the-wyndii-thiing:

anshinwrites:

firstrisingvibes:

ouyangdan:

Bell is a Dinosaur: My Problems with the Tumblr Social Justice Culture

ascentofstan:

captainhumphrey:

blaitzen:

Yeah, I’m even going to use capital letters and shit because this is kind of a serious venting post for me, requiring me to temporarily abandon my flippant no-effort no-care face. (Not serious even to stop swearing though)

As I identified…

I was going to ignore this, because I really loathe getting into these arguments lately, because when someone is this convinced that they’re right, and I see so many people agreeing with it, it makes me really want to just leave tumblr and stay there. Hidden away forever.

The social justice culture on Tumblr is problematic. It is flawed, and the platform is really not perfect, but it is ideal for disseminating ideas quickly and widely. That isn’t to say that name calling and piling up on people isn’t awful and horrible and just another form of bullying, because it certainly is. It is also inexcusable. Full stop.

But you know what, OP? You are so many kinds of wrong with how you framed the argument. You have managed to privilege what you think are or are not legitimate reasons for people to push back against oppression.

You are trying to frame social justice into what you think is or is not worth defending. You are trying to tell other people how to define their own oppressions, and yeah, you are being a bigot while you’re at it.

“Half-wit”? That is a horribly abelist term. I noticed that you used ableism as one of your chief hot-words that you think are being overused. The funny thing is that ableism runs rampant even in the most progressive corners of the social justice sphere, and people seem to think that it is just dandy to continue using words that are hurtful and oppressive to the PWD community, because to be expected to do otherwise, apparently, is policing your right to use language. Bullshit. Disabled persons have just as much right to not be hurt and have damaging words slung at them as anyone existing on any other axis of oppression. People seem to have no problem abolishing words that are hurtful to people of colour, or misogynistic slurs (though people are less likely to let go of misogynistic slurs than some others), or even anti-QUILTBAG terms, but ask them not to be hurtful to PWD/disabled persons, and suddenly we are whinging and just looking to be offended, or policing someone’s language. Disabled persons are more prone to be victims of violence and inconsiderate policies and harmful living situations because our needs are disregarded. Because people think we are just trying to play some sort of sympathy card. Because for some reason demanding to be treated fairly in just another form of being the PC Police.

I also noticed that you included people who are “white presenting” in your diatribe. I find it amusing that you would attack people for calling out oppression and bigotry by being oppressive and bigoted. There is a long history of erasure of First Nations/Native Americans, to the point where we often have to fight to cling to our heritage. I realize (or hope, anyhow) that your use of “Cherokee Princess” was hyperbolic, because those of us with actual Native heritage knows that there is no such thing, and a First Nations/Native person would not claim to have this in their history. But that is beside the point. The point is how you decided to tell us how to view race, and how to feel about having our racial heritage defined for us. Amusing, because not all Native/First Nations people, even with very heavy bloodlines, present in the stereotypical manner with jet black shiny hair and russet skin. There are very good reasons for that, and you, OP, don’t get to tell us that we are or are not Native because you don’t think we look the part.

In fact, a lot of Norther tribes present very white indeed, for many reasons. One being that they are Northern Tribes and don’t have the amounts of melanin in their skin that we have come to identify with Natives. In colder climates it just is not something that would have manifested genetically. The second is that Native tribes were systematically whitewashed by those who conquered them, forcing our ancestors to intermarry with their own so that we could be made whiter and more pure, hence less savage. Obviously.

The point of that is that you don’t get to define a person’s racial background for them. Just because you perceive a person as white doesn’t mean that they are. For all that you think some of us are benefitting from white privilege (another hot word you can add to your list, since you like deciding what is or isn’t appropriate to be offended by), there are just as many areas of our lives where we are being torn down and ripped apart because of attitudes like yours. Race is not a social construct. Not like gender. What it is is laden with stereotypes that people like you want to use to tell us that we are wrong in how we perceive and define our own lives. Thank you for that. I’ll be sure to tell all of my friends and family back on the reservation where I grew up that we are all performing Native wrong, and I’ll be sure to link them to this post.

We living on the less popular ends of oppression don’t need to go looking for reasons to be offended and hurt. Being offended and hurt is not fun. It isn’t something we revel in, because, honestly, it sucks. We don’t need to go look because there are plenty of people to make sure we see how inconsequential our own oppressions are right here, all the time, and to tell us essentially that we are assholes for being hurt.

Tumblr isn’t always the best platform for social just work, but for many of us it is what we have, and it has it’s merits and dark sides, for sure. That doesn’t mean that your screed here wasn’t hypocritical. Try taking a look at your own behavior before going off on those of us with an actual hat in this ring, and make sure you aren’t perpetuating the very thing you are decrying. 

Congratulations. You might have had a point under all of this, but wow, you’re doing it wrong.

THANK YOU! I’ve been so tired of this thing being reblogged all over the damn place without anyone noticing the bad shit. Thanks for putting it all far more eloquently than I ever could.

Reblogging for commentary, because I’m starting to see this on my dash sans-criticism, and it is a very problematic post.  I understand where it’s coming from, but…no.  Just no.  So.  Reblogging for the very, very good commentary here.

I disagree with a lot of the criticism made, but nevertheless, why present an argument without a counter?

amorremanet:

@gladdecease: omg yay a fellow Hufflepuff!Dean Lander!! …that’s pretty much all of my thoughts on the matter, put more succinctly than I can manage …mostly because I enjoy rambling. Anyway. Dean is definitely a brave soul when it comes to facing down literal demons and monsters and so on, and ~hunting people, saving things, the family business…

But, like… let’s look at Hermione for a second. She’s very bright, very academic, very intelligent and bookish and clever — on paper, she looks like a total Ravenclaw and in OotP when she makes the Protean Charmed coins for the DA, Terry Boot is all, “omg, why can’t you be in our House, you are SUCH a ‘Claw…” (At least, I think it was Terry Boot. It might’ve been Michael Corner or Anthony Goldstein, though, but it was definitely one of the Ravenclaw boys.)

Now, I think Hermione might have flourished more in Ravenclaw, being surrounded by people who encouraged her academic smartypants tendencies, rather than belittling her for them and/or using her to do their homework for them, like some Gryffindors did (including her supposed best friends, usually Ron). But think of her Boggart: McGoogles telling her that she failed all of her classes. Her greatest fear in the world is failure, specifically attached to academics. So, her academic overachieving? Is all her staring her fear in the face and going, “no, fuck YOU. I will beat you and be the best EVEN IF IT KILLS ME.”

With that in mind, let’s look at two of the biggest fears Dean expresses over the course of the series: 1. letting down John or Sammy, especially in a way that involves Sam getting hurt, or not doing the job as well as he feels he should have; 2. his feelings, admitting to having them, and otherwise possibly being perceived as “weak.” He has other fears, sure (like two that especially come to mind… because I ship Dean/Alastair more than is probably healthy: his dark side and the way he can attach to people who fulfill some need in him, any need in him, even when he knows it’s unhealthy [examples: John, Sam, Alastair, Lisa], and what that motivates him to do). But aforementioned two are the big ones.

And… Dean doesn’t really confront them willingly, most of the time. Like, sure, he runs into burning buildings and hunts monsters, but that’s his job. He does it not out of ~courage and more because doing something, anything to help other people is his PURPOSE. And even though the job takes everything he loves and makes him miserable, he does it anyway, partly because he thinks it’s the right thing to do and mostly because he goes, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. If I have to be miserable so other people can live and be happy, then okay.”

Which is a very Hufflepuff way of seeing things, to me: loyalty to ~the family business, loyalty to the way of thinking John drilled into him, tenacious refusal to give up in the face of increasingly insurmountable odds… Not to mention how he tries to hide and deny his feelings and his “weaknesses” even when this does him more harm, even to Sam, who knows him better to anyone and (usually) tries to make him open up.

And I mean, his reason for almost giving in to Michael was that so many people were getting killed, to the point that, yeah, he wanted to preserve free will… but what was the point in saving it if everybody died. Like Zachariah says, he’ll find his way to hunting (canon’s manifestation of DEAN MUST HELP PEOPLE) in the dark, and I can’t write him without SOME way for him to be a helper.

Like, I write a lot of normal people!AU fic, but my Deans are always like… studying to be a teacher (well, more a semi-permanent grad student with no clue what to do with his life, except for volunteer tutoring kids who have trouble in school, or playing the Good Cop TA for Ellen’s classes to Cas’s Bad Cop TA, since… Cas does shit like tell a freshman who’s in a little over their head that their essay was poorly conceived, poorly written, made of fail, etc. since tact is not his stront suit, while Dean is more like, “okay your idea is actually good, but here are some things we should work on, if you want to submit a revision for extra credit”), or studying pharmacology (relevant since that verse’s Sam and Cas both have problems involving prescription drug abuse), or so on.

And a lot of Dean’s worst decisions come out of loyalty and his fear of letting Sam and/or John down. I mean, he went to Hell in the first place because he would do literally anything to fulfill his lifetime responsibility of looking out for Sam, even if it destroys him in the process. The brave thing would’ve been facing his feelings and letting Sam die because he knew Sam wouldn’t have wanted to be brought back in a way that would hurt Dean, much less one that damned him to Hell. But Dean operated out of the dark, twisted, selfish, destructive extremes of loyalty.

So… yeah. I see where the Gryffindor!Dean people are coming from, but I think they’re wrong. And I can’t help thinking it’s kind of House prejudice, like, “well Harry, Rob, Hermione, Remus, Sirius, McGoogles, and Dumbles were Gryffindors IT IS OBVIOUSLY THE HERO HOUSE SO DEAN MUST GO THERE.” Or, “but lol what the Hell’s a Hufflepuff~”

Or both. Yeah, probaby both.

But… uhm. First of all, Zacharias Smith: he was a cowardly, self-preserving douchestick, but he was NOT a pushover. More importantly? TONKS AND CEDRIC, PEOPLE. She was an Auror and he was THE FREAKING HOGWARTS CHAMPION. AND THEY WERE BOTH HUFFLEPUFFS. BEST BE RESPECTIN’.

……I’m reblogging myself because I just… really needed my Hufflepuff!Dean “essay”/”abstract”/TL;DR rant? Or… something like that? …mmmyep.

This started as a postscript to my Sam and Quinn should sing “Superstar” graphics… but it got really TL;DR, so… I moved it to its own post. I even gave it a “read more” and everything.

QUINN FABRAY IS NOT CATHOLIC. Can we all pretty, pretty please get this straight? Lucy Quinn Fabray is NOT CATHOLIC. I’m saying this as a religious studies student and as someone who grew up Catholic, just… no. Catholic!Quinn makes me cringe unless it’s like, “Quinn grew up and converted.” Not every hardcore Christian denomination in fiction is Catholicism.

And a note before I continue: I am not judging anyone for their religious beliefs of lack thereof here. I am VERY MUCH JUDGING the people who abuse religion to hurt others, such as the Westboro Baptists and the leaders of various world religions, and I am similarly judging people who talk about religion, ANY religion, when they have no idea what they are talking about. If you fall into the latter group, then please, please, for the love of whatever you hold sacred, do some reading before you say anything else — and I don’t mean on Wikipedia Seriously, people. Go read a damn book.

…I am also judging anyone who self-identifies as a Ravenclaw but still goes, “lol Quinn is totally Catholic.” And to all of said people, I say the following: WHAT WHAT WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. I THINK YOU’RE FOURTEEN AND A SQUIB. Get out of my House and don’t come back until you’ve read five books. (You get to read more than everyone else as penance for putting yourself in Ravenclaw House… and subsequently saying really ignorant things.)

Read More

Every time I look at you, I don’t understand why you let the things you did get so out of hand. You’d’ve managed better if you’d had it planned. So why’d you choose such a backwards time in such a strange land?

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ, superstar: do you think you’re what they say you are?

So, like. An explanation for this. My “100 songs Glee should cover but probably won’t” project got derailed a while back… mostly because I have the attention span of a gnat or one of Charles Muntz’s dogs and went, “OOO SQUIRREL!” and got diverted.

But I was playing around in photoshop tonight on something I’ll share in a little bit, and my ipod’s troll-tastic shuffle function followed Yo-Yo Ma and Allison Krauss’s version of “Simple Gifts” with the OBCR version of the title song from the Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Weber classic, Jesus Christ Superstar, which was always on my list and… I don’t know, I felt inspired to come back to it.

Anyway. I chose the song mostly because it’s one of my favorite favorites (I’d confess how many plays my ipod has listed for it, but I think I’m losing enough pretentious liberal arts institution graduate street cred as is for: a. involvement in the Glee fandom, and b. my lifelong love affair with Andrew Lloyd Weber), and because Glee’s already been allowed to do “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina,” which was FANTASTICALLY done on both Chris’s and Lea’s parts, so I have trouble believing that Tim Rice and ALW wouldn’t let them use “Superstar.”

(…even though this is a hypothetical situation, exercise in fannishness sort of thing, I think that paragraph right there is probably a good piece of evidence for the, “Kassie might be more Slytherin than Ravenclaw” theory.)

And I chose Sam and Quinn to sing it because… well, partly it’s some selfishness on my part. I love Quinn and I constantly want more of her… but Dianna, in all fairness, has a very difficult voice to pick songs for, and she can be kind of hit-or-miss on a performance level, on top of that. Even when she gets something that works in the context of the show and she sings it pitch-perfectly, she occasionally gets so wrapped up in the technical parts of the song that the passion and the acting part of things takes a backseat. (See, “Keep Me Hangin’ On,” where she hits all the notes just right… but all of the acting only comes in when you have the visuals. When it’s just the music, she sounds kind of angry, but more detached, which… doesn’t really fit with the lyrics or with what Quinn is feeling in that moment.)

And the female vocal part of “Superstar” is both in her range and mutable, in terms of how its performed and in terms of meaning. I’ve heard it sung fiery and angry, or detached and spacey, and… well, let’s just say that, despite being a play that calls Jesus and everything that’s widely believed about him into question left, right, and center, Superstar still regularly gets performed by churches and religious schools, so the meaning of lines like, “Who are you, what have you sacrificed?” and, “Do you think you’re what they say you are?” are very, very open to interpretation.

That means, for Quinn, that Dianna can get pretty much any direction, sing them any way she’s told to, and any option is pretty much guaranteed to work with the song somehow. And I picked Sam to go with her because, on an out-of-character level, I just really like how Chord and Dianna sound together. “Lucky” is one of my least favorite Glee tracks, granted, but that’s mostly because I don’t like the song to begin with and I really didn’t like Sam going, “hey, girl I don’t know very well, let’s sing THIS song about being in love with your best friend~” and Quinn just going along with it. …but Chord and Dianna complement each other really well, and… again, selfishness.

Now, on an in-character level: of the characters who openly subscribe to some kind of religious belief — the two of them, Puck and Rachel, and Mercedes — Sam and Quinn are the ones who have the most reason to sing this song. The context of “Superstar” in the show is that it’s being sung by Judas, shortly after his suicide, and he’s singing it to outright call Jesus to the carpet and make him explain himself — for instance, why did he have to die, why did things happen the way they did (what with the group surrounding Jesus falling to pieces, Jesus’s messy death and Judas’s role as traitor, etc.), what good came out of anything, and so on. Now, Jesus never does so because immediately following “Superstar,” we get the crucifixion and Mary Magdalene grieving and end show.

But to really understand the emotional impact of the song, you have to understand how Judas gets portrayed in Superstar. First of all, he’s one of the show’s big roles. In terms of getting songs, he, Jesus, and Mary Magdalene are about even — and considering Jesus spends most of the second act silent, I think Judas and Mary might actually overshadow him. Granted, the supporting cast gets a lot of recognition and some badass songs — see, the total show-stealing “King Herod’s Song,” and Pontius Pilate, who gets to count off 39 lashes while Jesus is whipped, and Caiaphas, who’s always sung by a deep, deeeeeep bass and is a magnificent bastard extraordinaire — but the center of the show is the Judas/Jesus/Mary Magdalene love triangle. And Judas, more than the other two, is the protagonist and emotional center of things.

Rather than being a two-dimensional, “well, he betrayed Jesus and that is BAD” version of Judas, the way the canonical gospels portray him, Rice/ALW’s Judas is a complicated and tragic figure (not entirely unlike the Judas of the gnostic Gospel of Judas, though there are some important differences between them). One of the Twelve Apostles, and ostensibly Jesus’s favorite (c.f., “I’ve been your right-hand man all along” from the show-opening song, “Heaven On Their Minds”), he’s been with Jesus’s movement and ministry for three years, and he really, earnestly believes in the mission they had when they started, which was just trying to help the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, and so on. One of the early scenes features him going, “uh, excuse me what, GTFO, hooker” at Mary Magdalene when she tries to wash Jesus’s feet with gratuitously expensive oil that, as Judas points out, was bought with money that could’ve gone to things like feeding hungry people. And Jesus first rebukes him, then totally blows him off. Then proceeds to spend most of the rest of the first act (and the pre-arrest second act) blowing him off. This is basically douchebag!Jesus.

And when Judas betrays him… I mean, YMMV, but for me? When Judas betrays Jesus, I’m torn between cheering for him and wanting to cuddle him, because here he is, having to choose between his best friend and his ideals, and Jesus has been a serious dick, so it’s like… he has this coming to him. And Judas doesn’t even want to get paid for the betrayal because he KNOWS how bad it is, but the Council insists, manipulating his desire to help the poor by reminding him what 30 silver pieces could do for them, and later throwing it in his face that he got “pretty good wages for one little kiss.”

And as the play reminds us, there are some serious Unfortunate Implications when people try to throw blame on Judas if everything’s supposed to be preordained (which Jesus and others argue it is), since… Judas does his part not quite willingly, but without trying to deny that it’s going to happen (Peter) or trying to chicken out (Jesus). And moreover, Judas sacrifices his friends (since everyone spends the post-Last Supper part of the play going, “ew, it’s Judas, GTFO, Judas,” except for Annas and Caiaphas, who are still dicks to him) and his loyalty to Jesus because he wants to go back to helping people in the here and now, rather than going on and on about Heaven and salvation, whereas you get the sense that Jesus just kind of dies because Daddy said he had to and he’s too tired to question that.

(Yes, you read that right. Spoilers if you haven’t seen Superstar, but the entire point of Jesus’s prayer song in “Gethsemane” is that he’s trying to chicken out and go, “But, Daddy, I don’t want to die, make someone else do it!” c.f.: “I only want to say, / If there is a way, / Take this cup away from me / For I don’t want to taste its poison. / … / Listen, surely I’ve exceeded expectations, / Tried for three years, seems like thirty. / Could you ask as much from any other man? / … / Why I should die? / … / If I die what will be my reward?” … I will grant that it’s a very moving song, but compared to Judas, it still stinks of cowardly self-interest.)

(And while I have your attention, I’m going to quote TV Tropes’s page on Superstar to explain why I hate Simon Peter. “Karma Houdini: Betray Christ once: suicide and eternal damnation. Betray Christ three times: become the first pope.” Granted, I hate Paul of Tarsus more because he took the Christian movement and went, “LA LA LA I AM GOING TO ADD SOME APOCALYPTICISM AND A BUNCH OF BELIEFS OF REALLY DUBIOUS RELEVANCE AND KIND OF TAKE A DUMP ON WHAT JESUS WAS ACTUALLY TRYING TO DO NBD,” and so many people treat him like the definitive word on things, which just makes me go, “uhm. Excuse me. Being any kind of Christian means that you WORSHIP JESUS. NOT PAUL. JESUS. YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.” …but back to my actual business here.)

So, “Superstar,” in the context of the show is SO charged with emotion. There’s no other way to sing it. There are different ways to interpret the emotion and what it means in the show as a whole, but there’s still a lot of it there: betrayal. regret. anger. resentment. confusion. bitterness and irony. desperation. love. Because Judas has been through the fucking wringer in this play, and he doesn’t even get a reprieve in death. Because all of it happened out of his love for Jesus, his concern for Jesus and for their movement, and in the end, sure, he and Jesus both die… but nothing’s resolved. Nobody gets what they want (except the people who wanted to see Jesus die) because everybody gets equally shit on by God (except the people who wanted to see Jesus die).

Now, like, bringing things back to Glee… Puck always seems pretty solid in his Jewish faith, when it comes up; and ditto Mercedes for whatever brand of Christianity she belongs to (probably Baptist because in Hollywood, black people don’t have any other religious beliefs); and for Rachel… well. I get the sense that she believes, kind of, but that, for her, it’s more a Thing About Rachel Berry That Is Interesting And Unique And That Means Rachel Berry Is Interesting And Unique And HEY EVERYBODY LOOK AT RACHEL BERRY DID YOU KNOW NATALIE WOOD WAS JEWISH.

But Sam and Quinn believe, they even go to church together — and they’ve also taken some pretty substantial hits to their faith. Quinn with the pregnancy and with Beth, and with the pretty horrible year that followed (which, if you ask me, looks like some serious postpartum depression but this is fanon, so…). Sam’s hits came with moving and being the new guy, the hassling that followed him joining Glee club, a very literal one when he took on Dave for Kurt, and finally, when his dad lost his job and the clan Evans lost their home and had to move into the hotel.

So, you know… I think Sam Evans and Quinn Fabray have a lot to be upset about, and considering that Quinn at least has described her faith as “turning to God” (in “Grilled Cheesus”)… I wouldn’t be surprised if both of them had some confusion and bitterness and questions for a certain Mister Yeshua ben Joseph ha Nozri (Jesus the Christ of Nazareth).

@gladdecease: omg yay a fellow Hufflepuff!Dean Lander!! …that’s pretty much all of my thoughts on the matter, put more succinctly than I can manage …mostly because I enjoy rambling. Anyway. Dean is definitely a brave soul when it comes to facing down literal demons and monsters and so on, and ~hunting people, saving things, the family business…

But, like… let’s look at Hermione for a second. She’s very bright, very academic, very intelligent and bookish and clever — on paper, she looks like a total Ravenclaw and in OotP when she makes the Protean Charmed coins for the DA, Terry Boot is all, “omg, why can’t you be in our House, you are SUCH a ‘Claw…” (At least, I think it was Terry Boot. It might’ve been Michael Corner or Anthony Goldstein, though, but it was definitely one of the Ravenclaw boys.)

Now, I think Hermione might have flourished more in Ravenclaw, being surrounded by people who encouraged her academic smartypants tendencies, rather than belittling her for them and/or using her to do their homework for them, like some Gryffindors did (including her supposed best friends, usually Ron). But think of her Boggart: McGoogles telling her that she failed all of her classes. Her greatest fear in the world is failure, specifically attached to academics. So, her academic overachieving? Is all her staring her fear in the face and going, “no, fuck YOU. I will beat you and be the best EVEN IF IT KILLS ME.”

With that in mind, let’s look at two of the biggest fears Dean expresses over the course of the series: 1. letting down John or Sammy, especially in a way that involves Sam getting hurt, or not doing the job as well as he feels he should have; 2. his feelings, admitting to having them, and otherwise possibly being perceived as “weak.” He has other fears, sure (like two that especially come to mind… because I ship Dean/Alastair more than is probably healthy: his dark side and the way he can attach to people who fulfill some need in him, any need in him, even when he knows it’s unhealthy [examples: John, Sam, Alastair, Lisa], and what that motivates him to do). But aforementioned two are the big ones.

And… Dean doesn’t really confront them willingly, most of the time. Like, sure, he runs into burning buildings and hunts monsters, but that’s his job. He does it not out of ~courage and more because doing something, anything to help other people is his PURPOSE. And even though the job takes everything he loves and makes him miserable, he does it anyway, partly because he thinks it’s the right thing to do and mostly because he goes, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. If I have to be miserable so other people can live and be happy, then okay.”

Which is a very Hufflepuff way of seeing things, to me: loyalty to ~the family business, loyalty to the way of thinking John drilled into him, tenacious refusal to give up in the face of increasingly insurmountable odds… Not to mention how he tries to hide and deny his feelings and his “weaknesses” even when this does him more harm, even to Sam, who knows him better to anyone and (usually) tries to make him open up.

And I mean, his reason for almost giving in to Michael was that so many people were getting killed, to the point that, yeah, he wanted to preserve free will… but what was the point in saving it if everybody died. Like Zachariah says, he’ll find his way to hunting (canon’s manifestation of DEAN MUST HELP PEOPLE) in the dark, and I can’t write him without SOME way for him to be a helper.

Like, I write a lot of normal people!AU fic, but my Deans are always like… studying to be a teacher (well, more a semi-permanent grad student with no clue what to do with his life, except for volunteer tutoring kids who have trouble in school, or playing the Good Cop TA for Ellen’s classes to Cas’s Bad Cop TA, since… Cas does shit like tell a freshman who’s in a little over their head that their essay was poorly conceived, poorly written, made of fail, etc. since tact is not his stront suit, while Dean is more like, “okay your idea is actually good, but here are some things we should work on, if you want to submit a revision for extra credit”), or studying pharmacology (relevant since that verse’s Sam and Cas both have problems involving prescription drug abuse), or so on.

And a lot of Dean’s worst decisions come out of loyalty and his fear of letting Sam and/or John down. I mean, he went to Hell in the first place because he would do literally anything to fulfill his lifetime responsibility of looking out for Sam, even if it destroys him in the process. The brave thing would’ve been facing his feelings and letting Sam die because he knew Sam wouldn’t have wanted to be brought back in a way that would hurt Dean, much less one that damned him to Hell. But Dean operated out of the dark, twisted, selfish, destructive extremes of loyalty.

So… yeah. I see where the Gryffindor!Dean people are coming from, but I think they’re wrong. And I can’t help thinking it’s kind of House prejudice, like, “well Harry, Rob, Hermione, Remus, Sirius, McGoogles, and Dumbles were Gryffindors IT IS OBVIOUSLY THE HERO HOUSE SO DEAN MUST GO THERE.” Or, “but lol what the Hell’s a Hufflepuff~”

Or both. Yeah, probaby both.

But… uhm. First of all, Zacharias Smith: he was a cowardly, self-preserving douchestick, but he was NOT a pushover. More importantly? TONKS AND CEDRIC, PEOPLE. She was an Auror and he was THE FREAKING HOGWARTS CHAMPION. AND THEY WERE BOTH HUFFLEPUFFS. BEST BE RESPECTIN’.

depressingfacts replied to your post: …okay, someone please tell me I’m not the only person who sorts Dean Winchester into Hufflepuff.

So I’m not the only one who sees that Snape was somewhat of an asshole and Lily was right in leaving him? Or am I misinterpreting what you said?

Oh, no, you’re not. Severus is my second favorite character in the series (…and the fact that Barty Crouch Jr. beats him because I really empathize and identify with his story probably says really not-that-great things about me)… but I love Severus because of how flawed he is, and I think he was totally an asshole. Some great fan essays that pretty much sum up my thoughts on the matter: ~randomneses’s In Defense of Lily Evans and their follow-up to said piece.

Basically… I love Snape. And I believe that he really did love Lily. But I also think she was completely in the right for going, “well, fuck you, then, Severus. Bye.”

I mean… best friends since childhood and ostensibly unrequited secret crush or not, he was running with a really bad crowd, one that espoused Blood Purist beliefs, which all basically came down to (with regards to Lily), “be as talented and intelligent and hard-working and awesome as you want, Evans; you’re still trash.” His friends pulled him into that and not only did he fail to go, “hey, guys, that’s racist and really fucked up,” he took part in dehumanizing other Muggleborn students and, when Lily called him on his bullshit, went, “but I don’t mean it about YOU because you’re better than everybody else.” …which I’m sure he thought was nice and all, but because Lily had her head on right, she went, “uh, it’s still racist and fucked up, Severus, you should, like, STOP IT. :|”

Now, I think he had a lot of REASONS for why he did what he did. Above all other potential reasons, I blame his parents and his home-life. JKR didn’t give us a lot of concrete information to go on, but the intimations are all pretty nasty and involve varying degrees of abuse and neglect… My personal canon for it is that Eileen Prince Snape came from a social-climbing, Fullblooded (better than Half, but not quite Pure) family, one that wasn’t exactly healthy either (since, well, she fell into an abusive marriage with Tobias) and that pretty much disowned her when she went, “hey, mum and dad, I met this great guy and we’re madly in love… just, well, he’s a Muggle.”

But since that’s not the officially JKR-condoned version… well, we still have the intimations of a very not-nice environment, and given how crappy life with Tobias and Eileen at Spinner’s End is implied to have been, and how, in “The Prince’s Tale,” Lily seems to be the only person who actively cares that much about Severus… yeah. When he wound up in Slytherin House and suddenly had a “gang” to run with (to borrow Sirius’s word for them, from GoF), I can understand him being torn between Lily (longtime best friend, possibly the first person who cared about him, undoubtedly the more emotionally significant relationship) and Mulciber/Avery/Wilkes/the “gang of Slytherins” who all went on to join up with Voldemort (less emotionally significant, but I think that, to Severus, they represented acceptance on a larger scale than he’d ever known — and one that had more power and totally condoned his interest in the Dark Arts — which would’ve been even more important to him after Sirius and James made it their mission in life to make his existence awful).

So… I understand why he did what he did. But it was still wrong, and Lily was still in the right for ditching him, and like… I love Severus, but there’s no excuse for how he acted when he was younger. Or, Hell, even for some of the shit he pulls as an adult. Like the blatant sadism he shows with Harry and Neville. Is it understandable? Yes, and I think the layers of motivation and emotion that underscore his behavior make him a much more powerful… but he still basically goes, “oh look, it’s an eleven-year-old who looks like the jackass who made my life Hell in school and then married the woman I loved, and the eleven-year-old who SHOULD have had his parents killed instead of the Potters because then Lily would at least still be alive… if possibly driven to insanity by Bellatrix and Barty Junior — I INSTANTLY DISLIKE YOU, ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN, AND I SHALL TORMENT YOU NOW.”

…and he’s my second favorite because of his objectionable behavior, really. On the one hand, I like how his ~redemption story doesn’t magically make him not an asshole, since… that’s more realistic, to me, than “LOL CHARACTER #4 HAS BEEN ~REDEEMED AND NOW LOVES PUPPIES AND RAINBOWS AND CUTE LITTLE BABIES” kinds of stories. On the other, I love picking apart all of his complicated, subtle little layers of motive and emotion. On the third… I kind of have a problem of attaching to characters who, by all rights, are evil, or assholes, or sociopaths, or some combination thereof, especially when they have tragedy and angst in their backstories. So, personal preference in fictional characters and all.

…and I’m terrible to him because I love him. Because, unfortunately for any fictional character I will ever attach to and write about, I really take Kurt Vonnegut’s eight rules for fiction writing to heart… and my favorite is, “Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.”

…which sort of makes their lives suck, but it makes me happy as a writer and I usually give them some happiness, just because I can’t handle complete and unrelenting DARKNESS!!^TM … but, y’know. I will still try to figure out what the absolute worst thing that could happen to them is and then make it happen. …sorry, fictional characters. >__>

ichosenoise:

Throw Artie/miscellaneous guy between Brittany and Santana and it’s funny and a hot threesome.

Make same threesome joke with Rachel/Kurt/Blaine and everyone’s foaming at the mouth because it’s “disrespectful.”

The fight for equality didn’t stop at Stonewall Inn and it doesn’t stop at the rah-rah-look-at-me-I’m-gay-and-transferred-to-an-all-boys-school-where-I-miraculously-found-my-one-true-love fairytale Kurt storyline.

Everyone and her mom in America knows about how brave Kurt is for running away from Karofsky to Dalton Academy where there is a zero-tolerance No Bullying Policy, and for just happening to bump into what appears to be the only other gay boy in the school, who also happens to be the star performer in that school’s show choir. And now they’re on the way to living happily ever after in the upcoming season.

No one seems to remember/realize/care that Santana lives in constant self-doubt about herself because she’s in love with her best friend while guys like Puck constantly leer and suggest threesomes, which in our society are (pathetically) the only way a female version of Kurt’s wonderful and perfect relationship is considered legitimate.

No one seems to remember/realize/care that Santana brought Kurt back from Dalton so that he could rejoin his only friends and compete in Nationals after his school was eliminated by McKinley. She did it for reasons so convoluted that they had to be explained in voiceover, sure, but it was “the key to getting back Britt.”

When Santana pushed Brittany away because she couldn’t accept her feelings for her, Brittany ran to Artie, who thought he won the jackpot and got the hottest girl in the school, starting the Barfie chapter: where the handicap-able boy somehow gets the girl, and no one cares how because they’re just so cute together. Sure he makes fun of her intelligence sometimes, but it’s really for her own good because she needs a magic comb to believe in herself. And he sings her cute songs in front of people in class to let her know what a “pretty young thing” she is as an apology. Obviously, if your boyfriend doesn’t have the decency to at least sing to you in public to tell everyone how pretty you are after he calls you stupid, well, girls, better find yourself an Artie Abrams who will.

Of course, by now, you’d have realized that it’s a given that no one cares that Santana comforts Brittany and sings to her about how much she loves her and how much she cares about her in an empty classroom because she’s afraid of being labeled/harassed. Because everyone knows Santana is the bitch who always has a snarky comment ready when she’s attacked. Oh except for that one time Rachel said that the only job she’d ever have is “working on a pole,” and everyone thought it was funny.

You’d also have wondered, hopefully, why a girl who’s shown as much - if not more - bravery than Kurt (figurative and Entertainment Weekly gay cover boy) doesn’t raise a blip on anyone’s radar who isn’t either a lesbian or a bisexual girl. Unless it’s Chris Colfer reinforcing bisexual Brittany as the proverbial slut who blindly chases both girls and boys (even though she knows they’re gay, see: Klaine skits in Glee Live Tour 2011) because she just wants to make out with someone. Or unless it’s Harry Shum Jr. saying that Brittana’s cool, because guys like seeing girls kiss/have sex, and not because the girls are in love with each other. Or unless it’s Kevin McHale lamenting repeatedly why Artie can’t have both Brittany and Santana.

So that’s a gay, a straight, and an undetermined, who all think that Brittany and Santana are a legitimate relationship only if a man, spectating or participating, is in the equation. All three work on Glee, “the gayest show on television.” Is it just me or is something fucking wrong with this picture?

Don’t give me the “It was just a joke” bullshit. This should never have been a joke in the first place (see: first two points of post). I don’t consider myself a feminist. You might disagree if you actually read through this essay, the length of which I did not intend to be this long when I started. I just got more pissed off the more I wrote; the gayest show on television, (in)famous for trumpeting “Equality” using whatever preachy/cheesy/gaga methods are necessary, can’t portray women respectfully. Girls are bitches who steal each other’s boyfriends, and sluts who are hypersexual and will sleep with any and everyone in the school. 

I know I should be grateful that Brittany and Santana have gotten as many meaningful scenes as they have, considering the pile of shit the rest of TV has had to offer us. Thanks Brad/Ryan/Ian. But I’m not going to kiss your feet and thank you for how progressive and amazing your show is.

Because Rachel is a mess without Finn. Quinn is a mess without a boy, any boy, to love her. Lauren plays head-games to keep Puck neutered. Mercedes is forever alone and doesn’t have storylines unless it involves tots. Tina is attached to Mike’s abs 24/7.

And Brittany and Santana, who have had arguably one of the most unique and misrepresented storylines in television, who have had the most heartfelt I-Love-Yous out of ANYONE, are currently being relegated to the void because ONE girl dealing with her sexuality is hard enough and obviously having the girl she’s in love with who’s also in love with her by her side for emotional support is going to make it so much harder for her to deal with her conflicted emotions.

And also in case Artie ever wants to win Britt back with a cute pedophilic song/double date with Puck/token slut at Breadstix.

Edit: I don’t expect any boys to reblog this. And I’m okay with it. But not okay with it at the same time. Because it’s a reflection on how little empathy the more empowered gender has for the lesser, even today in 2011. Maybe in another hundred years, we’ll have the most egalitarian show on television, instead of the gayest show on television.

Okay, okay, so. I like pretty much everything about this post, except for THREE THINGS:

1. Tina is NOT “attached to Mike’s abs 24/7.” Yes, RIB are made of fail and suck and lose as writers when it comes to their female characters, but Artie was a shitty boyfriend. Even RYAN said so. In “Audition,” Tina said, “Mike tries to be into what I’m into” — and then we got that ridiculous, character-derailing line about his abs. And then a joke got blown up into the moment of Tina playing Angry Birds while she and Mike are making out. THAT IS NOT TINA COHEN-CHANG’S FUCKING FAULT. TINA, LIKE PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE ON THIS SHOW, IS AN AWESOME CHARACTER WHO DESERVES BETTER WRITERS. LIKE, ONES WHO DON’T RANDOMLY MAKE HER SHALLOW AND AB-OBSESSED. SO STOP BLAMING HER AND BLAME RIB, CONSIDERING THEY ARE THE ONES WHO ACTUALLY DESERVE IT.

2. Okay, OP doesn’t like Luck. Sure. Fine. Whatever — that’s cool. …but, dude, SERIOUSLY? Lauren does not “play mind games to keep Puck neutered.” Lauren does exactly what Puck does: she’s loud, she’s obnoxious, she’s dominant and makes demands that sometimes seem ridiculous or excessive (hey, does anyone remember Puck telling Quinn that she was “getting kinda fat” and she should stop eating so much when she was PREGNANT)… and it’s not “neutering” for a man to not be the dominant one in a relationship. And, you know what? She hasn’t done SHIT to change who he is as a person. She demands that he respect her. What a novel concept! If Puck didn’t kind of like being dominated (which… he does; note that the moments when he was initially attracted to Lauren all came when she was showing just how strong and domineering she can be), he would call it quits on the relationship. SO HOW ABOUT LET’S ALL STOP BEING MISOGYNISTIC ABOUT LAUREN WHILE POINTING OUT OTHER MANIFESTATIONS OF MISOGYNY IN GLEE LAND? HMMM?

3. Yeah, this post would’ve been perfect except for those examples of misogyny… in calling out misogyny. I don’t care who your favorite characters or ships are, or whatever. …but this kind of thing is nones the cool.

I’m going to get off my soapbox and take a shower now.

superkurtastic:

Sometimes, I say smart things.: I want a Klaine breakup.

amorremanet:

Know why? Because every other relationship on this show breaks up.

Because Klaine is just like every other relationship on the show.

Because if you honestly care about equality in the representation of the queer people and relationships on Glee, then you don’t want them to be put on some…

Here’s the problem though, if this were ANY OTHER SHOW, I would 100% agree. Blaine and Kurt should be allowed to experience dating with other people if they wish to. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, how do couples in Glee break up with each other? They CHEAT on each other with someone else. This is NOT how I want Blaine and Kurt to break up.

And you know why? You’re a member of the gay community. Surely you must know about the promiscuous stereotype that is attached with a gay man who cheats and sleeps around. Literally having a gay couple be stable is going to help break that stereotype. So get off your high horse for a second please and understand that we’re not all 12 and looking for them to shit out rainbows 24/7. Some people actually want a functioning couple that tries to TALK things out. Gets into fights about their dreams, their wants and their hopes for the future. That doesn’t mean that they need to break up. They could actually….oh I don’t know…do what most functional couples do. Actually talk to each other about what doesn’t work. When has Finchel, Fuinn, Tartie, etc.etc.etc ever do that? Ever? So to see Klaine treated like a NORMAL couple is actually refreshing.

But alas, feel free to feel the way you feel.

Okay, I’m going to open this with a question: are you a member of the LGBTQIA+ community? I tried poking around your blog to figure it out, but I can’t… and if you are, then I’ll retract this and apologize but… seriously? If you’re not, then no. You should be able to realize that someone who isn’t a member of the queer community has no right to tell queer people what stereotypes associated with our community we should and shouldn’t be offended by. And if that’s what you’re doing, then check yourself and get off of your high horse, because your condescending appeal to my queerness and “But alas, feel free to feel the way you feel” bullshit is pretty thoroughly ruining what was otherwise a fair point.

And now, a read more, because JFC, this is long.

Read More

Interesting question, nonny. And it’s kind of hard to say. Partly because of the way genderqueer and trans* mean a lot of different things, and encompass a lot of different identities. (Trans* actually includes genderqueer, to most people. Don’t worry if you didn’t know that, though; I had to have it explained to me before, too.)

Then it’s sort of hard to say because I’m gaga for plot bunnies, and these sorts of questions make me go, “OH MY GOD THAT WOULD BE SUCH AN AWESOME FIC I SHOULD WRITE IT.” (Which totally isn’t a faux pas on your part or anyone else’s, by the way. It’s just kind of a side-effect of how I roll. Like one of my friends, her significant other wrote a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fic — Dash’s Secret, which seriously, I cannot recommend enough — and I read it last night and aside from making me feel better when I was down, it was just AWESOME. …Anyway, I wound up going, “oh god, I want to write crossovers with SPN and Glee and My Little Pony now… Dean pony would be the cutest pony ever…”)

(Incidentally, I don’t know if you’re my Santina anon or not, but… if you’re out there, Santina anon. I’m working on your one-shot. It kind of grew seven heads, and then it wanted to be part of my hunter!Santana verse, and aksfsfdh, I hope that’s okay, that it’s taking a while.)

ANYWAY. THIS QUESTION.

I’d believe it most with Tina or Brittany, I think. To be specific: I think both of them would make sense as identifying as genderqueer for various reasons. I’m trying to think of a way to articulate them, and sort of failing at it, but… they’re the two I’d be most of convinced of as genderqueer. Santana or Quinn, I could see as more generally trans* (though now that I think about it, I could also see genderqueer!Quinn or Sam pretty easily).

If Quinn were trans*, she’d obviously be more likely to be a trans man, since she got pregnant, but… a lot of the logic for why I believe in lesbian!Quinn could also mean trans*!Quinn. Especially considering how a big thing she does is a sort of, “repress all of her potentially Not Normal desires and traits and so on, hate and deride people who have them,” and in early episodes, some of her insults for Rachel are pretty trans*phobic — like, “man hands,” “treasure trail,” “Rupaul,” “that thing” and calling Rachel an “it”… so. I think the writer of said fic would have to be more sensitive than you’d need to be in any other trans* character fic, just because negotiating around a lot of Quinn’s plots would be difficult and thickety, like Quinn herself is a difficult and thickety character… but I think it could be done, and I think it would be awesome if done really well.

As to Santana, I could see her being a trans* woman OR a trans* man, but I think Santana as a trans* woman would make more sense, especially in light of how conflicted she is about her lesbian identity. There’s a lot of social stigma against trans* people to begin with, and trans* people who are also homosexual (so trans* women who are lesbians and trans* men who are gay)… they get told things like, “A lesbian trapped in a man’s body? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK,” or, “But if you transitioned just to be gay, why couldn’t you just stay a girl,” or similar.

And given Santana’s canon resistance to coming out — which is hard enough for any queer woman, believe me; it’s like Naya said once, girls try to come out and people tend to objectify them, and be like, “well, you’re a girl who makes out with girls, that’s so hot” and then react negatively when… female sexuality isn’t all about the observer. Like a picture I will link to, but I’m not posting here directly because it’s so nauseating: here it is, in all its fatphobic and homophobic glory. For those who don’t want to click, it’s a demotivator-style graphic; the picture is two fat women kissing and embracing each other; the caption is, “Fat Lesbians / Please don’t… please… really… c’mon, stop.”

So, y’know. It’s hard out there for everybody in the queer community, but there’s a lot that queer women have to deal with that guys don’t, that trans* people have to deal with that cis* people don’t, and I think if Santana were a trans* woman… that canon resistance she shows to coming out, to even admitting how much she’s in love with Brittany? That’d be so much more of a problem for her, and sdkgrhes, my heart hurts just thinking about it.

And I want to nip this thing in the bud, since I’ve seen it around more than usual in the past few weeks: there can be a penis in femslash and that doesn’t make it suddenly not-femslash. Implying otherwise, even if you just think you’re complaining about how you don’t like girl!peen/futanari kink fics, is really trans*phobic because, writ short, it implies that non-cis* women “aren’t real women.” If you only want to read femslash between two cis* women, fine. Whatever. That’s your prerogative and it’s okay — but please, for fuck’s sake, don’t act like any kind of non-cis* femslash isn’t femslash, or like any kind of self-identified woman is less of a woman because she might not be cis*. Please. When you do this, you are hurting people. Thus, my asking you to stop doing it.

And for everyone’s reference, I once again link to Dash’s Secret, written by the boyfriend of ~rebootingfromstart, one of my best friends in the whole world. It’s a fabulous fucking fic, and Rainbow Dash’s discussion of her sexual orientation with Rarity is very, VERY relevant to this discussion. In case anyone is still confused… maybe putting it in terms of really cute ponies will help.

And in terms of things I think aren’t really indicated by any canon, but seeing them in a fic would make me happy… trans* or genderqueer!Sam or Puck or Dave. Especially Puck, considering his nickname opens up all kinds of possibilities for supernatural AUs where he’s part-fae or a shapeshifter or something, which could be used to open up and explore some gender issues.

But… basically, I’ve seen the argument made for Kurt possibly being a trans* woman, and I think it makes a kind of sense, and I think that having one of the more traditionally “masculine” guys exploring gender things in fic would be awesome because it breaks the belief that all trans* people conform to the stereotypical behaviors of the genders they identify as. Some do, and they don’t have any responsibility not to, if it’s what makes them happy; but some don’t, and they get met with a lot of disbelief and resistance and other bullshit because they don’t fit into the dominant narrative of the trans* experience, which wasn’t even written by trans* people.

So… I think it’d be cool to see fic where Puck or Sam or Dave is a trans* girl. Or a trans* guy who acts really traditionally masculine when he doesn’t really WANT to, it’s just how he thinks he has to act. Or something like that.

Okay, so, I’ve been looking at this ask for a few days and trying to think about how best to answer it, and… I’m kind of in an awkward position.

Thing is, I’m never 100% sure what it means either, because genderqueer is an identity that sort of ends up working as an umbrella term. Not quite in the same way that “queer” comes to encompass a lot of different identities, but trying to pin down one definition of genderqueer is kind of hard, since… it’s like, if you come to something that five people agree on, it’s going to exclude six others.

For me and my personal identity, what it means is that I don’t really feel like a man or a woman. I got assigned female at birth, and as a matter of personal preference, my genitals and sex characteristics don’t really bother me. Periods do, but that’s less related to the experiences of dysphoria that some other trans* people have more often than I do, and more related to my Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and how it screws with my menstruation.

Some genderqueer people have trouble with their bodies and want to change one aspect or another to better reflect how they feel, and some of them don’t; I generally don’t, and I don’t really think I present as one way or another. My boobs are kind of prominent, so unless I bind or downplay them, I’ll most likely be read as cis* female and there’s not much I can do about that without massively inconveniencing myself for various reasons that all boil down to, “because of physical health stuff, my physical comfort takes precedence in my clothing choices, over anything else, like dressing up in a pretty way or trying to accomodate how I might feel, gender-wise, when I can’t even accurately predict it, most mornings.”

I guess I’d say that one of the most defining aspects of my identity is that it changes, rather than ever being stable, and it has a sort of hair-trigger temper. Things set it off that, like I said, I can’t predict. An example I’d point to is this skirt I own and love — it’s a dark grey mini, one of the most comfortable things I own and one of my favorite articles of clothing. It’s something I like to wear when I feel down and need a pick-me-up. And more than a few times, I’ve put it on and felt more masculine, and likewise, I have a couple flannel shirts I love and they set off my gender and make me feel more feminine, and I don’t really get it.

But we can’t generalize my experiences of it to be everyone’s, because there are a lot of genderqueer people who aren’t like me — probably more who aren’t like me than are, actually. It’s hard to get any objective statistics, probably, especially since they’re almost invariably going to be tainted by the various biases that show up when you have to get testimonies on a self-reporting basis. …This would be a good time for me to remember more of AP Stats, since I know there’s a term for it, but AP Stats was a calculated move to prove to college admissions people that my abysmal grade in Pre-Calc wasn’t indicative of my usual performance in math classes.

Basically, it’s that, the way you’d have to go about getting statistics on the genderqueer community, it’d be by asking people for their experiences and taking notes and trying to pin everything down into certain categories that are hard to put numbers on (like, “reports experiences with gender-based bullying,” or something similar). Then you add onto this that people are more likely to respond if they have really strong opinions in one way or another, so the responses are likely not to be representative of everyone, more representative of people at extremes.

Some helpful (I hope) links, which… don’t really clear up the problem of putting together a perfect definition of genderqueer, but are more informative: genderqueerid.com’s genderqueer terms list, What Is Genderqueer (at genderqueerid.com), Genderqueer history and identities, Genderqueercoalition.org’s list of terms, genderqueer.tumblr, GenderQueer Revolution.org’s policies and “what we’re about” page, Genderqueer Chicago, Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary (neither of them are really perfect, and the latter especially has some potentially problematic things going around, but they’re worthwhile, I think, for getting as many different perspectives out there), Wordnik and the exampled in its sidebar (also not perfect, but… perspectives), a user-submitted definition of a “this is what genderqueer means to me” sort, Butch Lab.com’s “what does genderqueer mean” article (which has plenty of other awesome links), another article at thenewgay.net, definitions at transgendermichigan.org… and I’m sure that there are more links out there, so I invite people to share more links.

Also, sdkfehrg, thank you. Whoever you are, it means a lot to me. ♥ I just hope this was helpful for you?

1. I don’t think you need to check your privilege, but I do think you need to check your attitude and your facts. A quick poke around your blog? Says you’re seventeen, interested in feminism and fighting oppression, and those two facts, put together with your response indicate that your heart’s in the right place, but that there are some places where you need to get some deeper education.

Like in the, “try to figure out who you’re talking to before talking” department. A quick poke around my blog? Says that I don’t deserve your condescending, “that’s what shipping means” stuff. I’ve been around the fandom block since I was nine; I primarily blog about fandom things; I list Klaine as one of my ships. If you’re going to get so tetchy about me being facetious and “invalidating people’s opinions” by playing on fairly popular assertions made by some Klaine shippers against anyone who disagrees with them, then maybe take some of your own advice and stop trying to invalidate my opinion by acting like I don’t like this ship or know what shipping is.

2. This is my response to every point you have about drama being fun. Sorry, I don’t have faith in RIB as writers (especially not Ryan, who fails on pretty much every count as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, when it comes to supporting everyone who isn’t a white, cis* gay man), and I’d rather have Kurt and Blaine break up and deal with drama than have them be happy and get ignored.

3. This point, made by ~tenderoni-. So far, Kurt’s viable options for the role of love interest have been Blaine, Blaine, maybe Sam because the jury’s still out on what his sexual orientation is, and Blaine. There’s also Dave, but he’s not really a viable option until he grows up some, gets more secure in himself, and basically everything the Kurtofsky shippers have written about in their happier fics. So… basically, Kurt hooking up with Blaine has a lot of Unfortunate Implications. “He’s the only other out and open gay guy! GET ON THAT KURT, GET ON THAT BLAINE, GET ON THAT RIGHT NOW.”

And there’s an easy way to fix that: have them date other people for a while and come back “stronger than ever,” the same way that Finchel’s done. I like Kurt, I like Blaine, I like Klaine; I don’t like them being together without exploring other options and without the possibility of other options.