#And black women WON'T BE THERE!

[kcyars99]

Under no circumstances!

I hope those hews face the rude awakening by police because marching is under attack these days

Just so they know what it’s like to be beaten or killed by law enforcement

and guess what black women would not be marching for them either

[sapphic-agent]

It is SO interesting how Glee fans (the Glee Subreddit) label Mercedes with an attitude problem. Let's rehash 3x03 for a minute.

Mercedes Quitting

Mercedes, clearly struggling: My ankle hurts.

Schue: Push through it.

Mercedes, bent over in obvious pain: I don't feel good.

Schue: You're fine.

Mercedes: No I'm not.

What absolutely irks me about what people choose to focus on in this scene is that Mercedes didn't start off yelling. She was communicating very quietly and respectfully that she was in pain and couldn't continue. It wasn't until Schue dismissed her twice that she began to raise her voice.

(There's also a stigma around Black women, especially bigger Black women, and pain. Schue not taking her seriously in this scene is actually a bigger problem than most people realize)

She then points out that Schue is always picking on her, which is very much backed up by him being supportive of and easy on Finn but then pushing her ten times harder. And don't say it's because Finn put more effort because Schue prior to this would have had no way of knowing how much he practiced at home.

Mercedes: Where's Rachel, huh? I don't see her here! Being "apart of the team!"

Finn, under his breath: Rachel practices-

Mercedes: Nobody asked you, Finn!

What's crazy to me is that people harp on Mercedes for this in particular. Finn had zero right to insert himself into the conversation. And he knew that too, that's why he said it so quietly. No one else said anything because it wasn't their business. And of course it pissed Mercedes off more. Everyone's showing grace to Rachel, but no one bothered to do the same with her.

(Also, we never saw Rachel practice this specific choreo. So what Finn said might not have even been true because let's be honest, Schue wouldn't have made her anyway)

Mercedes: You give that skinny Garanimal-wearing ass-kisser everything! And for two years, I took it. But not anymore, I'm done.

You can certainly make the argument that this was disrespectful... But then you also have to admit that Rachel was the same, if not worse. You cannot say that Mercedes had an attitude problem, but Rachel is just so silly and "peak Glee." That isn't fair, especially because Rachel has done it multiple times, for way less justified reasons. And was never threatened with being kicked out permanently like Mercedes was.

Judging Mercedes harder than Rachel here is a double standard.

Mercedes Giving up Maria

Mercedes: Are you double-casting any other roles?

Bieste, Artie, Emma: No.

Mercedes, getting up: Thank you for your time

Very respectful here. Not one ounce of attitude.

Mercedes was better than Rachel. Rachel knew it (even admitted it) and so did everyone else. So the fact that they still chose to double cast it was such a slap in the face. They were pandering to Rachel, and screwed Mercedes over in the process. Of course she was insulted.

Bieste: Where are you going?

Mercedes, to Rachel: Tell me you are better than me.

Again, not even the slightest hint of malice towards Rachel. Mercedes respects Rachel to a degree, and doesn't feel the need to insult her to get her point across. Mercedes handles this whole interaction very maturely.

Artie: Mercedes, don't make this a stupid pride thing.

Mercedes: Oh, it's a pride thing, but it's not stupid. Congratulations, you've got the part.

Artie's intervention in this scene is very telling. Mercedes was calm, collected, and respectful here but he (and everyone else, just look at their faces. They're acting like she's yelling and swearing) still acts like she's being combative. If a Black woman stands up for herself, she's being aggressive or rude or problematic. She's blowing it out of proportion so it's easy for everyone to brush it aside.

If you think Mercedes has an attitude problem because she stands up for herself and doesn't roll over for Rachel or Schue or Finn, check yourself. Just because a Black woman isn't afraid to speak up doesn't mean she has an attitude

Argue with the wall

[paldogangsaan]

the most frustrating part abt the scene with alicent and rhaenyra (other than it being ridiculous) is the attempt at portraying alicent as a passive victim with zero agency (TO BE CLEAR she's a victim of both otto and viserys, that's not a question, she had no choice there. she did, however, have a choice in other moments and those are what i'm talking abt in this post). the writers essentially made her go "oh i thought he was talking about MY aegon. well, it's too late. i am a tragic figure who never wanted war. oh no" like ?? some of us have eyes and can see that alicent has been actively trying to gain power, undermine rhaenyra, and divide the family even before the time skip. she shows up to rhaenyra's wedding late and wearing green, she sows discord between their kids, spreads rumors of rhaenyra's children being bastards despite knowing it could get them killed (+ in the book the only ppl yapping abt them being bastards were alicent and criston cole bc the point of spreading rumors was to undermine and hurt both them and rhaenyra, if it was true or not was irrelevant), and she literally hits aegon and insists that rhaenyra will kill him to cement her claim to the throne even when there's been no indication that she would. alicent did not have to do any of those things, she actively chose to

and rhaenyra was willing to leave all that in the past by marrying helaena and jace thus ending the (then metaphorical) war between their sides of the family, but alicent refused bc she wanted power and for rhaenyra to not have any, so she made active choices to ensure that, and didn't care for the consequences. now her son is the king, she never prepared him for it so he's shit at it, she can't control him, she has no power, and the only person surprised is her (and otto). but again, these are choices SHE made or helped make. making an enemy of rhaenyra, and everything that came bc of that, was a choice. she would've helped put aegon on the throne whether viserys quoted the prophecy to her or not, be it usurpation (which it was) or not. that was a choice alicent made. stop portraying her as a passive victim of the dance when that role belongs to helaena

[nataref]

No one is responsible for this election besides white people and implying otherwise is reductive, racist and frankly going to do nothing except for weaken community and coalition building we have desperately needed for decades if not centuries. Cause the reality is white supremacy created Trump. White people voted en masse for him. It wasn't latines, or Black men, or Arabs, or the Free Palestine movement. It will always rest squarely on the shoulders of whiteness as a individual identity and as a superstructure.

Stop fighting each other. Start fighting FOR each other. It will never ever be the fault of racialized people and anti-racists. Ever.

[maingh0st]

thoughts on wren using the bridle on oak? i love wren, but i wonder if it was necessary bc of the horrible experiences she had w the bridle that she had to have known abt when she put it on oak

hi! I actually haven't read Wren & Oak's books (don't feel bad; I haven't tried to avoid spoilers so this isn't a big deal). because of that, I really don't know their characters and can't speak much to this, even though I'm familiar-ish with the circumstances around it

my stab in the dark answer: it does seem like a fairly terrible thing to do, but I could also see it being some kind of commentary on suffering and power (when you've been hurt in a very specific way, it might feel empowering to be the one inflicting that same hurt on someone else—but in doing so, you become the monster you fear). but that's all from an outside perspective. others who've read the book are welcome to share their thoughts here if they want!

[tsuki-in-faerun]

you, tumblr user, are actually k tanaka: part deux

i decided to make this it’s own post instead of ranting in the tags of somebody else’s.

if I could browse the evan/sam tag without seeing k mentioned, i could get on board with the shippers. not the ship itself, the community. conceptually speaking, i have no problem with anybody’s shipping habits. i love the chemistry between danielle and brennan.

my issue is that 1.) k bashing lives alongside the actual shipping to the point of being unavoidable and 2.) the opinion that ‘romantic love can’t heal someone but it can help the process.’ both of these things together give me the impression that people don’t actually disagree with the idea that evan can be fixed with love, they just think k was doing it wrong.

so, yeah, i still think people are projecting a lot of self-hatred onto k for having done the same type of shit that they themselves do or want to do for evan. if there was the ability to separate that noise out from the sam/evan shipping i wouldn't say anything, but as it stands, i hate seeing two characters of color being triangulated around a white love interest like this. because k/evan happened canonically, we don't get to let it live 100% in the realm of fantasy fulfillment, we have to deal with the messiness that happened between them. sam/evan gets to be tender because they don't have that baggage, we don't see the points of friction that would exist if they were together, and some people are using THAT to mean that it would inherently be healthier. i've heard at least one person complaining that folks are being too 'moralistic' about sam/evan and again, i can't help but contrast that critique to fan treatment of k this season. we can’t apply a moralistic lens to k and then put it away now that you like this other dynamic better. what it feels like is happening is that there is a portion of fans that do want evan to be rehabilitated thru romantic partnership and because that's the fantasy, k deserves to be punished for failing at it and sam can be the clean slate. i don't think any of these characters deserve that, nor does that square with how they are being played in mismag itself.

[gender-euphowrya]

it's incredible how people who are part of minorities and got fooled by the whole "DEI bad" thing always think DEI is everyone but themselves

[fitzrove]

Started watching a "problem with greek myth retellings" video and it began with a blurb montage like "Condemned by the misogynist guys of history, this is the true girlboss feminist story of [A WOMAN]" and like. brb writing one of those about crown prince rudolf. It's ok he's like a misunderstood girlboss to me<3

[princessnijireiki]

now that I'm thinking about it some more, because... it's ultimately always this, the weird disjoint in the ways diff communities are talking abt shit like dei and rainbow capitalism and the old chestnut of slur discourse and even y'all's approaches to actions like boycotts and protest IS because all of you continually want to crib from black americans' notes with zero comprehension, having done none of the reading, and with a funky attitude and superiority complex, while also demanding an unearned inner sense of moral purity/condemnation of others on top of demanding to be fucking liked in the process.

[tls123]

Oh my god HOW DID YOU LIKE SVSSS!!!!!

i liked it more than i thought i would but overall less than i might have given the potential of the story, i think in general i really enjoyed the characters (mxtx never goes wrong with characters, she creates them in a way that makes me feel unhinged) and the world building but the pay off to the set up—which i really liked!—felt a bit........ i mean, just alright.

the dynamics too are pure mxtx, personally the bin/gqiu dynamic specifically really was the least interesting part of the whole story. to me!! but individually i loved both characters. my interest was just elsewhere because """elsewhere""" felt way more fascinating idk how to explain it

was very, very happy about the extra with airplane and the yue qingyuan / shen jiu one because that's exactly what i wanted more of in the story itself as well as just more shen yuan/qingqiu interacting with cang qiong mountain

maybe it's my orv brain but like i told jana a while back i think i would have enjoyed svsss way more if it was more about shen yuan (loner; hater; etc) suddenly finding himself among all of these people (disciples looking up to him; sect siblings relying on him one way or another; common folk admiring him; etc etc) and starting to.... live? again?

Shen Qingqiu hadn't noticed that, unconsciously, he no longer considered the disciples around him (...) to be mob characters the novel had described in a scant number of words.

^from volume one, he starts seeing them almost immediately because he's not actually that separate and he genuinely cares. all the time. about everything. even before that we get:

This was only a book, and all the people were constructs, imaginary characters. Logically, Shen Qingqiu was very clear on this fact...but when a character was actually being taunted and bullied right before his eyes, it was just flat-out unrealistic to expect him to be completely unmoved.

like why are you lying, shen yuan (<- svsss tagline if there ever was one)

just the idea of this really lonely detached guy finding a community, i know it's not the story mxtx was trying to tell but again, with the set up i really wanted to see it go in that direction.

there's one line from vol two where liu qingge goes "you fear becoming a burden to cang qiong mountain (...) but cang qiong mountain fears not your burden"

and basically what i'm saying is that i wish the story had been about THAT

(and also ning yingying's lines in that same chapter about shizun always taking on everything himself and why is it always you like that whole moment with the cang qiong mountain almost begging him to see that they care. idek what i'm saying but you know)

(also foaming at the mouth that we only got tiny tiny glimpses of shen yuan's life from before, those handful of times he mentioned his siblings i wanted to take a bite out of my kindle. tell me more!! dear fucking lord tell me more!! keep talking! elaborate!! he really felt very "kim dokja and his fourth wall" at times, sorry once more about the orv brain)

tldr: i guess i wanted a story about shen yuan/qingqiu but mxtx created svsss to be a story about bin/gqiu. and i just have to be okay with that.

[museenkuss]

Oh?! Extremely similar notes to my beloved Divin'Enfant, but missing the leather and tobacco. This could be a delight! Bitter coffee and sugar-dusted marshmallows, with a light and delighting hint of orange blossoms. It could be extremely nice! However, looking at the bottle and knowing 1) the target audience (16-20 yos) and 2) the current trends (sugar), I expect this to be an overpowering, banal, over the top mess. ....but here's to hoping I'm wrong!

[lacefuneral]

just remembered how terribly katy perry flopped with her pop-feminist "satire" music video a few months ago:

artists that did it better this year:

[edwardallenpoe]

so good news, discovered Fast Car and Give Me One Reason are sung by a black lesbian, lovely Tracy Chapman, yay! bad news, I still don't like country music so.

[keyki421]

Simone Biles really didn't protect her husband. She should have really told him the truth instead of trying to be delusional and act as if he is more popular than her. Cause now he is becoming a joke online. It's crazy the amount of videos I've seen clowing this man. I don't know what position he plays in football or his stats, but he will have to be a top notch player now. Cause he will literally never live this down.

This is what happens when women try to coddle their husbands and their feelings. Simone Biles should have known what the internet/media is like and how it has the possibility to make you look like a fool. She let her husband walk right into that. I just now he is getting roasted by his teammates as well. No matter where he goes now people will clown him for having the audacity to think he is more popular than his gold medal Olympian wife.

[cantstayawaycani]

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