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yuri-for-businesswomen · 1 year ago

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i just now learned about a recent case where a german man kidnapped and did unspeakable acts to two boys. one was german, one was a refugee. the first one was immediately treated as a missing case, but the second one was not because the cops were afraid the mother was hiding her son to avoid deportation. and the worst part is, that little boy was kidnapped in a government institution (lageso in berlin) where his mother went for help! its infuriating beyond belief.

racism is so deeply engrained in german institutions, its not funny. yet police refuses any reforms or real investigations and deny even the notion - despite mounting evidence - that there is an issue with systemic racism in german police. and we dont have an independent institution to control the cops, you know who investigates their failures and issues? other cops. and we all know how they stick together like literal shit.

but it also made me think about „missing white woman syndrome“. does anyone really care about an eastern european white woman who goes missing while being exploited in the west through prostitution, in the domestic field, nursing, or as a „mail bride“ dependent on her husband? does anyone care about a white woman in the usa going missing from a trailer park? does anyone care about a white woman who was homeless, mentally ill, drug addicted, disabled, impoverished, prostituted, or otherwise marginalised going missing? and do people not care about white men going missing?

and it also made me think about this current trend of oversimplifying and decontextualising racism. one thing i hope we all can agree on is that anti black racism is very persistent. i cant think of a single country where black people are treated preferably over other races, best case is to be treated equally as a black person, and even that is not the case in most countries. but this doesnt just apply to white majority countries. in japan or korea, or under the kafala system in the arabic gulf states, for example, black people are systematically discriminated against and exploited too. white people are also not the only ones guilty of colonialism and imperialism - albeit i dont want to minimise the scale of portugese, spanish, french, british/australin, german, dutch, belgian (neo)colonialism or the north american slave trade.

i dont know its just, everything always has to be put in context and looked at from an intersectional perspective but i feel a lot of people who fault white supremacy for everything dont do that. and dont get me wrong, white supremacy is the root of a lot of inequality and issues, but despite the name its not merely a black and white problem, its complex. for example, even if a roma or jewish person is white, neonazis dont consider them the same race as white people. or i remember my turkish professor once saying, „in turkey im considered white, but in germany im a person of colour“. because race is not just phenotype, it is also culture, nationality, location and ethnicity that matters for who is holding power and privilege.

meanwhile a lot of the same people will refuse to agree that sex matters. or claim that sex - which is a lot less ambiguous than race by the way and nobody argues that mixed race people prove that race is not real or doesnt matter the way they argue intersex people prove that sex is not real or doesnt matter - is a spectrum while chanting „black lives matter“. and i know that black communities do have that conversation about colourism and how whiteness is something even people of colour are supposed to „strive for“, which is why for example the harmful practice of bleaching your skin exists. so it is being acknowledged that race is a spectrum, but some of the same people who rightfully talk about black lives and how blackness is its own social category will call you a bigot for talking about female lives and how being female is a social category.

im not going anywhere with this, just some thoughts that came up regarding discussions on racism and sex and how they intersect too. feel very free to chime in especially as a person of colour obviously!

#mine #rambling

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beardedmrbean · 1 year ago

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Oh I mean when I say do leftists see history as a Disney cartoon because how they talk about people

“Indigenous people wouldn’t do that to their native lands!” Well that because most tribes learn from the mistakes of their ancestors, like modern American farming-

Holy shit Dave is right that they never left their metropolis area

But there this complaints how geeks spaces don’t want black people in it

Black activists: Why don’t white people want us in it?!

Me: Every since we somehow switch from racial equality to black supremacy

Hmm what we done in media? Oh yeah let start in black Panther where

1. They made a oversized shantytown with different African cultures, many of which hate each other guts

2. Expect to believe that everyone with sympathies with the main antagonist, now the movie did point out Killmonger was a hypocrite because he took a mask that didn’t belong to wakandans because he felt like it. And did the exact things he bitch about white colonizers to Wakanda

Though the irony is that Killmonger represents a lot of bitter black supremacists with a pan Africa fetish

Oh oh fantasy, my Indian friend pointed out that the issued with modern fantasy is that they are using a post mayflower American structure vs any form of feudalism

Because my chimera republic made realize it more easier to create black fantasy characters in a colonial and beyond world like ones based off George Carver or Bass Revees

Also like that black elf in rings of power and black Aragon, the problem to me that they look like larpers especially the black elf

Pssst modern Hollywood hairstylists, the fade was a post ww2 thing black men started after vets return from duty, so it automatically stick out for most black people

Also if you want to use Middle Ages hairstyles for black characters. Just go to the tribes that exist as many hairstyles we use today are thousands of years old and if you stretch it to the 13 century you have enough resources for reference

Actually someone pointed out that lot of fantasy places have LA demographic structure, this got me thinking and I’m paraphrasing

Who more bigoted?

My countryhick West Virginia friend who gave me a lot of insight on American history including my people and you who help me try to research west African cultures like the Yoruba?

Or the colored hair, glasses, usually upper middle class feminists that rarely interact with non whites unless they’re genetrifed and lived in gated communities?

Keep in mind a lot of them write or influence current fantasy stuff

Oh I mean when I say do leftists see history as a Disney cartoon because how they talk about people “Indigenous people wouldn’t do that to their native lands!” Well that because most tribes learn from the mistakes of their ancestors, like modern American farming- Holy shit Dave is right that they never left their metropolis area

Not all of them, but for the most part ya, it's respect for the land created after generations of learning that it's important to respect the land, with a additional healthy sized dose of religion and remembering to thank the land and everything else that provides for their needs.

"Noble Savage" is the term you're looking for there, "soft bigotry of lowered expectations" is another one you'll see a lot and not just for natives.

Low hanging fruit in Berkeley talking about why voter ID laws are bad and racist because black people may not know how to get one, or be able to afford one, or even get to the dmv.

youtube

Forever funny

But there this complaints how geeks spaces don’t want black people in it

Geek spaces are welcoming and inclusive, they just want you to geek out with them and not start trying to force changes, I honestly don't blame some people for gatekeeping their hobbies. People are coming in and demanding changes to fit their sensibilities and what not and when they're done the 'space' completely different.

That and all the other stuff you mentioned as well.

The question to ask is, why are you in this particular fan space if you are going to change 80% of it, can you maybe just make your own instead?

Oh oh fantasy, my Indian friend pointed out that the issued with modern fantasy is that they are using a post mayflower American structure vs any form of feudalism Because my chimera republic made realize it more easier to create black fantasy characters in a colonial and beyond world like ones based off George Carver or Bass Revees

Look up the show Firefly, if you don't already know about it. There's two really good SciFi western tv shows and neither of them are Westworld, the one besides Firefly is The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr. and it's there in my list because it stars Bruce Campbell.

Which actually you might give that one a look too,

Keep forgetting how much of a giant Julius Carry was, it's got a lot of steampunk elements and it's funny as heck.

Mentioning Bass Reeves made me think of that.

Also like that black elf in rings of power and black Aragon, the problem to me that they look like larpers especially the black elf ECT

Never saw the show, but everything I did see told me they had zero respect for the source material so I didn't expect respect for anything else to appear.

Hair thing we have current year references that since as you said, they haven't really changed them up much in the last few thousand years.

Who more bigoted? My countryhick West Virginia friend who gave me a lot of insight on American history including my people and you who help me try to research west African cultures like the Yoruba? Or the colored hair, glasses, usually upper middle class feminists that rarely interact with non whites unless they’re genetrifed and lived in gated communities?

I'm sure you already know the answer. As a generalization at least.

The joke about internet racists being a tolerant group of people, 'they don't care what race you are so long as you're racist' actually pans out to be fairly true a lot of the time.

Granted a lot of them aren't actually terribly racist, they just like to be able to rip on each other and like doing it Eric Cartman style, le edgy people.

The "Anti-racists" are the ones to watch out for, that's the people from berkeley in that video up there.

It's performative for them, look at how tolerant and accepting I am.

Like this.

I know it's what you want there my whatever you are, but there's a multitude of reasons why this

won't be happening, but I'm sure you've managed to take great strides in the effort to eradicate racism and didn't just totally become a joke for millions of people of all colours.

Except maybe this creature

I love how that's become a insult to people for some reason, she just called him a individual thinker and is mad because he doesn't support the hive mind.

Granted any positive accomplishment in the black community is greeted with several different cheers about how they all share in that accomplishment, but when bad shit happens all of a sudden we're not a monolith.

That's human psychology tho so not much more to expect from that honestly.

Multimillionaire tv host saying she's oppressed and that black people can't make it in the US will forever be funny to me, also sad because that sentiment is holding people back by saying things like that, since it's discouraging, why should I try if I've got no chance to make it anyhow.

May as well just get mine any way I can or maybe lay down and give up.

#zoomer huey anon

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imjustsoscaredallthetime · 2 years ago

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Yuh know seh wicked cyah done?

Thank you for informing me that I am dating a white person. I wasn't aware that was going on in my life so I'm happy you figured it out and let me know! Last time I checked I was single but apparently not, my mistake, thanks again.

Furthermore, the search function on here isn't half bad and I found everything you're saying you didn't see pretty easily. One search of jamaica and I found it all, and as an aside, I was reblogging stuff about dancehall music up to yesterday morning so like... what?? Also you don't have to pretend, mi know seh yuh nuh like battyman, it's fine. Your interpretation of my "Jamaicanness" is fine by me cause there's a lot in our culture than needs fixing so if I fall short of being the "perfect" Jamaican to you I'm cool with that.

Also funny you should say all of that when I've had a Ukrainian in my notifications saying that I'm racist because I called them out for their treatment of POC. I'm not begging friends with any white people either so we can agree on that point.

I haven't scrolled through your page so see you advocating to black Palestinians so I didn't know you were referring solely to their cultural paradigm in the context of this video. Reiterating, I was simply trying to clarify as I do when I think people are confused and I want to do some reading.

I'll admit that my activism & education hasn't been equal on all issues. Yeah I'm aware that antiblackness exists in every culture on Earth, and upon further introspection I can certainly speak more about the things going on in Africa and about issues black ppl elsewhere are facing.

I don't know everything about everything, but jeez your outlook on the world seems bleak. I don't think "not being a monolith" is inherently a bad thing. After a nuh we one, and I'm not saying just because other cultures do something we should follow them. However, I like muticulturalism, and it isn't necessarily a symptom of our disunity/disaggregation. And it's so dark not to have hopes for the future generation cause how are you gonna look at children and automatically assume they're gonna be demons? Sorry but that's just too dark for me, call me naïve but if I was to think like that then may as well mi drop dung and dead cause by that logic there's no hope for future generations of black kids to rise above the shit we face. We're always gonna be oppressed and they'll always be oppressors, no use to even fight it.

At the end of the day, I was never trying to beg you to support a cause, just trying to make you see why I do what I do and why I'm speaking up the way I am. I don't believe in telling people to side with their oppressors and my bad if it ever came across like I was doing that. The way I see it, this is a part of the fight against white supremacy and that's what I'm prioritizing right now. That isnt your priority and that's fine, but lowe me mek mi do my thing.

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nkjemisin · 2 years ago

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ooh i saw your tags on a post about horizon forbidden west! do you mind me asking, what didn’t you like about the game? was it some of the writing or characters? my guess would be the Ancestors and/or Sylvens….. but i admit, the plot was secondary for me because I was having so much fun running around as Aloy: riding sunwings and exploring subterranean Las Vegas and swimming in the San Francisco Bay. and like you said, it’s SO visually beautifully, so i have on rose-colored lenses when it comes to both games. but i’m always interested in what other folks think about them because no game is perfect. anyway thanks! :D

Well, I tried to explain this once before and Tumblr ate it; let's see if I can do it this time.

My biggest issue with the game was that it had worldbuilding fails in specific areas -- namely wherever the devs were reluctant to let go of their own culture. It's a common flaw in worldbuilding that I talk about all the time; I did a Masterclass that addressed it in greater depth, but since I can't share that, here's a presentation I did a few years ago. (Note that the slides are meant to be accompanied by my verbal explanations and examples, so if something's not clear, that's probably why.) Anyway, in that presentation, I don't really have a name for this "fear of straying from the familiar," but I note that it's everywhere in SFF, and it's one of the reasons that so many "original" fictional cultures end up feeling like "us all over again, but they wear funny clothes." Usually those "us again" cultures feel a lot like medieval Europe, specifically, for reasons of historical racism and Eurocentrism -- and in the game, that's the Quen, Oseram, and Carta. Like, clothes aside, Avad was more Louis the XIV (also called the Sun King) than Rameses II or Moctezuma -- and there was no real reason for the Carta to feel familiar at all. And I'm pretty sure this is also why the few societies which structurally resembled any Indigenous American cultures (Tenakth, Nora, Banuk) were framed as innately tech-backwards and dangerously superstitious -- because that's how white supremacy and scientific racism have taught us to think about them, even though many Indigenous societies had tech advancements colonial Europe hadn't mastered (offhand: public health and sanitation, agricultural techniques, land management techniques that are damn near terraforming, much more). But it fit the pattern: all the places where the worldbuilding fell flat were where the creators could not for whatever reason give up the things they found familiar and comforting about our current world, whether they made sense for the future or not. I also think this is why the story in the second game landed squarely on racial and gender/sexual tropes that most writers know better than to deploy unironically these days, like The Black Guy Dies First and Depraved Homosexuals, and more. And I think this is the source of the game's cringier moments, like the weird nostalgic paeans to Vegas and the US military.

Then there's the game's United Colors of Benetton-style handling of race -- lots of superficial diversity, but a curious aversion to exploring its implications in any meaningful way. There was none of this aversion when it came to exploring disability, class, or sexuality. And meanwhile they can animate every strand of Aloy's flowing locks, but only one character gets kinky hair? (Why would anybody remark on Aloy's hair color when Varl is the real hair-unicorn in this game?) That made it obvious that the problem was unease with the whole concept of race on the part of the decision-makers, in-game and IRL.

So tl,dr; the devs couldn't or wouldn't decenter themselves, and so sacrificed story quality and plausibility in order to maintain completely unnecessary Americentrism, jingoism, patriarchy, capitalism, etc.

Now, I want to emphasize: I also play the shit out of this game, and will buy the third game whenever it happens. It is genuinely beautiful and mostly does a good job of creating a world that feels plausible and lived in. It comes so close, in fact, that I suspect editorial interference; that is, I suspect some of the flaws I see were inserted by non-writers at the company, because they're too glaring for writers of any skill -- the skill necessary to make everything else we see in the game -- to have missed. Maybe I'm letting the writers off too easy, but I always try to remember that writing within a corporate environment for a multimillion dollar investment, with decision-makers whose egos must be appeased, is a whole other ballgame from writing for yourself. But it's frustrating to see good writing, and see so obviously that it could've been great writing.

Well, maybe in the third game.

ETA: Minor edits for clarity, because that’s how I roll.

#answered asks #gaming #horizon zero dawn #horizon forbidden west #long post

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pumpumdemsugah · 2 years ago

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Back when there were lots of Black people on here, when Black women would talk about our experiences it would be about desexualisation, hyper-sexualisation, people treating racialised misogyny as if it's not misogyny but now when Black women come up it's a bunch of whites saying Black women experience transphobia and never actually going into any detail about why Black trans women in Brazil and the US high murder and poverty rates ( it's the sex industry, white supremacy impoverishing Black people and their families kicking them out ). Cis women can never relate or experience what trans women do but somehow an entire race of them is experiencing transphobia, this isn't race related though, don't ask how because that's how the fascist win : )

Turning Black women into a modern pseudo 3rd gender because of our race ( and intersex ppl which is funny coming from the genitalia doesn't equal gender crowd) isn't wildly racist and othering because trans white people get to feel included . Now the stereotyping of Black women created by slave masters to excuse mass rape and chattel slavery wasn't dehumanisation but Black women having actual weird bodies that just don't fit because there is ONE type of 'Black body' but this isn't white supremacy

White supremacy is never the core issue for white people playing solidarity so they always get to be relevant in Black women's stories

White supremacy and the legacy of slavery is never central when these people bring up Black women just vaguely gesturing at transphobia without explaining ( why avoid race ?) even though Black men are subject to the same legacy of slavery, they're not experiencing some weird gender body thing, unlike Black women but this isn't misogynoir. This type of othering isn't racist because it's solidarity if you shut your brain off so now radiqueer whites feel comfortable bringing up Black women unprompted when they're questioned on saying something stupid. This isn't using Black women as rhetorical shields because some Black person on twitter agrees with me and is also pushing using different pronouns for when Black and white people talk to them. This person doesn't have a self hate issue and hasn't internalised being Othered because they agree with me

Almost like they're opportunistic racist that are scared of Black men so don't bring them up unless they're downplaying sexism and misogyny that Black women never experience in a "normal" way because whitey said so. Treating Black women as Othered things to compare themselves to to feel human isn't racist because they said the right combo of catchphrases and said intersectionality.

#blah #queer #radiqueer #trans #i hate white ppl so much #they love pretending their entitlement and glib shit is helpful #misogynoir #black women #black feminism

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aro-comics · 4 years ago

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Fashion Analysis (Part 2: Outside of Amatonormativity Alone)

[Note: This post is a part of a series analyzing self-expression, fashion, aromanticism, and how they interact with other parts of identity. For full context please read the whole thing!]

Outside of Amatonormativity Alone: Sexism, Homophobia (and/or Transphobia), Racism, Ableism, and Other Factors That can Impact Self Expression

My comic was originally meant to be a light hearted joke. I’d always been told I’d want to dress up one day, be pretty and feminine once I fell in love with a boy (BLEGH). I was so certain that I would never do that, and now … here we are. I put lots of effort into my appearance, present feminine, all in the hopes I’ll impress a very special someone - a potential employer at a networking event. I think there’s a certain irony to all of this, and I do find it funny that I managed to both be wrong and completely subvert amatonormative stereotypes!

But having the chance to think about the whole situation, I realize now that my changes in presentation reflect far more. The pressure I felt to dress differently are still influenced by fundamental forms of discrimination in society, and I would be remiss to not address these inherent factors that were tied with my experiences alongside my aromanticism. So in this section, I will briefly cover some of these factors and summarize how they can influence people’s self expression as a whole, before discussing my own experiences and how these factors all intersect.

Sexism

The pressure on women In This Society to uphold arbitrary norms is ever present and often harmful, and while I wish I had the time to discuss the impacts of every influence the patriarchy has on personal expression, to even try to cover a fraction of it would be impractical at best for this essay. Instead, since the original comic focuses on professionalism and presentation, this is what I will talk about here.

Beauty standards are a specific manifestation of sexism that have a deep impact on how people perceive women. It’s a complicated subject that’s also tied with factors like capitalism, white supremacy, classism, and more, but to summarize the main sentiment: Women are expected to be beautiful. Or at least, conform to the expectations of “feminine” “beauty” as ascribed by the culture at large.

They also tend to be considered exclusively as this idea that "women need to be beautiful to secure their romantic prospects, which subsequently determines their worth as human beings. The problematic implications of this sentiment have been called out time and time again (and rightfully so), however there is an often overlooked second problematic element to beauty standards, as stated in the quote below:

“Beauty standards are the individual qualifications women are expected to meet in order to embody the “feminine beauty ideal” and thus, succeed personally and professionally”

- Jessica DeFino. (Source 1)

… To succeed personally, and professionally.

The “Ugly Duckling Transformation” by Mina Le (Source 2) is a great video essay that covers the topic of conforming to beauty standards through the common “glow up” trope present in many (female focused) films from the early 2000s.

“In most of these movies, the [main character] is a nice person, but is bullied or ignored because of her looks.”

Mina Le, (timestamp 4:02-4:06)

Generally, by whatever plot device necessary, the ugly duckling will adopt a new “improved” presentation that includes makeup, a new haircut, and a new wardrobe. While it is not inherently problematic for a woman to be shown changing to embrace more feminine traits, there are a few problems with how the outcomes of these transformations are always depicted and what they imply. For starters, this transformation is shown to be the key that grants the protagonist her wishes and gives her confidence and better treatment by her peers. What this is essentially saying is that women are also expected to follow beauty standards to be treated well in general, not only in a romantic context, and deviation from these norms leads to the consequences of being ostracized.

The other problematic element of how these transformations are portrayed are the fact that generally the ONLY kind of change that is depicted in popular media is one in the more feminine direction. Shanspeare, another video essayist on YouTube, investigates this phenomenon in more detail in “the tomboy figure, gender expression, and the media that portrays them” (Source 4). In this video, Shaniya explains that “tomboy” characters are only ever portrayed as children - which doesn’t make any sense at face value, considering that there ARE plenty of masculine adult women in real life. But through the course of the video (and I would highly recommend giving it a watch! It is very good), it becomes evident that the “maturity” aspect of coming of age movies inherently tie the idea of growth with “learning” to become more feminine. Because of the prevalence of these storylines (as few mainstream plots will celebrate a woman becoming more masculine and embracing gender nonconformity) it becomes clear that femininity is fundamentally associated with maturity. It also implies that masculinity in women is not only not preferred, it is unacceptable to be considered mature. Both of these sentiments are ones that should be questioned, too.

Overall, I think it is clear that these physical presentation expectations, even if not as restrictive as historical dress codes for women have been, are still inherently sexist (not to mention harmful by also influencing people to have poor self image and subsequent mental health disorders). Nobody should have to dress in conformity with gender norms to be considered “acceptable”, not only desirable, which leads us to the second part of this section.

Homophobia (and/or Transphobia)

So what happens when women don’t adhere to social expectations of femininity? (Or in general, someone chooses to present in a way that challenges the gender binary and their AGAB, but for the sake of simplicity I will discuss it from my particular lens as a cis woman who is pansexual).

There are a lot of nuances, of course, to whether it’s right that straying from femininity as a woman (or someone assumed to be a woman) will automatically get read a certain way by society. But like it or not, right or not, if you look butch many people WILL see you as either gay, (or trans-masculine, which either way is not a cishet woman). This is tied to the fact that masculinity is something historically associated with being WLW (something we will discuss later).

This association of breaking gender norms in methods of dress with being perceived as a member of the LGBTQ+ community has an influence on how people may choose to express themselves, because LGBTQ+ discrimination is very real, and it can be very dangerous in many parts of the world.

I think it’s very easy to write off claims in particular that women are pressured into dressing femininely when it is safer to do so in your area; but I really want to remind everyone that not everyone has the luxury of presenting in a gender non-conforming way. This pressure to conform does exist in many parts of the world, and can be lethal when challenged.

And even if you’re not in an extremely anti-LGBTQ+ environment/places that are considered “progressive” (like Canada), there are still numerous microagressions/non-lethal forms of discrimination that are just as widespread. According to Statistics Canada in 2019:

Close to half (47%) of students at Canadian postsecondary institutions witnessed or experienced discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity or sexual orientation (including actual or perceived gender, gender identity or sexual orientation).

(Source 3)

Fundamentally this additional pressure that exists when one chooses to deviate from gender norms is one that can not be ignored in the conversation when it comes to how people may choose to express themselves visually, and I believe the impacts that this factor has and how it interacts with the other factors discussed should be considered.

Neurodivergence (In general):

In general, beauty standards/expectations for how a “mature” adult should dress can often include clothing that creates sensory issues for many autistic people. A thread on the National Austistic Forum (Source 6) contains a discussion where different austistic people describe their struggles with formal dress codes and the discomfort of being forced to wear stiff/restrictive clothing, especially when these dress codes have no practical purpose for the work they perform. If you’re interested in learning more on this subject, the Autisticats also has a thread on how school dress codes specifically can be harmful to Autistic people (Source 7).

In addition to potentially dressing differently (which as we have already covered can be a point of contention in one’s perception and reception by society as a whole), neurodivergence is another layer of identity that tends to be infantilized. Eden from the Autsticats has detailed their experiences with this in source 5.

Both of these factors can provide a degree of influence on how people choose to express themselves and/or how they may be perceived by society, and are important facets of a diverse and thoughtful exploration of the ways self-expression can be impacted by identity.

Also, while on this topic, I just want to take a chance to highlight the fact that we should question what is considered “appropriate”, especially “professionally appropriate”, because the “traditional” definitions of these have historically been used to discriminate against minorities. Much of what gets defined as “unprofessional” or otherwise “inappropriate” has racist implications - as an example, there is a history of black hairstyles being subjected to discriminatory regulation. Other sources I have provided at the end of this document (8 and 9) list examples of these instances.

Racism (being Chinese, specifically in this case):

For this section, I won’t be going into much depth at all, because I actually have a more detailed comic on this subject lined up.

So basically, if you were not aware, East Asian (EA) people tend to be infantilized and viewed as more childish (Source 10). In particular, unless an EA woman is super outgoing and promiscuous (the “Asian Bad Girl” stereotype, see Source 10), IN MY OPINION AND EXPERIENCE it’s easy to be type casted as the other end of the spectrum: the quiet, boring nerd. On top of this too, I’ve had experiences with talking to other EA/SEA people - where they themselves would repeatedly tell me that “Asians are just less mature”, something about it being a “cultural thing” (Yeah … I don’t know either. Maybe it’s internalized racism?).

Either way, being so easily perceived as immature (considering everything discussed so far) is also tied to conformity to beauty standards and other factors such as sexism and homophobia, which I believe makes for a complex intersection of identity.

[Note from Author: For Part 3, click here!]

#NotAComic #Fashion #FashionAnalysis

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manforsale · 4 years ago

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It’s funny considering yesterday they were trying to save face by getting a Puerto Rican fan (called them Mexican bc what other country are Latines from??) to tell them that their fic wasn’t violently racist. And now a little over 24 hours later they’re apologizing again saying that they understand what they did wrong. Really do you understand? Do you understand that upholding white supremacy is a serious issue and a mindset that takes more than a day to start removing yourself from from or is it just because the big meanies on tumblr started calling you out?? And then the transphobic vitriol that’s present in every disgusting “femininity is better than masculinity” post they make and there are SEVERAL. It falls into borderline TERF rhetoric if it isn’t already terfy. It’s hilarious at this point how pathetic they are because they STILL found little ways to victimize themself in that apology. They AGAIN put the blame on trans people and people of color for ‘misrepresenting’ them. This is a person who goes on doing all the crap they do until someone calls them out and that’s when they’re like “oh but I never meant to do that I never knew that that was a bad thing uwu” and then after a bit of time passes they do it again. People like Koraliss never learn from their mistakes because they’re too concerned with how they feel indignant about being called out and not about the people they hurt.

#it’s so fucking stupid and honestly just like I know you’re doing it for your own benefit #billy.txt #billy.speaks #down with big ph

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icarus-suraki · 4 years ago

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Since I seem to enjoy Starting Shit on the Internet today, I'm going to share some thoughts on the OnlyFans debacle.

First: sex work is real work. I said it, I believe it, that settles it.

It seems a lot of people (often young women, I've noticed?) are really celebrating OnlyFans banning all NSFW content. They’re having a great time saying things about how they hope all the (cis) men who liked NSFW OnlyFans content die mad about the NSFW ban and so on. It’s downright gleeful. And it seems like they're celebrating on the grounds of stopping trafficking and protecting minors and so on. And that's a noble thing, ending trafficking and protecting minors--do not misunderstand me: trafficking and abuse of minors is a real and serious issue and I absolutely support ending trafficking, rescuing victims, and protecting minors.

It is my opinion (insert Vine here) that OnlyFans banning NSFW content is going to hurt sex workers and also will do absolutely nothing to protect minors or stop trafficking.

A considerable number of people here in the US lost their jobs during the pandemic. And, among those people, are those who desperately need income. They're of age, they're legally allowed to do these things, and they need some way to survive. And, in the absence of a UBI or even a country that seems to care about the wellbeing of its own citizens, you have to find a way to survive. And a lot of the people who found themselves unemployed discovered that they could earn enough of an income through OnlyFans to actually survive. They could keep the lights on, get food, pay for medication, put gas in their car so they could drive to job interviews. It became a means of self-employment.

Are you thinking of the people on OnlyFans and elsewhere who are doing sex work as actual people? Or are they just a mass, just a concept, onto which you can project your ideals of Purity Culture? You’re giggling gleefully about unhappy men with blue balls, but I feel like you’re forgetting the women who are still stuck in a Capitalist situation.

"But they didn't start doing it willingly!" You can't prove that that's true for everyone on the site. You cannot prove that. You do not speak for everyone. Maybe some people turned to OnlyFans out of desperation, sure. But others may have felt relieved that they had it there. Others may have even felt liberated or enjoyed the work. I don't know. And you don't know either.

"But if you make sex work legal, that makes trafficking easier!" Yes, yes, I've seen the whole "Nordic System" argument. I've read it. My issue with it is that everyone is using it in the wrong way.

Remember when Oregon decriminalized possession of small amounts of most drugs? It was a decision made on the grounds of harm reduction. If you won’t get arrested for having some crack in your pocket, you can feel safer. Look at what the War on Drugs has accomplished: legal slavery and police brutality. It doesn’t work. And it’s an excellent experiment to try something else.

If sex work is declared protected or legal (and banks and credit cards cannot therefore refuse payment made to legal providers of the service), then any sex worker who is threatened, abused, harmed, attacked can make a report without fears of repercussions for doing sex work. Do you know how many sex workers are killed? If only there were some way to report a threat or a risk to the police without repercussions...

Beyond that: if someone is trafficked and they make a report about what's happening to them, it can be taken seriously because sex work is considered a legitimate area and trafficking would be very much outside the laws related to sex work. Same thing with minors in the same situation: it’s outside the laws, so it’s a crime, but someone reporting it would not be held as a criminal themselves. Collateral damage.

To go back to Oregon for a minute: if you decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs, are you going to stop drug deals altogether? No. Oregon knows that too. But you can assist the people who do use drugs when they come forward with information about, say, murders connected to drug deals. And you can also provide a means for them to leave their situation if they so choose.

Yes, ACAB, but we can at least provide a measure of protection to people who need assistance. See how this works? If a sex worker knows about minors being abused or trafficking going on and they make a report about it, they themselves don't have to worry about getting caught up and charged for also being engaged in sex work.

More protection for more people.

Lastly, and this might make you mad, you can thank the US Conservatives for a lot of this.

It’s the good ol’ Moral Majority come back from the dead. Again.

Any time someone yells about pedophiles or trafficking, it gets everyone concerned--and rightly so. But the problem is that it immediately becomes "if you're not overtly against it, then you must be tacitly for it, so agree to this bill." And so, anyone who's progressive or vaguely left-leaning signs off on legislations or statements about how sex work is bad and sinful.

But in doing this one thing, the US Conservatives and especially the Conservative Evangelicals of the US, can then convince more and more people to sign off on a longer and longer list of laws or beliefs that the Conservative Evangelicals want to push through. That’s their goal: to push through their ideas of a Good and Wholesome Christian Nation, with all the white supremacy and misogyny and homophobia and transphobia that entails.

So you start off with the existing laws regarding sex work, then you start sliding into "all of these kinds of sex work are illegal" and then "all sex work is illegal" and then "all pornography of all kinds is banned" and then you start slipping into lawmaking like ending access to birth control (because that encourages casual sex) and ending the rights of LGBTQ people (because "perversion"). You've seen it before, you could see it again. (And yet we can't seem to get child marriage completely banned in the US. Funny how that works.)

I don't mean to "slippery slope" this stuff but, trust me, it seems bad now but it can get so much worse. And I hope it doesn’t get worse.

“If you’re a feminist, how can you be in favor of sex work?” Because sex work is work. And, if you look back through history, you’ll find that banning sex work and punishing sex workers didn’t make things better, it drove everything down deeper and made everything worse. Less safety, less security, more risk, more punishment.

It seems like a shallow version of feminism if all you’re doing is sneering at cis men and turning up your nose at sex workers. I think you ought to reexamine your beliefs.

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tired-fandom-ndn · 4 years ago

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I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on RPF, if you’re willing to share? /gen

RPF is a very complicated thing that I have varied thoughts on?

RPF is, honestly, not about the people themselves. It's about their public personas, characters that share their names and some things with the people they're based on. We don't actually know anything about the celebrities that we write about, only what they choose to share (and how much of that is true is up to them).

(Disclaimer: I'm using a general "we" here. I do not write or read RPF.)

RPF is actually something that people have been writing for centuries, about royalty originally and then shifting over to over public figures. It's not like it's something new or surprising or even particularly weird.

With that being said, the way we approach RPF now has radically changed because we lack the distance between ourselves and these figures. We can interact directly with these people, and often do, through things like twitter and those people can access the things written about them if they choose to. Some writers send those people their RPF directly.

That lack of distance means a lack of privacy and personal boundaries. People ask their favorite celebrities invasive questions about their relationships and personal lives, try to pressure them into coming out as [insert identity], pick apart every interaction they have with other people, and have a direct impact on their relationships.

You could argue that this is normal, that fans are interacting with the persona rather than the person, but that about internet celebrities? Youtubers and podcasters and the like, people who are just chilling and doing their own thing and having fun? They're not real celebrities, they don't have PR teams or people managing their social media or anything like that. Many of them are still active on sites like tumblr or part of fandom spaces themselves.

We're at a point where we as fandoms need to really sit down and rethink the "rules" we've had for RPF because things are changing and we can't continue this way. Many of the internet celebrities people are writing about are minors, some of them related, and I'm worried for their health and safety with people treating them like they're characters.

Historical RPF is both more simple and more complicated than modern RPF for different reasons. The privacy issues aren't relevant here, but what about the social messages we're sending?

When we write stories about slave owners being so uwu cute, or turn people who orchestrated the deaths of thousands of Natives into a fun cartoon character, what are we telling the people directly impacted by those things? Is it ethical to write funny stories about a man who was known for raping slaves? What about someone who used biological warfare to commit genocide? In this age of civil rights movements and rising prejudice and the revival of white supremacy, can we afford to do anything that sanitizes the actions of those before us?

Don't write about school shooters. No, I don't care what your reasoning is. I don't fucking care. Those people still have living victims. Their dead victims still have grieving family members. Many of those families are still being harassed and accused of faking their loved ones' deaths. Have some fucking compassion.

#anonymous #rpf discourse

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synthmusic91 · 4 years ago

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thoughts? kjfhlkjdfh asking bc i rb'd the original post from u a bit ago because i agreed w/ original poster but i just saw this rb of it and wanted to know what u thought. ciaran(.)tumblr(.)com /post/652413157345820673/there-is-a-genre-of-posts-thats-obsessed-with-the

well first of all i hope this isn't a bait ask. this reply really doesn't deserve the time and effort i put into refuting it, but there was a point in time when i was emotionally confused by these..."arguments", so whoever u are, anon, i hope this is helpful. i also recommend some distance - literally, "go outside and touch grass", which is a lot more difficult than it sounds, but it needs to be done. anyway, here's my "analysis":

for context, here's what the post in question said:

and the tags:

at a high level, we can see that what ciaran is saying doesn't really respond to what OP was talking about. for this reason, i'm not going to bring in much of what OP said, because it's uncontested in this context, and look at ciaran's reply. i'll try to break this up...

EDIT: i had a long-ass response here, but then i realized it was dumb because the source material is dumb. i cut out most of it, but here are the highlights.

"there is a genre of posts that’s obsessed with the notion that fandom is something much larger, more prevalent, and more able to affect the way media is processed and consumed, than it actually is in reality."

so, as we can all see on tiktok and, indeed, on the electronic lore olympus billboard that takes up a side of a literal skyscraper, fandom is no longer the niche thing that "fandom olds" make it out to be. also, we can't ignore how many (white) fandom players go on and work in the industry (cassandra clare, whoever wrote 50 shades, man idk much of anything so there's probably many more). so this comment is sort of myopic. and since this is what characterizes the rest of the reply, well...it's not great.

also don't look up lore olympus; it's basically a dd/////lg fanfic that happens to be one of the most popular series on the line webtoon app, which is rated for teens...and for $1 to the creator's patreon, you can view not sfw p*dophilic art, so. also obviously i didnt do that; there was a video essay about this. i can't find it though

"ironically but understandably, these posts are made by people who are so terminally fandom-poisoned that they ascribe phenomenal power to it, and think of it as some great evil that must be defeated (by making posts on tumblr, which is obviously a very influential thing to do)"

"fandom-poisoned" is such a nebulous term, especially since it appears to mean "has had some really significant, (in this context) bad experiences with fandom." this is, first of all, a huge assumption to make about a stranger, and second, not the own they think it is. i'm just going to link this post, and hopefully you can see how it relates.

anyway, the "making posts on tumblr is meaningless" is um...interesting, seeing as off the top of my head i can think of two very influential tumblr blogs that talk about really important issues, Gradient Lair and Red Light Politics. I don't know as much about Red Light Politics, but Gradient Lair is frequently cited by academics (not getting into academia nonsense now but... -_-). also, they sound more pissed that the original post did gain traction, but whatever. this paragraph doesn't really make sense, but nothing here does, because i wasn't given much to work with.

"...and then because these people have basically no imagination and unfailingly pick on others for their own faults, they project their own experiences on everyone they perceive as being more ‘in fandom’ than them,"

jesus christ. i'm going not say anything about the tone of this because i put too much effort into this for some rando to call me a cyberbully.

i think what they're thinking about is how there appear to be some "fandom critical" people who try to, holistically, "ruin everyone's good time" by "stirring up drama" about popular fandom artists/writers/whoever else idk. oftentimes these people will also make jokes about fandom whatever, seemingly picking on random people's interests.

however, if you look at the long history of fandom racism, fandom's normalization of p*dophilia, and even general fandom harassment, and then you look at fandom's visceral, unwarranted reaction to criticism regarding these things, you can quickly see that disillusionment towards fandom is entirely reasonable. as for the joking, well...this an oversimplification but not everyone needs to like what you like. it sounds like they just need to get over themself.

and go “You, a 27 year old queer blogger who is into [tv show/anime/movie] an embarrassing amount, are now going to be the face of Capitalism” with no self-reflection or critical thought given to how fucking cringe it is-"

so, i'm regretting putting so much effort into this because this is so fucking long and i have to analyze this nonsense...it feels like i'm back in my feminist thought class. nightmarish. but anyway, this seems to deal with- [CUT FOR LENGTH. nothing important was missed].

EDIT 2: actually here's a summary of what I had. it deserves better than to be a response to this nonsense, but first it detailed how this took 1. the op's post and 2. a comment that we don't even know if op agreed with and misinterpreted that, and threw quite a fit about this- and i hate to say this because this term is misused so often by redditors, but- strawman.

I then went on to discuss how, for example, PoC can uphold systems of white supremacy. while obviously no person of color is going to be the "face" of white supremacy, the discussion still needs to be had, especially within that group. similarly, while fandom constituents may not be the face of capitalism, there needs to be a discussion, within fandom, on how they support and are defined by capitalist (and other) systems.

it was really too good of a point to be making for this trash reply. I could go say more, but I'm still trying to stay on topic, unlike ciaran.

"to act like random people on the internet, end users with no influence over corporate decisions, are the ones personally responsible for the fact that late-stage capitalism has destroyed popular art and culture in an increasingly sordid attempt to make money."

we've been over the "no influence" bit - because in fact fans do have influence, especially since media creators are literally fans, etc etc. i'm tired of people acting like they have no power and using that as an excuse to support and perpetuate harmful, easily avoidable behavior.

also, to act like the nebulous system of late-stage capitalism is the only cause of bad media is ludicrous. first of all, someone has to make these so-called "corporate decisions", and the people making artistic decisions are, again, overwhelmingly members of "fandom." this comment is really trying to keep marvel trash and lore olympus-esque nonsense in the same atomic, indivisible category lest someone catches a whiff of nuance.

"the above post is a great example of this phenomenon because op admits freely that they only think fandom is destroying media because they have been spending more time in fandom and thus have an over-inflated sense of its importance in greater culture. posting your own Ls indeed."

i'm so tired. this person literally has 120 works on ao3 like...who is spending more time in fandom.

and the tags:

#i assure you that fandom has no bearing on my actual real life #and if it does on yours. then that is your problem #it's also a very funny problem to

now this is just egregiously tone deaf. you do not need to do more than a cursory google search to find a bottomless well of examples of fandom harassment, threats, doxxing, and violence, much of which is racially motivated. you can see why it would be bad to make fun of this.

also the way that “fandom has no bearing on their actual real life“...120 fanfics on ao3. 120.

conclusion:

the reply clearly misinterprets of op's point, and as such, does not refute it. they responded to another issue altogether, which is that of the sanctity of their ~coping mechanism~ or whatever it is. their argument in this respect was, in my opinion, delusional and pathetic, especially given that they wrote it on someone else's unrelated post.

FINAL NOTE: i cut out lots of this because the reply went in so many different directions, so some stuff might not make sense. let me know if you have any questions.

#answered #anonymous #fandom #long post #q slur #s

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thosemintcookies · 4 years ago

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Ok it's wild how for my entire life up until now, I felt like there's been this messaging of "Asians don't have it as bad as other poc"

And like, yeah, you know what? That's true in some ways, especially in terms of the realtive wealth of Asian Americans compared to other poc counterparts.

Its worth it to note that historically, Asians were not enslaved by Whites, and we are settlers, this is not our ancestral land. I think it goes to show that culture and thought is complex. Like, Asian American racism is especially pernicious because statistically, its not as visible as other forms of systemic racism.

(Sure, we've been saying it for decades that stereotypes of our sexual docility or inadequcy, the exoticization and cultural disgust for our food, the lack of media representation, etc etc have been hurting us, but it was always treated like there were bigger issues.)

The thing is, this racism is like this:

1. Asians, being a group thought to voluntarily migrate (and due to a long history of immigration suppression, this migration has to be relatively recent, and therefore conceptually voluntary) are seen as a people who are "more assimilable" and therefore, "better" than other poc

2. Due to the aforementioned recency and voluntary nature of Asian migration to the Americas, the people who are able to migrate tend to be from families with the socioeconomic means to do so. Richer families, higher education. Many Asian Americans are therefore, in a better spot to take on "higher paying" jobs in 2nd gen because we were brought up to value education and wealth. This is a systemic thing, not that "Asians are inherently smarter." Back on our ancestral countries, the seeming "racial" disparities in intelligence disappear.

3. Bans on misegenation and women migrants, preventing Asian men from seeking out sexual intimacy, along with Asian sexual exoticization and fetishization from war propaganda, and then later on, the simultaneous desexualization of our men and hypersexualization of our women. We are seen as sexually unaggressive to White Women and yielding to the White Man.

4. So, here we have a triangulation of things that comprise the Asian American identity in relation to Whiteness. We are seen as malleable and childish, a microcosm of White Settler Colonialism, because after the White people have Colonized, we have become their pet project. The model minority, who are special because we are not seen as incongruous with White supremacy, we are seen as wanting to pander to it through assimilation. And look! We came to the Americas because we *wanted* to! We were not forced here through violence, and we did not suffer genocide! That's practically privilege!

5. Let's not forget that our backgrounds make us Good Workers. We are taught, because of our parents who were able to migrate due to their privileges, that structure is good. Work hard and become more than yourself. And being in a capitalist system, white people are more than willing to exploit that.

6. Unfortunately, Asianness is then pitted against other experiences of racialization and racial injustice. Again, we did not suffer genocide. The removal of our generational stories, the labour we produce, its all painted as voluntary. Nevermind that the feeling of being decentralized in diaspora is only ever so voluntary. How much pain do I feel when I cannot share in the brilliance of my family due to my mother tongue being lost to me?

(But White people can wash their hands of it. We "chose" this)

And yes, it's true that there are ways we have not suffered. We are not seen as dangerous "gangsters". We were not murdered en masse for conquest.

But the deep, rotten root of it all is the same. We could never be equal to White People because they still considered us "not quite human"

That Asian-americans are statistically better off doesn't reveal the true ugliness of our dehumanization because our dehumanization is based on the very notion that we're "White-lite(TM), keep working hard, bud, you'll get there eventually"

But the reality is, it's not a dial that places us closer to social parity. It's a switch. "Dehumanized" or "human". These are the only two options. Thus far, it has been manifesting in our infantilization and exoticism. Patronizingly, we have been given some cessions so that White Supremacy can claim progress because it seems there is a race that is not outright hated by Whites.

But the expression of that racism can turn on a dime, and we can face racist violence and it is completely unsurprising because the logic, the cultural understanding of Asians has stayed consistent. We are still not seen as people.

I want no part in siding with white supremacy. I don't care if Whites have historically given us peanuts which were denied our other poc brothers and sisters. I'm not going to fight for scraps, I'm going to seize the table. There is no future but poc solidarity because the same logic of White Supremacy has been keeping us all down. Our relation to each other is not a hierarchy of race where Asians are in the middle. It is the same dehumanization all around, even if it shows in different ways.

The reality is: my parents being cussed out for their lack of English ability. Them working long, hard, low paying jobs so that we could eat and go to school. My father dying of health complications from being overworked. Never being able to share our generational stories because our tongues are not mutually intelligible. The reality is: being pulled over when we did nothing wrong because the cop thought my parents couldn't argue being ticketed (they couldn't. I've had to deal with cops at 8 years old to speak for them). The reality is: growing up ugly, with a funny name that would be changed to "gung hay, fat choy" and "Ching chong". The reality is: my academic achievements being undervalued because I'm Asian and anything above 80% didn't count. The reality is: "Oh I love Asian women." The reality is: "your English is so good!" The reality is: "Koreans are so much nicer than Chinese, and Indians are way too loud." The reality is we were never welcomed with open arms, and we were never made to feel like we belonged here

I'm going to take a nap now.

#stop asian hate

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mc-slowwalker · 4 years ago

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hahahahha that’s funny lol (saying that the author of the common enemy fics is c!dream) but yeah common enemy definitely won’t fix the issues cause it’s the cycle of violence that they have to break and that definitely will not be fixed easily

woooo syndicate supremacy (I’ve finally learned how to spell syndicate correctly through our conversation lol) they’re definitely doing better than other people on the server and I love that for them! oh yeah either or both c!tommy and c!dream definitely need to reflect on the fact that they’re both make eachother worse. I absolutely loved how that fic handled that aspect of it because closure and freedom is exactly what I want for c!dream and c!tommy more than anything. yeah exactly!! which is why I don’t like the idea of c!dream dying either cause it just leaves everything unresolved. I doubt that’ll happen in canon tho

yea!! can’t wait for the angst! cc!wilbur just posted on reddit about ghostbur so we’ve already got some more of it 😔✌️which also reminds me that I’m sooo interested to see how c!dream is like once he’s out of prison because so much of the fandom believes different thing and there’s no way that he’s gonna be better or changed cause he’s had no opportunity to plus he’s been through terrible torture for so long and I can’t wait to see the effect of that. which also reminds me that I’ve seen lately that a lot of the fandom seems to think that c!dream was put in the prison as a punishment when it was less about that and more about the fact that he could revive people and that his last canon life would have been taken if not for that fact. a lot of the fandom says he deserves the prison but not the torture as a punishment but that’s not why he was put in the prison and if that was the case literally every other character would deserve the same punishment as well as they’re all characters that have done bad things. I feel like my typing is just getting more and more rambly and less and less well punctuated lol sorry

oh yeah those fandom rules definitely make sense. especially as someone who has been in online fandom spaces for like a long time and has seen all the tumblr discourse lol. like yeah those rules were actually not bad and don’t send death threats or harass people shouldn’t have to be said as much as it is in mcyttwt. I really do wish that the young people in this fandom realise that they’re allowed to just have fun and do what they like in fandom

I think that taking into account the fact that a character is a minor is definitely important I just disagree with the way that a lot of people use it as such a final argument that doesn’t leave room for discussion. yeah I’m the same like when I was younger I used to think I was so grown up but like I’m 18 now and I realise that that’s still so young even though at 18 I’m an adult. basically like the “child” argument is not so black and white either like instead of a defence I think it’s more something that should be taken into account when discussing a characters actions and I definitely agree with the characters you’ve added as people who that can be extended to. and yeah like in real life the minors would face soo many more consequences it’s kind of funny like everyone would but with it being such a prominent topic of discussion it’s funnier applying real life rules to dsmp is often so funny. I agree c!tommy should 100% pay taxes that would be hilarious

ooh yeah the three life system interesting cause at first glance you’d think it makes them worth less but evidently not and I do wonder how the characters see it. like you said with c!foolish and c!puffy it was traumatic to take a first life but for some it just seems as chances and the last life is what actually matters. who it’s against and also circumstance I think matters. I also tend to brush off c!tommy taking two of c!dream’s lives but I also tend to brush off the canon lives lost during the first l’manburg war as it was war and c!dteam and co were just better. I suppose I’m an everything but l’manburg apologist because of its foundations ig although I can still understand and acknowledge it’s importance to the characters such as c!tommy. I’ve seen it said that c!dream deserves prison because he took two of c!tommy’s canon, amongst other reasons of course, but so many other characters have taken canon lives and how do you determine the consequence of that in the dsmp cause in irl it’s very different and in the dsmp so far there really is no consequence for murder. like for example c!punz took two of c!wilburs canon lives (I stan him for that I’m a punz simp what can I say) and other characters have taken canon lives too. hmm I wonder what determined the severity of crimes on the dsmp cause the one character that’s in prison wasn’t actually put in there for his crimes.

hahahaha yeah I just can’t wait till we finally don’t have to reach that much

ahaha fair enough I just sometimes type too fast and autocorrect never seems to know what I want to say and I do not have the brain power to proof read a single thing I write. also I type out the asks in notes and after I sent the last one I was like damn that was really long and pasted it into pages to check. and oh my god this one is over a thousand words that’s like longer than one of essays I wrote for my philosophy final exam😭😭 I am so sorry

I will say though that I am quite enjoying this discussion cause it’s the most in depth discussion I’ve been able to have about this

I saw the angst wilbur put on reddit that mother fucker (affectionate) I actually have a rewlly weird relationship with wilbur’s meta lore. Things I accept: sally is a salmon, fridge mom, all the characters being morally gray. Things I don’t accept: whatever he was trying to do with character ages, also saying revivebur was straight when c!tommy saw him and quackity making out like nice try king. One of my biggest issues with the sever is that I get so easily attached to mobs/npcs in dream smp and they die so easy so Im always sobbing,,,, if anything happens to shroud, yogurt, michael (notchill), or fran I’ll mcfucking lose it

For c!dream getting out of prison I see there being only two routes: 1. he’s worse by a lot more evil more fucked up or 2. He’ll be actually too fucked up/tired/traumatized to do shit. Either of which is gonna hurt the sever so I’m looking forward to it personally

Other real life things I think should be implemented into dream smp: jury duty, required 3 life insurance, dentsits, and OSHA

I do think the rebellion against c!dream (in the final control room) is really interrsting in that c!tommy/c!punz was about to organize a bunch of the server against dream? I know c!tommy has amazing puppy eyes tm but c!punz was able to organize a big group of people, half of them didn’t really have that much against dream (other than the l’manburg people) and were only there on more vague terms. Like c!hbomb and c!ponk really didn’t have shit against dream but still helped in getting him into prison

I feel like we’re always gonna have to reach a little bit and oh shit 1,000 words? Bruh half my classes require that and I have yet to actually right that much. it’s way easier with stuff you’re passionate about and with all the content dream smp has gives way more to analyze

#anon #ask #long post #would have typed more but I’m extremely distracted by tubbo getting upset by a video game my b

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jyndor · 5 years ago

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more word vomit on avatar and how it frames marginalized peoples’ desire for revenge from an american, just what the world needed right now

so I have a lot of thoughts about how avatar frames vengeance and forgiveness, in particular for people who are the victims of imperial destruction. I do understand why people think that wanting revenge can make people bitter and disallow healing, and there is some validity to this. and resentment definitely can be an obstacle to healing emotional pain.

hama is a woman traumatized by the genocide of her people, by the unending cruelty of fire nation imperialism. when she develops her bloodbending skills, she feels like she is taking back some control from those who wronged not just her but her culture and civilization. but by becoming the titular puppetmaster, she is victimizing fire nation civilians who have done nothing to her.

she serves as an important foil to katara. in her conversation with zuko in crossroads of destiny, she tells him that he represents the fire nation in her mind, and she even says she is wrong to do that (which is kind of funny given that he did fuck with the gaang a LOT. she would have good reason to think of zuko’s face as being the face of an empire she hates when during a big chunk of the journey, he was the one coming after them) since her pain stems from her mother’s murder. and zuko is not the man who murdered kya.

when the gaang travels through the fire nation, katara is the first to really recognize the impact that imperialism has had on the fire nation’s own citizens. she risks sokka’s timeline and lies to the group about appa being sick just to become the painted lady and save some fire nation citizens. when these people realize that a waterbender has appropriated their sacred spirit, they are furious until sokka tells them that they can fuck off with their shit, and that they are alive to be pissed at her because katara saved them. still katara feels guilty about potentially desecrating such a culturally and spiritually important figure for these people.

when she and zuko go on their glorious ninjas of love and revenge journey to fuck up the southern raiders, katara decides to spare the life of her mother’s killer because she realizes that avenging kya is not going to bring her back or make katara feel better. she would just be killing a shitty old man who doesn’t even care about what he did.

I’ve already talked a bit about why I feel like aang’s forgiveness shit in that episode is fucking stupid and out of character, so I am not going there right now. katara explicitly didn’t forgive yon rha, but she was able to forgive zuko, and this is where I’m gonna bring hama back into this. katara forgiving zuko for the wrongs he did (specifically betraying her in the catacombs of love) makes sense because zuko worked to redeem himself and to make up for his actions.

we don’t know a lot about what hama’s experience was like in the village or while running her inn. aang’s assumption upon hearing that people are going missing in the woods is that the villagers are doing something to make a spirit angry. and that’s interesting, because in the end we are to assume that they didn’t do anything except live as fire nation citizens in a fire nation village unlucky enough to be near hama’s inn.

her desire for justice warping into bitterness and insanity is kind of the crux of the episode. hama ends up imprisoned by the fire nation once again, and this time it’s not because she’s a waterbender standing up to fire nation imperial might, it’s because she hurt innocent people with her waterbending.

and here is where I get conflicted. those fire nation people never did anything to hama in the same way that I personally never did anything to peoples who have been harmed by american imperialism, but because I am an american citizen, and in particular a white american citizen, I have benefited from the violence done to those peoples and their cultures. and I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that those villagers probably are not against fire nation imperialism.

it doesn’t even matter since the point the writers are trying to make is that when your need for justice turns into a need for indiscriminate vengeance, you end up re-victimizing yourself above all else. I think that is an interesting message.

but that brings me to jet.

so jet is way more sympathetic than hama, and it’s not just because he’s a cutie. he is literally the leader of a guerilla group called the freedom fighters, which lol I see you and your social commentary, atla. being "freedom fighters” is how western powers have historically framed the “good” rebels in any given conflict. jet isn’t deliberately targeting innocent civilians, but he isn’t going to stop his attacks just because they might become collateral damage.

jet blurring the lines between fighting for liberation and being a terrorist is a nuanced take on the issue, especially considering when the show aired. jet is characterized by his justifiable anger at the fire nation. he has legitimate grievances, personal grievances.. the irony is that he is willing to put his own people at risk just to get back at the fire nation.

in the second season, despite genuinely wanting to change his ways, jet’s hatred of anyone who is fire nation is what gets him imprisoned and later killed... by his own people, no less. he isn’t smart about how he fights against fire nation imperialism. he loses the moral high ground when he loses sympathy for two refugees just because he thinks he sees iroh heat up his tea with firebending. forget for a moment that zuko and iroh are in fact firebenders and that iroh in particular is quite responsible for damage done to the earth kingdom. when jet decides to go after them, he still thinks of them as refugees. and despite knowing this, jet can’t accept that the fire nation has also hurt its own people in its fight for supremacy.

the story about jet isn’t necessarily dealing with forgiveness, in the same way that hama is never asked to forgive the fire nation for its crimes against her and her people. the narrative suggests that both jet and hama would have been better served if they hadn’t associated fire nation randos with the fire nation military and government. if they had just aimed their anger at the fire nation government.

which... okay, come on. like, I appreciate that I personally have not dropped bombs on weddings in iraq (which of course is itself an invention of the west), but my government is still my government, my tax dollars are my tax dollars. I’m not gonna be offended by some guy in iraq hating americans indiscriminately even though I personally object to my government’s foreign policy. my personal objections didn’t save that guy’s family. murdering american civilians to avenge murdered innocent civilians would be a bad thing, and legitimate grievances wouldn’t stop the us from probably nuking everyone at this point so like I really don’t recommend it.

but the feelings? well, I can’t argue against them because I’ll never, ever understand what it’s like to be on the receiving end of american empire.

context is ALWAYS important. avatar ran in the mid 2000s, during the height of the wars in afghanistan and iraq. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a story about how imperialism harms children took off during a time when these illegal wars of aggression were becoming less and less popular in the states. it is also an american show, written by americans for an american audience. it appropriates several cultures to which the creators do not belong, and it does so lovingly and respectfully... sometimes.

centering conversations about imperialism on the forgiveness of the marginalized peoples is... kinda weird. given that a lot of the peoples that inspired different aspects of the show have been oppressed by western imperialism - the inuit people obviously inspired the southern water tribe, the sun warriors are an amalgamation of different mesoamerican civilizations, the swamp water tribe is influenced by cajun people, not to mention the massive influence drawn from chinese cultures - I think we should have seen some post-war stories in the show (fuck the comics, if you care about things enough to write extra materials, put them in the main medium of your fucking story since otherwise most people will not see them).

stories about reparations from the fire nation. stories about the ethics of removing the descendants of fire nation colonists from the earth kingdom. stories about zuko and katara searching for ursa lol I’m sorry. I think an american audience could have really benefited from those stories.

idk guys, what do you think?

#atla #katara #imperialism #war #meta #i have adhd which is obvious

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