#no one is unproblematic actually some people are just more problematic than others and it's amplified by media attention lol

[lighthouseas]

you can call a celebrity unproblematic but Watch Out

[annabelle--cane]

I got into tma in 2022 on a road trip with no internet and then only tangentially interacted with the fandom (light hcs, fanart) and I am. so compelled to understand what the fandom was like in 2020. what were the takes. why was it so awful. does it explain why every time I try to look into protocol I get a rancid Vibe and jump back 5 feet.

to preface: on scale, it really wasn't any worse than your average fandom, it just A) got Very popular over a short period and B) that period was during a time of particularly high stress where many people suddenly could only experience a social life online. tma is also a fairly political and progressive work, which inevitably leads to certain kinds of Takes. it also got Very popular right at the point where the episodes were reaching their peak of explicit social commentary and sustained morbid tone, which, especially combined with point B from above, drew out some really visceral reactions from a lot of people. nothing was actually inherently rancid about 2020-2021 tma fandom, there was just a bit of a perfect storm of factors.

having said that. some common discourse themes:

the perennial shipping discourse. georgie is the only one of our leads to have never killed a person, but really, I pinky promise that your ship between two unrepentant serial killers is 100x more problematic than my ship between two unrepentant serial killers.

asexuality: how dangerous is it? on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being "mostly" to 5 being "completely," how humiliating is it to be asexual? what is the singular true asexual experience that is unproblematic to write about?

wow, jonny was so out of line for writing this episode, what gives him the right to--oh he said it's directly based on personal experiences? so sorry, my bad, I'll learn for next time. wow, jonny was so out of line for writing this epi--

I did not like this episode. this is obviously a direct act of violence against me. why would an episode be Not Good when there is, in the world, Sadness?

hello, I have sorted all of the characters into a simple chart that clearly delineates which of them are completely irredeemable monsters with no interiority or motives and which of them are perfect angel victims who have only ever been nice and never hurt anyone, ever (and if they did hurt someone then that person deserved it). if I see you adding nuance to any of my rulings, I will kill you. this also extends to the podcast writers. #ilovebinaries.

the characters... are queer... and maybe even other marginalized identities as well... and yet, they do bad things? there's not even a single completely morally innocent character? by god, did they not think about the implications this might have!

web!martin. lol people are so stupid for thinking that the theory is at all plausible, media comprehension much? that would lichrally imply that a queer, poor, mentally ill character might be capable of badness. what do you mean we are currently listening to an arc where he's an accomplice to serial murder.

[devildevotee]

hello! we hope this is ok to ask, it's totally fine if you don't answer- but we've recently become interested in satanism and demon work, but we know exactly nothing about it or where to start. we did some basic research with academic sources like wikipedia but have no idea where to go from there. we're hesitant to just dive in on our own because we know there are a lot of bad sources and groups to avoid but don't actually know what those things are.

anyways, we trust your opinion and recommendations so we wanted to ask if you had any suggestions on how to go about researching and learning about theistic satanism for an absolute beginner! recommended books or articles, groups to avoid, red flags, anything like that would be very appreciated 💚 thank you so much!

okay so, this may be a controversial opinion but in my opinion (KEY WORD OPINION) you actually shouldn't only stick to unproblematic and valid uwu authors, because i'll be honest (in terms of satanism and demonolatry), there ARE no pure and good authors out there. every author out there, especially if you're reading a text from a long time ago, is going to have something you disagree with. you need to practice some form of critical engagement, additionally, because engaging with a text critically and understanding why it is wrong is way more important than just shutting out the information altogether. you will not learn anything if you pretend that problematic texts do not exist. i'm not saying this to be harsh, but there is a reason we research a variety of texts and perspectives in high school english class. you need to continue that kind of method when researching anything.

now that is covered, i'll tell you what i have read personally. taking the above into consideration, there are no authors here that don't have something deeply wrong about their texts. i did read their works, and i came to my own conclusions on whether i'm going to dub them an authority on satanism, and i suggest you do the same. satanism is about knowledge and drawing your own, unique conclusions. just make sure what you do adopt doesn't throw any groups of people under the bus, because we're not here to read books and thoughtlessly believe whatever the book says, especially when the book can have misinformation, or offensive content. this is very common in satanism; as much as people love to treat it like it's revolutionary and all-accepting, it can be just as, or even more, discriminatory or outright hateful as christianity, especially in the texts.

the most easy-to-find material:

ars goetia > pretty basic info, but very handy and simple to read

the infernal gospel > probably my favourite book on this list

the complete book of demonolatry > i don't agree with the author, but i got this one in my early days before i knew anything about said author. it's got some useful information, but there's a lot of misinfo

book of the fallen > useful rituals if i remember correctly, i sold this book so i can't recheck

at satan's altar > also an interesting book

the goetia devils > has a lot of what i assume is upg... seems to conflict with what i've seen from other practitioners

the goetic hymns > second favourite book

the satanic philosopher > i found this one hard to read personally

esoterica > youtube channel with amazing information on demonolatry and its history, i suggest getting into this before doing anything else.

all of these websites.

and lastly, i also got like 50+ older texts i got as a bundle off etsy that i can't remember the names of. i wish i could give them to you, but i genuinely have lost every single text i got in the bundle due to me changing computers. i suggest looking on etsy for similar bundles on satanism and demonolatry if you want to get into the historical meat of things.

that being said, my actual last thing i want to say is not to get too entrenched into the theory. the texts are handy, sure! but the one thing i have found the most useful is by engaging with the community. most of my wealth of knowledge did NOT come from texts or media, it came from those around me talking about their experiences. if you want to learn, and i mean REALLY learn about demons and satan, get into the community hardcore and you will learn something new every day. talk to people, make friends, don't do this alone.

edit: okay one more thing. this does go against what i was saying to some degree but i do have a limit to that logic. avoid joy of satan. they're n/eonazis and come on this website regularly. avoid them, avoid them, avoid them.

[waitmyturtles]

hello! I hope you are having a good day :) I just read your blog piece about tharntype, thank you for writing it! I want to offer a few complicating thoughts, as a queer person myself:

-in the twittersphere, I actually know a lot of other queer people (and, specifically, queer men) who like tharntype in a kink way. as in, the parts that make it "problematic" are the parts that are hot. so this "reading" of TT (lol) sees it as erotic art intended to arouse, rather than offer "representation" or change the public's mind in some way. so from this perspective, the target audience is anyone who finds the erotic story enjoyable, rather than say, random 14 year olds who need to be convinced gay people are human.

-more on the above: gay people aren't unproblematic. like, we do engage in all the things that you said were problematic stereotypes included in tharntype. many gay men are homophobic in the exact way type is, before they admit it to themselves. that's a whole genre of gay porn, because it's such a common part of the gay experience that it enters sexual fantasy frequently! gay people call each other slurs all the time, too (not saying it's right for anyone to be spoken to like type did, I'm just saying, for a lot of us there's a lot of humor and love there when it's spoken kindly). many gay men ARE promiscuous (not all, obviously, but many) and the way in which they are is shaped by their gayness, and while straight world might think that's bad, other gay people might not see it as such. and I very much get how that's very inconvenient when one is trying to argue that gay people aren't sex perverts (so we can have rights) but sometimes what ends up happening is that people who ARE sex perverts (I mean this in a positive way) get told that their lives don't matter, or that even depicting them in fiction "makes you all look bad." it's the usual assimilation problem :/

-I really really really recommend diary of tootsies for a show by gay people for gay and straight people. it's one of my all-time favorite gay dramas, and it might elaborate more on what I'm saying above. it's a gay comedy that's actually executed well.

-it's actually not true that yaoi has only ever been dominated by cishet women! I love this website for more info on how men and nonbinary people have been involved in yaoi historically https://www.fujoshi.info/ . totally true that treating real people like dolls is gross to do in real life, but I don't think women writing yaoi have done that, on the whole, and I certainly don't think the existence of yaoi does that automatically. and I think it's a case of unfair maligning of asian women to say that it does.

-I don't think tharntype is a "good" show. nothing like, say, moonlight chicken (as an example of a show that I think is very good). it's very poorly executed in places. it's trashy. the way it's been marketed, with tharn and type as like, political gay rep, is bizarre. but it's a cheap, trashy snack, a gay bodice ripper type of story, and so I don't think that's a hate crime, or a failing of lgbt people, on the whole.

I know as an ally it is always difficult when there is disagreement in the group you are trying to be an ally to regarding what is acceptable/offensive, but I feel the best thing to do is always to come to a personal opinion oneself that aligns with one's own moral values, after hearing from differing perspectives within that group. So I've provided my own perspective here, which may be totally different than other people you've heard from or your own, and that's okay too! again, hope you have a great day and thanks for your time :)

ANONYMOUS, COME 'ERE FOR A HUG, YOU! THANK YOU for sharing your perspective.

Yes, this show and the related topics are unbelievably difficult for me to write on as an ally. I really appreciate your understanding of the gray areas all around this, and with the help of a number of Tumblr friends, I tried to dive into and balance as much of the gray areas of the topic of TT as much as possible.

I really appreciate the further history on yaoi's origins, and would like to tag some folks to take a look and offer their thoughts -- and, I do not take corrections personally AT ALL, I LOVE LOVE the learning and constructive criticism (that's a major point of the OGMMTVC!), so I WILL be happy to edit any corrections into my posts if need be (cc @nieves-de-sugui, @miscellar, @lurkingshan and anyone else who knows more about yaoi than I do).

I'm getting one or two nasty comments here and there, but by and large, the feedback today on the post has been thought-provoking and eye-opening. I love hearing and reading all of it.

[gemsofthegalaxy]

Like Romance? Try Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel!

Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss both handle romantic plotlines excellently, especially in the way that there's something for everyone. They have romantic couples in various different stages of relationships, with different personality matches and different challenges. There are non-romantic plotlines, too, but as a romance lover I want to focus on the merit of the romance in these shows and why I personally like basically every main pairing we're presented.

Stolas and Blitzo (HB) are objectively the most problematic ship, having one of the largest power differentials in addition to the being two worst communicators, and each of them having low self-worth to boot. They happen to be my favourite because I find them the most interesting for these reasons lol. They both need to do some growing inside and outside their relationship to make things work, but I'm rooting for them because I think and hope the pay off will be spectacular.

Meanwhile, Charlie and Vaggie (HH) are largely unproblematic queens. There are some deceptions involved in their story, but they work through their issues fairly well, they respect one another immensely and believe in each other's dreams and aspirations. They also start off the show together, so you get to enjoy their sweet relationship from day one.

I would say Moxie and Millie (HB) are most similar to Charlie and Vaggie in that they are already married by the beginning of the show and they support each other nigh unconditionally. Like Chaggie, they run into some issues but they're fairly easy to resolve with some open communication and love. They're also just very funny to me.

Angel and Husk (HH) start out on more rocky terrain than the above two examples, however, their communication (and perhaps self worth?) issues don't come close what Stolitz face, with them being able to speak plainly and honestly to each other with relatively little challenges. They also are on more even footing, although some of their life circumstances clearly influence how they act towards each other. There's lots of potential for them to grow together and also face their shitty circumstances, and I'm excited to see where they go from here.

Fizzarolli and Asmodeus (HB) are another couple that are fairly sweet, actually, and despite their power differential it hasn't posed them a ton of issues within their relationship. The power difference in their relationship is actually more of a problem externally with the perceptions of the other denizens of hell, giving them different issues to deal with than other couples. They also serve as a great blueprint within HB of what Stolitz might be able to achieve if they get their shit together, and babey, I love me some parallels and thematic throughlines.

There are some other couples in the shows, such as Vortex and Beelzebub, and other ships people enjoy such as Alastor and Lucifer, so if you enjoy smaller pairings/side characters or building up upon less-canon ships, there's potential there to. Lastly, there's great potential for crackships and rarepairs considering the large and distinctive cast lol.

[mbebe-fc]

serious question but why does everyone seem to hate Rabiot? Afaik his only drama was the World Cup in 2018 but people act like he has beaten women and worse and I don’t understand what everyone’s problem is. He is one of the least problematic and most times he plays well on the pitch, he is not the worst player by some way. Even he was man of the match against Netherlands even though he made a silly error. Sorry if you’re not the right person to ask but your tag “for Rabiot of all people” I thought maybe I can ask here

i don't think he's that hated in general by french people or by football fans overall. but if you mean on tumblr or some sides of twitter then yeah i guess most people don't like him but i don't really think it actually has to do with being problematic even though i also wouldn't say he's one of the most unproblematic players.

i think the main reason people are harsh with him is because he has been starting for france over camavinga for a long time and over tchouameni too at the beginning of the tournament. football fans are always overly critical towards their player's competition so they'll put a lot of attention on all the mistakes rabiot makes because for them it proves camavinga should start over him. usually it creates rivalries between the fans of both players like with saka and palmer for example. but camavinga plays for real madrid and has a lot more people and bigger accounts backing him compared to rabiot here so i guess that's why it looks like rabiot being hated instead of a rivalry. football fans just aren't objective. sometimes you'll watch a great performance from a player and then online you'll see people calling it a horrible performance and thousands of others agreeing just because they all have a common agenda.

for the game against netherlands the motm was kante officially idk if you mean in your opinion it was rabiot or if you're talking about rating apps but anyway i agree he was criticized too much for that game. rabiot's mistake was highlighted a lot compared to griezmann's multiple missed chance for example. i think it's partly because the mistake just looked very silly which made it more memorable than the other actions during the game but also just because of media bias.

tbh my tag wasn't related to any of this it was just about kylian and rabiot being an odd pair lol but i hope my answer helps anyway. sorry for replying so late i hope the long answer makes up for it

[ladyblueberrymuffin]

Media literacy doesn't just mean "I can enjoy a problematic thing in fiction that I know would be bad in real life". Media literacy also means you can pick up when a non-racist writer writes a character as racist to make a statement, and when it's just the writer's own racism slipping in. Hell, sometimes it's very complicated, sometimes a writer criticizes racism while also having their own internal biases slip in (The way B'lana Torres is written on Star Trek Voyager makes my blood boil, it's like the writers are criticising her for her internalized racism while also validating her, it feels like a biracial person written by a white writer. They wanted to talk about internalized racism, but it feels like they didn't realize just how over the top racist they made B'lana. If she was talking about any real life race and not Klingons, you'd be horrified).

Stories reflect the people who made them. Which makes them hard to evaluate because people can be full of contradictions. A sexist guy can criticize a more blatantly sexist guy, hell, he can use the fact that the other guy is more sexist to convince himself, and you, that he himself isn't.

"How can the MCU be military propaganda, it shows military characters as villains". IT CAN BE. Blaming the problems with the military on pantho villains, individuals, bad eggs, shifts the blame away from the system. It's Illumination's Lorax with O'Haire. "I can never be this guy, he's evil, and I'm not, so I am not doing anything bad by supporting capitalism."

And here's the piece of advice that helped me: You can be wrong, and that's okay. It's a learning experience. You don't have to get it on the first try. And you can still enjoy stuff like MCU, the reason we're saying this stuff is not to forbid anything or call for a boycott (except for a few extreme examples where the money goes directly to evil organizations and we have more control over it), but to make sure that if you watch it, you don't fall for their traps. And if any of this stuff makes you not enjoy it anymore... is that a bad thing? It means your tastes have changed, you are now free to explore other things. It doesn't mean someone ruined a work of media for you, it means you grew as a person, and the stuff that's been in there always is no longer acceptable to you.

And this can be wrong too, you can grow further and come back to it, and recognize the bad elements, but still enjoy the good, or you can never come back to it, and ahift to other things that you enjoy even more, than you might have never discovered, because you devoted yourself to that one thing.

We are changing constantly, constantly learning, but being on the lookout for problematic things is helpful when evaluating media. Sometimes it can go too far, but that's also part of the learning experience for many people, they mellow out with time.

And lastly... stuff like Sokka being made not-sexist and removing lines from Ursula's songs shouldn't be blamed on consumers, on "Tumblr kids with no media literacy", or even on idiots on he internet who grasp at straws to prove modern media is racist or sexist in some silly attempt to make progressives out to be hypocrites (Like those people who jumped through hoops to make She-r out to be homophobic for making a lesbian a villain). This is shifting the blame away from the system, that doesn't listen to us as much as we would like to believe it does. It should be blamed on the fact that these projects are still written by white male writers, who know they're not part of the minorities they represent, so they try to be as unproblematic as they can be in fear of getting judged, when the solution would be more women in the writers room, and more research, and those men actually being allies and consuming media made by women. Because then, you actually get stuff like She-ra, where lesbians aren't these unproblematic, sterilized perfect beans, but actual human beings, with problems, and flaws, and corruption arcs, and redemption arcs and just... good stuff!

Lastly, you don't fucking need permission to write your fanfiction where the guy is kinda sexist, and it's enemies to lovers and it's hot. By all means, be in control of your narrative, clap back, but don't be afraid to tell your story from your perspective. No matter how hard you try to educate people, there will be idiots who hate you for what you're doing, so we will have to find other ways to deal with that. I say we, because I am struggling with it too.

We're constantly learning.

[fizzigigsimmer]

@mania-mono I had to move my reply so I can give this my best shot at an answer without worrying about a word limit. So here I go, and pardon any pre-coffee typos.

I don’t speak for every Billy fan, because I can’t, nor do I speak for every POC because I can’t do that either. Blanket statements, generalities, and opinions grounded in the belief that what you see in front of you - which can only ever be a sample size - is everything, leads to closed mindedness. We are all vulnerable to these things. I think it is human nature to accept what we see and what we are told, in order to make friendly in our groups. So that we feel accepted as well as acceptable and to never think beyond that.

So I understand where opinions like “People only care about Billy because Dacre is attractive [and white]” come from. Within those opinions I can hear the faint echos of social discourse that I as a woman of color have had to bring to the table at one time or another, and I recognize that there is a merit of thought there, that I am 100% sure some fans need to reckon with.

I will never be the person sitting out here trying to disprove that the general fandom is suddenly unproblematic and completely free of the persuasion of whiteness combined with attractiveness and a preference for men.

This black girl will certainly never tell you that she hasn’t run into Billy friendly hot takes and writing that did have whiffs of white washing and erasure that made her uncomfortable and irritated at times. I have no reason to be afraid or to hide from that fact because it’s my lived reality. Every day in every fandom, in every ship. It’s my reality. It sucks. And I am confident and grounded enough in my own thinking to say something when I feel it needs to be said, or to just move on and find something better to read for my own peace of mind.

Yes, some Billy fans are problematic. But that is not my whole experience nor even half of it, and that matters.

Because I will also tell you that in my year or more of engaging in Harringrove fandom I have experienced that type of blindness and bias less than I have in other fandom spaces I have taken part in.That’s why I am here. I do not subject myself to being in places that make me consistently uncomfortable.

My empathy for the character brought me, and I stay because it’s a lovely place to explore my thoughts & feelings and make friends. For the most part I have found this pocket of fandom to be filled with nice people who actually do think through the characters flaws and have conversations about culture and social issues as often as any other fandom space. We bond, we have fun, and occasionally I might get into a debate with someone who I disagree with or disagrees with me about how we perceive the character’s flaws and their cultural impact.

I will tell you that I avoid many other subsections of Stranger Things fandom because my experience was that the balance is not the same in other tags. Because I felt consistently attacked, provoked, and silenced. Not just where it comes to discussions about race, but also disability, fat phobia, and my experiences of trauma and surviving abuse.

The problem I see a lot in fandom is that people are very good at manipulating others. There are whole communities that thrive on the basis of taking popular progressive opinions and using it to bully others for their entertainment or to control their behavior, or both. They rely on the public memory of the valuable work other people have done within culture and use those talking points to invoke fear and shame in their peers for their own selfish reasons. To feel good in the moment. For more reblogs. To feel like they’re part of the winning “team”. To feel like they’re meeting requirements of acceptable behavior. And for many more reasons I’m sure.

Whatever their reason, these folks know when they type out, “people only like Billy because Dacre is attractive”, that most people will instantly remember every discussion they ever sat through on the topic of bias and think ‘I don’t want to be that guy’. Because that’s natural and good and without those natural and good instincts we couldn’t be manipulated into a fear response. But the reality is even just a little bit of critical thinking would make it obvious how biased and unreasonable this take is.

When I hear “People only...” no mater what follows, a little yellow warning light goes off in the back of my mind. Because yes we can joke about certain things and make dumb memes for the fun, but when it comes to making a serious judgment, “People only” is a dangerous place to start. More people need to remember that.

Because I don’t think anyone actually needs to spend a great deal of time talking to Billy fans or researching much of anything at all to debunk this theory. If you replace Billy’s name with any aspect of his character that a person might relate to it falls apart. Because they are there to be related to. And if they are there to be related to, you’d have to be carrying some deep seeded rage and wearing some thick ass blinders to stick to the argument that you truly believe that nothing but white male attractiveness matters to anyone.

“People only care about that teenager because his actor is good looking.”

“People only care about that child, whose mother left, because his actor is good looking.”

“People only care about that blue collar boy because his actor is good looking.”

“People only care about that child of divorce...”

“People only care about that boy who was forced to move towns right in the middle of high school because...”

“People only care about that kid whose dad was abusing him because...”

“People only care about that kid who was dragged into the dark by a monster one night and violated because....”

I think the ridiculousness as well as the danger of this thought process speaks for itself.

I think that if someone finds it easy to believe a blanket statement like “People only care about Billy because Dacre is hot,” and can’t think up a single other reason someone else might relate to the character and talk about it honestly while defending their opinion, that’s their problem and not mine or yours. Either this is someone who doesn’t think much for themselves and is just parroting others, or someone who knows what they are saying probably isn’t actually true, but doesn’t care because the aim is to hurt some and manipulate others.

[everybody-loves-purdy]

I wish that people who hated Nightheart wouldn’t be so, like,,, hostile about it towards his fans, I guess? Idk I personally relate to him to an significant degree (like I don’t think I’ve ever related this much to a character before ngl) in spite of his flaws. And yet, in saying this (on both tumblr in the past and on other sites), I have been attacked verbally and accused of being somehow misogynistic (uh,,, what? Many of my favorite characters are literally the she-cats, such as Mothwing or Frostpaw or Hollyleaf or Squirrelflight) or even accused of being ‘abusive’ for liking him, which really doesn’t make any sense to me either? He’s not, y’know, Bramblestar or something. This is especially true when it comes to trans headcanons: I personally like to view Nightheart as transmasc like myself because I find a lot of his story elements regarding his name change and identity issues ofc. But,,, whenever I say anything abt this headcanon there’s always some ppl who use it as ammo to accuse me / others of awful stuff. I even got told to unal1ve myself by someone before over this which is,,, not cool. I try not to let this sorta thing get to me but I do feel that it has gotten pretty extreme over this past year and I don’t think it’s okay at all. People can like or dislike whatever characters they want imo (unless we’re talking about, like, Thistleclaw supporters. That’s a bit weird) and they should never ever be sent literal hate or harassment over it. I just kinda want people to chill a bit and maybe consider that there are better ways to discuss any disagreements they may have over the books and not jump straight into being cruel / accusatory towards them, if that makes sense.

I agree, I understand why people may not like Nightheart but it is completely unacceptable for people to be harassing people like that, I’m very sorry you’ve experienced that. I understand people are frustrated about how the female characters around Nightheart have been written in Sky. But that’s a writing issue and not a reflection on Nightheart himself imo, and it is extremely unfair to judge people for liking him. Especially with as you say Nightheart not being problematic in himself.

Of course it’s not excusable to harass people in any kind of character debate such as this but I feel that the Nightheart hate has become extreme in certain areas given how unproblematic the actual character is, if people enjoy the who he is then let people enjoy him. I find him funny, I like Nightheart, and although I can definitely see the issues with how some characters have been presented to suit his narrative more I still like the character.

Obviously this isn’t all Nightheart dislikers I’m talking about, not by any means, but the minority that do harass people like this are just ruining it for everyone.

I do wonder, obviously without reading Shadow myself, if this is inherently an author issue this stems from. In River the world warped around Nightheart much less and the female family members in his life were treated with more consistent and sympathetic characterisation. That was a Cherith book. People after River disliked Nightheary sure but it was more of a “I find him annoying” thing. Sky is where it all went wrong and where I’ve noticed people taking it out on Nightheart for being understandably upset about Sparkpelt’s and Finchlight’s characterisation changes in that book. That book does have much more emphasis on the Firestar thing from characters who are not Nightheart (in River his frustrations were largely self imposed), and the TC female characters act a lot more unreasonable than they usually would in general. That was a Kate book. Meanwhile I have heard that Shadow, another Cherith book, treats his female relatives much more sympathetically again. So I can’t help feel that author bias may be influencing the writing associated with him here? Sorry to go off on a tangent at the end here but it’s just a thought, and one I wonder if could cause a change in fandom perception of Nightheart again once shadow is out.

[lesbianlotties]

Hello. I hope your having a good day. I have never watched Yellowjacket but I do think it looks interesting and I follow you and a few other people who love this show so my ask is can you tell me what it’s about. Also feel free to share some opinions about characters and storylines as I don’t mind spoilers and they actually help me watch new shows so I’m not as anxious about it. Also do you have a favorite head canon that isn’t talked about??

Hi!! omg this is so exciting. okay. here we go!!

First of all, I love the show very much, I recommend it 100%, if you're interested in some of the most fascinating female characters on tv right now and you can handle a little bit of horror, you should totally watch it!!!

This includes spoilers from the very beginning and all the way to halfway to episode 06 of season 2...

Basically, Yellowjackets is about a group of teenage girls, a high school soccer team, that crashes in the wilderness (some forest/mountains situation in Canada) and they spend a shocking 19 months surviving out there. At the same time, it tells the stories of the survivors, 25 years later, and the crazy, crazy amount of trauma that all of them are dealing with because we are told that did some horrible, terrible, awful bad things in the wilderness in order to survive. aka it is heavily implied that they resorted to cannibalism. but not just that! because that is pretty much established since the first episode! actually, things get even weirder, probably supernatural, and all signs point to a teenage girl cult!

The drama between all these characters is *chefs kiss*. Their lives are so messed up, their choices are so questionable, they are so much much. There is some horror, I'm not sure how to measure that... like, enough to make it a difficult watch if you're too squamish, but I'd say not unwatchable. (for example: an amputated leg, face torn by wolves, chopping a dead body, and lots of unsettling imagery! the cannibalism itself wasn't Very explicit but it Has happened)

Now about the characters! (i'll try to be brief because I could talk about them for days) We have...

Shauna Shipman! My poor little meow meow. As a teenager she lived under the shadow of her best friend Jackie (popular girl, team captain, with the "perfect boyfriend) but did she? because actually Shauna was sleeping with Jackie's boyfriend, had a lot to do in Jackie's extremely tragic death, and now she carries the heavy burden of her guilt and more trauma than anyone would know what to do with!

Taissa Turner, miss senator!! Distinguished lesbian and chaotic lesbian at the same time. She's a leader, she's pragmatic, she's stubborn, she occasionally sleepwalks when she's stressed!! which prompts her to eat dirt, scare the people around her, and possibly built creepy altars that will ruin her marriage <3

Natalie Scatorccio!! my girl was traumatized even before the plane crashed. she was very important in the wilderness for being the best one with a gun. and yet she suffered from "wristers pushed her into a terrible relationship with the one male character of the show". after they were rescued, Natalie struggled with addiction for years until we meet her at a very rough moment in her life, after said male character dies and she's more and more haunted by their past

Misty Quigley!! My absolute beloved!! She's never done anything wrong ever, except for the atrocities committed <3 She's basically insane, but she's an absolute delight to watch on screen. Your next problematic fav! She's the nerdy outcast that nobody liked until they needed her medical knowledge in the wilderness, and nobody liked after she drugged them all, and as an adult she's just Christina Ricci trying her best!

In season two we get to see much more of Van and Lottie!! Van was dating Tai when they were teens but now she's just a very iconic lesbian, more trouble than she's let us know so far, and she'll be your next unproblematic fav! Meanwhile Lottie is leaning more toward the insane, cult leader, and absolutely gorgeous. she starts off as the rich girl that under different circumstances would've died right away but here's the twist... prophetic visions ✨ my girl will raise as a cult leader in the past and the present and i just want the best for her.

there are more characters! including Travis, the guy i hate. and his younger brother Javi, who's sometimes there, and sometimes isn't! there's Coach Scott! he's just gay and struggling. there's Mari being mean, Akilah also trying her best, some random girls sometimes? and for my favorite headcanon that isn't talked about (enough)... Laura Lee!! i don't even know why I got so emotionally attached to the character of the angelic devout catholic girl that died a tragic dead on season one but i just love her so much!! and especially her relationship with Lottie! trust me on this, they were so gay together. they turned a baptism into a lesbian ceremony! Laura Lee's ghost saved Lottie's life!! the potential these two had!!!

✨ the end ✨

i hope this was somehow coherent and that i possibly convinced you to watch the show? there's a lot that i missed talking about here, i'm so sorry about that but i'm so ready to asnwer if you have any more questions!!

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

been thinking about this a lot cos i see a lot of Disk Horse about it, but there's like 2 opposing popular views when it comes to queer representation in media.

the first is that current queer media trends are overly sanitised. they say that these queer stories are devoid of any real sense of queer experiences, that they exclude portrayals of sex and attraction in favour of 'uwu'ification (a term that i just made up but go with it lol) homophobia/transphobia in these kinds of stories is either a non-issue or defined by just a few bad eggs, rather than a systemic issue. the reason for this kind of media is that a more sanitised version of queerness is more palatable to a non-queer audience and, more importantly, to advertisers! so the same way we're seeing sites like youtube and tiktok censoring so-called 'adult' topics like 's3x' or 'unalive' so that companies feel comfortable about putting their ads on the videos, queer characters need to be brightly coloured bubblegum and unproblematic versions of queerness to appeal to that same kinda thing... i often see these people talk about how they want more 'fucked up' queer representation, queer characters and stories that are 'problematic' or 'evil' to counteract the sanitised disney-fied stories that they say dominate the queer representation market atm...

the other viewpoint is one that says current queer media is actually overly sexualised, with too much of a focus on explicit scenes as well as drug/alcohol abuse being the norm in media that has young people as its target audience. this is often the same crowd that complain about sex scenes in media, not just queer ones, saying they're unnecessary and uncomfortable to watch. and when a queer media comes out that doesn't focus on sex (and drugs/alcohol/etc), they praise it for being more 'wholesome' than other media. this is often the media that the first group see as sanitised btw... they are often first in criticising queer characters and ships as perpetuating harmful stereotypes or being 'problematic' in their eyes, claiming that the villainisation of queer characters leads to villainisation of real queer people...

the first group calls the 2nd group puritanical in their views, the 2nd group calls the first perverted in theirs. so... who's right?

well... i think both groups have incredibly valid critiques of current queer media. but at the same time, both are wrong in how they want to solve these issues.

current queer media, particularly stuff within the mainstream, is a lot more sanitised. companies like disney only use queer characters in order to help with marketing, whilst at the same time actively funding incredibly homophobic legalisation (for e.g. the don't say gay bill) and also blocking or under-promoting stories that feature queer characters or stories (for e.g. that film strange worlds(?) that came out last year). but to say this is representative of all queer media is massively disingenuous imo! not only are their very prominent and popular mainstream series and films that feature 'fucked up' queer characters and stories, but you just have to look beyond hollywood at foreign or indie cinema to see some super interesting and strange queer media being told by queer creators!

i always say, but if you're looking for interesting or nuanced queer stories in blockbuster superhero movies then i think mayyyybe you're looking in the wrong place lol...

as for the 2nd view, i actually tend to agree that a lot of queer media (both new and old) is overly focused on sex and substance abuse. growing up, i didn't have series like heartstopper that portrays a much more 'innocent' version of young queer people, most of what i saw was stuff that was either made for older audiences or featured more 'adult' themes (and i know that this was mainly because back along media featuring queer characters at all was immediately deemed as inherently 'adult' anyway). and like, i personally didn't mind, though i would have longed for a film like the half of it! i also think something within this discussion that gets lost is the fact there's so little media that centres ace or aro stories! there's often the odd mention of ace/aro characters within larger narratives, but not as much in terms of them being the main characters!

despite this, i'd again say that trying to claim that the only stories being released are hyper sexual ones is plain wrong lol i've literally mentioned 2 things in this post that are more 'wholesome' with less focus on sex and still focus on young queer people! there's also a significant increase in queer media made for kids as well as in cartoons/animated films! there is so much more 'family friendly' queer content out there now than ever, which i'm so happy about! and the existence of this kind of media doesn't erase the more adult media that also exists currently!

i think, ultimately, people need to take a step back and realise that we live in a sorta golden age of queer representation. it's not perfect by any means, and a part of that is that we need an increase of queer people both in front and behind the camera, particularly queer people of colour (since a major critique that i don't see nearly enough is the lack of queer media with non-white people people!)

i also would say that as important as queer representation in media is, i don't think it can be presented as a form of activism. because the fact of the matter is that queer characters and stories have been in both mainstream and indie cinema for a longggg time, and despite the fact we are more visible in the things we consume, there has been a massive increase in anti-queer sentiment within the whole world in the last few years alone! anti-trans views and legalisation, as well as a notable increase of violent hate crimes, are just amongst a whole lot of queerphobia existing in the world at the moment that is not going to be magically fixed by queer media or representation!

tl/dr (or in conclusion...): there is a whole bunch of queer media that's being released all across the world every day, many of which is being written by or featuring queer people! there's a long way to go with queer rep, of course, (especially with less represented communities like ace/aro or trans/nb people!) but the claims that it's either overly sanitised or overly sexual are just plain wrong in my opinion, particularly if people are willing to watch things other than hollywood blockbusters or the latest netflix series' lol! it's also important to remember that queer media and representation isn't going to fix our queerphobic world, and the over emphasis on the harm and/or benefit of queer media is missing the forest for the trees lol...

[yesterdayiwrote]

You know what pisses me off? Same argument w/Carlos hunting and George. People pointing fingers only at certain people while choosing actively to ignore others' faults. I can't believe I've seen more than a few fans deny Lewis associating himself with sketchy people for not using worse words. Like, it's right there in front of you, how can you say he just happened to be there but not really hanging out with them? Come on. He paid GOOD money to be there, good money to be on same boat as Leto, yes

So I’m sure these aren’t the same person but I’m going to pair these up because I think they form part of the same point….

Everyone in F1 hangs around with problematic people, sometimes even just by turning up for work.

But Lewis has connections with a *lot* of problematic people. I’ve seen them brushed off as nothing but there comes a point where you have to go “really?!”.

If George hanging out with Mazepin is a gotcha, or George hanging out with Alonso, or Lando hanging out at a Trump golf course… heck if we’re going to continue judging Max for continuing to associate himself with the Piquet’s, then there’s definitely legit questions to be asked about who Lewis hangs out with too.

Shaun White (SA Allegations), Jared Leto (SA, abuse, harassment Allegations), Diplo (SA Allegations), Kanye West (where should I start?), Naomi Campbell (Assault conviction, accepted Blood Diamonds from dictators), Brad Pitt (DV allegations), spotted last NY hanging out with Ansel Elgort (SA Allegations), Said two weeks ago in a Merc video how much he idolises Dave Chapelle who devotes 90% of his time these days to attacking trans people…

And sure, so much of Hollywood has some sort of accusation against them these days that the guy is going to get a higher hit rate. And sure, no one is 100% unproblematic so having entirely unproblematic connections is impossible.

But I think Lewis does sometimes get deified, or seen as the only ‘pure’ one, or the only one who’s aware of the world and actually, I think his judgement is probably as flawed as the rest of them?

[griseldagimpel]

400 Works on AO3 Check In

Well, I’ve now got 400 works on AO3, so it’s time to do a check-in. And oh boy has stuff happened!

To start, I got three of those spam bot comments accusing a fic of mine of being AI generated. I don’t want to spend much time on this because they weren’t actually written by a person and thus don’t reflect fandom. Stii, I got three. A bunch of other people got a bunch. AO3 has been working to address this.

More relevantly, one of my fan fics got roasted on tumblr! The fan fic was A Lap Dance for Mr. Bonzo, in The Magnus Protocol fandom. It’s a fan fic about, well, get this, Mr. Bonzo receiving a lap dance. Someone made a meme about it, and it caught like wildfire. I won’t be linking to the meme, and I will be referring to the person who made the meme as the Meme Maker. For everyone else I talk about in this post, I have redacted their identities. I’m interested in how fandom operates, not putting specific people on blast.

So, let’s begin.

I’ve talked previously about how fandom operates like a panopticon, and others (such as Sarah Z.) have made the same observation. Most of my fan fics don’t get memed. But A Lap Dance for Mr. Bonzo happened to be the one that the light of the guard tower at the center of the panopticon happened to shine upon.

Quickly, for those not in The Magnus Archives fandom, a panopticon is a prison set up where the prison cells are arrayed in a circle around a central guard tower. The light of the guard tower will only be on one cell at a time, BUT at any given time, it can be on ANY cell. Thus, everyone has to act like they might suddenly be in the spotlight at any moment.

The Magnus Protocol fandom was in a bit of an uproar about A Lap Dance for Mr. Bonzo, but The Magnus Archives fandom largely ignored my fan fic A Husbando for Mr. Spider. It currently has only 18 hits, 4 kudos, and no comments. By contrast, A Lap Dance for Mr. Bonzo currently has 379 hits, 58 kudos, and 36 comments.

Why did A Lap Dance for Mr. Bonzo get more attention (for better or worse) than A Husbando for Mr. Spider? Happenchance, basically. The Meme Maker chose to make a meme about one rather than the other. That’s it.

Now, I’m going to get into some of the responses in a minute, but before I do, I want to stress something: A Lap Dance for Mr. Bonzo is not a “problematic” fic by any of the major metrics you hear about in fandom. It doesn’t contain rape, incest, or underage content. It’s not a dark fic. It’d honestly be a stretch to call it transgressive. Hell, the Meme Maker isn’t even an Anti scandalized by its existence. They thought my fic was hilarious and were just trying to be funny on the internet.

My point is, if you are an Anti, I want you to know that there is no content so “safe” that it’ll ensure that the light of the guard tower never shines upon the cell in the panopticon containing you and your fic. Your work will never be so unproblematic, so pure, so perfect that no one objects to its existence. That’s a fool’s game. Just, I want you to understand that.

But let’s talk about the responses to this meme about my fic.

Many of the responses were a sort of feigned outrage. Here are three examples:

Heck, this person even makes it clear that they aren’t being serious by tagging their reblog ‘lighthearted’:

And there is something social going on here, and that’s boundary marking. The Meme Maker, looking to be funny – and I can hardly fault them for that – made a funny meme about my fic. My fic was then perceived by the fandom as a fic that was beyond the pale. This – sexualizing Mr. Bonzo – was collectively set as outside the bounds of fandom acceptability. So then most everyone had to rush to perform outrage, shock, and horror at my fan fic’s existence. Despite it being honestly pretty tame. (Look, y’all, I wrote a Locked Tomb fan fic about Alecto laying her eggs in John Gaius and then he gives birth to a herd of cattle. For Easter. A murder clown getting a lapdance is tame.)

It's social signaling. “Oh no, I wouldn’t write cursed smut. I’m a good inmate. Don’t turn the spotlight of the guard tower on my cell.” By making my fic the outcast, everyone is asserting that they are part of the in group, that fandom shouldn’t turn upon them. (Which, really, this fandom really ought to recognize, given that the there was an entire Magnus Archives episode about the Hunt where the pack turns on its members one by one.)

When I was, hm, Middle School age, I think? my littlest sister was into Barney. And I HATED Barney. Vehemently and vocally. And what I was doing – what my peers who were doing the same were doing – was signaling that we were Big Kids and too Grown Up to like a baby show like Barney. In reality, Barney was fine. I wasn’t the target demographic, but it was a perfectly serviceable show for my littlest sister. But I was insecure and needed to assert my self as “mature”, so I trashed Barney and Barney fans.

The modern perception of the Anti is rooted in a desire for moral pureness, but it’s this desperate bid for inclusion that underlines it. It’s staking one’s place by identifying what and who “doesn’t belong”.

Very few people spoke up in defense of my fic. A few did, and those fans demonstrated a great deal of bravery in doing so! But most didn’t. Because no one wants to make themselves the next target via drawing attention to themselves by expressing a contrary opinion.

Now, at the end of the day, I don’t actually mind people having a laugh a fic I wrote. I thought the meme the Meme Maker made was hilarious. I don’t think the behavior I just described – the rush to assert in-group-ness at the expense of a scapegoat – is healthy, but my concern there is mostly for the people engaging in that behavior. I’m still writing The Magnus Protocol fan fic like always. Heck, I might even sexualize Mr. Bonzo some more. We’ll see.

But all this brings us back to tumblr’s architecture.

So the thing about tumblr posts is that if a post is rebloggable, anyone you don’t have blocked can reblog it. Rebloggableness is opt-out, not opt-in. Tumblr’s infrastructure is designed to maximize the amount of engagement a post gets because that’s beneficial to advertisers. As posts spread, they can enter what are sort of different “spheres” of tumblr – basically, they can escape containment.

For example, this is what one person wrote in their tags when reblogging the roast post.

Now, is this person serious?

Actually, let’s ask some different questions.

Is this a genuine death threat being made on tumblr dot com?

No, it is not. I’m not going to pretend like I’m scared for my life here.

BUT…is this person feigning mock outrage like the people above, or are they legitimately upset that my fic exists?

Well, I’m not sure. Tone indicators don’t come across very well on the internet.

But the more a post spreads, the more likely it is that the post is going to land in front of someone who takes things too far.

On this note, there was a phenomenon I noticed when looking at the reblogs of the roast post, and this relates to what I’ve talked about in the past, about different “spaces”.

Alright, so the Meme Maker exercised some genuine responsibility when making the roast post. While the name of my fic was listed, along with indicators that it was on AO3, they cut out my name, and they didn’t provide a link.

Their post got some reblog notes like this:

Right, so here’s the thing. All it takes to find my fic is to open up AO3, log in, and search for the title. It’s the only fic entitled A Lap Dance for Mr. Bonzo on AO3. It’s not actually hard to find.

Nevertheless, even as the roast post got reblogged and reblogged, there wasn’t anything happening in any of my notifications. People weren’t coming from the roast post to my fic. Because reblogging to feign mock outrage is really easy – tumblr’s architecture facilitates it – but actually looking up my fic would have taken a bit of work. Not a lot – but more than reblogging did.

Then one person did expend that effort. They linked my fic in the comments of the roast post, and all of a sudden, I had people coming from the roast post to my fan fic. And while most of the people were polite, a couple of them left comments that were a little weird.

It was about this point that I asked the Meme Maker to turn off reblogs on the roast post, and they graciously obliged.

This was followed by a bunch of comments on their post of people insulting the Meme Maker for not letting them reblog it, which had the unintended effect of burying the link to my fan fic.

Cue this comment:

Yeah. This person wasn’t willing to expend the effort of scrolling through the comments to see if the link had already been posted.

Point is, while there are always going to be some people willing to put effort into misbehaving, a lot of shit can be curtailed just by making that behavior a little bit difficult. People act bad when acting bad is easy.

And if we want to make fandom a better place, that’s something we can take advantage of. Social media architecture facilitates bad behavior, but we can do our part not to contribute to that.

[fiornue]

NUEMUSE: REPUTATION ANALYSIS.

CALLI

rather well-liked due to her "good leader" image. she was well-known as a sm trainee and people were rooting for her to debut after she left sm. often seen as the most hardworking nuemuse member, calli's reputation is very clean and family-friendly, having a 'girl next door' image.

IO

perhaps the most unpopular member of nuemuse, but not because of some shit reputation (that honour goes to love) but because people tend to not feel drawn towards her more introverted nature and tendency to stay behind the scenes. despite this, she is well-known in more niche spaces for her rock music/influences and producing skills. noah, infact, only grew more popular after leaving nuemuse and joining fiore. noah is also very popular within the japanese fandom.

LOVE

one of the members with the worst reputation, love has a reputation for being rude, lazy and overall a pain to work with. early in her career a makeup artist complained about an 'idol who cannot stop snapping [at me]' and people later sussed out it was miaoke. because she has a more 'headstrong' personality love has a polarising rep. some people think she is a girlboss and other think she's unprofessional. its a shame that love is a such a force to be reckoned with onstage.

SEIRA

another member with a clean reputation, she is sometimes such as a little 'out-of-touch' with the rest of society and can be seen as awkward at times due to her upbringing and background as a (failed) child star. however, seira is relatively drama-free and unbothered, especially towards the end of 2020, where she shifted to focusing more on professional singing instead of idol work.

MELIA

golden girl no. 1! people love her bc of her family background but also because she can actually SING. melia mostly keeps to herself and would end up like noah if not for her famous family. she does not invite any BAD ENERGY into her life and only speaks when she needs to <3 unproblematic.

NIA

golden girl no. 2! as a (successful) child star, jiheon is often seen as the nation's little sister and this extended into her career with nuemuse. having trained 24/7 for public appearances, jiheon is well put together, drama free and clean of any major scandals. girl is so scared of a scandal that there's a rumour going around that she never speaks to male idols unless she really has to.

SI-A

problematic no.2 LMAO. like love, si-a has a more outspoken personality that often lands her in hot water. she has more than one occassion been rude to seniors and that has made her public enemy no.1 - so in contrast to love, si-a is more 'publically' beefy whilst love is much more private about her drama LMAO. however she's nuemuse's ace so she's everywhere and getting deals and public tv appearances everywhere. some people see her as 'honest' and some people think she's unneccesarily confrontational lol.

THALIA

another clean rep idol. thalia loves music and she could not care about anything else, so she never finds herself at the scene of the crime. people joke that thalia never goes outside unless to perform or sing or busk and lowkey its true LMAO. she has zero friends and that's kinda a sad reputation but people find her tragic and lonely sooo it works in her favour?

YURA

problematic but none of it is her fault she's just happens to always be there when shit goes down that she gradually gets associated with the drama LMAO. male idol and female idol hanging out? yura is somehow spotted nearby at around the same time. an argument? yura literally just passed by two minutes ago. she cannot escape. also yura's constant side-eyeing of her brother has made the netizens INVESTIGATE and constantly people are blaming her for being weird despite the fact that she just wants to talk to her brother who REFUSES to even look in her direction.

[claudeleine]

Did it ever occur to anyone that Wanda’s Roma background in the comics was BUILT on racist stereotypes? Similarly to M’Baku but also several others. And maybe that’s why the show runners stepped away from that..?

okay, so i think what we have here is someone who skimmed the original post in question (paragraph 2) and likely didn’t ready any of the links attached because that first message has been addressed already... but for anyone else in the same boat:

from gavia baker-whitelaw’s article:

Wanda and Pietro's Romani heritage was canon for decades (including in their non-mutant backstory), although this depiction often had problematic undertones. Wanda is literally a mysterious foreign witch, a damaging stereotype that acquired more nuance in later comics. But instead of updating Wanda and Pietro as modern Jewish/Romani superheroes (much like how Black Panther's charismatic M'Baku started out as a villain named "Man-Ape"), Disney whitewashed them. This casting choice was divisive in 2013, when The Atlantic highlighted the negative connotations of casting a white blonde actress as Scarlet Witch. Roma people are a marginalized ethnic minority, and Disney chose to erase their presence from the MCU.

...This rewrite was rather tone-deaf, because it involved Wanda and Pietro volunteering for neo-Nazi experiments. In the comics, their original parents were Holocaust survivors. Whedon also ignored the most obvious solution to Wanda and Pietro's non-mutant backstory: Django and Marya Maximoff, their Romani parents from the comics.

white washing characters is never the best solution. it doesn’t address the issue in so much as it just sweeps it under the rug. as well as perpetuating the idea that white is some unproblematic neutral that ppl can just default to. like can you imagine if in an attempt to “fix” how m’baku is portrayed in the comics, they just...put a white guy in the role? you can’t just remove a characters racial or ethnic background. no one is saying that her comic background hasn’t been problematic, but this isn’t the way to remedy that.

@scarlet--wiccan has an amazing post about the erasure of this whole family’s ethnic identity in the fox x-men films (x).

@villyns also has a good post outlining some examples of the mcu white washing rather than actually fixing the problem (x).

and here’s a decent article on white washing in media and why it’s a problem (x), quote from this article below:

Making a movie is not an easy feat; there are many things to take into account and even more people that you have to please, but there are also standards and morals to uphold. Whitewashing, blackface, brownface or yellowface is not just about denying jobs to minority actors, appropriating the stories of these groups, perpetuating stereotypes or keeping them invisible, it is about undermining their value as human beings and turning them into stepping stones, props, for white artists.

as for the second part. i think that’s entirely possible, actually. it’s done a lot to characters, where they won’t explicitly state their ethnicity but give them attributes from one (often stereotypes) and make them a caricature without making it, like i said, explicit. take the concept of jewish-coded villains in media. no one from disney has ever said that mother gothel in tangled is jewish, but it’s been pointed out by everyone that she’s jewish coded through stereotypes, ones specifically often used for “evil” witch-type characters, which is no coincidence: large, hooked nose, curly hair, greedy, etc. edit: hollywood uses coding like this often for racial/ethnic groups and the lgbtq+ community.

the maximoffs in the mcu and xmcu have never been explicitly made romani, with disney going so far as to change their parents romani names (django and marya) to oleg and irina. the name changes were unnecessary, except to distance the maximoffs from their original romani identity. the mcu changed their origins stories and cast non-romani actors to portray the maximoffs, and considering they went as far as to remove their jewish heritage as i mentioned before, it’s not a stretch that this is all an attempt to veil their romani background too. while they often joke about stealing and fortune tellers and poverty (the wv halloween episode really put it all in one place, but they’ve been doing it forever in the xmcu and mcu), i wouldn’t say this is an attempt to make them romani as much as it is to use a romani-esque caricature, to use it as a sort of “aesthetic” for the twins without acknowledging that it’s an ethnicity. the aspects they choose to keep are often either negative or painted in a negative light. i think the fact that el*zabeth ols*en continuously uses the g-slur to talk about wanda and costume design, speaks to that. 

and even if the mcu came out and said, “oh, our wanda is romani,” that wouldn’t change the fact that she’s played by a non-romani actress (who continues to use anti-romani slurs, despite knowing she shouldn’t) and that so far, they have not explicitly stated in the mcu that she is.

from gavia baker-whitelaw’s article:

Wanda and Pietro's whitewashing feels like an attempt to "neutralize" them. It frames their ethnicity as a problem to be avoided, rather than an opportunity to celebrate an under-represented group. This also meant that Marvel could cast famous white actors instead of sourcing an unknown Romani actor, during a period when the MCU was visibly uninterested in racial diversity.

But Marvel Studios wanted to have its cake and eat it, too. While Wanda is now white and Sokovian, her role isn't completely divorced from its Romani origins. It can't be, because everything in the MCU is informed by the comics. That's how we end up with El*zabeth Ols*n describing her Age of Ultron costume as "kind of this g*psy, vagabond feel"—terms that usually wouldn't come to mind for a simple black minidress and maroon jacket. Wanda's Romani heritage remains visible through veiled references and superficial costume choices, sidestepping any hint of meaningful representation.

from jessica reidy’s article:

Today, some Roma do call themselves witches, and serve as healers and spell-casters in a community, but make no mistake, being a witch is a job like any other. I was trained by my grandmother, I studied hard, I started a business, and I take bookings in my Google calendar. This is the context that most people miss when creating (or, in this case, adapting) Romani witch characters like Wanda Maximoff, and while the Scarlet Witch has plenty of magic, she does not need to fall into the stereotype, nor have her identity erased.

Representation matters. Wanda’s Romani ethnicity has been well-stated in the comic books, sometimes capturing the discrimination and violence that Roma face, and other times falling flat and stereotypical. Marvel also owes us, as Roma are often rendered as mentally unstable thieves, such as Dr. Doom, Wanda and Pietro’s community, and Wanda herself, and the entertainment giant capitalizes off of these stereotypes, reinforcing them all the while.

Every opportunity we get for accurate and positive representation is essential to us because it shapes the way people understand us.

linking the post i made again, because it has a list of articles and posts i’d recommend really taking the time to look through and engaging with them, as well as following folks like jessica reidy and @scarlet--wiccan​ on social media for more info from romani folks. 

[spaceorphan18]

Thinking about "problematic" and "toxic" relationships in Glee.

These terms get thrown about a lot - and maybe in other shows as well, but I just don't follow anything else as close, nor do I get people coming to me about anything else (not that anyone has recently about this subject) but I think I wanted to have a conversation about it.

Because - I think people often conflate problematic/toxic with imperfection and struggles within the relationship. And they're two, very different things. And I think it's bizarre to expect, specifically, the teenage relationships of the show to be the most unproblematic and healthiest of things.

I mean - teenage years are when you learn a whole bunch of shit, as well as learning about yourself, and and you and your partner are going to change a whole lot. I can't name a single person when I was in school, including myself, that didn't have some serious issues when it came to relationships. So it's weird to me that we expect art to be above it - especially when people are clamoring for more realism in the art. It's such a weird thing for me.

Anyway...

Couples who were actually 'toxic':

Will/Terri

It's implied that their relationship, which began in high school, was built on more superficial reasons - looks, popularity, and physical attraction/sex. And while you can totally be in a relationship for those reasons (and that's fine) they held onto the relationship both wanting more out of it or something different than what their partner wanted.

They remained teenagers in their relationship with each other. They both held on to this idealized view of what they were in high school and never grew beyond that.

They're both very selfish people - which often results in manipulation (especially on Terri's side).

Will straight up has an emotional affair with one of his colleagues - and instead of examining why, or that he may be at fault for his marriage crumbling, pushes a lot of the blame onto Terri's lying.

Puck/Shelby

Fascinatingly (?) Puck's 18 and legal by the time this relationship starts - so I can't add statutory rape to the list, but there is a big power difference here, and it's still very sketchy when this is in a school setting.

Shelby is using Puck to make herself feel better about getting older - which you can be in a purely sexual relationship and there's nothing wrong with that, but she knows the reasons Puck wants to be in one, and continues to do it anyway.

Puck is using Shelby, yes because she's hot, but more so because he has this idea in his head that by getting closer to her he can be a father to his kid.

When Puck doesn't get his way - he verbally assaults her, and shames her for both having sex and not giving him sex when he wants it.

Beiste/Cooter

This should be the most obvious example - as Cooter is domestically violent

Relationships with a lot of 'problematic' elements but that I wouldn't define as 'toxic'

Will/Emma

One of the problems with Will, in general, is that he's a very selfish person. And the writers rely on this to create conflict, to the detriment of the couple and of Will's character. I think if this wasn't a TV show that needed drama, I wouldn't place this one here. It's the fact that the writers are constantly making Will a douchebag in order to drum up drama between the two of them, and it makes their relationship seem worse and worse.

Will consistently does not listen to Emma about her own issues, problems, and life. She doesn't need to explain why she doesn't want her parents around. She doesn't need to go with him to Washington. Her career and career goals aren't silly - especially compared to his. He needs to be an equal partner when it comes to wedding planning. And her virginity is not a prize to be won. (And this a shortened list.)

Interestingly - I think that once the show pushes them into the background the last couple of seasons a lot of their issues aren't there any more, more so because neither is really much of a functioning character anymore.

Rachel/Brody

The one reason I'm adding this here is the fact that, even after defining the relationship as open, they both continued to lie to each other about sleeping with other people. Having an open relationship is fine. But lying about it is not. And in fact, most of their relationship seemed to be built on lying to each other about who they are and how they feel.

Finn/Quinn

They're meant to be the mini version of Will and Terri. Neither one is interested in the other as a person but instead interested in the idea of what they could be.

Relationships that you might think I'd put on one of these lists and am not.

Finn/Rachel

I have some seriously complicated feelings about Finn and Rachel - and do not think they belong together long term. However - I think the show did show them being kind and good to each other, and while yeah, there were some shitty things done, my own biggest issue with the couple stems more from the fact that they're just two very different people on a track to be in two different worlds. And I don't see how you can ever reconcile their relationship from that.

Marley/Ryder

I don't like Ryder. And I don't like his somewhat possessive attitude about being with Marley. He seems to always place himself first, and doesn't seem to consider her feelings all that often. However, they went on a few dates and nothing substantial enough that I'd call an actual relationship.

Emma/Ken

This relationship is fascinating (even if I find it horribly terrible and dull). Because Ken and Emma have enough respect for each other that they know their boundaries and communicate well so that those boundaries are maintained. And despite the fact that this relationship has no positive emotions attached to it, they're both well aware of what the relationship is - and it works, even if it doesn't an both members are unhappy in it.

This is all kind of the stuff I'm thinking off hand. The rest of the couples on the show (and my god there are so many) may have issues within the relationship - but I don't think should be extremely defined as problematically toxic. And both terms are thrown about so easily that I think it's become synonymous with 'has elements that I don't like'.