#and also the original racists

[athenaalexandria]

I finally put my finger on why I get frustrated with Europeans (especially the Brit’s) talking about the US.

Often times when I talk to friends from Europe, or see someone from Europe on TikTok or YouTube or whatever, they are always belittling the US. Initially, this was fine and actually kind of appreciated, as I felt vindicated in my thoughts and emotions about my country. They would say “America Bad” and I would go “Yeah! America Bad!” But as time has gone on, those same talking points haven’t changed. And things in the US have gotten worse.

I’ve been told how loud Americans are, how unhealthy we are, how we are obsessed with racism, how ignorant we are, how violent we are. Yet none of the people saying these things have an ounce of empathy or self reflection. I’ve heard about the Danish Vs Swedish Vs Norwegian conflict so much, or the great history of the British empire. Yet if I try to talk about American history, it is immediately tossed aside like it’s not important. I will be lectured about how horrible it is that our cops shoot people, yet when I explain how this has come about with systemic racism stemming back to the founding of the US, and how monopolized violence is a bad and scary thing in every nation, suddenly I’m just another American who doesn’t understand that actually Germany can’t be racist, and the French police need to have assault rifles and body armor. Worst of all is when they discuss our mass shootings. I have been talked down to like a child so many times while backpacking through Europe about how guns are bad and we just need to get the government to stop it by voting that I want to tear my hair out. They will explain our politics, explain what we are missing, yet offer no solutions or help beyond “just stop doing that”.

Now, all of this I don’t think I would mind if anyone I’ve talked to was willing to do some self reflection and listen and learn. But it’s the blatant refusal to listen to us, to learn our geography, to learn about the many cultures in America. To lecture about something they don’t have to live through, tell us we are a third world nation, and then patronize us for letting it get this way.

The US government is a propaganda machine dedicated to churning out new workers who are ignorant of the world they live in so they don’t know they can strive for better. They use the media and violence to scare us, anger us, or make us feel defeated as a form of control to make sure the people in power stay there, and the capitalism keeps powering on. Even when we do learn of what we could have and what we could be, they have systematized everything so that it’s nearly impossible to escape. We are a nation founded on slavery, of the suppression of minorities, and of colonialism. But don’t worry, all that can change if we just stop being stupid and lazy and start to vote 🤗🙄

I could keep ranting about this subject for days. I didn’t even start on the “Americans never leave their country” thing, because I’d need a globe a tape measure and some mouth tape for my students to get across how scale and state vs federal government and land works. I just have had more and more anger over the years as I’ve realized that people from Europe are not better than Americans. It’s just the weird classism shit that I don’t understand rearing its ugly head again, and the US is beneath because we are still just viewed as a colony of lessers.

Now for my next post let me get into how South America is consistently left out of discussions on this, and that European Spanish and Portuguese is not better than Colombian Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese, and that “Americans” should not just refer to citizens of the US, because just in case you forgot the US is terrible too, I’m just also mad at Europeans. Goodnight everybody!

[a-most-beloved-fool]

makes me a little sad when star trek ignores IDIC. like. vulcans are logical. that is true. But 'logical', for vulcans, does not amount to 'without compassion,' and it definitely doesn't amount to 'racial superiority.' Belief in 'infinite diversity in infinite combinations' should NOT result in the weird racist/speciest stuff we're getting in some of the newer treks. It does make sense that some vulcans are discriminatory. They're still flawed. But that should not be common or expected, like it seems to be in SNW. If it is, then it's a race of hypocrites, which. doesn't seem very true to Star Trek's message.

I think TOS Spock does a pretty good job of embodying this. Not always, it was the 60s, after all, but mostly. He was often trying to find non-violent routes, and get by without killing - even if they were in danger or had already been attacked. (See: the mugato, and the horta (until Kirk was the one in danger, lmao. t'hy'la > IDIC), the Gorn ship). Kirk, in his eulogy, calls him the most human soul he's ever known, and I've always read that as Kirk calling out Spock's overwhelming compassion.

It's just so much more interesting when Vulcans get to be radically compassionate. I want them to believe that everything and everyone has value. I want them to respect all ways of being. I want them to find ways for even very non-humanoid aliens to exist unfettered in society. I want them to see hybrids and think that it's amazing. Also, like, disability rep. I want Vulcans to have The Most Accessible Planet and available resources because they want everyone to feel accepted and valued. It makes for better characters and more interesting stories.

[feyburner]

I fucking hate DC lol. His race is Villain

[transmaverique]

amab and afab, if they were used as shorthand for the actual full phrases that they signify, with emphasis on the "assigned" part, and an understanding that they are enforcements of normative (ie, dyadic and cisgender and binary) sex, would be like. really useful. but people took the terms and started using them as shorthand FOR normative sex instead of the ENFORCEMENT OF normative sex. so when other trans people (almost always dyadic trans people) ask for your agab they are almost always asking for your Original Genital Situation. your starting point, so to say. and the reason FOR asking is also almost always bc they are trying to also enforce a certain kind of normativity within queer spaces (which is stupid bc being queer is inherently non-normative but here we are). like, you cant be a lesbian if you're ftm, bc you ARE m, so if you ARE a lesbian, then that means you're lying about some aspect of your identity. does that make sense?

it is always always always incredibly.... i do not trust dyadic trans people that use cagab terms, even moreso than i do not trust dyadic trans people that just use agab terms. agab is also coopted intersex language, but the "coercive" part of cagab SPECIFICALLY refers to medical "intervention" of intersex characteristics, such as "corrective" surgeries and hrt. i am deeply fucking suspicious of any dyadic trans person that uses those terms exactly the same as described above, even moreso if they do so bc "all gender is coercive".

like. yeah. that's true. but you use these terms to erase and overtake intersex discussions on the medical abuse of intersex infants. and i cant help but wonder why you would feel the need to do that.

[lesbiansforeddiediaz]

Anyone else really love this episode?

[doberbutts]

Google: hello I recommend this show to you based on your interest in 1600s Japanese modern period dramas and animations

Me: oh actually this show is pretty neat, I like that the Japanese characters actually speak Japanese and not *winkwink* they're totes talking in Japanese but for the viewer's sake they're using English *winkwink* and from the sound of it traditional Japanese at that because this is sounding very antiquated and out of date compared to my rough knowledge of modern Japanese

Show: :)

Show: have 10 minutes of a character being tortured by being boiled to death in a large cast iron pot :)

Me: ...

Me: WHY

[wetcatspellcaster]

I'm not going to tag this bc I can practically visualise the hornets nest I'm kicking, but I am starting to get annoyed by people who are complaining about inconsistencies in dragon age lore, when the inconsistences mostly seem to be happening in places where the old lore was severely problematic and written at the height of game of thrones grimdark fantasy market trends.

[snaileer]

If you’re sick of tired tropes clap your hands!

👏🏼👏🏼

If you’re sick of overwritten pity parties, clap your hands!

👏🏼👏🏼

If you’re sick of overused tropes, and you just want something new, if you’re sick of tired tropes, CLAP YOUR HANDS!

👏🏼👏🏼

[strawberri-draws]

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁Sparkly Rapunzel . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

[sforzesco]

you're SO right, how is it that the best portrayal of many italian renaissance figures comes from a bad videogame from the 2010s

wheezing I’m torn between going truly this is the best portrayal of Leonardo da Vinci we may ever get, and defending AC2 even though I’m a full time Ezio Saga Hater

[adore-the-stars-in-her-eyes]

An original story with original characters from an era everyone wanted to see come to life and we lose it because Disney and Lucasfilm can't fucking think beyond Skywalker.

[requiemforthestars]

Being back in the Dragon Age fandom has awakened something long asleep within me, which is a seething deep, feral hatred and disgust for Cullen and dismay at the way everyone in the fandom is head over heels for him. Literally it's as fresh as it was on the first day. Truly, things you feel at 15 years old do not wane.

[bambinification]

Unpopular opinion but I actually like Bambi II better I think? Idk.

The original is beautiful to look at and really relaxing and comforting, but it's a little bit nothingy and watered down from the original novel in a way that completely changes the story. In the book, the way Bambi left Falene because he was totally enamoured by the Old Stag really spoke to me (ace, lesbian, seeking out elders and mentor figures for a lot of my life). And though the sequel is a bit too kid-ified for an adult without nostalgia to sit through, the sequel DOES recreate this dynamic in a way!!

Plus I like Patrick Stewart as the Great Prince, I like how much winter we get, I like how the meadow scene is actually really unsettling (it haunted me forever as a kid and it still gives me the creeps), I think it's visually pleasing. Also I like how the movie was obviously influenced by the second generation Winnie the Pooh movies (which I like and watch a lot) with random sort-of contemporary songs by a female singer sprinkled throughout. The style of the movie holds it up; it's very watchable as a Disney sequel.

[agirlinthegalaxy]

It's been rolling around in my brain the last few days for some reason, but I still hate the family backstory reveals for Sophie and Eliot. I've seen some of the meta for it, but quite frankly, it still makes no sense. If it had been something actually thought of and intentional in the original, I think it could have been so fascinating. I mean, Sophie's willing abandonment of Astrid to contrast with Nate's loss of Sam or Eliot's adoption in contrast with Hardison's and Parker's? Could have been excellent! But they came out of nowhere in Redemption and don't work with these characters.

Sophie was still actively using the fucking alias that she met Astrid under! She met with someone from her past on the show! Like. Quite frankly, that one is unequivocally bullshit that they made up and threw in and pretended could fit with the established canon. (And I'm sorry, but the idea of Sophie abandoning Astrid and never telling Nate about her just... So much of Nate's trauma was rooted in the loss of Sam, and I think that introducing this element after he's gone and unable to respond to it taints Sophie and Nate's relationship in a way bc I'm not exactly sure how Nate would've responded to learning about this but I think that it's something he'd have needed to know. I don't know how to fully express my thoughts on that but yeah.)

As for Eliot, I don't like the adoption aspect literally at all. The way that he would interact with his family and the memory of his family would be different, and I think that it's flat out ridiculous to think that he'd have never mentioned it to the team in the original show, especially when dealing with the kid cases. (I also dislike the biracial adoption as its own element because if Eliot was actually raised by Black parents in the... idk what 80s/90s? That just. doesn't feel congruent with how they write Eliot interacting with PoC, not necessarily in a bad way, but babe, he's written like a white southern man raised in a specific kind of culture that does not jell with that. It also makes Eliot look... really bad that he was apparently raised with the knowledge of how fucked up the military was and his parents' history and made the choices that he did.) Like the show may not have explicitly stated it but the implication of that relationship was vastly fucking different throughout the original show.

Just. These were not backstories that were congruent with their depiction and characters in the original show, and they're also just moves that I don't particularly like or find interesting directions for those characters. There's also something to be said about how it was apparently unacceptable for a woman to not have kids or someone not reconciling with their biological family when that was something that the original show handled a lot better. Out of all the directions to take Sophie and Eliot's stories, that's just not really one that I think was a good idea.

[emiliosandozsequence]

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