#also just as a disclaimer but the claim of the characters being 'racist children' is actually incorrect -- more often than not the kids are | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hematomes · 3 years

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Addressing the #boycottgenshin issue

[TW: racism, cultural appropriation, whitewashing]

Hi.

So I feel like I should speak up about the whole #boycottgenshinimpact issue. First of all, I’m not indigenous myself so I won’t speak for them, but I am of mixed race (African and caucasian) so I want, firstly, to address the issue about colourism and racism surrounding Kaeya and Xinyan (but mainly Xinyan). As a second disclaimer, I’m French, so my English won’t be perfect and I do apologize for that, but I'm doing the best I can.

Ok so let’s get this out of the way: I don’t think Kaeya and Xinyan, as characters, are sterotypes/proof that mihoyo is racist, and I will explain why. First of all, the take that Xinyan is “whitewashed” is, in my personal opinion, basically racist. Xinyan is affiliated to Liyue, her name is — as far as I know — chinese-based, so to my understanding, she’s most likely of mixed race, which can explain the fact that her skin is not “dark enough” (at least I believe that it is the first issue). As I am myself of mixed race, I find this statement (that she’s whitewashed) really disturbing and disrespectful, because in this case I would be considered whitewashed (I don’t want to show any picture for obvious reasons, but if you really don't believe me I can show you my hand lmao) as I am on the "lighter" side of the “spectrum”. What I mean is that you don’t have to have the same skin tone as Morgan Freeman to be considered poc, and saying otherwise is probably at least as harmful as whitewashing someone. Xinyan is most likely of mixed race, and she’s (I think) a bit darker than me, so.. please don't accidentally imply I'm not dark enough to be a part of the black community?

Now, addressing the issue of people being scared of her: they aren’t scared of her because she’s a poc but because she’s loud and obnoxious, and because of her punk style. She’s a rock star! She yells constantly and has a demeanour that can be surprising, especially to children and easily frightened individuals. Please, I beg of you, read the full story before you jump to conclusions. This behaviour is harmful because not only is it useless, but it also perpetuates the belief that our struggle is also based on fake intel.

That being said, I also wish to speak up about the Hilichurls situation. I want to stress the fact that I’m not indigenous myself, so make your own conclusions! I base my judgement on theories about Genshin and, if you want proof to support these arguments, you can read this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/juz7jo/the_13_page_fantheory_on_genshin_impacts_world/ It might contain some spoilers, up to Act I, so be careful! As I will be speaking about this, I may spoil some stuff too, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, skip this entire paragraph. Also, I will base my opinion on the credibility of this theory. If it is proven wrong at some point, I will obviously review my judgement.

So. The main claim is that the Hilichurls being based on indigenous culture is an issue, as they are perceived as “more-or-less as unintelligent, savage monsters.” That is a fair assumption if you don’t dig into the game and learn more about the Hilichurls.

But if you do dig into the game and learn more about the Hilichurls, here’s the thing: they are not unintelligent, savage monsters to begin with. The Hilichurls were most likely part of Khaenri'ah, an “ancient civilization that existed 600-500 years before present-day Genshin and was extremely advanced.” The main theory is that Khaenri’ah’s citizens were cursed by the Unknown God for being too advanced, which is why they are depicted as “unintelligent, savage monsters”. Also, they are manipulated by the Abyss Mages; if you stroll around in the game, far enough from the Hilichurls, they don’t attack you. They’re just chilling, dancing or just napping, most likely because the mages have conditioned them to attack threats (namely: the citizens of Teyvat that weren’t cursed and aren’t part of the abyss, since the abyss is the main antagonist of the game) on sight. So, in conclusion: they aren’t savages, they are cursed and manipulated.

Now, the “unintelligent” part. You may have done the quests with Ella Musk, who asks you to help her have a conversation with a Hilichurl. If you succeed, she does, and the Hilichurl happily dances even though you’re in their vicinity, and doesn't attack you. They are intelligent, they just speak another language and have other means of communication. Saying that they are unintelligent just because they are mobs in the game is reductive, if you play long enough you’ll realise that that’s not the case. Also, they build stuff! They have towers, camps… They are in fact civilised!

I also want to point out that they aren't the only mobs in genshin. There're the treasure hoarders and the fatui! Just because one part of the mobs are loosely based on indigenous culture doesn't mean that the developers are racists, especially knowing that the fatui are the "real" antagonists at this point in the game (aside from the abyss).

In the long run, I don’t have enough information to be 100% sure of what I’m saying here, but neither do the people trying to boycott genshin over these issues. I don’t want to start a heated argument, but I am open to criticism if you aren’t convinced (that’s totally understandable, I may be wrong and this is really just the opinion of a single player enjoying the game and the lore associated with it). So, if you want to chat about it, I’d be happy to! Just know once again that I’m French and my English is probably broken as hell, so please don’t be mad at me if I can’t perfectly convey my position on these issues.

PS. addressing the paedophilia surrounding Flora issue, if I’m not mistaken it’s either a mistake (since Flora was an adult in the beta) or a misunderstanding (I believe there’s an adult Flora even in the game? but I’m not sure).

Anyway, I feel like this is a lot of negativity and misplaced resentment, but I could be mistaken. Have a great day, and don’t forget to regularly change your password!

#boycottgenshinimpact #dobettermihoyo #boycottmihoyo #my take on this issue #not a quote sorry guys #(but i'll be back)#boycottgenshin

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hyperbali · 4 years

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Agatha Harkness Was Right, And Here’s Why

Alright. Finally had to sit down and write my way out of this quiet, internal temper tantrum, and a few people were interested in seeing what I had to say, so I present to you:

Agatha Harkness Was Right, And Here’s Why

Disclaimer: MASSIVE spoilers for the entirety of WandaVision, and I am not nice about it.

I’ll start off by saying that, for all its foibles, WandaVision was genuinely a good example of a property within the MCU/Disney umbrella that stepped out of the usual ‘good guys fight bad guys action extravaganza’ in a way that pushed the envelope. The pseudo-horror aspect of the first few episodes is something I would really love to see engaged with on a more thoughtful basis in future projects.

I would say that it proved to be more than a vehicle to promote toys, but… well…

Yeah. Anyway.

I’ll assume that you watched WandaVision if you’re reading this, but quick recap: In the aftermath of ‘the Blip,’ Wanda is left broken and alone with no one in her corner. Her biggest mentor willingly abandoned his team to get his own ‘happy’ ending (do not get me started on Steve, that’s a document in and of itself), her other biggest mentor is probably off enjoying his family while ignoring the incredibly racist killing spree he’s been on for the past five years, and her lover is dead. When she goes to claim the body, she’s told nuh-uh, that’s government property, please leave.

So she goes to a plot of land in the middle of some nowhere town in New Jersey, which Vision apparently bought despite the fact they were living a pretty decently comfortable life in Scotland, where she looks at the deed that Vision drew a heart on and wrote ‘To Grow Old In’. Very sweet. Kind of weird, considering nothing of this caliber had ever been suggested for either of their characters and they’d been actively running from specifically the U.S. authorities? But sweet.

She has a breakdown and, in her grief, contains the entire town of Westview and all 3,892 of the people in it in her own personal paradise, where nothing bad ever happens beyond sitcom hijinks, no one dies, and every problem is tied up and neatly dealt with by the end of an ‘episode’. Except we learn that this is only paradise to Wanda, who apparently shares the aspect of having to relate everything to her favourite pop culture with Tony, because everyone else in Westview is more or less being psychologically tortured by the incredible amount of pain she’s in, forced to be puppeted actors to make her happy.

Bear in mind, Westview might have been bigger at some point - we have no idea how many people survived the Blip, or how many have been brought back to life within the past few weeks of the current setting. Either way, this is a town that has already dealt with a lot of trauma being dragged into yet another awful, much more specific kind of emotional damage, thanks to ‘the heroes’. Nice.

Agatha Harkness, a witch who’s been up to who-knows-what in the 340 years since she drained the coven that tried to kill her for getting a little too ambitious into jerky, feels the massive expenditure of magical power and decides to investigate. All the while, she carefully uses her own magic to try and peek into Wanda’s psyche, her motivations, all while keeping up appearances and not letting slip that anything is amiss.

I’ll point out that she’s no saint here, either - she specifically keeps one Westview resident at her mercy, and knows what’s happening to the rest of them, but doesn’t attempt to stop it. I’ll chalk that up to her pragmatism; their ‘sacrifice’ was fine to her as long as she could figure out how Wanda could have done something so unheard of in terms of power.

What we come to learn over the course of the show is that, given everything that happened, Wanda didn’t mean to take over an entire town and tool it into her own personal slice of heaven. She very quickly became aware of it; we know that she knows it’s her own personal bubble as soon as episode three, when she’s confronting Monica about how the latter could possibly know about Ultron. Wanda is made further aware of how much damage this is inflicting on others in episode five, when Vision himself tells her that these people are scared. But still, she has everything handled! It’s okay! The outside world is worse, trust her!

Her handling of the question, ‘where are all the children of Westview,’ is one that bears some thinking - and, y’know, kind of more than a little concern. They’re allowed to walk around as part of the ‘Halloween special,’ but as Vision walks further and further out towards the edges of town where Wanda doesn’t have as much full control, people are just frozen in place, or conducting the same few seconds of action over and over. And fully aware of being trapped.

How are they being sustained? Eating, sleeping? If someone isn’t part of her storyline, is she just locking them down into a coma? What made Wanda decide that keeping the children ‘out of the way’ was somehow kinder than involving them, especially given her later argument that she’s been trying to keep the entire town safe and happy?

The fact of the matter is, she only actually starts to feel remorse for any of this after she’s confronted with the fact that, after weeks of being at her mercy, the townspeople of Westview would rather be dead than endure another moment of having to play nice for her enjoyment. She finally opens the ‘bubble’ to let them out - which leads to the ‘epic’ finale of three different entities trying to take down Wanda and her happy family: the S.W.O.R.D. military led by Hayward, the White Vision, and Agatha.

Winding back to how we got here: after Agatha uses her own trapped resident, Ralph Bohner (who, given his casting and the props in place during the last episode, I’m willing to bet is actually the missing witness protection person Jimmy was looking for) in an attempt to lure out Wanda’s reasoning - and fails - she’s pretty much done pretending. She tricks Wanda into her basement, nullifies her powers, and makes her face her own past to get to the truth of the matter.

Not going to lie, favourite moment of the show. Kathryn Hahn killed Agatha’s slightly-amused-slightly-irritated observations about Wanda’s coping mechanisms, and the whole arrangement was extremely meta. I would have paid real money dollars to see her do the same thing to the likes of Tony, Strange, and Loki. Hell, even just having her meet the rest of the Avengers? Augh. If wishes were fishes.

When Agatha comes to the conclusion that Wanda is the vaunted, nigh-indestructible force of nature that she’s literally spent her entire life reading about is the ultimate source of chaos magic and will likely bring about the end of the world, she’s pretty understandably taken aback. To that matter, the fact that Wanda… has very little control over any of it, and is using what she does understand to play housemaker? After how long Agatha has spent learning control, hiding in plain sight, just to be child’s play compared to what Wanda has at her fingertips? I’d be pretty pissed off, too!

The way that WandaVision handled both of the major ‘fights’ - Vision versus White Vision ending in philosophy, and Wanda ending up beating Agatha at her own game of deception - is excellent. A little grating that they had to go with the beat down angle before they got there, but this is MCU; punches and thrown cars had to get shoved in somewhere. And, given that this series very much played with the idea of grey morality, I was sort of hopeful that Agatha would end up in a not-quite stalemate arrangement with Wanda. She’s not as powerful as the Scarlet Witch, but she has the know-how that Wanda sorely lacks; in recompense for her own deeds, she would be able to teach what she knows while also kind of scheming on her own time.

Y’know, like what they did with rehabilitating Loki?

Except that Wanda, who has just gone through the entire rigamarole of coming to terms with the fact that she trapped thousands of people into a nightmare scenario against their will, rendering them helpless to her mercy… traps Agatha into a nightmare scenario against her will, rendering her helpless to Wanda’s mercy.

That moment actually shook me. Oh, my god. We’re supposed to still look at Wanda as a good guy after this?

This isn’t even covering the incredibly awful confrontation with her and Vision where she tries to gaslight him into believing that everything is A-OK, or the fact that the person she gets most violent with (apart from Agatha) is Monica Rambeau, a black woman who spends most of the show bending over backwards trying to say that what Wanda is doing is understandable, justified, and just needs a gentle touch to be dealt with.

That could be its own document, too - how Monica, much as she’s incredible and definitely looks to be a really exciting addition to the MCU roster, more or less gets used as the Good One to absolve and enable Wanda’s actions. One of her last lines to Wanda, after seeing how the people of Westview (rightfully) look at Wanda like she’s monstrous, is “they’ll never know what you sacrificed.”

Sacrificed what? The fake husband and fake kids she made out of her own compulsion to pretend that everything is okay? None of that would have existed if she’d been given the proper resources to actually cope with how much loss she’s had to deal with. None of that would have existed if she hadn’t caused this problem in the first place.

In the end, Wanda flies off in her fancy new gear before the FBI shows up, avoiding any real consequences to her actions - which has pretty much been the running theme of her character ever since she was introduced to the MCU in Age of Ultron. The worst kind of direct consequence she’s ever gotten was being grounded to her room for a while, then kept in the Raft for, like, maybe a day - and both times, she was broken out post-haste.

Meanwhile, she worsened the issues in Sokovia (which, I will say upfront, was Tony’s fault to begin with), unleashed the Hulk on Johannesburg, got a pretty significant amount of civilians killed as bystanders in Lagos (hey, how come Wanda keeps turning a lot of black people into casualties?), and stood back in Wakanda to let their people try to fight off Thanos from getting to Vision until it was clear that there was no other option than for her to get involved.

Great Power Comes With No Responsibility At All, Actually.

Wanda, in the several years she has maintained her identity as an Avenger, has proven time and time again that she takes on innumerable risks without any full understanding of what they mean, allows others to take on the brunt of the fallout for her, and looks sad until she’s forgiven and moves on to the next problem. She has no business casually throwing around the kind of power that being the Scarlet Witch entails, not until she’s actually made any kind of headway into making reparations for what she’s done and tried, really tried, to get a handle on what she’s capable of.

Which she’s apparently doing in the last post-credits scene, astral reading the literal Book of the Damned on her lonesome in the mountains, but… without anyone to guide her, or give her any kind of boundary?

[I ran out of images I could post, but you know exactly what image I am referring to here]

Agatha Harkness was right. And that should terrify everybody that has to deal with Wanda in the future.

(P.S. Do we know if she actually even killed that dog? We never see her holding anything but a blanket, and characters go in and out of that show all the time. Granted, she wasn’t great with the cicada-turned-bird... hmm.)

Additional Notes:

“Well, you’re a Tony Stan, of course you think Wanda’s a villain”

I like Tony because he’s such an awful mess, and the narrative isn’t exactly kind about telling him what a piece of shit he can be! He reaped a lot of problems, created practically half the villains in the MCU, and ended up dying a martyred hero. Thanks to being the tent pole by which this franchise hoisted itself into a cultural powerhouse, he will always be their golden savior. If you want to read about how he’s the true villain of this entire affair, feel free to look up any number of takedown pieces about him that are out there. He’s a dick. I will never “uwu sad baby who did nothing wrong ever 🥺” him the way people do about Wanda.

“Why are you so pressed about this”

Because something as good in concept as WandaVision could and should have been about anyone other than the whitewashed, antisemitic take on Wanda Maximoff that MCU brought upon us. They put crucifixes on her wall in Civil War, for fuck’s sake!

“Weren’t you mad about them not including Aaron Taylor-Johnson”

At this point, I am almost kind of relieved the real Pietro wasn’t resurrected for this, because god knows they probably would have killed him all over again just to inflict that much more pain on his sister.

“Anything else you’d like to tell us, turbo nerd”

This was literally itching at me all weekend to write, so it’s more or less just to get it off my chest. If you powered your way through it, uh… thanks? Sorry if I yucked your yums, but I tried to be as clear with the disclaimer as I could. 🤷‍♂️

#blah blah #long post #marvel #mcu #wandavision #wandavision spoilers #wandavision critical #anti wanda maximoff

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scintillatingshortgirl19 · 3 years

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"when did Loki betray his father? When did Loki betray his home"

Both times he lead the frost giants into Asgard. You can pin the second time on him feeling betrayed himself, which still doesn't justify, but the first one? On what, him feeling overshadowed?

I love Loki and I wish canon would recognize his trauma more and do it better justice but I'm also not going to ignore the horrible things he's done just because horrible things were done to him too.

Hi anon - The thing is, I'd pretty confidently argue that neither of those times can be considered betraying Asgard. The first time was, at worst, a prank born from jealousy which would've done minimal damage (Loki knew the Jotuns would go directly to the casket and that the destroyer would take care of them immediately), and at best was to keep Thor from taking the throne for a while. I think it's reasonable to assume it's a combination of both, and either way, Thor becoming king at that time would have been absolutely disastrous for Asgard and probably for a lot of other realms as well. So even if one wants to go with the least charitable interpretation of Loki's intent, the result of the first time was him saving Asgard from an unfit ruler, and either way it wasn't a betrayal of Asgard. I guess you could almost argue he betrayed Odin in that moment, since Odin wanted Thor to be king - but I don't see how that would count, because that was an objectively terrible decision on Odin's part so Loki's prevention of that wasn't really a "betrayal." The purpose of the second time was entirely for Loki to kill Laufey - again, technically saving Asgard. Loki's goals in letting the Jotuns into Asgard the second time were to 1) prove his worthiness to Odin by orchestrating a situation in which Loki would save his life, and 2) Kill Laufey and destroy Jotunheim. It's important to remember that by the second time Loki let the Jotuns in, Thor had already started the war. The war was going to happen, a lot of Asgardians were going to die, and Odin was incapacitated. So by killing the Jotuns' king, Loki technically saved Asgard that time too. Both of the times Loki let the Jotuns in were setups for the Jotuns to fail - they weren't Loki betraying Asgard. The only realm Loki betrayed in Thor 1 was Jotunheim (and I'm not excusing that or saying it was ok - genocide is bad, kids - but we're just talking about betrayal as it relates to Asgard here).

About the second part of your ask - yes, I agree with you that Loki's done horrible things (note what I said a few paragraphs later in the post you're referencing in which I praised the fact that Loki took responsibility for his mistakes). You'll find most Loki fans hold the same views I do about Loki's actions - and we've been dealing with the assumption that we think he's perfect for a long, long time. Of course Loki has done bad things, and it's very tiresome to be told over and over again that we act like he hasn't when most of us have never claimed anything of the sort. I don't want to spend too much energy going into this, but what Loki fans have a problem with is the fact that Loki's motives are constantly misunderstood, zero weight is given to his background and how he was raised, his trauma has never been addressed, the genuinely good things Loki has done (and the way they point to Loki's default state actually being good) are completely ignored, and people often have double standards when discussing the actions of villains and heroes in general. Loki fans don't need to talk about the bad things Loki has done - everyone else already does that. The narratives already do that. And honestly, just as a long-time villain fan in general, I don't feel obligated to give a disclaimer about how I understand a character has done bad things every time I want to talk about that character.

There's nothing wrong with considering the reasons that a character has done bad things, or the bad things that were done to them, and a fan talking a lot about a villain's trauma does not mean that fan thinks the trauma excuses the villain's actions. Giving weight to the situations the character was in - and expecting the narrative to be honest about whether or not a character has actually done all the things they're being blamed for - does not equal excusing those things. And I touched on this a second ago, but something I think about a lot is the pretty rampant hypocrisy that happens in the way people talk about hero-coded vs villain-coded characters. Interestingly, as much as the wider Marvel fandom talks about how terrible Loki is, they don't seem to have much of an issue with Odin's racist indoctrination of his children (and psychological abuse of pitting them against each other) or the fact that Thor attempted genocide at the beginning of that film, despite the fact that neither of those characters have attempted to make any reparations for those actions - because the narrative more or less ignores this while vilifying Loki for one of those same things (I'm not saying Odin and Thor should be held accountable while Loki isn't, but fans should be allowed to take issue with the massive double standard).

I hope this didn't come across as rude, anon - I just wanted to give as straight an answer as possible and attempt to express where I'm coming from. And if I misunderstood any part of your ask, please feel free to let me know.

#and sorry for the essay whoops #i was going to respond in like a paragraph but i am wordy af #tis just who i am #asks #thor 2011 #loki tv series

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itswasteland · 4 years

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Notes on my faceclaim for Tony Stark:

I’ve been meaning to write this up for some time. Henry Golding is white on his father’s side and Malaysian of indigenous Iban ancestry on his mother’s side. This will be reflected in his character. Depending on the artist at the time, Tony has been drawn very white, while at other times he’s been coded as Asian. Obviously in the MCU, there is no such ambiguity (and racial ambiguity is a cheap attempt at diversity anyway, but hey, so is the constant bisexual baiting in the Iron Man comics….anyway….). Under the cut are some thoughts on (1) why I changed my fc and (2) the Asian Model Minority Myth and the “smart Asian” trope. TW for Long Post.

Disclaimer: If you feel anything below is wrong, problematic, etc. please feel free to message and let me know. It’s no one’s job to educate me but my own, but if people have insights, I’m here to hear them.

Originally my face-claim for Tony was the wonderful Charles Michael Davis, who is Black and Filipino because (1) I play Tony according to one of his earlier backstories where he was not adopted and his parents weren’t this dynamic duo they were later written as. His mom was an immigrant “mail-order bride” who then self-taught herself English and started up a series of charitable foundations while battling an abusive husband; for this reason, it’s important that Tony is represented as bi-racial (his mother was written as Italian and, yes, historically, Italian people have also been treated like shit in the U.S., but as most Italian-Americans have by now successfully assimilated into general white culture, I think this needs to be updated–and i say this as someone of a Sicilian family, AKA the “dark Italians” that other Italians hated for, you guessed it, colorism). (2) I believe Iron Man should be Black. And I still do. Most of the tech, advancements, and science America runs off were Black-made and white-stolen, and having science-savvy Black characters in comics is incredibly important. Iron Man should be Black, but Tony Stark isn’t. And a lot of this just comes down to Howard Stark.

He is the epitome of white capitalism, and he stepped on anyone he needed to to get ahead, while telling himself–and the world–that it was patriotism and the American dream. Howard might have been smart, sure, but he just wouldn’t have gotten where he did without white privilege. That has to be acknowledged. Tony’s story is largely about being the face of stolen advancements. White, class, male privilege is part of Tony’s story.

Tony is not someone who persevered against the odds, the world against him; he’s someone who had success handed to him (which doesn’t erase how hard he worked or how smart he was or the abuse he had to overcome–but that’s the thing: acknowledging white privilege doesn’t mean you never worked hard or don’t deserve any success–it means you had a much easier time getting there than a POC would have in your shoes). Much of Tony’s story is about waking up and seeing that privilege and trying to do some good with it and to pass that mantel on (without turning into some white savior). Which is why Ironheart is the Iron Man the future needs, not Peter Parker (who I also love–but it’s time for Riri to have that spotlight).

Now onto my faceclaim. So much of the original Iron Man story is dependent on Asia in problematic ways (this was later changed to the Middle East in the MCU–another war where U.S. Imperialism was the real enemy–but it was originally the war in Vietnam). Through 70+ years of comics, Tony has been working in and out of parts of Asia, selling off parts of his company to different Asian-based industries, etc. (with his girlfriend, Rumiko, and her father’s family being from Japan, many of the comics took place there, but they also took place in China, Vietnam, and Malaysia).

Marrying an Asian wife and having an Asian son would likely have been very appealing to Howard as a way to help solidify those business connections, while believing and impressing upon his son that all Asians are smart, so he should always do perfectly and any of his intellectual success isn’t really his personally, just a given. And this is a part of Tony’s story too. Though I don’t play Tony’s adopted arc, the idea behind it is that Tony is told all of his intellect, all of his personality, is down to ‘coding’ done to his genetics. This turns out not to be true, but that idea is very real. We see this narrative all the time–Asians as ‘genetically deposed’ to be smart–seen as a “good” stereotype when in fact it’s incredibly damaging. It also creates a caricature: the smart, tech-savvy, and usually inherently asexual Asian man incapable of leading (always deferring to someone else). What we don’t see as often is the consequences of that–the mental toll, the self-questioning. The fact that Tony defers automatically to his intelligence to prove himself but wants to be seen as tough, attractive, a leader, etc..

My Tony is not only waking up to the realization of his white and class privilege, but to his own white-washing and the model minority myth. (You can read more about that here.) This is not only super damaging to Asian children in general, but also helps contribute to racism in America, particularly anti-Blackness.

“When paired with racist myths about other ethnic or racial groups, the model minority myth is used as evidence to deny or downplay the impact of racism and discrimination on people of color in the United States. Given the history of that impact on black Americans particularly, the myth is ultimately a means to perpetuate anti-blackness.”

For more info, here is a book on Asian Settler Colonialism. The short version of this is that in order to continue this lie of the “American Dream,” many Asian-Americans are made to believe that they both are free from racism and discrimination (erasing a lot of racist American history in the process), while having simultaneously “overcome” racism, meaning so can everyone else. It’s often a difficult process unlearning this and realizing that this “success” of the “American Dream” is both detrimental to Asian communities and other POC. Asian-Americans are often used to continue white supremacy.

And a big part of Tony’s origin story is about being used. He benefited from it certainly, was well paid to shut up and be the smart one (which is the point of a model minority narrative: if you’re moving up the ladder, why should you question it? meanwhile, others continue to be oppressed and the system continues) , but Obadiah was the one in charge, taking whatever Tony’s big brain could come up with and selling it for his own interests.

This will probably be added to in the future, but this is already long enough as is, so I’ll stop there.

#link to bio #long post tw #racism tw #{tony} i know everything; i cant help it #{headcanon: tony} my kingdom for a radioshack

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romolite · 4 years

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*Important FAQ*

Aka questions that pertain to what I usually post about or stuff I don’t like getting asks about but continue to get asks about regardless.

[Insert any invasive question about my ethnicity/race]

I’m Ghanaian American. My parents were born in Ghana and I was born here in the US. I’ve seen it more on twitter and tumblr, but Black Africans don’t like me because I’m American, and black Americans don’t like me because I’m African. So I’m stuck in the middle lmao. I’m what you’d consider a First-Generation African, my parents are Continental Africans, and if I have children, they will be considered Generational African Americans.

First Generation African: A black person born in the US to parents who were born in Africa

Generational African American: A black person born in the US to US-born black parent(s)

Continental African: A black person born in Africa to parents who were also born in Africa

Non is just a prefix, black people don’t have a monopoly on the term! I suppose you think nonbinary people are racist huh?

Yeah sure it wasnt coined by black people but the context it’s currently used as was predominantly used by black people. ALL people who are not black benefit from and contribute to antiblackness, even if they are marginalized themselves. That kind of dynamic doesnt exist in other contexts (unless we’re talking about transfem + transmisogyny, but that’s something you’d have to talk to someone who is transfem about. Plus they have their own word for “non-transfem”). Using it in contexts outside of antiblackness is appropriative (Yall are annoying as fuck with the “non-aspec” “non-lesbian”(this term also has anti-bi roots btw) “non-bi” shit etc, stop it. You also can’t complain about the “replacement terms” lumping yall with oppressors when “non-x” does the exact same thing you’re so worried about. “Cis” puts cis gays with cis hets, cis disabled people with cis abled people, cis white people with cis poc, I could go on.)

Plus we’re talking about marginalized groups here. Black people are a marginalized group. Binary people as a whole are not so the term nonbinary isn’t appropriate at all. I dont take issue with terms like “nonamerican” or “nonwhite” because (obviously) whites + americans as a whole aren’t oppressed for being white or american.

Basically using "non-x” in contexts to talk about oppression bad, everything else good.

Follow up: If we can’t use non-[marginalized group], what can we use instead?

There are other words to describe the people you’re talking about

non-transfem- TME

non-LGBT- cishet, or people who aren’t LGBT

non-trans - cis

Black people don’t have a monopoly on the acronym nb! I’ll call myself nb if I want to!

At this point I dont really care, go on your antiblack crusade elsewhere and out of my inbox, I’m always gonna mean nonblack when I use the acronym nb.

And yes, you’re antiblack as fuck if you think black people telling you “nb” stands for “nonblack” is the same as exclusionists claiming “aspec” is for autistic people.

Is x AAVE?

I have a tag dedicated to what is and is not aave and how harmful it is for nonblacks to use aave given its history. I know some things overlap with southern culture but others are specifically for black people. A lot of “stan twitter” language/slang is just repackaged AAVE. No, I can’t tell you how to stop using AAVE. Don’t tell me you’re going to try to stop using AAVE, I don’t want to hear it.

Why don’t you like the n-word being compared to LGBT slurs?

Race and Sexuality/Gender aren’t comparable topics because each deals with a different history of oppression. I don’t care about slur discourse that much because I don’t even use/reclaim any myself except the n-word.

I have a problem with nonblack LGBT people co-opting black culture and struggle(like they always do), especially for trivial online discourse.

And to be honest it goes deeper than slur discourse. Every other day someone is weaponizing the oppression of black trans women, or comparing “cishet aces/aros” in the LGBT community to white/nonblack people invading black spaces (you know, something that ACTUALLY takes resources away from the people who need it, see the cultural appropriation of Black African and Blac American culture in literally any nonblack community while black people get demonized for said culture), or tokenizing their black friends to get away with something blatantly racist. And that’s not even getting into how a lot of gay slang/stan culture is just repurposed AAVE/black culture.

And I’m not gonna lie, I’ve seen this more with exclusionist accounts than inclus accounts, but it’s still not excusable for inclus to do that either. We get erased as black gay/trans/queer/aspec people up until it’s time for discourse accounts to bring us up to one-up each other

Can you give me advice on x?

Most likely not, because I’m not an expert or an advice blog. I’ll try, but don't take my word for it. I’m also tme, able-bodied, not Jewish, singlet, etc, so I’m not able to accurately answer questions about transmisogyny, (physical?) ableism, antisemitism, “sycourse”, etc.

I might be able to give advice on school-related stuff since I just graduated high school, but remember that students are not a monolith, and what worked for me may not work for someone else.

Can I follow if I’m nonblack/a minor/cishet?

Nonblack and/or cishet can follow but watch your step, minors blacklist the #minors dni tag before following

Why do you hate Ao3?

*long sigh*

I don't, I have a problem with the fact that it allows racist and (frankly voyeuristic) pedophilic/abusive/incestuous content to exist on its platform. It’s a good concept overall, but the devs are complicit in allowing “underage” and “noncon/dubcon” fics on their platform.

And there's the fact that they somehow need donations every year despite exceeding their goal several times over each year?

What’s wrong with Hazbin Hotel/The Ships/Vivziepop?

[WIP, as I have to go into extensive detail about this and I currently don’t have the energy for it]

TLDR: Viv made a half-assed apology for supporting racists (one of whom did blackface [yes the mask was used to do blackface shut up] to mock black activist) and drawing gross content. Her current projects including Hazbin Hotel are full of anti-gay/trans/aspec (Angel Dust, Vaggie, Alastor), antisemetic (Mimzy), and racist (Vaggie again, that yellow cyclops character that I’ve forgotten the name of) content under the guise of humor. If you’re into that shit, whatever, just don’t follow me and don’t whine when I make posts criticizing it.

What’s wrong with Hamilton?

Aside from the fact that it’s very obviously glorifying slave owners and made people worldwide believe the founding fathers were good people, LMM, the creator, is nonblack. This isn't his story to tell at all.

Can you tag x?

I have a list of things I usually tag because they come upon this blog a lot. I cannot do catch all tags, as I have way too many followers for that. The closest thing to that is the “ask to tag” tag when there’s something potentially triggering but I’m not sure what it is. Everything is tagged as “x tw”. If something is extremely triggering, I’ll tag it as “major tw”

Do you tag slurs?

I tag slurs I’m not able to reclaim at all (i.e., d slur, f slur, t slur) or slurs I can reclaim but are being used as a slurs. I don’t tag the n-word, as I reclaim that one. I always tag the r slur

Can I message you about something/someone?

Unless you’re a mutual, most likely no. My DMs are only open to mutuals.

Do you want to be mutuals?

I don’t usually follow back people who follow me, especially if you’re under 16 or post things I’m not interested in.

Why is it important to have byf or about?

1) So I know gross people aren’t following me. This is not up for discussion

2) So I know someone’s not speaking out of their lane, which tends to happen a lot. (i.e, someone refusing to disclose that they are tme when discussing transmisogyny, someone not having their race listed when discussing racism)

3) Some people don’t want to interact with people under 18 or over like 30 or something.

Yeah, yeah, people aren’t entitled to personal information and all that crap but I have a serious problem with people speaking on topics from a place of privilege. Not to say they can’t talk about those things, just perhaps add a disclaimer that you’re privileged when talking about these things and be open to criticism, and NOT blocking people of the said marginalized group when they tell you something you’ve said was problematic.

I also have a problem with people who are intentionally vague about their age. There’s a difference between interacting with someone who’s 20 and someone who’s 29. I don’t want to say it’s the opposite for minors but at the same time there’s a difference for saying something racist at 13 and doing so at 17, and keeping your age vague makes it harder to determine how to deal with something like that. (Not that 13-year-olds shouldn’t know better, it’s just I don’t feel whole ass callout posts and receipt blogs are necessary for someone of that age).

Also anyone under 16, I can't stop you from following, but keep your interaction limited, please. This isnt an 18+ blog but I do rb suggestive jokes from time to time

I sent you an ask and you never answered it!

It’s likely that

I never got it

You were blocked

I’ve already answered this or it’s been answered in my faq

It’s a random positivity ask (which I appreciate but not sure how to respond to those)

You were rude in your ask and I didn’t feel like answering

I forgot until it was too late, which happens when my inbox gets a lot of asks at a time.

You sent it to the wrong blog (I.e, sending asks about my ocs to this blog instead of @ochood )

Hey, the op is [insert post] is [someone on my dni]! I usually double-check myself, just to be sure.

Have you heard about [someone who is mutuals with someone I’m loosely connected with]?

Most likely, no. And unless they’re an immediate danger to someone or they’ve got my name in their mouth, I don’t care.

Do you know who [x person/group/thing] is?Most likely no. Not to sound like a hipster but I don't usually keep up to date with trends. If I do hear about something, it’s most likely from twitter or Instagram.

Why am I blocked? Check here.

Why do you continuously move mains/change URLs/update themes?

I’m inconsistent. And sometimes there are posts on my blog that I no longer stand by.

Can I tag you in posts I think I’d like?Of course!

#lite.txt #long post #faq

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adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction · 4 years

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Practicalities of Censorship

Every so often I see a thread cross my dashboard arguing about censorship with relation to AO3 - in particular people claiming that AO3 is bad because it allows basically any story regardless of content, that people are bad for supporting it, or that AO3 should implement some method by which problematic fics get taken down. These complaints are usually met with explanations around the history or AO3, why it was implemented the way it was, and why thinking that AO3 is fine the way it is does not equal being a pedophile. I want to tackle this from another angle - practicality.

Let's assume for the sake of this post that the people making these arguments are correct and that there are some things which shouldn't be allowed on AO3 (or an an alternative fic platform set up to be a better version of AO3 without all the bad stuff - I'll mostly be taking about "fixing" AO3 in this post but the same problems would apply to setting up a new and "safer" fic site). There are a lot of arguments against censorship to do with quality of works produced and whether this results is less good art when people are scared to produce things that might get banned, or whether there is artistic merit to works that display despicable actions. Let's just imagine for the moment that the whole argument is settled and the "let's purify AO3 for the sake of the children" crowd are correct. What would need to happen next? This isn't something I've seen addressed in these posts.

There are a lot of problems with censorship. Skipping over the ethical discussion of whether censorship is good or bad and in what circumstances it should be accepted, let's focus on two practical aspects: deciding what should and shouldn't be banned, and how you would implement such a ban. Let's start with problem one: where do you draw the line?

Let's assume we have some scale of rating from absolutely sickeningly awful deserving of destruction to perfectly clean and innocent with not the slightest thing wrong with it. Somewhere between these two endpoints is a line and everything to one side of it is bad and should be banned/blocked/deleted from AO3, etc. Everything on the other side of the line is fine and should be left available for people to read. Some things may seem easy to define. Fic A is incest porn, where a child is graphically raped in a way that's cleanly meant to titillate rather than horrify and the abuse is glorified and justified in text, and it's full of poor writing, spelling and grammar mistakes, and has no artistic merit as a work (how you judge artistic merit would need a few thousand words to explore as a subject on its own right). Let's stick that on the bad side of the line since that's the sort of thing that people on Tumblr are crying out to be banned. Fic B is a fluff fic where a character makes another character soup because they're feeling ill and they watch movies together. Nothing remotely sexual, just two adult characters being sweet to each other. So we'll put that on the good side of the line, right?

But the problem comes in deciding where that dividing line should be and what should be done about the things that sit close to the line. You could come up with some simple rules. Let's say, "Everything involving underage incest is on the bad side of the line." Seems straight-forward. But what if you have a story dealing with someone's recovery from incest and CSA? The story has a character who was abused in the past and the narrative deals with them getting therapy and overcoming their trauma. None of the abuse is shown in the text of the story, it all happens off-screen as it were, and the story sends a message that incest and CSA are bad but offers hope to former victims. Surely that story would belong on the good side of the line? So maybe we amend the rule to, "Everything involving graphic incest is on the bad side of the line." That would let us keep the story about overcoming the trauma on the good side but block anything that uses incest as porn. But is consenting incest between grown adults treated the same as abusive incest?

And what if you get a story that's more about the trauma but that has a handful of flashbacks about the rape that would count as graphic. These flashbacks are meant to be horrifying not sexually exciting. Would that be okay? Is it the intent of the scene that matters? But in that case, what happens if the author writes a scene that's intended to be horrifying but a reader interprets it as arousing? Would it be okay if the author includes a disclaimer in the notes saying that this is a terrible thing and shouldn't be done in real life? Is it the intensity of the scenes shown directly in the story? In which case, where do you draw the line between something described explicitly and something merely eluded to? Is it the precise terms used? Which terms? Or how many times those terms are use? Is a subtle allusion to an event okay? In which case, what happens with a slightly less subtle allusion?

The stories that are far away from the line are easy to place, but the ones close to it become a challenge. Any attempt to define straight-forward rules starts to fall apart quickly and you get to the point where you have to argue on a case-by-case basis for each story, which would involve a massive amount of time invested to check each of these stories and decide whether or not they're allowed. Once again the practicalities of "how would you enforce something like this?" rear their ugly head but that's a question we'll address later.

We also have the problem that where I might draw the line between the bad and the good might be different from where you would draw the line, and would be different from where someone else would draw the line. Let's go back to Fic B as described above, our perfectly innocent fluff story. I might think that's perfectly acceptable, but if those two characters are both the same gender, there will be some homophobic people who will say that it's wrong and corrupting innocents because it sends the message that homosexual relationships are good. Or even if the characters are different genders, some highly religious people might think it sends a bad message if those characters are unmarried and living together in a relationship, even if nothing explicit happens within the story. Or what if the characters are married but it's an interracial marriage? A KKK member might say that sends a bad message. Different people have a different idea of what counts as bad content.

In the real world, there have been cases of books that address racism being banned because they use the n word. Harry Potter has been banned by religious groups. According to the website www.banned-books.org.uk a sweet children's book about two penguins hatching an egg was banned by a lot of schools and libraries in the US because the two penguins are both male - even though this story was actually based on a true story. The book Black Beauty, about the experiences of a horse, was banned during the Apartheid in South Africa simply for including the word "black" in the title. If you look at that site, a lot of books have been banned for a lot of different reasons and a lot of good literature has ended up caught up in the censorship usually because religious groups objected to in on moral grounds.

You could say "don't let the bigots and racists be in charge of the censorship," but historically, when censorship has come into play in the past, the people who tend to end up the worst for it are minorities. LGBTQ+ groups and people of colour tend to get censored more than straight, white men. Stories about their experiences often deal with problematic issues and therefore they get banned. The groups that generally end up making decisions about what is and isn't okay tend to be the groups that have the most power to begin with, and the end result is silencing of minority voices. This is one reason I'm very wary of anything to do with censorship, because the people who usually end up the worse for it are those who most need their voices heard.

But let's imagine all of these problems are magically overcome and we come up with a perfectly clear set of rules about what counts as good and bad fic and the dividing line is agreed by good, rational people who aren't remotely bigoted and who are able to define the criteria for what should be banned in a way that will only ever block the harmful stuff.

We still have to deal with the practicalities of enforcement we set aside earlier. We've built our perfect set of rules to define good and bad fics and now we want to put them into practice to ban any of the awful stuff. How would you go about doing it?

We could try and get machine filters to do censorship by looking for keywords and particular tags or using more complex algorithms to judge what a piece of content is about, but this ends up with chaos like Tumblr auto-flagging a lot of perfectly clean content, or YouTube blocking videos that just happened to be by/about LGBTQ+ people. Any software based implementation would struggle because someone talking about a thing as a problem contains the same words as someone glorifying that thing, and machines tend not to be great at picking up tone. You would get a massive amount of errors with things being falsely flagged as bad and things being falsely let through despite breaking the rules.

And people would be sneaky. Someone wanting to include their graphic story wouldn't tag it as for over 18s because tagging something as for over 18s would get it banned, so they would tag it as something else. The terms "lemon" and "lime" used to describe fics by older members of fandoms started from exactly this sort of thing. Websites decided to not allow adult content so people continued to post adult content but they used the citrus scale for tagging it so people would still be able to find it. Which works when people know the terms to look for or avoid, but which doesn't work for people not in the know. Is a "lemon" or a "lime" fic more explicit? Do you know what a fic being tagged as "grapefruit" would mean? By their nature, these tags are coded, which is not great for clarity.

Any sort of system that just blanket bans key words or tags would result in people just not using those keywords and tags but posting the stuff anyway. It would actually make the situation worse because there would still be incest porn and the like, only now it wouldn't be tagged. As it stands on AO3, people use the tagging system very well and people who don't want to see the incest porn can do things like exclude that tag from searches, or just not open fics they see that have the tag. If there were rules in place to not allow anything with that tag, then people would stop using the tag, which would actually mean more people would see incest porn they didn't want to because it would no longer be tagged properly, or it would be tagged using code words which only mean something to the inside group. It would be much harder to avoid the things you don't like.

So let's say we don't let a computer decide what's breaking the rules. Let's say there is a system by which readers can flag a fic as being inappropriate to get it banned. Human beings get to decide, but what's the threshold? Does a thing get banned as soon as someone reports it? Or does it need to be flagged by multiple people to be banned? In which case fics written in tiny fandoms might slip through the cracks because not enough people are reading it to them flag it. This is also open for exploitation. Someone who takes a dislike to a particular person might encourage others to flag their fics as inappropriate, regardless of whether or not they are. Someone might create fake accounts or log in anonymously over proxies to spam a fic with flags.

And even if no one acts maliciously to abuse the system, not everyone will be careful about checking the precise and perfect rules defined to mark the difference between acceptable and unacceptable work. People will flag things incorrectly, based on their own viewpoints of what should or shouldn't be allowed, which we've already said is a problem because everyone will draw the line in different places based on their own beliefs.

So what's the alternative to a community-driven method for managing content? You could have specific people whose job it is to go through content and decide whether it adheres to the rules. Maybe a computer system or community flagging could funnel fics into a review channel where human beings check every one carefully. These people would understand the rules and be certain to always judge fics accurately according to the magically perfect rules defined earlier, which are guaranteed to only ever block bad fics but never block a good fic.

So problem solved, right? We have our perfect rules perfectly implemented.

Except where humans are employed to check whether content is acceptable or not, it involves a large number of people checking through basically the worst content out there. Some social networking sites do this sort of thing now and it can be hugely traumatising for people who do that work. It's not good for them mentally to have to be exposed over and over to the worst content being put up online. There tends to be a high turnover in those jobs because they burn out fast, and that's where people are being paid for this stuff.

A site like AO3 relies on volunteers so it would require a large number of people to volunteer to look at the darkest most gruesome content and decide if it breaks the rules or not. Either you have people who hate those sort of fics doing this out of a sense of duty to maintain the purity of the content, in which case they will probably struggle with having to read a load of stuff they really, really don't enjoy. Or you will have people volunteer because they really like those fics and this is the way for them to read them. And that probably defeats the point of doing this, because it means that the people who would be seeking out those stories anyway would be the ones reading them to see if they break the rules.

There are a lot of problems with censorship, both ethically and practically. Even if you are fully on the side of censorship from a moral standpoint, you have to address the practical concerns if you want to propose an implementation.

As it stands, I think the current system works. There is stuff on AO3 that I would not in a million years want to read, but I don't have to. AO3 is brilliant for its tagging system and I can look at the tags and nope past fics that are full of my personal squicks or that I think endorse something terrible. Readers can exclude tags they want nothing to do with or just not click on ones that include elements you dislike. You can curate your own experience, which actually works with the whole idea of everyone drawing a line in a different place. You and I will have different stories we want to avoid, and we can both choose to avoid them based on author's tagging for them, rather than some other person decreeing what is acceptable for either of us to see.

If you still think that AO3 should be blocking or banning certain content, have a think about how this would work in reality. Because when ideas like that are implemented in the real world, all manner of problems happen.

I think the fact that this post is still a couple of thousand words long with me skipping over several parts of the debate is a sign that this is not a simple problem that can be easily fixed.

#censorship #long post

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skyfallensoldier · 4 years

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Mobile Navigation || Rules & Mun ↓

DISCLAIMER: I just want to note here at the beginning that while I am considering this RP blog to be historically based, i.e. remaining true to the time period and overall details of John Laurens' biographical information and whatnot, I do not consider myself a historically accurate blog, not entirely. Historical fiction is a well known genre of literature and many, MANY creative liberties are taken within that genre. Think of this blog like you would if you saw an Anastasia Romanov blog. She's dead, we know she didn't survive, and she's been dead a long-ass time; so has Laurens. People still have included her in many works of fiction, even after her body was identified and it was proven she did not survive her family's massacre. I saw a romance book a couple of months ago where she survived that was recently published. Historical fiction, while a controversial thing at times, is a legitimate form of literature.

You don't have to tell me if you think John isn't acting exactly like the real man himself would have, I know that. I'm not going to call John my 'perfect sunshine boy cinnamon roll' or dismiss the privilege he was raised on due to his father, I'm aware he was a real person who had his own personality, virtues and prejudices. I won't deny that while he was certainly a progressive thinking man for the time he grew up in he definitely still had racist thoughts and actions that were indicative of his upbringing. But I'm not on here to debate modern, real life politics, or get into arguments about whether he was a good abolitionist or not. At the end of the day, this is still a hobby for me, and I'm writing for fun.

Basically, don't take it too seriously. I'm a 21st century bisexual woman writing from the POV of an 18th century (likely gay) male soldier, the way I write him is obviously not going to be a perfect representation of who he was. I know he wasn't an amazing, perfect person, but I've still chosen to write a fictionalized version of him for my own entertainment. Please try to respect that; thank you.

Mun Stuff

Name: Luna Gender: Female (She/Her or They/Them) D.o.B: July 23rd, 1996 Age: 24 Nationality: Canadian Sexuality: Bisexual Timezone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) Activity: Daily BIOGRAPHY (SORT OF)

Hello, there! You can call me Luna! I've been interested in writing ever since I first got the internet when I was 14 and discovered FanFiction.Net and now I'm an aspiring author and Roleplay enthusiast. If you include acting/talking out DnD like games with friends then I've been 'roleplaying' since the fifth grade, but I like to think there's always room for improvement. If you ever want to chat I'd love to make a new friend or plot out a roleplay, so don't be afraid to shoot me an ask or send me a private message. Just because my muse can be a jackass doesn't mean I am! I’m a huge advocate for mental health, and if you ever need someone to talk to, please don’t ever hesitate to reach out! Some of my hobbies including literature and writing (of course), digging into mythology from various cultures, practicing solitary eclectic paganism/new age spirituality, drinking tea, and collecting crystals/minerals.

Please note that for the sake of disclosure, I am considered ‘Neurodivergent’, in that I suffer from ADHD, diagnosed at about age six, and have Anxiety and Depression which are directly tied to it. This doesn’t often effect my life on here, but I sometimes have an unpredictable sleep schedule (stay up all night, sleep in late into the morning, etc). I’m usually quick to reply to threads for the most part! I work every Tuesday and Thursday from 5pm to 7pm in addition to odd jobs here and there, during which time I won’t have access to the Internet. The rest of the week I’m on and off all day basically, so you can feel free to contact me any time.

RP Style

⭐️ Please use basic spelling/grammar/punctuation when you RP with me. I'm not a drill sergeant about these kinds of things, I know that typos happen, and if you have a vision problem or such we can absolutely find a way to work around that, I also have no problem roleplaying with people whose first language is not English, so that's totally fine and I’m happy to accomodate in whatever way I can, but it does make it a little difficult to play with you if I don't know what you're trying to say. For this reason I prefer if you not use any text shorthand (lol, idk, brb, jk, etc) unless our muses are messaging each other. Using it in the tags is fine.

⭐️ I roleplay Laurens in a past-tense 3rd Person Point of View (think story-telling format), and generally I don't use icons or text formatting unless I notice my partner does, then I will try to match their style (for example if you use icons and small-text, I will try to do the same, though because formatting isn't possible on mobile, any mobile replies might take longer to be posted than if I were on my laptop). If you have any issues with how I'm writing or need me to adjust my style for any reason don't be afraid to ask.

Contact

⭐️ If you spam me with messages over and over again about something I haven't replied to, chances are I'll drop the thread. I don't mind being reminded because I know Tumblr's notifications are notoriously unreliable sometimes, and humans can forget/lose things, but if you keep poking at me after I've acknowledged you the first and second time, I won't be pleased. Things can get busy on here, or in real life, or sometimes you're just lacking muse for that particular thread, y'know? It doesn't mean I hate you and don't want to RP, I'm almost always up for plotting, but muse tends to fluctuate.

⭐️ My ‘Discord’ is available to mutuals upon request. I don't mind roleplaying on there if Tumblr is being glitchy or you're just not feeling up to formatted/heavily plotted threads, sometimes Discord is fun in that you can do immediate replies without needing the effort of putting icons and formatting into it. I also have a Kik but I never use it. I don't RP in Tumblr's IMs, that's purely for OOC interaction.

⭐️ I also occasionally stream movies/TV shows in group chats or play “in character” Cards Against Humanity game nights, Among Us, etc. If you’re interested, lemme know, I’m always looking for more people to hang out with!

Important

I have no actual triggers that I'm aware of, although snakes do creep me out (mostly shots of them coiled up or images of their pupils), but there are some things I will not roleplay personally for comfort reasons:

⭐️ Cannibalism. You can mention it, for example I won't freak out if someone tells my muse that somebody else ate a person (he might, assuming its not a Supernatural type verse), but I won't RP him engaging in cannibalism, not even in AUs (blood-drinking vampires are fine). I'm just not sure I could stomach writing about eating people. I managed to watch Hannibal, barely, but writing about it? Nah. I can handle lots of horror, gore and disturbing content but not this. Sorry.

⭐ Incest/Pedophilia. I do not SEXUALLY ship with characters under the age of 18. John is not attracted to children, and would never consider sleeping with someone much younger than him.

⭐ I will not write anything sexual with muns who are under 18 years old, even if your muse is an adult. I'll still ROLEPLAY with you if you are under 18 but probably no younger than 16 just because things tend to get explicit on my blogs and I don't want to be accused of corrupting the youth with my foul language and weird opinions, lol. Seriously though, this blog covers a lot of dark subjects and while I’m all for minors exploring that safely through writing rather than in real life, some people aren’t comfortable with interacting with under age people for legal or personal reasons, please respect that.

⭐ Necrophilia. Just... no. Vampire threads don't count, as they're undead and not 'dead dead'.

⭐ Rape. I won't write it with you. I'm okay with mentions of rape, with rape/sexual assault survivor/recovery plots, and even with one character intervening to rescue another from an attempted sexual assault (if an attempted assault does occur, it will be thoroughly tagged and under a cut). I'm fully open to discussing rape recovery/trauma plots as those are things that happen in real life, and it can be interesting to explore how a character reacts to trauma. But anything else is a no-go, sorry!

⭐ Please be aware that I write Laurens as a gay man. However! Because of the time period, violent homophobia and social stigma, he has slept with women before and may be seen flirting with or referencing relationships with women in the past. He is still gay, and still uninterested in being with women long term, he's simply closeted to all but a few individuals. So, unless your muse is Martha Manning (who Laurens DOES love in a manner, and he always will), shipping with female characters on here most likely isn't going to happen unless it's heavily plotted/developed and part of an overall plot, and you understand that it will not be a conventional sexual relationship. I'm sorry if that disappoints you but I've read Laurens as a gay male for so long I have trouble seeing him any other way.

⭐ I will not roleplay slavery plots. This is not up for debate. Roleplaying a highly fictionalized version of a long dead real person who existed during a troubling time is one thing, but I draw the line at that. For this reason, while I'll happily play with non-white muses, muses using non white faceclaims, and crossovers with characters of all sorts, I'll have to decline playing with any muse claiming to actually be writing slavery. There’s a difference between, say, roleplaying a character like Daenerys, a fictional character who was technically a slave-bride sold by her brother, and writing actual slavery from a very real, horrible time period. Slave ownership will of course be mentioned on this blog, that's unavoidable, but just like the mention of rape may happen on this blog from time to time, it will be in reference to a past event or speaking about the subject in general, not roleplaying a scene of it. Please respect this rule, I was hesitant to make this blog at first, because I know it makes some people uncomfortable, but I won't glorify such a horrible real thing that happened to so many people.

Exclusives/Mains

Just a head's up, unless I develop a bunch of chemistry with a particular portrayal of a muse I'm not likely to agree to being exclusives with anyone, unless perhaps it's a very niche or divergent character that has formed a good relationship of some sort with John and I'd have trouble interacting with other versions of that muse. For major characters I just feel it would be unfair to say no to someone who I click with in every other way, solely because I have already befriended someone else writing that character.

I will, however, discuss becoming mains with someone whom I've either developed or plotted out detailed storylines/interactions with regarding our specific portrayals of our characters. This means that I tend to reply to them quickly when I'm online, or may make little gifts (moodboards, aesthetic things, mini ficlets, whatever) for them unprompted, have a verse dedicated just to them, etc. Even if it seems like we haven't done much on Tumblr, there may be a lot of off-site development on Discord or whatnot that led to us plotting out intricate stories for our muses.

Current Mains:

Alexander Hamilton - @quillborn

⭐️ Send private messages.

⭐️ Send my character asks/starters/memes.

⭐️ Tag me in things.

⭐️ Ask to plot or ship.

⭐️ Ask for angst, fluff, etc.

⭐️ Submit things to me & my muse.

⭐️ Do crack and other ridiculous things with me!

⭐️ Like my RP threads.

⭐️ Like my personal posts.

⭐️ Comment on my personal/OOC posts (if you want to).

⭐️ Comment on my crack threads.

⭐️ Instant Message (IM) me if you'd like to talk, whether we're friends already or not!

DON'T

⭐️ Send hateful messages to me about other people and especially my mutuals; doesn't count if it's about the muse and not the person playing them, however. Also, if I’ve got beef with someone for whatever reason, don’t harass them/send hate to them on my behalf, please. I don’t condone anonymous abuse, attacking others, or harassment. I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself, I promise.

⭐️ Introduce yourself with ‘wanna ship?’ For one, I prefer if we’ve at least started a roleplay together, or have spoken OOC. Auto shipping doesn’t always work out and I hate promising people something only to realize there’s zero chemistry, because then I feel like I’m letting them down.

⭐️ Come into my inbox with just ‘wanna rp?’ and that’s it. Please at least have some idea of what you want to roleplay, it’s not very fun when someone approaches you to RP but then doesn’t offer up any suggestions at all. Remember, you are always free to send me memes, whether we’re mutuals or not, and hit me up for whatever plot you think might interest me! I want to hear about it!

⭐️ Spam me with "reminder" messages if I've already acknowledged you the first few times.

⭐️ Reblog my RP threads if you're not a participant in them.

⭐️ Send me anonymous OOC hate. Hate for Laurens is fine, it's just another form of roleplay.

⭐️ Kill off my character or severely injure/maim my character without permission or having plotted something involving that with me first.

⭐️ Follow me if you're a porn blog. I don't mind blogs that post NSFW content, or smut a lot, etc. I mean blogs that aren't for RP and are literally just a normal looking blog until you click on it and the header and first twenty posts are hardcore nudity and porn. I hate those things.

⭐️ Shame my ships.

⭐️ Complain about my tagging. I put my smut under a 'read more' without exception and tag them as "NSFW //" with two dashes. Things that are not necessarily graphic but still have sexual undertones go under "Suggestive //". I use these tags to avoid attracting attention from porn blogs and porn bots that track certain key words, as such I do not tag my content with "Smut" or trigger words such as "dick, oral, anal, nudity, etc", please block my NSFW and Suggestive tags if you're uncomfortable. Triggery subjects (mentions of rape, animal abuse, torture, mental illness) will be tagged under the name of said trigger with a space and two dashes, example: "Self Harm //", “Suicidal Ideation //” or "PTSD //".

⭐️ Godmod my character. If you’re not sure what is/isn’t okay, come talk to me! I don’t bite! If you’re looking for an example of god mod behavior, here: “X lunged at Laurens, taking him by surprise, and hit him square in the nose, causing blood to spurt.” It might not seem like a big deal but it means that you decided how your character’s actions affected my muse, and not only that, didn’t give him a chance to dodge or anything. Not cool.

⭐️ Ship with me without permission (sending in shippy asks is A-Ok if you're interested in exploring a ship between our muses, I'm talking about things like claiming that our muses are in a relationship without discussing it with me, referencing dates or sexual acts that never happened, etc. I ship mainly with chemistry otherwise things get boring fast.

⭐️ Assume/act like our characters know each other/are closely connected (friends/family/lovers) if we've never discussed it unless it is established in canon/history. This especially goes for original characters. I'm open to Laurens forming deep relationships with OCs obviously, but those have to be developed in character, not just assumed from the first interaction.

⭐️ Attempt to roleplay with me if you are not a roleplay blog/or if you're just trying to RP as "yourself." I don't do Character X Reader imagines stuff. I don't RP with 'fan' accounts, only RP blogs. You can still send asks so long as you're not trying to initiate an RP scenario. For example, asking Laurens what his hobbies are, asking for a blessing etc? That's fine. Spamming me with different actions "you" are talking to Laurens is weird. Stop that. I will also not RP with blogs that claim to roleplay as real life people, such as Markiplier, that's super creepy. This does NOT apply to "historical fiction" roleplay (obviously since that's what this blog is), which is considered its own genre of literature. I'm talking about the above where people will 'roleplay' as real life, currently alive people like YouTube celebrities and ship them with their friends, even if they've made it clear that they're uncomfortable with it.

⭐️ Get angry at me for doing something you don't like if you don't even have a rules page for me to go by. It's not fair; you can't expect your partners to just read your mind and magically know how you feel. If something bothers you let me know, I’ll make a note about it so I avoid it during our interactions!

⭐️ Use me as a meme resource blog without ever interacting with me. I don't require "reblog karma" for you to follow me, partners are more than welcome to reblog from me, but if we never interact and I just occasionally see you reblog fifteen posts from my meme tag and then disappear again I'm not gonna be happy. Go to the source or to an archived blog no longer getting notifications, please!

⭐️ Reblog my Meta/Headcanons. If they're from a different blog it's fine but the ones I've personally written are for MY portrayal of Laurens. I work hard on most of my stuff and I'd prefer if you didn't reblog it, not because you aren't allowed to have the same headcanon ideas as me, but because then it ends up getting liked or reblogged by lots of other people, spamming my notifications, etc.

OCs & Multimuses

I love OCs and multi-muse blogs (I have my own multimuse sideblog over at @historyremembers, which has other 18th century characters including the Hamilton children and some OCs), so feel free to interact! That being said, please have an about page of some sort on your blog. I can't follow back blogs that have absolutely no information available regarding their character(s). I don't RP with OC children of Laurens. This is nothing personal, but I'm fairly certain he was gay in real life and prefer to play him that way, and he only had one child - who he never even got to meet - in real life, so it just wouldn't make sense to me for him to have other kids running around unless he'd adopted some. If you're a multimuse, I may not follow you back if I'm only familiar with two of your muses if you have a blog of fifteen characters, simply because I'd prefer to keep my dash clean and only have characters/fandoms I'm familiar with on it. I'll still RP with you if you have a character I'm interested in! I just might not follow back if the majority of your characters I do not know, I apologize for this.

If you’ve made it to the end of this, congrats! I know it couldn’t be easy (my ADHD brain was frustrated trying to just write all this up) but it’s necessary so there’s not misunderstandings on what I am/am not willing to RP. I won’t ask for a password since I trust most people to have the courtesy to at least skim the rules of those they want to RP with.

Have a nice day!

#Everybody Listen Up! {PSA}#Out Of The Field {OOC}#Long Post //

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kendrixtermina · 4 years

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(Fe3h discourse incoming) So I'm not sure if this is still around but I remember some people calling characters "racist" due to how they initially view the Almyrans and it just annoys me? If you lived in basically medieval times and all you knew about a group of people was that they invaded your homeland and are good fighters it makes sense you'd be wary about them. The fact that we see them easily discard any initial opinions to work with them in VW shows the opposite and how accepting they are

Part of this does probably come from this purity culture sentiment that there is one obvious right answer that should be apparent to anyone not evil when we’re really all to an extent limited by the knowledge we can access.

This is something I feel strongly about precisely because I know how much I don’t know and how much ppl have been wrong in the past - so much BS is still widely believed these days like Diet culture or counter-evidential beliefs about economy. So that makes me be careful to claim we have the truth now. As my grandfather used to say, “the middle ages will step on us”, that is as long as our time isn’t barbarism free it will come to be considered barbaric times eventually.

In the middle ages people used to give their children mercury and bankrupt themselves as someone might for real medicine. Emotionally to the mammal brain it’s the same. That’s why knowledge is power cause it helps you know the real consequences of your action. Otherwise you get what seems like caring parents wondering if they're harming their children by not doing barbaric stuff like physical beating or fgm. One can notice by oneself that it’s wrong and causes suffering but someone who only believes their own ideas and never takes outside data into account would be either mad or an arrogant jerk. At some point you need to consider outside data unless you can discover all of science and psychology by yourself.

So to put it short no one is immune to propaganda and the closest thing to a cure is self-awareness and self-questioning, no one is born with all the answers; instrict, thinking, emotion and intuition can all lead you astray.

Though the correct word here would be xenophobia. (generic distrust/prejudice about foreigners)

‘Racism’ is a very specific early modernity variant of it with pseudoscience mixed in, or maybe it could be thought of as an ideology meant to keep xenophobic-like distrust going in a mixed society. Normally that sort of prejudice desintegrates as people interact more (a big plot point here actually) - or rather, communication & interaction changes how people define in group and out group, which is ultimately arbitrary. A lot of what is thought of today as countries or races used to be considered wildly different peoples when the reach of communication reached further.

But if you spread some ideology that leads people to be artificially segregated, or indirectly causes that through economic disadvantages, bam, you can keep prejudice alive & well for centuries and whatever institutions you built on it, like colonial resource extraction gigs or political hegemony.

That said tho, certain lines there are definitely written to evoke rl xenophobic comments as people commonly experience them, and to tell people who recognize this & might have charged responses because of their own backstories that their lying eyes deceive them because you like those characters is not good. “Oh but they’re a good person with a bright future” is exactly how this behavior fails to get recognized in real life. So to that extent I’d disagree with you.

At least their past incarnations at the point that they said those lines they were “xenophobes”, that is, fulfilled all criteria of the definition & engaged in typical behavior as people affected by xenophobia experience it.

Hilda, for all her good qualities (and don’t get me wrong I love her to bits) is still sort of a frivolous rich girl. Sylvain for example did take the time to inform himself ‘bout the neighbors (See that lost item that’s info about sreng) though his family also holds a border territory & much depends on its defense. The system isn’t an universal brainwash, the truth is that both system and individual responses matter and dynamically influence each other.

But note that that’s all I’m talking about: Recognition, sober reasonable acknowledgement of bad behavior. You can’t talk about bad behavior if you don’t show anyone doing it and if it was only irredeemable monsters that did it, it wouldn’t make ppl question themselves.

To acknowledge that they acted xenophobically (adverb) isn’t to say that they’re an embodiment of all xenophobia ever (noun) and that you’ve got to hate them now. But as long as they don’t hate at you for liking them ppl affected by xenophobia are allowed to vent & use a story as a projection space for it because that’s how everyone uses stories - the same story can in fact mean different things to people without either being “wrong”

Also, scale. Hilda making one or two not even especially malicious comments is on a whole different level than Ingrid actually cheering for destruction. Neither of them compares to the various unrepentant antagonists who never change their views when confronted with evidence cause it benefits them.

Some of that distinction is lost if you just slap the same label on all and demand they be reacted to the same way, or that ppl add a disclaimer each time they want to talk about a character they like. We don’t make everyone who likes Jeritza say “mass murder is bad” first.

But also context: After all a big plot here is that the system these characters live in encourages and cultivates such attitudes - that’s why the various leader figures you can choose to back all want to change it it different ways.

That’s why Winston in 1984 starts the story very paranoid, repressed & full of violent fantasies, to show the effect the dystopia has on people.

(important point imho, a lot of ppl look at atrocities and judge that human nature is just bad but actually human nature is programmable. Evil can be engineered as much as civilization and education can foster good)

It’s generally the problem with Purity culture (wether it wears a right or left wing hat) that it’s more focussed on applying loaded, out of context labels (which are then treated as static) than constructive solutions focussed on promoting the desired end goals.

The labeling tactic is probably appropriate sometimes (active, unrepentant nazis, that you thereby deprive of big dollar platforms or ad revenue) but no tool/tactic is ever a silver bullet.

tl;Dr I agree with you that labeling/purity culture doesn’t have the right approach to it, but ppl should be able to call a spade a spade and say & respond to depictions of xenophobia because to say otherwise would be tantamount to saying that victims of xenophobia or racism aren’t allowed to have feelings or engage with media.

Obsly the characters can’t be reduced to that & you’re right about that & the importance of context, but if just stating/acknowledging that they at one point fulfilled the criteria for xenophobia feels like bashing to you I’d work on decoupling those emotions to see clearer.

People can have done something wrong at some point & still be interesting people - especially in a media context where they’re as imaginary as their victims, it’s not like you’re giving money to real unrepentant perps.

I’d ease up on real ppl too if they repent simply because then they stop being a problem and solving it so it stops harming RL ppl takes precedent over cathartic punishment that makes you feel good, the goal should be always to stop the harm (at the root, if possible) because it’s intolerable for ppl to be harmed

Or that’s my 2cents anyways.

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finnickodaiir · 4 years

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Is there any popular TV show, movie or book that everyone you know loves, but you hate? - I’m so curious to see what your take is on this!

Thanks for the ask, @lots-to-love !

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that any of these pieces of media are bad, I'm just saying that they're not my cup of tea. I'm not gonna judge or think less of anyone who likes the stuff I mention here.

Books:

1) Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell: I'm sure this is a great book, it's a classic after all, but it wasn't for me. I read it two years ago and every moment of it felt like torture. Probably because I'm not a fan of dystopian fiction and because I didn't like any of the characters.

2) The Goldfinch (2013) by Donna Tartt: It's a good book, it won the Pulitzer Prize, after all. It just wasn't for me, I gave up after 3 chapters.

3) Any Philippa Gregory novel (except“The Lady of the Rivers”): I have a problem with Philippa Gregory's writing and it's the fact that she takes rumors, created to vilify female historical figures during their own lifetimes, and makes them true in her novels, while claiming to take them with a pinch of salt, when in reality she isn't. Examples are Jacquetta and Elizabeth Woodville being witches, Margaret Beaufort being a child murderess, Elizabeth of York having an affair with her uncle, Katherine of Aragon lying about her virginity, Mary Boleyn having illegitimate children with Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn being guilty of adultery and incest and I'm sure there are more examples. This would have been fine if Gregory didn't claim to be historian, when she is actually a novelist and her degree is on 18th century literature, and if she stopped taking her own fictional account as facts.

4) Any Alison Weir book: I don't like most of her books (except her biography of Elizabeth I and her novel on Katherine of Aragon), because she doesn't cite her sources, she is quite biased and makes it quite clear when she dislikes a historical figure and usually relies on sources most historians have discredited. And she is pretty judgy and sexist, she vilifies Anne Boleyn, claims she was “an ambitious adventuress with a penchant for vengeance”, slut-shames Katherine Howard, while glorifying Katherine of Aragon.

TV shows:

1) OUAT: I used to love this show, but after the first half of S3, I started to dislike it and my dislike turned to hatred. My problems are the lazy writing, the retconning, the fact they had to adapt every fairy tale to the point it didn't fit organically with the overall plot. The poorly-written redemption arcs, the fact that almost every ship was toxic, and the lack of originality.

2) Riverdale: Do why I really need to go into why I dislike this show? Okay, my problems are the fact that Jughead's asexuality was erased and he was turned into Betty's edgy boyfriend, the fact that the show doesn't acknowledge that Betty is a terrible person, the sexualization of teens, the fact that Kevin and Chuck were reduced to homophobic and racist stereotypes, respectively. And the nonsensical plot.

3) Sherlock: The episodes don't hold up after watching it again, Sherlock is turned into an arrogant asshole and a high functioning sociopath, when his literary counterpart cared about his clients and wanted to do the right thing, Watson gets turned into a puppy who blindly follows Sherlock, Irene Adler goes from being the woman who outsmarted him to being a dominatrix, who gets outsmarted by him and falls in love with him, even though she is a lesbian on the show.

4) The Big Bang Theory: I don't like the show because of its misogynistic tone and I can't bring myself to like any of the characters.

5) Wolf Hall: All of my problems with Gregory's writing, but worse. All of the characters are one-dimensional caricatures of themselves, none of the characters are likable, the show is boring, all of the historical figures in this godforsaken show are done dirty.

Movies:

It Chapter Two: I think we all saw this coming. Okay, I liked Adult Bill much more than I did in the novel, I think they did a good job with Ben and Beverly as individuals and as a couple. But other than that, I hated the fact that Muschietti had Mike steal stuff from Native Americans, lie about the Ritual of Chüd being effective, I hated the “Mike's parents were rumored to be drug addicts” subplot, as one article states “Mike Hanlon has arguably gone from a victim of racism at the hands of Henry Bowers to a victim of racism at the hands of the filmmakers” and I also hated that Muschietti cut out his scenes. I hated that Eddie went from being a brave, empathetic, sensitive, kind kid to a cowardly asshole in the second film, who got most of his gay-coding given to Richie, who had his own arc and bi-coding ignored by Muschietti and I hated that Eddie's death was made all about Richie and not about Eddie himself, who chose to sacrifice himself to save friends in the novel, while in the second film, he recklessly turns his back against IT, giving Pennywise the opportunity to stab him. And I hated that they had Richie trying to abandon his friends every 5 seconds. And I hated that Richie got to kill Bowers, instead of Eddie. I hated the way that Richie and Eddie's dynamics was portrayed, they had no soft moments apart from the “you're braver than you think” which was at the cost of Eddie's bravery and it was 5 seconds after Richie made a fatphobic comment. I hated that Stan's suicide was framed as an act of heroism, because it sends the wrong message and because in the novel and miniseries, Stan's death weakened the Losers' power against IT. That was the whole point of the Lucky 7, It was actually afraid of them. I hated the “if we don't kill It now, we will die” subplot, it misses the point of the Losers coming back to Derry, the point was to honor their promise and make sure that the next generation of children living in Derry don't become future victims of IT. I hated the way the Ritual of Chüd was handled, because it portrays Native Americans in a stereotypical way and uses them as a plot device and it doesn't go anywhere, because the Ritual doesn't work, meaning we wasted an hour watching the Losers looking for tokens to use in an ineffective ritual. And the way the kill Pennywise is so stupid, the horror elements are weak and the plot is messy.

Basically It Chapter Two fails as a sequel, as a character-driven film and a horror one.

In conclusion, please don't kill me if you like any of the stuff I mentioned, it's just my opinion.

#asks #answered #lots to love

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hamliet · 6 years

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Disney Princesses as Strong Women: Pocahontas’s Power to Choose Her Path

That one Disney Princess movie without a happy ending.

As per my requisite disclaimer, there is absolutely room for (a lot of) legitimate criticism of Pocahontas, especially around its portrayal of culture, history, and race, and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of the film or of Pocahontas, but rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Pocahontas as a Disney character in the Disney film, not as a real person.

Out of all the Disney films, though, I do want to add an extra disclaimer for Pocahontas. It has a lot of cringe-worthy and outright inaccurate and offensive racial portrayals. The song “Savages” in addition to having extremely racist terms used in it, equates Native Americans with the colonists, and while the message of the song would make sense in the Romeo and Juliet situation the film portrays it as, it does not work in the context of a real historical issue where there was a clear aggressively racist, genocidal, and plain morally wrong side (the colonists), especially when the oppression of Native Americans is still very much a thing. However, I want to focus this meta on Pocahontas’s fictional character within the film, because I think there’s a lot to like in terms of who she is. That being said, divorcing from context is hard, so there’s a tension there. If anything I say is insensitive, please let me know.

So Pocahontas opens with the colonizers setting sail from England with the song “Virginia Company,” which includes the lyrics:

For the New World is like heaven And we'll all be rich and free Or so we have been told By the Virginia Company So we have been told by the Virginia Company

The emphasis on “so we have been told” sets up one of the themes Pocahontas’s character exemplifies: the idea of choosing your path versus following lies and promises given by people who are probably motivated by their own selfish desires (Governor Radcliffe). The riches the song describes are, of course, not there, but the colonists follow the hope of it and wind up missing the forest for the trees. Essentially, Pocahontas encourages critical thinking and moving one’s concerns from just one’s own life to one’s place in the world.

The beginning also sets up John Smith as a foil to Pocahontas. From the very beginning, he’s fundamentally concerned about himself, constantly talking about his wants and adventures. In the song, “Mine,” which emphasizes the greed of the colonists, Smith, who has no interest in gold, chimes in “hundreds of dangers await/And I don’t plan to miss one!” He’s only thinking about his own desire for the next thrill, telling the other colonists that he’s “been to dozens of new worlds” and doubts this one will be unique, and comments that he expects the Native Americans to be basically the same as other people: “If they’re anything like the [people] I’ve fought before...” His perspective is entirely centered on himself: he views adventures and new lands and other people also as things for himself, instead of seeing himself as part of a whole world.

Pocahontas is a bit different, but she also struggles to learn responsibility throughout the film. It’s noted to Powhatan in his introduction (when he asks where his daughter is) that she “takes after her mother” and “goes wherever the wind takes her.” Cut to Pocahontas and Nakoma (a good friend, this movie miiiiight pass the Bechdel test? It’s kinda borderline), and Pocahontas jumps off a cliff. However, Meeko jumps after her and is terrified, symbolically warning that even though her freedom is not the selfishness of John Smith, her choices still affect others both positively and negatively at times as well, as we’ll see them affecting her father, Kocoum, Nakoma, and more.

Powhatan tells her "you are the daughter of the chief. It is time for you to take your place among the people," and gives her the necklace that belonged to her mother. Pocahontas is often compared to her mother: the first two scenes I mentioned, and Grandmother Willow also tells Pocahontas her mother once asked her the same question about what path to take in life. There is perhaps the suggestion that people are expecting Pocahontas to take her mother’s path, but as Grandmother Willow encourages, she has her own choices to make.

The answer, after all, as Grandmother Willow says, is to “listen.” Empathy and learning are paths to being able to make wise decisions, after all. This will be emphasized later when she begs her father to “try talking to [the colonists]” instead of resorting to war. Towards the climax of the film, Smith comments that the colonists won’t want to listen to reason because "everything about this land has them spooked." A creepy figure then appears, howling as if to emphasize his words--but it turns out to be Percy, Radcliffe’s dog, symbolizing that what’s really spooking the colonists is themselves.

When Smith and Pocahontas meet, he almost shoots her, and then falls in love with her, which is the story calling him out on the violence he previously bragged about.

When she runs, he tries to stop her from leaving by forcing her to stay via grabbing her canoe.

But Pocahontas is not having that. He tries to speak to her in English and they realize they can’t understand each other, so he offers her his hand--symbolic of listening. Notably after this the language issue goes away which again, don’t think too hard about it it’s a children’s story, but symbolically it seems to represent the idea that once they’re listening to each other, they can understand each other.

When Smith goes all White Savior on Pocahontas, claiming that “we'll show your people how to use this land properly... build houses” and Pocahontas points out their houses are just fine, he patronizing counters “you think that your houses are fine only because you don't know any better." And she leaves. Pocahontas is not here for your racist patronization instead of listening to her. They then launch into “Colors of the Wind,” with its fitting lyrics about how they all have a place in the world, but it’s essentially not all about them and encourages respect for “every rock and tree and creature.” You desires matter, but so do other people’s.

When she says she has to go because she can hear the drums signifying that her people are in trouble, the exact same scene as their first meeting plays out, except this time he lets her leave instead of trying to stop her. He lets her make her own choices.

When Pocahontas starts spending more and more time with John Smith, Kocoum warns Nakoma “tell her not to run of... she listens to you.” In response Nakoma snorts and says, “Sure she does,” because well, Pocahontas doesn’t, and she doesn’t tell her best friend what’s going on until it’s too late. This leads to tragedy when Nakoma tries to help her by sending Kocoum to help her because she worries for her friend’s safety, and Kocoum is killed. As he dies, he tears Pocahontas’s necklace from her neck, symbolically threatening to tear her connection with her mother’s free path.

And yet John Smith is unquestionably the one more at fault for bringing about the tragedy. Radcliffe tells an impressionable Thomas that “a man's not a man unless he learns how to shoot.” Oh hey white America hasn’t changed at all.

Smith then gives him advice, teaching him how to shoot from his presumably many experiences shooting...

...but Thomas then uses the gun to save Smith but kill Kocoum.

Smith then takes the blame for Thomas, sacrificing himself for a kid who’s really naive and was only trying to follow in the footsteps of Smith, his idol. And Pocahontas then throws herself onto Smith, protecting him at the risk of her own life as well. As she runs to save him, she sings “I don’t t know what I can do/Still i know I've got to try" jumping over a gap between two rocks because symbolism.

This shows Pocahontas growing, taking responsibility for what is about to happen to Smith. They stop the war, but Smith is shot because he again realizes that he should take responsibility because he’s the one who came here in the first place (and the... smokescreen... reason the colonists were marching on them) and jumps in front of Powhatan to save him.

He asks Pocahontas to return with him. Her father gives her his blessing to do so. But she turns him down, though she loves him, because she says, “my place is with my people.” But instead of having her path written for her, she has made her own choice, and she made it by listening. It was time she take her place among her people, but she needed to define that place herself, and listen to the world around her to arrive there, instead of simply acquiescing.

And so he leaves and cue a tragic ending, but for the children. But Pocahontas’s character has a lot of power and emphasis on growing up and what that entails: learning, listening, guidance, making mistakes and growing from them. I really like her character a lot, and it’s certainly one of the more thematically... realistic as opposed to optimistic Disney films.

Up next, one of my favorites: Esmeralda! Yes I know she isn’t technically a princess but to quote the Genie from Aladdin, she’s a prince[ss] to me, so I’m writing about her :P For previous entries in this series, see here:

Snow White’s Self-Esteem

Cinderella’s Courage and Compassion

Aurora’s Autonomy

Ariel’s Adventurous Spirit

Belle’s Bravery (and Boundaries)

Jasmine’s Justice

#disney meta #disney princesses #pocahontas #john smith #racism tw

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shysweetthing · 7 years

Text

deathbycoldopen replied to your post: Dear Yuri on Ice fic writers, I just want to say... That’s great! I do kind of wonder about the trend in yoi fic where Yuuri is referred to as a “boy” and viktor is referred to as a “man”. Obviously there’s an age difference, but 23 is old enough that I’d comfortably call him a man. Which leaves me with the reminder of infantilizing poc by white americans (particularly calling black americans boy). As someone affected more directly by that kind of thing, does that bother you at all? (sorry for the rambly message)

I cannot speak for all Asian-Americans, or even Asian-American men. Please take this as my personal opinion of the kind of stuff that bothers me. And I apologize in advance for being kind of wordy, but I have LOTS of thoughts and they’re very complicated, so it’s hard for me to put them all down.

I have kind of a hierarchy for things that bother me, ranging from “super-racist, holy crap do NOT do this” to “argh” to “sigh.” I encounter “argh” and “sigh” level stuff all the time, everywhere. YOI fandom is no exception.

Super-racist stuff in fandom I will nope out of. Won’t read, won’t like, won’t recommend, will silently grit my teeth at all the positive comments. Argh and sigh? If the fic is otherwise redeeming, I’ll keep going, and sometimes I will even love it.

Super-racist stuff, IMO, is almost never okay; there’s just almost no way to present a character in which it makes sense, and so unless you’re an insider (in the case of writing a Yuuri that speaks imperfect English, that means a Japanese person from Japan who has gone to an English-speaking country and experienced racism for the way you spoke) you probably don’t have the experience to know how to write that well, and your dominant culture has probably given you an idea of how you think that feels for the person who is speaking that is absolutely counter to how it actually feels internally.

Stuff that isn’t at that level--the “argh” and “sigh” level--is harder to classify, and there are fewer hard and fast rules as to whether I argh or sigh. There are things I can say bother me, but someone will handle it so well that I’ll love it unreservedly.

Again, what follows relates to my personal tolerance--other people (including Asians) will not be bothered at all by things that really grate at me. On the other hand, there are things I can tolerate, that will really hurt other people.

Things that hit somewhere between “argh” and “sigh” level for me include: desexualization of Yuuri, making Yuuri a lot less competent than he canonically is, saying that Yuuri has a tiny dick, treating Yuuri as having less agency and being incredibly dependent on others to function, treating Phichit as an adjunct to Yuuri without his own wants and wishes, and... a lot of other stuff. YOI fandom isn’t perfect; it just mostly avoids super-racist.

These things can be quite complicated--there’s a real difference between writing an Asian character who is a complex, wholly functional human being, who is ace, or who has a small dick, or who has difficulty making choices--and writing a caricature where those same things feel like ugly, painful racial stereotypes. I don’t want to suggest categorical rules in these categories.

(You can already see why this is so complicated--“small dick” is both an Asian stereotype and an insult born of shitty toxic masculinity. Men can have small and/or no dicks and still be men, and be sexy and lovable and good lovers. Likewise, Asian men can have big dicks, small dicks, or no dicks at all. Dick isn’t indicative of anything at all, and in a fic that recognizes that, I do not mind. I do mind when the fic unconsciously accepts as a given that bigger dick=better, and Yuuri is tiny.)

I think it would fall into the “super-racist, don’t do this unless you’re black and can process how this hurts and how to alleviate that hurt” to call an African-American character “boy.” I don’t think there’s a context in which a non-black person can use that word, applied to a black person, in fiction and not get tangled up in the history of that word applied to that person. (There’s a giant asterisk here about portraying racism in fiction that I’m not going to get into because it’s so massive.)

But Yuuri is not African-American, and the characters are not American, and I don’t think it carries that same context. That means that it depends heavily on how it’s handled.

In terms of Yuuri being called a boy, in my mind, this depends on a lot of factors that depend on who’s doing it and what the context is. I feel like friends saying, “Yeah, boy!” to each other isn’t a big deal. The word “boy”--in addition to the specific usage for African-Americans--can sometimes signify friendship (“that’s my boy!”) or queerness or a number of other things other than “young man.” I’ve had Victor call Yuuri a boy--as in “I don’t kiss boys who don’t cry over dogs”--and in that case, Victor is clearly assigning himself as being in the same classification as Yuuri, and that doesn’t personally bother me (obviously, or I wouldn’t have done it). It also wouldn’t bother me to have Yakov calling Yuuri a boy--Yakov is seventy, so both Yuuri and Victor are absolute CHILDREN to him. It probably would bother me if Yakov thought of Victor as a man and Yuuri as a boy, though. It’s more likely to be the reverse--Yakov has known Victor since he was a literal boy, and he met Yuuri as a man.

You didn’t suggest this, but I would also personally be leary of claiming that because “boy” is a slur used to put African-Americans in their place, it should not ever be used to describe Asian-Americans. I personally try not to disclaim ownership over the specific types of racism experienced by black people. Asians are (mostly) not insiders to the incredibly harmful use of “boy” in this case, and representing that it harms them equally implies that they would have the ability to call African-Americans “boy” as insiders, and...no. No. We don’t, we can’t, that’s not okay.

Asians experience racism, but it is not the same kind of racism that black people experience. As Asians can often be guilty of anti-black prejudice, I think it’s especially important to not coopt the African-American experience.

This is a very long response to your question, and I already know I’m glossing over some points as it is, so my apologies both for the length and incompleteness of the answer. These are my personal opinions and not everyone will agree with me, but here you are.

#deathbycoldopen #replies #racism tw #racial slur tw

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itsfinancethings · 5 years

Link

November 15, 2019 at 08:44PM

(NEW YORK) — Disney’s new streaming service has added a disclaimer to Dumbo, Peter Pan and other classics because they depict racist stereotypes, underscoring a challenge media companies face when they resurrect older movies in modern times.

The move comes as Disney+ seems to be an instant hit. It attracted 10 million subscribers in just one day. The disclaimer reads, “This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.”

Companies have been grappling for years with how to address stereotypes that were in TV shows and movies decades ago but look jarring today. Streaming brings the problem to the fore.

In Dumbo, from 1941, crows that help Dumbo learn to fly are depicted with exaggerated black stereotypical voices. The lead crow’s name is “Jim Crow,” a term that describes a set of laws that legalized segregation. In Peter Pan, from 1953, Native American characters are caricatured. Other Disney movies with the disclaimer include The Jungle Book and Swiss Family Robinson.

Pocahontas and Aladdin do not have it, despite rumblings by some that those films contain stereotypes, too.

Read more: Disney Has Reshaped the Movie Industry. Will Disney+ Do the Same for Television?

On personal computers, the disclaimer appears as part of the text description of shows and movies underneath the video player. It’s less prominent on a cellphone’s smaller screen. Viewers are instructed to tap on a “details” tab for an “advisory.”

Disney’s disclaimer echoes what other media companies have done in response to problematic videos, but many people are calling on Disney to do more.

The company “needs to follow through in making a more robust statement that this was wrong, and these depictions were wrong,” said Psyche Williams-Forson, chairwoman of American studies at the University of Maryland at College Park. “Yes, we’re at a different time, but we’re also not at a different time.”

She said it is important that the images are shown rather than deleted, because viewers should be encouraged to talk with their children and others about the videos and their part in our cultural history.

Disney’s disclaimer is a good way to begin discussion about the larger issue of racism that is embedded in our cultural history, said Gayle Wald, American studies chairwoman at George Washington University. “Our cultural patrimony in the end is deeply tethered to our histories of racism, our histories of colonialism and our histories of sexism, so in that sense it helps to open up questions,” she said.

Wald said Disney is “the most culturally iconic and well-known purveyor of this sort of narrative and imagery,” but it’s by no means alone.

Universal Pictures’ teen comedy Sixteen Candles has long been decried for stereotyping Asians with its “Long Duk Dong” character.

Warner Bros. faced a similar problem with its “Tom and Jerry” cartoons that are available for streaming. Some of the cartoons now carry a disclaimer as well, but it goes further than Disney’s statement. Rather than refer to vague “cultural depictions,” the Warner Bros. statement calls its own cartoons out for “ethnic and racial prejudices.”

“While these cartoons do not represent today’s society, they are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed,” the statement reads.

At times, Disney has disavowed a movie entirely.

Song of the South, from 1946, which won an Oscar for the song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” was never released for home video and hasn’t been shown theatrically for decades, due to its racist representation of the plantation worker Uncle Remus and other characters. It isn’t included in Disney+, either.

Disney and Warner Bros. did not respond to requests for comment.

Sonny Skyhawk, an actor and producer who created the group American Indians in Film and Television, also found the two-sentence disclaimer lacking.

What would serve minority groups better than any disclaimer is simply offering them opportunities to tell their own stories on a platform like Disney+, Skyhawk said. He said that when he talks to young Indian kids, “the biggest negative is they don’t see themselves represented in America.”

___

Associated Press writer Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this report.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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kansascityhappenings · 5 years

Text

Disney Plus adds disclaimer about racist stereotypes

NEW YORK — Disney’s new streaming service has added a disclaimer to “Dumbo,” “Peter Pan” and other classics because they depict racist stereotypes, underscoring a challenge media companies face when they resurrect older movies in modern times.

The move comes as Disney Plus seems to be an instant hit. It attracted 10 million subscribers in just one day. The disclaimer reads, “This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.”

Companies have been grappling for years with how to address stereotypes that were in TV shows and movies decades ago but look jarring today. Streaming brings the problem to the fore.

In “Dumbo,” from 1941, crows that help Dumbo learn to fly are depicted with exaggerated black stereotypical voices. The lead crow’s name is “Jim Crow,” a term that describes a set of laws that legalized segregation. In “Peter Pan,” from 1953, Native American characters are caricatured. Other Disney movies with the disclaimer include “The Jungle Book” and “Swiss Family Robinson.”

“Pocahontas” and “Aladdin” do not have it, despite rumblings by some that those films contain stereotypes, too.

Disney’s disclaimer echoes what other media companies have done in response to problematic videos, but many people are calling on Disney to do more.

“Our cultural patrimony in the end is deeply tethered to our histories of racism, our histories of colonialism and our histories of sexism, so in that sense it helps to open up questions,” she said.

Wald said Disney is “the most culturally iconic and well-known purveyor of this sort of narrative and imagery,” but it’s by no means alone.

Universal Pictures’ teen comedy “Sixteen Candles” has long been decried for stereotyping Asians with its “Long Duk Dong” character.

Rather than refer to vague “cultural depictions,” the Warner Bros. statement calls its own cartoons out for “ethnic and racial prejudices.”

At times, Disney has disavowed a movie entirely.

“Song of the South,” from 1946, which won an Oscar for the song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” was never released for home video and hasn’t been shown theatrically for decades, due to its racist representation of the plantation worker Uncle Remus and other characters. It isn’t included in Disney Plus, either.

Disney and Warner Bros. did not respond to requests for comment.

Sonny Skyhawk, an actor and producer who created the group American Indians in Film and Television, found the two-sentence disclaimer lacking.

What would serve minority groups better than any disclaimer is simply offering them opportunities to tell their own stories on a platform like Disney Plus, Skyhawk said. He said that when he talks to young Indian kids, “the biggest negative is they don’t see themselves represented in America.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/11/14/disney-plus-adds-disclaimer-about-racist-stereotypes/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/11/14/disney-plus-adds-disclaimer-about-racist-stereotypes/

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itsfinancethings · 5 years

Link

Companies have been grappling for years with how to address stereotypes that were in TV shows and movies decades ago but look jarring today. Streaming brings the problem to the fore.

Pocahontas and Aladdin do not have it, despite rumblings by some that those films contain stereotypes, too.

Read more: Disney Has Reshaped the Movie Industry. Will Disney+ Do the Same for Television?

Disney’s disclaimer echoes what other media companies have done in response to problematic videos, but many people are calling on Disney to do more.

Wald said Disney is “the most culturally iconic and well-known purveyor of this sort of narrative and imagery,” but it’s by no means alone.

Universal Pictures’ teen comedy Sixteen Candles has long been decried for stereotyping Asians with its “Long Duk Dong” character.

At times, Disney has disavowed a movie entirely.

Disney and Warner Bros. did not respond to requests for comment.

Sonny Skyhawk, an actor and producer who created the group American Indians in Film and Television, also found the two-sentence disclaimer lacking.

___

Associated Press writer Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this report.

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes