while i get and agree with the fact that gay people should probably play gay people and gay stories are best written by gay people, the fervor to prove that “straight people shouldn’t play gay characters!!” is what the interviewer used to forcibly out lee pace so like
idk maybe slow your roll and realize that like… actors can be closeted, content creators can be closeted, and tbh this “you can only write your own experiences, never write someone else’s” rhetoric is also a bigot’s fucking wet dream?? like the perfect excuse to never write diverse characters?? and to say that they have nothing in common with people who don’t look/love/exist the same way as them??
yeah, the author of simon vs the homo sapien’s agenda is a cis straight woman, which means love, simon (though directed by a married gay man with multiple gay characters played by gay/bi actors) is based on a novel written by a straight woman… but this straight woman literally ends her book acknowledging the LGBT teens who helped her write the book and make sure she was writing it appropriately.
this is the content we want
listen… EVERY SINGLE piece of media EVER involves some level of writing about experiences that are not your own, especially if it’s diverse. even bland stories just about white people involves an author writing about genders that are not their own. if you want a story with characters of color, white authors are going to have to write about those perspectives. if you want gay characters in every story, straight authors are gonna have to write about those perspectives. even LGBT narratives might involve gay authors writing about bi characters or cis authors writing about trans characters.
what we HOPE FOR when they do that is that they talk to people… actually belonging to those groups to learn what is and isn’t appropriate and true to life. which is what the author of simon vs the homo sapien’s agenda did.
it’s exactly what she did. she literally worked in a support group for LGBT and GNC kids, saw they did not have cute love stories written for them after they told her this, and then worked with them to give them the love story they craved.
this is a good thing. this is progress for lgbt people. this is the path we need to walk towards getting LGBT content created by LGBT authors.
when you attempt to take the ~moral ground on protesting this film, all you’re doing is telling people who fund these projects that gay products don’t sell. they don’t get the nuance of what you’re going for. and, chances are, you’re looking like a fucking hypocrite, because i can promise you most of the canon gay characters you stan profit a cishet somehow (if they’re even canon).
so, y’unno, as someone who has read simon vs the homo sapien’s agenda AND seen the fucking movie let me tell you!! it’s fine!! it’s diverse beyond having gay character, it’s written respectively, and it hit home on a lot of experiences i WISH i had as a gay teen. it’s corny, it’s silly, and it’s all i ever would have wanted at 13, 14, 15
if you don’t want to see it, just fucking say so! but don’t act like you’re doing it on moral grounds. you can just… not like a movie or not want to see it without it being some moral victory.
I’ve never read a book that treated its characters with more tenderness, generosity, and sympathy than Benjamin Sáenz’s Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Even when the characters don’t think they deserve it, especially when the characters don’t think they deserve it, the narrative holds out cupped hands full of love and patiently waits for them to take it. It makes my heart ache so much; it’s a book that genuinely makes me aspire to be a kinder person.
its been hours and im still thinking abt that post that was saying that andrew killing tilda and neil having to kill people while on the run is “cool_motive_still_murder.jpg” because like? im so Shook?? i dont understand how you can read the all for the game series and use lawful good logic to shame trauma survivors and the means they used to survive their abuse, a book that shows they didnt have a choice, that showed the reality of abuse and how alone you are and how you cant completely rely on the authorities or someone to help you and they were just traumatized abused children taking things into their own hands because there were adults who were trying to kill them. andrew murdered tilda because she was abusing aaron, she was an adult and a mother and she was abusing her own child and andrew put a stop to it the only way he knew how. neil killed people on the run because he had to. “cool motive still murder” like what do yall want? should they have let the abuse continue? should neil have just let his father catch him and his mother and torture them and cut them into pieces? neil is the son of a mobster, andrew was raped since he was a child, these are not people innocent to the concept of what it takes to survive in a world out of hurt you and destroy you and you just? use their trauma, their tool of SURVIVAL against them to make a goddamn point about your homophobic fave? its just so fucking disgusting i cant breath some of you all really dont deserve this series or these characters. this is a story about trauma survivors with lgbt characters and lgbt trauma survivors are a part of the fandom and you’re just going to invalidate their feelings bc theyre mean abt your fave? “cool motive still murder” you are telling abuse victims that the things they did to get away from abuse and torture is essentially an “excuse” and they still did a bad thing but guess what? morality isnt that black and white, it cant be. maybe fucking think before you use a god damn fucking meme from a comedy show to invalidate survivors of trauma god fucking damnit
It started when I was in kindergarten, and I was so proud I did not have to go to Bingo class, unlike my friends, because I could speak good English –
although I had no idea what a yellow dog that could spell had anything to do with Chinese.
(I figure out now that it was probably called Bilingual class)
I am lucky. I speak the fluent, accentless English of newscasters, the dialect spoken by the children of immigrants, that we learned not from our parents but rather from watching Sesame Street and other things on tv.
Last year, a white facebook friend of mine posted, “In order to celebrate Chinese New Year, me talk rike chinese man arr day.”
And then told me that she was “sorry I was offended” and “she didn’t mean anything by it” when I (nicely, sweetly) told her that that shit was not okay. She said that she saw it the same as doing an accent, like Irish. Or British. Or Italian. (for bonus points, she even said that she has lots of Asian co-workers and friends, and LOVES Asian people, and so is not a racist.)
And when one of my white friends gets drunk, he thinks his “Asian accent” is hilarious.
And I was told by a coworker about the time my Asian coworker mispronounced “Barroway” as “Bwawwoway” and how hilarious it was.
Here’s the thing – can you guess how many Asian people I know who actually say
me rikey
me from _____
me so solly
(or, if you like, the fetishized versions: me so horny, me love you long time)
if you said ZERO, then ding ding ding! Congratulations, you have working brain cells.
No, my misguided fb friend, the “Asian accent” is not an actual imitation of an accent, comparable to your bad British/Irish/Italian – but rather a mockery of Asian people and their supposed inability to speak English. It is the perpetuation of the image of Asian people as perpetual foreigners in America.
Like that time when my family was at an Italian restaurant, and we were speaking to my father in Cantonese, and a drunken white lady said very loudly, “GOD when you come to this country at least learn the language!”
Or when my father was pulled over for speeding, and although he said “what’s the problem, officer?” the first thing the state trooper said was, “Do you speak English?”
Your fake “Asian accents” are not harmless and silly, because at the root of the joke, it says – you, you are stupid. You cannot speak English. You are Other. You do not belong.
my parents have been in this country for 30 years. They have been American citizens for 30 years.
And they are very self-conscious of their imperfect English, afraid that it makes them look ignorant, knowing that it marks them as immigrants. That, after 30 years, you can still be told (in not so many words) that you do not belong.
The Cultural Revolution started in China when my father was 13. He was pulled out of school and, later, sent to work in the fields. (He escaped to Hong Kong when he was 18, but that is another story for another time.)
When my father came to this country, he had a middle school education and did not speak a lick of English. He worked as a busboy at a Chinese restaurant, the evening shift that ran until 3 or 4 in the morning, and went to school during the day.
It took my father ten years to earn his bachelor’s degree. He is now an engineer.
Is this not your “American Dream?”
When my mother came to this country, she spoke very little English. She got a job as an entry level clerk. Over the years she earned one promotion after another. She is now management at a large federal agency, and manages funds for the whole state.
Is this not your “American Dream?”
And my father didn’t understand why his coworkers said, “flied lice, flied lice!” to him over and over and laughed.
And my father is still afraid to speak in a professional setting, even when he has ideas.
And my mother still checks and double checks her professional e-mails with me, for fear of mockery from the same people she manages.
And people don’t understand why I can’t take a harmless joke. Why I don’t think that shit is funny.
No, I don’t “rikey.”
No, I won’t “love you long time.”
And no, I’m not sorry.
So, please, kindly – FUCK OFF.
Reblogging this for, like, the fiftieth time because it has never stopped being relevant to my life and it always, always breaks my heart.
It’s not funny. It’s not okay. It’s not harmless. It’s alienating and hurtful.
Hi, my name is Cara and I’m a 21 year old woman. Every 28 days, give or take, I have a period. And it fucking sucks. Today, was one of those where I take from the 28 day cycle. I wasn’t due for another period for at least a week, but considering that my period is pretty much permanently irregular, I get to wake up a lot of mornings in a pool of my own blood. Hmm. Lovely.
I then proceed to dump my sheets, my underwear, and my pajamas in my laundry room in a tub filled with cold water, with the hopes that this time I haven’t ruined them permanently.
What next? Well, a shower of course! To wipe off the smell of rotting blood from my body! Squeaky clean and towel fresh I have about a two minute window before the volcano of blood begins to erupt again from my vagina.
What will it be today? A piece of chlorinated toilet paper cardboard with a string that I get to shove up my hole wherein the blood will sit and rot until the next time I can shove another piece of chlorinated cardboard up the same hole? Or, a plastic lined toilet paper diaper attached to my underwear that causes rug burn to my vaginal area when I walk? Well the later requires less coordination, and it is early, so I guess I’ll be sitting in a period diaper today. The best ever.
Of course, I could always just get birth control, and lessen this whole shit. But 1) I can’t afford it 2) I can’t ask my dad to pay for it because, guess what? Just like the men who run my government, my father correlates birth control with sexual promiscuity! Thus, sitting on my rotting blood, undergoing severe cramps that have on more than one occasion caused me to black out, it is! (Not that birth control is such a walk in the park either, our bodies have to learn to deal with the hormones and other chemicals and consequences that birth control entails.)
Then, I get to go to class, where I have to pretend that I am not a leaky faucet of blood and tissue. I get to sit in Calculus, and if heaven forbid, I need an additional pad, I have to be discrete about it, so as not to offend the men’s gentle sensibilities to the fact that I am the one dropping tissues and blood from my body through my vagina.
I once asked a male to take me to the pharmacy so that I could pick up (GASP) pads, or as we like to call it “feminine products” (again, so as not to offend the gentlemen’s overly sensitive natures) and had him equate me talking about my period to him talking about his erections.
ARE
YOU
FUCKING
KIDDING
ME
No.
This is nothing like your fucking erection’s. I don’t derive any enjoyment from this. I can’t mentally control any ounce of this entire process. I can’t masturbate my problem away. My period does not end in orgasm.
It stays. For at least five days in my case. Draining blood out of my body. Causing me severe cramps, making me irritable -not because I’m uncomfortable (which mind you, would be reason enough) – but because my hormones are all over the place, bloating me up to two sizes larger than I normally am, I have to actively fight not to smell like a fish market, and on top of that, you want me to be hush-hush about this? Because it’s icky for you?
And this is not an attack on that one man, this is an attack on ALL MEN who on top of sitting on their throne of gender privilege want me to stay quiet and be content about the fact that five days out of every month I get to undergo this happiest of joys.
And then, these very same men have the audacity to get annoyed because we don’t want to listen to their bullshit complaining about traffic? Or whatever other meaningless story they happen to tell us while our bodies are actively fighting against us? Then we get to be the butt of their tired-ass jokes? Sorry, I am most certainly not sorry.
I repeat NO. I say women come out of the period closet and say, “You know what, this happens to me. Every. Fucking. Month. And it’s terrible. LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY MORNING.” Because the truth is, if I live in a country where Viagra is covered by medical insurance, but birth control isn’t, I can no longer keep denying that I live in a country that is actively waging a war on women. And if I live in a country that is actively waging war on my sex, the least I am going to do is break patriarchal social propriety to inform anyone and everyone of the shit biological process I was BLESSED enough to be born into.
Hello, my name is Cara, I’m a 21 year old woman, and today I’m on my period. Let me fucking tell you about it.
hello yes this is a good post
Im ganna reblog this twice because hell hell hell yeah!!!!!!!!!
i’m scheduling this to reblog at 10 every day this week lol enjoy!
So I wanted to click the heart but then I saw I already had done it in the past. Future Alley is proud at Past Alley for liking this. And Future Alley is gonna reblog this AND DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME IT IS NOT THEME RELATED BECAUSE I WILL BLOCK YOU.
what she says: i’m fine
what she means: i still don’t understand why nicky hemmick is so often relegated to the sidelines. simplified. minimized. i mean, if we just review the basics, nicky hemmick is a mexican-american, openly lgbt boy that grew up in a toxic environment. he grew up hating himself and thinking he was something disgusting, something unspeakably wrong. it’s the most common form of abuse through the medium of religion and “this is for your own good” logic. how long did he believe that? how long was that “sunrise, abram, death”? how much did the depression and anxiety eat away until erik? then there’s: “[erik] showed me how to balance my faith and my sexuality” which means that nicky had to learn for himself that religion and sexuality are not mutually exclusive, which possibly took months, if not years, for him to completely process and accept after a lifetime of the opposite being brutally beaten into him. and the worst part is, he can’t bring himself to hate his parents, even after everything, which means two things: the first is he’s not that different from the twins and even neil, who grapple with loving the person that hurt them. the second is that nicky hemmick grew up in a place and, frankly, lives in a place where he has every reason to end up cruel. but he isn’t. he loves quickly and unconditionally. he loves and feels strongly. he loves in all the ways he was never loved.
pining is 100000% the most important aspect of pre-relationship fic for me. good-natured whole-hearted pining filled with lovelorn gazing and chest aching and fluttering touches, that’s my top priority. i was put on this earth to watch characters suffer over the profundity of their love for another person. unrequited love is why god made me. characters finding out that their feelings are reciprocated after long months/years of suffering is why the universe was assembled from nothingness. amen.
Actually, the ‘you’re welcome’/’no problem’ issue is simply a linguistics misunderstanding. Older ppl tend to say you’re welcome, younger ppl tend to say no problem. This is because for older people the act of helping or assiating someone is seen as a task that is not expected of them, but is them doing extra, so it’s saying ‘I accept your thanks because I know I deserve it.’
‘No problem’, however, is used because younger people feel not only that helping or assisting someone is a given and expected, but also that it should be stressed that you’re need for help was no burden to them (even if it was).
Basically, older people think help is a gift you give, younger people think help is an expectation required of them.
DAMN STRAIT.
Basic Millennial complaint: “I want shelter and economic security.”
Some bitter old man: “WHAT THE FUCK? WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU DESERVE ANYTHING? THANK ME WHEN YOU BAG MY GROCERIES FOR ME, PEON.”
Nothing but My Aching Soul 