#he's the woc in question btw

[enby-axels]

modern au neji would make tweets like, are you actually mean or are you just a woman of color who's not emotionless, and he'd be 100% correct

[stellariders]

I know you might not agree with me but After reading the latest tvline article, I hope Merinda or Taylor leave the show or something happens and the characters break up for good. I used to like this relationship, but after catching up with the last 5 seasons, I hated how Severide turned to a screwup so a woman could fix him. I always loathed this kind of plot. One chicago the the three shows, don't know how to write a character development away from romance.

This whole promotion thing and Severide career don't depend solely on his relationship or how his beliefs were 7 years ago. The constant comparison between him and his father is frustrating. He always has been his been his own person even in relationships. I cringe everytime Stella's dialogues bring Benny like the writers can't come up with any other conflicts other than he is benny's son.

And supposedly they made Stella realise her mistakes from first marriage was her hope she can change her husband and fix him yet with Kelly they making her repeating the cycle the same trying to make him the man she wants a worthy man.

If we are in season 12 and she still thinks he is like Benny and staying with with wouldn't that being the same with Garrett and his addiction minus the abuse but I wouldn’t be surprise if the writers made her accuse him of that too later or made that her argument for not wanting kids after all they revealed in the final Benny was to Damon and they love writing lines making her compare how kelly and Benny are the same.

This relationship started beautifully with Severide questioning his life choices and Stella was looking for a fresh start and a good build-up. Both successful ambitious people wanting more. Then it turned to screw up kelly and strong fixer Stella. I get it with Merinda being the only longest WOC after Monica left and the need to the strong independent female representation most show doing in the last few years in not too good way. They failed what made this relationship interesting, became unhealthy in many occasions. While Stella character may be thriving, Severide character lost what made it interesting himself and his ambitious.

this is going to be so long and my thoughts are probably very unorganized so sorry about that!

yeah, i’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you on this. and i really don’t think there’s any chance of them breaking up. one of them dying? yeah i could see that. but i really don’t think the writers would divorce them. and i don’t think kelly has “turned into screwup so a woman could fix him”. kelly has always said that he wants to be the opposite of benny and this was before he even got into a relationship with stella. parts of those qualities that benny possessed was ghosting and lack of communication. yes kelly has always been his own person but he’s always had that fear of becoming benny. and he’s always had those feelings. he told stella before they started dating that he looked in the mirror and thought he started to look more and more like benny and he didn’t like that. if i’m remembering correctly he also told someone that he’s spent his entire life trying to be the oppsotie of benny. so it’s not like once stellaride got together kelly randomly had a fear of becoming benny. he’s always had this fear of his.

i honestly don’t recall any conversation between stellaride specifically where stella randomly brought up benny just so she could compare to kelly. i remember in early season 10 kelly told stella he talked to his mom about them getting married and she said something along the lines of severide men being doomed for marriage. but stella told kelly that he’s no benny. in the season 11 finale i remember stella comparing kelly and benny. that felt so out of character btw. i’m still shocked about that. but writers really fucked up either how they handled taylor’s leave of absence by writing kelly so out of character. but yeah kelly fucked up big time by ghosting her (as did stella in season 10). he made a huge mistake then and he made amends with stella and now they’re completely fine.

and i know it might be wrong but it’s genuinely hard for me to stay mad at stella and kelly for going mia when the circumstances behind the scenes with miranda and taylor were what they were. the writers truly fucked that up by making them both do out of character things.

grant was a completely different situation. that was an abusive marriage and leaving abusive marriage isn’t as easy as just walking away. especially when there a history between grant and stella where she has said she wouldn’t have survived without him. she wasn’t trying to help grant just so he could be worthy of her. she helped him because he saved her and and she wanted to be able to do the same for him. but she just couldn’t. with kelly, all she wanted was communication from him. she’s not changing his entire personality to make him a “worthy man” for her. that’s just the basics of a relationship.

stella staying with kelly after he messed up is very different then from when stella stayed with grant. i won’t repeat myself about the grant stuff but i will add that grant was entirely dependent on stella. he was literally living off her. and no i’m not exaggerating about that. stella told brett that grant doesn’t have a job and he’s been living off her (i’m paraphrasing). i think kelly’s actions of ghosting stella in season 11 clouds up the fact that his communication has actually come a long way. before he went mia in season 11, the last time he didn’t properly communicate with stella was in very early season 9. and again this mia storyline wouldn’t exist if writers knew how to properly write taylor out.

stella would literally never accuse kelly of abuse. that’s kind of a wild assumption to make. she defended him when tyler tried to compare him to grant. she went through hell and back with grant and kelly is not grant. i’m honestly not understanding your point of bringing the damon/ benny stuff up. are you saying that stella would accuse kelly of abuse since damon implied benny was abusive and she likes to compare them? maybe i’m just not remembering but stella doesn’t compare benny and kelly. i only remember it happening in the season 11 finale. every other time benny is mentioned it’s been stella saying kelly isn’t him.

i still think their relationship is beautiful. they’re just a victim of being the only main couple right now so they get all the drama thrown their way. i still don’t think it’s become “screw up kelly and strong fixer stella”. wanting good communication is the only thing that stella has wanted since the beginning and they have tremendously improved on that front. stella still had made mistakes so it’s not like she’s portrayed as perfect either. having problems within a relationship doesn’t make it “unhealthy” it just means there’s room to make improvements and that’s what stellaride have done.

[ratabethchase]

Choose violence #16 <3

omg thank u for the ask!!

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

SO MANY THINGS. especially spider-man.

WHY do people ship harley keener and peter parker in the mcu??? (white women LOVE two white men in love and will stop at nothing to get what they want)

WHY do people characterise MJ as "the mean lesbian"??? (they need a reason to stop a woc from dating the white man).

in a less aggressive sense i do not understand hunter/willow from the owl house but i wholeheartedly support them mostly out of spite because of the insane people who do not. i also DO really like this ship if its transfem hunter, so. but also willow is so so aroace and also hunter is so so aroace. and also everyone in the show. although luz and amity r still bi & lesbian unless they are queerplatonic which then they are also both aroace.

this is only kind of answering the question but i do not understand how no one cares about gus from the owl house. looking at his older design makes me want to throw up (/pos). btw he is also aroace to me.

if im honest though a lot of stuff that fandoms come up with i am very amiable with and im also very pro "do whatever you want forever" when it comes to headcanons and stuff and i get over it very quickly when i dont agree with characterisation. its mostly just like. he would not fucking say that. when im reading fics. (when they make peter parker a weak little pathetic pissbaby... wtf). there are just some rancid takes sometimes though, and it is harder to get over it when you see it so often.

[shelbydelrey]

Although not as egregious or serious as the literal abuse suffered by what it seems to be multiple women in the Cillian Murphy fandom, i've noticed his display of creepy behaviour here on the platform. I believe @mrkdvidal1989 became famous for his tirades against the character Grace Burgess from Peaky Blinders. He hijacked positive posts about her and gifsets where the character is praised to call her a "whore", a "bitch" and certainly other derogatory terms.

If you know me or have been following my blog for a long time, you know that i, myself am no fan of Grace. But i would NEVER go as far to start an harrassment campaign against her simply because i don't like her. I have a life and she's fictional at the end of the day. And this isn't even the most important matter. The fact that a man inside a predominantly female and/or queer fandom used depreciative language to "express" his feelings over a (fictional) woman is a giant RED FLAG. I do not give a fuck about your 'freedom of speech'. This is not how you address people!

I tried calling him out a few months ago with this post

but unfortunately didn't name or tag him for good measure. In response i was even shunned for it:

He did also crossed several boundaries in what i consider tumblr etiquette. In the instance below a follower reached out to a writer (the writer is NOT mrkdvidal btw) regarding the descriptive language used in a x Reader fanfic:

And this was his response (to a situation where he wasn't even remotetly associated with):

I don't appreciate an inch of his mockery. I don't expect everyone to relate to this but as a WOC, knowing the difficulties of representation on media and in fandom can't help but be livid at his fucking behaviour. The subject never concerned him but he felt like his opinion was earned to be shat out in the world anyway.

The instance above is more up to interpretation because OP did ask a this or that question. But as a writer myself i can't help but feel that OP wanted validation in their desire to branch out fandoms and it's courtesy to give our mutuals/followers/friends exactly. Not trim their will because it doesn't personally suit you.

If you made up here: thank you. This things have been on my chest for a while and i should have the courage to stand up against this behaviour sooner. Now, i beg all of you to not turn a blind eye to red flags and harrassment. Their reveal a person's true character and intentions. Stay safe folks ✌🏾

PSA - Community Predator

Over a series of months, myself and other Tumblr users -- fic writers, gif makers, fans of created content -- have been victimised by @mrkdvidal1989, who has extensively lied about who he is, preyed on multiple women and denied involvement -- therefore ruining friendships, reputations and feelings, and promised me life-saving medical treatment that he never followed through on.

More information including mine and their stories under the cut.

The reason I am going public with this is twofold:

A) To protect others from being hurt. He is known to reach out to many tumblr users, especially young women in the Cillian Murphy fandom -- but he may have a wider reach beyond this circle. B) Since his "disappearance" three weeks ago and the unravelling of his lies, this man has ruined my life and the only hope I had of obtaining treatment for a condition that has been plaguing me for four years.

Killian Vidal is the name he has chosen to give us, and has claimed to be both a officer commander and general in the mobility troop in the SAS (the general rank does not even exist), has beaten cancer a while ago (but said to another mutual that his "time was running out" and he is currently struggling with it), and a plethora of other life experiences and general knowledge about him that varies in consistency when talking to different people and is questionable in its validity. He has also shared pictures of "himself" that when reverse image searched, belong to different people.

I got to know Kill when he reblogged one of my fanfics (as the story seems to start with a lot of his victims) and he reached out via DMs. We quickly became close friends who called nearly every day on Discord and when I told him about my health issues, he immediately offered to pay for my medical treatment wherever I could find willing doctors.

I was hesitant to believe this at first since all of this seemed too good to be true (and was). He claimed to be very wealthy, enough to afford private jets like it was nothing and to rent me an apartment in the UK in the same building as him. Over time, I grew to trust him because he felt like such a genuine person and friend, which was made all the more believable by the fact that he has such a huge following on Tumblr and was, at the time, part of a vast social network of fans and friends (one of which he even claimed to know IRL -- who will remain anonymous unless they decide to speak out). I decided to ignore the little red flags because I was so desperate to receive this treatment that for me would be life-saving.

For four years, I have been plagued by an array of (mostly) undiagnosed digestive issues that have made my life almost unbearable and have on numerous occasions nearly killed me due to malnutrition. I've spent months in hospital, endured years of malpractice and misdiagnoses, undergone heart surgery, and have tried absolutely everything I can to get better. In the winter of 2023, I was told by my doctor that I was refused in the TPN program (a treatment that may have slowed or stopped my weight loss) and that with or without it, I was looking at mortality. Refusing to stop fighting but having exhausted the public health care system in Canada, I went into 2024 not really having much hope of anything anymore.

So, when Kill came along, that changed. He promised -- and I mean, from the bottom of his heart, promised -- that he would help me get treatment, that he would get me out of my abusive home and fly me to the UK, that he would be there for me as my friend, etc. I was beyond grateful, and as my trust with him built, so did my hope.

The travel plans kept getting put off; originally, he would fly me out as soon as the apartment became available, which was the 11th of Feb, 2024. He kept finding excuses to not book the jet. Finally, it seemed as if around the 15th/16th I would be flying. My health had been declining rapidly and the situation was becoming all the more urgent, and he said he was in contact with a pilot and would send the ticket soon and call me.

That was the last I heard from him. The 16th.

Initially thinking he had ended his life (he had discussed thoughts of suicide with me prior to this), I was beside myself with worry not only thinking one of my closest friends was gone but also that my chance at life was. I reached out to his other friends, and I made several calls to the UK authorities and emergency services and ended up requesting a welfare check be made to see if he was even alive.

They reported that no one under the name Killian Vidal was in the records of the building name he gave me -- the same building that I was meant to live in within that week.

After reaching out to my now beloved friend @kittenonpluto (A.K.A., Cas) on Tumblr, I learned that Kill was in fact alive, and had told her that he was in hospital for digestive issues in Indianopolis, United States (though again, no record of his name in their medical system). He still wouldn't talk to me, but told her to tell me that he would reach out when he was out of hospital.

Cas and I compared information he'd told us (her story will be attached to this post) and looked into the mystery more. He constantly dodged confrontation and questions about the fake photos and information he'd sent her, and seemed to use his completely fabricated hospitalisation as an excuse to not fulfil his promises to myself and her, as well as a means to garner sympathy.

It was quite obvious that he didn't know how the American medical system worked, and he even incorporated elements of my actual story and used them in his. When asked about his treatments, he responded with medically false information. He reported digestive issues, reflux, and having both an NG tube and TPN -- both of which I have experience with -- and let me say, I am beyond disgusted and infuriated that my real life trauma was used as a ploy in all this.

How do we know for a fact this is false? I checked the police case for his welfare check again, and they said that they confirmed him being in the UK at the same time he had told Cas he was in hospital in the States.

After a final confrontation from both Cas and myself (and a desperate final plea for the medical aid he promised me), he was never heard from again from either of us or our friend circles.

I'm now having to pick up the pieces he's left me in and to be honest, I have little to no idea of what the hell to do or how to save myself. The fact that he strung me along for a month and built up my hope that I was going to live only to abandon me without even a word is deplorable to me.

And mine isn't the only story. I've heard from four women on Tumblr (who, again, will remain anonymous unless they choose to speak out) who he has been romantic or sexually involved with (and lied about his involvement, made them out to seem insane or toxic, created rifts in our friendships, toyed with their emotions, and made false promises to of relationships, marriage, and finances).

And that's not including the ex-wife who came back to Tumblr to claim that her and Kill had never met nor married. She was promptly silenced by a "lawyer threat" that we have strong reason to believe was a bluff.

At the end of the day, there are so many lies, half-truths, inconsistencies, etc. this man has wrapped himself in and we don't know for the life of us what his motives are, but from the information that we do know is false, he isn't genuine. He toys with people. He hurts them. Myself and the others that have been affected by this want that to stop.

And at any point, he has the ability to make a new account, and take on a new persona, pretend to be someone else. Tumblr is a wonderful place and I have met so many cool people on here, but please be careful about who you interact with and what you share, because aside from making this post, it is beyond my power to stop him from doing what he does. But after what he did to me, I could not remain silent.

Other Stories

If you have an experience or story with Killian that you would like heard, please reblog it on this thread or make a post. With your consent, I can include a link to it below.

Final Note

Lastly, if you have read this far, thank you.

If you want to reach out to me about this issue -- whether it's to anonymously share your experience, ask questions, ask for evidence (of which I can back up these statements with), or anything at all --, please do not hesitate to do so. <3

For those who may be worried about the potential legality of this post, everything that I have stated as fact is fact and it is not my intention to slander or spread false information.

[pupperofdarkness]

Top 5 Ladies of Berserk ?

yoooo i’m here for questions like this. Gotta warn you though, I’m not the very good at going into depth about these things, but I’mma try

5. Slan 

Honestly she’s terrible, but we stan lol. But seriously, I find her absolutely fascinating and I really wish we could have learned who she was before she ascended, what actually made her activate her Crimson Behelit, and who did she sacrifice. Really I think I’m just fascinated by the mystery surrounding her.

4. Schierke

Such a wonderful lil bean :’). I’ve always adored child characters who are wise beyond their years and Schierke is definitely one of my favorites. I mean, we’re talking about a 12-13 year old girl who ADULTS look to for assistance when it comes to learning magic or staying sane, here. That to me speaks volumes of her strength. What I love most about her, though, is her dynamic with Guts. It’s so sweet how, aside from Casca, she’s the only other person he’s ever been completely open with and the fact that he trusts and believes in her so much is just so amazing to me. Plus her and Isidro’s antics never cease to make me laugh.

3. Luca 

She’s just a ray of sunshine in such a dark setting ☺️. I admire that despite living in such a bleak world and being in a hellish situation, she still remains, kind, selfless, and brave. And the unconditional, motherly love she has for her girls is just so heartwarming. I’ll be honest, I was pretty bummed when she didn’t join Guts’ party, but she had to look out for her girls so I get it.

2. Farnese

Ngl she got on my nerves at first, but I also found myself intrigued by her and the more I read, the more I ended up empathizing with her and liking her. 

For all intents and purposes, she should have become a terrible person, hell she almost did. Though I will say that’s pretty understandable, given how she was raised. Growing up neglected, sheltered and lonely can be really damaging to a person’s psyche. And the fact that she only got positive attention by hurting others did NOT help her mental instability. But when she joined Guts’ party, became Casca’s caretaker, and became Schierke’s student, I saw a side of her that I never would have expected to see in a character like her. It turns out her sadism hid kindness and compassion and selflessness. She just needed an opportunity to let that side of her shine through. I especially love her relationship with Casca and how she went from being a protector to a close female friend for Casca to rely on (which is something Casca really needs atm).

Also, I thought it was cool how Miura wrote Farnese using her penchant for bondage and sadomasochism to do good after her characterization (i.e. the thorn snakes). She’s actually the first instance I’ve seen of BDSM being portrayed in a positive way with a story like this, so that was pretty refreshing.

1. Casca

Words just cannot express how much I love this woman. But I’ll do my best.

Everything about her is just so amazing and she’s probably one of the STRONGEST female characters I know. I mean, this girl kept the Band of the Hawk together and lead them for a whole ass YEAR in Griffith’s place and when the Eclipse went down, she maintained a level head and managed to calm everyone down before everything went to shit. That honestly says a lot about her strength and leadership prowess.

That’s not to say that she always has it together. She can be hot-tempered at times but even then, she still has good judgement. She’s also emotional, and tends to cry a lot, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Actually, the fact that she wears her heart on her sleeve is just another thing that I admire about her. Her vulnerability only ADDS to her strength and imo makes her that much more relatable, because it underlines that while she is a gifted sword fighter, soldier, and commander, she’s still a human not a machine or weapon. And Casca realizing this, learning to find value within herself and learning to consider what SHE wants out of life rather than letting her value be dictated by her usefulness to someone else is something I love so much about her. And you probably have seen this a lot across tumblr, but I love, love, LOVE that she’s a WOC. I mean, how many instances are there of a leading lady in a dark medieval fantasy being POC, especially during the ‘90s?

My only complaint about her was that it took so long for her to come back to us. I don’t mind that Miura decided to have her dissociate after the Eclipse (in a few ways it makes sense given all that she witnessed and what she had to endure at the hands of Griffith and the apostles), but I wish it didn’t take 20 irl years for her to regain her sanity. Tbh, I think it would have been better if she began to gradually come back to herself or learned to cope with her trauma over the course of her and Guts’ journey, but it is what it is, and I’m just glad she’s back.

I just love her sooo much, holy shit 😩.

(btw, sorry it took so long for me to answer, I’m not used to people asking me stuff like this and I wanted to answer it the best that I could)

[photonflight]

🌺Caribbean Representation Through my Apprentice 🌺

Asks open for this article btw.

Why do this?

Growing up in the Caribbean, I never saw myself in media, nor did I see anyone representative of myself in popular media. I’m Trinidadian- but representation for Caribbean people has usually been limited to Jamaican. Jamaica has a beautiful culture, but like the other Caribbean islands, their culture is different.

This is why Dominique is Trinidadian coded, and mixed race (over 90% of Trinidadian people are BIPOC or mixed race). I wanted to feel seen and represented, and I wanted other Caribbean (especially Trinidadian BIPOC) women and girls like myself to feel properly represented by her. I wanted to show us that we CAN exist in fantasy worlds and be portrayed in a way that’s neither stereotypical nor offensive.

Many times in the media, whenever there’s a Caribbean character included (which is a very rare occurrence) they are given a Jamaican accent by default even when they’re not Jamaican, which has resulted in many people believing that there is one collective Caribbean accent (as a Trinidadian person I can’t begin to tell you how many non-Caribbean people have addressed me with “yea mon”.)

As a matter of fact the islands have their own different languages. Trinidadians speak Trinidad Creole, not Jamaican Patois.

A few examples I can think of would be

Ajay Chase- Apex Legends (Haitian, but has a Jamaican accent)

George- Metal Gear Rising (Guyanese, but has a poor Guyanese accent which sounds more Jamaican, and the vernacular he speaks with is more (stereotypically) Jamaican than Guyanese)

Sebastian- Disney’s adaptation of The Little Mermaid (Tobagonian (btw the country I’m from is called Trinidad and Tobago 🇹🇹) but has a stereotypical Jamaican accent)

Haitians speak Kweyol, not Jamaican Patois.

Guyanese people speak Guyanese Creole, not Jamaican Patois.

Tobagonians speak Trinidad and Tobago Creole, not Jamaican Patois.

These are all different languages entirely.

Additionally, no Caribbean people were included in the creation of OR the voicing of these “Caribbean” characters.

How is Domi different?

In short? Domi is a Caribbean, mixed WOC with a Caribbean mixed WOC Experience created by a Caribbean, mixed WOC

In long?🤣 read below

Origin

Domi is a Trinidadian-coded apprentice. While her country of origin, which isn’t Vesuvia, does not parallel the real Trinidad and Tobago, she has certain experiences that are common with Trinidadians who are like she is, is canonically confirmed to have an accurate and inoffensive Northwestern Trinidad accent, and her main outfit is colored after the national flag of Trinidad and Tobago 🇹🇹.

Experience

In BIPOC societies like Trinidad and Tobago, there are two interconnected experiences that stand out. Colorism, Featurism and Fetishization AND Identity Crisis

Colorism, Featurism and Fetishization

The term Colorism refers to prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.

Naturally then, as a result of colorism those with lighter skin tones are elevated within that group. A group which in Domi’s case makes up the entire society.

Featurism refers to the elevation of somebody’s features due to their proximity to whiteness and then results in the Fetishization of people who do have said features within the same ethnic group.

Domi grew up in a society that praised features and skin complexions by their proximity to whiteness, with an older sister who encompasses everything the society praised.

While Domi resembles her father, her sister Scarlet (named after the Scarlet Ibis, the National bird of Trinidad and Tobago) looks like their mother.

While Domi and her sister are both mixed BIPOC (and of course we come in different colors, shapes and sizes), Domi has darker skin than her sister does (though she is still of a light complexion) darker eyes, and darker curlier hair.

Her sister has fairer skin, blue eyes and straight dark hair.

Therefore within a society like this, it is natural that it is her sister that would’ve been elevated and praised for her beauty over Domi.

This has impacted her in various ways from a very young age, pushing her to overwork herself to be perfect at everything to make up for her lack of beauty, and as a child would constantly use glamor to give herself “better hair” and “nice eyes��� (terms that result from the fetishization of certain features within BIPOC societies.)

Domi and Scarlet ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Identity Crisis

As is the case with many BIPOC who belong to families where many different ethnicities combine, Domi experiences an identity crisis.

Many Caribbean BIPOC ask themselves

-what am I?

-who am I?

-where do I fit in/belong?

-who do I identify with?

And I know that this is the case for many non-Caribbean mixed people as well. It’s not an isolated incident although this post deals specifically with the Caribbean experience.

Domi also deals with not feeling as though she fits in with either side, not being enough like her mother’s side (mixed Asian, dragon) and also not being enough like her father’s side (mixed Black and White, human).

Dealing with this causes her to question where she belongs, and second guess meeting new people for fear of what they’ll think of her.

Does Domi look like me?

Yes. The arcana IS a self insert game and people that look like us don’t appear very often regardless. Her appearance and specific ethnicity is inspired by me, as well as is the coding of her nationality (which of course is shared with 1.4M people)

However, her experiences, though loosely based on mine, are not isolated and were not based on my own so much as it was based on that of other mixed WOC I personally know and wanted them to feel heard.

Me vs My Apprentice 🌺 you can see where the inspiration starts and also stops🤣

[normal-thoughts-official]

When/how do you think Ragnor and Catrina realized camille was being abusive towards Magnus?

Btw, I love u❤

fantastic question anon, i love YOU! i think that depends on a couple of factors. i think people who have already been or know people who have been in an abusive relationship are more likely to notice the warning signs, and/or to interpret stuff like the person pulling away as a sign of abuse. whereas people who haven't lived through it and aren't informed on it might not even realize what's going on until before it's over, and even be angry

so because we live in a hell world and catarina is a black woman, i think she is more likely to notice the warning signs than ragnor is, because black women are more likely to be in abusive relationships than white men. i'm not saying catarina herself has been in an abusive relationship necessarily but presumably her family has plenty of black women and she's also more likely to also be friends with other woc and marginalized ppl than ragnor is because again, hell world. so she has a higher chance of having been in a similar position before, although of course that's no set in stone rule and ragnor's circle of friends does seem to have a lot of marginalized ppl (and i hc him as aroace which makes him queer which puts him in an entirely different position than a straight white man and probably means something about the relationships he builds, but anyway) BUT my point is, i think catarina is more likely to notice earlier

i think ragnor is pretty perceptive tho, and also that they are pretty close and talk a lot, so i think once catarina noticed she would have talked to ragnor, and it wouldn't take ragnor long to realize that she was right

so okay when would they notice? i think that's always a slow process but i'm pretty sure their suspicions would first arise when magnus started to ditch them and stuff like parties and outings because of camille. first of all, i don't think that's like magnus at all, and second of all, there is an obvious difference between "i'm in the honeymoon phase" and "sorry, i don't think it's a good idea, my partner might not like it" or even "yeah! that sounds great!... just let me ask my partner about it". big difference

so that already has catarina in particular very wary of her because magnus is not the kind to ditch his friends because of a partner and the way he's acting about this is weird. so, she decides to keep an eye and maybe even put this to the test by making a surprise visit and invite him to a party like, right then doijadiosaj and she takes him out and she notices that magnus is Out Of It and he seems even a little... tense and scared and almost paranoid. and like, this is relatively at the beginning of their relationship so she wouldn't have been Horrible about it yet but at the beginning the person expresses enough control and discomfort with these things for you to be kind of uncomfortable even if you don't really realize that it's because you're Scared Of Hurting Your Parner

so THAT gets catarina really worried, because if magnus can't relax because he's afraid of camille's reaction, and worse, if he doesn't REALIZE that's why, that's the reddest a flag can get in such an early stage of their relationship. she tries to talk to magnus about it but magnus is the king of deflecting and basically waves her worries off. which just makes her more worried, but what is she supposed to do? she knows that pushing will only makes things worse and make it easier for camille to turn magnus against her and cut their ties. so, she lets it go and pretends that she buys his excuses. that's probably when she also talks to ragnor. ragnor probably had noticed that something was off but he hadn't really thought that it would be something super bad, and i think he'd still have his doubts about it, but well, he has that on the back of his mind now. and besides, he trusts catarina's judgement and he can admit when she is more qualified than him to assess something. it's why their relationship works

the first time they say anything is probably when magnus tells him about some fight they've had. probably because magnus told camille that he was upset about something she did - like idk, making fun of him in public about a topic that's sensitive to him. and like magnus wasn't even mad at her, he had never mentioned that whatever joke she made was off limits or related to a sensitive topic, he just wanted to communicate and let her know that it had hurt him, and she pretty much Exploded at him. and somehow turned it all around so it was magnus' fault for accusing her of trying to hurt him on purpose when that's not what magnus did, and now magnus pretty much wanted advice on how to apologize and let her know that he loves her

so catarina and ragnor try to subtly poke holes in her logic and show him that he has nothing to apologize for, without straight up being like "she's manipulating you" because Kids, That Does Not Go Well. and it makes magnus... heartbreakingly confused in that way abused people get when the logic they have been being shoved under shows cracks that would mean something too awful to even imagine

and catarina is a fucking wreck because at this point, she is sure of it and it makes her relive... so much trauma of other people she's seen go through that and lost and/or her own relationships if you want to go with that. and she doesn't want to lose magnus or have magnus go through that but she doesn't know what to do and she KNOWS that next step is magnus pulling away from her and ragnor no matter how careful she is

she probably gets the rare Comforting Hug from ragnor once magnus leaves and she also talks to dot and maybe elias? you know, their other friends. and they have a Catarina Comforting Day and hear her stories and cuddle and you know, try to make her feel better. and eventually they try to devise some kind of game plan so they can try to help magnus get out of this

it all goes to shit of course when they have the rare outing with camille, and camille is Obviously Refusing To Interact With Them If She Can Avoid It which is classic abuse thing - sure, i'll go see your friends, but you have to choose between interacting with them and me, so really you don't actually get to see with your friends because you'll feel bad that i'm isolated and eventually seeing your friends will feel either pointless or nervewracking cuz it feels like juggling your relationships. and if you want to see them without me i am going to act like you have something to hide and i'm a victim

anyway! so they notice that and they try to undermine that tactic by, you know, interacting with her a lot. so camille switches it up and tries to pick up a fight, and lo and behold, she succeeds - i know ragnor doesn't look like the kind of guy who loses his temper easily but i think when you push his buttons he is VERY bad at hiding it and half a snappy comment is all camille needs to lash out at him and play the victim. she's good

so that's when their plan gets fucked and everything goes to hell because then it's just too easy for camille to isolate magnus from his friends with really just a few tweaks to the previous tactic i mentioned - "are you really picking them over me, magnus? you're gonna keep hanging out with them when they are so rude to me, probably tell you all sorts of things about me, try to get you to break up with me? can't you see how manipulative they are? how they're trying to turn you against me? why do you insist so much on seeing them when you know how much that hurts me?"

and done

catarina and ragnor probably fight after that because god DAMN it, she fucking tOLD him that they had to be careful! and she's been swallowing all kinds of shitty comments from her but ragnor just had to fucking lose it at the first provocation, didn't he? and god knows how long it'd take for them to reach him after that, because camille is already preemptively making him think that they are trying to manipulate him to break up with her out of jealousy so he won't listen to anything they say directly. and she's right, of course, and ragnor is out of his depth and doesn't UNDERSTAND how these things go and how much this slip up will affect them in the future

i like to think that ragnor apologizes to her and catarina probably... has a breakdown because fuck she is worried and she is reliving way too many nightmares here. and ragnor is actually very tender and hugs her and apologizes and kisses her forehead and tells her that he's going to fix it. and he actually swallows his pride and apologizes to camille just to try and turn this thing around, but, well. the damage is done. and really, there is only so much friends can do when dealing with something like this. at the end of the day, they did all they could

and from then on they try their best to be there for him and pull magnus out of the camille-created isolation, but there's only so much they can do, and it's up to magnus to notice and get help to get rid with her. they'll always try to be his support system, but well. it's hard

and of course eventually magnus does get rid of her claws and catarina, ragnor, dot, elias etc., are all there for him when he does. and he probably feels guilty because he pushed them away but really they are just so RELIEVED that he's finally free of her. and him and catarina probably get a teary hug full of apologies for things that aren't their fault, and they try to make up for lost time by spending as much time as possible together now. especially because i think that it also hurts catarina to have her friends pull away - she obviously yearns for family, for closeness, i don't think she does well with people pulling away from her, she wants the kind of closeness that comes from routine and she used to have that with magnus and the rest of the immortal squad, you know? and magnus knows that, so, he tries to compensate

and eventually they start to heal their relationships, but magnus still has a long way to heal himself, but well. he'll get there. they are together and all

[shaydixons]

I have some questions about skam seasons and I wanna hear what you think.

skam nl and Skam Austin both have 2 seasons, but why?

idk about nl but I heard Austin got cancelled which is.. such a shame, considering it was the only remake with wlw Isak who's also a woc... and I don't even know if there's possibility for them to change their mind because Shay's actor came out as trans and he fully transitioned so he couldn't possibly play her and they should recast, which I'm not sure they want to do.

also druck has next gen seasons, and do you happen to know if they will do another after Ismail's one? like one from Kieu My or Ava or literally any of the other pov? it would be great imo.

Skam Italia is getting renewed apparently, the season will come out in 2022, and I'm really curious about what they'll do, even if I think the only option is doing something og like skam fr and Druck did, since the four mains already had their seasons.

btw is it only me or people never talk about skamfr og seasons unless it's about Lola / Lola and Maya? ofc it could be the part of the fandom I'm in, but I just wanted to hear your opinion on this, you're on my fav skam pages ever and the fact that you stan both Fatou and Shay AND are anti noorhelm >>>>

hi anon! :)

skamnl and skam austin both got canceled after season 2 :( i guess their viewership was too low. and yeah shay's actor transitioned which is wonderful for them but tru that it means they couldn't play a cis lesbian, so its for the best that they dont have to even though i miss skam austin so bad... the other day i remembered that scene where eve is having sex with some girl and shes wearing sneakers but no pants.... what was that about. i miss it tho

also i dont know if they are doing more druck seasons tho im sure someone knows but im not that current w druck news. they should do an ava season though i love her

idc about it*lia thus i have no idea what they are doing at any time. also as someone who was around when season 3 of skamfr was airing: elu was SOOOOOO huge and im sure the elu fandom is still at large but i remember when 95% of skamfr talk was about elu bc skamfr isnt that hugely popular w the international fandom but elu was honestly a huge deal (and for good reason imo they were good) so if you're mostly seeing lola/maya talk im sure you are just in the wlw fandom (as you should be)

also thank you!!! :) noorhelm took 20 years off my life and set feminism back 50 years

[artmuseumgf]

tw sexual assault // tw skam france

the fact that skamfr never addressed the SA with lola after that one clip makes me wonder how s2 would've gone if they didn't have the og skam's blueprint to follow. i mean even with the blueprint it not like they did a good job, we saw that when the victim ends up with the rape apologist, i can only imagine how badly s2 could've gone....

as someone who is a sexual assault survivor, it was already hard for me to watch the clip and then later to realize that the plot was only used as a shock value and to give eliott some kind of savior complex, it absolutely disgusts me that the makers actually went ahead with it.

do they not understand the gravity of the situation? according to the UN, approximately 15 million adolescent girls (aged 15 to 19) worldwide have experienced sexual assault at some point in their life.

making lola, as well as flavie (it's not easy to play such an intense scene with a topic that heavy), go through something so traumatic and for her to come out of it completely unfazed?? we saw how shaken she was in the bathroom when she called eliott and then what later???? and oh god the WORST part was when they kept blocking the fans who kept asking these questions on the live, that's just plain selfish.

it's funny how neils went on and on about s3 on his instagram(which i do appreciate btw) and how much care he put in the story because he said he never saw the lgbtq+ representation in media when he was growing up, and when it came to issues which weren't "personal" were handled so poorly. most of the representation we got after s3 just felt tokenized like, "here you go with you woc representation" "oh and here's another MI representation" and "take a disability representation too" and then "oh dw we aren't gonna handle any of the their storylines well, instead we'll keep adding love triangles ha ha"

[dasakuryo]

cassian and bodhi for the character ask

Cassian! Bodhi! MY ROGUE ONE BOIS! ♥

Cassian

How I feel about this character

Hello, have you met me? xD I adore Cassian, his story, his motivations, his commitment… it all hits too close to home, especially given the analogies that can be drawn considering the actor playing him is Latin American. As a Latin American star wars fan, Cassian speaks to me on a ton of different painful and often bittersweet levels. I love my rebel boy, my guerrillero del espacio ♥

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Let me preface this by saying I’m totally down for him having a romantic interest in his upcoming show —give me awkward and adorkable Cassian in his early twenties falling in love, okay? xD Gimme a Latina love interest, preferably afro-Latina, you know. Oh, btw I’ve said early twenties because unless we’re having flashbacks, there’s no way they can make Diego pass as anything younger than that lol ANYWAY, having said that, I ship him with Jyn.

[I headcanon him as pan, but given Star Wars track record with woc as love interests, I’d rather we have one being the LI, you know. I am not adverse to an earlier LI being a moc, ofc.]

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Melshi. They’re really good friends and have the other’s back, no questions asked. Melshi didn’t even think about going to Scarif, he was in before Cassian had finished speaking the idea into existence. OH, also, I headcanon Cassian was part of the spec-forces for a short while before joining intelligence, hence where I think they may have met and became friends.

My unpopular opinion about this character

He is socially awkward when he has to socialise for real, as in not as part of a mission, and dorky, even if he may seem a bit harsh around the edges at first glance. Not to mention he’s totally not any [insert stereotype for Latinos here], thankyouverymuch.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

You mean, besides NOT DYING? Well, I guess I really really want Star Wars to have his mother being a pivotal influence for him growing up —inspired him to fight for what’s right, and all that good stuff, if you know what I mean— even if I know she dies because Cassian lost everything TwT

Bodhi

How I feel about this character

HE IS THE PILOT. HE BROUGHT THE MESSAGE. *sobs* I have a giant Bodhi-shaped soft spot in my heart, ngl. One of the bravest characters in the whole of Star Wars, defied the Empire from within and broke from its fear-mongering clutches, gave his all to free the galaxy…. I’m emo… he’s the catalyst, ok? TwT

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Luke Skywalker, give me soft boys with hearts of gold being all ♥_♥

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Uhm, I’m not that familiar with the popular ships for him other than Luke, but-- I just want to say that…. Galen/Bodhi is…. I am just…. WHY, you know. JUST NO.

My unpopular opinion about this character

He’s a natural introvert and pretty quiet, but if you dare get on his bad books he can literally turn you to pieces. Have you ever witnessed a calm person when they have had enough? Agarrate, you won’t be able to withstand the sheer force of that rage, smh.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

BESIDES NOT DYING? Seriously, wtf Star Wars. Anyway, him finding some lost relative after Rogue One, I don’t want him to lose all connections to his family, all these characters have suffered enough and deserve some happy things, ok?

[rigginsstreet]

I’m mad at Jughead for being a shithead and if I cared more about the kid serpents I’d be angrier (although this white emo bitch really kicked a gay woc out of her own fucking Gang that she invited him into why do people stan him) but the real question is... can Hiram just take the whole fucking show and give it back to the adults? Can the same thing happen with Sabrina can the adults just steal the shows? I’m tired.

i have a lot of feelings about this so let me just go off now lmao

jugheads situation starts off complicated because he wasnt born into the serpents. yes, fp was the leader but he didnt join until long after jughead was born. so whereas on other shows with this type of familial gang affiliation dynamic - jughead wouldve been groomed, essentially, from birth to eventually take over. but thats not the case here. fp joined out of “necessity” and he never even wanted jughead in that life to begin with (so how we got to him decided to step down and make jughead “king” which also btw what fucking gang says king? like... you say it as a joke and shit but its not serious... anyway... fp going from 0 to 100 makes no sense). BUT seeing as how jughead eventually joined and was still the leaders son, it still isnt totally crazy that fp would appoint him as the next leader. its jugheads age and all the previous story set up that makes it look so fucking weird. so like... i get the logic behind the choice from a storytelling standpoint, but i also understand the complaints because this whole thing is sloppy. what they shouldve done is have somebody... literally anybody.... an adult, mayhaps, step forward and be like “uh.... i dont think a 16 year old should be leading this gang so im going to challenge this hardcore”. but ras has a need to romanticize gang life so... ok... i guess. that was never gonna happen.

now onto toni. she has her own birthright because of some half assed contrived ass season 2 plot that only gets mentioned when convenient to the episode and also makes no fucking sense based on season 1 canon. if the uktena (is that the tribe? listen i watch 5% of this show at most) was soooooo important, why and how did fp become leader? and by fp becoming leader in literally no fucking time considering he hadnt been a member since high school and theres only a small gap in time from fred firing him to season 1 (small as in it usually takes a long fucking while to work your way up to being a leader of a whole ass gang thats well established) one could reasonably assume fp senior mustve had some rank and thats how fp got in so easily a second time and got such a powerful position. 

the joneses are white. thats a white ass family. you cannot as a show keep trying to stress tonis familial ties to this gang and how a native tribe founded it.... and then the whole time it was being run by a white dude? huh? so honestly depending on what storyline you want to follow, you can argue for either jughead or toni taking over. or, you can rub two brain cells together and decide that argument is fucking useless and ask why HIGH SCHOOLERS ARE RUNNING GANGS THAT HAVE ADULT ASS GROWN ASS MEMBERS. i WILL kill fp myself. i will do it.

anyway hiram is right in wanting to get rid of the serpents i support him. youre doing amazing sweetie. could be doing better since theyre still here but ... you can only do so much when your writers have the mental competence of a banana. 

[coppermarigolds]

Ship Meme

The wonderful @servantofclio tagged me for this. Thanks, Clio!

First ship you ever read fic for: Is it weird that I’m having trouble remembering this? I know the first fandoms I dipped my toes into fanfic-wise were LOTR and Stargate SG-1, but I never really shipped anything from either of those. I guess the first pairing that got me invested enough to read fic was Stargate Atlantis’ Weir and Sheppard (not to be confused with Shepard from Mass Effect; why is that such a popular fictional surname?)

First ship you ever wrote fic for: I think that was also Sheppard/Weir from Atlantis. I didn’t write more than a fic or two in that fandom, but it was enough to get the ball rolling. 

Ship you write the most now: Currently I have fanfic largely on the backburner while I work on original writing. It may be a stretch goal at best, but I’d like to get my novel finished and semi-polished in time to enter the Pitch Wars writing mentorship contest, which has a late-August deadline. Sadly that doesn’t leave much time for fanfic. But prior to this original writing push, the pairings I wrote the most were Jyn/Cassian (in my multichapter fic which I will finish eventually) and, taking a glance through my writing tag on Tumblr, Aloy/Erend in prompt-fics. That makes me quite happy, because how can you not love a ship whose canon dialogue includes 

Him: “All the way to Meridian just to see me?”

Her: “Have you been drinking?!”

(spoiler alert: yes. he has.)

Ship you read the most now: I haven’t had much fic-reading time either for the previously mentioned reason. But one fic I have been working my way through as time permits is Equivalent Exchange, an epic length *mumble mumble mumble* Theron Shan/F!Imperial Agent fic. I blame @thievinghippo for reccing it. :p 

Newest ship: *sulkily points to above answer* Two months ago I didn’t like any characters Troy Baker had voiced, and everything made sense. Then I fell head over heels in love with his character in The Last of Us, and my whole world did a 180. I learned to love Theron Shan, who previously annoyed the hell out of me, and started shipping him with my Consular. I picked up Uncharted 4 (which came free with my PS4 when I bought it two years ago and had been sitting untouched in my living room ever since) and went googly-eyed over TB’s character in that too (Sam Drake). Then I played Uncharted: The Lost Legacy--which is awesome btw, basically all about two WoC and their friendship--and started shipping Sam and Nadine hardcore, because hellooo enemies to grudging colleagues to...risking their own lives to save each other? GIMME THAT UST. So yeah, my newest ship is pretty much Troy Baker’s characters/everyone. Except Kai Leng. Kai Leng can still rot in hell.

Rare ship you wanna read more of: Obviously Nathaniel/Velanna, my classic answer to this question. Also Sam/Nadine, which at ten fics on AO3 is even rarer than Nate/Velanna. Probably just means I’m going to have to write my own. Sigh. 

Your taboo ship: I don’t think I have one. My ship tastes tend to be pretty vanilla, honestly.

They never met in canon ship: Not romantic, because one of them is underage, but I think it would have been cool if Bodhi Rook and Sabine Wren had ever met, since they were both Imperial defectors who played significant parts in the Rebellion. Also they both have four-letter last names that refer to a type of bird. Not that that means anything. 

Your unexpected ship: *sighs loudly* YES THERON, I LIKE YOU NOW. Doesn’t mean I forgive you for always giving Lana a hard time, though.

The ship you always forget to give love to: Most of my Old Republic ships in general, really. For example, I love the Trooper/Jorgan romance, but I’ve never written a single thing about them. I’ve barely written anything for Bounty Hunter/Torian either, which is another of my faves.

Ship your OC with a canon character: Do my BioWare ships count?

A ship you’re embarrassed to ship: I don’t think I have any. Ship and let ship, man. 

Your most romantic ship:  I think it’s Shepard/Garrus, really. Not much compares to the scope of their journey across three games, topped off with how satisfying their scenes were in ME 3 and Citadel. For all BioWare’s faults, I will forever be grateful to them for giving all us weirdo xenophiles the love interest we asked (and asked, and asked) for. 

Your sexiest ship: It may sound weird to say Jyn/Cassian given that they never even kissed. (Stupid canon.) But the way that they looked at each other. The eyesex was real. So was the utter lack of personal space.

Your most tragic ship: Also Jyn/Cassian. It doesn’t get much more tragic than dying in each other’s arms. (I reiterate: stupid canon. Thank goodness for fic.)

A ship you want more content for: All of them.

I’ll tag... @thievinghippo, @skybound2, @probablylostrightnow, and anyone else who’d like to do it!

[whywouldiconfess]

Based ofd your last few reblogs it's sad to see that you really hate Ed for winning awards... Can't we criticise Grammys without hating on the winners? Btw kesha and the rest should not have won for heir causes or genders- But cause of their voices. Also I'm not a monstrous white male, but a WoC if that gives my opinion any points lol.

Lmao did you even read any of the posts all the way through?? I don’t dislike him because he won a grammy... I dislike him because he makes frankly unoriginal bland music flaunting his “boy-next-doordom”/ “i’m just a nice guy” while simultaneously being obnoxiously judgemental and preachy.  I just don’t like him. I didn’t like him before the grammy’s, and I hold the same opinion now. If you’re going to say that Kesha, Sza and Gaga deserved to lose to him due to his vocal talent, I am really going to have to question if this is a troll comment... All of the women I have talked about have extremely good voices and delivered incredible vocal performances on the nominated work (especially Kesha on Praying). Meanwhile Ed, while he has a fine voice, isn’t exactly known for his vocal prowess, he has a good enough voice to pass, but it is far from exceptional. I don’t believe he should have won. His album was bland, uninspired and unimpactful. But either way, I don’t like him and haven’t for a while. 

[emubop]

Adding on to my post from yesterday, I’m just gonna list all the issues I have with Disco (a separate list of the things I love soon to come!)

Under a cut for length and for spoilers. Seriously. Major spoilers ahead. And tw for discussions of character death, if that bothers you.

With that in mind, let’s get to it! (This is in no particular order, btw.)

Starting with the last two episodes, since they’re pretty fresh in my mind - they felt very rushed. I’ve seen some people say that the season should have ended right when they got back from the mirrorverse, and I completely agree. The final arc felt like it needed at least two more episodes to be fleshed out. I wanted to see more of the characters actually dealing with what happened in the mirrorverse, and having time for development; and while we got a little bit of that between Michael and Ash, it wasn’t very much. And like, I get why. When you’ve only got two episodes to get the plot where you need it to go, of course character development is going to be sacrificed for time. Which is why I think they should have either a) added more episodes to the end of season one, or b) ended the season with the mirror arc, so that they’d have more time to explore the Klingon war thing at the beginning of season 2. Disco has some very wonderful characters who are very deserving of development and growth, and it’s unfortunate that they didn’t get it.

Culber’s death... This is the main point where I’m like “yeah, I don’t blame you for not liking the show anymore,” because I came very close to that too. In the end, I do still think I like the rest of the show overall, but this part... I just about stopped watching. In short - the way the show treated Dr. Culber was absolutely shitty. Sure, I’m like 99% certain they’ll end up bringing him back in season 2, but in the meantime, he’s still very much dead. And NOT ONLY did they use the “bury your gays” trope, but out of only TWO gay characters, they buried the man of color. Like... that’s just... what the fuck.

I’m expanding this into multiple points, bc it’s the biggest point I have. Culber’s death is legitimately the worst thing Disco has done. Not only just the fact that they killed him, but how they did it. His death was violent, sudden, and meaningless. The main characters barely even get to react to it before moving on. His killer doesn’t face trial or repercussions. (Note - I personally see Voq as being entirely the murderer and not Tyler, since Tyler had no agency in the killing and was if anything just a tool, but either way, no justice is served.) And then we, the audience, have to see the brutal killing scene AGAIN in the “previously on” section of the next episode or two, which makes it seem like they’re using this horrific event as mere shock value. I literally felt sick to my stomach watching it. What happened was disgusting, and I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to watch the show anymore because of it.

I trust Wilson Cruz. I trust Anthony Rapp. I trust them when they say that there’s a plan, that Culber will come back, that this will work out at some point. Their reassurances do help me personally to make some measure of peace with the situation. I don’t want to think that two openly gay actors would sign onto the script if this is how it ends between their characters. But right now, Culber is still dead, for no good reason that I can see, and it still stings. This is justifiably upsetting. And until I see him come back with my own two eyes, yeah, I’m not gonna be happy about it.

Aaaaand speaking of death, let’s talk about Georgiou. I just... that’s not a good way to start your show off, ngl. You take a very strong and deep character, played by Michelle Yeoh no less, and then just kill her? It’s bad writing. They could have easily had Michael transferred off the Shenzhou and arrested and kept Captain Georgiou alive. They could have even kept the whole “tragic backstory” thing in play, with Michael and Philippa no longer on speaking terms, and Michael mourning the loss of what was once such a close relationship. (I do appreciate that they brought her back as her mirror counterpart - and boy howdy the Emperor is a good character - so that does take a little bit of the sting out, but still. Not the best way to open the show.)

And then Landry dies in both universes?? I can accept mirror!Landry dying because of the whole “Lorca’s second hand” thing, but like... god, this show has got to stop killing off poc. Especially woc. I can understand that they’re trying to do a “raceblind” thing, and I understand their reasoning - the whole “it’s a utopian future and everyone is treated the same!” thing - but it doesn’t really work like that irl for the audience. Unless someone is actually literally colorblind and sees everything in greyscale, no one has any business saying they “don’t see color.��� And no one should be casting with that mindset. The situation could certainly be a lot worse - they’ve got Michael, at least, and she’s fucking amazing - but it could also be better.

And yeah, it’s a warzone, and people are going to die. I get that. But just... do some critical thinking about who you’re killing, why, and if it can be avoided. If for no other reason, it makes the story a lot stronger in the long run.

It’s the year of our lord twenty-gayteen, can we stop having the makeup on white people playing Kingons being so hmmm questionable maybe?

(With regards to several of the above points, I’m white, so please let me know if I’m overstepping my bounds here. And like the point about Culber - I wouldn’t blame anyone for disliking/not supporting the show because of these reasons, and I’m not ever going to try to convince anyone that these things are okay. Because they aren’t. Just because I like certain elements enough to give the show a second chance with season two, doesn’t mean that anyone else will or should do the same. Continuing.)

Why the fuck is this show so obsessed with eating people? Stop it. Get some help.

The only explicitly bisexual/pansexual person we see is the Emperor, who sleeps with both a man and a woman and seems very satisfied with both parties afterwards. Which, okay, cool, except she was also trying to get information out of them, so whether or not she was even attracted to either one is debatable. I personally think she was - thanks to Michelle Yeoh’s acting, which is a goddamn gift - but that still leaves us with the only representation of bi/pan people being a murderous emperor from the mirror universe. And the “relationship” is entirely sex-based, as well as being with multiple people at once, which only furthers the stereotype of bi/pan being promiscuous, being only bi for a threesome, being untrustworthy. And to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with one night stands or poly relationships! Those things are perfectly fine! But when that’s all that bi/pan people are shown as, it can play into really damaging stereotypes - and as a bi/pan person, I’m frankly getting a little fucking sick of it.

(I mean, it’s better than DS9′s “mirrorverse=gay/bi/pan” thing, I’ll give it that, but I’m not going to give any show brownie points for reinforcing harmful stereotypes. You’ve improved slightly, Trek, but not nearly as much as you should have.)

I’m just making another point here for Dr. Culber’s death because seriously. Fucking seriously. What the fuck.

I would’ve liked to have seen more one-off episodes, like “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad.” That was a fucking awesome episode. It’s fun! It’s got character development! I wanna see more of that!

The portrayal of Klingon culture is a bit inconsistent. And okay, to be entirely truthful, I’m really not that into Klingons in general? So having a plot centered around them wouldn’t be my first choice anyway. But if you’re going to do it, please do it right. It felt like the writers sometimes “forgot” important elements of Klingon culture for the sake of the plot, and just... come on. The Klingons are brutal warriors, yes. They’ve killed innocent civilians in the course of battle, sure. But they have a whole honor code, and going out of their way to murder thousands of helpless, defenseless people? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it just doesn’t quite seem to fit.

I really, really wanna see more of the bridge crew! I wanna get to know them! They seem so cool who are they please Disco I’m begging you

This is a very dumb, very tiny thing, but I was kinda hoping I’d see some Cardassian makeup in the crowd while we were in the Seedy Black Market on Qo’noS. Did appreciate the Trill lady tho!

I dunno, the ending almost felt... too neat? If that makes sense? I would have liked things more ambiguous, a few more loose ends. It felt like they threw in a happy ending out of nowhere; it didn’t really match the tone of the rest of the show.

Speaking of tone - it felt to me like Disco was trying to mix the upbeat, thoughtful, philosophical tone of classic Trek with the grittier, more critical, more heavy tone of DS9. I love both classic Trek and DS9, but they don’t exactly mix very well. Disco’s tone felt a bit confused and convoluted. And like, here’s the thing - classic Trek doesn’t preclude heavy subjects (”Conscience of the King” from TOS is a great example), and shows like DS9 don’t preclude fun and optimism (there’s episodes like “Explorers” that are uplifting, and “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” is a fucking delight). Star Trek at its best should always tackle difficult issues, should always have determination, should always have hope. DS9 had a more morally gray outlook, yes, and certainly questioned the idea that the Federation is utopian, but it was still underpinned by the main characters wanting to do good. Wanting to improve the world around them. It managed to do a very good job of adapting Trek’s message to its darker tone - whereas Disco feels like it’s flip-flopping between having a darker tone and trying to be like TOS. Like, buddy, just pick one. You just gotta pick one.

The more times Sarek shows up in Disco, the more he looks like a complete dick to Spock in TOS. This isn’t necessarily a complaint, because Sarek being a dick is certainly in character for him, but I’d like to see that disparity in how he treats his children addressed. By his wife. Specifically by his wife. Amanda is a national treasure and I need her to call her husband out.

idk I think there’s more but like, I’ve been working on this for hours - WAIT HANG ON

This has been bugging me since the beginning of the show, because while Michael’s mutiny was certainly a bad idea, she technically... didn’t really do much of anything before being taken to the brig? She almost has the ship fire on a Klingon vessel, but Georgiou shows up and stops her. Helm locked phasers on the vessel on Michael’s orders, yes, but earlier they locked phase cannons on the vessel for a short time, which Georgiou agreed to. Her actions during the mutiny didn’t really change their situation at all. So why does everyone blame her for starting the war?

“But she killed that Klingon during her spacewalk!” Yeah, she did, because he came charging at her with a bat’leth with the intention to kill. In that scenario, her actions were self-defense. She attempted to talk to him, he then proceeded to try to kill her, so she fought back to save her own life and ended up killing him in the process. And all this happened while she was investigating a foreign object in Federation territory. So while I can see why she was charged with mutiny and assaulting a fellow officer, I don’t think it’s fair to say that she started the war. The Klingons on the ship of the dead were planning to start shit before anyone even got there.

I can understand why Starfleet would have thought Michael started it, at least at first, because unlike the audience, they couldn’t see the Klingons planning beforehand. That’s fair. But then Ash Tyler shows up, and he’s revealed to be Voq - who was there! he knows what happened on that ship! - and eventually, he loses Voq’s consciousness but retains the guy’s memories. So Ash knows how the war started. Ash knows, or should know, that the Klingons on that ship were the instigators. Why wouldn’t he tell Starfleet before fucking off with L’Rell? He says he loves Michael, so why wouldn’t he want to set the record straight? And most importantly, why wasn’t Michael told any of this?! She’s been blaming herself for this whole war, she’s been suffering needlessly for it, let her fucking rest! Yeah, she was exonerated and accepted back into Starfleet, which is great, but it came across as “welp you basically cleaned up the mess of a war you started and saved Earth from annihilation, so I guess we’ll clear the slate for you.” It should have been more like “well given what we know now, we can say that you’re innocent of starting interstellar war; and as for the rest, stopping the destruction of Earth is a hell of a community service, so you know what? Welcome back.”

My point is, Michael Burnham has done nothing wrong, ever, in her life

Alright, at this point I think that about sums it up, and I’m tired of looking at this anyways because it’s been hours now, so uh, yeah. Thanks for coming to my ted talk

[femvulvaphile]

let’s break that weird shit down, then

“We’ve been here since the beginning. I know your hate group, your little Nazi sub-sect, has this lie you like to spread that we suddenly spring into being from whole cloth in the 1970s, but that fighting all through history? WE’VE. BEEN THERE. FOR ALL OF IT.” cool but that’s literally not what I said. transwomen’s and women’s fights are inherently different. Sex-based oppression doesn’t DIRECTLY affect transwomen: you will never be shunned for menstruating, you will never be afraid of having your prepubescent vulva mutilated for the sick pleasure of a men five times your age, you will never be afraid of being impregnated against your will, or of miscarriage of a wanted child, or of all the pregnancy and birth complications who are still killing women all over the world. you will never know what it’s like to have men catcall and grope you when you’re nine years old just because your boobs already began to grow.   

"The demonization of trans women is a relatively recent invention in the grand scheme of human history and it is one that you have helped re-surge into the modern world.” that’s bullshit. the “demonization” you’re talking about can refer to one of two things: either the conservative view that transwomen are “deviant men” (which I definitely agree is shitty), or the radical feminist view that transwomen retain their male socialization and so, as a group, can represent danger to women (which is backed up by research, btw, and the amount of “receipts” in the form of news reports of transwomen hurting and murdering cis women AND in the unending threats and harassment that radfems receive online and irl).

"The idea of ASAB and tying it to gender in some inviolate and unchangeable way is something colonizing white people brought to this country, and others they invaded.” cool but that’s bullshit? pretty much every culture on earth has a history of identifying biological sex and applying sociological roles to them. that’s not a white invention, that’s not the fruit of colonialism. the concept of “gender” as behaviors and roles based on reproductive function has existed for as long as people have existed. some cultures have stricter rules about them, others are more loose. some cultures refuse to acknowledge non-conforming people as their “original gender”, and then you have things like two-spirit or hijras.

"Whether you realize it or not, and…let’s be honest, you probably do, your actions, your hate group, is just a laser-guided subsection of what fascism and white supremacy stands for.” wtf tho. fascists and white supremacists and nazi want a “pure” world without “lesser” groups, like black people, jewish people, homosexuals, gnc people. how is female-only radical feminism the same? are you aware that plenty of radical feminists are woc themselves, and even jewish? are you aware that the vast majority of people you’d call “terfs” aren’t even american, or english speakers? we literally just want men to stop fucking murdering us.

“Without colonization, without white supremacy, your argument, your constant, hammering on “male” as if to conjure some demon from the word, would mean nothing.” male violence has been a reality in human history. it’s not a theory, it’s not up to debate. it’s a fact. you know it is, according to your original post talking about men posing the most danger to transwomen. women all over the world are victims of men. it doesn’t change whether we talk about it, or use the words male, men, amab.

"I don’t mean that in the rhetorical sense, I mean literally, your words would not have a cogent basis without that.” again, bullshit. male violence is everywhere, in every culture, in every part of the world, regardless of how much contact with europen colonization the culture has had. japanese men are violent, russian men are violent, french men are violent, english men are violent, american men are violent, cuban men are violent, argentinian men are violent, brazilian men are violent. nazis didn’t invent misogyny.

“How fucking dare you invoke my dead sisters, how fucking dare you bring up that most of us getting murdered are PoC, while peddling Nazi approved propaganda.” uh. it’s “nazi approved propaganda” to say that women face violence from men and therefore need safe spaces from them? and I brought up the groups that murdered transwomen belong to because YOUR GROUP likes using them, using your so-called dead sisters, as argument points, as proof that a white middle class educated men with a dress and lipstick is somehow more oppressed than any woman on earth.

“Meanwhile, asshole,” oh cool name calling when I wrote a relatively calm and non-offensive post. “I was talking about SHARED SPACES. LGBT focused communities, the ones you are perpetually try to focus trans lesbians out of because you view us as the worst of what you already consider the worst.” yeah, maybe we wouldn’t need to do that if “lesbian” transwomen could stop demanding so much from women, or if they’d stop claiming protagonism when they don’t even experience SAME-SEX ATTRACTION, which historically has been, you know, the entire defining poing for “lgbt” people.

“You didn’t even notice it, did you? You were just launching into Pre-Written Terf Rhetoric #5 without so much as reading what I actually. Fucking. Said.” dude, you’re calling me a nazi literally just because I said women deserve female-only spaces and transwomen should create their own safe spaces away from men instead of demanding entry and protection from women.

"Your insistence that we’re “straight men” only serves to try and push us out of those communities as well." you have more in common with straight men than with lesbians, tho. you don’t experience same-sex attraction, you’re not female, you can impregnate a female lesbian (depending on transition specifics, but let’s be honest: the big problem is the transwomen who claim “there’s no need to need to transition bc my dick is a woman’s dick”), if you’re not “passing” you don’t need to fear homophobic violence from strangers.

“Jesus fuck, like did you even notice that was the fucking point? Like your shoving us aside as non-women is already fucked up but that wasn’t even the point of this particular post.” the point of your post was vilifying women who question the notion that “transwomen are exactly the same as women”. the point of your post was putting the blame on women, “terfs”, for what men do.

"The idea that men view us as also men is so beyond laughable I can’t even properly convey it.” they view you as “DEFECTIVE” men. they definitely don’t view you as women. men are violent towards you as a result of toxic masculinity - a non-conforming male is a threat to their notion of rigid male-female roles. the violence towards you is closer in motivation to the violence towards gay men, rather than the one towards women.

"But I’m just going to say: You don’t live our lives. You don’t live our experiences.” yes. just like you don’t live the lives of women. which is exactly why I said transwomen do deserve safe spaces, but not by invading female-only safe spaces.

"If you don’t know how wrong you are it’s because you’re incapable of treating our words as anything but the words of the target of your hate and thus discarded.” you’re lumping me in with nazis (I’m a latina gender-non-conforming lesbian, I’d be raped and killed by actual nazis faster than you could type “op is a terf”), refusing to actually ACKNOWLEDGE the things I said, bringing up way more arguments than the ones on your original post, and then blaming me for not being able to read your mind.

“The power you hold is that you have been aligning yourself with right-wing christian groups,” bullshit. again: women can’t even get men to stop raping us. how exactly do you think we have any power, any voice, over THE most misogynistic men on the planet?

"the power you hold is that your ilk has been speaking to audiences wherever they can find them in academia for decades,” again, bullshit. women have been in academia for, like, two years, in comparison to how long men have been dominating every public and private space.

"the power you hold is that you went into the communities that might have helped us stay alive and sowed false accusations to turn others against us,” b u l l s h i t. YOU came into OUT communities demanding we treat you as equals, when we are observably NOT equals. sex-based oppression doesn’t affect transwomen the same way it does women. men’s violence is distinctly different based on your sex.

"the power you hold is in helping, insidiously, to uphold the institutional biases that keep us marginalized, alone, and dying.” the same can be said of modern trans rights activists, tho. you’re all contributing to the strengthening of gender as a hierarchy - and not because you need to conform to survive. no, your original message (the one we can still hear from drag queens and transvestites from stonewall, for instance, that your kind likes to claim as “transwomen”) has been corrupted to the point where people look at a feminine gay boy and tell him he must be trans, he must transition, he must be a woman because he likes makeup and is attracted to men. your kind tells parents of vulnerable children that their little boys and girls will KILL THEMSELVES if they don’t take hormones as soon as possible. your group tells lesbians they need to suck dick to be proper lesbians. your group supports (and breeds) more murderers, rapists, and pedophiles than radical feminism could. your group tells women of color, lesbians, survivors of all sorts of male violence, that they’re the problem. you tell us we’re even worse than men. you tell us to die, you threaten us with rape, with baseball bats. you punch sixty year old women who dare take a picture of people trying to silence women. you rape and murder a twelve year old girl. you rape and forcibly impregnate a female trans person, and then brag about it. you support rapists and pedophiles being housed in women’s prison because of their “gender feels”. 

you tell women to shut up about their own experiences. you tell women they’re not the “right kind” of women. you tell women they’re not woman “enough”. you tell them to sacirfice themselves for yet another male.

“And yes, before you even start, I’m blocking you. I don’t debate Nazis or Nazi bootlicks.” still nowhere near being a nazi, but alright.

bonus:

“also do they just have a terf blog name generator somewhere, i swear all terf blogs read like a bunch of synonyms for vagina and spellings of rad and possibly a wolf reference or phile or fetishist, all put in a random name generator” that’s hilarious to men because I literally saved this url after I seeing an asshole claim that lesbians aren’t allowed to call themselves lesbians if they don’t suck dick, and that they’re actually vagina fetishists. the person used -phile on something, I can’t recall what, and I immediately thought “hmm, yes. I love vulvas. I’m a vulvaphile. A female vulvaphile.” 

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

star trek discovery

i avoided posting anything spoilery earlier to spare @actuallylukedanes so it’s time for a more detailed review. 

confession #1: i wouldn’t have watched the pilot if i hadn’t seen that jason isaacs was going to be starring in the show. i adore him. i’m not ashamed. i didn’t expect to like the space exploration elements, i barely remember watching star trek a lot when i was a kid, but it was jason isaacs. so it was required of me.

confession #2: i therefore spent all of the pilot waiting for him to show up, and found the show very confusing right up until the pilot’s end, since he was still missing and i didn’t see the story matching up with the show i’d been told to expect. 

that being said, the pilot left me conflicted, because i spent all of it wondering how jason isaac’s captain was going to play in, and once i understood--i only half wanted him to!! 

so here’s the only problem i have with the show: it was too good in the setup. i fell in love with the crew and the captain and the dynamic between her and the main character. i was fully on board and thrilled to watch her lead her ship for the rest of the show. ‘yay!’ i thought, ‘an asian actress captaining star trek--awesome.’ 

i was nearly done with the pilot before i started wondering how exactly jason isaacs could possibly fit in as a captain too...which makes me naive and easily bruised by the ending, tbh. now i know, and i love him, but i want more of what we saw during the first 30 minutes: cptn. georgiou and michael being awesome and bonded and intense and two badass woc running a crew.

i am looking forward to the show going forward though. i love michael as the main character; she’s cassandra, trying to sound alarms while nobody listens and she loses people she loves. my heart hurt for her, especially because her backstory adds an interesting layer to everything that happens and her captain and friend flung it in her face like a cruel sort of weapon. 

also, as someone who has never seen the original star trek and barely remembers anything about next gen and voyager, i really enjoyed the klingon storyline. supposedly they plan to place a heavier emphasis on the klingon backstory, with a more balanced viewpoint (i wouldn’t know the difference) but either way, i was pulled in immediately. 

seeing both sides of the escalation up to a war, and the way they use the klingon language rather than just subtitles, makes klingons more than just the ‘other’ that our ‘heroes’ need to fight. also i found it very affecting to start out by seeing humans via the perspective of the klingons--a blunt but effective nod to historically colonized people offscreen. 

it’s a gorgeous show, i have to say. most of my faves have bland settings and i can’t say beautiful locations/colors are my first concern when i watch a show, but this one is very aesthetically pleasing.

anyway, clearly i loved it bc i had a lot to say. i feel like i’m forgetting other things, tbh. if you have questions or want to chat about any of the shows i’m watching, btw, feel free! my list for the season is only just beginning.