did i ever tell u guys abt how fucking insane working at a hotel was. i have photographic evidence of almost all of this, btw (if u wanna see free to ask lol. idk why u would tho)

i worked at a hotel for a good chunk of time directly after getting out of residential and i'm pretty sure it fucked me right back up

i was the only person there, besides the 2 or 3 housekeepers (who had their own work to do, they couldn't help me at all. i'm not mad abt that, tho. they had their own shit). i was running the hotel by myself essentially. 16, fresh out of residential, running this bitch myself. i was left alone on my 3rd shift.

my boss sucked for a handful of reasons. he was cheap. he whined on the phone to his parents a lot (he was in his early 20s), rarely helped when he was there, tried to get me to write a fake review for the hotel (which, if he just asked once, i wouldn't have rlly cared. but he kept pushing it and got mad at my answer. also lied abt it, saying everyone else did it when he hadn't even asked anybody else. he also asked my fucking parents???), wasn't even nice to the guests

the number of times i touched actual shit and piss was actually insane.

once this dude overflowed his toilet and sopped up the mess with towels. without saying what it was, he just handed the wad of wet, shitty towels to a housekeeper. that poor housekeeper was not wearing gloves. (i had to touch the shit towels next. thankfully i had time to get gloves)

someone shat their bed so violently it seeped through to the mattress. those sheets smelled so fucking bad. they also wiped their ass on a towel. no idea what was done abt the mattress

my last day, multiple people shit and pissed all over their sheets and comforters and towels. my boss made me bleach all of them and didn't help. the bleach combined with the piss made mustard gas and i felt like passing out.

people regularly let their dogs ruin rooms. a dog pissed all over a room once

someone left their dookie stained thong on the floor of their room once

too many people just left shit and piss in their toilet. they weren't clogged. just left there.

we had a lot of construction crews come stay there. one time we had this crew from new jersey i think. this one guy and his roommate would come down kinds regularly to ask questions. they weren't weirdos or anything, they were actually quite nice. but one time, one of the dudes came down alone and said "hey mamas" to me. i could tell that was just the way he talked, like he wasn't trying to hit on me or anything, but i was caught so off guard 😭 he was rlly nice, tho. he ended our convo with "appreciate you, mamas". if i remember right, he was asking me abt stuff he and his roommate could do with their girlfriends around town.

oh btw hotels do not normally wash their comforters, or at least, smaller hotels don't. so uhhh yeah don't use those

there's def more, but that's what i can remember rn

on fujoshi and fetishization

Lately, more and more, both here on tumblr and on other sites, I keep seeing people spew unfiltered hatred at fujoshi - that is, women who like mlm content such as gay fanfic and fanart featuring men with other men. And I don’t mean like a specific type of fujoshi, like the ones who are genuinely being weird about it, but just like a general hatred for girls (but especially straight identifying girls) who express love for gay romance.

I hate to break this to you all, but women (including straight women!) actually are allowed to like mlm fanfiction and fanart, even enthusiastically so. A woman simply expressing her love of gay fanfic, even if it is in kind of a cringey way or a way that you personally don’t like, is NOT automatically fetishization.

I’ve been on the receiving end of fetishization for my entire life, from a very young age, as many black and brown folx have, so I consider myself pretty well acquainted with how it works. Fetishization isn’t just like, being really into drawings of boys kissing, or whatever the fuck y’all are trying to imply on this god forsaken site. 

Fetishization is complicated imo, and can encompass a lot of things, such as (but not limited to):

1 - dehumanization, e.g. viewing a group of people as sexual objects who exist purely for entertainment purposes, rather than acknowledging them as actual people who deserve respect and rights

and

2 - projecting certain assumptions onto said people based on their race/sexuality/whatever is being fetishized. These assumptions are often, but not always, sexual in nature (like the idea that black people in general are more sexual than other races, etc etc etc).

I’m going to use myself as an example to illustrate my point. Please note this isn’t the best or most nuanced example, but it is the most simplistic. A white person finding me attractive and respectfully appreciating my black features as part of what makes me beautiful is not, on its own, fetishization. A white person finding me attractive solely or mostly because I’m a PoC is now in fetishization territory. Similarly, assuming I’m dominant because of my blackness (like saying “step on me mommy” and shit like that) is hella fetishistic. 

That being said, theres definitely a difference between how fetishization works in real life with real people, and how it shows up in fandom. 

Fetishization manifests in many different ways in fandom, but most commonly on the mlm side of things, I personally see it appear as conservative (or centrist) women who love the idea of two men together, but don’t actually like gay people, and don’t necessarily think LGBT+ people deserve rights (or “special treatment” as its sometimes dog whistled). These women view queer men as sexual objects for entertainment rather than an actual group of people who deserve to be protected from systemic oppression. I’ve noticed that they often don’t even think of the men they “ship” together as actually being gay, and may even express disgust at the idea of a character in an mlm ship being headcanon’d gay. In case its not obvious, this is pretty much exactly the same way a lot of cishet men fetishize lesbians (they see “lesbian” as a porn category, rather than like, what actual LGBT people think of when we read the word lesbian). There’s a pretty popular viral tweet thread going around where someone explains seeing this trend of conservative women who like mlm stuff, and I have also personally witnessed this phenomenon myself in more than one fandom. 

The funny thing is, maybe its just me buuuut.... The place I see this particular kind of fetishization happen most is not in the anime/BL fandom, from which the term fujoshi originates - I actually see these type of women way way more in western fandom spaces like Supernatural, Harry Potter, and Hannibal. I can’t stress this enough, there’s a shocking amount of people who are like, straight up trump supporters in these fandoms. If you want to experience it, try joining a Hannigram or Destiel group on facebook and you will probably encounter one eventually especially if you happen to be living through a major historical event. Like these women probably wouldn’t even be considered “fujoshi”, because that term doesn’t really apply to them given they aren’t in the BL/anime fandom, yet they’re the ones I personally see actually doing the most harm.

Of course this isn’t the ONLY kind of fetishizing woman in the mlm/BL world, there are other ways fetishization shows up, but this is the most toxic kind that I see.

A girl just being really into BL or whatever may be “cringe” to you, or she may be expressing her love for BL in a “cringey” way, but a straight woman really enjoying BL is not, on its own, somehow inherently fetishization. Yes, sometimes teenage girls act kind of cringe about how much they like BL and that might be annoying to you, but its not necessarily ~problematic~. 

That being said, IT NEEDS BE REMARKED that a lot of the “fujoshi” that you all hate so deeply, are actually closeted trans men or nonbinary people who haven’t yet come to terms with their gender identity, or are otherwise just NOT cishet. I know because I was one of these closeted people for years, and I honestly think tumblr and the cultural obsession around purity is one of the many reasons I was closeted so deeply for so long. STORYTIME LOL!!! In my early adolescence, I was a sort of proto “fujoshi”. I identified as a bi girl who was mostly attracted to men, or as most (biphobic) people called it, “practically straight”. I wrote and read “slash” fanfic and looked at as well as drew my own fanart. We didn’t use the term fujoshi back then, but that’s definitely how I could have been described. I was obsessed with yaoi, BL, whatever you want to call it, to a cringe-inducing degree. I really struggled to relate to most het romances, so when I first discovered yaoi fanfics (as we called them at the time), I fell in love and felt like I finally found the type of romance content that was made for me. I didn’t know exactly why, I just knew it hit different. LGBT+ fanart and fanfiction brought me an immense amount of joy, and I didn’t really think too hard about why.

At some point, in my early 20s, after reading lots of discourse™ here on tumblr and other places like twitter, I started to get the sinking feeling that my passion for gay fanfiction was ~problematic~. I had always felt a sense of guilt for being into mlm content, because literally anyone who found out I liked BL (especially the men I dated) shamed me for liking it all the fucking time (which btw is literally just homophobic, like can we talk about that?). In addition to THAT bullshit, now I’m seeing posts telling me that girls who like BL are cringey gross fetishists who inspire rage and should go die? 

Let me tell you, I internalized the fuck out of messages like this. I desperately wanted to avoid being ~problematic~. At the time, I thought being problematic was like the worst thing you could be. I was terrified of being “cancelled”, before canceling was even really a thing. I thought to myself, “oh my god, I’m gross for liking this stuff? I should stop.” I beat myself up over this. I wanted so badly to be accepted, and to be deemed a Good Person by the internet and society at large.

I tried to shape up and become a good ally (lmfao). I stopped writing fanfic and deleted all the ones I was working on at the time. I made a concerted effort to assimilate into cishet culture, including trying to indulge myself more deeply in the few fandoms I could find that had het content I did enjoy (Buffy, True Blood, Pretty Little Liars, etc). I would occasionally look at BL/fanfic/etc in private, but then I would repress my interest in it and not look for a while. Instead I would look at women in straight relationships, and create extremely heterosexual Couple Goals pinterest boards, and try to figure out how I could become more like these women, so I, too, could be loved someday. 

This cycle of repression lasted like eight years. Throughout it all, I was performing womanhood to the best of my ability and trying to become a woman that was worthy of being in a relationship. I went in and out of several “straight” relationships, wondering why they didn’t make me feel the way reading fanfic did. Most of all, I couldn’t figure out why straight intimacy didn’t work for me. I just didn’t enjoy it. I always preferred looking at or making gay fanfiction/fanart over actual intimacy with men in real life. 

Eventually, I stumbled upon a trans coming out video that someone I was following posted online, my egg started to crack, and to make an extremely long story short, after like 3 years of introspection and many gender panic attacks that I still experience to this day, I realized that I’m uh... MAYBE... NOT CIS..!? :|

I truly believe if I had just been ALLOWED TO LIKE GAY STUFF WITHOUT BEING SHAMED FOR IT, I probably would have realized I was trans way way sooner. Because for me, indulging in my love of gay romance and writing gay fanfic wasn’t me being a weirdo fetishist, it was actually me exploring my own gender identity. It is what helped me come to terms with being a nonbinary trans boy.

Not everyone realizes they are trans at age 2 or whatever the fuck. Sometimes you have to go through a cringey fujoshi phase and multiple existential crises to realize how fucking gay you are AND THATS FINE.

And one more thing - can we just be real here? 

A lot of anti-fujoshi sentiment is literally just misogyny. omg please realize this. Its “women aren’t allowed to enjoy things” but, like... with gay fanfics. Some of the anti-fujoshi posts I see come across my dash are clearly ppl projecting a caricature they invented in their head of a demonic fujoshi fetishist onto any woman who expresses what they consider to be a little too much enthusiasm for gay content and then using their perception of that individual as an excuse to justify their disdain for any women, especially straight women, ‘invading’ their ~oh so exclusive~ queer fandom spaces.

 god get over yrselfs this is gatekeeping by another name

idk why i spent so long writing this no one is even going to read it, does anyone even still use this site

*EDIT: HOLY SHIT WHEN DOING RESEARCH FOR THIS POST I FOUND OUT THAT Y-GALLERY IS BACK OMG!!! 

on FUCKING kissing. and other shit

i’m still just. as bowled over as i knew i’d be about getting to have the triumphant nice gay kiss of resolution. like, i dont think i’ve seen that in any movies ive watched. not that many of them like, have a gay mc in the first place. usually you maybe have a couple peripheral side cast gays w a lil subplot and they get to say “i love you” or something. idk. or for some reason whats up with dramas where like, the initial Gay Encounter w kissing is often also a sexual encounter which is fine but the point is its like “oh, wow drama” right. and then the bit where they maybe manage to actually come together is like, too solemn for kissing? its also fine to have other moments of physical intimacy besides kissing, thats fantastic tbh. and i can’t say “wow what a trend in Major Releases W Gay Love Stories At The Core” because there’s not enough fuckin data for any real trends. but anyways maybe the ol Finally They Kiss thing is more seen as a like, ~romance genre~ thing rather than serious movies. idk. anyways getting sidetracked

my point is i think thats the first movie Gay Kiss Of Resolution that i can remember seeing. and it gets me, man. it hits me hard. i’m like. electric. not just because its like “wow this is a new one for me” obvs but because i’m gay and i like things that are very gay and very sweet and cute and that was all of that. so much in that film was ferociously endearing. like, thank god for gay love getting to be charming and nice and lighthearted and even exuberant. yeah babye

and for the past couple months ive been thinking on twitter threads about ppl who were Gay Teens Coming Out years and years ago who went to see the film w a parent or other sort of relation and it prompted a discussion where the parent is like. when you came out, was it bad? was i very bad about it? and they said how the answer was well, kinda, yeah. and getting to have this whole talk about a decade or so after the fact, because the movie shows such earnest support, and the recognition of the failing of anything less than the fullest kind of support.

like honestly i liked a lot that like, the issue wasn’t that simon was particularly worried about rejection, or some terrible kind of abuse or violence like gay kids who had to keep it a secret because their parents might even have pulled shit like kicking out a gay kid, like implying they’d even kill them if they’re gay. and he wasn’t exactly worried about like, hate crimes or anything either. because its not like the Awful kind of homophobic reaction isnt a concern anymore, but it isnt to everyone, and it wasnt always to everyone. its not even accurate to say that noncishet people prior to like the late 20th century always were rejected, always were closeted, always were miserable. there’s all kinds of stories and it’s nice to hear all kinds of them. like, the Gay Tragedy was as we know the only way to get a gay story of any kind past the rigid catholic moral guide for Film back in the day, and not so shocking that thats the kind of gay story that tends to be most palatable to the heterosexuals. and they have, what, like atonement and shit or something? and yet also i’m not saying that tragic gay stories should be off limits, or dramas, or anything. just that of course movies are limited to Bury Your Gays, Kill The Trans Kid, Show The Tragedy Of Not Being Cishet Coz That’s What’s Gritty And Real And I’m Okay With Them If They Die. we deserve every genre and plot structure. it would improve all of them.

anyhow like i was sort of getting to. i really appreciate how simon like, isn’t ashamed of being gay, isn’t in denial about it, isn’t afraid of his parents or friends or community finding out, doesnt feel particularly endangered re the idea, but still feels like he can’t. i really liked the bit where he upsets his sister cuz he’s so fuckin stressed about having just been outed and his privacy invaded in front of his whole damn school but he’s like super conflicted about like, why would i be upset at being out, why would i be ashamed just because i didnt come out before, etc etc. and i liked that he felt his coming out to his parents went badly just b/c it was a bit awkward. because the small issues are just as big a deal, people wanna act like the defining part of being gay is a certain level of agony. and so you get ppl questioning if love, simon is “necessary,” like a gay protag has to be justified for the technical benefits it might afford, like if its not about suicide or self loathing or ostracization or violence or being disowned or etc etc, its not REALLY about being gay, and it can’t possibly help gay kids because its just unrealistic. because even if you have worse problems, seeing an overall happy gay love story where he gets the guy and has all the support of family and friends and community put out there will just be meaningless to you. and obviously its just as pointless to argue that this is the be all and end all of gay films, like we only needing ONE gay romcomdrom type film, we only need ONE gay y.a. movie, this is THE gay film for those categories now people, it’s over. like jesus we’re owed so many. give us the nondystopian y.a. movies back, and make em gay!!! GAY

anyways what is the point? i like that it was shown its difficult to come out even if you only expect “small” bad issues, because even having to have the smallest fear that the people in your life will think less of you, or love you less, or see you as any bit of a disappointment or flawed, is really fucked up and difficult. like i said, it was way too real when simon was just a bit uncomfortable when his dad made just a bit uncomfortable gay jokes. i like that he felt fucked up over being outed even though he wasn’t necessarily ashamed of being gay. and i mean i know part of it was that he was afraid that the other guy was gonna get scared off since that was being exposed too, but i liked that element also, because of the tension between the joy of getting to like...Be Gay with a guy you like and enjoy it, but also know that the whole thing is tenuous and uncertain and you’re both a bit afraid and the whole thing might crumble at any moment because it’s not easy to take “privately being gay” into it being everyones business and public knowledge. because even the little shit you have to deal with is a concern, and even in the most “it’s probably totally okay” situations, you don’t KNOW that its okay, because homophobia is still the default even amongst like. the libs who think they’re totally not homophobic.

and plus yknow the whole thinking you’ll be treated different thing. like coming out is going to HAVE to be some Big Deal and you’ll have to be imposing something on everyone who knows you when really you’re just being the fuck yourself. and the idea that suddenly everyone’s gonna be uncomfortable with you or think you’re someone else or just look at you different because they were cool with you when they thought you were straight. and anyways

also i seriously forget the dude’s real name but i love that it was the first guy simon thought might be blue. damn i know they said it like fifty times in that one scene lol...but anyways yknow i’m like “hmm walking in on him maybe messing around with a girl could just be Gay Crisis shit yknow” and it was and thats kinda fun lol. like, i’ve read some fics in my day!! that is not a nail in the coffin!!

anyways what i want to say is getting a sweet triumphant gay kiss scene is just. so fucking beautiful for the soul. i’m fuckin reveling in it. now that ive been writing about it for half an hour i should go ahead and try to get my rewatch in, right. yeah