Whatever, Go My Leon

As Pride Month comes to an end, I just want to remind you that July is Disability Pride Month and there's a flag and everything!

Charcoal Grey: Mourning for people who have died due to ableist violence, abuse, suicide, and illness

Red Stripe: Physical disabilities

Gold Stripe: Neurodiversity

Blue Stripe: Emotional and psychiatric disabilities

Green Stripe: Sensory disabilities

˗ˏˋ ꒰💜꒱ ˎˊ˗ lost in paradise

1. The bit. Markiplier winning the tournament would be ridiculous. Also he’d probably say something about it and that would be even more funny

2. LOOK AT HIM he’s a sad hot man drenched in blood and trauma. What more can you ask for????????

3. I would get to never shut up about it

4. Tangential propaganda: what if we make him and Ryland grace go at it in the finals?

5. It supports fandom morale for crossovers. Simon is one half of bloodymary, the most fun thing I’ve seen happen in fandom in the few years I’ve been around here.

6. My friends would never hear the end of it

7. YOUR friends have the opportunity to never hear the end of it

8. He has so much angst potential. Like so much. You can throw buckets of it on him and he’ll still stand up afterwards and want to live.

There’s an artist who decided not to show their female mc in the nude because they didn’t want to “cater to the male gaze.” The nudity was supposed to be a metaphor for vulnerability. The artist literally stated it in their video.

This female MC wears a full suit of armor, has a very androgynous face and body, and has an androgynous hairstyle. You couldn’t get less “male gaze”-y if you tried, short of making her a gelatinous cube. But her nudity, originally stated to be a metaphor for her vulnerability, was deemed “for the male gaze”. And while I agree that it doesn’t make logical sense for her to be naked under her armor, nudity can be and IS a very powerful metaphor for things such as vulnerability.

A woman without her clothes on is not “for the male gaze.” She’s just a woman without her clothes. At this point, we are forgoing powerful narrative tools for the fear of being a “bad feminist.” Decentering men is fine and dandy, but I’m afraid that people doing things like this are actually going full circle and re-centering men by allowing an idea as nebulous as “the male gaze” dictate how we tell our stories.

The conversation around “the male gaze” should be directed towards how the patriarchy portrays women in fiction; by ignoring her personhood and instead making her a caricature of womanhood; flawlessly sexy, perfectly attractive and fuckable at all times, no matter what she has been going through.