I know it's more nuanced than this but I think having a hard policy of thinking anyone who genuinely hates one group of queer people for their identity might as well hate all of us and thus I should block any queerphobic queer person I see can do a lot to save you from believing anything exclusionists say.
"bomb that kills all-" "I just don't get bi women bringing their-" "pansexuality isn't a real thing-" "all lesbians-" "trans men really are the men of the-" "theyfabs-" "pfft aroace people are cringe-" "nonbinary people are actually all-" Instant block. Goodbye. Not listening. It's for both solidarity with your fellow queers AND to protect yourself, because once a person is convinced to hate one group for their immutable traits they can be convinced fairly easily to hate another too, and thus I do not trust them.
Just block these people the second they pop up, they aren't your allies and nothing they have to say is worth listening to.
These types will often try to guilt you into defaulting to their judgement by citing their own identities but that's bullshit. You can, should, and must completely ignore them. A bigot is a bigot, and if you wouldn't listen to a cishetperisex one then you shouldn't listen to a queer one either.
There is no queer identity that gives you the right to blanket hate another queer identity, it's just bigotry, and there'a also no amount of suffering or injustice you can go through that makes it okay for you to be a bigot.
I expect my non-queer allies to have enough of an understanding of queer theory and politics to know a queer person saying "you have to listen to me because I'm x identity, and I say it's perfectly fine for me to hate everyone who is y and use slurs against them, and if you disagree you're the bigot, actually bcs the suffering I've dealt with means it's wrong to hold me responsible for any harm I might do to other queer people" is someone who should be ignored.
Identity means nothing when what they're saying is indistinguishable from the garbage that comes out of the mouths of republicans.
I think if you wanna be a good ally you have to actually independently study queer theory from multiple sources and develop a personal political framework to draw on when you're confused or someone's being hateful. But y'all don't, you just repeat what the last queer person you spoke to said and pretend it's the same thing or giddily start being bigoted yourself and pretending it's okay because you're defending trans women or lesbians or whatever but idk as a trans person if someone was defending me by being bigoted, I'd hate them.
Listening to any queer person who's being bigoted and pretending it's praxis is like listening to a female republican politician about women's rights because you believe in "listening to women" and then started kicking the shit out of black and trans women. Would you listen to a physically disabled person who thinks everyone with mental illness should be put in a work camp? No? Then queer bigots should be treated the same. And I cannot stress enough the kind of rhetoric I'm referencing is quite literally that nakedly hateful and they STILL refuse to see it bcs they're too scared to be bigoted to see that they're already being bigoted.
Sorry , been ranting for a while now, I've just been mulling this over and finally figured out the core of the issue, I do not trust anyone who hears a bigot speak hate and decides it's okay and they're right and it has made me so incredibly angry I can barely contain it because it REALLY is that simple. I really have to live my life constantly confronting the reality that so fucking many queer "allies" are too fucking lazy?? I guess?? to think for themselves and recognize bigotry when it's in front of them, and they will gleefully enact violence against aro ace people or trans men or enbies or intersex people bcs a trans person who writes well convinced them it's how to be a good person. And there's basically nothing I can do about this shit happening every two years with a new group of marginalized people.
This really does prove that a concerning amount of progressives don't think bigotry is wrong, just impolite, and they have no qualms about being a horrible evil shithead if some asshole told them it was okay and they don't feel the need to learn enough theory and history to be able to tell the asshole is lying and bigotry is wrong even when directed at someone shitty because they, as much as the right, confuse their feelings for facts and prefer when things are black and white and give them an innocent person to harass.
They think "I'm a good person and I always have been, so I just innately know what's right and wrong and don't need to actually have a real political framwork bcs that's boring and I'd rather just go beat the shit out of a marginalized person like I've always wanted to" and it's disgusting. And why I hate when people respond to "what radicalized you" with "um...I just knew what was right bcs it's obvious" like okay well! That's not true!! Your ignorance of any real theory or education in favor of just knowing is immature and why SO FUCKING MANY of you fall for hate movements pretending to be progressive.
Wanted to add the issue isn't with people acknowledging trans men are men because they are—and I just cut the sentence too early because I thought everyone knew what I was talkikg about—but they aren't CIS men and the kind of sentence I was referring to was "trans men really are the men of the queer community because they're all transmisogynistic predatory birthday boy theyfabs who can't be trusted because they get gender euphoria from harming trans AND cis women and always detransition into safety when they're done ruining things for trans women" which is bonkers transphobic, not "trans men are really men" which is true. I should have phrased it better, again, I kinda assumed people would know what I meant, but trans men are men, they just aren't *cis* men, and that does mean treating them like shit bcs you treat cis men like shit is feminist praxis is actually blatant anti-feminist transphobia, makes you a transphobe, and you need to shut the fuck up and go read some books and spend a bit of open-minded time in any queer spaces you have access to.
Also it's fine to talk about a demographic having shitty people who do harm—I have so many critiques about how common biphobia is in lesbain spaces, don't get me started on how misogynistic and biphobic everyone's favorite spphic girl power song 'Good Luck, Babe' is—every identity group has horrid people in it, but you cannot have a trans man/masc, enby, aro and/or ace, bi/pan/omni/poly, polyam, trans fem/woman, or intersex person, mistreat you and then decide ALL trans men/mascs, enbies, multisexual, polyam, aro and/or ace people, trans fem/women, transhet, and intersex people are your fucking oppressors because they aren't, you're letting suffering turn you into a the very same kind of people who make your life hell and pretend that doesn't make you a shithead who should be ignored. until you grow up.
(Also huge side note but to be fair, 'Good Luck, Babe' isn't the only biphobic shit that gets spread uncritically. I say this with love as someone tmasc as I love trans men and mascs and never would have figured myself out without you.....buuuuuut y'all talking about cis bi men should probably reconsider statements like "I don't feel comfortable dating cis bi men anymore because they're always chasers who want to detransition you" bcs it's the tmasc equivalent of a lesbian(cis or trans) saying she refuses to date bi women because they "always leave you for a man" and neither are okay.
You don't have to date anyone for any reason, but I've seen even trans women say they "refuse to date trans men bcs [equating an identity with individual bigoted behavior] and that does not make me a bigot!!" and that's what some of you sound like. This behavior is not unique to bisexuals or cis men, ANY queer person can abuse and detransition you including OTHER TRANS PEOPLE!! And as a bi transmasc in a relationship with a cis bi man, if y'all could maybe not make it sound like I'm doomed to be abused when discussing chasers that it'd be great. I'm tmasc and I date bi cis men, don't lump me in with your bs "trans guys aren't comfortable dating cis bi men for their own safety" it's not praxis, it's biphobic, and untrue. I do not feel that way.
Just...please consider how bi trans men/mascs feel hearing you associating their sexual identity with shitty people who hate them, and please also consider how me saying "I don't date lesbians because of how biphobic they tend to be" would correctly be taken as lesbophobic even if some lesbians are insanely biphobic. I'm a bi man and a bi woman and I am sick of both of these. If you're gonna talk about this word it better or at least do it where bi people can't see. Thanks.)
Anyway, all that to say, if you hear a queer person say shit about any queer demographics AS A WHOLE rather than criticizing a small portion or just the person that hurt them, you can ignore them. You can just fucking ignore them. Do no listen to them!
Untitled by pikuson [Twitter/X]
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Have you got any thoughts to share about Sphene? I saw your post about how misrepresented FFXIV’s female characters are, and I’ve been hoping to see anything more than the typical “Evil AI colonizer etc.” or “Tragic woman who can never change ever” or “Wuk Lamat’s girlfriend”. Maybe our interpretations will differ but I’ll be happy if you can provide anything more complex than those.
Sure! Throwing all this under a read-more for anyone who hasn't finished 7.0 yet. I think I'll probably expand on this more later but wanted to get initial thoughts down. (Note after writing: I meant this to be brief but uhhhh brevity is not my strong suit sorry. This take just sort of ends abruptly because I realize I'm rambling.) Again, spoilers through the end of 7.0 MSQ.
I think Sphene is the sharpest work the game has done yet in casting the antagonist as the noble double of the protagonist (a well it returns to a lot with Emet, and Zenos, and Golbez, and...). But because the protagonist here is Wuk Lamat and not the Warrior of Light, that's also a much more defined and interesting role. To me, Wuk Lamat is, above all, the Righteous Queen, who rules thoughtfully, wisely, and justly, and whose claim to the throne is justified by her moral clarity. Sphene, in turn, is also a wise and good queen, one who undertakes all her actions with her people first in her hearts, a sense of compassion towards all, and a clear eye for the consequences and costs of her intended course of action. And it leads to utter disaster, for her, her people, and the people of Tural. That rocks!
The first half of 7.0 is about justifying the fact that Wuk Lamat's going to be Dawnservant. Wuk Lamat is compassionate, curious, wise, and open-minded. She wins over rebels and malcontents not by asserting her authority or by strength of force, but by taking her obligations to them (as her subjects) seriously. She knows many of her subjects personally and takes a great interest in their lives, and she respects even those who openly oppose her.
And everything Wuk Lamat does, Sphene does to 11. Wuk Lamat respects her subject peoples and is curious about their cultures? Sphene forcibly annexes Yyasulani, but goes out of her way and expends Alexandria's limited resources to enable the remaining Xak Turali to live in their accustomed way if desired (…to the extent allowed by the new permanent lightning storms and the internal conflicts caused by regulator adoption). Wuk Lamat cares about her people not just in the abstract but as individuals? Sphene visits sick kids, knows them by name! Wuk Lamat understands the burden of rulership is too great and cedes half her power to her brother? Sphene recognizes her own weaknesses and makes a deal with the devil to keep Alexandria's culture alive! Wuk Lamat is willing to die for her people? Sphene will forcibly traumatize herself into being a better queen, if that's what rulership demands.
For an expansion that spends the first half being like "wow isn't this perfect candidate for the crown so likable and humble? wouldn't it be nice to be ruled by a good king?," it sure is funny that the final boss is THE QUEEN ETERNAL and she hits you with attacks like LEGITIMATE FORCE and ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY and ROYAL DOMAIN. This, to me, is Sphene's role: she complicates and questions the themes we've developed in the first half. Most importantly to me, she makes us ask: what is devotion to a people or culture even worth?
There's a thing I kept thinking of constantly during Dawntrail, not because I think it directly influenced the game in any way but because the parallels were so stark and startling. It's Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers #18 (2014). Truthfully, I'm not a big comics guy; I only know this sequence because Ta-Nehisi Coates cited it as inspiration for his Black Panther run on Twitter once (I also didn't read TNC's run, I was following him for politics talk). Forgive me, comics people, if I get any details wrong. The parallels are almost comical, though. It goes like this:
A superhuman secret society formed of some of the smartest heroes (and villains) in the land re-forms to oppose an existential threat caused by incursions from other dimensions that threaten to cause literal collisions between Earth and its alternate dimension counterparts. Seeing no other alternatives, they undertake work on a weapon to destroy these other worlds. T'challa—king of a fictional hyperadvanced nation called Wakanda, and also the superhuman Black Panther—meets with his ghostly predecessors, the previous Black Panthers/kings, for he fears the moral stain on his soul and the souls of the people of Wakanda, if they survive explicitly by killing their alternate counterparts, will be too heavy to bear. His ancestors are not impressed.
To them, there is no question at all. A king's duty may be complex in the execution, but it is simple in its conception. Your people come before all others. Always. This is, must be, the fundamental ethic of a good king. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the social order on which this imagined good monarchy is built. In a situation like this, the only option is to do what you must to protect them. "Will there be a cost? Yes. Might the universe burn? Let it. . . . You will kill them all if it means Wakanda stands. The golden city must never fall."
"I will do what I must" is Sphene's guiding principle. It is so important to her that when she recognizes that her sentimental attachments are making her waver in her duty, she severs them entirely, sacrificing her whole identity to the throne. It is also implicitly Wuk Lamat's position: she has no choice but to fight Sphene because to do otherwise would be to fail to protect her people. In fact, it's briefly even sort of the Warrior of Light's position, as when you tell Sphene before her trial that you understand what you must do, which is shut her down to protect others.
(One quick thought about the Warrior of Light: one cool thing about the antagonist this time being a double in a more exact way than Emet or Zenos is that it means other characters get a chance to relate to her differently than Wuk Lamat. The Warrior of Light, for example, is pressed into her service immediately upon your first meeting as the Queen's Champion, there to defend her if need be against all evil. This role is further affirmed by both robot Otis and Endless Otis, who essentially hand off their role as her knight to you, and reinforced when you flash back to the "might I call upon your aid" moment right before the end. Except, of course, you are loyal not just to her, but to the principles she represents, which her own acts betray, and so your ultimate act of aid is to essentially pass judgment on her and execute her. In a sense, you become the internal safeguard that a political system is supposed to have to protect against this very issue, and which Alexandria explicitly lost when it cast out/forgot Otis. Very Voeburt/ShB tank quests, it owns.)
But really, it's Sphene who embodies this sort of grim logic best. Aside from her transformation into the Queen Eternal, it's also why she suggests you simply become Alexandrians. It's the only way for her to reconcile her values and worldview, which have backed her into a corner where preserving Alexandria has come to mean a maximalist declaration of war on all life outside its borders because the kind of absolutely pain-free life she envisions for her citizens is completely unsustainable.
In this reading, one of Sphene's main beats is to unsettle what has preceded her in MSQ. In nearly all respects, she shares your values. She prizes life, is curious about other cultures, believes in the greatest good for the greatest possible number. But she is also a queen, and therefore irrevocably (in her eyes) tied to her state. Gulool Ja Ja and Wuk Lamat (and Koana) are the mythical wise rulers, thank god--but what if Wuk had inherited a Turali state that wasn't desperately in need of cross-cultural understanding, but one in a state of war? What value would her deep love for the people of Tural have held then? Sphene says, it would have held no value. If the survival of your people means harming the innocent, you harm the innocent. Kingship allows for no alternatives.
But she also concedes, in the very next breath, that she is still kind of wrong. Because what happened here was not inevitable, despite her programming (a brief note: to me Sphene being programmed is exactly the same as Emet being maybe-tempered, it's a fantasy gloss on the idea of social and cultural education. "I was programmed for this" is really no different from "I was trained and educated for this"), because the truth is that this kind of thoughtful, principled devotion to the state and its people is also a form of sentimental attachment, in the end. One that is maintained not because it is natural, and necessary, but because the monarch, too, likes it, and gets something from it.
In so many ways, in so many senses, the monarch is the state. Kings and queens may fancy themselves merely a reflection of their people's needs and desires, but of course even a cursory glance at history will tell you that far more often, states reflect their rulers. Sphene and Wuk Lamat both suggest that their conflict was inevitable, but was it? Or is the truth, as Sphene glancingly acknowledges here, that she turned her own fears and desires into the same policy goals that led to this tragedy? And if so...what does that say of our Good Queen, Wuk Lamat? Perhaps this could be different if they met earlier, says Wuk Lamat. But when? When did Wuk Lamat ever not love her people so dearly that she would not have sacrificed herself for them, or caused mass death for the sake of their survival? When did Sphene not believe the Endless to be people, or the preservation of Alexandria to be the most important thing? Maybe she means "had we met before you met Zoraal Ja," but of course, we the player actually saw their meeting. And we know that Sphene even then was not the hapless naif she'd like to pretend. She always knew exactly what she was doing.
We know the price of this kind of thinking, this Hobbesian view that states are engaged in a struggle of all against all. Living Memory lets you walk through it. To preserve Tural, we exterminate the Endless. We befriend them, learn about their lives, promise to remember them, and then we destroy them and their homes, leaving nothing but a bleak blank landscape and the sound of wind. This is what Sphene would have done to Tural and Eorzea. Indeed, it's what she's already doing to the people of Yyasulani, because no amount of well-intentioned aid can make up for trapping people under the dome for 30 years and systematically eroding their culture through the resonators.
To me, this is what makes Sphene really work, that way she has of forcing Wuk Lamat and the player to commit the same kinds of sins she has. We'd like to think ourselves better than her, but of course, we've already reconciled with and integrated Mamook's brutal eugenicist regime back into Turali society well before we ever met Sphene. At the end of our long "wow isn't having a wise queen cool???" expansion, we are met with "Legitimate Force" and "Absolute Authority" and see them for what they truly are: nothing but tools of violence. No longer does the idea of the Warrior of Light hanging around Tural as Wuk Lamat's advisor have the same attraction, now that we have been reminded of the way the putatively unquestionable logic of kingship can ultimately lock even the wisest and kindest rulers into a path of war and exploitation and destruction.
I think Sphene is FFXIV's most interesting and nuanced depiction yet of a leader. She really, truly, wants nothing more than to save her people and protect them from pain. But even seemingly loving and compassionate goals like these can readily lead us down dark paths. She's a "hard men make hard choices"-type character, a noble but misguided opponent, but as a loving and elegant fairy queen instead of a grizzled knight or extremely sad man. She fucking rocks.
Reblogging this again because it's super insightful.
But also can I say how nice it is to have someone treat Endless Sphene as a person instead of just an AI immulation of one. People treat the two as mutually exclusive and it bothers me.
So much of cis and trans radfeminist discourse is like throwing a grenade into every room you think has a man in it, then when 99% of the people killed by the grenade are women you go “well, you shouldn’t have been in the room where a man might have been” and somehow it’s feminist praxis
Penis makes you evil? Trans women get hit. Trans men get hit. People who fuck with a strap get hit. Being a top gets you hit. Got penis envy? Must be evil. Can accuse you of penis envy? Evil.
Testosterone makes you evil? Trans women get hit. Trans men get hit. Intersex people get hit. Masc women get hit. Women of color get hit. Anyone you can force a masculine label on or deny of a feminine label gets hit.
Male privilege is a moral failing you both somehow choose but also cannot opt out of rather than a set of conditional circumstances society imposes on you that may temporarily benefit you? Trans women get hit. Trans men get hit. Anyone you can accuse of being too close to maleness gets hit.
Masculinity makes you evil? Trans men get hit. Trans women who are masc get hit. Trans women who you can accuse of being masc get hit. Masc women get hit. Anyone you can accuse of being masc get hit (woc, intersex people, ethnic minorities with features assumed ‘masculine’, anyone who rejects aspects of femininity or doesn’t perform femininity in a way you think they ‘should’)
Proximity to men makes you evil? Anyone who dates men is hit. Anyone who likes men is hit. Anyone who is friends with men gets hit. Ultimately people assaulted by men suddenly “had it coming” because they dared stand next to a man, and you call yourself a feminist spouting the biggest rape apologist catchphrase???
You wanna “kill all men” for what theyve done to you, but you’re not doing anything to hurt OR change cis men or society but you are wracking up a body count of women just as hurt as you.
“Feminist” when you’ve pushed more women towards suicide than an incel has? Gimme a break.
“Misandrist” you wouldn’t dare say that shit to a cis man, but you sure have a lot of gas in the tank for the woman standing near him or the trans man who *just* started using he/him after 20+ years of the type of misogyny you are going to gleefully throw back in his face
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
prguitarman
romaincrisis
turnnoffyourmind
ellievsbear
