ShifterCat

you will never catch me complaining about an actress on a tv show having an imperfectly concealed pregnancy or a character going on a sudden trip somewhere while her actress is on maternity leave. so many actresses (and women working in any other field) are fired, punished and pressured into making reproductive decisions for their employers' convenience & if i have to try a bit harder to suspend my disbelief then that's absolutely what i'm going to do if it means people are getting to exercise reproductive & bodily autonomy without punishment

My favorite writing of this was how Star Trek DS9 handled Nana Visitor's pregnancy. It felt out of character for her character (Kira Nerys) to get pregnant and it's the semi-utopian future, so presumably birth control works quite well and abortions are easily available. Solution: another female character gets pregnant, is injured in an emergency situation, and Kira agrees to act as surrogate. They effectively wrote this entire story line well enough, with implications for the dynamics between Kira and the biological parents, that I didn't realize until later that the actress was actually pregnant. I thought it was just an interesting plot line.

imo the way you feel about groups it's fully socially acceptable to hate (like children or polyamorous people, among others) is the canary in the coal mine for underlying bigoted beliefs. if you're only supportive of marginalized groups when it's cool to do so, probably you don't actually care about marginalized groups, you care about other people thinking you care

there are 1 trillion people in the notes of this post saying "yeah! i mean i hate kids but they should have rights!" you hate kids? you mean you hate all members of an oppressed group solely for their membership in this group? right. why do you hate them? because they can't take care of themselves and need help? because they don't understand social norms and can be "annoying" and disrespect boundaries as a result? because they can be messy? because they don't understand things in the same way as you do? that's awesome. how do you feel about disabled people btw

There are a lot of people who start creative projects with no business or financial plan, because "who cares, it isn't important, we'll figure that out later". And you can't let yourself become that person. Not because I'm a sneering finance bro who thinks your woke animated youtube series wont make money, but because if you don't you'll wind up financially exploiting your friends for years

Look, it's none of my business if you wanna work yourself to the bone for no money so you can make your dream project a reality. I think you shouldn't, but also let's be real that's basically a rite of passage for young creatives. But as soon as you start involving other people? You need a plan. You need to be able to compensate them for their time, and you need to have it in writing

For freelancers: I recommend getting yourself a copy of the Graphic Artists' Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines for reference-- the newest one dropped last year (I have the 16th edition). It helps you figure out your pricing, how to create a contract for various projects (and you can access free PDFs of templates you can use to modify for your own projects)! It's a good place to start and refer to-- even colleagues who are decades in the business (and former Guild Members too) still use it.

it's interesting bringing up some transfeminist theory to my drag race watching cis therapist thinking she'll disagree but then she just starts spitting incredible transfeminist truth that would cause 100 years discourse on tumblr.

and you know to be clear these aren't even things I would have said. I mean there's definitely Nuance at the very least. if I were to say the "transitioning into privilege" and "being accepted by patriarchy as men" things myself I'd want to be able to prove them out relatively rigorously, and I haven't done that, so don't take this as me doing a full cosign on these claims. but damn, she did just kind of say them

on the transitioning into privilege thing: I don't tend to say this one because I think it's at least probably not linearly true. my theory of this one is kind of in a fetal development stage but I tend to imagine that coming out as trans is a sharp drop in privilege not immediately outweighed by manhood, but then that passing as a man and performing masculinity start to up one's privilege again. #privilegemath

on the "being happily accepted into patriarchy" thing, my therapist was saying that men tend to be cool with it because it reaffirms that manhood is good and desireable. I hadn't really considered that angle in my own analysis. I usually operate under the assumption that an oppressor class will not be so happy to accept upward movement with open arms, but maybe your average man is not really concerned with gatekeeping manhood as a class, so long as the goodness of masculinity is being affirmed? definitely a thought that's influencing my theory a little

additionally, its actually necessary for an oppressor class to accept "upward" movement, when it means joining their ranks. this goes for any class with higher privilege. the best way to gain influence is to grow, and accepting new members into your class is an easy way to do that. it's why missionaries are like, even a thing.

thinking about that one wordless calvin and hobbes sunday strip thats just calvins dad ditching his work to go play in the snow... its going to make me cry

”#I LOVE that the comic keeps the lens on Calvin’s dad to the degree of not even showing Calvin’s excited face when his dad surprises him, #You can see the joy and excitement of the moment in his pose and reflected in his dad’s expression, #it’s a great little artistic decision, #I realized what gets me about it it’s the hat covering his dad’s head and hair so the dad just looks like Calvin. #you don’t HAVE to show Calvin! You already see him in the dad becoming a kid for a moment you only have to draw that once”