#caste-oppressed

[makingcontact]

The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation

Book cover for “The Trauma of Caste” Credit: Penguin Random House Caste—one of the oldest systems of exclusion in the world—is thriving. Despite the ban on Untouchability 70 years ago, caste impacts 1.9 billion people in the world. Every 15 minutes, a crime is perpetrated against a Dalit person. The average age of death for Dalit women is just 39. And the wreckages of caste are replicated here in…

[commsroom]

you're remembering this wrong. (by @hehearse)

[marypsue]

Man, it's cool and all if you see a metaphor for marginalisation in the monstrous, and if you want the power fantasy of 'what if you could just eat anybody who threatened you/pissed you off'. Me too.

However, as soon as you start saying 'no, these monsters are a 1:1 on Specific Marginalised Group, and you have to treat them in the fiction like they are directly representative of real human members of the marginalised group', BUT you also, in the fiction, make them hurt/kill/eat humans? And then try to shame me, your audience, for noticing or engaging with the bit where they kill people, because you made them directly representative of a real-world marginalised group? You have lost me, and also, I think, the plot.

[the-punforgiven]

Do y'all ever get nightmares that just like, aren't scary?

Like you can tell your brain is trying to make this scary, but you just feel nothing?

[genderkoolaid]

the more i think about it the more i feel transunity is vital. i dont mean this hatefully and theres no way to say this that wont be misconstrued by someone but. i feel like so much trans activism has been focused on aligning trans women with other women in feminism (itself not a bad goal) but that as the end all be all of trans activism intrinsically hurts other trans people. so much baeddel rhetoric relies on "there is no trans community/trans people it should only be about trans women" and i think its extremely extremely important to talk about transness as its own class, and fully embrace how trans liberationism must involve completely deconstructing cis-centric analysis of gender/the patriarchy to include the full extent of trans oppression. the idea that transphobia is fundamentally and exclusively based in misogyny & is ultimately a part of women's oppression is just fitting transness into the cis-centric binary system we've always had. transphobia has to be seen as its own thing and transness as its own class, for the better of all trans people and especially transmascs & transneutrals who are otherwise forced to choose between misgendering/detransition or being left out of class analysis/treated as oppressors even while being oppressed. transness is not just a subsect of womanhood it has to be seen as its own thing. transunity or death

[mikimeiko]

L'amica geniale | Season 3 (2022), Saverio Costanzo

[lord-squiggletits]

i know i’m late to the conversation—i just watched the movie this month—but i feel compelled to say this because i was genuinely shocked (still am) to see that the overwhelming takeaway for many viewers was the "d-16/megatron was right" bs. while it’s understandable to sympathize with his anger and grief, justifying his actions in the end or framing them as entirely right feels so deeply misguided. what surprised me even more was the tendency to shift the blame on orion/optimus, as though he was solely responsible for d-16’s downfall. it’s disheartening to see orion/optimus being villainized so much. his efforts to reason with d-16 came from a place of desperation and hope, as he tried to prevent the escalation of violence. at that point, d-16 had already begun to spiral into his unchecked rage, disregarding the safety of those around him. to see that nuance overlooked, with orion being faulted for a situation that was far beyond his control (the whole "don't be like sentinel" thing is often used to shit on op lol), is genuinely baffling.

while i love that the movie showed the tragedy of d-16’s arc and even empathize with his situation, painting his actions as justified—and vilifying orion/optimus in the process—feels like a misreading of the movie’s core message. sorry but i was so happy to see your post about the movie, it was tiring to see so many 'megatron was right about this and that' comments.

Oh man if you're new to this fandom, you really ought to know that this place is full of people who glorify terrorism and war in the name of "justified revolution" and it doesn't really matter what Dee/Megatron does or how horrible/over-the-top it is, he's oppressed or he's mentally ill or he's just plain upset which means that everything he does is justified and questioning him makes you evil.

It's so funny because I hoped for sure that a continuity where both OP and Megatron were working class individuals before the war would reduce this kind of shit take (compare to something like archivist/librarian OP and gladiator Megs in TFP or CBV, or cop OP and miner Megs in IDW1), but unfortunately this fandom literally still found a way to blame Orion for everything even though he suffered the exact same things Dee did..... and furthermore Orion literally was the rebel challenging the system compared to Dee who wanted to keep his head low and not cause trouble so honestly at this point I just think the fandom (and somehow new fans whose first exposure to TF is this movie) purely sides with Megatron on everything as either a knee-jerk reaction or some misguided attempt at being counterculture and intelligent.

People get sooooo mad when you tell them that unbridled rage and killing everyone who disagrees with you isn't a good social/political strategy, but then again this is a problem that is universal to humanity and not just the Transformers fandom. It's just a shame that so many people looked at a movie that blatantly spells out what the moral of the story is, and has all of the protagonists be working class oppressed people fighting against a tyrannical system, and their takeaway from it is still basically "fascism is okay if you're mad enough about it and if your friends try to stop you it's a sign that they're centrist liberals who think punching Nazis makes you as bad as a Nazi." It's childish black-and-white thinking masquerading as critical literary analysis.

And at this point people pretty much just don't give a shit about Orion/Optimus and will find a way to make him the villain no matter what the context is, no matter if he also has feelings or if he also deserves to be respected/listened to/validated as Megatron's long-time (possibly lifelong) friend. If ppl look at the way Dee treated Orion and their other friends and DON'T see what was concerning about that then there's really no saving them until they deradicalize a little and learn what usually happens when "kill all the bad people until society is a utopia" is implemented as a governing party's primary strategy.

[kithj]

the more people complain about genderlocked characters i feel like the more stubborn i get about it...

i just feel like. there's a fine line between wanting to see yourself reflected in the art you engage with (everybody wants this to some extent) versus just straight up refusing to engage with any kind of art that you can't personally relate to.

and sure you can argue it's not that deep when we're just talking about romance games i guess but usually this extends beyond just IF romance games, i see it on bookstagram or in mainstream video gaming circles, too... and particularly in IF & gaming it tends to lead to this very entitled attitude where if the thing doesn't appeal exactly to what you personally want, then it's Bad and Wrong.

i definitely understand in some instances, as a butch lesbian there is like... no game even off the top of my head that i can think of that actually has someone that looks like me in it (except for the stuff i've personally written. lol) and i do really like the gender-selection mechanic for this reason. most of the time it's the only way we get sapphic ROs. but to me that's just a band-aid and not a real solution, especially when a lot of authors tend to lean on bioessentialist ideas to depict the gender-selectable variants, and most of the time don't even seem to be aware that they're doing it.

i would much prefer actual female characters, or actual trans characters, over gender-selectable characters. because the other thing we see is that a lot of the time the male variation is the most popular, and is seen as the "default." this is through no fault of the author, really, it's just how the cookie crumbles, i guess.... i don't really know what the solution is but i do really wish people would be more mindful about... well. all of it. authors and readers alike. and maybe broaden your horizons and read something that's different for you, or write something challenging outside of your comfort zone. i get that a lot of these games are pure wish fulfillment, and that's fine, we're not all going to like or want the same things. but when most games don't include people like me, i'm forced to pick from a much smaller pool of fish than everyone else, and i don't agree with that. both in that i wish there were more options for me, obviously, but also that i shouldn't only limit myself to games that "represent" me and am still willing to reach for something different and still give it a chance. both things can be true.

now when a game is intentionally excluding entire groups of people, of course that needs to be called into question. because then it's just bigotry, and we all know bigotry is bad, yes? a game that... let's say. only allows white mcs. is going to attract a particular kind of audience. we know this we can acknowledge this. but i do also kinda think it's a waste of time to try and appeal to authors like this... i'm not against offering feedback but at the end of the day these authors excluded these people for a reason and they have no interest in us. don't bother. there are other authors out there that are writing women and trans people and poc that you can read instead of trying to get a misogynist or a racist or a transphobe to write about people they clearly don't give a shit about.

and i really feel like that encapsulates why i both like and dislike the gender-selectable mechanic... again it's just a temporary band-aid. it lets me play a sapphic mc for a little while. but the larger problem still remains which is that there are no depictions of butch lesbians (or lesbians in general) in most of these games, and there are not a lot of authors out there willing to even try. there are a lot of instances where i feel the gender-selection mechanic is just... a cop out. there's no thought or effort put into it.

i dont think every single author needs to start genderlocking or anything (that would be stupid) i just wish it was something both authors and readers would spend more time thinking about, rather than just automatically defaulting to gender-selection. people approaching Blood Choke and then complaining that it's all genderlocked but... the story is About being a lesbian. it would not exist in any other way. and the beautiful thing is that you can still read it even if you're not a lesbian! in fact i wish more people would. again, reach for something different and you might find that you actually like it. you might even connect with it in a way that surprises you. meanwhile The Northern Passage has a lot of options for the mc both in the character creator and when it comes to romance options. i have a gender-selectable character there, and a lot of people enjoy that, and i do too. and i also chose to lock Clementine originally because i knew i wanted there to be a nonbinary RO that could not be ignored (and then the other two followed shortly after once i started writing).

there's Nuance. there are lots of reasons to genderlock and there are lots of reasons why someone might not. there are games out there that let me play with an all female cast that i hate, other games with a mixed, genderlocked cast that i love. there are authors out there that do handle their gender-selectable characters well, some of my favorite games utilize it! and there are genderlocked games that are all just skinny white cis people that make me recoil. there are downsides to both. this is not an either-or situation. it's just something to think about, both when creating a character as an author and when engaging with a work as a reader.👍

[bfpnola]

please reblog and share across as many platforms as you’d like! this person is one of our former youth volunteers and one of the many children i mentioned in my final note about BFP. she means the world to me, so i would appreciate the support!

— reaux (she/they)

[messianicfigure]

i’m meant to be finishing stormlight before wind and truth comes out but i accidentally fell down a red rising shaped rabbit hole and tragically there are so many compelling freaks in this universe i simply cannot look away until i am caught up

[agnesandhilda]

once you realize the extent to which the subjugation of children is normalized in our society you'll never stop seeing it

[ad1thi]

if you're celebrating rdj being cast as Doctor Doom you are celebrating the deliberate (and repeated) erasure of roma characters in the mcu just btw

[nando161mando]

also: Caste privilege doesn't mean your life wasn't hard, it means your caste was not an obstacle.

also: your life should not be hard in the first place, which it is because of capitalist patriarchy. you should fight that instead of fighting the marginalized.

[novella-november]

Is this fanfic friendly? I feel like an outlier.

I guess this is my sign it's time to throw together a FAQ post to link to lol.

Yes, every event for this blog is fanfic friendly :D

Though as I mentioned on my Ominous October post, for events that include multiple short stories, I encourage everyone to flex their creativity and take one of their planned short story fanfics, and at least *attempt* to turn one of them into something entirely original; rebuilding a character and story from the ground up to stand on its own two legs is no easy feat, and that is what makes it so fun!

It really gets your creative gears turning, to make an "au of an existing material" to be something entirely original, and you can be pleasantly surprised about the things you come up with!

As a few people say, its not just a matter of "filing the serial numbers off" -- you have to add in just as much *or more* as what you take out when you are turning a fanfiction into something that is original and completely divorced from its original source material / inspiration, and that is a hard, but very rewarding challenge!

Obviously, this is not a requirement (there's no hard requirements for any of the challenges, other than no cheating, including no using AI),

but if you would like an extra challenge for the short story events and you're planning on doing entirely fan-fiction, I highly recommend trying it out at least once, and seeing where it leads you--

you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by what you find down that rabbit hole!

[vileacademyofficial]

what the FUCK do you have against Lin Manuel FUCKING Miranda?

excluding the antiblackness and racism of hamilton and its fanbase? he publicly supported an “economic stability” bill that closed 200+ public puerto rican schools, implemented devestating labor ‘reforms’ that have gutted puerto rican workers’ access to sick days and vacation time, cut funding to the university of puerto rico, and began the privatization of puerto rico’s electrical authority.

so yeah no i don't like the guy lmao

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

No offense to anyone who makes these posts but I'm not interacting with any Barbie posts that suck Greta G's dick about Ken's """"MRA/incel"""" arc without acknowledging how fundamentally stupid it was to give it to someone canonically oppressed on the basis of their gender. Patriarchy wasn't appealing to him because he's losing his power it was appealing to him because Barbies have all the power but in patriarchy he's in control I'm beating every last one of you with a copy of Judith Butler I am making you read Bell Hooks like it's clockwork orange I am sneaking into your house and putting Angela Davis audio books and speeches on while you sleep I'm exposing you to real feminism by any means necessary until you understand that patriarchy about fuckin POWER not who has long hair and boobs.

Like I just want you to imagine how fundamentally stupid it would be to give any character played by Ryan Gosling other than Ken the speech that Gloria gave Barbie and have it have the same effect on him that it has on the Barbies. That is the level of idiocy we're operating on here

I'm just.... Hm... It's not even how dumb it is that makes me mad it's how everyone just seems to think it's genius when it's the dumbest shit I've seen in a while. My problem is that I'm the only one I see casting doubt on this MRA thing and I'm the only one who immediately thought "oh he's like terfs and the terminally online rad fems who brag about doing misandry" and was surprised when the internet brought up the manosphere.