#it feels like the misogyny problem is getting only worse and worse | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

perseruna · 10 days

Note

heyyyy do you have any details/sources for the ca*ill being a jackass thing? ngl i watch twn for yen and jaskier so i was already planning on continuing to season 4 but i'd love some reasons to be actively excited for the actor switch. but i haven't kept up on the behind-the-scenes stuff so i'm kinda lost on that front if you're up for sharing any of what you know!

okay guys buckle up this is THE anti henry cavill megathread xoxo

First of all him dating a teenager as a 33 year old fully grown man literally gross and disgusting.

Also as this quote implies they started dating a year prior and only went public when she was 19 so they supposedly started dating when she was 18.

His entire dating history is a MESS. Sure the women he dated are not him, but he chose to date them, I wouldn't even associate myself with people like these let alone be in a relationship with them. He dated the infamous transphobic TERF Gina Carano, albeit before her loud controversy, but I doubt her harmful views were any different back then. His current gf has a history of doing black face.

His "Me Too" comments.

His comments on the Me Too movement are literally so vile. If you don’t want to be called a rapist, just don’t rape women, it’s literally as simple as that. They’re even more foul because they’re promoting the idea that women lie about their abusive for fame, promoting that harmful rhetoric especially in our times is incredibly dangerous.

Now onto his on set behavior.

We can't talk about his set behavior without mentioning the deuxmoi set leak. Here's the transcript of it:

[Transcript:

There’s something I really really wanted to read to you guys--it has to do with why Henry Cavill left The Witcher. I know that was something that you guys were super interested in when it happened, and I just recently got this message. Somebody was like “Hey, do you want to know what really went down?” And I was like “Sure!” So let me just read it. It says:

“At the beginning of the show, Henry was good to work with. A lot of difficult demands that made people feel like he wasn’t a team player, but that’s not unusual for a really big star. Though in TV it truly usually doesn’t happen until the second season. But in season two and three something shifted and he became really impossible for women to work with, which is always a big problem, but even worse here because the showrunner is a woman. He would try to overrule her and try to get changes made last minute across the board without her knowledge, which, if you know anything about showrunning, is completely fucked. The showrunner has to sign off on every miniscule detail down to the buttons on a costume. Female writers and directors were suddenly being completely ignored on set, unable to do their jobs. Every department head was complaining. He started making comments—it wasn’t a sexual thing, he wasn’t grabbing anyone or being lewd, but it was disrespectful and toxic all the same.

“He is deeply addicted to video games, to the point where it was like working with any other addict. He was distracted, he was late, he was obsessive, and a lot of people think the misogyny came from gamer world. Video game bro language is not how you talk to coworkers, and he wouldn’t stop. Someone on the show compared it to watching someone get brainwashed by QAnon, like his whole personality shifted. Eventually his disrespect escalated. He would rewrite scenes without even alerting the other actors in the scenes until it was time to shoot. He decided that he didn’t want any romantic scenes at all—no kissing scenes, no shirtless scenes, et cetera. He wanted complete control of storylines but really had no idea of the limitations of TV, structure, budget, et cetera. He formed a weird alliance with one writer who was also a gamer, who eventually got fired after multiple HR complaints were made and after that writer left, Henry did anything he could to hold up production and cause problems.

“Eventually top brass at Netflix was tired of him costing them money with delays and HR investigations and the showrunner was asked to construct a potential exit for him. Netflix reached out to him personally and he was given one final warning, and violated that warning with an email he sent to the entire writing staff right after that meeting. That was it. It’s very disappointing.”

End transcript.]

Now believe me or not, but I know from a really good source that the leak was indeed real.

There's a lot of patterned behavior that tracks with what we know of him and his past controversies.

After that leak came out, there was a lot of people from different places coming to comment that ‘yes’ they’ve heard a very similar story adding a little bit more details of their own.

this quickly deleted tweet from one of the writers/producers:

there were rumors about him being an asshole to Anya specifically.

He went on record that he doesn't "understand" sex scenes. Which I know the sex discourse is rampant nowadays and each to their own, but he specifically signed up for a role that requires those scenes and then refused to do them and was allegedly nasty to Anya about it and with the way he talks about women...

Also it’s important to touch upon the “writer he had a weird alliance with” that man in question is Beau DeMayo of the recent fame of getting fired by Marvel from X-Men ‘97. He was previously allegedly fired from The Witcher for being emotionally and physically abusive. And he allegedly got fired from X-Men for being abusive as well. One of The Witcher writers tweeted this after Beau smeared them for “disliking the books” Beau was literally the first person to start that narrative.

The fact that it was HIS idea not to say lines of his dialogue in S1 and instead grunt. To the point that Joey had to take Henry’s lines and make it his own, so the plot would make sense, he talks about it in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Oyh0t117t0U&, and then once S2 press arrived Henry was talking about how he was trying to fight the big bad writers to give him more lines. Ridiculous.

Everyone is already pointing out that the cast looks so much happier without him, and it’s very true. Henry was never present on close to any BTS pics from filming the previous seasons, or on any cast dinners or birthdays. He wouldn't even do any shared interviews with the other three mains but only had solo interviews which to me was giving disrespectful like you're an ensemble you’re not the only lead here. It felt like he was above them to sit down and answer questions with them. When they were doing press junkets in Brazil and Poland Anya, Joey and Freya would always arrive together and leave together with that man leaving all the events early and by himself. And like people who post quotes from the cast about him being perfect from press junkets as “proof” are insane to me like Obviously they’re going to say nice things about him, not only they're newcomers, and he's an established industry name, but they’re doing PRESS for a show that he’s a STAR of (well, was lmao)

The fact that he never defended Anya from the racist trolls, even though most of them were HIS fans. Like she had to go through so much and that man couldn’t make a single comment about it as a leading man BUT he could make a whole IG post because people were being mean to his gf and calling her out for doing blackface.

And sure people might say that a lot of these are unverified sources, and I’d get it if it was a singular case, but there are a ton of these accounts that all match each other. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

#anti henry cavill #the witcher #mega thread

259 notes · View notes

creepy-friday · 1 year

Note

YOOOO THAT WAS SO GOOD 😫

Although I couldn't help but think about the deer in forest watching them do this 💀

But ok, I actually have an idea:

Do you think you can make headcannons (they can have NSFW if you want) about what would happen if the three Proxies actually fell for/grew attracted to Y/N? 👀

Like I think that would be such an interesting concept, the rivalry would go through the roof 😰

But again! Only if you want to!!! 💖

I love this! 👀 inspiration kicked in!

What if the three Proxies would fall for you?

AFAB READER

Warnings:suggestive themes,misogyny,

abuse,mental illness and violence mentions

if you are unfortunate enough to be the object of affection to these 3 gremlins then all I can wish you is good luck!

since you're a proxy you would be mostly assigned missions with the other minions of Slenderman,on very rare occasions you would work with the other creeps (I will get into that later)

you're also the only feminine presence they come in contact with,I'm also gonna press the fact that they are touch starved men in a manor filled with rapists,mentally ill and paranoic people.Things aren't pretty so I'm not gonna sugarcoat it

altough you're powerful given your rank and all,they are fully grown men.It's NEVER safe to be unarmed when spending time with any of them,including Toby who sometimes gives off the impression of being this sweet lost unfortunate boy

He's also the first one to be delusional enough to think you can be into him given your role to mediate others and to keep things under control.

he doesn't know shit about women,sure he can remember fragments of how his sister used to be,but he can't compare you to her.Given his experience with Clockwork+the constant bullying from Masky, he's insanely insecure

he has a mommy kink

he fell for the way you take care of him,even if it's just your job.If you do nice things like checking up on him even when you two aren't working it results into fuelling his delusions

because of his feelings he's a literal ticking bomb,wanting to spend as much time with you as he can but in the same time to stay as far away to not make a fool of himself

you cannot please him.He will literally want to crawl into your skin and head to know exactly what you're thinking 100% of the time.

at times,he knows he's wrong.He knows he's unhealthy,but he cannot give up on you now that you're stuck with him.His fights with Masky will get even more violent,resulting in him being patched up by either EJ or you

he will also fake bad moods,anxiety attacks and will even cut himself so that you pay attention to him.He can be a very good actor and knows how to manipulate his way into your arms

he takes out his sexual frustrations on his right hand tbh,thinking of like 100 scenarios under 5 minutes then repeating for half a night.Don't ask about his dark circles the next day,he will feel even more disgust towards himself than he feels already

whenever he's alone he acts like a horny teenager and whenever he's alone WITH YOU the scenario would go two ways: it's either complete silence with him acting all creepy and stealing glances in your direction or him acting even more creepier and being all over you.This results in two tic attacks,one worse than the other

I feel like Brian would be his biggest problem in order to get to you.He gets very clingy whenever the hooded man is around,and gives off the impression of being in control even tough he's in a constant state of anxiety

Masky is one son of a bitch.He will get all violent with you over every inconvenience and argument.

couldn't sleep last night?It's because of you.(I mean,it kinda is but still)

he has no power over you but desperately wants to.

makes nasty comments about your body whenever you're in a state of undress or if you wear clothes that accentuate your body shape.The comments might vary from slut shaming to cat calling he insists are "compliments" (he knows they are disrespectful,he does it on purpose to piss you off)

as long as your attention is on him he can sleep well at night.

this is how he started.You never gave in the fear nor the disrespect coming from him.Sure,you had your meltdowns,but he found your strength endearing ,he wanted to break you

he's sure you'll grow up on him.He counts on Tim to woo you with his gentlemanly behaviour,but he's just as mentally fucked as his other side.

Masky wants to own you.He daydreams of doing atrocious things to you while you either cry or praise him.He's one sick man,and he knows it.

at the same time,a small part of him wants you to fuck him and that big mouth of his.The only between is Tim,who wants to be by your side and to protect you from the other animals in the mansion

his fights with Toby get intense,but also longer than usual.If he loses in front of you he would have a bad day for the rest of the week tbh

arguments with Brian might also result in fights,but his friend has a way of slipping out of them since he knows you're the reason for his sudden increase of hormones

as I previously mentioned,on the rare occasion you might work with the other creeps,Masky would start to be a little fuck and make assumptions to whoever stayed in your presence for far too long,might also result in violence if said creep happens to be male.

Brian is way more manipulative than Toby when he needs to be,he laid eyes on you the first time you arrived there.

altough he's one tall boi,he blends well into his surroundings,that gives him the advantage to watch your every single move and to analyse your behaviour

you're fascinating to him,you're fearless yet you're sickly sweet.From your rare smile to the way your hair sticks to your forehead during long training sessions,he found himself way too attracted to you

couldn't care less about that prick nor anger issues in a person,he could simply get what he wants during a matter of time

he finds Toby pathetic but takes pity on him,and finds Tim irritating from to time to time,but more in a sibling type of way,he would be up for sharing tbh

he respects his work so he respects you as well,altough he won't take your side whenever Masky starts to insult you,no,he wants to see your reaction,the way you carry yourself

he sees you as his equal in the line of work,but has moments when he looks down on you,sometimes he's sure you won't last long in such a cruel world

Hoodie is the rival of no one,in terms of looks and strength he's intimidating,he could beat his teammates if they would ask for a fight,but he thrives off of mind games

Masky pissed you off?you can trash talk him to Brian.Toby made you uncomfortable?That's okay,he's here to listen!

he will be your shoulder to cry on,and he really listens to you without the need to mansplain or to invalidate your feelings.He has a way with women

he's unapologetic for the times he closed his eyes and pretended you're whimpering on his lap

Hoodie can act cold towards you whenever he wants your attention,he can be all touchy fuzzy for a day then the next day to treat you like you're no longer friends.Keeps you in hot-cold games to test your limits and to keep you interested in him

he can also be a little shit and to give others a side smirk whenever you choose him to partner up someplace

you got yourself in quite the situation. Good luck getting out! The woods are a dangerous place,so leave no marks behind as you run,some might enjoy the chase~

2K notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 1 year

Note

Something that frustrates me about the Harry Potter conversation is a lot of people missing the point behind the motivation to boycott it. They seem weirdly focused on the content of HP when it's actually... not that bad? It's not perfect, in fact a lot of aspects are pretty fucking problematic and worthy of discussion, but not uniquely so by the standards of the fantasy genre. Yes, I know the goblins are clearly drawing on anti-semitic tropes. Yes, the house elf situation is fucked. Yes, lots of not-like-other-girls-style misogyny. Yes, Cho Chang was a fucking disaster of racism. I KNOW THIS ALREADY! I'm not an idiot and Harry Potter fans were talking about this for far longer than JKR has been a TERF. But I'm also a fan of the Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age and the Witcher and a shitton of isekai anime and tons of other fantasy medias which are so much worse. Harry Potter is only moderately problematic by the standards of most popular fantasy media, especially for the mainstream standards of the time period it was written. Worthy of criticism, but not dropping it entirely. And actually reading HP and looking back at JKR's behaviour at the time, much of it seems largely unintentional, just that JKR drew on a lot of fantasy tropes that she didn't properly examine as well as her own unexamined biases and she had some flawed understandings of progressivism that were fair for its day but don't fly now, but doesn't seem malicious. The actual authorial intent at least seems to be pretty progressive at least, even if the execution wasn't the best. And sure, it's not a masterwork but there's a reason it connected to so many people, even if a lot of it was luck and timing. We don't have to ignore that and doing so feels dishonest.

I'm just so annoyed when people try to shit on the contents because they're missing the point and confuse the actual problem in a way that weakens their argument. I don't give Harry Potter money anymore because JKR crossed some lines for me in real life, totally separate from Harry Potter as a piece of media, and I don't want to fund her bullshit because she is so influential it is hurting people. The content of her books is utterly irrelevant to this decision. She could have penned a goddamn magnum opus and it wouldn't have mattered. So I'm sick of people bringing up books that are "better" or ragging on the contents of Harry Potter because none of that is the point and never was the point and it comes across as just taking advantage of a shitty situations to dunk on a popular thing or those who enjoyed it. Yeah, it was a mediocre fantasy series. But it hit the right emotional escapist buttons in a lot of kids even if it had the moral nuance and depth of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles anti-drug PSA. Having to drop it sucked for a lot of people because it can't be replaced and yelling about how bad the writing was doesn't change that because it never was about quality. JKR's TERF transformation was in many ways a betrayal of JKR's intended audience considering how the text preached acceptance and love and starred an abused, unwanted child getting to go to magic school where he's special. Pretending Harry Potter should be dropped because its content has issues obscures the actual problem of a raging transphobic having money and influence and that not everything created by bad people is poor quality so boycotts might require giving up access to things you actually like or are valuable and that's not always an easy decision to make.

JKR was a probably decent person with fairly liberal politics when she wrote Harry Potter. The books, while imperfect, are not more horrible or full of problems a dozen other popular fantasy properties. JKR become a TERF later in life and while she may have had ingrained transphobia prior to this when she wrote Harry Potter, that is not the same as the virulent hate-movement she's part of now and we should recognize how easy it is for people to get drawn into hate-movements. Any argument to boycott should be about how she's using her money and influence to affect real life laws and attitudes unless you want to try and get people to also drop half the fantasy genre.

2K notes · View notes

blackpilljesus · 6 months

Text

I've not dated or had close relations with moids in years. I've been on the path to spending the rest of my days as a single childfree woman & committing to it as an osawoman. During this time here's what I've learnt, shorter version here:

This lifestyle is a privilege - being able to exist without having to directly depend on a moid romantically/sexually is a luxury. Know the privilege you have and how you can take full advantage of it and keep yourself set. We arent living this way solely bc we're smarter, we were just momentarily luckier. Most women are a political/natural disaster away from losing everything. Bear this in mind; along the way think of "what if" to best start preparing yourself.

Dont bother justifying your ways to people - Most wont and dont want to get it. Save your breath. By getting into back and forth arguments over not marrying moids & not having children you are digging a deeper hole for yourself by giving them more fodder to counter. They wont change their minds. End the conversation short & move on.

You cant save everybody - Ditch the saviour complex. We all get dealt bad hands in life; some worse than others. Other peoples lives arent your responsibility, there's only so much you can do because you've got your own issues too. Besides some are too far gone, you'll only end up drowning or being burned trying to save others especially if they dont want saving.

Recruitment is a waste of time - I often see extensive discourse around this topic w/ some women trying so hard to recruit others into this lifestyle or being separatists, wgtow, etc. All this does is waste time that can be spent on building instead. If some women dont get it oh well it's not the end of the world (although every woman does get it, they're just doing what they can t survive) it doesn't matter long term TO YOU because if you're serious you dont need other womens understanding/stamp of approval to build a network/resources for women; you can get started without them; heck some may join once they see the value like how so many women broke up with their partners after watching the barbie movie. Some women are more focused on recruitment than living the single childfree life they claim to be about and it consumes them - dont let recruitment consume you. Besides other women willingly engaging with moids buys you some time; those who know - know.

Most activism is a waste of time. Things only change when it benefits those in power but they will never relinquish their power entirely. It's great to put knowledge out there for others to learn but getting into discourse having to justify yourself & being swallowed by your activism will do more harm than good. Most activism is a stepping stone at most for the next chapter of your life. Learn to game the system instead of changing the system.

Focus on yourself. Everything as we know it is rooted in the system that has been perfected over the millenias. The problems of misogyny, racism, ableism, etc have existed before we were born and will exist after we die (part of why im not birthing into this mess). Trying to change it is a losing battle. This doesnt mean dont advocate or care about anything but look out for yourself first & be comfortable learning to existing between the cracks. It'll be quite the exercise tho as we've been socialised to prioritise others.

This is not a lifestyle one simply chooses it's something that chooses you. This isn't for everyone, those who know; know. If you require a lot of convincing or handholding then it isn't for you.

It gets lonely. Not because of not having a moidfriend; even when partnered with them many women still feel lonely. It's because most women are moid centric / obsessed and would want to be partnered with an xy someday or already are. Very few women truly commit to or understand this lifestyle irl tbh. Even my moots who are separatists or just single & childfree are halfway across the world. However that said, many women in the community can also be toxic; holding each other to high standards and there being constant bickering. You can befriend moid partnered women but be careful with them. We're surrounded by the system, existing out of core elements of it will come with a degree of isolation but on the bright side there's also peace if it all goes well.

Less is more. The less you say to others the less ammunition they have to hit you with. Bragging about this lifestyle to our predators will only make things harder because they've already got a huge upperhand. Too many of us moving in one go will bring unprecedented waves we're not ready to deal with. See 2, 3, and 4.

Ignorance is not bliss. Completely cutting off from xys including knowledge of their evil will make you unprepared should a threat strike. Not understanding moids nature is how some women think things are as easy as getting up and walking away without considering security & other factors then get suprised when moids strike. I'm not saying drown in true crime & xy evil but dont stray too far you lose touch of reality. Side note this is why women are gaslit about moids nature so that they dont have the chance to effectively prepare. Stay informed. I constantly learn from the women around me. Pay attention to xy motives & tactics. The power they hold, possible moves they may play etc. You wont be able to know/guess everything but stay in the loop nonetheless.

You will make mistakes be prepared to learn

It gets easier to control your attraction to moids overtime (if you're osa) as your focus is elsewhere as you realise there is a more fulfilling world out there beyond marriage & kids. Also life is just so much better. I know most women want the fairytale prince charming or an angel nigel but it's just not happening. Especially in a world like this. The freedom to be able to exist as a person & not a slave/punching bag for a rape ape is BLISS. You get so comfortable with it you wont wanna be with moids anyway especially when you see what other women go through. (Side note this is why women are pushed to being with moids as early as possible so this level of enlightenment is never reached & instead all women know + become accustomed to is suffering at the hands of moids).

As time passes and you mature into this lifestyle you can tell who's new and who's got skin in the game. I wont elaborate here as it'll digress and this note is long as is but those who know; know.

There's so much work to be done it'll last a lifetime. This lifestyle ain't easy. It strays from the norm so the typical guardrails that come with traditional options are out of the picture. The good news is that you can spend time crafting your own blueprint to follow or share with others who are willing. There's such little in terms of infrastructure & resources for single childfree women and yeah xys will likely try to destroy these things but at the same time if it can be done go for it and bear xy threat in mind we gotta start somewhere.

A purpose/guide is important. It's something that's going to guide your life through the ups and downs because it wont be a smooth ride but it'll be something that can make you in situations that break you. This isn't a "fuck you" to moids directly, it's about ourselves. Seeing this lifestyle as some type of "gotcha" against moids will only make things harder and lowkey misses the point of decentering them. I have my reasons for never getting married or having children that are solid (if you need inspiration checkout r/breakingmom on reddit). True comes from seeing something as bigger than yourself; find a purpose in this line of life to keep you going.

Invest in yourself. Personally, financially, etc. Pretty obvious but especially now that you're going to be more alone you need to be able to count on yourself more. With enough investment it can help other women too.

Invest in female network. No gyn is an island. Even though I'm not much of a social person the friends I have make my life better; they've been supportive but also honest. Also support female centric spaces online & offline; they're all that we have lest we be banished to the silo prison of the "nuclear family" or exploitative misogynistic communities.

Get comfortable disassociating/cutting people off. If you want to survive some things/people will simply just have to go.

You arent owed anything from other women, but you dont owe them anything either. The operating word here is owed, I aint saying women shouldn't help each other - I'm saying dont feel entitled. The feminist "girls support girls" schtick is bullshit. We're in a cold world full of ruthless oppression where everyone is just trying to survive however they can; in many cases it helps women survive when they turn on other women instead of on moids. Solidarity works because those who have solidarity politically speaking are people with power, it works in their interest to stand & work together as to keep + maintain their privileges in society so there wont be much female solidarity as in many cases it's not worth it to women long run. It aint right but that's how they perceive it so watch your back.

Everything is political. Always remember this. Many (privileged) people try to downplay politics & its effect but it runs our world which is why they want you blind to it. Pay attention.

There's merit to being around like-minded women even if it's just online. Like I said before it gets lonely. Very few women are willing to face & accept the truth about maIes. Being around like-minded women can be depressing sometimes as they drop blackpills bitter than you can initially handle but at least you dont feel so isolated/crazy.

#i will update this with a shorter version later #female separatism #female separatist #radical feminism #radical feminist #blackpill feminism #feminism #blackpill feminist #wineauntmovement #feminist #single life is the best life #single life #wine aunt #childfree

148 notes · View notes

icedsodapop · 25 days

Text

What makes this book an uncomfortable, if distant, cousin of GamerGate and men's rights activist logic is that it, too, relies on a series of false equivalencies and muddy distinctions in order to elevate being shamed on social media to epic proportions. These sorts of distortions are dangerous because they minimize — and even threaten to erase — far more systematic and serious problems that have taken years to even reach the public consciousness.

(...)

That all of these episodes might share something is plausible, maybe even likely, and they all involve some degree of real suffering — certainly, being publicly shamed on Twitter or elsewhere on the internet has very real ramifications — but they are not equivalent to one another. Being shamed doesn’t affect people’s lives equally. Ronson tends to dismiss this, as when Adria Richards, the shamer of Donglegate, suggests to him that the white men she shamed for telling sexist jokes at a tech conference (those with what Ronson calls "supposed white privilege") hold more power than she does, and they and their peers are more likely to call her reaction to sexist dick jokes “overblown.” This, Ronson says, “seemed like a weak gambit,” a “logical fallacy” of the sort deployed “when someone can’t defend a criticism against them,” and “change[s] the subject by attacking the criticizer.”

At the same time, he doesn’t seem to make much of the fact that Richards’ “victim” has remained pseudonymous throughout the affair, while Richards, a black Jewish woman whose identity was public throughout these events, was not only fired from her job as a developer evangelist for Sendgrid, but faced a barrage of vicious, violent harassment, and whose address and other contact information were publicly released on 4chan and elsewhere. His ostensible concern is with the threat of the anonymous crowd, but it’s Richards he calls an “inappropriate shamer,” and Ronson comes dangerously close to saying that she deserved what she got.

The construction of false equivalencies is a major strategy of aggrieved white dudes, like men’s rights activists who argue that men have as much right to refuse paternity as women have to choose abortion, or like video game players who claim that critiquing misogyny represents an attack on their marginalized demographic. Ronson’s no 4chan troll, but So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed reads very much like a defense of unfairly victimized white men and privileged white women. This became especially clear yesterday, when writer Meredith Haggerty tweeted a photo of a couple of lines from the book’s uncorrected galleys, which were subsequently cut when Ronson was advised that they sounded especially tone-deaf: “I’d never thought of it that way before—that men feel about getting fired the same way women feel about getting raped ... I can’t think of many things worse than being fired.” Despite the fact that he’d discussed cutting these lines in an interview with The Frisky weeks before, he became the object of a (fairly mild) round of Twitter meta-shaming. Ronson is right, of course, that it’s a bit unfair to criticize him for something that wasn’t in the published book, but the comparison is telling (and not only because it defines women’s social roles as primarily sexual and men’s as economic).

This review really highlighted by main problems with Jon Ronson and his anti cancel culture argument. He is, in my opinion, the Buckley of both-sides centrism, a White male figure who positions himself as an intellectual voice on the topic. It's telling that he's never bothered to investigate the topic of online harassment and it's intersections with gender, race and class.

#racism #antiblackness #misogynoir #anti jon ronson #so you've been publicly shamed #literature

51 notes · View notes

ellestra · 5 months

Text

Farming content James Somerton style

Edited: I cleaned up sentences, removed typos and added some links

You've probably seen the latest hbomberguy video that highlights plagiarism problem on youtube. He gives several examples many I never heard about but I've been recommended iilluminaughtii before and watched some of her stuff before getting tired of seemingly endless volume (now I know why). But then he gets to the real subject of the video and I did watch a lot of James Somerton videos. And I liked many of them. I liked them a lot.

I didn't give him any money and, as much as it came as relief, I kept thinking how this must feel so much worse for people who did. I thought about supporting him for a moment when he posted (in April this year!) how his videos are getting less views because youtube algorithm and demonetisation of gay creators (it's a real thing so it was easy to believe) and he will be forced to stop creating if people don't sign up to his patreon. But I was casual viewer and he seemed big enough so I didn't. It must feel like such a betrayal to those who created a real community around him. Just like his film production company it's clear now it was another of his scams. It's infuriating how well it worked.

Somerton deleted his patreon now (along with his twitter and discord server) so there is probably no recourse for those affected. The only good thing is that someone big enough highlighted what he did (and brought receipts) so he had to stop. When smaller creators called him out it either went unnoticed or he managed to make himself a victim (and send his fans after them). He actually did what Anita Sarkeesian was accused of and gaslighted his followers about it. His misogyny just adds an extra bitter taste to this.

youtube

At the end hbomberguy talks about how if Somerton was open about what he was doing this could've been his niche. He said it just as I was thinking basically the same thing. I'm sure there is a market for field review type of videos. Not review like movie or book review but in academic sense when you take other people articles on the subject and compare to show the state of research on the subject on at the moment.

youtube

This kind of reviews doesn't need any original research. The value is in giving people overview of where the field is at and pointing them to the actual research so they can read more in depth about the results. If you already did the search for all the sources this is a perfect format to use them. Most people don't have time or resources to comb through all the resources themselves but they like to learn about it and this is why videos like that are popular. That's why iilluminaughtii, Somerton and al. were able to cash in on it.

But of course this kind of things have to properly cited. And they cannot be just all quotes. You have to make coherent points not just make stuff up for the transitions (lies that actually made Todd in the Shadows make a video not about music). I suppose that's too much work. Too much effort when you need to crank out content to satisfy all the sponsors.

youtube

I was glad to find out I already watch most of the queer creators recommended in the hbomberguy's video (and put on this watch list) as an alternative (I would add Caelan Conrad to it - funnily enough I found them through their video about antivax movement). I trained my youtube recommendations well in which way it skews but it's easier to kick out all the obviously awful when you know what talking points to avoid. It's much harder to spot grift when it pretends to care about the same things you care about. Somerton was saying all the right things. It just wasn't his words.

Did he even believe any of it? I bet he'll insist on yes but the laziness says otherwise. It seems like it was all just for the money and fans this angle gave him. That he enjoyed being cool to the audience he built and the stuff it bought him. Be gay do crime for real. Only he didn't write that one either.

#hbomberguy #james somerton #youtube drama #youtube plagiarism #todd in the shadows #archeology tube #james somerton conman #james somerton scam #youtube #plagiarism

87 notes · View notes

autolenaphilia · 8 months

Text

I finally found a definition of "radical feminism" from a transandrophobia dude. Like I lamented before that they calls trans women "radfems" without defining what they mean by that term, and here i get an answer. It's terrible, but an attempt was made.

I won't link to it, it was left as a very lengthy, rambling and sealiony reply to a mutual's post complaining about this very behaviour, and that dude doesn't deserve any additional attention giving to his ravings. Believe me, whatever I screenshot is worse in context. The context being a transfem saying "don't do this thing" and a guy deciding to do this exact thing for over 30 paragraphs as a reply.

But here is a relevant screenshot.

His definition of radical feminism is literally: "making a distinction between oppressor and oppressed." And It's literally any distinction, not just between that between men and women in the patriarchy. As he proves when he condemns tme/tma distinction as terfy:

Like tme/tma is a binary, but it's one that includes a lot of varying groups in the oppressor class, including cis women, much to the anger of actual terfs. This definition of radical feminism is literally believing in the oppressor-oppressed distinction.

The problem with this definition is that making a clear distinction between the oppressor and the oppressed is a fundamental part of analyzing oppression.

Saying that in a patriarchy men have male privilege, and institutional power over women, who are oppressed by misogyny, is a true statement and a fundamental part of feminist theory. And saying that in a white supremacist society, white people have white privilege and institutional power over non-white people, who are oppressed by racism is also true and is vital to analyzing racism and white supremacy. And queer tumblrites practically all agree that in a cisheteronormative society cishet people have privilege and power over queer people.

These are binary statements to be sure, and simplistic because they are only analyzing one form of oppression, and not studying their intersectionality, but they are also obviously true. It's in recognizing how they are simultaneously true that forms the basis of any intersectional analysis.

It's not radical feminism, when marxist, anti-racist analysis, queer theory and other forms of feminism all rely on these distinctions between the oppressed and their oppressor class. If we are going by this definition of radfem, Karl Marx was a radfem, and so was probably Hegel, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

And again, this is a way of using the label terf/radfem to label all feminist analysis as suspect, including transfeminist analysis by trans women, you know the people actual terfs want to genocide.

It's a tactic right out the right-wing conservative playbook to label any discussion of how people are oppressed as divisive and making the oppressed into angelic victims that do no wrong.

It's basically another variation of what I call Farrell's fallacy, here the existence of other forms of oppressions is used to deny misogyny. "If men are privileged, why do marginalized men exist, checkmate feminists" Misogyny is nuanced out of existence, where the term "intersectionality" (a method that in reality includes a lot of feminist analysis of misogyny) is used as a club to deny misogyny. Feminists are strawmanned to lack intersectional analysis, when they are in fact at the forefront of it.

And you can do this to deny any form of oppression. You can point out that the oppressor class for practically every oppression has members that are marginalized for other reasons, and thus deny they have any privilege at all.

Of course antifeminist tumblr queers do love doing this to misogyny to deny their own complicity in it, while oppressions that they feel is important (because it affects them) is exempt from this treatment. Like you could nuance the existence of straight and cis privilege out of existence by pointing out that "cishet" covers a lot of marginalized people, like women, non-white and disabled cishets all exist.

Actual terfs do in fact use misogyny in that way, they have their own version of farrell's fallacy where they say "how dare you say we have cis privilege, women suffer from misogyny."

And of course, it's wrong for all the reasons i outlined in my post about the fallacy linked above. People can simultaneously be oppressed and privileged for different reasons. You can see cis privilege when you compare the outcomes and social status of cis and trans women for example. And people who are queer in addition to being non-white and disabled have worse outcomes than cishet disabled and non-white people. Just as you can see male privilege when comparing men and women who are oppresssed for the same reasons.

The reality is intersectional analysis answers this seeming contradiction without denying that the existence of any oppression and privileges given to the oppressor class. It's the difference of using the existence of other oppression to deepens one understanding of society, and to deny that one particular oppression exist at all.

#my writings #feminism #intersectionality #misandry is not real #transandrophobia truthers

85 notes · View notes

transformerswoc · 8 months

Text

The TFP "Airachnid" Problem

Like I said, I'm gonna make essays and discussions regarding women in transformers <3. The first person is tfp Airachnid.

TFP Airachhid is honestly, the litmus test for how I feel that Transformers fans can handle “mean” evil, women. Because the hate train that she received and the hate she still receives is massive, and it rounding up to “she killed cliffjumper” or “she’s mean to arcee and starscream” “she killed breakdown” just shows that this fandom wouldn’t really be ready for a female villain that was worse than her, or that just did not give a fuck.

And honestly, that is soo unforutante because we see male characters, like Starscream and even like Megatron, who are basically like Airachnid, if not worse, getting love and support for their actions.

She’s not supposed to be nice…she is a villain a straight up, in your face, villain and that is interesting. Yes, other Airachnids/Black Arachnias get love, but a lot of them are morally grey or complex.

A lot of them either turn good or ambiguous in the end, or aren't who we think they are, giving them a very empathetic past to almost excuse their actions.

Yet, when we have villainous, no morals Airachnid, which I find made her character far more intriguing, it seems that people just hated her, and would hate her for the things they loved with the male villains. She was the perfect mixture of Starscream and Knockout, with Megatron’s brutality, and she was just…hated for it.

And it made me realize that in terms of female villains, we haven’t ever had one like her. One that says ‘fuck you’ to morality and shit, because I just do not think the fandom could handle her. And I’m talking about in the TV Shows.

There are female villains in the live action, but that is another topic for another time.

Lastly, to me as a Black Woman, I cannot help but feel a lot of hatred toward Airachnid is people not checking their own racism and antiblackness. I think it’s easy for people to, not even realize it, but hold black women to higher moral standards than others. The point is that, Airachnid is voiced by a Black Woman and fandoms tend to be very critical toward Black women whether they be live action, voicing characters, etc. black women are either too much, or not enough.

Funnily enough, we are seeing this with ROTB with tons of people who aren’t black women, bashing the representation of Black women in ROTB and saying they aren’t doing enough or they’re pointless.

And this brings me back to Airachnid and how fandoms tend to, unknowingly be very heavy and critical toward black characters, but especially, Black women characters as well who are mean, or who do not fit to their standards. That is just my perspective from a black woman.

I’m not going to sit here and say that everyone who dislikes Airachnid is racist, but I will say separately that I think a lot of reasons for disliking Airachid are rooted in misogyny.

There has been no good reason for disliking Airachnid that I haven’t seen laced in some form of misogyny, because every reason she is hated, you can trace back to a male villain doing the same thing, if not worse.

Given fandom’s negative reaction toward Airachid, I wonder if we’ll actually ever see such a cold, heartless female villain like we did her. I think that only thing that makes things ‘acceptable’ is if a female villain has complexity, or has depth or will eventually be a ‘good’ guy again, or at most, morally ambiguous. That is what makes a female villain acceptable and frankly, that’s not fair but unfortunately I just feel…that’s how it is.

Another thing I noticed, which I will make in another essay, is how TFP tends to shame any form of ‘feminity’ especially in its women but also, in queer outwardly femme charaters, like Starscream.

The ‘tom boy’ or ‘one of the boys’ perosna is something that we tend to see with Arcee and Miko. And forms of femininity such as motherhood, or being outwardly femme like Airachnid or Starscream are seen as ‘bad’ by the narrative.

What I mean by this is that, June is shamed for being motherly toward Jack, by Arcee and by Miko and it is something that she is made to feel bad for, for wanting to care for Jack. Arcee and Miko are portrayed as I said, as being ‘one of the boys’ Arcee herself made a negative comment toward the idea of being PINK…which is ridiclous.

Airachnid and Starscream are both heavily femme and queer coded, but they are shamed by the narrative and the fandom. Starscream is brutalized on the daily, and Airachnid, who is outwardly femme tends to be seen as irredeemable by the fandom and also inexplcitly evil by the narrative.

TFP’s issue with femininity is something is something I certainly want to talk about later on, but given this essay is just about Airachnid, I will stop here.

The last thing I'm also going to say is that I don't think that the writers knew, or understand how to write a female villain for a notoriously misogynstic fanbase. There are reasons why the other female characters are 'acceptable' and it's because they are for the most part, written in a way that is okay for a male audience. That doesn't mean they don't face their fair share of misogyny...they do. Especially Miko.

But an outwardly evil femme fatale who doesn't give a fuck about it...the fandom is just not ready for such a character. And while I don't think the writers needed to pacify her, i do 100% believe that when operating in a misogynstic fandom, you should learn how to write a female character in a way that will not get her dragged the way Airachnid has been dragged.

If you enjoyed my essay, please share and consider following?

Please follow my twitter, where I'll also talk more about women's topics in TF.

#airachnid #transformers #tfp #elita 1

78 notes · View notes

gaogaigoatgrrl · 2 months

Note

i get the feeling the transmasc thing isn't just surface-level what-it-says-on-the-tin stuff, so i gotta ask what's the actual problem for us with transandrophobia? it just looks like a word like transmisogyny (though structured differently) so i don't really understand what the immediate problem is

you have to understand that a significant part of the reason the term "transmisogyny" exists in the first place is that everyone (generalizing), including tme trans people, routinely treats trans women and transfems like absolute dogshit, and they get away with it because they have privilege over tma people.

i'm not just talking about being mean. i'm talking about denying us community support, pushing us into precarity, then taking advantage of our desperation to use us as scapegoats and sexual objects and throwing us away when we're no longer useful. it's not just cis men who do this. tme people in general engage in this bullshit. i've been on the receiving end of it myself, specifically from transmascs.

there is no "equal but opposite" counterpart, but some (but not all) tme trans people are immature enough that when they hear tma people trying to develop terminology to name this dynamic, their first thought is "hey, no fair! why don't i get a fancy oppression term too?"

in the past, it was en vogue to just deny the existence of transmisogyny outright, or to use semantic trickery to claim that it affects all trans people (the latter method is gaining popularity again, however). now, the angle's that everyone's oppressed in their own way, so there's no need to point fingers, right? but that ignores the fundamental nature of oppression. it's a thing that groups of people do to other groups of people to subordinate them for their own collective gain. who's subordinating men?

this is the part where someone will want to accuse me of saying that trans men aren't oppressed at all. and that's outright untrue. trans men are oppressed, and viciously at that. but that's not because society oppresses men. transphobia is just that bad on its own (not to mention when it intersects with other oppressions besides misogyny-- we'll get to that later).

tl;dr: it's bad because it gives tme trans people a way to duck responsibility for the way they treat trans women (and transfems more broadly). it obfuscates intracommunity power dynamics that regularly get transfems trapped in isolation, povery, and homelessness and killed and makes them easier to avoid addressing. if everyone involved were cis, it'd be easy to see this for the antifeminism that it is. i was seeing manosphere circles (mra, mgtow, incel, pua, etc.) use a lot of similar arguments and talking points in a cis context ten years ago.

i should cap this off by saying that transmisogyny isn't the only power dynamic that bears mentioning within trans circles. racism, particularly antiblack racism, is also a significant problem in similar ways (arguably worse), and white trans people (like myself) should not be dodging responsibility for that either. all of us have a responsibility to make sure that the most vulnerable among us do not get left high and dry, and i believe that in general it is both ethical and strategically smart to work in solidarity with other oppressed groups that sometimes overlap with our own. there are tme trans people who share this insight wrt women, and i am grateful for their willingness to stand up for us.

liberation does not come from sweeping conflicts like this under the rug, but from treating them like real problems that need to be taken seriously and actively worked against. fundamentally, my beef with transandrophobia theory is that it interferes with this process and is therefore anti-liberatory.

#apologies for the huge wall of text #when critiquing transandrophobia theory you really need to hedge your bets #please don't let me become a dedicated transmisogyny blogger

32 notes · View notes

chaifootsteps · 2 months

Note

so Lily Orchard made a video about Hazbin Hotel and it's kind of odd, tbh?

her coverage of the working / pay conditions basically boils down to 'animators just need to unionize' (seriously, she spends barely any time on it at all), which like, unionization would definitely help but it doesn't let Viv/Spindle off the hook for poor management in the meantime, & it's baffling to me that she implies otherwise. If Lacakdaisy and (as far as we know) other indie productions like Far-Fetched can behave professionally, why can't Spindle? (also like, absolutely zip mention of how the pilot cast were treated. nada. nothing.)

the entire hope of the indie scene was that it could grind up less animators than big studios do, & sweeping all that under the carpet is so deeply unempathetic to me. so animators being subject to poor deadlines, favoritism, unprofessional behavior, having their work literally stolen from them or going uncredited and then getting blocked when they try to correct it is no big deal, apparently? (which strikes me as funny bcause Orchard's work is so obviously inspired by The Jimquisition and Stephanie Sterling's work constantly critiques the game industry for its poor working conditions even though they also don't have unions)

a lot of the vid has this undercurrent of 'Viv has a big hatedom just for being a bi woman of colour and hatedoms are always bad and parasocial' and like - yes, I agree Internet mobs are bad. Yes, I agree people can get into a parasocial hatred of someone just as easily as parasocially loving or defending them. Yes, I agree someone who isn't straight, white or male is more likely to attract haters. And yes, I agree a lot of the criticisms of Viv are stupid.

my problem with this framing is it lumps in all criticims of Viv with the stupid ones. Again, does Lily Orchard not care about people being underpaid, overworked or uncredited? Does she expect unionizing to solve all the immediate issues people have faced with Spindle in the meantime? Also like - what Viv has done herself to feed this toxic environment goes totally unacknowledged. Viv's bad faith framing of her critics and multiple defensive threads get no mention, & Lily's video implies that only the critics of Vivzie are toxic and doesn't mention at all how bad /much worse some of her supporters are. none of the bullying and silencing attitudes from her fans get brought up; it's not like it would be hard to find when researching critiques of the show to see how even big creators like Cartoonshi were harassed into never covering it again.

I find her attitude towards the writing of HH odd, too. I understand why she doesn't like cartoons dragging their heels and stretching things out (goodness knows HB has been wheel spinning basically its entire second season and Western Energy was a complete waste of an episode), but calling HH's pacing 'breakneck' is generous. There's no time to breathe and none of the nuance or quiet moments she claims to want more of in other shows.

If the show is also about Heaven&Hell being an unjust sorting system as Lily claims, why isn't that more clear in the writing? Why is the viewer simultaneously supposed to believe Hell is full of murders and etc. but also is just full of people being unjustly persecuted. Even Angel Dust, the one character we're supposed to believe has developed the most, was a gangster in his human life & presumably killed people along the way, none of which the show bothers to examine even though his sister made it to Heaven and he didn't. (she has said she has no interest in helluva boss, which is a shame because I would have been curious to see if she would have convienently ignored the bootlicking praise for Stolas and the misogyny in the writing just because she seems to feel Viv is getting unfairly criticized)

she has said she's making a follow up that's more about the voodou issue, which she does agree is a problem, but idk. I just find it odd to watch a video where someone is willing to be critical of how voodou is represented, but the additional problem of real harm being done to up and coming animators is treated as not worthy of discussion. I think representation should be critiqued as much as the next person, but aren't the actual materia conditions faced by people working on the show as important, if not more important, than that?

Lily talks a big game for someone who molested her sister.

#anonymous #viv stuff #actual blog post

41 notes · View notes

emotionalcadaver · 2 months

Text

I've written and rewritten this post so many times, and I've debated even posting it at all.

And before we begin: I am not trying to make anyone feel bad, or place blame on anyone. I understand that many of you were manipulated or worse. But this is part of how this jackass and his behavior affected me, so I want to talk about it.

The first time I looked at his blog, it was after the wonderful @shelbydelrey messaged me to warn me that there was a new person in the fandom actively attacking Grace fans. Because I write many Tommy x Grace x OC-centric fics, I was concerned, so I took a peak at his blog to see what was going on.

And I have to say, I have never felt so unwelcome in (at least a part) of a fandom in my life.

Something I haven't seen discussed a ton is just the blatant bullying and misogyny that this man publicly displayed. Post after post of him attacking Grace fans, picking fights, laughing at them, shaming them, hurling insults at them...He'd go out of his way to find content featuring Grace and comment hate on them, and then laugh about it with his followers. And this misogyny wasn't exclusive to Grace, but seemed to spread to other women as well, just based on some of the non-Grace related posts I also saw that he made.

Now, I actually don't give a shit whether people like Grace or not. I personally have a soft spot for her, but I don't expect other people to share in my feelings, and I respect their opinions. Most of the time, if I see a post hating on her, I just keep scrolling.

But this...this really got to me. It was so disheartening to see someone behave in what-- at least to me--was such a blatantly and obviously misogynistic way while being cheered and egged on by a significant part of the fandom. It made me feel so uncomfortable and unwelcome. And considering his popularity and how so many people seemed to see no problem with his behavior, it made me question if I was even welcome in this fandom at all, and several times I considered deleting my blog and my fics and leaving entirely.

I'm not going to lie; it broke my view of this fandom a little bit. I can't begin to describe how saddening it was to see that this behavior was not only accepted, but actively enabled and seemingly practiced by so many. Obviously now I know that there were far more complicated things going on behind the curtain, but at the time, that's what it appeared to me: that an extremely large part of the fandom saw nothing wrong with speaking about women--real or fictional--in horrifically offensive and demeaning ways, and openly bullying those who did not share their views on certain characters/parts of canon.

I became paranoid, even after blocking him, that he or one of his followers would find my blog, and I would be the next target of a barrage of hate and harassment. So I blocked most people I saw associating with him (I've unblocked most of you now). Because it felt like that only way to protect myself. Not only did I not want to ever be associated with the kind of behavior he displayed on his blog, but I also was terrified of getting dogpiled onto by his followers, even for the simple act of having blocked him. I was literally convinced that if my blog was noticed by him or anyone closely associated with him, I would get run out of the fandom. So I chose to remain in my own little bubble of mutuals who I trust, and did not make any significant efforts to reach out to or connect with new people.

Again, this is not me trying to call anyone out except for him. I know many of you--or at least, I hope many of you--did not intend to enable a misogynist monster or a bully. And ultimately he was the one who created this hostile environment, and it is very possible, knowing now that he has a habit of making alternative accounts, that many of his "followers" who showed support for his behavior may have just been him on other accounts, or sending himself asks via anon.

I don't really have a specific point to this post. I just wanted to share these feelings somewhere, I suppose. I hate this man for what he has done to so many of you and this entire community. And for how he made me feel so frightened and unwelcome by huge parts of this fandom.

#no one will probably read this lol but i needed to get it off my chest #laur babbles

31 notes · View notes

kithj · 27 days

Text

also i've been reading a lot lately this month i read

apparitions by adam pottle 5/5

hijab butch blues by lamya h (audio & physical) 5/5

lighthousekeeping by jeanette winterson 5/5

the devil thinks i'm pretty by charlene elsby 4/5

i shudder at your touch edited by michele slung 2/5

what feasts at night by t. kingfisher 4/5

the salt grows heavy by cassandra khaw 4/5

dehiscent by ashley deng 3/5

the corpse exhibition and other stories of iraq by hassan blasim 3/5

kitchen confidential by anthony bourdain (audiobook) 4/5

whipping girl by julia serano 3/5

freshwater by akwaeke emezi 5/5

blood orange by yaffa as 4/5

things have gotten worse since we last spoke and other misfortunes by eric larocca 2/5

a lot of good reads only a few bad ones.... i'm officially giving up on eric larocca i just cannot get into his work it is so overhyped which i think is part of the problem, both books i've read from them have been hugely disappointing.... i shudder at your touch was also really disappointing and really fucking dull, with a title like that i was really expecting a lot.... but it was just really boring. also i had some conflicting feelings about whipping girl i just fundamentally disagreed with some of her ideas and found the book to be really shallow (which does make sense considering it's over 15 years old and one of the First) but overall i really enjoyed the essays where she talked about her personal experiences as well as some of the history around the pathologizing of gender and transsexuality, and i can appreciate her work and the book itself and what it meant at the time it was originally published. i'm hoping to read a short history of trans misogyny by jules gill-peterson and who's afraid of gender? by judith butler soonish as well not necessarily to compare but just to absorb More.

apparitions was probably my favorite and hijab butch blues, too... i'm also really looking forward to reading more stuff by akwaeke emezi they have a new book coming out called little rot and i'm 👀

currently i'm reading:

into the drowning deep by mira grant - not sure what i'm feeling about this one yet, it's been very repetitive through the first part so i'm hoping things pick up going into part 2.

mrs. s by k. patrick - loving this i'm obsessed with it i'm nearly 50% through. definitely not going to be for everyone, they write in a very clipped style and kind of stream of consciousness as well as no dialogue markers (which i know some people get really pissy about lol)

written in bone by sue black - i'm listening on audiobook and almost done i'm hoping to finish it today while playing stardew. i love an audiobook narrated by the author and she has such a lovely voice. she fucking loves her job and has so much passion for bones and people and their stories sometimes i almost get weepy just listening to her talk about it

also i think i'm going to start crying in h mart next after written in bone... i have the physical as well so i'll probably jump between listening and reading like i did with hijab butch blues. anyways thanks for reading this post and you should tell me if you've read any good books recently 🥺👉👈

#idk im not good at reviewing LOL but i like talking about books #also nyehilism is the one that told me abt written in bone teehee #oh also im always willing to give tw and stuff for books ive read i dont really include them when i talk abt them but u can always ask #my reviews #sure it can go in that tag

23 notes · View notes

bandofchimeras · 1 month

Text

if we wanted to get very spicy and kick the discourse hornet nest we might assert that okay, if transandrophobia isn't a real thing (?) then you might say trans men experience transmisogyny. not indirect or falsely directed transmisogyny, but transmisogyny. as in misogyny specific to the general trans experience. how do you feel about that? if you feel that takes away from the language of trans women available to discuss their specific experiences, because transmisogyny is a term for trans women, then okay. what do you suggest for trans men to use to theorize our experiences?

anti-transmasculinity? is that fine? and why? /gen

part of the discourse here is a pushback on the infantilization and patronizing tone people take with trans men or talking over the transmasculine experience in general.

that's all. also for the record I am genuinely not emotionally invested in this issue or reactive about it. I hold a lot of grace for fellow trans people's emotions and general attitudes intercommunity cuz man, the community is dealing with a lot. and if something like "Baeddel" is a slur and not a term self-claimed by a group of anti-civ anti-social anarchist-leaning trans women that leaned into high-control cult territory then I'll stop using it. (edited to change language of similarity bc harm levels were different) there is also a lot of damage in the online trans community due to the "AFAB only" FB group cults run by trans TERFs in the last 5 years, who were responsible for the general reactive vitriol towards "theyfabs" my main issue with the Baeddels I interacted with is that they were mean, dismissive, and genuinely seemed to be involved in culty dynamics that lead to increased community strife & increased risk for interpersonal abusive behavior. I don't think they deserved high levels of vitriol, backlash, cancellation or other transmisogynist abuse that unfortunately only made those other problems worse and further fragmented the community.

I still am friends with a few trans women who philosophically remain in this camp, and respect their views even though we disagree. unfortunately, both of these women are susceptible to and currently in varying degrees of abusive/high control relationships. They have not asked for help or indicated wanting intervention so I stay in my lane and provide affirmation & warmth when needed, but it does confirm my biases there.

the AFAB TERF groups were actively harmful to trans women and trans men, due to the way they weaponized transmisogyny, manipulated, groomed and emotionally abused trans men, and contributed to the wave of de-transitioner narratives actively in use by cis power structures. so they're not equivalent. and I can see why people might suspect the axis of analysis of transandrophobia might be TERFy or something...its not IMO because those groups tended to endorse self-hatred and barely identify as trans, and still engage in high levels of man-hating and "androphobia"

WHICH BY THE WAY almost always comes back around to harm trans women as well as trans men.

reading bell hooks' The Will to Change on masculinity informs my position here. so if you're looking to pick a fight, meh. i'm open to good faith discourse oriented towards restorative justice tho.

#transandrophobia #transmisogyny #discourse #trans discourse #long post #all of this is informed by people i actually know as well as general observation

24 notes · View notes

detectivenyx · 6 months

Note

A month or so back, someone made a tweet defending Himiko saying she's overhated by fandom and claiming she has autism. Of course, half the replies are people hating Himiko and she didn't deserve to be a survivor. I didn't know Himiko was disliked that much. This post was to ask, what are your feelings on Himiko?

if you asked a danganronpa fan on twitter if they'd like to examine their potential biases against a character and whether they're based on problematic stereotypes of marginalised groups or put themselves in a saw trap, they'd be strapping themselves into the fucking Shotgun Carousel with baffling enthusiasm, and himiko is one of the characters that makes that most apparent.

himiko has the exact same issue as hiyoko before her; she isn't waifu material since she looks like a child, and to danganronpa fans, if a female character who isn't explicitly a child isn't waifuable, there's zero value in them whatsoever. their flaws are exacerbated because they can't be sexualised and girlboss'd or failwife'd (which is not a problem reflected in male characters and them being 'husbandoable'). and this isn't an issue with the characters, but very much fan perception. there's no mistaking it, a lot of the hatred for himiko is just fans' misogyny; traits she gets criticised for having made gundam and kiyotaka fandom darlings. there's a fair amount of ableism in there too. himiko is never explicitly stated to have autism, but while i have the theory every character is at least somewhat autistic, himiko is probably one of the more obvious ones. she very clearly struggles with social interactions and her response to the life-threatening danger is to clam up and try to make herself seem insignificant, and she's a terrible liar - all traits common in autistic individuals, but additionally seen in depression. she reads to me like an autistic person with depression. to a danganronpa fan nothing is worse than an unsexy female character who is heavily implied to be autistic.

i absolutely do not get anyone who says she shouldn't have survived; the girl was berated and subjected to The Horrors every time she took a fucking breath. fuyuhiko might have had the most happen to him physically, but himiko definitely had way more on her plate. there's not a single murder in the game she wasn't accused of doing and she didn't want to bother with defending herself, and through chapter 2 and 3 she was put through the absolute fucking wringer. her magic show she put on to help everyone feel better about the motive was hijacked for the most brutal corpse disposal in danganronpa's history, then to top it off, she was accused of said murder by the person she trusted, with only tenko defending her innocence. she joins angie's student council for whatever security she can get as the smallest and weakest person left in the group, and then that crumbles when angie is found dead - the closest thing angie had to a friend. then, tenko offers to take her place as the medium of the seance, and dies because she did so. and honestly, himiko realising moments too late exactly what tenko meant to her and begging for her to move, to say something, is far more heartbreaking than anything to come out of any of the 5th chapters. and then, she gets accused of being the one to murder the two people she cared the most about. after all the shit she's already been through, of course she clams the fuck up and stops caring. she doesn't think she should've survived, the writing all but spells out that himiko's going through severe survivor's guilt, and she's just given up, if everyone goes down with her, so be it. it does require everyone to look at the case and provide himiko with a reason to go on; ultimately, she's the one who takes that purpose to keep moving forward (the old 'you can lead a horse to water' addage). and yet, STILL, she gets put through the wringer AGAIN in chapter 5 when she learns that it wouldn't have mattered anyway; they're the last people left alive and there's no more humanity. at every turn she's been given reasons to give up, again, and again, and again. and more realistically than someone heroically going 'no! i'll never give up!' she more realistically DOES give up - but giving up can be as difficult as not giving up, even more so. that's what she embodies - someone who very much does want to give up, but doesn't.

it's clear fans don't give a shit about the impact her death would have; when she dies in a fangan she's rarely given a second thought. so if her death would've been meaningless, why are people so upset she survived? that's a question i can't really answer - not when the characters that do die i think had to for the sake of the story. kaito and kokichi would've been terrible survivors because their stories do hinge on them dying; their deaths are their conclusions. but himiko, i think, for her story to have its intended effect - she needed to survive, and very much fought tooth and nail to do so.

i've noticed the video i made 3-4 years ago now did help to kind of rehabilitate her image because hatred was even more common before it but there's still quite a bit of unwarranted himiko hatred. my advice; get off twitter and get on cohost where i am and himiko's autistic swagger is always welcome

#ndrv3 spoilers #sdr2 spoilers #himiko yumeno

31 notes · View notes

copperbadge · 1 year

Note

Sam, you are NOT a “weirdo.” The neurology of the human mind exists on a spectrum; ALL humans are *biologically* “neurodiverse” and have extremely variable interior experiences. One of the most difficult concepts for ANY writer to grasp is that of “other minds, other perspectives”, and on that you already WELL ahead of the curve. 😊😎

Yikes, my response to this turned into a whole-ass essay so first, two things:

1. Thank you for the compliment, a number of people reached out to tell me that I write very well for people who see images when they read. That is extremely reassuring so I very much appreciate it.

2. I’m about to say a lot of shit that is only vaguely, tangentially related to what you’re saying here so my usual disclaimer applies: I appreciate what you said and I am not yelling AT you, I am yelling NEAR you. :D

So. On the one hand, yes, humanity is diverse and we can only be ourselves, or a version of ourselves that is tolerable to live with. On the other hand, culture also sets down rules that say this is usual, this is unusual, this is acceptable, this is unacceptable. We don't live in a spectacular culture for "this is acceptable" but most of us are aware that what we think of as "normal" is narrow and fucked-up. But it’s tough to go beyond that to discuss how we relate to “normal”.

It's something I'm grappling with and it's not something that it's easy to grapple with visibly because of that -- because the minute you call yourself weird or a freak or anything that denotes "not normal", or even when you just talk about “normal” as a concept, people reassure you that normal is an illusion, it's a construct. Which is true! And it’s good to model self-acceptance for people who are still struggling with that.

The problem is that it limits how much you can discuss feeling outside of normal. And I do feel that way, because of the ADHD diagnosis and other stuff too. I feel that way a lot, these days. Like, a painful amount. Like, a questioning who I am on some very basic levels amount. So...there have to be ways to talk about the reality of normal.

While normal is a construct, it’s still there -- as a culture we have a concept of normal that matters, regardless of whether it ought. We don’t have great pathways to say “Hey, I’m struggling with feeling like I’m not normal” because people want to assure you that you don’t have to feel normal...but sometimes you want to, because normal is what is culturally approved and it’s hard to be an outlier. Worse, if you’re visibly outside of normal, we tend to very violently police you for it.

I’m lucky in that I’m pretty ordinary-looking, so I don’t get policed very often, but I‘m very aware of the policing of invisible disability because I have siblings with learning disabilities, and my whole family has some degree of mental illness. Lately I have watched my mother struggle because she needs aids to walk and feels like people are staring at her and saying she’s old and of no worth, a drain on society. The world reinforces that by doing things like making her get to the airport FOUR HOURS EARLY in order to get wheelchair service (and then “losing” her name so she still almost misses her flight).

You don’t have to be normal, but if you aren’t, you still have to put up with the dickheads who think you should be, who will punish you for deviance. There's a disparity between "healthy ways for you to feel about this" and "how society will feel about this".

To circle back to my mother, who internalized the ableism and misogyny of the 1950s and 60s and barely escaped being labeled a Fridge Mommy in the 80s because of my brother’s autism....I was raised in a family where there was a very strong value placed on being normal. It was particularly strong for me, because I was the normal one. My parents could not handle the idea that all of their kids had special needs. They needed me to be normal, not least because if I was normal I could help raise my siblings, which I did. And that's been my identity my whole life: the normal one.

Normal is a construct but unfortunately it’s the construct on which my entire identity has hung for forty years.

And my attitude -- not that this was conscious -- was that if you have to be forced into that role, if you must fulfill the exhausting demands of being normal, then you should also get the rewards. The more normal you are, the more power you have. That’s incredibly unhealthy but it’s even more harmful not to admit it happened. And so I have been shoving myself into this identity of “Oh no, that’s not me. I’m not disabled, I’m not queer, I’m not special, I’m a mediocre white dude” because to admit otherwise is to relinquish the protection of normal.

So...I wish we had a word like “normal” but with an extra connotation of “Look, I know normal is just a privileged idea of what everyone should be but it’s also heavily enforced in our society so we need to acknowledge it still exists”.

I’m not normal. I am a weirdo. I’m more a weirdo now than I’ve ever been. There has to be a space to say that, to say “Normal exists and I’m not it and I feel fucked up about it” because how else do you rebuild an identity?

I think it is important to reassure people that normal is an idea, not a law of nature, and I appreciate everyone who chimed in with that. But I think it’s also important to acknowledge that it’s really hard to suddenly find yourself outside of normal, and start thinking about ways in which we can support that struggle when we see someone stuck in it. Maybe disability activists have something to say about this and I’m covering old ground; I’m not well-read beyond the basics. I don’t know what the answer is myself, I’m still really stuck in the middle of this, but I think there must be more options open to us than the reassurance that normal isn’t real.

#disability #mental health #ableism

238 notes · View notes