just here.

this site is drinking god damn terf juice. they/them.

[dj--horse]

telling the largely queer women and afab ppl on ao3 that the smut they write is responsible for men’s behavior and how men sexualize lesbians is r/dfem bullshit. 

[shipping-isnt-morality]

side note, some of the recent drama (“if you even like these fandoms you’re Bad, if you even like some SFW headcanons of a ship between minors you’re sexualizing them, future AU’s are pedophilia, childhood friends are incest”) is a fun example of authoritarians in fandom narrowing the power base more and more, as all authortarian structures eventually do

like, I think the ideological issues here are going to be at play for years to come, but authoritarian fandom as a construct is doomed to collapse as they narrow their definitions of Pure and Good more and more to continue gaining power through exclusion. which is funny, because for all that we pro-shippers get mocked for bringing political theory into fandom, fandom keeps acting it out. Political theory is about how we distribute power among people. So long as there’s power anywhere in fandom, there will be politics. And the politics being acted out in fandom right now is authoritarian, with ships inserted in place of race or religion or gender or sexuality. (Except, y’know, for when ships get equated with race, religion, gender, or sexuality. Whoops.)

eventually, inevitably, authoritarian structures will collapse. and if we’re very lucky, we’ll be able to learn something from this run of it in fandom, because the authoritarianism budding in the West right now involves a lot more guns and prisons, and things could get a lot worse before they get better.

[dj--horse]

btw you can really tell how incredibly skewed people’s view on age has become thanks to the internet, because i keep reading about people referring to reigen as “middle aged”.

he’s 28.

[dj--horse]

I don’t want to drag the FoFF post over here so I won’t reblog it, but it is some damn fine PR by T ERFs to get people to think that they ONLY promote transmisogyny. It is some damn fine PR to make people think the ONLY way to ID a T ERF is to see if they’re being hateful to trans women. This is how they’ve invaded the community thus far: people forget that T ERF is to ra/dfe/ms like pineapple is to jello salad. (No offense to anyone who likes jello salad.) RFs are the lime jello itself, the base of the salad, and for T ERFs, they are extra walnuts and pineapples added to the recipe. They have a base theory they are based on. They just have additions to it. People cannot talk about T ERFs and say fuck T ERFs and want them out without also rejecting RFs. Otherwise what people are actually rejecting is solely the transmisogyny they present, but not any of the other, incredibly harmful exclusionist theory RFs are based on. In which case, people’s bios and slogans should be “fuck transmisogyny”. Which isn’t a bad slogan and still tells T ERFs to fuck off, but doesn’t really reject a large amount of their incredibly misogynistic, anti-woman, anti-queer, (and often anti-trans man/trans masc) base theory.

And the fact that they have managed to convince people they are only the pineapple and the walnuts and that the lime jello was all theirs to begin with and doesn’t come from anywhere else? That’s damn fine PR.

[gaphic]

The MOMENT you use the word ‘normal’ to describe morally upright behavior you admit that you are not advocating for the abolition of unjust social norms, but rather for you to be included in them.

As soon as denying your own deviance starts taking priority over promoting unconditional acceptance, you admit that bigotry, bullying, and exclusion are ok, as long as it’s only the people you think are freaks.

[dj--horse]

when you only ever apply the concept of “retraumatization” to gaslight people into thinking they can’t trust their own coping mechanisms with their own trauma, and they’re actually just self-harming, and you, a stranger on the internet know this better than they do...

 maybe you should be quiet.

[shipping-isnt-morality]

hi, i'm one of those artists. can confirm, this pervasive anti culture has myself and a lot of my friends feeling on guard 24/7. most of us have cleared our twitter archives at least once in the last year. even one of my more anti-leaning friends has cleared all their stuff. the whole cancel culture surrounding anti rhetoric has us small artists terrified. a lot of us (try to) make a living via fanworks/merch.... this sort of thing could ruin us worse than ppl think....

^^^^^^

I don’t want to associate myself with anyone by name but I’m very close to a lot of people who rely on webcomics/independent comics, conventions, and/or independent online art for their living.

Lots of deleted archives. Lots of stressed scrolling through everything they’ve ever posted, trying to imagine if it could be taken out of context. Lots of hyperawareness of everything and everybody that they interact with. Lots of real human cost and real human anxiety from people who absolutely haven’t done anything to deserve it.

I’m really sorry, anon.

[shipping-isnt-morality]

hey, while we’re discussing this:

supporting artists, especially smaller artists who’ve been suddenly targeted, frequently means suffocating the drama. Starting arguments with the people dogpiling only surrounds the artist with more arguing and extends how long the harassment will last.

most artists do not want to be associated with discourse. most artists are rightfully uncomfortable with being publicly defended, because the “public” basically cancels out the “defended”. It’s not a defense if you’re catching the artist in a violent crossfire.

Support artists who are getting dogpiled by retweeting their art, by starting conversations with them that aren’t about the drama, by buying from their store or joining their Patreon. Sometimes the best thing you can do is make it clear that you don’t care about whatever “problematic” thing it is today by not caring about it.

If you’re an artist yourself, especially one who’s been targeted, feel free to add to this with ways that people can support artists without making the situation worse by increasing its exposure.

[dj--horse]

I can’t help but get incredibly irritated every time I see someone recount a story of how fandom “normalized” bad things for them as a teenager, but they chalk up every single bad decision and re-enforcement of those bad decisions by teenage fandom peers as something that solely exists within the fandom vacuum. They don’t consider additionally lack of sex ed, lack of talk about consent and healthy relationships, lack of talk about abuse in schools. They don’t talk about how for example in many American schools, sex ed is so far budget cut half the time it barely exists. They don’t talk about how teenagers could just be easily influenced by adults in their lives and what relationships are around them. They chalk it entirely up to like, “I read Twilight and wanted a bf like Edward, and my friends encouraged it and said stalking was dreamy, so only Twilight is to blame for that and the fact we thought it was cool” but do not consider any other outside factors that inform our worldviews of gender, sexuality, romance, etc. You cannot talk about one’s worldview, as informed by fandom, as only informed by fandom. You do not live in a cave, raised by wolves, with only access to tumblr as your education.  

[dj--horse]

[grandfloridians]

white women are always like “more strong kickass female leads!” and when i say i want to see a black female love interest who is allowed to be girly and fall in love they give me weird looks and say that i’m supporting gender stereotypes and heteronormativity but what a lot of white women don’t get is that black women we’ve had hundreds of years of having our femininity ripped from us, of being deemed unworthy of male (especially non-black male) attention. black women in media are never allowed to be the “cute” ones or the love interest, we’ve always been the “strong kickass street smart woman” trope that white women want so badly. so basically if a black girl says she wants to see another black girl fulfill the role of “love interest” there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and it isn’t a hindrance to feminism

[ohnosbros]

The fact is that black women specifically have been denied the privileges of heteronormative womanhood and would like to indulge in them because we dont benefit from heteronormativity and have always been excluded from femininity in womanhood. It’s easy to say femininity is a hindrance to feminism when you and women that look like you have never been denied the privilege of benefitting from heteronormativity (and thus having it used against you)+ femininity and for white women, been the standard femininity is measured by but that’s literally what white feminism is. Not taking into account black womens experiences in conversations about feminism.

For black women it’s like you’re a minority but you’re not “charming” or “likeable”. You’re a woman but you’re not feminine or desirable by anyone. That just reinforces how black womanhood isn’t on anyone’s mind. Not even other women and how were excluded from the criteria/ label of “woman”.

[dj--horse]

fairly telling that on twitter i frequently see people say “microidentities and tumblr ruin(ed) lgbt community” despite the fact that most microidentities, especially the more obscure ones, have largely fallen out of use. the ones that remain are ones people find personally useful or largely useful to have as a whole community because they fill a necessary gap. yet when it comes to ace-exclusionism and ra/d/fe/m inflitration of the lgbt community on tumblr, which is an actual severe, current issue, radio silence. 

[dj--horse]

also with this i always see two things:

1. “tumblr had me thinking i was ____ but i was just ___”

2. “it was the fault of adults pushing kids into these labels”

bc the thing is usually “pansexual grayace demiboy but i was just “a cis lesbian”, as tho implying the first one isn’t a valid identity at all, as though most of the labels in it or the combination of those several labels can’t possibly be valid. it’s a weird aversion to long words, like how people are afraid of long chemical names. “lesbian” is normal, natural, but “homoromantic asexual demigirl” is overcomplication and bad.

and then ofc implying the reason these labels came up and became popular wasn’t just bc teens experimenting, but bc adults somehow forced or encouraged teens and young lgbt people to id as them. the birth and nature of tumblr’s identity politics has a long history and many complicated factors, and i don’t deny peer or social pressure had a hand in it, i know on some level for plenty of people it might have. but the way people blame adults for somehow not like, stopping people from using “microidentities” is…weird. there’s a lot of unpack there.

and ofc let’s not even get into how the idea that like, “simpler” lgbt identities, such as the “main” (les, gay, bi, trans, sometimes pan) are the “real” or most valid ones, which is clearly exclusionist-lite thinking. 

[argentconflagration]

I seriously can’t get over people’s failure to understand that, if we want to accomplish things, we sometimes have to try things that don’t work.

Coming up with 1000 microlabels for gender and sexuality hurts no one!!! If the labels truly are “useless” and “overcomplicated” then … people will stop using them! The ones that are necessary for people to make sense of their lived experiences will stick around, unless the hostility from people playing respectability politics becomes too much to bear. Don’t be part of that pressure.

[radiqueer]

@white people you have to be careful. i know some of you make a habit of talking over people/restating the points other people make and you’d do it just as easy to other white people as to people of colour but believe me when i say it’s different. it’s different when you talk over a person of colour, it’s different when you say our points again a few minutes later without acknowledging us. maybe for you, it doesn’t mean anything, but for us it’s part of a racist trend that makes it hard for us to feel safe around you. 

you don’t have to be conscious of race to work on simple things like “don’t talk over other people in the conversation” or “don’t restate the points of others without acknowledging them/crediting them.” 

some of you do this way too often and it’s exhausting to deal with because there’s no way for us to point out these trends in behavior without being perceived as oversensitive or delusional. it’s your job to be conscious, to be self aware, to address your own behaviors. and don’t be like “feel free to call me out if i do this” because you and i both know that means you’ll never be called out. people of colour cannot say these things to you to your face, we can only commiserate with our friends behind your back. don’t be that douche, and if you reblog this, don’t add anything to it. 

[ardwynna]

The odd thing about younger people in fandom who insult us for being women over 30, over 25, over 23 and still fandoming on instead of being Proper Adult Women who only drive minivans to the kids’ soccer practice, go to book club, attend PTA meetings and get the Mom haircut, is that if we actually did become Older Women As Seen On TV, going by how much they love telling Karen to go pay her taxes every minute they’d insult us for that too. No grasp at all of how misogynistic that approach is, and no appreciation for the chance they’re getting to see that there is so much community and life beyond responsibilities and stereotypes waiting for them when they get here. Only the airy-fairy promise that they won’t be women like us when they reach our age.

Their insults aren’t important, everybody grows up and learns eventually, but I do wonder what exactly they think we’re all ‘supposed’ to be doing at this point. What exactly is this wonderful Proper Adult Woman life they envision for themselves? What are they planning to do, what are they willing to give up, to become 'respectable’? I want to know.

[dj--horse]

fairly telling that on twitter i frequently see people say “microidentities and tumblr ruin(ed) lgbt community” despite the fact that most microidentities, especially the more obscure ones, have largely fallen out of use. the ones that remain are ones people find personally useful or largely useful to have as a whole community because they fill a necessary gap. yet when it comes to ace-exclusionism and ra/d/fe/m inflitration of the lgbt community on tumblr, which is an actual severe, current issue, radio silence. 

[dj--horse]

also with this i always see two things:

1. “tumblr had me thinking i was ____ but i was just ___”

2. “it was the fault of adults pushing kids into these labels”

bc the thing is usually “pansexual grayace demiboy but i was just “a cis lesbian”, as tho implying the first one isn’t a valid identity at all, as though most of the labels in it or the combination of those several labels can’t possibly be valid. it’s a weird aversion to long words, like how people are afraid of long chemical names. “lesbian” is normal, natural, but “homoromantic asexual demigirl” is overcomplication and bad.

and then ofc implying the reason these labels came up and became popular wasn’t just bc teens experimenting, but bc adults somehow forced or encouraged teens and young lgbt people to id as them. the birth and nature of tumblr’s identity politics has a long history and many complicated factors, and i don’t deny peer or social pressure had a hand in it, i know on some level for plenty of people it might have. but the way people blame adults for somehow not like, stopping people from using “microidentities” is...weird. there’s a lot of unpack there.

and ofc let’s not even get into how the idea that like, “simpler” lgbt identities, such as the “main” (les, gay, bi, trans, sometimes pan) are the “real” or most valid ones, which is clearly exclusionist-lite thinking. 

[dj--horse]

fairly telling that on twitter i frequently see people say “microidentities and tumblr ruin(ed) lgbt community” despite the fact that most microidentities, especially the more obscure ones, have largely fallen out of use. the ones that remain are ones people find personally useful or largely useful to have as a whole community because they fill a necessary gap. yet when it comes to ace-exclusionism and ra/d/fe/m inflitration of the lgbt community on tumblr, which is an actual severe, current issue, radio silence. 

[radiqueer]

every time a straight man on here relates to a positive depiction of how to love/support women y'all idiots go “um sorry that’s for lesbeans” I see that shit and it isn’t cute or progressive. cut it out

[radiqueer]

actually this applies to men of any sexuality