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james-vi-stan-blog · 9 months

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wow. that’s so much information I’m definitely going to have to research on:) so what would be your hope on how the show portrays King James (and I guess George Villiers and their ‘relationship’) that doesn’t make him out to look entirely like a bad person? Including his disability too (I believe he had some sort of paranoia and a speech impediment/stutter?)

-✨

Keeping in mind that I truly lick the bottom of the barrel for ANY James content. I watched freakin' Anonymous for James.

I would like to see James as a human being. Yes, he has become this ridiculous being, and there are so many weird things about him, some seriously off-putting, but perhaps we can acknowledge that a human being born and raised into the extreme circumstances of his life would inevitably turn out like that.

Show him as a NERD, the greatest scholar to ever sit on the English throne. (And also show that his intellectual ego is overinflated, have him call himself "a Second Solomon" and everyone side-eyes him, show him as an overgrown gifted kid who only know how to talk at people, not to people.) Give him great witty quips. Show his friendliness and informality, a down-to-earth side that he unfortunately expresses in the worst way possible. Explore how his casualness, which we would probably receive positively in royals today, was seen as a failure after the era of tightly controlled artifice and ritual of Elizabeth. Show him as a man truly committed to peace and tolerance in a time period when those were dirty words.

And please, PLEASE show him as driven by love, not sex, not just because that would be more accurate but because that would make the story so much more interesting!!! It doesn't have to depicted sympathetically, or imply that love is a higher or more virtuous desire or something. I do not care about sorting characters into "good" and "bad" when we're talking real history and the horror of the Jacobean period.

I don't have high expectations or demands (as I said, I lick the bottom of the barrel and go "yum, James content") but even just a bit of some of these things would delight me.

As for disability... well... ableism tw?

James's purported disabilities all suffer from the problem of diagnosing people in the past. Different historians and doctors read history books or the notes of the court physician and go, "aha, see, he definitely had [insert my pet favorite condition here]!"

For example, there is all kinds of debate about James's supposed speech/swallowing issue. He was said to have a tongue too big for his mouth, to drop food/drink out of the sides of his mouth (uhh i do that irl), etc. But when you read reports that James's speech was incomprehensible... who's writing this report? Was it an English courtier angry that James arrived in England surrounded by his most trusted Scottish courtiers? What if James just... had a Scottish accent??? Can't you very easily picture an Englishman calling a Scottish accent a tongue deformation? I mean, I am inclined to think James did have actual tongue issues because he complained about it to his physician, but every single comment that was written by James's contemporaries about his body came from some perspective, some agenda.

Probably, James did have some physically embodied difference that the people around him sensed. (And this physical difference came together with his sexual difference, personality difference, etc., to create someone who stood out as "queer" to those around him.) But, specifically naming that difference, pinning it to some diagnosis, is a political act now as it was then. Every depiction must do it (Gunpowder, Treason, & Plot (2004), a super weird homophobic and ableist depiction, gave him partial paralysis; Gunpowder (2017) gave him a peculiar walk, etc.) but the way they choose to depict it and why will have implications.

Here's what I fear.

We're already seeing people lining up to defend poor widdle George Villiers (GEORGE VILLIERS! George Villiers) because an "ugly" (???) old man is creeping on him. We see this really rigid, puritanical* sorting of characters into "good guys" and "bad guys" which for some reason lines up with beauty and how much the audience wants to see the actor naked. There's evidence that the show is going to lean into the depiction of James as slovenly and gross (banquet chaos, weird licking, his pants falling off). A depiction that, like I mentioned before, was solidified by centuries of historians who found James off-putting for a variety of reasons... among them, homosexuality and disability.

I would, in fact, love to see James depicted as disabled. (If it were me, I would show him with ataxia and probably ADHD.) And further, you know what I would love? For a character who is gross, physically different, weird, not to be depicted as evil because of those things.

It is, in fact, not evil to be merely weird and gross. And gross people are still capable of giving and receiving love.

But... how is it gonna be received by this audience if James is physically different? Slurring, falling over, wracked by digestive problems? In a visual medium, in a show that looks to be marketing itself on sex appeal and spectacle... In TV/film, where the siren call of "beauty equals goodness" is probably the strongest of any medium... when you mark a character as different, when you highlight and display that difference... how will that function in the story, what are you saying with it, and how is the audience going to receive it?

That doesn't mean I don't think they should do it, I'm just... bracing myself.

*inside joke lol because James fuckin hated Puritans

#james vi and i #mary & george #disability in media #james's weird stan rambles again #tw ableism #content note

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schrijverr · 1 year

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A Sit Down with Jonathan and Nancy Byers about their Book: A Collection of Queer Photography

The title kind of speaks for itself, it's an interview with Jonathan and Nancy about the book after its release.

On AO3.

Ships: jargancy and steddie mentioned

Warnings: talks about racism, ableism, homophobia, positive use of f-slur and d-slur

~~~~~~~~

After being released, the book filled with Jonathan Byers’ photography and featuring writing by his partner Nancy Byers about the lives and queerness of their family of choice between 1986 and 1994, has taken off. Today I sit down and have a chat with them about the reactions to and content of the book.

This book has gotten a lot of attention, did either of you expect that?

JB: I didn’t. I have had some exhibitions in the past and I’ve been hired to shoot plenty of celebrities, but I’m not a big name outside the industry. It was quite a shock to see how many people talked about it. Pleasant, but still.

NB: I agree with Jon. We certainly hoped it would reach the people we wanted it to reach, but we were very realistic in our expectations. I hadn’t written anything big outside of journalism, so it was new for me entirely. To have this success is crazy and surprising. We’re both very grateful for it.

Since it was such a new thing for you, how did you go about it?

NB: I think it was more new for me, since Jon has published some of his other work too. He has been a great help. Everyone has, really.

JB: It was a very collective process in the end. I’ve been wanting to make this book for a long while now, so when we finally got the go ahead we called everyone together to gather stories they wanted to put in it as well. That helped a lot in creating a clear narrative in the end.

You say you’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, how long? How did this idea start?

JB: In 1990 after Nancy had been arrested along with Steve and Eddie. It was just so wrong for them to have been arrested in the first place, everyone was so angry. I took their photo just so we’d all could know how bad it had been, that we didn’t make it up.

I remember wanting to show someone, anyone, to make them look and see it, but we really couldn’t. We were still in college and such things were professional suicide. So, I kept those photos to myself and it became a thing, you know, to record us as we were despite it all. It was also a bit hopeful, I’ll admit. I kept taking the photographs with the mindset that one day, I could show them, that it would get better than it was.

NB: He never really mentioned it at the time, but he did have his camera with him even more often than before. I think that if you look in the book, there are more images after 1990 than before.

That must have been hard at the time. A lot of people mostly know that time as very homophobic. Was that difficult when choosing what to put in the book? Are there things you left out because they were too personal or too much?

NB: We had a lot of talks about what to put in and what to leave out. A lot of the stories we tell are really personal and it is very public. We tried not to leave out the hard parts, we didn’t want to pretend like those times weren’t rough, but certain things people said no to sharing and we obviously respect that.

JB: Yeah, it is collaborative, but it is about private lives. Argyle, for example, got arrested a few times for being a man of color existing, while he gave us permission to share that here, he didn’t want photos of it in the book. Of course, we’re not going to do that.

NB: Exactly. We didn’t say a lot about race, which is obviously such a big point too and we didn’t touch too much on Max’s disability or recovery. We try to be educated about it, but we can’t properly put it into words and those topics can be very sensitive. Since we would have done them a disservice we left them out at points. In hindsight, I don’t know if that was the best move to make, since we don’t want to ignore that it exists, but it is the choice that we made.

Very understandable. You mention a lot that it was a collaborative project, how did that work, since the book is credited to just the two of you?

JB: It was actually quite fun. The book was a great reason to bring everyone together again and reminisce. Me and Nance did most of the work. It is primarily my photography, but we went around to everyone and asked them if they had any photos they would like to see in there or any stories or moments they wanted to tell.

NB: We were mostly editors and writers in the end. I kind of interviewed everyone about those years. And we of course made a list of everything that wasn’t going in the book.

There are indeed a few photographs not made by you, Jonathan. Any comments on that?

JB: I think without them the story wouldn’t be complete, you know. Yeah, it is a book of my photography and we used my name, since I am well known in the industry, but we weren’t telling my story, we were telling our story. As much as it would be cool, I can’t be everywhere all the time and there are certain moments that are important, but I wasn’t a part of.

NB: Plus, I really wanted Jon to be in there as well. He might be more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it, but he is part of our family, not just a witness to it.

That is a beautiful way of looking at it. As you mentioned, it is your story. Did you get any reactions of people that weren’t a part of it or people you know? Anything unexpected?

NB: Uhm, yeah, I- I got a letter from Holly, my little sister. She wrote to Mike and I. Neither of us saw that coming, but it was so nice to hear from her. We hadn’t seen her since she was nine and now she is all grown up, married and kids, the whole picket fence. She is a great mom, honestly and I am sad I didn’t get to see her grow into the strong woman she is today, but I am glad I get to know her now.

Oh wow, that sounds very special. Did she reach out because of the book?

NB: She did, yeah, and it was very special. She saw it in the store and got it. It was kind of crazy to hear from her. I never dreamed something like this could happen, but it did.

And you, Jonathan, any people reaching out unexpectedly?

JB: Not really, haha. Just the usual congrats on the project. Though, it’s success has enabled us to work together with the Trevor Project, which was very exciting. 40% of the proceeds go to them. But beyond that, I think the most unexpected thing to come out of it next to contact with Holly is that Corroded Coffin has gotten a resurgence in popularity.

Eddie Munson is quite a big part of the book. Was that ever an issue, since he has been private in the past?

JB: Eddie hasn’t been private a day in his life, honestly.

NB: Jonathan!

JB: What, it’s true. He’s been singing about Steve’s dick on stage for decades now, the only reason he has ever kept those things about himself a secret is because he liked his career too much. So, no, Eddie is always fun to work with and he was a great sport about the project. He called up all the others to ask for pictures from that time we could use. It was quite funny to get them all. There are so many more of him on the phone with Steve that didn’t make it into the book.

NB: That is true. Eddie is pretty open about a lot of things and he has always been very passionate about being yourself and showing that it’s okay to be different and out there. He was thrilled to be part of this.

I think we were more careful about what we put in about Erica. She hasn’t done anything that is unlawful, but certain people have opinions that will always be more harsh when directed to a black woman. She has worked very hard to be where she is and to be taken serious in that function, the last thing we wanted to do is undermine that.

A lot of critics of the book have said that it promotes crime. Do you have any comment on that?

NB: It’s utter nonsense, honestly. There are some photos that can be said to contain crime, but people must understand the context of those. We would never want to promote harming another person, we just wanted to show that protest and opposing the government and their policies goes hand in hand with doing certain things. As much as I would love for it to be true, you don’t change people’s mind by staying in the lines they drew.

JB: I agree, I think people just want to be mad about something and they know they’ll be called out if they say they dislike it because of the rest of the content.

That could be. Have you received any hate after publishing the book?

JB: I think that’s pretty much unavoidable at this point. I try not to get involved with all the noise on social media.

NB: It’s part of it, but it’s good to focus on the positive reactions too. However, as you might have seen, I have become more active on twitter ever since it came out, since a lot of people will just say stuff that’s completely incorrect. It’s a lot of people from my generation, who still haven’t dealt with their biases, but it’s a scary amount of young people too. Like, truly kids, who have no idea what it was like.

They’ll point at the photos of pride and say we’re promoting unsafe sex and violence, like the whole kink at pride debate isn’t bullshit. BDSM is a big part of the queer community and they don’t have to like it or engage with it, but they were branded as deviants just like us and a lot of queer people are also into kink. I’d rather have a straight dominatrix next to me on the front lines than a young queer kid, who thinks it’s bad to identify as a dyke or a fag.

And even from our own community we’ve been getting some backlash for being polyamorous. It’s like they don’t hear themselves when they speak. I think the book shows that it was very much not the same as cheating and we clearly love each other very much. But people will always have their own opinions, no matter how much it sucks. So, I try to focus on those who tell me that we changed their minds about it.

Did you change a lot of minds? Or other positive reactions?

JB: I think we have, yes. I’ve gotten quite a few message of people thanking me for all the photos I took, how it made them feel better about their own sexuality and feel less alone. It’s amazing to see and it makes me very happy to see and hear. I still remember how alone I felt when I realized who I was and how alone Will always seemed to be. And how good it felt to finally say it and be accepted for it. Especially when more and more people in our friend group also came out.

NB: Exactly that. Growing up queer can make you feel very alone and odd. I never realized it about myself until I was seventeen? Eighteen? But looking back there have always been moments where I felt out of place and odd. It’s one of the reasons I love pride so much, because it makes you feel like you are part of something. To be able to be that for others is amazing. I try to reply to as many of those comments as I can. They deserve the attention more than those who are purposefully ignorant.

That is lovely to hear. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. Do you have anything you want to say about the book or reactions to it that you haven’t yet?

JB: Thank you for interviewing us. I think I have said what I wanted to say. The book speaks for itself in a lot of ways. I just want to thank everyone who read it for supporting us and reading our story.

NB: Yes, thank you. Of course, I also want to thank anyone who has read the book, it’s been an honor to share it with you all.

#rr writing #a collection of queer photography by jonathan byers #jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #argyle x jonathan x nancy #jargancy #steddie mention #stranger things #eddie lives au #st post season 4 #tw: homophobia mention #tw: racism mention #tw: ableism mention #f slur #tw: d slur #d slur #tw: f slur

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amethystpagan · 3 years

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Supernatural is this type of toxic partner who will fuck you up, be homophobic racist and controlling (tell you you're not allowed to ship those two characters) but then once in a time throw you some scraps (i.e. some shipping content) and you'll come back running hoping they've changed. But they never change. Even after the show's over.

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samrriegel · 3 years

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As creators, it’s important that we strive to create a positive relationship between our content and community while still retaining our rights. With this in mind, we’d like to share our new content policy covering how you can use our IP.

(you can click the link embedded above or click the readmore. there is a lot of text!)

Everyone at Critical Role is extremely honored and humbled by the interest our incredible community has shown in the stories that we tell, the shows that we produce, and our company in general. We think it’s pretty amazing that our fans want to create artwork, websites, and other works (“Projects”) based on our intellectual property (“IP”). Our IP includes any unique material our team creates — things like the names of our campaigns (for example, Vox Machina and Mighty Nein), our characters (for example, Grog Strongjaw or Beauregard Lionett), story locations (like Whitestone or Nicodranas), company slogans (such as How Do You Want to Do This?), as well as written content and all related artwork, music, etc. We are generally cool with Projects that follow the rules outlined below, but we reserve the right to remove Projects that, in our view, misrepresent these rules or use our IP inappropriately. We want our fans to continue celebrating our world and sharing their talents with the community, but for Critical Role (“CR”) to exist as a company, our legal advisors have suggested we establish some ground rules for how our IP can be used!

1. What can I develop with Critical Role’s intellectual property (“IP”)?

Free stuff for the community to view, with some exceptions. Critical Role allows you to use, display and create derivative works based upon Critical Role’s IP, strictly for noncommercial (except as specifically provided below) community use. CR reserves the right to use our sole discretion to deny anyone the use of our IP at any time, for any reason or no reason. If we deny you the right to use our IP, you must stop developing, publishing, or distributing your Project immediately.

In all cases, the use of our IP with your Projects must be appropriate for our Critter Community. Projects cannot be defamatory, offensive (including but not limited to anything transphobic, sexist, homophobic, racist, ableist, ageist), or harmful to others (as determined solely by CR).

2. Can I create a project that is commercial in nature?

You may not create commercial Projects, including any Project that (without a written license agreement from us):

i) crowdsources any portion of its funding; ii) involves a business or legal entity; iii) gates the content with a paywall (e.g., Patreon, YouTube Premium, etc.), unless it is also legitimately available elsewhere for free; or iv) involves the sale of merchandise utilizing CR IP

We prohibit the use of our IP in interactive games, apps, and downloads. Please do not take any part of our IP (e.g., character appearance, character abilities, maps, icons, items, etc.) and use it in a game or app for other than your own private, noncommercial use. We do not allow any Projects utilizing our IP to appear in any app stores, including the Apple Store or Google Play, unless they have a written license agreement from us.

No monetized novels, theatricals or the like. You are not permitted to write, produce or create any novels, theatrical productions or other adaptations that include CR’s intellectual property without our express written permission.

Fan fiction is generally permitted (and enjoyed!) by CR, as long as the content is not monetized and otherwise follows the guidelines of this policy.

You are not permitted to manufacture, promote, or distribute (for free or otherwise) any merchandise (such as apparel, game pieces, accessories, etc.) that bear any CR IP without a separate, express written agreement between you and Critical Role.

Critical Role, on occasion, collaborates with and licenses third parties for the creation and distribution of Official CR Merchandise. These agreements are separate from this CR Fan Content Policy.

3. What about passive ad revenue?

This is one of those exceptions we mentioned earlier. We permit fans to promote their Projects on websites, streams, or videos and passively generate revenue through appropriate advertisements, including pre-roll ads, ad breaks, and sponsor ad overlays. No inappropriate direct ads or sponsorships—we alone decide what qualifies as inappropriate, but if you won’t see it on Critical Role, it is probably not appropriate.

We permit individual fans to solicit personal donations or offer subscription-based content while livestreaming, so long as non-subscribers can still watch the live stream concurrently. In other words, you may have your Project behind a paywall, so long as the Project is legitimately also available for free in some other way.

Your use of CR Content must be transformative in nature. You cannot simply re-upload our content. Examples of potential transformative works include:

Animatics

Compilation videos

Remix edits

Added commentary

Music/ music videos

Cosplay content

Art / draw alongs

GIFs / memes

React videos

For longform CR content: Originally 2 hours or more in length (e.g., Critical Role, Exandria Unlimited, and One-Shots)

CR allows your passive monetization of under 10 minutes of content usage per episode

CR may claim monetization or execute an automatic takedown for over 10 minutes of content usage per episode

For medium-length CR content: Originally between 1-2 hours in length (e.g., Between the Sheets, Narrative Telephone)

CR allows your passive monetization for under 5 minutes of content usage per episode

CR may claim monetization or execute an automatic takedown for over 5 minutes of content usage per episode

For short CR content: Under 60 minutes (e.g., Handbooker Helper, All Work No Play)

CR may claim monetization or execute an automatic takedown, which includes any “clips” or “memes”

4. Can my Project make reference to Critical Role?

We’d love that! Just make sure that your Project follows the other guidelines in this policy and clearly let people know it is a fan Project and not an official CR Project. That is, you are not permitted to state or imply that your Projects are affiliated with, sponsored, or approved by Critical Role. You may not create a Project in a manner that could cause other Critters to believe that it is an official CR work. If you share your Project with others, please conspicuously include the following disclaimer (e.g., on your Project’s website):

Portions of the materials used may contain trademarks and/or copyrighted works of Critical Role. This material is not official, is provided for free, noncommercial entertainment purposes only, and is not endorsed by Critical Role.

5. Can I create CR-related video content before the content is available on Critical Role’s YouTube channel?

No. Please be considerate. So it’s clear, any posting or other unauthorized disclosure of CR-created content prior to its official release on YouTube (or an authorized media-sharing platform) is strictly prohibited. In regards to spoilers, even after an episode’s release, spoilers can ruin a fan’s experience and we always aim to avoid them. Please be respectful of others and do not deliberately push plot reveals on people who are actively avoiding learning about them. If you are releasing fan content after its official release on the CR YouTube channels, we ask that you please offer spoiler disclaimers (or appropriate hashtags) as a courtesy.

6. What about CR fan art that’s shared publicly during or after a livestreamed RPG broadcast and before the VOD is available on YouTube?

Boy, we love ourselves some amazing Critter fan art. We also want to ensure that artists are taking every precaution not to spoil an episode before its official release on the CR YouTube channel. Please ensure that your artwork is not audiovisual in nature and follows the guidelines set forth in this policy. Again as a general courtesy, please include spoiler disclaimers (or appropriate hashtags) whenever possible.

7. Is all content in a Critical Role video available for use?

No. Certain CR videos contain music or other content that Critical Role doesn’t own. Critical Role, at times, enters into licenses with 3rd party content providers to enhance CR videos for viewing. Since CR cannot grant you a license to use someone else’s content, you’ll need to get permission from the copyright owner(s) before using their content. If you include non-Critical Role music or other content in your video, do so at your own risk. Your video could be subject to filtering or takedown notices by the owner of the copyright in the original work.

8. Can I use Critical Role’s Logos or Trademarks?

Generally, no, and only in limited instances. Use of Critical Role’s brands, logos, character names, actor names, actor and character likenesses and other IP are only to be used in connection with the discussion of Critical Role works, Official Products and non-commercial Projects in compliance with this Policy. Critical Role expressly prohibits uses of its Trademarks to promote your business or merchandise. You may not register domain names, social media accounts, or similar stuff that uses any of our trademarks, trade names, character names, etc. without expressed written consent.

You definitely may not use any CR trademarks as keywords, titles, or search tags for products that are infringing or counterfeit.

9. Can Critical Role use my Project?

Yes. We want fans to create and share cool things with each other, and we want to remove barriers to sharing. Because you are using Critical Role IP, if we celebrate or spotlight a fan Project, or make something that somehow resembles a fan Project, by posting it publicly you give Critical Role permission to spotlight or share your Project with the world. By using Critical Role IP in the creation of your Project you give CR authorization to share your Project in any way at our sole discretion. Critical Role will always attempt to contact artists in these instances and/or provide proper artist credit whenever possible.

10. What if my Project is not covered here?

If your creative efforts are not covered by this Policy, you’ll need our prior, written approval before you put it out in the world. If you have any questions or creative content you want to make that isn’t covered by this Policy, contact us by sending us an email to [email protected]. Written approval is required for Projects that are outside of the scope of this policy.

If you don’t hear from us, it does not mean we approve of your requested use of our IP.

11. Anything else?

Yes. Critical Role reserves the right to change this Policy at any time with no notice whatsoever, but we’ll do our best to communicate any changes widely as soon as we can in the interest of remaining transparent with you.

Please note that we are constantly developing new content and creating new IP that will fall under these guidelines.

Thank you so much for your attention to this policy. Our main goal is to ensure that the Critical Role community remains creative and vibrant as it’s always been. Our content policy will protect what we own today for the long haul so that we can continue to create magic for all of you for many years to come. If you have any questions at all, please reach out to us at [email protected] or via critrole.com/contact.

#critical role #important #long post #content policy

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lady-star-strings · 4 years

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About Dream’s Tweets...

To begin with, I’m demisexual and have been part of the community for years - I think I have pretty good credence to speak on this matter. I try not to throw my two cents into situations like this because I can’t stand the ignorant responses of the internet anymore at my age - DeviantArt Dark Ages vet right here - but sometimes I just have to. Whether you agree or not, I could honestly care less, but I would appreciate it if you read everything and gave it some thought before responding, be it positive or negative. With that said, let’s dive in...

At this point, if people are taking the shipping/fanservice jokes and banter between the Dream Team and other creators surrounding them seriously, I don't know what to tell them or really even say, honestly. They've all stated they're not looking to start relationships with each other - multiple times and on-stream/Twitter, might I add, because people keep donating and asking/demanding an answer to both that and about their sexualities - and that it's just messing around with friends. (If we want to talk about making people uncomfortable and being offensive in that regard, don’t you worry because I've got opinions on that too.) Bottom line is, you can't get mad at them for the fan-service now when you supported it before, especially when nothing has changed and they’ve been transparent about how everything actually is.

I understand that some may feel it’s an insensitive and inappropriate thing to do in some regards, and that's perfectly valid, but please don't go mobbing through the town with pitchforks over literal jokes between friends. Keep in mind, they’ve made it clear that’s all it was before people starting jumping down their throats, and still there are groups using their sexuality to attack them over it because "YoU'rE nOt MlM sO yOu CaN't MaKe ThOsE jOkEs, YoU'rE hOmOpHoBiC!!!!!" They're even openly attacking lesbians and bisexuals - whether they agree with them or not - because they're not gay and that somehow renders their words “invalid.” You can't accuse them of being ignorant for messing around as friends because it entertains the fans, and then turn around to attack literally the entire rest of the community for offering their opinions because they aren't valid enough for you in the argument to count - that makes you ignorant. You also can’t claim to be of the opinion that everyone’s sexuality is their own business, but then demand for them not to be ambiguous about it when it pleases you. Honestly, even thinking about people doing that is so incredibly hypocritical that it gives me whiplash.

I completely understand not everyone is a fan of this behavior, but to accuse them of queerbaiting, being homophobic and faking allyship over it all right now is just ridiculous and borderline disgusting to me. They've made it clear they're not romantically interested in one another countless times and that it's just fun between friends because they're super close - they aren't playing the "Am I, or am I not?" game with anyone for gain so no, they're not queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is when it’s not explicitly said at any point whether someone is or isn’t LGBTQIA+ so they can play both the community and conservative side by putting them in ambiguous situations that can lean one way or the other for gain, whether it be monetary or otherwise. Not to mention, if they were really as “homophobic” and “falsely allied” as everyone thinks, why would other LGBTQIA+ creators such as Antfrost, Eret, Scott Major, etc. not only support them, but also consider them friends? Again, I get the offense and hurt people might have taken from this behavior, but your opinions and feelings are ultimately not universal so while they are all valid, that doesn't make them right and the final say on the matter. I don’t mean this to say you’re wrong or inferior in the argument, just that you can’t demand others to see your point of view and abide by it without granting them the same respect. The road goes both ways kiddos, I’m sorry.

Side note, there's no one to blame but the fans themselves for the jokes and whatnot to have continued on this long because they not only supported it, but also actively encouraged it. It’s been taken so seriously that Dream has outright stated on a stream - and now on Twitter - that he and George aren't together and more than likely never will be because they're honest to goodness just really good friends screwing around. Now if you think you're uncomfortable as part of the community, how do you think they feel being accused every five minutes of being against it because they won’t openly state their sexuality? Not to mention, they can't ever talk about actual relationships or joke about other ships because people will literally send death threats to whoever the other party is because they're "rUiNiNg ThE sHiP" at this point - need I remind you of the Septiplier fiasco? It’s alright if it’s a persona or a personality, but for the love of all things holy, please stop treating people like Barbie dolls that you’re trying to make kiss. They gave us the go-ahead to ship them because it makes us happy and allows us to be creative with the concept - don’t ruin it by trying to force them to play the parts you’ve constructed in your head and then get pissy because they won’t.

Also, it is unbelievably messed up for you to donate money to ask their sexuality and/or for them to tell each other that they love them - which then basically makes it a demand because if they ignore it they get blasted for not responding and “taking their money.” For example, Dream will say he loves any of his friends without issue because he does - just not in the way everyone is assuming or wants - and that's just the type of person he is, but George doesn't like to express it that way and that's okay. He shows his love in other ways that we don't always need to know about or see to make it real, just as it is with anyone else in the world. I don’t know how so many people miss it, but when he gets a donation to tell Dream - or anyone for that matter - he loves him on stream, you can easily tell how uncomfortable it makes him - and yes Dream presses/teases him about it sometimes, but he still drops it and doesn't flame him for it for eternity. Those that donate and chat, on the other hand, will not let it go when he doesn’t say it and continue to pour donations in begging him to say it when he’s already made it clear he won’t. You honestly shouldn't be bribing them to say or do anything through donation because that's beyond messed up and manipulative, especially where these matters are concerned.

And even if they weren't straight - which used to be the case and may have changed by this time, we can’t determine such things nor should we try to - or were in a relationship with each other, it isn't any of your goddamn business to know - no way, no how. What they do offline and out of the public eye isn't anyone's business but their own and people need to respect that, not try to force it out of them or play detective to dox that information for the attention. I mean, if you want a good reason as to why Dream hasn't done a face reveal yet, this is absolutely number one on the list because there will be little to no form of privacy for him after he does and he isn't ready to lose that just yet. I certainly can’t blame him for that considering all that’s been happening to him and his friends as of late, and neither can multiple other creators who hold the same beliefs and fears - ie. CorpseHusband, H20Delirious, Ohmwrecker. No one should have to tip-toe on eggshells in their personal life because fans online don't understand boundaries, that's just cruel and unfair after providing the content and comfort that they do without asking anything but support in return.

At the end of the day, I truly just don't understand how people can join in and support the jokes that they've made clear are purely just messing around, but then turn around and crucify them for the exact same thing later down the road. How can you practically harass them about their sexuality and relationship status through providing monetary means, then go on a witch hunt because they’ve decided to be more private with that information in the present? You can't play both sides and then expect to somehow be right or justified in the situation whichever way the tide turns because, at that point, the only wrong one is you. I completely agree that they need to watch their step with what they say and do sometimes - just as everyone with a strong platform does - but only more so now because people will create a problem the second they do anything that could spin into them being horrible people with too much power.

They’re all still incredibly fresh and new to the realm of social media popularity all things considered, and they reached said popularity startlingly fast so it can’t be easy to adjust to all the attention on everything you say and do. With that said, they’re doing remarkably well so far and I have faith that they’re going to continue to learn and grow in this arena given the time. They might mess up and make mistakes - already have, in fact - but that’s part of the gig and you can’t always please or satisfy everyone, so the best you can do is acknowledge your faults and move forward. You can’t demand someone’s head on a pike when they’ve made an effort to right things and it wasn’t good enough for everyone, it’s just not a fair standard to hold anyone to. In that same vein, you also can’t demand whatever you want out of them with the excuse that they owe it to you as a fan - you’re not a fan in any way, shape or form when you play that card, and you need to either shape up or ship out if you're doing that.

If you don't support it and/or don't like it, just don't follow or watch them anymore, it’s truly as simple as that. You can't continue to watch and support them as a “fan” while also touting how ignorant and horrible they are as detractors, that's just not how it works - pick one or the other and stop attacking them and those that don’t agree with you. They’re only on year one of their careers and the amount of people trying to “cancel” and tear them down over things that really aren't issues already is ridiculous, you aren't the righteous keyboard warriors you think you are and it's things like this that are ruining the internet for everyone, not just you.

That’s all I have to say on the matter and will continue to say going forward - sorry if you came here looking for my usual nonsense, but I really felt this needed to be said and addressed. I usually try not to do these sort of rants, however, this is a serious matter and a discussion that we as a community have been needing to have for a while, so now’s as good a time as any.

So, with my peace being given and my two cents thoroughly tossed, why don’t we focus on the bigger issues with YouTube such as their blatant ignorance of pedophilia and copyright abuse? Those seem like a much bigger problems to address at this point in time since that effects creators and fans as a whole - both in the present and the future - don’t you think?

#don't sleep won't sleep #sleep is for the living #rants with mady #dream team #dreamwastaken #georgenotfound #sapnap #dreamnotfound #tldr #the hypocrisy is SCORCHING rn #there are no pedestals to me #been there done that with other creators #ain't no one special in my eyes #this is just an explanation of another viewpoint #all replies welcome #sorry not sorry kiddos #LGBTQIA+

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buddha-in-disguise · 4 years

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When Maggie Sawyer left Supergirl, Chyler herself had to tweet out a help line to the Trevor project, and let’s face it, when you look at the header they have on Twitter - it says it all.

With Supercorp fans now being continually baited, but worst yet, finding themselves being attacked by some who say they’re in the industry (most recently, disagreements with the writer J. Holtham on how he contradicted himself & invalidated Supercorp, when we could show he’d liked a tweet over Supercorp previously,) to then others he knows not only joining in, but being outright homophobic, misogynistic and sexual in content towards Supercorp fans, we have a problem. Why? Because a day later, we get a Tweet going out, from an affiliate press media company, who use Supercorp to not only promote the tweet, but hashtag it.

In the meantime, I personally know or have seen at least 3 young, vulnerable LGBTQ Supercorp fans who are struggling because they feel not only invalidated as people, but have suffered being attacked or worry they will be attacked, simply for who they are & are fans of.

We’ve had words such as delusional, retards, terrorists & more used against us. These can be shown via screen captures. David Harewood even replied to the tweet using the term retard with a laughing emoji as well as liking it. Forgetting the Supercorp aspect of it, how someone who claims to be an advocate for mental health feels it is acceptable to validate that term, I can’t understand.

In regards the vulnerable fans I know of, 1 isn’t out of the closet irl, so having these events continually go on around them is hurting them, because they feel they don’t even have a safe space online.

Queerbaiting has real & harmful consequences for LGBTQ fans.

Supergirl is now queerbaiting by its very definition.

We can pull up example after example why this is.

Do you really - especially as Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schecter are part of the LGBTQ community - want your legacy on a show to be not just the biggest example of queerbaiting there is, but having vulnerable, often young, LGBTQ viewers to be so invalidated that support via The Trevor project has to be tweeted out, not just historically by Chyler, but now by other fans to Supercorp fans today!

Really?

It is needed twice because of the same program!? One that claims to be LGBTQ inclusive & supportive?

The 100 is still being vilified over Clexa, but it also pushed a real and much needed shift in how Bury your Gays trope was harmful. The Lexa pledge is the outcome.

Do we need to now have yet another fandom use their power on social media to create the Supercorp pledge over queerbaiting?

Or are you actually going to recognise the seriously harmful practice you are generating by using Supercorp to promote your show if you don’t plan on delivering it?

Do you need reminding just how much positive engagement comes about when Supercorp fans saw Kara and Lena reuniting in 5.19, after what had become a frankly disastrous season for you. If you don’t plan on making Supercorp canon, the irrefutable fact is, you are placing vulnerable marginalised people in harms way.

That is on you!

Decision time is now upon you. Make or break. Yes or no. Fans have had enough.

Oh and while you’re at it, sort out the shitshow you’ve made of Dansen and Nia in season 6. Honestly if you can’t even do it properly with your canon LGBTQ characters, why should we expect you to care about LGBTQ fans at all?

#supergirl #kara danvers #lgbtq #katie mcgrath #melissa benoist #supercorp #chyler leigh #lena luthor #alex danvers #azie tesfai #kelly olsen #nia nal #nia x brainy #nicole maines #queerbaiting

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davethot · 4 years

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Aysha is homophobic but more so in the realm of being lesbophobic. Remember that she completely removed all Rosemary interactions from Pesterquest for more Davekat, decided to push for Yiffy the cuckhold child to be forced into the narrative during Lesbian Visibility Day and has made sure to demean any positive Rosemary interactions in lieu of Davekat which she is solely invested in. Her being transphobic more relates to her poor handling of Jade (dog dicked sex fiend isn't good transfem rep)

You do realize you sound fucking insane right???? This is literally what I’m fucking talking about when I mentioned people in my og post about hs2 pointing fingers and giving someone a really harsh label such as LESBOPHOBIC because they didnt quite handle a lesbian couple EXACTLY how you would have.

First of all i want to mention that Aysha is non-binary poc and is married to a woman. This doesnt exempt her from possibly writing some shitty things, but its good to have perspective here. Shes not some cishet white person writing these characters.

So are you going to ignore the literal thousands of pages of the original comic where we had a PLETHORA of Rosemary interactions??? And absolutely no davekat? And if you remember Kanaya was still having hang ups with Vriska, so it only made sense that that was explored a bit in Pesterquest rather than jumping straight to Rose and Kanaya cuddling on a couch and spewing gay poetics at each other. Like I genuinely dont know what you fucking want.

Also i would like to point out that romance wasnt even the fucking focus of Pesterquest. Dave and Karkat’s interactions were barely anything more than characters mentioning them and them being in the same place together for one single ending and mspar implying that they had a feeling they were supposed to be good friends. Tbh it sounds like you and the people who often have this complaint are way more fucking obsessed with what’s going on with Davekat than Aysha or the rest of the team will ever be. Maybe you should redirect your efforts into creating more wlw content for Homestuck since you think the new team is so lesbophobic for portraying two grown ass women having some marital problems (and acting like that cant happen in the real world with real people literally every day).

You and tons of other people fucking love to point to Kanaya and Rose’s issues in hs2 and preach that it’s suddenly lesbophobic that theyre not happy go lucky 24/7. Again, Davekat didnt even fucking happen in the og comic. We had one flash where Dave rests his head on Karkat’s lap and they’re playing hopscotch on a poorly drawn dick on the ground, meanwhile Rose and Kanaya had comfortably been together for Awhile at that point. I just don’t understand how Dave and Karkat finally having a semi-functional and happy relationship in hs2 is promoting lesbophobia. Also we didnt even get to see the comic FINISH!! We dont KNOW what exactly was going to happen with Rose and Kanaya, and we arent going to for a long fucking time because it’s people like you who are perpetuating this narrative of the team and that theyre horrible awful people because they did two fucking things you dont agree with. It’s honestly fucking exhausting. And you know I can throw this right back at you right? Like, pretty homophobic of you to only be focusing on wlw ships and invalidating Davekat, one of the only healthy relationships PERIOD in Homestuck, not just a healthy mlm relationship. Like, pretty shitty of you anon :/ kind of homophobic of you fr.

And this isnt even mentioning the genuinely nice interactions we have seen with Kanaya and Rose in Homestuck 2. Everyone’s really fucking eager to forget that in meat Kanaya was wistfully looking out at the stars missing her wife and told Dave she’d do anything to get her back, esp since it’s implied that Rose was being manipulated pretty heavily by Dirk. But no, according to yall that never happened and Aysha + the rest of the team are just spitting on all wlw folks.

Also again I feel like youre coming to insane conclusions. You think it was a purposeful move that Aysha and the team introduced Yiffy on lesbian visibility day??? Like???? Also pretty lesbophobic of you to invalidate a child born from two women. Like hm pretty shitty of you anon. Rose and Jade explained why they did what they did, and tbh, again, we could have had more information if people like you didnt indirectly harass the creators and cause it to go on indefinite hiatus.

As for the Jade dog dick thing, I have multiple friends who are trans women who have issues with people blowing it out of proportion. Its important to remember that every trans woman is going to have a different opinion on this, and we shouldnt invalidate any of them, but at the same time what one trans woman says about it isnt the end all be all of the situation. Some trans women think this portrayal is transphobic, while plenty others think it isnt, and that people are making way too big of a deal out of it. Therefore I’m going to leave it at that. Personally I dont know if how Aysha and the team wrote Jade is transphobic and its not for me to decide. However, my trans friend would like to be quoted saying this:

“People claiming that the writers intended for Jade’s dick to be the driving force in her emotional and sexul appetite shows someone’s willingness to ignore Jade’s actual reasons for doing these things that she STATES in the actual text. All in favor of projecting their own transmisogynist reading onto the writers.”

This probably ended up being longer than my og post lmfao but fr anon im sick of people like you. Even if you didnt directly contact the creators of hs2, you’re literally the problem here. I wish you and others would stop throwing around these terms like lesbophobic, homophobic, transphobic, etc, because it literally makes those words lose meaning. Someone writing a lesbian couple having marital problems, especially in the context of Homestuck, is not fucking lesbophobic. And i hope i helped you understand that by throwing the terms back at you because tbh, im sure youre a good person with good intentions, and I would never seriously call you homophobic for this. But i hope you can have some fucking perspective and stop targeting marginalized authors and creators moving forward. Its embarrassing fr.

#homestuck #homestuck 2 #hs2 #i am literally so tired #please fucking stop this shit

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creampievampire · 4 years

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Could you go into the difference between the subtext and queerbaiting in it, I'm still kind of -well it's obviously gay but nothing was really ever said or shown that says that expect for people talking about it- Like are the characters and their relationship just queer-coded (positivly ofc lol) but the baitiness comes from them sort of confirming it off the show?

of course! im assuming by ‘it’ you mean merlin, but rather than explaining the reasons why i think bbc merlin is a matter of subtext (or queer coding) and not queerbaiting, i think it would be easier and more productive to explain the difference between the two in general. they are very similar - which is why i think a lot of people are unable to tell the difference between them - but they have important differences

just a warning, this is going to be a LONG post lmao ive bolded exactly what each term means below, after which i go into more detail on the whole issue. this is something im passionate about so,,, ♥

queerbaiting specifically refers to a marketing technique in which creators hint at but dont actually depict a queer character or relationship. They do this in order to attract a queer audience with the suggestion of a character or relationship they can relate to, while also avoiding alienating their queerphobic audiences

queer coding is the subtextual coding of a character as queer through the use of things like metaphor, allegory, hinting, recognisable traits/stereotypes/experiences, etc. This is done to build believable characters and create more complex plot lines, and it is also regularly used by people who want to tell queer stories but are unable to do so explicitly. it CAN be used negatively to enforce damaging stereotypes, but that is just a small part of its usage

both of these things utilise subtext in order to work. subtext is not only a crucial part of the creation of any piece of media, but is impossible to avoid.

an example of the most basic types of subtext is when a character tells someone that everything is going to be okay, but you can tell they dont believe it. or when youre watching a story unfold and you suddenly connect the dots and realise whats going to happen before its explicitly stated - you used subtext and the hidden meanings and hints to figure it out!

the people involved w a piece of media create their story with a specific purpose or meaning in mind, and they construct the subtext of the story to reflect that purpose/meaning. HOWEVER, the viewers dont always see things the same!

your experiences and personality shape the way you view and interpret every piece of media you consume. if you hate cops youll see the insidious undertones in cop shows - if you grew up with an abusive parent youll see the biting implications in a characters dialogue that others find innocent - if youre queer you will search for and fine queer characters everywhere, regardless of the creators intentions

now, both queerbaiting and queer coding use subtext to function, right? so how do you know which is being used and whether or not its a bad thing? its all about intention

to give a specific explanation of the difference im going to use two examples that are (arguably) very similar in the way their queer characters became canon

example 1: adventure time featured the characters marceline and princess bubblegum, who have been forever depicted as a couple in fan content. their interactions in the show were read into and latched onto bc we saw ourselves in them and we saw it as positive queer rep. but their relationship was never explicitly discussed during the course of the show and was only confirmed at the end of the final episode.

that makes 10 seasons in which their relationship existed only in subtext, and when it did finally exist in canon it was only for a few minutes, if that.

example 2: supernatural featured the characters dean and castiel (lol) who have been depicted as a queer couple pretty much since the first episode cas appeared in. i personally hung on their every interaction, analysed every glance between them, bc i interpreted deans character as a parallel to my own childhood trauma.

cas joined the show in season 4, so that makes 11 seasons in which him being gay existed only in subtext, and when it was confirmed he was immediately cut out of the show. the exact nature of dean and castiels relationship still remains in subtext.

so why is it that adventure time is widely considered perfectly fine but supernatural is dunked on as being the poster boy for queerbaiting?

its bc adventure time involved queer creators and was an earnest representation of queer characters, but they were boxed in by their publisher, Cartoon Network and thus the only way for the relationship to exist in the show was through subtext.

supernatural, however, consistently neglected their queer character and employed transparent tropes and stereotypes - bringing him in just sparingly enough to keep queer audiences interested while never being gay enough to alienate their macho manly man queerphobe audiences. they would have dean and cas stare into each other eyes for a full 30 seconds and then almost immediately follow it up with an episode about dean banging a disposable female character.

so imho adventure time falls under queer subtext, and supernatural falls under queerbaiting

when it comes to a show like bbc merlin i see a lot of debate about whether or not its queer coding or queerbaiting, and my intention is not to convince you of either. merlin was very much a product of its time, and i have argued the same about seasons 4-6 of supernatural as well, before the queerbaiting escalated and became exhausting to me

the purpose of this post is to start giving you the information you need to analyse any piece of media and come to your OWN opinion as to whether or not its queerbaiting or whatever else

people will ALWAYS have differing opinions about this shit yall. i have debated so many times w so many people about where the line is and whats okay and what should be ‘cancelled’ and if consuming something deemed problematic makes you a bad person or not

and my conclusion?

if youre capable of acknowledging the flaws and issues w a piece of media without trying to defend it as a shining beacon of purity simply bc you like it, then you do you. enjoy whatever you want to enjoy - if i think its reprehensible i simply will never interact with you lol

at some point everyone has to stop regurgitating these generic woke speak cancel culture speeches and buzzwords and formulate their own opinions

my advice to anyone reading this is to learn how to do close reading (ill provide a link to a wonderful short guide on it in a reblog bc tumblr hates links) and start really considering where you draw the lines with all types of content. decide for yourself whether merlin or supernatural or adventure time crosses the line into content you cant stomach, but respect other people whose interpretations differ from yours

i know a HUGE amount of people think supernaturals confession scene was homophobic and toxic - a slap in the face - but when i watched it i saw myself reflected in dean. a repressed bisexual whose emotions had been stunted by lifelong trauma, who wasnt ready to face his feelings for cas but quickly realising that his chronic avoidance and fear was about to tear them apart possibly forever. to me it was tragic and beautiful, and i loved it

i also think merlin is a tragic and beautiful love story, and to me its a pivotal piece of queer media that changed the way i viewed love and made me believe that it was a possibility for me bc i related so deeply to arthur

i hope that you can draw a satisfying answer from this, anon, and i apologise for this post being a full essay lol but i believe it needed to be said - i dont think there is a right or wrong answer here

#long post #bbc merlin #merlin #supernatural #adventure time #subtext #queerbaiting #queer coding #frog talks #anon #ask

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chaoticfriendship · 4 years

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This is not hate but how can you support someone like pewdiepie after all hes done? I feel like it's wrong to put him with Jack because sometimes i feel like jacks his friend only because he feels he needs to because of the shoutout. Don't stan him with Jack or associate him with him please. Pewdiepie is a bad influence and a white supremacist

Ok. Let’s talk. I was going to ignore this but you’re really persistent. This is the fifth ask you have sent me telling me the same thing but in different ways. Sad thing is that I just started this blog, I can’t believe this keeps happening to me in every fandom I go to. Some of you need to understand something about Felix.

Yes, I’m aware he did a lot of questionable things. And no, he’s not a white supremacist. He’s not racist. And he’s not homophobic or whatever Twitter/the media is saying about him these days. I might not know him personally but I’ve been watching Felix since the very beginning and even with this little info about his life I can tell the difference between some things people choose to ignore about him. He’s a very honest person and he always tells everyone the information they need to know about him, whether it is about his personal life or his pewdiepie persona. His real actual friends (Jack, Ken, Mark -also good people, and whether you like it or not, Jack is one of them) held him accountable for the things he did and also made sure to assure everyone that the ‘Pewdiepie’ personality is totally different than his real-self. They confirmed he’s not any of his mistakes. Meaning the ‘Pewdiepie’ personality got too far and the facade/entertainment mask fell off of him when he made those mistakes. This was not only a lesson for him but it showed him places that needed real improvement in his life, something we all need sometimes. We all fall short in understanding the potential harm we can do to others and we easily face the temptation to define ourselves by ignoring those crucial parts. What Felix needed to learn was self-awareness. And he’s now constantly working on it so he can objectively evaluate himself when it comes to those things. Some people face this alone and privately but, him, as an internet sensation had to do it on camera.

Pay attention to what his actual friends say about him. Jack himself said it:

‘It is strange, all the stuff that gets said about him, it’s kind of weird to see that being said about a friend of yours. To hear his actual thoughts on it…people like to take things every which way and twist things all over the place. I don’t know how he does it, with that many people on you and that much scrutiny on you constantly. I think I would have lost my mind by now.’

I’m also aware he’s a white rich guy and that he’s a step up on the scale from me and other people but I’m sure that if I dig long enough, I’m going to find something about certain actors/actresses/musicians (that most likely you and other people love) as well. Meaning they’re human at the end of the day and they might make mistakes too. Felix is the same case here.

It was dumb to say certain things and do certain things? YES. I held him accountable when he did those things. He didn’t need to say or do the things he did. It was irresponsible, harmful and immature from his part. However, he’s willing to make a change and work on it so this is something I can appreciate.

He did the fivver video. This is his statement:

‘I make videos for my audience. I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary. I know my audience understand that and that is why they come to my channel. Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive. I think it’s important to say something and I want to make one thing clear: I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes.’

his response.

He said the ‘n’ word. He sincerely apologized. This is his statement:

‘I hate how I personally fed into that part of gaming. It was something that was said in the heat of the moment. I said the worst word I could possibly think of and it slipped out. I’m not going to make excuses to why I did it because there are not excuses for it. I’m dissappointed in myself because it seems like I learned nothing from controversies. And it’s not like I think I can do or say whatever I want and get away with it. I’m just an idiot but that doesn’t make what I said or how I said it okay. It was not okay. I’m really sorry If I offended, hurt or disappointed anyone with all of this. Being in the position I am, I should know better. I know I can’t keep messing up like this and I owe it to my audience and to myself to do better than this. I really want to improve and better myself, not just for me but for anyone that looks up to me or anyone that is influenced by me and that’s how I wanna move forward. Away from this.’

source: my response.

He:

Held himself accountable.

Made no excuses for his behaviour.

Recognized he did something wrong and stupid.

Sincerely apologized for it without making a fake act or fake crying for sympathy.

Never asked for sympathy or support because he's willing to make a real change in behavior.

Realized some people are influenced by him and worked to be better for them and himself.

Chose to be himself and stand his ground on an important matter to make his audience understand he was taking this as serious as it is.

Understood he gave ammunition that feeds some people the wrong idea and didn’t try to rationalize it because he knows he should take accountability for it.

Saw that he had no need for jokes or words like that in his vocabulary in the first place and worked on self-control.

Rightfully feels ashamed for his actions.

Here you can see Felix takes this seriously. He’s not messing around with what happened. He takes it with the responsibility it should be taken.

And this is enough for me. I’m sorry if you think Felix needs to do a blood sacrifice to prove himself but that’s just not how it works.

We all have said or done things we are not proud of. He did many of them and trust me, he was held accountable for them. How? Here’s a list of the consequences:

He was part of the original content network YouTube Red, and was affiliated with Disney’s MakerStudios brand where he had his own network. Disney cut all ties with him.

They cancelled his YouTube Red show, where a lot of people put big effort (not only the participants but the crew members). You can see that this was important for him. It was not just some random ass show.

Was held accountable for his actions and it was made known every mistake he did. Every single one.

Received the proper criticism from the media, his fans and his own friends.

He also received harsh backlash and hate from the situation.

Lost support from followers, celebrities, friends and companies.

He’s constantly attacked by people and media outlets on a daily basis. Some people even fabricate false stories about him.

He faced the proper consequences for those actions. Let him move on already.

You also listed a bunch of stuff in one of your asks, things he’s NEVER done. Those are things the media has made you and everyone else believe he did but he didn’t. This is why you should never believe any random media headline, you need to actually do your own research to see if that’s true or not. Here are the things you said he did (none of these are true):

No, he hasn’t hired people to say the ‘n’ word. This is not true at all.

No, he doesn’t promote Adolf Hitler speeches and anti-semitic cartoons. Disney did once tho.

No, he’s not homophobic. At all. He was actually evicted from his own flat because his previous landlord is an actual homophobic person and called him and his crew the ‘f’ word. He decided to move far away from the guy.

No, he didn’t perform the Nazi heil. Never.

No, he didn’t pay the ‘Jesus’ guy to hold a sign that says ‘Hitler did nothing wrong’ this is a lie. Someone else did it and the media said it was him to cause more controversy. He paid him to say ‘Subscribe to Jacksepticeye’.

No, he’s not racist. For this, his content would’ve to be filled with racial jokes and actual intentional attacks daily. His content is not like that, trust me, the most he does is play with some tambourine all the time. He’s said the ‘n’ word (something he admitted was terrible, apologized for it and took responsibility for his words), yes but someone that feels as bad and ashamed as he does, does not equal to what an actual racist is and how they act.

No, he didn’t dress up in a Klansman robe. He never did that. This is also false information about him.

No, he doesn’t bully his friends or enables bullying. I don’t know where the media got that one but I can assure you they’ve got no friends if they think his interactions with his own friends are ‘bullying’.

No, he doesn’t joke about crises happening around the world. AT ALL. He constantly raises money for them (and gives his own money as well) to different causes such as the Wildfires Emergency Appeal, Team Trees (to plant 20 million trees), St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (for kids with diseases such as cancer), Crisis Text Line, National Alliance on Mental Illness (a group that helps those suffering from mental illness), CRY (a GoFundMe campaign to help Indian children living in poverty), World Wildlife Fund (dedicated to the reduction of mankind’s environmental impact), RED (did a whole 7 hour livestream with friends to help people fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa), Charity: Water (a non-profit that provides drinking water to developing nations), Save the Children (for underprivileged kids to give them better education, healthcare, better economic opportunities), he recently raised $106,000 for the BLM movement donating the contributions to the family of George Floyd and other victims of police violence, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Hope for Holt, Malaria No More, Oceana, SpecialEffect, War Child, etc. Does this sound like someone who makes fun of real problems happening around the globe? No. And no, he hasn’t made fun of those causes either.

No, he doesn’t make fun of mental illnesses. He talks about it with the proper respect and delicacy it deserves. He constantly adresses mental health, shares resources for viewers who may be struggling and talks about the importance of being aware and getting legitimate help. Where are you taking these facts from?

No, he doesn’t support China’s police brutality. He was BANNED from China for critizing the president and the country’s treatment of Hong Kong’s anti-government protests. How hard is it to watch the real video instead of trusting some Susan from Twitter?

No, he has NEVER disrespected Japanese culture. Felix loves Japan and respects their culture. He always treats the people and the place with utter respect.

He’s not a white supremacist or a secret Nazi. Are you insane? He’s said it himself ‘f*** anyone who is racist and anyone who is a white nationalist. That’s not what I’m about. And that’s not what my channel has been about either.’ Maybe if you think about it, the media painted him that way and people decided to go with it because they don’t actually watch his videos. The number of accusations and stories are insane and ridiculous. Have you ever watched one of his videos? Ever? Because if you would’ve, you would know none of these things are true.

No, he doesn’t encourage kids/teens to see and follow Nazi ethics. He recommended a channel that does anime reviews (he didn’t know the channel had pro white-supremacy videos). You’re accusing him of that for not checking the thousand-something videos said channel has because he liked one anime review? This is reaching to a whole new degree. You could’ve randomly watched the same anime review vid, does that make you a Nazi as well? And NO, he didn’t wear an Iron Cross, he was wearing a Georgian Bolnisi cross. The shirt is by the Georgian designer Demna Gvasalia. Use Google please.

I don’t think you’re a real Jacksepticeye fan if you think he’s sticking up for him only because of a shout-out that happened years ago. Extend your perspective in this. He knows him in real-life. He’s his best friend. He can tell he’s not a bad person. This is not a hard thing to figure out.

Also, you forgot to put the anon option in one of your asks, so I know who you are. Weren’t you joking about WW3, using the ‘r’ word to fight with your followers and making fun of the BLM movement a few months ago on your twitter account? It might not look like it’s possible but we’ve also made and are capable of making some of the same mistakes too. The difference is that some of you hide behind the ‘it’s just humor to cope with life’ gen z card. Joking about a serious important movement is harmful as well, hope you can learn that.

I can’t tell you how to emotionally react to his content, however I can advise that if it bothers you that much you should remove yourself from the environment that revolves around him (if you even watch his videos which I highly doubt) if you’re not willing to give him a chance. You also need to remember that forgiveness is private and personal, just because you don't see his content and can't see that change doesn't mean it's not happening. There’s power in understanding.

#pewdiepie #felix kjellberg #jacksepticeye #sean mcloughlin #youtube #youtubers

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afinepricklypear · 4 years

Text

**Update: The works mentioned in this post have since been taken down. The “message” was removed by AO3 because it was a violation of their TOS and it seems the author chose to remove their “opinions” piece.**

Despite the ongoing world crisis, I hope everyone is doing great as the year comes to a close and prepping for a safe holiday season.

I don’t really post here a lot, but I just wanted to talk about a problem that exists in every fandom and has recently come up for me in the BSD fandom. This problem is typically referred to as: toxic behavior, however, I sort of hate that term because it’s an umbrella term that encapsulates a wide array of behaviors that is purposefully vague so as to imply everything can be toxic, which means the definition changes depending upon the person, and ends up getting thrown around to describe any behavior that a person dislikes. That said, most people can agree that the term ‘toxic behavior’ includes “shipper wars” and harassing people because of their “ship”.

Yesterday, a user on AO3 going by the penname E_C_arts posted a message titled “deer Soukoku fans” and giving it the not-innocuous summary “please we’re begging you, please stop”. Clicking through leads to a rather prime example of this particular flavor of toxic fandom behavior, guised as an attempt to defend those who were allegedly victims of this self-same behavior, also a lovely example of emotional manipulation.

Although what’s currently posted (and what I managed to screen shot below) may not seem terrible on first glance, if not a little cringey, and can be easy to agree with (don’t bully people that write for a ship you dislike), this was not their original message and has been edited since being posted and, and only after receiving the number of comments it did and which they’re now noting as “proving their point” – a point which they erased, thus manipulating perceptions. I wish I had gotten a screenshot of the original, but if you scroll through the comments, you can find some people that quoted it.

This person most definitely did open their “message” to Soukoku fans by literally telling them to “stop writing” for it. They claimed there was some unspecified AU (or maybe multiple unspecified AUs) that had been overwritten for, that it was overused, and not original. They went on to talk about how the abundance of soukoku content was turning off new fans to the series (don’t even know how that logics…) and bullying people from creating content for other ships, basing these irrational sentiments off some false claim that removing everything with the soukoku ship from the fandom would only leave behind a sad, inacccurate (and oddly specific) 305 posts.

Evidence of their now deleted perspective can be further seen in another post they made to AO3 a couple days before this ugly rant. Titled simply “My unpopular BSD opinions”, they didn’t manage to garner much attention and went mostly ignored because, well, it’s your opinions about the show and that’s whatever. Of course, when you click into it, the very first “opinion” shared, is that they hate Dazai x Chuuya. Okay, that’s an opinion everyone is entitled to, and that’s fine. You don’t like the popular ship, that’s…not exactly an unpopular opinion, there’s quite a number of people that don’t ship soukoku. No problem. Until, they go on to elaborate.

Despite the title of this piece being ‘their opinions’, they state as ‘fact’ that its confirmed that this is “not a thing”, so ‘please stop shipping them it doesn’t work, it’s way too overused for it to be “funny” anymore’ (I’m a little confused about this wording, because Shipping is Serious Business™, so…not sure there are too many soukoku shippers doing it because they think it’s hilarious or whatnot, in fact, most soukoku fics are tagged ‘angst’, which we all know, angst is very ‘haha, lol’…but whatevs). They then include the same sentiment they expanded on in their Dear John to soukoku fans and subsequently deleted: “Please stop, there are too many au’s with almost the exact same plot Chuuya and Dazai being together, its really difficult to find any non-Dazai x Chuuya au’s”.

On the surface, once again, there are some “truths” to this sentiment. DaiChuu is a popular ship and there is a disproportionate amount of soukoku ship fics on the fandom comparative to other ships (soukoku comes in at a whopping 10,000+ currently, with the next popular ship Aku/Atsushi sitting at a decidedly less 2500+). It’s really not that difficult to find non-DazaixChuuya fics, if you know how to use filters on AO3, but there are going to be less to read from when you filter it down, and depending on your ship, you may find yourself in a fic desert, and I can certainly understand why someone young and lacking in rational thought processes might want to blame the popular ship for this predicament.

The problem with this logic, and it permeates every fandom, not just BSD, is that the shippers sharing and loving their ship are not to blame for your lack of ship content. You just don’t have a popular ship. If all the people who love soukoku stopped creating content for it, as this person is ‘begging’ them to do, that’s not going to increase the amount of content for your ships, because the reason that content isn’t being created is because there aren’t enough shippers for it. So, the only way this person’s logic works, is if what this person is actually saying, isn’t that they want these people to stop creating content for the BSD fandom, they just want them to jump ship, stop creating content for soukoku and start creating content for their ships.

Any creator/fan is going to have a visceral reaction to that: who the fuck are you to tell me what to create? And for free, no less!

This moves us more towards a clearer definition of what is toxic fandom behavior. In short, its telling anyone how they should interact with or interpret their favorite content. I mean, even Word of God does not have this power. That’s because every single fan in a fandom is an individual human being. They are possessed of their own autonomy, and as a creator I know, that once you put something out into the world and give it over to others, you have little control over how people consume and feel about your work. You can tell them your intention, but that’s not going to sway them to interpret it that way, and that’s…just the way it works.

Now, the elephant in the room needs to be addressed. It’s easy for me to be ‘offended’ by this person’s post and not see their complaints because I am a soukoku fan. I’m also the target of this person’s rant, and one of those people this person is attempting to emotionally manipulate into writing for other ships in the fandom for which I have no preference. But I am capable of seeing the other side of this argument.

First, because I do have other fandoms in which I am part, and for which I have a rare-pair ship. For example, I am a Gundam Wing fan and a 2x5 (Duo/WuFei) shipper. I’ve posted two 2x5 fics on fanfiction.net. While 2x5 is not the rarest of rarepairs in the Gundam Wing fandom, it is significantly eclipsed (as are almost *all* ships in the fandom) by the 1x2 (Heero/Duo) ship. Do I hate 1x2 shippers for my lack of 2x5 content? No. I just appreciate what I’ve got all the more, and I’ll create content for it when I feel compelled, and I sure the fuck won’t implore 1x2 shippers to stop writing for their fave and write more for mine because I want more 2x5 – that’s sheer entitlement, right there, pure and simple. I also ship 3xD (Trowa/Dorothy) in Gundam Wing, which *is* the rarest of rarepairs – I think there’s only, like, two stories in existence that features this pair on the entirety of the internet. I’m also a RavenxMurphy (Murven) shipper in The 100 fandom and I do not hate Bellarke fans because…those people are scary and have canceled the show’s creator for not delivering on Bellarke, and in BSD, I ship Atsushi/Lucy (yes, I said it, they’re cute af and I hope Asagiri delivers on that ship). I also low-key ship Yosano/Ranpo (sorry, Ranpo/Poe shippers, I understand the appeal, I just think him and Yosano is sooo cute, please don’t kill me…), and I also ship Yosano with Kunikida – all of which are some of the rarest in the BSD fandom.

Second, because I have seen and called out shipping harassment in the BSD fandom, so I am well aware that this kind of thing exists – as it exists literally everywhere and in every flavor. Against soukoku shippers from antis and by soukoku shippers against shippers putting Dazai or Chuuya with any other characters and by soukoku shippers against other soukoku shippers that are, uh, “doing it wrong”. None of these is appropriate. You’re not fighting fire with fire if you’re an anti-attacking the popular ship, you’re just creating a bigger fire and burning the entire fandom down. You’re not defending your ship if you are a soukoku fan attacking non-soukoku fans, you’re just punching down by attacking a less popular ship. And top/bottom arguments aren’t just toxic, they’re also deeply entrenched in fetishization of same sex pairings through a forced heteronormative lens and is, kind of, sort of, actually homophobic in its basis (yes, I said it. It’s ignorant and homophobic and trying to argue with ‘personality/physical traits’ as evidence of who serves what position in the bedroom can be emotionally and mentally damaging to members of the LGBTQ community. Claiming that Chuuya should be bottom because he’s shorter/smaller, or that Dazai has ‘bottom energy’ because he’s more flamboyant and ‘feminine’ is straight up discrimination – a shorter guy can definitely be top, and a manly man can be bottom, it’s not a behavior based on perceived gendered traits, it is just a fucking preferred sexual position, and no, you are not ‘fixing it’ by purposely using positions for these characters that eschews the stereotypes either. Trying to justify positioning by personality/physical traits at all, in any way, shape, or form is just not okay – if it’s your preference, it’s your preference, no justification needed, just recognize that it is *your* preference and arguing what’s ‘right/wrong’ positioning is just plain wrong).

But this brings us to a different issue: bad actors and blaming a whole community for a ‘few rotten apples’. I could easily lump this one person in with everyone that does not ship soukoku and deem them all toxic, aggressive, entitled, bullies attempting to harass soukoku shippers off the platform. Or I could see them for what they are, individuals with individual motivations and drives and morals that also happen to share the same shipping preferences. Is it true to say that there are no soukoku fans that engage in the behaviors described by E_C_arts? No, there are definitely those that do, as there are antis that engage in that same behavior against soukoku fans. But this person also asserts that soukoku fans turning ‘every BSD post about soukoku’ is also a toxic behavior. To which I refer you back to one. This is how they engage with and interpret the work. Don’t yuck on someone else’s yum. People want to gush about how cute they thought soukoku were in an official art, or that they felt there was some hidden (or not so hidden) interaction between them that validates their ship, or their inspired to create soukoku content based on it, so what (for the record, it irks me too when people go ‘see it’s canon and Bones totally ships it’, because it’s unlikely, given BSDs genre, that any romantic relationship will be confirmed, soukoku notwithstanding). It is not, in fact, toxic to gush over it. Let them have their fun with it, let them enjoy their ship. Now, if you go and make a comment about liking the art for other reasons and they reply to you about “…but also soukoku”, then still, that’s not toxic, that’s just them enjoying the content the way that they enjoy it, so let them enjoy it, and you opened yourself to engagement without any qualifiers for the type of engagement you were soliciting, you can’t then backtrack and go ‘but I’m not a soukoku shipper, they should’ve been able to read my mind and known that, it’s totally toxic of them to share their personal reasons for loving the show in response to my sharing my love for the show’. But if you comment about another ship, and they reply to you “…ew, gross! It’s 100% soukoku” then yes, that’s toxic. A lot of people fail to make this distinction, that they are, maybe, merely being triggered and not actually harassed, by feeling like their ship isn’t being validated because they see another ship all over the place and everyone they engage with ships it.

It’s also toxic, to take an experience with one person and hold every soukoku shipper in existence responsible for that one person’s inappropriate behavior. The truth is, that bad actors amongst soukoku fans are not unique, not to the ship and not to the fandom and not even to fandom culture in general. Every group in existence everywhere has bad actors in it that, while the group disavows their behavior, they continue to be held accountable for those individuals and judged by them. For current events, look at how the BLM movement has been blamed for bad actors (many of whom were not actually BLM activists) that took advantage of the protests and started riots and chaos. A small percentage of people were involved in these behaviors, but the entire movement, despite speaking out against rioting, continues to take the blame for it. For me, that’s the root of toxicity. We need to start holding individuals accountable and stop blaming people who have no control over those individuals, because they share a few similar beliefs or interests. That’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But the shippers as a whole are not to blame for the actions of a few, and the reason that it feels that there are so many more soukoku fans that do this is because of volume, there are so many more soukoku fans. It’s basic math. If two percent of fans are these toxic kinds of shippers, then there’s going to be so many more of them in a larger population than a smaller one.

I try to call out toxic behavior, no matter if it’s my ship being lambasted or one of my fellow shippers doing the lambasting, whenever I see it, but the trouble is, I don’t typically go into fan content that isn’t for my ship and, thus, I don’t see it. The same goes for the vast majority of soukoku fans out there. We’re here for soukoku content, we’re seeking out soukoku content, and avoiding what isn’t soukoku content. But here is my offer to all of those who are outside of my ship. I like to argue. If someone is harassing you for having a non-soukoku ship, call me, let me know, I will argue with them for you. I will explain to them in no uncertain terms, and in many unpleasant ways, that they do not represent the soukoku shipping community and they are an embarrassment to us. Content for any and all ships is welcomed and encouraged within the fandom. Write, draw, contribute, be a part of the fandom and express yourself, please. If you are a soukoku shipper (or even if you’re not), and someone is harassing you about your top/bottom preference, call me, let me know, I will argue with them for you. I will explain to them why their justifications for which character should be top or bottom in a same sex pairing is grossly misrepresentative and exploitative of the LGBTQ community and rather disgusting. Do not assume that because we seem to remain silent on these types of harassment that it’s because we are in agreement with them, it is only because we haven’t seen them – why would we, we’re not going in those spaces that weren’t created for us. Ask the community for help, don’t attack the rest of us for the poor actions of a few that we were not even aware of. Let us help you in policing them, rather than assuming we don’t care. We are just too busy staying in our lanes, but if you need us, we are here. Majority of us want a clean, friendly, welcoming community for creators of all types as much as you do.

All of this aside, there are spaces and places for these debates and AO3 is not it. Posting this kind of message is actually a violation of AO3 TOS, constituting as harassment, which is defined on the AO3 TOS as “…any behavior that produces a generally hostile environment for its target…”( https://archiveofourown.org/tos#IV.G.). This general behavior also falls into the realm of another kind of toxic fandom behavior: hijacking a platform/tag for your own purposes that is a direct contradiction to its express usage (otherwise, known as trolling). AO3 is for posting fan-made content that contributes to a deeper understanding and expansion upon the original work. Using AO3 to attack people who are using AO3 for exactly what it is designed to be used for is an abuse of the platform. It’s not okay and invites similar content that will ultimately interfere with the original purpose of the platform. AO3 is for fan content, not for your own personal rants about other people in the community, please keep it that way

I do also want to note, that this person choosing to edit their post after receiving the justified ire from fans (notably soukoku and non-soukoku fans alike upset by the audacity of this person, who, as far as can be told, has never themselves contributed fanfiction to the community, to tell people what they can and cannot write) for their original comments, is a form of manipulative abuse called ‘gaslighting’. They are now claiming to be a victim that “never said to stop writing”, despite that having been the literal words they used in the opening of their original post. They are now pointing at these comments as “proof” of their point that soukoku fans are aggressive bullies that attack without cause when there was definitely cause from the original comments. This person clearly has bigger issues than just lacking shipper content for their personal preferences on the BSD fandom.

To all of those who are afraid to share content for your ship because you think you’ll be harassed, as evidenced by this person’s claims, that is simply not true. While there might be one or two people that say something, we all get them no matter if you have a popular ship or a rarepair ship, haters are gonna hate – I’ve gotten my share of hateful comments towards my ships too, but there are many more people that share your ship and are interested in your content, in fact, some of them are starved for it. While having a rarepair might mean you’ll garner less interactions with your content, you have a better opportunity to form a deeper bond with the people that do interact, and they may be more appreciative, because what you’re delivering to them is so much harder to come by. The existence of one ship does not affect your ship’s popularity, and if it simply went away, that doesn’t mean that your ship would receive more attention – in fact, it might mean the show itself would receive less attention.

Create and let others create and use platforms for their appropriate purposes, and most importantly, when it comes to addressing toxic behavior in a fandom, look to yourself first. Are you placing the blame where it belongs? Are you addressing the root cause of the problem or swinging blindly and attacking innocent bystanders in the process? Will what you say actually help the problem? Or will it contribute to the issue, and maybe even create an issue that didn’t exist before?

#fanfiction #fanfic #bsd #bsd fanfic #soukoku #daichuu #dazai x chuuya #shipper war #toxic fandom behavior #toxic people #toxic #AO3 #bullying #harassment

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ryuichirou · 4 years

Note

Sorry if this is personal but is it tough to be LGBT in Russia/ produce LGBT content in Russia (I mean it’s the internet but still)

Oh, this is an interesting topic… I’ll answer both of these questions and start with the content.

While being LGBT isn’t illegal per-se, there are a lot of limitations that LGBT people meet here. When it comes to creating content, for example, there is the Gay propaganda law. You might’ve heard about this one, it basically means “you can’t produce any content that portrays LGBT in any way, because it’ll make our children turn gay and we don’t want that”. But the thing is, the wording in this law is so… convenient for the State, they can basically call anything an illegal propaganda if they want to. Technically what we’re doing over here is illegal too. If they’d want to call it illegal, that is.

This is the reason people who publish works that have LGBT-related content in them may have issues in the process. There are ways to avoid them, but it is still very hard to officially publish something that has any “iffy” content. Sometimes putting a “18+” label on the book/movie/tv-series/etc helps, sometimes selling said piece of media only on the internet helps, but still: there is always a possibility that a publisher might not be able to produce the product they want. Censorship is a thing, bans are a thing, all of this exists, but you never know whether you’ll be hit by it or not. Please keep in mind that Russia is also an extremely corrupted country.

If you’re just a content creator and post your stuff on the internet only, it’s usually ok. Homophobes exist, but they tend to exist somewhere else, not near fandom places. There are tons of artists from Russia who draw explicit stuff (and a lot of these people are LGBT), a lot of them print their merch and sell it on the geek art markets, and even though there were cases where a printing house refused to print someone’s slash illustration, it’s usually ok. But.

But but but. You still can be targeted and sued for the most ridiculous stuff. For example, you can read about Yulia Tsvetkova’s case, who was arrested for her body positive series of drawings + a drawing in support of LGBT-families under the “distribution of pornography” and “gay-propaganda” laws respectively. There are tons of drawings like these on the internet, but Yulia was specifically targeted because she is an activist who wasn’t quiet about her support of women and LGBT. As you can see, the “gay propaganda” law is a very convenient way to shut people up.

Another example that comes to mind is two gay guys who got married in a country that allows you to get married when you’re not a citizen (I think they did it in Denmark), and they tried making their marriage legal in Russia too because it doesn’t really contradict any law. They fled the country because they started getting threats and their passports (along with their marriage) were deemed invalid. They were also charged with a fee for “damaging their passports”.

Now our wonderful government, which loves cheating during its elections to the point where you get 146% total when the max is 100%, made this wonderful terrible election for changing the constitution. Their changes are a joke (not really funny tho) and its own topic, but one of the changes was that marriage is “a union between a man and a woman”. Now it says that in the constitution.

TL;DR: If they want to get you, they’ll find a way to get you. But if you’re just a rando who posts slashy smut on your twitter, they don’t care, at least not yet. They will use it against you if you start annoying the police. There are a lot of homophobes but the fandom spaces are usually relatively peaceful.

Personally, we’re lucky enough not to face any severe problems yet. We’re careful irl (people usually think we’re related lol) and only some of our friends know about us. We don’t show any affection to each other publicly. On the internet we’re surrounded by people who are friendly, and once again, people from the fandom spaces are usually more progressive than a regular Russian Pyotr or Oleg.

I, being an idiot that I am, used to draw tons of slash (nsfw too!) at classes right in front of my teachers while I was at the uni. And even though it definitely wasn’t very wise of me, no one ever approached me with “umm are those gays, are you gay too” question. The only ones that were interested by my drawings were two straight girls who read slash fanfiction. Maybe the rest of those who noticed were too shy :(

Katsu: I was always an idiot who likes to flex things as a teenager, so when Ryu and I started dating, I mentioned it in my school to some of my classmates. I’m pretty sure it started some nasty rumors, one guy was openly disgusted, but other than that, I haven’t heard anything from them and they never told teachers or parents, which could be consequences that I never considered. The only thing he said was “Are you a lesbian?” which wasn’t really offensive even though I’m not really a lesbian, but I was like... was that supposed to be an offensive word? Because it wasn’t. Right now I realise that I was lucky not to get beaten up lol I’m from a small city (not a town) and not the best district, but I guess nobody cared that much about this info even if they heard about it, plus people were/are usually afraid of me, so not even the worst boys who were obviously stronger (like that disgusted guy) touched me. I only mention it because I know for a fact that some of the people (like 2-3) were usually openly aggressive, it’s not like the worst class you can get in Russia where the only solution is to fucking suffer.

At the uni, I heard our group discussing lesbians, since students there were mostly girls by another disgusted individual, and I actually wanted to say to her something with a “Come at me bro” attitude (I tend to do that when I’m pissed off), but I just decided not to intervene, probably because these were the first couple of days in my first year. I still told one guy like a month later, he was rather cool with it. Anyway, as Ryu mentioned, there are places and people where you can mention it and get away with it, and where you better keep your mouth shut. Most of the country is the second option, but there’re for a fact a lot of nice and accepting people even out of the fandom. We don’t talk about our relationship for the most part because we don’t really need to, so here’s that. Sorry for being so talkative lol

#replies

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phandom-against-onision · 4 years

Text

You have probably already informed yourself, but here is a masterlist anyway.

MAJOR CONTENT WARNINGS: BLACKFACE, SLURS, RACIST COMMENTS, CHILD PREDATORY COMMENTS, NSFW CONTENT, BEASTIALITY, TRANSPHOBIA, MISHANDLING OF MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES, OUTING AND MORE! PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Shane Dawson has been shown to mock black people on several occasions, saying the n word, doing blackface and creating stereotypical recurring characters.

When beginning on YouTube, Shane had a character called “Shanaynay” who was supposed to be a “ghetto-white girl”. When playing her, Shane often used ghetto stereotypes. She was a recurring character from 2008-2011. Although he has long stopped playing this character, he was continuing to sell the merch and profit off his racism as recently as last year!

He has also done blackface in his character skits, and said the n word as Shanaynay. On one of these occasions, he called an actual black woman a “n*gga bitch monkey woman”. Watch the full video for all occasions.

youtube

Here are some additional comments on this matter.

Shane Dawson has acted inappropriately with and around minors for a long time.

He has probably done this even more than his blackface, and that’s saying something.

This clip, which went around last year, contains him calling a 6-year-old child sexy and admitting to googling CP. This is from his Shane and Friends podcast, which contains a lot of explicit clips.

youtube

He has also asked his teenage fan to “show herself” and “shut up and twerk”. This is from 3:55 - 4:29 in this video.

One of the instances really going around on Twitter at the moment is him pretending to jerk off to a picture of the then-11 year old Willow Smith.

youtube

A reminder that her family has not forgiven him, so neither should you!

Honestly, there are way too many occasions of this. Please check out this Twitter thread which lists a lot of times he has made inappropriate comments and did inappropriate things.

Another very distasteful thing he has done is claim to solve the murder of an actual six-year-old child, profiting off “speaking” to her spirit.

Shane Dawson has joked about bestiality on camera multiple times.

This is just straight-up weird. It went around a lot last year, but in case you’ve forgotten, here is a playlist of a few clips. He also rubbed his face in his dog’s crotch but I can’t find a direct video of that by itself.

Shane Dawson is transphobic as hell.

Watch this full video for the details where he uses trans as an insult and says tr*nny while knowing it is a derogatory term.

youtube

Shane Dawson has promoted and supported terrible people and channels.

This has been a long-time criticism of his viral documentary series, but it is still important to remember.

Let’s start with the problems with this in chronological order.

His first viral documentary series was The Truth about Tanacon.

Tanacon, to begin with, had several issues. Despite big dreams, it failed spectacularly due to lack of organisation and preparation before the event. There were many last minute changes and it generally lacked several necessities in events. Some issues were disorganised registrations, reserved meet and greets that didn’t go through the system, clashings with VidCon (a bigger event), inappropriate content creators, adversied content creators that didn’t appear, condoms in the goodie bag, lies about free tickets, no food, no room for anything, one hallway, lack of regulation in wristbands, underestimation of guests, overly expensive merch, no cooling system, no fire solutions (meaning they kicked everyone out) and it goes on.

Despite actual people suffering due to the incompetency of Tana, Shane made her out to be an innocent martyr. This gets even worse as you realise than Tana has been exposed for several racist comments throughout her YouTube career.

Shane is clearly shown to be a terrible interviewer, presenting more as a friend than someone who is willing to find the “truth” of Tanacon. Instead of learning about Tanacon from an unbiased journalist, we get an obscured version of what happened, engineered to sympathise with Tana instead of her admitting to her mistakes.

Yet, this somehow was only the beginning of the problems with the documentary series, as the next one was with Jeffree Starr.

I don’t even know where to begin with the problems with this.

Firstly, Jeffree is perhaps the most problematic YouTuber who is still popular on the website. He has been exposed as racist, sexist, supporting of rapists, terrible to fans, transphobic, ableist, fatphobic, homophobic, insensitive to suicidal people, sexualising of minors, fascist and violent. Check out this thread here for the full details and proof of these claims.

Shane is not stupid. He is aware of these controversies, but has continued to support Jeffree. When a fan called him out, he was extremely rude and was very mad, and supporting all the hate the fan was getting.

The entire documentary series is about him befriending Jeffree, and making him out to be a good person.

Jeffree should NOT be given a positive platform like this, and he should NOT be continuing to get away with being “cancelled”. So many other YouTubers have been “cancelled” for lesser things, yet Jeffree manages to always get away with it.

The next documentary series was the Jake Paul series. This is perhaps his most controversial documentary series.

Shane is not a therapist, a psychiatrist or a mental health professional. Even though he did consult some people, they are not allowed to diagnose people based on suspicions and videos. Yet, throughout the entire series, he calls Jake Paul a sociopath, and using that label to justify everything he has done.

Jake and Logan have both stirred up some of the biggest controversies on the platform, yet Shane gave them the ability to thrive. Like he did with Tana and Jeffree, he humanised him and edited it to the audience would sympathise with Jake. He has been exposed to scam his young fans, been rude to his neighbours and cast members, made light of serious disorders like anxiety, saying the n word and doing several things for clout, such as “marrying” Tana Mongeau.

As addressed in the documentary series, Alissa Violet, Jake’s ex-girlfriend, has shared her stories of physical abuse in the Team 10 mansion in private life, yet Shane did not fully address this or even mention this to Jake in the episode after. This further proves that Shane is incapable of running a documentary series with such deep themes as he will gloss over them or not address them properly.

This issue is further seen in his documentary with Eugenia Cooney.

A warning that I have not actually seen this as I have heard it contains triggering subject material which I do not wish to subject myself to in interests for my personal mental health - I am only going off the statements of experts and viewers.

In theory, this documentary could have been brilliant. After all, it is two people who have gone/is going through eating disorders and discussing it. However, experts have said that this could be harmful and it is easy to see why.

As much as I do not like Shane, I, and experts, do believe that he had good intentions behind this documentary. However, it probably would have been better if they consulted an expert regularly throughout the documentary when handling a touchy subject. After all, many of Shane’s viewers are young and/or influential, and a correct portrayal of a subject which is terrifying and real to many people watching is very important.

Here is an excerpt from this article about how he handled this:

Other fans were concerned with Cooney's safety, given that she referred to having an eating disorder in the past tense, signaling that she may not be considering further treatment.

"She certainly looks like she is physically healthier, but mentally she still seems like she's struggling a lot and she tries to cover it with her overwhelming positivity," another comment on the video says.

Experts who spoke with INSIDER — and who have not personally treated Cooney — are wary of considering Cooney's treatment a success story.

"When we are in the midst of our eating disorder we are very, very good at wearing masks. We're very good at playing a role that is very convincing and wants to let people know that we're okay," Chevese Turner, the Chief Strategy & Policy Officer for the National Eating Disorders Association, told INSIDER."A month of treatment is just barely scratching the surface of the road to recovery. While she put on a good face and was very chipper and cheerful, I'm not convinced that's what's going on inside. How do any of us know for sure?"

While both experts told INSIDER they believe Dawson had good intentions, they also expressed numerous concerns with the way the video presented the reality of eating disorders, and Cooney's recovery in particular. Turner says having Cooney share her story could be very cathartic, but she worries how much of her appearance was intended to resurrect or preserve her career."What's essentially happening is that people are bullying her online for her looks and her body and that does have an impact, it impacts all of us when that happens. For someone with an eating disorder, the impact can be devastating. I think [Dawson is] trying to help in his own way, but probably the thing that would help the most is her having more time in recovery," Turner said.

"I don't want to speculate, but obviously her success on YouTube is a driving factor to get back to work. None of us know if she's fully capable for that work and I would want to believe that the people around her who care about her most are confident that she can handle it," she continued. "I hope that they'll encourage her to take a break."

Overall, it has been shown that Shane is unfit to handle a documentary series with his evidently extremely biased views, and he should consult more professionals when editing. Although many people would argue that he has good intentions, it is possible to have good intentions while being irresponsible. Shane is aware of his large audience, and his influence over people around the globe. He should be more careful when creating a video with strong themes which many viewers may be suffering through or offended by.

Either than his documentary series, Shane is also friends with other problematic people outside it - most infamously, Trisha Paytas.

Trisha Paytas’ brand has become being extremely controversial. However, this doesn’t excuse that she has done and should not normalise her behaviours. She has been proved to be very transphobic and homophobic, as well as racist, ableist, abusive and insensitive to people with mental illnesses and disorders, notably DID. She lives to stir up drama on YouTube and more recently, TikTok. Despite being aware of this, Shane has continued to be close friends with her and excusing what she does because she’s just Trisha.

He has also openly supported far-right people on Twitter, giving harmful conspiracies a platform on his channel.

Shane Dawson has contributed to destroying growing/popular channels.

When 20-year-old growing YouTuber Bobby Burns released a video giving valid criticism to Shane Dawson, Shane featured him on his channel and pushed him as a heater.

This was not a thing which only happened once. Shane decided to continue to feature him on his channel, branding him as a hater. However, Shane’s dedicated fanbase did not like this and began to send hate to Bobby. Due to the lack of popularity, Shane stopped interacting with Bobby and didn’t feature him in any more videos without attempting to “save his career” like he has done with so many other people.

That is not to say that Bobby is faultless. I am not that familiar with his content, but I have heard that he did contribute to his channel’s demise, which makes sense. However, as a huge content creator, it was irresponsible of Shane to take a growing channel and brand him as a negative hater. He is aware of his audience, and that is important to remember. When he has such a large fanbase, he needs to be more careful with the videos he is showing them, and the characterisations of YouTubers.

However, what Shane is going under fire most recently is his involvement in the James Charles scandal last year.

Despite denial, Shane has been proved to play an important role in the “cancelling” of James last year, encouraging Tati to upload the video and making false accusations of predatory behaviour. This was highly likely done to degrade a competitor’s palette so his collaboration with Jeffree would be more successful.

Recently, he posted these screenshots on Twitter and then deleted the Tweet.

This proves his blatant immaturity. Somehow, James, the youngest of the four YouTubers involved in the scandal, has grown up the most. Shane was a part of the downfall of James, causing him to debate suicide. His defence for this was saying that he “needed to be served a slice of humble pie the size of the fucking Empire State Building”.

James Charles is not faultless, and he should not be made out to be an angel or a martyr in this situation. However, no one deserves to have suicidal thoughts, and anyone who defends this by saying that it was the humbling he needed is disgusting.

Shane Dawson attempted to out Dan and Phil for views and clout.

As a bisexual man who has opened up about his fear of being outed when he was closeted, he should be ashamed of everything he did to Dan and Phil.

Like many YouTubers at the time, Shane used the Phandom to get views and subscribers. In doing this, he objectified and sexualised Dan to his young and influential audience. Check out this video where he said that he wanted to facefuck Dan in an orgy while watching a video where he just turned 18. In that clip, he also split up Dan and Phil into “cute” and “not cute”.

It even went to the point where he asked the Psychic Twins about the sexuality of Dan and Phil. In this clip, he accuses them of queerbaiting as well as supporting the Psychic Twins’ invasive and insensitive comments about them not dressing gay enough, diss of them refusing to go on their podcast and outing and stereotyping them. This was as recent as 2017.

There are actually a lot of other reasons why Shane is under a lot of controversy at the moment. Here were my sources, and some further reading for anyone interested:

THE PROBLEM WITH SHANE DAWSON: a thread

shane dawson sexualizing young children: a thread

One of YouTube's biggest stars made a viral 'documentary' about another YouTuber's eating disorder. Experts say it could be harmful for its subject and audience.

Jake Paul tried to use looting for YouTube views, and is facing charges. These are all the ways the controversial star has stirred up outrage in the past.

Trisha Paytas’ racism

THE PROBLEM WITH JEFFREE STAR: a thread

EVERYTHING WRONG WITH TANACON: an ongoing thread

So what from here? Shane has released an apology video, but words don’t mean anything without action. Here are some suggestions for what he could do to actually show further improvement.

He could stop doing conspiracy videos in the harmful and biased style he is known for, and delete his videos despite the views.

He could stop being friends with such toxic and controversial people.

He could donate his money and time to helping out the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and to black charities/organisations in general. It does not negate what he has done, and it is not in my place to forgive him if he does do that, but it would represent his improvement.

He could formally apologise to the parents and the family of the children he has sexualised.

But he will probably not do that. However, as a hater of cancel culture, I hope that he does improve as a person. It is not my goal to send hate, but to inform people. Sending Shane death threats or insensitive comments are the last things we need. To criticise him for doing that, then doing it yourself is hypocritical and harmful. Instead, we’ll just have to inform ourselves and wait for the future.

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bisluthq · 3 years

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This is for Roommate Anon😊

Hi Roommate Anon! First, I’m so happy to hear that you’ve realized you’re gay - it’s not an easy journey, but thre is some relief in figuring it out. Welcome to the community!

I just wanted to remind you that you absolutely do belong in the LGBTQ community - you have a whole community of queer people cheering you on right here on Nat’s blog! And I am so so sorry that your family isn’t supportive.

I wanted to reassure you that everyone goes through their gay discovery in their own time - yes, there are teens today who are much more aware of their sexuality, and from the outside, it looks like they have it all figured out. But in my (irl) experience, that’s not “most” people. I was 19 before I first wondered if I was “not straight”, but I didn’t accept it for years - I just ignored it and hoped it would go away. It wasn’t until I moved away to a more queer-friendly city when I was 21 that I started to really be like … okay with being gay. I’m 24 now, and I still haven’t come out to my family (other than dropping hints) and I don’t plan on coming out to them anytime soon, which, right now, I am okay with. You’re journey will look different, but don’t feel like you need to rush into coming out if you’re not ready.

Straight people tend to focus on the idea of “coming out” as the be all end all of the queer experience. But this is unequivocally not true. Before you can come out, you need to figure it out for yourself, and for me and several of my gay friends, that was a much harder and more emotional journey than coming out to others. And you don’t need to be out to everyone! Many queer people are only out to select people, especially at first - if you have a family member you don’t feel comfortable telling… don’t. Maybe you’ll get there one day, or maybe you won’t. But it’s your choice and if you don’t want to be out to someone, then don’t come out to them. Right now, maybe you’re only ready to be out to Avery and your roomie, and that’s okay - that’s normal! And if/when you and roomie get together “officially”, talk about who you’re comfortable telling about your relationship - and the answer to that can be no one, a few select people, or everyone - whatever you’re both comfortable with. Being in the closet, even when you’re dating, isn’t lying - it’s setting boundaries that make you and your partner comfortable and keep you both safe (including from mental or emotional abuse!)

You mentioned in your post that there are millions of people who hate us because we’re gay; and yes, there are a lot of homophobic people in the world… but there are also millions and millions of lgbtq+ people who are actively fighting for our community changing the narrative about us. Even 10 years ago there wasn’t anywhere near as much queer media, much less positive queer content, as there is today. Now imagine where we will be 10 years from now.

One trick that I used to use when I’d get stuck in a loop of internalized homophobia was each time I had a homophobic thought about myself, I would consciously think or say “No, that’s not true. I am a good/kind/caring person because____, and being gay doesn’t change that.” It helped me change my thought patterns, and over time the internalized homophobia lessened. It’s not an overnight solution, but give it a few months and maybe it will help. I also found that consuming queer content (and later, creating it) was one of the biggest things that made me feel like I was part of the community. I don’t know what your taste in media is, but if you’re looking for fluff/comfort content maybe give something like Shera and the Princesses of Power a try- it has phenomenal queer rep, no homophobia and it’s a really good “comfort” show. There are also so many queer books that are most likely available at your library (and they probably have ebooks if you don’t want anyone to see what you’re reading). Fiction by queer authors is great, and autobiographies about coming out journeys are really really helpful. I personally liked The Fire Never Goes Out by Noelle Stevenson, because it’s 7 years of journal entries that were compiled into a book, so you can really see their growth and changing perception of themselves. Maybe start with this essay they wrote/illustrated https://www (.) oprahdaily (.) com/life/relationships-love/amp34100347/noelle-stevenson-coming-out-story/ Noelle has written/spoken a lot about dealing with their conservative and religious family and the shame of not being the ‘perfect woman”, so if you like the article, you can check out their other stuff. Also look at queer youtubers, or fanfic of a show/book you like as well. The It Gets Better project on YouTube has short inspirational videos by lgbtq people with advice and their personal stories, so give that channel a try. Maybe take a look at Love Victor, it touches on A Lot of the experiences you talk about - conservative family, complicated feelings for guys, shame about being gay, even writing to an online gay community for advice about you gay feelings!

Also, on that note, I have to agree with Nat about your roomie being at least somewhat gay/bi - i laughed so hard when you wrote that she said your brother was “not her type”, because I have used that exact phrase to subtly hint that I’m gay to my friends or other queer people. I don’t know that it was particularly clear, but saying “He’s Not my type” was me trying to communicate “he’s not my type because he’s not a girl and I’m into girls”.

Good luck with your conversations with your friends, I hope they go well. Our community will be here for you if/when you need us.

SUBMISSION

Roommate anon, you have so many people who love you and your story xx

#roommate anon <3 #submission

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contextualstudieslorena · 3 years

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IS BEING A PART OF THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY A TREND?

+Throughout the years’ many people are seen coming out as queer. And nowadays it is even more common to see queer characters in media as something that is becoming normalised. For example, in this early graph made by Gallup, (an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C.) we can see that the amount of people ‘coming out ‘ and identifying as a part of the LGBT community grows every year. Yet, it is seen to be more common in people who are born from 2002 to 1997, that being generation Z. After that, being Millenials, who are followed by generation X. Besides that, it can be seen that few traditionalists identify as LGBT, for a reason that I will be talking about in this essay.

We can also see in the graft that those numbers rise throughout the years. And why does this happen? Is it because Millennials and Gen Z started a new trend of being queer? Or is it because they feel more comfortable talking about issues that used to be hidden before.

Queer representation has indeed been growing a lot, if not in movies or magazines, Kids nowadays can spot a drag queen only looking through social media, or even Netflix, a Movie platform that has been seen adding a lot of queer characters to their movies and shows. If Netflix is doing a good job at bringing awareness and representation that is another conversation but compared to 10 years ago, it is noticeable that every day queer representation grows more and more.

Yet, the only place we can see this is in media, as there is not much of it in the regular history classes we have at school.

It is also important to note that kids can be very moldable. They spend more than 11 years of their life copying exactly everything they see, that being something positive or not. And that happens so often, that a boy died in Indonesia after trying to copy the fictional superhero Spider-Man. ‘Police are investigating if a five-year-old boy in Jakarta was trying to mimic Spider-Man after he jumped out a window to his death after being told he couldn’t watch the latest movie in the franchise.’. And as surprising as this can be, it shows kids and teenagers can be influenced by something so much, they will try to mimic it, which might be happening to all the Gen Z adults who grew up with media shoving down LGBT content down their throats. As well as that, they can also be following their friend’s choices to come out and can be even lying to their own selves for attention.

I could spend an enormous amount of time writing about how social media can affect peoples sexuality and gender but I’d rather do something more educating and look at the past. Where humans started coming together as tribes and living in a society, having to deal with the presence of each other and create romantic and social relationships.

When talking about same-gender relationships the queer community mentions how normal gay relationships are in nature. Petter Boeckman, Norweigan Zoologist would say that more than 1500 species of animals have been seen having some type of homosexual interaction, those not only being mammals but as Boeckman stated "We're talking about everything from mammals to crabs and worms. The actual number is of course much higher. Among some animals homosexual behaviour is rare, some having sex with the same gender only a part of their life, while other animals, such as the dwarf chimpanzee, homosexuality is practised throughout their lives." as well as that, he then compares chimpanzees to humans who identify as homosexual "If a female has sex with a male one time, but thousands of times with another female, is she bisexual or homosexual? This is the same way to have children is not unknown among homosexual people.". However, Petter wasn’t the only one who found homosexual interactions between animals, Kurt Kotrschal, a known biologist for researching these types of behaviours has confirmed that these ty pes of relationships are beneficial for the species.

I am mentioning animals not only to show that homosexuality is natural to other species but because they can be even more related to indigenous people.

Indigenous people are the ones who can be seen the most in contact with nature. They have decades of history of not having any contact with other human beings than the ones that were located in the same tribe as them, and as much as they would fight with other tribes and move around they still had their tribes, where they would create relationships in and settle their tents. They didn’t have any contact with books and science before the colonizers came in 1500 and even after that many tribes weren’t discovered by them in the middle of the Amazon forest, so many of them didn’t even get to be influenced by the Europeans and their racism and misogynistic views and homophobic religion.

The point I want to make is that indigenous people are the ones who are the closest to animals, and if they saw an animal do a homosexual interaction, they would probably see it as something that is intended to happen and not weird, as animals don’t have a perception of that is morally wrong or not. They are a part of nature, different from the Europeans who colonized them who were already influenced by the church and their extremist ideas. And as much as it would be wonderful to have indigenous people be so open-minded as they were, Colonization happened, and with that, so did a period where Europeans found the need to force their catholic beliefs on them, as well as bringing many diseases and suffering. Cieza de Leon, a chronicler of the conquest in Peru once said, and I quote ‘ Within a somewhat different framework. During the colonial years, indigenous morality changed, partly as a result of contact with the Europeans.’She also believes and argues that indigenous people had a spiritual justification for doing anal sex with their partners ( which is now seen as something Queer people are more familiar with), that being in a same-sex or straight relationship. This spiritual justification had to do with their religious beliefs. While Colonial Latin American societies would see anal sex within their own beliefs, Iberian societies would see sodomy as a way of showing male dominance.

There are not that many pieces of evidence of Queer indigenous people in history, as the colonizers would murder them and force them to stop being who they truly were. However, there’s an engraving that shows a little bit more about their experience as trans indigenous people in colonial times. In this engraving made by Theodor de Bry in 1594 as part of his Les Grands Voyages, we can see how this homophobia is well represented. In the art piece, 8 men are shown wearing noble clothes, and between them was Vasco Nunez de Balboa, a man known for being a Spanish nobleman who conquered Panama. But what is atrocious about this art piece is what is in front of them, 3 men being eaten alive by dogs after being demanded to do so by the nobleman, after being seen dressed as women. However, what is most ironic about this engraving is the way it’s presented, which plays when seeing the men standing above them. Who present themselves in a feminine way earring clothes that could nowadays be considered quite puffy and girly. This engraving is only the beginning of what queer indigenous people had to go through, of course not mentioning the amount of evidence of homophobia that was probably erased through the time. To summarize Brazil’s colonization process, the European view on lust, nudity, polygamy, cannibalism, sodomy and homosexuality which was normal to indigenous people, was considered to be against nature and gods will, and their job was to basically baptise as many natives as they wanted and shove catholic ideas down their throat.

Yves d’Evreux, a french capuchin priest delivered a highly dramatic letter, that presented his reaction on how he encountered an indigenous that could be considered a trans man. His trip to Northern Brasil (1613-1614) surprised him , as he reacted in a negative way towards them. As he wrote ‘There is, in Juniparan, in the Island, a hermaphrodite, in the exterior more man than a woman, since he has the face and the voice of woman, with fine, flexible and long hair, however [he] was married and had children (...). (d’Evreux, 1874, p. 90) he then mentions this man again, as he ran after him with the French to ‘purify his soul’ and kill him, he was then captured and chained under the fort of Sao Luis and was obliged to say the following ‘You will die for your crimes, we approve your death and I myself want to light the fuse for the Frenchmen to know and to see that we hate your evil deeds [...]: when Tupan sends someone to take your body, if you want to have in the Heaven the long hair and the body of a woman instead of that of a man, ask Tupan to give you the woman’s body and to be resurrected woman, and you will be in Heaven on the side of women and not of men. (d’Evreux, 1874, p. 232). This however is just a glimpse of what transgender people had to go through during colonial times and still to this day. The queer community is a community that is supposed to help everyone, but that doesn’t focus much on the history of indigenous people and how much they suffered.

In conclusion, as much as nowadays, people can be highly influenced by others, the LGBTQ community has been around for a rather long time and it is not something that the newest generation has made up. From the colonization times till nowadays, queer people have felt oppressed and the necessity to ‘stay in the closet’ and not be their true selves while being afraid of getting judged or even murdered by random people or even close ones. However, nowadays people have been talking more about important issues such as homophobia, sexism and racism, which is making queer people feel more comfortable Even though, they are still fighting for their rights, and they’re still in the long run, protesting for all the people who have died since Europeans somehow decided that god found their sexual choices to be unnatural and demoniac. Now, what is left for us to do is to create a healthy environment and show more representation in media every single day, so more queer people feel comfortable without having to spend their entire lives fighting and running away from who they are. Being queer is not a trend, but queer people have been being hidden from us our entire lives. They were always there, and they are always going to be there.

Bibliography:

Partal, Y., 2021. Are there gay animals in nature? Homosexuality in the animal world. [online] Zoo Portraits. Available at: <https://www.zooportraits.com/animal-homosexuality/> [Accessed 5 April 2021].

Sigal, P., 2003. Infamous desire. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, p.2.

Fernandes, E. and Arisi, B., 2017. Gay Indians in Brazil. 1st ed. Springer.

News-Medical.net. 2021. 1,500 animal species practice homosexuality. [online] Available at: <https://www.news-medical.net/news/2006/10/23/1500-animal-species-practice-homosexuality.aspx> [Accessed 9 April 2021].

New York Post. 2021. 5-year-old boy dies ‘trying to be Spider-Man’. [online] Available at: <https://nypost.com/2014/05/04/5-year-old-boy-dies-trying-to-be-spider-man/> [Accessed 9 April 2021].

Jackson, A., Thomas, M. and Steffen, A., 2021. Homosexuality Is Natural. [online] Exposing The Truth. Available at: <https://www.exposingtruth.com/homosexuality-is-natural/> [Accessed 9 April 2021].

Buchholz, K., 2021. Infographic: 5.6 Percent of U.S. Adults Identify as LGBT. [online] Statista Infographics. Available at: <https://www.statista.com/chart/18228/share-of-americans-identifying-as-lgbt/> [Accessed 9 April 2021].

Pictures:

1475. Spanish Explorer Ordering Native Indians To Be Torn Pieces By Dogs Copper Engraving 16Th Century. [image] Available at: <http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/debry-atrocities.htm> [Accessed 9 April 2021].

n.d. Two indigenous women kissing at an LGBTQ+ pride parade. [image] Available at: <http://@indigenasLGBTQ> [Accessed 9 April 2021].

n.d. Trans (We’wha (Zuni) circa 1849-1896 Mexican Indigenous woman. [image].

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