being black in any art community is such a strange feeling cause you’ll see just blatant racism being expressed in others art and you have to just casually ignore it, for your sake if anything, colorism being something that’s just fundamentally there in every artist and you deal with it cause it’s not worth it in the end to even think of it too hard let alone even mentioning it, it’s definitely something
Hello nonblack reader of this post, I think you ought to share this one so that you and your peers can actively remind yourselves 1) of how your Black peers feel when you tolerate antiblack racism in your art spaces for entertainment and 2) that we notice it, but don't believe it is secure around enough of you to bring it up 🙏🏾
i undertstand why subtitles like to denote when music starts playing and what mood its trying to convey because its useful information if you cant hear the music. but i do find it mildly amusing when the subs say [EMOTIONALLY MOVING MUSIC PLAYS] like okay buddy ill be the judge of that. dont tell me know to feel about your score. i'll be as moved as i want to be.
a misogynistic society is so threatened by the concept of trans women - women that "had the opportunity" to be privileged men and chose not to - that they start making up privileges women have in order to explain why trans women exist. going into womens restrooms isnt a privilege, playing womens sports isnt a privilege, yet they present them as such to try and explain why trans women are women for nefarious reasons. a misogynistic society will never understand that trans women have no ulterior motive for being women
They need to make a dating app for transfems where u can find other girls to spend a night with and sex is an option but its not the point, the point is being touched and held and not having to sleep alone for once
when people misgender a trans person and are corrected, they seem to get a drop down menu of responses in their brain like
- act like you didn’t say anything wrong and gaslight them
- loudly and dramatically self-flagellate and threaten to kill yourself until the trans person reassures you that you don’t have to treat them with respect to be a good person
- roll your eyes and joke with the other cis people “ugh I’m so bad at this! Lol.” bond with everyone over relatable humor about how new and confusing this trans stuff is
- immediately accuse the trans person of something so they have to defend themselves and the misgendering appears like the “lesser” aggression or maybe retroactively justified to others
- talk about how hard you’re trying to humor accommodate them, rationalize why your circumstances are unique, and make a show of pleading with the trans person for mercy, as if they are a judge and the room is a jury and correcting you is equivalent to leveling a cruel punishment
- simply correct yourself and move on like you would do if they were cis
and then they are like baffled at the suggestion that the last one is the least transphobic option
if you think for even just a second how fucking crazy bonkers it is that women are so frequently kept from being protagonists or important or fully realized characters when its like. That is literally 50% of the world population. Half of all people (more or less. hopefully more as time marches on!) are women. And you look at media and think about how many protagonists are men and their best friends are men and the ensemble cast is 80-100% men and the fandoms are about men and the romances are about men. well. YOU GO INSANE
Since this is coming up in the notes: Samus is not trans because a dev referred to her with a slur as a joke in an interview a few years ago.
Samus is trans because every piece of paratext for the original Metroid clearly depicts her as a man--not just the English instruction manual, but Japan-only manga as well. She is presented as male, universally, until you play the game, descend into chthonic/inner space to grapple with an explicitly female-coded brain, and the reward for doing so swiftly and skillfully is getting to finally present female. It almost certainly wasn't intended as a transition narrative but it is absolutely a transition narrative--no credit for representation should be given to Nintendo/the devs, but nonetheless she is ours and always will be.
Binding your swornsister's soul to your blade, that she may stay with you even after her death to revel in your joint battles, is all fine and good until it's been a decade since your last good fight—longer still since any real battle—and she's still in there, and you can hear her crying every night, longing for the grip of your palm and the guts of your enemies. And of course she won't let you be, even in your dreams, appearing there too. Whole and young as the day she died, while you've gotten older and timeworn. Gripping her pretty head by the hair and driving her skull through the chest of some faceless foe, the air is sparkling like diamonds. The blood's all over her and she's smiling at you, fucking blissed-out and naked, because of course she's naked, she's only doing this to fuck with you.
So you take her down off the mantel, and before the sun's really up, just blue-gray on the horizon— reflecting off her, the blade you've never had to clean or sharpen—you stumble from your home. And with your bare feet in the early spring dirt and your bare hand on the leather wrap of her grip, she talks to you again. Denies the dream. Won't admit she's doing it on purpose. Pretending like she isn't the one doing this to you. Playing coy.
Someone sees you, and you see him back. You know him. You always know them. You actually live here, in this shithole town where no one asks that many questions. He nods at you, the gesture of something small and dumb and dead. He hasn't seen your state, not yet. Half dressed and wild eyed with sleep deprivation. Naked sword in your practiced hand.
Haven't had a good fight in a decade. Still true, this guy isn't fighting you. Slip her into him, feel the POP of the skin and fat, the slick glide of the intestines, the clattering of bone and it's already over.
Wrench her up! Tear him open! She's happy. She's there with you.
"Good girl."
You say it into her pommel, which happens to be next to the guy's ear. If he was listening, he dies very confused, but it was just a little dirty talk.
They'll find him in the morning and say he got robbed. Or a scuffle gone wrong. One of his buddies, probably. Or some drifter from somewhere else. Always goes that way. The men who don't know their jobs are to clean up your messes will nod at you in the morning as you pass by on your walk to the docks. Just like he did.
She's back on your mantel for not quite a week before it all starts up again. Not dreams this time, but hauntings. Things thrown and dropped. Odd noises in the dark. Fucking brat.
Good's never good enough for her, is it? She always wants more. Fine. You can give her a little more. Start wearing her around. Show off your jewelry. Invite someone to really try you. And they do. They always do. Can't throw a rock in this world without hitting someone looking to prove anyone can best a swordswoman.
You're at the bar when the rock hits home. He's drunker than you are, face red with it, and his buddies are all behind him jeering while he prods at you. Like you need the provocation. You've been shivering with glee since you saw him stand up. Next time he touches you, you bite him. He's a bleeder, barely nipped at the skin and you're covered in the stuff.
"Jealous?" you ask her, tucked neatly in her scabbard. Now that the idea's struck you, the whole thing lays itself out so neatly in your mind. You throw a punch. She doesn't feel anything. You knock one of his teeth out. She's biting at the leather you've got her in. You break his arm and claw at his eyes and she stays exactly where you have her. She gets to play the cuckold and it's delicious to deny her.
Until one of his dumbshit friends grabs her right from under your nose. Too busy chewing your food? He's a scrawny kid but he's got a good few scars to show for himself, and he's holding her not without any skill.
And-
This is so much better. God she's so fucking hot like that. You can take care of him easily enough, but halfway through dodging and weaving around his swings, you realize what's happening. She's fucking helping him. You're fighting her.
Its good, it's so good. Like having the bitch back from the dead, she can turn even this pimplefaced idiot into her avatar. You shoot the cartilage of his nose up into his skull and he falls into a heap. Didn't even know that could really happen, but it does and you can feel her squirming when you do it.
She got you, once. A little line of pink flesh is poking out from under your eye. It's going to scar nasty. You'll have to get her back for it. Soon enough, you do. Same routine, new bar. Pick a fight with the biggest group of men you see, wait for one of them to take her and then make sure you're the only two people left standing.
She plays dirty. Knows all your tics. It's heaven. She's alive every time you fight her. You're young as long as she's facing you down.
Until you're not. Someone gets you with a chair to the shoulders. Shouldn't faze you, and it's not like he didn't get what he had coming, but… but it takes you months to recover enough to go back out. Then someone hits it again, a year later. Same spot. With a metal pipe. Reopens all the old wounds, and doubles the old pain. She has to intervene, and the guy holding her slips suddenly, impaling himself and his pipe wielding friend in the fall.
You both reach the same conclusion on the limping walk home. This can't go on any longer. You're not keeping up with her. She visits you in your dreams again, this time to soothe you. It breaks something deep in your guts, this kindness from her. Feels to final. Shatters itself and tears you open. The fear you hadn't felt since you were a teenager. Death. Looming over you. Can't bear to lose this. Lose your nights together.
She's got an idea. Just have to find the right instrument.
"And you'll inset the hilt with this." You hand the blacksmith a jewel. "Doesn't even have to be visible, just has to be in there."
"Looks all scratched up," he squints at the near imperceptible script you've carved into the surface of the jewel. That's half the work done, there. The easy half, she reminds you from your hip. You tell her that she had you to do the hard part for her, the little princess.
"Just do it. I'm sure paying you more than enough. Then once it's ready, I want you to wrap it in this," you hand him the cloth. It's stained deep brown with your dried blood. The blacksmith's face pales. "And burn it. while it's still over the blade."
He looks at the money you're paying him, in advance, and then back to you. Wonder if he knows what you're planning?
Two weeks and three days later, it's ready. You watch him burn the wrap. Has his assistant do it. No one talks. There's nothing left to say. You pull the sword out of the ashes—still hot, it burns the skin off your hand, not that that matters anymore—and give the blacksmith a tip. It's more than what you paid in the first place.
"Well then." You were never good with words. "Got a will in my pocket."
Awkward angle, but it'll work.
Trachea to Tits to Navel to Crotch. It's a wonderful sword. Practically cut yourself in two with one swing. Then you're dying. Real fast, the world's spinning around you. Around and around. She's there with you, arm in arm, you're both young again and everything's so beautiful.
Now you've a metal body, rigid and sharp and drinking up the last of your own blood. The swap is instant. You're like her now. And she's there with you. You laugh, but only she hears you. The blacksmith's screaming.
They find your will right where you said it'd be. Pretty simple stuff, you think.
"Give one of my swords to the strongest person left in town. Give the other to the second strongest." Everyone's hesitant, but you're the real deal, a legend by this point, so they do it. Now all that's left is a little nudging from her and you, and soon you'll get to fight again.
The first time your steel meets hers it's better than any kiss. Hotter than any sex you'd ever had, and more intense than any previous fight. Neither of you has to hold back anymore. It doesn't matter if you kill the other, because that wasn't really you at all. Someone else will come along and pick you up and then you'll start again. Across back alleys, dueling halls, and battlefields, you fight her over and over. There are near misses where you kill a thousand men in search of the one wielding her, too much chaos to find each other. You laugh about it between swings when next you meet. There might be decades where you can't make it happen, years sitting in a chest or armory, but you both know that it's only a matter of time. The mountain of corpses you leave behind will grow higher and higher, until it eclipses the sun. Even then you'll still fight her in the dark. 'Til no hand is left to hold you. On a dead world, you'd spark and scrape against each other long into the eternal night.
Oh, you like dogs? Even the ugly ones? That's weird.. I can't even look at dogs without feeling sick. I mean, of course I like dogs! I just want them as far away from me as possible. It's the dogs fault if it wanders into my house, of course I have to kill them. Dogs obviously know what houses are, it should know the house is mine. Hey did you see that video of the little machine someone made that rips dogs legs off? That's so funny haha. What? Don't be so sensitive! Killing dogs doesn't matter anyway, it's not like they're even real animals. They don't feel anything. I kill dogs all the time, I mean some of them deserve it! Some dogs are just evil. Honestly if I could make some dogs go extinct I would. Why should they be alive if they're so ugly and annoying? They don't even do anything. You really like dogs? There must be something wrong with you.
we live in a world where entire governments are trying to erase trans people and some of you are still out there claiming we have the power to ruin your life if you "accidentally" missgender someone. grow up
Ya'll remember how online games made specifically for children were programmed in a way that made it practically impossible to share your personal info?
When age, gender, location was censured like profanity in the name of protecting kids?
But suddenly the Only Way to keep children safe online is to make sure that they have 0 privacy?
OP of the most mediocre post youve seen this Tuesday, gleefully screenshotting a tag which says 'investing at 6 notes' and typing out a faux "no you can't DO this to me" in a reblog
Last year JK Rowling personally funded a group called Sex Matters to amend UK law so that trans women *overnight* went from legally women to legally men. This has resulted in mass exclusion of the trans community from numerous organizations, along with ongoing violent assaults on both trans and cis women alike.
With the new Harry Potter series she will be making a reported $20 million per-season renewal + other performance dependent royalties. She has been open across multiple interviews regarding her intentions to use said funds to push forth even more trans targeted legislation in the years to come.
This isn’t a “she gets paid no matter what” situation. The more eyeballs on this show the more money she has to actively harm vulnerable communities. By engaging with it you are directly supporting this and otherwise making a conscious choice to consume HP over doing the literal very least possible to not destroy the lives of trans people across the world.
If my stating the objective facts above upsets you then feel free to unfriend and move along. Your nostalgia-goggles feelings for a tired, problematic franchise mean nothing to me compared to the welfare of my trans friends and loved ones."
If you care more about badly written children's books and imaginary wizards more than you do about real people in the real world do it far the fuck away from me.
Don't try to be in my life.
In fact, you are cordially invited to eat shit and die.
my heart does kind of die a little when people gender children who are too young to communicate that determination for themselves. it's so normalized as to be practically universal but it's also the first in a long line of decisions taken away from every trans child