#considering how they treat woc

[sapphic-agent]

The further and further, I drifted away from the Glee subreddit, the more I realized how toxic the environment was, and the more I realized how that toxic environment was created by Rachel fans most of the time. It's funny to me how a lot of Rachel fans on there moaned about how hard it was to be a Rachel fan and how they got so much hate for supporting her, when they were the same people who hated on Santana and Quinn relentlessly and caused a lot of those fans to leave. The nail in the coffin was their inability to take accountability for any of Rachel's wrong doings, use things not even related to the discussion to make Rachel look better and speak in circles until the poster criticizing Rachel would be defeated and either delete their post or stop trying to discuss their perspective.

They're quick to call Santana out for her bullying on the show but I see a lot of Rachel fans behavior on that community and their treatment of people who criticize Rachel or like Santana or Quinn as bullying behaviour or at least crossing the threshold towards potential bullying. Thoughts?

Because in their heads Rachel's just the poor victim who everyone's so mean to.

I have so many issues with this thinking. Because for one, Rachel isn't the only one who gets bullied, they ALL do. The only times Rachel's "made fun of" by the group other than Santana is when she's being insufferable. Even Quinn stopped being outright mean to her after the first half of season 1. You can't claim Rachel's the victim when the only reason they're snapping at her is because she's being genuinely annoying.

She's been her fair share of nasty to everyone else. She was never above commenting on others' appearance ("Ken and Barbie? Are you trying to throw this?") or putting others down ("The only job you're ever gonna have is working on a POLE") or being racist ("This is GLEE Club not CRUNK Club") or threatening people ("I will SO slap you again") or insulting someone behind their back ("I can't believe you're standing in the corner of a failure like Carmen Tibideaux"). Midn you, this is all stuff she's said. I haven't even mentioned the shit she's actually done.

I've always said this, but Rachel is JUST as bad as Santana and Quinn (but they're pretty and popular so they're automatically she-devils and poor Rachel has it worse because she's a LOSER- Rachel fans are fucking pick-mes). Which was fine in seasons 1&2 because she actually did try to be better. But at some point that stopped and Rachel was allowed to say and do whatever she wanted with no real consequences because everyone forgave her anyway.

For some odd reason, the Glee subreddit can't understand that

[oimoi-op]

About your tags on the Lucienne post: oh we usually aren't even half this nice LMAOOO I could be a lot meaner but like. Both our posting about her and also the anger and frustration comes from the same place of love for and fascination with her. There's so much to talk about it's insane

Literally tho like!!!!! she's such a compelling character on so many levels, yet a lot of the fandom reduces her to the "mom friend" or other similarly reductive if not misogynistic stereotypical roles so for me (someone not super involved in the fandom these days) it's so refreshing to see you and others discussing her on her own merits and not just an accessory/afterthought for someone's white slash ship lol

[jackoshadows]

It's so confusing and weird that Bridgerton introduced in world racism both with Lady D and Simon in season one of the show and in Queen Charlotte and at the same time they also want the audience to accept that somehow Marina Thompson or the dark skinned Indian Kate Sharma has more privilege and power than Penelope Featherington?

Kate Sharma was also poor, so much more than the Featheringtons. She depended on Lady D to host them. The Sharmas were looked down on by the ton because Mary Sheffield married an Indian. The Sharmas were disowned and ostracized by the Sheffields.

Kate was also an unmarried spinster. No one was asking Kate to dance. As much as Kate wanted love and romance and to dance at a ball wearing pretty dresses, she got none of that. She was also the woman on the sidelines watching as others danced and fell in love.

Racism and colorism is also very much a thing in eurocentric notions of beauty considering the setting and characters of Bridgerton is 99% white.

We got so little of Kate's backstory, of who her parents where - we didn't even get their names!! - of the trauma (explained for both Simon and Anthony using flashbacks) that had Kate overlooking her own happiness for that of her sister.

Despite bragging nonstop about the diversity of Bridgerton the showrunners thought that the white Featheringtons needed more screentime in season 2 rather than the South Asian family.

And Kate was planning on going back to India and work as a governess to pay for her livelihood. Because, you know, there's more honest ways of being a 'working woman' than running the equivalent of the regency 'Daily Mail' dragging other women down. The modiste Madame Delacroix, Kate planning to teach and Sienna in season one are all working to pay a living. Black, brown and lower class women looking to alleviate poverty.

And considering how much harder Kate already had it as an outsider in the ton, it wouldn't have been easy with Penelope using her gossip rag to describe the unmarried Indian woman as ' a Spinster of a beast'. What did Kate do to Penelope to warrant this? Nothing. Just a way for Penelope to make money at Kate's expense.

That's the thing I dislike the most about the way the character of Penelope is written on the show - her victims don't deserve her vitriol and are often in much worse circumstances than her. From Kate Sharma to the unnamed seamstress who apparently lost all her customers because Penelope wrote falsely about their work in the her tabloid as a bribe for Madam Delacroix.

And I think that's what I find problematic about the writing of the show and even the discourse surrounding it - when characters like Marina Thompson (the poor black cousin who would have ended up destitute on the streets because of Penelope) and Kate Sharma arguably have it far worse than Penelope Featherington as per the show's writing and yet we are supposed to have the most sympathy for Penelope because her crush Colin didn't love her back and she's a curvy white woman?

I guess that's the difference between how I perceive this world and these characters as a woc and the majority white female audience for this show and it's such a huge disconnect for me. I guess this is also partly because the show has this badly written and 'strangely toothless racism' as Ash Sarkar beautifully put it. As in the racism is treated in this world as a little problem solved by handing out a few titles to black people instead of being a white supremacist ideology which treated black and brown people as inferior, serfs and slaves.

From what little we got from season 2, Kate Sharma definitely did not have it easy navigating the ton as a poor outsider and that certainly contributed to her poor choices. She is also put through the wringer, treated like the other woman, is miserable for several episodes, had to apologize again and again and nearly die before Edwina forgives her!

In contrast Penelope's actions have hurt so many and yet she gets a pass by both the show and a fandom that wants Colin to grovel before her because of a single offhand remark and because he didn't return her affections.

Also making it clear here that I am not comparing Penelope to the male characters who always get the better writing, flaws and all. I am comparing Penelope to the female characters of colour - Kate Sharma and Marina Thompson.

I mean, Marina Thompson gets so much vitriolic and sexist hatred for not having told Colin Bridgerton the truth of her pregnancy. How dare Marina hurt this privileged white man Colin Bridgerton. When she was desperate to not end up destitute on the streets or get raped by old white men. And yet Penelope gets a pass for hurting women like Marina and Kate.

It continues a trend of white female characters never being held to the same standard as female characters of colour. Daphne sexually assaults Simon in season one and that was not even addressed on the show. Male rape is apparently no big deal because Daphne wanting children is what's important. It's Simon who has to apologize and within one episode resolve his trauma and accept being a father. This is despite both Daphne and Penelope having more screentime and more writing that builds their character unlike the stick thin writing given to Kate Sharma in season 2.

So yeah, I will be checking into season 3 to watch the ten minutes we get with Kate Sharma since we got so little of her in her own season and it's so singular to get dark skinned south Indian characters in a period drama romance like this. It's just the way the writing on the show, the production and even the fandom treats it's characters, especially characters of colour has been disappointing to say the least.

[cancerian-woman]

Hi! I hope I don’t word this wrong, so sorry if I do, but if Hope had a black/non-white mother, do you think the Mikaelsons would’ve treated her differently? I think you (or maybe it was someone else) spoke about how they treated Marcel was part because he wasn’t blood related to them and part to do with race, so I thought it would be interesting (?) Again, sorry if this is worded weird, I don’t mean it too

Hi, I get what you meant no worries. I’m gonna answer this backwards though lol. Long post warning. I had to grab my receipts.

Yes, Marcel is treated differently because of his race but that’s because the writers 1.) needed the diversity quota filled and 2.) wrote dynamics in for anti-blackness to exist. The narrative that the black child couldn’t heal a family but Hope the white one will. Suddenly having more black/of color actors in the cast but only because white characters are using their bodies. Slavery. That’s relatively differently than a woman of color in Hayley’s spot. Hayley existed as the werewolf queen, girl with no parents who had a child and wants better for her…

Before I say my thoughts I don’t think Phoebe Tonkin had to do much to get her role as Hayley. Kevin Williamson loved her and wanted her in TVD, TSC was done. Then she got Hayley in TVD. She knew she was doing a spin-off.

No black woman or WOC would have gotten the role that easy. I’m calling a spade a spade. The industry wasn’t taking a big risk on black women(and of color) leading TV back then Kerry Washington spoke on this. This is different from sitcoms that targeted just black audiences if that makes sense.

Hypothetically speaking if the lead of TO was a woman of color I assume to make the show successful still amongst their racial bias to someone the writers would do the work to make the character enjoyable on-screen for everyone. Making a black woman/of color a lead is an intentional choice. For example Kat Graham(listen around the 3minute mark) has recently shared that she could only audition for Bonnie. No one else was considered for her and she was presented Bonnie. See how that’s very different from Phoebe’s experience? If Hayley is black/of color then Hope would be biracial, that is something the writers would have to grow within the characters. You cannot ignore that.

To end this off I would hope and imagine"Hayley" as a black woman or whomever filled the position was treated fairly and accepted within the character and through the actress. I don’t think the Mikaelsons would have done wrong by her. They loved Hayley. Dysfunctional yes but they did care for her.

Using Kat Graham’s experiences as examples you can’t Bamon Ban a lead’s relationships, you can’t kill off every black person related to her, intentionally sideline a minority and underpay a minority. You can’t be on Twitter (Julie) bashing their fans and them. Or having a meltdown because said black woman is paired with your fave man and more. Hell, Kat Graham wasn’t allowed to attend cons with the main cast until the later seasons. Joseph Morgan actually went before she did.

The fanbase would not have been as welcoming to a black woman in the role and definitely not to a biracial child in the plot. I’ve said it before in various spaces and gotten backlash but even Hope has more characteristics that tie her to Bonnie than her own mother but it pisses people off lmao.

Hope I answered this well for you💜

[messymindofmine]

Fandoms and Marginalized Communities

Before I say anything, I want to make it known that everything I say, I am saying as Muslim WOC. I am also saying it as someone with a best friend who is the reason I got into Lone Star to begin with. This best friend is a gay, Jewish man who is also a recovering addict. One of the first things he said to me about the show was that it felt like TK Strand was written especially for him. However, my friend (who was in the fandom since the beginning) left a while back because he finally decided he was sick of feeling unsafe in the fandom. This was a feeling he had since the beginning that had gotten progressively worse.

As disappointing as it has been since s4 to see the way people turned on Carlos, I do appreciate how many people are calling it out. Even though I don't come from the same background as Carlos, I do know what it is like to come from a culture that pushes you into a heteronormative role and so I can empathize with Carlos on his reasoning for marrying Iris and then keeping it a secret even if I wish he had told TK sooner. But then of course he felt like he couldn't because when you have spent your whole life feeling like you could be rejected for revealing something about yourself, it's extremely hard to move beyond it.

That said, I do think it is important as a fandom to talk about reactions we have to characters and why we need to check our own biases. I'm not saying that people have to agree and love every single thing that Carlos does but we can and should give grace to him and consider why he is doing something. It is deeply problematic to assume that he is going to be a bad, neglectful husband the way people were prior to 5X05. Same with how people reacted towards him in s4. You can be upset about a character's decisions while also being compassionate about why they are behaving that way. To go "well they suck and are bad" and interpret every single thing they do with the worst-faith interpretation is deeply problematic when discussing a character of color.

I have been having conversations with the friend I mentioned before about all this stuff and one thing that he said to me that has stuck with me is how one big reason why he left the fandom was because he kept seeing people bring up the ableism TK has gotten since the start of the show in conversations about Carlos and racism and to him it felt deeply insulting because it felt like those people were just using ableism as a way to deflect from the conversation about Carlos and not because they actually care about the issue. Especially since so many of them are the same ones that never had anything to say about the ableism in the past and even indulged in it before s4 when they turned on Carlos. @paperstorm and I have also talked about this and how it's so frustrating that when a conversation is being had about racism, people who have never cared about ableism before will bring it up as a weapon. I do feel like it is extremely important to have conversations about ableism in the fandom because just like racism, misogyny and homophobia, it has been an issue in every fandom I have ever been a part of but bringing it up in the context of a conversation about racism towards Carlos is not the right time and only serves to diminish the seriousness of ableism as an issue. It is not a weapon to be used to deflect and silence people who are hurt by how Carlos has been treated since s4.

That said, I do want to acknowledge the frustration and hurt that I know a lot of people are feeling when it seems like conversations about Carlos are being had in a way that conversations about TK have never really been had. There are people who have talked about TK and ableism but those conversations have been on a pretty small scale. I get the hurt because I feel it too seeing big blogs talking about Carlos and racism and even unintentionally making it seem as though TK has always been favored by the fandom because he is white. I know that it can be hurtful to see people say that Carlos is only getting hate because he is no longer perfect for TK as though TK wasn't the one on the receiving end of hate since 1x02. It is important to acknowledge that Carlos was put on a pedestal right up until s4 and defense of him was done at the expense of TK. When 3x13 aired, people were outright accusing TK of cheating with Cooper and just generally hating on him because they felt he made Carlos sad by excluding him. This was actually deeply triggering for my friend because he is in recovery himself. Let me tell you, it was painful for me to see how much it hurt him seeing the way TK was called selfish and all kind of other things because it is something he has to live with on a daily basis in his own life. There have been so many times since the show first started that people have said things about how Carlos deserves better and how TK just doesn't love Carlos as much as Carlos loves him. How TK gets all the care and attention and he never does anything for Carlos. How TK gets special treatment from the fandom. All of these things and so much more. And then in s4, when these same people turned on Carlos and started using TK as a weapon, it became too much for my friend and he left the fandom. I know he is not the only one who did so for the same reason.

I just wish that people would understand that conversations about TK and Carlos can both be had and we can even talk about how bigotry towards different groups are ultimately the same in the way they are perpetuated. That is to say, it's not always they obvious ways of using slurs but in the way of microaggressions. I also think it is important when defending Carlos to not ignore the hate TK has gotten. I'm not saying we have to bring it up in detail in every conversation but simply just not making it seem like TK gets favored. There was a double standard against TK right from 1x02 and it's not fair to ignore that. Actually, even the way people weaponize TK is a big microaggression. To act like somehow he has no agency in his own marriage and that he is going to fall apart if he doesn't have Carlos' attention is a big microaggression because it leans into this idea of addicts being selfish and weak. The TK that exists in the show is the opposite of both these things and it is just as offensive to speak about him as though he is those things as it is to make Carlos out to be a terrible, neglectful husband.

Overall, we all need to be more careful about how we speak and write about characters. And even if our only intention for wanting a character to make a mistake is to maximize angst, we need to be careful about how we project our desire for angst. Wanting Carlos to mess up because the angst potential of it is exciting is still a microaggression both because it villainizes him unfairly and because it takes agency away from TK. The same applies the other way round too. Wanting TK to mess up for the sake of angst (as has happened) is also a microaggression because it villainizes him unfairly and it takes agency away from Carlos. When we talk about characters that represent marginalized communities of any kind, we need to take these things into consideration. We also need to listen to others when these issues are called out. If your response to someone pointing out something that is offensive is anger and deflection, that is on you. As someone who has been in this fandom since the beginning and has seen people leave because they feel unsafe for any reason, I don't want that to happen to anyone else. We can have fun and escape real life in fandom while also calling things out. We can also call out one issues without ignoring or minimizing others. I know it can be a hard thing to balance sometimes but the best thing for us to do when it comes to situations like this is to be open-minded and willing to learn and grow ourselves rather than lashing out at others for speaking up about something that hurts them.

[sailingfireshipz]

Alright! Yall said, "Let it rip so you know the drill! Grab yourself a little snacky snack & let's unpack this shit.

I find it funny how people are trying to misconstrue the problem that we have with the way Pascal is acting & treating Stella. No one has said Stella was right in the manner in which she approached him in episode 1. Hell Kelly called her out on it & Stella herself admitted it. My issue lies in the fact that regardless of episode 1, it appears that Pascal has given his other LTs a level of grace & understanding that he is not giving Stella. So I genuinely want to know why. And if episode 1 is his why, then it goes back to what I said preseason about Stella's mistakes (minor compared to those of others, her husband included) following her. Stella being held to different standards & expectations than her male peers.

If episode 1 is not his reason then I'm left to assume & those assumptions lead me to facts that are rooted in systemic misogyny, racism & sexism.

1. Stella is the only female WOC LT at Firehouse 51.

2. Stella is a younger LT compared to what the CFD is accustomed to seeing per the chief comments in 9x03

2a. Also let's keep in mind the conversation she had with Carver in 11x01. When Stella came home she told Kelly that when she told Carver she got support from DC Hill & his response was "that makes sense" as if she was incapable of earning the shit on her own accord or merrit but implying Stella got a leg up because she was a WOC. Are we forgetting how Stella even met DC Hill? DC Hill came to 51 looking for the FIREFIGHTER that got control of the rig & prevented an accident with civilians. That firefighter was Stella Freaking Kidd.

3. Maybe Pascal thinks less of Stella because she's married/dated a coworker. He could have the same perception that "she slept her way to top"that was expressed in 9x03.

Some observations that I'd like to consider as we unpack his behavior.

1. Pascal brought up turnover on truck yet didn't have the wherewithal to look at the files of the firefighters who transferred out? We've seen that every time someone transfers out, there's a transfer slip that has to be completed. He would have seen Mason & Gallo didn't get transferred to another house within the CFD. He would have saw that they literally are in different STATES still firefighting. I honestly don't know what Gibsons would have said but it would have shown that only one of her FFs that was under her command is no longer on the job.

2. Why was Pascal so QUICK to believe Damon's (White male) word & opinion of Stella over Stella's request to put him back in the floater pool? Stella has been at 51 as a firefighter & LT LONGER than Damon has been a fucking firefighter! So you mean to tell me you're about to strip a LT who has received the firefighter award for valor based off the word of a firefighter who came to 51 as a floater & per Kelly in 13x04 relatively fresh out the academy!? Yall see how insane that sounds right?

3. The only reason Pascal changed his tune on Stella in 13x03 was after Mouch brought him her files/records. So my next question is, why did it take another white male to help sway him? I'm not saying he had to take Stella's word outright but it's the fact that he absolutely SHUT her down & redirected the blame back on her & her "lack of leadership" without investigating the facts. He claims to be all about rules & protocols yet failed to effectively do his research on the situation prior to going to Mouch & asking if he'd be ready to take the LT exam if he needed him...? Huuuuuuh?? I love Mouch, but someone point me to the major save or rescue he did this season so far to "prove himself" to Pascal.... oh wait, he hasn't had one, but you know who has... more on that later.

4. So after Mouch literally saves the night because he himself felt it necessary to go to this man's house off shift at night to bring him her records. Pascal does the right thing & tells Stella to make sure the next replacement on 81 sticks. So what does Stella do!? Does she drag her feet? Does she ignore his orders? Nope she gets right on it. She knew who she wanted but was STILL vetting other candidates because she wanted to make the best informed decision. Yet Pascal was at her neck again saying she was overthinking it. It had been 2-3 shifts MAX. It seems like Stella is showcasing leadership skills that Pascal should be because good leaders don't make important decisions lightly or without all the facts. They research they do their homework they vet out the low hanging fruit to ensure the best decision is made for the betterment of the house.

5. Hermann overheard Pascal & out of HIS mouth, he said Pascal had Stella so stressed out that if she didn't find a replacement for truck, he'd have her bugles. So again, that's not us making the shit up it's quite literally implied in the dialogue that clearly people are picking up the energy & animosity Pascal has towards her. So again, I'm asking where the professionalism is, or is Stella the only one required to be professional?

6. So now I want to talk about Kelly & Pascals interaction in 13x05. It honestly felt like Pascal said that shit to Kelly to see if Kelly would react. We watched Pascal go to LT Vales house & physically assault him for a conversation Vale had with Monica... so clearly he's very protective of his wife so why would he think Kelly would be the person to call Stella an asshole to? That shit was so uncalled for & CHILDISH because if Kelly had punched him in the fucking stomach then what?

At the end of the day before Kelly is Stella's husband he is her peer when they are on shift so again why are you talking shit about one of your direct reports to another direct report?

It sort of felt like a powerplay because Pascal has already brought up to Kelly about him & Stella working together & that he'd be keeping an eye on them. Then he goes & makes that comment knowing that Kelly probably won't respond to it out of fear that he'll throw them being married in his face again if he defends her.

So what we're not about to do is try to normalize or justify Pascals behavior based on the argument that "Stella shouldn't have mouthed off or challenged him." Because honestly, we've seen Kelly & Casey go head to head with Boden & other chiefs, commissioners, etc. when they felt passionately about something (right, wrong, indifferent, they've done it). Not saying what Stella did was right or absolving her from accountability but we're not about to act like she yelled at him & told him to go fuck off! She should've handled herself differently but she shouldn't have to continue to bear the brunt of his twisted ass power plays or whatever the hell he's power tripping on.

He doesn't have to like her & as far as I'm concerned she doesn't have to like him but hell bare minimum he needs to start acting like Battalion Chief with 20+ years on the job versus a petty ass manchild who's mad the girl on the playground embarrassed him in front of his friends.

And I don't want to hear about "Stella hasn't been challenged or Boden let her get away with blah blah or Boden didnt make her "prove" herself & that maybe if she "proves" herself he'll give her a break.

Hard stop, NO! Kelly hasn't had to prove himself. Hermann hasn't had to prove himself. So WHY TF would Stella have to "prove" herself to this man? Like i mentioned before, the playing field needs to be fair across the board for all of them. If anything, Stella has proven herself because she's the one who pulled Damon out of that collapsed sign. She's the one who saw Ritter laying there & still gave clear, concise direction to her truck company (instead of getting all emotional like they think women are going to act in times of crisis 🙄) She took the case in 13x05 & ran with it. Kelly was with her in one scene investigating those crashes. After that, Stella was the one making house calls & following up. Yet at the end of the episode, they had Kelly debriefing the chief on the outcome of the case & not Stella... WHY? At minimum, Stella should have been there & they could have used it as a moment to have them move forward. Instead, they used it as a way to have him add fuel to the fire with that backhanded compliment laced in disrespect by saying she's a pain in the ass & i don't know why!?

Do i think Pascal is a racist, misogynistic, sexist POS sent to uphold the CREEKY views of the CFD? Idk 🤷���♀️ but what i do know is if it walks, if it talks if it looks then it just might fit. Because there's a clear distinction in how he has handled Stella over the last 4 episodes versus everyone else. & if he's none of those things & he's still just hurt over being challenged by her in episode 1, then I say this with care, but it's time to build a bridge & get over it because I'm tired.

So, in conclusion..... Dom Pascal

When you're referring to anyone at 51 but especially Stella Kidd. 😌

[apollos-olives]

Hi!! Recently I was asked to compile different pieces of non literary media for students to analyze (I’m not a teacher I’m a ex student working part time at my old school while I wait for uni), and one category is song lyrics. I was thinking of choosing some Mitski songs bcs from what I’ve listened to, there’s quite a bit to unpack.

However, I’m just a casual fan and I don’t know her as a artist very well. I’ve read some of her interviews and from what I can garner she seems to pride herself as not as someone who pours all of herself into a song, but rather someone who crafts it all carefully.

At the end of the day though you seem to know more than me. I don’t want to misinterpret her. Could I ask if there are any songs you would recommend to choose? Especially if there are themes like women in patriarchy or other global issues (though this isn’t a requirement!). Thanks, and please don’t feel obligated to answer this for whatever reason 🙏🏻 <3

ohhhhhohohohhhhhhh you've come to the right person

-

one of her more popular songs is called "liquid smooth", where it talks about how women of color are sexualized in the eyes of society and feel as though that once they are past their "prime", then society deems them as unlovable and useless.

those first few lines discuss how women of color are sexualized whether they want to be or not, and how they are considered "full of life" when they're at their "prime". mitski explains that she's at her "peak" and that she's "ripe", but she's "about to fall", and that shows how after she hits her "peak", society deems her as unlovable or unappealing just because they're unable to sexualize her in a way that they used to. and this is very much apply to mitski's life, as a japanese woman. we all know how japan became "trendy" in recent years and how the sexualization and infantilization of japanese women has been a very prominent thing amongst weaboos and the like. so this song primarily dicusses how society is very harsh towards women of color and disregard them after it is deemed that they are unattractive past their "peak".

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another song of hers is "stay soft", and while it is a bit harder for me to understand, my personal interpretation of the song is how society forces women, particularly women of color, to "stay soft" and stay appealing for others and not complain when they are degraded and abused by that same society.

when it says "only natural to harden up" i believe it refers to how society tells women to toughen up and deal with how they're being treated, but while still being told to "stay soft" to stay appealing. i think this song is more about the hypocrisy that society places on women of color, because they are told to "stay soft" and "harden up" at the same time. many woc understand the whole "scary and mean woman of color" stereotype and are constantly trying to fight against that form of racism. i think this song discusses the hypocrisy of society for demonizing women of color when they stand up for themselves, and it discusses how woc are abused but still told to be appealing and toughen up, or else they will be outcast and deemed, again, unlovable.

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my current favorite song is "happy", and this song does take a bit more time to analyze, since a lot of the message goes well with the music video. that being said, the music video IS. well. disturbing. so i'm going to summarize it and describe it, and link it if you want to follow along. so general trigger warning for gore, blood, abuse, etc.

so we start off with a woman of color. she is an asian woman, and she's the one explaining this. she's talking about a man, who she calls "happy". she discusses how he visits her and how she feels as though she is loved by him. she explains that he "lays her down" and makes her feel happy.

"happy" in the music video is a white man. happy gives her a pearled bracelet. she is very much in love with him. in the video she is serving him tea, and she trips and falls and apologizes. he rolls his eyes, scoffs, and disregards her. in the next few shots, you can see that he is with another woman. a white woman. multiple. with blonde hair and blue eyes. you can also see that the woman of color is alone in bed at night, with happy's bedside empty.

in the video, it is another morning, and she bids him farewell. she is cleaning the house and looks in his bag, where she finds a chunk of blonde hair. she realizes he is cheating with a white woman. she later confronts him while crying, and he comforts her.

i think this the the point to discuss how women of color are often disregarded or put to the side. it's very obvious that happy is only using her for sexual reasons, since he doesn't care about her past that, as shown with the tea scene and with the bed scene. woc are often abused by white men while they favor a white woman instead.

in the video, probably a day later, she finds a red purse with a note from happy that says "i love you". she's very excited and opens it up. she not only finds a blonde hair chunk, but on the inside it says "for my blue-eyed cookie". she is not blue eyed. it's obvious that he took the bag that he gifted to the white women he was cheating with and gave it to her. she looks at herself in the mirror. her eyes are dark. they are not blue. she realizes this.

later that night she goes down into the basement, and finds happy with a bloody corpse of a white woman. she's horrified, as the body is mutilated, and the scene is incredibly gorey. she sees happy removing pearls off of the body, and she looks down at her own hand and notices the pearl bracelet. she realizes that she was his next victim, and screams and runs but trips. he attacks her, she falls again, next to the body. he's choking her, and she grabs the axe (?) on the body and kills him. the next scene we see is her in the car driving away, crying.

so. there is a lot to unpack here. i don't think it's so much about the gorey parts but more so about how women are often victims to men, and how women of color are typically pushed aside and into the shadow of white women, who are favored more by white men in this western society. this song talks about how women of color are abused in this society by being manipulated into thinking they are loved, when they are really just being used for white men's own personal gain, and how ALL women, even the white ones, are victims to this horrible system.

man there is so much to go into here, but i think you get the gist. i'm sure you can do a deeper analysis if you'd like, i'm just pointing out the main theme of the song

-

another one of mitski's songs is "your best american girl", where it talks about how often times, people of color become white washed or forget their own culture in order to "fit in" with the american, or western, "culture".

this "don't wait for me, i can't come" part is what i assume is her realizing she is different and does not fit in with western society.

"your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me" is referring to the difference between the cultures of her and her lover, and how they were raised differently. i want you to notice how she says "i think i do", because i'll be coming back to that in a moment. when she says "i guess i couldn't help trying to be your best american girl" it refers to how she tried fitting into american society and disregarding her own culture and heritage in order to feel as though she belonged in that society. she uses past tense though, so clearly she is past all that, or at least starting to moving on from it.

this refers to how she still loves this "american boy" and still wants him, though i think it's less about a lover in this moment and rather referring to how she wants to be part of the american society to not feel like an outcast. i'm unsure about what she is "regretting", but it's either she is regretting ever discarding her heritage for the american society, or regretting leaving american society to return back to her heritage (and therefore being treated like an outcast in that very same society).

notice how she says "i finally do" instead of "i think i do" ? this is where she finally accepts her identity and feels comfortable enough to be proud of her heritage for a moment, long enough to show how she decided to stop pretending to fit in with american society. it does return to "i think i do" in the last line, where i believe it means that she's still unsteady about her identity. but i still think she took that big step in returning and appreciating her heritage and her culture.

-

two other songs that i think is very easy for you to analyze is "eric" and "real men". you can understand pretty easily what those songs are talking about, so if these songs above aren't enough ^^ then i suggest you look into those two songs if you want more. thank you SO much for asking, i was literally vibrating with excitement because i LOVE being asked to analyze mitski's lyrics. i just love her messages so much and i think they're very powerful.

[theraddestfemalive]

Y’know what? Fuck it. I’m going to say this

I don’t think any non-gc or tra lib gives a fuck about what im about to say, even considering that im going to tag the cr fandom.

I’m only adding one radfem tag because this post is centered around another topic.

i feel like ever since the trans population has tripled, it hasn’t been the same. Before any of you cucks think im talking about the idea of being trans, im also talking about the community behind it. Their ideas within the concept of it.

the concept of being ‘transgender’ was built on the foundation of sexist stereotypes; although the origins had a different purpose in ancient societies (varying ofcourse), it was ultimately used as a weapon to oppress women in the modern times, the goal was to make a person ‘feel’ like a male or female and now trillions of micro labels and gender identities are used to describe people who feel slightly above the normal and they’re treated as if they’re some kind of clothes that you put on instead of an identity.

Because of this, most people don’t even know what a woman or a lesbian is. They try to replace the definition of something that was exclusive to one sex to cater to the whims of men.

Ever since last year, most my friends that weren’t into that shit now identify as trans and I saw a dramatic shift in their personality. Most if not all of them were autistic women that did not conform of societal standards of what a ‘woman’ is. Some people may argue it’s because of how lightly a transgender identity is perceived. But on my end, I think it also has to do with the lack of representation of quirky female characters in media.

likely I would’ve fit into one of those micro labels or some shit like that but I was lucky enough to discover characters and things that I aligned with so I didn’t have to deal with shitty gender dysphoria (alongside with my very obvious mental issues and me being neurodivergent myself)

When I look at the older cookie run art (2016-2021), or even from eastern countries (eastern countries aren’t really politically correct) I could truly see the characters in the scene. There is passion behind it. The artists are either older or they know what they’re doing. And it doesn’t seem like an overload

when I see newer cookie run ‘fanart’ esp when there’s a lot of people within the western community, I don’t see a lot of what the characters truly are. All I see is their interpretation of what their character would look like if it was an unoriginal copy of a 14 year old gendie’s oc. Alongside with that, they add a thousand headcanons and sexualities, making the character unrecognizable. And if that wasn’t the cherry on top, they’re so obsessed with lgbtq and race stuff (no im not a bigot, don’t even try to fucking label me as one im a bisexual woc ) that’s all what they talk about besides stupid discourse topics. Oh, and also changing a dough color is ‘racist’ (they’re fucking COOKIES. Their dough color was based off of their ingredients and complimentary colors, even the devs had to explain and yet the western community still bitches about it like whiny 5 year olds. They come in all colors, not just fucking skintones.)

I think the characters and ships of the community would be much more likable for me if it wasn’t infiltrated by the discourse gang.

I think instead of giving drugs and cosmetic surgery to children, we should get deeper into the psychology of why there’s a lot of trans people on the rise. Don’t you think it’s weird that it has to be an ‘urgency’ to get surgery or children will kts? Maybe instead of thinking it as a life or death situation, think of how most of these people are mentally ill compared to the other lgbtq demographics.

I probably sound like a fucking dick here and im going to get a lot of hateful notes and messages, but honestly.. idgaf

Before you water this down to ‘trans people bad’ im just highlighting the problems of their community and its immense effect on teens my age (13-15 age range im not telling you) before dickriding the movement, I think *again* we should get deeper into the psychology of these people, thank you for reading.

maybe one or two people know who i am because of the image i will show below, who cares lol

i will block if I receive any threats :)))

[therealslimshakespeare]

https://www.tumblr.com/precious-little-scoundrel/759111481569705984/i-find-it-interesting-that-sanchez-immediately

so basically this called woc solitary!! hope this helps!! jk that sounds so mean. but honestly, i adore sanchez for so many reasons and at the end of the day, she is literally a woman of colour in a pow camp run by germans. she really doesn’t owe to it to anyone to be all sunshine and rainbows. yes she’s a lieutenant, but she is the only female fighter there and she doesn’t have any women that are technically her responsibility, nor does she have any pre formed bonds with other women upon entering the stalag. and i don’t really think she’s done anything that makes it fair to vilify her? or to compare her to maureen? just my opinion!

Fucking love it when the pay off for my little seeds of reasoning in the fics pay off. 😭 you get it. The fighter pilot liner aspect is also huge, on top of being a woman of color.

I think some of the questioning could be due to the fact the Gale is so likable and yet she doesn’t budge for him -which is atypical for a fanfic OC, I believe? But in my head, considering who she is, she wouldn’t. And she’s fucking justified for it. Utterly. And I like stories that make you go “but that’s my blorbo!!!” about how a character treats Mr Blonde American but it forces you to also go -wait, of course she’s not cracking a smile. Imagine how horrifying that situation is. Of course she’s not. Anyway, that’s my hope for it. Glad many of you took it that way, as well.

But also. PSA. Addendum.

Yall, thanks for the excellent opinions, I always love them but let’s also continue to remain kind. We can always express differing opinions but it doesn’t have to be targeted at the sender of a previous ask. I wanna try keep the tone here as conversational as possible.

This is not a scolding or a pointed remark, just thought I’d go ahead and hitch a ride on yours for this Nonnie, sorry baby 💋

[heather-chandlers-weirder-cousin]

Can we talk about Sasha and childist undertones in the Barbie movie?

Sasha is the only significant character in the Barbie movie who is a child. She’s also the only morally good character who’s anti-Barbie.

This in itself is a cool idea. A character to voice the criticism that people have had against Barbie for years now. That seems like a good idea for a Barbie movie, considering the themes it’s tackling.

Except… that’s not what we get. In the scene she’s introduced, she lays out her criticisms of Barbie and calls her a facist. This makes Barbie cry.

And then… nothing else. Sasha’s role in the rest of the movie is just learning how important Barbie is to her mom and shutting up, never mind that she has legitimate grievances, like her being an unrealistic body type. (Also, there’s something to be said about how WOC are only listened to if they agree with the white MC)

Beyond just being bad writing (“we addressed the criticism so there’s no need to tackle it!”) it’s very telling that the only person who’s feelings are ignored completely is the only child. We get a whole arc about the guy who spent five (5) seconds with the patriarchy and immediately ruined the lives of all the women around him, and it’s too much to treat the child like she has anything worthwhile to say. It’s very reminiscent of real life, isn’t it? A child with legitimate opinions is made to just shut up and listen to the adults, (who are of course right and smarter than them by virtue of being adults,) no matter how good a point it is. They’re young, so they aren’t worth listening to.

So by the end of the movie, Sasha has had none of her feelings expanded upon beyond the scene where she’s rude to the MC (and I could go on a whole separate rant about kids being tone policed,) she has stopped criticizing Barbie because the adults around her disagree, and none of her criticisms have been solved.

it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Idk

[bohemian-nights]

- Nettles is specifically stated as a brown girl in the book. Take it up with George RR martin. The speculated actress for Nettles is a brown woman. You think she's black? That's okay since she's clearly of mixed heritage. However, you weaponizing race isn't going to go over well since main point is most of us wocs don't want a woc to be given this treatment in the show.

- "She is an adult by westerosi standards"? That doesn't mean anything. Do you also count 14-yo Rhaenyra as grown woman in the book when Daemon was "educating" her about seduction and sex? Do you count the likes of Helaena who was forced to give birth at 13-14 and adult simply because she was married? This is the same excuse people use to excuse the grooming of young girls in what's clearly a patriarchal society.

- IT IS GROOMING!! You're making excuses for Daemon's behavior. I'll give it to OP last time who called out your "i can fix him" behavior when yous said "he isn't all bad". They're 100% right!! We literally have lines from the book where he is teaching her how to act, giving her gifts, etc. She's a lowborn teen girl and he's a middle-aged royal prince. There is no world this isn't grooming!

- Him letting her go does not mean he loves her. Ya'll just be romanticizing sh*t. This is a grown man of 50. He does not need saving from his depressed and paranoid wife who lost her children just because of your misogynoir and self-insert fantasies!

You have to look outside your little bubble and realize Nettles/Daemon isn't liked outside of your little circle because of all the problematic aspects and not because of some shipping war. Is this is how you want a woc to be treated? Do you want to see women being pitted against each other just because you hate the other one? Over some white man...seven help us then

Her alleged actress and her first canon depiction back in 2015👆🏽 Black people have brown skin too dear(which is how Netty is described). She could be Blackish(never denied that just the insinuation she wasn't Black at all), but why should she even be Valyrian? I'm terribly afraid that the point keeps going over your head🙃

Daemon did groom Rhaenyra, but he isn’t the villain when it comes to Nettles. I’m sorry this isn’t a gotcha moment for you but she was a legal adult who he had a consensual relationship with. Him rescuing Nettles and put her, someone who wouldn’t be missed by anyone except him, above his own safety. That is nothing to sneeze about(and no, you can’t compare their relationship with Dumbnyra because it’s actually supposed to be romantic).

Instead of wanting her to have a rich character arc, you want to put Nettles into a box where she’s Rhaenyra’s Magical Negro/Mammy who helps her wake up and realize that she’s being groomed and wipe her tears away so that she can live another day.

You need to step outside of your bubble and acknowledge your misogynoir(which is a term created by and for Black women to describe our issues, not for whoever you are trying to hijack and use it for). Acknowledge that the sisterhood ends with racism. As a WOC you should know that.

Nettles is the victim of a woman who used racially charged language while ordering her to be murdered in her sleep. Rhaenyra isn’t just some poor unfortunate woman who lost her marbles(being mentally ill doesn’t excuse racism). She’s a queen who uses her power to punch down and she chooses Nettles as one of her many victims.

She chooses to try to make a Black woman(and potentially her baby) into victim(s) of a hate crime. I’m under no obligation to ignore that for the sake of the sisterhood(how dare you suggest I do).

I am under no obligation to sing a racist woman’s praises just because she’s a woman to stick it to the man. If that’s what you want from me or else you’ll accuse me of I’m pitting women against women, then sweetheart, you need to have several seats and take up your issues with GRRM (because he most certainly didn’t write your self-insert to be considered “a clear cut good person who you must worship or else,” which is why you are boiling over people like myself calling out your drivel).

[buttercuparry]

I know sometimes most of us are just playing around in the fandom without any insidious reason. Hell sometimes things are just a vision and we all want those visions to see the light of the day, and there truly isn't anything wrong with that! But if a fan of colour is commenting on your post about something that might be a concern of theirs and you know this concern is related to matter of fandom racism, I don't think they are doing so to personally attack you about something. And if it indeed does feel like a criticism and you know you didn't mean your art/post/whatever else to express any sort of discrimination, I think just talking about it simply can help clear things. You don't even need to go into an explanation. It's really that simple.

I know fandom can get heated and hell despite our best attempts, back and forth tangent of discourse happens. But the way the fandom treats fans of colour not just in the asoiaf side of tumblr but everywhere-it's a bit disheartening. You have people mocking a fan of colour in tags of a post and going "all this discourse for lily white starks". Well you all don't really listen or even acknowledge unless fans of colour are loud, do you? And when they do get loud, you all start having problems.

"Lily white starks" was the point of discourse. That's what many of us who are PoCs in the asoiaf fandom have been saying. They are all the most ashiest whites to have ever whited and race bending is cool as fuck but they aren't 90s animal cartoons where you have two cats having kittens and half of the litter has orange fur while the other half has brown fur. But somehow the character whom fanon deems to be "plain" ( never mind the text says the opposite), whose gender identity gets questioned every now and then ( even though in text they specifically state what they identify as), is drawn racially ambiguous while her siblings look like they don't even have a drop of melanin-you bet fans of colour are going to feel a type of way about this. And till now I haven't seen any major discussion regarding this, not even a peep of acknowledgement that it's a bit weird that the fanon trajectory where people shout "let (redacted) character be ugly" and then this (redacted) character and all who look like her is drawn with brown skin. But wait there's more! The "Helen" of asoiaf universe, even though is said to look like this (redacted) character is often argued to have looked nothing alike at all. So you see how all this shit evolved into the discourse under that art post right? Like it's not like this discontent was bred in a vacuum.

Even now when a new fan comes into asoiaf fandom, after a few months around they know what the dead ladies club is. Because it is that discussed and it should be because Grrm is shit like that. But dead ladies club evolved from being a genuine criticism to a championing a kind of womanhood that posits itself as the best of them all. And this mentality continues to this day and the race bending of certain houses comes from that. You have a fandom that dislikes one of the most important characters so much, that every thing they do is considered a devastation. This dislike is based on the fact that she doesn't really fit in with the kind of womanhood that's considered traditional. It has been literally witnessed how this character has changed the fantasy genre's notion of the "chosen one" but you have dudebros crying foul. And thus anything related to her is bashed more than it deserves to be and you have one of her deceased family members being presented as the devil incarnate. The woman this dead man has supposedly wronged is suddenly a woc, and the whole of the kingdom she belonged to is also a representation of poc culture in fanon?? Like do you see how exploitative this is? And then to further drive in the notion of evil, there came the dominant headcanon where one of the most priviledged and bloody houses in the fictional asoiaf universe is made analogous to real world indigenous pocs who are still fighting for their rights in their own country. It cannot get more batshit insane than that.

I genuinely believe that certain characters were initially drawn in darker shades out of a personal artistic vision. But then this got twisted by the fandom at large to suit their supposed intellectual narrative and bnf artists just simply followed the trend never questioning anything and years and years of this practice got cemented as natural and canon. Never was it questioned why a character ( and all who look like her) who is falsely fanonized as violent and ugly is drawn shades darker and why another character of whom we know nothing of but how violently she met her end is also a woc.

The most recent discourse that happened under the post carries a weight of this particular fandom history. I know there's artistic vision to consider which is why I personally try not to criticize an artist on their own post. This is also a fanart, something given to the fandom freely and I am of the opinion that if it cannot be celebrated then it should just be left alone. But what got to me was that how it felt like through the response there was this tone of trying to turn the tables on the fan of colour who commented. Like the sarcastic commentary on how there is an insistence on Valyrians being whitest white...like dude...hello?? Pretty sure this is on grrm and do you really think this person who is actively frustrated at the racist caricature would mind genuine attempt at being inclusive?! Like I have seen you around, I have enjoyed your posts, I think I even saw you under posts which criticized these particular trends while drawing certain Stark siblings, are you really going to pretend you don't know where the comments came from???

There is also the pointing towards how fandom casts all of dorne as poc and I think we have already established that this fandom is shit. Like I won't lie I enjoy my guilty pleasure of looking at Bollywood gifs representing Dorne, and I think there is this headcanony idea that Dorne is based on North Indian hindu hindi speaking culture. But in same post representing a particular house through this Hindu Hindi speaking culture you have the gifmaker using gifs of the Islamic hajj!!! Like ajaldleryjdlsldldlfg the headcanon then is the idea of amalgating brown bodies and meshing them in homogeneity because that's what we are all over the world right? 😂😂😂

Like I understand the frustration and you really got nothing to explain but it's trying to turn the tables for me (including calling a poc racist when they themselves were trying to address a racist issue)

EDIT IMPORTANT:

I am making this post non reblogable because the assumption on the basis of which I made this post was wrong. The person I have been referencing is a artist of colour themselves- so the core idea of the post isn't applicable. However I still don't know or can't wrap my head around how someone got dog piled on for a comment, and got called a racist ( a poc themself), when they have been one of the primary voices who pointed out many of the racist issues in the fandom.

[mithliya]

Imma be honest with you, I consider myself a radfem, have been raised in a muslim family, my father is Lebanese (pro hezbollah type), I'm a febfem and have been repeatedly outcast for my gender non conformity (I'm highly masc) and my sexuality by my Arabic family. So we are somewhat similar.

I dont post anything about palestine on tumblr. I post on Instagram, Facebook (lost many Jewish friends doing that btw) but on tumblr because it's terribly limited for things that are not informative. I guess I'm sending this message to tell you you're not alone, there are radfems that are not pro genocide, there are women that care. Don't lose hope ❤️

thank u for the msg kind anon ❤️ i’ve been following more women who are speaking on the issue and unfollowing the ones that have only talked about israel while ignoring what is going on to palestinians. i had had enough of it. i even saw a mutual talking about how criticising jkr for only speaking on israel means ur antisemitic and support terrorism.. i’m tired of it and i just need to curate this space to fit what i prefer to see. ultimately the way i’ve seen western white women treat this issue has made me question why i should waste my time advocating for their issues when they will never spend any time doing the same for MENA women. they didn’t do it with iranian women, or afghan women, or anything else. their solidarity for us seems only to extend as far as calling muslim men horrible animals and muslim women brainwashed class traitors. my posts criticising islam get lots of notes, yet i’m an islam shill bc i draw the line at discriminatory and racist rhetoric from them. my posts about what MENA women face that reject the notion that our issues were invented (rather than reinforced) by religion are often overlooked or lead me to face harassment, my posts about racism woc face from white women gets me harassment and ppl falsely claiming i would support white women getting raped, etc like. why should i waste my time with posts about how karen is misogynistic or how the hate of pumpkin spice products is misogynistic or whatever else that is specifically used to mock white women, when more serious issues woc face are overlooked by white women? they can go focus on being called karens like it’s the most pressing problem in the world and ignore our plights and actively even be racist against us, they’re hopeless, i’ll focus on our issues the way they focus on their own. that’s been what i’ve been telling myself to cope at least lol

sorry i ended up rambling!! it’s a bad habit of mine. but point is, thank u i appreciate it

[pinkomcranger]

I agree with you about Saga! I personally don't ship Andercasey (no hate to people who do, of course! You're all great and your creations are fantastic <3) but I love love love their platonic relationship! It's so great to see male/female platonic relationships represented in media, and their relationship is fantastic (whether you like it platonic like me, or romantic!). Saga in general is such an amazing character and it's sad to see how the fandom treats her. I know this is a usual pattern in fandoms in general, not just with AW - people ignore the women (of course, woc even more so!) in general, no matter how interesting they are, just to focus on the (white) men. I do like Caseywake personally, since I find the dynamic interesting, but I don't like, ship-ship it very hard, I find it intriguing. But whether people do or don't, it's sad to see they also can't give focus to Saga and acknowledge she's her own person. They make her a prop in other people's relationships. It just sucks. Why are women always the backdrop and props to mxm relationships?? In general I find it sad that people are so quick to only value romantic love - not that there is anything wrong with shipping. Usually I'm a big shipper as well. But bc shipping is such a huge thing, then they can use the excuse of "I only like Saga and Casey platonically, but I don't write platonic things, and Saga doesn't have any interesting romantic pairings to make for her if it's not Andercasey so I just don't write her!!" And it sucks so bad. I wish this fandom was different but unfortunately it follows this very old pattern of a fandom. :(

I think everyone in every fandom needs to do some self-reflection on why they ALWAYS ignore the female characters and poc. It's always been a problem and unfortunately continues to be.

Oh, you absolutely do not have to ship Andercase romantically. It's perfectly fine to see them as platonic, it can arguably be said they were written that way! Their relationship is beautiful however way you see it. Their chemistry was off the charts, Melanie and James/Sam made sure of that!

Platonic m/f relationships do make me happy, and personally, that's Alan/Saga for me. Nary a hint of romance or even surface level attraction, and I'm here for that.

Now, putting my personal ships aside, you're very correct. In fandom, women and WOC especially get ignored to place more focus on the white men. And I've never understood that in this day and age, when women and WOC are finally starting to get the recognition we deserve. What's the point in this?

You can very much ship your fav men, while also including the woman, especially if she was such a big part of the source material. It's very egregious when it comes to Saga, considering she's the deuteragonist. She gets equal writing and treatment, in fact, I would go so far to say that if the series WASN'T called Alan Wake, Saga would be the protagonist.

There's truly no reason to ignore Saga when she drives the story we get. Alan himself admits, with no hesitation, no anger, that he needs Saga. So to see the fandom essentially go "that's nice you feel that way, Alan, but I don't need her beyond propping!" leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

You can't even give a good case of "I CAN'T create for Saga shipping-wise, there's nobody to ship her with outside of Casey!" There's her husband (and I know that's difficult considering we don't even get so much as a glimpse of him, and that's interesting to me, but that's a topic for another day), there's Rose, there's Tim, there's Ahti, there's Estevez, there's even Alice. Saga has just as many options as Alan.

And there's no excuse to ignore her in another pairing. You can EASILY write CaseyWake without using her as a prop, or just an aside to say "see? I remember she was in the game!" Where are the ensemble fics? Why can't she be written with all of her characteristics and agency that was she given in-game? Does a black woman who isn't a stereotype that uninteresting or frightening to the general content creators?

Again, this isn't something new to just Saga in this fandom. Alice suffered from it the most, by virtue of being the most important woman in the previous games. And she got pushed aside for ScratchWake. But with the release of AW2, she's been given more love, I've seen more fics for her, I've seen quite a few Alan/Casey/Alice fics. Which also tells me that fandom finds it easier to write for a white woman than a black woman.

There really isn't anything I can do about that, I can't FORCE anyone to relate to Saga in the same way I do. I know there's difficulty writing for WOC, there's difficulty relating to them personally if you're not one. But again, in this day and age, when we're being shown more on the big screen/small screen, in books and video games, there's truly no excuse.

POC in general are still nowhere close to being represented as much as white people, but seeing a character like Saga so well written, so wonderfully portrayed, so loved by her creators get ignored for the basic white men, while this same group of people claim they're tired of decades of white men being the focus but continue to personally make them the focus, shows an extreme case of hypocrisy and covert racism, because again, there's no excuse.

I understand the fixation on fictional and FBI Casey. There's so much we're not shown, that we can fill in the blanks and easily fit it into canon. But at the same time, you can do the exact same thing with Saga, because we're NOT shown or told everything about her and her life.

I want this fandom to be better and do better. Like you said, all fandoms need to take a good, hard look at doing some self-reflection. Don't choose to ignore the beautiful women we're given just because they don't fit your narrative.

[adorawasright]

What are your personal thoughts on the idea of Catra acting/being treated like an animal as a latina-coded character?

Some other SPoP criticals say that this is a terrible stereotype (Idk if they're latina or not, tho), but I'd like to hear your thoughts on this since you're a brown latina yourself

Oh, I agree with them, I think it's terrible mainly because it was not planned out. It doesn't make any sense, either. Catra doesn't have brown skin, she has fur. She doesn't have a latina voice actress when other characters of color, as far as I'm concerned, do. Even Adora has a latina VA, so I don't get why they couldn't get one for Catra if they really wanted her to be a WOC.

While I don't think it was intentional, Catra does allude to some stereotypes against latina women, such as her being abusive, sexualized and, of course, animalized. There's also the fact she needs to be calmed down by her white savior girlfriend.

But honestly, I doubt it was planned from the beginning. Personally, it felt that Nate just wanted to make fans happy so he made Catra a WOC without any supporting material. He said, "she's absolutely a WOC", but literally WHERE? Based on WHAT? Nate also sums Catra up as a literal cat plenty of times, so to me it's pretty distasteful. He should really have thought over it before making it "official".

Again, I don't think this was done in bad faith, but Nate is just painfully white (once he even considered himself latino because... his grandmother was latina?). Even then, at the very least Nate acknowledges it was never confirmed in the show, so he said in the same tweet, "it doesn't feel right to take credit for it." But of course, the fandom uncritically made this canon, because stans will call you racist if you criticize Catra, when in reality they could not care less about the ACTUAL POC of SPOP. (Besides, I've seen fans making "la chancla" jokes with Catra and I don't have to explain why those jokes are awful, right)

Anyway, I think latina Catra should've remained a headcanon. I know some fans of color relate to Catra and I don't want to take that away from them. But some POC, including myself, have the right to be uncomfortable with how latina Catra is handled. She should've just been a cat like she was always meant to be.

[lettucedloophole]

(Self-hating trans girl from the previous ask)

Thanks for responding! Could you clarify what "third-sexing" and "degendering" mean? Why is it inherently violent? For context (since I unintentionally made it sound like this was based on Janice Raymond's views), my view on the possibility of trans women being a third sex was mostly influenced by the article "A Rose is a Rose: The Nomenclature of Sex and Oppression" by Margaret Deirdre O'Hartigan (you can find it in issue 5 of the TransSisters journal on the Internet Archive: archive.org/details/transsistersjou1994unse_1). The article was originally published in 1980, a year after The Transsexual Empire was published, and the author responded to a lot of terf beliefs, but she argued that trans women should be a third sex instead of women (she used "changeling" as a new name for them).

The question of trans men being a fourth sex especially wasn't something I thought about. My instinctive response is no, that I don't think there's a problem with them using the label of "man" or using male spaces, but I don't know why I think this about trans men but not trans women. The terf response to something like this would usually be "because trans women are male (and therefore dangerous)", but honestly this neglects the fact that, even if they were both classified under the same name, trans women just aren't the same group as cis men and aren't treated the same (which was also the basis of them being a third sex in the first place). I guess it just feels wrong in a way that I can't explain, so it probably has a lot more to do with internalized transphobia/transmisogyny than any reasoned argument.

Anyways thank you for explaining your view on this, it helped me change my mind. I got into terf beliefs in like 2022/2023 and it's been a gradual process of trying to unlearn. I don't hate trans people, and I love and care about trans women, but lots of terf ideas can feel almost inarguable in spite of that. I got as far as non-essentialism, but it wasn't really clear to me how that leads to a pro-trans position so I was just stuck there for a while. The article I mentioned earlier about trans women being a third sex was basically the only pro-trans explanation from that standpoint that made sense to me.

of course! third-sexing (as i was using it) is just the act of deeming trans women a third sex instead of women, and degendering is stripping someone of gender and usually entails dehumanization as a result. it can simply refer to instances where trans women are they/them'd, for example, but the sense in which i use it and have mostly seen it used (on socmed, admittedly, though there's academic writings on this definition too) is something more like how black women are seen as lesser women to the extent that they would be grouped in with men and face violence or just not grouped in with other women. and since humanity is intertwined with gender, the degendered person is seen as less human as a result. it's not a term exclusive to black women though, arguably all woc are degendered (particularly brown/black/darkskinned women), intersex women, lesbians and trans women. women who have traits that are considered masculine.

why degendering is violent is more apparent with the way i described it, and i would say third-sexing is a form of degendering and that's part of why it's violent. since the two gender system is normal, denying trans women's womanhood is a denial of their normalcy. this argument isn't sufficient though as some ppl (nonbinary ppl like myself) declare a denial of the binary and thus, normalcy, but this doesn't mean they desire marginalization. so being acknowledged as outside of the gender binary is not always violent, but third-sexing in particular is.

as to why third-sexing is inherently violent, i touched on this in my last response but i think the world shows evidence of this. i have no theoretical basis for why i think this, just the practical basis that third sex groups in diff cultures (like hijra or fa'afafine) are marginalized and many identify themselves as women, but in spite of this are said to be a third sex by onlookers. a denial of womanhood so often means violence for trans women. in this precarious situation, it seems counterintuitive to suggest a roundabout solution when the solution has already been recommended from the majority of those people, yk? i know that sounds flimsy, but i hope i can expand upon my feelings by sharing more about third-sexing.

a possible counterargument here is, what about nonbinary people? if trans women are marginalized by being forced out of the gender/sex binary, wouldn't nonbinary people also be? and so, rather than arguing that trans women are women, wouldn't it be better to just dismantle the gender binary as a whole? and in the long term, yes. but being recognized as women keeps trans women safe now. nonbinary people being outside of the gender binary is just an additional layer of marginalization they have to deal with for the sake of their authentic identity. and i don't mean to pose trans women and nb people as mutually exclusive groups, ofc trans women can also be nonbinary but i think i would have to say a lot more words to try and qualify what i mean to not give off that impression temporarily. lmao.

i'm retreading here, but i think it's important to hone in on the fact that self identification of gender in trans people helps destroy the myth of an innate gender & sex. this is lost if trans women are seen as a third sex, considered too marked by maleness to be women. the idea of being endlessly marked by maleness is itself bioessentialistic and leaves no hope for women to ever be free of oppression, if male violence goes beyond the social. and ultimately, i suppose i just don't think there's much of an argument for trans women to be a third sex instead of women beyond discomfort, especially if you don't feel the same about trans men. trans men are more often perceived as just women or men i think, and there's less contention about them being taken as either of those groups than trans women being taken in as women. i see the trans women i know as women, and the world knows this too, though they claim otherwise.

about that transsisters article, i read it and i sympathize with it, but it does seem a little outdated. for example, it uses "h*rmaphrodites" to refer to intersex people, and the publication even acknowledges this lapse in terminology. referring to people on the fringes of sex as "changelings" is romantic, and i appreciate the way she justifies it in terms of magic keeping a group alive, but practically i do think it's a bit othering and implies impersonation. no hate to her for using it for herself, she can reclaim that language if she wants. i found she also identified as an "archigalli," chief priestess of the gallae (transsexual roman priestesses) she discussed in the piece after "a rose is a rose." i think this identification shows she may have romanticized the third sex role without having experienced the full brunt of its effects, as most third sex groups are in colonized societies afaik. i would recommend this piece on hijra and third-sexing to get some insight into their oppression and problem with third sex roles.

margaret deirdre o'hartigan identifies as a transsexual woman now, i think, based on this interview with the university of minnesota. she still has some comparatively conservative views about transsexual people for a trans activist, like reservations about lia thomas. i had these same reservations when i was a terf, but knowledge is power, and looking up things showed me it's merely an issue of transmisogynistic discomfort rather than any genuine wrongdoing on lia thomas' part. i think it's important to remember that, and to skeptically look into conservative rhetoric about trans people. you can still have reservations about some things, like the rare misogynistic trans woman, without forsaking faith in yourself and trans women as a whole. a shitty trans person doesn't have to act as confirmation of anything about yourself or others.

and truly its my pleasure! i made this account in the hopes of offering another (radical feminist) perspective so i'm happy it's serving its purpose. i got into terf beliefs before you did but it seems like they haven't evolved much at all. you're getting out pretty recently so do give yourself grace as you unlearn these things. i didn't mean to insinuate that you hated trans people, i sure didn't, some of it is just internalized transphobia and then there's just a shit load of propaganda working against us. just center your love of other trans people and women and you will be okay 💙

im very glad i could help, but my asks and messages are always open if you need anything else. happy deprogramming! 🎉