“everyone’s a little queer” is just cishet “I don’t see colour”

An obnoxious long rant on the Murderbot tv situation. Did I post this with the intention of having a conversation about it? Yes. Am I aware people are probably tired of talking about it and likely don’t think my thoughts are hot shit? Also yes. Anyway,

the post:

A lot of people have been talking about the casting for the tv adaption of Murderbot Diaries. Some people are disappointed and some people are disappointed other people are disappointed.

Plenty of people have already brought up that making Murderbot’s actor a white man is a loaded decision because of how the idea of whiteness as a default protects an inflated and false idea of white superiority. And even more people have talked about how man as a default is also an inflated and false protection of patriarchal standards.

And I agree with both of those ideas.

Other people have brought up that plenty of queer people treat masculinity and men as an unwanted part of the queer community. Which IS true, despite historically men and masculinity being important aspects of queer identity and love, people DO like to pretend non-binary and gender queer people have to all be feminine or they are mislabeled as a threat. Which is so fucked up and obnoxious.

However, I think that this tv series is clearly not making Murderbot’s actor a man to bring attention to queer masculinity as an important part of the queer community. I appreciate the people who are trying to defend the choice because real people are more important than Murderbot, but I think that this is just a clear case of most people reading The Murderbot Diaries and feeling uncomfortable without a clear binary in which to visualize and categorize Murderbot. Which is understandable. Despite my own discomfort with The Gender Binary, I understand people feeling more comfortable with rules and clear distinctions.

This is the THIRD production of Murderbot which has an actor play Murderbot and I doubt I’m the only one who has seen most interviews ask Martha Wells about Murderbot’s gender. Often they will tell her that they personally read the book with Murderbot looking male and made with male genetic material. Which, personal interpretation is fine obviously no one should be attacked just because they are attached to gender essentialism and believe only one of the Definitely Only Two Genders can punch people in the face. But it’s fucking annoying that a book which means so much to me (and other people I guess /jk) can be limited creatively just because people decided that a fantastical robot must have male genetic organics just because Men Punch Good.

I’m not saying that they should have used an actress. And I’m not saying that Murderbot needs to be feminine. But the actor wasn’t chosen because they looked at a range of actors and thought “why NOT a white man? This changes EVERYTHING about queerness!” Also, why NOT an actress? If I’m supposed to see a cis male actor as Murderbot, why not a cis female actress? Better yet, why not someone non-binary who understands the push and pull of expectations and social norms????

If they make Murderbot the one white character I will seriously lose my mind. Even worse if they make more people white to make Murderbot not the only white character. Why the fuck did they do this?

They picked a white man because of a history of success with fandoms/audiences becoming attached to white men. They picked him because they wanted someone who would look like competent security beyond human capabilities and they thought their vision was best described by a white man. Like MOST other science fiction and action movies.

I have always liked the IDEA of science fiction but I cannot enjoy a story which is written by a man for men to enjoy with action heroes and babes hanging off of them. (Tbh fantasy does this too but I was able to find books I liked a lot easier, and also because it’s always been my favorite genre and I was desperate) (Full disclosure I don’t see a problem with this trope if it’s two women but societal expectations aren’t exactly forcing women to be be action heroes or prioritizing women to be damsels for other women to rescue. Unless we think about how black and brown women are expected to cater to white women but that isn’t lesbianism that’s racism. *disclaimer I am a white person) so Murderbot was literally the start of me finding science fiction books to read that weren’t sexist gender essentialism But In Space TM.

So many people have given amazing recommendations that I’ve loved and so many others I’m excited to read next. Murderbot was the start of a genre revival for me!! I never thought I would find science fiction that wasn’t gender essentialist. And tbh I wasn’t looking as hard as I could have, because I had tried so many that sucked, so that’s partly on me. But what’s important is that, for me, Murderbot is an escape from gender norms and a return to a genre which has historical been viewed as leaning on a bioessentialism view of human gender and roles in society, especially due to the science aspect of science fiction. It isn’t the first science fiction book to have a more queer aspect to it, it’s just the first one I’ve read and I know I’m not the only person who has benefited from finding other books to read from people giving thoughtful recommendations online.

Who really cares if Murderbot is played by a man? Except so many comments and interviewers just are too uncomfortable to engage with a character without having that male/female binary and no matter how many times Martha pushes past these questions it just keeps happening. Obviously not all interviewers pester for a confirmation of Murderbot’s canonical organic appearance and one even kept pushing for Murderbot being canonically female. Many even praise her for a non-binary character, some of them also just immediately mention that they think Murderbot has male organics.

It’s just so ridiculous to me that so many people seem to think they are reinventing masculinity in a character which is an intrepid space explorer (and grumpy about it). Although of course there are many things about Murderbot’s trauma and emotional regulation that do not fit into masculine gender norms, it is still the character who Saves The Day and Protects Everyone and Is Super Smart And Strong.

There have been posts examining secunits as male and comfortunits as female and those are just an attempt to examine inter-construct relationships and power dynamics compared to people’s irl experiences so I understand why they were written. And I absolutely do not mean to attack anyone for applying a book to the real world. But it feels like there is no escape from a push to define imaginary robots as a “Realistic” human gender when, for me, this entire book series is a book about an agender character who is tough as nails and accidentally makes friends and learns how to examine the ways in which it was dehumanized by people around it.

Again, people writing analysis examining how a book approaches things that are real issues are not doing anything wrong. Just because I’m sensitive doesn’t mean I’m going to assume I’m king of the universe over here. Other people have LIVES and I’m not going to pester them about their actually extremely thoughtful examination about how Murderbot’s prejudice against comfortunits is reminiscent of sex workers and female sexuality. (No matter how uncomfortable it is. The point is not to be comfortable.)

I will admit though that the audio with a female voice artist ART and a male voice artist Murderbot makes me want to kill myself. Like oh interesting, you see the character who is grumpy and kills as male and the character who SPENDS ITS ENTIRE EXISTENCE TAKING CARE OF PEOPLE AND MAKING A HOME FOR THEM AS FEMALE HUH I WONDER WHERE THAT CAME FROM HOW ORIGINAL OF YOU. I’m sorry I know a lot of people like it and I’ve heard that the voice actress does a great job! So I’m glad people are having fun but I am actively furious. Please enjoy your lives and know I’m a total jackass. Much love. (Genuine)

There are plenty of (amazing and talented) artists who have drawn Murderbot in a way that if you saw that person walking down the street, you could assume that that person identifies as a man. And there isn’t a problem with that, I’ve never been irritated by people drawing it this way. There are also more ambiguous fanarts of Murderbot. It’s all Murderbot to me. Just because I’m partial to lesbian ART and Murderbot doesn’t mean I think that my exact preferences should be fulfilled. (Another disclaimer!!!! Lots of people with a complex identity to gender and sex identify as lesbian. If you were confused, you should try learning more! It’s so cool! And interesting! I’m not misgendering Murderbot.)

But this live action business of only casting men isn’t an accident and it isn’t a fan artist with their headcanons. It’s a production that is purposefully making executive decisions about a character who all of us care about. Tbh someone else said he would make a great Gurathin and I agree.

Murderbot doesn’t exist in a world without gender norms. Murderbot was written by a person who lives in our world with our expectations and boxes and labels and limitations from irl people constantly asking everyone around them to fit into their comfort cube of gender essentialism. I can’t pretend that this is a decision without influences.

Anyway. I’m just fucking disappointed. I hope it’s still cute and fun and tragic. I hope I still like it even though it’s not what I was hoping for. I talked a lot about the gender thing and less about the race thing. Idk what to even say about the race thing besides this is very clearly because audiences and fandoms prefer a white man or woman over any non white ones and they are hoping to give it a boost. Why even pick this book is you aren’t willing to have anyone nonwhite celebrated in a fun little robot story.

honestly i’m so tired of all this gaylor stuff that is going on. look, this is the first time i speak about it and i won’t do it again but i just need to get this off. idk what even started it now, but people seriously need to understand once and for all that it is just as weird to hate an almost non-existent group in the fandom and argue against it to earn coins to be the best fan, while underestimating and prejudging other people you don’t even know, and when you are gonna say hurtful things that you will later on regret, bc there is a 98% chance they will be understood as homophobic even if that wasn’t your intention. that is what it is. 'no but i’m bi and i find gaylors disgusting' that statement is even more damaging tbh, bc once again you are prejudging when you should know better how this hate form has always been harming to the collective you belong to

that’s the main reason ppl are afraid to even joke about it in their own blogs, or analise lyrics under a extremely brilliant, queer lens that is kept to themselves precisely bc the fear of being judged and attacked. i’m a gaylor and i have no shame admitting so, but i don’t talk about it nor write my own connections in terms of her lyrics bc of this, as i felt personally hurt by such judment in the past and talked about it with one only person privately. in fact, if you go to my gaylor tag you aren’t gonna find k*ylor, crazy easter eggs and conspiracy theories, instead it is full of quotes that she herself has said, queer campaigns she has been part of, thoughts ppl have found behind her lyrics and lots of gifs of her wearing lgbt+flag colours - all public. that is all, and i’m even reluctant to rb anything related to her past relationships, just as candids or posts about her current one. which btw does not mean that bc i’m a gaylor i don’t consider it true or that i automatically don’t believe anything she says and think joe is a beard, as most of you simply assume

THIS when that’s all some of you seem to talk about, like every time she releases a rerecording, the memes that circulate are 'well j.jonas will always be mr perfectly fine and all these songs are about him' fact that even his wife got to see and at which they both laugh now, probably to downplay how fucking tired of it they must be. and what about the hate harassment jake has been receiving since red tv came out, which he hasn’t spoken a word about, despite facing even death threats. or the fact that ppl keep saying 'lmao harry you are next, cannot wait for speak now tv so john gets what he deserves.' like ??? but that way of talking about your fave is alright just bc she is straight? is that supposed to make her feel better? isn’t all that just as toxic or even more so?? bc gaylors in general don’t make that much noise or harm to begin with. so to excuse all of this under 'all those relationships have been confirmed by both parties and that is why i have the right to talk about them' sorry but it’s the biggest bullshit i’ve ever heard 1) bc no, most of such relationships have in fact never been confirmed by both parties and by no means have these songs been confirmed by Taylor herself, ever. 2) the fact that a relationship has been public does not give you the right to inspect it and talk about it, once again, as if you were taylor’s bff and not even that !!! as in general friends and real fans don’t talk about her life so frivolously, no matter how much you excuse yourself under this shit that keeps crossing all boundaries

so basically, talk about her private life all you want like i personally dgaf, but i find it quite hypocritical to hate on a minority that happens to be lgbt, casually!! for saying 'hmm wait a sec, wonderland sounds gay and has too many similarities with dianna' 'hmm i wonder what happened there, whether they were friends or not, that was such a weird relationship' which even j.lawrence joked about saying ‘i’d just like to know what’s between kk and ts' - not the best example, but you get where i’m going. frankly, i highly doubt taylor would give a shit if i write a post on a social site she doesn’t even use anymore, that it’s gonna be reblogged by 4 ppl and possibly get 20 hate asks in return, like @13sleepless deals with on a daily basis, which is terrifying and admirable of them. bc who really care about this are those who claim not to be homophobic or have nothing against queer interpretation while continuing to make arguments against it and not only song interpretations, but the very words and actions that taylor herself has done on purpose, under advertising her albums, tours, or whatever and i’m not even talking about easter eggs. i mean, is it not by logic the same to say 'well i’m not declaring anything new if i say that dear john is about j.mayer' as to say 'well i’m not declaring anything new either by saying, hey, taylor made a song/mv full of gay themes, full of ppl from the collective, where she even wears clothing and a bi coloured wig that has been publicly recognized, started a campaign in support and an entire album promo where in the previous mv she said gay pride makes me ME!!!’ like...... isn’t it? sorry weren’t those her literal words?? okay....... then please explain to me how it is for you bc if you really think that doesn’t sound problematic or i’m making it up, it may be time to evalue your own morals and stop questioning those you judge under the same closeted box, without respecting them individually and without wanting to learn a shit about the matter

I was reading your co-signing the narrative post- great post btw- and your thoughts on Kit Lightwood helped me figure out exactly what bothers me about the way other characters talk about and treat him.

So, there’s this kind of this running “joke” in TLH that Christopher’s interests are boring, that everyone else puts up with it him as though it’s this big nuisance, that everyone zones out hearing him talk… and on and on and on.*** And then there’s this scene where Grace is genuinely interested or at least not bringing him down about his self-expression and the things that bring him joy, and that’s romanticized as special when it’s really kind of the bare fuckin minimum. Like, I’m not saying James/Matthew/Thomas had to immerse themselves completely in every sciency detail but the constant “jokes” implying that Christopher’s work is boring or incomprehensible or not worth their time is just so tiring. There’s always an undercurrent of “Christopher’s just playing around uselessly” (which is not true and even when he’s having fun with his work then it’s still automatically WORTHY and VALUABLE because it makes him happy!) Not to mention this recurring problem directly contradicts the value that Christopher’s work has (beyond its inherent value) when he sends it into the world to literally save lives: the poison antidote, the fire messages that will probably come about in CoT.

And the thing is, the merry thieves’ disinterest is directly meant to foil grace’s interest in order to lend the Grace/Kit relationship a certain significance, as CC assigns to it. I’m not saying shared excitement over an interest/hobby/career/field/etc isn’t sweet platonically or romantically. I just really dislike how the idea CC is using is “no one else can bear to tolerate Kit’s ‘quirks’ but Grace, and that is Endearing, and so they are Soulmates (TM)” rather than the much healthier and positive idea that “Kit does cool sciencey stuff which his family and friends generally don’t share as strong a passion for but still don’t huff about it like it’s somehow a chore or a burden on them, and then Grace comes along and she does happen to share a similar passion and that’s the beginning of their ties to one another.” That second reasoning is what could make their friendship really refreshing; we don’t need ableism poorly twined into romance to enjoy that relationship.

I haven’t read TDA in a while but I’m thinking we could also find touches of this with Ty partly because so much of when we see him is from Kit’s POV? Not that Kit means harm or thinks himself heroic but CC on the other hand is a repeat offender in “abled/white/straight/cis character is ultimately and completely responsible for the salvation of disabled/POC/queer character in this aspect.” And I’m kind of half dreading the wicked powers for that reason among others …

I apologize if all this seems obvious or rambly. I do sometimes have trouble articulating things exactly but when I read your post i had a lightbulb moment and I wanted to note it down.

Have a great day!

***Side Note: this is why I really enjoy fan-created content that explores Christopher’s relationships with people (even people he didn’t interact with on-page in the canon) without that annoying and problematic aspect built into the framework of the relationship.

^^^^^^^^^THIS ALL OF THIS!!!!!!

Full disclosure this is gonna be kind of long sorry. But you have stumbled across my favourite topic to rant about. Allistic saviorism. Basically the name is pretty self explanatory. It's when an allistic person fictional or otherwise has the desire to or actively attempts to essentially "save" the autistic person from the horrors of the world or their life, or even themselves because they think that the autistic person isn't strong or capable enough to fix/handle it on their own. All of this is usually done for very self serving reasons. Part of this is also allistic people being praised as heroes for being nice to autistic people or asking them out, or loving them.

I don't neccesarily think that kitty is an allistic savior ship on it's own. I think that there are definitely peices of those beliefs scattered throughout the books and it might get worse in TWP. That's honestly something that I'm worried about too tbh. But honestly I think that the fandom made it a billion times worse.

This mainly allistic fandom wanted to romanticize the idea of Kit taking care of Ty and shouldering the burden of his "unpredictability." Kit is the only one who can get through to Ty. The only one who understands the mystery that is Ty 🙄. Some of this is canon too. For example, Ty can look Kit in the eye, he lets him touch him. He doesn't wear the headphones when Kit's around right? And Kit was able to calm him down during his meltdown.

And while some of this is really cute from a romantic perspective, it's also kinda problematic because it reeks of allistic saviorism. It promotes the idea that Kit is like Ty's "cure." And that's just impossible.

And honestly I know I've contributed to this in some ways. Because if I'm being perfectly honest with you, there's a part of me that enjoys that. The romantization of autism.

The idea of being taken care of.

The idea that someone could love an autistic person and see them as "beautiful" and "extraordinary" and all the things Kit calls Ty, was incredibly moving and appealing to me as a kid. It still is. Because I grew up on stories of charity cases and allistic saviorism making headlines with prom dates. I was super secretive about it, but I was always a romantic growing up. But I thought that it was impossible for me to have a real love story because people like me don't get that. (Not to get all sob story on you sorry. I overshare. It's an autistic thing.)

And there are some really compelling things about kitty that really do work. And I'm not trying to suggest that Kit learning to help Ty with the ...shall we say more colourful traits of his disability is a bad thing always. It's not. But I think the issue is with Ty's lack of pov and Ty's lack of a narrative in the books. It makes him seem like less of a completely developed character and more like, "Kit's" you know?

And because we don't have Ty's pov we don't really get what makes Kit have this sort of calming effect on him or why it's different. And more importantly we don't get why Ty's letting him in, we only get Kit pushing past his boundries. The entire thing becomes about Kit essentially and that's at the root of all allistic saviorism.

Also like you mentioned before, Kit is seen as special to a certain extent because he can handle Ty. That's not neccesarily something the character believes obviously, but again with CC co-signing the damn narrative with the way she makes the impact Kit has on Ty such a big deal in everyone's eyes and in QOAAD she really emphasizes the drain Ty's necromancy plan is taking on Kit, suddenly Ty's grief becomes all about Kit and with no pov from Ty, it's more allistic savior bs.

Honestly most of this isnt actually THAT bad it's just when you throw it all together and look at the ugly history and let's be honest present, of autistic people being silenced and spoken over by our caregivers and loved ones and we are treated like burdens on them, and how those people are praised for loving us, it kinda looks bad. But the fandom definitely made it worse.

I always get criticized for criticizing kitty by allistic people with, " well if you think they're so toxic then why do you even ship them?" Which is a piss poor take lacking in any nuance. An autistic person has the right to critique a dynamic involving an autistic character. More to the point, you can love something and be critical of it. I swear when this fandom finally figures that one out... we could accomplish so much.

I'm really hoping this is making sense it's like 2 in the morning. As for Grace and Christopher's dynamic I agree with you. I basically have nothing to add. Bare minimum. Should not be idolized. The way the others treat him should not just be brushed off as no big deal. It's ableism.

Basically it's just a bunch of classic mistakes that come from a neurotypical abled writer writing nd characters. Some mistakes are more damning then others. But it does make me scared for TWP.

I can only hope.

your tags on that polyamory being queer post are SO good. this is exactly the reason intersex people are included under the queer umbrella and lgbt acronym (like lgbtqia+), but people who are and aren't intersex will discourse about it and say intersex isn't queer and that it's only included because intersex people are seen as "inherently nonbinary" which isn't true and that's never why it was included, but okay :|

(Adding the screenshot of the tags in question mostly bc future me WILL need context kdfkdkkf)

And. God yeah, exactly!!!! Tbh, and this is pretty mainstream, but I realized a lot of this mindset a while ago, when I was able to articulate why I had so much issue with people bitching about cishet aces in the community.

Being ace and understanding there’s still so much you have to go through, to unlearn, and risk punishment for when it’s literally a part of who you are and not something you can control or change…. It just stands to reason this extends to other issues as well, and is a core reason it’s more important to seek that solidarity in similar communities, than tear them apart because you can’t see their struggles past the differences.

Ace people aren’t “the enemy”. Intersex people aren’t “the enemy”. Polyamorous people aren’t “the enemy”. “The enemy” is society and media and even more modern “traditions” telling us there can only be one right way.

Ace and intersex and polyamorous people, and so many others, need a community, and while they can have and form their own, it can be so much safer to have a larger community backing you. We need to be able to give each other that option. To give each other that safety.

I hope it was ok to respond openly to this and lmk if not, but I really appreciated the ask and wanted a chance to yell more because seriously…. Why don’t more people Understand™️.

(Disclaimer: it is very late and I am very tired while writing this, and I’m queuing it up, so I apologize if I wrote any of this poorly or if I look like I’m getting hung up on the wrong part.)

i’m so fucking tired of holivia. do a stunt idgaf or get into a relationship i also do not give a fuck but i’ve resented her ever since the ‘coming out is the same as being a director’ shabang because that was around the time i figured out that i was queer and i was looking for a space to feel comfortable in my sexuality and i found that in harry. seeing him surround himself with her and it’s like oh shit, no more safe space ig. i know i’m old enough to not need to have a ‘safe space’ but it was nice to have it. i felt genuinely cared for in harry’s fanbase whether because of him or fans it doesn’t matter i felt accepted and like people cared about me. and now i cant be vocal about disliking her without getting called misogynistic or sexist or literally anything and it’s exhausting. i grew up with my parents not really caring about my well-being ans finding that only for it to be destroyed is something i’m not handling well. — sorry for ranting btw. i just needed to get that out. i might be overreacting idk.

Everyone needs a safe space. There's no age limit. But I totally get that. I was offended by that comment she made and honestly I hated the comment Harry made by saying "sexuality is fun". It's not fun. It can be scary and I know if I come out, as well as other people, I'll be disowned by part of my family. That's kind of terrifying tbh so it makes sense to feel put off by that.

Fans who cry misogyny are most likely super young or super ignorant. They think we claim to not like her because she's associated with Harry but that's not true. We don't like her because she makes us feel uncomfortable and unsafe and she's just overall a shitty person in general. I don't have an issue saying that and I don't give 2 shits what shippers have to say about it. And now hearing her make fun of fans' dancing at concerts? Bullshit and it makes me angry to think Harry allowed this.

But yeah, I totally get your frustrations. They're valid and you're not overreacting

History as an academic discipline is quite a bit more scientific than I think people on tumblr are really interested in giving it credit for. I don’t want to diagnose the root cause of the problem too much, but I do think it’s quite intimately related to the way in which lots of folk on here are driving by emotional politics rather than ideological politics — which is to say, people feel that something should be the case, and therefore believe X, Y, or Z, rather than people have a structural analysis of something, and therefore believe X, Y, or Z. This goes hand in hand with the rise of popular individualism in the anglo west in the late 70s, early 80s (see Emily Robinson et al.) and the various associates political/cultural elements therein. I won’t say more here, but this is a lot of what my research is on, So I do have thoughts.

Anyways — history is a far more scientific discipline than people are really ready to accept on here. When you go through training as a historian, you’re trained in a variety of methodologies and historiographical philosophies, and a lot of them sit in tension or contradiction with one another. However, even the most hardline subjectivists (like EH Carr, for example) would agree with this premise: historiographical narratives cannot be disproved on sentiment alone. They can only be disproved with sufficient research or reinterpretation of extant evidence. They cannot be disproved simply because they don’t feel right.

What that means — and this is an emotionally and politically complex reality of the field, please don’t assume that I’m endorsing it — is that as historians, we have to accept certain things as historical fact, even if we don’t necessarily agree with them morally or politically. For an example from my field, I think it’s incredibly gender essentialist and degrading to assert that ‘women tend to tell more emotive life histories and men tend to tell more event-oriented life histories.’ But the existing research says that this is true. In my research, I’ve worked to overturn this orthodoxy by uncovering new evidence of women who don’t tell emotive life histories and instead choose event-oriented narrative structures. I have also reinterpreted existing evidence to argue that the initial conclusions are wrong. However, given that my research has not yet stood up to peer review, nor has it been published, I have to accept that the state of historiographical play says that the above statement is true. I feel as if that’s wrong, but insofar as proving that it’s wrong goes, I haven’t met the criteria yet. I intend to, but I’m not there yet.

This is fine, this process doesn’t cause problems for trained historians, for archivists, museologists, etc. The problems arise when laypeople — particularly laypeople on social media — misinterpret how and why this process of knowledge production exists the way it does, and through that misinterpretation extrapolate information that they should not reasonably be extrapolating to draw illogical conclusions. To continue the example of my research, it would not be unsurprising to see people on tumblr call me a gender essentialist for accepting that historiographical premise in my work. It would not matter that politically I am not a gender essentialist, nor would it matter that my work seeks to problematise that gender essentialism, the very fact of my beginning with a widely-accepted (if politically and historically incorrect!) premise for my research would be enough to earn the GE label. You see this frequently with the generalisations that history as a discipline is homophobic, that historians are all colonisers, or that historical work is inherently misogynistic. The problem here is that it erases and complicates the work of historians who are trying to unsettle those norms — and the historians who are not homophobic, imperialist, or misogynistic and who are not working to unsettle those norms, but whose work nonetheless remains valid and important.

We, as historians, cannot problematise every bit of knowledge at all moments. The orthodoxy has to be chipped away bit by bit. I’m not going to say that it isn’t frustrating, tiring, or even (tbh) dehumanising, but it’s the state of the state in academia. But that we are forced to work within these incredibly tight parameters does not make us morally or politically illegitimate; if there is a way to secure a revolution in the academy that has not yet been tried, I would welcome advice on it. Such as it is, reform is the only plausible path forward (in the academy!!! Not generally!!!).

When people on tumblr, typically people who are not aware of how the historiographical process works, pontificate about historians writ large being homophobic/misogynistic/racist/whatever, they are actively damaging the historians who most need to be heard. The pale, male, and stale bourgeois academics aren’t hurt by those accusations, because they simply don’t give a fuck. Historians like me, however, queer, disabled, nb historians (for just one case), are hurt by those accusations. It functions as a delegitimisation of the research that I do, of the serious and credible political work I am undertaking both as a researcher and as an activist, and it encourages me to give up on this small corner of a wider struggle. If historians like me — or indeed historians not like me, but who do not fit the bourgeois academic mould — are chased out of the academy, you will not have succeeded in making history more accurate, more diverse, or more politically correct in its analyses. You will have, essentially, ceded the ground to the regressive orthodoxy. And for whatever criticisms I have of tumblr’s liberalism and general detachment from practical politics (go touch some fuckin’ grass guys!), I do not actually believe that you’re trying to undermine the effort to decolonise and democratise knowledge. I think a lot of you are being incredibly unhelpful and even very damaging, but I think it stems from ignorance, not malice.

Anyways, it’s really late, I’m very tired, I’ve had an incredibly difficult day dealing with people (historians! yes! bad women historians!) who promote rank misogyny in their obsession with emotive politics above serious politics, so I’ll do everyone a favour and stop talking and go to bed. But I do really wish people would approach this stuff with more sensitivity and respect than they do right now. Ugh. Okay. Night.

Very true! I think straight artists can and should write songs that can be interrupted as queer. I do think there is a stark difference between a straight artist like taylor vs actual queer artists. I do roll eyes at people who act like artists like lil Nas x aren’t as important as taylor if she was queer and I think that’s a huge disservice to queer artists. Yeah taylor is big but I don’t think she’s a gay icon. I don’t know. I feel a sense of community but also a sense of resentment because Taylor doesn’t really do a lot for me as a queer person. I feel mean for saying a lot of times I get tired of having to jump through hoops to explain that I’m not being homophobic for seeing her just as as a het artist. She has a lot of privilege in her music. A queer artist writing Betty might not get the reconfiguring that tS got. Idk if that makes me feel jaded but I just feel that way semitones and I love taylor so I don’t send hate anyway to her :)

i totally understand your perspective. i agree that she's not a gay icon, at least to me - i can't speak for the broader community.

taylor's gay "rumors" do fascinate me though because even irl, i have a group of new queer friends who discuss her casually (they're not big fans tbh) and they're all basically of the mind that... yeah, she pings or definitely seems to be hinting at her sexuality, but if she wanted to come out, she would have. she's in a relationship with a man and she wants to keep it to herself which is understandable but not exciting.

and that's sort of how i feel about it.

i know this is quinnamon roll's theatre time here rn, but how does he get on with the other cricket children rhododendron and rat boy? was Nando nervous to introduce them? what do rhododendron and ratatouille think of quinnjamin?? (idk why i cant just use their names tbh sorry)

My friend, forgive me! This response to your ask has been slightly delayed. But now is a good time to reiterate that, as a PSA, if you send me an ask, I will answer it— even if that doesn’t happen right away. The way I sort through my inbox isn’t exactly arbitrary, because I do try to go from oldest to newest, but sometimes I’ll get several asks about the same concept or character, and I’ll decide I want to space them out a little.

Anyway. That was just an aside. This ask covers a generally broad cricket topic, so let’s start out the week on a wholesome note.

(This came in during a Quinn Theatre Hours session, which is context for the qualifying sentence. And feel free to ask me anything about the crickets!)

First of all, I seriously appreciate your inability to use their actual names. It’s a big mood. I’m sort of getting ahead of myself on the answer to your question here, but Rhodey does exactly what you did in your ask with Quinn all the time. As in, he can’t call him Quinn. He’s Q, or Quinnothy, or Quinnjamin, or His Royal Highness Sir Quinnington III, et cetera. Mostly, he’s just Q. But Rhodey is a goofball, and he gives him random not-names constantly.

Anyway, let’s backtrack a little, because there’s a thorough answer in store for your question.

Before he and Quinn actually become official, Nando has talked about Quinn to Rhodey and Touille. This starts early, probably on the night they meet at that Halloween party. He probably doesn’t say much right away, just that he was talking to a guy and he had a good night.

Touille doesn’t really latch onto this, because he’s not attentive when it comes to relationships. Rhodey, wingman of the century, absolutely does. Dude, when are you seeing that guy again? Did you find him on Instagram? You should ask Ford about him. What, are you gonna let a prime opportunity slip through your hands like this!???! N A N N Y. Bro. You gotta try to see him again. You guys talked for like three entire hours.

The reason Rhodey is adamant about this is: although I would absolutely not say that Nando let his failing relationship with N*te ruin his first two or so months at Samwell, he definitely let it affect him emotionally at least a little. I mean, how could he not? He was genuinely invested in making that work as an LDR, and N*te so obviously was not, so Nando was the one trying to keep the entire operation from collapsing. I don’t know why I’m making a relationship sound like a government strategy, but anyway. The point is. The only impression Rhodey has of Nando’s love live up to the point he meets Quinn is that Nando got treated like shit (and then cheated on) by his ex.

Rhodey, as his best friend, obviously thinks this sucks majorly and wants the best for Nando. So when a boy walks into Nando’s life whom Nando is obviously sweet on, Rhodey thinks he should seize the opportunity.

Anyway, that’s why Rhodey knows right away that he wants to set Quinn up with Nando for Winter Screw. And when Screw goes well, he considers it a huge win for his judgement and his best friend’s well-being.

So Nando and Quinn court. It’s soft. It’s schmoopy. They take, like, two weeks to actually become official because they’re both so useless and gay that each of them is waiting for the other to drop the will you be my boyfriend question. Finally, Quinn gets tired of ambiguity, and he just asks. Then they’re dating. And all is well.

The first time Quinn meets Rhodey and Touille is before they’re dating, but not long before that at all. Nando has talked about his friends, and he and Quinn are starting to make a habit of meeting up for some meals, so one day for lunch, he texts Quinn to come and meet him with his other freshman hockey friends.

Quinn is nervous, but Nando is more nervous. The reason Quinn is nervous is that he’s still sort of wary of jocks. Let it be known that Quinn has no deep-seeded jock trauma; he’s just a theatre kid, and the Samwell drama club in particular has reservations about the school’s athletes. Quinn is an incredibly confident person, and he’s not ashamed of himself or the things he loves to do or the way he is in the slightest. But he likes Sebastián, a whole lot, and he wants to be his boyfriend, and he knows how important his team friends are to him— so Quinn desperately wants his friends to like him. The thought of them disliking him or judging him makes him a little nervous.

(Quinn is literally that John Mulaney bit where he’s like “I need everyone to like me so much, all of the time!!!!!!!”)

Nando is more nervous, though, like I said. And the reasons are relatively similar. He wants Rhodey and Touille to get along with Quinn. Like Quinn, he is experiencing feelings of wanting to be his boyfriend. His best friends from back home did not get along with N*te, and it was a recipe for discomfort. Rhodey and Touille not liking Quinn wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for him, but it would leave him in an awkward situation, and he knows that.

He just feels so soft on him, and he wants his friends to understand how much he likes him, and how great he is.

Okay, so finally! We’ve reached the point of the post. Quinn comes to lunch. He introduces himself to them in his funny little formal way and sits down, and for the briefest, most terrifying second, Quinn realizes he brought nothing prepared for them to talk about.

And then Rhodey, because he is Rhodey, breaks the ice, and everything is uphill from there.

Rhodey gets along with people easily, and so does Nando. Touille may be a little more introverted, but he feeds off of their energy, and it makes their trio socially effective. So the conversation over lunch is animated and enjoyable, because the three crickets already work so well on their own, and they welcome Quinn right into the fold perfectly.

Once Rhodey and Touille learn they’re actually, officially dating, they’re well pleased. Because they like Quinn.

Now. In general? I want to talk a little about Rhodey and Quinn’s dynamic, because it’s priceless. They get along very well, to the point where Rhodey has a genuine friendship with Quinn that exists outside of Nando. Oh, sure, it’s based in the fact that Nando is dating Quinn, but the two of them just get along. They team up to organize for Nando’s birthday, bond over queer culture stuff (Rhodey and Quinn force Nando to watch Drag Race and it’s the best), share music recommendations, and just generally vibe. When Rhodey starts his secret undercover drag queen thing, Quinn is his costumer and also his makeup artist. Because apparently that’s a thing.

Alsooooooo Rhodey has emotional venting hours to Quinn when he’s being Angsty about a certain dumb Canadian rat boy.

Also, Rhodey is the king of chirping. He does a hilarious Quinn impression over team breakfast when Nando is being roasted for being a simp, and he does the refusal to call him by his actual name thing that we discussed above.

The four of them hang out all the time. I’ve mentioned briefly that Quinn is to the crickets as Farmer is to the frogs, and that’s absolutely true. The three crickets hang out on their own plenty, of course, but when Quinn tags along, there’s nothing awkward about it. Like, Rhodey and Touille aren’t the kind of friends who are like ugh, he always brings the person he’s dating around. Because the person Nando is dating is also their friend.

They do go clubbing together. I’m not even sorry about it. They’ll all cram themselves into Quinn’s tiny room and pregame while they get ready. “Why don’t they use Rhodey and Nando’s room, Mel?” Because the clubbing doesn’t start until their sophomore year, when Rhodey and Nando both live in the Haus in separate rooms, and they’re avoiding Captain Whiskey trying to be discreet.

The point is: Rhodey and Touille love Quinn, and he loves them right back. There’s no room for friends-clashing-with-boyfriend angst in Nando’s story.

Also, this is very much a found-family thing for Quinn, because his sister is the only actual family he has, and she’s far away. In Nando, and by extension in his friends, Quinn finds a home.

Thank you for the ask! :D

(1/?) I'm neutral to EA tbh, I like it sometimes but this isn't my OTP. I really like your blog, though. And what I want to say is - I used to ship KA after F1, but they totally ruined them for me as a couple in shorts and then in F2 (and so did they with the sisters' relation :(). As for F2, I totally agree with what you said about personality transplant the main trio went through. But put this aside, I have another thought - I feel so sorry for Anna after F2. First, she became the queen, and

(2/?) she's never asked for it, it's not her world. She didn't even want to go on that adventure in the first place. She also "lost" her sister (true love) and best friend. And now let's consider for a moment that all these 'personality transplants' are true, and that we count the deleted scenes and shorts: so she's always wanted but 1 thing, to be with her sister. In OFA Elsa promised her they'll always be together (in the song), and she'd done the same before, at the end of F1, in FF and even  (3/?) at the beginning of F2, blah blah. And now she totally, utterly betrayed Anna's trust (the ice boat), never apologized AND then went to live in the forest for God knows what fucking reason, and didn't even attend Anna's coronation (and made Anna a queen because she didn't want to do it anymore, not even asking for her opinion) nor replied for her letter. What a stinker. Then the parents - after the boat scene it seems everything has always been Elsa-centric and Anna couldn't even have her         (4/?) time to mourn. Then Kristoff in the Nokk scene. She was engaged to him, she decided to trust him after what happened with Hans, and he betrayed her trust, too. All he did for these 3 years (including FF and OFA) was a lie, he didn't mean it and didn't want it at all. Plus it seems their relationship has been pointless all along, because they can't even communicate well. I know Anna treated him badly in F2, but well, it clearly shows Elsa is her true love and she can't focus on anyone else            (5/?) at the moment... but they (KA) clearly weren't meant for each other anyway. And what I want to say, they ruined Anna's character, they took literally everything for her to five her this stupid powerful song and 'happy ending' she's never asked for. I mean, sure, she's dreamed of romance in F1, but in F2 it's none of her priorities, and definitely that's not the kind of relation ship I'd expect they'd make for her after watching F1. I don't like TNRT because I think it would be better to             (6/?) give Anna NATURAL circumstances to prove her worth, independence and strenght, instead of forcing some stupid stuff. And I don't like the fact KA relation is promoted as healthy... I don't think of it as unhealthy... it's just nonexistent. And stupid. And I totally agree that the sisters' relationship IS unhealthy - but only after how F2 pictured it! So, to sum up, she was my favourite character and I hate everything that's happened to her (as I hate it also with E and K, but well,(7/7) that's not the point of this message), she doesn't even look like her anymore, since the charades. And I hope that you won't delete this message, I didn't mean to promote KA, just wanted to share how I feel about this movie. And I truly like EA. I can't talk about it to any other part of fandom, though, for ppl who ship KA think it's a perfect ending. Sorry for such a long message! I hope the stupidity of F2 creators are the only thing that bothers you on these hard days. Stay safe!     

I really like your post, I’m sorry if it took me 2 days to reply but I wanted to be at pc and not by phone.First of all....let me say that this: “ she's always wanted but 1 thing, to be with her sister “ is essentially who Anna is. She spent her whole life wanting one thing: to spend time with her sister and prove her she’s worth it.

And how are they gonna do that? Apart. Playing it off like “she’s a grown up, she can do stuff by herself”, when she ALWAYS DID EVERYTHING BY HERSELF!!!!

It doesn’t make sense even from a psychological pov. She always feared to lose this person, she always wanted to be with this person, now she loses it. The LAST thing one would do is say “oh ok well I’ll be fine on my own!”

It doesn’t make any fucking sense. I don’t know who they paid to tell them it does (trauma experts LOL), but they wasted their money.

The mistake they did with Anna and that, IMO, widened the popularity gap between Elsa and Anna in Frozen 2, was to give her a storyline so unpopular and not relatable for KIDS.

Kids don’t want to know how they’ll feel when their sister will die, IT’S SO FUCKING WEIRD.

Kids want to see a badass princess with a sword, who fights for her kingdom!! And yet in Frozen 2 they took the one who had powers and who could fight, and turned her into an hippie who does nothing at all in a forest, and the hero, the princess who could be fucking cool, is now a bad copy of what her sister was.

Being Queen, after losing her sister, surviving another trauma, having such a not relatable storyline for a kid.....it’s not a victory.

The only ones who think it’s cool are KA fans for obvious reasons, but they should’t be so happy since he was proved “not good enough” to stand by her side.

I do not agree with you on the sisters relationship being unhealthy and I said many times that was NOT Disney’s intent. Because to paint a sisterly relationship as unhealthy wouldn’t be appropriate for a kids movi and they would NEVER do it, (can you imagine the MONEY THEY’LL LOSE???? Why would they do that? Paint as negative something that makes them sell more than everything else on the market???? It’s crazy!!) and because the weird vibe you got about the relationship comes from the rewriters.For exemple Elsa ignores Anna a bit too much, but it’s because she was supposed to be succubus of a voice and being careless in her search for it.She was supposed to die, and the audience would have said “oh yeah, she even ignored the poor Anna to follow that siren, and she got herself killed”. It was supposed to be painted as a negative thing.But this is just an exemple of one rewrite, many other details, I’m sure, made you come to your conclusion, but I know they’re all results of last minute rewritings, so I have to ignore them.

It’s pretty much the same arguments over and over again, codependency, unhealthy relationship, and I’m tired to debunk them so I’ll just go on with my reply. :)

I agree that Anna doesn’t look like Anna anymore. She was reckless, impulsive,  free-spirited and adventurous.

(now this makes me laugh at this point):

Anyway, they had to give her a personality transplant (simply “growing up” doesn’t do that) to achieve an end they desperately wanted, who knows why.

Jenn and friends wanted to give her the “Disney happy ending”, a kingdom and a dude, and they had to destroy what Frozen was, in order to achieve it. A story about 2 sisters, who always wanted to be together. A story about family, where a single (queer coded) Queen was ruling and is now replaced by the same old boring hetero couple (while the weirdo with powers was sent elsewhere, who cares where).

How can people trust someone who wanted Elsa as a villain, and wanted her dead, I will never understand it.

I’m not surprised they ruined Anna too, considering what they did to Elsa.

2019 is over and i have feelings

it’s the end of the year and this is mostly filled with rambling half-thoughts, but that’s what you do at the end of the year—you reflect and ramble until it almost turns into something. this is under a read more only because i don’t like clogging up people’s dashes with really long posts, so you know, skip or read at your own leisure.

i don’t really ever do any kind of reflecting that doesn’t come out in the form of fanfiction. i have some feelings, i write a few thousand words about them, i throw them out into the world, and that’s it. i’ll reread my own stuff but i never really think again about what prompted me to write them because it’s over. the feelings are done but the words are memories and that’s all i need, usually.

but 2019 was a tough year in ways that i can’t express in fic, so i’ll just throw out a few thousand personal words and be done with it.

in september of 2018, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and i don’t think i’ve really been happy since. most of it isn’t being sad about the diagnosis—maybe a lot of it is and i just need a whole heap of therapy to unpack that—but rather how much the cancer changed. it was very advanced when they caught it and she’s made almost a complete recovery in just over a year, and given how shitty everything was to start, this is the best way a bad situation could have ended. not that it’s over, but you know.

it shifted our family completely. i don’t think it brought us closer, maybe my sister or my parents feel differently, but i don’t. morgie turned inward for maybe the first time in her life and kept us at arm’s length in the beginning. she told us very clearly that she didn’t want the cancer to take over her whole life—she wanted us to act normal and talk about normal things as if this was just a temporary snag.

i’ve had epilepsy since i was fifteen months old. i know what it feels like to do that same thing, to minimize and downplay the experience of a chronic condition. because my epilepsy has, gratefully, been very manageable. i can count on one hand the number of seizures i remember having. i have an annual checkup with a neurologist, she confirms the dosage of my meds, and i say goodbye. that’s it, no problem, see you next year.

(it could be so much worse, they say. you’re very lucky, you hear for twenty nine years.

i am not lucky.)

morgan’s cancer kind of opened the flood gates, i think, and a whole heap of shit came spilling out. you know how you see those posts on here about ADHD or autism and a few captions down the line someone is always like, “wait, you mean not everyone [is like this] or [does that]?” i feel like i’m just coming to realize that about my childhood.

not everyone takes days off of school to go to the children’s hospital—for an EEG, or an MRI, or to get blood drawn, etc. “normal” seven-year-olds probably aren’t managing their own prescriptions. my condition is less severe than many others’ but that doesn’t mean it’s normal. it’s certainly not. i’ve always understood “it’s manageable” to mean “it’s not traumatic”, and only now am i realizing that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

and all of a sudden, this thing that i’ve been living with for so long, that i thought i had under control, is rearing back with a vengeance. and because i have been taught to be grateful for the “best” of a bad situation, because its mildness has turned it into something we don’t talk about, i draw inward and it festers and rots into shame. i’ve been operating like this since i was a kid and i think maybe i’ve finally hit capacity.

on top of that, i’ve been going through a bit of an identity crisis. i seem to do that every few years—five years ago as ace, four years ago as nonbinary—and i guess it’s time for another one. tbh it’s kind of been scraping at the back of my brain ever since i realized i was nonbinary, because even that didn’t feel like enough, but i didn’t know what would. 

i’ve said it in a few posts over the years (probably somewhere in both of the linked ones), but i personally really like labels. i spend so much of my time with myself (physically, sure, but i mean emotionally) and very rarely ever share things out loud, so how can i know who i am if i don’t find the right words? gay was good to start. ace fit in later, and then eventually it was just queer. and it will probably stay queer, but there are different parts of my queerness that i haven’t named yet, and the ambiguity is making me itch.

i’ve had this post sitting in my likes for about a week now—i identify with it too much to ignore, but it scares me too much to reblog it, and also i don’t want to until i can explain my feelings and fears. transness feels like something i’ve been hiding from for a while—not in a repulsive way. more like that “i’m in this photo and i don’t like it” meme. that thread encapsulates a lot of what i’ve been thinking about and struggling with for a few months: that i don’t feel trans ~enough, but i also don’t feel not-trans. 

everything i’ve been thinking about feels like i’m quibbling with myself over something really small, like how much of a difference would it really make to think of myself as trans...instead of? along with? being nonbinary; why is this a detail i’ve been obsessing over. everything i said in the nb post is still true, except my concept of gender has changed a little since i wrote it. i don’t feel like a woman and i don’t feel like a man, except i also don’t think gender means anything, even when presented as two binary options, so what do i really know? how do i know i’m not a man if i think “man” means nothing?

and i really am thinking about it in the smallest of terms—headcanon-ing characters as trans, feeling drawn to the trans flag over any others. it’s really dumb, that this is what’s triggering a bit of gay panic. what does it matter, i keep asking myself. i’ve seen posts over the years breaking down the stripes of each flag, pointing out that nb/genderqueer identities are already represented, and i wish that were enough but it’s not. it’s so dumb, i keep thinking, to see myself in the whole of the trans flag when i don’t think i belong to the whole transgender experience. and even that sounds dumb, when i hear it—of course there isn’t one whole transgender experience. i hear it, but i haven’t yet listened.

anyway. all of this and a lot of other things have been broiling and rotting inside of me for my whole life probably. i’ve literally never said any of this out loud, to friends or family or strangers. i’ve worn that like a badge since high school—isn’t it admirable, how i can talk and laugh and live without dumping my problems on anyone else. isn’t it better to be accommodating, to keep your burdens from weighing other people down? only you don’t realize until later how tiresome it is to be heavy. 

now that i have all of my fics moved over to AO3, i’ve been thinking about all that i’ve written over the years. it’s just shy of 730k. that’s more than the first five harry potter novels combined, and i’ve never told anyone in my life about it. that’s twelve years and so much of me to keep to myself. but i’ve done it because that’s kind of what i learned to do—my epilepsy was my first and most guarded secret and along the way i guess i learned to do that with everything. it doesn’t help that so many of my interests have been things that are either solitary or a source of “shame”. most of my friends i know through various social media sites. i’ve had this tumblr for nine years and the only people who know about it are other tumblr users.  there is so much more of me than a few hundred thousand words hanging around this garbage dump. 

i don’t know if there are any conclusions here. 2019 was rough, for even more reasons than i’ve barfed into this post. i’m not sure if i’ve learned anything from it; i don’t feel wiser or anything. i feel tired and mostly sad. i wish i could snap my fingers and resolve everything, but if i could do that, i’d already have done it. on top of everything, these are probably my last few months in chicago for a while, but that’s a whole other mountain of feelings to unpack.

anyway, i’m going into 2020 determined to get over myself, maybe find a therapist and a good masseuse.  

happy new year.

I find it really funny when people say that the other seasons don't do as well as season 3 because the 'season 3 only watchers' care about representation. where are them caring about representation when the only remake that made noora a woc is flopping to the point cast and crew have to ask fans to use vpn? where are the so active fandom members now that imane's season is only getting half the views season 3 got? and why do they get defensive when we point this out? 🤔

#weknowhwhy

But seriously... 

 I think it is true that some people only start watching the “gay season” / season 3 because they’re also lgbtq+ and seeing a M/M love story is important to them. That I understand. I personally didn’t start watching Skam / didn’t care about it until Sana’s season, because having a Muslim woman of color as the main character was the representation that was important to me. tbh I just don’t care that much about white M/M ships, they don’t represent me as a queer woman of color, so seeing Ev*k GIFsets wasn’t enough to prompt me to watch. And I know that a lot of my mutuals (who are also women of color and/or Muslim) don’t watch until season 4 for the same reason. In these cases, I do understand the nuance of it. Especially because of how triggering S2 can be for a lot of people, with the archetype of all the William characters being based off of someone many (including me) see as an abuser, added with the sexual assault storyline. It can be a lot for some people.

However, it is funny/sad because I don’t think that’s the majority of people. I do think that this is primarily not about representation really, but about  fetishizing cis white M/M ships. Like there really can’t be any denial about it at this point, particularly when looking at Druck, Skam Austin, and Skam España. The amount of fandom racism and transphobia when it comes to David is pretty evident, and then you have La’keisha Slade (Shay) openly saying she doesn’t feel as appreciated as some of the Isaks / people still choosing to believe that Tyler is going to get his own season. The misogynoir and lesophobia jumped out! Plus with España... say what you will about it’s recent “panphobia,” but since the beginning the show hasn’t been trending nor has Cris gotten the same hype as other “Isak” types. Anyone can say that they only watch “the gay season” because that rep is important, but look at the responses to all of the white M/M ships vs. the interracial M/M ship and the (potential) W/W ships and it makes it glaringly obvious what that drive for “representation” is all about. 

It’s also sad because in the case for Skamfr especially, it’s literally unheard of (I would argue in any country, in any media) to have a Black Muslim woman be the main character of your show. I remember seeing all this “discourse” about OG, that people said they were only watching S3 because they were tired of the “heterosexual nonsense”... as if portraying a hijabi woman of color in love with a man of color was somehow the same thing as your run-of-the-mill white cishet ships... I think this really is a race thing, like white people really just don’t get how “typical” representations of women of color (especially Black women) being cherished or loved is actually subversive, because we don’t get to be empathetic women, we don’t get to be angry and soft and dynamic, not the way white women do. Again I understand why some people might not want to watch S2, but it’s the same thing with Liv in Skam NL. Even if you don’t or can’t ship her with Noah, having a Black/mixed girl as the main of this story changes so many dynamics and elements and it’s not a typical portrayal. Same thing with Megan being the only Latina Eva / Eva of Color with Skam Austin. 

And it does make me sad that when the SkamFr clip of Daphne's party came out, the ratio of GIFs about Imane vs. E*u were like, 1:20. And yah you can argue that it’s because folks who ship them haven’t seen them in a few episodes, people are excited, etc. etc. but it feels like more than that, doesn’t it? Just look through the tag at how many people think all of Imane’s problems will go away if she just goes to talk to E*liot or L*cas instead of Alexia or Manon or Idriss or any of the people we know she’s actually emotionally close to in canon. It’s like... just say all you care about is E*u content and go. It would make it easier for the rest of us who do care about Imane and want content about her. Like I said in another ask, we can moderate the content we see to an extent, but it is constantly exhausting.

People get mad because they don’t want to be told about themselves, honestly. Like again I think there are a lot of valid reasons why folks wouldn’t watch some seasons, having “diverse” casts doesn’t actually make a season good or accurate or a non-harmful representation for marginalized viewers. But the mental gymnastics that, imo, most people go through to talk about why their white M/M faves are the best or the most important representation, or why other kinds of rep don’t matter to them, is astounding. Like it’s tiring and tbh I’m bored of those viewers. So in a strange way I’m kind of glad some of the other seasons don’t have the same fanbase. It makes it easier to find mutuals who I can actively enjoy and critique things with without having to worry about the borderline obsession of these white M/M ship on my dash. 

- mod Jennifer 

Disclaimer:

Look. Don’t let my use of titles like “Pumpkins” for my followers and all the sweet mushy things I say (mostly to them and about them because they’re amazing) fool you. I am a rabid cunt. (All the love toward them is true but think of me as that cat who likes specific people but will maul others.)

If you roll into my space with some nonsense I will shut it the fuck down. I’m a tired queer who grew up in near poverty in the south. I am NOT the one y’all. 

So do not bother hanging about here if:

- You’re a TERF, SWERF, or any other fucked thing like that. Not here for it. 

- Trans/Homo/Bi/whatever/phobic. In case it’s not clear I’m queer and this is a queer safe space. 

- Tbh most conservative folks won’t be happy with me. Feel free to hang but I don’t give a fuck about your opinion and I won’t debate you because I don’t owe you shit. 

- RACISTS SEE YOURSELF OUT. Don’t have the time or space for you. But if you would like to run your mouth feel free to do so at me rather than a person of color and please do so off anon. 

- And since it started this: If the phrase ‘Blue Lives Matter’ or ‘Not All Cops’ has passed your lips. Nope. Bye. See ya. 

- There’s more but I’m going to bed. 

Love most of you so deeply!  

PS

Speaking of Pumpkins... THE PATCH IS 1,001 STRONG!!! More on that later. 

Endgame Thoughts

I’m aware that no one really gives a fuck about my thoughts or feelings lmfao and that’s cool lol I barely do tbh and I’ve not been on here in like an entire year and all of you have changed your usernames and I don’t even know who I’m reblogging but I just have to say -- I’m so damn tired of being mad at MCU like. I’ve been wielding this big fucking sledgehammer since AOU, which came out in 20-fucking-15, and I’ve been pissed off ever since. I was pissed about everything from how the actors were treated to the basic plot to the complete misogyny to just... everything. And every Marvel movie that came after I had to fucking harden my heart against it and hope that it wouldn’t be an absolute dumpster fire. And like?? For the most part they have definitely been improving. But this -- the last vestiges of the original team? It was always going to be problematic to some degree -- we’re saying goodbye to the men that started this franchise. I got to a point where I was finally like, as long as my two boys are okay, I’ll be okay. 

And you know what? They are. Tony, albeit he had to die, is finally able to rest, and like??? That is such a fitting end for him? He was never going to chill the fuck out. If he was able to just be happy any other way he would certainly not have been tinkering around with time travel after Steve asked him to. He could never live with himself in peace, never, that was it. 

And Bruce? He finally learned to deal with the Hulk in a constructive way. As someone with mental health issues like that is such a validating fucking thing, to embrace his trauma and the scary, angry, disgusting parts of himself and live with them and be comfortable with them, facing them every day? Oh my god. Like. Bruuuuuuce. Bruce. I am so fucking happy for Bruce. 

And even on a level beyond that, they pretty much gave me everything I could want in that movie like. Tower times like we all talked about post Avengers 1. And they added so many dumb memes and we got a powerful Nat/Clint moment and Thor somehow morphed into my personal headcanon of him and Steve got to do the selfish shit I think he always really wanted to do and yeah they didn’t do much with the women of MCU but they were never going to, this was about saying goodbye to the old team, and the entire fight sequence at the end was about that -- the newbies taking the gauntlet across the field as a hand off and even the scene with all the women like I guess I interpreted that completely differently. To me it was like a promise they weren’t going to do again what they’ve done with the first four phases -- women would be there and they would be carrying it too.

Like I’ve just felt such a fucking relief watching that movie like this is it, this is finally it and I can set down this burden and I can be okay. And like I really wish that’s how other people felt about it? Because like I keep wanting to see things like this on here but what I’m finding is that people are still mad and like trust me -- I do NOT blame you. There are things to be mad about. But I just... I’m tired and I don’t want to hear them. I don’t want to think about RDJ tortured over this role and I don’t want to think about the Russo brothers dicking the actors over and I don’t want to think about the misogyny inherent in the past ten years of films. I only want to think about how bright the future of these films could be with canonical queer characters and badass women and men who are true to themselves and not wrapped up in all this masculine bullshittery like. The generational shift should be coming and I am SO excited I don’t have to constantly be pissed off and hide from trailers so I don’t have to live in anxiety about what they’re going to completely fuck up this time.

I know that’s... whatever. Like. I just needed to say you know... it’s done. It’s done. And now I can write my little fan fiction over the first four phases in peace lmfao ugh.

(1) Can I just say I hate all this Freddie Mercury biopic wank with a passion? Like, this hellsite went from "Queen is one of those boring 'classic' bands all whites are obsessed with bc they won't even consider new music by diverse artists u.u" to "WWRY is clearly a song about rebellious queer youth, cishets don't touch Queen u.u" after someone pointed out Freddie's ethnicity and sexuality, to "why aren't they making Freddie gay in the biopic!!!11" and... whatever they're whining about now.

(2) And I HATE looking at all this bs and thinking "fake fans", bc I'm pretty damn sure that by most standards, *I* count as a "fake fan", too. I mean, most stuff I know about the band's history is actually stuff about Freddie, thanks to a few documentaries centered around him and my mom, the long-time fan with a big crush on Freddie who introduced me to Queen when I was a kid. Hell, I couldn't even name all their albums or anything needed to be considered a "true fan". But ppl on here... ugh. (3) It's like they're really embarrassed bc they were called out on mistaking "woke" stuff for "unwoke" stuff, and now they have this desperate need to prove their ability to discern wokeness by getting offended about something they don't even care all that much about, as loudly and dramatically as they can.

HAHAHAHAHA.

okay so, tldr: I hate this discourse and I honestly hope that it dies within two weeks out of the biopic for a whole lot of reasons amongst which the ones you said, but like, this discourse actually highlights a shitload of issues with the usual tumblr discourse which I will gladly go into now because I’m fucking tired and this movie isn’t out yet.

now, premise: while I don’t think that true fans are a thing - at most there’s casual fans or in-depth fans but I mean, a fan is a fan so I don’t believe in the *fake* fans thing..... the problem here isn’t that they’re fakes. it’s that they aren’t fans. period.

other premise: from what you’ve said you’re a casual fan which is normal and you DON’T count as fake I mean if you like them and listen to them and know something it’s basically being a casual fan same as I am with idk the rolling stones, I like the famous stuff, I have the fundamental records and I like them when they’re on but that’s it.

but, yours truly is a Not Casual Queen Fan in the sense that a) I got into them when I was seventeen and I’m thirty now so thanks it’s been a while, b) I own all the records, c) I own a decent portion of roger taylor’s/brian may’s solo records (and I have listened to all of them that I couldn’t buy), d) I went to see them live once (k it was with paul rodgers but nvm guys not my fault if I wasn’t born in time for freddie) and I love queen’s music and I’m also fucking cishet and you know what? these people Are Not Fans and they should stop pretending they are and just stop making themselves look like assholes.

SPECIFICALLY:

the movie’s not out yet and I’ve had to see FIFTEEN ‘FRIENDLY REMINDER TO ALL CISHETS THAT FREDDIE MERCURY WAS GAY (at least a couple said he was bi and they were less asshole-ish) AND POC AND IF YOU DON’T KNOW YOU’D BETTER LEARN NOW HAHAHAHA YOU THOUGHT HE WASN’T. spoilers: every fucking casual queen fan who has bothered to buy three records knows that. yes, also the cishets. like, as someone who went from VERY CASUAL (ie: I know three songs) to NOT CASUAL in the span of two months I can 100% assure you that before getting into queen the usual preconceptions are that freddie was gay and that queen = freddie + three other people. the first three things you learn when getting into queen are (more or less in order but it can change) that a) the band was actually brian may + roger taylor first, b) that roger brought freddie in because they knew each other already, c) that mary austin was a fundamental person in freddie’s life and that she was also brian may’s ex and knew him first before they got together, d) the members’s backstories including where freddie was born, so like...... this idea that CASUAL CISHET FANS wouldn’t know that freddie was a) not heterosexual, b) poc is just something a NON-FAN would say because guess what, most queen fans even at a casual level are 100% aware that freddie was a) not heterosexual, b) not ethnical british. and saying that OMG CISHETS DON’T KNOW it’s ridiculous because guess what, everyone knows and if they have no idea they do, though luck, we did;

(spoilers: I also am 99% sure that those ppl have no idea that roger and brian actually sing on the records and composed a shitload of the music and queen =/= ONLY FREDDIE but okay)

they have no idea that rock music in the 70s/80s was not so heteronormative and was not the cishetmalething they think it is. like, please look at led zeppelin (ie THE PEOPLE WITHOUT WHOM YOU WOULDN’T HAVE HEAVY METAL) and tell me they were heteronormative. like, you saw robert plant? yeah, me too. and the thing was that queen were revolutionary in the sense that they brought an operatic/theatrical approach to the music that no one tried before but guess what, the point is that they made it sell. the thing that I would like tumblr Woke People to grasp is that what made queen groundbreaking as far as Wokeness goes is that they managed to sell and become the monster-moneymaking group they were (while keeping things quality) with a frontman who was Not Heterosexual, Did Not Try To Pass For Heterosexual One Day In His Life and Never Shied Away From It. like, idk if people are aware that while the scene was way less heteronormative than they think it still wasn’t the most openly talked about topic around (I mean guys elton john did marry a woman at some point X°DDD), but going around in the seventies flaunting your non-heterosexualness around and selling millions of copies making your stage persona a selling point of your music wasn’t exactly common. like ffs one of the most famous queen songs has a video where for 3/4 of the time they’re in drag and the other part has freddie performing with the royal ballet (and guess what the song was actually written by john deacon and the idea of doing the video in drag was roger taylor’s and none of them as far as we know is Not Heterosexual, but never mind giving the rest of the band some credit when it came to Not Caring About Heteronormativity) and fine, that video was banned/controversial, but it still was a huge british hit and it’s in the top five queen songs Everyone Knows. and tbh I’m terrified of that video being shown in the biopic (which it should since the works was from ‘84 and they stop at ‘85) because I’m 100% sure that those people have no idea it exists and when they find out how long is it gonna take them to decide that IT’S PROBLEMATIC? I mean, Woke Kids on here think the rhps is problematic, I’m shuddering at the thought of what they’d think of the i want to break free video;

actually a lot of us cishet queen fans might have had a wake up call including, er, finding out certain preferences, thanks to either their music or their shows or their videos (*cough* I 100% assure you that watching roger taylor in drag was what made me realize crossdressing was my thing for good like I knew before but I didn’t actually put two and two together until I saw that video and went like ‘............. AH WELL SHIT THEN THAT’S IT FAIR ENOUGH’), and a lot of us cishet queen fans who weren’t, like, strictly playing to heteronormative rules back in the day found a lot to relate to in their music even without being queer ourselves and guess what I’ve never met a single queen *fan* who could give less of a damn about freddie’s ethnicity or orientation (as in: everyone was a-okay with it) regardless of their background. that was what made them groundbreaking and extremely important as well, because they managed to be that kind of record-selling records-breaking band while not shying away from having a Not Heterosexual frontman AND Not Heteronormative Heterosexual Band Members Who Also Didn’t Give Two Fucks About Their Lead Singer’s Sexuality so going like OMG NOW WE’RE GONNA TEACH YOU THAT FREDDIE WASN’T HETEROSEXUAL BECAUSE WE’RE WOKE is ridiculous because dearest susan, we already knew and we already were woke about that and to us he was the frontman of a band we liked for a bunch of reasons;

also I don’t think people realize that freddie was a role model/example for the entire next generation of rock bands frontmen even in genres that had zilch to do with him - I mean guys AXL ROSE had a hero-worship for freddie and sang bohemian rhapsody at the freddie memorial concert WITH ELTON JOHN and grn really aren’t the same exact sphere as queen jsyk, but if you look at axl on stage esp. when he was younger? guys. it’s obvious. like you can see the influence. but lmao, now ALL the very cishet(-ish) singers who OPENLY SAID FREDDIE INFLUENCED THEM DIDN’T KNOW ACCORDING TO TUMBLR DOT COM?

LIKE, fuck’s sake, one of freddie’s major accomplishments in that sense was to ending up being a role model for younger singers in a genre where heteronormativity is way less common than everyone thinks BUT where not many people esp. back in the day would be open about their sexuality because it still was a taboo-ish thing -- like, gender roles were a lot more blurred but you wouldn’t hear many of those people admitting openly they were bi or gay or Not Heterosexual and the entirety of the rock scene especially mainstream but also not was entirely fucking aware of it, do these people think THE FANS wouldn’t?

also, we will rock you was WRITTEN BY BRIAN MAY AND IT WAS ABOUT A FUCKING ENCORE WHERE THE FANS SURPRISED THEM AT ONE SHOW IN LIKE MID-SEVENTIES which already shows that They Know Nothing because if they think freddie wrote all the queen songs then it’s already obvious they have no fucking clue about how queen worked as a band because all the members contributed something (guys john deacon wrote at least two of their major hits, roger taylor sang on all the records along with brian may and if you hear the back harmonies on ‘39 he goes way higher than freddie and a part in seaside rendezvous has both him and freddie mimicking other instruments with their voice and you wouldn’t know if no one told you first, brian may wrote a SHITLOAD of music for queen and it was an all-four effort, not just freddie + three other generic british dudes for fuck’s sake) so like, anyone saying that is already giving ample proof that they have no idea;

now of course you can interpret it as whatever the hell you want, but assuming that all of queen’s music that might relate to queer issues was written by freddie ABOUT QUEER ISSUES (this when freddie’s main topic of interest was... not really discussing his sexuality especially in the seventies like again, I want to break free is one of the queen to-go songs everyone brings up when it comes to that topic and IT WAS WRITTEN BY SOMEONE ELSE and the video concept was THANKS TO SOMEONE ELSE) just shows that a) you don’t know shit about the band’s history, b) you’re not a fan because you didn’t even bother to look it up on wiki, c) you’re trying to look woke at all costs;

they have NO FUCKING CLUE that most people in the 70s/80s/90s in the business were NOT politically correct according to their standards LIKE LITERALLY NO ONE WAS;

goes unsaid they probably haven’t listened to one full queen album from beginning to end not even the greatest hits.

tldr: I hate that they don’t seem to realize that things existed before 2005 and that music in the 70s/80s COULD and WAS diverse and *woke* already before they were even born, I hate that they decided that ALL CISHETS DIDN’T KNOW when thank you I think even my damned parents know and they don’t listen to rock music, I hate that they decided that queen APPARENTLY DIDN’T HAVE A FANBASE BEFORE THEM (lol) or that that fanbase didn’t understand them (triple-lol), I hate that they’re reducing freddie to his sexuality when he didn’t want that in the first place, I hate that they’re falling into THE MAIN MISCONCEPTION AROUND ABOUT THIS BAND as in THAT IT WAS FREDDIE + THREE OTHER PEOPLE and not an all-around group effort of people who were friends and deeply loved/respected each other and put the same share of work into it, I hate that they moment they see the movie and are introduced to the actual music/the actual story they’ll MOST LIKELY find problematic things to wank about because like hell they wouldn’t and I hate that they’re basically pretending to give a fuck about a band that I love and have loved dearly in a very non-casual way when they actually fucking don’t.

fucking hell please never let anyone make a biopic about either springsteen or led zeppelin or other people I actually like because this is bad enough, I don’t even want to think of what tumblr ppl would say if they knew anything about any rock artist of medium-large fame back in the day. peace.

( cody fern, demiboy + he/they ) while i was in town today i found a journal that belonged to oliver-titus beaumont. i took a peek inside and found out they’re thirty and they feel alienated by their relationship with family because it's always been a very distant and cold relationship but you didn’t hear that from me. apparently their favorite place in town is old man cane's bridge and i noticed they’re a photographer so i brought it to them at the lo-fi performance gallery, did i tell you they were on tinder during our entire conversation and when they left all they said was “WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GET THIS?”. ❁ asher + she/they, pst

okay, i bring you the second baby, oliver-titus, and he's a new kid so his personality is going to be all over the place a bit until i like solidify him and get him totally figured out, but y'all get to join me on this journey with him !! the info on him is down below. so again, i'm going to do the intro for artie and then i'm going to answer opens and then do starters, so !! like this if you want a starter from oliver-titus !!

tw for death of a family member, neglectful and abusive parents, mental illness, drug abuse

so i'm going to say now, he's annoying 

he's pretentious, self-important, and rude

they just really are so so much

like honestly, if your character has the urge to tell him off or fight him, please do, he needs it

also, it's oliver-titus, he hates it when people call him anything but

it's mainly due to him being pretentious, but it's also due to the fact that he has intimacy issues, and he perceives that as a level of friendliness he's really not comfortable with

but in no way shape or form do you have to abade by that, particularly when it comes to writing like the descriptions and stuff since it can get tiring writing oliver-titus over and over 

okay, that being said, here is the bio

so oliver-titus ajax beaumont was born to a avant-garde artist and a theatre director, olivia and brutus beaumont (characters can totally know these two, and frankly oliver-titus as well).

only child

he was regarded by his parents more of another art project than a child

which like obviously caused him a lot of issues with intimacy as his parents weren't affectionate at all and forbade anyone from calling them anything but oliver-titus

they basically were trying to raise the perfect artist

there was only one person that said to hell with that, and that was his grandmother, mae, olivia's mom

she lived out in acton in the desert north of l.a.

when titus was little, he used to spend a lot of time with her and her horses

she always called him titus and she was basically his only friend as he was homeschooled and his parents kind of made sure that the tutors never really got that close to him

so yeah, the two were extremely close and she actually gave him the love that he deserved

she passed when he was 13 though at only 65, leaving him all alone in the world

his parents basically only said that this was good for him because he needed this pain to create art

teenage years were extremely lonely and he was always acting up at gathers and such just to cause his parents embarrassment

punishment for this was that he was sent to go live in a secluded home in northern italy in the mountains, only having a caretaker and tutors at the age of 16

at this point, he was already a little bastard and being rude to everyone and anyone and pushing people away, seeing the human race as generally unfeeling and uncaring, and if they weren't that, they would be snatched off the face of the earth for showing any humanity

he chose photography as his medium for three reasons

the two biggest are:

he says that he doesn't need "representations" to express his emotions or to show the world what he sees

his parents see photography as a lesser form of art and it's his small way to stick to them

but in all honesty? that's what he tells the world. he tells the whole world about the first reason, and if you know oliver-titus a little better, then they might tell you about the second reason which is not untrue, but there's a more important reason they chose photography

it's because his grandmother gave him an old polaroid camera and used to take him out around the desert to take pictures on hikes and rides

i don't think they'd ever say that to anyone, but that is the biggest and most true reason why they chose photography

so oliver-titus is in oakgate because of the location mainly, mountains, the ocean, the amusement park, the cute as hell town, the rich history, it's not too far out of the way for other sites in california

the other big plus is that he can claim that he's not avoiding his parents, but he totally is so

other facts about him

is so queer, so so so queer (the only benefits of his parents tbh is that they did not care and actually encouraged him to try different things)

is a HUGE slut, and will sleep with anyone tbh, but he is definitely a hit it and quit it type of person, if he sleeps with someone more than once, he's either desperate or actually thinks highly of you

will suffer and silence and was basically taught that art was the only acceptable to express pain through art and to never talk about it

is such a messy drunk

only time they will open up tbh but will try to brush it off or down play it in the morning

definitely parties a lot

is definitely fond that devil's lettuce, and is maybe a little too fond of that nose candy, but right now it's not causing a problem

a dramatic bitch tbh

and that's about it!