#do not get me started on the fandom’s treatment of the stans of color

[fromtheseventhhell]

IDK if it's exactly what you wanted but your recent post about Mirri came "in time" for what I've seen.

Here are some screeshots of tags from this post

To me it seems like they try to critique the writing but as always, tend to blame the character. Plus, they sprinkle some lies (that Dany forced Mirri to save Drogo, that she refuses to engage with history), they project onto GRRM (that he wants to critique violent intervetionism with her), they ignore his statement about the "white saviour" accusations (which fair, you may not find them satisfying but still, take his intentions into account), they take away acountability of what the slavers did (bc THEY turned Slaver's Bay into a "hole of death" and was that long before Dany arrived) and not saying why "she allowed slavery to continue", which is a convenient way to frame her as immoral because after the masters of Yunkai attacked Astapor, and because "gently born" people, anticipating the struggle in Meereen, ask her to let them sell themselves back into slavery :

"My queen?" Daario stepped forward. "The riverside is full of Meereenese, begging leave to be allowed to sell themselves to this Qartheen. They are thicker than the flies."

Dany was shocked. "They want to be slaves?"

"The ones who come are well spoken and gently born, sweet queen. Such slaves are prized. In the Free Cities they will be tutors, scribes, bed slaves, even healers and priests. They will sleep in soft beds, eat rich foods, and dwell in manses. Here they have lost all, and live in fear and squalor."

"I see." Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. "Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman." She raised a hand. "But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife." (ASOS, Daenerys VI)

I mean, she does this because she wants to respect their choice and she makes sure no one is forced to be enslaved. I don't think she should have allowed it but I understand why. It was not out of mallice. (here is a meta about how she is not a slaver X , X )

Plus the tendency to blame Daenerys fans for pointing out how the situation with Mirri was grey, that Mirri indeed killed Rhaego, but they can defend Mirri and acuse us, Dany stans, of being racists and whatnot.

Ironically my post was about conversations on Twitter (I know) where people were demonizing Dany and I found out this post was actually what started it all, so my post was unintentionally a response to this one. I'm gonna talk a little bit about this conversation and the overall conversations about racism in this fandom but I don't mean it as a direct reply to OP's post. The only thing I have to say specific to their post is that it does stand out to me that they acknowledge the issue with Mirri's writing, which is that it's part of a trend with how characters of color are written, but they fail to actually talk about said characters. Their main point isn't even about how Mirri is handled, it's on the subject of Dany's whiteness.

The thing about discussing racism in asoiaf is that it's a more complex and nuanced conversation than a majority of people are willing to have. Often times it just gets devolved into justifications for disliking a specific character and this was the same attitude people had towards the show. If there's racism in the writing, then that's a factor that affects how the entire series is written, it doesn't just reflect poorly on a single character. People definitely act like that's the case though.

On the subject of Mirri and her treatment, it's rare that people discuss her character without using her as a means of bashing Dany. The screenshots you provided highlight this. We're supposed to believe that Mirri's actions towards Dany are justified and that Dany's actions towards Mirri are racist solely on the basis that Mirri is a WOC, but it's not that simple (Also note that it's always "Mirri was right to do what she did" but they never talk about what specifically she did, which was force the abortion of a 14-year-old bridal slave. Somehow saying exactly what happened doesn't make her as sympathetic). What makes the writing racist isn't the situation itself, it's the idea of characters of color being disposable in service of white characters' arcs. But this situation is often talked about as an isolated event, in a vacuum. The logic applied just doesn't work. If race is such an important factor, why was Mirri right to kill a child of color over a prophecy she was ultimately wrong about? There are plenty of racist connotations in the "brute" narrative surrounding POC, specifically men of color, but people eagerly justify his death because of the hypothetical harm he could've caused. They also completely ignore that the prophecy wasn't about him, so the justification is that a child of color can be murdered if people assume they'll cause harm. There were also the others in Drogo's Khalasar that Dany couldn't help because of her situation. Eroeh suffered a horrible fate before her ultimate death, but Dany would've conceivably been able to help her if she hadn't been incapacitated. So does the fact that Mirri's actions harmed other POC, and not just a white woman, factor in at all? Or are we not supposed to care about them because they are, however positively, associated with Dany?

That also leads to the question of what exactly would be the right way of handling this situation. Dany's whiteness is the biggest criticism but her being a woc would come with its own racist connotations. Dany's life of poverty and being sold as a slave would've had other implications when contrasted to the other primarily white, high-born female characters. So what would've been a better way of handling the Dothraki and other people of color in this series? Whether Dany is white or not, the problem isn't solved. Somehow that's never a conversation being had, despite the number of people who supposedly care so much. It also seems as though Dany's suffering, and only Dany's suffering, is considered justifiable through her whiteness. If Dany had been the one to die instead, it still would've been a child bridal slave being killed. How is that the "better" option for people supposedly concerned with racism and misogyny? With almost any other female character their suffering is never justified regardless of who is causing it.

There is just...a different set of standards people have for Dany than they have for any other character. Someone brought up the point that Robb's part in the war caused incredible violence to the smallfolk, yet he is considered one of the noblest characters in the series. We see firsthand the devastation the Northerners are responsible for through Arya's POV, and many women and children specifically are harmed. We hear about countless women being raped and killed from the fallout of Robb's actions but somehow that's not Robb's responsibility. On top of that, there are plenty of smallfolk who have actively anti-North mindsets. Robb, who isn't trying to bring about systemic change or actively focused on fighting for the smallfolk, isn't responsible for the damage he causes them. Dany, who is trying to overthrow a violent system built on subjugating people, is the most evil character in the series because she interacts with characters of color more than anyone else. But then...people seem uninterested in discussing privileges and harm caused when it isn't related to bashing Dany. It's damn near taboo to refer to certain characters as classist, even when that's how they're written.

If you want to discuss racism in the series and fandom though, let's do it! Let's talk about the depiction of the Dothraki vs. The (white) Wildings and the difference in nuance and empathy they get, let's talk about how the current generation of Starks benefit from colonization and the eradication of the children of the forest (who are very much indigenous-coded) and how that's not framed as a bad thing, let's talk about women of color who are already being enslaved before Dany was sold to the Dothraki, let's talk about Alayaya + the senseless violence she faces and how her pain is used to give Tyrion angst, let's talk about the various background women of color portrayed as sex workers and how that could play into the jezebel trope, let's talk about lack of prominent characters of color outside of Dany's pov, let's talk about how D&D wrote a former Black slave dying in chains, how they portrayed the slaves exclusively as people of color despite slavery not being based on race in the books, let's talk about how they played into the Dothraki's racist writing and portrayed Dany's people as "scary foreign invaders" that the North looked down on, let's talk about how everyone justified the Northerners (and Sansa specifically) being scared even though Dany came to help, let's talk about how people in the fandom were laughing at Missandei's death and saying she deserved to die for being "rude" to a white woman, let's talk about fandom's habit of portraying Jon and Arya (considered the uglier, feral starks) as dark-skinned in comparison to their "white" siblings, let's talk about how the hotd writers made characters Black and then diminished their roles and importance, let's talk about how routinely characters of color are ignored and turned into props by fandom, LET'S TALK ABOUT IT! But no, the only capacity people are interested in talking about racism is when they can use it to bash Dany.

TL;DR/summation: There's nothing wrong with having good-faith conversations about racism in the series or disliking a character because of it. The issue is that that's rarely what happens. Instead of having constructive conversations about race, the pain of characters of color gets turned into props and given no nuance outside of that.

[ask-serendipity-sky]

So I was thinking...

Yesterday, the article about the BTS contracts hit. I read the article and didn't get the big deal. It said they would sign...so they hadn't yet, I thought.

I went to twitter and saw all these people celebrating and I was like...do they not know how to read? Why are they celebrating something that hasn't even happened and that the company is saying will happen.

Why would the company not wait until it has actually happened to make a celebratory article? So I went back to sleep lol

Promise? Oh yeah. What a contract. The board agreed...not BTS. Well, only Rm so far.

But then legit people started talking about it and being serious. I saw the many ridiculous tweets and hateful ot7love remarks, solos being dissapointed, and real Jimin fans feeling sad.

That's when I decided to "believe", although it sounds like media play to me. Why are the stocks tanking even more? Investors didn't believe the news or think Rm's post were enough, apparently. Nothing is set in stone. It hasn't happened yet. The stocks will go up when it actually does happen, though. The investors are worried for now and then future, I suppose.

As someone who loves Jimin and his artistry, I am worried too.

Ot7s and company stans want to make us feel like we are the akgaeist of the akgae for believing that Jimin got sabotaged by his company. But do people seriously think that all that happened to FACE was normal? They can't even offer a rational explanation.

Even if we entertain the idea that his company didn't sabotage him on purpose, they still didn't protect their artist and fix the things that were and are within their reach. Things like:

•Combining Like Crazy Korean and English version

•Restocking the Like Crazy single

•Sending albums to China on time

•Investigating Hanteo sales

•Investigating the erasure of Bb sales

•Properly timing the release of other member projects to avoid interference with other projects

•Fixing the Spotify profile and all that stuff that came along with that

The list is quite long.

Somehow, saying these things makes you a solo or an akgae or a manti (who even came up with this one? so stupid.)

Isn't it more hateful to normalize what happened to Jimin and to want BTS back despite the unequal support the company has given each member?

The people I know don't want Jimin to sign because he deserved better as a soloist and not because they hate BTS. The people I know are neutral and positive towards BTS. They literally only want fair treatment for Jimin. They are Jimin fans. Not solos, shippers, ot7s, rando labels. Just people who appreciate Jimin as an artist.

Somehow, the people who want BTS back, no matter what, and can't wait for the solo ventures to be over are better than all of us... because BTS is 7 and they are brothers who love each other and nothing can break them apart...not even solos, akgaes, shippers, and Chapter 2...(insert sad violin music).

Everything is backwards in this fandom.

I look at the members who told their story and shared themselves through their music and notice how happy they are. They were exhausted before, so done with the generic white garbage songs, and their creativity constricted. We've gotten to see the colors of their real music and therefore, their real selves. That's what being a true artist is about. I don't know how ot7s who want BTS back, no matter what, don't see this.

It doesn't make sense to me why any proper fan would want their artist to give that all up.

And people kept saying that this time around, Jimin's contract would include better deals because that's what contracts are for. Then I thought...where was the contract when he was pushed to the sides and no longer in the front of the group, when he was given 2 lines in a song, when he was the harmonizer but not one of the lead singers, when FACE era began and ended.

I guess I have no faith in contracts. Or that company.

Any proper fan who doesn't live in a weird fantasy bubble should be worried...and/or dissapointed.

If there is anything I've learned in Chapter 2, it's that it is a every-man-for-themselves chapter. Looking back at Chapter 1, it was like that too, except I was drinking too much of that purple kool-aid to notice it.

I guess we will see what happens when actual contracts are signed. I can only hope that things go well for Jimin. That's the only thing that matters to me.

I guess we will see.

[somehowmags]

I am so tired of when we try to discuss the racist treatment of Wyll’s character and his content disparity, stans of other characters try and hijack the conversation and it’s not even just the Astarion fans. They will jump in and be like “Yeah! Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Gale are neglected too bc of Astarion!” Like in WHAT world??? Shadowheart has the same amount of hours of content as Astarion (not to mention Act 2 is basically made for her and she is the only companion the game will push you to recruit if you don’t do it) and Gale and Lae’zel are hardly far behind. It’s not even really an issue of Astarion being favored over all other companions and more so about the (racist) lack of attention Wyll gets in comparison to EVERYONE, not just the vampire. That should be the conversation. And don’t even get me started on the people who start yelling about how Minthara and Halsin (who aren’t origin companions) “have it worse.” Like sorry but this isn’t about ya’ll, get back to me when the character you are talking about is the ONLY origin character with less than 10 hours of content. He has two hours less than Karlsch who was added later than him. It is all so frustrating.

God. Yeah. like id like to take these type of additions in good faith but i feel like a lot of people don't realize or don't want to admit that this is a racism issue. when the only black character (and i think the only prominent character of color in the whole game- forgive me if im wrong but the only other really prominent nonwhite character ive seen is cazador, which, do not get me fucking started on his fu manchu ass concept art) is continually ignored and mistreated, then it becomes an issue of (subconscious or not) racist behavior from larian and the fandom itself. its not that minthara et al don't deserve more, but wyll is a main character, and shouldn't a main character be focused on before optional recruits and npcs? and i understand why people don't want to think of it like that- people like larian and don't want to criticize them when theyre releasing updates and patches for free. but we need to be able to criticize them if anything is going to get any better. otherwise this fandom and gaming spaces in general will continue to be unsafe for people of color. i know i as a person of color do not feel safe in the bg3 fandom, and i cannot imagine how much worse it feels for black fans.

[samswinchesters]

something just doesn’t sit right knowing that today marks the two year anniversary of detroit: become human and the main actors who played crucial figures in the game, jesse williams and valorie curry, are excluded from such celebration. their characters, markus and kara, have never been truly embrace by the fandom and many forget their significant impact in DBH. 

without kara, you wouldn’t even have a game. valorie was the one who set the precedent, she is the one who kickstarted this whole thing. without her short film, this game wouldn’t even be possible. without markus, you wouldn’t have a plot. you wouldn’t have a revolution to which the story lines of kara and connor are contingent on the consequences of this revolution. to be honest, the way the response of the game was centered around connor and his story shouldn’t really come as a shock to me or anyone because in our society, we are made to pay more attention to white people than people of color. that’s the plain simple fact: our implicit biases are shaped by the racist society that we live in.

the fact of the matter is that to have connor and bryan (along with his wife) at the helm of marketing for dbh, to have people care more about connor than the black character? to only care about a white cop in a game that is exploiting the traumas and profiting off of the painful history of african americans during the civil rights movement? in a game that bases elements off of jewish history from those triangles and armbands to help differentiate androids from humans to literal fucking concentration camps? that’s just good ole racism (and bias) that’s sugared as “look at this cute connor character! his story line is written well because the writer and director doesn’t know any other plot to write!” as an easier pill to swallow.

you all choose to only “stan” the white character because they’re more “interesting” and you “empathize more” with them? don’t even start with that bullshit of “markus was boring” or whatever anti-black reason you got because there isn’t a good reason for you to only focus on connor and not markus and kara. the way y’all lack empathy for black and brown folks is racist (and unsettling) and unless you unlearn and actively choose to fight against your implicit biases brought by your racist environment/upbringing then you are going to continue to exhibit racist behaviors.

like, i DOUBT y’all couldn’t find a SINGLE interesting about markus, the black main protagonist, throughout his entire narrative arc bitch i FUCKING doubt it. i’m sorry to be te one to tell you but if you’re white, you’re racist and all your white faves are racist. even if you are person of color and want to defend white people by saying “i’m not white and I find markus boring and I stan connor” then i got some news for you: please check your anti-blackness. if you find a character of color bland once, that’s okay. if you find out that you often find characters of color as plain and boring, then it’s not a coincidence, it’s a pattern of your own biases.

bryan and amelia dechart are racist because they enable their fandom’s (it’s essentially their fandom name manifest destiny teas) racist behaviors. david cage is racist because he chose to write about a game as a civil rights allegory and made androids as placeins for people of color, specifically black people, and made us feel as be viewed as anything but human. if you are a gavin reed stan and/or ship reed900, you’re racist because you have this man the WORKS for a minor white character that spoke less than ten lines yet consider markus as monotonous and dull...youve could’ve put that energy into fixing his character but y’all didn’t. if you are a rk900/nines stan and create fan works like fanfiction about a white character with no lines and is found in the worst ending where the revolution fails and millions of androids die? that’s racism. before y’all say anything, yes, i did contribute to this behavior but i learned from it. the way that the fandom continued to foster this culture of paying more attention to connor to the point where the only works that gained attention were of connor is to blame. we must all step back to think about it, learn from this experience, and to do better next time however the more i watch the fandom from a distance, i know it’s hopeless optimism because racism has consumed the DBH fandom whole.

the exclusion of markus and kara is the direct result of the brain rot within the DBH community. there is no excuse for y’all not to include them when you talk about Detroit because they put in just as much work as bryan did. just because they don’t engage with the fandom as bryan does, it doesn’t mean that you should blatantly erase them from the narrative. how dare you put community engagement as some sort of requisite to be given attention? in y’all’s clouded minds you forget that these are actors who have other projects that they’re passionate about and want to explore instead of staying stagnant by continuing to promote and talk about a shit slavery simulator game that has very little redeeming qualities to it? where they have personalities not built around a character they play in a game from two years ago? it’s one thing to acknowledge you were in this project and humbly respond to stans, praising their fanart and showcasing them from time to time and it’s another to continue to profit off a game that is not rightfully your own.

markus and kara were let down by the fandom.

jesse and valorie were let down by the fandom.

[btssavedmylifeblr]

Hey!

Bee I’m coming to you for an advice since I’m in so much distress and I just feel your words will be so comforting. You’ve that ability to just speak comfort.

So I’ve been ARMY since January 2021. It’s exactly my anniversary today (the 21th) and I love that journey with these amazing people. I’ve learnt and grown so much with them and their wisdom. I’ve also had great memories with ARMYS on Twitter and overran a memorable experience.

But now.. especially since my universe era, everything has become uglier and more dull because of ARMYS. In the beginning i was ONLY stanning BTS and I never questioned the way ARMYS spoke so ill about other idols or belittled their fandoms, I just thought it was ARMYS reciprocating the treatment. So I started branching out and listening to other boy and girl groups and I’m so happy because I didn’t want to one day just be that person that writes off other talented groups just because of BTS.

And since then, it’s like my colored glasses were off and I saw how insufferable and toxic a lot of ARMYS are. Always belittling other’s achievements, milestones and calling everyone that even tries to reach bts’s unachievable records a “flop”. It has gotten viscous. And whenever I try to reason with people on stan Twitter that this is not right nor a good look for BTS, they call me “a multi hoe” or just anti bts. It’s so ridiculous. I can wholeheartedly say, ARMYS are some of the most toxic people I’ve ever come across. And now I get why many just dislike or don’t even try to stan BTS because of their entitled fans. Ofc THeres the good and intelligent ones, but these are often silenced. And don’t even let me start of that “bts paved the way” bullshit because the last time I remembered, BTS didn’t pave shit. In fact that made it harder for other groups to ever reach their level and I don’t see that as paving, because paving essentially means making things easier and BTS made it the total opposite and that’s just facts.

I’m so lost. I don’t wanna say I dislike bts because of these instances but it’s making it hard for me to be on Twitter and getting my blod pressure high every hour because of these dumb arguments online. It’s not good for me nor for BTS.

Am I’m overreacting or do I have right to feel suffocated by these things? I think it’s also because there’s never a break... I’m constantly getting bombarded by it, but also feel guilty if I’m not up to date on every detail or content BTS posts. So I’m so torn.

Should I leave TWITTER? Should I leave this fandom... not bts but just not associate with ARMYS? I feel I want more and I enjoy the good times but I’ve also reached a point where I’m mentally tired and distressed😭

Ah, yes, come into the arms of an old ARMY soul and let me comfort you. Becoming an ARMY goes through all the same stages as falling in love. First there's the curiosity, then the thrill of learning all you can about them and finding they are perfect for you, then the honeymoon period where they become your whole world, and then eventually, you begin to see them for who they really are, all the good and and all the bad. And you have to decide if the real relationship is worth keeping in your life or not. I'll post some tips below for how to rekindle the spark, but only you can decide if your life is better for their presence in it or not.

Bee's Guidelines for Keeping Your Fandom Space Enjoyable

1. The only thing you can control is your own emotions

Things you cannot control: what people say on the internet, what other ARMY do or say, other people's emotional reactions, what BTS will do or feel or think about something

Things you can control: your own actions, most of your exposure to people or content that is upsetting

It does no good to "reason with people on stan twitter". Because you cannot control how other people will think or feel about something, especially people that you don't have a pre-existing relationship. It will just lead to you pour lots of energy into things that will stress you out and not cause any meaningful change. Block or mute things that make you want to argue. When you engage with content, even content that makes you mad, all the social media algorithms will adapt to show you more of it. So by trying to argue against it, you end up promoting it/bringing in more of the stuff that will upset you.

2. If it doesn't spark joy, get rid of it

I do not automatically follow-back on Twitter. I only follow people I have already interacted with positively in some way. As I'm scrolling and find myself having a strong emotional response to something, like anger or fear, I will either unfollow or mute the poster (even if I agree with them!). I mute friends sometimes, not out of any animosity toward them, but just because I don't have the stamina to continually be upset every time I go to my safe and happy place.

3. You are not obligated to anyone but yourself

You don't owe anyone anything. You are a part of this fandom because it brings you joy. Fandom will always expand to fill whatever amount of free-time you are willing to give it, so there is no way to possibly keep up with all of it. Take breaks as you need to. Things that seem urgent and important today on ARMY Twitter are usually gone by the next day. Just ride the wave and dip in and out as you are able and find enjoyable.

It sounds to me that at a minimum, you need to give yourself some space to think. Maybe just try turning off the social media for a day or two and see how you feel. Good luck!

[mrsblackruby]

Hey👋🏿 hope you’re having a nice day 😊

Sorry for cross tagging but the harassment is getting out of hand. Okay I’m a Billy Hargrove fan willing to make a cross tag post [which turned into a 5 part series ] discussing how to treat and respect fans in the strangers things community. I’m hoping to showcase behavior we shouldn’t engage in when we see someone who likes a character who we dislike. I’m also hoping to start a respectful discussion to help anyone on tumblr who doesn’t understand Billy fans but wants to understand them.Let’s hope this doesn’t become overwhelming 😳

I’m open to fair criticism. Let me know if you interpret a post differently than me if you want. Please let me know your opinions if you have them.

Don’t worry I also want to be respectful to those who don’t like Billy because you have ur reasons to not like his character and connect to fiction however you want to connect to fiction. I want to make things clear I’m not trying to make a moral condemnation of anyone who has engaged in the behavior I critic in this post. There are much bigger problems in the world but I’m so passionate about this one because I’m a person of color who connects to Billy’s story arc and the way some antis treat Billy fans is just cruel. Billy fans are real people who exist and their stories have real life consequences. Online harassment in fandom is not excusable because it is still harassment.

This post is long as FUCK and will have different parts but even tho it’s long I find the conversation to still be interesting so keep that in mind if you read I’ll try to reblog it and pinned it on my blog for ease. There’s a lot to discuss and this conversation should be dealt with care. I will also have the different parts linked at the end of each post. ( I’m also a stupid teenager pls be kind)

I worked so hard on this.

Please share this if you want because I believe our fandom can combat the environment of harassment online we see. Nobody deserve this type of treatment for hyper-fixating on a fictional character that gives them comfort!

Tw for all parts// harassment, racism, discussion of abuse, and abuse apologia, death threats, spoilers for strangers things season 1-3

Tw for this part// harassment, racism, fictional suicide mentioned

I have taken screenshots to reference and prove the behavior I critic but I have gotten rid of all identifying content as to avoid further harassment. Please don’t go out looking to harass anyone. Let me know if I need to add any warnings. this is a somewhat serious, heavy, and layered discussion. We are talking about how humans connect to fiction here so it’s bound to be complex.

[important Note for entire series] All these posts are recent by the way just to show case the harassment is still and ongoing issue even tho Billy has been “ dead” for quite a while now. He might have killed him self but Billy is still my rat man. let me love 😍him.

The Harassment of Billy Hargrove Fans #1

“Okay let’s get started”

Assumptions and cruel judgments of Billy fans

In this Twitter post someone makes the assertion that being a Billy Hargrove fan is a red flag. I’m aware that this is not a tumblr user but I have seen some of this sentiment on tumblr. I will begin by criticizing this post because someone being a fan of a fictional character doesn’t make them and inherent threat to anybody’s personhood. I get that the person who posted this may even agree with what I just argued, that Billy fans aren’t a real life threat, but that’s not what is being communicated at all when someone reads this especially when a fan of Billy reads this. And if someone out there does believe this for one reason or another I’m going to continue to dispute your claim. Some Billy fans might engage in problematic behavior but to hold a layer of apprehension towards all fans of a character because of this might be something you need to reevaluate. Making a moral judgment on real human beings because they like a character is not okay especially if you don’t even know the reasoning.

Just because someone likes a character that might be a mass murderer in fiction doesn’t mean that now they support massacres, correct? Same logic applies here if someone does interpret Billy as racist but still likes his character that does not mean they think racism in the real world is okay ( or bullying, harassment, or anti feminism either) and that does not mean they can’t organize against real world problems effectively.

This is a crude assumption

First things first not every who likes Billy ships Harringrove

As a Harringrove shipper I can only speak for myself and say I could give less of a fuck if Billy is “good” or “bad”. That’s doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to smash king Steve. That’s also doesn’t mean he can’t be queer and it doesn’t mean I can’t like the ship. And it doesn’t mean that I can’t connect to Billy on a disastrously queer level ( got that phrasing from a grade A post on this hell site)

Believing Billy can see the errors in his ways and can heal and become a “good” person… doesn’t have to be a byproduct of being a shipper. it can just be a read someone has of a character so “anon” no disrespect to ya but your thinking is wrong.

Okay this is gonna be lengthy

Fine some Billy fans ignore the shit he did… but that’s not inherently bad. Fans can headcannon Billy into a completely different portrayal than what we see on screen and love him I don’t see a problem with that especially when they aren’t excusing any abuse.

The Duffers brothers failed at exploring racism in their show if that was their intention. Point blank period since this is a form of art it can be interpreted in many different perspectives. Especially if it is not tied to any explicit themes on racism in the text. I interpret Billy’s actions as racist but no one has to do so if they connect to the story in a different manner. I felt the weight of Billy’s “ certain type of people” comment. However it was only and implication not a confirmation. Stop being mad at people for not interpreting something left up to interpretation.The writers didn’t explicitly tackle the issue they wanted to tackle.

This might be helpful 2 know …I interpret Billy as racist, I’m also black, I also Stan Billy Hargrove.

Okay here we go… no-one has to interpret Billy’s actions as being racist so why assume that if someone likes Billy it’s because they’re racist just like him… if they don’t even think he’s racist. I hope that makes sense

I think Billy is racist 4 sure the story flows better for me that way and it makes a lot of sense to me. Now let’s talk about racism in the real world … racism is something that is taught. Racism is a big large system we are all conditioned into. Racism is something we must all unlearn in the real world. So in the fictional world I think there is an entertaining plot line that Billy can go down and unlearn his racism +stop beating up on children Billy 🤦🏿‍♀️. Because I see that potential growth that is why I like his character. Oh and no one ever talks about this but I head cannon Billy as fat phobic because of the “lard- ass” comment so my version of Billy is working through that as well.

I don’t wanna sound all high and mighty I can understand why someone might express this sentiment. I’m not gonna demonize someone who is black like me (black people have dealt with that enough). I also get why you would not even like Billy if you interpret him as racist. [Someone could have the same analysis of Billy as me and still not like him because how we connect to fiction is somewhat irrational.] I would just ask that we don’t jump to conclusions about anyone’s politics because of how they like a fictional character. That we treat other members in our fandom with respect.

I can never and will never excuse racism because if I do I would be turning a blind eye on a system that kills my loved ones. Your allowed to not like Billy Hargrove honestly I don’t see any Billy fans who care? Stop making crude assumptions about people who do Stan Billy Hargrove ur “ joke” is a hurtful misrepresentation.

Lol like #notallbillyfans am I right guys 👉🏿

*crickets sounds and booing*

okay sorry let’s move on…

The problem I hope i highlighted is that you can not make inherent claims to thy morals of a human being because they like a fictional character.😂

Stand alone post: Me reading to much into the politics of Billy Hargrove/ Harringrove

THE 5 PART SERIES ON HARASSMENT:

#2 #3 #4 #5

[ceoofanticatradora]

We need more anti C//A who are Adora stans (like you seem to be) so that people can understand that C///A is bad for Adora. Heck C//A is bad for Catra too, but the shippers don't seem to realize it. If Catra had been able to let Adora go maybe she could have healed instead of her festering and the abuse may have ended instead of escalated.

Hello Dear, welcome on my Blog and a big thank you for your message! Firstly I wanna apologize that this response is reaching you more than three full days, almost four later. Just real life getting into the way of my online presence (at least I got my A-Levels admission!) but I assure you that replying to you was on my To Do List the entire time. And while I could've typed something quick, I thought you deserved a full length response just as much as the person before you received. That goes for anyone really to ask/write me anything in the future.

Adora is a character that has flaws, her own interests, things she struggles with/is insecure about etc. but she also still works on being better (up to Season 5). This makes her relatable, fleshed out and overall three dimensional. Overall for me that makes Adora very likeable. Which is funny because when I first watched the show I thought of her as too goofy and felt like she as a character was overall just flat. Her character design did not speak to me either, the ponytail with the weird hair poof and these pointy shoulders of her jacket just really were not my taste. Isn't it amazing how perceptions can change?

As you can guess from that description I did not always stan Adora and she's probably still not my favorite character but over the almost two years I've been in this fandom I've grown rather fond of her. Other important characters to me are Kyle (a very relatable comfort character of mine, he learned to stand up for himself and others and I support that, f*ck Season 5 for barely acknowledging his existence), Lonnie (apart from treating Kyle badly (which I really do NOT support or excuse) I really love her, man, some women just do me like that, I mean she really stood up to Catra like that), Entrapta (I'm autistic too! It's great to have some representation, seeing the ableism/treatment she experiences in the show is not so much though), Seahawk (I don't even know why, I have some issues with his behavior towards Mermista at times but overall I love this dork), Scorpia (she reminds me of myself so much and I really wanna give her hugs, I'm so glad she chose to no longer let Catra treat her like that even though I will be forever salty she just immediately forgave her), Peekablue (I can explain this even less than Seahawk, especially since it was not even really him in the end but his existence somehow helped me cope with Season 5, without him I probably would've left this fandom ... and also my favorite color is blue) and Double Trouble (now there's enough people already critcizing how they're not exactly great Non-binary representation but this dramatic lizard will forever be in my heart, that reality check they gave Catra, basically slapping her in the face with facts was satisfying as h*ck, also I like lizards overall).

Now there's plenty of characters I like, dislike (or even hate) or am simply indifferent about but after all this is not a tier list but me talking about Adora, Catra and Catradora. Adora started off as this girl that was so sure what she was doing is right but once she was taught differently she was willing to leave everything she knew (except Catra, because she valued her despite everything) behind. And not only that, she broke out of the abuse cycle that Catra tried so hard to keep upright. And that is exactly what makes Adora such a good role model. She teaches children (or people) that:

Your past doesn't define what/who you are or what/who you can become

-> Adora used to be a Horde soldier and did not know where she came from, but nonetheless she found herself a family and became a hero that saved thousands of people

You can always change your mind and start a new life if you feel disappointed in what you are doing/who you are as a person

-> Basically the exact same point, Adora started a new life as she saw what the Horde really was and changed her mind about who to fight for

You deserve love too, be it platonic or romantic (or se*ual???) (If you're aro and/or ace just ignore the part that does not work for you)

-> While Adora for various reasons thought her only use was to please others and meet their needs and expectations (mostly due to Shadow Weaver and Catra) she learned to accept that she too deserves love and validation (if the love aspect would not have been focused on it being romantic love so she could smooch Catra in the finale this would've been a billion times better because she got love from her friends that showed her her real value)

You can walk away from something/someone, that does not make you egoistic/selfish

-> Adora walked away from the Horde, after Catra stubbornly refused to come with her despite many offers (basically Catra broke the promise, not Adora) from her too and that did not make her a "traitor" or "selfish", h*ck, Adora in the end did this for a bigger purpose too, even if part of it was her not wanting to live with such wrong morals

Your opinions, feelings etc. about a person/something can change and that is perfectly fine and valid, being able to change is part of what makes someone human

-> Adora's views on many things changed throughout the show: The Horde and the Rebellion, the First Ones, Catra, being She-Ra, herself, her priorities and so on ... she actually makes use of her brain, which is why Catra saying "Don't you ge it?" or calling her an idiot and dumb never sat right with me, she's a realistic character for shifting with her thoughts, feelings etc. and sometimes just does not fully think things through

You don't have to let other people treat you like sh*t (just because they have some issues they never worked through does not give them any right to let it out on you)

-> This point is obviously centered mostly around Catra and her abusing Adora almost every chance she gets, which is why Adora standing up for herself and not letting Catra blame her for her own decisions and mistakes is so important, "You made your choice, now live with it" is one of the most powerful lines throughout all the five Seasons

Now I'm sure there is still more to Adora's character than what I just listed and unfortunately almost all the points basically got pushed aside, well, Adora as a character got pushed aside in Season 5. All her growth, the things that made me love her, see her as great role model for so many people robbed of their value for the sake of making everything revolve around Catra. That brings me to her and how you are absolutely right that Catradora is harmful to both characters. Of course Adora is affected most by it in the end but Catra too is obviously suffering under the fandoms obsession and just the overall idea of them being romantically involved.

Just like with Adora the stans make almost everything about Catra over her relationship with Adora. She too can barely exist outside of it and if she wasn't the fan favorite she'd most likely would too be mostly in Fanarts that include Adora and not just her (if you google "Catra Fanart" most content is still Catra and Catra only but here and there Catradora still peaks through). But for whatever reason the fandom still views her more as her own person as the other ones? Catrouble and Scorptra Shippers might actually still get less hate than Glimmadora Shippers (I'm not denying they don't get any, they most certaintly do) which is just plain hypocricy and favorism. Kinda like the: A woman needs to be loyal to her husband and her husband only but if the husband wants to be active with other women that is perfectly fine because "that is just how men are" or how i like to call it ... sexism. Now in this case they are both women so it's not sexism but yo do get my point.

But much more importantly, Catra has an unhealthy obsession with Adora. Signs of that are for example:

Constantly talking about Adora, even when said person is not around (to Shadow Weaver, Scorpia etc.)

Obsessing over having control over Adora like in that one Episode "Are you kidding? I finally got control over Adora, I'm not giving that up!"

Building her entire character and her actions around Adora "We need to take Adora down", "Adora left me", "I'd rather see the whole world end than see you win!", also shown in Season 5 where she states she does save Glimmer only for Adora and not for Glimmer or to do the right thing

Getting aggressive or very emotional over Adora like clawing the wall, having nightmares etc. (destructive behavior towards herself and others)

Having no or barely any characteristics outside of her relationship with Adora like, we don't know her interests or likes and dislikes outside of being evil, obsessed with Adora, being abused by Shadow Weaver ...

Trying to force Adora to meet her needs and expectations regardless of Adora's owns

Sacrificing her oppurtunity to be happy in the Crimson Waste for the sake of her Adora obsession and being better than her at all costs

So yes, you were very right with saying that not putting Catra in a relationship with Adora would've benefited both characters. Catra could've learned to exist on her own, develop interests and a life outside of Adora. Learn to accept herself and eventually come to terms with her childhood abuse. She could've been free and not "the abusive cat girl that ended up with the person she unhealthily obsessed over to the point of no return" she kinda is now. Even if we ignore the whole "dating your long term abuser" part from Adora's side and "being rewarded" for horrible behavior, Catra alone is not giving a good example to people watching. As much as I dislike Catra, disdain her even, an ending where she is dependent on Adora, unable to stand on her own two legs after she led armies in war is not what I would wish for her, even with a decent redemption arc (that she did not get).

[halfemptygirlrps-archive]

Polyamory CAN work (long post)

As a black, queer woman who could very well be poly, I am always looking for content to feed my soul and have for a few years now. I know I grumble about white/het couples a lot which makes me sound some kind of way but I ship a ton of white couples, that isn’t the problem. It’s the way representation is stepped on these days with toxic white couples being seen as true love that upsets me. And this is coming from a chick that lowkey ships Reylo.

I don’t understand and never will why writers in 2020 think that the only demographic there is are the people who can’t handle seeing anything but a white male and a white female be together. Interracial relationships CAN and DO work and f/f or m/m relationships or any race CAN work, so guess what, so can relationships involving three or more people and while difficult, it can work, even if the people are different races.

My annoyance also stems from Poly woman really getting shat on when writers hit a wall. Very few times have I seen it work out and that’s so stupid to me because she shouldnt’ have to choose.

I start with Wynonna Earp, a CLEARLY Poly woman with a strong sexual appetite that never gets shamed. She loved both Dolls and Doc and though Shamier left the show effectively forcing her to Doc, they still made it clear that she was poly and capable of having feelings for more than one man when they brought in Charlie. He was patient and sweet and while all three men wanted Wynonna to themselves, they NEVER gave her an ultimatum and even while PREGNANT WITH ANOTHER MAN’S BABY  Dolls still loved her and held her in bed. I believe that had Shamier (Dolls)  not left that they would have went on waiting for her to choose but also letting her know that she didn’t have to.

Then there’s my first real Poly stan, Bo Dennis from Lost Girl. Unapologetically bisexual and poly, Bo was in control at all times, both of her relationships and her sexuality. While she needed sex to feed like a vampire needs blood,she also enjoyed it and didn’t view it as a curse or burden and her partners were alwasy consenting, which was amazing. Lauren never shamed Bo (in fact she praised her sexuality and wished she could keep up) for liking men (thus not being toxic to bi women, which is an issue in the community I wont get into) and Dyson, Bo’s male lover never pressured her to submit to him. Here she is pictured with Tamsin, Dyson and Lauren, all her lovers, at once.

If all three of them can be respectful and understanding while each of them were with Bo alone, not a quad, then why do they make it seem so hard to have three people love each other? And yes, I know that couples break up, but on Tv they just dont need to when it’s what a show is based on.

I could go on about Bo all day but I will move on to one of my favorite movies: Prof. Marsden and the Wonder Women.

Now real or not this story had everything. It showed how slowly and steadily they grew to love each other, the highs and lows and the shame of the community that made them all stronger together. Was there jealousy at times, yeas, but they addressed it and learned that they didnt’ need to be and that they could all be together happily and that it could be easy to be in love with more than one person. Sure, it was the 40s but in this day and age it’s nothing to hide, and if they could have a happily ever after back then, why couldn’t it happen now? 

Could it be because of race? Without kidding ourselves, we know that every fandom is capable of being toxic and that it’s just fact that the black girl is often hated. I call it the Iris West treatment, where the clear canon couple is hated and the black girl is trashed for the white option. I quit Supergirl after Season 2 but I hear that Jimmy’s sister is getting said treatment now from a friend that still watches and I am not surprised.  You can’t force an actor to stay on a show and I get that having their ship destroyed build animosity, but I really can’t help but feel like had the other girl been white it wouldn’t have been such a huge issue. A Stefan vs Damon issue none the less, but still, less so. I say that because I have seen actual people defend Mon El in that fandom but saying “what’s wrong with owning slaves?” NUff said. 

Another reason I bring up why it could be race is because of You, Me, Her.

I really enjoy this show and will be sad to see it and and while I recommend it, there are flaws, but none of these flaws seems to be that the three of them can’t work past it and get back together. 

Emma and Jack are married, Izzy comes in and shakes up their world and they both fall ass over elbows in love with her and her with them. They go through the usual things:jealousy, favoritism, hiding their relationship then coming out, but they always work through it. When Jack leaves to date an ex, he comes back. When Emma leaves to date and ex, she comes back. When Jack and Emma think about moving away and Izzy doesn’t want to, they come back. When Izzy has a thing with a co-worker, she still chooses Jack and Emma because they know they all need and love each other. They even have babies together! Izzy sees the sonogram and her heart stops. She realizes that she is going to be their actual mom and they all get married and even look into tri custody because they know they are a family and that it’s not an odd man out type of thing. They try it with other people and with just one another but they know where they’re hearts belong. It works. Does it work because they’re all white? NOPE

Sense8 was a brilliant show. Here everyone was represented and it was such a shame they killed it. Still, they showed us that sexuality can be fluid and that a fandom can be supportive. Raj and Kala married in spite Kala loving someone else. They never made her choose and in the end, they accepted that she was poly and wanted both and guess what? The two guys even fell for each other! Here is a white, bisexual male with his Indian partners. India isn’t the greatest with being gay so for Raj this must have been stranger and scary but they both made him feel safe and comfortable, loved and supported and in the end it was canon that they were all going to be together and learn as they go. Like with You, Me, Her, the fandom is supportive of this and while we didn’t get much of Rajalagang, it is clear that they can work regardless of skin color, religion, and even long distance.

So then why not Polymarine? It was clear it tested well with the audience, haters aside, so what made them feel like they couldn’t carry on? Sure, people fall out of love, but in the show, they just didnt’ need to. Before Ryn Ben and Maddie were together without issue for almost a year. It was made clear every time that he was in love with her, that they had chemistry and that he was attracted to her, so how do they justify saying that this:

Wasn’t real and meant nothing? That this

Wasn’t the same?

If other relationships can survive and thrive then what is it that was so hard, so difficult for the writers that they remove the credit that they themselves paved the way for and throw it aside for something that has been done literally thousands of times? Why throw away what made you unique to fall in line? Why does a show about mermaids have to have this be the “realistic” thing?

[meggannn]

thank god im not the only other asian girl who came to realize how weirdly orientalist atla/lok is.

i hope you don’t mind me using this ask as a springboard to get some of my thoughts down (i edited this once and that fucked up the read more, so i tried several times to put this behind a cut again but tumblr hates me so i guess now everyone has to read my beef ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

my friend said last night that ATLA is like the new harry potter with the way people talk about it and..... yknow she’s not entirely wrong.....

like, not to keep pulling this card, but ~as a half-asian~, i have been struggling with this show a lot over the past few months; before even the show came to netflix, i was seeing a resurgence of ATLA stan culture. the hype of the live-action series and the release of the kyoshi novels have also amplified this. i reblog posts because i do still enjoy it, but i have been abstaining from reblogging commentary that so obviously glorifies it.

part of this burst-bubble effect is my problem, because i strongly dislike how people talk about certain characters and ships (and i admit that frustration is seeping through what ATLA did right) and observing fandom favorites makes me think that a lot of points were missed: people love toph, but hate korra (even people who think they love korra only because she’s one half of korrasami, actually do hate korra lmfao); people love zuko but completely ignore aang; don’t get me started on the fandom’s embracing of korrasami/subsequent forgiving of the patronizing, disrespectful, borderline racist way bryke did it. that is fan behavior, and it all bothers me and is no doubt coloring my judgment of the actual show, but beyond that, i also do want people to realize and accept “wait a minute, plenty of the things we criticize other media for also exist in ATLA, and it shouldn’t be different just because this show is full of asians.��

part of me wants to — and does — celebrate that a pan-asian show, in which NO white characters and NO trace of western culture exists, was a critical and commercial success in 2005! and had full network support and resonated with kids of different backgrounds. i can appreciate and be happy of that. but “no western culture” doesn’t mean “no western influence”: it’s an asian fantasy world created by non-asians, so the staff still ultimately wrote a pretty western story. the treatment of the fire lord imperialist dynasty is the big one (iroh was a war criminal who only left the warfront because his actions affected him/his family but now he’s a old friendly Good Guy and never acknowledges the lives he’s ruined! everything is ok now that zuko is fire lord! not like his new friends will have any direct trauma or conflicting feelings with how he is now heading a nation that burned two out of three of their homelands to the ground and tried to burn the third too! now here are all our headcanons about katara/sokka being fire lord/lady, toph being a fire lord advisor, and aang being an air nation rep to the fire nation! perfect ending!!), but also the themes of a pretty straightforward good kids v evil conqueror story, watered-down concepts of buddhism/taoism/others for child consumption — some of these are not strictly bad things, but they don’t make it the best story in the world. they are not worth saying “stop watching x problematic cartoon, watch ATLA, the BEST cartoon with the BEST diversity!!!!”

side note, my friend looked it up last night and there was a total of one asian writer on the staff, May Chan, who according to wiki, just wrote the Boiling Rock episodes. (at this juncture i want to keep in mind that someone in the writer’s or developer’s room might be in my situation, possibly mixed race but white-passing in both face and name... it’d be hypocritical of me to not consider that possibility, but as far as i know that’s not the case, and in any respect i think it’s important to have visible diversity, not because i think mixed people don’t have anything to say or shouldn’t be counted, but in the sense that poc who don’t get the luxury of being white-passing should be allowed control of depicting people who look like them. but that’s another discussion.)

honestly, i can look over some aspects of this show because i still do enjoy it. i like the use of martial arts as a fantastical magic device because it was used consistently and clearly they did their research, even if it does kind represent this idea of Asia, the Land of Magic Powers; i don’t mind because not everyone has the magic powers, the magic powers are deconstructed, people without the magic powers are still treated respectfully, the magic powers are diverse, and they are treated both practically and spiritually (so not everyone, like sokka, has the same awe-inspiring respect of them, which is realistic characterization to this world, and though he’s sometimes portrayed as incorrect in his disbelief of the spiritual, he’s never portrayed as wrong for being practical and realistic). honestly, i don’t mind the oohs and aahs of these magic powers because i still think the magic powers are pretty fuckin cool; it’s likely we’ve all pretended to be a bender at some point lol. and as a kid, i didn’t mind that ATLA nations blended cultures; i thought it was fun to look up later and see which sorts of things were made up and which were influenced by real things (i liked that not a lot if it was made up). i don’t mind that Lake Laogai was named after a real, horrifying place, though i understand and completely respect that plenty of others find the name disturbing and tasteless.

that said, as an adult coming to ATLA for the first time, I would probably not go this hard for a show that blends a bunch of real ethnicities together in a hodgepodge of culture clashes, at least not one spearheaded by a white developer team. i would be less willing to ignore the northern air temple episode, where aang, victim of a genocide, forgives a bunch of strangers who disrespected and destroyed his home (including the guy who was NOW INVENTING WAR WEAPONS FOR THE VERY NATION THAT DESTROYED HIS PEOPLE). i can mostly look over these things because of nostalgia. but the way people outright stan the whole avatar series (including LOK but i won’t get into that right now) without acknowledging ATLA is, ultimately, still a story with a pretty western handling of its themes just with asian faces, is..... frustrating.

a new coworker of mine, also an asian woman who was too old to watch ATLA at the time it was airing, has said that the more she learns about ATLA as an adult the weirder she feels about it and less inclined she is to watch it, which makes me think that maybe i’m not crazy.

[heraldofzaun]

//Still lurking.

Some thoughts below the cut. A little melancholic. A little ranty. Many thoughts on how Viktor is perceived by the fandom at large. It got away from me.

I think I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but I have followers here and this is also a Viktor blog... I think it would be nice if people stopped making fun of Viktor’s accent - I saw T/BSkyen’s (I think that keeps me out of the tag) shorts video on Viktor, and it was disheartening that he chose to make fun of Viktor’s accent several times throughout a one-minute video. No other character with a hammy, over-the-top accent, as far I know, receives this treatment. No one makes fun of Caitlyn’s British accent in character analyses of her. No one makes fun of Fiora’s French accent in character analyses of her. (I just checked his videos on them, actually, and guess what - no mocking their accents by doing them! Although Fiora’s accent does get mentioned, at the least.)

Just... stop doing it? We know the accent is cartoonishly bad and not accurate to actual Russian accents at all. But why, specifically, are people - T/BSkyen, in this instance - compelled to make fun of Viktor by putting on an accent and saying “Get reed of all emotions“ and “GLORIOUS EVOLUTION” and “BEEP BOOP ROBOT BRAIN”? (The misspelling in the first is not mine. It is in the actual subtitles for the video.)

I mean, we all know that the answer is the fact that American (and other countries, but we can focus on America for now) media spent the Cold War convincing Americans that Russians and Eastern Europeans were mindless followers of ideology and/or Crazy Insane Scientists, instead of like... people with diverse thoughts and feelings who may or may not agree with their government, but like... I have to ask the rhetorical questions here because no one else is going to apparently. Anyways it’s 2021 stop conflating people and the governments they live under, I guess.

Anyways, also very disheartening that I just checked the pinned comment on that video and he is now saying that Viktor’s endpoint is the Battlecast universe, which is not a canon fact even in current lore. It’s an assumption. I can’t even say that Full Machine Viktor is Viktor’s endpoint, because that was retconned into being a janitor skin that randomly breaks into Spanish in the skin bio for a... “joke”? (Because that’s a cool thing to do. I’d ask how that got past anyone, but that’s a pointless question.) But Battlecast is not stated anywhere to be the end result of canonical Viktor, as far as I know. I suppose it’s not stated to not be the result, but... Like, what other character gets an AU skinline that people then say has to be their canonical endgoal when it is not said to be their canonical endgoal by any official source?

Quothe the loremaster... “The endpoint of Viktor's quest is the Battlecast universe. In case y'all forgot. Read between the lines of his stories even a little bit before stanning him, I'm begging you.”

The entirety of the pinned comment is frustrating. It is frustrating not only because it clashes entirely with the funny comical tone of the minute-long short, which also decides to yet again conflate transhumanism with being trans (we have heard my thoughts on this before. Please stop doing this), but because it is unfortunately true in aspects about current Viktor. He is really not a good man, even though you may be able to argue that Riot’s biased narrator choices mean that a canonical version of the Viktor-Jayce fight does not exist. (Because both lores tell their sides of the story. Biasedly.) But as the story stands, his character getting filled out didn’t make him more morally ambiguous than his original counterpart. The ambiguity that existed originally was due to us not knowing a lot about him and thus being able to interpret things the way we wished. (I’m sure that there is still room for interpretation in the new lore, but it seems lesser to me. Also, his color story is framed atrociously. It’s going for warm and fuzzy when the content of it is giving a kid drugs but this is a long enough post already...)

Riot does not know what to do with Viktor. They’re content to portray him as a Russian mad scientist and buffoon in LoR and in some other media, because... [gestures at the struck-out paragraph above]. But then they have his lore which... could be interesting, maybe, if it weren’t convinced that the way to tell a morally grey story is to have narrators more unreliable than a pull-start lawn mower. Like, they just don’t know what to do with him.

Any analysis of him needs to come with that caveat, not someone deciding that the best way to spent a minute of analysis is to make multiple jokes about Viktor’s accent being stereotypical via... feeding into it being stereotypical... and saying that transhumanism is related to trans rights in any inherent way.

Also, T/BSkyen says that Viktor only has an augmented hand and the third arm, which conveniently ignores the fact that Prototype is probably supposed to be taken as semi-canonical considering its name and the fact it was made when backstory-related skins were a more common thing. (And also because it hasn’t been retconned into being a janitor.) It also conveniently ignores the fact that Viktor’s lower legs clearly don’t look like armor on his model, but this is a side tangent that doesn’t really matter, so...

Whatever, right? I’ve clearly put more thought into this than League’s local loremaster put into that video and subsequent “no guys he really is a baddie stop stanning him and grow critical thinking skills” comment. Sorry if I sound jaded here or am taking this far too seriously or whatever, it’s just... man, it’s a lot. It makes trying to do my take in any public capacity feel kind of like shit, because it’s clear that the general perception of Viktor is currently 1) Haha Funny Accent Man, 2) Trans Rights!1!, and/or 3) He’s Evil :(, and it sucks. I already am writing for a niche audience who will accept a Viktor who never went to Piltover and who exists in old Zaun. I know that that’s niche. I’m okay with it being niche, I think.

But it sucks to build up all this character and do all this writing and try to... I don’t know, present a nuanced view of someone, and then just get another fucking joke about his accent or his design tropes or about what transhumanism is. Especially when those jokes are what people remember, right?

Sorry. This got whiny. But I think it explains why I’ve lost so much steam on writing our favorite Machine Herald, because stuff like this just keeps kind of... happening.

Thank you to the folks that send in anons about my analyses or who like my posts about my artistic endeavors or just... well, interact in general. It does mean a lot to me that you guys are invested enough to hang around and read 2k words of me doing the Pepe Silvia scene from Always Sunny as I connect dots that might not have been meant to be connected. It’s just hard to keep doing it, sometimes, and I guess this is one of those moments.

[non-binharry]

sooo I started stanning harry briefly after I went to his fine line live show this time last year and I felt like I was onto something by interpreting 'she' the way you do, noticing the trans flag colors and all that. I've been following you and a lot of other larries for a few months and let me tell you it's extremely frustrating to try and get into Louis' fandom when you know a lot of people that stan louis and harry are going around spouting insensitive shit about us trans ppl. as someone who transitioned last year the shit I see on my dash when this discourse happens makes me sick to my stomach. I don't know how you put up with it and while I'm always listening to lou & his music I simply cannot bring myself to join the fandom because of the shit that seems to go on with louie larries, rads and all these other larries that make personality traits out of speaking over trans people. I know there's plenty of amazing larries like you and portraitofalarryonfire but you guys seem to be few in number. just thought I'd pop in and let you guys know how this really looks like from a outsider's perspective into the fandom.

thank you for sharing!! it really is so frustrating how some people don't see that their behavior and treatment of us is the same way that the fandom at large treated larries. it's weird hearing a bunch of cis people go "gender is a personal journey!" to a bunch of trans people like we don't know this. all we're doing is acknowledging what we feel has been coded through harry's music and art. the same thing that larries do every single day.

[brotherhand]

t100 spoilers // or whatthefuckever. 

anyway. i haven’t been on here in years. i’m pretty sure most of y’all moved accounts or whatever. but anyway i am fucking angry. i’m not even caught up on s7 but i know what happens and i’m fucking angry. 

bellamy blake deserved better.

but you know what, i am not surprised. the 100 has had a history of killing off its  lgbt+ and poc characters and this is not surprising. ESPECIALLY when it comes to men of color. wells, a black man, was set up to be the male lead. then he got killed off not even THREE episodes into the first season after being constantly used to prop up clarke white savior griffin. only for him to be replaced by finn fucking collins as the resident peacemaker? lincoln, another black man was killed off just because jroth is racist lmao. jaha, yet ANOTHER black man  (a fucking pattern if i’ve ever seen one) whose character went from being a well-written, multifaceted leader and engineer to “lol haha that’s just crazy ass jaha” then was killed off to prop up yet ANOTHER white savior. monty was killed off-screen (but at least his death wasn’t demeaning and it ACTUALLY served a purpose so.... i’ll give them that ig.) and let’s not forget about miller who has been there since season fucking one but never even became a main character while roan, a white dude, who was only around for a season and a half, became a main character -- and mind you, he was killed only a few episodes after being made a main. jroth had the brilliant idea to make s3 a political commentary on xenophobia and decided “hey!  i think i’m gonna make that black man the fascist! and then i’m gonna make that brown man his supporter! and let’s make those white people in brownface the good people!”

but anyway. back to bellamy. 

i have been watching the 100 since season two first aired. i was in the 100 fandom for maybe one or two years then realized this isn’t really the place for me so i dipped but continued watching this shitshow. i watched the 100 writers, for SEVEN SEASONS, constantly sideline his character development in favor of propping up other character’s (usually clarke, again, a pattern) he was supposed to learn from his mistakes and grow into the leader he had the potential to be. that was the natural progression of how his character was set up from the very beginning, he should’ve grown into leadership. but he never did. every time clarke comes into the picture, his character development is hindered. (one of the biggest reasons as to why i dislike bellarke imo) every time they need someone to bear the brunt of their shitty ass plots, they turn to bellamy. (like s7... when they... made him join a cult lmfaoooo) he should’ve grown into leadership, he shouldn’t have been reduced to a “knight”, he shouldn’t have had to constantly bear the brunt of shitty writing. he should have been his own, well-rounded character. and he was on the way to that in season five, i believe, then they went and ruined that, too. i wanted to watch him grow into a leader who can use his head and his heart, i wanted to get invested in his platonic or romantic relationships with other characters, i wanted them to address the trauma he had endured as a child due to the fact that he had to raise a child when he was A SIX YEAR OLD BOY. i wanted them to address the issues that came with his mother basically throwing octavia at him and telling him she’s his responsibility, i wanted him to emotionally grow up and i wanted him to put himself first. i wanted him to learn to love himself and not base his self worth on other people.  i wanted to see more of him with his family -- with echo, raven, monty, emori and murphy. i didn’t want him to fucking die because of fucking shock value. 

you know what i also didn’t fucking want? i didn’t fucking want to watch the show runner CONTINUOUSLY whitewash him, use a white actor to play him as a kid and then later on call him a white male. i didn’t want some parts of the fandom to pretend he was white because then he’d be another straight white dude and not actually a man of color who is integral representation to so, so, so many people. i watched some of y’all say shit like “well, he’s not CANONICALLY brown <3″ and get away with it. i watched both sides of the fandom treat the character in a really, really racist and shitty manner. with some c/lexa stans thinking it’s okay to call a brown man a fucking monkey. some b/ellarke stans thinking it’s okay to reduce him to clarke’s “knight” not noticing how many racist undertones exist in such a dynamic. at times, it seemed like some of you went out of your way to villanize him. (calling him abusive when you didn’t give clarke OR octavia that treatment, even when octavia fucking beat him to a bloody pulp when he was chained to a rock and when clarke shot AT him then later shot HIM. the excuses were always there for them but not him, huh.) and at times, it seemed like so many of his “fans” only liked him when he was clarke’s inferior. keep in mind that, yes, clarke and lexa were both in brownface at some point in the show. and yes i am brown so please don’t try to tell me it was a tan. as a brown person i know what brownface on white people looks like. (if you’re bipoc and  youdisagree, we can have a civil conversation about it -- but if you’re white please do not pretend to know better than me.) keep in mind, i’m saying SOME. not ALL. don’t take this as an attack against you specifically but at the same time if the shoe fits wear it. bellamy deserved better than to be treated like shit by the creator, the writers and the fandom. bellamy deserved better than to have been played by a biphobic abuser. he deserved so much fucking better and i did not know upset or hurt i was by this until i started writing this.

but anyway. he’s dead now. so pce out. 

[triptychexe]

TRIVIUM - PART 3 - DEBUT MINI ALBUM [2016]

TRIVIUM is the third and final unit to debut from Triptych’s first generation with their debut mini album PART 3. With a significantly more hip-hop and rap-focused sound in comparison to the two previous Triptych units, TRIVIUM brings a new layer of talent and meaning to the super group. Covering hard-to-swallow topics like gender roles and societal double standards, TRIVIUM hits hard and makes waves.

△ TRACK BY TRACK. 

1] BERLIN 

The decision to make BERLIN their debut song was a power move. Not only does the song have a very distinct and recognizable sound that drags listeners in, but it sets the vibe for TRIVIUM’s energy.

All three members had a hand in writing this song.

The line distribution can be found here

2] SAVAGES

In this hiphop-influenced track, TRIVIUM has a back and forth debate between rappers Van and Cal over if human nature is inherently good or evil, giving examples of highs and lows in society.

Doubled with a strong chorus, thought-provoking versus, and irony twisted into more than a half the lines, this song can be seen as an ironic commentary on what people see as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

Written by all three members.

3] WHO I AM

Trivium talks about their past and how it had shaped them into who they are today. This song is like the last goodbye to their old selves, ready to let go of the past and move on.

This track also acknowledges that admitting ignorance isn’t something that you should be ashamed of, as you can only change as long as you’re willing. 

Written by all three members

 4] BACK OFF

 Ura, the only woman in this subunit, took it upon herself to write a feminist anthem for their album. It’s basically a response to all the times Ura has had a man be patronizing towards her. Van and Cal act on the track as supporters, but the song is mostly Ura focused. 

The first song on the album where you actually hear Ura rap and get to see her lyricism play out. One of Ura’s lines mentioned snapping kneecaps. Everyone’s afraid of her now. 

Written by Ura

5] BITE

This song is all about wanting someone that’s not good for you, but you keep coming back. 

The non-gender specific pronouns in the song show that this song can be about any type of relationship, regardless of gender or if it is a romantic or platonic relationship. 

Written by Van and Cal

6] MEN/WOMEN

All about gender roles and how they’ve hurt them as they’ve grown up. Since they are the first co-ed unit from Triptych, they took it upon themselves to address double standards/gender roles.

This one caused a bit of a discussion, especially since it directly calls out the double standards in the kpop industry.

Written by all members. 

△ THIS ERA.

So... Trivium easily got the most attention out of Gen 1.

Mostly because they’re a co-ed duo that covers topics that aren’t discussed super openly.

But also because they’re really good rappers. Like, all of them. And their stage presence is really intense. 

Ura doesn’t rap as much as she would have liked to this era, as they needed her on vocals to break up the tracks a little since neither Van or Cal can sing very well.

Trivium were given the title ‘un-idols’ - which is both a term of endearment as well as a critique, depending on who uses it - because of their unwillingness to play up the role of a significant other at fan signs as well as their general aura.

Idols are supposed to be like... ‘perfect’ at all times, and Trivium just doesn’t do that? Like they wear the worst outfits to the airport, fansites have pictures of them waiting in line for street food (and then chowing down on said street food), and the way they talk to fans is so casual? 

This attitude turned off some fans, but it brought in a whole new wave of support, especially from international fans who felt like Trivium were relatable. 

The most popular member this comeback was easily Ura. Not only was she the only girl, so she visually stood out, but she was the one that often went viral for fan-zoning fans who asked her to be romantic with them.

She also received the most criticisms, but she really didn’t care. She wasn’t going to make herself uncomfortable for the sake of others. 

Cal got a good amount of attention too because of his accent and his looks. Cal has a very slight British accent when he says certain Korean words and people just... lost it over that.

Van kinda sunk to the background this era, but he doesn’t really mind. He just wanted the kids to have fun and have their time to shine. :) 

As far as numbers go, Trivium breaks records for Triptych by gaining 10 million music video views in the first 24 hours as well as having BERLIN chart on Melon upon release. 

△ ERA FASHION. 

I promise this is the last era that Triptych wears color-coded outfits. I promise. The company was trying to see how the color-coded concept would work and gen 1 was the guinea pigs. 

When Artychs saw how lacking Trivium’s debut outfits were.... they almost rioted at HBH. They already were accusing HBH of picking favorites and not giving Trivium equal treatment. 

But the truth is... Trivium picked their debut stage outfits. Yes, they’re bland, but Trivium wanted their debut to feel like friends were finally meeting up for the first time, hence the casual clothes.

The button up shirt fits tho.... that made a few bitches go feral. That was an exquisite serve. 

The award show fits were nice too! Ura stunned bitches pulling up with her short blazer dress and fishnets. Van had really cool dress pants with designs on them and Cal wore a color that wasn’t black! It was monumental!

As far as hair goes, Ura had short black hair with wispy bangs. 

Van had black hair and almost always wore a wide headband on his hairline.

Cal’s hair was usually just styled into tousled brown curls and called a day. 

△ FANDOM BEHAVIORS.

I’ve explained triptych stan culture before (basically the fandom is kinda divided? like some fans only support certain subunits, others support all of them, etc.) but I think Trivium was what really made that divide clear. 

Trivum just sounds different than S.O.T and Tromme, there was gonna be people who didn’t vibe with their style. But that’s kinda the point of Triptych, to like.. get different sounds involved in their discography.

And some gross fans didn’t like that Trivium made it clear that they don’t want to be sexualized by fans, so they just decided to ignore them and focus on S.O.T and Tromme, who hasn’t spoken out about being sexualized by strangers online. 

People also started calling Van a ‘smol bean uwu’ (hello 2016) and started like... infantalizing him?? even though he’s a grown ass man??? does he LOOK like dan OR phil to any of you???????? 

Fans also started calling Cal a fuckboy and played him up as this big meme just because he’s goofy. I will never forgive y’all for that.

Pick Mes hated Ura because if anyone’s ‘one of the boys’, it’s Ura and they were jealous. But she literally has to be one of the boys. It’s apart of her job. 

But the artychs that do stan Trivium are probably some of the chillest people ever. They are literally just vibing. Trivium stans are dubbed as the ‘stoners’ of the fandom as a joke.

And OT9 stans overpower solo stans by a LONG SHOT, so don’t worry! Trivium received more love than hate from artychs. There were just a few bad eggs that ruined shit. 

[thefudge]

Hey what are your thoughts on this new john boyega star wars/reylo drama we are apparently closing 2019 out on? (Disclaimer: not a star wars fan, I just get curious when the fandom gets pissy lmao)

oh boyyy, did they ever get pissy 

*deep breath*

i think folks have forgotten the real roots of reylo as a ship and i’m here to remind them: back in 2015/2016, this ship was fun because it was trashy. it was classical villain/heroine fodder, angsty and deliciously problematic and a lot of fun. TFA made it clear there was an interesting, important connection between them, but their dynamic could go either way. john boyega pointing this same shit out in a joke shouldn’t have pressed ppl’s buttons, because it’s true. part of reylo’s appeal is the push and pull, the chase/fighting, the violence. i remember being in the goddamn trenches with this ship, defending the problematique. some shippers can claim that it was always about redeemed ben solo uwu, but that’s not why they started shipping them after TFA. we wanted to see bad guy fighting good girl and getting his ass handed to him. redemption was always secondary. that’s why we like villain/heroine ships. because there’s a villainous aspect to them. the proper reaction reylo folks shoulda had to boyega’s tweet is: “YES that’s our ship”. own it. was john pointing out the “problematic” aspects of the ship?  ehh, i think he was mostly making fun. star wars is notorious for these kinda messy dynamics. anakin almost choked padme to death, and the franchise still promotes them as starcrossed lovers. but even if john was trying to be critical, OWN IT, FAM. be honest and stop claiming reylo is pure and wholesome. ppl have the right to criticize this ship without the fandom falling apart.

i guess ppl took more issue with his replies to fans in that thread, replies which i thought were humorous and absolutely warranted. notice that the ppl he decides to @ at immediately started talking shit about finn being a useless character, about john having a crush on his co-star or about him not being in the same league as his oscar-nominated colleague, adam driver *fart noises* (there was even one directly targeting men of color…smh). these were absolutely insulting and despicable reactions. like, the anti-blackness simply jumped out. which proves his point. he baited shippers because he knew at least some of them would expose their racist ass on twitter…and look, they did. other fans replied in polite disagreement and moved the fuck on. but an embarrassing chunk decided to be spiteful cry-babies. all of it read to me like an actor who is done being pushed around, who had to deal with so much racist BS during this trilogy, whose contract is finally up, and who can finally tell ppl what’s what. the claims that he was being misogynistic towards rey’s character also don’t stand up to scrutiny. he can’t joke about finn giving rey good dick after ben’s death? so only reylos can have shippy, smutty headcanons? pleeeease. and how is that demeaning to rey? what, she has to stay pure and wholesome for ghost!ben? like, this reeks of ppl being uncomfortable with the black character expressing sexual desire towards the white woman.

unrelated to his tweet, where i think boyega could be criticized is in his treatment of rose vs rey. i wish he would be as vociferous and opinionated about kelly marie tran’s treatment, on and off set. i also wish he would examine his desire to be paired up with the “valuable” white protagonist rather than the “undesirable” woman of color who was basically given the boot at the end of the trilogy. i’m not saying he shouldn’t stan finnrey. i do too, but his refusal to acknowledge rose/finn because he knows it’s a devaluation of his character should make him question why rose/finn was written like a devaluation of his character. anyway, he seems to care more about finnpoe, either way, so i’m not going to get into that. 

the take-away for me is that a) anti-black sentiments are still widely spread in fandom, especially on twitter, it just takes one tweet to exhume them, and b) reylo fam needs to own up to how the ship started out in the first place, what its initial appeal was, and the tropes that it is indebted to. embrace and acknowledge the problematic. ofc, you have the freedom to erase the problematic aspects, sure, no one can stop you (the new trend cropping up of making reylo sound like it was wholesome from the start and ben solo did nothing wrong ever uwu…zzzzz), but don’t try to deny them altogether when ppl express divergent opinions.  john boyega’s tweet takes nothing away from your enjoyment of the ship. if it does, it means it’s your job to examine why acknowledging the messy aspects of reylo makes you uncomfortable. 

[hell-chronicles]

I'm really protective of Hana but I wish Olivia was a LI. I can't force myself to fall for the girl who is there for MC from the start. I always end up falling for characters like Olivia, Aurora, Poppy, Xanthe, Sonia, and Alana. Alana and Sonia got one scene in the final chapter. That's the best a gay dumbass like me can ever get. I know most Poppy stans like Zoey but I have to ask myself why the fandom didn't fight so hard for Xanthe and Aurora when they represent the very same trope.

From what I've seen there are people annoying PB and making fanart and all of Aurora but obviously not to an extent as Poppy. Might be because Aurora was never that much of an rival actually and that most wlw kinda gave up on that book at some point anyway.

Xanthe is more ... Complicated. I know that there were people who wanted her to be a LI (including myself lol) but the story never made an effort to make her more than a "bitchy" character and the story always pushed for us to hate her. Xanthe probably had the worst character treatment I've ever seen which sucks because she could have been an amazing LI but PB went out of it's way to destroy that prospect and it just seemed hopeless to fight for her as a LI?

My guess on why poppy is so popular within the fandom has to do with QBs genre and PBs other books that were recently released. We had way too many female rivals, way too many neglected female LIs, not a real enemies to lovers since TH:M and well mean girls are kinda gay nowadays. I think just a lot of BS PB has done before( and still does) that resulted in the fandom being extremely passionate about poppy being actually treated well as a character. Also so far Poppy actually isn't treated as an irredeemable awful person and there might be chances of her being a li so that's that.

But another reason why poppy might be more popular than Xanthe and aurora might be because of colorism? But I'm not an expert on that issue so it's probably better to ask someone who knows more about it.

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

You seem into musicals. Can you tell me what's wrong with Hamilton? When I first heard of it in 2016 it was praised. But then people started criticizing it angrily, saying it was racist and classist. I didn't look into it more for a long time cuz i didn't care, i dont even know the plot. But it's all over my dash again and I googled it and all I can find are opinion pieces insulting the lyricist's musical skill and saying "Hamilton is bad in every way." without providing a reason.

Oh girl, it 100% got the typical tumblr cringe culture treatment. Hamilton was (still is) super popular in real life, and the weirdos on here can’t be caught dead liking things earnestly, especially not something that other people like! You silly goose. Enjoying things is cringy! So, like every other piece of popular media that tumblr liked, it quickly turned around to tear it to shreds and claim anyone who likes this award-winning musical is #cringe (I guess that includes Barack Obama LOL).

Because it’s tumblr, they’ll never actually admit to hating something for the petty need to feel superior to others by being edgy and hating mainstream media; they have to claim it’s evil and that those who enjoy it are bigoted. I mean, I think what Lin-Manuel Miranda and the original diverse cast of Hamilton did was insert people of color into the myth of America, and I mean myth in the sense that history can get to the point where it’s like a cultural myth. We all know damn well that the Founding Fathers were white slave owners, but Hamilton gives actors of color a chance to insert themselves into the story of the beginning of America. But tumblr completely reduces it to “It’s about slave owners so it’s evil and liking it is bad.” Were there fans on here who stanned the Founding Fathers? Yes, but anyone with common sense knows that’s a tiny minority of fans of this musical lol. All fandoms do stupid shit. People (not just on tumblr, even edgelords on twitter) act like Hamilton is #neoliberal propaganda to get people to stan colonizers, but it’s really just a musical telling the story of the complicated people that were the Founding Fathers lol. History is messy but worth talking about, and making art from history isn’t wrong. Everyone not dipped in 10 layers of cynicism knows that. The best was when I saw some non-American on twitter ranting about how evil Lin-Manuel Miranda is for writing a musical about slave owners and like....girl you don’t even live here lol. Just don’t listen to the musical.

I also find it pretty insulting to the diverse casts of Hamilton to imply that they’re somehow too stupid to realize they’re a part of this #propaganda, or even outright malicious for being in a piece of media that tries to present the thoughts and motivations of these historical figures. The same goes for poc who are fans of it. It’s like...some people really think poc are stupid, huh. You think they don’t know the complicated start of America??? Maybe they’re more informed than you but have, wait for it, critical thinking skills 🤔. But I digress.

Tl;dr the fact that you could only find vague opinion pieces like “musical bad!” is telling. Tumblr just hates Hamilton because of cringe culture, and fails to realize that most people outside of this site still like it—as is the case for most things this site hates lol. Even if you wind up listening to it and not liking its style, I think you’ll see the hate is way overblown.

Edit: wait LMAO how the fuck is it classist?