#in any case you can't educate people by getting aggressive when they don’t know things

[meregrin]

my two cents are that people outside of finland (and even the more left-leaning circles in finland) are not really taking into account that an average person here doesn’t know jack shit about israel or palestine. the first and only time either of them got mentioned in my 12 years of schooling (i’m a few years younger than jere) was an optional history course focusing on post-ww2 history in my final year of high shcool. jere went to vocational school and they don’t teach history at all there so he’s relying on his junior high education which isn’t saying much considering he’s said multiple times he didn’t pay attention at school.

it doesn’t help that the mainstream reporting (which he’s forced to rely on since he doesn’t speak fluent enough english) about the palestinian genocide has been frustratingly neutral and both-sides-y here in finland. obviously some of that is due to journalistic ethics and responsibilities because our news medias can’t get their reporters within gaza’s borders and they can’t report on things unless the information comes from a reputable source or they can fact check them.

all this is to say that i'm willing to bet actual money he doesn’t even know the definition of genocide in finnish, not to mention IDF or zionism or even judaism. those things are simply not taught here and the idea of him being a zionist is laughable. i studied anthropology at university and the amount of times i’ve had to explain fairly simple concepts like colonialism or genocide to people, even highly-educated ones, is staggering. and i didn’t really understand those things either before i went to university. finland used to love to rave about our PISA scores but the truth is that the level of basic education here has been really poor for decades.

[lunaa007]

Astrology observations #1

Welcome to my first astrology observations!

I’m in no way a professional astrologer, this is purely for fun. Take only what resonates with you! I'm happy to discuss these points further in the comments :)

♦️ Leo mars live for the praise. They love words of affirmation, especially in bed 😏 They call the attention effortlessly when exercising, dancing or other mars-related activities. But they might not always like this.

♦️ Chiron 1st house can be very insecure about their appearance if they don’t work to heal this. I know someone with this placement that hates mirrors as they never liked what they saw. But it gives great potential to heal and help others regarding these issues.

♦️ Sagittarius mars people could regularly need new experiences in their sexual life. They might be open to try everything once “just to see”, and they might lean less toward monogamy than other mars placements.

♦️ Moon in the 6th house might be more sensitive to anxiety as their emotions lie in the house of daily life and routine. So they might have to deal with their emotions on a daily basis. They might need regular physical movement and consistent routines to feel regulated and content.

♦️ Pluto conjunct MC might hate posting on social media as they could feel exposed and vulnerable if they do. They might have an intense need to keep their life private.

♦️Mercury conjunct/square/opposite Pluto might swear a lot, or at least more than what they were taught was okay. If their education was very strict they might swear only when surprised, like if they get hurt or forget something.

♦️Venus in 10th house or conjunct MC can work in the fashion or makeup industry and be known for their beauty and sense of aesthetics.

♦️Saturn in Aquarius could have interest or talents in Uranian fields such as astrology or technology. They might be motivated to work towards social causes. They also could have an emotionally distant outlook on life.

♦️Lilith conjunct Ascendant create strong reactions everywhere they go. They are provocative without trying. People can get easily obsessed with them as they exude tremendous sex appeal. But they can also get very aggressive and negative reactions towards them without any reason.

♦️Mars square pluto absolutely need to channel their energy and anger into exercise and breath work. Martial arts is the best for them. If they don't control this energy it can get dangerous for themselves and even for others in extreme cases. But if they learn to control this tremendous force, they can achieve incredible things.

♦️Venus square Saturn can have a lot of difficulties with their self-worth, which affects their relationships. If you have a low self-esteem you will settle for less than you deserve. Once they have sufficiently worked on themselves and on their self esteem, they can find great love. This doesn't mean it can't come early but it might be more challenging. However, Saturn delays but never denies. They are not doomed and will find love (this depends also on other placements and aspects).

♦️Moon in Taurus can have a very calming and healing aura. People feel at peace when with these natives, especially when hugging. They are very grounded and stable, which is felt by others and is very reassuring. However, they can be stubborn at times as Taurus is a fixed sign.

♦️Mars in the 12th house could be passive aggressive sometimes as they do not recognise their own anger and never really learn how to control it. They might have sudden outbursts which can take the people around them by surprise.

♦️Sun opposite Moon can have a difficult relationship with their mother. They can feel that their mother's personality is the complete opposite of them and that they are not understood by her. Other aspects to the moon can come accentuate this or make it easier.

♦️Pisces Mars often have a talent for dancing. One of my best friends has this placement and she is a professional contemporary dancer. Her movements are so graceful, it really looks like water moving. Mars at a pisces degree (12°, 24°) can have a gift for dancing also to a lesser extent.

♦️Pluto in the 9th house can bring transformations and soul evolutions when traveling overseas, studying a higher education or moving abroad.

Thank you for reading ❤️

© lunaa007

[kaleidescopeghost]

Hey with the stuff on womanism, why do you think those like 2-3 white folks were say hating? On the black community, from what I saw they saw a word they never read before and were confused. Instead of educating people told them to choke and die which I don’t think helped anyone out

Well, I don't think those folks were intentionally hating on specifically the Black community as a whole, but they were definitely hating on the term Womanism (simply for,, sounding Black and being a term they never heard before, even if they didn't realize that was Why the term sounded so strange and unnecessary to them) ((probably bc they don't ever actually Talk to Black people tbh)).

However, that being said, it was Not just a case of innocent ignorance, they weren't Just Confused, they were incredibly rude and that's a Major distinction that needs to be acknowledged--Even the people who looked it up on a very surface level immediately agreed with the people who had No clue what it was Stupid and basically pointless, which was just ignorant and rude even when read with good faith. They looked at this term that wasn't theirs, wasn't even About them, and started piling up on this one Black person for calling them out on their aggressive and willfully ignorant behavior (one of those people being an open LGBTQIA+ exclusionist who has a long ass post with the phrase "inclusion is harmful" in it and the Context being they believe the queer community should be, well. Just LGBT, and they consider Q+ folk to be just,, inherently invalid which is Just nasty behavior that I want to mention because it matters who says what and what they believe in conversations like these).

Frankly, I don't mind educating. I'm very used to it and I'm good at what I do-- but this Black person showed discomfort and distress because these folks were just. Attacking a movement that is Important To Black People and Other People Of Color, and they were met with "Just Educate These Adults!!!" "Do you get mad when Literal Children don't know things?? Do you tell them to die when they have Questions???" "People don't know keywords to search for!!" And pushing all this blame for the situation on this person which wasn't fair because truthfully we live in the Internet age and marginalized communities don't Owe anyone a calm, polite, collected, gentle education when those same people are calling shit they don't even understand stupid just for existing, especially when it's culturally relevant, and we're Especially allowed to get mad about the way these people can just Say Whatever and immediately get backed up when they were just incredibly rude for no reason-- we're allowed to get rude back too! :') in all honesty, it was the call out and the disapproval that Was the education ( the lesson being What They Said Was Bad! And that they needed to go give themselves some reeducation bc their ignorance is leading them to say harmful things). It can be a tough pill to swallow, especially when you don't know the gravity of what you're even saying and then being met with harsh rejection, but the only reason that happened was because these folks looked at "Feminism But Black Inclusive" and immediately was like "this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard or seen" 😭 and they Swarmed and Ganged Up On the first person who called them out. Not okay behavior. We're not going to be nice to people who can't A.) genuinely just look things up. If you look up Womanism, you'll see your search engine literally Gives You key terms to help you in your research. And B.) be open minded and calm when hearing Black terms.

We just can't constantly sacrifice our health for these people, because it is genuinely a lot of work and pressure we're expected to just Offer Up at any time simply Because we are Black and just magically know everything and are now also expected to be spokespeople for our entire race which is unfair.

So yeah, I don't think it was completely unfair that this Black person was mad. They used ways of expressing that in a way I wouldn't have, but I'm very much against the idea that Black people need to be Perfect, Articulate, and Polite to people who are aggressors and who speak ignorance. It might not seem like it to someone who doesn't know what Womanism is, but those people dropped the ball in a Major Way. You can't just trigger marginalized people like that and expect a kind, specifically catered education from strangers just because You don't know something-- sometimes you say something fucked up and people yell at you and everybody should be able to learn from their mistakes in these scenarios.

(also, it could be the autism, but they weren't telling people explicitly to die :') just to choke lol in my mind people can survive choking lol + the whole reason it was said was to be like "you might as well be physically unable to speak because I don't care what you have to say here". Like I said, not the way I choose to express myself personally, but I get why it happened and I don't think they deserve crucifixion about it and I Definitely don't think their anger invalidates them at all.)

TLDR:

BIPOC, Especially Black people do not owe anybody an education. We're just people and it's really strange we're expected to be polite teachers in the face of ignorance and aggression.

Those people were willfully ignorant, called the wrong thing stupid, and then got yelled at by people who belong to a marginalized demographic where that word really matters to them. It's not nice, but it is fair.

It shouldn't be our cross to bear, to educate people who act like this, simply because we were born Black or otherwise POC. Honestly, a lot of the stuff we know, we know because we had to educate ourselves using the same internet we're asking them to use but during our time, there were way less resources. To us, it very much is a matter of needing these people to Want to put in their Own work on their Own time, using the resources that already exist. There's loads of BIPOC authors, journalists, and creators who talk loads about this stuff, and the learning process is kind of like math in the way you can't always just be given information plain and simple on a silver plate without a Lot of other context. Which is also why we have such an emphasis on educating yourself. All you gotta do, essentially, is check Who is writing what you're reading and cross reference different material to make sure you're getting a well rounded understanding of what the general consensus of the community is. I literally used a Britannica article to brush up on my knowledge before posting and it wasn't hard to find :") the article wasn't even written by a Black Person from what I can gather.

This might not be the answer you want, but I trust you to see how these people expecting an education from random Black folk They upset is presumptuous and a bit entitled. She didn't owe anybody any sort of gentleness in this situation, even if she said some mean stuff. It wasn't nice, but neither were they and the whole situation could've been avoided by Them looking things up for themselves before calling something that was heavily implied to be influenced by race stupid. It sucks for people who just Don't Know Shit, but BIPOC aren't obligated to be helpful to people who Already aren't putting in the work.

But the good thing is that there Are loads of preexisting resources from willing professionals from all across the world and all across time who are respected that teach you everything you need to know that are Free and At y'all's finger tips. Y'all just gotta look. The reason we're oftentimes so frustrated is because We also did the same research because we cared about learning this stuff, so we Know if these people cared, they'd do the same thing.

Okay! Very long post lol but I'm done now! I am still open to further questions and clarification but I hope this was helpful. We're all just people in the world, and we're all just learning, but it's good to practice just. Being polite and looking before you leap 😅 because the initial thing that started this whole mess was people saying some really rude stuff about something that means a Lot to us culturally as Black people.

[deniigi]

Would you mind sharing your thoughts on Maggie. Some DD fans hate her and can't forgive her while others absolutely adore her. It seems you like her enough to include her in Matt's life. What are your personal opinions on her choice to leave Matt and never tell him even while he lived with her in the orphanage? In your verse, do you think she knew about the terrible shit he was feeling and going through as a teenager? I may have missed it, but Father Lantom is dead in your verses yes?

hi anon!

I personally love Maggie. I really, really love her. And I empathize with her a lot in her position and what she did with Matt.

I know she’s older in the comics when she leaves Matt and Jack, but in my verses, she and Jack were a very young couple (they’d have to be for Maggie to be as young as she is in DD3) and so to be faced with the traumas of pregnancy and birth at 18 or 20 years old.

Like.

When I was dating my last (straight, cis) partner, I was constantly terrified that I’d get pregnant--not because I thought that I wouldn’t be a good parent (fuck, I’d be a great parent, even back then), but because I couldn’t imagine myself giving birth and then having to cope with this confused, frightened, upset little body until it learned how to allow itself to exist more quietly and peacefully in the world.

That felt (and feels, still) so violent to me.

To have endured that at 18, 19, 20--I don’t know how people do it. But to me, that type of experience has to be devastating and Maggie’s reaction to it (on top of her lack of resources--it would be a mistake to think that she and Jack were comfortable money-wise on a barely emerging, pro boxer’s winners at this point), I think, was understandable.

It’s fucked up to think that bodies which can make babies must be bodies which want them.

Babies are people. And sometimes, people just don’t mix well. And sometimes it takes a long time for us to learn how to love someone.

Maggie wasn’t in a place where she would invest the time in learning to love Matt and her priority in this particular situation was Jack. She wanted to protect Jack and her relationship with Jack and subconsciously, she may have struggled with the sudden dynamic shift with the addition of the baby. 

When she realized that she was a danger to her child (when she found herself becoming aggressive towards him), she removed herself from the situation and straight up? That was just responsible.

Would I have done it? If it meant that my kid had a chance at being happy over a chance of being abused or dead? Hell yeah. Every time.

So like. I know how people might have a hard time with that, but for me, personally, I can totally understand where she was coming from in that moment. and later, when she and Matt were in the same institution, like--I’m sorry folks, but she wasn’t Matt’s mom in those moments. She couldn’t have been unless she threw her whole life away again. If she was to have told Matt earlier in their relationship, while they were both in the orphanage, then Matt--as a traumatized kid, probably would have been even more traumatized, upset, and confused. Like. Don’t get me wrong, kids are brilliant. My students? My 17 & 18yos?

Fucking smart as hell.

But there is a ceiling to the emotional complexity a lot of them are able to process at any given time (like most of humanity of course) and it can be very difficult for young people to appreciate adults as messy humans since their whole lives and our adult-centric society have told them that adults as a group understand their actions and intentions and act purposefully on them.

I’m not sure that Matt would have been a mature enough pre-teen or teen to understand the many factors which contributed to Maggie’s removal of herself from his life and, even if he was, I’m not sure that he’d process it well. He was in such a precarious place as a young person (in my verses at least) that knowing that he’d lost one parent and been ‘abandoned’ by the other in early infancy would have been proof to him that he’s been unlovable and doomed from the start and that would have contributed (in a very big way) to his spiraling.

And because Maggie has always, at heart, tried to do what was best for Matt, including leaving him and Jack, I think that the pain of her son’s rejection, anger, or even his potential suicide at that point would have devastated her again. She’d have been consumed with guilt and would have followed Matt’s spiral downward, and she would have felt overwhelmed, frozen, and useless all over again.

So yes, in my verses, she was more than aware of Matt’s struggles and she was horrified by them and she feels intense guilt for the part she’s played in them. But she was scared and Matt was scared and his depression and mental illness was terrifying to Maggie because she felt that she’d passed these things onto him and was hurting him even after all the pain of separation she’d endured.

**in my verses, actually, after Jack’s death, Maggie retains a few rights over Matt, so while he was in foster care, his educational rights and medical rights were held by her. So there is a point where Matt tries to get emancipated around 16, but can’t get any traction on his case and writes it off as Social Services calling him a high-risk case--which is partially true--but mostly it’s because the court thinks that Maggie is making informed, intelligent decisions for her son to the best of her ability and so does not view her as incompetent enough to take those rights from her before Matt’s 18

Anyways, the whole time Matt was having these problems in the orphanage and in foster care, Maggie felt like she was still hurting him, like she couldn’t stop hurting him. Nothing she could do could alleviate his pain. That helplessness paralyzed her in many ways and kept her from trying to reach out, out of fear that doing so would break the delicate threads keeping Matt together.

Phew! That’s a long answer which I’m not sure entirely answers the question, anon, but I hope that helps in some way! (Also, more straightforwardly--Father Lantom is alive in my verses because it was silly to me to kill the old guy off. He just took some time away to recover from his near-death experience)

[ratmor]

Fairytale Lies Along

Well, my fan-story is not complete yet and not translated as well. That kinda sucks, but I’m working on it, even if I know that probably it would be next winter when I finish it, because I’m a slowpoke. 21 chapters already written and no sign of happy (or unhappy) ending. *sigh* Well, I’m posting the second part here, just for luck or something like that. The hero, I remind you, is a shitty person with shitty motivation, because he’s lost, so just you wait and you won’t get bored. If you’re interested that is. 

2. Family Matters

Emma and I had fun in the company of a cake, sparkling wine and a pleasant, non-binding girl, in short - Becky. This type of girl could be picked up only in bars, clubs or by lucky chance somewhere in the art gallery, but in our case it was obviously not an accident, because my dear mistress could not bear to calmly walk around museums and other similar "dullness" as she aptly expressed each time I dragged her there. Certainly, the only thing to blame was my insatiable enthusiasm in exploring this world, so my girl visited that kind of places enough for a lifetime. And while we had fun, I still couldn’t suspect anything about the approaching bearer, so to speak, of all my hopes and dreams for this boring, almost non-magical world. Therefore, we enjoyed the company of a half-naked beauty, I must admit quite successfully enjoyed, and she was already ready to spend the night with us. “With us” meant - I felt and saw everything, despite the fact that I’m removed from direct control of what’s happening.

Well, I don’t know how Emma felt deep inside, but some time ago I was nauseated by the greedy glances that idiot debtor was throwing at us. He tried to escape us so ridiculously, that Emma, who, due to my significant presence in her head and the equally significant presence of my rather gloating humor, learned how to manage her face at a decent level, still couldn’t handle the situation without sincere laughter. And she laughed on the way back to our apartment, when the face grimace and the convulsive actions of the jerk resurfaced in our dialogue. And in order to dispel this filthy feeling after unpleasant words, though they came from a complete stranger, I offered to call a friend who showed interest in Emma and they already have enough dates to have hours of sexual activity, as I call it, trying not to look and make myself jealous.

Swan was not too amorous, and it always seemed to me that I didn't play a very important role in that quality of her character. I was the only adult who had been with her throughout her life, even though I told myself not to give her any extra advice or help just because it’s a good thing to do. After the death of Cleo Fox, a woman who was chasing my careless Swan, I stopped giving advice at all and stopped saying anything other than "Decide for yourself, Emma Swan." "Why didn't you talk me out?" - It was the first thing she constantly told me when she didn’t listen to my advice, especially when it was about that woman’ death. Although it didn’t come to a quarrel, because Emma knew very well from my tales, which I rashly told her as a child, that I could not heal the dead. For this you need the Death Water and The Living Water, both. But in this world there were absolutely no such thing, and she didn’t want to give me control over the body to create the ritual. Cold blood, indeed. Throughout my entire stay in her body, I was like: “I’m the only one who understand you!” or “Oh, these modern dishonourable people,” or “You deserve more!” and, that one is the most used: “Try not to trust my ass-based feeling again when I say this person is sketchy!" Yes, yes, I am an evil freak, a manipulative pig, and, in general, I’m extremely aggressively defend my property from the encroachments of all kinds of other freaks, yes!

Well, I still feel everything that Emma feels, and her ignorance of my words about this Neal, who left her soul with disturbing wound, was based on the fact that I constantly grumbled about any guy looking obliquely at my beautiful girl, Emma. It seems, that I already considered this body my own to some extent, and that’s why I had such an attitude - Emma had to shut me up every now and then until she grew out of her teenage surges and began to listen to me more often.

The question arises - why I never moved into her body, taking advantage of childhood and the deplorable situation? It's just because I never do that! Children are inviolable, and the child can not, should not be absorbed by me. I didn’t think about the original reason for that decision, but I never had many problems with little Emma. I soothed her, sang songs when she asked, told her about my life in the guise of rhymed legends or tales, forced her to read, and that last one was for avoiding the horrible death from boredom in these many years. I would even associate myself with her parent, I had to educate her so much and so much to invest in her, but I would never trade my own undivided and indivisible, of course if you don’t take into account the possible dismemberment, body for her friendship. I could tell myself that only thing for sure even when Emma was an incredibly touching lost being, close to me in spirit and literally brought up by me from her very self-awareness of herself as a person.

Emma Swan, by the way, could be not only touching. She often pleased me with flashes of anger, which gave me a microscopic opportunity to pick up the drops of magic that emanated from her during that display of emotions, and it sparkled with such a bright flash when the doorbell interrupted the removal of the panties of our excited girlfriend.

“Oh, fuck this late guest!” - I growled and moaned with doom. - “Emma, your birthday and it’s eve are too full with surprises.”

Emma irritably pushed the beautiful girl away and went to open the door.

First, my ass-based feeling howled even more than when I met Neil or that strange girl, Lily.

Second, the boy said that Emma is his mother. The boy looked like someone else, but not Emma - I thought so at first glance at him. At his age Emma was much less self-confident, she never had this deceit and manipulation, which he showed later when we tried to expel him, and I personally suggested just throwing him out the door by the scruff. At the same time, I sent to the devil my non-quite-immutable rule-on-advice, again. And in spite of my old age extremes like paranoia and grumbling, I can't help but remember Emma when she was ten years old - this is exactly about the time when I finally and fully showed up, making a course of action with this active kid without a tsar in her head, really, and that means she was “flaky” and “rudderless”. The boy was dark-haired and quite puny. He definitely was not from a poor or especially unhappy family. Emma and I have always noticed these - their eyes were different, they were too incredulous for the age of the child, but this boy's eyes were alive. He smiled quite sincerely, didn’t try to hide and shrink under the stern look that Emma gave him for the interrupted party. And these are the signs from which I drew a conclusion - parents rarely shout at the boy, spoil him well and love him with high quality, I’d say.

“He seems to be lucky with his family,” I said to Emma as she walked off to the door with Becky, who was looking at the child with undisguised interest. - “Well dressed, taught independence, not intimidated, not clogged. For example, my father sold me before I was born to the Queen of the Sea because he couldn’t drink from the Living Creek asking for permission first, as everyone does. The King, for fuck’s sake, unable to just ask for the cure. At least, that’s why I met my future wife, yes... And since I was the firstborn, and very foolish as my father thought, it…”

“Listen, old man, stop nostalgia! I have already heard this story about the Queen of the Sea five times!”

In fact, I felt Emma’s panic and focused my attention on what was happening.

“A child came to me, I have no right to even see him, after what I did to him!”

“Then your foolishness is enough! Let's get the boy back!” - I snapped back and looked at the situation closer, trying to understand what Emma feels right now. - “I understand everything, you do not want to remember your oh not the best choice in life, but the result of this choice now stands before you, my darling!”

“Enough with this "my darling"! I constantly ask you to stop because it is contagious, and I repeat after you this mocking "my darling" without any need for it!”

“Emma, if there was no need, then throw at me ... Well, take what you can throw at me, then throw it!”

I laughed, forcing Swan to roll her eyes, and the boy, her son, took the grimace at his expense and put an extremely discouraging remark at the end of his speech.

“And if you won’t agree, I will tell the police that you kidnapped me!”

Emma couldn’t stand it and laughed, as if echoing me, and I literally just finished laughing in our inner world.

“Kid, you are very clever for your age and independent, yes!” - she trustingly patted him on the back - he sat on a bar stool and drank orange juice from the bottle throat. - “But you should know that the testimony of two adults that you yourself found this apartment and that address would beat your babble on this. Study the laws, kid! And please, if you come to stranger’s house, could you still ask permission or at least drink from a cup?”

Emma sighed, took the juice out of his hands and twisted the lid.

“And now, kid, we take my cake and... now completely your juice - after all, you drooled into it - and we go to your family. Would you like a sandwich? I’ve got with tuna and egg. Ok?”

He looked incredulously into our eyes, as if surprised at such an easy agreement on his request, but Emma — I knew — understood that she had no special choice, because she had a criminal record even if it was appealed and kind of amnestied, and that stopped her from any calls to the police. Emma didn’t wait for an immediate response from the child and asked.

- So, where to go?

- Storybrooke, Maine.

***

"Fairy tales?" - Emma repeated my thoughts, looking mistrustfully at the book that the boy was holding in his hands. - “Is this a fairytale book?”

“This is not just a fairy tale!” - the boy answered without any hesitation and I was somehow immediately alerted, after all, he was ten years old, not five. At this age, not everyone believes in Santa. - “It's true! Every story in this book actually happened!”

“Of course it did…”

I am quite sure that Emma did not argue with the kid, not because she was sorry to debunk the boy’s illusions. She was screaming at me now, panicking again, although in the real world she was simply frowning.

“Are you kidding me?! Is it contagious? Is it transmitted genetically? Is this some mutation? He thinks that fairy tales are real, and a relic of one of these fairy tales lives in my head!”

“Not these!” - I would have shook my head if I could. - “These are yours,” - I emphasized this word especially, - “fairy tales. Not ours, Emma. Not the ones I come from. We don’t tell tales of the Queen and the Snow White. We have other heroes, you know.”

“And how do you know that the book says about the Queen and Snow White?” - she was surprised, but didn’t forget to follow the road - we turned onto the highway.

“I read briefly just now”, - I answered and gave a laugh. “If you don’t see something, it doesn’t mean that I don’t see it, Emma. I need one glance to remember.”

“And why haven't I graduated the University with this ability yet?” - Emma sighed, but her sarcastic question didn’t require an answer, and I knew how much I would infuriate her if I answer it.

“Of course, because you're a stupid lazy bird,” - I drawled with pleasure. - “And not a swan, but a penguin. If you don’t kick it, it won’t fly!”

“Did you believe me?” - Henry decided to ask after a long silence and reached for a bag of juice and sandwiches. - “May I...”

“It’s much better when you remember to ask,” - Emma nodded but stopped short that parenting attempt. - “So what were you saying about fairy tales? What’s that about?”

“They are about you. You are there.”

The child shrugged and, putting the book aside, dug into a sandwich with indescribable pleasure written on his face, despite the fact that just couple of seconds ago the car was slightly inclined aside because Emma was a bit dumbfounded.

“It seems you have problems, kid…”

Emma sighed, straightening the steering wheel, and was hardly surprised when she heard the boy’s answer.

“Yeah. And you fix them.”

***

“Thus, the Sandwich Eater, I have a task for you!” - said Emma, when we moved into this Storybrooke of his and drove up to the clock tower. - “You must make your parents finish my cake with me on board. Judging by your ability of whining and persuasion, you are quite capable of it. It is going to melt to hell, and the holiday is already ruined enough. Though we will talk over a cup of tea about your behavior…"

We discussed Emma's further behavior strategy, and in the end she decided to ask kid’s parents why the boy ran away from home - Emma herself had similar runaways, and the reason of those wasn’t the great love of the adoptive family, for sure. But there was something obviously wrong in all that, and how he could find Emma was an unsolved mystery yet. I felt something strange somewhere on the border of Yavi, the Reality, but it could be just an ancient burial ground of some Indians, or a nasty cemetery, so for now I decided not to tell my mistress that I was slightly shaken by the thin Border in this terrain.

“I have no parents, I only have a mother,” - our little jerk replied. - “And she is evil!”

“Evil?” - Emma slowed down in the middle of the main square of the town and got out of the car. - “Get out!”

He obeyed, and I murmured to Emma, not to dare to hurt that little asshole, but she waved it off and sat down in front of the child so as to see his lowered eyes, shyly in search of a way out of the situation.

“Do you even think what you say? She is not evil! She is the person who became your family, when I - hear me - I was the very first evil in your life! And, you know, boy, life is not a damn collection of fairy tales - you are very lucky at least with the fact that you do not have to climb out of your skin just to eat enough.”

“My name is Henry!” - he exclaimed and looked us straight in the eyes. - “She doesn't love me. She only pretends to love. And you can help break the curse!”

“What other curse?” - Emma lowered the tone, during the interrogation of the little boy, asking me an extremely urgent question. Urgent for me, mostly.

“Old man, do you think he is talking about you? You yourself told me that this is your curse and you don’t know how to remove it ... Maybe it’s not by chance that everything's happening now? The kid fell into the hands of this book or… oh, backwards, and you always said that there are legends about you in our world, which definitely correspond to reality you lived in.”

I want to take your body, and you want to help me. Ironic, really. I would grin if I could. There’s too much inaccessible things to me that I would like to feel, that’s why I’ve long been thinking about how to finally seize that receptacle. And I'll pretend to be who you want as long as it is needed. I won’t repay good with good, no, that would be a mistake. Although, I wonder what Vasilisa would say on how exactly and how much I changed during this time? And does she know that I am alive, if finally I got lucky and came across the reality that’s parallel to mine?

“Emma, my darling, do you even know how to experience brain activity? I told you there was something about Snow White and the Queen in the book. Read it - and you would never find either Ivan, the son of tsar Vseslav, nor the daughters of Koschei, nor himself with his Sea Queen wifey. Although, on the other hand, no one knows what’s on the other side of the Infinity Forest…”

My mocking words were not particularly important to Emma, in any case, that was clearly unnoticeable. She didn't respond, continuing dialogue with the boy. He explained her exactly what kind of curse we are talking about. And it was clearly not mine.

“Look at the clock,” - the boy pointed to the tower, where the clock should've been hitting something around midnight long ago. - “Time is frozen here. The Evil Queen did it with her curse. She sent all of the Enchanted Forest here.”

“So, now I understand” - Emma put her hands on her hips and paraphrased. “The Evil Queen sent all the heroes of fairy tales that you told me about to this place?”

“Yeah, and now they are trapped.”

“Stuck in time and locked up in Storybrooke of Maine? Urban fantasy looks cool only in big cities, you know.”

Sarcasm obvious feel I in the Force... but she is right - I haven’t heard of such spells. My wife could, knew and practiced to transform the dead into a living, to unwind time, or with the help of mavka-navka, little magical fairy creatures, to collect magic and use it for whatever she wished to built. She also was quite good with fire and learned from her grandmother how to pick up soul-skulls and use them for magical purposes. But to clear the memory of all that people, not even for forever, when the cure is possible…

This is either hopeless stupidity, or such conditions were written into the curse, that wasn’t written by the Queen. So, the point is - it was the writing of someone else but that Evil Queen. Approximately and apparently she’s called like that as I was called the Terrible once upon a time, yet never Dark, this is a slightly different level. There was no other choice, and if there was, then the achievement of the goal was more important. Although I can’t even imagine how much you must not want to kill your enemies, the Queen... Instead of simply turning the whole reality into Stone or something like that, as the Stone Princess once wanted to do, and she was the blood of Yagg’s blood, who have protect the Reality because of that blood... That Queen bothered herself too much for petty avenge. Although, I think, the same thing guided the one who planted my soul into this semblance of the Underworld.

That Queen had not only the desire to make her enemies suffer, but had the desire to rule and entertain her Ego. After all, I cannot be compared to a large number of people to fit in the kingdom.

“It’s true!”

“So why don't they all just leave?” - Emma tried to appeal to reason, while I was silent, thinking about what is happening.

“They can not! If they try, bad things happen!”

Henry also seemed to appeal to reason, but for Emma it was clearly not an argument, and the boy was not allowed to explain more. We were interrupted.

“Henry!’ - slightly bald ginger man with a dalmatian on a leash approached. - “What are you doing here?” - he looked at us with a worried look and asked Emma. - “Everything is good?”

“I'm fine, Archie,” - the boy immediately started to stroke the dog, that showed his close acquaintance with a man who smiled uncertainly in the direction between Emma and Henry.

“And who are you?”

“I’m just bringing him home.”

Obviously Emma didn’t want to make new acquaintances here, as well as I really wouldn’t want to, if it’s not so suspicious and not connected to fairy tales. Once I asked Emma to look for something from the history of the Russian lands. The search ended in folklore, and most of the adventures from fairy tales named folk or based on them were true, but incredibly distorted, and that probably happened with…

Do I even believe it?!

“She is my mother, Archie” - said the kid, solding out my darling Emma for nothing.

“Not really,” - Emma clarified and asked Archie. - “Do you know about adoption?”

“Ah, yes,” - he let the dog off the leash and it came up to us, sniffed Emma's knee, and Swan immediately began patting it on withers. - “He goes to therapy. I had to find out.”

“Therapy? Kid, it gets harder for you to convince me, honestly!”

“Convince you?” - Archie looked at Emma inquisitively.

“No worries, we both know what I mean!”

Emma smiled awkwardly, winked at Henry, who wanted to answer, but realized that his mother had finally behaved like an adult who had learned a bitter experience and understood that the voice in her head was almost as serious as believing in a fairytale world, and very few of the “caring adults” will like it to such an extent that they decide not to do anything about it.

“Oh, he told you too!” - Archie's face lit up. - “So, what are you doing here?”

“I am searching for his mother's house,” - she shrugged and added. - “I think you could tell me the address, or maybe you want to take him there yourself…”

“Oh, no, no,” - Archie’s smile became tense, as if he definitely didn’t want to meet that woman. - It’s on Mifflin Street, the mayor’s house is the largest. You’ll recognize.”

“No matter who Henry’s mother is”, - I told Emma in a casual tone, - “she’s clearly no less annoying than her son.”

“Mayor! His mom is a fucking mayor! She will put me in jail!” - Emma panicked. She loves to panic in her own brain, especially when there is such a wonderful me, ready to listen, understand and forgive. For the time being, of course, but ... Sometimes I even like it.

“That’s why we come bearing the cake!”

[thedeadflag]

Hi I just want to thank you for being there yesterday I was having a bad time coping. Reading so many dismissive attitudes about things like the g!p issue knowing it boils down to most people as don't like it don't read it. Just bc its tagged doesn't mean it isn't doing harm. So many are supporting writers who know better but blatantly use it in a public forum makes me feel like i can't even be here sometimes. 1/2

2/2 I was thinking what if there was a popular genre that involved depicting/fetishizing black women with large breasts and small brains? What if that was a thing? Would ppl stay quiet bc its tagged? Wld ppl speak out? Thinking of all the things that ppl never speak up over but pretend to be allies? This performative allyship? It makes me sick. THIS is the toxic side of Tumblr. Thank you for being here.

It really is an issue of performative allyship vs actual allyship. Lots of people with “No TERFs” on their blog headers, folks asserting up and down that trans women are women and are “obviously” included in women’s spaces.

But then they fill those spaces with cissexism and transmisogyny and trans fetishization, and all sort of attitudes and behaviours and words that make it clear to us that we’re not truly accepted and seen as women, that we’re only welcome on their terms and that our voices don’t mean anything. So who are they supportive of? Who are they welcoming of within the spaces/communities we’re supposed to be able to safely exist in? It becomes intensely conditional. We’re accepted and welcomed so long as they get to demean us, misrepresent us, expose us to (and sometimes encourage) harm and sexual violence and social hostility, see and treat us like cis men in dresses they can put on a pedestal every once in a while for ally points. 

If trans women are only conditionally accepted in women’s spaces, then our womanhood is being treated as conditional. It’s that simple. And it’s really clear that’s the case among those reading and writing those trans fetishistic works. 

As for your example, I don’t need to use anyone else as a barometer for what’s acceptable in fandom, or how folks would react. Racial fetishization is distinct from trans fetishization. 

But I do have a strong feeling that if Amber Riley had been thinner, if she’d fit the fetishized “thick girl” figure…I guarantee that we would have seen that sort of thing blow up in the Glee fandom. She was already treated as shrill, loud, and brainless/small-minded (misogynoir at play). Being fat disqualified her from being treated as a viable character for most sexual works (classic fatphobia), but yeah…if she’d been a “thick” girl with large breasts, yeah, absolutely people would have treated her character as a mindless sex receptacle. I’m not even sure anyone would be so kind as to tag their works with anything specific, outside of maybe the shudder-inducing “eb*ny”, since that seems to be the norm of how black women are treated in sexual media. 

I doubt much of anyone aside from black women would speak out, or do anything about it. Hell, you’d probably get a bunch of folks who’d think it was positive rep. You’d get her paired up with all the white male leads in pursuit of pregnancy fics with mixed baby fetishization. And you’d get a slew of g!p fics in femslash portions of the fandom, with her as the ‘voluptuous’, ‘primal’, ‘aggressive’ partner with the BBC to ravage and fill up all the nubile, innocent white female leads. The fandom mostly shoehorned in Santana to fit that role, as the predatory mindless sex pot, but I don’t doubt that they’d have jumped on the possibility of using Mercedes if they’d seen her as viable. And fandom would have done nothing about it, because they didn’t do anything about it with Santana, dismissing criticisms left and right, and even trying to use canon material to justify twisting her character that way. Latinx fans were vocal as hell, and were roundly ignored and dismissed.

So yeah, in your given example, that’s exactly what would happen. Had racial fetishization been done in canon material, fandom would have maybe rallied a bit against that harmful rep (they did a few times in Glee to events.portrayals in canon, certainly), but when the finger’s pointed at them? Nope. Fandom, by and large, would not give even half of a shit. But they would be vocal here and there about being against racism, of how there needs to be more support for woc, especially in wlw fandom. Calling out #BlackLivesMatter while gleefully fetishizing black women is something I absolutely suspect would be common.

There’s a lot of issues in fandom. Trans fetishization is just one issue among a great many others. It’s the one I focus on, because it affects me directly, and I can speak on it and educate on it, but there’s absolutely racial fetishization in fandom. It’s rampant. And fandom spaces for LGBT+ fandom really do tend to mirror real life spaces. They’re white-centric and cis-centric for sure, to name a few pertinent issues. 

And they don’t think they’re transmisogynistic. They don’t think they’re racist. Many of them can’t even get a sniff that there’s anything wrong with the works they love that fetishize and dehumanize real marginalized groups of people. And there’s all that toxicity right under the surface, and too many aren’t willing to do anything about it.

“It’d cause too much drama for my liking”

“I don’t want to rustle feathers”

“I don’t want to get anon hate”

“I don’t want to upset anyone.”

“I don’t want to lose any friends”

“I come to fandom to escape and have fun, not to argue”

Except for those of us being dehumanized and fetishized and excluded, we don’t have the luxury of dipping into fandom all peacefully and comfortably. We don’t have the ability to just ignore the harm being done to us and move on, nor should we have to. 

Like, in real life, when folks see transphobia, or racism, and they do nothing? That can at times be understandable, if unfortunate. But online? There’s zero real risk/danger. There’s always, always ways to help. But people still shy away. When there’s practically an epidemic of people not commenting on fanworks, who’s going to put in the effort to fight these fights that isn’t already directly affected? Hardly anyone.

And I’ll admit there are times I could have done better, done more. I need to do better, there’s always room for improvement. 

I just need to hope there’s enough out there trying to make things better for some sort of positive change to happen. It’s just hard sometimes, as you know.

I’m here if you need me.

[theinkstainsblog]

Hi! I have a quick question about problematic writing/racism/etc. I'm super sorry if this is incredibly ignorant, I'm just trying to understand (and also not trying to start any arguments!) So having an aggressor that is black/POC in a book is generally considered racist and problematic, correct? That is basically the gist of what I'm getting, and I TOTALLY understand. But at the same time... does that mean aggressors can only be white? Is it to the point where, as a writer, we can't -- (1/2)

(2/2) – have any other form of aggressor that isn’t white? I’m just confused about this notion. Is it just because it is historically racist to make an aggressor black/POC?

Same anon as before here! Just context as to why I’m asking this is because in a story I have been writing, I have a group of aggressors that are mixed - some white, some black, some POC, and now I am unsure whether that is problematic or not?

Okay, so I’m just going to preface this real quick by saying that I am not PoC. I am 100% white (Irish/English). And because of that, I’m not the best person to ask about this sort of thing. I am by no means an authority on what is and is not okay in regards to representation of PoC because it isn’t my voice that counts in these discussions. A blog I’d recommend to any writer wanting to write a culture/ethnicity other than their own is @writingwithcolor Seriously, I’d recommend them x100. They do a great and very thorough job of talking about this sort of thing. 

Secondly, don’t worry! It isn’t a stupid question - in fact, it’s great that you’re asking stuff like this. It means you genuinely care about getting this right and are making an effort to find out how you could potentially cause harm. I have nothing but admiration and respect for your doing that. 

And because of that, I want to try and help. Remember what I said at the beginning: this isn’t something I can be an expert on. I’m just going to tell you what I think, based on what I’ve heard from writers and reviewers of colour and I urge you to ask writingwithcolour as well, just in case I get anything wrong!

The reason that writing a black character as the main violent aggressor is a problem is because it feeds into a historical/cultural idea that black people are savages or somehow inherently more violent and aggressive than white people. This comes about as a result of whites perpetuating this stereotype (dating right back to the slave trade) in order to justify our treatment of them as somehow less than us (which is obviously bullshit, no doubt about that). 

It might seem like this isn’t a problem anymore. After all, we aren’t enslaving PoC and justifying that by saying that we’re educating/employing/whatever the ‘savage.’ But really, when you think about it, this attitude remains. Just look at the treatment of young black men (in the US particularly but elsewhere too). Many still see them as more likely to be dangerous/react violently than a young white man. 

And so, when we write a book in which a black person is the violent aggressor, and when many books tell that story, it reinforces this idea in the minds of the readers. Of course, we know its only fiction. But we use fiction to explore things beyond our own human experience. Which means that as a white person, with a white experience, reading books with poor representation of marginalised groups, could lead us to believe things that are untrue or even harmful.

Now, here’s where I think you might be okay: you said in that last part about context, that your aggressors are a large group with some white characters, some black and some other PoC groups? 

In which case, personally, I’d say you’re okay. You’re not representing black people as inherently aggressive because they are not the only ones who behave violently. So do white people, so do other people of colour. If lots of groups behave violently then you are not representing it as a matter of race - its just a matter of those individual characters.

This would be even better if you have good guys who are PoC too. That way we can see that PoC are not a monolith, that some are on the good side and some are with the antagonist. We can then see characters of colour fighting for the right side, being peaceful and so on and have developed characters of colour.

Fighting against these tropes does not mean that you can’t ever write a black character as the antagonist. Far from it. It just means that we should have white antagonists as well, and that that we should also have black protagonists to compare them too. 

I hope this helps explain it for you! Let me know if this clears it up. If any of my followers who are more qualified to talk about this want to weigh in, I’d really appreciate it!