#Rachel can have little a validation as a treat?

[fictionaltrvlr]

Roman Empire this, Roman Empire that. I don’t really think I have a Roman Empire-

The Overwhelming Hatred of Rachel Zegler

This rising star of a 22 year old woman is being torn apart by men and women alike and I’m so tired of it.

I’m disgusted by the amount of hate she’s getting and you best believe I’m gonna lay it out. I’ve tried to organize this but I’m really tired so bear with me.

Main Controversy

Her saying that it’s no longer 1937 and Snow White doesn’t need to be saved by the prince is not her saying that women can’t want to have a husband or a family. Simply that they don’t need a man to give them value.

And to be clear, yes, okay? Yes. Women should be allowed to soft, they can want families, they don’t need to be badass to be happy. They can fit “traditional” roles. Women can want different things. Meg March, the icon that she is, “just because my dreams are different than yours doesn’t mean they’re unimportant.” 100% yes. But Rachel wasn’t saying otherwise.

She said the prince was a bit of a stalker so they’re not doing that this time… and yes? The prince was weird. I thought we agreed on that. Snow White was 14 in the original and got kissed while she was unconscious by an adult man… but sure, ✨iconic✨.

And it’s fine if you don’t like the *apparent* girlbossification of Snow White, but people are acting like Rachel wrote the movie?? Did it ever occur to people that maybe Disney wants the “girlboss independent woman who doesn’t need a man” picture presented?

She’s doing press for the movie, is she maybe taking the direction Disney gave her?? Also… we. haven’t. seen. the. movie. The teaser only just came out!

Strike Comments

Her comments being popularized during the strike is already suspicious enough. Is it not in the studio’s interests to portray the strike and those taking part in it as unreasonable?

Her saying she deserves to be paid fairly for the hours she spends in a dress playing an iconic Disney character is completely valid. She wasn’t saying she’s the most amazing actress ever or that she plays the hardest roles or does the most complicated stunts. Just that she deserves fair pay… like every other striking actor and writer??

Childhood Relationship With The Character

Her saying that Snow White scared her as a child and she didn’t revisit it until she got cast. Why does that matter so much?? There were scary things in that movie! The witch, the poison apple, the forest coming to life and trying to grab her.

Tastes change as we grow and Rachel has shared her excitement about getting to play the character now.

She was a child. *screaming*

The Extremely Different Treatment Men Receive in The Same Situations

May I present, Robert Pattinson?? Mr I hate these books and felt like I shouldn’t be reading them?? Mr Edward is creepy?

He mocked and joked about the Twilight series every chance he got and people ate it up. They loved it and still do. He’s funny, he’s confident, he’s so real for that.

Harrison Ford wanted his character to die off and said it had run its course. He was praised for his humour and honesty.

Oh but Rachel is ungrateful. She’s rude, she’s cringe, she’s mean, she’s annoying. She’s irredeemable, she’s overbearing, she’s smug, off putting. There’s just something about her that we don’t like…

She’s pitted against other successful women, like Halle Bailey. She’s pitted against Kristen Stewart. Against Elle Fanning, Jenna Ortega. Ignoring, may I point out, how hated so many of these women have been at the different points in their careers?

This is how Brie Larson is being treated and now she wants to leave Marvel too.

Women can be sarcastic. They can joke and speak their minds. They don’t have to package every thought with a pretty little bow so it’s palatable to you.

Rachel’s statements are being misinterpreted and twisted. But on top of that, even if she was what people are saying, have we forgotten about Tom Cruise? Leonardo DeCaprio?

These men are insufferable and problematic and yet some of the biggest names in the industry and, again, confident. Boss. In charge. Charismatic. Not annoying, not petty, not “oh you should be grateful you have anything!!”

Let me pull out Taylor Swift for a hot second because she does a wonderful job of describing the different ways we talk about men and women.

A man does something and it’s strategic. A woman does the same thing and it’s calculated. A man is allowed to react, a woman can only overreact. […] A man shares his experience in writing and he’s brave. A woman does the same thing and she’s over sharing, she’s over emotional, watch out!

America Ferrera when she said that the only difference between being bossy and being a boss is that one is a woman.

People need to listen to “All American Bitch” again -

I know my place, I know my place, and this is it! I don't get angry when I'm pissed I'm the eternal optimist I scream inside to deal with it All the time I'm grateful all the time I'm sexy, and I'm kind I'm pretty when I cry Oh, all the time I'm grateful all the time

And not that women need to be grateful because they don’t, but just to be clear, she is grateful.

She has expressed how lucky she was to get Shazam and how much she enjoyed it and made amazing friends. She was excited to play her version of Snow White. She shared pictures of herself as a child dressed as Snow White. She’s thrown herself into it.

Conclusions

Hate trains fun, I get it. But let’s not pile on young women when they’ve not even done anything wrong. Question why all of a sudden everyone hates this person, what are the facts, what else is going on, what confirmation bias do we have?

There is something so much worse to me about seeing other women tear her down. Like yeah, men will be pigs, but what are you doing? It’s so sad.

And women like hunting witches too, doing your dirtiest work for you, it’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together… (Mad Woman, Taylor Swift)

Rachel seems like such a joyful person and people are out here bullying her like she kicks puppies on the weekends.

Claiming to be a feminist because you want a wide variety of princesses (ie, ones that get saved by their prince), and then sending death threats to another woman for possibly appearing as though she holds a different opinion about one princess - is not only a contradiction, it’s just baffling.

Anyway stan Rachel Zegler

That’s my speech, please do contribute collaboratively if you want :).

[tallerthantale]

On False Memories

There is another moment around Scarlett's allegations I want to expand on. It does come from bits where Tortoise is doing the pseudo attribution thing, so keep in mind we don't have the exact wording used by Gaiman or his lawyers, we have Tortoise's characterization of what has been said. I am going to go forward on the working assumption that it is a generally accurate representation of what was said to Tortoise.

"Rachel Johnson: Neil Gaiman’s account suggests we should treat Scarlett’s allegations with caution, as they first surfaced when she was hospitalized, he says, for the treatment of a condition that’s associated with false memories. But we know her allegations pre-date her admission to hospital. Scarlett’s medical records also show us that Neil Gaiman’s claim that Scarlett has a serious preexisting medical condition to be false. According to her records, she presented as a genuinely high risk of suicide and was discharged after recovering overnight.

Rachel Johnson: There’s no mention, even in her previous medical history, of any condition like the one Neil Gaiman claimed in his account. The only medication she was on was the sleeping pill Zopiclone."

The things about this series of claims that jump out at me might be a bit different than what other people would be paying attention to, so I want to explain what stands out to me and why. But we are going to need to do a little bit of background first. Getting into this is a big ass can of worms, but I'm going to see if I can do a bit of a cliff notes version.

The underlying issue is that a propensity to develop 'false memories' is a disposition that all humans have. That's just normal brain functioning. It isn't a condition you will find in diagnostic manuals because it is the condition of being a human. It's hard for people to process and accept that knowledge, because everyone hates it. Doesn't make it any less true. Functionally everything you consciously remember is a post hoc reconstruction to suit the needs of your current situation.

Under normal circumstances this does not account for things like spontaneously constructing major sexual assaults into existence. That's not a thing, but not having the memory in the front of your conscious experience for years, and then remembering that you have that memory later when it's triggered is a thing.

For most people, most of the time, the shifts of constructed memories are things like your brain not bothering to pay attention to what color someone's shirt was, and making it up later to have a cohesive memory. It would account for something like a person thinking they said no louder than they did, which shouldn't be relevant anyway. It could account for thinking you stated a boundary very clearly, but when you look at the message later it's actually ambiguous.

Ideally, the needs of the current situation are to remember what actually did happen. Unfortunately memory can be highly vulnerable to suggestion in the name of preserving continuity. This why police will do things like shouting "stop resisting" while beating up someone who isn't resisting. People absolutely will form a memory of the person resisting to make it make sense. Not because they have a specific condition, because that's how brains work. The counter to this is for the general public to understand that it 'makes sense' for the police to engage in that deceptive strategy. Once that is widely known bystanders will be more likely to remember the events for what they were.

In moments of high emotional distress people's minds generally prioritize 'making myself feel better' as the main need of the current situation. What it makes a person feel better to remember is going to be very context dependent. One day it might be what validates seeing themselves as a victim, the next it might make them feel better to frame themselves as in control of the situation by seeing themselves as a villain. Both genuine victims and genuine perpetrators can cycle through both perceptions. Shifting reframing of memory to form a narrative can occur to all sorts of things in all sorts of scenarios. These are examples of what's called cognitive distortions. Learning about how they work does not prevent them from happening. They exist in all people. Yes, even you, yes, even me.

However, if a person's emotional regulation is shit, and / or they are stuck in a childlike mode of emotional development, these mechanisms can be more dramatic and reaching. One of the most common folk psychology (popularly believed psychology misinformation) things I run into is people attributing cognitive distortions solely and specifically to people with Cluster B personality disorders.

I see a lot of people start learning about Cluster B and then very quickly start seeing signs of Cluster B everywhere. I think that is because they are largely learning from people who fixate on 'warning about of the dangers of Cluster B people,' describe Cluster B mostly in terms of cognitive distortions, and then frame those cognitive distortions as more or less 'the thing Cluster B people do.' People who get their information from that sort of content start looking IRL and immediately see them everywhere, but it's because literally everyone has cognitive distortions all the time.

My first impression of the "condition associated with false memories" line was that it looked to me like Gaiman was trying to claim that Scarlett was a narcissist and / or borderline off of a poor understanding of those conditions. If Gaiman thinks false memories are 'the thing Cluster B people do,' Gaiman using that narrative fits with claiming she was hospitalized on suicide risk due to the condition and him associating the condition with false memories.

I didn't see anything in the fake therapist's videos or ramblings that looked like he was in the dark triad fandom, (my name for people with strong folk psychology attitudes about Cluster B personality disorders) but it is certainly possible he is. The book that conspicuously popped up on Neil's... amazon reading list? something like that? a while back was a book about getting out of relationships with narcissists.

The other side of the false memories issue is that certain types of hypnotherapists claim to be able to recover memories of childhood abuse through hypnotism. This is a very bad idea to try to do for multiple reasons. While there is evidence that these hypnotherapies result in a person having more memories after than they did before, those memories are post hoc reconstructions, because that is what all memories are. And those post hoc reconstructions are vulnerable to suggestion, particularly surrounding the needs of the immediate situation and continuity.

If the explicit goal of the therapy is to hypnotize a person into a heightened state of vulnerability to suggestion specifically so that they can remember a specific thing, there is little reason to believe any particular memory 'recovered' by a hypnotherapist has anything to do with reality. What ads another layer to the horrifying is that since there is no neurological difference between a false memory and a real one, a hypnotherapist 'recovering' false memories of trauma will create trauma that is just a real as if those things did actually happen.

Neil's fake therapist and the communities he is connected to might have some overlap with the people who still think hypnotherapists doing traumatic memory recovery is a good idea. it's the flavor of pseudoscience they seem to be running on. It is also possible he is more aware of the dangers of hypnotherapists because he has encountered them and bothered to do a bit of reading.

Since he is not actually a real mental health professional and is in community with pseudoscientists, he could have ended up with an overinflated sense of how common hypnotherapist nonsense is, and he may not realize how much policy and training and best practices go into preventing real mental health professionals that work at hospitals from planting suggested memories.

From his own message to Scarlett, he was wildly reckless as to the risk that he might be planting suggestions himself, (assuming that wasn't the intention) in ways a trained professional would know not to do. While many things about him set off red flags, this point was the biggest, and what made me immediately inclined to prompt a license review, which started the 'he doesn't actually have one' rabbit hole.

"A condition associated with false memories" sounds to me like they are trying to diagnose her with a Cluster B personality disorder. Trying to time the origin of the claims to the hospitalization could be an argument that Scarlett was implanted with false memories of the content of the allegations by irresponsible crisis workers. It looks to me like the reasoning of a person who read a few bits and pieces of real things in isolation and put them together into a dangerously inaccurate mess. Which is the sort of thing that can happen when unqualified people LARP as therapists. Or as Cluster B experts.

If the "condition associated with false memories" claim is referring to Cluster B and tracks back to Wayne and his phone call with Scarlett, that would be very gross on a lot of levels. Wayne is not qualified to do that, you really can't diagnose personality disorders off a single session even if you are qualified, Wayne had a preexisting investment in the situation before talking to Scarlett, Wayne did not have her as a proper client, Wayne would have been passing information about his opinions on Scarlett to a different person after claiming to be speaking in confidence, ect.... I can't say if that's what happened, but if it did happen I would have some choice words to say to him about that. On top of the ones I already have.

There is a conversation between a civil lawyer and a psychologist about a lot of these topics on youtube from when they were looking at the Marylin Manson case. It goes over a lot of the issues around false memories if people want to listen through it. It's a bit over an hour. I have mixed feelings about the lawyer in question, (and you probably don't want to look at the chat) but the psychologist is very qualified and knows what he's talking about.

[dyad-tmesis]

going feral over your fusion au its so unique! do you have any little funfacts/random info bits about the au? id love to hear them!!

Oh why thank you! I love when people froth at the mouth over my stuff 💕 y’all are too sweet

Ohohohoh boy alright here’s some little bits of ideas I had for the fused au

So as said before Jekyll and Hyde are still separate people, they have aspects that resemble a system with perma co-fronting to it (I’m not a system myself but I always try to double check with my partner who is part of one to make sure I’m not doing anything dumb with this. If there’s anything at all that seems inaccurate or anything like that feel free to let me know. I just included it because I feel it’s the best way to explain how they function in this state)

Again as mentioned before they have their own separate voices and are fully capable of taking turns speaking with said voices, however if they become stressed or can’t decide the right words to say right away they’ll just start talking over eachother as seen in the comic with Jasper. When they get tired or unfocused they have a habit of mumbling to themselves.

They upgraded pronouns lol, he/him and they/them

Early on when they were still freshly fused Hj7 would leak every now and again from their face, hence the stains you see on their shirt in the comic (“mom I frew up :(“)

Taking the Hj7 does pretty much nothing now apart from a small boost in their stamina, boost in strength, and some leaking from the face, splitting the human soul involved tapping into the bodies hidden strengths after all

Both Jekyll and Hyde have equal control over their body, so sometimes there are moments where Hyde will use one hand to reach for something shiny to steal observe and Jekyll uses the other hand to swat it away

Their current height is somewhere between the two of them, so their clothes are either just a smidge too big or a smidge too small. Hyde likes to look like a Christmas themed disaster while Jekyll tries to give their now mixed wardrobe some cohesion (with Rachel’s help)

Since they’re both technically in a new body and both are experiencing things at once they can sometimes get sensory overload

Once things calm down it’s more or less a “this is our get along shirt” sort of deal and are forced to confront how unfairly they’ve both been treating eachother, this was all caused by Jekyll trying to permanently get rid of Hyde after all.

While Hyde is still technically a part of Jekyll they’ve spent a whole two years growing in different directions as people, they have the same roots but their branches are entirely different and can’t assimilate back together seamlessly (which is something that I always disagreed with when looking at other fused aus, they’re still all cool and valid tho)

They develop a habit of biting their lip in order to prevent themselves from unintentionally speaking with both voices, they can now also have proper internal dialogue together but sometimes that’s hard to keep quiet.

I already like the ASD hcs (may or may not be projecting) people give the two of them so…they like to stim

I think that wraps it up for now! If you have any specific questions about some of this stuff ask away

[self-winding]

Recently, I’ve been hearing Rachel Dolezal mentioned again in relation to identity issues.

I’m actually pretty sympathetic to the concept of transracialism, I think she is just a uniquely bad poster child for it because her identity seems so bound up in “political” blackness and the need to feel oppressed. 

But if you accept that race is a social and cultural construct rather than an immutable physical reality which flows out of biological ancestry, the idea that someone’s race can be negotiable and at least partly based on their social/cultural reality, rather than purely on ancestry, seems pretty straightforward.

I don’t remember the dude’s name but I remember reading an article about a musician with Eastern European ancestry who was fairly dark-skinned and had grown up in a predominantly black community.  Even though none of his ancestors were from Africa, he was perceived as black and saw himself as black.  And that’s not even going into mixed-race people who can pass as either/or.  Even more so than sex or gender, racial categories are very fuzzily defined and porous.

I guess (to state the obvious) the more controversial aspects of “transracialism” come in when people whose natural appearance is more stereotypically white start modifying that appearance to look more black, as Dolezal did.  I will admit that this is more viscerally uncomfortable to me than an AMAB person wanting to present in a very feminine way, and of course there’s the association with blackface performances, but gut feelings are just gut feelings.  Every attempted argument I’ve seen for why these things are different takes one of two tactics:

1.  Transmedicalism; “it’s different because being transgender is a diagnosable medical condition, and transracialism is not.  There’s currently no body of research to support the idea.”  The obvious drawback to this is that a lot of trans people also don’t buy into the transmedicalist framework and consider it pretty limiting.  There are large numbers of trans people it excludes.

2.  Authenticity-by-oppression.  Trans women “catch up” to cis women pretty quickly in terms of the types of discrimination they experience, and might even outpace them, whereas a Rachel Dolezal probably doesn’t experience the same degree of discrimination as someone who naturally looks very black.  There are obvious issues with this framing as well, in that it treats the “realness” of someone’s identity as purely defined by oppression.  If trans women stop being oppressed do they stop being “real women”?

So, does this mean I think Dolezal is “valid”?  I mean, there’s plenty about her as a person that I find objectionable.  But just asking, “Is Dolezal ‘really’ black?” implicitly buys into the idea that “black” is an immutable metaphysical category.  Scientifically, it’s not.  Socially and culturally, it is (at the very least) kind of hard to define in any rigid way, so we’re reduced to a kind of “I know it when I see it, and that’s not it” way of thinking, but that way of thinking has plenty of obvious pitfalls.  My brain still has trouble accepting that a tomato is a fruit and that Pluto is not a planet.

If I allow myself to play devil’s advocate to myself:  Yes, I do subscribe to the common sense definition that if you’re going to call yourself black you should have at least a little African ancestry, but how much is “a little”?  I mean, technically we all have African ancestry.  Also I know jack shit about how DNA works, beyond what I learned in my high school biology classes.  All right, so if you’re going to call yourself black, you should be able to pass as black without modifying your appearance too much...but what is “too much”?  Do dreads count, does a perm count, does a tan count?  Well, you can do what you like with your appearance as long as your primary motive isn’t to appear black...but okay, now we’re talking about subjective, wobbly stuff like motive and it’s getting very tricky.

Idk man.

[tangiblejournal56]

7/13/11

Trying to overcome this loneliness that hits me when I’m sleeping alone, & instead searching for solace in it.  It’s a tough & as yet unsuccessful transition.

Max making mention of his friend Brandon’s crush on me from the one time he, Max, Rachel & I were hanging out, months ago.  Asked him why he took so long to tell me of his friend’s crush, he mumbled some half-assed excuse, “I didn’t think you’d like him,” etc.  While it is true that I have no interest in Brandon, that wouldn’t have stopped Max from telling me.  Significance?  His need for me not to have anyone but him, juxtaposing his inability to have or acknowledge any romantic feelings for me.  Will I wait around forever, until he no longer needs me, has found someone he can let himself love without feeling like an idiot?  I would do anything for him, but what will that cost me, all of that struggle to put him back together enough for him to be able to open himself up to someone, & then I’m to be left again all by myself?  Not certain I’m strong enough for that inevitable outcome, I can’t steel myself so easily to a loveless existence as he can.  I want nothing more than to help him find  a way to thrive, but my small modicum of self-worth I’ve forged finally won’t allow me to be so resigned to such a self-destructive course.  And still yet my indefatigable damned naïveté keeps the flicker of hope that all my selfless work to help him will cause him to love me.  Which then turns me against myself in self-loathing over having to work so hard for his love, as I am so apparently unworthy of it.  I do believe him to be out of my league & lightyears better than myself, but at the same time, am I not also worthy of love?  My flaws are evident, yes, just as anyone else’s are, but I do have some good qualities, strong ones, & though I would never win any contests, my physical self is far from grotesque, some days even appealing.  I am not always a great person, but not so bad as to believe I don’t deserve love, even his.

And then I remember how I treated him in our relationship, & I realize why I would have to prove myself to him, why it would be my penitence to do all of that work & in the end still find myself alone.  Because I helped to break him.  And even after all of the work I still would not deserve him.  I was no better than all of those other forces & persons I despise so much for hurting him, killing the good in him, the optimism & idealism so deeply hidden behind his shell.  No one, not even his friends, see that optimism because it doesn’t fit their image of him as the sarcastic, surly, drunk curmudgeon.  I am maybe the only person not trying to fit him into this niche, this little box with its precise & indisputable description.  He is far too vast & encompassing to be in such a box; he contains multitudes, like anyone else.  But unlike anyone else, he shows this self to a very few.  I am as yet the only audience I know of.  He doesn’t just gift that self to anyone, you have to work to earn it, should you want it badly enough.  For my part, constant but subtle convincing of him that I want to know him entirely, without agenda or judgment, has helped me get inside.  It can’t be all, but it goes a long way.  There has also got to be a certain compatibility, he has to feel you’re akin to him, he has to respect your views & ethics & what he believes your character to consist of.  We think similarly, but with enough variation that we can offer each other alternate yet valid viewpoints.  I am as yet unaware of what exactly it is that I encompass that I am the only one he’s let in.  That is not exaggeration nor false modesty.  He has told me countless times over the past two years that he can open up to no one else, something so deeply flattering & at the same time so heart-wrenchingly sad.  And yet still, something I’ve never fully understood, as there cannot be anything so different about me than all the friends he’s ever had, all of the girlfriends.  This singling out is a large part of why I can never fully believe that he will never love me, that we will never end up together.  That & his either inability or refusal to end our emotional & physical relationship when I couldn’t hide that it was causing me to fall in love with him again, even after him telling me multiple times nothing will come of it.  Max is not the sort to let someone throw themselves away on an impossibility, even over himself, especially someone who means so much to him.  Proof of that in our relationship, in his & his ex’s relationship.  So how do I not read into his actions & interpret some kind of future between us?

I want so badly to believe him, to be free of this chaining of myself to him as it causes me so much pain.  But that belief is there, & to imagine a life without him is terrifying.  A such as he says I give him, he opens entire universes in me I wouldn’t have believed available to me otherwise.  He gives me self-worth, he gives me permission, he doesn’t even realize.  A relationship so beneficial & symbiotic, & yet he feels nothing for me?  I have such a hard time comprehending & accepting that.

In the end, I will do whatever is necessary to help him.  I don’t give a care to what it will do to me.  He is far more important than any self-preservation.

[sheshallfromtimetotime]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Farscape Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: John Crichton & Aeryn Sun, John Crichton/Aeryn Sun Characters: John Crichton, Aeryn Sun Additional Tags: Angst, but like... the melancholy kind, not the big dramatic kind, Friendship, Pining, Episode: s04e13 Terra Firma, John and Aeryn are frustrated and sad, but hopeful?, yeah hopeful, Hurt/Comfort, of a sort Summary:

John and Aeryn talk about the weather - and maybe more - late at night during Terra Firma.

I feel kind of silly -- this has been on AO3 for nearly nine months -- but whatever! I don't think I ever shared it here and I like it more and more with time, so here we are.

[lipstickchainsaw]

Since there was some discussion about Brian and Taylor’s relationship going around, I want to give my own two cents.

Taylor and Brian were a much better fit when they met than they were when they actually got together.

Brian is a young man who’s really struggling with his masculinity. He doesn’t want to be his dad, a man who’s lost all the warmth in his heart and doesn’t really know how to engage with people, and Aisha has already warned him that he’s starting to act like the abusive asshat that terrorised them both and got Brian to trigger. He’s tried to conceptualise his masculinity into his leadership of the Undersiders to some degree, but, well, that’s not really working.

Alec is a little shit who has to be dragged kicking and screaming into taking any kind of responsibility, and he’s perfected a social strategy where he makes every one of these interactions too tedious to bother with. Lisa is obviously not a follower type either, and I don’t think Brian’s ever under any illusion that he can really tell her what to do. Hell, she’s the only one in contact with their boss, which obviously influences their dynamic regardless. They’re partners at best.

Rachel is even worse. To get her to even listen to him he feels like he has to become the exact kind of asshole he hates and he’s actively trying to get away from, but he doesn’t see any other options for dealing with her, because he doesn’t understand her and doesn’t know where to start. This inability to understand someone else’s point-of-view also plays a part in his attempt at getting custody over Aisha, simply because he doesn’t seem to have taken her wants into account when putting together their living space.

Then in comes this competent, thoughtful newbie, and by god she looks up to him. She treats him like the leader he wants to be, she actually listens to him when he’s sharing his insights and perspective. She basically validates the fuck out of him and the image of positive masculinity he wants to project. She might not be very attractive, really, but by god she feels a deep need inside him.

On Taylor’s part, she’s been horribly isolated and her self-esteem has been beaten into a million pieces. She’s still trying very hard to take seriously everything she gets involved with, but it’s leading to nothing but frustration every time because her bullies find some way to ruin things for her. Her cape life is her last ditch attempt to have something that actually works out for her.

And in steps this professional, capable, engaged (and also very handsome) guy who instantly praises her for her foresight in taking a first aid class, who works with her, and, on their third meeting, tells her he wants her on the team over one of his current teammates. It’s like crack to her socially isolated mind, so naturally she’s absolutely smitten with him.

Now, would this relationship have worked out long-term? Probably not, they’re teenagers in their first relationship, meeting a very basic need in each other that they would eventually grow out of. But who knows! Maybe they’d find a way to have their relationship grow along with them!

Of course, Taylor then messes this up by forcing a kiss on him, and Brian kind of messes it up by not quite understanding his own feelings on the matter, because, in part, he doesn’t know what liking someone is, and he also kind of wishes Aisha would look to him the way Taylor does, so naturally he puts Taylor in the sister zone.

By the time they get together, though, things have changed a lot for both of them.

Brian has obviously gone through something horribly traumatic, and he’s even less able to be the man he wants to be. Other people are now needing to take care of him, and he’s not sure how to behave in that kind of situation. He feels helpless and useless, and this isn’t helped by Taylor going so deep into the cape life that he simply can’t keep up anymore.

He tries to advise her to slow down, to take her time, but he’s constantly ignored (if there’s one issue I have with @incorrect-wormquotes it’s that those quotes often give the ‘common sense’ lines to Lisa - the enabler in chief who criticises Taylor exactly once at the start of arc 30 - instead of Brian, who’s canonically the always-ignored straight man), and simply isn’t really taken seriously anymore.

He clings to Taylor because she’s there, and willing to help him out, but it’s far removed from what he wanted.

And on Taylor’s part, well, her priorities have shifted. She’s fully committed to the cape life, and she’s dealing with both her territory and her big Dinah rescue mission. Her boyfriend doesn’t end up even close to the top of the list. Brian needs serious psychological help and she just... doesn’t really get to it, which is a shame, especially when contrasted with the help she gave to Rachel before, helping her turn from basically feral into the core of a marginalised community that lasts all the way through Ward.

And Taylor just... doesn’t respect him anymore. She blows off all his advise and criticism, and whenever she needs emotional help, Brian literally only beats Alec on the list of people she’d go to for help. She trusts Rachel and Lisa more with this than she trusts Brian (there’s a reason those ships are so popular!) Brian ends up by the wayside, almost more of a trophy than an actual boyfriend to her girlboss lifestyle.

Thankfully they actually break up before she abandons them to go save the world or whatever.

[shizukateal]

Lore Olympus Fast-Pass thoughts (211)

The cloud bursts. A bunch a' character analysis below.

Ok, starting good. Tearful reunion, that deflates things a little.

Oh damn? Turns out Hades and Cerbie could communicate telepathically all this time.

KRONOS HURT HIM WITH HADES' BODY??? I hope that bastard is rotting in Tartarus' stomach acid. Slowly and painfully.

Who was Cerbie's father again? I know he has a brother and I think his mother was Echidna???? Or Delphine? Was he one of Typhon's kids?

Snoots <3

I wish I could feel the tiniest bit less satisfied by Demeter making that face due to this completely predictable response. Her situation really is sad when you think about it, but...

Denial will only get you so far, Dems.

So will blatant, patronizing lies.

See, she keeps insisting that Hades only wants Perse as a crown jewel, but she wants her as a bonsai. Something meant to grow big stuffed and forced to conform to a small pot. Technically functional, but mostly a decoration to be tended to. Her daughter has just rattled of about how she literally just made a new important feature for one of the 3 godly realms, but that's just "rehabilitation". Like she just did a few hours of community service, not an accomplishment or something that needs her care specifically.

I mean, Hera is treated like a crown jewel by Zeus, so that's another point for her reasonable suspicions, but at the same time... again, I'm sorry if this is overly harsh, but I find it a bit hypocritical of her to accuse Hades of using her daughter as an emotional salve when she admitted during the trial that she had her because she was lonely. This situation is not word-for-word exactly like the original myth, where it was a completely valid interpretation that Persephone got forced into her role against her will, she is choosing to stay with Hades and she makes it clear that Demeter could be part of her happiness too. If she's going to kill a bunch of mortals with eternal winter and not do her job just because Persephone's outgrown her, then who is she really an emotional crutch for?

Hmm, so we are addressing Minthe first.

I think I remember that Rachel said on a tweet that she had finished writing the character arc of a character... for some unknown reason my mind went to Artemis first, but this makes a lot more sense. At least I really hope so.

I think I made my stance clear in the first one of these I made, but just to recap: I have enjoyed hating Minthe as a villain, but I also believe that she can and deserves to get better, whether you or Hades can forgive her or not. If she ends her story in a better place, at peace with herself then I will downright throw her a party and congratulate Rachel on writing such an utterly satisfying character.

[tuiyla]

The New Directions ranked by how much hatred for them baffles me

Reverse order to keep it interesting.

13. Finn

No surprise there. The combination of his questionable actions and the disturbing framing is enough to turn me into as much of an anti as I’ll ever be so how could I be surprised when people drag him.

12. Puck

People will never agree on how much an actor should influence how you view a character; I for one think it’s ‘as much as you want it to.’ Some will just never vibe with Puck and I respect that. His creepy in-universe moments don’t make it easier.

11. Artie

It would surprise me if someone has such strong feelings but truth is Artie didn’t get a ton and what he did get included being your local misogynist which wasn’t counterbalanced by a whole lot. Not that I don’t think he has plenty of likable qualities and he’s not all that polarizing but also not popular enough for me to be surprised about negative emotions.

10. Santana

Bet ya didn’t expect that, huh? Well, here I am as your local Santana stan saying that I’m not too surprised by those who happen to hate her. Part of it is expecting contrarians when a character is as popular as she is but part of it is just her occasional status as a villain that is bound to inspire haters. But, if I’m honest, I mostly think it’s contrarianism. Either way, not surprised when I see a strong push for “well but remember when she!!!”

9. Sam

The way his character changed over the years inspires at least some controversy and I feel like it’s easy to find people who are at least a little disgruntled with either version of him. Or people who just never liked him to begin with. Him being hailed as an unproblematic himbo can also inspire counterbalancing.

8. Blaine

We’re entering sort of baffling territory because, while I get why Blaine’s character could be annoying to some on certain levels I have seen levels of anti behaviour that I simply don’t get. Or I just don’t know enough about the intricacies of anti-Blaine reasonings.

7. Brittany

I think it’s easy to not take Brittany’s character as ~intended~ and when you apply a logic to her actions that simply wasn’t there in the writing itself, sure. It still confuses me when she’s treated as some sort of war criminal instead of comic relief and my own bias obviously doesn’t agree with it so I do find it confusing every now and then.

6. Quinn

With her story of many ups and downs and twists and turns she’s bound to be at least a little polarizing but I’ve seen people be so pissed at her, as if they were the not-so baby daddy she had tricked. Quinn will always be a traumatized teen in my eyes, with all her flaws, and it annoys me when people don’t at leats cut her some slack.

5. Rachel

You might think she’s too high on the list but it’s the result of the sheer vitriol the character faces from people who think disliking the central character is the ~cool~ thing to do. Rachel is an intentionally grating character and I get how that’s not endearing when the show loses sight of the point of her story every now and then but I simply don’t think she has any business being as polarizing as she is.

4. Tina

Similarly to Sam, the abrupt change in character was just a no-no for some but criticism against Tina tends to be so lazy I simply can’t give it the benefit of the doubt. “She’s just so annoying” is and has always been my least favourite sentence to hear about a character and I cannot, and will not understand it. What has she done against you?

3. Kurt

The fan favourite aspect, like with Santana, does come up but anti stuff also tends to be a bit more insidious, e.g. borderline or fully homophobic. If your big 2k22 Glee hot take is that Kurt was too much of a gay stereotype I think we’re all begging you to move on. Valid criticisms exist, of course, but the ones I tend to see also tend to be bs that baffles the mind.

2. Mike

It’s hard to rank Mike on any list. To be clear, wholehearted devotion and love confuses me just as much as ardent hatred because, like... what has he done? Seriously, Mike is just not enough of a character in canon to feel that strongly about. If you consider yourself a Mike anti, good for you, but I probably won’t think your reasoning is all that justified.

1. Mercedes

Apart from Quinn, Mercedes was my reason for making this list. There’s simply not a good enough reason to be an actual Mercedes anti and maybe I do make the rules, so that’s that. I can understand being mad that she didn’t get enough but that’s about it. That’s not to say everyone has to stan Mercedes, you do whatever you want. But actively hating her must have a reason and, imo, that reason can hardly be not sus.

[agent-bash]

So can you give me your thoughts on the Upstead marriage please. I Love Upstead, i really do, but I have mixed feelings, I'm just worried that it's too fast. You have such a good take on both characters that I think it might put me at ease.

Well, first, thank you, Nonny, that's very sweet. I'm glad you think my opinion might calm you a little, so I'm going to try my best. It got kind of long, so I'm going to put it under the cut.

Again, I'll preface this by saying that I have a skewed view about the speed of relationships. My grandparents were happily, blissfully married for like 40 years until my grandad passed. They were married less than two months after meeting each other...so take from that what you will. For me, unless there are signs/reasonable suspicion of abuse, speed is probably the last things I will judge in a relationship.

One of the nice things about dating a friend is you get to skip a lot of the early stages of dating. To quote Friends (though I abhor R*ss/Rachel), "It's like starting on the fifteenth date." You know this person already; you're just figuring out how you fit together in a new but similar way. Platonic and romantic relationships are almost two sides of the same coin, IMO. There's a lot of overlap between how you treat a romantic partner and how you treat your friend. It's why close friends can get mistaken for couples. It's something that literally happened to Roomie and me last night and just...no. But it's not the first time, and we know it won't be the last.

So if you told me that after four years of being best friends, that you had started seeing each other and were engaged after 6-8 months and married 10-12 months of being together, I'm not batting an eye.

If it's about them not being open, or admitting, or confessing, or all of the other words I've seen thrown around about them 'hiding' their relationship. It was an open secret that's been established. And it totally fits for them. Because out of everyone on the team, the two people to most likely to not care about anyone's opinion or want outside advice/approval/validation for their relationship, it's Hailey and Jay. They were fine with people knowing, and they all did, we have that confirmation, but that's where it begins and ends. Because their relationship is theirs, and that's actually pretty healthy.

So why should their marriage be any different? I think it's especially important to note the word marriage. That's what Hailey and Jay want. A marriage. A life together, hopefully forever. A wedding is just a means to an end for them; it was always going to be. Because weddings are too much about and for other people. And way too much about putting yourself on display for either of them. In the end, it was a legal necessity (because a courthouse wedding is still a wedding). And honestly, it probably annoyed them more than anything else because it delayed what they wanted and what they felt was really important.

Sure, you can be suspicious of the timing if you want. There's nothing I can say to change that, really. I think the writers made it pretty clear that all of Hailey and Jay's decisions were never 'because of.' That it was all very much about reaching a new level of clarity with every curveball thrown at them. Clarity that only solidified what was most important to them. Each other.

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. is it bad i actually get bored every time hxp interacts in LO? like in the beginning i was excited to see them grow as a couple, but now theyre just boring and repetitive with hades treating her like the overbearing parent but w/ more abuses of power, and persephone is as helpless and static as ever, with flip flopping "naive who needs hades to protect her" to "angry puppy"  like ... is it bad the main selling point is just boring at this point? is that just me?

2. i personally dontt have too harsh of opinions on LO (trust me ive read much worse) but I am very annoyed over how even light critique of it is always bombarded and tried to be silenced out by its rapid fans who refuse to admit or even see its issues. even the stuff I love I can still find faults in it, because nothing is perfect, and most critiques are in good faith and in a nuanced way. The toxic positivity and refusal for actual discussion in the LO fandom is disturbing to say the least.

3. LO Hades is not innocent at all but sometimes I get shocked at how much of Minthe’s behavior is excused by the fandom. She is a nymph and she has a lower status in LO however I’ve always seen her flipping the power dynamic between Hades and her. She’s emotionally and physically abused him. Up to her turning into a plant, she didn’t report Persephone and Demeter because she cared. She just wanted Hades back even though their relationship isn’t good for her. 

4. i dont agree with it but i get why pro-hxo stuff would make bad guys out of zeus, demeter, and minthe, i dont like it and i think its a bad reading of the mythology, but i get it, but apollo?? rachel what popular boy in high school didnt go on a date with you to hold so much ire towards a deity (who doest act like that anyway) who would probably be persephone's annoying friend or childhood crush under a more competent and unbiased writer. i legit dont get why apollo is the villain in her mind.

5. princess bubblegum ran so lo persephone could walk face first into a wall. all pink ladies deserve so much better than this glorified incubator for hades' heirs to be in their ranks.

6. What was the point of the recent episode? Sure it was cute but was that backstory even needed? The whole sequence of hermes stinking and the meet up between him and P could have been told through dialogue and a few panels of it and not taking up most of the episode. The story literally didnt progress

7. In the trial Rachel thinks she has answered the critiques of antis about nepotism, shady tactics, grooming etc but in fact, she didn't give any valid arguments? I wasn't even tempted to change my mind, that's how stupid her answers to our callouts were.

8. There's a lot of issues about LO trying to force all these myths in when they're not needed and ultimately are only diminished for HxP's forced involvement, but also, it's not even using the actual myth HxP were involved in. If it really wanted to do so, it could have used Eros and Psyche (which it tried but it has all but dropped at this point), Sisyphus, Pelops, Triptolemus, even Heracles, yet for some reason it forces in made up plots and unrelated myths. It's really frustrating to read.

9. FP Spoiler

Was Persephone's saying how Minthe is "just a little shorter than you remember" supposed to be funny and a fanservice for all the Minthe haters out there? In what world is it really funny though, turning a humanlike being into a simple, sentient plant without any chance to express herself? I used to think that P is just a spoiled brat with anger issues, but the more I read this story, the more she seems like just to lack empathy. Even her supposed love for humans seems shallow af.

Also the last panel of 179 is so overdramatic and wonky, I think I couldn't dislike a panel more than P's "Puppy!!!"-face, her panic grimace in 178 or Daphne's and Thanatos's kiss, but well, here I am. 

10. Fp spoilers for 179: I agree with a previous anon, the trial is TOO long! I could take four episodes of it max. The whole thing could be split somewhat cause I am tired of seeing the same things happening in the same scenery for god knows how many weeks. 

[galemalio]

3 Examples of Racial Bias in Animation Storytelling

It’s not hard to grasp that a white person, while not explicitly or consciously racist in the sense we might usually imagine, is still inherently racially biased because they benefit from and grow up used to white supremacy.” - Scottishwobbly, Tumblr

This is nothing new. This is something POC (People of Color) have been talking about in separate fandoms. Nevertheless, it needs to be acknowledged by those unaware.

This article is not made to say that some of the animations that I will use as examples are bad. But in the hopes that we, as consumers and creators, will do better in the future in handling characters that are POC. 

Most often, racial bias in storytelling is when the narrative treats white or light skin toned characters better than darker skin toned characters. The darker skin toned characters are often POC-coded or actual POC.

White creators often do not notice their racial bias in their storytelling as they benefit from and grow up with white privileges and white supremacy. This can also apply to light-skinned POC who have light skin priviliges. 

Some of us don’t often see it but real people who relate to the characters of color do. Especially when it reflects from their experiences with racial bias, microaggressions, colorism and flat out racism.

So when they speak up, it’s important to listen to them to unlearn the racial bias we may have in ourselves. 

I will be emphasizing “the narrative” for I am criticizing how the story treats its dark-skinned characters and not because I am criticizing the characters themselves.

This article is critiqued by @visibilityofcolor​ as a sensitivity reader once and then additions were made before publishing. If you’re looking for a Black sensitivity reader, you can contact her. 

This article is a 14-minute read at average speed so buckle up. Unless you want to skip to your show mentioned below. External Tumblr Resources will be put in the reblog.

Here are three examples that I was made aware of. 

Example #1: The Narrative Treats the Light-Skinned Character at the Expense of the Dark-Skinned Character

Steven Universe was one of the animations that pushed lgbt+ representation in cartoon media. However, there are narratives here and there that showed racial bias. 

SU creator Rebecca Sugar was raised with "Jewish sensibilities" and both siblings observe the lighting of Hanukkah candles with their parents through Skype.[1] Rebecca Sugar also talked about being non-binary.[2] 

But as a white person, she (and the rest of the SU crew) is not aware of the inherently biased values from growing up and benefiting from white privilege. 

One example is the human zoo. There are people that have spoken up about this such as @jellyfax​​ of Tumblr who pointed out that the Crewniverse mishandled a loaded topic and reinforced a white colonist propaganda where the captive humans of mostly black/brown people are naive, docile and childlike in order to subjugate the people that they colonized. .

What I’m here is how a character of color from the main cast is more obligated to the lighter-skinned character. 

In the episode, Friend Ship, one fan had spoken out about how Garnet, who had been validly angry at Pearl, was compelled by a dangerous situation to forgive Pearl. Garnet is a Black-coded character. While Pearl is a light-skinned character.  

Garnet was mad at Pearl for tricking her into always fusing with her. Then they were trapped in a chamber that was going to crush them. In this situation, they have to fuse in order to save themselves but Garnet refuses to because she was still angry at her. 

In the end, they were forced to talk it out, for Garnet to understand Pearl’s reason for wanting to fuse with her and everything worked out well.

The narrative focused so much on Pearl’s self-worth issues at the expense of Garnet’s right to be angry. 

Yes, it showed that Pearl is trying her best to make up for it but Garnet should have been allowed to work at her own anger at her own pace instead of being obligated to consider Pearl’s feelings over her own. 

I wouldn’t have noticed it until someone had mentioned it. Because it was never my experience. 

But it’s there, continuing the message that it’s okay to put the emotional labor on Black people and disregard their own feelings for the sake of the non-Black people who have hurt them -particularly light-skinned women. 

White Fragility and Being Silenced White Woman Tears

Again, racial bias in animation storytelling is often not intentional because white creators do not experience it due to white privilege. 

Without meaning to, that scene alone shows Garnet as the Angry Black woman trope that is ungrateful and rude to Pearl who then ends up in tears. Without meaning to, Pearl with her light skin, became the tearful white girl trope that had to be sympathized over.

The Angry Black Woman trope is a combination of the worst negative stereotypes of a Black woman: overly aggressive, domineering, emasculating, loud, disagreeable and uppity.[13] 

The Tearful white girl trope comes from the combination of the stereotypes of white women being morally upstanding and delicate and therefore should be protected.[13] 

Which, unfortunately, many white women have taken advantage of.

These two tropes are harmful to WOC (Women of Color) because they experience the "weary weaponizing of white women's tears". This tactic employed by many white women incites sympathy and avoids accountability for their actions, turning the tables to their accuser and forcing their accuser to understand them instead.

(Image by Виктория Бородинова from Pixabay)

In "Weapon of lass destruction: The tears of a white woman", Author Shay described that white tears turns a white woman into the priority of whatever space she's in. "It doesn't matter if you're right, once her tears are activated, you cease to exist." [11] 

White woman tears have gotten Black people beaten and lynched such as Emmett Till. Carolyn Bryant who had accused 14 year old Emmett Till of sexually harassing her in 1955, admitted she lied about those claims years later in 2007.[15]

In Awesomely Luvvie's "About the Weary Weaponizing of White Women Tears", she states that the innocent white woman is a caricature many subconsciously embrace because it hides them from consequences. [10]

In The Guardian’s article, "How White Women Use Strategic Tears to Silence Women of Colour", Ruby Hamad shares her experience:

"Often, when I have attempted to speak to or confront a white woman about something she has said or done that has impacted me adversely, I am met with tearful denials and indignant accusations that I am hurting her. My confidence diminished and second-guessing myself, I either flare up in frustration at not being heard (which only seems to prove her point) or I back down immediately, apologising and consoling the very person causing me harm."[4]

This is not to say that all crying white women are insincere. But as activist Rachel Cargle said:

“I refuse to listen to white women cry about something. When women have come up to me crying, I say, ‘Let me know when you feel a little better, then maybe we can talk.’”[3]

One of the most quoted words in “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.” is this:

“It is white people’s responsibility to be less fragile; people of color don’t need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible.”[3]  

When white women cry in defense, instead of taking accountability, People of Color are then gaslighted into thinking they’re the bad guy. This is emotional abuse and a manipulation tactic. 

People of Color shouldn’t have to bend backwards to accommodate discomfited white or light-skinned people who have hurt them. 

How She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (SPOP) Did It Right

Despite SPOP having good lgbtq+ representations, there are other biases in the show. Such as Mara, a WOC whose only purpose was to sacrifice herself for the white protagonist. There was also the insensitive joke in their stream regarding Bow’s sibling that perpetuated an Anti-Black stereotype which Noelle Stevenson has apologized for.[14]

But the scene I have encountered where the Black character was validly angry and his feelings were treated well by the narrative, came from SPOP.

Bow, a black character, was validly angry at Glimmer, a lighter skinned character. Glimmer made a lot of bad decisions, one of them was using Adora and their friends as bait, without their knowledge, to lure out and capture Catra.  

Glimmer tearfully apologized in Season 5, Episode 4. Adora readily forgave her. But Bow didn't. 

They faced dangers along the way but the story didn't put them in a dangerous situation where Bow has to forgive Glimmer in order to get out of it. 

This was Glimmer's words of apology:

"Look, I know you're still mad at me. Maybe you'll be mad at me for a really long time. I deserved it. And maybe... maybe we'll never be friends like we used to be. But I'm not going to stop trying to make it better. I made a mistake with the heart of Etheria. I should've listened to you and I'm sorry. You get to be mad. For as long as you need to be. But I'm not going anywhere. And when you're ready, I'll be here."

In short, Bow was allowed to take the time to be mad and not just get over it for someone else’s sake. The story validates his feelings and he was allowed to take his own pace. That is emotional respect the story gave to him.

Example #2: The Narrative Gives Better Endings or Portrayals to Colonizers than Their Victims

Avatar: The Last Airbender has handled dark themes well such as genocide, war, PTSD, disability and redemption with great worldbuilding.

However, I never noticed the racial bias in ATLA until people spoke up of the double standards in ATLA’s treatment of light-skinned colonizers compared to their dark-skinned victims-turned-villains.

The characters in question -Iroh, Azula, Jet and Hama- are all flawed and well-rounded in a believable way. But how the narrative treats them is unequal.

General Iroh is an ex-colonizer who gets to redeem himself and not answer for his past war crimes, living a peaceful life as a tea shop owner. The only reason Iroh changed was when he was personally affected by the negativity of their military subjugation -his son’s death. It wasn’t the harm of the Fire nation ravaging Earth kingdom villages or cities and affecting millions of people that opened his eyes.

Azula, the tyrannical daughter, had closure of her mother's rejection when she was a child and was able to escape imprisonment.

Jet and Hama, victims of colonization who have done bad things, did not get similar conclusions to their stories OR compensation for what they have gone through from the Fire Nation's colonization. 

Jet was given a second chance but was arrested for trying to expose Zuko and Iroh being firebenders -firebenders who were their enemies for conquering their villages. Then he died from the injuries of the person who had brainwashed and mind-controlled him. 

Hama was imprisoned for life. 

Compared to the sins of the light-skinned colonizers, the narrative didn’t give Jet and Hama the development where they could heal from their trauma, receive compensation for what happened to them and really have a chance in life. 

The dark-skinned victims of colonization just became a lesson to the viewers how they shouldn’t hold grudges for being colonized. The end. They have received consequences for their actions but there is no continuation to their stories after that. 

It almost seems like the narrative is saying that because they have harmed colonizers who have no part in their trauma (and in Jet’s case, some Earth kingdom villagers), they are therefore unworthy to be given an actual chance in life. 

While Azula and Iroh, who have actively participated in conquering, colonizing and attacking the Earth Kingdom itself, were.   

Someone once said that if indigenous people have control over Hama’s story, it would have been done differently. But the ATLA crew are white, non-indigenous people who prioritized redeeming colonizers instead.

The narrative has also affected how the ATLA fandom thinks. If most fans are asked who they would want to be redeemed, the popular option would be Azula over Jet or Hama.

Once again, I don’t think the ATLA crew noticed it due to their racial bias. But still, the harm is done and the racially biased message is continued: 

The colonizers and their descendants don’t have to make amends for the colonizers’ crimes. Or if they do, only lightly since it’s in the past (no matter how recent that past is). 

The colonized who rebel will tend to hurt innocent people and then get a grisly end for getting in way over their heads.  

I would venture as far as to say that the narrative may have the  added subconscious desire to quiet their white anxiety on the vengeance of the colonized. As I have learned when writing about Vodou stereotypes and how they have stemmed from the history of white anxiety of Black vengeance, of Black fetishization and of dissolution of the white race through intermarriages.

In @visibilityofcolor’s blog, someone asked:

 “So I saw some of the really heated debates on here and on twitter about how if Iroh and Azula can be portrayed sympathetically despite their actions then characters like Jet and Hama should've been given a chance too. Do you think that the writers understood the implications of only redeeming characters from the colonizer/fascist nation but not giving the characters who suffered because of their fascism a second chance too?”

To which VisibilityOfColor replied:

“No, because at the end of the day, the writers are white. When it comes to stuff like this, it’s no surprise when we see white writers redeem problematic characters before they actually redeem victims of those racist problematic characters. For instance, Dave Filioni, who worked on both avatar and star wars rebels, did the same thing when redeeming agent kallus who was an soldiers in the imperial army and took credit for a genocide. where as victims of the empire were still painted in negative lights. i really don’t think they understand.

They have this ‘be the better person’ view on things, which is what a lot of white people tend to emulate when it comes to people of color standing up to their oppressors. and unfortunately, these are ideas passed on to children, esp minorities. that they should forgive people and communities who hurt them and ‘be the better person’. this is why white ppl don’t need to write narratives for people of color.”

Example #3: The Narrative Favors the Light Skinned Character Than Dark Skinned Character in Similar Situations

I would like to reiterate that racial bias in storytelling is often not intentional. I am not saying the creators and the people who support them are bad people. No.

However, I encourage that once a racial bias is made known in our work, it is our responsibility to change them to stop the perpetuation of its harmful message.

Hazbin Hotel is a popular cartoon with whimsical designs and its concept opens the conversation about redemption. The creator, Vivziepop may not have noticed the racial bias in her cartoon as a white Latina [5] that grew up with and benefits from white privileges, along with the Hazbin crew. 

In the Youtbe video, "Hazbin Hotel - How Art took over Writing", Staxlotl states:

“I understand that there was a lot of time and effort put into this pilot, almost three years worth of effort. But I think most of that time was spent into the art and visuals when it should’ve gone into polishing the writing in the characters.”[6]

Once again, I’m not here to critique the characters but how the narrative treats its dark-skinned characters.

The story treats Charlie, the white-skinned, “Disney-esque” protagonist princess differently from how it treats Vaggie, the dark-skinned, more outspoken and protective Latina girlfriend of Charlie who supports the princess’ cause. 

In its pilot episode, both girls experience humiliation. While Charlie is portrayed by the story as someone the viewers have to feel sorry for...

...Vaggie is portrayed in her humiliation as the butt of the joke for the viewers.

While they both didn’t like what Angel Dust did, Charlie was sympathized over in the narrative as a moment... 

...while Vaggie’s angry but valid callouts were dismissed and ignored as part of the comedy.

While Charlie was someone that needs to be protected in the narrative... 

...Vaggie is left to fend for herself. 

Again, I don’t think the creators noticed the racial bias of their cartoon. However, this racial bias is reflected in the harmful perceptions that dark-skinned women, particularly Black women and Black girls, are more mature, tougher and need less protection at a young age.[7] 

This adultification bias perceives them as challenging authority when they express strong or contrary views and are then given harsher discipline than white girls who misbehave.[8] And this continues when they grow up.

In a 2017 study, Black women and girls aged 12-60 years old confirmed they are treated harsher by their white peers and are accused of being aggressive when they would defend themselves or explain their point of view to authority figures.[8] 

This bias also coincides with the Spicy Latina trope of a brown-skinned, hot-blooded, quick-tempered and passionate woman.

Everyday Feminism described this trope as "Although objects of desire for many, the spicy Latina may have too much personality to handle. So much so that she is often viewed as domineering or emasculating." [16]

Sounds familiar? (Look at Angry Black Woman trope above.)

Why is it that a light-skinned character, Charlie, is allowed to be vulnerable and be sympathized while the dark-skinned Latina character, Vaggie, is mocked, dismissed and expected to tough it out?

Severina Ware had to remind the world in her article that relates to the bias against dark skinned characters:

“Black women are not offered the protection and gentleness of our white counterparts. We are not given permission to be soft and delicate. We are required to exhibit strength and fortitude not only because our lives depend on it, but because so many others depend on us. Black women should not be charged with the responsibility of saving everyone when nobody is here to save us.”[12] 

As @cullenvhenan​ of Tumblr has said in her post:

“if you're a white creator and your brown/black characters are always sassy, reckless, aggressive or cold and your white characters are always soft, demure, shy and introverted you should think about maybe why you did that”

(Image above from Iowa Law Reviews’ “Aggressive Encounters & White Fragility: Deconstructing the Trope of the Angry Black Woman”)

Detecting Your Own Racial Bias

It would be hard. No matter how much you edit and create, you may miss it because it was never your experience. 

So how do we prevent our racial bias from creeping into our creations?

Listen to POC and their feedback.

As @charishjb from Instagram has shared, here is one of the things that we can do (tumblr link here) [9]:

Consider POC voices. Listen to their experiences. Hire sensitivity POC readers. Put multiple POC voices in positions of leadership in creative projects.

Then we can stop the racial bias that perpetuates again and again in the media. I hope for that future.

[hello-nichya-here]

Hello, Nichya. This might be one of the strangest submissions you’ve ever gotten but I was wondering what you’d make of this anti-pro ship thingy or whatever it is: https://youtu.be/EgkeMQohX6Q Just want to know your opinion.

If you find this weird, I’m so very sorry, just ignore it please and thank you for your time regardless🙏

***

Dude... this is not strange - this is scarely personal. Lily Orchard, and this video specifically is my villain origin story. HOW did you do that? XD  Sit down, kids. Aunt Nichya is about to explain how this video/anti made her decide it was time to just go “Fuck it”, take over the Zucest ship, and eventually come back to Tumblr.

I don’t remember exactly when I first came across Lily’s videos or for how long I watched her stuff, but at some point she started posting these sort of cinema-sins style videos, but that instead of just being negative stuff, just had her joking and criticizing bits of some Disney movies. The first one I watched was her essentially defending Cinderella, and then another one defending The Little Mermaid, and I was glad to see somebody pointing out how ridiculous it is that the “woke” people of the internet constantly shit on these movies and it’s protagonists for being “bad role models for children/young girls”, since the characters didn’t really do anything to deserve being labeled as such.

Fortunately/unfortunately, I watched her other videos. And let me tell you, it was an experience - but the same kind I went through at college, studying about how some books that are considered classics of brazilian literature had the authors accidentally, tragically, and almost comically missing the point of their own message (wanting to “praise” the country’s diverse people, but essentially making every non-white character “good savages” and sex-beasts ). Like those books, Lily’s videos were trainwrecks I couldn’t look away from, and the mistakes in those works were so obvious, yet treated as such undeniable truths in the most condescending and/or bossy way possible, that I ended up looking at the topics presented in a way that was often in direct opposition to what she wanted to convince me of (which could also tie into the fact, due to “death of the author”, personal interpretation of a story AND shiping can have fuck all to do with any of the author’s intentions, but that doesn’t make these interpretations and ships inferior or superior to others - which is a conversation Lily is definitively not ready to have).

This video, as well as most of Lily’s content, falls apart really quickly once you notice that she:

1 - Has some serious black and white mentality that allows no room for nuance (she once straight up said that Zuko’s arc was not a redemption since he was an abuse victim, not a villain, meaning she doesn’t understand/believe that characters can be both)

2 -  Cannot seem to remember that there is a difference between children’s medie and adult media (she talks about ships like Reylo or Ross and Rachel in the same way she criticises bad messages in My Little Pony episodes - like the adults that ship these pairings and are watching their romance are in no way mentally different than children watching a show that explicitly wants to teach life lessons to them) 

3 - Cannot seem to understand that you can make adult versions of childrens stories, and that this is only a problem when you go out of your way to make children consume said content (she throws a fit over people making adult fanfic of stuff like My Little Pony, even when they keep it in adult spaces)

4 - Has some serious issues separating actual valid criticism of aspects in a story from the triggers she has because of some traumatic experiences she went through (and that she has exposed so many times to the internet that makes me want to grab her by the shoulders and beg her to stop giving people more ways of hurting her because the internet as a whole is unfortunatelly filled with people that love to make others miserable for no fucking reason).

5 - Has some serious issues separating actual criticism from personal taste (check this delightfull video of two professional writers pointing out how she acts like friends to lovers is a better trope than enemies to lovers, and that slice of life is always superior to high stakes and action, for no other reason than personal preference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NczXHd0vooc&ab_channel=Diregentleman )

But most important of all, Lily, like pretty much every anti ever:

6 - Cannot seem to understand that fiction is not reality, and that shiping is not endorsement, morality, or activism (No, Lily. Homophobia wouldn’t end if Rachel had left Ross for a woman like his first wife did, nor would every incel magically disapper from the face of the earth if she had ended up with Joey instead of with him, nor were Chandler and Monica being canon what made some people prefer healthy ships to problematic/abusive/toxic ones, nor did Reylo suddenly make humanity decide that abuse is great, nor did Beauty and The Beast make people think that a real person marrying someone who kidnapped them is peak romance)

7 - Cannot seem to believe that people can enjoy stories that have zero intention of teaching the audience anything (hence her literally having to end the video asking pro-shipers/anti antis why being completely aware that some of our ships would be horror stories instead of romances if the characters were real people isn’t enough to make us stop liking them)

That simple, “why is that not a deal breaker for you?” at the end of that video was just so ridiculous, yet so oddly sincere that it made me go “Fuck it, I’ll ship whatever the fuck I want, and I AM going to be as open about it as I want, even with people acting like that is a personal attack on them” because it is a very clearly puritanical, outdated way of thinking that it’s unintentionally hilarious. It reminds me of the people who, when soap operas became popular in my country, assumed that all actors playing villains really were bad people, because “no good person would want to play such a character” and “no one is that good of an actor” 

This video, despite all the big words, “woke” terms, serious tone, bold claims, and genuine outrage on Lily’s part, is nothing beyond “Why are people consuming stuff I personally dislike/don’t approve of?” It’s the same logic behind the satanic panic - “These songs are literally titled Sympathy For The Devil, God Is Dead, and Highway To Hell! Why is that not a deal breaker for people? Even if they don’t worship Satan and know that the artists are not satanists either, shouldn’t they be apalled by this?”

Anyway, ship Zuko and Azula because incest is wincest, and Zucest is the best cest.

[imaginedmelody]

I’ve been seeing a lot of people in the last few days who have some mixed feelings about Rachel’s storyline on Mythic Quest this season, since it kind of seems like the show is really picking on her. And I wanted to examine that a bit, because I think the writers are actually doing some interesting things with her character in the grand scheme of things.

Rachel gets a lot of pushback from the other characters for being “annoying,” and on the surface they often seem to mock her for being self-righteously focused on “social justice.” And I get people being sensitive about that; being vocal about issues facing marginalized or underprivileged groups is not a negative trait, and it feels dismissive to play it off as weird or embarrassing. But I don’t think that’s really what the show is making fun of her for. I think that was the entry point to establishing her character, and now- like with many of the characters this season- they’re going beyond her initial qualities of “shrill” and “annoying” and “SJW” to examine her deeper flaws.

Rachel’s real issue is twofold. First of all, she falls back on the “SJW stuff” almost to a fault. She is always ready to call out others for perceived slights against marginalized or underrepresented groups, but she honestly doesn’t have that nuanced an understanding of how those play out in reality, even if she can recite the socially-correct talking points. She doesn’t seem to really listen to people, or know much of anything about them. We’re seeing this play out a lot with Dana right now: the way Rachel doesn’t understand her remark about “working twice as hard to get half as far,” the way she gets so worked up about the correct dynamics of Dana’s possible sexual or gender identity in the lead-up to asking her out that she doesn’t just connect with her on a personal level. Even the way Dana clearly didn’t feel comfortable telling her about her decision to study at Berkeley shows that Rachel isn’t making space for Dana to share complicated or difficult things. She’s earnest, and she tries, but she just gets so caught up in optics and theories that she doesn’t focus on the complex, nuanced, real-life people in front of her.

And then the second thing I think the show is bringing forward as a flaw in Rachel is this: she’s become so consumed with seeing the world through these sociological dynamics that she has wound up with no clear sense of self. This is what Ian is constantly getting on her case for. She says a lot of stuff, but when it comes down to it- when someone actually makes time and space to listen to her- she finds she has nothing to say. She can say all the “right things” but they’re all broad, general statements, even when they pertain to demographics she actually belongs to. She starts half of her sentences with “as a woman/a woman in gaming/a woman of color,” but the statements that follow are generalities; she never has a personal experience to relay. Which leads her to these misfiring soapbox moments that don’t land because they’re not connected to her, only to things she purports to know more about than she does.

I even think this was the purpose of the joke in “Please Sign Here” about Rachel being half-Asian but not knowing any Thai. Personally I think that joke fails to land because it’s a little invalidating; people’s identities and racial/ethnic backgrounds are valid even if they aren’t able to perform them ideally or haven’t grown up with a connection to that culture. But I think the intent of the joke, however flawed, was to further display this quality in Rachel: her inability to speak from personal experience on a meaningful level, and the way it prevents her from orienting herself to the world around her beyond buzzwords and social principles. She has a women’s studies major, but no practical understanding of where she actually fits into the world (not as a woman generally, but as herself with her own unique experiences) because of it. And she has gotten so wrapped up in the historical and theoretical principles of inequality that she is unable to evaluate the actual inequalities (or opportunities) in front of her- and unable to imagine her own possibilities through her self-fulfilling prophecy of how the world will see and treat her.

This is why her best character moments are when she actually gives ground and listens to someone else’s experience. I love the scene where she teaches CW to play video games and he introduces her to the beauty of cutscene storytelling. It’s a prime example of how, instead of making an assumption about someone, she lets them show her who they are, and reaches out to communicate something about herself in turn. That’s the journey she needs to make- to get off her high horse, not by giving up her “SJW viewpoints,” but by integrating them with an understanding of the real people she encounters. And I think the other characters are right to call her out for needing to learn that lesson.

[stargazerdaisy]

I don’t know y’all personally I think Ashley being boring is a nice change of pace after the other recently added love interest got to do and be everything

Bwahahahahaha. You know what? Valid. Ashley has been a pretty low-key love interest when compared to Bailey. She pops up when it's relevant and we know so little about her, compared to the list of accomplishments, careers, skills, etc that we know about Bailey. The ways they're each presented are on opposite ends of the spectrum. But yeah, I gotta say I much prefer a love interest - who has zero connection to the story outside of being a love interest - being shown minimally, at least until they build up that they're going to be around and can start getting involved in the group and overall story more. Great, now I'm thinking even more. Wesley has probably had the best development of any love interest on this show. He showed up in an organic way for meeting Angela. At first, his appearances were strictly about his romantic relationship with Angela. But he had some built in reasons to be interacting with the squad as a whole. His presence slowly built, both his connections with the team and obviously the depth of his relationship with Angela, until now when he's a fully integrated character. He exists outside of Angela and still has good reason to be interacting with the team (sometimes this gets stretched, but shhhhh, we're talking about overall). Grace and Jessica both had independent reasons for being involved in stories. Grace was an ER doctor and holy crap, they are always at the hospital. Now, did the show use Grace a little too conveniently for any medical related situation? Sure. Nevertheless, she has reason to interact with every single character, independent of Nolan. Same with Jessica. She was a DHS agent that was brought to the whole team first (and clearly has a pre-existing relationship with Grey), then became a love interest. She still had good reason to be working with other members of the team and present for storylines outside of being a love interest. And at the same time, neither of them were so integrated that it would be a loss to have them no longer appear once they weren't a love interest. Presumably, Grace still works at Douglas Shaw Memorial, since her story didn't have her leaving her job or career or anything, her romantic life just changed. (Honestly, I'd love to see her again, but that's just wishing, there's no real story reason to have her back.) Rachel and Emmett are different stories. Emmett pretty much only ever existed as a love interest for Lucy. Even though there obviously were and are organic reasons to have him interact with all the cops, and he had a previous friendship with Tim, all of his scenes had to do with Lucy. Shoot, they wrote him out off screen. They could run into him again, but there's no real need. Rachel....her connection to the story was tenuous outside of her friendship with Lucy and her relationship with Tim (and honestly, those two things did not overlap as much as I think they should have, but that's a whole different discussion). She had a couple of stories that interacted with the police, but I think those were just ways to justify or develop her as a love interest. And well.....the show probably treated her the worst of any love interest. Seriously, there has been ABSOLUTELY ZERO MENTION OF HER since the Season 2 finale. WTF is that? Season 3 picks up IMMEDIATELY after the finale, like within seconds, then takes place over 60 days total. How is she NEVER mentioned across 14 episodes? We got ZERO closure on her and Tim's relationship. Good freaking grief.

(We won't even touch on Jackson's love interests, because those have all been a mess with the way they each ended.) Okay....that got away from me a little bit. Whoops. Just back to the point that the show is treating Bailey and Ashley very, very differently as love interests, truly opposite ends of the spectrum. And I will lean on the side of small, specific moments until the relationship is more developed, and then integrating them into the overall story, rather than the other way around.

[intothewickedwood]

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland Rewatch: 1x04 The Serpent

Yay! I can relax this week. No scary monsters!

I do feel so sorry for young Jafar. I can see how his childhood influenced his personality.  

Listen, I love almost everything about Amara. I think she’s such an intriguing character and she’s beautiful, but the one thing I freaking hate is that she straight up groomed Jafar. Like, wtf?? It’s so gross. She has sons. Why would she do that to a young boy?? It makes me feel so freaking sick.  

The way everyone is so terrified of her, and Jafar looks her straight in the eye, pleading for her to help him. He’s so desperate. I wonder what made him think she, of all people, could save him. Maybe she reminded him of his mother.

Damn she’s compelling to watch.

Oh yeah, Ana sent the rabbit to Storybrooke to bring Will to Wonderland. I see your plan, girl.

Will: “Well, basically, we could die, or we could run.” Reminds me of when Rachel says in S Club’s LA 7: “We can either sit here in the spooky woods for hours and die, or we could go for a walk in the spooky woods for hours and.... die.”

Love how there’s huge-ass mushrooms in the forest. Very wonderland.

Aww, Alice is worried about Will playing decoy.

Of course wish bones are magical haha.

The Red Queen and Will together again! It must be so difficult for him to interact with her like this when he knows she’s putting on an act. She’s not his Ana anymore.

How did Amara become so evil? I know she was desperate and was willing to do anything to get back what she lost but I wonder why she felt she needed to make everyone afraid of her in the process.  

I think it’s so cool she has a fascination with serpents. She’s really obsessed with them lol. Amara: “When they need to, they shed their skin and are reborn.”

She encouraged him to give into darkness. He trusted her. It’s implied she practically raised him. She basically manipulated him for her own gain. Praised him in questionable ways when he obeyed her heinous instructions. She was they only source of love and validation in his life for most of his upbringing and she twisted it. And then, he went further than even she had gone. It’s really terrible when you think about it.  

Eww! Please don’t kiss! That’s so gross!! Oh great, looks like they did more than kiss. I’m officially going to be sick.

Marcus Tremaine, you betrayed Anastasia! Not your daughter Anastasia (well, I mean, you kinda did when you didn’t rescue her too). But still!

I wonder why the Marcus Tremaine!Tweedle started helping Jafar and betraying the Red Queen. Maybe she treated him badly.

Oh, Ana thinks Alice is Will’s girlfriend?

Will: “She’s not my girlfriend. I’m clearly not attracted to nice, normal women.”

He just can’t believe she’s acting like this. The fact that she’s putting on an accent, even when it’s just them two in the room is hilarious.

Why does Lizard look a little like Velma from the live action Scooby Doo movies to me? Lol.

Stop kissing! I beg of you!

Amara to Jafar: “No one has ever loved you like I do.” I beg of you, stop! Why is she like this?? You practically raised him, please stop!

Oh, Jafar has two of the lamps! Uh oh.

Genie’s can bleed. But are they immortal? I’m guessing they just have longevity. Yeah. Alice thought Cyrus was dead, so I guess they can die.

Oh, Will took Lizard in. That was nice of him. Was that in Wonderland or the EF?

Alice is so curious about Anastasia haha.

Ana’s desperate to get Will to safety. She’s not even pretending now.

Alice, politely: “Excuse me. Pardon me.” *Ching* “I have a blade!” Love her lol. Actual chaotic neutral.

That guy who’s got one of the lamps looks like that one guy from The Black Swan. Great movie btw! Forever one of my favourites.

My dude, just wish that no one can ever harm you or for impenetrable skin or something!  Then Jafar can’t hurt you!  

Oh my God Jafar is so freaking cruel!! The way he stabs one of the guy’s hands with all his might and twists the knife and then goes onto the other. Merciless.

It was a good thing to wish Jafar could do him no harm, but he should have wished that no one could.  

Uh oh. Shouldn’t have called him a bastard. That is, like, the worst thing you can call Jafar.

I like Amara’s theme music. It’s very enchanting.

Ana, do something! I think she was counting on Alice to save him or for her to change the laws of magic and fix everything afterwards.

Alice and Will being thrown high in the air, over a castle wall by a catapult! I love how absurd this show is at times.

They saved him, bless them.

Flying lizard!

Hey! Don’t throttle Will! Noooo!

Alice: “I wish if the Knave of Hearts dies then I die.” Alice you are an absolute sweetie and I love that you care so much for Will that you’d risk death for him but my God that is not a brilliant wish. Girl, you do realise, that if he dies of, like, an illness in the future, then you die too?? I mean, I think it’s really cool and it greatly increases the stakes, but she should have wished that no one could ever harm him and her and Cyrus for that matter. I guess that would be three wishes but then, given the circumstances she should have wished no one could harm Will. But then, that would have significantly decreased the stakes. It’s just what I would have done.  

Ow! That looks so freaking painful!! Let go of Alice! Jafar’s so damn ruthless!

God, poor Alice.

Oh my God. He was, like, gonna break all of her bones or something!

I’ve said it before, but Jafar has got to be the most formidable villain in the ouat universe. He’s freaking terrifying! He’s the one I’d least like to face.

Omfg! Alice straight up punched The Red Queen in the face lmao! I did not see that coming! I think she did it because she realised she was Anastasia and feels sickened by the way she’s treated Will.

She tried for another punch lol. So chaotic. This is a great Alice episode.

Oh yeah, Alice was a little girl when she first met Anastasia. So, either time moves differently in Wonderland as compared to the Victorian realm or she keeps herself young with magic. But if time in Wonderland moves differently, does it move faster or slower? Hmm. Well, Alice spent most of her time in Wonderland after she met Will. She looked to be a teenager at that meeting. At least 28 years passed in Storybrooke for Will. But Alice is not 28 years older than she was during their last encounter. So, although Storybrooke was frozen in time, time in Wonderland moves quite a bit slower than time in the Land Without magic. It’s hard to say about the Victorian realm though. Her father said it had been a long time since he’d seen Alice and she had aged, so it might be that time moves at the same time for both realms. I think that’s the case. Will was kept young because of the curse, time moves faster in the lwom and Anastasia used magic to stay young. Maybe Ana and Will were in their late teens when Alice was a child.  

Poor Will. I hope he isn’t itchy like that.

I love how we’re introduced to the fact that Alice and Will have 3 wishes between them at the beginning of the show. And as you watch, you just know they’ll be used, and you're screaming for them to use their wishes when things go horribly, but they find a way out. You just don’t know when they’ll be used, and it’s thrilling to watch with that in mind.  

I wouldn’t drink that, Amara.

Oh, he took her magical essence. That’s why the staff is so powerful!

He turned Anara into a snake. She freaking loves snakes! She’s living the dream.

I wonder if she can see and feel as that staff. I wonder if Will can as a statue.

Anastasia stroking Will’s statue and Lizard watching jealously.

Oh! The staff blinked!

Poor Alice is all alone without her big bro, Will!  

Cyrus: “What a wishbone really wants, is no different to what we all want; to be joined to our other half. And if we’re separated, you will do whatever it takes to be together again.” So cool! And such a clever plan, Cyrus!

This rewatch is so awsome! This show makes me feel a way that no other show does and it’s a really good way.