#anxieties

[classycookiexo]

[error501blog]

Race, Live-Action Casting, and Ninjago

I'll start by saying something everyone can agree on.

No Chris Pratt.

Now that's out of the way I want to state my purpose for this rant. It's to spark discussion. I want to hear other people's ideas and perspectives. I'm one Asian American out of literal billions. I know after typing everything out I'll feel bad, but this feels like a discussion the fandom needs to address. Every perspective is worth considering and thinking through.12

I'm not worried about the casting. Warner Bros. is a big studio that doesn't want any negative press. At least, Kai and Nya are going to be Asian. I'm worried about the other Ninja, mainly Lloyd. But I think the studio doesn't want to be cancelled, so that's not my number one worry. My number one worry is Garmadon. If Garmadon is in the movie, will his skin be literally black? his can be sidestepped if Garmadon isn't included period. But the Hagemans love their emo dad. Still, I don't want blackface Garmadon.

My theory is the casting will have a similar model to what Avatar did in it's live action. There were white voice actors, now they're played by a diverse cast. Kiawentiio is amazing, but not as tan as Katara was in the animated series. (That's a discussion within itself) There was a controversy with Ian Ousley. I'm not going to get into those topics, but they did happen.

However, the worry for many comes from the fact Ninjago is more racially ambiguous than Avatar: The Last Airbender. Almost all the characters-with exceptions being the Water Tribes and Sun Warriors-are Asian. Avatar: The Last Airbender has characters with a variety of skin tones and facial features. Ninjago has almost all of it's characters with yellow skin. Which is typical for LEGO, but feels iffy in an Asian inspired world. The fact everyone has yellow skin lends to an almost race blind world. However, names come from countries. Completely human characters have blond/ginger hair. Lloyd and Master Wu have blond hair. Master Wu is especially weird because he has the aesthetic of the Hollywood wise old Asian martial arts teacher there to help the protagonist. But he's blond.

In a cartoon I can suspend my disbelief. In the show I can't see facial features. Everyone in Ninjago has the same eyes, unless if you're a robot, one of the very few women, or Lloyd. I can live with this in an animated show from the 2010s.

In live action films, there are close-up shots. People will stand next to each other. I know what real life people look like when I'll see the movie. This shouldn't matter to me. I shouldn't care so much, but the history of whitewashing roles in media is too vast. We interpret the world through race.

White is the default in the US. Examples being Ghost in the Shell Warriors TV series. Asian roles for media set in Asia for Asian roles are cast by white people with white people since 1961.

What I want to know is the world of the live action going to be Asian inspired? And the better question: should it?

I don't know.

Ninjago since day 1 has had a tenuous at best relationship with race. It is clearly in an Asian inspired world. Everyone knows Ninjas come from Japan. However, it's just an aesthetic.

The worldbuilding is very Western. If we compare to Avatar again, there is no use of any Asian philosophy in Ninjago. Avatar is chalked full of allusions to Buddhism and Japanese Imperialism. But, Avatar is a more well thought out show than the show where one of the main characters gets sent into another dimension and becomes evil, violates the Geneva convention then is given no acknowledgement and I hate it.

Ninjago when giving us culture that seems Asian inspired to me fails spectacularly. (The Kabuki from Chen's Island. That's a Tumblr rant within itself) The most obvious example being the yin and yang marriage proposals. They have Google! The writers could've gone down an internet rabbit hole for a variety of cultures. But we have this clumsy, "Will you be the Yin to my Yang?" It's stupid and I hate it.

However, Ninjago in the Wildbrain era started to move away from the Asian aesthetic. One could make the argument it started in Rebooted, but I'm saying Wildbrain era to keep this post short. We go to a pyramid in Secrets of Forbidden Spinjitzu. We meet the Ice people from the Never Realm which I think are inspired by the Inuit. I'm not too sure.

Dragon's Rising has done away with any resemblance to Asian culture. Sora is Japanese name, so maybe? But all the resemblance is from the old show. It's a fantasy show. They are a soft reboot. They could make their dragons look like literally anything in this soft reboot and they stick to the Western style ones. It's this big fantasy world, why am I not seeing any allusions Asian folklore?

But can't I blame Ninjago when they fumble so hard when they try. It's a lose lose situation. But research isn't worth it. Is a culture too inconvenient to even research? Because everything seems absorbed from other pieces of American media. Yin Yang has nothing to do with marriage-at least to my knowledge. It has to do with Daoism. There is no research or attempt. The show hasn't done a legitimate attempt in it's full run and that's sad.

We're seeing that when the Hageman brothers write they don't shy away from the Asian aspects of the world. Or maybe there was less understanding of Asian representation when the show first aired so they could do whatever they wanted. (And Wildbrain and Dragons Rising are more popular so have higher stakes if they fuck up too bad) This is racist, but it isn't coming from hatred. It's coming from ignorance. If this came from hatred why make a show about ninjas?

The Hageman brothers have demonstrated ignorance in their writing. I've been saying Asian instead of specific countries because everything is so monolithic in the show. It would be amazing to have this world for a big franchise shown to kids around the globe. (Especially to Americans who might not watch a show with an authentic cultural world if it didn't tie to Ninjago) But that's not going to come from them. It's never going to come from them.

Authentic Asian representation was lost when the writers were picked. I have no doubt there'll be sensitivity readers, but there'll most likely be a cultural erasure. I'm not mad at the Hagemans. I'm not even mad at Hollywood. But I'm disappointed in Warner Bros.

Please respond with your own opinion. If you agree or disagree with any of my points. Hell, if I said something racist let me know. I want this post to get people thinking and talking about their own opinions on casting and writing.

[saccharinehell]

I am scared of sleeping and I am scared of waking up. I am scared of my future and my past and also of my feelings. I'm always scared of everything. I hate that.

[metaphor-for-the-dead]

But we're not really that close anymore, are we?

[avoicebehindthestars]

How can a show save life?

Someone has asked me that question recently. And I realised I didn't use to get it either. I thought it was an exaggeration, a way to express the love for the show. But then it happened to me…

For the past 4 years I've been struggling with depression caused by external factors (meaning it isn't just down to my brain's messed up chemistry). My living conditions went down the drain without much warning and due to legal complexities, there is nothing I can do about it. My life was reduced to mindless day-to-day existence with zero joy in it, just shuffling one foot in front of another with no hope of it ever getting better. You can guess where my thoughts often wandered. I won't admit it out loud (I have learnt through painful experience how dangerous that is in my country), but I won't deny it either.

And then came Good Omens and it was like getting shocked back to life with a defribrillator. The night I watched s2 finale my brain immediately went into overdrive and I hyperfixated with the intensity I'd never known before (and mind you, I've had plenty of hyperfixations over decades!). It's been many, many years since I'd graduated from university (I majored in literature) and for the first time since, I wanted to pick a narrative apart, analyse every detail I could find, while at the same time constantly daydreaming about Aziracrow. Whenever anxieties and despair came, I now had an escape, a mental safe space to distract me and lift me back up.

I think people underestimate the power of storytelling. The great Polish epic Pan Tadeusz was a massive hit when it was published because Poland had just been partitioned and the narrative told of days gone-by and happier times. It was an escape from the overwhelming, depressing reality, and a place of comfort. When Poland got its first translation of Winnie the Pooh, the translator (a talented poet) had taken many liberties, making it much smoothed-over and more elegant and fluffy than the original - again, it was an instant hit to brighten the grim reality of the II World War Poland. When Jews were forced into labour camps in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, they read contraband books and shared them in secrecy, risking punishment.

So when someone tells you a show saved their live, consider they might mean it. Perhaps they watched it to distract themselves from heartbreak or loneliness, and maybe they found comfort in the fandom. Perhaps they daydreamed about the story to make each depression-ridden day a bit lighter. Perhaps as they succumbed to darkness, they imagined a fictional angel (or demon) holding their hand and offering them a caring embrace.

[mistborn-catgirl]

Prayer request. I don't think I've ever really done this before, hopefully Christian/Catholic Tumblr is chill with it. But boy. I don't know what's going on exactly. I want to be delivered from my worries about the future and about friends. And I want people to stop being scared of me.

[seedsense]

The ability to move on!

Stop ... Breathe ... Feel

Recenter !

What do you feel?

A little anxious ! But I know I have me.

Surrendering into inner space.

I'm here... exhale...

I'm grateful in the middle of the unknown because I choose to. ✨️

[tinposter]

i always feel so weird for making ocs for medias that have smaller sets of characters. like- a stardew valley oc? COOL! you already technically make an oc playing the game anyway! but UNTIL DAWN? thats CRINGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gallagher2107]

who am I without a war?

war is my mother.

war is my father.

war taught me how to love.

I want to stop fighting, but war is who I've become.

[randomreasonstolive]

Reason to Live #9468

  Pushing through anxiety to accomplish my goals!  – Guest Submission

(Please don't add negative comments to these posts.)

[t3mpest98]

I should not be awake right now but alas

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

[kisha-myers]

Fem!reader - Ghost x König x reader fanfiction titled 'My Anxious Mouse'

Disclaimer: I do NOT own call of duty nor its characters/operators - I only own the plot.

If you want to be on the tag list for this series PLEASE comment on either chapter 1 or chapter 4 and let me know!

TW: DEPICTIONS OF TRAFFICKING, BLOOD AND GORE, VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

Chapter Six: Nightmare from Hell

Warmth, that's what you felt against your bare skin as you awoke. The sun beamed down on you, it's rays of light coaxing your skin to deepen in coloration slightly. You sat up slowly, head foggy as you tried to remember where you were - this wasn't the military base you'd passed out in. You were nestled under a swaying date palm tree, the sweltering heat curved slightly from the miniscule shade it provided you. There was no wind to aid in cooling you down, you noted, climbing to your feet and wincing at the biting burn of the sand against your skin. You never liked the feeling of it, the way the little granules settle themselves into every available orifice of your body - bothered you immensely. It reminded you of the time you had to help you mom make churros, the cinnamon sugar mixture coating your little fingers, grating against your skin causing it to redden slightly from irritation. You wished you had shoes, even socks, to protect your feet from not only the blistering heat the sand absorbed, but from its grating texture.

Your right hand fanned your face as your eyes scanned your surroundings, sweat already coating your skin, the small droplets slithering down your back causing your shirt to stick uncomfortably. A few scattered date palms stood tall over ruined houses, smoke still rising in the distance from a few of them. Rapid pops in the distance off to the right captured your attention, the resounding reverberating booms that followed shook the ground, making your already precarious knees even weaker. Iraq, your mind realized, you were left to your own devices in Iraq - a hostile territory for Americans, even more so for women such as yourself. Your eyes watered as you frantically searched your memory for anything that would explain why you were here of all places, hands shaking tremendously as you came up blank for an answer.

A joke you had hoped, but quickly that notion was washed away as shouts in arabic filtered into your consciousness. Hide, that little voice in your mind screamed at you, demanding you remove the dark colored sweater and abandon the offending material somewhere amongst the sand before the terrorists could see you. You fought with yourself for only a moment, coming to the conclusion that it would be smarter to remove the material but keep it with you as you knew the nights here in the desert dropped in temperature rather quickly. You could also use it as a shield for your eyes during sandstorm should that ever happen to you - you hoped it didn't, but you weren't stupid by any means.

You removed Königs sweater quickly, wadding it up into a ball and tucking it under your arm like a quarterback does with a football, and took off towards the first set of ruined homes located to your left. Running in sand, you realized, was about as easy as walking a straight line for the police whilst heavily intoxicated. Your feet burned viciously, it was as if you were scrambling through smoldering coals - they slipped more often then not, causing you to stumble with damn near every step. Your tears fell freely now, cascading down your flushed sun kissed skin with ease as panic nestled its wicked claws inside your chest. The shouting was getting louder, the cracking of rifles firing off shot after shot and sub machine guns popping off overwhelming your ears. Sweat dripped off your nose as you slipped again, your hands instinctively thrusting forwards to catch yourself as your knees buckled and crashed against the blazing sand. A sob ripped from your chest, the little voice inside your head roaring in agonized screams, demanding you get up and continue forwards - now was most certainly not the time to feel pity for yourself and these rather unfortunate circumstances. Your muscles tensed as you pushed yourself onto unsteady legs, eyes bleary from the never ending torrent of tears that practically drowned you. Your teeth bit mercilessly into your inner cheek, jaw clenching tightly to keep the sobs that wrecked through your chest silenced lest the enemy find you. Blood pooled in your mouth, making your stomach heave, rejecting the iron infused viscous liquid as soon as you choked it down. Your jaw popped audibly as you gagged, fighting to keep down the bile that coated the back of your throat.

Your feet thankfully carried you inside the ruined remnants of what looked to be a family home, eyes constantly swiveling in search for the ultimate hiding spot where you could remain undetected and protected. The roof was practically blown all the way off, ash and soot covering the floor as stone and pieces of debris sliced into the bottoms of your feet. The pain wasn't registered by your conscious, your brain fully in survival mode pushing your pain receptors to remain off until you were out of immediate danger. You stumbled through what you'd declare the living room, body buzzing on pure adrenaline as you searched the rubble for anything useful. You were an ignorant American for the most part, having been taught at a young age that middle easterners were savages, it was inaccurate now that you were older.

Bloodied footprints followed you wherever you went mixing in with the ash that covered the ground - in the far recess of your mind you knew you would have to tend to your wounds soon to keep away an infection, but that wasn't a priority at this moment. Just as your trembling hands were about to lift up a splintered beam, jumbled shouting reached your ears just outside of where you were currently. Your eyes widened in fear and trepidation, mind scrounging up the most ghastly of images to play out in your mind of victims you'd seen - all their faces however, replaced with yours instead. Your mind screamed once more, declaring that if you didn't leave now, they'd find you and most certainly would carve your flesh like a turkey on Thanksgiving day.

With deft fingers you tied the overly large sweater around your waist securely, tucking the ends into your shorts and grimacing at the uncomfortably coarser texture against your sensitive flesh. Once finished, you turned and ran with all your might towards the other end of the home, leaping over fallen walls and dodging low hanging pieces of the ceiling. You scrambled faster, scurrying like a rabbit, zigzagging your way about the destroyed home looking for a safe exit. Step after excruciating step you went, your chest heaving from the exertion, heart pounding so hard you were afraid it would simply give out. You were their prey, a small mouse being lured into a trap by the ferocious feline, ready to be feasted upon in the worst of ways. You'd never felt such intense fear before, if you had had a full bladder, you were sure you'd have urinated on yourself by now.

More shouting behind you kicked your body into overdrive, eyes locking onto a demolished glass surrounded window off in the room to your right. You couldn't hesitate, 'hesitation gets you killed', you father had drilled into you over and over again, 'observe, think, react - survive at all costs' his gravely voice reminded you. You did just that, running with everything you had and practically throwing yourself out of the window. Pain lacerated it's way through your right shoulder as you landed hard onto the shards of broken glass on the other side, an anguished yelp released itself from your lips as you forced yourself up. Blood glided down your arm, thick crimson drops bathing the beige silica sand with their vibrancy. You couldn't stay there, you were still being hunted - running was your only option left and you knew, just from Dantes letters alone that if there were scouts on foot, there would be snipers in the ridges watching everything.

Perhaps that was how they knew where you were, watching your every move and waiting to close in on you. You were a small female, ripe for the taking - perfect to clean up and sell to the highest bidder or simply be used and abused by the men that would ultimately capture you. Your fate, you surmised, was already sealed though your tiny voice inside refused to accept that. It coaxed you onward, taking control over your wayward limbs and pushing you onward. Shots rang out, and this time you didn't remain silent. A scream filed with so much terror ripped through your chest, stealing the breath within your lungs as you went. One after another tumbled consecutively, until a body slammed into you from behind.

You felt time slow down significantly, almost as if someone had changed the setting on the television to slow motion. You felt thick arms wrap around your waist, lifting you up and turning you so whomever was behind you could take the brunt of the impact against the sand. You felt rather than heard the grunt your attack released as they landed, your limbs flailing about as you struggled to free yourself from their grasp. Hands reached out to restrain you, a heavily accented though familiar voice shouting over your agonized screams, trying desperately to gather your attention.

It wasn't until cold water doused your raging inferno of panic that you finally came to, eyes shooting open as you flew forwards sputter and choking on the offending liquid. Your eyelids blinked rapidly, the blurriness slowly fading as you took in your surroundings. Johnny knelt beside you on the bed, his arms securely around your trembling form, eyes a swirling mess of worry and panic. König stood at the foot of the bed, his hands clenched tightly into fists by his sides as his muscles tensed visibly. Ghost stood just behind Johnny, an empty glass in his hand as he gave you a quick once over. Your chest heaved rapidly, your mind trying to calm the frantic erratic beating of your heart as you chanted 'I'm safe' just under your breath.

"Aye lass, y'alright now, I've gotcha. I'not goin' nowhere." Johnny's calmed Scottish brogue filtered into your right ear. You leaned into his warmth, unaware of how viciously you were shivering.

"J-just a b-bad d-dre-dre-am." You stuttered out with a sniffle, your hands desperately rubbing against the thin military issued blanket that lay crumbled in your lap, "I-i w-as th-the-re J-joh-johnny, i-i-i-in ir-raq." You cried, turning to look up at him, "I wa-was a-al-all alo-lone, and the-they fou-ound m-me." You sobbed, burrowing your face into his chest and wrapping your arms around his thick waist. Ghost and König shared a look, opting to go wait outside the door to allow you two to have some privacy.

The Scot rubbed soothing circles into your back, whispering comforting words into your ear until you were calm. His cologne, you noted, was different. Notes of pine and spearmint filling your nostrils as you inhaled deeply, undertones of the earth just after it rains and freshly cut spruce helped ease your discomfort.

You weren't okay by any means, but at least nestled within Johnny's arms you knew you were safe... and in a moment like this, that's all you could ask for.

Author's Note: I'm so sorry it's so short! It's late and I'm exhausted and wanted some angst - I promise to do better with tomorrow's chapter! I hope you'll comment your thoughts, constructive criticism is very much welcomed and appreciated!

Tag List:

@lianyanhongcheng

@treehuggingzealot

@kdkj122920

@grizzersmamma

@ofmenanduhhhwellmen

@lovefallingtopieces

@scaredknight

[thoughtsofamanicmind]

Sorry I haven’t been posting much - I’ve had to exist and it’s wearing on me.

[metaphor-for-the-dead]

I wasn't supposed to make it to my twenties... Now I'm over halfway through them, and I don't really know what to do with my life.