#but to have people defend the creator and get upset people are unhappy with said creator

[mrfancyfoot]

Healthy Reminder to Not Feed the Trolls.

I think especially younger fandom members and creators need to hear this because it's not advice that I see nearly as often anymore and part of that may be because my gen (Millennials) heard it a lot and often take it as Just Something You Know (though I think we also sometimes need the reminder). But we're older now and there are those younger than us that may not have the experience we do, especially if we just assume they know better (and younger and younger people are online now). It's part of Online Safety 101. I've linked to a couple resources near the bottom.

A troll is someone who shows up in a space and is purely there to upset someone and cause drama/chaos. All they're seeking is attention and the enjoyment they get from upsetting you. They do not care about facts, your feelings, or anything else you throw at them. They will argue in bad faith. They will commit the cardinal sin of Being Wrong on the Internet. They will accuse you of committing the cardinal sin of Being Wrong on the Internet. They will make fun of your favorite character, your art, your writing, you, your friends, your dog, any and everything. They will tell you that how you enjoy or interpret your favorite thing(s) is Wrong or Bad. They love to cause drama in and between groups. Peaceful coexistence is often what they want to disrupt.

Some spaces will unfortunately draw more trolls than others.

In this PSA, I'm not quite referring to the "trolling" term that is also used interchangeably to mean "joking" or "fooling around" with the intent to get a raise out of someone but not necessarily to upset them. Though that can easily lead to this.

Resist the Urge to Feed Them. ("Feed them" being "give them attention.")

Don't give them attention by responding to them or giving them any kind of space on your blog/page/whatever. That's what they want. That's what they live off of. They want the hate because it means they've gotten under your skin and in your head and that makes them happy. They may have an agenda, they may have no specific agenda.

This can be so hard because it's natural to feel the need to defend yourself, someone else, and/or the things you enjoy. It can feel good to correct or engage someone who comes at you swinging. But they often don't stop. They will keep leeching your time and energy, especially if you allow them to.

You lose nothing by not engaging them. They bring nothing of value.

Engaging them can bring drama and hurt in your spaces and this may not only affect you. This can tear apart fandom spaces, cause rifts in groups, and pit people against each other. And then you're all unhappy and you have these negative associations of interacting with something that previously brought you joy. It causes people to stop creating, to stop engaging with others in the fandom, and to even leave fandoms.

And that is the goal of many trolls.

If you feel the need to address something they've said publicly, do not link their post/message/blog/name/etc. You want to give them as little of the attention as possible - you're addressing the accusation/concern/subject/whatever specifically, not them. Don't even relate it back to them if you can prevent it.

Some very non-exhaustive examples of what can be trolling behaviors:

They leave nastygrams in your inbox/Ask box.

They leave negative comments or reblogs on your post.

They leave unsolicited "critique."

They'll tell you that how you interpret X is wrong.

"Your blorbo would never do that!"

"X should never be shipped with Y!"

Antis (the people or groups that don't agree with certain content and try to get others to stop making/sharing it [being anti-X doesn't make you a troll, but going into the space for X and telling those people that they're wrong for liking X is trolling/harassment])

Someone comes into your fandom niche and tells you all that You're Wrong

They may behave inappropriately or send inappropriate things

They don't always use provocative language - they may be very polite (all the easier to make you seem like the unreasonable one if they do get a rise out of you). Still trolling.

They'll do or say things to try to get support from others in order to turn it on you/someone or pit "sides" against each other

They may lie and/or try to spread rumors

"You/they made this with A.I!" is a common accusation towards artists/writers I'm seeing now that has absolutely been picked up by trolls and is unfortunately spreading (please always make sure that you are informed and don't jump on the hate wagon just because you see others doing so - do your own research and demand credible sources/proof [learn what "proof" is per context]). I've seen this kind of accusation disrupt artists' livelihoods just based on someone's say-so that others piled on with no credible claims.

It is okay to have differences.

People are allowed to be Wrong on the Internet, but that doesn't mean that they're owed a response or that you can't delete their comments. You can delete comments on your page just because you feel like it (though "I don't like it." or "This makes me feel uncomfortable." are perfectly fine, non-exhaustive reasons).

If you don't engage them, they will often simply go away. You're not fun if you don't give them attention. You're not going to change their behavior (please don't waste your time trying). Some may try harder to get you to notice or reply to them, but they generally won't stick around for long. They'll move on.

Curate your blog/social/fandom space. (You'll be so much happier and healthier for it.)

Do not engage them.

Block them.

Report them.

Delete their DMs, comments, etc.

Use the moderation tools that you have.

You are under no obligation to accept every 'friend' request, or allow everyone to 'follow' you or engage with you on social media or let into your Discord server or into your little fandom or Tumblr friend group, etc etc. If someone is causing drama, kick them out! Don't feel the need to keep giving them chances to behave, either. Don't be afraid to put your foot down and be firm.

If they pop their head back up (maybe even under a new name), block them again, report them again, delete their messages again. Do not engage. Move on. Dealing with trolls is often like playing whack-a-mole. Send them to the void with the spambots.

You will be happier not engaging them.

Honestly, the above works in similar scenarios, too (not just random strangers)!

Uncle Joe keeps ranting on your page and upsetting you and/or your friends? Delete his comments. Block/unfriend him. Don't feel obligated to keep troublesome family members involved on your social media. Or even in your life.

If the above is someone that you can't simply block (there are valid reasons), sites like Facebook allow you to make lists that you can use to control who sees which of your posts.

You may have to remind your friends, followers, or others in the fandom to not feed the trolls.

You are the moderator of your own spaces. If this is a public space or a private group space that you don't control, politely inform a moderator or someone who has the authority to deal with the troll (sometimes all you can do is hit a report button and/or block them).

Learn the moderation and safety tools that you do have for the platform/app you're using:

How to unfollow/unfriend someone

How to report and block someone

How to turn off read receipts for things like chats and emails

How to turn off online status

How to contact site staff

How to turn off reblogs/comments/etc

How to turn off anonymous/guest messages or comments

How to delete comments

How to moderate comments, etc, on your works (ex: AO3 has an option for all story comments to be approved before they're posted on your work)

How to privatize your profile

How to back up and delete your content

How to filter content

Thoroughly read through all settings (I recommend doing this periodically as settings frequently get updated or change)

Learn where and who you can turn to for help

Read the platform's FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), Rules, and Terms of Service (TOS)

Etc

And again, They will Argue in Bad Faith.

They may accuse you of not being fair, of not allowing them to participate, of leaving them out, of ignoring them, of not "liking" them, of being "mean" to them, of your silence "agreeing" with them or meaning they're "right." They may accuse you of being a bad person or condoning bad things IRL. They may accuse you of any number of wild things. They may say they're just "being the devil's advocate" or of defending their own fandom interests. They may call you names and insult you. They may say that they have private information about you that they'll leak/share or that they'll do X if you don't do Y - this is almost certainly a bluff, but this is part of why it's important to protect your private information and be careful about what you post online. They may say that something you've done is illegal and that they're going to report you to the police (again, very likely bluffing just to scare you). They may even say that they'll harm themselves. There's a lot of crossover between spammer/scammer and troll tactics (often they are one and the same).

That's what they do.

Don't take their words personally.

They just want to guilt you into allowing them to stay and continue causing drama.

It is okay to give people chances.

But you do not need to keep giving them chances.

In your spaces, you don't even need to give them a chance or an explanation.

I have become very liberal with how I deal with trolls. I block on sight in many cases. I don't give them ground to even start if it can be helped. But part of that is just due to experience - you gain the ability to recognise them pretty fast (a lot of it is simply pattern recognition), the difficult part is usually in how you choose to deal with them.

If someone is being particularly problematic, keep a paper trail (like screen shotting their messages with time stamps), but otherwise block+report is usually still the thing to do. If they are threatening harm to you, someone else, or themselves, report them (if you're a minor, tell a trusted adult). If you don't know what to do or you're scared, reach out to someone you trust for support. Trolling is a form of online bullying that can escalate to other forms of harrassment - a majority of the time, simply not engaging them helps prevent this, otherwise know that tools and resources are available for help. Just because it's "online" doesn't mean it isn't real or impactful or can't have "real life" consequences - there are agencies (like the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center) that you can file a report with or contact for help.

Have fun, be safe!

[dez-wade]

You might disagree with this and it’s completely fine I always like hearing different perspectives! but I really think certain creators constantly commenting on how hateful the community is etc isn’t helping at all after a certain point. I’m so glad the ccs spoke out after the past few days, it’s important that they did and I’ve seen a real improvement on my dash and timeline on Twitter but there comes a point where the rational normal people have listened and understood and taken in what’s been said and the weirdos who are awful just won’t and to constantly talk about how you essentially don’t like the community becomes almost upsetting to hear, and I’m specifically talking about when there’s no distinction on like “I know it’s just a loud minority but it needs to be spoken about” and it’s just instead “THE community is hateful and awful and so I don’t want to interact with it” it’s like damn I’ve only ever been incredibly supportive of the ccs but it starts to feel like they never see or acknowledge the positive parts of the fandom. I’m honestly so grateful that Baghera posted a couple of replies defending the community and saying it’s one of the most kind and welcoming she’s been a part of and it’s unfair to say it’s not just because of a hateful few and it can’t even be argued “well she’s on red tema an their the most popular team” because Baghera has arguable been on if the most targeted ccs especially during the election arc she was really targeted by some from certain communities but she spoke about it and was honest about how it affected her and called those people out and then moved on and continued to just focus on enjoying herself. aypierre even tweeted out that 99% are cheerful and lovely sometimes the 1% just needs to be called out and I agree! But to constantly focus on the negativity for days and weeks on end will help nothing. The freaks who go out of their way to be hateful in chats and tweets etc will not learn now if they haven’t changed by now. Idk I’ve honestly had to just not watch certain streamers today and stuff because I just know we’re going to have that 15th speech on how unhappy they are with the community and it’s just upsetting. Maybe it’s just my rsd coming for my neck 😅

I actually don't completely disagree with you, I think calling out haters make the most rational fans just send more positivity than they previously did than stopping the haters. Mostly because they'll never think that message is directed at then, or are straight up evil and don't care.

The amount of time I saw people on Twitter with Roier as their profile pic and every time they try to explain to them that their own favorite CC said not to use their icon to shit talk people and that he doesn't acknowledge them as part of his community they just laugh and say they don't give a fuck. So yeah, haters are either people who in their own minds are not haters and the message doesn't apply to them or assholes like I just described that don't give a fuck even if they own favorite CCs hate this type of attitude.

Most people calling out the haters are people who are constantly getting harassed or having their friends getting harassed so it becomes difficult to see the positivity when it looks so gloomy. But I agree they should try to look at the more supportive fans and talk more about them, maybe it'll drown out the annoying people.

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

What news coverage of the Rings of Power backlash gets wrong 

(This is an article I wrote and posted on Wordpress because I’ve been frustrated by the way that news outlets have covered this topic so far. I don’t know how many people will read this, but part of the reason I posted it on Wordpress was to make it easier to share to other social media sites, in case anyone wants to do that.)

When Amazon released its trailer for The Rings of Power, many Tolkien fans expressed negative reactions ranging from anger to disgust to disappointment. The important part is why, and this is what news coverage of the backlash has so far failed to report fully. 

The way that news stories have portrayed fan reactions to The Rings of Power—framing them as a conflict primarily between those who support diversity in the show and those who don’t—obscures Amazon’s own problems of racism and discrimination, as well as the real reasons many fans are unhappy about this adaptation.

First, to discuss what the news has covered about the backlash: some of the people criticizing Amazon’s show are complaining about it because they oppose diverse casting. But Tolkien never stated that certain characters had to be white, and even if he had, a diverse cast would still be the right choice. Some people argue that Middle-earth is a sort of fantasy Europe, but Europe itself has never been 100% white. And I think it’s important to point out that many Tolkien experts and fans agree that a diverse portrayal of Middle-earth is in fact fully consistent with canon—and must include casting people of color as the heroes.

It’s not a bad thing to cover the racist trolling as news, because it’s worth addressing why there have been backlashes against movies with diverse casts, such as Star Wars and Ghostbusters, in recent years. The problem is that news coverage has largely conflated any criticism of The Rings of Power with racism against its cast, setting up Amazon as a defender of diversity and inclusion, and obscuring its track record of racism and other forms of discrimination.

Amazon has been found to systematically discriminate against Black employees, female employees, and especially Black women, denying them promotions and failing to address a toxic work environment where racist and sexist comments and harassment go unchecked. Since 2008, and as recently as 2020, Amazon has also profited off of anti-Semitic merchandise and books that promote Holocaust denial. Casting actors of color and emphasizing Galadriel’s role in the show does not negate any of this. Amazon is selling the aesthetic of diversity and inclusion in a fantasy world while remaining hostile to it in reality.

What the news coverage has missed is that most Tolkien fans criticizing The Rings of Power are not against diversity in Middle-earth, and are criticizing the show for other reasons. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself, my friends, and the people who I interact with regularly in the fan community. Here are some things that many Tolkien fans are actually upset about:

We’re upset that Amazon is behind this project. Amazon is an unethical company that mistreats its workers, hoards its wealth, contributes to climate change, and is responsible for so many other terrible things. Many fans would have been happy to see Middle-earth brought back to the screen by another company, but not Amazon. We are not happy that Tolkien’s beloved stories are being shamelessly commercialized by one of the greediest men in the world. When Jeff Bezos announced the name of The Rings of Power on Twitter, many LOTR fans fittingly compared him to Sauron. Amazon’s destruction of nature, abuses of power, greed and prejudice are directly opposite to what Tolkien himself stood for.

And we’re upset that the show-runners have been so disrespectful to the creator of Middle-earth, arrogantly calling their show “the novel Tolkien never wrote.” This was not a one-off statement, either; they said this twice, and they also said they envision the title of their own show “on the spine of a book next to J.R.R. Tolkien’s other classics.” The egotism of these statements is disgusting, not to mention laughable—Tolkien spent over a decade writing LOTR, and most of his life writing The Silmarillion, so it is absurd that these men—neither of whom is a published author—think they can rival him.

…Especially when they have already mangled Tolkien’s canon. Most people accept that adaptations make changes to the source material, but there have to be good reasons behind the changes. The Rings of Power is making Elrond “politically ambitious” even though that is not how he is characterized in the books. The show also has Elves with closely-cropped short hair and Dwarf women without beards. These changes—and many others that the show has already made—might seem like unimportant details to non-Tolkien fans, but to many of us, this shows that Amazon cannot even get the basics right of Tolkien’s worldbuilding and characters.

Then, Amazon is also making broader, more earth-shaking changes, like compressing the entire timeline of the Second Age. While Peter Jackson made some changes to canon, they were largely omissions (like of the Scouring of the Shire), or changes to specific events (like having Arwen, instead of Glorfindel, rescue Frodo), but they didn’t tear at the very fabric of Middle-earth’s reality. Not so with Amazon. The Second Age is over three thousand years long; compressing the timeline will inevitably create problems for major events of the time period, like the rise and fall of Númenor.

Some Tolkien fans are also questioning Amazon’s casting choices, not because we’re anti-diversity, but because the diverse casting doesn’t go far enough. Amazon could have cast actors of color as canon characters like Celebrimbor or Gil-galad, instead of in roles made up for the show. Casting people of color as existing characters would better guarantee them screentime and narrative importance, whereas newly-invented characters are easier to push to the sidelines. Amazon also could have done much more for representation for many groups not represented in the current cast.

And then there’s the ageism and sexism. Galadriel is played by a 32-year-old actor, but Celebrimbor—her younger cousin—is played by a 52-year-old actor. This is not a criticism of the actors themselves; it is pointing out the double standard of casting a young woman to play an older character, and a middle-aged man to play a younger character; if one of them should be played by a visibly older actor, it’s Galadriel. Movies and TV still have a huge gender and age problem, where women are always expected to look young and there are fewer roles for older actresses, while the same issue does not affect men.

Add to all of this the bad aesthetics: the overuse of CGI, the generic-looking costumes, the weird-looking prosthetic ears… Many fans are astounded that with Amazon’s budget, this is the best they could do. But the overuse of CGI may stem from the fact that CGI artists are not unionized, and Amazon doesn’t believe in fairly compensating its workers.

And last but not least—showing how The Rings of Power is just a microcosm of Amazon’s unethical labor practices—there is the fact that, during filming in New Zealand, multiple stunt workers were injured on set after their concerns about safety were not taken seriously. One stunt worker suffered a head injury, and another suffered an unknown injury that required surgery. After the accidents occurred, Amazon failed to disclose them to WorkSafe, New Zealand’s workplace health and safety regulator, which requires companies to notify it if an employee has an injury requiring hospitalization. Of course, Amazon cares more about its reputation than about worker safety, and tried to keep the injuries quiet.

All these things are related to each other. This is all happening because Amazon is a greedy corporation only in this to make money. Of course they are willing ignore the canon of Tolkien’s books to churn out a bland Game of Thrones knock-off. Of course the show’s attempt at diversity falls short; this company systematically discriminates against women and people of color. Of course the show is a soulless cash-grab; the people running it don’t even care about the safety of their own workers.

The bottom line is, Tolkien fans have many reasons for criticizing The Rings of Power that have nothing to do with opposing diversity. And yet, most news outlets that have covered the fan response to the recent trailer have focused exclusively on the racist backlash. By neatly framing criticism of The Rings of Power as coming solely from anti-diversity trolls, news outlets have missed what is really happening, and have helped Amazon polish its reputation—something The Rings of Power is surely designed, in part, to accomplish, since in recent years Amazon has received so much bad press. That is to say: Amazon desperately wants to improve its image, and could do so with a hugely popular TV show, especially one with the name recognition of LOTR.

I hope that Tolkien fans don’t let that happen.

#RejectRingsOfPower

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 5x06- And the two partners had a fight...

I’ve been waiting for this episode for nearly a decade, and I didn’t even realize it. More under the cut. 

(This is very long! Please fight me on stuff and disagree because I just wrote all these words about this episode and I STILL want to talk about it more, it was that interesting!) 

This is the second episode in a row to start off with a TikTok video. 5x02 and 5x03 both ended with elevators. Is there some sort of pattern they’re going for here?  

This case—which is, it’s important to note, in Wackner’s court—is about TikTok content creators and copyright laws. Probably not enough material for a full case, but definitely an interesting theme to explore.

Marissa doesn’t have her laptop volume off (which I suppose makes sense; she was just playing the TikTok videos) and a notification sounds. She shuts the laptop.

Wackner rules that the profits made from the TikTok dance must be split evenly between the guy who stole the dance for his video game and the creator. The thief does not like this, removes his moose costume (oh, yeah, did I mention they’re in costumes again?), and starts shouting that he’s going to sue and then moons the whole court. Okay!

He follows through on his threat, and next thing we know, Liz, Cord, Wackner, and Marissa are meeting to discuss strategy.

Liz’s computer makes the same noise Marissa’s did; she punches some keys.

Liz points out that Wackner’s biggest problem is that real judges are not going to like Wackner playacting as a judge. “I’m not playing a judge. I am a judge,” Wackner says. Liz notes that Wackner’s court lacks any way of forcing people to comply with his rulings, but real court can shut him down.

I guess whatever keys Liz punched did not silence the annoying notification sound.

She asks Wackner to try not to become the focus of the court case, since that’s how they’ll lose. “This is why I started a court,” Wackner says after Liz instructs him to only answer yes or no and to wear a suit.  

Liz asks Marissa to keep Wackner in line. She says she’ll try.

Now we are at the Black Lawyers Association, where there’s a panel with leaders from Chicago’s four top black law firms. For reasons passing understanding, DIANE is on this panel. This makes absolutely no sense (I mean, unless only white people were involved in this decision, and even then!) and I’ll only excuse it because they mention later that it makes no sense for Diane to have been on this panel.  

I wonder why everyone else’s firm gets named but not Diane’s.  

Diane also gets the first question, which is, pointedly, about opportunities for black lawyers. Her phone starts making the annoying notification sound. Ever heard of silent mode??  

The annoying sound happens every five seconds at the RL offices. According to David Lee, it happens twenty times an hour, but it seems like more than that! He, for some reason, goes to Carmen to ask how to stop the sound. He also wants to know what it is. Carmen explains that it is “Dawnk” which is a new messaging system within the company.  

On Dawnk, you can talk about anything you want and be anonymous. Who approved this?! In one frame, I can see there’s someone complaining about someone being promoted too fast because of “the future is female bs.” In another, someone is upset that they are anonymous and wants to use their real name (only Jay, who is otherwise absent from this episode, seems to have figured out how to turn this anon mode off).

Sorry, before I can get on board with this plot, I just need to note for the record how phenomenally stupid the idea of using anonymous messaging software within a company is. This was obviously not going to end well! It’s like workplace YikYak... (remember YikYak?!)  

David Lee hates the idea of a messaging software; Carmen says the associates prefer this.  

Jay is being very nice in the chat and defends the person who was promoted “too fast”.

“Who’s ‘Anonymous Crab’?” David Lee asks. Well, I think the fact they are “anonymous” should be a bit of a hint there, David.  

Anonymous Crab asks, “How the hell did this happen??! How did Diane end up at a Black Conference speaking for our firm?” Good question, Anonymous Crab.

Anon Crab also shares a video and David Lee doesn’t understand how to press play. Carmen plays it for him. Diane looks really awful on the panel. No shit! David Lee seems to enjoy Diane looking bad, even though he should be able to connect the dots between Diane looking bad and potential for bad things to come for the firm...  

Not only does Diane get quizzed about why she’s running a firm that is still insisting on calling itself a black firm, she also gets questions about her insurrectionist husband. “He was completely cleared of those charges,” Diane notes. Oh, hey!!!!! Remember how last week I said I’d be more surprised if that was the end of the FBI nonsense than if it continued? I am surprised!! And relieved. Mostly relieved. Dealing with the consequences of that high profile, relationship-straining ordeal is so much more interesting to me than any FBI machinations.  

Next Diane is asked if Kurt just took a job to revitalize the NRA. She hasn’t heard of this yet. I’m glad she’s getting grilled on this stuff... it is about time.  

There’s a hint that Carmen will be representing Mr. Rapey next week. I assume that’s why there’s a line where David checks in with Carmen on Mr. Rapey’s case?  

Anon Platypus says, “I heard she didn’t even have seniority. She just jumped past other black partners to become our name partner. It’s crazy!!!” Anon Platypus is correct—technically. Diane was a name partner at one of Chicago’s top firms before joining RL, so while she skipped the line... that doesn’t seem to me like the PRIMARY issue in bringing her on. The primary issue is that bringing on someone that senior from outside the company is more similar to a merger than a promotion, and Diane’s partnership meant changes for the firm.  

Other anonymous animals also don’t like Diane. One calls her clueless; another says that “Liz needs to do something about this.” Someone responds to that, “Liz will never do it on her own,” which is an interesting sentiment I want to come back to in a little bit.  

“What is Black Twitter?” David Lee asks Liz out of the blue. “People on Twitter who are black and talk to each other,” Liz responds. David Lee asks how he can find it. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” Liz jokes. And to think Jay said Liz wasn’t funny!  

The Dawnk conversation shifts and now everyone’s ragging on Julius for representing Kurt and just generally being a Trump voter. There’s a lot of heated and racial language I’m not going to type here, enough to make Julius spit out his coffee and storm down to the associate floor.

He goes to Devin, who I’m not sure if we’ve seen before but is high ranking enough to have Lucca’s old office, to get information on the anonymous posts.

Anonymous Bison says, “Unpopular opinion: I blame Adrian.” Hey, Anon Bison, let’s be friends! I am with you. Adrian is the one who brought Diane on, who encouraged them to lean into Julius’s Trump connections, and who pushed the firm to pursue profit over everything else. Diane and Julius aren’t blameless (though I don’t actually think defending Kurt is a bad thing) but if there’s someone who actively strategized to make RL what it is today? Adrian all the way.  

In what world does noting that Julius is pissed in an anonymous message do ANYTHING to stop people who are pissed at him? If they were that concerned about him being pissed they wouldn’t have said anything in the first place.  

Liz and opposing counsel talk over each other in court until the judge makes them stop. I think we’ve seen both the judge and opposing counsel this season, making me wonder if there’s a bit of a COVID bubble situation going on here with the guest stars.  

Judge Farley jokes about “contempt cards” that go up in value and Wackner, of course, is all, “Wow, I really love that.”  

Liz, whose entire strategy was to not let on that anyone calls Wackner a judge, refers to Wackner as “Judge Wackner.” Come on, Liz! (I buy that she’d slip up—there's no one in the world I wouldn’t believe slipping up—but ugh!)  

How did the opposition not realize that they could make this about Wackner’s “crazy court” by referring to him as Judge Wackner? You’d think they’d be all over that.  

Judge Farley looks SO unhappy that Wackner would refer to himself as a judge; it’s phenomenal.  

Now Marissa stumbles over stuff because she’s, for some reason, speaking in court. I bought Liz’s dumb moment more.  

The plaintiff’s strategy is to make it look like Wackner is of unsound mind, and they’ve got video evidence. Remember how Del, Cord, and Wackner all chatted in the RL elevator? Well, turns out that lead to a reality show about Wackner for Del’s streaming service. Sounds about right.  

I don’t really think Wackner cares about attention or anyone else’s motivations... I think he just likes the idea of budget and an audience and a platform.  

Liz meets Del for a romantic dinner and asks him when he was going to tell her about Wackner’s show. Del doesn’t understand why she’s upset. He doesn’t get why he would’ve needed her permission to go into business with Wackner. (I don’t think he’s wrong from a business POV, but from a relationship POV, he totally should’ve let her know!)  

Liz says he should’ve asked because they’re using it against her in court. “That is unfortunate, baby, but this streaming show could be really good for Wackner. It’ll draw attention to his court. And... as I say that...that sounds... okay, look I’m sorry,” Del realizes. I like that he sees that Liz has a point. He goes on to note that he would be totally open to Liz trying to go into business with any of his acquaintances, and I think he genuinely means it.  

Del notes that this is what “power couples” do. Oh? So they’re an official couple? Don’t power couples also associate in public and not hide their relationship from their colleagues?  

This is the place where I note, yet again, that it is always going to be more interesting to see a relationship that feels realistic than to see a relationship that feels like it takes place in a vacuum.  

Liz doesn’t want Wackner becoming popular. Del argues someone else would’ve made the show if he didn’t, and that “disrupters gotta disrupt.” Oh God.  

Are we going to remember that Liz has a child at any point this season?  

Diane is reading the Dawnk discussion at home. It’s still lively even after work hours. The associates appear to be discussing the vaccine before someone changes the topic to “the Diane situation.”

One associate notes that the partners probably aren’t happy about Diane either and just have to vote her out. Kurt arrives home as Diane reads this, reacts to the loud music Diane has playing, the open alcohol, and her general demeanor and asks if they’re getting drunk. “Are we getting a job with the NRA?” she counters.  

Turns out it’s not entirely untrue about Kurt and the NRA. They want him for a new role. It would pay $167,000. I can’t decide if I think that’s a lot (objectively that’s a high salary) or not very much at all (isn’t Kurt the top of his field?)  

Kurt notes he doesn’t have a job so he’s considering it. “Diane, our politics are very different,” he starts. “I know,” Diane says. “I’m, lately, struck by just how different they are.”

“I would just like one week when I don’t have to defend you,” Diane says in frustration. Kurt doesn’t even know what that means at the current moment.  

“You’ll tell me when they offer you the job?” Diane asks. “They may not offer it,” Kurt says. “No, they will,” Diane says, because she knows that it’s basically a done deal already.  

In the middle of the night, Diane turns to Kurt and tries to ask him a question. That wakes him up. She asks who he voted for in 2020 and he doesn’t answer. Uh oh.  

Dreaming now, Diane sits up and asks, “Hello? What do I do?” More on that later...

The HR nightmare known as Dawnk is still going wild the next day at the office. (Seriously, with HR that strict, the anon feature would’ve been disabled the second the first semi-controversial comment was posted.) Everyone’s obsessed.  

The partners, minus Diane, all gather in Liz’s office to discuss Dawnk (and the topics of conversation on Dawnk). Madeline says they should ignore it. I say they should make STR Laurie shut it down and be the bad guy. It is nonsensical that this workplace would continue to allow Dawnk to continue! In addition to being an HR nightmare, it’s also a drain on productivity if everyone’s constantly glued to it, and I imagine STR Laurie cares about profit more than anything else.  

But like I really don’t get why Madeline says they can’t censor their associates. Of course they can shut down the app if they want to! Someone put the app there in the first place, no? I do understand not wanting to look like you’re violating free speech (even though taking away anonymous commenting in the workplace would not be a violation of free speech) but I highly doubt it would be only the partners complaining. Tina, whose promotion was called into question, would be complaining too. Anyone trying to get work done, or anyone who didn’t like the toxic culture, or anyone who was uncomfortable with a joke made, would be complaining. There are more than enough reasons it would be perfectly acceptable to take the anon commenting away.

Now the partners are fighting about Kurt’s case too. “Diane is not responsible for her husband,” Liz says when Madeline says that Diane should’ve known better than to get involved. Um, Liz, Madeline is right. Diane isn’t responsible for Kurt’s actions but she’s sure as hell responsible for volunteering to represent him.  

“In the real world of this firm, Diane’s billable hours speak for themselves,” Liz notes when a partner tries to call Diane’s unsavory associations into question.  

“The rest of us put in the hours too, for the record,” notes another partner. I’m sure... but do you put in DIANE’S hours and have DIANE’S client list? My guess is no. If Diane weren’t the biggest earner at the firm we wouldn’t be having this debate. She’d just be gone. She’d never have been at the firm to begin with.  

“Liz, when I joined this firm, it was because of your father’s legacy. It was about Black civil rights, activism, justice. That’s what people talked about in meetings. Now, people talk about billable hours, million-dollar clients, corporate payouts. Now, I know it’s not your fault. That was Boseman’s vision and we were trying to survive the Trump years by bringing in white lawyers, but those days are gone. They’re done with. And I miss being a strong black firm,” Madeline says. Everyone but Liz (and probably Julius) seems to agree with that.

This is one of many interesting facets of this issue. When Madeline argues against Diane, she’s not just arguing that she wants a black person running the firm for optics. She’s not saying that Diane-but-black would be an acceptable choice. She is saying she wants RL to be the firm it was at the very very start of the show—a firm committed to social justice, not maximizing revenue. A firm that didn’t just accept every client that came their way because they love profit. A firm that stood for something. So my question is: Does Liz want that firm?  

Liz is hard to read throughout this whole plot, and I think that may be intentional. Liz isn’t a manager by training—she was an AUSA who suddenly became a name partner at a firm (if you want to talk about seniority and skipping the line, Liz is a way better example than Diane—you can even through some nepotism, twice over, in there). She doesn’t seem to have a clear goal for her firm other than maintaining the status quo and keeping power. Liz not taking a stronger stance from the start (either accepting that they are no longer going to be a social justice-oriented firm or pushing to get them back to that place) allows these kinds of questions to fester. It’s my hope that this becomes text instead of subtext pretty soon, ‘cause this is the kind of thing that if it’s subtext for too long will start to feel like bad writing/Liz being conveniently clueless. It’s way more interesting if Liz is just not yet good at being a manager... because she is learning on the job.  

Anyway. I think the ideal solution here is probably that Diane and Liz continue to run RL: A STR Laurie Company (the fact they’re owned by corporate overlords kind of makes any decision about RL’s mission moot) since Diane wants to do that and Liz seems to be content where she is. Madeline and the other partners, instead of trying to force STRL to let them pursue the cases they want, can accept pay cuts and go start their own firm. Maybe they can even team up with Barbara Kolstad!  

None of that’s to say that the dilemma here is easily solvable, nor is it to say that Diane shouldn’t consider stepping down. I’ll say more on that later. My point here is just that this issue is much deeper than just if Diane is on the letterhead or not. As long as they’re owned by STR Laurie and have clients like Rivi, Diane stepping aside would just be a band-aid.  

(And that, I think, is intentional... they’ve been building the “why are we even representing x?” tension pretty consistently this season, so I imagine it’s on the writers’ minds.)  

Diane stumbles across the secret partner’s meeting and knows something’s up.  

“You gotta handle this, Liz. You cannot have a white partner leading a black firm. We’ll lose clients with that kind of hypocrisy” Madeline insists after Diane heads back to her office. I’ve already said it, but just to say it in a less rambly way: Madeline is right, but she’s right IF AND ONLY IF the goal is to be a black firm. So, Liz, is it?  

(They’ll lose clients, sure, but which ones? They’ll lose the clients Madeline wants while Diane continues to keep bringing in business and Rivi and Cord and Wolfe-Colman and their elk* stay put.)  

*I know this is not the correct word; see 6x17 of TGW

David Lee has also noticed the meeting in Liz’s office and thinks this may be the “beginning of the end.” Diane glares at him and he says he was just joking.

Diane schedules a meeting with Liz. Liz’s assistant doesn’t know Diane by voice, adding to her frustration.

Credits! We are 22 minutes in! This might be a record if 5x01 hadn’t saved the credits til the very end!  

I’ve already written more than I did last week by a couple hundred words.  

Two interesting things about the credits. First, this episode was written by Aurin Squire. Forgive me if I’ve mentioned this in a prior recap (I know I thought about it but can’t remember if I deleted), but I think Aurin Squire and Davita Scarlett are key to why TGF and Evil are both always so good. They’re the two writers other than the Kings who are in both the TGF and Evil rooms, and they both REALLY seem to be on the same wavelength as the Kings. I imagine that having four people who are in both rooms helps with managing both at basically the same time.  

(This isn’t where I wanted to go with this bullet point, but I may as well shout out how great Evil is this season, too! It also just aired an episode by Aurin Squire about the lead white female character realizing her privilege!)  

Second, this episode was directed by Brooke Kennedy. I didn’t know that going in, but seconds before the director credit popped up, I was thinking to myself, “this episode feels like it’s going to be a very important one. I bet Brooke directed it.” I was very pleased to see her name appear.  

(For anyone who doesn’t know, Brooke is an EP who’s been involved in nearly every episode of both Wife and Fight and she tends to direct important episodes that require a lot of familiarity with the characters. She directed 5x15 of The Good Wife and she’s done a bunch of the premieres and finales that Robert King hasn’t claimed for himself.)  

Diane and Liz meet in a bar to catch up. Diane’s still staring at Dawnk. Liz takes her phone and silences the notifications. “Who thought that sound was pleasing?” Diane complains. “All day in court today,” Liz commiserates. Carmen had to teach her how to silence the notifications. Liz, you’re using an iPhone, there is a very easy to use switch that silences your phone, like you would need to for court. I know you know this.  

(I think Diane, despite her complaining about the sound, is captivated by Dawnk.)  

Liz orders soda water instead of a drink. I assume that’s intentional, perhaps because she knows this isn’t going to be an easy conversation or a long night of drinking? She has wine in an earlier scene.  

I love that Liz and Diane chat about Dawnk even though there’s no real plot reason for them to spend this much time discussing it. Little moments like this make me believe Liz and Diane are actually colleagues who get along well and make management decisions together.  

Diane asks if Liz thinks Dawnk actually increases productivity. Liz laughs—she does not. But she knows the associates would “riot” if they got rid of it. She’s right. I still think they can get rid of it without too much blowback. But at least they’re acknowledging this.  

“What do the partners think?” Diane asks, very intentionally shifting the subject. You can hear it in Christine’s voice and see it in her body language—Diane is looking for an opportunity to talk about what she wants to talk about.

“God, Madeline can’t even open it. She’s lost her password three times. She finally just gave up,” Liz says. This is concerning! Madeline should know how to open an app! Probably not unrealistic, though. When you’re that senior, you probably don’t need to know how to use a messaging app. And messaging apps can be confusing sometimes. Like, I still don’t understand how to use Discord.  

The captions have a line I can’t hear in this scene—Liz (I presume?) saying “You know, ‘cause it’s Madeline.” This makes it sound like Madeline is a little less than competent, no?  

“Thanks for sitting down with me, Liz,” Diane says in a quite serious tone. “Of course. So, you’re wondering about the meeting today?” Liz immediately understands. “I am.” “Yeah. Uh, it was about Julius. He’s being harassed on Dawnk,” Liz explains.

“Okay, and I couldn’t be a part of that?” Diane wants to know. “He’s being harassed because he’s defending your husband,” Liz explains. Diane doesn’t seem surprised (perhaps because she, too, would have read these messages?). “Well, that’s unfortunate. We’ve represented people far worse than Kurt, who, by the way, was found innocent,” Diane argues like they’re having a very different conversation. It’s one thing to represent rapists and murderers and drug lords—and I’d argue that the same people pissed about Kurt are also pissed about them!-- and another for your leadership to be married to/close friends with someone who you believe participated in the events of 1/6.  

“I’m not saying it wasn’t. But, January 6th. I mean, we watched the Confederate flag make its way into the Capitol building. You know, those people that Kurt didn’t want to turn over to the FBI, those people. They don’t even want us alive,” Liz says better than I ever could. I think it’s important that Liz mentions a POV that likely wouldn’t have ever crossed Diane’s mind here. This is a small glimpse of why it could be so important to have black leadership at a black firm. Would Diane be thinking about the implications of having the Confederate flag in the Capitol? Probably not in the same way that Liz instantly does.  

“Well, not all of them,” Diane Lockhart, who is suddenly an idiot, says. Liz looks at her drink and grimaces, and Diane realizes she’s said something wrong. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’m certainly not defending those people. They’re all despicable traitors.”

“And now, that’s what people are saying about Julius,” Liz explains. “And me?” Diane asks, though she already knows the answer. Liz doesn’t want to answer that. Before she can say anything, Diane asks if she’s being pushed out.  

“No. Not pushed out. You’re a name partner. You can’t be pushed out,” Liz clarifies. Diane knows there’s a but. “The partners just think you should do the right thing,” Liz adds.

“And step aside?” Diane asks. “No. Stay in the firm. Stay as an equity partner, just step back from your managerial role,” Liz says. Diane pauses. “Liz, I... I pull in the big clients. I... I get the billable hours. But still, ‘maybe you should step aside.’ Weren’t we going to form a firm led by women?” Diane argues. Oh, wow, I have so much to say.

First, I completely understand why Diane doesn’t want to give up her title or her power. She's Diane Lockhart! She’s been one of the best in her field for decades. She’s not wrong about the clients and billable hours. It’s just that every time Diane decides to be at this firm, making arguments about how she should retain her role in power, she’s saying that she values her own career/appearance more than the values she claims to care about. And every time she refuses to take a back seat or threatens to walk rather than sacrifice, she’s saying she’ll only through her weight behind her colleagues and their mission if she gets credit for it. To be clear, I don’t think it would be the shittiest decision in the world if Diane decided to walk, to take her clients to a new firm and to let RL become the firm Madeline and the rest envision. It’s asking a lot of her to give up that power and prestige. The interesting part of this dilemma is, to me, that Diane claims to value working for RL and to be active in the fight against racism... but the second she’s forced to choose between that fight and her own power, we all know what Diane is going to choose. There was never really any doubt. Diane doesn’t have to be on the forefront of this fight if she doesn’t want to... but she can’t claim to be invested in the fight if she isn’t willing to sacrifice, at all.

Second, LMAO at this firm led by women idea. Every time Diane talks about her firm led by women idea it sounds sillier! Not because a firm led by women is silly, but because Diane has a habit of saying this like it is a shared goal and each time she references it, it sounds less and less intersectional. For example, when she says it here, she’s essentially saying a firm led by women only has meaning if one of those women is a white woman (specifically a white woman named Diane Lockhart). Who’s to say that Madeline wouldn’t be made partner in Diane’s absence? Or Barbara (haha) or someone else we haven’t met? There is a very real possibility that Liz and another woman could run the firm and Diane would still be unhappy about it. Diane doesn’t ask Liz for a commitment that if she does step aside, her replacement would be female (idk if it’s legal to make this commitment but you get my point). Diane acts like asking her to step aside is already a betrayal of the female led firm.  

“And I hope that it will be,” Liz says, basically hinting to Diane that there are women in the world besides her.  

“But black women?” Diane says, agitatedly. “Diane, I... am not voting against you. I promised you that I wouldn’t. But there is growing anger here. They want to address it at the next partners' meeting. So just think about it,” Liz responds.

I think Liz is totally fair and forthcoming in this scene and strikes pretty much the right tone for this initial conversation. She gives Diane a choice and is honest with her.  

“You’re a good person,” Liz adds. Diane does a double-take, understanding that Liz is actually telling her “You are a good person, so you know that you absolutely need to step aside.”  

“No, I’m not!” Diane responds. As I said: Diane already knows what she is going to do. She needs to do mental gymnastics to excuse her actions, but her mind was made up before the question was even raised. (She did warn Liz in 5x01 she was going to fight any attempt to push her out.)

“Yes, you are,” Liz says again. She may as well be saying, “No, don’t try this. Everyone will think you’re in the wrong if you push this.”

Later, at home, Diane is doing some stretches on the floor and groaning. I don’t know if this scene is meant to show her age, but it does remind me that Diane is nearly 70 and started off this show by planning to retire. Retirement doesn’t seem to be an option for her here. (That’s fine by me; she is a workaholic whose career is her life.)

Kurt asks Diane what she wants to do. She says she wants to keep her name on the letterhead and “keep what I fought for.” Heh, I was just re-reading something I wrote about Cary a while ago and I’d pointed out that when Alicia and Cary discuss merging with what’s left of LG, Cary is also concerned about his name on the letterhead because even though he wants to change the world, he also cares about having power. It’s almost like Diane and Cary are really similar characters! (They are! That’s why the Diane/Cary moment in Hitting the Fan is so good!)  

Diane calls her position as name partner a fight against “gender and then age discrimination.” She isn’t wrong, especially when you consider how meaningful it likely was when she and Stern went into business together. It’s very easy for me to forget that when Diane has such an attachment to fighting for white women’s rights, it’s not just because she’s out of touch and selfish: it’s because that was something she personally had to fight for. That doesn’t make it okay that she seems to forget the concept of intersectionality (which she’s definitely aware of) the second anything challenges her own power, but it does explain why a firm run by women is so important to her.

Diane is not wrong that she deserves name partnership and she’s not wrong to not want to step aside. Yet, starting a war to retain her position as name partner is a CHOICE. The best thing for Diane to do here (morally, I mean) would be for her to step aside and throw her resources behind the firm’s new leadership, using her experiences and stature to benefit the firm (this would also be a way for her to cement her legacy and mentor a new generation of leaders). The best compromise, I think, would be for someone to leave the current firm—either Diane or the dissenting partners, probably Diane since Liz seems to agree with Madeline—without any hard feelings. The worst possible choice is for Diane to insist that this firm is hers and force every single tension at the firm to come to a head, screwing over Liz in the process and potentially permanently ruining the firm’s status as a black firm. Sooo... yeah.  

(I say it could ruin the firm’s status as a black firm because if Diane’s a white partner who happens to be there and the firm is mostly black, that’s one thing. If Diane is a white partner who fought all of the black partners to assert her own dominance over their firm... that’s hard to come back from. She can’t really call herself an ally, can she?)  

“Diane, this is the first time I’ve ever heard you sound defeated,” Kurt says. “Because I can’t win this,” she says. She insists she can’t even after Kurt tries to cheer her on (of course he does, he probably thinks having an all black firm is just identity politics and therefore worthless).

“You just don’t want to,” Kurt says. He is not wrong. This is a winnable fight for Diane. Liz is smart but Diane has the experience, the clients, the power, and her own reputation to use in this fight. Liz has her dad’s name (and I don’t think it would come to this, but Diane knows how she can pretty easily destroy Liz’s dad’s reputation). (Liz is great, don’t get me wrong. Liz is also someone who happened into a name partnership because her dad was important.)  

“It’s bigger than that. To fight this would go against every fiber of my being,” Diane says. “Every fiber in your being is about winning,” Kurt counters. Oh, damn. That’s a succinct way of putting it. He is completely right. Diane would love to think that every fiber of her being is about her commitment to social justice and women’s rights. It is not. If that were the case, would she really be a lawyer with clients like ChumHum, Bishop, Sweeney, Rivi, and Wolfe-Colman? We all know the answer to this. We all know Diane likes social justice a lot but winning, wealth, and power far more.

When I first watched TGW, now nearly a decade ago, I was a high schooler and my media diet mostly consisted of Desperate Housewives and a bunch of procedurals like Bones and Castle. The thing that hooked me about TGW—more than Alicia’s journey, more than anything—was that TGW never had easy answers to anything. Will tells Diane in 1x07 that “nothing here is pure and nothing here is simple” and that basically blew my mind. TGW always made it obvious that Will was morally gray, which fascinated me. But I struggled with Diane. Here was this woman who looked like she should be someone so impressive and inspirational I could write a college admissions essay about her (I did not, but that was my frame of reference at the time)… but the decisions she made... never seemed all that great?? I couldn’t comprehend it.  

When Blue Ribbon Panel aired in March 2012, I wrote to a friend, “Diane confused me a little bit tonight. She didn’t approve of Alicia standing up to the panel, and yet, she’s supposed to care about people, the truth, morality, etc etc. I never understand Diane’s motivations– is her philosophy to help others whenever it wouldn’t hurt her, personally, to do so?”  

At that point, Diane compromising her values struck me as something confusing because I wanted to think of her as a powerful role model and icon, and I didn’t know what to do with someone who looked like and often was role model material who also sometimes betrayed her values for her own self-interest. I had my analysis of Diane down: she her motivations ARE to help others whenever it wouldn’t hurt her, personally, to do so. All I needed to do was remove my question mark from the end of that thought.  

I promise I’ll move on from quoting myself, but I also want to share a paragraph I wrote about Diane in March 2014 (during season five of Wife) because it says what I want to say now as well as anything I could write today:

Diane is driven and ambitious. Her initial actions can come as the result of intense emotions, but given enough time and space, Diane will always be strategic and pragmatic when it comes to business. She’s spent her entire life putting her career first, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. That she found love is just icing.  Kurt aside, the two most important things to Diane are advancing her own self-interest and doing good in the world. These objectives appear to be a contradiction, and often, they are. Nine times out of ten, when it comes down to it, she’ll choose herself. I mean no judgment here: another central aspect of Diane’s character is that she’s upfront about her choices and stands by them, and this sort of moral ambiguity makes for a great character.  

The reason I quote myself here is not to be like, ha ha, I was right. It's because I think this episode is even more powerful because I can copy/paste in stuff I wrote nine years ago or seven years ago (oh god, 2014 was seven years ago?) verbatim and it can hold up as analysis. Both Fight and Wife have always implied Diane’s selfish side and given more than enough evidence to make a convincing argument about it, but they’ve never really engaged with it directly (and if you ask the social media teams for either show, Diane is a #queen who can never do wrong). This episode interrogates something that’s always been an unpleasant part of Diane’s character, and I’m so fucking glad about it.  

(I don’t think anyone’s accusing Diane of not growing as a person but it crossed my mind that this could be seen as lack of growth. I don’t think it is. I wouldn’t expect Diane to change. Her life and career are so set that growth on this without a LOT of struggle on her part would feel like a cop out.)  

Another reason I quote myself is to highlight how friggin’ character driven this episode is. I’ve seen a lot of people saying this episode felt like old-school TGW—and it absolutely does; that’s also how I felt—and I think that’s because it’s so character focused and meaty.  

But back to this scene. Kurt tells Diane that if she doesn’t try to win she should just give up entirely. Seems like bad advice.  

“Kurt, I appreciate the pep talk, but I don’t think the way you think. I cannot put my interests above a whole group of people—black people—just so I can keep my position.” Sure you can, Diane. You just don’t like to believe that about yourself. You know how Diane says to Kurt earlier that she knows the NRA will offer him the job? That is how I feel about this scene. The writers go to great lengths to explain where Diane’s head is at when she decides to fight for her partnership, but they’d have needed to do ten times more to get me to believe Diane would step aside voluntarily.  

Kurt basically thinks that Diane should fight because if her competition is actually talented enough to deserve name partnership, they should fight her for it. He’s missing the point here.  

“But a black person’s talent has always been valued less than mine,” Diane counters. The fact she knows and understands this makes her decision even less forgivable.  

Kurt knows he’s going to lose this argument and tries the same strategy he did on 5x01: telling Diane she’s right and should just give up and leave the firm. Diane doesn’t like that answer either.  

Given how much I loathed Jay’s hallucinations, I was expecting that when Diane asks Kurt in the middle of the night if he believes the election was stolen and then sits down at her fireplace to have a chat with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I’d loathe what happened next. I did not! I actually really liked it!  

I think this is more effective than Jay’s hallucinations, at least for me, because it's less gimmicky. It isn’t played for humor or quirk, and it gets to the character-driven point a LOT faster. This feels more similar to Alicia imagining Gloria Steinem is telling her she’s good enough to be on the Supreme Court in 6x03 than it does to Jay’s hallucinations.  

I LOVE that Diane would dream that RBG would advise her on her work dilemma. Dream!RBG tells Diane that “any law firm would be insane to let you go.” (I don’t wanna spend too much time fighting dream logic, but I feel like the operative phrase here is ‘let you go’. Are the RL partners seeing this as letting Diane go? Or are they just trying to get at a different goal and Diane is in the way, and they don’t really care if Diane has top connections or billable hours? It’s almost like the other RL partners want a firm that stands for something and all Diane has stood for thus far at the firm is profit...)  

Diane pushes back on RBG and RBG shares her “real” thoughts. This is where this sequence clicks into place for me, because it’s working on a LOT of levels. Obviously, Diane is going to imagine that her hero tells her to do exactly what she wants to do (the aforementioned mental gymnastics). But without losing the level on which this is dream!RBG and filtered through Diane’s POV, the writers are also... criticizing RBG for not stepping down herself!? It’s fascinating and pointed and makes her the exact right choice to play Diane’s conscience.  

Dream!RBG shares her life story and notes how she was always asked to step aside, but she didn’t and that’s how she got to be RBG. “Don’t step aside because someone wants you to. Don’t step aside for politics. Men are always asking women to step aside so a man can go first,” RBG advises Diane. Even Diane knows that this isn’t exactly equal to her current situation-- “Even though I’m being asked to step aside so that a black person can take my place?” she counters.  

So RBG asks if Diane can still do something “for women” if she says. Diane says yes, and RBG says Diane should do that instead of stepping aside—she should do whatever it takes. That’s the wrong takeaway, Diane! If you want to do something for women then a) you could do something for the black women at your firm lol or b) you could politely remove yourself from the firm, encourage your most profitable clients to stay on if they are wanted by the other partners or and/or c) you could choose to bring your talent and your stature to a non-profit. But, of course, these options aren’t on the table. There’s a reason the options are leave and lose everything or stay and fight for name partnership, and it’s that Diane cares about maintaining control of what she sees as hers and winning more than she cares about anything else, including or even especially her desire to help women.

And also what women is she even helping at RL? Herself? She’s certainly not helping Wolfe-Coleman's rape victim. The closest she’s recently come to helping women is when she told off Weinstein’s lawyer and tried to start #MeToo... in a DREAM.  

The score for the next sequence sounds so familiar and I can’t place it. At first, I thought it was Hitting the Fan, but I’m not sure if that’s the right reference (also, damn, the Hitting the Fan score is REALLY GOOD!). I think it might be similar to 5x14 when Alicia’s pacing back and forth in the hotel room.  

Anyway, Diane starts meeting with her (white, male) clients to tell them about how she’s stepping aside. She hasn’t run this past any of the other partners, of course. She’s doing exactly what they want, in the most malicious and calculated way possible.

One of her clients is a fracking client who wants to win over democrats by being a RL client.  

Diane is so sneaky here! No one said that if Diane steps aside as partner she can’t handle the day to day on her cases... yet that’s what Diane tells this client since she knows it’ll make him mad!  

Diane makes a point of showing her fracking client that his new representation will be Madeline. He doesn’t know anything about Madeline, and, as Diane was likely counting on, he isn’t confident in having a black woman he’s less “comfortable” with on his cases. I don’t know if Diane was going for the racial element here, but... if you’re really concerned about continuity, you don’t have this meeting without having Madeline ready to jump in and show she’s read up on the client. I’m sure it’s possible that Diane meant nothing in giving this client only Madeline’s name, title, gender, and race to go off of, but is that likely?  

She hands another (white, male) client off to Julius, whom she describes as a “very competent lawyer.” What an introduction. She says she’s not retiring and the firm “just wants to let some other people step forward into a name partner position.” Diane knows how to sell clients on changes they won’t like. She knows this isn’t how you do it.  

That phrase, “comfortable with you” is doing a lot of work, no? Both clients so far have said it, and while it might not be racially coded... it’s racially coded.  

“Who should we call about it?” the clients ask. Diane can barely keep herself from smiling.

They call David Lee, immediately. He takes the call in the middle of a meeting, while someone else is talking—he is David Lee, after all.

The information on the screen in David’s meeting is quite interesting. It’s about STRL’s plans for RL. Here’s how the firm is described: “RL is a high-end mid-sized Chicago law firm that can consolidate its specialized brand within the American POC community and expand its national and global brand with STR Laure.” Soooo... yeah. For the corporate overloards, RL needs it to be just black enough that it appears like a black firm, but they care more about appearances and branding than anything of substance. (Notice how it says “POC” and not black? Notice how there’s this mention of national and global presence that doesn’t seem to be on the RL partners’ mind?)  

There’s an area called room for growth, listing top clients—entertainment law, fracking, the DNC, and civil cases against CPD. Interestingly, two of these are Liz’s clients (entertainment and DNC), one is Adrian’s (civil cases against CPD), and only fracking is Diane’s... so maybe I didn’t give Liz enough credit earlier.  

There’s also a plan of action that includes partners working with STRL and the 15-20% layoffs we already know about. I don’t think this text is meant to include any new info, but I assume one of the writers had a hand in writing it and it’s a good way of confirming things that had been subtext.

Wackner’s reality show looks... well, like his court, because his court always looked like a reality show. Cutting together the most out-there moments (audience reaction cards, Wackner singing “Come on defense!”, Wackner renaming himself Judge Shmuley for a day) makes Wackner look pretty bad.

Hey Liz, I thought you figured out how to silence your notifications for Dawnk permanently. (It’s not all high-stakes controversy over on the “R&L General” channel—the anon animals are now discussing a broken coffee maker.) (Though even this discussion is a bit political! Anon Owl says they bet STR’s coffee machine works, and Anon Dolphin wants to know why they don’t have more coffee maters at RL.)  

There’s also a dance party—which Marissa participates in—in the footage of Wackner.  

Hey, wouldn’t Marissa have reported the cameras to Diane and Liz? I feel like she’d know they’d want to know.  

Wackner ends up on the stand to offer context for the strange-looking clips. In a smart move, Liz offers to just let Judge Farley ask questions—she knows that’s what Farley is really after.

Unsurprisingly, Wackner’s context makes his outrageous practices seem much more reasonable. There’s a scoreboard to keep lawyers aware of where they’re standing so they can gauge instead of guess at Wackner’s thought process. Shmuley is to honor a recently deceased relative. The costumes are to prevent bias and cut down entitlement.  

Plaintiff’s counsel argues that Wackner is biased and the case continues even though Wackner’s (mostly) won over Farley.  

The case next turns to something about copyright law that sounds downright silly—the point is to underline that Wackner’s court makes more sense than real court on some things. It makes more common sense and it’s less racist.  

Del gets called into court. It’s interesting how these scenes are blocked together rather than spread out. The same is true of Diane’s scenes—after credits, we have Diane and Liz at the bar, Diane at home, Diane talking to RBG, Diane making moves, and then David Lee becoming aware of the situation. Then we have several consecutive court scenes (all of which feel like they have natural break points) of Wackner stuff. If I had to guess, I would guess that it’s to keep the momentum going. The Diane stuff plays better when it feels like a continuous chain rather than a subplot.  

(The only thing that suffers is that I have no idea why there’s a court scene about copyright law right after the plaintiff argues they have evidence about Wackner’s bias? I probably wouldn’t have even noticed if the scenes had been spread out more.)  

Now Cord’s involvement with Wackner’s court becomes an issue. It’s funny they need a witness to bring up Cord when Cord is SITTING IN THE COURT ROOM.  

Apparently Cord is financing a company that would compete with the plaintiff’s company and this means Wackner is biased. As the next scene will explain, Cord wasn’t even aware of his investment in the rival company, and Wackner certainly wasn’t. But, regardless, it’s going to be challenging to prove that neither Wackner nor Cord knew about the investment, and the opposition is going to go after Cord’s financial records, which no one wants. Liz suggests a continuance, which would give Wackner about a year to keep working on his court before they have to come back to this issue.  

Wackner HATES the idea of delays and is all, THIS IS WHY I HAVE MY OWN COURT and again, he isn’t wrong.  

David Lee needs to see Liz, now. Liz and Diane meet in David Lee’s office and stare at their phones. Diane says she has no idea what the meeting is about, even though she basically set up the meeting herself.  

“What the fuck is going on?” David Lee says. Diane feigns surprise and asks for more specifics. David Lee reveals that four top clients have called with issues about their representation shifting.  

Liz knows what’s going on and aggressively says, “Diane, thoughts?” “Nothing from me. I met with my clients. I just told them of a restructuring that I was being told about,” Diane says like it’s no big deal. Liz and Diane both know that Diane forced this meeting.

“Is this a power play on your part?” Liz asks Diane. “No, it’s just updating my clients,” Diane says for David Lee’s benefit or commitment to the bit or something. It is definitely a power play, and a nearly unforgivable one done to an ally.  

“David, Diane was told about frustration at the partner level about a white woman being a name partner in a black firm. And apparently, this is her response,” Liz explains. “I just told our clients what was going on,” Diane defends. David Lee doesn’t really care about what happened: he cares about one thing, and that thing is money.  

“Diane’s a fucking name partner until STR Laurie says she’s not. No one decides until I decide. Now stick your race war back in its bottle,” David Lee says. I mean, basically, yeah, that’s what happens when you merge with a huge firm that only cares about profit.  

I like that this ends up coming back to STRL. You can’t really have a conversation about RL’s identity without also acknowledging that RL is not independently owned. Sure, STRL will care at some point if RL loses its clout with the black community—but like most companies, they care about guaranteed loss of profit and the short term more than long-term what-ifs. It may sound cynical, but if Madeline and all of the other partners quit, STRL would simply put all their effort into keeping Liz or even just the Reddick name and would then hire black lawyers who think more like Julius than Madeline to keep the reputation. STRL does not give a shit about helping anyone, and that’s what Diane counts on.  

I do not believe the version of RL that Madeline wants can exist when they’re under STRL’s control. I believe the version Diane wants (not really a black firm) can, and I believe the version Liz seems to want (one that’s mostly black and occasionally social justice focused) can, but this issue won’t go away until STRL does.  

Sure, Diane, keep telling yourself you’re fighting the good fight out here.  

(Perhaps “The Good Fight” is a more ironic and fraught title than it originally seemed.)  

“That was a mistake. I am on your side, and you don’t even realize it,” Liz tells Diane afterwards. Interesting that Liz says “I am” and not “I was.” I would love to know what Liz really thinks about this situation and hope we get more from her POV next week. I think Liz wants to run a black firm, but I also think she wants to run a successful firm and likes working with Diane. Liz is on Diane’s side about as much as she can be while still advocating for Diane to step down.  

Pissing off Liz is a very interesting move for Diane here, too. Diane wants to fight the one person who is on her side for control of a firm that doesn’t want her there, and she’s convinced herself this is the smart move! Kind of wild. What does Diane think the day to day will look like? I think I said this above, but in forcing this war, Diane is all but guaranteeing that if she wins, RL will only be a black firm in that STRL will say it’s one to make more money.

Julius and Diane chat next. Julius says he wants to start his own firm—with Diane. Her only reaction is laughter, but, like, this is probably happening. I’m not sure why she laughs. It’s not quite a case of unfortunate timing (Diane could’ve done this before she blew things up, and it’s not quite too late for Diane to commit to leaving and smooth things over with Liz), so maybe it’s just a “well, this sounds familiar!” laugh.  

(If you think of Previously On as 5x00 instead of 5x01, that would make this episode 5x05, which would make this a Hitting the Fan callback. I can also do mental gymnastics!)  

The episode could end there, but it doesn’t. We’ve still got a Wackner plot to resolve. Cord has some people beat up the plaintiff as a way of enforcing Wackner’s verdict and getting the real court case to go away. Marissa picks up on what’s happened faster than Wackner does, unless Wackner just doesn’t care.  

It’s subtle, but throughout this episode, there’s a little bit of a trend towards Marissa becoming more skeptical of Wackner. She tries to keep him under control in court, tries to reason with him about the continuance, and in this scene, she just looks entirely displeased and alarmed every time she’s on camera.  

We get another scene with RBG. “It’s different for me than it was for you,” Diane says. She notes that unlike RBG, she herself is up against another “dominated culture.” This other dominated culture is “black lawyers.” (I’m sorry, I just find the way she says “black lawyers” funny, partially because she says “lawyers” instead of people and partially because Diane seems insistent on only occasionally remembering that Liz is both black and female.)  

I can’t tell if this scene was originally intended to close the episode or not. The blocks of scenes, the way the episode seems like it should’ve ended with Julius’s laugh but instead has three more scenes (guy getting beat up, Wackner’s court, this one), and the fact the Kings said this episode had to be almost totally rethought because both Christine and Audra had concerns about the original script all suggest to me that maybe some of the scenes in this episode got shuffled around to keep momentum and hit the right notes at the right time.  

Diane acknowledges that RBG could’ve stepped down and we wouldn’t have a conservative majority on the court now if she had. RBG insists that she wouldn’t have stepped aside even if Obama had guaranteed that her replacement would be black. She says it’s because she only knows what she can do—not what others would do. And “what you know is always better than what might happen.”  

Even if this was originally supposed to happen earlier (Diane saying she doesn’t know what to do makes me feel like it way), I like that we get to see it’s still weighing on Diane after the fact.  

(Also, I have seen some comments about, for lack of a better phrase, the girl power energy of these Diane and RBG scenes. No! These scenes aren’t a tribute to RBG! She’s in these scenes because she didn’t step down and can thus help Diane excuse her own actions! These scenes aren’t exactly anti-RBG, but they are certainly critical of some of her choices!)  

The topic shifts to Diane and Kurt’s relationship (another reason to put this somewhere other than the main part of the episode; this would slow down the momentum of the middle part of the episode) and its similarity to RBG’s friendship with Scalia.  

Tbh, I don’t think a friendship and a marriage are all that similar on this front and I’d be curious to see Diane think about RBG/Scalia in the context of her potential partnership with Julius rather than her marriage.

RBG basically tells Diane to stay with Kurt. Diane thanks her, and then, back in reality, tells Kurt to take the NRA job so he’ll be happy—and then she’ll just sue him. Okay, that feels like an episode ending, so I am REALLY curious about all the re-writing and re-structuring that happened in this episode and what did/didn’t get touched. I can’t make up my mind about what feels out of place.

So we start out with Diane feeling like it might be the right thing to explore whether or not it still makes sense for her to be with Kurt, a suspected insurrectionist and future NRA employee, and Diane feeling like she wants to help her friends and partners at her mostly black firm do good in the world. And we end with Diane doubling down on her relationship with Kurt, giving her blessing for the NRA job, and fucking over her colleagues because she wants to keep her own power. Dark! I love it.  

This episode does this all without making Diane entirely unsympathetic, which is astounding. While I think Diane knowingly makes choices that further her self-interest over the values she (claims to?) hold and I am definitely NOT Team Diane on her decisions in this episode, this episode could easily have been less interesting and complex. It’s understandable that Diane would not want to step aside from a firm she’s helped build—who would? It’s understandable that Diane might not feel the passion for a black firm the way she does for a female firm. It’s understandable that Diane might not want to blow up her marriage, despite her political differences from Kurt. This episode allows Diane to be just sympathetic enough she never becomes a flat villain, but never sympathetic enough that someone could mistake this episode for one that shows Diane as a morally pure hero. Personally, I love that in a TV show. That’s the exact kind of writing that made me love Alicia Florrick enough that I still spend a considerable amount of time thinking about her character arc even though TGW ended half a decade ago. It’s what’s been missing from a lot of TGF episodes for me, and why I’ve said that TGF seems like a show more about theme than character. It’s why I’ve written—oh god, TEN THOUSAND words—about this episode.  

I have no clue what’s going to happen next, but I hope it includes more character-driven drama (ideally with a lot of good material for Liz) and not a lot of firm-jumping shenanigans.  

[tearsofgrace]

written for suptober day 2: earth

word count: 1700, check archive for other tags!

okay i know i said i was sorry yesterday... but. this time i’m actually sorry

The other angels never got it. Why he loved it so much.

Well really, he’d never understood it either. His home was in Heaven. His family was in Heaven. Most of his eons of life had been spent in Heaven. Even God, the father he was taught to love and worship, had been in Heaven.

But Heaven wasn’t Earth.

Heaven didn’t have mountains that jutted out from the land, reaching for the sky but never quite touching it. Heaven didn’t have wide networks of rivers, snaking across continents, cutting the land deeper and deeper and forming wide gaping canyons. Heaven didn’t have entire ecosystems of life underwater carefully balanced, able to survive with the meager sunlight provided from above.

But it wasn’t just about the astonishing natural beauty of Earth. The other angels never would have understood that anyway. Awe was such a human emotion. Angels were better suited for obedience.

What drew Castiel to Earth, over and over, were the imperfections.

The way nature never quite conformed to patterns. The way flowers sprouted up across an entire field in patches, some small and some spanning miles. The way animals that could have- should have been enemies pulled together to make a better life for both of them. The way snow fell in Spring, covering the buds of green and suffocating them.

And when humans had come along, they’d tried to explain it all. Written countless equations, established rules that couldn’t be broken, scales that measured everything. They tried over and over to make sense of the world, to reign it in and fit it into their small box of human understanding. And they failed. Every single time.

And maybe that’s what fascinated Cas. Because he would never be able to understand it, to explain it, even with millions of years of experience, of divine understanding.

He loved the imperfections. The complexity. The systems that had taken on a life of their own after their creator left them.

But he loved humanity too. Long before humanity had become a very narrow word in his mind, he loved to watch people struggle to fit into the world. To watch them try and define themselves, to define others. He loved to watch them fall in love, to watch their hearts break, to watch them be lifted up and dragged back down just as quickly.

For millions of years, he thought that would be another thing he would never understand. The range of human emotion. The depth to which they can feel.

And then he’d met Dean Winchester. Or maybe met is too weak a word. He’d raised Dean Winchester from the infernos of damnation and painstakingly rearranged every atom in his body to its perfect form.

But that wasn’t what changed him. It was watching Dean. Watching him choose others over and over, watching him selflessly defend the world, watching him refuse to be controlled by the whims of those in power.

That’s what taught Cas to feel.

It was strange, at first. To be on a mission, and feel his heart crying out, yearning to be with someone else. To see an innocent lifeless before him and feel a stab of guilt, of pain for a human he had never met. To feel conflicted when he was given an order, not just confused and full of doubt as he always had been, but torn, broken, afraid to go through with what was being asked of him.

He grew to love it though. To love the joy, the elation, the swell in his breast when he looked at something beautiful. But even more he learned to love the pain, the heartbreak, the feeling of being totally alone in the world. Because they taught him. They taught him that just like Earth, humanity was not perfect, yet he loved it all the same. He fell for it- no, for him, all the same.

And now he had to leave.

It wasn’t that he feared death. He was no great loss to this world. The Winchesters, of course, would be upset. But they would move on, in time. But everyone else… they would see Castiel’s death as a triumph for Earth.

So he wasn’t afraid, not of what he would leave behind. But he wanted to stay. As selfish as it was, he didn’t want to leave. He wanted more time to roam the Earth, to discover places no man had ever set foot before, to watch the seasons change, and people change with them.

He’d known, when he made the deal, that he’d be taken. He had not known it would be so soon.

Even crouched behind Dean’s bed, both of them breathing heavily as the knocks on the door grew louder, he didn’t know why the time was now. Because he wasn’t happy. He wasn’t exactly unhappy, but there would always be that one thing, the unspoken thing that would keep him from true happiness.

And he was okay with it. He didn’t expect it. The unlikeliness of it ever happening was the reason he’d ever made the deal.

“Cas,” Dean breathed quietly, clutching his side and breathing quietly. “Are you- I mean, why is it here now? I thought you said-”

“The deal was I could live until I was truly happy,” Cas said tiredly. The last 24 hours had not been kind. He’d told the Winchester’s about his deal, which resulted in anger from Sam and numbness then tears from Dean. Which wasn’t quite how he thought it would go. But regardless, it was with heavy hearts they had all gone to bed, only to be woken by a cosmic entity a few hours later.

“And, you’re still not…” Dean trailed off. That had been the part Dean got caught up on. Not that he’d made a deal, or sacrificed himself, or had stopped the Shadow from taking Jack, but that he wasn’t happy.

“No, Dean,” Cas said quietly.

“Dammit, Cas.” There it was. That spark of anger. Dean lashing out because he didn’t know exactly what he was feeling. But there wasn’t any of the usual fire behind it, he just sounded tired.

“I’m not going to let it take you.”

“I don’t think you have a choice.”

“I’m serious, man. We can’t do this without you.”

And Cas almost laughed at that one. Of course they could. He wasn’t a necessary part of this team. His being part of it, even his desire to stay in this world, it was all selfish. He wanted to stay because he loved it, not because they loved him.

“Yes, you can.”

“Will you shut up? Look, Cas, I,” Dean took a deep breath, “I know you think of me and Sam as brothers…” Dean trailed off and Cas looked at his hands. If only it were that simple. “And I want you to know we care about you too, even if we don’t say it enough. But,” he hesitated again and Cas looked up in concern. Maybe the wound in Dean’s side was worse than he thought. Dean readjusted himself against the bed and started again. “But I cannot let you die without telling you.”

Cas barely registered the words, looking closely at Dean’s wound and resting his hand next to it to try and sense the severity with his grace. It was fading every day, but he was enough in tune with Dean that he could normally get a read on him fairly quickly.

“I love you,” Dean blurted.

The world stopped spinning. Maybe somewhere, far across the earth, someone was still breathing, still talking, still grieving, still rejoicing, still living. But in the tiny bedroom deep within the bunker, nothing moved. Dean’s steady breathing froze, Cas’ hand on his side came to a standstill, the knocking on the door went soft.

Then everything was in motion again. The knocking more insistent, pounding through the wood, the beginnings of splinters starting to form.

“I love you,” Dean repeated quietly. “And I know you don’t feel the same. But I can’t let you die- die again, without you knowing.”

And that’s when Cas felt it. More strongly than any emotion he’d ever felt, coursing through his whole body and making his lips turn up in spite of, well, everything. Happiness. Pure, simple, real happiness.

For once, he didn’t think.

He just pulled Dean toward him, tilting his chin up as he did. In his eyes, he saw nothing but trust.

Then he kissed him softly, reaching up his hand bloodied from Dean’s side to grip his shoulder. Dean melted into him immediately, a soft sigh escaping his lips. Cas squeezed him tighter, afraid to let go, afraid of what it would mean.

When he finally pulled away, he looked into Dean’s dazed eyes and smiled softly. “I love you too, Dean.”

Before the hunter had a chance to respond, the door came crashing open and Billie--no, the Shadow--came walking in.

The smile on her face was completely empty. There was absolutely nothing behind it. No anger, no malice, no joy, no mirth just… nothingness.

“It’s time, Castiel,” she said, and her voice sent shivers up Cas’ spine.

He peeled his hand off Dean’s shoulder, ignoring the bloody mark it left behind, and stood to face her. “I know.”

Dean stumbled to his feet next him. “No. Hell, no, Cas I said you were staying and you’re staying if you think I’m gonna fucking let you walk away after-”

“I made a deal, Dean.”

“So what? You aren’t gonna fight? You’re just gonna give in. Bullshit, Cas.” Dean’s voice was rising in anger, but tears were glistening in his eyes and they were wide with pain, with emotion.

Cas reached forward, wiping a tear from his face, almost letting his resolve weaken when Dean immediately leaned into his hand, desperate for contact, and then turned to face the Shadow.

She took him by the shoulders, and for a minute, he saw it all. He saw stretches of open plain, vast cities rising from the ground, a ladybug walking delicately over a strand of grass, a man picking up another man’s dropped papers, smiling at him, a wave crashing on a rocky shore. He saw Earth.

And then all of it faded from his vision and he was left with only one picture, crystal clear.

Dean Winchester, eyes widened in fear, a bloody handprint on his shoulder, reaching out desperately to save him, to raise him from eternal emptiness. He looked helpless, broken, lost. Cas wanted to run to him, to kiss him and say everything was going to be okay. But he couldn’t. Earth didn’t need him anymore. Dean’s face filled his mind and he sobbed.

Then he blinked. And everything went black.

tag list [ask to be added or removed!]:

@fandomstuff67 @menjiiii @witchyanaels @starlightcastiel @chaoticdean @larryforeveralways @starclaire @flowersforcas @tlakhtwritesdestiel @wanderingcas @prayedtoyou @good-things-do-happen-dean @jayus-fandom-writer @cas-you-assbutt-dean-needs-you @gmotheemo @starrynightdeancas

[noassallclass]

I haven’t watched cr since the bj drop because it left a bad taste in my mouth. And felt isolated from the fandom because of the straight up villainizing of bj shippers for being upset at how it was handled. Seeing everything happening now isn’t surprising tbh like they straight up retconned pre hiatus cr’s interpersonal relationships so ofc the stories they’re telling now feel really inorganic. It’s upsetting when there’s actual valid criticism being labeled as toxic because “it’s not that deep” or “it’s improv”. Like dude you’re selling a product now you can’t turn around to the people who are unhappy with the product and call them toxic. I’m trying to be open because I know this is their game and things aren’t necessary planned but jeez I wish everyone wasn’t so quick to vilify people with criticism.

I might be a minority in this but a really think the Critical Role Cast should be less involved in the fandom and it’s moments like these that kind of highlight that for me.

I found Matt’s thread at the very least unprofessional and should not have been posted without at least some re-edits from their sensitivity consultants? blaming shipping discourse for toxicity , defending their against criticisms with “it’s improv”, and threatening to leave twitter all together is not a good look when tackling criticism that is less important to address then the white washing and skinny-ifying of their characters in their official art?

Not only that, but no matter where i looked I could not find any actual harassment against anyone who was involved of making those decisions in show. Just people being annoyed and criticizing the show with hyperbole in their own space. And reacting that way just sends the message that there is no space for people to safely criticize a show and is encouraging people to shut anyone down that disagrees with canon relationships/choices etc. 

like criticism whether over exaggerated or eloquent is not automatically toxic? if people are being directly harassed about it that’s when it is a problem. having “bad” or “misunderstood” takes is not what’s “ruining this fandom”.

I’m fine with Matt clarifying exactly what happened but the accusatory nature and blaming shipping on all of it is bad, because above the shipping there were things people were uncomfortable with with the set of events that transpired.

I sometimes think that a lot of the toxicity of fandom coming in this day and age is because of how involved creators are with their fandom and maybe it would be good for them to step back from it more so. Like people will weaponize the words of a creators words on social media against other people in the fandom or against the creator themself.

like I said before Matt pointing the blame on shippers on something that is not necessarily wholly a shipping complaint but also being vague enough about it gives the fandom free range to attack anyone with criticisms because it hurt Matt’s feelings and the ones most targeted with harrassment are going to be the MLM and WLW shipping communities.

I mean I also think that there shouldn’t be talks machina and also that none of the cast should be involved in the art reel because: 1) The parasocial relationship is getting out of hand 2) They are extremely biased and too close to their own project to look at it more objectively *cough* Liam’s widojest bias *cough* and 3) their word of god statements are just fuel to the toxic fandom in fighting.

But honestly what the CR cast chooses to address and what they ignore is very telling of what their stances actually are. They’d much rather shut down some shippers than address that their official artist is whitewashing characters with Critical Role’s approval which is egregious

[rebelcourtesan]

Say no to Toxicity in Fandom

I guess I need to hop onto a SoapBox for a bit and get a few things off my chest.

Shipping is fun.  It’s fun to imagine, write, draw, and support fictional characters into pairing off into romantic couples.  There is nothing wrong with that and it’s meant to bring attention to a franchise.  I’ve discovered shows and became a fan due to fanart that got me interested enough to try an episode and fell in love with the show.

However, what’s NOT okay is shaming people or getting into verbal attacks or arguments over fictional characters.

I’m talking about shipping wars that happened during Voltron Legendary Defender.  OMG, the toxicity was enough to make me think another Chernobyl happened over the internet.  Klance fans were particularly bad, especially when their favorite ship didn’t happen.  

Yes, I will agree that Voltron did drop the ball towards the end with LBGTQ representation, but to send death threats to the creators and voice actors is crossing a serious line!  Firstly, and I shouldn’t have to point this out, actors have little to no say in how their character is written or what happens in the show.  

The actors of Game of Thrones didn’t particularly like how the last season was written, but they had to go through with it due to contracts.  Breaking a contract could mean no getting jobs anymore to owing the studio money for breach.  Not to mention, these people have to get paid for their work.  So blaming an actor for what happens in a game, show, or movie is not right at all!

Same could be said for writers who don’t have much freedom with the material which happened in Voltron.  Originally, the writers wanted to have Shiro outright die in season 2, but since he was such a popular character, the high ups pushed them to come up with a reason for to come back which forced them to shoe horn in the clone and have Shiro return to a team that no longer needed him and he got put to the side.  

More recently is the death threats sent to Laura Bailey for her portrayal of Abby in The Last of Us Part 2

So let me get this straight?  These people are threatening a woman and her baby, over a fictional character in a video game?  Wishing her to have cancer over a decision she had no part in?  It was a job, people!  Laura Bailey does voice acting to support her family and her child!  And this is over something that was done years before hand!

If you don’t like the game, give it a one star review and be done with it!  There is no need to death threats to a mother and child over FICTIONAL characters!  

Is it okay to be upset about what happens in a show/game/movie?  Yes, it’s totally okay!  

Is it okay to harass actors and creators because of it?  NO!!!!

Is it okay to send strongly worded, but polite, letters to creators telling them how you are unhappy?  Yes, it’s fine to show how unhappy you are and to critique and comment on events.

Is it okay to send threat deaths?  NEVER!!!

And it’s not okay to harass people over enjoying the game/show/film which you dislike.  I have friends who are big Star Trek fans, a franchise I don’t particularly care for, but we are still friends!  

Why I’m bringing this up is because I am starting to see this toxicity creeping into the Hazbin Hotel fandom.  

Already, there are hardcore ships in these shows with their being an actual Petition to Viviziepop (the creator) to make a certain ship canon.

As of this point, we only have two pilots, a prequel comic, and music video as our peek into this Hellish world.  With the show being greenlit and Helluva Boss eps on their way, the fandom is ramping up.  

So, please, don’t harass Vivziepop or her fellow animators about this show.  If your ship doesn’t happen, it’s okay!  That’s what fanart and fanfiction is for!       

[unrestedjade]

So, you’ve been caught plagiarizing?

I’ve been in touch with the author in question, and I’m happy that there is no malicious intent at play here, merely ignorance. They have responded to me in good faith, so I’m tentatively considering the issue handled. The whole thing has kind of ruined my day, but I think it will get sorted out for the benefit of all concerned. 

I’m not going to pin their side of the conversation up in public here since they don’t have a presence on Tumblr and can’t defend themselves, but it boiled down to an apology and an offer to delete the offending fic. I spent an hour writing my side, and it sums up a lot of my feelings on this sort of thing in general, so I’ll just leave it here:

Thank you for reaching out, [redacted]. I apologize in advance for how long-winded this is, but as I said I'm interested in a discussion.

I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and so I will, though from what I've read it appears this isn't the first time this has happened? Perhaps that's hearsay, so I'll just focus on the here and now.

I didn't get involved with the intention of chasing you off. I'd like to state that right now. My work is very important to me, and very personal, which makes me protective of it. I'm sure you can understand how unhappy I was to see what took hours of work, lost sleep and stress show up in someone else's fic, alongside the work of others in a similar situation. Whatever your intention, you did, in fact, take credit for our content. That's not acceptable. That's the kind of thing that makes creators afraid to share their work. 

It seems clear to me that you (and many of your readers) are not familiar with what plagiarism actually is. It's not just copying an entire piece verbatim. The kind of paraphrasing you use, altering this and that until you consider it "far enough away" to pass as your own ideas and then stitching them together, is also plagiarism. If this had happened with my original work, I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd be prepared to sue. When this happens in academic settings, the person responsible can be expelled. Ignorance is not an excuse. I would encourage you to educate yourself on this, because you can get in much greater trouble than just pissing off a fellow author.

I'll also be honest and say your offer to delete was tempting. I've been nauseous about this all day, and the feeling of violation and broken trust is going to take some time to wear off. But I'm not interested in retaliation and causing more upset to more people. As frankly irritating and ignorant as I find some of your readers, I'd just as soon not take away something that makes them happy. 

I'd like to ask you, why do you write? Or rather, why do you want to write? Is it attention and acclaim you're after? Because I can tell you now fandom is a bad place to look for that. People are fickle and will leave for the next new shiny in a heartbeat. [Redacted] themselves thought I'd been off AO3 for "a long while" when in fact I've been posting new works regularly since FINAGLC ended. They've simply moved on to the next shiny thing. Do you want to write because an idea has grabbed you and won't let go? Because you start to feel trapped in your own skin if you don't write?

If that's the case, why aren't you trusting your own words? Your own concepts? Any story you want to tell, you can do it without relying on my or anyone else's work as a template. I'd like to see you do that, in fact, so this cycle of cribbing, getting caught, meltdown, delete, repeat can end. 

So I don't want you to delete it, necessarily. Instead, I'll leave the choice up to you. What I would like to see is this:

Rewrite the story. From the beginning. Do it without leaning on previous works, and without making us do your heavy lifting. The story is mind-bogglingly long, I realize, though it's more understandable that it's reached 250k in a few short months with your questionable drafting methods. Your readers will still love your story, and the story will be objectively better for being truly yours. 

I don't mean go back and tweak things until you're REALLY SURE no one can recognize them. I want to make that very clear, and I'll be very disappointed if that's what happens. I mean: start again from a blank slate on page one. If you're not up to the work, I understand. If you'd rather move on to a new story idea (one that is, of course, built from the ground up by you), that's perfectly fine. But I want to stress again that this habit of plagiarizing under the guise of inspiration needs to stop. 

Thank you for taking responsibility and for being so quick to contact me. I hope something good can come of this. If there's anything more you wish to talk to me about, whether writing or anything else, you have my contact info and you're welcome to use it. Take care.

Jade  

[littlepuffy4ever]

No matter what you decide to do, I know me and the others will continue to support whatever you do! I hate to see you get so stressed over this situation, it's heartbreaking to see this happen to so many other people Whatever you do, we'll be here to have your back! we care about you Puffy!

Thank you ;;--;;

The fandom has become so toxic and quick to defend him and that's what has been bothering me the most since minorities (as always) can't be dissapointed at anything

I'm hoping this drama will dry out the next few days and I'll be able to draw it bc I really do like my dumb (/lh) aus and it's making me go through a lot of stress ngl

[theconservativebrief]

Earlier this week, Deadline broke the news that actress Scarlett Johansson would once again be working with director Rupert Sanders on Rub & Tug, a film based on the real story of transgender massage parlor owner Dante “Tex” Gill. The announcement has drawn significant backlash, particularly given the fact that Sanders and Johansson’s last effort was 2017’s Ghost in the Shell, which became one of the most prominent recent examples of white-washing in casting Johansson as a canonically Japanese character.

Ghost in the Shell’s script bent over backward to justify portraying Johansson’s character as a white woman, a gambit that ultimately suggested that the filmmakers knew that there was a problem, but didn’t consider it important enough to address properly. That suggestion is only further heightened with Rub & Tug, which positions a famous cisgender woman as a representative of the trans male experience, rather than seeking out an actual trans actor for the role. It’s a problem emphasized by trade announcements on the movie, including Deadline’s, which misgenders Gill by using female pronouns instead of Gill’s preferred male pronouns, and uses his dead name (the name Gill was assigned at birth).

Though conversations about opportunity and representation for marginalized communities in Hollywood are being had more often and more openly in recent years, the very fact of that underrepresentation has allowed filmmakers continue to justify their choices by either fundamentally altering narratives, as with Ghost in the Shell, or citing historical precedent for similar casting practices. The reaction to Johansson’s casting, and her response to it, represents in miniature the problems with that line of thinking.

Following the Rub & Tug announcement, online reaction was swift and vocal. Trans actors and creators, including Indya Moore (FX’s Pose) and Jamie Clayton (Netflix’s Sense8), have spoken out against the casting decision.

Wen cis women play trans men you are reducing the existential experience of a trans man as playing dress up. cis people cannot tell trans stories- don’t have the range. If they did, they would empathize with the reality of how problematic, dismissive and fetishizing this is.

— IAM (@IndyaMoore) July 4, 2018

The backlash has been made worse by Johansson’s response, issued to Bustle by an unidentified rep: “Tell them that they can be directed to Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto, and Felicity Huffman’s reps for comment.”

Tambor, Leto, and Huffman are all cisgender actors who have played transgender roles; Tambor in the Amazon original series Transparent, Leto in 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club, and Huffman in 2005’s Transamerica. In other words, Johansson’s answer is more of an excuse: “If everyone else is doing it, I can do it, too.”

This would be flawed thinking even without the added knowledge that each example she’s cited is a performance that was critically acclaimed, suggesting that the idea of playing a transgender character as awards bait factored into the casting decision. (Tambor won a Golden Globe and two Emmys for his performance as Maura Pfefferman; Leto won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a SAG Award; and Huffman won a Golden Globe.)

Leto has defended his casting as a transgender woman, but Huffman has spoken in support of transgender actors playing transgender parts. “I certainly understand the sentiment that a trans actor should play a trans role,” she said, in a 2014 interview with HuffPost Live. “And I support it. What can I say — I think transgendered [sic] people have been marginalized for a long time and I think you see that in people who are not trans playing them.”

Tambor, too, spoke about the marginalization of transgender actors in his 2016 Emmy acceptance speech. “Please give transgender talent a chance. Give them auditions. Give them their stories. Do that. And also one more thing: I would not be unhappy were I the last cisgender male to play a female transgender [sic] on television.”

That said, Tambor is probably not an example that Johansson really wants to be following, given the allegations of sexual harassment that led to him being fired from Transparent. He was accused of sexual misconduct by his former assistant, Van Barnes, as well as transgender actress Trace Lysette, who reacted to the news of Johansson’s casting on Twitter, pointing out that transgender actors are not offered cis parts.

Oh word?? So you can continue to play us but we can’t play y’all? Hollywood is so fucked… I wouldn’t be as upset if I was getting in the same rooms as Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett for cis roles, but we know that’s not the case. A mess. https://t.co/s8gBlBI1Sw

— Trace Lysette (@tracelysette) July 4, 2018

On top of that, Transparent creator Jill Soloway has also spoken about having cast Tambor, saying that, “I could come up with a lot of cis-cuses—cis excuses—about why my choice shouldn’t be questioned. But I actually feel the opposite. I feel like our choice should absolutely be interrogated. […] Nobody should be that ignorant right now to cast a cis man in this role. If anybody has been reading the Internet they understand how awful it is for trans women to see cis men portraying them. It’s an insult.”

The same could be said for transgender men now seeing a cis woman portraying Gill. Gill’s story is fascinating — his massage parlors were a front for brothels, and, like Al Capone, he was eventually stung for tax evasion rather than his gangland activities — and deserves to be told properly. That includes casting a transgender actor in the part.

Original Source -> Scarlett Johansson will play a transgender man, citing Jeffrey Tambor to defend the choice

via The Conservative Brief

[reverseskydives]

What Should You Do if Someone Attacks You Online?

Online trolls are an unfortunate part of life. While the Internet connects us, it also enables people to spew hate for no apparent reason.

A survey from The Daily Mail, a leading UK news agency, provides insight into some of the platforms that attract the most trolls, with Facebook taking a commanding lead.

I’ll be upfront with you about the way I handle haters of my personal brand.

I ignore them.

That’s my method, so I’m not telling you to do the same. It’s simply been an effective method that has allowed me to stay sane and keep my personal brand intact. Ignoring it.

Obviously, not every brand can ignore the hate.

Some companies respond in creative and humorous ways that turn into huge wins.

As brands such as Nestle, Amy’s Baking Company, and Dark Horse Cafe found, managing your online reputation by responding to attacks can backfire, creating havoc for the brand.

Because of the high risk of big mistakes in online reputational management, I put together this guide for what to do if someone attacks you online.

But first, we’ll review what trolls are and the true costs of negative comments.

What is an online troll?

Online trolls are people who frequent forums, chat rooms, comment wells, social networks, and other corners of the Internet to incite strong angry responses from their victims. These people are typically proud of their accomplishments. This troll even brags about his exploits.

When you get upset with trolls, you are playing into their hands—you are feeding them.

Do not feed the trolls.

Feeding the trolls only makes them stronger, and they push harder. It also lowers you to their level, where they’ll always win because of their vast experience. You’ll only get upset and act irrationally—while doing it on public forums.

This means it’ll stay on the Internet forever for other people to see. Sometimes, your reactions will be saved as screenshots so you can never delete them.

It makes the costs of negative comments left by trolls high.

The cost of negative online comments

While there’s an old adage that purports that all press is good press, this isn’t necessarily true, as Amy’s Baking Company found in its war against trolls.

Despite what insurance commercials on TV say, people turn to the Internet for information. They especially trust product and company reviews.

A negative review left by a troll can have a lasting impact on sales numbers.

A recent survey by Moz found that nearly 70% of respondents were turned off of buying a product or service because of negative online reviews.

And that’s not all. Online reviews aren’t the only trustworthy source. Word of mouth on social media has been shown to effectively work both for and against brands.

Recent research by the Internet Sales Group found one negative social media review can cost you 30 new customers.

Unhappy people simply enjoy banding together and making their voices louder, so while a happy customer will discuss your brand with 3-5 people, an unhappy customer will tell over 20 people about their bad experience.

This inspired Adrien Chen and Jason Pontin at the MIT Technology Review to explore the true costs of trolling, although they ended up focusing more on what it costs the troll than the victim.

And it turns out, responding to trolls (although not directly) may actually be the most effective policy.

How to respond

I don’t respond to trolls, but others do. It’s a stigmatizing issue, and clearly even adults don’t know what to do about bullying.

Some marketers, like Curtis Snyder at Make Your Mark Media, recommend confronting trolls head on. There’s value in that although Kendall Walters at Hootsuite reminds us not to confuse a troll with a genuinely upset customer.

Whitney Gibson at Social Media Explorer posits that the decision whether or not to respond to negative comments depends on a variety of factors. You have to assess the risk of the attack before determining the correct course of action, and it needs to be done fast.

Social media moves fast, and you have a maximum of 24 hours to respond to negative comments effectively. It’s a very small window.

To help make these split-second decisions, here’s a handy infographic on how to respond to negative social media comments. It’s full of useful advice on how to keep calm and carry on:

Of course, how you handle the situation is up to you. Some brands with edgier attitudes find success shutting down online trolls the way a stand-up comedian treats hecklers. Others have run into PR nightmares attempting to retort.

I don’t personally respond to negative comments or reviews, but if I ever come across something false, I do report it to be removed.

I’ve never minded legitimate feedback and criticism, even the occasional hater, but I won’t tolerate lies and misinformation.

Reporting trolls to admins

Regardless of the platform, there are community rules and guidelines for how people should act. In places like 4chan or the darknet, the rules are looser, but on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, they’re extensive.

Here’s how to deal with Facebook trolls. Profiles, comments, and posts can be reported to group admins, or blocked and reported as abusive to Facebook directly.

If you read an offensive tweet, you can simply block the person so you won’t see them ever again. They can still see your tweets, however, and everyone else can still read theirs.

When Twitter trolling gets out of hand, reporting it is easy: click or tap the three dots at the right of the tweet and report each tweet before reporting the individual who posted them to Twitter’s admin.

Yelp reviews can be reported similarly to Facebook’s. If you receive a bad review from a Yelp troll, don’t be afraid to swing the banhammer. And yes, Yelp trolls do exist, and there’s an entire underground community of them.

And it doesn’t stop there: you can report inaccurate and false content to Google, FourSquare, Reddit, Instagram, or wherever else you find it online.

It doesn’t stop at social networks, forums, and online review sites. The Internet is regulated much more than you think, and there are checks and balances in place on every level to keep things as civil and clean as possible.

That’s right, if a blogger or other outlet creates a site that falsely represents you, it’s possible to even have it removed from Google search results. This should be done only in extreme cases and may require alternative means of removing false information.

Alternative ways to remove false information

The Internet has been around long enough now that disputes over negative online content have reached every level of our court system.

In response to negative publicity, some online SEO and marketing agencies rebranded themselves as reputation management services. These firms use SEO techniques to help bury negative search results under pages of positive ones.

The ethics of such services is debatable, though I suppose the same could be said of legitimate SEO and marketing services.

Some companies take things as far as the court system, suing people over negative reviews. The courts have sided with web services and platforms such as Yelp, placing liability on consumers to post honest reviews.

Still, web-based lawsuits in every industry continue being heard in federal courts:

Because of the first amendment’s rights and freedoms and the split between content creators and platform owners, web admins aren’t always required to remove web content.

Sometimes Google will adhere to court orders regarding search results; however, there are volunteer and nonprofit projects that are dedicated to archiving and documenting any web pages Google removes due to court orders and other actions.

Attempting to shape conversations in this way can quickly become a slippery slope, which is why I typically do my best to avoid it.

Still, every situation is different, and if you’re reading this article, you need all the information possible, which is what I’m aiming to provide.

I want to remind you once again (and I realize I’m getting repetitive) that if at all possible, ignoring the situation is best. I do, however, work in a B2B industry, so I deal with more professional clients and reviews.

Conclusion

You never know when it will hit. One minute you’re minding your own business, commenting on an article you just read, and the next thing you know, you’re defending your religion, sexuality, political affiliation, race, age, profession, and your entire life because of some stranger.

Trolls lurk in every corner of the Internet, seeking to victimize people, spreading their negativity.

Responding to trolls only feeds them and makes them stronger, so it’s best to ignore them whenever possible.

However, sometimes negative commenting escalates to personal attacks, false information, and other dirty tactics meant to disrupt business in unethical and often illegal ways. Sometimes, trolls take things too far, and it affects your business.

In these cases, it’s okay to respond, defend yourself, and work in the backend to have inflammatory and malicious content removed from the Internet.

The web will never be a safe place, but it’s up to you to take the high road.

How have you dealt with online attacks on your brand or business?

from Social Media Marketing http://ift.tt/2kpPbaf via Social Media Marketing

[anseladams03]

What Should You Do if Someone Attacks You Online?

Online trolls are an unfortunate part of life. While the Internet connects us, it also enables people to spew hate for no apparent reason.

A survey from The Daily Mail, a leading UK news agency, provides insight into some of the platforms that attract the most trolls, with Facebook taking a commanding lead.

I’ll be upfront with you about the way I handle haters of my personal brand.

I ignore them.

That’s my method, so I’m not telling you to do the same. It’s simply been an effective method that has allowed me to stay sane and keep my personal brand intact. Ignoring it.

Obviously, not every brand can ignore the hate.

Some companies respond in creative and humorous ways that turn into huge wins.

As brands such as Nestle, Amy’s Baking Company, and Dark Horse Cafe found, managing your online reputation by responding to attacks can backfire, creating havoc for the brand.

Because of the high risk of big mistakes in online reputational management, I put together this guide for what to do if someone attacks you online.

But first, we’ll review what trolls are and the true costs of negative comments.

What is an online troll?

Online trolls are people who frequent forums, chat rooms, comment wells, social networks, and other corners of the Internet to incite strong angry responses from their victims. These people are typically proud of their accomplishments. This troll even brags about his exploits.

When you get upset with trolls, you are playing into their hands—you are feeding them.

Do not feed the trolls.

Feeding the trolls only makes them stronger, and they push harder. It also lowers you to their level, where they’ll always win because of their vast experience. You’ll only get upset and act irrationally—while doing it on public forums.

This means it’ll stay on the Internet forever for other people to see. Sometimes, your reactions will be saved as screenshots so you can never delete them.

It makes the costs of negative comments left by trolls high.

The cost of negative online comments

While there’s an old adage that purports that all press is good press, this isn’t necessarily true, as Amy’s Baking Company found in its war against trolls.

Despite what insurance commercials on TV say, people turn to the Internet for information. They especially trust product and company reviews.

A negative review left by a troll can have a lasting impact on sales numbers.

A recent survey by Moz found that nearly 70% of respondents were turned off of buying a product or service because of negative online reviews.

And that’s not all. Online reviews aren’t the only trustworthy source. Word of mouth on social media has been shown to effectively work both for and against brands.

Recent research by the Internet Sales Group found one negative social media review can cost you 30 new customers.

Unhappy people simply enjoy banding together and making their voices louder, so while a happy customer will discuss your brand with 3-5 people, an unhappy customer will tell over 20 people about their bad experience.

This inspired Adrien Chen and Jason Pontin at the MIT Technology Review to explore the true costs of trolling, although they ended up focusing more on what it costs the troll than the victim.

And it turns out, responding to trolls (although not directly) may actually be the most effective policy.

How to respond

I don’t respond to trolls, but others do. It’s a stigmatizing issue, and clearly even adults don’t know what to do about bullying.

Some marketers, like Curtis Snyder at Make Your Mark Media, recommend confronting trolls head on. There’s value in that although Kendall Walters at Hootsuite reminds us not to confuse a troll with a genuinely upset customer.

Whitney Gibson at Social Media Explorer posits that the decision whether or not to respond to negative comments depends on a variety of factors. You have to assess the risk of the attack before determining the correct course of action, and it needs to be done fast.

Social media moves fast, and you have a maximum of 24 hours to respond to negative comments effectively. It’s a very small window.

To help make these split-second decisions, here’s a handy infographic on how to respond to negative social media comments. It’s full of useful advice on how to keep calm and carry on:

Of course, how you handle the situation is up to you. Some brands with edgier attitudes find success shutting down online trolls the way a stand-up comedian treats hecklers. Others have run into PR nightmares attempting to retort.

I don’t personally respond to negative comments or reviews, but if I ever come across something false, I do report it to be removed.

I’ve never minded legitimate feedback and criticism, even the occasional hater, but I won’t tolerate lies and misinformation.

Reporting trolls to admins

Regardless of the platform, there are community rules and guidelines for how people should act. In places like 4chan or the darknet, the rules are looser, but on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, they’re extensive.

Here’s how to deal with Facebook trolls. Profiles, comments, and posts can be reported to group admins, or blocked and reported as abusive to Facebook directly.

If you read an offensive tweet, you can simply block the person so you won’t see them ever again. They can still see your tweets, however, and everyone else can still read theirs.

When Twitter trolling gets out of hand, reporting it is easy: click or tap the three dots at the right of the tweet and report each tweet before reporting the individual who posted them to Twitter’s admin.

Yelp reviews can be reported similarly to Facebook’s. If you receive a bad review from a Yelp troll, don’t be afraid to swing the banhammer. And yes, Yelp trolls do exist, and there’s an entire underground community of them.

And it doesn’t stop there: you can report inaccurate and false content to Google, FourSquare, Reddit, Instagram, or wherever else you find it online.

It doesn’t stop at social networks, forums, and online review sites. The Internet is regulated much more than you think, and there are checks and balances in place on every level to keep things as civil and clean as possible.

That’s right, if a blogger or other outlet creates a site that falsely represents you, it’s possible to even have it removed from Google search results. This should be done only in extreme cases and may require alternative means of removing false information.

Alternative ways to remove false information

The Internet has been around long enough now that disputes over negative online content have reached every level of our court system.

In response to negative publicity, some online SEO and marketing agencies rebranded themselves as reputation management services. These firms use SEO techniques to help bury negative search results under pages of positive ones.

The ethics of such services is debatable, though I suppose the same could be said of legitimate SEO and marketing services.

Some companies take things as far as the court system, suing people over negative reviews. The courts have sided with web services and platforms such as Yelp, placing liability on consumers to post honest reviews.

Still, web-based lawsuits in every industry continue being heard in federal courts:

Because of the first amendment’s rights and freedoms and the split between content creators and platform owners, web admins aren’t always required to remove web content.

Sometimes Google will adhere to court orders regarding search results; however, there are volunteer and nonprofit projects that are dedicated to archiving and documenting any web pages Google removes due to court orders and other actions.

Attempting to shape conversations in this way can quickly become a slippery slope, which is why I typically do my best to avoid it.

Still, every situation is different, and if you’re reading this article, you need all the information possible, which is what I’m aiming to provide.

I want to remind you once again (and I realize I’m getting repetitive) that if at all possible, ignoring the situation is best. I do, however, work in a B2B industry, so I deal with more professional clients and reviews.

Conclusion

You never know when it will hit. One minute you’re minding your own business, commenting on an article you just read, and the next thing you know, you’re defending your religion, sexuality, political affiliation, race, age, profession, and your entire life because of some stranger.

Trolls lurk in every corner of the Internet, seeking to victimize people, spreading their negativity.

Responding to trolls only feeds them and makes them stronger, so it’s best to ignore them whenever possible.

However, sometimes negative commenting escalates to personal attacks, false information, and other dirty tactics meant to disrupt business in unethical and often illegal ways. Sometimes, trolls take things too far, and it affects your business.

In these cases, it’s okay to respond, defend yourself, and work in the backend to have inflammatory and malicious content removed from the Internet.

The web will never be a safe place, but it’s up to you to take the high road.

How have you dealt with online attacks on your brand or business?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2kACnjt from Blogger http://ift.tt/2kZYTn5 February 03, 2017 at 09:35PM