BLACK SAILS | 1.07 ○ VII

The thing about the wild replies to posts that go around talking about fandom misogyny is that, at least for me, I did have to make an active choice to care about female characters.

There's less of them and they are often written with a lot less to work with and it's easier to focus on dude characters. But I had to look at myself and wonder why I was willing to read pages and pages of meta and fic and headcanons for Julian Bashir when I wasn't interested in the same for Jadzia Dax when they have a similar amount of screentime. Why I wasn't interested in Captain Janeway when she's the lead of her show. Yes, writers are often sexist, but the writers were ableist and homophobic and so on with a million male characters, but I was willing to put the work in to love them. At some point, the viewer/reader/listener's own sexism plays a part in their willingness to engage with a character.

So I had to actively choose to seek out those meta and fic and headcanons for female characters. And it is significantly harder to find than it is for male characters, because most of fandom hadn't questioned their own sexism. But what little of it there is out there is often just as high quality and interesting as the stuff I was already looking at, if not more so because there's the added dimension of fighting against the writers' misogyny, which often requires even more engagement and creativity.

It was, for me, a process that I had to continually work on to care about women characters as much as I did guy ones. But it got easier the more effort I put in. And now those posts about how no one cares about female characters are very relatable to me.

But the way people respond to those posts, it's always "I can't change the fact that the writers are sexist! It's an immutable fact that female characters are less interesting! You're attacking me personally over something that I can't change! And actually, you're the sexist for not realizing how terrible these female characters are and how you're victimizing me asking me to care about them!"

Besties, I promise it is something you can change. You just have to put the work in

Some of you don't have firm principles that transcend ideology, and it shows.

"Spreading blatant misinformation is okay when it supports a cause I care about, and if anybody corrects me, it means they do not share my values." 🤡

"Police brutality is okay if it's being carried out by a government ascribing to my preferred political philosophy." 🤡

"If this person has harmful views, then my criticism of them can't be [racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/antisemitic/Islamophobic/classist/ableist/etc]." 🤡

Like, please, I'm begging you guys to invest in some basic standards.

-- Against the Logic of the Guillotine

the idea that restrooms, locker rooms, etc need to be single-sex spaces in order for women to be safe is patriarchy's way of signalling to men & boys that society doesn't expect them to behave themselves around women. it is directly antifeminist. it would be antifeminist even if trans people did not exist. a feminist society would demand that women should be safe in all spaces even when there are men there.

btw this is maybe the single most key distinguishing feature of the terfy strains of radical feminism, the seed all the rest of it springs out of: they have absolutely no faith in the ability of feminism to actually destroy patriarchy. they do not think feminism can truly build a better world. they cannot really even imagine that possibility. they think patriarchy is an inevitable natural consequence of unchangeable biological facts, and therefore the goal of feminism can only be to mitigate the worst effects of patriarchy, not to get rid of it.

they can imagine a society where women get some designated safe spaces without men around. they cannot imagine a society where the presence of men is not inherently a danger to women.

one day I’ll finally write that ridiculously elaborate fanfiction that I’ve been carefully constructing in my daydreams for months and then you’ll be sorry. you’ll all be sorry.

We lost something as a culture when computers stopped screaming in agony as you connected them to the internet.

You would not have survived the dark ages. A webring would spell great peril. There was no search. And the dark things lurked out in the open in those days.

The computer screamed because it knew.

if it didn't torture a landline phone for the duration of the process, was it really internet?

My dad hit me with the info that there was an option to turn it off... the sound... the whole time. But he didn't want to tell me. Or to stop me from the, presumably character building, ritual of struggling to smother it to death with a pillow at 12:30am so I could be on the Forbidden Web and not wake my parents.

time for one of my favorite tweets

There should be a fanfic writing game called the showrunners challenge where someone writes a story and partway through someone else can play things like "actor leaves after 4000 more words" or "topic now too politically sensitive due to unforeseen world events" or "lost rights to that reference"

thinking about how gen z people online love to pat themselves on the back for being so media savvy and having learned soooo much from the way people like britney spears and anne hathaway and pam anderson were treated by the media and public during their day and then turn around and take part in the same kind of gleeful mass spectacles tearing apart women like amber heard and rachel zegler and like, forcing kate middleton to reveal her cancer diagnosis. and in each of these cases, when someone with power says “hey this is really fucked up,” the reaction is to… spin and blame their behavior on other people? “depp had a bot army,” “the palace publicity messed up!!!” yes but in every instance, YOU were the one making the choice to participate. at any moment you could’ve put your phone down and said “this feels morally wrong, i’m not going to do this.” but you didn’t, did you? we have free will to conduct ourselves better or worse in these situations and i’m sorry but there’s really no one you can blame for your choices

It's kind of interesting how activism online has been rebranded as an individualist thing, as if it's about your personal moral character. "Post about X and signal boost Y or you don't really care!!" Anything fun or good that happens is a Distraction, the real focus always needs to be on all the bad things happening, you need to always be angry and afraid.

Like of course all these issues matter, but activism only really works when it's an organized group effort. Awareness campaigns are planned and funded, somebody has to print out all the flyers, somebody has to find a strategic place to distribute the flyers, and so forth. Not everyone does every part of the work, and nobody is on call 24/7. Posting more political content on your personal social media accounts is generally not one of the tactics used, because it's not really effective? Like at all?

In fact one of the biggest red flags for clickbait is when someone is trying to make you angry or afraid. People with basic social media literacy know this, and will distrust posts that resemble clickbait. This is why guilt trip additions to posts are largely seen as post-ruiners. You done poisoned the well.

This isn't all to say that posting about politics is bad, but keep in mind how much energy you're spending on it, and allow yourself time to not be political, because like, okay imagine the most popular tumblr blog. How much impact does that blog actually have on politics irl? Virtually none. So if you're stressing yourself to the point of fatigue over posting politics, maybe consider more effective forms of activism. Volunteer locally, join a union, attend protests, vote, etc. All of those are vastly more efficient uses of your energy. Post politics if you want to, but just don't tire yourself out over it. It'll work better as an organized group effort.

i think a lot of people would be happier if they viewed labels like homosexual and transgender as social technologies rather than identities

that is to say, "transgender" is a useful way for me to convey how i move through the world to others rather than some essential qualia. i am of a class of people with an infinite number of relationships with their genders

Do you think theres someone out there on this site who is completely non lgbt yet has all their identity written out in their bio in the format of someone with detailed microlabels

I found him!

Black Heron, makes shade then hunts fish that hide in it

Kea wings serve absolute cunt

Wallcreeper wings make them look like little butterflies

Lady Amherst's Pheasant

And Painted Buntings are just a personal favourite :}

my favourite fancy birds are Norther Flickers (specifically the ones that turn red from salmonberries)

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

Salute to our troops (70s careerwomen who put their hard-earned dollars into homemade gay erotica)

You're welcome.

Thank you for your fanservice.