#if these guys are going to subject me to so much misogyny all the time the least they could do is embaras themselves a little too

[6ebe]

F1 / kpop job swap where they make f1 drivers meow on camera and do aegyo on livestream

[rockanroller]

i actually watched the first two episodes and i just gotta say they left me feeling just kinda…meh?

beautiful BGs, props to the animators and designers, some really good character acting.

but the plot flow… was so… empty? yeah, they packed in a lot of exposition and character intros but to the point there was little room for you to like…sit with the info, laugh, or enjoy a moment before having to listen for the next piece of lore or story point. not to mention some of the lore was straight up confusing.

some shots gave enough pause, just overall it felt very like… bloated/rushed/one thing and then the next with no real interest or entertainment taking place inbetween (to me) if that makes sense?

i can see how less critical folks that are attached to the characters would enjoy this though. but of course it leaves the question of how would this experience be for fresh new audiences who *don’t* know all the lore?

ironically Adam had me dying. i was not expecting to laugh at him after reading his various lines showing a misogynistic douche but the way they were executed slayed me—though tbf i suspect it was due to the ep already had worn me down combined with his first batch of lines being more “Preppy Jock Thinks He’s Cool But He’s Clearly A Dumbass” vibes to me, then of course the misogyny trickled in and it was like ok jerk villain got it.

other occasional moments gave me a chuckle i can admit as much.

Katie Killjoy was awful. to me she was completely out of place with Brandon’s voice, that was just…him. she only had a few lines so who knows if she’ll show up and they felt it was fine for a one-time gag—idk we’ll see.

Valentino… …bro… his accent was all over the place… i couldn’t even tell what it was “supposed” to be until he delivered some pre-song lines but until that he was slipping between accents i couldn’t place, back to a flat American “Just Some Guy” accent then back to a deeper accented voice that I couldn’t place…woof, just odd.

Angel’s trauma felt sudden/forced in like a lot of things in the episodes did.

the whole redeeming sinners thing i felt wasn’t executed great either, i had a hard time understanding Charlie’s outlook as it was shown in the episodes. and her values? she literally **applauds** Sir Pentious for his performance in a growth exercise for declaring that he will not do drugs and he will wait to have sex until after marriage, and Angel Dust is standing right there like…girl what?

does Charlie believe that shit or is she just going by what she thinks will get sinners into heaven? it’s unclear. she also seems generally off-put and disturbed by several of the sinners in the Happy Day In Hell song that she allegedly wants to redeem so badly/cares so much about so…what does she see in them?

idk, thems my first impressions. opinions subject to change.

[waroferas]

Cia HyWars is pure evil?

There is so much I could say about Cia . and i will ! you’re stuck with me now idiot !!!!! (speaking into an empty room)

i was going to skip this section bc if anybody reading this somehow didn’t know who Cia is then like . google is right there . but zeldadungeon actually has fuck all to say about cia’s backstory and i would never knowingly subject someone to the fandom wikis.

Cia was originally known as the Guardian of Time, a minor deity tasked with overlooking the checks and balances of the triforce across the past and future. She did this work alone, and her psyche was left vulnerable to a fragment of ganondorf’s soul. Her admiration and jealousy of the holder’s of the triforce was manipulated until she became physically fragmented, her “light half” being cast from her as she was fully corrupted.

That half goes on to become Lana, and what remains of Cia wants two things: Collect Link like barbie doll, and help Ganondorf restore his soul and gather the triforce so she can Collect Link like barbie doll. She’s the main antagonist of the game now.

why would she do this? is she stupid?

being lonely makes you crazy and i mean this very genuinely.

Hyrule Warriors is constantly hammering in that you need to rely on other people through gameplay And story beats. i would even say that friendship and teamwork is one of the strongest and most recognizable themes. In the very first stage there is an honestly comical back and forth that goes as follows: link runs in to fight volga. impa runs in to save link. link hops up last second and saves impa instead . and then they round out the stage with impa saving link and delivering the hero’s tunic to him. this has to be a joke? but it isn’t . they LOVE TEAMWORK !! not to mention the gameplay that forces you to run around and help your allies, or the massive story beat that revolves around Link running ahead to fight on his own, which i could dissect in its own post.

unrelated but related, in the first edition of this game Cia dies. she asks lana to make her pain make sense, reveals that she knew on some level she was doomed to fail, and admits that lana really is better than her. it’s a bitter ending with very little fanfare, as ganondorf swoops in quickly to kickstart the beginning of the end.

But in later versions, there’s additional content. Cia is found to be alive, struggling against Phantom Ganon’s forces with the last of her power. She becomes an ally and she gets to live at the end, finding a happy ending in resuming her duties now as one of two Guardians of Time with Lana.

Would it be such a stretch to assume that the root of her pain was her solitude? Her admiration of Link as the revered hero, her jealousy of Zelda as the damsel who is destined to always fight by his side, and her happy ending. she easily walks away from Link, Zelda, and the allure of the triforce because now she finally has company, and knows she is leaving them all as friends. Wouldn’t it make sense thematically that in the game about friendship, the main antagonist would be driven in part by a lack of it?

this doesn’t justify starting a war

yeag . the devs for the Dynasty Warriors hack and slash series should have made it Not a war (JOKE. PARODY. but see the first sentence or the previous section)

but what about the part where she is an irredeemable creep?

look me in the eyes . i cannot describe how much this train of thought kills me. i am trying not to point at anybody specific here but it actually scares me a little bit how common and Assumed To Be True this is considering the preexisting racism and misogyny surrounding Cia’s design and role within the game

Cia is creepy towards Link. it’s not normal to disregard a person’s autonomy because you want to “make him yours”, and it’s not normal to have just So Many pictures and statues of a guy. but i have to draw the line there because Genuinely that is where it ends.

Pet names? if you play her side campaign you find that she calls Literally everyone things like “lovelies” and “darling.” Her speech mannerisms are classically cartoonish villain and i am absolutely biased because i love this

Age difference? an important thing to note is that cia’s design is one of the things the most afflicted by the aforementioned racism and misogyny. considering she has no canonical age afaik it freaks me out that people treat her like a Textual Predator with the Everything in mind.

if she’s redeemable then they did a shit job at it.

no argument there . i think everyone forever should make something new up to make up for the fact that they did a Poor Redemption . at least have her say sorry or something idunno .

in my opinion they had a lot going on when cia joined the allies, so i like to imagine she ended up getting a proper redemption arc After phantom ganon is put to bed. it lives in my head and it’s just as convoluted and weird as the rest of the game 👍

Hyrule Warriors is just an extremely elaborate excuse to play dolls

and i LOVE my tuoys. come play with meeeee come have fun with me and ciaaaaaa

[coconutcordiale]

In honor of How To Lose a Guy In Ten Days and Matthew McConaughey: “Great Answer.” “Good Question.” With Hangman

make my motor run

pairing- finnegan (everybody wants some!!) x afab reader

synopsis- everyone thinks finn is so sweet. you're not convinced.

warnings- 18+ minors and glen powell - you are not welcome here. protected piv, oral (f receiving), slight dumbification/degradation, praise kink. reader has ethically not great motives around sleeping with finn but do we honestly think finn cares? no

length- 2.1k

an- not hangman, but it's still glen so...close enough? this is the crossover literally not one person asked for - how to lose a guy in 10 days (if you squint a little) & everybody wants some

idk y'all, i don't have it in me to be ashamed anymore. this is just smut with some bants. idk if anyone even wants to read this but the glen powell brain rot is real so it had to be done so it'd stop rattling around in my mind. blame glen and his stupidly handsome face and the fact that he steals every scene he's in

title from my sharona - the knack

tagging some finn peeps - @sebsxphia / @iguana-braces / @justalonelyslytherin

It’s Saturday night. Against your better judgment, you’re at the rickety baseball houses, silently debating if you’ll have time to get a tetanus shot before your study group tomorrow morning.

Finn twirls his pipe between his fingers, leaning against the porch railing in a ridiculous paisley button-up. “Aside from how to take my breath away, what do you study here, ladies?”

“Does that ever actually work on real, human women?” You ask, ignoring the elbow to your ribs that Sophia digs into your side, presumably to get you to shut up.

The blond tilts his head, processing. He eventually grins. “Take no prisoners kinda gal, aren’t ya? I like that.” 

You hold back a grunt when Sophia elbows you again, answering the question before you can snark him any further. “We’re both journalism majors.” 

Going to take a sip of your drink, something you’ll surely need to swallow whatever faux-enlightened comment he has about that little piece of information; you furrow your brows when you realize it’s empty.

“I’ll grab you another drink, try not to miss me too much.” Finn winks, the bastard. What a ham. 

Your eye roll is barely contained when Sophia gives you a knowing look. 

“Oh, come on, he’s sweet,” she insists. 

“You’ve seen him with other girls, right? Everything out of his mouth is a line, Soph. It’s all bullshit. He’s pandering to us, so he seems better, different than his asshole teammates. It’s insulting.”

“Then why haven’t you told him to fuck off?”

“I think he’d be a good subject for my article.”

Her eyes widen. “About benevolent misogyny?”

“That’s the one.”

“How far are you gonna take this? Sleep with him to prove a point about how far a chauvinistic male will go for sex?”

You shrug. You hadn’t really thought it through, honestly. It’s not like it’d be a chore, he is pretty hot when he keeps his mouth shut.

She takes your silence as confirmation. “That’s kind of fucked up.” 

“Can’t be worse than changing your entire personality every other night just to get laid.” 

+ 

You find yourself sitting on the roof with Finn, having already shown up his mediocre golf swing. You’d never admit it to Soph, but your article is the furthest thing from your mind right now.

“True or false: all fundamental beliefs are reasonable.” You’re so taken aback by his pop quiz you almost don’t notice him sitting down behind you, pulling you into the space between his legs.

Smooth. You roll your eyes, but don’t move away. “False.” 

You can hear the smile in his voice. “I see someone’s already taken Philosophy 101 with Roberts.” 

“Yes, but that’s irrelevant. That’s an insane statement regardless.” 

When you turn to catch a glimpse of him you see him opening his mouth, ostensibly to argue, but you shake your head. “My turn. True or false: all’s fair in love and war.” 

“True.”

You can’t help the smirk that tugs at your lips. “Great answer.” 

Finn positively beams. “Good question!” His hands drift up from your hips, working their way under your flimsy tank before he brings his lips to your ear, murmuring, “True or false: you’re gonna let me take you inside so I can take you apart.” 

Your breath hitches. “True.” 

He turns your head to him, mouth pressing against yours, mustache tickling you, soft and sweet for just a moment, before he slides his tongue into your mouth filthily. “Let’s go then, honey.”

Your tiny denim shorts and little tank get lost on the floor of his bedroom almost immediately, skin ablaze as he pushes you back onto his bed, on soft forest green sheets that smell like him – warm and spicy and earthy. He stays standing as he makes quick work of his own clothes, raking his eyes across your naked form.

You try not to shy away from his gaze, meeting his eyes defiantly as you feel slick pooling between your thighs. You’re barely keeping yourself from rubbing them together, words laced with an edge you don’t feel. “Thought you were working on a degree in cunnilingus. Put that mouth to good use, Finn.”

There’s a sparkle in those green eyes that you catch just before he braces himself above you, arms bracketing your head. His words are muffled against your skin as he kisses his way down your body. “Overheard that, did you? Knew you were paying special attention to me.”

You roll your eyes, mouth open to respond, but he drags his lips across your collarbone before his mouth closes around a nipple, effectively driving any wit from you.

He pushes your legs open wide, settling himself between them. His chest presses into the mattress as his arms wrap around your thighs where he’s busy putting them over his shoulders. When his mustache brushes against your thigh's sensitive skin, it sends shivers racketing through you and you feel his smirk only centimeters away from where you want it. 

He licks his lips as your resolve crumbles with every passing second.

“C’mon, Finn, please,” you whine, threading your hands through his shaggy hair, trying in vain to pull him closer to your cunt.

“Impatient,” he tsks. You lean up to fix him with a glare, but it only makes him chuckle. “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll take care of you.”

He finally, finally licks a stripe up your slit, and despite it being exactly what you asked for, you tug on hard on the blond hair between your fingers in surprise. He groans long and low, vibrations rolling through your body from your center where his lips are busy fixing themselves to your clit. 

His buries his face in you, moaning against your cunt as his tongue laps at you like a starved man. “Could spend hours drowning in this pussy, tastes so fucking good.”

The sound that leaves you in answer to that is pathetic – high and whiny – hips bucking. His big hands are gripping you so tight you’re sure there’ll be bruises high on your legs tomorrow. He stiffens his tongue to fuck it in and out of you, nose bumping your clit and making you shake, your eyes rolling back into your head.

Any sense of shame, any idea that you should keep yourself quiet in this house full of strangers has left you – your existence narrowed down to your hands in his hair, his lips on your cunt, the moans tearing their way from your throat, unbidden.

Your legs dig into his back, urging him in, hurtling towards the point of no return so fast all you can think of is needing more. He moves his lips back to your clit, hand loosening his death grip enough to slide a finger into the wet mess you’ve become at the same time he curls his lips and sucks.

“Don’t stop, please, Finn I -” You’re begging now, grinding against his face as much as you can in the vice-like grip he still has on you. He doubles his efforts, tongue working over your clit harder, finger inside you curling as you burn with the intensity of it, electricity bursting beneath your skin as the tension finally bursts, his name falling from your lips like a prayer.

Your legs feel like jelly. You let go of his blond locks belatedly, resigning yourself to your new existence as a puddle, a melted version of your former self. 

He looks up from between your legs and grins. 

You grab for his arms where they’re still flexed around your thighs, bringing him up face to face with you. He smiles, dropping sweet kisses to your parted lips and warm cheeks. Whining, you wrap your legs around his waist, wordlessly trying to pull him to you, get him inside of you, greedy for him.

“Don’t tell me a smart girl like you doesn’t know how to use her words,” Finn goads, laughter curling in his words, and you’re torn between wanting to smack him and beg like your life depends on it. You’re so distracted you barely notice him shifting his weight to his knees so he can reach for a condom, tear it open with his teeth, and roll it on.

You try to glare but he braces himself over you again, rubbing his cock between your folds, catching your oversensitive clit and a truly embarrassing whimper comes out, eyes blurring with a mix of pain and pleasure instead. “Finnegan.” 

“Yeah, baby?”

Taking a deep breath, you try to get your last functioning brain cell to cooperate. “Get inside me right now or so help me –”

You can still feel the amusement on his lips as he ducks his head down to slot your mouths together to cut you off, swallowing your moan as he pushes into you, slow and steady. 

When you flex your legs around his waist impatiently, he chuckles before setting a relentless pace, grinding his cock into you hard with each push. It’s too much, it’s not enough, it sets your skin on fire, it rackets the headboard against the wall – if his teammates didn’t know what was happening before, they certainly have a good idea now.

Your head lolls to the side as he hits that spot inside you on every thrust, nerves overloaded as you grip the nape of his neck, just trying to hold on.

“Fuck,” he groans, looking down at the glazed expression taking over your features. “Not gonna last long.” 

The thought that he’s already so close from having his mouth on you has your eyes crossing, cunt clenching around his thick length. His face crumples, mouth parting like you’ve just knocked the wind out of him. “Trying to kill me, honey?”

He lifts one of your legs to his shoulders, leaning down towards you and bending you in half – pushing limits to flexibility you didn’t even know you had.

“Wanna feel you come on my cock, you can do that for me, can’t you?” Finn asks, panting against your cheek, deft fingers moving down to circle your clit.

The sparks shooting through you as he presses into your center border on pain but you’re nodding, head bobbing up and down of its own accord, nails scratching red along his shoulders as you get closer and closer.

“Good girl,” he grunts and you keen, his words hurtling you towards the edge again. “So good for me…look at you, smart ass, brilliant girl fucked dumb on my cock.”

He’s pulling almost all the way out of you on every thrust now, slamming back in, and your back arches against him, a string of unintelligible noises leaving you that you’re just barely aware of, mewling filling the air in the room as your release snaps through you, ears ringing.

When you come to, still shaking and clenching around him, he’s running his mouth still, a litany of praise and groans of fuck honey, perfect for me, spilling from his bitten, red lips. His hips tear forward without rhythm as he pumps into you one last time, filling the condom before dropping your leg and collapsing next to you, strings holding him up suddenly cut.

Finn rolls to the side, and you stare at the cracks in the ceiling, wondering if you’ll ever be able to move again. You think he’s talking, but you can’t even begin to register what he’s saying. 

“Did I fuck all the brains out of the mouthy girl I brought up here?” Finn asks, amused when you don’t respond.

“Just surprised you wanted audience participation for your post-sex speech,” you snark, trying not to belay how difficult it is to form words currently.

“Well, I think Joanna Russ would disparage of me if I were indifferent to your thoughts and opinions immediately after getting off.”

 You raise an eyebrow. “You know who Joanna Russ is?”

 “The Female Man is a cornerstone of feminist literature. I read it be—”

 You can’t help but interrupt, brain quickly coming back online. “Because you thought it was going to be about the ideal woman through a man’s eyes.”

 He even has the gall to look offended. “Of course not, everyone knows Russ is a feminist writer.”

“Then you read it so more women would sleep with you after hearing that you’d read it.” He presses his lips together to hold back a smile and you snort. “I knew it.”

“Honey, don’t get mad at me just because it works.”

“Incorrigible.” 

You lay your head on his chest, trying not to purr like a kitten as his hands tangle in your hair.

“I enjoy Jack Kerouac too if you really want to round out your article. Paint a full picture.”

Your eyes widen, trying desperately to keep in the surprised squeak when you look up to meet jade eyes and see them filled with mischief.

“Just a thought,” he murmurs, hands resuming their movements on your scalp, lulling you toward sleep.

full disclosure i haven't actually read the female man but i'm pretty sure it was published in the 70s which seemed fitting for ews being set in the 80s. thanks for reading!

[asecretvice]

hi!! i’m rereading “and this, your living kiss” (for about the sixth time bc i love it so so much), and i’m very curious what your personal opinion is about on the road? you write both opinions of the book so well and i know it’s one of those books that garner very opposite strong opinions. i read the book after reading your fic for the first time and certainly have my own strong opinions. would love to know your thoughts about it!

(and once again thank you for the absolute gift that your fic is, i love it so deeply)

Firstly, thank you so much for your kind words about my writing. It means the world <3

On the Road is a tricky one, isn't it? The short answer is, I do enjoy it. The longer answer includes a "but." And then a couple more.

Just looking at the specs of the book, it's pretty unusual that I should enjoy it--the subject matter is mostly [white] dudes being dudes, it's more or less "literary" fiction, there's just...SO MUCH misogyny, and I'm simply not a big fan of stream of consciousness [or free association, or spontaneous, or whatever you want to call it] prose, because it's difficult to do it both clearly and interestingly. And yet.

The guy does it well. The book is full of energy and passion, ridiculously gorgeous turns of phrase, and for the characters [real people!] he spends the time on, the portraits are so detailed and beautiful and ugly and real. Down to the way he captures their speech patterns!

It's been a little over ten years since I've read it [what is. time.], but I plucked the book off my shelf and was able to find you the exact passage in the first chapter where I decided to trust Kerouac as an author, and allow myself to go with his flow:

They rushed down the street together, digging everything in the early way they had, which later became so much sadder and perceptive and blank. But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" What did they call such young people in Goethe's Germany?

I mean, this thought starts with another device I tend not to like, the sort of, "If only they'd known, then this wouldn't have happened!" or "Little did they know, it would all end soon" or what have you. But it isn't laid out that way, as a wink or a gotcha. It sets up the dim result, but then gives you the answer without holding your hand about it--you can only burn like that for so long, really. And the nod to "young people in Goethe's Germany," and mentioning the colors blue and yellow, in my view, are an intentional reference to The Sorrows of Young Werther.

The structure is great! This passage is three sentences, the middle one taking up the bulk of it. It's got all sorts of qualities that well-meaning teachers might try to convince you out of, but he's long past that beginner's stage. Read it out loud! It sounds right. The rhythm of this whole section works, with the lead up sentence, the one that flies higher and higher into a climax, and then the short denouement that brings you back down to earth. Not to mention the poetics of it; you could easily split that middle sentence into lines and be wowed by the structure of it:

and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved

Or hell, just say aloud the phrase "candles exploding like spiders across the stars" and delight in the recurring phonemes like /k/, /l/, /d/, /s/, etc.

And you know, maybe that does nothing for you. But I can't imagine that most folks wouldn't at least appreciate the sentiment and how real it feels, how some are in their youth, and then things becoming "so much sadder." Or relate to times when you felt fully mad or overwhelmingly desirous. Or being the person shambling behind, the one ever so slightly on the outside, observing the ones who seem to be truly living their lives to the fullest [Writers' Syndrome(tm)].

So yes, I enjoy the book and I enjoy the pictures Kerouac paints us. It certainly helps that I read this book right around the time I started watching spn. I believe it was probably a month or so after I'd caught up. It was on the docket anyway because I had discovered Ginsberg for myself not very long before I watched the show, and I'd made a point to seek out a few of the beats thereafter. It was rather a synchronous turn of events that helped cement the two things--spn and beat literature--together for me, beyond the movement's heavy influence on Kripke. [If you don't think I have a beats-style spn fic that's been waiting to be written since that time which I've nicknamed Sulfur Sutra then you are sorely mistaken :p ]

Anyway, I did reread the first chapter before writing this post and yeah, the mommy issues and misogyny are in there right away also, and like...okay, that tracks why I recall so well certain moments of the book where I got so frustrated I would be taken out of it and just sit there like

[I hope he felt my eyes. Burning shame into his soul. Like my dude. Really?]

The other part of it is...well...he was in fact describing his version of reality. You don't have to like him on account of it, but I don't doubt for a moment that the guys talked that way, or thought that yes indeed Marylou should go to the kitchen or go sweep the floor or whatever. It takes place in the 40s [not like it doesn't happen all the time today]. Look at it from a more historical/anthropological perspective, if that helps.

Thankfully, there are antidotes to all this. I would highly recommend what I've found to be the best one: Minor Characters by Joyce Johnson. She was part of the beats, and was in a relationship with Kerouac for a couple years. On the Road was reality as he perceived the era; Minor Characters as she perceived it.

In terms of my fic, I agree with and hold both Dean's and Charlie's perspectives simultaneously, as they both come to do after they discuss it with each other and finish the book themselves. The gender politics [and in a few passages, the race politics] are shit, but there's a reason the book has remained popular since its publication, and inspired so many adaptations and other stories. To this day its effects are felt in the American zeitgeist, and for that reason I'm still happy to recommend it to people with the obvious caveats. Besides, as is often the truth in these cases, the book is so much more interesting and beautiful and nuanced than pop culture makes it out to be.

You said you have some strong opinions--feel free to tell me what they are! I'm interested to know ^_^

Thank you again for your kind words, and your ask. I had a lot of fun answering it!

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

hi! could you possibly share the intercept new report about gay men and their misogyny? i know this isn't really about br politics, and im not even sure if it is in English, but i think it is really important to be shared

I hope it's not too late 😅

-

Gay men and misogyny: no more ignoring this problem

'Don't talk about vaginas around me': for a long time, we ignored the disqualifications of women and the feminine made by gay men. No more.

"If I liked women, I would have become a gynecologist."

"The law of gravity is a crime against women."

“Funny” gay guys, usually white and showing a certain hatred towards females, are a very common social type in contemporary pop culture. The character Felix “Bicha Má” ["Evil Fag"], played by Mateus Solano, from the Brazilian soap opera “Amor à Vida” [Love For Life], is an easy example in Brazilian lands – the sentences that open this text are his. But this sharp-tongued young man who directs much of his bitterness towards women, including friends and relatives, has never only lived on screens: he is a common presence in our daily lives.

"Oh, don't mention a vagina around me, I get all messed up."

"My goodness, this singer was beautiful, but she got old and ugly."

"Get out of here, I don't even like cracks."

I can't say how many times I've heard phrases like that from fellow gay men. For a long time, these ways of disqualifying women – despite the certain discomfort felt by every person who is repeatedly the target of prejudice – were endorsed and reflected by women ourselves. Offenses dressed as “I was just joking” have largely naturalized these forms of disqualification, but the good news is that, in an environment in which feminism has gained ground, what seemed to be just a joke is now named by the right word: misogyny.

This is a delicate subject, since we are talking about people – mostly cisgender gay men – who have been and still are victims of a series of violence, whether at home, at work, on the streets. Perhaps it was precisely this that made us, cisgender or transgender women, leave the discomfort of being made fun of in the background. After all, confronting homophobia in a sexist country like Brazil is no simple task. But if this machismo affects homosexual men, what can we say about its presence in women's daily lives? And what can we also say about the homophobia directed at cis/trans homosexual and bisexual women, especially invisible and also targets of “jokes” by gay men?

“I had a very close gay friend, like a brother. We went out to parties together and often slept in the same bed, at my house or his. Several times, as if he were joking, he said that he was terrified of vaginas, that he was born through a cesarean section so he wouldn't have to go through one. He'd gesture the sign of the Cross and said ‘God forbid’, smiling,” says Adriana Conceição, 47 years old, a telemarketing operator from Recife who, like several other women, took a while to classify the guy's actions with the right word.

Game developer Renata Gomes, also 47 years old, found herself at the center of a virtual outrage after questioning a post by a gay Brazilian film critic living in the United States. In the post, he talked about missing Brazil, since people worked a lot more in the USA. Faced with the possibility of his speech being reductive and stereotypical, he began to treat Renata as “ugly”, “militant”, “frustrated”. Furthermore, several of the critic's friends entered the comments to reiterate the delegitimization of Renata's speech.

Younger people also identify the problem: aware of the issue, Curitiba university student Nicoly Grevetti, aged 24, listened to several people who circulate in LGBTQIA+ spaces about the subject and wrote a text about it. In it, she also identifies how pop and queer cultures, supposedly safer and “modern”, also present misogynistic elements.

One example is the use of the term “fishy”, constantly evoked to define drag queens who closely resemble cisgender women (that is, who have a high degree of “passability”). The expression refers to the smell that these women's vaginas supposedly have. “[Cisgender] women grow up believing that their private parts are disgusting and spend their entire lives using products to reduce their natural odors, which can lead to various diseases. Having female genitalia as something disgusting is so common for this group, that you can find countless reports of women talking about it on the internet,” she wrote. The topic was the subject of discussion in the famous series RuPaul’s Drag Race, generating academic works like this one. Cisgender drag queen Victoria Scone, a former participant in the show, also spoke on the topic.

A few months ago, I experienced a significant episode of this machismo and misogyny that had been attenuated for a long time in relation to gay men. I was in a doctor's office very close to a shopping center in the south of Recife. After the end of the consultation, the dermatologist – homosexual, white, in his late thirties, and anti-Bolsonaro in the last elections – lightly tapped my hand and said: “Okay, now you can go for a walk in the mall.”

Especially on that day, I was rushing to finish presenting a lecture that I would give the following day, online, at the University of Coimbra. Obviously, if I wanted to window shop or spend the afternoon reading celebrity magazines, it wouldn't be a problem (in fact, I love it). The point here was the doctor's obvious intention to fit me into the cliché of the futile and consumerist woman, a sexist and anachronistic way of disqualifying the female gender. Icing on the cake: while I was leaving, the gay boy warned me not to forget to take “the boss” to my next appointment. He was referring to my romantic partner.

If it's feminine, it's smaller

The misogyny present in the practices of part of this population is so evident that it goes beyond the boundaries of gender and occurs between equals: it is common to see it operating even among gay men themselves. Research I carried out in partnership with Professor Ricardo Sabóia, from the Federal University of Pernambuco, analyzed the relationship between body and celebrity on the Grindr app. I was astonished by both the hatred towards what is socially seen as feminine and the extremely high level of normativity, standardization, and even elitism. “'I'm not into effeminate guys” is a constant, as is “I'm not into fat guys”.

In this environment of extremely high value for toned biceps and abs, being masculine – and looking very masculine – is the strongest currency. Thus, men seen as “little women” are disqualified. This is what researcher Carlos Alberto de Carvalho calls “misogynistic heteronormativity”, in which the masculine and masculinities are placed as positive – on the other hand, femininities and the feminine are valued negatively. It is, therefore, an environment of hegemonic masculinity and subaltern masculinities.

The global soap opera “Terra e Paixão” [Land & Passion] currently features an illustration that refers to this scenario, with the character Kelvin (actor Diego Martins), an “effeminate” gay man in love with Ramiro (Amaury Lorenzo), the masculine man, self-declared heterosexual, who desires the other person, but still doesn't know how to deal with the situation. What diminishes the power of the first is precisely its proximity to what is considered “womanly”. But, looking at Grindr, even the desirable “brucutu” [Brazilian slang for a brute and rude man] has his limits: issues such as level of education have weight in the app used mostly by gay and bisexual men, where it is common to read “no illiterates”.

The LGBTQIA+ culture, in which rich and middle-class white homosexual men repeatedly appear to discriminate against other peers from the same community, is a central sociological issue for discussing social inequalities not only in Brazil, but throughout the world. “Queer cultural production has helped to reproduce class distinctions based on the hegemony of representations of middle-class gays”, writes Lisa Henderson in the article “I’m not/I'm not into: circulating meanings in the presentation speeches of the Grindr app”, by Rafael Grohmann. In the same text, Juan Marsiaj summarizes: “Such a strategy can lead to the acceptance of a type of gay (white, middle class), seen as a model of citizen-consumer, and a greater marginalization of all other 'debauches' who do not fit this way. In more Brazilian terms: there is a risk of accepting rich gays and further marginalizing poor queers.”

Discrimination on the part of this part of the queer community was evidenced in a historic episode in the 1970s, in super liberal New York. In June 1973, the Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally took place in the city, a demonstration held in favor of the rights of the queer population – which, at that time, as we will see, in fact was basically limited to white, middle-class gay women and men.

But, among the public, was the activist Sylvia Rivera, a transvestite who in 1971 had created the Revolutionary Action of Street Transvestites, STAR. Rivera had been trying to get on stage for some time, but Jean O’Leary, a lesbian white radical feminist, acted to prevent her from participating. A sample of how, many times, cisgender homosexual/bisexual women also enact the same discrimination as homosexual/bisexual men.

When he finally managed to grab the microphone, Rivera took aim at the hundreds of mostly white gay men and women present. Her speech is a synthesis of the violence experienced by queers who are too effeminate, too poor, too black, or too latine.

“I've tried to speak out here all day for your gay brothers and sisters in jail. They write to me every damn week asking for help – and you don't do a damn thing for them. I lost my job and my apartment for gay liberation… and you guys treat me this way?” she screamed.

The anger had yet another weight and meaning: alongside another important name, the transvestite Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera went down in history as one of the first to face police repression at the New York bar Stonewall Inn, on June 28, 1969. The conflict was the trigger for a fundamental civil movement for human rights – so much so that the date ended up becoming what was then called International LGBT+ Pride Day.

The question remained: how could that engaged audience repudiate the person who, at just 18 years old, spoke out against violence that was not directed just at her? How could they recriminate someone who pulled the trigger that would benefit precisely that white homosexual population?

Rivera and Johnson, who lived in a shelter, were profoundly different from the majority of the public who would return to their comfortable homes after the demonstration. Unlike Rivera, the daughter of a Venezuelan mother and a Puerto Rican father, most had not spent nights in jail or suffered police rape. The activist died homeless, alone, without the care she should have received. Marsha P. Johnson, the decorated, made-up, smiling, super queer transvestite, was murdered and her body thrown into a river.

Thinking historically and humanly about both is a central issue in the debate on hatred of “feminine” and other diverse discriminations present among the LGBTQIA+ population. The right-wing has long opened a war against women, and the rise of red pill assholes is just one of the phenomena of this reality. It still includes names like former federal deputy Daniel Silveira, who broke the plaque with Marielle's name alongside Rodrigo Amorim. [Note from the translator: Marielle Franco was a black bisexual favela-born leftist councilwoman who was assassinated by militias.]

But, as it turns out, misogyny is not exclusive to right-wing radicals and conservatives. And if Sylvia and Marsha were on the front line to guarantee the rights of millions of people, without distinction of creeds, race, genders, and degrees of “femininity”, it is worth asking: when will cisgender gay men, mostly white and middle class, join, with emphasis and strength, debates such as the right to abortion, employment, and wages, issues of life and death for the majority of black Brazilian women? When will the majority of this same group take a stand on the thousands of rapes that mainly victimize girls and teenagers? What collectivities, after all, are we talking about? As Jorge Ben would say in the song Zumbi: I want to see. We're here.

Source, translated by the blogger.

[nightswithkookmin]

3D SLAYS WITH JACK HARLOW

I'm not here to tell anyone how to feel but I'm just saying Jackie killed those bars.

I don't want to get into this whole debate over whether or not Jack Harlow's verse was offensive because Jack is for the black girlies and the queers and I'm black and queer. Let's leave it there

And frankly I was too busy deciphering all the Easter eggs and black and white themes and weirdly familiar lyrics and all the diversity in there to notice anything off with Jack.

He's a white guy in a predominantly black space who is not only aware of this but is also less misogynoire-cist than a lot of these gay hating black rappers out here. I'll take Harlow over any day because I ain't tryna hear another homophobic rapper with internalized racism make caricature of black women and call it music.

Yall hate misogynists, I hate homophobic misogyny targeted at black queer women specifically even more and to me Jack is far from that. So may be there's a conflict of interest here somewhere caused by my intersecting identities.

And as a feminist I have a problem endorsing the slut shaming of men just as much as I disagree with the slut shaming of women.

How are we shaming this man over openly talking bout thoting.

And it's crazy cos we all be put here drooling over BTS openly talking bout wanting to be choked to death by these boys but God forbid a grown man says in his songs he is polyamorous.

Equality of genders means we can not slut shame men from expressing their sexual desires any more than we can slut shame women.

And 2023, monogamy isn't the only valid relationship model. Why does this feel like monogamy is the new heteronormativity?

And it's not as if he's glamorizing cheating on a partner, or drugs or gun violence.

I feel we've been fighting misogyny and objectification of women by men for so long we can't even tell what a healthy expression of male desire looks like.

I think Jack is so real for those lyrics. Some men and even women do like to fantasize about getting with different women. And having female attention really is form of validation for lots of men. For a lot of them it's deeply tied to their self worth.

Women will always be the object of desire for straight men. But that don't mean any time they talk about that subject that they are objectifying women. That's like saying men hurt women for pounding them at night- sex is not inherently oppressive. It's the lack of consent, and the treating women as if all we are good for is sex that makes it oppressive.

As long as he isn't berating women calling us slurs or promoting the objectification of women he and I are good.

From where I sit all I heard was a man discussing and bragging about his insatiable lust- for that I'll recommend he speaks to his therapist. Jesus can't help him.

He has an appetite. We shouldn't slut shame him for that. Misandry is not how we are going to fix misogyny.

If a girl sang the same lyrics we would be tweaking right about now.

Plus these lyrics are even pretty tame in comparison. Lmho. Jack has always been vulgar and explicit. Jack's personality to me is why I like him to be frank. He's pushed for visibility and acceptance of the gay community more than any non queer rapper you can think of.

As far as his talent as a rapper goes- I only care about his songs when he's featuring lil Nas X or Jungkook

I'm just gonna have to throw him back to yall

BUT PLEASE LEAVE 3D ALONE.

PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

[cassyapper]

Really love your answers so far especially regarding Jotaro (he's a sore loser & I love him for that. Can't comment on la squadra since I haven't fully read part 5 and not following part 5 fandom yet). And yeah, I love hajnarus' art but sometimes her self-indulgent art didn't sit right with the facts that canon gave to me. Today is hater day! 9, 12 and 14 please!

ask game

LMAOOO THANK YOU SO MUCH i wouldnt blame anyone at all for like, Not agreeing with my answers since well theyre subjective as hell, but im glad ppl see where im coming from thank u for hearing me out <3

ANYWAY as for ur questions <3:

9: worst part of canon

100 percent the misogyny like the handling of trish (doesnt get to participate in her own story re her own FATHER), holly (too woman to have a stand), anne (sexually assaulted by an APE* and exists to annoy the crusaders with being an unashamed young girl/crush on jotaro), lisa lisa (does not get to participate in her own fucking fight at fucking all), etc pisses me off SO FUCKING BAD. araki does get better as he goes like jolyne/hermes/foo were handled really well for the most part but like he still slips up majorly like some of those scenes with lucy steel like GOD DUDE. it pisses me off bad

12: the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

WILLIAM ZEPPELIIII please he's such a flop he's so funny and he's so important to jonathan. me when i accidentally sned forth a mask of vampirism into europe and decide to abandon my family to go train in tibet about it. the way he helps jonathan and is more of a father to her than george EVER was btw. oh it warms my heart. also the class commentary he accidentally adds re his interactions with speedwagon AUGHHH. attacks frogs as demonstration. wine bitch. i wish we got to see more of him he's so funny please guys

14: that one thing you see in fics all the time

I PREFACE THIS WITH THE FACT IT'S NOT A BAD THING AT ALL but i see a looot of kakyoin and jotaro going to the same school which i just think is funny. could you fucking imagine

[roxo-moxo]

TW: Vent/Rant

Really hot take but there are times I think the vivziepop antis are no better than the stans/fans.

I will say this now but I am no way a Viv stan. I think she is a really sketchy individual and I don't recommend anyone to start working for her if there starting to get into the animation industry. Not to mention I have very strong mixed feelings about her work, but anyways...

There are a lot of valid criticisms about vivzie's writing but the one that kind of annoys me is that people say it has "vulger humor" or "they swear too much". And they do trust me, but I noticed that a large handful of these anti's are fans of South Part, It's Always Sunny or basically any other adult show that has vulger humor or lots of swear words as the main point of jokes. I feel like some (keyword SOME) criticism on the shows feel rooted in misogyny and hypocrisy. Not saying anything when a man writes dark/vulger humor like this but everyone goes crazy when a woman (Vivzie in this case) writes the same thing. But it's not always like this. There are just some people who just don't like dark humor in general and critisize the show for that. Which I think is valid, humor is very subjective but here's the thing. Humor IS subjective! There are people (including myself) who enjoy black/dark comedy that involve vulger humor, but there are Anti's who think that it's just a plane fact that dark humor is the worst and anyone who thinks it isn't should be canceled off the face of the earth. Acting like there literally isn't a warning at the beginning of EVERY EPISODE explaining all the horrible unholy things there about to witness in this adult oriented show that is made for a specific audience who have a specific taste in comedy. Like I'm so sorry you opinion isn't gospel. Then there are viv antis who just hate on some fans just because they like the show. I seen a strong few HB fans who were doxxed, harassed, and sent death threats over the fact they posted something about there silly little demon show that they like. Like, isn't that what some Vivzie stans do to you guys that your so agenst, the guys you claim to be better than?

Ok one more thing before I go to bed I find it funny how viv anti's get so mad when stans stalk there accounts (which guys don't do that) but then proceed to stalk all of Viv's accounts and comment something negative about her every move she makes.

Sorry I just had to rant/vent for a bit. There may be things in here I may have interpreted or some people may see the wrong or negative way, and I'm sorry of you do. I'm just upset with drama and people getting hurt for seemingly harmless opinions.

[thegeminisage]

ok, it's star trek update time. tonight we watched ds9's "playing god" and tng's "eye of the beholder."

playing god (ds9):

i'm trying. SO SO SO HARD to get into dax and it's just not working

out of the 3 dax episodes we've had so far this one included two of them have been mid and one of them was just slightly better than average mostly for the questions it prompted in my mind palace, not necessarily the questions asked by the episode itself

in s1 dax had basically no personality, but in s2 when she does have a personality it seems to be a different one every time. like in one episode she was very prissy and in others she's just one of the guys! and then at other times she reverts to this very buttoned up bordering on bland science officer from s1 again

and then every once in awhile she'll be like oh yeah i LOVE sex i LOVE being a super hot woman who everyone wants to FUCK!!! i can get whatever i want with my SEX APPEAL even though my hair is WEIRDLY SHAPED. and look i am so happy for her and she should literally get some but it borders on the kind of misogyny that starts genuinely annoying me. it is kind of like that anime trope where the teen boy gets put into a body with tits and he can't stop messing with them. its like. idk reducing her to a body, or reducing her to jadzia's body, which dax is taking for a ride to feel hot and fuckable?? it's very blurry what's jadzia and what's dax

WHICH is the most fascinating part of dax, which is where the trill ends and the symbiant or however you spell it begins, but we don't get into that quite as much as i'd like

anyway i guess a shifting personality is a natural result of living 7 lifetimes but it doesnt FEEL like thats why theyre doing it, it FEELS like they just cant seem to keep her consistent

that said. while i did not like this episode or this little guy dax was showing around i DID like the implication that curzon was actually a huge fucking asshole. i love that he can be loved by many people but was still an asshole. it's complex. and now one of the people he abused (?) or at least was an asshole to is now. his successor. IT'S COMPLEX!!! what are he and jadzia to each other...imagine meeting curzon dax and then just becoming him. that's wild. so, points for that! genuinely. it just feels like the trill thing is fascinating because of trills and not because of jadzia dax in particular. i'm gonna keep trying to like her. maybe once she starts banging worf things will be different

eye of the beholder (tng):

ohhhh i hated this one so much (suicide cw for this one lol)

firstly, i don't trust tng to handle the subject of suicide any more than i trust them to handle multiple personalities, but they tried to very special episode it anyway. all of them were so shocked at the very THOUGHT of it i guess because they eliminated all mental illness in tos?? but it was so funny in the rage-inducing way like "maybe he needed to think of the obstacles in his life as challenges to overcome!" come on.

also lmao picard like ive never had to report a suicide before...........girl you have literally told 2 people to kill themselves

and then they dropped the very special episode plot halfway through for this psychic mystery...

here's the thing. if everyone had been searching for a REASON someone who seemed to be perfectly happy would do this, and in the end the answer was just "nothing was going on, he was just hiding a lot of pain, even if we don't want to believe that" that would have been a STELLAR gutpunch. but there literally was foul play involved

AND NOT ONLY THAT! BUT THEY FAKED ME OUT WITH WORF E DEANNA

my ONLY consolation was that they were finally kissing and then later fucking but NO!!!! all a dream

i was already conflicted because deanna e worf means a temporary breakup from deanna e riker but i wanted it anyway and i was so happy when they gave it to me and then they KILLED IT? maybe the actors hated it because it fucking sucked

like, no wonder everybody let deanna walk around unsupervised when there was a high suicide danger. she was dreaming. no one in real life would ever allow this

i wish also that creepy men would stop coming to deanna's quarters to be creepy to her

final note: was told the creepy man was in spn. clocked him as alistair almost immediately. faceblind WHO

TOMORROW: ds9's "prophet and loss" and tng's "genesis" (dread).

[showakyonen]

MY BFS POST FINALLY GAVE ME THE MOTIVATION TO WRITE UP SOMETHING ABOUT MODERN INTERNET SEXYMEN BECAUSE IT’S HONESTLY A REALLY WEIRD PHENOMENON THAT NOT ONLY PISSES ME OFF AT TIMES, BUT JUST KINDA INTERESTS ME IN GENERAL. IN A WEIRD WAY.

THERE’S A CERTAIN GENRE OF MALE CHARACTERS THAT, WHENEVER THEY GATHER ANY SORT OF ATTENTION IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM, SEEM TO ALWAYS EVENTUALLY GO THROUGH THE FOLLOWING:

1. BLOW THE FUCK UP ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND HAVE LEAGUES OF PEOPLE THIRSTING FOR THEM

2. THIRSTING BECOMES SO COMMON THAT IT OVER-SATURATES EVERY BIT AND PIECE OF CONTENT FOR THAT CHARACTER, INCLUDING THE WAY THE FANDOM PERCEIVES THEM IN GENERAL

3. CHARACTER IS REDUCED TO NOTHING BUT A ‘HOT FLIRTY DOM DADDY’, DESPITE HOWEVER THEY MAY BE PORTRAYED IN CANON. MOST OF THE TIME, CHARACTER EXHIBITS SYMPTOMS OF MENTAL ILLNESS AND/OR DISABILITY, OR A DEEPER CHARACTER ARC IN GENERAL. I THINK THIS MANAGES TO SALT THE WOUND EVEN FURTHER

(IF THE MEDIA IS UNFINISHED) 4. CHARACTER EVENTUALLY HAS MORE CONTENT RELEASE, AND ONE OF THE FOLLOWING HAPPENS:

A. IT ISN’T WHAT IS EXPECTED AT ALL. UNSURPRISINGLY, CHARACTER DOESN’T BEHAVE LIKE A SUPER SUAVE, CHARMING, HOT, TONGUE-WAGGLING FREAKAZOID WHO WANTS TO BED EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. INSTEAD, THEY BEHAVE IN A WAY THAT’S AN EXTENSION OF THEIR PERSONALITY IN PRIOR APPEARANCES.

B. NEW CONTENT OF CHARACTER IS MINOR OR EASILY MISINTERPRETED, AND THEY BLOW THE ABSOLUTE HECK UP ALL OVER AGAIN. CYCLE STARTS AT 1 AGAIN BUT ITS LIKE 3 TIMES WORSE

IT’S SOMETHING THAT I HAVE SEEN HAPPEN SO. MANY. TIMES. IN SO MANY COMMUNITIES AND FANDOMS. JUST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD I CAN LIST JAX, CAINE, MILKMAN (TNMN), AND PERHAPS MOST NOTABLY: WALLY DARLING.

WALLY’S TREATMENT WAS AWFUL. I DIDN’T EVER CONSIDER MYSELF A FAN OF WELCOME HOME, BUT I SURE AS HELL WAS WITNESS TO THE ABSOLUTE ABOMINATION THE FANDOM SURROUNDING HIS CHARACTER BECAME. TO SEE A CHARACTER THAT WAS VERY CLEARLY INTENDED TO BE AUTISTIC, OR AT LEAST AUTISTIC CODED, HAVE ALL OF THOSE TRAITS COMPLETELY STRIPPED FROM HIM IN FAVOR OF TURNING HIM INTO SOMETHING “SEXIER” AND EVEN PUTTING DISGUSTING CRIMINAL LABELS ONTO HIM AT TIMES WAS JUST AWFUL !!! JESUS !!!

AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO CALL THIS. BECAUSE IT ISN’T TUMBLR SEXYMANNING, AT LEAST NOT TO ME. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT LARGELY HAPPENS ON SITES LIKE TIKTOK, WHICH I DON’T EVEN PERSONALLY USE ANYMORE. IT’S A REALLY ODDLY COMPLEX THING THAT SEEMS TO ONLY HAPPEN TO MASC CHARACTERS, PROBABLY BECAUSE FEM CHARACTERS ARE EITHER SEXUALIZED THOROUGHLY WITHOUT ANY CATCHES OR JUST OSTRACIZED ENTIRELY BY LARGER FANDOM. SOMETIMES BOTH. MISOGYNY IS GREAT (READ HEAVY SARCASM)

PART OF THE REASON WHY THIS THOUGHT BOUNCES AROUND IN MY HEAD SO OFTEN IS BECAUSE I CAN SEE THIS KIND OF THING BUDDING WITH MY FAVORITE CHARACTER EVER, DARLY BOXMAN. IT’S MOST DEFINITELY HAPPENING TO HIM, JUST MORE ‘QUIETLY’ BECAUSE PINK CITY HASN’T REALLY HAD AN OPPORTUNITY TO BOOM. I’M UNIRONICALLY THANKFUL FOR THIS. AND, GODDD, IT MAKES ME ANGRY. SO MUCH SO.

AND, AT THE END OF THE DAY, MAYBE THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS. CHARACTERS ARE SUBJECTIVE. HOWEVER… IF YOUR INTERPRETATION OF A CHARACTER THAT CLEARLY EXHIBITS TRAITS OF MENTAL ILLNESS, A CHARACTER THAT HAS A VERY EXTENSIVE AND ALMOST RELATABLE STORY ARC, OR A CHARACTER THAT IS LITERALLY JUST SOME GUY… IS SOME SUPER HOT AND CHARMING GENERIC NORMATIVE HUNK… I THINK I AM ALSO FREE TO THINK YOUR INTERPRETATION OF THAT CHARACTER IS DUMB AND SHOULDN’T BE INCLUDED IN NUANCED CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE MEDIA!

BUT IUNNO. SHRUGS

I’M OMITTING PART OF THIS BECAUSE IT’S MORE PERSONAL AND NOT DIRECTLY RELATED AND I JUST WANNA YAP. YOU CAN FIND THE “DIRECTORS CUT” ON MY WEBSITE WRITINGS OR WHYV, WHENEVER I PUT IT UP.

[gloriaris]

okay so i know I'm some random. guy. on the Internet but my stupid brain finds all of my opinions important enough to post on aforementioned internet so I wanted to weigh in on hbomberguy new video because it's really fucking funny. here are some disorganized thoughts.

first off, hi. I'm Shroomi, I'm 16, and I'm a video essayist. i was inspired to pivot to video essays around a year ago by (originally) illuminaughtii, Harris Boober the Guy, and mainly Philosophy Tube. video essays are some of my favorite things, and I watch a lot of them.

im homeschooled, so I end up spending most of my time on YouTube. when you watch as much as I do, it's normally really easy to tell when someone does not care about what they are doing. i inevitably discovered James Somerton around a year ago through his Killing Stalking video, and it became very apparent to me that he was using a genuine crisis of media literacy to push a misogynistic agenda. that's all I remember from that video (and I'm not rewatching it)-- he made no good points, no clippable quotes, just... really hated teenage girls? for some reason?

this is a common thread in specifically white queer media, to direct an unreasonable amount of hate towards straight women, or those we perceive as such (the author of Love, Simon is a good example of his contempt). it's rooted in misogyny, as is everything. this is a common thread in Somerton's videos, it seems. I'll admit my knowledge of his videos is meager at best, but I have watched enough of his content to tell he is stuck in this phase of the white queer journey. he still has many internal (though he externalizes them quite a bit) biases to work through before he can even be a good video essayist. good media is unbiased media, and he has a clear bias. bro hates women. well, that may be an overstatement, but he seems to have this contempt and disregard for women and their ideas.

I'm not going to pretend the Killing, Stalking video and his contempt for the fanbase wasn't at least a little deserved. for those who aren't fatally online, Killing, Stalking is a gruesome account of a (fictional) abusive relationship. the fanbase, however, treated it as a love story. since Somerton's video on the subject came out, the fanbase has largely died down, which is honestly a good thing, but the amount of hatred Somerton seemed to have for these teenage girls who failed to understand the true meaning of Killing, Stalking was unprecedented. I found it odd to look at his subscriber count and find it over 100k; why would such a large YouTuber cover something so niche? but it is clear now to me that he was trying to push this gentle version of misogyny.

this isn't even mentioning the true subject of hbomberguy's video, plagiarism. as a previously dedicated Illuminaughtii fan, i should be talking about that. but I'm stuck on the contempt for women.

I'm probably gonna rewatch the video and reblog an addition after I sleep I've been awake for like 20 hours so apologies if this is poorly worded

[utilitycaster]

Hi I just wanted to say thank you for putting everything that frustrates me about the fandom’s interpretation of Imogen and Laudna into words. I’ve made a few posts about Imogen’s flaws and how easily she seems to switch loyalties and I’ve been met with so many people telling me I’m not watching the show right or how Imogen isn’t to blame because she’s being controlled by the moon and it’s exhausting. I’ve been wanting to make a post about it but I didn’t know how to phrase it and you articulated pretty everything I’ve been thinking. I’m also planning on writing about the weird misandry in the fandom and how a lot of people don’t like male or male presenting characters if they can’t them their uwu sad white boy of the month and am really interested if you have any thoughts on that. I really hope people aren’t assholes to you about that post❤️ -brjeauregard

Hey! Thank you so much! I'm assuming you're ok going by your handle here since it was a voluntary add to an anon but if you want me to delete this for whatever reason feel free to message me and I will.

Yeah...I'd agree that it's really tiresome how if you actually want to engage with Imogen as an entire character with motivations and flaws, there's this immediate freakout. It's obnoxious that people seem to think all her impatience, grudges, and little snipes and unkindnesses must come from some other source (the gnarlrock, Ruidus); it can't be her cynicism or being cranky due to exhaustion from holding up her psychic barriers; that only makes her more nurturing and empathetic, apparently). Like, there's all these accusations that people have no empathy for Imogen, coming from people who openly would happily throw every other character (sometimes even including Laudna) from the skyship for the crime of having individual motivations different from Imogen's goals, and I'm very over it.

I would love to see more posts about the misandry, tbh. It's a really tricky subject because like...look, in the real world, misogyny is a load-bearing pillar of oppression not just of women, but one of the core underpinnings of homophobia, transphobia, and toxic masculinity as well. What people call misandry irl is, much of the time, either hatred directed on an individual level rather than a systemic one or is actually oppression of men under a different system (eg, transphobia towards trans or gnc men; racism towards men of color, etc). But in fandom, especially on Tumblr which is overwhelmingly female and/or queer, there is this weird hatred towards men (or, as we've seen a bunch with Ashton, masc-leaning nb people) in fiction for no reason other than they are not women. I'm not linking them here so as to not invite weird shit to the doors of my mutuals but I can think of two very good recent posts that touch on this subject, one from a month or so ago about the fandom tendency to reshape characters in their own (often white middle-class queer) image instead of trying to relate to someone not like you; and one from yesterday that does address fandom misandry directly.

It is interesting because it feels like half of the hatred or weird fanon towards male characters comes from a "well I can't make him into a palatable white sadboy" (trying to turn Orym into The Most Tragic when he is just a guy; ignoring Chetney, Fjord, or Scanlan because they don't fit that mold neatly); and the other half comes from hating the character because he can conceivably be treated as a white sadboy even though he's got much more going on (Vax, Percy, Caleb, sometimes Caduceus). Like, there is really no winning. To be fair, there's also no winning for female characters among people with that mindset (see: the entire post that prompted this, in which they must be Good Examples Of Sweet Unproblematic Women who Chastely Kiss, Pinterest Style) or nb characters (will be misgendered in an instant if they do not support the narrative of the fave or interfere with preferred ships).

I think, generally, once people start judging a fictional character, who lives in a gender-equal world with no transphobia, primarily on the basis of gender, it just turns into a slippery slope of kind of hating every character. I do want to see interesting women in fiction! Part of why I watch actual play is because it is a still relatively rare case where many of the originators of these characters are women who are granted nigh-total creative control over their characters! But I'm not going to write off a character with a personality that speaks to me simply because our genders don't match; that's not interesting to me and it feels far too close to gender essentialism for my comfort. And if you do for whatever reason want to watch actual play that only has female PCs, that is your choice to make...but you then need to find that show instead of being mad that there are men on the show with five men and three women in the main cast.

[thestarlightforge]

Some thoughts on hope, honesty and storytelling from a director’s POV.

I’ve tried to articulate what frustrated me about Multiverse of Madness many times, and they’ve all delved into some combination of A) breaking down the misogynistic, reductive, antisemitic tropes it employed; B) delving into comic book and MCU lore that illustrates why it’s mostly nonsense; and C) character analysis.

But I was thinking about it again today, this time in the context of my aesthetic as a director and writer.

This week, I’ve been at the Kennedy Center’s Director’s Intensive, an amazing annual event that unites early-career directors in community with professionals in theatre. Guests range from pros in dramaturgy, intimacy choreography, stage design, directing, performance, and more.

In several exercises, I’ve refined my thinking on the roles hope and hard truth play in my storytelling. I love hope. It’s my bread and butter. But I hate it when I feel it’s been delivered cheaply—without digging into the realities of how horrible the world can be. Just doesn’t feel earned.

This is why I struggle with the original Little Mermaid cartoon. To me, in addition to its notes on misogyny, consent, class struggle and female power, it’s so clearly a disability story. In Ariel’s most famous ballad, she croons her belief that to be a part of the world she loves—to dance, discover and be free—she has to be able to walk and run. Then, she enters “man’s world” with fully-functioning legs—you can’t CONVINCE me Ursula would’ve given her those. To add ANOTHER layer, when she discovers she’s mute, it’s taken as fact that means she can’t communicate. As if sign language completely doesn’t exist—and again, you can’t CONVINCE me that Ariel, intrepid scholar of all things human, “didn’t know” about sign language. But the story gets resolved with little change to her views: She gets the man (she barely knows), her voice (she doesn’t need), sexy legs (for fitting in) and the world (which looks much like her greatest idealization).

The world doesn’t change. It doesn’t let her down. She’s magically “cured.” She has to change. So to me, her “happy ending” felt hollow and mostly devoid of truth.

Thus bringing me back to Multiverse of Madness and WandaVision.

A lot of fans argued Wanda doesn’t face enough accountability in WandaVision. I feel that ignores the show’s symbolism as a grief epic, abstractions of Wanda’s compounded trauma, and her mental state/ability to even be held accountable in that situation. But in a literal reading, to some extent, I agree. In MoM, people had similar (even less ambiguous) concerns... Most of which I have no desire to delve into again here.

The important aspect, though, is hope. In WandaVision, the subject matter was a series of hard truths and revelations—death after death, unconscionable loss. But it doesn’t read like a funeral. It reads like a celebration of life. And the central dramatic argument of Wanda’s story, to me, is that no matter how utterly broken or lost you are, you can still be a good person—even a hero—if you keep trying and lead with your heart.

So many people hung their hope on Wanda. Queer people, young people, women, outcasts, people who struggle with their own experiences of mental illness and loss. I believe that as artists, we are responsible to the work, our collaborators, our communities, ourselves and the audience—but when we offer hope, we take on an extra responsibility to the audience/the world.

People are going to feel however they feel; it isn’t up to us to fully mitigate that, nor can we. But we ask audiences to be vulnerable—to get invested in our stories and, for however long, trust us with their hearts—and as long as we stay truthful while doing it, it’s the right thing to do not to crush them.

To quote Silver Linings Playbook:

“The world's hard enough as it is, guys. It’s fucking hard enough as it is.”

Wanda’s story in Multiverse of Madness ended with her partial redemption and sacrifice—that’s how Stephen and 838-Christine frame it, for the brief time they talk about it. With the knowledge that she destroyed the Darkhold, an ancient evil, and broke its hold on her with the power of her compassion.

But you know what it also was? A suicide attempt. (One that, if that red flash was her magic saving her, she was lucky to survive.) She is a character known for mental illness, both in the MCU and in her decades-long history in comics. And—whoever you decide is responsible, be it Raimi, Waldron, Feige, other heads at Disney, or some combination—MoM decided that the answer to her story should be suicide. Worse, they’re presently unwilling to classify/discuss it as such.

So any hope we get from her “sacrifice,” her partial redemption, the red flash after—it rings hollow. Because it fails to acknowledge the hard truth.

[dr-lizortecho]

Thanks for the tag @crepuscularqueens! This was a whole lot of fun (I might love talking about writing- but reading is so much more fun to discuss)

Rules: generate ten tags (here) and rate them according to how likely you are to read them

-10 -> very dissuaded

0 - don’t care either way

+10 -> very enticed

nope -> if it’s a hard no and you’d never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you’d insta click out of the fic if it wasn’t tagged

1) Vaginal Sex: +10, if I’m looking at something with explicit sexual content there’s nothin not to like about this particular tag, though ngl it tells me almost nothing about the content itself

2) Robots: -8, unless robots are like super crucial imma not walk through the door- cause they’re just not my thing

3) Overstimulation: +10, it’s sexy and that’s all

4) Banishment: +5, as long as it’s got a happy ending for the character(s). Cause thematically it’s so much fun- like where do they go when they’re removed from home? Who do they go to? Who do they become untethered by duty and loyalty and obligation???

5) Bittersweet Ending: -10, my friends would have to have wrote it, I’m a hardcore happy ending girlie

6) Royalty: 0, depends on the story focus/set-up

7) Pegging: +5, soooo this is difficult cause sexy wise it’s very high, except if it’s m/f there’s a good chance some sort of misogyny or misandry at play

8) Exhaustion: 0, idk truly, my brain would just skip over it probably

9) (Character) is an Idiot: +10, so long as said character fits that within canon, like truly this describes one part of my of my ships

10) Implied/Referenced Child Abuse: 0, okay, so I’m very very particular and sensitive about this topic, and fan fic is so bad about it tbh, everyone was beat by their dad and emotionally tortured when it comes to fanon and even more so if they actually suffered abuse in canon. So I’m kinda weary about anything tagged as such even though I find it an important conversation to be broached by fiction. All in all it depends on the amount of nuance by the writer, if they even subconsciously try to apply levels to abuse and attempt to create apologies and excuses for anything not physical, the writers overall understanding of the affects of said abuse on the psyche and that it’s not just 🥺 “I have trust/daddy issues, fix me” 🥺 because time in and time out that is the narrative, that abuse doesn’t wire a child’s brain- that they’ll just get fucked perfect by some guy™️ and their trauma responses (which they’ve usually depicted as evil and gross) will just melt away, and then there’s the whole ptsd cropping up during bdsm but that really like makes me want claw my eyes out (sorry- I have FEELINGS about this subject as it pertains to fanfic/fandom)

No pressure tags @shipperqueen6 @13shadesofanni @ajna-eye-cogitations and anyone who wants to!!!

[philomaela]

3, 8, and 25 for the choose violence ask game!

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

I mean obviously there are a lot of Vikings ones that I disagree with... that's boring (also I fought those fights in real time and now I'm over it lol). I'm gonna commit to choosing violence and pick the last jedi.

The take on Rose as being someone who abused Finn and was a terrible person the film was trying to "pretend" was a good person. It was essentially this long post about how Rose's initial introduction marked her as a terrible person who abused Finn and the end of the film was terrible for shipping Finn with his abuser. It's one I hated very much and its one I dislike all the more because I do agree with some of the points made even as I really disagree with the conclusion (and one glaring implication that we will get to).

Because here's the thing, even as a TLJ fan I agree with a lot of the criticism TLJ gets, including and actually especially about Finn's arc within that film. I like the overall idea and some beats, but I think that there was a lot that the film missed out on by having Rose operate as "teacher" rather than having them both share their experiences and allowing Finn to come to his realizations a little differently. And I would go further because I could choose violence on this subject too but actually let me get back to the topic at hand...

Back to the terrible Rose takes, I think the reason it galled me so much is because while people were very correctly discussing the issues surrounding Disney's racism and the films treatment of Finn (and John Boyega).... at the same time their arguments about Rose often had... implications that I found very uncomfortable.

Because the thing is... Rose's intro... that people found abusive... it's a parallel to Rey's first meeting with Finn. This woman sees him, makes an incorrect (but reasonable) assumption based on the info she has on hand that this guy needs to be taken down, and takes him down. Then, after he explains, she realizes what is actually going on, helps him, and then they work together. Rey is violent towards Finn in her first meeting with him too. But with her it's a cute rom-com right, with her it's a sign of how much she's fiery? Like I think people fully had a blindspot to the disparity of their treatment of Rey vs Rose.

And part of the reason I think it's so bad is because it didn't have to be like this! I think you absolutely can critique the films and Rey and Rose as characters... you can very easily criticize the decision to treat Finn like this. So it's disappointing to me I guess, that people chose to, at the same time, kind of join in on the racist pile-on that Rose (and KMT) was getting. Like she was getting it from all corners of the internet... but what else is new for actors of color I guess.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

Switching gears and moving to a fandom nobody but me cares about: Psych. I cannot believe Shawn x Gus (Shus) is not more popular than Shawn x Lassiter. I mean, I can believe it because people are often wrong. But come on! Shawn and Gus would DIE for each other, Gus claims Shawn on his taxes, Shawn and Gus practically have a secret language! They literally joined a dating show for a case and the girl revealed that she couldn't really separate them because they were so close. I mean, keep in mind they are Holmes and Watson... and yet people basically ignored them.

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

I'm gonna be honest, my thing here... it's pretty much for fandoms that I am not a part of.... Basically when like hugely popular tv shows are popular on tumblr and people are complaining about fandom trends (everybody likes X, Y is so prevalent, everyone ignores this ship). I want to be clear, I think you should always criticize things like racism, homophobia, misogyny, ableism... those things will run rampant in a lot of fandoms, because they run rampant in society at large, those aren't trends, they're not what I'm talking about. But like if your fandom is big enough that you can create an entire subculture around character B even though character A is more popular in the "main stream", I think you shouldn't take that for granted. Your sub culture has sub cultures, that's not nothing, a lot of fandoms aren't that big and can't sustain that. Lol, this might be me being upset and petty, I feel like none of my fandoms are big enough to even get to that point. No sub-sub culture for me!