Chaos Cat (loves this thing in particular)

This is a really good example of how TERFs disguise their attacks against trans men, and why it’s so harmful to consider TERF attitudes towards trans mascs as infantilizing.

The post is made to appear sympathetic to the man they are mocking. “Look at this poor ‘girl’ and how he’s mutilated himself” sounds sympathetic, especially to trans people who are subjected to aggressive, direct attacks on their identities and humanity.

But this performative sympathy is just a front so that TERFs can enjoy being cruel without appearing as the aggressor. This allows the audience to still enjoy the pleasure of engaging in cruelty while dressing it up as pity.

This plays into the broader tactic TERFs deploy with trans mascs.

Rarely ever do they confront us directly the way they do with trans women.

In fact, because they see us as women, their primary objective is to make sure we are never ever heard at all, so that they can maintain the narrative that none of us would ever transition of our own free will.

Instead, they poison the well. They talk to our “handlers”. Our parents, our doctors and psychiatrists, our husbands, boyfriends, our pastors.

The veneer of sympathy is not to appeal to trans men. It is to appeal to those they see as having ownership over us. When trans men fight back against this, the malice comes out in full force.

FD: We can see the cat. Do you have an ETA on animal control?

Dispatch: Twenty minutes.

FD: Alright, we think we can get the cat.

Dispatch: Copy, we'll let animal control know.

FD several minutes later: We've got the cat.

Dispatch: Copy, do you still want--

FD, interrupting: Update, the cat DOES NOT like us.

Dispatch: ...so you do still want animal control, then?"

FD: Yes. Tell them the cat is in the engine.

Dispatch: ...are you also in the engine?

It is important to consider the culture of the person who created the piece, absolutely; but the different perspectives offered by the viewers is fascinating in and of itself and does not always detract from the message.

As an example, when I was younger, I watched Schindler's List. This movie is famously shot in black and white except for one section, concerning a little girl in a red coat. The camera follows her until her eventual death.

I am Turtle Island Indigenous and I was always taught that the only color spirits could see was red, because it is the color of life and blood.

So the second the girl in the red jacket came on screen, something inside me chilled with fear.

The only color in the movie was that red. At some point, I, the viewer, had died.

I remember sobbing at the sight of the burning human piles that were shown, convinced I was buried in there somewhere. The reason I had only seen red on the girl was that my death was recent. I was the ash in the air mistaken for snow. I had died before her and had followed her, helplessly, until she followed me.

The message I got for that was maybe not what the creator had intended: that there was no "being clever enough" or "good enough" or "kind enough" that would shield or protect you from such a massive tidal wave of evil.

You are not exempt from tragedy, that red jacket whispered. You are not special.

When I told some of my white friends about my experience with viewing Schindler's List, some were shocked and the rest just out-and-out mocked me for my "media illiteracy".

"it was just a filming trick to make you feel something," I remember one saying, which terrified me. How had he not felt anything even before she showed up?

To be clear, I’m not here to scold @sound-the-horn because how dare they read their culture into a Jewish movie, blah blah blah. It’s more about the reaction they got? Because I have a sinking feeling that if I did the same thing, there’s not an insignificant chance that I would get shut down, too. I am Jewish, and in this hypothetical situation, I would be discussing a Jewish film made by a Jewish film about the Jewish genocide, and I still think there’s a good chance I might get dismissed. I’ve seen the Jewish elements in works by Jewish creators ignore, dismissed, or deliberately ripped out too often to not have doubts.

idk what I’m trying to say here. there’s a discomfort with interpretations outside the cultural mainstream I guess? like, it doesn’t matter whether you’re reading or writing your minority culture into a piece of work, there’s not an insignificant chance that it’ll get sanded away if that work gets popular. does that make any sense?

On a more personal note, @sound-the-horn reading your interpretation reminded me of these two bits from Night and Maus respectively:

Mickey Katz : What Gross did with pictures, he did with music. SUPER corny by modern standards but his audience ate it up-representation matters!

Ernie Kovacs: Hungarian-Jewish comedian who went on to write for MAD magazine, a bastion of Jewish humor.

Harvey Moiseyevich Volodarskii: A Russo-Jewish magician character you fight in the Japanese game No More Heroes. Many famous magicians were Jewish, including Harry Houdini (Volodarskii is based off him) and David Copperfield.

I've never really liked or cared for superheroes, but my dad did and probably would've had some things to say about their Jewish origins.

A Nervous Old Man (right) and his Emotional Support Violence Machine (Left)

I still hate most of the foods that I wouldn't eat as a kid. Almost all the variation in my diet came from trying foods I wasn't exposed to as a kid.

In fact, there are lots of foods I would force myself to eat as a kid that I don't bother with anymore because I don't like them

"you have to stop being a picky eater and learn to tolerate new foods..."

gagging is extremely stressful. it is such an intensely, sharply unpleasant experience with the added stress of trying not to spit your mouthful of food all over yourself/the table. The sweating and heart palpitations of trying to force down a swallow of something that is viscerally repulsing you is an exquisitely negative feeling. My palms are sweating just thinking about it.

This experience can cause novelty itself to cause fear and apprehension. Just the prospect of eating something unfamiliar can cause fear and nausea, because past experiences were so incredibly negative

now, the physiological effect of fear is that it suppresses the activity of the digestive system. this deadens your appetite and makes it more likely that eating will make you feel sick. So the negative experience is compounded

but on a milder level, the depression of simply not enjoying food is very negative for your life. I can say confidently that the low quality of cafeteria food at my college increased my day to day depression. eating is one of life's pleasures and when it becomes a repulsive chore, that builds a slow resentment of being alive

therefore, it is not good to force yourself to eat things you do not like, instead it is better to cultivate greater curiosity and adventurousness regarding foods you may have never been exposed to before. importantly, you must do it in a safe enviroment because before you can enjoy food you have to undo all the negative experiences of being forced to eat food you hate

cooking recipes for yourself can be a good way to do that because it is creative and active which gives a sense of playfulness which leads to power and agency

do not try new things in social gathering where there is pressure from other people

foraging and gardening is incredibly helpful because the food is fresh and there is a great sense of security and connectedness in it. you know where the food comes from you know that it is good you know it came from the earth beneath your feet. eating something right off the plant is an experience that unlocks your inquisitive and animalistic side instead of making you feel pressures and stresses from social expectation.

You feel like an animal trying to bite something investigating whether it is food. Does a wild animal get yelled at when it bites something that is not edible and spits it out? of course not.

Also once you have had positive experiences eating things from outside your instincts tend to be more accessible to you. humans in the modern world are taught that outside things are not for eating, generally, so they silence the instinct that urges them to eat plants.

Personally i think this is a big part of many aversions to vegetables, if you are told that leaves outside are all poison and bad, it is hard to turn off that apprehension with a leaf on your plate. but if you experience eating plants that grow out of the ground in the world around you, that can awaken that instinct toward plants as food again

a sufficiently sanctimonious authority figure can turn success into a whole new kind of failure

I made one comment, and it was this:

"My Little Cave Pony" Acrylic and colored pencil on batik fabric mounted on wood

The only major exception I'd make is a love triangle type situation where only one of the ships is going to "win," and even then I'd tag for the ship and use other tags and the summary to make clear what's going on, i.e. "Character A/Character B, Character A/Character C, engame Character A/Character C.

Just because people do have some anticipation that the state continues, and an unwarned breakup and other relationship ending might be bait-and-switch.

You can absolutely tag both [ship] and pre-[ship] as well.