#anyway that's out of the scope of this post and i am not saying cis mspec people are perfect but i am saying like

[nonbinarymlm]

Not to be bisexual but I LOVE MY BOYFRIEND

[walks-the-ages]

ID:

firebearingscissortail

5m

Just throwing my two-cents in as a queer person on this whole debacle.

nonbinary-naturalist and walks-the-ages are notorious shit-stirrers. I would absolutely not take anything they say seriously, because they interpret nearly everything in bad faith.

Nonbinary-naturalist, aka rjalker on tumblr, has created a 1,000+ page callout list of people for crimes such as liking a childrens cartoon character or " thinking that superheros dont have an obligation to protect people. " It and walks-the-ages constantly engage in bizarre discourse, and I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if they were the same person. Either way, they function as a tag team for started deranged fights online.

This coupled with the fact they are now going full scorched earth and accusing every admin on INaturalist, and INaturalist itself, as being transphobic ( inaturalist-propaganda.tumblr.com ), I think it being banned is absolutely not a surprise or uncalled for. It’s obsessed with being superior and having the moral high ground against literally everyone .

Do I love misgendering? No. Do I think everything the moderation team did is super great? Also no. But the two main players in this argument are not reasonable people and I would caution anyone who speaks to them.

Adrien stans have reached a new height, folks. Going out of their way to harass myself and Rjalker on third party websites and in doing so defending transphobia and calling us trolls LOL

For all Adrien stans and proshippers claim that we're ""obsessed with childrens cartoons", they really can't see outside their scope of hate following and stalking, can they? Hmm? When's the last time either of us interacted with any of the ML fandom ??? lollolol.

anyways please, for pride month, take a moment to create an account and vote "no" on this poll and ask the mods to remove the 2 original posts, as requested.

Hey guys, did you know that repeating conspiracy theories that I don't actually exist and am just a sockpuppet blog is not a good look for you, right?

[satoumafuyuss]

I'm the fandom headcanon discourse anon! And yeah I fully agree with your addition!

More thoughts about this: I read a post in the BG3 fandom a couple months ago on how you can pick any voice regardless of your character's genitalia. They said that while it was nice trans inclusivity, it doesn't actually represent the full scope of what trans people sound like. It sort of moved me, and I wish we had more of that in general!

Not to say that trans people can never pass because that's absolutely wrong, but I wish it wasn't so universally treated as the absolute endgoal of being trans. I wish the full spectrum of bodies that comes with being trans or cis was represented in media.

And also that people didn't immediately headcanon characters who fail to very strictly conform to gender roles as "trans people who aren't there just yet" or "trans people who you can clock as trans because they act/look like their agab". It's super uncomfortable. I think there is a lot of worth to be found in respectfully representing early transition trans people/trans people who dont care about passing, but it just feels like fandom spaces are enforcing gender roles instead of supporting that. I don't think it's healthy to have that level of scrutiny over the way people simply exist.

I don't think people stop and think about why they associate thinness, whiteness and youthfulness with femininity both outside and within trans circles. There is this mentality of thinking that as soon as something is lgbtq its absolutely morally pure, and I truly hate it! People should be more critical of things!

But anyway feel free to use those thoughts for your video!!! I wish to remain anonymous but I'm happy I can help you with it.

you are so right anon..!!!

Passing is not the end-goal for many trans people, myself included. It honestly kinda bothers me that the go to compliment for trans people is "you pass so well!" cause like.. unless the person in question was specifically asking if they pass or not or felt like they don't and it bothers them.. it's kinda weird. I've seen so many trans people make posts talking about the fact they don't care about passing or don't want to but people STILL comment "omg but you pass so well!" cause to them passing is the ultimate goal for us and they cannot fathom someone being comfortable and happy in their visible transness.

All trans people deserve to be represented and heard. We're all individuals with different goals and needs for our bodies and identities. Listen to the individual! So many people who know I'm trans for some reason always ask each other things about me instead of just asking ME. And it's just lead to no one understanding who I really am and it's so hard to correct them anymore. It's like a game of telephone.. really does not help I was outed to my entire outer family even though I told the person who did it I wanted to tell them all on my own terms and one at a time so it could be personal. but whatever.

I've had many people in my life comment things like "if you're a boy why do you still wear skirts? why do you carry a purse? why do you have long hair? why do you paint your nails?" etc etc and it made me dysphoric not because those things made me feel that way.. but the fact my identity was questioned purely based on my interests and clothing. Why can't I just say I'm a boy without it being questioned? I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it.

Anyway, sorry got a little personal there but I guess my feelings on this matter are very personal so.. ahem.

And yeah I totally agree with the point of people believing things to be 100% pure and good when it has even a little bit of LGBTQ+ representation in it. It's a huge problem with media literacy I think. There are plenty of extremely bad and problematic medias out there that have queer rep in them but I still see people praise them for purely HAVING queer people in it. Meanwhile god forbid a media have nuance and subtext and coding instead of blatant representation and suddenly its the worst and most problematic thing in history for not saying anything outright..

What makes a trans headcanon offensive or not is down to the context of the character.

For example. Say you have a character who's interests do not align with the traditional things their agab "should" enjoy. They have a big character arc about being their agab while still enjoying these things because their interests don't effect their gender identity at all.. this is a character who is offensive to headcanon as trans.. (atleast when you try to make their gender identity align with their interests instead of the identity they heavily express in the media. like hcing a male character who wears skirts as a transman is fine imo cause it doesn't change his gender identity, which in this case, is very important to him.)

Now this time we have a character who has no arcs relating to gender identity or expression of anything like that. if you headcanon this character as a trans it is 100% okay! There's no gender roles to point to here!! you're just having fun!!

Then we have an ambiguous character, a character who doesn't particularly care about being treated one way or the other and just enjoys what they enjoy which happens to be different than what they are "expected" to like based on their agab. This character is also fine to hc as trans cause obviously their gender identity isn't that important to them.

And finally the most offensive. This character is heavily implied to be a trans already. They express gender problems relating to being trans one way but people read this and somehow cannot fathom that a trans character has ALREADY transitioned (socially and/or medically) and assumes this means the character is a trans the other way. Ignoring all the obvious signs and coding that they are, in fact, very wrong. Because a lot of people these days have no media literacy or reading comprehension. (also works for nonbinary characters where people insist upon them being binary one way or the other which is.. annoying(such as Crona from Soul Eater))

Anyway SORRY I RAMBLED FOR AWHILE LMAO ahem ahem thank you for offering your thoughts for my video on the topic! It's good to get other peoples opinions and thoughts on it cause I don't want it to be one-sided and only from my pov lol I hope everything I said makes sense idk I have a bit of a headache lmao

[cryingatships]

So, I don't know how to begin this post. Let me start by saying that this is only a personal social observation (gotta use my major somewhere), based on what I've seen in the school shipping culture around me. (Pls keep me out of shipping discourse, ty.)

So, the entire ep was a kick in the gut, and it's tackling issues which are very, very personal to me, even rn when I'm in college. bullying, ragging, classism, institutional prestige... as if I'm not getting enough of drama, politics n media irl

But anyway, I'm not gonna go into those rn. Instead, I want to write a bit about this—shipping in schools.

I don't know how much this happens in the western school systems, but in the part of the world where I am, aka in South Asia, 'shipping' people (keeping it in quotes cause no one actually uses the particular term), starts at school.

No one teaches it to you, to be honest. But when two students of the opposite cisgender are close with each other, share their lunches/food/tiffin, then whispers start around the class. The reason for this closeness may be that they just vibe together, or their parents are friends, or sometimes they are actually in relationships/like each other.

From what I've seen in my (and a few other schools I had friends from), it usually starts as early as first grade? Back then even holding hands were scandalous And it doesn't really matter if the 'shipped' persons are popular or pretty or not, it can happen between any people who are a little close. Or if one side likes the other (which may be stated publicly or to friends).

Of course, it typically only happens with two people of the opposite cis genders, though as you go up in grades/classes, the scope of shipping friends/peers go into plenty other directions, too.

A lot of the times, it just turns out to be friendships, but I've personally seen people who are shipped get together too. And then there were a few instances where two people purposely promoted their 'ship' because they wanted to get close to the other person's friend in a very roundabout way. Is high school normally like this or is my school just????

So anyway, shipping people who are your friends/peers is considered normal around here. A thing to laugh and chat about with your friends (who can be the shipped ppl too), shout in the hallways, make silly doodles on etc. Of course, this can take a dangerous turn any second—many guardians do not approve of their children getting into relationships (real or otherwise) in schools, many people who are 'shipped' feel uncomfortable with the whole thing (though they in turn participate in shipping others), and of course there's the ever present chance of stalking, invasion of privacy, rivalry etc

School shipping is also a gradual process of socialisation involving love, romance, attraction, ig. Many institutes lack (or refuse to allow) talk of romance/attraction and sex ed. Many guardians would never touch the topic of talking to their wards/children about relationships, romantic and sexual love, some going as far as to forbid their wards from consuming any media about these things. In such a scenario, where love, romance etc is considered almost a taboo never to be associated with, shipping, ie love but without involving yourself into it, becomes a way to deal with them. Talking about your peers being in love starts a conversation about stuff that would not have taken place in any other way. Most times, this is not a self-narrative thing either, people 'shipping' friends/peers are aware they are not the 'shipped' people. But anyway. Most times is the keyword here

Of course, this shipping slowly goes into the areas of life when people *are* allowed to love, but most of it ends in high school (unless you're still in fandom, but that's a different thing altogether). People are too busy trying to eat, sleep and also study to continue shipping friends in college/uni.

I'm not going into the debate about whether this is healthy or not. As I stated at first, this is but a personal observation of things I've seen around, and things that are still happening, starting from when you are 5-6 years, ye.

(It's only been two years since I got out of hs, that's not a very long time. And my juniors tell me about the current school gossip XD)

This is just me seeing a drama and then rambling about something in it, so ye, Do Not get me into shipping drama.

[angelofdumpsterfires]

Anyways reminder that while violent transphobia (especially against trans women) is a pillar of TERFism it’s not the only one, the others are more subtle and you should beware of them

(Note, when I say “women” or “men” I am referring to what a TERF considers to be each as TERFs are notorious for misgendering all folks across as the gender spectrum)

TERFs are anti-sex work believing it to be in support of the patriarchy and a betrayal of womanhood or claiming it to be dangerous or done only in desperation. (bullshit by the way, all work is selling your body you are no better than someone who does that literally, I am anti work, but that means all work)

Essentially:

TERFs do not believe in intersectionality. TERFs believe that all problems in the world fundamentally trace back to sexism, misogyny and who they deem “men” this is why a majority of TERFs are white, because they don’t believe systemic issues that affect them can be linked to racism, queerphobia and discrimination against indigenous folks

TERFs believe that women are inherently “pure” and men are inherently “evil” and corrupt, those posts about being attracted to men being “embarrassing” or “disgusting”? TERF ideology. TERFs have a tendency to fetishise/idealise lesbian relationships as being inherently better, purer and non-abusive, while framing relationships with men as inherently toxic and abusive. They believe a woman is better than a man inherently by virtue of being a woman. (Also there’s a lot of Biphobia bc “how can you love good woman and bad man??”)

TERFs are straight up racist. They base all their points on white ideals of feminity, if you have “too much” body hair or naturally high testosterone levels they will consider you less than even if you are cis. There’s more to be said but I feel as a white person i would rather amplify the voices of those actually affected by this side of TERFism (trans people of colour please feel free to add on)

TERFs are infamous for hating trans women but they also do harmful shit against nonbinary and transmasc people, posts like “cis men 🤮 trans men 😍” are a classic example of this because by separating cis and trans men by their desirability you are making it clear that you don’t view trans men as real men.

A similar phenomenon can be seen in their treatment of nonbinary folks, they like to view nonbinary folks as “woman lite” or “man trying to be special” forcing a gender binary on people who actively defy that binary, and assigning “ohh they’re just confused” or “predator” to them respectively (this ties into their “woman good man bad ideals”) this is because they don’t respect the identities of nonbinary folks

It should also be noted that there’s also hate against trans men in TERF rhetoric also presents as:

“the trans agenda is corrupting our girls”

“women are so oppressed that they pretend to be men”

“trans men are betraying their gender”

Among others.

I am by no means an expert and there are many more harmful ideals that they express and encourage but I feel it is necessary for me to spread this information to help scope them out and also to prevent reblogging TERF ideology that is more subtle (please do correct me or add on if you have more personal experience)

Anyways TERF is an oxymoron bc feminism is about all protecting and elevating all women

[mxbitters]

why are you writing terf posts if you don't want terfs reblogging them? the idea that periods are stigmatized is a terf talking point. you adding "teehee no terfs please" after a longass terf post about afab bodies being oppressed isn't fooling anyone.

you literally just said afab bodies. anyway since you’re asking, you get an essay.

to call this a terf talking point is to say this is a trans exclusionary issue. it isn’t. is period stigma a thing radical feminists talk about? yes. is it something only radical feminists can talk about? no.

i’ve read radical feminist texts for class and while they speak on important issues they’re very limited in the scope of who they’re advocating for, and that’s even before the trans exclusionary part. it notices a problem and then hits a wall before coming up with a good solution or even knowing the extent of the problem, pointing the blame at men, which decades later those of you who call yourselves terfs or gender critical or whatever will then warp into the category of people that you feel entitled to attack, typically trans women. and in case you forgot, this directly impacts real people.

radical feminism isn’t intersectional but the issue of period stigma absolutely is. and it affects different people different ways.

i very likely have endometriosis and the way that affects my life is very complicated but what sets my experience (as well as other trans people with these issues) apart from cis women is that not only are periods stigmatized, but they’re so heavily gendered that it’s significantly harder to get treatment without being humiliated in a medical environment. i still haven’t been able to see anyone about this, i am still incapable of getting out of bed when my period starts, i almost inevitably throw up on the first day and have to cancel all plans. i can’t work, i can’t go to class, i can’t see people. it’s embarrassing and isolating and is indescribably destructive to my mental health. just because of a thing ~51% of bodies do.

this isn’t an issue you can claim as exclusive to women. i’m afab but i’m not a woman. i have periods. some afab people also don’t get periods, or they’ll be irregular, some are incredibly heavy and some are barely noticeable, you get the point. periods are a human issue and should be treated that way, they’re a fact of life for so many of us but by treating it as not only a conversation exclusive to cis women, but as something exclusive to your hate group??? get over yourselves. because i can assure you, the majority of us who get periods do not hold your beliefs.

[vonnyphant]

To Blog or Not to Blog?

“You should start a diary and write about your experiences. It may help people going through the same thing.”

Honestly? If there’s one thing I discovered about this diagnosis, it’s that it makes me pretty damn selfish. I don’t want to help other people (not just yet, anyway). But putting some thoughts down about this time in my life may be of some sort of therapeutic value, and I do want to help myself. 

(Maybe for once, saving the world can wait. Do you remember how, soon after the pandemic hit, people stopped avoiding plastic and single-use items? When your health is at risk, suddenly rainforests and polar bears and the planet are deprioritised- not that anyone will admit to this. But this is my diary and I can say what I want!* Writing for myself it is.)

Having established my less-than-Mother-Theresa-like reasons for this blog, my conscience cleared, it’s time to start. This is where the Lifetime movie shows me, in a half daze, mellowed out on drugs while they sew a mediport into my chest to start administering chemicals. A fast lane to my bloodstream. A docking station. The soundtrack? Hopefully ‘Across The Universe’ by the Beatles (possibly Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. If I get a say in it, I veto The Walrus) Time to pump this body full of drugs that’ll make my hair fall out. 

Wait, what?

Voice Over: “Yep. That’s me. You’re probably wondering what I am doing here…” //record scratch - freeze frame - fast rewind to the psychedelic outtro of A Day In The Life//

Two months ago, during rub-a-dub-in-the-tub (less naughty than it sounds, was just washing myself), my mind inexplicably went to an episode of Beverly Hills 90210, s1 (aired in 1992- yes, I am that old), where Brenda Walsh has a breast cancer scare. I say inexplicably, because my usual shower fantasies do not include Ms Shannon Doherty - if I was going to pick a shower lady, I’d opt for Charlize Theron, Kiera Knightly or Winona Ryder in their short-hair phases, but that is neither here nor there. 

Say what you want for 90s television- weird outfits and ponytails notwithstanding, in their AfterSchoolSpecial PSA way, they dedicated a whole scene to the girls giving themselves a breast exam, including how-to instructions**, and eventhough I was only 11 years old when I saw it, I remembered what to do, and for the last 30 years, every now and then I have randomly carried it out while wondering how I always preferred Brandon over Dylan and how my tastes have changed over time.

But this time - my hand actually found something.

I took a deep breath and calmed myself down the same way I did after finding spots on my skin, lumps on my head and every time I sneezed since covid-19; by telling myself to fucking snap out of my hypochondria tendencies. One cannot go to the doctor every damn day after all. Breast tissue is pretty lumpy and I assumed it was just imaginary. I made an appointment to see a therapist, and  put it out of my mind until a few weeks later, when one of the kids came crashing down on me (literally) and faceplanted in my boob (as they do). 

Now this always hurts af, but it just hurt that little more that day, so that I grabbed the appendage in question and went “WHAT THE--!” And I felt it again- the lump, more defined than a few weeks before. 

Cue a lot more freaking out than the first time, and after a sleepless night, imagining what my funeral would look like (as one does), I decided to go to the gynocologist the same day or risk never to sleep again.

After a long wait and an ultrasound, my doctor assured me that while there really was a mass, it had every indication of being benign. We should keep an eye on it. If I was worried, I could schedule a second screening, but would not likely get an appointment before April. I scheduled one and tried to focus on preparing our first lockdown Christmas. 

But over the holidays, the lump started hurting, even when I wasn’t poking it or having a kid catapult themselves into my chest. I’d be Netflix and Chilling, and suddenly - ZAP - like someone stuck a hot needle into it. Repeatedly. My nipple would go numb or start tingling like a bodypart that fell asleep. It freaked me out, and in the new year, I realised I couldn’t wait until April - I had to get it checked out again or I may worry myself to death.

My gynocologist did another ultrasound and again, told me not to worry. I told her it was way too late for that as I had been worried for weeks, and I wanted the thing biopsied (they gave Brenda Walsh one too, after all! It’s the only way to be 100% sure). She referred me to the hospital. At the description of my symptoms, I could come directly, and the radiologist told me in no unclear terms: “I will not let you leave this room until we draw blood and take several biopsies.” Okay- not exactly what one wants to hear at that point, but at the same time, I figured knowing would be better than guessing by the shape of it.

Test results took a week. I went in, being prepared to be told (like Brenda) it was a harmless clump of random cells or a cyst we could have removed like a wart. Only it wasn’t. It was breast cancer, an aggressive, fast-growing kind, and had I waited until April, that could have had disastrous consequences.

While the doctor explained we now needed to determine the scope of the spread and take more tissue to determine what kind of chemo (if any) could be applied, all my 2020-PTSD brain could think was: 

“.............of course”. 

Didn’t hear much of what she said afterwards.

Another harrowing 4 days went by, with a CT screening with contrast solutions that gave me an intense stomach ache as well as a migraine, and finally, a fully rounded diagnosis and treatment advice could be made. 

Thankfully, all my organs as well as lymphnodes were clear, so it appears to be a localised tumor. And here we are - to fight this thing with chemicals and then cut out whatever is left. Genetics testing to see about the likelihood of a recurrency (and a possible double mastectomy if so - ‘pulling an Angelina Jolie’, ‘not saving the tatas’, insert ‘Think About It meme’...can’t have breast cancer if you don’t have breasts! THINK ABOUT IT***). 

Chances are good. I need to cling to that while I wait for this port and treatment to start. I have accepted the inevitable hair loss, have scheduled a ritual ‘crazy hair cutting party’ with my kids for this weekend (as I would rather shave it off in one go than clean up clumps and strands over the course of weeks and look like Gollum), and I have sewn several funny little hats for inside wear and ‘going out’ (though where will I be going in pandemic, idk). 

I was going to end this post on a light and happy note - but I must admit my confidence just took a really big hit in real time, as I googled how to spell Shannon’s last name for this blog entry and found out that she was treated for breast cancer in 2015, initially succesfully, but it reappeared metastasized in 2020 (again: ‘of course...when else’) and she is now in stage IV. Fuck 2020.

What are the odds that the woman whose character made me discover my own breast cancer is now, in fact, dying of the same disease? This will surely haunt me for a long time to come.

More tomorrow? Or soon? It may take a while. Until then: outro to It’s Getting Better.

*also for the record I would like to state that I’ve sewn my own masks from upcycled pillowcases and continued using fruit- and vegetable nets to avoid plastic; maybe that makes up for me being utterly selfish at the moment. Karma +1?

** https://youtu.be/pkgYXITkrfw (the scene from BH 90210)

***cis men / trans women without breasts can also get breast cancer (even though it’s rare) so this meme doesn’t really hold up, but that’s the whole point of the meme ;)

[canardroublard]

TMFU, Gaby’s fashion, and some feminist film analysis

Back when I slapped together a reblog post about the men’s fashion in The Man From UNCLE in between physio appointments, which somehow got like way more notes than I ever really expected or even wanted, I didn’t address the fashion of the lead female character, Gaby. It was outside the scope of the OP, and I didn’t feel like I had anything new or interesting to say about Gaby’s fashion, or lack thereof.

(My beta says those earrings are the ugliest thing ever. I disagree. It’s a wonder we’re still friends)

Anyways, we see only one brief scene of Gaby in her own street clothes, and a slightly longer sequence of her in her work clothes. The rest of the film, she is wearing clothes chosen for her by Illya. Saying “we just don’t have enough info” is a perfectly reasonable approach to this. So this was the other reason I had no intention of making this post.

But then people started getting interested. Someone reblogged commenting about Gaby’s fashion, and I discovered that I have very strong opinions about something I’d previously claimed was unknowable, and it made me wonder what was going on in my brain.

Then I talked to some other TMFU friends who all seemed interested in what I assumed was common knowledge/nothing unique. So, they may have been feigning interest out of politeness, but it activated the art history side of my brain, and here we are now!

The boring stuff but please read this

I am not attempting to tell anyone how to interpret this film. I am not even trying to change people’s minds or persuade them to my thinking. All I am doing is sharing my thought process. I wasn’t even going to do this for Gaby until people asked. To this end, please don’t attempt to argue with me about this. I don’t want to argue. I won’t respond to it. If you disagree, then please, just move along.

And I’m going to remind people that I love TMFU. I love this movie so much it hurts. Why am I putting this reminder here? Because I am about to apply some critical analysis to it, and in places this will be cynical, and it will not always look kindly on the film. If you just want to exist in a happy “I love TMFU!” bubble and not hear anything less than 100% positive about the film (which is a totally valid choice, I don’t fault anyone for that), then don’t read. But don’t yell at me for being mean or criticizing the film, because I warned you.

Tldr; or, if I were still being graded for this stuff here’s my thesis statement

When analysing Gaby’s fashion, there exist considerations which don’t apply to the male characters. Namely, she is a woman and the male gaze is a thing. So I am very, very wary about taking at  face value any expressions of traditional femininity in the choices made  for her outfits, hair, makeup, etc. Therefore, when considering her character, I find it much more useful and informative to give more weight to the aspects of her appearance which do not connote traditional femininity, rather than those that do.

For readers who have studied enough  media analysis to follow my thought based on that alone, there’s the thesis statement, y’all can go home (or at least skip to the end where I come to a conclusion). If you’re lost, then read on.

(mobile readers, the cut here might not work, and if so I apologize for what is going to be a very long post. Tumblr’s “keep reading” functionality is inconsistent at best, but I tried)

Context is for kings essential for analysing media in a meaningful way

(Or, some brief background. Stick with me here, we’ll get to the good stuff soon)

So, art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Attempting to analyze any artwork (in this case a film) while disregarding the culture it was created in and the intentions of the creator is...not going to get you very far. Asking “what is art” is a question that quite frankly exhausts me at this point (looking at you, Duchamp) but the closest I’ve ever come to an answer is that the only thing that separates art from everything else is intent. And intention only exists within cultural context. So yes, intent and context don’t just matter peripherally, they are one of the biggest considerations one needs to make when analyzing works of art. The creator in this case being Guy Ritchie et al, the culture being British/American Popular Cinema in The Year of Somebody’s Lord Two-Thousand-And-Fifteen. 

Everyone views and creates (if applicable) art through their own distorted, murky, imperfect lens of personal experience. And one of the most persistent Things in western art is that cishet men create art based on their experience of Being A Dude. This is crucial, because this lens of cishet male perspective literally underpins almost all of western culture including popular culture. And thanks to feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, we have a name for this.

The male gaze and you

I’m going to quote Wikipedia here, because honestly this intro sentence sums things up rather neatly (with one exception which I will address momentarily).

In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer.

What does that all mean? That the Viewer and the Artist are both cishet men by default, and any women are Subjects of art. Women are viewed, never viewers. Men take action, women are subjected to actions. Furthermore, women are supposed to be pleasurable to view. By men. Since the Viewer is male by default.

But I would disagree that the pleasure is inherently based on women being sexual objects. That’s honestly a really damn limited read on the whole theory, and it’s one that Wikipedia itself contradicts later in the article. More broadly, cis men also derive other forms of pleasure from the presentation and viewing of female bodies, including aesthetic pleasure (the enjoyment of looking at beautiful things).

The theory of the male gaze is not without limits. As originally theorized, afaik it’s not particularly intersectional. It doesn’t really address queer perspectives or perspectives of POC. However, these issues are something I just can’t address here, unfortunately. And when looking at popular media, I still find the concept of the male gaze, imperfect as it may be, is a helpful means of analysis, so it’s worth having in your toolbox.

Circling back, the easiest way to sum up the male gaze, if you’re still not super clear on what it is, is with a demonstration.

Ever seen a shot like this in a movie?

And did you immediately roll your eyes? Feel gross? Congrats, you have just perceived and reacted to the male gaze.

Now we actually get back to TMFU

But the male gaze also shows up in many more subtle, insidious ways than fanservice-y boob shots. For this post, let’s focus on the following considerations, which might help everyone follow my thought process more clearly.

Gaby is a woman

She functions as the love interest of Illya in the script (I am not talking from a shipping perspective. What you ship does not matter for this discussion. I am talking about the narrative function of Gaby in the script as written. Put on your “cishet man” goggles for a moment)

Illya is a man who is attracted to women, specifically Gaby (again, I don’t care if your shipping conflicts with this. I am analyzing the film based on a literal reading of it as if I were a cishet man. Why? Because that’s who made the film. That’s who it’s “for”. I am all for queer readings of film--hell, I ship OT3, I myself have chosen a queer reading for how I interact with it, but I’m not critiquing people’s readings, I’m critiquing the film itself and to do that I have to critique its intentions and cultural context.)

Cishet men are traditionally only allowed to be attracted to women who are conventionally attractive. If they were to be attracted to anyone else it would destroy their fragile senses of self and their heads would explode or something. At least I assume that’s what must happen, based on how terrified they are of it.

Therefore, Gaby must be conventionally attractive, because it is literally required of her or otherwise the whole underpinning of western straight malehood crumbles and then where would we get such a pure, vast source of unadulterated toxic masculinity?

(Yes, this is a very cynical read on things. I’ve studied, like, three centuries worth of this bullshit. I’m tired. Let me be cynical.)

Or, to force myself to be less cynical, Gaby has to be pretty because...nope, this is still going to turn out just as cynical.

But what I will say in favour of this movie is that it gives Gaby and Victoria both a lot of agency and general awesomeness, which is quite unusual in this sort of big-budget action film, and it’s one of the big reasons I love it. I’m not saying that the entire film is sexist. On the contrary, there’s a ton of stuff to celebrate about how it portrays its female characters. But these aspects don’t change the cultural context, and we still have to consider the impacts of the male gaze.

Anyways, point being is that as filtered through the male gaze, Gaby is never given the option to, say, wear no makeup (or the appearance of such, as the guys are afforded, this being cinema where “no makeup” still means makeup) because that would look “ugly”.  Instead she needs to have a “baseline of pretty” which is way higher than reality because she is not a real human being with her own agency, she is a character created by a cis male writer/director team in a film directed by a cis man in a genre that caters to cishet men.

Gaby doesn’t exist in a vacuum. She exists battling centuries and centuries worth of sexist convention.

Now then, remembering all of that, let’s actually look at her. There are woefully few good pictures so I’m going to have to piece things together a little. Starting with the coveralls.

This is a great look, I love it. And I’m going to give Ritchie a lot of credit here because it would’ve been easy to go for a “Michelle Rodriguez in F&F sexy mechanic lady” look. In case I need to provide a visual:

(Repeat above gif about rolling my eyes)

Now, to be clear, I am not making any judgement about the way any real-life women dress. I’m sure there’s plenty of female mechanics who have their hair down and wear tank tops while working. That doesn’t bother me. I don’t care if real life mechanics choose to do their jobs in a string bikini. Or in cosplay of the bee from Bee Movie. I don’t care (and quite frankly it’s none of my business) because they are real people who can make their own decisions. But what I am talking about here is a fictional character who does not have her own agency. I am critiquing how male creators choose to dress their female characters.

So I personally choose to read much more into the unpretty  aspects of Gaby’s outfit, because these are not the “obvious” or “easy”   things. Obvious and easy are “of course she wears makeup” and “of course her hair looks good” and  “of course she doesn’t look like a swamp witch  who bathes in mud and spends her days cursing passing men”. Those things don’t challenge or disrupt the assumption that women must look attractive for male consumption.

Gaby’s introduction to us is with her in a pair of grease-stained, baggy coveralls, not wearing any obvious makeup (again, this is cinema, so she is wearing makeup. For cinema the goal posts around “wearing makeup” always need to be moved from where they’d be irl). There’s very little here that screams ‘pretty’. And that is fascinating to me.

I don’t know how deeply Ritchie thought this through when giving final approval to the costume, hair and makeup. But unpretty is not the default here. It’s a choice

And look at this. This is the stance and dress sense (and socks!) of a woman who does not give a damn about looking good for the male gaze, whether the in-movie gaze of Napoleon, or the implied gaze of the viewer and creator. It’s not ‘pretty’. And this is the only time in the film we see Gaby in her own everyday clothes, as she only escapes East Berlin with the literal clothes on her back.

So how do I think Gaby dresses? I think that for the most part she dresses....like this. Practical. Comfortable. With a few simple touches of things she likes/finds pretty, perhaps, but not with a specific interest in being pretty. She dresses for herself, not for others. And if that isn’t something to aspire to, I don’t know what is.

[intersexcharacteroftheday]

Hey!! :) How do I write an intersex character? I'm a pansexual cis female trying to Write(!) And one of my characters is a female born with male genitalia. I want to make sure I only have positive truths about the community, but I also want this character to be a powerful person who has a sexual side, but because they're a full grown human not bc they're smutty. Aghhh please help I'm over thinking it and I block myself ! :/ Any advice would be amazing please and thanks and love

1.) I have to assume that you are also dyadic/perisex (means not intersex) since you are coming to this blog for intersex character writing tips (which is… technically not the scope of the blog!). I don’t know why you’ve mentioned being a pansexual cis woman when that has…. also nothing to do with writing an intersex character!

2.) That is a quite frankly terrible way to phrase it. Saying “a female born with male genitalia” is very easily read as transmisogynistic. Nothing about how you have phrased that strikes me that you know anything about being intersex, and that you are also not sensitive to the trans community either. I think I would work on how you understand the trans and intersex communities (and how they interlap and are also separate) before writing your character, because although you don’t seem malicious a lot of your language is…. Problematic. 

3.) My suggestion is that you please educate yourself first on being trans and intersex, the language, the communities, etc and the like before attempting this. As an individual that is actually both trans and intersex I can say if I read anything phrased how you have in this message, although well meaning, it would terribly put me off due to the underlining intersexism/cissexism in this ask. 

4.) Being intersex is.. not just about genitalia. I would really suggest you look into that before attempting anything, because a big problem that I have found is the hyper focus dyadic people pay to our genitalia. You must figure out if what you’re writing is fetishistic or not. Oftentimes most of the works I see conflate being intersex with a terrible misunderstanding of what h*rmaphroditism is. Don’t use that word, and don’t conflate being intersex with genitalia. 

5.) I understand that you want your character to be a sexual adult expressing her sexuality. And that is good. Just once again, avoid fetishizing your own character… 

Anyways this is getting long and since this is not the point of the blog and I’ve never billed myself a “how to write intersex characters pro” and am simply a trans and intersex person who wanted a cotd for intersex characters, I’m going to give you a few links. Please really think about what you know and watch your language, because no one can tell you how to write “The Intersex Character” because that in and off itself would be grossly reductionist to our entire community. 

Since I have literally no idea what you even know I’m going to very briefly link to a few things, and if any of our followers have the energy and the inclination to reply with anything else that would be helpful, they’re more than welcome to. 

http://www.isna.org/

http://actuallyintersex.tumblr.com/post/102145833259/im-sorry-if-this-is-bad-to-ask-but-why-is-dyadic

http://vergess.tumblr.com/post/143808164510/intersex-vocabulary

http://downwithcisfandom.tumblr.com/post/138242081932/vergess-vergess-if-anyone-tells-you-that-there

[honeylikewords]

Hello sweet! It's good to see you around again

hi!!! how ya doin!! i’m glad to be back and i’m very happy to know you’re glad to see me back at it again!!! 

I am also DELIGHTED that you’re excited to help expand the scope of who I write for and bring in lots of love to characters who may get thrown to the wayside (esp. with gross fandom dynamics that prefer ‘conventionally attractive’ characters (read: white, thin, cis, etc) over…. literally anyone else). 

here, off the top of my head, are things you can send requests for!

1. Marvel, obviously! This extends to the MCU, the Sony-Marvel films (aka the X-Men franchise and the others), Netflix shows, etc! My one nitpick would be to be careful about Black Panther, because Black Panther is a really intensely charged film with characters whose ethnicity and culture and race are a MASSIVE aspect of their lives, personalities, and relationships, so as a white(ish?) Jew, I don’t feel qualified to necessarily step in there and mess around. 

I love all the characters and the film very, very much, but I also don’t want to do them any injustices in representation OR by matching them with someone in a way that would do discredit to the film’s great dynamics. Anyway, I’d have to toe the line very gently when it comes to Black Panther, but hopefully with some guidance and seeing how the world of Wakanda opens up with the rest of the MCU, I’d be able to do more!

2. Star Wars! Star Wars has a REALLY great set of POC characters especially in these new films (and oh my god Lando looks SO good in “Solo” which is looking mostly boring to me… only Lando matters… only Lando…) who often get overlooked in favor of, well, some really bad choices. I mean, Finn is RIGHT THERE but people are more interested in N*zi-aligned minor characters? What a world. I’d like to specifically focus on the newest extentions of the Star Wars canon, with characters from Rogue One or Force Awakens/Last Jedi! There are so many wonderful characters there, and they all deserve a chance to shine!

3. Walking Dead, but loosely. I lost interest after Shane, uhhhhh, “vanished”, let’s say. The only people I really care about are Glenn, Carl, Michonne and Judith, but every single one of those people is being screwed over by the show, so nerts to that racket! Shane, Carl, Judith, Glenn and Michonne all now live in a lovely suburb in Georgia where nothing ever goes wrong and Walkers aren’t a thing. bye @ amc y’all don’t deserve my angels

4. I’m actually looking to branch out more, so please do send requests and I can say if I’ve seen it or not! I watch pretty prolifically and pretty widely, so there are lots of options! I love Psych (please, please, someone love Gus with me (and Lassiter too but at the moment we’re talking about underrated minority characters, Lassie can wait)), Star Trek (TNG and TOS equally!), Stranger Things (but ATM we have VERY few adult POC characters on there so…. yike), and more! So, do please feel free to ask and I may have seen it! No character too obscure, as I like to say!

Also, quick note to anyone wondering: Judaism is an ethnoreligious faith, so there’s actually TWO facets to being “Jewish”- you can be enthically Jewish and/or religiously Jewish! For example, you can be someone decended from Israeli Jews but not practice Judaism, or you could be decended from other ethnicities and practice Judaism but not be ethnically Jewish. You can also be both ethnically and religiously Jewish! It’s a little complicated but isn’t everything, at this point? Anyway, lots of love to all of you who read through this post and who are looking to send more requests!

Also, feel free to message me about HC-ing characters as being ethnically/religiously Jewish! I love a good Jewish HC :”)

EDIT: I FORGOT TO ADD OVERWATCH GHMCHGKDG

I know it’s not my usual fare, but Overwatch has an AMAZING span of characters, many of whom are POC and come from a widely diverse background! My favorite is Jesse McCree (my friend painted me a picture of him for my birthday and I have another commission of him on the way from another good friend I’m weeping openly), but I also would love to write for characters like Gabriel Reyes (Reaper) ((but pre-Reaper mostly since... Reaper scares me tbh)), Lucio, Akane (Doomfist), Genji, Reinhardt, and more!

ALSO I’m VERY open to writing for female characters! I’m welcoming of any gender orientation or LGBTQIA+ relationship, so please so send in requests for female characters! As always, including the preferred pronouns you’d like to see used in the work would be very helpful, too!

[haughtbreaker]

The Emily Andras thing going around...

So I’ve been taking a stance on positivity which has been about 95% inspired by the Wynonna Earp fandom. For those that don’t know me, I’m not a positive person... like in any way, shape, or form. Life has abused, stomped, and destroyed most of the positivity out of me from birth and I was never really taught how to be positive so it’s been a battle of faking it till I make it and it more than always comes out as dark sarcasm. 

I want you to know that you 100% have the right to feel however you feel about Wynonna Earp and Emily Andras. If you don’t like the show or her, that’s fine. I don’t understand why, but you have the right to not like them. 

There have been a few posts surrounding Emily Andras and I feel like I should probably point a few things out but I’ll put it under a cut.

1. Emily Andras praised JRot on March 4, 2016 for his writing. This is 100% true. She did, but so did I at the time. I do not, under any circumstances, approve now, but as a person who has been a fan of genre television, at the time I could see the angles that were being worked, I understood how genre characters come and go. Lexa dying was NOT the reason I stopped watching the show because in all wlw deaths I’ve seen, this one wasn’t that bad. Her death was plot-relevant (from my pov, I get if you don’t see it that way) which rarely happens. Please take a moment to remember what happened a year ago, because we all KNEW Lexa as coming back. We all KNEW she would be returning. On March 4, when Emily posted the comment, we still had hope because we had all seen the footage that she would be returning and in genre TV, no one stays dead forever. Emily said she didn’t watch the show and her comment was before the truth came out, before we put 2 and 2 together and realized that JRot played us and used us to gain viewership. 

People are allowed to change their mind as new information comes in. 

It wasn’t until she saw the scope of what had happened and understood the immensity of the situation that she did the only thing she could think of. She consulted with her cast and executives about spoiling the end of the season to offer the fans hope because it was needed. She didn’t want us to give up on wlw representation because we were all ready to throw in the towel. 

2. Emily Andras participated in the WLW trope by killing Tamsin. This is... i’ll say this is 50% true. Emily did kill Tamsin in the S3 finale but because Emily is a genre writer, and has said many times that no one in genre TV stays dead forever, Tamsin came back in S4 which was the last season that Emily was the show runner for. She was not responsible for the downfall of Tamsin’s character in S5. In fact, she wrote 2 episodes for the whole season, one of which was a Tamsin-centric episode that focused on revealing her backstory and how she grew up to be the person she eventually became. It was a great episode for Tamsin. 

3. Emily Andras recently intentionally misgendered someone on Twitter and refused to apologize. This was not a black and white situation and please don’t read this as me making excuses because it’s not. Let’s remember that Emily is a cis-gendered person. The original misgendering, from my viewpoint, was not a misgendering at all. Not knowing the gender or how a person identified, she told someone to strap on their big-girl pants. Frankly, I would use this phrase with a male/female/genderqueer person and not think twice. It’s along the same lines of “don’t get your panties in a bunch.” Does that mean the person didn’t have the right to be offended? No, because people react to things in different ways. Emily then misgendered the person again when the attacks started pouring in saying “are you her gretchen wieners”. It’s up to you with how you want to interpret that. There’s no way to know what her intentions were behind the tweet or if it was an accident. I’m going to believe it was an accident to say “she” but you’re allowed to feel how you wish about it. Yes she did refuse to apologize until she received an apology from the person at first and I actually see her reasoning behind it. 

No matter how you identify, it does not give you the right to be an asshole to people. Before the big girl pants comment, that person was being a dick, repeatedly messaging her that Wynonna Earp’s writing was crap and that they had no intention to keep watching. Emily is very protective of her writing staff and cast and had spent an entire week being berated for a peck on the lips. So yeah, she was under stress and as a cis-gendered woman did not understand that her wrong was greater than the one against her. 

But yes, she apologized and explained that the best she can do is just try to keep improving and the person accepted. The person did not apologize for being a dick to her, but accepted hers.The person who was wronged accepted so why is everyone else still on a crusade? We want the world to do better, to be better, and we have someone here admitting they were wrong and saying they will try to be better and we’re going to constantly crap on that? 

Tumblr has a notorious streak to it. It lives by the one strike rule that allows for no improvement, no betterment. One mistake and suddenly that person is cast out into the oasis. Emily is not a robot, she is a human being who makes mistakes. I am a firm believer that if someone apologizes, and is making a conscious effort to improve, we should let them. There are so many show runners and actors that are so unapologetic when they actively mock or talk down about queer representation and you want to keep berating the one that actually is sorry? 

In Wynonna Earp she gives us multiple queer characters. These characters were not in the comic book and she created them and brought them to life with the intention of making them queer. The last episode, literally everyone died except the three queer characters who saved the day. I mean, when has that ever happened? People demanded more POC in s2. Well guess what? We got them. We got 2 new cast members that were POC, one who is cannon queer. So many of the non-main roles were cast as POC as well, including the return of the woman who played the blacksmith. OK yes I’m a little tired of Nicole getting beat up, but the fact that she keeps surviving has me thrilled beyond words. 

Emily has literally been working on improving the world of TV not just with her own shows, but with inspiring others to follow in her footsteps. She uses her platform to promote lgbtqa+ representation and how many showrunners can you think of that do that? No really, let me know about the showrunners that do because I’d love to hear about them and read up on them. 

Anyway, all I’m saying in this long winded post is that Emily Andras is not infallible. She’s human, she makes mistakes and she works to correct them. She gives us representation and fleshed out characters that aren’t just side lined because all they are is a marketing ploy. Do you have the right to still be upset with her? Totally, but maybe take a moment to look at things from all angles and see she’s not the evil tyrant some people are trying to make her out to be. 

[silver-and-ivory]

I simply do not believe that you can, in fact, continue to listen to black people, or indeed ascribe any value to them at all, while also defending your right to be afraid of them as a generic group. You -will- discount what they say, regardless of whether or not it should be discounted. And like, your entire justification for this, besides someone abusing you, is that other people feeling bad makes you feel bad, and how dare they. That you're proud of this is amazing.

(cont) But I dunno, you clearly can’t and shouldn’t engage with racial issues because of your scrupulosity. What’s astounding, though, is that you take that same scrupulosity and wear it like a badge of integrity and superiority. And it’s perfect for you, since because your racism is a product of your scrupulosity, nobody can criticize you, because that would be unfair.

Hey, anon.

If I’m interpreting your message correctly, you’re mainly concerned by me because you think that I am proud of hating black people, and the other issues - not believing I can listen to black people, saying I don’t value black people, etc. - are all linked to this. You would be okay if I treated my scrupulosity as something that I needed to work on, but you *aren’t* okay with it because you think I’ve given up on trying to help blacks.

You have a very valid point here, and it’s one that I hadn’t necessarily thought of. Thank you for explaining!

However, I think there has also been a miscommunication. (link to whole post)

Here’s what’s going on with me being proud of being a “bad racist”:

I’m proud that I was able to look at myself clearly and admit, Yes, this is how you feel when you see black people, and it’s how you’ve felt for a while.

I’m proud that I am finally able to separate “actually a legitimately bad person who is very harmfully racist” from “just someone who my abuser thinks is a racist”.

I’m proud that I don’t have to constantly worry about what other people will think of me, and that I’ve finally thought my way out of sj.

I’m proud that I’ve confronted what I feared most (being a racist).

I’m proud that I was able to recognize my emotions in general- the dissociation and guilt/shame associated with Her, the intense self-loathing I had begun to develop, the anxiety caused by constant self-criticism, and yes, the secret fear of black people. I spent a long time ignoring them and denying that they exist - this might be something to do with alexythmia, or maybe just certain thought complexes associated with sj.

Of course, to someone looking in this would look at lot like “lol I hate black people”, especially, when, um, I literally said something like “lol I hate black people”.

My intention behind this was to say, “So, ex-friend, I’m someone you would call a racist. I’m someone you would accuse of hating black people. But I don’t actually endorsedly hate black people, obviously, and I’m done adhering to your standards for who I should be. I’m illustrating this by showing how absurd it is that you might think I endorsedly hate black people. Also, I do legitimately unendorsedly hate black people and you’re the reason why.”

So yeah, anon, sorry about 1) any unclarity there or 2) any negative effects it’s had on you.

However: I have repeatedly stated that I believe that people should have their own spaces where they can say things like “fuck white people” and “die cis scum”, preferably tagged for things like “racism cw” and “cisphobia cw”. This is because I believe in the concept of safe spaces for competing access needs. The same holds true here.

So I’m not sorry for being honest about my emotions, or for confronting my fears.

Do you know what it means for an emotion to be unendorsed vs endorsed? Because I think a lot of your upsetness stems from there-

Unendorsed is when you feel or think something, but you actually know it’s completely wrong. Like, if you really like ice cream you might think, “There is literally no one in the entire universe who doesn’t love ice cream exactly as much as I do.” And then you would realize, “Well, actually, that’s completely untrue and I shouldn’t assume that everyone else is exactly like me.” But you can also realize that this thought has legitimate roots - that you really like ice cream and associate it with your grandmother - and you can also listen to it without judging yourself.

Endorsed is when you feel or think something, and upon further consideration you’re like Holy shit I’m completely correct. Like, if you care lots about ~becoming immortal~ you might think “Death is the worst thing ever and we need to put it at the top of our list of Stuff To Cure.” And then you would think back on this and realize “Yep, death is definitely the worst thing ever.”

My hatred of black people is unendorsed, but I’ve investigated it and realized it’s a pattern-matching defense mechanism in reaction to having been abused, or at least severely mistreated. I wish, anon, that you would stop dismissing my experiences with abuse as minor. They were not. They aren’t an excuse or a logical reason for hating black people, but they are significant and they are an emotional reason. I am not perfectly logical; I am affected by pattern-matching and bias just as much as anyone else.

I have clearly stated that I don’t endorsedly blame black people as as whole for this, and I have no idea where you would have gotten that interpretation.

If you’d give a woman abused by a man some leeway with her misandry, then you ought to do the same for me. (Also, note that I use this framing because I think you, anon, will be most compelled by it, not because I’m ignoring the degree to which women abuse men, which is comparable in scope to male-on-female abuse.)

I however do endorse my hatred of Her, and I endorse pride in my ability to recognize my emotions and dictate my own morality.

Ultimately, it was extremely important to me to be able to admit to and reclaim and to be proud of this pain; and to recognize the fear and hatred while also committing eventually eliminating my own antiblack racism. And that brings me to the next point, which is that-

I think at the root we agree on something quite important: we both want to have an end result of me not (unendorsedly) hating black people anymore.

I don’t know what to do, but I’ve gotten some suggestions, mostly along the lines of “find black people who aren’t extremely into sj and who are generally kinder people, and become friends with them”. This is a good idea, since it would decrease my threat assessment when I see black people so that my emotions are more in step with reality. Kind of like exposure therapy.

I could also try to establish thought patterns that automatically appear whenever I start on a fear/guilt/shame spiral. I’m going to try to do that sometime soon.

I also disagree with your statements about what I can or should not do.

I am in fact able to value black people, as you can see with my willingness to do things for black people like “calling members of Congress about police brutality” and “donating money to some kind of cause” and “donating money to AMF”. If I did not abstractly value black people I would not care about their civil rights and lives.

You’re correct that my fear of blacks could create a bias against listening to them. However, now that I recognize this bias, I can try to correct against it by e.g. seeking out black perspectives for reading and consideration. For example, right now I’m reading Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde, and I’m not only passively listening but also trying to engage with and evaluate her arguments. (It is a very interesting book.)

Again, I want to become stronger! Tsuyoku naritai. I want to be able to stretch myself and to become less scared of black people. I want to be able to take risks on my own terms, and to take care of myself while doing so. (This is relevant to e.g. the dignity of risk and the ability to set your own boundaries.)

I want to help social justice, real social justice. And I think that I could handle it /if/ it was safe- again, it’s like exposure therapy, a controlled environment with people I trust, who deserve my trust. Unfortunately, there is a certain dearth of communities like this that I can access right now.

Finally, you say that I think that no one can criticize me for my racism because it’s due to scrupulosity.

In some sense, this is in fact true. I do not support criticizing people for talking about their unendorsed emotions/feelings. If you want to vent about my unendorsed feelings, I would suggest that you do it in a space that is not my blog. If you want to eliminate my emotional racism, then you ought to find an actually effective way. Ignoring and guilting myself for it didn’t work in the past. Meeting more black people who aren’t abusive, however, might, as would removing myself from situations with Her.

In another sense, however, I am happy to engage with criticism if it is logically sound and moderately polite, as I am doing now. That doesn’t mean I won’t dismiss it, but it’s also not like you’re not allowed to or like I’m being unkind to you for criticizing me.

In yet another sense, I welcome criticism of my endorsed racism. I just don’t think that I’ve been endorsedly racist lately?

Not sure if you had something else in mind.

Anyway, thanks a lot, anon. I mean this sincerely- I appreciate your effort and your goodwill towards me. :)

[misterbitches]

Im not intelligent at all. In the conventional sense. The ramblings of a girl who just has sooo much going in in her head it's constant. But im not a genius. Or that confusing.

It just sounds like I am bc fandoms have this issue where they can JUSTSO point out the issues in soletiing. They can pick and prod and go oh problematic! But then you go to name the problems and the difficulties within society like for ex: the idea of representation in general. Salivating over it. How fucking sad that is. How we are trained to accept it. So in a BL and also RACE in the bl genre they exploit viewers naivete both domestically and internationally. Ive seen tons of people liken being asian to being a person of color. However, in their predominantly homogenous society (or intentionally publically homogenous society), they are not "poc" (also name the of color; i dont use bipoc idc if u do but it's called being asian guys cos yall aint talkin about black ppl lmao)

They as humans seeing other humans who look like them everywhere, engage with the world differently than an american in asia or asians living outside of their home country (like bae doo nanwhen she worksnin the US is not the same as the bae doo nanworking on a korean program) I dont complain about it in everything i see bc ppl say it ALL THE TIME. but it is NOT the same. Being a person of color is very distinctly an american concept. This is all stuff people will get to know on their own if they choose to dig more.

I do my best to underline what my ugly little eyes process. How i figure things out as a black female american artist too! Im hard on shit cos i should be. I take it seriously. And even if i dont take it seriously bc THEY dont then thats their problem.

I know this is a complaint that I am not alone in. I know it's the internet. I just don't get how people can write really heavy analysis but they refuse to actually probe the underlying issues. Not everyone is me, or like my friends, but if there's way fewer people talking about this stuff it seems absolutely glaring when theres few people engaging in the way i do. It seems like im the glitch but I am thinking just as much just differently.

I really loved where your eyes linger but there was little deep class analysis. I remember few convos a bout it. I know a lot about korea (sigh being a black ex kpop fan lol mess) and i love the history but all ofnit matters! Korea's relation to labor!

People bringing up thai actors snd actresses leaving the industry and doing acting as something quick. As an artist~ who went to film school with insanely wealthy ppl and isnin tons of debt you have to understand how shitty that is. People have monetary access and they just fucking do whatever just because they want to. Meanwhile you have young people being coerced into this bullshit mainstream life to LITERALY just make money bc they dont come from a rich background. The wealth gap in thailand is BAD, theres a dictatorship, they had a fucking coup. The governments like here do not respect their people. Their marginalized groups. Trans thai women, black thai ppl, poor thai ppl. And it LITERALLY CANNOT DO ANYTHING EFFECTIVELY IN CAPITALISM. No nothing can be perfect but if it's going into our eyeballs and we can view the worlld critically then why the fuck not!???

I dont say the things i see are wrong always. I reply when i think i need to. I try and engage with others but not to kuch avail. I just want to rb stuff and tdhink lajfhhdjwhjej.

But like yea theres a lot of just wrong or misguided stuff. A lot of the times it is just historical inaccuracy in framing or idk. A refusal to think outside the box. I dont care. Theres more to life than just sort of looking and not thinking especially for othrr artists.

Idk im sorry. I dont see how i can change how i view things. I really wish people would expand their palettes too and go deeper into other means of art from places! Things not in the mainstream! Theres a lot of good thai artists and a lot of them critical as fuck about their country as they should be. Authority, austerity, patriarchy, capital, racism etc like that is central to a power thats interested in growing gains and fiscal and social power. Theres rly radical or left leaning etc ppl out there in the world and these countries in these communities. So they exist. No people in these countries dont have NO clue whats going on. Cultural relativism is alsos something people should understand. I had a good talk with ppl on here a while ago about that. Talking about shit, critiquing, but being respectful to a group. Part of thay is realizing these groups CLEARLY know their own issues and all our cultures share the same goal. Guess what it is. It rhymes with acquiring wealth. Money means you hurt people. In the post, we talked about use of "wife" and "husband" which is a stupid joke that has been "explained" a billion times and yet the explanations still dont seem to answer or justify a minor problem (it's very funny to me that a language that doesnt have gendered pronouns is now very specific about two men. Hmmm wonder why. It is annoying.)

So im not the only person on the planet doing this. Or the few ppl ive seen that do. Im not new my thoughts arent new. Ive gotten to see another side to a culture i knew not much about and that means i can put the context of my beliefs and life and try and understand thheirs. For ex i learned from ITSAY because of a sign that said 'french food' that they were the only country to not be colonized back then. Do you know how integral that history is to their region? That was an interesting detail (i didnt finish itsay bc ihad a lot going on and i was rly upset that i would see hownrich they are and i hate that.)

Anyways thats my complaint. It used to feel like a sting of rejection. I left online for months in 2019, i started organizing more, joined a union, trying to do some panther work shit like that. I learned a lot in those months and it changed my life! But when I came back, I felt so isolated. It wasnt my true friends tho sometimes theyre ANNOYINGGGGG (love u) but it was me being like "if we are going to complain guys then lets put our money where our mouth is" lets be fucking serious about it then. No say it with your chest dude. It isnt difficult. Go with the fucking flow, talk about it, critique it, think. You can still fucking like itnor love it.

I am BLACK ok and i love rap. I am a black woman. I will continue to clown black men that cant seem to not clown themselves and listen. No i wont support monetarily: drake is a creep and i hate him but i bump that niggas song. Thats fucking LIFE. I got so sick of hiding myself and it became clear that it wasnt that i wasntthinking well or hard enough. They just didnt like that i said we need to commit class suicide and inspect out middle class sensibilities and middle class wealth hoarding (google it) if thats what we engaged with. Every part of you, antagonize it. I still have my privileges; class, skin color, even my father being a nigerian immigrant, me being cis, im not str8 but not a lesbian and those are differences.

Insecurities in general but some shallow thoughts (?) on discussion in "fandom" space. FYI, this will most likely stay the same. I tend to stay in my own bubble socially IE me and my friends are similar in our views. During this awful year while running my union's account, im surrounded by like minds. Me and my friends? We changed together. We grew up and saw what we didnt like and what we want. We do our best.And i CHOOSE my life to be that way bc it should be. There is no solution. I dont believe in solutions because the solution is to abolish capital or just divest. Abolishing capital and labor are a huge one and i will die before that happens (but so help me as long as im alive? Black women to FREEDOMMMM is my motto!) so making your own path in life is the best thing an artist can do IN MY OPINION.

However with technology and stuff this puts another layer onto things. Tech, social media, this shit....it THRIIIIIIIVESSSSSSS off of conflict and shallow readings of the world. We are literally primed for it. Engagement in bites. Impossible for me with my brain; i got used to it and i paid for it by limiting my scope. Not being encouraged to THINK AND READ before just speaking

(For ex i am in iww, i helped form a branch here. It is a radical union. Unionism is imprative to me-if ur interested u should read up on some. Look up peter cole! Google inthesetimes Ilwu. Gives you some understanding. Ive always been progressive and now i am....very left idk ic ant label myself. But even in my progrssiveness i had the gall to tell my white friend, whoa has her privileges but i had mine with our class disparity, that we dont need unions, i have WORKED retail. Ive done barista work for sonoing and i do gig work. So i wasnt out of touch. I had been stiffed even with a shoot i was working on by rich kids. So i had a frame of reference . But i didnt know what the FUCKa union was and why it is imperative. Then learning about anarcho syndicalism and all these other things. It changed my fucking life but two years earlier i was this idiot spouting shit like that making one of my best friends fucking upset. We DO AND CAN CHANGE. Think!!!!)

So were i a creator for tv id just constantly try and push the buttons if i need big money. Make them sell into me (thank you sonic youth!) theres Endless possibilities guys which means theres SO MUCH TK EXPLORE!!!! When i wanna have fun with it i just have fun. When i want to think i do. I dont understand why we are so dedicated to upholding things and doing mental gymnastics to end up in a space you dont need mental gymnastics for. What about these critiques makes you uncomfortable? Saying we're all part of the problem as spectators? Im sorry but we will always be. Thats LIFE. God fuck. Fuck me. I feel so fucking worthless and stupid sometimes. I know I am not. I know i am talented and intelligent. I know my friends and family. I know how to approach ppl. I know how to tell people if they are rich but want to be progressive whatsup. I choose how i live part of that is being ok to say what i want.

Ironically consrrvatives say this shit alot. But they arent ever alone bc their ideology is default. But yea it does feel shitty. It even feels shitty when ur in left circles but people STILL dont even wanna do that. These perspectives really arent ss many as they should be. I dont want to feel so alone with it. I know there are more. I just love art and the world so fucking much, endless possibility. Endless pain but endless good.

[stringsttothepast]

My Response to Buzzfeed’s “I’m Gay, But I’m Not”  + My Story

This video has shown up on my Facebook Feed under fire, heavily criticized for displaying insensitivity by perpetuating a heteronormative narrative. To many, the video is perceived as a sort of attack on queer tropes as these men are essentially telling the audience “I am not that type of gay,” implying that there may be something wrong with other gay men that do identify with these stereotypes.

I’m going to give my own two cents on the matter, but before I do let me say a bit about myself so this post won’t come off as an outsider looking in.

My Story

To start off, I am a cisgendered queer person of color. I am also an introvert. I came out to my friends and peers in my sophomore year of high school, I believe about 2006 or 2007. At that time, I only knew of of two other queer guys from my school, eventually meeting more through a neighbor from down the block. At this point, my queer contacts  were more aligned with a more alternative rock, borderline emo clique.

My next encounter with any other queer folk didn’t happen till after my freshman year of college in 2010, when I’ve taken an involuntary break from school. I met with other queer folks through my ex’s ex. It was my first encounter with transpeople, and the group as whole had faced hardships. It was an oddball group of ravers, emos, punk-rockers, mixed with a little bit of Ke$ha and Otakus. A number of us faced homelessness, or the danger of homelessness. Some  picked up serious drug addictions, and resorted to using their bodies to be able to sustain themselves. Our migration often went from Chinatown Arcade, to Central Park, to Union Square.

Eventually, I ended up leaving for reasons.

At this point, I was found by someone on facebook, and was brought to the local LGBT center in my city. It was my first time being around so many other LGBT folks, and there was a steep learning curve to learn the climate. I began to learn more about the differences between sex, gender, gender expression, and sexuality. I’ve attended young men’s group, though the contents I’m omitting for the sake of confidentiality,

There were events that occurred on occasion. I’ve seen people vogue, but that’s the closest I’ve gotten to the ballroom scene. If anything, I ended up drinking with smaller groups.

In more recent years I have been more engaged in community activism, mostly working with communities of color on addressing racial injustices within our education system and how my city does policing. And lately more vocal in terms of representation of Queer People of color and issues that Queer PoC face. Studying film and production, I became more aware of how all media content is politicized. I’ll revisit my disdain of Babadook being the 2017 queer icon in a later post.

My 2 Cents

With all that being said, here is my subjective take on the video.

For starters, it is important to understand that the video is part of a series in which it explores the diversity of personality within the LGBTQ community, so it comes to reason that the opening part can be taken out of context as something that lends itself to the idea of internalized homophobia. Like I mentioned before, “I am not like other gays” or any variation, carries a tone that projects shame towards the community, with an air of “superiority” of not conforming to what people believe is queer culture, while often adhering to heteronormative standards as a way of being. That is often what is perceived when a person places too much emphasis on how “different” they are.

But I can resonate to the sentiments shared. Not that I feel that I’m superior, but feeling something beyond the scope of how the community expresses queerness. Given my upbringing, I was not as exposed to what is often believed to be “need to know” info with regards to culture. Because  I was more punk, alternative, and the like, I never felt as if I would fit in anyway within the community.

I see it as a narrative to deconstruct stereotypes on what people perceive queerness to be. While yes it’s something to be celebrated, not many LGBT celebrate it as the focal point of their identity as a person.

Part of the reason why this video is under scrutiny, aside from being taken out of context, is this sort of culture that looks down on femininity that exists within the community. There is a toxic sort of Masc4Masc Culture that exists that undervalues effeminate gays. This sort of mentality is reminiscent of old conservative LGB groups in the late 20th century that tried to appeal to the masses by rejecting those stereotypes and strictly adhering the social conventions of what defines masculinity and femininity.

That sort of thought process is toxic in which it goes against everything that the rainbow represents (of course, my thoughts on “inclusion” within the community is to be visited later on as well). It is seen as a form of constraint on expression, with cis-gendered gays eventually looked as the model for what the “socially acceptable” gay should be, in terms of adhering to heteronormative standards of being.

The Comparison

Now for the comparison to an earlier video, “I’m Bisexual, But I’m Not…” The video uses the same mode approach to debunking myths, though what is different between the two videos is that in the “I’m Bisexual, But I’m Not” video, it is more on myth debunking, as opposed to the “I’m Gay, But I’m Not…”  which is an opposition to a generalization of what people believe gay men to be, while inconsequentially projecting negative feelings towards what may be seen as a truth to many gay men.

Could they have done something else to show diversity and the complexity of queer individuals? Of course! It is something that is more complicated to convey given the amount of social oppression of the different forms of expressions of queerness within the community, while mainstream media and culture only showcases these caricatures.

In Short

The video was intended to debunk generalizations about gay men.

Unfortunately, the first half when taken out of context, further perpetuates this anti-feminine vibe which is an existing issue within the community.