Fandom Problem #5941:

I'm still stuck on the fact I legit saw someone with the take that "Marriage has nothing to do with amatonormativity and was made to protect you" like in what fucking world are you living in because the last time I checked, in the real world, marriage was created and used as a form of control not fucking protection. It is used to control women. It is used to control the rights of queer and disabled people. It was used to control people of color and mixed raced couples. It has always been a form of control. They are withholding rights from those the government doesn't accept as in a LEGAL PARTNERSHIP; because amatonormativity isn't just about romance but about the relationship heirarchy that places MARRAIGE at the top and the idea that society believes you MUST have a partner or else you're a freak and a failure.

To have that take you would have had to ignore the mass amount of evidence proving how harmful marriage has been. How marriage is a common thing abusers use to trap their victims and take control of their lives. How many woman were married to men they hated because otherwise they couldn't get a bank account or house. How disabled people are made to become reliant on their partner and get stuck in abusive or toxic relationships due to that. How even if you divorce you could still lose EVERYTHING because marriage doesn't give you rights to the house. How many marriages require PRENUPS to PROTECT YOU from getting screwed over by your spouse in the chance of a divorce - because again; marriage doesn't give you rights to the house. Different states and different counties will have different laws and those laws were never meant to protect anyone. They were made purely for control.

You are ignorant at best or malicious at worst if you think that marriage shouldn't be criticized when talking about amatonormativity.

you know who we need at the met gala? harper finkle

Some people are being weird about Stevonnie’s intersex designation.

Hopefully I can write a post that sums up and addresses a few confusions and criticisms I’ve been seeing!

Intersex: This is a term for anyone who has one of the dozens of biological sex variations outside of “male” and “female.” Knowing someone is intersex does not tell you anything about their genitals, their hormones, their surgeries, their gender identity, whether they identify as trans or nonbinary, their secondary sex characteristics, or their chromosomes.

Some intersex variations are hormonal. Some are about genitals. Some are chromosomal. Some are a mixture.

Intersex is a designation that is exactly as “sexual” as calling someone “male” or calling someone “female.” It isn’t explicit in a way that makes it racy, sexualized, or inappropriate for children to see. And in fact, it answers zero questions about what is in Stevonnie’s pants (or the pants of any intersex person).

Preoccupation with nonbinary, intersex, and trans people’s genitals is what’s inappropriate.

And unless the person in question wants you to know, it isn’t your business.

Please also acknowledge that while we’re talking about a cartoon character here, the way we treat and talk about them shouldn’t be different from the way we treat and talk about real people. It’s not about whether we’re concerned about “hurting” an imaginary person. You all know that how people react to conceptual people is often how we learn to react to real people. Trans people and intersex people and people with hormone variations have historically been (and continue in the present to be) mocked and paraded as weirdos, from “man in a dress” pitched as a joke to “bearded lady in a sideshow” tropes.

Note: Say intersex, not “intersexed.” Because people aren’t intersexed any more than they’re maled or femaled.

I personally have a couple intersex friends who are open about their designation. It’s way more common than you might think and the shame and stigma surrounding intersex is part of why many people have been saying it’s bizarre or gross to talk about associated with Stevonnie. Intersex isn’t rare, bizarre, or gross. It’s just what happens when physical sex isn’t a binary, which it’s not.

Some people don’t find out they’re intersex until they have genetic testing for some reason and see a chromosome anomaly. Some people don’t find out they’re intersex until they don’t experience typical puberty. Some people find out they had unnecessary surgery when they were infants to “normalize” their external genitalia, which is something some intersex activists are trying to stop from happening (especially since a. unnecessary surgeries can be painful and dangerous; b. they cannot consent at that age; c. they may have preferred an intersex body; and d. the sex determined by doctors or parents to be the right one might be the wrong one if the intersex person grows up and identifies differently gender-wise, and the parts they were born with are forever taken from them).

Stevonnie being intersex is a positive thing overall, mostly because intersex is not talked about for no good reason, and because of that we’ll continue to have generations of parents who want unnecessary surgery on intersex infants, intersex people feeling ashamed or weird about their bodies, and people in general believing untrue things about the physical sex of bodies. A character just casually identifying as intersex is a really nice change for once.

The only issue I have with it, honestly, is the same issue I have with non-binary representation on the show. So far, we’ve only seen it explicitly acknowledged in Fusions.

Fusion is a magical concept on a SF/fantasy show, and I do worry that the value of intersex rep on the show is somewhat diluted by the fact that it’s attached to a character who is LITERALLY a mixture of male and female characters. Being “a mix of male and female” isn’t really the best way to see intersex people–the parts in question have names and what determines their maleness or femaleness or non-binary-ness is who owns the parts–and I worry that if some people are introduced to intersex for the first time as if it only exists as a result of an impossible science fiction concept, they might also get the idea that it doesn’t happen in the real world.

It does happen in the real world! Just like nonbinary people and same-sex couples!

I would love to see some explicit nonbinary and intersex rep among human cartoon characters, and more same-sex human relationships too. SU is the perfect show to do this because it’s got sensitive, informed, diverse, cool people behind it who know how important this is. There are still people watching this show who are “excusing” its queerness because it’s mixed with literal aliens, but the intention of the show is the opposite: to give its audience characters that are relatable to historically marginalized groups who are not from outer space. So far it’s still GREAT that we got a Gem wedding, a few casual references to humans who are probably gay or queer, a polyamorous Gem Fusion, and a nice little gaggle of nonbinary Fusions, including an intersex Fusion. The only reservation I have with it is that introducing these concepts attached to characters whose non-binary and/or intersex identities and designations are consequences of being literal mixtures of more than one person does make it less readily incorporated into a less savvy viewer’s real-life understanding. What’s still fantastic about it is that people can see Stevonnie supporting Intersex Awareness Day and look it up and find out why it exists. It’s absolutely a stepping stone if nothing else, and they’re not wrong for doing it.

And please do stop claiming that talking about intersex is sexually explicit or disgusting because you think it refers to the genitals of minors. That isn’t true AND it is misleading when it comes to what intersex is. If you wouldn’t consider it inappropriate to ask a new parent about the gender of their baby knowing they can’t ask the baby and are therefore explicitly disclosing what genitals the child has, you shouldn’t consider it inappropriate to have a children’s show character identify as intersex.

Hope that helps.

The Gems She Carried

(Okay so it’s not just Gems but)

Garnet loves to carry others around

And here’s 50+ GIFs to prove it

Pictures 2

. ★★★×★★★×★★★×★★★×★★★×★★★ .

. ★★★×★★★×★★★×★★★×★★★×★★★ .

I caught a shiny Tatsugiri :3

More pictures I've taken. There's like two more and a bunch of screenshots. I might post them sometime in the future lol

Hi Arti! Help please :) What gem is suitable for Amethyst+Peri+Lapis (not your Musgravite)? And where Opal+Steven fusion? Many were already waiting :3

A Lamedot fusion that isn’t Musgravite? Something like Aventurine maybe? That’s one of the gems I was gonna use for Axinite instead

I mean I have done a ‘first draft’ of an Opal/Steven fusion but I usually go through a few versions so this one’s still very much a wip

They need to be more unstable looking imo. maybe some more exaggerated proportionsthey got a big Usopp style slingshot (i like the idea of their weapon being a slingshot) and their projectiles are like Jubilee’s powers, they explode on impact

edit; changed to one big ponytail

Ribbit. My first Fan Art Friday piece! Tsuyu Asui from Boku no Hero Academia. Again thank you for the suggestions! Next Friday’s theme will be Video Games! Let me know what you’d like to see. Whatever get’s the most suggestions is what I will draw. Thanks!

Sketches of Lapis Lazuli as a pegasus, because you know it makes sense.

This is from the Keep Beach City Weird official book, published in April 2017.

Ronaldo was right about some things….

Though he also theorized that Rock Candy was a Gem class on Homeworld…