#but there's seriously no reason to target people directly and complain about how their lack of doubt irritates you

[chirpsythismorning]

Y’all will be your own undoing the fact none of you have not even the slightest bit of doubt is rather worrying. what happens if neither is endgame and let’s say Mike is killed off? You can’t say that won’t happen either because you don’t know the same way you can’t say byler is endgame because you don’t know hell even milevens can’t say they’re ship is endgame because they don’t know. Ego is ruining both sides and neither side is correct and shouldn’t proclaim to be.

I'm sorry anon, but I'm not all bylers. While there are a great deal of bylers like myself who have less doubts these days, there are plenty that have mostly doubts. PLENTY. Arguably the vast majority. And for good reason, ie. history.

To be completely honest anon, I don't think you're worried about bylers and their lack of doubts. I think their lack of doubt scares you bc it's caused you to go from confident to having doubts yourself. Why else would you be here on anon all condescending otherwise?

Personally, I'm not even here bc I want to believe byler's endgame. And no offense to those that have went through it, because the whole point of queer-baiting is to basically mock queer fans and lead them on with no intention of following through, but I have never been queer-baited before.

I did however, like many milkvans, go into Stranger Things loving Mike and El under the assumption they were peak romance. I literally skipped all of s2 during my first rewatch to get to their reunion! But genuinely, do we think the show is supposed to be watched that way?? Hell no.

If you're having to skip all of s2, most of s3, most of s4 in rewatches, bc Mike and El are separated, fighting, or broken up, what does that tell you?

If you're having resentments for characters like Max and Lucas and Will and Hopper bc the story has made points to have those characters interfere with your confidence in Mike and El romantically, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're probably watching the show wrong. To be clear, if you have resentment for ANY of the main characters, you are missing something!!!

And that was my problem back then when I subscribed to these assumptions, because I WANTED to believe Mike and El were the pinnacle of romance, despite the signs incoming that went against it. And what that meant is I had to hold resentments for all the characters, including Mike and El themselves and even the Duffer Brothers for ruining what I WANTED to believe.

After s3, me, my friends, family and quite honestly anyone I spoke to about the show, said that it went downhill since the previous two seasons. And I do think a big part of the reason why, is because of the Mike and El conflict conflating everything. It felt regressive. And s4 repeating that exact storyline????

It took me a while to even consider byler as an idea. It's not like I latch onto every non-canon mlm ship and just ship for nothing (very few bylers do this, no matter how much anti's need to convince themselves this is the case as an excuse to be homophobic).

I am a hopeless romantic. Doesn't matter if it's queer or straight, I only ship stuff that I feel confident is endgame bc why would I put myself through scenes of something that doesn't feel right to me, merely bc I want to believe it and despite everything pointing against it??

Full serious, IF I was confident in milkvan endgame as a possibility, I would probably just convince myself to like them and provide evidence supporting it, bc I would honestly rather be right? Who tf wants to be wrong?

The problem was it didn't matter if I was initially convinced Mike and El were the pinnacle of romance (I was a child okay, give me a break...). Once I let go of that assumption because of all the doubts I had of them piling up, and took off my heteronormative goggles, I went woah... Holy shit. This show is actually fucking epic. Doubts gone. And the rest is history.

So, what happens if neither is endgame and Mike's killed off? I guess I would be confused, especially because the Duffer's specifically mentioned not being able to kill off Mike in a podcast last year. They gave their reasoning as to why, being that they take deaths on their show very seriously, needing 1+ seasons for them to show the characters mourning the loss. And so ending the show on that exact note, would be kind of a spoiler since they brought it up specifically? Therefore kind of redundant?

I guess, sue me for thinking the Duffers care about the show and put a lot of meaning into it. All of my analysis and theories are based on that assumption. No one's going to change how I think about that, so trust me, not worth getting worked up over it, anon.

If your evidence is all based on the assumption that the Duffers are not that good of writers, that almost everything on the show is coincidental and there's no deeper meaning beyond surface level, why are you even watching it in the first place? You do you I guess, but I just don't know why you wouldn't want to watch something that is more worth your time?

People being confident in their theories wont hurt you. If it bothers you so much, maybe find a way to be confident with your theories after looking at all the evidence from both sides. All sides. Any sides. If you still come up completely indifferent, then don't work yourself up by going on anon and making it other peoples' problem.

If it turns out everything meant nothing, and I was wrong about everything or most of what I interpreted, I will be okay! Because the show went from being about what I wanted to believe, to just what I genuinely believed.

Would I be disappointed? Sure. But lets hope I'm right bc in my scenario the show is epic and everything means something... not sure why anyone would root for the alt...

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 305: Worst Intervention Ever

Previously on BnHA: Shinomori, whose name took me an entire week to memorize, was all, “nice to meet you Deku, I’m ten feet tall, do you want to know how I died?” and without waiting for an answer explained that he kicked it from old age at forty thanks to good ol’ OFA. Deku was all “wait a minute, then how come All Might, who’s fifty-five and is definitely dyeing his gray hair, is still alive?” First and Shino were all, “we really have no fucking clue but we think it’s cuz he’s quirkless, JUST LIKE YOU!” So basically, since quirkless people don’t exactly grow on trees these days, Deku is probably going to be the last user of OFA. The chapter ended with Nana being all, “psst, Deku, about my grandson. Uh, can you kill him?” which is sure to lead to a very interesting conversation this week.

Today on BnHA: Nana And The Gang are all “so, Deku, how can we put this delicately. The thing is, we’re pretty sure that AFO really fucked my grandson up, so on the off chance you can’t save him, how would you feel about, you know... [throat slitting gesture].” Deku is all “idk you guys, I kinda feel like he’s really just a traumatized child at heart and he’s in a lot of pain and stuff and so I should try to help him.” The Vestiges are all “BUT WHAT IF YOU CAN’T” and Deku is all “BUT I WANT TO TRY, DAMMIT” and the Vestiges are all “well when you put it that way, we, uh, were just testing you, so congrats, you passed!” The chapter ends with First being all, “ANYWAY SO WHY DON’T YOU TWO SHY BOYS STANDING OVER THERE IN THE SHADOWS COME SAY HELLO” before we CUT AWAY FOR ANOTHER WEEK, goddammit.

seriously, Nana

just... have you met Deku?? look, if you really want Tomura dead, just sic him on the U.A. first years and tell Shouto and Honenuki that it’s a training exercise

oh my god lmao

we’re too far away to see Nana’s face here so I will just assume that she turned and is staring DIRECTLY INTO THE CAMERA for this one line lmao. “I just wanted to clarify in case anyone felt inclined to take my dialogue out of context and spend an entire week complaining about it”

oh my god?! are you all purposely trying to make me sad??

someone stop me before I launch into an impromptu rant about all my Tomura feels. WHY IS NOBODY STOPPING ME. oh my god but yes, exactly. he’s just in pain all the time. this is exactly why I think Tomura has such high redemption potential even though so far he seems to lack so many of the redemption arc essentials such as feeling remorse, wanting to change, and taking responsibility for his actions. the reason why I’m willing to overlook all that in his case is because Tomura has essentially had zero agency his entire life. AFO molded him into a killer by making sure he was in constant mental agony, and making it so that the only thing that even slightly relieved that agony was killing peeps. like, please don’t think I’m making excuses for him or anything, but if you take a child and manipulate their existence to make it virtually impossible for that child to grow up as anything other than a killer, and basically never give him the chance to be anything else, then no shit he’s gonna be a killer?? he’s basically never had the choice not to be. it’s never been an option for him. anyways I feel like I am EXPLAINING MYSELF SO BADLY but nonetheless I am prepared to die on this hill

anyway so now Nana is all “that’s a rhetorical question btw because Our Hearts And Minds Are One so we can feel everything you feel bro.” so yeah, that’s interesting

now Banjou is getting started on the “let’s try and talk Deku out of wanting to save Tomura because it’s insane” part of their OFA Mystical Space Void Reunion agenda

look, Banjou, I feel you, I really do. you guys don’t think it’s realistic that Deku can defeat Tomura without killing him. so if it’s a choice between killing Tomura vs letting Deku and everyone else in the entire world die, then duh, you think Deku should kill him. I get it! and if this were a real life mass murderer I’d totally agree with you. but the problem is that this isn’t real life, this is a sympathetic shounen villain with a tragic past who might as well have FUTURE REDEMPTION ARC RECEIPIENT stamped on his forehead at this point

so First is all “look, there’s absolutely no doubt my brother has fucked this kid up good and proper by now”, which, again, fair

though, that’s kind of exactly my point though. everything that Tomura is, everything he’s done, he’s done because of AFO. AFO has so effectively shaped his personality and his worldview by this point that it’s all but impossible to penetrate that. he’s AFO’s puppet. but the problem is that rather than treating him like a victim, you all are treating him like a casualty. like he’s already a lost cause. but good luck trying to convince Deku of that

WHOA WHAT, RANDOM SUPER-IMPORTANT AND BIZARRELY UNRELATED EXPOSITION DROPPED IN JUST LIKE THAT??

way to still not reveal Sixth’s name, btw. THE PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW, DAMMIT. but also so this confirms something we basically already knew already, which is that not even AFO can steal OFA. it literally can’t be taken away by anyone unless the owner wills it. SO SUCK ON THAT AFO YOU EGG

(ETA: so I have no idea why this was omitted from this translation, but apparently the Sixth’s name was revealed as “En”, which is obviously not his full name but at least it’s something. also he most likely has a fire or smoke-related quirk based on the kanji used, 煙.)

so Banjou is saying that Deku’s “lack of an iron will” could be a disadvantage against AFO. hahaha what?? Midoriya “I’ll break all of my bones without blinking an eye just to protect someone” Izuku lacks an iron will? do tell

he says this is going to be a test of Deku’s determination. well yeah, no shit. but just not in the way you guys think

OH HELLO AGAIN

darker hair again here! but I don’t trust the contrast in these scans at all after last week. his coveralls are way darker than they looked before too, and you can clearly see he’s standing in the shadows now

(ETA: yep, once again the raw shows that his hair is considerably lighter than what’s shown in these scans here. although there’s no mistaking now that his hair is consistently being colored in this slightly darker shade, and it’s not just the lighting.)

anyways lol First was saying something about how AFO can’t steal OFA, and they’ve spent all this time cultivating it as the ultimate weapon against AFO, and blah blah blah. go on then, keep lecturing

NANA GODDAMMIT NONE OF THIS IS YOUR FAULT

girl what?? you did everything in your power to protect your family, and AFO, fucked up man that he is, targeted them anyway. there is one person and one person only to blame for what’s happened to Tomura, and that potato-faced asshole needs a good kick in the balls

NANA GODDAMMIT DON’T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE

SO HELP ME GOD!! I WILL GIVE YOU THE BIGGEST HUG YOU’VE EVER HAD!! THAT IS A THREAT

so now Nana is all “I’m just going to call my grandson a Thing to ensure that fandom has only the freshest, grass-fed no-hormones-added discourse this week”

I don’t even need to drop into the tags to know exactly which specific people are going to respond to this, and what kind of posts they are going to write lmao. everyone’s all caught up in the “that thing”, and meanwhile I’m over here completely hung up on this “nay” that’s appeared out of NOWHERE you guys. look at that. she really said “NAY”

Nana, my love, my dearest, I feel you girl I really do. but he’s not an unforgivable manifestation of pure evil, Deku is exactly right actually, he’s a boy in pain. you guys need to stop questioning Deku’s shounen protagonist instincts here and just let him work his sparkly magic. “let’s try and convince Midoriya Fucking Izuku that he can’t save someone” is a plan that is NEVER going to turn out well you guys

“DEKU GODDAMMIT WHAT IF WE CAN’T SAVE HIM” lmao it’s like an intervention

“DAMMIT DEKU JUST ADMIT YOU HAVE A SAVING PEOPLE PROBLEM!”

RED ALERT IT’S ANOTHER CLOSE-UP OF THE BACK OF MISTER TWO BON CLAY’S HEAD OMG

(ETA: I was too distracted with freaking out about Two and Three to really appreciate how ridiculously handsome First looks in this panel. but on my second readthrough it stood out so much that I had to go back and add an extra bullet point just to talk about how hot he is. look at him. wtf.)

THAT IS DEFINITELY AN UNDERCUT. THE PLOT THICKENSSSS. also those are fucking exhaust vents on Mister Three’s neck. MISTER THREE COULD YOU POSSIBLY BE RELATED TO THE IIDAS, PLEASE TELL ME YOUR SECRETS I’M DYING OVER HERE

so now Deku is launching into what will undoubtedly be a “saving people problems require SAVING PEOPLE SOLUTIONS” heroic counter-speech!

I mean, they can already feel the “lol nah I’m gonna try and save him” feelings running through him lol. ~OuR hEaRtS aNd MiNdS aRe CoNnEcTeD~ and all that. this is just a formality, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love a good shounen protag speech

oh wait hold up, do you mean to tell me that the whole “hearts and minds are connected” thing I was just mocking just a paragraph ago actually allowed Deku to feel what Tomura was feeling?? like literally feel it??

YET AGAIN these Tomura feels are pounding on my front door you guys?? they just will not quit?? people my house is already full of feels, does it look like I need you to sell me any more of them?? -- what do you mean, they’re free??

AW YISS THAT’S IT DEKU. THAT’S SOME GOOD SPEECH RIGHT THERE

I appreciate the contrast here between the Douchebag Triumvirate of Overhaul, Muscular, and Stain versus the Misguided Twosome of Gentle and La Brava. never let it be said that Deku doesn’t know the difference between a redeemable villain and an unredeemable one

OH NO -- OH MY GOD

someone please help me I need directions to the OFA Spooky Galactic Nebula Realm in this fictional Japanese manga land. it’s not on google maps. I need to give these two babies a big hug and wrap them up in a blanket and treat them to some McDonalds Happy Meals please help

other things: (1) ENDEAVOR CHILLING OUT IN DEKU’S “PEOPLE I HOLD DEAR” PANEL LMAO NEON DISCOURSE EXTRAVAGANZA, (2) “ONE FOR ALL IS A POWER TO SAVE, NOT TO KILL” I’M ABOUT TO CRY DEKU I LOVE YOU SO MUCH HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE TO FEEL ALL THIS LOVE, (3) [SLAMS HANDS ON TABLE] THERE’S YOUR MOTHERFUCKING IRON WILL!!!!!!!! -- I’m sorry, please don’t call security, I’ll be good

I just randomly remembered that Deku is still saying all of this in his muffled “FMMPHHMMPHMM” voice and I’m somehow cracking up lol. so actually it’s a very good thing Their Hearts And Minds Are Connected, otherwise they’d no doubt be all, “...what?”

(ETA: so I completely missed this on account of it literally not being visible in the scan at all, but in the raw you can clearly see Baby Kacchan and Baby Shouto fanboying over All Might in two of these panels, and excuse me, ma’am??

thank you very much Deku for including them in your montage, particularly since you’ve never seen Baby Shouto before lol. amazingly accurate image you managed to conjure up, all things considered.)

SDKFJLSKHG -- AS IF ON CUE???

HE’S SO ADORABLE HELP?? Trippy Space All Might looks like he’s about to cry, and First is all “don’t crack a smile... you have to be Firm and Serious here... dammit, don’t smile” omg

anyways! YOU GO DEKU. “MY QUIRK MY RULES, BITCHES” damn, son

KLJLKKHLG TRIPPY SPACE ALL MIGHT LITERALLY ACTUALLY IS CRYING ALL MIGHT HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME

“I JUST... [CLENCHES FIST] REALLY LOVE SAVING PEOPLE” FUCKING HELL LMAO THIS IS THE WORST INTERVENTION OF ALL TIME

Deku is literally all “sure, maybe I’ll have to kill him, but have you guys also considered, MAYBE NOT??” it’s no use Nana he’s too powerful

LMAO FIRST

“like I’ve been saying this whole time, you should definitely try saving Shigaraki Tomura.” “but, uh... First, didn’t you just -- ” “shut up”

(ETA: clearly it’s not just his brother who inherited those smooth-talking genes.)

so now Deku has turned back into a sixteen year old and his clothes have gone missing again. just OFA things

dskljdlsklgk

yes... sure... “testing” you...

HEY

FIRST OF ALL, DAMN YOU HORIKOSHI YOU MADE NANA CRY. even if I’m pretty sure they’re actually tears of happiness/relief. and SECOND OF ALL, “TELL MY BOYFRIEND I SAID HI” DJSKDLKJJL ANYWAY MAYBE GRAN, NANA, AND MR. SHIMURA WERE IN A THROUPLE

[SCREAMS]

WHY WOULD YOU END IT THERE?? WHY WOULD YOU END IT THERE!!!!!

(ETA: and two-to-one odds that we cut away to some other scene once they finally start to turn around next week. I’M CALLING IT NOW. giving myself a week to brace myself for the rage.)

fucking hell. well if anyone needs me I will be adding Horikoshi fucking Kouhei to the list of irredeemable villains, peace

[whetstonefires]

Do you think the DC fandom maybe, Infantilizes Tim a little too much? Like for a rich kid character who's main trauma for a long time was a getting left home alone too much there's an oddly amount of meta abt how much how much his parents hurt him~ compared to, y'know the two poor characters who grew up with physically abusive dad's+druggie mom's, or the two that were raised assassin cult's, etc

…well, yeah, I do kind of think that? His whole schtick for so long was being too old for his age in ways that didn’t sacrifice his jokey, relatable teenager energies. It’s weird how little of that we see anymore, sometimes.

And then DC broke him and discarded him and he’s sort of awkwardly hanging around getting reimagined as more woobie with every fan generation. It is weird!

But tbh I do get it. And I think the reason his parents’ failure of him and his vulnerability get played up so much, and Jason and Steph’s sufferings (while used a lot for things like motivation and context) not dwelt on quite so much in the same lugubrious style, are kind of the same reason.

Which is that canon didn’t commit to it. Jason and Steph’s experiences with bad parenting were foregrounded and retconned more dramatically awful several times. (There’s some definite classism in how that was approached imo, and I’m never budging on being mad about DC retconning out Catherine being sick and then ignoring her forever in all Jason characterization because a drug death invalidates a person ig, great message during the opioid crisis guys.)

They engaged and coped with it–Steph (and Cass, our #1 canon batfam parental abuse victim) pretty directly, Jason a little less so because of the dubious and fluctuating canon status of most of the content more specific than ‘poverty, homelessness, theft, parental drugs and crime in there somewhere,’ so most of his parent issues have been focused on Bruce. He sure has dug into them tho. 😂 Rarely well or productively, thanks DC, but it’s explicitly part of his character, is my point.

Whereas upper-middle-class Tim was always treated by the narrative as fortunate and unharmed by his experiences with his parents. Even though they were clearly behaving badly in several ways, and Tim showed signs of being harmed by it.

Tim outside of immediate moments of frustration always was of the opinion he was Fine, and Very Fortunate Actually.

Therefore a huge chunk of the numerous everyone who’s got parent-related mental and emotional harm, but has struggled to have that validated and hasn’t responded with a lot of anger toward the parent, identifies with Tim. The only one who’s never really lashed out at his parents for fucking up with him. The one who still needs it explored, because canon ultimately didn’t.

[editing post to put in a readmore because lol it’s long, post otherwise unchanged]

(Dick obviously didn’t ever have any Issues with the Graysons, but he Angry Teenagered at Bruce so hard it changed Bruce’s characterization permanently, rip.)

The things Jason, Steph, and Cass have been through are dramatic, obvious, and fit stereotypes because that’s what they’re based on.

That’s important content to have, but because it’s right out there in your face even people who identify with it quite a lot are less likely to feel the need to work all the way through it again in fanworks. That part’s there. It’s text.

(Well actually Jason having been physically abused kind of wasn’t? I think? It was mostly assumed on the basis of stereotyping and Jason’s not caring about the man much even as he felt possessive of information about his death, which is valid. I don’t actually know what’s up with Willis now, Lobdell did some weird shit that lacked emotional resonance or staying power because he’s Lobdell and has no soul.

Cass’ wandering years are also ludicrously underdeveloped. But very very few comics fans or writers can personally relate to being amazing child warriors with no grasp of language living feral under bridges. That part of her life is consistently represented in terms of absences, in terms of its deviation from the norm and the deficits of normality it left her with, which is typical but unfortunate.) 

-

The interesting things to do with these characters are often informed by the bad stuff in their childhoods, but there’s relatively rarely that much more to say about the fact that those things were bad. They know they’re bad. They’ve had a lot of on-panel rage about it, as discussed above. Steph and Cass both beat the shit out of their dads.

Jason is, in fandom especially, a sort of Platonic ideal of a kid who’s mad about his bad childhood and really bad at figuring out where to point that rage.

(Damian is a whole other kettle of fish, because he’s been lumbered by so many detailed retcons coming so fast no two people can seem to construct compatible models of what his early childhood was like, and even more because he’s still ‘a child’ enough that he’s necessarily in a different stage of processing than someone who’s officially only a few years older than him at this point, but still functionally 8 and also 20 years older, and whose parents are no longer in the picture to continue screwing up.

Also there’s no question that if he brings up an abusive thing the League did, he will be validated by his current environment about his realization that it was in fact bad. There’s a lot of fic on that theme! But it doesn’t have the same tone precisely because it is usually understood that that support will be there if he wants it. Realizing that his previous context contained things that were wrong keeps being made the focus of his arc.)

The badness of Tim’s childhood, on the other hand, was mainly in subtext. Even when we were clearly meant to understand Jack was fucking up, like when he canceled plans with Tim at the last minute to go on a date with Tim’s stepmother, or that infamous time he came to apologize for not being a great parent and got mad Tim was distracted by a crisis on TV so he flew into a rage and took the TV and smashed it and was like ‘that’ll teach you,’ it wasn’t leaned into.

The story didn’t treat Jack as a minor villain to be overcome but like a sort of environmental hazard of childhood, like homework, to be endured and coped with. Tim said things like ‘it’s fine’ and ‘at least he left the computer.’

(And like. It’s not about having a TV and computer in his room. It’s about not letting a child have boundaries, pointedly not respecting a child’s possessions, creating an emotionally insecure environment, punishing minor infractions in proportion to their momentary impact on your own ego, physically lashing out at a proxy for the child…)

Rather like Tom King later didn’t understand about the punching from Bruce, whoever did that story (probably Dixon? I don’t care enough to check) did not understand how serious a case of bad parenting that scene was. That is most definitely textbook abusive behavior. (It’s a hell of a lot more common abusive behavior than being a lame supervillain or shooting you when you screw up, and a lot more specific than ‘was a thug, might have hit me, dead now.’)

And Tim was never allowed to be mad at his parents about it. It was fine. He needed to be ignored so he had the freedom to be Robin. He deserved his dad being mad at him because he was keeping secrets. He complained too much, although objectively he did not.

The universe punished him for ‘complaining,’ more than once. We cut straight from him shunting aside his disappointment that his postcard from his parents was just to say they weren’t coming home yet after all with ‘if it will stop all the fights they’ve been having lately it’s more than fine’ to them getting kidnapped.

He agreed not to come on the rescue mission. His mom never made it home, and his dad was in a coma for a while. And then ultimately Jack died as a result of Tim’s decision to be Robin, immediately after finally deciding to accept it.

So Tim walks around feeling a huge burden of responsibility for his parents’ deaths, and completely unable to process any hurt they did him as real or valid, especially in comparison with the far more blatant awfulness other people have been through, and canon is clearly never going to address it. Or even acknowledge it properly.

Let me repeat that because it’s kind of my main point:

People are fixated on getting Tim’s emotional abuse validated because that’s an incredibly important step in recovering from emotional abuse, and it’s one canon consistently denied him.

How ‘bad’ things are ‘in comparison to’ problems other people have is a bad and unhealthy way to engage with trauma. Okay? That’s just a really harmful framework to apply to pain.

It’s also a way that both Tim and people with experiences similar to Tim’s are encouraged to engage with their own experiences, compounding the existing problems.

So. Not a form of relatable DC was ever actually aiming for when they tried so hard (and pretty effectively) to make him a relatable character as Robin, but an enduring one for a lot of fans.

-

So Tim’s childhood is a natural target for fanworks in a different way than the traumas that have been made explicit and taken seriously by the text. And then a lot of that got compounded by the way the introduction of Damian as Robin was handled, and the lack of resolution that got. And his current status as not quite having a place in the family anymore.

So between the level of projection encouraged by that context and how relatively difficult to access Tim’s Robin run has become ten years after the fact, this has led to a lot of fanworks on these themes that are based mostly on other fanworks, and stray further and further from the original content.

So at this point there’s an entire wing of Tim’s fandom wherein this side of him has expanded enormously, and he primarily exists to suffer, frequently in ways that 1) escalate to a point that is inarguably ‘valid’ and hard to dismiss and 2) set him up to rebound from it in whatever way the writer finds emotionally satisfying or useful–being ultimately cared for and reassured by people who value him (the most infantilizing option but like, popular for obvious reasons), or unveiling his brilliant scheme that was causing him to pretend to be passive in the face of mistreatment, or turning around and using his genius ninja skills to wrest power back from his abusers, or just laying down some sick burns about being treated fairly.

But not that many of the last one, because that’s mostly done with other batfam members.

Tim’s become a vehicle for a lot of vicarious coping that Steph and Jason just aren’t appropriate for, because they get angry and they get even. And those are stories that exist already, so there’s less scope for telling your own.

And because Jason’s reaction pattern is ultimately so masculine (i’ll make them all sorry! with my guns! blam blam!) while Tim’s is pretty gender-neutral, the demographics of fanfic mean that the bulk of the people using Tim vicariously in this manner are female-aligned, which has over time feminized this archetype of him a lot. Sometimes in ways I find really uncomfortable, like there’s a lot of forced pregnancy stuff which activates my panic buttons. x.x

But, ultimately, it’s fandom. People are going to do what they’re going to do, DC in their perpetual fail has hung Tim out to dry in narrative terms, and I’d rather the people who are using Tim for victimization narratives over the people who can’t dismiss or discredit him fast enough now that his position has been filled. 🤷‍♀️ What we gonna do? Fave’s in an awkward spot. DC hates us. This is the life in this comic book pit. XD

-

Also if you’re the same anon who left me a callout about op of that weird Steph post in my inbox, or if you aren’t @ that person, 1) I refuse to get involved so I’m not answering that ask 2) those aren’t even particularly dramatic fandom crimes? That’s pretty normal? That’s just…Caring Too Much About Ships And Disagreeing With Me.

Do I also feel those opinions are kinda bad? Yeah. But I disagree with everyone about something. Chill.

[reactted-blog]

Reflection on Jeff Speck’s talk, 4 Ways to Make a City More Walkable

If you enjoy learning about urban planning or want to understand what I’m talking about, then go ahead and watch this, a recent TED talk about, well, making a city more walkable. I’ll be talking about how a local government could apply this in my community, but this could hopefully be extrapolated to other communities, as well.

Jeff Speck laid out four things which must be offered to make a city “walkable”. There must be:

A reason to walk

A feeling of safety along the walk

A comfortable walk, and

An interesting walk.

Today was a beautiful day. The blue sky, bright sun, and pleasant temperature (to my arctic self) made for a great day for a walk around downtown. I left from my college campus armed with my cameraphone, my laptop, a charger, and my very own joie de vivre. If I’d felt the urge to be capitalistic, I could have stopped by the local bookstore for a well-loved classic, or I could have dropped by the coffee house (as close as our town will probably ever have to a cyber cafe) to open my laptop and sip my drink of choice while indulging my technological superiority. Today, however, I was feeling frugal, and I wished only to find pictures for this post and perhaps an open wifi hotspot on which to compose (I ended up batting .500 on that, largely due to my reluctance to mooch off of a business I wasn't paying.) All in all, it was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

That was my reason to walk around downtown. Speck’s talk, however, points out something missing in that: I’m not really the target of an urban planner’s campaign to get people walking. I have no car. I would have been walking anyway. The other denizens of this city drove here from miles and miles away, left their vehicle, and walked only the distance from their parking spot to their business. And that is all well and good, but everyone did this. Apart from us students, and that one lady with a house beside CVS, nobody lives near enough to walk to downtown; there isn’t really an incentive to walk. Speck’s first point, that of a reason to walk, is largely missed here, simply because of a lack of housing in the downtown area. If this were extant, or if there were an effective public transit in the area, the downtown area would thrive from the varied destinations which would attract the denizens of our fair town.

I stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the light to turn, as tons of steel rushed past me. Inches from certain death, one might become fearful. Nothing separated us but the fact that my clumsiness had not yet made me trip and fall into the road. Normally, this may be a daunting prospect, but for me, it’s normal. I walk the streets of my town often, and I know this light well. I know to look over my left shoulder before crossing and make eye contact with the driver who waited for the same light I did. In a town in the country, there are those who take little caution in turning right, even when my sign says to go. Right-of-way says I go first. But right of tonnage gives the advantage to them, if they take it.

Right across from my campus, directly adjacent to the beautiful fountains of Noe Plaza, I stood alone. Though the lack of pedestrians may be attributed to many things, a great deal of the blame can be placed on Speck’s second point: The walk has to be safe and feel safe. 

Elsewhere in this city, this principle is seen beautifully. A buffer of space allotted to on-street parking allows the citizen to walk around the streets of downtown safely and with a sense of security. Being a klutz, I am confident that if I fall over  suddenly, the only part of me that will be crushed is my ego. Clear crosswalks and safe speed limits make crossing the street trivial, and it is likely that all of the cars parked in this picture are owned by people who walk from their parking space all over the downtown area. The friendly walking environment makes this section of town thrive from an interconnected nature. However, this is harmed by the isolation of this island of walkability from residential areas by means of roads with no buffer between car and sidewalk, or worse, with no sidewalk. It is obvious that the city has begun to make itself accessible to the walking population, but it is not yet finished.

Hand for scale.

This section of Earth isn’t exactly flat. And that is made quite obvious when dealing with some of the sidewalks around town; this isn’t even the worst of it. When my grandparents came to visit, a new scratch appeared on my grandfather’s truck’s paint. Upon opening the passenger side door, we discovered that the curb was slightly higher than the door itself. Naturally, this state of affairs is not ideal for walking, though it is entertaining for those of us who enjoy parkour. I am not talented, coordinated, or fit enough to be one of those people. This aspect of Speck’s third point, the comfortable walk, I feel was overlooked, possibly because very few cities have any curb at all which is higher than the average toddler’s knee, much less the average toddler.

Although I complain about it, this doesn't really affect walkability that much; where problems arise seriously, there are steps. In an uneven area, this is a great way to deal with the issue. Just don’t park next to it and try to open that door.

Apart from this occasional trouble, however, the downtown area is quite amenable to pedestrian traffic. At crossings, the pedestrian can see the cars around him, and yet be shielded by the ubiquity of parking lanes. Speck’s analogy of pedestrians as prey is acknowledged by design and the fear of the metal beasts that zoom past is kept at bay by distance and open lines of sight.

As to the interesting walk, our city has everything except the pedestrians. Though Speck claims that, as social people, we need to see others walking to be interested in it ourselves, the draw is already present. From this historical park and war memorial to the beautiful arched and flora’d alleyways, the downtown area is beautiful.

The draw is there. It is said that, “If you build it, they will come.” However, the people are not yet flocking the sidewalks of downtown. Why is this?

As seen above, the city still has a few underlying issues before being a truly walkable city. In accordance with Speck’s General Theory of Walkability, the process is begun, but some underlying issues remain. These are:

Additional housing near downtown so people will have a reason to walk rather than drive

A public transit system to bring people to the area (and walkability from homes to the hubs of this system) for those who otherwise would drive to town

Extension of on-street parking or other forms of wide shoulders throughout the greater area to make sidewalks feel safe

When these three points are addressed, even though we live in a generally rural area, I believe that the general public will begin walking much more. Even when stereotypes say that the car will always be king of the small town, I say that people want to walk when they can. When we enable them, they will come.

[mmahi-blog]

My Life On Mobile

Day 1

Baseball is a Simple Game

So, I've embarked on my journey to be totally dependent on my mobile phone and iPad mini for the next five days. It shouldn’t be too hard since I’m constantly on my phone tweeting, posting social and checking a million notifications from news feeds to sports scores.

It will be interesting to see how reliant I am on the desktop, laptop and my 75-inch screen tv (I love that thing).

For this journey, I’ll be using my Samsung Galaxy S8 Andriod version 7.0, my trusty iPhone 6s Plus IOS11.4 and my mini iPad IOS 11.4.

I’ll be using these devices to watch TV, check my email and manage my social media campaigns at work as well as everything else I need to do digitally. 

I’m a huge college baseball fan. Love my Titans and am seriously bummed that we didn’t go to Omaha this year. That’s another story. So I thought I would see how well ESPN covered the College World Series and how they keep fans connected via mobile.

I would have to say that ESPN does mobile well. They have an incredible app which pushes notifications for scores, upcoming games, and news (Does anyone think LeBron will come to LA?) UPDATE: HE IS A LAKER, WOW

ESPN is truly a global company. 

ESPN uses a mix of geographic and demographic segmentation strategies to address the various factions of the sports world. They basically selectively target and focus on different sets of customer groups. Since ESPN was founded in 1979 it has emerged as a world leader in the sports media/entertainment network and broadcasting business. 

I love their commercials and marketing campaigns because they appeal directly to the sports-minded viewer and they reflect the tone of the broadcast giant which is informative, entertaining and at times very funny.

ESPN, like many other media companies, is up against the emergence of online streaming sites, social media, and other digital platforms all vying for ESPN’s customers.

ESPN has a fantastic mobile presence but to view their premium content you are tied to a cable subscription or some streaming platform. They have been slow to embrace the cord-cutting features like offering a premium site that you can subscribe to and not have to be tied to a cable subscription, They recently added ESPN + but I’m not sure it is enough and that the company needs to get in the business of mobile platforms that are used by their demographic which is 10- to 45-year-old, males. They are losing revenue and laying off staff just like other media companies so I suspect this technologic disruption is top of mind in their marketing strategy. The problem is they are tied to contracts with sports leagues and cable companies.

Back to Baseball

Oregon State defeated a feisty Arkansas team that ultimately lost the series with a blown play in the bottom of the ninth inning. I know this because even though I was at a concert at the park I used my Samsung phone and the ESPN app to watch the game and listen to the smooth sounds of a Carlos Santana tribute band (I also started following the band on Facebook after they announced they had a site). 

I was also able to check my emails, text messages and stay connected with friends, family and work while at a park with hundreds of music fans.

It was a great way to end a long day.

DAY 2

@CSUF is #MyTopCollege

Spending the day disconnected from a desktop computer is tricky business for a guy who makes a living doing social media and online engagement. But it has forced me to pay more attention to my mobile experience and whether I am  getting everything I want and or need from it.

Today, I planned to purchase a few items on Amazon via my mobile app. I tend to do this kind of buying on my desktop because for some strange reason it feels more secure. 

 But Amazon’s success is because of its mobile marketing strategy. It’s as easy as picking the item and hitting the one-click option. 

The beauty of Amazon is that its mobile site is truly mobile. Way too many retailers have really bad sites which lead to poor customer experiences. I went to check out Old Navy for a few items and to compare it to Amazon. The web page is mobile responsive and you have a good menu setup but what I found annoying was after a few seconds on the site a window popped up asking for my opinion about the website. I don’t have an opinion after a couple of minutes. Perhaps that comes after the purchase? 

Amazon, on the other hand, does several things right including great big Calls To Action and a consistent design between mobile and the app which means either way you go it’s familiar and easy to navigate. They also highlight other items people have purchased similar to what you are picking.

I finally ended up not buying anything but my searches led me to a few things I want to get later so I’ll definitely be back.

@CSUF Social Media Campaign

Today, I also spent a significant amount of time checking on our official Twitter and Instagram sites. The ForbesEDU #MyTopCollege social media contest which we are leading in the large college division. I was waiting for the week 2 results so I needed to routinely check in as well as continue encouraging our followers to post why they love @csuf and why it is their #MyTopCollege. 

If I’m in the office, I typically do this all on the desktop with several tabs open so I can bounce back and forth between platforms and the Forbes site. Being restricted to just my mobile device was a little funky but it all worked out and gave me some insights about the platforms.

Twitter

Twitter is a fantastic mobile app and it does what it supposed to do, just ask President Trump. 

Twitter has been in a slump but recently there has been some growth and I believe that the strategy of increasing the number of characters from 140 to 280 is a reason for that growth. They listened to their customers and it has made a huge difference.

The big keys with Twitter are the public nature of Twitter and its advanced search features. 

Twitter marketing expert Mark Schaefer illustrated this well in a recent Social Media Examiner podcast:

“To demonstrate, Mark did an experiment with a local pizza place, which had tried Facebook ads without any success. Mark suggested the owner use advanced Twitter search - Mark showed him how to set up a stream with every conversation that was within five miles of the zip code that mentioned the words “pizza,” “restaurant,” “dining out,” or anything like that.

On average, someone in the area mentioned pizza every 20 minutes. The tweets might have been silly things like, “Oh, I can’t believe how stupid I am. I just dropped my pizza face-down on the floor.” Mark suggested tweeting the person back, “We’re going to deliver you a new pizza.” It doesn’t matter if the customer didn’t buy the dropped pizza from you. You become a legend. Another person complained about slow delivery from a competitor. Mark suggested the pizza place owner respond with, “Next time, try us.”

I love Twitter for all these reasons and they need to continue developing and marketing these features that set them apart from Facebook and Instagram.

Engagement is the key to winning #MyTopCollege and our loyal Twitter followers are a reason we have won the past four years.

Forbes mobile website

My second observation from today’s check-ins with the Forbes website had some negatives. 

The website is mobile friendly with a stacked theme. Great menu and pretty intuitive. So, it’s easy enough to navigate and get around.

But what was frustrating was how Forbes released the results. They have all the right elements for the contest such as a landing page which highlights the posts from schools around the country, a map showing the leaders and a results list.

They updated the list around noon which put us in first place for week 2, but they didn’t have a story up so there was nothing to verify or link to share with our followers. That came an hour later. Maybe not a big deal but it should have been done at the same time. 

The other and bigger marketing fail is how they actually do the contest. #MyTopCollege is a great summer engagement contest but how they pick posts is spotty and they never spelled out when they start counting new post from week to week.

I believe this lack of transparency and detail is why participation from year-to-year has declined significantly. 

The smart things ForbesEDU Twitter account does is engage by retweeting and liking the post from around the nation. A classic Twitter marketing strategy and keeps people engaged. 

Lastly, they tweet reminders and challenges to specific schools to get involved. Calling out specific schools is a great way to target an audience and make it feel like they are special.

So, we ended the day finding out @csuf is still in first place. I posted on Twitter and Facebook to update our followers and also used some words from Forbes to fire up our followers to not let up because Long Beach is chasing us.

DAY 3

Weekends are for Leisure

Saturday on mobile started out like most of my days. 

6 a.m. Rise and shine. Checking email, text messages and ripping through our social media notifications to see if I received any comments or questions from our followers that need to be handled.

7 a.m. At the gym watching the knock out game between France and Argentina on my iPad mini while cruising along on the treadmill. Again, ESPN’s mobile app is a lifesaver for sports junkies and their update notifications are the best.

I use a couple different mobile fitness apps. The beauty of these is that they are recording your progress in real-time. MyFitness app is the one I use and it does what it is marketed to do. Notifications to remind you to eat, walk, sleep, workout or just get off your butt. What I love about these types of apps is that they do all the work for you. I don’t have to log all my hours by hand although I do manually insert my food choices. in a fitness crazed society mobilizing health is a win-win.

8:30 a.m. Back home, checking emails and sports updates on the soccer match. Made a healthy breakfast from a recipe I found on my health app while at the gym this morning. Mobile once again making my life easier.

I’m a huge news junkie. I was in the newspaper business for 30 years so reading the morning paper and news notifications is in my DNA. Mobile makes that part of my life a lot easier but at times frustrating. 

The Feel of News Print

The great part of having your news delivered via mobile is that it’s right in your hand and available wherever you are at. The worst part for my generation is that I miss the feel of newsprint in my hands and the opportunity to sit down and take a break with a good read. I get frustrated that papers still try to hold on to the legacy design of a printed newspaper in their e-editions. Millenials and Gen Z don’t care if it looks like a newspaper. They don’t have that expectation and eventually boomers will be replaced and the newspaper consumer will demand and expect a mobile, multi-media digital package. 

Papers like the LA Times and OC Register have true mobile sites that are easy to navigate and give unique content like video, interactive graphics, and forums to talk about the article or issue. Papers really need to kick the newsprint model to the curb and embrace a digital look. The key is figuring how to make money at it. The industry’s failure to get in the mobile/internet/digital business years ago is why it is failing. They were disrupted by Craig’s list and citizen bloggers who they dismissed as a fad when in reality they were the future.

Got a mobile update from ESPN as well but nothing from OC Register or LAT. 

CNN Breaking News: France knocks superstar Lionel Messi and Argentina out of the World Cup, beating them 4-3 in the first game of the Round of 16.

Writing on a mini iPad is fun. Right?

2 p.m. Took a trip to Costco and did some weekend shopping before heading out to friend’s house for dinner so I used my mobile devices to get around, check prices and reviews of a couple products I was buying.

Costco’s website is optimized for mobile. Not the greatest design but functional. The bummer was the mobile app. It’s the same as the website and hard to navigate as a first time user. They key in on member only savings but don’t you have to be a member to get savings anyways? That’s the point, right?

Costco Mobile Optimized Website

Costco Mobile App

A few things wrapping up Day 3.

 -- Google Maps. Not sure how I ever managed before this app but I’m lost without it. I used the Waze app as well to see which worked better. I preferred Google because it’s pretty straightforward and gives you voice directions. 

WAZE

Waze is unique in that it highlights traffic, accidents, road hazards etc inputted by users. It’s a little distracting and kind of a lot of work. But it has a great design and lot and lots of people love it.

HQ Addicted

Once at our friends’ home, I really didn’t engage with my mobile devices until right before 6 p.m. when our friends received a mobile alert that HQ was about to start.

Ok, I was hooked. What a blast and it’s all about mobile engagement, socializing and just having fun. The marketing strategy is pretty cool. At a certain time of day the trivia contest is on, it last 15 minutes and you ultimately have a few thousand winners at a very low payout. The key is that people are talking about the brand and that’s money. Will it last longer than Pokemon Go? We’ll see.

We wrapped up our evening with creme brûlée and a wonderful strawberry cake and most importantly conversation. (Photo shot with iPhone)

Day 4 

Sunday is Funday

The one thing I have noticed through this process is that I have a routine. 

Up at 6 a.m. checking emails, text messages, overnight news and sports scores all on my iPhone or Samsung Galaxy.

I read my newspapers on mobile apps and watched one of the most exciting World Cup games I’ve seen so far. Russia takes out Spain with penalty kicks.

While I was watching the games on my ESPN app I was thinking how cool it is to be connected via mobile. This week’s video points out that mobile use is growing at a rapid rate and will eventually outpace the desktop. 

I listened to a lot of music on my mobile this weekend. 

So are you a Spotify or Pandora person? Here are my reasons for Team Spotify

Pandora simply can’t keep up with Spotify’s versatility and usability. Pandora came first but Spotify made it better and even beats out Apple

Sure they have Pandora Premium which means users can finally listen to a massive collection of specific songs and albums at their pleasure, but Pandora is playing catch-up at this point, and it’s pretty far behind. 

Spotify has better social features, better apps, and more value for your dollar. 

Pandora simply fell into a trap and didn’t continue to innovate at a fast enough rate. Lesson is never get too comfortable in this new frontier.

Take a Moment

Otherwise, I didn’t do much on my phone or other mobile devices today except crank up Spotify and hang out at the pool with the grandkids, bbq and try to unplug. 

UPDATE: LEBRON IS A LAKER!!

My phone went off later that evening with alerts about King James. It just kept ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping !!!! Mobile at its best or worst if you are a Clippers Fan!

Day 5

Mondays Always Make Me Happy

Not sure what it is about Monday but it gives me the feeling that I have a whole new fresh start on life and this time I’m going to get it right.

Today is the start of a holiday week. The Fourth of July is in the middle of the week and I have a ton of stuff to get to before heading out for what I hope will be an extended weekend. We will see.

So, back to my mobile journey. 

6 a.m. Up and first thing in my hand before even a cup of coffee is my iPhone. Checking and answering emails, text messages and reviewing the news that Los Angeles is now the center of the universe or one would think with the coming of The King. 

7 a.m. I’m getting ready and I get a mobile notification that Forbes #MyTopCollege third week theme is up. So, I craft a tweet and let our followers know to tweet or post on Instagram about the impact study abroad has had on their lives all the while wondering will anyone post on a holiday weekend. Will they? I sent out a distribution list email to about 75 people on campus helping with the contest and crafted a post for Facebook using my iPad mini. 

8ish: Read as many of the breaking news reports in my stream and glanced at top stories in my OCR and LAT apps. By now I have been bombarded with news stimuli from several sources all via mobile. That would never have had happened 30 years ago when I was in the news business. You would check a few newspapers, listen to KNX and watch the local broadcast channels ABC, NBC, and KTLA. That’s no longer the norm. It’s all in the palm of our hand.

A quick breakfast while watching the Today Show on my iPad mini. I hate it when going into a holiday they have a segment on dieting. Really? Dude, I’m eating hot dogs, ribs, burgers and a few adult beverages. But that segment reminded that maybe I should have all that fun in moderation. Sucks getting old.

Work: Kind of the same routine. checking emails, text messages and notifications on my phone and tweeting about #MyTopCollege.

Instagram is an app I use a lot for personal pleasure and work. Today was no exception. Went out and grabbed a photo, posted and in four-plus hours I have more than 900 likes. It’s the beauty of having over 20,000 followers and knowing what types of images my audience likes and the captioning.

So why is Instagram so good?

• Instagram is easy to use, great for in-the-moment experiences, you can edit on the fly and it is highly visual. People love photos. It’s different from apps like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, mostly because of its simplicity. My student audience loves simple. It’s also not limited to one function like LinkedIn which is for professional networking. It’s kind of the people’s app. 

It’s not perfect

• You can’t publish links in your Instagram posts, so it’s harder to lead people back to your site. There are ways around this which also include an app called Link Tree but it’s not ideal. The upside is limited spamming. Not meant for text and conversations are limited so no flaming Tweet wars which actually may be a good thing. 

At the end of the day its simplicity and visual impact is what is important about Instagram and is the No. 1 reason it is our fastest growing platform with huge engagement numbers.

My Mobile Life Summary or Kind of Day 6

This really isn’t Day 6. It’s actually Day 5 since I started a little behind so forgive me for taking a little liberty with the assignment

This weekend was also kind of crazy. Our main sewer drain was clogged and we knew this time it was going to need a little more than a snake and some hot water.

I was on my mobile device a lot getting in touch with the plumber, texting back and forth and trying to see how much a sewer line repair would be running me. The cool thing is I was able to do all that and still go swimming with the grandkids because of mobile. All that was handled with a call, text or a quick check of local plumbers on Yelp and Angie’s List.

Reflecting on the five days using mobile.

I miss my desktop and laptop. I’m kind of old school but very tech savvy and use mobile more than most. I grew up pounding a typewriter, struggling with an old Radio Shack TRS 80s, putting change in a public phone and taking notes on a notepad. The desktop is my connection to those days and it just feels right.

That said I am extremely mobile. I noticed my routine and it centers around checking in on my email, text, social posts and Googling stuff I don’t know or need to research. It’s amazing how dependent I am on digital and mobile.

I have a million apps on my iPhone, Samsung, and mini iPad. I use email, text, camera, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, a few other social media platforms, and tools like iMovie as well as some productivity apps like Word, Google maps, and a calculator. The other zillion apps basically sit there and one or two may be used once or twice a year.

Here are a few things I learned about mobile sites.

Keep calls to action front and center. 

Keep menus short and sweet but let them do some heavy lifting.

Keep getting back to the home page easy.

Keep in mind people are there for what they want so keep promotions simple and don’t let them steal the show.

Keep your search front and center. People use the search function a lot and they need to know where it is on your mobile site. Make the searches relevant to what your customer wants.

Keep customer engagement top priority. If they have a question, don’t leave them hanging. Customer service is key on mobile.

Keep the purchasing function as easy as possible. Don’t make them work too hard to check out. 

For me, sites like Amazon and Home Depot (I’m a DIY kind of guy or more like take parts back until I get the right one) check off a lot of these bullet points. 

So, all in all, it was an interesting week. I am now aware that I am totally addicted to my phone or in reality, it is part of who I am and what I do. I embrace the new technology and understand that eventually mobile will be how the majority of consumers do business each and every day. The same is true for education and many of the same principals can be applied to higher education websites that are too stuffy and not mobile.

But at the end of the day, I know that it’s time to take that phone and capture a moment in time that is just for me. 

Aloha

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

Amazon Sellers Are Creating a Trade Association in the Hope of Being Taken More Seriously

Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/amazon-sellers-are-creating-a-trade-association-in-the-hope-of-being-taken-more-seriously/

Amazon Sellers Are Creating a Trade Association in the Hope of Being Taken More Seriously

The millions of merchants who sell products on Amazon.com have long craved more leverage over their powerful benefactor. Now some are creating a trade association in the hopes that a unified voice will force Amazon to take them more seriously.

Organisers began pitching fellow merchants on the Online Merchants Guild last week at the Prosper Show, an annual Las Vegas conference that drew 1,900 Amazon sellers. The group is only just getting started but has big ambitions, which include negotiating better terms with Amazon, pushing the company to respond more effectively to sellers’ complaints and lobbying government officials to make sure merchants’ viewpoints are being heard.

Chris McCabe, a former Amazon employee and owner of the consulting firm Ecommercechris.com is organising the guild with Paul Rafelson, a Pace University law professor. They plan to promote the group at Amazon merchant events in New York and Seattle next month. It’s early days, and only about 100 merchants have expressed interest in joining the association, which levies an annual fee of between $100 and $25,000 (roughly Rs. 6,500 and Rs. 16.3 lakhs), depending on the size of the business.

Merchants have mulled such a group for years but now have an issue to rally around. In recent months, states have been warning that they plan to levy back taxes on years worth of past sales. Merchants fear they’ll be easier targets than Amazon and hope a guild will give them lobbying clout.

“There has not been one single issue to galvanise Amazon sellers like the sales tax issue,” McCabe says.

Merchants’ complaints about Amazon are numerous and long-standing. With 300 million customers around the globe, including its big-spending Prime subscribers, the world’s biggest online retailer wields tremendous leverage over the people who keep its web store stocked with an abundance of goods.

Amazon can dictate terms and fees with minimal input from sellers, who have to accept the take-it-or-leave-it approach because there are millions of merchants and only one Amazon. Merchants love it when the orders are rolling in. They hate it when there’s a problem and Amazon doesn’t seem to care nearly as much as they do because it has plenty of other merchants selling the same things.

Still, Amazon offers small businesses an easy way to access customers through its web store and vast distribution network. Amazon added more than 300,000 new small businesses as merchant partners in 2017 and over 140,000 of its merchants have annual sales exceeding $100,000.

“We have large teams dedicated to helping sellers, many of them small businesses,” Amazon said in an emailed statement. “We interact with sellers thousands of times a day through a variety of channels and will continue to make sure we maintain that open dialogue.”

Even with an organised group, merchants could find it difficult to negotiate with Amazon, which typically resists collective bargaining. The e-commerce giant has had long-running disputes with the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers over online book sales. And the company has managed to keep unions out of its US warehouses.

Merchants are also contending with Amazon’s growing political influence. The company has a big lobbying presence in Washington and relationships with state lawmakers who doled out tax breaks in exchange for building new warehouses that create jobs. Amazon’s proposed second headquarters, which the company says will generate 50,000 new jobs over 15 years, has given politicians yet another reason to make nice with the online retailer.

Amazon merchants fear their voices are drowned out by the company when policy decisions are made that affect their livelihoods and the future of e-commerce. They think an association will help them lobby more effectively. In addition to sales taxes, the merchants want to advocate for better protections against counterfeit goods that run rampant on online marketplaces, as well as trade issues like international postal rates that make it cheap for Chinese merchants to ship goods directly to US shoppers. Merchants fear lawmakers don’t understand their business and the complexities of how Amazon operates.

“When we speak to lawmakers about how Amazon works, their eyes glaze over,” says Jamin Arvig, a guild member and organiser who has been selling water filters on Amazon for more than a decade. “Our fear is policy makers will come up with solutions that are terrible because they don’t understand this business.”

Beyond e-commerce policy, merchants hope an association will help them negotiate better terms with Amazon. Common complaints among Amazon merchants are that the retailer lacks adequate staff to handle their questions and concerns, which are routed to departments that often email irrelevant responses. Sellers also fear having their accounts suspended due to unverified complaints from Amazon shoppers or erroneous complaints lobbed by marketplace rivals bent on sabotage. Amazon’s focus on customers means merchants are guilty until proven innocent when a customer complains, cutting off sales for weeks while they navigate Amazon’s account reinstatement process, sellers say.

Hundreds of trade associations form every decade, often in response to new threats such as technological innovation or an industry partner growing too powerful, says Lynette Spillman, a sociology professor at the University of Notre Dame who has studied trade associations. Mulch and soil producers have an association to help them negotiate with big retail partners like Home Depot, as do food-equipment manufacturers that sell products to large companies like McDonald’s.

“The sales tax issue, and more particularly how to handle it considering Amazon’s power as a distributor, fits this sort of origin story well,” she says.

© 2018 Bloomberg LP

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[jonboudposts]

What We Never Talk About When We Talk About Race

On 17 August 2017, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said we need to have a talk in this country about sexual abuse, in the wake of Rotherham Labour MP Sarah Champion standing down from the Shadow Cabinet after her comments that Pakistani men only rape and abuse white girls.

This was in reference to the criminal case in which a group of eighteen men and one woman were jailed for grooming and sexually assaulting young girls in Newcastle.  The routine follows a well-worn structure; vulnerable young ladies not fully on the radar of social services or police, often coming from homes with problems that prevent the functioning of everyday life proceeding easily, are targeted by sexual offenders.

The response has, as ever, been extraordinary for the wrong reasons and equally followed a structure. The routine was to forget any action or circumstance carried out by anyone who is not one of the South Asian men who committed the crimes.  Almost like we were trying to promote racial intolerance and hide the terrible extent that child abuse runs in British society.

Sarah Champion does not to want to discuss all this though.  During an interview on BBC Radio 4 Today programme on 10 August, she merely wanted to use this opportunity to bash the left and scream that we have a ‘problem with Pakistani men raping and abusing white girls’ in this country - apparently she is also concerned about increases in Islamophobia when she discusses this issue.  She went on to whine about a politically-correct conspiracy by management in social services to deny the ethnicity of perpetrators.

Here we go again.

Champion later went on to publish an article saying the same thing in the national hate rag The Sun; all while she was SC Minister for Women and Equalities.

Today the press are trying to make a big thing of her departure but frankly she got off lightly. The only criticism I have for the Labour leadership in this case is they did not fire Champion; instead letting her resign from her Shadow Cabinet position.  She is no better than a hate preacher and has no place in public life.

On the same edition of the Today programme, Lord Ken MacDonald made his now-oft-quoted point that this was ‘a profoundly racist crime’.  This is wrong from the off (prejudiced it might be but not racist) but also plays into the narrative.

Later on in the day we got some sense and balance, courtesy of Woman’s Hour, where Jenny Murray interviewed Laura Seebohm from an organisation called Changing Lives; plus Detective Inspector Claire Wheatley who worked on the Operation Sanctuary. Changing Lives has been involved in helping out women with traumatic and abusive lives for ten years

Laura spoke of the victims sharing treats like previous abuse, poor mental health and sexual violence in their lives; being groomed sometimes from childhood.  Girls and women in these situations often fail to come forward for fear they will not be believed.

DI Wheatley spoke of concerns that had existed over the victim’s behaviour and ‘certain lifestyle characteristics, helping to create for many the feeling they were not victims and making it difficult to identify where abuse was taking place.  It was ‘absolutely the case’ some victims thought these criminals were their boyfriends according to Laura.

So by engaging with victims and support groups, a better understanding for all is achieved, sex offenders stopped and jailed and vulnerable people better empowered. Meanwhile, the media shouts about the criminal’s ethnicity and achieves nothing.

One result of this is to make victim services stronger and more bespoke; including knocking the police into line to take this shit seriously.  DI Wheatley talked of the ‘massive cultural change’ taken place within the police force in understanding sexual exploitation and moves to improve prevention. Funding cuts also made the job more difficult.

Both speakers agreed the case in Newcastle was extreme, not any kind of norm. Ongoing investigations involving white offenders have so far failed to catch media attention in the same way (though no doubt of some perpetrators turn out to be Eastern European they will be all over it).

Woman’s Hour made an effort along with their guests to look at the complex narrative going on, the details of the victim’s lives and what put them in harms way, the ‘reality of life’ as Laura put it of girls and young women known to social services for some time, perhaps through the criminal justice system or homelessness, with the sadly common drug and alcohol dependency thrown in too. In partnership with the police, Changing Lives were able to engage with the girls directly and help bring this case against their abusers, gaining a full understanding of the level of grooming.

It is a terrible judgement of the supposedly flagship news programme Today that they spit out their venomous shite; while Jenny Murray and co show them how it is done an hour later, but that is for another article.

But still, we need to talk about race.  Not avoid it and duck the important questions right?

The biggest problem with any discussion about race in Britain is we never talk about white people. White people are not a race it seems; we are just ‘normal’, average (well most of you are certainly that) and when we commit any crime, our race goes unmentioned.  In the case of child abuse, this is a particularly problematic oversight.

White people have fucked kids for years.  They like fucking their own kids; pre-teens in particular.  Within the institutions: the family; the scouts, sports clubs and public schools. The Catholic Church have fucked many unwanted, vulnerable children, they have taken away children birthed by vulnerable young girls who suffered moral judgement and then for many years taken into a form of slavery.

None of us talk about these crimes in the same way.  The Catholic Church is not seen as some humanity-hating outside force that has come into ‘our’ society from outside to pollute and destroy it.  Nobody tries to pull the crosses from around the necks of any woman walking down the street (thankfully).

Here’s another thing to discuss; the girls who were victimised here had something in common. ‘They were all white’ I hear you cry. They were all vulnerable too.  Why were they vulnerable?  

Lord MacDonald repeatedly referred to the idea of how these girls are seen as ‘trash’ who can be exploited easily. As other abuse scandals have shown, social services and the police were often directly involved in letting down the victims of these terrible crimes, either through lack of resources or on purpose.  We know police were often informed about inappropriate relationships between grown men and teenage girls and just as often this was dismissed.  Parents of victims were told their daughter had made a lifestyle choice; no investigation necessary.  Some were even suggested to be actively working as prostitutes (another group of people treated like worthless shit in Britain).  One officer in Newcastle was eventually fired because he refused to investigate one of the now-jailed perpetrators.  

Then the terrible news breaks and we hear from many quarters (such as known far right extremists) that we ‘knew’ this was happening all along.  Really?  Then why didn’t you do something about it big man?  Where have been the patrols of concerned white men and women in these towns and cities looking out for vulnerable white girls being pulled off the streets and into the clutches of Muslim sex beasts?  

British society sees these victims as trash.  Infamous polls have been taken where alarmingly high amounts of people respond that the way a woman dresses in public can lead to rape.  We pass groups of youths in the streets every day and do not give a rusty fuck what they are doing and who with.  The police are too busy to care.  The social services are fighting for dear life on skeletal budgets cut for political reasons.

I have heard it said that Muslim girls are never treated like this.  Well, some of them are and they suffer as much as anyone, but they also get ignored because they are not politically useful.  ‘Ah but what about the cultural aspect’ I hear some cry.

Let us talk about a cultural aspect here.  Young Muslim girls, as part of cultural practices, can be subjected to scrutiny in ways many (myself included) find invasive, with parents making decisions for them, etc. Again they are not the only group who live like this but it does happen.  One perhaps positive aspect though is parents have more potential to know where their kids are, certainly in the evening or later.

Young people are often vulnerable and like other groups, they are often this way because wider society and it’s institutions do not care about them or fail them in some way. There is no judgment from me towards parents or social workers or anyone else that does a job so hard it makes my head ache thinking about it; but where these failures take place, it produces vulnerability and it is not like the rest of society take up the slack on protection and care.

No doubt the perpetrators of all this vileness look down on their victims, but which sexual predators do not? In fact if you go to many places in the world including countries closer to home, there is often an assumption that English women and girls are ‘easy’.

Most of the people who claim to be worried about this are not.  It does not matter to them, just like everything else they complain about. Most live very materially-easy lives. You only really care about yourselves and the suffering of others is immaterial.  In order to justify this, certain narratives must be told, invented and firmly believed in to make you feel less horrible.

There is no South Asian Muslim sex conspiracy at work here; there are no councils who do not want to face the issue of ‘Muslim rape’ in their local areas and there is no concern for the victims among the far right scum who look to make political capital from thee terrible situations.

So, another group of young girls were subjected to systematic sexual abuse at the hands of an organised gang of sexual predators, able to do so in part due to the low status the victims had in British society; a society where some of the most well known people and highest institutions have been directly involved in terrible acts of sexual abuse too and never been punished.  

Yes Mr Javid, let’s have a good, long talk about sexual abuse in Britain.

‘How long will this go on?’ screams the ever calm and balanced Daily Mail.  As long as Britain does not give a fuck about it’s most vulnerable.