#creativity works hard but racism works harder

[canyourlawnmowerdothis]

ive seen exactly one person do this, i think via tiktok? but theres a black goth that does their makeup base with black rather than white and i hope it already is/becomes widespread bc it fucking SERVES

[punkpandapatrixk]

🏖Original Prototype ☆ Timeless Tarot Guidance

Elements/Signs in this reading are calibrated to all aenergetic placements. Feel free to read as many Elements/Signs as you feel called to at this point in your spiritual evolution♡

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☆[Your Own Standards of Beauty PAC]☆

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As a complement to the previous PAC, it’s crazy we’ve got The Last Judgement at the bottom of the deck. That’s a double XX LOL Yeah, continuing the spirit of rebellion against little bitch behaviour, we’ve got so much Wands and Pentacles aenergy on this collective reading. It’s literally saying:

Be confident in being yourself, in all the amazingly weird, scandalous, hard-to-define way that you already are AND grab the money bags! Work on feeling secure in your body, comfortable in your skin, beautiful in your hair and makeup, and continue to work on your soulful passion projects which are the only things that truly matter~♥︎

As a complement to the previous PAC, for a lot of Asian kids, wherever they may have been born on the Planet, it may be quite harder to realise just how much you’re stopping yourself from SHINING in your authentic Light just because you want to appeal, appease, and please your little bitch elders/society. It’s hard for a lot of people already depending on what kind of custom they’re most familiar with, or if they grew up with abusive narcs and all that, but I’ve gathered that it’s generally just that much harder for Asian kids.

Why? Because the society or elders made Asian kids little bitches of an apologist and enabler! STOP THAT! What the fresh fuckity fuck does being ‘conservative’ mean when that jargon is mostly thrown around to justify racism, fascism, perversion(!!), misogyny, child abuse, and, what else? Dishonourable ‘traditions’ of all kinds—can’t cover all of those expectations in a single intro but…if being ‘Asian’ equals ‘an unwillingness to outgrow own bullshit’ then that white lady was right:

‘Not to be racist or anything but Asian people SUCK! Hahahhihihuhuheho…’

In the West, Asian losers get waaay too comfortable hiding behind ‘victims of racism because we’re minority’ narrative—even though in Asia we all know Asians are some of the MOST racist fucks on the face of Earth and they victimise their own people in the name of CULTURE—and they indulge in some such fake-noble-ass attitude whilst completely and utterly letting other (usually younger) Asian fucks get away with perpetuating cycles of abusive behaviours, customs, mindsets, and just…ways of doing things and being.

These types of people, don’t strike me as bothered enough to acknowledge what being divinely…Human…is all about. No wonder they trespass human rights all the time in all these small but pervasive ways. Pathetic, isn’t it? ♪~why the fuck you lyin’, why you always lyin’, mmm, o mai gut~♪

All I’m saying is, ultimately, Asian or no Asian (you don’t want me to start on the Punjabs OML), you as an individual get to choose how you want to grow and develop yourself, so as to become a vibrational match to your very own honest desires that are in alignment with your Highest Intended Good. You were born with a purpose, no? Your Soul knows that and it’s whispering your Soul’s Blueprint to you. Don’t ever, EVER, let your nationality, religion, custom and race, or any other insignificant configurations attached to your birth situations LIMIT your Soul Expression that is often more kind, more merciful, more empowered, more free and creative, and most important, more brave—because God only knows how much Humanity needs all of those qualities amplified in the world right now.

If this intro has found you, chances are, YOU. ARE. THE PROTOTYPE. of a new way of being, you freaking Superstar~☆ One day, all of Mankind are gonna be just like you. Namaste. Whoever you are, I honour your being here and being a whacko🍮

HACK: This 76 Year Old Has Better Beauty Hacks Than You Do by PS

deck-bottom: XX(!??!) The Last Judgement Rx, Red Physician (Galen of Pergamon), Priestess of Shine

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Original Prototype for 🐞Fire Signs – Silver Magus (Merlin)

3 of Swords, 9 of Cups, XV The Devil

You know the ‘problem’ a lot of people find with Fire Signs? Your fire. Duh? In a world of cowards who mould themselves into whatever society demands of them—for survival—how dare you be pretty, ballsy, smart and confident, and you’re not even an ass-kisser? That’s hard to stomach for most of these sheeples. Babe, it doesn’t even register in their slow-ass brains.

So then, they work really hard at convincing themselves that you’re a sneaky loser who’s plotting against them. Some others think that you think you’re better than them for not paying them too much attention. Well, you know what? You are better than them. Clearly you are better than those whose hearts are so rotten they fabricate shit like that about you.

In spite of outer appearances, you really do have a good heart, and topped with every other thing that’s already good for you, all of the good things going for you, ma gurl, you’re a fucking anomaly. Kinda reminds me of Hedy LaMarr! An anomaly by all means. How dare she be incredibly talented, beautiful, smart, ambitious, and, SPIRITUALLY INTELLIGENT! She was a Scorpio Sun, Leo Moon and Sag Mercury. Hear this:

‘I know why most people never get rich. They put the money ahead of the job. If you just think of the job, the money will automatically follow. This never fails.’ – Hedy LaMarr, pioneer of the frequency-hopping technology, precursor of WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS systems

If you asked me, it’s pretty obvious that a lot of people are simply jealous of you. And in a world where women are pitted against each other since time immemorial—you know; how they made girls compete with each other to become the hottest commodity to attract the richest guy in the village to take ‘em as a wife—it’s almost a crime that you were never sucked into this stupid game of hurting other women for the attention of men.

For you, and most likely this has been the case since you were a child, this kind of mindset never made a lot of sense, and oh Goddess, you’ve thought it had to go out! Of your system! Of everybody’s system! I think you were always a feminist before knowing such a concept exists. And your focus wasn’t particularly about ‘gender equality’—it wasn’t politics, babe—it was just about fairness and justice in their purest form, for all people.

HOT FIRE. You were born to light candles and burn bridges. So be it. No more playing small. No more playing with those who are small and refuse to grow strong. Go meet your Destiny NOW!🔥

Oracle Guidance for Fire Signs🔻❤️

🐏Aries – Priestess of Innocence

🦁Leo – Priestess of Magick

🎠Sagittarius – Priestess of Healing

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Original Prototype for 🐍Earth Signs – Green Physician (Paracelsus)

Knight of Pentacles Rx, XIX The Sun Rx, 5 of Cups Rx

Take care of your body, nourish it to heal your spirit, and let’s take a break from planning too many things for the near future. The aenergies all around the Planet are shifting massively, what you’re planning for the next 3 years of your Life, for example, could all go down the drain next month, next week, even. You’re being advised to recharge and find joy in the small things that you might’ve postponed to enjoy just because it’s felt like there’s so much to plan and do and achieve.

On this Planet, too many societies glamourise being busy. It’s because the busier you are the more you feel that you’re needed, right? That need for validation is what kills you from the inside if you blindly follow this misguided desire to be useful. The truth is, and only if you allow it to be your truth as well, is that it’s enough that you exist on this plane. You can love and be helpful in ways that don’t sacrifice your values or physical health? Don’t be a sell-out just because you want praises. Yuuh, bitch?

You might’ve forgotten that you came into this world to have fun. To bask in sunshine’s glory and play with nature. To eat good food and spend good times with loved ones. I’ve seen that people with strong Earth influences are usually those that are easiest victims of capitalism’s hustle culture pffft… They got you wired weird, babe. Gotta step back a little and look around, see where you’ve put your foot now.

I’m hearing that you Earth Signs are essentially meant to be a buster of old traditions and customs that no longer work. People change and values change, why wouldn’t cultures change? After all, didn’t people make culture? How come then cultures are perceived as more important than the individual? None of that makes sense. So much of what’s called culture in this world was made with garbage intent and has become pure manure at this point in Humanity’s evolution.

It’s perfectly OK to update rules and customs, don’t you think? People who refuse to grow and move with the times are TOXIC. Don’t be their prop, Earth Signs! Your mission is to launch missiles towards the Old Stinkin’ Tower of toxic traditions and to rebuild upon its rubble a new establishment that’s guided by Love. Yes, Love and Respect, instead of the ill-intent to suppress and control. Take what still works from the Old World but infuse whatever you do with Light. Let the wisdom of old guide you so that you don’t make the same mistake twice, or thrice.

I’m also hearing that you’re meant to champion some kind of effort that balances/integrates tradition and automation. ‘Going back to nature’ or ‘going back to old ways of doing things by hand’ are a major theme of your Lightwork. We’ve been dealing with too much automation in recent decades that people’s cognitive functions have declined rapidly! Automation helps with simplifying things but if that comes at the cost of people’s brain capacity, this isn’t progress then, it’s a regression of Humankind at the aggression of robots.

Doing things with hands may seem like such hard work, but in the long run, it keeps people’s brains functioning well into old age. Check out this video for inspo! I just feel that you’re meant to champion something like this <3

How The Oldest Chocolate House In New York City Survived A Century by Business Insider

Oracle Guidance for Earth Signs🔻💚

🐂Taurus – Priestess of Patience

🧘🏻‍♀️Virgo – Priestess of Purity

🐐Capricorn – Priestess of Illumination

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Original Prototype for ⛲Air Signs – Green Alchemist (Nicolas Flamel)

6 of Wands Rx, 8 of Wands, 6 of Pentacles

Being the intellectual Air Sign that you are, you’ve long realised that most of the world’s information is false. It’s taken a lot of strength to maintain your sanity, and it’s gonna require even more for you to share what you know with the world—or whoever would listen. So much of world’s history is misleading, if not blatant lies; so much of who we’ve been told as heroes and knaves has been quite the opposite, depending on angle, I guess.

You’ve been in the know that discovering the truthest truths of the Truth is gonna require some sifting through so much misinformation, disinformation, and confusion. It’s not a walk in the park but know that you’re not alone on this legacy project of yours. You may often just forget that your Spirit Guides and Cosmic Ancestors are with you. Yeah, you may forget because you’re highly intellectual and can focus too much on hard facts LOL

The fact is, look, you have direct aetheric communication with your Team. I sense many of you who are tuned into this collective reading are, in spite of your Airy-ness, quite spiritual. A lot of you have strong 12th House placements or Neptunian aenergy, as well as 8th House/Scorpio and 9th House/Sagittarius influences. This actually makes your communication with the aether that much clearer. In order to strengthen your communication, it’s important to nourish your brain with the right kind of nutrition.

You can also take advantage of subliminal and/or reiki tracks that help improve brain functions, strengthen psychic communication, as well as those for brain regeneration and relaxation—just to balance things out, you know. Breathing meditation may also benefit you a lot in this scenario. Many of you tuning into this reading are meant to have a role in communications, journalism, detective/investigative work, and maybe even politics. You have that kind of a charm, honestly😉

You could also be some kind of a whistleblower. Basically, you’re meant to communicate the Truth to the world. What Truth are we talking about? Look to your Mercury and any kind of placement you may have in the 3rd/9th House, especially if your Chiron is here, and that should give you a hint, combined with other elements such as Midheaven and North Node. All y’all are meant to discover different kinds of Truth regarding the nature of our society, or Reality huehue

Look also to what your 11th House of networking entails and see how that connects to your Uranus/Aquarius placements. Essentially, if you have a strong Libra placement especially, the key takeaway here is that you want to connect with likeminded rebels with whom you are going to be covering each other’s asses. What you’re meant to do in the world could be dangerous, so it’s important to have a strong network or support system that will keep you all safe~!

Oracle Guidance for Air Signs🔻💙

👯Gemini – Priestess of Strength

⚖️Libra – Priestess of Ritual

🏺Aquarius – Priestess of Energy

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Original Prototype for 🐝Water Signs – Gold Alchemist (Roger Bacon)

2 of Wands, Ace of Pentacles Rx, 7 of Pentacles Rx

It’s interesting that all your cards are indicating unbridled passion, but Water Signs do indeed feel a lot anyway; if you’re not gonna channel all those emotions into something creative, then what’s the point? Gotta be artistic while life is being sadistic to ya XD Your passion, your emotions, are needing a platform to be heard, listened to, watched, admired. Paint, maybe? Write a poetry? Make an artistic indie-vibe photographs or movies?

There can be a lot of trial and error, but as you do so, you exercise your demons. You get to exercise with your demons. Why not? This world could learn a lot from you who’s willing to breathe and let yourself honour your emotions. When we were born, so many of us were convinced that too much feeling was bad. The whole time, not having emotions is what’s actually psychopathic *shiver*

There’s a song I like whose title is like, ‘To not have weakness is to not have Humanity’ or something like that. To not feel, to not shed a tear, to never have a moment of breaking down, is to not have Humanity. And too many people are comfortable with that, that’s why their lives are never totally comfortable in spite of all the riches they’ve gained in the world. There’s still too much drama and bad karma because…

‘We soon tire of living only for ourselves.’ – Mishima Yukio

Psychopaths are those who live only for themselves and they use other people for short-term gratifications, right? There’s way too many people living on the spectrum of psychopathy, and it’s your mission to show these losers how to navigate around crippling sorrow and still turn up alright, decent as a Human. People are weird to give so much empathy to psychos just because ‘they didn’t grow up being loved enough that’s why they turned up the way they did’. Pffft…

Fuck that. Those assholes made a choice to grow up mean, bitter and just generally evil. How many people in the world have suffered the greatest pain and betrayal and still turned up kind and empathetic? It’s a matter of choice, bitch <3 You who have tuned into this reading are someone who’s felt for everyone and got your heart broken every other way, and still you turned up full of Light—in all the unique ways you’re still able to care for the world, even if from a safe distance.

You’re an Advanced Soul who was given so little guidance as you walk the path of your Destiny on Earth. That’s strength. Strength of character especially, knowing how much you’ve broken your heart through your own trials and errors when it comes to navigating human relationships. Don’t punish yourself for a failed connection/communication you still feel guilty for. The guilt itself is already a sign that you’re a good person at your core. Do you think evil fucks feel any remorse for manipulating your feelings or any other person's for that matter?

Oracle Guidance for Water Signs🔻💛

🦀Cancer – Priestess of Beauty

🦂Scorpio – Priestess of Fertility

🎏Pisces – Priestess of Intellect

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☆[Your Own Standards of Beauty PAC]☆

[colorisbyshe]

You said you're busy, so feel free not to reply now (or ever lol), but what's the difference between supporting that wizard transmisogynistic antisemite and supporting something like, say, Disney? Genuine question. Aren't both bad because it's been proven their profits go straight to anti-LGBT laws? Or is it different? I hate both either way lol. Thanks!

I think the main difference is JKR is singularly making her entire platform about hating trans women, vocally encouraging others to do the same, and has boiled down her career to that one thing. Passively, she is doing OTHER egregious hateful things (mostly antisemitism but also homophobia and racism and more).

Disney is different because... Disney is buying every single thing. Lots of works that exist and were created outside of the Disney "mindset" (whatever that is) have been purchased by Disney. There are things streaming on Disney+ by people who would probably roll around in their graves if they knew who owned their work now.

Disney is harder to avoid in that way but it's also not one singular issue. It is a multiple of projects, some of which are affirming, some of which... are hateful and awful.

I personally do not consume much Disney branded content.

And I think people who worship at the altar of Disney often CAN end up identical (in behaviour and in harm) to HP-defenders.

But... idk... when it becomes less about actual creators and more about the people who end up owning their shit, it's harder. Like... most chain stores are donating to Republicans. I'm sure most streaming services are too. This does get closer to the "no ethical consumption under capitalism" thing where like... you can do the best you can to shop "well" but... corporations are all donating to whoever will protect their profit margins the most and will fund any law possible to get that going.

Corporations have such overwhelming nets they've thrown over hteir industries that it's hard to find anything that has escaped their grasp untainted. It's like... if someone selling their book lets it be distributed through amazon, do we immediately accuse them of supporting amazon exploiting and even killing employees?

It's more nebulous and I'm more willing to handwave (especially the more and more outside of the "Disney" brand Disney owned things get) but JKR isn't so nebulous. She is the creator of HP--the DIRECT creative mind of the entire IP. She is a bigot. The bigotry exists inside the work. The bigotry exists OUTSIDE the work. She specifically uses her platform to spread hate. Uses HP as part of her platform to do that, directly trying to indoctrinate fans into her mindset.

There is no sort of absolving quality to HP left. It isn't detached enough from her hatred to attempt any mental hoops to justify it.

It's not quite comparable to Disney which is a conglomeration of a lot of people who just have the same financier essentially.

If we're talking about specific Disney works that have hateful/prejudiced content in it, yeah it's a more similar comparison.

But also, even with that, I do recommend people do try to consume less Disney branded and even just Disney owned shit. There's more room for lenience in there--I don't think a parent letting their kid watch Moana is doing the same harm as the parent who reads their kid HP every night--but at the end of the dya aI will always say... look for more media on the margins.

Media produced by more independent workers strugglign to make ends meet. Media produced by people who have shit to say. Media with less direct connections to megacorporations who are all donating to the worst peopel on the fucking planet just so they can get more blood from the stones of society's creative soul

[horridporrid]

A (not-so) brief introduction...

I thought it might be interesting (for me, anyway), as I take tentative steps out into the Tumblr world, to share a little of my fandom history. (This got a bit long; I've been fandoming for longer than I'd realized!)

I started off in the long, long ago when the internet was young and gentle and everyone was on list serves and... whatever those circle things were? That linked a bunch of different webpages together and you were never quite sure what you'd get when you'd click in on one? I was a fresh-faced graduate stepping out into the world so this was all tied up to a bunch of firsts. First apartment. First "real" job. First water bill, etc.

I'd begun reading The Wheel of Time books and was hungry for more content (I think "A Crown of Swords" was just releasing in hardback?) and the online fandom delivered. But Tor and Jordan were both death to fanfic and I could only pour over the various in-book mysteries for so long. So I ended up in X-Files fandom with its more timely content and deeper well of fan-works. (Interestingly, I participated in WoT but lurked in XF. The creativity of the fic-writers and analysis of the essayists in XF fandom impressed and intimidated. Very, who I want to be when I grow up, energy.)

Then came Harry Potter and fandom fully took me by the throat. I joined the highly organized Yahoo group, Harry Potter for Grownups, and that led me to the freewheeling world of LiveJournal. This was the halcyon days of actively queering and interrogating the text, of hurt/comfort bingo and the Pornish Pixies. It was a wild mix of the intellectual and the erotic and that led, of course, to Strikethrough.

So LiveJournal began its slow death (Ao3 bursting from its still smoldering ashes like a phoenix) and somewhere in there a weird fandom Venn diagram led me to Stargate:Atlantis. I bounced back and forth between HP and SG:A for a long while as LiveJournal users slowly trickled out to freer fields. I think part of me was waiting to see what field would win (I recall Dreamwidth and Tumblr as the biggest contenders). But also, life stuff was happening and I was pulling back from active fandom involvement.

Anyway, HP concluded. SG:A got cancelled. I got into k-dramas and went to Wordpress for a bit. Then life stuff happened even harder and I stopped fandoming entirely.

Voltron: Legendary Defender pulled me back in. Sort of. I was still leery of too much fandom commitment so I ended up on Reddit. I did lurk on Tumblr (mainly for the delicious fan-art) but V:LD fandom brought the drama, unfortunately, so I wasn't tempted to join.

Then WoT arrived on Prime and everything changed. I got excited about fandom again. I'm still leery of going too hard on fannish things but frankly, Reddit WoT on Prime fandom hasn't been enough. (Also, between the racism and the misogyny, it's the Reddit side of fandom bringing the drama this time. So even when it's active it can be exhausting.)

My feelings about The Wheel of Time book series is... complicated. (A post for another day?) But I'm adoring the direction the show seems to be taking things and I've had thoughts and shared thoughts (on Reddit) and expect I'll probably have more thoughts I'll want to spill out into the world (for better or worse) when new info drops. Tumblr seems like a cool place to do it.

[awesomeforever]

The alt-rock greats return with a vital, positive new record full of explorative new sounds. Bush’s ninth record is aptly named The Art Of Survival. But the longevity implied by such a name isn’t just a neat reflection of the band’s tenacious attitude: the LP as a whole arrives into a world racked with chaos, but its message is, despite the maelstrom, we as a species persist – not just Bush. Such a topic for an album, especially now that Bush have embraced a harder, heavier sound, might be at risk of being 45 minutes of misery. But as frontman Gavin Rossdale puts it, the record avoids taking a “mournful or self-piteous” approach – instead, it’s “about the success stories of humanity’s survival against the odds. People just find a way to push through. We’ve all obviously suffered in varying degrees. I think the nature of life is the art of survival. Everyone is being tested all of the time, but we find a way.” There’s not really a better time to highlight humanity’s resilience. Coming out of a global pandemic, there’s no let up in the global chaos. For Rossdale, The Art Of Survival encompasses it all – the pandemic, war, racism, and threats to women’s bodily autonomy. Along with Rossdale and lead guitarist Chris Traynor, let’s dive into five of their favourite tracks for the new record, and see how they crafted the polished, modern hard rock within. Conversations with Gavin Rossdale and Chris Traynor transcribed by Karen Ruttner Gavin Rossdale: “My favourite part is the opening riff – it’s just infectious and undeniable. It sets the tone for the record – it’s the precursor for what’s to come: heavy and snappy. [Producer] Erik Ron loves his Kemper. When I worked with him before, he was much more amp-oriented, but now I think Kemper has got it to a point where they’ve got a signature model with him, which he loves – so we were all about the Kemper on this track. “More Than Machines was getting a song through the eye of a needle, and simultaneously, I really had been bothered about the whole issue going on around women’s rights. The label asked me for another track, and I was annoyed at them – because that’s just my ego – but my creative side said, ‘oh good, you know what? You didn’t nail this subject you wanted to tackle, and maybe you can make something more immediate – it’s constructive criticism.’ When people lay the gauntlet down to you, challenge you, it’s a win-win, because if you come up with something good, they’re right. And if you come up with something good, you’re right. And if you come up with something really really good, everyone’s right, even though your ego didn’t like the journey. That’s what happened. Chris Traynor: “I love the pre-chorus because, to me, it sounds really big and rude and it’s kind of unexpected and an unusual part, especially for this band. Erik Ron laid down this 808 kick drum – very retro hip-hop. It really reminded me of Missy Elliot, so I was trying to think of something that would be like a guitar sample in a cool Missy Elliot song, and that’s why it’s so sparse and broken up. I wanted it to feel like it dropped into a hip-hop track for a second. “A lot of Bush songs have slide guitar, and I started getting into fretless guitar because it’s like a slide, but it’s just a little bit of a different voice. I love that sound, so I borrowed Dweezil Zappa’s fretless guitar. If you ever want a really weird guitar, and you don’t know anybody else that has one, Dweezil Zappa will have one – he had three fretless guitars in his studio. So I borrowed one, and I did these overdubs with Erik because we wanted to make it sound pretty modern, but gnarly. We used an Electro-Harmonix Pitchfork &#8211; we pitched the sound up and down, and we used a fuzz, which is a classic kind of Bush thing, but with that sound. So it kinda ties into the history of Bush, but it’s a more modern take on it. “I love using guitars that aren’t mine or that are new, because every guitar has its own song in it, so it was really cool to borrow that guitar from Dweezil.”

Gavin Rossdale: “The main riff is my favourite guitar moment of this track. It was such a massive sound, and when I got that, it was funny, because I’ve never written a song before where I was really clear that it should open a record. Like, this really sets the tone, the intention of the record – this is the vibe. “Writing this, I was really just being experimental, exploring, challenging myself, finding out what all my drum programs could do. Nick DePirro, who’s a great guitar player, he introduced me to Neural DSP, so I’ve entered that world. I did all my guitars on Neural. My friend Tosin Abasi – I used his guitars on the record – has a plugin. And Gojira have a really great setting. And you know, you start with a sound – someone gets an amazing sound and then you modify it, you make it your own. “That was a turning point for me, because I’ve usually got like three or four amps connected trying to make it happen, but basically going for the same sound, and then when I came across this new stuff, I was like – I dunno about my amps anymore, this is really good!” Chris Traynor: “Right at the very end, I think on the last day, I was doing the guitar tracks and the bridge of this song – I did this kind of octave up pitched guitar sound that really elevates it. I was just listening to it this morning and I love it, it’s a cyclical theme that loops over the chords that are going on underneath. I think it really takes the song into a different place, because the song is so heavy, and you need that break, that kind of lift.” Gavin Rossdale: “The way that I originally had it, it was a real long bass intro and I had all these vocals on it, and it was beautiful. And I went away, I went off to a baseball game, and I came back and Chris and Erik had completely changed it. Suddenly it opened with the vocal and then went into the big intro. That wasn’t my preferred way of doing it – I had a more sinewy, Peter Gabriel beginning, and they went for a slam-dunk beginning. “I mean, I get it – I get what they did, but I still prefer my kinda Gabriel beginning! I think the intro sets the song up great, but I love long basslines – I grew up on dub, so for me, having a long bassline that goes round and round for ages before a song starts is normal. I don’t have to have an orgasm as soon as a song starts. “It&#8217;s going to be weird [when we start playing this one live] because I’m always going to have to be at the microphone when the song starts [laughs] which is not my favourite thing to do. But in and of itself, that’s a good thing – because it’s different to everything else.” Chris Traynor: “We did a lot of stuff with guitars on this record that was kinda soundscapey and trying to, again, trust Erik and do stuff that’s more modern. So there’s a lot of stuff on this track that doesn&#8217;t sound like guitar but is. In the chorus, I used – ironically, a ‘63 Gibson SG Junior with a P90, which is a very old sounding guitar, but I used it for all these chimey effects in the choruses and in the intro, which sound like keyboard pads. And one of the tricks that I did on this song in particular, is I’ll play a guitar part and then I’ll double it with the keyboard. So it kind of mixes in so you can’t tell.” Image: Thomsa Rabsch Chris Traynor: “I love the breakdown of this one. It was something that was inspired at the last minute when we were doing pre-production before Nick came in on the drums. It has a lot of frenetic energy, and then really opens up. One of the things I absolutely love, Nick, on the re-intro of the verse, just plays this incredibly cool beat where he’s partially using the rims of the drums, and that is super inspiring to me. I think the song is in 6/8 – somebody will probably correct me, but I’m pretty sure it’s not 3/4, it’s 6/8 – and I love that feel. I’ve always loved that kind of feel and bands who’ve done that before – Quicksand, Tool, Helmet. Gavin, when he wrote the base of that track, the meat of that initial riff &#8211; he has a really cool computer-y part, computer noises that are going on in the verse.

So when I came in, I just basically added on top of that a little bit more movement on the riff in the chorus. I think it harkens back to old Bush – there aren’t a lot of parts on old Bush songs. Like, Little Things – it’s basically one set of chord changes. When Gavin and I went on tour opening for U2, I was amazed that all their songs are just one part, and they just do dynamics – they go up and down. That was a real lesson for me. This song has that – different variations on a theme.” Bush&#8217;s Gavin Rossdale. Image: Thomsa Rabsch Gavin Rossdale: “I have a rock career that’s never gone down the blues [path], and yet this is probably my most bluesy riff. It’s right up there with like, well, I wish it was like Stevie Ray Vaughan met The Black Keys! “Each song is there to exist on its own and yet compliment the others. The record is really consistent – there’s two mellow tracks because nobody wants to be riffing for an entire record, that’s ridiculous. So just for the sake of decorum and dynamics, there’s a couple of mellow songs in there to pull at your heartstrings – if you have any feelings. And if you don’t, they won’t. If you just care about guitar, you won’t care about those songs! Bush&#8217;s The Art Of Survival is out now. Guitar.com is the world’s leading authority and resource for all things guitar. We provide insight and opinion about gear, artists, technique and the guitar industry for all genres and skill levels. &copy; 2022 Guitar.com is part of NME Networks. source

[ailuronymy]

Thoughts on the new discourse? Warrior cats naming conventions and rank names being straight up stolen from native American people? So many people seem to be... Straight up leaving the Fandom or changing all of their fan content and it feels very performative and, people not actually thinking critically and just being scared of getting "cancelled"? I feel like your opinions on these matters are very informed and well written so I wanted to ask given that this blog main theme is, well, warrior cat naming system and that seems to be the main issue of the new discourse.

This is probably going to get long, since there's sort of a lot to say about it in order to talk about this whole thing fairly and constructively, because from what I’ve seen there’s a lot of hyperbole happening, and panicking, and disavowing this series and fandom, and so on, like you say, and also some people genuinely trying to have complex meaningful conversations about racism in xenofiction, and also probably some bad faith actors in the mix--as well as some just... stupid actors. Kind of inevitably what happens when two equally bad platforms for having nuanced discussions--i.e., twitter and tumblr--run headlong into each other, in a fandom space with a majority demographic of basically kids and highly anxious, pretty online teens. I don’t mean that as a criticism of fans or their desire to be liked by peers and “correct” about opinions, it’s just the social landscape of Warriors and I think it’s worth pointing out from the start.  

If I’m totally honest with you, if not for this ask, I wouldn’t actually be commenting on it at all, because none of this is going to impact this blog or change how I run it in any way. But since you’ve asked and frankly I do feel some responsibility to try to disentangle things a little for everyone stressed and confused at the moment, because I know a lot of people look to this blog for guidance of all sorts, I’m going to talk about what I think has happened here, and how to navigate the situation in a reasonable way. 

Quick recap for anyone blissfully unaware: from what I understand, this post (migrated over from a presumably bigger twitter thread) has got a lot of people very worried about Warriors being a racist and appropriative series, and now are trying to figure out what ethically to do about this revelation. The thing I found most interesting about this screenshotted conversation is that it makes a lot of bold claims, but misses some pretty surprising details (in my opinion). If you do look critically at what is being said, here’s a few things to notice--crucially, there are two people talking. 

Person 1 says that a lot of animal fantasy fiction + xenofiction (fiction about non-human/”other” beings, such as animals) is frequently built upon stereotypes of First Nations and Indigenous people, and/or appropriates elements of Indigenous culture and tradition as basically set dressing for “strange” and “alien” races/species etc., and this is a racist, deeply othering, and inappropriate practice. This person is right. 

I’ve spent years researching in this field specifically, so I feel pretty confident in vouching (for whatever that’s worth) that this person is absolutely right in making this point. Not only is it frequently in animal fiction/xenofiction, but it’s insidious, which means often it’s hard to notice when it’s happening--unless you know what you’re looking for, or you are personally familiar with the details or tropes that are being appropriated. Because of the nature of racism, white and other non-First Nations people don’t always recognise this trend within texts--even texts they’re creating--but it’s important for us all, and especially white people, to be more aware, because it’s not actually First Nations’ people’s responsibility to be the sole critics of this tradition of theft and misuse. Appropriation by non-Indigenous people is in fact the problem, which means non-Indigenous people learning and changing is the solution. 

Person 1 offers Warriors as a popular example of a work that has this problem. Notably, this person hasn’t given an example of how Warriors is culpable (at least in this screenshot and I haven’t found the thread itself, because the screenshot is what’s causing this conversation), only that it’s an example of a work that has these problems. And once again, this person is correct. We’ll look at that more in a moment.

Person 2 (three tweets below the first) offers, by comparison, several more specious insights. Firstly, it’s really, really not the only time anyone’s ever talked about this, academically + creatively or in the Warriors fandom specifically, and so that reveals somewhat this person’s previous engagement in the space they’re talking into re: this topic. In other words, this person doesn’t know what has already been said or what is being talked about. Secondly, this person explicitly states that they “[don’t know] much about warrior cats specifically but from what I see it just screams appropriation,” which as a statement I think says something crucial re: the critical lens this person has applied + the amount of forethought and depth of analysis of their criticism of this particular series. 

I’m not saying that using twitter to talk about your personal feelings requires you to research everything you talk about before you shoot your mouth off. However, I personally don’t go into a conversation about a topic I don’t know anything about except a cursory glance to offer bold and scathing criticisms based on what it “just screams” to me. By their own admission, this person isn’t really offering good faith, thoughtful criticism of the series, in line with Person 1′s tweet. Instead, Person 2 is talking pretty condescendingly and emphatically about--as the kids say--the vibes they get from the series, and I’m afraid that just doesn’t hold up well in this court. 

So now that there’s Person 1 (i.e., very reasonable, important, interesting criticism) and Person 2 (i.e., impassioned but completely vibes-based opinion from someone who hasn’t read the books) separated, we can see there’s actually several things happening in this brief snapshot, and some of them aren’t super congruent with each other. 

Person 1 didn’t say “don’t read bad books,” or that you’re a bad person for being a fan of stories that are guilty of this. They suggested people should recognise the ways xenofiction uses Indigenous people and their culture inappropriately and often for profit. My understanding of this tweet is someone offering an insight that might not have occurred to many people, but that is valuable and important to consider going forward in how they view, engage with, and create xenofiction media.

Person 2 uses high modality, evocative language that appeals to the emotions. That’s not a criticism of this person: they’re allowed to talk in whatever tone they want, and to express their personal feelings and opinions. However, rhetorically, this person is using this specific language--consciously or subconsciously--to incense their audience--i.e., you. Are you feeling called to action? What action do you feel called to when you rea their words, despite the fact their claims are not based in their own actual analysis of or engagement with the text? It’s, by their own admission, not analysis at all. Everything they evoke is purely in the name of “not good” vibes. 

Earlier I mentioned that Person 1 is correct that Warriors is absolutely guilty of appropriation of First Nations and Indigenous people and culture. I also mentioned that they didn’t specify how. That’s because I think the most egregious example is in fact the tribe, which in many ways plays into the exact kind of stereotyping and appropriation of First Nations Americans that Person 1 mentions, and not the clans, contrary to Person 2′s suggestion. For instance, in addition to the very loaded name of “tribe”, there’s a lot of racist tropes present in how that group of cats is introduced and how the clan cats interact with them, as well as the more North American-inspired scenery of their home. It’s very blatant as far as racism in this series. 

When it comes to the clans themselves, though, I think it’s muddier and harder to draw clear distinctions of what is directly appropriative, what is coincidentally and superficially reminiscent, and what is not related at all. Part of this difficulty in drawing hard lines comes from the fact that, on a personal level, it actually doesn’t matter: if a First Nations person reads a story and feel it is appropriative or inappropriate, it’s not actually anyone’s place to “correct” them on their reading of the text. Our experiences are unique and informed by our perspectives and values, and no group of people are a monolith, which means within community, there will always be disagreement and differenting points of view. There is no one single truth or opinion, which means that First Nations people even in the same family might have very different feelings about the same text and very different perspectives on how respectful, or not, it might be. 

I’m saying this because something that gets said very often when conversations of racism and similar oppressive systems present/perpetuated in texts comes up, people frequently say: “listen to x voices.” It is excellent advice. However, the less pithy but equally valuable follow-up advice is: “listen to the voices of many people of x group, gather information and perspective, and then ultimately use your own judgement to make an informed opinion for yourself.” It means that you are responsible for you. The insight you can gain by listening to people who know topics and experiences far better than you do is truly invaluable, but if your approach to the world is simply to parrot the first voice, or loudest voice, or angriest voice you come across, you will not really learn anything or be able to develop your own understanding and you certainly won’t be making well-informed judgements. 

In other words, one incomplete tweet thread from two people who are each bringing quite different topics and modes of conversation (or perhaps gripes, in Person 2′s case) to the table is not really enough to go off re: making a decision to leave a fandom, in my opinion. In fact, I think in responding to anything difficult, complex, or problematic (which doesn’t mean what popular adage bandies it about to mean) by trying to distance yourself, or cleanse of it, will ultimately harm you and will not do you any good as a person. It is better, in my opinion, to enter into complex relationships with the world and media and other people in an informed, aware way and with a willingness to learn and sometimes to make mistakes and be wrong, rather than shy away from potential conflict or fear that interacting with a text will somehow taint you or define your morality in absolutes. 

So. Does Warriors have racist and appropriative elements, tropes, and issues in the series? Yes, of course it does, it’s a book-packaged series produced by corporation HarperCollins and written by a handful of white British women and their myriad ghostwriters. Racism is just one part of the picture. The books are frequently also ableist, sexist, and homophobic (or heteronormative, depending how you want to slice it, I guess), just to name some of the most evident problems. 

But does the presence of these issues mean it’s contaminated and shouldn’t be touched? Personally, I don’t think so. Given the nature of existing the world, it’s not possible to find perfect media that is free of any kind of bias, prejudice, or even just ideas or topics or concepts that are challenging or uncomfortable. I think it’s more meaningful to choose to engage with these elements, discuss them, criticise them, learn from them, and acknowledge also that imperfection is the ultimate destiny of all of us, especially creators.

I’m not saying that as a pass, like, “oh enjoy your media willy-nilly, nothing matters, do what you want, think about no-one else ever because we’re all flawed beings,” but rather that it’s important not to look away from the problems in the things we enjoy, rather than cut off all contact and enjoyment when we realise the problems. That doesn’t mean you have to only criticise and always be talking about how bad a thing you like is either, publicly admonishing yourself or the text, because that’s also not a constructive way to engage with media. 

As I said, there’s a lot to say here, and believe it or not, this is honestly the shortest version I could manage. There’s always more to say and plenty I haven’t talked about, but pretty much tl;dr: 

I don’t find Person 2′s commentary particularly compelling, personally, because I think it’s a little broad and a little specious in its conclusions and evidence, and I also suspect that this person is speaking more from their feelings than from a genuine desire to educate or meaningfully criticise, unlike Person 1. That’s not to say Warriors isn’t frequently racist and guilty of the issues Person 1 is discussing, because it is, but I don’t think this tweet thread is a great source of insight into the ongoing history of this problem in xenofiction, or Warriors specifically, on its own. I would recommend exploring further afield to learn more from a variety of sources and form your own opinions. I hope this helps. 

[brazilianism]

Momento r/trueoffmychest but sometimes I feel like there's no future in Brazil. I want to be a writer but there's like 2 Brazilian writers who are even slightly famous outside and I've heard that here we only get 10% of the book's profit, which is frankly absurd. I love this country and I love my city and I don't think I could ever call anywhere else home and I really want to go to college for free because I think I can and USP has been my dream university since I was in 6th grade but I have absolutely no perspective of future here. My family even has Portuguese citizenship in case thinks go south and we have to leave. And then I look at what the future looks like outside and I know I'll have to deal with sexism that'll be even worse because they see Brazilian women as whores and possibly xenophobia which is totally insane for me because I'm white but the moment I say something all everyone will hear is a heavy Latino accent that I actually don't want to lose and on top of that there will be the usual homophobia since I'm a lesbian and it'll be really tiring. To top that, the only places where I can be a successful writer seem to be USA and England and even though I absolutely hate USA it is still in America and I kinda dislike England even more (many cases of racism against Brazilians, heard it's hard for a Latino to get a job). And if I go to USA, I'll have to deal with low minimum wage and rent that is impossible to pay and the fear of guns and I'll probably will end up in New York as a writer and it may be a place I really wanna visit but it does seem like an awful place to live unless you're loaded and I also kinda don't want to ever be homeless but it seems like an obligatory experience if you live in USA. So I have to ask. How do you do it? How can a Brazilian who wants more find a place in the world? I'm white and my parents went to college and have enough money to send me to a private high school and this was supposed to make all the doors open for me but really? I can only see the closed ones. And I know I shouldn't complain because it would be 100000% harder if I was black and poor but honestly right now I'm kinda hopeless. If I could choose what country to be born in, I would always choose Brazil, but I feel like being a Brazilian keeps me from being someone.

Shit girl, I get you. It was one of my earliest dreams to be a writer, too. And this might not be super motivational, but I haven't made it, lol but like i'm 24 so no big deal about it either. I mean, I still write my stories every now and then, but being a writer does take a LOT of effort and energy and especially at the times when I hit depressive episodes it was hard to put in all that effort. Luckly for myself I've been granted a head that is happy doing lot's of different stuff, so I've changed paths without it taking a big toll on me and decided to go into the movie/tv bussiness. First I was about to try scriptwriting but I learned scriptwriting takes a fuckton of techinique to learn and I'm not good at it (yet). So i'm more into production and other media areas (and it might be a bitch but there's always social media work around even if it sucks). And I mean, the movie/tv bussiness is also shitty and has huge amounts of competition AND is better in countries I dislike too, but in my head it felt "safer" cause it offers "secondary" jobs that will always be there. But like, that was what I thought at 17. Now I know that every profession has these jobs, you know, not the "dream" jobs, but the decent jobs around the area. So first thing I'd do if I were you would be to do some research in related areas. Like, I don't know, working on magazines as an editor, or journalism, or text review, or even social media work in the writing area (plenty of blogs and SEO to adjust out there), or publicity writing (someone is always hired just to write slogans and texts for billbords, you know), or even scriptwriting as I tried. It's not that you HAVE to follow any of these, but knowing that you could fall back upon any of these professions or work them part time while trying to write your books might give you some peace of mind to give it a try. Second thing I would do is to do more research on brazilian writers, because there are plenty. Yeah, not all of them are Paulo Coelho, but you don't have to be to be able to make a reasonable living or even to keep writing as a part time profession. Find those authors, follow them on social media, ask questions!! Most love to answer when they have time. But what I won't tell you to do is to stop writing, cause if there's one thing I know is that the only way to get better at writing (and ergo have more chances of succeeding) is to keep writing. And look, i'm not telling you this is by any means an easy field, or a regular job, and it's 100% okay to give up if you prioritize these things in life (i'm serious, mental health and peace of mind come first and there's NOTHING wrong with picking a profession that allows for these if that's the case), but what I know about most people that have an undeniable passion for doing something creative and pick something else without being really sure about it is that they always regret it. Most keep getting sucked back to it or end up miserable because they really wanted to be doing something else. So if it's your only dream, you passion for life, girl, you're super young. Your parents can give you a small headstart for a few years (aka you don't have to worry about getting any job in any field just to get by for now). So give it a try. Search the field. Try to put something together. Worst case scenario, you still learned something. It'll land you somewhere. Might even be a good place :)

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Hey, feel free to ignore this, but I'd love to hear your grievances against Bridgerton? I saw some of the fashion posts you rbed, but I'm especially intrigued by the "fails on all aspects" parts? Thanks!

Hi there,

There is honestly so much that could be said and analysed in finer points but the short version of it is just that it is a bad story wrapped in the glitz of high production value but surprisingly little good technical execution despite all the money shoveled at it. Bridgerton is the type of show where the petty, mean side of me would delight in a detailed and cutthroat list of all of its flaws but for which I do not care enough to be actually invested in hating it. It’s just a thing to be puzzled and petty about: people think Bridgerton is good. Wild.

Now let me first say that I have no inherent problems with anachronistic creative choices, or the idea of a contemporary take on period dramas. After all, all period dramas are inevitably told through a contemporary lens, to different degrees. It’s also not like they were the first big production to do it either: has everyone just forgot about The Great Gatsby? or tumblr’s favourite Hamilton? I honestly think this kind of mixing already has so many cool outcomes when it comes to music (like this, this or this and this), I do believe we could get something really interesting out of creative anachronism in mainstream visual media. I’m also more forgiving with newer forms of experimentation, because sometimes new ideas need to be worked out before they reach their full potential. But the way Bridgerton does it.... so clearly lacks a clear creative vision and dedication to the concept imo that it makes it harder to excuse the ways it fails since the failures seem to originate from that lack of vision and dedication to storytelling. For instance, there is seemingly no logic as to when the diegetic music will be an instrumental cover of a contemporary song or not--which does not even broach the topic of how bad those ‘classical music’ arrangements for modern songs were? Honestly embarrassing how lazy those arrangements were: hire a good composer (or any at all), you cowards. And then the costumes... once again, a lack of internal logic seems to permeate the choices presented in addition to a lack of care in its execution: so many of the dresses are ill-fitted, the characterisation through the outfits were all over the place (like the mom who wore a silhouette that no one else wore and had no basis in any fashion of the era) and so many of the fabrics/jewellery looked the opposite of expensive (kind of looked like a lot of it was polyester and plastic tbh), which is sort of a problem when you are trying to sell the fantasy of "The lives of the rich and famous but make it regency” imo although I suppose a portion of the audience just doesn’t notice lmao. Honestly I find that a lot of ‘costume historians’ who made video essays on Bridgerton were too nice with the show, perhaps in order not to come off as seeming to hate the costumes on the basis of them not being historically accurate, and as a result were way too forgiving imo. And this lack of real creative vision is also something we see in the cinematography and direction which.... seems often confused about the way it wants to make things feel fantastical and ends up dropping the ball on the execution of these meant-to-be extravagant or over-the-top shots.

But, again, the cinematography is just... middling at best, made only worse by the editing which is just plain bad. I guess you’ll have to just take me on my word on this because I am not willing to do an autopsy of all I find off about it, but lord jesus mary and joseph it was painful to watch at certain moments.

Bridgerton is not the first show to do colourblind casting, although I’d say it deserves recognition for fucking it up for no reason at all. Like, sure there are criticisms to be had about how it remains still a very white story that falls into certain tropes wrt darker skin characters or the glaring lack of south asian representation considering what the contemporary UK looks like, etc. but what I’m gesturing at is the totally unnecessary but mind-boggling “royal love solved racism” twist we get in the, what, fourth episode? (Broey Deschannel covered the topic quite well imo) The audience would have accepted that there were no in-world explanation for the colourblind version of the already-made fantastical regency that had them dancing to Ariana Grande songs. The colourblindness, racism-free society would have just been another aspirational aspect. They literally did not need to do this.

Honestly I don’t feel like I need to get into why the story itself is not very good or well-executed since it feels very obvious. I won’t begrudge on principle the show for using well-worn tropes and common-to-the-point-of-farce character archetypes, but I have to object to the way it uses them and in the service of what story. And not to make myself in a plot-hole-ding kind of person-who-has-thoughts-about-media, but this is not a story that holds up well to scrutiny or logic, let’s say. And any type of social or political commentary it tried to include was dumb to the point of farce: the Feminist Character Who Wants to Read not Go Dance was just.... a masterclass in bad, embarrassing writing. I am surprised at how unlikeable and boring the vast majority of the characters were, but perhaps less surprised at how a series that planned on having multiple seasons already sold the twist of Lady Whistleblow’s identity at the end of the first season, for what seemed to be no narrative reason at all. That being said, I have to give credit where it’s due and acknowledge that there is a skill in being able to produce stories that get extremely popular and well-loved.

(Do I need to mention the performances? So many underwhelming or embarrassing performances. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether it’s the actors themselves or the directing that’s the issue, or a mixture of both, but.... oof).

I guess in the end Bridgerton’s biggest transgression is it sits for me in the uncomfortable middle where it is neither trashy or campy fun nor is it an interesting work of fiction. Differently put, it is simply neither good nor fun.

[ramyeonpng]

The thing about being told to find the silver lining in things is that

I’m good at it. Heck, I’m fantastic at it. I spent two and a half decades being so good at looking at silver linings to things that my abusive mother was able to take over my finances, manipulate me out of the education I wanted, be aggressive towards me all she wanted, and I could still find little, happy things to move me forward in this situation. I’m resilient. I’m optimistic. I can take something terrible and make the best at it.

That was the problem. 

When you don’t see the bigger picture that this resilience, optimism and ability to rework shittiness, sometimes it further keeps you in a situation longer before you ask for help. You adopt this sense of hyperindependence and misplaced agentic hope that if you simply tried hard enough, this would be okay. You tolerate more abusive behaviour. It gets worse. 

People later ask you why you didn’t ask for help sooner, as if it was your fault to not have asked for help, after a lifetime of being praised for being resilient enough to solve any problem. Even if that problem was to hide the fact that abuse was going on. 

So, I’m not knocking the gifts of resilience, optimism and creativity. They’re amazing. A whole goddamn pandemic came and flood came and went and yet I somehow carried on with completing my PhD as if nothing had happened. I had to make do. I’m good at making do. Growing up in an abusive situation was fodder for this kind of strength.

But a pandemic (I hope) comes to an end. That flood? It took some time for my landlord to rip out the walls and replace them so mold wouldn’t grow, and it took some time to drain my abode as my croutons floated towards me as breakfast that day (”because the flooding was worse elsewhere in the city and you were lower priority”), but it was a single event with an end point.

The abuse I encountered was not a single event. If I went back today, maybe the extremeness of my actions of being estranged would have changed my mom for a hot second, but it doesn’t rewire a lifetime of behaviours engrained in her repertoire. In her absence of understanding that she needs help to manage her stress and emotions and placing “stress-relief” on simply controlling what I can and cannot do to a damaging extent, it’s not going to change significantly enough that I feel safe going back. My resilience in an ongoing situation is not a strength; it was a factor in keeping me within a situation where I deserved so much better.

This is also how I came to have the words to describe why I hated when therapists and department heads would simply respond to each action of racism as “you’re resilient, reframe it and move on”. When I was in the thick of it, and when racism had implications on a) being cut off from work opportunities, b) being cut off from mentorship opportunities, and c) ongoing daily harassment, the ability to pretend that everything was okay kept me in place. When I internalized it as something I could change if I simply tried my best to look the other way, I burnt out, because there is no end point. The harder I tried, the more consistently I was rejected. When I was in the thick of it, I could not just “be more resilient”; resilience was merely perseveration in a task that did not fit me. 

It was headbutting against a door that had a 0.01% chance for opening for me when it opened at a 90% for everyone else, and hearing everyone else say “yeah rejection is hard but you just gotta keep trying” as if you fundamentally lacked the “success ingredients” to succeed. Everyone else, from their point of view, simply thought of me as a complainer, as someone who didn’t try as hard, without seeing where we each stood. I internalized these thoughts, wondering why I couldn’t work longer hours, think more creative thoughts, just simply be more resilient. That was the most damaging part.

I share this because this is not a bleeding wound but a scar. I left. Leaving a space where resilience is seen as the solution to an ongoing inequality and a mechanism for maintaining the inequality was important. I entered a more diverse space where my voice was heard and my talents nurtured. Yet, that in itself can be privilege, that I was able to leave one space and enter another and have it welcome me. For some, the whole floor is lava; there is no escape. I share this because when it is a scar and not a bleeding wound, I can now look back and draw a silver lining. I choose to because I now have the emotional resources to do so, and doing so does not force me to continue being in this space and thinking it’s okay. I can look back and think about the important lessons I’ve learned about handling boundaries and how these terrible experiences made me at least be aware that I could just as likely be damaging to those I mentor if I do not continually learn and be humble about what I know vs. what I do not know. 

These are silver linings, lessons learned, only with enough space in between and from a safe space. 

[la5t-res0rt]

this was written several weeks ago in response to asks i was receiving i am posting it now it is very long the longest i have ever made and it is not very well edited but here it is in this final essay i talk about how shitty rae is about black people in her writing as well as just me talking about how her writing sucks in general lets begin

hello everyone 

as you may know i have received a lot of anons in the last week or so about issues of racism in the beetlejuice community both just generally speaking and also within specific spaces 

i was very frustrated to not be getting the answers i wanted because i typically do not talk about what i do not see but in an effort to be better about discourse i went looking through discourse from before my time in the fandom and i also received some receipts and information from my followers and from some friends

keep in mind that the voices and thoughts of bipoc are not only incredibly important at all times but in this circumstance it is important that if a bipoc has something to add you listen and learn and be better

i admit that when this happened i wasnt aware of the extent of what occurred and im angry at myself for not doing more at that time and i want to work harder to make sure something like this doesnt go unnoticed again

im a hesitant to talk about months old discourse because i have been criticized for bringing up quote old new unquote but this is very important and i am willing to face whatever comes from to me

lets talk about this

content from our local racist idiot that may be months old but its important

putting my thoughts under a cut to spare the dash but before i begin obviously this is awful

lets fucking unpack this folks

right out the gate op states that she supports artistic freedom but then within a couple words she goes against that statement

being entirely canon compliant isnt artistic freedom and even so if this person has so much respect for canon they wouldnt be out here erasing lydias obvious disgust for beetlejuice in the movie or ignoring lydias age for the sake of shipping that shit isnt canon either 

also we love the quick jab at the musical there hilarious we love it dont we because god forbid a licensed and successful branch on a media have any standing in this conversation but whatever

now lets scroll down and talk about the term racebending

the term racebending was coined around 2009 in response to the avatar the last airbender movie a film in which the east asian races of the characters were erased by casting white actors in the three leading roles of aang sokka and katara 

whenever the term racebending is used in a negative light it is almost always a case of whitewashing like casting scarlett johansen in ghost in the shell or the casting of white actors of the prince of persia sands of time instead of iranian ones

this kind of racebending erases minorities from beeing seen in media and is wrong

all that being said however racebending has also been noted to have very positive after effects like the 1997 adaptation of cinderella or casting samuel jackson as nick fury in the marvel movies nick fury was originally a white guy can you even imagine

i read this piece from an academic that said quote writers can change the race and cultural specificity of central characters or pull a secondary character of color from the margins transforming them into the central protagonist unquote

racebending like the kind that rae is so heated about is the kind of creative freedom that leads to more representation of bipoc in media which will never be a bad thing ever no matter how pissy you get about it

designing a version of a character as a poc isnt serving to make them necessarily better it serves to give new perspective and perhaps the opportunity to connect even more deeply with a character it doesnt marginalize or erase white people it can uplift poc and if you think uplifting poc is wrong because it tears down white people or whatever youre a fucking moron and you need to get out of your podunk white folk town and see the real world

the numbers of times a bipoc particularly a bipoc that is also lgbt+ has been represented in media are dwarfed by what i as a white dude have seen myself represented in media is and that isnt okay that isnt equality and its something that should change not only in mainstream media but in fandom spaces as well

lets move down a bit further to the part about bullying straight people which is hilarious and lets also talk about the term fetishistic as well lets start with that

this person literally writes explicit pornography of a minor and an adult are we really going to let someone like that dictate what is and what isnt fetishistic

similarly to doing a positive racebend situation people may project lgbt+ headcanons on a character because its part of who they are and it helps them feel closer to the character and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that

depicting lgbt+ subject matter on existing characters isnt an inherently fetishistic action generally things only really become fetishistic when the media is being crafted and hyped by people who are outside of lgbt+ community for example how young teens used to flip a tit about yaoi or how chasers fetishize trans people

but drawing a character with top surgery scars or headcanoning them as trans is harmless and its just another way to interpret a character literally anone could be trans unless if their character bio says theyre cis and most of them dont go that deep so it really is open to interpretation and on the whole most creators encourage this sort of exploration because it is a good thing to get healthy representation out in the world

as for it being used to bully straights thats just funny i dont have anything else on that like if youre straight and you feel threatened and bullied because of someone headcanoning someone as anything that isnt cishet youre a fucking idiot and a weak baby idiot at that like the real world must fucking suck for you because lgbt+ people are everywhere and statistically a big chunk of your favorite characters arent cishet sorry be mad about it

lets roll down a bit further about the big meat of the issue which was when several artists were drawing interpretations of lydia as a black girl which i loved but clearly this person didnt love it because they have a very narrow and very racist and problematic view of what it means to be a black person

and before i move forward i must reiderate that i am a white person and you should listen to the thoughts of poc people like @fright-of-their-lives​ or @gender-chaotic it is not my place to explain what the black experience is like and it certainly isnt this persons either

implying that the story of a black person isnt worth telling unless if the character faces struggles like racism and prejudice is downright moronic 

why use the word kissable to describe a black persons lips now thats what i call fetishistic and its to another extreme if youre talking about a black version of lydia on top of that

the author of this post says herself that shes white so clearly shes the person whos an authority on the black experience and what it means to be a black person right am i reading that right or am i having a fucking conniption

how about allowing black characters to exist without having to struggle why cant a black version of lydia just be a goth teenager with a ghost problem who likes photography and is also black like she doesnt have to move to a hick town and get abused by racist folks she doesnt have to go through any more shit than she already goes through and if you honestly think thats the only way to tell a black persons story you need to get your brain cleaned

you know nothing about the complexities about being a black person and i dont either but you know wh odo black people who are doing black versions of canon characters they fucking know 

lets squiggle down just a bit further 

so the writer has issues with giving characters traits like a broad nose or larger lips if theyre a woman but if theyre a man suddenly its totally okay to go all ryan murphy ahs coven papa legba appropriation when approaching character design like are you fucking stupid do you hear yourself is that really how you see black men like what the fuck is wrong with you

none of the shit youre spewing takes bravery it takes ignorance and supreme levels of stupidity

do you really think you with your fic where a black lgbt+ woman is tortured and abused where you use the n word with a hard r to refer to her like that shits not okay its fucking depraved and yeah we know you love being shitty but like christ on a bike thats so much 

can we also talk about this

what the fuck is this fetishistic bull roar garbage calling this black character beyonce dressing her up in quote fuck me heels unquote are you are you seriously gonna write this and say its a shining example of how to write a black character youre basically saying ope here she is shes a sex icon haha im so progressive and i clealry understand the black experience hahahaha fuck you oh my god

on top of that theres a point where this character is only referred to as curly hair or the fact that the n word is used in the fic with the hard r like thats hands down not okay for you to use especially not in a manner like this jesus christ

oop heres a little more a sampling for you of the hell i am enduring in reading this drivel

oh boy lets put a leash on the angry black woman character lets put her in a leash and have the man imply hes a master like are you kidding me are you for real and what the fuck is with calling her shit like j lo and beyonce do you actually think thats clever at all are you just thinking of any poc that comes into your head for this 

also lydia fucking tells this girl that she shouldnt have lost her temper like she got fucking leashed im so tired why is this writing so problematic and also so bad

hold up before i lose my head lets look at some of her own comments on the matter of this character and what happens to her

hi hello youre just casually tossing the word lynch out there in the wide open world as if thats not a problem that is still real like are you fucking unhinged there have been multiple cases of this exact thing happening in our firepit of a country in the last five months alone like how can you still have shit like this up for people to read how can you be proud of work like this in this climate

and also what the fuck is that last bit 

what the actual fuck

i dont speak for black people as a white person but you do!? im sorry i had to get my punctuation out for that because wow thats fucking asinine just because one black person read your fic and didnt find the torture and abuse of your one black character abhorrant doesnt mean that the vast majority of people not only in the fandom but in the human population with decency are going to think its okay because its not 

i started this post hoping to be level headed and professional but jesus fucking christ this woman is something else white nationalism is alive and well folks and its name is rae

if you defend this woman you defend some truly abhorrant raecism

editors notes 

in order to get some perspective on these issues more fully some of the writing by the author was examined and on the whole it was pretty unreadable but i want to just call back to the very beginning of this essay where the person in question talked about holding canon in high regard but then in their writing they just go around giving people magic and shit and ignoring the end of the movie entirely like are you canon compliant or nah 

the writing doesnt even read like beetlejuice fanfic it reads as self indulgent fiction you could easily change the names and its just a bad fanfic from 2007

also can we talk about writing the lesbian character as an angry man hater like its 2020 dude and als olets touch on that girl on girl pandering while beetlejuice is just there like here we go fetishizing again wee

i cant find a way to work this into this already massive post but

im going to throw up

okay so thats a lot we have covered a lot today and im sure my ask box will regret it but this definitely should have been more picked apart when it happened

please feel free to add more to this i would love more perspectives than just my own.

[bobasheebaby]

Fandom Etiquette

Fandoms grow and often it’s confusing to know what is and isn’t okay within the fandom, so I thought I’d put a little list together for newbies. This is no way means I’m perfect just bored while quarantined.

Reblog, not repost. Do not copy and paste and steal stories. If you love something GREAT, just don’t steal it that means reposting on this or any other platform and claiming credit or cherry-picking pieces to copy, just a hard no. You want to share your love hit reblog, like, add a comment, or send an ask.

Anon is not for hate. We all learn when we were young (or we did when I was a kid) ‘can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all’ this also applies to fandom. You do not have to agree with everyone in the fandom but sending hate, death threats, racist messages, etc is not appropriate. You don’t have to like the characters we like, but going into someone’s ask box and saying something like ‘eww how can you like X’ isn’t nice or appreciated. Speak up when you see racism, hate, etc but please don’t become a bully.

Tag your triggers and put the warnings before the fic. Triggers are real and blacklisting triggering tags is our way of creating a protective bubble for ourselves within the fandom. Please label your warnings before the fic, and make sure to tag your warnings. And yes NSFW (smut) is also something people try to avoid. Tag ‘ns*w’, ‘lemon’, or ‘smut’ or all three.

Use a read more or at the very least tag it ‘long post’. It’s another way to keep triggers from being seen. Read more doesn’t always work on mobile so please tag it ‘long post’.

Don’t tag every character in the series if they aren’t present in the post. Many of us follow our favorite tags and Tumblr will recommend posts that have the tag. If you tag a character who wasn’t in the fic, picture, or screenshot people are going to get annoyed because you are making it harder for them to search the tags they love.

Only tag readers interested in your stories. If someone opts off your list take them off. I get it we want to be seen and it can suck to have someone request to be removed from your list but you need to respect their request.

Borrowing characters (OC’s and MC’s) is okay but please speak to the original writer and make sure you have the character right. If they ask you to stop, stop. Again this is about respect. No one wants their character used without permission or portrayed OOC (out of character).

Writers, spell check is your friend. I sometimes misspell and even google docs makes mistakes but Grammarly and apps like it can help.

Writers double-check your grammar. We all make mistakes or miss some things but I see some that just scream out at me all the time.

Does it flow, does it make sense? You don’t want your reader to be confused and have zero idea what’s happening. Make sure you have a clear idea that flows. If it’s a series and it’s been awhile or you aren’t sure exactly what’s happened reread your story. I do it all the time. There will be times that I will be speaking to a friend and saying I can’t do something with a character because of something that already happened and when I read it it turns out the only place that bit of info existed was my brain.

Betas, pre-readers, friends that you can talk things out with or brainstorm with are great but if you are ignoring their advice it does nothing. I love my group of friends who I can ask to pre-read, send snips to, or tell a new idea but I listen to them. Many of my friends have helped me with grammar issues or fixing an issue I was having with my plot. If you have a group to ask and they say something doesn’t work read it over again, chances are they are right.

Don’t be a jerk. This shouldn’t have to said, but apparently, it does ... again. Creators whether they be writers, editors, or do art digital or otherwise don’t owe you anything. Creators create mostly for themselves, when I get an idea it usually won’t leave me alone until I get it out and I can feel a little batty until I listen to the idea and get it on ‘paper’. What this means is we the creator had an idea and CHOSE to share it with you, don’t be demanding. I can understand loving a story so much that you can’t wait for the next part but don’t be demanding. I have said things like ‘I can’t wait for the part’, ‘(im)patiently waiting for the next part’, ‘will be sitting with my popcorn waiting for more’, or ‘omg this was so good I need more’ in a reblog comment but most of the people I say this to I know, they know me, they know I will wait however long until their muse and life are on the same page and they can write so they can update. The problem is I keep seeing demanding asks. I understand wanting to check-in if you haven’t seen the writer in a while and really are curious if you will be getting a new chapter soon but BE POLITE ABOUT IT! Don’t say ‘when are you gonna update X’ or anything that makes you sound like you’re an ungrateful brat, instead, check-in, ask them how they are, make sure they and their family is doing well and then mention that you miss them and whatever story you desperately want to see updated and follow up with letting them know you can and will wait. I have sent asks like ‘hey haven’t seen you in a while hope all is well! I really miss X series and hope you update soon! I will be waiting for you and X return, stay safe!’ That comes off a lot better than a demand, that writer feels loved and respected and is more likely to try to find the time to work on what you are asking about than if you demanded an update. Be kind and remember that behind every edit, drawing or fic you love there is a real person with a life that may get in the way of their creative time. [added 6/8/20]

[mulanxiaojie]

“Mulan” inadvertently reveals why it’s so difficult to create multicultural content with global appeal in 2020. It highlights the vast disconnect between Asian Americans in Hollywood and Chinese nationals in China, as well as the extent to which Hollywood fails to acknowledge the difference between their aesthetics, tastes and politics. It also underscores the limits of the American conversation on representation in a global world.

In conversations with several Asian-American creatives, Variety found that many feel caught between fighting against underrepresentation in Hollywood and being accidentally complicit in China’s authoritarian politics, with no easy answers for how to deal with the moral questions “Mulan” poses.

“When do we care about representation versus fundamental civil rights? This is not a simple question,” says Bing Chen, co-founder of Gold House, a collective that mobilizes the Asian American community to help diverse films, including “Mulan,” achieve opening weekend box office success via its #GoldOpen movement. “An impossible duality faces us. We absolutely acknowledge the terrible and unacceptable nature of what’s going on over there [in China] politically, but we also understand what’s at stake on the industry side.”

The film leaves the Asian American community at “the intersection of choosing between surface-level representation — faces that look like ours — versus values and other cultural nuances that don’t reflect ours,” says Lulu Wang, director of “The Farewell.”

In a business in which past box office success determines what future projects are bankrolled, those with their eyes squarely on the prize of increasing opportunities for Asian Americans say they feel a responsibility to support “Mulan” no matter what. That support is often very personal amid the industry’s close-knit community of Asian Americans, where people don’t want to tear down the hard work of peers and friends.

“‘Mulan’ is actually the first film where the Asian American community is really split,” says sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen, who examines racism in Hollywood. “For people who are more global and consume more global news, maybe they’re thinking, ‘We shouldn’t sell our soul in order to get affirmation from Hollywood.’ But we have this scarcity mentality.

“I felt like I couldn’t completely lambast ‘Mulan’ because I personally felt solidarity with the Asian American actors,” Yuen continues. “I wanted to see them do well. But at what cost?”

This scarcity mentality is particularly acute for Asian American actors, who find roles few and far between. Lulu Wang notes that many “have built their career on a film like ‘Mulan’ and other crossovers, because they might not speak the native language — Japanese, Chinese, Korean or Hindi — to actually do a role overseas, but there’s no role being written for them in America.”

Certainly, the actors in “Mulan,” who have seen major career breakthroughs tainted by the film’s political backlash, feel this acutely. “You have to understand the tough position that we are in here as the cast, and that Disney is in too,” says actor Chen Tang, who plays Mulan’s army buddy Yao.

There’s not much he can do except keep trying to nail the roles he lands in hopes of paving the way for others. “The more I can do great work, the more likely there’s going to be somebody like me [for kids to look at and say], ‘Maybe someday that could be me.’”

Part of the problem is that what’s happening in China feels very distant to Americans. “The Chinese-speaking market is impenetrable to people in the West; they don’t know what’s going on or what those people are saying,” says Daniel York Loh of British East Asians and South East Asians in Theatre and Screen (BEATS), a U.K. nonprofit seeking greater on-screen Asian representation.

Some of the disconnect is understandable: With information overload at home, it’s hard to muster the energy to care about faraway problems. But part of it is a broader failure to grasp the real lack of overlap between issues that matter to the mainland’s majority Han Chinese versus minority Chinese Americans. They may look similar, but they have been shaped in diametrically different political and social contexts.

“China’s nationalist pride is very different from the Asian American pride, which is one of overcoming racism and inequality. It’s hard for Chinese to relate to that,” Yuen says.

Beijing-born Wang points out she often has more in common with first-generation Muslim Americans, Jamaican Americans or other immigrants than with Chinese nationals who’ve always lived in China and never left.

If the “Mulan” debacle has taught us anything, in a world where we’re still too quick to equate “American” with “white,” it’s that “we definitely have to separate out the Asian American perspective from the Asian one,” says Wang. “We have to separate race, nationality and culture. We have to talk about these things separately. True representation is about capturing specificities.”

She ran up against the industry’s inability to make these distinctions while creating “The Farewell.” Americans felt it was a Chinese film because of its subtitles, Chinese cast and location, while Chinese producers considered it an American film because it wasn’t fully Chinese. The endeavor to simply tell a personal family story became a “political fight to claim a space that doesn’t yet exist.”

In the search for authentic storytelling, “the key is to lean into the in-betweenness,” she said. “More and more, people won’t fit into these neat boxes, so in-betweenness is exactly what we need.”

However, it may prove harder for Chinese Americans to carve out a space for their “in-betweenness” than for other minority groups, given China’s growing economic clout.

Notes author and writer-producer Charles Yu, whose latest novel about Asian representation in Hollywood, “Interior Chinatown,” is a National Book Award finalist, “As Asian Americans continue on what I feel is a little bit of an island over here, the world is changing over in Asia; in some ways the center of gravity is shifting over there and away from here, economically and culturally.”

With the Chinese film market set to surpass the US as the world’s largest this year, the question thus arises: “Will the cumulative impact of Asian American audiences be such a small drop in the bucket compared to the China market that it’ll just be overwhelmed, in terms of what gets made or financed?”

As with “Mulan,” more parochial, American conversations on race will inevitably run up against other global issues as U.S. studios continue to target China. Some say Asian American creators should be prepared to meet the challenge by broadening their outlook.

“Most people in this industry think, ‘I’d love for there to be Hollywood-China co-productions if it meant a job for me. I believe in free speech, and censorship is terrible, but it’s not my battle. I just want to get my pilot sold,’” says actor-producer Brian Yang (“Hawaii Five-0,” “Linsanity”), who’s worked for more than a decade between the two countries. “But the world’s getting smaller. Streamers make shows for the world now. For anyone that works in this business, it would behoove them to study and understand the challenges that are happening in and [among] other countries.”

Gold House’s Chen agrees. “We need to speak even more thoughtfully and try to understand how the world does not function as it does in our zip code,” he says. “We still have so much soft power coming from the U.S. What we say matters. This is not the problem and burden any of us as Asian Americans asked for, but this is on us, unfortunately. We just have to fight harder. And every step we take, we’re going to be right and we’re going to be wrong.”

[stereostevie]

“I sacrificed the quality of my life to help people experience something that had been unreachable before then,” Grammy winner says in rare interview

In the late Nineties, the story of popular music became the story of Ms. Lauryn Hill. She first rose to fame as an actress and a member of the Fugees, whose second and final album, 1996’s The Score, remains one of that decade’s biggest albums. Then, at just 22 years old, Hill took a huge leap and decided to go solo. Released in 1998, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill filled clubs, radio stations, and MTV with her smooth voice and biting rhymes. Hill herself became as big as her music, appreciated in the fashion world and sought after by movie executives for roles she would eventually decline.

Miseducation took home five Grammy Awards and led to a huge tour. But by the early 2000s, Ms. Hill left behind the fame and the industry almost entirely. She has never released another studio album; her last full-length release was MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 from 2002, where she performed new songs in an acoustic style to a largely tepid reception.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill lives on. More than 20 years after its release, it is still regarded as one of the best albums ever made, landing at Number 10 on Rolling Stone’s voter-based 500 Greatest Albums of All Time List this past fall. Many of her songs continue to permeate culture, like the single “Ex-Factor,” which has been sampled or interpolated on major hits by Drake and Cardi B. Beyond that, the album’s impact on multiple generations of musicians is unmistakeable. Everyone from Rihanna to St. Vincent has cited Hill as having heavily influenced their own music.  

The years that followed Miseducation have been complicated. After the album’s release, some of Hill’s collaborators filed a lawsuit claiming she did not properly credit them for their contributions; that suit was settled out of court three years later on undisclosed terms. In 2012, she was charged with tax fraud, and went on to serve three months in prison. More recently, she has found herself back on the road more frequently, sporadically releasing music but mostly basking in the collective love and power of Miseducation through special performances of the album.

For the latest episode of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums podcast, Ms. Hill granted a rare interview on the making of Miseducation as well as what happened after. Over e-mail, she spoke candidly about protecting her family and the little support she had after her first album cycle ended. Excerpts from the interview can be heard in the podcast episode, available on Amazon Music, along with tales from several of the musicians who were part of those sessions, like “Commissioner Gordon” Williams, Lenesha Randolph, and Vada Nobles. Ms. Hill’s written responses are here in full.

When you began recording Miseducation, you were 22 and already experiencing immense success with the Fugees. What were you hoping to prove with this album? As far as proving myself goes, I think that’s a larger and more involved story best told at a later time, but I will say that the success of the Fugees absolutely set up The Miseducation to be as big and as well received as it was. When I decided that I wanted to try a solo project I was met with incredible resistance and discouragement from a number of places that should have been supportive, so that had a motivating factor, but it was less about proving myself and more about creating something I wanted to see and hear exist in the world. There were ideas, notions and concepts that I wanted to exist, I set off in a particular direction and kept going. Initially, I intended to work with other producers and artists but found that what I wanted to say and hear may have been too idiosyncratic at the time to just explain it and have someone else try to make it. It had to be made in a more custom manner. The team of people who would ultimately be involved, we all witnessed as it took form. It was unique and exciting.

You’ve said you found yourself especially creative during your pregnancy. How did that experience shape you as a songwriter?

It’s a wild thing to say but I was left alone during my pregnancies for the most part. It was like all of the people with all of their demands had to check themselves when I was pregnant. The resulting peace may have contributed to that sense of feeling more creative. I was pregnant with my first child during the making of The Miseducation and the situation was complicated, so I was motivated to find more stability and safety for myself and for my child, that definitely pushed me to disregard what appeared as limitations. If I struggled to fight for myself, I had someone else to fight for. This also introduced my first son’s father, Rohan Marley, into the picture, who at that time, was a protective presence. If there were people or forces attempting to prevent me from creating, he played a role in helping to keep that at bay.

During those times especially, I always wanted to be a motivator of positive change. It’s in all of my lyrics, that desire to see my community get out of its own way, identify and confront internal and external obstacles, and experience the heights of Love and self-Love that provoke transformation. I sang from that place and chose to share the joy and ecstasy of it, as well as the disappointments, entanglements and life lessons that I had learned at that point. I basically started out as a young sage lol.

When you look back on it now, is Miseducation the album you intended it to be? I’ve always been pretty critical of myself artistically, so of course there are things I hear that could have been done differently, but the LOVE in the album, the passion, its intention is, to me, undeniable. I think my intention was simply to make something that made my foremothers and forefathers in music and social and political struggle know that someone received what they’d sacrificed to give us, and to let my peers know that we could walk in that truth, proudly and confidently. At that time, I felt like it was a duty or responsibility to do so. I saw the economic and educational gaps in black communities and although I was super young myself, I used that platform to help bridge those gaps and introduce concepts and information that “we” needed even if “we” didn’t know “we” wanted it yet. Of course I’m referring to the proverbial “we.” These things had an enormous value to me and I cherished them from a very young age.

I also think the album stood apart from the types and cliches that were supposed to be acceptable at that time. I challenged the norm and introduced a new standard. I believe The Miseducation did that and I believe I still do this — defy convention when the convention is questionable. I had to move faster and with greater intention though than the dysfunctional norms that were well-established and fully funded then. I was apparently perceived by some as making trouble and being disruptive rather than appreciated for introducing solutions and options to people who hadn’t had them, for exposing beauty where oppression once reigned, and demonstrating how well these different cultural paradigms could work together. The warp speed I had to move at in order to defy the norm put me and my family under a hyper-accelerated, hyper-tense, and unfortunately under-appreciated pace. I sacrificed the quality of my life to help people experience something that had been unreachable before then. When I saw people struggle to appreciate what that took, I had to pull back and make sure I and my family were safe and good. I’m still doing that.

This album permeated culture in a way that few albums have before it existed and made you a massive star. How were you handling the public gaze at the time? There were definitely things I enjoyed about stardom, but there were definitely things I didn’t enjoy. I think most people appreciate being recognized and appreciated for their work and sacrifice. That, to me, is a given, but living a real life is essential for anyone trying to stay connected to reality and continue making things that truly affect people. This becomes increasingly harder to do in the “space” people try to place “stars” in.

The pedestal, to me, is as much about containment and control as it is adulation. Finding balance, clarity and sobriety can be very hard for some to maintain. For example, being yes’d to death isn’t good, and people fear stardom can only result in this, but if the actual answer is yes, being told no just to not appear a yes-man is silly. Never being told no if the answer is no by people afraid to disappoint will obviously also distort the mirror in which we view ourselves. On the other hand, a person with a vision can be way ahead, so people may say no with conviction and resist what they fear only to find out later that they were absolutely wrong.

The idea of artist as public property, I also always had a problem with that. I agreed to share my art, I’m not agreeing necessarily to share myself. The entitlement that people often feel, like they somehow own you, or own a piece of you, can be incredibly dangerous. I chafe under any kind of control like that and resist expectations that suggest I should somehow dumb-down and be predictable to make people feel comfortable rather than authentically express myself. I also resist unrealistic expectations placed on me by people who would never place those same requirements on themselves. I can be as diplomatic and as patient as I possibly can be. I can’t, however, sell myself short through constant self-deprecation and shrinking.

“The entitlement that people often feel, like they somehow own you, or own a piece of you, can be incredibly dangerous.”

Is there a version of “Lauryn Hill” that you feel people expected of you, and how did that compare to how you saw yourself? Absolutely, which I touched upon in the answers before this one. Life is life, to be lived, experienced and enjoyed with all of its dynamism and color. If you do something well that people enjoy, often they want the same experience over and over. A real person can be stifled and their growth completely stunted trying to do this without balance. It’s not a fair thing to ask of anyone. We all have to grow, we all have to express ourselves with as much fullness and integrity as we can manage. The celebrity is often treated like a sacrifice, the fatted calf, then boxed in and harshly judged for very normal and natural responses to abnormal circumstances.

I saw someone lambasted once for discussing episodes of anxiety before going on stage, as if anxiety was only a condition of the non-famous. It was absurd, like someone with a record out can’t get a common cold. Someone in love with the art doesn’t not experience fear or anxiety, they just do their best to transcend it or work beyond it so that the art or the passion can be made manifest. Some days are better than others. For some people it gets easier, for some it doesn’t. The unfairness, the harshness was excessive to me. I didn’t like how I was being treated at a certain point. I just wasn’t being treated well and definitely not in accordance with someone who’d contributed what I had. I had a ton of jealousy and competitiveness to contend with. That can exhaust or frustrate your efforts to make anything besides primal scream music, 😊.

Provoking that kind of aggravation was probably intentional. You have to find reasons to still do it, when you’re exposed to the ugly.  People often think it’s ok to project whatever they want to on someone they perceive as having “it all” or “having so/too much.” Hero worship can be an excuse for not taking care of your own sh#t. The flip side of that adulation can turn severely ugly, aggressive, and hostile if people make another person responsible for their sense of self-worth. You can either take that abuse or say no to it. After subjecting myself to it for years, I started to say no, and then no turned into hell no, then hell no turned into f#ck no…you get my point. 😊

If you could talk to yourself at 22 now, what would you say? I’d share the things I do now with my 22-year-old self. If I had known what I know now, things would probably have unfolded differently. I would have continued to invest in people but I would have made sure I had people with the love, strength, and integrity around me to really keep their eye on the prize and my well-being. The world is full of seduction and if they can’t seduce you, they go after the people you love or depend on in some way. I would have with greater understanding tried to do more to insulate myself and my loved ones from that kind of attack.

Looking back on that period of your life, do you have any regrets?

I have some periods of woe, some periods of sorrow and great pain, yes, but regret is tough because I ended up with a clarity I might not have been able to achieve any other way. I would have done a few things differently though if I could go back. I would have done my best to shield myself so that I could better shield my children.  I would have rejected the manipulation, unfair force and pressure put on me much earlier. I would have benefitted from having more awareness about the dangers of fame. I would have been more communicative with everyone truly involved with The Miseducation and fought hard for the importance of candid expression. I would have demanded what I needed and removed people antagonistic to that sooner than I did.

You have released music since Miseducation and have continued to play live. Do you ever foresee releasing another full-length studio album? The wild thing is no one from my label has ever called me and asked how can we help you make another album, EVER…EVER. Did I say ever? Ever! With The Miseducation, there was no precedent. I was, for the most part, free to explore, experiment and express. After The Miseducation, there were scores of tentacled obstructionists, politics, repressing agendas, unrealistic expectations, and saboteurs EVERYWHERE. People had included me in their own narratives of THEIR successes as it pertained to my album, and if this contradicted my experience, I was considered an enemy.

Artist suppression is definitely a thing. I won’t go too much into it here, but where there should have been overwhelming support, there wasn’t any. I began touring because I needed the creative outlet and to support myself and my family. People were more interested in breaking me or using me to battery-power whatever they had going on than to support my creativity. I create at the speed and flow of my inspiration, which doesn’t always work in a traditional system. I have always had to custom build what I’ve needed in order to get things done. The lack of respect and willingness to understand what that is, or what I need to be productive and healthy, doesn’t really sit well with me. When no one takes the time to understand, but only takes the time to count the money the fruit of this process produces, things can easily turn bad. Mistreatment, abuse, and neglect happen. I wrote an album about systemic racism and how it represses and stunts growth and harms (all of my albums have probably addressed systemic racism to some degree), before this was something this generation openly talked about. I was called crazy. Now…over a decade later, we hear this as part of the mainstream chorus. Ok, so chalk some of it up to leadership and how that works — I was clearly ahead, but you also have to acknowledge the blatant denial that went down with that. The public abuse and ostracizing while suppressing and copying what I had done, (I protested) with still no real acknowledgement that all of that even happened, is a lot.

“I wrote an album about systemic racism… before this was something this generation openly talked about. I was called crazy.”

I continue to tour and share with audiences all over the world, but I also full-time work on the trauma, stifling, and stunting that came with all of that and how my family and I were affected. In many ways, we’re living now, making up for years where we couldn’t be as free as we should have been able to. I had to break through a ton of unjust resistance, greed, fear and just plain human ugliness. Little else can rival freedom for me. If being a superstar means living a repressed life where people will only work with you or invest in your work if they can manipulate and control you, then I’m not sure how important music gets made without some tragic set of events following. I don’t subscribe to that.

Lastly, I appreciate the people who were moved by this body of work, which really represented a lifetime — up to that point — of love, experience, wisdom, family and community investment in me, the summation of my experience from relationships, my dreams, inspirations, aspirations and God’s ever-present grace and Love in my life through the lens of my 20-something but wise-sage existence, lol. I dreamed big, I didn’t think of limits, I really only thought of the creative possibilities and addressing the needs as I saw them at that time. I also had the support of a community of talented artists, thinkers, and doers, friends and family around me. Their primary efforts (THEN) seemed to be to help clear a path and to help protect. However, when you effectively create something powerful enough to move the bulls#t out of the way, all kinds of forces and energies may not like that. They may seek to corrupt and discourage, to disrupt and distract, to divide, and sabotage…but we bore witness to the fact that this happened — a young, black woman through hip-hop culture, a legacy of soul, Spirit and an appreciation for education and educating others communicated love and timeless and necessary messages to the world.

The music business can be an industry of entanglements, where a small number of people are expected to be responsible for a very large number of people. It’s hard to find fairness in a situation like that. Now, I look for as much equity and fairness as possible. I appreciate being loved for my contributions to music, but it’s important to be loved for who you are as a person just as much, and that can be a delicate but extremely important balance to achieve. Experiencing that is important to me.

[clementiinefraser]

Bonjour/Hi!

First of all, I want to take a second and show appreciation for all of the characters who were set aside or not appreciated enough. I’ve been here since the beginning and I saw them come and go with a heavy heart. There were so many good characters, but they were always left in the shadows. If you’re still around and playing one of those forgotten muses, just know somebody loved them.

I am not being hypocritical. I brought my fair share of negativity and bad behaviours. I joiend with a faceclaim that turned out to be highly problematic and took an awfully long time to change things up like it truly ~mattered~. I did my fair share of bubble roleplay (sometimes it was more like by default than by choice) but I did it and I’m not proud of it but I have the self-awareness to admit it. I chased after faceclaims too. There was a time where I focused on potentially romantic threads and neglected platonic connections. I didn’t participate enough in the events. I didn’t open my mind wide enough to reply to starters that maybe were too out of character for my muses, but still deserved attention. I should have messaged other people.

I should have tried harder. I always promised myself to do this. I was foolish enough to think that replying to one or two open starters would work. I was fooling enough to think that leaving supportive tags under my replies would work. I know now that was stupid. As someone who joined since the true beginning, I should have made new people feel welcome and appreciated instead of focusing on the fact a starter was not fitting my muse enough and without plotting it felt odd to reply. Making new people feel included and appreciated: that was, is and always will be the duty of everyone in a roleplay group.

Still, even when I was not posting, even during my hiatuses, I always kept an eye on the dashboard and I saw those forgotten and set aside characters and read their tasks and starters and interactions. I loved them all. I believe every character in this group deserved to be put on the same pedestal as that very specific handful of special muses that got too much praise for questionable reasons.

I have never stayed in a group for so long. The truth is, I’ve wanted to leave for a while, but I always had reasons to stay. Whether it was because of characters I loved or my own characters I hoped to develop, I could not bring myself to leave just yet. I felt like if I stayed, maybe some issues would get solved and this group would reflect on the ideals it has set for itself. Transparency. Inclusivity. Warmth, and so on. Again, I know for a fact I was not active and I should have devoted more time for this group. I apologize for all of the abandoned threads along the way.

Whether it’s about cliques, bubble roleplay, undeserving praise, unfair treatments, this group has had issues like any other. Except, they never really got resolved. Instead of addressing it publicly, instead of making it clear that the voices of those who had enough courage to call out issues were heard. Instead of openly and sincerely acting on the issues, things were brushed under the rug. An ooc warning every now and then, free passes for a handful of people, sudden unfollows. The issues were not solved, they just kept getting worse.

Granted, I have never gathered enough courage to speak up. I have never gathered enough courage to ring bells. So to all of those who actually did speak up but were silenced, I’m so sorry. But I’m very proud of you still. You deserved so much more. You deserved to be heard, to feel included and to feel appreciated. You gave proof, but you only faced a closed door.

Yes, proof. Multiple people coming out and voicing their worries about similar issues. Multiple people leaving suddenly. This is proof. I completely disagree with using a degree as a justification to why one can pretend they never did anything wrong or take the blame off their shoulders. As I have mentioned quite a few times, I am a historian. I am a full time research assistant. I, too, love a good research assignment. I love searching for proof of a phenomenon. I love understanding said proof, and said phenomenon. And the proof is right here. Nobody can blame their college classes for the fact they refuse to admit their flaws, their mistakes and their lack of judgement or action. If anything, a true researcher would have the reflex to admit they did something wrong, they made a mistake or they have to change their minds because they found out new information that disagree with their belief on a topic. This is part of any scientific methodology. And changing your mind, when you have proof, is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of transparency and integrity. Especially when the proof is right before your eyes.

How come nobody came and called out the issues sooner? Maybe it is because no action has truly been taken. Maybe it is because they knew it would be useless. Maybe it is because they felt like nobody cared enough about them and their contribution to the group. Maybe it’s because a minority of people blindly praising an admin team like they could never do wrong speaks louder than a majority of members trying to show something is off.

Serious actions need to be taken. Serious changes need to be made.

As long as nothing is done, I don’t want to be a part of group that claims things they never truly put into action. Cliques, bubble roleplay and worshipping a handful of ships are one thing, but claiming to be diverse while most of your diverse muns and muses are excluded is a whole other story. I stand by the people and the characters of colour who were ignored, set aside or accused of things other people did without consequences.

I wish I could have been more active and given all of you guys the love you deserve.

Thank you to everyone who interacted with Clémentine, Sapphire and Karyanne. Thank you to those who might have supported them from a distance and we never truly talked, ooc or ic. I’m still thankful for this group because I met amazing people and I interacted with amazing characters. I’m still thankful for every interactions or connections, small or big. I’m still thankful because, for a while, it was a safe place and a safe escape. I don’t really have hard feelings against any of you. I’m just disappointed that we’re reached this point.. The fact nothing was, or has ever been, addressed publicly, the fact the pages were updated oh-so quickly like everything needed to be erased, the fact the dash moved back to normal as if nothing happened... This is not being transparent. This is not showing you want to change. This is pretending everything is fine and hoping people forget.

Solutions are still available. Find an admin team who is truly transparent, who believes their members and who is willing to take actions when needed. Yes, I believe changing adminds would be the best solution. The fact that two of them stepped down, probably to avoid taking responsability, is quite suspicious. The one remaining is still a huge part of the problem. Make efforts to be more inclusive. Stop focusing on endgame ships, focus on all of the amazing friendships that could blossom instead. Don’t drop muses because they didn’t find a ship within a week. Don’t facechase. Don’t deny the proof. Now is not the time to ask people for what is wrong with the group, because at this point, it is only rhetorical.

The best solution is to close the group and keep interacting with your ship partners. That way, you can worship the same handful of people and you can be blinded by a few members praising this group and refusing to see the problems. But the thing is, people might join again. They might join because they believed the promises of inclusivity. They might join because nothing was addressed publicly. They might join and face walls if their character is of colour, if their character is different or too original, if their character is not seeking for ships. They might face the same problems as everybody who left.

Lead by example. And, right now, the example you are giving is one of cliques, ships, lack of transparency and borderline racism. We’ll say it like it is.

Still being a part of this group, as it is currently, is being complicit of a narrative that goes beyond cliques and ships being more important than genuine connections. I don’t want to support such a thing.

Until then, I wish everyone well. I truly do! I met amazing people here and whether we still talk or not, I really liked you guys. The creativity, the amazing characters, the everything. There were so many good things, but there are so many bad things too. I don’t want to set the blame on anyone specifically. This is not a witch hunt. If the shoe fits, then you will know. I still wanted to express myself because we all carried a piece of that blame and we all need to acknowledge it and act on it rather than closing our eyes and keep on keeping on like nothing has ever happened. I hope this group changes into a healthy, inclusive and welcoming place where everyone and every characters are loved equally. If it happens, then I will happily join again if I am allowed to (because, well, I’d understand if this statement was too blunt). Or, at least, I will look back on my time here and be happy that changes were finally made.

I know this was long. I needed to take this off my chest. Thank you for the opportunities. Thank you for giving the hope that this could be a different place. Thank you to those who cared about inclusivity and diversity.

Take care. Treat people (and yourselves) with kindness. I love you guys and I’ll miss you. Go watch a Barbie movie, will you? It’s for self care purposes! <3

Laurie 🧡 🍊

[matildainmotion]

Making Waves by Sophie Lovett

Mothers Who Make’s is hosting a series of guest bloggers, to celebrate and give space for the diverse views and voices within our movement. I am delighted to introduce our first of these: please read on for the Question of the Month, as posed by home-educating mother of two, writer and activist, and MWM Hub co-ordinator for Exeter, Sophie Lovett.

Before you read this post I feel that I should apologise: in case you disagree with me, in case what I’ve written is too much, in case it offends you. But this is Mothers Who Make, and we don’t apologise here for showing up as our whole selves, so instead I will take a deep breath and begin.

This has been a tough year. A tough year after a tough decade. One which, on a personal level, has been filled with many moments of joy – but where the weight of the world has pressed ever harder on my shoulders.

We’ve never lived through a pandemic before.

It’s brought out the best in us, and the worst. It’s brought us closer together, and deepened the divisions in values and circumstance that are tearing our society apart. And it has made the priorities of our government - to put profits above people – very, very clear.

This neoliberal agenda has its roots way back in the 20th century, and over the years we have pretty much come to take it for granted. Notions of unrestrained economic growth, wealth which is available to everyone if they just work hard enough, and the promise of freedom which is earnt by playing by the rules of society - alongside a reality of gaping gaps between rich and poor both on a domestic and international level. In many ways the Coronavirus pandemic has provided precisely the kind of crisis that the neoliberal elite love: an overwhelming distraction that they can use to impose more unpopular policies, accusing people of being unpatriotic or even undemocratic if they oppose them.

Yet it has also sowed the seeds of something new. Off the back of years of campaigning from environmental and social justice organisations, many more people are beginning to realise that the future could perhaps look very different. That the planet cannot handle this unfettered capitalism for much longer – and neither, given the explosion in mental health issues even before the challenges inflicted by 2020, can we. That there might be different ways of living that could be more fulfilling for us and our children, whilst at the same time starting to reverse the destruction we have wreaked on the global ecosystem.

And this – this imagining of a different world – is making some people very uncomfortable.

In England, the government released guidance last week which told teachers not to use resources from any organisation which has advocated abolishing capitalism – even if the materials themselves did not express such a view – as it would imply support for an “extreme political stance” on a par with racism and opposition to freedom of speech. Aside from the obvious hypocrisy of a statement which alienates many anti-racism campaigners and seeks to silence the voices of those who might want to legitimately challenge the status quo, this is a sign to me that they know their power is waning. The neoliberal story is coming apart at the seams, and a new narrative is taking shape which could take things in a very different direction.

As actors in that narrative we have a choice to make about the future that we want to see. And as mothers – and especially as mother makers – we hold in our hands a huge amount of power to shape the world our children will grow up into.

It might not always feel that way.

One of the most effective strategies of neoliberal capitalism is to convince us that we are not enough. That we are deficient in a myriad of different ways, and powerless to take control. It makes us the perfect consumers – hungry for the things we can buy to improve ourselves and make life better for us and our families. And if we can’t buy them – if we are part of the huge swathe of the population struggling to even afford the basics we need to live – we are taught that it is our fault, that we’re just not trying hard enough.

In motherhood especially this can lead to a real sense of disempowerment – a lack of trust in ourselves and our ability to provide for our children. There is so much that is marketed to that desire to give our children the very best start in life: elaborate toys, sleep training programmes, gorgeous clothes, endless baby classes. It plays into the competitiveness which fuels the capitalist fire, the fear of being left behind. It sells us baby walkers (and mini trainers) to get those little people up on their feet as soon as we can, electronic learning games for toddlers in the hope that they’ll know their ABCs before they start preschool, tutors to help seven year olds pass their SATs with flying colours. It rushes us back into the workplace before we’re really ready, no matter that our salary barely pays the childcare fees. It tells us that teachers know our children better than we do, that school is the only place they can get an education, and that compliance with authority is the most important lesson they can learn.

None of this is bad in and of itself – if it works for you then that’s awesome. But if it doesn’t, if the treadmill is making you tired and you’re fed up of searching for the next best thing then stop. Breathe. And work out what it is you truly need.

Our role as mothers may be woefully undervalued by the capitalist system, but we do have the power to choose where we focus our energies, to withdraw our consent from expectations that we disagree with, to challenge the assumptions around the status of mothers (and children) in wider society.

We can choose to raise our children with principles we believe in, to communicate messages to them that deviate from those which dominate the mainstream, to be their allies and their advocates instead of colluding in their oppression.  

And, little by little, we can build a kinder, more inclusive world – one where everyone has value.

If as mothers we hold the future of the planet in each act of care we carry out for our children, as mother makers we are doubly powerful in our ability to reach beyond our inner circle and inspire through the particular capacity of art of all kinds to reshape the narrative and reimagine what is possible.

Creatives are uniquely placed to lead the revolution – and this is I believe a significant reason why the UK government shows such disdain and disregard for the arts and creative industries.  

Just as Media Studies is decried as a ‘mickey mouse’ subject because it directly exposes the techniques the government and their allies use to manipulate the opinions of the population, the Arts in schools are sidelined because they nurture exactly the kind of creativity and independent thought that can be used to challenge the status quo.

It starts in the Early Years, when days that should be dedicated to open ended play are instead filled up with increasingly formal literacy and numeracy, and can be seen right through the education system: ten year olds spending whole terms doing nothing but exam preparation, teenagers being told they can’t study the creative subjects they’d prefer because they don’t fill the right assessment bucket. And it continues in the world outside, as the government response to the impact of Covid has shown so starkly.

Our art is important. Our making is important. It holds a mirror up to the present and shows how life could be, it inspires, it sustains – and it can be an escape route from the treadmill our leaders would rather keep us tethered to.

From the stories we tell to the songs we sing to the materials we choose to the business models we adopt to share our work: we are creating the fabric of the future.

And so this month, wherever you are in your mothering and your making, I would invite you to consider these questions: What are the changes you would like to see in the world? How are you making waves in your mothering? And in your making? What changes (small or large) could you make in either to help create the future you dream of for yourself and for your children?

To read more from Sophie go to: www.raisingrevolutionaries.co.uk and https://www.instagram.com/raising_revolutionaries/