I haven’t read the manga, but in the anime the only time I remember Makoto saying they don’t want to be a girl is when they say something along the lines of “I don’t want to live as a boy or a girl, I want to live as me”. They read to me as pretty obviously someone not done with their gender journey, with a lot of internalized transphobia. And judging from their reactions from people reading them as a girl, I’d guess they’ll end up transfem (whether girl or nb).
It’s sad to see stuff end, but honestly I’m glad whenever fiction gets a real ending instead of just dragging out for a million years.
And it looks like the author is planning a new comic about gay bird boys, a topic I somehow keep finding more comics about, lol.
This art is very cute so I went to read the comic and it is also very cute!
And for once it’s some mer content that’s not full of the dreaded (by me) mermaid knees…
I am under no circumstances saying you can’t criticize art or say that the writing was bad or whatever you seem to think my position is.
Writers can and do get fired for not doing the job they were hired for and rarely get to lead the creative process (and usually if they do they’re like, writer/director, or a big name). All I’m trying to say is that a worker can do a good job within the bounds they’re given and still have the result be terrible because the bounds were terrible.
You seem to be giving a LOT of agency to writers for the stories they tell. Some stories are going to be something writers worked hard on wanted to write, and in those cases ya they should be blamed for the resulting flaws, but many times they are constrained by the instructions they’re given.
To go back to the metaphor, did the worker decide that the stuff you need goes out of your reach or are they putting it where they were told to?
“Just following orders” absolutely does excuse bad writing as long as it’s not harmful. I wouldn’t get mad at a writer of a thing a studio ruined just like I wouldn’t get mad at a grocery store worker for rearranging the shelves for the fifth week in a row. Just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean doing a stupid and pointless job makes them a bad person. If the writing is racist or whatever, sure, they’re complicit, but writers have to eat and it’s not morally wrong to write a boring script if that’s what your boss is asking you for.
The problem is, nazi is a political ideology, but Russian is a nationality and ethnicity. I agree with your point about gay nazis, but would you say the same thing about gay germans?
There are no rules that can be made ahead of time that catch all the trolls, whilst not gatekeeping innocent folk. Allowing space for people to exist on their own terms means acting reactively, and means that trolls will slip through the cracks sometimes. That is by design, because the alternative is gatekeeping.
I absolutely agree. I think people (myself included) were concerned because the (necessary) ambiguity of rules seemed to be opening the door to times when a user would feel pushed out of spaces by having to tiptoe around other users that they think might just be trolls. It seems to me from talking to you about it that there is generally good faith assumed on all sides, which definitely sets my mind at ease.
I appreciate the clarity on what exactly does and doesn’t get someone banned. That all seems very reasonable to me, and largely answered my main question. Feel free to disengage with this conversation guilt-free if you think my followup here isn’t worth your time. Unfortunately I have reddit-brain and feel like I need to re-explain myself when I feel like i’m not being understood.
With that out of the way: I think you’re missing the point about the examples.
On the User A side, I’m not talking about directly interacting with minors. I’m talking about indirectly interacting with everyone, including minors, but also including adults who don’t want to interact in a sexual manner with randos. There’s definitely a difference, but I think it’s the same sort of effect if User A asks a minor to use their sexualized pronouns vs if they label themselves with sexualized pronouns and then go into spaces where minors may interact with them.
On the User B side, I feel like while “it” is similar in some ways to slur pronouns, it also has some fundamental differences. For one, “it” is already a word we use in other contexts and is not one people can really avoid even if they try, and for another, most “it” pronoun people I’ve encountered intend it to be uses in the object sense, not the reclaimed slur sense. Would User B be treated differently moderation-wise if their pronouns were different reclaimed slurs, like the n-word? I know that there’s no amount of complaining about misgendering that could convince me to use certain slur pronouns.
I do agree that most people are going to be reasonable and those with more controversial pronouns will likely give those who are uncomfortable an out (in the form of alternate pronouns), but I don’t think those people are who anyone is really worried about here, because they seem chill as hell, lol. I get that we’re talking about edge cases of edge cases here, so maybe the whole thing is purposeless anyway.
I think looking at a more concrete hypothetical would be more clarifying for people.
Let’s say that User A has their pronouns listed as “daddy” and User B has their pronouns listed as the t-slur. User C finds both of these uncomfortable to use, A because it feels like they’re being coerced into a sexual interaction with another user, and B because they’ve been personally victimized by that slur before and being around those that use it (even in a reclaimed sense) hurts them (and I am confident this is a thing people are sensitive to on this instance because I’ve seen people put trigger warnings for its usage before). User C wants to continue to interact with their community, so they use “they/them” for A and B instead. What happens next, from a moderation standpoint? What if they had conspicuously avoided pronouns by using “User A” and “User B” exclusively?
I think there have been cases that go up to or put a toe over the line of acceptability for some people, and some of us are confused/concerned about how far things go. It seems like you have a clear idea of what is and isn’t acceptable, but your hard line hasn’t translated well into the heads of other people, and it creates an ambiguity for the rest of us who see a very blurry spectrum. I know you have a very hard (and usually thankless job) and from both seeing your work and from benefit of the doubt, I’m sure you want to do right by the people here, but I think some clarity would be good for people. In the above example, if User C doesn’t know what will or won’t get them kicked out of their communities or even the instance, they may engage less and ultimately feel pushed out of their space, and so moderation really needs to be a balance of the needs of Users A & B and User C.
And to be clear, I don’t think anyone is asking for permission to bully someone with unconventional pronouns, nor permission to tell them their gender identity is wrong or invalid (If there are, those people do not belong here in any capacity). I think the question is mostly, which neopronouns requests are unreasonable enough for people to be allowed to use backup pronouns or just the user’s name instead.
So guys who say stuff like “I prefer natural looking girls, not ones with caked on makeup” or “I’d only date a virgin. I don’t want any roast beef” or “no fatties, I only like thin girls” are what? All secretly gay or ace?
ETA: my point is, people do comparisons all the time when talking about how one person is more attractive than another or than most other people (some more mean spirited than others). It often isn’t right or cool, but being mean doesn’t mean you’re not attracted to the person you’re contrasting.
You seem to be saying no one attracted to women would ever denigrate them? Have you seen straight men before?
Additionally, what about ace/aro people? Het trans people? Cis/het gender-non-conforming people? And the one stated previously that really stood out to me: what about those questioning?
There’s no hard line between Us and Them and trying to draw one only hurts us. If there are people causing problems in these spaces, kick them out, but gatekeeping isn’t the right move here.
I’m pretty sure it’s dysmorphia rather than dysphoria. Dysphoria is rooted in an accurate picture of yourself and dysmorphia in an inaccurate one. If a guy starts going to the gym because the idea of not being able to bridal carry his girlfriend makes him feel unmanly, I’d agree that’s some flavor of gender dysphoria. On the other hand, someone like the liver king thinking he still doesn’t have enough muscle is definitely body dysmorphia.
But I’d agree that (similar to dysphoria) the so-called alphas often have dysmorphia of more than just the body - they worry they come across unmanly in all ways of their presentation, regardless of how much “masculine energy” they’re already putting out.
The point is never that we need more democrats. The point is always that we need fewer Republicans. Democrats refuse to make things better, but they typically block things from getting worse, which is a better starting point than anything the GOP would give us.
So please, organize, protest, do whatever activism you can do, but on voting day take the little bit of time and effort to block Republicans from undoing all that hard work, even if it means voting strategically for a pile of shit.
The left will always be fighting against the administration to some extent, and through voting we get to pick our enemy, and the dems are going to be an easier fight and on fewer fronts.
It’s not explicitly trans (like atkion said), but it is hosted on blahaj.zone, an explicitly trans instance.
OP is implying gender transition. Do you know where you are right now?
Yes. People say it outgrows its premise but I’m really not sure that’s possible, and I noped out after the first episode so I wouldn’t personally know. Explanation point I think does a good job of exploring both the problem and why people still defend it
For sure, I’d take this style of storytelling over the handholding we get in many other shows any day. I just typically look for a show to exemplify its own strengths early on, which includes its ability to pay off things it’s built up.
The best case for me is when a story weaves a smaller version of its larger arc within the first episode, giving us a taste of what the show is aiming for, be that twists and turns of intrigue, cathartic payoff of some tension it’s built up, or the solution to a mystery. Obviously it won’t hit as hard as later events will, but it proves that a show is capable of following through on its promises. (which helps spot shows like Lost, who keep promising and never deliver)
And it can be fun to watch characters and try to figure out what their motivations are, but it would be nice to get a bit of something for any of our characters, even if it’s incomplete or even false, because as it is I feel a bit adrift in the story without anything to hold onto.
But I’m still hopefully my issues with the show get resolved soon. I do want to trust Bones on this one, even though the premiere didn’t wow me.
Makoto did also say that in the same scene, but I largely take the “I’m a boy” comments with a grain of salt, since much of that often reads as “I’m amab” or “I’m supposed to be a boy”. I’m also not sure the egg prime directive applies to fictional characters*, though I’d definitely be using he/him if Makoto were a real person, yes, lol.
*There are a bunch of reasons for this but one of them is that the nature of storytelling is that each person’s understanding of a story is a little different because no medium perfectly relays what’s in the author’s mind into our minds, so we each get our own personal Makoto in our own heads. Mine is definitely a girl (egg) but I don’t really fault anyone for coming to different conclusions (unless they’re for transphobic reasons, lol)