#story focused on how (gender-based) violence affects people

[buddyapologist]

something something lisa westworld parallels I'll explain it in excruciating detail later

[info-copa]

English Programming

We are excited to announce that the following programs will be available for purchase in English across Canada starting in September 2023. Please contact us at info@infocopa.com for details and pricing.

Our Power in Adversity is a whole-school program for families, school staff, and other adults that support children and youth. It is designed to increase individual and collective resilience in young people post-COVID-19. This comprehensive program was developed initially for Franco-Ontarian community organizations, but its success led us to adapt it to a wide range of organizations and communities. It addresses post-pandemic challenges faced by children and youth, such as stress, isolation, and family conflict. In this workshop we explore issues of family violence and cyberbullying and learn to distinguish between positive and toxic stress as well as how to manage both. We’ll discuss the concept of well-being and individual and collective resilience, and explore internal and external resources that promote well-being and resilience - including the choice to assert one’s own identity in a respectful and supportive context. Participants will share stories and strategies to help young people overcome challenges and access support. There will also be an opportunity to participate in creative activities related to the experiences and perceptions of resilience. ​Read our blog post on Our Power in Adversity to find out more. Strategies for Change This is a bullying prevention workshop for parents, guardians, caregivers, and families In this workshop, participants will learn more about bullying, how to recognize it and help prevent it. They will also learn how to offer compassionate, effective, and constructive support to children who may be involved in bullying, in a way that focuses on reflection, learning and change. En Route Toward Consent This is a workshop for educators, parents, guardians, and caregivers that will give them the tools, skills, and confidence they need to talk about CONSENT with children and youth. Participants will learn more about how to communicate the complexity of consent and rights, and how not having authentic, informed, and free and clear consent takes away the rights of others.   Consent Culture A workshop about sexual and gender-based violence and harassment for educators, case workers, college and university students, and teachers-in-training, parents, guardians, and caregivers. This workshop focuses on the prevention of sexual violence in school and daycare settings, and on intervention strategies. Educators will learn more about sexual violence and how to share this knowledge and information with children and youth. They will expand their capacity to provide appropriate support to young people who speak up about a sexual assault situation and develop their ability to identify survivors of sexual violence as well as situations of sexual assault. In the course of this workshop, they will acquire tools and strategies to reduce the vulnerability of young people to sexual assault, support high-risk students, and intervene successfully in sexual violence and gender-based harassment. Bridging Intergenerational Conflict Designed for newly arrived parents, guardians, caregivers, and educators, the focus of this workshop is on intergenerational conflict in newly arrived families. Immigration can have negative effects on relationships between parents, children, and youth, and this can affect family stability. Our objective is to raise the awareness of adults about adolescent development and help build healthy and equitable intergenerational relationships. In this workshop we will focus is on youth aged 12 to 18 and the injustices and harms they may experience during their integration into the school community. We will discuss the different stages of youth development and examine how they impact integration. We will also talk about the way that youth are perceived in North American society and how this perception can shape their development. 

The workshop wraps up with a short exercise examining the impact of traditional socialization. By talking about these themes and the systemic injustices youth aged 12 to 18 are confronted with every day, we encourage newly arrived parents, caregivers, guardians, and teachers to better understand the situations of adolescents with the hope of reducing intergenerational conflicts.

Courage 7/8

In this series of 3 workshops (75 minutes each) designed for grade 7 and 8 students, the topics of peer assault (bullying), assault by an unknown person, assault by a known adult, rights and responsibilities, respect, and consent will all be explored through discussions, role play and verbal/physical self-defense strategies. Youth will acquire tools and strategies to gain/strengthen their own agency and also to support their peers.

Notes:

The En Route Toward Consent workshops for adults will be offered before this set of students’ workshops (one workshop for school staff and one for parents and caregivers)

In the third session, students will separate into 2 groups: one for those identifying as girls/non-binary and one for those identifying as boys. Girls/non-binary youth will participate in a verbal and physical self-defence course and boys will participate in a workshop on strengthening consent culture.

Review period: the review period is offered to students, after the series of workshops, by the facilitation team, on a volunteer one-on-one/small group basis with facilitators to review workshop concepts.

The teacher does not participate in these 3 workshops sessions with students and receives training beforehand.

For information and pricing, please contact us at info@infocopa.com.

[luckgods]

Why all the white guys in whump?

I got Inspired by a post asking that question, and here we are. Warning: long post ahead.

I think it’s due to a combination of factors, as things frequently are.

The preference for / prevalence of white male characters in fandom is well-known and has been examined pretty thoroughly by people already.

What’s worth noting for discussing this tendency in whump in particular is that the ‘whump fandom’ itself is not a ‘fandom’ in the traditional sense of being made of fans of one single source narrative (or source setting, like a particular comics fandom, or the Star Wars extended universe) with pre-existing characters. Although subsets of traditional fandoms certainly exist within the larger whump fandom, a lot of whump is based on original, ‘fan’-created characters.

So, given the tendency of ‘traditional’ fandoms to create stories disproportionately centered on white male characters due to the source material itself being centered on white male characters (and giving more narrative weight to them, characterizing them better, etc), if we say hypothetically that the whump fandom is split say 50/50 between ‘traditional’ fandom works and original whump works, you’d expect to see a higher number of works focused on white men than the demographics of the ‘traditional’ fandom’s source work would predict, but not as extreme of a divergence between the source material & the fanworks as the one you’d see if whump fandom were 100% based on popular media.

However, that doesn’t quite seem to be the case. Whump stories and art remain focused on overwhelmingly male and frequently white characters, which means that the tendency of the fandom to create stories disproportionately centered on white male characters cannot be ONLY explained by the source material itself being centered on white male characters (and giving more narrative weight to them, characterizing them better, etc).

And, having established the fact that whump writers & artists presumably have MORE control over the design of their characters than writers & artists in ‘traditional’ fandoms, we have to wonder why the proportions remain biased towards men, & white men in particular.

—

The race thing is pretty simple in my opinion. Mostly, it’s just another extension of the fanbase’s tendency to reflect the (predominantly US-American, on tumblr) culture it exists in, which means that, in a white-centric culture, people make artworks featuring white people.

There’s also the issue of artists being hesitant to write works that dwell heavily on violence towards people of color due to the (US-American) history of people of color being violently mistreated. I’ve actually seen a couple of posts arguing that white people SHOULDN’T write whump of nonwhite characters (particularly Black characters) because of the history of actual violence against Black bodies being used as entertainment, which means that fictional violence against Black people, written by white people, for a (presumed) white audience, still feels exploitative and demeaning.

I'm not going to get into all my thoughts on this discussion here but suffice to say that there's probably an impact on the demographics of whump works from authors of color who simply... don't want to see violence against people of color, even non-explicitly-racialized violence, and then another impact from white authors who choose not to write non-white characters either due to the reasons stated above, or simply due to their personal discomfort with how to go about writing non-white characters in a genre that is heavily focused on interpersonal violence.

Interestingly enough, there’s also a decent proportion of Japanese manga & anime being used as source material for whump, and manga-styled original works being created. The particular relationship between US-American and Japanese pop culture could take up a whole essay just by itself so I’ll just say, there’s a long history of US-Japanese cultural exchange which means that this tendency is also not all that surprising.

—

GENDER though. If someone had the time and the energy they could make a fucking CAREER out of examining gender in whump, gender dynamics in whump, and why there seems to be a fandom-wide preference for male whumpees that cannot be fully explained by the emphasis on male characters in the source text.

I have several different theories about factors which impact gender preference in whump, and anyone who has other theories (or disagrees with mine) is free to jump in and add on.

THEORY 1: AUTHOR GENDER AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
 Fandom in general is predominantly female, although these days it might be more accurate to say that fandom is predominantly composed of cis women and trans people of all genders. However, pretty much everyone who isn't a cis man has had to contend with the specter of gendered violence in their real personal life. Thus, if we posit whump (and fandom more generally) as a sort of escapist setup, it's not hard to see why whump authors & artists might willfully eschew writing female whumpees (especially in the case of inflicted whump), because (as in the discussion of people of color in whump above), even violence towards women that is explicitly non-gender-based may still hit too close to home for people whose lives have been saturated with the awareness of gender-based violence.

THEORY 2: SICK OF SEXY SUFFERING.
 Something of an addendum to theory 1, it's worth noting that depictions of female suffering in popular media are extremely gendered (in that they specifically reflect real-life gender-based violence, and that said real-life violence is almost exclusively referenced in relation to female characters) and frequently sexualized as well. There's only so many times you can see female characters having their clothes Strategically Ripped while they're held captive, being sexually menaced (overtly or implicitly) to demonstrate How Evil the villain is, or just getting outright sexually assaulted for the Drama of it all before it gets exhausting, especially when the narratives typically either brush any consequences under the rug, or dwell on them in a way that feels more voyeuristic and gratuitous than realistic and meaningful. All this may result in authors who, given the chance to write their own depictions of suffering, may decide simply to remove the possibility of gendered violence by removing the female gender.

THEORY 3: AUTHOR ATTRACTION. 
I'll admit that this one is more a matter of conjecture, as I haven't seen any good demographic breakdowns of attraction in general fandom or whump fandom. That said, my own experience talking to fellow whump fans does indicate that attraction to the characters (whether whumpers, or whumpees) is part of the draw of whump for some people. This one partially ties into theory 1 as well, in that people who are attracted to multiple genders may not derive the same enjoyment out of seeing a female character in a whumpy situation as they might seeing a male character in that situation, simply because of the experience of gendered violence in their lives.

THEORY 4: ACCEPTABLE TARGETS.
 The female history of fandom means that there's been a lot more discussion of the impacts of depicting pain & suffering (especially female suffering) for personal amusement. Thus, in some ways, you could say that there is a mild taboo on putting female characters through suffering if you can't "justify" it as meaningful to the narrative, not just titillating, which whump fandom rarely tries or requires anyone to do. This fan-cultural 'rule' may impact whump writers' and artists' decisions in choosing the gender of their characters.

THEORY 5: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MAINSTREAM MASCULINITY.
 Whump fandom may like whumping men because by and large, mainstream/pop culture doesn't let men be vulnerable, doesn't let them cry, doesn't let them have long-term health issues due to constantly getting beat up even when they really SHOULD, doesn't let them have mental health issues period. Female characters, as discussed in theory 2, get to ("get to") go through suffering and be affected by it (however poorly written those effects are), but typically, male characters' suffering is treated as a temporary problem, minimized, and sublimated into anger if at all possible. (For an example, see: every scene in a movie where something terrible happens and the male lead character screams instead of crying). So, as nature abhors a vacuum, whump fandom "over-produces" whump of men so as to fill in that gap in content.

THEORY 6: AMPLIFIED BIAS.
 While it's true that whump fandom doesn't have a source text, it's also true that whump fans frequently find their way into the fandom via other 'traditional' fandoms, and continue participating in 'traditional' fandoms as part of their whump fandom activity. Bias begets bias; fandom as a whole has a massive problem with focusing on white male characters, and fans who are used to the bias towards certain types of characters in derivative works absolutely reproduce that bias in their own original whump works.

—

I honestly think that there is greater bias in the whump fandom than anyone would like to admit. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems as though whump fans avoid introspection and discussion of the issue by bringing up the points I talked about in my previous theories, particularly discomfort with depictions of female suffering for amusement.

However, I think that, as artists, we owe it to ourselves and one another to engage in at least a small amount of self-interrogation over our preferences, and see what unconscious or unacknowledged biases we possess. It's a little absurd to argue that depictions of women as whumpees are universally too distressing to even discuss when a male character in the exact same position would be fine and even gratifying to the person making that argument; while obviously, people have a right to their own boundaries, those boundaries should not be used to shut down discussion of any topics, even sensitive ones.

Furthermore, engaging in personal reflection allows artists to make more deliberate (and meaningful) art. For people whose goal is simply to have fun, that may not seem all that appealing, but having greater understanding of one's own preferences can be very helpful towards deciding what works to create, what to focus on when creating, and what works to seek out.

—

GENDER ADDENDUM: NONBINARY CHARACTERS, NONBINARY AUTHORS. 
Of course, this whole discussion so far has been exclusively based on a male-female binary, which is reductive. (I will note, though, that many binary people do effectively sort all nonbinary people they know of into 'female-aligned' and 'male-aligned' categories and then proceed to treat the nonbinary people and characters they have categorized a 'female-aligned' the same way as they treat people & characters who are actually female, and ditto for 'male-aligned'. That tendency is very frustrating for me, as a nonbinary person whose gender has NOTHING to do with any part of the binary, and reveals that even 'progressive' fandom culture has quite a ways to go in its understanding of gender.)

Anyways, nonbinary characters in whump are still VERY rare and typically written by nonbinary authors. (I have no clue whether nonbinary whump fans have, as a demographic group, different gender preferences than binary fans, but I'd be interested in seeing that data.)

As noted above with female characters, it's similarly difficult to have a discussion about representation and treatment of nonbinary characters in whump fandom, and frankly in fandom in general. Frequently, people regard attempts to open discussions on difficult topics as a call for conflict. This defensive stance once again reveals the distaste for requests of meaningful self-examination that is so frequent in fandom spaces, and online more generally.

—

TL;DR: Whump is not immune to the same gender & racial biases that are prevalent in fandom and (US-American) culture. If you enjoy whump: ask yourself why you dislike the things you dislike— the answer may surprise you. If you create whump: ask yourself whose stories you tell, and what stories you refuse to tell— then ask yourself why.

[the-breath-in-air]

Fixing "Boy Erased" (2018)

I recently decided to watch Boy Erased (2018) again, now that we're a couple years out from its initial release (and hype). And I came away with some thoughts.

First, something I think worked. You know that scene near the end, when Jared (Lucas Hedges) is trying to leave the conversion camp and he's racing through corridors and whatnot. That whole sequence works, but there's one moment that really stands out.

Jared attempts to get his phone and Michael (one of the 'camp counselors') tries to physically wrestle it away from him. There's a bit of a fight but eventually Jared makes his way to the bathroom and he calls his mom to come take him away. He then emerges from the bathroom and says to Victor Sykes (who runs the camp), "If you, or anyone else puts their hands on me, I have witnesses." Victor puts up his hands and says, "Nobody's gonna put their hands on you. Why would anybody do that? Come and sit. We're gonna wait for your mom, okay?" Then there's a hard cut to this:

Victor Sykes and Brandon literally laying their hands on Jared and praying. And I love that juxtaposition because it brings to light the violence inherent in this situation. They're restraining him through enforced religious acts. There's violence in this prayer.

And on top of that, it serves as a pretty good metaphor for the whole film. Jared's parents (especially his mother) believe they're helping but really they're hurting. They can't see the violence of their actions in sending him to the camp.

If only the rest of the film was working on this level.

Problem the first: Audience as observer. The film is really about observing its subject, Jared, as he experiences these events. But it isn't about giving us any insight into his perspective or interiority as he does so. The camera is looking at Jared more often that it is revealing to us what he's seeing. Perhaps the most obvious example of this issue is with the perfume ad scene. Jared is on a run and he comes across a perfume ad on the side of a bus stop with a bare chested buff guy. The camera shows us the ad, and then the rest of the scene has the camera (and thus, the audience) placed some distance away as we see Jared first touch the ad, then throw a rock at the ad, and then scream "fuck you" at it repeatedly. The ad itself isn't salacious enough to illicit that kind of response in the average audience-goer, and the camera is so disconnected from Jared's experience that we aren't really gaining insight into why this ad is affecting him in such a strong way. It ends up making it so that scene really does not work.

This isn't to critique Lucas Hedges's performance in that scene. It's more to say that all the other elements of that scene make it feel ridiculous - because the audience has not been guided toward viewing that ad in the same way that Jared does in that moment.

The second problem: Casting. To be absolutely clear, this is not a knock against any of the actors performances. On the contrary, I think everyone was pretty dang exceptional. Rather, it's more a conversation about casting choices. Two of those choices really stand out as somewhat misguided: Xavier Dolan as Jon and Emily Hinkler as Lee.

Turns out Emily Hinkler is a nonbinary actress. Lee (the character) is a cis guy who is conspicuously unmasculine. (If you've seen the movie - he's the one who gets hit in the head with a baseball). Casting a nonbinary actress as a cis boy at a conversion camp feels a bit off on it's own in that a conversion camp would be forcing people to adhere to assigned genders at birth. But I could get behind it as a sort of statement, like, a casting decision as direct opposition to the enforced gender binary of a conversion camp. i.e. Why should the movie adhere to the oppressive gender binary that the camp would? However, by casting a nonbinary actress as the least conventionally masculine character - it actually feels like it ends up reinforcing the binary. Lee's defining trait is that he's small and unmanly and, afaik, he's the only one of the male characters who is not portrayed by a cis man.

My issue with Xavier Dolan's casting is much simpler: Jon feels like he was written as a teenager and Xavier Dolan was approaching 30 when this was filmed. Maybe it wouldn't have bugged me so much if I didn't already know who Xavier Dolan was when watching the movie? Like, maybe if you watch it without knowing the actor's age, it works better? But also, the character feels like a teen but isn't explicitly stated to be a teen. So whenever he was on screen I kept wondering if actually part of Jon's situation is meant to be that he is 30 but stuck in a sort-of adolescence due to his relationship with his abusive father. Or did they just cast Xavier Dolan to portray a teenager?

This brings me to the third problem: Not enough of the ensemble. Jared, and thus the audience, spends proportionally, little screen time with the other people at the camp. They are rarely shown talking to each other - especially outside the restrictive observation of the camp's 'counselors.' This could be part of the point - i.e. that the camp is so isolating - but that isolation wasn't really highlighted by the camera/scenes/dialogue...so it really feels more like it's just an oversight. The movie focuses on Jared and his individual story and so the rest just fell by the wayside.

This is really unfortunate because there are some (potentially) great characters in there, especially Jon and Gary. Jon went through the program once before and is now back for a second time. We don't know what happened to make him come back. He appears to be 30-ish but he's staying at a hotel with his abusive father. He is completely invested in the program and treats his sexuality like an addiction. He has even taken it upon himself to forego all physical contact with other men (not even a handshake). His self-loathing is at once horrifying and heartbreaking.

In contrast, Gary (Troye Sivan) knows the entire program is bullshit, but he's playing along for his own survival. He's over 18; he lived with his boyfriend for a year prior to coming to the camp. So that begs the question of how his family convinced him to enter to the program. Also, Gary's so invested in his own survival, that he stays silent and is complacent in the abuse and violence he witnesses against others in the camp. He is both a victim and a bystander (at times).

I think this film would've really benefited from spending more time with these characters (as well as Sarah, portrayed by Jesse LaTourette, and Cameron, portrayed by Britton Sear) in the camp and seeing how they all interacted with each other. Give us a sense of their different contexts and perspectives - and give us a better sense of the ways that conversion camps disempower the people sent there (even people like Gary, who knows it's bullshit). It's the thing that makes all the other movies about conversion camps work so well.

Which brings us to the fourth problem: the ending. If we spend more time with the ensemble, we'd either end up with a really long movie or we'd have to cut out something else. Well, folks, we can cut about 10 minutes off the end. Everything after the dinner Jared has with his mother post-escape can go. The climax of the film is when Jared finally decides to leave the camp. The resolution comes when his mother places herself in opposition to Jared's father (which she had never done before) and decides that she's going to take Jared home. And the emotional resolution comes when she admits to Jared that they made a mistake and that they harmed him by sending him to the camp.

Everything after that is extraneous. We don't really need to see Jared living in a city with a boyfriend, or see him begin to reconcile with his father. His relationship with his father was never the emotional core for the film. Boy Erased is, in some ways, a movie about self-actualization and that's the sort of movie that's best to end with something a bit open-ended. Y'know...a sort of end-that's-just-the-beginning kind of thing. Because the story of Jared falling in love and dating and moving out and gaining the self-confidence to confront his father - well that's a whole other movie. And here it gets shoved into the epilogue, which does the whole thing a real disservice.

Then there are the informational cards at the end. Two stick out as being particularly frustrating. One, "The real Victor Sykes left L.I.A. in 2008. He now lives in Texas, with his husband," feels irrelevant and unnecessary. The audience cares about what happened to Gerrard Conley (who wrote the story and whom Jared is based off of). But why do we care about what happened to the real guy who ran the camp? We don't...except for the jab about him now being married to a man - which feels like it's a more significant point for the cis straight people in the audience than for anyone queer. Turns-out-ex-gay-pastor-was-actually-just-gay-the-whole-time is not revelatory, I gotta say.

Then there's also this:

The emphasis about conversion therapy "practiced on minors," feels a bit disconnected from the film we just watched - which emphasized how abusive and traumatizing it is, even for adults. And in the U.S., all states currently legally allow conversion therapy for anyone 18+. Only Washington D.C. has banned it. And that, to me, is equally egregious, yet it isn't mentioned. The film itself challenges the notion that it's somehow okay for this to be practiced on adults because it's ostensibly their "choice," and then the info cards at the end shy away from that stance by focusing on kids.

I think the thing I find most frustrating about this movie, is the wasted potential. As I said at the beginning of this, there are some moments that really stand out in how they use the medium to convey meaning. There are some choices in how the film uses light and brightness (or lack thereof), that are pretty dang good, too. But ultimately, it's a film I feel so detached from and I think some of what I explained above is part of why.

[nox-artemis]

Isidro brings out the worst in Berserk (or, me going on a long, dumb tangent like the old days)

Tis’ time.

I was watching The Kavernacle’s recent upload about how a lot of anime capitalizes on this weird fetishization of women and girls - which is for the most part true and is why I personally try to stay clear of a lot of anime. Honestly, any anime that focuses way too much on the “Japanese school girl” archetype and anime that depict nearly all female characters as though they’re still in the adolescent stage either behavior-wise or “phenotypically” (like that moe shit) kind of weirds me out. 

Berserk has kind of stayed away from this, but it seems like it teeters on that because so many of the female characters in the series are under the age of 20. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that but I noticed in the chapters where the Guts’ party first arrived on Elfhelm, the character designs were on the borderline of giving characters that round cherubic type face, but especially with the female characters. In the recently chapters (From the last two years) Miura seems to have chiseled the style again, which is more preferable IMHO.

But I think this kind of tangles into some wider problems I find with some character designs. If people remember me and my content, probably my biggest gripe with Berserk as a series was its usage of sexual violence toward women. It still bugs me but I can give Miura credit in that he seems to have teetered away from using it so exploitatively. THAT SAID, I think as an older fan (and an older person altogether) I think a bigger overarching issue with Berserk is that Miura was never really that good at creating female characters.

(I can have so many interesting opinions now that I don’t care about making friends within this fandom)

No I’m not saying people shouldn’t draw any adult female character with more youthful features (I mean, as some who is at that age where I experience ageism, a lot of people - particularly men - believe that as soon as a woman hits 25 they’re suppose to shrivel up??? 🤨) just -

DON’T KNOW WHY A LOT OF (MALE) CREATORS DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT WOMEN CAN HAVE DIVERSE FEATURES AND DIVERSE PERSONALITY TYPES.

I think that diatribe is for another day (I know I’ve been explaining this to other people on my other social media during my Tumblr hiatus). But to condense what I’m saying, I notice that there isn’t a lot of age diversity of female characters: most of the female characters are in adolescent. Now, I don’t think it was a big issue in early Berserk because - and even though I still take some issue with how over-exploitation was handled - we still got to explore these young girls as characters whether it were girls like Casca, Theresia, Rosine(Rosalind), Jill, or even Erica and we’re meant empathize with the cruelty (or potential cruelty in the case of Erica) that the world dished out to them. Even with Luca and her gang we got explore the concept of sisterhood if just for a bit.

Now there’s less of that - WHICH CAN BE A GOOD THING because not every female character’s traumatic origin has to be rooted in a gender-based violence backstory. I like having Schierke not having a clear backstory and being “wise beyond her years” and we can just keep it that way. Only problem is that I see a lot more that weird lol!con humor when it comes to her - especially with her relationship with Guts. 

I’m thinking of the excuse they use in hentai where, “the young prepubescent girl character is really a 7000 year old demon-lord from another dimension - so it’s not really p*doph!l!a.” Schierke is way mature for her own age, so she’s practically an adult. 😒

This isn’t just an issue with Schierke. Like, I notice a lot of up-skirt shots with these newer young girl characters; with Isma it’s kind of worse because she also embodies that “too naïve to know that she’s a turn on” when she’s like what? Thirteen? Fourteen?? I guess we’re also given the excuse that a lot of these characters are magical/supernatural/near-human so you can away with a lot more. Now that they’re on Elfhelm and there is a litany of these female characters  we just have a bunch of the fantasy-universe version of the Japanese school girl shit, where we enter - 

Ugh. Isidro.

I wasn’t too fond of him the beginning but I could appreciate his place a little. But his introduction was the point where we we start to see more of that typical dumb, pervy schoolboy humor in the series. I get it: Isidro is a teenage boy.

So was Guts.

And Griffith.

And Rickert.

And it’s just as important to have a diversity of young boy characters as well, but it’s just that for the amount of spotlight Isidro is given, not much of it is meaningful, especially in recent chapters. If anything his character is devolving IMO. MAYBE it’s some weird affect that Elfhelm has on him and other characters that is yet to be explored, but I somehow doubt it. Maybe it’s a phase that’ll be gone soon. I dunno. 

Maybe just overall the time spent on Elfhelm isn’t being spent as productively as I had hoped for. I mean BY NO MEANS AM I OVERLOOKING THE FACT THAT AFTER OVER 20 YEAR OF WAITING CASCA IS FINALLY CURED WHICH IS BY FAR THE BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT IN THIS SERIES EVER but I think with so much anticipation of what comes next for her and Guts it’s frustrating to see other side stories that aren’t focused on their to reconciliation spent so frivolously. We got a bit with Guts and the Berserker armor; we got a bit with Schierke and her training; we got a bit with Farnese and her training; we got a bit with Casca retraining her self and her trauma.

See what I’m getting at a bit? We’re just getting bits and shit, it seems. No streamline story arc. We get introduced to one bit and then POP where at some other point with some other character. I get that things are a bit different in this setting because this is the first time in a long while that Guts, Casca and their company are actually physically safe from the affects of the formers’ brands. I with so much rest and recreation time I WANT there to be more retrospective time as well. 

I’ve said elsewhere that I’m super duper disappointed with how Puck has gone downhill, especially in regard to he and Guts’ relationship. We haven’t gotten any sort of meaningful interaction with him since Isidro came into the story. AND EVEN BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM IT’S MORE OR LESS MEANINGLESS FRIVOLITY. Couldn’t Puck and Isidro be using their on-screen time more wisely, even if it has to be away from each other. What happened to Isidro wanting to be a bad-ass swordsman? Like, just being associated with two badass swordsmen (now that Casca is active again) is not a replacement for character/skill development. DO SOMETHING. BE INSPIRED OR SOME SHIT (INSTEAD OF LOOKING UP WITCH SKIRTS).

And what the hell is Serpico doing? And Roderick? And aren’t there like three or four other -

- OKAY this is what happens when have these big ass fantasy adventure parties where only a third of the occupants actually contribute shit of merit. That’s why the O.G. Band of the Hawk worked; I guess that’s neo Band of the Hawk technically works but I just don’t give a shit about them because #fuckgriffith.

GOD DAMMIT I JUST NEED THE STORY TO GET BACK TO THE HOLY TRIAD CHARACTERS ALREADY (GUTS-GRIFFITH-CASCA). PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LET MOONLIGHT BOY BE A BRIDGE TO THAT HAPPENING SOON. щ(ಠ益ಠщ)

I think I have to stop here.

Don’t you miss this? Me starting on one note and ending on something completely different but universally important?)

[offbeatcappuccino]

It’s Okay To Not Be Okay Review

Its Okay to Not Be Okay (2020) Cast: Kim Soo Hyun, Seo Ye Ji, and Oh Jung-Se 

Streaming Platform : Netflix

 Trigger Warnings (in the show)  : Fear, Violence, Abuse, Suicide, and Workplace Harassment* (I’ve decided to include trigger warnings in this review in order to emphasize their importance and hopefully encourage their use especially in entertainment since we only tend to rate movies and tv shows based on their maturity level, but fail to provide a disclaimer for trigger warnings)

Background:

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay stars Kim Soo Hyun (KSH) , Seo Ye Ji (SYJ), and Oh Jung Se, as well as a plethora of supporting characters, who honestly all did an amazing job with their roles. Kim Soo Hyun is one of the biggest stars in Korean entertainment. He’s had a successful career in both movies and tv shows. Some of his other well known shows are Moon Embracing the Sun, Love From Another Star, and Dream High. I’ve watched some of KSH’s dramas before and one notable aspect is that he’s one of the few mainstream Hallyu actors that I’ve seen who play characters that show who frequently challenge the norms of masculinity that are often exhibited by stereotypical male lead roles in other K-dramas ( e.g. Producers). I think SYJ’s previous roles (Lawless Lawyer, Save Me) also really challenge the gender roles imposed on women and the characters she plays are bold, confident, and intelligent women not afraid to challenge systems of oppression. Synopsis:

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay really is another drama that shows these two actors pushing themselves to once again play challenging and unconventional characters. Its Okay to Not Be Okay is advertised as a healing drama and its a touching tale that revolves around the lived of  Moon Gang-Tae, Moon Sang-Tae, and Ko Sun Yeong. Sang-Tae ( Oh Jeung Sae) is a thirty five year old man with autism, and Gang-Tae (KSH) is his younger brother and primary caregiver. Gang Tae also works as a nursing assistant for psychiatric hospitals. Because of a traumatic event that occurred in the past, Sang Tae suffers from PTSD and has an intense fear of butterflies. Due to this, the brothers are forced to move every spring to a new city, which has often come at the cost of happiness for both brothers as they struggle to settle down and live peaceful lives. Ko Mun Yeong ( SYJ) is a successful children’s book author with anti-social personality disorder, who has also had a traumatic childhood and also suffers from PTSD like symptoms on a daily basis. How these three characters meet and how they open the door for healing and choose to move on from their past experiences is what forms the crux of the story Pros: Depiction of Mental Health : I really want to applaud this show for bringing issues like co-dependency and normalizing the importance of self care for those who are often the primary caregivers for their loved ones. I also loved how the writers of the show also challenged many of the ableist narratives that our society puts forth about disabled individuals through the character of Sang -Tae. Seeing Sang Tae not only be a crucial main character for the show, but also showing his own journey of self empowerment and healing is refreshing to watch. Also, kudos to the show for destigmatizing many of the mental illnesses that Hollywood has unfortunately misrepresented like manic disorder, anti-social personality disorder, substance abuse, and multiple personality disorder.

Storybook Themes & Cinematography : Every episode on the show is named after a fairy tale and the ending and sometimes the beginning uses really creative animation and narration that beautifully convey the theme of every episode. Also, the show really employs this really beautiful contrast of dark and light throughout each episode and also has some really outstanding “gothic” architecture that I found to be really pleasant to watch. 

Character Development: Many K-dramas tend to be plot focused rather than character focused, which means that many of the characters are flat in that you don’t really see them grow and change into different versions of themselves. I really like how this drama really focused more on character and you could really see the growth in some of these characters and get to know them as though they were real people beyond simply being a medium through which a plot line  is carried out and fulfilled. 

CHEMISTRY!!! : The chemistry between Ko Mun Yeong and Gang-Tae in this show ( more towards the middle-end) literally gave me goosebumps. These two have more chemistry than the actual field of chemistry. The attraction between these two is stronger than an ionic bond y’all ( sorry for the chem references). I’ve never seen two people act more  in love with each other than these two. Its so convincing that thousands of fans worldwide ship these two together and I swear if these two ever end up getting married in real life, I would not be surprised. Their relationship is so wholesome and amazing and ahh!!! Cons: Depiction of Harassment: Mun Yeong’s interactions with Gang Tae come off as extremely problematic in the beginning of the show because a lot of her behavior could be classified as harassment. This is was especially pronounced in one scene in Episode 3 that was kind of a hot mess and that particular episode actually ended up with over 50 complaints sent to the Korean broadcasting regulatory committee.

Mun Yeong initially does come off as problematic, but many individuals have argued that her character was exhibiting usual characteristics of someone with ASPD, as ASPD affected individuals do struggle with understanding concepts like consent. While I don’t think this completely  justifies her behavior and I don’t think the show is trying to justify it either, I think that particular scene could have been shot in a better way and that the show could have benefitted from a disclaimer in the beginning of the episode clarifying that the creators don’t condone this behavior.   This scene definitely did throw me off first, but I really think seeing Mun Yeong work through her toxicity and trying to be a better person is worth sticking to the show. Depiction of Therapy: For a show that talks about mental illness, I would have loved to see more scenes showing  the characters (especially Mun Yeong) talking to the psychiatrist ( one of the main supporting characters) on the show. I understand that the creators wanted to focus on the romance fluff, but I think it was important for them to show that healing involves not only having a strong support network of family and friends, but also licensed mental health professionals. 

Slow Pace: Because the show is more character focused than plot focused, the first few episodes, your not really sure where you’re heading because while there is a mystery element in the show, the main focus of the show isn’t to solve the mystery or fulfill a certain adventure. However, I did not mind there not really being a clear plot in the show as I felt the acting, humor, and seeing the characters experience different aspects of life was really entertaining. Also, this issue resolves itself towards the end. 

[ot-yolanda]

“Working in the community and being guided by the SDGs as an occupational therapist”

Sustainable development goals also known as Global goals that the United Nations proposed in 2015 to end poverty, ensure the planet is safe and people enjoy peace and prosperity in 2030 (Kates W. Robert, Thomas M. Parris & Anthony A. Leiserowitz., 2005). There are 17 sustainable development goals and 169 targets. These goals are founded by the united nations in order to attempt to eradicate poverty worldwide. It is now 2021, the question we should be asking ourselves is that is it possible to reach these 17 goals by the year 2030 considering we are in a pandemic (covid-19 virus) which has had huge impact on employment in south Africa, but also affect all aspects of life such as health, schooling, work, economy, and safety. We should also ask ourselves if prior to the pandemic, was it possible to reach all 17 goals, as this will be telling of the direction that needs to take place in working towards reaching our sustainable developmental goals. The view on sustainability is complex but also be challenged that within this society, some communities vandalise all effort to grow and benefit the community so how does any project become uplifting. For the purposes of this blog, I have chosen 5 sustainable development goals to focus on and the occupational therapy role can contribute to attempting to achieving these goals in the long run.

The first goal is a ‘good health and wellbeing’ as an occupational therapy and a member within health professionals is to focus on health of an individual and health of the community members inside and outside of the clinic setting by doing home visits. Promoting health is vital using health promotion talks, sticking up posters, use of pamphlets and educating the community members individually (Gronski, M. P., 2013). The prevention of illness and disease is also used through educating the community through health promotion talks. One of our main focuses being that a feministic module as been adopted to combat the patriarchal system is to focus on maternal and child health that will lead to women empowerment by joining programs created within the community or creating new programs to work on that is meaningful to the women in the community.

Secondly, the ‘quality education’ goal as an occupational therapist, we have chosen to focus on all the schools in this specific community to identify the gaps, assess the children that are identified as a problem, and provide comprehensive intervention with the involvement of teachers and some parents that are willing. We have seen major gaps in the teachers, knowledge on learning difficulties, therefore end up condoning the child even if they are not coping the current grades, or in terms of the creches children tend to be singled out or shouted at due to lack of following instructions or not completing tasks that the teacher has required of them due to cognitive and visual-perceptual skills difficulties.

Thirdly, the ‘decent work and economic growth’ as occupational therapist, all aspects of a person matter to us. Thus, work, and vocational rehabilitation are so meaningful in the field of OT as it is one of the largest aspects of an adult’s life and often most meaningful to an adult. The OT students started a women’s empowerment project that sells second-hand clothes by employing women in the community to work and earn a living. This project is to uplift women in the communities through work. The SDG framework are attempting to highlight and push forward economic women empowerment and ending violence through transformation that can be applied worldwide through different strategies (Dhar, S., 2019).

The fourth goal is ‘reducing inequalities’ by using programs and projects like the one above. There is a youth program that is being creating and revamped is essential for young women especially those affected by STDs, teenage pregnancy, and mental health issues to form support groups to connect, find comfort, as well as growth over a period of time, as well as encouraging young men to empathise with the teenage pregnancies and advocate for changes in the community and sharing their story to help others.

The fifth and final goal is ‘life on land’ as occupational therapist based at a park in the community have been opened to using nature and our environment as a tool of intervention with all ages. There is a program running at one of the communities I am placed at is an active aging group to do physical exercises to allow for energy boost, muscle strengthening, building endurance, and networking amongst the elderly. The same elderly group are encouraged to participate in a gardening session and the food grown is for them to sell and make an income to assist their families or to take home to feed their families especially in a south African context, where the grandmothers are often left with many grandchildren and the pension amount is not enough to provide for the children.

In conclusion, the SDG has possibility to not be reachable by 2030 but attempts and improvements can be made with the drive of the community, occupational therapists, and other community health care workers. There are enormous disparities of opportunity, wealth, and power (Esquivel, V., 2016). The realisation of power and widening of the gap between the rich and the poor plays against the vision of the SDG.

References:

Dhar, S. (2019). Gender and sustainable development goals. In India’s Social Sector and SDGs (pp. 203-227). Routledge India.

Esquivel, V. (2016). Power and the Sustainable Development Goals: a feminist analysis. Gender & Development, 24(1), 9-23.

Gronski, M. P., Bogan, K. E., Kloeckner, J., Russell-Thomas, D., Taff, S. D., Walker, K. A., & Berg, C. (2013). The Issue Is—Childhood toxic stress: A community role in health promotion for occupational therapists. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 67, e148–e153. http://dx.doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2013.008755

Kates W. Robert , Thomas M. Parris & Anthony A. Leiserowitz (2005) What is Sustainable Development? Goals, Indicators, Values, and Practice, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 47:3, 8-21, DOI: 10.1080/00139157.2005.10524444

https://www.sdg.services/

[ohmightydevviepuu]

our little life (rounded with a sleep) / chapter 4

our little life (rounded with a sleep) chapter four

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

Only lately, she’s been thinking that maybe it should say “Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck.”

Her partner’s been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.

(a FULL rewrite of “the stuff that dreams are made of” completed as part of the 2020 Captain Swan Big Bang Rewrite-a-Thon)

–

always, always, always because of @thisonesatellite, @profdanglaisstuff and @katie-dub

thanks again to the amazing team at @captainswanbigbang and to the amazing, fun, clever, brilliant and supportive group of participants there who kept me going

–

CW:  canonical character death (minor character) rating:  T/M (mild implied violence, language) AO3

Jamie Hook insists Emma accompany him to meet Regina Mills. And then he tells her a story.

Neither of those things goes particularly well.

chapter one | chapter two | chapter three

--

I’m out on a case tonight, Emma texted Mary Margaret while she waited for Hook to catch her up. Enjoy having the place to yourself, she added before slipping the phone back into a pocket. The text was meant to give her something to do, provide some kind of quick break for her mind and her thoughts to settle, but Hook’s mere presence seemed to make that impossible. The man himself was impossible--impossibly beautiful, impossibly infuriating, impossibly insightful--and he was still, technically, at a minimum, a person of interest in an active homicide investigation even before Emma considered her own case.

Still. He said he hadn’t done it, and Emma believed him. She was attracted to him, too, like that was even news--undoubtedly Hook had admirers of all genders, between his dark good looks and his attitude and the way he looked at you like you were the only thing that mattered in the world.

“Do me a favor, Swan, when we go in there,” he said seriously, and he was doing exactly that, looking intently at her, and his eyes were just so ridiculous and blue as he nodded toward the well-lit lobby of the Mills’ Organization office building. “Don’t believe I’m as crooked as I seem to be. I haven’t lived a good life, and I’ve done worse things than you can ever imagine. But if you can trust me, just a little--”

“Right,” Emma said. “The team thing again.”

“I think we can help each other, Swan. I’m not much for loyalty, but I’ll swear allegiance to whomever can help me. I was hoping it’d be you.”

“You want to kill him, don’t you?” Emma interrupted, because she had figured out at least that much in between the fairy-tale nonsense he’d spouted. Emma understood pissed, she understood revenge, she understood needing allies and most of all she understood two fucking years in Tallahassee and--

“You could have just asked me for the keys,” Neal had said, and smiled.

“Bye, Emma,” Henry had said, and smiled.

Hook was still staring at her. Deep breath.

“Gold took more than your hand from you,” she said, not asking. “He’s the one that killed her. That’s what this is all about for you.”

“You’re quite perceptive, Swan, for someone who’s never been in love,” he said.

Emma shrugged.

One second more of his eyes on her, Emma feeling like he could drill a hole into her head, and then his expression shifted all over again. “Alas, in this world, we are slaves to time, and it is getting quite late for a social call. Tick-tock, love, and put your hand right there, that’s a good girl.”

He led her not to the building but back to her car, talking over her protests. “Believe me, Swan, you don’t want to be on Regina’s radar yet any more than you already are. Give me but a moment to work my charms on the security guard before we set sail, yeah?” He held the car door open like a proper gentleman.

Emma looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Try something new, darling,” he said, his eyes pleading. “It’s called trust.”

Slowly, Emma nodded. “Get on with it, Hook,” she said, sitting down. “And don’t think for one second I’m taking my eyes off of you.”

“I would despair if you did,” Hook said with a wink, and walked in.

Emma pulled the car door closed and immediately regretted staying behind, though the view as Hook walked away was nothing to sneeze at. Her hand balled up into a fist as she banged it against the glass of the window; this was a bad idea.

She wasn’t sure if she meant the scheme--or Hook.

The look you get in your eyes when you’ve been left alone.

Emma sighed, giving one last bang on the glass, and wondered if she should just start the car and drive away.

“Be careful, Emma,” Hook said from the seat next to her, and Emma jumped. “You’re making a mistake.”

“I don’t want to talk to you about this,” Emma said, closing her eyes.

“You can’t always run just because you’re frightened,” Hook said. “Graham’s gone and you’re a part of something new and you’re already afraid.”

“Besides Graham, I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of anything,” she whispered.

“But you could be,” Hook said, reaching for a chain that hung around his neck and pulling it off, dangling a ring in the empty space between them. “Keep this,” he said. “You could do with a reminder.”

“A reminder of what?” Emma asked, but a loud knock on the window startled her awake.

“Forgotten me already?” Hook asked with a smirk. “Come, Swan, I’ve secured us an audience with Her Royal Highness, Regina Mills.”

--

Regina Mills’ office was a wide room, well-lit, with a wall of windows.

A shiver passed through Emma as Hook’s hand fell from the base of her spine, where it had been since they’d gotten on the elevator, a moment before they stepped through the door.

The decor was black and white and stark, tasteful and minimalistic, and the centerpoint was a desk facing away from the window wall. To access it, Hook and Emma had to walk down a sort of allee that showed off the inlay floor; on one side was a table that could seat six and on the other was a white couch facing a fireplace, with a statue of a horse anchoring the mantle. The wallpaper was a grim silhouette of a forest and a heavy chandelier dangled from the ceiling, the one point of color a large bowl overflowing with Red Delicious apples. Regina’s desk had no front piece--it balanced on a pair of elaborate sawhorses and gave anyone who cared to look a view of her legs, which were now on display as Regina was wearing a skirt with her jacket as opposed to the trousers Emma had seen earlier in the day. Like maybe the job of threatening Emma Swan had required a wardrobe change.

As for the woman herself, she was in a rage.

Emma was giving serious consideration to the idea that rage was Regina’s perpetual state; still, whatever Emma had seen of her that afternoon was nothing when taken against her reaction to the presence of Hook. And her, Emma. And her presence, there, in the company of Hook. Emma’s own outfit probably wasn’t helping matters, either--at least when it came to Regina, but Hook had more than once had his eyes trained, in a most ungentlemanly fashion, on her ass, and seemed to enjoy her outfit very much.

Yay.

Regina Mills was actually, by all appearances, several levels above rage and they were barely through the door. Even her eyes seemed to be on fire, alight with heat that was surely capable of melting steel. “Captain Hook,” she said silkily, her voice attempting to suppress all of the emotion already on display. “I’m positively delighted to see you again.”

Emma did not need to be either calm or focused to know that was a lie. The face was a dead giveaway.

“I was sure you would be,” Hook said, spreading his hands and inclining his head in a parody of a bow. The lack of affect in his voice was shocking--dry, sharp and uninterested; Emma suddenly missed the gentle touch that she had not invited at the small of her back as she was confronted with this stranger and his expressionless face. Even the liveliness of his eyebrows was missing, though Regina’s eyes still looked capable of shooting fire as her eyebrows went straight up into her hairline.

“The question is,” Regina said, “how you knew to find me at all.”

“It is rather, isn’t it?” Hook said, and nothing else, merely waiting for Regina to continue.

She was quiet for a moment and her gaze fell on Emma. “And the Swan girl,” she said dismissively. “Not the normal sort of company for a man like Captain Hook, even after all of this time.”

It was the name he’d given to the sleepy security guard--the name that had granted them entry--and it still startled Emma to hear it again. Was it somehow a real thing, and not just a joke? Had that been his rank in the Navy?

“Oh, Regina,” Hook sighed. “I thought you knew me better than that, after ‘all of this time’. You of all people should know I tend to favor brunettes.”

Gold had said much the same and Emma was enough of a detective to have deduced that the former--the late--Mrs. Gold must have had brown hair, only the comment clearly meant something else to Regina. Her eyes narrowed and Emma was, briefly, on her side--that was positively the worst excuse for making a pass Emma had ever seen, and she had once been picked up by the guy sleeping in the backseat of her stolen car.

Hook stood impassively; there was something charged in the air between them.

Understanding dawned on Regina’s face. “The maid,” she said flatly.

Hook nodded and gave another bow. “I do apologize,” he said, self-evidently not sorry at all. “I know you thought you were the only one who could charm Nurse Ratched and fly one out of the cuckoo’s nest. Given the circumstances, however, it seemed wise to acquire some leverage.” Hook’s face contorted into a leer as he said, “But then, you would know all about that--wouldn’t you?”

Regina’s expression, if it was possible, got even darker; Hook nodded, apparently satisfied.

“What are you doing here, Captain?”

“I’ve come to condole with you on the loss of your pet,” Hook said, and his sharp consonants were back, harsh and pointed now instead of playful and flirtatious, and Emma worked to hide her flinch.

“Was it you?”

“I’m flattered, Regina,” Hook said, holding up his left hand, “but we both know this is hardly capable of such a feat.”

“What happened to Graham Humbert?” Regina demanded. It was a command and Regina clearly expected to be obeyed.

Hook seemed equally determined to disappoint her, raising his eyebrows with a little smile. It was not a real smile, Emma noticed. It wasn’t even the fake smile he’d bestowed upon the co-eds at the bar.

It was a smile that had been twisted, made into something dark and cruel.

Hook stood silently until Regina’s hands balled up into fists on her desk. Then: “The Dark One,” he said simply.

“That’s not possible.” Regina’s hands relaxed and she trilled a laugh. “How much of your own bar’s rum have you been drinking, Hook?”

“Ah, yes,” Hook said in a lazy drawl. “The bar. Do allow me to thank you for that, Your Majesty. I so love a life spent in servitude to others. My ship in a bottle was a particularly pointed reminder that I did not understand what had agreed to when you offered me this...opportunity.”

Emma lost track somewhere around “Majesty”, but she did notice Regina’s lips curl very slightly upward--she was pleased with herself.

“But do consider, Majesty,” he pressed on, “whether you truly believe that you’ve kept the Dark One tame all of these years here in this realm, this Land Without Magic that was meant to keep him a prisoner. Do you truly believe that he has been here, all of this time, with no plans, no contingencies, and no means of acting upon them?” Regina’s expression shifted again, and Hook’s smile spread.

For a moment, no one moved or spoke, and then Regina repeated: “It’s not possible.”

Even Emma knew she said it in an attempt to convince herself.

“And yet,” Hook said, the words rolling off his tongue, “as you so wisely pointed out, I’ve managed to find you. I’ve taken steps.” He matched his actions to his words, pushing into Regina’s space, leaning over the desk and balancing his weight on the one hand.

“You think the maid is some kind of chess piece?” Regina scoffed.

“Do I look,” Hook said, “like I’m playing a game?”

“You’re still dedicated and resourceful, Hook,” Regina said grudgingly, “but Belle can’t help you kill Rumplestiltskin.”

“He’s Awake, Regina,” Hook countered. “And you’d have been stupid not to realize it the instant you saw what he did to Humbert.”

“Is that any way to address a queen?” Regina snapped, but Hook had obviously gotten to her. “Even a pirate should have better manners than that.”

“Oh,” Hook said, drawing out the syllable. “Perhaps I’m not crazy about your manners, either. Perhaps I’ve been grieving over them these past twenty-eight years, drinking rum behind my bar. You know what a persistent fellow I am, Regina. You know that twenty-eight years is barely a prologue for me. You of all people know what I am capable of, since you’ve seen fit to leave me with a daily reminder. But then--you’ve never been one for subtlety, have you?”

“Hook,” Regia said, her voice sharp with warning.

“Of course, Your Majesty, my manners,” Hook said. “I can see I’ve been remiss in not properly introducing--”

“Who is she?” Regina interrupted. “What is your purpose in bringing her here?”

“She is right here,” Emma said, glaring. “And she would love to know what the hell you two think is going on.” Because--’Dark One’? ‘Your Majesty’? ‘Captain’? Talking about Rumplestiltskin like that was an actual name for an actual person--this was so far down the rabbit hole that Emma was starting to wonder if a hookah-smoking caterpillar had dropped something into her rum.

Only--she hadn’t actually drank any of the rum, and she was making bad fairy tale puns in her head while Hook and Regina ignored her, as if she had served her purpose in this conversation, and she had been wrong because there was one thing Emma understood about all of this: leverage. She was part of Hook’s leverage, and as fury started to swirl up around here there was also the tiniest stab of disappointment and sadness, a faint wisp of not again.

“The child got away,” Hook said, and waited.

All trace of calm was gone from Regina and the rage had taken over. “Is this a joke, Captain? Something about Miss Swan’s ridiculous tattoo?”

Hook smirked again, the same cruel distortion of his lips, and shook his head. “I can’t count meself an expert, of course,” he said, “but I am a man of some considerable education and I’ve learned over the years of two things that are always true in a situation such as ours. Which one, Your Majesty, do you suppose is relevant here?”

That really got to her, Emma saw. Her entire body froze, her eyes widened and then shut completely for a minute until Regina visibly forced herself to open them again, and to face her interlocutor and his sickening, shit-eating grin.

“All curses can be broken,” Regina practically spat the words out at them.

And now, Emma thought, curses. Un-fucking-believable.

Regina and Hook, though, obviously both believed.

In curses.

“And yours, Regina, is weakening,” Hook said, pulling back from the desk and resuming his earlier stance, the fingers of his right hand wrapped around his belt. “Which brings us back to the subject of Humbert. Did you know he was hired and sent after me? Any guesses by whom?”

“No,” Regina said, her perfectly-painted lips pressed into a thin line.

“It would appear,” Hook continued, “that the Dark One has noticed that whatever you’ve taken has gone missing. ‘Tis a curious thing, no? For a man who, like me, should have no memory?” He paused. “Somehow, Regina, I don’t see that ending well for you.”

“Get. Out.” Regina gestured at the door with such force that Emma half-expected it to fly open by the force of her will alone. “Now. Both of you.”

“Willingly,” Hook intoned, accompanying it with another mocking bow. “Come, Swan, we’re done here.”

And they left.

--

Emma wanted to stalk off in a huff but her present footwear made that impossible. Not to mention, Hook was definitely staring at her ass again, and there was no point in prolonging his opportunity. She squared her shoulders, hands on her hips, legs slightly apart. Her best glare was on her face and she was back in do not fuck with me mode as Hook already had his arms up in a placating sort of gesture that Emma was absolutely, positively not in the mood for.

“Give me one good reason,” Emma said, “not to punch you in the face.” It ended up coming out as more of a snarl than a request but Emma was okay with that as long as it got her point across.

Hook easily caught the hand she hadn’t even consciously swung at him and gripped her wrist gently. “Considering I just did you a favor,” he said, his thumb rubbing absently across her skin, “that would be very bad form.” Hook didn’t go of her wrist; in fact, he tightened his grip and turned it so that it was facing up and the sleeve of her jacket had slipped up her arm until the flash of ink on skin was visible. “Now,” he said, “what is all of this palaver about a tattoo?”

Emma pulled her wrist back as if she had been stung, her hands going straight to her pockets. Her anger and frustration swirled around her, pulling her grief back to the surface. “No,” Emma said. “You do not get to screw with me right now. My partner is dead and whatever game you are playing has nothing to do with me. We are not a team and I am not helping you and you are going to tell me what the fuck just happened back there.”

“Regina’s been spooked, love,” he said. “She’ll look to protect whatever it was she took, which means that you shall be able to retrieve it on behalf of your...client.” He said the word as if it left an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

Emma glared at him some more, this time because he was right. It was an old bail bonds trick for smoking out a perp--a classic, really, and Emma should have thought of it for herself.

“You seem very sure of that,” Emma said. “In fact, you seem to know her pretty well. What happened between the two of you back there?”

“Nothing,” Hook said smoothly. “I’ve told you, Swan, I did some work for the family once, long ago.”

“How do I know that you don’t have whatever it is Gold is looking for? How do I know you didn’t steal from him?”

“Oh, I’ve stolen from him,” Hook said easily, then raised his eyebrows at her expression. “Not my Milah, Swan--she left him and he killed her for it, and it would be my preference not to speak of her further.”

Milah. “Just like my Milah, when the crocodile took her from me.”

Emma shook her head. “So what did you steal?”

“Nothing I’ve any intention of giving back,” Hook said with some finality. “And, as pertains to your particular mission, nothing he knows is missing.”

Belle. “Belle can’t help you kill Rumplestiltskin.”

“Belle,” Emma said. “The maid.”

“Impressive,” he said. “But know this, Swan: I do not traffic in unwilling women.”

“So Captain Hook is a pirate after all, then?”

The look you get when you’ve been left alone, he’d said, only he’d had it too, and Emma had got the sense that under all of that innuendo, there was someone just trying to keep the world enough at bay to slay his own demons. She’d thought that, against all odds, she was beginning to get a handle on him. They’d shared something, some moment of understanding, in spite of his delusions and his revenge fantasies; Emma had seen it in the way that he had looked at his brother.

In the way he’d looked at her.

Then she had stood in a room with him, watching him face off against Regina, and it was like she was seeing an entirely different person--and the worst part was, she was pretty sure none of what he said had been a lie.

Cruses and Queens and Rumple-fucking-stiltskin in a “Land Without Magic” and he seemed to think all of that was true.

“What aren’t you telling me about you and ‘Her Majesty’, Captain?”

“Nothing,” Hook insisted. “That’s my tale and I’m sticking to it.”

“Not good enough,” Emma snapped. “I want answers, Hook. Real ones.”

“I don’t know what else you want me to say,” Hook said, and suddenly she was back with the man she’d met in the bar and he was watching her like she was the only thing he ever wanted to look at.

Emma shifted her head, turning away from his gaze, and crossed her arms, feeling the leather there--battle mode, activated. She couldn’t stomp her foot--the shoes again--but she took a step back. It was deja-vu; they had already done this dance tonight, and she was no closer to knowing who’d killed Graham even if he was right about retrieving Gold’s property from Regina Mills.

“Who are you, really?”

“James Hook,” he said. “That’s my name. That’s been my name as long as I’ve been in this world, I swear to you.”

“James Hook,” Emma said, “is a character from a story book. So is Rumplestiltskin. Curses are not real, and there is no way that you have known Regina Mills for twenty-eight years unless you worked for her family when you were seven years old, and that is definitely too young to have enlisted in the Royal Navy even if you came by way of Neverland.”

Hook was quiet, and he hesitated before speaking. “I spent many years in Neverland,” he said.

“Did you get there through a rabbit hole?” Emma retorted, her temper flaring. “On your way to Wonderland?”

“Travel between realms does require a portal,” Hook said, still serious, then: “I’m going to tell you a story, Swan.”

Something about the soft, serious tone of his voice kept her still, waiting for whatever he might say next.

“Once upon a time, there was an enchanted forest, and its denizens included all of the fairy tale characters you think you know, until they found themselves in a place where all of their happy endings had been stolen.” He paused and said, “This world, Swan. The Land Without Magic. Time stopped, and everyone was trapped, and that was Regina’s victory; but magic always comes with a price--and all curses can be broken.”

All curses can be broken.

“You can’t be serious,” Emma said.

“It was prophesied that the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, the product of True Love, would, on her twenty-eighth birthday--”

“No,” Emma interrupted. “Stop talking. And definitely stop pretending you know anything about me or my life with your open-book garbage.”

“Alas, love,” he said, and he sounded resigned. “I know you better than you know yourself--I know who you are and where you came from. I know what became of your parents and why you grew up alone. Your parents’ entire kingdom was cursed. They sent you here to break it. And all of it is because of Regina Mills and Robert Gold.”

“My parents?” Emma wanted to laugh, but the noise she made didn’t come close to that. “Their kingdom? A curse? Do you know what you sound like?”

Emma would later blame the sheer ridiculousness of the situation for why she didn’t notice the flashing lights headed in their direction.

“The tattoo is proof,” he said. “A buttercup. It was part of your father’s heraldry.”

“You’re telling me fairy tales,” Emma said.

“They’re not fairy tales,” Hook insisted. “They’re true. Every story you’ve read, some version of it has actually happened. You, Swan, have been here more than a year but it was on your birthday that something happened, am I correct? Your twenty-eighth birthday?”

The lights were closer, now, and they were attached to a sheriff’s cruiser.

“You kissed the Hunter, Swan,” he continued relentlessly, “and despite your protestations you must have felt something for him, some connection, or it would not have allowed the curse to weaken its hold on him.”

David Nolan was at the wheel, and he was pulling up alongside them. He put the car in park, lights still flashing, and opened his door. He called her name but made straight for Hook.

“James Hook?”

Hook nodded, wary, his eyes moving straight toward Emma. Emma just held up her hands, a mirror of his earlier gesture. Not me, she mouthed.

“There’s been a complaint of harassment made against you,” Nolan said. “And you’re needed for questioning in the matter of Graham Humbert’s death.” David had gotten Hook’s hands behind his back, pulling out the cuffs.

“I’m devastated, love,” Hook said, and his voice was deadly calm as the first bracelet clinked. “Didn’t you even want to do the honors?” His eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, were like chips of ice as he stared at her.

“Call me ‘love’ one more time,” Emma said, “and you will lose the other hand.”

“Emma,” Hook said, and there was a note of pleading in his voice. “Did I tell you a lie?”

She ignored him, ignored David calling her name again and got back into her car, starting it and shifting and pulling away before Hook was fully situated in the backseat of the cruiser. She was going to move the car, park it again, and stake out Regina.

She was not going to spend the night thinking about James Hook and Graham Humbert and what Graham could possibly have gotten into with him. She was not going to think about Hook’s delusions and Graham’s death. She was not going to think about Neal or the look in Hook’s eyes when he had spoken to her and how, against all of her better instincts, Emma might actually have believed him.

Just because you believe something does not make it real, Emma reminded herself as she watched the cruiser drive away. She couldn’t take the chance that she was wrong about him--more importantly, she would not take the chance that she was right. Look out for yourself and you never get hurt , Emma reminded herself, and then did what she was best at: she ran.

--

@shireness-says @carpedzem @mariakov81 @kmomof4 @stahlop @snowbellewells @spartanguard @optomisticgirl @nikkiemms @searchingwardrobes @scientificapricot​

guys, i have no idea about tags.  i have no idea if they are working, or not working, or if people want them.  if you like them, thank you for reading!  if you don’t, apologies for spam--just LMK 🤣

[fightersforpeace]

WPS: for protecting women or … Reality in the Arab world

𝑨𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒍𝒆 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒃𝒚 𝑯𝒂𝒍𝒂 𝑨𝒃𝒊 𝑺𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒉

Security has been associated with a strong form of militarized masculinity and peace with a type of femininity where women are seen only as victims needing protection. In International relations, prescriptions for state survival are based on power maximization, strength, and autonomy, characteristics we associate with masculinity. With the development of feminist theories in both in the field of International Relations and Security Studies “The Women, Peace, and Security agenda” (WPS) has been developed and stands at this juncture with significant potential to bring knowledge and social transformation to prevent conflicts, protect human rights, and promote recovery from conflict and insecurity.

WPS is characterized by tensions and ambivalences as state and non-state actors struggle, compete, and collaborate to define and implement the atypical security agenda. The agenda is expected to challenge the patriarchal normative framework and unequal political economies that underpin peace and security institutions, but, at the same time, to actively engage with these very institutions to transform gender power relations. The normative agenda is the result of the practical capacities of diverse women’s rights’ actors around the world - scholars, activists, practitioners, political leaders, and policymakers - to build connections between their specific institutional and local contexts and the global norm. In addition, WPS aims to amplify voices of women from conflict zones, gender-based violence survivors, displaced and refugee women, by bringing them to international fora to share their practical knowledge of how best to protect “vulnerable” populations and enable their participation.

The theory and practice of WPS are in conflict, post-conflict, and in peaceful situations, which lead to that the WPS agenda is and should be core to conflict prevention, relief and recovery, peace processes, and the protection of civilians. For many scholars, the best protection for women is their full participation in decision-making and resolving conflicts.

Despite the high level of violence and insecurities that women, and civilians more generally, suffer during and after a conflict, the rationale for war has been centred on the myth that wars are fought for the protection of women, children, and other vulnerable people. Exposing this myth also helps the activists to see that women are not just helpless victims in conflict but persons who are actively engaged in the provision of security in multiple ways. Peace-building and nonviolence require courage, struggle, and resistance, and a refusal to accept victimization, traits we see in women activists in conflict zones today.

The WPS agenda and 1325 resolution have been adopted by many countries in the world and Arab countries as well such Jordan, Lebanon, … where state-led National Action Plans (NAP) have been developed and adopted by the respective governments. And even the Arab League has been working on a joint plan to all Arab countries on gender and war and security.

But, if we take a close look on the ground and see the situation and struggles of women mainly in conflict zones, we have the sentiment that WPS has never been adopted and what’s happening on the ground is far from the theoretical academia sphere and of the UN building in New York and Geneva.

In the Arab world, where many conflicts are still ongoing in countries such as Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Palestine … women from these countries are often portrayed as victims and weak, in the media. We see, frequently, videos and photos of women alongside children and elders, crying and in dire help. These photos show these women as defenceless and vulnerable victims. Which will affect the policy, the practice and implementations where interventions to assist women and girls in crises situations will be focused on their protection rather than their empowerment. We can notice that in the cases of Yazidi women as victims of rape and GBV and not fighters against ISIS and their task to justice. Furthermore, many feminist scholars have pointed out; rape is not just an accident of war but frequently part of military strategy. In ethnic wars, rape is used as a weapon to undermine the identity of entire communities.

But exceptions exist where women are playing a role on the political level and in peace talks such as in Syria since 2016.

In February 2016, Staffan de Misura, who was the UN Special Envoy for Syria, asked for the organisation of the Syrian Women’s Advisory Board. The Board is composed of 12 representatives of civil society of different social and ideological backgrounds chosen from several Syrian women’s organisations in and outside of Syria. The basis of the formation of the board has been laid down in resolution 2254 of the UN Security Council which called for the participation of women in the UN-facilitated political process for Syria.

The board has many responsibilities such as talking on missing matters from the agenda, provide options, form consensus positions and make recommendations to assist peace talks, address key points of contention and offer creative solutions, propose gender-responsive perspectives and channel relevant civil society expertise.

However, in recent years many Syrian activists criticised the current political and peace process such as Mouna Ghanem who wrote an op-ed published on the Independent on 22 February 2019 titled “If governments want to achieve peace in Syria, they need to stop excluding women from their negotiations”. Mrs Ghanem was a member of the Syrian Women’s Advisory Board and resigned from it. In her article, she described the situation while forming the board and the difficulties they have faced as women and political member of the board. Apparently, most of the members of the board don’t have any political background and some members “rejected entirely the principles of universal human rights and international conventions on women’s rights and equality”, highlighting the difficulties to reach a common ground and consensus among the members. Furthermore, in her article, the political activist criticised the Western governments and their passive position towards the board: “All the time, Western governments gave generously to fund the board’s activities, perhaps pleased they could cross women’s participation off the to-do list, with nothing to show for it in the end.”

References:

Al Maleh, A. (2018, May 23). Members of UN female advisory body ‘still fighting’ for direct influence in Syrian peace talks. Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://syriadirect.org/news/members-of-un-female-advisory-body-%E2%80%98still-fighting%E2%80%99-for-direct-influence-in-syrian-peace-talks/

Ghanem, M. (2019, February 22). If governments want to achieve peace in Syria, they need to stop excluding women from their negotiations. Retrieved July 13, 2020, from https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-conflict-resolution-women-sexism-war-a8792271.html

Naraghi Anderlini, S. (2020, August 01). Where are the women peacemakers? Retrieved August 02, 2020, from https://mondediplo.com/2020/08/04peacemakers

“Establishment of the Syrian Women’s Advisory Board to contribute to the peace talks is a historic moment” — Executive Director. (2016, February 3). Retrieved July 15, 2020, from https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2016/2/ed-statement-on-syrian-womens-advisory-board

المغربي، م. (18 نوفمبر 2020). نساء من ضحايا الحرب يساهمن في صناعة السلام والمصالحة في ليبيا. https://bit.ly/35U34XG

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[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

It’s very strange to think of Joe Biden as a world-historical figure. For decades, he seemed to me to be a bit of an irritating blowhard who rarely took the chance to edit himself. He was a classic slap-on-the-back backroom pol, with an everyman-on-the-train vibe, who loved the ornaments of public office, and that was basically it.

Washington will always need people like Biden, and he played the part well, but he was hardly a star. He rarely inspired, he made cringe-inducing gaffe after gaffe, his vanity required him to cover up his baldness with what, for a while, looked like a painful rice-paddy of plugs, he plagiarized a speech so obviously and crudely he almost begged to be caught, and despite his rep for retail politics, was terrible at campaigning for president. In 2008, he quit after Iowa, with one percent of the vote.

His big moment came when Barack Obama picked him as his veep. And the choice of Biden was specifically designed, it seems to me, to ruffle no more feathers, and to assuage white working-class discomfort with a young, inexperienced black guy with a funny, foreign-sounding name. Even at the time, it felt to me that Biden’s acceptance speech was fine but not exactly great — but what worked nonetheless was his persona: “It’s hard not to feel affection for this scrappy old guy — especially if you’re a Catholic,” I wrote. “This was a very culturally Catholic speech, especially at the beginning, and Biden will speak to people who might be leery of this young African-American. It was also focused on middle class economic anxiety and spoke about it in intimate ways that voters will immediately understand.”

Twelve years later, this guy is even older and less scrappy but still has the same core appeal: that old Irish dude who can go on a bit but has a heart of gold and hasn’t completely disappeared into the left-liberal elite. The drastically curtailed Covid campaign was a godsend in retrospect because it removed countless opportunities for him to get in his own way, while very successfully projecting and burnishing this image. Yes he could get a bit Abraham-Simpson-y at times, but I confess I began to find that a little comforting after a while, in the era of Trump. The combination of decency, vulnerability and humanness became even more potent up against an indecent, inhuman con-man. It became the stutterer versus the monster.

And Biden’s core appeal, as he has occasionally insisted, is that he ran against the Democratic left, and won because of moderate and older black voters with their heads screwed on right. He was the least online candidate. For race-leftists like Jamelle Bouie, he was part of the problem: “For decades Biden gave liberal cover to white backlash.” For gender-warriors like Rebecca Traister, he was “a comforter of patriarchal impulses toward controlling women’s bodies.” Ben Smith a year and a half ago went for it: “His campaign is stumbling toward launch with all the hallmarks of a Jeb!-level catastrophe — a path that leads straight down … Joe Biden isn’t going to emerge from the 2020 campaign as the nominee. You already knew that.” The sheer smug of it! And the joy of seeing old Joe get the last laugh.

It’s worth recalling the obloquy the woke dumped on Biden in the early stages of the race because this will surely be a battle line if he wins the presidency, and we will have to fight for him and against them if we are not going to sink into deeper tribal warfare. He is one of the last vestiges of the near-extinct rapport between white working-class voters and the Democrats, and if he wins next week, it will be because he has wrested older white voters from the Republican grip, and won white women in a landslide (unlike Clinton), even as his support among blacks and Latinos may come in slightly behind Hillary’s.

Biden ran a campaign, in stark contrast to Clinton’s, focused not on rallying the base around identity grievances, but on persuading the other side with argument and engagement. If you believe in liberal democracy — in persuasion, dialogue, and civility — and want to resist tribalism, Biden may be our unexpected but real last chance. And in this campaign, he has walked the walk.

His core message, which has been remarkably consistent, is not a divisive or partisan one. It is neither angry nor bitter. Despite mockery and scorn from some understandably embittered partisans, he has a hand still held out if Republicans want to cooperate. In this speech at Warm Springs, where Biden invoked the legacy of FDR, you can feel the Obama vibe, so alien to the woke: “Red states, blue states, Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, and Liberals. I believe from the bottom of my heart, we can do it. People ask me, why are you so confident Joe? Because we are the United States of America.”

And while he has promised a deep re-structuring and redistribution in the wake of Covid, climate change, and destabilizing inequality, he has done so in pragmatic, rather than ideological, terms. Against the surreal extremism and divisiveness of Trump, he has offered moderation and an appeal to unity. Look at the careful balance he has struck on the protests against police misconduct this summer: “Some of it is just senseless burning and looting and violence that can’t be tolerated and won’t, but much of it is a cry for justice from a community that’s long had a knee of injustice on their neck.” We need both these impulses, if we are to extract real reform from distorting rage, and make it stick.

He is not perfect, of course. I suspect he is naive on some questions. He realizes, does he not, that when he uses the term “equity” rather than “equality”, with respect to race, he is using code for the crudest racial discrimination. He surely knows that critical race theory is not about being sensitive to the pain of others, but about seeing the U.S. as no less a white supremacy now than under slavery, and liberal constitutionalism as a mere mask for oppression of non-whites. He knows that the Equality Act eviscerates the religious freedom he has previously championed, does he not, and folds the category of sex into one of gender, jeopardizing at the margins both gay and women’s rights? And it should be troubling, it seems to me, that, when confronted with the fact that his son, Hunter, is corrupt in the classic, legal, and swampy way, Biden refuses to see anything wrong with it at all.

But these are quibbles in the grand scheme of things. And it is striking, as David Brooks noted this morning, how deftly Biden has walked through a field of culture war landmines and not see one go off. That has taken discipline — and Biden has shown that he can exercise it. Maybe he learned it from Obama.

His closing message has been about healing — from the wounds of Covid, economic crisis, and resilient racism. And if there is one thing Biden really knows in his heart and soul it is healing. Recovering from the loss of a wife, a daughter and a son requires a profound sense of how to take the hits that life can bring, how to stay strong while accepting vulnerability, and how to move slowly forward.

This is how he put it last week, as he related to the isolating, desolating casualties of Covid19: “Alone in a hospital room, alone in a nursing home, no family, no friends, no loved ones beside them in those final moments, and it haunts so many of the surviving families, families who were never given a chance to say goodbye. I, and many of you know, what loss feels like when you lose someone you love, you feel that deep black hole opening up on your chest and you feel like you’re being swallowed into it.”

I have felt that way for four years now. What I grieve is an idea of America that is decent, generous, big-hearted, and pragmatic, where the identity of a citizen, unqualified, unhyphenated, is the only identity you need. I miss a public discourse where a president takes responsibility even for things beyond his full control, where the fault-lines of history are not mined for ammunition but for greater understanding, where, in Biden’s words, we can once again see the dignity in each other. I am not a fool, and know how hard this will be. But in this old man, with his muscle memory of what we have lost, and his ability to move and change in new ways, we have an unexpected gift.

“I’ve long said the story of America is a story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” Joe Biden said last week. Well, ordinary old Joe, it’s your turn now. Do the extraordinary.

ANDREW SULLIVAN

THE WEEKLY DISH

[digitalhovel]

A review of “Juno Steel,” a hilarious and emotionally-driven queer space opera

           I recently began work as a DoorDash driver, and you know what that means: living in fear because you have to constantly expose yourself to shitheads who aren’t wearing masks? Yes. And also, lots of time in the car with nothing to do but listen to stuff. Which means I decided to go back and binge the first two seasons of one of my favorite podcasts, The Penumbra Podcast’s “Juno Steel” series. “Juno Steel” is an enjoyable, enthralling story about home, mental illness, and what it means to be good.

           The Penumbra Podcast, created by Sophie Takagi Kaner and Kevin Vibert, is an anthology series that focuses on telling interesting stories while representing marginalized sexual, romantic, and gender identities. It began with a Twilight Zone-esque series of narratives, each with a different setting and characters, but they now run two main storylines: “The Second Citadel” (a fantasy setting examining prejudice and relationships) and “Juno Steel” (a dystopian space noir set in Hyperion City, Mars). The Penumbra Podcast is one of the first podcasts I ever listened to, and it’s still going strong.

           The following contains spoilers for “Juno Steel” season one. If you want to give them a listen, try the remake of “Juno Steel and the Murderous Mask.” Episodes are 30-60 minutes, but the commitment is well worth it in the end.

The characterization in “Juno Steel” is one of the series’ strongest points. Juno Steel is a classic noir detective: determined, depressed, and damn stubborn. The first season of Juno Steel follows him as he uncovers a plot to harvest ancient Martian tech in order to kill the citizens of Hyperion City. Along the way, he develops a complicated relationship with a thief, Peter Nureyev, and their lives become inextricably linked. Juno is an ex-cop and struggles with several issues: trusting someone whose expertise is being untrustworthy, and also trusting literally anyone else. (Note: there is a brief, problematic moment between Juno Steel and a woman PI named Alessandra. I’ll explain at the bottom if you want a warning before listening.)

          Juno Steel is blunt and focused on good, on solving the problem, on doing his best even if it kills him. He struggles to take into consideration the wants and cares of others, and he often jeopardizes his relationships by jumping to conclusions and acting before thinking. Peter Nureyev is suave, collected, and always has a plan. Their dynamic is incredibly fun to listen to because

1.      The acting by Joshua Ilon (Juno) and Noah Simes (Nureyev), is incredible (as is the work of everyone in the cast), and the writing carries their chemistry incredibly well

2.      They are forced into situations where each must give up their expertise and authority to help the other

This challenges their pre-conceived notions of the world, and it gives their characters places to develop and grow throughout the season. It also provides rife opportunities for comedy. Juno is sardonic and blunt, and Nureyev is witty and concise. Every character has a distinct voice, a distinct sense of excitement, and a distinct humor that makes each episode worth listening to as the creators tackle various tropes in the genre and spin an exciting mystery. While Juno often has a low speaking tempo, his secretary Rita gives monologues in seconds. These small moments of contrast build a broad and unique cast that make every interaction dramatic, and often hilarious. These character beats continue to influence the characters in season two, as Juno has to begin grappling with his own senses of responsibility, his past, and his guilt as he continues trying to do good in the world.

          This idea of ‘good’ pervades the message of both seasons of Juno Steel. The Juno of season one is obsessed with self-sacrifice and self-destruction. The creators have never been shy about Juno having mental illness, namely, depression. In his case, he lashes out at people who disagree with him and can’t see consequences of actions that aren’t his. Somehow, it’s always his fault. But the rest of the characters disagree with that philosophy. The Penumbra Pod presents a great deal of viewpoints on coping with feelings of grief, responsibility and guilt, from self-destruction to bottling it up and moving on to just trying to live every day to forget about the one before. No one is right, but the diversity of opinions provokes genuine thought in the listener. The show deals with heavy themes but the characters are grounded and deal with their grief, guilt, and fear in realistic and dynamic ways, letting the audience learn alongside Juno as his perspective slowly opens up.

          The following contain serious spoilers for “Juno Steel,” season two.

          It’s a testament to the writing that Juno learns from these lessons. In season two, he’s less self-destructive, but still driven to making the world a better place, fueled by his guilt and his past. Season two of Juno Steel features and more nuanced villain, Ramses O’Flaherty (heavily influenced by Walt Disney). Ramses wants to create a good world, plain and simple. The issue is, he thinks his version of good is universal, and he has the power and resources to try to enforce it with impunity. It’s a tense narrative that forces Juno to examine his own motivations for doing his job and perspectives regarding the place he calls home. He struggles between idealism and defeatism, even deciding whether violence is needed or useful in his line of work. But again, the core message of the series is simple: we can never make those changes alone. Only by working willingly with others and listening to them can Juno begin to decide what he considers to be good. While the political situation of “Juno Steel” season two doesn’t mimic our own (I wish our public leaders had only good intentions [they don’t]), it is an inspirational story about the value of trying to grow as a person and begin accepting help from others and trusting them when it’s needed. Because goodness is based in how we affect the world and the people around us. These days, found family can be more real than blood relations, and solidarity is the greatest path towards building a better world.

          In short, The Penumbra Podcast is great. They’re telling interesting, unique, entertaining, queer, gender-diverse stories through personal and diverse lenses, and they’re doing a great job of it. “Juno Steel” has been influential in my life, both as validation for my emotional and psychological experiences, and my changing perspective as I try to learn about myself and do better all the time. Because Juno isn’t perfect. He makes mistakes; we all do. But we get to watch him learn, and in the process, maybe learn something about ourselves.

          If you do listen to them and enjoy it, here’s a link to their website, where they host episodes (you can also find them on most podcast-listening mediums), and their Patreon.

*The creators of The Penumbra Podcast have addressed this, but in “Juno Steel and the Prince of Mars, part 1,” Juno non-consensually kisses Alessandra Strong. The writers have said they wish they hadn’t done it or could redo it because it’s a problematic noir trope, and they wrote it in to confirm that Juno is canonically bisexual. The incident does not come up again, and in future discussions, Juno and Alessandra have a relatively healthy working relationship. Some other concerns have been raised with their presentation of other relations on TPP, and the creators have acknowledged that they are also growing and trying to do the best to present their stories in a positive way, but they also can’t be made into pillars of the queer community. They have individual perspectives and are trying to reflect that. I, for one, believe them, and I hope you’ll still give their podcast a try.

[sage-nebula]

Astral Chain - Howard Twins Headcanons

As I usually do when I play video games, I came up with headcanons and fleshed out the narrative / scenes in my head as I played through Astral Chain. I’m thinking about putting all of those ideas into a fic that’s something of a novelization of the story (albeit with some canon divergences, deeper explorations of relationships, and lots of flashbacks to the past), but until I do that, I figured I’d jot down some headcanons I have for the twins that would absolutely play into anything I decided to write for them, both serious and trivial.

With that said . . .

- - -

Their names are Maki and Akira. Maki is the girl, Akira is the boy.

Max is the one who named them, because their father was nowhere to be seen when he found them, and their mother redshifted into an aberration minutes after they were born. That said, it took him a while to come up with names for them; for the first week and a half he referred to them as “Girl Baby” and “Boy Baby” respectively.

That said, he did put legitimate thought into their names. When he got a chance he went through baby name sites to try to find Japanese names, and ultimately picked their names based on what they (the twins) meant to him. He chose “Akira” because the site he found said it meant “shining; bright.” He chose “Maki” because the site he found said it meant “truth; hope.” He later learned that Japanese names can mean many different things depending on the kanji chosen for them (and that he hadn’t chosen any kanji at all because he couldn’t read it), but he decided to keep the names anyway because he liked the sound of them, particularly since they subtly matched (Maki, Akira).

He actually doesn’t know which one was born first, but just decided it was Maki after being asked one too many times by strangers and flipping a coin to decide on an answer.

Maki’s hair is naturally light bluish-silver, and her eyes are naturally purple. No one knows if this is due to genes on one parent’s side or another, or if this is due to the red matter she and Akira soaked up while in the womb. Max would rather smash skulls than let scientists find out.

Maki is also naturally near-sighted, which gives way to needing vision correction. She usually wears glasses, but does have a pair of brown contacts---the same color as Akira’s---that she uses sometimes as well. She used these and black hair dye when she took the police academy entrance exams to make a better impression on those testing her, not wanting to be looked upon as a delinquent and have that affect her scores. Once accepted, she went back to her natural hair color / showed her natural eye color, knowing they couldn’t (or rather, wouldn’t) exactly boot her out so long as she kept her performance up.

Akira’s eyesight is perfect, as are his other senses. Darker hair and eyes also speak to dominant genes. These things always made Akira subconsciously think he was stronger than his sister, which is part of what caused such a shock to his system when she could fully control her Legion while he lost control of his.

On a lighter note, Maki and Akira have always considered the other to be their best friend, and were always open and unashamed about this fact. Obviously, things took a turn for the very strained and bad once they both came to Neuron.

That said, when they fought, they fought; neither has ever held anything back from each other and shouting matches could get intense. They always forgave each other, but there were times when Max had to separate them for his own sanity and eardrums.

Like most people, Akira cried when he was born. Maki did not. In his defense, Akira was also nearly killed by his aberration mother shortly after being born, so.

To that end, Akira has always been something of an easy crier, as well as loudly expressive of his emotions. Maki cries less easily, and is quieter about how she feels, though no less expressive if you look at her (and even with how quiet she is, she can be pushed---see the reference to the shouting matches above). 

Akira is more impulsive, whereas Maki takes more time to think. However, Akira places far more importance in following rules and regulations, whereas Maki prefers to ask forgiveness rather than permission (and even then, does not always ask forgiveness if she doesn’t care whether the other person forgives her or not; this is the case with Yoseph after everything in Zone 09 and how she’s thrown in jail, for instance).

To that end, while Maki does look up to and respect Max a great deal, she didn’t feel it was strictly necessary to become a cop to save people, and signed up partially because Akira was signing up and she wanted to watch out for him as his partner on the field. This is why she goes along with things like trying to fight a chimera even though Max said not to (because she doesn’t want Akira to get hurt / killed), and also why she doesn’t really mind being a fugitive once Yoseph declares her one.

Maki’s favorite colors are blue and purple; Akira’s favorite color is red; and Max’s favorite color is green.

Maki is asexual with an ambiguous romantic orientation; she doesn’t think gender really plays a part in who she develops feelings for at all, but she does develop feelings for Hal and he’s a cyborg who interacts with her through a drone 99.9% of the time, so. There’s that.

Akira is gay, but he’s been so laser-focused on becoming an officer for so long that he’s never realized / recognized his attraction to anyone before, much less thought about a relationship. When he does develop a crush on someone, he’s caught so off-guard and becomes so flustered that he’s more likely to pull a “get out of my precinct” than anything else. When Maki notices, she tries to help him be less of a disaster about it (and when he realizes that’s what she’s doing, he points out that she’s dating a cyborg who interacts with her primarily through drone and so she’s not exactly an expert on this, which is when she points out that he just told his crush to get out of HQ via handwritten note, which is when Olive overhears this and decides to give both of the disasters some guidance (”or,” she says, “at least Akira, because at least he’s got better taste than Hal”).

While Akira is more impulsive, Maki is the one more likely to jump to practical violence faster, e.g. knocking out guards instead of trying to sneak past them, punching someone in the face for making fun of her brother when they were younger, et cetera. Part of this can be seen in how Akira prefers to fight from a distance with ammunition, whereas Maki prefers to get up close and personal to hit things.

Once they became officers, Alicia made a comment along the lines of, “Guess your sister prefers the short staff because of her eyesight, huh?” to Akira, to which he replied, “I think she just likes to hit things and get it over with.” Later, when Alicia brought up her theory to Maki (saying she’d mentioned it to Akira), Maki shrugged and said, “Eh, I just like to hit things and get it over with.” Akira’s grin was so smug.

Maki loves ice cream; it’s a huge vice and weakness. Akira prefers cake, and keeps little snack cakes in his locker at HQ.

Consequently, their birthday cakes were always ice cream cakes.

Although they’re not identical and couldn’t pass for one another, they used to always swap and wear each other’s clothes growing up, and even now that they’re adults Maki still has no qualms about “borrowing” one of Akira’s sweatshirts or jackets (and he really doesn’t care if she does).

Max took extra care to never make one of them think the other was the favorite. Whenever he praised one for something, he found something else to praise the other for, and so forth. Any time it seemed like there might be a hint of competition for his attention or affection between them, he shut it down real quick by giving attention and affection to both at the same time.

Akira was always quietly envious of Maki’s ability to seemingly always remain cool and level-headed in tense situations; Maki was always quietly envious of Akira’s ability to quickly be open with and befriend strangers.

Akira is very ticklish in his sides and whenever he would get too wrapped up in trying to appear mature and Definitely Ready to Save the World, Maki would tickle him there to bring him back down to earth. Obviously, it wasn’t really possible to fix things this way once they got to Neuron.

When they were kids and Max had them out shopping or for errands and they’d get too rambunctious, he’d tell them, “stealth mode, eyes up.” Thinking this was part of Hero Training™, they’d serious up very quick and be much more manageable for the rest of the trip.

“Eyes up” is the Howard way of saying, “stay safe; take care” whenever separating.

Maki tries to keep Akira out of (life-threatening) danger; Akira tries to keep Maki out of (serious) trouble. As demonstrated by everything that happens once they join Neuron, both tend to be rather bad at their self-appointed tasks.

While Maki would punch those who teased Akira in the face when they were children, Akira took a more passive-aggressive approach to dealing with those who would tease Maki. He would stand up for her in person, generally, telling the other kid to back off---but then he’d also pay close attention to them so that the moment they did something wrong, he’d get them caught by the teacher (or principal, or whoever) so they’d get in trouble.

They shared a room for many years growing up. Max got a bigger place so they could have separate rooms once they hit their teenage years, but on nights when Max would be out very late working, both twins would end up sleeping on opposite ends of the couch together anyway, Maki’s legs up over the back while Akira’s were spread out across the coffee table, both because they’d tried to wait up for him, and because they felt less anxious about his safety if they were near each other.

Once they were old enough to use things like the microwave, stove, or even oven without burning the house down, Akira and Maki worked together took cook dinner (or breakfast, or whatever) for Max on his birthday. On Father’s Day, they always pooled their allowances to get him a mutual gift. (They would hand make him cards, and Max saved each and every one in a photo album.)

Each year on their birthday, they played a game of trying to guess what the other got them. By the time they hit Neuron, their scores are about even.

When they were in school, if one of them got detention, the other would do something wrong so they’d be in detention together after school. For instance, once Maki got detention for pouring her soup over a boy who was harassing another girl in the lunch room, so Akira landed himself in the same detention by looking a teacher straight in the eye as he knocked their coffee mug off their desk and onto the floor, and then not even saying sorry after. (He bought them a new mug two days later.)

Akira is a horrible liar, and he doesn’t make a habit of trying, but he’d often try to if it meant covering for his sister, which would usually go something like: “I think your sister did [this wrong thing].” “I don’t know, I don’t know her.” “You don’t know your sister??”  Maki is only slightly better because she usually shuts her mouth and refuses to talk at all.

One time when Jin was babysitting he took the twins out for a day of fun, and at one point they decided (without asking) to play hide-and-seek with him. At first their hiding spaces were pretty obvious to him, though he pretneded they weren’t, but then somehow they managed to slip away and he, however briefly, lost them and panicked because he knew that he’d be dead before he had a chance to make a will if Max found out. Fortunately, he found the twins before then.

Another time when they were kids, they decided to give each other haircuts. When Max saw them, he laughed so hard he cried, and took pictures. The twins, fortunately, were too young to be embarrassed.

[72crowe89]

Kids’ WB! and Diversity

“It’s so great to see a black superhero.”

This is a direct quote from one of my middle school classmates regarding Static Shock. Even as an eleven-year old girl, I realized the significance of that statement. In a world full of Supermen, Batmen, and Iron men, to have a hero like Static who looked like us and wasn’t a jive talking best friend or an aggressive criminal or a lazy bum was uplifting. Over fifteen years later, seeing diversity within cartoons wax and wane throughout the years has led me to revisiting Static Shock and the cartoon block it was on, Kids’ WB! In its 13-year history, WB has had several cartoons that are diverse in both their characters and their stories. I will go over the ones I’ve seen briefly, then discuss why the shows (mostly) were positive representations of diversity.

Waynehead (1996)

Waynehead was a 13-episode series that centered around Damey Wayans and his friends as they experienced life in their inner-city poor neighborhood. The series was created by Damon Wayans and based off of his own childhood (hence the name of the protagonist). Although the show never had a home release, reruns ran on Cartoon Network in the early 2000s.

Jackie Chan Adventures (2000)

Created by John Rogers and produced by Jackie Chan, Jackie Chan Adventures stars a fictional Jackie Chan who, in his job as an archaeologist, uncovers magical artifacts that make him a target for different natural and supernatural enemies. Luckily, he has the help of his mischievous niece Jade, his magic-using Uncle, and Uncle’s apprentice and reformed villain Tohru, as well as his own martial arts skills. The series was able to last five seasons before ending in 2005.

Static Shock (2000)

Static Shock was created by Dwayne McDuffie and based off of his Milestone Comics series Static. The cartoon follows Virgil Hawkins, a teen who gets caught in the middle of a gang war when chemicals in a nearby building cover all of the participants, given them unique powers. Virgil gains the power to control electricity and, as the superhero Static, protects Dakota City from other empowered individuals like himself. Static Shock ended in 2004 after four seasons.

¡Mucha Lucha! (2002)

¡Mucha Lucha!, roughly “a lot of fighting” in Spanish, was about life in Luchaville, a city were everyone was a Lucha Libre- style wrestler. The series follows main character Rikochet and his best friends Buena Girl and The Flea as they go to school to learn how to be the best luchador they can be, while using and developing body-morphing signature moves along the way.  ¡Mucha Lucha! was created by Eddie Mort and Lili Chin and lasted for three seasons with a direct-to-video movie, concluding in 2005.

Xiaolin Showdown (2003)

Created by Christy Hui, Xiaolin Showdown was about four children from different parts of the world training to become Xiaolin warriors that protected objects of power called Shen Gong Wu from various enemies. The children were Omi, the arrogant Dragon of Water from China, Raimundo, the laid-back Dragon of Wind from Brazil, Kimiko the tech-savvy Dragon of Fire from Japan, and Clay, the calm Dragon of Earth from the United States. Using different Shen Gong Wu and their own elements, the Xiaolin apprentices challenge their enemies to contests called Xiaolin Showdowns for control of the Shen Gong Wu, developing their skills and personalities as the series goes on. Xiaolin Showdown ended in 2006 after three seasons, although a spinoff named Xiaolin Chronicles that lasted another two seasons ran from 2013 to 2015 on Disney XD and Netflix.

Analysis

These five shows boasted widely diverse casts, but many shows during this time did. What makes these shows different, however, is that people of color were either the protagonists or the main focus of these shows. Other shows with diverse casts still usually had the male white lead who was the most developed character. So what are the benefits and drawbacks that come from having a mainly minority cast?

Positives

One of the biggest positives that comes from a POC-led cast is the variety of personalities. In white-led diverse casts, minority characters are often given one personality trait that they never deviate from. This is especially true if the trait is a common stereotype for the minority: Asian nerd, Black athlete, etc... In shows that multiple minority characters, each of them are given widely different personalities such that a stereotype is rarely establish about a particular minority in that particular show. Jackie Chan Adventures, for example, has Asian characters that range from smart, kooky, annoying, strong, evil, and more. Static Shock have African Americans that are outstanding citizens, criminals, and everything in between. This shows illustrated how varied POC are in real life.

Beyond a multitude of personalities is genuine character development. Throughout these series, POC characters who would often be reduced to static characters were allowed to grow and change throughout the series. In Xiaolin Showdown, Omi was humbled many times throughout the show, while Raimundo went from laid back but rash to a smarter and nobler warrior. Jackie and Jade’s relationship in Jackie Chan Adventures actually evolved throughout the course of the series. In these shows and more, the creators were not afraid to show their characters as imperfect-- this in turn leads to greater character development.

Given that the casts were mainly POC, these series often discussed topics that affected those communities. Both Waynehead and Static Shock discussed living in the inner city, homelessness, poverty, and violence, with the latter also discussing racism and black identity. Jackie Chan Adventures used both Chinese mythology and literature as inspiration for its stories as did Xiaolin Showdown to a lesser extent. Finally,  ¡Mucha Lucha! is a celebration of the Mexican lucha libre tradition. Not only are the characters valued in these series, but so are their cultures as well.

Finally, seeing a POC as the main character at a time where most main characters were white was empowering for young POC like myself at the time. We got to see ourselves as heroes, martial artists, warriors, and more.

Negatives

Because the main focus of these series are POCs and their stories, many people may perceive elements of these shows stereotypical, from the strong Hispanic accents in  ¡Mucha Lucha! to the exaggerated features of the characters in Waynehead to gang violence in Static Shock. Stereotypes in of themselves, however, are not bad-- reducing especially minorities characters to those stereotypes is. None of these series do that; all of the characters and situations are well developed in spite of the risk of stereotypes. It helps that most of these series were created and/or produced by people of the same ethnicity as the characters, which led to a more nuance portrayal of stereotypical issues rather than an exaggerated portrayal of them.

Caveats

Of course, there are many white-led cartoons that had well-developed POCs, including both X-Men and X-Men Evolution, Codename: Kids Next Door, As Told by Ginger, Gargoyles (although that was more creature-led) and many more. Minority characters were often just treated like another character rather than significant because of their minority, so they were just as developed as their white counterparts.

Furthermore, Kids’ WB! was not the only company that had cartoons led by diverse characters. From Nickelodeon’s Hawaiian-led Rocket Power, to Disney’s Black-led The Proud Family and Asian-led American Dragon Jake Long, to Cartoon Network’s Asian-led The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, many companies were creating cartoons that celebrated a variety of different backgrounds. What makes Kids’ WB! stand out is that it was a basic channel that everyone could watch rather than a cable channel that many could not pay for. Kids’ WB! also had relatively more diverse series than its basic channel contemporaries like One Saturday Morning or Fox Box/4Kids TV. However, although ethnically diverse, Kids’ WB! was not diverse in other ways.

All of the shows I discussed in this essay have male leads. Even though several of them have well-rounded female characters like Jade in Jackie Chan Adventures and Buena Girl in ¡Mucha Lucha!, Kids’ WB! have only a handful of shows that starred females, which were either cancelled early, borrowed from Cartoon Network, or, in the case of Cardcaptors, edited to give more attention to male characters. The studio wanted to attract more boy viewers rather than girl viewers to sell toys; ironically, this is the same excuse that many studios use for not focusing on ethnic characters-- that white children will not resonate with them.

Another diversity issue is the lack openly queer or genderqueer characters. Now, this is more of a industry-wide problem than just a Kids’ WB! problem. Even today, when we’re getting more queer representation in children’s programming like Steven Universe, Adventure Time, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, The Legend of Korra, and even Arthur, there is still a lot of pushback from “moral” guardians about this type of inclusiveness. Kids’ WB!, however, has a specific example of this. Ritchie Foley, Virgil’s best friend in Static Shock, is a reimagining of Rick Stone from the Static comics. Rick is gay in the comics, and McDuffie revealed after the show was over that Ritchie was too, which would have been an uphill battle now let along in the early 2000s.

Conclusion

Rightfully, more people are demanding more diversity in their media. People want to see shows and movies that are led by ethnic, religious, gender, sexual, and other minorities because that reflects the world they live in. It reflects them as people. Two decades later, it is amazing how Kids’ WB! had ethnically-diverse series that portrayed Black and Asian and Latinos as both heroic and flawed, noble and cruel, intelligent and foolish, and everything in between. Rather than having one minority character to fill a quota, Kids WB! had a multitude of minority characters that accurately illustrate how varied and complex real-life ethnic minorities are.

[justsomeantifas]

When Rokhaia Naassan gives birth in the coming days, she and her baby boy will enter a new category in the eyes of Danish law. Because she lives in a low-income immigrant neighborhood described by the government as a “ghetto,” Rokhaia will be what the Danish newspapers call a “ghetto parent” and he will be a “ghetto child.”

Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six.

Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.

For decades, integrating immigrants has posed a thorny challenge to the Danish model, intended to serve a small, homogeneous population. Leaders are focusing their ire on urban neighborhoods where immigrants, some of them placed there by the government, live in dense concentrations with high rates of unemployment and gang violence.

Politicians’ description of the ghettos has become increasingly sinister. In his annual New Year’s speech, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen warned that ghettos could “reach out their tentacles onto the streets” by spreading violence, and that because of ghettos, “cracks have appeared on the map of Denmark.” Politicians who once used the word “integration” now call frankly for “assimilation.”

That tough approach is embodied in the “ghetto package.” Of 22 proposals presented by the government in early March, most have been agreed upon by a parliamentary majority, and more will be subject to a vote in the fall.

Some are punitive: One measure under consideration would allow courts to double the punishment for certain crimes if they are committed in one of the 25 neighborhoods classified as ghettos, based on residents’ income, employment status, education levels, number of criminal convictions and “non-Western background.” Another would impose a four-year prison sentence on immigrant parents who force their children to make extended visits to their country of origin — described here as “re-education trips” —in that way damaging their “schooling, language and well-being.” Another would allow local authorities to increase their monitoring and surveillance of “ghetto” families.

Some proposals have been rejected as too radical, like one from the far-right Danish People’s Party that would confine “ghetto children” to their homes after 8 p.m. (Challenged on how this would be enforced, Martin Henriksen, the chairman of Parliament’s integration committee, suggested in earnest that young people in these areas could be fitted with electronic ankle bracelets.)

At this summer’s Folkemodet, an annual political gathering on the island of Bornholm, the justice minister, Soren Pape Poulsen, shrugged off the rights-based objection.

“Some will wail and say, ‘We’re not equal before the law in this country,’ and ‘Certain groups are punished harder,’ but that’s nonsense,” he said, adding that the increased penalties would affect only people who break the law.

To those claiming the measures single out Muslims, he said: “That’s nonsense and rubbish. To me this is about, no matter who lives in these areas and who they believe in, they have to profess to the values required to have a good life in Denmark.”

Yildiz Akdogan, a Social Democrat whose parliamentary constituency includes Tingbjerg, which is classified as a ghetto, said Danes had become so desensitized to harsh rhetoric about immigrants that they no longer register the negative connotation of the word “ghetto” and its echoes of Nazi Germany’s separation of Jews.

“We call them ‘ghetto children, ghetto parents,’ it’s so crazy,” Ms. Akdogan said. “It is becoming a mainstream word, which is so dangerous. People who know a little about history, our European not-so-nice period, we know what the word ‘ghetto’ is associated with.”

She pulled out her phone to display a Facebook post from a right-wing politician, railing furiously at a Danish supermarket for selling a cake reading “Eid Mubarak,” for the Muslim holiday of Eid. “Right now, facts don’t matter so much, it’s only feelings,” she said. “This is the dangerous part of it.”

For their part, many residents of Danish “ghettos” say they would move if they could afford to live elsewhere. On a recent afternoon, Ms. Naassan was sitting with her four sisters in Mjolnerparken, a four-story, red brick housing complex that is, by the numbers, one of Denmark’s worst ghettos: forty-three percent of its residents are unemployed, 82 percent come from “non-Western backgrounds,” 53 percent have scant education and 51 percent have relatively low earnings.

The Naassan sisters wondered aloud why they were subject to these new measures. The children of Lebanese refugees, they speak Danish without an accent and converse with their children in Danish; their children, they complain, speak so little Arabic that they can barely communicate with their grandparents. Years ago, growing up in Jutland, in Denmark’s west, they rarely encountered any anti-Muslim feeling, said Sara, 32.

“Maybe this is what they always thought, and now it’s out in the open,” she said. “Danish politics is just about Muslims now. They want us to get more assimilated or get out. I don’t know when they will be satisfied with us.”

Rokhaia, her due date fast approaching, flared with anger at the mandatory preschool program approved by the government last month: Already, she said, her daughter was being taught so much about Christmas in kindergarten that she came home begging for presents from Santa Claus.

“Nobody should tell me whether or how my daughter should go to preschool. Or when,” she said. “I’d rather lose my benefits than submit to force.”

Barwaqo Jama Hussein, 18, a Somali refugee, noted that many immigrant families, including her own, had been settled in “ghetto” neighborhoods by the government. She moved to Denmark when she was 5 and has lived in the Tingbjerg ghetto area since she was 13. She said the politicians’ description of “parallel societies” simply did not fit her, or Tingbjerg.

“It hurts that they don’t see us as equal people,” she said. “We actually live in Danish society. We follow the rules, we go to school. The only thing we don’t do is eat pork.”

About 12 miles south of the city, in the middle-class suburb of Greve, though, voters gushed with approval over the new laws.

“They spend too much Danish money,” said Dorthe Pedersen, a hairdresser, daubing chestnut dye on a client’s hairline. “We pay their rent, their clothing, their food, and then they come in broken Danish and say, ‘We can’t work because we’ve got a pain.’”

Her client, Anni Larsen, told a story about being invited by a Turkish immigrant to their child’s wedding and being scandalized to discover that the guests were separated by gender and seated in different rooms. “I think there were only 10 people from Denmark,” she said, appalled. “If you ask me, I think they shouldn’t have invited us.”

Anette Jacobsen, 64, a retired pharmacist’s assistant, said she so treasured Denmark’s welfare system, which had provided her four children with free education and health care, that she felt a surge of gratitude every time she paid her taxes, more than 50 percent of her yearly income. As for immigrants using the system, she said, “There is always a cat door for someone to sneak in.”

“Morally, they should be grateful to be allowed into our system, which was built over generations,” she said.

[fightmeyeats]

Three Years Late to the Party: A Critique of Predator/Prey Metaphors in Zootopia (2016)

I’m not sure why I am writing about Zootopia (2016). Although it was generally received very favorably (as I am writing this it has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes), it was released over three years ago and  in many ways not a hugely significant film. Even stranger, perhaps, is that I initially intended to discuss Suicide Squad (2016), and then both films at once, and then--realizing I really had no interest in rewatching Suicide Squad, ever in my life if I can help it, I decided to instead discuss only Zootopia. At first glance one may wonder what these two films have in common--one is a children’s animated film which received a good deal of praise, the other a superhero action film which feels like a fever dream poorly cobbled together on iMovie (look, I’m not the only one who feels this way it has a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes). What I see as a common ground and in need of critique is the way both films handle racism and sexism. For the sake of readability I am going to try to keep this as short as I can, and again for the sake of my own sanity I’m going to discuss Zootopia but I’m more than happy to share my perspective on Suicide Squad (I do have a lot to say even without giving it a full rewatch, I just don’t want to launch into a critique when I can’t fully do it justice). In an attempt of brevity I am also going to focus on the implications of the metaphor(s) embodied in the prey/predator dynamic, at the exclusion of any discussion of the implication of the systems represented in the film and the way they shape ideologies of what counts as resolution to discriminatory practices (ie “acceptance” and “within the police force”).

Zootopia is centered around a predator/prey metaphor which encompases both racism and sexism in largely lumpy/uneven ways that ultimately are disengaging from real world race/gender politics and leave the metaphor deeply confused. What I mean by this is that the “prey” dimension seems to be attempting to address sexism as an oversimplified monolith, while the “predator” dimension seems to be addressing racism, again as an oversimplified monolith; thrown into this is the dimension of size, which also seems to be relevant to the characters’ experiences: a large prey animal, for example, seems to return to being coded masculine (perhaps these are the metaphoric white men? the legibility of this is difficult to determine, given the main example of a powerful prey figure is voiced by Idris Elba), as well as the fact that the predator dimension of the metaphor seems to swing back and forth from discussing the way masculinity (again monolithic) is viewed and how people of color are viewed, with no clear demarcation as to why the switch is being made.

In actual feminist discourses the main pitfall of race/gender binary approaches to understanding oppression is that it erases the experiences of women of color, but in the case of pop media it also becomes relevant to acknowledge that it also erases the privileged position of white masculinity. Take, for example, the choice to have Nick Wilde, the main predator character, voiced by a white man, and yet central to the argument of predator victimhood. There is a definite unevenness to the way in which these various metaphors are deployed throughout the film: the mayor, Mr. Lionheart is established as being in a privileged position, and his privilege/pompousness/power are the implicit motive behind the villain’s actions--he is voiced by a white man and it seems that he could be legible as a metaphor for (white) male privilege. At the same time, the disappearance of Emmitt Otterton (who does not have a speaking role) does not seem to be of huge concern: while sympathy is expressed towards his wife, Mrs. Otterton (who is voiced by a Black actress), Judy is ultimately assigned to the investigation because she volunteers for it under conditions which imply that the department is not willing to give the job to someone with more experience, and she does not have access to the full police resources to solve the case; furthermore, her assignment to solve his disappearance in two days is part of a wager, further suggesting that the police are not seriously concerned with his disappearance. All of this parallels a real life disregard for the lives of people of color especially by the police.

The way the news sensationalizes the fact that predators are supposedly going “feral” is also significant in this context: if the biases experienced by predator characters are intended to articulate racism, this could be commentary on the way people of color (and especially Black men) are represented as hyper-violent and a potential danger to white society in the real world. If, however, predators are intended to be privileged male figures like the mayor the suggestion may be that all men are viewed as violent/uncivilized and that this is harmful: a critique of critiquing “toxic masculinity” rather than “toxic masculinities” themself. Let’s break this down a little bit more, as it largely overlooks the ways violence and masculinity are actually intertwined in the Global North: first of all, it maintains an idea of white male victimhood which is initially suggested by Nick Wilde’s real world whiteness by implying that white men are viewed as violent in ways which broadly overlook the way that society hegemonically views men of color to be violent and violent white men to be outliers, despite actual trends suggesting otherwise (consider racism and the war on drugs/imagining of the “super predator,” hegemonic discourses on violence which surround mass shootings/acts of terror and how these shift based off the race/ethnicity of the shooter, the mass incarceration of men of color, the disproportionate nature of police violence and murder enacted on people of color). Secondly, it creates the insinuation that critiques of the way violence often becomes accepted and expected in many kinds of masculinities are more harmful to men than the way stoicism/rugged individualism/violence are so prevalent in masculine “norms.” Thirdly, it disengages with the real harm violent norms can and do cause women.

Part of what makes the dynamics of this metaphor so difficult to follow is that the film starts off from the position that Judy is facing discrimination which she must overcome, and then switches into the new position that Judy herself holds discriminatory beliefs. While there is value to this narrative arc: say we scrap the animal metaphor and Judy is, for example, a middle class white woman overcoming sexism to join the police force who then partners with Nick who is, to stick with the film's casting choices, a poor white man, or, to stick with the metaphor, a Black man, and in the process she realizes that oppression is multifaceted and she herself has internalized prejudices which affect other people’s reality; this could be a useful and important story. But because of the way the world is developed and because the writing is so focused on binary logics, we have a strange world where “prey” animals are discriminated against, but not the large ones, and “predator” animals hold positions of power (despite incompetence), but they also have to navigate discrimination and prejudicial tensions, and these tensions are heightened by attacks intended to heightened these fears, but the attacks are caused because a prey animal is tired of facing discrimination at the hands of the predators.

Let me give two further examples which I think can help clarify my point here: Officer Clawhauser (voiced by a white actor), who is shown to be well meaning and kind, but at the same time holds “soft” discriminatory beliefs towards Judy (although he apologizes when she comments on it) and is, frankly, not very good at his job. Most of his onscreen time at work involves him eating donuts and messing around on his phone; yet when he is fired because he is a predator it becomes a significant moment of compassion on Judy’s part where she realizes she must rethink her bias. Again, if “predator” is understood to be the stand-in for masculinity, we must also reconsider the stakes: why is Clawhauser viewed as being a better fit for the police academy than Judy in the first place? And what are the implications of his no longer being viewed this way? Why is his performance not considered at any point in his employment? Is the way he becomes viewed as a potential threat and is subsequently fired part of a patriarchal paranoid fantasy which is anxious that the integration of women on equal terms in the workplace will lead to a total dialectical switch of positions? And if so, why is this fear being articulated in 2016? On the other hand, if prejudice against predators is a metaphor for racism, it is difficult to understand why he got the job in the first place (he is not framed as being any sort of “diversity” hire in the way that Judy is).

A second example is that towards the end of the film Nick becomes upset, hurt, and angry to discover that Judy carries “Fox Spray” just to be safe; this commentary only holds up if the predator metaphor is one of race/racism rather than gender/sexism. What we, as an audience, have to ask is what the fox spray is intended to represent in the real world: is this a criticism of women carrying mace or other self-protection devices? Surely it cannot be intended to suggest that women need to consider how emotionally “hurtful” it might be for men to realize that women have to take extra precautions because of the legal and social structures which facilitate sexual assault and re-victimize survivors. So is “Fox Spray” the same as “[Racial/Ethnic Group] Spray”? The implications between these two interpretations vary widely, and the messiness of the metaphor leaves this commentary confused.

[dunkerliciousness]

Reading between the Lines: The Bible as a product of its authors’ time

Author's Note: An English B.A. means I went to college to do a lot of reading. All I've done in the past four years is learn how to read and interpret text. Turns out, I'm not so bad at it. I graduated summa cum laude, so I didn't just "pass.” With that out of the way, let's dive in. This lesson is for Christians and non-Christians. There's actually classes on Bible as Literature offered at multiple universities and colleges. The Bible is no longer for the high courts to interpret and pass down on to the “common folk.” The Bible is for everyone. Like any text, it can be read and interpreted differently by everyone, but it’s important to understand the main points and how what we read affects us as the reader.

From a Christian point of view, as believers, we understand the Bible is representative as the Word of God. We also know that God did not physically write the Bible. The only text the Bible says God "wrote" are the Ten Commandments, and Moses broke them. Arguably, the Ten Commandments are the only "rules" that are plausibly God's actual Word. As for the rest of the Bible, it wasn't written by God; it was written by man, inspired by God. The problem with man writing the Bible is that man isn't God. Humanity is flawed, imperfect, and causal for human error. Subjectivity is man’s best and worst trait. I say man, because the only books in the Bible we have today were originally written (and then translated) by men. More on that later.

People are the products of their generations and their times. The values instilled into people by society can be shaken, but often times, people reflect what they believe, how they act, and what they write. When men wrote the Bible, they were products of their time. Notice that the entire Old Testament sounds pretty archaic: sacrifices, rituals, weird rules, and a bunch of men's names to show genealogy. It's the stories of old, the beginnings of the Christian faith that are important to understand, and the New Testament was written to show how the faith has changed with Jesus’ coming and going.

Today we face racism, sexism, and homophobia. Many Christians cite the Old Testament when it comes to why they believe this and that: Why people should still own slaves, why women should still be subservant to men, why queer people are wrong in their sexuality. Now that it’s the 21st century, explaining why racism and sexism are wrong sounds like a chore and a redundant thing to say, but I will focus on sexuality, because that’s arguably one of the main issues people face in the collective movement for furthering human rights.

The Bible verses that mention sexuality are commonly referenced from the Old Testament, but there are a few references of sexuality in the New Testament. The favored verse against homosexuality is Leviticus 18: 22, which states, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Let’s unpack that.

What the Old Testament denotes is a heavily patriarchal influenced society. The Old Testament mentions homosexuality a couple of times, though homosexuality is not the main argument of the Old Testament. Homosexuality is mentioned briefly while many other concepts are focused upon. To understand the Old Testament, we have to read it with the cultural and social perspective of the times. The Bible was written 2,000+ years ago, and like any society during that time (and today), society was substantially patriarchal in its values concerning gender and power. Men were the heads of their families and homes, and the only ones with power in government, church, and society.

Lev. 18:22, among many other quotes from the Bible, lies within the rules that guided their patriarchal society. Note the other rules about relationships between men and women (men are the heads and women should submit), the entire genealogy that excluded women’s names (since women’s names were invaluable in the grand scheme of a man’s value to the family), and how the women depicted in the Bible were seen as prizes to be won by men, gifts to be given by fathers, concubines (sexual servants), and valued by how many children (particularly sons) they could produce. The few women mentioned in the Bible were heroines in their own right, but considering the problems they faced, many of the problems they faced were direct results of patriarchal values of women’s worth and independence. That’s a separate topic for another time though.

When Lev. 18:22 said men shouldn’t “lie” with men, a patriarchal perspective of two men engaging in intercourse like they would with women denotes one partner’s submissiveness to the other. For one man to give up his power to another in a patriarchal society, where toxic masculinity defines worth based on men’s power, would be considered an abhorrent error, an “abomination” if you will. What made a man during this time was the power he held. To say a man’s power was lost because he had consented his power to another, to be vulnerable with another man, is damaging in relations to both men and women. If having sex with a man (or more specifically, being the submissive partner during intercourse), is seen as weakness and denotes inferiority, then women’s worth and power is nonexistent. Defining sex with a man, or being a submissive partner, as an “abomination” disregards our concept of love and consensual sex, where both parties are equal.

If we take what the Bible says literally, without regard to the cultural and social values of that age, we aren’t comprehending the full substance of the text. If you’ve ever heard the phrase “Read between the lines,” it’s because our teachers are trying to instill in us that more is being said than just what’s written. There’s several levels that go into written form, including social values and cultural understandings of communication. If we read the Bible with the same mind frame as when it was written, we can understand why certain rules were held above others, and why other sins weren’t mentioned altogether. 

There are many sins the Bible doesn’t list, not because other sins are less important, but because during those times, the authors of the Bible didn’t think to mention what we now understand as sinful. Sins that aren’t listed include slavery, domestic violence, pedophilia, poison, animal abuse, unethical treatment of patients by doctors, bullying, sexual harassment, battery assault, child abuse, etc. These are modern issues we face today; these weren’t issues that Biblical times faced because their social focus was different from ours.

Ask yourself this: How would the Bible be different if women wrote all the books, or if women had written some of the books? How would the Bible be read if we had all of the books available to us, not the ones the Christian Church hand-selected when it was translated into English centuries ago? When we read the Bible, the spiritual advice available to us still applies, but what other pieces of information seems out of place in our modern society? What can we learn from the history of Christianity, and how the faith has changed in thousand years? 

As a fundamental rule, Christians should read the Bible as a guide to understanding the history of Christianity and how their faith has been and can be shaped from reading the Bible. Despite how the Bible’s authors expressed their culture through a patriarchal lens, readers in this current era need to see past the perspective the authors are applying and understand the fundamental message of the Bible: Spread the love.