#but the way she was treated afterwards and the was poc were treated afterwards speaks volumes

[allamericansbitch]

Genuine question. What do you think about all of the political pundits and news anchors and other celebrities praising Taylor for the endorsement? They’re all saying she made such an eloquent statement but it wasn’t that good…?

I feel like both 'sides' of this are missing the point because it's the internet and all nuance is lost. Taylor finally endorsed Kamala and took an actual political stance for the first time in 4 years, and that's great. That act is gonna do wonders for the election and really helped move eyes and ears toward Kamala, Tim, and their campaign. There's no doubt it'll make a huge impact. So the reporters who are saying she made an 'eloquent statement' are correct, she did. So people who are looking to hate on that have no reason to hate on that aspect. She did a good thing by endorsing Kamala.

However, that's not what the issue was that people were talking about for years prior that hit a peak a few days ago- it's a part but not the whole picture. Her statement about the election missed the big picture, it never once condemned what people have seen her tolerate personally. Taylor, for the past 3-4 years has repeatedly surrounded herself with close-minded, ignorant, and actively bigoted people. From the people she's voluntarily chosen to work with (i.e David O Russell; a known abuser) to people she chooses to publicly be friends with (Brittany Mahomes, Lena Dunham, Zoe Kravitz, etc) and even repeatedly defended dating vocal bigot Matty Healy. She has repeatedly surrounded herself with people who actively go against everything she says she believes, and actions speak louder than words. How can you say you're an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and publicly be besties and lend your spotlight to someone who doesn't believe trans women are women and shouldn't be in women's sports (Brittany Mahomes). How can you support victims of SA/DV when you're friends/work with abuse apologists and actual abusers? How can you be an ally towards POC when you defended dating a man who publicly said he gets off to porn of black women getting beaten, or while you wear jerseys and support your current partner's team- a team that has made a mockery of Indigenous people who have repeatedly begged for them to stop? How can you be an ally for women when you haven't spoken up for Palestine, where women are being treated in unimaginable ways due to the ongoing genocide. That's the issue, her actions vs. her words.

She can say she believes in these subjects, and that's good it's better than nothing, but we all know the words are pretty empty and for show. A show is good but it always ends and you're left with nothing afterwards. She probably won't say much else about the election because in her mind she did her duty, and that to her is the bare minimum. Half-baked activism is applauded because we are so used to getting nothing. Endorse a candidate and go back to being friends with people who don't see certain groups as human beings. Tell people to vote but don't condemn their hatred, because then you'd also be condemning some of your friends. Enable that behavior and live in that privilege, it'll work out for her and that's what matters the most.

[skullshoal]

Ok lol talking about the job I quit

So I didn't outright say it but I had to report them to OSHA because they made me clean up a biohazard with no training and no equipment. I worked in housekeeping at a condo resort and a guest broke a shower door and I was told to clean up the bloody glass. Afterwards OSHA made them right up a big letter and hold a meeting about how we are no longer allowed to clean biohazards and then ultimately nothing changed because when we asked if we could get sterile gloves and training on how to deal with biohazards because we were constantly getting them back in the laundry (which was processed on sight by us and a large part of the job despite never being mentioned on my job listing description lmao) they gave us a biohazard bin to dispose of stuff and nothing else. We got like.......blood and shit and piss and barf on sheets and towels constantly. Also I worked here during the monkeypox outbreak and had to convince my coworkers to even wear gloves when handling the dirty laundry in the first place. I strained my back from loading a washing machine and when I tried to go to the doctor I was denied after waiting an hour and a half because it was "supposed to be" workers comp and I hadn't gotten permission from my work place to be seen and it was sooooooo upsetting it sucked so bad. And then I was told to return to work on light duty even though I could hardly walk or stand straight and I told the doctor there is no sitting position at my work and he literally was just like ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯. When I returned I went back to normal work after like a day and it definitely did not help.

Also the whole place was so fucking racist oh my god. Unsurprisingly but I hated it the only poc were me and another housekeeping person and then all the contracted cleaners are Latino. And they were treated like shit they paid them the lowest in our area and had unreasonable expectations. Also one condo owner in particular was a huge racist and kept accusing her assigned cleaning company of being bad at their job and stealing stuff and when we did deep cleans during the winter she emailed out manager and said I spoke with your singular white cleaner (and not her black superior in the company she did not own) and we agreed she should do the deep clean so do it instead. I printed out the email here it is.

Oh also during deep cleans which are a week long and more than triple the price of a normal clean they started taking away units from companies who had been working in them all year long and didn't tell them to give them to another company. Our managers would not speak to them and one time one of our cleaners came in crying and the non management housekeeping had to tell her what was happening instead of LITERALLY ANYONE IN CHARGE.

Ever since the OSHA report they were like ohhhh we need to get ready cause their could be a surprise inspection anytime and came to find out MDMS sheets for the DANGEROUS CHEMICALS we used to process laundry were last updated at 2010 the latest and 2003 the earliest. 19 years out of date. Btw of course we didn't store them properly either :) here are pictures I took of the inside of house keeping. Oh yeah also we used pilot light dryers and there was no carbon monoxide alarm in this room. Also halfway through me working there we found out that one of the two fire alarms didn't even work. And no sprinklers!

Yes that is our only eyewash station and yes it did expire in 2019 😊. The Ceiling leaked and in multiple places mold grew that we had to keep spraying with bleach. All those open five gall buckets? They say to store in locked containers and keep them sealed. Yes we were breathing in evaporated hydrogen peroxide. And as you can see the walls of this room are lined with towels sheets and blankets all the way to the ceiling.

Anyway the reason I quit was the last day I worked there we were pulled into a meeting suddenly where our manager told us that everytime she was mad at us she added it to a list and now she was going to give us this list as our job guides. Because we had been saying "that's not my job too much". There are 2 dedicated maintenance departments of that property and they were sending me and my coworkers to fix a leaking shower, lift 50-90 lb packages that had been delivered to units containing freezers and chairs, change lightbulbs, and fix windows with 0 tools or training. We were in that meeting for over an hour and at the end she gave us all a write up for something that happened two weeks ago and we were never even told was a problem. My direct manager was there the whole time and said not one word in support of us despite verbally agreeing with us on all these issues. Oh and also she and my coworker had been getting into explosive fights on the reg that were giving me panic attacks. My coworker refused to work in the dangerous weather during a hurricane and my direct manager said "you aren't allowed to tell me what you are and aren't going to do." :) And by explosive I mean screaming and crying.

So yeah. There's like one billion other things but that's all for now I'm done I just started thinking about it this morning and thought I should share.

[girl-of-many-fandoms]

Holaaa, I love your posts so i was wondering if you could write a matk sloan imagine where y/n is black and she has to deal with a racist patient (the same thing that happend to bailey) y / n cries and vents with mark about this situation, and obviously mark tries to protect her. but in the end she decides to operate on the patient with great professionalism.

Ps sorry, i know its long😅

Race

Pairing: Mark Sloan x POC!Reader

Warning: None

MASTERLIST

----

Slipping your hands into the latex gloves you stood in the abulance bay awaiting the gunshot victims that were being brought in. This was a all hands on deck situation, Alex stood next to you just as the first ambulance pulled in

The door opened and the both of us rushed forward claiming this case before the others could

"What do we got?" the medic hopped out and removed the patient out of the ambulance

"Forty year old male, gsw to his left leg, abdomen and left clavicle" she went on to give us his stats as we wheeled him into the hospital

The man groaned in pain as he pulled the oxygen mask down, you were about to tell him to keep it on when he started scowling at me

"I don't want her on my case!" Alex looked over at you as you wheeled him into the room, refusing to let his comment get the best of you

"If I'm being treated in this hospital I don't want a black person working anywhere near or on me. I'm pretty sure this baboon doesn't even know what she's doing" Alex was visibly angry by the way this man was reacting, he opened his mouth to defend you but you stopped him before he could say anything that would get him fired

"Sir I am your doctor and I am going to be treating you today. So we can either come to that agreement or you could walk right out those doors and go to another hospital" the nurses paused what they were doing as you spoke sternly to the man

"Doctor Y/L/N outside now" cheif Hunt ordered but you stood in place wanting to slap that smug look on the man's face

"She can't speak to me that way, I want her fired!"

"Doctor" scoffing you removed your protective gear and left the room, Hunt hot on your heels

"That is exactly how we do not talk to our patients Doctor. I don't know what he said but whatever it was you still had no right to speak to him that way" he towered over you, hands on his hips, grilling you in front of everyone in the pit

"With all due respect sir, you should ask what caused me to react that way before trying to embarass me infront of everyone" with that being said you turned around on your heels, briefly locking eyes with Mark

You quickly walked down the hall before Owen could say anything else not caring about what would happen afterwards. You were fuming and you wanted to scream so loud until your throat hurt but for now all you could do is hideaway in the on-call room

"Don't let him get to you Y/N" you paced the floor running your palms down your face in hopes of calming down before the tears could get the best of you. Whenever you got extremely angry you had a habbit of crying out of frustration

"Hey, you alright in there" Mark's voice came from the other side of the door, when you didn't answer he opened it and stepped inside

He could feel the tension radiating off of you as he stood in front of you. Interlocking your fingers with his he pressed his forehead against yours knowing that him being close would calm you down enough for you to tell him what happened. Taking a few deep breaths of his strong colonge you felt yourself calm down, the tears now streaming down your face

"Babe don't cry, look at me" using his index finger he tilted your head back, he was mad that someone made you this upset and he sure as hell was willing to give that person a piece of his mind

"Talk to me"

"The gsw patient that was brought in made it very clear how he felt about me, a black person" Mark knew there were patients that couldn't see past a persons skin colour and he knew that they're a lot to handle

"He called me a baboon and when I set him straight and let him know that I wasn't going to run out of the room crying because he called me a monkey Hunt came in and picked up on my tone, not even giving me a chance to tell him what lead up to that" buring your face in his chest Mark wrapped his arms around you, kissing the top of your head

"I'm sorry you had to go through that, if only people would stop being such pricks"

There was a knock on the door and then it swung open Owen standing there with regret etched onto his face. Clearing his throat he spoke

"Alex told me what went down and I'm sorry for the way that I handled it" your grip on Mark tightened as he continued

"You're right I should've spoken to you in a decent way than arguing with you in front of everyone. I managed to convince the patient that you are one of the best general surgeons in this hospital and he agreed to have you operate on him" Mark looked down at you and he could see the wheels turning in your head, he knew that you were still unsure about seeing the jackass again

"I'll do it" placing a kiss on Mark's cheek you followed the ginger back to where the asshole was being preped for surgery by the nurses. You were adjusting the IV bag when the man reached out to you and you froze

"I'm sorry doc" still upset you nodded slightly, you didn't know if he meant it or he understood that he wasn't in a place to argue with the person who's going to operate on him

"Let's get him to OR 2!"

[frogsthoughtss]

The new spirit movie being made, simply put, isnt all that great (originally, I’d put trash, but I thought that was too strong a word to use on the internet.) Heres why: To start off, I’d like to give synopsis (summary??) of the first movie.

In the original, Spirit, the horse, is captured by the colonizers and separated from his herd. These colonizers attempt to “tame” him. Claiming all horses can be tamed, including stallions with enough power and control. The colonizers breach onto the horses land and are expanding westward, which is how they even get near the herd in which spirit is in. The only reason he even nears them is because he doesnt know who the colonizers are and is basically confused as to what they were. So now because theyve captured Spirit, they think that ‘oh he’s just a wild horse, we can tame him by showing him whos boss” they dont. Spirit is, as its said, an untamed soul. He CANT BE TAMED, or as Little Creek put it, shouldnt be tamed. Because his place is with his herd, running free. The eagle in spirit is a symbolism of the freedom. Whenever the eagle is there, it serves as a reminder not only to the audience, but to Spirit himself that he is a wild horse, a Free horse.

Now, Little Creek, the Lakota native american, shares ALOT of similarities to Spirit(which is where Im getting at). Natives as we know, have been treated terribly, in the most inhumane ways. Theres alot said about helping out poc, but ppl always seem to forget that Natives count as Poc and are barely, if ever, helped out. The fact that theyve been continuously pushed out of their areas and contained in small groups with others of their tribes, after having had their land stolen from them, is disgusting. Back to the point tho, Spirit. Little Creek and spirit share that, in the time which this movie took place. Theyre being pushed from their areas and ppl are trying to “tame them”.

Now, again with the history. This wasnt included in the movie but Natives back in the day, when they were younger, would be taken from their tribes and colonized. Theyd rid them of the rich culture and try to perpetuate the white, colonized ways. Colonizers would change their names to the basic boring meaningless names, forbid them from speaking their native tongue, and have them grow up as a white, eurocentric person would. In other words, colonizers take away what made them different and attempt to get them to become like them. Which, while not included in the movie, is important to know! Bc it shows the parallels between a wild stallion, and a native american: 1- taking their land until barely any is left for them. 2- ridding them of their ways of being, until yheyre the way that is seen as presentable to the majority (whites)3- attempting to tame them.

Natives were seen as animals. As feral creatures less then human and less than the dirt being walked on (WHICH IS NOT TRUE). The fact was, euros saw them as ppl that needed to be ‘educated’ on the ways of man, which they saw as the was of WHITE man. In trying to educate them, it can almost easily be seen as them trying to ‘tame’ them, as they would a horse. With strength, power, and Force.

So going on ahead, when spirit meets little creek, theyre two sides of the same coin, going through the same thing, but its seen differently primarily because one is human and yhe other, well, a horse. And its troubling. Because even tho Little creek escapes the center where they were both held at, it was an interest type situation. Spirit let himself be handled and captured afterwards by the Lakota, only because they held the same view that horses could be tamed. However, despite the attempts to tame Spirit, Little Creek realizes soon that even tho their methods of taming a horse are to show that they are equal to to the human and not below (such as the whites were trying to impose) he knows that spirit, a free stallion, isnt going to be tamed. He sets him free. Spirit is somewhat hurt, bc these humans, treated him kindly. And he saw how kindly they treated other horses. He was reluctant bc of how honest and humane they were, but left anyways bc spirit also knew that he wasnt going to let himself be tied. Even if it was by an honest group.

My point in all of this is that In Spirit:The Stallion of Cimarron, it beautifully captures the similarities of natives, and in this movie horses. Both were struggling to maintain their land and their freedom, and the new movie doesnt. Its no surprise that good representation in movies is little to none for poc, but its even less in native americans. If you can name 5-10 movies with good native rep, I’d like to know but I can assure you that at the top of your head, you probably couldnt come up with more than 2. So when I heard of this movie coming out, I had to know if it kept the relation between the natives and animals in it.

It did not. In fact, from what Ive seen (the trailer) it removed the natives and instead replaced them with hispanics (presumably mexicans as rodeos originate from spanish/mexican influences). Now, mexican/latino and hispanic rep is good! I completely encourage making it bc its good! However this was not the movie for that. They took away the aspect of how freedom isnt something that can just be taken. How, the liberty that comes with your own deeply rooted course, cannot just be changed- how it SHOULDNT be changed. And in this new movie they did. This hispanic girl, for some horse riding event somehow tamed spirit, whose ‘soul could not be tamed’. Like, did we watch the same movie directors???? Producers????Bc the point of spirit the stallion of Cimarron was that freedom should be maintained, not stripped for the wants of others simply because,according to them, its “beneficial” and goes along with what they consider to be the social norm. It was about the connection that humans could make with animals bc they didnt place them below them, but rather treated them as equals. And for that to be taken away??? I feel like having tamed spirit was the wrong call for them to make.

Overall, it appears that Spirit Untamed (its literally in the title cmon) stripped the basis of the original movie to create the basic horse girl ‘saves’ horse and is the only one who can ride him bc she’s the only one who can ‘understand’ his trauma. Like, watch any other horse girl movie and thats what you get. But spirit wasnt supposed to be that. It was sooo much more and the fact that they dumbed it down to that?? Smh

[andimack-crack]

It's the last day of no nuance November so here are some hot takes about Andi Mack:

One in a minyan was by far the best episode out of the entire series

The finale would've been perfect if Jonah was allowed in the picture

The way Walker and Kira were treated so poorly on the show and sometimes in the fandom doesn't sit right with me and that's only because in fanfics if we compare them to Reed he is often forgiven and redeemed whilst Kira is shaped as unreasonable and Walker is just often not in fanfics.

Jonah not liking labels is totally vaild he wanted a relationship just not the labels part but Andi made it seem like it was awful

The way people bully jyrus shippers or make fun of the ship in general is horrible it is so unnecessary srsly stop

I don't think Kira was homophobic more manipulative because she could tell that T.J liked Cyrus and she wanted to get back at Buffy through him

Libby didn't like Jonah all that much to begin with because in the new girls she said she was going to break up with him anways so I wasn't surprised

Amber had a lot of problems and the writers never resolved them she literally said Her parents were still married but they were barely together and we just ignored this and the same goes for Jonah with the obvious (Panic attacks, homelessness) and the way how actually toxic his relationship with Amber was in S1

Jonah breaking up with Amber in S1 was so powerful we don't give him enough credit for that

Andi took the whole 'I'm your mother' thing pretty well her reaction was understandable and she still handled it like an adult afterwards

speaking as a POC the episodes where Buffy had to straighten her hair and Andi stood up to those racist stereotypes we're perfectly executed

Bowie is the least problematic character

Reblog with your nuances!

[rickriordanfandam]

opinions on riordanverse ; my edition

a lot of people have been doing this so i decided why not right. probably gna lose some followers or smth but anyways. pls respect my opinions! if u disagree, thats fine, but please be polite. unless any of my opinions strikes u as morally wrong then pls point it out to me respectfully. thanks!

- i actually liked drew. im so sorry to everyone who hates her but full offence, why. think about it this way ok, first of all drew became hc because silena died. silena was the traitor, the one who betrayed chb, yet after she died campers celebrated her as a hero? and then drew suddenly has to replace her and live up to idk that legacy she left behind,, when all of a sudden this girl named piper swoops in and takes her place. idk abt u but i wld be salty abt that too. not only that, but as an asian, the chances of drew having faced racism/bullying as a child is pretty high (she studies at brooklyn academy). which means that when she finds out shes a demigod, and arrives at chb where most of the campers are white (this is an assumption btw), she’d obviously be scared of being bullied for her skin color right?? so the first thing she wld do before the campers get to bully her is to bully them before they can do so. (sentence structure here is wack i apologize) ofc this might not even have happened, drew could have had a perfect childhood && was a b1tch for no reason, BUT EVEN THEN HER ROLE AS A BULLY WAS PRETTY VITAL BECAUSE THAT FURTHER SHOWED THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HER AND PIPER,, HIGHLIGHTING PIPER AS A HERO//GOOD CHARACTER,, AND THEREFORE MAKING READERS LIKE PIPER MORE. anyway stop hating on drew please. ALSO WHY IS THIS SO LONGA SDFJHG

- jason isnt bland, the fandom just kinda erased his backstory (thanks to @pjohoo-memes for the phrasing lol)

- reynabeth wouldnt have lasted/would have broken up several times. idk i just see them as two extremely powerful characters who have firm opinions and will definitely clash at some point. in a platonic relationship,, i can see them as really good friends but as lovers? idk i just think theyll break up

- PIPABETH

- i dont really like jercy,, i see them as better friends than lovers. also idt jason and percy were that close..?

- the dam and not my type jokes are srsly cringey and were never funny. ik that seems hypocritical since my username literally makes use of the dam joke but honestly i dont actually like the joke. its not funny to me and has never been funny

- the seven were not best friends. they definitely argued,, and honestly probably werent as close as the fandom makes them seem. like ure dumped with 6 other people, out of which u only know a few. my introverted ass would have jumped off the argo 2 quicker than leo valdez could bomb camp jupiter up. also leo was a dick to frank. so what if frank is bigger sized?? thats not a valid reason to tease him

- the fandom needs to stop hating on octavian while worshipping luke. if u hate luke and u say u hate octavian too, then okay. but if u tell me ure a luke stan but u despise octavian?? imma disagree w u. luke was worse than octavian im sorry. first of all, octavian being a dick was kinda justified. hes been after the praetor position for so long, and everyone keeps saying to “wait for jason” when suddenly this dude, whos a son of NEPTUNE (neptune wasnt liked much by romans), and the camp decides to make him praetor?? dude i would be pissed off big time. and then afterwards, he finds out that greek demigods are real and the dude they made praetor is greek. AND THEN GREEK DEMIGODS COME TO CJ AND ONE OF THEM BOMB IT UP?? octavian has been told all his life that greeks are scum and this dude called leo valdez attacks cj. sure it was an accident, but did octavian know that? no. so it was honestly justified that he was such a salty prick im just saying. also some of yall be hating on octavian for cutting a teddy bear open and thats the funniest shit ive ever heard i swear 

- luke didnt go to elysium

- travis and connor stoll r way too underrated. the two have been head counselors of the hermes cabin since luke was revealed as a traitor, can u imagine the stress? luke, the person they probably looked up to as a brother, betrayed them. and they didnt even have time to process this when they were  thrown the roles of being hcs. that would have been so stressful and i would probably have broken down if i were them. the stoll brothers taking turns to wake up at ungodly hours because a new camper is crying and homesick and terrified, the stoll brothers having to comfort and take care of new campers, having to deal with the amount of people in that cramped space because not enough campers are being claimed fast enough. having to resolve issues between campers in the hermes cabin all the time. the stolls arent just comedic relief, and we need to stop treating them as such

- tratie shldve been canon idc idc

- demigods of the demeter cabin arent talked about enough and i love the fact that meg was demeters kid. like she isnt the child of one of the big three yet shes so powerful.

- we need to hype clarisse up more her character arc was phucking amazing 

- rachel is overhated. sis found out greek gods exist and regularly come down to earth to fuck around and went “ok cool”. queen shit behavior methinks

- the floor 19 crew of mcga is srsly underrated. like do u even remember halfborn gunderson, mallory keen, tj, etc??? bc i feel like we only remember samirah, magnus, alex, and sometimes blitz and hearthstone

- sadie (tkc) was kinda annoying at first. i like her more now tho but i rmb not liking her for a phat while

- tkc and mcga need more love

- carter kane and jason grace arent boring. theyre just really sweet boys who are too good for this world and yes yes yes 

- hazel and frank (especially frank) need to be hyped up more. i hardly ever see anything about them. also yall seem to forget that frank was literally made praetor and that even hecate admired hazel and was willing to fight beside her because of how powerful she was

- frazels age gap is kinda sketch but i still think theyre really cute

- nico definitely had trauma from going to tartarus on his own

- GROVER IS PERCYS BEST FRIEND

- annabeth isnt smarter than leo but neither is leo smarter than annabeth. ive seen a lot of discussions about who is smarter and heres my hot take on it: neither. theyre equally smart, just in different ways. leos a genius mathematically speaking. he has no issues solving math problems meant for people much, much older than him. annabeth on the otherhand, is great at strategies etc. she can make an army of 1000 more powerful than the enemy, even if theyre outnumbered. so in my opinion, both are equally as smart//u cant compare their intelligence, because their talents lie in two different areas.

- while i do agree rick riordan isnt a god and that hes bound to make mistakes,, AND that hes given us a lot of representation,, if the representation offends the people its sposed to represent, then theres a problem. im talking about piper as a poc and wearing feathers in her hair. im not a poc, so i cant speak for them on whether or not its wrong, because i dont know either. HOWEVER, i have seen multiple posts BY pocs talking about how they didnt really like rick’s representation of piper, and thats an issue. pocs have been and are still oppressed and discriminated against by many. as a white cis man, we cant really blame him for not knowing (tho he could have done a research,, asked some pocs,, idk), but by representing pocs in that manner, hes influencing impressionable kids/teens into thinking “oh pocs wear feathers in their hair all the time” etc, which isnt true. the pjo/hoo series is extremely successful, and kids who read the books will probably start forming inaccurate opinions on pocs. the amount of fan art that depicts piper with feathers in her hair dont help either. “but rick said so in the books, so its canon” yeah well rick isnt a god and he can get some things wrong at times. im not saying we should cancel him, im saying we should start educating ourselves and not spread false info like pocs wearing feathers in their hair all the time. also that snake song shit where she sang Summertime was just- yeah. bc heres the thing you can be racist, and still include minorities, but portray them in a racist way. And even then, ignorance isn't a thing to admire. Getting those facts wrong still has a major impact. It continues to perpetuate racist stereotypes.

“ With the feather thing, I looked it up myself; it takes less than five minutes to figure out that Cherokees don't braid feathers into their hair. I didn't grow up in the country where my parents are from. I have many other first/second generation American friends who have also been through that, with a bit of a disconnect from their culture. But something that most of us have in common is that when we didn't know something, and when our parents weren't that big of a help, we looked it up. We sought out resources online and through other people from our culture to be able to connect more with where we came from. Some of that took a Google search. So I find it hard to believe that Piper, a girl who Rick's trying to portray as someone who is attempting to connect with her culture and is totally against racist stereotypes, wouldn't know that eagle feathers aren't supposed to be braided into your hair casually. She may be disconnected from her culture, but she's also shown to want to connect back to it. Piper wouldn't be casually braiding feathers into her hair while also telling off people for being racist. It makes no sense.” - reddit thread (down below) 

for those of yall who wanna know more please please read this, it has a lot of things i wanna add in here : https://www.reddit.com/r/camphalfblood/comments/gy3gl2/piper_mcleans_portrayal_is_innacurate/ 

as well as https://finding-my-culture.tumblr.com/post/189422373260/maxie-ratties-and-cattie-finding-my-culture 

i will be posting screenshots of these in future posts so if ure viewing this on ig and u dont have tumblr,, dont worry 

- the fact that most of the strong female characters in the series refuse to be “girly”, and ngl i dont really like that. just because ure girly doesnt mean u cant be strong. 

- piper would have been a great way for him to start making the strong characters act girlier, but instead he went with the “I’m not like other girls” trope which is quite obnoxious to hear constantly, and I don’t think it’s necessarily great for younger girls to read that idea growing up.  the closest we've ever had to a strong female character who was also into "girly" things was Silena. when I was younger I admired Piper's "I'm not like other girls" thing, but then I got older and realized that the whole mentality of "not like other girls" is super obnoxious, and a little bit toxic

i have a heck load more that i cant rmb rn but yeah feel free to add more 

[raebellian]

Why I love Katara from ATLA

Katara is underrated and doesn’t deserve all the hate people give her. Like everyone else in the Gaang, she was an invaluable member that they couldn’t have survived without. Hear me out—this is going to be a long one.

First, her role as team mom: We all know that the Gaang saw Katara as a motherly figure—even Sokka, her older brother. Remember The Desert? Aang was having a mental breakdown over Appa, Sokka was high on cactus juice, Toph couldn’t see, and Katara literally held them together. Sure, sometimes Katara lost her temper or acted bossy, but come on! Whose mom doesn’t? In fact, Toph and Sokka agreed in The Runaway that even though Katara got on their nerves sometimes, it was that exact trait of bossiness that the Gaang relied on so much. And I think a lot of those scenes where Katara fussed over things were super cute; it literally made the Gaang seem like a little family.

Second: I know people hate on Katara for talking about her mom so much. But admit it, we were all annoying at one point in our teenage years. And imagine if something happened to your mom or a similar parental figure. If you were a young child when it happened? If you spent years and years thinking it was your fault? If your father was always away and you had to step up as your own mother’s replacement, forced to shove that darkness deep down, hoping for the day when you could get some closure?

When Aang realized he lost his people and broke down in The Southern Air Temple, Katara was there for him. She said it was okay to be sad, that she understood, that she was going to help him. She didn’t have to do that. She barely knew him at the time. But grief is grief, no matter its size and form and how it’s dealt with, and she found a way to get through to him. Same with Haru and Jet. Katara reached out to them by exchanging stories with them, and listened to theirs with compassion as well. 

Of course, everyone expresses/copes with grief in different ways, but Katara’s grief wasn’t any lesser than her friends, nor were her coping mechanisms any less valid.

Let’s talk about Sokka. He admitted he saw Katara as a mother, and that he couldn’t even recall Kya’s face. He also seemed to be much closer with Hakoda throughout the show. Might I also remind you of Sokka’s general goofiness and rather out-of-the-blue sexist attitude at the beginning. I really doubt the sexism was due to Southern Water Tribe Culture—or why would Kanna go there to escape the sexism of the north? Sokka likely developed that mindset as a coverup for his grief, whereas Katara had to bottle up her feelings and step up as the motherly figure as a young child. Sokka’s coping mechanism was to goof around and pretend nothing got to him, and Aang avoided his duties and hardships until he eventually learned to confront them. 

Yes, Katara said some awful things to both Sokka and Aang in The Southern Raiders, but she was a teenage girl mourning the loss of the person she loved most in the world, and whom she seemed to develop her whole personality and identity around. Sometimes you lash out, lose control, and accidentally hurt your loved ones—especially if you’re just a child forced to grow up too fast in a war torn world.

In any case, there’s no doubt that Katara regretted what she said to Sokka right after she said it (look at her expression in that scene), and it’s almost certain that she went and made up with him afterwards. It wasn’t the first time one of the siblings accidentally hurt the other, and it certainly wasn’t the last time either. But there’s no doubt that the siblings loved each other unconditionally, which gave them the ability to make up no matter what, every single time without fail.

Third: I know a lot of people criticize Katara for her initial mistrust of Zuko. True, Katara tends to hold grudges. But from her pov, Zuko did break her trust (which she gave out quite readily, especially for someone from the water tribe) and none of Team Avatar actually witnessed Zuko’s epic redemption arc firsthand. Katara also felt extremely guilty and scared for almost wasting the spirit water on Zuko’s scar, which would’ve ended Aang for good.

The others in the Gaang had more inclination to trust Zuko due to Iroh defending him when he came to them for help in Ba Sing Se, while Katara was stuck in a creepy underground cave probably having a panic attack and fully expecting to be killed at any given moment. I’d probably lash out too if someone locked me up and suddenly yeeted in a guy who tried to kill me and my friends on multiple previous occasions, even if his hair did have a major glow up. 

Speaking of Zuko and his glow up... oMg hE’s sO hOt! Cute fictional boy with dark hair, we all stan!!! Draco in leather pants, anyone? While I love Zuko as much as any ATLA fan, he did his fair share of bad things. The entire first season? His betrayal of Iroh? Sure, Katara had her moments, but did you guys really forget how Zuko treated Iroh? How he constant belittled him on the ship in S1 and in the prison in S3, while still demanding Iroh’s advice? Of course, Zuko got better and gained redemption and forgiveness—he absolutely deserved it in the end—but doesn’t Katara deserve similar sympathy after making far lesser mistakes than Zuko? Is it because she’s not an attractive bad boy? Imagine Katara as a hot dude with a brooding, chiseled face, and I guarantee you the same people who hate her so vehemently will automatically stan her. It’s almost as if there’s a double standard for female characters or something...

In conclusion: Katara cares so, so much with all her heart about everything and everyone, loving and hating with equal passion, and I think that’s beautiful. She is the epitome of gentle yet unyielding femininity (as opposed to Toph’s brashness or Azula’s coolness), and we need more female characters like her who are unabashedly feminine and proud of it. In today’s society, girls are often shamed for being girly, hence the “mean popular girl” trope and the “not like other girls” trend. That’s why we see so many tomboys in fiction, girls who are strong and tough and one of the guys. That’s why we see so many ice queens in fiction, who are equal parts beautiful and deadly in everything they do. Of course, these types of girls are just as valid (and why Toph, Azula, and so many other ATLA girls are so popular and iconic), but women irl are so incredible because of their diversity—not only in appearance but in personality. 

That’s what makes ATLA so good: each character has their strengths and weaknesses and undergoes an incredible character arc. Each member of the Gaang is unique and essential and they all balance each other out personality-wise. Without Katara, ATLA would not be the masterpiece it is, would not be so acclaimed for its incredibly written characters. Without Katara, western animation would be lacking of an incredibly written character, a POC girly girl who is soft and gentle and nurturing and can kick ass in a dress and fancy hair. Without Katara, little girls who grew up watching ATLA would grow up with perhaps many good female role models, but they would miss out on one in particular who would teach them it’s okay to care too much, it’s okay to cry and be angry and hate, it’s okay because in the end things will always get better and so will you. That it’s going to be okay, and there’s always hope and light in the world no matter what life throws at you. That’s what Katara means to me, and that’s why I love her so much.

~Raebelle

[epicspheal]

Hello! Just popping by to ask about Calla! I've reread your oc post for the hundredth time now, and she just so interesting! Like what's her relationship with everyone and such. Not to mention she reminds me of Kipo in a way.( She seems the optimistic sort, not to mention insanely smart)

Also if you haven't, pls watch Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. It's animated, but it has a good story and music. Majority poc cast is a bonus.

Hi there ihopethisendswell!

I have definitely watched Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts, although I need to finish it (after I get done with studying for the MCAT, that test is *shudders*). I can definitely see Calla reminding your of Kipo they do have some similarities (there’s also one other champion OC of mine that has similarities to another Kipo character) Definitely putting everything under the Keep Reading tag because this is long.

Her outgoing, friendly nature is also very much in part due to the fact that as child genius she didn’t really get a chance to spend time with children her age as she went to college at 8. So she’s been kind of lonely and thus always eager to make a new friend. She can be a little too blunt with her words, but she’s aware enough to know when she might have crossed a line and will apologize profusely afterwards

Obviously her closest relationship is with Hop. Calla actually lived in Wedgehurst and not Postwick but Hop spent a lot of time Wedgehurst (because that’s where the primary school). They became friends over the summer at the berry shop and pretty much became joined to the hip when Calla wasn’t away at Motostoke University doing her chemistry degree. Hop (being a budding science nerd himself) enjoyed hearing from her about what she was learning in college and he would share stuff about Pokemon that he learned from Leon’s college textbooks. The two also bonded from being lonely with Calla being isolated from people her age because of being a child genius and Hop was ostracized for being Leon’s brother (in the fact of the kids in Wedgehurst loved Leon, but they found Hop annoying and only pretended to care about Hop if he mentioned something about Leon coming home). Calla was the first kid he met to be interested in Hop as a person, and not as Leon’s little brother so their friendship means the absolute world to Hop. They balance each other out as Hop is known to be impulsive and patient whereas Calla is far more cautious and deliberate. You would think given those descriptions Hop is the Sword Hero and that Calla is Shield Hero but it’s actually the reverse. Throughout their journey Hop and Calla learned the value of the way the other acts. Hop learns to be a little less impulsive (as his impulsiveness combined with his tendency to get flustered cost him many battles). Calla learned that’s okay to make bold decisive moves without meticulously planning them out which helped her in the long run against tough opponents (such as Rose who has a steel type team that walled her poison types or Leon who has a team fast heavy hitters that even with poison set up could still absolutely maul her team given the chance to do so) Also I should note Calla is not a Victor/Gloria stand-in. Victor and Gloria very much exist in my “Pokemon canon” but they were some of the fake friends to Hop who secretly thought he was annoying. Basically Victor and Gloria in my universe are those Pokemon fans who hate Hop and find him annoying. :(

Speaking of Leon, Calla of course was a fan of him from the start. She did get a little upset with him constantly keeping her and Hop away from the berserk Dynamaxed Pokemon, thinking that he didn’t think they were capable of helping out. Which wasn’t the case it’s just and this going into some of my broader personal headcanons, Leon and his cohort (Piers, Sonia, Nessa, and Raihan) were at the mercy of a jerk Champion (my OC Jack, the last champion on that OC Post). He didn’t want to take away from their gym challenge like what to happen to his. Of course once the Darkest Day and Sordward/Shieldbert arcs are over Leon and Calla ended up working well together as fellow champions and friends. As I alluded to in my oneshot Midnight Snacks (shameless plug) Calla has a tendency to be a night owl and if she’s stressed she’ll call Leon over to one of the battle cafe’s to have pastries and chat. Leon loves listening to her science theories (and yes he actually understands her rants on chemistry and toxicology) and Calla loves having a cool older brother she never got (she’s an only child). They also end up as in-laws when Hop and Calla get married at 23. Leon is also very protective of her, giving her less responsibilities than Rose gave him and helped to warm the public to her as some of them didn’t take too kindly to her using Eternatus in her champion matches. 

But in terms of the adult she most looks up to, that’d be Sonia. Strong battler (unlike in canon, we get to see why Sonia used to be Leon’s rival in my personal Pokemon verse) and a smart scientist lady. Calla was immediately awestruck by Sonia and always enjoyed her time talking to Sonia helping her with her theory about the truth of the Darkest Day. Sonia, Hop and Calla end up being the science trio once the SwSh events come to a close. Sonia was the one to encourage Calla when she becomes 18 (and has now held the title of champion for 5 years) to go back and pursue her PhD in Toxicology giving the Galar region their first ever champion professor! If Leon is the big bro she always wanted, the Sonia is definitely the big sister she always wanted. 

As far as the league goes, Calla is pretty much on good terms with everyone not named Klara. Klara choosing the poison type as her go to because it wasn’t as  popular as other types and she thought she’d have no competition in that realm. As someone who is very much passionate about breaking the negative stereotypes of the poison typing, she found Klara’s reasoning to be absolutely insulting.

When it comes to the league, Calla in particular is close to Marnie and Bea. You can often find Calla, Marnie and Bea hanging out together shopping for clothes or eating pastries at a battle cafe. Gordie, Nessa and Calla frequently have competitions to see who can do the best backflips or the best splits. It did take Calla a bit to warm up to Bede at first given how he treated Hop and how he almost wrecked her the first two battles (if wasn’t for her Stunky she would’ve been wiped by psychic trainer Bede), but they are kind of like how the player is with Gladion in SM/USUM. Not friends but not enemies.

Calla has mixed feelings on Rose and Oleana. Rose actually gave her a scholarship to go to Motostoke University when she was 8 (her parents wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise) so she’s indebted to him (he saw her as he saw Bede, Oleana, Leon- talents that can help the future of Galar). And on a personal level Rose was never rude to her. Oleana also kind of took her under her wing because of them both being science gals. But seeing how badly they miscalculated everything really shook her to the core. 

As far as my other champion OCs go, Calla gets along with everyone but Jack (but then again no one gets along with Jack). Calla and Marsha have a particularly close bond as Marsha taught Calla how to cornrow her hair and play spades (Calla was not blessed with parents who knew how to cornrow...or play spades). Marsha is another big sis for her. Calla and Jabari bonded over being type specialists (Jabari is a water type specialist) and Jabari taught her how to rollerskate in exchange for Calla teaching him how to do cartwheels. Calla was of course very interested in meeting Valen (a talking robot who’s a skilled trainer? that’s a dream come true for her). They delight in battling each other and eating Alolan Pancakes. 

[avese23]

I haven’t watched the second stream yet (I was binging the umbrella academy- it’s so good) so I don’t have a full perspective besides the reaction of some of the fans I follow and Noelle’s apology tweet. I know a lot of people are worried about she ra being cancelled, and while I’m worried about the fandom becoming toxic (since before now it has been a really safe space after hp went to shit) I’m probably more hurt by the fact that Noelle was involved (and Eric to a lesser extent? Besides listening to his podcast I have no real attachment). She’s been a really large inspiration to me as a queer a person and what she and others said hurts me as a black person. I’m also not as surprised or bothered as I should be, considering the Mara stuff that came up in the last stream and how white the crew is, which kind of scares me. The face that I’m expecting people to mess up at this point. I think this is a further message to me, and other (especially young) fans out there that the people we look up to are human. And we can’t hero-worship them if we want to have an open and critical mind when it comes to their mistakes and how we feel about them. When JKR started showing her true colors it hurt, she used to be someone I idolized. I had her in my mind as this great person who donated to charities and wrote books I enjoyed. And while those things were true they quickly got overshadowed by the hurt she caused. There are two main differences between that and this. 1. The jkr scandal happened over a period of time, by the time she really dug her heels in I no longer cared about her. Between the queer baiting in FB and the lack of diversity in HP I had already lost partial respect for her before she was outed as a TERF. 2. Unlike JKR, Noelle understands what she said is wrong. Jkr is a TERF, I don’t think Noelle is a racist. She said a racist thing, which was hurtful, and she apologized afterwards. While an apology does not fix the hurt, the quality of hers (especially compared to other creators) helped save some of my respect. Noelle is a real person so I am going to try my best to treat it the same as I would if someone in my life made this mistake (a very real possibility). I wouldn’t put them on a pedestal but I wouldn’t cancel them. I’d evaluate their apology, take a break from them to settle my emotions and aid my mental health, and decide if I can let them back into my life. To fully complete that process I will probably need to watch the stream so I can get the full picture. This is not something I’m particularly excited to do. I know it’s going to be hurtful and I shouldn’t have to go through that hurt (especially with the much more pressing hurt going on right now). But I’m willing to do that because I’m still willing to give the crew a chance to learn from their mistakes and go forward. And hopefully work with more people of color, not just on the cast but the crew as well. And to work with more autistic people in general. I haven’t made much comment on the entrapdak topic, both because to my belief I am not autistic and therefore cannot speak for the community even a little bit, and also because I (once again) have heard about all of this second hand. While waking up to the spop fandom starting to smoke was tough, I’m still glad I was lazy and didn’t watch the stream. Watching Klaus’s dynamic with the other characters in TUA was a much better use of my time. In conclusion, I’m not done with she ra by any means. I’ve supported fandoms that were way messier. Just because SPOP is no longer as untainted as it was before we couldn’t expect it to be perfect in the first place. A show is much more than just a few people. I can’t tell others what to do but I see very little good coming out of canceling Noelle Stevenson. She should be held accountable, yes, but it does more harm to get stuck on this and never move forward. My hope is that she’ll continue pushing for queer rep, and hopefully will do that coming with the knowledge gained from both her successes AND her mistakes. I am curious to see how the POC cast responds though.

[yellowsounds124-blog]

----

I have something I need to share. Not with you, with someone else but that'll never happen, its simply not possible, but I need this off my chest and dont have a safe place for it. With your stance on abortion, I figured you would be a good place, sense you wont see the fetus in this story as a "clump of cells" Growing up, my dad was not okay. He was abusive. It took me years and years to say this because through all the running away and calling the police, not going home- I was told over and over that it was fine because he wasnt raping me or punching me in the face. The pushing, screaming inches from my face, tearing apart my stuff, throwing things at me, making me change in front of him, refusing to be by me in public if I didnt look good enough...didnt matter. I was told I was being ridiculous and should be greatful. My friends.. I would beg them please dont leave me alone with him if he ask you to leave the room. But they always would what were they suppose to do? I wouldnt be allowed to talk to anyone to go out for months at a time. So there was a huge foundation of fear, and protecting myself. At some point, i met this guy (brother of my friend), and I just loved him, and he loved me to. He was a POC, once we started with each other his sister hated me for some reason, which made his mom hate me. And my parents hated him (I later figured this was a race and class thing for my father) so being together involved a lot of sneaking around, a lot of giving up, a lot of trying again, the sneaking around would get me in more trouble, especially if it was known it was with him. At this point, I didnt tell anyone how bad it was, I started self mutation. If I wasnt with him (we will call him Kay for the sake of thevstory) I would do any drug I could get and have sex or mess with whoever showed interest (well almost). It was how I would cope as I didnt think I could tell anyone. How could I say anything about what I was going through when I had a friend being raped by her brother, a friend who's dad just up and left, a friend whos mom called her fat and made her diet? I was literally a wreck and the worst part of the cycle was being this wreck made him more angry, he'd treat me worse, and I'd further wreck myself. So about Kay, we went on and off for years, then he moved in with a friend who was only a street away, I wasnt at a 8-3 school anymore and he graduated do it was really easy to be together. I immediately broke up with this other guy I was seeing (we will call him Colin) that my dad liked so I would use him to be able to leave the house ect so I could be with Kay. It was only a month and a half of perfection before it started falling apart. Kay wanted to talk to my father, he didnt know what things were like except that he didnt like him. He thought he could talk to him about how much he loved me and make things better, and I freaked out. He knew I was hurting myself, a few months before my father** had saw the marks and yelled at me asking if I was crazy, asking what the hell was wrong with me, telling me it was disgusting and I stayed in a padded room for a night before being released sense I wasnt suicidal, and Kay saw on my body that I had found a new more hidden place after that incident. He thought he could save me, and we would get married and be happy, but I knew if he went to talk to my father that my father would send him off and I would pay for trying such a thing. * That's when I made multiple huge mistakes that I havent shared with people, 9 years later. First, i broke up with him and told him i didnt even like him and needed time to discover myself,stuff like that. I never stopped loving him. To this day, I'm sure I'd still fall apart at his touch. *Within that same week, I missed my period, I again wasnt able to leave the house, I bought a tested while at the store with my mom, was caught and ordered to take it as soon as we were back. This was bad because if it was negative, I was going to be in trouble for basically no reason. And again this "trouble" wasnt normal. It meant my things wouldbe torn apart. I would be held down and screamed at, spit on not allowed to talk. But it wasnt negative, it was positive. And my mom was waiting downstairs, and I knew this only had a small handful of outcomes. Either they would send me off and have me give the baby up for adoption while being under close watch the whole time, or they would make me get rid of the baby. Abortion. So I did the first thing that came to mind, I called Colin. I told him I was pregnant and it was his. And that I couldnt talk right now. Then I told my mom, and immediately told her that Colin knew. To me, this was security. If he knew, someone would be checking in on me, he would tell his parents, another adult would he involved, if I disappeared there would be questions. And I knew I was right because I told my mom he knew and immediately she was upset I did that. I went in for an ultrasound, found out how far I was, quickly gave Colin a photo and shut the door on him. And the problems started. The dates dont match up, Colin said. I told him hes wrong. His parents wanted a paternity test, I said that's not possible itll hurt the baby. They claimed it wouldnt. I convinced Colin it was his and I just knew. He knew i had been seeing Kay but took my word.Then i heard from Kay, he heard I was pregnant. If he even thought it was his he would be at my door, trying to figure things out, trying to talk to my parents. But my father would not respect him the way he would Colin, so if anyone knew it was Kay's, I would be hurt, punished, sent away. I was terrified, I cant even explain the level of panic I had for my safety. I told Kay it wasnt his, there was no single way, and to leave me alone forever. It hurt so much to tell him that, it felt so wrong and I hated it and I knew it hurt him and I was so broken over it. After that, i was still stuck. The dates didnt match, Colin's parents wanted a paternity test, *the baby was partly a POC and might not come out white, so I wouldnt be able to pass them off as Colin's. I couldnt sleep. My father wasmt speaking to me and wasnt even around, really. I stayed in my room. My parents were pushing for me to get an abortion. "Were just going to the clinic so you can see what its like" my mom said when she took me to the abortion clinic. It was down a stair case, there were no protesters. They took my blood, they walked me through everything and asked when they could set up an appointment. They asked me one time if I wanted to do this, in front of my mom who stared me down. When she brought me back, she paid extra for them to put me to sleep. While I waited with the IV and the last ultra sound pictures I'd have done, I started crying. My mom wasnt there for this part, a nurse asked me why I was crying, she was so angry about it. I said sorry and tried to stop. She didnt ask if i wanted to do this, no one told me that i was at the point where the baby was like a small miniature looking baby, only slightly misshapen. No one told me it had tiny hands and feet, or what they would do with it afterward. And no one made sure i wanted this. When I went in the room I was alone with a Male doctor, and I remember how unusual that was as I had always been asked if I wanted someone else in the room if left with a Male doctor. And I laid on the doctor bed, and I remember think I should say something, this is my last chance, and then I was asleep. When I woke up I was given pads, they told my mom, not me, even though I was 17, that I would bleed for a few days. I never went to the check up appointment. I stayed in my room, I scanned every blood clot for a piece of the baby. I slept and cried, when I heard from Colin I told him that I lost the baby. That's all. I lost the baby. People spread rumors it wasnt ever real. I didn't care. I didnt leave my room. I didnt shower, I barely ate. I gave up Kay, and all my friends connected to him, Colin started dating my bestfriend and they talked shit about me, I lost everyone connected to them. I was just alone. My father came back and was around more. They never talked to me about it, never asked if I was okay. I was like that for months, before finding friends online, forcing myself to listen to happy music, go out, pretending. Fake it till you make it. I met two people, we will call Slw and Ice- who helped me in that time more than they will ever know because they didnt know about it. Slw once asked why we didnt hang out with my friends and I got really upset with him but they both helped me so much. Ice reminded me it was okay to hurt and not be okay, he just didnt know what about. I made more friends, I am so greatful for every single one because they are the only reason I dudnt take my own life in those following years. Things got bad again. I got bad. I am better now, I have kids. People say I am a good mom. But ever sense "getting better" I think about that baby everyday. I worry life will take one of my babies that are here because I let that one die. How can I be a good mom when I let that happen? And I dont deserve them. And I am so sorry to that child. I could have found another way. I could have spoke more. That childs dad would have loved them and had no choice. I hate myself for this, every day. And again, have no where to go to talk about it. Like I said I just needed to get it off my chest because it eats me alive, everyday. Regardless of if people think abortion is right or wrong. To me, I know I got rid of a baby with a future, and its minimalized.

[lightsandlostbells]

The greatest gift Skam France has given me so far is that I can’t help but see Daffy and Imane as Angela and Phyllis from The Office when Phyllis managed to take over the party planning committee from Angela.

Good: I like the girl squad.

Less good: Contrivances that come with doing a close remake.

Clip 4 (post-cabin return)

Yann saying some “not like the other girls” bullshit is aggravating but I mean … it’s very much something a teenage boy would say. I’m not really going to hold it against him. Character flaws are good. Also, if I’m being optimistic about the show, you could say they’re going to knock down all this “girls are superficial” crap with the formation of the girl squad and the power of female friendships, so potentially it’s there on purpose.

On that note, I want to give the remakes the same trust I had in Skam at its best; the thing is, I’m not sure it’s earned it yet, because it’s such a close remake that I can’t actually get a sense of this production’s own values. If the series were to write a new season about Daffy or Alex or Yann from scratch, what would it be like? The one thing Skam France has really done to build some trust on its own merit, IMO at least, is cast more POC; other than that, their choices have made me trust them less (not casting actual teenagers is the biggest one for me). Skam broke the audience’s trust in certain areas, but it also did a number of things right that created the trust in the first place. People were disappointed in S4 partly because S3 had handled so many sensitive issues well. Anyway, this will be easier to discuss later in the season as it is still early.

Emma smiling after Yann compliments her is the most I’ve liked her so far and the most natural the actress has seemed, as well as the most chemistry this couple has had.

Clip 5 (Manon and Emma in Spanish class)

I like Manon. She has a different vibe from Noora and seems a bit softer and less sure of herself, whereas Noora seemed outwardly confident and outspoken. Noora was confident enough to correct the teacher and Manon was all “I’m just trying to be nice” (although lol, mentioning that Emma didn’t do her homework is throwing her under the bus a little).

Here’s a minor example of how scene flow and motivation sometimes seem muddled, though. In the original, Noora rescued Emma by being all, “Here’s the mistake you made, teacher” and Eva was like ???? How did you know that? and Noora explained that she lived in Madrid. Whereas in this version, this is like …Manon speaking very good Spanish, from what I can tell? But not presenting herself as an authority like Noora did, but it’s still treated as this thing that needs an explanation. Like maybe Manon is just gifted at Spanish? That’s not exactly unusual. But I might be missing some other context lost in translation, I’d like to know if there’s something I didn’t notice (like IDK, Manon’s Spanish accent is different from the one typically taught in French high school Spanish classes). It’s not a huge thing, just something that seemed a bit off.

Not trying to start a ship war or anything but Noora/Eva was way way WAY gayer in this scene. Remember when Noora was talking to the teacher in defense of Eva and Eva stared at her as if she’d seen the goddess of her dreams? Remember when they looked at each other afterwards and there was a ton of eyes flitting down to each other’s lips? That was a thing that happened, very blatantly. The whole “Eva wants to be friends with Noora” thing was SO much more drawn out, over the first three episodes and ended up having a bunch of parallels to the later canon couples on the show (Eva stalking Noora’s Facebook vs. Isak checking out Even and Sana checking out Yousef). Like by all means, board that Manon/Emma ship and set sail, I can see it from Manon’s end, but nothing came close to Eva’s heart-eyes. H!

I mean this is throwing down the gay gauntlet to Skam France. Bring out yer lesbians.

This is not a substantial comment at all but I am in love with Manon’s white cardigan.

Clip 6 (girl squad UNITES)

Okay, I wanted to talk about this clip in particular, because I went back and rewatched the scene in the original, and I was really impressed at how good Julie’s directing can be. I think we know she can pull off the big showstopper moments, but she’s also great at getting the little details that you don’t even think about until you’re actually analyzing the scene. Conversely, there are parts in the remake that come across as contrived.

I was a little worried about Daphne/Daffy in the first episode, but I liked her more here. “Liked” in the sense that I felt better about the actress, not that she was at her most likeable here.

So the introduction of Imane to the group.

The original scene does something where Chris enters and is in the frame on the left and says, “This is Sana, she wants to be on the bus” (paraphrasing) and then the camera slides over the empty space to reveal … a Muslim girl. There’s kind of an element of surprise which is certainly how Vilde reacts; I don’t want to speak on behalf of Norwegians, but I wonder if it wasn’t done for the audience as well? Considering the attitudes about Muslims and russ not mixing in S4. (I mostly just want to mention this shot because I think it’s effective. The remake makes Imane immediately visible next to Alex.)

Vilde is instantly taken aback and appears to eye Sana up and down. Her first question is to ask how Sana and Chris know each other, which in this context doesn’t seem like friendly small talk, but disbelief (”how could you two possibly know each other?). Her obvious discomfort and the sudden tension is what I think makes Sana reply sarcastically about meeting at the mosque. Then we have the incredibly awkward moment of Vilde asking whether Sana can participate in russ as a Muslim. She never actually accepts Sana into the group during this scene.

In the remake, when Alex asks if Imane can join them, Daffy’s discomfort is less obvious (it’s there but it’s shorter and less pronounced from an acting perspective) and she says yes. Yes, she also says a bunch of dumb shit 10 seconds later. But the first thing she says is agreeing to have Imane on board. That should immediately set a different course for the scene, because even though Daffy is being ignorant, she is at least superficially accepting Imane into the group. Her asking how Imane and Alex know each other is therefore not quite as hostile in this context, but Imane makes the same comment about meeting in the mosque. So … did Imane manage to pick up on Daffy being uncomfortable anyway because she’s used to microaggressions? Because she figured a bunch of white girls would instantly question why a Muslim girl wanted to be involved? Or is she just making a joke by way of introduction? All of these are plausible explanations, but this is part of the problem with doing such a close remake. You end up keeping the dialogue and events the same even when the execution - the directing and acting and staging - doesn’t really flow or match. I don’t need to be force-fed explanations for why someone says or does something, but I also am not sure much thought is going into some of these interactions besides “it happened in the original.”

Just a note about the directing: In the original scene, after Sana is introduced, Julie puts the camera behind Chris, and has Vilde keep looking over to her, both for guidance (”can you help me out with this situation”) and in a “why did you bring her” sort of way. It’s a pretty interesting choice that adds an extra complexity to the scene; it’s not just this racially tense conversation between Vilde and Sana, it’s also adding the silent conversation that Vilde is trying to have with Chris and taking note of that relationship. Especially I think Vilde does feel stupid after Sana makes the comments about the mosque and the stoning. I mean, she was being ignorant and I can’t say I feel bad for her in this moment. But Chris is her best friend in the group, the only one she’s close with so far, and Chris is loudly and obviously laughing at a joke make at Vilde’s expense. Chris has taken Sana’s side, in a sense, making it a sort of betrayal to Vilde. How could you invite someone like that to be on the bus with us, how could you laugh when she’s making fun of me?

The remake doesn’t have this extra layer in its direction; it’s shot in a pretty straightforward way, the conversation between only Daffy and Imane, really. And that doesn’t mean it’s bad, but it does show how different directorial decisions can add subtext and layers in the smallest of ways.

There is a more lingering shot of Daffy toward the end, which does not bother me nearly as much as the lingering shots of Lucas, because a) Emma is sitting there anyway and b) it’s not revealing anything we couldn’t have guessed about Daffy’s state of mind from her dialogue and attitude in the rest of the scene, while the bits with Lucas hint at something that he’s hiding.

OK, I have to mention this, too. Does Imane go to parties? If so, wouldn’t it be likely one of the other girls would have seen her at some parties? Especially for Daffy who would surely see a Muslim girl and go “does not compute.” If not, then why does she want in on this one specific party all of a sudden? It made sense for Sana to want in on this specific cultural event, that has a lot to do with proving herself and tying her Norwegian/Muslim identities together, and saw the girl squad as an opportunity to be on a bus when Pepsi Max and other groups would likely reject her. It makes less sense here for Imane to … want to be popular? If she wants that, then what was she doing before to achieve that goal? Is this a new aspiration of hers and if so, what motivated that change? Does she just want to make bank on this party? But overall, it’s just murkier why Imane would want in on this random party, especially a party thrown by the school losers. Unless she just wants friends, which is fair enough!

All of this could potentially be really interesting if they explored it. Maybe they will have Imane talk about her reasons by the end of the season. And honestly, if I hadn’t seen this story already, I probably wouldn’t question it at this point. My issue is that I get the feeling they’re not going to account for this shift in motivation and just do a shallow find+replace on the situation without taking into account the different context.

That said, despite all of this, I loved Imane right off the bat. And Alex!

But like … garr, the setup of the whole hitting-on-Lucas gag is SO much more contrived than in the original, like Chris was actually standing there while Vilde was talking to Eva. Isak was sitting directly in front of her. Her flirting fit the scene while this other conversation between the girls was happening. Alex is super cute and charming and if you look at it charitably, it’s a nice establishing character moment? But less charitably, it’s an attempt to shoehorn in a moment from the original even when the blocking and directing doesn’t fit. (It reminded me of Julie’s comments in the script for 3.5 about how she changed the locker room scene because of the way the room looked, and the blocking made it difficult to film what she wrote, so they re-did the scene. I hope they feel free to do that here.)

Clip 7 (girl squad PLANS SOCIAL DOMINATION)

I don’t have much to say about this clip because it felt like a bit of a non-entity compared to the original. The original clip felt very much like an establishing scene for Sana as a character more than anything. Sana had all the answers, never hesitated, spoke so confidently, and the longer it went on the more you were astonished by this girl, until she was nodding in satisfaction and essentially congratulating herself for a job well done while the other girls sit around her in stunned silence around their new queen. I do like Imane but because the clip was so much shorter, and felt kind of perfunctory, it lacked that specific punch. Even the way it ended, like YOU HAVE TO DUMP YOUR BOYFRIEND, felt more like a ooooOOO wacky cliffhanger, what will Emma do? sort moment, more than an emphasis on Imane.

There’s one little moment I like, when Alex and Imane are talking at the beginning and Manon looks over at Daffy who gives her this look and small smile, like it’s friendly but there’s also some exasperation and disappointment behind it, “this is not the way I imagined this going” kind of feeling. It’s the sort of tiny and subtle beat that I want to see more of in the show.

Maybe I’m missing something because I don’t speak French, or I’ve missed it in the social media, but when is this party supposed to be?  Because I thought the synopsis for the show said that they would be planning the party over the first two seasons?

General Thoughts:

One thing I will say is that it’s becoming clear that pacing matters. Not just the pacing of the clips as spread day by day, but the pacing within the clips themselves. I think part of the reason Skam felt really natural to us is that events took time to unfold, the show was not afraid to have long pauses or silences and to let moments breathe, to let tension build or realization dawn or slowly change the tone of a scene. With Skam France it’s apparent that the scenes are often rushed. They’re just plowing through the dialogue.  If there are time restraints that mean the show has to air within a set amount of time, then there was unnecessary stuff this episode that could have been cut to make room for more important content.

The reworking of the russebuss into a generic party is pretty contrived as many have noted, but I want to get an answer on when the damn party is supposed to take place before I comment further.

I like all of the girl squad so far except Emma. Sorry! I’m not trying to drag this actress, she’s just … not there. I can’t imagine her pulling off the vulnerable moments later in this season. I would be happy to be proven wrong.

The thing about Lucas is that I don’t necessarily think he’s a bad actor, but he seems like the most obviously “acting” and the least natural and so far he doesn’t quite fit in what’s supposed to be a hyper-realistic teen drama. I could see him doing a good job in a different type of production like a stage play where everything’s heightened and dramatic.

But I also saw some people who speak French be like nah, he’s pretty bad so (shrug). I do think you can kinda see him think “here’s my line” and “here’s where I hit my mark” in his scenes.

[emubop]

Adding on to my post from yesterday, I’m just gonna list all the issues I have with Disco (a separate list of the things I love soon to come!)

Under a cut for length and for spoilers. Seriously. Major spoilers ahead. And tw for discussions of character death, if that bothers you.

With that in mind, let’s get to it! (This is in no particular order, btw.)

Starting with the last two episodes, since they’re pretty fresh in my mind - they felt very rushed. I’ve seen some people say that the season should have ended right when they got back from the mirrorverse, and I completely agree. The final arc felt like it needed at least two more episodes to be fleshed out. I wanted to see more of the characters actually dealing with what happened in the mirrorverse, and having time for development; and while we got a little bit of that between Michael and Ash, it wasn’t very much. And like, I get why. When you’ve only got two episodes to get the plot where you need it to go, of course character development is going to be sacrificed for time. Which is why I think they should have either a) added more episodes to the end of season one, or b) ended the season with the mirror arc, so that they’d have more time to explore the Klingon war thing at the beginning of season 2. Disco has some very wonderful characters who are very deserving of development and growth, and it’s unfortunate that they didn’t get it.

Culber’s death... This is the main point where I’m like “yeah, I don’t blame you for not liking the show anymore,” because I came very close to that too. In the end, I do still think I like the rest of the show overall, but this part... I just about stopped watching. In short - the way the show treated Dr. Culber was absolutely shitty. Sure, I’m like 99% certain they’ll end up bringing him back in season 2, but in the meantime, he’s still very much dead. And NOT ONLY did they use the “bury your gays” trope, but out of only TWO gay characters, they buried the man of color. Like... that’s just... what the fuck.

I’m expanding this into multiple points, bc it’s the biggest point I have. Culber’s death is legitimately the worst thing Disco has done. Not only just the fact that they killed him, but how they did it. His death was violent, sudden, and meaningless. The main characters barely even get to react to it before moving on. His killer doesn’t face trial or repercussions. (Note - I personally see Voq as being entirely the murderer and not Tyler, since Tyler had no agency in the killing and was if anything just a tool, but either way, no justice is served.) And then we, the audience, have to see the brutal killing scene AGAIN in the “previously on” section of the next episode or two, which makes it seem like they’re using this horrific event as mere shock value. I literally felt sick to my stomach watching it. What happened was disgusting, and I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to watch the show anymore because of it.

I trust Wilson Cruz. I trust Anthony Rapp. I trust them when they say that there’s a plan, that Culber will come back, that this will work out at some point. Their reassurances do help me personally to make some measure of peace with the situation. I don’t want to think that two openly gay actors would sign onto the script if this is how it ends between their characters. But right now, Culber is still dead, for no good reason that I can see, and it still stings. This is justifiably upsetting. And until I see him come back with my own two eyes, yeah, I’m not gonna be happy about it.

Aaaaand speaking of death, let’s talk about Georgiou. I just... that’s not a good way to start your show off, ngl. You take a very strong and deep character, played by Michelle Yeoh no less, and then just kill her? It’s bad writing. They could have easily had Michael transferred off the Shenzhou and arrested and kept Captain Georgiou alive. They could have even kept the whole “tragic backstory” thing in play, with Michael and Philippa no longer on speaking terms, and Michael mourning the loss of what was once such a close relationship. (I do appreciate that they brought her back as her mirror counterpart - and boy howdy the Emperor is a good character - so that does take a little bit of the sting out, but still. Not the best way to open the show.)

And then Landry dies in both universes?? I can accept mirror!Landry dying because of the whole “Lorca’s second hand” thing, but like... god, this show has got to stop killing off poc. Especially woc. I can understand that they’re trying to do a “raceblind” thing, and I understand their reasoning - the whole “it’s a utopian future and everyone is treated the same!” thing - but it doesn’t really work like that irl for the audience. Unless someone is actually literally colorblind and sees everything in greyscale, no one has any business saying they “don’t see color.” And no one should be casting with that mindset. The situation could certainly be a lot worse - they’ve got Michael, at least, and she’s fucking amazing - but it could also be better.

And yeah, it’s a warzone, and people are going to die. I get that. But just... do some critical thinking about who you’re killing, why, and if it can be avoided. If for no other reason, it makes the story a lot stronger in the long run.

It’s the year of our lord twenty-gayteen, can we stop having the makeup on white people playing Kingons being so hmmm questionable maybe?

(With regards to several of the above points, I’m white, so please let me know if I’m overstepping my bounds here. And like the point about Culber - I wouldn’t blame anyone for disliking/not supporting the show because of these reasons, and I’m not ever going to try to convince anyone that these things are okay. Because they aren’t. Just because I like certain elements enough to give the show a second chance with season two, doesn’t mean that anyone else will or should do the same. Continuing.)

Why the fuck is this show so obsessed with eating people? Stop it. Get some help.

The only explicitly bisexual/pansexual person we see is the Emperor, who sleeps with both a man and a woman and seems very satisfied with both parties afterwards. Which, okay, cool, except she was also trying to get information out of them, so whether or not she was even attracted to either one is debatable. I personally think she was - thanks to Michelle Yeoh’s acting, which is a goddamn gift - but that still leaves us with the only representation of bi/pan people being a murderous emperor from the mirror universe. And the “relationship” is entirely sex-based, as well as being with multiple people at once, which only furthers the stereotype of bi/pan being promiscuous, being only bi for a threesome, being untrustworthy. And to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with one night stands or poly relationships! Those things are perfectly fine! But when that’s all that bi/pan people are shown as, it can play into really damaging stereotypes - and as a bi/pan person, I’m frankly getting a little fucking sick of it.

(I mean, it’s better than DS9′s “mirrorverse=gay/bi/pan” thing, I’ll give it that, but I’m not going to give any show brownie points for reinforcing harmful stereotypes. You’ve improved slightly, Trek, but not nearly as much as you should have.)

I’m just making another point here for Dr. Culber’s death because seriously. Fucking seriously. What the fuck.

I would’ve liked to have seen more one-off episodes, like “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad.” That was a fucking awesome episode. It’s fun! It’s got character development! I wanna see more of that!

The portrayal of Klingon culture is a bit inconsistent. And okay, to be entirely truthful, I’m really not that into Klingons in general? So having a plot centered around them wouldn’t be my first choice anyway. But if you’re going to do it, please do it right. It felt like the writers sometimes “forgot” important elements of Klingon culture for the sake of the plot, and just... come on. The Klingons are brutal warriors, yes. They’ve killed innocent civilians in the course of battle, sure. But they have a whole honor code, and going out of their way to murder thousands of helpless, defenseless people? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it just doesn’t quite seem to fit.

I really, really wanna see more of the bridge crew! I wanna get to know them! They seem so cool who are they please Disco I’m begging you

This is a very dumb, very tiny thing, but I was kinda hoping I’d see some Cardassian makeup in the crowd while we were in the Seedy Black Market on Qo’noS. Did appreciate the Trill lady tho!

I dunno, the ending almost felt... too neat? If that makes sense? I would have liked things more ambiguous, a few more loose ends. It felt like they threw in a happy ending out of nowhere; it didn’t really match the tone of the rest of the show.

Speaking of tone - it felt to me like Disco was trying to mix the upbeat, thoughtful, philosophical tone of classic Trek with the grittier, more critical, more heavy tone of DS9. I love both classic Trek and DS9, but they don’t exactly mix very well. Disco’s tone felt a bit confused and convoluted. And like, here’s the thing - classic Trek doesn’t preclude heavy subjects (”Conscience of the King” from TOS is a great example), and shows like DS9 don’t preclude fun and optimism (there’s episodes like “Explorers” that are uplifting, and “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” is a fucking delight). Star Trek at its best should always tackle difficult issues, should always have determination, should always have hope. DS9 had a more morally gray outlook, yes, and certainly questioned the idea that the Federation is utopian, but it was still underpinned by the main characters wanting to do good. Wanting to improve the world around them. It managed to do a very good job of adapting Trek’s message to its darker tone - whereas Disco feels like it’s flip-flopping between having a darker tone and trying to be like TOS. Like, buddy, just pick one. You just gotta pick one.

The more times Sarek shows up in Disco, the more he looks like a complete dick to Spock in TOS. This isn’t necessarily a complaint, because Sarek being a dick is certainly in character for him, but I’d like to see that disparity in how he treats his children addressed. By his wife. Specifically by his wife. Amanda is a national treasure and I need her to call her husband out.

idk I think there’s more but like, I’ve been working on this for hours - WAIT HANG ON

This has been bugging me since the beginning of the show, because while Michael’s mutiny was certainly a bad idea, she technically... didn’t really do much of anything before being taken to the brig? She almost has the ship fire on a Klingon vessel, but Georgiou shows up and stops her. Helm locked phasers on the vessel on Michael’s orders, yes, but earlier they locked phase cannons on the vessel for a short time, which Georgiou agreed to. Her actions during the mutiny didn’t really change their situation at all. So why does everyone blame her for starting the war?

“But she killed that Klingon during her spacewalk!” Yeah, she did, because he came charging at her with a bat’leth with the intention to kill. In that scenario, her actions were self-defense. She attempted to talk to him, he then proceeded to try to kill her, so she fought back to save her own life and ended up killing him in the process. And all this happened while she was investigating a foreign object in Federation territory. So while I can see why she was charged with mutiny and assaulting a fellow officer, I don’t think it’s fair to say that she started the war. The Klingons on the ship of the dead were planning to start shit before anyone even got there.

I can understand why Starfleet would have thought Michael started it, at least at first, because unlike the audience, they couldn’t see the Klingons planning beforehand. That’s fair. But then Ash Tyler shows up, and he’s revealed to be Voq - who was there! he knows what happened on that ship! - and eventually, he loses Voq’s consciousness but retains the guy’s memories. So Ash knows how the war started. Ash knows, or should know, that the Klingons on that ship were the instigators. Why wouldn’t he tell Starfleet before fucking off with L’Rell? He says he loves Michael, so why wouldn’t he want to set the record straight? And most importantly, why wasn’t Michael told any of this?! She’s been blaming herself for this whole war, she’s been suffering needlessly for it, let her fucking rest! Yeah, she was exonerated and accepted back into Starfleet, which is great, but it came across as “welp you basically cleaned up the mess of a war you started and saved Earth from annihilation, so I guess we’ll clear the slate for you.” It should have been more like “well given what we know now, we can say that you’re innocent of starting interstellar war; and as for the rest, stopping the destruction of Earth is a hell of a community service, so you know what? Welcome back.”

My point is, Michael Burnham has done nothing wrong, ever, in her life

Alright, at this point I think that about sums it up, and I’m tired of looking at this anyways because it’s been hours now, so uh, yeah. Thanks for coming to my ted talk

[birdiethebibliophile]

ACOWAR SPOILERS

Okay time to *cracks knuckles* specifically bring up all the things I really liked about ACOWAR.

 - SO MUCH LUCIEN CONTENT. I mean, he disappeared to the continent pretty early on, but damn, that first ~120 pages was a BLESSING, honestly. Implied ACOTAR Feycien. Pledging allegiance. Cuddling for warmth. Obviously there are a lot of things I would’ve changed esp. in terms of how Feyre treated him, but just seeing him there on the page for so long... So happy.

 - Nesta’s character. Death powers were perfect, her and Amren were great together, not a huge Nessian fan in general but it was done pretty well.

 - AZRIEL TEACHING FEYRE HOW TO FLY like that entire scene is on point and the whole flying thing was actually pretty continuous that was good

 - “Be happy, Feyre.” AS MUCH AS I DIDN’T LIKE TAMLIN’S CHARACTER ARC THIS LINE BROKE MY HEART LIKE IT WAS ACTUAL PERFECTION

 - As much as I’m nervous about saying it... Mor’s coming out scene. As a bi woman who most people assume is straight AF, and who will probably never date a girl/come out to my extended family/etc., this actually rang true for me. (I mean first of all, Mor is bi, that was pretty clear, bi with a strong preference for women, possibly homoromantic.) She has a valid reason for staying closeted. Her abusers are still out there - she has to see them on a regular basis. She’s scared, and she’s jealous of those who don’t have to be, and she’s fallen in love before, and... I don’t know. There are still some problematic things, but I honestly think this scene was handled way better than I thought it would be. And Feyre promised not to tell anyone, and told her she was honored, and validated that she wasn’t wrong for “stringing along” Cassian and Azriel, and says that she’ll have Mor’s back “whether it’s tomorrow or in another five hundred years” and lightly teases her that she wants to play matchmaker (WHICH IS ACTUALLY AMAZING BECAUSE FEYRE IS CONSTANTLY PLAYING MATCHMAKER SO THIS AFFIRMS IT DOESN’T CHANGE ANYTHING) and I just really appreciated their friendship here and this is what I wanted for the whole entire book.

 - Amren/Varian. Don’t judge me. I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand it and instead I thought it was the cutest freaking relationship in the entire book.

 - That entire scene with all the High Lords was, honestly, gold. Kallias and Vivianne are my darlings. Helion is perfection. Thesan is a gem. Tarquin is, as always, incredible. Beron was rather interestingly nasty. The only thing I didn’t like about that scene was Tamlin. (By the way - this means three out of the seven High Lords are POC. And at least two are queer. I couldn’t believe my own eyes.) The scene afterwards with Helion was amazing as well (Feyre:  “why the hell not???”) - why hadn’t I considered that some of the High Lords do the same thing Rhys does???

 - SPEAKING OF HELION I have to bring up the Lucien’s Sexy Toga Dad point, I have to, I can’t decide whether I hate it (clearly wasn’t planned at all) or love it, my bby Lucien is biracial and CAN HE GLOW??? and *cough* Anyways.

  - The Suriel. Okay I was a little disappointed that it didn’t get to be the Super Scary Thing it was warned to be but at the same time omg all our dearest hopes and wishes came true there okay and I think (this could have been done a little better) it was almost reminiscent of what Feyre did for the water wraiths in ACOMAF and how she stayed with the dying Summer Court faerie in ACOTAR and fladkjf;ldfdd that was a good scene.

*deep breath* Okay I’m done for now. I just needed to remember the positivity and I DID.

[ryki]

! ! ! ! VLD2 SPOILERS ! ! ! ! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE NEW SEASON.

This post is all over the place as I wrote it after finishing the season, ahaha.

Honestly, to start things off, I’m just. So disappointed in this season. There was so much they could’ve done with it but instead, they just, went the easy way and honestly, it just seems really weak in terms of the plot and the characters.

This whole season wasn’t even focused on the paladins equally. Not that the first season did that, either, but it was honestly more spread out than this season. This whole season was basically about Keith. Which is fine, I adore Keith, but I don’t want 90% of the season being about him? 

I’m forever salted that they ruined Hunk like they did. All his screen time was basically him talking about food. Like? How can you give us such an intelligent character like Hunk but reduce him comedic relief who only cares about food? Food this, food that. It’s nice to know that he loves food but honestly? Most of his screen time was him talking about food and while it’s nice to have some comedic relief, Hunk should not be reduced to a comedic relief character. You gave us a beautiful poc, chubby, smart character but only focus on the fact that he likes food? How can you give us a intelligent mechanic person, who is even on par with Coran, but reduce him to such a 2D character? It’s honestly infuriating! 

Sure, he had moments where he shined, like when it came to his upgrade and saving lives, but honestly? Why is he nothing but the scaredy cat that can’t do anything who always thinks about food? I thought he developed well in season one but season two definitely ruined everything that Hunk went through. Like honestly, there’s better ways (like puns, lmao) to do comedic relief instead of making the same character think about food all the time and make him piss-his-pants every five seconds.

And while Pidge actually had some great development -- like bonding with her lion -- and realizing that nature is actually no different than her technology and can be used for advancement of knowledge, that’s all they did for her, lmao. Like woo! One episode where Pidge actually kicks ass! And yeah, she uses her upgrade in episodes after that but it wasn’t really that great compared to her Time To Shine.

Honestly, Pidge had some really great development and I’m super glad that she found information on her brother (bless up!) but all of that is overshadowed with Bigger and Better things and honestly, doesn’t really matter much in episodes after that.

The same can be said about Lance. He actually had some great moments in this season but it’s basically two seconds worth of the whole season because no one even commented on it, they turned him into the other comedic relief character, and didn’t even utilize it afterwards. He has a fucking upgrade but he only uses it twice? For things that didn’t even matter for the mission of defeating Zarkon?

Lance is my favourite character and I’m so upset that they reverted him back to the ‘All the Girls Love me’ faux-confident nonsense when he had some really fantastic moments. Like yeah, Lance is a flirt. And he does fake his own confidence -- but when he does something really great but then no one talks about it? No wonder he forces his confidence when no one even pays attention to him unless he shoves himself in their faces.

And let’s not mention that the only being that actually gave Lance some realization was a fucking alien pupper. Yeah, freeing Slav was really important but Lance did something Amazing and he deserved more praise and opportunities than ‘great shot, Lance!’ Because seriously?

Hunk, Pidge and Lance deserve so much more than this stereotypical bullshit assigned to them. They didn’t deserve to have their character development reversed and be taken back to episode one where Pidge is their nerd, Lance is their flirt and Hunk is their stomach. It’s not fair to way away all their development in order to fill some episodes with things that doesn’t even contribute to the bigger picture. (I say this but I do acknowledge that Pidge’s time to shine actually contributed to an alliance, which-- way to go Pidge!)

And while Shiro was mostly out of the picture except for being there as their leader and taking control, he really didn’t have much development either. 

I thought it was amazing that Shiro manages to win the trust of Black, who kicked out Zarkon for calling her a weapon and seeing her not a companion, but a tool. (Love you, Black!) Which was probably Shiro’s only highlight moment besides the last episode. Which-- was pretty weak if you ask me. Like, yes! Shiro got the bayard back and it’s actually his now. But his slam the bayard into the panel was so weak, lmao. It basically just powered up Keith’s Voltron upgrade which is a little-- infuriating.

This whole season was basically about Keith and while I adore Keith, honestly what the fuck?

Not to rain on the parade but I wasn’t fond of the Galra!Keith theories. Like, I can acknowledge all of the hitns and foreshadowing and proof, but I wasn’t a fan of the whole, “Keith is a Galra” snit. Fans kept forcing it in people’s faces and being obnoxious about their ‘proof’ so I’ve grown a dislike to Galra!Keith theories. And now that it’s canon, I have to sit and deal with people shoving it in my face even more. Which, if you’re a fan, that’s fine, I’m not going to tell you not to do what makes you happy, but keep it away from me. 

Speaking of Galra!Keith, I’m glad that the team was so low-key about him being an Alien (besides Hunk’s stupid comedic relief comments, which we could’ve done without; but at least they didn’t make Lance the victim of that weak plot) but I would’ve also liked to see it revealed to the same and their reactions and not just Hunk sleeping, passed out in the chair. (Which is also like, what the fuck? Can you give Hunk more depth than eat, sleep and scared all the time?) Because that’s a pretty big thing.

Keith being a Galra was confirmed on the Voltron page, so I was really fucking confused why his dad would be there if he was a teenager or something. Or how he could remember what he dad looked like because being an orphan means, a child whose parents have died. A child. And no matter how good your memory is, your visual memory tends to fade over time so even if Keith lost his dad when he was a child, that doesn’t really explain how he’d remember so clearly and talk to his dad so normally, lmao. And if his mother is Galra, there’s a chance she could still be alive, which means Keith really isn’t an orphan at all, lol. 

Basically this whole season was Keith -- and by extension, Allura and Shiro, which the trio basically made up the entire season while Coran, Pidge, Hunk and Lance were practically useless for most of the season. Which is really disappointing, all things considering.

And don’t even get me on Allura, lmao. I couldn’t stand her this entire season. She was so aggressive and angry about everything. 

Like I understand the Galra annihilated your people and your planet, it’s understandable to be hurt. But to out-cast Keith and give him the blind eye when he’s probably the most loyal member of Voltron? What kind of annoyance. Like, yeah, she definitely realized that her anger for the Galra blinded her but she’s not the only one who is affected by them. (Hello! Remember Shiro? Even he was okay with it and he was personally manipulated and tortured by them!) Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand Allura’s rage but there’s no reason to be so petty about every little detail. Especially by taking it out on Keith? As if he did something 10,000 years ago? Lmao! Your anger should’ve been at Zarkon and actual Galrans, not Keith who wasn’t even aware of everything until like, a few months ago? (Has it been months in Voltron? It’s probably barely been two months, if you ask me. A lot of shit happens in a day, let alone a month.)

So while Allura did get some development, it wasn’t even to counter-act my dislike for her aggression and passive-aggression. 

This season was so... disappointing. 

Even from the plot. There was barely any build-up, despite everything that has happened, and they saved the climax for the very last second and didn’t even give enough time for the conclusion of the episode? Like season one was terrible as it was with the cliffhanger, so having two seasons end the same way isn’t good for pacing. Especially if they’re just going to give you a weak season next season, too.

There wasn’t much development with the characters (any development that did happen seemed little due to how much backpedaling they did with the characters.) and the plot was weak for most of the season, only to drop two dozen ‘bombs’ on you at the last two episodes. Like, the pacing is just bad but everything was just weak this season. 

I know they probably had a lot of pressure and expectations, considering how big the fandom got, but that’s no excuse to treat the characters the way they did or to mess up the season pacing that badly. Or to leave so many things unresolved at the end. Season one was do-able because the only thing we had to worry about at the end was: where are the paladins and their lions? But with season two, there’s so many questions left unanswered. Where is Shiro? Who is Lotor? (If y’all seen the original, please keep your mouths shut. I know who Lotor is but for those who didn’t know, don’t spoil it.) What’s going to happen to the lions? To the ship? To the paladins? Who’s going be our new villain? What’s going to happen next? Is Keith really going to be the leader? (Groans!) Or what’s going to happen?

So basically all-in-all, this season was just a big disappointment considering how much they could’ve done, and what they could’ve done without. (Which is a lot bigger in scale of what they actually did.) 

I hope that the next season -- because there’s definitely going to be a next season -- doesn’t disappoint as badly as this season did.

[greylagwriting]

Review: Redlaw, and how NOT to do Fantastic Racism

James Lovegrove is an author whose books I really enjoy — well, at his Sherlock Holmes books. His original stuff, as Redlaw demonstrates, is junk.

The book starts out with a young boy hopping a fence and running from unseen pursuers through a part of the city he's not supposed to be in. Shortly afterwards, we learn this boy is a vampire (called Sunless, with a capital S, in this book), and is running from people who believe him to be a threat. We also learn that Sunless are segregated from human society.

Now, I was really into this concept when I read the first bit of the first chapter, and I would have loved to see a story were vampires were unjustly discriminated against. Sadly, what I actually got was... not good.

Our protagonist is Actually James Redlaw, a tough-talking officer of the Sunless Housing And Something-or-Other called SHADE. Basically, the vampire police. Not as in “police who are vampires”, but “people who police vampires”. He is the tired old gruff cop who never gets along with anybody, and the one partner that could actually stand him was a lady officer who died long before the book began, thanks to Redlaw not being strong enough to protect her or some bull. Despite being talked about so much that I expected her to show up again as a Sunless, lady officer (who I can’t remember the name of) never actually has an impact on the plot, except for the very end.

The actual plot is that half of Parliment (the story is set in London) is trying to eradicate all vampires, as they deem them too dangerous to be among humans, while the other half simply wants to relocate or contain them. The Sunless, I might mention, have absolutely no say in any of this. There is also an organization called PETS; People for the Ethical Treatment of Sunless, a group of young goths that campaign for vampire rights (though they aren’t as bad as the real-life group they’re named after).

Personally, I don’t find it great that humans are campaigning for the rights of vampires, considering that, unlike animals that can’t speak for themselves, they’re sentient and perfectly capable of protesting on their own. Generally, marginalized people are the ones to lead protests for their own rights; humans protesting for vampires is like white people protesting for Civil Rights.

Parliment end up by spiking the cattle blood that they ship in to the Sunless with artificial hormones, making them more violent in order to justify creating Solardome One, a large domed city with an opaque glass roof that all the Sunless are going to be contained in. The dome, however, has the ability to have its opaque roof turned clear, to let in sunlight and incinerate every Sunless. Redlaw catches onto the plan chases down the big bads in time to stop the dome from going opaque, and... literally just leaves all the Sunless inside. He claims to be pro-vampire, but doesn’t spare them a single thought, or even think of asking them, you know, what they want?

The Sunless are discriminated against in this book, because they are inherently dangerous, and can and will kill humans, though most drink cattle blood. I gotta say that this is... not how you do fantasy discrimination.

See, the Sunless are clearly a stand-in for immigrants, particularly ones that are PoC, and the author falls into the pitfall of trying to justify the discrimination.

Sunless are discriminated against because they are undead creatures that leave feces all over their dwelling places, have no regard for their living conditions, and are nearly indistinguishable from feral animals. They drink blood, and often do so from innocent humans, including children, and regularly turn them into Sunless. They are often aggressive, and attack ad kill people who get too close.

Immigrants are discriminated against because they come from countries that are perceived as being “lesser”. 

PoC are discriminated against because their skin tones and physical features are different from white people.

Sunless are seen as deserving of life because they used to be people and didn’t ask to be vampires.

PoC are seen as deserving of life because they’re @#$%ing people that have, as a group, done nothing @#$%ing wrong!

Whenever you do racism allegories in fiction, it is doomed from the very start if you say “X group is oppressed because they did something bad at one point/are all an active danger to others”. Racism isn’t logical. It can’t be justified. It boils down to a group in power going “these people are different from me, so they’re inferior.”

Another thing: the Sunless themselves are perfectly fine with living they way they do. None of them, besides the boy at the start, express distaste with their current situation and, subsequently, do nothing to change it. Rather, it’s the humans who decide what’s best for the Sunless, by which they really mean “what’s best for us”, and that is destroying or corralling them in ghettos (yes, the book does call them ghettos).

The one and only good Sunless is Illyria, who joins Redlaw and helps him combat the Parliment. She’s not just any vampire, mind you, but a shtriga - as smart, strong, and beautiful as a vampire from Twilight, with minor powers of hypnosis over “lesser” Sunless and the self-restraint to not drink from humans. Thankfully, there’s no romantic bull between her and Redlaw.  All the other Sunless, I must note, are treated as little more than barely-sentient animals, and get very few lines. 

Additionally, I want to add that, in addition to the mess above, Redlaw is also rather homphobic and Islamophobic, with a nice dash of antisemitism thrown in. For the Islamophobia, one of the SHADE officers is a Muslim man named Khalid, whom Redlaw openly hates (and the feeling is mutual). Said officer is also misogynistic, with an entire paragraph of the book being about Khalid thinking about how he hates General MacArthur because she wears pants and doesn’t cover her hair, unlike his good Muslim wife. This is stated explicitly and almost word-for-word.

As for the homophobia, it comes in the form of the last few chapters when it’s revealed that MacArthur actually really, REALLY hates the Sunless (which has not been so much as hinted at before this), because they killed the lady officer Redlaw keeps wangsting over. Why? Surprise surprise, MacArthur and the lady officer were in love! Then MacArthur is killed while trying to destroy all the Sunless in Solardome One. So of the two gay characters, one died before the book started, and the other one turns out to be evil (and also gay) at the very end, shortly before dying.

Ugh.

Now. The antisemitism. It comes up only in one line, but the implications of that one line are positively hideous. 

After the proceedings for Solardome One are in effect, the pro-Sunless political figure commits suicide, because, as a Jewish person, he feels as though he’s greenlighted a “Final Solution” for the Sunless. I can’t stress how much that is explicitly stated. The author just compared the Sunless - undead monsters who can and will kill humans at the drop of a hat - to Jewish people, who were killed in the millions for simply existing.

In short, Jewish people are being compared to vampires, which is beyond vile for so, so many ways, and all I can do is link this informative little essay that explains why drawing this comparison is so awful (X).

Now, I’m sure this probably wasn’t intentional on the author’s part, but that does not make it any better. In fact, it might make it worse, because Lovegrove clearly did not consider the implications of comparing Jewish people to bloodsucking monsters!

All in all, Redlaw is garbage. The characters aren’t exceptional, have fewer dimensions than a Mobius strip, and almost of them die anyways (except our tough-cop hero title guy). There’s very little to salvage from this book, though I can think about ways to fix the story and the world. Apparently there’s a sequel to it, but, to quote the old meme, I’ve frankly had enough of that guy.

I give Redlaw a 1 out of 5, for having a vaguely okay premise but flushing it down the toilet.

[musings-of-a-planning-stude-blog]

Thoughts on Racism, Sexism, and General Ignorance in the Classroom.

I have a classmate who I’m nearly certain is on the autism spectrum. I’ll call him Drew. His lack of social skills is coupled with his parents’ coddling, so his interests are largely dated (like, the traveling comedy bands from the ‘40s kind of dated), he has a bad relationship with social media and technology, and he just largely lives an insular existence.

I talked briefly in class today about how I once thought I would get away from sexism and homophobia by moving to the northeast, but I later found that the northeast was about the same as anywhere else; these places only differ in the way bigotry is expressed.

This confused Drew. “Really?” He said. “Maybe it’s because I live in Cheltenham, which is a very liberal suburb, but I never thought it would be that way here.”

This is one of the problems I’ve come to recognize about the northeast—that racism is somehow “over there, not here, not me.”

I haven’t shared yet some of what Drew has said in the past couple semesters, though. Coming to my mind are three significant stories that I’ll share below.

#1. Last semester, race and racism came up in discussion somehow, and Drew suddenly had an epiphany; he proposed that connecting neighborhoods and regions through transit could eliminate racism (as if Philly’s transit agency, SEPTA, doesn’t already connect areas of differing demographics). Nobody in class was biting, so he turned his attention to the only other person of color in the room, a light-skinned Black guy from York (I’ll call him Tray). 

I personally tried to shut Drew up and deflect him away. “We already have that infrastructure. Racism is more complicated than a lack of exposure. Your idea wouldn’t help.” But now he felt cornered in his ignorance, and it looked like he was desperate for validation, so he kept harping to Tray (and now, me) with his “theory.” I’m surprised Tray didn’t snap on him, but who the fuck wants to deal with a dude who probably in all honesty won’t get it even if you explained it clearly? Eventually the teacher diverted attention by moving on to another activity in class.

#2. Drew kicked off the new semester with some sexism backed by a genetics argument. Our Non-Motorized Transportation Planning class began with a discussion of who rides bikes. One notable statistic is that cyclists are majority men, and, of those who don’t bike, women are more likely than men to cite safety as their primary inhibitor to biking.

The teacher asked why this could be. In comes Drew. “I read this somewhere. Women are more naturally predisposed to be concerned about safety because they rear children and are fragile.” (This is coming from a guy who *can’t ride a bike, gets winded from walking, and is scared of walking alone to the train station 70 feet from our building*.)

Ok, clearly, he’s talking a bunch of stupid shit. The teacher says, “Ok. How about we ask our woman in the classroom.” He turns to the only person who isn’t white or male, a Black woman who I’ll call Laurel. “Laurel, what do you think?”

I’m really not sure if Laurel was paying attention. If she were, why wouldn’t she be livid? She responded, “Uh, well, I mean, I’m intimidated to ride my bike around Center City because there are too many cars.”

What bothers me here is that our instructor, after hearing this response, decides to move on instead of address the issue. Maybe Laurel didn’t want to deal with it, or maybe she wasn’t paying attention. (Given, it’s really hard to listen to anything Drew spews out of his mouth.) Maybe the professor didn’t want to address the issue either. Or maybe, he just simply didn’t care, or didn’t see the harm in the comment. Which of these is worse? This whole situation wasn’t okay.

Afterward, I was really upset that I stayed silent.

Later in the semester, Drew and I had to do a walk audit in an area of South Kensington. (For context, about 90 percent of its residents are either Black or Latinx.) Prior to the audit, Drew had expressed concern in class about doing the audit alone, which I thought could maybe be racially motivated. But while we were doing the audit, we walked through an odor that distinctly smelled of burnt rubber, and he told me, “I’ll tell you what that smell is—that must either be weed or fried chicken.”

Fucking yikes. But I immediately considered his autism. How do you react to someone who clearly doesn’t have a good understanding of social behavior? Maybe he thought this was what was socially appropriate to say or jest about, absent of meaning. Or maybe the statement came from a deeply rooted racist value of his. In other words, is he reciting something he has heard (and thinks is okay), or is he responding genuinely? I was so occupied trying to figure this out that I couldn’t step back in the moment and realize it was a fucked up thing to say either way.

In that moment I responded, “It is definitely not either,” and changed the subject. Looking back, I should’ve spoken up.

But back to his ignorant surprise from tonight—"There’s racism in Philly?!“ (Like, for real, dude? Ugh.) I had another opportunity to speak up here and didn’t take it.

I laid down in my bed that night and thought, Dammit, I avoided calling him out. Again.

While racism in rural areas can be very explicit, racism in cities—especially Northeast cities—is much more coded. In my experience, sometimes not even the people perpetuating the racism are fully aware of what they’re doing. It's the result of a long-standing fucked culture, and it requires a constant effort to dismantle those learned thoughts and behaviors. If I could say all of that concisely to him, maybe it would’ve made him start to second-guess his ideas. I don’t know.

On the one hand, if you treat someone like Drew with a crutch, they will never fix themselves ultimately go on to make harmful decisions. But on the other hand, I can’t expect someone in his situation (autism and coddling) to have much of an understanding of anything beyond his narrow interest of transportation infrastructure.

But in either case, it’s especially crucial as an urban planner to be able to act in the interests of a diverse group of folks. If you harbor racist or sexist ideas you’re not going to take women or people of color seriously.

I feel I should speak out. But I also feel like I don’t know enough about race issues to responsibly speak out about them. Is it even my place to talk about race issues when there is someone else in the room (i.e., a woman or person of color) with firsthand experience? Would it be appropriate for a social worker to teach calculus when there is also a fully capable mathematician in the room?

Although, it must be exhausting to be asked to discuss the experiences you have as a POC to every white moron who says something stupid. Why should I make that their burden?

When did I become the only person who gives a damn? Do I have a better understanding of these issues than my peers, or are they all just choosing to avoid these conversations (as I am) because they’re instigated by a dude who they’d rather not deal with?

I don’t know. I’m still figuring that out. But I think I’ve decided to speak up, regardless of my concerns. These conversations need to be had, and I need some reassurance that my colleagues are here with me.