the deeper i get into fandom the weirder it is to me that Whedon-style nerdboys ever managed to convince people that the True Fans™ are the people who memorize shit and lord their knowledge over other people. like ok you know the exact dimensions of Batman’s cave penny. sure. but did you survive the HP ship wars? do you know how to customize your Ao3 search to filter out all the creepy and/or poorly tagged shit in the massive fandoms? have you ever gotten in a fight over SuperWhoLock? would you last more than ten seconds on _coal or FFA? have you felt the burning pain in your fingers as you scramble to bang out just a hundred more words before the exchange deadline comes down? can you do research to make your in-universe artifacts accurate? can you vid? can you edit .gifs? can you sew costumes and do makeup? like yeah ok you love Jace Beleren enough to know his backstory and all his stats but i’m sorry did you personally stitch what looks like over two hundred eyelets onto your stockings so you could cosplay Liliana Vess? fake geek girls my ass. get back to me when you can do something with the worlds you love other than memorize them.
get back to me when you can do something with the worlds you love other than memorize them.
I felt like OP’s tags had to be included here, because it’s not memorizing lore that makes someone’s involvement in fandom bad, it’s specifically using it to gatekeep others’ fandom experiences.
i swear to god, men raising their voice is the most terrifying thing in the whole world. they dont understand, like its an immediate panic response, game over
I actually had no idea women found this so scary
my downstairs neighbors fight on a regular basis, and every time he starts yelling i’m a little afraid he’s going to kill her. i have no reason to think this except that he is a man and he is angry
My math teacher has a loud voice and a temper and he scares the living shit out of me almost everyday. He’s made me and other kids cry more than once and he and his teacher buddies make a joke out of terrifying students.
this was women in general? i knew my gf didn’t like it but I was unaware if this affected most women
Yes, it does
As a woman, I had no idea it effected other women like this. I was too afraid to even talk about it. I thought I was weak. Thanks for bringing attention to this.
My dad thinks it’s funny that I used to cry when he raised his voice. I freak out whenever some one does. Once my director did, and I started crying I couldn’t stop. I’m glad to see I’m not alone…
This is so important– seeing how common this is– and I also want you all to know that this is not normal. It isn’t something instinctively ingrained into women, to be afraid of men. There is no natural state of men being a threat that women constantly have to be afraid of. This is cultural. So many women and girls here have a mutual understanding of this feeling, and I think it really shows an unsettling truth about our society, particularly about how men are raised to act and how so many women have this defensive reaction gradually develop. It’s so important that these people have their voices heard, because it teaches us about problems that we just can’t deny the existence of any longer.
I’m glad I’m not the only one
My fellow men, pay attention. I didn’t realize how scary this could be until one of my exes explained it to me, and it’s heartbreaking.
Also, when we move too much during an argument, or lean forward, it’s scary, and I never knew. I was even a little insulted at first, because surely she didn’t think I would hurt her. But see, that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a sign that she mistrusted me specifically; it’s a conditioned response. (Although if you keep doing it once you realize it scares her, she SHOULDN’T trust you.)
Not every woman has been physically harmed by a man she trusted, but every woman KNOWS a woman who has.
I used to be horrible about this, because I didn’t realize how intimidating it was. I didn’t understand why the woman I was with clammed up or tried to tell me what she thought I wanted to hear, and I only got angrier, and acted even more like an asshole. It was wrong. It was abusive. It didn’t matter if I INTENDED it that way; it was still emotionally abusive. And it was inexcusable.
I get that when passions are high, and when you’re frustrated, it’s a natural tendency to let your voice get louder, to shout and gesture and lean forward. But you can train yourself to do better. You can train yourself to keep more of an even tone, to refrain from large and fast gestures, to not lean into her personal space. I did. I’m not perfect at it yet, but goddamn it, I WILL be.
Don’t tell me it’s too hard, that you just can’t do it, or that you “shouldn’t have to.” I’m 53 years old and just now getting the hang of it, and if this old dog can learn something new, so can you.
Note to guys: It really, REALLY doesn’t matter if you’re thinking, “but I would never…”
History is littered with the bodies of women who believed a man “would never.” This includes women killed by men who honestly, deeply, truly believed they “would never”… right up until she said that one thing or moved in just that way and he just got so mad, just that once, and pushed her or punched her or slashed her or shot her… just once, y’know, to shut her up, or because she was flinching and didn’t she know that HE’S NOT LIKE THAT and I’LL TEACH HER TO BE AFRAID OF ME…
We are trained, from infancy, that Men With Loud Voices are a source of pain from which we cannot escape, and attempts to escape may result in more pain. And as soon as we’re old enough to comprehend a world broader than our immediate circle, a world that extends into the past and will run into the future, we realize that there is no way, no way at all, to tell which men “would never” and which men “would never… except if.”
We live or die on that “if.” And any man who doesn’t like facing that hyper-vigilance can work on fixing OTHER MEN, not women’s fear.
The reaction shouldn’t be “not all men are like that;” it should be “no woman should have to live in fear.”
It’s telling that so many people will hear a story of long-term abuse and say, “why did she stay with him?” and not “why did he treat her like that?”
Let’s be real. If little girls’ knees, shoulders, and clavicles are a problem for male teachers, you don’t have a dress code issue. You have a pedophile issue.
Y. E. S.
You don’t have a dress code issue. You have a pedophile issue.
Protip for men: if marriage is a horrifying concept for you and you think it is an evil trap, do not buy a ring and ask a woman to marry you
I’m way over seeing radical feminist bullshit on my dash. This isn’t even social justice or a real issue.
sorry that not marrying someone you dont loathe is radical feminism i guess?
women: don’t propose or get married if u don’t like the thought of marriage
men: what kind of sjw fuckery
the other bit that this implies is:
If you like your wife, act like it. Even around your friends. Be open and honest about liking your wife, liking spending time with her, and not being resentful of the shared work of building a household. Let your buddies know you can’t hang out with them because you’d rather be home with your wife, whom you like, because she is your legit bff, even though you know your buddies are gonna mock you for it.
Stand up to your buddies. Tell them mocking isn’t cool and you don’t want them to do it anymore. Challenge the other men in your life to be better men.
That is what “don’t get married if you think marriage is an evil trap” implies to men who are married. And while it’s all completely reasonable I imagine that it’s scary as fuck when it’s just so much easier to har de har har the little woman’s such a nag, ain’t she, don’t we all hate being married so much? with other men.
In that context, “don’t get married if you think marriage is an evil trap” is kindof a radical statement.
The number of guys I work with who are engaged who started pulling the “uh oh, life over soon, har har” shit that I have completely shut down with a simple “well if you don’t want to get married, then don’t”…*sigh* And they’re just like, hem, haw, welllll if I don’t then she might not stay with meee, which I respond to with “well, sounds like you need to have a pretty serious and honest conversation with your fiancee about your feelings then” and then the *panic!* look…When you remove that easy “hah hah ball-and-chain” narrative, watch the reaction. Some of them (to a female friend) will mumblingly admit that they love their fiancee and are excited to be married. Others…all you get is fear.
That’s the disservice we do men by refusing to teach boys how to explore their emotional needs. It hurts everyone. I watched three male friends walk into marriages I can tell they weren’t ready for and didn’t want, just because it was expected and they had no tools for emotional self-examination. Two of those marriages are (shockingly) in crisis, a couple years later. One has kids involved now. It’s more than a little heartbreaking. The marriages I see that are working? Are the guys with the emotional maturity to talk to their wives and who don’t care if everyone knows they’re in love with them.
SERIOUSLY.
My friend is getting married this summer and when I congratulated her fiance on their engagement he said to me “Yeah well you know, women. This is what they want so you have to bite the bullet.” and my other friend’s husband who was sitting next to him laughed and agreed. If this is how you feel, don’t get married. Don’t propose. Just…. Don’t. Do it. Any of it.
Straight people think that doing things you really don’t want to do – like marriage and having kids – is normal cos they’re still stuck in a fucking 19th century mindset.
It’s why I know my best friend got a good one, he’s open about how much he loves her and he’s excited to be getting married and regularly contributes ideas and has his own input, it’s nice to see
It filters through as well. Even being gay, a lot of my straight friends don’t understand why I spend so much time with my husband. Because I love him? Because I enjoy his company? Because he’s my best friend? I can’t count the amount of straight people that have told me that they think it’s “weird” that my husband and I spend so much quality time together. The only person who understood was my mom, whose response was: “If you love someone and genuinely enjoy their company, why WOULDN’T you want to spend your free time with them?!”
How can anyone look at their impending marriage and think ‘oh no, it’s all over now’ like???? I’ve only felt so close to so many people in my life, but those small few were like?? I’d wake up in the morning excited to be awake just to look forward to SEEING them. I’d catch myself with this stupid idiot grin in broad daylight just THINKING ABOUT BEING AROUND THEM. I’d sleep easy with them in my head, shitty days became perfect once I spoke to them. THAT’s how I imagine feeling again someday. I think about feeling that way for someone again and it’s like the whole future opens up. Marriage is finding your best friend in the whole wide world and wanting to have a sleepover every single day, and to agree to it and then go around groaning like your freedom is being stolen is a HUGE disrespect. If you have the freedom to share your life with anyone you like and you throw it around like baggage you really can’t expect it to grow, can you? You gotta care about yourself a little more than that I think
All of this.
Not to mention this mentality makes it’s way TO THE DAY OF THE WEDDING. How many weddings have we seen with something like this:
Like what kind of toxic mentality do you have to have to say this as the bride is about to walk down the aisle and marry someone who it’s now suggested doesn’t even want to be there?? How is this cute? How is this supposedly charming? This is supposed to be the person you love and want to be with! And not to mention that you send this down the aisle with a small child (the ring bearer or the flower girls)…I have a special loathing for things like this.
Holy shit I didn’t know that was even a thing.
This reminds me of a study I read about years ago with statistics on happiness/stability in relationships of people of various genders/orientations, and straight people were at the very bottom. (And lesbians were at the top! Not a huge surprise, given that women are generally more inclined to communicate and work out emotions and issues.)
Reblogging for the “last chance to run” comment. Honestly it’s so fucking gross.
And think about the people who marriage actually is an evil trap for, like child brides, or like people who can’t leave an abusive marriage because they’ll struggle financially.
Representation is important because it allows people to see characters like themselves as heroes.
It also allows people to see characters unlike themselves as sympathetic and relatable.
Stories teach us how to be human.
This is also why bad representation that demonizes already stigmatized groups is so dangerous; it reinforces the belief that those groups are not human.
A lot of people reblog this with some variation of “oh but tokenism is bad”. Yeah, sure. But if characters are depicted as sympathetic and relatable, they’re not tokens. That’s the point.
Tokenism isn’t “oh there’s too much diversity here”. Tokenism is “this diversity is shallow and features cardboard characters who exist only as representatives of their demographic, not relatable, sympathetic, or interesting beyond X trait”.
The thing that abled people who advocate for the disabled community don’t get is that there are times when disabilities/accommodations clash. Horribly.
Like I spent years having to come up with a solution to get therapy dogs into a series of residence halls. Why years? Because we had to decide who got to stay and who got to leave: the people who needed therapy dogs or the people with severe allergies to animals. Who got the alternative housing?
Things like fidget toys might seem great for some disabled people but having them in the room could be distracting/overstimulating for others. The same goes with stimming. It can’t be helped but neither can the anxiety that another person in the room feels as they watch/hear it. Additionally, something like a weighted blanket might immediately calm one kid down and send the other one into a panic attack due to the claustrophobia it causes. (*Points to myself*)
Every Metro bus in New York City has a series of seats at the front that can be lifted up to accommodate people in wheelchairs but if I’m in one of those spots then someone with a cane/walker has to journey even further to sit down.
The flashing lights of a fire alarm are there to help deaf/hearing impaired but if they’re not properly timed, they can also cause a person to have a seizure.
The worst part about all of these is that there is rarely a concrete solution that makes everyone happy/safe. And I’m not here to offer any because I don’t know them. I’m just here to remind you all that as you’re taking your education/health classes, as you’re reading your textbooks, as you’re preparing to go be an advocate, just remember that there is rarely ever such a thing as a one-size-fits-all solution to advocacy and that something you do that can help one disabled person might actually hinder another.
Food for thought.
I have heard this referred to by some in the disability advocacy profession as “duelling disabilities” and it’s definitely something I wish people would be more mindful of when discussing accessibility.
wupacing 
