#but that is not an excuse to invalidate the real survivors of these issues who use fiction to help rationalise and cope

[sysmedsaresexist]

hey fellas it's me again

systemscringe is using this horrible essay (https://text.is/pluralkit-) to say that systems shouldn't use pk (and by extension simply plural) even though it's blatantly wrong, promotes the "evil alter" stereotype at the end, and DOESN'T EVEN HAVE AN AUTHOR

this stupid essay made me think that sp wasnt something i should use (and sure, its not good for SOME people, but it can be helpful, and it is for me). now that i am using it ive been able to learn more about my system and fronting triggers and i really dont want any other systems to go through what i did.

i would debunk it myself but i feel like yall have more reach than i do, and i also know youre more researched than me and would be able to do a better job.

if u could help that'd be great :)

Sigh. Systemscringe back at it again, making things more difficult for literally everyone. First things first:

Pluralkit, Simplyplural, and anything similar are NOT inherently harmful to people who dissociate.

They’re also not inherently helpful, either.

To say they are always harmful will confuse people on how to recognize the signs of increased dissociation. That makes it harder for people who are actually harmed by using these things to get help. It also invalidates people who are genuinely helped by these tools. These tools do not inherently prevent integration. For some people, tools like these can help them recognize and work with their systems, which is necessary for reducing dissociation.

"To be an integrated human, as Dan Siegel (2010) insists, requires 'differentiation—with linkage,' that is, it necessitates the ability to make distinctions between different parts of the self, to name them as parts, but also to link them to other parts and to the whole of which they are a part." - Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors, by Janina Fisher, Page 21

To say that Real Dissociative(tm) people don’t use these tools is utterly false, a bad excuse to fakeclaim people, and they know it; these tools are popular as hell in the online community, and many people, even people who eventually found them harmful, have used them. Can we please put this “faker” shit to rest so that actual productive conversations can be had?

Personally, I think that there's a lot of things to critique about both pluralkit and simplyplural (hereafter just called pk/sp). They're not perfect -- nothing is! I'd love to have a nuanced discussion about how they can be helpful and harmful to different people and why, but often it feels like I can't have discussions like that. Not when just using pk/sp gets entire subreddits calling you a faker, not when systems who simply dislike pk/sp get called "sysmeds," not when we approach these things as either Always Good or Always Bad.

In reality, how helpful or harmful pk/sp can be is an entirely subjective matter. It's a personal issue to your system and your system alone. I know systems who find pk/sp to be very helpful and I also know systems who find them to be unhelpful, even harmful. In my own experience, I've found that pk/sp made my symptoms worse. So, I just don't use them. It's literally that simple.

Notice how the essay makes such broad sweeping statements about pk. They don't say that it can increase dissociation between alters, they say that it will. They don't say that it can lead to delusions, they say that it will. How about instead of jumping to conclusions, we actually ask the community what their experiences are? I’ll get us started:

I also notice that the essay states that the functions of pk go against treatment recommendations, but I don’t know a single clinician who is using pluralkit to treat their patients. AFAIK, they’re correct that it’s not really an accessibility tool, but it’s also not a therapeutic tool either? So, I don’t understand why they’re judging it like it is one? It’s just a discord bot, dude. It’s not that deep.

I don’t want to glance over the harm they’re talking about, though. Stuff like pk/sp can reinforce dissociation. You can have an unhealthy relationship with them. That’s not specific to pk/sp, though, it can be like this with anything seemingly innocuous. I know some people who self-harm by reading fanfiction…doesn’t mean that everyone who reads fanfiction is self-harming, or that fanfiction is universally harmful. That's why, instead of telling people pk/sp are Bad and Always Harmful, we need to spread awareness so that people actually know how to recognize actual harm and take care of themselves. That’s why I’ll leave this post off with a list of some red flags. Anyone is free to add on, but remember that these are potential signs of harm. If you think your use of pk/sp is harmful or unhealthy, please investigate that with a professional or close loved one!

Some red flags that pk/sp may not be helping you:

Episodes of dissociation, switching, and/or memory loss became more frequent or severe after you started using them

They make it harder for your system to cooperate; you all feel less connected than before

There’s more conflict within the system than before

You feel pressured to say who is fronting or when a switch happened, even if you don't actually know

You feel pressured to create a profile for system members that you don't know a lot about or are unsure if even exist or ones that specifically don’t want a profile

You sometimes wish you had more system members so that you could have more proxies or profiles

You or system members feel like you aren’t allowed to have your privacy or anonymity

You feel like you can't talk in discord servers that don't have pk

Using them makes your system members feel less real / less connected as a system

Using them is the only thing that makes your system members feel real / more connected as a system

You don’t really want to use pk/sp but you feel like you’re a faker or doing something wrong if you don’t use them

[s3rend1ppy]

TW: abuse, child abuse, CSA, grooming, rape, victim blaming

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I've been having a fucking breakdown about this for months, so someone tell me if this is just me having a trauma induced cognitive distortion or if I'm right and this is founded and it's ok for me to be so fucking upset about this.

I don't think as many people care about abuse as much as they think they do. ESPECIALLY not fucking child abuse. I think for most people it comes down to having a power fantasy about getting to "beat up the evil bad guys and serve justice!!!" and that's the extent of their care, violence (which we all know how helpful that always is). Rarely ever do you see people support resources that actually go to helping victims, rarely do you see these people work with victims themself. And I'm not even saying you need to do those two things to be a true advocate against violence, but let's be real and say there are way too many fucking people who refuse to do the bare minimum of just going no contact with friends/family who were outed as abusers. And let's be real when most of those people will go out of their way to invalidate, judge, ostracize, or even be violent towards the victims of their friends/family.

And it's even worse when we talk about child abuse ! Especially among conservatives, who I genuinely believe are incapable of caring about child victims of abuse even if they think they do, every belief every policy they stand by negatively impacts children and perpetrates cycles of child abuse. They literally cannot care about children with the things they advocate for. But let's keep talking about how they talk about grooming and CSA only in the context of using it against Queer/POC. You will never see them talk about these issues outside of being violent towards Queer/POC. Especially not if it happens in their homes, just think about the rampant sexual abuse that happens in conservative spaces or churches that goes unchecked because why ? People don't fucking care.

People only care about abuse because it gives them an excuse to be violent and I'm fucking sick of it. You rarely ever see people care about these issues because they want to help survivors and actually fucking care about the effects of it.

[garseeyart]

I posted a version of this on my IG story but feel it’s worth reposting here (with hopefully fewer typos lol).

Lately, I have seen people theorizing or stating that perhaps Amity is "misremembering" what happened with her parents in Understanding Willow, or that perhaps her current view of her dad has skewed her memories of him.

A lot of this is seemingly being done to reconcile the difference in characterization from how he was portrayed back then to how he has been portrayed recently (a portrayal which, imo, is problematic in it’s execution for reasons, albeit related, that I will not get into here).

That said, can we just like…. not discount Amity's memory like that??

Because while it may seem like harmless theorizing, translated to real life, the implications are super toxic. I understand that people like Alador and on that, to each their own. But just as folks discuss fiction impacting reality with respect to other issues, it does with this too.

Questioning Amity's recollection of events sets the precedence that the memories of abused kids can't be trusted if their parents act a different way at a different period of time or in front of different people.

Yes, people change for better or worse and when it’s for the better, that’s great. Kudos to them and hopefully they keep it up. Growth isn't easy and neither is working towards doing/being better, esp in the face of one's own hardships. As such, credit should be given where it’s deserved.

What that doesn't mean is that it’s okay to use how someone is now, or what happened to them in the past, to excuse or explain away their past behavior ESPECIALLY if it invalidates the experiences of the person and/or people they abused.

Alador, has experienced some level of abuse himself at the hands of his wife and that experience and it’s impacts are valid. However, he, just as with people in real life, can exist as someone who has both experienced abuse and perpetrated it. Those realities are not mutually exclusive and trying to explain one's abusive acts away to make it so, harms and invalidates the experiences of the survivors of their abuse.

While I could go on, I will leave it with this - sure it’s just a show and sure they are just theories, but the precedence both set with respect to how folks view the issues they reflect is very real, especially when translated to real life.

Moreover, and I would hope this goes without saying, when someone who has been the victim of abuse tells you they were abused, listen to them and believe them.

[doverstar]

honestly, it was fine to state your headcanon on chrissy’s abuse but the issue comes from the ‘miss me with that’ and the other ‘sassy’ comments you’ve made of that nature whenever stating your opinion. that’s what’s invalidating. that’s what’s actually hurtful to abuse victims. that’s what people mean when they say it makes you come across like you think you headcanons are superior and that you’re better than everyone. you didn’t need to add that last sentence at all, so why did you? genuinely, why did you write ‘miss me with that’.

other people have already explained how your headcanons were misinformed and harmful to people with eds or survivors of narcissistic parents, so i won’t touch on it again. you shouldn’t be writing about topics like narcissism and ed’s if you’re not going to do proper research. seriously, it’s not hard go on tiktok/youtube and search these things and find people willing to share their experiences. you could even write a post on here asking for people’s experiences and you’d quickly see how even someone with a ‘perfect’ life could hate everything and want to disappear. there’s no excuse for ignorance. and don’t write about it if you can’t do it without consideration of the survivors (which i am of both), these little side comments are a major no-no.

and on to your first ‘apology’. you didn’t apologise straight away. this is what you said:

“To the Hellcheer fandom: I took down my opinion post about fic tropes for the ship. Or I tried to. Even though I don't love the backlash almost everyone gets online for saying what they think, I also really don't want to make people feel anything negative about being creative and writing about something we all enjoy. The post was meant in jest but no part of it appears to be taken that way, and I have to assume that's my failure in how it was written. And I probably sounded pretentious, too, which is very not how I ever want to come off. So it's gone now!”

you never said “i’m sorry”. there is no actual apology here. all you did was say that you took the post down because it came to your attention that it had hurt people. you never said the words “i’m sorry that my post was hurtful”. or “i am sorry to the people i hurt”. this wasn’t a real apology. that’s a ‘i’m sorry if your feelings were hurt’ kind of apology. you are 26, you should know how to properly apologise. and this shows that you were well aware of how you come across to others “i probably sounded pretentious”. so, you already know what the issue is! it’s not the tagging, it’s not the headcanons, it’s the way you come across! that’s what you need to work on :)

> can you ask @artist-issues to stop attacking creators on your behalf. or use this opportunity to make a public statement that you don’t condone their actions? or if you do condone it, you can make that clear instead? up to you.

Hi!

So I said miss me with that because I thought it was a humorous way to say I didn't like something. I actually never say miss me with that, online or irl, but I said it there because to me it was funny; I'd seen it on someone else's Narnia post and it made me laugh, so I used it for my own. It was never intended as something sassy or arrogant. I'm sorry it came across that way; I promise that wasn't the tone with which I was writing it.

I didn't mean to talk as though I think my headcanons are better than anyone else's. They're just headcanons. I meant to come across as someone who thinks that way and has reasons why, and believes it strongly. If I came across as though I think other people are less-than for thinking differently, I am really, really sorry about that too. That's not what I meant, that's not how I think.

I'm very sorry to have hurt abuse/ED survivors in any way. I actually have done my research dealing with narcissism, and if you read some of my other posts, you'll see I have a narcissistic sister-in-law who actively tries to make me miserable; I am the villain in her life's story. I actually never denounced the headcanon that Chrissy's mom is narcissistic, and I have done research on EDs due to the fact that I have had two dear friends in my life struggle with them and needed to understand in order to love on them better. I have done research - I just wasn't aware my opinions on a fictional character were insensitive. Now that I know, I am really sorry.

I know what I said in my first post alerting people the post was taken down. It was meant to tell them it was gone, and to let them know I'd become aware of what it might be doing to them. I have since made at least six other apologies, and I know at least one of those says the words I'm sorry, and I've also made one-on-one apologies to those who came to me in private to let me know how my post had affected them. I am sorry. How else can I communicate it so that you feel heard?

I am 26, and I do know how to properly apologize. You're right, the first post didn't communicate I'm sorry with the words I'm sorry. In truth, the first one wasn't meant as an apology right away, it was more meant to let people know I had been made aware of what I'd done and was trying to correct it, and to try and show them that it wasn't my intention to hurt anyone. When several people spoke with me one-on-one, I apologized to them specifically, and when it became clear it was bigger than even that, I quickly made an official apology post, and have apologized more than once to others I interacted with, and expressed my regret to even more people in related asks.

I acknowledge what I did was hurting people, I've said I'm sorry, and I mean it wholeheartedly. My words show that I read back my own writing with a new perspective and realized how it sounded, and let everyone know that I realized how it sounded and that that's not how I want to be.

I will cautiously point out that not everyone's issue with me is my tone. They've communicated with me respectfully and said that it wouldn't have been a problem if it weren't for the tags, or that they understood my headcanons but didn't agree. Your issue with me seems to be my tone, my words, my headcanons, and my tags, so I'll address you independently if that's okay:

I'm sorry my tone has come across as superior; I do not feel that way, I promise, and I do not mean it that way. I'm very, very sorry I hurt any survivors of abuse/EDs and that my posts were insensitive. I'm sorry I didn't phrase things in a way that communicated my real thoughts and feelings clearly enough to you, or that my words came across as rude/arrogant. That's not who I am and I am trying now with renewed energy to make sure it's not how I behave. I'm sorry I didn't tag my headcanons correctly, or that they weren't sensitive enough to the abuse/ED/narcissism topics.

> I understand your frustration, but I am not going to try and tell other people what to say and how to say it. You have every right to talk to me the way you're talking to me, and to say what you think, and I am extending the same courtesy to other people. I'm not going to police what they say or how they say it or whether they say anything at all. That's what I don't condone.

I'm not a fan of infighting and I'm not a fan of unkindness, but I'm not going to tell people what to do. Thank you for asking, though, and thank you for taking the time to let me know what you've been feeling. I appreciate that!

[thedreadvampy]

Like this is something I've been thinking about for a while but I think just in a broad cultural sense we have a real issue with differentiating between empathy/sympathy and forgiveness and it's getting worse.

You can feel for somebody and understand their reasons without condoning their actions

You can hold somebody accountable for their actions without ignoring or diminishing their pain

Like not to be like ~ooh callout culture~ but I do think that an assumption allying a lot of modern callouts, for example, is that whoever has the most pain is the victim, with no responsibility for pain caused, and to hold someone accountable for pain caused you also have to imply they're lying or exaggerating their own pain

ok like the latest Contrapoints video. She very much continues to say 'TERFery is unforgivably harmful and your actions are responsible for destroying so many lives and you need to stop,' but she also says 'I understand that you experienced abuse and assault for so much of your life and that is awful. I know how easy it is to project your trauma or onto other things even when you've been safe for years. You shouldn't have had to experience that'. And a decent subset of Twitter was like Contrapoints Is A JKR Apologist but like...whatever you think of her in general, this was sympathy not apologetics. She never excuses JK Rowling's actions, she regularly says that JK's trauma doesn't excuse or justify her actions and that JK needs to change, all she's doing is recognising that JK Rowling is in pain as well as causing pain.

And a lot of people seem to really struggle with that dissonance

Like every time a character in The Magnus Archives evidences real-world-type evil - causing harm in ways that we recognise from our own lives, whether that's voting Conservative or having the type of entitlement that causes you to override other people and generally just be miserable to be around, there's this regularly repeated argument that comes up, the crux of which seems to be 'this character isn't sympathetic they're a bastard!' 'this character was traumatised! how can you say they're a bastard!' and it's like

calling them a bastard doesn't preclude sympathy for their pain. that's really to my mind why effective tragedy works. we empathise with and feel for the character's pain and understand their desire to win or to lash out or to seek power, but we also recognise that they have to fall and they have to fail because they continue to hurt people and not take responsibility for that

these are petty extremely-online drama but the underlying assumption, that to feel sympathy you must be letting someone off the hook, is really really really pervasive and really damaging

there's a couple of reasons this ability to hold at once that someone is hurting and that they are hurtng others is vital in the real world imo

1) treating empathy and accountability as the same thing serves abuse. I was talking to someone I love last night about how both of us, and a lot of mutual friends, have had a very similar experience with abusive relationships, where whenever we try to push back on poor treatment we're silenced, or we silence ourselves, with the reminder that they're suffering. They've had such a hard life. They're coping with trauma. At the extreme end, he mentioned a mutual friend who had a relationship with a genocide survivor who was vastly physically and psychologically abusive, but who they didn't feel able to be angry at or say anything about because of course they could understand and sympathise with how much pain he was in, and of course how could this small pain of being constantly violently abused mean anything against the trauma of experiencing a genocide? but from outside it's obvious that being a survivor of something unspeakably traumatic doesn't make it ok for you to do horrifically abusive things.

and like. this is a fairly extreme case. but I worry because every single abuse survivor I know has a story about how much pain their abuser was in. and sometimes it's stuff like the above and sometimes it's stuff like "it was really hard for me growing up without a dad" or "I grew up autistic" or "I'm depressed and tired all the time" or "I'm sick" but the underlying message is 'you can't hold me accountable, you have to sympathise with me'. and empathy without accountability only leaves room for empathy for them, not for you. you aren't allowed to be hurt or angry about what they did to you if you acknowledge that they're hurt and angry.

but that's not true, is it? They don't have to be lying or exaggerating their pain to have hurt you. A lot of people have been through some truly heinous shit but they are still responsible for their actions. but with almost any abusive relationship trauma becomes a tool for manipulation. if you say 'you hurt me' then they say 'why are you acting like my pain isn't real? I've been hurt! stop invalidating my pain!' and it's like yeah. you have. AND you hurt me. maybe I hurt you too, and I'm responsible for that. but it doesn't mean you didn't hurt me or that I'm not allowed to be in pain or angry that you hurt me.

2) without it we can't have justice. Justice means justice for everyone. true justice is transformative, community led and empathetic, because punishment probably doesn't stop crime. you know. 'happy people don't commit murder. they just don't' and it's important to recognise that people do things for a reason if we want to actually reduce harm rather than take revenge. but it's also important to recognise that their reason being understandable doesn't undo the harm they've caused or reduce their responsibility. if I burgle a house because I'm desperate to pay my rent and feed my family, my actions are understandable, but the person whose house got broken into is still traumatised and still had their stuff broken and stolen. Empathy for both of us is vital, so is accountability. I should be held responsible for their trauma and their loss that I caused, but the best way to prevent this happening again is to a) understand that I'm scared and hurting and b) change the material conditions that cause those feelings for me and others. And this unfortunately also applies to people who do much more unforgivable things. We don't and shouldn't have to forgive them, but it isn't forgiving them or letting them off the hook to say 'i understand why you're angry. I understand that you want to be the one doing the hurting. But it's not acceptable that you did this and you can't go on as if everything's fine. We will not let you continue to do harm.' because like. Pain Is Real. Everyone has traumas that shape them and a lot of them are deeply understandable. but. just because their pain is real doesn't mean their victims' pain isn't. there needs to be space for both.

this is what is meant by 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.' unacknowledged trauma begets trauma.

[felony-dykery]

“radfems are just bitter abuse survivors”

I am so tired of TRA’s being like “ohhhh you’re only radfem because you experienced rape/csa/male violence”, as if that’s not a very good reason to become a radfem. There are other things that drew me too it also, but yes.��Most of those beginning factors stemmed from personal experience. 

At age seven my dad abandoned me and my mom so he could keep doing cocaine. After my mom paid for several rounds of his rehab out of pocket. After he financially and emotionally abused her. We were destitute when he left. We didn’t eat for days at a time when we were first getting back on our feet. I had to spend years in a different state with extended family, away from my mother, because she had to work three jobs to keep our house. It sparked my struggle with food insecurity and disordered eating, not to mention created significant trust issues.

At age ten I started going on Omegle. I met and talked regularly with a seemingly friendly adult male crossdresser who would ask me to send him pictures of my shoes and feet. I was a prepubescent child, and I really thought he just liked my fashion. I didn’t realize his motivation until years later. 

At age eleven I was sexually abused and raped by a seventeen-year-old boy. I was visibly raped in front of several of his (male) friends and they laughed at me. I was again visibly raped ON A SCHOOL BUS, in front of my younger school friends who were too scared to speak out. The bus driver noticed and yelled “no sex on the bus” back to us. The entire bus burst into laughter and I was pretty much a pariah among my schoolmates after that. Again, I was eleven, and an adult was more concerned with keeping her bus clean than helping a child escape sexual violence. When my mom discovered this and brought it to the (male) principle he suspended ME and recommended I switch schools. The cops told us we had no case, and to this DAY my abuser makes multiple accounts to harass me. This sparked a hypersexual/kinky phase that I didn’t escape until around three years ago. Even after that it took significant time to even admit I only liked females. 

At age eighteen I worked weekends at a haunted house. That should have been a really fucking fun job for a teen to work, and at first it was. Then I was assaulted by a drunk middle-aged man. He pushed my costume up and said he knew “I was pretty under there”. My boss kicked him out, but later he told me to just accept it as part of the job. ONE of male coworkers pushed to have me stationed next to him, and it was only then that the harassment stopped. Only after I was “protected” by a male did other men stop trying to hurt me. 

Months later at the same age I was stalked by a male classmate. Each time we had a shared class he would stand in front of the door to ask me on a date. Eventually he started following me around campus nearly every day. He had autism and that was the excuse that university administration kept bringing up as to why he shouldn’t be punished. It wasn’t until I threated to bring up a title nine case that he was kicked from campus.

At age nineteen I was drugged and raped by a date. On my couch, which still sits just outside the room I stay in. When I contacted him afterward (which I shouldn’t have, but you know. I was young and wanted to offer the benefit of the doubt) he begged me not to go to the police. He said “please don’t put another black man in jail for no reason- aren’t you a prison abolitionist?”. I was, at the time, so I agreed. I still have really complicated feelings about that, and I keep having to remind myself that no matter his race, he raped me. He did deserve prison. 

Last year my current partner (who didn’t pass as a man at the time) and I were verbally harrassed on the bus by a group of men. They laughed among themselves and said things like “damn, they really going to hell” and “I could fuck the girly one better”. Eventually he stood up and propositioned me, saying that I wasn’t really a dyke and I just needed a real man to change my mind. An older black woman stood up and told him to fuck off. Once they got off the bus she talked to us about how she was a Christian, and how she disagreed with our “life choices”, but that she couldn’t sit idly while other women were in danger. I will remember her kindness and bravery for the rest of my life. To put oneself in the line of fire for another woman is one of the things I admire above all else.

These are just the most violent encounters I have had with males. This is not even encompassing the microaggressions, cat calling, sexual fat shaming, reproductive injustice, racialized sex-based fetishization, lesbophobic comments, and employment discrimination I have faced. And neither the extreme nor “average” examples I listed are uncommon. I am totally confident that every single woman (in the world) has faced at least three of these things in her lifetime. And it’s simply factual that many women have faced much worse. 

So yes. My experience with males pushed me to radical feminist thought. My experience hearing the stories of other (radfem and otherwise) females pushed me to radical feminist thought. Because in essentiality, fighting male oppression is exactly what radfeminism is about. Worldwide female solidarity is what radfeminism is about. And experiences of violent misogyny don’t invalidate our political beliefs- in fact they strengthen their validity. 

Feel free to share with your own experiences. People need to fucking hear real examples of why radfeminism is so important. 

[fandomshatelgbtqpeople]

You want to know what my problem with the anti-queer crowd is? It’s not that I don’t think the word queer has never been used to hurt anyone. Sure, it has. My issue is that it’s far from the only one of our identity words that have been used to hurt people, and it’s far from the most widespread.

Like many queer women who grew up in the 2000s, the word that was used towards me was “lesbian.” It was one of the worst things you could be called if you were a pre-teen or teenage girl in the 2000s. Its use as a slur was way more widespread than queer is now. It was in every middle school, high school, and suburban parenting group across the US. For a long time, I didn’t identify with "lesbian” at all because of the trauma associated with it. And I got not one shred of compassion or understanding from the anti-queer people who claim to care so much about trauma survivors. Not one single shred. I was told in no uncertain terms that it was my problem, that I needed to get over it, and it was implied to me that I was untrustworthy, unsafe for other lesbians to be around, and didn’t have a place in the community until I did.

And I’m not here to complain that I didn’t get to have a go at lesbians. It actually never occurred to me to message lesbians and ask them to tag their identity as a slur because it was used as one against me, or to claim that being willing to identify as a lesbian meant you’d never experienced any real homophobia, or to reblog posts where people were talking about how important lesbian identity was to them to add commentary about how often it gets thrown around in hatred. Because I understood how hurtful and invalidating those things would have been to people who didn’t do anything wrong. I understood that punishing the rest of the community for my trauma was a shitty and irresponsible thing to do. All I’m asking for is the same amount of compassion and respect from people who don’t like queer that I showed to them, and they’re not even willing to do that.

Trauma doesn’t care about the origin of the word. You don’t just get to pick and choose whose trauma matters based on what words you like best. Either trauma is always an excuse for go after people for freely using their identity words or it never is. The moment you say, “Okay, these are the trauma survivors who are valid and these are the ones who just have to get over it,” you don’t care about trauma survivors. You just want to use them to support your agenda.

[hamliet]

firstly, sorry for my mistakes. So, I admire how many fans stay hopeful that things will get better in bnha, but I don't believe in hori. Hori hasn't knowledge of many things(don't forgotten maruta scandal), he doesn't know what it means to be abused in very cruel ways. In the lastest chapters the author seems to want say that the only way to confront your abuser is to go to them and "rebuild" the relationship, when there are many families were killed by their abuser [1/2]

(often a father/husband) because of a second chance. Hori doesn't know what it means to look your abuser in the eyes, to feel the fear and the anger, everytime, about what could happen again [to quote Dabi "the past never dies"]. The right way to heal is therapy and closure (from the moment I haven't seen my abuser/bully, I'm living my best life). This manga is just a paradox, an illusion of real life. [2/2]

Anon, first off, I’m so sorry for what you went through. You did not deserve it. I’m glad you’re living your best life!

However, I caution you about “the right way to heal.” There is no one right way--what is right for some people is not right for others, and vice versa. There are as many right ways as there are people. Some seek reconciliation, some do not. Both are acceptable.

I think I’ve been blunt that Enji’s arc isn’t particularly healing to me, but there are also very much people on this site who are also survivors who have expressed that seeing a wish fulfillment arc of an abuser apologizing and growing (when irl that is rare) is healing for them. The human mind is just too complex for there to be one right path. Like, the healing of Touya is healing for me, while it might not be for others, and that’s okay. People have competing needs, and if this manga isn’t fulfilling your needs, that is completely fine--but it’s also good for people be healing through this work, which is happening. I cannot invalidate someone else’s healing just because I do not understand it.

I also take issue with the idea that “he doesn’t know what it means to be abused in cruel ways” and “he doesn’t know what it means to look your abuser in the eyes.”  I think it unfair to assume that someone is or isn’t a survivor, and am troubled by the larger trend in society that forces victims to out themselves to justify writing something. I personally find BNHA’s portrayal of abuse, regardless of speculation or even of future theories, extremely raw and realistic; hence why it resonates with me.

Fiction isn’t reality, but it does take place in and is shaped by and even can shape our reality. I don’t like the notion that Horikoshi’s choice is going to get people killed, which seems to be the implication here. Some might argue giving Touya et al a second chance is equally harmful--people do make that argument. I don’t myself enjoy all the framing around Endeavor, but I don’t think this is a fair argument because it assumes that fiction is instructive rather than artistic portrayal. It is indeed an illusion, but are all illusions bad?

As for Maruta, there’s no excuse. Horikoshi apologized and changed the name. Whether or not it’s sincere we don’t know, we can’t know, but he’s taken steps to rectify his error, so I personally choose to give him the benefit of the doubt. Whether my privilege affects that or not--it may, and I’m aware of it, but we each resonate with fiction because of or despite our real life experiences and/or lack thereof. No one else has to choose to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I’m by no means saying you have to or should, just saying that I personally choose to at this point.

[seblaine-rph]

Speaking as someone who has autism and has been in DK for a while.. I've got some tea. And the tea is that the admins have been nothing but kind and welcoming, even more so than other rps I have been in throughout the years of roleplaying. You will most likely not post this, but hey, it needs to be said.

That’s the thing here, you’re all so ready to invalidate the experiences of multiple other people, simply because you had a better experience? I think in the political climate we’re in, we should all know better than to assume that just because you have been somewhere and felt safe, that doesn’t mean that everyone that has been there has been safe. And it’s this very reaction that is why people wouldn’t feel safe talking about why they don’t feel safe in that group. Why would anyone want to speak up about their struggles if all they’re going to be met with is:

Well I’m having a great time so clearly you can’t be having a bad one.

Here are all the ways that you having a problem has ruined everything and should make you feel guilty.

Here are all the ways that you are wrong in your feelings, and in the wrong for stating that there is a problem.

In fact I’m going to kick out the people that stood up for you and list it as “complaining and making an outburst” as the reason for being kicked out.

And because they dared to take one for the team and speak to me about the triggers other people brought to their attention, I’m going to suddenly decide that everything they do in the whole grpc is just to attack me. Now they’re a bad person, because someone asked for help and you’re a bad person for asking for help.

I’m going to kick them out and make sure everyone in the group knows they’re a piece of shit and also shit talk everything else that they do in the grpc-- because despite having my own glee rp, it’s decided that any glee rp they make is obviously an attack against me. 

Clearly, nobody has a problem because I said so and amidst all this, nobody else has complained so.... 

The clear truth is, these two weren’t vilified and kicked out of DK until they started to get an influx of apps on their own roleplay group and the admins made it very clear that they were unhappy that there was another D/s group in the tags. 

I read things myself that were very obvious examples of bullying autistic people for showing autistic traits. I ran these screencaps by people in the community that are also autistic or have learning disabilities and what I was told hurts me to my core. The same things I saw happening in DK happen to them all of the time in roleplays. Maybe people don’t realize it, but it has happened in that group. Maybe you’ll get a better understanding of it all after @disabilityrph comes out with her guide, explaining all of the ways (subtle too) that she and other people with learning disabilities have been bullied in the community. I think you’re forgetting that bulling isn’t just pushing people down physically or being obvious with insults, it’s microaggressions too. It’s having an attitude with autistic players that you don’t have with other people. Bullying can be subtle. You may have been bullied and you didn’t even realize it.

The fact of the matter is, what happened in DevilsKey was M/s activity. It was non con. What would you do if someone raped you and then was like, “Well it only happened once, so why are you calling me a rapist?” The fact of the matter is, it happened, and that makes it an M/s rp. If that is allowed to continue to be part of the plots that people are playing with in their server (aka they are playing out the trauma caused by it), if they are going to allow non con punishments of that nature to happen in the future, then they are an M/s rp and need to be labeled appropriate so that nobody is triggered. If you can’t figure out how to dole out punishments in a way that does not break the rules of D/s by forcing kink and traumatizing people in and out of character, then you don’t belong running a D/s rp. 

Because another fact of the matter is that D/s is used by survivors of trauma as a means to overcome their past. There is no reason at all that anyone should expect non con in a D/s setting. To find it would be triggering to a lot of people. Maybe not you, but that just makes you privileged. We’re not in an era where flaunting your privilege (like you did with this anon) is cute anymore. It’s ugly. 

Another fact of the matter is that people were made to feel upset by one of the admins, and both admins allowed the roleplayers as a group to talk shit about the people who were triggered in the ooc chat. The immediate response should have been to step in and tell them that they needed to stop. There is no reason for someone to point out that people are hurt and then allow a mass attack on those people in the ooc. You were already told that the people that were triggered were feeling too anxious to come forward, so you allowed them to be attacked and proved to all of them why they should never speak to you about anything. Who would want to speak up about being triggered in a group where doing so will only end in them feeling like the whole roleplay is going to hate them by the time they wake up? Look at what you guys did to the two people that did take credit for wanting to make things right. And now me.

All of the stuff that I have seen has happened through my research indicates that there are a lot of things that need to be exposed. There needs to be accountability taken instead of trying to launch a smear campaign against people that did the right thing and stood up to bullies. 

I’m still laughing at that GLEE IS OVER, WHY ARE YOU HERE bullshit. Are you kidding me? Why are you here? It still baffles me that you guys are so privileged and so entitled that you think that you’re the only people that can be honestly and genuinely interested in the glee rp community. Which is why, after seeing your group try to shift the blame on these two people over and over and over again in different ways every time they’re proven to be baseless, I’ve just come to the conclusion that there never was an issue on your side and everything that is being done just proves the absolute lack of maturity that’s going on from your side of things. 

What do I mean by that? Well here’s the timeline of excuses, so far:

They stole DK when they made TDS.

Oh wait, TDS was made in 2017 so they’re just stealing ideas.

Oh wait, TDS has a completely different plot and CAN’T use ideas... they stole our NPCs.

Oh wait, they don’t have NPCs? They stole our OC.

Oh wait, the player created her own OC and you can’t be mad at people for writing their own muses? They made up drama in the ooc then.

That one player that wrote a Dom character was “too much like a Dom ooc” (which proves you know nothing about D/s if you think that’s an scary offense?)

You mean you have screenshots of people saying they were triggered so we can’t say that didn’t happen? Well they said this was an M/s rp and we’re upset about it.

You mean this is an M/s rp because we have M/s content so it can’t be called D/s without being triggering? Then they made people uncomfortable, we won’t explain how or why because there is none. I’ve read the entire three server’s worth of information through screenshots, I’ve seen these two interacting with people IC and I’ve seen them plotting and joking OOC right up until the point they were kicked out though.

Why would they open a Glee rp anyway? What even is Glee? Who has a Glee rp? Clearly, we’re the only ones that made our own groups innocently. These people purposefully joined our group so that they could make theirs and ruin us! (Nevermind that they have other Glee rps, and those were started months and years ago)

This is what the timeline should have looked like:

Oh, you’re telling me that I have triggered people by not labeling my roleplay group properly? People didn’t feel like they were warned about the content that was going to be in place and taking over all three servers? 

Please, explain that to me because I don’t know if I understand it correctly because I disagree with you-- but you just said people are upset and triggered, so I would like to fully understand with no malice intended, in order to better take care of my roleplay group and the people in it. 

Oh, maybe I don’t want to label it an M/s rp and maybe I personally think you can traumatize people with D/s and have it still be real D/s, but I’m going to stop the plot, take some time to research, and better understand this situation. 

Maybe I still don’t want to label it an M/s rp after doing research on D/s and trauma, because I don’t like the stigma in the glee rp community about it, but what I will do is I will put a more clear label on the main and in the server channels somewhere. That way nobody is surprised by this again, and everyone joining knows what they are getting into. None of the admins wants anyone to be triggered because they don’t expect non con. 

Then a simple addressing the issue post in the announcements channel where they explain that new information has come to your attention that has made you reconsider a few things; that things will be a little different moving forward (either you will do zero non con and never use D/s to traumatize characters or you will put a label that says that excessive force and non con can be used in this group, so it’s not traditional safe, sane, and consensual D/s) but that you know everyone will help you keep things going.

Never out that someone was upset. Never out that you don’t personally agree in the ooc chat, because you don’t want them to feel alienated or as if you didn’t listen to their concern. Don’t allow players to argue the new way of things in the ooc, let players know if they do say anything negative about it that they need to be mindful of other players in the group as well, because everyone has thoughts and feelings. With your secret knowledge that people were triggered, you should have known better than to let people shit talk like that. Your first concern should not have been your plot or your pride, it should have been to focus on the fact that someone was upset and you should have wanted to clearly understand why so that you could fix it. And you definitely shouldn’t have guilted and attacked your players for not being comfortable coming to you ooc. Yeah, that would be the goal and hope, but it’s not their fault that you make them uncomfortable. Trying to make it out to be their fault and attacking them for it is only going to make people even more uncomfortable with you. 

And the “outbursts” from those two players? I read it. They screencapped it when it happened, because they had been warned that they might be removed for speaking up about their friends being triggered. They said nothing wrong. Everything they said was right. One of them very politely said what I just said the admin should have, which was that nobody should be trying to make anyone else feel invalidated by hopping into the group chat to talk about how they didn’t feel uncomfortable so it was preposterous that anyone else might be. She asked people to use more inclusive language, to remember that whatever they feel... it was obvious that other people felt differently. It was obvious that people were hurting. And the other player explained how it was traumatic to people to mislabel something as D/s and when your main says “safe, sane, and consensual” but you allow NON CONSENSUAL, that it’s triggering because that makes non con unexpected. Which it is. Very much so. I think the reaction from everyone outside of Devils Key should prove that. Non con should not have to be on the banned kink list in a D/s rp because non con is already banned by the basic rules of RACK and the very phrase they put on their main. 

You can’t say a person will have a “safe, sane, and consensual” experience and then attach electrical currents to their genitals while you rape them anally for hours and damage their physical health by pouring something that’s very nearly poisonous down their throat for hours while they’re naked in the middle of town square, with a bunch of other people who are also getting non consensually abused for a full week. 

I don’t know how much clearer I can be on that. I don’t know why it wasn’t clear in the first place. The fact that bringing this up to the admins is what started this all is mind blowing. How are you going to kick people out of your roleplay for letting you know that people were triggered? How are you going to kick people out of your roleplay because they have their own group that was made in 2017? Admins are allowed to remove people at their own discretion, but this isn’t just kicking people out. This is purposefully slandering and bullying people because they dared to tell you that you had hurt people and because they dared to love the same glee rp community that we are all still trying to thrive in and THAT is DISGUSTING. 

The fact that YOU have a good time there, does not negate all of the negative experiences of other people. 

[aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoldretired]

alrighty! im gonna talk about my two new dr!ocs and some updates on sheon’s whole thing. remember they don’t have names yet adkaljasdkfa

SURVIVOR: the ultimate jazz singer. 

as mentioned, she’s the ultimate jazz singer. pretty subdued personality, but she’s the type of jazz singer who would just. scream into a microphone a la screamin jay hawkins. she is pretty neutral/friendly but disconnected in the prologue/first chapter/second chapter. she gets more jittery as the interactions go on. but once you get to the post-fte section of chapter two, that night she actually tries to kill the protag. at this point its revealed her big Angsty Backstory is she got involved with drugs through the music scene and is currently suffering withdrawal symptoms and is Super desperate (something ive seen a lot with my co-musicians and its not good) big breakdown, really delirious, will eventually be talked off the ledge and calmed down. kind of like if sayaka was actually calmed down in thh chap 1

just so happens that during the night whoopsy someone else was killed. so you two have an alibi but to reveal it means you tell everyone about her issues. either there might be a lying feature like in drv3 to cover, or you tell the truth and end up isolating her. for chapter three and most of four she will keep her distance from the protag bc she’s uncomfortable but will eventually reach out to be friends again after chap 4 execution. 

is generally pretty useful during trials, tends to be a person who tries to help calm down more emotional students and look at things logically. is good at trying to calm down the blackened once the protag catches their bluff bc she understands what its like to be desperate. she does, however, cry during/after every punishment. tells others not to speak poorly of their executed classmates. 

she compulsively chews gum, and one of her favorite gifts would be gum. jokes about having an oral fixation. during school mode she might joke about singing love songs but being so awkward about it in real life. really likes dogs, has a dog plushie in her room. 

a first two fte will focus on her health/wellbeing. the third she’ll ask to not talk about that anymore and the next three are just about general stuff. the final one she’ll basically go a little further into detail but the moral of her story is like, she’s not a bad person for doing what she did, no one is. she’s just a person. and it cn happen to anymore.

dresses in clothes more inspired by late mod/early 70s fashion. hoestly im seeing like a turtleneck/pantsuit combo. short curly hair. big heavy under eyelashes. 

MASTERMIND: the ultimate drag racer (ultimate cruiser)

ok but I LOVE him. personality wise he’s the story’s anxious character, think closer in personality to chap 1 shuichi. quiet, skittish, easily flustered, sometimes cracks jokes that fall flat. he’s framed for the chap 1 murder (someone died in a go kart accident, its assumed he sabotaged the other car, his argument is why would he kill someone in a race in front of all his classmates?) the protag obviously works hard to prove he’s innocent. after the execution he makes a promise to the protag that he owes him one big time, and while it seems innocent at the time, the wording should have like. a slight suspicious undertone. 

he’ll investigate weirder areas of the school instead of practical (sometimes he has clues sometimes not) and if there’s ever a mechanical question for a trial, you’ll generally ask him for clarification. he’s not very trusting of others and is often the one to accuse others/bring the information learned in trials back into the real world and make a big deal out of it. for example, he’ll make a big deal about the attempted murder in chap 2, and he’s the one who’s constantly accusing sheon of being a traitor

at first he seems like he’s just anxious, but obviously, he’s the mastermind, and he’s trying to tear the group apart. 

his fte he’s awkward the first few times but he opens up slowly, showing actual comfort/joy around the protag. wants to be close friends. offers to take protag go karting. while their personality is pretty awkward most of the time, there are flashes of an adrenaline junky every now and then especially when talking about cars, where he seems so full of life and drive it’s almost scary. very competitive during these times, his determination almost taking a sadistic glee when talking about beating others. of course he explains it as his cutthroat sport, but ya know...mastermind. instead of saying we’re going to survive he says we’re going to win. friendly towards the others but doesn’t really care about them focused on protag. is consciously trying to seperate protag from sheon.

for a mastermind he’s actually quite the empath and grows attached to his classmates, which he actually takes pleasure in the amount of despair he feels after each of their executions. reason behind the game is the adrenaline rush he feels, never has felt more alive than on despair. he discovered the rush the first time he got in a car accident, and the moments before his crash where like pure bliss. he wanted to let everyone else feel his feverish joy, and talks about how everyone has enjoyed this, deep down. they’re all getting their sick kicks. breaks the fourth wall and alludes to the fact that the protag (through the player) is having the most fun of all. 

final trial where it’s revealed, he’s still v attached to the protag in like an almost yandere way and wants to follow up on the favor he owes from chap 1. he offers a deal to the protag where if they’re welcome to be their accomplice in all this and get out of the game. protag should push to bargain that everyone can give up their morals, sacrifice themselves to despair, and live as the mastermind’s accomplice in exchange for ending the killing game. 

eventually, he’ll agree, but only if the group decides one life among them to sacrifice for no other reason than to kill an innocent friend. the way to get to the correct ending is to choose yourself which will like invalidate the deal. protag ends up dying and everyone else lives. leaves the mastermind in a despair, but for the first time, he does not derive any pleasure. 

takes a LOT OF GLEE in admitting he convinced everyone else sheon was the traitor when she was not, everyone else is horrified.

anyways. his school mode/love mode events show his more likeable side, he can actually be a really cute partner if it weren’t for the part he’s evil but uh. soft sometimes. 

really likes energy drinks. talks about sponsorships. color scheme is like. a black racing suit but his jacket is tied around his waist and he’s wearing a wife beater. tons of accents of neon all over his outfit from like patches and brand deals. backwards hat. blushes easily. has a mullet. i love him. 

“TRAITOR” : SHEON FUKUDA (the ultimate film maker) 

ok so. still antagonistic. but more in the way of pushing your buttons and pointing out your flaws in a trial. like somewhere between antagonist and kirigiri. super chill personality, cracks a lot of jokes, is hardcore struggling with the games and will be open about her mental illness. her fatal flaw is still her martyr complex

is first framed after chap 2 bc of accused of having the ability to direct and oversee a production like this, and from that moment forward no one can trust her and she’s SUPER alienated. she’s still awkwardly trying to be friends/friendly but people act like she’s going to betray them all. tries to prove innocence multiple times going as far as to beginning of chap 3 announce to the group if they need to kill anyone, let it be her so no one else gets hurt and is super transparent about who she is. but this transparency makes people more suspicious. as she goes on she gets more desperate/gallows humor. last convo bfore chap 5 begins she has a vague conversation about with protag about if they fear death. chap 5 would end up being either a suicide or double murder (they killed each other one in attack the other while being defended against) so there’s no execution but monokuma still wants something. its also in this trial that the ultimate drag racer plants evidence taht makes it look like she’s the traitor and is addressed head on. 

a common motif for her is ‘playing the role assigned’ and knowing who she is and who she isn’t. she’s pretty comfortable knowing who she is but expresses unhappiness about being painted a villain. maybe like, three times through the story to this point it’s established as a motif/quirk of fitting a role she’s assigned bc if the protag asks her a question about herself/past/the overall story, she asks the protag a question like well, what do you want 1) 2) and you choose and she’s like. ok. then its _______. same thing here. as she’s finally excused she stares at the protag and is like do you really believe im the traitor? (yes) stares long and hard, somethng sad and defeated in her eyes. ok then. i am.

the trial doesn’t have a punishment originally planned bc the blackened are not alive. but she chooses not to vote and willingly chooses to be punished because everyone else has decided she’s the traitor and she chooses to play along so they can get closure. her last conversation should be about choosing the act of resistance, no matter how convoluted it can be. she doesn’t fear death. the pain sure, but not death. this was her choice to be punished, not the masterminds, and she hopes they lose any glee they take in her suffering because its a sacrifice for hope instead of a death in despair. last request is that she asks for the protag to make sure the manuscripts she wrote during her time are published, the last great work of sheon fukuda.

EXECUTION: CULTURE SHOCK so she wakes up on a soundstage to blinding light. she’s attached with electrodes. monokuma is sitting on a director’s chair with a director’s hat. basically the premise is as the ultimate film maker, she has to recreate different iconic movie scenes and every time she makes a mistake she gets shocked. she keeps on getting thrown into new scenes into the middle of old ones, throwing her off. after a sequence of costume changes/farces she finally collapses in the soundstage. 

beat. she looks up. above the soundstage is a sign that says “congratulations” or something. everyone gasps. she believes she beat it. a single light comes on in center stage prompting her to take a bow. she stumbles over, stands up, and looks into the shadows in the general direction of her classmates. a teleprompter prompts her classmates to clap. she takes glee, soaking in her win, and bows. as she comes up she smiles for a second before a short rings out. she’s shot through the heart. culture shock!

fte are mostly talking about directors/film references and what its like to be a film maker. real dry humor, sometimes talks about deeper stuff. her backstory is that her dad was working for an american embassy so she grew up in america going to art shool, and she feels out of place, despite being a japanese student with the same basic culture as everyone else. sometimes talks about slimeball directors, sometimes talks about missing certain food, loves takling about movies. as a filmmaker she specializes in dark comedy/farce which makes her suspicious of how someone can enjoy writing somethng so twisted

views are very intersectional, a little new agey, but still well put together. clearly a free spirit, very quirky from working in cinema, super dry sense of humor. likes philosophy

really likes blueberry jam. favorite item is somthing blueberry.

after chap 1 trial she expresses to the protag how she can never be the blackened, not just because of murdering one student, but to get away with it, everyone else would be punished instead, and she can’t deal with the blood on her hands. 

is open about her struggles with mental illness and how she was getting help and showing improvement bfore coming here but now she feels herself spiraling and hates it.

values everyone here as good friends, and while she tries to play it off she hates how they’re painting her as a villain. takes every death very personally. 

color scheme is very pastel, and she wears sweat pants and a collared shirt with a light blue robe. you can’t tell if those are pajamas or an outfit. wears rose-colored glasses. all about the aesthetic, just lean so far into film culture with her. personality/feelings towards style are very influenced by the fact she went to an american arts school instead of a japanese school like her peers so every part of her is slightly off/quirky/out-of-touch

she’ll mostly wear the glasses over her eyes, sometimes pushing them down on her nose for emphasis to make eye contact. only her anger sprite (point) shows her taking them off. 

during her execution she pushes them onto her forehead before taking her bow, almost to meet eye to eye. after she’s shot the last frame is them landing on the ground, cracking. 

i love sheon so much

[bigskydreaming]

The thing is, I don’t actually have anything against Good Dad Bruce Wayne. As I’ve said before most comics, and most Batman comics in particular, are written by a certain type of machismo obsessed dudebro writer who thinks emotional constipation is like an A+ character trait. Thus most of Bruce’s shittiest canon moments with his kids are likely completely unintentional on the part of the writers, and as fans who became Batman and family fans for entirely unrelated reasons, anyone is entirely justified in throwing those moments in canon out to focus on the stuff they’re there for instead.

My caveat to that however, is I personally feel when you choose to focus on a particular element of Batcanon, you kinda have no excuse for disregarding all instances of that element that don’t support your personal interest. What I mean by that is, if you DO choose to focus on Bad Dad Bruce moments between him and Jason, to show how he screwed up with Jason, then that’s when I go uh, whatcha doing....when you revert to only utilizing Good Dad Bruce moments between Dick and Bruce as part of your selective take on canon....when there are plenty of Bad Dad Bruce moments with Dick that match the specific characterization of the moments you’ve chosen to highlight between Jason and Bruce. That sort of thing.

Because that’s the stuff that almost always seems to be done in an attempt to help your personal fave win Trauma Olympics, and like....can we just not? Nobody wins there, the grand trophy is just the biggest pile of shit, I srsly do not get the appeal. You’ll notice that as much as I talk about Dick’s traumas and Bruce’s screw ups in regards to him specifically, I make a point to never ever say things like ‘Dick has had it so much harder than these particular siblings’ or ‘Dick has such a worse relationship with Bruce than x’ or ‘Dick’s trauma here is worse than this character’s trauma here’ because eww. Gross. My aim is always always always specifically against the selective framing that paints Dick as having so much less trauma or issues with Bruce than his siblings, not because that leaves him out of the running for Trauma Olympics bullshit, but because it literally just...invalidates a shit load of his trauma, issues and resulting characterization.

But I have zero interest in Dick winning that, or Jason winning it or anyone winning it, because that shit is fucking stupid and nobody wins and I wish we could all just collectively stop with that crap, because saying your personal fave has had it harder than anyone else accomplishes absolutely NOTHING. If you want to raise instances of hardships your personal fave has endured in order to celebrate the strength it took to overcome that’s cool. If you want to mention the scope of a character’s trauma to ensure that its not overlooked or forgotten about in the overall impressions of that character? Makes total sense. But if you’re just like.....everyone should feel the most bad for my fave because they had it the worst and thus are most deserving of sympathy, that’s when I’m like whoa whoa whoa pump the brakes, buddy.

Sympathy and compassion are not a zero sum game, and all Trauma Olympics between fandom faves actually accomplishes is training fans to buy into the myth that there’s only enough of them for the medalists to enjoy, everyone else is shit out of luck.

(Unrelated to most of the former, but relevant to my feelings on Good Dad Bruce vs Bad Dad Bruce....my only other issue with Good Dad Bruce in fandom is when people raise the rallying cry of BRUCE IS A GOOD DAD, HE WOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT TO HIS CHILDREN, because personally, I have an instant, kneejerk and everpresent response to sayings of that nature, as I bet you every abuse survivor in history can probably say they’ve heard at least SOMEONE in their life say exactly that in response to trying to disclose their abuse to them. Its just...not a good argument to make, ever, and I really wish people would get it out of their systems because it 100% leads to the normalization of abuse apologism in real life. 

That is not a claim ANYONE can actually make about someone else. ‘Good dads’ abuse their kids every damn day. You hate when Bruce is written like this and find it OOC or more simply just hate him written that way because its not what you want from the character and you don’t agree with the writer’s decisions in having him do that? I’M RIGHT THERE WITH YOU. But attack that on the grounds of the WRITER’S decisions, maintain the transparency between the writer/character divide and emphasize the fact that no character does anything other than what the writers write them doing. 

I hated Batman #71 as much as anyone, but if you don’t want to acknowledge it because its not the Bat Dad you’re here for - I support that! But instead of condemning it on the basis of “the Bruce Wayne I KNOW and love would NEVER do something like that” - especially when he absolutely has been written doing similar things with Jason and Dick and thus you’re simply declaring your selective reading of his character rather than actually making a case for him being out of character - like, its just as easy to point to Tom King saying dumbass shit like “I knew that I really wanted to have Bruce hit one of the Robins, specifically, to highlight how far he’s fallen” - because that’s an absolutely shitty fucking excuse for choosing to write a guy abusing his kid, and THAT, IMO, is all the reason needed to throw that particular content out or redirect any and all ire about that scene at the writer who basically advertised that he was aiming for maximum drama there rather than trying to make a real statement about Bruce’s character.)

[whimsicallyenchantedrose]

I confess, I have not been a huge fan of season 7. But the last two episodes have really pulled me in, mostly because of the amazing acting from Colin and Rose. The entire KnightRook storyline is the only one I have been able to get invested in. While watching "The Girl in the Tower", I was struck by several similarities between Alice/Tilly and Emma. Did you notice the same, and do you think it's intentional?

I totally agree about KnightRook!  In general I’ve enjoyed season 7 more than I expected to going into it, but KnightRook is the only storyline I’ve been as excited about as I was about most of seasons 1-6.  There’s just something about that relationship that embodies the very spirit of OUAT.  In a lot of ways, this relationship brings OUAT back to it’s roots, and that’s not in anyway a slam on previous seasons of the show because I’ve loved them all, but OUAT is first and foremost a show about hope and the transformative power of love (in whatever form that love takes).  KnightRook, and their whole story embodies that in a way that’s kind of been lacking in the last few seasons with the preponderance of plot, plot, plot.  We’re still not getting as many quiet, interpersonal moments as I might like, but the balance seems to be better, and I really appreciate it.

I also agree that both Colin and Rose have acted their butts off the last two episodes (I mean, more than the last two episodes, but these have really stood out).  They’ve taken great material and moved it to the next level.

And now I’m tempted to go off on a looooooooong tangent about why I love KnightRook, the divergent paths of Hook, and why I love both the path OG Hook took and the path Wish Hook took in different ways, but equally.  Maybe I’ll get to that, but for right now, I suppose I should actually answer your question, hehe.

Did I notice parallels between Alice/Tilly and Emma and do I think it was deliberate...yes and no.

(The rest under a cut because you got me stated talking about KnightRook and Emma, and this is going to get loooooong)...

Honestly, when I was watching the episode, I noticed shout outs to Emma, but it never occurred to me to think of Alice/Tilly as paralleling Emma until I saw some other people talking about it around here (some positively, others negatively).  Then I got your ask, and it really made me think.

Here’s what I came up with.

I think there are some very definite similarities between Alice and Emma--particularly young, out on the streets Emma.  They’re both young, vulnerable women who have been dealt a terrible hand in life.  They’re both survivors who do what they need to do to survive.  Despite all the horrible things that have happened to them, they both retained their inherent goodness.  They both have a kind of magic that’s unique to them and sets them apart from other magic wielders on the show.  They’re both destined for great things.  (I mean, we don’t know how Alice’s story ends up, but if she’s not really important--maybe even key--to the narrative, I will be shocked.  *cough* Guardian? *cough*)

Do I think the writers were deliberate in setting up the parallels between the two of them in this last episode?  Now that I really look at it, I do.  The writers can often be about as subtle as a piano falling on your head.  Alice wishing on her birthday cupcake, not to mention the re-emergence of the yellow bug were both anything but subtle.  I don’t, however think the parallels are meant to show Alice as “Emma 2.0″ or a rehashing of Emma’s story.  I think they were meant to clue in the audience to the fact that Alice is special in her own way.  She’s very important in her own way.  It also brings in a key component in the fairytale genre--the protagonist who finds a way to break free from terrible circumstances, rise above them, and find a life that is better than she could have ever imagined.

Seasons 1-6 gave us Emma’s story and it was glorious and beautiful and I loved it with every fiber of my being, but that storybook came to a close, and season 7 is the writers’ attempt to move forward in a different direction, but with similar thematic content.  I suspect they originally wanted to make Lucy and her relationship with Henry and Jacinda the connecting link to the past story, but for a number of reasons, that effort fell flat.  It just wasn’t connecting with a fair number of people in the audience.  I think the writers reevaluated and decided, while not abandoning Lucy/Henry/Jacinda, to turn the focus and make the real connecting link Alice and her relationship with her father.  It’s been quite successful in my estimation.

What’s brilliant about the story, though, and this is probably the reason I didn’t originally see the parallels between Emma and Alice, is that Alice is very different from Emma.  Her issues are very different from Emma’s and her way of viewing the world is very different from Emma’s.  (Note:  None of what I’m about to say is at all a criticism of Emma.  I loved Emma.  After Killian, she’s my favorite character and chances are that won’t change.  I’ve just written plenty of metas about Emma, so this one is focused on Alice.)

Alice, as her papa said, sees the world through a whole different looking glass than other people, and honestly, the way she looks at the world is beautiful.  There’s a sweetness and innocence to her, as well as a kind, loving nature that’s a breath of fresh air when it seems like everywhere you turn you find cyncism, grit, snark.  (Not that there’s no place for those qualities, but Alice is something different and it’s refreshing.)  Because Alice looks at the world through her own looking glass, she often sees things others miss.  She has a way of getting to the heart of the matter in a way that others might not.  But, because she’s so different from others, they often dismiss her--as we saw from Rogers in 7x13--or over look her altogether--as we got with her being “invisible” in 7x14.  

Alice, also has an aching openness and vulnerability to her that I can’t help but respond to.  In short, the more I see of Alice the more I like her.

And the more I see her and Rogers/Killian interact, the more I see her as the perfect person to heal his brokenness.  (...Just as Emma was for OG Killian.  Here’s where that whole “both paths Killian took” meta idea is coming in.  IMO, CS and KR are BOTH the perfect path for Killian to take, but in different ways.  One is not “better” than the other, nor does one invalidate the other.  It’s kind of like...a choose your own adventure book.  At the moment of the curse, the story could have gone one of two ways.  One way led to Captain Swan, the other to Knight Rook.  Unlike some Choose Your Own Adventure stories, though, either path is perfect in it’s own way.  There is very, very little I would change about CS.  They will always be my otp of otps and I’ll continue enjoying their relationship for years to come.  But Knight Rook--the opportunity for Killian to heal the wounds his father left when he left him, the opportunity to atone for his mistakes in orphaning Liam II and letting Pan take Bae--also is perfect in it’s own way.  Bottom line in both paths: love conquered pain and vengeance.  Love made a broken man whole and inspired him to be the very best version of himself, and there aren’t words for how beautiful and inspiring I find that message to be.

So this was long, serpentine and rambling, and I have no idea if I even really answered your question, lol, but these thoughts and feelings have been marinating for a while now, and I needed an excuse to organize them and put them out there, so thanks for that, lol.

[jageunyeoujari]

hello yaejin. i wanted to apologize for last night. i'm sorry i brought your mental health into an argument, and i'm sorry i invalidated your feelings. that was out of line, and i honestly fucked up. i saw a pattern ive seen before and i jumped to conclusions and it was inappropriate and cruel, especially while we were having an argument. i was dealing with a mental health crisis of a friend and i let it influence me and i wasn't good enough to walk away and say i couldn't talk rationally.

 (sorry, limit). my own situation doesn’t make it okay what i said, and i don’t want to imply it, i just wanted to let you know the context. i’m sorry again.

apologizing for what exactly. sorry for what exactly. you “brought up my mental health” as if it was just a little no-big-deal comment when you used my vulnerability in talking abt my recent mental health struggles as proof that i’m going insane & thus everything i say is illogical when i was talking abt racism in white ace/aro discourse. the ableism was literally a vehicle for you to derail a conversation about race so by copping to just the one, you’re not actually acknowledging the underlying issue framing it. this is such a vapid, spineless, fake apology that doesn’t acknowledge the underlying intent or impact of what that ableism did which was to derail my points abt RACISM & my experience as a lesbian woc who’s also ace. you’re just copping to the obvious thing that even some of the ppl in your clique might feel vaguely bad abt & ignoring everything else.

& you say you just “invalidated my feelings?” LET’S GO IN-DEPTH. first, you were openly hostile for even daring to question you. you brought up corrective rape as a gotcha bc you knew that was an explosive thing to drop & you could derail any objections i have to your ranting as invalidating survivors. & when i asked for proof for your claims of ace/aro oppression & them facing corrective rape, you said you didn’t want to look at triggering material when YOU were the one who dropped corrective rape in the first place w absolute no warning & w no thought if it would trigger ME (which it fucking did btw, thx.) it was curious to me that you used corrective rape as a gotcha for ace/aro oppression when it was created to describe the violence that black lesbians face in south africa. esp in light of how you seem to have this pattern of insinuating how lesbians are somehow so accepted by the lgbt community when we’re so uniquely bigoted & we never try to keep out terfs but don’t seem to take into account how ace/aros can can also be transphobic/terfs as well as homophobic & lesbophobic. that’s not a matter of a few “shitty” ppl. lgb ppl are also allowed to be wary of any non-same sex attracted person being homophobic as they necessarily benefit for not being same sex-attracted esp when have been oppressed for displaying any kind of sexual desire & deemed better if we are asexual. & it seems like you have a pattern of only calling out lesbians instead of like also gay/bi men which i find curious. maybe you do tho & i just haven’t seen. but lesbophobia in the lgbt community esp against lesbians of color is real so it’s just odd that for you to keep saying that we have a completely comfortable position in it. also you positing lesbianism & ace/aro identity as exclusive categories does play into the stereotype that lesbians are hypersexual which is esp damaging to lesbians of color. 

anyway, when i researched on my own & found no convincing evidence to support your claims, you threw a tantrum bc NO MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES & FEELINGS OF BEING OPPRESSED = ULTIMATE TRUTH OF ACE/ARO OPPRESSION. your experiences are valid & all. you’re allowed to feel upset by them. but i fail to see being ace/aro constitutes institutional oppression.  in my search, i mainly saw claims of individual microaggressions and acts of verbal violence as evidence of oppression when those things by themselves don’t prove that there’s an explictly anti-ace/aro system of oppression. i can experience microaggressions for being asian & also not being into sex but those are entirely on different levels for me. i know instinctively that racism is an institutional oppression. i’m literally ace & microaggressions for that mean nothing to me in comparison. you feel differently abt it & you’re allowed but again, personal experience of microaggressions doesn’t prove institutional oppression. i also saw vague citings of a study of ppl apparently being more likely to say they’d discriminate against asexuals than lgbt ppl. the study seemed too flawed to me & doesn’t seem to take into account how ppl might know it’s bad to admit they’d discriminate against lgbt ppl but that doesn’t prove they’re not actually homophobic/transphobic. like liberal white ppl likely won’t admit that they’re racist bc they know that looks bad. doesn’t mean they’re not racist. as for corrective rape, i don’t remember finding anything that wasn’t abt violence against black lesbians & certainly not any that cites specifically anti-ace/aro motivations. i’m not saying it can never happen. but in comparison, it can be proven that cr is part of an explicit system of homophobia & misogyny against black lesbians in south africa but i didn’t see any for ace/aros. & i mean, i researched this while reading abt cr which is deeply upsetting to me as a lesbian so it’s not like this was easy for me. but i don’t rly think you have a leg to stand on in this instance bc you never provided any proof & didn’t say what your exacting reasoning on this is. it didn’t even have to be abt cr & i’m not saying you should disclose traumatic experiences, but just… say something to help me understand where you’re coming from. otherwise you look like you’re just expecting a woc to blindly accept & follow you.

& i have to bring up white ace/aro discourse elides how misogyny & patriarchy & racism & other -isms impact pressures to be sexual or asexual.  poc esp black ppl are stereotyped as either hypersexual or asexual. being seen as hypersexual is dehumanizing & can be traumatic & lead to real life serious consequences. i’m literally asexual but i empathize w non-asexual poc esp woc & the struggles they face & thus have no interest in white ace/aro rhetoric that posits being sexual as a universally normal, ideal, uncomplicated privilege & asexuals are oppressed by them. also being seen as asexual/actually being asexual can be so damaging & traumatic to poc which is why so many of us are alienated by white ace/aros who posit it as a universally positive thing to be proud of. white ace/aros also imply that they can somehow face oppression by like non-sexual poc which is concerning in light of the history of racist/colonialist ideas of backwards, hypersexual black & brown menaces & seductresses versus the purity & chastity of whiteness. controlling the sexuality of poc is a key part of white supremacy so there isn’t an obvious oppressor/oppressed dynamic here like men/women, white/poc. & considering how reproductive justice is constantly under fire & how there’s societal pressure for women to be effectively asexual until (hetero) marriage, it’s hard for me to think how non-asexual women not in hetero relationships actually… benefit from being non-asexual. there’s also different expectations abt being sexual for men, esp white men, than women & white ace/aro discourse tends to ignore that. sure, men are generally encouraged to be sexual & the shaming of asexual men likely sucks. but shaming doesn’t necessarily mean ace/aro oppression & seems more like to me a symptom of patriarchy/gender roles & heteronormativity.  so in my estimation, misogyny & patriarchy & racism as well as other systems of oppression like ableism, homophobia, transphobia, & classism better explain these differing expectations for being sexual or asexual rather than ace/aro vs non-ace/aros being an entirely separate dynamic. i literally couldn’t find any evidence for your claims & you got so upset at me for that but never tried giving me one piece of proof. yes, i know that oppressors demanding the oppressed to prove their oppression to them is a legitimate thing & the oppressed don’t need to feel obligated to educate them. i’ve experienced this frustration many times myself. but your behavior in this instance strikes me as white entitlement & again, a sign of you being frustrated that a woc isn’t blindly accepting you’re automatically right.

& when i started getting rly into the racism in white ace/aro discourse, you rly lost your shit. you dropped your abuse history & claimed i was invalidating you being abused for being ace when i literally never did. you straight up lied abt that. & also i know you know that i have experienced abuse & if you like bothered to think, you would take into account that i could be triggered by you dropping that out of nowhere, but instead you dropped it in an attempt to derail & get me to shut up. now this is when you suddenly rave abt how it’s obvious i’m on a bad mental health spiral & i’m believing in conspiracy theories & i’m paranoid, all a transparent attempt to make everything i said abt racism apparently wrong. w/o giving me a chance to reply, you promptly blocked like a coward. oh, also truly hilarious how you’re such a hypocrite for bringing up your friend’s mental health crisis as an excuse for your racialized misogyny when you literally used my mental illnesses to derail & attack me & dropped 2 instances of potentially triggering shit as gotchas & never took into account how this all could impact MY mental health. 

rose also sent me a long ass screed abt how i’m rigid & narrow-minded & crazy & paranoid & lied abt how i’m guilting her abt not being an activist which i explained multiple times i wasn’t. she blocked before i could respond. so not just you but your clique sure seem to love throwing tantrums abt how your feelings equal the ultimate truth & how dare some bitch try to think critically abt institutional oppression & process her thoughts on her private twitter & be, god forbid, socially conscious. who does that chink think she is, am i right? why isn’t she just a doormat & shut up? why is she making us UNCOMFORTABLE?!?!?!! like maybe ask yourselves why you take it so personally & you all don’t like it when i talk abt sj & activism. rly look inside yourself for why that is. 

& as soon as you’re all done with your ravings, which are full of lies & deliberate misinterpretations of what i said & massive projection & anti-intellectualism & manipulation & guilt-tripping, you all block so you don’t have to face the consequences or have to hear me out. that’s so fucking spineless & cowardly. & that’s so loaded since you all prevented me from saying anymore on racism. that’s just classic white fragility & a fear of outspoken, critical woc making you uncomfortable abt race. oh, also shout out to runa who acted “impartial” but did effectively the same thing as you. she acted concerned abt my mental health so she could convince me i’m crazy & get me to shut up abt institutional oppression & racism & instead focus on “fun things” (i.e. non-political, safe topics so she could feel comfortable). i feel esp disappointed in her bc that kind of wishy washy behavior is extremely irritating & patronizing & two-faced to me. i hated her acting like she was worried abt me when she was effectively doing the same thing as you, silencing me & making me feel crazy which means everything i say is wrong. 

really try to reflect why you all thought it was threatening when i tried to facilitate a productive dialogue, i did try to be level-headed & open-minded, emphasized that i just want to understand your pov, researched on my own for your claims, & processed my thoughts on institutional oppression & my experiences as a lesbian woc who’s also ace. i tried to open up a dialogue but you refused & threw a hissy fit bc i dared to not join your echo chamber & tried looking at actual data instead of just believing that you’re automatically right w no proof which is esp loaded in this situation bc you’re white. sjc also pulled this on me too so yes i am angry you also did the same. you all treated me in such bad fucking faith & pulled such fucking passive aggressive, manipulative, cowardly, idiotic bullshit.

god, you know what? your behavior in this indicated a huge sense of white entitlement & a problem w black & white thinking & accompanying self-righteousness. i try so hard to be nuanced & compassionate & flexible & see from your pov & i clearly stated i wanted a dialogue.. what did i get in return for it? not even the bare minimum. you treated me like fucking shit & never gave me even a tiny bit of effort or consideration. that’s racialized misogyny. how fucking dare you give me this fucking insipid half-assed fake apology. you didn’t even fucking try to think abt how you actually hurt me. all i’m getting here is you attempting to assuage a vague sense of guilt FOR YOUR OWN SAKE. not even attempting to think abt how i’m an actual real human being w my own emotions, thoughts, & will. how fucking selfish can you get. not the first fucking time white ppl wanted me just be a doormat, to be their submissive smiling oriental doll only there to validate their stupid, self-centered asses & not the first time their apology was abysmal. actually, you know what, i don’t even know why i even bothered writing all this fucking shit trying to explain myself & wasting my time on you again when you’ve never tried to do anything for me, not even make a fucking decent apology.

in conclusion, this was all v obviously steeped in racism & white entitlement/fragility all in an attempt to silence me bc how fucking dare some woc bring up social justice issues in a way that’s not catered to you. you’ve all shown your asses & clearly demonstrated ableism & racialized misogyny. i’m profoundly disappointed in all of you & you’ve all hurt me so much. i’m blocking you now bc you’ve proven yourself to be a lost cause. 

[drowning-the-unicorns]

Why I unapologetically use the word "rape" to describe the forced impregnation of farmed animals.

As a survivor of sexual violence, I feel that redefining the same physical act based on who the victim is, or on how aware they were, causes more harm than good, as this same tactic has been used historically to deny that rape was real when it happened to non-virgins, married women, sex workers, drunk women, men and boys, etc, and could just as easily be used to excuse the rape of humans with cognitive/developmental disabilities who don't understand the social implications, so I feel like denying that it is rape when an animal is penetrated without consent, even if the animal shows no signs of trauma, reinforces this problematic idea that there remain entire classes of victims who don't count, by nature of who they are rather than because the act of forced penetration didn't happen to them. It is upsetting when we get treated as though there is only one right way to honor the validity of our feelings about our own experiences, and as though we all felt exactly the same about this topic. Just as there are Jews who openly compare animal abuse with the Holocaust and others who find it offensive to do so, some rape survivors consider the comparison with our lived experiences accurate and important, while some feel like it trivializes their pain and ignores the social context in which they were harmed. It is tricky to know how to talk about this topic when some of us feel like our experiences are invalidated if you don't call it what it is to us, and others feel invalidated if you do, because they don't consider it comparable with what they went through. I think it is important for people to remember that we are all individuals with our own ways of understanding the issue. I used to feel pure rage when people denied that it was rape, because that meant that in order to be consistent without being speciesist, some human rapes also didn't count, for the same reasons that were being used as excuses to deny that the forced penetration of the non-consenting animals was real rape. The implications were infuriating. "Animals don't place the same social meaning on it, and lack the self-awareness to be traumatized by it." Children don't always understand the social meaning. People with cognitive disabilities don't always have the awareness to know they were violated. People who were unconscious when it happened might not even remember it. It is still rape. "The farmer doesn't get a sexual thrill from it. He is doing it for purely practical reasons." Not all sexual abuse happens for the excitement of the perpetrator. Genital mutilation performed for religious reasons or because of misguided ideas about disease prevention is still a violation of consent and bodily autonomy. Also, farmers who treat animals' bodies as objects to use for their own gain are not so different from those who rape humans because they see another person's body as a thing to use. I understand that this opinion is very unpopular, but I will continue to define it in the way that feels most empowering and healing to me. If other survivors don't agree with my perspective, they are just as free to define it in the way that feels most empowering and healing to them, because ultimately that is what matters.

[closerosies]

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

COUNTY OF NEW YORK

--------------------------------------------------------------------

KELLY PRICE

Plaintiff(s),                                                                 Index No:101854/19

 AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT

OF AN ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE

FOR RELIEF: STAVE ALL NYC BOC VOTES  & OFFICIAL ACTIONS UNTIL THE COURT CAN  OVERSEE THE APPOINTMENT OF A TRUE  BOARD OF CORRECTION ACCORDING TO NYC CHARTER MANDATES

­

- Against -

 NYC BOARD OF CORRECTION

Jaqueline Sherman, Acting Chair,

NYC Board of Correction

Stanley Richards, Vice Chair,

NYC Board of Correction

 Defendant(s).                                                              Hon. __________

--------------------------------------------------------------------

  State of New York, County of New York, Kelly Price, being duly sworn, deposes and says:

1.     PARTY: I am the party named as Plaintiff in the above entitled proceeding.

 2.     REQUEST:  I request that the Court Issue an Order for: injunctive & declaratory relief naming the current-seated NYC Board of Corrections (“BOC”) as an invalid entity that was appointed incorrectly and against the grain of the mandates of the NYC Charter; staving any further official action or votes from the currently-seated BOC; and ordering an immediate remedy to the situation by allowing the NYC Council its fair number of selections owed to it, but that have not been afforded to it, under the “rotating appointment authority” mandated by the NYC Charter. This action seeks an injunction and declaratory relief that New York City’s Board of Correction is an invalid body improperly selected under, 24 N.Y. City Charter and is preempted by that same local law from taking any further official action such as votes, engaging in rule-making or any other furtherance of the body’s responsibilities until a true and proper board may be appointed and this matter is satisfied.  The next scheduled BOC vote is JANUARY 2, 2020 and I plead with the court to schedule an hearing addressing this action and my claims before this impending hearing where a vote on adding a sixth chapter to the NYC Department of Correction’s charter ref Restrictive Housing is scheduled to be taken up.

 3.     DEFENSE/CLAIM:  I, Kelly Price, (“Plaintiff”) respectfully allege as follows:

 A.   The selection process for appointing board members as it is described in the NYC Charter has not been followed or enforced allowing the NYC Mayor, Bill de Blasio to manipulate votes and true oversight capabilities of the BOC.  Recently, when accused in the media of doing just this (manipulating the BOC) the Mayor’s spokesperson, Avery Cohen appears to admit to gerrymandering the BOC votes openly:

“Mayoral spokesperson Avery Cohen Tuesday described the mayor’s office’s attempts to influence the Board of Correction solitary rules as standard practice:

‘It would be completely naive and irresponsible to believe that we wouldn’t play a role in the rule-making process, as these are policies that directly impact the day to day operations of our facilities,...[1]’”

  B.    BACKGROUND:  New York City Charter (“the Charter,”) requires that:  “Members shall be appointed for a term of six years.  Vacancies shall be filled for the remainder of the unexpired term. Three members shall be appointed by the mayor, three by the council, and three by the mayor on the nomination jointly by the presiding justices of the appellate division of the Supreme Court for the first and second judicial departments. Appointments shall be made by the three respective appointing authorities on a rotating basis to fill any vacancy…”[2]

I.               But Board members have not been selected by ‘the three respective appointing authorities’ on a ‘rotating basis’: instead the Mayor has chosen to interpret the City Charter to allow him to replace his appointments without rotating the selection power between the three appointing authorities.

II.             The Mayor’s own press officer, Avery Cohen, has affirmed this mis-reading of the BOC’s Charter recently in the press when on October of 2019 former judge and long-time board member Hon. Bryanne Hamill was ousted from her position by the mayor and replaced by an administrator from ACS without any correction knowledge or experience just before several contentious votes ref the curbing of solitary confinement and solitary-like practices employed by the NYC Department of Correction:

 “We thank Bryanne Hamill her for her service and for the commitment she has demonstrated to the board throughout her tenure,” said mayoral spokesperson Avery Cohen. “As is common with appointees from previous administrations, a mayor replaces board members whose terms expire.”[3] [Emphasis added]

 III.           Over the past six years, since Mayor de Blasio has taken office, whenever an important vote has been pending within the BOC the Mayor has plucked board members from the panel and replaced them with people he believes will vote in a manner that dovetails with his current needs or that of the NYC DOC: the entity the BOC is charged with oversight of:

IV.            This just happened in October of 2019 with Hon. Judge Bryanne Hamill:  her appointment selection should have been rotated to the NYC Council but instead the Mayor took the opportunity to replace her with Felipe Franco and not to allow the appointment opportunity to rotate to one of the other two “appointing agencies.” Honorable Bryanne Hamill was appointed jointly by Mayor Bloomberg and the Appellant Division in October of 2013.  Although she was known as one of the most intelligent, able and robust advocates on the BOC her Mayor De Blasio did NOT renew her appointment.  This action came just as the BOC prepares to enter rule-making regarding the use of Restrictive Housing (aka solitary confinement and solitary-like practices) which Hon. Judge Hamill was integral in drafting the initial rule versions of and pushing the initiative through to a period of public comment and vote which is scheduled to occur on or about early January of 2020.

 V.             In fact, the NYC Mayor has so blatantly ignored the “rotating appointment authority mandate” of the NYC BOC’s charter that on October 28, 2014 he APPOINTED THREE BOARD MEMBERS AT THE SAME TIME.[4]

 VI.           In Fall of 2014, when the BOC was faced with the decision to create new “Enhanced Supervision Housing” (EHS) units to replace solitary-like conditions, suddenly, a new Board Member, Jennifer Jones Austin, appeared as a new member on the BOC appointed by Mayor de Blasio along with two other new mayoral appointees.[5]

VII.         Board Member Dr. Gerard Bryant[6]:  Appointed January 11, 2016 by Mayor De Blasio disappeared in the summer of 2018 without comment and was replaced by the Mayor—again the appointing authority did not rotate.

VIII.       Robert L. Cohen, M.D. appointed by NYC Council on December 19, 2011[7] renewed on October 11, 2017[8] by the NYC Council.

IX.           Tino Hernandez:  appointed in 2019 by Mayor De Blasio

X.              Michael J. Regan[9]:  Appointed in April of 2010 by NYC Council:  appointment renewed by NYC Council on 3/9/16[10]..

 XI.           Stanley Richards[11]: Vice-Chair: Appointed on May 27, 2015 by NYC Council.

XII.         Steven M. Safyer, M.D.:  Appointed in October 2014 by NYC Mayor

XIII.       Jacqueline Sherman[12], Interim Chair Appointed by Mayor De Blasio and the appellant division In October of 2018, when the BOC endeavored to take a vote on incorporating ACS into DOC workflow practices Jaqueline Sherman, longtime ACS administrator appeared on the board.

XIV.        Derek Cephas:  appointed by Mayor de Blasio to the Board in October 2014 and he became Vice Chair of the Board in February 2015 and Chair in the spring of 2017.

XV.          Felipe Franco:  appointed by NYC Mayor and appellant division October 2019.[13]

XVI.        James Perrino: appointed by NYC Mayor on 2/14/2017.[14]

 4.      EXCUSE/REASON:

A.    I have a good excuse/reason because New York City has not complied with the rotating appointment process since at least 2014 when Mayor de Blasio took office. Since early 2014 there have been at least TWELVE appointments to the NYC BOC and TWO appointment renewals.  This is FOURTEEN opportunities to appoint that should have rotated between the three appointing entities respectively.  However, the NYC Council has only been afforded THREE of these appointment opportunities—less than half of the appointing opportunities mandated by the NYC Charter.  The net effect of New York City’s lack of adherence to the rotating appointment mandate of the NYC DOC/BOC Charter is that the mayor has been able to control key votes and stifle real oversight of the DOC virtually guaranteeing torturous conditions and practices remain stalwart within DOC/BOC operating methodologies. Plaintiff, a survivor of abuse who was wrongfully detained on Rikers is a criminal justice reform advocate and founder of the organization Close Rosie’s. Plaintiff is the only formerly incarcerate person who has actively engaged the BOC in its oversight and rulemaking processes since at least 2014.  Plaintiff’s attempts at engaging the BOC in any true manner to reach real reforms have been stifled and short-changed by the spectre of the false appointment process which virtually guarantees that BOC members who expose corruption within the NYC Department of Corrections and/or try to meaningfully reign-in the practices of the DOC will be met with contempt, rebuke, and dismissal by the current administration.  Plaintiff represents advocates, community members, and present/formerly detained/incarcerated individuals injured by New York City BOC’s unlawful selection process of the “oversight” board meant to bring strict scrutiny and fair, humane practices to the archaic NYC DOC.  Plaintiff seeks preliminary and permanent injunctive and declaratory relief to prevent New York City BOC from continuing to act on an unfair basis at least until such time as the NYC BOC is in compliance with the its own Charter standard for the selection of NYC Board of Correction members.

B.    FACTS:  The Plaintiffs, Kelly Price, is an ardent criminal justice reform advocate representing current and formerly incarcerated and detained people, their family members, community members, lawyers, advocates and community members working towards a just and equitable system and standards for the NYC Board of Correction and NYC Department of Correction to abide by directly affected by New York City’s awkward and unlawful implementation of Board of Correction member appointment selection process. Plaintiff resides and is a member of criminal justice reform associations such as www.CLOSEROSIES.org, which is an organization, located in New York City and County and subject to both the New York City and State law/requirements. The plaintiff sues the City Defendants on behalf of her affected CLOSE ROSIES members and associates and others similarly situated who work tirelessly to change the direction of the oversight of the BOC.

The New York City Department of Correction, the New York City Board of Correction (the “BOC”) has “jurisdiction to regulate all matters affecting the Department of Correction in the city of New York.” See New York City Charter.  The New York City Board of Correction (the “BOC”) is a 9-person body responsible for adopting and updating the New York City Department of Correction’s Rules and Charter. See id. § 558. Jacqueline Sherman the Interim Chair of the NYC Board of Correction, and is being sued only in that official capacity and Stanley Richards, the Vice-Chair is being sued only in his official capacity.

 5.  PRIOR ORDER: I have not had a previous Order to Show Cause regarding this Index Number.

Sworn  to before me this 6th day of December, 2019  

KELLY PRICE

534 w 187th St. #7

New York, NY 10033                            

646.932.2625

   ____________________________________________________________________________________________

(Signature of Court Employee and Title)

 CIV-GP-13-i (Revised, 5/04)Telephone Number

  Dated:            New York, New York

December 6, 2019

 VERIFICATION

STATE OF NEW YORK

COUNTY OF NEW YORK      

 Kelly Price being duly sworn, deposes and says that: I am the petitioner/plaintiff in this action or proceeding, I have read the foregoing papers and I know the contents thereof; the complaints/petition is true to my own knowledge, except as to matters stated to be alleged on information and belief; and as to those matters I believe it to be true.

 On the     6th          day of              December                   2019, before me personally came and appeared KELLY PRICE, to me known and known to me to be the individual described in and who executed the foregoing instrument, and who duly acknowledged to me that she executed the same.

    NOTARY PUBLIC

 [1]

Mayor ‘Interfered’ With Jails Overseer on Solitary Confinement, Member Charges

; THE CITY: October 22, 2019; By

Eileen Grench

and

Rosa Goldensohn

 [2] Charter of the City of New York; Chapter 25, Section 626; linked November 8, 2019;   https://nyccharter.readthedocs.io/c25.

 [3] The City;  “De Blasio Ousts Key Solitary Confinement Foe as Reform Nears”;

By Reuven Blau and Rosa Goldensohn; Oct. 17, 2019. Linked November 8, 2019.

 [4] Mayor de Blasio Appoints Three New Members to the Board of Correction, October 28, 2014; https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/496-14/mayor-de-blasio-appoints-three-new-members-the-board-correction

 [5]   CITY OF NEW YORK BOARD OF CORRECTION: OPEN MEETING November 18, 2014:

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/boc/downloads/pdf/Meetings/bocminutes_11_18_14.pdf

[6] “January 11, 2016—Mayor Bill de Blasio today appointed Gerard Bryant to the Board of Correction, https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/041-16/mayor-bill-de-blasio-appoints-gerard-bryant-the-board-correction.

[7] December 19, 2011: “RESOLUTION APPROVING THE RE-APPOINTMENT BY THE COUNCIL OF ROBERT COHEN, M.D. AS A MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK CITY BOARD OF CORRECTION.” https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=1020881&GUID=4217C033-F556-4177-957F-484601ED3657&Options=&Search=

 [8] “Report of the Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections approving the re-appointment by the Council of Robert L. Cohen, MD as a member of the New York City Board of Correction. The Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections, to which the annexed Council communication was referred on October 17, 2017and which same Mayor’s Message was coupled with the resolution shown below, respectfully.” https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dcas/downloads/pdf/cityrecord/stated_meeting_2017_10_17.pdf

 [9] April 4, 2016: RESOLUTION APPROVING THE RE-APPOINTMENT BY THE COUNCIL OF MICHAEL REGAN AS A MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK CITY BOARD OF CORRECTION: https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2683920&GUID=DA04E41A-2123-4587-89E7-4C1CA13ACC1E&Options=&Search=

[10] “Report of the Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections approving the re-appointment of Michael Regan as a member of the New York City Board of Correction. The Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections, to which the annexed communication was referred on March 9, 2016 (Minutes, p. 532), and which same communication was coupled with the resolution shown below, respectfully.” https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dcas/downloads/pdf/cityrecord/stated_meeting_2016_04_07.pdf

 [11] RESOLUTION APPROVING THE RECOMMENDATION BY THE COUNCIL OF STANLEY RICHARDS AS A MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK CITY BOARD OF CORRECTION: https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2324676&GUID=E0944670-7DFD-4EA1-815B-AFA077FD9C1B&Options=&Search=

[12] “July 10, 2018 —Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced the appointment of Jacqueline Sherman to the Board of Correction…” https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/348-18/mayor-de-blasio-appoints-jacqueline-sherman-the-board-correction-names-derrick-cephas-as

[13] “Felipe Franco, the deputy commissioner for the Division of Youth and Family Justice within the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), will serve a six-year term on the city’s Board of Corrections as a de Blasio appointee.” Chronicle of Social Change: October 17, 2019: https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/news-2/new-york-youth-franco-justice/38403

[14] “February 14, 2017:—Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced the appointment of James Perrino to the Board of Correction.” https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/082-17/mayor-de-blasio-appoints-james-perrino-board-correction

[theconservativebrief]

On Sunday, audiences around the world learned that actress and filmmaker Asia Argento, one of the most visible spokespeople for the #MeToo movement, had been accused of sexual assault. Argento has denied the allegations, but the news is sure to send shockwaves through the movement, as advocates come to terms with the fact that a high-profile survivor of sexual misconduct might also be a perpetrator.

Disturbing as they are, the allegations against Argento are a reminder of a bigger issue that American society still needs to reckon with: Too often, survivors of sexual misconduct have to be “perfect victims” in order to be believed. They must dress in perfect clothes (nothing too short or revealing), report the crime perfectly (delays are impermissible), and, perhaps most importantly, have a perfect past. Fail on any of these counts and they risk being branded as liars by those eager to find a reason to discount the testimony of women.

But survivors of sexual assault aren’t paragons of perfection. They’re people — one in six women and one in 33 men has experienced rape or attempted rape, according to the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network. Some of them are people who have themselves done terrible things, including assault others. Until we can accept this fact, and dismantle our preconceived notions about how survivors and perpetrators behave, the work of #MeToo won’t be done.

For decades, sexual assault prevention advocates — not to mention anyone who tries to report assault — have been familiar with the pressure on survivors to appear perfect in every way. The first SlutWalk was organized in response to a Canadian police officer who said women should “avoid dressing like sluts” if they didn’t want to get raped — the implication was that if women wore “slutty” clothing, their sexual assaults were at least partly their fault.

A woman’s sexual history is routinely brought up as a way to invalidate her reports of sexual violence. Rape shield laws were instituted around the country in the 1970s and 1980s as a way to keep defense attorneys from using survivors’ past sexual history to get defendants off the hook, but in practice, victims are still blamed and slut-shamed in the courtroom.

“It sounds as if she slept with almost every single man on the planet,” said defense attorney Kathleen Bliss at Bill Cosby’s retrial earlier this year, speaking of model Janice Dickinson, who had testified that Bill Cosby had raped her. “Is Ms. Dickinson really the moral beacon the women’s movement wants?” Bliss asked.

And of course, rape shield laws don’t apply in the court of public opinion, where amateur investigators routinely comb through survivors’ histories for any excuse to doubt their reports.

These investigators often pay outsize attention, too, to a survivor’s behavior during and after a crime. Unless she fights the perpetrator tooth and nail, the thinking goes, she must really have wanted the encounter. If she waits a while before reporting — and especially if she maintains contact with the perpetrator after the crime takes place — well then, she must be a liar. These attitudes ignore the realities of trauma as well as the many barriers to reporting sexual violence, but they remain prevalent nonetheless.

Meanwhile, survivors can find themselves cast out of perfect victimhood by virtue of their identities. Male survivors of assault are asked why they didn’t enjoy the experience, since men are presumed to crave sex at all times, no matter the situation or partner.

If a man is assaulted by a woman, he’s asked why he didn’t physically fight her off — ignoring the fact that survivors can freeze during sexual assault, and that the perpetrator is often a friend or partner, whom the survivor may not want to harm.

Women of color find their reports disbelieved because of racist narratives that cast them as hypersexual or undesirable. Sex workers are too often considered “unrapeable” because of their profession. There are many ways of being an imperfect victim, and few — if any — reliable ways to be a perfect one.

The #MeToo movement has raised some awareness about the problems with the “perfect victim” narrative. Many survivors have reported, for instance, that they felt they had to go along with their harassers’ advances in order to keep their jobs.

Former NBC correspondent Linda Vester said that when former anchor Tom Brokaw made unwanted advances toward her, “I felt powerless to say no. He could ruin my career.”

“There are so few jobs” in TV journalism, a woman who said she was groped by former anchor Charlie Rose told the Washington Post. “You know if you don’t behave a certain way, there’s someone else behind you.”

Accounts like these have offered a reminder that not everyone is in a position to report misconduct when it happens. But the #MeToo movement still has a lot of ground to cover.

After the first wave of #MeToo allegations last fall, a pattern began to emerge. If a survivor spoke up on his or her own or as part of a small group, the account was considered suspect — stylist Suzie Hardy’s allegations against Ryan Seacrest, for instance, have had little effect on his career.

And if what he or she experienced was not a violent sexual assault, then the experience was minimized, dismissed as no big deal. When a woman identified as Grace said she had been pressured to have sex by comedian Aziz Ansari, critics called her experience no more than a “bad date.”

Call it the Harvey Weinstein effect — if the misconduct was perceived as less severe than what Weinstein had been accused of, or if the accusers were less numerous than those who had spoken out against the producer, then critics were quick to argue that it wasn’t a real #MeToo story and wasn’t deserving of public attention. But just as there’s no single perfect victim, there’s no single real #MeToo story.

“This movement is making space for possibility,” Tarana Burke, who started the Me Too campaign more than a decade ago to help young survivors of sexual violence, tweeted on Monday. “But, it can only happen after we crack open the whole can of worms and get really comfortable with the uncomfortable reality that there is no one way to be a perpetrator…and there is no model survivor.”

As #MeToo evolves, we’ll have to understand that not only are all survivors of sexual harassment and assault imperfect — because they’re human — plenty have done things that are offensive, immoral, or even criminal.

Perpetrators may be people we respect, even revere; as Burke puts it, “sexual violence is about power and privilege. That doesn’t change if the perpetrator is your favorite actress, activist or professor of any gender.” Meanwhile, some people are both survivors and perpetrators, and their crimes do not invalidate their testimony any more than their history excuses their crimes.

The #MeToo movement has succeeded in exposing the prevalence of sexual misconduct. Part of the reason many survivors shared their stories on social media was to show how common their experiences were.

But we haven’t yet fully internalized what it means that sexual misconduct is common, not rare. It means that many, many ordinary, imperfect people have experienced it. And it means that many ordinary people — and even extraordinary people, who have done wonderful, praiseworthy things — have committed sexual misconduct in their lives.

As it evolves, the #MeToo movement will need to reckon with these realities so that survivors don’t have to be perfect to be believed.

Original Source -> The Asia Argento allegations reveal our damaging misconceptions about sexual assault survivors

via The Conservative Brief