#problematic skin

[sapphiretears444]

i'm gonna be so negative but i need to acknowledge my feelings and let it all out. i've been trying to achieve clear skin for so long, it's my one true wish ever since i was a pre-teen. this hasn't worked out for me no matter how much i tried. i tried affirming, manifesting, remaining positive, speaking it into existence, all that there is. i don't understand what i'm doing wrong. my skin is currently at it's worst, not only the way it looks but the way it feels too, my acne is so painful. i'm starting to lose all hope and i just wanna give up. my skin has taken such a tool on my mental health, i'm fighting everyday to keep going as dramatic as it might sound. i want to remain positive and hopeful but how can i when it's only getting worse? i feel like the universe is playing a cruel joke on me and i'm meant to suffer with this horrible condition for the rest of my life. i can't do this anymore, i am so exhausted and defeated.

[bsr-korea]

#calming #soothing SELENUS Artemisia Calming US

These dry days recently, Would you replenish your skin moisture with intense hydration? SELENUS suggest the Genuine Skin care Solution ARTEMISIA Calming Us Care Solution SELENUS’s Choice, Ganghwa Artemisia Why has SELENUS chosen Ganghwa Artemisia? Ganghwa Artemisia is the main ingredient grown up in Ganghwado Island and only collected in May and June. It is known for a traditional medical…

[junk-heart]

Here are the promised sketches

I really like how I've drawn tz and vriska on the first page

[tbgkaru-woh]

Having fun with MDZS's clan "uniforms"/ dresscodes

there are still hierarchies and some individuality in these that i will follow for the main cast, this is more like "place your OC here" lol

[riotcat103]

A lot of shit had happened in the BTD/TPOF fandom recently, got death threats too lmao, But I don't really care about those, I still am not aware of what happened ENTIRELY( tho I do know some stuff just not the full story) but I am aware Gato is problematic/ not a good person ,did I expected it? yeah I mean she's a creator of a horror pornographic game and she also draws a lot of seemingly fetish art, so it isn't that much of a surprise...for me atleast.

So..

ElectricPuke is gone , And Gatobob is nowhere to be seen, Darqx still standing strong lmao

[godhateswhores]

Thinking about him today

[yggdraseed]

My Deal with Giselle Gewelle

So, let me preface this by saying that I'm trans. I'm not saying that to invalidate the feelings of other trans people, just to specify that mine isn't some outsider's perspective. There's also spoilers for Bleach: TYBW, but I'm guessing that there aren't a lot of interested parties left who don't know about this. You probably also know this goes into transphobia, necrophilia, and rape, but if you don't, uh... trigger warning! Reader beware, you're in for a scare!

Recently, an episode of Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War came out in which noted bitchy asshole who uses too much product Yumichika Ayasegawa misgendered darling, sweet murderous trans babygirl Giselle Gewelle. It's also implied that upon necromancing Bambietta's corpse, Giselle had sex with her, probably against her will. That's all pretty fucked up, and I want to talk about it.

I started my transition about ten years ago, and exposure to trans or gender non-conforming anime and manga characters in general went a long way towards me accepting I was trans. Looking back, Giselle was one of the most significant characters to me at that early stage. I've always loved her design, and she was the first legit trans character I ever really saw and resonated with in anime and manga.

Get this: there used to be this thing in Shonen Jump's manga line-up called the Big Three. The most influential, bestselling manga in the bunch. One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach. And you wanna know something? Bleach was the first one to have a trans woman character. We can debate whether or not Giselle was good representation, but you know what? At the time, the closest we ever got was Haku pulling the "Oh, by the way, I'm a boy" card in Naruto's first major arc back in the early 2000s and a constant bombardment of okama jokes in One Piece. Okama is a derogatory term for gay men and drag queens, and for a long time, Oda could not get enough of making jokes about big, hairy men in women's clothing.

Now there was also Alluka Zoldyck in Hunter X Hunter, but the vast stretches of time Hunter X Hunter spends on hiatus makes it unclear to me whether she or Giselle came first. But within the Big Three - a designation which doesn't mean much now, but meant a ton back then - Giselle was first. Hunter X Hunter was never quite considered part of the Big 3. But either way, I think Alluka is the better character in terms of how her being trans is written. She's cute, she's precious, she's perfect in every way, and I'll make you pay if you say a single bad thing about her.

Years and years later, Oda would go on to write Kikunojo and Yamato. I still have complicated thoughts about Yamato as trans rep, but Kiku is great trans rep for being a relatively minor character. Oda has also phased the okama jokes out of the story over time. Jujutsu Kaisen also has a subtle, but well-handled example of a trans woman in Kirara Hoshi. She doesn't get nearly enough time in the story, and her identity hasn't been explored yet, but I hope GeGe will unpack that before the story's conclusion.

I tell you all of that so you realize that even if Giselle could have been handled better, Kubo was the first of the Big 3 authors to even try to write a trans girl. Not a femboy, not an okama - a trans woman/girl. He also gave us Charlotte Cuulhorne, and while Charlotte's depiction flirts with being just an okama gag and nothing more, she's so fabulous and so positive in her outlook on life that I can't bring myself to be mad.

So let's look at Giselle as a character. She's very cute, with her big eyes and goofy, purposefully adorable mannerisms. None of the other Sternritter girls try to be cute in quite the way Giselle does. Meninas likes cute things, but doesn't act cute, and that's as close as it gets. Unlike the other Femritters, Giselle wears clothes that cover up as much as possible. Even Liltotto's outfit shows off her shoulders and thighs some; Giselle keeps her shoulders and neck completely covered by a baggy sweater, and her legs covered by tights. Kubo drew a swimsuit picture with the Bambis all together, and he opted to put Giselle in a swimsuit with a skirt. It's pretty apparent that Giselle has concerns about how she looks and covers up as much as she can out of dysphoria. As a card-carrying member of the big jacket-long pants-closed toe shoes gang, I can tell you that when you're not very progressed with your transition, it's like that.

I think you can also make the argument that part of why Giselle acts so cutesy is because of her insecurities and feeling like she has to make up for them by being extra, overtly feminine and adorable. It's like that.

There's not a doubt in my mind that Kubo intended for Giselle to be trans. But is she good trans rep? Probably not, but she might not be as bad as she's made out to be.

People who criticize how Giselle is depicted as a trans character have two or three go-to arguments. Three points of interest to say that she's being written in a transphobic way.

1.) Yumichika scopes her out as trans and misgenders her.

2.) Charlotte says she and Giselle have a lot in common.

3.) The most damning: what Giselle does to Bambietta.

So, I've never liked people using Yumichika as a litmus test for how Kubo feels about trans people. Let me explain something to you: Yumichika is a bitch, an asshole, and the consummate gadfly. One of his defining traits is his awful personality and his inability to resist saying cruel, petty things to others. He's awful to Charlotte and he's awful to GiGi, and he's pretty much awful to anyone besides Ikkaku and Kenpachi, but especially Charlotte and GiGi.

Yumichika is an allegory for a closeted gay man. He has this deep admiration, respect, loyalty, and arguably love for Kenpachi and Ikkaku that's led him to stay in the 11th Division even though it's not where his talents are best put to work. He's adept at kido and his zanpakuto is based in kido, but he refuses to use the former or reveal the latter to his squad because he doesn't want them to reject him. The 11th Division is the manly man squad, all testosterone and sweat and bulging muscles and... ahem. Sorry, I got a little carried away. It's all very erotic. Anyways, Yumichika wants to be close to the men with whom he shares a bond of emotion and martial loyalty alike, and he refuses to embrace his gifts because of it. He's afraid his friends in the boys' club will kick him out for having interests and inclinations that most of them look down on.

I think you can make the argument that Yumichika hates Charlotte and Giselle precisely because they're being true to themselves, meaning they've made a leap he hasn't yet. He's too scared of what might happen if he doesn't keep the lie going about his zanpakuto, and he resents Giselle and Charlotte because they overcame a similar fear of rejection. And he expresses that by rejecting their truth, i.e., misgendering them. This is the interpretation I like the best. It's a sad fact that lots of gay men, closeted or otherwise, refuse to accept trans women.

Charlotte says she and Giselle have a lot in common, and honestly, I don't think this is transphobic either. If you choose to read Charlotte as a trans woman who isn't stereotypically feminine, but is true to herself, then what she's stating is just a fact. She and Giselle may not look the same, and Giselle may have an easier time passing, but they're both trans women if you ask me. And I think Giselle reacting with discomfort isn't innaccurate, either. Charlotte's confidence is admirable in some ways, but I think it sets of Giselle's alarm bells that she's going to be outed and rejected. Lots of trans women - myself included - are haunted by this fear that we'll never pass, never be accepted, or will be incapable of retaining our desired presentation as we get older. It's like that.

So, that brings us to the Bambietta Incident. Not quite as wide-reaching as the Shibuya Incident, but about as traumatizing for some, apparently. Full disclosure, I don't believe any heinous acts should be censored from fiction. If it makes you uncomfortable or awakens traumatic memories, then I'm sympathetic to that, but I do not believe that the right answer is to sanitize every work of fiction of every immoral act that could have that effect. You know where your limits are, so don't count on authors to protect you. Most of them won't, and I think you're stronger and smarter and more able to navigate a world with fictitious depictions like that in it than you realize.

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, Giselle probably sexually assaulted Bambi. And is that right of her to do? Fuck no, it isn't. But nobody's really debating if that's right or wrong. The problem is that if you look at it a certain way, this is just reinforcing the old, awful stereotype of trans women being predators in disguise. Lots of shitty writers have done that, and it sucks.

However, those depictions assume that trans women are predators, by definition. Or at least sexual deviants. We could go down the rabbit hole of how sexual deviancy has historically been defined by people who use sex as a form of control anyway, but I'm not well-read enough to do that and - well, you've seen how long this post is. Be honest, you wouldn't want me to even try.

The point is that a depiction like that assumes trans woman = deviant. I don't want to make that logical leap here, because that means you need to assume that Kubo wrote Giselle with the intention that she assaulted Bambi because she's trans. I'm not a mind reader, so I'm uncomfortable with acting like I can know Kubo's intentions. It's a bad look to us in the Western sphere of the anime fandom, but I'm not sure how Kubo saw it. He might have not realized how it would look until that chapter was out there and he couldn't undo it, but given the fact they kept it in the anime, he either probably doesn't see a problem with it or there were other rewrites he saw as more important to allocate his mental energies to. Writing Bleach burned this man out, so I'll cut him some slack if so.

My point is, I'm not sure if you can say for sure that the story intends you to believe that Giselle assaulted Bambi because she's trans. When you look at it, Kubo seems to have a more in-depth understanding of trans people than some of you might have first realized. And I mean, shit man, he gave her biology manipulation powers. Every trans girl's first pick for super powers is shapeshifting or some form of biology manipulation. He knows. He's onto us. He's familiar with our ways. The jig is up, girls.

Looking at the broader scope of the narrative, Bleach is littered with characters who perform heinous actions and are not just shoved out the "All Villains Die" airlock. Chief example being Mayuri. The man committed war crimes, experiments on human beings, turns his own subordinates into bombs, and is heavily implied to have performed some very sexual deeds to reconstitute his daughter Nemu after Szayel parasitized her. Yet he still saves the day multiple times and he isn't gotten rid of, because he's more useful to the side of overall good alive than dead. Bleach is one of very few series to have characters who perform heinous deeds and still be treated as humans, rather than reducing them to those deeds and nothing else.

Plus, nobody really treats it as an issue with Kubo's writing that Bambietta killed one of her own fellow Quincies in cold blood just to vent her frustrations. I think because it's sexual and because Giselle is trans, she ends up being the lightning rod when... let's be honest, compared to what some of the Shinigami have done, what Giselle did is kind of quaint. She even helps rescue Candice and I think Meninas after they're taken captive by Mayuri in the novels, and she's considering releasing Bambietta from her control.

Given what we've seen, I think it's less accurate to pick on Giselle and try to say she's a case of Kubo being transphobic, and more accurate to say that living in the Shadow Realm under Yhwach's cruel, exploitative regime has made all the Sternritters fucked up in their own unique, vibrant ways. And for that matter, Kubo never kills her off. He clearly likes her enough to want her to still be around after the end of the series.

When you look at how Kubo draws Giselle in the manga and in illustrations after the manga's conclusion, you can tell he enjoys himself when he's drawing her. He always lavishes her facial expressions with detail, and you can feel love radiating off the page. That's more than you can say for a lot of the Quincies. I think Kubo was overjoyed to not have to draw PePe and his Vollständig anymore.

So like, yeah, Giselle is my problematic fave transgender character. And I don't think she's even as problematic as people's kneejerk reactions are to think she is. If you disagree, I don't care, I don't value your opinion. Particularly if you're not trans. If you're an ally, then that's sweet and all, but never try to speak for trans people about depictions of trans characters. If you are trans and Giselle made you uncomfortable, then I'm sorry you feel that way.

[bitchfitch]

I hate opening up a project I haven't touched in a few months because I was upset with how it was progressing only to find out it's not half as bad as I remember it being. What do you mean I have to give myself slack and not abandon things as soon as they get frustrating. That sounds fake as hell And yet this keeps happening.

[lovl3igh]

I didn't wanna put creator's face but-

and the sound? fcking "bomb them". cause you know, using atj as fancast is that much terrible

james potter is canonically white. white. IT'S CANON. so yes, you can use whoever you want as fancast, including atj, cause you don't whitewash him. he is white in books and movies.

yeah, we know that jkr and hp movies creators are problematic. we get it. and we do respect cannonically poc people (pls don't fancast zoe kravitz as dorcas if you still do, learn, do better). and I never saw people making problem out of poc james (and definitely not with other characters), but as soon as edit includes aaron or else, you freak out, cause they white? as if fancasting white dude (who even share similarities with daniel, which is why he was chosen by so many people as james) as canonically white person is a crime

(and I say "we", I guess probably there are people out there showing their racism or making skinny peter or else, but most of the people really understand freedom in fancasting in every - respectful - way)

never heard of respecting others' opinions I guess which is sad, atj james potter fans were truly nice in comments

what I'm saying - james is canonically white. you can use michael, reiky, ali, milo, omar, shahid, kedar or - YES - aaron as fancast. nothing is wrong with any of those and others if you have them. I love seeing edit with michael or reiky as james even though for me it will forever be aaron. and I see many positive comments under those videos, just like under atj james. but when I see negative comments about james fancast it's always atj, either bc he's white (again why??) or bc he's too old (as if people don't use his teenage-early 20ish photos/videos)

I do agree with wanting to get rid off zoe and dane from fancasts out of respect for canonically dark skinned dorcas and plus sized peter. but white james is okay. if you prefer him as desi (which I know is popular) it's okay. if you fancanon him as black it's okay. any other ethnicity - it's okay. just do it with respect for others' fancast. and if you cast poc james and saw hurtful comments about it (ESPECIALLY if that touch you personally) I'm really really sorry.

and if you think atj is nothing like james potter

no hate to slytherin personally, but admit it, it's very stereotype gryffindor words and VERY james of him

[mundifinis]

i pray the day never comes when tiktok discovers gregg araki's films (specifically the teenage apocalypse trilogy ones) because the amount of discourse i can already picture.... oh my god

[whatudottu]

This just in, local bisexual disaster finds his taste in women in need of a rain check- is the imagined kabedon suggestive enough to need a tag?

Hey what if Tranformers Prime really emphasised that Airachnid was very much a poacher and that her schtic as an (albeit temporary on her part) interrogator of the Decepticons were skills she had taken from poaching endangered game and mounting them on her walls?

[cattimeswithjellie]

Briefly considered arguing with someone on Twitter about how an artist's rendition of a Star Wars costume on a Minecraft character for a computer game competition is so incredibly removed from any possible "orientalism" in the original design of the costume as to make an accusation of racism absurd, but got tired at the very thought of it and just blocked them.

Imagine having so much blind outrage and so little to spend it on that you decide the best thing to do with your time is make teenage artists on Twitter feel bad for putting block characters in Halloween costumes.

(And yes, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are experiencing actual outrage and haven't simply realized that bullying people is a really good way to get exposure on Twitter. It's one reason I don't interact there much.)

[karmiculture]

cook and effy <3

[number1villainstan]

The two stories/series/media creations that make me want to gnaw on the drywall right now are Revolutionary Girl Utena, a masterful deconstruction of tropes rooted in sexism and queerphobia but with pervasive racist/imperialist elements* in the background, and Dune, a masterful deconstruction of tropes rooted in racism and imperialism but with pervasive sexist/queerphobic** elements in the background. it's hilarious it's like they're made to cancel each other out

[villruu]

trying to create fake discourse for a social media fic but i literally cannot be mean about it

[pinkysberg]

tiktok shipping discourse is so insane bc it's not like "hey guys if u ship morston don't talk to me" it's like "if you ship sadithur or jovier you're literally disgusting" with no further context.