#obviously this is biased by me being a woman. and also me being queer.

[moonmoonthecrabking]

“does Jesus have a political agenda” i see the sexist theobros are going to be insufferable this week

[thenightshadowqueen]

The best character from each longform

(in my biased opinion)

This is (obviously) a long one, so if you do want to read it, more below.

(Also I left out the Patreon plays. I might do a separate post for them later; we’ll see.)

Jimmy (Tom, Toby’s Secret Pocket)

Look, Jimmy is the best. He’s adorable. He’s the representation we as the autistic community needed. He has happy flappy stimmy hands. He can’t walk through doors. We love him. (STOPINTHENAMEOFTHELAW!!!!!)

André Beetroot (AJ, Burglary and Bobsledding)

André Beetroot (André Beetroot) was iconic the first time around, but his return as the first recurring SFTH character obviously had to be memorialised.

The boy witch (Sam, Moist and Magical)

I was tempted by the witchfinder general, but the boy witch won out with “Henry Cavill with a wasting disease” and his thick accent. Also the cheeky little look he gives his grandma (Luke) when he flips her off wins him a lot of points.

Hugh’s mum (Tom, Marigolds Bluebells and Hugh)

She’s, like, a fair bit unhinged, but she has good intentions. She’s got amazing quotes, too; “why couldn’t you have just stayed in my womb forever” and “if you love something, lock it up” are both deeply concerning, but I love them.

The wife (Tom, Murders in Space)

This one is kind of an obvious choice. I mean, her quotes are glorious, and honestly “have you ever heard of feminism, James?” gets her top spot automatically.

Mario the sheep (Sam, the Lighthouse)

Was this even a question? I love Mario intending to be a one-scene character and then being forced to star in the whole play. I love the human bits. I love “🐑fuck you🐑”. I love the sheep (aka Sam) having a fucking breakdown at the end. 10/10 all around.

Titch (Luke, the Unrelenting Aubergine)

Listen, I was very tempted by Old Lady Margery (and by Derek), but in the end, canon queer guy with commitment issues and insane amounts of blindness around his own feelings won out. What can I say, I have a type in fictional characters.

Troll Son (Luke, Wine Under the Bridge)

Everything about this character is perfect. Screaming as hello? Colourful troll as a metaphor for being queer? Correcting a geography fact? It’s got it all. It’s perfect. I love Troll Son and his wine bar in Ipswich.

Juliet (AJ, Caesar and Juliet)

Is anyone surprised? She’s a murderous girlboss. “[My mother] said you have to be careful about men; they can be corrupted with power. But what she didn’t know is that so can woman.” They can, and I’m here for it. She’s bathing in blood and her skin is glowing. I love insane women.

Watson (Sam, the Mystery of the Midnight Circus)

Watson, driven mad with grief over his divorce and his one-sided love for Sherlock, becomes a murderous clown. Am I supposed to not love this? Is there even another choice in this play? And his breakdown at the end was gorgeous.

Priscilla (AJ, Pricilla’s Final Petal)

I was very tempted by both of her mums, and also a bit by the groundsman, but ultimately, Priscilla won out. She’s the title character. She’s confused, but she’s got the spirit, and she’s working through her trauma with a buttercup and a piano lesson. Good for her.

Marty (Sam, the Evil Make-a-Wish Kid)

I considered the seven-year-old detective, but in the end, Marty won. He’s evil. He’s a make-a-wish kid. What more can I say? He’s got an iconic smirk. He burns down all the petting zoos on the entire planet (and his mum). He dies at the end. He’s brilliant.

Derek (Tom, Susan’s Holiday)

There were a lot of great options in this one, but “I like looking at the back of another man’s head” was too good to pass up. Also, I adore the whole monologue he has while he’s waiting to be buzzed in.

The gasoline salesman (Luke, Beetroots and Murder)

Okay, I know he’s only in, like, a quarter of a scene. I know that. And I can’t tell you why I love him so much but I do. He’s just. I just love him. I can’t explain it. There are so many great characters in this play, but the way he says “could be, could be” has captivated me. If you understand the way my brain works, please contact me, because I don’t.

Peter Steven (Tom, the Milkman)

I love so many characters in this play. I love Gareth, and I love the Texan bartender, and I love David the milkman. But Peter Steven is the sweetest, most traumatised little boy and I want to protect him. I will adopt him and I will never make him walk on his knees again. I will throw away the PS5 and I will let him dig up the back garden as many times as he wants.

Johnny and Janae (Luke and Tom, the Neighbour’s Under the Bed)

I know they’re two separate characters, okay, but they’re a set. I want to keep them together. And I just can’t choose, okay? They’re two autistic children whose neurodivergence presents in opposite ways, and their parents don’t know what to do with them, and oh look, I’m back to wanting to adopt traumatised children.

Captain Egbert (Luke, the Leftenmost Window)

Shoutout to the mum, but Egbert won this one. He’s, like, kind of an idiot. I’m here for it, though. He’s got the iconic “diluileayilybilyeilysilym” speech. He wants to go to the ~astral plane~ but he’s waiting for his birthday. He lets his wife dip him into a kiss even though it’s 1940. I love him.

The king (Sam, the Prime Minister’s First Day)

Listen, I love several characters from this one, but I’m going with this one. He’s unapologetically a dick. He wears impenetrable armour made from diamonds stolen from Indian subculture. He’s impossible to beat. He’s brilliant. (Also did anyone else kind of find Sam hot as the king or is that just me?)

Franz Haberburg (Sam, the Excited Chinchilla)

Obviously fuck Nazis (god I hope that’s obvious). That being said, some of SFTH’s best characters are Nazis, and this is one of them. He’s glorious. I have never seen such a brilliant rendition of a Nazi chinchilla.

The Italian detective (Tom, the Ingredients)

He can’t pronounce paella. Do I need another reason?

Chip (Sam/AJ, the Cardboard Stegosaurus)

Oh look, another traumatised child! I want it. (No, but seriously, I love Chip and his English/French seizures.) Also he’s one of the few characters who switches actors mid-play, and I love that.

Persephone (Tom, Wild Wet and Worrisome)

She’s amazing. “HEY!” is a gorgeous siren call and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. She deserved a happy ending and I’m still sad we didn’t get one. I like to think she swam to the shore and found Geoff again, and they lived happily ever after on a boat at sea, singing and not having to kill anyone.

Full Set O’Hands and his love/bother (Luke and Tom, No! I Always Loved that Caravan)

I know, I know, another set of characters, but you really can’t separate these two. They’re insane. I adore them. They’re just… Honestly, these two are comedy gold. Good for them because they are fucking timeless.

Andrew (Luke, All Eyes on Nigel)

Listen, Andrew is a naive little thing, and he must be protected at all costs. He goes through so much shit in this one, and I just want to wrap him up in a blanket and send him to rehab.

Magnus O. Puss (Tom, BUS)

Okay, this was a VERY close one between them and Arthur B. D., but Magnus is a genderqueer icon and we love them for it. Also, I feel like this is some of the most unhinged Tom content we have and I live for that.

Jeremiah (Luke, Inside the Mysterious Cube)

I was so torn because I love Bubba, too, but I’m trying to avoid putting sets of characters where possible, and Jeremiah just edged past Bubba because his death scene was gorgeous. (That is a mildly concerning reason to have a favourite, I will admit.)

Lord Lafayette (Tom, the Midnight Mystery)

You may be noticing a pattern; I adore Tom’s insane characters. We just don’t get to see that often enough. I love his very sexual flirting with Lady Lafayette (Sam). I love him making fun of the detective’s (Luke’s) shirt. I love “what does any self-respecting rich man do when he has a little boy in tights” followed by “captured—and only captured” as a save. I love him.

Dangerfield (AJ/Tom/AJ again, Once Upon a Time I Killed Mum)

I love the confusion when Tom briefly takes over as Dangerfield; it’s not often we get to see AJ understanding something that Sam doesn’t (I say this with all the love in the world). Dangerfield is so fascinating to me. He’s a “cleaner” for a crime lord, but he has mixed feelings about the things he does. I want to know how he got into it in the first place. How did he come into this life? I want to know.

Barry’s wife (AJ, the Hare who Wore a Sweater)

I don’t remember her having a name, but I could be wrong about that. She’s so sweet; she just wants to knit sweaters for the hares in peace. And then Jimmy the hare gets shot, and she and her husband go on a revenge plot. I’m here for it. I love her.

The king/tank commander (AJ, the Oopsie Daisy Bulge)

He’s obsessed with tanks. He used to have gay sex with his fellow tank commanders, but only as a joke. He sailed all the way around, through the other landlocked counties, into the east of France, and they never saw it coming. He drove tanks into the ocean. He’s so stupid he’s almost smart. I love him.

The landowner/farmer (Luke, Too Big to Be a Jockey)

He farms peasants (Luke, you genius). He’s such a dick, with his classist remarks about Johnny Jones, but somehow I love him anyway. His interview process is looking at a photo of someone and then hiring them, and he’s honestly wonderful. I love him.

Larry (Tom, Long Johns—Strike!)

Literally the only thing he does on screen is die. That’s it. That’s his whole purpose. And he does it beautifully.

Wizard Asceroth (Sam, the Dark Moons of Slough)

ASCEROOOOTTTHHHH!!! (I don’t have another reason. I don’t need another reason.)

The French waiter (Luke, Lost in Your Eyes)

I don’t know. I really don’t. But something about this character has stuck with me since the first time I watched it. Gorgeous accent. He kisses Amanda (Sam) for no reason at all. He gets stabbed by a gun. I love him.

The Lady of a Thousand Don Juans (Luke, the Meringue Haberdashery)

She tricked her husband for years. She murdered her own child. She has been a curse on all the Don Juans in this town. She’s one of the only villains who win at the end of a longform, and that’s very impressive. I love her.

Xavier (Tom, Oh my God is This a Joke?)

(Please refer to my previous statement about Nazi characters.) Okay, look. He’s a horrible person. But we as a fandom choose to disregard that because Tom looks amazing in a leather jacket and scarf. I am not above this. I am, in fact, a part of this. Tom looks amazing in a leather jacket and scarf. “I will die as I have lived…. Shirtless!” has to be one of the most iconic lines of all time. There was never any competition.

[quidfree]

accidentally deleted this ask but for the anon asking what my gripes were with iwtv’s finale / this season:

look i love this show. ive never read the books* and i thoroughly enjoyed the one time i watched the movie mostly bc of tom cruise and kirsten dunst acting circles around bradd pitt. the show to me really elevates the material, it has phenomenal writing, the acting is obviously stellar, i think it does a great job at being that dark gothic romance that is both deeply tragic and fucked up and funny etc etc.

a key element of the adaptation is evidently that they have recontexualised the characters in ways that both add depth and nuance to them. when we meet him louis is a black gay man in a deeply racist and homophobic setting who hardens himself to survive and rise above as much as he can. claudia is a young black woman who has always faced societal violence and neglect because of this. armand’s whole arc as an exploited and fetishised child whose trauma has become his identity is also encased in colonial violence. i’m not from the communities they are so i can’t speak for everyone, but i think for the most part the show is pretty good at having these changes enrich the show and acknowledge what an impact this has on dynamics and the characters. s1 explicitly addresses how lestat handwaves away the racism louis experiences as something he can just overcome because he’s a vampire now, how lestat himself plays into racist imbalances of power in his patriarchal relationship in their home esp wrt claudia, how he goes to capture claudia on the train being portrayed to echo a slave-catcher, etc. s2 has the trial obviously set up like a lynching (claudia says so much herself), with lestat’s testimony framing the two black people he abused as the aggressors and himself as the victim, and even when lestat is genuinely apologetic and remorseful it’s because he’s allowed his tears and victimhood while louis and claudia are not. all this to say there is obviously lot of conscious thought that goes into the way the characters’ races feed into the show and the story and it oftentimes is very effective, as well as aware of audience perceptions of the characters and how the irl audience’s own biases might need addressing.

unfortunately for me there are two aspects of s2 that i feel are kind of outliers in this regard, and not in a way that makes sense/feels intentionally uncomfortable to me. 1) is madeline’s backstory, and 2) is the change of having armand actually have been plotting to murder both louis and claudia at the trial, and lestat have been the one to save louis.

1) to me is just really… weird. i feel like i know why they wrote her that way. it makes madeline a ~morally grey character~ by default so she fits in with the rest of the cast, and there is an element to the very real misogynistic vitriol and violence post-ww2 directed at french women even falsely accused of having slept with the invading nazi occupiers that feels very in line with the things the show likes to examine and point to as examples of plain old human barbarism and othering. but the way they present it in the show, unquestioned, not as a dubious survival tactic or a multi-faceted situation but an actual love story that madeline has no remorse for, is very off-putting to me. madeline is not louis and claudia who ignore the atrocities of the war because those are human affairs and they are no longer human but supernatural monsters. madeline is a normal person whose peers- jewish people, queer people (surely her own community), political dissidents of any kind- have been put down like dogs throughout the occupation, sent to prison camps at best and death camps at worst, and she never even has a line of dialogue addressing conflicting feelings about this? no one ever challenges her on it? the people painting nazi symbols on her shop are consistently framed as villainous? it just feels weird to me that claudia’s “weird white lady” has this saccharine romance with her, a black woman, without the show ever exploring any friction in that dynamic given madeline’s apparently uncomplicated nazi romance. madeline being a femme tondue is a great idea, but the execution leaves to be desired imo.

2) … oh boy. i feel like i’m wading into discourse here bc i’ve seen really confrontational takes on this, esp a lot of “responses to” people who didn’t like this change, where this is presented as those people being dumb babies who are blinded by their liking of armand and don’t Understand The Show. im sure there are those of which this is true (and ppl have explained better than me how antiblackness feeds into everyone jumping into ship wars and defense of louis’ abusive partners in general) but also it feels very reductive of some valid questions people have. people can argue the change is consistent with armand’s characterisation, which, sure, even though i feel like it feels a little flimsy / contradictory for armand to finally Choose The Coven and allow for them to execute louis but then go feed him blood and allow him to revenge-kill all of them immediately afterwards, etc. i don’t mind characters being More Evil on the Evil Vampire show.

my bigger question is why this change was made. bc my sense is that the change is less about armand than it is about lestat, and specifically setting the stage for the loustat reconciliation, and i do not love that. it’s one thing to make it so armand wanted to kill louis too, just for the extra drama of daniel’s reveal and scale of his betrayal, another push for louis to leave. it’s another to make it so lestat was the heroic captive who not only was forced to be there by armand as per but also bravely exerted the limits of his strength to save louis from execution and then nobly didn’t tell him about this. these are both monstrous vampires who have abused and betrayed louis in their own ways (armand has already orchestrated claudia’s death and kept louis in a purportedly protective mind prison for decades! that’s betrayal enough! you could even have armand originally want to kill louis too and then change his mind!), so why at this juncture choose to have lestat save louis in a move that was originally armand’s? just from the way the audience (fandom and casual watchers) is reacting it makes me wonder if the showrunners were just oblivious to how much this worsens people’s takes of armand (the brown man) being the “real villain” and lestat (the white man) being the redeemed self-sacrificing figure. i’m sure people will say this is placing too much weight on race blah blah blah but it was so jarring to me and the change in viewer attitudes so immediate that it left a really bad taste in my mouth.

inb4 the inevitable: i actually really liked the loustat reunion in the finale! i don’t hate loustat! i like all of the dynamics between all of the characters, albeit my favourite louis ship is louis x therapy (an obvious inference from my favourite character being daniel lmao). this is not a change that i hate because i’m a bitter lestat hater. i have no issue with armand doing bad things, episode 5 was my favourite episode! i just think this particular choice was weird, and felt kind of thoughtless in the service of speedrunning a lestat hero role in advance of his season.

i have other less tangential complaints but overall i think this is a great season of television. these are just two points that stood out to me as being handled with less grace than i expect of iwtv.

*i just started reading the first book today on the airplane so. we’ll see how that goes. book loustat is so funny compared to the show. book 1 louis hates his ass 😭

[unreadpoppy]

bg3, infographics, mysogyny and you

Preface: this is a long ass post that I wrote some many weeks ago, and that because of some stuff I've seen, I'm compelled to finally post it. It's very like a spurn of the moment thing, not extremely well thoght out but I still think it's relevant.

.

Recently, a few people have posted some, in my opinion, really insightful infographics showing the difference in content to how many works (in AO3) there are to the female characters vs the male characters of BG3 and I've been thinking about how it relates to fandom in general, but also...everything.

As a quick rundown, what happens is: almost all of the female characters have a lot less content when compared to their male counterparts (at least writing wise). And I think this is a great moment to stop and think on why is that.

There's a lot of point to begin with but I want to begin with something larger and that is the society most of us are raised in. Obviously, I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's fair to say that most people grew up in places that had its fair share of sexism and give it or take, that does shape how we view the world.

I'll speak from my own experience. Even thought I had a mostly liberal upbriging, I went to a very conservative school and when I was growing up, I saw a lot of videos on youtube that anaylized media in what i can only describe as "god forbid women do anything". Video after video, I saw people commenting on how x female character was a mary sue, how she made no sense and ruined the plot, so many video essays on the """strong female character trope"""" that would end up just enforcing gender roles again. And I'll be honest, this DID affect how viewed female characters.

The best example I can give of this is with bg3 itself. There was one day that I stopped and realized that Minthara was the first time I ever obsessed over a fem character as much as any male character. And the second thought I had after this was 'oh my god why???'

Why did I always cater more to the male characters than I did to the female ones, when most of the times, I liked a lot as well?

I'd like to point out that I've seen the topic of "Most fic authors are cis straight women" being brought up a lot and frankly, I'm not the biggest fan of it. First, because I think it's overall a very...heteronormative way of seeing stuff and it's assuming a lot of stuff that puts a sour taste on my mouth (as a queer woman myself, I really don't like that implication but that's on me). Second, because saying that 'obviously women are going to write more about men' feels very...weird. Third, I just think that this argument fails to really question the why of it all and gives too simple an answer to something is anything but.

One can make the argument that these female characters are written differently than the men, and yes that is true and it's even historical (I wrote a whole project on the invisibility of women in theater through the ages and a lot of it has to do with how women were written, but that's a story for another time).

But I don't think that's true for all cases. It's easy to blame an imaginary writer's room than question that you might have internal biases.

Because at least it's what happened to me. I grew up hearing how female characters were inferior to the male characters and it affected how I viewed them. It's something I had to stop and reevalute and it led me to appreciate characters I once loathed.

And it sucks to realize that. It sucks to realize that even as a woman myself, I was not immune to commiting sexism, that I hadn't fully outgrown the shit I saw as a kid. Does that make me a bad person? No. You're not to blame for being raised in a way that leads you to have certain prejudices.

But it doesn't mean you can't do anything about it.

And no, the solution is not to suddenly go write a bunch of femslash. Because no one is saying that you should feel ashamed for writing more for men, or forcing you to like female characters. But, I ask you to do something much simpler.

Think on the why. Why, even when we love female characters, we don't show them as much love as we do to the male ones. Why we might feel more compelled to write for the men than for the women. Because sometimes it's questioning ourselves that we can find something about us we didn't know and change how we engage with media.

And you can brush this off as just fandom stuff, but I think it does, in some ways, also reflect a bit on how we act as whole as a society. Hell, writing this whole thing made me think of how the way I was raised still interferes with my own sexuality (which is a very personal topic for me to get on here but it was worth mentioning). What I'm trying to say is that sometimes something small is an easier way for us to understand the bigger, systemic issues around us.

I know that it sounds like there's nothing to be done cause fandoms have always been like this. But, personally, this sort of conformity to the norm causes more harm then good. Things won't change unless you decide to do something about it. And the good thing about fandom is that it's small enough that doing literally anything can create some impact than, I don't know, trying to solve big, real life societal issues.

This is getting long so I'm gonna try to wrap this up quickly. No one is shaming you if you write or obsesses more or even care more about male characters than you do female ones. I just ask you to think about it and be honest with yourself. Because then maybe, just maybe, next time you engage with another media, you might end up enjoying a female character much more and obsessing over them just as much.

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

There have been a couple of posts making the rounds about Cheum and her role in Only friends. And this prompted me to share my thoughts on the character of Cheum.

So since there is lot that I've been thinking about regarding ofts but not really sharing, I thought why not. Now would be a good opportunity to attempt to write some coherent thoughts.

One of the biggest things that that's been constantly on my mind about the series is the trailer. Because I'm absolutely obsessed with how the trailer is influencing our read of these characters. I believe this is specially true for the character of Top. But going back to Cheum. So the only thing she says in the trailer is the quote "friends don't do this to each other". And our brains collectively assigned her role of being the moral one. The voice of reason. But in watching the show before that episode, if I'd never watched the trailer, I don't think I'd see her in that light. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe if that wasn't the case she would (for me) just be the annoying, judgemental friend that happens to be a queer woman. But also, if I wasn't told she was important from the first episode when she is introduced as part of the main group, I honestly wouldn't think of her at all. Because the narrative isn't treating her like she's important. She has so little influence on any of the main story points, and when she does it's someone else's drama that brings her around. Be it Mew, or Ray or Atom. Her brother had more influence on the overall story and the other characters than she did. And when she does get caught in the middle, she does her thing, which is judge everybody, and quickly exits. And we get no window into her thought process and no consequences for her actions. Because she's obviously not that important. So I don't think that Jojo and company are trying to tell us anything about queer women or women in general. She is simply a flat character with a very specific role in the narrative regardless of gender or sexual orientation. I don't know if she's suppose to be the narrator or if I'm suppose to see the other characters through her eyes. If it is, then in my case it's failing, and if it it isn't then the fact that she's a women I think it's irrelevant and she's just another character without much depth.

I'm gonna reserve full judgement until after the finale, but there's only so much they can do to the character in 50 minutes with that whole ensemble of characters. So I think in the end her character will not leave a lasting impression on me. Of course I have my own biases regarding female characters but that's for another day, maybe... (this was the post that prompted this one so thank you @waitmyturtles for giving the chance to write some things)

[duckiemimi]

Its interesting to me how Gojo's english VA rejects or simply doesn't see the subtext StSG has but he's so open about his admiration for GJHm because he apparently pulls the same pranks on his wife like Gojo messes with Uta. And he even went as far as to say "C'mon guys, they're best friends" in regards to people being vocal about StSG relationship.

i’m gonna be honest, i’d rather listen to what the Japanese VAs have to say about anything jjk related (but especially about geto and gojo’s characters and relationship) considering the English Dub’s blunder with toji in season 2.

if u aren’t aware, the English Dub scriptwriters took liberties with a certain translation—in the manga toji says, “oh…i remember now. megumi. the name means blessings. and i’m the one who gave him that name.” meanwhile, the english dub of this scene became, “oh, speaking of blessings. that’s right, i almost forgot. i named my cursed spirit megumi.”

to twist a translation so badly that it takes away from what the actual scene was supposed to portray (toji remembering his son, megumi)—of course, whoever wrote the script is at fault here, not the actual VA, but it makes me doubt their commitment to the story’s authenticity. i’m not sure if this happened bc of lack of research or if they were trying to paint toji in a certain light.

i mean, language is fickle anyway; there’s so much cultural subtext that gets lost in translation and perhaps that could be the case here. but it could also be internalized homophobia, or just blatant homophobia.

i’m a big advocate for shipping whatever u want and respecting ppl’s boundaries! if someone dislikes or is uncomfortable with a ship, then don’t talk to them about it. in a similar line, if u dislike or are uncomfortable with a ship, filter, mute, and block! but to try and pass off ur biases as canon? bc of ur own lived experiences/personal values/trauma? c’mon now. preferences are preferences—none of our ships are canon, anyway (at least for now, but even then, that’s never stopped ppl from shipping characters in a confirmed relationship with other characters—and that’s fine!)

there is some nuance in situations like these, if we really wanna get into the nitty gritty. men can be close friends, sure! but if u bring a woman in to counter someone’s gay ship/hc, then u’re doing it in bad faith and ur obviously biased. queer subtext will almost always be ignored by a straight audience anyway, mainly bc they’re not familiar with it, and they might even be uncomfortable with exploring concepts that don’t fit their worldview.

again, if u a wanna ship gjhm, by all means, go ahead! just don’t be headass about it. don’t deny the possibility of other ships, either—specifically stsg bc that ship alone has more canon “proof” (that’s what they call it) than any other ship with their characters. don’t go and pull dumb excuses or justifications out of ur ass to dismiss other ships (or ship dynamics) bc u’re gonna look stupid. like what u like and don’t go to war with other ppl for liking different things!

(also, i’m using the universal “u/you” here, anon! i’m not accusing or addressing u in these paragraphs!)

(also also, if this VA pulls the type of “pranks” gojo pulled on utahime on his wife, i’m a little concerned. those aren’t pranks. gojo genuinely thought he was better than her in the hidden inventory arc. in gojo’s case, he wasn’t wrong bc he was and still is the pinnacle of jujutsu, so he would’ve called anybody weak regardless of their circumstance—he’s much more tactful about it nowadays, anyway. in the VA’s case? umm…but that’s none of my business.)

[moonlightsapphic]

Y'all, I find the reception of XO, Kitty so dissapointing.

TL; DR: The underlying homophobia/biphobia/lesbophobia/misoginy towards Yuri as potential and viable endgame which I don't think would have happened if she were yet another hot guy.

The straight-baiting marketing of this show was absolutely genius and I loved that Jenny Han, who writes the straightest central romances to ever romance (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, The Summer I Turned Pretty), actually initiated a series with such visibly queer storylines and then literally jumped into this sort-of-interracial, sapphic romance centered around a bi+ character. I could see Han trying to be more inclusive in her past on-screen works, but this was incredible.

No you don't understand. There was this point midway through the show where I thought I was in a fever dream and watching wishful fanmade content because I couldn't believe an IRL Netflix show could actually give us this. My mind was blown.

So you'll understand that I was fully bamboozled to see that social media is swamped with Min-ho fangirls pretending like Yuri doesn't even exist. I love Min-ho too, but am I the only one who also saw so many signs that point to a future Yuri x Kitty?

First, for the narrative satisfaction of their moms being best friends in the past!

... and to complete Kitty's coming of age! Kitty, growing up in the cisheteronormative Song-Covey household, made the oversight of initially operating under the assumption that she exclusively likes boys and that she has mastered the art of relationships. That's already been debunked partway by her breakup with her first boyfriend who was supposed to be endgame, and is only going to be sealed further if she ends up with a girl in a long-term relationship. (And no, of course she doesn't have to "end up" with a girl for her queer identity to be valid, but I think it just makes the most narrative sense to have that unfold in the story as her worldview alters.)

Here I present to you: my pet peeves in the XO, Kitty fandom

hyping up parallels between Peter x LJ and Minho x Kitty scenes claiming that this means Minho x Kitty may be endgame. They literally have to reach and dig for those because the most parallels are between Peter x LJ and Yuri x Kitty, right from the scene that they bumped into each other! Kitty has also shown zero romantic interest in Minho so far, as opposed to her very keen interest in Yuri.

People finally addressing the elephant in the room like "Ugh, Yuri is probably going to be endgame. 🙄 I want Minho instead!!" like it's such a disappointing or borderline gross outcome. Yuri is a much more intense enemies-to-lovers character than Minho. She is beautiful, kind, and fun with a little bit of bite, everything that Minho is plus Kitty is falling for her hard.

Being real here—If you think Yuri is a boring love interest or kind of a b*tch while Minho is simply a fun old enemies-to-lovers character, I am begging you to check your biases. You, a straight woman, may only see hostile fictional women as competitiion and hostile fictional men as ... well, kinda hot. However, Kitty is bi+ and she could see them both as viable romantic interests, equally. Yes, Yuri has done more malicious things than Minho, but then again she has had a harder time this academic year than Minho. You are obviously still allowed to like Minho better, as long as you're not dismissing the struggles of and flattening a strong female character. Misoginy and homophobia make an ugly combo, y'all. Trust me, you don't want any part in that.

(Additional unpopular opinion: I'm going to get crucified for this but I genuinely think Kitty is too boring for Minho in the same way that Dae was too boring for Kitty. He seems to be into her only from the Halo Effect. Minho is my child and I squeal whenever he's on screen and I hope to see him finding someone actually fun!)

Saying that Kitty’s crush on Yuri was just a token plot point with no real basis or depth. While there is some unrealistic family drama in the show, it's all still credible. Fiction is supposed to bring in imaginative elements and try to keep things grounded. Regardless, I'm never going to be the person who says that a wild and shocking bi- or gay-awakening is unrealistic. As a queer person, let me tell you that it is just as wild and confusinh for us IRL.

Besides, many cishet people actually do not care if (or is hateful when) the MC is bi, that I doubt how much it “helps” with marketing. (That's why queerbaiting exists, folks.) Also, have you seen Kitty in TATBILB? That's a bi preteen right there if I've ever seen one.

"Stop trying to invalidate other people's ships!" I will say this once: I don't care if you ship Kitty with Min-ho, or Dae, or anyone else that's not Yuri. I DON'T CARE! Frankly, good for you because straight ships have better luck out there anyway, ya know? I am simply begging you to not reduce a queer person's nuanced concerns about dismissal of sapphic fictional characters to petty fandom arguments. Read the room, guys. Please.

This is such a crucial show to many of us. I just want y'all to understand that this is just a little bigger than your celebrity crush on a hot guy whose character you're rooting for. We never, ever get contemporary slice-of-life romcom sapphic rep (and Netflix is notorious for cancelling sapphic shows, too). Please don't be dismissive of a perfectly good possible ending! We want to give Netflix every reason to renew this show, and give Han every reason to allow Kitty to flourish just the way she plans to! (This is me begging y'all to not influence the writers into swerving last-minute towards a sloppy Minho endgame, though I do trust her better than that.)

I hope that Netflix renews the show, even if it's through the excitement of straight people in denial LMAO. And then I hope it treats us with a glorious sapphic ending.*

*(Aaaand I can already imagine the cishet women in the audience complaining online about what a terrible person Kitty is for leading Min-ho on and then dumping him, and how she and Yuri are both awful and totally deserve each other. Music to my ears.)

[teaveetamer]

Regarding the last rb: I think most of us can recognize how patently ridiculous it is to just blanket accuse someone of misogyny or queerphobia for, idk, thinking that starting a war is bad. It's an annoying and unfounded accusation, but it's ultimately something most of us can shrug off.

But like... I really don't think the people making these accusations are aware of how badly that plays when the criticism you're trying to defend against is calling out bigotry.

Now, let me elaborate.

A few days ago I was on Twitter and happened to see that Edelgard was trending. So I figured I'd go see what that's about because it was probably a shitshow (since there hasn't really been anything official lately that would explain it, e.g. a FEH alt or a figma or something. So, obviously, drama was afoot).

Color me surprised to see there was a lot of criticism about Edelgard's treatment of Petra in canon (primarily, how she keeps Brigid a vassal state and holds that over Petra's head the entire war, instead of immediately granting Brigid independence when she obtained the power to do so). In sum, just discussing the racism inherent to the writing (for tiptoeing around that and definitely not condemning it like it should have) and often inherent to the fanbase (for justifying everything Edelgard does, including this)

And I was seeing two main "rebuttals" to this point.

It's not her fault because she was just a poor wittle girly who is just soooo powerless (nevermind the fact that she spends five years in a position of absolute power over the nation that is currently holding Brigid hostage. And, also, she's a grown ass woman for the entire time skip and events of the war phase), and even if she did it it's not her fault because society just raised her like that (nevermind the fact that people can grow and learn and you aren't stuck with the values your society forced on you when you were a child).

Accusing the people raising these points of misogyny and queerphobia

We could debate exactly how to approach this criticism (a mark against the character? The writers? Both? Was it intentionally written to be racist? Is it a product of social conditioning and unexamined biases on the part of the writers? Some combination?).

But you know what you probably should NOT do in, like, any circumstance? Deflect responsibility for the actions because "she was just a poor little girl who doesn't know better" and accuse the people raising these concerns of misogyny and queerphobia.

This is the kind of shit people are talking about when they say the FE fandom has a lot of unexamined racism. Your first response to someone bringing up racism is to basically say "Okay, but the reputation of the White Girl PNG I Like is more important than your feelings about racist writing/handling of PoC characters. So it's not her fault, and even if it was, you're just a bigot so you're wrong"

And just, like, there's this implicit elevation of the struggles of (white) women and (white) queer folk as more important, valid, or worthy of being defended than the struggles of people marginalized on the basis of race. Let's not even get into the fact that many of the people raising these criticisms were queer women themselves, and it's entirely possible to be a queer woman and also be prejudiced (it happens ALL THE TIME. The queer community and the feminist movements have a LONG history of explicitly excluding people who are not white. E.g. the whitewashing of Stonewall and white feminists excising black feminists from the movement to try and make feminism "more palatable" to racist white men).

Not to mention the double standard here. They'll be so quick to call out racism if it's a character they don't like, but the second it's their fave? Crickets.

Hate to break it to you, but if you only care about pointing out potential racism when it involves a character you don't like, then you're not an ally. You're an opportunist leech co-opting the struggles of real people to win petty internet arguments.

Inb4 someone accuses me of having a double standard for the Dimitri/Dedue relationship, as if Dedue following Dimitri completely of his own free will because he cares about him and believes he can help rebuild Duscur is in any way comparable to Petra being a literal hostage who risks the annihilation of her entire country if she steps out of line (and she knows it). There's definitely racist elements to Dedue's writing (I've even talked about some of them) but specifically his relationship with Dimitri/Faerghus is NOTHING like Petra's with Edelgard/Adrestia.

[szollibisz]

25 for saf

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

OK this might get me shot, but I'm a dismissive bitch so I don't really care.

The recent outrage at the apparent "high levels of fandom misogyny" is a little silly to me. Like yeah it exists everywhere, because misogyny is everywhere but like. It's genuinely not bad in the saf fandom imo? Just scroll any bigger fandom tag and you'll see some absolutely grave takes about female characters and a lack of will to even engage with them. The saf fandom is. eh. in this regard. It's there, but it never made me as confused or angry as literally any other fandom I've been in.

Obviously most content is gonna be about Curt and Owen because they're the main protagonist and antagonist of the show who are in a canonical gay relationship, which is something we don't see that often in musical theatre, despite it being a very queer field. And obviously if Tatiana was a man there would be more content about her, but I think overall this fandom is a very small offender in the fandom misogyny olympics and complaining about it to the confessions blog isn't gonna solve anything anyway so idk. (Tho that's my opinion on basically everything that goes up on the confessions blog. like. chill. we're playing pretend with musical characters)

Like not gonna lie seeing the starkid fandom it's a way bigger thing there, but for a fandom as small as saf this is practically a non issue. There are like. 200 people here. You should always examine your biases etc etc but at the end of the day, as all fandom shit, this is also: not that deep

As a woman and a lesbian who always wants to see more content with female characters I'd rather there be less but better content instead of just showing a woman into your au or art or fic or whatever just for fandom gold stars, while totally mischaracterizing her. This to me personally is a bigger annoyance than the quantity of the content, and a bigger sign you don't actually gaf about female characters.

Summary: ya'll are not entirely wrong, I just think you guys need to chill

[catboybiologist]

Hello, I've heard from a few trans women that their transition made higher education impossible I wasn't sure if they were talking about college or grad school, but since you're a woman in a PhD program I was wondering if you think transitioning would make getting a higher education harder.

Thanks

Someone who might be trans that wants to pursue a master's

Hm. This is weird to answer. Unfortunately I can't offer TOO much insight here. I'm very much a baby trans (~1.5 months HRT) and I present as a man day to day without issue (seriously, y'all have NO idea how masculine I look outside of my pictures). When I do finally socially transition, I'll probably have more thoughts.

With that out of the way, here's my personal experience so far:

I don't think I would have transitioned if I was NOT in academia/pursuing my PhD. I think most of the issues people run into can be divided into three categories:

1. Financial difficulty with acquiring HRT or other gender affirming care

2. Closer ties (financially and emotionally) to family and being seen less as an independent adult means greater pressure to not transition, and consequences if you do

3. Academic stress and pressure while you're undergoing emotional changes that may make things difficult short term.

Personally I was able to dodge most of those issues.

A huge part of this is because I spent a lot of time meticulously ensuring a lot of aspects of my life are in place before I started HRT. I waited until I was out of undergrad, which has weirder finances, I scoped out options at my student health center vs in the community, established queer community, waited a year to start in a good lab and establish there, scoped that lab out for queer acceptance before I joined, and in general became more financially and emotionally secure. Also, while I'm still in good terms with my parents, I'm not financially or emotionally reliant on them anymore- so if that changes when I come out, it won't affect me as much.

Looking back, it's hard to say whether I would recommend doing things this way. During the time that I was "figuring things out", I was dying. I was depressed and aimless, and I couldn't make happiness or contentment my baseline emotion. Starting an online femboy account was my only outlet for a while. Also, my results are going to be less drastic now that I've waited until I'm 25 to start.

Obviously, I still have the stress of a PhD to worry about while my emotions and body are changing. But to be honest.... My PhD has been kinder to me academically than my undergrad. All of my goals center around two or three long term, overarching projects instead of a million tiny assignment and study snippets from a million directions. I personally think this is easier to manage even if it's more work overall.

In return, the academia environment has been good to me about my queerness. There's a gender care specialist on campus via student health where I can get HRT, queer organizations and events are much easier to come by in a university environment, and people on average are far more educated and open minded towards LGBT issues than the general public. I have a role in the main queer graduate student group here, and it would have been hard for me to find explicitly supportive friends without that.

I'm gonna throw an additional paranoid note your way: a master's degree is hell for everyone. While the exact ways in which this is true vary from program to program, but in general, they feel like the worst of both worlds from undergrad and a PhD. You're locked out of or have less of a chance for the financial stability and employment positions of a PhD position, but you're also locked out of the financial aid and support of undergrads. I'm very biased from a miserable MS experience, though.

So yeah. I think my experience has been different than a lot of people, but I hope there was some small insight there!

[hagstones-and-howling-hills]

i would LOVE to know your thoughts on legally blonde movie vs musical!!!!!!!

Ooh boy where to start dude.

Firstly, I personally prefer the musical but that’s because I like musicals. I also think that song is a great way to convey character and theme. Love me a reprise. So this’ll be a little biased towards the musical. Also Imma focus a lot on character because that’s my favourite part of any media.

I think one of the biggest changes that interests me is with Callahan's whole deal and the repercussions of it. The decision to change the scene in the film into actual physical assault I think was a good choice because it raised the stakes and made Warner and Callahan look like bigger assholes. I also think that moment where Vivian recognises what has happened and shuts Warner up really enforces the idea that women have to stick together in male dominated fields like law and in some way it replaces the scene in the film where the female professor encourages Elle. I like the musical direction to have Vivian be the one to bring Elle back to law but I think it's important that in the film its an older woman in some position of power who is telling Elle to stick with it. There's a feeling of "this is a woman who has fought her way through" and her being rude to Elle earlier makes her encouragement hit even harder. Like I said I do like that Vivian takes her place and I understand why that female professor was taken out of the musical what with casting and time frame.

I overwhelmingly prefer Emmett in the musical. I think most people do because he gets so much more character development. I like the dichotomy emphasised in their backgrounds and I think it's important to acknowledge Elle's privilege. Yes she got the grades for Harvard because of hard work but her dad's still footing the bill. Not only that but she can drop out at any time and still have that money to fall back on. I think Emmett is one of those situations where the love interest and main character better each other. Obviously Elle is humbled by Emmett's backstory and learns to take things more seriously but Emmett also develops from his relationship to Elle. I think the scene in the store is very important- this is Elle making him up, giving the confidence he needs through the medium she understands: fashion. She hypes him up by making him look hot where before Emmett had hyped her up by showing her how smart she was. Both of them lift each other up and help them see the best of themselves.

When it comes to the trial I have mixed thoughts. I think "Legally Blonde" does the assault and aftermath with more emotion but I've always been of the opinion that music makes everything bigger emotionally. Obviously there's also the homophobia but I think that can be overlooked more in the musical because gay or European is such a banger. Not to mention how many queers adore legally blonde in all of its forms (me included). When we focus on the gay aspect I prefer the musical but I think when it comes to the trial overall I may prefer the way the film does it. I like the awkwardness of Elles trial, it really feels like her first time and we're nervous along with her. When she finally realises that Chutney killed him we get excited with her in a way that I feel is different to the musical. In the musical we know she's going to win because she goes in with so much confidence and the build up is entirely different and I think the payoff is so much better. Another point is the trial is less played for laughs like, there's a lot more comedy with the whole cutaway to the crime but the film plays the murder more seriously, especially with Chutney like, I really feel for her in the film, especially that line of "She's my age".

In conclusion I love both iterations of the musical for separate reasons, I love the soundtrack of the musical but I also appreciate the original text and the foundations it set. I mean, the musical has the advantage of being an ever evolving thing and we've seen more diversity and small changes in recent years whereas Legally Blonde the film is sort of stuck in 2001 and the culture of that year and it's aged a bit in some places. I still hold it as one of the most important films of all time, right up there with stuff like Psycho, Casablanca and The Godfather. Legally Blonde is my Godfather.

[dykefever]

wolfstar tumblr has started again to claim that we shouldn’t describe sirius as short and feminine because it’s “heteronormative”, that we shouldn’t describe remus as tall and masculine because it’s, you know, un-canon (a terf’s?). it feels like terfs are coming to the fandom and we are going back to the time back then when popular writers who turned out terfs were dominating the fandom. seems the fandom is adopting the old terfs’ claims again and even shamelessly applauding it. how are you bearing these days, laura. as for me as a trans person who hates jkr and her holy “canon”, it’s horrible. feel like everything the few good people (such as you) in the fandom had tried was vain. sorry for disturbing you.

well it's been about three or so months since i last made a post about this stuff so sounds about right that more terfy posts are coming out all surrounding height discourse. it's a cycle in the r/s fandom and im afraid these terfs and transphobes aren't coming to the fandom they've all probably been here a while because this fandom is rife with them due to the source material and general politics of the people that write the fic (liberals who are so totally for gender neutral bathrooms but transwomen make them obviously uncomfortable irl)

i've already talked a bit about how harmful and also dumb this line of thinking is re: short and fem s so i'll link this post on gender essentialism i made but i'll say again it's just so tedious how it's often the same people who don't seem to inspect where their assumptions are coming from. people stick terfs dni in their bio and perhaps disagree with the openly transphobic lawmakers but that doesn't mean their biases against trans people don't exist. transphobia is far more insidious than that!

like people seem to go: short s -> s is "whiny" and "annoying" -> he's feminine (whether he actually is or not) -> thus he's being written like he's a girl and that's bad because that's heteronormative

the media heuristic that exists that "whiny" and "weaker" men (ie. complaining, relying on their boyfriend/partner for things, idk being the fucking little spoon) are women-coded does not mean you shouldn't make any character whiny or annoying or whatever because then you are essentially making them a woman and that's Bad -- the response is to unpack the very idea that there are certain traits connected to men and women and when applied to people of the opposite or other genders somehow still has a connection to an innate gender of 'man' or 'woman'.

also, s characterisation is varied but not as prolifically dramatic and bad as people seem to say. they're latching on to the 'feminine short s characterisation' where he acts dramatic as if i have not ready many a fic where he is tall and stereotypical masculine with similar personality traits. however, these traits are viewed differently when packaged differently. the difference is s wearing a skirt or being perceived as feminine in a way that they do not view as aligned with their perception of how gender should operate.

whether intentionally transphobic or not, the shorthand people use in these discussion always ties in with this belief that there are innate gendered characterisitics that if acted out in certain relationships makes them heteronormative. i am afraid that's not how queer relationships work! they are still gay even if one of them is short and the other tall and one is fem and the other masc like? you can dislike certain relationship dynamics but that doesn't make them inherently problematic or homophobic or anything. i avoid plenty of r/s fic because it's not how i personally view them. i don't try and morally justify my dislike because i don't like how they wrote r i just click out. as for saying one thing is canon and another is not like idgaf whatever!! most of canon is quite horrible and problematic and of course we are all engaging with it to some degree but to use it to argue something as meaningless as height should be adhered to. well i'm scrolling away frankly.

idk people are always telling on themselves in these discussions and you can pretty much always track one degree of separation between them and a pretty outward terf. i block and unfollow a lot of people but at the end of the day i engage with far less content than i used to because it sucks seeing so much transphobic and often anti-queer discussion. it's exhausting and it's why so many trans people especially transfem people leave this fandom. people can slap anti-jkr in their bio as much as they want, a terf is still a fucking terf.

[littlequeen7]

it is possible to find a white woman relatable despite her being straight, and having gay fans does not make an artist gay. taylor is a milquetoast cishet white woman and that is fine. you can still like her.

It is also possible to admit when you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to a person's sexuality, when all you do is listen to the singles that come onto the radio. Straight people don't post pictures of themselves wearing bisexual pride bracelets. Straight people don't put bisexual, LGBTQ pride and lesbian flag colors into their art at every given opportunity. Straight people don't put queer signaling like "hairpin drop" (twice, I might add, if you want to say it's a coincidence) into their music. Straight people don't allude to their secret undying love of their same-sex best friend, whom they want to fuck, in their music. Yeah, Taylor is a cis white woman. But if you actually paid attention to the art that she makes (not just the Shake It Off's and Me!'s of the world), the things she says, and the imagery she uses, you would recognize that she is most definitely queer. If you can come up with some solid evidence to tell me why you think she is absolutely the straightest woman to ever live, I will give you the time of day. But using your biases to judge someone that obviously you have never taken the time to actually examine, and then sending anon messages to people about it, makes you look ignorant.

[franki-lew-yo]

You know, as a bi person, I really kind of hate the aggressive pissing on hetero ships by virtue of it being hetero and not for the actual faults of the couple or characters.

Mind you; this is not the same problem as homophobes people who insist they don't hate gay stuff but have 0 gay couples and fight headcanons saying that they're gay. Those people, even if they don't know it; are homophobic. Their stubborness to face the fact that they're bigots makes them even more bigoted because bigotry does not inherently = being mean, but is about the inability to accept or think of other people. It's scary how many people earnestly think you have to shout some Westbro Baptist Church bs to be actually homophobic, and all that's before you get to internalized bigotry within the LGBTQ culture. Speaking of which...

I saw a thread where people were hating on Friendship is Magic because Pinkie Pie canonically gets with Weird Al's ponysona. --Obv I'm biased because that being made canon was the only part of the finale I liked as obviously I loved Cheese Sandwich for being his own character apart from Pinkie Pie and Weird Al-- but, BESIDES THAT; The complaint was talking about how some characters were "forced into being straight" by the writers and...really? You're incapable of headcanoning Pinkie and Cheese are bi or in an open marriage or just invalidating Pinkie now because she's the only one of the mane 6 who canonically had a kid with a stallion? Really?

There's being queer baited and wanting more gay couples that are also main characters and not off to the side cyclops police. And then there's getting mad that a character without a canonized sexuality is in a hetero relationship at least once in their life. Not even that they themselves are for sure straight, just that they're married or w the opposite sex.

Naturally, I only have women shippers to talk about. I can't quite talk for gay men or m/m shipcourse. Whenever I see lesbiansapphics be all "even canonically straight characters should be made gay"/"this ship would be fine if it were lesbians"/"this character should have gotten with this character so I can have lesbians", I do know it's all just joking. At least, I'm pretty sure. I know the reason you want more lesbians -I want more lesbians too because lesbians are great! You are right in how and what kind of scrutiny is held against you for liking women and like fiction women liking other fictional women...but...maybe don't be so judgemental of the ladies on your side who happen to like some m/f ships more than your appointed 'good' ship?

"We're not judgemental. You're the one who's judgemental for not being able to take some light rubbing abt your ship being straight."

Am I though? When you hate on a m/fships because seeing people support them in ANY WAY means you have to make fun of them just to validate your own feelings...idk pardon MY autistic arse for feeling a tad bit picked on or lumped in with the really not okay straights. Am I excluded from defending myself because I'm not the ideal lesbian? I'll never survive the sapphic hunger games if I don't have specific standards for my gay couples vs my straight ones?

I've seen people adore The Owl House for being gay because it is but absolutely hate that Willow/Hunter is implied and then be mad that Luz didn't get with Willow because "Amity is a bad girlfriend". It's not Dana's fault that Luz got with the "wrong woman", the show was written with Lumity being endgame and Hunter being an important side character because he's related to the main villain who is a man. Cope. I've seen people hate on MysteryElk because Elktaur/General has a standardly attractive' hunky design; I've seen people hate Edred from Unicorn Warriors Eternal for being an icky 'generic' guy. If you actually know the characters and the relationships in question with their lovers, you'd know that the fact that they're a man is the LEAST problematic thing they got going on! No, the men in these couples being women would not "fix" anything not just for shippers but in the actual show with the relationships. Like, you DO get that the problem is Nowhere King is the aggressor and that Edred is clingy and unsupportive, right? That those are the actual problems with these couples? And GOSH do I now hate Clone High's insistence that JFK is actually a decent person because he's not a 'pick me' like Abe. I hate that, in the wake of the internet realizing how bad tumblr sexymen nice guys really are, we apparently have to pick out the men who are "salvageable" or obsess over the problemed ones problems because they are men. Which- come to think of it, isn't that part of the issue with SnapeWife-types who stan flawed male characters like their the second coming but antagonize women characters for being flawed? Shouldn't we, idk, maybe encourage people to love characters for their flaws and not because we can 'fix' them somehow or hate them because they exemplify a person you hate irl?

Overall, the (hopefully) ironic demand for gay couples all the time like it's a supremacy is kind of irritating to me. I'm just not into living with the "this majority group are all the things wrong"-mindset, or even a "you deserve to feel the bigotry I already experience because that's cathartic for me". I know exactly why people are in pain. I know that pain because a lot of it is the same I have to go through. The reason I'm 'biting back', not at the gay community I'm in but at this specific mindset? Yeah it IS because I'm obsessed with people judging me, but I think it's because I'm self aware of this problem I have that I don't want to indulge the part of me that wants petty payback at all. When and if I like my petty payback, I want to make sure it's not at the people who might be judging me vs the people who actually, honestly are.

TL;DR: I love me some 'straights are not okay'-jokes, but there comes a point where I can not hear them when you clearly don't mean it as a joke.

No amount of active bigotry in this world will make the toxic absolutism you got as a result of that bigotry something I need to deal with as the butt of your anger. I and other bi/pan/ally people are not your stress dolls, inherently. The straights (a group) are not okay, not the straights (individuals), k?

[dragon-phoenix-along]

Y’all get my crack fanf au info now.

I’m not sure what I’m calling it, probably something catchy like Star struck, but Idk.

It was made before the Ruin DLC came out, but might change to a “oh shit these guys are incredibly impressive and we should save their code” kind of thing.

Original idea below cut, along side newer idea(maybe)

This AU is basically biased on two things:

Sun and Moons hight

And my hight.

We don’t have their canonical heights, however we can assume their hight is roughly between 6-7 feet (1.8-2.1 meters)

Guess who else is conveniently in that size range?

Me, or at least me when I finish growing. My family’s average high is 6”4 (193 cm) (which is tall for an afab person)

Now for an afab person who wears heels?

Let’s just say it’s a high range I’m well within, when I’m dressing how I like.

Here’s the basic premise of the AU, my charter Minnie is 6”3 (190 cm) and is a kind of eccentric scientist, who is hired by this company to help create robotic assistants, and security guards.

Minnie hears the rumors around The Fazbear company, and about how advanced their AI is.

Now being a coder, who created almost every bit of these animatronics they have, they are very interested in Fazbear. So with permission from their company, they ask if they can go and see these animatronics in action.

Which animatronic happens to deal with helping people and doing security work? (And has its own cult following?) The Daycare attendant!

So Minnie comes in mid-day to watch the Daycare attendant. Which would have been fine if not for two things:

Minnie insisted that they not know why they were here

Minnie is a 6”5(they wear platforms) goth woman with long burgundy hair and dresses like a Victorian ghost

So this visit goes about as well as you think, and after giving Sun a miniature panic attack after they not only managed to fall into the ball pit, but also get themself on top of a play structure. When the Daycare closes they are throughly interrogated by the rather stressed Sun

…

Yeah thats the best first interaction Minnie had with All the animatronics in the Pizza plex.

But Minnie isn’t alone in this adventure! No no!

They have their security guard Will to help as well!

Now Will, short for William obviously, is a 5”5 (165 cm) Trans man who got hired my Minnie to help develop the AI of Pegasus, the security guard animatronic they are working on. Picrew of him at end.

Now Will’s actual job description is such: To break into a place Pegasus is in and survive. That’s it. He was originally hired by Minnie to do this by breaking into the building Pegasus was guarding and then steal a box.

The box was his job application forms.

Now Minnie and Will have a strange friendship, and the reason Will got his name is because of a pun.

Will feral.

Now the reason we call Will feral, is because after being hired by Minnie to basically light their few Million dollar robot on fire, he decided to follow Minnie around. Minnie is eccentric and weird and need supervision from both Will and their little helpers.

Minnie being a successful, gender queer who dressed like a Victorian lady in mourning often gets them spotted and harassed. And one day, while on the way to a meeting. Will just started barking at this guy who kept making passes.

At a later date, he had soda in his mouth and started to foam at the mouth while barking at a man who had done something similar.

So Wills second job came around. Minnie’s personal security guard.

And as Minnie’s friend, who gets paid to hang around them, drop to all fours bark and growl at people. It’s understandable that he also asks to be able to foam at the mouth on command.

Wills hole gag is being this feral little goblin man, who is smart and is technically inclined. Except he’d rather bite his friend, and drop to the ground on all fours and start barking and growling like a dog while foaming at the mouth.

If you’ve been paying attention I also mentioned Little helpers.

The Little helpers names are Heart, and Star.

They are two of the other type of animatronic Minnie makes. The assistant type.

Heart is the model body version of Pegasus, and test AI for Star.

Now Heart and Star are designed to run off of air pollution, such as an excess of greenhouse gases. They take that in and convert it into oxygen (like a plant) and run off of that.

It’s Also worth mentioning that Heart and Star are 45 and 69cm tall (1”6 ft and 2”3ft)

Heart and Star run around following Minnie around most times, but they have their jobs in the work place too. As cute as they are. (Image will be below Williams, Heart on the right, Star on the left)

Two more major oc, then I promise I will add the animatronics!

Comet, and Another who we are calling PI, short for Poor Intern.

Now PI is assigned to Will and Minnie after they break into the Pizza plez (instead of Gregory originally) and make Moon create a report on their break in.

Long story short for THAT fiasco is that Minnie wanted to test out Moons reaction to a break in, but wanted to see it in person. So after sending in her hired “thief” they go in, and scare Moon (cause 6”5 human who stops breathing when you look at them and 5”5 human who drops to the floor and starts foaming at the mouth Is Something He Was NOT programmed for) And escape.

Minnie’s company was not impressed and assigned PI to make sure they didn’t break in again.

They did.

And this time they were supervised!

Comet comes in as the Emotional Support security guard, who also gets spooked by the Victorian ghost, feral man, and GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL who break in.

Comet ends up helping them to communicate between companies a lot, and develop Heart and Stars AI.

Comet and Minnie end up as a couple, and PI and Will end up together.

It’s mainly just a crack fic for my friends with some cute animatronic OC’s I’ve made (and Pegasus)

Here’s what you’ve been waiting for this hole time!

My cannon hights list!!!:

Dj: 10”

Moon: 6”7

Pegasus: 6”6

Minnie: 6”5 (6”3) [With then without heels]

Chica: 6”4

Monty: 6”2

Freddy: 6”

Map bot: 5”10 (Favorite bot get a different hight)

PI: 5”8

Security bot: 5”6

Feral bastard man, (Will):5”5

Roxy: 5”4

ESSG(Comet): 5”3

Wet floor sign: 3”

Star: 2”6

Baby music man: 2”

Heart: 1”6

Cheese: “10 [Will’s animatronic friend]

SCREEEEE(Twilight): “6 [Comets animatronic friend]

[lipkisser69]

i’ve noticed something a little silly throughout my transition in regards to the way people (mostly strangers but i’ll get into it) use pronouns for me. obviously, before i started testosterone and for several months into it, people who didn’t know my pronouns were using she/her because they (understandably) read me as a cisgender woman. that only started consistently changing this summer, when strangers would finally read me as male. i was also putting more effort into being masculine (binding more, wearing more masc clothes, etc) and less effort into being feminine. once i started feeling more comfortable with myself, i started being fem again, wearing more makeup and dressing in more fem outfits. and then people started using she/her for me again.

it’s not because i don’t pass. if i dress masculine or neutral people use masculine terms for me. even if i dress fem, most people will quickly correct themselves when they hear me speak. what i’m referencing is something i’ve noticed among queer people (and occasionally allies). several people i’ve talked to have told me that they were positive i was a trans woman until i mentioned something suggesting otherwise (surgeries, straight up saying i’m a trans guy, etc). and this got me thinking about why that might be the case.

i think that, despite how far we’ve come, there’s still a hesitancy to accept gender non-conforming individuals, regardless of their presentation. i’ve heard about masculine cis women being mistaken for trans men and feminine cis men being mistaken for trans women. and i think it’s great that a lot of people are trying to be accommodating of trans people, and i’m not saying these assumptions are inherently malicious. i just think that the community could do some self-examination as to why they automatically assume that anyone presenting masculine is a man or anyone presenting feminine is a woman. in my case, it feels like i have to prove myself as a man again the same way i did before i started testosterone.

that feeling doesn’t really change with people who do know me, too, unless we’re pretty close. for example, at my job we have a paper proudly displayed on the two door with all of the employees’ pronouns. and i think that’s great!! it’s really awesome that my job is accommodating and encouraging trans people (who make up the majority of the workforce at my job) to be able to be themselves. my pronouns being listed on there, though, have caused some people to make assumptions about my identity that are very obvious to me. i don’t even think they know they’re doing it, but here’s what i see: my pronouns are listed as he/they (because those are the pronouns i use). sometimes i come to work wearing really feminine makeup. i also have long hair. my coworkers see this and assume that i’m a trans woman. but my pronouns are he/they (obv gender doesnt always equal pronouns just bear with me). i prefer he/him in most situations (that’s not noted on the sheet), but since people assume i’m a trans woman, they default to they/them. which isn’t necessarily a bad thing and it’s not misgendering in my case. and i wouldn’t really care that much if they didn’t immediately switch to he/him upon learning i have a uterus (not for long though‼️). and i don’t think it’s something they even realize they’re doing!!!!!!!!!!!!! people have very specific ideas about gender ingrained in their minds, so when someone doesn’t fit those expectations, their biases are even more obvious.

just something i’ve noticed.