#definitely other asians may disagree and that's totally valid

[casscainmainly]

Cassandra Cain and Asian Stereotypes

So I've seen people debating whether Cass is a racist character or not because she falls into certain Asian stereotypes. While this discussion is valid and important, a lot of the conversation (on this website and beyond) is steered by White/non-Asian people, or people who haven't read a lot of Cass' stuff. This is my take on Cass and Asian stereotypes as a Chinese Cass fan. I do not speak for all Asians, or even all Chinese people, who are absolutely free to disagree with any of these arguments.

Stereotypes I will cover here: Silent Asian, Model Minority, and Hypersexuality.

The Silent Asian Stereotype

The most obvious stereotype Cass runs into is the Silent Asian. I would recommend reading the linked article for more information. Silent Asian characters are Asians who are part of a core cast, but rarely speak. Kimiko Miyashiro in The Boys, Lilly in Pitch Perfect, and Katana in Suicide Squad are all examples of this. The article also mentions Ben from Umbrella Academy, who can only communicate with one character, thus limiting his dialogue.

Why does this happen? Removing Asian characters' dialogue reflects the Western conception of Asians as demure, rule-following, and meek, never speaking up or acting out. It also means writers don't have to spend as much time writing these Asian characters, who are secondary to White protagonists.

The problem with the Silent Asian, then, is not the silence itself, but the consequences of silence. Mute Asians exist, as do Asians who don't speak much; in media, Silent Asians are harmful because they indicate an unwillingness to focus on the Asian character.

This is why Cass, even before she learns to speak longer sentences, is not a Silent Asian. While her conception undoubtedly has unfortunate echoes of this trope, she defies it by being the protagonist of the story. A protagonist cannot be a Silent Asian, because a requirement of the trope is being a secondary character. Cass' feelings and actions are the center of Batgirl (2000), so allegations of this stereotype don't actually make sense.

Furthermore, the trope is about passivity and acquiescence to a White authority. From her introduction, Cass is neither passive nor acquiescent - her origin story is literally about defying David Cain, a White male authority figure. Beyond her not speaking much, she ticks none of the boxes for this stereotype. I think it's time for people to stop mentioning this stereotype in conjunction with Cass, who in every possible way subverts it.

The Model Minority Stereotype

The model minority myth is the belief that Asians are more successful and talented than others, particularly other minoritised groups. Like the Silent Asian, the model minority myth paints Asians as obedient and submissive. This is, in many ways, more insidious than the Silent Asian - there are still people who believe this stereotype (and jokes like 'of course you're good at math, you're Asian') is somehow not racist.

Though this myth seems positive, make no mistake that White people invented this tale for two reasons: to put down Black and Brown communities, and to prevent Asians from ever fully assimilating into White culture.

Cass plays on this myth very interestingly. I've discussed in this post how David Cain and Bruce's assertion that she's 'perfect' is a blatant reference to the model minority myth - by describing her as 'perfect' to them, they are centering their own desires, erasing Cass' individuality.

This is partially why I don't like 'Cass is Bruce's favourite' and 'Cass is an angel who can do no wrong' interpretations when people are just saying it without context. Cass being Bruce's favourite, or Bruce seeing her as an angel, is not a good thing - it is a representation of his biased attitude towards her. He is unable to accept her being a murderer because he is trapped within the model minority mindset. This is not saying Bruce is a full-on racist, but that his actions and perspectives are coloured by his Whiteness.

Cass' abrasive personality, willingness to defy Bruce and David, and very real flaws (her inability to see grey areas, communication difficulties, etc.) make her avoid this stereotype. Additionally, her close relationships with Black characters like Onyx and Duke are essential to combating the anti-Blackness at the core of the model minority myth. Her character evokes the stereotype (perfect martial arts silent fighter), but ultimately defies it through being the star of her own story (and also not being good at math. The fact she doesn't have anything to do with tech is actually one of my favourite aspects of her character, because I am TIRED of tech Asian characters).

The Hypersexual Asian Woman Stereotype

Asian women are often exoticised and fetishised as the ideal sexual partner; think of the term 'yellow fever', which describes men lusting after Asian women. The hypersexualisation of Asian women in media once again goes hand-in-hand with Asians being submissive. They are seen as innocent and child-like, while simultaneously being seductive and sexually experienced.

This stereotype is genuinely perpetuated in Batgirl (2000), mainly by the art in Horrocks' run. Where in Puckett's run there is refreshingly little sexualisation of Cass, once you hit Horrocks' run you get a LOT more shots of her lying down, sexually suggestive covers, etc. People have discussed this already, probably to more effect than I will do here.

However, as I wrote in my Gender and Sexuality posts, the writing is actually fairly defiant of this trope. Cass is vocally uncomfortable with hypersexualisation, and neither of her male love interests stick around. The problem with the Hypersexual Asian Woman is the focus on White sexual interests, where the woman is objectified for the White male gaze. Simply because Cass is the protagonist, the writing focuses on her sexual interests, and in the end it's about gaining control of her gender presentation and sexuality.

Cassandra Cain Vs. Asian Stereotypes

The through-line that connects all these Asian stereotypes is a lack of agency. There's a reason passiveness is the main trait for all of these tropes- the Asian body must be weaker than their White counterparts, in order to be tools or weapons against other minoritised groups.

Cassandra Cain, a character born from a choice that defies White male authority, rises above this passiveness with flying colours. The details of her character certainly fall into some of the above tropes, and the way her character is handled later (evil Cass, New 52), is certainly racist. However, the reason she means so much to me is because at its core, her story is a story of Asian agency. And that in itself is unstereotypical.

[rickriordanfandam]

opinions on riordanverse ; my edition

a lot of people have been doing this so i decided why not right. probably gna lose some followers or smth but anyways. pls respect my opinions! if u disagree, thats fine, but please be polite. unless any of my opinions strikes u as morally wrong then pls point it out to me respectfully. thanks!

- i actually liked drew. im so sorry to everyone who hates her but full offence, why. think about it this way ok, first of all drew became hc because silena died. silena was the traitor, the one who betrayed chb, yet after she died campers celebrated her as a hero? and then drew suddenly has to replace her and live up to idk that legacy she left behind,, when all of a sudden this girl named piper swoops in and takes her place. idk abt u but i wld be salty abt that too. not only that, but as an asian, the chances of drew having faced racism/bullying as a child is pretty high (she studies at brooklyn academy). which means that when she finds out shes a demigod, and arrives at chb where most of the campers are white (this is an assumption btw), she’d obviously be scared of being bullied for her skin color right?? so the first thing she wld do before the campers get to bully her is to bully them before they can do so. (sentence structure here is wack i apologize) ofc this might not even have happened, drew could have had a perfect childhood && was a b1tch for no reason, BUT EVEN THEN HER ROLE AS A BULLY WAS PRETTY VITAL BECAUSE THAT FURTHER SHOWED THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HER AND PIPER,, HIGHLIGHTING PIPER AS A HERO//GOOD CHARACTER,, AND THEREFORE MAKING READERS LIKE PIPER MORE. anyway stop hating on drew please. ALSO WHY IS THIS SO LONGA SDFJHG

- jason isnt bland, the fandom just kinda erased his backstory (thanks to @pjohoo-memes for the phrasing lol)

- reynabeth wouldnt have lasted/would have broken up several times. idk i just see them as two extremely powerful characters who have firm opinions and will definitely clash at some point. in a platonic relationship,, i can see them as really good friends but as lovers? idk i just think theyll break up

- PIPABETH

- i dont really like jercy,, i see them as better friends than lovers. also idt jason and percy were that close..?

- the dam and not my type jokes are srsly cringey and were never funny. ik that seems hypocritical since my username literally makes use of the dam joke but honestly i dont actually like the joke. its not funny to me and has never been funny

- the seven were not best friends. they definitely argued,, and honestly probably werent as close as the fandom makes them seem. like ure dumped with 6 other people, out of which u only know a few. my introverted ass would have jumped off the argo 2 quicker than leo valdez could bomb camp jupiter up. also leo was a dick to frank. so what if frank is bigger sized?? thats not a valid reason to tease him

- the fandom needs to stop hating on octavian while worshipping luke. if u hate luke and u say u hate octavian too, then okay. but if u tell me ure a luke stan but u despise octavian?? imma disagree w u. luke was worse than octavian im sorry. first of all, octavian being a dick was kinda justified. hes been after the praetor position for so long, and everyone keeps saying to “wait for jason” when suddenly this dude, whos a son of NEPTUNE (neptune wasnt liked much by romans), and the camp decides to make him praetor?? dude i would be pissed off big time. and then afterwards, he finds out that greek demigods are real and the dude they made praetor is greek. AND THEN GREEK DEMIGODS COME TO CJ AND ONE OF THEM BOMB IT UP?? octavian has been told all his life that greeks are scum and this dude called leo valdez attacks cj. sure it was an accident, but did octavian know that? no. so it was honestly justified that he was such a salty prick im just saying. also some of yall be hating on octavian for cutting a teddy bear open and thats the funniest shit ive ever heard i swear 

- luke didnt go to elysium

- travis and connor stoll r way too underrated. the two have been head counselors of the hermes cabin since luke was revealed as a traitor, can u imagine the stress? luke, the person they probably looked up to as a brother, betrayed them. and they didnt even have time to process this when they were  thrown the roles of being hcs. that would have been so stressful and i would probably have broken down if i were them. the stoll brothers taking turns to wake up at ungodly hours because a new camper is crying and homesick and terrified, the stoll brothers having to comfort and take care of new campers, having to deal with the amount of people in that cramped space because not enough campers are being claimed fast enough. having to resolve issues between campers in the hermes cabin all the time. the stolls arent just comedic relief, and we need to stop treating them as such

- tratie shldve been canon idc idc

- demigods of the demeter cabin arent talked about enough and i love the fact that meg was demeters kid. like she isnt the child of one of the big three yet shes so powerful.

- we need to hype clarisse up more her character arc was phucking amazing 

- rachel is overhated. sis found out greek gods exist and regularly come down to earth to fuck around and went “ok cool”. queen shit behavior methinks

- the floor 19 crew of mcga is srsly underrated. like do u even remember halfborn gunderson, mallory keen, tj, etc??? bc i feel like we only remember samirah, magnus, alex, and sometimes blitz and hearthstone

- sadie (tkc) was kinda annoying at first. i like her more now tho but i rmb not liking her for a phat while

- tkc and mcga need more love

- carter kane and jason grace arent boring. theyre just really sweet boys who are too good for this world and yes yes yes 

- hazel and frank (especially frank) need to be hyped up more. i hardly ever see anything about them. also yall seem to forget that frank was literally made praetor and that even hecate admired hazel and was willing to fight beside her because of how powerful she was

- frazels age gap is kinda sketch but i still think theyre really cute

- nico definitely had trauma from going to tartarus on his own

- GROVER IS PERCYS BEST FRIEND

- annabeth isnt smarter than leo but neither is leo smarter than annabeth. ive seen a lot of discussions about who is smarter and heres my hot take on it: neither. theyre equally smart, just in different ways. leos a genius mathematically speaking. he has no issues solving math problems meant for people much, much older than him. annabeth on the otherhand, is great at strategies etc. she can make an army of 1000 more powerful than the enemy, even if theyre outnumbered. so in my opinion, both are equally as smart//u cant compare their intelligence, because their talents lie in two different areas.

- while i do agree rick riordan isnt a god and that hes bound to make mistakes,, AND that hes given us a lot of representation,, if the representation offends the people its sposed to represent, then theres a problem. im talking about piper as a poc and wearing feathers in her hair. im not a poc, so i cant speak for them on whether or not its wrong, because i dont know either. HOWEVER, i have seen multiple posts BY pocs talking about how they didnt really like rick’s representation of piper, and thats an issue. pocs have been and are still oppressed and discriminated against by many. as a white cis man, we cant really blame him for not knowing (tho he could have done a research,, asked some pocs,, idk), but by representing pocs in that manner, hes influencing impressionable kids/teens into thinking “oh pocs wear feathers in their hair all the time” etc, which isnt true. the pjo/hoo series is extremely successful, and kids who read the books will probably start forming inaccurate opinions on pocs. the amount of fan art that depicts piper with feathers in her hair dont help either. “but rick said so in the books, so its canon” yeah well rick isnt a god and he can get some things wrong at times. im not saying we should cancel him, im saying we should start educating ourselves and not spread false info like pocs wearing feathers in their hair all the time. also that snake song shit where she sang Summertime was just- yeah. bc heres the thing you can be racist, and still include minorities, but portray them in a racist way. And even then, ignorance isn't a thing to admire. Getting those facts wrong still has a major impact. It continues to perpetuate racist stereotypes.

“ With the feather thing, I looked it up myself; it takes less than five minutes to figure out that Cherokees don't braid feathers into their hair. I didn't grow up in the country where my parents are from. I have many other first/second generation American friends who have also been through that, with a bit of a disconnect from their culture. But something that most of us have in common is that when we didn't know something, and when our parents weren't that big of a help, we looked it up. We sought out resources online and through other people from our culture to be able to connect more with where we came from. Some of that took a Google search. So I find it hard to believe that Piper, a girl who Rick's trying to portray as someone who is attempting to connect with her culture and is totally against racist stereotypes, wouldn't know that eagle feathers aren't supposed to be braided into your hair casually. She may be disconnected from her culture, but she's also shown to want to connect back to it. Piper wouldn't be casually braiding feathers into her hair while also telling off people for being racist. It makes no sense.” - reddit thread (down below) 

for those of yall who wanna know more please please read this, it has a lot of things i wanna add in here : https://www.reddit.com/r/camphalfblood/comments/gy3gl2/piper_mcleans_portrayal_is_innacurate/ 

as well as https://finding-my-culture.tumblr.com/post/189422373260/maxie-ratties-and-cattie-finding-my-culture 

i will be posting screenshots of these in future posts so if ure viewing this on ig and u dont have tumblr,, dont worry 

- the fact that most of the strong female characters in the series refuse to be “girly”, and ngl i dont really like that. just because ure girly doesnt mean u cant be strong. 

- piper would have been a great way for him to start making the strong characters act girlier, but instead he went with the “I’m not like other girls” trope which is quite obnoxious to hear constantly, and I don’t think it’s necessarily great for younger girls to read that idea growing up.  the closest we've ever had to a strong female character who was also into "girly" things was Silena. when I was younger I admired Piper's "I'm not like other girls" thing, but then I got older and realized that the whole mentality of "not like other girls" is super obnoxious, and a little bit toxic

i have a heck load more that i cant rmb rn but yeah feel free to add more 

[pxrxllel]

Talking to the Moon LXII (02/12/17)

Warning: LONG post incoming. Trigger warning for abuse.

I’ve recently come to an extremely harrowing realisation that I could very well have spent my entire life as a victim of mild emotional/psychological abuse. Before I dive into the explanation and the evidence and the aftermath and all that jazz, I’d like to firstly make a disclaimer. 

I’m not writing this post to garner pity or put the blame on anyone else or shift the responsibility of the things that happen in my life. I’m simply exploring this theory as a way to put a name to my experiences because doing that allows me to deal with it in the right ways. It’s like how you can’t treat a disease without knowing what it actually is, because all you do is treat the symptoms and that’s never enough. So I’m not crying woe is me my life is shit and everyone treats me badly because that isn’t the point of this at all. I’m just trying to be as honest as I can, based on my perception of reality, which I’m not sure is all that accurate if I have been in a bubble of abuse all my life.

Anyway, back to the real issue. 

I’ve always found it difficult to navigate relationships in a healthy way. Every other area of my life is set: I’m not financially anxious, I do well in school, I perform at work, yada yada. The only persistent and major source of anxiety that has always been present in my life is my relationships. This has ranged from my family relationships to my friendships and to my romantic relationships. Each one of these has been a point of tension at some point in my life.

When I was younger, my sister and I were deliberately physically and verbally abusive towards each other - we stopped this behaviour as we got older. My parents have always been emotionally and psychologically abusive to me, although I’m not entirely sure that’s intentional on their part - I’m going to discuss this further down. I have been emotionally abusive to my friends and in my relationships. I have always found it difficult to make friends and connect on an emotional level, and when I got older, this translated into social anxiety. I have cycled through bouts of depression ever since I was 14. I have extremely low self-esteem, and no one believes when I say this because I’m apparently very good at keeping up the image of confidence, but I wholeheartedly see myself as a blemish on the face of the earth. I have been through five relationships in five years, and some of them have been sexually and emotionally abusive. 

Those are the symptoms, if you will. Some of them are facts and some of them are claims. Like I said, the claims are only valid as far as my own perspective goes, because other people may disagree with some of them, especially when it comes to intentionality. 

I’m going to provide a definition of emotional/psychological abuse:  Emotional abuse is an attempt to control. The perpetrator of emotional abuse uses emotion as his/her weapon of choice. Common signs include: criticisms and unfair judgement, mean jokes, shame and guilt on the victim’s part, threats, causing self-doubt/gaslighting, refusing to acknowledge the hurt, financial abuse, undermining and dismissal. All in all, any attempt to control someone else by reducing their self-worth. 

For the purposes of my explanation, I’m going to stick to two sections: my family (specifically parents) and my relationships. 

Family

In my family, there is my father, mother, and my younger sister (we are nearly three years apart). I grew up mostly with my mother and my sister. My father is constantly working overseas, but he visits for about three months total out of the year. It’s been like this as long as I can remember, and I remember as a child, I used to be pretty sad when he left, so we must have had some good times together although I don’t remember much. It seems that as I got older, I began to realise that the relationship between me and my father was far from what I had wanted it to be, and this has been a source of anxiety for me for a very long time, probably around the past ten years. 

Before I dive into this too deep, I should probably detail the family history that may be relevant. My father and his mother have a dysfunctional relationship; they can’t really communicate without fighting. They’re always stepping on each other’s toes. I have not seen his mother in years because my father has isolated us from his family and our cousins.

My mother and my father don’t have what I’d call an ideal relationship either. They don’t really fight, but my father is definitely controlling over her. She doesn’t have a source of income so he has a financial monopoly. He belittles her and calls her names (it makes me sick to hear) and he refuses to help her out. For example, this morning she asked him to take two minutes to wash the dishes, and he replied that he didn’t have time because he needed to be online so he could win an auction on Facebook (this is so immature of him and it happens constantly, it’s ridiculous). He expects her to be at his beck and call, when he’s away he always calls and if she’s busy in the garden or cooking he expects her to drop what she’s doing because she’s not supposed to have a life outside of him and us anyway. He criticises what she spends money on, when he never gets criticised for his frivolous purchases. I could go on, but it’s really saddening that my mother just lets herself be pushed around like this. Sometimes I lose my cool at him and my mother tries to placate me but I stand my ground, even though she says he’s got good intentions deep down and has sacrificed so much for us. I’m not sure where his intentions are at all, especially considering his dysfunctional family, so I can’t say if he’s actually bad or deliberately abusive. 

Anyway, as a result of what I’ve seen and how he’s made me feel throughout my life, I try to keep this relationship as distant as possible so it’s healthy for me. That comes with its own set of challenges, but I’ll get to that later. I’m just going to go into a couple of examples that show why I believe he is emotionally abusive (or at least I have felt abused/neglected) towards me.

He likes to make my decisions for me. He criticises me when he disapproves of my choices. I remember when we were deciding what I would study at university, we were looking through the prospectus and I dog-eared quite a few majors and he flipped through and removed the bookmarks of all the ones he didn’t approve of and said I wasn’t allowed to do those. When I was deciding which school to do my exchange at, he did the same thing. He was very passive aggressive for days when I chose San Diego over Berkeley or UCLA. He’s just passive aggressive and sulky in general when things don’t go his way. I’m afraid that he’ll be this way about all my big future life decisions, like moving for jobs and going to grad school.

He objectifies me. This may be in part due to his cultural upbringing, though. My parents grew up in Asia and I grew up in a Western culture, so that conflict has been a source of tension for me at times as well. Ever since I was little, he would talk about me marrying into a good family and learning how to be a good wife. He points out when I’m wearing makeup or revealing clothing and interrogates me about who I’m trying to impress. He shows his colleagues and peers pictures of me and gloats about how ‘good-looking’ I am and basks in the compliments they give me. All of this makes me very uncomfortable. Whenever I try to say something or do something that highlights how I’m more than just a face or a body, he shuts me down and belittles me, “Oh you actually study? I thought all you do was talk to boys. You’re cooking? That’s a good quality, men will like that.” It’s disgusting. Both my parents tell me I need to lose weight and have too much acne. They’re constantly looking at my face to watch for progress in the same way that a scientist would scrutinise bacteria under a microscope. It makes me want to vomit. 

He constantly tries to make me feel guilty. Filial piety and respecting your parents’ authority is a really big deal in Asian cultures. So he constantly makes a big deal when he doesn’t get any attention or if he feels like I’m not ‘respecting’ him enough. He firstly starts talking in a baby voice and whining about it like a kid before he gets to the angry stage in which he may explode and yell, or he gets passive aggressive and seethes silently. This comes up in conversations usually about our family, or about what’s going to happen in the future when my parents retire and start getting sick and old. I get the impression that he expects me to give up my goals just to look after them, just like how they (moreso my mother) did in a way. That’s not going to happen, so... Tension alert.

Something that both my parents don’t like for some reason is when I socialise or go out with my friends. They roll their eyes and say, “You’re going out again? You’re always going out. You never spend any time with us.” My father will grovel for days about me not paying them any attention, I’m pretty sure it’s an attempt to make me feel guilty. 

They’re both also very oblivious to my mental health issues and are in complete denial. I have alluded to being depressed before and all I have received is judgement. “You are so lucky and you have everything you need and you are so much more privileged than we were at your age, there is nothing to be depressed about. If anything, I should be depressed... blah blah.” 

That’s pretty much all I have to say about the issues in my family relationships. There are other little things, such as how my sister ignores me in public, but they don’t hold too much weight in the grand scheme. 

I’m just going to quickly take a moment to talk about the effects of these family relationships on me. They’re very stressful and I feel isolated because I can’t talk to anyone about anything that troubles me. I’m expected to sit in my place and behave, basically. The concept of saving face is also paramount to Asian culture, so I’m not allowed to be myself because that’s embarrassing to them. All in all, it’s suffocating and toxic, regardless of whether they are doing it intentionally. Of course, you always hope for the best in people and I doubt they really are doing it deliberately, but either way it’s not a good environment and I’m not sure how to handle it. 

Relationships

As a result of having felt alone and neglected and criticised all my life, it’s contributed to my lack of self-esteem. I know I have difficulty with self-validation, but I’m not sure if I’m necessarily more clingy and need more attention than the average girlfriend - but it wouldn’t be a stretch to say I guess. I can say beyond reasonable doubt that I’m more insecure and have lower self-esteem than average, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to begging for validation. This is also probably why I stay in relationships that aren’t good for me.

So I’m twenty years old and have had five relationships of varying lengths. The longest was nearly two years and the shortest was two months. I’ve had about a month’s break in between each of them. All of them have been good people with good intentions, but I’m not sure why some of them have been so toxic. 

Looking at this through the lens of abuse, the first one to get out of the way was the sexual abuse one. I was never raped or anything like that, but he pushed my boundaries constantly and asked me to do things I didn’t want to do after I repeatedly said so. This, I can be pretty sure, constitutes sexual abuse loud and clear. I left that one pretty quickly, only to run into a different relationship that was better in all the ways, and I think that one was the healthiest (for the most part). 

I’m not going to specify, but I have been insulted and have had it dismissed as me being too sensitive or not being able to take a joke - which sucks because I’d like to think I’m good-humoured. I have been made to feel bad about things I didn’t mean to do. I have been told my feelings aren’t valid and shouldn’t be taken seriously. I have been threatened emotionally: “You will make me feel bad if you do x or y”. I have been made fun of. I have been objectified. I have had past mistakes brought up later as ammunition that I thought was resolved. I have had people try to tell they know me better than I know myself. I have been left hanging. 

In general, my relationships have been much more positive than negative, but for the purposes of identifying where these issues come from, it’s important for me to highlight the effects that abuse and neglect have had on me as a person and how that’s affected other contexts such as relationships. I know that I deserve better, but I don’t really know what that looks like, to be honest. I just know that if I allow myself to keep falling into these traps, it’s likely that I’ll never be happy and healthy in a relationship, so this is one of the things that I need to focus on. I know that I’m also guilty of unhealthy behaviours in my friendships and relationships, and I’m very good at being emotionally manipulative, but I think this probably stems from these underlying issues that have permeated my life for as long as I remember. 

I could be completely talking out of my ass and catastrophising the situation as depression is wont to do, but this is something that if it’s true, is going to have a very deep impact on my quality of life. This is definitely something that I should probably talk about in therapy, but I’m just laying out all my thoughts here to make sense of them.