#less transphobia and more lack of respect

[mimikyu-chr]

if your respect for trans people ends at the ones you deem unfuckable, you only respect trans people when they’re attractive, or you harass or assault trans people you want to fuck, YOU DONT RESPECT TRANS PEOPLE

and also i don’t think any trans people you treat like that want to fuck you <3

[handweavers]

when it comes to my safety i think the greatest blessing for me is that my family in malaysia has embraced me without hesitation, including distant relatives who immediately switched to referring to me as my father's son rather than his daughter and treat me with respect and dignity. my close family are loving and protective of me, i am openly myself around them and they have explicitly told me that they love me more for it. earlier this year i met a cousin's wife for the first time since i was a baby and she took a long look at me and smiled wide and said "oh my god, what a miracle" and hugged me so tightly and warmly and i keep thinking about that over and over. and i think about how much safety comes from your immediate surroundings, the people closest to you, the firm knowledge that there are people in your life who would protect you from harm, and how much of a determining factor that is in the lives of trans people regardless of what country we live in.

aside from my mom, my white family in canada is not accepting of me - not just as a trans person but as a brown person as well, i've faced racism from them my entire life, not even getting into the transphobia on top of it. i'm not in contact with the majority of that side of my family for those reasons, and the alienation i feel as a result of that is difficult to swallow. even if there are more protections for trans people in the law here, i do not necessarily feel more loved or safe here due to that alienation. and i think about how for so many trans people, (a lack of) familial acceptance is one of the greatest barriers to safety and survival in a very immediate sense. how even if the world can be a scary and cruel place, if we are loved and protected by those around us - whoever we call family - it can make a massive difference. and when i think about moving back home and losing some of the protections i have here, i feel less afraid knowing that even my 2nd cousin's wife is on my side and wants to help me... every trans person deserves to feel that kind of safety. every trans person is owed that kind of safety.

[crooked-wasteland]

This is what happens when all criticism is bad faith.

You have a bad show that no one sticks around for. Something tells me she really thought Fizzarolli was going to bring people back. And the thing is, I legitimately think it did. But you have just pushed so many of your most loyal fans away, and a lot of them feel that the story they wanted to know is already finished. They know what happened with Fizzarolli and Blitz's family. They can tell whatever story they want now, and it'll make them far less frustrated or disappointed than waiting for you to stop plugging your ears.

If you would rather spend money for something like this, you could save so much more by just reaching out to your critics and actually listening. Then again, there is the possibility that you've just isolated people too far from you to give you a second chance even if you did. You don't handle yourself maturely on Twitter any more than you did here, and the Lackadaisy situation was the last straw for a lot of people to drop you and your show. All because you had to be petty and post the email online and encourage the harassment.

Bad faith would be conflating the fact you would pay for a puff article with questioning if you were involved with the news articles covering the Lackadaisy team and associating the studio and the show with "transphobia". I don't think anyone can truly claim that they know for sure, but this proves Medrano and her team are willing to mobilize outside media to try and prop themselves up.

Youtube videos make the most views in the first 3 days of a video's life. We are hitting that 3 day mark, meaning she is going to see a sharp decline in views from here on out. I think this video may reach about 12-15 million, but that's admittedly being generous and Medrano knows this.

I genuinely do think she thought more people would come back for this story than who actually did. It's not something I am necessarily happy in either. I thought and still think there are some really good ideas and inspiration for this show. But Medrano lacks the eye of a showrunner. If she had a better grasp on what it took to make a successful series, she would have known and budgeted for season 2 to be all about the Fizzarolli and Blitz relationship with Stolas and Blitz being the B plot and have IMP being the C plot. Have it run through the entire season to really immerse the audience and tell her story well. And I think that could have happened if she had only listened to criticism.

This is where she has found herself, however. Spending more money promoting her underperforming series instead of using those funds to make a good show. If she hired a writer's room instead of a press release, I think we would all be much happier.

I'm sorry, but I lose all respect for a show when the creator is paying money for a promotion piece because their views aren't maintaining like they thought they would, due to their own mismanagement of funds and public relations.

[kid-az]

All Tomorrows: Vanga-Vangog’s Grazer Hc’s

As the fanmade descendants of the Titan’s from the original novel, Vangog’s fanmade Grazer’s are, in a way, their antithesis. While the Titan’s are the largest of the posthumans and are likely to have been gentle giants, the Grazer’s are much, much smaller, (Merely the size of a buffalo) and far more aggressive to compensate for this lack of size. (Basically chihuahua syndrome on Satyriac crack) As a people, the Grazer’s are very hierarchical and herd-like in structure, with governments almost exclusively consisting of absolute monarchies and dictatorships, and only a few dominant men having acccess over the woman.

As people, they do not sound pleasant in a first point of view, but the same could be said of the Killer Folk, Asymmetric People, and even the ever selfless and kindhearted Modular’s, atleast in terms of appearance. Although their culture is incredibly regressive and violent, Grazer’s we’re still individuals with their own thoughts, goals, family and friends, just like us, their ancestors.

TW for transphobia in HC 5. If there is any issues you have with the Hc’s I made up, please tell me.

-Inspite of their herbivorous nature, Grazer’s did have domesticated animals. One of these animals were the non-sapient descendants of Titan’s, smaller than the sapient wooly ones but still absolutely huge! (Twice as large as the Paraceratherium.) They were often used as very powerful draft animals, capable of moving dozen of tonnes of ore, wood, and people.

-Although having evolved from grass eaters, the Grazer’s throughout their history only ate wild grass out of necessity during times of war and starvation. In more peaceful and plentiful times, their food often consisted of root vegetables similar to radishes and pumpkins, tree nuts, and heavy starches like domesticated wheat and tubers. Often, the crops they grow were selected to grow extremely large. (Their wheat-based crops were 4 meters in height and their potatoes were around more than 2 meters in diameter) The Grazer’s posthuman cousins often joked about how “Everything’s bigger in the Grazer’s homeworld except for the Grazer’s themselves!”

-Their societal hierarchy was historically divided into several sections. At the bottom were the non-dominant males, who were meant to respect and follow the leads of the much more dominant men at top, and the woman in the middle of the hierarchy. “Third gender” or nonbinary people were often a priestly or the advisor caste in societies that recognized them as an official gender. Nonbinary people were the only ones allowed to transition for much of their history, with both biological sexes being allowed to transition.

-Their modern society was a little less strict in the overall herd hierarchy, with less dominant men, woman, and nonbinary folk being allowed a leadership position if they were to prove themselves worthy. (They did this via very, very difficult competitions involving both strength and intellect.) Dominant caste members could also be demoted if they were considered incompetent or a threat to the overall herd.

-Children however are mostly raised by the female caste communally, and these children were not called a specific gender during their childhood. What caste they go to when they grow up is determined by their skills and gender identity. See Hc number 3.

-Even today, their societies do not have any respect for trans people who aren’t nonbinary. Historically, these two groups would be brutally killed for existing, and even today they are ostracized and kept out of most positions in society, comparable to India’s Dalit or Untouchables. Thankfully, there are organizations and groups, (Both of their people and other posthumans) who have come to their support, providing safe housing and food for these ostracized people, some of whom have even been protesting or aiming to get on top of the hierarchy to stop this discrimination.

-Grazer’s of each caste did a lot of stuff communally due to their herd behaviors, from watching movies, to eating, bathing, and even sleeping in the same living spaces with one another. This was not exclusive to the non-dominant male caste either, as all of the castes did stuff in a communal manner. Indeed, most Grazer’s are often very happy and willing to share their food or whatever item they have on them to another person. Indeed, the concept of “private, personal property” does not exist in their culture, as even the dominant caste will share ideas and spaces with eachother.

-This also meant the Grazer’s never developed an actual currency system or system of capital, with all castes existing (In theory) to support the overall herd. Grazer’s were also surprisingly open-minded on disabled people due to this herd lifestyle, with them making sure to provide support and accommodation’s for these individuals.

-As for entertainment, people of all castes enjoy plays and theatre together, often joining in to support their friends and loved ones. They also enjoyed mass feasts, sports, concerts, and the occasional swimming/mud bathes to keep their skin clean and parasite-free.

[scrambleseggy]

I do think the formation of the word transandrophobia is flawed in some ways because I think it tends to have a focus more on the “men” part and less the “becoming a man when society sees you as a woman” part.

And while I agree that simply could be named transphobia, I do think there are difficult parts of the experience that are hard to name and how the idea of becoming a trans man specifically can be daunting in the medical difficulties, psychological difficulties, societal expectations, othering from other queer people, etc. So on one hand, I do think trans men deserve more words and ways to express the difficulties of their experience but I also don’t like some of the takes I see that do border on the “men have problems too!!” Shit because yeah… No duh, but unfortunately those problems are still all a result from the patriarchy and not just various flavors of feminism that make you grind your teeth. Trans men are capable of transmisogyny because so are cis people and those who benefit from the patriarchy on a surface level.

I’m probably going to be doing a late transition in my life and it’s really scary and I will admit that the online-sphere has been FAR from helpful in this regard and has only ever held me back and made me feel like it wouldn’t be worth it and that I’d be unloved. I do think there is some weight to that discussion and the ways in which I feel I’d be making myself “uglier” and “becoming a patriarchy monster” by transitioning despite potentially feeling confidence for the first time in my life. I do think it’s okay to have words for this beyond just transphobia, but it is really tricky and I feel people overall are pretty damn touchy when it comes to this topic so it’s hard to come to any solid conclusions on it. How do you contend with wanting to be a man but also having been hurt by men and why is it so hard to talk about?

I also don’t doubt that if a trans man has been “passing” for a while that the conversation is one big eyeroll for you, sure. You have seen the ways in which society started to treat you as more capable simply due to your appearance, sure. I get this. But transition is kinda different for everyone, is it not? Not all of us are as confident in our decisions and have had to push through some relationships and mental battles to come to the conclusion that we want to transition. It’s been so hard for me to find support in this regard. I’m almost 30 and thinking about transition now.

It kinda feels like you’re not allowed to be happy with any “middle space” in becoming a man. You either are or you aren’t and you don’t deserve respect for your identity unless you go the full mile. If your pre-transition, this is daunting, is it not??

And if you’ve lived your life a certain way for so long, unhappy or not, I don’t think it’s unusual to say that there’s a lack of support for that due to the preconceived notion that men, and next to that then, trans men, don’t deserve to have those sort of vulnerabilities or support. Anyway, just my thought and two cents on this based on my own dysphoric phase right now lol.

[self-loving-vampire]

I mostly agree with the post defending unrealistic fantasy porn, but I do feel that it’s worth mentioning that some of the backlash is probably due to those dudebros who get mad when real life women don’t match up to what they expect from porn 

and there’s probably equivalent people of other genders ( I don’t believe in that radfem nonsense of maleness or masculinity making people evil) but it’s usually dudebros I hear about pulling this nonsense 

like that guy who got mad and whined about a woman in a video game having body hair and stuff 

Obviously I don’t think that means unrealistic fantasies are inherently bad, most of, if not all, of my sexual fantasies are unrealistic in some way, and  I think there’s better ways to deal with dudebros than bashing unrealistic fantasies, and I don’t think it’s fair to blame it on unrealistic fantasy porn, plenty of people regardless of gender can engage with porn like that and still be respectful towards real people, but I suspect concerns about people like those dudebros motivate much of these compliants about unrealistic fantasies, I don’t think it’s just vanilla people being normies, it’s an attempt at doing something about the kind of guy who gets mad about fictional women having body hair

Obviously, getting mad at fantasy porn doesn’t actually help stop dudebros and adjacent people from getting mad about anything that doesn’t suit their tastes, instead, sex ed,  discussions of body positivity misogyny, etc are more conductive to actually reducing the harm caused by the kind of people that get mad about fictional women having body hair, but I feel like ignoring that some of these complaints probably come from concerns about people like that isn’t helpful since it doesn’t address their underlying concerns 

or maybe I’m giving the normies to much credit and they really are just mad about people having fantasies they don’t like who knows 

The issue with those expectations feels like it's less a matter of having unrealistic fantasies and more about lacking enough familiarity with actual people to even know if their preferences are common outside of those fantasies to begin with. Kind of like how a lot of people don't seem to know what a normal penis size actually is.

That, and there's a type of person who seems to get sincerely offended when people don't look appealing to them specifically.

Ignorance about what people and sex acts are realistically like is an entirely different thing from knowing those things and just deliberately going for something more idealized in fantasies/fiction.

Also, I think a big part of why conservative types are extra sensitive about this kind of thing lately is due to transphobia.

They have been heavily propagandized to be on the lookout for anything that might even slightly transgress exaggerated gender roles (like body hair on a woman) and see it as some kind of plot or culture war attack.

It's not just that they're not attracted to that personally, but that they think displaying gender non-conformity is a show of allegiance to their enemy (if you recall the post you're probably referring to, you may remember it had a very accusatory tone).

It's not just typical religious conservatives doing this either. Big name radfem darlings have been crying and rending their garments about these things.

Transphobia unsurprisingly leads to more extreme gender policing.

[colorisbyshe]

Feel very weird by people framing the fundamentalist right's attack on “sexless marriage” as an ~attack on asexuals~ to prove ~ace oppression when it’s... very clearly not?

Because it’s part of the same group that is trying to ban LGBT marriage (and therefore DOES NOT want sex filed gay marriage or sex filled marriage between cis men/women with trans women/men respectively). The same group that tries to limit the rights of disabled people so that they cannot marry (or they have more limited rights upon marriage), making it clear that they do not want disabled people to be having sex filled marriages.

The fundamentalist groups releasing this decree against hte “wrong” marriages specifically said “platonic marriages” (which ISN’T what asexual relationships are, asexual romantic relationships exist) which is clearly part of a larger framework where they consider some marriages to be “scams” to get benefits. See the harmful rhetoric around “marrying for green cards” or military benefits or any other forms of welfare.

This is ALSO part of extremely racist rhetoric around the Great Replacement Theory where they want to force white (well off, able bodied, cis, etc) m/f couples to breed to stave off the rise of minority populations. This about reproduction, the nuclear family, and all of the baggage that comes with that. Which is coupled with state sanctioned sterilization and incarceration (which tears apart family units and keeps them from having kids during this period) of “less desirable” groups.

Marriage is about sex and reproduction and keeping the white race alive. Marriage is not for marginalized people. Reproduction is not for marginalized people.

None of this is targeted at asexual people who can and do have sex. Who can and do have children. ANd romantic marriages.

This is about state control of marriage after the state exerted control over reproduction (with the destruction of roe v wade).

Before this is ‘aphobia’ this is misogyny, racism, classism, and, yes, still homophobia and transphobia (because the same people are ALSO trying to destroy lawrence v texas to bring back sodomy laws and if gay/trans sex is ILLEGAL, all gay/trans marriages can only legally be sexless).

I am actually sick to my stomach around the framing of this as just “AN ATTACK ON ACES DURING ACE WEEK” when its very VERY fucking obvious the fundamentalist groups pushing for the attack “platonic” marriages (which, again, would not how a romantic asexual marriage is described) do not give a fuck about what the ace identity even is. Just like religious groups aren’t being incel-phobic when they demonized masturbation and sex outside of marriage.

It’s about forcing reproduction and the nuclear family into state control. Not about demonizing lack of sexual desire.

This affects non-ace people and doesn’t affect a shit ton of ace people who love to brag about ho wmuch sex they love or how gray-ace they are or whatever.

Co-opting the right’s more obvious moves into the extremist goals they’ve always coveted to make discourse points is fucking bizarre and makes it clear that some of y’all do have victim complexes you want catered to and you aren’t actually interested in the impact of this rhetoric.

[if-confessions]

Re fixed or selectable gender ROs, There's probably not many people who share my sentiment, but here goes.

I generally prefer selectable gender ROs. This depends on a few factors, the first is the setting and what the author wants to convey about it. If your story has heavy sexism where gender roles are strictly divided, then making the ROs gender variable (if that's even possible in your world) would be a monumental task, with all the variations to account for how they look, behave, and respond to other characters. So probably not a viable approach for many authors.

It also depends on how… stereotypical the RO themselves are, for lack of a better word. I notice that some IF with fixed gender ROs tend to follow a trend, like the female ROs are the socialite, the wholesome one, princess, healer, etc. With male ROs it's more like: the alpha leader, the strong and loyal warrior, playboy, prankster etc. For me personally, I just love to romance women who are strong and stoic and/or men who are soft, so I prefer the stories I read to be like that, challenging those stereotypes.

But just as the reader can choose not to read a story for any reason, the author can make choices about their writing. They shouldn't be forced to make an RO a certain way if they're not comfortable with it for any reason.

Reply to this ask and this ask

Some points from the replies of this post:

@oscararcane

Unfortunately, being gender selectable doesn’t always guarantee that a character will be free of gender stereotyping. I’ve often seen gender-selectable characters changing appearance depending on what you choose, like height or hairstyle, usually with the female counterpart being shorter and with longer hair which seems a bit reductive to me. I do like gender-selectable ROs when done respectfully, just like set genders can be respectful and challenge stereotypes as well.  I also believe that gender can be part of a character’s identity in a positive way, not just in relation to sexism or transphobia.

@hpowellsmith

I feel this about the appearance changes, it bothers me when the male version of a character is really tall and buff with short hair and the female one is shorter/less muscular/has long hair. It feels like characters falling into rigid beauty standards and makes me look over my glasses a bit. Not least because it feels good to see people who don’t fit gendered beauty standards being treated as desirable!

[sashi-ya]

Thanks for this post!! Like for real, these people are so annoying with Giselle's gender. They keep bringing official statements trying to “show the truth”, but they are being beyond transphobic. I can't deal with them even reading these bad comments and jokes. It’s disgusting. I'm still glad that there are many sensible people who don't condone this lack of respect. To me, Giselle is a great character and always will be for who she is. And I'm sorry you have to deal with comments like that, I just hope to see more of your amazing cosplays! ❤️

Totally, for some reason they expect you liking her less because she is trans... and it's like... uhm yeah? like, who care what hangs or not in between her legs? If she is part of the FEMritters it is because she is a woman and that's it. And some people still can't seem to understand what Kubo intended to portray when Yumichika told her she had a dick. The fact that an author uses a certain topic in ther works doesn't mean he is or not a fucking transphobe. In fact, it showed that transphobia is bad by making one of his characters use it as an insult. But oh well, that's too much to ask for some little brains.

And thank u so much! Gigi is one of my faves cosplays I ever did :3 💖

[degrees-of-fuck]

The Whitney Sequel...

I made a post about transfem Sydney, on account of her showing up in my game that way soooo here’s that with transmasc Whitney! For the same reason! Same disclaimer as before. Not a trans guy myself. Might be wrong about stuff. Tw for transphobia and um. Whitney.

Shitty shitty no good parents. Likely one of Many reasons Whitney no longer has any desire to associate with them. (As I’ve mentioned before, I hc Avery as Whitney’s estranged parent so apologies for Potential Avery Slander but honestly I can personally see Avery being. Pretty Crappy about their kid being trans if everyone already knows the kid as a girl. But my feeling about Whitney’s parents sucking in this respect stand regardless of this headcanon.)

Their top surgery was funded by mugging, stealing and occasionally whoring out PC. (As is everything else I presume.)

Absolutely has to lean W A Y too hard too hard on hyperaggressive toxic masculinity as a means of being taken seriously by his shithead friends. If he’s not sure they’ll see him as a ~real man~ then he has to be the biggest, baddest and toughest of them All to prove it! (And kinda emasculate them whenever possible tbh-) This Is So Healthy.

Needs to show off his top surgery scars at all times. He needs you to see them so bad. Look how cool and badass they are. Fucking look.

On that note, a binder was NOT a longterm option. The intense need to be shirtless as a show of not giving a fuck. Has less teeth to it if he has a binder covering him up,,, (PLUS. His lungs are already under enough strain, goddamn chainsmoker that he is.)

Uses the big red strapon as a comically oversized packer lol

Uses his hair to obscure Soft Features. He’s probably pretty good at using makeup to look more masculine? But still. Insecurity is real.

Can’t afford to regularly buy hormones at the clinic and lacks the patience to jump through all those fucking hoops so he gets his hormones online. Potentially with,, Less Research Than Is Ideal.

I find it harder to think of Soft headcanons for this about Whitney because it’s Whitney and everything is SO wrapped up in aggression and insecurity, but. Shakes him by the shoulders. pls hang out with people that will allow you to feel comfortable in ur own skin. pls leave your small shithole town for five minutes. i know we can’t truly escape and that’s the point but. pleas witness other people living their lives. pleas e

[practically-an-x-man]

3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 15 for the pride asks :3 About Quinn and Octavius

Ahh thank you!! And you've struck on a few of my more outwardly-queer OCs (though I maintain that everyone's bi until proven otherwise, lol) so this'll be fun!

(side note it's a little funny to see Ophelia referred to by her last name. Not inaccurate, just funny.)

Here we go!

3. How did your oc discover themself? Did something cause them to question, or did they always know?

Quinn: She found out she was trans (and pan, preference towards male) in college, when she had the chance to open up and explore her identity away from home (as you've seen in Desert Song, her parents weren't exactly the most open-minded people). They further realized the intricacies of their identity after Billy picked them up - there were a lot of other queer people in the "wolf pack", and that gave them the opportunity not only to internally reflect on who they were, but to discuss it and try new things until she found what was most comfortable.

Ophelia Octavius: she realized she was bisexual in seventh grade, after realizing she had developed a crush on one of the girls in her class. Since then she's always been pretty comfortable with herself and her identity. She's not exactly one to shy away from who she is, and she had support from her family (I mean, c'mon, Otto's got to be queer himself... we both watched No Way Home)

4. Is your oc's environment supportive about their identity? How does this impact them?

Quinn: Well, she's been in a lot of different environments in her life...

Childhood home: not at all, her parents' lack of support is how she ended up with the wolf pack, and later the Ghosts, in the first place.

Wolf pack: total support. As I said before, many of them were queer and outcasts themselves. Even Lex, while she developed a bit of animosity towards Quinn for her connection to Billy, never had a problem with her identity itself.

Ghosts: kind of the same as the wolf pack. The Ghosts are a little less open about it, less emotional than the "wolves", but they still respect Quinn without question.

Ophelia: I kind of answered this before by mistake, not realizing this question was next. But yes, she grew up in a very supportive environment, both in terms of her biological family and her inner circle (the Osborns, Peter and May, etc.). As a result, she's never found reason to hide who she is.

6. How does your oc feel about labels? Theirs, or in general?

Quinn: In terms of their own labels, they don't really care. She identifies as a pansexual trans woman, but doesn't feel the need to pick apart the differences between "demigirl", "transfeminine", "trans female", or any of the other similar identities that may or may not apply to her. And for others' identities, she really doesn't care, she'll respect whatever you tell her no matter how "strange". You could introduce yourself with the pronouns who/cares and they'd make damn sure that cares feels comfortable with careself.

Ophelia: Again, not super strict with it. She's bi, and comfortable to be bi, and she'll respect others' identities regardless of what they are.

12. Does/did your oc ever wish they could change the way they are? Why? If it's in the past, how did they get over the feeling? (this can be about internalized homo/transphobia)

Quinn: Honestly... yes, at times. It's not necessarily internalized transphobia, but she's had a lot of self-confidence issues in the past and sometimes feels like things would be "easier" if she wasn't trans (not even trans people as a whole, just her specifically, it's more of a self-esteem issue than anything else). This happened a lot more when she was younger and still around the sorts of people that genuinely wouldn't accept her. She's mostly gotten over that little internal squabble after being around the wolves and Ghosts, who accept her wholeheartedly, though (as with any insecurity) it occasionally tries to rear its ugly head again

Ophelia: No, not really. Supportive environment plus innate sense of self-confidence, she's never had too much issue with that.

13. Would your oc be open to a poly relationship? Why or why not?

Quinn: open in theory, not necessarily in practice. It's not so much the matter of being opposed to a poly relationship as it is the fact that Billy's the only one she needs.

Ophelia: open to the idea, but has never been in one herself. She's a very intense person and tends to have a bit of trouble just dating one person, let alone sustaining relationships with multiple people at a time. If it lined up, she'd certainly try to make it work, but she worries she wouldn't give her partners the attention or care they deserve.

15. Do any of your ocs use neopronouns? Which ones?

Not at the moment, though I won't preclude myself from writing an OC with neopronouns in the future. This is more a matter of fighting with Google Docs and its autocorrect features than it is being opposed to neopronouns in use. My goal in writing is always to be inclusive and diverse, but I've run into enough formatting trouble even with Quinn's pronoun-switches (that wavy blue line haunts my nightmares...) that I'm not sure I want to battle with Google Docs and neopronouns just yet.

[kitty-is-writing]

Pride Month short #3!

Hope everyone's enjoying these so far! Today's short is about Kolena, a trans woman who finds acceptance from an unexpected person during a family visit.

TW: minor transphobia, mention of dysphoria, reference to past self-harm

Disclaimer: Niana's opinions do not reflect my own

🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵

Not again. Kolena tried to ignore the growing pressure, but nature had been calling for an hour already and wouldn’t be put off a second longer. She marked her page in the book, stood and headed for the outhouse. She just hoped it was urgent enough by now that she wouldn’t have to handle the thing for too long. The times when it demanded her attention for more than half a minute were awful, reminding her that this body she was stuck in had parts she had never asked for, and only wished the healers were able to remove safely.

There it was, that unwanted appendage she had to deal with every time she bathed or urinated. It didn’t even feel like hers, despite being attached. A long jagged line across the top betrayed the time, years ago, when she had tried to cut it off in the depths of misery. The ensuing blood and tears, and a late night call to the healer, had finally convinced her parents she was serious about needing to be seen as a girl.

Her father was a traditional sort of man, who believed a son brought more worth to a family than a daughter, but faced with the prospect of having no child at all, he had reluctantly accepted his daughter. Her mother had been slightly less of a problem to begin with, but still spoke about her ‘dear son’ as though she had lost her child to some tragic accident. At least her father had consistently, if begrudgingly, remembered her chosen name and called her ‘she’ ever since the incident. Her mother had often, when speaking to friends or relatives she hadn’t seen for a while, said something like ‘oh, no, he wants to be a girl now’. She supposed it was some acknowledgement, but why not just say ‘she’s a girl now’ instead?

She shoved the thing back under her clothes quickly, without looking at it again. It was convenient, she supposed, compared to actual female plumbing she’d seen diagrams of in the healers’ books. There were others like her, she knew. She had met a few through a group the healer had suggested after her ill-advised attempt to modify herself. Narak had been a particularly good friend to her since then, though he was going the opposite way to her. She remembered one night they had both felt horrible about being stuck in their respective bodies, and attempted some magical ritual that was rumoured to allow two souls to trade places. It hadn’t worked, of course, but she couldn’t help wondering if that was because of their lack of magical expertise. Maybe if she asked around, spoke to some accomplished mages, it might work then?

She paused at the door to her old room. She had made the effort to come all the way out to Wirba to visit her parents for the midwinter festival, yet had spent most of her time hiding in her childhood bedroom so far. Ironically, it was the one room in the house that didn’t have some reminder of the years she’d spent trying to force herself to be more boy-like. She had been glad when, on applying to the priestesses at Talri-Pekra’s temple, they had accepted her without question. Part of her had expected to be turned away because of the body she was trapped in, but the High Priestess had explained that it was a person’s soul that mattered to the goddess, not the flesh around it, and she was a woman in every way that counted. She had wept with joy at that, the first time she had been truly accepted instead of reluctantly tolerated.

With a heavy sigh, she turned away from the door to her room and headed for the front room, where her parents were sitting. “There you are. I was wondering if we’d actually see you during this visit, Korand.” Her mother shook her head slightly. “Sorry, Kolena.”

It had been almost fifteen years since she’d gone by that name. Wasn’t that long enough for someone to get used to it? “You know how it is. I have to keep up with my studies if I’m going to become a priestess.” She chose to ignore the use of her old name. As frustrating as it was, bringing it up wouldn’t change anything, and she didn’t want to cause a scene.

“Are you really still doing that, Niana? She hasn’t used that name in years. Maybe you should have a healer check your memory.” Both of them jumped, and looked over to the leather chair by the window, where her father sat with his pipe. “Maybe being constantly misidentified is part of the reason we hardly see her these days. If I can manage it, I’m sure you can make the effort as well.”

She hadn’t expected to hear that, and blinked rapidly at her father. “Dad?”

“Kolena, I’m not going to pretend I understand it very well, but you are still my daughter, and I respect you enough to use your chosen manner of address. Anyone who fails to do so after being informed clearly does not care for you.” He shot a look at her mother, then, who twitched and scowled.

“Well, I’m sorry for feeling sad that the son I gave birth to is no longer here.”

That was far more annoying than being called the wrong name. “Can you stop talking as though I’m dead, please? I’m right here, nothing happened other than me wanting to be known as myself.”

“But you’re not my baby boy anymore,” she wailed, looking at the small portrait hanging over the fireplace, where a young Kolena sat between her parents wearing boys’ clothes and a frustrated expression.

“She wouldn’t still be your baby boy anyway. Our child grew up, and became a wonderful woman. It’s about time you accepted that, or you’re going to lose her altogether.” He looked back to Kolena, and spoke over her mother’s sniffling. “I know I don’t tell you this often enough, but I love you as a person more than I like the idea of having a son. It took me longer than it should have to get used to the situation, but I have always been proud of you, because you are a good person and a treasured member of this family. When you were born, I was honoured to have a chance to raise a healthy, strong and kind-hearted son; seeing you now makes me feel equally honoured to have raised a healthy, strong and kind-hearted daughter.”

Kolena wasn’t sure how to respond; she hadn’t expected either of her parents to say something like that, and to hear it from her usually distant father was even more of a shock. With no words coming to mind, she could only try to keep her smile from becoming a manic grin.

Her mother was less pleased to hear it. “Johtran, I am perfectly entitled to miss my son. I raised a boy, not a girl. Just because he’s grown up and decided to be a woman doesn’t mean I have to forget my child. I poured my soul into a son, taught him how to behave and helped explain the world to him. I can’t let that go because he’s wearing dresses now.”

“Nobody is saying that you should forget the past, but you need to stop living in it. Kolena was never our son, nature made the mistake of giving her a boy’s body and we made the wrong assumptions based on that.” She blinked at her father, wondering where and when he had reached this new opinion. “If nothing else, her acceptance into Talri-Pekra’s order ought to prove her womanhood. Not that she should have to prove anything. And as for ‘deciding’ to be a woman, I’m guessing she decided that the same way you did. When did you make the choice to be a woman?”

“It’s not the same thing, I was born a woman!”

“You were born a baby, like everyone else, and grew into a woman. If nature had made the same mistake with you, given you male parts at birth? Would you still feel like a woman and want to change those parts, or would you feel like a man?”

Kolena tuned out at that point. She had listened to her parents argue more often than she cared to remember, and heard this particular argument enough from others. Her mother wasn’t going to change her perspective in a day, but knowing her father had come to accept her more fully was good. She had always been closer to her father as a child, first attempting to be the son he had wanted, then following him into scholarship in the hopes of finding out what was going on with herself. Once she had discovered she was not alone, that it was not a fault but a natural thing that many others had also experienced, she had drifted away from her parents. Maybe her father’s new found acceptance would bring them closer again.

[fadewalking]

I, personally, have decided not to play the game for these reasons:

1. JKR has said on multiple occasions that she believes anyone who engages with the HP franchise supports her transphobia, going so far as to say that anyone who interacts with the IP but says they don’t support her is simply lying about their feelings towards trans people out of fear

2. Continuing to support HP, regardless of whether Rowling receives money from the particular content, means that Rowling stays relevant and keeps her platform. She is using that platform to spread violent hate. There has been a marked increase in violence against trans people due to her rhetoric.

3. The game, due to the HP world itself, leans very heavily into antisemitism. The goblins are antisemitic caricatures (portraying Jews as hook-nosed goblins obsessed with money has a long, bloody history) who are said to sacrifice wizard children (blood libel - the false claim that Jewish people were stealing Christian children to sacrifice - also has a long, bloody history). Antisemitism is on the rise, and these fictional narratives contribute to it.

4. The game itself isn’t particularly good. The reviews that have come out say the game is littered with glitches and bugs, the combat is lackluster, and a number of other complaints that other games have been absolutely skewered over. Including the lack of any real depth to the plot. For some reason, the fact that it’s a Harry Potter game is earning it high ratings despite the many technical issues.

At the end of the day, you make your own choices. If the social issues don’t compel you, I’d say the fact that I’ve yet to hear one person praise the game as a game reason enough to save a buck.

This made me get up from my bed so i can reply better on my pc, so congrats. Thanks for being civil. I'm gonna try to comment on all of your points except for the antisemitism, and that's because I am not Jewish, and also I lack the context/historical perspective to feel confident in yay-ing or nay-ing that part, since i have seen a lot of goblin discourse over the years and i'm not sure what's true and what's not. So my comment on that is to agree that antisemitism is on the rise, and discussions about ANY media that may portray it should absolutely be seriously entertained by people who know what they are talking about in that regard (i don't). I've seen a lot of people be very dismissive about even the idea that the game is antisemitic, and i definitely don't think denying it is doing anyone any favors, but i would like to hear the perspective of many different jewish people before forming my own opinion on it. If it's anything like the variety of opinions in the trans community, then there should be many different takes. As it stands rn, I really only have an opinion coming from the LGBT side of things, as I am a trans person. I appreciate that your conclusion ultimately is that people need to make their own choices, which I respect, but I'm gonna take this as an opportunity to also talk about the portion of people that feel that playing the game = supporting JKR, because that's where it seems the majority of controversy lies.

JKR sucks, hopefully any reasonable person can agree to that. but tbh i couldn't care less what she believes. It's just not the case that playing the game = support of her and her ideas. And those who insist that it does are doing way more harm than good. A large majority of people play the game because they know it's going to be popular and/or because they loved HP as a child. And like, that's it. That's their only reason. For them it's really not that deep. A lot of them don't even understand the complexity of the issue in the first place. Demonizing people who choose to play is not making a positive impact that would warrant dying on this hill. And make no mistake, we are dying on it. This is a losing battle. The game is already shaping up to be one of the most popular games (in sales) that we've seen in a long time and it's not even officially out yet.

What is impactful is alienating allies and fellow LGBT+ people who just want to enjoy a popular video game revolving around their favorite childhood IP. We can see the harm being done just by looking at the comments on anyone's content who is committed to playing the game. It is full of people who will easily lump in anyone who dislikes JKR as "haters" and reduce/dismiss the issue that is clearly there with her as a person, and with the game itself. Not to mention it's provoking insecure edgelords to dig their heels in and support her way harder than they ever would have otherwise just because they know it will upset people.

Which brings me to your #2, because I would argue that the idea of cancelling anyone and everyone who plays the game is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the keeping JKR relevant department because of the aforementioned edgelords, and those who don't understand why everyone's upset to begin with. And to be totally clear, im not saying that boycotting the game is pointless or inherently harmful. If you don't feel comfortable playing the game, and you want to talk about why and encourage others to also not play it. I think it's great that we're even having a discussion, as a culture, about ethical consumerism, because it's worth having. It's when we start telling people that playing the wizard game is peak transphobia that it becomes not only unproductive but harmful. When we do that, it shuts down conversation, it puts people on the defensive immediately and instead of changing minds and making a positive statement with the boycott, we're just driving people to sympathize with her. There has been a marked increase in violence against trans people (at least verbally) due to us telling people that we hate them first if they play the game.

As for the #4, I've heard the performance issues for sure. I hate to say it because i don't think we should normalize games not working properly on launch, but this is a pretty common issue for basically every triple A game that's come out in the past couple of years. On all other fronts aside from performance though, I've only heard positive things, so ig make of that what u will, idk.

These social issues are important to me, but I think we need to look at the bigger picture here because attempting to force people into performative support of trans people is just not the way to go about this.

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

do you need to take stuff for vaginal atrophy if you don't use your vagina for sexual intercourse? or if you don't have sex at all?

sorry if this question has an obvious answer, the sources about vaginal atrophy i personally have seen never mentioned it.

(Regarding this post)

Lee says:

I'm not surprised you've never seen this mentioned-- unfortunately, there isn't enough open discussion of this type of thing in the trans community.

I think that's partially due to a lack of institutional knowledge; there aren't many studies on these issues so doctors/providers aren't able to tell you the average percentage of people who experience mild/moderate/severe atrophy per time spent taking testosterone.

When there's no Official Statistic saying "only 5% of people have severe atrophy within the first year of taking T, but 95% of people have X, Y, and Z symptom of severe atrophy after 15 years on T," (that is an example!) it can be hard to provide guidance about how often these things occur because the community-level knowledge is mostly based on personal anecdotes and word-of-mouth.

The general stigma around discussing sex and sexuality in relationship with trans bodies makes it even more difficult for people to bring up the topic because it seems some people worry that they will be invalidated by others in the community if they assert their identity as a trans man, for example, while also saying they like to be vaginally penetrated.

The final barrier in having these discussions besides the straight-up issue of lack of knowledge is people's (understandable) reluctance to talk about parts of their bodies that may make them feel dysphoric.

In my opinion, that's the hardest barrier to overcome. Encouraging more research into how testosterone changes the body (for example, how much clitoral growth is average) and addressing the way toxic masculinity and transphobia intertwine to create self-policing/gatekeeping and stigma within the community are both things that people can campaign to do, but it's hard to try and make people discuss something that is deeply uncomfortable for them to acknowledge because of dysphoria, and it's important to respect people's boundaries on that.

But it's still an important issue, and I'm a big proponent of being open about health issues that affect people who have medically transitioned, so as y'all know, I've been on T myself for close to 5 years now and I have been prescribed localized estrogen for atrophy that affects my sex life, but I haven't had any issues with atrophy in my day-to-day life.

I've been lucky enough to have open and frank conversations with several folks who have been on T for more years than I have, and the majority of folks I've talked to have had similar experiences to my own, but there is some variation.

Some people do end up experiencing symptoms of vaginal atrophy like dryness, itching, and UTIs that bother them on a daily basis and they find it helpful to take localized estrogen to treat those symptoms even though they aren't having sex that involves being vaginally penetrated.

Other folks find that the atrophy they're experiencing is less severe, and they only have discomfort when they are penetrated vaginally, so they wouldn't necessarily need localized estrogen if they chose to not have that type of sex and would rather explore other sexual acts instead of taking localized estrogen.

And there are some folks who don't feel like they have an issue with atrophy even after years on T, or have such minor atrophy that using plenty of lube during sex resolves the issue, so they don't need localized estrogen at all.

There are also some situations where a person with atrophy may want to take localized estrogen, like in preparation for a vaginally-assisted surgery. For example, some hysterectomy techniques are vaginally assisted, and recovery time may be quicker if the vaginal tissue is more robust and not atrophied.

So not everyone needs to take stuff for vaginal atrophy if they don't use their vagina for sexual intercourse, but it will depend on the individual in question as there are certain situations (like severe atrophy or pre-op surgery prep) where it might be recommend.

Or if you stop taking testosterone while you're younger (aka pre-menopause) and still have your ovaries (aka haven't had an oophorectomy), then atrophy shouldn't be a major problem for you because it is a reversible testosterone change and should eventually revert back after you stop taking T.

But atrophy does occur to even cisgender non-intersex women with ovaries once they've gone through menopause, so you'll likely end up with some level of atrophy at some point in your life anyway. It just tends to be more severe for trans people on testosterone because our T levels are higher and our E levels are lower than the average post-menopausal woman.

Of course if you've had a vaginectomy as part of your bottom surgery, you obviously don't have vaginal atrophy issues anymore due to not having a vagina.

Followers, if you've used topical/localized estrogen for vaginal atrophy, feel free to weigh in about your experiences and what symptoms prompted you to try it!

[wof-reworked]

Hey, as you are part of the lgbtq+ community, what would you have to say about cis gender and straight people? (I'm that :>) I kinda feel common and boring, even though this is who I am. What should I do??

(heads up I tend to use queer pretty liberally bc I like it but y’know. ymmv)

I think,,, people are genuinely sometimes too harsh in their condemnation of cishet people, not that cishet ppl aren't perpetrators of homophobia/transphobia but acting like cishet people can never be friends of queer people or have shared experiences of queer people just hurts us as much as it hurts you and other cishet people. And I’m saying this from the perspective of the fact those jokes made me feel significantly more trapped in my own queerness bc it felt like if I questioned myself and found myself “lacking” I would lose my queer friends and support system entirely. And that sucks !!! It stopped me from considering hormones because it felt too permanent if I did turn out to be cis, it stopped me from being as proud of being bi because it felt like if I was wrong it’d be a mark against my character that I, a “straight” person, thought I could understand bisexuality, just shit like that which began to really add up.

Cishet people definitely need to respect queer peoples boundaries, and this especially includes respecting when queer people in your life tell you they don’t want to spend time educating you or don’t want to engage with you. This isn’t an excuse to push your way into queer peoples lives unfairly and queer people have every right to prioritize their relationships with other queer ppl over yours. But I think when queer people decide to declare all cishet people their enemies by nature of being cishet it ends up keeping you in a perpetual persecution complex. It feels unhealthy in the long term imo.

With all that said: You're not boring, you're not common, you're a fully incredible and unique person with your own intricacies and relationship to sexuality and gender. Your experiences are different than mine, but different is all it really is, once you strip away the social prioritization of cishet monogamous relationships. Love is Love and all that.

On a less fluffy note though: I think there is a matter of perspective and privilege here. I think with the wave of more LGBT content and awareness it’s easy to get sort of lost in it, especially if you’re cis, because people who have been the majority tend to view subconsciously any deviation from that majority as bigger in scale than it actually is. You, as a cishet person, have literal hundreds of years of priority in romance, relationships, expressions of sexuality, gender, basically *everything*. We don’t have stuff like “cishet history” in the way we have “queer history” but that’s because we just call it history, full stop. I don’t say this to be judgemental or to cast blame, but as a practical sense of scale. I think it might honestly be a good idea to extricate yourself from queer spaces/the online sphere in general and get some perspective on where you stand in society and what you do have. Genuinely check in with yourself, without judgement, that’s the best thing I can say to do.

I really appreciate this question, I’m sorry it took me so long to write, life and my phone being broken meant I needed to rewrite this a few times ^^;;. Happy pride month !!

[hopeshoodie]

I just realized how helpful reposting things is because @ariendiel​ posted screenshots of twitter threads that I couldn’t read in their entirety because I didn’t have a twitter account. And I realized that the Fusebox glassdoor reviews are also behind a ‘make an account’ screen, so maybe not everyone can see them.

So here are all the Glassdoor reviews for Fusebox Games

Image descriptions below the cut

5 Stars review from a current employee of less than one year, posted Jun 8, 2021

Title: Great people, company is indeed in the process to transform and that upsets some who got used to way things used to be.

Pros

People are great! I worked before in big companies with terrible culture and know what bad is. Salaries are matching the industry and have recently been increased quite a bit. The game, even though old and people are bored, is the leader in its genre. Very flexible working, half day Friday.

Cons

The company is rebranding and changing course and that is upsetting some who want things to be as they used to be. I think they need to understand that game companies need to make money if they want a job. So…I wouldn’t listen to all this people complaining. Come and join, now there opportunities for people to advance as old people leave and help us all shape a new future us all.

1 person upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

1 Star review from a current employee of less than one year, posted Jun 30, 2021

Title: A company killed by managers

Pros

None now, but the workers are amazing human beings. They are being pushed out one by one by upper management.

Cons

Upper managers have set the company towards failure. They stonewalled any attempt at bettering the production process, giving teams more structure and improving the tools, and now are set on the path of outsourcing everything to external partners, while they reap the benefits by owning the IPs. This company had some of the best workforce culture I have ever seen, but the CEO, together with current managers, have sacked key workers and managers that were fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture. They replaced these with corporate behaviour and a complicit newly hired HR department, using the bad financial position the company was in (and for which their decisions and actions were completely at fault for) as an excuse to force workers who wanted to better things out of the door.

7 people upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

1 Star review from a current employee of less than one year, posted Aug 17, 2021

Title: Corporate gaslighting

Pros

None now, but the workers are amazing human beings. They are being pushed out one by one by upper management.

Cons

Upper managers have set the company towards failure. They stonewalled any attempt at bettering the production process, giving teams more structure and improving the tools, and now are set on the path of outsourcing everything to external partners, while they reap the benefits by owning the IPs. This company had some of the best workforce culture I have ever seen, but the CEO, together with current managers, have sacked key workers and managers that were fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture. They replaced these with corporate behaviour and a complicit newly hired HR department, using the bad financial position the company was in (and for which their decisions and actions were completely at fault for) as an excuse to force workers who wanted to better things out of the door.

7 people upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

1 Star Review from a former employee, posted May 23, 2021

Title: Proceed with caution

Pros

Flexible hours Work from home Fair pay rises recently introduced

Cons

Extremely poor communication from the Senior Management. The team often don’t know what’s going on with decisions made in a haphazard way. There’s a rapid ‘hire and fire’ mentality - members of the team ‘disappear’ suddenly and without logic when it appears that their ‘face doesn’t fit’ or expressed an opinion to the top level of management that they didn’t want to hear. Hiring is random - ‘friends’ and ‘friends of friends’ get hired rather than those with suitable qualifications and experience. Bullying exists here and if reported you might be asked to leave rather than the complaint being dealt with properly.

14 people upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

2 Star Review from a former employee of more than one year, posted May 20, 2021

Title: Toxic place full of wonderful people

Pros

Fusebox is a company full of wonderful, caring and talented people that will make you feel at home.

Cons

Management doesn't care about employees and their opinion/feedback. Redundancies happen out of the blue and without clarity of reasons. False values get sponsored as a honey trap. There is no structure in most of the departments, no clear career path and people get squeezed until they have a breakdown.

14 people upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

2 Star Review from a former employee of more than one year, posted May 27, 2021

Title: Helmless ship -- with the best worker crew you will ever interact with

Pros

Genuinely the greatest workers you may ever have as colleagues. The workers are fun, helpful, energetic, passionate, skillful, witty and an incredibly friendly fellowship.

Cons

Management, or lack thereof. Driven by pseudo-corporatocracy: those who are quite happy scapegoating or throwing capable colleagues under the bus to distract from their own mistakes.

7 people upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

2 Star Review from a current employee, posted May 20, 2021

Title: A Blowing Fuse

Pros

- Very diverse, inclusive, friendly and respectful workforce.

- Good work-life balance, very understanding of needing personal time and generous with it, including for physical and mental health matters. 

 - Good benefits (occasional Fridays afternoons off, duvet days, training time and budget, private healthcare...), good salaries (much improved from a few years ago, although there might still be discrepancies between the teams). 

 - Promotions happen regularly, either to higher seniority levels or to different departments, which is nice, but can also be a con (see below).

 - Give chances to graduates/people looking for new roles (which can be a con, see below).

Cons

In summary: most of the management and staff is either incompetent, indecisive or not listened to, which makes the development of current and new games nigh impossible and the atmosphere increasingly negative. The management is attempting to make things better, but so far they have not actively listening and communicating with their workforce, and don’t seem to care much about them since they arbitrarily lay-off competent and appreciated employees. 

 - Indecisive and disorganised management, leading to slow or frozen project development, especially for new projects. 

 - The staff is not listened to; upper management makes decisions without consulting their teams, even the leads. Leads are often as clueless as their teams, if not more, about what is happening in the company. 

 - No creative direction/vision owner, no one seems to know what to do nor how to do it. 

 - Huge tech debt, the Unity project of the live game is almost unusable. 

 - Upper management does not understand how games are made, therefore can't provide the development teams with what they need. 

 - Somewhat exploitative towards junior staff, hiring straight from uni without proper mentoring/management; they abuse from their lack of experience and expect them to do all the work without any manager properly helping them, and/or expect them to do multiple jobs at once. There's a fine line between encouraging graduate/junior hiring, and hiring graduates because they're cheap and won't speak up because they have no other experience. 

 - Seniority is not always representative of the industry level, junior staff is sometimes being misled into thinking their skills and workflow are at industry level, because they get promoted without proper mentoring.

- Repeatedly make empty promises for years on, keep the staff motivated by promising new game development but it never happens, go back on their words, say everything and their opposite whenever it suits them. 

 - Mislead on hiring about what the role will be or can't always deliver on it; don't provide adequate support to get the job done or don’t give them the opportunity to do the work they were hired to do, don't understand game development workflows. - Poor communication across the different departments, there is no or very little aligment between the teams, teams often discover other teams have done work relevant to them long after the fact. 

 - The teams are not treated equally, some are treated as better than the others (which leads to very different experiences of the company between teams). The upper management does not understand the real impact each team has in the making of a good game. 

 - Sharing publicly feedback and questions with teammates and managers is reprehensible, many of the staff and managers can't take criticism; they say they want to improve that but they don’t put their money where their mouth is, the company communications are out of touch if not dishonest. 

 - Used to pride themselves on inclusivity but removed it from their values, and the teams are forbidden from making the game stories as inclusive as they want to; there are concerns of homophobia/transphobia with the product direction despite a good part of the company being queer. There is also a history of sexual harassment from higher-up. 

 - Office culture used to be good but company reorg led to a colder, impersonal communication with the staff. Live, honest communication is discouraged (even if they say they do want it). 

- HRs don’t have genuine talks with the staff, leading to a feeling of hypocrisy and disconnect between the company’s values and what the staff really wants.

18 people upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

1 Star Review from current employee, posted Jul 2, 2021

Title: Management do not know how to make games at all

Pros

Decent pay, lots of benefits, decent office, remote work if you need it

Cons

They do not care about their workers, full of people who don't know what it actually takes to make games, repeatedly lie to and ignore their employees' concerns, then blame those same workers when things go wrong, full of yes men and ideas people and led by people from outside the industry who have no idea what they are doing, avoid at all costs

9 people upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

5 Star Review from a former employee of less than 1 year, posted May 7, 2019

Title: Loved every minute, fantastic company to work for

Pros

Fun, relaxed environment and culture. 

Fantastic team. Everyone is so friendly, approachable and easy to talk to, including management. We had some great laughs. You'll make friends for life here. 

Beautiful new office in a handy location, although the company has almost outgrown it already within just a few months. 

I really enjoyed the work. The role is something I enjoy anyway, but the projects are a lot of fun and it's so satisfying seeing the fruits of your labours coming to life. 

Management has been ramping up efforts to be attentive, respond to and act on employee feedback and concerns as the company grows. 

The company's in a pretty good place, so job security is good (considering the industry's reputation). Fusebox ain't goin' nowhere. It's a particularly good place to get your start in the industry. 

This studio doesn't believe in crunch/unpaid overtime, which is... pretty rare. Management is dedicated to ensuring that Fusebox is as positive and non-exploitative a company as possible; for example, they take a great, understanding attitude to things like mental health. I always felt like I could talk to them. 

Overall, I had a brilliant experience at Fusebox and would 100% have stayed if I hadn't been offered something career-changing, which in itself would not have happened without the experience I got from this studio. Particularly for narrative designers, this role provides fantastic opportunities to develop your branching narrative skills. I've never written such a positive review for a former employer in my life and I would definitely work there again.

Cons

Lacking process and structure in some areas, though I believe this is something the company is actively working on tackling and it's definitely just a teething issue given the company's rapid growth. 

The pay is about average/maybe slightly on the lower end, but it's technically a startup, so... 

It's gradually growing slightly cliquey as the company grows, which is unfortunate but also to be expected, and everyone is still perfectly friendly and nice. Again, I believe management has been taking steps to mitigate this as much as possible, for example by introducing Slack integrations to encourage people to get lunch together at the same time rather than just in their friendship groups. 

Opportunities for upward/sideways career movement need improving/illuminating, especially for teams like integration.

1 person upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

1 Star Review from a current employee of more than 1 year, posted Nov 20, 2019

Title: Not a great company

Pros

Flexible hours 

Nice team 

Ability to work from home

Cons

Management not decisive 

Staff take advantage 

Senior member of staff sacked trying to make decisions 

No transparency

Impossible schedules

10 people upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

5 Star Review from a current employee of less than one year, posted May 27, 2019

Title: Amazing place to work!

Pros

Really friendly environment, surrounded by talented, fun people who are passionate about the work, lovely office space.

Cons

No cons! A great environment.

No one upvoted this/marked it as ‘found helpful’

5 Star Review from a current employee of less than one year, posted Jan 24, 2017

Title: The most marvellous mobile games company in London

Pros

Fast paced, super creative business working in partnership with some of the biggest names in entertainment. Making huge games for TV shows loved all over the world.

Cons

It all happens very fast and very professionally- keep up! (Sometimes less is more, don't you think? Not here though)

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