#I just want to feel validated by these specific people

[whovianbuffalo]

Dot and Bubble thoughts

This episode was first and foremost an allegory for racism and the entitlement of white elites, and this little touch of “charging rebranded as 'work'”(because it's 'tedious') is interesting here.

Lindy later says "my job's not easy, I get chapping" which shows she clearly hasn't worked out that "work" has become a meaningless phrase in their carefully-controlled society.

Before this, Ricky says people used to do 'manual labor, for money', but Lindy still self-identified as a wealthy person when Ruby asked, and said "Only people who can afford it" are sent to Finetime, yet

So... I can understand why some people feel that this episode is trying to take a shot at Gen-Z and no one else, but I will say it does seem to be a valid critique of performative activism.

Lindy mentions that she is using 'refurb' clothing and therefore isn't using up any of Finetime's resources, which is one of the only indications we are given that this 'utopia' is, of course, falling apart. The other indication comes in the opening of the episode when the newsreader informs them "Not going to lie, we are having trouble with the weather satellite".

A friend of Lindy's compliments her outfit- a woman who says "Kindness all the time" (an ultimately hollow phrase) is preferable in this society to The Doctor and Ruby, who are seen as impolite for daring to interrupt their bubbles, but, ultimately, The Doctor is shut out due to racism and colorism. Ruby is an outsider too, but because she is white and blonde and blue eyed they never question if she is a "contagion".

The Doctor was no 'ruder' than Ruby, but Lindy focuses on him anyway.

I appreciate that we see an early indication of Lindy's selfishness in her first meeting with Ricky here.

Interesting that instead of "heaven's sake" Gothic says "For land's sake". This makes sense for a culture so clearly obsessed with Manifest Destiny, and of course reaffirms their belief that Finetime is "heaven", of sorts.

It's clear that they still have some Religious/Phantasmagorical connection to a mythical heaven, as Lindy says "You mean she's in The Sky? Isn't she lucky!" rather than think about the realities of death or an afterlife. And just in case we were wondering if this culture was religious, they invoke the deity (and Manifest Destiny) directly:

The specific way in which Dot and Bubble forces the viewer to sit with Lindy throughout the episode- static scenes shot of her very boring life and her extremely vapid, empty social life (which I appreciate The Doctor calls out as being enough to drive the AI to homicide) makes us feel trapped and complicit in her behavior, and Ricky's, too.

We're watching the narrative unfold from within the bubble and the screen is literally obscured, peeling back the layers until we finally meet the doctor in person- but Lindy's reaction is off.

And then... We don't follow them. The camera shrinks back, and the impossibly wide world which they wanted to conquer shrinks back into a tiny dot as their boat fades out into the horizon. We're left with Ruby and The Doctor and a TARDIS which is bigger on the inside, but we don't see inside her.

Great work from the director of photography here and amazing work from the cast and crew all round to make a script which must have looked extreme repetitive on paper- the constant use of the word "Forwards. Forwards. Forwards" must have been a hard slog in the read-through— work so well onscreen. How prodigious that it would appear have been too expensive to film during the 11th doctor's era and was shelved for more than a decade until we could get Ncuti Gatwa to fully embody this experience.

This episode was an excellent satire (of multiple things!) and I'm not sure it would have landed the same way in a previous era... But it feels incredibly timely now if you are willing to listen to it.

[self-loving-vampire]

That medium post is highlighting just how fucked people get when they treat gender norms like a Serious Thing you must abide by. Like, what?

1- "A weak thing really wanting to be strong is pathetic" is the kind of thing that is like... who is even saying that?

The virtue of wanting to become stronger (be it for altruistic reasons or even just to master your art) no matter how pitiful your starting position is seems to be something that repeatedly comes up in fiction.

It's not just shonen training arcs to help you overcome someone who outclasses you in every way but also things the RPG journey of starting out at level 1 barely knowing your left from your right and becoming strong enough to kill god at the end.

In fact, this is what makes games like Gothic and Dark Souls so appealing. You start out so weak that everything obliterates you in one or two hits and you're pretty much just another doomed soul in a horrible situation, but if you persevere you can overcome anything.

Maybe stop thinking of strength or weakness as something inherent to gender rather than something you need to cultivate through training and experience? Sure there's geniuses like me who get a huge experience multiplier but that's not gendered either.

2- Boys 100% do cry. They often get beat up for it because they're not supposed to cry, but they still do it regardless of how things are "supposed" to be. Because humans are humans and extremely few people naturally fit the platonic ideal of what their gender is supposed to be at all times. Crying is not exclusively a "girl" thing, and it has nothing to do with weakness, bravery, or intelligence.

See, the thing is that the people who actually get good at video games are usually people who enjoy playing video games and do it on their own rather than just when they pick up something they have never done before in an effort to get validation while being anxious the whole time because they arbitrarily decided that video games are "boy things".

You're not just missing out on the confidence buff but also jumping into a mid-game area before finishing the tutorial. What did you think was going to happen?

"Fantasy story where a woman is doing cool stuff" is like... not even abnormal if you ever engage with anything outside the absolute most mainstream of media. Maybe it won't feel so shameful if you realize it has been done extremely well countless times before.

Also gendering romance seems like a mistake as well. Like, from the exact same story as the above image:

Yeah, it turns out stories can have both romance and women doing cool things and mature, non-sexist men will not necessarily hate either of those aspects.

I'm one of those people who got physical abuse to transition to mainly just threats by fighting back, and you know what that was actually like?

I never was even remotely as strong as big as my father was. I'm 170 cm and grew up malnourished (about 100-110 lbs before I left). I eventually also developed a major disability. Meanwhile he was huge and has literally killed people before. Most of those teens who fought back against their abusive dads? They probably were still physically weaker than said dads too.

But none of that matters, because you don't need to actually win, you just need to show your will to fight. You need to make it clear that there's going to be serious costs if they are violent towards you, and even children who haven't gone through puberty at all are capable of doing that if they give zero fucks.

Even an unarmed 10-year-old who was truly willing to do so is capable of causing lasting harm to an adult. I don't blame anyone for not trying something like that themselves since most people don't want to harm their parents and are averse to pain, but it's definitely dumb to make it into a gender thing that is just impossible without a specific type of puberty.

Also I should note that in a lot of cases this doesn't make the abuse stop entirely. It didn't in my case.

This is literally just applying that one comic to yourself.

Hope you're sitting down for the next bit:

Playing cool video games is the modern day equivalent of fighting war??? How does that even occur to you? Video games are literally entertainment. More like reading books or playing sports than killing people for real.

Also like, war still exists? That's kind of a big thing that is going on right now. War exists and people are fighting it. If this person grew up in the US then their country has been at war in some capacity for the vast majority of its existence. The modern day equivalent of war is war, and war is not actually cool or respectable like gaming is.

Putting up a bright billboard that reads "You know you don't have to be like that just because of your gender, right?"

Like, who cares if the other women you know personally only improve their skills for the sake of dress-up and horses? Do you not have things you want to do? I don't know what to say other than that this reads like NPC behavior.

Tip: You can be a man if you want, but also that probably won't give you instant competence or respect like you think it will. You're still going to have to Get Good at whatever it is you want to do.

So the kind of person who tries to fake an interest in "boy things" in a completely half-assed and insecure way actually exists and has terminal gender essentialist brain. I see.

I do think that's kind of shameful not just for the essentialist garbage but also in the sense that it reads like someone who is too invested in trying to insincerely impress others at the cost of their own individuality and pursuits.

If you're going to be taking right-wing types seriously then maybe you should at least notice that they also don't seem to respect tradwife types at all. They want to own them, sure, but they don't respect them. Attraction is not respect. Those people just don't respect women by default for reasons that are patently bullshit.

This is, from multiple angles, a personal problem. Some of us actually do like video games rather than using them as a way to get respect.

In fact, I'd hate it if people made a big deal out of the fact that I'm a woman who likes video games. That is and should be just a normal, unremarkable thing.

You know, maybe that whole thing where you see yourself as an eternal, inherent weakling not just physically but technically is unhealthy and holding you back from even considering that you could ever be good at anything besides child-rearing and clothes.

Good thing that she rarely feels like this anymore as an adult who is (according to the comments) no longer in a religious cult but this is like... putting my sexist father's thoughts in a self-loathing woman, basically?

[statementlou]

why do you talk about Louis using blue and green signalling as if it isn't about Harry, that what the blue and green are- do you not believe in larrie?

short answer for the reading challenged trolls to cut down on asks yes I am a larrie, not that anything is wrong with not being one. But longer (much more interesting imo) answer: We know H and L were together, but no one really knows if they are still or again- I personally mostly believe that they are, but I get why people don't think so and can't see any reason to get pressed about it. But you make a solid point- blue and green and certainly things like Louis wearing the H shirt don't potentially signify anything other than larry right? Well that's what makes it so interesting to me- I kind of don't think Louis IS using those things that way! As my recent anon pointed out (and I agree) he wants people to think he is Freddie's dad, he is not presently trying to be perceived as gay in the face of people trying to force him in the closet- he is in charge of his image and is choosing to publicly put forward that he is a guy who got someone pregnant and dates women. And I do think him and H are together, but I don't think he particularly wants to talk to us about that, if that makes sense? But I believe he does want to connect with his beloved fans on a more personal level, to revel in the acceptance and love and shared wink, I know you know I know, me and you until the end, our eyes meet, together we're the greatest- and I think he uses the larry imagery to do that, rather than to talk about his relationship. I could do this for days he gives us SO MANY examples to choose from but just to pick one: the all blue and green lighting for All This Time. Think about it- if he actually had images of a rainbow flag on the screens at his shows or waved one or something, it would make the articles and press and be a whole thing and revive every rumor ever about him in every tabloid! But if he makes the entire lighting and screens for a song blue and green (or wears a shirt with a giant H on it or any of the other one million coded things he does), well so what? No journalist would think a thing of it, nothing to see here- but the larrie majority of his fanbase hears him saying "you were right about everything and yes I am gay and I love you for seeing it" and go completely bananas! It's fucking ingenious tbh, SBB at his finest! And the fact that the song he chose for his current unhinged bluegreener fest was All This Time was for me the thing that really cemented this theory for me; I know some people disagree, but to me that song reads as being about him being closeted and his public life and the fans and choosing this lighting for that rather than for like We Made It or something really feeds my conviction that he is bluegreening on main as a way to tell us that he is gay rather than to tell us anything about his personal relationship. TLDR yeah I DO think he is signaling, a lot, but I don't think it tells us anything about the status of his relationship with Harry or anyone else and the reasons I think they are together don't have anything to do with Louis' stage lighting choices, but also that means I don't think it makes sense to say he's not signaling anything ever because you don't think they're together; both can coexist and I think it's just weird to act like he's not making pretty clear choices

[autisticlee]

that feeling when you get advice from someone who you know is well-meaning and has good intentions....but it's just the most allistic, neurotypical, and/or abled advice you have ever heard and completely invalidates the point you're trying to make about why you struggle to do the thing in the first place.

they're telling you to "do it in this specific way that is completely opposite of how you physically/mentally work" for example, make eye contact/read people's facial expressions and intentions! but you're autistic. initiate verbal conversation and don't be shy! but you're nonverbal or semispeaking. get out of the house more and participate in these physical activities! but you're physically disabled. Just Be Yourself! but you have DID/OSDD/other personality disorder. etc.

i'm sorry. I know you're just trying to help. I appreciate it, really. but it's all things i've heard before and none of it helps me specifically. I have tried (maybe even still try out of habit) and learned I can't just do those things. they don't work for me or cause more issues. practice isn't the issue. not everyone can simply willpower through everything. but thanks for trying 😔✊️

[isan0rt]

See, here's the thing that kills me about the popularity of the nonbinary Xion headcanon, is that Xion was not assigned male at birth before she transed her gender.

She was assigned agender at birth.

Xion is constantly getting misgendered throughout all of Days, and it visibly upsets her every time, but crucially she is not being misgendered by being called 'he'! She is being misgendered in a dysphoria-causing way by being referred to as not having any gender, let alone the gender she knows she has (which is girl). She has a full-blown crisis when she finds out she was not born a girl. The narrative also positions everyone who refers to her with non-gendered pronouns as doing active harm to her or as being villainous in that moment; Saix constantly calling her 'it,' DiZ scoffing at Namine using "she" to refer to Xion. The narrative is clear that what is upsetting and dysphoric to Xion is being referred to as having no binary gender, even moreso than being forced to become masculine, which only becomes an added layer of dysphoria at the very end of the game.

That being the case... WHAT is the deal with why it is so popular to misgender her in the exact same way? She's a girl. She transed her gender so hard she forced other people to literally see her as a girl even though her physical body was a doll's.

- Is it that this fandom doesn't think she 'passes' well enough, so she can't really be a girl like she says she is?

- Is it that this fandom thinks that even if she says she's a girl, her body doesn't have female sex characteristics so she can't really be a girl, she must be what her body dictates she is?

- Is it that she's not demure and soft like the other two girls with her face, so she can't really be a girl like them? That girls don't have open and assertive body language?

- is it that she was born from Sora, so she can't really be a girl because her origin was a boy and she must be somewhere in the middle?

- is it just an empathy gap, where people can't identify with a trans girl and need to make her less trans somehow? An inability to square the idea of choosing a binary gender on purpose? An inability to see why she would choose to be a girl specifically? Is it the thing where so many people in fandom right now can't get invested in characters unless they're "just like me frfr" and so she can't be a trans girl?

What is it?? Why is the ONE canon trans girl not allowed to be a trans girl? When there is an entire cast of characters to otherwise choose from whose narratives are not SPECIFICALLY ABOUT being trans and a girl? I simply do not get it.

[lale-txt]

for every “there is not enough content of x” i grow an additional middle finger

[dykeinthedark]

venting in tags about gender n shit (long as hell) (u can comment and talk 2 me as always :3)

[on-wednesdays-we-eat-the-rich]

i know this is a thing that Literally Everyone says, but some people really do need to stop viewing their personal headcanons as Facts.

[kjzx]

I've been thinking a lot about my sexuality these last few years, I'd even say sometimes obsessing to an unhealthy degree, and I think I've come in terms with the fact I almost certainly am bisexual and denying that is pretty lesbophobic and frankly dumb in many ways, and mainly cruel towards myself. Gonna be reading up on internalized biphobia and whatnot

[anti-transphobia]

If anyone wanted to know what it's like to be a trans person not aligned with masculinity online, I've had such a huge issue with both cis and transmasc people calling me dude and then arguing about it when I asked them not to that I had to set my nickname in discord servers as "don't call me dude/man/bro". That wasn't enough so I changed it to be in all caps and set my overall discord display name as "DONT CALL ME DUDE/MAN/BRO". Within a few hours I was @ed on a server I never talk in, a server where most of its members never talk because it's a mod development/compilation server so people are there for information and that's it, by an any pronouns trans person who hasn't spoken in that server in a YEAR and talked again specifically to misgender me

[sugar--pain]

Kinda tempted to go back to identifying as aromantic but from the perspective of "I have chosen to love everyone that I have dated. I can choose to stop." but I don't know how well that would go over.

[lord-squiggletits]

I think one of my least favorite takes on Optimus annexing Earth is the surprisingly common opinion "he should've just left Earth alone and minded his own business because they didn't ask for help," not because it doesn't have truth in it but because it's a massive oversimplification of the whole situation and seems to pretend that Optimus annexing Earth was just completely stupid and had no reasoning whatsoever.

Like, it just bothers me when people talk about it as if Optimus leaving Earth alone would've been the not-bad-guy thing to do despite the fact that the Decepticons were literally about to try colonizing Earth again under the command of a guy who was literally from the Golden Age generation that made colonizing and genociding organics popular, Galvatron. I mean Galvatron was literally there saying "so when are we going to kill these fleshlings" and even being a Functionist asshole to Soundwave's cassettes. The last time the Decepticons invaded Earth in All Hail Megatron they killed literally a billion human beings. Are there seriously people in this fandom that are out there believing with their whole ass that "Optimus should've just ignored the openly genocidal Decepticons returning to a place they had already tried to colonize just a few years ago because it's none of his business and the humans can handle themselves" like what.

[crabussy]

RRARAAAAAAAAAUUAUUAAGHHHHH

[aresmarked]

#i cannot be normal about this for the foreseeable future#god what the fuck#the way that we're shown how intensely of a formative experience that was for so much of how saria is as a person now#she's intelligent and studious because she had to learn how to fix her own things when she was early elementary age#she's strong and learned to fight because she learned that no one would stand up for her and protect her other than herself

#she severely represses her emotions because she was taught that expressing them made her weak and useless#she was repeatedly told to stop crying when she was so#so young#that she's internalized the idea that crying is a pointless expression with utterly no purpose

#and yet#YET#despite everything her father did to temper what he thought was weakness and irrationality out of her#the MOMENT someone (Silence) talks to her and smiles at her like she's a person capable of kindness and empathy#and asks her to come and visit a sickly little girl for no real rational purpose other than to make her feel better#Saria agrees immediately#because Saria IS still kind and she still DOES have feelings no matter how hard she represses them on the surface#and Silence saw through that and treated her as such and it's evident just how much meaning that held for Saria#with how she continues to be so sentimental about the feather that Silence gifted her to this day

#and ultimately when Saria is confronted with the same situation that her father was so many years ago#when her child is sobbing and wailing and desperate for her to comfort and protect her#despite how she was treated as a little child#despite everything about what she was taught and how it shaped her whole life#she realizes that what her father said to her was wrong and harmful#and makes the choice to REFUSE TO DO THE SAME TO HER OWN DAUGHTER  (via @lateralmeristem​)

-

Giving these tags their dues in their own post because they are so right and did invoke the cry rule

[genderqueer-karma]

what the fuck i didn’t expect to cry just now. it’s so amazing how you can connect to people you’ll never meet.

[mejomonster]

As I get older and older I more tangibly realize why queer individuals in older generations than mine might prefer words I wouldn't use for myself, and likewise why younger generations preferences would be different too. Like it was always clear you know, a person knows their identity best and what labels they prefer best and even if you don't get it you should respect it. But I guess the older I get the more I realize I really don't know and never can know the background another person has for their perceptions and meaning for labels and why something in particular helps them to use or not