#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

[wolfertinger]

its genuinely baffling how salem justifies his actions interacting with a genocide survivor. if we break it down, no context can truly make it okay to treat someone that poorly. especially when that person is coming from such an incredibly vulnerable place. if salem was indeed going through a manic episode, that doesnt justify lashing out at someone whos already dealing with immense suffering just asking for help. people affected by trauma and violence deserve empathy and care. not to be dismissed, ignored, or worse, bad-mouthed.

the idea that salem is constantly the victim, no matter what, is a recurring issue. its frustrating to see him repeatedly turn any situation into one where he somehow comes out as wronged. his shifting of blame to a manic episode is just another example of him trying to evade responsibility for his behavior. its one thing to acknowledge that mental health struggles can affect how someone behaves, but its quite another to use it as a shield every time your actions cause harm. if he truly felt like he wasnt in the right headspace, then the mature thing would have been to step away, log off, take a break, and revisit the situation when in a clearer state of mind. thats not an excuse for behavior, but its a more responsible way of handling things. unfortunately, salem lacks accountability for his actions, preferring instead to deflect and rewrite the narrative to fit his needs.

the hypocrisy in his defense is so apparent. him claiming he "didn't want to clog his blog" when hes regularly re-posting his own art, shows a stark contrast to what he says hes trying to avoid. this is just another example of how he manipulates context to suit his narrative. the truth is right there in the full context. a person whos been kind to him, whos already suffering deeply, and yet salem cant even muster the basic decency to acknowledge that. its not about him being unable to engage. its about him choosing not to. he couldve simply been honest, acknowledged his limitations, and communicated that he needed a break. but instead, he chose to lash out and then gaslight his way through it.

and then theres the issue of him turning around and claiming it was all "taken out of context." hes essentially invalidating the situation, and the emotional reality of the person involved. when someone is repeatedly begging you for understanding, kindness, and even just acknowledgment, and youre brushing them off, or worse, badmouthing them, there is no “out of context” excuse that makes that right. he has no issue playing the victim in every scenario, even when the behavior hes defending is clearly toxic.

its a pattern of denial, manipulation, and selfishness. the idea that a palestinian genocide survivor, enduring unimaginable trauma, would have their kindness and vulnerability dismissed by salem just speaks volumes about the lack of empathy and awareness he has. the excuse-making, the denial, and the victim-playing. these are all classic tactics of someone who doesnt want to confront their own behavior. its easier to blame the situation, the context, and the mental health struggle than to take accountability and grow from it.

ultimately, this situation highlights the problem with salems behavior but also the way he tries to rewrite history and spin things in his favor. people see through that. and its incredibly frustrating for those who have to watch the same patterns repeat themselves with no real growth or effort to change. its not just about avoiding harm. its about actively trying to understand when youve made a mistake and taking the necessary steps to repair the damage done.

.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[skin-slave]

Yup. Stirred the shit on that one. Gonna stir again for the sheer satisfaction of venting.

Bc sex workers in film can be assaulted, watching porn where ppl pretend to be assaulted is way super bad. Even though creating and consuming abuse-themed media is done by an overwhelming majority of abuse survivors. And it doesn't matter what those survivors want or need to do. It only matters that there's a chance that the pretender isn't pretending and therefore the whole thing and anyone who participates must be "hiding something" (aka not actually a survivor bc "real survivors" would never do that). By that logic, all films are inexcusable bc maybe someone really is being murdered, robbed, cheated on, etc. Classic anti/purity culture bullshit.

In the end, making and viewing violent porn is legal for consenting adults in the US (ymmv elsewhere), and non-explicit depictions don't have a legal age requirement. Anyone can make or view it, if that's what they want, without justifying it. It doesn't make them deserving of insults or invalidation.

Frankly, if the issue at hand was exploitation in the sex industry, then the goal would be legalization, organization and transparency. Unsafe working conditions require correction through the law and the industry.

Demanding receipts from a survivor has nothing to do with it. So I call bullshit on that. It's about judging whether this particular survivor is "doing it right" and making a pointed accusation that, because they aren't, they're not just a "bad survivor," but aren't a survivor at all. Whatever experiences they had/have are lies bc they did a Bad Thing.

And since we all know that survivors are called liars at every turn by ppl who have no clue, seeing it from someone who says they understand is really infuriating. "You say you were abused, but you aren't acting abused, so what are you hiding?" is the shit that scumbag defense attorneys pull. It's not something we should have to fight off from another survivor. There's no excuse for it. Ever.

*I'm blocking bc this account is fucked up. I'm really hoping it's an elaborate troll bc I'm not sure how someone gets from A to B here. But the blog is basically just loads of hypocritical bullshit, misgendering, general bullying, and accusing hoardes of survivors of being "victim recruiters" on the basis of practically anything. If it's not a joke, it's still a joke. I got my vent out, so I'm good. Pls dni and stay rad.*

this isn't art. This will never be art. This is a clear example of someone sharing abuse that not only hurts themselves but all other victims. People like this are perpetuating more pain and more torture which all other victims dont deserve or need. Stop.

[koojiru0-blog]

OKAY MEN! I get it...

I get it cys men who feel like youre being oppressed. Change is scary I know, imagine living your whole life in trauma and then suddenly it all disappears. So yeah I fucking get that change is scary. But when it comes to feminisim, our goal is not total world domination, our goal is equal rights. It may seem like we want to take over but AHAHAHAHA.HAHAHAHA.HAHA. no....No not quite right. I feel like it's because we're mad though that you're scared, it's a lot of anger to deal with I mean generations of women standing together yelling our truths. You have to face facts though, we ARE angry and rightly so. We still ne d feminisim and don't tell me that's bull with stats like 2/3 women IN CANADA yes guys, OUR WORLD are raped. And there's a whole culture around it to, I'm sure your well aware thanks to some of my angrier sisters. The culture basically says she wanted it because x bs excuse to not face reality. Things like "well she was talking to him! In THAT outfit she was being a tease" which can fuck you up BELEIVE ME. Let me break it down for you here... If that happens to women, then rape culture is a feminist issue... "But what about male survivors?!" God I can hear you from here stfu and listen, yes male survivors exist and think, the victim blamings worse therefore men are also victims of rape culture and rape culture is a feminist issue. See what I did there? Yeah, were also fucking fighting for your rights. Beyond that though, there are still bigots out there who believe women's places are in kitchens pregnant and bare foot, yeah even in my own fair city somewhere in Canada. Weird right? Because the guys I'm talking to here wouldn't say that whole heartedly, you bigots can do/say what ever I've already dubbed your views invalid ^^. Anyways so while those men exist, dating your sisters, mother's, aunts, friends, women you love you're freaking about US taking over? Um HULLO! We STILL can't because those men are very capable of reaching positions of power (I hate to beat a dead horse but Donald Trump, nuff said) while we're still kinda laughed at and sexualized when we do that shit cause isn't it true that women in power just want a man to imasculate them right? NO and the fact that we even view power as masculine is in itself messed up I think. So those are some examples, of our need for feminisim but not all and aside the rape culture point kinda weak I get that. Why though? I'm assuming, (ass.u.me) that's because of the women who claim to be feminists but in reality aren't educated in the ways they are oppressed, like thinking grass in a sports stadium is a need to address RIGHT NOW! And while fake grass for women and real grass for men IS indeed a tad unfair THAT parts not the issue. The issue behind that that I can see? Is fake grass is cheaper, and there's some joke that goes around a lot that women's sports aren't as popular as men's. Less popularity less funding that's how the world works (sometimes even popular doesn't get funding but that's my own personal shit) and even that's not exactly the problem it's far from the money. Why are women's sports so unpopular compared to men's? There's my issue I feel. I can hear the snickers and snarky comments about women's sports now, and you're only further proving my point while you do that. If you didn't? Awesome we might get along. I personally can only guess but it's like since when have we taken many female athletes seriously? Aside the ones who play in.....MEEENS LEEEAAAUUUGGGEEESSS~ yup, that's the only time I've seen a female athelete get the same respect as a man, when she reaches manly state. If you don't see it, then I pity your delusional ass. Finally, before I stop, kinda being an angry bitch (but I'm sorry it's hard to not become one when you remember all the things we need to work on here at home for women's rights) Men reading, no I'm not going to be snarky this time: What did you do this morning to make sure you could protect yourselves today on outtings? I'll tell you what I do, I tell my boyfriend where I'm going, the time I should be there, when I'm coming home and when I should arrive. I also took some self defense classes, I have tips to scare off a predetor, I have been taught what is an effective weapon and what is not (keys fyi ladies? *Shakes head* unless you get lucky aren't actually effective self defense tools, also weapons that can be turned against you like knives aren't so spectacular either unless you KNOW YOUR SHIT). I even had to go as far as to stay close to any glass things with alarms like store Windows, car windows, I was given a whistle once....So amazing to live in sketchy nabourhoods I swear. But unfortunately for us a sketchy situation could pop up anywhere, some guy you meet up and agree to have sex with, your boyfriend, relative, basically anyone who could be in a position of power over you. This also includes other women, sadly I'm aware of that. And I don't know what the rates are for men, unfortunately that info is scarce but I do know a decent number of men who've faced sexual harassment or exploitation or assault you name it it can happen to men too. But like I said, feminisim took over that cause, so many years ago because we got sick of staying scilent. And I'm aware that we had enough power to stand up and speak out with our hearts, souls and minds but we had to band together to do it. And I'm also aware that men face issues like "I'm a man's man, I don't cry unless I absolutely can't hold back, and I am strong! I am a leader I don't have time to be sad or scared" (like seriously?! Who the fuck can sanely live up to that if they face mental health issues, abuse, general build ups of stress? No wonder you're all flipping). However, men have been in positions of power for a very long time. Don't even get me started on that downfall for Canada, I could go on forever dad's half Inuit. Anyways that's a fact, you know it, I know it anyone who's aware of history within someone's life span. Like there are people who are still alive who could tell you what it was like during their life, what they heard from others about days even before them. And it was very male centric. Male leaders everywhere, women on the sidelines somehow even in many movies today you see the MAN take over and save the day or the woman's doing things for a man all the time generally talking about a man etc. I saw a ted talks that asked some questions, I don't remember them all or word for word, but it was a man with daughter's talking. He basically talked about how a lot of a woman's role in media is tied to a man, even when she's supposed to be the hero. Men in media don't always have love interests correct? Sometimes he'll fuck a few though but he's not always romantically tied down. Women always seem to be. Catnis, Pocahauntus, Harley Quinn (granted she's a villian but she's also a powerful woman no doubt), ugh! I forget her name but the lady from gaurdians of the galaxy...I could go on. I mean there ARE a handful of female hero's or stars who are simply hero's or stars on their own accord like Mulan....Uhm.......*blinks*...... ...... Wow okay really thought I had more....Jesus wtf. =_=. Anyways my main point IS this. Feminisim isn't just for women power, though it has fem in it, it's become an equal rights issue based off women's issues but had branches in everything. Our very birth or death could be dictated by a man who either wanted or didn't want us. We could be fatherless because of this and that affects us all for sometime at least (if you did have that experience and it still hurts I'm sorry, I was there too, but I can promise one day you'll wake up and it won't matter. I don't know when that is but I know it's possible). If women's emotions are irrational, then any emotions beyond anger men feel is too (remember I made that point?) And, women, men, non-binary, whoever you are, it's well known that suppressing emotions can have adverse affects. Not just mentally though but physically (I was taught to be manly in order to establish my independence, gotta love old school feminisim. I now have a fucked up heart beat though it's not dangerous it's a product of hiding my anxieties for so long. I recently almost developed an ulcer due to suppressing my emotions and I've read multiple times from multiple educated sources that this is possible). Everything that keeps us down or hurts us feminisim wants to rise above or against depending on what's needed. Because we all got sick of being shoved down for centuries, we got sick and fucking tired of watching people we love get affected by these oppressive systems. And there are men out there I applaud for getting this. Men who saw the reality unfortunately like my own biological father, my adoptive grandfather, my own boyfriend now (though he's weired out by this post heh ^^; meh that's fine disagreements not so bad as long as intent is pure I suppose). They all know how women can be oppressed and why we need equality. Yet sadly they don't know how feminisim can help them too, how it's for them and their sons as much as their daughters. Think of it like this, if men cant show female emotions which are, actually simply human not restricted to women, then their only outlet becomes agressive and dominating. You become someone you never thought you'd be when shit hits the fan I know this because again I was also held to male standards. You don't want to but you aren't given any other option because "weakness and vunrability are dangerous things" cause who knows how far someone would go to take advantage of that. Things like crying or talking about it are signs of weakness. Expressing it is being vunrable. However, if you're in the right setting it's quite the opposite, that's a lesson I learned from women. If you're in a safe place, it can give you strength and power, it can ignite the flame once lost and put a bounce back into your step because it's no longer posioning you slowly from within. We are aware we need to value men too and that means letting men be human. Feminisim is about all of this, we can't do this alone like I said before. Hell we only got this far cause men who got this to some degree helped us too. They listened and agreed it wasn't right that we had no say in our government. Even today I'm held and agreed with that what happened to me, what happens to 2/3 women here at home isn't okay and it's bullshit that reporting is so hard. Without the support of loving caring smart guys, we may have just been swallowed up by it, just as you're being swallowed up by this restriction of how a man needs to be. It's been a team effort all around so don't let the whiney ones sway your view on feminisim, it's not about fake grass, or clapping, or domination (or making bread out of your own yeast.....*goes green*). Hell it ain't about rights to party either (heh nabours 2 is fucking great I do recommend). It's about all of us and how this rigid unwritten rules of society make us sick Thanks if you read this all ^^ especially to the dudes who did even after I kinda went all snarky ^^; like I said, kinda stems from a jaded place because of injustice from my own life too. Have a great weekend!