#pasty is fucking livid

[blorbologist]

Which version (i.e the comics, cartoon, original campaign art, other fanart, etc.) of Percy and Vex do you typically visualize when you write your stories? Is that version of them your favorite?

Hi!! sorry this took so long - I wanted to compile the official art and really think through my answer.

A disclaimer that I usually default to drawing them fairly close to TLOVM's style, because it's simple and very visually distinct and I'm still learning to draw people. I think it's a very well done simplification of the characters that translates well to animation (though I do have my little quibbles with it)

Percy is pretty straightforward and doesn't vary much in my mind's eye; I love Vox Machina Origins and the new official art Percy, however I think both make him look a little too old and sexy for 'mid-early 20s' (I say, in my mid-early 20s tkrggkrtn). I also don't really like any red on him, though the new art is dark enough to still look nice. The stupid nerdy glasses are a must. He needs good boots - either his Spider Climb boots or just... good walking boots. IDK what TLOVM Percy is wearing but he won't get nowhere without being caked in mud. VM Origins Percy's host of belts and holsters is great (THIGH HOLSTER??? HI) and the pale coat lining + pants accent the hair nicely, though I also like new art/TLOVM Percy's dark look with the pale ascot.

My hot take is that I actually adore the TLOVM hair; it makes him look young and concerned with his appearance and really helps keep him from looking too Old. I dislike the green eyes though, had hopped so bad that they'd turn blue once Orthax was evicted or would be blue in flashbacks, but! Nope! Green for no clear reason! That's not a Whitestone color bby boy :C

EDIT: also the Orthax eyes and smoke are So Fucking Good absolutely insane of them to do that. very hot. very good. yes.

(also I'm sorry but I... really, really do not like the og art. It's just not my style. I'm not going to critique it, because I'm not a dick, but I can't imagine Vex falling for a Percy who looks like this guy?)

Vex, though, I have less solid ideas about! I see her as being a lot more adaptable in her manner of dress - what needs repairs, what's too worn and needs to be tossed out, etc. vs Percy trying to cling to a singular Look more. I know she's the ~sexy~ one, but showing too much skin just isn't practical when out adventuring, and I'm happy much of her official art reflects that. She stays pretty well covered with some padding and leathers. And when not adventuring I think she has more fun with her day to day and fancy clothes, whereas Percy usually has that coat (He Coat) or something similar keeping his look somewhat constant.

Some things I am sure about: she's not fucking white good god. I personally darken Vex from her TLOVM colors a bit when I draw her. I understand a lot of white Vex art is from before she and Vax started getting darker official art, but I still cringe looking at it. Percy is the pasty whiteboy, Vex is mixed. Otherwise, hmm... I'm very attached to the blue feathers in her hair and some white fur thrown over one shoulder, as well as a host of belts and a thigh quiver + the braid being thrown over her shoulder. She Must have a flowy bit to her look (cape or that half-dress-thing in the post-timeskip art or whathaveyou) for maximum drama. Vex seems pretty willing to incorporate patterns and interesting fabrics into her look (poofy shoulders, stripes, that sheer thing) which I think is fun. I like her with black or hazel eyes, which I flipflop between liberally and depending on the fic rkgjnkrnkghn

The white dragon armor is a little difficult to design admittedly, but neither canon-ish look for it really Hit for me yknow.

Also I hate the TLOVM style of lips for women. It limits their expressiveness SO MUCH compared to the men which is such a robbery. I want more aghast and livid and screaming Vex. I would get it if she, specifically, had these, because she's The Hot One, but Keyleth??? Pike??? Come on.

Again, this is all personal opinion as an artist with too few spoons to draw often + someone who finds both these characters incredibly hot and bisexual goals in their own way. I'm not gonna pick a fight with anyone over their interpretations (except whitewashing Vex. I'll fucking bite you)

[glassrunner]

in the wake of all of these violent crimes committed against asian americans, i’m realizing just how much bullshit i condoned throughout my life. all the stupid-ass ignorant white people i grew up hearing jokes from, all the imbeciles claiming i’d never have to work hard to be “naturally smart,” the assumptions they made about my culture and my family... i can’t believe i was even stupid enough to let my dumbass ex-boyfriend say shit like “hey don’t take this as racist but i’ve always wanted to date an asian girl 🥺” like ??? bitch??? is that a compliment??? i know you just get off on the whole idea of dating “exotic submissive women” fuck you and your colonizing bullshit

fuck all of that. fuck them. i have NEVER been ashamed of my heritage and my culture and i’m not about to be scared now. and to all the pigs in uniforms making excuses for hate crimes, rot in hell.

[the-fox-jawed-witch]

A quick History Lesson on Appropriation and when Native Americans were allowed to practice their own culture. (Heads up I am livid in this essay...)

So you know that white people suck (I'm white, I can and I will continue to say it), from creating a new religion that's stolen from other religions and cultures to murdering women and children (and some men!) to condemning different, non Christian (Catholic as well) religions to be that of "devil worshippers".

The USA has a set of amendments, the first, the reason why the founding fathers FLED Europe, is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." In short, this means that the government can NOT stop you from practicing your religion.

However, this for some fucked up reason did not hold up when it came to the Native Americans. In fact, they were OUTLAWED from practicing their religion. Can you fucking imagine that? Some pasty ass white men come from another country, slaughter your people, steal your land, force you into tiny ass patches of land and then they fucking say "Hey so you can't practice that devil magic any more, convert to this religion that's stolen from other religions or suffer."

That's what happened. The Native Americans were treated and done so wrong by the white men that they were outlawed from practicing their religion because Pasty Ass Christian Man said it was Devil Worship.

It wasn't until 19-FUCKING-78 that the Native Americans were liberated from this persecution and oppression.

Congress and President Jimmy Carter passed and signed the "American Indian Religious Freedom Act" or the AIRFA. This meant that they could finally begin to practice their religion.

42 Years ago. 42 fucking years ago, the Native Americans were finally granted the right to practice their religion freely, without the fear of being thrown in jail or killed.

Holy fucking shit. My dad is 43 years old. That's insane. That's not that long ago. That's a recent event.

This was after white people appropriated most of their culture. White people deemed Native Americans as savages, as subhuman, less than. It's no fucking wonder some Natives are salty as fuck towards white people, especially white people who think they can do whatever practice they fucking want.

So no Karen, you cannot smudge, you cannot participate in a powwow, you cannot sleep in a fucking teepee, you should not dress like a Native American for Halloween.

Think before you fucking do people. Give respect where it should be given. Out of hundreds, thousands of OPEN cultures it should not be difficult for you to find something to practice.

[firelord-frowny]

its a LONG fucking story, 

but basically, i work as a private violin teacher at a high school (which happens to be the same school i graduated from).

at the beginning of the year, the other violin/viola teacher suddenly quit, meaning that i was suddenly being asked to teach 14 students rather than just the 7 i had agreed to, and these 14 students included 4 violists, which... i am not a violist. 

but the boss begged me to ~step up just until [she] can find someone to replace~ the lady who quit. so im like okay, fine. 

it takes her until fucking february to find a replacement. the END of february. 

then covid sets the world on fire and school is canceled indeffinitely. 

i did not recieve one single text or email or phone call from ANYONE affiliated with the school with any information or instruction about how distance learning was going to be carried out. literally, nobody contacted me AT ALL. i wasnt too concerned bc i knew the school system was in chaos, scrambling to try to throw together some protocols and systems and whatnot. so im like, ok, they have bigger things to deal with before they can address adjunct faculty such as myself. 

but weeks pass and i continue to hear nothing, so i finally email my boss like “hey, what’s the plan? what are my responsibilities? is private instrumental instruction still taking place in some form? if so, how am i supposed to be carrying that out? who are my students? how do i schedule lessons? how do i log my hours?” etc etc. 

she responds two days later and answers exactly 0 of my questions, but does provide me with a link to a ~google classrooms~ site and tells me to ~contact students to schedule lessons.~ again, she did not actually tell me who those students even WERE, or how to contact them, and that information was not on the classroom site. 

but before i can email her to tell her this and ask her to more thoroughly explain, the site fucking disappears. it’s just gone. a 404 error or something. 

so i sent her an email more or less explaining, “hi, i’m unable to access the site, there’s an error message. do you know what’s wrong/what should i do?”

she does not respond. at all. for two weeks. 

then i get a mass email she sent to all adjuncts informing us that the last week of instrumental lessons has concluded for the year. im like... ok, i guess. 

then i get an email she forwarded from the coordinator instructing all adjuncts to fill out a form stating our intent to return for the following year. i completed the form and submitted it as asked. 

the next school year starts and i again recieve 0 information from anyone about when i’m supposed to start working. but that’s not unsual since adjuncts usually don’t start until a few weeks in. but then i still hadn’t heard anything by fucking october, so i emailed her AGAIN asking her what my responsibilities are and/or what decisions have been made about the function of adjunct faculty in distance learning. 

i get NO REPLY for another two fucking weeks. 

i send a followup. “hi, i’m concerned that i still have not been contacted by you or anyone else with answers to my questions. i would appreciate a prompt response.” 

i get NO RESPONSE FOR ANOTHER TWO DAYS. 

i finally ask a coworker to tell her i’ve been trying to reach her. 

she responds a fucking hour later claiming there are “no students available for me at this time” and that she “was going to contact [me] soon” (BULLSHIT) and that she “has enjoyed working with [me], thanks for all [my] help.” 

???

so i tell her to fucking call me and explain herself, and she claimed that I “disappeared” at the end of the last school year and that the new violin teacher had to “take over” for all of my students. 

i told her that i did NOT disappear and that i in fact sent her emails informing her that the link she sent me did not work and asking for further instruction - emails which she NEVER REPLIED to. she then lied and said that we cleared it up over the phone. i told her that that never happened. she insisted that it did. she also claimed that she “let the students decide if they wanted me back” and that “they all chose [new teacher]” which i am POSITIVE is absolute bullshit because 1) the new teacher is a pasty ass white man in his late 30s who has absolutely nothing in common with these students. i am a young black woman from the exact same background as these kids who love me so fucking much that they all call me their “violin auntie.” so like. you fucking tell me who they would have picked if they had actually been asked to choose. 

she also claimed that she ~had to let me go because of the budget~ but that i’m ~still on the roster so she my bring me back when things return to normal.~ 

after the phone conversation, i checked my phone records and confirmed that prior to this conversation, she and i have LITERALLY NEVER COMMUNICATED OVER THE PHONE. 

so i sent her another email telling her that i checked, and that phone conversation never happened. i asked, just to give her a chance, if perhaps she may have called me from a number that wasn’t her cell or a school number. i also re-sent her the emails i had sent her that she never replied to. i asked her: if she thought i had just fucking bailed on my job, why didn’t she ever attempt to contact me? if she thought i wasn’t doing something i had agreed to do, why didn’t she ever call or email or text asking wtf my issue was? IF SHE GENUINELY HAD AN ISSUE WITH ME OR ANYTHING I DID OR DIDN’T DO, WHY DIDN’T SHE TAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CONTACTING ME IF ONLY TO LET ME KNOW THAT MY JOB WAS IN JEOPARDY?

LO AND BEHOLD, SHE DOESN’T FUCKING REPLY TO THAT SHIT, EITHER. 

so i called one of my old teachers (who happens to be the same teacher who quit at the beginning of the year) to ask for her advice on what to do, and if i was in fact correct that what this woman did to me was viciously disrespectful and unprofessional. she confirmed that yes, it was wildly wrong for her to do all that she did, and advised me to inform a particular supervisor of the matter, and the fact that my efforts to resolve it with the woman went ignored. 

so i did that. explained it all in a email, sent it to the supervisor, and now????

radio silence from the supervisor. 

im so tired of being angry about this but im fucking livid. 

[staronastaff]

You Must Kiss (to come out of the closet)

The closet is an unassuming room stuffed with storage supplies, tucked away in some corner of the school where usually only the janitorial robots would access. It’s pretty much an unpopular place.

Until today.

“IF YOUR LITTLE GRAPE ASS WON’T LET US OUT OF HERE IN TWO SECONDS, I WILL BLOW YOU UP SO HARD YOU WILL WISH YOUR MOTHER NEVER MET YOUR FUCKING FATHER!”

Outside the door, Mineta cowers, but he does so with an air of triumph. “You’re not coming out until the conditions are met!”

“What kind of gross individual would ever fulfill such horrible conditions?” An indignant voice protests, just barely audible under Bakugou’s screaming.

“I’m so sorry about this, Yaoyorozu-san!” Midoriya wails. “I should’ve acted faster to prevent this!”

“Don’t say that, Deku!” Uraraka’s voice soothes. “Mineta is just a little mastermind of a pervert.”

“But he’s really got us in a tangle here.” Kirishima observes with embarrassment. “Hey man, can you give us some light?”

“…Sure.” There’s a beat of silence, and then Bakugou starts screaming. “THAT’S MY HAIR, ICY HOT!”

Todoroki’s apology is drowned with more screaming, mostly Midoriya and Uraraka, because judging from the popping noises emanating from the closet, King Explosion Murder is about to do exactly that.

Yaoyorozu’s voice is commanding, but faltering. “Bakugou-kun, if you would so kindly calm down, your Quirk could activate if you’re agitated-”

“I WOULD GLADLY BLOW YOU FUCKERS UP RATHER THAN KISS YOU, FOR SHIT’S SAKE!”

“But those are the conditions!” Mineta howls. “The lock on the door is heat sensitive! Kiss someone and the door would open, it’s as simple as that!”

There’s the sound of sizzling and something very, very vicious happening within the closet, and as the tell-tale kashing of Kirishima’s Quirk being activated rings out, Midoriya calls to the others outside.

“Is there any way- Kacchan can you please stop screaming-that lock can be picked?”

On the other side of the door, Iida shakes his head as he stares down at a complicated array of flashing lights and wires. “I’m sorry, my friend, but this thing is almost indecipherable! We don’t want to try anything in case the lock is set permanently!”

“I bribed Hatsume.” Mineta cackles, only to have Sero slap a strip of tape on his face with righteous indignation. “You idiot! They’re suffering in there!”

“Just kiss Yaoyorozu!” Mineta shrieks before the rest of the class tackles him. “I’ve got a camera in there!”

“YOU LITTLE GRAPE FUCKER I’M GOING TO-”

“Whoa, whoa, man! Take it easy, you almost set Todoroki’s hair on fire!”

Despite the eminent danger, Todoroki sounds disturbingly unperturbed. “…Can’t we just do what he says and be done with it?”    

Silence.

A shriek, this time from Midoriya. “WHAAAAAAT?”

Flustered noises from Yaoyorozu. “Todoroki-san, you can’t be serious!”

Uraraka lets out a righteous shriek of indignation. “I’m not giving away my first kiss in here!”

“YOU CAN SHARE-” Mineta is cut off with a ferocious smack by Tsuyu.  

“HEY, DEKU-” Bakugou yells, “KISS THAT STUPID ROUND FACE YOU PINE OVER SO MUCH AND GET IT OVER WITH.”

“Whaaaaa?” Midoriya’s wheeze is accompanied by Uraraka’s sudden choking, with Kirishima exclaiming. “Wow, she’s floating!”

“I hate to agree, but you two seem to have the most romantic dynamic out of all of us here.” Yaoyorozu says apologetically.

Midoriya is still wheezing asthmatically as Uraraka lands with a determined thump. “Well, what about you and Todoroki, huh? You guys aren’t exactly friends, either!”

Yaoyorozu reels back. “Eeeeh?!”

“What do ya say, dude?” Kirishima asks in desperation. “Please, I’m getting claustrophobic in here! Bakugou’s not going to hang on to his sanity much longer!”

“DAMN RIGHT!”

Todoroki’s reply is the definition of long-suffering. “…Alright, if it would get us out of here.”

There’s a bit of shuffling. Something slides against the door as a muffled exclamation is cut off. Prolonged silence.

The lock clicks, and the door flies open.

Uraraka gasps.

Bakugou’s eyes are wide as Todoroki abruptly pulls away. Both of them have blanched to the color of pasty rice porridge. The others have frozen in place.

“Did you just…” Bakugou stutters, his hand flying to his lips, “…put your tongue in my MOUTH?!”

Todoroki looks dazedly at Bakugou’s increasingly livid face, and then at Yaoyorozu, who is frozen with her hands outstretched. She hastily tucks them behind her back. “I think I missed.” Todoroki replies slowly.  

“No shit.” Kirishima breathes.

Mineta pipes up with a wail. “No fair! That’s not at all hot!”

The ground shakes.

Mineta’s end is a violent one.

 fin

[gaymafia]

I’m legitimately curious why people didn’t like the last Jedi? I saw it and thought it was okay? Is there something I missed or? Like it wasn’t great but it was passable?

ok so i wasnt gonna do this here bc nobody fucking asked but u asked so thank u but also strap in ur ready for a while ride

TLJ spoilers, obviously. also my issues are going to be numbered in no particular order bc my thoughts on this movie are so fucking scrambled but here we go

1. Kyle Ron. First of all fuck Ryeanne for making me see so many goddamn closeups of Adam Driver’s ugly ass face. I did not need to see all that he is so goddamn ugly especially that fucking shirtless scene where he looks like a block of pasty ass pale wood.

But for real, Kylo Ren. I don’t actually take issue with his existence, because Kyle really does excellently represent rich ass white boys who have everything handed to them but throw a hissy fit when they face the slightest adversity an throw tantrums all the time. It’s nice to see a villain that represents most people real-life nightmares instead of like, a Sexy Temptress or Old Evil Man or whatever. That being said, kyle is not given the villain’s treatment in this movie. if you cut out all the scenes where ryan is not actively sucking adam driver’s dick and jizzing all over himself over kyle’s angsty white boy angst, the movie has virtually no real plot (”oh no we are in space with no fuel, nobody is going to do anything except get mad at each other, miscommunicate, and deliberately make all the characters of color worthless while separating Finn and Poe bc fuck the gays”). So much of the movie is spent not just establishing how kyle became kyle (which is good! backstory for villains is good!), but trying to get us to like, sympathize with him? which is the shitty part. I dont care that Luke “”””tried to kill”’’’ (he didn’t) kyle. kyle had turned to the dark side before luke’s mistake. kyle had a million and one chances to change his mind from the start of TFA to the end of TLJ, and he never did. Kyle is an evil guy. We need one of those. He’s a great evil guy bc he’s got so many shitty qualities. But ryin doesnt want us to hate kyle, even tho hes the villain. why the fuck doesnt reean want us to hate kyle? bc rayan is also a shitty little man who thinks giving ur white boy a sob story makes him a sympathetic villain and sidelining ur characters of color will help.

also again the fucking shirtless scene what the shit man that was so gross

2. Will be broken down into A, B, C, etc. bc TLJ treats its characters of color like SHIT. 

2A. Finn. Finn gets put in a coma bc why would anyone want to write anything interesting for john boyega its not like hes the MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN and the MOST TALENTED ACTOR who is being sidelined bc ryun hates black people. Yeah Finn is totally into Rey and he wants to save her and is willing to desert the rebellion for her. that happened in the first movie but why give your characters real arcs when you can recycle old ones to jerk off to kyle ron. the rose thing happens, shes like “we can disable the tracking” and like TWO SECONDS after he was dead set on desertion he’s totally down to risk his life for the rebellion at rey’s expense? that sure is a quick 180 with no real reason why and no writing to explain it! then there was the whole “separate finn and poe” thing ryain pulled for the shits and giggles.

2B. Rose. I was pretty chill with Rose, she had a dope backstory, her sister was badass, and I liked that they made that connection off the bat. I’m not mad about anything rayn did with her character but i genuinely believe thats only because i havent thought about it enough yet. give me a week and i’ll figure out how rain fucked it up. open to suggestions.

2C. Poe. Full offense but was I supposed to be mad at Poe for coming up with a plan when that bitch Holdo was like “I’m not gonna tell you my plan sit tight and be convinced we are all going to die :)” i legitimately did not understand how I was supposed to be mad at poe for doing what he thought was best for the rebellion after he asked holdo what the plan was and she was deliberately obstinate and refused to even be like “dont worry i have a plan” she was just like. so dumb. Also poe got thrown around a lot and i am A Little Suspicious of how much physical violence he experienced compared to many other characters.

2D. You guessed what was next! The slaps! Super awesome how the two men of color were slapped by white people!!!! So deep!!!!!!! For real tho uh the second time i saw this movie someone in the audience laughed when poe got slapped by space hitler hux and uh??? not funny. not funny or cute or clever to use the guy you built your entire nazi imagery on to slap the one black man on your cast. i dont care if it was supposed to make us “hate hux” or whatever more. i already hated hux reyn. you could have used that screentime in your 3 fucking hour long movie for something valuable, like giving finn a character arc, or literally anything else besides that goddamn slap. i was livid watching that.

and then with leia and poe? i get that part of the conflict was internal in the resistance and one of the major themes was how failure is the best teacher and all that but like? maybe stop physically assaulting all your characters of color? maybe uhhhh at least think about that first??

2E. like i mentioned before one of the obvious themes was how failure is the best teacher so naturally all the major characters had to fail at something, and then learn from their mistake to be better next time. with luke it was fucking up with kyle, with rey it was being naive enough to think kyle could turn, with poe it was the dreadnaught thing, finn was left out of this because raan dooesn give a shit abt finn bc hes a racist bastard, etc. but it was incredibly transparent how all of the white characters’ mistakes meant either personal losses or something small scale with one person, while the mistakes of the characters of color (poe/finn/rose) were all ones that cost the rebellion the vast majority of their forces. rey got out of her fight with kyle and snoke unscathed. luke got a lot of guilt and character development. What did finn poe and rose get? the deaths of like 99% of the resistance on their shoulders. A little too coincidental that even though rey LITERALLY GAVE HERSELF OVER TO SNOKE she was totally fine a-ok no real scars, finn and poe and rose doing their best to save the rebellion while admiral holdo refuses to tell them anything costs the resistance so fucking much. rey does the DUMBEST FUCKING THING with no real consequences and finn and poe and rose try their best and are punished severely for it.

2F. Really convenient how everything finn, poe, and rose did ended up being useless and just cost the rebellion lives, whereas at least rey’s mishap got snoke killed and taught her a lesson. reeeeaaaalllllyyyyyy convenient how finn, poe, and rose’s plan was a huge waste of time. it would have been much better for us to see an actual plot line with them that contributed to the story and their characterizations instead of “send them on a goose chase, make it pointless in the end, physically brutalize them along the way.

3. R*yl* bullSHIT: ryyn had a really fun time with a lot of very rape-y scenes in this movie. the whole force-connection thing with kyle and rey was soooooo uncalled for, it reeked of non-con fantasies, catered to the r*yl*s like nothing ever before, and was so goddamn gross. the obvious invasion of privacy and lack of consent was nasty, using it as a shitty device to make rey “come around” on kyle was NASTY and that whole thing was nasty. i know im not articulating this well but there was so much about that whole thing that bothered me. i just know reyhan was so fucking into it, inserting kyle into rey’s life, forcing her to completely drop all of her characterization in the first movie to suddenly thing kyle can be good, acting as if rey hasnt seen all the shit and known what hes done. the whole thing was gross and a really obvious example of why men shouldn’t be allowed to direct movies.

4. killing snoke was a dumbass fucking mistake. kyle is a tantrum-throwing temper-losing toddler. snoke was evil and mysterious and shit idk. we knew he was powerful as fuck, he looked like a testicle which is a great villain imo, he was the darth sidious and they killed him off while kyle is still in like. ep2!Anakin levels of angst. i get that kyle is already powerful or whatever but like. hes not cold and calculated the way snoke was. kyle is a good villain, but a weak main baddie bc hes dumb as fuck. he let the rebellion get away bc he was pissed at luke. that was dumb as fuck. kyle is ruined by his emotions, and snoke was a scarier main baddie bc he wasnt so fucking dumb lol

5. it was so fucking long. there were so many scenes that could have been cut or shortened. why did we need to see luke milking the tiddy of that weird alien cow thing. why did we need to see kyle ron shirtless. why did we need so many goddamn shots of the fucking porgs.

6. ya the porgs are cute or whatever but like. that whole “look at how sad the cute big-eyes porg is when chewie is eating his friend” thing was so dumb. i dunno why but i hated that the most. that was the worst thing the porgs did. they were cute but like chill disney u know they like ran algorithm after algorithm to make that porg the cutest it could be with science or some bullshit and like? thats dumb.

7. i get that the humor in star wars movies is shifting but i felt like there was too much of it and it was dumb. a lot of the riffs werent funny and there were too many of them for a star wars film. star wars usually doesnt take itself too seriously, but this one was a little too much for me.

8. there were too many plot twists for shock value. the story went on too long. it should have ended earlier but it didnt. i dont know why ryenn decided to have like 6 different climaxes but it was too much. should have let there be one climax buddy. thats it.

9. holdo. besides holdo being the white feminist icon why didnt she just fucking tell poe the plan. why. why was so deliberately obstinate when it was doing no good. like yeah of course poe sent out a crew to try to save the rebellion all u told him to shut up and let you handle it! obvously what she did in the end was badass or whatever but like uh hun next time dont be a piece of shit and then get mad when people react to you being a piece of shit. i would have been okay with all that happening if holdo wasnt treated like some hero who never made any mistakes. she did make a mistake, and that was refusing to tell poe what her plan was when she knew he was absolutely the type to do whatever he could to save the rebellion whether he had her permission or not. also apparently holdo is a lesbian or bi or not straight or something in like the comics or whatever and like 1. classic bury ur gays but also 2. no more word of god gay characters if a character is not gay in the movies i will not give you the gay cred for it sorry homophobes

10. i didnt buy the story w luke and kyle at lukes jedi training facility or whatever. surprisingly, i was ok with lukes story line and character development, and actually agreed with it for the most part, but i just like. i dunno i didnt feel like that was something luke would do. not because luke is infallible (even tho he is my gay dad who has never done anything wrong ever) but because the entire original trilogy is luke believing darth vader could be saved. and while im not opposed to luke changing his mind about whether or not everyone could be turned away from the dark side (luke was young and optimistic in the original trilogy, and as he grew older he would learn more about the jedi and their history like the whole speech he gave rey about how the jedi have to end bc theyre lowkey shitty). i actually kind of liked luke’s hot take on the jedi, because it was lowkey my hot take on the jedi (esp the prequels jedi who were shitty as Fuuuuuck but we are ignoring the prequels for now lbr) but also because i could believe it was a view luke would come to as he aged. but impulsively drawing his lightsaber to kill kyle before he had actually done anything bad, after suspecting that kyle had darkness in him for a while, even though he felt like he had failed? it just didnt feel like luke to me. i felt more like raeyn had chosen that particular backstory to try to make kyle a more sympathetic villain rather than give a believable and in-character back story for the characters. i understand that luke’s failure ultimately has to lead to the creation of kyle ron in this story line, but that didnt feel like the right failure to me. maybe this is just me being nitpicky but that felt off to me too and i dont know if i can quite pinpoint why.

11. rey was a dumbass fucking bitch in this movie. rey could not be a dumbass fucking bitch to survive as a scavenger who was orphaned at birth on jakku. rey would have had to be smart and not as fucking DUMB as she was in this movie. now im getting heated so i cant articulate this well but she just did so many dumb things that anybody who had to raise themselves would have never done. she would never have delivered herself over to kyle ron like what a dumb fucking idea. who wrote this goddamn movie. fuck u ryeen.

12. why did yoda come back as a force ghost. where is anakins force ghost. he would be so fucking pissed at kyle right now. he would be mad as hell. he would have ended this thing. he would have called kyle out like the shitdickbitch he is and put him in his place. i get that yoda is more like ancient and orginal star wars jedi knowledge shit or whatever and like more of an authority on the jedi but like anakin is off in like force ghost hawaii drinking force ghost martinis while his shitty fucking grandson is being a piece of shit?? nah man anakin would have shut that shit down they better bring him back for ep IX and i expect hayden christensen himself to show up to bitch at kyle about what a fucking dumbass he is.

tbh theres probably more like i know there’s a ton of little things i hated but as scathing as this review is there were things i liked. visually speaking it was a very beautiful movie when we werent getting atrocious close ups of adam drivers ugly ass face. i originally hated but have come to appreciate the darker tone, since it mirrors the mood of TESB in that the rebellion seems dead but obviously isnt bc this is star wars. i liked luke. i dunno. i had a lot of issues with the movie obviously. to be quite honest i cant actually think of anything else i liked atm which is telling.

anyway if anybody actually reads this long ass fucking post feel free to respond with what you hated abt TLJ

[ibijus]

I don’t know how much people care about “babies switched at birth” stories but strangely enough I have two of them (and was told that’s two too many).

One of them I heard from a teacher, there was this young woman in his classes that one day came to college crying, he got worried and tried to talk to her and she told him she had done some blood exams and her blood type didn’t match her parents. The legal way against the hospital to find the other family would take YEARS and be costly at the time, so she did the next best thing: she went on a television program that did all the investigation and reunited the families! Both young women became like sisters after that, one of the “sisters” couldn’t go to college because of her family’s financial struggle and they received help and she was able to go back to studding. Those are somewhat recent events, I can’t remember if my teacher gave us the year it all began, but if can’t be more than 10 years ago.

That is a happy story, and when my teacher talked about it in class he was pointing that people just trust hospitals to not fuck up and mix babies, and I was like ??? because my parents always tell the stories of me and brother’s births highlighting that there was ALWAYS someone from the family guarding the baby as much as possible, so there wouldn’t be a mix up.

I was sure that was normal behavior for every family, but by my colleagues’ reaction that day in class I noticed that wasn’t so. I went digging… Not really, I just told my mom the story and asked her about the “ALWAYS VIGILANT” thing and I learned about a not happy story with switched babies.

It happened over 30 years ago, one of my maternal grandfather’s friends and his wife had just had their first child: a beautiful black baby boy. Too bad he didn’t match their pasty white asses. All eyes turned to the woman, she swore she never betrayed her husband and that was a mistake from the hospital, her husband was livid and called her every awful name there was to call, EVERYONE was SO SURE she was unfaithful and a liar and her name was thrown to the mud.

The truth came out, the other family came to exchange the babies, but my grandfather’s friend’s marriage was over. The lady left the guy and probably took the child with her. My mom didn’t remember more, so that’s all I have: Don’t trust the hospital to not hand you the wrong baby when it’s time to go home.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Miley Cyrus and Her Minstrel Show

Miley Cyrus on stage during her “Bangerz” tour (photograph by Karina3094 via Flickr)

Why bother being disgusted by Miley Cyrus? I ask because there has been a deluge of recrimination hurled at her for the Billboard magazine interview in which she is said to have thrown hip-hop under the bus by remaking herself as a homespun country girl reaching out across the partisan divide to speak to supporters of the current president. Her transformation has even been called creepy. Reading through all the revulsion, what emerges for me is an uncomfortable, but relatively obvious truth that has both little and everything to do with Cyrus: that hip-hop culture is — in its mainstream, highly commercialized versions — precisely constructed to be a kind of costume one can put on and take off. That young white pop stars take on persona associated with people of color and shed them at will should not surprise us.

Sherronda Brown describes what Cyrus had done as a kind of minstrel show, concluding that “The ease with which she is able to achieve this almost seamless transformation is evidence for why cultural appropriation is a form of violence.” This seems more heat than light. But given this allegation, I have to remind myself what precisely a “minstrel show” is. There isn’t clear consensus on how it was structured, but there is broad agreement that it was a national art form that existed in the early years of the twentieth century and consisted of white people in makeup, or blackface, performing the role of blacks. There was often dancing, an exchange of jokes, singing, speeches and slapstick musical skits or satiric interpretations of popular plays. It was a kind of entertainment that was rooted in white supremacy and schadenfreude — demeaning others to secure and confirm one’s place in the social hierarchy while finding pleasure in all that. However, looking at what Miley Cyrus has done, I don’t see that kind of willful humiliation, but rather a kind of mercenary American calculus for achieving success: to pick up the traits, styles, and dress of a group with which to identify to profit from that identification — emotionally, socially, financially, or in terms of cultural capital. Cyrus took one of her star turns via hip-hop because mainstream, commercial, hip-hop dangled from populist, overly-produced videos is a culture that is the coin of the realm. There is at least $10 billion to be had.

MIley Cyrus in an earlier, more PG phase (photo by Mike Schmid via Flickr)

As pointed out by Chelsea Stone at Teen Vogue, Cyrus sliced into this pie, collaborating with hip-hop producer Mike Will Made-It on her 2013 album Bangerz, and has previously working with Snoop Dogg and Timbaland. More than her working relationships with hip-hop producers and rappers to identify with hip-hop, there was the costuming and performance: the bandana ties around her head, the twerking, the wearing of gold fronts, the sneering and throwing up gang signs, and the crotch grabbing. This playing dress-up has (rightly) earned resentment. As Dodai Stewart writes about Cyrus, “She can play at blackness without being burdened by the reality of it.” So Dodai makes it seem that Cyrus is slumming: hanging out for the weekend, getting her crunk on, only to get sober later and show up respectable to wherever she is expected.

But while her behavior is racialized, and exists within a long history of whites taking advantage of black culture, borrowing and stealing it for profit (I often think of that record producer who once said that the success of the Doobie Brothers was based on them being white men who sang like they were black), this is also an American issue: we reinvent ourselves all the time. Think of Don Draper, the main character in the TV series Mad Men — a man who reinvent himself with the theft of someone else’s name. Perhaps because the origins of our reinvention are so ugly and the theft so blatant, in the new iteration of ourselves we often express disgust and horror about who we were.

How Cyrus’s influences have been interpreted (image by Mariah McKenzie via Flickr)

But that appropriation is carried out by an entire culture, so when a white woman apes the hard-won inventiveness and discoveries of black people, many of us are livid. Some are made even angrier when she disavows the connection. In the infamous interview Cyrus says, “I can’t listen to that anymore. That’s what pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little. It was too much ‘Lamborghini, got my Rolex, got a girl on my cock’ — I am so not that.”

Still, I don’t see how is this violence — that is in the typical usage of the term to refer to the use of force to hurt, harm or kill, to use something with destructive intent? That accusation assigns to Cyrus much more malevolence than she has shown. She’s a 24-year-old pop singer who was a child television star and grew up in a family headed by a celebrity musician. That may sound like a delicious cocktail to drink, but I know it’s poison, and she drank it for a long time.

Now she insists, “The fact that ­country music fans are scared of me, that hurts me. All the ­nipple pastie shit, that’s what I did because I felt it was part of my political movement, and that got me to where I am now. I’m evolving, and I surround myself with smart people that are evolved.”

Of course, she’s said that hip-hop pushed her away, though she willfully associated with the Dirty South/crunk sort of hip-hop, the kind that is associated in the popular imagination with drug dealers and pimps and strip clubs. There are many kinds of hip-hop that are much more politically active and aware, such as “Alternative” and “Conscious” rap. She chose something else because it was profitable and maybe even fun to play in the dark.

Miley Cyrus performing in Vancouver in 2014 (image by Rob Sinclair via Flickr)

I think we waste time and energy denouncing Miley Cyrus. I don’t think it’s worth writers, fans, and cultural critics being angry now, when she was doing this several years ago, as if hip-hop — and by extension black people — have been demeaned and worse still, abandoned because Cyrus has moved on. Black culture is much wider and deeper than commercial hip-hop; they are not synonymous. It’s a mistake to buy what it’s selling: that it is representative of some deep black authenticity that gets eroded every time a white person adopts its language and tropes. Long ago it became a commodity in a culture that thrives on commodity consumption and presumes we are smarter because we are nimble, eclectic, and constantly in motion flitting from taste to taste.

The hip-hop of Snoop, Ludacris, Timbaland and others who are similar has long showed us that its culture is structured to allow a few people to profit extravagantly from it, precisely by copying the tropes and styles of the genre. Even Snoop complains that most rappers these days sound the same to him. However, he’s only apparently referring to the top of the food chain — the commercial acts — and isn’t cognizant of hip-hop’s underground, or its international following.

Miley Cyrus during the “Bangerz” tour (photo by Karina 3094 via Flickr)

Cyrus does not lend credibility to hip-hop, nor can she take it away. When she says, “I like to surround myself with people that make me want to get better, more evolved, open. I want to be super clear and sharp, because I know exactly where I want to be,” that is not a betrayal as much as a change of lanes for a millenial who understands lane changes to be necessary to get where you want to be.

Why should we care what she does? She is both warm and indifferent simultaneously, the definition of millennial coquettishness: “This record is a reflection of the fact that yes, I don’t give a fuck, but right now is not a time to not give a fuck about people,” she says. “I’m ­giving the world a hug and saying, ‘Hey, look. We’re good — I love you.’ And I hope you can say you love me back.”

Yes, this is ridiculous, but no less ridiculous than the brand of hip-hop that said we could pretend our way to stardom — fake it till we make it. And now we can’t help but fake it.

The post Miley Cyrus and Her Minstrel Show appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[therebelwrites]

In Black Men I Trust: Sagging Pants Over Suits

Less and less and less and less and less and less do I trust Black men wearing suits and CLAIMING to be working toward the advancement of Colored People.

More and more and more and more and more and more and more FUCK BOYS are being BIRTHED from the respective WOMBS of CAPITALISM and the ALMIGHTY DOLLAR. 

(As I’ve noted before, some of them conceal their self-hatred in street gear, BUT most of them opt instead to wear SUITS.)

Weary has my soul become by having to have endless verbal BATTLES with older, Black men in SUITS who have made a business of employing their BLACK SKIN to garner INFLUENCE in the Black community, only to SELL said influence to the oppressor and MISLEAD the Black community of their TRUE intentions.

Annoyed I have become at watching these individuals AUCTION OFF the long-term stability of their entire CULTURE for the sake of SHORT-TERM, SHORT-SIGHTED and irrefutably SELFISH financial gains.

Frustrated I am at viewing BRAINWASHED BLACK MEN who honestly believe that they have been REMOVED from the struggle--that they have, alas, been able to BUY or EARN their way into the pearly, pasty gates of WHITE HIGH SOCIETY. (Of course, until a chance encounter with law enforcement alters their ignorance!)

Lest we forget, in the U.S., RACE = CLASS; a wealthy, Black person is no less likely to be a victim of police harassment and brutality than is a poor Black person!

Livid I am with these types; these Black men who, upon achieving corporate success, grab the arm of the nearest white woman and rush off to the suburbs, only returning to the neighborhoods of their childhoods to POISON their own people?? 

Disappointed I am with so-called rappers who COME UP, only to eventually SELL OUT. 

BLACK MEN: WAKE THE FUCK UP! After everything that we’ve endured as a group, NO AMOUNT OF MONEY OR STATUS should have the power to so easily entice you to sacrifice the well-being, advancement and greatness of yourself, your people and your SOUL!!!