#plus I do not care about the perceived gender of objects I make?

[tj-crochets]

Baby quilt for a neighbor’s first grandbaby! She asked for a woodland theme

[the-fallen-blue]

Thinking about a conversation I had with @01d55 like ten fucking years ago about Legion and geth communication, and it occurred to me that Hanar politeness is actually, accidentally, a really good piece of world-building.

So, the gist of the original conversation was that Legion says geth communicate in binary because it's "faster" and that's fucking stupid, because sending one bit that says "7" is infinitely goddamn faster than sending three bits that say "111".

And what our dear jigglypuff pointed out that was really fascinating is that language is, essentially, a compression algorithim. We take an incredibly broad, complicated group of a thousand subtly different but connected things, and group them up into a single word, like "tree" or "anger" or "drink", and that allows us to convey an enormous amount of important information in, actually, a very small amount of raw data. And this is pretty important because despite the absolutely incredible range of the human vocal apparatus, augmented by the incredible flexibility and dexterity of our bodies, there are still a quintillion more concepts that we might need to be able to talk about or convey to each other than we have the ability to create a specific combination of noise and gesture for.

Now, like all compression algorithms, language is lossy. This works because we don't actually care about the information we lose. 90% of the time when I'm talking about a tree, it doesn't matter if it's a maple or a poplar or an ash. Where specificity is necessary, we can reduce compression in order to preserve more data; instead of just leaving it at the short and sweet "I'm angry," I can elaborate with the longer, more evocative "I'm so angry my eyeballs hurt" in order to distinguish within the category of anger against "I'm angry enough to complain about this once and then never think about it again." Misunderstanding due to lossiness is of course absolutely possible - particularly with metadata, like "how does the speaker feel about this topic" (in English, largely conveyed by imprecise information like tone and body language) or "what social categories are involved in this conversation" (the gender of a speaker or subject, whether an object is inanimate, whether the speaker is of higher or lower social class than the listener, can all be conveyed or obscured depending on a language's use of formal or gendered conjugation) - but  humans are actually really good at minor deescalation within our social groups, so these kinds of data transfer failures are an acceptable trade-off for the efficiency of our compression.

But of course, all of this is entirely cultural. Every language makes sacrifices, but which ones and how many depends entirely on what the people who use that language value, and what tools they use to convey metadata that the language doesn't. If you are a giant fucking language nerd, like, say, THE giant fucking language nerd, Tolkien, you might even conceive of a culture with linguistic priorities unlike any other on earth. For example, if you have a group of living trees, who are big goddamn trees and therefore don't have to do anything in a timely manner ever, they might develop a language that is barely lossy at all. You can take six days to say one very precise sentence if you don't need to move in the next six decades.

So what does this mean for Mass Effect? Well, the first thought is that the geth should actually be the opposite of Legion's claim; they should value not efficiency, but precision. Efficiency is important for humans, because speech is slow. Words take time to form and push through the voicebox. Sound takes time to travel. Words take time to decode (or for our purposes, decompress) in the brain once heard. Sign language and writing are not exempt; vision is faster than sound, sure, but the processing time doesn’t change. Geth don't have that problem; assuming they communicate by EM radiation, because why in God's name would they do anything else, they can speak as quickly as their instrumentation can perceive, and here in the real world we've had machines that could produce and detect light faster than any organic creature can distinguish for generations already. And they don't have any good way to send metadata outside of a communication burst itself; their body language is so limited as to be nonexistent, and EM modulation doesn’t have tone. All information would have to be in the language itself, and it would be able to be extremely precise, because they can send a huge amount of it very quickly and sacrifice almost no time to gain that precision. Plus they're robots; one imagines they were given, originally, very limited interpersonal capability (why would they need it?), and in human experience, AI generalizes and categorizes very poorly, so specificity would be extremely important. Geth language is probably actually like Ent language at 10000x speed.

But the second thought is, the hanar don't speak. Their language is entirely visual, comprised of patterns of light and color autonomically projected across their bodies. We don't know what their visual speed is, but we can watch them "talk" and we can see it's quite fast; we also know most of it is toward the UV end of the spectrum, invisible to humans. Since it's patterns, they're not limited to one phoneme at a time, and they could conceivably dump essentially a whole phrase in a single, one-second light cycle. By all indications, this language is very fast. Which means that, like the geth or the Ents, it can afford to be very precise. Much like the Elcor with their scent, there's probably an enormous amount of metadata in every conversation that's just totally invisible to the verbal species like humans and asari.

So what do you do when you're talking to someone and you're used to every single thing you say making it completely clear that your attitude toward them and the conversation is appropriate, and then suddenly that's not available at all and you have no way whatsoever to know how they're going to take things? Well, on the internet, we all created a whole new grammar by using case and punctuation differently in order to convey tone. The elcor decided to start prefacing every single thing with a word indicating their attitude. And whoever wrote the translation software for the hanar just rigorously overused the few limited lexical indicators that verbal languages have for politeness.

[strawberrysoup]

Pocketful of Posies || Chapter 5

You’d been hiding for years and years now; from your family, from society, from alphas and packs. Suppressants were dangerous but effective and necessary for an omega who refused to be owned—but no suppressants were strong enough to fool the nose of a super soldier, who together with his pack would stop at nothing to bind you to them forever.

pairings: dark!Avengers x reader

word length: 4.7k

chapters: 5/?

warnings: A/B/O dynamics, power imbalances, noncon and dubcon sexual situations, loss of autonomy, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat — this is a dark!fic, read at your own risk. more detailed content warnings are included at the end of the chapter to avoid spoilers, click through the read more, CTRL + F “content warnings”. 

Rationality within Carol’s pack was often treated like a talking stick; only one person could have and use it at a time, and stealing it required either brute force or a clever trick—which was why she and Loki fumbled it back and forth so often. Sam seemed to have snatched it for a moment, until their omega’s sharp tongue made him fumble. She was cutting and brutal, as wild as she’d looked the first time Carol saw her: covered in mud and blood, half soaked from the bath and thrashing violently while Thor and Peter tried to gently get her in the tub.

The blonde figured it was time to regain the upper hand over their omega and came to stand at the top of the stairs, eyes locking on Sam from behind. He was turning the corner from patience to frustration, their little omega’s demeaning comments making the muscle in his jaw clench. It was impressive though; any of the other alpha’s in the house (plus herself and maybe minus Peter) would’ve had her nose in the corner by now, bent over to hold her own ankles and struggling for balance so that her forehead didn’t press against the wall lest she earn herself a spanking for being sulky.

“Alright Sammy, tag out,” Carol made sure that there was an undertone of mirth in her voice, hoping to bring the other alpha out of his anger. “You should probably go check on dinner and—Bruce, test results?”

“Oh, you’re right,” the beta nodded, immediately headed for the stairs. “Her hormone analysis should be ready at the least.”

The moment her eyes landed on the little omega on the bed, Carol felt her heart melt just a bit. Despite the vitriol she’d been spitting just moments before, the precious thing looked like an angel sprawled out in their den. All she wore was one of Thor’s t-shirts, the hem brushing the tops of her thighs and perfuming her scentless skin with his musk—she couldn’t wait until the suppressants were out of their omega’s system, Carol desperately wanted to know what she smelled like.

“Sammy?” The blonde prompted when the male alpha didn’t move, leading him to sigh.

“Yeah babe,” he leaned over and pressed a kiss against the omega’s forehead, ignoring how she shrunk back into the pillows behind her. “I’m out. Take care of her, beautiful.”

Sam stopped to press a kiss against Carol’s cheek on his way down the stairs, gesturing for Tony to follow. The genius rolled his eyes and huffed but followed nonetheless, only after tossing a wink at the scowling omega huddled in what would hopefully soon be a nest. Carol waited until they were both down before returning her attention to the younger woman, stomach filling with butterflies.

Carol had wanted an omega since she presented as an alpha at twelve. 90% of the people she interacted with thought she was such a waste—a female alpha? Objectively, a useless combination. Female alphas were weak and passive, certainly not strong enough to lead a pack or produce strong alpha babies. If only she’d been a delta or a beta, she could’ve at least carried children. She’d always been fully aware that society’s perspective was incredibly flawed; she was as dominant as any male, just as potent and just as strong. Stronger even—more recently by unimaginable levels.

But omegas rarely looked negatively upon female alphas. Omegas preened and clamored for the attention female alphas provided, they saw it as more tender and careful. Carol didn’t know if she exactly agreed with that either, but at least an omega would never look at her and consider her a very pretty waste.

Or so the blonde had thought, right up until making eye contact with the sweet-faced omega her pack had managed to stumble upon. She certainly didn’t look pleased, her glare verging on incendiary.

“You sure are feisty,” she felt her lips quirking at the corners, especially when the omega seemed to puff up like an angry kitten. “What you said to Sam wasn’t very nice. You gonna hiss at me too?”

The answer was a resounding yes, the cute, clicking cub growl she made only reinforcing Carol’s gut instinct that the little omega was perfect. She liked that fire, it wasn’t disrespectful—it demanded respect and the blonde could certainly understand that sort of attitude. Considering her omega’s evident disdain for modern presentation centered care, it could even be considered mild.

“Claws away, baby,” she ordered, tone amused and the smile still curling her lips as she toed her shoes off at the edge of the bed. “Be a good girl for me now.”

Carol pressed the omega flat to the bed before she could fight, plastering herself against the half-naked woman and burying her face in the crook of her neck. Scenting deeply made the blonde’s eyes roll back in her head—the faint scent of panicking omega wafted off her skin, only noticeable at such a distance. Thank God the Hulk picked it up, the alpha’s senses so incredibly strong that even while masked by Bruce’s beta he had picked up the faint whiff of omega; if Bruce hadn’t prompted Steve to scent carefully they might not’ve found her. Carol hadn’t been the only one in the pack desperate for an omega.

Thor had been… devastated to learn of the lack of omegas on Earth. With the destruction of Asgard and the remaining population’s relocation, it had been another gut punch to the alpha prime who’s people had already endured so much. He’d spoken at length about how omega Aesir were different than humans’ and the tone of longing and sadness in the prime had radiated through their entire pack.

The deltas, Bucky, Tony and Loki had all realized years ago how sorely their dynamic suffered without an omega. A delta’s overwhelming physiological drive was to provide support and comfort to pack members, their intuition let them see their packmates in a way the other presentation’s couldn’t replicate. Their pack’s deltas were all incredibly intuitive, beyond the norm, and without an omega to properly direct them they got manipulative. It was rarely antagonistic or cruel and if there had only been one delta in the pack, it would’ve slid by without notice—but deltas perceived the deception where others didn’t and it usually led to dissent amongst the three.

And while Steve had never said a word, Carol knew that as a sickly little beta he’d dreamt of being ‘strong enough to deserve an omega’. Bucky had mentioned it briefly—as had Tony, who’d heard it from his father at least biweekly. Steve loved omegas; he loved that they balanced an incredible strength with equal fragility. The very nature of them spoke to his inner artist, ‘his inner romantic,’ Bucky had teased. Now that he was a big ass alpha prime? He could deserve an omega now, he was strong enough now.

Their omega was practically a miracle, considering how few of them there were—so few adults, especially. Some claimed the overall population of omegas was going up despite the overwhelming evidence of the opposite and besides, the number of omegas born every year didn’t matter when you had packmates approaching their mid-forties. Tony, Bruce, and Clint were getting up there, as everyone liked to tease. Finding a reasonably aged omega that was also unclaimed? They’d never even considered the possibility, it was unfathomable.

Carol had consoled herself with the knowledge that her pack loved her deeply, found no fault in her gender or presentation. She knew it would take time, but soon her omega would realize the same. There was nothing wrong with her, she didn’t need to hide or put on a façade; not in their pack, not under their protection. Whatever the omega had gone through in her life must’ve been traumatizing, the blonde could only assume some sort of abuse, and it would be tough to instill confidence in her. They’d need to build her back up from scratch.

“You know, if you’d let Wanda search your mind, we’d have a much easier time understanding what’s going on,” the blonde murmured into the omega’s neck, nose brushing back and forth over her left scent gland. “Will you tell me why you’re so scared? Are you afraid of alphas or of packs? Or deltas?”

“I’m afraid of being trapped forever by a bunch of fucking rapists and kidnappers!” She spat furiously in response, struggling futilely under Carol’s careful grasp. “Get your fucking face out of my neck!”

“Packs it is then,” Carol sighed, lifting her head but keeping the woman pinned beneath her.

“You’re so shifty ‘mega, calm down. There are some horrible people out there, we know that better than anyone, and I’m sorry that you were hurt. I’m sorry you had to go through whatever it was.”

The omega froze, muscles pulling so tightly that she started to shiver. Her lips pursed, jaw clenching and her eyes got dim, lashes fluttering as she looked into the distance over Carol’s shoulder. It was a dead-eyed stare, one the blonde had seen before. Her baby was half trapped in a memory, tightly clenched hands clawing at Carol’s shirt and trying to force her body away.

“I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry, come back—” Carol cooed into the omega’s ear, holding her tighter as she struggled. “You’re with me baby, you’re safe. Breathe with me, come back to me.”

“Would you fucking get off!” The omega choked, sounding both parts desolate and frustrated. “Why don’t you people fucking listen? Am I speaking gibberish?”

“I’m sorry you’re so angry omega,” the blonde’s eyebrows furrowed, sadness permeating her expression as she lowered her head to rest her forehead against the omega’s. “I’m sorry, I can’t get off—you need the pheromones, the alpha contact chemicals. Even if you’re traumatized, once the suppressants you’re on start to wear off you’re going to have to submit. We need to start practicing now so you can get comfortable with it, before it’s critical for your health.”

“Stop saying you’re sorry, you’re not sorry! If you were, you would’ve let me go. You wouldn’t be holding me here! I don’t need or want your help, I don’t want to be in a pack!”

“I hear you, baby, I promise I understand what you’re saying,” Carol carefully pinned one of the flailing omega’s arms down with her knee, reaching up to stroke the woman’s face. “You don’t want to be here, you don’t want to have a pack, I’m sure you don’t want to be bonded to us. But you’re on so many suppressants baby, there are so many mind-altering chemicals in the shit you were taking—”

“If you force me to stop taking them I’ll only be under the ‘mind-altering’ chemicals produced by the other presentations and—and this stupid collar forcing my body to produce addictive chemicals at a rapid rate,” she argued, “you want to argue that I’m out of my mind like I can’t be trusted with my own safety! I’m fully conscious, I’m not stupid, I’m an adult for fuck’s sake. The only thing that’s going to fuck up my personal agency is you!”

“We’ll know for sure when Bruce gets your test results back,” Carol sighed realizing how unlikely it would be for her to get through to the omega. “Tony’s having some equipment dropped by in the morning so he and Bruce can run some more. If your hormone levels aren’t entirely trashed, we’ll revisit this conversation.”

“You have to let me take my suppressants tonight then,” the omega pushed against the blonde again, grunting with effort and irritation when she didn’t move at all. “Otherwise the test results from today won’t match the ones tomorrow, missing a dose will entirely trash my hormone levels! The tests won’t provide an accurate reading!”

Carol was shaking her head before she’d even finished the explanation. “No way, there’s a reason those are illegal, baby. They’re so dangerous—”

“I’ve been taking them for fifteen years and I’m completely fine, come on—”

She watched the omega’s face fall when she sighed, “it’s not gonna happen baby. This one isn’t up for debate.”

“This one?” The omega scoffed bitterly, lips twisting as angry tears collected in her eyes. “Nothing is ‘up for debate’. I’m here, aren’t I? Obviously against my will. I’m not even wearing my own clothes, you won’t let me move! You’re acting like this is the one bit of agency you’re planning to strip from me but you’re either too stupid to realize that or you’re too caught up in the idea of having a house bitch to care!”

“Hey, don’t say that,” Carol frowned, thumb smoothing over the crease between her brows. “We’re not looking to ruin your life, baby. The last thing we want is to make you meek or take away your ability to make your own choices, but we have to take care of you.”

“Y-you don’t though,” she hissed, breath hitching as she fought not to cry in front of the alpha. “I’ve been taking care of-of myself for years. I’ve never had a problem I’ve—I’ve never been attacked or assaulted or—”

Carol shifted until the omega was cradled in her lap, easily blocking the omega’s attempts to escape her grasp, “If that’s true baby girl, I don’t think you understand how rare it is—or how it would mean you were poisoning yourself so thoroughly that no alpha could scent you. There’s too many people out there would hurt you just for being you; the only way for you to be safe is with us, where you don’t have to keep taking the pill equivalent of drinking gasoline and bleach.”

“I should have the choice!”

“The choice to slowly kill yourself?” The blonde looked down into the omega’s face in disbelief. “No one in their right mind would allow another person to suffer like that.”

Their attention was suddenly and brutally drawn to the stairwell, both of their hindbrains reacting to the scent of overwhelmingly aroused alphas accompanied by raised voices and shouting. The omega in her lap went completely and utterly still, instincts locking down all movement as if it could prevent her from being seen. Carol sighed quietly through her nose, nudging her forehead gently against the charming little creature hiding against her chest. She couldn’t really tell what they were yelling about but she figured it had something to do with whatever Bruce found.

“Someone has to—!”

“That doesn’t mean—!”

“It should be—!”

The blonde cracked her neck, arms slipping around the waist of her omega and locking in place like iron bands. The cowering made it easier for Carol to snuggle her tightly against her chest, wiggling them carefully as several pairs of feet began stomping up the stairs, until the omega was entirely engulfed by the alpha from behind. Steve and Thor made it up first, shoulder to shoulder and passive-aggressively nudging each other in the ribs. Sam was next, along with Bucky—both of whom were being decidedly antagonistic to poor Peter who followed behind.

“Would you guys shut the hell up? What’s going on?”

Before anyone else could respond Bruce forced his way between the group of more dominant males, eyes flashing green even as he attempted to shake it off, “the amount of alpha pheromone in her blood is so low it’s amazing she isn’t in shock.”

“What?!” The omega snapped furiously, eyes darting between the people standing around the room nervously. “There’s nothing wrong with me—!”

“Carol, hold her,” Steve ordered, as if the blonde hadn’t locked the omega down the second they heard them coming. “Thor, how are we gonna do this?”

Both primes looked almost pained, their faces painted with grimaces as they exchanged glances. Their struggle was easy to identify; neither wanted to cause any strife between them, damage to their partnership would damage the pack but they wanted to be first. Their hindbrains could barely function beyond the desire to fuck their omega, their pretty, sweet little omega who desperately needed alpha semen because her body would stop functioning without it. Primes always got first take on omegas, but when there were two primes in a pack things got dicey.

“Have one of us do it,” Carol chimed, carefully maintaining an expression that relayed she wasn’t trying to step on toes. “Both of you are massive, you could do damage without proper prep and if it’s that serious we can’t wait on that.”

“I’ll do it!” Peter was quick to step forward. “You all know I’ll the gentlest and she’s already upset—”

“Shut it Spiderboy,” Sam quickly interjected, giving the younger alpha a stern look, “she needs careful handling, not some teenager fumbling with his knot.”

“I’m not a teenager anymore you asshole—!”

“Carol’s cock is the smallest,” Tony stated nonchalantly as he kicked off his shoes in the closet that faced the den, “no offense babe, just logistics.”  

“None taken,” the blonde snorted slightly in amusement before turning her attention to the two primes, “I can get her started, at least get her hormones on the right track.”

“Let go of me you psycho!” The omega howled, voice constricted by her collar. “Get away from me, let me go!”

A low, bone-deep rumble suddenly washed over everyone in the attic, the growl emanating from both Steve and Thor. A keening moan escaped the omega, her breath hitching and eyes rolling as viscous slick gushed from her pussy. The scent of it made waves through the rest of the pack, a cacophony of moans and growls echoing off the high ceiling as the responding scent of hot and bothered emanated through the den.

“Thor?” Steve questioned the other prime imploringly, knowing that they needed an immediate answer and follow through.

The taller man grit his teeth, nose flaring for several moments before he let out another low growl that made their omega cry with arousal. “You first—leave my shirt on her, please.”

“Oh God, oh God,” the whimpering omega shifted in Carol’s arms, likely about to try to make a break for it when Steve swept her up into his arms. “Please, wait—!”

“Your pussy is dripping for your primes, isn’t it precious?” The alpha male hummed quietly as he swiftly lowered them both to the bed, hands grasping the backs of her thighs and pressing her knees towards her shoulders. “So much slick for such a little thing.”

The whine that came from Peter sounded wrecked, only minutely more embarrassing than the groans and panting coming from the rest of the pack as they watched. The omega looked to be approaching frantic and Carol sighed, shifting farther away from the prime on the bed—there was no reason to test Steve’s incredible patience. Well, that had been Carol’s opinion anyway.

Evidently Loki believed otherwise, but then again the delta was habitually prone to testing Steve’s last goddamn nerve. The brunet had appeared with a shimmering green light, lying on the bed so close to the omega that the scent from his ridiculously expensive Fendi sweater was transferring to her arm and shoulder. The prime had barely flinched, certainly hadn’t reacted in a manner more noticeable than a slight dilation in his pupil. Thor made a reprimanding noise but didn’t move forward to remove the delta, much to Bucky and Tony���s immediate disdain.

“Why the fuck does he get to—!”

“You better rethink that, Ice Man!”

The combined snarls from both primes quickly brought all three deltas to heel and while Loki didn’t retreat, he did keep his hands to himself. One hand propped up his head, the other tightly fisted and rested on the bed between himself and the omega’s borrowed shirt while eyes burned into him from all sides. The omega’s wide eyes were locked on the man, some flicker of recognition fleetingly passing over her face. Loki was good at surprise entrances and even better at taking advantage of his brother’s status in the pack—not that he necessarily got away with things the others wouldn’t, but none of the others particularly wanted to find out what the prime’s breaking point was either.

“I just want to keep her calm, is that so horrible?” The tone the God used was smooth and Carol remembered the talking stick analogy again. “You can smell the poor thing’s terror, is it really necessary?”

Steve looked conflicted for maybe two seconds when a light went off behind his eyes. “Keep her calm so I don’t have to purr and you can stay.”

The delta’s hand immediately slipped up the front of her shirt, cupping the curve of her rib cage just under her breast. His nose pressed into her neck in the following moments, a small golden glow flowing over the little omega’s skin where he touched her. The odor of fear was quick to recede once the windows were open, replaced with the tangy-sweet scent of her pussy. Carol inhaled sharply and whined, drawing Steve’s attention to her wide, sad eyes.

The prime huffed, running one big hand through his hair while Loki held the omega’s thigh in place. “Hands to yourself, Carol.”

The blonde immediately tucked her nose into the other side of the omega’s neck, hands clenched into fists and tucked tightly against her stomach. She could hear the rest of the pack shuffling around, vying for space and views on the bed. Steve seemed entirely unbothered, his gaze once again locked on the pretty omega’s.

“Is your cunt working your slick hard enough precious?” He murmured directly into her ear, lips brushing the skin gently. “If those muscles aren’t strong enough we might have to put in a bit more effort to stretch you out. Squeeze around my fingers baby.”

Carol’s eyes rolled back when a breathy whine escaped the omega, the only perceivable reaction that might’ve betrayed her fear—otherwise, whatever magic Loki had used made her eyes shine with bliss. Steve had two fingers knuckle deep in her cunt, still pressing forward while his slick coated thumb swept up through her folds to pass over her clit. She shook under the grasp of his packmates, hips shifting without her consent to follow the movement of his hand.

“Come on sweetheart, please?” Steve implored quietly, looking at the loosely pinned omega with soft eyes. “Clench your pussy for me, let me take care of you. Please, I—oh, there you go, that’s a good girl.”

He hummed, working his fingers deeper into her cunt and scissoring them carefully. A smile lit the prime’s face when the cutest hiccupping moan escaped the omega, her legs pressing futilely against his hold. Muscle memory tried to guide her legs closed but Carol easily slipped a hand around her knee, keeping her spread wide while Steve continued to stretch her pussy. Another bass toned growl from Thor reverberated off the walls and she wailed, slick dripping over Steve’s fingers while her pussy contracted in waves as commanded by the prime’s guttural growl.

“I’m gonna take care of you precious,” her low whine prompted a moan from Steve as he added a third finger, carefully pressing the pads of his fingers up against her g-spot. “You’ll feel so much better once we fuck you, I promise.”

Carol watched with heavily lidded eyes as the omega’s attention was sparked by Steve’s use of the collective we. Likely it was only Loki’s magic that kept her from lashing out as viciously as they knew she was capable of. In spite of it, her little teeth showed, sharp incisors flashing in a botched hiss. The prime poised himself over her carefully with a small grin, fingers still fucking into her with vigor while he rested his weight on his elbow next to her head.

“It’s gonna be okay omega, it’s gonna be okay,” he cooed quietly against her ear, removing his hand only to pull his cock from his pants. “Take deep breaths, baby.”

“Don’t—” She didn’t sound distressed, the omega sounded aroused and desperate, “I—”

“Shhhh,” the prime’s lips skimmed over her cheeks, down her nose while his hand guided his dick up and down her slick folds until he was dripping with her arousal. “I’m gonna take care of you, precious. We’re gonna take care of you.”

The sound that escaped the omega’s lips as he slipped into her was goosebump inducing in the best way. She whined as the head popped in, breath hitching with every millimetre that came thereafter—and there were a lot of them. The omega was squirming, her heels scrambling against the blankets and both Loki and Carol found themselves having to focus much harder than expected on keeping her still while Steve bottomed out.

“You’re doing so well, darling,” Loki cooed, his nose brushing the line of her jaw. “I know it’s a lot but you’re taking it beautifully. Stay still love, just relax we’ll hold you.”

“That’s right ‘mega,” Steve groaned as he withdrew, the squelch of her cunt making his teeth clench. “We’ll do all the work precious, you just have to be a good girl and take my cock.”

It was easier said than done and everyone in the room save Thor was fully aware of that. The omega’s sweet little whines and cries were causing a massive feedback loop of arousal in the pack’s consciousness and Carol was pretty sure she could hear the sounds of several people going at it but she couldn’t pull her gaze away from where Steve’s cock was drilling into that pretty cunt. Evidently said feedback loop was also affecting Steve, who very suddenly growled possessively.

“Carol, Loki, off,” The prime snapped barely hesitating before dropping his elbows into the pillows on either side of the omega’s head, narrowly avoiding giving his pack mates concussions. “Now.”

Both the alpha and the delta were yanked off the bed by their ankles—well, Carol was yanked off the bed. Loki was yanked off the bed and then promptly thrown into the wall by said ankles. The reinforced exterior wall meant there was only a small dent where the god had landed, but the ensuing ruckus had a strong potential of causing even more damage. Thor immediately turned to deal with the problem, along with several other packmates.

Several things occurred in the next few seconds and the pack would probably fight about what really happened for the next twenty years, but somehow Bucky was thrown through the window and Tony’s right ring finger was broken.

And Wanda—poor Wanda, Thor pushed her out of the way before Bucky could accidentally take her through the window with him. The beta was sent flying, sailing across the bed until she hit the unyielding form of Steve. He startled in shock, immediately drawing back to assess her condition—only for a heel to slam directly into his nose. The prime’s head snapped back from the force, big body falling backwards while his hands scrambled for purchase on his face.

The omega probably would’ve even gotten down the stairs if Natasha hadn’t been ascending the stairs at that moment, having heard the commotion from where she and Clint had been putting away groceries. The redhead smelled her before seeing her, a somewhat sinister grin pulling Nat’s lips when the omega ran directly into her while attempting escape #2.

“Now where are you going, kitten? With that mess dripping down your thighs,” the beta cooed, head tilting as she scented the air. “Why can I smell Steve on you, but not his cum?”

There was a horrible, long pause while the omega seemed to consider her options before landing on Go For Broke. She attempted to dodge past Natasha but the beta’s strong arm immediately lashed around her waist, her superior strength making it easy to force her up the stairs even as she refused to hold her own weight.

Steve met them just two steps from the top, dick out and covered in blood. The prime’s expression wasn’t so much angry as it was disappointed and Natasha hummed in false sympathy.

“Someone’s been naughty, huh kitten?”

content warnings: nonconsensual sex, voyeurism 

[wellmetkinsman]

here’s a take: I literally cannot stand serial killer media.

the only exceptions for me were Criminal Minds cause it was character driven with a solid plot (for a while) and Dexter cause it was hilarious and made for a good drinking game

(note how both these were fictional. i’m straight up not watching the nonfictional ones, though I have seen plenty before growing up in the time before netflix and before I dived into youtube)

*AT BEST* you can pretend it’s not real and just enjoy the horror movie thrill of it all?

at worst — and this is the main point — it’s either a demonstration of the ignorance/apathy of, or the *CELEBRATION* of the sociological factors that create a serial killer (in America, btw): the consequences of the inescapable white male hegemonic nature of our culture.

> Hatred of women — mandated both implicitly and often explicitly by parents, other family members, friends, indeed western society as a whole, then worstened by an abusive upbringing and/or undiagnosed, untreated, or simply unnoticed mental health concerns.

> Financial insecurities. Yes this is the norm for most, *excruciatingly* so, but, in my opinion, a white man finding himself financially insecure — especially one brought up in an entitled, conservative household, let alone entire culture — is more prone to lashing outward at perceived aggressors than inward. It is an unequivocal fact that crime, violent or otherwise, is primarily a consequence of financial insecurity, which leads to essentially a forced foregoing of morals and social norms in order to continue to subsist. *However,* as we know from serial killer media, serial killers, insofar as they are not simply a murderer — meaning a person who has caused the death of someone else one or more times with varying levels of intent, ranging from reasonably non-accidental, to planned and intentional murder — are rarely brought about by a single motivating factor. Serial killers — repeated/habitual murderers, often with explicit intent, habitual/ritualistic behavior, compounding crimes such as sexual violence, etc — are propagated via a particularly virulent concoction of overlapping factors that are simply not present in other people that have committed a murder. Factors which, indeed, set them apart and render them prime content for speculation, discussion, and media consumption. All of this is to support my point that financial security affects us all, but that it creates the necessary conditions in white men in America in particular to become violent and antisocial, indeed occasionally to the point of engaging in serial murder. TL;DR: entitlement plus the rest of the factors on this list.

> Religious trauma. I’m tempted to simply say enough said and move on, however, I’ll save myself another bullet point by saying that this is the primary reason that homophobia is a partial motivation for serial killers. If you’ve even a cursory knowledge of American serial killers, you know the primary example(s), and can agree that it’s more than clear that being told — again, implicitly or explicitly, by one or more persons close to the killer or simply by media, and therefore more broadly “society” — that there are essentialist, objective truths, essentialist, objectively “good” and “bad” people (let alone good and bad behaviors themselves), that YOU are but one decision away from engaging in objectively bad behavior and becoming an objectively bad person, and then being told that ANY interest — no matter how potentially inconsequential— in those assigned the same gender as you is objectively evil, and in fact perhaps the most unforgivable evil one can commit, creates a specific form of internalized hatred of oneself that compounds and renders one stunted and incapable of healthy interactions with themselves and others.

> Mental health. This is truly the most nebulous point, yet I’m coming to believe that it is the perhaps the one least worth considering in the *formation* of a serial killer, though perhaps not in the analysis of their behavior. Why? Because it has become increasingly clear, especially in the era in which we live, that we are all more than capable of exhibiting behavior which can be considered a mental illness as it is currently defined. Without dipping into the nature vs. nurture rabbit hole, the best explanation for this that I have settled in is derived from the theory (the name and creators of which escape me) that we all have varying levels of disposition for “mental illness,” and that environmental factors therefore need to push us in varying degrees in order to manifest it. The effect of the pandemic on our behavior and mental health has been the primary factor in coming to this conclusion for me, however, it cannot be overstated that behavior deemed negative by society that has been understood previously as mental illness is often a product of financial insecurity. (It’s Capitalism. it’s the Capitalism. In case that’s not clear). Anyway, while I do understand that our brains are capable of being formed in different conditions and experiencing different conditions, the point is that perhaps nearly ALL of us experience these conditions — albeit in infinitely various ways — but that these conditions **DO NOT LEAD PEOPLE TO BECOME SERIAL KILLERS IN AND OF THEMSELVES.** Mental health concerns, when noticed, diagnosed, and treated with care, empathy, and attention by a network of support, are things that can be dealt with in a healthy way, and can even bring about a deeper appreciation of who we are and how we can interact with the world in better ways. The notion that schizophrenia = murderer, OFTEN PERPETUATED BY SERIAL KILLER MEDIA, has done nigh irreparable harm to our perception of the condition, and indeed our understanding of mental health/mental illness as a whole.

There are obviously infinitely more factors to consider than simply these, however, when looking at the statistics of serial killings in America and perhaps abroad as well, the trends skew towards white men spurned noticeably by the aforementioned conditions. I cannot pretend that it’s not true that I would not know this if not thanks to the Pychology courses I have taken in both high school and college, as well as both fictional and nonfictional serial killer media, however, it is not the serial killer media that brought me to any sort of nuance in my understandings.

**THIS** is where I make my point. Serial killer media almost ALWAYS is not made to raise awareness. It is not made to any of the aforementioned real, ubiquitous, and oft completely unaddressed issues in our society. It is almost always not made to benefit any of the affected communities: see parents and priests interviewed when discussing a serial killer with clear religious trauma and internalized homophobia. And finally, IT IS NOT ALWAYS EVEN PRODUCED IN SUCH A WAY AS TO CONDEMN THE BEHAVIOR OF THE KILLER, TO A HORRIFYING DEGREE.

Serial killer media does not always constitute or lead to an explicit defense, appreciation, fetishization, or lionizing of the serial killers that it discusses, however, it has become evident that it can, and does, and apparently to an increasing extent.

Again, to me, it’s the Capitalism. Insofar as coverage of horrible circumstances can be sold and consumed more effectively when sensationalized, constructed around a central figure, and presented with increasingly minimal nuance — that is not to say increasingly minimal detail, look at how much the lives of serial killers are scrutinized down to the absolutely microscopic level — so as to create a narrative, that narrative will do as narratives do. At least in the west, almost the entirety of our media consists of stories that follow the hero’s journey, with all its hegemonic influence (straight, cis, white, male, Christian influence, implicit or explicit). That is to say, it will create a hero out of a narrative.

Finally, wherever or not one enjoys serial killer media and forms what I would deem an unhealthy interest in the serial killers themselves is, to me, ultimately inconsequential. This is my personal taste and opinion speaking, this is not a broad statement about the media, but I do not believe that it is worth consuming. I believe that serial killers and the socioeconomic/political/environmental/etc,etc factors that bring them about are worth *understanding,* as this understanding can bring about awareness both of the forces that influence our lives and the ways in which we can better influence ourselves and those around us, however, I do not believe it is meant to be dwelled upon. Essentially, once the average person such as myself has enough understanding about the topic — as much as I need in order to say I got it, and it won’t benefit me or my job or my relationships or my schooling in any tangible way to continue to dwell on it — I believe it’s time to move on. This is because I believe the things we dwell on tangibly affect our lives. I’d rather spend my limited amount of time dwelling on things that bring about deeper appreciation of life. This means that for me I spend my free time outside, or consuming media that seeks to help us understand or appreciate something, even if it’s not always sunshine and rainbows.

I mean... I just... don’t wanna sit around all day and look at the same disheveled white guys and the same grossly, wildly inappropriately sexualized bloody bodies of primarily young, conventionally attractive women. I don’t find it personally enjoyable, but I also don’t believe it brings about positive results in the understandings and behaviors of many of the people that watch it, especially those without the cursory understanding of sociological and psychological concepts and economic factors that I’m lucky to have with my stupid little bachelors degree. As a Leftist, I truly believe it is responsible for reinforcing the poor societal conditions we find ourselves in, as it seeks not to explain or condemn the factors that perpetuate our situations, but to gloss over or even excuse them at best, or indeed to actively encourage and being about them at worst.

This isn’t to say I want all media to be utilitarian and pleasant, or that serial killer media shouldn’t exist, I simply believe that there is a certain threshold in which either the production of or excessive consumption of it becomes irresponsible and potentially harmful to an individual or to society as a whole, and that, at the very least, American obsession with it has reached a genuinely concerning state.

I’ll leave you with this: my favorite line in the book “My Year of Meats,” which I was assigned to read by my favorite gay, Latino professor, who’s research and works are intentionally influenced by his indentity and experiences, is the line in which the protagonist reflects on America’s intrinsic obsession with violence, especially insofar as it prevents us from forming positive connections with eachother and the world around us and making positive steps toward the future, laments that “ours is a bloody culture.”

[nedxnancy]

I’ve seen people here and on Facebook who are upset about the new series and how they perceive it as... well, not aligning with their idea of who Nancy Drew is.

And that’s fine! You’re welcome to do that.

But I’m super excited about this series.

What makes Nancy Drew... Nancy Drew? What are her essential character traits, or other traits, that make her “right”? She’s a girl, or young woman, who investigates mysteries, often helping disadvantaged people either directly or in the process.

Is it essential that she be white? Some fans would say so. Otherwise, she turns into #NotMyNancy. (Many people objected to the casting of Sarah Shahi as Nancy in the pilot filmed a few years back that never actually went to series.)

What about being straight? Again, some would say so. Some fans react negatively to any of the main characters’ sexuality being questioned or intentionally changed.

For a lot of people, “your Nancy” is the one you grew up reading, so “my Nancy” may not at all be “your Nancy.” Maybe the idea of Nancy sharing more than a chaste platonic kiss with Ned makes you upset. Maybe the idea of Nancy driving a hybrid car instead of a roadster makes you upset. Maybe Nancy being described as “prim and proper” is a trigger for you.

But, depending on who “your Nancy” is, that characterization is at least partially accurate. Nancy takes great care over her dress and manners in the pre-1959 Mystery Stories, and even in the early 1960s ones. She participates in flower shows and charity fundraisers. She is a charming hostess and runs her father’s household like clockwork, without bothering him about anything. She would NEVER be caught in any sort of compromising position with Ned, at all.

Yeah, OG Nancy also bucks gender norms, especially given the time period where she began. She’s a 16 year old girl who has her own car and autonomy at a time when that was a radical idea. She’s bold and courageous and has a strong moral sense, and will always fight for the underdog, the disadvantaged, the easily-swindled little old ladies and the people just trying to get by. She’s not of them, but she feels for them.

But, again: Nancy Drew is a young woman who investigates mysteries. That’s who she is. Pare everything else away; change her hair (which, canonically, isn’t even a consistent color), her friends, her surroundings, whatever else you want. If you still meet that central tenet, you have a version of Nancy. (And in pop culture, “Nancy Drew” is already her own point of reference; Veronica Mars was originally “snarky Nancy Drew.”) Do I want Ned to always be a part of her life, regardless of the incarnation? Of course I do, because they’re my ultimate OTP. But I also recognize that Nancy can exist without Ned.

Am I stoked about her hooking up with Ned on this show? Hell yes I am. Will it make her any less able to solve a mystery if she’s getting laid? I don’t see how. Plus, they can use their post-coital bliss to discuss leads.

So, yeah. If everything about this series turns you off, okay... it’s not for you. But I’m really, really excited to see if it’s for me.

[janiedean]

Do you think Cersei would've been good at swordsmanship if she had been stronger, or allowed to do it at all? I don't think she'd be good at it because she mainly thinks of it as a means of power and I don't think she has enough perseverance to go through with the rigorous training (like Arya or Brienne). What's your opinion?

hm, I mean, given that if she wants something she does put effort into getting it (usually in ways I don’t like but nvm that) I don’t think it’s perseverance that’s the problem more than the fact that with the body shape she has she’d be better off with... like, fencing swords and such, not medieval swords, but even not counting that, the thing it’s that... it’s not really the point imvho and I don’t think she’d want it for the sake of wanting it and I’d agree with the assessment that she wants it as a means for power more than with the training stuff. like, tldr but:

she’s resentful that jaime can do it and she can’t but because jaime in her eyes has been handed command (when he doesn’t even want it) because of birth reasons and since he can do it then it’s a means of power, but if she was born in dorne and was the one inheriting/the firstborn imvho she couldn’t have cared less for it since she wouldn’t see it as something that she doesn’t have access to in virtue of the fact that she’s a woman and so she can’t inherit/rule;

brienne and arya have wildly different reasons to want to use swords and they also have wildly different styles body types;

as in: brienne has a masculine built - large shoulders, tall, puts on muscles easy, strong neck, strong legs, there’s a reason why she can handle longswords and heavy equipment and so on, but she learned not because she wanted it from the moment she was born. like, she’d have been perfectly fine wearing dresses and the likes if other people hadn’t made her feel like she couldn’t and didn’t fit in, she realized she was good at that and threw herself into it because she sees it as the one thing she can accomplish well rather than get stuck having children of men who wouldn’t even look at her, but her body type which she has issues with because other people made her internalize that she’s Not Desirable As A Woman is an advantage when it comes to handle heavy equipment;

arya on the other side is thin, short, light and very slim which means she can be very fast and stuff, but that’s why she handles thin swords and she’s going out of the faceless men’s training with assassin skills, not the kind brienne has, because there’s no way she could handle longswords at least at the age she is, and in the beginning - before it turns into her literal means of surviving - she wants to learn because she feels stifled by gender roles/doesn’t care for *typically feminine stuff* (but like.... if you read arya’s chapters it’s obvious that she also does like songs/doesn’t hate femininity per se she’s just really not playing into gender roles) and she’s advantaged with light equipment;

so like... they both have reasons to want it (wildly different) which aren’t seeing it as a means to an end and like... arya doesn’t think she looks too great in comparison to sansa so she doesn’t care about how it’d change her body, brienne already hates her looks and she’s embraced the fact that at least they allow her to be a good knight, but like.... none of them would give a shit about how putting on muscles would change their body and so on;

on the other side cersei is... perfectly fine with looking feminine/her looks/the feminine part of her, she just resents not having been born male because that would give her power, not because she feels like she should have *been* one and so on. also, arya can afford doing what she does because she’s a second daughter on five children and has parents who don’t stop her from doing it even if they might not understand it and love her regardless, brienne can afford to because her father did what he could to support her, she’s not from a major house, she already is not a good Standard Marriage Prospect for westeros and since no one would want her anyway if not for her island she’s like well fuck it might as well embrace it. but cersei is... the only daughter of a great house. swordfighting means putting on muscles and enhancing traits perceived as masculine (ie: large shoulders, muscles and so on), and for someone who is Standard Attractive and likes being Standard Attractive and takes pride in their beauty that would mean losing it and I don’t really think it’s a bargain she’d want especially when a woman swordfighting is automatically a social pariah in westeros outside the wildlings - I mean, arya got it halfway good because winterfell is an island of good parenting for westeros standard and brienne is seen as a joke by just about everyone, she’s risked being raped over and over since she showed up in the books, no one except two people plus her father/her master at arms ever took her seriously (unless we count renly but renly saw her technical worth, didn’t really care about her as a person) and no one thinks she’s good until they actually see her fight and most men she beat in renly’s camp hated her for it. I really don’t see cersei wanting to lose her status (which for a woman in westeros is still pretty damn high) and all the advantages that come with her position and looks to take up something that for a woman in westeros is basically useless especially if you come from her background. she thinks she might want it because jaime has it the same ways she wishes she was born a man so she’d be the heir, but it’s really not about her liking it but what about it could do for her, and objectively it wouldn’t help her at all.

(never mind that technically if you want to do that for a living you should have your hair reasonably short because it can be pulled in a fight and like... I really don’t see cersei getting rid of hers for fighting purposes given how long it is. and ngl that’s also a thing that I’d like for people to notice when it comes about book!brienne ie that with all the issues she has and with how seriously she takes her job she has long hair, she hasn’t really cut it short at any point, so it means she endures a possible liability in a fight that she most likely perfectly knows is a liability with good peace of people thinking she doesn’t like feminine things)

tdr: I don’t think she’d have been necessarily bad at it but I don’t think she’d have wanted it in the first place the moment she went beyond ‘oh jaime does it why can’t I’ and saw that for her it wouldn’t really help getting what she wants. and with brienne and arya the point isn’t that they have the perseverance to go with the training, it’s that the training means they get to do something that makes them happy/gives them purpose, which is not exactly the same thing X°D

[lay4decolonisation-blog]

She-Ra: Princesses of Power (2018) and the Representation that I Want

 **CONTENT WARNING:  ABUSE, VIOLENCE**

When I heard She-Ra was back and GAY, I had to jump straight or not so straight into it. The amazing characterisation and themes of the show fit the modern audience perfectly. She-Ra: Princesses of Power (SPOP) did what Voltron: Legendary Defender wish it did. RIP. 

The SPOP series was written by Noelle Stevenson, and produced by Dreamworks. Season 1 aired on the 13th November 2018 via Netflix. 

There’s two things I want to discuss, so I’ll split this up into sections: visual character design & complex characterisation.

Visual Character Design

80’s She-Ra         

 2018 She-Ra

 She-Ra is the hero alter ego of Princess Adora, who transforms when she calls forth “For the Honour of Grayskull!” with The Sword of Protection. 

When I saw the visuals for the series and the new outfit for She-Ra I nearly screamed. It was perfect. I will always prefer Marvel cinematic movie adaptations on the basis that women wear full body armour, and not a skirt. So it was natural for me to fall in love with the shorts, flowy skirt, useful boots and 80’s influenced shoulder flares on She-Ra’s new threads. 

She looked PRACTICAL, and totally badass. I see no male gaze in the update. She-Ra isn’t wearing heels, or red lipstick, her dress doesn’t look like it’s about to give her a nip slip, and her hair still flows like golden threads in the wind! 

Notice how I just used the ‘Male Gaze’. The Male Gaze is essentially a patriarchal control of representation of women and/or other genders in media, and can be applicable to historical documentation (Mulvey 1989). Ponterotto (2016) describes it expands on the media’s control of feminine bodies as: 

“The invisibility of women has been accompanied in an extraordinarily inversely proportionate manner by the visual display of her physical appearance, of her body as material object, to be observed, judged, valued, appreciated, rejected, modified and essentially commodified, for socially-constructed purposes. From a feminist point of view, this purpose can be claimed to be essentially male pleasure, concomitant social benchmarking and commercial profit.” (134)

From the ‘controversy’ from predominantly male audiences on the release of She-Ra’s costume it’s obvious that it’s doing its job (Lenton 2018); with men reacting with things like: 

“The character designs for this show are god awful. She-Ra looks too much like a man.” MECCA_Studios @ twitter

“if you're trying to make your girls look like boys for your show then you are not actually fighting for equality you're proving that men is the superior gender and taken more seriously than a beautiful women, you're only helping sexism not fighting it” - iamconsumer @ twitter

I wanna acknowledge this was mainly white, cishet males reacting to a show that is predominantly AIMED AT YOUNG GIRLS. SPOP’s visual design of She-Ra was so key in getting this show right. She is a woman icon for young girls growing up and seeing her on screen wearing a non-sexual costume whilst being feminine, strong and beautiful will mean something for them growing up. Women/Feminine peoples can look at the screen and say “I’m She-Ra!” and not have to feel like they have to look good for male gaze to do that.  

People Of Colour (POC) Representation

Bow, Mermista, Frosta, Netossa and Catra’s - along with ethnically ambiguous characters - redesign was kind of glossed over with the amount of objections about the Queer and Feminist arguments going around. 

So here’s some of my babies:

Bow 80s 

                                                            Bow 2018

Mermista 80s

                                                            Mermista 2018

Catra 80s                                                  

Catra 2018

Frosta 80s

                                  Frosta 2018

Bow stood out to me alot because I empathize alot for my dark skinned brother’s who don’t have any or many examples of good representation on screen that explores queer identity, gender performativity, body image and positive masculinity that is casual and fun. (I speak of course from an Indigenous background, but a lot of my community look at the African-American community on TV for dark bodies representation.) Imagine a young dark skinned boy watching Bow being fun loving, supportive, gentle, obsessed with crop tops, hanging out with girls and embodying positive masculinity, then using as a mold to treat their sisters, mums and cousins. Incredible. 

 SPOP centers ethnic looking characters amazingly with their characterisation. Having POC on screens breaks out of normalizing whiteness, and de-centers it as the default way of being (Scharrer & Ramasubramanian 2015). People might argue that fantasy worlds don’t overlap with real worlds because race mightn’t exist in the fantasy world, but when you’re a ethnic kid growing up watching/ reading white bodies being superheroes and warriors and People of Colour don’t exist you have no representation, or worse POC are negatively stereotyped. Representation is IMPORTANT. Representation is the ability to control the way the world perceives a group of people, or yourself - white people often struggle understanding this because whiteness as an identity is invisible by normalization (hooks 1992, Dyer 1997). It can be compared to men as ungendered compared to women, or non-cis and queer people with heteronormativity. So it can only be visible when colour is involved, and depending on whether it’s good or bad POC representation it can create racial stereotypes (Brigham 1971, Nosek 2007). 

LGBTQIA+ Visual Representation

I feel like you can find a lot of this, but not any by me! 

I will start with Scorpia cause she’s such a dear. 

JUST LOOK AT HER. 

Everyone is screaming ‘butch lesbian’ little to know that she is a total femme (anyone can fight me on this). Her open attraction towards Catra was loud, unapologetic and was super ultra normal. Despite her giant crab claws, I just want her to hold me gently. I think it’s another good example of different body types. Like it’s not just an exterior what makes a woman a woman or a good person a good person. Before I die of thirst, let’s move on to my Bow’s dads. 

OH MY GAWD. Bow resembles Lance and George so much. Like the perfect little mix between their two personalities UGH. Both very different individuals who share a common obsession with history. Two gay Black dudes just be out here owning the biggest collection of ancient artifacts, studying the classics and raising 13 kids like wojefdikewajfaij

Lance out here rocking dreads and the glasses with sandals *bathump* and George with his little moustache and fancy hair. They go on like a normal couple picking on one another and knowing each other’s personalities, caring about their son and reflecting on their parenting when they realize they messed up instead of blaming their kid for not understanding them okmfoerngfa

Sorry, my heart nearly went into cardiac arrest thinking about them. 

I won’t miss the exceptional drop of them telling Bow their disappointed that he had to hide a part of himself because he was afraid of what they’d think of him or do. I remember that feeling….*glances at my physical wooden closet*

SPINNERELLA AND NETOSSA.

Netossa is the only character (I’m pretty sure) who was originally dark skinned in the 80s She Ra - she also had no powers. 

Now rocking up with powers and gf, she is out here living her best life. Look at them. Just look at my babies. They swapped chokers, like wow, what a lesbian power move. Plus sized, buff queer women rocking their femininity being loyal and totally badass. Their actual appearances on screen are limited but impactful as they are seen as people seem to question more what the heck they do in the Rebellion rather than their queer relationship. 

Complex Characterisation

Let’s start with Shadow Weaver’s relationship with Catra and Adora. 

Starting off at Mystacor as Light Spinner, she a teacher and getting one of her students, Micah, to perform a spell that conjured evil magic - The Spell of Obtainment - ultimately decided her path as Shadow Weaver. She became an abusive, manipulative and self righteous authoritative figure to Catra and Adora. 

Shadow Weaver is an abuser. Abuse works differently in each situation but is defined by White Ribbon Australia in categories of:  Physical, Financial, Emotional, Verbal, Social, Sexual, Stalking, Spiritual, Image based, Dowry and Elderly Abuse. 

The emotional, verbal, social and I’m going to add economical (instead for Financial) abuse she inflicted on Adora and Catra made them stick together as companions through the hardships. Adora upon realizing the Horde’s actions and motives rejects and calls out Shadow Weaver’s abuse. Catra, on the other hand, looks for something like approval from Shadow Weaver. Catra grew up neglected and constantly compared to Adora in her duties to the Horde by Shadow Weaver, so when Adora left a shift happened in Catra. Adora was her main source of comfort and sense of safety in Shadow Weaver’s irract attitude towards her. Adora was her constant feeling of affection and comfort, when she went against the very codes that kept them together their entire lives - Catra was betrayed. Finally, maybe she could get the parental approval she was seeking from Shadow Weaver she never got when Adora was around. Also looking for validation of her moral that has been cause her actions other than rage and sadness that Adora had left her alone. Catra sort out her Abuser’s approval because that’s the only way she knew how to get validity and self assurance of her identity as a member of the Horde - all she ever knew. 

Catra feels alone and like she can’t depend on anyone, and because she knows how that feels she was also able to emotionally manipulate Entrapta into join the Horde. It’s a consistent cycle of isolation that stemmed from one person’s influence. 

The thing that differs Adora and Catra, was more Adora being given opportunities to lead and step up where Catra was always on the side. Adora gained leadership skills and an emotional capacity where she was able to trust others and trust herself. This ultimately allowed her to do the right thing and join the Rebellion. Catra on the other hand had to quickly use her head and be more aware of things other than herself which made her falter in the leadership role of Shadow Weaver, but that is her coping mechanism of isolating herself and having to immerse herself with other people and the world to take action. 

Adora’s culture shock between the way the Princesses live and the way it was in the Horde only shows how she’s been manipulated through learning the knowledge and behaviours that were enforced on her in the Horde. Princesses aren’t evil. The Horde is evil.

Adora’s role of She Ra has put a lot of pressure on her, and she is fighting her own self. 

What happened with Adora was she was specifically chosen because she’s had the experiences she’s had. She knows what it's like in the Horde. How their systems work. What type of people and kids are there. She knows all of that to use to win the war. She’s not gonna break into it, but out of it. 

When Adora breaks out of the Horde’s learning, and the truth telling begins the walls will crumble and there will be internal upset. There’s a good and evil battle going on inside of each character. Adora wants to protect her friends and do the right thing, but sometimes those two things aren’t the same thing. 

Another character I wanna bring up is Glimmer. Glimmer has been fighting to fight. She’s having to fight a struggle in her internal kingdoms. She’s been trying to tell the truth to the other Kingdoms and unite the Kingdoms so they can beat the Horde and save everything they love. She needed to stand up to her mother, the other Princesses, and herself. She is so damn strong and I love her so much omg. 

When Bow went to the ball with Perfuma and she was upset, this was because she was afraid Bow would leave her. She’s been isolated also by her mother into doing Princess things that don’t actually have a big impact, but Bow has been consistent in her life and training to be a leader. When he left her side, she was scared that she was going to be isolated again. She knew it was irrational, but that kind of stuff just happens. Sometimes our feelings don’t always make sense to us at first, and we have to look somewhere else to understand what we’re feeling right then and there. But the besties will prevail. 

The other thing I didn’t touch on earlier, but will now is age. The Princesses age from around 11-18 (?). The thing about having young people saving the world is really where we’re at. Kids are rioting in the streets trying to get big corporations led by greedy bastards who want resources and exploit people to stop, and save their entire world - yeah, you know I’m talking about situations like the climate strike. We will learn from our elders mistakes and do it right. 

We shouldn’t give up because our parents did. We will be the ones to win, just like Glimmer, Adora, Bow and the gang.

Representation isn’t a debate - it’s a necessity.  

Thanks for reading babes. 

Reference List

Dyer, Richard. (1997) ‘The Matter of Whiteness’ in White, London: Routledge.

Brigham, John C. "Ethnic stereotypes." Psychological bulletin76.1 (1971): 15.

Nosek, Brian A., et al. "Pervasiveness and correlates of implicit attitudes and stereotypes." European Review of Social Psychology 18.1 (2007): 36-88.

Bell, Hooks. "The oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators." Black Looks: Race and Representation (1992): 115-131.

Mulvey, L. (1989). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. In Visual and other pleasures (pp. 14-26). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Ponterotto, D. (2016). Resisting the male gaze: feminist responses to the" normatization" of the female body in Western culture. Journal of International Women's Studies, 17(1), 133-151.

Scharrer, E., & Ramasubramanian, S. (2015). Intervening in the media's influence on stereotypes of race and ethnicity: The role of media literacy education. Journal of Social Issues, 71(1), 171-185.

https://www.whiteribbon.org.au/understand-domestic-violence/types-of-abuse/

[rnisa]

Yo! So overall, given how these two look they're nooot exactly picky with appearances. The both of them value personality and loyalty, above all else. However, they DO have some physical preferences. I feel them both bisexual, so I've written them as such. All of these bullets are created with that in mind, even if one *seems* too specific (Like the makeup one might seem more feminine , but boys can wear makeup too) so don't assume I'm excluding one or the other and such. If there's anything that in my mind, is in fact gender-restricted, I will say so. But other than that please assume they're meant for everyone! Sorry if this doesn't make any sense, but I just wanted that to be clear for everyone to enjoy (:

As usual, I think I went sort of off-topic...just let me know if anything needs fixing;

Junkrat

Appearance:

Junkrat prefers people from average to taller heights. It's just more convenient and comfortable for him. No matter if you are on the taller side for your age and gender, you're still going to be shorter than him.

Long, wavy hair. Likes it out or braided if you're a woman, or tied up in a ponytail or bun if you're a man. Color is irrelevant, But secretly more into those on the black-dirty blonde scale.

ADORES freckles. Especially if you've got a lot, in a way that your body's covered with them.

Despite having tattoos himself, he'd like a partner that has few, or none at all.

Big titties. He's got a very long and lank body, and with how he's hunched over, he'll "accidentally" shove his face into his partners chest.

Likes to feel his partners muscles. Not saying you gotta be jacked or toned; it doesn't matter whether he can or can't see them. He just likes to feel them.

Enjoys a partner that wears makeup. Not every day, all the time, but at least once in a while. If you've got good makeup skills, he might ask you to do his makeup too. Wax his eyebrows.

Contrary to himself, likes a clean partner that practices good self-care. It helps to remind HIM that he should be doing better, so you'll be an important source for motivation. Clean hair, exfoliated skin, moisturizing, brushed teeth, and dressed nicely. Even comfortable casual outfits can be fashionable - he's just not fond of someone who would dress like a slob (hypocritical, yes. But having a cleaner partner, or even crush, would make Junkrat want to better himself. Being with someone just as filthy as he is wouldn't help either of you, as you'd only enable each other.)

Personality

Saying what he doesn't like would be arguably faster than what he does like, but I'll do both. Overall, he likes someone who will challenge him. If you're too passive, submissive, or just don't have any voice of your own, you won't interest him.

Likes someone who's headstrong and confident. Everyone all goes through those times where their self-esteem took a blow, but if you're perpetually seeking reassurance or have no faith in yourself, he won't be attracted to you. He likes someone who acts like they're the shit - even if they're not. I'm not talking about narcissism, I'm talking about someone who's just comfortable, and at peace with themselves. Like, whatever flaws you've got, yeah, you acknowledge. You're not perfect, but that's not stopping you from being content with who you are.

He will appreciate a partner with their own things that set them apart as an individual. He can get competitive, and likes to be surprised, especially if you've happened to one-up him. He'll be proud that you, his love, surpassed him - and that'll only make him try harder next time.

This is odd, and he wouldn't outright admit it, but... he's attracted to those who are perceived as high-maitenence, or diva-like. If you sort of ignore him at first (not to be mean, maybe you just avoid him cause his ass stank?) that'll make him more attracted to you. So eehhhh, if you have a crush on him first (God rest your soul..) and you approach him, if he doesn't know you as a FRIEND then he won't have that initial attraction (i.e., if he's not into you off the bat, befriend him first rather than asking him for a date as an acquaintance. Even if you DO meet each and every one of his physically attractive needs, it'll be difficult.)

Adding on to the above bullet, he likes the chase. Likes to work for someone. He feels like you'll be more valuable in the long run. The way he sees it is, if you're worth it, he'll wait. He'll chase you and not give up (unless you seriously tell him to fuck off and get a restraining order) because he wants to show you he means business.

Plus he's got a bit of trust issues. Headcanon that he's had others use him in the past (and he fell for it, each any every time) lie to him, pretend they love him, so he would steal them expensive things. In all these cases, those people approached him - which is why he prefers it the other way around.

Likes someone with a good moral compass. If he's planning on stealing some shit, go "Hey that's bad" and he'll get a boner appreciate you. Deep down, I believe that he does not want to be known as a "Junker" forever that he does not want to continue on heists, forever. Like with the appearance cleanliness I mentioned before, he wants a partner that he could just look to and go...hey, I want to be a better person for them.

Actions

Snorting while you giggle (bonus if your laugh is mad ugly)

Scrunching your face when you’re focused

Giving him a nasty look when he does something weird

Throwing off his shitty puns by giving a legitimate answer/debunking it

Roadhog

Appearance

Ass man. Thick thighs save lives. Mako likes them child-bearin' hips. He is very squishy himself, and leans towards those who are in the same boat. Whether you've got a little bit of chub, or a lot, Roadhog can't help but find it cute.

No hair color preference, but likes long, free-flowing hair on girls and men. Likes to run his fingers through their locks, trying styles (like braiding) as stress relievers, and such.

A bit of a size kink, so he has a preference to shorter partners - your width is irrelevant though.

Very attracted to plump bodies, especially belonging to those who are physically strong. Obviously, it’s unlikely that you’ll match him in strength, but he still enjoys it! <3

Mako finds glasses to be VERY sexy...so if you’ve ever felt self-conscious about your foureyes, just know that your boo Roadie will love’em. If he finds that you take them off during sex, he might request that you put them on, every now and then.

Has no preference for how you dress/style, but he does appreciate a partner that is able to express their personality through their clothing. If you’re shy and fit to societal norms/wear what everyone else is wearing (not because you like it, but because you’re afraid) it’s kind of a turn off. He, like Junkrat, loves someone who is confident in not only their own skin, but their clothing, too.

Piercings drive him wild. Any piercings. Even if it’s just your ears..though he wouldn’t object if you had any more. Surprise him by having a piercing (or a few) on your private areas and...he’ll likely be so flustered! Depending on your personality, he’d either be shocked and impressed, or he might have already figured you had that particular piercing. Hehe,

Personality

Independence is key. You two do not need to be breathing the same air in every waking millisecond of your relationship! He is introverted, and while he always enjoys his time with you by his side...he loves his alone time just as well. Don’t be up his ass (figuratively) all the time, and he won’t be up yours (figuratively). Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that, applies to him. You can’t get offended if he requests alone time; it will only stress him out, and he does not like drama. It’s nothing personal, he’s just so accustomed to the isolation that when with company for too long, he can get easily burnt out. I like to think of Mako more akin to a cat, whereas Junkrat a dog.

Assertiveness. You don’t need to be rude, but he does find it attractive when someone stands their ground. Likely impressed with those who handle problems in a civil manner!

Educated. Especially if it shows through your vocabulary. Prefers deep conversations on real-world topics more than smalltalk. He loves listening to you to begin with, but if you can propose a conversation with which he can really engage him, you’ll probably get him talking, too! For a man who’s normally quiet, you might release some hidden passion depending on the topics you choose to bring up.

Prefers a partner that can think for the future. He’s lost most of his hope in life, the future, etc... Having someone that will make plans with him (ex., “I can’t wait to do this with you someday!”, “We should go on a trip to Numbani in the future!”, “When we get married, do you think we should do it by the beach or indoors?”) gives him something to look forward to. That kind of phrasing also ensures him that you’re serious about him, and don’t plan on leaving soon.

Actions

Tilting your head like a puppy when you’re confused.

Having a smile that you’re trying to fight, but can’t.

Looking away when you’re embarrassed.

Hearing a question of concern from you (“Are you okay?”, “Is everything alright?”)

Quick moments where you touch (accidentally brushing against him, your hands accidentally touching)

Trying to lift something that’s really heavy by yourself, until he comes to try and help you.

[songketalliance]

Where Are All The Fat Women in Anime and Video Games?

“Games are for entertainment. Not your SJW political agenda,” they would cry. But they don’t realise that what they are advocating is harmful to their self perceptions too.”

by Raudhah Nadhirah

Anime and video games became a lot harder for me to love as I grew up and became a feminist. It was in the way female characters were portrayed in both media. Sure they were strong, but they always had to be sexualised in order to pander to their main audience demographics that is the straight male. 

The video game industry has all sorts of problematic implications which would take a whole thesis to analyse. As opinionated as I may be, I would never point out how problematic body diversity is in anime and video games among my group of fellow nerds.

Although the terms “gamer girl” or/ and “otaku girl” turn male heads, it’s only natural that you're instantly dead to them once you out yourself as a feminist.

“They're just pixels,” I was once told by a gamer friend. “Who cares about body diversity. They're there to please us and it's okay to objectify them -- because they're literally objects! If you don't like it, maybe anime isn't for you.”

The topic of body diversity just isn’t something straight male gamers want to deal with but hey, I didn’t want to deal with the hypersexualisation of teenage highschool girls in my game either but here we are.

Case in point: Ann, a character from the game Persona 5 (header picture). She's seventeen years old. When she’s not dressed in a BDSM suit, Ann enjoys having cakes and Japanese crepe -- like other size two anime girls.

It really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that games are fatphobic. Despite the gender demographic of gamers reaching equilibrium, video games are still marketed strongly to straight males, who like young girls with ample bosoms and teeny tiny waistlines.

While male characters are free to embody whichever physique best communicates their personality or abilities, female characters have pretty much exactly the same body type no matter who they are. For example, if Lara Croft’s body reflected the kind of activities she did in the Tomb Raider games, she would have a more muscular build instead of the slender type physique she’s known to have.

When fatness is included in games they tend to be painted in a bad light. Plus size characters are more than often assigned with the roles of the villain or monster. In the same way slender heroines are hypersexualised to enhance their likeness, the “ugly” fatness of the undesirable would be exaggerated by making them unfriendly or unintelligent..

Hanako from Persona 4. She’s a fat girl who… bullies? (I’m not kidding)

When people like me call out the lack of body diversity in video games some (mostly straight males) argue the triviality of the demand. “Games are for entertainment. Not your SJW political agenda,” they would cry. But they don’t realise that what they are advocating is harmful to their self perceptions too.

Representation matters. They challenge or enforce what society deems is “normal” and how some people perceive how they do or don’t fit in. It matters to me as a curvy woman, the kind of woman in video games and anime who doesn’t get to be the best waifu or save the day. In a world where kittens talk, boobs bounce and highschool kids can summon demons, fat girls should be able to save the world too.

by Raudhah Nadhirah

DONATE TO SONGKET ALLIANCE

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[octaviainthewasteland]

Wonder Woman: on female characters in comics PART 2

part 1, 2, 3

Please bear in mind that English is not my first language!

Part 2:  Useless pretty, sexy bad and second-hand skirts

Summary: A classification of female characters in comics.

Before we get going, an important note: this is not character bashing. I may sound extremely critical and snide at times, but it doesn’t mean that I hate these comics or these characters or even these authors! Batman, for instance, is my absolute favorite fictional character. I also have the biggest soft spot for Harley Quinn and Lois Lane. However, it doesn’t mean that it gives them a free pass. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Text under the cut.

In the previous chapter, we’ve touched on ‘fridging’ and why it’s not cool (ha-ha see what I did here). Due to particular conditions, women were pretty much absent from the picture and therefore, could not influence how women were portrayed for a while. Male visualization of women turned out to be quite… limited. Reading comics, I have noted that female characters in the comic books can generally be divided into four categories. There are, of course, some exceptions, but the percentage is far too small. As I thought about these categories, I’ve realized that three out of four are constructed though the sexism of the superhero narratives, while the last one is in a constant struggle against it. There are damsels in distress, femme fatale, gendered spin-offs and the female superheroes. Some characters fluctuate from one category to another, or fit into more than one. Let’s talk a bit more about the first three, so it’ll become clearer, why the female superheroes are so important for representation of women.

 The first category is the damsel in distress: the mother or the aunt, the girlfriend, most often powerless.

It includes such characters as Lois Lane, Vicky Vale and Iris West. Interestingly, all three of them are journalists, which arguably justifies their rash behaviour, which often lands them in trouble. They are nice, generally understanding, but quite often annoying, as they manage to land themselves in trouble yet again. It’s like they don’t understand that they should just sit down, because they either land in villain’s hands or they pressure the hero to quit heroing. With time, they have become snarky and easy-going, and obviously able to take care of themselves (until they aren’t) but the truth is, they are indistinguishable. They are cut out from the same piece of cardboard, as precious time for character development cannot be wasted on them, and they serve as conscience, motivation and ‘someone to come home to’. They are the classic ‘women in the refrigerators’ (Simone, 1999) and their interests and plot arcs rarely transcend the love interest, or in case of Iris and Aunt May, the relative of a superhero.

Probably the most notable example will be the Injustice franchise, where Superman becomes a tyrannical dictator, stricken with grief after the death of Lois, who has also been pregnant with his child at the time (Injustice: Gods Among US [I] #1, 2013)*. The comic series depicts the extent of Superman’s psychological trauma, as he is deceived by the villain into killing Lois with his own hands, thus, focusing not on the tragedy itself, but solely on Superman’s reaction to it. By the end of the series, the reader still has no idea, what kind of person was Lois. She is not important, what is important is that now the superheroes have an excuse to fight each other. Nobody in the comics really mentions her. The only time someone does, it is to reprimand Superman for his actions, all while Superman plans kidnapping Lois from another dimension because she’s just replaceable. Of course, this isn’t a story about Lois, but if a main heroine of Superman family cannot get a decent dealing, what’s there to hope for, for a lesser female character? We do not see her family or friends. She doesn’t really have a life outside her husband and it is precisely her connection to Superman that gets her in trouble. I might be picky, but having a joint surname (Lane-Kent, West-Allen, Watson-Parker) isn’t enough of a feminist statement for me.

The second category is the femme fatale or a seductive villainess, such as Talia al Ghul, Poison Ivy and Catwoman.

Most often, she is attracted to the superhero and tries to sway him of his righteous pass with her female charm, while he treats her as a lesser threat than male villains, because he believes she can be ‘good’ again. If she rejects the ‘good side’, she gets further from humanity and, thus, loses her chance for sympathy, absolution and happiness. Seductive villainesses often find themselves in a situation where they have to resort to their sexuality to distract their opponents or to persuade men to work with them. They are reduced to sexual objects for the male characters and by extension for the spectator, meaning the reader of the comics (Mulvey, 1975: 62).

They perform the role of the seductresses, trying to lure the hero from the path of righteousness and virtue. While being positioned as the erotic object, they are at the same time completely dehumanized. Talia turns from a villainess in love, who cannot decide on her loyalties, into a full-fledged assassin, and she is portrayed as a cold-blooded maniac, who drugs and rapes Batman, brainwashes him, clones their son and kills him (Robin: Son of Batman, 2015). In Harley’s absence, Poison Ivy does not value a human life at all, manipulates people and is more plant-like than human (Austin, 2015: 294).

The relationship between female empowerment and male disempowerment can be described as dichotomous. There is a prevailing narrative that a woman with power is a threat (Austin, 2015: 286). She defies male dominance and dares to enforce her own rules and focus on her own desires. The man tries to regain control over the dangerous woman. (Mulvey, 1975: 67) Notice how generally these women have a good cause at heart: Talia’s aim is to preserve the planet from disastrous actions of human kind; similar to Poison Ivy, who is concerned with flora; Catwoman protects felines and girls and women of lower classes and is essentially a version of Robin Hood. Harley Quinn has a mental illness, and copes with it by adopting animals and looking after them. Killer Frost is a heat-vampire and when she finds a cure (Firestorm) she pretty much stops attacking people, because she was doing it only to survive. Another interesting observation: it is their connection to men that pushed them to extremism. Talia is manipulated by her dad (who assures her of his love for her to save him on numerous occasions, but in the end kills her and uses her body to store his consciousness (BTAS)). Pamela Isley is nearly murdered by her male colleague. Selina is sexually abused by men. Killer Frost is locked up in a working reactor. I would assume everyone knows what’s the deal with Harley. Most often it contrasts with the actions of the hero: he tries to help her, make her normal again, fix her. This perpetuates a stereotype of how women are wrong about their prejudice against men, because ‘not all men are like this’. What is also inevitably and unknowingly created is that these women do not need fixing, it would change them at core. They aren’t even evil, as much as they would only help a cause if they believed in it. Even if they try to change for a man, they relapse: but through relationships with women, they are healed and they are able to embrace their power and be good, be evil, be something in the middle – and being true to themselves at the same time.

 Obviously, I am going to talk more about Harley Quinn. In the case of Harley Quinn, Joker physically and psychologically abuses her, manipulates her, makes her lose her job and her degree, drives her mad and so on. When she exercises her agency and comes close to killing Batman, successfully trapping him – something Joker himself had not succeed in – he angrily sets the boundaries between himself and Batman, their relationship, and Harley, who must only follow orders (Mad Love #8-72, 2009). Man games are one thing, and woman must never intrude! Harley learns it the hard way – it costs her almost every bone in her body. Joker ‘owns’ Harley and when she leaves him, he is livid and immediately sets to return her into his possession (Gotham City Sirens #10-26, 2011), exemplifying how Joker is unable to accept Harley’s existence beyond him (Austin, 2015: 285). On the other hand, Batman tries to establish his authority over her by bringing her to justice and rehabilitating her. He perceives her as a victim and someone, who despite being as dangerous and cunning as Joker (Mad Love #8, 2009), still needs saving. Harley is caught between two men, and while Batman is genuine in his desire to get her away from Joker (plus he doesn’t have romantic feelings towards her), it’s a no-win situation for Harley, because she can’t break away from her dependence issues. Enter Poison Ivy. By making Harley immune to all toxins, she both makes Harley stronger and cancels her main advantage over her. Poison Ivy doesn’t see Harley as a sidekick or a child who doesn’t know any better – she makes it possible for Harley to keep up with her. It also transforms Poison Ivy’s character. From then on, writers have abandoned the trope of Poison Ivy’s occasional boring crush on Batman.

 The third category is the ‘spin-off franchise baggage’ (Scott, 2013). It is quite easy to spot this type of characters, as their names are literally the derivative of their male (the original) counterpart: Batgirl, Supergirl and She-Hulk.

She does not have a sound or at least unique backstory, she is essentially the female version of the character, but secondary to him: weaker, less interesting, less popular and less developed (Fretheim, 2017: 32-33). Supergirl is another survivor of Krypton; She-Hulk was created literally by blood transfusion from Bruce Banner to his cousin, Jennifer Walters (they wanted to give her his rib, but it sounded vaguely familiar for some reason).

Sometimes such a character can break out of the limited space, provided by the legacy of the common root of the aliases (Bat-family, Super-family), for example, Barbara changes her line of activity after injury and Batgirl becomes Oracle, a character in her own right, giving voice to a readership with disabilities. It is also an example of how ‘fridging’ can be turned into a positive character development. In the Killing Joke, Barbara is harmed only because of her association with Jim Gordon, and the thematic purpose of her injuries is to provide emotional stakes for Batman. Nevertheless, she doesn’t stop being a hero and doesn’t become a liability. She is unique and interesting to read about. However, while it is possible, it is also reversible, as in 2011 Barbara puts on the Batgirl suit once again (Cocca, 2016: 78). Rarely, she can become more popular than the original hero, like Hawkgirl.

In terms of visual representation, it is quite easy to retrace sexual discrimination in the way that the male and female counterparts are portrayed. Although men with super powers do not need muscles to lift cars, they look jacked, a bit too much really. Hulk is positively ugly. Women, on the other hand, cannot let themselves be caught looking a tad less than ready for a Playboy photo-shoot.

Where male superheroes are embodying the ideal of masculinity, they are fit, muscled, and attractive – they are essentially the asexual subjects, while even their own gender-bent versions are put into suggestive poses and are given revealing outfits and heels (Batman: The Drowned #1, 2017).

Last but not least, the category of the female superhero. She is created as a distinct character, with her individual backstory and a set of powers. She is Wonder Woman, Starfire, Black Canary.

 The female superhero has her own backstory and her own set of powers. This doesn’t mean that they’re saved from the male gaze, unfortunately. The image above is one of the most modest costumes of Starfire I have found. This is particularly Starfire’s curse:

The female superheroes stand seemingly separate from the male superheroes, but men are still the part of the equation. Damsels, seductresses and knockoffs are directly linked to the male superheroes in forms of extensions of the mythos. The female superheroes exist in a state of eternal struggle against the male superheroes, male villains and male readers. According to O’Reilly, the female superheroes are restricted not only by the authorities, but even by their own sex (O’Reilly, 2012).

 To understand the mechanism of gender politics within the comics, let’s examine Wonder Woman against the male superheroes, namely Superman and Batman. While deconstructing their dualistic natures, we encounter a paradox of Otherness (Fretheim, 2017: 10-11). Every superhero has a secret identity. This duality attracts the reader, by making him or her identify through resemblance with the superhero’s disguise as the everyman or everywoman. The comic book promotes the idea of inclusivity, participation. It indulges the fantasy, providing the impression of the activist participation. (Pitkethly, 2012: 216) Superhero defeats the villain and saves America, and the reader feels like he or she has contributed to the victory of ‘truth, justice and the American Way’. It is no coincidence that the popularity of superhero comics correlates to the periods of the high and low threat (Peterson, Gerstein, 2005: 887). In times of the high threat, such as the Second World War, there is a significant increase in interest for ‘powerful’ and ‘tough’ fictional protagonists (889).

 Superman is also a meek reporter Clark Kent. Bruce Wayne is also a caped crusader Batman. As a superhero, Wonder Woman, too, exists as a heroic person and an alter ego of an ordinary woman, Diana Prince. Her otherness is expressed through being an Amazon, a super-powered being and a half-goddess. However, as a woman, she is also forced into position of the Other to Superman and Batman (De Beauvoir, 1949). If you’re unfamiliar with De Beauvoir, she referred to the socially constructed concepts of women and femininity in her Second Sex, written a year after women got the right to vote in France. The standards of the so-called femininity were established by patriarchal society and every woman was obliged to live up to these standards. De Beauvoir described the cultural symbols and social pressures put on girls from the very young age. Girls were taught to be passive and submissive, she did not have a choice as she was defined by the male dominated world to be a mother, a grandmother, a housewife. Men were the one, the neutral, the common, while women were the Other. While a man was the creator and the subject, a woman was an object in his power and always secondary to him. She also talked about the social taboos such as menstruation, criticizing pseudo-science that invented the idea of the biological inferiority of women. Menstruation was not the topic to talk about in public, since the very ancient times girls and women were locked in their houses during the periods. The female body is regarded as the Strange, Different, the Other. There is a cult of appearance; the women learn how to manipulate people with their looks. There are certain norms of how a real woman should look. The praises of female virginity and restrictions of the expose of the female sexuality were listed among the other ways in which the male society discriminated the female accumulation. Wonder Woman is, therefore, pitted as the Other to the male superheroes, while being alienated from other women.

 So we can see that no category of the female characters in comics are any better than another or have it any easier than another. Nonetheless, the figure of the female superhero is important, because it is a definite step away and open resistance to being background or second-hand. Girls couldn’t relate much to Lois, because, honestly, they were not supposed to – she was not their fantasy, she was male fantasy. There were some female superheroes prior to Wonder Woman, but yet again, they were created by men for men, and girls didn’t want anything to do with them. Industry naturally assumed that the reason is girls being generally uninterested in comics. As Dr. Marston noted, ‘not even girls want to be girls’ (Lepore, 2016: 187). He set to change that, and hence Wonder Woman was born.

*it needs another note: Injustice series is actually one of my favourite comic runs ever, and it has great female characters and great character development and is simply amazing. But it’s based of a game, and they had to work with the game premise, and they did a fantastic job doing it. Still, as I love it dearly, I’m allowed to critique it and so I will.

**despite the name, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane is a wild and fun comic.

Bibliography

Simone, G. (1999). Women in Refrigerators, available at: http://www.lby3.com/wir/

 Austin, S. (2015). Batman's female foes: The gender war in Gotham City. Journal of Popular Culture, 48(2), 285-295.

 Mulvey, L. 1999. ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.’ In Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 833–44. New York: Oxford University Press.

 Scott, S. (2013). Fangirls in refrigerators: The politics of (in)visibility in comic book culture. Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 13

 Fretheim, I. M. (2017) Fantastic Feminism: Female Characters in Superhero Comic Books. Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo

 Cocca, C. (2014). Negotiating the Third Wave of Feminism in "Wonder Woman". PS: Political Science and Politics, 47(1), 98-103.

 Cocca, C. (2016). Superwomen: gender, power, and representation.

 O’Reilly, J. D. (2005). The Wonder Woman Precedent: Female (Super)Heroism On

Trial. Journal of American Culture 28.3: 273–83.

 De Beauvoir, S. (1949). The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books

 Pitkethly, C. (2011). The pursuit of identity in the face of paradox: Indeterminacy, structure and repetition in Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 1-7.

 Peterson, B., & Gerstein, E. (2005). Fighting and Flying: Archival Analysis of Threat, Authoritarianism, and the North American Comic Book. Political Psychology, 26(6), 887-904.

 Lepore, Jill. (2015). The Secret History of Wonder Woman. New York: Knopf.

[theothersideof-nat]

MACD104 THE SEMIONAUT

Introduction

In recent years and within our saturated information environment, the act of curation has become an increasingly important aspect of communication design. That is, the curatorial - with its associated process of selection, organisation and presentation - has established itself as a creative and idiosyncratic practice in its own right. 

A philosopher Nicolas Bourriaud (2002:8) notes:

The artistic question is no longer: “what can we make that is new?” but “how can we make do with what we have?”. In other words, how can we produce singularity and meaning from the chaotic mass of objects, names, and references that constitute our daily life?

Project Outline

With this in mind, and through the introduction of a variety of theoretical frameworks, you will be asked to develop and curate a ‘point of view’ through a design response, using pre-existing ‘data’ (including everything from pure data sources, to cultural products, to economic and social forms, to everyday objects). 

Critically, the project should also take into account the development od personal ‘building’ skills and theoretical, and practical interests within the field od communication design towards your final MA project. 

The final concept needs to implement in full and could take on any number of forms including an online interface/ interactive media/ a more traditional exhibition/ a publication, and so on. Key attention should be paid to the following:

A overview of the data in relation to critical theory/ contemporary debate

The chosen ‘site’

The user design

The viewer >< information relationship 

Potentially innovative production methods and a high level of production awareness

AN ODE TO SELF CARE

“Millennials are making more personal improvement commitments than any generation before.” - Victoria Buchanan, strategic researcher, The Future Laboratory

https://www.lsnglobal.com/opinion/article/21914/should-brands-be-capitalising-on-self-care

Enter a new hybrid of self-help and wellness – self-care: a countercultural means of escaping our post-truth, consumeristic lifestyles by supporting our own emotional wellbeing.

According to Pew Research Center, Millennials are making more personal improvement commitments than any generation before, spending double what Baby Boomers spend on self-care essentials such as diet plans, life coaching, therapy and apps to improve their personal wellbeing. De-stressing and disconnecting has become an industry in itself at a time when anxiety levels among young people are increasing, with young women more likely than young men to report symptoms of anxiety or depression.

If you’re selling self-care, doesn’t it benefit you to have a consumer who is living in a permanent state of anxiety and unwellness?

A quick check of the self-care hashtag on Instagram reveals more than 3.5m sepia-filled posts featuring bubble baths, mimosas and juice detoxes. In many ways visual culture is fuelling a culture of narcissism and privilege that is more about being able to broadcast the moment than being present at it.

“Millennials need self-care more than other generations.”

https://www.medibank.com.au/livebetter/health-brief/health-insights/why-millennials-need-to-self-care-more-than-other-generations/

https://blog.fieldagent.net/millennials-boomers-new-years-resolutions-5-key-generational-differences

Millennials get by with a little help from their friends…and maybe their Boomer parents, too

“The Millennial Obsession With Self-Care.”

https://www.npr.org/2017/06/04/531051473/the-millennial-obsession-with-self-care

When it comes to millennials, it's likely no surprise that the generation that takes advantage of the Internet the most is also the generation that devotes the most time and money to the $10 billion self-care industry. - Malte Mueller/Getty Images

Today, self-care, as it's defined by Gracy Obuchowicz, a facilitator and self-care mentor and coach in Washington, D.C., "assumes that we're OK as we are and we just need to take care of ourselves ... Self-care alone is not enough. You need to have self-awareness too. Self-care plus self-awareness equals self-love.”

In 2015, according to the Pew Research Center, more millennials reported making personal improvement commitments than any generation before them. They spend twice as much as boomers on self-care essentials such as workout regimens, diet plans, life coaching, therapy and apps to improve their personal well-being. They've even created self-care Twitter bots.

One study (https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1095589) showed that this might have all sprouted out of the Internet. It found that students reported using the Web to identify self-care strategies, alternative therapies and other information related to nutrition and fitness.

But Obuchowicz says it's more than just social media that has pushed millennials to the forefront of the self-care discussion. "Our generation has seen enough," she said. 

"People are really hungry for knowledge. It's a relatively new idea in our culture that we would be paying attention to how we feel and using that as a kind of intelligence. It's something that's really waking up in our culture and our generation.”

“Self-care and Minimalism: How have millennials changed home design.”

https://medium.com/the-minimalist/self-care-minimalism-how-have-millennials-changed-home-design-f61b5cb8e0fa

The Connection Between Self-Care and Home Design?

Millennials want their homes to be their escape, a sanctuary. Berkus from the show Nate and Jeremiah by Design says “with everything going on in the world, I think all of us want and have always wanted, our home to be our sanctuary”. As millennials have become interested in self-care, mindfulness and the internet, the popularity of escapism design is increasing. People are now relying on their home environments to boost their moods and well-being. People want interiors that shut out all of the noise, in order for them to concentrate on themselves. People want to let in more light into their homes and are moving the clutter away from their windows to gain the benefits that natural sunlight gives us. They’re putting more effort into supporting their natural body clock, being more resourceful through utilising space and nature more.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/design/home-design-self-care-interior-design-millennials-minimalism-wellbeing-instagram-pinterest-a8186771.html

https://www.wellandgood.com/good-home/self-care-bedroom-decor-ikea/

https://cheryljanisdesigns.com

http://ayibamagazine.com/bespoke-binny-re-inventing-home-self-care-decor/

“Millennials: The Self Care Generation”

https://www.hercampus.com/school/gettysburg/millennials-self-care-generation

“Millennials, Here's Why You Are Addicted To Self-Improvement”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/julesschroeder/2018/01/30/millennials-heres-why-you-are-addicted-to-self-improvement/#4bdca3a30080

“Is Self-Care Healthy Or The Ultimate In Millennial Narcissism?”

http://thefederalist.com/2017/06/13/is-self-care-healthy-or-the-ultimate-in-millennial-narcissism-yes/

HOW MILLENNIALS AND SELF CARE CHANGED SPACIAL DESIGN?

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/design/home-design-self-care-interior-design-millennials-minimalism-wellbeing-instagram-pinterest-a8186771.html

https://www.wellandgood.com/good-home/self-care-bedroom-decor-ikea/

https://cheryljanisdesigns.com

http://ayibamagazine.com/bespoke-binny-re-inventing-home-self-care-decor/

HOW SPACIAL DESIGN CHANGED BASED ON GENERATION(S) NEEDS?

IS SELF CARE NEW WAY TO BECOME MORE EMPATHETIC?  (emotional intelligence)

–> success, perfection, career, minding own business 

–> failure is normal, it’s ok to fail

–> body positivity, sisterhood, fair trade, sustainability 

Photographs of self care products

INSPIRATIONS

https://tomorrows-world-values.pilots.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk/result/?id=MTlmMjAwMzE2NjYzNDM0NDIwMzEzMTIwMTIzMA&fbclid=IwAR2MPxRyN7_F7IgQJ8vZyHr2U5j71cVi-e43pkjuG6yciSvs-TopBHkSSZE

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/antti-kalevi-illustration-210119

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/stefanie-tam-a-love-letter-to-la-graphic-design-publication-170119

https://www.instagram.com/postsecret/

https://fordenicol.com/projects/the-fall/

https://iohanna.com/Form-Follows-Data

http://www.blakefallconroy.com/18.html

http://www.madebyrain.com

FEMINIST ART MOVEMENT

HISTORY OF FEMINISM

The history of feminism comprises the narratives (chronological or thematic) of the movements and ideologies which have aimed at equal rights for women. While feminists around the world have differed in causes, goals, and intentions depending on time, culture, and country, most Western feminist historians assert that all movements that work to obtain women's rights should be consideredfeminist movements, even when they did not (or do not) apply the term to themselves.Some other historians limit the term "feminist" to the modern feminist movement and its progeny, and use the label "protofeminist" to describe earlier movements. Modern Western feminist history is conventionally split into three time periods, or "waves", each with slightly different aims based on prior progress:

First-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on overturning legal inequalities, particularly addressing issues of women's suffrage

Second-wave feminism (1960s–1980s) broadened debate to include cultural inequalities, gender norms, and the role of women in society

Third-wave feminism (1990s–2000s) refers to diverse strains of feminist activity, seenboth as a continuation of the second wave and as a response to its perceived failures

Although the "waves" construct has been commonly used to describe the history of feminism, the concept has also been criticisedor ignoring and erasing the history between the "waves", by choosing to focus solely on a few famous figures and on popular events.

FEMINIST ART MOVEMENT

The feminist art movement refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to produce art that reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the foundation for the production and reception of contemporary art. It also sought to bring more visibility to women within art history and art practice. Corresponding with general developments within feminism, and often including such self-organizing tactics as the consciousness-raising group, the movement began in the 1960s and flourished throughout the 1970s as an outgrowth of the so-called second wave of feminism. It has been called "the most influential international movement of any during the postwar period."

FEMINIST ART

Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women and those of other gender identity experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bring a positive and understanding change to the world, in hope to lead to equality. Media used range from traditional art forms such as painting to more unorthodox methods such as performance art, conceptual art, body art, craftivism, video, film, and fiber art. Feminist art has served as an innovative driving force towards expanding the definition of art through the incorporation of new media and a new perspective.

FIRST-WAVE FEMINISM 

First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the Western world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on gaining the right to vote.

The term first-wave was coined in March 1968 by Martha Lear writing in The New York Times Magazine, who at the same time also used the term "second-wave feminism".At that time, the women's movement was focused on de facto (unofficial) inequalities, which it wished to distinguish from the objectives of the earlier feminists.

SECOND-WAVE FEMINISM

Second-wave feminism, a period of feminist activity and thought that began in the United States in the early 1960s, lasted roughly two decades. It quickly spread across the Western world, with an aim to increase equality for women by gaining more than just enfranchisement.

Whereas first-wave feminism focused mainly on suffrage and overturning legal obstacles to gender equality (e.g., voting rights and property rights), second-wave feminism broadened the debate to include a wider range of issues: sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities. Second-wave feminism also drew attention to the issues of domestic violence and marital rape, engendered rape-crisis centers and women's shelters, and brought about changes in custody laws and divorce law. Feminist-owned bookstores, credit unions, and restaurants were among the key meeting spaces and economic engines of the movement.

Many historians view the second-wave feminist era in America as ending in the early 1980s with the intra-feminism disputes of the feminist sex wars over issues such as sexuality and pornography, which ushered in the era of third-wave feminism in the early 1990s.

THIRD-WAVE FEMINISM

Third-wave feminism is an iteration of the feminist movement that began in the early 1990s United States and continued until the fourth wave began around 2012. Born in the 1960s and 1970s as members of Generation X, and grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, third-wave feminists embraced individualism and diversity and sought to redefine what it meant to be a feminist.According to feminist scholar Elizabeth Evans, the "confusion surrounding what constitutes third-wave feminism is in some respects its defining feature."

The third wave is traced to the emergence of the Riot grrrl feminist punk subculture in Olympia, Washington, in the early 1990s, and to Anita Hill's televised testimony in 1991—to an all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee—that Clarence Thomas, nominated for the Supreme Court of the United States, had sexually harassed her. The term third wave is credited to Rebecca Walker.

Walker sought to establish that third-wave feminism was not just a reaction, but a movement in itself, because the feminist cause had more work ahead. The term intersectionality—to describe the idea that women experience "layers of oppression" caused, for example, by gender, race and class—had been introduced by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989, and it was during the third wave that the concept flourished. As feminists came online in the late 1990s and early 2000s and reached a global audience with blogs and e-zines, they broadened their goals, focusing on abolishing gender-role stereotypes and expanding feminism to include women with diverse racial and cultural identities.

The third wave saw the emergence of new feminist currents and theories, such as intersectionality, sex positivity, vegetarian ecofeminism, transfeminism, and postmodern feminism.

MALE GAZE

In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and in literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer. In visual presentations, the male gaze has three perspectives: 

I - that of the man behind the camera, 

II - that of the male characters within the film's cinematic representations,

III - that of the spectator gazing at the image. 

The film critic Laura Mulvey coined the term male gaze, which is conceptually contrasted with the female gaze.As a way of seeing women and the world, the psychology of the male gaze is comparable to the psychology of scopophilia, the pleasure of looking; thus, the terms scopophilia and scoptophilia identify both the aesthetic pleasures and the sexual pleasures derived from looking at someone or something.

The feminist concept of the “male gaze” is useful in art criticism. The concept originally comes from film studies, where it is used to discuss the fact that men traditionally controlled the camera, of which women were an object. Men certainly also controlled the brush through most of the history of Western painting, and the women in paintings generally acknowledge this. As the art historian John Berger said, women in painting don’t usually look out at the viewer: they aren’t considering the viewer, but considering how the viewer sees them. They have an inward gaze, rather than an outward gaze. But painters can also violate this “rule” (more a tendency really) to depict a woman who has power or confidence.

Two paintings that are diagonally across from each other at the Metropolitan Museum make this clear. On the one hand, we have Gérard’s portrait of the Princess of Talleyrand, a courtesan who became Talleyrand’s mistress and then his wife. She was considered very beautiful in her time and is dressed in the latest Empire fashions, and she looks down and to the side in her portrait. Her gaze avoids the viewer’s: she is absorbed in her own thoughts, or her own coquetry, it’s unclear which. Across the gallery is David’s double portrait of the great scientist Lavoisier and his wife, Marie-Anne Paulze. Here the male inside the painting definitely does not control the gaze: he looks up at his wife questioningly, while she does not return his gaze (though she puts her hand on his shoulder with a gesture of intimacy unusual in painting). Instead she turns to look out directly and confidently (though not aggressively) at the viewer: it is she who communicates with the world on behalf of this couple. And in fact this portrays something real about this couple. Paulze had many public-facing characteristics that Lavoisier lacked: she spoke many languages and could inform Lavoisier about the scientific literature of the whole of Europe. And she was also his lab illustrator, explaining his/their experiments to the world through the visual arts. Look at the women you see in the art museum the next time you go. Do they look out at the viewer, or not, and why?

https://www.lsnglobal.com/news/article/23200/libresse-unashamedly-celebrates-the-female-vulva

ZINE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSE2O35DeWs

[not-poignant]

Also for the kink list. Knowing how much Gwyn likes physical objects that hint at his importance to Augus - I'm talking that beautiful collar moment - I'd be curious to see Gwyn getting taken apart in some really really nice clothes. Originally I was thinking of a corset but I'm not sure if either of them would be into a bit of feminization. But it would be neat to see - plus I could see Gwyn deflecting the compliments to the clothes rather than himself as part of a weird praise kink thing?

Forced feminisation is actually something I’ve kind of slated for Vane/Gwyn, if I ever write that, because Vane is massively into that, and I think he’d be extremely masterful at it (Vane is also into piercings - something Augus doesn’t care for - and the idea of Vane piercing Gwyn’s nipples / ears etc. knowing that Gwyn would heal from it, and Gwyn being like ‘what WHAT are you doing’ etc. like I need to write that some day. Vane as a Dom is still one of my favourite like...canonical secrets).

Augus has a weird relationship to that kind of stuff. He’d do it for a client if he felt it was absolutely necessary, but he doesn’t like it. And it’s mostly due to his internalised, conflicted relationship with being perceived as androgynous, while not being androgynous. Which is kind of a shame, because Gwyn would totally be into it? I mean he’d be ashamed of it and humiliated by it at the same time (not because of the feminisation part so much, but because Gwyn doesn’t associate himself with pretty clothing and he’d have a problem with lingerie regardless of which gender it was intended for - he has a problem with pretty clothing in general, it’s associated with class issues and his mother’s disapproval and thousands of years of the Court kind of mocking him for his appearance while accepting it etc.).

(Which is also partly why I sort of want this to happen with Vane, because yes - corsets, make up, piercings, frilly pretty clothing, the works. Vane would want to adorn his subs, and make them as pretty as possible. And Gwyn would find this very difficult and totally get off on it. Also Gwyn with a temporary Prince Albert piercing. Think about it. :D).

But...you know, I think it could still potentially be done with say a proper, monarchic outfit? Like, the full deal and robe and bits and pieces that are involved in that, all the jewellery and pins and so on. We got...a slight glimpse of it at the beginning of the Masque chapter, and Gwyn is indeed really flustered to be in nice clothing, to be presented with the collar etc.

I can also see Gwyn actually developing a bit of a clothing kink in general, with Augus designing new outfits for him, and Gwyn sort of...overcome by the notion of Augus dressing Gwyn to make him look fine, without like...the clothing hurting him. Idk, I’ll have to think about that one. I’ve got it written down just in case, and especially because it’ll be a reminder to one day pursue the whole Vane/Gwyn thing, which will allow me to explore kinks that Gwyn would potentially get off on, that Augus has no interest in. But also partly because I think there was a strong intimacy developing between Gwyn and Augus re: clothing, and I never got to explore it properly. I definitely think this has a lot of potential, anon!

[antiterf]

I need some quick advice: My mother keeps calling my binders "corsets" and it's honestly making me feel very uncomfortable. I'm not sure if the feeling is intense enough for it to be dysphoria, but it's definitely something that makes me feel bad probably mainly because corsets are meant to make feminine features, tiny waist, big chest, more visible. I don't know how to very politely tell her that her calling the binders corsets makes me feel bad without sounding selfish. She's not very receptive to trans stuff in general, for example I always got called selfish and egotistical when I politely corrected her about my name (my deadname isn't even my legal name anymore btw so I also wanted her to get used to it for that reason), so I just stopped because I didn't want to get yelled at anymore.

I'm bad at this not because I can't think of solutions but because I don't know much about the person and how they typically are. Plus I usually don't care about making people upset over reasonable requests and do it despite knowing it can go wrong.

I want to suggest telling her that it's just objectively false to call them corsets because binders are their own separate thing. One of mine has the intended purpose of gynecomastia and not being ftm. It'd be like saying that spanks are corsets. - but the goal here is to avoid sounding selfish and that can be perceived as meaner.

Asking someone to change their wording because you're uncomfortable with something like this shouldn't have much of a possibility of being selfish even if you tried to make it.

If this were my situation I would legitimately just go up to my mom and say "hey can you not call my binders that it makes me uncomfortable" and... problem solved. If it were that easy for you though then you probably wouldn't be asking.

I know the reason why I would feel uncomfortable is because of the history of corsets being incredibly harmful from being forced to lace them so tightly for long periods of time. And even ended up moving organs and deforming ribs.

If your mom is especially sensitive to the trans stuff then you can always lie and say that you're uncomfortable about that and not something relating to gender dysphoria.

Sorry that I can't help much

[smokeybrand]

Casting Call

I wanted to address this casting of Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano. Personally, i think it’s inspired casting. Seriously she’d be my first choice, acting wise. Dawson has grown leaps and bounds in her craft plus, she has a real passion for the lore. We all know Dawson is a total nerd but she adores Ahsoka as a character. That much passion for the role, coupled with the inspired direction and vision of Favreau, give me confidence that she’d be great in the part. The only actress i’d say would be a better fit would be Laura Harrier. She looks like Tano even before the makeup but her build might be slightly too large, i think. That, and the only thing i have to judge her acting ability on is Homecoming where her role was mitigated to a glorified cameo. Still, i can see why cats would want her over Dawson based on aesthetics. The other reason? Not so much.

Rosario Dawson is a transphobe? Really? Come, on man. I actually looked into that case a little bit and it kind of sounds like it’s a cashgrab by the complainant. I mean, the bulk of their case is discrimination but, after reading over the complaint, it skews more toward “hostile work environment” because they was misgendered on site or whatever. Being called your old gender is not the same as being called a faggot or freak but fine. I get that. Cats feel some kind of way about stuff. The thing is, though, f*cking quit. If it’s that bad, quit and leave. Why stay someplace where you feel uncomfortable or perceive yourself to be hated for being you?  I mean, this person openly admits that the Dawson family has known them for twenty years as whatever they were before. You show up at their door post-transition, sight unseen for years, and expect them not to have something to say about it? That’s jarring and takes time to accept. People have to adjust to such a drastic change. They have to learn how to live around your choice. Popping up and just expecting everyone to okey-doke such a drastic alteration to their perception of you is a little ridiculous to me. That acceptance sh*t goes both ways, you know? But, okay, they’re calling you your old name and referring to you as your old gender. Sh*t hurts your feelings, i get it. What i don’t get is how the f*ck you’re suing Rosario over that sh*t, even though she wasn’t doing it. How is she responsible for the actions of other people in her family? How are you mad she told you to suck it up and act like an adult? You’re fifty-years-old, man!

The other parto f her case is even more dubious to me. Apparently, Dawson and a relative went to the apartment they provided this person for free, because this transgender individual refused to leave. I assume it’s been several months of complaints and derision at this point so a clean break between parties would be best for everyone. This transgender person swore they had no place to go and that they couldn’t get back to New York, even though they freely admitted to having a support system out there and half a year’s worth of wages, plus a stipend from Dawson, herself. They were living rent-free in an apartment provided by Dawson and were only responsible for personal bills like food yet, didn’t have enough for a return ticket home? How? Full time wages for a carpenter in California, they moved out here to help with some of Rosario’s home renovations, is about $57,000 a year. Half that is $28,500 dollars. You made 28 grand, before taxes, and couldn’t get home? Really? You had no choice but to squat in a residence that was not yours, for what i imagine is several months, with damn near 30 racks in the bank? Seriously? You want to scream “hate-crime” when they physically drag your disgruntled ass out of their house after months of futile back and forth? Really?

I don’t think Rosario Dawson is a transphobe. I think she doesn’t suffer assholes and this cat sounds like an asshole. They’re not suing Dawson for hostile work environment, they’re suing for discrimination. You’re fifty-year-old, transgender, lesbian, who has known this family for decades. Dawson flew you out, hired you full-time at a comparable rate to others in your field, and gave you a rent-free place to stay. That alone gives you thousands of dollars a month in savings. I imagine all of this misgendering and sh*t was either them ribbing you or legitimate mistake because of the decades long relationship they had with you, as another f*cking person. As far as that assault? You were squatting in their property. I don’t agree with them getting physical with you, if they actually did, but, at the same time, you were effectively stealing from them by not leaving. It wasn’t like you couldn’t afford to go, you had at least three months worth of wages, probably closer to six. Bare minimum, you have 10 bands, fluid! You really saying you can’t make it back home with a minimum of $10,000 in your pocket and this expansive support system waiting on you? You have no choice but to slander Rosario in Out magazine, the most bias press available? This smells of bullsh*t to me.

I’m not a member of the LBGTQ community. I don’t consider myself an ally. I consider myself a reasonable, intelligent, person. I find it stupid to hate a someone for something that doesn’t have anything to do with me. If you’re gay, that’s your business. If you’re trans, that’s your business. If you’re Batman, that’s you’re business, Bruce. I don’t care nor do i need to. That’ a personal journey, a personal truth. If you want to share it with me, cool. If not, that’s cool too. That’s why, when i read this complaint, it looks suspect. Rosario Dawson doesn’t even come up until the end where the assault occurred and, even then, she was described as “holding her down” while Dawson’s aunt or somebody, fought with this transgender person. That sounds like there was an altercation and Dawson was trying to get between the two, probably so this exact situation wouldn’t occur, and that’s if she even physically intervened at all. I mean, Rosario Dawson is not only famous, rich, dating a Senator who is a staunch supporter of trans rights, but she, herself, identifies as bisexual - a part of the very community this person claims she’s discriminating against! For real? Why the f*ck would Rosario jeopardize all of that, over a squatter? No, i think that little part was tacked on so this person could go after Dawson directly because, literally, up to this point, it was everyone else AROUND Rosario committing the transgressions. Everyone around Rosario ain’t famous, though.

This whole situation sounds like an employee was unhappy with the terms of employment and decided to take advantage of their employer’s status as a celebrity for a quick cashgrab. The leaking of this case to the press was meant to damage Rosario’s image in a means to force a “go away” settlement. Do i think there was discrimination? Not any more than this person would have had to deal with as a fifty-year-old lesbian. There might have been ill-intent but never from Dawson, herself. I imagine she snapped and said what she said to this person, after weeks of complaints or a stressful shoot somewhere. Do i think there was an assault? Sure, maybe, but not in the way this person is describing. It doesn’t make sense to me that Rosario, herself, would put her entire career at risk over something so pedestrian. Dawson is well aware of the current political climate and cancel culture. She was right in the thick of the MeToo movement. Ma ain’t stupid. Rosario has wanted to lay Ahsoka for years. You think DIsney would let her if this suit had any teeth? Do i think there’s a semblance of responsibility that must be taken by the Dawson family? Of course. They were dicks to this person and owe them an apology. Do i think Rosario Dawson has to cash-out because her family were assholes? F*ck no. Sue them, they’re the ones who hurt your feelings and that’s the crux of this argument; Rosario is the famous one. Rosario is the rich one. Rosario has to be the target or no one gets paid.

There’s fault on both sides here, i freely admit that, but i don’t think Rosario is involved the way this person says she was. I think this person knows what side the bread is buttered on and is looking to capitalize on this whole SJW/PC, cancel culture, bullsh*t, for a quick payout. Believe all of the gender minorities before actual evidence because they’re so oppressed. Cancel everyone who doesn’t share our politics or, heaven forbid, waits for facts and uses logical assumptions to deduce bullsh*t. For all intents and purposes, this person sounds like an asshole to me. Look at it objectively; Rosario flew this person out from New York, put them up in a rent-free apartment, and paid them a full-time wage while also giving them a stipend to get on their feet out here. This person did nothing but complain and refuse to leave the apartment when both parties agreed for a separation. Instead, this person squatted for weeks to months, freeloading on Dawson, while pocketing thousands of dollars. Seriously, how do you think they’re paying for this Hollywood ass lawyer? They can’t get home but they got money to hire a lawyer, though. Okay. Like, you don't get to be magically absolved from the repercussions of being an asshole just because you decided to transition. No one committed a hate crime against you because they threw you out of their house, yo. You were being a dick and got dealt with as such. ll this “Believe everyone, all of the time” sentient is getting out of hand.

Or, i could be wrong and Rosario Dawson is ball of trans hate who spends her time keelhauling those people in between campaign stumps and acting roles, i don’t know. Pretty sure she’s not, tho. Also, Brie Larson as Mara Jade is a mistake. That’s bad casting, man. Alexandra Daddario, Emily VanCamp, or Alexandra Breckenridge fit that role much better.

[ecotone99]

[HM] [NSFW] How To Stay Single By Being Yourself

I listened to her pack into the MUNI train, and before I lost her in a tunnel, I said, “Sayonara, sardine.”

What a thing to say to someone with whom you’ve never actually occupied the same space, at least to my knowledge. The whole pace of my life seems to be this way nowadays. A skip or a glitch or a miss, or a drunk wrong turn into the wrong drunk person to kiss. Then I slip into another relationship, another year lost monogamous with the wrong person, until I’m my old single self again, masturbating and playing video games for virtual and spermal accomplishments. Until it’s just sad and no longer nostalgic, and I give it up again and move on to taking placebo capsules, more commonly known as vitamins, trying to better myself, eat healthy; when I know in my heart, whether or not it’s connected to a clogged left anterior descending artery, I’ll die just the same. The antithesis of delusions of grandeur, whatever that is. Plus those aren’t things I should indulge in or contemplate anyway, and by now I should have been more than this, but at least it’s good I don’t have kids or a second mortgage, but then comparatively to happier lives than mine, maybe it isn’t.

Responsibilities warped, and I’m honestly just complacent. Had one insightful shroom trip three years ago, camping at the base of Mt. Baldy, ending in three friends coming down from the trip repeating the word ‘comfort’ in harmony, which really stuck with me, and now making enough money so I can afford things that might impress a woman so she’ll sleep with me - because I lack a societally accepted masculine personality, and the accompanying physique - doesn’t seem all that important. Unless she’s gorgeous, thinks I’m funny, holds my doors open for me, and makes sure I cum before her. Because she’s an all giving goddess who’s ultra into reversing the roles. Now I’m the one wearing the bra and being neglectful, and she’s the one that’s fearful I’ll leave her if she’s not careful; if she can’t become my idea of the perfect woman, which could only mean that she’s not really special, not to me or anyone. My 'I’ve truly lost touch with reality' true love. Imagine that. Even when I’m not really with anybody I can’t take a breath for myself. Romantically imaginative, removed but attached. Really I’m just a Little Bitch, but I capitalize the L and the B in that shit. I own my label. It’s my religion, my race, my gender, my age, and my sexual orientation, fluidly. It’s my username on Fetlife, but the original was taken, so I’m LittleBitchFoRealTho. Even though the trained eye would see that’s too many characters. And I don’t know why I have the urge to say this, but, stay woke.

Then I snapped out of it, took a minute to think of all the years I wasted lasting seconds during sex, for months at a time, counting down the femtoseconds until the relationship ends in high entropy. Either overpraised or overfed. Or not needed at all. Just a one night stand, just a bed, just a friend, not even with benefits, just a dude to bring home so she doesn’t have to yet accept and admit to her parents that she’s a lesbian.

Get older, continue to get high, watch The Neverending Story for the thousandth time, and go to bed early. Learning to be lonely. Perpetually a dude currently writing this, sitting in a room, in an apartment with rent that’s ridiculous, if you happen to measure and calculate the cramped square footage, and compare it to how much you’re paying for it. Surrounded by objects that are purely conditional, and those conditions seem to occur few and far between. So everything I bought off Amazon Prime is all essentially useless, but can be delivered in two days, so that it can more quickly begin to lose the factor of novelty, before becoming still life garbage you seemingly involuntarily keep, imbued with a memory of a compelling spell of clicking, which megamorphed into sentimental value, and you only have those hardcovers on your bookshelf to cast the illusion that you’re well-rounded.

In actuality, I’m only rewriting this over and over again, trying to make this ludicrous literature perfect, while experiencing acute mood shifts. Sometimes my phone dies and I lose the latest revision, gone and lost in contextual oblivion. Metaphysically tired in my lazy mind’s lazy eye, from the eternal uphill-pushing of enormous proverbial boulders. A hugely hubristic, bush league, satirical Sisyphus with a creator complex, writing this self-stated, social paradigm shifting content, while in tangible social settings I’m mostly pocketing my psychic two cents. Then keeping my hands in my pockets so my palms sweat, standing far away from her and her friends after she ran over to them, next to a giant metallic cone with a screen in it at the California Academy of Sciences, reading the ticket that admits us into the Planetarium. Skip to the next awkward moment, I finally walk over, because she looked at me like I’m an idiot, we stand in a rhombus and start talking. One friend says, “Hey, nice to meet you”. Then a dainty, moist squeeze of the hands, then release, but no relief, more anxiety, but I manage to speak, “It’s nice to meet you too, Peaches.” I swear that was her name.

I’m saving up to win the spiritual lottery, or just waiting: to die, to fall asleep, perchance to wet-dream. While in my periphery I’m watching Clueless and wishing someone would text me back. As if. Because I sent you this, so I’ll probably never hear from you again, person reading this. A person I can only describe as: a secluded echo, an eclipsed moon, December blue. Soft eyes, no vacancy. Wild ride. You.

Anyway, if you’re still with me, what I’ve been trying to say, lately things seem to go a certain way for me. It’s not bad or good, it’s just causing me to think a little more introspectively. Any remorse for my interactions that may boil up is immediately self-medicated with cannabis that is meant to take the place of dopamine, when in reality I haven’t accomplished a single thing. I’m just sitting here making up silly stories, pretending I’d be content if this was it, nothing more than this. Monotony, mixed with heaven sent absurdity that turns into comedy, or social awkwardness at my day job that on the first and fifteenth of the month turns into money. Which goes to rent and other pointless expenses. If I want to attempt to have sex, gotta pay for dates, probably somewhere expensive, to distract her from fact that one of my ears is lower and points in a different direction.

Then when I’m on these dates, I have to be witty, charming, funny; because I personally believe that’s all I have going for me, and my psychiatrist agrees. I have to be somewhat up kept, overall hygienic, clean my apartment, just in case... you know...I die, or she wants to comes over. Buy a new toothbrush, new socks, deodorant, maybe a tie, get a goofy one while you’re shopping for an outfit at Goodwill, one that isn’t too large or too goofy looking, so as not to appear homeless. Not too drunk or too stoned to not keep up the walls, keep on the mask, perpetuate the facade, go on and on about what you do, where you’re from, but what’s really going on is you’re dancing around the fact that awkwardness is preferable to loneliness, but neither of you are out rightly addressing it, just discussing hobbies you aren’t really all that active in, and all you really want is to put on your favorite song, which is Love is a Battlefield, really loud, and be physically close to another person, preferably naked.

But flaws and awkwardness always win; until you consider and accept that death is the ultimate end, after getting real deep about it during a stoned conversation while listening to The Mars Volta with your old high school friends. Start to contemplate the concept of non-existence, then live your life according to that premise; which I don’t, but then do, too, paradoxically.

A view loosely based on the Tegmark take on quantum immortality, transmuted with my own half-baked multiverse theory recipe, tossed into the ethereal 8-Qt Crock-Pot, on low for 8 hours, alchemically cooking up the basic tenets of my life’s philosophies, stirring occasionally. It’s basically the idea that you can’t actually perceive yourself dying, but everyone else around you experiences your death in that universe’s reality. So for them you’re dead, then either cremated, ashes scattered in the hot tub at your grandparents old house in Walnut while the new occupants are in it. Or buried next to your brother, whose epitaph reads, “Who wants to match on a blunt and smoke out Jesus and Dezi Arnaz when we get to heaven, and why is it getting so hot all of a sudden?”, because my brother’s pretty funny when I write his made up epitaph for him. Or better than both disintegration or side-by-side a sibling in a graveyard; your will states your wishes to be taxidermied, morbidly displayed out in the most visible part of the back lawn, to been seen from a plethora of windows, forever staged reading Infinite Jest, which you never actually finished when you did exist there; until your family moves on emotionally and stores you in the basement next to your Pokémon card collection that never evolved into anything worth anything, much like a lvl 100 Luvdisc.

Where was I? Oh yeah. More bad dates with minutely modified bad outcomes, that would not have come to pass if you hadn’t eaten as many croissants as you did in your past life. Your colon couldn’t love handle it. Now new you figured out ways to continue perpetuating lies, to yourself and others, until again you’re caught in one of them by someone that you spoke spurious, rehearsed lines to, and then somehow learned to love. Another burnt bridge, move on to next place, the next job, the next “one”. Why not? Repeat the pattern. It seems you’ll always fill your life up with made up obstacles and the subsequent distractions, because it’s easier to hide behind another person’s life and pretend you don’t have one. Now their problems are yours, but they’re not as smart as you to handle them, says you. So you express another misplaced emotional reaction, then the inevitable detachment. In your mind it’s the proverbial 'them' all talking about you behind your back, even though they haven’t really thought about you since; but you hear it all in your head, overwhelmingly, a profound paranoid pounding, a feedback loop of an empty orchestra laughing; about all the stuff she knows about you, and told them, and they believe it to be it true, about you doing silly stuff with your penis that you thought would never leave the room.

“You can’t think your way out of a prison that is made of thought.”

- Krishna Das

Then you remember, sometimes if you say the name given to a person later in life because of a spiritual rite, read directly after the last word of a sentence from a quote associated with them, it produces a near rhyme. Sometimes things are just meant to be, two people are destined to meet, destined to be best friends who are silly on purpose, yes-and everyone, and massage each other’s feet. Running on unconditional love, and when we’re drunk it’s always fun and she doesn't end up cheating. If only.

No but really, I hope this was fun to read. Just some real, taboo, and personal themes that hopefully lead to giggles and genuine feelings, simultaneously. Because that’s really what I’m all about, inherently, though sometimes disrespectfully, but I promise it’s not done intentionally. I’m simply digging deeply into the collective unconscious, and sharing all the treasures that I pull out. Because I always pull out, can’t stand a condom: latex, sheepskin, my ego; doesn’t matter. I can’t help but rawly share it and impregnate you with honesty.

A component of my soul, a moment, a stream of consciousness built upon the general thought of a person I could have been and may become. An influence I feel could be a friend - because I swear on the grave of a man named Lasso who lives on the astral plane, who doesn’t know how to dance, but if you know how to ask, will grant you the ability to always know the exact location of the nearest bathroom - that I’m only trying to gain a little understanding so I can be compatible with another person. It’s that simple. I’m the grey hat traversing the gray areas. The one who doesn’t know the proper rules on when to use which spelling of gray, so he always puts both variations of grey in a sentence. So a train of thought came after a disconnection on a train elsewhere, which caused me to think, write and edit this every night until three in the morning for an ever increasing amount of weeks, repeating a pattern so as not to repeat, trying to see if there’s something to glean that’ll lead me to love in this reality. All because I listened to her pack into the MUNI train, and before I lost her in a tunnel, I said, “Sayonara, sardine.”

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Breaking News: Media Coverage Belittles Millions

The maintenance of inequalities is not something that is hard to do.  Change is difficult, but maintenance is more easily handled.  The media plays a big part in maintaining the inequalities that we see in our everyday lives.  The media is an indefinitely expanding entity that broadcasts a wide variety of different ideas to the general public.  The media ranges from everything on cable to social media plus everything in between.  The billboards we see in big cities to the small signs seen out in the countryside, all of it can be the media.  And all of it, without a doubt, shapes minds and opinions like no other force on the planet.  Everything we see on TV, Instagram, newspapers, radio, etc. is all a range of ideas and messages being thrown at us, whether we are aware of it or not.  This either reinforces our ideas as we know them or forces us to view things from a different perspective.  The way we interpret media is either a result of our mindset or a contributing factor to how our mindsets are shaped.  Again, whether we know it or not, messages pertaining to race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. make their ways into our brains.  This shapes the structures and institutions that we build in society.  They provide the basis or foundations of these institutions, directly and indirectly.  Furthermore, bell hooks provides some interesting commentary on the unique subject of the perspective or gaze of Black females, which is quite relevant to the conversation of media presentation and its effects on the public.

To be frank and possibly simplistic, the media is a huge contributor of the information we receive.  Yes, the parents and teachers of society provide a bulk of knowledge for future generations.  However, what happens in between the time spent with parents and teachers?  Adults, teens, children, and even toddlers now have access to information like never before.  The learning never stops with the pervasiveness of technology in this day and age.  TVs, phone, tablets, laptops, etc. are widely accessible.  Even at exorbitant prices, people manage to purchase electronics, all of which have the power to show you some form of media.  Children watching cartoons on TV can take the shows they watch with them wherever they go, learning valuable lessons about sharing and caring wherever their parents take them.  Teens continue scrolling through all platforms of social media from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed.  Adults watch the morning news while getting ready for work, hear news while they commute, have their phones out all throughout the workday, and can end the day with nightly news.  Movies and shows are made available to the public for indulgence at all hours of the day and night with services like Netflix and Hulu.  There is a nonstop barrage of media we are able to consume in 2018 and it is only still the beginning of this massive technological revolution.

With all this media surrounding us at all times, it can absolutely have a negative impact on the institutions we have set up to enhance and enable the smooth flow of societal necessities.  Additionally, it can have a negative impact on the mental health and schools of thought of many in the general public.  When this does occur, we have individuals in society that are shaped by the on-goings of the world and this does not only affect those individuals.  They bring this thinking to work, to school, to anywhere they take themselves and if they are notable individuals in places of importance (schools, business, prisons, media) they can harm others mentally, emotionally, even physically with their anomalous ways of thinking.

Let us take a broad example, a trend per say, of recent media coverage of politics that may (and does) reinforce or shape ways of thinking that can potentially (definitely) affect peoples’ lives in more ways than one.  I will analyze here potential direct and indirect effects of this media coverage on an individual’s life.  So, how can media coverage on politics directly effect a person’s life and maintain the inequalities we see every day?  A “caravan” of migrants has been a big story in the media recently.  The biggest development in the ongoing story has been the mention of US troops going to the United States/Mexico border to stop this “invasion” as it has been referred to by many.  Regardless of what the story is about, talk of troops “protecting” the US automatically enables a sense of fear and subliminally identifies an enemy.  Media coverage that describes troops protecting this country, no matter what it is from, objectively identifies a hero (troops) and a villain (something bad).  This plays into the vilification of Mexican immigrants that has been ongoing for much of US history but has been very prominent and overt in recent years.  So how does this directly affect the average American?  Well, let’s take the case of the average Latinx-American who has to see these heartbreaking messages of people with whom they may identify.  This not only affects their mental health directly but affects the way they go through the world.  Within the workplace or at their school their race/ethnicity becomes overly apparent to them.  They become hyper aware of their belonging to the “other”.  They become the anomaly.  They become a representation of the villain.  At work, coworkers bring their thoughts on the matter in with them, and some are not too pleasant.  At school, other kids make racially-charged jokes, whether they know how much of an impact that has or not on the Latinx in this example.  Just because of media coverage, some people are introduced to ideas or have ideas reinforced that are neither conducive to a healthy society nor happy individuals.  A person’s life is both directly affected by what they actually see for themselves and indirectly affected by the ideas or actions that other people may present to them.

Regardless of the type of media or the topic the media is covering, this example is analogous to so many situations.  Whether it’s the topic of race in “Dear White People” (Netflix Original show), the coverage of the #MeToo movement in the local newspaper, or Breitbart posting something political on Instagram, media portrays a message and that message truly stays with people.  That message can linger for an entire lifetime and this is a powerful sentiment.  These messages shape individuals and therefore shape the institutions of which they become a part.  This has drastic consequences on how some live their daily lives, and can unfortunately add to the inequalities many deal with all the time.  Today, this isn’t something that can be turned off.  It affects people 24/7.  How can one not internalize these messages?  If a person is told something enough times and/or for long enough, they will start to believe it, no matter how offensively outlandish that message might be.  The media has the power to eat away at individuals if left unchecked.  Even with all the good the media does, the negative side can absolutely have long-lasting negative effects on peoples’ psyche and well-being.  

A notable and relevant reference to this commentary is bell hooks and thoughts on “The Oppositional Gaze”, with specific reference to Black female spectators.  As stated by Manthia Diawara but mentioned by hooks, “Every narration places the spectator in a position of agency; and race, class and sexual relations influence the way in which this subjecthood is filled by the spectator” (117).  Here, we have this ever present idea of media affecting the minds of individuals and that individual’s mind perceiving media in very distinct ways.  Furthermore, hooks references “rupture” or the resistance of “complete identification with the film’s discourse” (117).  I think this can be applied more widely, specifically to the resentment man feel toward many forms of media.  This is again all part of the negative effects media may have on the general public.  If you are told to believe something negative, perhaps many in society will refuse to accept this and shy away from media consumption or a particular message being portrayed.  When hooks dives deep into that opinions of Black women she writes “[Black women] testified that to experience fully the pleasure of that cinema they had to close down critique, analysis; they had to forget racism.  And mostly they did not think about sexism” (120).  I think this is so relevant to the times; people can become so jaded by the negative role media may play (direct/indirect) in their lives that they may reject it altogether, in order to live peaceful lives.  Unfortunately, this ushers in the thought of “ignorance is bliss”, which may not always be healthy.  But this is the unfortunate reality with which many live.  hooks continues by adding, “[Black women] consciously resisted identification with films   that this tension made moviegoing less than pleasurable; at times it caused pain” (121).  The relevance this has to my fictitious, yet very realistic scenario, is spot-on.  The overwhelmingly affect media can have on one’s life truly is something awfully spectacular.  It can really cause so much hardship for an individual, especially when these message of inequality are floating through the airways nonstop.

I do not know if there is a remedy to all this negativity.  Somehow, throughout history, in the face of negativity people have found a way to resist and provide social change in this country.  Classes such as AFS 363, for example, serve as a way to educate motivated individuals to create a more informed society.  Other classes on race, gender, economics, politics, and so on also serve to better society and produce individuals more equipped to bring about change, even if that change is something as simple as one person providing their friend with just a little bit more knowledge than they had prior.  Media that provides fair and moderate coverage or perspectives on very polarizing subjects, in light of much bipartisan frames of thought, also serves to push society toward a more fair and equal world.  Still, we live in a time where media is a never-ending production of information that can affect people’s lives in so many different ways.  We must be the change and further advance the change to eliminate inequality and internalize more positive messages about ourselves and others.  

References

hooks, b. (1992). The oppositional gaze: black female spectators. In Black looks: race and representation (pp.115-131). Boston, MA: South End Press