#like not only is this just a dishonest representation of a canon character but also it's pretty disrespectful to horikoshi himself

[kiisaes]

Hi new follower here :) I just saw your „live reaction to bkg’s resurrection“ post!

Did you know that in the Japanese original there was an additional line that said „Their feelings become one“ which was completely left out in the official English translation? I am so mad about that >:(

(hi there!!! thank u for following and welcome to my blog, i hope u enjoy ur stay :'D)

yesss i did know!!! yeah i really don't know why the english translation always either leaves out important phrases or flat out mistranslates 😭 that's a pretty impactful line there that essentially solidifies bkdk's positive relationship development as well as both of their connections to OFA

and idk if these decisions are intentional but it does suck. it's not like the author of a story purposefully puts specific dialogue or captions or wording in general to further a point that is oftentimes incredibly intentional. and it's not like japanese is a pretty clever language with a lot of double meanings and puns and other cool stuff that obviously won't perfectly translate into english but could still be worked around if there was just an ounce of care put into translating. that's TOTALLY not a typical manga, or even narrative, thing that matters and should be treated with respect (heavy sarcasm)

this is also my understanding as to why so many bakugou haters who read the official translation think he "hasn't changed". it's bc quite a bit of his dialogue is fucked up to hell just to make him sound either disrespectful or dismissive, even when he doesn't sound like that in the original. it even happened in the most recent chapter! it's like furthering the imaginary point that bkg will always be rude even in serious situations when clearly that isn't the case through horikoshi's own words. fuckin describing his own impalings as "getting swiss cheesed" during his contextually VERY vulnerable and honest apology to deku ... like what the hell kind of dialogue is that. who talks like that. the hell are you doing

[olderthannetfic]

Fandom pet peeve: Character who has interests who're outside what people consider their gender roles constantly having their identity questioned.

It just comes across as incredibly patronising when a large part of fandom questions if the male character who's been referred to as nothing but a guy might "actually not be a guy" just because people think his interests aren't masculine enough.

I also think that people using it to be like "yeah but representation!!" are being dishonest in a way. That dude's a dude, regardless of his hobbies, and you're ironically being just as gender role enforcing as random conservatives if your only argument for why a guy can't be a guy, or a woman can't be a woman, is because you think they don't conform to their gender roles well enough. Way to go keeping up the societies oppressive gender roles.

That woman likes cars and motorcycles? Are you really sure "she's a woman"? Yes, yes she fucking is.

That guy likes painting his nails? Is "he really a guy?" Yes, yes he fucking is.

Stop questioning characters, and people for that matter, because your brain runs on gender role conformity 24/7.exe

Don't get me started on cultural or historical differences.

--

He likes pink!!!!!!

Even when canon makes a Thing out of it, it's not usually a "They're literally not ___" thing. It's more like "We need a new head of the mafia family who does not wear pink shirts all the time".

Of course, a lot of the time, it's just people liking to write fic about whatever and expressing this horribly.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

"Character X is Y sexuality" is such a dumb take to invalidate people's shipping.

If canon mattered that much in people's shipping/headcanons, Zutara wouldn't be popular. Everyone would (correctly) be disgusted by the concept of Z*c*st. Shipping wouldn't even be an actual thing, fanfic wouldn't be a thing.

People have always taken supposedly cishet characters and made them queer in their fan works.

("Azula is straight" gives me the same vibe of "Yelena is ar*-ac*". It's not explicitly mentioned in canon.

Oh, but she only showed interest in men.

So did Korra until she didn't and guess who she ends up with.

Kyoshi says she has to convince herself she's not in love with Yun and guess who she ends up with.

They'll kill Azula off, probably, take away her bending and finish ruining her character before there's a chance she's canonically queer.

Canon still doesn't mean much.

Unless clearly stated, anything is a headcanon.

Including "Azula is straight".)

This is a good ass blog, but that kind of take just ruins all of it for me.

"To invalidate people's ships" You're REALLY gonna pretend you didn't see me literally list all the lesbian ships I have for Azula, and that I didn't say I would love for her to be bisexual, huh? Again, I don't give a damn what people ship or what kind of fan content they want to create, I only don't like being told to treat fanon (even fanon I like) as canon because it leads to dishonest analysis of a show.

You: Unless something is clearly stated, it is not canon!

Also you: Azula canonically only ever shows interest men and never in women, and I personally think the writers would rather torture and kill her character than show her as a queer woman. But if you say that means she's canonically straight, I'll yell at you.

Make it make sense.

Also "Korra ended up with in a relationship with someone that the writers, by their own admission, never made her be explicitly or implicitly interested in because they were two cowards that were not at all interested in rocking the boat" is NOT the winning argument you think it is. And that doesn't retroactively make Azula bi or a lesbian, it's just extra proof that the writting for Legend Of Korra was TERRIBLE!

"Kyoshi SAYS a thing that confirms she's bisexual"

Congratulations! You found actual representation! Aka something being considered canon to a particular story BECAUSE IT WAS EXPLICITLY SHOWN TO THE AUDIENCE THROUGH THINGS THAT WE SEE PLAY OUT!

"Oh, but Azula never said she is NOT into women, so even though she is only ever shown to be attracted to men, we can't rule out the possibility of her secretly liking women too until she full on says it!"

Wanna go there? Fine. Then you cannot tell me that the Fire Nation royal family doesn't have a tradition of incest like many real life royals did, and that Zuko and Azula did not at least consider the possibility of marrying each other to avoid an Agni Kai for the crown like we saw in the finale. Sure, that is never explicitly confirmed by canon, but it was never explicitly stated to NOT be the case either, and according to you that TOTALLY means it is not at all impossible for this kids' show to have secretly said "incest is wincest" all along, because apparently the writers need Zuko and Azula, the two characters in a KIDS show, to look at the camera and say "Our family tree is not a circle" for us to understand that this family that has never been stated to practice incest, does not, in fact, practice incest.

"Canon doesn't mean much anyway" Then why are you mad that I said "Even though I would like for Azula to be bisexual, that is simply not canon. There's sadly just no way any character in a kid's show made in 2005 was meant to read as anything other than straight"?

Considering you felt the need to:

1 - Point out that Zutara is a ship with no canon basis AND that you like my blog, literally called "Zutara was never CANON."

2 - Randomly mention the fact that my OTP, Zucest, is also not canon AND that plenty of people, you clearlt included, find it absolutely disgusting (like I somehow didn't get the memo on that).

3 - STILL cherry pick stuff to claim Queer!Azula could totally stealthly be a canon thing.

I'd say you only have a problem with me saying things like "X is canon, Y is not" because YOU very much think of canon as being inherently better than fanon, so when I point out something you dislike is not canon that means my blog is awesome to you because you see it as validating your opinion that something is trash, but the second I go "But this other thing you (and I) like/are neutral on is not canon either" suddenly I'm the devil because I'm "attacking" people for something that is just harmless fun.

The whole "Azula is not canonically bi/gay, so any headcanon of her being queer is bad" is in YOUR head, honey. You're never gonna hear that kind of crap from me, and I'd appreciate it if you stopped putting words in my mouth.

And as a bisexual woman, I'd appreciate some ACTUAL REPRESENTATION of bisexuality being praised, instead of garbage like the incredibly insufferable Korra/Mako/Asami love triangle ending with a nonsensical conclusion that people praise just because it had two women *gasp* holding hands! And even THAT being hidden away since Korra's last season was basically dumped online because the show's ratings were terrible.

[majorbaby]

re: the tv tropes page it is SO bad. full on fanon being included in the character page (not even the ymmv page), like y'all. have your headcanons but please stop forcing them on everyone else

yeah in most cases i’m skeptical that ‘forcing headcanons’ on people is actually a thing that happens because 99% of the time that grievance could be sufficiently addressed if people would only curate their feeds so they see the content they wanna see, but this might be a legitimate example of such a thing. 

it is annoying because tvtropes is a great tool for understanding the technical aspects of storytelling and getting a general overview of a show and how content-making techniques can help deliver messaging (e.g. lighting, sound, sfx, camera angles). i’ve been using it for that purpose for years and i’ve found only recently that i’ve been encountering this problem more and more. 

it’s been a while since i looked at the MASH page because i’ve basically written it off, but if memory serves the character pages were pretty unreliable. it could be that people have are projecting their personal interpretations/feelings on the show (any reading will have some amount of this) but some of the reaches on there are dishonest about the text.

MASH is a show that lacks continuity and is full of gags. it is also a show from another completely different era of television and the world. without some knowledge of that time, your interpretation might be lacking. many episode titles are puns or a play on an existing piece of media from the first half of the 20th century - but you rarely see that addressed nowadays in the fandom because we’re (mostly) a different generation. there’s a difference between saying ‘radar is psychic’ and ‘a running gag on the show is that radar is psychic’ - does that mean MASH has a canonical magical realism aspect to it? no, of course not. but i sure as hell could find a way to make it seem that way to a person who has never seen it just by being a bit creative, telling half-truths and remixing things i know to be true about the show - aka, writing an AU. it’s like that “mash is haunted” post floating around on tumblr - it’s great in the format that it’s in, but on tvtropes, production flubs need to be called what they are - flubs - and not “trapper is haunting the OR” - those are the rules of engagement on TV tropes. 

the rest under a this cut because i talk specifically about one of my most be-loathed myths that the MASH tv tropes page seems to want me to believe: hawkeye the “canonical” CSA/rape survivor 

i say ‘let me leave shipping out of this’ a lot because i do get the sense that if i don’t give non-shippy examples of this happening that it’s valid for people to think i’m projecting a shipping bias onto my argument because a lot of fandom discourse is frankly, about shipping. so here: something I remember really rubbing me the wrong way about the MASH tv tropes page was how much it seemed to insist that Hawkeye was a CSA survivor. 

i am not saying that this is not viable or that it is a bad reading or even that i disagree with it as an interpretation of the source material, but framing it like it’s an undeniable part of his character that other characters acknowledge is just - it’s not there! and if canonical portrayals of survivors are important to you, I don’t see how pretending that Hawkeye is a CSA survivor and trying to convince other people of that before they’ve even watched the show is “good representation”. 

it gives way for all sorts of other misunderstandings of the show, for example, his “loose morals” around sexuality which are first and foremost about his being anti-establishment, that is something which is key to his character and tbh if you subscribe to the HC that hawkeye is a survivor of abuse then his being a scrappy, unconventional male lead who turns his nose up to traditional masculinity only enriches that HC in my opinion. 

[iamnmbr3]

I saw the ask about having the person feeling like that the Loki show is objectively bad. I liked the show, here is why.

I love Loki, and I love the MCU, but I don’t go into any of it expecting consistency. Tony and Loki are my favourite.

Tony goes through character development in his own movies, IM3 especially that main canon just kinda ignores. So I didn’t go into work he Loki show expecting them to get him consistent or right. I just went in prepared to enjoy the show for what it is in isolation. I also know that no one looks at the stories they write for the MCU critically, so I try and turn off that for a first time watch.

I really like the show, that doesn’t mean I think they made it consistent or in character for Loki. I get why people don’t like it.

I really like the TVA and all the concepts it introduced. I really liked seeing Tom acting his heart out. And I really like Loki/Sylvie because I find something very compelling about a character who hates themselves, meeting another version of themselves and being able to love them. It is not a ship I’m going to write fic about but I like them within the show.

Basically what I am saying is that I go into MCU media with the expectation they will mess up at least one character or plot point badly every time. I like the media for what it is, and I appreciate whatever it brings to the table that I can then cannibalise into da works.

Yeah that's fair. Everyone has a right to their own opinion. Fandom is better when there are a diversity of opinions and we can all respect each other and engage in open and good faith discussion rather than attacking people for having the "wrong" views or trying to harass them out of fandom.

For me personally I feel like the show fails on 3 fronts.

1) To me it fails as a Loki show. I really enjoy Loki as a character and I wanted a show about him. And I didn't personally see him in the show at all. I saw a completely different character who does not behave, speak, act, respond, react, stand, emote, or make choices like Loki does. He doesn't even LOOK like Loki because they did his hair and makeup wrong. And that's really what I wanted. I didn't want Larry (as I call the show character). I wanted Loki. That was what was advertised and to me he was so ooc that he was unrecognizable. If I just saw a clip out of context and didn't know what it was from I would have assumed I was seeing Tom in a totally different role.

Thor Ragnarok felt like a different take on Loki that definitely retconned some of his personality and history, but still felt like an alternate interpretation of the same character in the sense that I could recognize the character as Loki (albeit a different version of him); some people liked that, other didn't. But here it wasn't that. It just felt like a completely new (and to me far less interesting and compelling) character. And beyond that it felt like the show went out of its way to make a mockery of the character played by Tom and by extension anyone who ever cared about Loki's character. Like it felt like a mean spirited caricatured parody. Loki is also extremely sidelined in what is supposed to be his own show. And it most certainly didn't feel like a show about Loki, which is what I wanted. So for me the show didn't provide what I was looking for.

2) To me it also fails on its own merits. If I view it in isolation without comparing it to previous canon and just view it as its own thing it also fails. The quality of the dialogue felt very poor. None of the humor made me laugh and it all felt very juvenile and forced. The plotting and characterization seemed nonsensical and all over the place. Like Sylvie sets off those charges and the episode ends on a cliffhanger with that but then it's never addressed later.

The reason that Loki and Syvie allegedly falling in love breaks the timeline didn't really make sense. Sylvie is going around murdering timekeepers and yet Mobius somehow immediately like and trusts her and says he prefers her to Loki. Loki and Sylvie are simultaneously presented as the same person and also totally different people. Loki allegedly learns self love but we never see that - we see him call himself degrading things like pathetic. And we see him think that Sylvie is better than him. That doesn't seem like self love. The romance feels extremely rushed and unrealistic and awkward and we aren't given a compelling reason for why they are in love or what they even have in common. Sylvie doesn't really have much of a character. Mobius and Loki don't interact much and Mobius consistently mistreats him but Loki somehow thinks of him as a friend. Mobius is portrayed as a good guy for cheerfully carrying out the TVA's ends but Kang is a villain for creating the TVA. The TVA seems to be all made up of humans even though it's in charge of all reality.

If Loki did bad things, then the TVA did worse things and thus are not moral authorities. If the TVA’s actions are acceptable then so are Loki’s. If Loki was wrong to violently impose his will on a planet (let’s forget about the context with Thanos for a minute) then the TVA is wrong to violently impose its will on all of reality in order to eliminate free will. If Loki was wrong to kill a few people, then the TVA was certainly wrong to kill trillions. And thus neither Mobius nor the TVA are moral authorities when it comes to Loki because they are infinitely worse. If the actions that Mobius and the TVA took are acceptable, then there is no reason to criticize Loki because he did far less than them. Etc etc etc.

The cinematography is also very poor and unprofessional and the costumes look extremely cheap and unprofessional. The whole story feels confused and disjointed. The directing is bad because the actors are all very capable but the performances often feel wooden and forced and fake. And the pacing is terrible. A lot of it drags and then plot twists come out of nowhere with no setup so it just makes them feel jarring rather than earned or entertaining. 

3) To me it also fails on a moral front. The show contains a lot of problematic depictions and messages and promotes messages that are offensive or even downright harmful.

Mobius gleefully subjects Loki to physical torture by leaving him to be repeatedly beaten in the genital area. This is a very clearcut and straight forward example of physical torture. And Mobius feels no compassion for Loki or remorse over what he has done to him. If anything he seems to find it amusing. And certainly the audience is supposed to find it amusing (which is gross and harmful messaging on Disney’s part). He also subjects Loki to psychological torture. This is a fact. There are multiple instances in the show where the TVA and Mobius subject Loki to treatment that would meet the legal definition of torture under both US law and international law. Furthermore, Mobius and the TVA are holding Loki against his will and forcing him to labor without compensation or any hope of release because they view him as belonging to a group of people (Variants) that they view as inferior and not really people. That’s a pretty textbook case of slavery. So objectively Mobius is Loki’s jailer, torturer, captor, and enslaver. And yet Mobius is presented as justified in what he does to Loki. The writer and director have even called it therapy. And a result many people have parroted this which is very harmful.

The queer “representation” feels straight out of bigoted propaganda. Loki’s personality traits have been retconned to map onto harmful stereotypes about queer men. He is overly expressive, makes grand gestures, is flamboyant, cowardly, dishonest, weak, bad at fighting, lazy, spineless, meek, unused to exercise etc. Now a person could be all these things and also happen to be queer. However, Loki was never like this before. His character was retconned to be this way only in this series where he is confirmed to be queer.

Furthermore, the entire premise of the series seems to be that it is funny and entertaining and justified when Loki is dehumanized, mocked, humiliated, hurt, tortured, beaten, assaulted, and/or robbed of his dignity. That’s the premise. That’s the whole show.

In addition to pro torture and pro authoritarianism and pro victim blaming messaging the show also has problematic depictions of black characters  (see here and here), Asian people (see here) and also has a lot of fludphobia and transphobia issues. And much more.

@nikkoliferous has put together a great compendium here of various posts explaining the various issues with the show if you're curious about why some people disliked it.

[coracandy]

So. About that 6th wedding option.

Long post. Not sorry.

Trigger warning for #beemoovnegativity I guess. Probably throw that warning on everything I’ve posted since UL launched and everything I am likely to post for the foreseeable future because I hate beemoov. So much. I hate very nearly all of the writing choices that were made through LL, with everything surrounding Eric taking 2nd place on the worst story choices of the whole game list right behind the student falsely accuses their teacher of sexual assault plot. I just really hate cheating plots. I have also been obliquely accused of hating the Eric fans and I just want to clear up here and now that I only hate some of you. Most of you I am happy for. But man.. some of ya’ll have some utter garbage opinions and I’ve had a couple wine coolers today so I’m ready to no filter on all my own opinions about this whole mess. Click through if you want them.

Starting off.. Yeah, I said it would be funny if the wedding episode ended with Candy cheating on Eric and you know why I said that? Because if your Candy is with Eric in the first place it’s only because your Candy is a cheater. Canonically. In the real story of the real game. Not your fanfic version which we’ll get to in a bit, I promise, but in the actual game as it is actually written, if this is the path you chose then, canonically, your Candy is a cheater. She is selfish. She cares about no one and nothing but herself and what she wants in the moment. And, frankly, it seems like some of the players feel the same. I vividly recall many screen shot posts by Eric fans getting offended that their former love interests were angry about being cheated on. Citing that anger as justification for the cheating even. “This is how they react to the news? Ugh! I’m glad I cheated on them. They deserved it.” And that’s just.. reprehensible. Truly. Ya’ll remind me of beemoov, tbh. Treating someone’s anger at being stabbed in the back as a good enough reason to have stabbed them in the first place and an excuse to never have to apologize or even acknowledge the hurt.

So that’s Camp One of the Eric fans (probably the smallest camp tbh, but still very much one that exists) - the people who acknowledge the cheating aspect of the storyline but think it’s a good thing and yeah, I actually do just hate those people and their attitude. So to those people let me just say - 1) Monogamy isn’t sex negative. You’re ridiculous. 2) This storyline isn’t non-monogamous representation. It’s cheating. Those aren’t the same thing. 3)Betraying someone’s trust is always -always- a selfish, cruel, morally reprehensible thing to do. (And before anyone starts strawmanning at me about but what if that person was abusive - stop. That’s not what we’re talking about here, and you know it.)

So on to Camp Two of the Eric fans -  the drama addicts. The people that took the cheating route just because it was the first interesting thing to happen in the story in about 15 episodes. This is a camp I don’t hate but man oh man do I get frustrated by the way that all media and storytelling panders endlessly to them. This type of fan is the reason I can’t have nice things. The reason I can’t have a simply told story that builds to a narratively satisfying conclusion but instead get ass-pull twist endings that are exciting by dint of being unexpected but make no sense when you stop to think about them for five seconds. They’re the reason I get to be constantly frustrated by slow burn romances that last seven seasons and then end with the characters finally hooking up only for one of them to die two episodes later because happiness and contentment are boring. Heaven forbid a story ever slow down to focus on character development. If no one’s being killed, or cheated on, or getting pregnant without knowing which of three guys the father might be, or getting kidnapped, or diagnosed with a fatal disease, or lying to their best friend then there’s not even a story there. No tension. No drama. Why bother watching? Who wants to see characters being happy? I do. Please. For once. For more than a scene or two before something devastating happens to end it again. Just let me have nice things. For the most part this camp of players seems kinda meh about the idea of a wedding episode and would probably agree with me that Candy cheating on Eric during it would be funny. Feel like a lot of them meme on Eric as best LI because they like watching drama in the fandom as much as in the game. And I do genuinely hope they’re enjoying it while it unfolds. We have polar opposite tastes but I dream of someday living in a world where we can both have our own definition of nice things and both be happy.

And now on to Camp Three -  the people I think this wedding episode is mostly for. This is the camp I have nothing but sympathy for. These are the people who just genuinely liked the character. He simply clicked with them more than the other LIs, was closest to their idealized partner. So they ignore the way he was used in the story, headcanon away the cheating or write in their own version where the breakup happened before the sex scene, or the original LI was abusive, or maybe they were just never in another relationship through LL at all in their version of events. They just really like this character and want to have their Candy get a happy ending with him. And I have sympathy. I do. I would have loved for beemoov to give an option to end up with Eric without being dishonest. But they didn’t. That version of the story is just fanfiction. And it frustrates me when people get so invested in a fanfic version of a character or story that they start insisting the canon version is wrong and that people reacting to the canon version are misinterpreting it. I sympathize. I do. As a Lysander fangirl, I understand very well the emotional attachment one can develop to a character and story you mostly had to invent yourself because the source material never bothered to. But you can’t get offended at people being disappointed or even angry that the cheating route got a happy ending just because your personal fanfic version of the story didn’t include the cheating. The anger really isn’t being directed at you but at the canon story choices you probably also hated. I wish the story had been different for you. I really do. And hey, you all get the last laugh, in the end, as it seems the story is getting whitewashed or retconned or just generally is planning to ignore the ugly parts of what happened to give you the big white wedding of your dreams with your perfect man. And I’m happy for you. We should all have had that chance.

But we won’t. Because beemoov still doesn’t care about a lot of us. That’s where this anger mostly comes from. And it’s why I can’t agree, even slightly, with the people who are pointing to this decision and saying “Look! They’re listening to the players finally. Maybe things will get better.” Because they’re only listening to some players. Some of us have been begging to be heard for years now and they still won’t listen. And they never will. Much as I'd love to be wrong about that, I’m not wrong and you all know it. I’m happy for the people who are happy right now. But I’m warning y’all.. Don’t get comfortable. Don’t ever trust them. They’ll rip your heart out, tell you you should like it, and turn their backs on you forever while you bleed out. Don’t think it can’t happen again. It can, and knowing beemoov, it probably will.

[takaraphoenix]

I think that Supernatural now has the unique opportunity of coining a new fandom term, because... there isn’t really a word for what they did; not to my knowledge at least.

Queerbaiting is, very distinctively, the act of queer-coding a dynamic between two on-screen heterosexual characters and making a profit off the shippers while at no point having any intention of ever actually making either of them queer, much less dropping the “b” from their bromance. That’s the whole point of queerbaiting; refusing the queer. By making Castiel queer in the end, regardless of how badly it was handled, it kind of disqualified itself from being queerbaiting anymore.

But that doesn’t make it any less bad!

Queercatching is a variation of this, where they give you the gay, but only a little bit of gay. Supernatural would be that if Dean had actually returned the feelings, said “I love you too” and shared one last passionate kiss with Castiel before Cas went to Super Hell. They gave you the ship, but like... only a little bit, so you can’t say they baited you, because it did happen on screen! But they also really didn’t give you representation either, they didn’t give you a queer storyline or a proper relationship. However, Dean didn’t return the feelings, there was no kiss, no holding hands while soulfully gazing at each other one last time five seconds before the show ended.

There should be a term for one-sided canon, for half-assing the queercatching, for saying “look! you were right with this one... but not the other, let us drive home how very heterosexual the other one is and how very not returned the feelings are”. Many, many franchises do that - the tragic queer character who falls hopelessly in love with the very, very heterosexual protagonist. It’s cringey af, all the time.

Sure, most queers have such experiences of crushing on, or being in love with, a straight person at one point in their life, but... mirroring reality and the actual queer experience is not the goal of these storylines. These storylines aren’t about the queer character usually; they center very firmly around the straight guy, because it’s generally his story. The queer character is always a very vital and useful part to the straight character’s plotline, helping him out in huge ways, being a big support, both emotionally and in the fight. And they did it because they were hopelessly in love with the straight protagonist, as it turns out. They served a purpose in the story and that purpose is the straight lead.

These storylines, I’ve never come across them with two characters of equal rank in the storytelling; the straight character is always a more important main character, the titular protagonist, something like that.

In really bad cases, they come off as “look at that saint of a straight protagonist! how non-homophobic he is for handling that confession so well!”, usually (unlike here!), followed by “and now I can write off the gay character into his endgame gay romance”, to be done with that. They never really focus on the queer character overcoming the heartbreak, or on them both dealing with the awkward aftermath of a love-confession, they just move on and that’s what makes it feel so very dishonest. Because it’s not actually about the queer character’s feelings; otherwise we would also deal with the aftermath of rejection and with their emotions. We just move on from it, with the narrative on the straight character.

I’ve seen this plotline so often by now, but honestly, Supernatural really outdid themselves there by adding the Bury Your Gay and sending him to Super Hell, while the straight guy goes to heaven, never actually has to go through that emotional journey I just mentioned always is missing - the dealing with the feelings - instead, it all is just dismissed. And they even got to skip out on putting the queer character into a new romance to be done with him, they just got rid of him completely after he served the straight protagonist’s plot (by saving him; this time and many times before).

I’d love for the term “they sent the character to Super Hell” to catch on in fandom for this particular way of having a queer character confess to a straight character, who has no intentions of returning the feelings, and then just moving on from the confession like nothing happened. Not just in the way it is right now kind of a meme and a joke, but as an... actual lasting fandom term. That should be Supernatural’s legacy. I really hope it sticks around for that purpose.

[eyeciclez]

April 10th: How important is representation to you? Is the representation that is out there generally good or bad? What is your favorite piece of representation? What you like to see more of in autism representation? What would you like to see less of? 

Honestly, it’s one of the more unimportant parts of activism to me. I try not to underestimate the influence media can have on people, but I still much rather have the option to 1) work in an environment that doesn’t make me want to die, 2) not depend on people or systems that don’t have my needs in mind and 3) adequate health care and accommodations.

I still have some opinions:

Productions that do have the reach to influence the general public, don’t have any interest in autism advocacy. They're out for money, and some individuals in the industry also want the pat on the shoulder for being brave enough to write characters on the spectrum, for being inspiring and whatnot.

On a personal level, yes, I can admit that seeing characters I can relate to can feel good and reassuring. Especially when they’re popular, or, well, cool. But those characters are almost never meant to be read as autistic, and that’s honestly fine with me.

We are normal people, after all. It’s not impossible or even difficult to write an autistic character without meaning to. There are more than enough tropes that come from us, and that one eccentric person that served as an inspiration for your character, might very well be autistic without you (or them) knowing. That’s natural.

Allistic people tend to be so shocked when they can relate to us, or to a character the community at large identifies with. I’ve seen it happen more than once: we explain why a character looks without a doubt autistic to us, only for an allistic person to interfere to say that they identify with them as well (and we all know the implications). Which is honestly great! It’s fantastic that you can relate to L Death Note as an allistic person; I wish you could find it in yourself to extent this connection to me as well. You logically should be able to, since I can see myself in L as well.

I haven’t watched or read a lot of stuff with canon autistic characters in it, but I’m still quite informed about the well-known movies/books/shows that make an attempt at representation. I remember seeing myself a bit in the guy from Rain Man, but I’m aware of why the community has mixed feelings about the movie.

What I would like to see more of: just let us be people, you know. I don’t mind that we tend to be portrayed as eccentric, because really, that’s what we are. But that doesn’t make it any more cool to portray us as something to gawk at or to “figure out”. All people are complex, but no one is too complicated to understand.

What I hate above all, is that whatever we struggle with is always depicted as something from inside, like the Overlord Demon Autism. You don’t have to blame society for every single issue we might face, but completely ignoring the existence of social constructs that aggressively work against us/disabled people is dishonest.

What I would like to see less of: one-dimensionalism. That’s practically it. Mathematical geniuses, overly logical characters, characters with cliché hobbies and so on - all that wouldn’t bother me if, in the end, we’d still have a well-rounded human being. Most clichés don’t come from nothing, after all.

I’ve seen people say that we should stop portraying autistic people with low empathy, which isn’t as helpful as you’d think. I do have low empathy. It’s one of the main characteristics that make identifiable as autistic. Which is true for a lot of us, so who exactly would it help to stop depicting these kind of characters?

[akechicrimes]

yeah alright

i’m reading the book called “the dark fantastic” written by a Fandom Old who later became a professor and academic scholar, talking about the ways that fandom outrage over the death of black female characters is a form of protest for justice in our literature. and how people get so fucking mad over these things because, you know, we deserve more. we deserve better rep.

and like, i was thinking today, you know, there’s a strong argument that yosuke was emotionally too raw to go into a relationship after losing saki (that’s a real fucking thing that a good friend explained to me as the reason why his date route was cancelled), and that yosuke wasn’t comfortable to come out as bi just then at that point in his life. which is fucking rich, considering that persona 4 is all about accepting one’s true self, and the way that argument goes, it lines up yosuke as someone who ultimately never did accept his true self.

and i was also thinking today like, akechi’s s link and plotline in royal is so plot dependent that it’s difficult to have a point where you can choose to date him. his rank 9 and 10 are spent in the engine room. before then, he’s got his hands tied with shido, and any relationship he entered into at that point would have been dishonest. so from then on there’s really no good available spots to select to date him.

but then i was also thinking about the intimacy of the cafe scene, where he purposefully requests to be alone with you and you’re talking about something so difficult, and it’s like. that would have been the obvious choice. there’s a reason why there’s 1000 fanfics already with the scenario of shuake first kiss on the last night they’ll have together. plus royal’s entire theme was about the sadness of loss and the embrace of freedom even if it’s painful, and i was like. literally it would have taken you three more lines of dialogue.

akechi’s like, well if there’s nothing left, i’ll be going. akira asks him to stay. akechi says don’t be ridiculous. akira has the little thought bubble of “i better choose my words carefully.” akira has the choice to either let him go or propose for akechi to stay a little while longer. akechi tells him if he knows what he’s getting in to, if he’s prepared his heart for this sort of decision. akira says he has. fade to black “you spent a long time with akechi.” 

boom. it’s right there.

i’ve been thinking a lot about how to some extent, i enjoy relationships that are queercoded or even queerbait MORE than i enjoy relationships that are explicitly queer, because i find that relationships that are written to be queercoded tend to embrace the full humanity of both characters. i find that more often than not, literature that’s made for the purpose of being queer ends up with “love simon” syndrome, where everything about the character winds up revolving around them being gay. which isn’t what i want. i want characters who are full human beings with real character arcs about them finding their way in the world as a complex individual, and they are gay. and for that reason, yosuke hanamura was a fucking gift, because he was written to be a complex character with a character arc revolving around his cynicism and difficulties with other people, a character you can befriend and grow closer to, and also he’s bi. and i like akechi for a lot of the same reasons.

but i was also thinking, you know, if i like queercoded and queerbaited relationships more than explicitly queer relationships because of the full humanity it affords queercoded characters, WHY CAN’T I JUST HAVE NARRATIVES WHERE I HAVE EXPLICITLY QUEER CHARACTERS THAT ARE GIVEN THEIR FULL HUMANITY.

WHY’S IT GOT TO BE EITHER OR.

IT COULD BE BOTH AND.

in some better world i could play a fun JRPG with a wild conceit about people’s cognitions warping in jungian fashion and summoning parts of their souls to fight demons and have it contain explicitly queer characters. in some better i don’t have to choose the fun JRPG or milquetoast bullshit like love simon. and in some better world i don’t have to buckle down so hard on death of the author just to extract decent representation from a liberatory queer reading of the source text, and i don’t have to pretend i’m not fucking salty about shuake being so heavily implied and then never made explicit.

because it was!!!! it is!!!!! people saying that it wasn’t implied are fucking blind!!!! and for that matter, akira can canonically date his own TEACHER for WAY flimsier narrative reasons!!!!!! you can basically date every single woman in that game except for your narrative-locked lawyer and the twelve-year-old girls!!!!!!

shuake was written as a romance, a seduction in which both sides attempt to sway the other to their own, and then it was never paid off as one. it’s the fucking textbook definition of queerbait in its original definition, in which queerbait is a narrative plotline that’s intentionally loaded with homoerotic tension for a queer audience to read into and get invested in, only for that plotline to never pan out to appease straight audiences. it’s not revolutionary on atlus’s part to have implied shuake so heavily and then pulled out. it’s what people have been doing since modern media began. 

there was literally no good goddamn reason for it to not have been paid off except to appease straight audiences--you don’t even need to heavily restructure the plot--the cafe scene is right fucking there.

im going to stop being bitter in like, two seconds. i promise. (except also i’ve been fucking bitter about yosuke hanamura, and also everyone who tried to tell me that phoenix/miles was not a thing in ace attorney, literally ever since i was fifteen. to have your entire forum gang up on you and tell you that you’re “reading too much into it” and just have “shipper goggles” when yosuke being undateable was a fucking crime to his narrative plot and self-actualization? when you’re fifteen and queer and not sure if you’re queer and every single person you trust tells you that you’re being stupid? FUCK that shit. and i cannot believe it’s happening again. it makes me want to fucking spit.) 

ok. 

ok. 

i’m going to stop being bitter.

but i had to get that off my chest. 

[beingpassionateabout]

sory if this ask doesnt speak directly to you because I am not a shipper but ew I feel like honymayo bs is being so forced and dishonest to Elsa character's because Elsa always was all about platonic and love family. I feel people are just being full delusional I don't even hate honeymustard she doesn't even is an important character she is like a tree she is just part of the scenario, I am a great support of Elsa aroace actually I do see it as the canon route for Elsa you know?

I know what you mean and I agree with your point about Elsa being aroace coded in canon. To me, when they showed her reaction to Anna playing with the dolls and making them kiss it’s clear that she’s being repulsed by the idea of sexual or romantic contact with another person no matter their gender. Maybe more romantic than sexual bc she’s a kid and she doesn’t fully grasp the notion of sexual contact. But the point stands. Add that to the way Elsa doesn’t seem bothered by either gender she comes in contact with and the new, elevated look she gets by the end (more divine than human), it’s clear to me that the creators don’t intend on giving her a love interest. For many reasons, but mainly bc it’d displease one of the sides (boy or girl love interest) and would be deemed too political a topic. 

Also, Elsa only ever expressed love and affection towards Anna, her True Love, let’s not forget. Contributing to my viewing her as an aroace person who would gladly grow old beside Anna. 

I also agree that elsamaren shippers in their majority are fake woke ppl. They speak words of activism and they sound righteous in their speech but they don’t actually want representation, they want the upper hand over elsannas. They want to feel validated bc they ship a “morally clean” ship. Too bad Disney doesn’t give a fuck about them. 

[x3ghosts-remaking]

Why You Shouldn't Headcanon Tenko as Bi (or as Anything Other than Lesbian)

This is gonna be a long post, mostly just to archive all the reasons so I don't have to keep explaining it over and over and over again and can instead just send them this post.

This covers all the reasons I've seen for why people think it's fine, from the 'yeah, I get why you might think that, but' to the 'holy shit are you even slightly thinking about what you're saying?'

Bottom line of this is that any reason you have for doing so is inherently lesbophobic, and I will explain why. People can feel free to add more reasons, and people can ask for clarification on certain points (since, me being autistic, I know the way I phrase things can be confusing sometimes). Don't try to tell me something I list here isn't lesbophobic if you aren't a lesbian, because that's an immediate block, buddy. I know what I'm talking about. If you are a lesbian, I will consider your stance on it, though be aware you will not change my overall stance on this topic.

One more thing before I start: there is a difference between accidentally doing something lesbophobic and purposefully doing something lesbophobic. Because of how our society is, everybody is a bit lesbophobic, and the difference lies in whether it's purposeful or not. You headcanoned her as bi-or-otherwise before knowing why it's bad, and you decide to stop after this list? Congrats! You're listening to lesbians when we say things are lesbophobic and taking us seriously, so it was likely accidental before, and you're not someone we'd typically refer to as lesbophobic! You read this list and continue doing so? Guess what buddy! You're now being unabashedly, purposefully lesbophobic! Piece of shit!

All that said, let's get started (please let the read more work).

'Her Love Hotel scene is with a man' - for starters, the LH scenes are not canon. This scene in particular plays on three lesbophic ideas; 'deep down, all women want to be dominated by a man' (which is also incredibly sexist), 'lesbians just haven't found the right man', and 'lesbians can be turned' (note: those last two go hand in hand most of the time). There is absolutely nothing in canon to indicate she likes men and everything to indicate she isn't, so - particularly considering events like Rantaro's show that the LH scenes don't have to be romantic or sexual - the fact that she suddenly likes men in a non canon fanservice scene in a game directed towards men with the reasons for it being incredibly lesbophobic, using this scene as proof that she can like men is showing you agree with these ideas and see absolutely no problem with it.

'Her Salmon Mode events' - again, it's non canon and plays on the 'lesbians just haven't found the right man' thing, which is an example of lesbophobia. This was basically explained in the last point, so I'll move on.

'The only reason she doesn't like men is because of what her master said/her reason is ridiculous' - believe it or not, this is another example of lesbophobic writing! Her FTEs push the idea that lesbians must have a *reason* for disliking men (aka 'being a lesbian is unnatural'), and that their reasons are always ridiculous and irrational (aka 'lesbians are ridiculous and irrational (for not liking men)'. I'm kind of finding this one difficult to phrase properly, if anyone can think of a better way to say it lmk). Also, using this as a defence implies that you think lesbians that *do* have reasons are really just bi, which is. Bad. You don't dictate what does and doesn't make someone a 'valid lesbian'.

'She gets along with Shuichi at the end of her FTEs' - never understood this one, honestly. Only explanation I can think of is that you think lesbians are women who absolutely hate all men rather than just women who aren't attracted to them, which, guess what, is a lesbophobic stereotype! But honestly like. You realise lesbians can have male friends right? Isn't saying that a boy and girl who get along must have romantic chemistry Bad and Heteronormative? Or does it only apply when justifying lesbophobia? Lol sorry this one got a bit ruder but this is one of the 'holy shit are you even slightly thinking about what you're saying?' points I mentioned earlier.

'I relate to her as a bi woman with a preference' - not liking boys isn't having a preference it's being a lesbian, being bi doesn't give you an excuse to have lesbophobic headcanons, you can headcanon LITERALLY ANY OTHER FEMALE CHARACTER IN THE *ENTIRE SERIES* AS BI WITHOUT TAKING AWAY THE *ONE* BIT OF REPRESENTATION WE HAVE. Like, how would you feel I started insisting Mikan is a lesbian even though she's canon bi because ~I relate to her uwu~? I relate to Mikan, I'm a lesbian, Mikan's clearly bi, so I... don't hc her as a lesbian. And it's that simple. I promise that not having a lesbophobic hc won't kill you.

Kind of related to the last point, headcanoning and arguing that the *only* lesbian rep we have in the *entire series* CAN be attracted to boys, actually, is lesbophobic in and of itself. Why do you want her to be attracted to boys so badly? The answer is fairly obvious, of course, but I'll say it anyway - it's because of your lesbophobia. If you can't help trying to reason why this one, singular girl is actually attracted to boys, that's lesbophobic. We can have one.

'But she's not a *canon* lesbian' - basically her entire character while she was alive, in canon, was about her liking girls and not liking boys. She was every bit a man hating lesbian stereotype. She was every bit a predatory lesbian stereotype. The writers couldn't have not known this. They wrote a lesbian. The way they wrote her is extremely lesbophobic in canon. Then they also wrote lesbophobic, non canon scenes, that are lesbophobic in entirely different ways. Because sometimes... writers..... are lesbophobic. There's no reason they'd do any of that if she wasn't written as a lesbian.

Lesbophobic writing is not bisexual representation

I hope you all understand. Apologies again for being a bit rude at times, but this is a subject people have been arguing for over two years since the game came out in Japan, and its like nobody cares when lesbians say something is lesbophobic. It feels like everyone who would understand should understand by this point... but I realise that may not be the case. Nevertheless, rewriting certain parts to be less angry would be dishonest of me, and dishonesty helps nobody in situations like this.

If you've read this far, thank you for your time. This is a subject important to me and many other people, so I hope I've helped some people understand. Again, if you wish to add something or ask for clarification, go right ahead.

[iabsolutelyresentthiswebsite]

The Last Jedi Sin #5

I just talked about how Rey’s character was completely inconsistent a little bit ago, so let’s go with another Rey-centric Sin.

Well, here it is, guys. I know you were waiting for it...at least, just a little.

5. The Parentage Reveal-???

It’s been about 3 days since the worldwide release of The Last Jedi and about 6 days since the embargo on spoilers has been lifted, so if you don’t already know who her parents- allegedly- are, STOP READING NOW. 

So, her parents are nobodies, junkers who sold their daughter for drinking money. 

Gonna have to stop you right there.

What?

Like, I get what you’re going for. You’re trying to say like, “You don’t have to be a Skywalker or anyone important to be strong in the Force. The Force is for everyone. Anyone can have it.” Blah blah blah blah blah.

See, I’m one of those people who has always believed that. I’m actually someone who believes that The Force knows when the balance is really out of whack and will help to fix it by endowing more and more people with the Force in order to help balance itself. It’s a nice concept. I don’t know if that’s supported by canon, but that’s not the point of this post. 

I believe anyone can have The Force and be strong in it. 

But Rey is not a nobody...I’m so sorry. 

Having her be a nobody is completely unsupported by TFA and Marketing. 

Why the hell was there such a hype over her lineage?

Of course it was perpetuated by fans because we love the mystery, but if it really didn’t fucking matter who her parents were, y’all could have downplayed it. But y’all played into the hype like nobody’s business. It was made so important that we know who her parents were that literally almost everyone was convinced she had to have been someone’s daughter or granddaughter.

The most popular fan theory was that she was the daughter of Luke Skywalker because *chokes* IT WAS THE ONLY LOGICAL DEDUCTION FROM THE FORCE AWAKENS. 

All the parallels made between her and Luke/Anakin, all the same visuals, being a great pilot inexplicably, being really strong in The Force, being thrown into a world they weren’t really ready for, the Skywalker Legacy Lightsaber calling to her, what she wore, how she carried herself, literally everything in TFA pointed her to being connected to Luke in more than just a future Master-Padawan relationship. 

But it was HYPED. It was HARPED UPON that we KNOW. The actors were not contractually allowed to say JACK DIDDLY SQUAT about it. 

Why would it matter if she wasn’t Luke’s daughter or connected to someone otherwise important? 

If she truly is a nobody, the storytelling in TFA, the reused visual representations, the marketing, making the actors keep the information on lock like they did, is completely all for naught, utter shit, misdirection, and proves that TFA was a rehashing of A New Hope. 

But assssssiiiiide from all that truth, let’s talk about how it was revealed to her.

It was shoe-horned the fuck in there like nobody’s business. 

Kylo just saying, “You know the truth. Say it.” (What is this, Twilight?)

“Your parents were nobody. They were junkers who sold their daughter for drinking money. Dead somewhere in the sands of Jakku. You might be nothing, nobody, but you’re not nothing to me.” - Something to that effect. 

Like...there was almost no build-up to it, except that Kylo said he “saw her parents” and her in the water mirror cave thingy, where The Dark Side...rEfUsED to show her her parents. Like...that’s suspect. 

Watching the movie, that reveal that fans have been literally waiting 2 years for felt like it was an after-thought. Like Rian was like, “we gotta answer this question”. “But where?” and he’s like, “Shit IDK, let Kylo tell her something.”

Also, it felt as if Kylo was being dishonest with her. A lot of people are unsatisfied with this answer because it felt completely wrong and was completely unsupported by everything leading up to this movie. A Lot of people, in fact, think that he was lying to her to make her angry and more willing to join him on the Dark Side. Being a nobody relieves her of many of her perceived obligations, doesn’t it?

I, for one, hope JJ retcons that bullshit choice because it is wrong for this narrative and completely delegitimizes The Force Awakens for what it did establish. 

Why the hell was there a scene where 4-year-old Rey was being left behind and her parents, or caretakers, were flying off in a ship...off the planet?! What the hell does this flashback mean now?!

We all know it.

Also, y’all really expect me to buy her not being a Skywalker when on two separate occasions, when Kylo Ren, a confirmed Skywalker kin, and Rey of Jakku, an alleged nobody, fought over the Skywalker Legacy Lightsaber, it- first- chose Rey over Kylo and second, couldn’t fucking choose and snapped in half! You expect me to believe she is just a nobody?! 

Moreover, making her a nobody is actually a little insulting to her character because a lot of her pain stems from her family abandoning her. That she will never be able to face the people who caused her this kind of pain, not be able to reconcile with them, never meet them or see their face, having Kylo off-handedly reveal this incredibly unsatisfying information...seriously?!

Y’all built her up to be a somebody, related to somebody, and literally cut her down with no explanation and no justification, when there was no evidence of her ever being a nobody. 

Part of a director’s job is to put hints in there so that audience can discover the answers to questions they have before it’s actually revealed and many did, so this “Rey Nobody” shit is completely out of left field. 

I just...don’t fucking buy Kylo’s story. 

And I don’t buy it because y’all made me not buy it with everything you showed us in the movie, everything you said, everything she said and did. It doesn’t make sense. 

This is a sin because it’s bad storytelling, bad writing, a bad choice, makes no sense, is completely unsupported by everything leading up to the movie, and is a lazy, cop-out that...little do they know...actually requires more exposition for fans to understand. 

I don’t understand why they did this and I never will.

[kingofthewilderwest]

Finally watching season 4, is it just me or is it suddenly obvious that they’re being very specific about Gendering Pidge as a girl? It definitely wasn’t this obvious in previous seasons. (I’m only on episode 3)

First, before I start this conversation: for people who may not know or may not be as familiar with me personally, I am non-binary myself. For about the first twenty-two or so years of my life I was referred to exclusively by “she/her/hers” pronouns. So the whole concept of Pidge and her headcanoned non-binariness is something that touches pretty close to my personal life experiences. I just want to make this clear so that people don’t try to dismiss me as trying to wash away non-binary representation… I’m not, I relate hugely to Pidge, I want non-binary characters like none other in fiction, and I’m just saying what I think the writers have intended with Pidge’s character.

So the writers have always typed Pidge as a woman. At least, that’s how she canonically considers herself gender-wise now in the story. I think the reason why it feels that Pidge is suddenly feeling more gender-typed as female is because the moments in which we see her doing more societally female-coded things is in her past when she’s with her family. We didn’t get many family moments in S1-3. The fact we have more flashback scenes with her in S4, and the fact that she reunites with her brother in S4, means we’re going to get more of these female-coded incidences more frequently shown on screen.

Since the first season we’ve seen Pidge demonstrate some things that are coded in our society as female gender expression. One of the prime ways in which she shows female-coded behavior is through fashion. Consider the photograph she carries with her. While Matt is in his uniform, Pidge is dressed with long hair, a headband, and an adorable pink and white dress. Just a year ago, she was voluntarily wearing a pretty darned cute outfit that is societally associated with girls and women.

The flashbacks in S1E5 “Tears of the Balmera” do just show Pidge in her standard green shirt (how many of us don’t own simple unisex shirts though?). It’s to note she wears her hair in a side-ponytail, which isn’t exactly a societally prototypical male fashion. She’s also upset to cut her hair, muscles in her face notably tightening before she closes the scissors the first time. Pidge is attached to her long, female-coded hair.

But overall we don’t tend to see Pidge as markedly gender-coded female throughout the first three seasons because she’s not in the environment where the codes she relates to get brought up. Pidge starts VLD disguising as male to avoid suspicion when she enrolls in the Garrison. She wears clothes that she already owns, but intentionally picks the ones that are most gender-neutral and least revealing to her identity. And once we get on the Castle Ship, Pidge isn’t going to wear a lot of cute, girlie clothes when she’s only got that one pair of clothes she was wearing at the Garrison… and some awesome Paladin armor.

Because while it seems that Pidge enjoys wearing some feminine fashions from time-to-time, it’s not like she’s ever been a markedly “girly” personality in most of her interests, be it either here or in the flashbacks. Most of her personal passions are not societally coded as feminine… technology, video games, mathematics. So she doesn’t ring out as very gendery-wendery-feminine to us - we grow up in a societal culture where we might expect a female character to display a few more female coded things. So she gets translated to audiences as feeling more ambiguous…

…even though she herself makes it explicitly clear to the other Paladins: “I’m a girl.” Those are the words she uses. She thinks of herself as female, she tells the Paladins that, and it’s a pressing matter to her - she feels uncomfortable prior to the reveal, uncomfortable that she’s been disguising herself and being dishonest to them. She’s uncomfortable enough that even a common English figure of speech “man up” bothers her when it’s applied to her. Because it’s not who she is!

Pidge in the Castle of Lions just doesn’t have the proper context whereby we see the moments where she acts the most societally feminine, because the areas in which we see her act the most feminine are things like fashion, which she doesn’t have access to millions of lightyears from Earth.

But yes, even though we haven’t had as much context by which to highlight Pidge’s more feminine coded personal facets, she’s always had those codings in her character, down from the first episode in the first season.

Now S4 has rolled around. We see more flashbacks of Pidge, and with it, new outfits that also read as “feminine” to us. I absolutely love this little number with the leggings… she looks adorable:

And on top of that, in this very same scene with Matt, she tells him to call her “Katie,” not Pidge. She’s explicitly preferring a name that is for girls and women.

Of course we also get the pink dress again, giving audiences yet again more feelings of feminine coding.

Then there’s Matt parading around, calling Pidge “sister” constantly, so we get that “rubbed in” more.

This is all family stuff.

I believe that S4 is also one of the first seasons to use “she” pronouns in the actual script. Lots of times, characters have been speaking directly to Pidge, thus calling her “you,” which isn’t gendered, or mentioning her gender-neutral nickname, “Pidge,” instead of a pronoun. BUT. Even then… in the first comic book… which takes place during S1 times… Pidge is called “she” and “her” by her Paladin buddies:

This means in S1 material alone, Pidge has been called “she,” Pidge has called herself a “girl,” and Pidge has demonstrated some female-coded fashion sense. That’s the exact same material, in fact, as what we get in S4.

S4 just has that material happen a little more often. It feels Pidge is being more gendered as a woman this season mostly because we’re seeing her in the contexts where she’s the most feminine-coded. The flashback scenes with her clothing. The interactions with her brother, who is going to call her “she” and “sister.” It’s not that the writers are pulling out a harder “Pidge is a woman” card… there’s nothing new that they’ve introduced this season than they have shown in the past. Nothing new at all. We’re just in the context where we see the feminine side of Pidge a bit more frequently in 4.

I’ve personally never read Pidge as canonically non-binary. I’ve read her as “she has the potential to develop and realize she’s non-binary later” and “she is pleasantly easy to headcanon as non-binary.” But I do think that throughout the franchise, there has been nothing explicit to target her as non-binary. Please continue to read her how you read her, but this is my respectful perspective.

It’s sort of ironic in that people headcanon Pidge as non-binary largely in part because they use the same societal expectations of gender-coding that so many people across the same community are trying to destroy. Many people talk about how X shouldn’t be exclusive to women, but should be acceptable to all humans… but I do suspect lots of the reason so many people attach to Pidge as a potential non-binary representative is because she doesn’t scream those X gender-coded things. Gender expression isn’t the same as gender identity, so just because Pidge expresses herself in a certain way doesn’t mean she is one type of gender or another. I dress extremely feminine at times. Doesn’t make me a woman. Pidge has what society feels are gender-neutral interests. Doesn’t mean she’s not a woman.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a non-binary gender headcanon, and in fact those non-binary headcanons make me smile because it’s the feeling of people recognizing my own gender, my own identity. The headcanons resonate with me, too. I like them. Please, feel free to keep with your headcanons! There’s nothing wrong with them!

And there’s nothing saying the writers couldn’t develop Pidge canonically to reveal herself as non-binary! It’s totally feasible. Just because she liked long hair doesn’t mean anything about her actual identity, etc. etc. etc. Furthermore, I didn’t fully understand what it was to be non-binary until adulthood, where I discovered an identity that was always what I had felt about myself on the inside. Pidge could find that, too. This is something that often occurs later in life, so there’s certainly still time for that development to happen in a fifteen-year-old.

And if the writers ever did announce Pidge as canonically non-binary, you would bet I would stop the video, pump my fists in the air, and start screaming wildly “YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!” Because non-binary representation is beautiful and important and meaningful! I would love for Pidge to be non-binary, let’s be real!

But at the moment, we’ve gotten four seasons of Pidge demonstrating societally-aligned female coding. We’ve gotten Pidge referring to herself as a girl - which is much more importantly indicative. Pidge not having many feminine gender-coded interests, and being confused at alien bathroom signs, isn’t enough to be a foreshadowing of her announcing a non-binary identity. I don’t suspect that Pidge will come out as non-binary personally. I’m completely fine with that.

Anyway. TL;DR. Pidge is showing the same sorts of female-coded things in S4 as she has in previous seasons. S4 just might feel as though the writers are gendering her more apparently because Pidge is being shown in the contexts where this is the most noticeable about her.

[losebetter]

so. dream daddy stuff.

aimless hate has been deleted. (not my first rodeo, friends.) those of you sending support along, thank you - i really appreciate it. if it puts the response to this in perspective:

102 of 205 people (50%) found this review helpful 6 people found this review funny

there’s a 22-coment long thread attached. some of it has been supportive, thankfully - a lot of it has been about what you’d expect out of steam. i’ve also gotten a lot of hate from grumps fans, which is a damn shame. it’s off the front page now - no idea if that means the garbage is done with or not, though. i’m trying to balance keeping up with genuine inquiry and, like, not losing my mind.

Anonymous said: hey when you are comfortable doing so, could you expand on your rating of the game some more? I'm not really sure what I need to be looking out for, and I don't wanna buy a game that I'm unsure of. what exactly made you feel the way you did? I've seen a lot of positive support but not a lot of what you've posted and I'd really like to get both voices if possible. thanks

comicalsenses said: I played through DD and, idk, i thought it was good? like you could definitely fail, but i got a good ending with our kid, tho my dating didnt go too well. Do you feel like elaborating what squirked you? it's fine if you'd rather not talk about it. .o I was personally delighted to be able to be trans, like that meant a lot to me.

i’ll be honest with y’all about the place i am coming from: it feels like few, if any queer men were actually a part of this. i realize this isn’t gonna be a dealbreaker for a lot of people (and i’ve never argued that it had to be) but it just makes the whole thing fall flat to me.

honestly, maybe my feelings would’ve been different if there was a more neutral political climate towards queer (especially gay) men right now - but there isn’t. and as it is, all i saw was something short and cutesy and like, weirdly straight (given the game’s premise) that didn’t do what a lot of mlm expected it to do or hoped it would do, and i saw it make a whoooole bunch of money. maybe i’m being too cynical - and i certainly don’t expect the DDADDS twitter to be like, one of the only social media outlets discussing what’s going on in chechnya, for example (even though it wouldn’t be out of place). no one is really talking about that, and i get it. but where is the money going? what about the money they made on merch? it feels like a quick & dirty cash-in on people who need something fun and lighthearted, without actually expressing support for those people in any meaningful way. in fact, i’ve only been harassed for my sexuality more since getting involved with the game, which strikes me as backwards to how it should be.

like i said in my review, i love the visual style, the UI looks great. (the charming art & character designs carry it, for sure.) i think it’s a bit weird how much the voice-acting was hyped considering how minimal it is, but i vastly prefer minimal voicing in stuff like this anyway, so. i thought it was kind of dishonest, but didn’t mind what i got. the writing can get a bit OTT, but overall i found it silly and fun. it’s just... careless, that’s all.

i was glad to see the MC could be trans, as well - and i think damien might be canonically trans? which is super rad, if true - but the thing is... even all of that falls flat to me, i guess. the MC being trans doesn’t seem to have any impact on the story, and damien i think only mentions it via one word, when he talks about having binders. and yeah, it’s representation, but... like, is it? do you guys get what i mean? we saw the stream build where the MC could only be bi/pan, without the option to be gay - and i’m glad that got changed, but the silent way they did it felt underhanded. was it deliberate? was it just a glitch? did they fix a bug, or quietly change the game to get more customers into it? again: maybe i’m being too cynical, but queer men are in crisis right now. feels like i gotta be.

someone on steam said something interesting, about how the game was inclusive but the characters were just “acting normally” without their sexualities mattering very much, and thus it was progressive. but - i don’t know about y’all, but to me, they weren’t acting normally, they were acting like cis/het dudes. which i guess is a kind of normal, but. i mean. ?????? it just feels like anything the game did right, it did by accident. which is why i came away from it feeling like - i mean, “meh, i guess, but it’d be cool if this actually helped queer men in any way.” i can’t recommend it at all, despite its great visual presentation.

bottom line (sorry this post has become an essay, oops): i hope some folks do get something out of the game, if they paid for it, especially queer dudes. and i’m certainly not going to turn my nose up at anyone for whom the game means something - that isn’t and has never been the point of my review, and i want to make that super clear. i guess for me, it’s all about context and heart, and i didn’t see either one. i definitely regret spending the money on it, and probably won’t be talking about it much more. (as with my last negative review, i’d rather focus on games that do it right instead of languishing with the ones that just dishearten me.)

<3

[httplovecraft1890]

Random Yandere Simulator Win Condition Speculation

So the latest update for YanSim came out today and Yandere Dev gave us this image briefly in it. If you haven’t seen it yet this is in the context of Yandere Dev talking about factors that will influence which of the multiple endings you’ll receive.

(Apologies if this is blurry as I had to screen cap it.) Since I haven’t done a lengthy post in a while, let’s do some speculation, shall we? Most of these are fairly self-explanatory but I’ll touch on the ones I think are significant enough. Also: apologies in advance. I’m going to reference things I’ve heard from Yandere Dev himself through various social media throughout that I don’t have links to anymore.

Collecting Tapes Using audio tapes is a fairly good way in games to get more of your story across. It lets the writer play around with characters who don’t have to be physically present in order to show plot information to players and has been used in many games in the industry, probably most famously in BioShock and its spiritual forefather System Shock (especially the sequel). So seeing things that will be about Ayano’s parents (Basement Tapes), Headmaster Shuyona (Headmaster Tapes), and Megami’s dad (CEO Tapes) isn’t suprising. What is an interesting omission here to me is that the Journalist Tapes do not count towards what ending we will receive, which strikes me as odd given that while he won’t encounter him during the course of the game, he will be in 1989 mode as a main character. This says to me that this will be the background information we will be ‘spoon fed’ in the game (i.e., it will be gradually given directly to us as we advance in the plot); all the other material is effectively supplementary and it will be our job to discover it.

What is Yandere-chan’s relationship with Info-chan?

Way back when development on the game started Ayano was going to have to ultimately fight Info-chan as the game’s final villain who had been using you the whole time to eliminate other rivals for Senpai’s affection. This was ultimately changed - and for the better, IMHO, as it’s incredibly cliche - and Yandere Dev has stated before we can complete the final game without using her services at all though I assume it will be quite difficult. One of the things I think we will have a little more leniency on in the final game, not that anything has been officially confirmed yet, is cleaning up after murdering our opponents or disposing of them in dishonest ways like expulsion. You won’t have to be 100% perfect at what you’re doing at first; it allows players a learning curve. However, the game will keep an invisible tally of what you’re doing and this will affect certain things such as increased security during Megami’s week or even the police keeping open tabs on you before her though they haven’t been implemented yet. Screw up enough and they’re going to crack down on you and I suspect Info-chan’s willingness to aid you in those situations can be affected as well. She’s only looking out for herself and I highly doubt she wouldn’t be willing to ratfuck Ayano if she knew it could save her own hide  (Just remember snitches get stitches, Info-chan.)

Did Yandere-chan learn the secret of the cherry tree?

In a surprise to absolutely no one we learn that there is, in fact, some significance to the enormous sakura tree behind the school. Obviously, it was given that Ayano is obsessed with it and there are urban legends behind it but every story has a beginning and it does make you wonder: how did it gain the reputation in the first place for two people destined to be together to confess to each other under it? The sakura is probably the most recognizable, physical representation of Japan you can find in media and it has ironic undertones in the story given that it symbolizes the fragility of life (’beautiful, but fleeting’ essentially). Though I don’t have much to back it up I suspect that it might be yet another way that the Aishi family could be connected to Akademi. It was stated at one point by Yandere Dev that the matriarch of the clan, Ayano’s great grandma, is alive and kicking in 201X (born in 1910) though what role she’ll play is unknown right now. I think that it would be rather fitting to have all the misfortune so many men (or women) have fallen under be the spot where the first Aishi woman had her confession accepted by her senpai.

Did Yandere-chan learn the truth about _____?/Did Yandere-chan discover the ____?

Though Yandere Dev recently confirmed that the demon summoning stuff in the occult club won’t factor into the story (it’s going to be non-canon, basically, unless you enter in codes at the start or something similar to unlock it) he has stood by implementing Phantom Girl into the narrative seemingly; she may or may not factor into a specific elimination method, even, probably Oka’s. While it might seem superfluous to discover something at first to include discovering Phantom Girl’s identity given that Ayano will find out her mother is just like her I believe there is a deeper meaning to it. Headmaster Shuyona has currently been kept under wraps in regards to what his character is like. The only thing we really know about him is that he was once idealistic early on as headmaster but came to be a misanthrope over the years. Considering that 1989 is mentioned as the year he lost his faith in people I suspect it will be that Phantom Girl was his daughter and that the apparently high profile media trial surrounding Ryoba Aishi and her subsequent evasion of justice caused his sour disposition.  Speaking of that trial... sort of weird that Ayano has never heard of it before, isn’t it? Especially since it was a big enough deal the whole country was reporting on it and more strange that the police aren’t fingering her as a suspect in the current crimes you can commit at school (disposition to insanity can be genetic, after all, and even while the whole thing has been made hush-hush to the public it seems rather weird the police wouldn’t have a tab on you).

Did Yandere-chan choose to delete the _____?

‘Delete’ implies that we will eventually encounter a file of some sort regarding ourselves or something. This could have one of two origins at the moment: 1) Info-chan. Though apparently a friend to Ayano I suspect that she probably has a back up data in case things start to go south as I previously mentioned to probably nail us as the criminal for our crimes in game. My guess would be is that the catch turns out to be a major plot detail that would give the player pause enough to decide if it would be worth it to continue existing as a threat over our heads or if whatever information it gives us isn’t worth the trouble having the possibility of being leaked to anyone in a position of authority. 2) Saikou Corp. This is the more likely option in my opinion given that in her first appearance to players in the builds Megami tells us over Not Skype that we’re not the only yandere that her father (and presumably grandfather before him) have kept tabs on. If this is the case then they must have the data stored somewhere at their corporate HQ. Given that they seem like they’re going to be big players in the finished plot it seems to me a similar situation where you have the choice to sabotage whatever they’ve been cooking up or allow them to continue going about their business.

Did Yandere-chan reject _____’s offer? If I’m correct about the above then I believe it will be Megami’s father who we have the option of siding with. He seems completely fascinated with what Ayano is and has been seemingly aiding you enough that you’ve been allowed to continue what you’ve been doing for 9 weeks unmolested before Megami shows up. In an unrelated theory to this I speculated that Ryoba probably works for Saikou Corp. and that it might have been them who sabotaged the trial from 1989 in Ryoba’s favor (probably on the condition that she come under their employ; it would definitely explain how she and Ayano’s dad can leave for 10 weeks to go to a foreign country with little to no explanation). I guess the moral quandary will be for us when we discover that information is something to the effect of. ‘Now you know your family’s been a slave to these guys, perhaps for quite a long time: do you continue that line of work or do you strike it out on your own?’

Did Yandere-chan decide to punish _____?

What’s so interesting about this is the word choice. ‘Decide to punish’ means that whatever this event is is entirely optional; it is completely ambiguous as to just how significant it is to the overarching narrative other than it allows us to role play the sort of person Ayano is a little more. Are you the straightforward sociopath who uses others to further her own goals but doesn’t have much of a dog in Akademi’s affairs otherwise or are you a complete monster in sheep’s clothing? Anyway, here’s a collection of the endings that have either been theorized about or confirmed/mentioned by Yandere Dev at some point. Sabotage all interactions with your rivals: Senpai becomes misogynistic. Do matchmaking for all your rivals: Senpai becomes codependent on others and fears he doesn’t deserve anyone’s love. SNAP: Senpai is confessed to by another girl or rejects Ayano with a reputation of -100 (both speculative). Ayano kills herself and Senpai probably after a short chase sequence - the original idea for the game’s ending, by the way. Kill all your rivals: Senpai believes that he’s cursed to bring others bad luck. People may speculate he’s a serial killer if your rivals die soon after they meet Senpai. Of note: there was an interesting suggestion by someone on the game’s subreddit about a unique game over where Ayano could be taken in by the police for her own ‘safety’ if things got bad enough. 

Kidnap all your rivals: Unknown, but mentioned that Ayano would probably kill them at some point after the story ends, they would just be left to starve to death, or even become her ‘pets.’

“I’ve seen some shit”: If Senpai sees more than 5 corpses, not necessarily Osana’s and/or Hanako’s, he’ll become a vegetable which Ayano won’t care about (as long as he doesn’t reject her confession everything is gravy). As of today, if he figures out somehow you had something to do personally with either Osana’s or Hanako’s death, it seems he’ll pull a reverse SNAP on us and off Ayano. Kill ‘Em All: Apparently a joke ending we get if every student but Senpai is eliminated.