A difference in perspective

Reading this overall pretty cool article: Things We Like:What Happens When Children Build Their Own Three-Story Playgrounds?, I come across the line "A travesty? Wheelchair and crutch bound children everywhere?" and thought "That would be awesome!". And I got a mental image of happy disabled children having somewhere to play.

But of course that's not what I meant, and afaict that playground would be terrible for children with mobility problems.

Which is not to say the playground idea is overall terrible, but still. It's obviously a perspective the writers of the piece didn't think of.

Fanart meta: genderswap, crossdressing, and trans-ness

Note from 2017: I wrote this when I identified as a cis woman, I have now realised I'm genderfluid. I still agree with the basic gist of the post (and now realise avoiding issues of non binary gender was partly a matter of avoiding a personally sensitive subject), though I've edited it a little here and there. But note that many other "cis" people have used genderswap etc as a way of exploring and ultimately coming to terms with a trans/nb identity. And as a genderfluid person in a world where 99% of fictional characters are cis and binary gendered, works involving cis people who change genders or crossdress are still the closest mainstream approximation to my personal experience. It is absolutely the case that genderbends can be transphobic and hurtful, but policing this stuff too narrowly hurts trans and non binary people too. That said, I realise my experience is not universal, and that trans women in particular deal with heavy issues I don't.

Also note that fannish meta in 2010 was all about fanfic and ignored fanart entirely. I've edited to use Rule 63 for "swapping cis men and cis women" since it avoids the implication that everyone is cis by default, I don't think I had encountered the term when I first wrote this post. It was a dark time.
( Read more... )

Thinking through genderswap and Dragon Age: Origins

I've been thinking about how Dragon Age ties into archetypes and stereotypes and gender and STUFF and it all mooshed together in my brain to create a series of pictures and some meta. This is very rambly, I've been thinking about this for a while but I haven't had much chance to talk about it so have lots of miscellaneous tangents to untangle. For a more abstract take see Fanart meta: genderswap, crossdressing, and trans-ness.
( Read more... )