little brother, Jules – who is totally not staring at Cloud's ass through the entire minigame while encouraging him.  This side quest touches on egos and being cocky – which Cloud can be. It's a humble pie moment, which is another life lesson that Cloud needs to learn also.

The party never stops features the return of Johnny, who appears as we leave the dressmaker's son who's the originator for the quest. We're sent over into the bar, where we can collect the Midgar Blues single for the cd achievement. This song is canonically Cloud and Tifa's romantic theme in Advent Children. Once we meet the dressmaker, we're sent over to the materia guy who wants “the sauce” in exchange for “inspiration”.

This sidequest is a bunch of tongue in cheek dick jokes and it's hilarious! It's also alludes to the fact that Cloud has zero experience since he had a crush on Tifa until he left the village, spent his time pining for her as a grunt, then got stuffed in a test tube and was in a coma for five years. Ofc he blusters his way through it, handling his balls and making comments about how he doesn't need lessons on “whipping it out”. Oh you poor sweet boi.

Once we get the sauce – fun fact there's no picture in the inventory of it when you get it – and we hand off to the materia guy (unintentional pun but I'm leaving it in now I've done it – and that one) we head over to the next weirdo on the list. The chef. Who literally poisons all of his customers. I suspect he and the pharmacy guy are in cahoots. He poisons people, the pharmacy guy cures them and they both get rich.

The chef asks Cloud to help fix the problem with his kitchen – but from npcs around it sounds like it's just his cooking that's the issue. It doesn't matter which option you pick, Johnny still gets food poisoning. Even if you max your materia, nothing changes. Cloud doesn't even offer the options, Johnny does the talking.

Once we're done with the killer chef, it's over to the pharmacy guy, who asks Cloud to go and deliver medicine. If you maxed your cleansing materia you get 3 packets of meds. The only one that matters is the guy in the pub bathroom since that moves the side quest along. The others are optional, but increase Cloud's rep about town since he's helping more people.

The pharmacy guy gives Cloud a Honey Bee Inn VIP pass, which is the dressmaker's inspiration. Once that's handed back, Cloud chats to the dressmaker's son, who caps the side quest off with the below screen.

This is a reference to the dream that Cloud had during chapter 8 where his mother mentioned he should have a mature girlfriend. This is the contradicting opinion that balances that. The dressmaker's son saying age doesn't equal maturity is referencing Tifa – since these quests are the ones that get you the matching dress to her canon one. This is the same as the Midgar Blues playing in the pub. These are Tifa centric quests, which is the entire reason Cloud's in Wall Market to begin with.

The last quest is a dynamite body, which comes from Sam. Tifa has a bomb bracelet on her default weapon that is part of a matching pair with her chocobo bracelet. Tifa is represented by “da bomb” and everyone knows Cloud’s a chocobo head. This quest is referencing cloti, and a comment from the announcer using a mixed metaphor mentions putting on shades. 

Afterwards Same tries to hand Cloud his cut of the prize money and Cloud says he's there for Tifa, not money. Sam replies that Cloud has changed since his arrival and could likely storm Corneo's place all by himself to save Tifa. He also mentions that Tifa is a bombshell and Cloud goes to confront him by taking a step forward and saying “Hey.” This is Cloud stepping up to people sexually objectifying Tifa.

Once the quests are done, it's back to Corneo's where Cloud considers breaking in – like Sam suggested – but Leslie uses Cloud's feelings for Tifa against him by saying Corneo could hurt her if he does anything he shouldn't. This isn’t the first time Cloud’s emotionally blackmailed in Wall Market. 

Cloud backs down, but is now operating under the sense that Corneo is a lot more dangerous than he first thought, and he's sending Aerith in. Aerith. Who's useless in a fight. He's now thinking that he'd have to go in and save them both, which is why he says to Aerith that he's not letting her go alone.

We've now reached the point where Cloud's earlier refusal to do kid related quests gives us the result with Aerith's dress. Her theme has been given a slightly rock vibe, which is SOLDIER Cloud appropriate, and the design is something that she has chosen – this is in line with her OG dress which she chose herself. She also has a large hair bow, similar hairstyle to OG and her flower symbolism throughout – compared to the red dress which has stars that haven't been associated with her at any point. The straps on the pink dress – which is her signature colour – also match the straps on the OG design. Johnny’s around throwing cherry blossom petals, which match several of her abilities and are a reference to Zack. Aerith wore this dress for Zack. This is her Zack date dress. This leads me to believe that this is her canon narrative outfit.

The accompanying blocking to this scene is also more realistic than the other two.

Cloud's reaction to the dress is suitably Cloud. His jaw drops a little and he gets a bit soft voiced when talking to Aerith, though it's a quick moment that ends when he asks why she left Madam M's.

And now we're at the point where Cloud has to impress Andrea Rhodea. As long as you get 112pts in his dance sequence (great = 2, good = 1) then Cloud will wear the earrings with his dress, no matter which one it is.

This is the last choice you have and it's the tie breaker between the two girls if you chose to do all of the side quests for them. By choosing Aerith you get her resolution later in chapter 14, but in the meantime you get a short dialogue and then Tifa wakes up.

If you choose Tifa, this goes towards her resolution in chapter 14, but in the meantime you get a longer dialogue concerning the imminent dangers in sector 7 and also she questions Cloud about his relationship with Aerith. This is referencing all of the strange things about Aerith from her initial touch to Cloud’s wrist letting him see the whispers, to the whispers attacking them later in sector 7, to her not letting him leave sector 5, to her crying and wanting to go with him. Tifa’s question makes Cloud suspicious. It’s not romantically motivated on her part because her focus is on saving sector 7.

Cloud doesn't get a chance to answer, as Aerith wakes up.

Chapter 12

Technically not a choice -- in fact it implies the opposite -- because if you run the timer out in chapter 12 at the top of the pillar nothing happens. This is a message that all previous timed events were optional because that’s what the players wanted. This is saying that no matter if you try to choose to ignore Tifa or Barret or any of the plot, that the game will wait for you to move. There are no consequences to running this timer down because it’s implying that the time for optional choices has passed. Narrative canon only will commence from this point on.

The last optional choice in the game comes a lot later with the stairs and elevator, so anything that Cloud says or does between then is canon. All of the resolutions are canon, but we're only able to view one at a time because of how the game operates. Cloud is the witness to the resolutions because they’re Barret, Tifa’s and Aerith’s resolutions.

Barret's resolution is first because the lighting is much brighter indicating it's earlier in the night.

After that comes Tifa's resolution, which is much later in the night, but well before dawn.

The last resolution is Aerith's and she indicates that it's almost morning at the end of hers.

All resolutions are canon

Aerith's resolution is hinted at by Mirielle during the lost wallet and Kyrie sidequests.

Tifa's resolution is hinted at by Tifa, through Leslie in the chapter 14 intel gathering main quest where you hunt down Don Corneo. Tifa relates Leslie's fiancee's necklace to a symbol of reunion. Since the necklace has a reunion flower on it, that she's seen, and the only time she mentions learning about the meaning of that flower is during her resolution, this is the confirmation of it having happened. Also, the fact that Cloud was about to mention the meaning, then stopped because he thought it might embarrass Tifa – who'd been in a vulnerable state at the time – shows that he was aware of both the meaning and the resolution and Tifa's feelings.

Chapter 16

Last choice in the game and it’s between the stairs and the elevator. And as much as I love the stairs, Mayor Domino tells us later on that the stuff in the elevator is what happened. 

Feel bad for Cloud having to confront his claustrophobia with Tifa there. He’s not happy at all by the time they reach the top.

In Conclusion.

Playing as though Cloud were the one making the choices was a lot harder than I thought. I tend to choose things either as he would, or close enough in most cases, but there were some choices that had me stopping to debate which was the right choice. Cloud's character development is a slow process and even though I know he's got a whole kid army in AC, I couldn't resolve that with his current personality, so that led me to avoiding the kid quests. This revealed that Aerith should have worn her pink dress in the narrative and the scene between them when she reveals it feels a very narrative canon type of scene.

Tifa's dress is the same no matter what. I also believe she'd be the narrative choice in the sewers over Aerith because of the content of her dialogue and the fact real!Cloud has a crush on her still. He often checks in with her to make sure she's ok and he has an overriding urge to support and comfort her even when he doesn't know how. The way she lands in the sewers is echoed later in several other falls, but there’s one in the opening of chapter 13 where she’s got her arm under her head. This is because Cloud positioned her that way after she got knocked out. This shows he’d go to her if he saw her hurt.

All of the events, options and side quests culminate in Tifa's resolution being the main narrative option we see, with Aerith and Barret as a second and third option through replay choices, though all three do happen. From Cloud’s pov, though, the important one is Tifa because that’s the person he cares about the most. You only get Barret’s resolution by being a closed off asshole and Aerith’s if you act out of character and more like Zack, which is what Aerith wants. The quest dialogue with Leslie shows the resolutions happened, which makes them narrative canon.

People can disagree with this, but I found the narrative canon a really enjoyable way to play – once I got over messing up in wall market with the dress and had to start again (the choices are hard lol). Seeing events through Cloud's eyes, instead of being like some puppet master telling him what to do so I could get the story I wanted to see, was a really fun way to play. I definitely recommend it!

[woeismyhoe]

I disagree. When people only use a certain culture for aesthetic, it’s more of a fetishization than. The fans of the show tend to do it. Idk about anime or where they borrow from but it’s more painful if your they once tried to wipe out your whole culture. The sandbenders being portrayed as bad guys, zaheer and Ghassan as villains really tells you what they think about Islam and muslims. No the eipsode was wring in so many ways. It’s basically saying ok no problem u lost your people to genocide and these are the last remains of your ancestors but we will try to wipe that out and you don’t get to be angry about it. You can tell the show is written by and markated to white people. I don’t know about you but representation really does matter to me and many other people. People fetishizes East Asian, white people esp. SA ppl are dark skinned compared. You can’t tell me they didn’t take these things while creating the show. Aang had his everything wiped out. Imagine the trauma but nah we have another kid who is allowed to express his trauma and y’all should be sympathetic towards him. Tell me it’s not the colonizer mindset.

But how would you know if it was only used for aesthetics? When in ATLA has it ever been about aesthetics? That word wasn’t even casually used during those years. If it were simply aesthetics, then I doubt that the whole research the team used in ATLA for architecture, designs and clothings wouldn’t have even been made in the first place— and shockingly, ATLA had more combination of cultural respectable inspired designs than kid shows from native countries (I’m not even kidding).

You don’t know anime, so you can’t really say much about it. I have, and I can tell you that the Chinese during WWII was targeted to be massacred by the Imperial Japanese. Just search up the Nanjing massacre. That shit was absolute monstrosity that idek what happened to those soldiers for them to do those things. And those didn’t only occur in Nanjing, but in Asia overall particularly to anyone Chinese simply because they didn’t like the Chinese. And yet hundreds of anime constantly borrow elements from Chinese culture and the Chinese rarely have a problem with it despite their history with Japan. It’s the same thing with South Korea. These countries have their conflicts day to day until it gets political, but anime is never involved because like I said, they know how to separate fiction from reality.

And Zaheer and Ghassan? The country I’m living in is also populated by the Muslim community (and obviously grew up with their culture), yet none of them have complained about that or assumed there was a hidden agenda because again, they don’t immediately suspect it to be a deliberate attack on their community just because a villain happened to share a Muslim name. There are several villains with Chinese names in the Avatarverse and even in anime where villains are ethnically Chinese, Korean, German, African— yet again, they don’t give a fuck because they understand evil doesn’t stem from race but rather from the character’s backstory.

Bryke wasn’t obligated to insert any South Asian as a main character in ATLA. They weren’t obligated to make everyone good people. You’re complaining about sandbenders being portrayed as the bad guys, so does that mean East Asians are also bad guys? Because that’s your logic right now. Throughout at least one Chinese, Korean, Japanese based character has been shown to partake in looting and criminalistics activities, yet you’ve chosen to specifically only see the sandbenders being portrayed as the bad guys DESPITE that being only done by one group while the father was honorable and so were the ones who helped Zuko and Iroh, and Guru Pathik was the most obvious SA and he was definitely not a bad guy. I don’t see how the show’s treatment of them was any less different than how East Asian based characters were treated.

Was the show marketed to white people? Perhaps. It’s the US where white ppl dominate the market. But you act as if the accents were specifically only for white people, as if POCs don’t speak the same American accent. You claim that white people fetishize East Asian culture, as if that’s just specifically done more often by white people. Idk about you but that sounds awfully racist right now. So what? ATLA was mostly based off of East Asia, so that means it was a fetish, seriously? So anyone who chooses to base something off of East Asia, that’s only because of a fetish, and not because they were genuinely interested in the culture. That’s your assumption? FYI that is ridiculously presumptuous and offensive af.

It was released in 2005. Different era and time. Representation wasn’t demanded but rather done casually that didn’t have to scream WE HAVE REPRESENTATION AND DIVERSITY SO WATCH OUR SHOW! like shows are doing nowadays. Why? Because storytelling and good entertainment was prioritized over representation, unlike today where y’all are literally making everything about representation that shows aren’t even fun to watch anymore.

You keep seeing white people as the enemy that your hatred has extended even to a freaking cartoon show that actually has good messages and progressive af for it’s time (and I’m not just talking about it being Asian based). No where in the Northern Air Temple episode did it imply that Aang had no right to be mad about what happened to the air temple or that he was being unreasonable. Literally everyone emphasized with his feelings but again, SURVIVAL and PRACTICALITY. That was their reasoning, which are completely valid during a time of WAR.

I grew up in a country which basically and shockingly shares the themes of the Avatarverse which is to ultimately appreciate each other’s cultures and not to isolate themselves from one another. There are the Chinese, Malays, Indians, South Asians, Eurasians over here— It’s not even that hard to say that Singapore is prospering much more than the US or majority of Europe because we don’t think of any race as the enemy, even if the Chinese here are the majority and there’s still subtle racism around. Why? Because it’s encouraged here to spread their cultures around and dress in their ethnic clothes. Everything is done respectfully, which was what ATLA did. I’m literally comparing an actual country that has achieved multicultural harmony to ATLA. That means ATLA must have done something right, contrary to the SJWs opinion.

What I’m basically saying is, don’t keep accusing something to be problematic, when the actual natives don’t. It’s ridiculous when people somehow think they know everything about their culture that they can nitpick what’s appropriate and what’s not, when they didn’t even grow up surrounded by that culture. Hint: if you grew up with a westernized thinking (which is practically everyone), then you should really go and visit your roots first and then ask older people who tend to have the traditional mentality about the issue in question, before jumping to conclusions and getting offended when the rest aren’t.

[toast-the-unknowing]

Hi. Hope you're doing okay. I'm a newbie fic writer and am hearing a lot about betas. I wanted to know: do you have a beta reader or critique partner? Do you beta their fics in return? Does this person need to know my fandom? I'm worried I'll have to go thru a few ppl to find someone who suits me.

I don’t have a beta at the moment. I’ve used them in the past, usually in a one-off kind of way; I haven’t had a regular standing arrangement with one person who was “my” beta since, oh Lord, the late aughts. I’ve also beta read for people in the past, but I don’t think I ever beta read for anyone who beta read for me; it was more one-off kinds of things.

There are a lot of different forms that a beta/writer relationship can take, so the most important thing if you decide you want one is to figure out what you are looking for from your beta and then find a beta who wants to provide that.

Do you want someone to check SPAG -- spelling and grammar -- and catch your typos and your there/their/they’re mixups

Do you want a beta who will check for the readability of your story on a more stylistic level and let you know when your long flowery sentences have gotten too damn long or when you’ve used the same adjective six times in this scene so pick something else

Do you want a beta who will give you feedback on whether your story works as a whole, whether the plot/pacing/character arcs need work

Do you want a beta who will help you make sure your characters are in character

Do you want a beta who will check your story for canon compliance

Do you want a beta who will check your story for factual accuracy

Do you want a beta who can read your work for sensitivity and representation around issues of race, disability, etc.

Do you want a beta who will read a story that is still in the works and help you figure out how to get it where you want it to be

It’s okay to want some of these and not others. I am selfish writer and a youngest child who grew up with a lot of hand-me-down clothes and so never feels like she has enough stuff for HERSELF, so I do not appreciate some other person swanning into my story and telling me that the plot needs to change or that my characters are acting wrong. Sometimes I do just get stuck on a story, or have a particular concern, and I want some input, but in those cases I usually just talk to a trusted friend about the story and see if they have any suggestions. Sometimes just talking about it helps me find the solution for myself.

(I could use SPAG and readability help -- every writer alive could -- but by the time a story is done I just want to POST IT and be DONE with it, I do not want to email it to someone and get it back a week later and put more work into it and maybe need to email it back again, OH MY GOD, THE BABY IS BORN, JUST CUT THE UMBILICAL CORD ALREADY)

So in the past when I’ve had betas, and if I have a beta again, I would go into the arrangement saying “hey, I want you to check SPAG, and readability on a scene level, and let me know if you spot anything that’s just flat out inaccurate, but I don’t want character or plot notes.”

This also comes back to the “trusted friend” thing. You might start off with a beta that you ask for SPAG and fact checking, and then over time you get a feel for how they work and their taste and abilities, and decide, yeah, actually, I do trust this person to give me feedback on the bigger elements. You can let them know and see if they’d be into that! It’s not written in stone. Waaaay back when I was writing shippy fic for the first time ever, I used to die of embarrassment writing romantic scenes. Which is, uh, kind of a problem for ship fic. I talked about it with my beta and she had some suggestions for me about how to work through that that were really helpful -- but we’d worked together before that; I don’t know that I would have asked just anyone for that kind of help.

Does a beta have to know your fandom -- depends on what you want. If you want a beta who can tell you if your characters are acting true to themselves, or who can catch it if you screw up a canon detail -- yup, you need someone who knows your canon. For proofing, flow, sensitivity? Nope. A good beta can also comment on your plot structure, pacing, tone, character arcs etc. even without knowing canon, although they may give you the odd note that doesn’t work. My brother beta’d a fic for me once and mentioned it was weird that there was a character referenced in the very beginning of the fic who never appeared and was never mentioned again -- but that was the point, and I trusted that people who knew canon would realize that the other characters were trying and failing the entire story to ignore that character’s absence. So I didn’t change it.

Anything a beta tells you is a suggestion. Okay, not whether “dessert” has one s or two, but anything else. If they say “that line doesn’t work for me” but you really like it, keep it. If they tell you that your characters need another scene or two to work through their issues but you think they’re good, let it ride. Or, try to figure out if there’s something else you can change; a reader might pick up on the fact that there’s something wrong with the story without being able to accurately pinpoint what is wrong with the story.

Not every beta is going to be a good fit for you, or for your particular story. This is why you need to talk all of this through before they start working. Tell them your ships, your concept, your story length, your rating. Tell them the kind of beta reading you want. Avoid a situation where they don’t get your fic back to you for weeks because they didn’t have enough time to proof a 100k epic, or where they give you a lot of critical notes you weren’t expecting and feel hurt by, or where they have to read something that makes them uncomfortable or do a lot of research on something they didn’t know about. Better to find out ahead of time that you’re not a good match and keep looking.

Once you’re found them...well, I am sorry to say, you probably will have to go through a few people before you find someone who suits you. Especially if your beta isn’t someone you knew previously, as a friend or as a writer, you can’t really say whether they’ll have feedback you find useful, or whether the two of you can communicate effectively, or whether they’re reliable and timely, or whether you guys have complementary tastes and priorities. Better to accept that now and plan for it. When you find someone who’s willing to beta, while you’re figuring out what that beta-ing is going to entail and the best ways to communicate with each other and a rough timeline for them getting back to you, set up the arrangement as a one-time thing. “Hey, do you want to beta this story for me,” not “hey, do you want to be my beta.” If you liked your experience working with them, you can always ask if they’ll beta another story for you. If you didn’t (and the more you want from your beta above basic SPAG, the more likely you’ll feel a disconnect), shake hands, part as friends, and try another beta.

You don’t have to stick with the first beta you meet if it’s not a good fit. I hear discord fandom chats can be places to find betas, but do not ask me how or why because I don’t use discord and I don’t know. You can try posting in your author’s notes on your fic that you’re looking for a beta and see if someone reaches out to you. If you notice the same commenter popping up in multiple stories, you can try reaching out to them and asking, very nicely and ready to hear a “no,” whether they’d be interested in beta-reading for you. Just go in with a clear understanding of what you want, communicate that, and see if they’re willing and able to provide.

[incarnateirony]

as an emerging lgbtq+ (i'm 'BT') guy i am so glad you're making the point you made in your last post. I've always gravitated towards Dean because he is so 'imperfect' in his queerness, like me. but he's not a uwu soft queer so apparently that bothers a lot of ppl on here? Especially younger queer women, I've noticed. But a lot of guys, cis and trans, struggle with being attracted to men so much in a way that is simply different (not better or worse) than (1/2)

being wlw, especially depending on one’s generation and region, etc. basically what i’m saying is a lot of the few queer men that there are in the fandom stay quieter as it is almost completely queer women dictating what is and what isnt, and not quite empathizing with the unique struggle many queer men have with internalized homophobia/being Unmanly for being attracted to men. hope this wasn’t too all over the place, ive had this on my mind for a Long time and i’m glad you brought it up. (2/2)

ps: I’m not trying to put down queer women for being a significant part of the fandom. I just really wish the environment of the fandom felt more like somewhere queer men’s voices can be heard better, considering the largest pairing is, needless to say, mlm

Well, first of all, welcome Nonnie. I take it you’re addressing this untitled post addressing intersectionality, representation vs tokenization, represented demographics and just general motivations of those in discussion, yes? (x)

You’ll find this is a longstanding topic of my blog, be it excavating creator commentary people have buried for their own motivations and talked down and around, or dual faceted issues. 

(If you haven’t read the crosslinks on the post you’re addressing, you may want to read The Problem With Dreamhunter (x) It discusses exactly this issue, even if it was written over a year ago at that point, showing just how cyclic this issue is. It talks about MLM/WLW intersectional issues, migrating goalposts, a bunch of show stuff and some of Bobo’s sociopolitical commentary from 2003 about advancing LGBT representation through moderate incremental methods being proven effective at expanding the media presence/platform exponentially above liberal, or more severe/extreme styles)

But when it comes down to it, basically: Yeah, you right.

I didn’t just arbitrarily develop this opinion. I didn’t… just magically tune in to what the LGBT men that literally dodge fandom, for exactly the reasons you say, and know it’s because of the reasons you say – like that didn’t manifest. It came from leaving fandom (un)”safe” spaces. It came from engaging a great variety of LGBT males in real life, many of which engage the content. From observing how they spoke of the content in multifandom servers, or even *why* they chose to avoid speaking up.

And no, I personally didn’t get a read of you, like, insulting LGBT women for their part in fandom. Women engage social media for primetime TV fandoms at an exponential rate above men, so it’s almost unavoidable and it’s nobody’s fault really, but that says nothing for the perpetual habit of drowning out their voices to the fact that– well, they literally abandon engaging.

I’ve seen it enough times it *hurts* me. I shouldn’t *have* to pull my gay writing buddy out of holes to face this, and him still hide silently. I shouldn’t *have* to be the vein of news and information on the show to the bi male friend I have that refuses to touch this fandom. I shouldn’t *have* to even speak up about this. I really do want *you all* to speak up about this, because I can only speak so far, because you’re right: OUR JOURNEYS ARE DIFFERENT.

Hell, even a cis lgbt male vs a trans lgb(t obvious) male have entirely different journeys even though they’re both validly men. These battles are not the same. One community can speak up to defend another, and help hold them up and amplify them if there’s just not enough of them to project the way they need to, and this is something *greatly under respected* in this fandom. Nobody’s holding up the LGBT male voices when actually talking about representation. And you’re right, it’s mostly women, and you’re right, our path is different and our struggles and needs and wants and lives are different. But unless you take a considerable amount of time talking and sharing and learning personally the perspective of the LGBT male community, you’re not… really… helping them speak.

And let it be said, “holding up LGBT male voices” does not and should never equate to “despite having multiple LGBT men saying one thing, I found the one LGBT male saying the thing that matches what I want, who may or may not even actually be in the targeted demographic set of the character we’re discussing representation about, because it’s more than just being bi, it’s entire lives, paths and challenges– but you know, I found the ONE, so fuck the others.” That’s using your friends as tokens and cards. If you want to genuinely add to the conversation, what you do is you introduce your male LGBT friend to the other male LGBT friends and let them have a long conversation to talk out the sources of their disagreements before engaging in conversation.

But drawing a pretty base line collective from all people in the represented demographic, respectfully learning the majority wants and needs and struggles, and helping voice those is pretty key.

Women can sit here all day, and pass around things they’ve been told by other women are woke points, or things that sound progressive and good, and often sort of decontextualized from their purpose (be that the dresswear mentioned shortly hereafter, or what LGBT want/expect/SHOULD want or expect – but in the end, if you’re not sitting down and having dialogues – not just with one, or two, or even three LGBT men – but large handfuls and subsets, able to actually critically examine the differences in LGBT males of gen X, Y, or Z and their lives and stories – if you’re not doing that… If *that* isn’t the core of your discussion values, rather than pass-along buzz vibes– then you’re really not talking representation. You think you are. But you’re not.

There’s the uh. Thing. You noticed. About how women expect the men to engage.

When it comes to young queer women, I’m going to risk pissing some people off, but the long and short of it is (I could probably dig up the link but it’s been an eternity) a while ago they ran a psychological study to figure out why young women were attracted to yaoi, and gay porn, especially what is essentially stereotypical force-role type gay porn. It has to do with blooming attraction, primal fear, and trying to make the men more appealing in a way that does not intimidate them. 

This later manifests into feminizing them, setting twink/bear roles that go beyond into top/bottom, and conflating it with penetration, position, power, dom/sub, fork/spoon, sometimes served with a dose of internalized misogyny being projected into the vessel of whatever twink/sub is positioned, and generally— like, kink culture. Often this is passed with narrowly progressive-masked arguments of “Men should be allowed to be feminine if they want!” rather than a genuine answer to, “Why do you perpetually heterosexually resize, or reframe, and enforce heterosexual structure onto characters that do not meet this mold, and why is that a personal gain to you?” because in the end– it’s a personal gain. And again, at that point it’s not about representation.

Now again, I’m not… shaming anyone for having a kink. But kink/fetish needs/wants have blurred themselves in as if to hedge on equal territory to discussing canon content. Or sprinkling the quite literal fetishized art (power to you if that’s your thing, I guess, even if I do bear discomfort over fetishization of any LGBT demographic, even by another LGBT demographic) and reasoning with dialogue that implies it as being representative, and inserting that into the representation discussion, which *literally* just makes the entire bog muddier, makes the LGBT men trying to speak more easily dismissed in a vat of “just women/fetishists”, it just– it’s Not a Good. I’m… personally not a fan of it. Like at all. A lot of it makes me angry tbh. So I don’t engage. I don’t browse fanfiction. I look at very little art. 

Hell most of the people around here don’t even realize it’s actually a *minority* of LGBT men that choose to engage in penetrative sex, but it’s become a topic of outright obsession around here. There is so much simple… lack of awareness and discussion of the lives LGBT men lead, even by LGBT women because again – we don’t have your path. We can only listen to you. (And BOY have I gotten earfuls from my LGBT male friends absolutely going apeshit banana bonkers over fandom’s obsession with penetration culture, gender role enforcement while feigning it as liberation, and all kinds of other stuff. And that’s what I base most of my talking points on.)

Because if I’m going to talk representation, I’m going to talk about representing the demographic the character is supposed to represent, not molding him into a tokenized wash-over of every single person’s wants. If you’re an LGBT woman that can resonate with Dean Winchester, that’s great. Sometimes representation can be shared. But a character’s origin determines what demo he represents and not all of any given representative’s character’s attributes, methods, functions, anything – not all of it is going to meet any one person’s goals collectively, but the target demographic is inevitably closer to it.

Another point to raise is that it feels like people have lost track of *what* the representation battle is about. It isn’t just about any one person attaching to any one character. It’s about developing a TVscape that looks more representative of the real world, with a fair presence of PoC, of women, of LGBT people of all types, of the disabled community, of people that are even more than one of these, of people with different stories: people. About, well, normalizing it, because it should be normal. About saturating television enough that one day, and that day will not just be tomorrow per convenience, that people won’t be desperate for representation even vaguely in their wheelhouse, that they can turn on and see people of any intersectional type and go– wow, the world finally realizes we’re real. And that in that wide, realistic menu, yes, being able to turn a channel and eventually see someone *just like you*. A day when any show turned on has at least *someone* in your wheelhouse because every show eventually should have some sort of realistic spread, but if you find the *right* show, *there you are.*

That’s how it’s built. We don’t start by footstomping and tokenizing everyone to be vaguely representative of everyone or it doesn’t count because it didn’t work for *them*. We start by sharing truly diverse narratives, each unique to their own, just as diverse as straight stories are, maybe even more. That’s the only way you’re actually going to end up with a TVscape full of The Gays, and full enough to find *explicitly yourself* in there.

Deleting normalized, non-sensationalist text for lacking either visibility or flavor, even if you weren’t the intended demographic for it to speak to, is quite literally contrary to the entire fight.

and tbh?

This shit is why I hate shipping culture.

And I say that as someone who presumably “ships” Dean and Cas, if it’s shipping to address canon bullshit happening in front of you and just watch the show as it folds out without going into denial for *whatever* personal reason. 

There’s a lot of well intended people, most shipping fandom is full of good beans, but as a collective group – skewed by sociopathically manipulated dialogues we can literally track the origins of – have been driven into much of the above while genuinely believing they were doing the right thing, in a long chain of being told this was what and how to fight for, without really stopping and critically examining the nuance of the conversation. Because why would you? Seems to be the popular gay thing to do – while a lot of bisexual people currently hide their commentary via reblog hashtags or hedge awkwardly into an anon box sideways.

That all said, it continues to be my focus. It will never change on this blog. I will never surrender to being pressured, be it by antis or bitters or people just wanting to argue, into pretending things that were text are subtext. I will not move that goalpost. You are real, and you are valid, and you are welcome in my inbox any time, Nonnie, confidentiality guaranteed. Like, DM too.

but lmao like shit, dawg. There’s a reason the LGBT guys I’ve had as writing partners as Dean literally refuse to play with another Cas. That’s not just because I’m a *super aweSOME auTHOr*, it’s because they recognize I do not come from the wing lost to fanfiction, to troll wars, or even to shipping culture, love of a ship be damned. I don’t try to force gender roles on them. I listen when they speak, and often, surprise many with the angle I ever enter discussion or listening from to begin with, because of spending so many years listening to begin with. It’s an intrinsic understanding of why they resonate with the content, not what I can pull some transformative art stuff on or wanting to *make* it into anything else to fit *my* molds. It’s because of being someone engaged to the male perspective, without the need to twist or change a character to be content with it, and being WILLING to hold those challenging conversations.

Listen first. Talk later. But never in front of or over the people you claim to be talking for.

[kae-karo]

hi! me again! i understand that bi/pan people with a preference would never be considered lesbians but i had it presented to me as being like bisexual homoromantic which would be as valid as being ace and homoromantic right? and i don't understand how A's id could affect or imply anything about B's id? like the acknowledgment of demigirls doesn't affects girls being fully girls? as far as pronouns isn't the whole point that they ARE gendered, otherwise we would all just be they/them? (1/2)

non queer people very much understand pronouns to indicate gender. so why is language malleable when it comes to redefining gender and pronouns but not when it comes to using orientation labels differently? also i read that carrd and want to clarify i would never make the argument that trans people aren't "really" the gender they id as. also, i'm sorry for asking so much but i'm just trying to understand.

--

hi dear! for context (x) and please don’t apologize for asking questions! there are so many people who would rather shut down and not try to understand, i will always greatly appreciate people who are actively trying to learn

also sorry this got wAY too long lmao i have a lot of thoughts, apparently...

as for the way the term bi/pan lesbian was presented to you, that’s totally understandable! and again, per my lil caveat, the idea of expressing a difference in romantic and sexual attraction with a single term (like being bi/pansexual but lesbian in terms of romantic attraction) is totally chill but i think the part that starts to come into question is the large movement of people who were using bi/pan lesbian in the way i described in my other post (ie as a way to express that they are “lesbian but with some attraction to men, still”)

in terms of how person A identifies and how that affects person B, the point is less about an individual interaction - no, how a stranger chooses to identify themself does not directly affect my identity. to your notion of demigirls and the fact that they don’t negate the identity of women, that’s totally true! it’s not so much that a person’s identity negates another’s, more that the words a person uses to identify themself can affect others, because we tie certain terms with certain experiences. by a group of people commandeering terminology that already has an experience tied to it, the people who already use that terminology (because they have that experience) can start to feel as though their experience and identity are being called into question

okay, so if bi/pan lesbians become a standard terminology to describe ppl who would id as lesbians if not for some attraction to men, that could start to bring into question whether all or any lesbians could be attracted to men (as the person in the tweet mentioned). now (certain) men may start to believe that any person who ids as a lesbian might still be attracted to men, so these certain men may think that they have a chance with that lesbian even though the man ids as a man! this could lead to harassment, or the lesbian in question may already be prone to some internalized homophobia. now they’re starting to wonder if their attraction should include men because they id as a lesbian (and apparently, lesbian could include attraction to men), or if they’ve just been ‘confused’, as people may have told them before, and they start to doubt their own identity and whether ‘lesbian’ is the right reflection of their experiences (which it is, except that the term has been hijacked and presented as including experiences that actually belong in the bi/pan community)

and, once again, the way the terminology is structured (a ‘bi/pan lesbian’) seems to imply that the person in question doesn’t want to be attracted to men. if they did, why not use an umbrella term like bi or pan as their identity? the only distinguishing feature here is that one is inclusive while the other says ‘i’m attracted to women primarily and would like to identify as a lesbian, except for that pesky bit of me that’s attracted to men too...’ again, this is a harmful ideology to let grow, not only for those already identifying as bi/pan but for baby queers who may not fully understand their own identities yet! or for people outside the community who are trying to understand to the best of their abilities as allies!

to that end, it also propagates that harmful rhetoric of ‘oof, doesn’t it suck to be attracted to men lmao’ like MAN that’s really hurtful to guys??? and that rhetoric already exists. notions like this (where a wonderful umbrella term is turned into something that seeks to minimize attraction to men/male-aligned genders) can be so harmful not only to cis men and transmasc/trans men who are a part of the community but men outside the community as well

okay with regards to pronouns: i think this is where we start to get into the deconstruction of gender as a social construct. i feel like the most apt analogy here is the one i provided in the other post: names. names have, throughout history, been gendered (for the most part). sally was a girl, timmy was a boy. but we’ve started to deconstruct that as we’ve started to recognize that there are more than 2 genders (as a societal whole, i’m aware that this hasn’t been news in a while for people in the queer community). you have names like alex, sam, riley, names that you can’t look at and go ‘ah, they are [certain] gender!’ which is awesome for everyone! esp for people who are sensitive about their gender identity and for whom it is bothersome, upsetting, or even triggering to be misgendered!

pronouns are grammatically just a substitute for a noun, they take the place of the noun for the sake of ease of speech/writing. so the first question here is why, if we’ve extrapolated and separated the idea of someone’s name from their gender and acknowledged that the thing that we refer to them by is just...a noise they like, then why is it necessary for pronouns (another thing that is just a noise the person likes) to be inherently tied to a gender? a gender is a representation of an experience, but people who use the same pronouns may have nothing in common in terms of their gender experience!

now, you could argue that people who use they/them pronouns may be able to rally around a shared experience/frustration with getting others to use and accept those pronouns, but they likely aren’t all going to share a gender - maybe some are fem-aligned, or masc-aligned, or genderfluid or agender or any other gender on the massive spectrum of possible gender identities. but the way that they ask others to refer to themselves purely as an individual does not help give any insight into their experiences or community! 

you stated that ‘as far as pronouns isn't the whole point that they ARE gendered?’, so my question here is what purpose do pronouns actually serve? they allow you to refer to a person without using their name, right? so if we’re talking outside the world of grammar, i would argue that a person’s pronouns are an extension of their name: the purpose of a name and/or pronouns is to ensure that they make the user of said name/pronouns comfortable in their identity when being referred to. they are whatever gender they are (if any at all) - they may choose a name and pronouns to help them feel more comfortable in who they are. in fact, they may choose a name and pronouns that they didn’t use from birth simply because they do not feel comfortable with them for non-gender-related reasons, too!

and i can hear you thinking ‘okay, so why can’t we do that with labels like sexuality and just let people use whatever feels okay?’ and this is sort of the way i think about it: there are certain words we have defined with clarity in order to help us as a community understand ourselves and each other. we all agree that cis = you are the gender you were assigned at birth, trans = you are not the gender you were assigned at birth. lesbian means attraction to women/fem-aligned genders, ace means feeling no sexual attraction, bi and pan are siblings of each other that define attraction to all genders (which may or may not include preferences). male and female as genders have clear enough meanings that we use them in our other definitions, and nonbinary is a lovely catch-all umbrella that can encompass anything outside ‘male’ and ‘female’, even though there are also more specific identities that fall under that umbrella

(quick aside - fwiw i don’t think gender definitions are necessarily malleable in the same way pronoun ‘definitions’ are, i think there are gender experiences that we have not yet given formal terms to and that people may switch around between existing gender identifying terms as they look for ones that get close to their own and i think there’s still a question of what it even means to be a certain gender without reference to other genders, but as it stands, people who identify with certain gender terms do so because of a set of shared experiences that fall underneath that gender term)

what we have not done is defined an individual’s right to their experiences. if someone feels attraction to all genders with a preference for men, there’s a word to express that! if a person feels like they might shift between a variety of genders on a regular basis, there’s a word for that! if a person does not feel romantic attraction, there’s a word for that! and the reason we use these words with pre-defined definitions is so that we can identify people who share our experiences - if someone identifies as a lesbian, they can seek out other lesbians and know that they are among a group that understands what they have been through or are going through. if someone experiences attraction to all genders with a female/fem-aligned preference, they are likely not going to find a community that understands their experiences if they look for people who identify as lesbian

but if a person decides that hey, i feel most myself when people call me ‘emma’ even though that wasn’t my assigned birth name, that is when we step back and say ‘yes, that’s awesome! you do you!’ because there is no pre-defined definition of that name - yes, there’s a societal gender often associated with it, but it doesn’t provide anyone any benefit to assign a definition of an experience to that name. nobody is out there going ‘where are all the ‘emmas’, the ‘emmas’ understand my experience and i want to find them so that i can feel as though i’m part of the ‘emma’ community’

now, idk about you, but if i hear that someone uses she/her pronouns, that means....almost nothing to me, except that i know that they prefer those pronouns! in the same way that someone saying ‘oh, my name is emma’ means nothing to me except that their name is emma! whereas if someone says to me, ‘i’m asexual’, i know from their choice of identifier that they fall under the ace umbrella and awesome, this person might understand how i feel about certain subjects! (obviously ace is a huge spectrum in itself, but you get the idea)

in summary:

an orientation or a gender relates to an individual’s experiences, and the general definitions we have assigned to certain orientations and genders should remain somewhat clearly-defined in order to provide a sense of community for those that fall under the orientation/gender in question. that is not to say that new orientations/gender terms can’t arise to describe new experiences that do not already have a definition. the irritation with the ‘bi/pan lesbian’ discourse is that the experience described (attraction to all genders with fem-aligned preference) already has a defined term (bi or pan) that is contradictory to the term ‘lesbian’

the reason pronouns don’t need to fall under a clear definition is that they are not a signal to indicate a uniting experience - their purpose and function is equivalent to that of a name: it’s a way to refer to a person that makes that person feel comfortable, and it’s perfectly fine not to have a rigid definition for pronouns in the same way that you wouldn’t assign a name to have a rigid experience or definition associated with it

i know it’s a long read, but i hope that helps clarify my thoughts on the matter!

[themikewheelers]

So apparently it was confirmed that three new male characters will be cast for season 4. I don't want to judge just yet what they're going to contribute yet, because it's still early, but I'm now nervous lol I really hope they're like Tommy/Carol/Troy types, because holy shit there's already so many main characters. Also, why all male??? Hmmmm..

I don’t know how to say this and I swear I don’t want this to come across rude, but like, there’s literally no reason to complain about a season you haven’t seen yet, and all it does is give yourself a pessimistic attitude that’s just gonna make you and other ppl feel crappy. For starters, I genuinely just don’t know how to explain at this point that new characters are essential to advancing plotlines and in adding new locations, both of which are obviously a big part of s4! there’s literally just no way for them to write s4 without adding new characters. And in the case of these four characters, absolutely nothing has been “confirmed”, it’s 100% rumors that are just repeated by news outlet after news outlet. Maybe they are true, but there’s also a VERY good chance they’re fake just like 80% of news articles claiming to have information about s4 (and just while I’m on the topic I’ve seen that one “leak” EVERYWHERE claiming that s4 is gonna be out October 2020 and I just want to say rn that that is absolute bs so if we could maybe ignore it so ppl don’t get their hopes up and then complain later when it obviously isn’t out by then). But yeah, those 4 characters are complete rumors anyway. But even if they are true I’m sorry but there’s literally nothing wrong with adding them? NONE of them are rumored to be MAIN characters to begin with, or at least, the original source of the rumors didn’t claim they were main characters, idk what every news outlet has said after that when spreading the rumors with no backing. As for 3 of them, from the very very little we “know” about them, they seem p clearly to be high school aged guys who I’m guessing are maybe ppl Jonathan meets at his new school. Maybe antagonists, maybe friends. Maybe they’re upperclassmen bullies to Will. Or maybe they’re in Hawkins and the show is giving Steve some new ppl. But nothing about their descriptions makes them seem important so let’s not overreact to the simple possibility of them existing. It was only the fourth character that seemed like he may be important, but again, that’s bc stories and plotlines cannot advance without new characters being added and that’s smth this fandom just needs to get used to. Ppl having been complaining about this since 2016, and I’m sorry but I’ve been fed up with it since 2016. New characters are important, and I could even somewhat understand the criticism if it was main characters being added, but it’s not and the concept of criticizing a show for adding small roles to advance the plot is just ridiculous.

And about the “all male” thing too, I get what you mean, and trust me I’m also frustrated with how this show has so many more male mains than female, but I do think we gotta acknowledge that first off, its rlly not as bad as ppl make it out to be? 2 adults with a 1:1 ratio. 4 teens with a 2:2 ratio. And then 6 kids with a 4:2 ratio of boys to girls. Out of our mains, there’s rlly only a one character difference between male and female at this point. And it’s def complicated bc to some extent it comes down to who you want to personally interpret as a main character versus just a main cast member, but I think those 12 are rlly our core ppl even if there’s other roles that are technically credited as mains but don’t genuinely have that role (Karen, Billy, etc.). Also I didn’t count Erica in that bc I think it’s debatable whether she’s gonna be a main character going forward and we’ll have to wait to see, but she was absolutely a main character in s3. So yeah. This show absolutely has issues with diversity in so many respects, but in terms of male to female ratios, it’s rlly come so far from where it was in season 1? And while there’s always room for improvement, I do think criticisms at this point that are just “there’s not enough female characters” are kinda shallow and if u wanna talk female representation there’s a lot more meaningful stuff than just comparing numbers out of context. Also like again with this stuff it’s important to note that it is minor characters. If this was main characters I would totally agree with u that without context it seems a little crazy to be adding 4 new men and no women, but these are likely super minor roles and we don’t even know what their purpose is. And as much as ppl wanna deny it, a character’s purpose in the plot is gonna be a big factor in what gender they’re written to be, esp for minor characters.

Idk this got long and rambly and I’m just typing this out in the car sitting in my driveway for like 20 minutes even tho I thought it would take like 2 but dhskmskshsjsbs. I genuinely don’t want this to come across rude and I am just tryna express my opinion but I just don’t have a lot of patience on this topic bc ppl have been using the same complaints since 2016 and the vast majority of which I think are nonsensical. I think there’s absolutely ways that adding too many characters is a problem but I also feel v strongly that this show has done a good job balancing its characters, but more than that I feel much more strongly that adding new characters is an important part of any show and most of all, that judging any decision about s4 before watching it is just harmful to yourself and others. It’s giving yourself a negative attitude that’s gonna affect ur ability to go into the season willing to accept change and have an open mind or enjoy what happens bc ur so prepared and fixated on being critical. And it has the same effect on ppl who may not even agree with you but just from seeing the complaints and judgement from other ppl makes them feel bad about a show they love and affects their ability to enjoy it

[girlbookwrm]

Avengers: Age of Art Movie? ART?? MOVIE

DAY ONE

the title for this chapter of the Mighty Pre-Endgame Rewatch comes from the fact that Joss Whedon apparently said, of Age of Ultron: 

“I was trying to make a little art movie. Which is actually, a pretty shitty thing to do to a studio that gives you a lot of money.”

which??? ok?????

so we went into this looking for Joss Whedon’s Art Movie

It’s worth noting before we get into this that I’m a fan of a lot of things Joss Whedon has done over the years, as much as I give him crap sometimes, and actually, I don’t know that I hate this movie as much as is common. I enjoyed it more than I remember enjoying it in the past? I go back and forth. I saw it in theaters and was like “actually I like this it’s pretty ok” and then I saw it again like “OH NO THIS IS AWFUL” and then again like “OH NO IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN I REMEMBER” and now I’m watching it again like “actually......” and I think it’s that the quality is very. uneven? 

it is also worth noting that it took us TWO DAYS to watch this because we kept having to pause the movie  in order to GO OFF which meant that this 2 hour 22 minute movie took us like SIX HOURS to watch. at first it was just me and The Roommate @goteamwin but on Day Two the Gal Pal @pegasuschick joined us.

anyway on with the rewatch (day one)

I STILL MISS THE OLD MARVEL LOGO! SO MUCH!

So the opening shot of this movie is from the twins’ POV and this was the first point that we paused the movie to fully Go Off because goddamn

can you imagine how much better this battle scene would be from the twins’ pov?

like: there’s all these explosions and shaky cam and a monster roaring and you’re like “oh god is it aliens? it must be aliens? and these soldiers dying everywhere and the city is getting destroyed etc etc

and then you realize it’s not aliens, it’s not HYDRA, it’s not some terrible overpowered terrorists

it’s the Avengers.

now THAT would be an art film

anyway back to the rewatch

Steve Rogers: IT IS 2015, I AM NINETY SEVEN YEARS OLD AND I AM STILL FIGHTING NAZIS I AM T I R E D

this is all looking real fake it has not aged well and it wasn’t that great to start with

“they’re the avengers” he said, sounding so confused and so so tired

aaaaaand here we paused the movie AGAIN to talk for twenty minutes, mostly about how if this whole “”’”art movie”’’’’’’’ had been shot from the Twins perspective, that would have been a better set up for Civil War and also super interesting

“We are here to help” why is the Iron Legion speaking Very American English in an eastern? european? city

Old Man Dad Clint

there’s two weirdly different movies happening here and they do not sit well together: like, a dark spooky serious one and a quippy Joss Whedon action movie

and don’t get me wrong, one of my favorite things about Joss Whedon is how he uses humor to really give his sad moments Extra Punch he’s a master of that

but this is just jarring

“please be a secret door please be a secret door” followed by the world’s tiniest and most adorable “~yay~” is the most endearing thing Tony has ever done in his life I would die for him

The Problem Is Not Brucetasha. 

THE PROBLEM is that the BruceTasha dynamic doesn’t just come out of left field, it comes from a different sport entirely. it comes from another planet. 

I think there’s potential for an interesting dynamic here but we get ZERO buildup to it

like in the last movie, Natasha is scared of the Hulk, like, literally shaking in shock TERRIFIED of the Hulk, but we see nothing of her deciding to run directly at the thing that scares her most

and we get ZERO explanation of like -- Natasha likes Bruce AND the Hulk, and Bruce AND the Hulk both like Natasha and that’s an interesting dynamic too, but we get NONE OF THAT

it’s very frustrating

also, where does Wanda’s horror movie aesthetic go? is it the same place her accent goes?

Tony’s dream sequence is... p badly shot, given that it’s his driving motivation for THE REST OF THE SERIES

Me: this is weirdly shot, right?

The Roommate, A Professional: Yes. *in a very fancy voice:* ~From a cinematic perspective~ 

Me: *starts cracking up*

The Roommate: But seriously, they’ve gone for a weirdly wide angle in this very emotional moment and it would make more sense to do tight shots here, but--

Me: *still cracking up*

The Roommate: really?

Me: ~from a cinematic perspective~ trolololol

AND LITERALLY HERE IS WHERE WE GET THE TITLE CARD. THAT’S HOW LONG, SPIRITUALLY, THIS OPENING IS.

Why was Bruce NOT expecting a Code Green? like? It’s HYDRA, of COURSE they’re gonna pull out all the stops??

We get like two minutes of Thor&Steve&Tony being bros, for the purpose of exposition here, and then the party sequence, and literally the rest of the movie is them all arguing with each other

and we stopped the movie again to talk for ten minutes about how much more Impactful AVENGERS: CIVIL WAR would be if we had even one (1) movie of the Avengers actually being a team

this is exactly why it took us two days to watch this movie

“Uh, actually, he's the boss. I just pay for everything, and design everything and make everyone look cooler.”

And again, we stopped the movie (seriously, it’s our own fault this took so long to watch) because LET’S UNPACK THIS

TONY PAYS FOR EVERYTHING?

TONY MAKES ALL THEIR SHIT?

TONY DOES THEIR DESIGN WORK?

AND LET US NOT FORGET THAT SHIELD RECENTLY FELL APART

WHICH MEANS THAT THIS IS STARK INDUSTRIES PRESENTS: the avengers

and that is A L A R M I N G

legally speaking

and also morally speaking

like goddamn. 

no wonder ppl freak out about it? let’s jump on THAT for CW

(also, when we recapped this for the Gal Pal’s benefit on Day Two, she pointed out that Tony puts his name on everything and he probably got that from his daddy -- like in TFA, they’re doing this experiment for the Army but LITERALLY EVERY PIECE OF EQUIPMENT has the Stark Industries tag on it

Steve probably has the SI logo tattooed on his ass

he doesn’t know it

tony knows it 

and wishes he didn’t)

all that aside, this is an A+ On Point Steve and i Strongly Disagree with anyone who says that Joss Whedon doesn’t get Steve Rogers.

Like, we very clearly get three distinct Steves in this movie -- we get Captain America, Captain Rogers, and Steve, and they’re all a little different but they’re also all perfectly executed and they’re all STEVE. eg:

the look that he gives Maria, like english please and then after her explanation he says “well they’re going to show up again.” - Captain Rogers.

“Right. What kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country” - Steve

“They are.” - Captain America

let’s just. let’s just acknowledge that Thanos had a stone. in his possession. and he gave it away. to L O K I.

“I'm going to live forever”��

ah geeze he actually is tho

*CLINT FEELS*

They talk about AI like it’s this Great Forbidden Thing, and the Roommate looks at me with the Tiredest Eyes

Everyone is working on artificial intelligence, she says.

e v e r y o n e

seriously “the man was not meant to meddle medley” is a very impressive tongue twister that Tony definitely practiced in the mirror that morning

but it’s also nonsense

the military, corporations, academia, everyone -- everyone is working on AI.

Ultron: What is this. What is this, please.

The Roommate: Me. Every morning.

Also, it’s worth noting that when Ultron goes through all the files on the Avengers and shit, he looks at Steve AT LEAST twice. 

The Roommate: To be fair, so would I.

RIGHT RHODES IS THE REAL HERO OF THIS FILM

“Where are the ladies,” said Maria Hill, a Known Lesbian. 

Sam and Steve’s whole everything is A+ Great, as usual

Rhodey’s face after everyone laughs at the “Boom, you looking for this” line is just

*kissy chef fingers*

and then this happens

the “flirting”

this is the weirdest “flirting” i have ever seen

it’s like the uncanny valley of cute flirting

it’s like they’re both actors pretending to be characters who are acting out something they’ve only ever seen in film

why is it like this

“What Are Your Intentions Towards My Daughter?” - Steve Rogers

no I kid

Captain America said that

Steve said “as maybe the world’s leading authority on “waiting too long”, don’t.”

and then suddenly they’re all teens hanging out in their dad’s basement

honestly this scene is the best scene in the movie, possibly the franchise, and it’s well worth all the bullshit we’ve put up with so far.

let’s also take a moment to pour one out for both Steve and Thor’s #looks in this scene because

goddamn

Steve and that blue button down

Thor and his hoe v-neck + pop collar maroon jacket

much fashion very hnnnngh

like it takes WORK to make these two look better with their shirts ON but you did it, AoU costume department. You Did It.

Also, James Spader as Ultron is just

i love it

gurl u r LEAKING

u CHOSE this body

u could have taken any iron legion body, you probably could’ve taken a SUIT if you wanted but instead you’re here in this janky ass leaking melty faced body with wires hanging every which way and the arms and legs on backwards

you are such a drama queen

truly his father’s son

so when Tony pulls out JARVIS’ broken corpse, how were they all supposed to know this was JARVIS? do they all get to meet Jarvis at some point? like at what point was Captain America introduced to the holograph representation of JARVIS’ “body” that he just IMMEDIATELY knows that this abstract yellow humpty dumpty is JARVIS

Team Dr. Cho Was Underutilized 2k15

Tony laughing because he’s about to be in so much trouble is very much a #mood

We can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but, that up there? That's...that's the end game.

I’m just going to present this bad phone picture of my notes because I feel like it does a better job summing up how I feel about this line:

remember when Wanda had an accent?

I’d say “good times” but I’m not sure they really were

seriously the Maximoffs have a great origin story this should’ve been theirs and Clint’s movie that would’ve been better

God Bless The AoU Costume Department

I have no idea what happened in this scene because of Steve’s smedium shirt

and that said he has to compete, visually, with Cobie Smulders in a sheath dress, and he does so with effortless grace

*distinguished golf clapping*

I actually really like the set up of Wakanda and Vibranium here it’s just nice and it gives all the background we need without really feeling like exposition and it reveals character dynamic between steve and tony it’s just nice is all

SALVAGE YARD AFRICAN COAST

Andy Serkis giving 112% AS USUAL

So Ultron steps into this scene like

and tbh it is a sexy leg good work Ultron

“I’M NOT MY DAD” -Ultron, definitely in Denial

Pietro talking to Tony in this scene like Tony was personally there when the bomb blew up his family and almost killed him and his sister

he wasn’t

u r drax in this scenario, and Tony is Ronan

he doesn’t remember ur family, dude

“pretending you could live without a war”

are we just going to ignore that Ultron gets inside Steve’s head right here right now and then Wanda exacerbates that 200%

and Steve just decides “yup that sounds right”

“i guess I’ll just be at war for the rest of my unnaturally long long life”

is anyone? going to talk about that? bring it up to him maybe?

no? 

coooooool coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool

i just ~love~ (and by love i mean HATE) that natasha romanoff (A SPY) decided to upgrade her suit (HER BLACK STEALTH SUIT) with glowing (GLOWING!) stripes

much stealth very in character wow 

(negative 200 points costume department what the hell)

pietro don’t hit senior citizens that’s rude

these dreams are actually totally fascinating and I really like them don’t @ me they’re great

“I Am Mighty.”

“only the breakable ones. You are made of marble”

“We can go home. Imagine it”

aaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

“Natasha, I could really use a lullaby”

natasha isn’t here right now please leave a message after the beepbeep

this is such a fucking nightmare, could be a callback to that opening fight scene IF IT SUCKED LESS

Tony. Your green son has a special need. maybe instead of trying to turn him back into Bruce, you should try to accommodate his needs. because he’s special.

Clint MacDonald Had A Farm

“These are... Smaller agents.”

“Sorry For Barging In.”

Captain America is here from the 40s and Ready To Apologize

Thor’s Extremely Dramatic Exit

Steve: looks at the house

(very softly in the background, Peggy’s “we can go home.”)

The Roommate: nuuuuuuuuuuuuuu steve don’t think thaaaaaaaat

I honestly love Old Dad Clint. *shrug* sorry not sorry

and now we’re here. at That Scene. 

YOU KNOW WHICH ONE.

it makes no FUCKING sense for EITHER OF THEM to be having THIS CONVERSATION at THIS TIME. SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK.

Honestly, the only way this makes sense is if Bruce and Nat are both ace af and think the other one is allo af 

just two hopeless asexual babies, adorably in love with each other

both of them awkwardly being like “BUT. YOU WANT THE SEX. RIGHT?” 

and neither of them realizing that the other one also does not want the sex

that’s the only way the scene makes any kind of sense. If Natasha is putting on a performance and Bruce is too and neither of them realize that the other is putting on a performance

BUT EVEN THAT DOES NOT EXPLAIN WHY NATASHA FEELS THE NEED TO BRING UP HER UTERUS

LIKE

THERE’S NO NEED FOR IT IN THIS CONVERSATION

AND THE WAY SHE BRINGS IT UP IS B I Z A R R E 

and when i saw it in theaters, I was like “oh clearly this scene is missing some important dialogue that clarifies that Nat doesn’t mean she’s a monster for not being able to have kids.

BUT I WAS WRONG.

UGH ANYWAY MOVING ON.

god bless the AoU costume department for Steve in a Smedium shirt and Dad Jeans. A+ work i can almost forgive you for putting glowing neon on Nat’s stealth suit

but honestly the whole rest of this movie is worth it this one interaction:

Tony: Isn't that the mission? Isn't that the "why" we fight, so we can end the fight, so we get to go home?

Steve:

Captain America: *externally* something something end a war something something people die something something

Steve: *internally* I SWEAR TO FUCK IF ONE MORE PERSON TELLS ME THEY WANT TO GO HOME, IMMA MCFREAKING LOSE IT.

YOU WANT TO GO HOME?? Y O U WANT TO GO HOME??? B I T C H

oh hey Tony ur dad is here

“watched my friends die” ok but 

a) are you and Steve friends?

b) if this has been eating at you, why wasn’t it shot better ~from a cinematic perspective~ and why don’t we get more of you being haunted by it and less of you talking about reinstating prima nocta

Actually this is a good time to talk for a hot second about Why We Don’t Hate AoU As Much As Some:

it’s very hard to judge AoU as a standalone film

because a lot of the things it does best are not standalone

it does a good job setting the stage for Civil War

it does a good job foreshadowing Infinity War and Endgame 

and on that note, it’s actually hard to judge it without having seen Endgame

it does a BAD job setting up the Avengers as a cohesive unit that works well together

it does a BAD job building the BruceNat dynamic

it does a BAD job making us believe that the Avengers are actually friends and not just coworkers who tolerate each other and sometimes hang out and drunkenly try to pick up thor’s hammer

that isn’t friendship, actually. you know what friendship is? look at Steve and Sam talking about Important Things That Matter, look at Tony and Rhodes’ dynamic. those are friendships.

anyway

The Roommate says it feels like AoU skipped some steps. Like, Avengers (2012) brought us in at the ground floor of this building and then we got shoved into one of those really fast elevators and dumped directly into some game changer meeting happening on floor 44 and then it kicked us directly out the window to our deaths

i’m maybe elaborating slightly upon what she said

the point is that AoU is not a good movie because it’s not a good standalone movie

the character dynamics aren’t Bad or Wrong they’re just not properly built up to. 

It feels like we missed a movie

maybe there’s an alternate universe where we got an Avengers 2 that made sense, and this is actually Avengers 3

maybe we just need to find Joss Whedon’s secret file of fanfiction and then everything that happened in this movie will make sense

ALL THAT SAID, THIS IS WHERE WE STOPPED THE MOVIE ON DAY ONE AND MY FINGERS ARE TIRED SO THIS IS WHERE I’M STOPPING TOO. AGE OF ART MOVIE DAY 2 WILL BE UP WHEN I FIND THE ENERGY TO DO THAT.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

40, 47, 59, 62, 76

lmao hell yeah thanks for All this support i love it!! quastions

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

really idk i feel like even our schools’s Antics were pretty par for the course and i was just sitting in the corner reading the whole time basically......trying to think if anything wild happened in college but even then it was p similar. well you know what, whatever donors covered the majority of the cost of the school’s black box theater being renovated apparently Stipulated that every other year a rodgers and hammerstein production be put on. absolute freaks. my roommate/friend and their then-boyfriend, the one mormon i have Knowingly Known in my life, were in pirates of penzance (sic?) together. hilarious

47. favorite type of cheese?

i like cheddar and like, parmesan, smoked gouda.....let’s get that shit Sharp!!! and hard lmao

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

idk i’d be like an npc just doing their weird thing on their own. i’ve never played pokemons unless you count pokemons Go but i think about the famed “i like shorts they’re comfy and easy to wear” npc kid. like, yeah. i feel the same. and would say similar bullshit nobody asked about

62. seven characters you relate to?

oh god.........recognizing the self through the relatable characters :|

well let’s just talk about the wrol roles right off b/c the characters that Most occupy my gay thoughts (which is to say: my general thoughts) will inevitably get priority when it comes to Remembering things

1) whom among us doesn’t relate to jared kleinman........will roland emerging from relative obscurity and coming for our entire fucking lives like the goddamn legend he is. it’s tough b/c it’s like, oh well alana is relatable too, so is evan unfortunately sorry evan, and in ways i might ~usually act~ like one of those two more than jared but. no. it is Jared who wins the relatability contest, and we all get to be beautifully haunted by it forever

2) leaning hard into winston even with the few glimpses of him b/c somehow will Cannot play an allistic cishet. and this is even More of a case where maybe i don’t much have winston’s demeanor.......even without winston being a beacon of confidence, he has more confidence lmao. and he has that ability to just Be Himself in a situation which, i wish i had that moxie lmao. i am a lot more [usually trying to be accommodating wayyyy harder than i should], booo......even though he’s clearly not great at conflict considering how it doesn’t take Too much to put him out, it’d be pretty impossible for me to be all “called them hacks and lame” or carry out a very irritated monologue in front of four people in the first place lmao. but who knows. and it’s more in the details of like, oh no winston’s the odd one out even though he hasn’t really Done Anything, but we all ~understand~ why he Deserves it.........his expectation / treating it basically as Fact that he will disappoint people.......the [weird] [offputting] behaviors and his way of speaking in What he Says and How He Says It seeming wrong to people.......like it’s only 15-ish min of content that we have here and we don’t have the least info about will’s own thoughts on the character but it’s like. how is this such an iconic Gay Autistic Quant b/c these vibes are so rare. and i appreciate that he can be ~difficult~ lmao. same with jared though i didn’t mention it. i can be difficult!! love it for us...

3) briony atkins from murder of bindy mackenzie as a character who Does act more like how i Usually Act Like lmao.....god we’re only on three i forgot there was seven of these. and yet i know there’s probably at least 2 dozen characters who could make this list and i just won’t think of most of them unless directly reminded......but anyways yeah i mean in person i mostly do Not want attention unless i feel comfortable enough / in my element or whatever. especially if it’d be some situation like “sitting in a group of randos” lol. i mean it depends b/c i also can sometimes be ~on~ in terms of Masking and trying to be like Haha I’m Social I’m Regular and i def engage in Nervous Chatter sometimes, but like, very often it’s like god don’t talk to me and i don’t want to talk either.....and then yeah people Will be surprised that like, idk, i’m opinionated as shit and idk that i Enjoy Things / Have Thoughts And Feelings coz the assumption i guess is that you must simply have nothing to say. so the dismissal of this person who seemingly has nothing to contribute and must be Boring rings true lmfao.....but then of course it’s also important that her personality Under that is the one getting mistaken for emily’s lol cuz yeah At Heart i am sure of that dramatic / intense / excitable type Sometimes. but it takes some excavation before i am like “oh i can engage in my actual self” and like weeks and months to get comfortable w/ people and i’m always suspicious that anyone actually would enjoy it and i’m not too much......i am a motormouth actually and have something to say about any and everything and like to Have Fun Here but like. idk i come off as boring and can be Notably Quiet lmao

4) oscar martinez from the office is weirdly [Haha Same] sometimes lmfao. sort of keeps to himself but also has to pipe up with Opinions and Pedantry and the kind of Drama of a restrained theatre gay. some deleted scene from an episode where during an interview clip of Jimothy in a theater lobby and you have oscar call from across the group in that [wearied Ugh God] way of ‘jim, they’re remaking ___’ while jim just kind of gives a cursory “wow gosh” or whatever and like, i sure don’t have lots of Theatre Opinions but that “oh jeez i have a Take on this and have to share it with someone” vibe is like hahaha yeah.....it’s funny in the “the gang goes to the ice rink for a third of the ep” bit where you just catch oscar doing [ice skating turn] with some solemn intensity.......the “here’s a question nobody’s asking: is this worth it” quote.........way at the end where there’s a whole deal with one of the indoor plants and he’s like “why is it a He” @ the collective gendering of the houseplant lmfao.......i love the one thing where he and pam and uhh toby right? have the Finer Things book club or whatever and jim wants to join just like ~ironically~ and pam has to tell him that oscar doesn’t want him to join b/c he’s not going to take it seriously and use it as a Jokes Vehicle. and then you get the scene at the end where jim Is basically doing that and they’re just like taking it out of him and oscar’s all very seriously like “did you get it all out of your system” lmfao like yeah, earnest members only lmao.....the thing where he gets mad at angela’s like Jazz Musician Posed Babies posters all “it’s kitsch it Destroys art” lmaoooo and in a totally different season all “this is the problem with debate” over the completely inconsequential “is [whichever actress, i forget] Hot” “”””debate””””.......the whole tendency to get involved and always have a take to get across.....opinionated-sometimes-to-the-point-of-petty central. also that he’s the canon gay, are there even any others? anyways and as the us office’s spiritual successor i’ll add on to this by uh what’s the name of billy eichner’s character on parks and rec? it’s craig right. that Self-Powered Intensity is very #me as well.

5) augh god........im like lmfao shit who represents my Hater Club side. hmmm. oh no wait you know what. totally different but i love Prof Beatrice Hotchkiss in the trt nancy drew pc game. she’s holed up in her room writing all the time and just is weird when you try to talk to her all like no i won’t open the door, bring me food, do this Research, bring me my Ski Boots i guess......and then when you do meet her it’s all at like post-midnight in the lounge and she’s all like, encouraging you as a Night Owl and your investigative curiosity and all and i’m like oh word yeah being up in the dead of night is the shit. she’s just weird and passionate and this is another character i might not Act hardly at all like but who i vibe with lmfao. hotchkiss was the supportive adult in my life

6) remembering how hotchkiss is a historian made me think of academia which made me think of like, once again with “these vibes are So So Rare” i really ought to put the wrol role of Nato on the list cuz like. that essential representation of “gets gr8 grades but isn’t really ~academic~ / doesn’t care about that and really just cares about Hanging W Friends and [real specific interests]” is like wow damn that’s the Mood. coz like to an extent i can always Relate to the ~overachiever~ types a la the [nerd character gets all-A’s and other nerd shit] deal, but there’s eventually the issue of like.....those characters like bindy mackenzies and alana becks Care about their achievements (not exclusively as some ppl would have it 9_9) and are Studious whereas i always hated school and was a godawful student in terms of Habits and always got good grades b/c the devil was with me or something and like people will think i must have tried real hard and dedicated myself to Academics and stuff and it’s like.........no................not at all hardly, sure i did my hw every night but at like 11:29 pm or studied for a midterm at lunch right before the class lol or flipped through a lil bit of the sat study guide the night prior.........the “low-effort dumbass who Academically Excels Anyhow” representation is so crucial like!! i run into a wall when it’s the Good Grades nerd character who is real studious and focused and stuff like. couldn’t be me. meanwhile the “naturally weird + probably some ‘deliberate’ weirdness” and “likes animals” and “most likely to just wanna Roll With It” and “shitty focus lol” and “non sequiturs” and “without [activity] i do nothing” is all like....ahahahohoho..........nato rly got to make this list. and honorable mention for Wrol Jeremy. again: whom doesn’t relate!!!!!!!!

7) damnit i know there’s So many answers to [characters i relate to] and whom cover like, more particular Facets here but i’m struggling lmao. Uh. like i’m like, who’s the Hot Mess / continually evolving disaster characters i vibe with......who’s the peak despresso detached Haters rep......who embodies the solo production lifestyle........dammit you know what lol i tend to Feel for like, the background ~nobodies~ who might just get like totally destroyed in some movie with life or death stakes just to like, show how much danger our heroes / Important Complex Protags are. same w/ jeremy not feeling like the Hero / the one who the story’s about / the cool guy / player 1 / etc etc etc i’m like oo i’d be the npc who doesn’t really do anything, i’d be the rando getting blown away in the background of someone else’s story. on a totally different note another shoutout / honorable mention to wybie from the coraline lmfao one of the best characters invented from thin air for an adaptation......tangentially relevant b/c he’s entirely here to support the protag / not his story at all, just here to help and prompt interactions / exposition really.......but love that [weird loner kid who’s best friend is a cat and annoys the other kid and doesn’t Get it and has specific interests and entertains himself and just is doing weird shit around here tf dude lmao killing it] like, #mood. #lifestyle. less dismal to relate to than the bg person who dies......his counterpart who totally dies is somewhat fleshed out / given Investment so it doesnt Really count as [background Nobody who’s really just fodder for “defining the stakes / threat level”] Character Concept

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

latkes maybe......Yummy

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

How did you know you identified as ace? I’m just curious because I’ve always had trouble understanding ace and demi. Like I lowkey think I identify as demisexual and biromantic but because I didn’t really get? It? So I didn’t want to say the label out loud. So when ppl ask I usually say bisexual just because it’s easier. Could you explain it? Sorry for being so long, I’m just a lost puppy at this point 😅

This is such a hard question and it doesn’t have an easy answer, for me, at least and sometimes I still wonder. The thing about asexuality is it’s just straight up a lack of sexual attraction-how do you know you’re missing it if you don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like? Being biromantic is like yeah crushes on girls and occasionally guys for me, I know that. But asexual? Am I not feeling sexual attraction? Am I and I’m just not aware that this thing is sexual attraction? What even is sexual attraction? 

I’ve talked a bit with some allosexual friends but I’m still not entirely sure I get sexual attraction. A lot of stuff that apparently is real sexual attraction is something I always thought people meant as a joke (you know, I’d have sex with them or walking down the street and seeing a stranger like yeah I would-that doesn’t seem real to me, I always thought people were joking but? As far as I’ve learnt that’s genuinely how some people feel). 

For me it was a trip, I’m afraid you’re going to have to get some background here-I’d been in a relationship that was emotionally abusive in it’s own right-I didn't learn that until years later though when we did a workshop at school on what counts as emotional abuse. I wasn’t doing great. I also started to question my sexuality at the same time-not a great plan. I thought I was aro/ace. Truthfully I’ve really only got back into having crushes like I used to this year, which is 3-4 years after everything happened. The relationship impacted me badly in that sense. Relationships? Completely a no-go for me. Even now I’m not sure if it’d be fair for me to enter into one despite the progress I’ve made. So. Anyway. I went through a lot of sexualities on the ace/aro spectrum-lithromantic was a big one and I was sure that was me. Truthfully my mental state was just utterly wrecked and I was entirely lost.

But even then I just felt like...nothing really fit. It felt wrong. I dropped it entirely, I knew I wasn’t interested in relationships at that point and that’s all I really needed. But I went through therapy for depression and anxiety and pain management and I never brought up my relationship but I started to heal mentally. Eventually I realised yeah, my mental state is doing pretty amazing, but you still have a HUGE issue with relationships. We need to work through that. So I did...it still took a long time but I got better. And better. And better. And I’m still getting better. And I started to question my sexuality again, this time in a much better place to. 

I had a great friend at the time who was part of the LGBT+ community and every time I tried out an identity, he was all on board. I think I changed it a lot. I remembered back to when I was hm, maybe 11 and I realised I definitely liked girls and it was tricky because I’ve very rarely had crushes on guys but like, I was in a relationship with one so...I guess I couldn’t just be gay. Now I know I could’ve been but I also know now I still do rarely have crushes on guys-probably less so than before, still working past that relationship sfhsdf but still. Anyway I was like pan? bi? poly? there’s honest to god so many sexualities out there’s it’s overwhelming. But I started watching shadowhunters and saw magnus bane and knew bi was the label for me. I just felt comfortable with it after seeing someone else wearing it proudly. 

Didn’t really solve my ace question though. I wondered if I was demi (a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they form a strong emotional connection with someone) and I decided to stick with that for awhile. I figured relationships were a no-go still so I wouldn’t really KNOW but ace felt like a scary word. Like I was saying there’s absolutely none of that when I just, HOW could I know that for sure? So demi felt safe. MAYBE I would feel sexual attraction in a relationship after awhile-there was no way for me to know. I thought maybe I was a gray ace (one definition on google puts it as experience sexual attraction very rarely, only under specific circumstances, or of an intensity so low that it's ignorable), that covers more area than just demi. Maybe I did feel sexual attraction and I just...the time hadn’t popped up. 

I felt a bit like I was lying to say I was ace because what IF-the truth is, maybe I will get in a relationship and experience this so-called sexual attraction. Maybe I really just do need a strong emotional bond or whatever. Maybe I need the most specific circumstances-maybe this, maybe that. It doesn’t particularly matter in the here and now though. In the here and now I don’t experience sexual attraction. Based off conversations with people, what I’ve managed to figure out about sexual attraction...I just don’t experience it. I still question it sometimes though because are people REALLY attracted to strangers like they want to have sex-apparently anyway. And if ANYTHING ever changes, if I EVER experience it for whatever reason-I just alter my identity. I’m not lying. This is who I THINK I am and sometimes people just aren’t right. If I’m not right, it’s not a crime, I was merely missing some information to lead me to the correct identity. 

Plus, asexuality is something you really have to look into. It’s not just people who don’t have sex or whatever. Some asexuals enjoy sex, some asexuals are neutral, some asexuals are repulsed by it. I’m more in the neutral area but I have shifted sometimes to a bit of nausea or feeling uncomfortable with that sort of thing. Sometimes I don’t mind the thought so much-maybe if I really loved the person I’d be okay sometimes (NOT in a forcing myself way, in a it probably wouldn’t bother me that much even if I don’t much see the interest in it. DO NOT force yourself to do ANYTHING. If I was NEVER comfortable with that it would NOT happen. I’ve heard too much shit about people forcing themselves. Don’t.). I feel like it’s meant to be more of a set spectrum-this is where you fall. But it’s always been fluid for me if I’m repulsed or neutral or whatever. I think that’s okay. 

I never had a sexual sort of relationship with that one guy, I was too young for starters and it was long distance. The sort of long distance you’d pass off as just kids being dumb and I’m sure I’d laugh about it now if it didn’t go so badly for me. So I don’t really think he hit me all that hard there. I don’t think my asexuality is influenced by that at all. I feel pretty confident actually. It took me awhile but I mean seeing Raphael from shadowhunters and just that little bit of representation, I felt pretty comfy wearing the label. 

I mostly just tell people I’m bi if they ask or if I wish to share. The asexual part is more personal to me, less understood, I’m no less proud but people don’t quite get it a lot. It’s just. Not out there in the way homosexuality is or whatever. There’s always a lot of questions with saying you’re asexual and a lot of the time people don’t really care to understand correctly. Even people in the LGBT+ community don’t always fully understand. And it’s always good to teach and help people learn but it’s also a bit hard when people just leave you with a ‘I don’t really get that but nevermind, whatever.’ Because not having sex? People can understand that. Not experiencing sexual attraction? People think it’s a choice a lot, but people can also understand that. But then you bring into play the actually, some aces love sex! You’ve absolutely lost the person.

I can’t say for sure I would’ve understood either if I wasn’t ace, it seems perfectly understandable now but I did my research and all. 

So if you think you’re demi and bi, that’s totally cool! You only experience sexual attraction with a strong emotional bond which doesn’t HAVE to be romantic, sometimes it’s a platonic relationship that’s gotten really strong. If you think you’re ace and bi! That’s also cool, identity buddies! No sexual attraction at all-but maybe you enjoy or will enjoy sex (I don’t know how old you are if you’re actually really young DON’T go there sdklhfsdhf).

I wish I could give you a straight forward answer like well you just-but unfortunately some of my history REALLY played into me figuring things out. If I was to give you advice, if you’re not entirely sure you’re on the ace spectrum at all, talk to a close allo person. It’s a little weird to say hey, what’s sexual attraction like for you? I wish I could point you in the direction of a post that details sexual attraction (I don’t know one but if anyone reading this does or has advice, please add to this!! we don’t all have really open friends that are chill with this topic shfdsf) but I don’t know any. Sometimes questions more like ‘do people really experience sexual attraction to strangers like in movies?’ are a little more comfortable but still weird if you’re not that close.

Also, if you’re young, don’t stress it. I know, or at least I’ve HEARD it sort of becomes a thing of interest when you start going into your teens, sometimes earlier I guess. But everyone’s still figuring things out at that age. And your friends are probably less open to talk about it. Not that it’s bad! I was so stressed to figure my identity out I didn’t realise I was making everything worse, it turns out giving it time and waiting was what I personally needed to do and I think not rushing the whole process is generally good advice. If you’re really struggling-take a step back. It’s not the end of the world if you can’t find a box to put yourself in comfortably. Labels AREN’T for everyone.

If you know you’re on the ace spectrum for sure but can’t figure out where-again, labels AREN’T everything. Maybe in time you’ll settle on something but if for now you just want to go yeah I’m not interested in sex-that’s totally cool! You don’t need an exact label to be valid. You can just say ‘somewhere on the ace spectrum’ or ‘questioning on the ace spectrum’, you don’t even have to be that specific. There’s uh, hm. What was it called. Here: http://wiki.asexuality.org/Main_Page I know I ended up on this site a lot when I was questioning things. Wondering about new identities. Haven’t been there in a while but maybe you’ll get something out of it if you haven’t seen it yet. You can also probably find sites on google that give you a bit of insight into what sexual attraction details if you’re unsure like I was (am). 

I hope I answered your question somewhat, I’m coming back to the demi vs ace thing and if you’re wondering exactly that-ace is none, demi is sexual attraction after a strong emotional bond which is often a relationship. So maybe you’ve been dating a person for idk, say awhile and you really love this person then maybe you start to feel sexual attraction. That’s demi-I think anyway, it’s sort of hard to tell when you just haven’t felt that before skdfjsdf. Oh and also, like how I said if I realise I’m not ace but demi or whatever and that’s okay, it’s also okay vice versa. If you’re in a relationship and realise you’re definitely ace, not demi, that’s cool too! If the person isn’t willing to accept you as ace, that’s not really a relationship you want to be in.

There’s also this:

this helped me a lot identifying some things I was feeling? When I was trying to figure out sexual attraction I’m pretty sure I realised I’d been getting it confused with aesthetic attraction for awhile. I can’t remember exactly what this picture did for me but it DID make me realise SOMETHING important so I’ll just put it here anyway.

You think you were being long 😂 sorry for being EXTRA long. 

ALSO I in NO WAY want to associate aro/ace with not being mentally okay. i KNOW that’s where I went when I was struggling but I’m mostly fine now and still identifying as ace and the aro was more there was no way I could emotionally open up to another relationship at the time. I simply mistook that. People that are ace or aro have NOTHING wrong with them. Just want to make that clear.