#ethical consumer

[sophsweet]

Preserving my Little Patch of Earth - Ethical Consumer Guide

Many people sound perplexed and annoyed by the imposition of trends, which either don’t preserve the environment or are actually destroying it. For example, wood and paper products are one of the 4 biggest drivers of deforestation. This is known, as discussed by the Union of Concerned Scientists here. While corporations are using “tobacco tactics” to skew any public discourse to promote their…

[whalesfall]

btw. your search for the most morally upright and ethical piece of media that has the most correct “representation” will destroy your ability to find the most profound and beautiful and human of stories. and may even destroy the stories themselves before they are created. if you even care.

[attheideality]

10 Ethical Sunscreen Brands: Protect Your Skin and the Ocean

[lazylittledragon]

this is a cult this is a cult this is a cult

[femme-dor]

“SHEIN kills our planet & uses child/migrant labor” she types from her latest iPhone after finalizing her Amazon order & driving her gas powered vehicle to the mall for NIKES.

“Theyre evil and unethical!! THRIFT INSTEAD!!”

A Depop notification pings. Her $200 Kmart Jeans has arrived.

[autisticshizuo]

downgrading izaya orihara's deep and beautifully written character to a groomer -who is NOT a groomer- is like saying crime and punishment is a shitty book because it had moral dilemmas in it

[dmsr-art]

the urge to draw tridentariicest pussy eating vs knowing that if i ever posted it my anti muts would burn me at the stake

fuck them, time to cull the herd 👊🏼💥

[akuma-is-here]

AHAHAHAHA NOT THE DELUSIONAL ASS BITCHES MAKING DADBASTIAN WEEK RIGHT AFTER SEBACIEL WEEK

[lavender-town-radio]

have yall noticed that a huge chunk of white americans are more chill with the idea of [consuming] human flesh than eating the meat of animals that are often pets [in the west]? what kind of mental hoops leads to this.

[hussyknee]

In one of the 647968 posts going "What You Like Says Nothing About You" (broadly agree) the first comment in the reply section was, "well I'm never going to apologize for being a Swiftie and a Reylo and Destiel shipper and Snape fan and loving ACOTAR and LOTR and Hamilton and B99" and I'm like, actually being this much of a pathological white liberal makes you the exception to this rule 😭😭

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

Hey, so I saw your post about some fics demonizing Neytiri. That has actually been one of my major fears as a fic writer, attempting to balance Neytiri's extremely valid trauma and the POV I'm writing from (that is typically flawed in some way). I was wondering, since you seem very well-versed on the topic, what do you define as "demonizing" for Neytiri? Is it ok to write from a perspective where a character doesn't really like or trust her, as long as the trauma is noted? Do you have any resources so I can educate myself to properly write this kind of character?

I really want to make sure I'm doing right by Neytiri and improve as a fic writer overall, so any advice you could offer would be very much appreciated!

Whoa, what a complicated and nuanced question. A great one! And I'm super flattered you came to me! Just one I'm going to try to answer to the best of my ability. I'm assuming you're referring to Norm's pov in your fic?

First of all, I do not want to at all proclaim to be an expert on generational trauma; I am not a person of color, and I have been lucky enough to have a very normal and healthy family. I just had a best friend growing up in an abusive household and took steps to educate myself best I could to understand the situation, which I believe anyone would do. So I'm just gonna try to word vomit out my thoughts for you, please ask questions or challenge any of what I say if any of you see anything you think is incorrect. Buckle in, this will be long.

What do you define as "demonizing" for Neytiri?

Demonizing means portraying someone as wicked or threatening, as evil or worthy of contempt and blame.

For me, demonizing for Neytiri is the trend I've seen lately of portraying her as this unyielding, animalistic type character who's hatred of humans, Spider specifically, goes so far that she gets physically violent with Spider and eventually ends up tearing apart her family. In these fics, Jake is always a sad sack loser bystander, loving his wife too much to step in but of course shamefully knowing how wrong what she's doing is. Infantilizing poor white savior Jake Sully, being brow beaten by his mean indigenous wife into neglecting a child is a weirdly strong take in this fandom. Often Mo'at is a wise elder chiding Neytiri for being unable to get over her prejudice. Mo'at and Jake understand Neytiri as much as anyone would, they wouldn't shame her. To me, it's an extremely reductive and frankly borderline racist characterization. When paired with a sympathetic view of Quaritch, it is at best irresponsible and at worst knowingly dangerous.

Neytiri is representative of an indigenous woman. I feel like I don't have to explain why making her violent, volatile, and completely unreasonable is a little bit of a harmful caricature. In these fics, for me, Neytiri ceases to be a person. She looses autonomy to sort of represent this monolith of hatred and prejudice that has hurt our little baby boy Spider. It's crazy to me that people can't apply the exact same empathy they have towards Spider (saving Quaritch) to Neytiri (not being able to trust Spider). They are the most foil of foil characters. Their storylines are extremely similar, if I'm being honest. Essentially, ignoring the fact that Neytiri is a member of a minority community being actively genocided by Spider's people is intentionally reductive. If you can empathize with Spider, and ESPECIALLY if you find Quaritch sympathetic, finding Neytiri's actions unforgivable is racism, plain and simple.

Also, side note, the lengths people go to where Neytiri just literally will not budge under any circumstances at all is INSANE.

(I read a fic the other day where she gave Spider to child protective services behind everyone's back. That's LUNACY. She only came around after she almost lost Tuk when Tuk was suddenly born prematurely and Mo'at came in and was like "Eywa made it so you can never have kids again because of what you did, have you learned your lesson yet?" Like?? I do not understand the HATRED some of ya'll have for her, the suffering you all think she deserves. She's having an EXTREMELY NORMAL trauma reaction to surviving GENOCIDE? Examine yourselves greatly).

But where I was going was Neytiri is the same character who pushed her parents to let them go to human school, fell in love with human Jake, defended him and trusted him despite her family, mated with him and lost her religious position because of it, and then had a bunch of part human kids with him, and adopted a fully freak of nature kid born of a human she loved and respected. She has human friends, she wears and uses human tech, and she forgave Jake after he had betrayed them. Basically what I'm saying is Neytiri, despite her continuous trauma, is the most open and curious and non traditional Na'vi of all time. Girl is READY to meet new people and learn new shit, and to be open to everyone. Sometimes I think about a no trauma Neytiri and I get emotional. I think it's crazy to say she would never budge on Spider, if it wasn't for his dad I'm pretty sure she would've softened lonnnnng ago, if not having liked him from the get go.

Um, that got way too long I have too many thoughts. Second half of your question.

Is it ok to write from a perspective where a character doesn't really like or trust her, as long as the trauma is noted?

This is a tricky question, because technically there is nothing you can't do as a writer. Of course, it also means there is nothing anyone can't criticize you for writing. Like, Colleen Hoover can say she's writing realistic depictions of domestic abuse until the cows come home, I'm still going to say she's romanticizing and normalizing it in a super callous way. Neither of us can stop the other. So yeah, of course you're okay to write from the perspective of a character that doesn't like Neytiri. I just think the point will be what your prerogative is. One of my MFA professors says it in a way I like and I'm sure I've referenced before, if you aren't trying to make a point about something that might have to have a trigger warning then don't include it. I always say I would take it a step further; if your point is to defend that thing, don't do it. So for me, my big points would be try not to project my own feelings onto the character either way; if the character is wrong about something and the narrative intends to show that they will either learn, or we the reader will grow past them. But to be sure what you feel the takeway of the piece is is what you wanted it to be, I guess.

Do you have any resources so I can educate myself to properly write this kind of character?

Well, I have a few on white writers writing BIPOC characters and the ethics of that if you're interested in that. But I don't have any on specifically writing generational trauma. I guess I'd say reading and absorbing are my biggest tools; so reading books/watching movies or TV that use the speculative to translate generational trauma, and learning about and taking in the real life examples the character is based on. Read up on some genocides, and indigenous people today and how their lives are still affected. Even just watch the news; we're witnessing a very public genocide being pushed right to our attention right now. And of course, that is not the only genocide happening rn, it's just the only one we're talking about, so there's plenty of real world case studies unfortunately right in front of us.

[yvtro]

adjacent to this post of mine and these greats tags by @bess3714 (i hope you don’t mind me putting them here!):

and these tags by @dankovskaya:

i’ve been thinking about this post by @roobylavender:

and in general about how much bruce’s kids (maybe besides tim, whose 90s robin series was a whole hannah montana esque thing with being a high schooler and robin) can’t see the divide and importance of having a functional civilian persona. this is of course, mostly a result of them becoming vigilantes as kids, and the fact that bruce failed to realise that his own system and dedication to “normal” life is not really something that was obvious to his kids.

however, i also think it’s extremely interesting to look at how differently it shaped dick and jason. as @roobylavender says, dick has a kind of survivor guilt, but vigilantism is what helps him to push forward and live. and then you have jason, who, against his best wishes and delusional claims about “reclaiming” his trauma, is stuck reliving it, and even adds to a cycle of violence.

either way, it makes sense that both dick’s and jason’s biggest grievance with bruce lies in him maintaining a “real life,” no matter if they themselves understand it or not. for them, this division is completely arbitrary.

[one-sad-pathetic-crow]

MY AUNT GOT ME COOL ASS RICK AND MORTY SHIT FOR CHRISTMAS DUDE !?! LIKE ITS BELATED BCS SHE LIVES RLLY FAR AWAY BUT OH MY GOD IM DYING HFKSKDHALALDHLA :))

[terrific-fish]

Do NOT like that Sparrow is still vegan after making Hero kill deer in the woods with her bare hands. You telling me he lets that shit ROT????? IN THIS ECONOMY??????

[starxscream]

Yalls first reaction to media having racist portrayals shouldn't be oh well time to pirate it!

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

was about to buy a product from a company and then see their gross pro-abortion shirts too :/