#and you know what? it’s not my job to teach you about how racism actually works in a silly little fic about a dad telling the story of his

[peachcitt]

you know, if you see a fic that includes “white french man hit list” in the title knowing that one of the main characters is french and white and are not expecting something that’s going to address, you know, white french men, then i think maybe you shouldn’t read it. or maybe read with critical thinking skills. thanks & peace and love on planet earth<3

[sometimesraven]

re: the ableism in Dot and Bubble

I understand it almost certainly wasn't Rusty's intention for the "can't walk without the arrows" thing to be ableist, but the implications are there and it was so, so hard to watch.

As I said while liveblogging, I've noted that reliance on tech like Google Maps has caused a regression in skills like navigation and a frustrating refusal to even try. I'm frequently faced with that fact as I live somewhere you have to use your eyes to see and most fast food delivery drivers just Cannot Find Us bc the GPS goes wild and they can't follow the directions I always give them so I inevitably have to go out to find them myself. Believe me, I know what he was going for with that part of the script.

However.

When you exaggerate that point to the tune of "she literally cannot walk" without the aid, and then instead of it being deeply disturbing to the two 'kind, helpful' characters (Doc n Ruby), they actively roll their eyes at her and it's played as an "omg how stupid is she" moment, you have to see how that looks.

Let's reframe it: someone you've met was raised in a cult. A very insular, very strict cult that they literally have never seen outside of. At this point in time you know nothing about them but you do know they're in a very insular, very closed-off society. One day they tell you they have no idea how to,,,,,, idk, wash themselves without assistance. If your first instinct is to laugh at them and roll your eyes like they're overexaggerating, you're an ableist.

I struggle to believe anyone like the Doctor wouldn't perhaps initially react with confusion/incredulity but then, after realising this person is 100% serious, go "oh my god that's horrible okay uh let me try to walk you through this and teach you how".

It's a horrible, cynical response that would maybe track if at this point the characters already knew she was an entitled pissbaby. But they don't and that's why it comes across so terribly.

Especially when there's no indication that this is a side-effect of her entitlement and she's literally insulting herself "I'm so stupid!" and genuinely upset and frustrated that she can't even walk in the face of actual death. And yes, she miraculously can walk again once she meets Ricky but it wasn't because she was ignoring the Doctor's advice because racism because he had not given her any. She had literally zero clue how to walk without assistance until Ricky guided her.

This isn't a refusal to learn a skill based on entitlement, this isn't a heavy-handed metaphor, you have given this girl a disability (even if it is psychosomatic, it is still a disability). And in a time where social media + youth entitlement is being blamed for an increase of ADHD, Autism, chronic illness and DID diagnosis-seekers (among other things, but those are the ones people are most aggressive against) that just does not look good At All.

Russel could easily have made it so that they just had no idea how to navigate without the bubble and refused to learn.

Maybe at first show it as genuine frustration on Lindy's part that she can't find anything without guidance but slowly show that no, she's perfectly capable, she just doesn't care to learn.

Hell, you could have everything play out the same way but have her genuinely get offered help to begin with by the Doctor and ignore it, only for Ricky to say the same thing to her later and she gets it immediately.

Idk, anything beyond literally disabling her. The show does a great job at humanising her before showing us that she was a monster all along, but I feel like Rusty himself forgot that he was still representing a Whole Entire Person (something that people on all ends of the political spectrum do All The Time: "person is bad therefore [___ism] is okay in this instance". Ableism especially)

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for almost killing my 8th grade english teacher? (warning: racism, sa mention)

I (M16, 14 at the time, white (this is important later)) was part of the newspaper in middle school. The teacher running the newspaper (F… 50? 60? i have no idea) was always really nice to me, and we got along really well. I was ecstatic to see that she would be my english teacher in 8th grade.

That is, until the class actually began.

This english class we mostly read books about oppression and historical atrocities and genocide because our history class wouldn’t cover that for some reason (the reason is racism). It seemed like this teacher would have done a good job of teaching this material, but well. you can see where this is going.

a week into the school year the whole class saw that she was pretty racist - not like overtly racist; she sort of said she cared about fighting oppression and then… was a part of that oppression. like she’d say “i could never be racist” and then she would be racist. it’s hard to explain. she would always be incredibly weird about disciplining the Black kids in the class, blaming one guy in particular for like. every time a guy in the class acted like and eighth grade boy would act. she was also really condescending to him; she’d constantly make comments about how he couldn’t follow rules (which obviously isn’t true). she did this to an extent to all the other Black kids in the class as well; later when some of them went to the principal to talk about what happened they said they didn’t feel safe in her class.

additionally, pretty much nobody even stood for the pledge of allegiance (we were usually busy reading cause the library in that school was really nice and had a really good collection of books), and when they did they’d never actually say it. this teacher had a problem with this, and every time she saw absolutely nobody in the class standing for the pledge of allegiance, she’d make the entire homeroom (oh yeah i was in her homeroom too, forgot to mention that) tell her why they didn’t for literally the entire class period. Every time someone mentioned systemic racism or racist history she’d butt in either saying “my parents were immigrants and they stood for the pledge” or she’d start talking about her gay son. some kids told stories of being called slurs when they were younger. some kids cried. she would always bring up her gay son as a rebuttal. and i get that being gay is hard, i’m gay myself, but that is not in any way applicable to the situation at hand here. This happened on three separate occasions - sometimes a single person would stand for the pledge just so there was at least one person doing it and so we wouldn’t have to have that conversation.

And then there was the actual teaching. oh boy. so, as i said before, almost all of our books in this class were about some sort of historical atrocity because the history class didn’t have time for it apparently. and uh. uhhhhhhh yeah. with this teacher it was not a good experience.

We had read books about racism for summer reading and we were reading the novel Chains at the beginning of the school year, and the teacher would always talk about how “resilient” the characters in the books were and how they made the best of their situations and fought back, but never about how these characters should have never had to be in these situations in the first place and WHO PUT THEM IN THESE SITUATIONS, WHAT SYSTEMS PUT THEM IN THESE SITUATIONS YOU KNOW THE KIND OF STUFF ONE WOULD NEED TO KNOW FROM A COURSE LIKE THIS TO MAKE SURE HISTORY DOESNT REPEAT ITSELF. Later in the year we read Warriors Don’t Cry and it went exactly how you’d expect. “Resiliency”. Also worse than you’d expect. The teacher victim blamed the author, a real ass person writing about real fucking events, for almost being assaulted at a young age. And though we focused more on the systems of oppression, thankfully, we also watched and interview with the little rock nine and some of the people who harassed them in school, and one of them, a white woman, said the n word and refused to apologize. and this teacher defended her???? On another occasion we had a lesson about feminism and we read some of Sojourner Truth’s writing, and she interpreted it as solely being about womanhood and not race - and when I tried to talk about how race is an important factor in the message of one of the speeches, the teacher called my parents. We also read books about the holocaust and this teacher was surprisingly respectful throughout the whole thing. No victim blaming, no talk of resilience, nothing.

I had talked to her about all of this before. We knew each other from the newspaper, and it even seemed like I was her favorite student. She would not budge. Sometimes she even made the argument that I was smarter than the other kids, that I cared more than the other kids, that I would notice these things and care about them but other kids wouldn’t and I should just shut up because nobody understands me because i’m just so smart. which made me fucking pissed. i don’t care any more than the other kids who told you stories of being harassed and ridiculed at 8:30 am on a weekday so that the whole class could excercise their freedom of speech. i’m not any smarter than the other kids who cited countless examples of the atrocities this country committed against people of color to you who you didn’t listen to. in fact, i’m not even that smart. i’d say i’m kind of an idiot. and i want to be an idiot, because then i’m not put on a pedestal to push other people down.

This happened two years ago so i don’t exactly remember the order in which these next three events happened.

Since during these talks sometimes i’d start to cry, in may my french teacher asked me if i wanted to transfer to her homeroom and i did. It was a lot better there.

Around this time about eight of the kids from my old homeroom went to the principal to talk about this teacher and how her class made them feel unsafe.

Anyway, my backpack is very heavy. I usually have a lot of books in there, until this year I used five subject notebooks, I never clean out my folders and I brought a laptop as well. Even with all this though, my backpack always ends up being heavier than I expected.

So, one day my anger toward this teacher boiled over. On my way out of english class, when she went to say goodbye to me, I shoved her to the side with my backpack. It turns out that broke her hip, and she was out of school for two weeks. When she came back she said she had almost died in the hospital. She also announced her retirement, and that she was going to go and “end racism”, ironically. She knew I was the one who hit her, but she didn’t say anything about that. I was still her favorite, apparently. It left a bad taste in my mouth that she still thought of me like this. Eventually I graduated from that school and I haven’t seen her since.

tldr: A teacher of mine was racist and making a lot of the kids in the class feel unsafe, and she tried to keep me from arguing with her about it, so I hit her with my backpack and broke her hip, almost killing her.

AITA???

What are these acronyms?

[angelsaxis]

Ooh the layers to every interaction these four have. Their toxic ass racist white girl friend plays dumb about or outright refuses to acknowledge the racial reality that they're living under, and it corrupts basically every word that comes out of her mouth. They were put in a dangerous racist situation because of her. Robin's white passing and has unfortunately adopted the same patronizing/paternalistic protection orders that your typical white Englishman would have for anyone who was Black or Indian and under their care. Robin's genuine concern for his friend's safety is beat out by how much he's internalized the shitty parts of England and academia. I wonder if they'd had this conversation earlier if it would have gone smoother (as in, if Letty hadn't been hanging around them and unintentionally making everything worse, whether the conversation would have ended on a better note. I'm thinking no.)

That's because Robin's primary reason for not telling Ramy and Victoire about Griffin was the paternalism. The "I need to protect you from yourself". The "it's my Job to keep you safe". The awareness of the violence Victoire and Ramy are subject to on a daily basis isn't a substitute for actually treating them like adults capable of making their own decisions about their lives. Does Robin love them? Yes. Did he royally fuck up? Also yeah.

It's fascinating to watch how the level of honesty they have with each other varies depending on who's present (Letty) and then what they're talking about. So much can go unsaid, and STILL there's things Robin doesn't *understand*. He doesn't understand that Ramy would have gone with Hermes not because of his impulsiveness and pride but because Ramy has never once in his life cared for or given a fuck about the "safety" and "comforts" that white people can offer him. Ramy hates white people, which is largely why he can't stand Letty (this is in turn largely aided by Letty's a) personality and b) family history). He understands his role in colonial Britain because he's been dealing with it and witnessing it since he was a child, and he grew up in an explicitly colonized area, and he had a family to teach him the necessary lessons of survival and pride. Things Robin entirely lacked. From what it looks like to me, Robin didn't even know he was mixed til he got to England?

I wonder if they were doomed to head down this path from the start. In another post I'd speculated about whether the ways they'd hurt each other would be specific to their personalities and interactions, as in if Letty's racism would come to a head and destroy what little patience Ramy has left for her. I don't have a neat conclusion to this, I'm just thinking.

[riveriafalll]

Writeblr introduction I guess?

Guess what bitches (affectionate) I’ve been here for like six months and I’m finally making a writeblr introduction. I have just vibed within the community for all this time, and I reckon it’s time to actually confirm my existence as an actual writer.

A bit about me: you can call me River, I mainly write fanfiction for quite a few fandoms, I’m a full time student, I use all pronouns (agender bitches for the win) and autistic currently seeking diagnosis.(in this economy? I know, right?)

I’m open for all tag games and asks (please include me, I promise I won’t procrastinate on the tag game until it’s three weeks later and it’s too awkward to post it then)

Here is my master list of wips, categorised by fandom. The majority of these are not being regularly written in, but they all will one day find a home on the archive I promise.

I will link them up to their respective WIP introduction pages as they happen, if you want to hear about one sooner, let me know <3

Harry Potter

No Time to Die: Drarry au where I kill off Draco in the first scene, have many clever plot-fixes and throw in as much LGBTQ rep as I can

Aelia Lovegood - Luna Lovegood has a pyromaniacal twin who is trying to fix racism by punching Nazi children in the face. It’s mostly working

Oh dear it’s a time loop fic - Draco and Hermione are trapped in a time loop, what will they do? (Troll everyone for basically eternity, and try not to go mad)

The fic where Harry is a sociopath, and goes full homicidal mode on Voldemort along with a scary Hermione and a power-hungry Ron - eh the title explains it well enough

when stars collide (a black hole forms) - a person from our world falls into the HP universe, and immediately tries to mother hen her family out of being evil. Callidora is the twin sister of Bellatrix, and spends the next thirty or so years attempting to fix everyone through the power of love. It works most of the time.

Harry Potter and the job he should have gotten - thirteen years after the end of the War, Minerva McGonagall has a staffing crisis and breaks into people’s homes until they agree to teach. Harry/Theo Knott, Hermione/Pansy and Draco girlbossing it by himself while figuring out how to be a single father.

Marvel

Of Godparents and Aunt-sassins - Jokingly, a couple name the godparent of their new child as Loki. No one expects him to except. Ava is a menace, Loki is a gender fluid icon, a wonderful brother and a terrible influence, Natasha is the vodka aunt, Clint is the fun uncle, Cooper Barton is the responsible one, Peter is a tiny adorable baby who gets adopted, and the Avengers live the 2012 Tower life

SHIELD: An Unofficial Guide - based off the SHIELD survival tips blog here on tumblr, written up in a guide-book form, complete with neatly organised chapters and unique anecdotes

A Glitch in the System - Glitch, a winter-widow and the last remanent of HYDRA, is sent to assassinate the Avengers. When she fails, she runs away and meets a certain spider-child on a rooftop. Featuring a teenage Loki, an amnesiac Pietro and a certain blonde widow, who’ve all moved into May Parker’s apartment, and a lot of miscommunication between just about everyone

Loki doki timey wimey - set during Thor:Ragnorok, Tony and co notice that Loki has reappeared on Midgard, and promptly break into Doctor Stranges house to question him. Dr S promptly gets very annoyed by Tony and Lokis inability to get on, and sends them away to the magical equivalent of a get along shirt, which goes wrong and leaves Tony and Loki stranded in a time loop. They’re under the impression that the loop will break when they learn to get along, Dr Strange is doing nothing to disillusion them of that.

(This is the image that my beta once_and_future_fandoms made when I ranted about it to them)

Another life - something I started before the Loki show came out (take that Marvel), starts at the beginning of Infinity War, when a female Loki dies at the hands of Thanos, meets the personification of the universe, merges with the Tesseract, leaving her with a shapeshifting familiar and teleporting powers. She then travels briefly through the multiverse and lands in the OG Marvel universe, with a Tom Hiddleston themed Loki and attempts to fix stuff through the power of having a giant snake and knives.

Bucky and the time he lived in the woods with his murder daughters - Bucky escapes from HYDRA in the 90s with Natasha and Yelena. They live in the mountains of Romania together, learning how to be actual real life people and incidentally becoming cryptida along the way. Natasha and Yelena join SHIELD in their early twenties, and continue happily along their way in the canon plot, until their father James comes to visit the Avengers Tower after the Battle of New York, and bumps into a familiar blonde…

Supernatural

Woahhhh it’s Emmy - Emmy, (long for MJ, short for Mary Junior), is the standard extra Winchester OC, twin sister of Sam, who is almost as bad at talking through her problems as Dean is. While Sam went to Smamford, and Dean ran around with John, Emmy started a weapons dealing company for hunters, travelling around under the guise of an occult shop. She reluctantly joins back up with her brothers in season 1, just to make sure her dumbasses don’t get themselves killed. She solves half of the shows problems with a glock.

Doctor Who

Who the fuck is Sally Sparrow? - Kat Sparrow has grown up knowing that things live in the darkness. The Sparrows are known by all the intelligence agency’s of the world, for their abilities to find and trap those things. Their specialty? Angels. When River Song appears on her doorstep one night, telling her that she has an angel to catch, Kat does the only thing she can, and joins the Doctor, River and Amy in the TARDIS to catch it. Kat thinks it’s fantastic, Amy enjoys having a friend whos roughly her age, and River is cryptic as ever. The Doctor, however, would really like to know how the hell a human girl is capable of subduing the most deadly creature in the universe.

Redo of Sally Sparrow except there’s no Sally Sparrow and a completely different plot line - When River tumbles into the TARDIS at the start of the infamous Maze of the Angels episode, she brings someone else with her - her adopted daughter, Astra. Unknown to 11, Astra is his child from the future, the result of a coupling between 12 and Missy, who was partially raised by both of them and the other half by River. Featuring: Astra is briefly evil and genocidial, Astra gets therapy with 14 and Donna, Astra flirts constantly with half of his companions, River, Missy and 13 all walk into a bar, and the combination of lesbianism causes a rift in time and space, and someone really needs to stop 12 from naming people after his past companions.

The Vampire Diaries

TVDeeznuts - Cassie Gilbert, twin sister of Jeremy, heads off to an out of state boarding school after being compelled by Damon in an attempt to protect the first person to have trusted him unconditionally in the last hundred and fifty years. Yes, he might have been a crow for half of it, but the thought is what counts, right? Unfortunately, being the danger magnet she is, Cassie immediately manages to befriend a local artist by the name of Nik Mikaelson. Three kidnappings later, Cassie is the first honorary Mikaelson since Marcel. Let’s just hope it doesn’t go quite as bad as his did.

Shadow hunters

Making my OCs be adopted by a bunch of vampires has nothing to do with my parental issues I promise - Autumn, a rather shy twelve year old, is Turned into a vampire rather unexpectedly by a less than stable Maureen who wants to be best friends forever. She immediately attaches herself to Raphael, who is horrified, but ultimately decides that he can use the situation to gaslight Magnus into believing that she’s always been around. Autumn has no objections, Lily thinks it hilarious, and Elliot is just happy to have a little sister.

Shadow hunting my multiple mental illnesses - Astoria Fray is perfectly normal. She does her homework, eats far too many chips, and goes out to parties with her best friends Lily, Elliot and Raphael. And then her mom gets kidnapped, her sister goes missing, her uncle won’t talk to her, and a very sparkly man tells her that he’s a friend of her mothers and that she can stay at his place. And as if that wasn’t enough, turns out that she’s not human, her dad is shadow hunter Hitler, and vampires, werewolf’s and warlocks are real.

At least Lily and Raphael are still normal. Right?

we'll never get free (lamb to the slaughter) - Magnus Bane is forced to baby-sit a precocious, morally-grey Warlock child. It goes about as well as you'd imagine.

Fourth Wing

Fourth wing more like fortieth wip - Elyrion Melgren (currently going under the name Elyrion Foxe) lived in Tyrrendor for the first fourteen years of her life, while her father led the armies of Navarre, spending her days exploring the city with her best friend Xaden. Six years later, she hasn’t seen Xaden since the apostasy, and has been forbidden by her father to go into the Riders, as he doesn’t want her to interact with the Marked Ones. Elyrion promptly ignores his orders, crosses Parapet, and joins the revolution.

Throne of Glass

Cadre Coparenting - what could go wrong? -Two years after Aelin Galathynius was born, her sister, Aurelia arrived. Born with powers of darkness and death, Evalin and Rhoe have no choice but to send her to the only person with experience in controlling powers like hers - her Aunt, Maeve. Maeve promptly passes the child off to her loyal bloodsworn until she’s old enough to be useful to her. Between the six of them, the Cadre just about manage to raise a singular child, despite Aurelia's best attempts to be difficult. It’s entirely her fault that half of Doranelle now believes that Lorcan and Rowan are divorced, and co-parenting their daughter together with Gavriel and Vaughan, their new partners, and Fenrys and Connall, her brothers.

Twilight

Twi-mental breakdown-light - Twilight if Bella had a precocious ten year old sister, and Edward and Bella raise her in aroace solidarity. Esme is delighted that she finally gets a grandchild, and Emmett is not responsible enough to baby sit.

[wetcatspellcaster]

While I love hearing about your fic writing, that last WIP Wendy has me curious. What is your thesis about??? How are you feeling so close to your submission deadline? What has teaching been like?

(I finished grad school 2 years ago, and remember the weight of academia acutely)

hey anon, thank you for asking (and condolences on the typo ;) )

i'm a PhD student based in a literature department, but my topic is actually... *fanfare* D&D! that's right, she's that one note, everybody!

anyway, my thesis examines D&D gameplay as reader response to fantasy literature - arguing that often, the ways people play reflects the things they wish was different in the books/media they consume. E.g. people who play/write drow or orc characters no longer tend to perpetuate the racism of the Forgotten Realms, implying they don't appreciate racism in fantasy, or people often queer their favourite characters from media and turn them into something new, etc. It basically takes theories from fan studies and fantasy literature academia, and applies them to D&D as a way of showing that D&D has always had a large role in shaping fantasy literature and what people expect from fantasy :)

as to how i feel finishing - my final deadline, due to my sick leave, is June 28th. I'm currently completing a full draft by the end of the month for my supervisors to read through and offer corrections on. Mostly... just tired? And scared, tbh. I've been funded and thus not really participating in capitalism for 3 and a half years, so I'm not exactly relishing unemployment and job hunting, and academic jobs in the UK are a depressing prospect as there's not many of them. It's also too early for me to do anything about it - the most useful thing for me to do right now is simply finish the thesis, so I don't outstay my welcome and my funding. I know I'll be fine eventually, but it's just going to suck.

Teaching is genuinely wonderful! I teach first year English Lit (basically Novel 101), which is like karma, as it's many books I didn't enjoy in my undergrad, but they are much easier to read now I'm at the skill level I'm at! If a class is chatty and invested, it's genuinely so much fun - it doesn't feel like work. But even the quiet hungover early morning classes are rewarding, bc often people get better grades in their finals than their midterms. Even if I have nothing to do with that, and they've just gotten better on their own, it's nice to see people improve and succeed :) (and know you didn't accidentally fuck em up along the way)

[cleolinda]

So let me tell you why I didn't post the Varney recap as usual last Friday:

For one, I was genuinely Going Through It on a chronic physical health level. But I was also writing the recap and I slowly went... wait... this is Problematic. And of course if it is, it's my job to address that. Y'all are all very intelligent people, and if I let something that obvious go, you're going to wonder how I didn't see it. It's why the first recap got rewritten in a very different tone: you would have been like, why tf is she being so flippant about this?

And of course, when Ye Olde Literature is problematic, the whole point of writing commentary like this is to tell you why it was, what was the historical context, why did people think this way, and let's point out how people still think that way, if applicable. And if I make it entertaining so that you keep reading, that's great, but why are we bothering if we're not going to actually talk about things?

So, in this case, I'm faced with (in the text) a bunch of mental health ableism with bonus implied racism, and I just went... we are going to do this. But we are not doing it this week. My blood pressure is in a bad place, I'm in a lot of physical pain, I Cannot. I will Be Able To, but not the third week of April, 2023.

It was important to me to take that week off, unexpected or not, but also stay with the recaps, no matter how long it took me to iron out exactly what I wanted to say in the most considerate way possible, because I have a tendency to hit some bump in the road and never return to a project. I never remember why I got derailed (or derailed myself). But with this particular recap, I started to see how it used to happen: some combination of "I am physically/mentally not well," maybe "some external crisis is happening IRL," and then "the topic got difficult in a way I didn't know how to handle." And because I have alexithymia (inability to recognize/describe emotions to whatever degree), I didn't always understand that this was happening, so I didn't know how to work through it.

It's one thing to say "I need an extra week to deal with this topic," is what I'm trying to teach myself: how to work through challenge and stress, but hang in there. And the reason I'm telling you all this is because I am convinced that I have not had one single unique experience in my life, and that describing this process will resonate in some helpful way with someone else.

Anyway, that's how I was able to write, like, a novel on the subject of patchouli in perfume but not a recap: I was mulling over Victorian bigotry. Yay. Varney is now up. I'm desperately hoping that I did it okay.

[hostilemuppet]

Seeing the Floyd perspective on the relationship makes me want to see the Creek perspective, especially the period where they were divorced. But also: Goddamn. This relationship really is the happiest either could get huh. I mean, Floyd could and CAN do better if he wanted, but I think it’s sweet how they chose each other.

okay heres my thoughts on creeks side of the situation, again keep in mind its just MY thoughts and not "canon" to the au

After Trolls 1 (a brief summary for the non-trolls fans following along at home: he was almost eaten by King Gristle so he sold (what he thought was) his entire species to save himself. He gets eaten by a BIGGER monster but he makes it out, somehow. Don’t think about it too hard) he lives alone in the woods for several months, before returning to Troll Village. People do NOT want him around, because, you know. Do I need to explain it? But Poppy let him back in, because she “feels bad for him” or whatever, and also they used to date so she thinks she has to. So he has a home, he’s back in his old pod, he even has his old job back! But no one wants to be around him, and he’s got only himself to blame.

Creek does NOT blame himself. He’s NEVER at fault, it’s always someone else’s. He devolves further into misanthropy, while still keeping up his at peace, Zen facade. He hates everyone. He hates Poppy. He hates Branch.

He tries to get back to how he was, establish himself as a musician, on top of teaching yoga. He gets a lot of fans, but he’s still pretty... controversial, to say the least. How could he not be? He was almost responsible for hundreds of deaths. But worse things haven’t stopped people from stanning. Look at your real life Twitter trending tab if you don’t believe me!

After all tribes are at peace, he makes an off colour comment about how rowdy and loud Rock trolls are when someone stops by his yoga class and disrupts it for his much more well behaved Pop students. Obviously, canon typical racism is a pretty big no-no, so he gets a lot of flack. Hence, the collab with Riff, which doesn’t actually help his reputation at all because Riff immediately took to Twitter to call Creek an asshole.

Then, Creek decides he’s been going at this all wrong. he doesn’t need to bend over backwards to make himself look better; he just needs to make the people he HATES look WORSE! As much as he hates to admit it, Branch is actually pretty spotless (and is, you know, dating the Queen, so...). But, he has FOUR brothers, two of which are single and one of which is infamous for whoring himself out. The adoring public are more willing to crucify their idols for victimless sex scandals than they are for genuine atrocities. This is when Creek pays someone (several someones, actually, but only one of them was successful) to seduce Floyd, record it without his knowledge, and send Creek the footage so he can leak it and tank Brozone’s reputation. We’ve been over how this didn’t work out for him in the way he wanted, but that doesn’t mean it was entirely a waste of time. He broke Floyd a little more.

A couple months pass. Creek continues to get in controversies that he could easily avoid if he simply stepped out of the spotlight, but he can’t, because he is addicted to clout and still believes he is never at fault. He finds out Riff has collabed with Floyd, and since Riff is one of the many, many trolls who are dead to Creek, he throws his little adult man tantrum and decides it’s personal, and he needs to take matters into his own hands. If you want it done right, you should just do it yourself. He starts frequenting Floyd’s favourite gay bar until by some miracle they’re in the same place at the same time. You know how things go.

Creek wakes up the next morning sore. Y'know, because of the drugs. Mostly. He’s alone. He’s mad, that his plan didn’t work. But he can still save it, and next time they run into each other he asks for Floyd’s number, saying how he really wants this to go further, he felt a connection. He did not feel a connection. Creek is not attracted to other men. They start dating, and he couldn’t be happier; not because he likes Floyd, obviously, but because he’s sure Branch is dying inside. I mean, yeah, Branch barely reacts any more past the first week, but he’s probably just really good at faking tranquillity. Creek knows how to fake tranquillity, too.

The relationship lasts, a lot longer than he thought it would, honestly. He thought it’d last a couple weeks at most, before Branch tried to kill him. But no such luck, instead, he’s stuck being couple-y, doing couple-y things, with a man he feels nothing for. They engage in a lot of PDA, and Creek buys Floyd a lot of gifts (that he insists were HIS ideas, NOT Floyd’s), they’re basically attached at the hip! And Creek genuinely thinks he’s on top of the situation. Poor, sweet, innocent Floyd, or whatever. He’s The Sensitive One! There’s no way Floyd knows what’s going on. He's be inconsolable if he did.

So when Floyd pushes him to prove how much Creek loves him, when he doesn’t, the only thing he can think of is to propose. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Honestly, he was pretty sure Floyd would say no, since they’d only been going out about half a year, and if that’s the end of the relationship, at least he could peddle it for sympathy points from the public. Unfortunately, Floyd is fucking crazy, and said yes.

Now Creek has a husband. He is still not into men, but he has a husband. He moves out of his pod and into Floyd’s mansion. This is it, he thinks. This is the rest of his life. He still keeps up the act, of course. He can’t have Floyd catching on. But he’s kinda bummed about his fate as a trophy husband for someone he feels nothing for.

He gets his first egg a month or two later, and is surprised to find that Floyd had a matching one. Creek might not care for Floyd, but he never thought he’d be a dad, and he gets. Emotional? He didn’t think he was CAPABLE of crying happy tears any more! Not that he’d let Floyd know, of course. The eggs hatch a month later (Floyd insisted on their names) and Creek is actually, genuinely happy. For a bit.

A month after that, four months into their marriage, everything falls into the open. Creek finds out that Floyd knew he never loved him, but he was playing Creek like 3D chess. And he’s mad, of course, but what is he gonna do, divorce Floyd? They have kids! Plus, you know, Floyd’s blackmailing him. “Tricking a man into marrying you and having kids with him” wouldn’t exactly be good for Creek’s reputation, not to mention how Floyd knows a lot of his personal embarrassing secrets now. From that point, things ramp up a couple notches.

No longer having to pretend everything is hunky dory in the privacy of their own homes, things escalate into all out warfare. And Creek can’t lie, it’s kind of an adrenaline rush, having to sleep next to the guy who you hate more than anything. Which is another thing that freaks Creek out! He actually hates Floyd more than Poppy, or even Branch! Don’t get him wrong, thinking about either of them for too long still fills him with white hot rage, but he doesn’t get the opportunity when Floyd’s wrapping his arms around him and acting all sappy in public, knowing they’re gonna go home and choke each other. Non sexually. Okay, maybe a little sexually. He’s still not into boys.

Then, they get comfortable. And things become too “real” for Floyd, who leaves, and divorces him, and doesn’t even try to get PARTIAL custody. Creek is shocked, at first, but then decides this is the best possible outcome. They’re no longer together, it’s NOT Creek’s fault, and he has sole custody of the kids he loves so dearly! Plus, he’s back on the market, baby! He can get back to cruising for fit GIRLS. He doesn’t have much luck. Partly because most Pop trolls still hate him (even if at this point it has dialled back to levels of the Azealia Banks Chicken Fiasco), partly because, at this point? He has no idea how to form genuine romantic relationships with other trolls that aren’t built on psychological warfare. He doesn’t even realise he’s doing it! Several relationships end in him getting dumped, with her friends and family encouraging her to leave him for “emotional abuse”, or whatever. He didn’t even mean it this time, honest! He just wanted to win, you know? He forgot the point of a romantic relationship is not actually to seek victory. But it’s so hard not to! He spent 18 months doing exactly that! Even when he “lost”, which was most of the time, he still got a sick thrill out of the hunt. A sick thrill he is now missing. He understands why Floyd couldn’t quit the coke, now. He tries not to think about Floyd any more.

Meanwhile, their fraternal twins, Brad and Angelina, wait patiently for their parents to get back together. Even though Brad was only 8 months old at the time of divorce, that’s like, 6 years for a troll, and he knew there’s no way in Hell they could stay apart. He just has to wait a bit for his Pops to come back home. Angelina, while having no opinions on whether they will or even should get back together, has already started reaping the benefits of having recently divorced parents at school. She’d be looking forward to having two Giftmases and two birthdays, if she knew what either of those were yet.

Then comes the reunion. We know what happens. They run into each other at a charity event for orphans, not that Floyd remembers what it’s for, since he’s been violently depressed for several months and is only there because Brozone (not specifically Floyd) were asked to make an appearance. They reminisce on their whirlwind romance, they get drunk, Floyd forces JD to remarry them. Creek wakes up the next morning with a brand new ring on his finger.

Creek’s first thought is that the rings look cheap, like they were the only ones they could get on such short notice, and he’s glad he never sold their original rings that he still has back in the mansion. Then, it sinks in that he has Floyd back. He means, that he’s back with Floyd. Which he feels totally neutral on. Negative, even. He’s definitely NOT thrilled that he’s got his perfect match back, and can stop trying to pretend to be someone he’s not. He hates Floyd. Grr! He gives up the act the second Floyd wakes up, and he sees Creek, and starts crying.

At first Creek thinks, aw shit, this was a mistake, we’re getting divorced again. He’s gonna be twice divorced before he’s 30, which is NOT a good look for him. Then they talk, for a while, until they’re on the same page. This IS what they both want. They want to be together. They want to constantly be at each others’ throats, sometimes literally. They want to always have to think, and plan, and make sure the other won’t come out on top. It’s more enriching for them than any other relationship could ever be. This is the first and probably only time they have ever been fully 100% honest with each other.

Except for the sex tape thing, obviously. Creek’s taking that to the grave.

They return to the mansion and Brad greets Floyd casually, as if it hadn’t been 3 1/2 months since they’ve seen each other. Angelina asks if this means they get to eat junk food again. Floyd arranges for a moving van to bring all his stuff back to the mansion that week, and Creek arranges for Brangelina to visit friends for the day.

Things settle down and after a week or two and you’d never even guess they divorced, if not for how they’re back in their honeymoon phase, and Creek has gone from insisting he feels nothing for Floyd to admitting he is psychosexually obsessed with him. He still says he’s straight, though. And Floyd is more than happy to live with that.

[luigihamilton44]

I think it’s interesting you are talking about Europe when I’m not European and didn’t mention Europe. I was talking about South America because I’m not watching the euros I’m watching copa. I mentioned Argentina in context of their neighbouring countries. It’s pretty telling you can’t make an argument for why Argentina is so much more racist than their neighbours and how that’s the reason out of all the countries in SA, it’s the one I’ll never support. And I’m a black Canadian (fam immigrated from Africa) fyi and the incident with fans when Canada played them recently is on my mind. People online always assumes everyone is a white American. Brazil has a horrible past as well and still has issues but is working on it. The work in Argentina is not mainstream enough for them to deserve the POC support they receive. And many of the players and fans themselves are sus and it’s not called out enough by their association for me to believe they’re working on it

1)I was talking about Europe in the post you mentioned. That's why I was making comparisons with Europe.

2) how was i supposed to know you are not from Europe, if you never mentioned anything. Because since my post was about Europeans specifically I just assumed you were one too.

3) I never said there isn't a racism problem on Argentina. Ofc there is, but demonizing millions of people isn't fair imho. Especially since I am in Europe and it's not as if we are in a position to talk, right?

4) what incident happened? It's not that people talk to much here about that, so I'd like to know. But it may sound very bad, but trust me I wouldn't trust the behaviour of hardcore football fans. 50 Italian people were arrested in Germany for bringing in the stadium home made bombs and hunting knives. And I won't talk about what the some fans from the Netherlands did when they come to Italy, because it would be too long. But the thing is, are Netherlanders and Italians all bad people? Ofc no.

4) linking to the third point, I did not point to the comparisons to other south American countries because in the last post the undertone of the post was about how Argentina is this unredeemable country. And now you are telling me "oh Brazil has a terrible past too but they are working on it rn". So it is not now just Argentina who made terrible things? As for the work they are making right now, Brazil is making a good job, there's nothing else to say here, but remember that until not more than 3 years ago they had bolsonaro and hell, if those weren't difficult times. To the looks of it the south Americans leader that look like are doing well are Gustavo petro in Colombia, Lula in Brazil, and the presidents of Bolivia and Chile. On the other hand.... Venezuela has Maduro, which is uncommentable tbh, and Paraguay can be really something. All of these words to say a) it's rude to assume other people are ignorant b) ofc Argentina is in a very bad moment and is doing with things badly. And with Milei things are likely to get worse. That said it doesn't mean there aren't good people in there, and no matter how much anybody insists, generalisations like that are dangerous. As for the NTs not calling out enough certain behaviours ohh, you are opening literally a can of worms. Expecting something from someone in the sports is like idk even how to make a good metaphor. Let's just say that I am happy when they talk about issues, like kylian did at the start of the euros, but generally I expect nothing. Being in F1 for instance teaches you that lesson very well. Or worse, I remember in the euros 2021 when every NTs were kneeling, the Italian team said that if the opponents did they would've done it as well, otherwise they wouldn't have. Was that bad? Yes. Did I expect anything better? No.

5) I detest people who hide behind words like "interesting". Write what you actually mean!! Say that I am an ignorant ass if you think so!! But, on the other hand, what do I expect from someone who hides behind anonymous? I already know you blocked me, so idk how much it's worth it. And I repeat, I won't make an argument about it's the team "you will never support", because you can support whatever you want, I literally don't care! If we wanna talk about Argentina be my guest, but about your interest I don't care very much, do as you please. But just, please, never make assumptions about people in general, as you think you know, it's very dangerous.

[polyamorouspunk]

Hi again Punk, so here's the issue I have with my partner (for some context we are American):

He's mentioned Palestinian people and immigrants (particularly people from Mexico) in a bad sense before, saying stuff like they shouldn't be coming here "breaking the law" and that he's "fine" with them coming "legally." He seems to be very misinformed in the situation in Palestine, having a low opinion of them too, and I don't know how to go about bringing up the proper info with him.

I feel like he'd come around if I informed him a bit, like with queer stuff (he's known he's bi before he met me, and I'm nonbinary and teaching him how to do better in referring to other trans folk, which I'm thankful he's willing and wanting to learn with that), it's just trying to find the right approach, if that's at all possible. He's weirdly patriotic, but also doesn't vote because he thinks its useless, and makes the argument of "What other country would you live in?" when I say I don't like living in the US.

Idk what to really do exactly. It really concerns me anytime he so much as mentions it offhandedly, but otherwise he's nice and chill and I don't want to cut contact with him. I just kind of want some outside opinions?

I mean some people have bad opinions, I know I have quite a few. One thing is just. Keeping them to yourself. Like yeah I might post a bad take here and there but the vast majority of things I just know well enough to keep my mouth shut about. “Not everything has to be a conversation” as my mom says.

If you try explaining something to someone, using examples and stuff, if you really work at it you can sometimes get them to come around. I’ve worked on my mom a bit to get her to realize like nooo we do not want a confederate flag license plate because that’s a symbol of systematic racism and therefore we do not want that. Etc. It’s taken time but it works most of the time. Not all the time, of course. It’s unreasonable to expect someone to automatically share your viewpoint as strongly as you do right off the bat.

However, there’s a difference between like. Choosing to date someone and being forced to live with my mom due to disability/finances. Like I can’t just dump my mom like I can a partner.

I’ve had friends who were homophobic treat me nicer than the gay people around us. I would rather take someone who is nice to me for me rather than actually abusive and bullying me but it’s fine because they’re also “woke” and “gay”.

You can date people with different opinions, but like. That’s kind of a strong one. Idk once again there’s a difference, to me, between “it’s fine if you think that me being gay is against the Bible but you’re the only person at this job who is nice to me so we’re going to be friends” vs like. Opinions that affect other people and not just me directly? If that makes sense.

I’m not going to tell you one way or another what you should do that’s just my thoughts.

[tailsrevane]

[tv review] tng "birthright" (1993)

6x16 “birthright, part 1”

it’s always nice to get a ds9/tng crossover. i get that they didn’t want to overdo it, but it really feels like this sort of thing could’ve happened more often if you ask me.

i liked a lot of the data subplot. there’s some great geordi/data friendship moments with geordi making sure data is making an informed decision about taking a risk to delve deeper into this aspect of his self-discovery, expressing discomfort where it’s warranted but ultimately abiding by data’s decision but also also making it very clear where the limits of his participation are. it’s just fucking great consent and a great example of how to responsibly be a supportive friend.

i also liked how data’s subplot crossed over into worf’s. worf being so deep in his head that he’s snapping at people & adding to the worf boot-shaped carpet grooves under his brooding window in ten forward but just immediately dropping his own shit to be fully present with his friend was one of those moments that makes worf one of my absolute favorite characters in the entire franchise.

this is ostensibly worf’s two-parter, and that’s certainly much more the case in part 2, but i gotta admit his part in the episode feels a bit underwhelming in part 1? ultimately, though, i think pairing these two plots together in part 1 was a wise choice. they complement each other quite well, and again the moment where the two plots meet is just one of my favorite tng moments. b-rank

6x17 “birthright, part 2”

look i knew going in that this one was gonna be kind of rough, and i know it’s not the first time it’s been touched on, but wow this episode casts worf as just the biggest fucking racist. as a fan of the character, it’s so disheartening.

like, look, i’m not saying you can’t have characters overcoming prejudice as part of their story. and it’s important that we leave the door open for people to feel like it’s something they can come back from. i just don’t think this episode does a good job of it.

the last time this was a major plot point was in “the enemy” when worf was asked to donate blood for a romulan and he struggled with it for the entire episode. despite that being three whole seasons ago, if we were to take this as gospel rather than consider it kinda bad writing, it would feel like worf has actually badly regressed in the space racism department. and that just doesn’t feel right for his character. he isn’t one to make the same mistake without examining what went wrong, nor is he one to shrink from a challenge. i really think he would have made more progress by now.

the only real “growth” worf experiences in this area is that he’s begrudgingly still attracted to ba’el despite her pointed ears, and just… i’m sorry? that is the fucking worst? like “oh, i can still find you sexually useful to me” is not the cure to racism that you fucking think it is, guys.

worf’s desire to bring klingon culture to these isolated children does lead to a few great moments of worf being his best self, though. i love his smirky reverse psychology goading people into wanting to hear his lessons. it’s just so him. and i’ve just always loved the way he uses his authority when teaching to encourage rather than discourage. his critiques are always in the form of “no, [immediately explains what you should do instead],” like he doesn’t even give you time to process the “no” before he’s helping you fix it, and he’s just as swift with praise as he is with correction. it’s so warm & so great.

so yeah, there are definitely things to appreciate about this episode, and there are a few vintage worf character moments, but i just don’t think it’s enough to make up for the damage it does to worf’s character. c-rank

[zuol]

Reconciliation with Men

So one thing I’ve been working on for some time is my reconciling my relationship with men. Because of awful experiences with people who happen to be men and who happen to have engaged in abusive behaviors with no accountability, my view of the gender has been clouded. There’s much more to it like misogyny and systemic issues regarding gender discrimination.

I’ve been thinking about it on a personal level, with how I interact with men. Or I should say people who happen to be men.

Ever since I attended a retreat at Deer Park Monastery in September, I’ve grown to be aware of my own wrong views. I see how I can be discriminatory towards the opposite and how it’s caused a lot of suffering for myself.

Once I realized that, I decided that I wanted to look deeply into why I think men are predatory, unaware, and untrustworthy.

There have been men I’ve known who have all those qualities. It was scary be in close proximity to them, as one was a teacher of mine back in high school. It was so uncomfortable being in his presence and I had decided that I never wanted anything to do with him. I found myself relieved after the academic school year was over, but then I found that moved to a different high school where my younger cousins were attending and I felt that uncomfortable feeling, knowing that he’s now teaching at a high school where my family members are attending.

Yuck.

I felt this way when I found that my ex-partner was seeing someone else. I felt bad for the person he was seeing because I thought about the terrible ways he had treated me during the relationship. I felt some relief knowing that I would no longer be experiencing that pathetic treatment.

I think about how I see heterosexual relationships and I’ve observed how different both genders approach relationships. It had seemed to me that the woman would give it her all and the man would continuously mistreat her once he got comfortable. I experienced this in my romantic relationship.

I was talking to my neighbor while we were on a walk with our dogs, and while I was describing how I wanted to reconcile with men, he had made a comment, stating that I probably got “burnt.” I laughed out loud, saying that was probably true.

There I was, having a conversation with someone I never could have imagined having a conversation with.

There was a time where I had avoided him because he said a few problematic, not to mention racist, things and did not do a good job at being a listener. Aka be a “good, proper” human being.

I had forgiven him after I didn’t speak to him for some time.

The more I got to know my neighbor, I could see his flaws, and I also learned from him in our conversations. He has a background in engineering, so it was helpful for me to hear what he had to say about the tech industry.

Examining my relationship with this individual, I could see how much I had opened up, and maybe how tolerant I’ve become.

I could elaborate on what I mean by tolerant.

If someone has said something irks me or puts me off, I can give myself space to think about why what they had said offended me. This doesn’t excuse their racism, or sexism, or even classism. But I can think more deeply about what had happened instead of reacting.

Practicing this has actually helped me cultivate healthier relationships with others, whether it’s family members, friends, and strangers. I think the most important thing is that I am cultivating a healthier relationship with myself :)! This makes me happy because I feel solid in myself, and not so moved by the opinions of others. I can have actual conversations (in other words, not judging every single thing the person I’m listening to says) and be… a better human being.

So, it’s never really about *men* anymore? But instead, it’s more about that individual human being and their behaviors. The habit of dualistic thinking can start shrinking, and I can give myself space to see things as they are.

Thank you to my loved ones who support me and care about me.

I #didnotproofread so I’m not sure if this entirely makes sense, but I wrote this for me.

:)

[mariamga2024mi4017]

Chapter 8

15/08/2024

Hi everyone. So, a little update for the day. I won't be reading chapters 9 - 11 today. I feel like I have overworked myself these 2 weeks and I want to give myself a break today.

I've been quite stressed out trying to figure out how to work for each module. And at the same time, I have been working on all of them. I think I might've reached a bit of a limit today. So I will focus on reading the rest of the chapters tomorrow For today I will only focus on chapter 8. If I feel up to it, I might start on some drawings for the other modules, but I can't confirm for sure.

These are the notes I wrote down while reading chapter 8: -

[In these notes, I have included quotes linked to the novel's themes, some points while reading the e-book, a list of the characters that weren't mentioned in the movie, incidents that weren't shown in the movie, etc. ]

Final thoughts/ opinions:-

I've found a new theme while reading this chapter. It is the theme of 'Isolation/loneliness'. We could even say it's a result of slavery. Platt [Solomon] had to experience moments of isolation when he was about to be whipped by Tibeats, [ Since Racheal and Mrs. Chapin were out of sight] and when he was hung to the tree.

[ In this instance, Chapin, Mrs. Chapin, and Racheal knew about Platt's situation. Racheal couldn't risk freeing Platt as a result of being a slave. If she tried to go against her master's wishes, she would receive harsh punishment. Even as people who were the superior party, Chapin and Mrs. Chapin did nothing to free Solomon. ]

I was surprised to learn that Platt was [in real life] sold to Tibeats for his carpentry skills. In the film, we see Tibeats as Ford's main carpenter. The disgusting attitude and mindset of the character remain the same in the film adaptation. Tibeats is actually one of the main characters in the novel who shows the readers the ugliness of racism. With racism, there's a lack of logic, respect, love, and humanness. Racism only brings upon illogical prejudice.

I was so glad to see that Eliza was alive after being taken away from the Ford plantation. In the film, the last time Platt sees Eiza is when she's taken away from the plantation as a result of being occupied in the sorrow of losing her children. So, we as the audience have no idea what happened to her afterward. Thankfully, in the novel, we get to know that she was sent to work in the Bayou Boeuf.

Another point I want to talk about is religion for the quote, "...the blasphemous tyrant called on God's mercy." As Platt/ Solomon said, "...he who had never shown mercy did not receive it."

As a Catholic who is somewhat familiar with the teachings of the Bible, what Solomon had mentioned was right. If you as a human don't show mercy to others, you will not receive it from God on the day of judgment. It's so ironic how a blasphemous person like Tibeats would call upon God during his times of trouble after inflicting 10 times worse pain and suffering onto innocent people. If you are unfamiliar with Christian teachings, the God mentioned in the Holy Bible is just, righteous, and full of love. He blessed humanity with free will and intellect. What you decide to do with that free will received, will help God to judge your life on earth. So, in Tibeats case, since he has used his free will to torture and ruin the lives of innocent Black men, women, and children, we already know he's not making it to heaven.

Lastly, I would like to conclude my thoughts with how ' slavery causes a blind eye to justice' and how 'Slavery leads to people being treated like property/objects'. [Inhuman treatment]

A blind eye to justice -

Again, the injustice part comes in mainly thanks to Tibeats. Platt, being his loyal slave, follows every instruction down to the book and gets the job done. However, Platt ends up receiving harsh punishment as a result of Tibeats' prejudice towards Platt. At any point, there is no justice for Platt.

Being treated like an object -

Chapin didn't save Platt in the thought that a fellow human was being tortured so it's his duty/responsibility to save him. Platt was saved as a result of Chapin protecting Ford's interest. The 400 dollar debt. That's the main reason why Chapin saved Platt.

[publicschooll]

Healing From Work-Related Trauma As A Black Woman

As a woman of color, I find it difficult to not have my identities intersect and affect multiple parts of my life simultaneously. My experience at my last employer is exactly this personified. As I've discussed on my personal TikTok page, I made the difficult decision to leave my job after working there for a little over 2 years. It pains me to be a habitual job hopper but it's my unfortunate reality. If you don't identify with a marginalized identity, then it's difficult to comprehend what the black experience in white corporate America is like. Goredema talks about the reason why many black workers job-hop.

Not everyone is having the same experience, but fatigue, exhaustion, frustration, and isolation are taking their toll and [SHRM] research data shows that.(Gonzales, 2022)

Black people and people of color in general often become teachers in roles that don't require them to teach. They become professors in all the isms, respectability politics, microaggressions, and overall professionalism. They take on the mental load that becomes physically exhausting.

Most white people have never had to look for people who look like them in an environment. They do not understand why representation is important because they've never experienced an absence of it. In my Racial Justice Fellowship at Rutgers University, we were painfully tasked with watching White People, a documentary on MTV. There was an interesting part in which there were almost exclusively white teachers who taught students on native land. The dichotomy between traditional educational structures and this one presented an interesting power dynamic. It required the teachers to assess not just race but colonialism with a different lens whereas if they taught in a traditional public school setting this would not be the case. Yet, this is another example of how people of color become teachers. Although the actual teachers should be teaching, they are learning bits and pieces of history from the students. The responsibility of teaching and mental anguish starts from a young age.

When you work in Human Resources, you are an advocate against the mistreatment of others while often being mistreated yourself. Companies bitch about desiring their teams to bring their authentic selves to work but my authentic self is having uncomfortable conversations about race and not talking about why my hair grew 12 inches since the last time you all saw me. But on to the thoughts..

These thoughts are written from my perspective as a black woman but may be useful to anyone experiencing trauma at work and needing to heal.

1. Speak up even if you are afraid of losing your job. (And document)

There were so many instances where I talked myself out of speaking up or waited until something had gotten way out of hand before saying anything. Don't just be vocal in meetings or in person, make sure to keep an electronic trail as well. Send fully fleshed re-caps. Link articles to support your point. Repeat if you need to. Your voice could prevent someone else from experiencing the same thing. Ask for the things that you need. Companies are constantly dishing out disparate treatment, ask! And if you are declined, remind them that you know they've done these things before and can do it for you.

2. Organizations hire racists, and you don't have to accept it.

I changed my original text about organizations being racist. Of course, there are some organizations that were built on racism, slavery, and oppression like Unilever but most organizational culture at companies is built by the people. It's not a stand-alone institution. Companies do hire racists and you don't have to work somewhere that does. There came a point when I compared my then-current state to my past ones. I would often say at least I'm not in a basement(I was stuck in a basement for like 4 hours twice a week as a consultant). Or, at least I'm not the ONLY black person(I would become the only black person in HR or in my role at several companies). Or at least the racism is packaged in microaggressions(I was asked for feedback and then told I always have something to say). I wrote about the illusion of inclusion nearly 2 years ago, and unfortunately, this concept still rings true. There is no value in accepting the lesser of two evils, especially when it comes to your mental health.

3. Workplace trauma is not your norm, nor should it ever be.

As a society, we've normalized hustle culture, working crazy hours, and chasing the bag amongst many other ridiculous things. When you're accustomed to living in chaos, it becomes a component of who you are. It becomes embedded in your personality.

Repeated micro-aggressions in the workplace and in some cases outright retaliation and bullying that induces trauma (Gorgla, 2020)

Dealing with an erratic narcissist became a regular occurrence for me. Before I left my position at my most recent employer, I reviewed old emails that were obviously a cry for help from this person at "it again" with no one to curtail their behavior. After almost a year, it turned into textbook retaliation that occurred until the end of my duration there. Citing that during my last week, this individual removed me from meetings to prevent me from saying farewell.

4. Remember that we are not trying to convince them to change, simply pointing out the error of their ways.

This was so helpful to me later on after the onset of frustration. We know the world is inherently racist, and it's not likely that I am going to change the racism that lives inside of someone. But, my goal in advocating for myself is to let them know that the behavior is not acceptable. PERIOD.

5. If you can afford to, take time off and touch grass, seriously.

If your job can not grant you a leave of absence and you're able to negotiate a severance or get some sort of unemployment income to leave, take it! My first month was an adjustment. I hadn't known life without chaos in such a long time it was hard to figure out what to do. Part of my personality became this job and I clearly had Stockholm syndrome. I had no idea what to do without my abuser. This is month 3 of leaving my job and I've accomplished so much. I am slowly remembering bits and pieces of myself pre-job and even discovering new interests as a result.

If you are experiencing some of the things mentioned in this post and would like to chat, feel free to hit the ask button or message me on social media. Also, know your rights. Discrimination and harassment are illegal and in most cases, retaliation is a form of harassment. I always recommend taking legal action. Not enough of us do.

[herorps]

shadow and bone and racism

shadow and bone just came out so i can now finally break my silence bc holy shit do they go ham on the racism and me being me, i just have to tell you all about it. possible spoilers and triggers for anti-asian racism and microaggressions.

to preface, i was very privileged to receive a screener for the entire first season last month and i was actually excited to watch it bc i have friends who love the books and the show piqued my interest since it was announced. and i also have to say that i never read the books and i probably never will ( tho i’ve been told i would like soc ) but i did like the show overall. 

i think sab is a good adaptation and that the fans will like this show. i thoroughly enjoyed it and as someone who had very little to almost no knowledge about the books, i didn’t have trouble keeping up with the fantastical world. 

however that doesn’t mean i can’t be critical of it. 

i think the show can actually benefit from people being critical about it because so far, it feels like they took a very tone deaf direction and ran a marathon with it. 

what i’m talking about, is alina starkov being half-shu. 

now, i said before that my interest was piqued for this show when it was announced and one of the major reasons is the casting of biracial actress, jessie mei li, in the role of alina starkov. i can’t tell you how happy i was to see that a half-chinese actress was cast as the lead in a series based on such a beloved ip, especially since the creators of the show consciously changed alina’s ethnicity to be half-shu before casting calls were even sent out. ( for those of you who are also non-book readers, shu is the race of people from the country, shu han, and is based off primarily mongolian and chinese cultures ) 

so i was endeared with the idea that this character, that is coded white, was deliberately changed to be coded asian ( and coded mixed race to boot ) because the producers wanted to include diversity into the show. i commend that, i love that, i support that. but i believe the way they handled it, shouldn’t have been the way they handled it. and it’s because alina’s race is constantly brought up. 

obviously of course race is going to be brought up at some point. alina in the show is surrounded by white people when we first see her, and her home country of ravka does have a hostile history with shu han----i get it. racism is going to play a part in alina’s story. but it doesn’t necessarily need to go so far as to constantly remind the audience that she is shu in almost every interaction she has with someone she meets. 

and that’s a big part of the issue, is that nearly everyone she meets will bring up the fact that she’s part-shu. and a lot of the time, it’s said with hostility. now i’m not exactly sure if i’m just being particularly sensitive because of certain recent events, but the anti-asian racism hits differently these days. idk. 

because that’s what it is, at the end of the day. it’s racism. alina is often the target of very hostile racism and it seems to mainly be directed at her character and her character only. 

and honestly, on a surface level it makes sense, i sort of understand what the producers are trying to do. ravka has a turbulent history with shu han and were involved in wars with them and they’re often seen as the enemy so obviously that would affect a shu-mixed person growing up in ravka, a very white country. but on a deeper level, it reminds me a lot of the anti-japanese sentiments during wwii. the production team even created a banner that i felt called back to those anti-japanese propaganda of that era. ( mind you it was shown multiple times, in main focus, and acknowledged by characters that were coded shu ) 

but on the other hand, they’ve done a considerable job to diversify at least the ethnic makeup of ravka. there are black and brown grisha at the school and there are people of different cultures ( noted by costuming, etc. ) in ketterdam and there’s even a shu-appearing trainer that teaches the grisha to fight. so my question is, why is this very hostile treatment primarily geared toward shu people and geared toward alina specifically? it just doesn’t make sense to me. 

and when i say it’s specifically geared toward alina, i mean that it’s very apparent that they’re targeting her specifically, because mal  ( played by a possibly mixed-race archie renaux ) is also coded to be of mixed shu blood. while it is not explicitly stated that mal is shu, it is heavily implied that he is mixed, but he is never subject to the treatment that alina is, and the only times he is subject to racism is when alina is also present. in scenes where we see alina and mal as kids, they are often both referred to as “mutts” or “half-breeds”. but when they are older, only alina is continuously called those things. 

this isn’t even touching the microaggressions she faces after she’s at grisha school and this one line that made my gut wrench so viscerally i had to pause the episode and replay the part so i could confirm what i heard. [ episode 3 spoiler warning ] i’m trying to avoid posting screenshots or from spoiling parts of the show but there’s a scene where alina is being cleaned up and made presentable by servants and one of them says “I’d start by making her eyes less Shu.” [ end episode 3 spoiler ] i don’t think i have to explain to anyone how offensive that is. and i understand that the intention was to show how racist this servant is, that the entire point of of this weird racism plot is to show how the people of ravka can be racist and ignorant, but to have that line be written by a white writer, approved by a white showrunner and said by a white character to the face of an asian actor/character feels very tactless. it feels like another antagonist alina has to go against is racism itself. 

what also turns me off about this scene is that jessie mei li revealed that this scene is what actresses had to audition with. “...the sides that they sent for the audition, like Alina is talking to Genya and they’re talking about her eyes and they’re talking about her Shu ancestry.” having actresses of mixed-asian ancestry come in and act out that scene for white producers doesn’t really sit right with me. and i know that there’s an argument to be had about how it’s important to show the minutia of what it’s like to be ethnic in a world ruled by white supremacy and that it’s important to show how alina’s race affects her story, but i don’t think that going this far is necessary to the development of plot or character. 

and i don’t personally know jml, i don’t know how she feels about the show apart from what she’s probably briefed to talk about in interviews, but it is perfectly valid for me to feel iffy about the microaggressions while she feels that it’s necessary for character development ( again, this is just an example, i have no clue what she thinks of the racism ). our experiences are different, our upbringings are different, but we’re both happy to see representation and i’m happy that she’s happy to see an actual mixed-chinese character on screen as the lead. 

i’m glad that the producers were open to diversity and were open to making the lead a person of color, but it’s things like the treatment of shu characters and exchanges like “Tell her...Oh, I don’t know...good morning.” “I don’t actually speak Shu.” and “I didn’t know the Zemeni had such talent.” “She’s Suli.”  ( zemeni is a race of “dark-skinned” people and suli are coded south asian/mena/wena so this exchange is just white people mixing the brown people up )  that remind me the majority of the writers and producers are white. 

now i’m not saying that you should boycott the show or that this show is the most problematic thing to ever grace my retinas, because i really enjoyed watching it and i want to see what season 2 has in store ( more crows content please ). but, i want you all to please keep all of this in mind when you watch the series and think critically of what kinds of unconscious biases these producers had. you’re allowed to have nuanced opinions, you’re allowed to be critical of the media you enjoy so long as you understand where some people’s criticisms are coming from---where my criticisms are coming from. i just hope in future seasons the treatment of alina gets better and that she actually learns to love her shu side because otherwise it’s just going to be problematic as the show continues. 

[rosalind-of-arden]

If you take out the automata, the alchemy, and the conspiracies for world domination, The Great Library is just higher education in modern America

Based on a conversation with @thegreatlibraryfangirl

The most evil teacher is just fucking exhausted because he can't find a tenure-track position, has no time for the research he really wants to do because he's stuck teaching 100-level classes, and doesn't have adequate mental health insurance coverage to get his PTSD properly treated.

No one ever says it's homophobia or racism, but somehow Wolfe always gets the shit classes, has the worst office location, and never gets research funding, while the straight white guys keep getting promotions and tenure and research funding. Wolfe was his department’s diversity hire, and his department chair will not forgive him for failing to be properly grateful for having a job at such a prestigious university at all. He was supposed to be the token gay brown professor, not to stand up for himself or angrily demand changes in curriculum meetings.

Santi, Wolfe’s more traditionally masculine cop partner, gets paid more than him, gets better benefits than him, gets more respect than him, but keeps getting asked to do things that are just a little unethical and feeling pressured to do them because he knows they'll be homeless without his job (and they’ll lose his health insurance, which might not cover Wolfe’s PTSD adequately, but it’s a lot better than nothing).

Go break up that student protest, whatever it takes? Santi is hoping the students will disperse quietly because he really can't say no to the boss.

"Nic, can you tell that boyfriend of yours to stop showing up at those protests? If he doesn't settle down, we're going to have to arrest him. And it's making you look bad." Santi is bristling at boyfriend and knows how unhappy Wolfe will be, but what can he do? They need his job to survive.

Then Wolfe is sitting there in his tiny basement office with an angry Jess, trying to say, "I really want to help get Morgan out of trouble, but if they catch me involving myself in this, they're probably arresting me and firing my partner and then my PTSD is going to spiral out of control and kill me" without actually saying that.

What is Morgan in trouble for? Protesting the college’s handling of sexual harassment and assault cases on campus. Gregory, Dean of Something or Other, adored by upper administration because his filthy rich family gives very large donations to the university, tried to coerce her into sleeping with him. She reported it, only to have the case swept under the rug because “think of his career. He’s such an important member of the community. It must have been a misunderstanding.” She found out she’s not the only one. She will not be quiet about it.

Frustrated at being told there was no proof Gregory did anything wrong, Morgan hacked his emails and posted a file full of incriminating evidence to the campus Facebook group. She did it with a throwaway account, but the university suspects her and very much wants her caught and charged with felony hacking.

The university asks Wolfe to look into this, of course. Remembering how Gregory used to harass him back when he was a student, Wolfe quietly slips more of Gregory’s passwords to Morgan, while insisting to his bosses that he can’t find any evidence at all.

Santi’s boss wants him on the case, too. Santi doesn’t know how long he can stall before he’s forced to arrest Morgan. “Just grab her at one of those protests,” his boss says. “Bring her in for rioting, we’ll get her to confess to the rest.” He doubts they’re going to do that with legal tactics. He knows what happens to cops who report things like that, and keeps his mouth shut.

Thomas was the star student in the engineering department, until he turned in an assignment that got him flagged as “dangerous.” It didn’t occur to him that the robot he designed had military applications, but it was a very convenient excuse for his department chair to put him on a watch list. When he gets arrested at one of Morgan’s protests, the chair of the engineering department is happy to bail him out, if he'll just do some work on a special project or two... or twenty.... Thomas practically lives in the engineering department offices now. He has no free time. But if he doesn’t do this, he’s looking at terrorism charges, with that robot he designed as evidence against him.

Khalila is an astrophysics major, easily the top student in the school. She’s going to graduate with honors, she already has offers for fully funded graduate positions at 3 universities, this one included, and job offers from NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin. She’s doing a research project on recent space shuttle designs when suddenly, suspiciously, every faculty member starts encouraging her to shift her project in a different direction. Why can’t anyone seem to find a copy of that paper on that shuttle design that NASA suddenly, mysteriously, scrapped? She just wanted to see what was wrong with it and apply that to newer designs.

She finds herself in Wolfe’s tiny basement office, asking him about a strange database error. “This is a waste of time,” Wolfe says. “Those other professors are right. You’re going to ruin your career digging into these kinds of failed projects,” he says, while wondering whether and how to slip her the evidence he’s just uncovered that Elon Musk bribed government officials to bury that perfectly good shuttle design in favor of a SpaceX one.

Glain is a criminal justice major, planning a police career. She understands why people keep telling her that she needs to stay away from Morgan’s protests, but she hates it. Protests are legal. The cops should be going after Gregory. She’s sick of hearing from the campus cops that she needs to be careful who she’s seen hanging out with.

Dario is a filthy rich exchange student from Spain. He was just here for a year of studying abroad, but he’s fallen in love with this gorgeous, genius astrophysics major, and now he’s wondering if he’s going to have to call in favors with his cousin at the embassy because he’s about to get arrested helping Khalila get her hands on some documents. He says he hates his roommate, Jess, but he just paid to bail Jess out of jail, and he’s on the phone with his cousin asking about lawyers.