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sableraven · 2 months

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some issues I have with the proshipping community as someone sorta align with it.

This ain’t for antishippers so go away.

To preface this, I do align myself with the dead dove do not eat community and write what you want. I know technically it would make me a proshipper, but I do have a lot of issues with how proshippers handle race related stuff in fandoms and how some ignorance make spaces unwelcoming for people of color.

While I don’t think proshippers are anywhere near comparable to antishippers and their behaviors, I do think proshippers have the potential of creating their own echo chambers and being extreme in an “Us vs Them” they critique antishippers of doing.

One example is anyone have a discomfort to certain ships, tropes, or trigger warnings, which is FINE. Not everyone is comfortable with dead dove and I understand that. I understand that my works aren’t for everyone and I do my best to tag triggers and warn people before reading my works. I also have my own squicks when it comes to fiction, but I don’t harass anyone over it. For the extreme proshippers, some act if you have any discomfort and simply voice is (not everyone attacking anyone and looking down on others who enjoy it) you are labeled an anti. Or if you state not liking it, all of sudden, you should keep your opinions to yourself despite wanting people to have the freedom of how they can enjoy media.

This also goes into seeing anyone who have those discomforts as “sensitive” and not practicing basic decency of tagging your works as dead dove. A lot of proshippers equate any criticism of fiction as anti rhetoric even though criticism of fiction will always exist. If you put out art, you will be criticized. Sure, some criticism are hated disguised in it, but in terms of general discussion of published media and problematic issues in it, that has ALWAYS existed. Media studies, feminism media studies, etc. have existed longer than the stupid antiship vs proship discourse in fandoms. Someone pointing out problematic things in a media isn’t immediately anti rhetoric because published media hold a different responsibility to their audience than fanfic writers. Fanfiction is no where near as far reaching as published media that has the potential of reaching millions of people. That’s why when antis bring up “fictional can affect reality,” I don’t believe fanfiction can do that because its a very niche thing that most people interacting with it knows better. Published media has a different responsibility, thats why ratings exists, and the FTC is a thing in the US.

And criticism isn’t bad! I get a lot of proshippers are hyper vigilant due to harassment in the past, but some of you go extreme on this opinion that any criticism is bad and that it doesn’t belong in fandoms. You’re not oppressed or being censored if your fanworks are being criticized. It’s still posted on AO3 and it will only be taken down if you wish it too. It’s like celebrities crying about cancel culture when it’s just online backlash that has no effect on the real world whatsoever. Some of y’all sound like anti woke cancel culture right winger when you complain about supposed “internet warriors” taking your right to create away. They’re not! Let’s not act like antishippers have any power to ever bring censorship laws, only politicians who don’t even know fanfiction exists.

Now this moves on the topic of racism in fandoms. This is where the problematic term of “fandom policing” comes up when half of the time its people of color, queer people, or women discussing how bigotry is rampant in fanbases. Look at the Star Wars fandom, any time a white character is race bent, video games, that exists. Which makes it frustrating that some proshippers treat these discussion as fandom policing or anti rhetoric. It’s not. I have had instances of proshippers trying to excuse racism that happens in fanbases as if I am misinterpreting it or its not racist because the fans have other reasons why they’re ranting about this media. I was also told by one proshipper because they, who is white, that they never encountered racism in the Star Wars fandom even though that shit had started with the first teaser trailer of the Force Awakens. Or they try to make it seems that the angry Star Wars fans who are mad about a black stormtropper existing is NOT racism, but because of established lore not being held up by Disney. (Which, none of the movies have explicitly said stormtroopers are white and ugh).

It’s also ridiculous how white proshipers are allowed the space to vent about being accused of racism by fandom members. I can agree that some accusations are ridiculous, especially ones made by antishippers, but half of it is because white proshippers insert themselves in discussion of racism started by fans of colors and whitesplain to them that it’s not racism and do the same excusal shit that I was met with. I get trying to defend your favorite media, but let people vent. Fans of colors aren’t given the luxury. For some reason, if you complain about racism perpetrated by fans or how the media they like have issues with bigotry, all of sudden its “you bringing politics in fandom spaces” and white proshippers are only using fandoms to “escape reality.” So are fans of color? I would love to use fiction to escape reality, but its hard when racism is rampant in your fandom circles or seeing characters of color being treated poorly in canon. Like cmon. Stop with the double standards.

It’s annoying how much care that both proshippers and antishippers have when it comes to fiction and fictional characters, but not towards people in real life. Or that racial experiences committed by either side are ignored. Both sides act like they’re oppressed over the most chronically online shit ever. Or that anyone with a differing opinion is immediately label the other side. While proshippers don’t do harassment campaigns or force themselves into anti spaces for the purpose of doxxing, it doesn’t make them automatically safe for everyone, especially for people of color.

And please stop with the ageism towards younger people. Not every anti are “puriteens,” I seen a lot of antishippers within the 20-30 age range.

#racism in fandoms #antis dni #vent #vent post so long one #proship discourse #any antis who use this as a gotchu to proshipping as a concept fuck off

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ultfreakme · 6 months

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Cn I ask your top favorite fics that you've written (feel free how much that you want to list)? Why they're special to you? Is there a specific inspiration when you wrote them? Thanks....

Hey anon!!! Thanks for the ask!! Favorite fics...I've written. You've given me too much freedom by asking my why I like them I am so sorry for the wall of text about to hit.

To Veer The Tides

It's a fic for Kuroko no Basuke which is basically just me slapping the character names onto a WILDLY different fantasy setting. It's for Akashi x Furihata. An arranged marriage AU where Akashi is the son of an emperor who went too power hungry and wanted to consolidate 7 mostly independent states(provinces??) into one, but he was defeated by the remaining states and to control Akashi, he is arranged to marry far below his station to Furihata, son of a destroyed noble house which is under the rule of Kagami's state. So it's about Akashi climbing back to power with Furihata initially thinking Akashi is pure evil but he soon realizes that maybe Akashi and his family aren't as evil as the people believe.

I ended up doing so much research, world-building and character expansion. It's more political intrigue than romance, lol. I still love that fic to death, I think I honestly peaked there for world-building, at least. I wrote it immediately after reading and watching Mo Dao Zu Shi and being first introduced to the concept of cultivation as a magic system and really wanted to put all my faves in flowy robes and long hair.

I want to get back to it, but I've discontinued it because I am simply not qualified to right about Dissociative Identity Disorder, systems and alters. Akashi has a terribly stereotypical portrayal of it in canon and I thought maybe I could research enough to write that, but I just, I don't know any systems and I felt like if I can't respect it, I didn't want to do it.

But it's still my favorite in terms of the world and aesthetics I had going on for it.

2. Tell Me Your Story (I'll Tell You Mine)

My current baby. The one I incessantly post about and draw for. Single-handedly over saturating the kyoshi warrior sokka x blue spirit zuko market. It's set in the canon world but I had to do so much research for this one too. I learned a lot, I think, while writing this. Big lesson being never ever write in present tense but if you're 200K+ words into it there is simply no going back RIP.

It started as just a silly romance because I thought it'd be funny to have Sokka and Zuko be completely oblivious to who they like. But as I began plotting and writing, it transformed into me projecting all my issues with colonialism and using the ATLA setting as base to dip a little bit deeper into the themes the show itself brings up, and some issues that it doesn't. Like, how colonialism uses your own culture against you, how it makes you fear who you are, makes you do things you don't want.

I deliberately chose that title because lots of indigenous communities in the world have lost their stories because of colonialism. Oral traditions and tales that are forgotten because people were killed and forced to never repeat them, forced to forget their languages. And that, really got to me. How colonialism slowly strips you of what makes human beings what they are; stories, art, music, dance, etc.

So this fic ended up being about how colonialism steals from you, uses what is yours AGAINST you and how it is important to embrace who you are and fight back.

3. Tell The Neighbours I'm Not Sorry

It's for Jon and Jay from DC Comics and Superfam. I wrote it when I was seeing a lot of biphobia against Jon and racism against Jay. As a bi asian, even if it was towards fictional characters, it was getting to me. People kept talking about how there's a specific way to be bi. Why did Jon never have a crisis about being queer? Why did Jon and Jay move so fast? Is Jay manipulating Jon just to get what he wants? It was all filled with a lot of stereotypes and biases.

Superman comics especially often taken up real world issues and puts it into the story. So I took all my anger and frustration from the biphobia and racism and wrote it into a fic.

It's about how there's no one way to being queer, and about how immigrants and non-white people are immediately classified as some kind of 'other' and 'bad' with zero grounding. It's also a little bit about colonialism on Jay's end. It's so charged with me going "FUCK IT!" and still somehow came out okay as a fic and I think I like that I managed to turn my anger into something productive.

Bonus

4. An Itajun fic I have not published and am still writing

It's my first JJK fic! It's an absolute mess in my drafts right now but I really like it, it's very fun for me. Junpei starts seeing and sensing curses far earlier because of built resentment from his bullies going too far and severely injuring him, his mom finds out and they move to Yuuji's area of Tokyo to get away from the school since they won't do anything about the bullying. Yuuji and Junpei run into each other and meet early at school. So the dynamics are kinda reversed, where Junpei is the one who is into the world of curses first while Yuuji has no clue, but they slowly interact and come together, forming a tight bond.

Junpei trusts no one and is dealing with all this curse nonsense trying to understand what it means. Yuuji is seemingly happy and chipper but he's going through tough times because his grandpa got hospitalized. It's both of them supporting each other and making sure the other isn't alone.

#riki asks #zukka #akafuri #itajun #jonjay

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solarpunkpresentspodcast · 10 months

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Infrastructures of Violence

Solarpunk isn’t new to debates about violence, its pros and cons, whether it is a true reflection of the movement’s values or antithetical to its ethical commitments. I figured I’d give my own two cents’ worth here; I know I might be retreading old ground, but given this season’s focus on housing in particular and the built environment generally, I wanted to address this topic specifically.

Before I begin, though, I want to note that I am deeply indebted in my thinking to Rob Nixon, specifically his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor for giving me language and a framework of thinking about this issue. There are many types of violence, it turns out! Some are just harder to see than others. On top of that, who is labelling what action as “violent”? Who gets to define violence? These are some of the questions I tend to chew over whenever the word is used.

Today, I want to talk about how infrastructure and violence are intrinsically linked, and not just in the sense of clashes between the people living there. Architecture can perpetrate violence simply in its design: take hostile architecture, for example. Apart from threatening violence in actual physicality, hostile architecture perpetrates a violent ideology: there are people who do not matter, who need to be shooed away, who don’t deserve basic human kindness or decency. This is a forerunner to genocidal action - the constant dehumanization of a particular population, making it easier to eventually do actual, physical, spectacular violence to them without causing much psychic damage to/causing protest from the rest of the population.

In my view, solarpunks’ goals are to create a world where that ideology is, as Christina put it, “beyond the pale”. A world where compassion reigns and every individual matters as an important part of the community. A world where disputes are resolved through skillful negotiation, where interpersonal conflict is arbitrated with compassion, where peace and care are valued and valorized.

We don’t live in that world yet. And it will take a lot of intentional choosing of nonviolence as well as organized opposition to a status quo that interprets any opposition to it as necessarily violent. Taking an example from my own society and culture, Canada has a history (though recent) of branding enviromentalists as terrorists, with terrible consequences. A recent episode of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) podcast “What on Earth?” explored how misogyny and racism can combine with anti-environmentalist sentiment into a toxic stew that greatly affects female environmentalists, and thus can have a chilling effect on women’s speech and actions. (Because Canada was first and foremost founded as a resource colony to extract goods for Europe, and only became a country after negotiating with the companies that had laid claim to Northern Turtle Island, any opposition to the extractive settler-colonial mindset is labelled domestic terrorism).

Speaking of racism, Canada, the status quo, and the violence inherent to certain forms of infrastructure, both 1990’s Oka Crisis and the current struggles of the Tiny House Warriors come to mind. The Oka Crisis, or Kanehsatà:ke Resistance, was basically a struggle over whether the township of Oka, Quebec, had the right to build condominiums and expand a golf course over disputed land that also included an Indigenous burial ground. Mohawk protestors blockaded a highway with trees and trucks; the Quebec Police, the Canadian Army, and the RCMP showed up with tanks. To defend infrastructure.

The Tiny House Warriors are a group of Indigenous-led protestors who are part of a mission to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline from crossing unceded Secwepemc Territory by building infrastructure of their own - tiny houses. Ten tiny houses were built in strategic places along the Trans Mountain pipeline route, reasserting Indigenous presence on their own land. They are now in court, after having been attacked and abused (sometimes physically) for their commitment to fighting violent infrastructure with infrastructure that asserts their sovereignty and provides homes.

The label of violence can be stretched, in this way, to cover even peaceful protestors. Or artists - Elizabeth LaPensée's short video game Thunderbird Strike, wherein the player directs a thunderbird to attack the oil pipeline and infrastructures encroaching on the land, was described by a Minnesota politician and oil lobbyists as “encouraging eco-terrorism”.

Much like the debater who takes a critique of their argument as an ad hominem attack, there are governments that see only violence in certain actions that solarpunks may not see as violent at all.

The violence against the Wet’suwet’en protestors, the #NoDAPL protestors, and many, many more is sourced in how those who defend the status quo see any movement against it as violence or the threat of violence, and feel justified in retaliating with force. Never mind the centuries of colonial violence and dehumanization, the official doctrine stating that non-Christians and their lands were fair game for European state invasion, the historical and ongoing land theft and consequent forcing of people out of their homes to live in unfamiliar places, the brutal repression of language and culturally important ceremonies… I could go on, but I won’t. According to the status quo, though, those aren’t technically violent acts - or, if they could be called “violent", they happened in the past, and so somehow do not count, as if history doesn’t shape our present or memory is no object.

All that said, I’m not sure where that leaves us. I do know that solarpunk is not okay with interpersonal violence at all, nor is it okay with war, oppression, torture, subjugation…. those are all the easy violences, the ones we can immediately see, identify, and react to.

But violence against infrastructure? When the term “violence” is defined by the very forces we are actively attempting to dismantle? I don’t think that acting in defense of one’s safety is wrong: pushing back against violent infrastructure might look like blockading a road or railway. It might look like tiny houses, built in the path of a pipeline. It might look like sabotaging the machines in a warehouse. It might look like a group of people united by the belief that human life and the health of the land is more valuable than any profit that could be made from this infrastructure, any benefit it might give.

To dismantle infrastructures that perpetrate violence is to commit violence. So perhaps the aims of solarpunk could be interpreted as violent in that sense, because destroying, hindering, and otherwise f&%ing up fossil fuel infrastructure, or military weaponry, or modifying hostile architecture to make it human-friendly… that is, in the eyes of society at large, violent.

I think I’m starting to think myself in circles, however. It’s time for some input, because this is just how I’m thinking about this issue, and it’s by no means any sort of manifesto or final word on the subject; it’s necessarily restricted by my own biases and location, and I need perspective. So, what do you think?

#solarpunk #violence #indigenous sovereignty #status quo #capitalism #architecture #infrastructure #homes #buildings #urban design #city planning

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icarus-suraki · 1 year

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I've been thinking about a post that's been circulating here about the subtle racism present in Western/white danmei fandom (which is definitely there, whether one realizes it or not). And it reminded me a lot of 1990s anime fandom.

First, for the record, I'm white. Just so we're clear. Okay, moving on:

The DIC dubbed version of Sailor Moon was broadcast when I was 13, in 1995 (and I jumped right on it too). Around that same time, the SciFi channel was showing a handful of animes in rotation on Saturday mornings. There were a few dubbed anime and even fewer subbed anime on VHS at Blockbuster. 9 times out of 10, no one ever really knew how to pronounce "Neon Genesis Evangelion" or "Urusei Yatsura." And the general perception of "anime" in general was that it was raunchy at the mildest and only got progressively more pornographic from there.

But as these things started to appear in the US and be available to a wider audience, all these racist stereotypes of Japan and Japanese people started to surface too. To quote someone from the time, "Isn't manga the kinky stuff Japanese businessmen read on the train?" That was the perception: it's all dirty. (Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Ronin Warriors and some other early arrivals helped with that some, because they were clearly children's cartoons. But then we had to deal with the whole "children's cartoons" issue when looking at NGE and Miyazaki's movies. But I'm digressing and glossing over whole decades of localized anime.)

tl;dr: in the early and mid 90s, if you were a fan of anime you were very much a consumer of a "foreign" product.

So we loved it but there was a very steep learning curve when it came to actually understanding what we were watching, especially as the internet got bigger and better and we learned that, wait, there are outer senshi? There are whole other storylines?

And there was an entirely different visual language and cultural foundation to these shows (and later movies and manga and so on). Why the heck does she have a giant drop next to her head? Why is she holding that piece of paper? What does it mean to work at a shrine? A shrine to what? What's the deal with the cherry blossoms? Why does he have an expression like that on his face? What does it mean when the characters do this? And this was in the 90s, so the internet then is not what it is today. We had to fumble our way around and learn the details of these "foreign" cartoons, while contending with the stereotypes other people (usually adults lol) had about Japan, anime, and Japanese people. But we did learn! We'd read, we'd hit up the internet as much as we could, we'd talk to one another, we'd go to events and conventions and just try to pick up as much as we could. Because we were curious! We wanted to know!

We were lucky because within a few years we had Princess Mononoke in movie theaters (not many, but some) and Cowboy Bebop popped up and Gundam Wing came along and the internet got better and anime stopped being such a fringe interest and now there's better information and understanding (at least a little).

That's a long story to say that the Western danmei fandom needs to do the same thing: get down into the cultural source and learn stuff.

You have got to acknowledge that you are engaging with works from a culture that is not your own. You can't just slap Western concepts onto it and try to shove an entirely different culture into the framework of your own culture. That's not going to work. And, no, you won't understand everything right off. There's layers in here and you have to acknowledge that and start learning.

You're engaging with concepts and worldviews that are almost certainly not the same as your own, my fellow white danmei fans, and you have got to realize that. Step back from your notions and your expectations and, yes, your racism and stereotypes, and start looking at the complexity of an entire culture out of which a character you love has arisen.

Once upon a time, someone here on Tumblr wanted to do a presentation about how "magical girl" characters like Sailor Moon and Sakura Kinomoto were inherently feminist. The problem was that this person never even considered the ways "feminism" might look or be discussed in Japan. This person was imposing Western feminism on characters that were created entirely outside that worldview/mindset. Don't do that. It's unfair to the creator, it's unfair to the creator's culture, and it actually kind of stifles your opportunity for learning.

Will I ever understand Japanese culture as well as a Japanese person? Absofuckinglutely not. But I know more than I once did, which means I can enjoy more aspects of animanga than I used to. I can get more of it and I'm less likely to misinterpret the creator's intentions. I'm not that great at it and I love a good translator's note, but I can get more of some of it.

So dig in to the cultural foundations and stop shoving Western cultural concepts onto works that weren't created in that milieu. (Yes, I said "milieu!") Get curious! I am begging you to stop assuming and get curious! Ask yourself "why?" and then get to researching!

For your first assignment, stop writing fanfic where Lan Wangji sounds like a robot. He uses short, perfect, referential phrases because he's elegant and educated. In English, the most elegant characters use elaborate language. Not so in many Chinese works: the fewer and more perfectly chosen the words, and the more meaning lying within those words, the more refined and educated the character is. It's like he's so good with language that he doesn't even need to use it anymore.

At least, that's my superficial understanding at the moment. I've got tons more to learn.

So let's get learning and stop shoving our expectations, assumptions, worldview, stereotypes, and cultural baggage onto works that exist and were created outside all of that. Let the works stand on their own and learn their foundations.

#noises from issy #western danmei fandom #oldtaku #just some thinky thoughts #also i accidentally minored in asian studies #because i just got interested in japan and japanese culture #so you never know what might come of some learning #get curious #start learning

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stephenjaymorrisblog · 11 months

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When I Was Your Age

Stephen Jay Morris

10/31/23

©Scientific Morality

I don’t mean to be sesquipedalian. However, I do relish the use of vulgar, four-letter words. That's my writing style. Don’t like it? Go somewhere else. Don’t let me waste your time. Okay? No! I aint no keyboard warrior, I am a pen and paper iconoclast. Okay? Okay! Now let’s go to the subject at hand.

We have tepid biases, then we have severe biases. Both are an anathema to the traditional liberals, or so-called “Woke.” You know? Racism, sexism, ablism, agism and many others. Then you have acceptable biases like “Generation gap.” Also, there are geographical biases, astrological biases, and other silly ones, like music criticism, sports bias, etc. Does this sound familiar: “People born under the sign of Pisces are assholes! Most of them live in Florida! What a shitty state that is! Not only do they have criminals, but they have lousy sports teams!” It all sounds hateful and hypercritical, but it is acceptable in society. Just like political bias: “It’s alright to call someone a communist, but you can’t call them a nigger!”

The paleo-conservatives are much too cowardly to use racial epithets, so they use innocuous, acceptable biases like “geographical bias” to cover up their racial hatred and disdain for their political adversaries. Instead of saying, “A city full of niggers that is run by a Democratic city council,” they say, “Chicago.” Now that the conservative movement is being taken over by the White Nationalist movement, they’re even more at ease using racist terminology.

Today, I want to tackle the subject of the Generation Gap. Every race, creed, or color has had this problem. It is an innocuous bias that has been around since 399 B.C., the days of the ancient Greek philosophers. Quote: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”― Socrates 399 B.C. End Quote. This didn’t just start with the Baby Boomers and their parents in the 60’s.

Every generation has its critics. Why do older people do this? Before I answer that question, let me point out that every individual has their own unique personality. Talking about generational issues, you tend to generalize. People who generalize are too stupid and indolent to elaborate. That is why most racists are stupid. So, why do most older people look down on the younger generation? Because they wish they were young enough to repair their misspent youth. Plus, they resent the better life their children have. Tag it “jealousy!”

Now, what I just said is a gross generalization. That may be true for some, but not all. There are parents who love their children, and those children reciprocate that love. So, who is “anti-youth?” Mostly, this sentiment comes from the political Right in America! They want all males to be masculine warriors who will protect the ruling class, and all women to be birthing wives to increase the White population. Don’t believe me? Tough shit! Just read the history of any Fascist nation; it’s all the same.

The U.S. political Right wants every male in this country to be a self-reliant, rugged individual. Conservative news website and media company, “The Daily Wire,” makes lots of money from attacking the so-called Left. One of its commentators, Matt Walsh, wears a Fidel Castro beard and is a Millennial who attacks Generation Z. He cited a psychological study that found Gen Z-ers are suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. Matt, being the dumbass he is, did not sympathize with them, stating “they are just spoiled kids.” I get the feeling he never reads any pamphlets published by the Roman Catholic Church. He also stated that he has never experienced a panic attack, so therefore, there is no such thing. Any individual who has this mind set might suffer from psychopathological Narcissism. He has no ability to empathize. I pity his children and his wife.

I am a 69 year-old, Jewish male. Beginning at 11, I grew up having panic attacks. It was embarrassing and frequently occurred in public. These attacks came out of nowhere, not unlike an Epileptic seizure. I got them not because I had Liberal, hippie parents who were lenient with me; As I learned through psychotherapy many years later, it was because my neurons weren’t firing correctly and I had a bio-chemical imbalance in my brain. Matt Walsh thinks with his balls, not his brain.

A major upshot of this modern world is that religion is dying, and science is advancing. So, we must endure schmucks like Walsh until natural causes take hold.

Just remember, the world is getting better and better!

#stephenjaymorris #poets on tumblr #poets of tumblr #baby boomers #anarchopunk #millenials #anarchism #anarchocommunism #gen z culture #Anarcho capitalism #anarcho primitivism #anarcho syndicalism #anarchofeminism #anarchoqueer #satire

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aposterous · 9 months

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hi! i was wondering what kind of problems you’re talking about in your last post about the warriors books? i stopped reading after the Great Battle and honestly i haven’t picked up a warriors book since middle school, but im trying to get back into the fandom and would love to hear what you have to say!

there are kind of a lot, some more rampant than others. you've actually read further than I have (I stopped at sunrise), but I know a bit about the books after it because I frequent the analysis side of the Warriors fandom and I don't listen to spoiler warnings. The most common issue in the books is how not much happens in them. power of three and omen of the stars easily could have been one arc, but because the authors didn't plan the books properly they ended up as two.

some other things have been pointed out more recently. the series doesn't give disabled cats all that much respect (consider Snowkit's death, for example, or how Jayfeather was pressured by Leafpool to become a medicine cat because he was blind).

a few years ago, spottedleaf got her own novella which contained some very problematic aspects that I don't want to get into here.

there's also a lot of implicit sexism in the books; she-cats get fewer lines (i.e. less focus) and usually settle down and have kits no matter how little it seems to fit their characterisation. it's especially bad in dawn of the clans IMO; I haven't read it since 2020 but I'm pretty sure gray wing has like three girlfriends in two books? I never finished dotc but I've heard the sexism continues all the way through it.

the tribe of rushing water is also in a bit of a weird spot. i think some people claim cultural appropriation, but I don't know enough about that to verify it.

that's all that comes to mind at the moment, but I'm sure there's more. and i also haven't read any of the books in almost four years, so i might misremember things or misrepresent points originally made by people who actually did read the books properly.

Edit: @smewduck reminded me of the WC racism doc, which is as far as I can remember where I heard about the Tribe thing. here's the link to the doc in case people haven't read it, but just know it's really long: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nnCCD4TfR-5MZie9hQgpDfEE4mYpCtjNXQpD9VqOkxs/edit

#if you want to learn more id highly suggest binging Sunnyfall's videos #she does a lot of research and data and stuff to support her points #and of course moonkitti too #warriors #asks #warrior cats

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ramrodd · 10 days

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Christian Reveals Super Villain Secret Origins! (feat Dr Bart Ehrman) (J...

COMMENTARY:

James White and Bart "Giggles" Ehrman are a perfect excaple of the opposite sides of the same theological coin of the dialectical Marxism of the Jesus Seminar v the Pro-Life solo scriptura Calvinism of the Totaal Deparvity doctrine. There is reaally not a dime's worth of diffference between them, theologically. Apostasy is the essentialy dimension of Giggle's business model. It's got nothing to do with Jesus: it's all about the bucks and political power he has accrued by claiming apostasy, Popularity has always bee a cricial issue for Giggles: he succumbed to the peer pressure of the Born Again warriors of Bill Bright's Campus Crusade for Christ in the wake of the Late, Great Planet Jesus movement of the 60s and became "Born Again" because all the cook kids in school were going Salvation Gospel in reaction to the Sex, Drugs and Rock-and-Roll anarchy of the Liberal anti-war and civil rights cultural revolution on campus. I'll give Giggles credit for bing diligent in his convictions and service as a pastor until he met Dale Martin and discovered that being a Gay Episcopalian was a lot more popular at Chapel Hill than a Calvinist drudge and Apostasy turned out to be a very profitable Branding decision. His tell for when he is spouting absolute theological trash is when he begins to giggle about elements of the literature of the Bible which don't fit his Marxist template which is to say, any appeal to the paradox of Jesus and the validation of the God Hypothesis by Resurrection. Like James White, he genraally denies the Holy Spirit as contradiction of the material nature of historic analysis. Marxism is sort of the anti-Gnostic inquiry where the supernatural manifest in NOAA weather reports is dismissed as superstious behavior. In any evernt, Giggle's Apostasy business model satisfies his need for ppularity and made him rich, personally, and a singular power in the field of PhD scholarship. I followed James Wright's insights regardint Islam, along with Bill Warner and Jay Smith, American Evangelicals have a high need to crusade against Mormons for reasons that are completely incomprehensible to me and, to some degree, Wright, Warner and Smith extend that prejudice to Islam, I didn't know much about Islam until I went to the Million Man March here in DC because I knew the Main Stream Media couldnt get past their racism to give an accurate report of what he said, so I wtood witness on the Mall, virtually the only white guy to be seen except for some very nervous white Park Policemen around the Metro entrances. The most important thing I learned was the centrality of the number nineteen to the divine onature of the Meccan verses of the Koran and Khadijah, The Holy Spirit is all over the Koran, generally, identified by whereever 19 pops up, Sura 74:30 is the clerest portrait of the mind of The One in literature; Above it is nineteen. 19 is the literal Alpha and Omega of the mind of God as presented in Genesis 1:1 and Revelation 4:2 But that's another story. But. like all Pro-Life apologists and evangelical anti-Theist like the Jesus Seminar, he's ultimately boring, And he's gone a bit native with the standard Muslim palm's length combed out chin whiskers. All these pro-and anti-Jesus freaks get locked into their little echo chambers as a consequece of the glass ceiling of Post Modern Historic Deconstruction, I mean, when it comes to the theology of James White or Bart "Giggles" Ehrman, it comes down to a choice between Tweedle Dee and Tweeke Dumber.

#youtube

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fancyfade · 2 years

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Omg no way did I say that Jason was a social justice warrior, I’m just stating a fact that has been studied across a lot of different media. You are putting words in my mouth because of what you have seen others say. As for what I’m talking about with racism I’m speaking about the al ghuls and how they were used in Jason’s narrative. I am native and Mexican and come from a lower class so yes Jason is white but the issue at hand is important to me how certain characters get chosen and depicted across media and why that is as you could tell why I also included Stephanie Brown in the conversation. But thank you for talking about my media comprehension I really should have just shut up because what do I know.

Ok I'm re-reading your old messages to make sure I understand. Because the reason I mentioned the critical thinking thing earlier (link) is because as far as I could tell from the arguments you presented, which were not many, the logic was "poor = evil if Jason is a bad guy"

I'll confess it's hard for me to have a conversation (which...I can' tell if you want to or not?) If you just say "Trust me, this thing is there because (x) character" but you don't elaborate on it. you mentioned steph, but didn't say what you found classist about her narrative. Same for Jason. So that is my fault for not asking for clarification on what you were talking about there, and just going ahead and refuting points I have heard way too often in fandom. You say "You can mention sexism and ableism when talking about Babs, but not this when talking about Jason -- " Yes, but I don't just say "it's sexist" or "it's ableist". I say why. When you just say some writing is (word) but you don't clarify why. And if it is just "Jason was poor when he was a kid but is now a bad guy" (which was the closest you came to explaining why you thought it was classist), I disagree with you there that that is inherently classist.

I don't disagree with you that there is racism in the narrative w/ the al ghuls, but that wasn't being discussed.

I can agree that Winick has harmful tropes and themes in his writing in UtRH, but not in the fact that he chose to make Jason a villain. The harmful trope is war on drugs rhetoric, and this may not be you, but many Jason fans I have interacted with are very pro war on drugs rhetoric and death penalty rhetoric, and use that to say why he's a good guy or better than batman, but suddenly will be like 'wait DC was being bigoted towards him' when anyone points out that his actions under this rhetoric would make him a bad person.

So I apologize for jumping to conclusions, but if you want this conversation to go anywhere, you're going to have to elaborate your point more than you did. And maybe come off anon b/c I'm sure my followers are getting a bit sick of this convo.

#anon #ask #idk #jason todd negative

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stimmypaw · 3 years

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EPIC WARRIOR CATS FANDOM TIP I HAD TO LEARN THE HARD WAY

Next time you join a Warrior Cats server make sure to check if theres any people of color in it, like moderating it, at least ONE! I'm not asking much, one person with darker skin than the others one person you can trust won't baby and gaslight you for saying racism makes you uncomfortable. It's not a perfect bet but it's safer than being somewhere with only white people.

#my nyas #i didnt know warrior cats 3d artists were this weird #like ok maybe there are people of color who are mods but there just arent a lot of mods on usually so thats bad #and sure i cant find anything about the race of the mods who were there but #like my rommates agree that was just bad and even if they were poc id be safer somewhere with more poc i think #the way they just acted like theres no issue in white people laughing at racism #like as if white people saying racism is silly as a joke has no negative repercussions at all #and as if not being comfortable with that is #in any way or shape or form #actually i lost track of what i was saying im just rambling now im so tired that was very exhausting and made me really sad #not gonna trust warrior cats 3d artists for a loooooong time now #wc

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nmirah · 3 years

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hi! obviously you don't have to answer this if you are uncomfortable/ don't feel up to it but what exactly would you say is appropriation and makes you uncomfortable regarding warrior cats names? i find the concept of the cats having nature based names that are descriptive of their personality and stuff interesting, and would like to think of a naming system that doesn't have the current issues and implications since obviously i don't want to encourage anything disrespectful or offensive. looking into native american names and comparing to wc i do get an icky feeling, but i still can't quite put my finger on why. is it the fact that they change throughout their lifetime? the fact that they are compund words? a mix of these? something entirely different? i couldn't find any info on what makes them offensive, is why i'm asking, but again please only answer this if you feel comfortable, i totally understand why you wouldn't want to engage with this issue any further, and thanks for taking the time to read this regardless. sending good vibes your way <3

It's all good! Had a break/aka I worked kjhvkhj but im home now and mentally good :3

Alright so, the names. Medicine cat is not a bad name, I don't find that insulting or literally anything to do with Native American culture. What tends to bother me is some names - but it actually doesn't bother me that much! I know people who have last names like Swift Current, Sand Storm, Red Willow etc etc - but I'm almost certain that it's a coincidence. I love warrior cat names. It's not really about changing throughout the lifetime, or the fact that they are compound names, I think personally it all comes down to language and the relationship Indigenous peoples have to the English version of their ancestral names/words. English is all a lot of us have left, having been through generations of trauma that ripped our culture from their roots and killed our languages. Being hunted, seen as savages and different, having our folklore bastardized (Wendigos, for example) by people who just think it's cool and don't bother consulting or even considering the opinions of the people who those cultural pieces belong to. But I'm 99% certain warrior cat names and the clans are not a part of this. This is not fuckin Wumba's Wigwam, these are British-coded cats living in a world that makes sense in the fantasy world they were written in, Warrior Cats is not where we should be focusing any of this on. Acknowledge, and move on.

Yes, the perpetuation of the fans with these names and connecting it back to Native American culture specifically with the feathers and the tribe and whatnot is in very poor taste. But I think do many of the complaints were meant to be generalized to a lot of different media - it's probably hurtful to people who think that Warrior Cats is based on Native American culture, but the fact is that it is not. It's just not. I know this because reading these you can tell that there's no fucking way these god fearing cats are Indigenous LMAO there's NO way! It actually bothers me MORE that this is coming up at all. Racism is a touchy topic, esp for Native Americans, ESP where I live and what my family has been through, but it takes one look outside the fury that might be felt to see "oh, actually, that's not it here man". The fact that people are thinking about stepping away from the series or hounding people about it makes me more sad. It feels like people are looking at angry twitter voices and perpetuating them more than Native American fans who have resonated in some way with these characters. All I'm asking is that you give us a voice, see how we are suffering and have suffered, and maybe read the series with a more critical eye.

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lady-griffin · 2 years

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I’m honestly a bit amazed with Rowling.

In the sense that people have said that her “trolls” need to stop bringing up the “trans issue thing” when it comes to everything Rowling does and how that’s unfair of them, and that one “opinion” of hers doesn’t capture everything about her or what she’s all about.

But yet, Rowling is the one who brings it up every time she can.

According to this Rolling Stone article, in her most recent book, The Ink Black Heart -

She has a character who is a popular YouTube creator whose fans have turn against her and have accused her of racism, ableism, and the dreaded so-called transphobia. The creator is doxxed, subjected to rape and death threats, all for ‘just having an opinion.’

According to this article, they think this book clearly has a specific aim against Social Justice Warrior and it even suggests the character was a victim of a masterfully plotted, politically fueled hate campaign unfairly against her.

I just…

if you don’t want people to focus on the whole “trans thing,” why do you keep bringing it up? Why do you keeping doing shit like this?

I’m not saying, if she never talks about it ever again, people are just going to forget about it (though honestly a lot probably would).

But Rowling seems to be incapable of not talking about it. Of not being enraged by her fans for “turning against her.” Of not being upset about no longer being seen as a progressive woman and beloved author who fights against the tyranny of others. Of not feeling like she’s the victim of all this.

And don’t get me wrong -- being doxxed, receiving rape and death threats is no joke. That is awful. That isn’t okay. That isn’t. Don’t fucking do it.

I just; even when someone is being hateful or bad, and you believe the “deserve it” - In my own personal view, that’s a slippering slope. Yes, things don’t just equate each other and there is nuance and differences in certain areas of life (most of it); but also you’re creating the argument that sometimes it’s okay for this kind of behavior, which might feel ridiculous, but it doesn’t take that many steps of “therefore it’s never a bad thing” or “well, I hate this person and their views, so it’s okay when I do it, but bad when someone does it to someone I think doesn’t deserve it.

Maybe people just don’t deserve to be doxxed, or be sent death or rape threats.

And I don’t know.

Look, I’ll admit it’s hard for me to be sympathetic at the supreme court or Marjorie Taylor-Green for getting doxxed, but I just…

Maybe it’s not about what kind of people that are and what kind of person I want to be or think a good person is.

Just because someone is a bad person doesn’t mean something bad happening to them is justice. I don’t know fucking know. I have mixed feeling about some of this shit, because I don’t think you get to impact real people and their lives with actual laws and public presses and your huge platforms – but then call foul, of your own personal and “real” life being negatively impacted.

But also, don’t send people death or rape threats. What the fuck. Don’t do that. Please don’t do that.

Why do I have to even say this. Please don’t fucking do it.

However, not to undercut myself and that last point – which I cannot stress enough is very important and should be yielded to --

Classifying all of this as you being hated and attacked for just having a different opinion…lessens what you’re doing or your own hateful views. Which makes sense, in the fact that you don’t view your own views as hateful or wrong.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t.

But it doesn’t look great for Rowling that, that’s the same argument the alt-right and racist, antisemitic, and overall hateful and prejudiced people make all the time – when there are consequences for their actions.

It’s the idea of -

“How dare people judge me for having the simple harmless opinion that certain people are simply lesser than and therefore don’t deserve the same rights as myself or others. How dare YOU make me seem like a hateful person, when I express my hateful views. You’re the intolerant, hateful person for not tolerating my intolerant hatred of a group that is subjected to large amounts of violence and harm.”

Also, and this is really the thing that just leaves me totally flabbergasted. I don’t think I would gone into this nonsensical rant, if not for this.

Apparently, Rowling is claiming that this is not at all, in any shape or form, in response to her own experience nor meant to be seen like that.

Because she wrote and finished the book long before certain things happened online.

She even says she told her husband, that she was worried people were going to see this as a response to what happened to her, even though it absolutely, totally isn’t. Not even slightly.

So, clearly, we know she’s telling the truth - because she’s now currently saying she was a bit worried that, people would get the wrong idea, months and months ago. She just said it privately to her own husband and did nothing to change the plot of her book - despite the fact that I find it hard to believe that the big, famous author JK Rowling wouldn’t have the power to do so.

And it’s like really? Really Rowling?

I mean come on.

Sure, sometimes in life things happen in a way where it looks bad or that two things that are legit unrelated looked to be connected or caused by one another. And that’s simply not the case.

Sometimes, it is all just a bad coincidence or awkward timing; but I can’t believe that’s the case here.

I just can’t.

I mean come on, Rowling.

I mean seriously…

How stupid do you think people are?

I just…

I don’t understand the logic behind that.

A part of me feels or questions how someone could write a character like that and then say it has nothing to do with what they’ve gone through, despite it literally being more or less your own story, but framed with how view the situations and tweaked so the self-insert character is made to be the clear victim.

I can’t help but think, maybe that means she isn’t lying. Because surely, she wouldn’t think people are that stupid. Surely not.

But, honestly nowadays people do lie nonstop about things we know to be lies.

They can just claim it’s “fake news” or haters being haters and their fans and defenders will stand by them. Because it’s not about what they say or are doing, it’s about defending them (and to be fair, for some, it’s also just about attacking).

I mean -

A couple who are currently defending themselves against being called racist or having racist views, had a press conference where they stated they are absolutely not racist and would never be racist, and have never held such beliefs and to call them racist, is the other person, trying to obscure the real issue at hand or whatever.

But in that exact same press conference, the wife admitted to having a secret, racist twitter account. But that doesn’t mean she’s racist or anything, because all she wanted to do was explore the freedom of being someone she’s not.

She’s totally not racist person, she just wanted to be able to be a racist person online, but that doesn’t mean she has ever held racist views....

(my head hurts)

Blake Masters in Arizona is claiming he’s never had strong, hateful views on abortion and you can check his website if you want to. As though his campaign didn’t change it. As though there aren’t interviews or recordings of him saying all that hateful awful shit.

In the end

I think Rowling wants attention, the publicity, and for the people who still defend her, to have something else to defend her on.

Or maybe, just maybe, no one would have cared about her new book, if not for this controversy, that is just oh so inconvenient for her.

I mean truly it’s so inconvenient that there are now a bunch of articles about her new book. I mean, I now know she has a new book out and even the name of it, despite not knowing that two days ago. And look, now you do to because of this post.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s also because a lot of these books haven’t been all that well-received or reviewed.

There has been a lot of good things said about them. But also, when it was actually not known she was the author of the books, for those first few months (I might be wrong about that) - only 1500 copies were sold.

Which I don’t know if that’s good or bad for a brand-new spanking author who is coming out with their debut novel/series; but I do know that’s bad for someone like JK Rowling, even if she’s not going by her own name.

And isn’t it so interesting and such a true shame, that an anonymous tip let it out that she was the author.

That, Times arts editor Richard Brook, who decided to investigate this mysterious author, because he just had to know who they were really were and whether or not it was JK Rowling or not, apparently, he himself said

‘Nobody who was in the Army and now works in civilian security could write a book as good as this,’”

Isn’t that such a great review for a book series you’ve never heard of, that doesn’t sound like a review or a promotion. Just an honest to god opinion.

And look maybe he did really say or think that - and if he wasn’t part of this whole thing (I don’t know if he was and I’m too lazy to look it up), let’s be real he wanted to investigate because it was JK Rowling who was said to be the author. Not because the book series was so amazing, he just had to know who it was.

Because her name has clout. Because her name is a brand at this point.

That even when she says she didn’t want these books of hers to be part of that brand, that brand also gives her a lot of benefit of the doubt and high-praiseful reviews.

And look, I loved the Harry Potter books growing up. I adored this series, for so many years. I reread the fourth book so many goddamn times, my parents had to take it away from me so I would do my actual homework.

And look JK Rowling built that brand up, with no name recognition beforehand.

So, I’m not going to say she’s not a good author or I don’t think she’s not capable of writing good stories.

But, also - maybe she thought she would get that same recognition for her writing alone with her name unattached to it and when it didn’t happen, or in the short time she thought it would, she let it spill she was the author.

And look this is all coming from a Vox article I just read from 2018 (x).

They themselves admit they didn’t like JK Rowling’s first adventures into mature, adult writing. But they felt the same passion and love for this new series as they did feel for Harry Potter from Rowling.

Which doesn’t really tell me if the series is good or not. But I don’t think this person in 2018, hated the series like they did for first mature-adult book she had out in 2015; but I also don’t know if they truly think the series is that amazing on its own.

And this again, is all back in 2018.

All of this stuff really started to happen or honestly blew up in 2020.

2020 is when she started to get a lot of criticisms for these new books.

Part of it, probably was because some people feel like it’s okay to critique the great JK Rowling and they won’t receive backlash for doing such a thing, or some people never liked her so they were more than happy to jump on the train that is finally (from their POV) starting after they’ve waited for years for others to catch on, and some just want to hate her to hate her.

And some probably didn’t like the series, because they didn’t like it or think it was good.

Maybe, just maybe because this book hasn’t been well reviewed and because people are rolling their eyes at this self-insert character and it’s part of their bad reviews –

JK Rowling wants to be able to say her haters are making it look like she wrote a bad book, because they don’t agree with her on this minor issue and how it’s unfair, she’s being judged nonstop for this one-opinion.

And it’s just oh so unfair that people keep bringing this whole “trans issue,” even when it has nothing to do with the current subject at hand – like her most recent book, where she literally has a self-insert character (or one that absolutely looks like that), who is unfairly and brutally murdered after they’ve gone through a massive hate campaign where they were accused of racist, ableist, and transphobic views.

I just...

I don’t even know what to tag this and I’m too tired to review or grammar check this.

Basically, I think JK Rowling has put herself in a corner, where she can’t get out of it. Or at least not without seriously reflecting on her own actions and facing the reality of the situation and her own hateful view.

Because the tactic of not talking about this stuff didn’t help (which she did for like a hot second) And I have to imagine she did feel trapped and cornered, so she dug in her heels and started to fight back. She didn’t like being called bigoted so she fought against that, because that’s easier than actually wondering or even admitting you have bigoted views.

I think it would be hard for someone who has been so widely adored and praised like she has - to genuinely adjust to such a large backlash.

I do think JK Rowling believe she is standing up for women’s rights. The real ones, not those men pretending to be women (as she would say)

And is surprised to find, that people find that to be insulting or not the current way people feel about it. Because what was once progressive 20 years ago, isn’t considered progressive nowadays.

For instance, saying gay people should be allowed to marry the person they love, even if they are of the same gender or sex - isn’t the radical position anymore. It’s really the normal one.

And that’s good. Right? I feel like that’s good.

We want, what once were thought to be radical opinions, such bold and progressive ideas, and to look back and be like...why the fuck was that radical? Why was this ever an issue?

And yes, there can be a problem with not knowing your history.

The best example because of how recent it is in the grand scheme things of things and shows how quickly people forget. Is that we shouldn’t be mad at The Legend of Korra for ending way it did and try to say it was only putting the airs of being progressive without being progressive. And instead keep in mind, that was progressive. That was amazing for so many people.

That’s how bad things were. Two female characters and their relationship being only confirmed by what feels like nothing by today’s standards - was radical and amazing for so many people, because they’ve never seen that on screen before. They never felt seen before.

And because of that, other shows were able to build on top of that more and more.

Basically...

I think JK Rowling has reacted in a very reactionary way and just keeps digging a hole for herself.

I don’t think this is easy thing to do; but I always imagined if I did ever publish any of my stories and they became as big as hers. And then people pointed out problems, I hope that I will be able to be like - I thought of the problems I was aware of at the time and I’m glad you found fault in ways I never considered before. I hope you can still appreciate my work, but when you write your own story - do better than me.

Take what you saw as a problem and address it and make it so it doesn’t exist for the next great series.

I don’t think that’s an easy thing to do, especially if you feel like you’re being unfairly attacked (not saying she was or wasn’t), but I can see why she would feel like that.

I don’t know.

Will and Grace can feel very reductive nowadays, but it was such a big and radical thing at the time. Showing gay people as people. As main characters. Yes, there are a lot of jokes with Jack and how he acts, but also - him being gay, is and isn’t the joke.

Because Will being gay or being attracted to men, is no more the joke then when Grace is attracted to a guy and wants to date one.

The creator of the show has talked about how one of the ways they got the show to be aired and so well-liked, was because, despite Will being gay, there was a desire for many, for him and Grace to end up together.

the man basically straight-baited people before queer-baiting became a popular term. Kudos to him.

But that’s what he had to do, to get a tv show where they had the radical opinion that gay people were people, and worthy of being the main character and not the butt of the joke or the story for the straight person to learn about themselves.

At the end of the day, it’s basic human nature to want to protect yourself. See yourself as the hero or victim, never the villain.

I think it’s an admirable skill to be able look at oneself and seriously ask - am I in the wrong? Am I the one with the hateful view?

And look, I don’t think people ever think of themselves as the one who has the hateful or wrong view even when they know it is a hateful thing.

In a weird and very fucked up way and I shouldn’t write this, kudos (But not actually) to the people who are openly hateful instead of pretending they’re not. I guess?

Am I praising outright bigoted people, for just being honest about being bigoted?

Is that where this post landed. That can’t be right.

Don’t be bigoted.

You’re not a good person because you’re honest about being a hateful person; but at the very fucking least (and I’m scrapping the bottom of the barrel here, for like an ounce of gunk that can be seen as a good thing) at the very fucking least - you are self-aware enough to be open about that.

Why am do I keep praising people for being openly bigoted and not lying about it?

Why is that where I keep ending up.

I have a headache, I’ve barely eaten today, I’ve spent 5 hours actually getting real writing done and this was supposed to be a quick rant and I’m tired.

I seriously have lost my point. I’m not going to edit this or read it through.

I just… I don’t fucking know.

If you’ve read up this point, why? jesus christ why? I’m writing this am aware of what a mess this is at the moment I’m writing it.

My point is.

It’s not easy for anyone to admit when they’re wrong. Especially not to such a huge public audience and to be fair, to JK Rowling even if she had seriously admitted she was wrong and reflected on her actions - I don’t doubt that some people wouldn’t care. It wouldn’t have been enough for them.

However, just because some may have reacted like that, is not an excuse.

I think what JK Rowling is doing is very human, but that doesn’t mean it’s good in the slightest. basically, she’s digging in her heels and refusing to admit she’s wrong and the more she fights this, that harder it will be for her to admit she was wrong and the less likely she ever will.

The more we commit and fight back, the harder it is to stop and breathe and actually think let alone finally admit, we were the asshole, or the villain.

So, she’s going with it at this point. I don’t know how much of that is a choice, as in how much she’s aware that’s even what she’s doing. But the amount of disconnect she would have to have to apparently write the character that exists in her new novel which I have not read so I can’t say how much of a self-insert it really is and not what she’s done, is honestly frightening.

Look people can make mistakes and people can unfairly pile onto someone - look at how with think of Monica Lewinsky today.

I just...

It’s not easy to look at yourself and admit your wrong, but if being a good person was just about doing the easy thing of not doing bad or hurtful things, we would all be good people.

And JK Rowling isn’t even doing that. She isn’t even doing the bare minimum of not being an asshole.

I don’t know I’m disappointed. All my feelings for her, I feel disappointed in the end. I want to scream and shout, because I know JK Rowling is capable of looking at something and saying this isn’t right and we need to and can do fucking better.

But she refuses to do that anymore, because well - I don’t know, maybe just a certain amount of wealth, fame and praise fucks with your brain. You’re still you and you still think you’re a good person, and you thought yourself a good person when you were doing good things and so what has changed.

Have you changed?

Are you no longer a good person, or is the world wrong?

Sure, I wish she never had certain views in the first place.

But I honestly wish, she had stopped and thought - maybe I’m the one in the wrong. Maybe what I once thought of being radical or progressive things, aren’t anymore and while I shouldn’t get hated for having what were once considered radical or very progressive views for the time – or that I wasn’t even aware of problems being problems, because they were talked about in the sphere I existed in –

the fact that I still think that’s where the bar is, instead of realizing that’s become the norm - is a reflection on myself and how I need to grow and change.

Okay I’m going to cry, this was supposed to be a page and it’s …a million.

And I have such a headache and this was suppose to be like an obnoxiously long paragraph not this.

#JK Rowling #Anti Jk Rowling #long post #rant #Maybe not Anti JK Rowling for the sake of being anti JK ROWLING #just anti whatever the fuck this is #confused by whatever the fuck this #tired of whatever this is

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therealvinelle · 3 years

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I know this is like taking a bat to the beehive but... I really wanna hear your opinions on the whole... Imprinting thing

(Note before we go any further: this meta is written purely about the shapeshifting aspect of the Quileute characters, I don’t at all get into the racism in Twilight or any kind of social commentary. This is a purely watsonian meta. Others in this fandom have already addressed the racial dynamics at play, far more eloquently and knowledgeably than me. If I say something in here that’s in any way offensive, that’s not my intention and I’m open to criticism.)

Ooh imprinting.

I touch upon it here, basically I hate it.

The imprinting is part of this theme where the shapeshifters lose their free will and autonomy, and I find it tragic, cruel, and unnecessary.

First of, the fact that they have to phase at all.

They’re made warriors to protect their tribe. There’s no choice involved, only genetics and magic irrevocably changing their lives, and at a ridiculously young age, too. Sam is the oldest of them, and he is 19.

Violence is an inherent part of what they become. Their purpose is to protect the tribe, by fighting vampires. Not only is this insanely dangerous (we see Jake get so injured by a single vampire that he’s bedridden for weeks), but if they succeed, they will have killed. In the singularly brutal manner of tearing apart and burning someone who looks a lot like a human, who talks and might beg for their life, at that. And I remind you, most of these shapeshifters are literal children. They might not see vampires as people, but all the same, killing one can’t be good for their mental wellbeing. (Thought: Perhaps an argument can be made for Laurent’s death having a part in the turn Jake’s personality took? Some, though not many, of the symptoms for PTSD do fit. I don’t know enough about PTSD to pursue this train of thought, but it occurred to me just now, in particular he becomes quite aggressive and prone to outbursts after that incident, so into a parenthesis it goes)

Not to mention how inhumane that responsibility is. Vampires in the Twilight-verse are terrifying, and the shapeshifters might have the power to fight them. But (and this is where I plug one of my all-time favorite animes, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, as it asks the question “Is it okay to sacrifice yourself for others?” because that’s... well there’s a parallel to be made to the shapeshifters. It’s on Netflix!) does that mean they should? Is it really their responsibility? Again- they’re kids!

Then there’s the time Sam lost control, and accidentally mauled the girl he loved. And it’s so cruel to both him and Emily. Sam never chose to have to control himself in the first place, he never chose shapeshifting. He didn’t choose to imprint on Emily either, and he didn’t choose to lose control that day. At no point in the series of events that led to Emily being mauled did Sam have any real choice, and yet he will shoulder the guilt for what happened for the rest of his life.

These kids get superpowers, and several of them seem to enjoy being shapeshifters, but the fact remains that they now carry this huge responsibility to protect their families and homes, doing so is incredibly dangerous, they lose out on their regular lives, and they can’t opt out of it.

This all sucks, but then we get to the fact that they are deprived of their free will, as their alpha can issue an order they physically can’t break. The alpha becomes alpha because of bloodlines, not because of a democratic election. Jake got a mockery of a choice in that he could choose to become alpha himself, or let Sam continue, which was really just choosing between a rock and a hard place. There is no limitation to what this order can be, from “don’t say X to person Y” to “let’s kill someone you love”. Jake has to struggle to break that last one, and he’s only successful because of the bloodline thing letting him become his own alpha.

Oh, and there’s the massive invasion of privacy when they have a hive mind. Cool concept, less cool to have it be reality. Leah is the poster child for how a hive mind can backfire, and they can’t opt out of this.

I’m not good at gifs, but the shapeshifters just make me think of that gif of someone flicking a lightswitch on and off, “WELCOME TO HELL!”. Of course, Twilight in general is a pit of despair for everybody, so I suppose that gif really is... well it sums up all of canon.

So, we have these kids aged 19 or younger, as of Breaking Dawn they skew as young as thirteen, their lives are turned upside down by something they can’t opt out of, they must shoulder this huge responsibility to protect their homes and families from the terrifying threat of vampires, and on top of all of that, they must obey orders that are so irresistible, they can compel them to harm someone they care for.

With all of that in mind, you’d think that the shapeshifters had enough on their plate. That through all of this they would at least retain their selves, and be able to look forward to a future where they could stop phasing, and go on to live normal, human, lives.

Yeah, NOT IF THEY IMPRINT.

I’ll just quote Jake’s description:

Everything inside me came undone as I stared at the tiny porcelain face of the halfvampire, half-human baby. All the lines that held me to my life were sliced apart in swift cuts, like clipping the strings to a bunch of balloons. Everything that made me who I was—my love for the dead girl upstairs, my love for my father, my loyalty to my new pack, the love for my other brothers, my hatred for my enemies, my home, my name, my self—disconnected from me in that second—snip, snip, snip—and floated up into space.

I was not left drifting. A new string held me where I was.

Not one string, but a million. Not strings, but steel cables. A million steel cables all tying me to one thing—to the very center of the universe.

I could see that now—how the universe swirled around this one point. I’d never seen the symmetry of the universe before, but now it was plain.

The gravity of the earth no longer tied me to the place where I stood. (Breaking Dawn, page 237)

Everything that made me who I was disconnected from me.

Jake’s love for his father, his home, his very own self, it’s all gone now. And while I have thoughts on the authenticity of this imprint, whether it was organic, the description above is apparently how imprinting feels. It’s along the lines of what Sam, Jared, and Paul all describe.

I don’t think I can put into words just how devastating I find imprinting, I think the above quotation speaks for itself. And as with all other shapeshifter things, there is no choice involved.

We see its devastating effects in the Emily, Sam, and Leah debacle. Sam and Leah were serious together, so much so that they were engaged. Sam had fallen for and chosen to be with Leah. Perhaps they would have broken up eventually, but Leah was still the choice he made. Then he imprints on Emily, and all that is for naught. He had to break up with Leah, who if she hadn’t phased never would have learned why, Emily and Leah’s relationship is ruined, and Emily must forever live with the knowledge that if Sam had his free will intact he would be with another woman.

Then there’s Jared and Kim. Kim crushed on Jared, but Jared never noticed her. The fact that they were in the same class is damning: if a boy is attracted to a girl, he's gonna notice her. Jared never did.

Quil imprints on Claire, who is a toddler. That’s just a recipe for misery and disaster all around.

And I’ve only touched the shapeshifter side of things. They lose their autonomy and freedom, but the imprintées draw the short straw too. They’re now responsible for this other person’s happiness. Sure, having someone who’ll be whatever you need them to be sounds nice (well, it sounds horrifying, but I’m playing ball) on paper, but you can’t opt out of them being like that. The imprintée can’t say “Sorry, not interested,” and she certainly can’t shut the imprinter out of her life, not without irrevocably ruining the imprinter’s life. The imprinter needs her. She’s the center of his earth now, but she didn’t choose to be.

Imprinting is a liferuiner for everyone involved.

Then we have the question of what imprinting is even for. I’m afraid I agree with Billy, that it’s for procreation. We see Sam, who was dating a woman about to phase (even if Leah isn’t infertile, she’s a warrior now. She can’t run in the woods and fight vampires, and gestate and nurse a child at the same time) conveniently imprint on her cousin, who as cousin to Leah is from a shifter bloodline. Claire, as Emily’s cousin, has those same genetics. Paul imprints on a woman from the Black family line. Jake is the outlier, but either Renesmée’s gift helped that imprinting along, or he imprinted because of the offspring they could potentially have (I firmly believe it’s the former because the latter... NOPE. Also, I can’t imagine whatever magic drives imprinting would want vampiric progeny for the future generations. Regardless of Renesmée’s person, her biology is wired to desire human blood. That’s exactly what Jake is supposed to protect people from. Bad match.).

I just.... ughhh. God, I hate imprinting so much, and on every level.

To me, everything about the shapeshifters is about free will, autonomy, and the loss thereof. And it would have been beautiful if their story was about reclaiming that, but it isn’t. None of this, with the exception of the alpha orders, is even acknowledged.

So, in summation, yes I hate imprinting, but it’s only the horror cherry on top of a very sad and problematic cake.

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littlemixnet · 3 years

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To me, a good ally is someone who is consistent in their efforts – there’s a difference between popping on a pride playlist or sprinkling yourself in rainbow glitter once a year and actually defending LGBT+ people against discrimination. It means showing my LGBT+ fans that I support them wholeheartedly and am making a conscious effort to educate myself, raise awareness and show up whenever they need me to. It would be wrong of me to benefit from the community as a musician without actually standing up and doing what I can to support. As someone in the public eye, it’s important to make sure your efforts are not performative or opportunistic. I’m always working on my allyship and am very much aware that I’ve still got a lot of unlearning and learning to do. There are too many what I call ‘dormant allies’, believing in equality but not really doing more than liking or reposting your LGBT+ mate’s content now and again. Imagine if that friend then saw you at the next march, or signing your name on the next petition fighting for their rights? Being an ally is also about making a conscious effort to use the right language and pronouns, and I recently read a book by Glennon Doyle who spoke of her annoyance and disappointment of those who come out and are met with ‘We love you…no matter what’. I’d never thought of that expression like that before and it really struck a chord with me. ‘No matter what’ suggests you are flawed. Being LGBT+ is not a flaw. Altering your language and being conscious of creating a more comfortable environment for your LGBT+ family and friends is a good start. Nobody is expecting you to suddenly know it all, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a perfect ally. I’m still very much learning. Even recently, after our Confetti music video I was confronted with the fact that although we made sure our video was incredibly inclusive, we hadn’t brought in any actual drag kings. Some were frustrated, and they had every right to be. You can have the right intentions and still fall short. As an open ally I should have thought about that, and I hadn’t, and for that I apologise. Since then I’ve been doing more research on drag king culture, because it’s definitely something I didn’t know enough about, whether that was because it isn’t as mainstream yet mixed with my own ignorance. But the point is we mess up, we apologise, we learn from it and we move forward with that knowledge. Don’t let the fear of f**king up scare you off. And make sure you are speaking alongside the community, not for the community. Growing up in a small Northern working-class town, some views were, and probably still are, quite ‘old fashioned’ and small-minded. I witnessed homophobia at an early age. It was a common thought particularly among men that it was wrong to be anything but heterosexual. I knew very early on I didn’t agree with this, but wasn’t educated or aware enough on how to combat it. I did a lot of performing arts growing up and within that space I had many LGBT+ (mainly gay) friends. I’ve been a beard many a time let me tell you! But it was infuriating to see friends not feel like they could truly be themselves. When I moved to London I felt incredibly lonely and like I didn’t fit in. It was my gay friends (mainly my friend and hairstylist, Aaron Carlo) who took me under their wing and into their world. Walking into those gay bars or events like Sink The Pink, it was probably the first time I felt like I was in a space where everyone in that room was celebrated exactly as they are. It was like walking into a magical wonderland. I got it. I clicked with everyone. My whole life I struggled with identity – being mixed race for me meant not feeling white enough, or black enough, or Arab enough. I was a ‘tomboy’ and very nerdy. I suppose on a personal level that maybe played a part in why I felt such a connection or understanding of why those spaces for the LGBT+ community are so important. One of the most obvious examples of first realising Little Mix was having an effect in the community was that I couldn’t enter a gay bar without hearing a Little Mix song and watching numerous people break out into full choreo from our videos! I spent the first few years of our career seeing this unfold and knowing the LGBT+ fan base were there, but it wasn’t until I got my own Instagram or started properly going through Twitter DMs that I realised a lot of our LGBT+ fans were reaching out to us on a daily basis saying how much our music meant to them. I received a message from a boy in the Middle East who hadn’t come out because in his country homosexuality is illegal. His partner tragically took their own life and he said our music not only helped him get through it, but gave him the courage to start a new life somewhere else where he could be out and proud. There are countless other stories like theirs, which kind of kickstarted me into being a better ally. Another standout moment would be when we performed in Dubai in 2019. We were told numerous times to ‘abide by the rules’, which meant not promoting anything LGBT+ or too female-empowering (cut to us serving a four-part harmony to Salute). In my mind, we either didn’t go or we’d go and make a point. When Secret Love Song came on, we performed it with the LGBT+ flag taking up the whole screen behind us. The crowd went wild, I could see fans crying and singing along in the audience and when we returned it was everywhere in the press. I saw so many positive tweets and messages from the community. It made laying in our hotel rooms s**tting ourselves that we’d get arrested that night more than worth it. It was through our fans and through my friends I realised I need to be doing more in my allyship. One of the first steps in this was meeting with the team at Stonewall to help with my ally education and discussing how I could be using my platform to help them and in turn the community. Right now, and during lockdown, I’d say my ally journey has been a lot of reading on LGBT+ history, donating to the right charities and raising awareness on current issues such as the conversion therapy ban and the fight for equality of trans lives. Stonewall is facing media attacks for its trans-inclusive strategies and there is an alarming amount of seemingly increasing transphobia in the UK today and we need to be doing more to stand with the trans community. Still, there is definitely a pressure I feel as someone in the public eye to constantly be saying and doing the right things, especially with cancel culture becoming more popular. I s**t myself before most interviews now, on edge that the interviewer might be waiting for me to ‘slip up’ or I might say something that can be misconstrued. Sometimes what can be well understood talking to a journalist or a friend doesn’t always translate as well written down, which has definitely happened to me before. There’ve been moments where I’ve (though well intentioned) said the wrong thing and had an army of Twitter warriors come at me. Don’t get me wrong, there are obviously more serious levels of f**king up that are worthy of a cancelling. But it was quite daunting to me to think that all of my previous allyship could be forgotten for not getting something right once. When that’s happened to me before I’ve scared myself into thinking I should STFU and not say anything, but I have to remember that I am human, I’m going to f**k up now and again and as long as I’m continuing to educate myself to do better next time then that’s OK. I’m never going to stop being an ally so I need to accept that there’ll be trickier moments along the way. I think that might be how some people may feel, like they’re scared to speak up as an ally in case they say the wrong thing and face backlash. Just apologise to the people who need to be apologised to, and show that you’re doing what you can to do better and continue the good fight. Don’t burden the community with your guilt. When it comes to the music industry, I’m definitely seeing a lot more LGBT+ artists come through and thrive, which is amazing. Labels, managements, distributors and so forth need to make sure they’re not just benefiting from LGBT+ artists but show they’re doing more to actually stand with them and create environments where those artists and their fans feel safe. A lot of feedback I see from the community when coming to our shows is that they’re in a space where they feel completely free and accepted, which I love. I get offered so many opportunities to do with LGBT+ based shows or deals and while it’s obviously flattering, I turn most of them down and suggest they give the gig to someone more worthy of that role. But really, I shouldn’t have to say that in the first place. The fee for any job I do take that feels right for me but has come in as part of the community goes to LGBT+ charities. That’s not me blowing smoke up my own arse, I just think the more of us and big companies that do that, the better. We need more artists, more visibility, more LGBT+ mainstream shows, more shows on LGBT+ history and more artists standing up as allies. We have huge platforms and such an influence on our fans – show them you’re standing by them. I’ve seen insanely talented LGBT+ artist friends in the industry who are only recently getting the credit they deserve. It’s amazing but it’s telling that it takes so long. It’s almost expected that it will be a tougher ride. We also need more understanding and action on the intersectionality between being LGBT+ and BAME. Racism exists in and out of the community and it would be great to see more and more companies in the industry doing more to combat that. The more we see these shows like Drag Race on our screens, the more we can celebrate difference. Ever since I was a little girl, my family would go to Benidorm and we’d watch these glamorous, hilarious Queens onstage; I was hooked. I grew up listening to and loving the big divas – Diana Ross (my fave), Cher, Shirley Bassey, and all the queens would emulate them. I was amazed at their big wigs, glittery overdrawn make-up and fabulous outfits. They were like big dolls. Most importantly, they were unapologetically whoever the f**k they wanted to be. As a shy girl who didn’t really understand why the world was telling me all the things I should be, I almost envied the queens but more than anything I adored them. Drag truly is an art form, and how incredible that every queen is different; there are so many different styles of drag and to me they symbolise courage and freedom of expression. Everything you envisioned your imaginary best friend to be, but it’s always been you. There’s a reason why the younger generation are loving shows like Drag Race. These kids can watch this show and not only be thoroughly entertained, but be inspired by these incredible people who are unapologetically themselves, sharing their touching stories and who create their own support systems and drag families around them. Now and again I think of when I’d see those Queens in Benidorm, and at the end they’d always sing I Am What I Am as they removed their wigs and smudged their make up off, and all the dads would be up on their feet cheering for them, some emotional, like they were proud. But that love would stop when they’d go back home, back to their conditioned life where toxic heteronormative behaviour is the status quo. Maybe if those same men saw drag culture on their screens they’d be more open to it becoming a part of their everyday life. I’ll never forget marching with Stonewall at Manchester Pride. I joined them as part of their young campaigners programme, and beforehand we sat and talked about allyship and all the young people there asked me questions while sharing some of their stories. We then began the march and I can’t explain the feeling and emotion watching these young people with so much passion, chanting and being cheered by the people they passed. All of these kids had their own personal struggles and stories but in this environment, they felt safe and completely proud to just be them. I knew the history of Pride and why we were marching, but it was something else seeing what Pride really means first hand. My advice for those who want to use their voice but aren’t sure how is, just do it hun. It’s really not a difficult task to stand up for communities that need you. Change can happen quicker with allyship.

Jade Thirlwall on the power, and pressures, of being an LGBT ally: ‘I’m gonna f**k up now and again’

#jade thirlwall #lgbt

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