#recognized as butch. especially when it comes to the roles that butches are assumed to take on

[nope-body]

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[rotationalsymmetry]

Reading through a argument around “is queer a self defined thing or is it something where you have to check off at least one specific named identity and tell people what that is thing?” And there’s a 17 year old who expressed concerns about the idea of queer being a self identifier thing getting his ass handed to him. Which, I have to say, my initial reaction (safely saved to drafts) also involved a lot of swear words, and not colorful background swearwords either.

Fuck off. My initial reaction was to tell him to fuck off. And that, never mind about hypothetical straight fakers, I didn’t want him at my queer events.

But...I can understand, being young, probably being new to the community, possibly not having any offline community at all, how someone might find themselves arguing that position.

I mean, we got a lot of gatekeeping of various types on this site and in online queer spaces in general. It’s a thing someone could pick up without really questioning it, just because other queer people are saying it. And, you’re new, you’re unsure of yourself, you want to fit in. I can see it.

So, the kind gentle explanation, for anyone who needs less fuck off and more patiently explaining. (If I get replies/asks about this I’ll attempt to continue with the patient version.)

The acronym isn’t fixed. It’s fluid, and the categories within it are fluid.

For example: Marsha P Johnson in her life didn’t call herself a transgender woman. She called herself a transvestite and a gay man, even though she used she/her pronouns. Now, we look back on that and think “well, the language changed over time, someone who lived the way she did would almost certainly call herself a trans woman now, and the modern queers who identify with her most tend to be trans women.” Categories are fluid, in that now we’re inclined to see “trans woman, cross dresser, gay man” as entirely separate categories that aren’t especially related to each other (and het crossdressers might not be seen as queer at all) but they used to have much more overlap.

As another example, “non-binary” wasn’t really a thing when I hit adulthood. There were people who would now call themselves nonbinary, but they used different terms, like genderqueer. Stone Butch Blues talks about “he-she’s”, a term that straddled “butch lesbian” and the modern “transmasculine”, and which definitely isn’t in common use any more.

And that’s just in recent American history! If you look at how queerness is conceptualized across time and across cultures, it varies so much. Some cultures have more than two genders that are universally recognized within that culture. Some times/cultures see homosexuality as being dependent on whether you’re topping or bottoming or about gender roles: a guy who bottoms or takes on feminine gender roles is gay, while one who tops is just a normal straight guy. Sometimes a culture has fairly set gender roles, but people who are biologically male or female taking on the opposite role and having a same-sex partner is completely normal and unremarkable.

The alternative to “a queer person is someone who says they are queer” is to have a fixed definition. You are queer if you check at least one: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, (asexual, intersex, two spirit, whatever else we want to explicitly include on the list.) But that would require “queer” to have a fixed definition and for all the sub-types of queer to be fixed.

What about when people don’t know for sure: a woman who knows she’s lesbian or bisexual but not which, a person who might be trans but isn’t quite sure, someone who might be asexual but again isn’t quite sure, but perhaps is quite sure they don’t feel comfortable when straight people talk about sex and romance. (And then there’s what happens when you’ve always thought of yourself as gay, but your partner is transitioning so what does that make you?) Hanging out in queer spaces with people who are queer makes sense for all of those people, even ones who might eventually decide they’re not actually queer after all.

And I’ve been writing paragraphs and paragraphs, but I think I missed the main point, which is: the alternative to “queer is self-defined” is “someone else gets to tell you whether you’re queer or not.” Which gives strangers permission to ask all sorts of invasive questions. (Especially if the given reason for defining queer is to keep people who aren’t queer out of queer spaces! That can only happen if you actually ask people coming into a space what they are!) There’s no way to define queer other than “someone who says they’re queer” or “someone who thinks they fit in with other queer people” that doesn’t open the door to those sorts of challenges.

And, in turn, to gatekeeping out people who might not be “queer enough” (ie, close enough to exclusively gay or lesbian) — in practice, trying to define queer leads to defining queer in a way that excludes aces or some trans people or all trans people or bi/pan people with opposite sex partners, or all of the above.

(Not entirely happy with how I’m using the term “sex” here, because I get “biological sex” can be a complex and very loaded concept for many trans people. If someone sees something they’re uncomfortable with and can suggest a better alt phrasing let me know.)

So, people tend to react to “queer shouldn’t be self-defined” in exactly the same way they’d respond to ace exclusionism or terf talk. Because...in practice, insisting queer has to have a fixed definition (or telling people to not use the word) tends to be round one of a game that ends with exactly those things. Even if you personally didn’t mean it that way, the rest of us don’t know that. We react to it like anti-racist activists respond to “All Lives Matter” — maybe it could be innocuous confusion, but it comes from a place of malice often enough that people do tend to assume malice.

Because the idea of fakers who are really straight infiltrating the community...that’s a terf idea and an exclusionist idea, and it doesn’t really fit with any robust and self-consistent understanding of queerness other than those ideologies.

[rapeculturerealities]

“BUTCH” HAS LONG been the name we’ve given a certain kind — that kind — of lesbian. The old adage applies: You know her when you see her. She wears men’s clothing, short hair, no makeup. Butch is an aesthetic, but it also conveys an attitude and energy. Both a gender and a sexuality, butchness is about the body but also transcends it: “We exist in this realm of masculinity that has nothing to do with cis men — that’s the part only we [butches] know how to talk about,” says the 42-year-old writer, former Olympic swimmer and men’s wear model Casey Legler. “Many people don’t even know how to ask questions about who we are, or about what it means to be us.”

Many of us wear the butch label with a certain self-consciousness, fearing the term doesn’t quite fit — like a new pair of jeans, it’s either too loose or too tight. The graphic novelist Alison Bechdel, 59, doesn’t refer to herself as butch but understands why others do. “It’s a lovely word, ‘butch’: I’ll take it, if you give it to me,” she says. “But I’m afraid I’m not butch enough to really claim it. Because part of being butch is owning it, the whole aura around it.”

What does owning it look like? Decades before genderless fashion became its own style, butches were wearing denim and white tees, leather jackets and work boots, wallet chains and gold necklaces. It isn’t just about what you’re wearing, though, but how: Butchness embodies a certain swagger, a 1950s-inspired “Rebel Without a Cause” confidence. In doing so, these women — and butches who don’t identify as women — created something new and distinct, an identity you could recognize even if you didn’t know what to call it.

By refuting conventionally gendered aesthetics, butchness expands the possibilities for women of all sizes, races, ethnicities and abilities. “I always think of the first butch lesbian I ever saw,” says the 33-year-old actor Roberta Colindrez. “This beautiful butch came into the grocery store and she was built like a brick house. Short hair, polo shirt, cargo pants and that ring of keys … It was the first time I saw the possibility of who I was.” And yet, to many people, “butch style” remains an oxymoron: There’s a prevalent assumption that we’re all fat, frumpy fashion disasters — our baseball caps and baggy pants suggest to others that we don’t care about self-presentation. But it’s not that we’re careless; it’s that unlike, say, the gay white men who have been given all too much credit for influencing contemporary visual culture, we’re simply not out to appease the male gaze. We disregard and reject the confines of a sexualized and commodified femininity.

ETYMOLOGICALLY, “butch” is believed to be an abbreviation of “butcher,” American slang for “tough kid” in the early 20th century and likely inspired by the outlaw Butch Cassidy. By the early 1940s, the word was used as a pejorative to describe “aggressive” or “macho” women, but lesbians reclaimed it almost immediately, using it with pride at 1950s-era bars such as Manhattan’s Pony Stable Inn and Peg’s Place in San Francisco. At these spots, where cocktails cost 10 cents and police raids were a regular occurrence, identifying yourself as either butch or femme was a prerequisite for participating in the scene.

These butches were, in part, inspired by 19th-century cross-dressers — then called male impersonators or transvestites — who presented and lived fully as men in an era when passing was a crucial survival tactic. We can also trace butchness back to the androgynous female artists of early 20th-century Paris, including the writer Gertrude Stein and the painter Romaine Brooks. But it wasn’t until the 1960s and early 1970s that butches, themselves at the intersection of the burgeoning civil, gay and women’s rights movements, became a more visible and viable community.

From their earliest incarnations, butches faced brutal discrimination and oppression, not only from outside their community but also from within. A certain brand of (mostly white) lesbian feminism dominant in the late ’70s and early ’80s marginalized certain sorts of “otherness” — working-class lesbians, lesbians of color and masculine-of-center women. They pilloried butchness as inextricably misogynist and butch-femme relationships as dangerous replications of heteronormative roles. (Such rhetoric has resurfaced, as trans men are regularly accused of being anti-feminist in their desire to become the so-called enemy.) Challenged yet again to defend their existence and further define themselves, butches emerged from this debate emboldened, thriving in the late ’80s and early ’90s as women’s studies programs — and, later, gender and queer studies departments — gained traction on North American and European college campuses.

The ’90s were in fact a transformative decade for the butch community. In 1990, the American philosopher Judith Butler published her groundbreaking “Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity,” and her theories about gender were soon translated and popularized for the masses. In her academic work, Butler argues that gender and sexuality are both constructed and performative; butch identity, as female masculinity, subverts the notion that masculinity is the natural and exclusive purview of the male body. Soon after, butch imagery infiltrated the culture at large. The August 1993 issue of Vanity Fair featured the straight supermodel Cindy Crawford, in a black maillot, straddling and shaving the butch icon K.D. Lang. That same year, the writer Leslie Feinberg published “Stone Butch Blues,” a now classic novel about butch life in 1970s-era New York. In Manhattan, comedians such as Lea DeLaria and drag kings such as Murray Hill took to the stage; it was also the heyday of Bechdel’s “Dykes to Watch Out For,” the serialized comic strip she started in 1983. In 1997, Ellen DeGeneres, still the most famous of butches, came out. Two years later, Judith “Jack” Halberstam and Del LaGrace Volcano published “The Drag King Book” and the director Kimberly Peirce released her breakthrough film, “Boys Don’t Cry”; its straight cisgender star, Hilary Swank, went on to win an Oscar for her portrayal of Brandon Teena, a role that still incites contentious debates about the nebulous boundaries between butch and trans identity. These artists and their legacies are the cornerstones of our community. As Legler says, “This is where we’ve come from, and the folks we look back to. If you identify with that lineage, then we’d love to have you.”

LIKE ANY QUEER subculture, butchness is vastly different now than it was three decades ago — though the codes have been tweaked and refined over the years, younger butches continue to take them in new and varied directions: They may experiment with their personas from day to day, switching fluidly between masculine and feminine presentation. There are “stone butches,” a label that doesn’t refer to coldness, as is often assumed, but to a desire to touch rather than to be touched — to give rather than receive — and is considered slightly more masculine than “soft butch” on the Futch Scale, a meme born in 2018 that attempted to parse the gradations from “high femme” to “stone butch.” (“Futch,” for “femme/butch,” is square in the middle.) And while there remains some truth to butch stereotypes — give us a plaid flannel shirt any day of the week — that once-static portrait falls apart under scrutiny and reflection. Not every butch has short hair, can change a tire, desires a femme. Some butches are bottoms. Some butches are bi. Some butches are boys.

Different bodies own their butchness differently, but even a singular body might do or be butch differently over time. We move between poles as our feelings about — and language for — ourselves change. “In my early 20s, I identified as a stone butch,” says the 45-year-old writer Roxane Gay. “In adulthood, I’ve come back to butch in terms of how I see myself in the world and in my relationship, so I think of myself as soft butch now.” Peirce, 52, adds that this continuum is as much an internal as an external sliding scale: “I’ve never aspired to a binary,” she says. “From day one, the idea of being a boy or a girl never made sense. The ever-shifting signifiers of neither or both are what create meaning and complexity.”

Indeed, butch fluidity is especially resonant in our era of widespread transphobia. Legler, who uses they/them pronouns, is a “trans-butch identified person — no surgery, no hormones.” Today, the interconnected spectrums of gender and queerness are as vibrant and diverse in language as they are in expression — genderqueer, transmasc, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming. Yet butches have always called themselves and been called by many names: bull dyke, diesel dyke, bulldagger, boi, daddy and so on. Language evolves, “flowing in time and changing constantly as new generations come along and social structures shift,” Bechdel says.

If it’s necessary to think historically, it’s also imperative to think contextually. Compounding the usual homophobia and misogyny, black and brown butches must contend with racist assumptions: “Black women often get read as butch whether they are butch or not,” Gay says. “Black women in general are not seen, so black butchness tends to be doubly invisible. Except for studs: They’re very visible,” she adds, referring to a separate but related term used predominantly by black or Latinx butches (though, unsurprisingly, white butches have appropriated it) who are seen as “harder” in their heightened masculinity and attitude. Gay notes that “people tend to assume if you’re a black butch, you’re a stud and that’s it,” which is ultimately untrue. Still, butch legibility remains a paradox: As the most identifiable of lesbians — femmes often “pass” as straight, whether they want to or not — we are nonetheless maligned and erased for our failure of femininity, our refusal to be the right kind of woman.

ANOTHER LINGERING stereotype, one born from “Stone Butch Blues” and its more coded literary forebears, particularly Radclyffe Hall’s “The Well of Loneliness” (1928), is the butch as a tragic and isolated figure. She is either cast out by a dominant society that does not — will not — ever see her or accept her, or she self-isolates as a protective response to a world that continually and unrelentingly disparages her.

When a butch woman does appear in mainstream culture, it’s usually alongside her other: the femme lesbian. Without the femme and the contrast she underscores, the butch is “inherently uncommodifiable,” Bechdel says, since two butches together is just a step “too queer.” We rarely see butches depicted in or as community, an especially sobering observation given the closure of so many lesbian bars over the past two decades. But when you talk to butches, a more nuanced story emerges, one of deep and abiding camaraderie and connection. Despite the dearth of representation, butch love thrives — in the anonymous, knowing glances across the subway platform when we recognize someone like us, and in the bedroom, too. “Many of my longest friendships are with people who register somewhere on the butch scale,” Peirce says. “We’re like married couples who fell in love with each other as friends.”

Legler, for their part, recognizes a “lone wolf” effect, one in which some young queers initially love “being the only butch in the room.” In organizing the group portrait that accompanies this essay over the past months, Legler was curious “what it would be like for butches to just show up together and to be able to display all of their power, all of their sexiness, all of their charisma, without having it be mitigated in some way.” And not only for butches of an older generation, but for those still figuring things out, transforming the scene in ways that both defy and inspire their elders. “It’s been centuries in the making, the fact that we are all O.K.,” Legler adds. “That our bodies get to exist: We have to celebrate that. You can do more than just survive. You can contribute.”

[hellomynameisbisexual]

A Letter for Parents from a Parent

Dear Parent,

If you are reading this you are most likely trying to be a good parent in an extremely confusing situation and are probably getting lots of conflicting information. You are doing the right thing and can get through this.

I am not an “expert.” I am a father of five and a private music and martial arts teacher who deals with many kids. I grew up in a family with several bisexual individuals and I’ve dealt with these issues directly and indirectly all of my life.

Take a deep breath. Read slowly. You may need to read a little bit at a time and walk away to think. You may be reading this because you suspect, or have discovered, that your child is bisexual, or because your child or someone else has told you so. (Do not assume anything about your loved one based on someone else.) If your child has spoken to you, be understanding and provide a safe, accepting atmosphere. If your child has not, create an atmosphere in which he or she can do so when ready.

By bisexuality, I simply mean the physical and/or emotional attraction to both males and females. Most people who identify as bisexual consider it an independent sexual orientation, not a subset of other more widely-recognized categories. Don’t think of bisexuality as a little bit gay (homosexual) and a little bit straight (heterosexual) but as its own orientation with its own characteristics. People often ask why anyone would choose to be gay or bi (shorthand for bisexual). Most people do not feel that their sexual orientation is a choice; you probably don’t. Our best course of action is to respect the identity of our family and friends, assuming nothing.

I have no clue how many people experience bisexuality or identify as bisexuals. From what I’ve read experts don’t know either; estimates range from only a few to a whole lot of people. The fact is that scientists define bisexuality in many ways. Until they can agree on a definition, these studies are just good ways to spend grant money.

Some bi people are out and open about their sexuality, but many are in the closet (hiding their sexuality), mainly for fear of familial, spiritual and social rejection. Imagine how hard that must be. A bi person—especially a young one—often feels alone, but as a parent, you can help your child find safe ways to discover that he or she is not.

Some bi folks have an almost balanced attraction to the genders, while others prefer one gender and are only occasionally attracted to the other, or have a shifting preference. Some people shift their sexual identity and may have long periods where they identify as straight, bi, or gay. Other people drop labels altogether.

What you have done as a parent has not made your child bisexual, but what you do as a parent can contribute to how comfortable and healthy your child is. There isn’t a cure since it isn’t a disorder, but some people will assure you that it can be cured or is just a phase. That phase thing is confusing, because some people have felt some bisexual tendencies and then gone on to assume a completely homo- or heterosexual identity. This doesn’t mean that everyone who experiences bisexual feelings will. It only means some people experience bisexual feelings that they may or may never act on and identify as gay or straight. Other people live a perfectly happy life identifying as bisexual with feelings that they may or may never act on. Many bisexual men and women have happy monogamous relationships, while some bi people prefer more alternative relationship styles. There are no rules in this area, so I can’t tell you what to expect.

You may have some phases of your own. People finding out that their child is bisexual have been known to experience anger, disbelief, denial, grief – and pretty much every other unpleasant emotion – and some pleasant ones. I can’t tell you what you are feeling, will feel, or should feel. If at any time you or your child are uncomfortable with what you feel, talk to a friend or a professional. There are also support groups.

It may help a lot to talk to your child, who will know more about their feelings than all of the websites, books, and experts out there. You could even help each other through your mutual concerns. If you don’t know how your child feels, tell them so and ask. You may want to consider sharing with your child any bisexual feelings or experiences that you may have had.

As far as letting others—even another parent—know, your child should decide who will know and when, even if it puts you in an awkward situation. Ultimately each person must decide how out he or she wants to be and as loved ones we should respect that. Some people are out in a very “we’re here, we’re queer” way (queer has been adopted by many people with non-mainstream sexual or gender identities) and wear the t-shirt, while others are less expressive.

Sexuality differences also make for social safety issues. Like it or not, kids experiment, so you might consider ensuring that your child has a safe place to bring a date even if you have to stretch your own comfort level. Nobody wants a late night call from an angry parent who just found your child making out with theirs. Trust me: It is far worse when the children are the same sex and this was the first inkling that the other parent had. When straight kids are caught making out in the back seat of a car or in an empty gym, cops, teachers and security guards handle it with one approach; but when those kids are of the same sex, hurtful things are often said or done—sometimes even dangerous things. An ounce of prevention can save a lot of embarrassment and harm.

The scariest thing for me is the suicide rate among gay and bisexual young people. I watched one of my children die at birth and I will do anything to never see that happen again. If that means that I have to get over any of my own issues I will, and I have. Suicide is preventable. Be there for your kid even if you are confused. Don’t be silent because you are afraid that you might say the wrong thing. Bisexuals, especially young bisexual men from the age of fifteen to twenty-five years of age, take their own lives at an alarming rate. Don’t let it happen in your family.

As you look around, you may notice that bisexuality is not very visible in our culture. Given how many experience bisexuality or bisexual feelings at some time, you would expect more. But as a culture, we tend to think in terms of a hetero- and homosexual duality; bisexuality just doesn’t come up and isn’t considered in legal, educational, social and health areas. Some groups have also had specific political agendas to exclude bisexuals and have made an effort to institutionalize biphobia (fear of bisexuals) within our culture. This context has a lot to do with a person’s choice to be out about their bisexuality or to stay in the closet, which makes it rude and even harmful to “out” someone (inappropriately inform others about someone else’s sexual identity).

Another common misconception about bisexuals or any LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi, and transgender) individuals is the issue of promiscuity. Just because your child has a non-straight sexuality or gender identity does not make him or her any more promiscuous than straight kids. And yes, your son or daughter may know his or her sexual orientation and still be a virgin. Your child’s sexual orientation doesn’t matter: You need to talk to him or her about safer sex. If you haven’t, you should be researching that and talking to your child.

You may also be wondering about gender roles and gender identity. Simply put, “Is my son going to start acting like a girl?” “Is my daughter going to start acting like a boy? What should I do?” Do nothing yet, because you may be confused. Gender identity is how a person identifies their own gender and leads to what gender role they fill through behavior. Most bi people maintain their birth gender identity and the accompanying social gender role. People who are shifting their gender identity away from their birth gender and behaving according to the social roles of the non-birth gender are transgender; this is not linked to homo- or bisexuality. A transperson may be bi, gay or straight. But as a good parent, you may want to explain this detail to your child, because he or she might think there is a certain way they’re supposed to act, such as queeny (stereotypical Hollywood character idea of effeminate gay), butch (stereotypical masculine dyke image) or even androgynous (displaying gender role elements from both masculine and feminine social images—the classic rock star stereotype). Your child is allowed to be as feminine or masculine as he or she feels. And those feelings may change with time.

Bisexuality as an identity was identified by name in the 1800s, though we know that it has been around since Sappho and Alexander the Great. In the last few decades it has strengthened socially. There was an unfortunate time when there was tension between bisexuals and the gay and lesbian community. You will run across remnants, but those wounds continue to heal. In recent years, there has been a lot of growth toward community. There are now organizations, such as PFLAG, to help bisexuals and their families.

By reading this you are doing what every parent of every GLBT child should be doing: learning and trying. As long as you are willing to keep learning and trying, you will ultimately get it right. You will make mistakes, but you can fix them. Love your child, not your bisexual child. Love your child who is a person who feels and loves and hates and hurts and dreams and wonders, and who happens to be bisexual.

Sincerely,

Robert L. Barton

[fucking-trashmouth-blog]

Let’s talk about...Wentworth Tozier.

The subject of Richie’s parents is one I’ve been wanting to tackle for a while since I feel like they’re pretty widely misinterpreted. I’m going to start off with Wentworth Tozier, Richie’s dad. (I’ll be talking about Maggie Tozier, Richie’s mom, at some point in another post.) Wentworth is actually one of my favorite characters to appear in the novel in spite of the fact that he only really appears in one chapter. I have a lot of personal headcanons for him which I would love to write up and share with the world someday, and frankly I’ve thought about RPing him, but right now I’m just going to talk about what we see of him in the canon.

But first, let’s get into what I feel a lot of people get wrong about him. Then fandom has a tendency to A: Turn him into a nice and loving parent, or B: Turn him into a literal ogre who beats his son and/or headcanon children and sends them to school with bruises. The latter is more prevalent in the RP community and the former appears more in the fandom in general, and both are 100% not how Wentworth is shown to be in the novel, which is the only source of canon in which he actually makes an appearance.

First off, Wentworth is definitely an asshole to Richie. (It stands to reason he’s probably an asshole to other people too, but we don’t have any examples of him interacting with anyone but Richie, and Maggie to a small degree). I fully respect that people can interpret the same canon differently (That’s one of the things that makes RP so interesting) but I just don’t see that there’s much room to dispute the nature of Wentworth’s character. However, in spite of the fact that he is so obviously horrible to Richie, a lot of people seem to come away with the impression that he’s a good parent/person. I really, really do not understand how this happens, and honestly it’s kind of frustrating to me to see people talking about what a swell guy he is and failing to recognize his abuse of Richie. So I’m just going to break down why Wentworth is definitely not a swell guy real quick by taking a look at what would appear to be a typical morning at the Tozier family breakfast table.

Exhibit #1 of Wentworth Definitely Not Being A Swell Guy

Wentworth repeatedly degrades his son by insulting his interests and calling him stupid.

Exhibit #2 of Wentworth Definitely Not Being A Swell Guy

Wentworth takes advantage of his son by essentially tricking him into agreeing to do more work than he necessarily wanted to do and then proceeds to rip him off by offering to pay him less money for that work than what he paid a couple of kids that weren’t even his own. (And continues to degrade him by calling him stupid/criticizing his interests)

Exhibit #3 of Wentworth Definitely Not Being A Swell Guy

Wentworth’s smug and seemingly apathetic behaviors towards/treatment of his son. He’s now holding Richie’s trip to the movies hostage until Richie agrees to do more chores than he originally wanted to do for less money than he pays somebody else’s kids on a regular basis for doing that same job - to top it off, he’s repeatedly degraded Richie, and appears to be enjoying it. Furthermore - ‘a predatory shark’? Need I say more? Does that look like the kind of description that would be given to a parent who loves their kid?

So hopefully you’re wondering (I know I do) how the flip someone can look at all that and come away thinking Wentworth is a great parent. Honestly, I feel like a lot of people probably get off when they see the bits in the novel talking about how Richie feels about his parents. Richie is shown to love his parents and doesn’t appear to think there’s anything wrong with how his father treats him...

...but at the end of the day, Richie is just a child. His father’s treatment of him causes him to become uncomfortable (Definitely not something you should be making your 11-year-old feel, especially not on purpose) at multiple points during their conversation...

...but Richie doesn’t ever stop to think ‘hey, maybe that shouldn’t be happening, maybe my dad shouldn’t be doing that to me’, because he’s just a kid. And like most kids, he loves his parents and believes he is supposed to love his parents, and that his parents are going to love and take care of him. He’s not going to stop to consider that maybe his father is deliberately mistreating him, especially not at age 11 - and especially because Wentworth’s mistreatment of Richie is subtle (Too subtle for most children Richie’s age to pick up on, but not so subtle where it doesn’t have major repercussions on him - I could go on for hours about how Wentworth’s treatment of Richie negatively impacts him as a person, but that’s really beside the point of this post, so I’ll save it for another time) and intermingled with what could be perceived, especially by a kid who assumes that his parents have his best interests heart, as harmless banter. Richie is, in short, an unreliable narrator when it comes to his parents - which, when you get down to it, is pretty God damn common for sufferers of abuse.

Getting back to Wentworth - it’s made clear to us, or should be clear to us even in the span of a single chapter that he’s meant to treat his son horribly, and that he practices a very particular and damaging type of psychological abuse on him. That being said, for the love of God, please don’t confuse the type of abuse going on here. There is nothing in the couple of scenes Richie’s parents are shown in to suggest that they would be physically abusive towards Richie - but more importantly, Richie never reflects on suffering any physical abuse at the hands of his parents, which puts him at an obvious contrast with how, say Beverly, is shown to reflect on her father, who is physically abusive towards her.

If Richie was intended to be suffering physical abuse from his parents (I’m not saying it’s impossible to reason them giving him the occasional slap on the wrist if he does something they don’t like, I’m talking about serious, recurring physical abuse, like the kind Beverly’s dad or Henry’s dad are shown to inflict on their children, and other people’s children in the case of Butch) he absolutely would reflect on it at some point. Even if he was totally excusing his parents’ behavior or didn’t see anything especially wrong with it, he would still reflect on it. All of the other characters in the novel who are implied to be suffering physical abuse - such as Beverly - do, and Richie has just as much if not more POV than some of those characters. (Also, I’m not suggesting that one kind of abuse is worse than another - just that physical and psychological abuse are very different and that you shouldn’t senselessly blur the line between them when there is indication of one and no indication whatsoever of the other.)

Now, I understand if you’re running strictly with the canon of the movie that Richie’s dad is essentially a blank page. (We don’t even know for a fact that he’s named Wentworth.) That being said, we know that more than not of the kids had their book relationships with their parents adapted basically as they appear on the page. (With the exception of Mike, who was given a completely different backstory and whose character was changed dramatically, so I wouldn’t really factor him into the equation, Ben, whose relationship with his mother and presumably deceased father is not touched on in the movie, and Stan, whose relationship with his father was changed to be more negative, but we easily get the least on Stan’s parents of any of the Losers’ parents in the novel anyway.) Point being, if Bill’s relationship with his parents, Beverly’s relationship with her dad, Eddie’s relationship with his mom, and Henry’s relationship with his dad were all adapted in a manner very similar to how they appear in the book, it stands to reason that the same was probably intended for Richie and Ben (Both of whom are depicted in the movie very similarly to how they are depicted in the book) and their parents.

That being said, I’m not out to condemn people who don’t run with Richie’s parents being exactly like they are in the book - ultimately, we don’t see his parents in the movie, so you do have some freedom to choose. But how they appear in the book is definitely something that should be carefully considered, especially seeing as how Richie’s character’s is depicted so similarly in the movie and book, and we know his parents must have played a large role in making him the way he is. (In short, it’s not very plausible that you would get basically the same Richie in the movie as in the book if you gave him totally different parents, or a totally different relationship with/perspective on those parents.)

Also, Finn Wolfhard has stated that Richie’s father is a dentist (Wentworth is a dentist in the novel) meaning that the movie is at least to some degree acknowledging the canon of the book regarding Richie’s parents. Richie also never makes any negative statements about his parents in the movie, which implies his feelings on them could easily be similar to what they are in the book. Neither his father nor mother accompany him to Stanley’s Bar Mitzvah (The woman sitting next to Richie who a lot of people assume is his mom is actually Stanley’s mom) which implies a neglectful approach to parenting similar to what’s shown from them in the book. Point being, even though we never actually see them, there’s a lot of evidence to support Richie’s parents being at least similar to how they are portrayed in the book. That doesn’t mean you can’t do something different with them (You have that right, you’d have that right even if you were writing exclusively from the book - you always have the right to deviate from canon where you want, that’s the beauty of RP) but for the love of God, please at least consider what’s written in the book, especially since it’s the only source of canon we even really have for Richie’s parents, before doing anything drastic.

Again, Richie in the movie is portrayed very similarly to how he is portrayed in the book - obviously, he’s going to be like that for reasons largely to do with his upbringing and life experiences, and his parents are inevitably going to be a huge part of that. All parents play a dramatic role in shaping their children, especially parents with behaviors as particular as Richie’s are shown to have - you can’t even begin to logically reason him being the kid he is in the movie if you give him parents that don’t at least behave similarly to the way his parents behave in the book, because he is so alike in both, and we know they must have had a lot to do with making him the way he is. Please, please consider that before you turn Wentworth into a good and loving father or a literal ogre slinging punches at his son, whether or not you decide to run with exactly what’s on the page.

Anyhoo, thanks for reading! Hopefully you found this post to be informative. Like I said, I’ll be making one about Maggie sometime in the near future, so stay tuned for that if you enjoyed this one!

[partialbirthabortion]

I really like the way you answers questions + I don't know many lesbians in my life (currently having 0 lesbian friends lolsadlife) so when it comes to turning to older lesbians for help I end up on tumblr. but thank you that did help tbh!!! so a lot of what you talked about in that post was physical appearance (hands/face shape/appearance etc) but you also said you can recognize pre-butch girls, what do you mean by that? it's funny that u said ur gf is into the family protector role bc 1/?

I am too and I've always felt that way and I know when my mum talks to me about stuff like how ur husband should treat you I have always absorbed those lessons as how I should treat my future wife and I thought that kind of stuff indicated that I'm trans? but I was never really happy with that despite my friends noticing I have "masculine" behaviour (+ my gf telling me thats one of the reasons she was first attracted to me, just in the way I walked and stood and talked to her and stuff) || and then recently I picked up Stone Butch Blues and I read it and it killed me, I could relate to Jess so much and it just made me realize that I dont have to "give up" being a woman (which I am, which I love fiercely, and which I will always be) just bc I'm "masculine". but now I just wanna tlk to other lesbians (especially such sweet people like you, omg Id love to take you out for coffee and just listen to you talk)  and learn more except. like. theres nowhere to go || and anyway sorry for this long spam but yea if you could elaborate more on that prebutch thing and maybe talk about your personal feelings and experiences wrt to lesbian history and butch/femme history in particular I would really appreciate it!!

Well hon first of all: come off anon! I promise I’m maybe 20% as cool as you think I am and I love getting new buddies so seriously! DM me!

Second, I’m sure if you asked your gf she could also tell you a lil about what's immediately recognizable as butch too! At least a small part butch pinging is just "am I attracted to her?” and like, no I’m not attracted to all butches but I am pretty much attracted to just butches (and I am to most butch tops, ahem, tbqh) so it’s not a bad place to start for sure. That’s also a big part of distinguishing andro butches from androgynous women for me personally.

Third, that’s so sweet and good to hear about SBB! Every single one of us is so indebted to Leslie Feinberg for that book alone. I was a terrified little kid just coming out to herself when I tried to read it for the first time (I did not make it all the way through, it was incredibly frightening) but Jess was the reason my desires were knowable to me a few years later. She was the reason my first butch girlfriend expressed surprise when I didn’t push or question her on her boundaries, and why I understood what was happening the first time I had sex. Nothing ever felt unnatural or nonobvious about the butch experience it described, and thinking about it now actually, I think that my non-femme (and obvi non-butch) lbpq friends had a much harder time wrapping their heads around it. I wonder if that’s a thing. Also  I totally recognized myself as Theresa!

To your actual question: in brief, the girls that straight adults actually recognize as definitely gay are almost always the butch ones. I was a pretty gnc little girl (I was loud and muddy and active, played all boys baseball, begged to have my hair cut off, cried when my hips got too big to fit in boys aisle shorts) but I wasn’t gnc the way, say, my bunkmate in girl scout camp was. I didn’t like girls stuff but I understood how to do it. I could be squeezed into a dress and understand how I was expected to sit and move. I could cultivate girly interests when I was pushed out of my tomboy ones. I got why girls don’t pee standing up outside. My bunkmate didn’t. She could never, ever perform in a way that seemed authentic and natural. She looked wrong stuffed into ballet flats, she picked and pulled at jewelry until it broke, she looked like a collared feral cat when you put bows in her hair. It never fit. And people respond to that. Usually when some shitty mom at Target slaps her daughter’s hand away from a For Boys Blue Flaming Monster Truck Explosion branded version of a toy with particular vileness, I assume she’s picking up on something, a way of being that her daughter has expressed, that’s enduring. That she won’t be trained out of. It’s evident.

I think this is even more vague than my first answer but it’s about the best I can do! Maybe think about your girlhood and see if you can recognize it on other kids? I recognize butch friends in little girls passing on the street every once and a while. They’re out there.

[artbyadesina]

Food for thought. Gender dysphoria does not mean trans. “Woman” does not mean “acts like a girl,” and many of us feel gender dysphoria as a result of societal expectations & the way we are treated, and/or for behaving “like men.” That does not mean we need to become male. Why can’t we just allow women to express themselves however they want, acknowledge that some gender dysphoria is caused by external influences, and keep our female bodies & identities intact?

We need to continue to work to dismantle gender roles. Gender is a social construct. Sex is biological. We should not have to cut open our bodies and deny our biology, just to be who we are, and feel good as we are. That being said, of course everyone can make their own individual choice and do whatever they want to themselves. There are people who get cosmetic surgery to change their bodies every day, from nose jobs to tummy tucks; and no one is stopping them, so certainly we should not stop people who identify as trans from changing their bodies accordingly. It’s their body, and therefore their choice, and frankly, I don’t think they should even need a diagnosis to do it. Do what you want with your own body; it’s no one else’s business.

But at the same time, we must not, as a society, give credence to the idea that there is only one way to “feel” like a woman, or like a man, and that if you don’t conform to gender stereotypes, or if you don’t feel 100% comfortable with your sex organs, it must be because you were born the wrong sex. That is a dangerous assumption. If you are a woman, however you feel, is as a woman feels. And if you are a man, however you feel, is as a man feels. And a lot of how we feel about our own bodies, sex organs included, is affected by societal messages, literally getting under our skin. You don’t need to switch to the other sex, in order to be as socially masculine, or feminine, as your personality and preference dictate. And it’s worth exploring therapy, to unpack dysphoric feelings about your body, before resorting to the knife (and I feel that way about any cosmetic surgery, in fact. Because while I would never presume to tell anyone what to do, out of concern I’d always suggest the less invasive/dangerous tactic, and I’d hope others would do the same for me).

Encouraging people to feel so constrained by gender roles that they need to take hormones and get surgery in order to accept themselves, or to be accepted by others, is affecting real human beings, cutting open real bodies and leaving real scars. It’s old fashioned sexist conservatism, masquerading as progressive, queer-positive thinking. There is nothing queer-positive about actively encouraging gender nonconforming & dysphoric people to go on hormones, cut open their bodies, and put their very lives at risk. Just ask those who have detransitioned.

Check out this video by Faye, where she reconciles with being female after after detransitioning.

I relate to much of what she described growing up, and I too went through a period of thinking I should have been born male, and I was quite horrified by puberty. That doesn’t mean I am trans. It means society needs to stop sending little girls the message that we need to like wearing dresses and playing with Barbie dolls in order to be proper girls, or that our female parts are fetishistically sexual. It means that a woman should be able to garner as much respect, earn as much money, and be treated with the same amount of dignity, whether she’s in heels and dolled up to the nines, or wearing men’s trousers and no makeup.

Some people assume I am “girly” because I dress and act a certain way. Or that I am straight, because I don’t publicly claim otherwise. No! It’s because that’s the easiest way for most women to survive, in our regressive, anti-feminist-but-pretending-to-be-feminist 2018 society. I truly believe I’d have an easier time being accepted as a transmale (after taking hormones of course), if I were to be true to my own clothing, activity, and behavioral preferences, than I would as a butch female, especially considering that I am petite and in my current natural state, I have a “feminine” face and body (whatever that means). If one is praised for looking like a Bratz doll, but ridiculed for wearing normal, comfortable (i.e. “male”) clothing, just because one is born female (and looks it), then of course one would gravitate toward that behavior which provokes less negative attention. It has nothing to do with personal preference. Some of us are just trying to survive, and gender-conformity is an expedient. Conversely, if I was a lot taller and more “masculine” looking, I might have well opted to become trans, if that was more effective than trying to conform as a woman. Most of us just don’t have the time and energy to constantly deal with harassment and other people’s bullshit. So we do what we have to do, to fit in and get by. It’s not necessarily an indicator of identity and it doesn’t always come from within.

This notion that only trans people feel gender dysphoria is flawed. I know so many “cis” females who feel uncomfortable in their own skin, simply because society pushes ridiculous stereotypes on us, and we are treated like pieces of meat every time we leave the house. Or alternatively, as Faye experienced, we are told we are not good enough because we cannot live up to those stereotypes, or that we are “manly” for being homosexual. And the solution, now, is to transition to male, rather than just to eradicate gender stereotypes and help women develop self-love? I hope not, but that seems to be where we are today, and it’s terribly disheartening.

I’m not here to criticize trans people; I don’t care what other people do with their own bodies, and I respect other people’s identities; no skin off my back to call others whatever they want to be called. But I am tired of being told that I wish I was male, or that I’m trying to be a man, or that maybe I’m trans, anytime I step out of the tiny, circumscribed box that societal gender roles have built around us. I am a woman, and that is my biological reality, regardless of how I behave, and I am fine with that biological reality (at least until some man comes along and harasses me for it). And if I am uncomfortable with my body, it’s because I am being constantly sexualized by men. There is nothing inherently sexy about the female form; it is just a normal, functional, human form, and as such, we need to recognize when female gender dysphoria is being caused by society’s bullshit attitudes towards female bodies, rather than automatically positing that dysphoria, as a sign of being trans.

A feminist analysis of the criteria used to treat gender dysphoria in women needs to be undertaken; men and women’s experiences in this world are different, and therefore the same mental condition can have different causes, and require different treatment, in men compared to women. I am very concerned about the increasing number of women who are transitioning to male based on their dysphoria, without getting properly analyzed and having their dysphoria assessed through a feminist lens, that understands & considers the sexist hierarchy that we all live in. Most women I know feel some kind of gender dysphoria; shall we all now become men, in order to “treat” our “dysfunction?” Or can we not see that this is proof that society is still sexist and broken, and that we need to continue to aim for social equality (social, not just legal) and the rejection of gender roles as the default?

[popcultureliterary]

Tropes: When You’re Fairly Certain You’ve Seen These Odd Parents Before

Anybody who watches cartoons or anime might recognize today’s topic: tropes. These literary devices act as a mostly visual way (at least, on screen) for the creator of a work to quickly and easily convey a concept to their audience. They can take many forms: a figure of speech, a character type, a plot device, a location or location type, a pattern of storytelling, a sub-plot, and other repeatable elements.

I originally intended to focuses on the anime Silver Spoon for today’s post, but after whipping out a Fairly Oddparents reference, I couldn’t stop myself. The series sucked me in with its abundant tropes, clichés, and stereotypes (which are all related, as you will see shortly). For the sake of keeping this post at a reasonable blog length, I didn’t cover every example (or even one tenth of them) appearing in this ongoing series. If you have a favorite example that didn’t make the cut, be sure to share it in the comments! I would love to see which ones you like.

Hey, I’ve Seen this Before!

Did somebody oversleep and run to school with a piece of toast in their mouth? You’ve got a trope! Did a romantic scene feature beautiful tropical trees and a placid lake? You’ve got a trope! Did an unsavory character in dark clothing with a thin mustache and shifty eyes slink in and declare their evil ways? You probably didn’t need them to proclaim their badguy status because… You’ve got a trope!

Although often considered the mark of lazy writing, these literary devices are not inherently bad. They allow an author to quickly communicate an idea without spending too much time elaborating on it. Imagine if the last cartoon you watched spent five or more minutes elaborating on the personality of every single side character. That’s nearly half of its 10-12 minute episode run time per character. Doing so would really take away from the main story and characters, slowing the pace and bogging everything down. Instead, the writer or artist can throw in a few characters with pre-established types: the aloof cool kid, the absent parent, the shy poet. These character types quickly establish each character’s role and clues the viewer in on their purpose and personality.

Let’s take a look at a few examples found in Butch Hartman’s The Fairly Oddparents.

Characters

The most common examples are character tropes. As discussed above, character types appear in cartoons in order to quickly establish background characters’ personalities and relations to the story or other characters.

Timmy’s friends AJ and Chester, for example, represent the genius friend/idiot friend combo. One is a brainiac, while the other arguably wouldn’t find his way out of a paper bag even with a map. Both types of characters typically fall into the unpopular category at school, with AJ and Chester being no exception. Audience members have seen this character dynamic in other series, and don’t require an in-depth explanation. They know what to expect, and draw the correct assumption that Timmy is most likely as unpopular as his friends.

Social Structures

Speaking of Timmy’s popularity, a trope might also convey larger concepts such as social structures. In The Fairly Oddparents, we see a common social hierarchy: the popularity food chain. This hierarchy often comes in to convey where the main character stands in relation to their peers, as well as quickly establish more information about the story’s setting.

It’s easy to spot the popular kids Trixie, Veronica, Tad, and Chad in The Fairly Oddparents. They are well dressed, travel as a group, and say disdainful things about their peers. Additionally, they never miss an opportunity to brag about their family’s massive wealth, relying on it to get them into and out of every situation they come across.

In order to demonstrate that the main character, Timmy, is not on the same social level as them, the popular kids regularly treat Timmy poorly. Trixie even refers to him as “Empty Bus Seat,” indicating his low standing in the social order. With the inclusion of these characters, Hartman sets Timmy up as the unpopular underdog, and shows that the world he lives in is just as unfairly tipped in favor of money and status as our own.

These characters also allow Hartman to create contrast, cause tension, draw parallels, and achieve other desired effects throughout the series.

Story Arcs

Everybody usually has their favorite episode type: the beach trip; the everybody-swaps-bodies; the school festival; the year that so-and-so almost ruined Christmas (because, sadly, the other holidays rarely ever get their own special episodes…). Narrative patterns like these are also tropes. Many creative works will use similar episode storylines for a variety of reasons. They often introduce new information about the characters while using a familiar narrative to do so. The audience easily settles into the familiar pattern, freeing them to focus on the characters rather than getting caught up in the conflict of the episode.

First season alone contains a number of notable tropes without even looking at the other 9+:

The trope of a child becoming trapped in an adult body appears in the episode “The Big Problem,” the first full-length episode following the shorts released for Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Tired of being picked on and pushed around by older kids and adults in his life, Timmy wishes to become an adult. He expects to enjoy all of the privileges that come with adulthood, but it all blows up in his face (as often happens with this type of episode) when he fails to consider the drawbacks and responsibilities of adult life. Episodes like this often appear in order to highlight the similarities and differences between children and adults, as well as demonstrating that adult life isn’t all fun and games like it sometimes seems.

Successful use of a trope requires some level of ingenuity as well. If every child-in-an-adult-body episode was exactly the same, nobody would like them. Hartman does this brilliantly. The episode serves to establish Timmy’s relationship with the adults in his life, as well as shining a light on Timmy’s tendency to try and take the easy way out. Using this particular story arc also allows Hartman to introduce the concept that Fairies can only grant the wishes of children. As soon as Timmy ages to adulthood, Cosmo and Wanda lose the ability to grant him wishes and receive a new child assignment. The same concept could have been established using dialogue, but using dialogue for key concepts often creates flat characters and boring conversations that feel forced and fake.

Other trope episodes include “Power Mad!” (characters enter a videogame world), “Transparents” (characters pretend to be someone’s parents to get them out of trouble), and “Tiny Timmy” (characters shrink and enter another character’s body only to discover a literal civilization inside). And what kind of late 90’s, early 2000’s cartoon would it be without the “Christmas Everyday!” episode? The first season concludes with an episode in which Timmy wishes for Christmas every day. Naturally, the wish backfires, leaving Timmy and his Fairies to set things right.

Comics inside of Cartoons

World building elements such as magic systems, television shows, or hover cars are also tropes. Authors can provide some fast world building by including everyday things that their viewers can relate to such as comics, cartoons, or other media from the fictional world. These elements reveal characters’ personalities, add commentary on real social issues, or make characters more real and relatable.

Timmy loves reading The Crimson Chin comics. Every month, he eagerly awaits the next issue, devours it, and repeats. Whenever he doesn’t want to wait, he simply wishes himself into the heavily inked panels (look, another common story arc!). These superhero comics add depth to Timmy’s personality and to the world as a whole.

Turning the Cliché Trope into a Joke

Unfortunately, when used too often, either in the same work or in multiple, tropes become a problem. If ten series on the same network utilized a scene where a character falls down the stairs and wakes up in another world, things would start to feel a little stale. Audience members would grow bored. They know what’s going to happen and knowing yanks them out of the immersive experience of watching. When this happens, the well thought-out device becomes a dastardly cliché. Just like a pair of underwear worn unwashed for a month, nobody likes clichés.

One of the things that I love best about Hartman’s work is that he often takes clichés and skillfully flips them into jokes. He sees tired tropes turning into clichés and shines a spotlight on them so brightly that they become jokes in his works.

Take a look at Timmy’s mom and dad. Who are these characters? Simply Timmy’s mom and dad. No explanation needed. They act as the authority in Timmy’s life, the symbol of traditional family structure, and the oblivious parents who don’t understand their son’s life. Parents appear in many stories with no further explanation behind them, presenting the assumption that the character simply needed a mom and dad. In many series, especially older cartoons, moms and dads rarely receive names because their only purpose is to represent the authority and family structure in a character’s life. Hartman takes this and turns it into a running gag in his series.

What are the names of Timmy’s mom and dad? Why, their names are…. Actually, we never learn their true names. The episode “Father Time” addresses the question when Timmy travels back in time and meets his parents’ childhood selves. Whenever someone goes to say either character’s name, a conveniently timed loud sound drowns them out, and the audience catches the follow-up of “but you can call me Dad/Mom.” Accordingly, we can only assume that their names are Mom and Dad.

How Stereotypical!

When used carelessly, Tropes can easily become stereotypes by mistake. If a character or location isn’t fleshed out enough, they tend to take on vague concepts often used to characterize a particular type of person or place, creating a stereotype or cliché. People generally feel negatively toward stereotypes as they do not reflect the true characteristics of the people or locations being portrayed. In many cases, stereotypes present harmful representations of people or groups.

For an example, let’s consider the popular girl mentioned earlier, Trixie Tang. Trixie seems like the stereotypical popular girl. She cares about makeup, her social standing, clothes, and anything girly. On top of that, she treats all unpopular kids with disdain (or simply acts like she can’t see them) and sucks up to the adults around her who can get her what she wants. Characters in her role typically don’t care about the less popular kids, carry around a snarky attitude, obsess over their looks, and float through life in relative bliss.

In many cases, stereotypes and clichés are not only boring, but also harmful. Many create a generalization of what a particular type of person acts like, whether maliciously or not, that makes it seem like all people who identify that way must act similarly. Like other popular girl stereotypes, Trixie does not accurately represent real girls and young women who consider themselves to be popular. Sure, there may be a number of individuals who act similarly in real life, but this is not true of all popular girls and young women. Every person is their own unique individual with layers upon layers that shape their personal and social identities.

At first, Trixie receives very little screen time with which to build her personality and show her as anything but a cookie-cutter representation of popular girls. Anybody who has seen the gender-swapping episode “The Boy Who Would Be Queen” knows that Trixie just puts on the stereotype persona for the sake of her popularity. She actually really likes The Crimson Chin comics, and admits that she wishes girls could do more boy stuff and vice-versa.

Bonus: If the popular-girl-secretly-does-unpopular-things storyline seems familiar to you… you guessed it—you’ve got a trope! The concept comes up in countless other narratives in order to convey the idea that people are deeper than their social presentation allows others to see.

Bet You Didn’t See This Coming!

Overall, tropes are useful literary devices that allow creators to develop and convey new ideas using familiar sequences, characters, locations, or other narrative elements. They work as a type of short-hand utilized by all, understood by most.

Now that you know what they’re all about, it’s time to tackle finding some and identifying their significance on your own! You can find them in your favorite games, shows, movies, books… they’re everywhere in pop culture. If you’re coming up blank, here are a few suggestions to get you started. Come back and share what you find!

The competent new kid (The Backstagers)

Annoying laugh (Spongebob Squarepants)

Salvage pirates (Firefly)

Carrying a cutlass between your teeth (Muppet Treasure Island)

Superheroes wear capes (The Incredibles)

A bus full of innocent people put in danger (Detective Conan/Case Closed)

Body swapped (Gravity Falls)

School festival (Ouran High School Host Club)

It was all a dream (The Wizard of Oz)

Your hero is a jerk in reality (bonus points for finding an example! I’m chagrined to admit that I drew a huge blank here!)

If you’re an anime fan and want to see more examples, check out KawaiiPaperPandas’ great post listing ten of the most common occurrences and cliches in anime!

Wrapping Up

I wanted to extend a huge thank-you to the amazing minds over at TVtropes.org for their ongoing work in discussing and rounding up tropes in the narrative worlds around us. Their extensive work helped me to put simple names to long-winded ideas. If you enjoyed reading about this literary device and want to learn more about it, check them out!

What’s your favorite trope? Share it in the comments! You can also connect on Twitter at @Popliterature, or send a message on the “contact me” page of my home blog.

And as always, if you have a literary device you want to know more about, or a game, comic, show, or movie that you want to see make an appearance on the blog, leave a shout-out in the comments!