Thorns

(this started out as a reply to this tumblr post)

When I first started posting about social justice online, on my fannish livejournal, I posted about racism a LOT, with lots of self righteous LET ME EXPLAIN A THING. And then two of my non-white(*) friends said it was ruining my blog for them: one because she felt like I was speaking over her experiences, which didn’t match the monolithic How POC Feel Narrative I was ‘explaining’, the other because it was causing my clueless white friends to say racist crap in the comments. I had to fight back a defensive “But DON’T YOU WANT ME TO FIGHT RACISM??” reaction.

Ten years later and I’m still trying to figure out how to discuss racism in ways that actually help fight racism, and make the spaces I control supportive of POC/non-white people, rather than simply making the loudest possible noise about how it’s REALLY BAD YOU GUYS.
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I keep seeing people modelling ageism towards the young with a simplistic privileged/marginalised dichotomy, and while there is a huge power differential between adults and young people(*), I think this kind of model is really unhelpful.

I mean, simplistic privileged/marginalised dichotomies are a flawed way to describe anything. But there's cases where it at least kind of works, and age isn't one of them.
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So one problem with having lots of chronic illnesses and food intolerances is constantly crossing paths with health quackery. Sometimes by sheer chance they can actually offer some helpful recipes. Paleo blogs are a good souce of recipes with meat but not dairy, for example, even if their reasons for eating that way are ridiculous. But often I just get pissed off when I think of how sick I would be if I actually listened to these charlatans, and how much harm they do to the genuinely sick people who are taken in.

A relatively minor irritation from today I just feel like ranting about:
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It is in the interests of the creator to play down the full variation of human psysiology/psychology/culture etc. That way they can make their "alien" species "consistently different" to humans without having to make them genuinely different, and thus unrelatable and hard to write.

Inspired by a comment I just got on a Dragon Age fic I wrote about the experiences of a human with dwarfism in a world with fantasy "dwarves". I was thinking about why I haven't seen anyone else take on this pretty obvious plot, and realised it's because doing so is an uncomfortable reminder that (a) This is a real group of people we're exotifying into another species here (b) For the most part, fantasy dwarves (as well as halflings) are indistinguishable from especially short humans. Point this out, and they stop being cool and exotic.

And of course, as has often been discussed, this tendency has the implication that any experience too far outside the human "norm" is alien and weird. Where this "norm" is usually "WASPy American", as well as straight, cis, able bodied, etc. "Let me tell you of this human food called hamburgers" etc.

(I wanted to argue with someone on twitter and this is way too complex for 140 characters)

A hole a lot of activists seem to fall into is thinking that the axis of oppression they're fighting is the central oppression, the one from all others flow. If people just put their energy into this, the REAL fight, all the others would fall like dominos.

I have seen people argue this about ecomonic inequality, sexism, homophobia, ableism, racism (both in general and against specific ethnic groups), everything. I once read a very compelling argument by bell hooks that the Real Underlying Oppression is against children.

In every case the argument is (a) if you fight X, all the others improve and (b) There is an underlying element of X to all oppressions.

Which is true! But it's true for all of them. Everything is connected. It's all the same struggle. If you battle one, you battle them all. If one becomes worse, all the others become worse too.
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This post is part of Femslash Revolution’s I Am Femslash series, sharing voices of F/F creators from all walks of life. The views represented within are those of the author only. Originally posted to tumblr.

Hi, I'm Sophie alias sqbr, a fic writer and fanartist, mostly into Bioware games, anime, and Jane Austen.

This post is basically just a bunch of thoughts about my personal experience, I would be really interested to hear from other people with different experiences. In a sense it's the third in a trilogy:
First, Why do we femslash?, written back in 2009 when I identified as a straight cis woman.
Second, Personal Experiences of Femslash Fandom as a Queer Space, written in 2013 after I started identifying as a bi woman.
And now we have this, written in 2017, now that I identify as a genderfluid biromantic grey asexual. I guess we'll have to wait and see where I'm at in 2021 ;)

So! I've been into f/f since before I even realised queerness existed (my childhood feels about Anne/Diana let me tell you them), and into femslash fandom for about ten years. I have always identified much more strongly with female characters than male ones, and while I enjoy m/f romance I get tired of it's ubiquitous heteronormativity. So when I find good f/f I really enjoy it, and I get a kick out of making it.

When I realised I was bi a lot of things made more sense. I was a bi woman, no wonder I identified with female characters and like m/f and f/f! But when I realised I was genderfluid it made things a little more complicated.
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Namely: Can this disabled fictional character be replaced in the plot by a broken lamp?

For example: Man's [wife] is [sick]. He gets into debt to try and fix his [wife]. [Wife] has no lines and no other effect on the plot except to be a loved burden.

You can replace "sick wife" by "broken lamp" and the plot works just as well. Thus, like almost every story involving a sick wife, the example passes the broken lamp test.

Inspired by the sexy lamp test and Cam ranting to me about the ableism in the OA. And while most 'sexy lamps" get some lines and some choices, even if they're vapid and meaingless, many "broken lamps" don't get any lines or agency at all and could quite literally be replaced by broken lamps.

I mean I think these "tests" can be overused and unhelpful when a deeper and more nuanced analysis would be more productive. But I am still pretty happy with this as a term.

Removing the allcaps because I find them hard to read, but I really agree with

the one thing both those positions share is fear of critical engagement with a person who disagrees with you, which is the one thing you absolutely need in order to progress a discussion past whatever stalled you in the first place.

from this post.

I think the only way to move past this is not just to criticise those we most strongly and angrily disagree with, but to seek out and acknowledge those points of view we disagree with but can respect, and to not act like everyone who disagrees with us is the same as those we disagree with most. Also to avoid uncritically promulgating the opinions of those who are “on our side” but engage in uneccesary cruelty, overgeneralisation or outright misinformation. And if you're afraid to voice your qualms about someone "on your side" because they might turn against you...they're not really on your side.

( And then I started rambling, nothing I haven't said before )

Honestly not sure I'll stick to it, and if you slip up and refer to me as "she" I won't be destroyed (unless I thought you were doing it out of pig headedness or something) But I feel like it's something I need to try out and see if it fits!

If the usage confuses you: it's like if I was a person of unknown gender. Which, being genderfluid, I kind of am! "Can you ask Sophie if they are ready for dinner?" etc.

Oh, also: this is my Tii-from-Glitch icon, since they are a non binary maths nerd giant :D

This is very hard for me to write, so I apologise if it's disjointed. But I keep seeing people I like and respect behave in ways that claim to be about protecting abuse survivors yet are actively harmful to me as an abuse survivor. I have a probably vain hope that by explaining how it's hurtful we can find a better way to help all survivors in fandom, and generally make fandom more safe and enjoyable for everyone.

The aspect of "anti" shipping culture I have a problem with is the tendency to classify certain fictional relationships are inherently harmful and working to prevent them from being portrayed or discussed positively under any circumstances, as well as other behaviours I will go into. I'm not talking about people who publicly dislike a certain ship but don't actively try to silence those who like it.

Content warning: Rape and abuse, both real and fictional. I'll try not to be more triggering than I have to be but given the topic there's only so much I can do.
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(Posting this publicly so I can link back to it as necessary, since usually when I want to make these arguments I'm too triggered to be coherent. It's basically the same as the locked draft I posted, but with a few edits here and there)