#the importance of representation

[archivlibrarianist]

"As he read the young adult novel, “Symptoms of Being Human,” whose main character is gender fluid, he felt an awakening. Soon, he started identifying as transgender." -David Wahlberg, "After teen started transgender treatments, 'All of that anxiety was gone,'" Kenosha News, 12/13/2022.

[crystal-mouse]

Ok but can we please talk about how groundbreaking it is for THE 60th anniversary episode to be SO trans positive- like yes, it was a little heavy-handed in places in the way that cis writers write trans dialogue and think about gender, but in considering how the climate is *especially* in the uk rn, for Doctor Who to go, no actually- trans rights, acceptance and love/support?? To normalise trans people as normal people and that a trans woman is INTEGRAL and FOREFRONT to the narrative and saves the day on prime time television on the longest running drama AND highly awaited episode?? It's massive.

[icedsodapop]

I really need to stress how groundbreaking Martha Jones literally is. She made her mark as the first official onscreen Black Doctor Who companion, and quite literally paved the way for future Black and other companions of colour to star on the show, like Bill Potts, Yasmin Khan, and Ryan Sinclair. And these characters would also make Doctor Who history in their own ways with Bill being the first onscreen Black lesbian companion, Yasmin being the first onscreen South Asian companion, and Ryan being the first onscreen Black companion with a disability.

Marth Jones' power? Unparalleled.

[radios-universe]

people don’t realise that the a-spectrums are basically a z axis to sexuality.

people still see sexuality as a scale but they need to understand there’s Depth! it’s 3D!!!

one axis for sexual attraction, one for romantic, but there’s an equally important axis to measure how MUCH of that romantic/sexual attraction is felt… that’s the a-spectrum

and it goes for Everyone.

‘oh i don’t really develop feelings towards someone until i know them really well’ BOO MF YOU’RE DEMIROMANTIC UP THE Z AXIS YOU GO!

[paisholotus]

Please repost!

Palestine, Sudan, Congo, many more. All are war crimes and acts against humanity.

[mrsfrecklesmarauders]

No, love. Not every single character has to have a romantic partner to be interesting. It is okay for characters to end up alone. Or not have romantic experiences at all. No matter their sexuality. Aromantic and Asexual characters can exist and be a good representation of the queer community. Not only gay couples represent queer struggle.

That's all. Thanks.

[heymacy]

IAN GALLAGHER + his journey with bipolar disorder

╰┈➤ “At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you’re living with this illness and functioning at all, it’s something to be proud of, not ashamed of." - Carrie Fisher

[whatisgoingoninmyhead]

there's something to be said about how public unawareness about aspec identities contributes to the infighting within the aspec communities.

for example, I've seen a lot of "don't say ace people don't have sex because that's harmful to the sex favourable aces" and the opposite: "don't say ace people can have sex because what about the sex repulsed/averse?"

and they're both valid points, but because of it, aspec posts have to cater to the entire spectrum or risk starting arguments over this. Ideally, people could look at an aspec post and accept that it's for a different part of the aro/ace spectrum to where they are, but that's where the public unawareness comes in

because outside of the aspec communities, there's so little understanding of what the terms mean, that people within the community have to make every post generic so that the unaware won't see one post and make an assumption for the entire community based on it.

I see where every side is coming from, but infighting doesn't really solve any of the issues. The only thing that can start to solve it is more expansive aspec media representation, and spreading the "aro/ace identities are a spectrum" posts as much as possible to reach outside of the community, rather than trying to make specific posts fit that generic message.

[mrfroggems]

Add on to the Alastor Aroace rant

I know Vizi said that you can have "respectful fun" with Alastor ships but there really is no way to "respectfully" ship a aroace character (unless it's queer platonic ig?) I know it's silly to expect a fandom not to ship especially with a character like Alastor but I thought more people would at least attempt to respect his sexuality.

Like I said before if it was any other character's sexuality being disrespected and disregarded people would throw a fit (rightfully so) I'm just sick one of the only aroace characters in the media is being erased by the fandom like this.

ADD ON: in my other post I talked about how people use the excuse when shipping Alastor that aroace is a spectrum while yes it is and that should be respected there are people on the spectrum that don't want any relationships or sexual acts and Alastor is our rep and it should be respected

[fnafs-ex-boyfriend]

It’s a little hard to describe how important Alastor being aroace is to me. He’s just this cool, suave, mysterious, petty guy with a silly voice that has the same attitudes as sex and romance as I do and I think that’s really cool and awesome.

Edit: There’s a follow-up

[watchyourbuck]

you tommy apologists should rethink long and hard, how can you be happy that he kissed buck? you literally have buddie shipper in your bio! this is not a win

lmao anyway <3 canon bi buck

[literallycarrie]

after years of alice talking about how she unintentionally wrote tori as ace in solitaire, today she finally got to say it. tori spring my beloved 💜🤍🩶🖤

[angryasiandyk3]

TW: fatphobia, transphobia

Hoffman isn’t my favorite but what the actual fuck??

I’ve been seeing so many people being so fatphobic towards him, along with a lot of transphobic comments towards people’s interpretation of his character especially on sawtwt too.. anyways fat and trans hoffman for the win :3

this rhetoric shouldn’t be okay nor normalized at all

[mybitterbisexualarse]

there is something so beautiful in an honest to god representation of a mlm gay relationship in a mainstream being advertised on every bilboard show. like there was so much love that went into building their relationship, they moved bill from being this one note comedy plot device and frank from being a body in  a hawain shirt to being actual people that had lives and loved and found each other in the middle of an appocalypse surrounded by violence and death. they looked at the horrific world they lived in and carved a home for themselves, grew old together and died in each others arms and i am still sobbing 

[eterut]

I wanna talk about the prehispanic and mesoamerican representation of music in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

The music was my main motivation to go see the film (alongside with the introducing of Tenoch, one of my favorite people inthe world).

The day of the Mexican premiere, my facebook feed was full of photos of musicians (whom I follow for their prehispanic instrumental and amazing work thru the years in the band TRIBU and colabs with musicians Arturo Meza, Jorge Reyes and Rastrillos) attending the premiere and revealing that they participated in the making of the music for the film!

The news clearly moved me to inexplicable levels because those musicians: Ramiro Ramirez Duarte and Alejandro Mendez Rojas, have spent decades working and promoting research, practice and recognition of prehispanic instruments and how mesoamerican music might have sounded.

In addition, these musicians (one with degree in ethnomusicology and anthropological research and the other as a member of the Otomi indigenous community in the north of the territory where I was born and live), have been and are part of projects and musical groups that have given original music and prehispanic instruments the place they deserve in the broad definition of Mexican music.

In an interview with La Silla Rota Guanajuato They explain that "Prehispanic music no longer exists, from that past only the instruments remain, their melodies".

Alejandro Méndez Rojas commented that is unknown how the music of that time was; everything was destroyed in the 16th century because the Spanish prohibited prehispanic musicians and everything that had to do with ancient culture, they stopped making the instruments, there were no longer any manufacturers.

Did you get chills when the Talokani first came out and hypnotized the ship's crew with their voices? This is what you hear:

Did you feel the love and pain through Namor's origin story? This was what accompanied that feeling:

The pieces Namor, Lost in the depths, Yucatán, Namor's Throne, Imperius Rex and Sink the ship also have remarkable elements from prehispanic instruments and voices.

Hearing the distinctive sounds of snails, flutes, rattles, drums, and canes at epic and emotional moments in the film made my heart race and pride prickle my skin.

About "Árboles bajo el mar", Alejandro Mendez Rojas explain in their social media:

"In this piece I composed all the sounds made with prehispanic instruments. I used a Tepehuano bow, tortoise shells percussed by Huave deer antlers, Mayan double-diaphragm whistle, Mayan trumpets, Tezcatlipoca flute, Mayan tunkul among other instruments made by me.

Thank you for allowing me to promote Mesoamerican musical instruments through their sounds in this film and thanks to all the people who collaborated on this piece."

With their work and passion for the music, they become heroes too:

“One way to ensure that instruments are not lost is to build them again, to execute them, to carry out work so that they last, so that they remain alive.

I think that the instruments of prehispanic Mexico deserve that boost, that promotion to enter a world where there is musical diffusion, the instruments deserve that stage to be better know, we have worked with them for many years, have cost us diffusion"

Because it is another form of representation, it is another way of saying "we are here", but on a large scale, it is an opportunity to continue preserving our culture, our roots and to allow it not to go out.

"Mexico has a wonderful ancestral legacy, worthy of being recovered and put into circulation again, the instruments will come to life in every human being who listens to them"

Gracias señores Ramiro y Alejandro por ser tan chingones y seguir trabajando por darle a nuestra herencia y a nuestras raíces la dignidad que merecen. Felicidades por este trabajo tan hermoso y emotivo. Y muchas gracias por ser parte de mi formación y herencia musical. Me siento orgullosa y feliz por todo eso 🫀

Please, listen all the music from the original soundtrack and give them a lot of love. Thank you Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson for let it be this wonderful dignity manifesto that is Wakanda Forever.

🖤🤎

[boyquiet]

i think that we need to get over the narrative that you can’t have gay villains because that’s a harmful stereotype because there’s a huge difference between “this character is gay and a bad person” and “this character was written specifically to equate being gay and being evil/depraved/degenerate”. it’s just such a narrow minded view of fiction that leads to people afraid to write queer characters as anything less than morally perfect and then to a bunch of palatable but bland and boring queer characters that are arguably worse representation than a gay villain because they are not allowed to do anything wrong. while it is important to write all types of gay characters a work isn’t instantly “problematic” because the villain is queer and the hero isn’t. I think this is also related to the idea of subtext vs text in gay media and how I see a lot of people get mad bc the homoerotic subtext isn’t made canon without considering the context of it at all—sometimes creators make artistic decisions for reasons other than that they didn’t want the gay people to kiss because they’re homophobic. well written queer subtext can be better than a canon gay couple with no personality or relevance and a queer villain can be a better queer character than a gay hero because the characters in-universe morality isn’t inherently tied to how much care they are written with and the quality of “queer representation” isn’t determined by the amount of times they kiss on screen.