#especially when it comes to black and queer concerns

[superduperkas]

[ecologydyke]

begging pleading for people to use their critical thinking skills when it comes to the environment. way too many people have this idea:

climate change isn’t real = wrong and bad

climate change is real = correct and good

and while yes, denying climate change *is* wrong and bad, that doesn’t mean you should immediately trust everyone who says climate change is real.

ecofacism is a really concerning trend i see, especially among the younger generation because of how undeniable climate change has become to us. facists are taking advantage of the existential despair that’s rising in young people due to the climate crisis to indoctrinate them into their ideology. the most important thing to remember about ecofacists is that *they don’t actually care about the environment.* it’s a front to make facism more palatable to people who are concerned about the climate. it’s so so so important to learn how to recognize ecofacist talking points because i see them repeated by people who otherwise wouldn’t be described as a facist and it’s very concerning.

if someone says climate change is due to overpopulation, that’s an ecofacist talking point.

if someone says climate change is due to immigration, that’s an ecofacist talking point.

if someone says climate change is a necessary purge of humankind, that’s an ecofacist talking point.

if someone says all humans are inherently evil and deserve to die, that’s an ecofacist talking point.

if someone says that we are the virus, that’s an ecofacist talking point.

ecofacists claim that overpopulation is causing the climate crisis. it’s not. pay attention to the particular spots in the world that have the densest populations: china, india, bangladesh, and nigeria are usually the main countries in these claims. they are targeting asian and african people and blaming them for climate change entirely, when in reality these poorer people living in very high density cities have some of the lowest carbon footprints. ecofacists will say that overpopulation is the issue in asia and africa, and while they usually don’t say this part out loud, the implied solution to the climate crisis is mass genocide against mainly black and brown people. *facism as we know it is white supremacy.* they also use a similar argument to claim that immigration is contributing to climate change, saying that (again, mostly black and brown) immigrants are causing overpopulation in “civilized” countries and that the planes and boats used to take them across the world are causing all that pollution.

ecofacists will say that floods and famine and the subsequent deaths that result from climate change are a necessary evil to keep the human race in check. again, think of who will be most affected by climate change-related disasters (who already are being affected by them). this is not a coincidence.

because they are the masterminds behind the theory that all humans are evil and should die, logically that means the ecofacists would be the ones leading the massacres and choosing which groups to eliminate. again, facism is white supremacy. they will target people of colour, disabled people, queer people, jewish people, and elderly people until only the “ideal” (read: white, abled, cishetallo) members of society are left. this is not a coincidence.

i’m using very extreme examples here obviously but that’s just to demonstrate what the goal of ecofacism is. ecofacists want to use the climate crisis to guilt trip people into giving everything up for the sake of the environment and subscribing to their racist ideals.

it’s very important to mention how rampant ecofacist ideology has become in vegan circles online. obviously there’s nothing wrong with being vegan, but ecofacist talking points are *everywhere* in online vegan communities and it’s very concerning. it’s especially common among animal rights activists (which almost always go hand in hand with veganism, although not all vegans are aras). it’s really important to keep in mind that animal rights activism and animal welfare activism are very very different - animal welfare fights for ethical treatment and slaughter of livestock, while animal rights fights for the complete eradication of animal products. the whole argument over animal welfare vs animal rights can be saved for another post but it is very, very important to recognize how animal rights activism and in many cases veganism parrots racist ecofacist ideas.

it’s really really important to acknowledge that native populations of turtle island and polynesia in particular are damaged by ecofacist ideals. a core part of animal rights activism is the push for completely criminalizing all hunting of wildlife, and who’d have thought - that is incredibly important to the indigenous way of life and forcing native people to stop hunting (*especially* inuit living in the north) is cultural genocide. ecofacism also uses the guise of conservation efforts to push native peoples off of their own land.

it’s true that human consumption can and does lead to climate change, but it isn’t poor people living in slums or even really an average western household. ecofacists put all the blame for climate change on people of colour and other marginalized communities, even when they’re the ones contributing the least to the climate crisis. while a lot of what i’m saying here is intentionally extreme to properly illustrate the point i’m trying to make, it is absolutely a thing that happens that oppressed people actually do die because of ecofacism. the el paso shooter in texas a few years ago admitted to having ecofacist ideals and that his targeting of a store frequented by mexican immigrants was not a coincidence. the shooter that killed 51 people in mosques in christchurch that same year also shared similar ecofacist beliefs.

ecofacist propaganda can be hard to spot and can even make its way to mainstream media. do you remember a couple years ago at the height of tue pandemic when major news outlets were posting videos of dolphins returning to the venecian canals? those videos were not real. they were made with the implicit message of “humans are the virus” - which is, again, an ecofacist talking point. whether the videos were created by an ecofacist or not doesn’t really matter - what matters is that they spread ecofacist propaganda *everywhere*.

it’s really important to recognize absolutist statements like “all humans are evil and should die” or “overpopulation is causing climate change” and be able to critically think about who they might be benefiting and who they might be detrimental to. there are clues in ecofacist talking points, but they’re usually hard to spot - that is the point. if you see some statement that raises a red flag, you should think about who it’s being said or implied is causing the harm, whether it’s a radicalized or oppressed group, and how they’re being portrayed by the people saying these statements. it’s also really important to think about how they propose climate change should be solved: if it involves more police, more surveillance, excluding or pushing entire groups of people out, more military action, or closing borders and denying people the freedom to move - that is an ecofacist talking point.

also, i should mention that not everyone who spreads these types of ideas are ecofacists. in fact, i think most of them aren’t, or at least fully. ecofacism is just the most covert form of facist propaganda right now and it’s very easy to fall into the idea that all humans should die or whatever, no matter if you subscribe to the racist implications of that or not. just please be aware of how ecofacism manifests and how easily it spreads online - don’t be afraid to point out when you think someone is unintentionally spreading racist rhetoric, and be self-critical of what the implications of some of the things you might be saying have. critical thinking wasn’t taught in school just so you could figure out if the curtains were blue or not - it affects everything.

some articles about this topic that i like a lot

[wh0re-behavi0r]

How to write 911 characters: Black women

since its black history month, here's how to write Athena, Hen, and Karen. I want to do this because I see really offensive things in fanfic when people write them and that usually goes unnoticed.

Athena:

✨ reference the source material (for everyone actually) ✨

Athena is a very kind and affectionate person with her friends, she's a great listener and always willing to help others out. She's stubborn when it comes to herself and taking breaks. She's a great mom and partner, though conflict has arisen when it comes to letting people in.

2. her relationship with Buck is not necessarily motherly. If you like to write her that way, it's your story but be careful you aren't falling into the mammy trope.

that would include, treating buck as though he's a child that needs protection from everyone, a cartoonish fondness and exaggerative movements, mainly as a character just to prop up Buck.

3. do not write her speaking voice different from the rest of the characters. I've seen things like: "A' course sugah!" Not only is that inaccurate, it's inappropriate.

4. Athena's relationship with being a cop, being in an interracial relationship, and being previously married to a gay black man are all very complex issues in the black community that require research before speaking on. I haven't seen people ever go in depth with this in fics but the show can only encapsulate so much about it without offending viewers so if you'd like to be more candid, please take the necessary steps.

Hen and Karen:

✨black queer love, especially wlw, isn't just to support your main ship please appreciate them ✨

hen is very driven, very caring, very intuitive. She's always been a listening ear for others, and finds comfort in her friends' advice. She's a great parent and a great partner.

Her relationship with Chimney can be silly, serious, protective, and everything you need in a best friend. They both look out for each other and aren't afraid to call out bs. Her relationship with Athena is also really great and balanced.

Hen can be a older sister to Buck, but it's a lot more light hearted. They also can be idiots together and Buck holds a lot of respect for her. Again, do not reduce her to this, that will be insensitive.

While we don't see Karen a lot, you see how much she cares about her family, how she does trust Hen but has been concerned about losing her loved ones. She's a brilliant woman and she often hangs out with Athena and has been friends with Chimney before she was with Hen.

again do not write any of their speaking voices differently. most of the time, Hen code switches and rarely uses any slang so stay away from that.

[meddling-in-horror]

Giving Them the Moment: How Our Flag Means Death and it's Portrayal of Black Men is the Most Important Thing on Television Right Now

Note: written April 20, 2022

Media is an incredibly distinct way of communicating. It has a wide reach, and each person has their own interpretation of what they see. That’s the beauty of the medium as a whole. However, there are often downsides, especially when it pertains to the West. In the US in particular, there is a trend within popular media to lean towards propagandization. Whether it’s the idea that communism and socialism are products of the ‘Evil East’ or the lingering effects of the Motion Picture Production Code - also known as the Hays Code, the media monopolies have a firm grasp on what we as a society watch and enjoy. 

When you begin to play close attention to how the media portrays Black men, this becomes abundantly clear.

It is a rare thing when we see Black men whose characters aren’t portrayed as being the object nor the perpetrators of violence. In fact, only one mainstream popular show comes to mind: The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. But even then, the given circumstances of Fresh Prince revolve around Will’s escape from the violence of the ‘urban’ inner city. This vilification of Black men dates back to the 1910s with D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, and continued into the 1930s, where Black people were often personified as the monsters, representing the ‘exciticism’ of the world beyond the West. It is the ‘exoticism’ that has played a huge part in the dehumanization of Black men as a whole. But as a Black Queer person watching Our Flag Means Death, it is breaking that mold in an incredibly important way.

The Black men in the show are allowed to have fun.

This show is breaking barriers left and right. Of the major recurring cast of 15, over half of them are people of color. It’s overt and unflinching portrayal of Queerness when so many of its older viewers - myself included - have lived through the Bury Your Gays and Dead Lesbians tropes time and time again is overwhelmingly refreshing. Nearly all characters are Queer until proven straight and represent all parts under the umbrella, including Leslie Jones’ polyamorous pirate queen and Vico Ortiz - a non-binary actor - playing a non-binary character. 

But in a world where the narratives of Black men are so often framed around violence and brutality, the Black crewmates of the Queen Anne’s Revenge - Frenchie, Oluwande, and Roach - are allowed to be funny and vulnerable. Each one of them is starkly different from the other with identifiable characteristics that allow the audience to humanize them. The trio quickly became my favorites among the crew, with Roach being the stand-out amongst them. Samba Schutte’s often deadpan delivery never fails to draw a laugh from me, in particular the assertion that “meat is meat”. Frenchie, played by Joel Fry, is the quickest on the draw where his intellect is concerned, being posited in the show’s fifth episode as having had a hand in inventing the pyramid scheme while spouting the wildest of conspiracy theories and being afraid of cats (they’re witches, they steal your breath, and have knives in their feet, you know). The softness and constant vulnerability of Samson Kayo’s Oluwande may be one of the most important aspects of the show, as it establishes him as a reliable and trustworthy confidante to not just Jim, but to Rhys Darby’s Stede Bonnet as well.

They exist in their own separate spheres on the ship, going about their own separate business completely unbothered. While it is implied they lead violent lives as pirates, this violence isn’t used to define them as characters. In fact, Oluwande stated that both he and Jim engaged in piracy because they “had no choice”. The brief mention we get of Frenchie’s backstory implies that he lives a life of servitude, though whether that was as an enslaved person or a freed Black domestic worker is not mentioned. While there is little known about Roach so far, it is implied that his culinary skills are far beyond the levels of what is needed aboard a pirate ship.

The friendships and relationships they form within the crew aren’t built on violence either, but on open and honest communication. Most notably, the friendship of Frenchie and Wee John Feeny, played by Kristian Nairn. Fry and Nairn are an impeccable comic duo when their characters become ‘room people’, and the scene where they begin to design their new space is a personal highlight of the episode. Oluwande and Jim’s romance - played to perfection by Kayo and Ortiz - is one that revolves around both characters being almost devastatingly open with each other. Both actors play the emotional vulnerability of the characters well, and it is important to emphasize that it is Kayo’s Oluwande that moves to meet Jim where they are. 

While the show allows all its men to show varying levels of emotional vulnerability - an exception being offered to the emotionally constipated Izzy Hands, played by Con O’Neill - there is something so special about seeing that luxury afforded to Black men. This show has, in just ten episodes, has become a game changer for the television industry. It has proved that a show with explicitly Queer characters can become a massive sleeper hit, and that sometimes the best kind of historical show is one that is historical fiction. But it has also proved that you can create a narrative with Black men that doesn’t include their stories being framed in violence or brutality, that they can be funny, charming, witty, vulnerable, intelligent, complex characters with their own narratives that serve a purpose outside of a device of exoticism. It is this rare thing that makes these characters, and indeed the show as a whole, so important to its viewers. 

We deserve more vulnerability, more humor, and more humanizing content from these three men, and this show is one that is truly deserving of a glorious second season.

Sources:

Donaldson, Leigh. “When the media misrepresents Black men, the effects are felt in the real world.” 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/12/media-misrepresents-black-men-effects-felt-real-world.

Kumah-Abiwu, Felix. “Media Gatekeeping and Portrayal of Black Men in America.” 

Opportunity Agenda. “Media Portrayals and Black Male Outcomes.” 

https://www.opportunityagenda.org/explore/resources-publications/media-representation-impact-black-men/media-portrayals.

Our Flag Means Death, (2022-). HBO Max.

[pearwaldorf]

we need to talk about Rahaeli

This is slightly tangential to the dumpster fire that is OTW, but it is something I think is important to also take into consideration.

If you're following the comments on the OTW announcement posts, you may have seen reference to Rahaeli (Twitter) aka synedochic (DW) aka Denise. She is a co-founder of Dreamwidth, where FFA is hosted.

Denise is a Fandom Elder, in both the descriptive and derogatory senses of the term. She's been around forever, since the pre-Livejournal days. She has no hesitations about throwing around that Fandom Elder status, in the same way somebody like Franzeska or astolat or anybody else in the clique that founded OTW would.

Perspective from older fans is absolutely valuable, I want to emphasize. You want people who were there to explain why we are concerned about restrictions on explicit/queer/legal but "morally objectionable" fanwork, or how younger fans embrace purity rhetoric. But it's different the way Fandom Elders wield it, the implicit assumption that because they are older and have Seen Some Shit, they automatically have some sort of wisdom to transmit to the young'uns.

Denise knows a great deal about social media moderation, anti-harassment measures, and the legal obligations surrounding the discovery of CSEM/CSAM* on sites you're responsible for administrating. That expertise is extremely valuable when explaining to people why/how everything with OTW is very very concerning.

She also knows fandom very well, and exactly how to calibrate her words to push buttons. I remember her meltdown about Cohost, another social media site that looked like a viable competitor to Dreamwidth at the time. Here is a summary of it I wrote at the time.

I'd like to get into criticism of the part of that Twitter thread where she throws a random non-sequitur into an already extremely long thread. (I know this is already a long post, please bear with me.)

At this point, she's gone on about OTW, their gross neglect of volunteers, Rebecca Tushnet, and a bunch of other stuff for like three or four screens. They are all things we should rightly be appalled by, so we're on her side for saying things that need to be said. We are probably also getting a little tired and not reading things as closely as we should. I think this is absolutely deliberate.

She then pivots the thread to EndOTWRacism (hereafter EOR) with what seems like an offhand comment about how she doesn't agree with their goals. She wrongly characterizes the end goal of EOR's campaign as a desire to moderate fic on AO3. This is patently false and is explicitly stated on their call for action under What Do We Want. They want AO3 to come up with anti-harassment policies and content policies for abusive and racist fics (what some people would characterize as troll fics), which are clearly written to degrade and harm fans of color**. We are not talking about fics with bigoted stereotypes or racist characterization.

EOR links heavily to work by Stitchmediamix, a well-known and outspoken Black anti-racist advocate in fandom. They write a column about race and fandom for Teen Vogue, and have been the target of incredible amounts of harassment. Denise thinks it's biased and kinda weird EOR does this.

The reason EOR relies so heavily on Stitch's work (and that of Dr. Rukmini Pande) is because very few people actually write about this stuff. It's horrible, thankless work that doesn't get you good attention but needs to be discussed anyways. (Acafandom, such as that which gets published in OTW's journal Transformative Works and Cultures, is racist as fuck, but that's a whole other topic.)

Here we see yet another impossible standard white fans are never held to, the one where non-white (but especially Black) fans must be ideologically pure with no lapses in temper or frustration. Whomst among us would be able to respond with perfect grace every single time they were set upon by racist mobs?

We depart from the Twitter thread here because Denise has made a statement on Dreamwidth about why she included all the stuff about Stitch when she was making a critique of EOR. The summary of the post is basically "A bunch of people told me stuff, I saw screenshots, but I won't even share redacted ones, so just trust me OK?"

I don't know Stitch (we have corresponded exactly once) or follow their work***, but I feel like if there were actual evidence they send harassment towards other fans surely it would have come up on FFA by now. The nonnies don't like them over there, and I suspect anything that proves they have actually done anything of the sort would be like throwing chum to piranhas.

Probably the most galling bit of Denise's post is this:

Under no circumstances should anyone use my writing, my own arguments, or my repetition of the concerns of the fans of color who have reached out to me, as an excuse to engage in racist harassment of Stitch or of anyone involved in the EndOTWRacism protest.

She knows exactly what she's doing. It's like dangling a steak in front of a hungry dog and telling it "Please don't lunge towards it because I'm telling you not to."

The second most galling bit is the way she, a white woman with a great deal of institutional power, justfies pointing even more racist harassment towards a Black fan known for continued anti-racist activism even though it makes their life hell and calls it solidarity.

Fuck that noise. As Dr. Pande says, there are many ways to discuss incidents like this without identifying individuals. Denise could have posted a person's account, in their own words, of their harassment experience. Even in an attempt to demonstrate faux solidarity she denies POC fans a voice.

I am glad Denise can contribute her technical and legal expertise to explaining precisely how the OTW has been negligent in their responsibilities to their volunteers and how they are noncompliant with important laws regarding extremely harmful material. I regret she has undermined this important work with unnecessary detours into racism and incitement of harassment.

I am extremely angry about having to make this post. It's another pile of shit on top of an already giant dumpster fire. But apparently upholding racism and white supremacy is still something people in fandom are going to do, even as an important organization within it burns down around our ears.

--

*There is a difference (cw: duh) between the terms! I did not know this until yesterday.

**I'm not getting into definitions or hair-splitting about this because it's not the point of this post.

***If you are interested in actually reading Stitch's work, here is a great place to start.

[avpdvoidspace]

Do you ever struggle with being demonized for your quietness? I have, pretty much my whole life. I think it's a huge problem in society, if I'm being honest. I'm tired of acting like my whole child-self was in the wrong for not being able to bring myself to talk in a lot of situations, especially since I didn't get diagnosed and treated for my disorders until I was an adult. To be honest, I think it's society's way of demonizing people with AvPD, non-verbal autism and selective mutism. Thinking people like us are "rude" or "suspicious" for only speaking when spoken to, or having a non-verbal episode where we can't speak at all. I was suspected of being violent or "hiding something". Also I was deemed "weird" and treated like some alien due to other neurodivergencies as well.

People on this website sometimes act like being quiet is also a weakness or result of privilege. My parents were encouraging me and trying to get me to speak all the time, though. No one was saying "you don't have to speak if you don't want to". My father used to get angry with me about it, calling me "weak" and my mother used to guilt-trip me for it, claiming I "never tried hard enough" for her because I couldn't get myself to be neurotypical.

I also grew up in a world of domestic violence. My mother told me the abuse she faced from my father started getting particularly worse when she was pregnant with me. I was a little child born on-edge and having to walk on eggshells. My parents would get into violent fights with each other and my father would hit me, too. Both my parents worked and instead of spending time at home playing or bonding with family like other kids did, I was made to go to headstart when I was only like 2. I know it might seem like not a big deal, but thinking about it, I didn't have the same experiences that average kids do, and I still don't know if whether or not that contributed to my avoidant personality. I didn't even realize most kids don't even start school until they're 4 or 5 until I was much older. People have been getting me out there and encouraging me to socialize with others since the very beginning. It never worked.

I spent my whole life hating myself for it. I felt like I was never competent and that I was a burden on my mother. And there were many times I did try to make connections with others but they ended up either backstabbing me or shaming me for my interests. I regret a lot of the times I allowed myself to be known by others. There are many memories of me simply saying things to people that make me feel awful. Terrible disorder.

I did manage to make and keep some friends. But also I'm still not truly myself with most of them and still afraid they're going to end up demonizing me too if they knew more about me. Being queer and growing up with having kinks has left me with seeing so much family, strangers, and even other queer people say people like me are "freaks" and "degenerates" to my face without knowing they're talking someone who's exactly the kind of person they think should be killed.

I saw a post recently and honestly, it doesn't even apply to me. However, it still managed evoke a lot of negative emotions and memories I am experiencing right now...

So there's this post going around that goes something like "discourse about letting kids not say 'trick or treat' is concerning"(paraphrasing) which was weird to me at first because I've never seen anyone say they allow their kids not to say it. I've always said "trick or trick" during Halloween as a kid, even adding some "meows" because I liked being a cat. So it doesn't even apply to me.

But then there were people acting like not saying it comes from a place of privilege. Someone was like (paraphrasing again)"when I was giving out candy, all the black children were lively and sweet, and all the kids who didn't say it were white and probably middle class".

And that struck me a bit. I'm mixed race. People treated me like a potential violent threat because of my quiet nature, which was a result from trauma, not anyone "babying" me. I was always working class. My parents didn't even own a car. We used public transportation to get everywhere.

BIPOC kids who are quiet get treated as threats! Of course you fucking enjoy lively black kids. If one of them was quiet, you might demonize them...

Then there were people saying "you people just need to grow up."

It's so strange that traits that apply to non-verbal autism or CPTSD get deemed as "social anxiety", because tumblr thinks that is the lesser disorder.

I don't know. I got a lot of bad memories spring up from seeing that post, and I just wanted to vent about it here. So many people demonized me for being quiet growing up and it made me believe I was a monster for so long.

I'm not even saying I encourage the behavior of refusing to talk to people. I had a nice conversation with an old woman at Dunkin yesterday. I enjoy small talk and listening to others talk, even when I can't add much to the conversation. I just worry about other children who are like how I was growing up, being traumatized and quiet and being treated like shit for it... I don't trust anyone sees "quiet" as "rude"

I'm sorry about the length and I hope you're doing well.

anon, I'm sorry this took me so long to post. I just want to say that your ask really resonated with me and I've thought about it several times since receiving it. I get similarly frustrated when I see priveleged people praising marginalized for being more friendly, more whatever, for similar reasons. Or setting up an oppression competition between two groups they're not even a part of.

[bromelads]

Heeeyy so tuesday was A Day so I ended up trying to write this over the course of the week and posting way later than originally planned. @biceratops7 and @ourflagmeansgayrights thank you for your patience hearing back from me and with this whole dialogue. For context, this is in response to this thread.

I've had to come back again and again to this post because, on top of other things, I kept explaining the difference between structural and interpersonal racism and then getting distracted by my visceral responses to this conversation. Pero like I don't want to go over systems of oppression 101 stuff because it feels patronizing. I also don't wanna rehash the ways in which the doxxing and the targeted harassment and the rhetoric make me feel.

So I wanna try establishing a common ground as fans who care about racial justice and queer liberation before I proceed here. Please let me know if there's significant caveats/disagreements about any of the principles in the list below.

I realize that most people join fandom looking for levity and connection and creative expression and none of this shit should be that deep. But right now we're talking about structural racism and real, concrete, preventable harm being done to people in our fandom community. I think it's safe to assume that everyone who's invested in "the izcourse" (lol) believes that these things deserve to be treated seriously.

After eight months of being active in the ofmd fandom (especially within the "izzy side"), I'd describe our current guiding principles around racism as follows:

OFMD is special because of its loving, complex, and imaginative portrayal of nonwhite, lgbtq characters as well as its diversity behind and in front of the cameras.

The peace of mind and physical safety of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in fandom are important and worthy of protection.

We are aware that because we live in a racist world and because fandom in general is overwhelmingly white, BIPOC often experience racist microaggressions from other fans, which poses an obstacle to our enjoyment of fandom.

We are also aware that when BIPOC call out these microaggressions or racist tropes in the source material+fanworks, we are often met with backlash that may include overt racist harassment and/or abuse.

In order to reduce racist microaggressions and to help make the fandom a safer space for nonwhite fans, it's vital that everyone (no matter their race) takes action. Some ways that fans take action are:

a. calling out racist microaggressions. b. white fans sharing the burden of basic antiracist education to prevent BIPOC from burning out and receiving racist backlash. c. defaulting to listening, reflecting, and adjusting behavior when someone points out concerns around potentially racist behaviors. d. pointing out racist trends and tropes in fanworks+the source material (whitewashing, white savior narratives, cultural posturing, etc). e. sharing, creating, and studying antiracist educational resources.

I'm approaching my responses to the messages below with the understanding that the 5 principles described above are indeed antiracist, that they form part of the general ofmd fandom culture, and that the tactics listed under principle 5 are being regularly practiced by nonwhite and white ofmd fans alike. I believe that, generally speaking, these principles and tactics are beneficial to BIPOC fans.

Now, on to the replies.

@ourflagmeansgayrights

I think that this is a key point of the mess we're grappling with. I want to first restate that, in my experience, calling out racist trends has been an accepted practice in ofmd fandom for the better part of 2022 (see principle 5). That said, even though I've never witnessed it, I'm predisposed to believe claims of overt racist harassment against nonwhite fans for openly criticizing Izzy--such is the nature of racism. But I would be remiss not to point out that the overall ofmd fandom culture has evolved in favor of embracing explicitly antiracist attitudes. I'm sure that we owe this to nonwhite fans who took on the heavy burden of promoting antiracism during early fandom days.

Calling out racism in fandom is NOT the problem.

The problem is that BIPOC in the "izzy side of fandom" have been subject to severe, concrete, racist, escalating harm that goes beyond the daily racist fuckshit that makes up the ether of our lives in AND outside of fandom. What's worse, abusers justify their actions by invoking tactic b (pointing out racist trends and tropes in fanworks) and then wrapping it up in "izzy critical" rhetoric.

Assuming best intent and forgoing my personal thoughts about "izzy critical" meta, these are my questions about the impact of this "type of Izzy fans":

What are the specific qualities and behaviors of “Izzy fans who make bipoc feel unwelcome in the fandom” (as biceratops 7 wrote below)?

What is the nature and extent of the harm they cause? What tactics have worked in reducing the negative impact of this "type of Izzy fan"?

The questions above also address the first paragraph and are tied to the last question in the screenshot below.

@biceratops7

“But it would be irresponsible to ignore that implying some poc are thinking of their own issues wrong and actually just want to make white people happy for their character preferences is a feature of the Izzy critical community. We should address it and try to remove it."

I think you hit the nail on the head here and I truly appreciate you questioning the point of disparaging BIPOC fans for disagreeing with "Izzy critical views."

There are two contradictory problems going on here, and it's not as cut and dry as 'which one is technically more racist.”

Yeah :/ such is the insidious nature of racism. Which is why the question "is x technically more racist than y" is not that helpful when it comes to strategizing for racial justice campaigns: looking for concrete, measurable things to work on is where it's at.

So instead of "is the segregated westside more racist than the eastside?" we ask "why is there so much lead in the blood of polynesian eastside kids than there is in the blood of white westside kids?" Instead of "is it more racist to force this brown councilmember to resign than to keep him around even though he broke the community's trust?" we ask "what would it take for the councilmember to regain the trust of the black and brown communities he failed? can he even do it?"

In our case, instead of languishing over "is the harm that nonwhite Izzy fans get more racist than the microaggressions that Izzy Critical fans regularly call out?" I propose framing the contradictory problems you mentioned by assigning them to the super weird polarized camps we're working on:

Izzy Canyon*: what are the harmful, racist behaviors coming from our side of fandom that we might be missing or ignoring and how do we address them? The Izzy Critical Community: "[why is there] a mass dismissal of BIPOC fans who feel [unwelcome in ofmd fandom] due to those who hold Izzy critical views?"

*A lot of us on ofmdtwt affectionately started using "Izzy Canyon" as a silly catch-all for those of us who like Izzy, block liberally, and make+consume lots of NSFW and dead dove fanworks (lots of "minors DNI"s). Even though the "Izzy Critical Community" feels cohesive to me, it's not "my" side of fandom, so I don't think it's my place to define it.

[demi-shoggoth]

2023 Reading Log pt. 4

March was hard for me, both in terms of my personal life and in terms of my reading. I started a whole bunch of books that I haven't finished. Some of them I intend to come back to (two monster books, one for RPGs and one reference book). The ones I intentionally gave up on are listed here, as well as the whys of why I gave up on them.

16. Bestiarium Greenlandica, edited by Maria Bach Kreutzmann. Recommended to me a while ago by @abominationimperatrixx, but I have only been able to get a copy recently. This is the second edition, put out by Eye of Newt Press, which seems to specialize in publishing monster books with previously limited print runs (they also have an edition of Welsh Monsters and Mythical Beasts by C G J Ellis, for example). This book is an A-Z look at mythical creatures from Greenland, which entails a peek at traditional Thule culture. Anggakutt (the equivalent of shamans) use various monstrous spirits to guide them through the spiritual realm and work wonders for them, and these have to be negotiated with or even battled in order to recruit them. So there’s plenty of monsters, many of which are very obscure in English language sources, or confused with other creatures from other Inuit cultures. The book has illustrations for most of the monsters, some line drawings and some full color paintings. All of the art is great, and it doesn’t shy away from the sex and violence in the myths. So a trigger warning is at play if dead and decaying fetus monsters, ghouls with giant penises, or all manner of grotesque facial features are not your thing. But if you’re okay with those, this book is highly recommended.

17.  Bog Bodies Uncovered by Miranda Aldhouse-Green. This book looks at the various bodies that have been discovered in peat bogs throughout northern Europe, and is primarily concerned with why these people were killed and placed in the bog. After a discussion of the history of finding bog bodies, and about the nature of bogs and how the tannins contribute to preservation, the book is primarily a forensic investigation. Its ultimate thesis is that most of the bog bodies represent intentional human sacrifices by Celtic and Germanic people. The author does a good job of supporting that claim, although her extrapolations and speculations go a little far for my taste (especially when she conjectures that the Lindow Man was sacrificed because of a specific battle written about by the Romans). The book features a mix of black and white photos and illustrations with color plates, which is always appreciated for a book about physical artifacts.

17a. Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller. I gave up on this one around the halfway point—much longer than I typically go into a book I decide not to finish. That’s because I really wanted to like this one, but couldn’t. The subject is how queer history has often been sanitized and gay historical figures made saintly, when in reality there were plenty of unremarkable and some downright evil gay people as well. The book also wants to aim a giant fuck you at respectability politics, arguing for radical queer liberation and that the current state of gay representation is rooted in capitalism and patriarchy. It also also wants to make snarky quips about gay kings and military leaders—this is a very distant priority. I agree with the book’s politics in the broad sense, and there’s just enough quips and history to have kept me interested this long, but the overall feel of the book is very preachy, and not actually that interested in the lives of the individual subjects. There are ways to make a book both stridently anti-capitalist and an entertaining read, and this one fails.

17b. How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler. I stopped this one a few pages into the second chapter. I was looking for a book about marine life and fun facts, and this has that, but is interwoven with personal memoir and is much heavier on the memoir. The first chapter is about how goldfish are stunted in fishbowls, but can grow to enormous sizes in the wild and can act as an invasive species. And this is contrasted with the author feeling stifled by small town life and realizing that they’re queer upon growing up. That was fine, but the second chapter draws connections between how mother octopuses starve themselves watching over eggs, and the generational eating disorders that the author and their mother dealt with. My mood couldn’t handle that. Maybe I’ll come back to this book when I’m in a more secure mental place, but I didn’t feel like crying while reading again. Not for a while—I think my allotment is one sad book a year.

18. Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire. This feels like a companion volume to Mary Roach’s Fuzz. Both books are about how humans behave when animals get in their way, but Fuzz deals more with the humans and Pests deals more with the animals. There’s lots of evolution and ecology material here, including very recent research, like the possible link between the evolution of house mice and the contents of their gut flora, and a modern look at how Australia’s ecosystems are reacting to and coping with the introduction of cane toads. This book is much more the balance of science to personal experience that I was looking for right now, and I had a good time with this one.

19. Ancient Sea Reptiles by Darren Naish. I’ve been looking forward to this book since it was first announced, so I’m happy to report that it’s as good as I was hoping. The book discusses Mesozoic marine reptiles (with some guest appearances from Permian taxa, like mesosaurs). First, it goes through the history of their discovery and some overview of their anatomy, physiology and evolutionary relationships. Then, it goes through the clades. Ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, marine crocodiles and sea turtles get their own chapter, and all the other groups, from weird Triassic one-offs to sea snakes, are compiled into a single chapter. Naish is one of my favorite science writers, as he combines a phylogeny-centric approach for an appreciation of the novelties and weirdness of specific genera. I would love it if he wrote a similar book about another group for which books for educated laypeople are thin on the ground, like stem crocodiles or non-mammalian synapsids.

20. Effin’ Birds by Aaron Reynolds. This is the book form of a Twitter feed, which I appreciate from a historical perspective. The feed, and the book, have two main jokes. One, pictures of birds with profanity as captions. Two, faux descriptions of bird behavior and habitats that are jokes about common types of unpleasant people, or people who avoid unpleasant people. I got a few laughs out of it, but I’m glad that I got this book from a library and would not pay money for it. The funniest thing about this book to me is that that selfsame library put it with the books about bird biology and field guides, when there is zero informational content in this book, combined with the book itself making a joke about how you’d never find this book in a library.

[freddy-fazbears-wonderland]

I just (almost) read the entirety of Happs and I see why people would consider it transphobic.

It just reeks of a trans story written by a transphobe.

Now, keep in mind that I am not a trans person myself. However, I noticed certain things you'll often find in transphobic stories.

And expect me to ramble. A lot.

Also, keep in mind that this is my interpretation of this story. This is what I got out of it.

Trigger warning because I will be talking about transphobia and suicide will be mentioned.

One of the first things I noticed is that it focuses a lot more on how it affects the people around the character as opposed to the character itself.

I'm guessing this is to guilt people who are trans or at the very least questioning their gender into not exploring their identity because the people around them might not accept it.

But to me, nothing is more selfish than expecting someone to fit the idea of them you have in your head. If anything, keeping these people around more often than not causes harm because while there may be genuine concern, they also tend to care a lot more about their own feelings and how it affects them as apposed to how you feel and how it affects you.

Hell, this isn't even an experience unique to trans or queer people. Even cishet folks have gone through the experience of finding themselves only for the people around them to not accept it and try to make them feel bad for changing.

In this story, Billy gets made fun of (though he doesn't care), his father leaves him because he can't have a normal son, and it takes a toll on his mother physically, emotionally and mentally until she ends her own life when he comes of age. There's probably more examples I didn’t list.

Another thing these kinds of stories tend to use is having said character transition into something inhuman, very like insinuating that if we this is what will happen when we become more accepting of people who simply want to change their gender identity. And that's bad because... *checks notes* it's weird.

Look, while I wouldn't call myself a radqueer, I tend not to give a shit about a person's identity a lot of the time.

Anyways, a very blatant example of this in media is in South Park. In the same episode where Mr. Garrison transitions into a woman, we get Kyle transitioning into a tall black boy in order to play basketball, and eventually, his dad transitions into into a dolphin because he always wanted to be a dolphin.

Of course, this doesn't work out for any of them because they're not really what they transitioned into. But Mr. Garrison keeps identifying as a woman for a while because they used his balls to make Kyle's kneecaps, and they exploded after he makes a slamdunk (or at the very least jumps).

While B-7 isn't as blatant as that South Park episode, I couldn't help but notice it as I read further and further. Especially when they start insinuating that he is mentally ill and needs to be sent to a ward.

The final point I will bring up which probably does ties into the last one has to do with trans surgeries.

As someone who used to be an anti-sjw, I know firsthand how transphobes try to make trans surgeries out to be horrible when it's really no different from any other surgery when you really think about it. Well, maybe aside from regulations, but that's due to a society that's still not accepting of trans people as opposed to the problem with the surgeries themselves.

They will go on about how irreversible it is and how it may lead to complications. But like I said before, this isn't unique to trans surgeries.

For example, choosing to donate your kidney is irreversible, and there will be complications, especially with the kidney you have left having to work overtime.

Hell, even the person you gave your kidney to is gonna deal with stuff because your kidney will still function like your kidney even if their body accepts it.

But anyway, Billy eventually decides to have his limbs cut off and replaced with prosthetics to be more like an animatronic. While he is questioned about this decision, he does ultimately get what he wants.

If only it was that easy for trans people irl... But from what I gather from trans people who have gone under the knife, they have fight tooth and nail to medically transition. Not to mention, the lack of regulations makes them more likely to run into complications.

The last thing I wanna go over is how Billy feels more like he wants to be a robot than an animatronic?

This has nothing to do with anything else. I just wanna ramble

Sure, animatronics are still a type of robot. But they tend to be used for entertainment purposes like portraying characters in film, games, and attractions.

The animatronics in FNaF do fit this definition. Regardless of whatever funky shit they have going on, they are still built as characters made to entertain people.

So, if they really wanted to sell us that Billy wanted to be an animatronic, it would make more sense for him to want to find a way to entertain people.

I feel like the plot point with him forgetting how to feel also doesn't make sense?

Because especially with this being tied to Security Breach, we know that the animatronics are fully sentient beings. But even if they weren't, they're still programmed to act like them.

I think it'd make a lot more sense for Billy to slowly turn into his Freddy Fazbear OC and start acting more and more like a fictional character.

Which reeks of one of the writers clearly not being familiar enough with FNaF but I guess this could also be another piece of transphobia since an argument transphobes like to use is that trans people will never truly understand what its like to be the gender they want to be.

I've wasted enough energy on this, so I'll end it here. Thanks for listening to my ramble if you even bothered. As you could probably tell, this is my least favorite story in any fnaf book.

[dogboyjackkennedy]

so. might've created some more dsaf ocs.

sorta kinda revamped my boy Morgan, and gave him a partner.

so, brief run down on the two of them before and after death:

Morgan Bane (pre-death):

he/they

transmasc nonbinary dude

around 5'4"-5'6"

Anxiety Personified™

he's just queer in general. they don't know what their exact sexuality is.

also autistic.

worked as Fredbear's night guard after Jack...y'know.

started dating Casey while they were working together.

called Casey his "Lil Honeybun."

he just needs a hug so fucking bad.

Henry kinda scared them, so they'd generally ask Casey to go talk to him for them. eventually, Henry got sick of Morgan not speaking to him directly and pretty much would just send Casey back with the message of "if he has something to say to me, tell him to come say it to my face himself." despite Morgan saying that it was fine and that he could handle it, Casey would still go with him and would just glare at Henry through the doorway.

has...slight (major) dependency issues with Casey. is generally viewed as being "clingy" towards it.

worked at Fredbear's from 1974-1977.

Casey Atkins (pre-death):

she/it

genderqueer gal

5'9"-5'10"

also autistic.

she's pretty quiet, and doesn't talk much. except with Morgan.

calls Morgan "Scaredy Cat." in a lighthearted way.

worked at Fredbear's as a technician. also after Jack...y'know.

doesn't like Henry. like. At All.

worked at Fredbear's from late 1973-1977.

"Phone Guy"/Morgan (post-death):

died due to a Springlock Failure in October of 1977.

woke up in The Factory, half programmed, and immediately panicked and asked where Casey was. they also started saying some...concerning things. such as "P-Please tell me I saved her, tell me she isn't dead, I-I can't live with myself if she's dead-" and "Casey? Casey, please, where are you?! I-Is it here?! Casey, Honeybun, where are you-?!"

almost no one was able to get close enough to touch him to get him to calm down, or to shut him down to finish reprogramming him, so they decided to leave him be until he'd calm down.

uh...long story short, he never did.

given that they were pretty sure that he could not be trusted to work alone (he was almost constantly begging to know where Casey was, seemed to be trying to escape The Factory at any opportunity to go look for her), they just decide to send him to random Fazbender locations to be a "co-manager" of sorts, and basically make him the other Phone Guys' problem.

they seem to be interested in talking to this weird shadowy rabbit that lingers in the restaurants...and they call it "Casey," too...weird, huh?

(Henry got both Morgan and Casey springlocked on the same day; Morgan in Fredbear and Casey in Springbonnie. after being springlocked, Morgan tried to crawl over to Casey in a desperate attempt to save her and get her out of the suit. Henry, however, started to drag Morgan away from it as they started to black out from pain and blood loss. they died not too long afterwards. Henry's exact reason for wanting the two of them dead isn't clear, but maybe it was another situation similar to Steven's where he didn't necessarily need a reason; he just could and he did.)

"The Hare"/Casey (post-death):

died due to a Springlock Failure in October of 1977.

appears as a shadowy version of Bonnie, with glowing eyes, tears, and teeth (basically Shadow Bonnie).

seems aggressive to just about everyone, but will especially act aggressive towards Dave (and Jack, if he's doing an Evil Route).

hangs around Morgan a lot of the time, like it's watching over them.

speaks Very cryptically.

hangs over Morgan's shoulder when he talks to others.

will suddenly, randomly glitch and scream out in agony, as though she's feeling the pain of being springlocked all over again.

(got springlocked by Henry alongside Morgan. she managed to keep herself alive through sheer willpower for about two hours before she finally died. it took the form of Bonnie as a sort constant, taunting reminder to Henry of what he'd done to it and Morgan. she haunted him for years, up until Henry got dragged to the Void, at which point she left to go find Morgan.)

(nobody knows what became of Casey's corpse, as no one at The Factory had mentioned its body being shipped there, and no one knew who Casey was when Morgan begged for them to find it.)

might draw them later. They <3

[82799]

The Apocalypses

This is an archive of an essay I wrote on my substack in October 2023.

This month’s newsletter/essay collects my thoughts on the “apocalypse” as dehumanization; it is the ethos of my October group show, Offworlds, with YveYANG Gallery and my painting Beastwoman.

Introduction to The End

The “apocalypse” is an idea coveted and fantasized since humans became humans, stepping out of the primordial water from tiktaalik to monkey to man. Or something like that.

The end of the world has happened over and over again. Every day there is a new catastrophe, and every epoch is defined by the atrocities that have birthed and ended it. Take, for example, the dinosaurs— how much modern humanity wonders about the glint of a scaled beast’s eyes as it looks upon a bright white light, a harbinger of certain doom. Do you think a dinosaur has a sense that it will die? That its lineage will not survive the coming eons? Or does the beast stare at the comet in pure, sublime… unknowingness? These are questions humanity projects onto the beasts because we naturally empathize with death, with fossils, and with bones.

(above): The meteor landed in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico over 66 million years ago. This rendition depicts its size against downtown Manhattan.

Another bright white light is featured in another apocalypse, that being the Christian Apocalypse— the bright glow of angels falling from the sky and the cacophony of trumpets heralded the arrival of end times. These details of the Book of Revelations are extremely fascinating, especially if you delve into the story’s great symbolism. For Ancient Christians, the Apocalypse represented the death and oppression of Christianity during the reign of the cruel Emperor Nero; for example, Biblical scholars argue that the Mark of the Beast (666) is actually a code that could be derived through gematria (the system of assigning numerical values to letters). By converting Nero’s name into numbers and then into a sum, it would create the number “666”. This, paired with the Revelations 13:17:

that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name.

In conclusion, the “end of the world” concerns the loss of Humanity and the transformation of the human into the non-human. Some tropes include humans becoming machines, humans being replaced by beasts, or conversely, humans without an Earth or home. This is a perfect segue into discussing my painting Beastwoman.

(above): One of my favorite video games, NieR: Automata, is set in a deeply melancholic, far-future post-apocalyptic world where android women fight toy-like machines to preserve the leftovers of humanity. See below for the overworld music for the first area, “City Ruins.”

Offworlds

Beastwoman is currently on view (through December 2, 2023) at YveYANG Gallery, in Offworlds which is an exhibition exploring the apocalypse from an Asian femme perspective. I highly recommend clicking on the hyperlink to read the press release, as well as acknowledging all the amazing Asian women artists who have worked on this show. 

(above): Offworlds is curated by Danni Shen. Beastwoman, oil on canvas, 30” x 40”, 2023.

In creating Beastwoman, I was mainly concerned with the apocalypse as the loss of humanity. Not in a great cataclysmic event, but rather in the appearance of the non-human; I am interested in the “in-between” of man and beast. This notion is deeply political, particularly in the United States.

For white supremacists, the end of the world may be when the “human” (the civilized cis-het white person) becomes the “beast” (the savage non-white and/or queer person). This apocalypse is at the very core of the Great Replacement theory, a fascist belief that miscegenation would cause the white race to be bred out. It is an ideological offspring of the one-drop rule and various scientific racism and eugenicist movements, which historically classified black, indigenous, Asian, and other non-"white” people as animals in a separate genus from the White man. I write this in quotes because it is important to note that white supremacy is a self-defeating, separatist concept; who claims “whiteness” is ever-changing, as even Benjamin Franklin once described Germans as “too swarthy” to immigrate to the United States.

In Beastwoman, I wanted to explore this “in-between.” In my terminally online brain, a non-human form regularly idolized and adored is the “cat girl,” a trope in anime where cute girls spawn cat ears and tails and meow compulsively. They are typically half-girl/half-cat, but maintain the submissiveness and femininity that makes them heavily fetishized in some internet subcultures (which, by extension, often goes hand-in-hand with a fetish for Asian women).

Left: Wikipe-tan, Wikipedia's personification, as a cat girl; Right: A cosplay photo of Ichigo from the anime Tokyo Mew Mew

The reimagining of the cat girl, a soulless, cutesy vessel that has been coopted and sexualized (as many earlier cat girl media being aimed at young girls) for the pleasure of men, into a “beastwoman” is amusing. If she (no longer half-girl/half-cat, but rather half-woman/half-beast) were to embrace her status as an independent Asian woman, then she would be a herald of an apocalypse for the white supremacist. She is no longer submissively and pleasantly vacant, but rather violent, naked, cannibalistic, and carnal. She has ascended from the fetishistic label of a mere “cat-girl,” into claiming agency for her own self— an animalistic and powerful state of a “beastwoman”.

Absurd, but so is the existence of being an Asian woman… so are the threads that hail doomsday. Beastwoman, the name itself, refers to the history of scientific racism, as Asians and other people of color were classified as beastly and inferior; instead of rejecting its inhuman racist descriptor, Beastwoman leans into it and empowers herself through it. If the submissive Asian woman liberated herself to become the bastion of true power, would the world end? Would we be in hell?

Detail and installation shots.

Acknowledgment

Finally, this statement is regarding the privilege the West (and by extension, myself) has in discussing the apocalypse. For many people, countless real tragedies permeate their land and their children. While some may be able to leave the apocalypse a thing of fantasy or intellectual extrapolation, many do not. It is incredibly important to acknowledge that the crux of the apocalypse (extinction, genocide, loss of land) is a brutal reality. The art we make regarding disaster should be sensitive to these various histories, especially in colonized people and lands. I implore all creators and patrons to be keen on this topic.

[gadunkie]

rant post about the online queer community

hey after going outside and talking to real life people for a while Ive come to the conclusion that most of the online queer community is just horrible for queer people. hi reddit today Im going to ramble on about how the queer space on the internet has somehow regressed back into separation under a more progressive and performative light. so after being on tumblr for like, fucking 7-8 years or some shit as well as experiencing other queer spaces on other social media platforms (twitter and reddit, mostly twitter) for only a couple years, Ive come to the conclusion that people are so caught up in their own asses that theyve completely misunderstood and forgot why the queer community exists. side note: I dont care how messy this post is or if the points made are all over the place, this is tumblr.com who gives a shit.

as far as Im concerned, a lot of non-queer and especially religious people really dont like us queers. unfortunately we were all born in a world where we suffer as a minority under laws and power that would really rather have us killed than working together. as such a collective of queer people started banding together under a community where we were finally allowed a space to be ourselves and live as people. the community consists of fags, dykes, transsexuals and whoever was in-between or outside of those terms. our relation comes from how we are rejected from living normal lives for simply trying to express romance or identity in a way that would finally make us feel alive. so it would only make sense to band together and make sure each of us finally have a home and a life we always wanted to live, surrounded by people who would finally accept us for who we are, right?

ya!!!11!!11one thats the whole point of the queer community, to band together and finally be treated as people. but the one problem that I see nowadays is that the current queer community just doesnt fucking do that. Im bad at formulating problems in an essay-like way so Im just gonna make a list of things and explanations underneath ok? :) :) :) 1. the queer community unfairly fetishes women: now theres nothing wrong with liking women sexually or romantically or whatever, in fact it doesnt correlate with the above sentence at all. Ive noticed in my time on using the internet, that queer people tend to hate or forget people who arent women. whether they are men, or nonbinary, or both, or none at all. women have a much larger audience than other queer people and its stupid. its gotten to the point where I forgot that the trans flag included women, men, and those who dont identify with either. I just got used to seeing them depicted with women or feminine figures that arent cis. I literally didnt make the connection until a few days ago that people other than women completely belong under that community as well, yet Ive seen so much trans discussion that only involve women and no one else. lets change that please, people who dont identify as women belong with the rest of the trans community. I feel ridiculous saying that because I shouldnt feel like I have to even formulate that sentence at all.

2. the majority of the queer community doesnt care about brown people: now there are a lot of online queer people who arent actively or intentionally trying to be racist but I cant help but notice that they tend to forget about brown people a lot, specifically black people now that I think about it a bit more. you guys remember when a new version of the pride flag came out and it looked the exact same but they added brown and black colors onto the flag? strange that at the same time the blm protests were also really popular and part of current events at the time as well, its almost as if it was simply a performative gesture to signify what should have already been obvious. even after those colors were added, black people were just forgotten again. Im not even going to sugarcoat it I dont think the majority of the online queer community would even care if black people just died, because they already dont. but this isnt just about black people either, anyone with darker skin tones, no matter the ethnic group, are either used for diversity gestures or completely forgotten about overall. it has been pointed out multiple times that tumblr staff has actively silenced or banned accounts belonging to brown people. actually the only time I saw tumblr even care about shadow banning was when they started doing it to trans women, what a fucking shit show. its so easy to care about people no matter their skin color its literally so fucking easy, why is it impossible for the majority of this community to do that.

3. why are we fucking separating ourselves from each other: hi Im sure youve noticed that Ive been saying the word "queer" over and over again. first of all, if it bothers you, grow up. the queer community have fought for decades to reclaim phrases used against us dont give it power again. second of all, I prefer saying queer over lgbtqia+ because it unites us all under one word rather than an acronym pointing out each little category of queer people. theres nothing wrong with trying to create an identity for yourself that means a lot to you and makes you feel more comfortable for yourself, but I have to argue and say that certain labels just seem pointless and belong under ones that have already existed before their creation. yet I dont blame people for using different ones than the labels that have already existed because I think we collectively failed to inform people that those labels can have multiple meanings. bisexual doesnt just mean you like cis men and cis women, it means you like anyone you want to. transgender doesnt mean you are now the opposite of your assigned gender, it just means that you arent cis. it also doesnt mean that you need to have surgery done on you or that you wear different clothes than the norm either. although I see the point of creating extra labels, I ultimately think they do more harm than good. we have to stick together to survive, any more individual groups then we are as good as gone.

those are the general points that Ive wanted to make anyway. I would love to type more but I have a feeling that the reading comprehension on this site wouldnt survive the first two paragraphs.

the last thing I want to say is that you should find more ways to be together than try and exclude each other, because while youre calling yourself a "foxgirl bi lesbian enby demiboy" there are queer people in real life being kidnapped and mutilated for simply trying to exist.

please for the love of everything that keeps us alive and safe, find ways to stick together.

[rainbowsky]

Hallo Rainbowsky,

About the two of them visiting each other on their respective sets: Though I've read sth about that topic before I still ask myself how it's possible that so many people who might witness them together stay loyal and silent, given how huge the crowd on these sets is. It always amazes me looking at the pics and vids of the wrapping ceremonies. I mean, among all those crazy rumours of other celebrities (pregnancy, cheating, tax evasion etc) no leak concerning our boys. So I wonder what's your take on how they manage it? (This is not meant to rise insecurities among fellow turtles, this suppression of gossiping just seems a phenomenon to me)

Thanks in advance!

Hi Isilaie! 😊

Fake, fan fiction, CPN.

I'm always a bit confused by questions like this, because they seem to assume that nothing is getting out about them. Reports, leaks, rumors and even photos and video have come out about them many times over the years.

I guess I don't really have much more to say about it than that.

There are plenty of reasons why things like this don't make the huge waves some western fans seem to expect:

The biggest reason is that turtles are by far the largest target audience for such things, and turtles are very serious about suppressing, deleting, burying and otherwise getting rid of incriminating content about them. (Solos are also dedicated to burying this material, for slightly different reasons.)

There isn't much of a market for such things in China, because queer stories are censored in most media.

Photos or rumors of two guys who are known to be friends being seen together... this just isn't an exciting story. The vast majority of people are deeply heteronormative and would never believe gay rumors, especially rumors about stars who have worked together and are part of a popular CP. CP fans are widely believed to be crazy and deluded, and their CPs fake. A photo of two guys hanging out just isn't interesting to most people.

Such material is frequently intended as black material aimed at harming a star, and because gay rumors - especially rumors from stars who have worked together as a CP - aren't as credible to most people as a completely invented story about a woman, they aren't nearly as harmful as a completely invented story about a woman, and aren't as likely to get publicized.

Film sets are mostly pretty locked down, and it's difficult to get good quality photos and videos out of those locations. GG and DD are cautious and understated and they wear masks and hats when going from point A to point B. Even when photos do leak there's not much to see or verify.

Contrary to popular belief, film sets are pretty discreet for the most part. Photos and video of stars with their spouses, children, etc. aren't getting leaked very often either, but they do visit sets as well. Most people respect privacy.

GG and DD's security teams take major precautions to protect them and their privacy.

GG and DD can and likely do pay to suppress some things.

This kind of thing isn't seen because it's not meant to be seen. It's an invasion of their privacy, and anyone who loves and respects them and has their interests at heart has the good sense to bury it.

[opinated-user]

LO being queerphobic again

anon asks: So do you tell black people not to use the n-word to refer to themselves or other black people? Racists still use it, so it must not be reclaimed since they still benefit. Lots of people still use gay, lesbian, and homosexual as a slur. Spastic and cunt are slurs in some areas but not in others, so who's right and who's wrong?

LO responds:

I see what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to change the subject in the hopes I’ll misspeak and you can scream that I’m telling black people what to do.

remember when LO called the black people calling her out for her fetishization of them as "vultures and stalkers"? she had no issue policing black people back then but i guess it must be different when the subject was police how they spoke about her. a little late to concern herself about respecting black people's autonomy.

That having been said:

When white people use the N-Word, they’re immediately recognized as a racist. Decades of work at reclamation has rendered the N-Word nonexistent from the instinctive vocabulary of most people, and you have to desensitize yourself to be comfortable with it. White people not saying it is a bare minimum standard of basic fucking decency.

that is not what reclamation means.

for now only the first definition concern us. notice that it doesn't say anything about how other people are ought to treat what you have reclaimed. what you reclaimed is yours and can't be taken away unless you give it back. black people took the n-word back where it always belonged, on their hands, and that is where it should because we have decades of oppressive hateful history that show what do you support when you use that slur as a non-black person. it's frustrating to read this from LO because even if you're a POC, it's still bad to use this word, especially against black people but in general too. it's not just racist when white people do it. all forms of anti-blackness are racist, but not all forms of racism are anti-blackness. using the n-word is a form of racism that is specifically anti-black. that distinction matters.

Furthermore, it’s used entirely on an informal, casual basis. The Junior High/High School/College courses are called African-American/Canadian studies, and not… you get the idea.

queer can also be used on informal, casual basis. queer people do it all the time.

Further-Furthermore, if someone were to ask you not to use it around them, that doesn’t become a problem.

doesn't it? if a white person interrupts two black people talking between each other to tell them about how the n-word makes them, the white person, uncomfortable, i don't see that situation going as smoothly as LO pretends that it does. same question for when a black rapper says the word, when a black publication has it on the headline, when a black character written by a black person for a majority black cast movie says it. who's the one who gets to police that? whose comfort should be prioritized? the only reason i can come out with this is because "not use it around me" can mean a miriad of things that can feel like entitlement to the language that other people use for themselves, their community and their spaces. LO herself has shared posts with the queer word on itl, and i have my own issues about that as well, but she shared it that so if anyone assumes that she's actually fine with the word, nobody can blame those people. if queer people talk amongs themselves or about their own identity, they don't have any reason to stop doing that for LO's or anyone's else comfort because that is their word. they have a right to it as much as LO has a right to call herself bisexual or trans. if LO wouldn't stop calling herself bisexual if it bothered some biphobic person, why should queer people? if someone is calling LO with that word then she does have a point, but she's not making that argument. she's entitled to not want that word imposed on her or even don't allow it on her space, but she doesn't have any power to stop anyone else.

Further-Further-Furthermore, you can dissallow it in your spaces and nobody complains. The N-Word is banned in my Discord server and messages containing it are auto-deleted by a bot that does not check if you’re white or not. Nobody complains.

LO is not black. she can insist all day and night to be indigenous, even though the Cherokee Nation doesn't know her, but she's still not black. if anything it would be weird if she openly allowed the use of the n-word on her spaces when, again, she's not black and doesn't have any right to it either. nobody complains because why would anyone expect LO of all people to allow that word in the first place?

If all of these things applied to the Q-Slur… I’d have a lot fewer complaints. But we don’t do that.

LGBT studies are still called “Q—r Studies” for some reason.

because the first academics that pushed for those studies were queer themselves. they were activist who fought nail and teeth for every single one of our rights, including the one to have a recognized space on academia to speak about how being queer has affected our life. this is just so painfully anti-intellectual and ignorant. not even a google search could she spare for such a simple fact.

Straight and cis people use it constantly with no pushback. It’s often reclaimed by people who have no business reclaiming it (it’s a slur against gay men after all) It’s used in formal, presumably professional settings like articles where other slurs are not. And when someone objects to it’s use either directed at them or as an umbrella term people get really pissy about it and start throwing around accusations.

how do they use the word matters, LO. people usually can tell when it's completely mundane and innocent ("the queer community deserves human rights"/"i learned today that Wonder Woman is a queer character") or they're actually being hateful with it. they could also be hateful without touching that word. that's what anon tried to say and LO completely ignored them. if the most important aspect is how other people still treat the word, then words like gay and lesbian are just as bad and haven't been reclaimed either, if we follow LO's logic.

LO might be refering to how some articles are going to say "queer used to be a slur aimed at gay people" and ignore how gay for a long time was the only identity that the whole community could have. before the bisexual community existed all non straight women were lesbian with no distinction, and before that lesbian was actually a sexual act before an identity, and before lesbians worked to try to have their own spaces, gay was the only visible thing that wasn't strictly straight or cis (since showing "homosexual tendencies" used to be strongly associated with gender) as far the general public was concerned. you can say that queer was only targeted at gay men only if you believed that everyone else, lesbians, pansexuals, bisexuals, trans and ace/aro people, were born into existence until much later, instead of already being there the entire time and not getting the same recognition or not having the vocabulary to express themselves at hand. related to that point, what a hateful thing to say when there's a lot of non gay men people who have actual trauma around that word and had it thrown around to them growing up. if someone who went through that decided to reclaim the word for themselves, as to heal and replace the negative association with positive ones, who is LO to determine they can do that or not? no one. she's no one to put herself on such a position.

once again, because queer activist fought hard for not only have their voices heard but also their identities recognized, to be seen. if anything the fact that people can in fact use the word on such settings should tell you a lot about how much the movement has advanced to normalize/visibilize our struggles. in fact, this is a major reason why comparing two words from two different communities (queer and black one respectively) and treat them as if they are meant to be equivalent of each other is foolish, reductive and... actually racist. queer is not the "n-word of the LGBT+ community" because queer people, for all the oppression and struggles they lived and still live, as a whole can't claim to have suffered the same wounds of colonialism, white supremacy, slavery, torture and deshumanization that black people went through and still go through, something represented by the n-word on the mouth of a non black person. black queer people get constantly sidelined and forgotten from their own communities, their contributions to our history and culture erased and whitewashed, and that is exactly what LO is doing by ignoring all the black queer activists who fought the hardest for the queer people of today to be able to say the word without fear or shame. futhermore... that is normalization. if we can say a word just as much on "professional settings like an article" just like i can say it on my own blog, then the activists won in normalizing their identities for the rest of the world and make them recognize as something that was, in fact, completely normal and mundane, just like being straight is.

if someone tries to force that word on LO or anyone else who hasn't reclaimed it then that it's wrong of them and i'll support her on calling out those people. but when people say "the queer community" they usually mean the queer community, to be under the queer umbrella. if someone is not queer, then they're not part of the queer community. just because she doesn't like the term it doesn't stop being a valid term for this group of people, and frankly it's entitled of her to act otherwise. further-futhermore, none of this has been the context in which LO has spoken out about queer is a slur. her video about the subject, that was full on misinformation, bad faith arguments, out of place comparisons and overall was deeply offensive, wasn't made because people were insisting too much on calling her, personally, queer. it was made because too much people were using the word and LO wanted them to stop using it altogether, even on their own articles, their own shows, movies or stories, even if for that she had to lie and invent all kinds of disgusting conclusions about how we're self hating idiots pushing the movement back because we reclaimed a word that was meant for all of us. she's not frustrated because people keep calling her something that she isn't, she's frustrated that she can't take the word away from us and queer people happen to have an issue with others trying to tell them that their identities don't deserve respect.

The fact that all of these things are true is an indication that the word hasn’t been reclaimed. Reclamation means something.

indeed it means something. nothing of which LO has explained or examplified here. a word is not reclaimed when everyone outside of the targetted groups stops using it. a word is reclaimed when the targetted group give the word a new positive meaning that other likeminded people understand as such.

Furthermore, and I find this rather telling, when the whole “is tr*p a slur” discourse was going around, there was the claim from weebs that trans people should “just reclaim it.” The expectation being that if we did, weebs would be able to keep saying it freely, which is not how reclamation works, but IS how reclamation of Anti-LGBT slurs is often treated.

normalization and reclamation are not the same thing. reclamation can lead to normalization because of the new positive meaning given to the word (queer), but it can also bring a new awareness of why something can be reclaimed and not normalized (n-word). to put plainly, when cishet people say the word queer outloud they refer to a community that queer people built and a identity people are proud of. when non black people use the n-word is always relying on that racist history (for shock value, edgyness, etc) and in the process inviting themselves to a table that doesn't belong to them. they can't apply it with the new positive meaning because that meaning doesn't exist for them, that new meaning wasn't made with them in mind.

The general attitude of the N-Word is “That’s our word, you have no right using it.

The general attitude of the Q-Slur is “Ugh! It’s not a slur anymore! Just get over it! That’s TERF rhetoric!”

this is very common knowledge on the LGBT+ community, but since LO is not very familiarized with it, i'll explain a little from where the TERF rethoric comes from. queer on it's new positive meaning is an umbrella term for everyone on the LGBT+ community, but also for anyone who doesn't stritcly fall into any of the available letters. it's purposefully vague and radically inclusive because of that. as a result TERFs despise queer, because being inclusive would mean accepting trans people, and they can't have that. they push for the "q is a slur" discourse every opportunity that they have, spreading just as much misinformation and bad faith as LO has done. the goal is to create division and isolation for any queer person who wouldn't fit nicely on any of the pre-approved boxes they determined until there's none of us left with any label, any box and not recognition at all.

if anyone ever saw the phrase "lesbian, not queer" it almost definitely came from the kind of TERFs who would write a horribly transmisogynistic article to paint trans women as inherently predatory. to be queerphobic, to insist that the word is a slur and only a slur, and worse, in front of an audience of young impressionable LGBT+ people and allies, is to help TERFs, wether intentionally or not. the exact arguments don't matter when the end goal is the exact same. that's what TERF rethoric means. TERF rethoric is not call out one specific trans woman for being a creep with an audience of minors following her, despite what LO would love her audience to believe because she happens to be that trans woman.

These are not comparable situations. And the only way they can be compared is to demonstrate how gays are terrible at reclamation. Maybe if we actually reclaimed it, that would be a different story. But we haven’t. We just said we have and done none of the work.

it's... absolutely rich seeing LO of all people trying to say that activist of the past haven't put the work, when people have died for the cause doing exactly that and we can see the results of that even today. meanwhile, what LO has done for the LGBT+ community? write fanfiction and do reviews of cartoon for children? constantly misrepresent LGBT+ history to her young and impressionable audience? what kind of qualifications does LO think she has she thinks she can determine that all those people haven't done enough?

If you want to reclaim the Q-slur, THE FUCKING DO IT YA LAZY BITCH!

queer.

[90s-html-lesbians]

i feel like a lot of how beatrice’s parents are commonly protrayed in fandom, kind of a bit western, very black & white and lacking in context

before i elaborate, to be clear, i am not at all justifying or excusing any of beatrice’s parents’ actions, this is a critique of some of the fandom’s assumptions about them and their motives. this is a bit of a extended version/part 2 of the previous post about beatrice & her parents

what do we know about beatrice’s parents? we know that they’re concerned with appearances, involved with politics, well off, conservative, homophobic, and sent beatrice off to catholic boarding school because they’re homophobic

i see a lot of people treat the first bit as inherently negative and proof that beatrice’s parents inherently don’t care for beatrice beyond how she reflects on them, even before/without finding out about beatrice being gay and their homophobia, when, ignoring how often the way that i see that handled treads dangerously on playing into racism, specifically the dragon mom stereotype, ofc they’re concerned with appearances, that’s their literal jobs, ofc they’re concerned with appearances. especially since one or both of them is a person of color and they could also be immigrants, which would make concern over appearances even more understandable

and, aside from the homophobia, we don’t know how reasonable or how unreasonable, how lenient or unlenient they generally were about appearances when it came to beatrice

(again, not defending or excusing beatrice’s parents’ actions) as for the conservativeness and homophobia, well, white supremacist western influence made sure to hammer in that any kind of queerness was bad into non western cultures extra hard, so much that it is very much still prominent and/or lingering in a many many places, especially with cultural christianity being a thing in many of those places as well (thanks colonizers!!)

we also don’t know the degree to which they’re homophobic. (again, doesn’t justify or excuse it) they very well could’ve genuinely thought they were helping beatrice by sending her to a catholic boarding school, in their eyes it might even have been a sacrifice on their part for beatrice’s sake, sending their beloved daughter so far away out of reach in order to help her “get better”

although the implications most likely point to them thinking queerness is inherently wrong, there’s still the slim possibility that beatrice’s parents’ don’t even think being queer is wrong (you can be homophobic without thinking that), that they’re the well meaning type of homophobic that’s like “i don’t want you to be queer because this world is so queerphobic and I don’t want you to have to go through that” and/or “we’ll accept if you’re really queer, but please try being straight for a bit just in case this is a phase”

or, most unlikely but still possible, that, knowing how secluded boarding schools and catholic schools can be, they sent her off so that beatrice could be herself in peace without having to worry about having to tamp herself down for the sake of her parents’ images or her queerness being weaponized against her by political rivals or something

we only really have beatrice’s pov from the limited things she’s said about it like, two times, which doesn’t tell us much about beatrice’s parents’ full motives, pov & thoughts about their daughter being a lesbian, only that they’re homophobic to some degree, fucked up majorly because of it, and beatrice very much has the cool trauma that comes along with, regardless of their motives

lastly, i’d like to question the assumption that Beatrice’s relationship with her parents and their actions as inherently not caring for and/or hating beatrice, and their homophobia the big straw on the camel’s back moment which is why beatrice either has or needs to cut off her parents to actually thrive, because aside from how it’s very likely that beatrice’s parents weren’t black & white saints or sinners, even including their homophobia, how i see that assumption sometimes treading dangerously close to playing into racism, and is also a very western view of things (complete self independence is a lot more of a western culture thing, as is completely cutting off family, many other cultures esp asian highly value family a lot more than anything else), healthy relationships and forgiveness are different for everyone, especially as everyone’s situations vary.

healthy relationships & forgiveness depends on whether the good outweights the bad, what’s most important to someone, whether the other involved parties are genuinely trying to be better or not, what someone can take and what their limits are. healthy (or becoming healthier) relationships can exist without forgiveness and genuine forgiveness can exist without a healthy relationship or even a relationship at all

relationships can also just be mediocre, and that’s also perfectly fine as well, if you want to maintain it and aren’t risking yours or others’ health, physical, mental, emotional, or otherwise