#*myopic and narrow

[fideidefenswhore]

i couldn’t remember how the first chapter opened so i reread (i mean...it’s been like over a decade, but it is a reread) w/eir’s the lady elizabeth and i think the funniest thing about it is that it’s not compatible with her six wives fictional series, and is thus, as i guess this is generally put...not in the same ‘universe’?

[caparrucia]

You have to make a fucking commitment that extends beyond your narrow, myopic definition of "normal" or you're going to continue to fail the fascism pop quiz, every fucking time.

You need to be willing to defend shit you find personally unsavory/unappealing/unintelligible. You need to be able to defend the weird porn. You need to defend the incomprehensible art. You need to defend the micro-identities that you think sound made up.

What matters is harm. Actual, tangible, documented harm. Not hypothetical. Not theoretical. Actual harm. If it's not harmful, it should be allowed to exist and anyone who tells you it shouldn't, it's trying to radicalize you. Don't fucking let them.

And if it causes actual harm, commit to actual harm reduction. Specific, tangible actions to minimize the specific, tangible harm. Anything else is propaganda.

I'm begging you to rub two brain cells together and stop platforming fascist talking points under the thinnest veneer of respectability. Your definition of normal doesn't apply to anyone else but yourself. If you're queer, if you're disabled, if you're a minority in any axis, stop fucking licking the boot that wants to crush your throat.

They mean you. When they call for the death of freaks and undesirables. When they want to criminalize anything that threatens children's safety. When they insist they only want to target dangerous perverts and malicious criminals.

They mean you.

Stop fucking helping them!

[enigma-the-mysterious]

Komuram Bheemudo: "Make that bastard kneel now!" Part 2/?

Hey! Hey! Hey! Remember how the whole point of the public flogging was to make Bheem kneel?

Who am I kidding? We are reminded of it constantly throughout the flogging

Ram's failed attempt #1

Ram's failed attempt #2

This bitchiest bitch to ever bitch

Ram's failed attempt #3

This asshole dickfuck vomitted straight out of hell

Ram's failed attempt #4

And in the end, Bheem has his way. He falls, but he does not kneel. They break him, but they cannot be bend him. They can command him, threaten him, brutalize him, but they cannot subdue him. He is the tiger, he cannot be tamed.

But!

BUT!

BUT!

You know what detail makes me go absolutely feral is interesting?

Bheem is not the one who kneels after the flogging.

RAM DOES!

RAM IS THE ONE WHO IS BROUGHT TO HIS KNEES AT THE END OF THE FLOGGING!!!

And I don't even mean this in a metaphorical sense (though that one is true as well)

Ram. Is. Physically. Kneeling. Beside. Bheem. I cannot stress this enough.

This is a KEY moment in the movie. It's a turning point.

We know that seeing the unarmed civilians rising up against the armed British forces in the wake of Bheem's defiance is what spurs Ram to finally, FINALLY arrive at his epiphany. His idea of what a revolution is and how it can be achieved is too narrow, too rigid, too costly. The sacrifices are too many and at what point will the ends justify the means?

But to change his viewpoint (again both literally and metaphorically), RAM HAS TO BEND FIRST! Once Ram bends, only then can he finally SEE!

And what is it that makes Ram bend? It's his LOVE FOR BHEEM! His love for Bheem changes him.

So these, that is, the shots where Ram is SEEING a revolution, an actual revolution in action, sparked by nothing more than Bheem's song and his indomitable spirit....

....come AFTER these shots. Where Ram is compelled by his love for Bheem to bend down and kneel

Compare this with Ram's introduction scene.

There is a revolution going on. People show up in front of a police station on the outskirts of Delhi to protest the arrest of Lala Lajpat Rai, a prominent Indian political figure, in Kolkata, armed with nothing more than torches, flags, and their righteous anger.

Ram watches the revolution. But he does not SEE it. He is so focused on his distant goal that he is blind to what is right in front of him. What is literally staring at him in the eye.

So, what does Ram do with his myopic worldview? He quashes the revolution. He stamps out the very thing he is fighting for. He breaks the spirit of the revolution, the spirit of the people, and he watches stone-faced as the protesters limp away, defeated. All because he cannot SEE the revolution for what it is.

So, with these two scenes in mind, we understand that this is not the first time Ram has witnessed a revolution. The people's uprising in the wake of Bheem's torture is nothing new to him. He has watched it all before, has actively participated in snuffing it out even.

Here, Ram STANDS tall, straight, rigid, focused, unbending.

Here, Ram is ON HIS KNEES.

The only factor that changes between these two scenes is the presence of Bheem..... and Ram's love for him. It's Ram's love for Bheem that bends his inflexible worldview. It's Ram's love for Bheem that makes him take a step back and actually see the true meaning of revolution. It's Ram's love for Bheem that shifts his perspective. It's Ram's love for Bheem that makes Ram willingly give up a 15 year long mission he has been toiling endlessly for.

Love is THE MOST powerful force in RRR. No amount of pain, grief, anger, heartbreak, trauma, brutality or violence can wipe it out. It is love that shines and love that emerges victorious. And after the flogging, Ram's love for Bheem is the most powerful driving force in his life, more powerful than a lifelong mission, more powerful than a promise made among tears and blood.

The visual storytelling and symbolisms in this movie are insane. I am going to scream about them for the next 80 years.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Mini Meta]

[kiingkiismet]

You ARE selfish. Why should I vote for the ones who have been actively committing genocide against my people for almost a year?

Why do you all expect Palestinians and other Arab-Americans to get over it and vote to protect your rights and lives when you’ve all done everything you can to show us that OUR rights and lives are apparently the only ones that don’t matter?

First of all—no matter what we do, voting is supposed to be harm reduction and there’s always going to be something negative. Black Americans (psst: that’s me) for the longest time have been voting for the “least harmful option” for decades even IF those people are still harmful to some degree. Honestly, the best case scenario that could’ve happened is if colonialism didn’t happen 400+ years ago, but here we are.

Like I said in my original post, there IS no perfect option, and doing nothing will only allow the OTHER option to succeed. Yknow, the orange fuck and his posse of conservatives who objectively want to strip everyone of their rights and will definitely still be supporting Israel with what they’re doing. Instead of narrowing in and making it an individual moral matter, it should be “what else are we to do that will cause the LEAST amount of harm possible?” Which is what I and others are trying to do. Pointing fingers and telling people, especially other people of color in the same fucking boat that we are selfish is very unhelpful. Read the room, we are ALL in danger here!

Because if you missed it when I said it time and time again, I am ALSO a minority in this country. I will ALSO get harmed and if I am at risk of harm and death (more than I already am given police brutality, threat of trans healthcare, lack of investigation in murders of BIPOC and queer folk, etc.), how can I help other people further?? Dead people can’t help others.

I DO care about Palestinians AND other minorities in this country and outside of it, we are all in the same fucked up boat here. No one is telling yall to get over it, that’s wrong and that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying the other option will not care about me, and they sure as shit will not give a shit about yall.

I do not think Kamala is a saint, but she’s leagues better than two white men who are so damn myopic and can’t see the suffering of anyone who is not them, at least it will buy us time (4 or 8 years) to find another suitable candidate that better represents the people and hurt us even less than her. There was no time between the beginning of this year and now to get a new candidate that all Americans can collectively agree upon to stamp trump out. That is virtually impossible—and if you say it isn’t, you have clearly forgotten what happened in 2016 where we tried that and ended up getting trump.

Do not tell me that I do not care when it’s yall and other minorities ALL AT ONCE in danger when the trump administration wants ALL OF US dead and will CONTINUE wreaking havoc internationally as well. We CANNOT let that happen so Kamala is literally the ONLY option.

[akajustmerry]

not saying criticisms of racism and erasure being levelled at Oppenheimer aren't valid or necessary parts of the conversation because they are, but I personally question why people want Christopher Nolan, a man who couldn't even light his Black lead properly in his previous film, to be the guy who commentates on white American imperialism against First Nations peoples and Japanese people?? There are decades of Japanese cinema made by people who are actually connected to the experiences of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. There are documentaries, books and decades of reporting created by the Cherokee and First Nations Downwinders who remember and live with the legacy of Los Alamos displacement and nuclear fallout. Nolan made it clear his film was intentionally myopic because Oppenheimer himself had a very narrow perspective when it came to the consequences of what he was doing. But even within the scope of the film's intentionally narrow perspective, this short-sightedness and disregard for the consequences belonging to Oppenheimer is acknowledged in multiple ways. At the end of the day, it's a movie with US military funding made by predominantly white men that centres on the perspective of one famously myopic man. I can honestly say I'd rather chew off the tips of my fingers than have a movie made under those constraints also attempt to show the traumatic experiences of multiple marginalised people of colour. Christopher Nolan, who wrote and directed this film, was name-dropped by Elliot Page as someone who bullied him into wearing a skirt on screen despite there being a literal clause in his CONTRACT that he could not wear dresses or skirts because of how uncomfortable they made him (for now obvious reasons). There's absolutely space to critique and acknowledge what was included and how it was included and why it wasn't. To be clear, I don't think this makes him exempt from criticism. I just think saying Christopher Nolan should have included his take on First Nations peoples and Japanese peoples suffering is not something I agree with, personally, because I have actually seen the film and the film is not about that. Personally, I'm relieved I didn't have to see Nolan, a guy who can't even fit a whole white woman in his head, attempt to write about the experiences of people of colour. I'm relieved he stayed in his lane and I think if you want to learn more about who bore the brunt of Oppenheimer's horrors, you should seek that out from the people who experienced them and recorded them, not expect them from some white middle-aged filmmaker with a hard-on for explosions.

[eazy-peazy54]

ugh THANK YOU for making that will wood fandom post. okay this ask is gonna be super long and i’m really sorry to vent in your inbox but anyway. i heard about will on tumblr several years ago right after the normal album dropped but before he “blew up” (using that term loosely lol) and i’ve steadily watched his fanbase become more and more unbearable. for context i’m in my mid 20s, so unfortunately quite a bit older than a large portion of his current fans.

it’s really disappointing to me to see how strangely and unhealthily young people interact with media they like. i won’t waste time reiterating what you already said very well, but i will add something about the opposite end of the weird fan spectrum. so you basically called out some of the very public manic obsession that his younger fans display, but then there’s the other fans who do literally the opposite (to an obnoxious degree) where they say he’s literally just some guy etc. and like. i’m totally on board with the just some guy movement like yes let’s please acknowledge that artists are just people who happen to create something that you enjoy (especially small artists like will who aren’t even “famous” like he’s a niche indie artist that gained some recognition for a viral song but there are some kids out here treating him like a c-list celebrity like??) HOWEVER i do not understand why they have to act like any sort of emotional attachment to him or his work is toxic fan behavior. there’s absolutely no balance and it’s exhausting.

i personally feel like i and some of his older fans (older in age and duration i.e. mid 20s and/or been a fan since before early-mid 2021? i feel like that’s when he went viral) naturally engage in a more sane way. i personally am incredibly attached to his music, it means a lot to me, i listen to it a ton, and i also enjoy will as a person; i very much admire the brain, the mind, the person behind the art. i think he’s funny, intelligent, interesting, not to mention one of the most talented musicians / artists in general that i’ve ever come across. i like listening to him in interviews and on his podcast. and i think i manage all of that in a healthy and respectful way. i don’t think it’s difficult. but for some reason there are some fans who probably wouldn’t like the second part of that. they take “separate the art from the artist” way too far. “Do Not Have An Opinion About This Human You Perv”. it’s annoying. calling him pretty or attractive or whatever also gets met with some very weird reactions. “HE’S JUST A GUY” yes most of us are, in fact, just a guy™️ (gender neutral). saying he’s cute is not sexual harassment.

another thing that actually pisses me off so much is these fans describing and categorizing him based on their and their mutuals very specific demographic. “white teenage transmasc audhd neurodivergent mentally ill queer etc. etc. etc.” music. that is such a limited and myopic generalization. first of all, he had fans way before you, your age group is not his target demographic, nor is it his core demographic, on top of that he’s explicitly stated he doesn’t want people your age listening to him. he’s not for you. second, it absolutely makes sense that mentally ill people gravitate towards him given that he himself is severely mentally ill, so this part of the description pisses me off the least, but still, he’s also a recovering/recovered alcoholic, but i don’t see people saying he makes music for addicts? idk.

next is the queer bit. yeah gay people like him. i get it. he’s a queer safe space and that’s cool and i appreciate it but i feel like it’s still narrowing the categorization. he also has a lot of neurodivergent fans and i understand why. i think my main issue is just a combination of all of these very specific descriptors you know? like yeah he has fans that fit all of this but when you lump all of it together to describe his music and the entirety of his fandom then it becomes too much. whatever. anyway. the one that makes me the most mad is the white thing. i hate it when music that isn’t inherently racial is divided by race. it’s alienating and divisive and exclusionary and unnecessary. there are plenty of fans of color and there would probably be even more if some of y’all didn’t insist on generalizing his music based on your own limited experience. i think that’s sort of a microcosm of what a lot of poc talk about on here, about being shoved out of fandom spaces? like imagine you’re an adult queer black guy and you keep hearing about this will wood person who makes really cool music so you go to give it a try and find a bunch of 14yos calling him white preteen transmasc music. super off putting. even as someone who actually does fall into a couple (not all) of the demographics they talk about i know i would absolutely not be a fan now if i’d discovered him later than i did. which makes me sad. anyway. sorry this is definitely getting very long and rambly so i’m sorry about that i just have a lot of opinions about this fanbase.

oh my god this put everything i missed into words THANK YOU 😭

I completely agree with everything you just said!!! Honestly the whole big point with my essay was to just say "hey guys, don't be weird about this, and be respectful because there is a real person behind the screen!"

everyone who goes too far with the "HES JUST A GUY" thing isn't helping. its like. yeah, hes just a guy, but that doesn't mean i cant have any sort of attachment to his music whatsoever??? some people's idea of treating people like real people is really just treating them worse than how they were being treated before 😭

The people who are policing the fandom too much aren't helping either, its getting really exhausting to keep seeing posts saying "oh he looks really good in this photo!" and seeing like 200 replies being like "STOP SEXUALIZING YOU CREEP!!!!" (although there are people who actually do sexualize him, (which is really gross and weird) but i digress,)

music based fandoms are usually very,,, eh.. but honestly most of the fandom isn't bad, its just the people who take things to the extremes (in both directions) who are kind of making it a bit more awkward.

i think the fandom, and his music as a whole shouldn't just be narrowed down to "gay neurodivergent weirdo music," but it should just be like. "music for cool people" or hell, just fuckin "music"

[ask-zacharies-snackarie]

Hey idk if you've answered this before, but can you *see* when wearing your Sun mask?

It looks great btw your entire cosplay is PHENOMENAL 😊

Trying this again LEL, Tumblr basically imploded when I tried to answer it at first.

Thank you for the very sweet compliment, sorry it took me so long to finally respond to this ask.

Long story short, YES I can see! its just verrrrrry narrow.

There's a very thin sliver of inset mesh that I painted to match that is nestled right under his nose. The hard shadow cast from his nose causes it to become borderline invisible if you're not looking for it!

The visibility isn't that great when i'm wearing it, and i think my field of view may be like... 2 feet wide and around 3 to 4 inches tall... not ideal for a busy and crowded con floor, but certainly passable. The pictures above should help show what i mean, but my phone camera is a bit myopic so it's not quite as accurate. :(

Of course, i still have a bit of peripheral vision due to the "face hider" (also know as his circuit board) not being as enveloping of the sides of my face as i would have liked or expected.

And obviously, I wasn't seeing all that well anyway due to being nearsighted and not being able to wear my glasses, heh. It was too much work to swap out my glasses with the mask all the time, so i just squinted everywhere lmaooo

[kowabungadoodles]

man I just listened to a podcast where two privilaged white dude economists talking about how they couldn't think of what purpose their lives would have without paid work and I wanted to scream

Tim Harford, man, you're generally great at what you do and all, but that was so narrow and myopic I need to shake you like ragdoll for five minutes and then put you in time out

[eelfuneral]

When talking about autism representation in media, I feel like we kind of lost the plot when people started insisting that traits that real, living autistics have that happen to be overrepresented in media are the same level of bad as malicious and untrue autism stereotypes. The issue at hand isn’t that no autistics IRL are good at math, stim by hand flapping, or speak formally, but that other traits aren’t represented as much and the general public is not getting a complete picture of what autism can look like. The solution to the problem of only a narrow group of autistic traits showing up in media isn’t suggesting that those traits should never be used in fiction ever, but introducing more autistic characters with lesser-known traits to the mix. More autistic characters with distinct individual presentations equals more realism and a less myopic view of what autism is for non-autistic viewers.

It’s also important to remember that the autism spectrum is fucking massive and that different autistic people are going to relate to different characters as a result. Good autism representation does not begin and end with autistic characters who have the exact same traits as you. Getting angry at other autistics for enjoying the “wrong” characters will not get us the diverse media representation that we so desperately need, but it will make other members of the community feel really, really crappy.

[ginger-snap-talkin-nonsense]

Why do you take it so fucking personally when a creators makes a show/movie that you specifically don’t like? You evidently believe that a cartoon or story not fucking pandering to you at all given times not only makes the show your watching inherently terrible. But it makes the artists of that media awful people themselves who’ve somehow betrayed YOUR trust and hurt YOU on an individual fucking level. When in reality that’s just delusionally narcissistic bullshitting you should’ve outgrown by the time you were seven. . . . .but just HAVEN’T even though this is a terribly cruel way of engaging with media.

A creator’s job is not to make YOU specifically fucking happy Ginger, and the ridiculously vast majority of any professional writers obviously being entirely UNABLE to do that even if they fucking WANTED too isn’t somehow a goddamn failure on their part!! It doesn’t mean they’ve chosen to make “bad art”, it doesn’t mean what they’ve made is even remotely fucking bad to begin with, it doesn’t mean that they’re just frauds and don’t have any fucking talent in the first place, it doesn’t mean that everything they enjoy writing for/about deserves to fail and be fucked over by anti-artist studio executives/CEOs, or any of the other self-protective delusions. That you’ve goddamn CREATED for yourself in order to cope with the fact that (shock and horror!) your personal tastes and likes don’t fucking represent anywhere CLOSE to what the vast majority people actually want to watch/create within the stories around them.

Instead, all it’s EVER meant is that you fucking HAVE to get yourself out of this painfully restricted, myopic media diet you’ve goddamn locked yourself into. And actually experience MORE new stories, characters, ideas, tropes, etc. within shows/movies to enjoy and MEANINGFULLY engage with outside of your horribly narrow comfort zone!

Guys, I got a movie day to get back to can someone else clown on this dipstick today i just don't got the time

[mariacallous]

So I don't actually like talking about this and the few times I posted something on this site about this was very careful and, well, rare, because frankly I don't want to seem to be another white girl whining.

But I have seen all too often people on le internet conflating us, Ukrainians, being white, with being imperialists and colonisers, white supremacist etc simply for the crime of being white. I firmly try this not to get to me, and logically I think it's the result of identity politics interpretated wrong, and of very USA centric point of view. But it does get to me sometimes because this is such a baseless stupid accusation on top of everything.

And I also see lots of people willfully exclude Ukraine from any kind of talks about decolonisation, again, on the base that we are white. I don't know where this is going, feel free to shake me by the scruff or to ignore this message.

No, I've seen it too, and it is very much the result of US identity and racial politics being applied to all situations.

It's a very narrow, myopic, and distorted view of how imperialism has worked throughout history, and how colonialism has and does develop and exist.

Somehow, people are able to understand Ireland as having been colonized and having suffered under imperialism (but even there, in a very limited and distorted way) and yet can't or won't apply that to other, potentially similar contexts or situations.

I think what makes it difficult is that this kind of nonsense you mentioned gets vocalized so stridently and loudly by people that it can be exhausting for those who are trying to push back and clarify.

[drdemonprince]

Okay I read Jay Earley's Self-Therapy Workbook today and guys I really dislike internal family systems on a visceral personal level. Many of these self-part dialogues and mediations would absolutely trap my already hyper analytical self in a tangle of competing perspectives and memories more than it already does get trapped as is, and the personifying and separating of disparate parts would absolutely trigger some psychic break shit for me. Yikes and brrr. Very unpleasant headspace to be in.

I can understand it being a metaphorical framework that would work for others, and I'll try to reflect on that and incorporate acknowledgement of it in my work as best that I can. I can certainly stand to hear from Autistics who have benefited from it in their unmasking process.

But I do think I take issue with many of its goals. Like so many therapies, it is myopically interior rather than contextual and social; it fundamentally ignores just how changeable many people's reactions can be. It also forces an incredibly narrow set of motivations behind universal and enduring human emotions. Not every lashing out in anger is the righteous well intentioned act of a Protector who is defending a poor wounded Exile. Sometimes we just have misophonia. Sometimes we're just hangry. Sometimes we want to hurt other people and we don't have a pure motive behind our actions. Many of our feelings and reactions come from places less deeply meaningful than this book makes them out to be, or can only be changed if our external environment changes, and so obsessively circling the drain of every wounded childhood memory and trying to ascribe a cogent poignant narrative to every pissy shitty little emotion we ever have strikes me as a recipe for self focused rumination.

I dont mean to be a dick, I'm sure it has many use cases. But it really doesnt seem all that different from CBT or "wise mind" DBT type stuff, but framed by a metaphor that is almost designed to make a subset of people feel less internally unified and more crazy.

But I will check out No Bad Parts as well! and keep thinking on it. The act of separating an activated protector from oneself so that you can feel less agitated in the moment and make sense of its reactions is effective, for sure!

[cassierobinsons]

to the anon from a few days ago: sorry i'm only just getting back to you on the sam + classism discussion. putting this under a cut because it's rambly

To me the whole Sam classism thing is very much like coming from an immigrant family the people you will meet who complain about "illegals" because they didn't do it "the right way". Like generally, these are not people who hate immigrants or approve of ICE or anything like that, but they still feel a certain moral superiority in having improved their situation "the correct way". I don't think Sam thinks homeless people should all be sent to prison or anything, but I think he still looks at himself as having done something morally correct in getting out of his situation (even though he really didnt in the long run excluding the finale). You see this attitude with other things like when he asks Max why didn't you just leave. I don't think he has no empathy for these situations, but there's like a mental block of not understanding the barriers that other people might face that he didnt.

Oh i extremely know what you mean as a fellow child of immigrants. my mum will make a snide comment while watching the news and i’ll be like 🤨 oh so now we’re pretending that your friend [DATA EXPUNGED] is here totally legally huh. it comes from a small-c conservative belief that there exists a group of people who are less "deserving" than them.

“Morally correct” also happens to be how the fandom sees sam's escape from the family, when it’s just Morally neutral? Like it’s a good thing. But says nothing about sam’s moral fibre because it was for self-preservation reasons. that's not a bad thing either! and i obviously don't think fandom is bad for thinking of sam's hard work as an admirable trait but there needs to be some acknowledgement of his perspective is a little skewed.

Max is a great example to use because sam isn’t being spiteful, but he is being thoughtless and most of it is due to him literally being a man in his early 20s but like, it’s also because of how he grew up and how he got out.

sam’s judgy moments are at their most interesting in s1 because there’s so many of them and because they’re so intentional. Like, intentional on the part of the writers, not sam. his response to max is a reflection of how idk, myopic? sam’s read of dean and their family situation is. It’s an in-universe character flaw he has to work on in order to repair the bond between them, just as dean’s seething resentment over sam’s departure is something he needs to work on too. s1 is about both of them learning to see other as their dad's victim.

I think in general in the fandom you get these sort of knee jerk reactions like "no they can't be racist/sexist/homophobic/classist/etc, they don't hate xyz people" but really no one is saying they do. Like no one is saying Sam spits on poor people. No one is saying Dean thinks women are beneath him. But they both clearly have some ingrained beliefs that are ultimately prejudiced! These aren't immutable characteristics. In fact, I think for the most part if someone had an actual deep discussion with them about it they'd probably come around fairly easily, but that doesn't mean Sam scoffing at Dean hustling pool or Dean saying "sweetheart this ain't gender studies" aren't bad things to do. Like they're often understandable character flaws based on the characters backgrounds, but they're still there.

Honestly, i’d argue that plenty of people ARE saying that dean sees women as beneath him or that sam despises the poor or vice-versa etc. but like. Hmm. this is a tv show for a narrow group of people written by an even narrower group of people and thus the show reflects the views & prejudices of the people writing them. There are moments in which we’re supposed to approve of dean’s sexism but there are also moments where we’re supposed to disapprove while simultaneously approve of or at least be okay with sam’s sexism. There are moments where we’re supposed to think sam’s being a judgy snob, but there are still others where we’re supposed to wrinkle our noses at how uncouth and lumpenprole dean is in comparison to college boy sam. And that goes for the many other -isms in the show. characters are often used as vectors for the beliefs of the writers, good or bad. It’s up to the individual how they choose to make peace with that, but the problem with this fandom is that discussions about isms get heavily wrapped up with stan wars. 

Lemme give an example. It’s incredibly common in samgirl spaces to paint dean as a homophobic neanderthal. they usually do this by taking a shitty comment from season 3 and extrapolating it until they’re talking about s15 dean as if he can’t so much as look at a gay person without threatening to kill them in that sense they’re no different to the desticule circa 2020-2023 WHOA WHO SAID THAT anyway they pretend it’s just a heehee haha jokeyjoke but like. it is 2024 and they STILL can’t engage with conversations about queer dean without talking about deangirls as if they are personally endorsing homophobia! As a result if someone points out that sam makes just as many homophobic jokes as dean does and he’s just slyer about it they flip the fuck out because they’re lowkey projecting and think you’re judging them as hard as they judge you. This is why the mildest criticisms of sam prompt an insane amount of backlash. 

(i talk a little more about this phenomenon here)

and so we come to discussions about sam and classism that feel like people trying to defend him at every turn because they sincerely think we're trying to cancel him and it's pissing me off because if we can't even suggest fictional character sam winchester is maybe a little classist how the hell are we going to address the DERANGED lvls of classism throughout this fandom. i've never been in a fandom where so many people think going to college makes a str8 person better equipped to talk about queerness than actual queer people until i joined spn fandom.

(discussions about racism/racialised misogyny get a lot more complicated and a lot more depressing than anything mentioned above so i'm not approaching that topic for now. "but-" don't care didn't ask plus i probably have more melanin than you. i don't wanna talk about it!!!)

anyway. idk what i'm saying. i think i get where the defensiveness is coming from but it's annoying. what if we just mutually agreed that we're not to blame for spn's bigotry but we also have a responsibility not to reproduce that same bigotry? what if???

EDIT: coming back a day later to say that I do agree with your assertion that a deep conversation could be enough to change them! I just think that a certain part of fandom is allergic to acknowledging ANY flaw at all and that's the biggest hurdle in these discussions.

[sokkastyles]

Another thing I've been seeing more and more of that just isn't supported by the actual show is the idea that Zuko needs to "realize" that Azula worked hard to get where she is, and not only is this victim blaming because it ignores how both Ozai and Azula treated Zuko as a scapegoat, it's also simply not true.

Zuko is the one in the text who believes in working hard, while Azula believes in superiority through inherent ability.

I often see people quoting Zuko's line about how everything came easy to Azula and their father said she was born lucky as evidence of Zuko's "jealousy" of Azula's hard work and skill, and how he needs to realize how much pressure she was under, but those people are forgetting what Zuko says right after that.

I don't need luck, though. I don't want it. I've always had to struggle and fight, and that's made me strong. That's made me who I am.

Zuko rejects the belief Ozai tried to enforce about being born lucky. He of course still struggles with it, because he's a kid and being told repeatedly by adults that you are inherently worthless is a hard thing to combat without internalizing. Zuko struggles with assuming that he can't generate lightning because it blows up in his face, "like everything always does." Throughout his journey, he learns to embrace working hard, learning and growing to overcome those mental blocks.

But to say that Azula, in comparison, has a better understanding of hard work is just wrong. What Zuko says about struggling and fighting actually is similar to what Azula says about Long Feng.

I can see your whole history in your eyes. You were born with nothing, so you've had to struggle, and connive, and claw your way to power. But true power, the divine right to rule, is something you're born with.

Azula ultimately disdains the idea of having to struggle to achieve things, and says that true power is something you are born with.

This isn't just an Azula vs Zuko thing, this is a major theme of the story and part of what leads to Azula's ultimate downfall. While Zuko works hard and grows not just in ability but his worldview, adapting and becoming a better person in the process, Azula's worldview narrows in her need to prove her own inherent perfection, which causes her to become more myopic and end up alone.

From the beginning of the story, we see Azula trying to get others to bend to her, even trying to argue against the very tides themselves because of her unwillingness to believe in anything less than her own inherent right. This is also similar to the way other Fire Nation characters show a myopic view of the world that leads them towards megalomania, like Zhao attempting to destroy the moon in pursuit of his own greatness. Both he and Azula think they can defy nature because of their own need to prove themselves powerful. Zuko tries this, too, in "The Storm," and learns one of many lessons about humility and working with others. Azula fails to learn these lessons.

So it's not Zuko who needs to learn this by the end of the series, and especially not from Azula.

I think it's also telling that these people never talk about how much pressure Zuko was under to try and prove he wasn't worthless, and I think that's because by the end, Zuko has realized his own worth, but Azula is still desperately trying to cling to the belief in her own superiority. She's the only one who can relieve that pressure she's putting on herself because she can't let go of the idea that she's not better than other people, and it is not on the people she hurt to try and make her feel better about herself, when she still thinks she's superior to them.

Moreover, I find it very hard to believe that post series Azula would even accept any offer of sympathy from Zuko. This is another example of something Zuko learned in the series that Azula did not, as Iroh says. Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. Azula's belief in her own superiority is, of course, a coping mechanism as a result of very low self-esteem, but she needs to figure out how to deal with that in a way that isn't hurting others. What she doesn't need is constant validation from people she victimized and reinforcement of the same toxic beliefs.

[purestxblood]

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 –

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬, 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 –

beauteous, breathtaking, comely, dazzling, divine, enchanting, exquisite, fetching, gorgeous, handsome, heavenly, incredible, iridescent, lovely, luminescent, luminous, lustrous, magnetic, magnificent, opalescent, radiant, ravishing, striking, stunning.

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 –

alert, attractive, beady, blazing, bloodshot, bright, bulging, compelling, crusty, dancing, droopy, drowsy, empty, expressive, filmy, flashing, glazed, gleaming, glistening, glittering, glowing, goggle, gooey, googly, guileless, hard, hardened, heavy, heavy-lidded, hidden, hypnotic, icy, limpid, narrowed, peering, penetrating, piercing, pretty, puffy, red-rimmed, rheumy (red & watery), riveting, runny, scrunched, shaded, shimmering, shining, shiny, shuttered, slit, soft, soulful, sparkling, sparkly, steady, swollen, sunken, tear-filled, teary, tired, twinkling, vapid, watchful, watering, wide awake, wild-eyed.

𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐝𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 –

ablaze, alluring, angelic, beguiling, bewitching, captivating, come-hither, consuming, devouring, dreamy, enticing, entrancing, erotic, inviting, irresistible, liquid, love-struck, loving, luscious, sensual, sensuous, sexy, swooning, sultry, tantalizing, tender, worshipful

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐞, 𝐬𝐢𝐳𝐞, 𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 –

almond-shaped, asymmetrical, bug-eyed, close-set, cross-eye, deep-set, doe, down turned, elongated, enormous, hooded, huge, large, lidded, minuscule, mono-lid, moon-eyed, oval, prominent, protruding, round, slanted, sloe-eyed, small, symmetrical, tiny, uneven, upturned, wide, wide-set.

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 –

all-knowing, angry, anxious, appealing, astonished, astute, bewildered, blank, brooding, candid, cold, commanding, compassionate, confused, cool, convinced, cruel, curious, dazed, dead, dopey, disappointed, disappointment, disapproval, disapproving, disbelief, disbelieving, discerning, disdainful, dull, dumbfounded, emotionless, expectant, fearful, fierce, fiery, frightened, genuine, grave, hollow, honest, hopeful, impassioned, impassive, imploring, innocent, intelligent, intense, intent, irritated, jovial, judgmental, keen, knowing, laughing, lecherous, let down, melancholy, mischievous, mocking, mournful, pensive, playful, pleading, proud, puzzled, questioning, quizzical, rebellious, reflective, remorseful, restless, resigned, resolute, sad, sarcastic, sardonic, seductive, shocked, shrewd, skeptical, sleepy, startled, sorrowful, stern, stunned, surprised, sympathetic, teasing, thoughtful, trusting, trustworthy, unreadable, unwavering, veiled, weary.

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐞 –

amber, black, blue, blue-green, blue-gray/grey, brown, clear, cloudy, copper, dark, deep, emerald green, golden, green, gray/grey, hazel, heterochromia, light, murky, pale, pearly, pink, red, sky blue, steel blue, violet, yellow.

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 –

bat, bawling, blink, close, cross, crying, darting, exploring, flecked, flicker, flutter, focused, follow, glaze over, inspect, linger, motionless, open, pry, rapid blinking, roll, scan, searching, shift, shut, squeeze, tracking, unblinking, unmoving, wander, wandering, weeping, winking.

𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬/𝐩𝐡𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 –

bedroom eyes, cat-like, child-like, deep as the ocean, elevator eyes, feline, foxy, hawk-like, laser-like focus, owlish, pie eyed, puppy dog eyes, raccoon-like, raven-like, reflected in the pool of someone's eyes, saucer-like, shimmering like the sea, tiger-like.

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬/𝐬𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐬 –

allergic, burning, dry, farsighted, itchy, jaundiced, matter, myopic, nearsighted, obscured, pinkeye, scratchy, sensitive, visual impairment, visually impaired.

[psalacanthea]

WiP Wednesday

Because I am a crinimal who has yet to finish this chapter, I shall post a bit extra today. But I AM working on it this week! When I can :)

Here is a little snippet of Phoebe Cousland realizing the things she is starting to resent Duncan for...well, she's already done herself. Being a Warden is complicated. And awkward. Especially when your practicality is at war with your overdeveloped (and somewhat myopic) empathy.

From the Dragon Age: Awakening fic found here!

...

Everyone had a bottle close to hand, which Phoebe felt conflicted about.

Survival needed a sober companion.  But…sometimes instead survival needed a companion able to keep moving on, no matter what it took.  The Blight had taught her that.  It was…regrettably why she put up with Oghren’s drinking more than she should.

She had seen all the horrors that haunted him first hand.

But Phoebe needed to find a line where helping didn’t become hurting in the end.

“Where is Justice?” Phoebe asked, approaching the circle of mismatched seats worriedly.  Hopefully they weren’t shunning him.  He deserved companionship after what he’d been through.

Everyone around the fire glanced up at her, faces glowing in the light.

The sudden surge of guilt that washed through her made it hard to smile, but she did her best.  

“He’s patrolling and gathering up skulls to bury.  He wanted to.” Sigrun said, leaning back from the pot bubbling over the stove.  Her plated boots clanked together as they left the ground, the dwarven woman briefly balancing on her hands.  The bark under her hands crackled lightly, her log seat shifting.  “Woah!”

Velanna lifted a hand, clenching her fist.  Vines swarmed up from the packed earth, catching the log and rolling it back to anchor to the earth.  Sigrun blinked, swaying as she barely steadied herself, bark fragmenting under her fingers.  Anders reached out for her shoulder, keeping her upright.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Wow!  Yeah,” Sigrun said, giving a little shake of her head.    Her boots thudded back on the ground.  “Thanks!  I’m used to things being a bit heavier.  Wood’s much lighter than stone.  Everything up here feels so…”  She gestured vaguely.

“Unsteady?” Phoebe asked, feeling an odd sense of understanding.

Sigrun smiled up at her, tattooed lines shifting.  “Yeah.  It’s kind of nice.”

“It’s something I…” Phoebe glanced around, aware that everyone was looking at her again.  When she spoke, they all looked right at her.  She flushed, feeling unaccountably awkward with that idea– the implied leadership.  Maker, she’d condemned them to death.

And that was putting it mildly.

“It’s…nothing at all.” She shook her head.

Narrowed in on her own life, suffering, and duty, Phoebe had ignored what life was for others.  Danger and struggle were ordinary parts of life for others, and she’d been so, so spoiled.  Naivete had killed so many.  She’d been a fool for Thomas, and it’d destroyed her.  Father had trusted Rendon Howe, and it had destroyed everyone in Highever, not only her family.

She would say ‘except Fergus’, but Phoebe still wasn’t sure if she had her brother back, or only a shell.

Maybe he had been destroyed.

She’d been so fixated all this time on her family, on the Howes, without even thinking about all the other lives that were just as ruined.  Some of them she had ruined herself.  Of course she had seen the necessity of Wardens, and what happened when they weren’t at strength…

“Are you all right?”  Anders asked, cutting into Phoebe’s morose staring into the fire.

With a blink she immediately started moving towards the nearest seat she found, at the end of a log.  “I…nothing.”  What had she been doing?  Blessed Andraste, was Phoebe going mad?  “Nothing at all.”

“I think you answered a different question than I asked,” Anders said, puzzled.

She wanted to blurt it out, to shout ‘I’m sorry for killing you!’ from the top of her lungs…but if they rebelled, would she be left alone?  Phoebe had seen the Blight.  There was absolutely no way she would ever let it happen again.  Is this what necessity was?

“Were we playing a game?”

Her voice was high, brittle, and foreign.

Something brushed her hand, breaking into her strange, stilted bubble, shattering it.  A bottle bumped her knuckles, and her head jerked up, eyes wide.  Phoebe inhaled.  

Glancing from the bottle, up the arm, and then finally to Nathaniel’s face, she felt unaccountably awkward.  Still, Phoebe took it from him, lifting it to her lips for a sip.  It wasn’t very good, but that was what she deserved right now.

“We are trying to relax, I am told,” Velanna spoke up, almost pitying her if not for how matter-of-fact her voice was.  “I still don’t understand the rules enough.  I’m not certain how to tell who wins.”

“It isn’t a game you play to win,” Anders said.  Then he paused, clasped his chin, and mused, “or is it.”

“It is a game you play to humiliate people for fun,” Nathaniel said succinctly, extending his hand to Phoebe without looking at her.

She pretended she didn’t see it, and took another sip from his bottle.  It wasn’t terrible.  Mostly whisky, Phoebe thought.  Living in Starkhaven had a way of doing that to people, from what she’d heard. Unfortunate that it was hard to get good whisky around here.

“What game is it?” Phoebe asked, still further back in the conversation.  “How can you have a card game that no one wins?”