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janiedean · 4 years

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Hi! I'm the Plato anon for before. First of, thank you so much for your offer, but I think I managed on me own. Second, could you elaborate on the "analysing as YA" vs "analysing as an adult" approach? I assumed that "discourse people" on this website generally don't go beyond "antagonist is bad because they are against the hero!" out of ignorance/lack of interest except to score Internet Fame Points, not that it was due a specific mindest. I also don't really read YA (except Tiffany Aching)

TIFFANY ACHING!! T_T ANON LET ME HUG YOU it’s like the only YA I actually liked in my entire life apart from nick hornby’s one book but that wasn’t typical lmao

THAT SAID, well your discourse people point is pretty much part of it but since I’m here and I can rant have the entire thing I was too tired to hash yesterday ;) so, in order:

first thing, we need to establish that ya books and **adult** books generally have different target audiences which is fine and good because obviously if you want to write a thing you’ll do that for An Audience That You Have In Mind; this doesn’t mean that adults can’t read ya or that teenagers can’t read **adult books** because everyone can read what they want (and personally for one I never cared for ya in my entire life not even when I was the target audience), but it simply means that some books are meant to be liked by one category first and eventual others later and they need to be talked about in that specific context first and everything else later - then there might be books that are aimed for kids/young readers or sold like that or that can be read on more than one level which can be appreciated for different things later in time (for example I read huck finn at sixteen and I absolutely loved it but it was a book that here is seen as good reading material also for eight year olds, and at eight I wouldn’t have liked it for the reasons I did at sixteen, and if I read it now I would still like it, while a bunch of the books for kids I read when I was seven is stuff I enjoyed then but forgot now and probably was good for that age but didn’t stick with me);

second thing, that means that when I discuss a young adult book aimed at teenagers I will never hold it to the standards I would hold a book aimed at a general adult audience, especially if it’s the kind of ya like dunno as stated the vampire diaries aimed at teenage girls which is obviously the kind where you have the fantasy world with the hot dark guy who swoons the high schooler protagonist off her feet etc because that stuff is basic teenage girl fantasy 101 and like... I’ll expect a bunch of romance tropes, the usual push and pull, the guy eventually being into her, the protagonist being someone a fourteen year-old can see herself in, probably a few sexual elements thrown here and there and so on, because that’s the shit marketed at fourteen year-olds who want to read that and like... it’s really not that deep. I can’t ask the vampire diaries to be moby dick because it’s not meant to be. or, if I read percy j/ackson - which is another thing I have zero interest in but I know about because I see tweets from the author - I expect to have a bunch of teens coming into their own coming from different backgrounds because the author wants to represent properly a lot of categories so most of his readers can have someone they can see themselves in and like if a thirteen year-old who suspects being lgbt or whatever sees themselves in the gay kid from per/cy jackson guess what that’s what that book is for, so I won’t judge it on like... being a faithful representation of greek myths or how good the style is or whatever, because even if to me it’s not top notch writing or has a plot idc about it has to be for teenagers and pre-teens, not for me, a thirty year old who again didn’t even like pre-teen aimed literature when she was a pre-teen;

third, I can extra clarify it using the damned hp discourse, as in: when I say I’m tired of people not reading anything else or reading everything like hp, it means that they read it when they were growing up/were teens and it was aimed at them which is fine, but then twenty fucking years later when the people in question are way beyond their twenties (guys I’m almost 32 and I remember when the first one came out come on) when talking about any single piece of media in existence (movies, comics, other books) use hp characters/situations as the terms of paragon - like guys I had to read sn/ape comparisons with theon and ky/lo ren on the basis that THEY’RE GREY CHARACTERS as if sn/ape is the only grey character that ever existed, people keep on talking about vold/emort as the only bad guy that ever existed and so on, and like... you can’t talk about, idk, asoiaf or any book aimed at an adult audience like you’d talk about hp, because at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if I read comparisons between sn/ape and ivan karamazov and I think I don’t need to specify how completely nonsensical that would be;

now, with all of this explained, what I mean is: ya in general - which is not a fault per se of the genre since it’s aimed at teens and pre-teens - tends to have... very fixed narrative schemes depending on which teens it’s addressing - like, stuff like tvd or twilight is obviously the romance teenage girl fantasy where you have the girl fighting to be with the dark beautiful supernatural creature in question, per/cy jackson is more like I’ll give you a bunch of relatable characters having cool adventures against bad guys with the occasional redemption so we can see that people are redeemable but you still have right vs wrong, hp is sort of like that in the sense you get relatable-ish protagonist with relatable friends growing up throughout the entire thing and fighting on the good side vs the evil side including the usual death of the mentor plus people who seemed bad actually not being bad™ except that PJ has more povs and better rep from what I gather but that’s not the point so it’s basically the growing up journey for the young protagonist(s) the kid sees themselves in, then there’s stuff like hunger games where you actually have the dystopian worldbuilding just written to be enjoyable by younger people who don’t want to get too depressed (and ngl I haven’t read the books but I’ve seen the first two movies and guys the way everyone ignores the classist commentary in thg to discuss the love triangle is... a staple of the problem tbh) but still try to introduce deeper themes and have more nuanced characters and at the same time are still written to be enjoyed maybe by the more adult side of the target, and at the same time I can’t say that thg is the same as 1984 when it comes to target audience because 1984 doesn’t make the ugly dystopian themes more accessible using the love story/teenage protagonist etc;

at this point the problem is: if you only ever read ya and nothing else in your life (which is what a lot of people here do - guys again when I got here in 2011 if people didn’t discuss hp they discussed john gr/een, the only *adult*-aimed book I see discussed on tumblr is asoiaf... because of got X°DDD) then you end up seeing every other piece of literature expecting what you do out of a young adult and then you expect adult literature out of young adults/ya to approach certain implications the way an adult novel would, which is... frankly ridiculous;

specific examples: I see blogs which are principally about like ya fantasy books ie acotar or shadow/hunters or whatever shitting on grrm because AAAAH HE’S PROBLEMATIC/MISOGYNIST/HE HAS VIOLENCE AND RAPE IN THE BOOKS BLAH BLAH and like... spoilers: if I wrote a fantasy series aimed at fourteen year-olds who want their fantasy romance with the hot dark guy who is maybe a tiny bit problematic but turns their leaf for them I would hold back on blood and violence, if I wrote a fantasy for adults where I want to be realistic about misogyny I will not, and the fact that grrm gets judged on what happens and not how he writes it (and again, saying that a guy who has 1/3rd of his pov characters female except that it’s actually 50/50 because there are no throwaway povs except for mel while guys have a lot more of them and all the female povs have narrative weight [and mel has it before she gets one] and all of them have a different personality and he also has the same trope [brienne and arya] in two people with wildly different personalities and needs which is basically a goddamned miracle is a misogynist because there’s misogyny in his fantasy world is ridiculous imvho) which is.... exactly expecting of asoiaf what you’d expect out of acotar, when grrm and acotar’s writer write for wildly different audiences. now, if I had read acotar at 15 and asoiaf at 15 I’d have had no doubt re asoiaf being more my thing because again the subgenre acotar goes for is not my thing because I never related to that fantasy while brienne is my rep, but in general a 14yo girl who likes the acotar-like stuff will not care for grrm.... which is normal because grrm writes for adults of both genders, not teenage girls (I mean teenage boys also have their own subgenres for which the same rules are valid), and someone who likes percy jackson (aimed at both genders but like... pre-teens early teens) who doesn’t gaf for grrm won’t because it’s not aimed at them unless they like grrm for other reasons ie idk they realize that they relate to jon snow idk but you see my point, so like tldr that’s what I mean with if you only read ya you’ll expect adult writers to handle their themes like ya writers would and like... sorry but if I write stuff for adults I won’t feel the need to specify that the bad guy is B A D with neon lights because an adult should grasp that from the narrative, I don’t need to make sure it’s obvious bc it’s aimed at kids;

reverse: when I see people saying ‘the vampire diaries is problematic because it’s about people who are a hundred years old preying on teenage girls so we need to stop teenage girls from reading that kind of thing because it makes them think it’s okay to go with someone that much older than them’, we’re at the opposite problem in the sense that you’re asking a young adult novel what you would ask of AN ADULT NOVEL when there’s no point in it. like, a teenage girl knows perfectly that damon salvatore doesn’t exist and vampires don’t exist and werewolves don’t exist - the entire point of tvd is that she gets to fawn over the hot supernatural dude who changes for the better thanks to the female protagonist she most likely sees herself in and she gets to have a few nice fantasies about that which is like... normal for people who are developing their sexualities, most people wouldn’t actually want damon salvatore the way he’s exactly in canon irl because they know it’s a fantasy and so it should stay. like, sorry but as someone who watched the show because ian somerhalder is hot in her twenties and tried the first book and gave it up at page 30 because I couldn’t do it, I can 100% assure anyone that the biggest issues with tvd books are that the writing is really fucking bad (for my standards at least), with the tvd show that from S4 the writing spiraled downwards and no one wanted the magical vampire pregnancy witch twins ridiculousness, but none of the content actually was shit that anyone would take seriously like that and I wouldn’t expect tvd to approach that subject realistically. if I read a vampire book aimed at adults who actually wants to write such a relationship as creepy WELL YES OF COURSE I’D EXPECT IT TO BE OBVIOUS ABOUT IT BEING CREEPY, but if it’s aimed at freaking teenagers... it’s a fantasy and not really that deep, take it for what it is and let teenage girls enjoy thinking about smooching damon salvatore (or stefan or whoever) without assuming they need to be protected from Horrible Vampire Fiction™, same as no one goes bitching about unrealistic sex scenes in serialized romance books because people read them because they’re unrealistic and escapism, not because they expect nobel prize worthy exploration of themes from them;

now, ^^^^^^ would not happen if people actually read variedly and studied some decent lit analysis in school - but like, after I had to read I think at some point that of mice and men is ableist... THAT’S the damned point - with ya you can take a lot of the plot at face value, with adult lit you can’t and you have to see motivation beyond the action of the characters and you can’t do that if you only read books aimed at pre-teens/teenagers where obviously that’s... more spelled out than it would be in a book aimed at an adult audience;

that by the way also means wildly missing actual adult themes discussion in ya, because again, I haven’t read thg but from the two movies I’ve seen it’s fucking obvious that the whole thing is an anti us-classism commentary from how the districts are built to how the games are rigged to pretty much everything in the worldbuilding, but all the discourse I see on tumblr is about either the love triangle or katniss being miscast or president snow being a jerk and whatever else, but I never once saw anyone saying ‘heeeeey the people in katniss’ district are an in your face metaphor of poor people in the us of a belonging to certain categories while the first few districts are absolutely the 1% and the entire point of it is that she wants to tell you A CLASSIST SOCIETY IS BAD AND WILL LEAD TO REVOLUTIONS’, which to me was... like, glaring, it was literally what 90% of the entire thing was about and no one ever discusses it in a fandom-wide sense (I mean... I saw a bunch of hg posts back when the movies came out, I never saw this brought out), which... is a problem because it means that the moment people are put in front of a ya product that actually tackles that kind of issue.... they go and worry about the love triangle (which seemed to me the excuse to draw the people in the story) not about the social commentary, and like, maybe a twelve year-old won’t catch on the social commentary, a twenty-year old especially from the us should, and I don’t see that happening;

and sorry but that is because if you only engage with content aimed at a younger audience than your target first you assume that every piece of literature should be consumable/readable/enjoyable by a younger audience (and sorry but no, some of us don’t want to write stuff making sure teenagers like it) and then ask of actual ya media to cater to their *adult* needs and not to the needs of the target audience because wow obviously if you’re 25 you won’t want out of literature what you wanted at fourteen;

and this also is valid for children’s media because again, I’m cutting it short, but adults watching st/even universe and sending people death threats because they don’t agree with their opinion of a cartoon aimed at an audience that’s at moooostttt eight years old is a thing that shouldn’t even fucking exist, and if you think steven/universe is that important at an adult age you need to re-assess your priorities;

tldr: adults should not expect media aimed at kids/teens to cater to their interests and shouldn’t analyze it the way they’d analyze a piece of media aimed at an adult audience and should not presume that every piece of media should have the scope/schemes of medias aimed at kids/teens because some of us don’t want to read that.

now, I’ll leave you with a nice short anecdote which hopefully will further clarify what I mean and add to another point which would be, kids and teens don’t give a fuck about what you, an adult, do: when everyone was in a frenzy about my little pony back in 2013 or so I had to see a ton of posts like ‘AAAAAH MEN/BOYS WHO ARE INTO MLP ARE STEALING THE SHOW FROM YOUNG GIRLS HOW DARE THEY ENJOY IT WE NEED TO KICK THEM OUT’ with added people saying that a ten year old male kid who tried to kill himself bc his friends bullied him bc he liked mlp deserved it and the likes, my only thought was that... when I was 8-10 in elementary school and was actually the target for cartoons and stuff, sailor moon was the rage between all girls my age me included, we’d spend recess playing pretend (and I’d get stuck playing sailor mars bc no one wanted her, sad) and our hugest first world problem in existence was that we needed technically a mamoru and of course no self-respecting boy in elementary school would have admitted under death threats to watching sailor moon because it was a girls’ thing (aaaaah gender roles in the early-mid 90s, how fun) so everyone despaired because ofc no one wanted to play mamoru... and the few times any guy actually showed up like HEEEEY I WANNA DO IT BUT PLEASE DON’T TELL MY FRIENDS I LIKE SAILOR MOON we’d all be like OMG YOU’RE OUR NEW FAVORITE PERSON PLEASE YOUR SECRET IS SAFE because we couldn’t believe we found the magical boy™ who wanted to do it, and if anyone had told us that the kid in question was stealing sailor moon from us we’d have laughed in their face.

like.

kids don’t ask of media what you, an adult do, and it’s unfair of you, an adult, to ask children’s/ya media to cater to your damned interests, which are amply catered to by the tons of adult literature around which also forces you to push on your views and read more challenging things and to not read/watch stuff at face value, which is why I would really appreciate it if the amount of 20yo people on here who I consider adults engaged with more adult media and let themselves be challenged instead of just going back to ya/kids’ things, which are good for teens and kids and can be enjoyed by everyone but should not be the only goddamned genre you measure all other literature against because then you get people saying that lolita is pro-pedo when it’s exactly the goddamned contrary, but if you think that pov character = protagonist = good guy (which is... staple kids/ya stuff for obvious reasons) then you decide that humbert humbert is someone you’re supposed to root for. too bad that you’re not and the author was an actual csa victim so it’s a completely ridiculous reading that wouldn’t happen if you didn’t read lolita the way you read hp.

... okay, I’m done, sorry for how long this was, I hope it cleared things for good xD

#literature for ts #janie rants #idek #Anonymous #ask post #suicide attempt cw

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littlebabycrybtch · 4 years

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tbh im tired of fuckin’ around with this topic. its simple, if you dont give a shit about fighting ableism and specifically wont put in the effort of listening to mentally disabled people with some basic respect and sympathy when we call you out no matter What in the goddamn fuck we are saying or how impactful You personally think it is bc your opinions come from an outside perspective, if you wont recognize able minded ppl have privilege and that you are part of a group with a ridiculous amount of power over us and in fact a history of VIOLENTLY ABUSIVE AND MURDEROUS OPPRESSION towards us, if you wont accept that the Inherent ignorance you have Ingrained by that privilege could be causing you to perpetuate behaviors that harm us without Realizing it because you and the rest of society are abled centric and benefit off of our oppression and this is deeply saturated within every system imaginable, if you wont sit the fuck down and Consider hearing our voices and caring about the suffering you have been causing us, enough to just Think about how you could try to unwork it in really simple ways, bc thats the LEAST you could be doing for us, then you are not an activist lmfao. you absolutely Cannot be a disability ally of Any kind, and you frankly dont even get to be a decent person. in my eyes when you desperately try to turn a ‘this is ableist!’ topic into a mock opportunity no matter how ~irrational~ it seems to you, you’re a whiny privileged piece of shit thats Seeking out reasons to belittle us so you can gloss over your responsibility, and blatantly parroting ‘i hate sjws theyre so wild for wanting me to respect minorities lol cringe’ rhetoric, and you prob would have gladly ignored forceful institutionalization if we were born 100 years earlier because idk apparently accommodating ppl like me inconveniences you enough to ignore me and laugh at the concept of my struggles now.

i really could not feel any more apathetic than when i hear one of you ppl say you think you’re being called ableist over something stupid. lmao a young disabled person is telling you that your language hurt them on tumblr dot com, which you can apparently even ignore and mock without social consequences, how terrible. we have a body count. we have people who spent their entire fucking lives in miserable abusive hospitals and care homes that let their spirits rot there because they were useless to them. we have forceful sterilization, we have disabled children left for dead, abused or murdered because parents were also ingrained with this ignorance and thought we’d be ‘better off’. and this still happens! so i couldnt care less about your annoyances and your mild discomforts and inconveniences, or how hard it is for you to interact with us and use some tact, frankly it makes me wanna laugh in ur spoiled bratty faces. bc you really dont get your privilege, and really dont get what weve gone through, and Still go through, when your worst complaint is being annoyed. when special interests and stimming and unworking ignorance is the struggle that you present us with. when you try to pass off ‘cringe’ as a real plight of any kind. Lmfao.

dont add some whiny fucking offended comment here, dont rb with screenshots of ‘ridiculous’ autism cringe mock fodder argument points you’ve seen to try and make some kind of ‘’’’’point’’’’ (the only point being that you’re ugly af inside and are attempting to demonize a minority as an excuse to get out of respecting them), shut the fuck Up and stop being such a baby abt ableism. you can handle hearing that you fucked up even when you (privileged majority) dont Think you have, and if you still wanna disagree the literal bottom of the fuckin’ barrel >LEAST< you can do is respond RESPECTFULLY about it. stop complaining and just rb this and think about how inhumane it is to look at how disabled people have been treated historically and then ignore us now when we Kindly try to educate you. stop perpetuating this evil ass behavior for the love of God, have some standards, normalize respecting mentally disabled people in topics of ableism even when you dont want to.

#ableism/ //// /// /#long post//// ///

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Thinking about dc fandom always shitting on Dick's fashion sense and something else came up. My mutuals have turned into kpop fans, they keep posting these highly fashionable dudes' hq pics, they wear skirts, lace, ruffles, feather, glitter, all the colors.. They look good most of the times, they're not afraid to wear furry slippers or pigtails or prints, it's not what I'm used to seeing in white dominant industry. I bet Dick's fashion choices are like that n not what tasteless fanarts show.

I mean, I get what you’re saying, and I do agree in part, but also….that’s still not quite the entire issue for me.

Like…its basically just annoying the things people come up with to try and ‘bash’ him while still claiming to like the character, because honestly I believe that’s all it is. Just looking for excuses to make fun of him, and its so juvenile and pointless. There’s literally no basis for thinking Dick makes poor fashion choices in canon except for his costumes, he’s literally been a model, a socialite, a spy, and he’s routinely cited as being considered in-universe one of the most attractive people in both his civilian and superhero personas.

Like…people don’t generally fixate on the attractiveness of people whose clothes they’re busy mocking, you know?? LOL. It just makes no sense! When super hot people wear super weird clothes…..the comments are still usually about how they’re super hot, lmao. Look at like…things like the Met Gala. THAT’S the kind of ‘out there’ it takes for people to weigh in on celebrities wearing outfits that people find ridiculous despite their celeb status and attractiveness….

So, unless we’re pretending that Dick Grayson habitually wanders around wearing the equivalent of a celeb costume for the Met Gala ball in his civilian outfits…..nobody is focusing on his bad fashion sense when he’s just Dick Grayson, ergo….there is zero basis for saying when Dick Grayson is being Dick Grayson, he has no idea how to dress himself, or look good. In that respect, its that simple, y’know?

Because the other thing is (and this is mostly where I disagree with you in execution, even though I get the spirit of your ask - like, I agree his fashion choices when he IS trying to stand out might be more eccentric than most people would usually go with, but he’d look damn good regardless) but I just mean….in his civilian persona, Dick never even really WANTS to be noticed, most of the time! He DOESN’T try and aim for the spotlight when he doesn’t have to be the center of attention like at some gala he’s forced to attend. He LIKES to blend in, go unnoticed….this is a guy who is fiercely fixated on being his own man, and KNOWN as his own man, noted for HIS accomplishments, HIS identity….not being seen as Bruce Wayne’s son first and foremost, or the Wayne Heir before all else….he just wants to be Dick Grayson. He’s never really liked the attention that comes with being a public figure due to being Bruce’s ward or son, at any point.

So its like…what about that suggests that he’s someone who either consciously or unknowingly goes around attracting attention with outfits that make him a public spectacle? He’s not some oblivious, air-headed ditz, he’s extremely aware of his surroundings at all times, lol.

Not a single thing about the fashion disaster fanon overall makes any sense, under any degree of scrutiny, unless you’re just committed to….making a mockery of him.

And the only thing it can be traced back to, the ONLY thing….are his costumes and his mullet.

Let’s tackle the mullet first - guys, its an anachronistic hairstyle. Its something he only had DECADES ago, in a time period when people actually wore their hair like that in the US. Get over it. EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER has similar periods in their history, lol. And yet, its only him that’s singled out as being so unfashionable he was wearing a mullet in fics set only five years ago, whereas everyone else’s hairstyles of a different era are left in that era. C’mon. Its transparent.

Which brings us back to his costumes. The pixie boots, the leotard, the Discowing with its bright blue and gold and scooped neck and high collar….

Now THOSE are unfashionable, fandom says.

Well see the problem with that, fandom….is by every canon out there…

DICK DIDN’T DESIGN THOSE OUTFITS TO FIT FASHION STANDARDS.

He wasn’t TRYING to win the good taste award and approval of the society he was in instead of his circus home, not by his own choice, and which frequently sneered down at him and tried to make him feel lesser. And the classism some of us are referring to when we mention this….is the assumption that his motivations are irrelevant, its only the approval and standards of ‘mainstream society’ that matters in whether or not his costumes are deemed ridiculous or not.

Except…..Dick’s costumes were designed not for fashion, but for SENTIMENTALITY.

They were meant to be reminders of where he came from. A way for him to hold on to his roots. For his circus past, his parents, his origins to be represented in his superheroics every bit as much as the skills he learned from Bruce and others.

It was his way of saying he at least had never forgotten where he came from and he never would, BECAUSE HE’S PROUD OF IT.

Shockingly, he’s PROUD of being a superhero who came from the circus….which is literally the only reason he was ABLE to become a child hero in the first place, because that’s where he attained his acrobatic skills that gave him enough of an advantage despite his age, that he could actually MAKE it as a superhero and vigilante.

The entire Robin legacy that’s at the center of so much of fandom’s conflicts and preferences….

IS BORN OF THE CIRCUS. THAT HE WANTED TO WEAR REMINDERS OF. TO BE COMFORTED BY VESTIGES OF HIS CHILDHOOD. MEMORABILIA THAT HONORED HIS FIRST FAMILY.

Robin doesn’t EXIST without the circus.

And frankly, as much as people dismiss this as being not that big of a deal, I find it gross, same as I do the jokes about his name.

Because this is a fandom that is COMMITTED to defending the sentimentality and origins of their various fave members of this iconic found family.

Upholding where each of them came from as being just as iconic and important as where they ended up, as members of the Batfamily….

Except for Dick. Except for his circus roots. His costumes, honoring his roots. His childhood nickname, holding onto that last connection to his parents.

Only Dick isn’t allowed to have his sentimentality, without being made an object of mockery and silly, childish jokes. Because the circus is just funny, its not meant to be taken seriously, even as the object of an orphan’s deep and profound loss. Because his name is another word for penis, that’s all that matters, not that its one of the only mementos of his parents he actually managed to hold on to, that nobody could ever MAKE him give up or lose.

And that’s so….frustrating, irritating, and just….sad, y’know?

Because its not about the jokes. Its about the hypocrisy. Of trying to find deep meaning and introspection in the childhoods and origins of every single other member of this family except for the first one to actually MAKE it a family….because in his origins and childhoods, most people can’t be bothered to find anything but jokes.

Its all connected. Of course so many people have trouble acknowledging Dick’s traumas, his agency, his boundaries…..when they’re still unable or unwilling to get past the point of acknowledging his origins as a REAL place that REALLY mattered to him, just as much as the origins and roots of every single other member of this family.

When you treat where someone came from as a joke, a joke is all they’re ever going to be to you. Because shockingly….where we all come from, is kinda integral to who we are as people - whether real OR fictional.

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incomprehensiblelentils · 4 years

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I did not get around to this yesterday but, a short selection of fictional things that meant a lot to me over the last decade! ...it is going under a cut bc it is Too Long sorry lmao.

Books

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: this book came out in September 2017 and I have read it four times already. It’s the kind of book I want to write but I’m not sure I’m clever enough to: every event and every character is so purposeful and you won’t catch everything the first time through. Every time I reread it I find something new to marvel at. I hope the Hulu series is half as good

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: this was the first piece of fiction I ever found with a family with a Chinese father and a white mother. This family is a lot less functional than my family, but I've read this three times because that means the world to me.

Ash by Malinda Lo: I discovered this in 2011 and it was the first f/f novel I ever read, and as I would later learn, one of a handful with a happy ending at the time, particularly in YA fiction. For a long time, I reread it every time I felt hopeless. I just reread it again last month and it is still as beautiful and meaningful to me as in 2011.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan: This is an Asian-inspired fantasy (becoming more common now, but still irritatingly rare) written by a queer Asian woman, with f/f. I think it is only the second one of these, after Ash? It is frustratingly rare, anyway. The worldbuilding is incredible also.

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan: We are getting more stories about biracial Asians, but they are still pretty rare and I treasure every one. This one felt so real to me.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth: The first half of this book captures so beautifully what it’s like growing up queer in a religious environment when you don’t even have the words or self-awareness to know what you’re feeling. This was another one I read over and over again when I was feeling low.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater: this is just a book for horse girls. I don’t know how else to describe this lol. I also feel like the romance is super downplayed until the very end, and honestly barely feels like a romance to me, so that’s refreshing!

Movies:

Pacific Rim (2013): I remember having this weird feeling when asked to give my top 3 movies once in high school, like maybe my favorite movie hadn’t come out yet so I couldn’t answer properly. I was right; this is the movie I was waiting for. This is my favorite movie. The feelings this movie gives me is the standard I hold all movies to.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019): but Megan, didn’t this just come out? Yes, and it’s my other favorite movie now. I love (almost) every second of this movie. This movie made me feel a way that I thought maybe I might never feel again, after a certain other franchise movie this year took a dump on my heart. I don’t care that we’re never getting a sequel, we got this and that’s enough for me.

Thor (2011): Those of you who have been around awhile know that I really love this movie. I loved it before we all jumped on the Thor train after Ragnarok and I will continue to love it probably my whole life. It just makes me happy.

Aquaman (2018): This is Thor but underwater and with a biracial hero. It made me cry in the theater and I do not want to hear any negative opinions about it, I find them personally wounding.

Belle (2013): The fact that Gugu Mbatha-Raw isn’t a superstar is tragic, and this movie is gorgeous and lovely and made me feel a lot of things as a biracial person.

Mad Max Fury Road (2015): I remember seeing the trailer for this in the theater and going “yikes that looks like a thing I would never watch.” Joke’s on you, past me!!!! I find this a deeply stressful but glorious film that I can only watch like, once or twice a year.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010): I do not need or want to hear about how this movie is Problematic, I know all of its issues, and yet. It brings me joy and it was one of the first movies I saw when I was just starting to break out of my religious upbringing and I laugh until I cry every time I watch it.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015): I am starting to realize that I am not and never really was a Star Wars Fan, which is to say that like...I love this movie specifically, I love the characters, I love the interactions, I love the stuff that happens. I do not so much love Star Wars as a whole? I like it fine! But this movie is the only part of the franchise to really make me go “oh, I get it.”

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017): This was a weird little movie that nobody saw and nobody talked about, but I adore it because it’s so gentle and romantic. I don’t know how accurate it is to history and frankly I do not really care.

Big Hero 6 (2014): are you tired of me mentioning I’m biracial yet? This movie has biracial protagonists and a cute squishy robot and no romance and superhero stuff and I love it so much.

F8: The Fate of the Furious (2017): I went to go see this on a whim with my wife and it was one of the most joyous theater experiences of my life. I don’t know, I just love everything about it.

TV shows:

Community: This only kind of counts because it started in 2009 but I started it mid-s2 so eh. Seasons 1-3 of this show are written on my heart, I can quote a ridiculous amount of dialogue from them and these characters will stay with me forever. Warts and all, this is my show.

Dollhouse: Another technicality but like, I met my wife because we both loved Bennett Halverson so I gotta put this on here. It’s pretty significantly affected my life! Also I find that it holds up fairly well, if you’re down for the admittedly iffy premise and an ending that’s a bit of a mess narratively due to sudden cancellation.

Agents of SHIELD: I would never claim that this show is “good” but I do think that it has mostly figured out what the hell it’s doing. And it has been a pretty significant part of my fandom life for the last 6 years, so to leave it off this list would feel wrong. It gave me Daisy Johnson, first canon biracial superhero as played by a biracial actor, and for that i will always be grateful.

Warehouse 13: I could not tell you why I fell so deeply in love with this dumb, badly written show that shit the bed in the final episode more spectacularly than I could have imagined, and yet I did! I think probably it is because I love found family so much, and also I find goofy camp charming more often than not. And of course, there is Bering and Wells, the femslash ship that fandom forgot. I will never be over how no one knows what we have suffered!!!!!

Runaways: wow was this a surprise! The Runaways comic is my favorite comic besides Marjorie Liu’s X-23 run, and this show has basically nothing to do with it, and normally that would piss me off but they got my kids’ personalities down so well and all of the actors are so perfect that I really can’t complain. And also, this show has canon f/f and neither of them die at the end! Which is...better than some other shows I could mention!

Doctor Who series 1 and 5: I had a very intense Doctor Who phase in college, and after all was said and done and I quit the show for a time, I realized that although I love a lot of the characters, and Thirteen’s run is pretty good so far, what I really loved was Nine’s run and Eleven’s first season. That is the show at its best to me. Eccleston is my Doctor and Amy is my favorite companion.

Legends of Tomorrow: Look, I am as shocked as anyone that this, the scrappy underdog of the DCTV lineup, is the one that’s most emotionally competent and has the best character arcs! But here we are. Season 4 was some of my favorite TV I’ve seen, uh, ever.

Albums

Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae: I listened to this for basically a year straight after it came out. It’s just ridiculously good.

Something Fierce by Marian Call: This was my on-repeat album in college. i drew a lot of strength from it, and I think that it’s still the best album to recommend to people who ask me about her.

Standing Stones by Marian Call: I heard most of these songs live at concerts before they were quite done yet, so it was really special to get to hear them all collected together like this. I’m going to get a tattoo with a lyric from one of these songs because no one’s quite been able to put my basic philosophy into words quite like Marian.

Heartthrob by Tegan and Sara: Hot Take, I know, because a lot of people hate this album, but it was so affirming to go out and buy A Lesbian Album from A Lesbian Band in 2013.

The Rent movie soundtrack: I know, I KNOW, but in my defense, my parents got me this for my birthday my first year of college and I needed it so desperately. I can definitely still do “La Vie Boheme” from the beginning and probably most of the other songs too.

In the Heights OBCR: I can only listen to this when I want to cry, but it’s my favorite musical. I got to see the show in 2018 and it was incredible. I think it’s better than Hamilton and I can’t wait for the movie to come out.

Trouble by Natalia Kills: this album is really great and also it says fuck a lot, which I used to be very nervous about hearing or saying, and this helped immensely!

#me

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a-manes · 5 years

Note

Opinion on m&m? Mine personally is that they should remain friends after this hook up since it’s been established that Michael and Alex have a cosmic like romance, she would end up hurt otherwise

my genuine and honest opinion on michael/maria is sort of all over the place WHICH IS WHY THIS POST IS SO LONG IM SORRY, but essentially it’s this:

out of context of what is happening in the show, i think the actors have a really nice chemistry, look hot together and i would watch them make out for 5 hours straight just out of standard human interest

i think the relationship between michael and maria is also fun - they’ve got the banter, she does not need him and he’s really more of an inconvenience to her half the time, but she likes him and he likes her. like, it’s a good and interesting base point for a ship, so i’m into that aspect of it

like, if you took them out of roswell and stuck them in a show together with this exact relationship i’d be out here like WHAT IF U GOT MARRIED

WHAT IF U STARTED OUT CASUAL BUT THEN ACCIDENTALLY FELL IN LOVE AND GOT MARRIED

you know?

like, out of context i’m so so so into it lmao

AND THE LONGER MALEX WENT WITHOUT SCENES, THE HARDER IT WAS TO REMEMBER THE CONTEXT ngl absence made the heart grow m/m-shippery

which uh…. brings me to:

within the context of the show (or: taking into account the ‘alex’ of it all) - alex being one of maria’s best friends and michael and alex honestly having this frankly insane love story

they fell in love ten years ago without really even knowing each other and then didn’t stop loving each other for that whole time

which could be… honestly, imo, the basis for the ship you know you’re supposed to like but aren’t really into - but it’s saved, i think, by a few things: namely the actors’ chemistry and just how likeable both alex and michael are individually and how shitty their lives are and how much you genuinely want them to be happy

plus, they’re really good at looking desperately in love with each other

like, i felt that

and i think… my need for alex manes to be happy supercedes my enjoyment of michael/maria and also i think the way they’ve told michael/alex’s story so far also supercedes my enjoyment of the potential of michael/maria

like.... if m/m got together for realsies, i think my sadness on behalf of alex would dull my happiness at getting to watch michael and maria fall in love? whereas maria ain’t into it like that yet so for her to have a casual hook up and then move on is fine, bc she’s not getting hurt

and maria deluca deserves only nice things and good romance and happiness and hot sex

and so i love how they played it in the last episode, because i think… again, the chemistry between michael and maria is there, so the boning was inevitable imo. i like that the context was very clear cut: this happened but it’s nothing more to either of them

alex officially drew a line under his and michael’s relationship and michael’s response to this was literally to act like something of a fucking lunatic

or like a precocious 5 year old boy who you can’t put around adults because he just starts acting up lmao

literally aggressively hitting on maria for funsies bc #wildcard #nihilsmrules

and maria is going through such shit with her mother - she had this hope in her heart and it was crushed

and as liz says, maria deluca saves herself - she forces them all to try and have a good night

and they’re both drunk and high and lost in a desert

and then michael kisses her to shut her up lolol - and she’s like hm hell yes this is a good idea and they bang in the desert and probably get a shit load of sand in their naughty parts

and then maria wakes up in the morning and her literal reaction is a headdesk lmaooooo

and they’re both pretty chill about it, because as i say, the feelings really didn’t run deeper than being drunk and sort of miserable and blowing off some steam

and i love that for them and i think it’s super important that they get to keep interacting and become friends and genuinely care about one another, bc their interactions and relationship are wonderful

but also…. alex is out here shutting down government operations and changing his whole fucking life because he’s so stupidly in love with michael

michael and alex would fuckin die for each other yk

michael calling them ‘cosmic’ all casually and without a trace of irony and alex literally finding out that michael and maria banged, having that ready excuse to walk away again and saying fuck it and just

staying and expressing his genuine feelings instead

and they both… care so deeply for one another. they respect each other. their love story is insane. plus there’s something weirdly compelling about this idea that these two people feel this way about one another without actually knowing each other

and realising that and wanting to take the time to get to know one another as people

i kind of love that

i mean, it’s fucking ridiculous, but i love it

their romance is so epic and the performances make it genuinely believable (which i do think is so hard to pull off considering) (it would be very easy to make them a lot less enjoyable imo) and the characters being wonderful make it something you want to root for imo, so like

as much as i would happily read 100 au’s about maria and michael falling in love, in terms of the show my heart really still lies with malex

this doesn’t mean i don’t want 50 gifsets of them making out though, just to make that clear

i’m a lesbian but when he took his cowboy hat off even i was a bit like ….ok????? yes???

like fuck get it maria

he’s still punching above his weight tho i said what i said

if episode 10 isn’t literally just an episode filled with malex though i’m suing xoxo

#answering anons #malex #maria x michael #long post #Anonymous

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jasper-rolls · 7 years

Text

i talked about this a bit on twitter but i wanna elucidate on it here so here’s another fucking post about the fucking dream daddy shit because i cant stop myself from being annoyed by the back and forth and misrepresentation and vague posts trying to act like they’re just talking in general when its very obviously about this

strap in cause this is gonna be a long one

there are three points i want to make

1) criticism of media is important and needed, particularly in the realm of discussing representation and creator intent, since its overall purpose is to further discussion and foster overall improvement in future. criticism of a work isn’t always an attack on the people who like it

i mean, we’ve all been there. it sucks to read when someone’s talking down something you like a lot, especially if its something that’s very meaningful to you. it happens to me too - i can’t count the number of times i’ve read an article or essay ripping apart something i love and found it very difficult to disengage my personal feelings from it.

but unless the person making the criticism is specifically going out of their way to say “and all the people who LIKE this thing are fucking gibbering idiots who wouldn’t know good quality if it punched them in the face”, then the criticism isn’t an attack on you personally, and you have to find the place to disengage that emotional attachment and at least tolerate the criticism of the work. you may accept and agree with it or not, but understand that the critic is (probably) not directly attacking you

and raising potential problems on the representation side of the work is important, because it highlights potential problems for people interested in it that they might not have been aware of before, like creator’s personal views influencing development of the work, or unfortunate implications of plot beats within the work

there’s definitely legitimate cause for concern in game grumps involvement with dream daddy. in my personal experience, the grumps aren’t particularly forward thinking in a lot of respects - arin and danny are quick to lapse into bottom of the barrel racist accent humor (particularly with asian characters), or “hey, isn’t being gay kind of weird” straight guy nonsense. the understanding they’ve showcased of lgbt concepts and issues leaves a lot to be desired (last i remember, arin still considered “cisgender” to be a slur despite being told what it actually means)

and every time this is brought up, i see fans saying “oh but they’re better now, they’ve learned!” and i have to say, i still watch them fairly regularly and...they really haven’t! the “progress” is minimal at best, its like watching someone push a boulder up a hill. they haven’t really changed all that much in the last few years to be frank. so the concern with them being involved with, and putting their name on, a game where the focus is on mlm (and has transgender characters) has definite grounding, given how they’ve acted before.

and the cult ending naturally has unfortunate implications - the idea that every character in the game is being tricked into being forever single, their misery being used to fuel some sort of demon...i mean, given how gay people have been treated throughout history and in media, at the very least it’s pretty regressive. you can’t fault someone for reading the transcript and feeling a little sick

the raising and highlighting of these things isn’t a personal attack. it’s overall, to help people make an informed decision, and be aware of the things that aren’t so great - that might be a dealbreaker, on a personal level. criticism is valuable, and useful, and we should recognize it as such

-----------------------------

2) on the opposite hand, EVERYTHING we read, watch, or play is guaranteed to have a problematic element of some sort, and nothing you ever enjoy is perfect. expecting something to conform to a 100% ideologically pure standard is unreasonable and ultimately a fool’s game

my personal favourite game of all time, ever, is killer7. it’s the game that bought suda51 to prominence in the west. it’s a weird blend of first-person shooter, rail shooter, and rpg. the story is outright bizarre, with disorienting visuals and surreal events like a lucha wrestler headbutting a bullet out of midair, a ghostly man wrapped in bdsm gear popping up to give you advice, and giggling zombies that explode on contact

its also got quite a share of shitty moments - a rape scene, the female characters leave a lot to be desired, its got a frankly weird interpretation of a lot of psychological disorders, and a good chunk of the game is dedicated to character development of a pedophile

suffice to say it probably wouldn’t be a big hit with a lot of people here. but does this stuff mean its completely reprehensible, and not worth spending any time with? i did just tell you it’s my favourite game so you can probably guess how i’m going to respond to that rhetorical question. this post is long enough without me spending several more paragraphs explaining to you why i think killer7 is worth giving a shot, so i’m going to skip to the point that this example is illustrating - the things we love, our favourite things, are probably just as, or maybe even more problematic than the things we don’t.

i’m not going to cite any further examples since i don’t know what you, the reader, personally enjoys or loves, but like...i guarantee you, its probably done something pretty shitty with its running time. i’m fairly confident i’ve never read or enjoyed something that didn’t at some point play into some shitty trope about lgbt people, or people of colour, or women - and if didn’t somehow, chances are it’s because it never showed them in the first place, because its focus is on straight, white, cis men, which is, naturally a problem of its own

if you’re willing to shrug off shitty opinions of creators of things you love, or bad tropes and plot elements in things you love, then why is it so different for the things you dislike? to write off dream daddy entirely, because of the involvement of game grumps, and the existence of one bad ending with shitty implications, and ignoring its more positive elements while praising the things you love that have more than likely done shitty stuff too is...frankly ridiculous

it perhaps may not seem like much to you, but dream daddy getting the kind of coverage and attention it has is...kind of a big deal as far as i’m concerned! games with narrative tend to be pretty hostile towards gay men*, so for a game that presents an overall sincere and positive representation of gay men to see this much attention and get to no. 1 seller on steam a significant step forward, i think. it’s not revolutionary, but personally, as a gay man, it means a lot to me, and i know a few other gay men who would feel the same, and that surely counts for something

and as far as killer7 goes, well...waypoint explains it better than i could, but i would just like to say: that pedophile character i mentioned? that part of the game ends with you beating him in a duel so hard, he falls over and gets eviscerated by a machine designed to cut out organs. so it’s not all bad.

-----------------------------

3) (this is the big one) this site has a big fucking problem with virtue signalling

perhaps its bad of me to assume something of people, but i’m going to go out on a limb and say at least one person immediately closed the tab the moment they read that line, and i wouldn’t blame them, because the problem with saying something like “virtue signalling” is that the alt-right and gamergaters have tried their absolute hardest to make that phrase essentially mean nothing by throwing it at anyone who shares a dissenting opinion of any kind. but despite their efforts, virtue signalling is a phrase that does actually have a meaning, and its the meaning i’m using here

i’m going to take a quick excerpt from hbomberguy’s video on the subject (it’s worth watching, it’s only 10 minutes long and pretty funny) - “The term was originally coined[...]to decry people who say, ‘I don’t like this thing very much’, in order to feel good about themselves, and then just, vote Labour every few years or whatever and take no stake in actually making things better.”

tumblr (or at least, the part of tumblr i engage with) does this, a LOT. it’s in the smug, one line “uhhhh, yikes, lmao 💅” rebuttals to arguments against the thesis of a given post. it’s in the strawman cartoons and chat posts that cast opponents of the OP as self-contradicting fools. it’s in the “so jot that down” responses, the “i’m side-eyeing everyone who isn’t reblogging this”, etc. etc. everyone has done this. you have probably engaged with this. i definitely have - at least one of my popular posts, if not more is, basically me, doing this thing! to be fair i had no intention those posts being popular, but then one never does, do they?

in the case of dream daddy, it’s “me: y’all:” image edits snarkily demonstrating how they’re SWERVING “that dad dating shit”, chat posts casting defenders points as “WHY CAN’T YOU JUST NEVER CRITICIZE ANYTHING EVER”, posts smugly announcing they’re going to pirate the game just to take money from arin hanson, as if that’s how game development works, and i think it’s what’s led to a huge amount of misrepresentation about this game in particular

i’ve seen people acting like the game grumps are like, directing and writing the game, when, as far as i’m aware, all they did was provide funding and voice acting. and the big thing that really got my goat, was someone describing the cult ending, and listing the implications i’ve already gone over myself, and then saying that this was the game’s true ending

this...literally could not be further from the truth. for starters, no-one has actually gotten this ending from playing through the game naturally. the reason? because you CAN’T. it was found through data-mining - it isn’t accessible through regular play. it’s either content that was cut from the game late in development, or, as the theory goes, intended to be a non-canonical or fake ending added in as halloween DLC come october (given the tone of the whole thing it sounds reasonable to me) which has, unfortunately, now been ruined due to this whole debacle

to do this kind of thing, to describe this as “the true ending” borders on being an out and out lie for the purpose of making dream daddy look way, way worse than it actually is. there’s no justice here, there’s no attempt to inform accurately. it’s “hey, check out how shitty this thing is! i’m good for disliking it, aren’t i? ignore the context, or the fact that i’m literally lying about what this is”

look, okay, i’m getting a little vitriolic - people can make mistakes, misunderstand things, it happens. everyone does it. me too. but this posing, this “look how good and cool i am, for not liking this thing”, it helps nothing at best and actively harms at worse. misrepresenting positions, context, and events for the purpose of satisfying the ego of whoever is making the statement - it helps no-one, except that person, in the most minor and meaningless of ways

i want to be clear - this final bit is just as much a memo for myself as it is for everyone reading this

be critical. don’t take things at face value. read into issues, understand context. get as close to the source of the issue at hand as you can, and determine the truth from there. resist the urge to be smug, detached, and dismiss those who disagree with your position - resist the urge to laugh at them, they may just not know. try and engage them in honest debate. if they resist that, if they don’t want to meet you on an equal footing you are within your rights to disengage.

be strong. support the things you love, and remember where the line is

we can all be better

*i’m not saying that other groups aren’t treated with hostility in games and gaming - trans women certainly get it really, really bad. just personally saying, in my experience as a gay man, the gaming community, and subsequently games with a focus on narrative themselves, have a sort of...special hatred of mlm. not necessarily worse, just...uniquely hostile

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