#it's the same sort of thing as how medias treat celebrities

[commissionsdarian]

Did you ever watch or monitor any of the hargreeves?

No, not really. My trainer had a bit of an ethical code and told me I shouldn't really be watching people's private lives unless it was part of the job, so I stuck to that because it made sense. I heard about Five, rarely the others, a lot from other people, but that's as close to any of that I ever got

[pixiecaps]

no bc im not usually involved w stuff like this and believe everyone should be held accountable for their actions no matter what. but seeing the way quackity has been seen as non human, any emotion or misstep he has being seen as manipulative or fake is like crazy. i don’t understand how people don’t see like wait, your actually just being racist you are not capable of seeing him as a person, why? it feels like he really could’ve handled this perfectly and there still would be this large crowd regarding him as a heartless fraud??

truly. i have closely observed this situation and listened to both sides and theres a lot of different opinions that can co exist and theres a lot of complexity to them.

one particular thing that has bothered me and made me uncomfortable is the projection of quackity as this scheming conniving figure. its gross. him having to explain that hes had previous experiences like this where he keeps any sort of bad situation with another creator private and that in turn has made him perceived as more manipulative is so sad. and this isnt surprising obviously since this is something ive witnessed. but overall i think with the internet nowadays theres a large mindset that everything needs to be public information and shared with the audience while they preach to solve things in the dms. people only care for a show and to watch creators destroy themselves. thats what twitter is and what a lot of people actively strive to do on that platform. specifically in regards to leak communities.

everyone should be aware enough that theyre allowed to criticize quackity and the decisions he’s made that people may not agree with. he acknowledges that himself. but to paint him as anything other then human and someone who has deeply fucked up reaches that level where it is racism. i dont think many people quite realize micro aggressions when they see them. so theres that. and then theres obviously the extremes of the situation when it came to the doxxing and death threats. people actively celebrating and saying it surely is an okay thing to spread because well he fucked up right? hypocrisy. this goes the same way for any admin or worker involved the situation that has been sent and told the same.

this entire situation has proved to me that nobody knows how to properly handle anything or how to properly react to anything and choosing instead to immediately jump to those extremes mentioned in the name of activism and moral superiority.

anyways support the admins. listen to their stories. criticize media you consume in a constructive manner. call out xenophobia and racism when you see it. and treat people like the humans they are. they will all make mistakes each side has made a mistake. yes this also applies to the people in the community. think for more than a second before you post anything for fucks sake.

[everyforkedroad]

KP twitter drama - a hot take 🔥

I don't know if I'm going to get myself blocked or whatever for this diatribe but I have to get this off my chest.

If you are not aware (lucky you), KP Twitter is up in arms over Be on Cloud's alleged refusal to send Mile and Apo to accept the Mekhala Awards, citing scheduling conflicts. Granted, fans worked hard to make sure MileApo won that award.

In addition, many accuse BoC of holding MileApo back, of keeping content from fans, and not promoting them properly, taking their spotlight and putting on the other cast members instead.

Honestly, I don't know what to think of those accusations, but the behavior that I'm seeing is beginning to smack of a disturbing sort of entitlement.

MileApo and the KP cast just performed a two-day concert for which they rehearsed non-stop for ten days. Some of the cast were recovering from Covid and, in the case of Apo, performing despite symptoms and having to quarantine afterward.

MileApo are also doing preproduction for their historical movie, coming out next year, and are preparing for multiple concert dates between now and Sept, all the while fulfilling their sponsorship duties towards contracted companies.

What troubles me is that these are the same folks who worry about MileApo being exploited by BoC, but then turn around and demand that they do fanservice events and produce content when they are already so busy. This also smacks of exploitation, this time by fans.

Maybe it's a cultural thing and I'm missing the point by a Mile. If so, I apologize for my ignorance.

I just wish people would calm down and not jump on every last outrage. It's always the same people stirring up trouble and they do it for the engagement, not because they actually care about the actors or the series. Worse, they don't see the actors as human beings because if they did, they wouldn't be so obnoxious about demanding things that is beyond what they owe their fans.

Twitter is not the end-all/be-all of celebrity promotion. MileApo's career success isn't going to depend on the cute pictures they post or silly videos where they talk ad nauseum about how much they love each other. Their success will depend on the quality of their projects, the excellence of their performances, and the number of people who consume their commercial projects, the majority of whom are not picketing on Twitter.

And finally, not to be a corporate apologist, but BoC did issue a statement discouraging fans from participating in pay-for-vote contests. If fans chose to do it anyway, they can't turn around and get angry when BoC refuses to play along. They want their actors to be treated as professionals. Professionals wait for awards that acknowledge their work and their art. Not their popularity.

I am just as thirsty for MileApo content as everyone else and I like going on Twitter (and IG) because it's where MileApo can be found. But folks doing these hate campaigns have to realize that actors have been known to abandon social media for just this reason. Someone like Mile (or his SM manager), who is so generous with his SM posting, might be inclined to change the way he interacts, while I could see Apo ditching altogether. So maybe people should calm down and appreciate the work they do instead of demanding things they are not entitled to, or expecting the company to do things they have already clarified that they are not doing.

Rant over

[pleasantlyinsincere]

David Cassidy on John from Could it be forever? -My Story

During that time, I also got to know one of my musical heroes, John Lennon. When he split with Yoko and was with May Pang, I spent some time in LA with him at Elliot Mintz's house and spent a little time chatting with him. We subsequently had dinner together a couple of times. We'd go to the Imperial Gardens so we could be in a private room where no one would bother us. Later I flew back to New York twice and spent a little time with Yoko. She is very bright and I liked her a lot. I think she was treated unfairly by the media and the public. She provided a real grounding for John and a place to feel safe. She loved him for who she was, not because he was a Beatle. I later found the same thing with my wife, Sue. [...] During the last year of Partridge Family, 1974, John continued making the Rock'n'Roll album. I saw Elliot all the time and John and I would pass messages back and forth to each other through him. John came over to my house in Encino on New Year's eve 1974 or 1975, when I had just finished my world tour. Susan Dey was there and I had fallen asleep at around midnight on her lap. Elliot and John showed up and they had been drinking and celebrating. Susan woke me up and said, 'David, I think there is a Beatle in the house.' After slurring a few words to each other, John and I decided to play some music. So we went to my music room, where I had all my guitars, and we sat on the floor and I began playing the Beatles' song Any Time at All. It was one of my favorites. That and Mr. Moonlight. And John was like, 'Oh, I can't remember that.' He had written hundreds of songs since then. So I sort of re-taught him the chord structure. We sang it together and I did Paul's part. It was like being a Beatle for a moment. I was fulfilling a dream I'd had when I was 13, learning Beatles' songs on my first guitar after seeing them on the Ed Sullivan show. You don't forget some of the first songs you learn. We started playing rock'n'roll songs, stuff by Chuck Berry like Nadine. John loved all that Chuck Berry stuff and he knew it much better than I did. It didn't sound very good, we were drinking, laughing and just stumbling through it. I played him a song I had just written and he started playing me stuff that he was working on. [...] I had an interesting relationship with John. I related to him because of his abandonment issues and creativity. He was kind enough to give me inside into what I was about to go through. He'd been there and done that and was in the process of demystifying himself. Once we were having lunch together, he invited me to come to A&M studios where he was recording the Rock'n'Roll album. He asked me if I wanted to play with the other musicians. I did go but it was so crowded and almost every great guitar player you can think of was there. Harry Nilsson, Cher and lots of other people were there, too. At the time I didn't want to be part of the circus. I only stayed for around 15 minutes, although in hindsight I probably should have played. John had a fabulous sense of humour. He was more dedicated to the things he believed in than anyone I can think of. He wasn't seduced by greed. We only spoke briefly about Paul and his comments at the time were, 'Yeah, well, you know, that's just Paul.' I think John was deeply hurt by their differences and the fact that their partnership wasn't a partnership. He felt the competition with Paul who would come in with 15 songs and want to record them all. John told me, 'I don't want to be in, you know, "Paul & the Beatles". I don't want to be a sideman for Paul. It's not what I want to do anymore.' John Lennon had a very strong influence on me by giving me advice on how to start trying to live a normal life again. How do I find a way to walk down the street or go to a restaurant and not be paranoid? We talked a lot about that. There were certain things that I could say to him and he could say to me that no other people on earth could understand except perhaps the other Beatles and Elvis.

[hello-nichya-here]

No your so right about this with Michael Jackson.

I hate how they didn't treat him like a human.

I hate how they judged that.

Like fuck them juding him for doing plastic surgeries and being addicted to pain killers. Who are they to judge? Unless they have been that FAMOUS like him they have no right to do so.

If I had people watch me everyday cameras on my face, grew up with my father bullying my apperance, I'd be self conscious too.

Fuck people who care more about how many plastic surgeries he had then the humanitarian things he did. Fuck people for making fun of his apperance.

And lastly most people couldn't handle a week living like him. So for them to judge him for being addicted to anything his laughable. I couldn't. I would be waaay worse.

Not to mention, some of the surgeries Michael went through were medically necessary: dude's head was literally set on fire, and thanks to Lupus he had necrosis on a few parts of his face and needed the dead tissue to be removed. Plus some people still ignorantly think Michael did some kind of procedure to "turn white", even though he had already said he had vitiligo and used make-up to cover up the spots and creams made to treat vitiligo to even out the skin, AND in some pictures it's very noticeable that he only used said cream in his hands and face, as there's still spots everywhere else.

And for fuck's sake, people were already losing their shit about him having had "too many" plastic surgeries all the way back in the Dangerous Era, when he looked absolutely normal and if he had not grown up in the spotlight he could have easily passed as not having ever had any surgery ever.

And the "spotlight" bit is also important because Michael had repeatedly mentioned how he struggled with being a former child star because the public (and by consequence the label and his manager/dad) wanted him to stay little forever.

For fuck's sake, he had already started his career having to lie about his age to pretend he was even younger, and as he grew up he was always speaking in higher, softer tone of voice - which he kept doing even as an adult, when people thought it was weird, because surprise surprise, you can't spend years trying to brute force someone into looking and acting younger than they really are, then act all shocked when they can't just flip a switch in their brain and stop doing that the second it is no longer convenient.

It is really that shocking that as he was growing older, became a dad, and wasn't as active as he used to be, that he had the natural instinct of trying to basically "freeze" his looks at that age? And again, considering how his entire career relied on iconic visuals (the white glove, the Billie Jean hat, the Smooth Criminal suit, the lean and the moonwalk, etc) I would not be surprised if everyone that was making money off of him was not only okay with it, but actively encouraging him to do just that, so they could "keep the brand looking sort of the same" for audiences.

That kind of stuff happens to nearly every single celebrity in the whole world - hundreds of which went WAY further with plastic surgery than Michael ever did. They are just bullied relentlessly and expected them to look the same forever. If they age naturally, they've "let themselves go" and "are too old now." If they try to keep the same looks, as people are basically demanding them to? Then they are shallow, pathetic people that are so delusional they think they can beat time just because they're rich. There is no "right choice" that will please the people that see them as products instead of human beings.

People only focus so much on Michael because he was THE most famous human being ever, and nothing sells as much as a story trashing beloved icons, so the media focused on him to level of "if you did this to a regular, non-famous person, you'd all be in prison right now."

And it's exactly because the media was constantly repeating how "weird" he was at every single opportunity, blasting all kinds of absurd stories everywhere, that people thought he obviously HAD to be the biggest weirdo ever, right? If he wasn't, why would the media talk so much about *checks notes* the guy with the first AND second best selling record of all time? They'd totally leave him alone if only he wasn't so weird. There's just no way they'd always come up with new bullshit to trash him for just because it'd 100% make them absurd amounts of money, riiiiiight?

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

What's your opinion on parasocial relationships

From: "I don't think we should be able to see fictional characters have sex because they haven't consented"

To: "Blatantly and overtly objectifies -insert celebrity here-"

There seems to be wild swinging from one end to the other 🤔🤔🤔

okay so this is uuuh a Large question and I need to start by saying flat out that "parasocial relationship" is a pretty value neutral term that's only very recently taken on a distinctly negative connotation. the term was invented in the 1950s in response to increasing television viewership in America, to describe the one-sided attachments that viewers formed with fictional characters and media personalities. while Horton and Wolh, who coined the term, did express concerns that some people might be prone to substituting parasocial relationships for real, reciprocal human connections, it wasn't intended to be a condemnation of the practice. parasociality in small amounts is essentially necessary to have any sort of stake in fictional characters or celebrities who can't love us back, and its worth noting that parasocial relationships significantly predate the terminology - humans have felt strongly about rulers who don't know them and characters from myths and stories for centuries. this sort of connection-making is fueled by the same extremely social nature that let us bond with dogs and other domesticated animals.

so the tl;dr there is that my feeling on parasocial relationships is that it largely depends on whether we're talking about, like, people having harmless crushes on attractive and charismatic actors or, like, twitter stans sending each other death threats over musicians who don't know they exist. like most things, it's harmless in moderations and is mostly down to individuals to use their grown-up brains to not make it weird and harmful.

now, onto the example you gave of people objecting to depictions of fictional characters having sex because they can't consent. I don't know that parasociality is the main issue at play here, although as we've noted a degree of it is certainly necessary to care that much about a fictional character in the first place. that particular ideological clusterfuck is a result of several things colliding, I think namely:

a.) an increasingly prevalent and normalized streak of extreme sexual conservatism amongst people who broadly consider themselves progressive. if you've spent much of the last decade online and especially in fandom spaces, you've probably seen this mindset becoming more and more pronounced via a bunch of horse-assed debates about the morality of depicting #problematic things in fiction and fanworks. sincere arguments that sex scenes are bad because made up people who don't exist can't consent to being featured in them is pretty much always where that particular line of thinking was heading.

b.) an absolutely tragic conflation of media consumption with activism and political beliefs. this overlaps heavily with point a (with a lot of assumption that if you're a Good person you must take great pains not only to not consume Bad fiction but also to call it out at every opportunity for being Bad, lest you be accused of having Wrong opinions) and also generates a lot of very stupid takes like treating Captain Marvel as a #girlboss #feminism movie despite being sponsored by the US Air Force and holding creators from historically oppressed identities to impossibly high standards of Good Representation, a thing that doesn't exist and no one agrees on. (read Elaine Castillo's excellent essay collection How to Read Now for way more eloquent thoughts on that.) the point being that people's so-called hot takes about popular media are almost conflated with their politics, whichever way they may lean. this also related to point c, which is"

c.) the internet and its many insufferable algorithms encourage outrage and conflict at every opportunity, so nobody can just say some normal shit like "I don't like seeing sex scenes on tv, it feels uncomfortable :/," because people will start crawling down their throat screaming about how it's actually very sex negative and queerphobic and problematic to dislike watching sex scenes and that the person who posted that is somehow personally oppressing people with sexual trauma who are reclaiming their relationship with their sexuality and were greatly helped by [insert sex scene here]. so you have to pre-empt those replies by acting like you're teeing up a fucking tedtalk and also are ready to throw down in defense of your lukewarm opinion, and that's a lot easier to do if you've figured out how to use language affiliated with social justice to bolster your point.

anyway. that's my opinion on that.

[galahadenough]

I admittedly went into the series not expecting much. It’s a superhero show. It’ll be fun! But somehow fucking DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is hitting almost every itch I have for queer representation that I don’t see enough, or any, of elsewhere.

First off, it’s a fun show. It’s hilarious. It doesn’t take itself too seriously in a way that lets it be fun, but clearly the writers take the the show seriously because of the inside jokes that don’t break the mood if you don’t get it and because of how well they treat their characters.

But I’m here to talk about the queer rep. BTW, spoilers ahead (I say while having one more season to go…)

I suppose that I’ve been taught to not expect much, especially from action or superhero genres where every hint of a gay character is treated like an amazing first that people are suppose to be grateful for. But I really wasn’t expecting this.

First remarkable thing is the sheer quantity. You want a queer character? How about 7? How about they be main characters? How about they be emphatically queer while being queer has nothing to do with that character’s plot??

But the best thing for me is how they show queerness.

I have always felt that, as much progress as we have made, the goal for media should be that Indiana Jones (or Bond, or anyone) can be queer in an unquestionable way. It shouldn’t need a big explanation or be a shock. My personal goal would be that any generic action hero can unexpectedly turn out to be queer because it could easily go any direction. And Indiana Jones casually gets the guy. Or whatever. And that’s what Sara Lance does.

Sara Lance is ~arguably~ the main character. Hard to have a main character with that big of a cast, but she counts enough to make my point. The main character is bi. Visibly and emphatically and gleefully bi. And the show makes damn sure this fact never gets forgotten, but it is not a part of her backstory. It just is, without reasons or explanations.

She spends a lot of the show Casanova-ing her way across history, seducing women right and left in such a traditional male-adventure-hero type role that had me so happy. She took on such a traditional role that women have never had and did it is such a matter of fact way. Her confidence was never questioned. Her competence was never questioned. Her sexuality was never questioned. She didn’t even need to “come out”, she just existed like it was normal.

And this same character is the one who has had the longest, healthiest, most stable relationship in the show. I don’t know what happens in the last season, but it honestly wouldn’t even feel like “burying the gays” if Ava died at this point. It wouldn’t feel like a punishment for being queer because it was so openly celebrated for so much of the show.

Now that I’ve got Sara out of the way (because I love her too much to write this without her), it’s time to get to Mick Rory. Because Mick is fucking fantastic.

Mick is even more shocking than Sara when it comes to queer rep because he represents so much of the less visible representation. He is so visibly male and tough and abrasive. He comes across as questionably literate and is known for being the brawn and pyromaniac of the group.

This isn’t the sort of character that is known for getting any queer representation, then he stops drinking just long enough to pop off one of the best, most impassioned speeches about being “othered” that I’ve ever heard, and probably the only time I’ve every heard the phrase used outside of niche online communities.

He turns out to be a writer… of space opera sci-fi romance novels. A prolific, published author who adores his army of female fans, which is more respect towards a female audience than most shows seem to have. An author who, when he finally revealed who he was, preferred that his fans continue to call him Rebecca when talking to him. This isn’t quite trans representation, but it is incredibly satisfying and normalizing. Someone who looks and acts like him being comfortable being called Rebecca combined with the fact that he didn’t even get a strange look over the choice.

He has been referred to as a “skirt chaser” but rarely shows interest in anyone. Honestly feels like decent rep for aromantic and/or monsterfucker (which is one of those categories that I feel belongs under the queer umbrella).

And I just love how queerness permeates the show. There is never a shocked “wait.. you’re gay!!”. There are no token gays that are quickly forgotten and there are also no queer characters whose plot point is being gay. It just exists naturally and normally and it feels fucking fantastic.

I could probably polish this up a bit, but it’s really gotten away from me. I really love this show, and I just needed to get this out!

[mx-piggy]

Maybe I missed Muppets Mayhem discussions from back when the show came out but I’m wondering what you guys thought of the human characters of the show?

I watched a YouTube review of the show, and I was somewhat surprised at the fact that the reviewer hated the human characters so much, which I do understand as someone who had to force myself to try to like them.

For me I guess I agree that they were the weakest element of the show, and I think it was a mistake to have the human characters be equally as important as the Mayhem. What I enjoyed about the Muppets 2011 was that it knew not to have the human characters ‘hijack’ the movie. I’m not a Muppets expert or anything but the role of humans in Muppet media has always been to support the Muppets, as opposed to having the Muppets be the supporting cast to the humans. It was always a celebrity guest in the Muppet Show, not the other way around.

At times, I think that the Muppets Mayhem felt like those Tom and Jerry movies where it was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or the Wizard of Oz, but Tom and Jerry were there for some reason (apologies for the niche reference). Like, the show felt less like a Muppet series but a Goldbergs-esque sitcom that just happened to have Muppets in it. It might have been in part because it’s rare for Muppet media to have such a limited number/range of Muppets in it, if that makes sense? Like, it’s never just Kermit and Miss Piggy, or just Gonzo, Rizzo and Pepe. Typically, most/all of the Muppets are present. So, it feels a little less Muppet-y, at least for me. This isn’t an original thought but I feel like Scooter could have functioned well in this show, possibly in the place of Nora (because he was the Mayhem’s road manager in the original Muppet Movie IIRC? So, that might have made it feel more Muppet-y.

With all of that said, I didn’t actively dislike the humans in the show, and I actually quite liked Moog. Overall, the main human characters were a little basic for my taste, but I think the main problem for me was how heavily they featured. Their lack of depth would have been fine if they weren’t treated as having the same importance as the Mayhem. Like, I really didn’t care for Nora and Moog’s relationship; if I wanted that sort of thing, I could go to literally any other sitcom with a pair of male and female main characters of a similar age. I was never actively annoyed by the human characters’ presence, but I just never found myself overly interested in them? They’re just boring, shallow sitcom characters to me (other than Moog, who I like and respect as a fellow Mayhead, though I wish he had less to do with Nora and more to do with the Mayhem). I probably would have liked the humans more if they better supported the Mayhem from a narrative standpoint, as opposed to being the stars of the show and having the Mayhem be secondary to them.

I am hoping, probably in vain, that the humans’ involvement in the show will reduce to a reasonable extent, where they can act as supporting characters for the Mayhem. Failing that, I’m hoping that the human characters will grow on me.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Coleman Hughes on the Politics of Race | Real Time with Bill Maher

Bill Maher: So, what's the difference, where do we draw the line here? Fighting racism and your book is fighting the politics of ra-- -Talking about the politics.

Coleman Hughes: Right.

Maher: What's the difference between fighting racism and the politics of racism?

Hughes: Right. So, racism as defined by Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Movement, judging people on the basis of their race, rather than their character and so forth. That's not what my book is-- is against, uh, fighting. Obviously, we should all fight that. No matter who it's directed at.

What my book is fighting is this ideology that really was born with critical race theory, the adult version of critical race theory in the '70s and '80s and became more popular over the past ten years. That equates Whiteness with evil, equates Blackness with a kind of moral superiority. Stereotypes whole groups of people, says that your race is an essential part of who you are and feels even that children need to be taught this from as young an age as possible because they're-- they're born with the wrong attitude about race and it needs to be sort of hammered out of them, by separating White kids from Black kids, from Hispanic kids. Putting them in different corners of the room, as was done in my Columbia University orientation, some nine years ago. And that the way we're going to get to, you know, the kind of society we want is by focusing more and more on racial identity.

In my book I say, this is nonsense, this is totally against the spirit of-- of the Civil Rights Movement and that actually, the wise principle is that we should try to treat people without regard to race both in our personal lives and in public policy.

Maher: Funny, I mean… that wouldn't have been controversial with any liberal, 30 or 40, 50 years ago. I mean, that is what Martin Luther King said. What-- what color blind society, I mean, I thought we were all after that and then we all weren't, and what changed?

Hughes: Yeah, so, even 20 years ago, it wouldn't have been controversial. I grew up in a liberal town, Montclair, New Jersey, many people probably know it. Diverse town, where, you know, we celebrated Martin Luther King every year, we listened to the famous speech and got goosebumps, as most Americans do and really believed that, uh, and I lived out that dream, in other words, I had friends of every race as a kid and I didn't think of them as belonging to a race, I thought of them by their name and their attributes, right? Around--

Maher: They treated the same way?

Hughes: Yeah. For the most part. Yeah, I mean, there are exceptions, but the exceptions prove the overwhelming rule. So, you know before 2013, you can just look at polling data from Gallup and Pew. The majority of Americans, Black, White and Hispanic believed race relations were good, as late as 2013. And that's the year everything takes a nosedive, so that by 2021, half as many people thought we were in a good place, as thought that in 2013.

So, the question is what happened? Did racism suddenly spike? Well, no, the data is pretty clear on that, racism didn't spike, what happened is that, we all got smartphones and social media, and started seeing unrepresentative video clips of cops, you know, harassing or beating or killing Black Americans and this gave people the misperception that racism was suddenly this widespread problem and it touched off all of these trends that we've now heard about for the past eight years, under various names, wokeness, CRT, DEI, it's all fundamentally from that core change and how information is being shared.

Maher: But there was part of that was good, that we did see these beatings and things go on, because that's what changed it.

Hughes: The one thing I can say is good about it, is before the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, cops could basically do whatever and not get punished.

Maher: Right.

Hughes: You could, I mean-- it's hard to find even a single example. Uh, you can find isolated ones but mostly cops got away with whatever. So, that's no longer the case and that's the one thing I could credit.

Maher: And they go to jail.

Hughes: Yeah. I mean it-- But on the other hand, it has not-- many people think it just revealed all the racism that's actually out there, that's not true, because if that were true, people would have an accurate assessment, and this has been tested. When you ask very liberal Americans, "How many unarmed Black people do you think are shot by the cops every year?" The answer they gave in 2019 was a thousand, the real number from that year was 12. So, this social media algorithmically boosted content has-- it's not educating us, it's miseducating us.

--

[thelunastusco]

on fictives/factives/introjects

In light of a lot of myths and misconceptions we’ve seen floating around, we want to make a thread on fictives and factives. Especially for confused singlets (folks who aren't a system/plural/multiple).

First of all, let's start with defining the terminology, okay?

Fictive = a system member who is based off a fictional character, species, or from a fictional world. For some, it's purely neurological. For others, it's a spiritual thing. Beliefs vary-- that's OKAY. Some don't see themselves as "actually" them, but some do-- that's OKAY. 

Factive = a system member who is based off a person who exists, or existed, in this world. This can be celebrities, influences, historical figures, or just regular people that the system knew/knows. (Including, sometimes, pets, other people’s system members, or abusers.) Again, can be neurological or spiritual, and viewpoints vary on if the system member feels they are "actually" that person or not. Again, regardless if they do or don't, it's okay. 

These are similar to, but not the same as, fictionkin and factkin. Fictives/factives are terms for systems, and usually they enter the system knowing who they are without living as someone else, unlike kin who are born as one identity but awaken to one or more kintypes. Systems AND singlets can have kintypes. The lines can blur sometimes! Sometimes a "singlet" will realize a kintype is a system member, sometimes a system member will think they're a fictive (or think they're not) and it turns out they're fictionkin (or remember who they are). 

Here’s a primer on kinfolk-related terminology: [link]

if you're not a system, please don't use the term fictive/factive for your kintype. And please don't call fictives/factives kintypes. We have also seen some folks using the term “fictive singlet”, and unless you were part of a system at some point but the system fused leaving you-- a fictive-- as the sole operator of the body, please don’t use that term. It just perpetuates misunderstanding.

With terminology out of the way, let's cut to the chase.

Fictives and factives ARE real. They are a real thing that happens with systems, and it's ALWAYS existed. Many of the oldest, most well-known systems have had fictives and factives. This isn't new. At all. (Traumagenic systems, especially those with DID/OSDD-- and medicalized literature-- may call them introjects. Just FYI.) Beliefs on how/why they happen vary. And in the end it doesn't honestly matter. They exist. If you don't believe that, you shouldn't be interacting with systems.

Now, there's a lot of myths being flung around lately. Mainly, that fictives/factives "believe this" or "think that". Even systems are doing this. Please stop assuming! Not all fictives/factives "know they're not REAAAAALLY that person", and not all "really think they are". The fact of the matter is, all systems believe differently. Even fictives/factives within the same system will sometimes have different beliefs. And it's very important, regardless, to respect those beliefs. Mostly because you're... not going to change anything, lmao. 

Some fictives/factives are strongly neurological and believe they were created by the brain based off a person who would bring the system some sort of comfort or stability. They still may or may not want to be treated as that person. ASK. Talk about it. Be compassionate. 

Some fictives/factives believe they're spiritual in origin and believe they ARE that person, usually from a different timeline, though beliefs can vary widely. They may or may not want to be treated as that person. ASK. Talk about it. Be compassionate.

Some systems say that they can purposefully form or “bring in” fictives/factives, some systems say they can’t. Both are fine!

Regardless of what a fictive/factive believes, most aren't going to harass their "canon source"-- whether it be writers, artists, game designers who created a fictional media, or real people like celebrities or streamers. Most keep a good distance out of respect. Especially true for factives, who usually understand the delicate nature of the situation. It's just etiquette that if you interact with those involved with, connected to, or who ARE your source, you don't bring it up because it can cause a lot of singlets discomfort. 

The problem we're currently having is a LARGE influx of newer, much younger systems who have grown up way too involved in parasocial relationships and haven't learned boundaries. Plus most are steeped in sysmed ideology, so they don't listen to community "elders" who tend to skew towards inclusivity, and are often shunned because teens have grown up in this weird culture of "adults (especially queer adults) are ~~icky~~". It's hard to establish community connections and teach younger systems history and etiquette when "DNI if 17+".

There's also a large influx of young systems who are tossing around the word "psychotic" and "delusional attachments" in regards to their plurality... which we can't comment on too much, but it creates a vastly more complicated situation. 

POINT BEING:

1. Yes, it is a real thing. Fictives and factives happen in systems of ALL types: trauma-formed, nontraumagenic, disorder, nondisordered, diagnosed, undiagnosed, etc. They're not new terms and they're not new phenomenon in any way, shape, or form. 

2. No, it's NOT roleplaying. (Not even if the system is nontraumagenic.) It is not faking, acting, wish fulfillment, or imagination. They're not "delusional attachments". (Although some may start out that way!) If you accept systems and system members as real, then accept fictives and factives as real, too. 

3. Please don't make assumptions about what a fictive/factive believes. If they say "I'm not really that person", or "yes I believe I'm that person", respect it. It isn't inherently a problem, either way. (You can have a belief without that belief harming yourself or others.) 

4. Please don't let the bad behavior of a few sour your opinion of an entire community. Yes, the plural community is having a problem with (mostly) young systems participating with in-fighting and harassment. But that is not the entirety of the plural community.

5. Don't crap on fictionkin/factkin, either. Their existence isn't inherently bad or harmful. It's what people DO with it, as with anything else. 

DISCLAIMER: When we say to respect a fictive/factive that believes they are actually who they say they are, we mean in the sense of them believing they are A VERSION of that person. This is NOT the same as, say, a factive claiming they are THIS WORLD'S version of (person). If a factive is claiming to be "the real (person)", as in, THIS world's version of that person... yes, that is concerning. We know. And it requires a deeper conversation than twitter can allow. Still, don't harass or mock that person or system, please. 

Another PS: a system being heavily (or all) fictives/factives doesn't mean they're fake or even "more likely to be" fake. A system having many (or all) fictives/factives from one "source" doesn't mean they're fake. System size doesn't mean anything. Brains are cool like that.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 01/12/2023

Patched Plains Fusion Collab

Season 2 Featured on: Rips of Christmas Past Also on: SiIvaGunner: Starter Kit & Essentials

Ripped by MtH, dante, turdl3, Charles Ritz, TylerNJazz, toonlink, trivial171, wolfman1405, Chaze the Chat, Princess Sylvysprit, beat_shobon, Can of Nothing

December!! Christmas times!! The holidays!! Wahoo!!

There's of course always a lot of excitement in the air during December, even if its...largely manufactured by big companies. Yet ever since 2016, I've had far more of a personal attachment to the month - the end of SiIvaGunner Season 1, and the beginning of Season 2, was some of the most engrossed I've ever been engrossed with a piece of media - and it was all punctuated with the Patched Plains Fusion Collab.

It may be hard to truly convey to newer SiIva viewers just how suspenseful and strange the month of October was during 2016. For all intents and purposes, the channel appeared to have truly ENDED with Epic Flintstones, and everything that led up to its release just further cemented that. We'd gotten behind-the-scenes reveals of unresolved content, some of the channel's biggest projects and collaborations up to that point, a huge amount of new albums within such a short amount of time...there was very little to suggest that SiIva wouldn't actually be ending. Yet viewers paying attention would be able to connect the dots, these small little hints dropped during the finale, all connected to "Wood Man" - and mind you, this was before he was even established as a character on the channel!

Just a few days after the official ending, as SiIva had gone to sleep and the channel had been avoiding uploads for so long - uploads suddenly returned, as this "Wood Man" character became the new host at the start of November. This wasn't the first time a story event had been happening on SiIva, yet it was one that left us as viewers confused and in the dark of what was truly happening, due to the lack of a proper narrator. After just two weeks and an album release, halfway through the month, uploads suddenly ceased and the channel went dark. So...was the channel actually dead? Was this just a little bonus Halloween thing, to let the team play around with Wood Man as a character in an epilogue to the actual channel?

Turns out, it was all build-up to December - to the Christmas Comeback Crisis. The channel ending, the virus in his computer, the Voice Inside Your Head, Wood Man - it was all revealed to be part of this all new ongoing storyline, presented to us in full-on episodes during the month of December. Like a light switch turned on, the confusion and uncertainty of November turned into full-on celebration of SiIva's seemingly-now-confirmed return to regular uploading. This was the start of Season 2 - and it was, in my eyes, an absolutely perfect premiere.

I really want to go more in-depth on this someday, but I'll circle back to Patched Plains Fusion Collab to round the story out - because really, it was this rip that really cemented Season 2 as having officially begun, halfway through December 2016. It had been a month since Wood Man's sudden leave from the channel, and out of nowhere we're given an animated prologue to this all-new Christmas-themed storyline, directly based on Kirby: Planet Robobot from earlier that year. And after that sudden gut punch, we're treated to an absolute feast for the ears - a red-carpet introduction to the sort of quality we were about to experience. Kirby: Planet Robobot already had a heavy presence on SiIva due to The Reboot, and so starting this big new story event off with another rip from that same game felt like a sort of reassurance - this wasn't a bit, or a side story, or anything of the sort, but the full next step of the SiIvaGunner channel.

As a rip, it's frankly excellent - it has all the quality of the average Fusion Collab on the channel condensed down to just two minutes, covering everything from different genres of music, different games, different time signatures, and everything inbetween - a remix collaboration in the purest sense of the word, and an absolute treat to listen to. A big benefit to fusion collabs of this nature is that you're able to very clearly identify who is responsible for what parts of the rip - Princess Sylvyspirit's involvement is immediately noticeable as soon as the Touhou segment begins, Chaze's affection for MOTHER 3 is expressed through his part in the collaboration, and so on!

Despite the song only having a brief segment on Christmas near the beginning, the spirit is absolutely there throughout all of Patched Plains Fusion Collab - its a celebration of what was to come, a joyous theme that let all of its collaborators truly show their stuff at the start of this new age for the channel. And its a rip that I often come back to just for that sheer nostalgia alone.

[chezzabellesworld]

The OG of beauty and when it goes too far

This is all these women in their prime, obviously, but what about when plastic surgery takes it to too far in some cases, when you’ve had too much lip filler too much Botox changed your face about too much it looks completely different, I was watching Robbie Williams documentary and how they used to call him in the 90s and I literally couldn’t believe it when he was just a normal size man, the same size as my father who was just a normal normal size man tiny bit of a belly but not ridiculously fat not fat at all.

I can’t even imagine what it would be like Hollywood or any kind of media outlet and celebrities from England say that the British pressure is definitely the worst, some Americans would say it’s the other way round don’t Americans don’t Courtney Love say that she was treated really well in the British media because of her love of teacup and other things English, I don’t know really but I’ve seen pretty bad, you don’t get blind items over here. I’ve tried to look for some English celebrities because they’re just not famous in America and it’s one big thing for English artist to crack America.

But some of these women and people get really annoyed when I say I prefer Bobby Jean Brown to Pamela Anderson, just love her personality and I love her style and I don’t like the way that she knew that Tommy had a girlfriend and got with him anyway, anyway it’s Tommy’s fault really because he’s the one who is in a relationship.

But I look at Megan Fox now who is stunning in the mid 2000 and I feel like she’s turned herself into something Genzie like because even Holly Madison and Bridget Marquette, was saying that you can’t be beautiful enough for nowadays. Everything has to have a filter those pictures of like Gwyneth Paltrow with a filter over her face from the 90s.

I’m sorry these kids from this generation don’t seem to think they are attractive but they were fucking stunning, I know they love Pam but they need to love these other women too because they’ve given so much of their life to us😍 they deserve some sort of love.

I guess you can’t have enough beauty in this industry, like plastic surgery drugs and all the other things become very addictive, and they have all the money and the resources to do so, I mean look at the Kardashians when they started, they were a rich family growing up, but they have changed over the years Kim Kardashian, especially and Khloe, khloe was always told that she was the ugly one out of the sisters, she was just a normal Armenian and a woman, beautiful but natural, but that’s not enough even they move growing up around it, actually makes it worse, and Kylie Jenner not forgetting having her lips done and it just being a huge thing because she was so young that’s a sad part.

[niobiumao3]

The other issue with a putative Emerie-as-Tech-replacement plot arc is, simply put, it is pedestrian writing. I'm going to blather about that here, because it's bothering me the more I think about it, but might also just be me upset about the Finale.

Creating a character from an under-repsented group, fleshing them out, and then killing them off to replace them with another character of a similar caliber is bad writing. And in scifi media, where misogyny and lack of neurodivergent rep is still very much a problem, doing it in this manner is much, much...much worse. It sets up Emerie--a woman, of whom TBB has very few in the first place--to be despised by a large portion of the fandom from the word go, it removes a beloved ND character to forward Emerie's arc, and it expects us to (eventually) treat a brand new entry into the series with the same sort of attachment. That's going to blow up in their faces in a truly terrible way if they do it.

'Oh but Emerie might be neurodivergent too!' 'We don't know her story yet, it could be just as moving!' 'A sister for Omega, woo!'

All of that should have been in the story FROM THE BEGINNING. Putting them in as a twist in the wake of another character's death is bad narrative structure.

But this much aside, these things are tangential to the point, and ultimately they will not matter to the fans who are feeling the loss. You don't replace an established character of an under represented group with another character from another under represented group. Not in good writing, anyways. (Situations where an actor has proven to be a problem or has passed on not-withstanding, of course. That doesn't even apply here, as the guy voicing most of the characters hasn't gone anywhere.)

People come and go, tragedies happen, but the writer is in control of this world. They CHOOSE what is going on. When you're writing about a family dynamic with a scifi cloning plot, it almost inherently becomes ABOUT replacing one with another. That's the *entire* point of clones and is very difficult to escape if one clone dies and another joins the group. It can be written around with a deft hand, but in all honesty I don't know if I trust TBB to do that. At the end of the day they'll have tried to fill a round hole with a square peg. A lot of fans are going to hate it, setting the entire plot up for a poor reception.

And the thing is, it's exactly what I'm seeing in these episodes as I rewatch them. Emerie's importance to Hemlock, how she reveals herself as a sister to Omega (suggesting she is part of the Batch, BTW), the VA's interview about family dynamics and learning to be a sister, Emerie's attempts to mitigate what Crosshair is going through, Crosshair's decision to not kill her? This is all pointing to 'she defects and joins them in Tech's place'.

I will hold onto hope during our interregnum that this won't happen, but I am at this point Concerned <tm>. We'll have to see what the celebration panel reveals.

[gamora-borealis]

You are lucky you have not seen the bad takes about Gamora. It's rough out here. And some of it is real ugly. Like pour yourself a glass of wine and vodka and some rum and pass out like Peter in vol 3 ugly. I wish they had just stopped at vol 2 ugly. I'm joking but also kinda not.

Dang, that's not good. That sucks you're feeling like that anon 💖 My instinct is to say that our own interpretations are valid and to ignore the haters, but I know that can be hard when it's something that you care so deeply about and you feel like people are invalidating your opinions and feelings (sometimes unintentionally even). I very well could be in the same place, but I've become trained at this point to ignore MCU tags for the most part and just interact with my mutuals who I love and respect, for my own sanity. I remember what it was like after Infinity War, I can't go back there again.

I was feeling defeated like that about some twitter discourse recently (unrelated) but was forced to take a huge break (delete the app for a month) so I could focus on graduating, and it (plus some wise words from my therapist) really helped reset my brain and realize that just because some opinion you can't stand is getting tons of positive engagement from people in your community doesn't mean it's good or right. Sometimes it's good to pushback, sometimes it's better to just move on for your own sake. It's a hard balance to find. But trying to curate a positive experience through whatever means you can seems to be one of the best things to do.

On the other hand, the way that I've seen so many asks and posts referencing a similar frustration is also sort of encouraging. It shows that there really are those of us out there that truly love Gamora and want her to be respected and happy in her story. And that so many of us are concerned with how women (of color) and victims of abuse are treated in media (which I've seen being discussed). This kind of critical thinking and discourse is an important skill to cultivate so we can be better advocates when it comes to issues of marginalization.

And for those of us Starmora warriors, we are just celebrating love and want that to continue in the media we go to for comfort. Writing fic about Gamora and Peter finding their way back to each other eventually is more fun than being like "it's over because it didn't happen in the movie" in my opinion. People can be boring and sad if they want to I guess (and maybe it's them projecting too idk) 🤷‍♀️

[donnabroadway]

I find it interesting that people are shocked about Brian McKnight and how he's allegedly treating his biological kids while favoring his step kids, new son, and new wife. It is one thing to move on and create a new family, it is another thing to rub salt in a wound and publicly malign the older kids as lazy, disrespectful, and money hungry when his wife's daughter from another relationship, one that belongs to another man, drives a $50,000 car she cannot afford to maintain and probably lives in a house that he is paying for but go off. Brian McKnight is no longer obligated to care for, provide for, or even talk to his older children because technically his job is done but he needs to stop talking because the mutual estrangement explanation wasn't it and if I was the new wife and kids, I would milk him for as much as I can but I would keep my good eye on him because the only difference between the new family and the old one is Brian is still humping their mother but once that stops, these kids will join the mutual estrangement club because that seems to be his M.O. If he's willing to rewrite history and erase prior children for the sake of his new family and children that aren't blood and he just met a few years ago, he will go the same to the other children, including the new baby, his legacy. I see a lot of people on social media shocked at how they're the rule, not the exception. Too many second baby mamas, second wives, and second set of children in the same boat as the first baby mama, first wife, and first set of children that were previously discarded and they giggled and added to the misery and victim blamed but are now shocked that they are receiving the same treatment and are upset that the first set don't want to form an alliance of sorts when they tried and were rejected because the second saw no reason for alliance when they had the upper hand.

After a certain age, a close bond that goes beyond familial and genetic ties is a privilege and a bonus and sadly everyone won't get that. We have to acknowledge that once children leave the nest, they build their own lives, own careers, family, friend groups, and become fully independent autonomous beings outside of their parents and family, that the close relationship is a privilege on both sides and it is the responsibility of both people to want that and want to work on that. We can also acknowledge that some people just click and it's natural while other people are forced into it and have to work harder to find common ground and maintain at least a cordial relationship and sometimes, people don't want to work that hard, especially for something that has no immediate benefits. When a child is younger, the parents may provide because of legal and moral obligation and protecting their reputation and oftentimes, when the parent gets older, the motivation to repair and maintain the relationship may be out of fear of loneliness and dying alone without someone to care for them. During peak years, which may be mid-late thirties all the way up to late 50s, when the child is a legal adult and not the responsibility of the parent and the parent can waive away any legal or moral responsibility and the parent is still old enough to have another child/family and can relive their perceived lost youth, without obligation and if the relationship between the parent and first child(ren) was always strained and one out of moral and legal obligation, and not love, it may not be a priority to go above and beyond to maintain that relationship besides the obligatory holiday, birthday celebration, check in phone call/text, and special occasion. Notice, I am using the world obligation a lot.

I think what hurts the most is the expectation. We may not always want it and may be okay with not having it but we don't want to seem like bad people because we do care what society thinks of us and it's easier to call our adult kids ungrateful, disrespectful, and lazy and other superlatives then acknowledging that we raised them cerebrally than from the heart and we don't really care about our kids or like them as people. You can provide food, clothing, shelter, a safe environment, money for extracurriculars, rides to and fro, cheer them on in the stands but if you've never taken your child in your arms and told them you love them or support them unconditionally and not just in a checkbox way, it kind of negates all of that. Do you show up to the game and sow the uniforms? yes but you spend the entire game and ride home criticizing and berating them and making them not feel good enough and they remember that. No one remembers the dresses, even though you may, they remember that when you were alone, you never said good job, you only told them what they could do better. Kids also remember how you never laughed or joked with them but you also laughed and joked with their sibling and while they may not say anything, they want to laugh and joke with you too, without it eventually being pulled back so they back off and go where they're wanted. It may not necessarily be an estrangement but just a one of us stopped calling each other and putting in the work on a one sided relationship and it fell by the wayside.

If you have a relationship with your children based on obligation when they're younger and you're forced to provide their basic needs or you will go to jail or look like a bad parent, when they got older, they will have a relationship with you based on obligation and not wanting to look like a bad child. It doesn't change just because you grow up figuratively and they grow up literally. A relationship built on obligation will always be that because that is the foundation. Just like you took care of them because you had to, they will take care of you because they have to as well, not because they want to. You can always tell the difference. Parents seem to forget they choose either a nursing home or living with their children or independently, with care given or either paid for by their children. There are a lot of lonely parents in nursing homes, not just fathers, because they put themselves there when they were younger. Just like you reminded your kids that you don't owe them anything once they turn 18, they don't owe you anything either. It's a two way street and many parents tend to forget that until they are older and actually need their kids and now it's too late and they have to resort to using forgiveness and manipulation to have a caregiver in their old age. After a certain age, you become just another person in the world. Yes, your kids are grown. I know black parents like to use this term as a slur or slight insult when they feel like their kids are getting too far from under their thumb but if I have my name on a mortgage or rent that I pay without your assistance, if I go to work everyday to pay my bills and put food on my table, if I am able to function independently without a parental figure, I am grown. Sorry to say and this is not disrespectful, but I am grown just like you are. There is no difference except age and you're my parent. There really is no difference if I have a family and children I support. Parents have to accept their adult children are grown and don't have to take their disrespect and neither of you are obligated to have a relationship or speak with each other, except when you want. Why is it so hard for parents to accept when their adult children are just as grown as they are?

When deciding to have a "baby" you need to think long and hard because a baby is an extension of you but they are only a baby for a short amount of time but the time they are adults, God willing, is a lot longer. If the average lifespan is 76 years, than 18 is only a drop in the bucket. Parents forget that life goes from that child being referred to as "your baby" to you being referred to as "(insert child's name) mother" really fast. When my oldest daughter was born, I knew the goal was to eventually get her out of my home. I don't say this in a countdown to 18 way but that, again, God willing, she will only be under my direct care for a few years but she will be her own person with her own thoughts, ideas, life, goals and I was only a small part of that. It would be beautiful to have a bigger role in her life when she gets older but I know after a certain age, that is not a guarantee and while I know I make plenty mistakes, the time to earn that place is now and not when she's a full blown adult. I also know that I have to respect her and her boundaries. I see too many parents failing to respect their children's even most basic privacy. It is one thing to ask for the door to be open, it is another thing to completely remove the door of the hinges, thus removing all privacy to do basic things like change your clothes and do homework or read in silence. Everyone deserves privacy and removing a door won't stop a sneaky child from doing what they want to do. There is no one that "nevers" more than a child you think you have a tight grip on. At some point, you cannot control your children, you can only offer them guidance and support but their choices are their own. They are not your babies, they are their own people and like I said, you are only a small portion of their life. Their world doesn't revolve around you and your world shouldn't revolve around them, which is why parents should always have their own lives and interests outside of their children and be ready for their child to transition from childhood to adulthood. It is inevitable and preventing them from leaving or stunting their growth will not work. As I have said many times, at some point the relationship becomes a choice for both parties involved. Just like a child may choose not to have either parent as an integral part of their life, a parent may also choose to distance themselves from an adult child. Some parents choose to distance themselves from their children as youth and become surprised when their child does the same. Sometimes, there is no one more vengeful than a child waiting for the tables to turn. Just like you don't owe your child anything over the legal age of obligation, your child doesn't owe you anything. You have to work for the relationship. Blood and proximity is not a given. You have to respect your children as people, it is okay to admit you raised a person independent of yourself, because that is the goal, and cheer them on from the sidelines. Your children are people and should be treated as such. Just like you are a person and you want to be treated as such. When the child becomes an adult, respect goes both ways. it is not a one way street only going towards the parents. You need to respect your child, who they are, the choices they made and how they live their life, even if you don't agree with it. You don't have to agree no one asked you.

[90363462]

Hoodoo Heritage Month: Conjuring, Culture, And Community

Source: IMAGE COURTESY OF MADAME OMI KONGO / PINTEREST

October is Hoodoo Heritage Month! Hoodoo is an umbrella term to describe the conjuring, culture, and community of Black Americans. It’s often regarded as a Black spiritual tradition that focuses on nature and ancestral reverence.

Hoodoo Heritage Month started in 2019 when Hoodoo and Pre-Elder Mama Rueshared a post about African American spirituality on Facebook and proposed a Hoodoo Heritage Day. The Walking the Dikenga Collective extended the idea from a day to a month, and Hoodoo Heritage Month was born. What was originally a weekend event filled with teaching and classes is now a social media and community celebration of all things Hoodoo.

Hess Love, Hoodoo Historian, Archivist, and Environmental Activist says that October is the perfect month because it correlates with the thinning of the veil between our physical world and the spiritual realm. For them, Hoodoo Heritage Month is “a wonderful month of celebration, exploration, history lessons, and connections and also people learning about how pragmatic this tradition is and dynamic it is at the same time.”

If you search the hashtag #HoodooHeritageMonth on social media, you’re sure to find many resources seeking to educate Black Americans about Hoodoo. The Walking the Dikenga Collective created certain dates to commemorate the great Hoodoo ancestors:

October 2: Nat Turner Day 

October 6: Fannie Lou Hamer Day 

October 21: Day of our Fathers 

October 23: Day of our Children 

October 25: Day of our Mothers 

Third Thursday: John the Conqueror Day 

October 31: Crossroads Day 

Mama Rue spoke with MADAMENOIRE on the importance of sharing information about these ancestors. For John the Conqueror Day, she says, 

“White-washed Hoodoo doesn’t even acknowledge John the Conqueror that much because he’s been white-washed to be the type of Spirit that helps men with their virility, help men get women, help gamblers get lucky, and he’s so much more than that, and you get to learn the truth about this Spirit and what this Spirit means to us and our people.” 

This white-washing has extended to other Hoodoo spirits such as the Spirit of the Crossroads. While regionally and culturally the Spirit is treated differently, mainstream media has equated this spirit to a demonic force that grants wishes in exchange for your soul, such as with Robert Johnson. The Spirit of the Crossroads is actually a spirit that operates at the crossroads between the physical and spiritual realms.

Thankfully, Mama Rue, Hess Love, and other Hoodoos are sharing the truth of our tradition with other Black folks on social media.

Around the creation of Hoodoo Heritage Month, Mama Rue felt called by her Spirits to speak out against the culture of half-truths, misconceptions, and cultural appropriation surrounding Hoodoo. She says, “Hoodoo is often seen as the bastard stepchild of the ATRs (African Traditional Religions). Folks from that lens tend to say, ‘Hoodoo is just tricks. There is no spirit involved and there’s no initiation.’”

Hoodoo Heritage Month seeks to set the record straight.

Hoodoo, as a tradition, has waxed and waned in visibility in the United States. Mama Rue explains, 

“During slavery, our ancestors were not allowed to express any sort of African traditional practices. There were repercussions. Our ancestors being so clever and being the geniuses that they were figured, ‘We can still do our work and work this crossroads because we didn’t make that and they can’t punish us for walking around it, and honoring our ancestors and honoring the spirits that our ancestors revere.’ We were able to sort of sneak our practice in without anyone watching or being truly aware of what was going on.” 

These practices were hidden in various parts of Black culture, including the Black church, but in recent years Black folks have been turning away from the Black church. 

Mama Rue shares,

“A lot of us were leaving our churches and were talking about abuse in church. Different types: financial abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and psychological abuse.” 

She claims this mass exodus left many people feeling like spiritual orphans because they had a strong spiritual need with no way to channel it outside of the church structure.

While our ancestors had to hide their African spirituality, we’ve seen a shift in the past decade. Black celebrities such as Beyoncé and Solange, writers such as Tracy Deonn and Jesmyn Ward and even the Nap Bishop herself, Tricia Hersey openly celebrate Black spirituality in their work. This artistic movement coupled with the mass exodus from the church has led to a widespread reclamation of Hoodoo.

Both Mama Rue and Hess Love say that Hoodoo, and by extension, Hoodoo Heritage Month, is for descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States and descendants of free Black people during the time of enslavement. While many Black people have stepped away from the church, Mama Rue reminds us that church-going Black folks remain one of the biggest preservers of Hoodoo and are therefore always welcomed in the tradition.

Hess goes further and tells MN,

“It’s for Black folks who live and love and want to be part of an intentional Black community and also not running away from themselves. There are some Black people who have no desire and no intention of being in community with Black people in a particular way. It’s for Black people who love other Black people. It’s for Black folks who love their ancestors. It’s for Black people who may be displaced in their community but have a type of allyship with the land and the air.”

Hoodoo Heritage Month is now a celebration of many Black people returning to the tradition of our ancestors. It’s a time for Black people to honor our ancestors, community, the environment, and ourselves.

Mama Rue says, 

“It’s a time for us to get in touch with the things that our ancestors brought to this land that were broken up, fragmented, lied on, etc. It’s our way to move toward complete liberation. It’s our way of righting certain wrongs especially in the practice of ancestor reverence.”

Ancestor reverence operates on the belief that our ancestors continue to exist long after they die. As spirits, we can honor them through learning about and sharing their stories, building an altar, giving them offerings, or simply talking with them. Through this relationship, the ancestors can help improve our lives, whether that’s spiritually, emotionally, financially or however we need them to.

For Black folks who are interested in Hoodoo, Hess suggests, 

“If you’re curious about something and it peaks your interest, ask why does it peak your interest? If you see a Hoodoo talking about a particular ancestor, dive deeper about that. If you see someone talking about how to use plants and herbs and you still feel called to it, if you have memories from childhood where you used to talk to trees, dive into that.”

It’s through this exploratory process that we can begin to understand the work that our ancestors are calling us to do.

During this fourth annual Hoodoo Heritage Month, Mama Rue shares, 

“I am so proud of what the younger people are doing with this information. I’m so proud of the journeys that they have the courage to plant their feet on and start taking those steps and manifesting and creating the life that they want for themselves, their families, and their community.”

This Hoodoo Heritage Month, it’s important to remember that there is no right or wrong way to practice Hoodoo. While different families and regions practice differently, Hoodoo is inclusive of all of our differences. Hoodoo is in our blood. It’s how we live, and it’s a reminder that we need our ancestors, community, and the Earth to truly thrive.

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