#but yeah… this does not need to be normalized for the sake of feminism

[mondgewalt]

now i can finally talk about gender-hoodlum and explain what he said 😭

first off, here is the scene in question with a rough translation:

you might be wondering why i wrote Polizist*innen with an emphasize on innen instead of translating it normally, like i did when brawler said Polizisten. before i do that, i need to explain how the german language works:

unlike languages like english or japanese, german is one of many languages that uses grammatical gender. that means, instead of referring to everything with a single, definite article (e.g. ‘the‘) or none at all, german has a whole 3 of them (there is actually more but for the sake of keeping this short, i‘ll keep them to the 3 basic ones)! der, die and das. i‘ll only introduce you to der and die, as they are the most relevant right now.

der is the masculine version, used for words like der Hund (the dog), der Baum (the tree) and der Polizist (the police officer). as you can see, police officer is a masculine word, because it‘s a profession. professions usually use der, unless they‘re feminized and switch to die. every profession has a female equivalent (e.g der Arzt and die Ärztin, der Verkäufer and die Verkäuferin, der Feuerwehrmann and die Feuerwehrfrau).

die is the feminine version, used for words like die Katze (the cat), die Blume (the flower) and die Polizistin (the police officer). nothing about police officer changed in english, it still has the same meaning, but in german we‘re speaking about a female police officer. here is something important to note about die though: it‘s also always used for plurals. die Hunde (the dogs), die Bäume (the trees), die Polizisten (the police officers).

now since that is out of the way, you‘re probably still confused. why did hoodlum correct brawler? what the hell does *innen mean and what does that have to do with a political debate in germany?

what hoodlum did is called ‘gendern‘ in german, i think you know where the word comes from. it‘s a way to be inclusive in speech and writing by trying to refer to every gender instead of using the standard masculine words. for example, one common variation i see is Schüler*innen (students). i‘ll try to break it into parts and explain it

Schüler: der Schüler, the standard singular word and what is basically described.

*: a star to divide the noun and ending. when you vocally gender, this is a pause.

innen: die Schülerinnen, the plural and female word for Schüler. the ending is used to make it inclusive to female students.

btw i mentioned that gendern caused a political debate in germany… i think it‘s far bigger. while gendern has been a thing for years now (it just wasn’t called gendern back then) through other ways (e.g saying „Schülerinnen und Schüler“), it has caused recent controversy when *innen became popular. news broadcasts, some schools, etc. have started to use it and a lot of people began criticizing it:

“people who have been criticizing gender-inclusive language think: texts become longer and more complicated. There would also be no need for a gender-inclusive language. when someone is referred to as „Schülern“, it grammatically means everyone — boys and girls.“ text from https://www.zdf.de/kinder/logo/gendern-gendergerechte-sprache-geschlechter-100.html translated by me

controversy has been going so far that certain political parties even began to ban it from unis and other places.

so yeah, i can‘t explain it but seeing such a recent topic in fucking akudama drive, a japanese anime, is a little funny to me 😭

[angelsaxis]

i agree w u that we need to be way way more critical abt shit like makeup and plastic surgery wherein "freedom of choice" is just leaning into patriarchal white-centric ideals of beauty etc. but i think freedom of choice is still impt in other aspects like life goals and saying that choice doesnt matter as much as fighting patriarchy in all aspects seems a little off to me? like if a woman happens to want kids, which is a gendered expectation, then by your post's standards, she isnt fighting the patriarchy. if she chooses to stay at home and watch the kid because thats genuinely what fulfills her more than a job and is fortunate that her spouse wants to and can financially support her, thats also going to be considered not feminist simply because she isnt doing the opposite of gender norms, according to your post. same goes for if a woman wears gendered clothes? has a job like childcare teacher, nannying, nurse? i dont like the idea of defanged (and largely cishet white abled) feminism as much as you, but acting like all forms of freedom of choice that conforms to gender norms is inherently bad strays really close to political lesbianism ideology wherein even choosing to be romantically involved with a man becomes traitorous. because dating men Is a gender norm. short of being a radfem, there is a line where we recognize that choice does matter because otherwise, the act of dating a man in itself plays into gender roles and expectations.

i just think theres a bit more nuance. i.e. genuinely further normalizing hurtful rhetoric/ideas (which makeup and plastic surgery do) should be looked at critically and i personally think we ought to abandon aesthetic surgeries n makeup for the sake of simply fitting into beauty standards all together. i also think that people will always have innate preferences. mine is towards counselling and psychology- is it unfeminist to go into a field that is woman dominated? must we let go of all freedom to choose to do "the most anti-patriarchy thing possible"? i feel like more nuance is necessary or we fall into traps for ourselves and actually end up stifling other women. like women who dont want to go into male dominated fields because its rife with sexism. like women who genuinely want kids with a man. like women who dont have the capacity emotionalmy or physically due to disabilities to work the jobs they are qualified for and so they choose to be homemakers. or even trans women who choose to do makeup because it saves them from transmisogyny. like yes, absolutely we need to critique where some preferences come from because, like with beauty standards and diets and skincare and fashion/makeup trends, some of them can be genuinely harmful to others (especially young girls who are exposed only to manicured picture-perfect bodies and faces). but at the end of the day, sacrificing All individual preferences will not make women happier, healthier or freer. and i mean this for ALL women.

yes I agree that nuance is important! that post is only a few paragraphs long and I made it in a moment of anger--so please nobody think that when I went into it, I was thinking that any conformity to a gender role is worse than death itself lol. like im literally in cornrows and a woman's shirt now.

that's why i always make the distinction between feminist action vs nonfeminist actions, rather than IDing as a feminist and then taking all the things I do as either qualifying or disqualifying me as a feminist. There's women who, for any reason, choose to be homemakers rather than work. Is that a valid choice for them? Yeah! Is it a feminist action? In my personal opinion, no--but is it wrong? Hell no. It's just that, on the list of things that a woman might say are things she's done to dismantle the patriarchy, being a SAHM/homemaker wouldn't be on the list. That's not a bad thing. We can't live our lives wholly dedicated dismantling something to the point of our own self destruction (and considering how deeply gender roles run--even down to social interactions--this would be impossible, anyways). that's where liberal feminism and choice feminism are in the wrong--it's ID first, and then the belief that as along as she's a woman Doing What She Wants, she's fighting the patriarchy (in lots of ways this is the case, but in lots of ways it definitely isn't). so a woman ends up saying its a totes feminist thing to like. actively support plastic surgery and the harmful makeup culture. rather than admitting that those are things that a feminist can do that don't make her not a feminist, but that definitely aren't feminist actions.

(I think most of the people reblogging that post understood as much, considering how there's any number of folks reblogging that who are women w long hair or wearing bras or doing something else that's a gender role and thus supported by the patriarchy)

My beef is with the pushing of personal empowerment over liberation from the thing that makes you need to feel empowered in the first place--and then acting like that is a win against patriarchy. like in the ideal world, people wouldn't need to wear make up, you know? Like, there'd be no expectation for women of any type of contour their faces and coat their skin and clog their pores and spend dozens or even hundreds every year to look a Specific Way. The fact that trans women have to wear make up for their safety is evidence that we live in a society where women are at risk of facing extreme violence for non-conformity--that's a fundamental change to society that make up, while helpful in a lot of these situations, bandages over. Bear in mind that I'm not saying that trans women shouldn't ever wear make up or anything! Make up as a choice for personal freedom/safety obv varies between women and by situation. It's still a gender expectation that men don't have to face, though.

My post was aimed more at the hardline liberal feminists/choice feminists who truly do think that make up is like. a 100% liberating tool whose acceptance actually contributes to the furthering of women's rights and the dismantling of patriarchy. it was generally directed at the women who call themselves feminsts but don't actually have like. an ounce of anything negative to say about the gender roles that are forced on us from birth. like they keep insisting that there is liberation through conformity as long as you change your mind about it or change the definition of feminism entirely. I don't think anyone's evil or partaking wholeheartedly in the oppression of women by wearing makeup n heels or being a SAHM, but again I know better than to equate a choice (often made under some level of misogynistic social coercion) with like, strives to get women in normally male-dominant fields or boost our representation in government or securing our reproductive rights.

[maxbernini]

yeeeeeeeah... I mean, I enjoyed them openly talking about masturbating being all girls (because that's a topic that normally is like "girls don't masturbate!") but the wording felt a bit weird. I'm not german so maybe sounds better like that. Idk, I liked the clip because I love this girls but if it was any other set of characters that I didn't care I would have a lot to say about that writting tbh

YEAH like i wanna be clear it's not the topic i think is cringe, i'm glad young ppl esp young girls are seeing these convos be portrayed as normal and healthy and not things that need to be shamefully whispered etc. my friend group were quite open about sex and masturbation in high school, which i'm very thankful for!!

i talked about it in the notes but i think the directing & acting makes it obvious the cringe vibe was intentional, like she's uncomfortable and they want us to be too bc it's her pov etc. but i think that could’ve been achieved without the cringe wording - and that part might not have even been intentional? like, maybe it was meant to be ‘this convo isn't cringe but we find it cringe because mailin does’ and not ‘this is cringe because the wording is stilted and a little weird'. specifically the 'kieu my is good' line, which could be the specific translation i saw (though i know german speakers have also spoken about it). i'm just very on edge after s7, remember kieu my's comments to isi at dance practice about guys at clubs? (which is basically an example of a character saying smth ooc for the sake of the plot aka the main made uncomfortable by their friends; sex in mailin's case, gender in isi's)

but it's a very minor nitpick overall, they're clearly doing some sort of sex & relationship theme, whether that's asexuality or inexperience who knows. the feminism stuff is more of a concern, this just stuck out to me bc it was more audibly cringy fjnadakd had to pause the video ngl

[orsumeuphoria]

Lucky Lectures. Gender politics in homosexual ships. 

Are you a consumer of fanfiction? Do you live in a society? 

There may be heteronormative patterns in your gay fanfiction! 

“But how?” you ask, “It’s two dudes!” 

Well, funny thing is, when you live in a patriarchal society that has worked hard to establish that submissive = female and dominant = male, it becomes very easy to transpose these traits onto any individuals ever and perpetuate heteronormativity and gender structures of power! 

Let me explain.

First, we must accept the reality that we do exist in a patriarchal society that has taught us that Man always comes out on top (pun perhaps intended) and Woman has three essential roles: be pretty, be submissive, and be quiet.

Of course, with the different waves of feminism, the portrayal of Woman in media has shifted and now we have Girlbosses and whatnot. Except, the root of the problem hasn’t yet been addressed and millions of people who grew up either before or during these periods of change were still influenced by patriarchal teachings, and that’s not something one can easily get rid of, especially when media and other cultural artifacts that help spread and reaffirm societal cues were (and are still) plagued by this “Man strong, Woman weak” mentality (that is of course far more nuanced than that but this is not a gender studies course).

Now, what does this have to do with homoerotic fanfiction?

Short answer: the people who write fanfiction exist in the same society you and I do, and literature like any other artform is inherently a mimicking of the real world. Anything we see in the real world will end up, whether by choice or not, in that which we create.

There’s more to this, though.

Romance specifically is a big point of interest for us if we’re going to be diving into this subject.

When you look at the population who’s creating fanfiction, a lot of them are, in fact, very young AFABs. Let the record show I’m not exerting criticism or opinion in these lines, merely stating a fact.

The thing with these very young AFABs is that they: a) grew up in a patriarchal society; b) were exposed to patriarchal media that portrayed a very specific type of “romance”; c) likely also read fanfiction written by other very young AFABs with little to no real-world experience to help diversify or add nuance to their writing, so they exist in an echo chamber of, “This is definitely what romance is.”

You may be inclined to disagree and point me toward examples of fanfics and/or fanfic writers who do not fall into this pattern, and I see you, I have my own exceptions too, but for the sake of argument, we have to look at the very broad patterns because they are the most worrisome; the minority, in this case, is actually the one with the advantage.

So, let’s look at some examples of my thesis. Specifically within heterosexual fanfiction.

Some prime examples of this would be After (2014), Twilight (2005), and 50 Shades of Gray (2011). Do you see the pattern yet? The main romance arc in these novels is not a great example of actual romance, right? In After we have an abusive main male character. Twilight leaves us with a main male character who’s mostly emotionally absent and who leads to the main female character to, quite literally, jump off a cliff to try and get his attention. 50 Shades is abuse disguised as kink, leaning heavily into the excuse of a D/s dynamic. And what do the female main characters in these three do? Continue to thirst after the main male character even while suffering at their hands.

“Those are awful examples, Luck!”

Yeah, well, I’m a hyperbolic motherfucker, sue me.

Seriously though, I don’t think they are bad examples. They may be the worst of the worst but that’s exactly why they serve perfectly to illustrate my points. The fact that these three do exist points towards an underlying issue wherein we see these pieces of media and, even when they’re awful, we let them happen. We let them become cultural phenomena. None of this would happen, theoretically, if it didn’t have space to exist, if the ground wasn’t primed with centuries of patriarchal brainwashing to permit, if not encourage, these representations of romance.

If people weren’t still consuming stories like these, where abuse and unhealthy interpersonal dynamics are thinly disguised as romance, they wouldn’t exist; but people do consume these stories because they subscribe to patriarchal thinking and that creates a market, blah blah blah, I’m not here to give you a lesson on supply and demand. I’m merely here to tell you that people, even in 2021, are misogynistic and openly enjoy consuming misogynistic media, because they don’t perceive it as misogynistic! They think it’s normal!

“What does this have to do with my sacred homoerotic fics, Luck?” you ask. To quote Siken (2005): “Shut up/ I’m getting to it.”

I ask you, what is the big difference between heterosexual fics and homosexual fics in their representation of romance?

I say, none, really.

I’ve read plenty of fic in many different fandoms, raging from anime, literature, TV shows, RPF, and I can tell you the fics that portray queer relationships with any sort of nuance are few and far in between.

And this is where I remind you that most fanfic writers are people who were socialized as girls, who haven’t experienced enough to portray romance much differently than how their main examples (the misogynistic media, as we established) do.

So we have a bunch of young AFABs whose vision of love has been heavily influenced by out-of-whack power dynamics and a lack of affective responsibility. And what do they often do?

They buy into yet another set of absurd ideals! Remember when gay relationships were stereotyped as being between a Dom Top and a Sub Bottom? I’m sad to inform that it’s a prevalent thing and a vehicle for heteronormative structures of power to be passed onto queer fiction. Because, what are Dom Tops if not Man and Sub Bottoms if not Woman?

These kids, because they are kids, will take one look at a pairing and call the big dominant one a top and the dainty quiet one the bottom. Sometimes, they’ll cling to these ideas with a vice and start arguments if you challenge their structure.

“Why is this a big deal?” you ask, and I appreciate your curiosity.

It’s harmful because it continues to perpetuate some awful ideas about relationships and it ends in the fetishizing of homosexuality, and that’s not even mentioning how inaccurate of a portrayal they are of real life. Impressionable kids can, and do, and will, interact with this content and grow up with a twisted perception of reality that they, too, might reinforce in their own immensely flawed works of fiction. It could harm them in their real life too, there’s studies going on right as I type this regarding porn addiction in young AFABs because they start consuming smut fiction at very early ages. Kids could grow up desensitized to abuse. Kids could get in harmful relationships and miss the warning signs because they were romanticized in their favorite fic.

And this isn’t to say that all the responsibility lies in the hands of the fanfic writer, because anyone who engages in fandom does it out of their own volition and because of that should do so carefully. But this is to say that if you are a fanfic writer, you need to look at your own biases and be a little more critical with yourself and your world view, lest you continue this cycle of patriarchal nonsense.

[thebluelemontree]

anti-honesty: talk to me about your asoiaf notp!

Okay, so we’re diving in at the deep end.  Where to start with this Sansan thing?  It’s not normal or healthy by any standard, and those shippers are the worst.  Most of the supposed canon development of their relationship is clearly a product of a perverse imagination and nothing to do with GRRM I assure you.  I mean, how do they even make any sense?  You only have to look at their physical appearances to know there’s just no way they could have anything in common.  What book are these people reading?  Besides, Sandor is a real man written by a super serious writer with a dick.  Romance is beneath both of them and best left for housewives and their paperbacks.  Sandor just tried to tell her how the world really was and generously tried to help her escape. It wasn’t his fault she stupidly turned him down before he bounced.  That should tell you all you need to know right there about how much they supposedly care for each other.  And thank god she didn’t go, because the buddy road trip between him and Arya is so much better.  If you ask me, that’s the kind of chick Sandor would go for.  Someone who enjoys killing and vengeance as much as he does.  Someone who wouldn’t try to feminize him and make him less awesome.  Fuck yeah, I’d watch the shit out of that spinoff show.

As for Sansa, how could anyone wish for her to be with an obvious [you know what]?  She’s a literal child for Pete’s sake.  And I mean literal, like a non-fictional, real human minor at stake here.  Besides, we’ve established romance is unrealistic in asoiaf, so Sansa’s endgame will most likely be about making a political marriage so she can passively make a contribution to the plot through her husband taking the more active role.  That’s just how Westeros works.  It’s not for us to question that or assume that Martin is making any kind of critique of his own fictional institutions.  But just for argument’s sake, let’s take a stab at who Sansa would end up with romantically in theory by the rules of good, unproblematic writing.  We have to consider not only age, relative attractiveness, and class, but also that any height disparities must fall within 3 inches to avoid abuse or minor-coding.  Do we know Gendry’s canon height just out of curiosity?  Just with the age thing, ideally, two people should be born within minutes of each other for an optimal healthy relationship.  We also have to carefully examine conflict probability so that it does not exceed the levels of arguing about what to have for dinner.  The Hound just doesn’t meet any of those requirements.  I mean wtf?  What kind of monster would wish him upon her?  Once we’ve settled on some candidates, we (as in sensible people, not those garbage shippers) have to figure out who among them deserves her the most.  And we don’t even have to know at the end who that actually is when ADOS wraps up.  True Blood’s finale really nailed it with Sookie ending up happy and pregnant with a faceless, nameless dude tacked on in the final moments of the show.  Wholesome, good writing right there.        

[techouspeaks]

Toon VS Toon: The Dragon Prince VS She-Ra and the Princesses of Power 2018

Both shows have a lot of promising diversity but which one does it better? 

Alright, so you’re probably wondering why I compare these two shows together? A side from being both hosted on Netflix and showing a lot of diverse characters and story elements, along with taking place in a magical universe where war is raging on and the fate of good solely relies on our heroes saving the day. There’s not too much they have in common.

Well the thing is that’s what I’m going to discuss, how they handle diversity and which one does it better.

Now if you hadn’t read my She-Ra review, I basically think the show is okay. The concept and how the characters are drawn are nicely done and I like Adora, Mermista and Bow. Some of the concepts are very interesting. I just feel it lacks a little bit, especially in animation and character development. I feel like the story and character development is way rushed including the relationships between the characters including our leading female lead Adora and her rival villain Catra. 

The Dragon Prince I recently started watching and it didn’t take me too long to get invested. I liked the settings, the animation is gorgeous and the characters are very likable, despite the dufus wimpy lead that even Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon would call a dork. I kinda think that Callum was meant to be a copy of Hiccup a little bit. 

The one thing these two shows do have in common is diversity as I said. The characters are all diverse. You have lesbians or hints of lesbian relationship, you have people of different cultures and different skin tones all in this world and it’s not a huge thing, but which one does it better? Which show handles the diversity much better and respectfully.

Let’s look at She-Ra. We have a lot of female leads that have different body shapes and skin tones and all that. There’s even a hint that during a dance with Adora and Catra that there might be some closer feelings. However, this is barely hinted at. There’s no real actual gay relationships as of now. It could be because the series has yet to have a season 2 and Dragon Prince has two seasons already, but still it lacks a bit.

As stated before Bow and Sea Hawk are kinda gay stereotypes. They’re obviously not gay because Sea Hawk does flirt with Mermista and has this huge infatuation with her and Glimmer kinda has a thing for Bow so it’s undecided if Bow is actually gay or not, but it’s obvious they’re stereotypes. At least Sea Hawk is and Bow is sorta that but not as bad. He’s very competent as a character and besides liking pretty things and the whole “Best Friend Squad”, he does act like a natural person would, but yeah his overall is still pretty much a dated stereotype of “Let’s put this kind of character in it because social justice is in right now!” 

All the other characters I’ve said before in my review just feel like well archetypes. You have the lack of emotion, bored tough chick whom I do like and is my favorite character but lets face it, she’s an archetype. I’m not going to deny that even if I do like her. The sweet sensitive type, the geeky nerd that is totally into tech more than people so much so she’s extremely socially awkward. Aside from Glimmer, Adora, maybe Catra and sometimes Bow, most just feel like archetypes and with how the characters are design and how this show tries to be in your face with “We have diverse bodies and we have diverse this and that!”, it comes across almost deceitful with it’s premise. Especially any male character remotely masculine is one of the bad guys and that’s a bad thing. Feminism isn’t about hating or showing masculinity as a bad thing but something as equal to it or just as needed and that the role of masculine and feminine can be reversed around.

The Dragon Prince has it’s stereotypes too. Like I said, Callum is pretty much your wimpy hero that wants to find his place in the world. However, most of the characters are pretty much realistic. What I enjoy about this series is that it does show diversity but in the right way. Not only because there’s more diverse characters ranging from not only on the main list such as sexuality, breaking gender roles and races but also in other factors such as a character that is deaf and mute, a character that is blind and even at one point, Rayla was experiencing what it’s like to lose a limb, which that happens to people too. However, it’s how these characters are represented that makes this show stand out nicely.

All the diversity is treated naturally, like it’s been there for years and everyone accepts that people no matter what they are or who they are can do anything. They don’t feel like they’re just put there for the sake of pleasing the audience with “Hey we got this type of character in it! So you have to like the show!”. The characters just fit in the role. The king just happens to be black, the general just happens to be deaf, the pirate just happens to be blind, the queens are lesbian, which I don’t understand how they have a kid together in a world where technology isn’t established. I guess maybe some sort of  magic, maybe one of them is transgender but okay! It’s just well natural. It’s treated like a normal thing. 

The only bias thing here is just magic folk, more specifically the elves and creatures that are connected to magic vs humans.

Most of the characters in the Dragon Prince feel real, like they are people you will meet, including the villain somewhat. 

In fact, when you really think about it, the Dragon Prince does feel like an old 90s - early 00s show, because a lot of shows like Captain Planet, Avatar the Last Air Bender, Storm Hawks, among other kids action shows that did have diversity. The thing is we weren’t so into social justice stuff back then that maybe people just don’t realize it now. We had diversity in kids shows back then, with the exception of an open gay character, but I guess people just aren’t paying attention. 

What I say about this show being close to say Avatar or early shows is a good thing. It makes it feel less dated. Like you could watch this show years from now and not go “On this was from the mid to late 10s”. In fact, characters don’t even rely on slogans like some of the characters will say in She-Ra or talk like again “Best Friend Squad”. Okay, that’s not really a huge slogan but you get what you mean. 

Sometimes the Dragon Prince will get preachy like how Ezran will say all that is right about humans when Rayla does her human impression, but over all, it’s not in your face about the diversity. 

The only thing people may complain about is the lack of “diverse bodies” aka having a fat or “curvy” characters in it. I think there is only one character that I would say is on the chubby side and that’s one of the kings that Viren meets at the meeting, which I say, you’re talking about a show where most of the characters including the queens fight and know how to fight. Even if a fat or somewhat chubby or curvy character fights, they ‘re gonna lose most of that because that’s how your body burns calories. There’s a reason why if you want to lose pounds you exercise. It’s science and this show at least has some science to it’s lore! Well except, again I dunno how two queens make a baby but again, maybe one of them is trans and with no kind of surgery for that kind of thing, they still have all the male parts. Hey it’s still showing a lesbian relationship. The man becomes a woman so...that’s something! It’s showing a trans and lesbian relationship. Or maybe the girl is actually adopted, I dunno. It’s still treated as a normal thing and at least we actually do see the queens kiss so there’s something!

Another thing that kinda makes She-Ra 2018 a bit dated is the use of colors and animation. It uses the same kind of flash animation and colors that a lot of shows like Steven Universe and other cartoon network  and Disney channel shows tend to use. Not much of the animation makes it stand out or different from shows that use the same kind of style and pallets. That and there’s times where it’s clear the animation isn’t so good. The characters may not move as fluently as they need to move and some scenes look a bit incomplete.

Guys I know it’s hard to do animation but if a small team of animators making a youtube show, the Hazbin Hotel, can clean up on their animation and even without the clean up is still good, there’s no excuse. She-Ra’s animation crew work at Dreamworks, the same studio behind the How to Train Your Dragon series and Voltron! Shoot, the Dragon Prince isn’t even owned by a huge company and it still does better!

The Dragon Prince is set in a more mythological time period and the animation fits well into it. The use of lighting and colors as well as shading makes it feel like genuine. It still looks similar to shows say like Storm Hawks or other 3D action shows but it still has it’s own look and it’s a breath of fresh air to see a show have such beautiful colors and designs. The colors are can be light and pretty with shading to make it easier on your eyes as well as dark in grim when the scenes need to fit that tone.

So obviously, the Dragon Prince does win over She-Ra. If you disagree or think I’m a bit bias, okay. I grew up with wonderful animation such as Disney and Nickelodeon shows. I can’t help but like quality animated shows!

I also like to point out, though this isn’t a comparison, but since this is sort of my review of the show, I must say I really do like how smart the characters including the side characters are in the Dragon Prince. Most of the time in a story like this, the people will blindly follow the evil adviser, not realizing he did it, only to go against the villain at the end when the truth is found out. Here, that’s not the case. Even his own children start feeling odd about their father and most of the soldiers don’t like him nor want to do what he says. Many of the characters suspect Viren’s nature and even the kings and queens while at first want to go with Viren’s plan to group up for war, it’s only until the child queen (I sadly forgot her name) decides, even after the heartbreaking tale of how her parents died, feels that it’s pointless forcing her people to fight in a war where they are more likely to be killed, that the other royals follow beside her and go against the war. It’s done realistic. No one is just a plain idiot! People have their own thoughts and the series never fails to show how each individual feels.

In this day and age, we know that leaders are gonna have many followers and many enemies or people that don’t agree with them even under their reign. This makes sense and I like how this show handles that. Such a simple thing like that is what makes this show a breath of fresh air and why She-Ra doesn’t remotely hold a candle to it.

I may do a review of the show, a proper one and give it my full rating. So far, you I think highly of this show and as for She-Ra, I will continue to watch it as time goes on and when season 2 finally comes out, I’ll check it out. Maybe the later seasons will fix the problems I have or stay the same. It’s not a bad series but I’m gonna act like I don’t have problems with it. I’m not gonna pretend to like something more when the series that is obviously superior does better than it.

I will say this. How you relate to each one depends on you. Maybe you do find yourself relating to She-Ra’s characters and situations. If that’s true, more power to you. You may even say I’m wrong with how I explain things. I honestly, don’t care since most of the time I don’t read notes anyway but I’m not gonna tell you what to like or dislike. These are personal opinions. Nothing more, nothing less.

So that concludes that the Dragon Prince is the winner of Toon VS Toon Battle. Highly do recommend you check both series out as much as I think less of She-Ra, it’s good for at least one viewing so you can draw your own conclusions. Naturally, I highly recommend the Dragon Prince especially if you’re hugely into animated fantasy adventure series like Avatar the Last Air Bender, maybe Adventure Time, Storm Hawks and Legend of Korra.

I’m Tech! Seeya in the next review!

[aridara]

Verifying a list of “hateful feminist quotes”. (From S to Z + groups and anonymous individuals)

Final part of my rebuttal at all those lists that are supposed to show how feminism is evil, but in practice shows how anti-feminists rely on an extremely inaccurate (and, in some parts, deliberately lying) list.

"Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated."

Margaret Sanger

False.

"The most merciful thing a family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it."

Margaret Sanger, founder of planned parenthood

True, but extremely edited; not hateful. I’ve bolded the parts that anti-feminists didn't bother to include in the list:

"Thus we see that the second and third children have a very good chance to live through the first year. Children arriving later have less and less chance, until the twelfth has hardly any chance at all to live twelve months."

"This does not complete the case, however, for those who care to go farther into the subject will find that many of those who live for a year die before they reach the age of five."

"Many, perhaps, will think it idle to go farther in demonstrating the immorality of large families, but since there is still an abundance of proof at hand, it may be offered for the sake of those who find difficulty in adjusting old-fashioned ideas to the facts. The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it. The same factors which create the terrible infant mortality rate, and which swell the death rate of children between the ages of one and five, operate even more extensively to lower the health rate of the surviving members."

(Yeah, anti-feminists cut out a LOT.)

Also: she was talking about using birth control to deal with unwanted pregnancies. Not about using infanticide to kill already-born children.

“I do want to be able to explain to a 9-year-old boy in terms he will understand why I think it’s OK for girls to wear shirts that revel in their superiority over boys.”

– Treena Shapiro

Unverifiable.

“In general, I support a girl’s right to offend any member of the opposite sex who happens to cross her path. In fact, I’d much rather see a little girl wearing a shirt that mocks boys than one that turns them on.”

– Treena Shapiro

Also unverifiable. In fact, I think it's not even hateful at all: it points out a double standard where there's a lot of men's shirts that mock women, while a lot of women's shirt are designed to look "seductive" to men - and the reverse doesn't happen.

(Small diversion: while I tried to look for this quote's source, I found this ebook. The 2-3 pages I read sound like a book version of these "List of hateful feminist quotes" lists.)

[insert literally any quote from the SCUM Manifesto]

Valerie Solanas

I won't give a different rating to each individual quote, given how these kinds of lists tend to have many, many, so fucking many quotes from Solanas. I'll only give a general rating.

Usually, in these "hateful feminist quotes" lists, all of the Solanas quotes are true and hateful, and come from the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) manifesto she wrote in 1967. However, I’m doubtful that they count as “quote by a famous feminist”, considering that:

SCUM was never founded - it stopped at its manifesto;

Feminists’ opinion of SCUM at the time was divided between “What is wrong with you, Valerie?” and “This is satire in really bad taste”;

Feminists’ opinion of SCUM today is divided between “What is wrong with you, Valerie?” and “Who the hell is Valerie Solanas?”;

Absolutely nobody, feminist or not, condoned Solanas’ attack on Andy Warhol; and

Solanas's attack on Warhol wasn't motivated by her feminist beliefs.

“We are, as a sex, infinitely superior to men.”

– Elizabeth Cady Stanton

True, possibly hateful. But I want to point out something: this quote is from 1890. This is what anti-feminists believe modern feminism to be? Really? Haven’t they heard of how feminism isn’t a monolith, how there have been various discussions, schisms and revolutions during feminism's history, how there’s a lot of positions and criticism - oh, right, I forgot, feminism is evil and has always been the same since the dawn of time, duh. (# sarcasm)

“The more famous and powerful I get the more power I have to hurt men.”

- Sharon Stone; Actress

Almost 100% false. It also seems that Sharon either wasn’t a feminist during those years, or chose to not display her feminist beliefs back then. In either case, Sharon Stone cannot be considered a significantly important feminist by any stretch of the word.

"If the classroom situation is very heteropatriarchal--a large beginning class of 50 to 60 students, say, with few feminist students--I am likely to define my task as largely one of recruitment...of persuading students that women are oppressed,"

Professor Joyce Trebilcot of Washington University, as quoted in Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women.

Hm, this is an interesting one.

It’s unverifiable. Yes, AGAIN. No, it doesn’t count that it’s (supposedly) in Christina Sommers’ book “Who Stole Feminism” - she still needs to source the quote. As far as I can tell, Sommers mught've just made that quote up and falsely attributed it to Trebilcot.

Not only that, but the quote  looks like it has been truncated. Considering the level of this list, I’m quite suspicious every time I see some ellypsis.

By the way: Sommers? Really?

“Men are animals. Don’t you think so?”

– Ireen von Wachenfeldt, radical feminist leader in Sweden

True and hateful, apparently (given that she quoted SOOOLAAANAAASS). Here's the link to the Wikipedia page on her - you'll have to run it on Google Translate or similar, though.

On another note: of all the quotes in anti-feminists' lists of "hateful feminist quotes" that are actually hateful quotes, it's noticeable how many of those come from Solanas alone. It’s almost as if anti-feminists focus excessively on her, and use her as the base that forms their opinion of all feminists.

I wondered if the woman married to a pig had read this ... Did that mean that all over the globe, in all innocence, women were marrying beasts? ... Why are so many men really beasts? "

Jeanette Winterson "Oranges are Not the Only Fruit" 1993, pp.71 -76

Fictional. The novel is about a lesbian girl growing up in a Pentecostal community. At one point, various religious people from that same community take the main character and her girlfriend, and subject them to exorcism.

In response to a question concerning China’s policy of compulsory abortion after the first child, Molly Yard responded, “I consider the Chinese government’s policy among the most intelligent in the world”

(Gary Bauer, “Abetting Coercion in China,” The Washington Times, Oct. 10, 1989).

Unverifiable. There is no trace of the quote in the "Washington Times", but I think that I found the original source: the American Life League, an evidently anti-abortion group. You'll forgive me if I treat that source with all the respect it deserves.

...

We aren't done yet, though! Here's some more quotes from organizations or unknown individuals!

"We are taught, encouraged, moulded by and lulled into accepting a range of false notions about the family. As a source of some of our most profound experiences, it continues to be such an integral part of our emotional lives that it appears beyond criticism. Yet hiding from the truth of family life leaves women and children vulnerable."

Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women.

Unverifiable and not hateful. It sounds like they’re talking about how a lot of assumptions and myths about “proper” families have lead women to believe that abuse is a “normal” part of a relationship.

MALE: represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants...the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female.

MAN: an obsolete life form... an ordinary creature who needs to be watched...a contradictory baby-man...

TESTOSTERONE POISONING: ... ‘Until now it has been though that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from "testosterone poisoning."

From 'A Feminist Dictionary; ed. Kramarae & Triechler, Pandora Press, 1985

Unverifiable. The book DOES exist. What does NOT exist, is scans of it. Nor are there extensive citations of it - the only ones around are the same ones anti-feminists uses, same ellipsis and all. And, frankly, whoever first wrote this list has done such a sloppy job fact-checking this list that, by this point, I don’t trust them if they said that the sky is blue.

"Women have their faults- men have only two: everything they say and everything they do."

Popular Feminist Graffiti

Goddammit. Yet ANOTHER joke from a collection of jokes. No indication whatsoever this was from a feminist.

"Men, as a group, tend to be abusive, either verbally, sexually or emotionally. There are always the exceptions, but they are few and far between (I am married to one of them). There are different levels of violence and abuse and individual men buy into this system by varying degrees. But the male power structure always remains intact."

Message on FEMISA, responding to a request for arguments that men are unnecessary for a child to grow into mature adulthood.

Oh, now you’re just grasping at straws - misattributed. This quote is not from the FEMISA staff; it's from an e-mail sent to FEMISA. Come on - I thought this was a list of hateful quotes from *relevant* feminists - not from any random anon down the street!

"Clearly you are not yet a free-thinking feminist but rather one of those women who bounce off the male-dominated, male-controlled social structures. Who cares how men feel or what they do or whether they suffer? They have had over 2000 years to dominate and made a complete hash of it. Now it is our turn. My only comment to men is, if you don't like it, bad luck - and if you get in my way I'll run you down."

Letter to the editor, signed: "Liberated Women", Boronia Herald-Sun, Melbourne, Australia - 9 February 1996

Unverifiable. Once again, the only places where this quote pops up are lists of “hateful feminist quotes”. And judging by the quality of this list, that isn’t nearly enough.

“The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist”

(National NOW Times, January, 1988).

Unverifiable (supposedly written in 1988). There’s a lot of citations for this particular quote (many from copies of this list), but no image of the original.

“We identify the agents of our oppression as men…….ALL MEN HAVE OPPRESSED WOMEN…..We do not need to change ourselves, but to change men……The most slanderous evasion of all is that women can oppress men.”

–The Redstockings Manifesto

True, but out of context. Once again, anti-feminists have deliberately cut out various parts of the original manifesto. Here's the full quote (the bolded parts are the ones anti-feminists cut out):

"III    We identify the agents of our oppression as men.  Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domination.  All other forms of exploitation and oppression (racism, capitalism, imperialism, etc.) are extensions of male supremacy: men dominate women, a few men dominate the rest.  All power structures throughout history have been male-dominated and male-oriented.  Men have controlled all political, economic and cultural institutions and backed up this control with physical force.  They have used their power to keep women in an inferior position.  All men receive economic, sexual, and psychological benefits from male supremacy. All men have oppressed women."

"IV    Attempts have been made to shift the burden of responsibility from men to institutions or to women themselves.  We condemn these arguments as evasions.  Institutions alone do not oppress; they are merely tools of the oppressor.  To blame institutions implies that men and women are equally victimized, obscures the fact that men benefit from the subordination of women, and gives men the excuse that they are forced to be oppressors.  On the contrary, any man is free to renounce his superior position, provided that he is willing to be treated like a woman by other men."

"We also reject the idea that women consent to or are to blame for their own oppression. Women's submission is not the result of brain-washing, stupidity or mental illness but of continual, daily pressure from men.  We do not need to change ourselves, but to change men."

"The most slanderous evasion of all is that women can oppress men.  The basis for this illusion is the isolation of individual relationships from their political context and the tendency of men to see any legitimate challenge to their privileges as persecution."

So, to sum it up:

Systemic sexism is caused by men.

All men benefit from this oppressive system.

Various people have tried to shift the blame for systemic sexism on "the institutions", which wrongly implies that both men and women are equally affected by sexism, and that men have no choice but to act as oppressors.

Various people have also tried to shift the blame on women, falsely claiming that sexism exists because women deliberately "consent" to be subjected to sexism.

Various people fail to see sexism as a systemic problem; instead, they wrongly paint it as a collection of individual acts that have no relation with each other.

When an oppressive system is challenged, the privileged group does not see that as "the dismantling of an unjust system"; instead, it sees that as "unjust persecution, and an attempt to upturn equality".

This is pretty accurate, and isn't hateful.

“We regard our personal experience, and our FEELINGS about that experience, as the basis for an analysis of our common situation. We cannot rely on existing ideologies as they are all the products of male supremicist culture.”

– The Redstockings Manifesto

True, but not hateful. Oh, no, feminists dare to talk about all their personal experiences about sexism and how they feel about it; and they also dare to reject existing sexist explanations of why sexist gender roles are just "natural". How dare they.

Also, why is "feelings" in all-caps like that? Is this the usual jab that women are emotional and therefore "inferior" to the logical men? Because that jab is shit.

FMS stands for: Full of Mostly (Bull) shit; For More Sadism; Felons, Murdereres, Ssumballs; Frequent Molesters Society

From a February 1995 handout at the "Stone Angels" satanic ritual abuse conference in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. The conference was supported financially by the Ontario Government

Unverifiable. And frankly too ridiculous to be true.

"All men are good for is fucking, and running over with a truck".

Statement made by A University of Maine Feminist Administrator, quoted by Richard Dinsmore, who brought a successful civil suit against the University in the amount of a $600,000.1995 settlement Richard had protested the quote; was dismissed thereafter on the grounds of harassment; and responded by bringing suit against the University..

Unverifiable. It IS true that Dinsmore sued the university due to, in his own words, “man-hating feminists”; HOWEVER, there’s no mention of the quote itself.

"Masculine sexuality involves the oppression of women, competition among men, and fear of homosexuality." "Rape is the end logic of masculine sexuality." "Male sexuality is negative."

Introductory texts for Women's Studies Courses at UCLA including: "More Power than We Want: Masculine Sexuality and Violence" by

Bruce Kokopeli and George Lakey [Cited in TNV]

Unverifiable.

And that’s it. The VAST MAJORITY of quotes are either not-hateful once we actually see the context (and paste back all the parts that anti-feminists censored behind ellypsis); or, their origin cannot be verified (and therefore we can’t be sure whether they actually came from feminists). Some quotes came from works of fiction and were spoken by fictional characters; they aren’t statements that the author personally made and supported. Of the remaining quotes that are both verified and hateful, a GIANT chunk of them is comprised entirely of Valerie Solanas - which isn’t held in much regard by modern feminists. In fact, I’m pretty sure many don’t even know about her.

[kiefbowl]

you feel like this man understands you better than anyone else, but it seems what he understands is how dangerous he is to you. there's nothing to only understanding someone's damage. and now you wonder about damaging yourself, maybe so you'll understand him more; don't. if you know you're too kind to fully get away from him then talk about it to someone, so that there'll be someone to stop you. it's serious, you'll end up killing yourself. don't kill yourself over a man who mostly knows (1/2)

“how to make you self-destruct. there are people who can help him, and you shouldn't be one of them, because you would hurt yourself for him. don't try to "get" him. in the end he will be a small dent in your life, you can't imagine that because the light is too bright now, but please don't lose yourself for a man that's already lost. (2/2)”No I know. I have a therapist. The truth is he sent me an email. Just two small emails a week ago Saturday that said sorry about what he called me to Natalie (a friend, I have no idea what he’s talking about) and that he’d make it up to me if he could. I wasn’t going to answer but then later that night I responded I need time, leave me alone. And then it was itching my mind, and then Wednesday my friends said some stupid shit. They didn’t mean to, but they were tactless in public about it. It’s hard to explain it just started escalating while I sat there dumbfounded that they would just causally start talking about something that was literally like, traumatic to me? And it scratch the itch and my the itch bigger and this weekend like an I D I O T I send him an email. A long rambling email where I told him if he reaches out, it’s harder for me to want to stay away, and I want to stay away because it’s the right thing because he’s dangerous to me and also because that’s what he wants me to do, but at the same time I don’t want him to stay away because it doesn’t feel right. It was basically a plea to leave me alone for my own sake, because it wouldn’t take much for him to get me alone tbh. And that was Sunday morning. And I pressed send, and I was like “woo, I feel better. It was dumb but he’s never going to respond and now the words are out.” But that’s not what happened. I started obsessively checking my emails AGAIN after I got over that. It’s literally the only way he can contact me now and my therapist was like “block his email” and I was like “yeah yeah” and I haven’t. And it makes me sick to my stomach how much I want him to reach out again, when I know it’s never what I’m going to expect. So that rambling post was me taking out frustrations. I’m not going to go find some meth. But I know he was right. He’s a danger to me because maybe I would try it with him. I was so convinced I would never, and all he had to say was “yeah you would” and it like pulled some wool from my eyes. That I sought out this dangerous man in the first place, he knows something true about me that my well meaning friends don’t. I remember the day that conversation happened that I went and told a friend and started saying how he told me he thought I would try meth and she cut me off and said “oh my god but you never would” like he was a jerk for saying it, and I hadn’t even said that he said it like a warning, and I wanted to tell her how it actually sounded true. When I told my therapist, he nodded and was like “well, I’ve seen many many many people try drugs because they’re around someone who does them. He’s probably seen people try it after saying they wouldn’t” and it was like a relief. I didn’t go through a normal break up with a normal person, and it’s really altered something in me and most of the people in my life aren’t really equipped to help me. I’ve had a few people reach out to me who have experienced something similar, losing someone to meth or heroine, having to deal with a sudden break up with them or even a slow painful one. They understand the complex feelings, the weird pain it causes. You just wish this person would just stop, and they can’t and you know they can’t but you ache for them even when they have hurt you. He lied and belittled me. He also stayed away more than you would expect, or that my therapist led me to believe. I think he wants the right thing for me more than the wrong thing. And it’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t seen a person descent into meth, but it’s freaky. They talk in coherent sentences that don’t make sense. When they’re high they’re manic and fucked and mean and loving it, when they’re coming down they’re bizarre and disjointed and confused and nervous, when they’re craving they’re harsh and raw and in pain and desperate. It’s like talking to a waterfall, it’s like talking to someone who says all their words backwards. It’s not fun. How do you explain to someone who’s never seen it and wants you to stay away because they love you and they know he’s bad for you? How do you say “he’s turning himself into something inhuman, someone has to help him” and there response is somewhere between “let him he’s garbage” and “this is just who he is” with a mix of “you’re just frustrated you can’t help him.” Yeah no shit. I’m not letting him destroy his life, I’m living with the knowledge that he already is. It fucking HURTS. Sometimes I just want to talk about it. I want to talk about how it hurts as a human being, not as former lover. But it’s ok, I have coping mechanisms now. I have a therapist. I’m keeping the scary shit away from the people who aren’t equipped to help me and saving it for my therapist who can. I write all this, as embarrassing as it is, to admit between funny post about pussy and weed, that I’m still deeply hurting for a meth addict man who is just a laundry list of “how could you date this person if you’re into radical feminism,” so that I can maybe help even one person. I don’t know what, to validate their feelings, or articulate them, or give them a warning. Don’t do it. Don’t date him or her. Meth is as bad as they say, and it’s not in small ways. It’s in big over your head ways. You can’t know unless you see it, and seeing it is really, really traumatic. It’s really scary, it really flips your world on the side. You can learn about yourself in other ways. Tumblr is the easiest thing in my life. It’s easy to open tumblr and write funny posts. It’s easy, it requires no effort or care. I don’t care about tumblr. So when it’s like a switch and I use it to just ramble feelings out, I don’t care. I don’t care even its embarrassing: guys I’m healing from a traumatic break up with a meth addict. It fucked me up a little. Thanks for sticking around when I get weird about it.Your ask was important and it shows understanding and care, and I appreciate it. I’m going to be fine. I’m already ok in so many ways. It’s just that it isn’t a straight line, so when it bubbles up again I’m frustrated. You’re right that he’s right that I’m right about what he’s right about. He’s dangerous, he knows he’s dangerous. Honestly, if I ever tried meth and he found out I’m sure he would be furious. Can you believe that? Like a father would. That’s how I feel. I’m furious he’s killing himself slowly. But he was that person long before me. That’s why he knows and that’s why he’s gone. That’s why there are one thousand walls between us now. It’s better this way.

[contempoyanna]

PPF Events (Past-Present-Future)

No matter who and what you are, there are certain happenings that happened in this world that may have affected the way we live right now. It does not really matter if we were alive at the time it happened, it still affects us. Have you ever thought about that? Ever thought about why the society you are living in has these certain standards, these methods, and issues? What may have influenced them or caused them to be as is? Well, you may have not but I have. 

PPF Events, as I would like to call it, are global occurrences that, in my opinion, affected the life I am living right now; events that happened before I was even formed in my mother’s uterus, as I was growing up (and experiencing the awkwardness during puberty - yikes) and, of course, those that might have (unknowingly) an impact on my future. 

With that, let me just start discussing these events that live rent-free in my mind, what they are, when (a bit of how) they happened and why I think it affects me.

Might wanna grab a snack and a cup of coffee while you read this, it’s going to be a while yeah.  

Let’s start with the 1800s...

(photo: https://www.coveyclub.com/blog_posts/seneca-falls-convention-feminism/)

Feminism is one of the most known movements for women empowerment and gender equality. 

Not even my parents were alive when this happened.

As I grew up and discovered more about this, I realized that the reason why women nowadays are slowly (but surely) being recognized as equals to men is because of a movement that happened by the 19th century (19th right?) and in New York - further proves that America was indeed a land of opportunity.  Now, before I discuss why I think it affected me, let me clarify something. Feminism aka Women’s Rights Movement is meant to fight for equality, for women to be recognized as an equal to men. It is not meant to say that women are superior yet it is meant to say that women should be equal to men.

Some of you may not be aware but feminism has four waves, and in this post I am referring to the first wave that happened July 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York City. 

It was THE conference that had 300 women discussing what their rights are socially, civil and religious. From what I have read, it was a fruitful meeting (well it wasn’t successful but it was somewhat fruitful). It was concluded with a long, long list of male-centric laws that demean a women’s self-esteem and self-respect. TLDR; These laws exclude women’s rights (to which I say no <3). 

This wave was the foundation of how women today can walk freely and proudly say that they deserve the same rights to be respected and equally acknowledge their strengths as done to men. These were the women who encouraged and influenced many of us that we are not just to depend and be abject to our ‘partner’, we are more than that.

We are women, humans that deserve to be respected, to have civil rights and to be more than just a “wife”.  

Interested? You can read more here Senaca Falls Convention & The Women’s Rights Movements.

1991′s Pinatubo Eruption

(photo: https://globalnation.inquirer.net/100047/filipinos-pinatubo-photo-named-among-greatest-of-all-time)

Pretty sure almost everyone, well at least every Filipino and neighboring countries, know about this event that was proclaimed as one of the greatest eruptions of all time. It was always taught during history -how unforgettable June 15,1991 is - because of its global reach and impact. 

In fact, it was so great that the fumes it released changed global climates, causing some to drop a few degrees of the normal temperature and Asian countries to have a temporary shift in their rain patterns.

Why do I think this affected me? Well, I am a person of this Earth thus what affects the Earth affects me too.  See, before Mount Pinatubo, global warming (I’m sure almost everyone of us is aware of this matter) has been a concern by many scientists and environmentalists alike. As many of the articles (although I only referenced the one I based on the most) I have read stated, for 60 - 70 years, the global temperatures continue to rise because of the emission of greenhouse gases.

The eruption of Mount Pinatubo injected particles (fumes?) of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere which decreased the global temperatures for two (2) years, approximately. This event further proved that humans were - and still are - the main contributor to the continuous climate change and global warming we are experiencing.

 TLDR; This global occurrence further proved that we are the ones destroying our home. It affects me, as it affects you, because what affects the Earth should affect us.

Want to know more? Read here: Pinatubo 25 Years Later 

How about events as I was growing up?

#METOO Movement - 2006

(photo: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/08/challenge-of-archiving-the-metoo-movement/)

If you frequented on Twitter during 2016 and late 2017, you might be familiar with #MeToo. 

Originally founded by Tarana Burke through using the phrase “me too” in MySpace (that’s something I haven’t heard in a long time), she thought of a way to help sexual crime victims and, at the same time, make people all over the world aware of how much of an impact sexual harassment has on the victim.

#MeToo movement aims to make aware how common sexual harassment, abuse and violence is through victims sharing their own experiences thus letting them know they are not alone.

How has this affected me? Well, personally I have been one who has experienced sexual harassment in (dare I say) minimal forms. Such as being catcalled, or even being sexually assaulted while commuting in public transpo.

Most sexual harassment or sexual assault victims find it hard to confess what had been done to them because of the different norms in their society, however the #MeToo movement tells you that you are not alone. That your voice should be heard, because you are not wrong. You were the one wronged.

Especially with how conservative our society is, where they usually blame the victim for how they dress or how they act which resulted to them being harassed or assaulted rather than the offender, it is a huge relief that there are people who would be there to fight for you in a way that you cannot for yourself.

Read more: Understanding the Me Too movement: A Sexual Harassment Awareness Guide.

2013′s Typhoon Haiyan

(photo: Manila Bulletin)

Here in the Philippines, Typhoon Haiyan is better known as “Yolanda” and to many of us (including my family) this has been one of the most traumatizing experience out of all the typhoons our country has experienced.  Although our experience is not as bad as those in Tacloban, Leyte, it certainly was not the best either. Our place has never really been flooded - not even during Ondoy - but during Yolanda, flood washed into our house that we had to stay upstairs until it went down. 

You would see debris, garbage and even some swimming rats. In addition to that, the strong winds could be felt and the loud thunder, followed by a bright lightning strike. It really was a scene that I would never forget. How much more to those who lost their family, their home, their source of income? Did this affect my life? Yes, greatly I can say. How? It opened my eyes to a lot of things. 

First, was how unready we, as a country, were when calamities like this strike us. One would think that we would be prepared since our country is prone to strong typhoons such as this, yet we are not.

Other than that, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the typhoon was caused by human-induced climate change which is also a by-product of global warming. Add to that, the never ending garbage everywhere that we cannot seem to solve.  

As I have said earlier, what affects the Earth, affects me. In this case, it directly affected me and my ‘kapwa’ Filipino, endangering thousands of lives and destroying a whole island’s worth of homes.  

Read more:  2013 Typhoon Haiyan: Facts, FAQs, and how to help &  UN: ‘Yolanda’ tops extreme events of 2013

Events that will (greatly) affect me in the future? 

2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic

(photo: https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-during-emergencies/food-safety-and-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19)

None of us expected to spend our 2020 this way, but here we are. Stuck indoors because of a virus that has yet been cured or found an effective (and safe) vaccine. 

Pretty sure a lot of us are affected with this pandemic, especially our futures. For students like us, you are either affected by this because you have to struggle in online classes (and in our country, trust me that’s a challenge) or due to personal matters, you would be taking a leap year from school or university. 

For adults, like our parents, this has really been an event that has been heavy on financial load and struggling to spend money for our everyday needs. Especially since a lot of companies laid off on their employees due to economic circumstances and for the sake of the company itself. 

I cannot say for sure, whether this pandemic has a good or bad effect on my future, but I can say that it is an experience that taught me a lot of things on how to handle difficult situations and gave me a rough idea on what I would be dealing with as a doctor in the near future. 

Development of Nanotechnology 

(photo: https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/comment/nanotechnology-medicine-technology/)

Nanotechnology sounds like something that came out of a sci-fi book but I’m telling you, it’s real. Various fields are developing ways to maximize this especially in the field of medicine.

What it is and how does it work you may ask? 

This technology uses physics and molecular chemistry elements as a foundation, forming a functional system with unique characteristics that is engineered at a molecular level and occurs at nanoscale. 

There are many applications of it as of today (in different industries too) yet what fascinates me the most is that nanotechnology may be one of the methods to cure cancer and prevent other diseases if properly utilized by medicine. 

You may have noticed that I am focusing on the applications of nanotech in medicine but that is because I am going to be part of the medicinal field sometime in the future - which is basically why I’m biased.

Going back, according to the National Nanotechnology Initiative of the U.S., gold nanoparticles are currently being researched and clinically trialed as a potential treatment for all kinds of illnesses (especially terminal ones like cancer). Add to that, nanotechnology is to thank for the improved imaging and diagnostic tools we have that help in early diagnosis, individualized treatments and better success rates - therapeutically.

As promising as it sounds, keep in mind that it is a fairly young and new scientific discovery so it is bound to have many faults. However, as we age, technology also advances and improves its many faults along the way - for example, Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and other robotic mechanisms.

Thus, I do believe that the discovery of this certain technology has a great impact not only on my future, but, as someone who will be working in the medicinal field, also the future of medicine itself. 

Here’s a few articles that will inform you about nanotechnology in medicine: 

The Future of Nanotechnology in Medicine, Benefits and Applications of Nanotechnology & Nanotechnology in Medicine: Technology Trends

In conclusion?

The world continue to advance towards (hopefully) better things. In my lifetime, these are some of the events that I believe made a great impact on my life. 

I am pretty sure that we all have different global events that continuously affect the way we live, the way we are as a person. 

Looking at it on another perspective, these occurrences may be a lesson for the future generation. A reference of what to do and what NOT to do (especially with how our government handled this pandemic). 

How about you? What PPF events made an impact in your life? 

[mytherapistthinksiamfunny]

Remember The Titans and Black Lives Matter

I learned American History from Hollywood films and pop culture during the Bush Administration. 

My 6th grade teacher was horrified to see my potential wasting away on the frivolity of Based on True Event sport blockbusters and Remakes of Dystopian Nightmares, Sarcastic Teeny Bop Melodramas. 

Or, worse, the Hippy Dippy Nonsense genres that encouraged the youth to remain ignorant Sheeple With A Death Wish like Jackass or Gossip Girl

Despite how that sounds, he wasn’t a condescending prick. He was a good man with very high standards for media that he came off as a snob. Because he was. A snob. With so much nerd rage. That’s what made us bond.

You see, I’m a snob too. I had to be. I am the daughter of immigrants. And I grew up during the Bush Administration. 

I grew up during a time of Prop 187, El Nino, El Morro, Thalia Y Tomy Motola y el secuestro, Pasale Paisano, anti-Cuba sentiment, Fake News, Columbine, Hanging Chads, 9/11/01, Pseudo-Fascism, WMDs, Jingoism, Patriot Acts, They’re Gonna Follow Us Home, Shakira, Katrina, George W Bush Hates White People Kanye Scandal, Militia, NRA Guantanamo, Dixie Chicks, A Day Without A Mexican, Selena the Movie, El CHupacabra, End of the American Dream, Once In A Lifetime Breaking News TRL Britney Once In A Lifetime Civil Unrest Breaking News Breaking News Narco Corridos Breaking News Miramax Breaking News Anthrax Breaking News Marylin Manson, Las Hijas De Juarez, Eugenio Derbez, La Escuelita,  Los Tigeres Del Norte, Los Tucanes De Tijuana, Napster, Metallica Some Kind of Monster, Bono, Apple, Pixar, MySpace, AIM, new tech every 6 months, cell phones, Reggeaton, Walter Mercado Primer Impacto, American Idol,

To boot, I am the daughter of immigrants. Who were hyper-Catholic. And narcissists. And abusive. And alcoholics. Who were allergic to stability, progress, open-mindedness, or anything conducive to raising children in a global crisis. 

So I had to be selective about the media that I consumed. Because my mother was a Batman Villain, my paternal-figure was a reluctant father unwilling to abandon his fuckboi ways for his family, and my brother and I were left to our own devices to figure out how to raise ourselves and our parents. We sucked at it. And years later we are paying for trying.

So, while navigating the highs and lows of our own puberty-induced hormonal roller coaster, we had to think quick and raise our 2nd-adolescence shit show of a parental unit.

We were parentalized. I didn’t know it at the time, but that is what happened to us.

What I did know at the time is that I needed to figure out how to live. Come up with a division of labor within the family unit and ensure that everyone played their role. You know, like the mother typically does.

And in order to play my role, I had to be studious of this different culture. Not just American culture. Not just teen culture. Not just Mexican culture. But all of them. Somehow, I had to find a way to navigate life. Since the age of 9 years old.

It’s exhausting having to be the adult of the house. I did not have a chance to be a child. Or matter to anyone. So I learned to matter to myself.

I learned not to trust anyone to be part of my support system because the people who were supposed to show me what that looked like were emotionally unavailable. And they stubbornly refused to divorce because that would mean they had failed their culture and religion and would be ostracized from the communities made of individuals they hated but stubbornly worked to impress and fit into.

And that meant that I befriended a strange array of really awesome people who made me feel seen and heard and understood. Like this Santa Clause-looking white dude with a motorcycle fetish and a kind touch with prepubescent girls with culture shock and daddy issues. Best of all, he was genuine. And sweet. And not at all inappropriate with children. That’s not sarcasm. He was not inappropriate with me or anyone else that I knew of. He truly was a great teacher.

Which is why I tried to keep in touch with him long after 6th grade. He was a computer nerd and introduced me to the wonder of the internet. And internet humor. And being opinionated. He was my Big Guy Bow Tie.

His opinion meant so much to me and I wanted to please him so badly.

And not once did he cross a line that would make it harder for me to thrive and move past the other trauma I was being exposed to. 

How sad that I feel compelled to reiterated that he never diddled me. Sad for his reputation and sad that I have come to terms with how vulnerable I was to predators. 

He was a real one.

I knew that my feelings were not normal in the broader sense of the word. But I understood that it was all I had to work with  and make magic with it. So I figured out that I would have to be very guarded and selective with my time, effort, and social circle. Which often meant I was the smart young adult in a group of what I thought were sophisticated adults but were really ghost of my future if I did not get past my daddy issues in a healthy way.

By the time I got to high school, I was the weird kid

I had no idea how I got there. But I had to figure out how to follow my passion without wasting my potential.

My passion is art. Specifically, music. But in general? Art. Books, Poetry. Knowledge.

And because that wasn’t complicated enough: I was discovering my own sexuality. 

And the first born first generation Mexican American with hyper Catholic parents.

I may as well have come out as a supporter of the Axis of Evil

They would never understand that I was ACTUALLY part of the Axis of Awesome

They would not understand. It would be lost in translation

So I had to learn to be silent with my truth. Forever hiding in the shadows and wondering when my life might begin

It began when I learned that the library was my escape. That I could learn about anything I wanted with very basic tools and that my ingenuity would get me far

But what does any of this have to do with Remember The Titans? Or Black Lives Matter?

Well... everything.

Because in addition to my parents being old fashioned and abusive, they were also closet racists. I had to teach myself not to ingrain their prejudices as I trusted them to keep me alive. I had to walk a very fine line between Daddy’s Girl and Daddy Issues. A fine line between Mommy’s Little Princess and Mother Knows Best and No The Fuck You Don’t.

And I managed to do that with the renaissance of black content creators in the early 2000s. Remember the Titans was a favorite of mine. 

Little did I know

I was teaching myself to experience different cultures without appropriating them. I found what I was into and I immersed myself in it.

But I hid it. I silenced my opinions and tried to keep the peace. For the sake of my family.

That did not work. Shocking.

But I was left with the realization that even though my effort was wasted with my nuclear war of a family, I learned valuable lessons that I taught myself. Including that Black Lives Matter, anyone who has trouble acknowledging that needs to grow the fuck up and learn something cause we’re running out of time and ain’t nobody got time for ignorance an fear with a mad man in the white house.

And I don’t want to miss out on my life simply because I come from dysfunction and am constantly playing catch-up to understand what normal is and how to achieve it

I am not alone in this. I come from a generation of American children who learned to cope with complex issues of race, politics, satire, drugs, over-medication. self-medication, financial irresponsibility, weaponized faith and ignorance. It was the dawn of the age of the Basket of Deplorables. And Millenials were caught in the crossfire. I was caught. And I learned. Black. Lives. Matter. Women have voices and opinions that matter and a feminine point of view is crucial to the success of any business endeavor. I taught myself feminism and  committed to its intersectionality before I knew it may be a word the dictionary I owned was missing. I learned that words matter because language has power. I tasted the crispness of that juicy apple from the tree of knowledge. And I wanted to marinate in its juices until i was good and goddamn ready to be tasted and known myself.

Oh yeah, I learned my Daddy Issues manifest themselves in a need to sexually please emotionally unavailable men.

So I chose as wisely as I could. You know, what with the inmates running the asylum 

But my god am I into drummers! And linebackers! And Cheating Ass Marine  Motherfuckers With Secret Families in Portland who Ghost a Bitch Just When She’s About to Fall!!!

My picker is off. I learned that phrase from Loveline. Another resource in my quest to exist in my natural state

Having to twist myself into a pretzel to please the un-pleasable was unsuccessful. 

So I stopped and focused on my real family. My chosen family. Those who care if I live, die, have food and rent money, and ask me to text them when I get home so they know I am safe. Those people. My people. I go hard for them. And they are various heights, weight-classes, political affiliations, complexions. because I learned that black lives matter. As well as Asian American Lives. And Migrant Lives. And Femme Lives. And LGBTQIA+ Lives. In essence, ALL LIVES MATTER INCLUDING BLACK LIVES. Because life is too hard in it’s natural state to be excluding people from We The People. Because the America I Still Believe in does not allow for any of this maga shit to stand

Because we need to be allies for each other against the real danger to this country. 

Internalized Systemic Racism and how it has been exploited to separate the working classes in a strict divide down socio-economic boundaries that are not easily crossable. This phenomenon is often called a glass ceiling. Minorities are particularly affected. But that doesn’t mean that all white people are to blame or responsible or immune. You see, I’ve read the Handmaid’s Tale. 

And while everyone is looking at the Scarlet Robe of the Handmaids and the Serene Teal of the Wives, no one looks at the EconoWives. Wife Trash, I suppose.

Much like the Titans’ football season. High school seniors in a recently-desegregated town. Sounds like the plot of a Disney movie or a Based On True Events TV movie

Gee... I can’t imagine why I related to this...

But I did and I learned from it. I learned that it takes effort to make a champion. And it is not accomplished alone. And while the odds may be ever against you

You have to decide what matters to you. And if that is football, you listen to your brothers on the team and keep your circle small.

And if that is closet-cases that fear for their safety when outed

And if that is a mother at 9 years old because that is how old you were when you realized you were more emotionally intelligent than your own pathetic excuse for a mother who is really a batman villain who you will later turn into if you don’t watch out for the stalker tendencies now and your fuckboi father who still cheats on your mother because this is a pity marriage that neither of them are ready to end even though everyone would be better off, especially your brother who is a precious little squish but being psychologically handicapped by the Stephen King Novel raising him and who is so much like you but you won’t know that for several years because you’re just a child and what do you know what normal is or is not supposed to feel like...

Then that’s just what the fuck it means.

My therapist asked me how I’m doing in 2020 with my depression and the isolation and what I think about the protests.

Like if the logic behind the protests was up for debate. Or if it was a political statement rather than a statement of human compassion and empathy to say that 

Black

Lives

Matter.

I guess she hasn’t seen Remember the Titans

[jmkitsune]

I love star wars and this post WILL contain many spoilers to the sagas. I’ll try my best to limit them but many will have to be discussed. As they pertain to The Last Jedi. I apologize now, if you wish to avoid them- dip now. It will be a trap :D

those who know me would probably say I breathe star wars more than air sometimes...well in times that I go off about it, they probably think if star wars was not to exist I’d simply blink out...maybe let’s not find out please.

However with the new sequels a LOT of my friends had, to my surprise, kept on me about wanting to talk about the Last Jedi. I hadn’t seen it by the time they all had due to different reasons so they all were desperately saying how badly they wanted me to see it. They “needed to talk about it with me” some said, others simply were hella curious with my “love for the series, how did it hold up in MY point of view”

This is a new feeling, being the token star wars fan in my group is normal but this idea of my love for it being something that meant friends who normally aren’t into it or would just LET me talk about it then move on was now replaced with “Hey...TALK ABOUT IT WITH US”

Mind you...this post is like scratching the sruface so it’s not gonna encompass allll my thoughts, that’d take WAY WAY too long so yeah.... strap in I’m calculating the jump to “holy fuck JM is a nerd”

I say this- all of this is over the time of me watching all that I can about star wars, reading all the material I’ve read and accepting the OLD CANON is gone, it’s legends now. The NEW CANON is what it is, I love both equally and accept that Legends is that- LEGEND, what gets recycled will be, the rest...well won’t be.

Alrighty so- I remember being 16 or 17 and hearing that Lucas viewed the OT and Prequels as Poetry, he wanted there to be Rhyme scheme in the movies, which you can see in this video (this one includes new trilogy and Rogue one) 

see, when I learned that, I wasn’t smart as I am now in terms of writing/story telling. I was just some high schooler who wanted to write something LIKE STAR WARS and be able to create that feeling that Lucas gave me everytime I saw those opening crawls, heard a lightsaber ignite, the sound of an X-wing opening it’s s-foils, hearing Luke say “I’m a Jedi, like my father before me.” etc

Now that I’m older, have experience more in writing, experience in critiquing and not simply LOVING for the sake of loving without having a critical eye I see where flaws are in the movies. Every story has flaws. DEAL WITH IT. What I started to see what this poetry finally. I mean this in a different way than people might expect me to mean. I finally understood why certain scenes were shot the way they were, it wasn’t “oh hey that looks familiar, its a coincidence.” no it was intentional. It was meant as a callback/throwback/etc, it’s done to inspire this feeling of “Hey, in a galaxy far away- didn’t something like this happen?” it evokes the feeling that whatever scene it reminds you of evoked.

When Luke loses his hand, you feel the same feeling as when Anakin loses part of his arm. When you see Star Killer base for the first time, it’s meant to draw the same momentary feeling you got when you FIRST see the death star. Not a “oh another super weapon” but “oh. My. Gods...that is huge.” cause remember the preivew for Rogue One? The star destroyer coming out of the shadow of the Death Star, that looked big as a ship right? Then the camera pans out and you see the dish being installed and then see the SAME STAR DESTROYER LOOKING TINY...the scale was done perfectly. It created a reaction in us. A feeling of being small, insignificant next to that technological terror, right?

Now discussing why I loved Episode 8 (even with it’s flaws) I draw heavily on this poetry in star wars.

Star wars is supposed to be poetic, each stanza (trilogy) mirroring but differing from the one before it. (the following three things will be generalized and brief but I’ll expand as Igo, don’t worry.)

Prequels- a gilded age, corruption abound, Jedi in their prime, undermined by a single Sith who was RIGHT THERE, heavy tech vs nature esque war (clones of biologically human vs droids) and the fall of a young man who was given too much responsibility too young and in his attempt to save those he loved, destroyed all he had thought he'd love in his childhood due to seeing that the Jedi (his heroes) were not really what he imagined they'd be (he saw holy warriors of GOODNESS) only to find, closed minded arrogant corupt and well frankly inept council of monks who turn on their own code when it meant "destroying the sith"

Original Trilogy- gritty war for good vs evil, the evil so...sterile, white and male vs a rag tag/dirty femine lead rebellion, technological terror's vs natural force powers, a father being redeemed by his son who refused to only see the bad like others did, and that bringing of balance. Anakin had destroyed the Jedi Order in his original fall, leaving only Two Jedi (Yoda/Obi wan) and when they died it left 2 sith vs Luke, and in the end to save Luke- he destroyed the last two Sith- Palpatine and himself- allowing only balance. Luke someone who was neither Jedi/Sith, he was...a Jedi LIKE his father who sought balance

New Trilogy- complacency has lead to not only corruption again but the return of said sterile white male dominated evil threatening the peace of a more nurturing New Republic, the heroes of old brittle and fallen from grace due to the weight of what they did in their past being HEAVY and the new gen "meeting their heroes" only to realize, heroes are simply people that made hard choices and do the right thing, making them now heroes to many to come

notice how some things from the prequels made it to the OT? The New trilogy? And some things in the OT happened also in the first and third trilogies? There is not an ABAB rhyme scheme, its more free verse but there is still a scheme in there. It happens subtly and in ways that flow naturally (Even if they are intentionally constructed rhymes)

Now we come to the “villains” each trilogy gave us, let’s see the rhymes there.

Prequels-

Darth Maul-

the Rage, the unbridled hatred for the Jedi. His arrival signified the Jedi’s flawed sight. His combat with Qui Gon and Obi Wan challenged many things, it challenged the viewers in light of “we didn’t know bad Jedi could do this?! (he was the first to carry a double sided saber) he was so acrobatic, he was young he was GOOD with a saber. He made TWO JEDI work their hardest to beat, and only lost after that LONG drawn out conflict. Notice also how he existed. He WAS the Phantom (A sith assassin) HE WAS the menace (he was harassing Qui Gon on Tattooine, then again on Naboo.) Maul also was the indicative of what the Jedi feared most. The return of the Sith. It meant there was one more in the universe. The Rule of Two is introduced. One Master. One Apprentice.

Darth Sidious/Palpatine-

The chess master, the villain in plain sight, the father figure to our hero, the man who if you forget is the villain, sometimes would be believable as a good guy. Guys I grew up with the OT from my earliest memories. I knew it was “Emperor Palpatine” but I also remember in 99, 2001 and 2003 until the scenes happened obviously that Senator/Chancellor Palpatine was NOT the Emperor. I could not connect it because Prequel Palpatine (until scenes happen) WAS A GOOD GUY, he wanted to bring peace and prosperity to the REPUBLIC. HE LOVED DEMOCRACY. Like Obi Wan says in Ep 3 to Padme “we were tricked by a lie. A lie by the sith, a lie that convinced us that our enemy was not right where we were.” Palpatine IS A VILLAIN because he convinces you he didn’t exist. He was the devil who tricked humanity into thinking wasn’t real. But you knew he was...but couldn’t prove.

Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus-

Political villain. He wasn’t bad for evil’s sake (he didn’t have sith eyes like Maul/Sidious) he was a man who was broken by the flaws in the Jedi Council. He lost his padawan (Qui Gon) and that mourning turned into bitter resentment, he saw through the problems the Jedi Order ignored in themselves, found a teacher in Sidious who promised to give him the chance to wipe the slate clean. His political villainy come from good intentions paving the way to hell.

General Grevious-

The Proxy villain. He is literally there to take the heat. He isn’t “human” he is more machine than living creature. He hates the Jedi and you can see that he is a proto vader of sorts. His breathing is broken, his lacking in “organic traits” and hatred for everything is rhyming in Vader’s soon to come, but it rhymes in a foreboding way. Especially when Anakin says to him “General Grevious, you’re shorter than I expected” he wasn’t meant to be taken lightly but yet we take him lightly because we ALL know (even those who watch the prequels first) that something DARKER does exist. Grevious- though scary and not someone you wanna fight one on one, you know isn’t the worst monster in the galaxy. He’s just an angry bitter cyborg who steals lightsbaers. He’ll get what he deserves soon enough, the monster will be slain by the brave knight.

ORIGINAL TRILOGY VILLAIN

Darth FREAKING Vader-

Ok like guys

you need to understand. As before stated, when I was a wee little JM, I would spend A LOT (like I’m guessing daily) watching star wars as early as Kindergarten, imagine for a moment a tiny little JM cross legged on his bed, bouncing as the opening crawl comes, begging his mom to READ the crawl for him (every time cause dammit mom does it best) then stay when scenes had subtitles (Mostly Return of the Jedi but still) Star Wars to me...was like the story of knights or cowboys to other kids. Luke Skywalker was my goals, Han solo was the guy I hoped I could be cool as, and Leia was like AMAZING in terms of “hey girls are as cool if not cooler than guys!”

BUT VADER, Darth Vader’s first appearance to me was terrifying. We had just watched these humans all nervously watch a door, hearing these weird, alien, mechanical sounds creaking over their ship, the tension SO REAL to everyone, something bad is going to happen. Not because of a war but something else is going to come down on them. Those sounds are a clue, something not human is coming for them. THEN THE EXPLOSION AND GUN FIGHT HAPPENS! Soldiers are fighting, Storm troopers pushing in and taking out Rebels. Rebel soldiers running, screaming, trying to fight back, it’s assured that if you were in that hall you weren’t going home. BUT as a kid I BELIEVED they had a chance! They had to, they were the good guys, no bad guy could overwhelm the underdog….unitl BUM BUH DUM… imitates Vader’s breathing THAT MAN WALKED IN...he wasn’t a man though. He was a force, of evil, his breathing was labored but somehow terrifying, his face was a metal mask that inspired the look of something from nightmares, his cape billowed like smoke out of the darkest places, and his movements were deliberate, his actions cold and harsh. HE LOOKED OFFENDED that some of his storm troopers died on the floor. Like their death was an INSULT to his very existence, what would he do to his enemies when he found them?

This villain was one you FEARED, but not only that but when you learn from Obi Wan that he killed Luke’s father, you hate him. You want Luke or Obi Wan to beat him. You want this villain to suffer for what he did, he hunted down Jedi. He killed Luke’s father, he helped the Empire become what it is now. Vader became a target for your hate because that is what Vader IS. Darth Vader is hate incarnate. You learn in the Expanded universe (canon and legends) that Vader hates everything. But one thing more than others. HIMSELF. He hates who he was. What he is. What he has done. What he will do. Vader is walking hatred and that carries him, that sustains him. That is why he survived what created him. Hatred. We are meant to hate that. Because it makes for things later to be as powerful as they are. The twist reveals. The possibility of redemption. Everything HINGES on our hatred, fear and disgust with him.

Now if you’ll notice I’ve spent A LOT of time explaining Vader’s type of villain. Want to know why? Because like Vader, Star wars is very good at rhyming things. Notice though (cause its a carry over from Prequel to OT) Palpatine is not listed twice, he didn’t need to be. He is the same villain in both trilogies, he is the core theme rhymed. The anti-thesis to the goodness trying to combat evil in Stanzas 1 and 2. He is the core threat that both trilogies face and succumb to then revive to defeat.

Palpatine caused the corruption in Stanza 1, Palpatine orchestrated the political villain’s birth by unleashing the rage villain onto Qui Gon/Obi Wan. Palpatine is the force that pushes things from A to B he doesn’t need much depth in terms of rhyming him. Nothing CAN rhyme him. Like no villain before or after can Rhyme Vader truly. Only build up to him or try to recreate him….which means we walk cautiously into the 30 year gap that is the New Trilgoy.

30 years after Vader’s redemption, Palpatine’s death, Luke’s successful battle against the sith, the Empire’s fall...we meet our New Villains.

The First Order.

New Trilogy

Supreme Leader Snoke-

A villain we wanted to be more, we want him to be something that he isn’t because well we had been spoiled by previous villains. WE, those who lived through both previous trilogies, have gone through the rodeo before. We know there are TRUE villains out there, we have seen the DARKEST that the Sith could throw at us. However with Snoke we tilted our head and were curious. Was he better than Palpatine? Was Sidious NOT the worst out there? It seemed possible. He had his Knights of Ren, the First Order/Remnants of the Old Empire at his disposal. More than that- he had groomed his apprentice. Kylo Ren. Notice this isn’t a DARTH (the official title of each Sith Lord) This villain obviously harolded from the dark side, he wished to hunt and slay all the new Jedi Luke had groomed, yet he wasn’t a Sith...so what. Was. He?

We learned...exactly what we learned. Snoke was Snoke. His fate, his character, everything. WE LEARNED it in Last Jedi. I am not saying we wont get more from the EU (books/tv series/games/etc) but the movie gave us what was relevant to the trilogy/the movie poetry. Snoke was rhyming Sidious in one way- the schemer. He truly thought he had planned it all, he felt confident in his victory that he savored it while it hadn’t fully ripened. Picture if you could the scenes from Guardians of the Galaxy 2, the three scenes involving Nebula and that fruit she wanted to eat.

It wasn’t ripe the first time- Star Killer Base It wasn’t ripe the second time- Kylo got his ASS KICKED by Rey

It wasn’t ripe the third time- he presumed to know how Kylo would remain his servant always. Right up til he was skewered because of his arrogance. His plan wasn’t ripe, yet he bit into it to enjoy it’s predicted sweet victory taste.

Snoke is the villain who in his time believed that being only on his home stretch mile, could gloat that he run the race. He is the Hare teasing the tortoise. He is the cheater who tips his hand right before the other player reveals the royal flush they’re not holding and bluffing their way to hopeful victory.

Now. Kylo/Ben.

Ok. This is going to be a test for me cause honestly I had hopes for Ben/Kylo yes you’re getting both names here there is a reason

When The Force Awakens FIRST preview dropped and we saw Kylo spinning his saber towards Finn. I had one hope. ONE HOPE. This was that Kylo was a double agent. I hoped that Kylo being Han and Leia’s son (we knew before going in cause it was revealed) was tricking Snoke, playing the dark side user into believing he DID win Ben over. He fooled the evil master mind with Luke’s help. Faking the destruction of the Jedi Temple, his Knights of Ren undercover with him, a strike team sent in to infiltrate the First Order from within, giving Snoke his Kylo Ren as a Trojan horse. I NEEDED THIS. I needed to see that Luke was able to craft a team similar to the one who saved Han in Jedi.

Force Awakens Ended and well Kylo isn’t a double….at least not yet. He tried to teach Rey, and he didn’t want to kill Han. At least not in the Force’s eyes. The novelization said so, in killing Han he got weaker, a sith gets STRONGER in that type of event, yet Ben/Kylo weakens. It’s obvious the boy didn’t want to do it. I hoped with this confirmation it was canon that Ben was still in there. Not because I wanted this shitty man to be redeemed. He wasn’t Anakin. He didn’t deserve it. I wanted him to see his failings and CHOOSE to come back. More so I wanted to see that Han’s death was an intentional sacrifice for a greater good. I wanted Han to have given himself to save his son’s remaining spark of good,  I NEEDED THAT. I needed to see a father who was primarily absent in his son’s life make that decision as a last ditch effort to assure his son that he knew the good in him was there, that the good in him was going to be what he is. Not the dark, bad, villain we saw in Kylo. It was a personal need.

Fast forward to Last Jedi. Here we go, Ben/Kylo was seen in previews as torn, breaking his mask that he fashioned after his grandfather’s mask. We see hesitation in his attacking of Leia’s ship in his TIE SILENCER, we see a moment of indecision, Kylo was wavering, Ben was surfacing.  The scar looking mechanical- rhyming with Anakin and Luke- an injury leaving them with a mechanical healing method.  It rhymed. Each Skywalker man now carried an injury that left them inching closer to “more machine than man” in a story that has HEAVILY been “Nature vs Technology”

Kylo/Ben however doesn’t reveal some secret double agent scheme.

No Ben/Kylo in a moment being REAL reveals his memory of events. Luke tried to kill him. He defended himself and made his choice. He saw his uncle willing to kill him for reasons mostly obvious, others probably still unknown to Ben/Kylo. His revelation also shows that he carries grudges from long in the past. He didn’t want to kill Han, but he carried the hatred of his father and mother’s failed relationship with him. We see that Ben chose to be Kylo Ren. It wasn’t Snoke puppeting him. At least not entirely, he used strings to show him what he could be. Ben however cut the strings and picked up the mask, the cape, the mantal and bled the crystal in his saber to make that thing red himself.

To Quote Obi Wan- 

I walked out of that movie hearing it over and over because of Kylo’s accusations of Luke failing him and making him what he was. Yes Luke failed BEN. Luke in a moment of humanity, a moment of being an older, experienced, and tired hero...saw a potential threat and in his moment of humanity actually weighed the options of killing the threat of living with it- trying to temper it and extinguish it without succumbing to murder of his beloved nephew. Ben did not care. Ben- like the Jedi and the Sith, only saw in absolute. He saw Luke THINK about it, and decided that Luke made up his mind. Ben chose to be Kylo Ren, he could have stayed and talked to Luke, discussed what happened, reached an understanding and grew as uncle/nephew or teacher/student. No. He chose the quick and easy path, like a true dark sider does.

Ben Solo did die that night. Kylo Ren didn’t kill him though. Kylo Ren took up his face and wore him, as an insult to Luke, Leia and Han. Kylo Ren wore the face of Ben Solo to try and seduce Rey into joining him. Kylo Ren wore Ben Solo’s fractured and conflicted face when he tricked Snoke into believing he was a puppet so when the time came- unlike his grandfather (in his mind) before him, he could seize power. And finish what he started.

Kylo Ren wears Ben Solo’s face the way some Vlad the Impaler left the heads of his enemies on spikes to intimidate and psychologically destroy his enemies. Ben Solo’s visage and memory is used as a weapon by Kylo Ren to wrench Han’s heart and force him on that catwalk, in hopes of bringing his boy home. As a constant reminder of Luke’s moment in humanity as a Jedi in fearing what might come and causing it anyway, and then the following years of doubt, guilt and pain over the possibility of creating the villain that threatened the galaxy, killed his best friend and chased down his twin sister in hopes of slaughtering her and all she stood for. Kylo wore the mask of Ben Solo as a weapon to give Rey this idea of hope to save him and used it so that when it failed, in her moment of grief for her failure, he could seduce and turn her.

Like we saw- Kylo Ren failed. He failed to turn Rey multiple times. Not because oh she’s a good guy, she won’t turn. But because Kylo Ren can’t invoke a sense of loyalty. He wears the face of a boy who is dead. Kylo Ren is the monster under your bed who wears the face of your stuffed animal then rips you under it to eat you. We know you’re not the good guy you pretend to be. Rey didn’t believe he was bad, she knew it was a possibility but she- had hope- Kylo Ren doesn’t understand this.

In Harry Potter, Harry tells Voldermort that because he never knows love/friendship- Harry pities that dark lord. In Star Wars, Kylo Ren doesn’t know loyalty. He doesn’t know compassion.

He knows greed and fear.

He feared the light, he feared the sentiment that Anakin Skywalker held for his son slaying Vader for good. He craved the power Snoke dangled and held. He feared that if he remained like Luke’s Jedi were- he’d never taste what he felt belonged to him by right. He and Hux share this sense of entitlement due to lineage/bloodlines. It’s interesting when viewed from the point of view- he came from EVERYTHING and gave it up for what he thought was better.

The son of a Senator/War hero, a smugler/war general, nephew to the GREAT JEDI LUKE SKYWALKER and THE GRANDSON of the CHOSEN ONE Anakin Skywalker. This was not enough for him.

Rey – coming from nothing didn’t want any of those things. She didn’t care if she was something or anything. She just wanted to know who she was. She was originally a spec of sand on Jakku now she walked with Han Solo- the famous Smuggler (oh and the War General I guess?) she met Princess- Now General LEIA ORGANA, the woman who fought the Empire, who saved Han from Jabba (then slayed him) the woman who never quit. Plus she was to become the student of the mythical, legend- Luke. Fucking Skywalker.

She didn’t even feel worthy but accepted it because as she met each one- she learned they were people. They were not Gods, they were flawed like her, they made mistakes, they made choices they didn’t like, all because at the time, it was the best thing they could do. They were trying, they were hopeful, and they were good people.

Ben Solo knew these things- he was Luke’s heir to the Jedi Order he built. He learned from his Uncle without complaint until the end, he was the son of these two amazing people of the Rebellion. Then he learned of his grandfather’s identity...everything changed. He felt lied to. Which is true, but this is where Kylo Ren tasted life and needed more.

Kylo rhymes a villain from the old EU in my opinion. Well a few.

Darth Scion

Darth Traya

Darth Nilhus

See like Scion- Kylo is fueled by pain. Scion was physical pain, but Kylo is emotional pain. He strives to push himself into the most emotionally conflicted states. Sometimes physical too. He kept hitting his bowcaster wound in TFA, he surrounded himself with the images of his grandfather and sought guidance from his spirit while in his room and when we saw him attacking Leia’s fleet- he couldn’t pull the trigger to hit the bridge killing his mother. Kylo Ren is a dark sider who thrives when conflicted because it fuels his rash decisions and rage over indecisiveness

he reminds me of Darth Traya because of two quotes that remind of Kylo

“It’s such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it.” - Kylo was born from darkness growing Ben over time. He fell quietly then when he admitted his fall that night in his cabin with Luke- it was far more terrible than we expected. It was a dark dark night for all involved.

Second quote is -

“Know that there was once a Darth Traya. And that she cast aside that role, was exiled, and found a new purpose. But there must always be a Darth Traya, one that holds the knowledge of betrayal. Who has been betrayed in their heart, and will betray in turn.”

This reminds me because look at Kylo/Ben’s history- he felt betrayed in his life and in turn he simply betrays all those around him that he feels slighted by. He instead of healing and growing from betrayal, simply festers his pain and lashes out in betrayal back.

Darth Nilhus though is simply- both men crave an insatiable craving. Power doesn’t do it, prestige doesn’t satisfy, nothing does, nothing can. A dark dark undefinable hole exist in them both and calls to be filled and attempts to fill it always satiate for a small time before the rage demands more.

Alright so I’ve spent A LOT of time talking about the whole character rhyming and that tangent made this longer than it should be, so now I come to the fact that I started- why I loved Last Jedi.

deep inhale

ok ready?

yeah...Leia said it right- Hope.

That’s it. This movie was one event after another of things destroying your sense of hope.

Poe lost all those pilots/bombers in his plan to destroy the Dreadnought.

Leia was losing hope as each of her ships were being picked off by the Supremacy that tracked them through hyperspace.

Luke had lost all hope before this movie and Rey was losing her hope in turn because of his hopeless state.

Finn and Rose were losing hope in so much

1- Rose lost hope in Finn once she saw him trying to run

2- Finn lost hope in DJ once the shoe dropped.

3- Both lost hope in the plan once it was revealed to be impossible to succeed due to their betrayal

4- Seeing the Ram preparing to destroy their hiding base- Rose lost hope until Finn’s daring thing.

Rey’s hopeful attempt at saving Kylo/Ben, it was looking so good til the last second and that hurt the most, the team up WAS THAT HOPE REVIVED like it sparked a sense of “they’re brutally fighting for their lives like Sith, but elegantly together in everything like Jedi, this is THEM bringing balance, they are saving the Galaxy, Ben Solo is back…..or so we thought.

Like every time our heroes did something it backfired, blew up, failed, or simply didn’t go how they wanted.

But in the end- after all that

we got hope back

1- Rey saves the Resistence with Chewie and escapes Crait.

2- Luke saves them by buying time and giving himself in a LEGENDARY act of challenging the ENTIRE first order by himself and simply brushing it off like it’s no biggie.

3- Kylo FAILS in his first act of Supreme Leader in destroying his enemies and has to live with the fact that it was all his own fault.

Hope was revived in the fact that for all those losses, one after another, we learned something. Yoda said it. Failure is the greatest teacher and teachers can hope for their students to take what is taught and become MORE than their predecessors.

Luke passed on what he learned. He learned from his failings, he learned from Yoda, Obi Wan, etc. He passed it all along with the teachings of the original Jedi to Rey (not even REMOTELY close to all that being intentional) and she is now going to be more than him. As Luke was more than Yoda/Obi Wan (who believed Vader had to die, and Anakin was beyond gone.)

Rey is hope. She is that ray of light in the darkness. Leia knew to trust in her because after everything, Luke reminded her- they’ve survived worse and came back strong. Rey can do that with the next gen.

THE BOY AT THE END is proof. Rose gave him the ring, he is the exploited poor masses personified. He is the fans who see these movies, and hear the morals and see the heroes and emulate them. He is those of us who see the sky at night and dream of doing the right thing. He dreams of being that next legend. He knows he isn’t legendary but, if Luke Skywalker can, why not him? If Leia could? Why can’t his friend?

The boy at the end- force pulling the broom is the message of the Last Jedi.

Luke was the Last Jedi for so long, he passed on what he learned and because of that now, a new Jedi will Rise. Rey, along any and all those she inspires to combat the forces of people like Kylo Ren. The man who could have been what Rey is, but because he walked into a dark shadow and let it engulf him, the strength of the dark he drank from rose to meet him- Rey.

He now commands the First Order, his hate fueling his obsession to claim everything.

Rey- feeling lost has everything she needs- to find those who need her to lead them in resistance and rebel, the spark was ignited to light a fire, that WILL burn the first order down. The fire is Kylo Ren, his anger is going to burn everything around him and leave him alone while Rey is there, leading the triumphant return of justice and good to the Galaxy.

In FF Advent Children, Rufus Shinra makes a comment “If that cycle is the very truth of life, then history, too, will inevitably repeat itself. So go on; bring your Jenova's and your Sephiroth's. It won't matter. We'll do as life dictates and stop you every single time.”

This is star wars

it is history repeating itself. But every time someone does what the force dictates. Raises up, and stops it. EVERY. TIME.

The Force is the rhyme in the universe’s poem here. The force let’s the bad rise, the bad grows, destroying, claiming and leaving ruin in it’s wake. Because the darker the night, the brighter the dawn of the next day, when the sun returns, warmth fills the sky and clears the shadows to bring peace and life back to the galaxy.

This wasn’t alll intentionally drawn by the creators obviously but this is what a STAR WARS lover like me drew. This is the surface of what this movie and all the previous ones did for me.

It- like other mediums, some mentioned in this long essay- inspired hope. Hope that even when the worst nightmare claims me, planting my feet firm and igniting my lightsaber to fight back can be done, but its not the main thing I need to do. My main responsibility in face of despair, terrible things and true evil. Is not fight that which comes in hopes of destroying all that I hate in it. No. My job. My mission is to always remember to protect all that I love so it my flourish when the bad passes.

Star Wars teaches us to ensure that we don’t need to win by wiping out things, we simply need to make sure that which threatens us doesn’t consume that makes us good and turns us as putrid and evil as them.

[reactingtosomething]

Solo Reaction to Orphan Black Episode 510: “To Right the Wrongs of Many”

Well Done, Show.

The Setup: This is it, Clone Club. The final ride has ended, and I for one loved the hell out of it. Check below for my final Orphan Black solo reaction. Spoilers for the last five years, basically.

SARAH: Art knows what they need and is not the one who is Helena’s twin, clearly she should go be with Helena and he should get the medical supplies. I mean I know it had to be Sarah vs. “PT” at the end, obviously. But in-universe I’m right about that logic. But yeah, Sarah killing him with very little ceremony and none of his acolytes to watch was pretty appropriate.

OH GOD they pulled no punches with that suffocation visual.

This is EVOLUTION. More on that later.

The Sarah/Mrs. S parallels during the births, though. Sarah (and all the clones) are moving out from under the control of their lives and destinies. They are not S’s to watch over or Neolution’s to control. They are the adults. They’re raising each other and their kids.

Sarah and Helena’s joyful laugh/cries after the birth(s) are just lovely.

Is Sarah getting her GED?? I’m so proud! She’s turning into such a grownup, but is also still herself. Well done, show.

Honestly I do think that Sarah should sell the house. She needs to become her own version of an adult, not just step into S’s shoes entirely. Like, don’t move away to wander the earth apart from the whole support system, but get an apartment instead maybe.

Sarah. Get your ass back in there and take the GED test!

“I don’t know how to be happy. There’s no one left to fight and I’m still a shit mum.” There is SO MUCH here. For one thing that language is super telling—Sarah may not always be good at being a mother, but she’s far from a shit one compared to Coady, the other person who’s been described as such. There’s no question about Sarah being wrong here. (Admittedly she has not always been a good mother but she has been improving and she does always have Kira’s best interests at heart.) For another thing, this is very important and realistic. Ending an all-consuming battle and returning to normal life is never simple. Sarah was good at guerrilla warfare, essentially. Those skills don’t immediately translate to healthy coping mechanisms or finding a day job. Sarah is still Sarah. They’re all still the people they were before and during this shitshow. Alison is still the woman who sold drugs and hot glue gunned her husband. They’re all still just people and they can’t go from living one life to living a totally different one with no bumps, even a normal/“easier” one. Just because Sarah can’t do it immediately doesn’t mean she can’t do it at all.

None of them are perfect and they’re all in it together and it’s the most mellow but effective multi-clone season ender ever. No one look at me.

HELENA: This is basically a nightmare birth situation and I am NOT a fan.

Helena is preparing for vengeance even while ACTIVELY CONTRACTING and all I can say is damn, woman. Props.

OH MY GOD Art and Helena are such a good team! That was highly effective tag team murder.

It’s a boy. Of course they’re boys. Kira was (nearly) exploited the way Kendall and the Ledas' birth mothers were. Kira and Charlotte are the intermediates, the ones who are part of the Leda story but won’t grow up entirely within it, but these boys are the true next generation. They’re not just repeating the script over again, they’re a departure from the Neo controlled past.

That is the cutest and creepiest mobile ever.

Orange and Purple!! Ok, but babies lose their socks ALL THE TIME. This is an imperfect method.

“Always when I eat, he poops.”

Super into her Hawaiian shirt over overalls look.

“Where does this sand come from?”

They’re still not going to explain the black part of Orphan Black, are they?

I’m touched by the significance of naming the boys after Donnie and Art, but doesn’t that get confusing? Sure, call the baby Arthur instead of Art, but there’s nothing that far away from “Donnie,” sound-wise. And at least for now they live on the same property. (The one bit of Judaism that has managed to enter my psyche the most is the custom of not naming kids after living relatives, so I’m a little weird about this kind of thing.)

RACHEL: Is Rachel coming? Is that the secret person Felix is expecting? Yesssss. Even if she can’t be a part of the happy family, she is still a part of this and the show/Felix acknowledges it.

So we’re just straight up discussing this in front of the uber driver?

She gave them the list of Ledas. Rachel’s final redemptive act saves the rest of the clones she helped to subjugate, and is a final screw you to the people who made her do it for so long.

General Rachel thought: Rachel needed redemption. She was cruel and a part of the structure that controlled and killed a lot of people. She was a product of a deeply abusive situation that made her that way, but she still was that way. She still stomped on the potential cure, she still ordered the deaths of clones and others. In a way she and Helena are a better “two sides to the same coin” comparison than Helena and Sarah are. Both were raised largely without love or proper socialization. Both were made “self aware” while fairly young. Both are taught that they are the special one, and can only continue to do they terrible things they do by believing that fact. Both self-harm. Both learn that their extremely black and white world views are limited primarily by being exposed to the family of their clones, primarily Kira. Helena made the change much more quickly, but they are both on that arc.

ALISON: “I was a drug dealer for Pete’s sake” is peak Alison Hendrix.

The Hendrixes have joy and laughter as a part of their sex lives and I am happy about this.

I know this is not from this episode, but it’s amazing

COSIMA: Cosima is curing the Ledas!! She is doing it! And of course she feels like it’s not enough because she’s Cosima, but she’s doing it!

Science monkey! I love this.

Cos, you don’t have to be good with kids if you don’t want to be. Although she actually is excellent with kids, just not babies. So I guess the point is you don’t have to be maternal if you don’t want to be. You can love the children in your life without wanting your own. And if you do want children, being scared doesn’t mean you can’t do it.

Cosima is coming so close to meeting all of these women, but not quite. That’s beautiful and sad in its own way. She’s always been the one to embrace sisterhood the quickest, so I imagine she loves each of these sisters a little bit. But she’s not destroying their lives by telling them about all of this when there’s no need to. There is an argument to be made about not making the decision for them by keeping the info from them, but telling them would also be making that decision for them. I’m going to choose to believe that they leave a semi-conspicuous web trail so that any Ledas who start to become self aware can find clone club if they’re looking.

Also, can we talk about how gorgeous this artwork is and how I’m now obsessed with it? Please illustrate all of their adventures around the world.

TONY!!!! Guys, Tony has at least been acknowledged again! He and Krystal are cured and that is good.

EVERYONE ELSE: Goddammit Coady why are you so resilient?

“PT” (AKA JOHN) losing his grip is both terrifying and delicious. I was honestly hoping he would die of a heart attack—none of his cruelty or his science could save him from a simple failure of the body. But again, it being Sarah’s action was probably necessary.

Honestly, this was an underuse of Enger after they set her up to be such an interesting character in such small moments earlier. Clearly the focus here is on the Ledas more than their subjugators, but come on. I wonder if she had anything that ended up being cut for time? I’m excited to follow the actor’s career.

I know I already used this one, and it wasn’t from this episode. But look at how compelling she is! And this ^ isn’t even as good as the toothbrush scene!

There really is a kill them in the throat theme this season.

Art calling people sestra is adorable!

274??? Living or total ever? That’s so many!

I’ve done a lot of discussing parenthood as a sign of adulthood, and I certainly don’t want to say it’s a 1:1 situation. I think it has come up a lot this season especially because the show is a discussion of both family and evolution. It’s hard to have evolution without future generations, so there is a lot of kid focus. I don’t think the show goes to far in the direction of accidentally suggesting that motherhood is essential for adult womanhood—that’s the beauty of having a lot of women in your show. You can tell multiple stories, and multiple versions of the same story without suggesting that it is The Story.

I have no idea how intentionally Fawcett and Manson created this discussion of feminism and bodily autonomy. I think the later was the main intent and the feminism came out of the realization/acceptance of what they were already in the midst of creating. By making the lead a woman, they made most of the leads women, who all had to be different from each other. They couldn’t fall into the tropes many writers do when it comes to female characters. And when they began discussing This may be wrong and ungenerous of me—they may have had exactly this intent from the beginning!—but two things: 1) I think if they had a huge focus on feminism from the beginning there would have been more than one director who was a woman in the entire run (Helen Shaver, 3 episodes) and 2) Honestly, them learning the lesson as they went and freaking going for it is kind of great. Without meaning to (from the beginning—I’m not suggesting they were totally unaware this whole time!) these guys made a show that is all about women reclaiming their bodily autonomy from a big-for-tv version of forces that are very real in our lives. Realizing that that was the story and leaning into it effectively and without becoming a morality play is impressive and it gave us the show we have known and loved.

Ok, “this is evolution.” So true, on the science side and the personal side. Sarah and Helena have always been the outliers. It was a quirk of biology that lead to twins. And then their birth mother was willing and able to keep them safely away from Neolution. And they are actually able to conceive. None of these facts were intended or planned for. Evolution comes from gene mutations. Sometimes mutations are harmful, but sometimes they’re beneficial or neutral, and they get passed on and help the species become something new. If that happens enough times, you get a whole new species. There’s nothing intentional or graceful about it. You can’t plan for it, and you can’t do much to control it. “PT” tried to, and it never worked out for him. There were always other changes, or not enough change, or the small detail of people being people and thus not entirely controllable. He was beaten by the results of the uncontrollable parts of evolution, an unexpected twin who unexpectedly became a mother. And Sarah has evolved as a person because of both of those things, as well as everything else. In killing “PT" she completes the final step of not just no longer running from her problems, but truly stepping out from underneath them.

Finally, let’s talk happy ending. Finishing this was hard—I’ve had trouble taking a long view of anything this weekend, in light of the events in Charlottesville, VA. This is the first time I’ve sat entirely still in at least a day. It’s made me even more glad that this show, which has always contained darkness and some shocking violence, let the “core four” of clones and most of their nearest and dearest survive. There were deaths along the way, and a shit ton of suffering, but they could have gone much darker about the ending for the sake of Realism and I’m damn glad they didn’t. The show was about finding the light and hope and family amidst all of this darkness. Sarah has been trying to be allowed/allow herself to be a part of her family since she got on that train. It doesn’t look like what she thought it would, but neither does she anymore. This is the version of family that works for this version of Sarah, and it works for the show too. Everything’s not perfect. S is dead, Rachel will never be a part of the family. They’ve all suffered massively. But they made it, and they have each other for support moving forward. Bad things can end. Good things can endure. That hasn’t always been an explicit message of the show, but it is the one they chose to build to.

That’s all, folks. For more weekly reactions, check out Kris’s GoT series. For more ass-kicking genre women, check out Wynonna Earp. For more of Miri have a lot of feeling, check out The Bold Type (and I guess this blog in general).

[j2littleshits-blog]

Kourtney’s submission

I love the latest meditating picture(1) she shared, the caption was perfect as well. I’m all for promoting what you love and whatnot but she comes off as a phony, ya know? I don’t care if celebrities share their gym experiences or like when Le@ Michele shares 900 green juice photos (gross!) because it’s just them sharing what they love. But with G it always seems like she’s sharing the picture to show off how much better she is than anyone else but in a subtle way. I’m always thankful, meditating keeps me sane, I use a 600$ blender because it gets my kids to eat their vegetables. It’s never just a simple “I mediate because I like too” or “We put vegetables in smoothies so the kids will actually eat right”. There’s always some underlining meaning to her captions and it’s mind boggling that people can’t see that. Or they see it and they’re choosing to ignore it for the sake of a peaceful Tumblr experience.(2)

Her need to share Girl Power and Girls Run The World is getting old. I’m all for unity and bringing each other up rather than tearing each other down but she’s going about it the wrong way. Your daughter needs to know the sky is the limit and she shouldn’t be held back just because she’s female but she doesn’t need to know that she’s better than another person because she’s female. Her two boys don’t need to grow up thinking they need to step aside so there sister can shine and she doesn’t need to grow up thinking they should step aside for her because she’s female. G is teaching her that she’s entitled all because she was born with a vagina. Again, I’m all for being a feminist and teaching girls AND boys that we’re all equal but I’m not about to get behind someone that wants her daughter to feel better than her own siblings just because she’s a girl. It’s wrong.(3)

Not even going to lie but when I saw the picture she shared of her and T with the caption “This was snapped right before a 🐝 headed right in our direction…. 🙃 thanks to ___ and ___ we have an apiary. Who wants some P@dalecki honey? 🍯” (4) my knee jerk response was to roll my eyes. I’m all for doing our part to bring back the bees but getting an apiary in your backyard seems a tad extreme. I just imagine these kids going to school and being asked what they did over the weekend and them talking about the pictures being taken.(5) Kids don’t have a filter so I can’t imagine what T has to tell his teacher after a weekend at home or whatever. The funniest part of the photos is that she couldn’t even be bothered to change her top or anything. It’s obvious that certain pictures were taken on the same day and others on another.(6) But generally speaking they were taken all around the same time because the bump is pretty much the same size. I will say that with T she gained weight throughout her body. She wasn’t fat by any stretch of the imagination! But her cheeks were fuller, she looked a little more tired and honestly pulled off the being pregnant look better with him than she did with the other two.(7) If you look at the pictures of her doing yoga you can see the outline of the photographer being reflected in the window. And then if you look at the picture of them in bed with S being held over her head you can again see the photographers shadow!(8) We all knew the photos were done by a professional but that just made my a little nauseous because it just seems so wrong to put your kids in their pajamas and create a wonderful family moment like that just for a blog or whatever. Jessica @lba owns her own company, has a website and an Instagram for said company but never once has she used her kids to promote her things. Yeah over Halloween she did her daughters makeup using her product but that was it. Promote your project and perfect life all you want but why add your kids in it like they’re props? It’s just wrong.(9)

Speaking of websites, I’m not sure if you know this but G actually had a website before!(10) It was a fan dedicated website that this one girl ran and G approached her about it. They met up a few times and the girl made sure that all content on the website was completely true and even got G to do a Q and A video. G ended up co-running the website with her until it was taken down because the girl just didn’t want to run it anymore and I’m assuming G realized how odd it would be for her to run her own fan dedicated website. But yeah one day the girl asked G if she could do a meetup and maybe meets some fans, G agreed and they went to lunch. Wanna know who made a surprise visit during lunch? J did!(11) It was such a surprise too, I mean it’s not like G asked him to come or anything. Yeah, I don’t believe that either. That’s why I was surprised that she was creating another website because I didn’t think she had enough of a life outside of J to actually have one just as her own. That sounds really harsh and I apologize for that but if you look at her life she has nothing that’s just her own. It always comes back to J.(12) I did see her new website before it became password protected and I truly hope people take what she posts with a grain of salt. There were sections for parenting, recipes, fashion, lifestyle and a couple others. I’m all for giving advice but I don’t want a first time mom going into her blog and taking everything she says for fact. She talks a lot about things (home birthing, organic living) like she’s an expert and that’s not good.(13) G does have people that look to her for advice and take her word as gospel so I hope she keeps that in mind and puts somewhere in her blog how she’s not an expert on these topics.

I forgot last post but I wanted to say I agree whole heartedly about J and D sharing photos of the kids lately! What is up with that? J actually told the paparazzi in Vancouver he did not want little J photographed.(14) They could photos of him and D all they wanted but his daughter was off limits. They very rarely shared pictures of her and when they did it always came from them, not a family member or friend because they didn’t want it to be stolen. Fine, I get it, you want her to be shielded from the media and the crazy side of the fandom. But now it’s like here’s a picture of the twins, here’s a picture of J, here’s a picture of us being happy together, here’s a video where you can actually hear little J’s voice. Which, again, wouldn’t be weird had they not been so protective of her. That situation has honestly thrown me for a loop and I can’t think of a reason for the sudden love of sharing pictures of their kids.(15)

I’ll tell you about my theory as to why she remained silent on the A_F campaign in another submission so you don’t have to read an essay because I didn’t realize how long this was until I started writing this! Hahaha, sorry!

I hope you have a nice weekend!

Yo Kourtney, happy to see you again! Sorry for the wait, I should’ve post this earlier. Always with something bumped in when I was going through your “essay” ;) And I don’t quite follow G so it took me some time to run through her things *ouch*

Here’s my little side notes (according to the numbers I added above) :

Yoga class?

Peaceful internet platform behaviour. I agree with “phony” but it’s like a basic foundation for business accounts, so I won’t be easily brainwashed by… WAIT. THIS IS THE POINT. I don’t care how fake her IG is because I never consider myself looking at a real life journal wtf! Holy shit! How should I tell her fans about this, Kourtney?! My mixed feelings all the time is explainable? Her business heavy IG with heavy charity promoting? Is she taking my money or is she helping me to donate my money? How about Jay’s part? Why is he there?

I’ve talked about this with my professor IRL on ppl’s misunderstanding and media’s misleading portraying to feminism. Tricky topic.

Cute muffin T is scared of bees aww

Only when kids involved I’m a little mad

Stocked photoshoots I’ve no problem with that *proud*

Asking for science, any mamas out there gained weight with some babies and none with others?

Wait! Some fans say the photos are taken by Jay! ;)

Imagine if these was done by non-celebrities. Normalizing everything is THE TREND in 21st century, sadly

I know! Now we have a similar /dress-like-g______/ *insert eyeroll here*

Oh wow this is new to me omg

Who would pay attention to her if she’s not his “wife” honestly sorry

Life-related reminder alert. Although I’m not a mom, I can sense how ridiculous her advices are

LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!!!

Can someone write a meta for this? jk lol

Thanks for this informative submission again, sweetie! It’s really long, I survived lol. Please don’t hold back to talk why she isn’t supportive in A/_/F, and please don’t hold back to write it long! You become an important role here you know? I can’t make quality posts on my own! Have a nice day and hope to see you soon, XXOO

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: The Pilot

Rooting for Her and Cursing Her All in the Same Text

The Setup: Kris and Miri were early adopters (with a caveat below) of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Liz binged season 1 once it hit Netflix. Marchae had never seen it, but finally volunteered to watch the pilot for friendship this blog, and Kris rewatched it to React with her.

After the fact, Miri had some reactions to their reactions, and Kris had a few more thoughts. As before, those annotations are in italics.

MARCHAE: Welllllll

I finished it

And took copious notes

And I experienced a variety of things

Emotions about it

KRIS: Is there a particular emotion you want to start with?

Or we can start with your thoughts and feelings that you went into this experience with so our hypothetical readers know where you’re coming from

MARCHAE: K so it was funny so there was that. I don't usually watch comedies so I LOVE when I laugh out loud in real life

I'm gonna go kind of in no order here

Then I was annoyed because I get that's she's "crazy" which is pointed about by her medications and the fact she says it several times

K there's that

And we get she was socially awkward at like 16

But this is a Harvard Yale grad who seems to not have evolved

MIRI: I’m going to refrain from saying “But that’s the point!!!” 8,000 times, for all our sakes

So they kind of make funny of the mental stuff that I don't know was necessary and then they paint her as desperate chasing after a skateboarder

How

Why and again why

KRIS: Hmmm definitely a lot to work with here

MARCHAE: And it there were these flimsy shout outs (sexy getting rest song - which I actually liked a lot) to feminism and double standards that I think they definitely could have played with given how quirky she is

And then there is Paula who why did we need Paula to support this woman insanity about wanting a man from when she was 16

MIRI: Paula’s evolution from Stock Enabling Best Friend to well developed supporting character who enables because of her own pretty clear issues is a really interesting one, but on reflection not super clear in the pilot.

So basically humor and annoyance were my primary emotions

Maybe I thought to hard about it

Oh and there was music 😒

Three times

Like legit musical numbers 😒😒

KRIS: Yes

But they’re fantasy sequences, and not that thing you hate where everyone in the world of the story is magically musical

MARCHAE: **meh** I don't love empire for the same reason but I'll give to you! In our minds we often live it out as a musical

MIRI: Marchae hates musicals so much. She is willing to watch opera though?

KRIS: I’m so torn between wanting to defend the show and wanting to re-examine the pilot on its own terms, because I very rarely come into a pilot completely blind nowadays

I think one relevant piece of background we can start with is that this was originally intended as a half-hour on Showtime

And once they get into the hour-long format I think they do get a lot more in depth with the stuff Sexy Getting Ready Song wants to do

K: Only after we finished this chat did it occur to me to put it this way:

It takes all the things you’d expect a network comedy called “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” to be about and interrogates them

but with music

MARCHAE: Then that is actually promising

I didn't know that this was hour long until I started watching

It's odd also because as much as I know about the characters at the end of the pilot I simultaneously feel like I know nothing

I'm now curious what half hour would have looked like

KRIS: That’s interesting

I guess let’s start with Rebecca

MARCHAE: I think she may be the primary issue I'm having and you're getting my first reactions here so bare with me

I think it's this juxtaposition I'm having with the notion of the career woman who drops everything for lust/love

KRIS: Is it that you’re not sure how the show wants us to feel about her?

MARCHAE: Yes! I'm not sure if I feel sorry for her

I'm not sure if I even like her beyond the fact that she's kind of just silly

Because the stakes are mismatched for me

Most people aren't just packing up and heading out for a skateboarding boo when they are that successful

So if she'd been forced to leave the job or had an ACTUAL relationship with josh I think the sensation I'm experiencing might have been a bit different

But maybe that's the "crazy" portion of the title

MIRI: Again, this is more of a long view note, but I would say that the greatest risk CEG takes is asking us to stick with the seemingly unfeminist beginnings long enough to see what they’re doing long term with their  deconstruction of the Quirky Romcom Girl. And I’m really really glad the show has been given time to get us there.

KRIS: Yeah, I think so, and now I’m wondering how the Showtime version of this would have played out long-term

There was a little backlash about the title, which surprised Rachel Bloom (the creator/Rebecca) and Aline Brosh McKenna (the showrunner), because to them it was always supposed to be ironic

MARCHAE: Hmmmm interesting

KRIS: So over the course of the show I’ve gone back and forth on whether I “like” Rebecca, but in ways that I think are deliberate

But I think some of the ways the first act sets us up to empathize with her are how we have this off-screen mother who’s throwing Expectations at her, and the butter (?) ad she keeps seeing asking her if she’s happy, which the show knows is ridiculous and maybe a little evil

And especially how her boss lists her qualifications for the promotion, which on paper and out of context would just say “this person burns herself out for the sake of other people”

MARCHAE: I'd be curious to watch the second (third) episode and see how I feel.

I don't need to like the characters necessarily but I don't necessarily "believe" her and not in the way we see Paula not believe her.

I wanted this to push more and I think I expected it (then realized this was a CW show and not much pushing could happen)

So I would hypothesize that on HBO this show would have done a couple of things

1. Tackled the idea of her giving I bet she would have even snapped at mom (who we know from jump is not normal) 2. I also think we she may not have been as "cute" 3. We also would have seen her push the boundaries of the contradictions women face at work and in life

KRIS: The CW definitely lets them push. If I had to guess I’d say that the reason it doesn’t go further here is that they just sort of padded their original 30-minute pilot and just didn’t have the material to fill it. The Daryl introduction scene in particular felt pretty slow to me on this rewatch

And some of the stuff with Greg at the party

Like there’s a lot of dead air in this

MIRI: The scene with Greg was also originally scripted to be much more extreme--a blow job instead of making out, etc. The Vulture TV podcast has a great interview with Rachel Bloom that touches on this!

MARCHAE: Yessss I checked the time a couple of times

KRIS: I think the cuteness is partly commentary, right? On what sort of person Rebecca’s been trained to be? Or do you mean something else

MARCHAE: I think that's part of it, absolutely! But, now this is a drama I'm about to mention so tonally I know it's different... but the show Being Mary Jane

We see Mary kind of a mess at certain points - at no point do we see RB a mess we see her desperate ALL THE TIME

And for me that's problematic

Even in her musical numbers she's perpetually "shiny"

That's what I call shows people in shows that are just too good to be true

KRIS: Well the musical numbers are definitely Rebecca as she wishes she was, or at least (when they’re angry or upset musical numbers) expressing herself with the clarity she doesn’t have in normal life

So are you saying you’re not really seeing big enough highs and lows for Rebecca?

K: Presumably this is where any longtime viewers of CXG are shouting BUT YOU WILL, MARCHAE, YOU WILL, GOOD GOD YOU WILL

MARCHAE: I suppose technically that is it - my long winded explanation is that she just does not have enough emotional variance or maturity. The maturity part I know absolutely part of her character and hopefully will be part of her arc

(I think I think to hard about comedies)

KRIS: No, I think this is definitely a comedy you can overthink

I think the Daryl scene, even though the pacing was weird, was important to provide a situation where the power differential is firmly in Rebecca’s favor

And to just show her in a less emotionally intense context

MARCHAE: But even there she started crying!!! PULL IT TOGETHER WOMAN!!!!!

I wanted to shake her

KRIS: Are you thinking of Greg?

Daryl’s her boss

Daryl cried

MIRI: I LOVE DARYL

MARCHAE: MY BAD!!!

wrong awkward man

MIRI: omg 💕💕💕

KRIS: Hahahaha

MARCHAE: Rebecca probably just screamed: "Now what!! Pay attention next time b****!"

K: I feel it’s important to note that Marchae censored herself here. Miri and I have no such restraint, which may become evident if we React to anything at least one of us hates.

KRIS: OK now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t have a problem with that crying moment in that she’s crying, but it definitely does seem to be where expanding from a half-hour hurt the structure

Because that would normally be end of act two, right, like maybe page 23 in a 30-something page script

And then that Paula scene is the triumphant climax

But they’re maybe too close together in an hour-long format

MARCHAE: So question and I'm cheating because I'm asking about future episodes and arcs

KRIS: Go for it

I don’t know how much you want me to explain so ask away

MARCHAE: Does she ever become more ....

KRIS: And if anyone’s reading this they’re probably caught up

MARCHAE: I guess how does she grow ? Does Paula enable her?

Or push her to be better

Not get better but so better for herself in the romantic dept?

KRIS: Paula 80 percent enables her and 20 percent pushes her

Hmmm yes and no

It’s definitely an up-and-down-and-up-and-down thing

MARCHAE: *cringe*

MIRI: I lied, I’m saying it once and you can’t stop me: That’s the poooiiinnnnttt. It’s a little annoying at first but SO GOOD once you see what they’re doing

KRIS: I’ll say at the end of season 1 she gets what she (thinks she) wants, and by the end of season 2 she’s lost it definitively

(I think they have a five-year plan)

MARCHAE: You had me rooting for her and cursing her all in the same text

KRIS: I think that’s EXACTLY how the show works

So obviously Rebecca’s really smart, and she does grow as a person, but a simplified version of what happens is that whenever she’s about to have a critical self-aware epiphany she gets the thing she wants that she shouldn’t want, and that sets her back

developmentally

MARCHAE: So basically she becomes an infant by the end of the season!!!!

NOoooooo

So now I want to watch the entire show to see how this plays out

MIRI: Yesssss!

KRIS: Did you want to talk about Paula issues?

MARCHAE: I do

But you answered that one for me because I was curious if we see Paula as sort of the antithesis of RB

So is Paula there for the sake of satiating her desire to have some drama in her life via RBs antics

?

KRIS: Yeah pretty much

And you meet her kids and husband

MARCHAE: Sweet grief I can't even imagine that home (actually I can-but I hope it is the opposite of what I'm thinking)

K: I really wanted to defend/say more about Paula but ultimately erred on the side of avoiding spoilers.

I do want to go back a few beats though to the to the fact that the show touches or intros the idea of RB being on some kind of medication for anxiety at the very least

Does the show explore that a bit more

KRIS: Yeah, definitely

You’ll meet her mom and there are some more flashback-y bits

And she gets a therapist

MARCHAE: *thank you to the heavens above ah-men*

Oh good

I was worried that it was just a device to say "hey she's crazy she's on medication!"

I am glad to know it's not!

KRIS: I mean Rebecca’s definitely in denial most of the time but the show knows she SHOULD be working through her stuff in a healthier way

MARCHAE: YES!!!

KRIS: Yeah, I definitely read the sink scene as a legitimate “oh noooo” moment

MARCHAE: That's what I thought - I wanted them to call back to it though in some way. Maybe show her looking for the medication and realizing: "uh yeah, I pitched those"

KRIS: I forget how soon her meds specifically get brought up again but I think right now she definitely just doesn’t think she needs them anymore

MARCHAE: Yeah I definitely over thought that one for sure

But so happy to know they work it out!!!!

KRIS: I should say that it does have the normal problem a lot of shows have, of episodes 2 and 3 being a little shaky (3 more so, if I remember right), but 4 is great

MARCHAE: So I'm in for at least five?

KRIS: Your call! But I definitely think it’s worth it.

MIRI: I actually missed a few episodes after the pilot because I feel second hand embarrassment so incredibly acutely that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to watch this show at all. Got sucked back in about halfway through the season and then went back to catch up.

MARCHAE: A lot to ask for me and a comedy, but curiosity (even for just a character development standpoint) has me wanting to binge

KRIS: There are also some really good supporting characters you haven’t gotten to meet yet

K: I am SO EXCITED for Marchae to meet Heather and Father Brah

If it helps to get through it, Allison Shoemaker does the episode reviews on The AV Club and she’s GREAT

MARCHAE: Ill have to check some of those out!!!

I'm skimming titled and notice we live with Josh all season

KRIS: He’s not really always a major character but they’re definitely through the lens of Rebecca’s obsession

MARCHAE: Which should be interesting it reminds of a thing you see a lot in thrillers (novels in particular) where the center of attention isn't always present but that idea of them makes you want more of them and provides simultaneously more insight into our actual main character

That's kind of cool

KRIS: Yeah

Any other thoughts?

MARCHAE: I think I got em all

NO LIED

Is it always a musical *in tiny tiny voice*

MIRI: Marchae once spent a solid five-ten minutes arguing her case for why tv musicals were not ok. ‘If I jumped up on this table and started singing you would think I was crazy! You’d tell me to get down before I broke my laptop!’ was more or less the gist. Arguments that all forms of media have their own absurd conventions had no impact. Also, she is fine with at least some theatrical musicals. We still love her.

KRIS: I think they average two numbers an episode? Sometimes there’s just one, sometimes they have 3, but I don’t think they’ve ever done an episode without any musical bits.

Or maybe two and a half. They do interesting things with little reprises and callbacks

But they cover a really wide range of styles

Daryl gets a country number

But Daryl also gets a bizarre electronica number

So

Yeah

MARCHAE: I did just shake my head in actual real life

KRIS: HA

MARCHAE: I guess you can't win em all

KRIS: There’s definitely white girl rapping

But it’s also kind of a highlight of the season?

(I’m listening to the soundtrack now to remember things)

MARCHAE: Lawd Jesus *insert spiritual humming and rocking and sings peace be still*

I'll make it!

It's a trade off. I think it'll be good

I think we got all my big questions

And small ones

KRIS: Go us

When you come to LA maybe we should go to West Covina

I actually have no clue if that’s a good idea

MARCHAE: HAHAHAHAHAH

I should google map it and take a gander

We hope we’ve successfully bullied Marchae into watching more of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and if so, we’ll be sure to check back in for a mid-season and/or finale follow-up post!