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suffersinfandom · 1 year ago

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Alright, I’m gonna talk about Ed and abuse.

“Why? Why are you spending your precious time on Earth typing about some dumb fandom stuff when you could be doing literally anything else?”

In short, seeing the “Ed is an abuser who’s inevitably going to hurt Stede” takes has been driving me absolutely bonkers since I first noticed them. They’re not going away, so I have to essay about it.

In less-short: it’s because abuse is a serious thing and, as someone who’s experienced it, I get riled when it becomes a topic of discourse in my silly pirate fandom. It’s because it’s upsetting to read meta after meta accusing an indigenous man of being an abuser when the text doesn't support that reading. It’s because a lot of the abuse discourse in the fandom fails to separate real-life abuse from violence in a show. It’s because the vast majority of the abuse talk only acknowledges physical abuse which, while terrible, is not the only kind that hurts people and utterly destroys their lives.

It’s because calling Ed abusive or insisting that he’s a future abuser can harm people who are like him -- people who have suffered abuse or get angry sometimes or have hurt people when they were hurt. Victims of abuse, especially those who dealt with it in childhood, often fear becoming abusers themselves. They bottle up their anger for fear of hurting someone. They hurt themselves in a misguided attempt to protect others. They don’t need to see meta that enforces their fears.

Before I get into it…

I may as well come clean and say that I’m on team Ed absolutely isn’t abusive.

Plenty has been typed in Ed’s defense by POC in the fandom, so I’m not going to go into how deeply unfortunate it would be to make an indigenous main character an abuser. I’m just going to say that, when you consider OFMD’s genre and attitude towards violence, it seems clear to me that you can’t call Ed abusive without calling out other characters unless you have some kind of bias against Ed. His actions are deplorable in the real world, a bit much in OFMD’s world, deeply unhealthy, not okay by any means, and shitty and traumatizing for his crew, but they aren’t abusive.

Remember: Our Flag Means Death is a comedy with tons of over-the-top violence. If your theory is unrelentingly grim or looks at violence and its consequences in a real-world light, consider stepping back and remembering what genre the events of the show are happening in.

And if you think that only the violence committed by the indigenous lead is abuse, look at the actions of the other characters and ask yourself why Ed doesn’t get the same grace you’ve granted the others.

What is abuse in the real world?

Abuse “includes [a pattern of] behaviors that physically harm, intimidate, manipulate, or control a partner or otherwise force them to behave in ways they don’t want to. This can happen through physical violence, threats, emotional abuse, or financial control.” (1)

“Emotional abuse includes non-physical behaviors that are meant to control, isolate, or frighten someone. These behaviors are often more subtle and hard to identify but are just as serious as other types of abuse.” (2)

It’s important to emphasize that not all purposeful harm to another person, physical or otherwise, is abuse. “What abuse really means is control. When a truly abusive situation exists, it’s because one party is seeking to control the other through abuse.” (2)

Abuse is a pattern of behavior that involves one person intentionally harming another. That harm is meant to control, and it can take on more forms than just physical.

In our world, all abuse is terrible. Vitally, our world is not a pirate rom-com.

Adding context: what is abuse in Our Flag Means Death?

Our Flag Means Death is a romantic comedy with one core romantic couple, Ed and Stede, whose story takes priority over everything else. It can be dark, it can be serious, but it is, at its core, a comedy, and not a subtle one at that. (3) Sometimes things are just funny and that’s it.

The show’s meanings aren’t hidden under layers of red herrings and subtext; if you’re compelled to bring out the conspiracy corkboard, you’re probably in too deep.

But this isn’t just a rom-com: it’s a pirate rom-com, and that comes with gratuitous violence. Here’s a short, fun list of examples of things that we can consider canon-typical pirate violence:

Tying hostages to the mast and letting them cook a bit

Wanton murder during a raid (“Note the gusto!”)

Threatening a crush at gunpoint until they stab you

Whippies and yardies

Cutting off toes and feeding them to people “for a laugh”

Literally any violence directed at a racist (this violence is, in fact, good and encouraged)

There’s also the pirate-typical killing of other pirates. Duels don’t seem entirely unusual, and Izzy outright tries to get Stede killed at several points in season one. When Chauncey Badminton and the English navy show up after being summoned by Izzy, Stede’s life isn’t the only one on the line: the rest of the crew is also put in potentially life-threatening danger.

In short, Our Flag Means Death has a lot of violence and peril, and very few instances of violence (looking at you, Hornigold) are treated as anything other than socially acceptable. But do you know what’s really important in the show?

Feelings.

The way characters feel as a result of something is given an immense amount of weight. The show’s subtleties are in the realms of the mental and the emotional, and that’s where the real pain is too.

Nigel Badminton’s death was bad because it was emotionally and mentally devastating for Stede. Ed’s father’s murder was bad because it hurt him and forced him to create a monstrous alter ego to cope. Both of those men -- Nigel and Father Teach -- are totally acceptable casualties. Their deaths would be net positives (in this universe where abusers are punished for their behavior) if they hadn’t had such strong impacts on our leads.

Feelings are everything in Our Flag Means Death, and the feelings of our leads are the heart of the show. That’s where the story is. That’s where the complexity and ambiguity is.

So what is abuse in this context? The casual treatment of physical violence and the seriousness of emotional distress tell us to adjust our own moral judgments accordingly. Physical violence is everyday, straightforward, and often comedic; emotional violence is devastating and complicated. Physical violence is cartoonish and, often, part of a punchline. Emotional violence is real and raw and not a joking matter. Planning to murder a guy and steal his identity can be shrugged off; ditching your boyfriend after experiencing a traumatic event is more complicated.

When we ask ourselves if something in OFMD is abuse, we have to consider the act in the context of a rom-com that’s all about the feelings of two guys, set against the violent backdrop of piracy, and absolutely packed with people getting maimed and murdered in casual, comedic ways.

So...

Is Ed abusive in the context of the show?

No.

Aaaand we’re done!

Joking, joking. Obviously I’m going to pick out the examples of “abuse” that people cite and discuss each one, but first: we need to talk about Ed, violence, and anger.

Ed is not a violent person. He’s not full of rage that’s threatening to erupt at all times, and he’s not some kind of sadist who revels in hurting people. The violence of Blackbeard is a fuckery: it's the theater of fear, an illusion of cruelty calculated to terrify others into surrendering and obeying without (much) bloodshed.

Ed has his whole thing with murder that's rooted in childhood trauma. Killing his abusive father to protect his mother scars him so badly that he distances himself from the situation -- he blames Father Teach’s death on the Kraken, an invented monster. As a pirate, he creates loopholes and rules that technically put one step between him and killing (in his mind). He orders murders and causes deaths and maims and maintains his image as the bloodthirsty Blackbeard, but Ed doesn’t do “the big job” himself until the end of season two. When Stede’s life is in the balance, Ed can kill to protect him.

Edward Teach kills only to protect.

But that’s killing, and we’re talking about general violence. It's true that Ed is casual about the day-to-day violence of piracy. He participates in it, incites it, and doesn’t feel bad about it. No one does; violence is part of the job.

That leaves us with the "anger problem." Ed is sometimes characterized as an angry person who lashes out when enraged, and canon doesn't at all support this interpretation. Ed gets mad, yes, but his anger is always at least understandable (and, in my opinion, he's one of our more restrained characters). It isn’t a constant, simmering thing that turns him into an abusive monster when he’s triggered. He doesn't always deal with his anger -- or any of his other feelings -- in a good and constructive way because both of our leads lack emotional maturity, but I think it's a grave mistake to characterize him as an angry person.

Hopefully I can elaborate on this idea -- the idea that Ed is only violent and angry in a normal and canon-appropriate way, and anger is by no means one of his defining characteristics -- by doing a run-down of all of the times Ed is accused of being abusive or showing signs of being an abuser-in-the-making.

---

Ed loses his shit on a falling snake during his nature adventure with Stede (S1E7). In this scene, he’s embarrassed about the treasure hunt, oblivious to Stede's intentions, and annoyed by the very existence of nature. He is not relaxed. When nature takes him by surprise, he stabs the crap out of it in a scene that is played for comedy. There’s the important part: this is comedy. Ed is grumpy and his childish tantrum is harmless and silly. It isn’t a red flag. Overreacting while irritated isn’t an indicator that someone will be abusive.

Ed punches Izzy after the English have taken the Revenge, captured Stede, and turned Ed over to Izzy (S1E9). Honestly, I think the fact that Ed lets Izzy talk before punching him demonstrates a great deal of restraint on his part. This is justified anger and fear for Stede’s life. This is not an indicator that Ed makes a habit of hitting Izzy.

In his post-pillow fort era, Ed is cleaning up his cabin when Izzy confronts him (S1E10). Izzy insults Ed, tells him that he’d be better off dead than as he currently is, and says that he serves only Blackbeard (Ed better watch his fucking step). Ed reacts by grabbing Izzy by the throat and telling him to choose his next words carefully. This is, in my opinion, a reasonable reaction and exactly the response Izzy was fishing for. The only pattern this scene indicates is one where Izzy goads Ed until he starts performing the violence expected of Blackbeard.

Which takes us to The Toe Scene.

In real life, it would be extremely fucked up for a boss to remove an employee’s toe and make him eat it. OFMD is not real life. One episode earlier, Ed was talking about the life he was glad to leave behind -- the life where The Toe Thing was done “for a laugh.” Not as punishment, but for fun. It’s set up as something that’s gross (“yuck”), not a grave punishment. When Ed feeds Izzy his toe, he gives Izzy what be asked for: he gives him a violent captain. He gives him Blackbeard. He gives him the guy who fed people toes for fun.

But what’s important here is that Ed is not having fun. He’s having a lot less fun than Izzy is, going by their expressions in the scene. This isn’t who he wants to be, but after having the possibility of a better life snatched away, Ed throws himself back into the sure thing. He becomes the Kraken -- the captain Izzy wants, the violent monster that Ed thinks he is and tries to distance himself from, and the only thing Ed thinks he can be. It’s sad. It’s desperation, not anger and abuse.

In the second season, Ed headbutts Stede after he’s revived from his coma-death (S2E4). In the next scene, Stede is holding a cold steak to his face and calling it an accident. Roach says “that’s what they all say” -- a line that alludes to domestic violence. The thing is? It’s not, and the crew has expectations of Ed that Stede doesn’t (as indicated by Stede's earlier assertion that Ed's a nice guy in response to Olu's concern that Ed will kill him).

Ed is freshly out of a coma (or newly alive). He’s nonverbal. His brain is, medically speaking, couscous. He still has one foot in the gravy basket. When he sees the man who left him hovering over him -- the man he loves, the man who just appeared to him as a mermaid -- he tries to say something. When that fails, he resorts to a headbutt. This is a single violent action perpetrated by a confused and hurt man who doesn’t know what to do with all of his feelings. He can't talk. He can't push Stede away.

Stede understands all of this, even if the other characters don’t. He sees the headbutt for what it is: a bit of a bitchy move. He isn’t afraid of Ed. He never is.

Stede also isn’t afraid of Ed when he acts out later that episode. When Ed learns that Stede went back to Mary, he excuses himself from the dinner table, smashes a chair against the wall, and knocks a vase to the ground. In this entire episode (this entire season), Ed is having intense feelings that he doesn’t know how to express or work through. The reveal that Stede returned to his wife is the final straw. He takes his tangled feelings out on an acceptable target (a chair, a vase) instead of Stede because he doesn’t want to hurt Stede.

This looks like displacement -- when “an unacceptable feeling or thought about a person, place or thing is redirected towards a safer target.” Displacement is an “intermediate level coping mechanism.” That is, it’s more sophisticated than the ways children deal with intense issues, but it’s still not entirely mature. In an adult, it indicates a level of emotional immaturity. (4) Ed is emotionally immature, not inherently violent. He gets overwhelmed by his feelings and lashes out -- not at a person, but at something that can’t get hurt.

Displacement is not an indicator that someone is an abuser. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s an attempt at emotional regulation. It’s not the best coping mechanism, but it’s not a sign that someone is going to go into a rage and assault people.

Stede cringes when Ed smashes the chair and sends the vase crashing to the ground, but he’s not afraid of Ed. He is never afraid of Ed because he knows that Ed isn’t a real threat to him. He cringes because sometimes that's what a person does when a loud thing happens. That's what people do when chair shrapnel starts flying. Also? It's kind of embarrassing behavior on Ed's part. They're guests enjoying a mediocre dinner! That's no way to act!

And this leaves us with the first two episodes of season two.

Ed is fully in his Kraken era. He has no hope that Stede will return, he no longer trusts the crew, and he feels trapped in a life he absolutely doesn’t want. He thinks that he has to perform Blackbeard until death sets him free. He sobs in his cabin when no one’s looking. Publicly, Ed fades into the role of remorseless and bloodthirsty pirate captain.

Needless to say, this makes for a shit work environment. Ed works the crew (and himself) too hard. He drinks and does drugs (note that his drug of choice is rhino horn -- visually coded as cocaine -- instead of alcohol, the drug associated with his father) and runs everyone ragged. He’s an absolutely terrible boss, but he isn’t abusive.

That isn’t to say that the crew left on the Revenge isn’t traumatized. They are! They’ve been thrown off balance by the sudden change for the worse in someone who was previously a pretty cool guy, and they’re traumatized by the neverending violence that the constant raids -- raids that are bloody and deadly, not the fuckeries of the past -- demand of them. They’re traumatized by that final night in the storm when Ed does everything in his power to goad them into killing him, almost murdering everyone in the process. They’re traumatized by their own attempt at murder and their own capacities for violence.

In S2E4, Blackbeard’s crew has flashbacks to the violence they perpetrated under the Kraken: Jim fighting Archie, Fang breaking a man over his knee. They’re haunted by guilt about what they did to Ed, as evidenced by their Lady Macbeth-style scrubbing. Their own violence is a significant part of their trauma.

No, that doesn’t absolve Ed. He drove the violence -- demanded it of both the crew and himself. He hurt other people because he was hurting, and that’s terrible.

Ed’s behavior in the first two episodes of season two is horrible, especially when his desperation reaches a fever pitch, but there's no attempt to control and no habitual mistreatment. Nothing he's doing is normal for him. He's spiraling and unraveling and pulling the world apart around him. Not all bad or violent behavior is abuse.

(We also have to ask ourselves just how bad Ed’s behavior really is. Archie, someone from the pirate world who has no idea what the Revenge was like pre-Kraken, tells Jim “that’s how these things usually go” at the height of Ed’s violence. She doesn’t act like she experienced anything out of the ordinary.)

But what about Izzy?

What about Izzy indeed. Let’s walk through the first two episodes.

One of the first things we see Ed do in season two is shoot a man. At first this seems like the show telling us that Ed is embracing the kind of violence he couldn’t manage before, but if we pay attention, we can see that he’s still following his “not a murderer on a technicality” logic. The man he shoots has a sword through his chest; he's as good as dead. He also falls offscreen before Ed shoots, making the action less impactful.

OFMD is not subtle and this is a quick way to communicate what’s going on with Ed. He’s not doing well and he’s more violent than he was last season, but he’s still himself under the Kraken’s makeup. He hasn’t done a moral one-eighty. If the show wanted us to think that Ed's a monster, they would have made him a hell of a lot more violent.

So. Izzy.

Immediately after Ed tells Izzy that he’s replaceable in S2E1, we reach the scene that some point to as proof of domestic violence. This is where Izzy breaks down because he has just been told in no uncertain terms that he’s not Blackbeard’s special little guy. That’s devastating to him, and he cries when the crew approaches him with kindness and sympathy.

Jim tells Izzy he’s in an unhealthy relationship with Blackbeard. Frenchie describes their relationship as “toxic.”

A toxic relationship is “any relationship [between people who] don’t support each other, where there’s conflict and one seeks to undermine the other, where there’s competition, where there’s disrespect and a lack of cohesiveness." (5) And you know what? Yes, Ed and Izzy definitely have a toxic relationship. And is their relationship unhealthy? It sure is -- for both of them. But the crew is, understandably, more sympathetic towards Izzy because they’ve never been present when Izzy was hurting Ed.

(Only tangentially related, but the crew must have really liked Ed pre-Kraken. As far as they know, the man went dark with no warning or cause. They deal with him for approximately three months (assuming one raid a day), and he has to go so far before they put an end to him. Remember when they were ready to toss Izzy overboard after, like, twelve hours under his command?)

Even though they only have one side of the Izzy and Ed story, the crew isn’t accusing Ed of domestic abuse. The term doesn’t apply to the mutually fucked-up thing that Izzy and Ed have and, beyond that, the scene is played for laughs. Jim and Frenchie use comically modern language. The whole thing feels like an intervention for a stressed-out middle manager with a shitty boss. It's funny. It's a comical thing in a comedy show.

Izzy returns to Ed and tells him that the crew won’t throw treasure overboard to make room for more treasure. Ed says, “And that’s another toe.” Losing a toe is the penalty for failing the kind of captain that Izzy said he will serve. It’s obviously not okay to punish an underling by taking toes, but we’ve already established that toe-removal isn’t a cruel and unusual pirate punishment.

(Specifically, toe-chopping is the cost of Izzy’s failure. Frenchie disobeys and lies to Ed in his short time as first mate and he doesn’t lose a single toe. Izzy bears the brunt of Ed’s cruelty because he’s the one who demanded it.)

This is not who Ed wants to be, but it’s who he thinks he has to be. It’s who Izzy told him to be.

Next, Izzy makes the mistake of invoking Stede and Ed storms above deck. He holds the crew at gunpoint, one by one, and asks them if they think that the vibes on the ship are poisonous. No one gives him a positive answer and Ed turns the gun on himself. He works himself up until Izzy interrupts and the following exchange happens:

IZZY: “The atmosphere on this ship is fucked. Everyone knows why.” ED: “Well, I don’t. Enlighten me.” IZZY: “Your feelings for Stede fucking Bo--”

[Ed shoots Izzy in the leg. Ed steps over him on his way back to his cabin.]

ED: “Throw this shit overboard and get suited up.”

The fucked up vibe is not because of Ed's feelings for Stede. Ed's feelings for Stede resulted in Ed having a nineties-rom-com-style breakdown and proposing a talent show. The Kraken and the ensuing fucked atmosphere were ushered in by Izzy.

Izzy is only shot after he proposes talking it through (something he attacked Ed for in S1E10) and publicly places all of the blame on Ed's feelings (feelings that he previously threatened Ed about -- Izzy owes his loyalty to Blackbeard, not a "namby pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend" who would be better off dead). Whatever Izzy's intentions are, it's not irrational for Ed to interpret this as a further threat or an attempt to stir up a mutiny.

What’s important for this post is this: Ed's actions are not unusually cruel for a pirate captain who considers his first mate out of line. Shooting someone in the leg is the kind of thing that the idea of Blackbeard that Izzy worships does to maintain his reputation.

Fang cries when Ed shoots Izzy because he knows Blackbeard. He has been with Blackbeard longer than anyone else, and this isn’t Blackbeard. Blackbeard doesn’t work his crew this hard. Blackbeard doesn’t disregard the deaths of long-time crewmates like Ivan. Blackbeard doesn’t shoot his own crew. Fang is off-balance and distraught because his captain of twenty years is acting far, far more cruel than the one he knew.

This is not Ed as he usually is. Ed at his worst is breaking all of his past patterns. He’s behaving like a different person. His actions at this point in time are not typical of his past actions or predicative of his future actions.

When we reach S2E2, Ed is chipper. He’s cleaning up, he’s tying up loose ends, and he has decided that, no matter what, this is the day that he dies. He’s determined. First, he’ll give Izzy a go at killing him; next is the storm, the destruction of the steering wheel, and taking increasingly desperate actions to get the crew to stop him. He tells Jim and Archie to fight to the death. He goes to blow the mast away with a cannon and doesn’t react as nameless crew members are being washed overboard.

Ed is stopped only by Izzy’s reappearance and the violent mutiny that follows.

None of what Ed does here is abuse. This is desperate violence. This is an unwell man begging everyone around him to send him to doggy heaven.

And finally, we have the big murder party in the season finale. A surprising number of fans interpret Ed’s willingness to cut down naval officers as a sure sign that he’s gotten worse and he’s more violent than ever. This is, in my opinion, a take that completely ignores everything we know about Ed and his relationship to violence.

It bears repeating: Edward Teach kills only to protect. He murders his father to protect his mother. He kills as Blackbeard to protect himself (and no matter how he tries to distance himself from that violence, he still causes deaths). He mows down colonists for Stede. He kills for safety and for love, and by the end of season two, he has made some kind of peace with the Kraken and his own capacity for violence.

It’s sweet. It wouldn’t be sweet in the real world, but in this world? In a world where physical violence is funny more often than it’s serious? In a world full of pirate characters who all have hefty body counts? It’s growth. It’s Ed healing.

Ed is doing better. He’s not a threat to the man he loves, and now he’s not a threat to himself either.

Anyway.

No, Ed is not abusive. No, there’s no indication that Ed will become abusive in the future.

Dislike characters. Take issue with things. Feel whatever you want to feel, but remember that abuse survivors are not a monolith. Consider, just for a moment, that the abuse you think you see in the show is not textual. Ask yourself if Ed is truly worse than all of the other characters or if you have some bias warping your view of him.

Finally: please keep in mind that I’m not trying to present The One True Interpretation. I’m just rolling all of my arguments and thoughts into a ball and throwing it out into the wild. You don’t have to agree with me but, if you don’t, I hope you’ll at least consider what I'm saying.

Peace and love and goodbye.

#ofmd #ofmd meta #edward teach #long meta #like too fucking long #abuse #tw abuse #cw abuse #me typing things #fandom critical #kinda?

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tocomplainfriend · 7 months ago

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It does affect reality

TW: Rape, SA, coercion (a bit of graphic talk sorry!)

This is why you need to be careful around topics of SA/r-pe cause you enable people like this or spread these ideas:

Coercion is r-pe. Holding someone's livelihood, money, house, job or life to have sex is absolutely disgusting. Someone using their position of power to get sexual interactions out of someone that wouldn't do that otherwise is terrible. Prostitution is not coercion unless someone forced you into it, by holding things over your head. "If you don't have sex with me, I'm going to make fire you" people belittle that because they think everyone can just magically get a work and getting coerced into that is normal.

Imagine a mom getting their monetary existence and stability destroyed cause a random man wanted to have sex with her, but she didn't want to, so he will fire her. "Do you let law force your opinions, or are you capable of thinking your self?" I think: If people can't have sex without holding something important over someone's head, they can fuck off. The laws around coercion and r-pe are really difficult. No, I do not shape opinions around the law cause there are laws that accept the killing of queer, POC people for example. But go fucking figure, holding things over people to make them fuck you is disgusting and pathetic, fuck you.

Instead of hearing a story of a victim of SA/r-pe/abuse and understanding the pain, and tactic of manipulation- people try REAL hard to debate in favor of r-pist's rights (mainly cause their cartoon character they find hot is an r-pist, and others don't like the r-pist character).

The level of dehumanization of r-pe VICTIMS is massive, people trying so hard to argue in r-pists favor is crazy to me. "You are dehumanizing r-pist" r-pist dehumanize the victims they r-pe. You can't brush that experience off, it's world breaking, it's painful. I see no point why YOUR main topic of conversation is people who are as awful and selfish as to feel entitle to force someone to give them sexual pleasure +feeling pleasure of someone who's black out- or someone screaming no. How are you so critical about "R-pist should be respected!" over talking the issues victims face? In media or real life.

Shut the fuck up- that astronomical stupid connection are you doing in your small brain- to associate r-pist to POC people? Racism maybe? R-pist violated a human being, a POC person is a person that's different color and characteristics. If you think like this- remake your entire existence in society.

#vivziepop critical #vivziepop critique #hazbin hotel critical #helluva boss critical #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critique #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critique #vivziepop criticism #tw sa #tw rape #tw abuse

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sepublic · 19 days ago

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Belos gives himself more chances, the same one with his human brother’s clones, only to make the same excuse and mistake again and again because he refuses to realize what he did wrong despite going out of his way to repeat it, and focuses on ‘improving’ the wrong thing; Until finally it’s the human he didn’t bring about, who already had a separate life when she brought herself to the isles for herself and he dragged her into this cycle, that takes initiative to change things and decide no this time YOU die, when it could’ve been this time nobody dies.

It begins and ends with a proper human, but Luz had no relation to Philip unlike Caleb and she’s not going to make the same mistakes for it, in addition to seeing how far he’d go rather than learning the hard way. The shared cinematography between Caleb, and the Collector and Luz in similar situations to him resulting in a narrative lesson (and meeting with the Titan), is the payoff; Or lack thereof on Belos’ stubborn end. It’s like a Groundhog Day loop of his own making, but the people have had enough of waiting for the guy to do it right. And in the end, his death comes from the real answer of what he did wrong finally revealing and explaining itself again to kill him.

All the while, Luz’s silence speaks in its own way: I’m not here for to support your character development. I’m not here validate you. I don’t exist as a side character in your story. And that last bit is relevant in terms of how PoC and/or women are relegated in fandom, media, and society, and how Luz gets to savor otherwise after earning it.

There’s just an element of racism and misogyny behind a grown ass colonial white man expecting this brown girl to be his Mammy stereotype, targeting this kid to validate him and threatening to murder her if she doesn’t. Ugh. The curse is the least gross thing about Belos.

I’m glad Luz made that stand, but she shouldn’t have had to in the first place, esp as a child to this adult who was going to kill her if she didn’t play nice. But I’m glad Luz’s friends took over for that reason, and I’m glad Luz knows her lesson at all.

#the owl house #Luz Noceda #emperor belos #Philip wittebane

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lavernius · 4 months ago

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Okay, this is probably gonna be a strong start, but: I've kinda hated Lopez because of the way RT insists on him being Mexican, but with your Locus post being so good and hinting at your interpretation of Lopez having themes of disconnection from his culture (Something I've struggled with and continue to struggle with in my own relationship to being Mexican), I really want to hear your thoughts about that topic, because I would genuinely love to not hate Lopez and to be able to see something even vaguely like myself in him.

Oh my god what a wonderful ask to recieve as Lopez’s biggest fan. You have every right in the world to hate Lopez IMO, he pisses me off a lot of the time for similar reasons. Thank you so much for your perspective and interest!

Here’s my “Lopez and racial allegories” meta, from the perspective of a second-gen brown immigrant! Tentative follow-up to my Locus colorism post, racism CW.

I’ll start by saying I am not Mexican myself, but of the very large denomination of “brown people who latch onto any brown character because it’s so hard to find representation in media”. I did grow up with a predominantly Mexican/Latino community, which doesn’t give me, like, a right to speak on your culture so much as it gives me a unique perspective and experience.

First and foremost: we all know Lopez’s entire existence is laden with not-so-subtle racism. In-universe as much as by the white creators themselves. The entire bit that Lopez is Mexican sheerly because he speaks broken Spanish is annoying! Coupled with the fact that his whole role on Red Team is doing manual labor and he’s largely ignored otherwise—yeah okay Rooster Teeth. Good going on that one. Let’s reclaim Lopez for the actual culture.

I’ve come to see Lopez as—no thanks to RT; I fill in the blanks of Lopez’s character on my own—a beacon of cultural alienation, social isolation stemming from racism, reclamation of tarnished pride, and a righteously furious statement of “Look at me, I’m here and I’m brown and I’m not sorry.”

ISOLATION/ALIENATION: You’d think the most obvious allegory to him being a brown person is the fact that he speaks Spanish. It IS, but not just because he speaks Spanish: his language is his skin, something he was “born” with and can’t change without mutilation of his body. He has to learn how to navigate a world specifically designed against his language barrier. If more people spoke Spanish or tried to learn, the metaphor wouldn’t be as potent, but it’s so rare for him to find someone “like him” that it’s less about the language and more about the isolation.

UNFAIR STANDARDS: The other obvious racial allegory is the usual “robot racism” of sci-fi (which is its own bag of worms that I despise), which constitutes for the other half of this meta. He IS his job as far as everyone else in concerned. When is he ever doing anything but fixing or building, as per Sarge’s orders or the team’s needs? Similarly, real-world POC often have to fight to prove we can be “as capable” as our white peers, and even when we are clearly capable it’s very easy for them to reduce us to our talents before the fact that we’re people.

He’s largely forgotten by the fandom, too, as a reflection of the show’s negligence. Not really much to say there, just kind of goes to show you how easily forgettable he is because he gets no respect as a character.

SOCIAL CONFORMITY: Lopez’s Technical Guide to Empathy has Lopez admitting he could fix his voice module himself, but doesn’t see the point since no one cared to fix it before. He has to conform to their “normal” to fit in, like many POC do to live comfortably in a predominantly white society. He doesn’t, out of pettiness more than actual pride; I know what that’s like.

RECLAMATION: As per the last point, I take his refusal to speak English as a “fuck you” to the notion that he HAS to for other people’s sakes. He has a love-hate relationship with his language barrier. There’s an outtake from 7 where he tries to get Sarge to fix his language module, but more recently he’s resigned to it or—as recently as S15—desired for people to learn Spanish FOR HIM instead. Reclaiming prejudice isn’t easy, but it fits Lopez as a person to say “You can’t hurt me with that if I own it.”

PRIDE: He’s proud of being a robot! No matter how much it slights him, he knows it’s who he is, and the trauma of existing results in him being almost afraid of being anything else. I like to pretend his S17 labyrinth METAPHORICALLY reflects a fear of being whitewashed, because even if he’s proud, he’s traumatized by the nature of being a robot. Replace “robot” with “POC”; standard robot racism stuff.

CULTURAL DISCONNECT: I kind of ignore that he speaks Spanish poorly in canon (I get the bit, I just don’t care for the execution), but when I acknowledge it it reminds me of the cultural disconnect of thousands of immigrants and their families, especially those who lost their language to the West and struggle to learn it in adulthood. Alongside this, living for years without ANY real, substantial exposure to someone he can talk to means he’s naturally more adjusted to the Reds’ lifestyles (on top of forcing him further into being cast out). If someone comes along and properly understands him—see Locus S12—for the first time since another robot did, of course he’s going to be shellshocked, he doesn’t actually have experience with that part of himself.

RESIGNATION/SELF-ERASURE: Lopez isn’t quiet by nature, he’s quiet because he has no one to talk to! Before the Reds betray him in Blood Gulch he doesn’t shut up. When he meets 2.0 he spends hours just talking to that kid. When they launch him into space in S15 he just talks to himself the entire time. Over time he just seems to grow more resigned to being ignored, which results in him stifling himself because of aforementioned isolation. I’ve seen a lot of my peers of color—who are too scared of the backlash of speaking—shy away from A) self-acceptance and B) self-defense (in various forms), because they don’t expect to be accepted, much less heard.

Like all reclamation, the only reason the “Lopez is a brown person” narrative works out is because it was intended to mock and offend. All of the bits I covered are just me recontextualizing unfunny bigotry from the show, which, sadly, is the easiest way to enjoy a lot of offensive RVB characters without mischaracterizing them entirely.

There are times, obviously, when Lopez’s language barrier doesn’t actually stop him from talking to people, but to me it’s more about the experience of isolation and anger and wanting to be proud but struggling to find the support for it. Literally half of these metaphors wouldn’t matter if he got to talk to someone who cared about him and understood him simultaneously.

Lopez is designed in such a way that hating him for his writing is genuinely justified. Still, if just for the sake of being able to tolerate him, I prefer seeing him as the brown person who is angry because the universe isn’t made for him and wants to see him fail, but lives just to spite it.

#rvb #rvb lopez #Shout out to you and all the other Mex/Latino RVB fans who have to suffer through canon Lopez.#In fact shout out to all the Black and Polynesian RVB fans who also have to suffer through bad/barely-there rep. ❤️#Thank you soooo much for the ask I think about this more than normal for an RVB fan. No jokes.#demon-of-side-quest-hell #inbox #lopez the heavy

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olderthannetfic · 7 months ago

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Let me write a few more ableist bullshits https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/748245873503420416/i-really-hate-how-easily-it-is-to-notice-that?source=share

People are so insanely uncomfortable with something being deemed disabled, or under some type of disabling condition, that they'd rather try and remove the status of disability and make it something different. Who cares if the classification of "disability" is the only reason you can get help for it through insurances, healthcare or whatever other options exist across the world? Disability, the concept, the word, the idea, the entire thing, is somehow viewed as icky.

People are so disgusted by the idea of disability, that the moment it isn't visually obvious, you're not deemed disabled and will have to deal with harassment and other vitriol against you. It's more comfortable to accuse everyone of lying, than accept that some disabilities aren't obvious.

In discourse about privileges and rights, both queer and poc people, and their allies, feel too fucking comfortable trying to call out and belittle disabled people and even downplay the suffering of disabled people. Your suffering is only allowed to exist in tandem with another "oppression", and even then it's only ever second to those other ones.

People writing shit like "I don't see this person's disability I see their beautiful smile/personality/whatever the fuck." As if being visibly disabled is an otherwise ugly blemish you need to look past to see that disabled people are fucking human beings who deserve basic respect and being viewed as normal humans.

In fiction:

Certain disabilities are only allowed to exist as an aesthetic, but the moment it actually has to impact a character, it suddenly doesn't. There are too many people who want the idea of disability for some reason, but don't do anything with it. Here's a character who has problems walking... whoops now they suddenly don't have that problem when it would be too bothersome. It's also often that just specific neurodivergencies are permitted as well.

People, especially those not affected by certain disabilities also don't like it when disabilities have "adapted" in different settings. I still remember the discourse about Toph from ATLA not being a good blind character because she could "see", which obviously negates everything about her being blind... No it fucking doesn't. Disabled characters are allowed to adapt, and have their own way of moving around, disabled, especially blind, doesn't mean "useless worm".

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danggirlronpa · 6 months ago

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Considering the stereotypes packed into the dark-skinned girls, are there any things you'd do - and advise other fans do - to portray them better WITHOUT changing anything about their canon appearances, personalities and backstories? Or are they just not salvageable? Genuine question

The big, generalized advice is just to treat these characters with care and love, just like you would otherwise, and do not give in to the white guilt. Exceedingly often, white fandom will try to address racist stereotypes by separating the character from racial connotations entirely - e.g. getting rid of the terrible implications of Angie's god by ignoring her God/"Atua" entirely when writing her.

THAT IS NOT HELPFUL. You cannot write these stereotypes out of existence. Refusing to address an issue is, by nature, not addressing an issue. You must reckon with and work around these issues. You don't have to write stories about them, and probably shouldn't. But you can't write an Akane story wherein she never mentions her family. You can listen to people who have lived in ghettos, look at their real-world conditions, and look into the slums of Japan. Take the stereotypes and give a real, serious look at why they exist, and how to portray the information that they are sensationalizing with care and respect.

The white instinct is to avoid difficult topics, like racism, because of the fear that they will fuck up. Rest assured: you will. A person who fucks up and does something unintentionally offensive trying to address a racist is trope is always better than a person who politely distances themself from the stereotypes to avoid potential confrontation. One of them is showing a sincere interest in learning about the lives of the people affected and what impacts them.

Research stereotypes. Research writing POC. Find black activists and keep up with them regularly; you'll start internalizing things. Go the extra mile. I am not black. I cannot give you meaningful feedback. You should look to black voices.

(And for the love of god don't make weed jokes about Hagakure. There are black people who look like Hagakure and smoke weed. Those people aren't characters in a piece of media already subject to many other racial stereotypes. And frankly it's funnier if Hagakure is straightedge and just Like That, anyway.)

#asks #anon #talk to the mods #racism tw

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sokumotanaka · 10 days ago

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@alwaysbringaphoenixdown

I can tell you exactly why it's gotten worse. (I'm putting it in a separate post as not to clog up your great post)

Well that's a great one, Static and Teen titans had POC help writing their stories, with Static shock being the brainchild of a black man and a LEGEND in writing and storytelling Dwayne Mccduffie, who deeply understood the struggles with racism, gun control, drugs and so on. Same for teen titans.

That being said you should consume more media with Black/brown and LGBT people at the helm in the writing rooms. Kipo age of the wonderbeast, Moon-girl and devil dinosaur, The owl house, Steven universe, Craig of the creek, Invincible and even in video game form Metaphor Refantazio. Could we use more? Of course! However this is what happens when POC get to be in the writing rooms

Well I don't know about Star forces- the only thing I know about that is the magical creatures die I think? Like the all horribly melt.

RWBY on the other hand and Miraculous are mostly white led stories with only white writers. And both RWBY's and Miraculous writers are horribly racist. Miles and kerry wrote a dogshit subplot blaming the minorities and then when people questioned them, they shrugged it off as "tee hee we're white we don't know." not to mention RT running out their one black employee with constant racism and miles trying to appease people by putting BLM on his twitter till the heat died down. And Miraculous made a comic where the protagonist was fearful of black people for...no reason.

It's what happens when you have zero black/brown people in your workforce that don't have input on anything.

Ah yes the scene where the martian girl tells the half human half atlantian that he wouldn't get it, in terms of racism.

You're completely right here, I will argue that at least they attempted to talk about it instead of pretending it doesn't exist because it makes them uncomfy.

Yeah, sometimes that's all you need to further your point, especially in one of the most racist time periods, I can't explore a character without hearing someone say they're boring or ''woke'' or we see the "white Preston garvy / white Wyll Ravengard" mods.

As I mentioned earlier this is what happens when you have media where the characters are 99% white and male and you don't see many poc especially dark skinned ones. Or when you take learning about Martin Luther king Jr out of schools cause it's "Forcing it on children"

I'm frankly all for racist getting owned for being prejudice, it's the least they deserve.

It is cause that's too woke nowadays! But yeah this is why we need to get more black and brown people hired- sadly the best they get to do is write a book that goes straight to barns and noble. This is why we need to fund more POC writers to make original media, Games, TV shows, Animated or otherwise just diverse media in general- we went backwards because more racist worms got too bold, the pandemic fucked over alot of people's pea brains and made them too loud and too stupid.

I don't have the prefect fix, but support POC products, get people to watch Moongirl as much as they watch something like My adventures with superman and so on.

#rwde #rwby criticism

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sayyourprayers · 1 year ago

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It is kinda cute how the Duffers' writing is rated on here. Cuz like that isn't how shit works at all. But ya guys, make it work. And also be patronising as hell while you're at it. The treatment of POC characters or homo-sexuality/phobia (yes that too, sowie) and war and cop worship and sexism and classism and mental health (people not named Max exist) are not exceptions to what is otherwise stellar writing. What the hell are y'all on about? Especially treatment of POC characters.

Ya cuz I'm only keeping my eyes peeled open to see where they falter and ooh POC. Bad Duffers! Everything else is dope I say. Like that's a compartmentalisation that even works. It's not a gangrenous arm that you get to cut off n then be like.....woah now you're gangrene free. Nope it's part of the whole show. You can't discount it to rate the writing. Hello. How's that the only thing you discount (cuz other stuff is considered good writing in most circles)? And then say: the Duffers are great writers but....... No the duffers are mid writers because.......

That's how the sentence is supposed to start bitch. That's how stuff's rated. Go take a course on haterism. It's more holistic. Holistic shitting >>>>>>>>>>> compartmentalised dick riding.

Roger Ebert would have 4 starred everything if he had the foresight y'all have. Just forget the bad parts exist. Four stars that it ended right? Be for fucking real.

P.S. I see who RBs what from where and how the tags differ depending on who is RBed and lemme just say the call is coming from inside the circlejerk cuz you bitches dunno how to dial a number that's not listed in your faves. Tell me you care about Tumblr celebrity without telling me you care about Tumblr celebrity.

P.P.S. I'm POC in that I'm brown. But also not in that my wholeass country is brown. But yet there's shit desis from the des are understanding better than people living in multi-cultural (in terms of countries) / multi-racial race obsessed countries. Which is 🤯

P.P.P.S. Not thinking that one sensitive plotline will be handled well because another sensitive plotline barely exists or is fumbled over massively is perfectly sensible. (Re: homophobia)

#rant #but not personal #fandumb circlejerk #let me in and let me out #both #writing

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dragynkeep · 1 year ago

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is2g some rwby fans just see a take & boil it down to the most basic, inaccurate trope so they can go "see! y'all are wrong!"

we aren't saying blake didn't have struggles. we see on screen how she's marginalzied when she comes to beacon because weiss immediately targets her once she knows that blake was part of the white fang & a lot of us criticize the narrative in the series proper that allowed weiss's behaviour to slide without even a basic apology.

however saying blake isn't priviledged because she didn't "get the big house until she was a teenager" is crazy inaccurate. we see in the dc comics, which people love to use to say bees moments are canon & adam is a canonical pedophile despite his age never being stated & ilia looking the same age — blake was in that house from a child. there's pictures of her as a child in that house with her immensely privileged people & this existing at the same time that blake says that there's an overcrowding issue in menagerie is an issue. the belladonnas should not be living in a comparable mansion while their citizens are in huts.

the belladonnas did not "work" for this house. it wasn't given to them for being leaders of the white fang, otherwise they would've left when sienna overtook the organization to actually do something other than bootlick humans & beg for peace. there are also pictures of presumably other belladonna relatives in this home, alluding that it's more than likely something passed down through the family.

where was the work? ghira is useless & kali even more so, functionally existing as a milf joke while being a nothing housewife.

& as for the latter point of blake not being privileged because she's also part of the marginalized group — this ignores that blake is living on menagerie for a majority of her upbringing, a place that is functionally an ethnostate. there is no racism to be experienced on this island because there's no human influence & even when blake comes out of menagerie, she is actively hiding her faunus traits to avoid racial discrimination.

compare this to characters who can't do that: like sun (who experiences police brutality the first time he's on screen), velvet (who suffers physical assault & racial violence), ilia (suffered violent discrimination in an actually oppressive society towards faunus & her parents died due to faunus exploitation), adam (a former goddamn child slave) & so many others.

the only time blake has had to "fight for her rights" as a young child was when her parents took her from the functional safety of menagerie to put her in potentially violent protests. blake isn't affected by the racism of the world until her deadbeat ass parents choose to show her it & that's something that they should be criticized for.

rwby fans learn that people are not saying blake isn't marginalized: she absolutely is. but she also exists in the show as functionally far more privileged than her other faunus counterparts, to the extent that she can preach for peace & blame them for setting her own mansion on fire while they're just trying to survive in their huts.

if blake being the faunus equivalent of weiss makes you uncomfortable, good! that's a starting point into deconstructing the rest of this mess of a racism plotline instead of y'all just telling poc & bme folks that we're dumb.

#rwby #rwde #blake belladonna #ghira belladonna #kali belladonna #ais.txt

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my-pjo-stuff · 3 months ago

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For the Great PJO Ask Analysis event:

You've got a topic in PJO you'd like for me to analyze?

Presentation of race and gender: such as Charlie Beckendorf, Annabeth Chase, etc. and how those types of representations are good/bad for the audience.

Want to share YOUR analysis of stuff with me and my followers?

Annabeth Chase is not a heroine as the fandom makes her out to be. As a daughter of Athena, she's shown to be ruthless when it comes to anything, even forming relationships. Her attitude, derived from her fatal flaw, arguably makes the books difficult to read at times because she's so critical of what others do. Alternatively, she's a traumatised young girl who has had many people abandon her. What's your thoughts on her?

Want to hear my take or shares yours of different characters and aspects of the PJO universe?

The films, though poorly written and ill-received by critics and most fans of the books, were integral to get more people to read the books. Opinion on both films?

Thoughts on Luke's character in the films or the series?

Thanks for the ask! Presentation of race and gender

In my honest opinion? It seems to be more...brownie points collecting from me when Rick introduces any female or POC character in the books. I am only on The Lost Hero as of now, but from what I observed are these facts only ever just present and don't really contribute a lot to a character, while most major characters still tend to be white and male. For example Beckendorf. Yes he is a canonically POC character which is GREAT, but at the end of the day not only did he get 0 story with his race- he almost immediately got killed off too to serve as a plot device for Silena's story. I also seem to notice that while yes, there are quite a few female characters they are still consistently weaker than the men and tend to be reduced compared to them when it comes to combat. Annabeth for example, while no doubt being an important character she doesn't really fight much. She's a LOT weaker compared to Percy, and even if we go with the "well she's a strategist, not a soldier" angle then she also doesn't seem to do THAT much strategy? Clarisse comes to mind for a female fighter- but even she seems to lose against Percy whenever they fight or have an altercation and otherwise just isn't explored much or shown much. Piper from what I've seen does have an interesting set up and does seem to be very important- but just like other female characters she doesn't seem to be an equal match to Leo and Jason. You don't have much exploration of her native american side. Now I understand that you can't give every character equal amounts of screentime- but it does feel rather weird to me that the most powerful, important characters with the most screentime seem to be white men. The again to be fair, A) I'm a white teen girl so what do I know about race and B)Not yet finished with HOO so there are still chances for it to get better and have positive examples. But so far main and important characters still tend to be white, and if they are POC it doesn't have much influence of the story to the point of the race being easily swapped with no changes. And personally I do think that while representation to have is nice and good in the short term, it can grow harmful or less effective in the short term as any culture or issues are ignored. It can easily gives the impression that things such as racism or prejudice don't exist. The fact that most POC characters so far seemed to be rather unimportant side character (with expectation to Leo and Piper) in a setting where their race doesn't even matter is also meh for me. The fact that there's pretty much no female main character who could ever even think about going toe to toe with their male counterparts also reflects harmful ideals. Annabeth Chase is not a heroine as the fandom makes her out to be.(.....) What's your thoughts on her?

I think she's a bit bland to be honest. Like yes the set up is very interesting and certainly has many possibilities- but it's not explored enough. The first person POV from Percy is partially to blame for this, but I would have loved to see more on her thoughts. For example: She reacted pretty hostile to Luke in the first two books after the betrayal. In SOM she was angry above all, in TLT she didn't even seem to be very suprised or sad at how Luke betrayed camp. To the point of her first words when finding it out being "may the gods curse him" and basically what amounts to "yeah makes sense that it was him, I can see him doing that" Now could this simply be Rick's inconsistent writting? Yes most definitely, but I still think she should have been explored more. What went on in Annabeth's head? How did she feels? What did she do in that time she was captured by Luke, and pretty much directly protected by him? I'll be for real and say I find both her and Percy pretty bland in terms of character. Said it once, said it again- great set up imo but bad development.

Opinion on both films?

Thoughts on Luke's character in the films or the series?

Imma be for real here and say that I didn't really like the movies that much? But it's not like I hate them, they just weren't my cup of tea. Personally I'm one of those people who say that an adaptation should always be as close as humanly possible to the source material. Same goes for Luke in the movies- I do admit his casting was PERFECT, but otherwise? He didn't really have the same charm to me as he had in the movies. SHOW LUKE ON THE OTHER HAND GOES HAAARRRDDD. While I do still have my gripes with the show (especially with how Percy and co. missed the deadline and the way they did Hermes and Poseidon) I do think they did Luke pretty well. Even if I had preferred a book accurate casting did Charlie definitely bring over the right vibes. The changes in the scorpion scene are honestly understandable imo, considering that they now have a solid plan of Luke's character it makes more sense. NGL the show is sort of my biggest hope to get people to stop demonizing Luke for no reason. If hotness could save Draco SO CAN IT SAVE LUKE.

#pjo #luke castellan #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #luke castellan apologist #pjo fandom #pro luke castellan

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