I'm making a full post about this because I think it's important. I've reblogged other posts on this topic, but this is my own experience because trans man apparently can't be artists without our own communities ripping us apart for it.
I'm mainly an actor, but I do music on the side. I've been in 5 stage productions, a commercial, and a short film. For music, I've done a few gigs at charity events, won a community talent competition, and made some money on the side as a street performer. So I feel decently confident in saying that I'm fairly good at what I do.
When I talk to other trans people about my desire to build a resume that doesn't out me as a trans, and to market myself as a gay actor and not a trans one, I'm called a traitor to the community. And told that I'm depriving trans kids of a role model. Nevermind the cis queer people who think I'm stealing roles from 'real' gay men.
What they don't understand is that work for trans men does not exist. The modern professional canon of dramatic work does not include a single trans man. Not one. I cannot work as a trans man. The best I can hope for is what I've been getting the last year and a half, small background characters whose gender doesn't matter.
When I won the community talent competition for my music, I was told afterward that it was a shame that I won because "the last thing the queer community should be celebrating is another guy with an acoustic guitar". Several people in the trans social group I started attending agreed with that sentiment, telling me to stop playing altogether and saying "the world doesn't need anymore straight men with acoustic guitars". (Side note: I'm gay and explained that but the consensus of the people there was that trans men can't be gay because we're still 'female' (side note to the side note: all of the other people in this group were trans women lesbians and did not see the irony in that)).
I dont understand how other queer people can contribute to this without realizing the harm. I would ask how trans masc artists are supposed to want to keep creating their art but I think that's the point.
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Why is it that whenever someone talks about media literacy they only talk about things like rape, incest, pedophilia, and murder but never misogyny, racism, fatphobia, or ableism
Like it’s always about “problematic ships” and “evil characters” but never about how the treatment of woc in media influences how woc are treated in society and vice versa. How female characters are almost always the ones being singled out as “annoying” compared to male characters. Or how, yeah, there might be an in-story reason to why this lazy, depressed character is fat but societal views on fat people being lazy, depressed, unhygienic, etc., most definitely influenced the writer’s choice to make that lazy character fat.
I find that a lot of the “media literacy” arguments that pertain to subjects of sexual abuse and violence don’t really apply to other subjects in a way that isn’t wildly or even somewhat bigoted. Ofc there’s not gonna be a catch-all argument for how every theme should be treated in media but the arguments should at least be somewhat consistent.
I rarely ever see anyone talk about media literacy in a way that doesn’t boil down to “ok but liking evil/bad/taboo characters/themes/stories don’t make you a bad person and authors can write things they don’t agree about.” This statement isn’t wrong and i agree with it but it shouldn’t be your only knowledge on what media literacy is.
Sometimes, a story that has a rape scene in it depicts rape poorly. Whether its because rape was written in a fetishistic light or because the victims weren’t treated with the respect that they deserve, you need to be able to know how and why that scene is (cant think of a better word rn but I’ll probably change it later cause i don’t really like using this word) problematic. The fact that the story depicts rape isn’t the problem, it’s how they chose to depict it. And yes, how this story depicts rape can absolutely affect how a person views rape victims irl.
Sometimes, an author includes racist views into their work. Sure, depiction isn’t endorsement but when an author writes primarily about white characters, and has the first character of color in their book be executed as that character’s introduction, don’t be surprised when that author turns out to be a racist.
Yes, fiction isn’t one-to-one with reality but they both influence each other in a way that cannot be escaped. You will never find a piece of media that isn’t influenced by reality and you will never find a person whose views havent been influenced by a piece of media.
(Also, there is a tendency that i see in a lot of fandom “media literacy” people. And that is the tendency to use leftist, anti-racist phrases and terminology to refer to fandom discourse. “Kill the cop inside your head” refers to killing that part of your brain that has been drilled by society to view black, brown, and poor people as threats. It does not refer to people who don’t like your 20k incest fanfiction and are kinda mean about it. Stop fucking fandomizing anti-racist rhetoric. You just look fucking racist)
Sorry if this is kinda incoherent, I’m mostly just rambling.
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Jay x Nya: best ship!!!
Zane x Pixal: they are soulmates and no one can say otherwise.
Kai x Skylor: the two of them balance each other well, plus seeing Kai get all lovey-dovey around Skylor is just cute.
Lloyd x Akita: Akita likes Lloyd for himself and isn’t interested in his status as the Green Ninja, she just might be the one person he could be with without having to worry about keeping up appearances.
Cole x Vania: they’re just great together (as lovers or as friends), their dynamic is sweet and both admire and encourage each other with just simple honest words.
hi!! thank you so much!
I'm going to post art for all of these, along with a few of my thoughts on the ships that have been sent to me. Just for funsies :)
Fun fact, I used to hate Jaya. I thought it was really forced in the canon, and Jay's really obsessive behavior that is the catalyst for all of the events in Skybound always really bothered me? But tumblr has completely turned me around on this ship. They have their moments in canon, but in fanon they're really wonderful. thanks tumblr <3
these two...... 🥺they are really good i will admit. I'm a big fan of glaciershipping myself and I tend to prefer it over pixane, but these two are so lovely to each other and i totally see the appeal. I just wish pixal wasn't so sidelined in the canon fr what were they doing with her character??? let her be around more often let her and zane be sweet together. please smh
SKYLOR ALSO HAS NOTHING TO DO MOST OF THE TIME-- honestly this show sidelines like all of its female characters so hard. but these two are great toooo theyre sweeeet 😊 i just wish skylor was used for more than cameos. i like that she's the only one that can consistently shake kai's ego it's a great dynamic
lloyd and akita!! i'm gonna be so real with you guys i forget about akita so often ;v; which is a shame... i give her the award for most sidelined female character because she existed for half a season. but she and lloyd are sweet! I don't tend to ship lloyd with anyone personally, but i do love that they meet under the circumstances of "lloyd is in a world where his name and status mean nothing so he has no pressure to perform". it's a fantastic break for him. holy shit he deserves it
im gonna be so honest with all of you um. i actually. havent seen MotM yet. i was in the middle of my rewatch, and i got up to the point i stopped, right before MotM, and then Netflix changed their watch policies. and then of course i got busy
but from what i've seen of these two in fanon they seem alright! I usually prefer them in other wlw or mlm ships because of ONE ninjago vine compliation thing i saw with the two of them as this one tiktok and i've never been able to think of them as a couple since then. But they seem like they have a lovely friendship, whether that ends up turning to romance or not!
Thank you so much for sending me an ask, this was a lot of fun and I got to draw a lot of characters that I've never drawn before! To those of you who have sent me asks and reblogs and comments on the original post, I will be working through all of them in chronological order from when I received them in my activity tab :)
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in your anthro au, does bramble actually make it to canada? is the plotline of the lake territory scrapped for something else?
rambled quite a bit here!
no, they dont make it to canada. they abandoned that idea after feather was killed. instead her funeral and burial is held in california by her dying wish and her family drives/flies over. graystripe and mosspelt took feather's car, but mosspelt flies back home via plane. graystripe is staying wirh storm indefinitely and eventually meets millie.
with storm's blessing, bramble,tawny, crow, and squirrel take the van back home. tawny is dropped off on the way, but crow insists on tagging along to thunder because he's not ready to be alone yet. his family is pretty small and he's not sure his parents will be able to help much, as much as they may try.
dodging the draft can get you into trouble, but there are many that got off scot free and bramble was one pf those lucky fellows (especially with firestar's involvement. he made sure bramble wouldn't have it held against him in return for keeping squirrel safe and bringing her home). firestar was furious at both bramble and squirrel but he's not cruel and unsympathetic, especially considering they just lost a very close friend (and that gray isnt coming back for a while).
this is where crow and leaf meet, crow is kinda bunking with bramble at his place and even had plans to move in for good. his parents were pretty combative but couldnt do much since he was a few states away!!! they dont know where the fuck thunder-whatever is. but eventually he gets a call about his father's rapidly declining health and immediately abandons his plans to stay. he asks leaf to come with him but leaf still isn't finished with med school (she doesn't know she's pregnant yet) and they part ways. crow makes it home to help ashfoot care for deadfoot in his final few months and fills in after his father dies. it's something he didnt plan to continue but its notnlike he HATES doing the work. eventually meets+marries nightcloud a 1-4 yrs later
leaf meanwhile continues med school. being unmarried with kids is still a social taboo, especially at such a young age (im imagining she and squirrel are around 18-19 by now, 17 during the road trip). squirrel and bramble, however, had been in a relationship with one another for a while after coming back home. sure, it got a bit messy when ashfur came back from vietnam and got a bit too close to squirrel for comfort, but they sorta resolved it and eventually bramble/squirrel got engaged. leaf confided in squirrel for her help with the pregnancy and squirrel immediately offered to take the children in as her own if leaf needed. it was a huge jump but leaf took the offer. bramble was let in on the plan the closer leaf got to her due date. he thought it was a very impulsive decision and they fought a bit about making the decision without him but he was enthusiastic about being a father regardless.
the others in town had their suspicions but dont ask dont tell.
theres some other parts i havent fully ironed out yet like where hawkfrost and mothwint come in.
as for the actual lake territories, they coexist with the forest territories by just being in different states LOL windclan and thunderclan's territory was pretty consistent in terms of The Basics so theyre mostly in the same general area (tc is east coast forests, wc is southwest-midwest prairies. theres a lot of cowboys, farmers, and ranchers in "windclan" as a result). shadowclan i can see being in the southern swamps, especially florida or louisiana, and riverclan is kinda interspersed alont the mississippi and ohio rivers. maybe a few along the east coast, too, as the lake territory equivalent. skyclan is probably in the rockies or the redwood forests out west. maybeeee old skyclan is in the appalachias???? idk LOL since the cats are so far apaer now the conflicts are a little less wide scale and more personal if rhat makes any sense at all. of course this whole au is a huge work in progress so some of what i say here may change!
the clans are rural/small/poor towns in my head. tight knit communities that have to rely on each other. kittypets are urban/suburbanites as a contrast and keep the 'kittypets r fucjing spoiled' theme going . you inow the city slicker junk LOL
bloodclan is probably a gang in new york. at least scourge's bloodclan. the other iterations are probably in other huge metropolitan cities. idk what warriorclan is, and the tribe is a whole can of worms im trying to be very careful with so im not gonna talk about them as a whole quite yet other than imply they exist
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