A Blog About Everything.

karmada:

spookyelric:

There seems to be a trend at anime conventions (and sometimes Ren Faires and other genre cons too). This trend I’m talking about would be inconsiderate/disillusioned people. (Shocker, I know.)

I work for a company that sells handmade goods in dealer’s halls nation wide. We…

This many many times.

I love talking to people and making them happy. It brings me a fabulous sense of pride and enjoyment to see people liking my work. I make art because I like to, but even more than that I like making art that makes other people happy.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people walk by and scoff, or say those very things like “Oh I could make that myself” as they stare at me. Don’t get me started on the parents I see drag their kid off exclaiming “You don’t need any of that crap.”

These tables/booths are our other job. They’re the job we want to do.

I treat all customers with courtesy, all I ask is they do the same. :)

Oh, and always give me suggestions if you want to see new things.

…I do like suggestions. :)

I enjoy this reply! It is spot on with what I was trying to say!

solyeuse:

pawtisticengineer:

jaiface:

ghetto-astronauts:

So I’ve been seeing a lot of things on my dash lately that have been making me really uncomfortable, and I realized that a lot of the people doing these things were people I like, people I respect, people who I think are genuinely good people who probably don’t realize that they’re doing or why it’s problematic. If you read through this and wonder if it’s about you, it probably is: please don’t be offended. Just take a step back and think instead. 

Gay characters on television (in this case, almost exclusively male gay characters) get a lot of attention from Tumblr. This in itself isn’t inherently a bad thing. Gay characters often have plotlines and background that are just as - or even moreso - interesting than those of their straight counterparts. We like seeing something different on our favourite show, we like to feel like the things we’re watching are diverse and inclusive. All of these are good intentions. Unfortunately, what seems to be happening is that this gets taken to a whole other level. For some reason the gay characters have become automatically more interesting than any hetero characters, gay ships are more engrossing than hetero ships (A LOT of which has to do with the internalized sexism that goes on in pretty much every television fandom, but that’s another thing for another day), even if these characters or ships are fleeting or badly written or incredibly problematic, until it gets to this point where you’re shipping any two boys you can get your hands on regardless of actual compatibility, actual well-roundedness, or foundation, or anything other than “Two boys together!”.  It turns into this obsession. I’ve seen it happen, I see it on my dash every day.

This takes me to a whole other thing. Shipping people irl is really a huge issue. I don’t mean real person fiction, I’m a part of that fandom myself. Something most rpfers pride themselves on is their ability to compartmentalize real!Celebrity from fic!Celebrity. What I’m talking about is when you’re out to lunch and you see two boys driving in a car together and you ship them. Or you’re at the campus center and two boys are sitting next to each other and you’re secretly hoping that they’ll start holding hands. What you’re doing is fetishizing. It’s as similarly creepy as “breaking the fourth wall” when it comes to rpf except probably more damaging. When one single person tweets something weird or creepy at a celebrity, chances are it will be overlooked and life will move on, but when you get to the point where you’ll ship strangers you see in real life just because they’re of the same gender and attractive, you’re losing your ability to compartmentalize, and as a result you’re allowing your entire perception of gayness to be skewed into something that was made for you to watch.

If you’re still not convinced, think of it this way: if a straight boy was constantly seeing “lesbians” everywhere, or talking about how those girls would look so good together, or making up headcanon about you and one of your platonic girlfriends, you would think he was creepy as fuck, sexist, and probably a pervert. Because he isn’t seeing you or other girls as people with real agency, he’s seeing you as an object to project onto. He’s invalidating your personhood and your sexuality and making your actual queer friends feel like their sexuality isn’t a real identity.That is what you’re doing to these boys; straight or gay, real or fictional, you are projecting onto them and invalidating them.

This bothers me with television because I often see people fawn over these characters who are brilliantly written and wonderfully flawed, but are only being appreciated as a Gay Guy or One Half of My Otp. On the other side of the coin, I see characters who only existed for a couple of episodes, who had no real backstory or meat to them being treated the same way- a way which isn’t really deserved or well founded.

If the only things you can tell me about your Otp are “But they’re so right for each other! They just work! They love each other so much!” then I’m probably not going to take your ship very seriously. I think shipping is excellent. I’m a terrible multi-shipper, I’ve got at least three Otps for just about whatever fandom I’m into. But there has to be some kind of thought there. You can’t just ship people together because they’re the same gender. It’s a discredit to yourself and your characters and your show.

Gayness does not exist for you. Your worship of it as cuter or more real or more meaningful than other relationships is damaging and problematic. Gayness in television and other media is not important because you get to ship it. It is not important because it’s a fuck you to your homophobic parents. It is not important because it makes you favourite show more “diverse”. Gayness in media is important because it is representation for people who have not gotten that in the past, and who are still not getting a lot of it unless they’re male, white, and attractive (or in the case of queer female characters, white, young, attractive, and willing to get naked). 

What you’re doing does not make you supportive or an ally, it’s problematic and it’s something we really, really need to try and keep in check. I’m so tired of the gay worshiping fetishism on my dash, you guys. Let’s try to fix it.

Those last two paragraphs are really to the point and especially important for everyone to consider.

THIS THIS THIS THIS
PLEASE TAKE FIVE MINUTES OUT OF YOUR DAY AND READ THIS

THIS ISN’T WHAT I AM

AND IT ISN’T FUCKING OKAY

I never thought of it like this. I don’t participate in shipping this way but I never thought of shipping in this context before. Thank you OP for making me see that this is a problem in fandom. I ship people not because of their gender or their type of relationship, I ship when it is appropriate and usually canon. I have on occasion shipped people in real life but only because I know them and I really do believe that based on their personalities they would actually be compatible. I didn’t necessarily need to add that but I just wanted to elaborate on myself for those who don’t know me very well. Shipping in fandom is wonderful, until you start taking it too far. The OP’s essay is proof of taking it too far.

(via helioscentrifuge)

torimuffins:

spookyelric:

But here’s the deal, words like “ableism”, “racism” and “sexism” piss me off. I wasn’t going to post my opinion on tumblr but I decided I’m just too upset not to express myself in some way.

Now, when I say this, here is what I mean: All of these words and ideas are social constructs. By labeling…

But here’s the deal, words like “ableism”, “racism” and “sexism” piss me off. I wasn’t going to post my opinion on tumblr but I decided I’m just too upset not to express myself in some way.

Now, when I say this, here is what I mean: All of these words and ideas are social constructs. By labeling these acts, aren’t we making them even more prevalent? There are no races, we’re humans. HUMANS. We’re all made of the same parts, the same organic material. WE ARE THE SAME. Can we just stop all of this bullshit already? Yes, we’ve had terrible tragedies happen in the past because of this feature or that feature or this belief and that belief. We’re never going to escape those things. You know how we can attempt to prevent them in the future? TREAT EVERYONE LIKE A HUMAN. YOU KNOW, THOSE THINGS WE ALL ARE.

Humans have great potential to be destructive, beautiful, creative, intelligent, caring and mean. Every person has that potential. We’ve seen the ranges of what people are capable of from Hitler to Mother Theresa. HUMANS. Let me say it again, HUMANS. I’m not saying “Let’s all be like Hitler!” or “Let’s all be like Mother Theresa!” I’m saying “Let’s all just treat each other the way we want to be treated and stop being completely stupid.”

There is no “normal” or “abnormal”. Man and woman may be labels we may or may not need but they’re more like subcategories. HUMAN is at the top no matter what.

Homophobes? Racists? Remember this: Every HUMAN loves. They love exactly who they love. HUMAN. HUMANITY. We were built to love, get over it.

I’m not a big fan of religions (I’m not exactly atheist either, I’m in some sort of gray area) but as far as I can tell every religion seems to have some variance of the golden rule “Do unto others as you have them do unto you.” (Yes, that is the Bible version. It is the one I grew up with but not the belief system I subscribe to)

Doesn’t that MEAN something to ANYONE anymore? The fact that just about every religion and country on the planet knows that phrase?

HUMAN

HUMANITY

HELP YOUR FELLOW (HU)MAN

Why do we need these stupid words to describe hate when we could just largely do away with said hate? We will never be a “politically correct” society. It is never going to happen. Everyone IS different which means everyone gets offended by something different. The best we can hope to achieve is to love our fellow man and be a better society overall.

You know what you can do to start the process? Stop using these words. ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS. Remember that saying? Start ACTING like a better human and maybe you’ll touch more people and inspire THEM to act like a better human. Stop using silly words that describe the hate that offends you and take actions that are the opposite of them.

Love your fellow human. Do away with hate. Pay it forward. Actions speak louder than words. Smile at everyone. Remember these small steps and maybe your life will improve and you can help improve the lives of people around you. Small actions can make the difference. Reach out and touch someone’s life. If there is something you don’t understand, learn more before passing judgement.

We are HUMANITY. Fuck labels and words produced by hate. Be a better HUMAN.

Except we can’t just “do away with hate” without talking about it. So much of it is internalized, and taught. If we don’t have the words to describe what is happening, how it works, how on earth are we supposed to implement any sort of solution?

It’s largely because bigotry is a social construct that it takes an organized effort to break it down. If homophobia as a concept doesn’t exist, than all that there is, is a bunch of one-note aggressions and problems for the person experiencing it. And that’s invalidating.

And while being treated like “just a human” sounds like a very nice concept, much like communism does, in practice it generally means that people are treated like what people think of the default human to be, which is a white, cis, straight, middle class, christian, neurotypical, able-bodied male.

And uh… some of those do not apply to me. That “default” human has different experiences than I do, and in some cases different needs.

I am not really sure why being “PC” is an upsetting thing either, because for me, really, what that means is that “Oh, these things upset some people, and have nasty implications. I sure don’t want to hurt people unnecessarily, so I guess I will stop.”

I don’t know, I’m just kind of rambling, but this essay kind of really made me uncomfortable.

Um… sorry.

That isn’t what default human means to me and it can’t be what default human means to everyone on this planet. There is just no way. I can’t know that for sure obviously but really, the odds are quite good that that isn’t the “default” for everyone.

Not to mention I never said “default human” anywhere in my essay. Not once. I am generalizing my words to encompass the entire human race. We are one entity when you break it down. We all have the same needs; water, shelter, food, clothing, love, etc. Everything past that is getting too specific.

PC has gotten ridiculously out of control. Just plain ridiculous and I’m done with it. The entire point of the essay was point to the part that says “don’t treat people like shit because you don’t want to be treated like shit”. Sometimes political correctness is necessary but for the most part it isn’t. Honestly.

And why pray tell wouldn’t it be a conscious effort to break down this social construct by simply following this “golden rule” every culture seems to have? How is that not a conscious effort? It involves stopping to think “If someone said what I’m about to say or did what I’m about to do to me, would I be okay with it?”

I’m scratching my head as to why the thought of becoming a better society and making an effort on that behest would make one uncomfortable. Getting rid of such words and actions would be helpful to such a goal.

(via paranormalcosmetologist)