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uncloseted · 3 years

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there's a part of me that still thinksa bortion is murder. i act like i support it to fit in but deep down i dont. please just listen. i think forcing someone to go through a pregnagncy they don't want is inhuman but it also feels inhuman to kill a baby and i dont like thsi idea that if youre 4 weeks pregnant and you want it its a baby but if youre 4 week pregnant and dont want it then its just a clump of cells thats just not how scence works. so theres this woman who was forced to get an .

Anonymous asked:

abortion and she was 6 months pregnant and apparently th baby waws born alive but it died shortly after from ashpyxia and i just dont know what to think. i know forcing smeone to get an abortion is just as bad as forcing them to give birth and that theres no such thing as a six month abortion and at least wher e i live abortions are only available until week 14 but like wwhat if someone is 15 or 16 weeks or 7 months, do they not have a choice anymore? please dont think im a bigot im not im so

Anonymous asked:

sorry i just dont want to be brainwashed by ANYONE, pro life or pro choice and im just so easily influenceable i just want to support whats right you know

No worries at all! I don't think you're a bigot and I'm glad that you want to engage with this issue critically. I'm happy to give you the facts as they stand and offer you my perspective on the issue. Apologies in advance that this is a bit long, but please try to stick with me until the end! All of this is important in understanding the different sides of this discussion.

There are a few main categories I want to talk about in this answer: legal, science, politics, and culture. For now, I'm going to avoid delving into any religious or metaphysical questions about what is and isn't considered "a person", since while those conversations are interesting, I don't think they're particularly useful in the context of discussions about abortion. As Harry Blackmun wrote in the court opinion for Roe v. Wade, "we need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate."

Legality

Starting with legal issues, there are a few points I think it's important to make in order to get a sense of how we relate to abortion. Abortions are legal in 98% of countries. 34% of countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand most European countries, and China, allow abortions on the basis of a the pregnant person's request, without needing to prove that there is risk to life, risk to health, risk to the fetus, economic or social reasons that abortion is a necessity, or extenuating circumstances (such as the pregnancy being a product of rape or incest). The vast majority (93%) of countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, such as outlawing abortion except in cases where the pregnant person is endangered, are in developing regions. There are five countries that completely outlaw abortion. These are: Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Malta, Nicaragua, and the Vatican City, all countries where the Catholic church has significant influence.

Of the countries that do allow abortion, there is always a limit on how far into a pregnancy a person can be when they choose to terminate. Beyond that limit, the person doesn't have a choice anymore, and must carry the pregnancy to term (except in extenuating circumstances). The most common limit is 12 weeks (3 months), although some countries allow abortion up to the point of "viability", where the fetus can live outside the mother's womb with artificial aid. Typically, the point of viability is around 24 weeks (6 months). In the US, 87% of abortions are performed before 12 weeks, and 92.2% were performed at 13 weeks or fewer. For reference, pregnancies are typically around 40 weeks long.

Forced abortion is illegal in almost every country, including the US and the UK, and it is considered an act of violence against women. It is just as bad as forcing someone to give birth, which is why all countries do their best to prevent it from happening. While forced abortions can and do happen, particularly to victims of sex trafficking, I think the solution to this issue is to put policies into place that protect vulnerable women, instead of trying to ban abortion entirely.

Science

So, most countries allow abortions up to 12 weeks. What does that actually look like in terms of the fetus? Here's a timeline of fetal stages of growth:

Weeks 1-4: at this stage, the "baby" is actually an embryo. It starts out as just a fertilized egg. The amniotic sac forms around it, and the placenta develops. The eyes, mouth, lower jaw, and throat are in very early development. Blood cells are taking shape. By the end of week 4, the embryo is smaller than a grain of rice. It is very literally "just a clump of cells" at this point.

Weeks 5-9: the "baby" is still an embryo. Its facial features begin to develop, folds of skin that will eventually become ears grow, tiny buds that will eventually grow into arms and legs form, the neural tube, digestive tract, and sensory organs all begin to develop. Bone starts to replace cartilage. At about 6 weeks, a heart beat can be detected. After week 8, the baby is considered a fetus instead of an embryo, at which point the fetus is about one inch long.

Weeks 9-12: the fetus' arms, hands, fingers, feet, and toes are fully formed. It may be able to open and close its fists and mouth. Ears are formed, and its reproductive organs begin to develop. By the end of week 12, the fetus has all of their organs and limbs, and their circulatory and urinary systems are working, but everything needs to continue to develop in order to become functional. At the end of week 12, the fetus is about 4 inches long.

It is important to know that the miscarriage rate is highest in the first trimester (before week 12). Among women who know they're pregnant (typically further along than 6 or 7 weeks), 10-20% will miscarry. 30%-50% of all fertilized eggs miscarry.

Other important developmental markers include:

During month 4 (weeks 16-20), you can see the sex of the fetus.

During month 5 (weeks 20-24), the fetus starts moving around.

Between week 22 and week 24, brain waves appear in the cerebral cortex.

At week 24, the fetus may be able to survive if it is born prematurely, provided it has intensive care.

Somewhere between week 26 and week 30, the fetus may be able to feel pain, although we don't know that for sure.

A fetus is not capable of thinking, communicating, reasoning, self-motivation, feeling emotions, or consciousness. They don't have a concept of the self, and they don't know that they exist. They are essentially sedated for the entirety of the pregnancy. Since we use "brain death" as the primary criteria for death, it makes sense to me that we might consider "brain life" (the point where a fetus exhibits brain activity) as the point at which a fetus becomes a person.

While some people will refer to an embryo as a "baby" from the time they discover they're pregnant, scientifically, it is a clump of cells, whether that clump is allowed to continue to grow or not. It's not something we would recognize as a baby, or be able to interact with as if it were a baby. An embryo is a precursor to a baby, kind of like how a seed is a precursor to a plant.

Some other arguments

I want to quickly touch on some other arguments for abortion rights that people make. I'm not going to delve deeply into them, but it didn't feel right to leave them out entirely. These are arguments that don't depend on whether or not a fetus can be considered a person.

Bodily Rights

There are many situations in which we prioritize individual bodily rights over the right of someone else to live. For example, we don't force people to donate organs to people who are dying, even though a donated organ would save their life. Advocates for abortion rights argue that those same bodily rights should be extended to a pregnant person.

Deprivation

This argument usually looks something like, "but what if that fetus was going to cure cancer when it grew up!" Basically, it's saying that abortion is morally wrong because it deprives the fetus (and the world) of a valuable future. To me, this completely ignores the deprivation that already exists by forcing a person to carry and birth a baby they don't want, and potentially the deprivation that comes with raising that child. People who make this argument never seem to ask, "what if the pregnant person was going to cure cancer?"

Slippery Slope

Some people argue that normalizing and legalizing abortion may lead to people also accepting euthanasia. I am unconvinced by this for two reasons. 1. Slippery slope is a logical fallacy and 2. I absolutely do think we should legalize euthanasia for certain situations.

Religion

I don't want to dig too far into this one, but what I will say is that the US is a country that (at least nominally) has a separation of church and state, and the religious beliefs that other people hold should not infringe on a person's rights to make choices about their own life.

History and Politics

The practice of abortion itself is incredibly old. The Sanskrit epic Ramayana, which dates to the 7th century BCE, describes abortion being practiced by surgeons and barbers. In the Assyrian Code of Assura, circa 1075 BCE, a woman is allowed to procure an abortion except when it's against her husband's wishes. The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE. Japanese documents show records of induced abortion from as early as the 12th century, and it became more prevalent during the Edo period. It is considered to be unlikely that abortion was punished in Ancient Greece or ancient Rome. All major Jewish religious movements allow abortion in order to save the life or health of a pregnant woman, and often support abortion for other reasons as well. Christianity has a more complicated relationship to abortion, for reasons that I'll go into in a bit, but for now let's just note that there very much were ancient Christians who believed abortion was morally permissible at least some of the time. Before the 19th century CE, first-trimester abortion was widely practiced and was legal under common law throughout the English speaking world, including the US and UK.

The reason I bring all of this up is because the political debate over abortion isn't really that old, and the debate tends not to actually be about the morality of abortion as an act so much as it is a proxy for other issues. The first backlash against abortion in the English Speaking world was in the 19th century, and was a direct reaction to the women's rights movement, which was starting during that time. In the US, anti-abortion laws began to appear as early as the 1820s, but picked up in earnest by the late 1860s. These laws were introduced for many reasons, including the fact that abortions were being provided by untrained people who were not members of medical societies and concerns about the safety of abortifacients. By 1900, abortion was a felony in every US state, but they continued to become increasingly available. By the 1930s, licensed physicians performed an estimated 800,000 abortions a year.

Jumping forward a little bit, let's talk about the history of abortion in the US just before Roe v. Wade. It's estimated that in the 50s and 60s, between 200,000 to 1.2 million abortions were being performed per year, even though they were illegal. Throughout that same time, the second wave feminist movement was growing, and was increasingly advocating for birth control and liberalized abortion laws. As a reaction to second wave feminism, a number of anti-abortion organizations, primarily led by Catholic institutions, cropped up to mobilize against the legalization of abortion. It should be noted that, at the time, abortion was not an issue for evangelical Christian groups. In the 1960s, 17 states legalized abortion for a variety of different circumstances. Then in 1973, Roe v. Wade happens, ruling that a pregnant woman has the right to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. The ruling was 7-2 in favor of legalizing abortion. Even after Roe v. Wade, Christian Evangelicals were neutral to positive on the ruling. It's only after 1980 that Evangelical Christians started to organize around abortion as a political issue and joined the Catholics to form what we now think of as the Christian Right. There's a lot to say about that and why that switch happened, but for the sake of brevity, just know that the evangelical backlash against legalized abortion in the US started not as a moral crusade, but as a way of convincing people to vote for Ronald Regan instead of Jimmy Carter (who wanted to de-segregate schools). No political debate happens in a vacuum, and it's important to understand what other factors might have been at play when looking at where these debates come from and how the sides formed.

Culture

Lastly, let's talk a little bit about the cultural impacts of banning or legalizing abortion. The right to have or not have a child is necessary in order for women to achieve equality with men. Countries with high gender equality, such as Iceland, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden, also have easily accessible abortion options. Criminalization of abortion disproportionately impacts poor women and women of color, and does nothing to address the systemic issues that may cause them to require abortions in the first place.

Researchers from the WHO and University of Massachusetts found that banning abortion is an inefficient way to reduce abortion rates; in countries where abortions were restricted, the number of unintended pregnancies actually increased, and the proportion of unintended pregnancies ending in abortion also increased. When abortion is banned, women aren't not having abortions; they're having illegal abortions that are done unsafely.

There is also some evidence to suggest that legalized abortion actually decreases crime rates. 20 years after the legalization of abortion in the US, there was an unprecedented nationwide decline of the crime rate (including murders, incidentally). The drop in crime is thought by some to be a result of the fact that individuals who had a higher statistical probability of committing crimes (people who grew up as unwanted children in poverty) were not being born.

Which brings me to my next point- the majority of people who are "pro-life" (at least in the US) aren't really pro-life. They're pro-birth. If they were truly pro-life, they would be interested in making sure that all of those babies had their needs met after they're born. They would be interested in making sure those babies can lead long, healthy, safe, and productive lives. They would be for universal healthcare, expanded social safety nets, parental leave from jobs, universal basic income, raising the minimum wage, mandated vacation time, increasing funding for public schools, decriminalizing drugs, abolishing prisons or at least reforming the police. They would be against the death penalty (ironically, some of them are actually for the death penalty for women who have had abortions), and for increased access to birth control, comprehensive sex-ed in schools, increased gun legislation, against war and nuclear weapons, for enforced mask wearing to prevent people from needlessly dying from a global pandemic... but those issues don't factor into their "pro-life" stance. They're for "the baby gets born and then has to pull itself up by its bootstraps like the rest of us."

Closing Thoughts

Look. I'm not super jazzed about abortions. I understand how they can feel like an ethical issue. I think we should do what we can to reduce the number of abortions that are performed- teaching comprehensive sex-ed in schools, making birth control and emergency contraceptive options widely accessible, letting men know that reversible vasectomies are an option. I think we should make abortion easier to access, so those who do need it can make the decision early in the pregnancy. But I also think that it's a very personal decision, one that's irreversibly life altering, and the person who's going to experience the life altering event should be the one who decides what happens. 65 year old conservative, Christian white men who will never be pregnant (and frequently don't really know how the female body works) shouldn't get to make that decision for them. As someone for whom pregnancy would be life threatening, I want to know that I have options should that situation present itself someday.

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pluviophile-bookworm · 4 years

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AWAE 3x3 rewatch: thoughts and reactions

So I made a ginormous pause in between these again. I just wasn’t feeling up to the task, I guess. But it’s the anniversary of the premiere of AWAE, so what better day to do the penultimate one of these... Let’s just dive in because it’s been literal years since I first saw this episode and I remember literally nothing from it.

Oh my, Bash is just the best. And those baby chicks... well, I know what is most likely to happen to chickens on a farm when they grow older but... can we just maybe not think of that yet? Plus, seeing Mary keeps reminding me that soon I won’t be seeing her anymore. It’s safe to say I have mixed feelings about this cold open. Let’s move on.

Gosh, now they’re leaving Matthew alone with Delly, who is two types of people he’s uncomfortable around - a baby and a girl. But it’s fine, it will be just ‘a couple of hours’...

It is such a shame to think that Mary might have been saved... if she were white. People can be so awful. A human being is a human being. At least there are people like Dr. Ward and our protagonists who know that and act accordingly.

Oh... there’s that cute scene of Matthew showing Delly around Green Gables that I’ve seen in so many gifs... I can’t comment much on it so I’ll just sit back and enjoy. But before I go - Matthew is the best, most gentle man I’ve ever seen. He might be awkward around women and children, but he knows how to treat them right better than most people who are not awkward around them.

Oh gosh, the nappy! That kind of made me laugh out of place but, well, I just wanted to say - thank gods for Jerry and his many siblings. My boy knows how to change nappies.

Oh, they’ve got the printing press! Now that’s exciting! I feel like excitement is a good word to describe this episode, at least so far. We’ll see how I feel by the end of it. All I know is this is making me smile and I’ve really been needing that.

My, my, Ruby... I keep forgetting when it was that she got over Gilbert. Apparently it was not before mid-season, since she’s still in it way too deep.

Oh wait... is this when things began happening between her and Moody? I mean, the way he gives her his handkerchief, you’d think ever since he stopped trying to make Diana and her ‘very blue’ dress notice him, he’s been sitting back and watching Ruby from afar, hoping he can, somehow, compare to Gilbert. The best part is, in just a bit, he won’t need to. Boy, do I need a fourth season even if just to see these two develop... and for Diana and Jerry to make up, and just in general to see the kids being all grown up... now I feel like crying because we’ll very probably never get it... ok, moving on.

Anne: Sometimes life finds gifts in the darkest of places./ Marilla: Indeed. Wait, was this Marilla’s way of telling Anne she loves her? This is just the best.

The contrast between scenes dealing with Mary and the rest of the episode is just so stark, it’s jarring. It’s like, you never know the darkness someone might be sinking into while everybody else is bathing in the light. You know, everybody involved in making this episode, and the show in its entirety, made it so poetic, and yet it’s not. It’s absolutely devastating. And now Gilbert can’t even tell Mary that she’s got no more than two weeks left. This is the worst.

You know, Anne is right. Caring deeply will always be the right thing. I mean, it’s natural for Gilbert to doubt himself at this time, especially since the tragedy is happening to his own found family. You know, there’s something my mum taught me to do when I’m watching something and I can’t bear the subject matter of it - focus on the acting. And right now I’m just blown away by the superb performance by these incredible young people. But I really can’t bear to focus on the plot right now. And the acting being that good doesn’t particularly help me to detach myself from the story.

You know, tragic as what’s happening to Mary certainly is, it’s somehow lucky she has Anne in her life now that she’s about to leave her own daughter to grow up motherless. Because if only Anne’s parents had an orphan tell them what an orphaned child needs most, Anne’s own experience might have been very different. Mary is a very smart woman for realising that and talking to Anne about it. Because life is not about lamenting what we didn’t have. It’s about making sure we do what is in our power to make it easier for others if we can.

Ah, yes. Racism and ‘White Man’s Burden’ mentality are still very much a thing present here. I guess this here is the first mention of that horrible prison of a school that Ka’kwet would be sent to. This is. The. Worst.

I just can’t bear to listen to this guy. ‘Heathens’ - you mean people with a rich culture and belief system beyond your privileged straight white male comprehension? ‘Teach them all things civilised’ - you mean erase their own, I repeat, rich culture, and replace it with your white man’s ideas of civilisation? What deity fell from the heavens and made you God? And the way Rachel totally agrees with this guy, it just makes me sick. As if that guy would hesitate to discriminate against you on the basis of you being a woman! I just can’t with this. Let’s move on.

‘Be sure you marry for love. Only for love.’ Don’t worry, Mary, he will. Not before a huge, long period of confusion, mind you. But he’ll come to his senses eventually. People do stupid things when they’re young. That’s how they know they’ve lived it to the fullest.

Rachel just baffles me, you know. And Marilla, too, isn’t quite faultless here. How can you be so accepting of one kind of POC, yet so cruel to another? Then I remember their initial reactions to meeting Bash. They were not the most accepting at first. Yet they can see how they’ve now grown to accept and care deeply about Bash and Mary and Delphine. Why can’t they give Ka’kwet’s people a chance like this?

‘You may well have saved some Indians today’... Saved them? From what? Being free to practice their own culture? You know, white people can be so very ignorant... and I say that as a very white person. I’m just ashamed of everything my ethnicity has done to literally every other ethnicity.

‘I don’t wanna die’... You know, sometimes I do, and right now that makes me feel so ashamed. I should really think of Mary and also every real person who had an untimely death whenever I’m having those thoughts again. We should all learn to appreciate life so much more.

So this is the one with Mary’s Easter... this is beautiful. I might have to rescind my ‘excitement’ statement from earlier, but there is still a theme of beauty, love and family throughout this. Well, technically throughout the entire series, but especially here. I love this.

Delphine with a flower crown is the cutest thing ever...

Minnie May: She looks like a chocolate candy. I just... took notice of how the background music abruptly stopped. You know, coming from an older person, this would sound... not at all ok. But this 7-year-old didn’t mean any harm, and they realise it after a brief moment of panic in their eyes. Still... black people don’t call us, idk, butter or something. We should not compare their skin colour to chocolate.

Their singing is absolutely beautiful. But let’s be real - in a real-life situation, most of the people would be way off-key and those harmonies would be impossible to arrange. Still, for this beauty, I am willing to suspend my disbelief for miles. Also, that prayer at the end... well, I’m not Christian, but I am religious, and I know the power of a prayer as poetic as this one. However hard it must have been for Mary to know she wouldn’t live, it must have been a great consolation to know she would go in such a way, surrounded by so much beauty and love, and light. Well, that ending was bittersweet! But I absolutely loved this episode. Except for the racist parts that made me absolutely livid. It’s so frustrating to know there is still so much hate in the world based just on minor superficial differences between people. Yet it would have been even more frustrating if we didn’t have people in the world like our protagonists (and especially the protagonist, Anne). It is such an absolute shame that this show, and others like it, got cancelled over some trivial issues and wasn’t given the proper chance to develop its positive messages even further. But still, even with just the 27 episodes it was given, it was able to cover so much ground. I don’t know what to say. AWAE is just supreme.

Let’s sum up: the final weeks of Mary’s life; racial prejudice might have just cost this lovely woman, a wife and a mother, her life; Matthew showing Delly around Green Gables is the sweetest thing; the first press-printed issue of The Avonlea Gazette, with a significant typo; and thus, a ship was born; subtle ways of saying those three little words; ‘Caring deeply will always be the right thing.’; the legacy of a mother; ‘White Man’s Burden’ mentality is alive and dangerous; double standards regarding the acceptance of POC; Mary’s Easter; going surrounded by a loving community.

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tlbodine · 5 years

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A Plea for Some Non-Cringe Native American Representation

There’s something that has bothered me for a real long time, and I haven’t said anything because it didn’t really feel like my place to say it. But if pasty white folks across the country will insist on continuing to make these books and comics and movies, then I guess this pasty white girl can make a plea to do it better.

So. Here’s the deal. Native American representation in fiction sucks.

We’re going to talk about why, and then talk about some ways you can do it better. And it’s going to take a while, so join me under the cut.

PROBLEM #1: Erasure

The first problem with First Nations people being represented in fiction is that it, uh...doesn’t happen very often. It’s pretty rare for a show or movie or book to have a Native character, and even rarer for that character to exist without being a vehicle/mouthpiece for some kind of hamfisted message.

And, of course, Native characters who do show up in movies are sometimes played by non-Native actors, which is just. Um.

somebody fucking kill me I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

PROBLEM #2: The Same Stock Character Over and Over and Over

There’s this weird thing where TV shows have A Very Special Native American Episode(tm) where a Native American character shows up in a storyline designed to, idk, provide a tidy outlet for the viewer’s white guilt or something. I see this a lot in superhero stories for...some reason:

Batman and Chief Screaming Eagle (ok, it was the 1960s, surely things have gotten better right? oh...) who’s butting heads with a villain over a bad contract for, uh, the chief’s ancestral lands

There was the Buffy episode “Pangs” where a Chumash vengeance spirit is the villain-of-the day after being disturbed by some construction (and this is honestly one of the better treatments of the premise, at least the episode is well-written)

There was the Smallville episode with Kyla Willowbrook, the Kawatche Skinwalker (I know, I know) who for bonus points dies tragically in Clark’s arms (I KNOW) and who was deeply concerned with...with some construction...disturbing her sacred homesite...(this is starting to sound familiar)

And then there was The Flash episode where Barry is forced to fight with the complicated-yet-tragically-evil Native American activist woman whose crimes involve stealing cultural artifacts that belong to to the museum (yes I’m screaming) and also murdering people...y’know, for vengeance and stuff.

I could keep going but I really don’t think I have to. When your only representation of a culture is a character (frequently a smoking-hot member of the opposite sex to the hero) who is an ambiguous villain who is motivated by vengeance and/or justice over having their land/cultural artifacts disturbed, and who has a valid claim but is really going about it in the wrong way and whose tragic death and/or defeat really gives the white character something complex to think about for two seconds.... well. That’s more than a little racist.

PROBLEM #3: These Are Not Your Stories to Tell

You know what white people love doing?

They love appropriating Native culture! Seriously! They love it! And who can blame them, really? Native people have so much rich symbolism and mythology and cool clothes and neat aesthetics. Painted war ponies and buckskin dresses and shapeshifters and monsters, oh my! Indian burial grounds and vengeful spirits (oh for fuck sake enough with the vengeful Indian trope)

But here’s the deal:

The mythology you’re borrowing from belongs to a group of people who are still alive and sometimes practicing the religion you’re liberally reinterpreting

There is no such thing as a “Native American” myth. You’re talking about literally hundreds of different tribes who are culturally distinct from one another and have their own complex histories of interaction, diplomacy, war, friendship, etc. with one another for centuries before white folk got here. You erase all of that when you treat Native culture as a grab-bag of cool things you can mix and match to your liking.

Maybe, just a thought, stop it with the oppression narratives about activists and/or vengeful spirits who are real threatened by white people disturbing their homes? It’s not that there isn’t a lot to unpack in that -- I mean, white people really did conduct mass genocide against a race of people, for starters -- it’s just that this isn’t really your oppression narrative to tell.

It seems to me that folks writing about Native Americans don’t actually have any idea what Native people are like? They either think of them as anachronistic figures, an extinct and ancient group, or they think of them as people really hung up on their cultural past. Because maybe people can’t think of anything to do with a Native character other than use it as a vocal mouthpiece of one very specific part of their cultural oppression.

But please. Please stop. That is every bit as stupid and racist as making a Black character who only talks about slavery, or a Jewish character who only talks about the Holocaust, or giving all of your gay characters AIDS.

So what do you do instead?

Writing Native Characters in a Way That Does Not Suck - A Quick Primer

I can’t write a definitive guide on writing good Native representation, because there is no such guide, and if there were it would take a whole book probably, and I am not in any way even remotely an authority.

But I can give you some pointers that will help you.

(And to be honest, Native representation is so awful that the bar here is really super low, even just attempting a tiny bit is a really welcome breath of fresh air)

Choose a Tribe

Step one: Figure out what kind of Native people you’re writing about.

Because, as previously noted, Native People Are Not A Monoculture.

How do you pick a tribe? Well, start with geography. Where do you want the story to take place? Obviously people move around, so you can find folks outside of their ancestral lands, but they all started someplace, and a lot of people live where their parents and grandparents and cousins all live.

So where does your story take place? Pick a spot. Then find out what tribes live in that region. It’s not a secret. There are maps:

(Source: http://www.emersonkent.com/map_archive/native_american_tribes_map.htm)

Or maybe you want to go about this in a different way. Maybe you have a specific story idea in mind and you want to write it in a way that would be accurate and respectful. Cool! A good first step on that is to figure out what tribe actually does the thing you’re wanting to write about.

Skinwalkers, for example, originate in the Navajo Nation (Dine` people), although there are related myths from surrounding tribes in the area.

If you’re writing a story about Wendigo, then you should know those myths originate with the Algonquin people of Quebec and Ontario.

If you’re writing something with spiritually significant buffalo, you should probably choose a culture that actually interacted with buffalo -- ie, a Plains Indian tribe like the Lakota-Sioux people.

And so on and so forth.

(Note that this is only the first step. You still have to do a lot of research after this to be sure you’re doing everything properly and respectfully. And, y’know, maybe reconsider if you actually want to tell a story respecting that mythology, or if you just want to sound cool and exotic)

Also, personal preference: Please don’t make your characters Cherokee if you’re just going for “character with Native ancestry.” Please choose a different tribe. For a lot of complicated (and sometimes surprisingly racist) reasons, white people have been claiming Cherokee heritage for a long time, and even when it’s true, it feels cheap and cringey in fiction. If you want to tell a story about the Trail of Tears or something set in Tahlequa, Oklahoma, great! Write Cherokee characters! But if you just want a Native American character for other reasons...pick a different tribe.

Choose a Name

Fun fact: Modern Native people that you meet out on the street don’t have names like “Stands With Fists” or “Running Bear.”

If you have an impulse to name your character any kind of descriptive “adjective + animal” name...just don’t. Please. And don’t go to BehindTheName or some other random site to pick out something that “sounds” Native.

Names in other cultures are tricky. Some (but not all!) Native people may have a cultural tradition of having multiple names, including naming ceremonies (often as a rite of passage in adolescence). Some tribes have clan names. Everybody’s different. But these special names are culturally sensitive, often sacred, and are not a thing readily accessible to white people. White folks spent centuries trying to wipe out Indigenous people’s belief systems; they deserve to have some things kept private and sacred.

So what I’m getting at here is that white writers really, really should not touch on the “Indian naming ceremony” trope at all if they can help it, because it’s gonna be real hard to get the details right, and getting the details wrong is going to make you sound like an ignorant racist. And most of the time, it’s not really that important to a story.

Most contemporary Native people have regular English names. They may also have tribal names and clan names (that they may or may not share with outsiders). But lots of tribal members don’t, and that doesn’t make them any less Native.

My recommendation for naming your Native characters? Find real people from the time period, tribe, and region you’re writing in. Find a phone book or newspaper from a town on or near a reservation for your chosen tribe. Look at names of participants in powwows. Look at the sports rosters for Native schools. Look at historical records like census data from the year you’re writing about. Don’t just make things up.

** One Note: You know how “black” names are a thing? You encounter a similar sort of thing in some contemporary Native Americans. I grew up with a lot of kids who had “weird” names like Kirby, Sheriden, Baskerville, Sterling and Precious. (and by “weird” I mean “names middle-class white people don’t tend to use”). There’s also a lot of black-sounding names in Native populations. There’s some complex reasons behind this, and a lot of sociology of naming, and I won’t spend too much time on it right now but just...so you know. It’s a thing.

Write a Human Being

This really is the biggest thing, and it’s true of every writing you do, all the time, no matter what: Write a real person and not a caricature.

Native people are people first. Their cultural heritage affects them the way anyone else’s culture does. The things they eat, wear, do, believe, the stories they know, etc. are all affected. But Native people don’t have a responsibility to be walking representatives of their tribes. And they definitely shouldn’t be a vessel for white guilt.

(Fun fact: “Iron Eyes Cody,” maybe best known for the “Crying Indian” role in a commercial about pollution, was an Italian-American born Espera Oscar de Corti)

Here’s a really, really good article I found while working on this rant that might be of interest to you as wellas you set out on this quest: https://mashable.com/2015/03/24/american-indians-tv/

I still have so much to say on this topic, and maybe I’ll write more in the future, but this is already very long so I’ll stop. I hope this has been at least a little bit helpful for y’all. Go forth and write non-terrible characters, I beg of you.

*Disclaimer: I am not a Native person and do not claim any special knowledge or ownership of Native culture, and I beg you to please listen to Native voices when possible in your creative endeavors. I’m just a gal who happened to have spent most of my life living near reservations and growing up around Native people and having Native friends and being taught about historical cultures by my mother who has a degree in Southwest Studies and has done a lot of formal and informal research due to her own interests in the topic.

If you found this article helpful at all, please consider dropping a tip in my tip jar.

I also have a book coming out! You can pre-order it now! It features a main character of mixed heritage, New Mexico reservation border towns, and zombies trying to get by like everybody else.

Pre-Order now on B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/river-of-souls-t-l-bodine/1131956124

Or on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/River-Souls-T-L-Bodine/dp/1950305015

Or from the publisher: http://journalstone.com/bookstore/river-of-souls/?fbclid=IwAR14Qna5tMgWBV0We2uGSLreBkmyvZ5SoDAzPQpTKeFn4JR4PWSyKGl0VEo

Or add it to your Goodreads library: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46183381-river-of-souls

#how to write #writing advice #native americans #cultural appropriation #representation #long post #but please do read it #I worked on this all day

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b0x · 5 years

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i hate that post that's like “we would've gotten a better trilogy if they'd just let rian johnson write all three films than playing hot potato with jj” like i get the point it's trying to make but you're forgetting that rj was fighting tooth and nail for the tlj r*ylo narrative since day 1 so you do realise we would've just gotten the same trilogy as we got now.......

further Thoughts on the trilogy as a whole and a few troc spoilers under the cut

also you KNOW that even if jj COULD have had a hand in saving it... there’s no saving a screenplay written by the guy who did the justice league films

No Comment. No Thoughts. Head Empty. everything post tfa was doomed from the start

have you SEEN the screenwriters for tfa? THAT’S why that one was so good, THAT’S why tfa succeeded as an excellent reboot of a long-dormant franchise. kasdan and arndt and jj should've been on for ALL THREE, and if they couldn’t, then a hiatus was the way to fucking go. rian never should have Touched it, never should have even Looked in its direction.

tfa had the essence of sw BECAUSE the essence of sw wrote it! tlj and tros isn’t sw!!!!

they rly just tried to make Anakin..... 2! with kylo... but somehow... even Worse. you can’t make an anakin story Without showing kylo’s motives and morals - oh, except, you Did show his motives and morals, and they were in no way redeeming whatsoever! anakin had a whole ARC of complexity that allows for endless discussion on morality and justifiability that led him to earn his redemption. all kylo had was a blood tie to han and leia, which!!!! if anything!!!!!! made his motives and morals WORSE, knowing that he had the most IDEAL most loving and perfect upbringing and he still chose the dark side. that makes any love received from han or leia or luka or even fucking rey completely insignificant because we ALREADY KNOW what it means to him. all of this shit was so worthless!!!!!!!! fuck!

and i have a lot to say about rian johnson because i Cannot for the life of me believe the guy behind BRICK (2005) was taken on for tlj, WHILE TFA WASN’T EVEN FINISHED YET. i really didn’t think this had to be said but that is just NOT how you make a Trilogy. that is how you make Three Separate Films and guess what! that is exactly what we got! and it honestly saddens me to think that the guy behind the beautiful 6 minute music video ‘oh baby’ by lcd sound system, inspired by some of his greatest work in looper (and even brick!), would then take the absolute worst of his worst and apply that to a star wars franchise that desperately needed his best. and there’s something hilarious about that too, that you have this huge sandbox FULL of belief-suspending ridiculousness and STILL somehow make it fail? make it atrocious? that takes skill. it’s like that one post that was like “you have to ACTUALLY put EFFORT into making something this bad” like it’s no longer silly mistakes or lacklustre energy, this was ACTIVE sabotage.

the fact rian Had the Understanding of the core concepts of star wars right in his hands, but somehow completely missed the entire point of them? if you look at the films he screened to his story group during the development of tlj... this handful of culturally and historically significant war films that just seem like he screened for aesthetic and reference purposes only instead of actually exploring and analysing the importance and criticism of the exonerating war propaganda and racist source materials and using these films to inspire the actual groundwork of some of the root themes of current climates and today’s culture in a sw universe... i bet big bucks on the fact that twelve o clock high was only screened to inspire the air battle on crait (red salt planet) and because of ‘VIII Bomber Command’ because ha ha hee hee tlj is episode VIII and hoo hoo hoo *you’ve been gnomed.mp4*

the general rule is this: when reading ANY report on tlj and tros and something like “the characters came first” is mentioned, just exit out the window, it’s already a botched article/thinkpiece.

i’m also thinking a lot about how arndt translated his first draft for tfa into a script for eight months and said he needed 18 more, which disney and jj said no to, so he left, and IMMEDIATELY after jj kept saying how relieved he was that the release date was delayed and gave him more time that he also needed. like.. you had your lesson then and there. did they learn from it? *disney forcing rian to write tlj at the same time as tfa was still being made* No!

i am ALSO thinking about how they had considered fincher, brad bird, jon favreau, del toro, even getting development suggestions by spielberg.......... and rian johnson is who they called up for tlj.... my head is... empty.

just give the fucking thing to taika waititi he understands the nuances of the socio-political climates of sw’s narratives built around a guise of a fun sci-fi fantasy adventure-drama. he understands. that’s literally the very definition of his style of writing and directing. Makes You Think Why The Mandalorian Is A Hit.... they already gave him 2 mandalorian episodes just give him the whole franchise i cant take it anymore.

AND NOW THEY’RE GIVING RIAN JOHNSON A WHOLE NEW TRILOGY? RIAN? RIAN JOHNSON? THEY’RE GIVING HIM A WHOLE NEW TRILOGY AFTER WHAT HAPPENED... HERE. SURE.. OKAY . ALRIGHT. IT’S HONESTLY MIND-BLOWING. THE THOUGHT PROCESS THAT GOES INTO CONSECUTIVE DECISIONS SUCH AS THIS. like i would LOVE to see footage of the board meeting for this. no sarcasm i am GENUINELY curious to hear what was said to greenlight this. i have GOT to know what post tros board meetings about this will be like.

anyway! op of that post! i will be thinking about you when the new rj trilogy drops!

what’s worse about this whole trilogy is that.. they Had it. they had it in the bag with tfa. they HAD the original idea they HAD the power to make a sw trilogy set to current climates JUST LIKE THE PREVIOUS TRILOGIES DID, cos that’s what sw is all about! what it was ALWAYS about! a space opera reflective of current times and climates. but disney turned it into a Keeping Up With The Skywalkers reality tv show that’s nothing more than a sci-fi fantasy light show and vfx flex to keep the brand alive, and personally, i think that’s ultimately one of the reasons it’s so hated and why it failed (of course rampant misogyny/sexism, racism, homophobia under the guise of geek culture within the sw community and in the production itself is a whole other discussion and is another humongous part of why it’s hated and why it failed)

and it’s why hamill had every right to criticise tlj the way he did with rotj, why boyega and isaac and ridley had Every right to their commentary on their distaste of the second and third instalments. how the only reason they’d rescind what they said was due to their contracts. how their silence was necessary to squeeze every last dollar out of consumers because god forbid a potential boycott due to their own star’s “controversial” (Correct) judgements and disapprovals

they really had it in the bag..

a female protagonist who could be a chosen one regardless of her blood and family ties, a protagonist that reflected the importance and validity of found family, and the idea that Anyone can be a “Skywalker”, a symbol of hope and a fighter for justice and goodness and love in the world, especially in the darkest of times... a young woman being just as powerful, as Chosen, as essential as Luke and Anakin were... a narrative that couldve been commentary on the necessity of women needing to do double the work, make double the effort, to earn the same spot of her counterparts. and with the second and third instalments, especially NOW, with the growth and vocalisation of the MeToo movement, the narrative of strength to speak out against abusers, to fight back and to thrive, a symbol of justice, to teach that men such as kylo who refuse consequence, who actively and soberly choose violence and manipulation for the strengthening of the self, who will ignore and deny all opportunities to better the self, to know their guilt, to make up for their actions, are the ones who are irredeemable. that people like him are not owed any time or understanding or belief in, when that belief perpetuates the violent and oppressive nature they are indefinitely attracted to and make themselves defined by.

a black hero raised by violence and refusing to be defined by it and unlocking the force within as a symbol of that strength within over encompassing goodness, to have a hero that breaks that harmful narrative stereotype that black characters have had for decades and still continue to do so, to have a voice and a hero that fights with love and kindness, that is able to find family and support in a place beyond what he believes he is allowed to have, the significance of a hero being deemed a “traitor”, a term that holds weight in the shame of seeking your own independence and identity, versus the cathartic empowerment of thriving in the independence you make for yourself in the end. a black hero that defeats his oppressors, oppressors that belong to a policing fascist regime, a faction that has always from the very beginning been a depiction of nazis, of authoritarian nationalism.

a canonical gay latino man freedom fighter, being the best in his career as a literal symbol of hope for the resistance, a literal symbol of the climates for lgbt folk in regards to resisting those same fascist nazi regimes, resisting laws against lgbt existence, lgbt employability, lgbt success. a man who grew into a legacy of heroism, surrounded by it, something that could have been powerful poignant commentary on the necessity to sacrifice lives so others like his didn’t have to, the very narrative to fight for a world that the innocents and the ones he loves could have peace in, could have a future in, could Exist in. poe fights in the skies because he knew damn well the effect of believing in someone that is human, like you, instead of a force that is bigger than anything you could ever know or believe in. poe brings humanity and realism to an otherwise fanatical universe of magic and religion and chaos of endless war that means nothing, that is based on nothing. poe is commentary on fighting a fight that you have no choice but to fight, that you are forced to fight from birth just for the very act of Existing. his humanity and realism is a significant grounding necessity for our two protagonist heroes and it is appalling that he’d just be discarded the way he was, shallowly played off as sideline comic relief, much like lgbt narratives and characters are expressed in pretty much ANY media today, so it comes as no surprise.

the three most vital narratives that should have been told in this trilogy but no of course not (disney voice) gimme my Fackin MANEY. it’s the silence of marginalised voices cleverly disguised under hollow face-value representation.

honestly, even rey being blood-related to palpatine as his granddaughter was such a strong and perfect set-up for The Narrative That Could’ve Been TM, but instead they had palpatine make it a whole weird pseudo-marriage thing that was just so. backwards and unbelievably shocking that it was in a 2019 era star wars film.

wow marriage story and the rise of skywalker really is the same movie huh

yes we wanted a grey jedi protagonist hero that gets tempted by the dark side but this was the absolute worst way that could’ve been explored. like if they were just gonna recycle old characters and old storylines and make them worse they could’ve at least looked at darth maul or asajj ventress and the nightsisters

and NO WONDER oscar looked so DEFEATED every time finnpoe was mentioned cos he fought for that shit tooth and nail and they? ? ? they gave him a funny ha ha hee hee hoo hoo straight flirt scene? ? with like his ex or something, where they imply they get back together? COMPLETELY destroying the ENTIRE narrative of his character that was so lovingly built and developed in the Official Canon Comic Series About Him ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

NO WORDS. there are NO WORDS. head EMPTY. no not even empty there's NO HEAD at all i am BEHEADED

finn had NOTHING in this film. Nothing. how are you gonna make him a joint-protag with rey and give him Nothing?

anyone with brain cells knows that what finn truly was trying to tell rey the entire film was that he was force sensitive, i will take this to my grave, and that should’ve built up to this grand reveal where they empower each other and take down palpatine and kylo as one, as the joint-protagonists they were Literally Fucking Written And Built Up To Be. they gave EVERY antagonist to REY. what was the POINT. rey had her significant clash with kylo across two films, hell, even in this one (before the Final one), tros was the penultimate film about her family, her bloodline, so her significant final battle should have been with palpatine a la rotj. the person who DESERVED to clash with and take down kylo once and for all was FINN, even a TODDLER would understand WHY.

but considering everything, i would take the thing finn was trying to tell her the entire film being that he loves her ANY DAY if it meant whatever the fuck we got instead Never Happened.

finn got made general and not only was it a blink-and-you-miss bit but it adds NOTHING, yes it’s something to celebrate and of Course he deserves it, but it holds zero significance to him as a character. like i mentioned earlier, when han was made general, that never defined him. he was still han solo and it took a Dozen other significant scenarios and twists to make him a significant and vital memorable character. han solo isn’t known for “being a general”. he’s known for being han fucking solo, a critical puzzle piece in the taking down of the empire, a scamp-turned-deeply-loyal friend and lover, a man who not only got his own personal storyline concluded to the level it deserved to be (the repercussions of his bounty hunter life, the importance of the falcon, his relationships with lando, luke, and leia, his triumph over his captors even when it was luke and leia who freed him).

side note, this was maybe the one thing that tfa screwed up, the entire point and development of the original trilogy, it sort of felt a bit moot with how they put a “twist” on han, leia and luke’s relationship, especially when it came to kylo. but i think there are some forgivable aspects to it for the sake of the new trio, and that’s why those executive decisions kind of Worked! this is, of course, for another discussion bc this is about the new trilogy.

leia IS known for being a general because part of her entire storyline revolves around it and the significance of it!!! which is why finn being made general just feels so... i don’t know! just completely disrespectful, to both him as a character, and to generals who are defined by this position (such as, hello!!!!! poe!!! poe fucking dameron!!!! a man raised by the resistance!!! a man who’s entire life and prior legacy was entirely dedicated to the resistance!!!! him being made general MEANT something). it’s like rubbing salt in the wound of the fact that finn has been discarded as the protagonist he was meant to be, the story, development and conclusion he never got, just to slap general on him and call it a day and then write about his actual development in a novel that 3/4ths of the ppl who watch the films will never read.

and that's just the core story stuff!!! do NOT get me started on the general lore proposed in this shit. i’m talking about the force ghost nonsense and the convenience of some of the timing choices (rewriting the way death works in sw, claiming that rey “didn’t really die/wasn’t really dead” since she didn’t fade which in itself completely destroys the entire plot they were going for with the resurrection scene, the timing of the fades themselves bullshitted for “dramatic cinematic purposes”), the entire palpatine storyline, the bullshit with snoke and the lack of explanation, all these one-off characters that have the lore capacity of an overwatch character when instead they could have developed the ones that already existed and had the opportunity to be fleshed out and CARED about

the FACT that HUX (hux!!!!!!!!!) had a more interesting storyline in all three films with a total screentime of maybe 10 minutes than these one-offs whose only purpose is to stroke the cock of sw nostalgia seekers and lore aficionados. to make these characters so inaccessible that to fully appreciate them, fans have to dive into hundreds of different novels and comics and games and whatnot. like if you make it so that the Only way someone can experience a character’s full essence is by reading their wiki page then you’ve failed in creating them, in writing them, in including them, in using them, in whatever them. you’ve just failed as a creator.

and the ONLY reason hux got a reaction (a barebones reaction but a reaction nonetheless) out of me was because they essentially just turned him into phasma 2 which is SO telling of the climate of this trilogy.

it’s a recycled trilogy. that’s all it is. it’s a recycled series of films where tfa’s originality was completely entirely scrapped and ignored because rian wanted to write his personal fanfiction more than he wanted to continue the story he was given, and did everything he could to insert that whenever he could, and kennedy, of course, let him, because she realised giving herself indulging content other than fifty shades and radfem articles that she could jerk off to was more important than telling a critical story where its wonder and valuable, influential morals could’ve stayed in this generation’s minds for years to come.

if you want to watch tros just watch the prequel trilogy instead you'll get the same story except actually good.

#cmon THINK #star wars -----

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spaceorphan18 · 7 years

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I don't follow anyone that believes in this "theory" that Darren and Chris are secretly together, so I find the whole thing confusing (and deeply bizarre) Do you know if any of them have articulated why they think these two people would go through this much trouble and involve so many other people for so many years to hide their relationship?

I’ll preface this with - I’m not a psychologist, so all of this is armchair psychology, and I understand the twisted curiosity of – how can these people believe in such nonsense? It reminds me a lot of – people who believe the Earth is flat, people feel the moon landing was faked, people who believe the orange cheeto-in-chief can do a good job. It’s a microcosmic look at how people essentially get so brainwashed into believing a thing so strongly that for them it becomes a reality. I hope you don’t mind me indulging a little - and kind of exploring the psychology behind this stuff.

First, I wanna say there are three-ish groups - there are the people who know RPF is not real, and specifically just write fiction because they find it fun. Most of the tinhatters are not these people. Unfortunately, most (not all) of the people who still dabble in Glee RPF are enablers, in a way, and don’t seem to care that these other people are overly invested in their subjects. The second group are the True Believers. They 100% believe Chris and Darren are in a relationship. (More on them later). And there’s a third group – and I only have a theory that they exist, not proof, is that there’s a subsection of the second group that know that Chris and Darren aren’t in a relationship but a) enjoy the power of leading the rest of the followers and/or b) want to hold on to this fantasy because it’s more appealing to them.

Anyway - what the tinhatters are, actually, are a bonafide cult.

Cult definition according to Google Dictionary:

a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.“the cult of St. Olaf”

a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.“a network of Satan-worshiping cults"synonyms:sect, denomination, group, movement, church, persuasion, body, faction"a religious cult”

a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.“a cult of personality surrounding the leaders"synonyms:obsession with, fixation on, mania for, passion for, idolization of, devotion to, worship of, veneration of"the cult of eternal youth in Hollywood”

So. I don’t know the exact science behind this but (I promise I’m not making this up) – the human brain sees patterns. For most of human history - it’s been helpful. However, it has kind of a strange side effect of – we start to see patterns when they aren’t really there. Such as – hey, the burn mark on this grilled cheese sandwich looks like Jesus! Well, no, that burn mark is just a burn mark - but it’s shape is familiar to something you already know, hence your brain makes the connection.

I don’t know where the origin of this story is, I wasn’t around when it became a thing, but from what I can tell - the story is that when Darren started on Glee, he had to hide his sexuality because there was a contract between – Fox? Ryan Murphy? His manager Ricky? I don’t fully understand who the evil PR people are in this scenario. I don’t, also now that I think of it, really understand when Darren was supposed to have started dating Chris, ether. I think it was Never Been Kissed week - but I don’t go far into their mythos. And Mia was brought on as Darren’s beard to keep the secret alive.

Is any of this probable? No. Is any of this real? No. A logical (and sane) person would look at the facts presented and see what reality is. Darren says he’s straight and in a long term relationship with a woman named Mia. That’s the simple truth. But they’ve built such a deep narrative, and confined themselves in their own circle – to the point where they feel they are in an us against them scenario – that they’re almost unable, at this point, to be told anything but what they feel is true to be true. One thing about cults – is that the only person who can get someone out is that person, unfortunately.

In addition – there’s something about being a part of this that makes them feel special. On their own, the conspiracy might just be another crazy conspiracy. But if other people feel that way, well then it’s okay to indulge, it’s okay to really believe.

The crux of this whole thing is that they these people want (or need - now that they’ve reached cult-like brainwashing status) Darren to be gay…or not straight. That seems to be the biggest fixation. And kind of like the crazies who thought the world was gonna end ind 2012 because of an ancient Mayan calendar - they feel that there will be a point where Darren ‘comes out’. (It’s always soon, btw.) But the okay now moment always gets pushed back. It’s something that’s never gonna come, though, which makes these people’s lives sad, really.

But I digress. They’ve receded so far into this fantasy at this point that I don’t think Chris even matters to them much anymore. I don’t think the story of Klaine matters much more than this is Darren and Chris making out. I don’t think they even like Darren all that much, because he keeps disappointing them by not coming out. They’re so fixated on Darren being gay that they’ve lost sight of everything except that one particular point.

And they’ve wrapped themselves up in this pattern-seeking mentality. Everything they twist to fix their own narrative. As I joked about the Oscars - Chris wore blue and Darren wore red. And we often saw, in Glee, Chris in blue and Darren in red. The reality of it is - with their skin tones, the costume designers and the personal stylists know that blue looks good on Chris and Darren looks good in red. But to a tinhatter - you have to make that fit your narrative. Chris and Darren wore blue and red respectively on Glee, and now they wore it at the Oscars, it’s another sign of their secret love. And, etc, etc with all the nonsense they’ve said over the years.

So now, finally, to your question:

Do you know if any of them have articulated why they think these two people would go through this much trouble and involve so many other people for so many years to hide their relationship?

Essentially, what they’ll tell you if you asked, is because it needs to fit the narrative – Darren is gay, so all those people being involved has to be true. They want (need) Darren to be gay, so they literally have to twist reality to make it work. And the twisting is that all of these people, as highly improbable as it is, would be in on the conspiracy.

The question I’ve always pondered is… why do they need Darren to be gay? And I’m sure each have their own reason - from just not liking Mia, to some thinking Glee should be a documentary, to them liking the idea of Darren making out with men instead of women, etc, etc. (Or more so - why do they need to have Chris and Darren be in love? Why is fictional Klaine not enough?) But I guess that’s the biggest part that trips me up. Why is reality worse for them than this made up fantasy land?

The unfortunate thing is that most of them don’t realize or understand the real world consequences they’ve had. Chris withdrew inward to get away from them. Mia has endured a lot of shit because of them. And there seem to be these extremists in every fandom - so it’s not a Glee specific thing, even if we’re directly effected by these particular ones.

I think, as an aside, I also find it sad, and further frustrating, that there’ve been signs that some people begin to understand reality, questioning whether they’re right or not, and there are a few ring-leaders who – (whether they’re part of group two or group three I’m unsure) who pull them back in. And thus makes it a cult. Hey - Chris sounds sincere about just being friends! Nope - you’re just seeing things, Chris is lying because he’s an actor and he secretly loves Darren. Or… Darren looks so depressed with Mia (on a picture where he’s clearly in love with her). And those ringleaders are really the ones that keep the followers in line. It’s a cult. And I hate that.

What also makes it sad is that these people are so deeply invested that for some of these hard core believers - questioning the foundation of this reality almost breaks their brain – like they can’t comprehend the truth - because if they did, they’d have to reexamine the amount of time and energy spent on this false thing, and they’d rather have the security blanket of someone telling them they’re right instead facing that they’ve essentially been brainwashed - or have to face a reality they don’t really want.

I mean think about the fact that Darren could have a kid with Mia, or personally tell them that he is not in love/in a relationship with Chris, and they still would not believe him. Nothing, at this point, except themselves, can pull them out of it.

It’s also so weird, and frustrating for us, and I wish they’d give it up, but unfortunately, I think a lot of them will be still stuck in their cult long after the rest of us have moved on. But hopefully helps you understand how they got this way. And how answering the question of ‘why’ is so complex.

#that's how s.o. sees it #more than you probably ever wanted to know about the psychology of tinhats #julnyes #probably reblog this in the morning #it got wordy

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