#i’m sorry i just hate that hyperbole. like this is an instance where you’re not oppressed you’re just being annoying

[moonmoonthecrabking]

”i hate straight people” … shut up!!

[orionsangel86]

I agree with the overly fetished views that fandom seems to have of gay men. As a gay man who’s really short, it’s soooo fuckin weird to have people assume I’m a bottom??? Like, I don’t even know you enough to disclose my sexual life and you’re making? weird? assumptions?? Also, there’s a certain fan artist who shan’t be named who makes a certain shorter character super feminine and it kills me every time

EXACTLY

Urgh I’m sorry fandom makes you feel that way.

I’m gonna put this under a cut as I am about to rant about this topic because it is my biggest gripe within fandom. Don’t read on if you are here for fun happy positive things. Beware fair readers, there be strong potentially offensive opinions and plenty of fandom wank down below...

Fandom is unfortunately filled with CIS het women who like to stereotype and force men into their preconceived internalised misogynistic perceptions that to be short or slender means you are the weak dainty “girl” in the relationship and that’s why whichever character they deem the “girl” is also ALWAYS the “bottom”. It also is the same way fandom tends to muddy the waters between sexual positions top/bottom and BSDM terms dom/sub, where bottoms MUST be submissive as well. Half the time you will see posts talking about character traits which perhaps might indicate a submissive streak, and people will take that to mean that a character is a bottom, when the two do not correlate and it is highly problematic to assume that they do.

It’s so fucking problematic and I don’t think that these (mostly straight cis female) fans realise that by encouraging these harmful stereotypes, they are actually also being totally misogynistic and anti feminist. Women are not all bloody Anastasia Steel’s for christs sake (and don’t get me started on that god awful book/movie series). A women can be tall, broad, muscular, she can be dominant and strong and she can damn well top a man if she wants to.

When it comes to shipping male characters in gay/queer relationships, fandom MUST stop inflicting outdated heterosexual stereotypes on them. It seems like fans find a pairing they like (for instance Dean and Cas) and then immediately have to decide which one of them plays the female role. They then twist and change the characters, their traits, the way they look etc, so that one of them is basically a woman. That character then MUST be the submissive bottom and URGH I HATE IT.

(Making a quick note to say that whilst these particular common stereotypes within fandom are very much a problem, this is not to be confused in any way with fans taking their fave characters and headcanoning them as trans or nb or anything else genderwise which reflects an even more marginalised group and is usually a type of fanwork created by fans who are in fact trans or nb themselves.)

I’m not gonna comment on specific artists, but I tend to block urls of bloggers whose stuff I feel is particularly problematic and I also now have the WONDERFUL post blocker xkit extension OMG it is a GODSEND I highly recommend it. If you keep seeing a post on your dash because everyone is reblogging it even though it is super squicky to you (like for instance an obviously feminised Cas or Dean is squicky for me) you can use the extension to block that particular post so you never have to see it again regardless of how many of your mutuals reblog it. Its amazing!

I know that on this hellsite we like to encourage everyone to be as creative as possible and that everyone is valid and we don’t kinkshame and everything etc etc, and I’m all for that, whatever floats your boat and all that. But there is a line, and the line is when what you are doing becomes offensive to the marginalised groups you are supposedly supporting. Like I really don’t care if you are into tentacle sex or hell, even a furry, but I do care if the only way you can comfortably support a gay ship is to force either of the male characters into a “female” template and give them a “self lubricating asshole”. Like... come on. This is why I hate A/B/O. If you have to force gay men to fit a hetero model, you aren’t supporting gay men, you are fetishising them. You are also probably kinda homophobic.

What I really hate about this stuff is how it always seems to be the problematic stuff like this that blows up and becomes a trend and suddenly everyone is jumping on board and no one is given a second thought to how fucked up it is. WHY IS A/B/O EVEN A THING?!? It started as a J2 beastiality fic like WHY DID IT BECOME SO POPULAR?!

Why is Twist & Shout so bloody popular too? Its not even in character. They aren’t even Dean and Cas! Cas is a pale skinny little TWINK?! WHHHHYYYY? I don’t understand it if you ship Destiel wouldn’t you at least want the characters you are reading about to BE Dean and Cas?!? Don’t get me wrong I love AU fics, but I still want to be able to picture and hear Dean and Cas in the characters being described.

Why was it such a thing in the early seasons to make Cas a girl? (that’s hyperbole obviously but he might as well have been based on some of the early fanfics/fanart I’ve seen and immediately noped out of.) Misha Collins has never looked anything like that! He’s never been feminine looking and just because the dude can pull off a dress doesn’t mean you can force him to suddenly be the cute tiny pale perfect curvy pretty submissive beauty you can’t help but imagine Dean with. If you want that for Dean, ship him with Lisa. Stop forcing Cas into a model that just doesn’t make sense for the character.

This goes for Dean as well of course. The dude may have a thing for pink panties and ballet shoes and taylor swift sure, but can we not feminise him to the point he is unrecognisable as the character please?

I know that a lot of this has routes in YAOI. Something I have generally avoided because quite frankly it disgusts me. I find the whole thing just super uncomfortable and messed up and see it purely as a straight womans fetish. So much of fandom shipping behaviour comes from YAOI and its caused a lot of the toxicity we have seen over the years. I think it has got a lot better in recent years though because the queer community is slowly gaining a monopoly in fandom (imo) and as they (we, I should say, as my bisexual ass has quite clearly had enough of this) become more interested in shipping and fandom culture, we can also start educating those straight fans who might be willing to listen and learn. Maybe one day we can say goodbye to the problematic trends of today, or at least, keep them on the fringes of fandom as more and more people wake up to the fact that they are harmful.

And if that means I never have to look at an image of a short pale “pretty” Cas with womanly hips again, I’ll crack open the prosecco and consider it a win.

[zalrb]

TVD 3x03 Review

I’m skipping to 3x03 because me and initiumseries already did 3x02 in a drunk review even though for some reason I label it 3x03 (maybe I was still drunk when I uploaded it):

1. I like that when Damon asks Katherine where she is and she says, “Staring out your window, pining away” this fool actually looks around. She isn’t there, Damon.

2. I didn’t realize how whiny Nina is as Katherine until now, my god.

3. “Details are all a blur.” “Well that’s a crying shame.” Translation: YOU DON’T REMEMBER US, STEFAN?

4. Yeah I hate it but in 3x03, when Stefan’s feeding on that woman in the car, Paul is slick there because as an actor he’s relishing the opportunity in being bad, it works well for him.

5. Rebekah’s introduction is pretty good. Just rolling up on Stefan, licking his cheek and talking about the date he just killed. This is why I never understood why when people think of Bad Boy Stefan/Dark Stefan and his partner in crime they go to Katherine, it’s Rebekah he’s the “bad boy” with.

6. “Chicago was magical.” “Yeah well I’ll take your word for it.” Legit Klaus’ utter look of disappointment when Stefan brushes off Chicago is hilarious. Omg, those two.

7. Oh look Damon just in Elena’s bed, she’s clearly uncomfortable and he’s making a sexual joke. Omg totally in love!

8. Oh Look Damon rifling through Elena’s underwear drawer.

9. Caroline’s dad’s logic doesn’t make sense considering that Caroline isn’t going around killing people for blood. She uses blood bags. She has it under control. He can’t turn her into a non-vampire so this entire process is a waste of time.

10. I will say the shot of her being tortured by the sun was good.

11. Damon forcing Elena to read Stefan’s diary is literally just him trying to knock him down a peg in her eyes.

12. I was going to say I find it interesting that as a ripper Stefan would continue to write in his journal but in the ‘20s Stefan doesn’t have his humanity off, he’s just off the deep end with his ripper nature so he’s manic, which means he does feel and Stefan probably feels things the most profoundly on the show so it would make sense he’d journal.

13. Stefan as a Ripper is also just a bro. Which I find funny.

14. “What is this?” *shows a picture of Stefan and Klaus.” “I told you, Stefan, Chicago is a magical place.” LOL. Be boyfriends.

15. HA. Yo I’m sorry man but Stefan grabs Klaus and pulls him around to face him, Joseph’s face JUST looks turned on. They can’t help this shit and it’s HILARIOUS.

16. They tried to recreate the Klebekah scene with Steroline but the latter felt flat for SO many reasons. First of all, with Klebekah, their victim is panting, which adds a really disturbing sense of eroticism to the scene. Second of all, Stefan starts touching Rebekah AS they feed on this woman. Third of all, Claire and Paul just had better chemistry.

17. “I’m bored, I want to go.” “Then go without me I’m not your girlfriend.” Says Rebekah to her brother meanwhile her brother and Stefan are eye-fucking the shit out of each other after Stefan and Rebekah were getting off on killing an innocent woman. Legit the three of them together are MESSY.

18. There is so much inappropriate tension in this scene.

19. And again, Klaus looks so turned on at Stefan committing violence, he STAYS adjusting himself, like omg.

20. This is the second Black female bartender that Damon’s flirted with that’s ended up dead.

21. I think what I actually enjoy about Elena reading Stefan’s ripper diaries is that she flips through it looking for hope (one of their fundamental themes) and she gets to the 30s where Stefan says the bloodlust is easier and Lexi’s onto her next project, which is getting him to laugh and she smiles, assured. I like it because she didn’t have to see that he was “cured” she just had to see that he was better.

22. The closet scene! AND their love theme plays. 3x03 is definitely not an underrated scene among SErs but I always like talking about how layered it is in terms of the characters and in terms of chemistry. I bring it up a lot because Lupita Nyong’o brought up a point about chemistry:

“Chemistry is something that you pray for as an actor because it is so hard to fabricate. It’s so much easier to just have it and then, you know, work on other things, on your intention and your action and all that. Trying to fabricate chemistry is just … it adds another … it’s a lot of energy.”

And I think a prime example of this is 3x03 because even the way Nina spoke about the scene, about how at that point, it had been the longest time she and Paul had gone without filming a scene together so seeing him really felt like seeing him for the first time and the feeling of the scene

And like I’ve said before, Elena being in the closet is Stefan’s past/his darkness and his future/his light converging in one space.

But also what I like about SE and the way TVD had written them is they give them mini tests within the relationship that they then overcome. For instance, Stefan is super far gone, he’s off the wagon, he’s been murdering people for months, is he so far gone that he’ll turn on Elena? And for a second it looks like he might when calls Klaus over but he doesn’t because he just gives him a vintage.

Stefan is drinking human blood, Elena doesn’t like it, is that going to be a choice that tears them apart or brings them together? Elena chooses to be in it with Stefan by giving him her vein.

There’s constant tension between Stefan’s vampirism and SE love and SE love always wins out. 

23. “I had an hour to realize what a bad idea it was to leave you here alone, process it and move on.” Damon, you’re a dick.

24. Klaus is so in love with Stefan and I find it hilarious because this isn’t brotherly at all.

25. These stares. Get a ROOM.

26. Yeah see Candice is good at screaming when it comes to being tortured but when it comes to crying she’s adequate at best.

27. KLEFAN WHY ARE Y’ALL SO CLOSE?

28. Touching chests and shit.

29. Klaus: I forgot what it was like to have a brother.

Me:

30. It always bothered me that when the vampire use vampire speed in the show and slam each other against things like walls and doors, nothing dents or cracks. They do it in Mr and Mrs. Smith for godsake and they’re not even vampires!

31. That was a BAD shot of Ian, man, he looked old as fuuuuuuuuuuuck.

32. “Well I am torn, you see, I promised Stefan I wouldn’t let you die but how many freebies did I really sign up for? And clearly you WANT to die otherwise you wouldn’t be here...” Jo’s delivery is on point.

33. I’ve said it before but the, “You shouldn’t be here.” “Where else would I be?” and Elena’s head tilt like of COURSE I’d come after you, of COURSE I’m here, of course, of course, of course, is really just pure SE.

34. “When I’m done with him, he won’t want to go back.” Idc, the writers had to know that that the line was DRIPPING with innuendo.

35. “I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to be with you.” SE did this so much better than DE did because it wasn’t hyperbolic and the inflection in Paul’s tone, the shocked stillness of Elena is just done so WELL. And their circumstance is also SO MUCH sadder than DE’s was because DE’s issue was literally just that Damon was trash.

36. Aww Forwood.

37. Oh Klaus stabbing Rebekah because she wants to leave, I just wish they made them Cesare and Lucrezia. Go all the way. Cowards.

38. Klaus: Look guys, we’re an Ot3 again!

39. See when Rebekah throws over the casket, it should break apart.

40. Stefan’s hair really was stupid in the 20s.

41. “Have you seen these two people before?” “No.” “OK.” That’s it?

Alright guy, thanks for reading!

[leupagus]

ellieintheskywithroxy reblogged your post:

ellieintheskywithroxy reblogged your post:...

congrats, you’re a shitty person. hope everyone you love abaondons you and you die alone! preferably painfully!

#rebagle #also your theme is ugly #responding to ppl #leupagus #i hate you and shitheads like you #legit hope your life fucking sucks and it makes you cry every day

Statistically likely that I will die alone and painfully, given my family history and my current responsibilities. But I find this kind of hatred toward a stranger more hilarious than anything else, and no, my life doesn’t suck and it doesn’t make me cry every day. Sorry to disappoint. The theme, though, I could do something about, if you have suggestions?

I think something you may have missed about this whole issue is that there are reasons why I expressed anger—in a humorous, hyperbolic way, granted—at the disparity between how men are expected to dress versus how women are expected to dress when on a date. You seem to believe that clothing choices are all internal and result from individual preference rather than societal pressure and expectation. Which is not the case. There are incredibly complicated social forces at work—and they do not work on all genders equally.

Men and women are taught that dress reflects the value you are investing into the thing you are dressing for. There is an unspoken but very powerful message that how you dress indicates how much you care. This is often not aligned with how much you actually care—but there are often strong correlations. Hence why business attire is mandated at an office, and school dress codes and uniforms are enforced; you are expected (sometimes required) to show the place you are working for/learning at that you value them. And the implicit power of clothing is also why, say, someone who goes to prom in a t-shirt and track pants is sending a message about how much they value prom; or someone who goes to a job interview at construction company in a tuxedo is sending a message about how much they want this job; or someone who attends their best friend’s wedding in a muscle tee and cutoff jeans is sending a message about how much they value their friend (unless, of course, that is the dress code!). Clothing choice, whether in social or business or romantic contexts, is meaningful and important and not a decision made in a vacuum.

Now, what does this have to do with dating? And what does this have to do with misogyny (because yes, at the root of this is misogyny)? In the past twenty years or so—smarter people than me can detail the rise of this trend more accurately—many aspirational white-collar workplaces that are male-dominated (the games industry, the film industry, even some Wall-Street type places) have become far more relaxed w/r/t their dress codes. Many famous innovators/investors/designers/artists wear clothing that is not considered “professional” and is often wrinkled, stained, or ratty. This aesthetic is very much a cultivation rather than a genuine reflection of their economic class. They can afford slacks and dress shirts, but just as slacks and dress shirts send a message, so do sweatpants and t-shirts: I don’t care if they fire me, I’m smart enough/innovative enough/independent enough that I don’t need them. (Whoever “they” are.) It is, quite simply, a “power move,” a way to show that you have the upper hand by being more indifferent to personal appearance (and thus the impression you make on others). It’s one reason for the Hollywood adage that if you don’t know who the director is on a set, just look for the worst-dressed man.

This has trickled down into society at large when it comes to social interactions (since some men are still expected to dress a certain way in professional circles). So when going to the bar or a concert or a birthday party, men will wear cargo shorts rather than trousers, polos rather than dress shirts, and sandals rather than loafers. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that as an individual choice—but as you can see, it’s not merely an individual choice but rather a social message to the other men in the group. They are all signaling to each other that they are equally indifferent to personal appearance and impression, something that is nowadays considered “masculine.” If you don’t believe me, observe a group of guys at a bar or a sporting event where only one of them is wearing a suit and tie. Does Suit&Tie Guy mock everyone else? Or is he the one belittled? Men don’t dress for themselves; they dress for each other.

Women, however (at least—and this is an important caveat—women who are considered “attractive”) are still expected to dress for men in the majority of their social interactions: hair and makeup, a dress or skirt, a pretty top, jewelry, high heels. And if they don’t dress in this hyper-feminized way they are still expected to have clean, well-pressed clothing with shaved legs and hair that is “done” in some way. Now of course, women going to the store or women who are at the gym or women who are merely existing in the world do not have all these restrictions, but they still do feel that pressure; the next time you’re at the store watch the reactions to, say, a woman who is clearly wearing three-day-old clothing versus reactions to a man wearing the same. If you honestly see no difference in reaction, that’s valid—but you should at least be aware that in most instances, women are judged more (and feel themselves to be judged more) when they are not adhering to those beauty standards imposed by society.

Which brings us to dating, and the reason for my outrage. Given the fact that men and women are both taught that clothes reflect investment, and that women are pressured to look “nice” even when going to get tampons, there is a clear and undeniable message being sent by both genders when, on dates with each other, the woman dresses up and the man does not. The message is that the man is more concerned with the judgement of other men (for dressing too nicely) than how valued his date feels. The message is that the man does not value his date as much as she values him—even though she may not value him at all, but merely be dealing with societal pressure that pushes her to dress “nicely” for all social interactions. You have a situation in which men are prioritizing their social standing amongst other man—often strangers—over their message to their date that she is worth his time, energy, and investment. Not only that you have a situation in which women have difficulty showing whether or not they value men, because they are pressured to dress the same whether they like the man or not. 

And this is not, as you may believe, an isolated situation that I’ve observed a handful of times, but rather a trend that I have watched for the entirety of my adult life (which is longer than you’ve been alive, I’d like to gently point out). I spent a year in NYC actually recording these observations, and the trend was staggering. It also corresponds with behavior; as a hostess I got an up-close seat on thousands of couple interactions, and overwhelmingly men who dressed noticeably worse than their female dates treated said dates less respectfully, less kindly, and with more callous disregard for their desires and feelings. So when I say these things aren’t happening in a vacuum, I mean that.

Teal deer: men dress worse than women do on dates because they do not value the women they date as much as women are socially required to pretend they value men. There are exceptions and caveats and of course no one actually deserves to die for this, not even me, but it is an observable thing and perhaps you should spend some time observing it.