I have been welcomed most warmly by this fandom, and in turn I want to give back to you all! So I decided to hold a small raffle.
Rules:
Reblog to enter; you are allowed to use multiple blogs (as I cannot check ownership either way)
You can give away the prize if you wish; to specific persons that is
If you donāt wish to enter; then please tag it as # promo. Promotions are appreciated!
I wonāt count likes
Must be following me! New followers are welcome.
I will not count giveaway blogs.
I am capable of working with just descriptions, however if there are absolutely no visual references, I cannot guarantee a perfect outcome of your character, though I will try my best.
Keep your messages open; if your messages are closed, I will pick someone else
I will randomly generate the winner. Please reply within 48 hours if youāve won, or Iāll give the prize to someone else
Ends on June 20th (Wednesday), 8 PM, GMT+09
If you have any inquiries, feel free to shoot me a message!
the comments on this are gross yāall clearly dont understand how this works. transitioning isĀ not that easy nor is it affordable. and it is a transition aka itās not instantaneous akaĀ it takes time. years and years, in fact, to get to the point where you could pass for cis and even then some people may never fully pass. surgery is expensive and getting medical treatment is a nightmare in and of itself. some people canāt fully transition or pass for various reason such as age, health, money, location, family, not being completely out, body type, etc. and they are still worthy of respect and dignity. so yeah, passing may beĀ āthe goalā but if you only respect trans people when they pass, news flash: youāre trash.Ā
trans people shouldnāt have to look cis to be respected.
i was debating making an entirely new blog and starting over fresh since back when i had this linked on my main i didnt know how many of my irls saw and frequent this but i dont think any of them give a fuck about this game and im just so. tired.
my hiatus hasnt really only been about school and being depressed and like, really fucking sick even though those certainly didnāt help.
on the 23rd of october i read an article about sam smithās gender identity. the phrase āi feel just as much woman as i am manā really stuck with me. i didnt know why. the article in general really stuck with me and i didnāt have an explanation for that either. i didnāt really care about sam smith before that as a musical artist (iā¦ think thatās what they are??) and right now i still couldnāt name a song by them or even tell you what they look like.
about an hour after that i was sitting across from my mom, staring blankly at my laptop, a page on dysphoria open on my phone in my lap, knees up so she wouldnāt see. iād just read a bunch of wiki articles on all the different nonbinary genders. sam smith seemed to be bigender. he could also be genderfluid. iād read the genderfluid article over five times. one of my friends came out to me as genderfluid, and it made me very happy. didnāt know the answer to that either.
i felt a really horrible jolting in my stomach as, eyes blank, i thought to myself, hey, that all sounded kinda familiar. i could be trans.
i felt like my entire world had been changed. i glanced over at my mom. she didnāt seem to notice my earth-shattering realization.
i realize that being trans isnāt news. itās not some big weird thing. but itās such a fucking odd thing to realize when youāre 16.
the key word in my little epiphany is ācouldā. i could be trans. that wasā¦ new. iād always had this little road block in my mind when it came to the thought of being trans, in the sense that i justā¦ didnāt let myself think about it. i got pretty offended when, while my therapist was filling out my forms, she decided to answer the gender section for me, looking weirded out by my hesitation and saying, āwhat, you donāt want to be a boy, do you?ā jokingly. she stared pointedly at my hip-length hair, dark lipstick and short little dress clinging to all my clunky curves, which that day i had been proud of. when she gave me that look i kind of wasn't.
i wanted to say, āitās not want. they ARE boys.ā
i wanted to say āmaybe a trans person who looks like me would be closeted.ā
in that first part, i didnāt want to say ātheyā.
i just said āyeah, i guess iām a girlā and we moved on and a year later i still think sheās a shitbag and i'm not looking forward to seeing her next week for the first time since november, but i remember that being one of the first times i realized howā¦. uncomfortable i was at being classified as a girl. like, i didnāt mind my dad calling me a little lady or whatever, or being offhandedly referred to as a girl, but just the knowledge that thatās what people thought i was and that was It, like it was so obvious to them, feltā¦ weird.
but i didnāt think of any of this on october 23rd. i think the first thing i thought was, i can never tell anybody i know in real life until i get to college, which was more of another realization, one also physically painful and just. really fucking disheartening.
then i decided that i might as well try and figure out what i am since thereās nothing that i hate more than not knowing. i went up to my room and spent four hours cruising the internet with some privacy, huddled under the blankets. i didnāt think about being a kid, didnāt think about how even then i hated being limited to just a girl and how during games of pretend where weād all play ourselves but of the opposite gender iād put a weird fucking amount of thought and research into a game that i was ultimately far more dedicated to than anyone else, and got angry when anyone suggested my name be brett, because that was a stupid dumb name and far too close to my real one you guys are MISSING the POINT. i didnāt think about how i was always drawn to the idea of being a shapeshifter because, aside from the additional superpowers i could escape my ugly sticky-outy curves and join one of the groups of pimply nerdy meme-loving boys who never fit in among the jocks, the guys who began to crop up in fifth grade along with the jocks, and reinvent myself. i also didnāt think about how i had an original character that was literally just a genderbent version of myself and i fantasized himā¦ pretty just in my everyday life, like brushing his teeth and sitting in class and shit, only he was more confident for whatever reason and y'know maybe got a cute boyfriend.
i tried to focus on the here and now, because i knew all that would be too overwhelming. i asked myself how i felt. some days i loved looking like a girl, and wasnāt entirely offended by being called one. other days i felt like a guy and wanted to iron down every stupid fucking lump on my body and chop all my hair off. some days it was both, which was really confusing, and some days it was neither but vaguely Something. on top of that i was always a little bit boy and girl, never really just One Thing, but also a bit more guy?? i can tell you right now as i type itās never gotten less confusing.
i settled on bigender genderfluid, and immediately told all my friends on twitter in a groupchat that i trusted, and after i got their support and we started trying to figure out a name (i was choosing between olivier, hugo, theo, elliot, elijah, and beckett, which i eventually chose) i debated on making a post here, but ultimately decided that i didnāt want to risk it.
flash forward just over three months, and honestly i quarter-regret the epiphany because now that i can put a name on my dysphoria it seems so much worse, if that makes sense. but then i really donāt because i just feel moreā¦ honest, i guess. better. not really better about myself because i just feel so fucking Wrong when iām not in a feminine mood which is most of the time, but i just feel like. open. like thereās a weight off my chest, only know iām hyper-aware of the other two on there.
iāve kind of gotten more careless in real life. i drop little hints to my friends sometimes, and iāve actually allowed myself to start thinking of myself as Beck The Weird Genderfluid Thing at school and with friends and stuff instead of playing this weird role of Britt Bisexual Cisaster. so, i figured the other day if iām going to be so careless in a dumb redneck town with like. four trans people in it i might as well do something about an online community that i care very much about and that i am pretty sure will be chill with it.
so. beck. they/them bc i change between fem and masc so often i donāt want to bother anyone with trying to keep up with them. still using female mcs because most of the male mcs aint shit.
We need to talk about some of the things weāre doing in face claim and aesthetic posts. Because weāve fallen into some bad habits with those that can be harmful. We, as racial allies, must do better.
1. Casting 20 year olds as high school kids, and 30 year olds as college kids
So this one is more of a general thing, less a problem specific to canonical characters of color. This isnāt Hollywood, you donāt have to worry about school and legal issues with minors.Ā
Why it matters:
Iām sure we all had self esteem issues during the awkward teen years that were exacerbated by all these 20 something actors cast as high schoolers? They never had pimples, their voices didnāt crack.Ā
2. Ignoring canon ethnicities all together
Once I saw a face claim for Zahra Namazi that used Vanessa Hudgens. Quick googling told me that Hudgens is Irish, Native American, and Filipina. None of those are even on the same continent as Zahra. And then just, general examples of characters with specific ethnicities either being represented by white actors, or actors with ethnicities that are nowhere close. Iāve seen Michelle Nguyen represented as white girl with blonde dyed hair before. But hey, they look kind of alike, so itās okay?
Why it matters: If youāre using a white actor to represent a character who is canonically not-white, thatās whitewashing. Simple as that. Donāt do it.
Characters are shaped by their background and their past. To erase their ethnicity, their heritage, is to erase part of what shaped them into who they are.Ā
In a perfect world, actors, models, and people in these industries would be cast solely on their abilities and talent. Sadly, we are not in the real world. POC in these industries have far less opportunities than their white counterparts.
To take away canon representation is to deny these actors, models, and entertainers job opportunities.Ā
While I realize that tumblr doesnāt present any job opportunities, it is reflecting real world practices. And I think itās easier for some of us to learn empathy and understanding with fictional characters first. Through this, we start learning how to apply it to people in the real world.Ā
3. Confusing Ethnicities
Kaitlyn Liao is Taiwanese. Michelle Nguyen is Vietnamese. Kenji Katsaros is Japanese. Ben Park is Korean. The siblings in Rules of Engagement are a mix of British, Filipino, and Chinese. For a few examples.Ā
None of these characters originate from the same country. So please do not cast any random Asian person to represent them.Ā
Why it matters: Itās really just impolite to assume that all countries on the Asian continent, and all the people within those countries, are interchangeable.Ā
4. Ignoring and/or Lightening Skintones
These are the skin tones that Grace Hall and Sean Gayle canonically have.
They both have darker skin, and theyāre both beautiful. I promise, you can find real world people to represent them that will have both of these traits.Ā
Why it matters: Society trains us to view lighter skin tones as more desirable, which is why skin lightening products exist. Itās called colorism, and I encourage anyone who is curious to research it more, because itās not something I could discuss.Ā
Aesthetic posts, face claims, and the like are in good, creative fun! But please, be responsible in what you make.Ā
I know this is heated and I feel bad that people believe that this fandom is homophobic (I kind of agree), but what did holly ever do to you? She loves everyone in this fandom. She's our Mama, for goodness sakes. She loves lesbians...didn't she write an Estela and a Kaitlyn fic onces?
hm ok i was gonna answer this jokingly but ? holly has neglected to tag her nsfw posts, forcing minors (including myself) to see them by default. she has openly agreed with homophobic opinions. as an adult, she has hurt some of my younger friends. most of all, whether you or she is aware of it, she has used her age to rope so many of you into believing that she is some kind of mother figure (as demonstrated by this very ask) whose opinions of you hold extreme weight when she is really just a ābnfā on tumblr.
stormborns
2087
gracieabrams
romaincrisis
