#and then talk about the other gods using stereotypes FROM modern media??

[odysseus-crewmate-number38]

i love the rrverse so much but i need people who’ve only read it and maybe some tumblr incorrect quotes abt the greek gods to stop trying to explain greek mythology to me its really obvious srry

[redwolf17]

Hozier and romanticizing Ireland, or why the “bog man” shtick should be dropped back into the bog from whence it came

So after a slapdash, frustrated post about the politics of Hozier's music went batshit yesterday, I wanna do a quick follow up about the whole bog man thing, which multiple people mentioned in the reblogs and tags.

Artists are usually known by their names, either the one they got at birth or the one they picked for their career. Beyoncé Knowles Carter goes by Beyoncé, Stefani Germanotta goes by Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift goes by Taylor Swift, etc.

Andrew Hozier-Byrne goes by the stage name Hozier. When talking about him online, most people just call him Hozier, or sometimes Andrew for emphasis or to be silly. Then you have the people who call him stuff like this:

Yeahhhhhhhh, that's just some of what I found in like a 5 minute search. If you search tumblr for "bog man" or "forest daddy" it's almost all posts about Hozier; there's a lot more (and weirder) if you go look on TikTok.

People from other countries romanticizing Ireland isn't new, but that doesn't make it acceptable. Ireland is very much a modern country with modern problems, despite media (mostly American) which prefers to focus on Ireland as an exotic, idealized land, a postcard from the past where everyone lives in cottages and dresses in green and only speaks in mysterious rhyming couplets. Heck, only 3 in 10 Irish people live in rural areas. The other 7 in 10 live in urban or suburban areas, including Hozier. He lives in County Wicklow, which is quite close to Dublin, a city of over 500,000 people and also Ireland's capital.

Like, I'm not saying anyone is The Devil for making a couple "bog man" cracks. God knows I made a few of them back in 2019; one of my old posts makes me cringe because I joked about Hozier and fairy mounds. And you can find old examples of Hozier humoring the gag here and there, whether because he found it funny at the time or because he was just playing along.

Lately, though? When the bogfather/fae king stuff comes up in interviews, Hozier seems uncomfortable with it, even though he stays polite:

Like. Hozier is just a guy. A dude named Andrew who sings and plays guitar and writes songs and is a fallible human being. Artists can't completely control their image, but if you're a fan of someone's music, you should try to treat them as a person, not a mythical creature or a bundle of stereotypes about their country or a flawless statue to be stuck up on a pedestal.

All of us (including me!) fuck up sometimes. But once we know better, we should choose to do better.

[davekat-sucks]

"You can still think he is bi and ship him with whatever girl you like. Fuck what the fandom thinks. Just do what you like." Another banger from davekat-sucks. Sometimes I feel like you're the most sane person in this fandom, I swear to god. Unpopular opinion on Dirk's sexuality and identity: He canonically does not like to label himself. It's in the comic and in his own words. People can cite him saying that he felt like Jake was the only option and Roxy calling him the gayest man in the universe or whatever, but neither of these things means that the man is 100% homosexual. Maybe he felt like Jake was the only option because Jake was just plain the only one he felt a romantic attraction to. Maybe sometimes friends say shit like "you're the gayest person ever" as, like, a joke, or maybe it could have been wishful thinking on Roxy's part since him not being gay might make his rejection of her hurt more. I don't know. It's never explicitly stated. Isn't it possible that Dirk is homoflexible, or maybe even pan? I just don't get people being mad because someone wants to imagine Dirk and Jade kiss or something. It's also funny to see people being all about headcanoning him as transfem/genderqueer or turning him into the daintiest sluttiest girliest twink of all time while pissing their pants about stuff like this. Isn't hypermasculinity and being a man a big part of who he is? Why is making him a woman/feminine okay, while making him hold hands with Kanaya or something is a homophobic hate crime? If we're playing in this space, is it not a little hypocritical? If shipping him with a woman is homophobic why isn't it homophobic to make "the only canonically gay man" into a girl or a flamboyant stereotype? On a smaller note, I know that you've talked about this before, but the same people who freak out about this stuff are the people who totally erase Dave's identity as a bisexual man and say that he's completely gay. He's expressed interest in women (an understatement), and he's dated them. I'm starting to think that people just hate bi men. I want to understand the logic that these people are using.

Yep, Dirk did say that when speaking with Roxy.

Another reason for him to say this as well is to try and remind the readers that both Roxy and Dirk are in an apocalyptic setting that caring about terms of sexuality, is pointless if they don't want to be dead. The world has gone to shit, so things like that don't mean anything anymore. I bet Hussie was trying to point that out when the fandom would only talk about the kids' sexuality despite the bigger shit going on in the plot, but sadly, it was lost on readers back then. Part of Dirk being masculine is also in part because he looks up to Alpha Bro, DAVE STRIDER. If people want to blame anyone for making Dirk manly, blame Dave himself or another version of himself, for only portraying himself as this that Dirk thinks it is right to try be in that same standards. People had blamed Bro for this with Dave, so why don't we do the same for Dirk and Alpha Dave? The fandom stereotyping Dirk into the stereotypical effeminate gay guy, is hilarious when they are the same people that bitch about being in other media. They want their supposed LGBT rep to be taken seriously and not used for a joke. And yet they would apply it to other characters that don't act like this in different series. At this point, what more do these fucking people want? Another is that most of the fandom probably wants to have that 'gay best friend' because they think they can be cool with them and also have them as their excuse of why they aren't homophobic this or that. Kind of like how claiming to have a POC friend doesn't make you racist. The Homestuck fandom, or fandoms in general in this modern time, just hate bisexuals in general. Any sign of straight couples from character(s) that are comfortable in both sexes, pisses people off. Some claiming that two persons of same sex being close only for not to end up together, is queerbait. Whether or not evidence was there in the first place. I even recalled the Steven Universe fandom was livid when they heard Rebecca Sugar, the creator herself, was bisexual. People assume she was lesbian because of the TV show she created. The thought of her still liking guys infuriated them. At that point, I wonder what does the B in LGBT means if said people who claim to be all supportive for LGBT, hate bisexual relationships. Just because a bisexual person chooses to be with someone of their opposite sex, doesn't mean it automatically means they are straight and can't go back to bisexual. It's ridiculous. That kind of one way street thinking is stupid.

[ericdeggans]

Why hoping Lily Gladstone won an Oscar does not equal valuing race over talent.

Social media is never a great place to have discussions about race and culture. The real issues at hand are way too nuanced and detailed for outrage factories like X/Twitter and Instagram to handle.

Still, I was disappointed to see so many people – perhaps willfully – missing the point online when discussion rose after the Oscars about Lily Gladstone failing to win best actress honors.

No doubt, a win for Gladstone – who would have been the first Native American woman to earn a major acting Oscar – also would have felt like a serious triumph for champions touting the power of diversity in film.

Feeling the love big time today, especially from Indian Country. Kittō”kuniikaakomimmō”po’waw - seriously, I love you all ❤️ (Better believe when I was leaving the Dolby Theater and walked passed the big Oscar statue I gave that golden booty a little Coup tap - Count: one 😉)

— Lily Gladstone (@lily_gladstone) March 12, 2024

Those of us who clock these things regularly knew that Emma Stone’s turn in Poor Things was most likely to spoil that scenario. Stone offered a showy-yet-accomplished performance as a singular character in an ambitious, creatively weird production. A much-loved past winner delivering a career-best effort, she was just the kind of nominee that Oscar loves to reward. And, as Vulture pointed out, modern Oscar voters seem to enjoy turning against expectations in big moments like this.

But when I expressed those feelings online – that Stone was marvelous and more than earned the award, but the Oscar academy really missed a chance to make history by overlooking Gladstone’s more subtle, quietly powerful turn in a better movie – the knives came out.

The gist of most negative reactions was the implication that I and others lamenting her loss were insisting that ethnicity should trump talent. As if the only or most important reason that an indigenous woman could be nominated for such a lofty award, is by people trying to bring social justice to the Oscars. (I guess Gladstone’s wins as best actress at the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild awards, among others, were also nods to diversity?)

As if it couldn’t be possible that perhaps -- just perhaps -- some racial cultural preferences were mixed up in Oscar voters’ attraction to the story of a beautiful, young white woman who has loads of sex while learning to define herself in a male dominated world.

What really disappointed me, however, was reading an analysis which reached all the way back to the 2017 Oscars to imply that one reason Barry Jenkins’ masterpiece Moonlight won best picture honors over La La Land was the pressure to bring social justice to the Oscars.

Talk about missing the point by a mile. What I’m driving at, when I advocate for contenders like Gladstone, Barry Jenkins and Jeffrey Wright, isn’t a finger on the scale to make up for past exclusion.

It’s a plea for Oscar voters to see these performances the way I and so many other people actually see them.

I still remember watching last year’s version of The Color Purple in a screening alongside lots of folks from Black fraternity and sorority organizations. And when the moment arrived where Danielle Brooks’ character intoned about her husband, “I loves Harpo — God knows I do — but I’ll kill him dead before I let him or anybody beat me,” it felt like the whole theater said those words with her. That’s how iconic those lines -- first spoken on film by Oprah Winfrey in the 1985 production – have become for Black America.

That same feeling came after I first saw Cord Jefferson’s brilliant American Fiction, centered on a frustrated, floundering Black writer who creates a stereotypical parody of a Black novel as a dark joke, only to see it become a best seller. I felt as if Jefferson had pulled the same bait-and-switch with his movie that his lead character managed onscreen – using the outrageous premise to draw us all into a more subtle and deliberately powerful story of a Black man struggling to connect with his family after huge losses.

I needed three attempts to get through watching all of Gladstone’s work in Killers of the Flower Moon. Not because the movie was so long I had to “get my mail forwarded to the theater,” like Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel joked. But because it was so hard for me to watch a film centered on the historic exploitation and murder of Native American people by white men.

It sounds like a simple idea, but it’s worth repeating: evocative moments in films will speak differently to different people.

Sometimes, when I’m pushing for a win in an awards category, or championing a particular project, it’s not because I’m putting a finger on the scale for the sake of equality. It’s because I’m more invested in that story than some others because of who I am. And I’m challenging some people, who might not see their cultural preferences as preferences, to consider exactly why they love one thing over another.

In many ways, it is sad to see great artists pitted against each other in these contests. Comparing the delightful, dangerous absurdity of Poor Things to the gritty, punishing tone in Killers of the Flower Moon feels like a fool’s errand, anyway.

But with so much that comes from an Oscar win – including proof that inclusion brings success, accolades and a great argument for more equity – it is important to understand why some people value some performances.

And part of living in a diverse society means valuing the wide range of opinions and reactions, not shrugging off those that don’t fit your worldview.

[voiceofsword]

every1 that voted rinne as worst husband is so wrong... its literally canon that he cares SO much and fakes his insane persona hes just awkward and embarassed when he gets noticed

i have so many things i can say about this but im really bad at words but theyre stewing around in my brain explodes

what were your thoughts?

i do agree with the ones that mention niki haha those are true rinne is absolutely smitten but the ones that say its like. because hes rinne amagi. and others thay were probably filtered out by the OP... people that either didnt read the main story or just dont want to look further lmao

(cracking my fingers) okay. this may or may not be long. i fear you have struck a bit of a nerve with this (NOT YOU but just as like. a general statement. i feel like u dont know what ur asking. but that is ok)

this whole thing might seem really aggressive at times bc this situation did get me a little heated... plz keep that in mind going in! AGAIN IM NOT ANGRY AT YOU ANON ILY AND THANK YOU FOR ASKING you just happened to ask abt smth i feel very sourly about – not the poll itself but the answers to it – but i tried to be as. tactful as i possibly can while talking abt this

overall im very disappointed in a lot of the answers given for the voting so ive stayed off twitter almost all day today and yesterday. i fear like with stuff like this a very silent population of eng side shines through, the one that specifically Doesnt actually engage with the story and goes off fanon interpretation. look, im not saying its necessarily a bad thing. but when it comes to stuff like this, where people grossly mischaracterize a grand majority of charas or narrow them down to be the butt of a joke, or use it as an excuse to be plain racist/ableist, i feel like people really need to reassess where all of this is coming from. like. not rinne, but KANAME couldnt even be included because the answers used for his votes were, in their majority, apparently ableist, and op (definitely in the right, i think this was the right choice to make) chose not to post at all because they feared the qrts would be just as bad. because for some reason people seem to think that because they're fictional characters that being ableist is somehow ok, that saying they would "pull the plug" on charas like him and eichi is fine because theyre not real people – as if there werent disabled or chronically ill people in this fandom, in every fandom, or hell, around you?

and lets not mention tatsumi and people blatantly misinterpreting his christianity as something he would force upon others – first of all, western christianity does not apply to tatsumi. at all. i understand that people might find it easy to just associate him with that and make "haha, he would make me convert" or "haha he would be a homophobe" quips, and obviously its not necessary to have extensive knowledge on kirishitan history in japan and how they are, to this day, a minority that was persecuted for a lot of japan's modern history. LIKE, EVEN FROM HIS DIALOGUE IN ANY STORY.. when has he given off that impression? cite your sources, he's literally one of the most inclusive and accepting charas in the whole cast! not a prejudiced white christian middle aged mom...

i think that if you absolutely must reduce a character to tasteless jokes, stereotypes that arent even funny to begin with, and you refuse to even read the source content at all to correct yourself, you really need to think about how you engage with any media, not just enstars. if you want to look at the pretty characters just say that! but dont be like this, and don’t speak on things you don’t fully understand as if you did just to make a point or be funny! 

OKAY RINNE SORRY LOL i hate it. i hated all of it and judging by the ratio many people seemed to dislike it as well (god bless!). if you havent seen it i wont link it bc tbf i dont feel like looking at it again (peace and love) but the answers summed up are like "oh he would steal my money" "hes selfish and would take stuff from me and not gaf about my wellbeing" "hes married to niki already" the last one being the only one i agree with. and it makes me think about a lot of issues with how a good portion of the fandom sees rinne. ive seen a lot of people read rinne in bad faith, regardless of whether theyve read main story, hot limit or any story rinne is in. and i dont get it, genuinely. YES he can be upsetting! he can be an asshole, he can be rude, he DOES steal money from niki! but these people neglect to see or mention that he gives it back and then some. they fail to talk about how he spends a lot of his time trying to make niki see his self worth!! since hiiro was BORN he's been trying to get him to understand that he's deserving of love!! that YES he can be a dick but ultimately treats crazy:b and his friends with love and wants what's best for them! these are the same ppl that think he's abusive or something idk i can only assume. like yeah rinne has a carefully crafted persona where hes a complete dickhead and ig some players cant really bother to see past that act

unfortunately rinne himself is built on a few harmful stereotypes of ainu culture irt the drinking, being portrayed or viewed as more 'uncouth' by other characters, etc which is why the initial more explicit ties to ainu culture were removed altogether from his and hiiros design and background. it is understandable, which is for example why it's not really my place to say whether he can be interpreted as ainu or not, and even so, i try not to rely on those aspects of him because it still veers into sensitive territory. and its an unfortunate part of his character, but undeniably, rinne amagi DOES drink, (he's one of the only characters in main cast of drinking age anyway) does partake in harmful behaviors, but fsr suddenly that means hes nothing but a drunkard, to a lot of people. when reading rinne you really have to take these things and ofc, consider that theyre relevant to his character, but it's not all there is...? in the slightest..? there used to be a tweet thread explaining this link further but it's either been taken down or the account has been locked. either way, just a bit of googling goes a long way. i'd rather not go into too much detail here because i don't feel informed enough beyond pointing these issues out, and i personally feel like it's not really my place. if anybody wants to add onto this post to cite more specific sources please feel free

he's such a fun loving, cunning, caring guy who helps people get jobs (dance of the white tiger), who volunteers to play with kids at a daycare (asobi), and wishes so badly to become an idol and grant everyone the same opportunities if theyd like to be, as well (main story, sudden death SUDDEN DEATH IS MY FAV STORY AFTER HL BUT THE TL IS DOWN....SORRY. but i really really think it's one of the most important ones when it comes to rinne's character and motivations. also if u can read it in app it's even better bc it's voiced and theres a line where he's like "oh this guy's [niki] is engaged to me" when talking to kohaku's sister AND HE SOUNDS FULLY SERIOUS TOO....)

don't get me started on people who dumb him down as if he wasn't one of the most clever characters in the game. and unknowingly, people that continue to make rinne's character out to simply be a gambling flirty drunkard who doesn't know how to control himself, as if there weren't other facets of him – they lean into stereotypes, bordering on racism, even if its not malicious or theyre not aware. and it makes me so sad. a lot of the time these interpretations are spread around and then liking characters like him becomes some sort of moral debate, esp in current fandom (which is one of the reasons i think this stereotyping? happens? b/c ive found that fandom sometimes has the tendency of grabbing characters and mischaracterizing them so BADLY that liking them makes you a bad person..? not necessarily villains either! i promise it's okay to just dislike characters without making stuff up!)

that aside also suggesting he'd be an awful, neglectful spouse is simply incorrect. i very firmly believe that if rinne is devoted, he will drop every vice, every pretense, to make the other person happy. he's Like That in the story and towards niki because they keep tiptoeing around the subject but the second he gets an inner monologue, or is truly being genuine, you can tell he would do anything for him, if niki would just let him. to say that rinne isn't capable of being a good partner because he'll treat you badly or not care about you just proves to me that you're not reading any scene he is actually in. if rinne loves you, romantic or not, he will go big or go home. read hot limit btw

im not about to pull the story caps out no wait yes i am lol rinniki4ever ✌️

these arent in order bc i had to scroll up like 2k pictures because i take caps of this game every time i blink. i was considering adding hiiro caps, to show his dedication to him as well, but given that this is for like a marriage poll id rather not. either way he cares about his family and loved ones a lot. read chapter 155 if you want to know the exact scene i was thinking about/referring to while typing this

um ok (breathes out) im fine now. theres things i didnt address because it's 1 am and i want to go to sleep. congrats kuro on getting #1 most marriageable tho u deserve it KURO NUMERO 1 CAMPEAO DO MUNDO 💯💯💯🔥

[darlingonlyknow]

i was going to just start yapping in the tags but it got longer and longer so i figure i'll just reply on this post itself

first of all you hit the nail on the head so very much and this is exactly how i feel too, but the way you've managed to word this frustration is better than i feel like i ever could. so thank you for making this post, this is so valuable.

so what i started mostly talking about in the tags was how they absolutely did de-sexify her... but also they absolutely did not. the annoying part of the remake maria is how they decided to twist her character seemingly to make her more appealing to a modern audience, rather than analyze why her character was that way other than "early 2000s game being sexist and objectifying her". which is absolutely a problem in other games, don't get me wrong. and i think the change with angela was very justified too. but their solution to maria as some kind of happy middle ground was not even to really personify her further and distance her from femininity. she is still given this kind of sensuality, but it's been replaced with basically being a girlboss instead. for a lack of a better word...

but you can see it in almost every comparison between her in the two games. she is still the one in control of james, but now it's extremely overt. in her character design, she's much more sharp-edged, wearing this leather jacket and a black dress instead of her rounded-edge crop top and cutesy clothes. she is obviously still wearing clothes that aren't exactly modest, but in the color and shape theory they chose, they were purposeful to make her more hard edged and threatening. which can be good character design - which maria LOOKS more threatening or hard edge? but it falls apart when maria is supposed to be feigning innocence and fragility. it falls apart when she is an exaggeration of these stereotypes.

her body language too has annoyed me ever since i've seen her in motion. they made a point to change how she holds herself in every scene. in scenes she's original sitting slumped over and holding herself, she is now leaning back and extremely confident. she now seems also extremely genuine all the time. like with original maria, her change of tone makes you wonder about her motive everytime she makes an appearance. the new maria is like... acting like a genuine fully fledged person who just wound up in silent hill or ven lives there for whatever reason. her original character had to revolve around james, because she was created in his narrative of guilt and all the flaws that come with jame's perceptions of her and perceptions/expectations of mary.

when you get to the iconic mindfuck "i'm real" scene it doesn't hit as hard for me, and why would it? you've had no reason to doubt her other than her infatuation with james being a big much and the uncanny similarity with mary as per james. like her existence in the narrative raised an eyebrow but wasn't scary. because thrill is what keeps horror scary between the monster bits.

they took the good groundwork for the story and used it, so the plot still makes sense, but the nuance that made it feel like a THRILLER is gone. i'm not left guessing at what the motive is - i'm not feeling anything. things are moreso just happening and i'm just watching them. background movie you turn on to make dinner style. i don't need to be attentive to understand what's happening. nuance isn't necessary. AND THAT'S A BAD TREND IN MEDIA RIGHT NOW.

my favorite scene for comparison's sake, if you haven't seen it, oh my god. the voice acting is like... just okay. this is acceptable. but that's the issue. it's just acceptable??? they had the actors and animators just do these scene verbatim from the script it feels like. it is objectively good but there is no switch in tone. she doesn't go quiet before screaming at james and scaring the shit out of you. she doesn't immediately start fawning and making herself small after her anger and literally throwing herself as james before he can even think in tears, not even checking over and over for his reaction. this barely feels like she was just in a life or death situation. there is no thrill in this scene. it's just a thing that happens.

i feel like the bloobers tried to rework her character to make it less nuanced, and i don't even think it was on purpose. like everything is objectively good and correct. but it's not the POINT of the original. it's as if a woman preforming hyper femininity was 1. inherently offensive and a product of the time and 2. unable to be an antagonist the way she looked, and that her appearance and actions had no weight to james. when in reality that is probably the only reason he took up this patriarchal role of the protector sort. it interests him but she was this scared, weak, lost girl.... who happens to look just like mary. you can see his face drop in the original every time he remembers this is not mary. he could not give less of a fuck if he wasn't so guilt ridden already, imo. which the whole point is that she acts stereotypical like the weak woman archetype, and uses her lack of perceived power to manipulate james further

the way you put it in the third paragraph is absolutely key. as someone who was also made to live as a woman for a large portion of my life i instantly connect to storylines about existential horror in womanhood and narratives that she is begging to be seen as person and not mary. in the original she is using it to her advantage to manipulate james, like in the above scene, but james is not innocent in the way he treats and perceives her. this is the straight relationship and performative gender roles unmasked to me. the horror of silent hill is partially and constantly hinted at to be what's just underneath the surface, and that's it. and like you said THIS IS THE ONE TIME IT MATTERS!!!

i think this inner narrative of the horror of being a woman isn't just still relevant, it's still so effective. i didn't play silent hill until like a year ago and i still understood it and felt it was so smart. there's nothing dated about it, unfortunately.

without these exaggerations in their characters, they're just normal people. which is great if you are writing something that is 100% realistic. but maria is not a realistic person, just like pyramid head is not realistic. they both represent the ideas james has about his relationship and maria specifically is his perception of women. just like pyramid head, this is an intense characteristic of a feeling that james has. i believe maria illustrates the horror of being mary, essentially. the subconscious realization james has of that and the more shallow feelings he has to her, or viewing his own sexual needs not being met as this haunting guilt, sometimes even a violent one (again, pyramid head).

and not all scenes are bad, like the meeting maria scene is pretty on par. when she's playful it's not nearly as bad. but they lost the nuance. and sorry silent hill is not a realism horror, it's okay if you liked the remake but it is supposed to be psychological and heavily symbolic

potentially unpopular (but undeniably correct) Maria SH2 opinion incoming.

I am normally so profoundly against the "oh no, they un-sexified my video game woman" rhetoric but it is so critically important to who Maria is as a character and to the overall theming of the game as a whole, and to put her in a more conservative outfit is so blatantly missing the point that it makes me deeply worried for the direction of this remake and the dev's grasps on the games most central theme.

Silent Hill 2 is an exploration into the psychosexual guilt of a man who experienced carnal urges while his wife was dying of a mysterious disease and physically unavailable to him. Maria is the most concrete confirmation of and confrontation with this theme that exists in the game. A mirror of his dead wife, meant to look James in the face and say "this is what you wanted, right?" She HAS to be identifiably sexual on sight, because Maria only exists to be a purposeful avatar of this concept.

it is ESSENTIAL TO THE PLOT that Maria is aware of and in CONTROL of her sexuality. Not only is it critical to James' story and his overall theming, but part of the tragedy of Silent Hill IS Maria's own story. Maria, who feels like a real, whole person, is an invention of the town made explicitly and only to torture James. Part of the tragedy is that Maria herself was born (from a wish, ba dum tss) by a malevolent supernatural force to exist as a sexual object. Maria, who is brought back to life again and again to be killed brutally, begging for James to save her. Maria, who comes to understand that she will never live up to the ideal of James' dead wife, and will continually beg to be taken seriously as her own person. The only thing she has to offer is her sexuality, the one thing James couldn't get from Mary; the thing that brought him to the town, to her. It her is primary character function, and it wasn't done to objectify her for shits and giggles, or because the devs were pervs who wanted a sexy woman in their game. It was done because that, in itself, is a horrifying, gut-wrenching reality to be brought into, a fundamentally ABYSMAL reason to exist. It IS the horror.

Maria exists exclusively to be a confrontation with James' sexual guilt. She is a specter that haunts the hallways James walks down, a shadow that hovers over his shoulder, the object of his shame and desire. Maria is the worst, most carnal aspects of James' urges made manifest, standing before him, tempting him deeper into the clutches of the town, muddying his senses with her physical allure.

Maria's outfit actually IS that deep. Part of the tragedy is that she only exists to be objectified. It is a commentary in itself. This is the one time EVER (god willing) that I will champion a woman being in a revealing outfit in a video game, because this is the one time it actually fucking MATTERS

maybe this is an unpopular opinion but as an afab person these themes are so so important and identifiable to me. it reflects the horror of every day life as a woman and magnifies them tenfold. it is tragic, it is awful, it is sick, and the point isn't to glorify it, but to call attention to it. it forces you to engage, to not turn your head away. and that matters to me.

anyways bloober team really be bloobing all over this IP huh

[nevermindirah]

Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).

Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)

The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.

In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.

Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?

I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.

Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.

And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.

I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.

Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.

I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.

One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)

Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.

Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.

It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.

Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.

[grace13star]

“Look, there’s a reason why you are not the president and never will be.” - Wilbur Soot (Am I The Villain?, 05:36)

Hi guys it’s me, Grace, with another mini essay about c!WIlbur Soot. Assume every name is about the character and not the real people. 

So there’s this scene that a lot of people use as evidence that Wilbur is “evil” or “manipulative” to Tommy in Pogtopia. If you ask for evidence of abuse or manipulation, this is a scene they point to first. 

Its literally the worst example they could give.

I’m sure you all know the scene. Wilbur and Tommy are arguing, and Wilbur tells Tommy that he’ll never be president and that they can’t trust anyone. 

So we’re gonna talk about this scene and lay out exactly how you’re wrong using critical thinking skills. We’re gonna talk about context. We’re gonna talk about quotes. We’re gonna talk about mental illness and ableism in this community. 

Strap in.

So first of all, the context. 

In the scenes leading up to the speech, Wilbur and Tubbo are exploring the tunnel system Tubbo has built under L’Manberg that leads to Pogtopia. He specifically shows him a false path he’s built so that if Schlatt ever comes down, he won’t be led straight to the rebel hideout. 

Surprise, surprise, Schlatt and Quackity show up. 

Tommy is also there at that point, and when Tubbo and Wilbur try to get him to crouch and hide so he doesn’t reveal their location, he ignores them and starts destroying the wall that is hiding them as they try to get him to stop. “Tommy, fill in the gap. (Tommy starts breaking more) No! Tommy, fill in the gap!” -(Am I The Villain?, 4:28)

Wilbur then gives in and lets Tommy have the path open, but he tells Tommy that he doesn’t want him at Schlatt’s decree because of how irresponsible he’s being. Tommy argues, and this is when Wilbur first says “This is why you are not the president and never will be.” Harsh? Maybe, but Tommy is doing things that are risking not only his and Wilbur’s life, but Tubbo’s as well. 

Schlatt and Quackity almost follow the path to Pogtopia, but luckily, Schlatt turns back to make his decree. 

The declaration of the Manberg festival is the first time Wilbur’s point of view is questioned. He has a very black and white viewpoint throughout the entire storyline.  “It was Dream, he’s kinda the bad guy. Yeah, we’re the good guys, we’re the good guys here.” - (Wilbur’s Niki joins L'Manberg: 22:28) The festival isn’t evil and doesn’t seem like some nefarious plan (we know later that it’s just a front for Tubbo’s execution, but it’s unclear whether that was planned from the announcement or if it was added later). 

This shakes his whole worldview, and the way he reconciles what he thought with what he knows now is deciding he’s the villain. Objectively, this isn’t even close to true. Schlatt was a tyrant who over taxed and imprisoned his citizens if they spoke out against him, and Wilbur’s government never really did anything. It’s worth noting as well, that one of Wilbur’s justifications is that Schlatt was elected legally. However, a lot of tyrants and dictators in history were also elected legally. Its the actions of the governing force that make them a bad leader, not whether or not they got their power legally. 

Wilbur’s response to realizing the world is a lot more morally grey is immediately the most extreme response. He thinks they should blow up Manberg and completely raze it. 

While Wilbur, in this video, claims that its because he can’t have it, he truly believes that Manberg is what caused conflict, and if he takes out Manberg, the conflict will disappear. This is confirmed by a Reddit analysis post that Wilbur reponded “Any truers” too.  Wilbur also says this directly in the video. “Do you know what would happen if we get L’Manberg back, Tommy? More blood would be shed.” -(Am I The Villain?, 18:56)

Now we get to the part that people claim is manipulation. 

First thing I’d like to say is this: look up what manipulation means for the love of god. Stop using buzzwords you don’t know the meaning of. 

This has become a problem with the meme “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss,” where people joke about serious topics like manipulation and abuse and confuse it with completely normal things to do. I’ve seen so many people claim something is gaslighting only for it to be a character saying their opinion. It’s tiring, guys. 

Anyways, with this specific scene, people point to the part where Wilbur says “Everyone who’s claiming to be on our side? They’re lying to us! Tubbo? He’s lying to you, man!” - (Am I The Villain?, 20:27) 

This is not manipulation. 

This post explains it in a lot more depth (check it out, it’s very well written, thank you @the-redeemed-anon​), but to sum it up: manipulation requires coersion, intention, and withholding of truth. While Wilbur is trying to coerce Tommy, he does not lie to him, and that makes this persuasion and not manipulation. 

This scene, in my opinion, is just an extremely stressed, paranoid, and self deprecating man lashing out at one cause of his stress. Villainizing this scene and calling a perfectly normal emotional response manipulation and evil is not...great? Yes, he hurt Tommy. Yes, it was unfair of him, but I’ve had responses like this in real life and I didn’t have the stress of almost being killed hanging over me. It’s honestly surprising he didn’t lash out further. 

So how is this ableist?

Wilbur is a character with clear mental illnesses. He is paranoid, depressed, self-deprecating, and suicidal. There are no mental health resources on the server (at the time), no therapy or drugs, or anything that could help him. Even before exile he was under so much stress that any time he was alone he would scream and cry into his pillow. 

During L’Manberg, he kept all the bad parts of himself to the times when he was alone. Then, he was exiled and couldn’t hide it any longer. He starts lashing out and reacting in the only way he knows how, in the only way he can. 

The villain narrative only started appearing after this. 

There’s a stereotype in society that is especially prevelant in this community of calling mentally ill characters who don’t react in “good” ways insane or crazy. I see it literally every day. “Wilbur went insane and blew up L’Manberg.” “Wilbur was crazy.” Even the characters in roleplay call him that. I’ve even seen people claim that he is “a psychopath.”

It’s just plain and simple ableism. 

For one, using the terms “insane” or “crazy” especially in analysis is a good way to show you don’t know what you’re talking about. They’re too vague for actual analysis, and don’t actually describe anything about the character. Not to mention all of the stereotypes caught up in those words. Basically all of modern media uses it as a synonym for evil, especially horror movies. 

People seem to villainize Wilbur to an extreme degree all the time, even more so then other villains of the story. 

Dream, is a character who started most of the major conflicts of the server (Disc War, L’Manberg War, exile, Doomsday), blackmailed a neighboring country and threatening to imprison their people unless they exiled Tommy, abused and manipulated Tommy into almost committing suicide, planned to steal people’s things, pets, and even Skeppy so he could hold it over their heads and control them, and many other things, is excused because “Tommy was annoying” or because “we just don’t see his perspective.”

I personally don’t see Technoblade as a villain, I’m putting him on the list because he’s done much worse than Wilbur and he’s not called a villain most of the time, which shows the double standard people have for Wilbur. While Wilbur just blew up a country with only some property damage, Techno spawned multiple Withers, and then went out of his way to kill people, chasing after them and stopping them from killing the Withers. He then also helped Dream when he blew up L’Manberg again, with a lot more property damage than Wilbur’s explosion.

So why have people who have done worse things been excused while Wilbur has been villified?

You know why. 

People constantly make Wilbur worse than he ever was. I can’t tell you how many “Abusive Wilbur Soot” tags I’ve seen. People make up headcanons where he hit Tommy. Artists draw him looming over Tommy, being physically imposing or creepily touchy-feely. People make up claims that he manipulated and gaslit people. 

And the name “Vilbur”. Why. 

Too many people have tried to use Vilbur to seperate Wilbur from his Pogtopia self. They say he has “versions” of himself. They try to make them seperate people. Even Phil does this in rp, saying he wants his “real son” back. Wilbur is Wilbur. His mental illnesses are a part of him. He’s not a fake him for acting on his emotions. He’s not a different person. Like I don’t see how people don’t see that it’s ableist. 

Wilbur was not a great guy. He was an antagonist He made a lot of bad decisions that affected a lot of people negatively. But he’s not a bad guy. He’s not a villain.

Stop it. 

Sincerely, a tired psychology student

(Thanks to @kateis-cakeis​ for your amazing quote post, ily you’re doing god’s work)

[revenge-of-the-shit]

Racism, antisemitism, and anti-Jedi sentiment in Star Wars (Part 1/4)

via @shadowaccio6181 (submitted to me through an ask - the bolded stuff is what I have bolded from their submission!):

I wanted to take a leap and point some stuff out, I guess? Namely, racism and antisemitism in relation to fandom views on the Jedi. I'm not the most eloquent, and this isn’t the most polished, but I hope I can convey my thoughts to you clearly enough! (I also hope this makes sense.

Many anti-Jedi sentiments misrepresent things and take events out of context -- sometimes directly contradicting canon. Furthermore, a lot of the rhetoric has parallels with racist stereotypes and anti-semitic motifs (and these are just what I've found -- there's probably more). I wasn’t really comfortable trying to point them out without evidence I could refer to, but I think I’ve found enough sources listing out racist stereotypes—and anti-Jedi sentiments are common enough—that I wanted to put this out.

One of the first, which I notice a lot, is people saying that Mace Windu is angry, aggressive, unsympathetic, a criminal, etcetera, and therefore deserved to die. It’s usually in regards to Palpatine, and this misrepresents the movies, where he gave Palpatine multiple chances to surrender (at the very least, it’s pretty clear that his decision to kill Palpatine wasn’t impulsive or out of anger). Furthermore, he is commonly depicted in canon as rational, gentle, and kind — in TCW, he’s shown being exceptionally patient with Jar-Jar, among other examples. Therefore, this is not only a mischaracterization, but given the historical stereotype that is the “black brute” caricature (some references: 1, 2), it’s racist.

Commentary from me, Annessarose: yes, I absolutely agree. Much of the fandom hatred revolving around Mace Windu is suspicious, to say the least, and many of the arguments revolving around him often exaggerate his behaviours or cherry-pick them to take it out of context to portray him in an unreasonable and angry light. There are entire episodes that center around Mace and his compassion and strength and desire to do good (e.g. Liberty on Ryloth, The Zillo Beast, The Disappeared Parts 1 & 2).

That isn't to say that he isn't a flawed character. The way he spoke to Ahsoka after her trial was... not the best way to handle it. But for the love of god, let POC characters have flaws without catapulting them straight to the "they're 100% evil and deserved to die" end. The way fandom treats him with these flaws also mirrors how people treat POC in real life - the moment there's a single mistake or a flaw, any flaw at all, people will use it as an excuse to villify and demonize POC (and thus use it as an excuse for their racism). Mace Windu is a character who is good, who is kind, and who sticks to his principles, and the way he's hated on definitely points to an underlying issue of racism within the fandom.

"Another thing that we really can’t ignore about the Jedi is that they were intended as a parallel to Jewish people — the Jedi are a small cultural group (with some religiosity), the Empire is very clearly a parallel to the Nazis, and the Empire was very focused in hunting down and killing Jedi, specifically, amongst the the other atrocities they committed. To drive the point in further, there are at least a few Jedi with very Jewish names.

Common anti-semitic motifs include lack of national loyalty, global conspiracy, Jewish control, money and criminality, and the deicide myth. I’ll take some quotes directly from these sources (1, 2, 3, 4):

Lack of National Loyalty: “Jews are often subject to claims that they conspire to shape public policy for Jewish interests, or that their patriotism is less than that of other citizens.”

Global Conspiracy/Jewish Control: “In its standard modern formulation, the Jews or Zionists form a powerful, secret, global cabal that manipulates governmental institutions, banks, the media, and other institutions for malevolent purposes, undermining decent values. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulent document purporting to record a Jewish plan for world domination, has influenced countless ideas about supposed Jewish global conspiracies including, notably, ideas contained within the Hamas Charter. For example, these writings accuse the Jewish people of starting all modern wars. The myth of global Jewish conspiracy has echoes in contemporary opinions about the putative over-representation of Jewish people in various business sectors. This can be seen, for example, in representations of Jewish control over government, the media, academia, and financial institutions, especially when phrased in terms of a ‘Jewish lobby.’”

Money and Criminality: “Since medieval times, Jewry has frequently been depicted as a wealthy, powerful, menacing and controlling collectivity.” “Claims of Jewish control of and fascination with finances are as old as the New Testament, in which Jews are occasionally portrayed as moneychangers engaged in unholy practice at the Temple in Jerusalem. This continued into the medieval period, when Christians were forbidden from lending money at interest, leaving the field open to others. Since Jews were severely restricted from entering most trades and from owning agricultural land, some began to lend money. Since then, Jews have been depicted as wealthy, powerful and menacing.”

Jewish Deicide Myth: “From the early years of the Christian church, Jews have been condemned for rejecting the teachings of Jesus despite knowledge of his words and proximity to his presence. Worse, some Christians have condemned Jews for slaying the Christian messiah and have held Jews collectively responsible for this action. This view is associated with related doctrines such as the notion that Jews are sustained in a wretched condition in order to bear witness to the moral superiority of Christianity and to foreshadow the final triumph of Christianity at the end of days.”

Commentary from Annessarose: you're right. You're absolutely right. Thank you so much for researching this, and for writing about this. With the sources you've provided, it is extremely obvious how there's a fuck ton of anti-Semitic sentiment in the anti-Jedi hate.

So, I'd also like to add links from a couple of Jewish Fans who have spoken about antisemitism in Star Wars:

Watto, Toydarians, and antisemitism (would also like to add that there are a lot of articles on google that talk about this)

Antisemitism in the design of Clone Wars (2003) and The Clone Wars (2008)

This is part 1 of this ask!

[Part 2] | [Part 3] | [Part 4]

[girlactionfigure]

There's something I need to get off my chest.

I'm an Ultra-Orthodox, Chassidic, Hareidi Jew. I live in Jerusalem, in an area that is exclusively Ultra-Orthodox Hareidi for street after street, suburb after suburb, for miles and miles. In all of these neighborhoods where the roads are blocked off and no cars drive on Shabbos, each black-hat-wearing family has many many children and literally no TV’s. I personally only ever wear black and white clothes, my wife only dresses in Chassidic levels of tznius (modesty), and my boys and girls all attend mainstream Hareidi Chassidic schools where the main language is Yiddish. My kids don’t and never will have smartphones, nor have they ever been on the internet at all. Period. They don’t know what social media is and they’ve never seen a movie — not even Disney animation. 

Having lived exclusively immersed in this culture for the last 21 years, I think I'm sufficiently qualified and well-researched enough to state that the consistent depiction of Hareidim and Torah Judaism by mainstream media, from Netflix to the daily news, is somewhere between delusion, slander and the literal equivalent of racism. If you consider yourself less closed-minded than how you imagine we Hareidim to be, then permit me to share a few personal details about my family, and other families in our neighborhood, to see how well your mental narrative matches up to reality:

- Besides learning Torah each day, most of the men in our neighborhood work full or part-time.

- Many women in our area work. Some even manage their own business or company. These are not special or “liberated” women — it’s so normal here it’s not even a discussion point.

- My wife is a full-time mother by choice, who despite attending an Ivy League College,  finds it a profound and meaningful thing to dedicate her life to. If she didn’t, she’d go get a job. Mind you, she also attends Torah classes each week, works out with both a female fitness coach (who’s gay) and a frum Pilates instructor, writes and edits articles for a couple global websites and magazines, and personally mentors a number of women. None of this is seen as unusual. 

- Kids in our community go to Torah schools where they learn (surprise!) Torah. They are fluent in three languages from a young age and the boys even read and understand a fourth (Aramaic). All the kids learn grammar, math and science. Weekly after-school activities have included music (violin, drums, piano), Tae Kwon Do, swimming, art, woodworking and robotics. The girls' school teaches tools of emotional intelligence. The principal of the boys' school doesn't hesitate to refer to kids to OT if needed. I practice meditation with my children multiple times each week. None of our kids think the world is literally 6,000 years old. They devour books about science and think it’s cool. They know dinosaurs existed and don’t find that existentially threatening. They have a telescope with which they love to watch the stars. 

- The women in my family (like the men) only dress modestly according to Hareidi standards. The girls don't find this burdensome or oppressive. Period. They aren't taught that beauty is bad. They're certainly not taught to hate their bodies, God forbid. Each morning when they get dressed, they are as happily into their own fashion and looking pretty as any secular girl is. They just have a different sense of fashion than secular culture dictates. (Unfortunately for me,  it's no cheaper.)

- The local Hareidi rabbis we receive guidance from are deep, warm, sensitive, supportive and emotionally intelligent. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t go to them.

- My boys assume they will grow up to learn Torah, as much as they want to, and then when they’re ready, get a good job or learn a profession to support whatever lifestyle they choose. My girls assume they’ll be wives and mothers (which they can’t wait for) but they're also warmly encouraged to train in whatever other profession they desire. (My 9-year-old daughter, chatting with her friend in the living room, just commented, "I want to be a mother and a teacher and an artist." Her friend replied, "I'm going to be a ballet teacher.") All options are on the table, and their future seems bright.

- We love living in modern Israel, feel proud and blessed to be here, and frequently count and celebrate its blessings. Everyone in my area votes. Sometimes not even for Hareidi parties. I pay taxes. (And they’re expensive!)

- As a Hareidi person, I’m glad we have Hareidi representation in the government — though I don’t always love or approve of how the Hareidi politicians act, or what they choose to represent. For the record, I'm equally dubious about secular politicians, as well. 

- While I don't spend much time in Tel Aviv, I do have a few close Hareidi entrepreneur friends who have founded high-tech start-ups there, and are — Boruch Hashem! — doing very well.   

- We don’t hate all non-religious people. Our kids don’t throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos. I doubt they even know anyone who would do that or think that it’s ok. We frequently talk about the Torah value of caring for and being compassionate towards everyone. As a family, we proactively try to find ways to judge others favorably (even those people who throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos.)

- We invite all manner of religious and secular Jews to join our Shabbos meals each week and the kids are open, happy, and confident to welcome everyone. (No, we're not Chabad.) One of the many reasons for having such guests at our table is to teach the kids this lesson.

- While we would technically be classified as right-wing and we don’t at all buy the modern “Palestinian” narrative, we certainly don’t hate all Arabs, nor do we have any desire to expel them all from the land. We warmly welcome anyone seeking to dwell here with us in peace and we are pained and saddened to see the suffering and loss of lives of all innocent Arab families and children — as would any decent human being.

- Of the few local families I know whose kids no longer identify as religious, none at all chose to disown their kids. The very thought, in such lovingly family-dedicated communities, is hard to imagine. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying it's not as common as it's made out. Rather, these families have tirelessly, profoundly, compassionately committed to maintaining any connection with their children, and to emphasize that, no matter what, family is the most important thing. Because it is.

- We aren't just living our life blindly, dogmatically following empty religious rules; rather, we are frequently engaged with, exploring and discussing Torah's richness, depth and meaning. Our kids honestly love learning Torah, praying and doing mitzvos. They’re visibly excited about Shabbos and festivals. This lifestyle is in no way oppressive or burdensome for them. If you suggested to them it was, they’d laugh and think you were crazy.  

- We Hareidim are normal people: we laugh, we cry, we buy too much Ikea furniture, and we struggle with all of life's daily ups and downs, just like the rest of you. Some of our communities are more healthy and balanced, some are less so; some of our people are warmer, nicer and more open, some are more closed, dogmatic and judgmental; some of our leaders are noble and upstanding, and some are quite frankly idiots…JUST LIKE ANY SECULAR NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE WORLD TOO. But having grown up living a secular lifestyle myself, and today being Hareidi-by-choice, I can testify that in these communities there is generally a greater and more tangible sense of well-being, warmth, tranquility, connection and meaning. We love and feel blessed to be living this life and wouldn’t want any other.

If this description of Hareidi life is hard to swallow, be careful not to push back with the often-used defenses like: "Well, you're just an exception to the rule...", "You're just American Hareidim", "You're baalei teshuvah", "Well, I know a bunch of Haredim that aren't like that at all"....because the truth is, while there might be many Hareidim who aren't like what I described above, it's still an accurate description of literally hundreds of thousands of Hareidim in Israel and the US — a decent portion of all Hareidim in the world. Which is my very point — how come you never see this significant Hareidi demographic represented in the media, television series, or the news? How come we mostly see the darkest and most problematic cliches instead? 

And finally, if all the facts I've listed above about our communities are hard for you to accept as true, then perhaps the image you have in your head about Hareidim is less based on facts and reality and more based on stereotypes, fear, hate, and discrimination — like any other form of prejudice in the world. 

Care to prove me wrong? Well, you're welcome to come argue it out with me and my family at our Shabbos table on Friday night. It would be a joy and honor to have you. 

Doniel Katz

[formulatrash]

I think Alan jones is right 🤷‍♀️ Daniel sounds like some rookie, why was he so rattled by the replays? None of the other drivers said anything about it why the hell is he having a tantrum? It obviously got to him bc he had a terrible restart and got eaten up by the pack behind him, I know we love babying the drivers but thats weak. And whether we like it or not people want to see that stuff

I debated whether to post this because to me you’re very wrong but actually I think it’s good to think about these things. And to try to see it from your perspective, maybe because so many people seem to think this way.

It’s really difficult, as someone who’s sort of - oh, this is wank but like - speaking from inside racing, cus I watched the Bahrain GP from a media centre surrounded by team personnel, not to get incredibly angry at this. So I’ve sat on it for like a week to calm down and think how to discuss this properly because it would be too easy to get emotional. I do get there is a gap in perception, here.

Just because other drivers didn’t speak up about it doesn’t mean that they felt unaffected by the footage being replayed over and over. Attitudes like Alan Jones’ are what makes them suppress things they have every right to speak out on, professionally. They absolutely should have the right to agree whether footage of their or their peers bodies being mangled and broken is used again and again or at the very least, we should all accord them the respect to listen to their opinions about it and invite them to talk about it more. 

When Grand Prix racing was first on TV they’d show drivers burning to death in their cars while the race carried on around them; we obviously don’t think that’s right anymore, both the callousness to the drivers’ lives and to broadcast someone dying violently for the sake of sport but at the time, it was viewed as part of the character. The TV camera doesn’t have any inherent ethics, it’s just a lens but what we choose to frame in it is important. 

The viewer has a passive role in what you’re shown; you can’t select it. If it’s on the broadcast, there’s an inherent assumption that it’s ok to be on the broadcast, that this is a good or interesting thing to see. I don’t know if Liberty being an American company, where crashes are replayed a lot, lot more is a factor here but it felt very unlike modern F1 to replay it so many times.

The way that we portray the drivers and the role we give them in being able to decide that and consent to it (or to terms that they broadly agree to) should be empathetic. Because then it doesn’t come across as cheap repetition, that encourages every armchair FIA safety expert to come out with their own nonsense version of events - I understand car safety structures a lot better than twitteruser471 who reckons if Romain was a better driver he would have simply been able to not be on fire and I would never attempt to hazard a guess about what happened in a crash without proper information and data.

People are curious about things - I think it would have been best to have shown it once, after it was clear Romain was ok and then to work on preparing analysis, have a statement and timeline of events and what we know happened with it ready for the end of the Grand Prix. Knowing what happened lets people process something, endless speculation is a route to panic and well, literally trauma. 

The drivers are filmed as part of competing in F1 but the idea that that gives the broadcasters the right to show whatever they like without needing to justify it is wrong and part of the culture that gets bandied about that they should be willing to endure anything to be in the sport. Yes, being an F1 driver is a privilege but that shouldn’t come parcelled with signing away the right of FOM to traumatise your mum.

Let’s be clear on one thing: Romain survived that crash but until the FIA investigation is concluded, we don’t know whether that was because you could have expected him to or a total fluke. Safety systems such as the halo did their job but the crash itself was unexpected, unprecedented, none of the systems on the car were designed to work in those circumstances, they just - thank god - managed to add up into a series of tiny bits of luck that did. What you see in that accident isn’t someone dying but a few millimetres of change it it could be; it is a deadly-high-speed impact, it is a deadly hot fire, it is the absolute limits of what the survival cell and halo can bear and try to protect the driver inside.

That can seem difficult to understand because he got out. But getting out and it being fine are very different things. Every crash is dangerous, freak things can happen at relatively low speeds and without anything apparently dramatic - like Billy Monger and Jamie Caroline’s British F4 crash. 

Romain’s crash is a deadly one. What you are watching on the replay is a tiny, sliver-thin chance that a man lived or at least, wasn’t horribly, critically wounded. I’m not saying that to be dramatic or to over-exaggerate it: a 53g crash through an Armco barrier, with a fuel fire, just is that serious.

Lewis has spoken often about just how dangerous F1 is - and how little people realise it still is - and Lando and a couple of the others have spoken about how scared their families are when they go racing. Replaying something so, so, so close to being deadly to the point of, as Daniel identified, amusement, is tasteless to the people that worry about them - including themselves - and reductive of the risks.

I guess if you don’t know anyone who races cars you could view it as a video game perspective. It’s ok, Romain got out, we passed that level and now it doesn’t matter. For a lot of people, though, what you see every time is all the ways he doesn’t. Because that was an unbelievably close one - Romain himself has talked about believing he was accepting death as he sat in the burning cockpit.

The interview, afterwards, that most got to me was Guenther Steiner. He’s a hard man, who’s been in racing a long time and is performatively aggressive, unsympathetic, in many ways the stereotype of what a brutally pragmatic team boss has to be. He stood there on Sky last Thursday shaking and stutteringly incoherent, five days after the accident, not able to look at the footage - because he nearly lost his driver. 

Every single one of Romain’s team was watching that footage as it was forcibly looped over the screens in the paddock and pit lane. Yes, you are glad he got out - of course, that’s the most important thing - but knowing that he did doesn’t make replaying that and seeing how small the margin by which he did really was any less upsetting.

If watching the crash means nothing to you, it doesn’t mean that the people who are affected by it are weak. Everyone has a different understanding of things - you can not care what you’re watching or even think that it would be acceptable to watch a driver die but for the vast majority of people in the sport, neither of those things are considered ok.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Lucifer/Satan

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Please allow me to introduce this villain. He’s a man of wealth and taste...

Satan, or Lucifer, or whatever of the hundreds of names across multiple religions, folk tales, urban legends, movies, books, songs, video games, and more that you choose to call him, is without a doubt the biggest bad of them all. He is not just a villain; he is the villain, the bad guy your other bad guys answer to, the lord of Hell. If there’s a bad deed, he’s done it, if there’s a problem, he’s behind it. There’s nothing beneath him, and that’s not just because he’s at the very bottom of Hell. He is the root cause of all the misery in the entire world.

And if we’re talking about Satan, we gotta talk about Lucifer too. They weren’t always supposed to be one and the same, but over centuries of artistic depictions and reimaginings they’ve been conflated into one being, a being that is a lot more layered and interesting than just a simple adversary for the good to overcome when handled properly.

Motivation/Goals: Look, it’s Satan. His main goal is to be as evil as possible, do bad things, cause mischief and mayhem. Rarely does anything good come from Satan being around. If he is one and the same as Lucifer, expect there to be some sort of plot about him rebelling against God, as according to modern interpretations Lucifer fought against God in battle and was then cast out, falling from grace like lightning. When the Lucifer persona is front and center, raging against the heavens tends to be a big part of his schemes, but when the big red devil persona is out and about, expect temptations to sin, birthing the Antichrist, or tempting people to sell their souls.

Performance: Satan has been portrayed by far too many people over the years to even consider keeping count of, though some notable performances of the character or at least characters who are clearly meant to be Satan include the nuanced anti-villain take of the character Viggo Mortensen portrayed in The Prophecy; the sympathetic homosexual man portrayed by Trey Parker in South Park and its film; the hard-rocking badass Dave Grohl portrayed in Tencaious D’s movie; Robin Hughes as a sneaky, double-crossing bastard in “The Howling Man” episode of The Twilight Zone; the big red devil from Legend known as Darkness, played by Tim Curry; the shapeshifting angel named Satan from The Adventures of Mark Train who will make you crap your pants; and while not portrayed by anyone due to being entirely voiceless, Chernabog from Disney’s Fantasia is definitely noteworthy in regards to cinematic depictions of the devil.

Final Thoughts & Score: Satan is a villain whose sheer scope dwarfs almost every other villain in history. It’s not even remotely close, either; Satan pops up in stories all around the world, is the greater-scope villain of most varieties of three major religions, and his very name is shorthand for “really, really evil.” Every other villain I have ever discussed and reviewed wishes they could be a byword for being bad to the bone. Even Dracula, one of the single most important villains in fiction, looks puny in comparison to Satans villainous accomplishments.

Satan in old religious texts tended to be an utterly horrifying force of nature, until Medieval times began portray him as a dopey demon trying to tempt the faithful (and failing). Folklore and media have gone back and forth, portraying both in equal measure – you have the desperate, fiddle-playing devil from “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and the unseen, unfathomable Satan who may or may not exist in the Marvel comics universe who other demons live in fear of the return of. Satan is just a very interesting and malleable antagonist, one who is defined just enough that he can make a massive, formidable force while still being enough of a blank slate that you can project any sort of personality traits onto him to build an intriguing foe.

One of the most famous examples of this in action is the common depiction of Satan as the king of hell. This doesn’t really have much basis in religion; he’s as much a prisoner as anyone else, though considering how impressive a prisoner he is, he’d be like the big guy at the top of the pecking order in any jail for sure. But still, the idea of Satan as the ruler of hell was clearly conceived by someone and proved such an intriguing concept that so many decided to run with it.

I think that’s what truly makes Satan such an interesting villain, in that he’s almost a community-built antagonist. People over the ages have added so much lore, personality, and power to him that is only vaguely alluded to in old religions to the point where they have all become commonplace in depictions of the big guy, and there really isn’t any other villain to have quite this magnitude on culture as a whole. It shouldn’t be any shock that Satan is an 11/10; rating him any lower would be a heinous crime only he is capable of.

But see, the true sign of how amazing he is is the sheer number of ways one can interpret him. You have versions that are just vague embodiments of all that is bad and unholy, such as Chernabog from Fantasia, you have more nuanced portrayals like the one Viggo Mortensen played in The Prophecy, you have outright sympathetic ones like the one from South Park… Satan is just a villain who can be reshaped and reworked as a creator sees fit and molded into something that fits the narrative they want. I guess what I’m trying to say is that not only is Lucifer/Satan one of the greatest villains of all, he’s also one of the single greatest characters of all time.  

Now, there are far too many depictions of Satan for me to have seen them all, but I have seen quite a lot. Here’s how Old Scratch has fared over the millennia in media of various forms, though keep in mind this is by no means a comprehensive or exhaustive lsit:

“The Devil Went Down to Georgia” Devil: 

I think this is one of my favorite devils in any fiction ever, simply because of what a good sport he is. Like, there is really no denying that Johnny’s stupid little fiddle ditty about chickens or whatever sucks major ass, and yet Satan (who had moments before summoned up demonic hordes to rip out some Doom-esque metal for the contest) gave him the win and the golden fiddle. What a gracious guy! He’s a 9/10 for sure, though I still wish we knew how his rematch ended…

Chernabog: 

Chernabog technically doesn’t do anything evil, and he never says a word, and yet everything about him is framed as inherently sinister. It’s really no wonder Chernabog has become one of the most famous and beloved parts of Fantasia alongside Yen Sid and Sorcerer Mickey; he’s infinitely memorable, and really, how can he not be? He’s the devil in a Disney film, not played for laughs and instead made as nightmarishly terrifying as an ancient demon god should be. Everything about him oozes style, and every movement and gesture begets a personality that goes beyond words. Chernabog doesn’t need to speak to tell you that he is evil incarnate; you just know, on sight, that he is up to no good.

Quite frankly, the implications of Chernabog’s existence in the Disney canon are rather terrifying. Is he the one Maleficent called upon for power? Is he the one all the villains answer to? Do you think Frollo saw him after God smote him? And what exactly did he gain by attacking Sora at the end of Kingdom Hearts? All I know for sure is that Chernabog is a 10/10.

Lucifer (The Prophecy): 

Viggo Mortensen has limited screentime, but in that time he manages to be incredibly creepy, misanthropic… and yet, also, on the side of good. Of course, he’s doing it entirely for self-serving reasons (he wants humanity around so he can make them suffer), but credit where credit is due. The man manages to steal a scene from under Christopher Walken, I think that’s worth a 10/10.

Satan (South Park): 

Portraying Satan as a sympathetic gay man was a pretty bold choice, and while he certainly does fall into some stereotypes, he’s not really painted as bad or morally wrong for being gay, and ends up more often than not being a good (if sometimes misguided) guy who just wants to live his life. Plus he gets a pretty sweet villain song, though technically it’s more of an “I want” song than anything. Ah well, a solid 8/10 for him is good.

Satan (Tenacious D):

It’s Dave Grohl as Satan competing in a rock-off against JB and KG. Literally everything about this is perfect, even if he’s only in the one scene. 10/10 for sure.

Robot Devil:

Futurama’s take on the devil is pretty hilarious and hammy, but then Futurama was always pretty on point. He’s a solid 8/10, because much like South Park’s devil he gets a fun little villain song with a guest apearance by the Beastie Boys, not to mention his numerous scams like when he stole Fry’s hands. He’s just a fun, hilarious asshole.

The Howling Man: 

The Twilight Zone has many iconic episodes, and this one is absolutely one of them. While the devil is the big twist, that scene of him transforming as he walks between the pillars is absolutely iconic, and was even used by real-life villain Kevin Spacey in the big reveal of The Usual Suspects. This one is a 9/10 for sure, especially given the ending that implies this will all happen again (as per usual with the show).

The Darkness:

While he’s more devil-adjacent than anything and is more likely to be the son of Satan rather than the actual man himself, it’s hard not to give a shout-out to the big, buff demon played by Tim Curry in some of the most fantastic prosthetics and makeup you will ever see. He gets a 9/10 for the design alone, the facty he’s Tim Curry is icing on the cake.

[chibimyumi]

Hello Chibimyumi, I apologise in advance for the uncomfortable question I have about the musicals. I hope I'm mistaken, but for those musicals where Soma and Agni are included, is it truly the case that they are portrayed by actors in brownface? Is this a common occurrence, and what is public perception of this in Japan today?

Dear Anon,

You ask an incredibly good but complicated question. It is great to hear that you are aware of how cultural contexts can play into such matters. Now, since you asked, I’d ask you all to strap in; this is going to be quite a ride.

Short answer

If you mean whether the actors used darker make-up to portray a race with a darker skin tone, then yes. The actors are all ethnically Japanese without any Indian heritage to the best of everyone’s knowledge.

However, before we can discuss this “whether this is an issue”, the following is what I need all readers here to keep in mind at all times (i.e. don’t continue reading with White SJ in mind). Namely: In Japan and Japanese live theatre medium especially, ‘[colour] face’ has entirely different connotations than in the White West. To anyone mid-pounce of their attack in light of social justice, halt. Please hear me out. I am talking ONLY about Japan.

Brown Face in Japan?

Demographics

So, before we begin, I wish to instill in you all that Japan is very, very homogeneous in comparison to most other countries. Japan has LESS THAN 2% of ethnically non-Japanese people, and half of this >2% is ethnically Chinese or Korean. So yes, in Japan, ONLY 1% is racially and phenotypically different than the native Japanese.  Japanese people are the natives in Japan, so they consider their skin ‘neutral’; it is NOT coloured. Then there are the ‘white coloured’ people who are semi-neutral, and you have everyone else who have a ‘darker colour’.

Now with this framework in mind, let us jump to how this demographic makeup affects the theatre world. For clarity’s sake I shall discuss this in sections.

Section 1 - Poor, poor industry

Japanese theatre and especially 2.5D industries are really poor. As discussed in full detail in this post about the extreme harm of pirating JP theatre, the vast majority of theatre actors need to juggle 2 or 3 jobs to make a living because most theatre companies ONLY pay the performers for their stage time (no rehearsal pay, no food, no accommodation). One run of a show is usually no more than 5 or 6 weeks. If one show gets a run of 3 months, that is considered ridiculously long. So far, only the top three Japanese theatre companies can manage such long runs, being: Takarazuka, TOHO and Shiki.

Section 2 - ‘Broad utility value’ and chances

The super short runs means that on average, an actor only has an income for 5 or 6 weeks for one job, even though their work for one production takes much more time than that (formal rehearsal is usually one month, but there’s a lot of ‘homework’ and ‘overwork’ too). This again means that in order to make a living in the theatre industry, a performer needs to have ‘broad utility value’, that is to say: they need to be ‘castable’ into as many roles as possible, and therefore ‘neutral’.

The selling stories in Japan usually have an all-Japanese or all-white character list, as you all must have noticed. When there are non-white foreigners in such stories, they’re usually countable on the fingers of one hand. And sadly, when they are present they‘re often comic relief, antagonists, or ‘exotic accessories’.

The wider sentiment in Japan is that if you are ‘neutral coloured’ you can be painted into a different colour. But if you are ‘darker than neutral’, you can’t be painted lighter. “You cannot take the colour away”, so to say. That is the reason why in Japan, darker skinned minorities would have very little incentive to sign up for the theatre industry. Why bother get a job that pays so terrible and ONLY be allowed minor/bad roles if there happen to be darker skinned characters once in a blue moon? Why bother competing with ‘neutral’ skinned people who can replace you easily?

In a nutshell, the terribly racist reality is that darker skinned actors are not considered to have broad utility value because the entertainment industry and common populace decided so. With so few dark skinned characters and the wide acceptance that ‘neutral’ skinned people can be painted into any other colour, darker skinned people’s chances of getting by on theatre work is just very slim. The entertainment industry makes itself very unappealing to these people, and indeed resulted in a shortage of darker skinned performers.

This current shortage means that if a production wants to feature differently skinned characters without ‘brown facing’, they’d have trouble finding enough people who: 1. are ‘the correct colour’, 2. are willing to work for virtually no pay, and 3. also have the skills to perform in Japanese language (many of these people also really lack the practice to build up theatre skills because - as explained - they have very little outlook in this field). So again, “why bother going through the trouble if you can just paint these actors white and those actors brown? Same difference right? Here have some brown foundation and you’re good to go!”

Section 3 - The race is the costume

Well, is painting Japanese actors white or brown ‘same difference’? In practice... to Japan, ‘yes’. Japan does not have an issue with pretending to be a different race through make-up. This means that there is no concept of ‘brown face’ or ‘any other-colour-face’. Seeing Japanese actors painted white in modern theatre and cosplay is the standard. Countless modern theatre shows feature almost exclusively white characters, after all.

As a representative example, Kuromyu mostly has white characters. But so far it has had 4 mixed-race actors in 10 years! However, all of them are partially white, meaning they’re “““light neutral””” or even “““extra pretty”””.  

There is no such thing as ‘white face’ in Japan, and outside Japan, nobody (in their right mind) should compare ‘white face’ to ‘black face’. When the Europeans arrived in Japan, the Japanese were actively challenged to prove themselves as white as possible. Japan was spared from colonisation because they proved themselves “white civilised enough” for the Europeans. That is the Japanese-Western legacy: “pretending to be a colour is part of ‘modernisation’ and ‘globalisation’”. If painting a ‘neutral’ person white is okay, why wouldn’t painting someone ‘brown’ be? It sounds quite hypocritical to Japanese people because Japan has a different racial relationship than the White West has.

Unlike white-colonising countries, Japan does not have such a long and problematic history regarding brown/black races, hence there is also no collective guilt about having systematically oppressed and excluded dark skinned people. In the White West if you paint someone darker it’s because they don’t want to employ dark skinned people. In Japan however, it’s because there are hardly any darker skinned people to actually take the job. It’d be an altogether different problem for the theatre industry to just go: “we shall only stage all-Japanese-characters productions now!” ... that’s what they did in Imperial Japan during WWII, and that was NOT pretty.

Besides, Japan in being so homogeneous, we can imagine why awareness of ‘brown/black face’ was never deemed immediately ‘necessary’ in Japan. In combination with the legacy of ‘pretending to be a colour is fine’, the current status quo had taken shape.

Unlike American media or South Korean media, Japan predominantly creates solely for the purpose of domestic consumption. Hence the DVDs are often sold in Japan only without subtitles. Hence that many websites are Japan restricted. Japanese theatre no exception, it’s made by Japanese, for the Japanese, in Japan. As explained above, because there is no concept of problematic x-colour-face, then why bother avoiding it?

Section 4 - Orientalism though....

So, are Soma and Agni ‘brown face’ in Kuromyu? Not in the same way it would be in a Euro-American way, but that does not mean it’s ‘no problem at all’.

The main problem in Japan is not the ‘brown face’, but Orientalism. The common Japanese people would not bat a single eye at two Indian characters going on and on about curry, elephants and Hindu Gods. But unlike ‘colour-face’ not really being a problem in Japan because of different cultural heritage, the perpetuation of stereotypes cannot be excused.

When there are so few dark skinned characters in an otherwise all-white/ “neutral” cast, it surely is quite aggravating that the musical chose to reduce Indian people to... well, curry, elephants and Hindu Gods. Had the writers not reduced Indian culture to a stereotype however, then as long as the portrayal of dark-skinned people is respectful, ‘brown face’ really is not a problem in Japan, just like ‘white face’ is not.

Conclusion

In this post I have discussed the demographic makeup of Japan, the terrible circumstances of the theatre industry, and how this lead to a real lack of dark-skinned performers. The lack of dark-skinned actors, in turn, means that if a theatre/film industry doesn’t want to go ‘pure Japanese race pride!!!’, they’d have to ‘paint actors into a race’.

Japan narrowly having escaped white colonialism also means that the Japanese have a very different awareness about race and sensitivity. In being challenged to ‘perform the white race’ in the 19th century, Japan gained a legacy wherein ‘race is just performative’.

That Japan has a different cultural heritage and racial history can explain why x-‘colour-face’ is non-problematic in Japan. Applying white-social-justice to Japanese standards would cause entirely different problems simply because the Japanese demographic makeup and film/theatre industry simply cannot adopt this western standard without doing more harm than good. This Japanese heritage however, does NOT excuse offensive stereotyping of people however.

So in a nutshell: Soma and Agni are not ‘brown face’ in Japanese context because there is no such concept. However, there is a problem, and it lies in the Orientalist stereotyping of Indian culture.

[mismashedsocks]

 so riordan made a half assed lame excuse on his lazy/racist writing on piper yesterday and on top of that he made another one on samirah and i’m muslim so i am going to talk about it

damn i’m so sorry these people have been pushing you past your comfort zone about your wildly popular racist caricatures of minorities that have great impact on your young, impressionable target audience. while its fine that if he takes a break for his mental health he still needs to deal with these problems you can’t just take a break and hope they go away.

why does he think everyone is bullying him. if they talked in all caps, cussed at you, or didn’t stop bothering you, i’m sorry they’re just trying to get you to realize how racist your books are, which you keep refusing to believe. i can believe that a few of them were doing it for attention, but it couldn’t be the majority. and my god, god forbid people want you to write your books the way you preferred, without racist stereotypes. 🙈

you can set your boundaries but you keep ignoring the people, you don’t listen. like you put yourself out there as a writer you are open to criticism

why does he keep doing this to seem like the good guy. you give excuses and don’t do anything and just say that its up to you, you can think whatever you want 🥰🥰. like its such an obvious excuse not to take any action.

i’m sorry but no matter how many muslims you’ve interacted with you haven’t gotten the full experience and last time i checked teachers aren’t the kids best friends soo uhm. anyways the rest of it is just him telling his experience with muslimah students so its just there.

so uhm you just said your students ‘unwillingly’ become an ambassador to everyone she knew’. and then you went to talk to them about islam to make sure you were TEACHING THEM YOUR SOURCE MATERIAL CORRECTLY. i’m sorry imagine. these are kids not some scholars you go to consult. there are so many muslims all over the internet and youtube sharing their experiences for you to access on how to ‘represent their experience’ correctly. you’re the teacher here. picture this:as a muslilm, i teach at a public school and while teaching about Christianity in class, no i would double check or some dumb shit with the students. like educate yourself i’m sorry. anyways apparently he blames his mistakes on himself then goes on to deny he ever made any mistakes i can’t.

so this is a blatant lie. 99% of muslims i’ve met have never read all of sahih bukhari and sahih muslim. usually only scholars do that when they are studying islam for YEARS. and FIVE different interpretations of the quran on top of that. ok so sahih bukhari is 9 books that are over 300 pages each and sahih musilm is 7 volumes with also about 300+ pages each. and then the english versions of the quran are 600 pages. and he claims he read five of them. i’m so sorry but no he didn’t. he writes books so fast and he released mcga around the time toa was being released almost one book per year so he did not have a lot of spare time. the rest ig i can let slide. also and if he did do all of that why does he make so many mistakes in writing samirah. and even IF you accept his excuses reading ALL of this source material is great for teaching your class or whatever but not for writing a modern day muslim. you don’t need to lie to us rick ❤️

most of this is just describing what she’s like but his writing did also add in the model minority, smart kid trope. like no they don’t have to be a terrorist or a A+ student who is the best at everything. there is a middle ground to their personality. 

i actually used to love his rep in sam. that’s how i got into the series. i saw a hijabi girl on his website. i got excited and read all of his books. i loved piper, leo, hazel, percy, annabeth, sadie, carter, nico, everyone. now that i look back i was younger and didn’t see anything wrong with it back then. its great that he tried to portray minorities but he did it so badly and now is just denying the faults that his now older readers are trying to tell him.

hey, uhm didn’t you read all of sahih bukhari and muslim? hmm i didn’t think so. anyways the way he dealt with it honestly wasn’t that bad. but the whole ‘whoops’. like why does he keep portraying himself as the innocent old white man just trying his best.

honestly how he wrote samirah as a hijabi was the dumbest thing i’ve ever read. its is totally fine if she wasn’t hijabi, many muslim girls aren’t, and that is their choice. but he decided to make her like a weird middle ground. it was so lazy and inconsistent. in the first book she says she wears it when she needs to, like in situations like going to the masjid. this was fine, since many muslim girls do that. then in the next books she wears it all the time except when she’s in valhalla for some reason. hijabi girls take of their scarves when they’re at home or with family, but making her claim the entirety of vallhalla as her family. that was just demeaning and stupid to me. it takes away its value. and i fucking hated that last sentence. for hijabis, their hijab is important and not a toy or weapon or a MAGIC ITEM. and then on top of that she would have to take it of to hide. he could’ve made it anything else. her hijab isn’t some token item istg.

i love how he admits that they are a big problem and abusive and usually engage with child marriages. i’m relatively he doesn’t understand what the people even meant by it. the practice is a problem that isn’t supposed to be seen in a nice light. the only possible way it could be slightly ok is that if ADULTS agree they 100% do not want to choose who they want to get married to and let their parents choose, and both sides agree. samirah was a child and he decided to make her wedding life decided since the age of 12. and it was ok because amir was conventionally attractive and she loved him. WHAT IF SHE DIDNT. this literally is a dangerous arranged marriage. and arranged marriages are not ok, and mostly perpetuated by victims of it who will end up passing it down their family lines. my parents got an arranged marriage and I HAVE NEVER SEEN THEM DISPLAY ANY SIGNS OF AFFECTION. arranged marriages are not a trope that your can turn around to be a quirky personality trait for your characters.

i’m sorry that’s not how arranged marriages work. most likely if she said something her grandparents would have shut her done and continued with the marriage, as that is what you usually happens. do not portray the small amount of consented, ‘happy’ arranged marriages as the majority. it is a huge problem that many desi/middle eastern cultures are trying to erase. even on top of that he writes situations where she’s going to be in trouble for acting up and ‘jeopardizing the marriage agreement’ and that her grandparents think she’s ‘lucky that she could get the fadlan family to agree to marry their son to her’. these statements are often used in forced and dangerous marriages, so don’t try and justify your actions. if you wanted to show traditional customs in a positive light, there are so many richer parts of samirah’s culture you could’ve focused on and you chose arranged marriage. 😻 all you’ve done is given parents and authority figures a westernized resource to justify arranged and forced marriages, especially with the minimal explanation on how the marriage isn’t forced in the actual books. and yes, your books do condone child marriage samirah is clearly deemed into this marriage ever since the young age of 12. she lived her life knowing she would marry amir. no one has only one crush throughout their life. imagine how she would’ve grown up. sorry you only consider opinions that align with those in you mind.

i’m going to be honest i did like that one scene it was written nicely and accurately but the explanation he gives just ruins the entire thing. the way he just if this strikes you as islamophobic, or samirah as a hurtful, uhm no explanation i just disagree 😽. the way you wrote her is a hurtful stereotype sorry you can’t see it.

oops, you did. too bad you don’t want to do anything about it.

why do you think people are painting you in a negative light, so many of your characters are written on hurtful and negative stereotypes. people aren’t painting it that way, you need to calm down w your ego and listen. dang i’m sorry your best is giving half-assed excuses and not actually doing anything. i’m even more sorry people are mad that a highly privileged author that has a lot of influence is done talking about his racist depictions of minorities in his books. 

dang must be lucky to take a break from the social media, imagine what all the minorities you wrote about have to go with everyday weather they are on social media or not. people aren’t bullying you this is valid criticism you refuse to listen to.

fuck you

obviously these are my opinions do not judge every muslim based on what i’ve said come to me if you have a problem with it

anyways support jewish, muslim, black, brown, asian, hispanic, indigenous, lgbtq+, disabled, and other minority authors and creators.

[themollyjay]

The Vilification of Kindness

I was born in 1976, so must of my childhood memories are from the 80’s and 90’s.  My first real moment of political awareness was Reagan getting shot.  Before that, I’m not sure I was aware that we had anything called a President, or a government.  I might have been, but if I was, I don’t remember it.  The 80’s and 90’s shaped my views on politics in weird ways, but there is one that I remember very well, and that it took me a long time to get over.

Political Correctness.

Now, I imagine you’re thinking at this point that this is going to be a long tirade against Political Correctness, Cancel Culture, Social Justice Warriors and lots of whining about how we can’t say anything without being cancelled.  I assure you, it’s pretty much the exact opposite of that.

Growing up, I heard people complaining about Political Correctness all the time, and being young and stupid, I bought into the lie.  I bought into the notion that Political Correctness was something bad, that it was a restriction of free speech, that it was stupid and unrealistic and full of double speak.  Like a lot of people my age, I got really invested in the idea of rejecting Political Correctness, and the idea that doing so was speaking truth.

But then, something happened.  I grew up, and I started to really look at myself and figure myself out.  I started to realize that a lot of the slurs and insults and the ‘politically incorrect’ terms that people liked to throw around applied to me.  I started to realize how cruel and mean spirited they were.  It made me stop and really take a look at what Political Correctness was.

Political Correctness is, at its most basic level, an attempt to be kind, compassionate and empathetic.  Political Correctness is a bunch of people saying “Hey, wouldn’t it be a good thing if we didn’t refer to those with less power and privilege in society by slurs and other forms of demeaning language?”.  And the backlash against Political Correctness is a bunch of people saying, “No, I want to keep using slurs and demeaning language to talk about people.”

It was just the first of many moments in my life that caused a radical shift in my political outlook, but it was easily the most profound, because it made me realize something about the modern world that I don’t think a lot of people have.  I’m honestly not sure how much of this has spilled over into other cultures but considering how pervasive American influence is the world over, I suspect it’s an attitude which has crept into must cultures which consume large amounts of western media at this point.

We have, as a culture, accepted that kindness is a sin and a vice.  We look down on those in need.  We view poverty as a character flaw, rather than a circumstance.  We view members of marginalized groups as lazy whiners who just don’t do enough to get ahead, even when the entire system is stacked against them.  And then we turn around and mock anyone who even suggests that we should be kind to them. We lift cruelty up as a virtue. People proudly announce their disdain for kindness and compassion in their social media profiles crouched in language like “Not Politically Correct” or “Anti-SJW.”

It only gets worse when people complain about how they are treated.  Someone throws out a slur, or repeats a harmful stereotype, and God forbid a member of the affected community say anything, because the moment they do, it seems like everyone will dog pile on them to tell them what a horrible human being they are to ask for someone to treat them with common decency.

It goes beyond just patterns of speech, too.  We live in a world where people seem offended by even the thought that something they do might benefit someone other than themselves.  If you look at people’s reaction to the notion of things like universal healthcare, welfare programs, even free meal programs at schools, people rage at the idea that any of their tax money might go to help someone less fortunate than they are.

I don’t know when this happened.  I don’t know if the world has always been like this, and I just realized it as I grew up, or if there was some point in the past where we as a culture were kinder and more compassionate, when we cared more for each other than we do now. I do know that this has to end.  I know that we as a species cannot survive like this.  I know that we need each other, that humans are built to exist in and thrive in communities.

Civilization is about coming together and sharing the burden.  It’s about being able to do more because we work as a group.  It’s about everything everyone does contributing to the good of the group as well as the individual.  When everyone is out only for themselves, when kindness, compassion and empathy vanish, then civilization is doomed.

I don’t have a neat ending for this post, or a way to tie it back into writing and storytelling.  It’s something that’s been on my mind for a while, and something I had to speak out about, even if it’s to a small audience. We have to stop looking at kindness as a crime.  We have to rehabilitate its reputation.  We have to re-enshrine it as the highest of all virtues.  Otherwise, we’re going to tear each other apart, and we will have no one but ourselves to blame.

[otterplusharchive]

rey! do you have any recs for kdramas? i have never watched any, but i like lovable characters and romance ? thank you in advance!

I DO IN FACT HAVE DRAMA RECS HII not all of these will be kdramas, but ill start with the kdramas ive watched and enjoyed and ill include all the warnings for them that i can remember off the top of my head and a brief synopsis for u!

kdramas-

1. weight lifting fairy kim bok joo

this was probably one of the first kdramas i saw people post about in like 2015 and i watched a little bit of it in 2016 but then only just got around to finishing it last year. the basic gist of it is its about a young sports college weight lifter, kim bok joo, centering around her navigating through her life and trying to figure out who she is and what she wants in life and what she wants to be. her romantic interest in the show is a swimmer and they have a sort of rivals to friends to lovers, he is SO in love with her and its adorable. i absolutely loved the side characters in this show theyre all so fun and kim bok joos best friends and weight lifting team are especially delightful. my main warning would be that this show addresses eating disorders and theres a lot of mention of both weight gain and weight loss, theres also a plot point early on where kim bok joo has a crush on her eventual love interests older brother but it gets resolved and the older brother literally goes "i didnt realize you had a crush on me and if i knew that i wouldnt have been so friendly with you, it would be completely innapropriate for us to be in a relationship". overall its a really sweet and emotional fun show but if you have issues with weight talk id skip this one

2. tale of the nine tailed

this one is really recent from last year and i didnt expect to be so hooked by it but boy howdy did i get attached to all the characters and the wild plot. it feels hard to explain the plot but basically a nine tailed fox named lee yeon is living in modern day seoul and is working for the underworld finding paranormal spirits/creatures/other rogue foxes that are causing havoc on the world, hes resigned himself to living this life while waiting for his girlfriend who died tragically 600 years ago to come back to life because he traded his status as a mountain god in order to ensure that her soul would one day be reincarnated. a plucky investigative journalist named nam ji ah figures out that hes not human and shenanagins ensue because she looks exactly like his dead girlfriend oooooo whatll happen. the plot beyond that gets really wild and its hard to explain and is easier to just watch. if u enjoy paranormal adventures this one is good. my one big complaint and issue with this is that the immortal mountain spirit meets his original girlfriend when shes a child and she continues to visit him off and on as she grows up which is Hm I Dont Like That! but thankfully the present time romance our female lead meets him when shes about 30 if im remembering right. also warnings for general fantasy violence, references to child abuse, animal death, and abandonment issues

3. extraordinary you

HUGE unreality warning for this. if you have issues with feeling unreal or have paranoia/delusions about not being a real person id avoid this one just because of its premise

ok i know i said tale of the nine tailed was a hard plot to explain but BOY extraordinary you is even HARDER to explain. because its so wild but so good. its about a girl who realizes that she is literally a side character in a comic book, and the story becomes her trying to change the story to save her character from dying but it becomes a lot more than that. the romance in this is literally tooth achingly sweet and the show itself is very pretty, i loved the side characters in this one and the show was engaging and interesting to watch it became really layered and meta. super reccomend this one honestly. my main issues/warnings that i can remember off the top of my head were just one character being the classic controlling boyfriend stereotype, bullying someone specifically for being poor, unreality like i mentioned before, and then at the very end there was this love interest for a side character who got reincarnated from a past piece of writing that they had been in and put in the comic but she was a student and he was the school cook which is weird but thankfully they like barely interact at all and theres no real romance he just like recognizes her and its barely a thing at the end of the show but its still weird

4. mystic pop up bar

big warning for suicide, sexual harrasment (which is framed as being bad and the guy whos harrassing the girl literally gets thrown off a roof)

i havent finished this one yet and thats mainly because im not emotionally ready because this one makes me soooo emotional. if you like found family this is a good one. its about a pop up bar run by a woman whos been tasked with solving the problems of a certain amount of people in order to atone for her crimes in the past before dying, shes able to enter the dreams of people and solve their issues using the information she gets in the dreams. paranormal shenanagins ensue, she acquires a son and a husband and it kills me its so fun and quirky and fun despite handling dark themes and peoples problems. also very sweet the found family murders me

5. kingdom (netflix original)

i literally am not going to be able to watch any other zombie media because kingdom and train to busan are the best pieces of zombie media ive ever seen. warnings for gore and violence and just general horror aspects.

i absolutely love this one its so thrilling and well done, i love the acting and the way that this show looks its absolutely gorgeous. a zombie plague breaks out in joseon period korea where the emperor has died and then was brought back to life by the queen and her father in a ploy to try and keep their family in political power, the crown prince must find answers. a lot more happens and its very dramatic and good i love the characters in this one

cdramas

1. the untamed. if you follow me and you havent watched the untamed im begging you to watch the untamed. literally one of the most beautiful stories ive experienced in my life i am not joking when i say i cried multiple times over it. the main characters are canonically gay in love and have a son together please watch the untamed. handles a lot of dark themes, heres a tw guide

2. the sleuth of the ming dynasty

this is another one i havent finished but its fun so far, very gay, found family, food, and solving murder mysteries during the ming dynasty

3. hikaru no go (also known as qi hun)

havent finished this one, there is some propaganda about hong kong in the first episode but as far as i know thats the only instance of something like that in the show

this ones about the game go and so far its very sweet and fun, local boy awakens a ghost who was a master of the game of go hundreds of years ago and eventually is persuaded to learn how to play go with the aid of the ghost. im really liking this one so far its very cute and i love the characters in it. if youve watched the untamed nie huaisangs actor ji li is in this one!

4. the legend of yunqian

this ones very short and on youtube, all the episodes are about 5 minutes long and its a lesbian time travel fantasy adventure with a happy ending! funny and cute

jdramas

1. cherry magic

please please please watch cherry magic. the premise sounds very much like a weird yaoi kind of thing but trust me on this. trust me. it is so heart warming and sweet and i was so emotional about it and the growth of the main character.

adachi gains the power to read peoples minds on his 30th birthday based off a urban legend that if youre a 30 year old virgin that youll become a wizard. after gaining this power he accidentally finds out that his extremely popular and handsome coworker has a crush on him, and shenanagins ensue along with adachi having blossoming feelings in return. this show was really refreshing in a lot of ways, adachi is a main character who like.. is unsure of himself and insecure in a very kind of realistic way, he closes himself off and is afraid to reach out to people and through the course of the show we see him slowly come out of his shell and realize that hes likeable and lovable and that people want to be around him and its so nice to see. my main complaint about this show is that i dont really like the background couple, but otherwise this is a very sweet and refreshing gay romance that has a happy ending!

some others that i myself havent seen but that ive seen people talk about a lot and that i want to watch eventually:

- the legend of fei (cdrama)

- the wolf (cdrama)

- gaurdian (cdrama, not the kdrama one called goblin)

- healer (kdrama, i did watch some of this one but it was in 2016 and i never finished it so i barely remember any of it but i do remember liking it)

- nobody knows (kdrama)

- its ok to not be ok (kdrama)

sorry this is so long but i hope youll be able to find a drama u enjoy!!