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runerapier · 4 months

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If you don't mind me asking, what makes you interpret Angeal as anything other than a straight man? He's the least gay character I've ever seen and he doesn't act gay either.

I'm going to assume this isn't sent in bad faith but this is pretty on point with the definition of stereotyping. I mean if you’re defining being gay by how someone looks or acts that is your first problem. Angeal has very outwardly masculine actions and appearance, I’m not really a fan of the insinuation that masculine men don’t “look” gay enough. Angeal isn’t even a hyper masculine or toxic masculine character, he is almost always described in a way that is seen as nurturing or caring. His own fan club compared his hobby of cooking to that of a wife. Things like gardening are often seen as more a “feminine hobby.” This isn’t to say Angeal breaks insane boundaries but Angeal isn’t this rigid masculine character in the first place. Besides my personal headcanons, Angeal and Genesis' stories take quite a bit from The Fall of Mankind (and religious and mythological symbolism in general but I'm going to try to stay on track). They purposely made two male characters represent Adam and Eve, and this isn't the first time they have done something like this in a final fantasy game. For example: while they are more developed than Genesis and Angeal, characters like Fang and Vanille are based on the Nordic myth of Ragnarok. There is a lot of information that couldn't be included in the final game of Crisis Core but is still intended canon, I'm going to be using a lot of that as a reference point. The full explanation is pretty extensive and I'm also not an expert on The Book of Genesis. I tried my best to do research for this, but it is possible I am still missing things and that this can still be expanded upon.

I'm going to start off by giving a deeper explanation on how Angeal represents Adam and how Genesis represents Eve. Genesis already has a very strong connection to The Book of Genesis because of his name. Rhapsodos comes from rhapsody, his full name is literally "genesis reciter". Genesis and Angeal were the first two attempts at an artificial “cetra” created by Shina representative of Adam and Eve being the first humans created by god. (While there is some debate if the first woman is Lilith, she is often been seen as a demoness.) The kanji for Shinra already is a direct reference to god, and is symbolism for how they like to play god themselves. The image below has a great explanation that is much better than what I can do, but to keep it short 神 (shin) literally means god or divine and 羅 (ra) is derived from 網羅 (mōra) which means "encompassing".

The fruit of knowledge is typically portrayed as an apple, which connects with banora whites. It represents temptation, Genesis offers the apple to others when talking about truth and revelation. Instances like in Nibelheim, Genesis offers the fruit to Sephiroth after telling him the truth of his origins. Sephiroth rejecting the fruit is a sign of him rejecting the truth, and we see he continues to go along with a story he is happier with. Sephiroth decides to believe misinformation that is less painful, the rejection of knowledge is indication he is not Adam or Eve.

Banora is heavily connected to the flow of the lifestream, which is what makes Banora whites grow any time of year. The lifestream is said to contain knowledge of the planet and its people, that being what powers the fruit further reinforces the idea that they represent the fruit of knowledge. Banora being the source for what is essentially miracle fruits powered by the planet, it is clear Banora is meant to be Eden.

Minerva is said to be sleeping in the caves of Banora, she represents the will of the lifestream. Though Minerva is connected more to Roman Myth and Sophia from Gnostic belief, I would still say she emphasizes the holiness of Banora's land.

Angeal has a story about not stealing to reflect Adam trusting god and not taking from the garden. God's words to Adam were "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die." (Genesis 2:17) Angeal stole from other trees besides the big one that had the most delicious fruit. While it can be argued Angeal didn't steal from Genesis in general, Angeal's story focuses solely on the biggest tree with the most tempting fruit, that tree represents the tree of good and evil. At the end of the game, Zack eats an apple under this same tree with Genesis, protagonist and antagonist sharing from the same tree. Shortly after eating the apple Zack learns the truth about how long it's been and leaves to meet his fate.

Hollander approached Genesis with the truth of his origins, convincing Genesis to help him with his plans in exchange for a cure that Hollander never had. Eve was afraid of eating the fruit and dying because of what God told her, but the serpent convinced her she would live. “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5). Both being deceived, they were convinced that they would live if they defied God, and become the catalysts for knowing the truth. Eve did not want to be alone in her defiance so she looked to Adam, much like how Genesis approaches Angeal to persuade him to take revenge against Shinra.

Besides Eve being referred to as Adam's wife, Adam also placed his trust in Eve above god. He decides to listen to her and trust her despite his creator telling him he will die. Angeal places his trust in Genesis above Shinra when he decides to defect, believing he can rationalize with him despite this being high treason.

This has happened before already, Angeal placed his trust in Genesis above Gillian and defies his mother to join Shinra. Gillian didn't want her family to be connected to Shinra and despite how highly Angeal respects his mother he still defied her wishes for the sake of following a dream with Genesis.

This leads into the next part, less about how they parallel The Book of Genesis and more about how they parallel other characters in the narrative. This makes me a little nervous to talk about so I’m going to put a small disclaimer that I am not arguing for any canonicity of ships because I think it is a waste of time. However, I think discussing characters' feelings that push their motivations is important.

In the narrative, Angeal also greatly parallels Cloud, I feel like this isn’t something that is talked about enough in general. They share a great deal of small parallels like both enjoying landscape photography, being associated with wolves, and elementally representing lightning. Besides surface level things, both Angeal and Cloud have a guilt complex and feel responsible for the people around them. The main parallel that’s important to this conversation is their childhood friend from the same countryside town.

Cloud was inspired by Sephiroth and his desire to protect people he loved like his childhood friend, Tifa, to join soldier. This is similar to Angeal joining to be with Genesis; their childhood friends are motivators for both of them.

This is something that’s pointed out in DFFOO as well, Angeal hears about Tifa and immediately draws the connection.

Both Cloud and Angeal feel responsible for protecting and looking after their loved ones, Angeal is seen as a caretaker type for this reason. Both Cloud and Angeal want to help fulfill the dream of their childhood friend, Tifa's was being saved by a hero and Genesis' being to share an apple with his hero Sephiroth. We see this when Cloud berates himself for not being the hero Tifa wanted and Genesis telling "Angeal" the dream has been fulfilled implying it has been something he knew about and wanted to help him achieve. Angeal's will in Lazard only fades away after Genesis said the dream came true, like there was a sense of fulfillment and that he could finally pass on after holding on for so long.

I find it interesting they intentionally draw parallels between Genesis & Angeal and Cloud & Tifa, people who have more explicit romantic feelings. I think Angeal and Genesis are supposed to represent a more “genuine” version of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. Angeal represents the story cloud wanted to have throughout ffvii, having a childhood friend who never grew apart, who stayed together, and who followed a dream together. Angeal genuinely made soldier, and for a time he felt like he was in control of protecting others unlike Cloud. This contrast stays until the end, Cloud and Tifa learn to repair their relationship while Angeal and Genesis fall apart. Despite having everything Cloud wanted, it was not enough to sustain. This contrast is important in emphasizing that it is not about your background or your past, it is about what you do now and having people to fall back on. None of this is meant to be used as proof Genesis and Angeal are canon, but rather talk about Angeal's strong devotion and feelings for him since he was at least a teenager. They do not perfectly replicate the fall of mankind but it is interesting nonetheless. Here's to hoping we get to see more of how they interact in ever crisis.

#angeal hewley #genesis rhapsodos #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy vii #crisis core #ffvii crisis core #ff7 crisis core #sorry this took so long executive dysfunction smile #removed link because I forgot tumblr hates that whatever

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aranock · 9 months

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Just had someone claim that I maliciously stole ideas from a friend without acknowledgong them when said friend is litterally in the video, and I was in the video I supposedly took thing from, despite my not even once thinking about either thing as being even remotely similar. Like not even slightly an influence. Also I am pretty open about when something influenced me. I don't exactly hide it. Idk I feel like people are really stretching to find anything they can hate Jessie and I for this video with. Like really? Really?

Anyway just to be clear The Editor is not a ripoff of my friend Neil from The Leftist Cooks video on metamodernism, great video btw go watch it. I wrote the editor in because as I was doing the script editing proccess on Jessies initial script and came up with a new structure and worried that if I didnt draw attention to this people would maliciously misinterpret part 1 without getting to the part 2 twist. The Editor is LITTERALLY representing what I did in the script editing proccess for this video. Though there role and purpose expanded to represent more broadly what editing and editors do to works, reinforcing the points we make on art as collaborative and the importance of the influence of for example Marcia Lucas on making the original trilogy as good as it was. If there was any inspiration for The Editor it was chatting with my friend @wonderful101gecs about Pathologic and Brechtian Epic Theatre. I wanted to disallow the audience from suspension of disbelief and force them to reconcile with the world as it is and with how narratives are manufactured. Even then its pretty loose inspiration. The Editor was just a natural result of needing a purpose fulfilled and rounding out my layers within layers structure. Im not sure if it was Jessie or I that named them that, but we made them a named character because we worried at one point early on if we didnt do that people might get really shitty towards me. Like originally in the script it was just "Aranock" and as they became a character I pushed it further towards them being a sort of amoral embodiment of concepts masquerading as a villain who was masquerading as a Hero, pretendint to be the great person behind everything. Thus I came to "oh I need a second rug pull" and thats where layer 5 came from because I needed to really REALLY make the audience go "oh I need to question the narrative" and not treat The Editor as the great man myth. Layer 1, the animation, came from a desire to have a narrative layer below the documentary and video essay layers, below any meta layer. So yeah originally this was just a long very direct essay by Jessie about the making of and politics of star wars, my reediting of those become layer 2 and 3, with some small bits of those ending up in layer 4. Oh also some elements of what became the editor and of the script existed before I even began my youtube channel. Like I have been kicking around aspects of these ideas for over 3 years. The Editors opening monologue is almost all from something I wrote about a year before releasing my first video. So yeah I was not stealing stuff from a video by my friend that released last year, and frankly its really shitty that people assume that of me.

Also I'm tired of how frequently people have been specifying out just me to be shitty about. Attacking my voice for being feminine, being weird about my body. Really makes me feel great. Love being a trans woman making art on the internet. Love how y'all attack me if my voice sounds how you perceive womens voices should sound and you attack me when it doesnt. Im tired people suck, and its really weird that some of you want me to sound more "manly", but thanks for the validating my self taught voice training I guess????

#the decaying monomyth of star wars #Jessie Gender #aranock #video essays #fuck I am tired #god this month sucks

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velvetvexations · 4 months

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There's this intuitive feeling around mpsec orientations that are like, "but that's just not what the word means!", but if you really dig in the issue is that orientations don't really make a lot of sense conceptually because they're inherently tied to binary sex.

For instance, I'm a trans woman. Yet, until I get my tits, anyway, if I'm not wearing a big red bow like Ms. Pac-Man it would be completely impossible to guess that just from looking at me. Because trans women are women, a lesbian could date me and keep her lesbian card, at least among trans positive crowds.

For TERFs, this sounds like a win at first, like I'm pointing out a way in which being trans doesn't make sense because if a lesbian is into someone who looks exactly like a cis man she can't be a lesbian, right? Except...cis lesbians have been made fun of, harassed, and terrorized for their masculinity as far back as can be remembered. Even straight women have been put through the ringer if they don't look feminine enough - I will, for the millionth time, point to Chyna - but among lesbians specifically there have been countless women who could plausibly pass for men if they put just a little bit of effort into it, and many did because being butch as hell is something to be celebrated even if they didn't frame their far-end-of-the-scale butchness as wanting to "pass for men". They could have.

So in both cases, trans or cis, being attracted to a woman who is identical to society's idea of a man is not a disqualifier from being a lesbian. "Political" or "mspec" lesbianism, identifying with lesbianism for a reason other than definitionally being attracted solely to people who identify as women, is the only way the idea of being a lesbian makes sense. It's the only way being gay or straight makes sense. Because gender is so arbitrary, there's no way to make it work unless you're willing to enforce a strict binary that very few queer people want.

Like if you think girls can/should only have soft delicate features and wear lipstick and dresses, fine, I guess it's logically consistent to say being a lesbian is physical attraction to a fixed, limited set of features. But if you're willing to broaden your horizons to any extent, what being attracted to a woman means quickly breaks down. A TERF would say it's physical sex that matters and something something AMAB vaginas aren't the same but I'd like to take a Kinsey Detector and scan a lesbian who loves getting strapped by a hyper-masculine butch to see where she lands.

So there are all these situations where we say "still a lesbian", even though logically the people who are into those girls should be plenty capable of being attracted other people. To bring it back to the trans point of view, I don't really understand how a lesbian could be attracted to me and then turn around and say lesbianism is based purely on what gender you're attracted to, while some would be viciously mean to her and accuse her of transphobia (which I would hate) if she weren't into me. Because what if, hypothetically, I woke up tomorrow and said "you know, I think I'm feeling more comfortable thinking of myself as a man these days " - that changes everything over night? That lesbian is no longer attracted to me when I change my pronouns? What if I had already been thinking that and I just didn't say anything about it, was she attracted to a man for a brief period of time?

Gender and how we classify attraction is just very, very arbitrary. Gender abolitionists see trans people as reinforcing gender, but I've always said that if they thought about it for two seconds they'd realize trans people are a deathblow to everything they hate about gender. They can't separate gender from sex so they see it as trans people wanting every girl who's not traditionally feminine to be boys and every boy who's not traditionally masculine to be women.

And, well, that's one reason I hate egg shit because yeah that is actually kinna doing that. It's at least reinforcing pink=girl mentality. Like to be clear, I'm not saying you can't associate girlhood with the color pink, I just think that when a cis man likes the color pink and you go "have you tried estrogen?" you're not just associating the two concepts but actively backing up the societal expectation that to like pink is to be a girl. It's like the difference between associating candy canes with Christmas and being convinced it's somehow already December again when you see peppermints being sold in the middle of March.

But other than that, which I've gone on the record against over and over, trans people are smashing society's concept of gender into pieces. "Orientation" as traditionally thought of must naturally also come down because it rests atop that foundation.

#lesbianism #wlw #mspec lesbian #mspec safe #pro mspec

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rhysand-vs-fenrys · 2 months

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The only thing that I don't like about Love in the Air (so far) is Rain calling himself Payu's "wifey". No one needs to be feminized just so heteronormatives can feel comfortable.

I have a couple answers, and I want to open this to replies from people on my other page too, who may be able to explain better.

First and foremost: Gay couples can decide to refer to each other any way they want. My 2nd cousin and his husband (both of whom passed away in a tragic accident) chose to refer to each other as "husband" and "wife", though neither was particularly masculine nor feminine. They wanted that, and gay friends of mine have also adopted feminine terms for themselves or their partner like "girlfriend".

People can call themselves and their partners whatever they would like. Just as some of my LGBT friends in m/f relationships refer to their other as only "my partner" and wholly avoid gendered labels.

Second, and this is where people on my other page may want to weigh in: I vaguely recall seeing a post a while back (before I'd seen anything Thai, so I might be misremembering this) saying that the word the subtitles translate as "wife" doesn't really have a gendered connotation in Thai the way it does in English. I believe the post said Rain referring to himself as "wife" or "wifey" is a mistranslation, where the proper one is more in the vein of "darling".

Regardless, the first point for me is the most important. Couples can call themselves whatever they want, and to say they shouldn't in the name of being "progressive" is just reinforcing barriers that have no place. "Wife" doesn't only belong to female-identifying partners. It's free real estate. It hurts absolutely no one if a couple wants to use that language.

My cousin and his husband loved referring to themselves as "husband" and "wife". It hurt no one, it brought them joy, and many of my gay friends likewise call themselves "girlfriends" or "wives". In one hilarious case, the one calling himself a girlfriend is very much a Top, but he likes playing the traditional "girlfriend" role in public (man loves feeling Protected by his boyfriend even though he is easily half a foot taller if not more).

Live and let live.

But again- I think it's a lost in translation issue, where Rain is concerned?

#ask

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gracefulblabber · 2 months

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I'd be down to hear you out on why you consider "gender critical" different from "gender puritanical". From my experience with the GC movement, a lot of it is very motivated by transphobia.

Id be more than happy to explain my perspective! For a bit of background: I used to be very anti-terf and would have agreed with your statement several years ago. I changed my mind due to reading what radical feminists actually thought, since prior to that point I had not really engaged thoughtfully with anyone deemed transphobic. I will NOT attempt to change your mind with my words, however, and it is not my goal to convince you of anything. Rather, I want honesty and clarity, since throwing barbs around on the Internet is totally useless.

I consider myself a feminist and rather gender critical, although I don't like labeling myself as a radical feminist in order to avoid the possibility of group think. Rather, I like to develop my beliefs and opinions based on what I learn and read, and allow them to change if necessary.

To your question: how is gender critical different than gender puritanical?

Being gender critical means being critical of gender roles and the concept of gender identity. People who are gender critical do not believe in gender identity, full stop. Some are transphobic and reinforce gender roles while claiming to be gender critical. These individuals are usually conservatives and are not feminists.

I do not believe in gender identity because I do not believe in souls, spirits, or integral aspects of the self that are not tied to the body. When I considered myself non-binary (for approximately 2 years), it was due to internalized misogyny and the belief that my lack of adherence to gender roles made me not a woman. I do not believe this anymore. I believe that "gender" is solely gender roles and socially enforced expectations based upon a person's sex. Most of what I see on the Internet about gender identity seems to be an expression of personality (clothing, hairstyles, etc). My belief is this: a woman can wear whatever she likes, act however she likes, engage with whatever hobbies she likes, fuck whatever sex she likes. None of this makes her less or more female. I am not less of a woman (less female) because I am child free and engaged to a woman: I am just as female as the most feminine straight woman. When I used the non-binary label it felt cloistering, like another set of standards and expectations I had to fulfill so people wouldn't recognize my sex or enforce gender roles on me. I am gender critical in the same way I am an atheist: I do not believe in it but do not get angry with people who do.

A person's sense of self and identity is very personal and I would never tell someone how they must think about themselves. But just as I have never seen proof of God, I also don't see proof that gender identity is anything more than personality and reactions to the pressure of sex based stereotypes.

The inevitable followup to this is, of course, what about trans people?

I believe in bodily autonomy for every adult. The trans people I know personally (who I love and care about!) express deep distress about their sex characteristics or gender based stereotypes, and seek to get rid of it through medical or social transition. Whether it helps their distress is not my business, I just want what's best for them

On the whole, I feel trans people deserve the same rights and freedoms as every other person. Violence against trans people is unacceptable, and I (along with every radfem I've ever heard from) thoroughly reject it. I believe that a person's sex is usually unimportant but occasionally has a meaningful impact. Someone who has gone through male puberty, for example, should not compete in the women's sport category because of the impacts of testosterone on skeletal and muscle growth. But these aren't issues of life and death for trans people.

I hope you were able to get through my massive wall of text! I tried to be as comprehensive as possible. As always, I'm happy to clarify any points or have further discussions.

#gender critical #radical feminists do interact #radical feminist safe #lets be kind honest and thoughtful

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still-a-morosexual-help · 2 years

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I mean I would argue that the dame culture presented in game is at least comparable to drag, in the way that it's a very performative kind of gender presentation that is completely unrelated to the performers actual gender, but I totally agree that om is clearly presenting the event as something other than cross dressing or the traditional understanding of drag as a man in a dress and it's really nice to see! Its like- gender performance vs performative gender if that makes any sense? Idk lol but it's really nice to see men performing femininity without any shitty jokes

Also it's really funny to me that beel keeps breaking his heels because they absolutely make heels for drag with steel reinforcements so either he's breaking THOSE (wouldn't put it past beel) or they don't have that kind of heel in the devildom lol

Sorry you're getting weird terfs harassing you :(

No I get that!! I definitely see it as being comparable to drag (which is not a bad thing! Drag is great and allows for a lot of gender expression and there's different kinds of drag) but it also feels different? I think it's because the Devildom doesn't seem to hold any of the gender stereotypes of the human world? Which affects the entire event.

I've spoken about it in my previous posts and in some that are still on queue but;

The dressing up/crossdressing is never treated as anything other than normal. Even when the brothers have problems with it it's never with the actual part of becoming a "dame" - it's things like breaking their heels or being too lazy to put in too much effort.

Being a "Dame" is a character, just like how in drag most people play characters, and a Dame is characterized by "nobility" : the Dames are supposed to be kind, gracious, selfless, poised characters

This is shown in OM! by how Mammon loses his accent whenever he's performing as a "Dame". But there's a lot of intertwining/overlap between acting the part of the Dame and the brothers' everyday gender presentation

Barbatos and Asmo somewhat put an emphasis on show makeup (aka exaggerated makeup) versus everyday makeup, they're both well versed in both kinds

Asmo wears a lot of stereotypically feminine clothes & makeup & heels in everyday life without it affecting how he views himself as a man

Mammon and Lucifer both wear heels often enough that wearing them comes naturally to them

I think there's one card where Mammon's wearing (comparatively) light makeup and honestly I see it as being something that he's used to (you can't blend your eyeshadow as well as Mammon has in his recent card and be new to it, specially for someone who's not naturally artistic)

Mammon says that what he wears doesn't matter as long as he looks like a badass, which feels like it's more than just about this specific situation where he has to act like a Dame - it genuinely just feels like how Mammon as a person would see himself

Lucifer & Barbatos (two of the most serious and badass/dangerous characters in the game) are looked up to as "exceptional dames" despite neither dressing up for the contest. They are viewed as professionals in the area. But I don't see either Barbatos or Lucifer as people who would put on a character that is significantly different from their usual selves (the way Mammon had to)

I think what it comes down to is that drag (for most people) is something that you can at least somewhat take off at the end of the day? Like for Beel, I absolutely cannot see him wearing dresses/heels while out of his Dame character. But Asmo wears makeup/heels/stereotypically feminine clothes, Mammon wears makeup/heels, Lucifer wears heels, Barbatos apparently wears makeup often enough too, in their everyday lives while still all presenting as male that at this point it moves away from being a performance and becomes just a part of them and a part of how they present themselves/their gender. And so, at this point, because makeup/heels/dresses are just things that shouldn't be assigned genders of their own it can't really be considered crossdressing anymore. And in the Devildom no one bats an eye at that.

Does that make sense?

Also, just.... these characters are thousands if not millions of years old - of course they're not gonna stick to gender stereotypes or a specific gender presentation. Objectively, I don't think it's even possible - with the way gender & gender stereotypes change with time - even if you pick one gender and stick to it, what it means to be that gender would change over time when you've lived that long. So at some point you're gonna say "fuck it, I'm doing whatever the fuck makes me comfortable"

BEEL WAS GOING THROUGH IT. MAN WAS TRAUMATISED.😭😭😂

No listen he definitely was breaking through them as well!

🤷✌️

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amporella · 2 years

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KYLE BROFLOVSKI, STAN MARSH, AND THE FEMININE/MASCULINE QUESTION

(Or; In defense of feminine Kyle and masculine Stan)

(OR or; how Matt and Trey's outdated views prove their intentions for their characters...

...part 1.)

Normally, I would kick off the part of an essay like this above the ‘read more’ with a short summary, but given the complexity of this topic, I don’t think I can summarize it in the way it deserves in just a paragraph. Instead, I’ll start with this: it’s been a little over a year since I was freed from Tumblr shadowban hell, and nearly as long since I made my first original post on South Park tumblr. Since then, I’ve developed a pretty obvious brand in support of feminine Kyle, but I’ve never actually posted a meta justifying it. As such, consider this not a response to any discourse related to it, or a way of undermining the valid opinions that are being and have been shared, but instead as a long-overdue explanation as to why I see Kyle the way that I see him, and why I believe that interpretation is equally valid and equally progressive.

Thanks to everyone who’s shared their time and thoughts with me over the past year, regardless of how long I’ve known you, and let’s get into it!

INTRODUCTION:

Okay, HERE’s the introduction! As I type this from top to bottom, I expect it to turn out fairly long, so bear with me here: we’re going to need some exposition to explain the way I plan on going about this. I’m going to try and be concise!

i. A Bit of Background

Feminine Kyle has been a controversial topic within the South Park fandom for well over a decade, cementing itself as arguably one of the oldest ‘fanon vs canon’ debates within the fandom. Supporters, a wide group consisting of some of the most notable artists and writers in the fandom, insist the evidence is there; naysayers argue that not only is it not there, but that the mere existence of feminine Kyle reinforces old yaoi tropes, homophobia within fandoms, and most recently, antisemitic stereotypes.

For better or worse, such a portrayal has dwindled in popularity within recent years, with fanart and portrayals from the earlier fandom days becoming the subject of ridicule. Several other portrayals accompany feminine Kyle into forced obscurity - jock Stan and edgy Craig, to name a few - but only the former has drawn such politically charged discussion. Needless to say, there is plenty to discuss when examining its validity. I intend to try and cover all my bases, but first, some clarification:

This is not an unbiased analysis: this is a meta in staunch support of feminine Kyle. As such, not every single moment for or against such a portrayal will be mentioned here: I intend here to establish why feminine Kyle is a reasonable interpretation, not why the opposite may also be true. I also do not intend to prove that feminine Kyle is absolute fact, or the only valid interpretation; while I personally choose to base my portrayal off of what I’ve listed here, choosing to disregard it is also a perfectly fine conclusion. These characters are ten, after all; there is no objectively correct way to portray them!

Secondly; this is a Kyle-centric meta, but it’s also going to include a fair bit of Stan. Declaring Kyle feminine has no point if we have no character to contrast him against; femininity requires masculinity to mean anything, and vice versa. There has to be some point of reference. As a result, this meta will unintentionally make a declaration on Stan’s femininity as well; just like above, accept and reject it as you wish! ‘Correct’ characterization in the South Park fandom is understandably murky.

Speaking of characterization, we first need to discuss why a long-winded meta like this one is even necessary. Why can’t we decide whether Kyle’s feminine? Surely that should be pretty obvious, right?

ii. Why can’t we come to an agreement?

Well… not really. That’s the problem!

Nearly everybody in this little section of the South Park fandom (by which I mean the non-dudebro section) is progressive, which is a good thing. But that also makes femininity a really difficult concept to nail down. Here’s what Oxford Languages has to say about it:

Okay, straightforward enough. But what attributes are characteristic of women? That’s where we come across our problem; there really aren’t any. Many of the traits (at least personality wise) society used to consider characteristic of women are misogynistic stereotypes, or exist solely as a way to justify gender roles; as such, we can’t designate femininity based on personality traits, which is a great thing for society as a whole and a bad thing for the simplicity of my South Park meta.

Consider this example: being easily grossed out to the point of fear was, in the past, considered to be a trait typical of women. Consider all those boomer comics you’ve seen about women being afraid of mice. Surely then a reasonable conclusion would be that Kyle’s irrational disgust/fear of pee would be a feminine trait. But that conclusion actually isn’t reasonable, because we now know that isn’t necessarily a female-exclusive trait; as such, that interpretation is misogynistic and can be disregarded. Do you see what I mean? It’s really not that easy.

But I actually have a way to make that work. It is going to require some inception. Keep that in mind while we segue to another relevant question:

iii. What is effective characterization?

We talked about characterization a little bit above, but now we need to talk about it again: namely, how do you characterize a character? How many times will I say the word character in this essay?

This question doesn’t just apply to South Park: I mean this for all shows, but most specifically the long ones, and the ones with questionable track records in episode quality. We have all watched something and thought “he would not fucking say that”, even when the person who made him fucking say that was the creator themselves. How do we reconcile that with our vision of a character, especially when such a character assassination is often unintentional? Do we take everything the character does or says at face value by rating all of their behaviors as equal in the characterization scheme, or do we look deeper?

I think the answer needs to be the second one: we need to take characterization by intention, rather than what the character actually says. Generally, a creator will have an intention for their characters, whether that’s in personality, arc, or both. They typically have a plan for some aspects of the character, even in episodic shows like South Park, and they try not to diverge from that plan. For example, Kyle’s reaction will often differ as he is faced with differing events (as real life people do), but he reacts in a similar way, fueled by his consistent morals: he never responds in a Kyle way one episode and in a Cartman way in another. He always reacts like Kyle would, and rarely wavers from his fairly consistent characterization. It is clear that when planning Kyle’s responses to things, they do not start with a blank slate.

That’s the perspective we need to take on when viewing this; we need to look at these characters from the way Matt and Trey intended for them to be looked at, and we need to look at them with the perspective that Matt and Trey had. Segue over: let’s go back to the main point. Keep that in mind.

iv. How do we fix our dilemma?

You don’t really need to keep it in mind, because I’m going to say it again right here: we need to view the characters with the perspective Matt and Trey had. This applies to everything characterization related, including femininity. What makes Matt and Trey’s perception of femininity different from our own?

Well, that’s easy: they’re from a different generation, for one. They’re old white guys, for another. They naturally have different views on femininity than we do, because they have different (often shittier) views on women than we do! Matt and Trey have had some good takes, but their takes on women rarely fall into that category. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to deal with those takes for now if we want to draw a conclusion, because those are what we have to go by when deciding femininity.

We’re putting on the Matt and Trey goggles for this meta. What do they think femininity is? How would they portray a feminine character? What would a feminine character look like in their eyes? When judging characterization by intention, which I plan on doing throughout this meta, we need to Become Old White Men.

(That same reasoning is why I’ll essentially be using women and feminine people interchangeably throughout this essay; Matt and Trey tend to associate femininity exclusively with women or flamboyant gay men, and the way they portray them is often the same. Needless to say, those terms are not interchangeable in real life; I only use them as such here both because of the above reasoning and to try and shorten this behemoth of a meta.)

From Matt and Trey’s perspective, it would be much less ludicrous that women would be more easily grossed out; that is the common consensus among men of their generation, and they haven’t proved themselves to be more enlightened than the rest, so we’ll go with that common consensus. From their perspective, Kyle disliking pee would be a feminine trait; therefore, giving that trait to Kyle implies that, in that episode, Matt and Trey viewed him as feminine and intentionally portrayed him that way. This argument becomes stronger once the rest of his traits are considered, which we’ll do throughout this essay. From this point forward, I'll clarify that this is from Matt and Trey’s point of view less often for brevity; assume that unless I clarify it's from mine, it's from theirs.

Understandably, there may be some issues with this, namely: doesn’t temporarily taking on this perspective and then proceeding to label Kyle as feminine based on stereotypes imply that you agree with those stereotypes? To which I say: no, not really. You can take the intention (femininity, in this case) and disregard the bad that comes along with it: you can essentially claim Kyle as a feminine character without acknowledging what may be flawed reasoning on behalf of the creator, and choose to draw your own conclusions based off of that. I’ll explain this in more detail at the end.

So, that’s the introduction! But we still have one more thing we need to talk about before we can move onto the actual meat of the essay.

We need to talk about creek.

THE CREEK INTERLUDE.

Why do we need to talk about creek in a Kyle-centric meta, besides that I like talking about creek? The answer is that Matt and Trey’s views on creek answer a very reasonable question, that being: Why do we have reason to assume that Matt and Trey would intend for any of them to be feminine? Why do we have reason to believe the idea of femininity in relation to their male characters would even cross their mind?

Creek is our reason!

i. The Masculine/Feminine Divide

Consider Matt and Trey’s audio commentary for Put It Down, starting at :52. "One person wanting, which is usually the woman... who flips out a bit more about things emotionally, and generally the man is a bit more, like... not responsive to emotion, and just wants to problem solve. And we have had experience with that…"

Through that commentary, Matt and Trey have already assigned ‘roles’ to Tweek and Craig within the context of the episode; namely, Tweek being the woman and Craig being the man based on their behavior throughout the episode. Obviously, the stereotypes they suggest above very often aren’t true, and a gay man in a relationship is in no way ‘the woman’ regardless of femininity, but they reference them nonetheless, and this helps our case for three reasons:

It confirms that Matt and Trey view some characters as more ‘woman-like’ than others, even just within the context of a single episode: ie, more feminine than others. It shows that they take femininity into account when viewing character behavior, and it is possible they have done so with other male child characters than Tweek.

Furthermore, it shows that the above behavior is intentional; they’ve intentionally made one character more ‘woman-like’ than the other. Matt and Trey admitting that they “have had experience with that” implies that they, on some level, based the episode off of their own experience: hence, Tweek was intended to play the role of ‘the woman’ from the beginning of the episode. It is therefore possible they intended this with other episodes.

The parallels between Stan/Craig and Kyle/Tweek, and on a larger scale, style and creek as relationships, are obvious. The fact that creek exists in the Matt and Trey collective brain as a masculine/feminine relationship implies that their platonic parallel, Stan and Kyle, has the potential to exist in the same way.

I don’t personally think that Tweek is at all intended to be feminine throughout the series in the same way that Kyle is - Tweek’s meth-driven paranoia is a far cry from Kyle’s natural neuroticism (a trait which, while not inherently feminine, is obviously such within the eyes of Matt and Trey) - but within the context of that episode, the point stands. It also gives us something to look for: contrast. If Kyle is feminine, going by Matt and Trey’s way of portraying relationships, he must have a masculine counterpart. This part is easy.

STAN MARSH, ALL AMERICAN BOY:

When looking for traditional masculinity within the main four, Stan is our guy. Despite possibly being the most sensitive out of the group, the remainder of Stan’s traits, behaviors, and interests line up exactly with the typical perspective of what masculinity looks like. His consistency with this makes Kyle’s deviation even more remarkable.

i. Personality

So far, we’ve mostly talked about masculinity and femininity in reference to personality, so it only makes sense to start there with Stan. First, let’s consider the trait that Matt and Trey explicitly mentioned they consider masculine:

“Not responsive to emotion, and just wants to problem solve.”

We don’t even need to look through the series for evidence of this one: South Park Studios themselves confirmed it on Stan’s SPandMe results, a quiz intended to connect quiz-takers with their respective South Park character.

“You are an average all-American person, and despite your crazy surroundings, you remain levelheaded.”

Remaining levelheaded in crazy surroundings essentially boils down to being not responsive to sudden, situation-driven emotion, especially in the context of Put It Down, where Craig is able to step back from Tweek’s emotion-driven response to a crazy situation and consider it in a levelheaded way. Stan often tends to perform the same duty for Kyle as Craig does for Tweek in that episode, serving the role of someone to vent to in stressful situations.

Now that we’ve checked Matt and Trey’s explicitly mentioned perception of masculinity off the list, let’s consider some other traditionally ‘masculine’ personality traits: regardless of whether they’ve been explicitly mentioned, it’s a fair assumption that they’ve considered a few other traits within the ‘masculinity’ vein.

Quick to Threats: Stan has a tendency to be levelheaded, as mentioned above, but when angered he can jump straight to threats of violence; this serves as a contrast to Kyle, who tends to respond verbally instead. Consider this moment in Passion of the Jew:

While Stan actually gives Cartman a fair amount of time to ‘take it back’ before he resorts to active threats of violence, he still does so much quicker than Kyle has ever done in the past; Kyle, by comparison, tends to insult normally. Stan, when pushed by Cartman, responds with threats within a few lines of dialogue: Kyle, when pushed by Cartman, has only legitimately snapped a few times over the course of 25 years of harassment.

Another example would be in Cash For Gold, where Stan jumps to telling the jewelry salesman to kill himself without any prior conversation; unlike Kyle, who typically makes efforts to negotiate first, Stan resorts to threats.

Also consider Stan’s behavior in Stick of Truth, in which upon the character’s arrival into the Elf Kingdom, Stan is immediately ready to get into a fight to defend Kyle; as the character approaches Kyle, he threatens them by punching his fist. His method of protectiveness often boils down to violence on behalf of the people he cares about, and he takes personal affronts, or affronts to those people, extremely seriously. Kyle, on the other hand, is defensive rather than offensive in terms of protectiveness, and cares more about the wider populace instead of mostly the people directly relevant to his life; we’ll get into that more later.

This is a trait heavily associated with masculinity throughout history, and throughout media: masculine characters in shows, books, and movies are often the ones shown to pick fights rather than verbally negotiate. This trait is even shown through Craig, who’s already established as “the man”; throughout the first few seasons especially, he threatens other characters once aggravated instead of communicating.

Leadership Ability: Obvious disclaimer is that this trait in particular is not exclusively male, or even largely male (just like every other trait I’ve mentioned), but the world continues even to this day to associate leadership qualities with traditionally masculine qualities, and I have reason to believe that Matt and Trey do the same thing. Let’s go through a few episodes in which Stan is staunchly placed as the leader for some examples:

Stan, as a character who is often the protagonist of the show as a whole, naturally falls into the leadership role within The Boys. In this way, he once again serves as a contrast to Craig, who is obviously the leader of his own game; the official wiki goes so far as to call them Craig and Those Guys. An example of this would be in South Park Is Gay, in which Stan approaches Craig first to try and one-up him, and another more subtle example would be in Good Times With Weapons, in which Stan’s leadership is demonstrated just by him being front and center in front of Craig’s door.

He also serves as the lead detective in Lil’ Crime Stoppers, and tends to be the leader of his respective sports team, being chosen as both quarterback and pitcher in football and baseball respectively. On a larger scale, Stan becomes Captain in Whale Whores, where he is revered for actually making things happen in comparison to the previous Captain.

South-park-meta also has a great description of why Stan’s a leader which you can find here, which mentions a few things that I haven’t.

Stan in a leadership role comes up over and over again, and while I normally wouldn’t consider this a strong enough piece of evidence to bring up on its own, Stan’s other masculine traits (which I’ll be getting to shortly, outside of the personality department) make me believe that it’s intentional. This is especially relevant when the leadership within the girls is also considered: while the groups of boys tend to have a very obvious leader, the girls fluctuate often between Wendy and Bebe, with Matt and Trey unable to even keep the leader of the Pleases and Sparkles Club consistent. The fact that the boys tend to have leaders and the girls don’t leads me to believe that Matt and Trey do see leadership as a masculine trait.

Superficiality & Ego: To be clear before we start this section, I do think that Stan is legitimately very sensitive. He is my sensitive little guy. But he does have a tendency to be superficial with some issues, often unable to grasp the bigger picture, especially when failing to grasp the issue tends to benefit him specifically.

Consider his behavior in A Scause For Applause. Initially, Stan has no clue who the farmers are or what they stand for, and is labeled a hero simply because he likes his wristband and doesn’t intend on taking it off. However, as soon as he essentially becomes a celebrity, he pretends to be extremely passionate about the cause, despite the fact that it is all “bullcrap” to him. Stan is hugely empathetic, but only towards people that are close to him, or issues that are relevant to him (such as the whales, as he loves animals): he couldn’t care less about the farmers in Belarus, but relishes in the attention he’s getting because of it.

Another example of this would be in Butterballs, where Stan behaves in essentially the same way: he joins the anti-bullying campaign not because he is passionate about the issue, but because he’s being taunted and he wants to prove that he’s a leader, or, as Bucky Bailey says, a “big man”. His pride is extremely important to him, which is part of the reason why he steps up. As Stan starts to make the anti-bullying video increasingly about him, Kyle sees through him and points it out.

Once again, his ego drives him rather than genuine passion for the issue: his actual interest in it is superficial at best and serves only to fuel his ego. Both qualities are heavily associated with masculinity, and toxic masculinity in particular: as Stan gets pissed at Kyle in both episodes, that side of him and the anger accompanying it begins to show. We’ve now accepted those traits are generally bad, but they were often praised as a key part of manliness in the past: them continuing to be associated with masculinity in Matt and Trey’s mind would be very plausible.

ii. ‘Manly’ Interests

Stan’s one of the most fleshed out characters throughout the series in terms of interests, but he does have one that shows up more prominently than any other: sports! I’ve gone into exactly how frequently it pops up for him in my Jock Stan meta, so I won’t go into it now, but I highly suggest reading that if you’re interested. Furthermore, that’s also why I’m not going to be using basketball as a masculine justification for Kyle; from what I’ve found, it’s just not as relevant to his character.

Sports are widely considered to be an interest associated with men, and particularly, masculinity; while the gender split among people who are passionate about sports is much less divisive than the media would lead you to believe, few people associate anything other than women’s sports with women. Football in particular is typically considered a man’s sport, and has its heavy associations with toxic masculinity: the traits valued within football tend also to be the traits that our society values specifically within men, those traits typically boiling down to strength and competitiveness. As mentioned above, the desire to compete and show off (particularly with Craig, also considered to be the respective ‘leader’ of his group) is a trait much more heavily associated with Stan than Kyle; it leads me to believe those traits and his interest in football paired together are not a coincidence.

Another one of Stan’s larger interests are animals, which he consistently feels passionate about, but more specifically dogs. He’s shown to love Sparky dearly, with the first Stan-centric episode of the series having Stan’s crisis about Sparky as a main factor, and he even accompanies Stan in Stick of Truth for one of his attacks. I mention this because while a love of animals is often associated with women, or femininity, dogs specifically are consistently associated with men; when the term “man’s best friend” was coined, they were not considering ‘man’ as the wider mankind. Dogs are so heavily associated with masculinity that people naturally assume dogs that they meet are male, and that the large majority of dogs in fiction ARE male. The association between dogs and masculinity is actually a necessity for Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride to work as an episode: Stan valuing “butchness” and wanting Sparky to behave in such a way acts as his main conflict throughout the episode.

While this last one is not quite as relevant to Stan’s overall character as the previous two, it’s frequently brought up as a “counter” to Stan’s sportiness, so I still find it relevant to bring up. Board games, which are certainly less associated with manliness than sports, are still an extremely male sport, particularly dominated by white males (with 93% of board game designers being white men); I am inclined to believe that Matt and Trey knew this, which was why Nichole, and the rest of the girls, stood out so much. They even address this within the episode, which has most of the boy gamers (excluding Stan, who is more open to girls joining the group) rejecting the girls who want to play. Even Stan’s least traditionally masculine interest is centered around manliness within the episode.

Is it coincidence that when Matt and Trey selected interests for their characters, they chose interests heavily associated with masculinity for Stan? Probably not. Again, these interests aren’t necessarily male-exclusive, nor do they even necessarily lean towards men in reality, but from the perspective of two older men like Matt and Trey, they ARE masculine traits. The fact that Stan is given those traits specifically while the other characters are not is heavily indicative of their intention; namely, to make Stan an obviously masculine character.

iii. Appearance

I swear we’re almost done with an insanely long Stan section in what’s supposed to be a Kyle meta. I may have to change the title.

The last thing we’re going to be looking at with Stan in regards to masculinity is appearance: how does he present himself? When he chooses roles in games, how traditionally masculine are they? Let’s start with his Stick of Truth role: Stan Marshwalker.

During Stick of Truth, Stan serves as Kyle’s devoted, protective knight: as I already mentioned above, he’s ready to pick a fight with the player just for looking at him. But even beyond his behavior, his appearance is undeniably masculine; knights were the ideal of manhood and masculinity for quite a long time, hence the trope of a knight saving a princess from a castle. Especially back when knights were a Thing, there was nothing more traditionally masculine than waving a huge sword around and fighting a dragon to defend someone’s honor. Stan doesn’t defend the honor of any princesses in Stick of Truth, but he does offer to duel Tolkien on what’s implied to be Kyle’s behalf, which could be easily interpreted as a parallel.

The knight motif comes up again in the episode Make Love, Not Warcraft, in which Stan’s selected character is this: a muscular, masculine presenting knight. I’m leaving this section a little short because I’m going to be bringing it up again when we get to Kyle , but keep Stan’s appearance here in mind.

Stan’s next most relevant character is Toolshed, from Stick of Truth:

Stan’s TFBW costume, who is essentially a handyman, is less ingrained in society as traditionally masculine than a knight, but still is a heavily male dominated field: in the United States, 96% of handymen are men. While less symbolic than a knight, handymen can be considered masculine even considering only that trait; they are heavily associated with men, which is essentially the definition of masculinity from the Matt and Trey perspective.

Stan has a ton of alter egos throughout the series, but we’re already at 4k words so I’m going to keep this section as brief as I can. The only other real thing of note here is that Stan seems to associate ripping off his sleeves with strength, as he opts to go ripped sleeveless in both Good Times With Weapons and as Stan The Man in W.T.F.

iv. Conclusion

What can we conclude from the above information, and how does it have any relevance at all to Kyle?

Firstly, we can conclude that Stan Marsh, in personality, interests, and appearances, was given traditionally masculine traits by Matt and Trey. Furthermore, we can conclude that due to Matt and Trey’s mention of masculinity and femininity within Tweek and Craig, this is not a coincidence; his masculinity was intentional. Finally, we can assume that Matt and Trey genuinely believe these traditionally masculine traits to be legitimately masculine: as in, it is unlikely they gave him these traits with any other intention than making it clear he was a masculine character.

Okay, so we’re done with Stan! Mostly. He’ll come up a little more later. But why did we need to spend this long talking about the character who isn’t even the main guy in this essay? I know I talked a little about it above, but surely I have more of a reason than that? Well, it’s because of what Matt and Trey said in the commentary for Kenny Dies, around the 42 minute mark.

“A couple weeks before this, the idea was that we were going to kill Kyle, remember, and we'd make it a big thing - we'll kill Kyle, and Butters will step in... it always seemed to us that Kyle and Stan were really similar... so let's kill off one of those two."

As of Season 6, Stan and Kyle were too similar. In order to justify keeping Kyle on the show, they needed to draw an actual distinction between the two of them. Before this point, Stan had already been established as South Park’s masculine, golden football boy since his very first episode, so what would be the most effective way of differentiating Kyle from Stan in a consistent way?

The answer would be to give Kyle feminine traits to contrast Stan’s masculine ones. It required leaning hard on some aspects of the character, but it obviously worked: Kyle is still here, widely loved, and often very different than the way he was before season 6. If we can prove that Stan was intentionally given masculine traits, we have even more of a reason to believe that Kyle may be given feminine traits to separate their personalities, and we’ve already proved that! Now we need to prove that Kyle was actually given those feminine traits, and we’ll start right now.

...by which I mean tomorrow, when I post the second half of this. Please hold your applause and/or complaints until then, because you really need the second half to tie the whole thing together and actually come to some concrete conclusions.

You can read part 2 here!

#south park #kyle broflovski #stan marsh #south park meta #meta #WOW putting all these images in sucked #this is the mostly stan part BUT kyle is relevant so i'm tagging him too #kyle's part and the conclusion coming out tmrw!!#as well as acknowledgements

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tonixe · 2 years

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My prerogative 2

n.o.t.e.s - Yeehaw, @bunnimu

Part 2 of My Prerogative

w.a.r.n - Homelander being a warning, anger issue, gore topics, organs.

p.a.i.r.i.n.g -Homelander x Supe!Fem! reader

w.c. - 1189

4 weeks passed supposed off the accident happened. It was downtown New York, a few blocks away from your apartment. The Police and reinforcement and newscasters were there trying to find evidence of the massacre of human organs scattered in the alleyway.

'DAILY NEWS A BRUTAL MURDER HAPPENED IN DOWNTOWN NEW YORK,' the news headlines read.

It was a brutal scene; some sure came to the scene; it was something. Just to your luck, one theme was Homelander at the scene. It was interesting that a high-standing superhero was at the scene of the low massacre.

"She really gave us a show," he murmured with a little smile, his hand behind his back.

'VOUGHT' read from the building standpoint, home of the wonderous superhero as the seven. It must be pretty good working alongside superheroes; it must be a dream come true.

It really wasn't. But hey, you would do anything for the hefty paycheck that came into the mailbox, paying your bills. You scanned your id badge on your lanyard and walked into the bright building, holding your bag with you as you came to the elevator. Today was better than the week you had, especially with your crappy boss.

'DING' the elevator stops on the floor you're on as you entered in.

You felt better about today; you got a full night of rest, and you even got the time to make some coffee for yourself. Today was your day, bathing couldn't ruin it, you thought to yourself.

Pressing the floor buttons on the elevator panel onto the 68th floor, the elevator music pinning into the elevator; you stand on the side of the elevator until you hear some yelling.

"Wait! Hold the elevator!" a feminine voice ranged; you immediately press the opening elevator button, letting the women in before the elevator door was closed.

"Thank you so much!" she pants; she was holding a bunch of paperwork in her hands. "Busy schedule?" you respond, motioning to the paper she was holding.

"Uh, yes..mhm!" she responded as she look down, looking at her shoes.

"So, what department are you in" you place your hand on your hip as you stare at the shorter woman.

"Office management."

"PR"

After that, the silence was comfortable, more settling than what happened between and homelander.

"Oh, shit, could you press floor 38, please!"

"Sure thing" you pressed the floor on the elevator panel, and after that, some more silence settled in it wasn't awkward but better.

'Ding!" the elevator stopped at her station, and she stepped out, "Well, it was nice to meet you; oh wait," she stepped back before the elevator should close, "what's your name?"

"Y/N"

"Eliza, bye!" she waved as she ran to her office station; the elevator door closing as you only saw her brown hair in the wind.

It was refreshing to see a Vought employee not being a bitch to you, but I think today even improved for you, especially.

'Ding,' the elevator doors open, and you step out, walking to your office cubic with a bit of pep.

You didn't have to contact any stupid heroes, especially homelander. No whining, nothing from your boss; you opened the door to your office and sat down.

A big smile spreads across your face; nothing could go wrong or turn your body to face your computer.

Until your office door opened, the clanking of heels could be sounded in the silent office, gaining the attention of other people. It was a red-headed woman coming near you, holding a couple of folders in her hands.

You immediately turn your body away, hiding your face away from her, but it was completely useless. "Miss Y/N, isn't it right?"

You turned your body to her, "Yes, what do you need?"

"Straight to the point, I love it. My name is Ashley, and I want to give you a promotion of a lifetime! courtesy of Vought; if you can follow me to discuss further, that would be nice". She said.

"Sure.." you got up from your seat and followed her. You were an isolated space away from anyone, "Okay, so Y/N, this a wonderful opportunity for you. It's not a lie that you're a super, right?" She started, your eyebrows furrowed when she said 'supe.'

"What do you mean.." you respond to her accusation.

"Aren't you a supe, right? Well, we wanted you to tell us that you can become a professional supe, save people and be an inspiration to everyone, and also have a seat with the seven"

"What happened to transculent?

"Well, it's something I can't explain to you, especially, but..." she turned her head, "Would be a better step up than to work in a small office cubic.."

"How do you know?"

You immediately flipped her body and slammed her into the wall, grabbing her neck.

"How the fuck you know, Ashley. I'll snap your throat in half right now.."

She grasped your hand on your throat, and she slowly struggled against your strength. the clasp of boots echoed in the hallway, and a faint sight of an American flag was in your peripheral vision.

"Dammit" you took your hands off her throat. As Ashley rubbed her neck, with the faint grasp of your hand, the red mark was still on her skin.

You stepped away from her, as you stared at Homelander emerged from the shadows literally..

"You know, Y/N, that was a good stunt you pulled off earlier.." he said.

You furrowed your eyebrows as you looked at him. You bit your lips, "What the fuck do you want!" you barked at him.

"I guess Ashley didn't tell you yet, Join the Seven," he responded with a small smile. "Im not good at math, but isn't there supposed to be 7 people, not 8" you respond.

Ashley was still on the floor, as she looked between you and the homelander. Her face was still expressed a bit of fear as you were yelling at homelander.

"Well, transculent missing, so you would still have a chance to be in there besides your power, and the seven would be better than what that cheap semitransparent cocksucker has.."

"Well, there's no way that happening" Take a step back, in case you had to run.

"Oh, sweetie, even you know that running is useless.." he looked at you.

You back up away from him, as you took a deep breath, and broke into a sprint, even though you were warned, you didn't listen.

The last thing you heard was some murmuring from the homelander.

Running into some Vought employees as you pushed some away, damn, who knew this building was so big, it was even hard with your heel pinching your feet.

You were stumbling as you tried to push some of the employees away from you. You saw a brief look of another super, 'Wait, was that..queen Maeve" you thought,

Before you notice it is too late, the last thing you saw was black, as you feel your body thrown over something like a ragdoll.

Today wasn't a good one, especially for you.

#homelander the boys #the boy season 2 #the boy amazon #homelander x you #homelander x reader #homelander #homelander x fem!reader #homelander imagine #black noir #transuclent #the deep #queen maeve #annie january #starlight #the seven #vought #ashley barrett #madelyn stillwell

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butch-reidentified · 7 months

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gotta be honest, I'm so tired of comments like this. it's a frustrating and unrealistic assumption to make. trans people are everywhere. how many of us HAVEN'T known trans people irl at this point?? what lesbian 20-something doesn't know trans people irl?? I run into trans people a pretty solid portion of times I leave the house these days. I mean, they're 5% of young adults and increasing.

but on top of that, if you even read my blog for 10 seconds you don't need to ask this. honestly you don't even need to read past my PINNED which links to this:

but I also post frequently, including just yesterday, about particular trans friends, especially the ones who contributed to my becoming disillusioned with gender identity ideology by listening to them explain how it was becoming more and more harmful to sex-dysphoric transsexuals.

I went to a small liberal arts college famous for being extremely far left and predominantly lgbt(q+). I speak about my multiple years identifying as trans and being around trans people daily irl for years. it's no secret. but people would rather make unfounded assumptions than do any actual informing themselves about the person they're making those assumptions about. and I really am tired of it.

not to mention, not all trans people even do subscribe to the ideology. TRA =/= trans. these are not synonymous. plenty of TRA's call themselves cisgender, and plenty of trans-identifying folk are not TRA's.

not to mention, nothing about criticizing an ideology or its rhetoric necessitates hating the people who subscribe to it. you can critique something without hate. dissent is not hate. you can speak out about how an ideology is negatively impacting you/certain groups without wanting people dead or stripped of rights and freedom. in fact, even many people with dissenting beliefs on sex/gender still support protecting trans people.

I will say, this study is flawed: while conservatives may believe that gender is determined by sex, this is not the same question as "can whether a person is a man or woman be different from sex assigned at birth?" this question only makes sense if you view "man" and "woman" as genders. radfems do not. radfems use the dictionary "adult human female" definition of woman, which specifies SPECIES and SEX, just like "doe" and "buck" specify for deer. gender does not factor into it.

gender refers to the patriarchal social construct that assigns stereotypes, roles, behaviors, styles, likes/dislikes, abilities, etc. based on sex. gender is assigning masculinity to male humans (men) and femininity to female humans (women). conservatives want to perpetuate this assignment of gender to sex, masculinity enforced in males and femininity enforced in females. TRA's want us to pretend sex doesn't exist, only gender, but it's fine because you can pick what gender label "feels right." radfems want to get rid of this patriarchal construct so everyone would be free to be themselves without the ridiculous pressure to conform to gender. radfems do not believe that simply relabeling oneself with a different gender label solves anything, but may actually worsen the issue by reinforcing the existence of the gender construct (which is inherently regressive and sexist). I don't want to call myself nonbinary or a man so that my body hair is more acceptable (for example); I want women to be allowed to just exist in our natural state. my body hair has NOTHING to do with "gender," it's just something every human being is born with and grows more of during puberty.

#mine #gender and sex #gender identity ideology

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teegeewrites · 22 days

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Positive Validation

Synopsis: It's been a week since Mario and Luigi rescued Princess Peach from Bowser's latest kidnapping, and Mario hasn't seen or heard from Peach much during that time. However, Mario receives an invitation from Peach to visit her at the castle to speak with him alone. Curious yet eager, Mario accepts the invitation and finds himself in a position where he not only has to be honest with Peach, but also himself.

I've rewritten the summaries of my previous stories but kept this one mostly the same since it's fine the way it is.

I've been bottling this up for quite some time, but I’m finally ready to say it out loud: Princess Peach is my favorite character in the Mario franchise and one of my all-time favorite fictional personas, period. I’ve mentioned before that she’s my comfort character, but she embodies so much more. I adore her beauty, her gentle spirit, and her unwavering optimism. I admire her readiness to fight when the situation demands it and her fondness for the color pink. Above all, however, I truly value her unapologetic embrace of femininity. She distinguishes herself in a time when characters like her are often scorned in favor of those who display more masculine traits or a less feminine approach. This isn’t to say that there’s anything wrong with those other characters; I actually admire several of those archetypes. Nevertheless, I hope for a future where the more traditionally feminine characters are celebrated just as much, like Marle from Chrono Trigger, who remains less popular than Lucca and Ayla.

Admittedly, I’m quite sensitive when it comes to criticism of my favorite characters. I make a conscious effort to steer clear of negativity surrounding them. For instance, if I’m diving into a fanfiction and see my favorite characters being mocked, belittled, or if it’s obvious that the author has a disdain for them, I’ll promptly stop reading, no matter how well-crafted the story is or how invested I’ve become. Peach is the main character I’m particularly protective of. One of my top pet peeves is when a character receives accolades while Peach gets torn apart. I’m of the belief that can be admired without having to belittle another. A moment that seemed to really stoke the fire of disdain towards Peach was the controversial Super Mario Odyssey ending. It seemed like the criticism towards her increased exponentially after that. I often hold back from reacting or defending my cherished characters, knowing it can exacerbate the situation. However, even with my usual patience and understanding, there’s a breaking point to how much negativity I can tolerate directed at them.

This is where Positive Validation comes in. My inspiration for this narrative struck me when I noticed a relentless wave of criticism directed at Peach. I wanted to incorporate these genuine criticisms into the story, illustrating how Peach learns of them and their influence on her psyche. While she tried to maintain her composure, the words clearly weighed heavily on her heart, leading her to seek out Mario—the one who consistently puts himself in harm's way to rescue her—and understand his perspective on the matter.

In the tale, Peach openly articulates her feelings regarding the comments made about her, admitting that some of them hold a grain of truth. To reinforce this theme, I made a passing comment about Mario and Luigi heroically rescuing Peach from Bowser once more before her travels. Mario comforts her by pointing out that much of the criticism is baseless, as the critics don’t truly know her. This dialogue also allows Mario to share his own vulnerabilities, with Peach offering him the same encouragement. Ultimately, both characters finish the story feeling uplifted and their bond strengthened. To lighten the mood after such a serious discussion, I sprinkled in some lighthearted humor at the end.

Although I chose to narrate the story from Mario’s standpoint, it certainly could have been told through Peach’s eyes. In truth, I feel the story might have been more compelling if it had been written in the latter, as she was the central figure. One day, I might just rewrite this tale from her perspective, but don’t hold me to that!

Overall, Positive Validation was admittedly a self-indulgent story, and that’s what makes it one of my personal favorites. It seemed to resonate with some readers and commenters who are just as enthusiastic about Peach as I am. Witnessing my work evoke such feelings in others is truly rewarding, enhancing the entire experience. 😊

As a bonus, I recommend this post by @willowisapillow for any Princess Peach fans. It does a great job defending her character and highlighting what makes her great.

#Positive Validation #fic centered around assurance #Mario #Princess Peach #mario x princess peach #mareach #mareach fanfiction #ao3 fanfics #ao3 fanfiction reflections #tee's thoughts #tee's commentary

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sarcastic-salem · 2 years

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I have been thinking a lot about Sigyn ever since I saw that post trying to reassign Loki’s feminine UPGs and attributes to Sigyn. Which is gross for all kinds reason. It reinforces toxic masculinity and makes it seem as though its somehow wrong men to be feminine.

It isn’t. Loki’s feminity isn’t a bad thing. Its one of the things that helped him raise to fame as the God of outcasts, which is an aspect of Loki that deserves to be celebrated imo.

Reassigning Loki’s feminine attributes is also misogynistic because its implying that feminine men are beneath traditionally masculine men

And therefore so are feminine people, in general. It plays a lot into internalized misogyny and how women who are into cutesy, girly, or kawaii things can be demeaned for not being ambitious overachievers.

Neither of those are bad things, ok? For men or for women, but no one should be forced to be like….A brain surgeon if they don’t want to. Being a homemaker is just as difficult and important as being a lawyer, no matter what gender you are.

This article formulates the ideology better than I ever could tbh.

But getting back to the point

I have been thinking a lot about the type of Goddess I see Sigyn as. Because, unfortunately, there isn’t really anything known about her. So we just have to kinda be creative.

What we do know about Sigyn is that she is often referred to as the Goddess of fidelity in the Norse pantheon. Fidelity is a synonym for loyalty.

Just gonna take this time to remind people that monogamy is a Christian concept that was a rarity in ancient times and to please, disregard the whole “sexual faithfulness” thing.

We also know that Sigyn is Loki’s beloved wife and that they had twin sons together, Narfi and Vali. I, personally, think of Sigyn as Loki’s second wife because that’s how she’s always been describing in my reading. By this I mean that, its my UPG that Loki, Sigyn, and Angrboda were just a big, happy, loving polycule.

Aside from being Loki’s wife and the Goddess of loyalty, Sigyn is sometimes considered a Goddess of victory because her name translates to “victorious friend” or “friend of victory”. I think that this is not only because she was lucky enough to marry Loki, but also because Loki was victorious in avenging their family during Ragnarok These things to me say that

Sigyn is a Goddess of love, honor, and victory. Sigyn loved Loki even after Baldr’s death. She stayed with him and collected the venom from the snake Skadi fixed over him. Even though she was probably also pissed off at him.

Not cool, Skadi.

I think this is because other than loving Loki with all of her heart, Sigyn also knew that her husband was not the only one in the wrong because the Aesir had mistreated Loki’s children with Angrboda, and murdered her own son Vali. Sigyn, I think, believed that Loki was right to want to justice for their family.

Sigyn is also someone I have often to turned to for advice on fairness and forgiving. Forgiveness has been the only useful concept that I’ve taken away from Christianity. The reason for that is because obsessing over hardships can make you unhappy and resentful.

“Holding onto anger is like swallowing poison — painful and the only one you’re hurting is yourself.” -The Dalai Llama

That does not mean that forgiving people will solve all of your life’s problems. It won’t — that’s why toxic positivity is a thing. But I feel like choosing to forgive and forget can make it easier to move past the pain sometimes.

And I think this is a quality that Sigyn embodies to a degree. She teaches to forgive those who deserve it — IE Loki, for lashing out against the Aesir — but she also teaches that its ok to cut toxic people out.

Only those who are worthy should be forgiven imo. Does everyone deserve a second chance?

No, you are not obligated to forgive your abuser, for example.

And these are the lessons that I think Sigyn teaches.

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aemiron-main · 2 years

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Not 2 be controversial on main but the more I work on the gay Mike analysis the less and less I can take the idea that Mike ever had romantic feelings for El seriously. and my ability to take it seriously was already almost nonexistent because, well… I watched the show. the familial parallels indicating a lack of attraction/platonic bond. the lying from the onset. the way that other people pressure Mike into trying to like girls/like El. the way he’s been bullied/mocked for his appearance and lack of girlfriend. the way that Mike’s ability to be affectionate with El decreases the more stereotypically feminine she looks. the fact that El is constantly pointed out to look extremely similar to will. the way that he’s trying to conform to what people want from him and is a child who’s constantly been the scapegoat kid in his family and now finally sees an opportunity to make people not be disappointed in him anymore. the fact that he’s TRYING to make himself be attracted to El/love her, he really is trying to change himself. the fact that “pretty,” is used to refer to Nancy and Mike agrees that Nancy is pretty so automatically thinking someone is “pretty,” does NOT equal attraction in ST unless you think Mike is attracted to his sister. like. ALL of his behaviour towards El that people try and use as evidence of him being attracted to her is explained by internalized homophobia and heteronormativity, especially when the show is beating us over the head with a “mike doesn’t like girls romantically and doesn’t like El romantically,” stick via everything I’ve listed here. like please. begging people to understand that all of the stuff like the familial parallels and recontextualizing pretty in a way that makes it automatically NOT equal attraction for Mike because he agrees that his sister is “pretty” (esp since with other romantic couples such as Steve and Nancy, we see Steve call Nancy “beautiful,” rather than pretty) and all of the “mike doesn’t like girls,” imagery doesn’t make any damn sense to include if Mike is anything other than gay. That’s why so much other non-gay mike sexuality analysis that I’ve seen, at least, hinges on outright ignoring the existence of canon scenes (NOT just interpreting them differently), because all of the canon scenes that I’ve listed are things that reinforce gay mike specifically because they center around his lack of attraction to girls/to el.

like. even any in-depth analysis aside. was ‘will you be like my brother?’ not enough to indicate that the show is trying to demonstrate that this couple isn’t meant to be taken as a genuine romantic couple? what writers in their right mind would kick off a romantic couple, even a puppy love one, even a crush, even a non endgame one, with “hey soooo are we siblings or what?”??? like PLEASE.

#stranger things #byler #st analysis #Mike wheeler analysis #milkvan

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ideasatemynights · 1 year

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I headcanon that newt used to be self conscious about his weight but stopped caring after awhile

Oh yeah definitely, I 100% agree with that!! I've thought A Lot about Newt's relationship with his weight as someone who's fat irl and is also pretty similar to him in personality according to irl people I know, which definitely leads to the Projection. Some general sorts of headcanons about this (warning for internalized fatphobia, disordered eating, and just a fair amount of self hatred below. Also I wrote this in one big block in the middle of the night, so it's going to be kind of incoherent.):

☆Absolutely is someone who's always been naturally chubby/fat. He didn't really think anything of it when he was really little because he looks like his dad and uncle and they're so cool and he loves them so much!! He was always more focused on catching cool bugs and playing Godzilla with his dad and uncle anyway.

☆Once he got to be a little bit older in school, he definitely started feeling insecure. He already had a target painted on his back because he was too smart, too loud, too passionate, too rude, basically too ND for all the other kids and even the teachers (not helped by the fact that he was always ahead in school), so his classmates absolutely started picking on him for his weight and probably his height too. Because of all of that, he started feeling really bad about his body and wishing that he looked different.

☆This also intersects with my HCs about Newt being trans and his relationship with his mom. His mom was the only person in his family who was more thin and conventionally attractive and because he was AFAB, before he came out she basically just wanted to use him as a doll to parade around and show off on the rare occasions she actually saw him and because of that she tended to be critical of a lot of aspects of his appearance. There was a lot of her fussing over him and telling him that he should diet, grow his hair out, be more proper and less messy, dress more feminine, etc, which didn't help his self esteem. Once he came out as trans, she basically just stopped talking to him altogether.

☆There's also a lot of fatphobia in trans spaces, medical gatekeeping based on weight, belief that fat people can never be read as their correct gender, lack of gender affirming products for fat trans people, etc, which also doesn't help.

☆Once he started at MIT (probably around 15 based on canon info??), he was even more in the spotlight because he was known very publicly as a prodigy, was in a lot of news articles and stuff, won a lot of awards, etc, which added a whole other layer of scrutiny from the public to his appearance. He was also pretty isolated from same age peers because of it, so when he did get to socialize with them, his naturally poor social skills were even more atrophied because of it. Because of that, he was subjected to even more weight based bullying than he would have been otherwise, which did an additional number on his self esteem.

☆When Newt started writing with Hermann, he never would have admitted it, but he was kind of happy that Hermann couldn't see him. He had kind of reached a point where he assumed anyone would immediately write him off because of his appearance and particularly his weight and he was so happy to finally be able to make a friend who couldn't dismiss him based on the way he looked. He knew that Hermann could definitely find pics of him online, but he was hoping that the relationship he built through writing would cancel out the way he looked (obviously a super unhealthy thought process, but uhhh). The fact that the first healthy relationship Newt had ever had with a peer was also with a guy who didn't originally know what he looked like also unintentionally reinforced some bad body image stuff.

☆When Newt figured out he was falling in love with Hermann, he was even more terrified of Hermann learning what he looked like. Like he hadn't had a good track record with making friends or people affirming his appearance in the past, but he uhhhh especially hadn't had a good track record with romance. He had been rejected a lot and when someone had gone out with him, they were clearly using him for easy make out sessions and the sort, while not really caring for his personality or appearance in the slightest (and oftentimes making digs at them). Newt was certain Hermann wouldn't do that, but he was still convinced that the only way someone could like him was despite his weight and he was terrified that Hermann wouldn't like him enough for his personality to cancel out the difference (once again, not true and definitely unhealthy, but he's having a real bad time).

☆So they finally meet in person and it goes poorly. It had nothing to do with Newt's appearance and logically he knows that, but there's still some small deeply unkind part of him that's convinced that Hermann took one look at him and decided he was too fat and ugly to even consider staying in contact with, much less dating.

☆(In actuality, Hermann took one look at him and instantly thought that he was the most attractive man he had ever seen in his life. He desperately wanted to press Newt up against the wall and grab his love handles and kiss every inch of his mouth and face and neck and chest he could get his hands on. Being Hermann, he was deeply mortified by having such lewd thoughts about a colleague, especially one so obviously attractive to him, which definitely contributed to them both being incredibly awkward and off their game while meeting.)

☆By this point, I think Newt's in a really bad place mentally with his body and his relationship with his weight, so I think he ends up in a depressive episode for a while. This has the side effect of killing his appetite and so he ends up losing some weight which is really not physically healthy for him, but he feels a sick sort of pleasure in anyway. When he meets back up with Hermann when they're both stationed in HK, Hermann is still fucking pissed at him (just as Newt is likewise), but he's also legitimately worried about Newt because he doesn't look well by the standards of his body. Hermann ends up eventually asking about it, which only pisses Newt off and honestly brings up a fuckton of trauma for him and also causes Newt to believe that Hermann really is disgusted with him and his body.

☆As the war rages on and rations get tighter and they start working longer and longer hours, Newt loses even more weight which once again causes a sick sort of pleasure in him, despite logically knowing as a biologist that this is in fact very very bad for him and his body. He never intentionally tries to restrict food or lose weight, but he can't help feeling some pleasure at being so much more thin than he's used to. By the time the movie starts, he looks like he actually does in it, where he's soft around the edges, but not fat anymore. Hermann doesn't bring it up both because it's the result of the last days of war and because last time Newt got very upset, but he watches from the sidelines and is very worried about him.

☆When Newt drifts with Hermann, there's a lot of surprise on Newt's end that not only does Hermann like him and not only is Hermann actually in love with, but Hermann actually likes his body in its natural form when it's treated well. In fact, Newt is kind of stunned at how attracted Hermann was to him at their first meeting and the fact that while Hermann would be attracted to him at any weight, Hermann definitely distinctly prefers him fat and healthy and happy. This also causes Newt to realize that Hermann was legitimately concerned about him when he asked about his eating habits, etc, and that maybe the way Hermann treats him is the way he should have been treated all along.

☆Now this obviously doesn't fix everything in one go because a lifetime of trauma doesn't just go away overnight, but going to mandated therapy post war helps, along with a healthy relationship with Hermann, more time to relax, the ending of rationing and the entire world recovering, etc. He eventually gains all of his original weight back and then some and Hermann is so fucking in love with his incredibly handsome sexy fat husband and his wonderful mind and personality. Like don't get me wrong, they're still complete bitches to one another, but they adore each other and work through their insecurities together and it's wonderful.

Once again, I'm writing this at 3 am, so I'm sorry if this doesn't make any sense. Also forgive me for the huge block of text, you unlocked A Thing I Go Insane About.

#tiegan talks #answered asks #pacific rim posting #newt geiszler #newton geiszler #hermann gottlieb #newmann #<-also just for the future you might want to block these tags if youre following/mutuals with me because we're friends #and you dont want to see me lose it and have an epic autism moment over my Very Niche In 2023 Special Interest

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