#literally if you disagree feel free to debate but i'm fired up

[selkiemaidenfae]

so today i had an experience in my gender/race class that i feel like encapsulates why i've had such a problem with internet social justice lately.

in class, we watched the say her name tedtalk. in it, kimberlé crenshaw discusses the prevalence of police brutality against black women, which usually goes overlooked and undiscussed. she explains that we can't see a problem if we can't name it.

in this case, black women face an intersection of racism and misogyny, but black men are usually the face of racism and white women are usually the face of sexism.

because of this, black women are rarely considered for the unique oppression they face being a part of both of those groups. that's why we know the names of many black men killed by police brutality, but not nearly as many women, even though they face similarly high rates of police violence.

but my professor had a problem with this. my rich, white, very progressive professor. can you guess what it is?

crenshaw said that it's important to "see" a problem for what it is.

and that could be misconstrued as ableist against blind people.

so my professor-- fully serious-- suggested that maybe crenshaw's words as a black woman should be taken with a grain of salt because of her ableist language.

see another example. to be trans-inclusive, many people who are raising awareness for women's health problems are referring to certain diseases and disorders as things that happen to "people with vulvas".

here's the problem. for women who have not gone to college and live in a conservative state with shit sex ed, there's a good chance they might not even know they have a vulva.

they've always just heard everything down there referred to as a vagina. or maybe not even that. maybe they've only heard it referred to as a pussy, a cunt, their "lady parts".

they have no idea that these PSAs are being directed towards them.

so now, in an effort to inclusive, you've confused and alienated a group of women who desperately need that information about their bodies.

and that's the issue to me. we no longer use language to inform or educate; we use it to sound progressive and make ourselves feel good. and the people we're trying to help are slipping through the cracks.

[kl125]

C, D, and T!! I want to know your thoughts on those

From this post.

Okay, I'm going to post this with a big, fat disclaimer.

I am not an anti of any ship. If it makes you happy, then go for it. I have my own opinions about ships, and you have yours, and that's how life works. Feel free to disagree on any of these, as that's the beauty of fandom! I debated whether or not I should include other media, or just stick to Stranger Things, so I ended up with a mix of both. Usually, I avoid negative discourse as much as possible, but please allow me this one moment of indulgence.

I won’t be tagging the ships I talk about (except for the two I mention in a positive light), but I won’t be censoring the names in the text. Do with that what you will.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Zutara. Sorry, not sorry on this one. I never quite saw the vision with it. I started watching the show literally the day it premiered, and from the first episode, I loved the dynamic between Katara and Aang. Katara always saw Zuko as the personification of everything she hated (because her mom was killed by the Fire Nation). She didn’t let go of that until she straight up found the dude who killed her mom, and by then, they worked much better as a friendship in my opinion.

As for Stranger Things, I never liked Byler. I won’t go into too much detail here. I do not think their personalities work well in a relationship. Mike is very future focused, while Will focuses on the past. Whenever they’ve fought, they’ve been emotional and impulsive, saying things they know will hurt the other person. In my opinion, it’s not a very solid foundation for a relationship.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can't.

Steddie, but hear me out. This is much more of a me thing. It’s because Eddie is canonically dead, so that immediately puts me off of a ship. It’s always been that way with any fandom I’m in. I feel the same way about Harringrove and Hellcheer, so I guess you can include those in the answer as well. I appreciate that others like them, and that’s great, but it’s just not for me. I do see the vision, at least, so that’s something.

T - Do you have any hard and fast head canons that you will die defending?

The blue hoodie El wears during the epilogue of “The Piggyback” is Mike’s hoodie, and no one can convince me otherwise. See this post I made for why I believe this.

[traitor-boyfriend]

I just read your post about Stan and Kyle's relationship and I totally agree, but I was wondering if you might elaborate on what you mean when you said Kyle acts as a moral/ethical guide for Stan? I'm not disagreeing but I'd love to hear you talk more about it

sure!

kyle is obviously the most morally fixated of the four boys and i would say after about season four or so is when they really began to take this direction with his character. whenever something transpires within the group, kyle is almost always the first to disagree w whatever plot they (’they’ almost always meaning cartman) start brainstorming to keep themselves from getting into trouble, that they should instead own up to their mistakes and take responsibility and suffer the consequences that come along w it. rarely if ever does anyone actually listen to kyle and he’s cajoled into complicity but that doesn’t stop him from offering his disapproval at every turn in the name of wanting to do the right thing. the best example of this is ‘toilet paper’ where they tp their art teacher’s house for making them stay late; kenny and stan are immediately on board when cartman suggests it but kyle is uncomfortable w the idea entirely, and after it’s done he’s racked w guilt and is seen as the weakest link in all of them b/c of his compulsion to tell the truth. we get to see kyle struggling w guilt pretty often and the apex of it is usually when some outside force is preventing or coercing him from coming clean about whatever it is he’s done. though stan and kyle both shared the whole ‘gay little speech’ element in the very beginning, it’s pretty much been exclusive to kyle for the majority of the series -- kyle is the one to always explain what they learned at the end of the episode, to tie together the moral lesson you’re supposed to take away from it

because he’s a kid, kyle can occasionally be swayed out of his conviction if the consequences are great enough for him to be afraid of (this tends to be his mom). when butters’ gets the ninja star stuck in his eye in ‘good times with weapons’, kyle initially panics and agrees with cartman’s idea to kill butters and bury him in kyle’s backyard b/c he’s so petrified by the idea of his mother finding out what he was doing. but even then his moral center comes back around, even if he doesn’t follow through; he protests the idea of taking butters to a vet instead of a hospital and later tries to get rid of his ninja weapon and instead confess to what happened. in ‘crack baby athletic association’ kyle is outraged and disgusted by what he sees as cartman exploiting the babies born addicted to narcotics and wants to expose him, but he changes his tune after learning how much money cartman is making. so he eventually joins cartman but justifies it to himself as taking care of these babies, giving them opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise get, raising awareness, etc -- even though he’s in the wrong, kyle tries to view his actions through a benevolent lens in that what he’s doing -is- the right thing; that’s why it bothers him so much when stan tells him he sounds just like cartman. stan is seeing both of their actions clearly in the same vein, but in kyle’s mind, he’s incapable of conceiving himself being in anyway like cartman and has to further delude himself into seeing the positives of his actions. he goes as far as showing up in stan’s bedroom in the middle of the night to legitimize his actions, both to himself and to stan, because stan’s opinion of him matters so much that kyle can’t move past it unless he’s able to convince stan that he’s in the right. to his credit, kyle does try to rectify his actions with the ea sports deal and building an orphanage and whatnot. two wrongs don’t make a right, but that won’t stop kyle from trying.

basically i’m just trying to fully highlight the extent of kyle’s dedication to being honest, being kind, being a good person etc. it matters a lot to him and it’s also touched on briefly now and then w regards to his being jewish -- that being a good person is important if not only for the sake of being a good person.

it’s not that stan isn’t concerned w being a good person or doing the right thing, but he has more of a selfish or self-centered impulse than kyle does. stan cares a great deal more than kyle of what people think of him and is more desperate to be accepted or liked by his peers, so he’s often subservient to the whims of passing trends and fads or following the crowd. this is a debatable point but i also think because of this stan is generally more prone to blatant egotism than kyle -- when he leads some kind of superficial crusade (’butterballs’, ‘scause for applause’, ‘bass to mouth’), it’s pretty plainly about himself and his own feelings whereas when kyle gets wrapped up in a similar power-trip it’s usually at least manifested/disguised in some cause greater than himself, even if it’s a self-centered one. 

i’m gonna touch on the examples i provided above briefly:

-butterballs: stan begins the anti-bullying campaign initially out of concern for butters but when he sees how highly his classmates regard him for taking a stand, it very quickly divulges into stan riding the high of peer approval w regards to the music video, making it seen, going on dr. oz etc. kyle is the only one who finds fault with it -- “don’t act for me, stan, really” is a really caustic but honest assessment of the situation on kyle’s end b/c he sees that stan is more concerned w how his efforts are being received and praised rather than helping butters. again highlighted by their interaction in the bathroom when stan insists his video needs to be seen by everyone and kyle tells him to put it on the internet for free instead if he feels that way. stan is dumbstruck b/c he doesn’t know how to defend himself b/c he knows kyle is right, and he cares more about accolades/profit more than he does actually making any kind of grand social change.

-scause for applause: my favorite example, i think. again, stan’s refusal to take off the bracelet starts as something personal to him and very, very quickly transforms into a selfish movement about himself, ‘stanground’, b/c he loves the positive affirmation he receives as a result. craig then accuses him of having lied, and stan berates him in front of everyone in a really acerbic manner and only fuels the fire that eventually brings him down. when everyone hates stan after finding out he actually did cut off his bracelet, kyle tries to nudge stan in the right direction by urging him to tell the truth, but stan only doubles down and tries to get everyone on his side again w a convoluted scheme to make it seem as if the whole thing was intentional. when this blows up in his face, again, kyle -- without judgement -- confronts him about having asked heidi to borrow superglue the week before. stan scoffs and i think he says something like “you’re still on that, dude?” and of course kyle is! why wouldn’t he be! he doesn’t want to see his friend dig himself any further a hole than he already has. 

-bass to mouth: everyone participates in the wikileaks gossip site at school but kyle; he’s the only one who has an outright problem with such an invasion of privacy, and stan tries to get him to lighten up. kyle remarks that it wouldn’t be funny if something about stan were written on there; stan responds flippantly that there isn’t, only for something about him to show up shortly after. cue stan leading the charge to find out who the site-runner is only for kyle to remind him during the meeting that, okay, now that it happened to you, it isn’t funny, right? 

not necessarily in the same vein of selfishness, ‘two days before the day after tomorrow’ is another great example of kyle wanting stan to do the right thing. after they destroy the dam, cartman and stan agree not to tell anyone, but when stan is confronted by the destruction his actions have caused with the people of beaverton being trapped in their flooded homes, he feels immensely remorseful. cartman sternly demands that he not tell kyle b/c kyle will obviously try to get him to confess to what they did. stan ends up telling kyle anyway to the exact result, advising him to let everyone know he’s responsible so the people stranded can receive actual help. cartman becomes irate when he realizes kyle knows, but instead of following his advice, stan tries to do the right thing in a roundabout way: rescue the people himself so he can “do the right thing, but still lie about it.” this doesn’t work and only serves to put the boys themselves in grave danger, and kyle pleads for stan to own up to what he did if for their sake only. he calls randy and comes so close to following through only to decide against it, to which kyle is visibly angry and upset with him. by the time stan does come around to telling the truth it’s too late -- everyone thinks he’s speaking metaphorically about breaking the dam instead of literally which leaves him frustrated.

there’s more examples of this, but kyle very frequently is the first one who tries to intervene when stan gets himself in more trouble than he can handle by trying to guide him toward what’s honest and what’s right. stan is often described as the everyman or the straight man of the group, and for the most part i agree with this -- stan himself is a very average kid. but i think it helps to also look at his family dynamic; he has no siblings he can really rely on as shelly is far too volatile, and though she’s shown some moments of genuine concern and care for stan (that i love and wish there was more of!) she generally holds stan with disdain and irritation. sharon is shown to love and care deeply for stan’s well-being but is also largely unaware of the extent of his problems as her hands are usually tied up elsewhere (and doesn’t receive enough one-on-one interaction with stan for me to really comment on how well she handles those problems). randy is a fucking mess and speaking as someone w a parent who was a functioning alcoholic as randy is, i can attest to how fragile and chaotic a relationship like that can be. randy is certainly no role model of decency. i mean, christ, there’s an entire episode based around the concept of randy teaching stan how to lie effectively wherein which he demonstrates ‘tells’ for stan only to exhibit them when he tells stan he loves him. obviously this is played as a joke, but stan notices this and is rightly upset. randy, as a parent and a person, is incredibly selfish, has no sense of boundaries, acts in his own self-interest, and treats stan like a friend instead of son -- not a very good friend at that. not that randy has absolutely no redeeming qualities, but they’re few and far between, and the rare occasion we see him genuinely try to help or bond with stan usually ends up in another wacky misadventure. my point being, stan doesn’t have a very strong support system within his home and thus has to rely entirely on his own will to guide himself.

kyle is one of very few who is really ever shown to expect better of stan, to want him to be better than he is, to want him to be better for the simple fact that he should want it for himself as well -- not so he can get anything out of it.

that was what i mean by kyle being a moral guide for stan and helping keep him grounded. sorry this became so long, but i hope this answered your question!