#i think a lot of the pushback against the first idea comes from the fact that people feel it implies the second

[gay-otlc]

Say it with me: The fact that closeted and non-passing trans men face misogyny for being perceived as women does not mean that closeted and non-passing trans women have male privilege!

[aliusfrater]

sam's early seasons anger is his response to the trauma obtained within the (non)family unit that is john-dean-sam, but most importantly, it's his response to the abuse john had inflicted upon both himself and dean, and it's very often on behalf of dean, who in his own codependent dynamic with john as a parentified child, non-pathologised john's abusive actions and was unable to form any kind of significant pushback against john's abuse. john's abuse is grief and emotion projected outwards onto dean, a child, the son, who gains the unjust responsibility of having to manage his father's emotions. sam refuses to be like dean and cater himself to john largely because he, through his Othering and detachment within his family and hunting, is able to view john's actions as what it is—abuse. he acknowledges this in over and over season one both with reference to the fact that what happened to them was 'not normal' and with specific reference of why john's actions are abuse—"you were just pissed you couldn't control me anymore!" he expresses his refusal to fold into the same mould that dean has through anger, first through character-typical malicious compliance, in which he asks questions he knows he is entitled to (and generally believes in arming oneself with information, due to both the chronic lack of information john and dean had provided him with as a child (3.08)) but knows john will view as disrespect (due to the fact that it strays from the codependent role that dean has folded himself into on john's behalf; he does what he's told and asks no questions, though is generally awarded more information due to his parentification) and then through argumentative behaviour. both john and dean frame john and sam's arguments as sam's fault but this is the most encapsulating abusive aspect of it—john's (the parent) response to sam (the son) is not sam's responsibility.

i don't think his revenge is encapsulated by his anger; his revenge comes from their familial idealistic response to grief, and anger is a part of grief, rather than the other way around. instead of processing this grief, it's channeled into revenge. it's a foundation of hunting for a lot of hunters, which is both a literal and metaphorical representation of the cycle of abuse (and when it isn't hunting, it's represented in blood (re: men of letters)). his conflict with lilith isn't wholly about his revenge for dean's death, especially after dean is resurrected. i think it's more so related to my interpretation of sam's character conflict for that season being that of rejecting what the codependent dynamic of his and dean's relationship¹ had become by season three in favour of his own independence; his conflict with lilith and how ruby plays into this conflict began with revenge then became the nucleus of his rebellion against dean (which does include anger²). he acknowledges this directly in season five—"dean, one of the reasons i went off with ruby... was to get away from you. [...] it made me feel strong. like i wasn't your kid brother."—but it doesn't help that both ruby and the angels were actively encouraging this conflict between sam and lilith largely because of the fact that it 1) re: ruby—represented a course of agency for sam outside of dean and presented an opportunity for her own manipulation of sam (she filled in a dean-like role in the sense that she catered to everything sam wanted the actual dean to be doing for him—namely the acceptance of his monstrosity—while presenting him with a facade of independence), and 2) re: ruby and the angels—provided them with a pawn to break the final seal by dressing up the idea of lilith as free of negative consequence through the omission of information (according to both the angels and ruby, lilith was the one who had to complete breaking of the final seal. to sam, killing lilith was morally righteous).

²i do think that sam has a general undercurrent, simmering, and oftentimes outward yet compartmentalised anger that he utilises within his own agency outside of his relationship with john then dean. however, i do think that the very core of it is more related to his Othering, monstrosity, and the loss of control that he feels when his environment responds to his monstrosities. sam admits to this as well—4.16, "well, get angry." / 5.11, "most of the time, i can hide it, but... i am angry. i'm mad at everything. i used to be mad at you and dad, then lilith, now it's lucifer, and i make excuses. i blame ruby or the demon blood, but it's not their fault. it's not them. it's me. it's inside me. i'm mad… all the time... and i don't know why."—and something that really intrigues me about the latter admission is the event preceding it: he's tied to a bed (much like the conditions of the panic room) and his anger is victim blamed with explicit reference to his monstrosity. "you are far too angry to be out there in the real world," is a very pointed and crazy ass line on the 'we kill monsters who fall out of line and into our line of sight' show directly after the season in which he perceivably became the 'them' within the 'us vs them' metaphorical equation. the people that sam bring up are also representations of either his Othering, a loss of control, or his explicit monstrosity. his anger began with his father's abuse and continued long after his death when he passed control of sam's life over to dean who, through his inability to properly handle the past responsibility of parentification, perpetuated it into this request made by john which clashed with dean's existing ideas of monstrosity; sam's existence outside of the existing dichotomy of hunting prompted the stretching of this dichotomy to fit sam (dean’s season two conflict re: sam) rather than the destruction and rewriting of the dichotomy itself and in that way, sam still ended up othered within his existence as a threat to the upturning of their familial hunting beliefs. ruby and lilith (as well as azazel) represent the pretence of control just as much as they represent his unknowing grappling for control (addiction) as well as his monstrosity due to how he employed his monstrosity within his conflicts with them while lucifer represents an entire loss or both perceived or preconceived control—both the idea of sam's monstrosity in an inherent sense, as well as sam's complete lack of control are cemented with lucifer's existence just as much as the preparation (azazel's plans, and it does intrigue me that azazel isn't listed here) leading up to it.

it's foundational to my interpretation of sam that he believes that his monstrosity predated his explicit narrative monstrosity due to the abuse—neglect and isolation most importantly—he experienced as a child and the resulting guilt complex that he's left with, which he then encapsulates within the revelation of his unwilling/unknowing ingestion of demon blood as a baby and i think that with every complex-reinforcing factor that introduces itself into his life, he weaponises/quite simply falls back on his response (anger) to the most original grooming, abuse, and explicit example of a loss of control and Othering in his life—the john-dean-sam dynamic, with an explicit emphasis on john (kind of in a similar way to my idea of dean's reaction to a loss of relationship control, which is to begin recreating the same dynamic). a lot of it comes down to the fact that while he is angry on behalf of himself at these structures—familial, patriarchal, hunting, cycles (of abuse, grief)—he exists within but are both othered and controlled by, the general narrative and sam-dean relationship dynamic pushback against his response to this aspect of his character being that of both adding his response to reasons for/blatant instances of his othering as well as using his response to facilitate the realigning of his non-position within these structures, creates a self-deprecating loop of guilt and results in an anger at himself that echoes exactly the way that these structures demand that his identity be compartmentalised through. basically, it spells either ‘there is something inherently illicit about me. i need information/forgiveness/change (in that order)' or the usage of both this feeling as well as his perceived monstrosity/aspect that he is othered as a result of as agency as seen in season four, five, six, and season eight, is extended onto dean in season eleven, then jack in seasons thirteen through fifteen.

ultimately, these structures' facilitation of sam's non-role involves the depletion of sam's anger and results in his later-seasons characterision that is best (but not wholly) encapsulated within 7.17, "get pissed!" / "i'm too tired," especially when the circumstances of sam's response—in regards to the fact that dean has resouled sam despite his (5.22 and soulless!sam's) explicit doubled lack of consent against it, and while creating the issue that is sam's psychosis, has restored sam/sammy's rightful narrative place within his non-role—not only serve as a perfect example for the abuse dynamics of his and dean's relationship and how it facilitates sam's non-role within said relationship as well as the structures that this relationship is encapsulated by, it also serves as a perfect example for exactly how sam's anger worked, what its purpose was, as well as exactly how and why its depletion facilities his complete assimilation into these structures' atmospheres of abuse. the Whole topic of sam's later-seasons lack of anger (or anger when utilised) is an entirely different post, though.

¹specifically relating to 1) identity and monstrosities relating compartmentalised through the ‘us vs them’ dichotomy of hunting and how it manifests into a relationship dynamic where sam is dean's little brother, sammy, put on a pedestal of innocence because his innocence became dean's responsibility within his parentification and any indication of sam's monstrosity, as something evil encroaching upon Sammy, is therefore viewed a personal failing despite the unequivocal place it holds within sam’s being, 2) and 3).

[wenningfanclub]

“Wei Wuxian was thrown out of the cultivation world for not carrying a sword!! Because he’s a servant and as soon as he wasn’t useful he was cut off!!”

Okay but like... was he, though? Because as far as I remember, Wei Wuxian chooses to leave the Jiang clan when he decides to rescue the Wen remnants. Is it an unfair choice? Absolutely. But it’s one he makes on his own terms, and it’s not really related to his not carrying a sword.

Wei Wuxian faces pushback for not carrying his sword from pretty much everyone, but aside from the occasional “someone should do something about it” from the larger community nothing ever really comes of it. He’s still first disciple of the Jiang, and the most Jiang Cheng ever does is give him a hard time for not carrying his sword and for fucking off to go drink on the clock. And given that he has no context for why Wei Wuxian is doing either (because Wei Wuxian refuses to tell him) it’s pretty fair, actually. If anything, Jiang Cheng is almost unreasonably flexible about it: Wei Wuxian isn’t pulling his weight when Jiang Cheng really, really needs to him to be and not explaining why and it’s still not a deal breaker, even when he’s unreliable and out of control and fucking up diplomatic efforts at the cultivation conference. As far as I can tell, Wei Wuxian’s position as first disciple is never seriously jeopardized until he the moment he leaves the Jiang, and even then he has to be the one to pull the plug, not Jiang Cheng. 

So like... he wasn’t kicked out of the cultivation world for not carrying a sword because it wasn’t about that. He just faces a ton of pushback, which is shitty and unfair given that he’s Going Through It at the time but again, no one knows about that because he’s actively lying about it. 

And like, I do get the class-based analysis that some people have made that Nie Huaisang is able to get away with not carrying a sword with less pushback. Wei Wuxian has a job and Nie Huaisang... also has a job as sect heir but it’s a harder one to get fired from, PLUS he’s spent a lot of time and effort worming out of carrying it to the point that the pushback against it is pretty mild. Whereas with Wei Wuxian, people react differently is because it’s yeah, his job to carry his sword, but more importantly it’s both sudden and wildly out of character for him to stop carrying Suibian. Up until losing his core, he was one of (if not THE) best swordsman of his peers and his sword was part of him and his identity as a cultivator, so for everyone who knows him there’s considerable reason to be alarmed--in no small part because they correctly recognize that something must be Very Wrong with him. Which is where Lan Wangji is coming from, and he’s right. 

But also, and I can’t stress this enough, Nie Huaisang also gets more of a pass because he isn’t holding a live bomb and refusing to let go. Because it’s not just the sword that’s the issue, it’s the fact that Wei Wuxian has the tiger tally and is unwilling to let it be destroyed by the clans. Not carrying a sword is a sign that he’s abandoned righteous cultivation and adopted demonic cultivation--and given the both recent and historic track record of demonic cultivators going apeshit, it’s not a totally unreasonable thing for people to be anxious about. This is a society still reeling from a war that started when powerful, talented people started flaunting convention and straying from the path, so while I’m not justifying anyone’s paranoia, the overall concern about whether or not no longer carrying a sword is a sign that Wei Wuxian is the next Wen Ruohan isn’t baseless. 

So while there’s absolutely more to be said for class-based analysis of how people treat him, I honestly can’t agree with people who are hung up on the idea that Wei Wuxian was unfairly punished for not carrying a sword. Because he really wasn’t punished for it at all, and also I don’t think that the people who were upset or alarmed that he stopped carrying Suibian were that unreasonable.  

[ezrisdax-archive]

If you could fully rewrite Mass Effect 2, how would you do it?

I'd lean harder into the keepers already being controlled by the reapers and in charge of the citadel. I wouldn't have done the collector arc at all as related to the protheans tbh, while the reveal was cool the first time I played it the more I thought about it and the lore they gave us in ME3 just didn't make it make much sense because once again, they have this genetic touch memory power so why did they get rid of it when the collectors could have solved a lot of things that way.

but yeah. hm, a full redo of ME2...there's certain beats I might wanna keep like Shep dying which was certainly impactful and Liara becoming the shadowbroker which is important to her arc, and except for Jacob's (which I'd redo entirely) I wouldn't change much in the content of the squadmate missions. When it comes to Shep joining Cerberus though I'd offer more pushback and actually bringing up the ME1 stuff if you did that missions, like have a conversation branch associated with that. Maybe even have it where if you against it enough you'd lose assests and Shep is in fact playing Cerberus the way Tali suggests but has to walk a careful line otherwise let's say you lose Miranda and Jacob as squadmates once you have enough.

Now the suicide mission I'd keep but I think I'd change the whole idea of it, like yeah omega relay can stay but you're not going to stop the collectors, you're trying to just block the reapers from coming in through a certain other access point. maybe the omega relay is like a copy of the citadel, an original one the reapers made but wasn't fully functional and the keepers have been leaving the old citadel and no one knows where they're going because no one's realized that the omega relay is an old citadel yet. and that's just mentioned really here and there and not the main plot persay but something that plays a major point of tying in.

so for the main arc I'm okay with keeping the collectors and having them kidnap humans but I'd just have them be this new alien that no one knew of, not something known before because again, why send sovereign if you had them right there. or hell maybe they were part of the galaxy before but they did believe Shep and chose to go the Saren route and now you've got a whole race that's chosen to work for the Reapers instead of just one person. and while they do start by taking humans to serve up to the Reapers in an attempt to not have their species taken towards the end they also start taking other species. I just wanted more in ME2 where Shep has to build relationships with other species and not just their squadmate of that species. and then that plays in to ME3 depending on how to treated those species. did you rescue them along with the humans or not?

actually I might change Legion's story a little now that I think about it, maybe have his side the heretics who chose not to believe in the Reapers as gods and his side is the one you have to prevent a rewrite of. and then in ME3 you have to convince the other Geth the Reapers aren't gods and forge that alliance with them and the Quarian. I just think this new species of robots who have a belief system like that was a fascinating story and I wanted more of a look into it.

ME2 mostly bugs me because the collector backstory and we don't get as much interactions with reapers but I admit I'm not quite clever enough fully to figure out how to tie the reapers in more how I want them to be. mr "assuming direct control" is fun as a meme but he really lacked the shock and elegance Sovereign had. that first talk with Sovereign is still one of the best reveals and so creepy. I think rather than end it fully with a suicide mission we do have some reapers come through. now you've stopped most of them but there's some here now and rather than end it with a fight of the human reaper end it with fights of the actual reapers. like maybe they've slipped through and gone off and no one knows when they're about to attack but they are here now. which then you have them start the attack on the batarian sector and Shep going to save them and failing and blowing up the relay to stall again. not have that as a DLC though, I'm still salty about that. but that's where the game ends, they're actually in the galaxy and have done some destruction and for all Sheps attempts they failed in their own way. ME2 per the arrival as the actual end is just bittersweet so keep it on that note to lead into ME3.

[elcorhamletlive]

It annoys me that Bylrs are so against the idea of Will moving on from Mike and finding a new boy that will love him back.

We also know that there will be a time skip (2 years or so) in the next season. It actually makes perfect sense for Will to move on during that time skip. Because the alternate scenario is him just waiting, pining, and sticking to his (unrequited) love for Mike for a long time.... And that is a very tiring, annoying plot at this point.

I think ''Will moving on from Mike is OOC'' type of talking points all come from prioritizing Bylr possibly or maybe happening over Will's character. It's like playing a losing game. It is important to prioritize Will's individual character first than a ship that has next to zero chance of happening. Wishing and making Will be stuck in this pining and gayngst game contributes nothing to Will's character.

Will getting a new love interest during that time skip period is more preferable to having to watch him pine after Mike for a very long time... the way the writers approached this situation deserves criticism ofc, because Will getting a new love interest in the last season must be criticized, and we can do that. However, the insistence on making Will be stuck in his first childhood love is also deserving of criticism. And at the end of the day, it is much more preferable to watch Will move on to find a boy that will love him back instead of watching his gay suffering again. Their relationship will appear for only one season, yeah, and it is worth criticism. But dismissing it completely contributes nothing to the topic.

Yeah, exactly.

I think your third paragraph hits the nail on the head, anon. I have never seen anyone from the party line of "It's OOC for Will to move on from Mike" who did not also believe Mike reciprocates Will's feelings and they're going to end up together. It's the same reason why they believe Will's feelings for Mike are somehow deeper or more real than Eleven's. Usually they will follow up with something like "Mike is his soulmate", which, hm, is pretty revelatory in regards to their true opinions.

I also think Will getting a new love interest becomes exponentially more likely if there is a timeskip, which the Duffers have said will happen but we don't know in which context. Because in a timeskip you usually want to feature some kind of major change in the status quo (like Lucas joining the football team, or El getting heavily bullied). And I've seen people use this exact point to argue for B*ler, saying Mike and Eleven could break up during a timeskip, but I don't think people realise that "Will met a new guy and moved on from the guy who has been dating his sister for like two years" and "Mike and Eleven decided they're better off as friends" are not equally understandable, logical scenarios for the characters as they're presented in canon. One of those possibilities is just a much easier sell than the other, which would require tons of explaining, flashbacks, retconning, etc.

Finally, I feel compelled to add that mutual B*l*r really does nothing for Will's character arc at this point. Most people who argue for it don't seem to believe Will needs to have an arc at all - sure, they want him to have a ton of screentime and defeat Vecna and have secret powers and etc, but they don't seem to want him to experience character development, to grow and evolve and change. In fact I've encountered a lot of pushback from B*l*r truthers to the idea that Will needs to grow and change at all - most seem to think he's already perfect and only needs to be loved back by Mike to complete his arc, and I think this is a pretty self-indulgent view that carries a poor interpretation of canon. The show has dropped the ball with Will in many ways, but one thing that it has been consistent with is Will's struggle to grow up and the fact that he needs to do so for his own happiness.

[verycharismaticdragon]

I also think it's worth mentioning that Wangxian / MDZS have started several important discussions in Western fandom in the few years they've been around.

Due to MDZS donghua and The Untamed (animated and live-action adaptations respectively) becoming many English-speaking fans first foray into c-media, they brought to light many unconscious biases. However, thanks to the efforts of Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans, those biases were pointed out and interrogated, starting a widespread discussion about anti-Asian racism present in Western fandom spaces. Not limited to just sinophobic / anti-Chinese sentiments either, if you've seen discussions about for example the racist underpinnings of using Japanese terms to mean 'bad version of the thing' - the space for these discussions, which were of course long time coming, was in fact created by Chinese and Chinese diaspora MDZS fans speaking up about the issues they saw in Western fandom's treatment of Chinese BL characters.

Another discussion that was frankly a long time coming, but in which Wangxian in particular has made a significant difference, is the question of sanitization of queer media - in particular Western fandom's tendency to rip into any queer media that isn't completely chaste and conflict-free. There were people speaking up against this before, but due to MDZS's extremely specific circumstances, it became the ground for some very fruitful discussions.

Those circumstances were, first, its widespread popularity and massive fandom, meaning it had numbers on every possible side of the argument, and second, the discrepancy between the source material (novel) and adaptations, in particular the live-action show. For those unfamiliar: the queer romance in the show is at the level of about... Good Omens season 1, let's say; it's made clear they are each other's most important relationship, there is definitely no heterosexual explanation for it, lots of soulful eyecontact, some Significant Touches, and so on - but no love declaration, no kisses, let alone anything else. Which of course doesn't make it any less of a queer love story! But, conversely, original novel canon Wangxian are not just canonically married, but have tons of kinky sex described in explicit detail on page. (If you've heard wangxian shippers mention "everyday means everyday", yes thats about their sex life. If you've heard about the ass sword, yeah that too.)

The apple of discord thus was someone praising the live-action for its subtle, "pure" portrayal, touting it as better than "nasty fetishization" of the original work. Which generated many lines of discussion, including about censorship, and about racist undertones of claiming specifically Asian BL as fetishist while not applying the same scrutiny to Western m/m. But one in particular that I feel was very important to fandom at large was the pushback against the idea that "purer" queer rep is better one by MDZS fans. This was the first time a significant number of people were there to speak out about how, actually, gay&kinky sex shouldn't be confined solely to fanfiction. And how claiming its presence as inherently impure was in fact repackaged homophobia. And how damaging it was to queer ppl to only see the most sanitized versions of queer relationships be deemed acceptable, and everything else demonized. And how infantilizing it felt to not see any HE queer stories that also featured conflict between characters, as if queer ppl don't have a full breadth of human experience including fucking up in their romantic relationship, and as if the only two options for queer relationship are "chaste and unproblematique™" or "toxic af and will cause each other untold suffering and meet a terrible end". And ofc many also pointed out the underlying anti-kink sentiment behind many of the claims.

And again, this was brewing before, but the sheer mass of people who rallied behind MDZS Wangxian's unabashed sexcapades was actually, from what I've seen, the first time the scales well and truly tipped towards "purer is not better". I'm certainly seeing much more celebration of complex and interesting queer rep in fandom now, and much less pearl-clutching.

And of course, as mentioned before, there are now several books out there on the shelves that feature both an engaging plot unrelated to main characters' queerness and queer rep that is complex, interesting, and very much sex&kink positive - all because MDZS Wangxian was there.

AO3 Top Relationships Bracket- Semifinals

This poll is a celebration of fandom history; we're aware that there are certain issues with many of the listed pairings and sources, but they are a part of that history. Please do not take this as an endorsement, and refrain from harassment.

[firelxdykatara]

I’m just really confused as to where this idea that Zuko is gaycoded came from. Like people are allowed to have that headcanon but I don’t understand where people are coming from when they try and claim that he was undisputedly gaycoded and trying to deny it is homophobic when he’s only ever shown romantic interest in women.

I made a pretty long post on the topic a while back, but the ultimate gist of it is this: there are a lot of elements of Zuko's status as an abuse victim and trauma survivor that resonate with queer folks. This is understandable and completely fine! However, there are some parts of the fandom who have taken that to the other extreme and will now insist that those elements are uniquely queer, and that they can only be read as some sort of veiled gay/coming out narrative, even though that doesn't make much sense since there is no part of Zuko's narrative which is unique to any sort of queer experience.

I think the problem really does stem from two things being conflated--Zuko's history of abuse and trauma, and trauma&abuse being something a lot of queer people have experienced. I suspect it goes something like 'I see a lot of myself in Zuko, and I was abused for being gay, therefore Zuko must be gay too in order to have had similar experiences.' This can then lead to feeling dismissed or invalidated when other people point out that those experiences are not unique to being queer--but on the flip side, abuse victims and trauma survivors whose abuse&trauma do not stem from queerness (even if they are queer themselves) can feel invalidated and dismissed by the implication that their trauma must be connected to their queerness or it isn't valid.

This is also where the 'people don't actually know what gay coded means' part comes in, and I realize now that I didn't actually get into what gay coding (and queer coding in general) actually means, since I was so hung up on pointing out how Zuko doesn't really fit the mold. (And the few elements that exist which could be said to count are because of the 'villains historically get queer coded bc Hays Code era' thing and mostly occur in Book 1, not because of how he acts as an abuse&trauma survivor.)

Under a cut because I kind of go on a tangent about gay/queer coding, but I swear I get back to the point eventually.

Queer coding (and it is notable that, with respect to Zuko, it is almost always framed as 'he couldn't possibly be attracted to girls', rather than 'he could be attracted to boys as well as girls' in these discussions, for... no real discernible reason, but I'll get into that in a bit) is the practice of giving characters 'stereotypically queer' traits and characteristics to 'slide them under the radar' in an era where having explicitly queer characters on screen was not allowed, unless they were evil or otherwise narratively punished for their queerness. (See: the extant history of villains being queer-coded, because if they were Evil then it was ok to make them 'look gay', since the story wasn't going to be rewarding their queerness and making audiences think it was in any way OK.) This is thanks to the Motion Picture Production Code (colloquially and more popularly known as the Hays Code), which was a set of guidelines which movies coming out of any major studio had to adhere to in order to be slated for public release and lasted from the early 1930s until it was finally abandoned in the late 60s.

The Hays Code essentially existed to ensure that the content of major motion pictures would not 'lower the moral standards' of the viewing public. It didn't just have to do with queerness--cursing was heavily monitored, sex outside of marriage was not allowed to be seen as desirable or tittilating, miscegenation was not allowed (most specifically interracial relationships between black and white people), criminals had to be punished lest the audience think that it was ok to be gay and do crime, etc. Since same-sex relations fell under 'sexual perversion', they could not be shown unless the 'perversion' were punished in some way. (This is also the origin of the Bury Your Gays trope, another term that is widely misunderstood and misapplied today.) To get around this, queer coding became the practice by which movies and television could depict queer people but not really, and it also became customary to give villains this coding even more overtly, since they would get punished by the end of the film or series anyway and there was nothing to lose by making them flamboyant and racy/overly sexual/promiscuous.

Over time, this practice of making villains flamboyant, sexually aggressive, &etc became somewhat separated from its origins in queer coding, by which I mean that these traits and tropes became the go-to for villains even when the creator had no real intention of making them seem queer. This is how you generally get unintentional queer-coding--because these traits that have been given to villains for decades have roots in coding, but people tend to go right to them when it comes to creating their villains without considering where they came from.

Even after the Hays Code was abandoned, the sentiments and practices remained. Having queer characters who weren't punished by the narrative for being queer was exceptionally rare, and it really isn't until the last fifteen or so years that we've seen any pushback against that. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is famous for being one of the first shows on primetime television to feature an explicitly gay relationship on-screen, and that relationship ended in one of the most painful instances of Bury Your Gays that I have ever personally witnessed. (Something that, fourteen years later, The 100 would visually and textually reference with Lexa's death. Getting hit by a bullet intended for someone else after a night of finally getting to be happy and have sex with her s/o? It wasn't remotely subtle. I don't even like Clexa, but that was incredibly rough to witness.)

However, bringing this back to Zuko, he really doesn't fit the criteria for queer coding for a number of reasons. First of all, no one behind the scenes (mostly a bunch of cishet men) was at all intending to include queer rep in the show. This wasn't a case where they were like 'well, we really wanted to make Zuko gay, but we couldn't get that past the censors, so here are a few winks and a nudge', because it just wasn't on their radar at all. Which makes sense--it wasn't on most radars in that era of children's programming. This isn't really an indictment, it's just a fact of the time--in the mid/late 00s, no one was really thinking about putting queer characters in children's cartoons. People were barely beginning to include them in more teen- and adult-oriented television and movies. It just wasn't something that a couple of straight men, who were creating a fantasy series aimed at young kids, were going to think about.

What few instances you can point to from the series where Zuko might be considered to exhibit coding largely happen in Book 1, when he was a villain, because the writers were drawing from typically villainous traits that had historically come from queer coding villains and had since passed into common usage as villainous traits. But they weren't done with any intention of making it seem like Zuko might be attracted to boys.

And, again, what people actually point to as 'evidence' of Zuko being queer-coded--his awkwardness on his date with Jin and his confrontation with Ozai being the big ones I can think of off the top of my head--are actually just... traits that come from his history of trauma and abuse.

As I said in that old post:

making [zuko’s confrontation of ozai] about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.

is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.

And, regarding his date with Jin:

(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)

Zuko is socially awkward and maladjusted because he was abused by his father as a child and has trouble relating to people as a result. He was heavily traumatized and brutally physically injured as a teenager, and it took him years to begin to truly recover from the scars that left on his psyche (and it's highly likely, despite the strides he made in canon, that he has a long way to go, post series; it's such a pity that we never got any continuation comics >.>). He was not abused for being gay or queer--he was abused because his father believed he was weak, and part of Zuko's journey was realizing that his father's perception of strength was flawed at its core. That his entire nation had rotted from the inside out, and the regime needed to be changed in order for the world--including his people--to begin to heal.

That could be commingled with a coming out narrative, which is completely fine for headcanons (although I personally prefer not to, because, again, we have more than enough queer trauma already), but it simply doesn't exist in canon. Zuko was not abused or traumatized for being queer, and his confrontation with Ozai was not about him coming out or realizing any fundamental truth about himself--it was about realizing something fundamental about his father and his nation, and making the choice to leave them behind so that he could help the Avatar grow stronger and force things to change when he got back.

TL;DR: at the end of the day, none of the traits, scenes, or behavior Zuko exhibits which shippers tend to use to claim he was gay-coded are actually evidence of coding--they aren't uniquely queer experiences, as they stem from abuse that was not related in any way to his sexuality, and they are experiences that any kid who suffered similar abuse or trauma could recognize and resonate with. (Including straight kids, and queer kids who were abused for any reason other than their identity.) And, finally, Zuko can be queer without erasing or invalidating his canon attraction to girls, and it's endlessly frustrating that the 'Zuko is gay-coded' crowd refuses to acknowledge that.

[lastsonlost]

Woke' warriors on San Fran school board deny gay white dad with bi-racial daughter place on volunteer parent committee because he's not diverse ENOUGH!

Seth Brenzel, a gay white father of a bi-racial child, was denied a spot on the San Francisco Board of Education's volunteer parent committee

The issue of whether to allow Brenzel to volunteer for the 15-person parent advisory council was debated for almost two hours on Tuesday night 

His candidacy faced opposition from some board members and members of the public who argued that there wasn't enough diversity on the council 

Those who opposed his candidacy were concerned with the fact that he is white 

The 15-person council currently only has 10 members: Two black mothers, one Asian-American, three Latinx, one Pacific Islander and three white 

Brenzel, who is the executive director of a music program for children, is openly gay. He lives in San Francisco with his husband and their young daughter

If approved, Brenzel would have been the only father on the council 

The issue of whether to allow Seth Brenzel to volunteer for the 15-person parent advisory council was debated for almost two hours on Tuesday night during a board meeting. 

The parent advisory council, who had unanimously supported Brenzel to join their all-female committee, had submitted his name to be approved by the school board. 

His candidacy, however, faced opposition from some board members and members of the public who argued that there wasn't enough diversity on the council - even though there are five seats currently empty.

Those who opposed his candidacy were concerned with the fact that he is white. 

The 15-person council currently only has 10 members: Two black mothers, one Asian-American, three Latinx, one Pacific Islander and three white. 

Brenzel, who is the executive director of a music program for children, is openly gay. He lives in San Francisco with his husband and their young daughter. 

If approved, Brenzel would have been the only father on the council. 

After the lengthy debate, the school board eventually decided against voting on his appointment at all and asked the council to find alternate candidates for them to consider. 

Brenzel's appointment to the council was just one of the agenda items for the meeting that ended up going for seven hours. 

Another item on the agenda was about reopening San Francisco schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

It is the same school board that last month voted 6-1 to strike the names of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln from the district's institutions.

As a result, 44 schools had to change their names after board members deemed the historical figures to have ties to racism or have 'dishonorable legacies' despite basing the decision on incorrect Wikipedia articles. 

The issue of diversity was a main argument in deciding whether to appoint Brenzel to the council. 

One person, only identified as Tara, said during the meeting: 'They are not a diverse group of parents as far as I have seen, I have noticed and have observed.' 

Others who opposed Brenzel's appointment argued that the council 'does not even mirror Joe Biden's cabinet' and that other 'voices need to be heard first before white queer voices'. 

Commissioner Matt Alexander - who described himself as the lone white board member - had said that it seemed 'like the white members are over-represented on the P.A.C.' and that there was an under-representation of 'Arab, Vietnamese, Native American folks'.

'I'm probably going to get complaints now I'm telling white parents not to be involved or something. I want to be clear, that's not what I'm saying,' he said, before later adding that 'white parents also in the city tend to have a lot of privilege and power and access the board of ed in various ways.' 

Several others, however, defended Brenzel's candidacy, pointing out that he would bring diversity because he is gay and a father.

'I see no reason why Seth should not be confirmed. I think this is just honestly just a political show so you can say that you stopped a white person from getting on,' one speaker said. 

Another member of the public said: 'I'm very upset we are focusing solely on race. Seth would be the only male on the pact. He would be the only LGBTQ member. He has a bi-racial child.

'I mean, this notion of oh, he's just a white person therefore we can't have him, it's absolute nonsense. There's diversity beyond the color of our skin and I think it is important to consider diversity beyond just race and the intersectionalty of parents.

'We are all diverse in our own way and Seth brings a lot of diversity to a pact that has no men and no LGBTQ parents.' 

It comes as the school board president Gabriela López, 30, defended last month's decision to rename the 44 schools honoring historical leaders who have since been branded by activists as racist.  

San Francisco Unified School District had been criticized for voting by 6-1 last month to change the name of one-third of the city's schools.

Parents and residents became concerned when it emerged that historians had not been consulted by the renaming committee.

Instead, committee members allegedly used references from Wikipedia and other non-scholarly sources to determine which personalities were racist and problematic. 

Several of those citations have now been proven to be factually incorrect, including a false claim that American poet James Russell Lowell did not want black people to vote and that Paul Revere's military activities were tied to 'the conquest of the Penobscot Indians'. 

Gabriela López, the head of the San Francisco Board of Education, continues to defend the decision claiming in a tense interview with the New Yorker that she doesn't want to 'discredit the work that this group has done' despite their use of inaccurate information.

She claimed that she did not believe the names had been selected in a haphazard way, even after being read a list of the misinformation that was used in some of the decisions. 

'No, because I've already shared with you that the people who have contributed to this process are also part of a community that is taking it as seriously as we would want them to,' Lopez argued about the errors made in the research process. 

'And they're contributing through diverse perspectives and experiences that are often not included, and that we need to acknowledge. 

'What I keep hearing is you're trying to undermine the work that has been done through this process. And I'm moving away from the idea that it was haphazard,' she said in the strained Q&A. 

Lopez also pushed back on the complaints that historians were not consulted as part of the process. 

Among the names included on the list that had provoked pushback from residents and historians was President Abraham Lincoln.  

Lopez said that she did not believe Lincoln was a person she would 'admire or see as a hero'.

'I think that the killing of indigenous peoples and that record is something that is not acknowledged,' she said.

'It's something that people are now learning about, and due to this process. And so, we just have to do the work of that extra learning when we're having these discussions.'

Lopez also claimed that the renaming was only facing criticism because 'people will always have a problem with the discussion of racism', not because of the inaccurate information.

'That is what I know. That is why I'm getting death threats. That is why people aren't open to other possibilities. Because when we have this discussion, that's the outcomes no matter how good it's set up, no matter how open we are,' she said. 

'No matter what, people are going to have an issue with that. That is what I know, given my experience. Of course, I'm hearing what you're saying, but I don't think it's going to change the outcome. People are still going to be up in arms when we're doing this.'

Among the other criticism received by the city's board of education was that it had voted on the renaming when there appeared to be no plan in place to bring students back to in-person learning.

'What I cannot understand is why the school board is advancing a plan of all these schools renamed by April when there isn't a plan to have our kids back in the classroom by then,' San Francisco Mayor London Breed had said.

The city of San Francisco has also since sued the board of education and school district claiming they have violated a state law that required districts to adopt a clear plan during the pandemic as it relates to in-person education.

Lopez claimed that it is 'completely false' to say they don't have a plan and accused to the mayor of jumping at 'any opportunity to cause further division'.  

[gayfrenchtoast]

Okay fine we're doing this. I havent read the books and I'm probably not going to I've only seen the movies so I'm sorry if anything I say is contradictory or has already been stated.

So! Descendants 3 was kinda shit and I dont like it but especially because of the ending because everybody was like "oh yeah island is open and we're all happy with no worries or implications about free villains or people being spiteful about being imprisoned for years!" In fact if anything they joked about those things.

The island is basically its own culture, I can't say how long it's been around, long enough for some almost adult kids to be about and to develop a kind of community.

The Isle is a place of poverty, people are dirty and on the street, eveyone steals from each other and most people don't put much effort into appearance upkeep (personal or of the sourounding area) not because of laziness or being "evil" but because they clearly don't have time or luxury to do such things or possibly even the clean water. Does the Isle have clean water?? How to they get electricity??? Someone tell me!

Another thing that I've noticed is easy to see but is not much explicitly said is the unique style of those on the Isle. As previously stated they don't have much but those who have the most "power" and such on the Isle are the best example of this As they have the most colourful outfits. However these outfits are often made out of patches and ripped things put together, even salvaged things like nets and chains as we can see on thing like Uma and Harry's outfits in D3 they make the best of what they've got and they do fantastic because their outfits are intricate and detailed and just tell you everything you need to know about them. Which is why it's a damn s h a m e when the original VK's ajust their style to be more like Auradon's. That's not an improvement! Be proud of where you came from!! It's like they forgot what it was like being on the Isle in D3!

Moving on, here's something that was touched on in D2 but not enough. Equality. On the Isle there is basically equal opportunity as in saying everything is shit and nome cares what gender and presumably what sexuality you are as long as you can work. Sexism is shown to be almost casual in aurodon from the looks of it, Chad makes sexist comments and litterally none else says anything or seems to see anything wrong with it except Jay who caves to pressure from peers and expectations. He does redeem himself because he's from the isle and he knows you shouldn't give a shit about anyone's gender or anything. If they can do something and ask to be included you give them that opportunity. The sexism is also implied in the way that the rule book has men written specifically in the first place and that it has taken until then for anyone but boys to be allowed on any kind of sports team. We never see it! It seems to be the hetronormative veiw where the boys do sport and girls do cheerleeding and other genders? What other genders? Never heard of that? BAD AURADON!! I bet there's so many trans folk on the island just living their lives, thinking Aurodon is the better place and not knowing that it's a cis het filled nightmare.

Okay no I'm headcannoning now, if their are now a bunch of Isle kids at auradon prep they find it fucking aweful the way all these preppy royals are treating them and make the first LGBT club in Auradon. There is lots of pushback and they get bullied a fuck ton for making themselves the most prominent queer folk in the school until a fight breaks out and the club demand that they should be treated better, taking all the evidence to fairy godmother who is very hesitant because COME ON she's never been that great she is biased to Auradon kids and if putting away those in the Isle is brought up she is all on it, she is jelly spined about doing anything against the royal kids. So the kids are like "Fine, if you won't help us we'll take this to the King himself!" Well mainly the queer mom's of the group (you know the ones I'm talking about) who lead the others and protect the anxious queers as they storm to Ben at his fucking locker and demand an audience because they are being harassed and bullied and none is doing anything. Ben had no idea there was even a LGBT club (too busy ig) and is gassed there is one for a moment before he's like "wait people are harassing you?" So Bisexual King Ben gets his lovely Bi wife and they start coming to club meetings and investing in the pins and stuff the club makes. Most club members are pleased but the queer mom's are apprehensive that this will help until some assholes come to the club to do their usual bullying only to find King and Queen Beast themselves siting there with rainbow bracelets and bi pins and all trying to have a nice old time eating their fucking cupcakes what the fuck are yall doing? The bullying dies down quick once they realise it ain't gonna fly, the other OG VK's that hear about this become members and very protective over their queer children. Did I mention Dizzy and Ceila are a part of the club? They're girlfriend's. Celia is one of the queer moms. Harry becomes one of the biggest protectors over the group as the pan dad. He's been going around snogging everyone and anyone wholl snog him everyone already knew he was queer they just didn't have the balls to try and bully him over it as much as they bullied the lil club members. But now Harry can often be seen in jackets and shit with pan and general queer patches and pins and running around with his gay children yelling "MOVE WE'RE GAY!!" He totally calls them his queer crew. Anyway as a result lots of queer royals start coming out of the woodwork, obvs Lonnie is one of them, and the club eventually serves to bring members of Auradon and the Isle close together.

Where was I? Yada yada auradon expects girls to be pretty princesses and boys to be brave knights or dashing princes. It's shit and should stop being portrayed as good. Moving on!

Food! One of the things we'll established in all movies is that the food of the Isle is shit compared to food of Auradon. The Isle has no fresh fruit which likely means its almost impossible for things to grow there which is fair because again there doesn't seem to be much fresh water and there are always clouds overhead so no sun. Maybe there is some people trying really hard to grow stuff but the general attitude of the Isle seems to be "there is no time for that" and fruits are forgotten so much that the VK's litterally don't knownwhat they are when they come across them. That and anything containing sugar. Actually it's mention by Dizzy and Celia that they enjoy the fact that the cake dosent have dirt or flies so basically food there is terrible. We don't see much food on the Isle but what we do see seems to be beans, eggs, chips and shellfish. Basically protine and carbs that can be easily stored and produced. To be fair beans are kidna good for you but they're likely a sign that if they get any imports from the mainland it is canned stuff. Prison food. There's probably some chef villain that is trying their best to make good food out of the shit but honestly the Isle dwellers should be angry that they've been deprived of good food for so long not happy they're finally been given decency.

Moving on, music! Auradon dosent have nearly as many musical numbers it seems, the Isle songs have a distinct style, to them, the villains that basically "founded" the place were masters of the dramatic songs (with backup or solo) so banging music is basically ingrained in the music's culture, even for battle as we see with the fight between Mal and Uma in D3. Meanwhile Auradon seems to have mainly romance and "I want" songs. Even Audrey's villain song is basically an I want song.

Okay let's talk about the Villains. We've established that the VK's are not inherently bad. However not all of them can be totally good and there are legit OG Villains just kinda chillin on the Isle. They've obviously lost quite a bit of their power, motivation and sanity (isolation will do that to ya as they lost everything and the VKs know no different) but deadass? They were bad guys. You can try to rehabilitate them sure but you've basically just let them free roam, they could make a runner and you wouldn't get the chance. They were also shitty patents which is brushed over/joked about in the interaction between Carlos and...man I feel bad I forgot her name deadass their relationship seemed to come out of nowhere in the second film she didn't seem interested in them at all and friendzoned them multiple times I'm pretty sure Disney did that becaue queer kids were relating to Carlos and headcanoning them as queer (which they deffinatly are) but deadass their mom is an attempted animal murderer and has hurt her child as we can see from how they're afraid of her and her rhetoric and yet it's "haha I'm afraid to meet your ma!" "Me too cus im a dog! Lol!" Fuuuuck offfffff

I think I'm running out of thoughts so here's a last one for now; with the magical barrier down a bunch of magical Villains kids should be coming out for the woodwork. We know Mal has magic basically stored in her so it's is possible, she technically doesn't need the spellbook to do magic it is just inherent to her. So with the diverse range of people from the isle there are deffinatly magic folk in there. Actually if we're following Disney movie law I saw something mentioning Jay being half Genie and yeah! He should be half Genie! Jafar got turned into a Genie he's probably only human because of the barrier! Oh also Ben should be able to go beast on command as long as he had a better beast form than he did in the movies. And give him back the beard and fangs like fuck you he looked so much better

Okay I'm done for now

[nohaijiachi]

Oh man, no, of course there's no need for blocking here--- The thing is, I've seen a very specific (small) crowd of people in this fandom who constantly accuse us quote-unquote 'Aziraphale defenders' of acting like we think Aziraphale is a perfect and wholly innocent being, but the truth is that our own pushback against the excessive criticism of him is exactly because of that: excessive criticism.

I haven't seen a single post trying to dwell in the character's motivations and the reasons why he's made the choice he made who either ignores the fact that Aziraphale is a flawed being who makes mistakes, nor wholly shifting the blame of the Divorce(tm) on Crowley. All of the meta posts trying to say "Look, Aziraphale isn't the selfish, stupid, downright villanous individual y'all are trying to paint him as" that I've read always come down to the same conclusion, AKA that there is no inherent right nor wrong side in the breakup, and that both Aziraphale and Crowley are equally right about certain things and wrong about others.

Shades of gray is the whole point of Good Omens, and that is the point we are trying to reiterate in the face of what ranges from a more 'shallow' interpretations of Aziraphale's actions all the way to pinpointing on him such a wealth of negative traits the it makes you wonder why these fans even like to ship the ineffables together in the first place.

So no, reasonably pointing out Aziraphale's mistakes certainly won't win you a block on my part, and I a 100% agree with you on the fact that Aziraphale is a complex, multifaceted and ultimately flawed character who made, and makes, mistakes. Because both his and Crowley's core is that: they are as human as they can get while being who they are, and humans are fallible.

That said I have to admit I also take umbrage with the "Aziraphale is selfish for trying to drag Crowley back to his abusers" argument. Not in the way you personally presented it, because your version of it takes in consideration the fact that Crowley has withheld a lot of information from Aziraphale that we, as the audience, can instead garner. Your version is wholly fair and I have no objections to it-- But since the topic came up I might as well vent about other, far more unfair versions of this particular argument that I've seen floating about lol

I think a lot of people truly do not realize just how much more insight we have into Crowley's mind, as the audience, much more than Aziraphale himself does by Crowley's own design.

Aziraphale was wrong in even considering the idea of reinstating Crowley as an angel, that is undeniable-- But at the same time I also understand why, in his manic desperation trying to find a way to keep them both safe AND together as they wished to be for so long, Aziraphale fell into that specific pitfall.

Let's be real, what is he supposed to think? He met an angel who looked so happy and carefree, who, like Aziraphale, seemingly had no qualms in showing their unbridled joy in ways that, perhaps, aren't as common between angels as we might think. It's clear that that first meeting left an impression on Aziraphale, that he liked seeing such a happy angel and, to fall in the realm of speculation, perhaps he might have even felt a kinship with the angel who Crowley was that he hadn't ever felt before.

And then that angel was gone, and who Aziraphale met after all was said and done was a demon who, yes, retained that playful core, but was also a lot more barbed, guarded, jaded.

Crowley spent an eternity telling him not so subtle terms that being a demon kinda sucks. He tells Aziraphale "my lot does not send rude notes", and he convinces him to slack off when it comes to their jobs and do much more fun things like enjoying earth and humanity, and says "I didn't fall, I just sauntered vaguely downward", and asks Aziraphale for something that could risk destroy his very existence as "insurance".

In the face of this, what is Aziraphale supposed to think? We as an audience have a lot more insight when it comes to how Crowley doesn't really like working for Hell, but he also despises Heaven just as much. It is obvious, for us, that Crowley has a lot of intricate feelings and arguably a certain amount of trauma when it comes to the Fall and the way Heaven operates. Obviously Crowley very much despises both sides and wants nothing to do with either of them, but... Does he show this to Aziraphale? Or does he communicate to him in both subtle and less unsubtle terms that he really doesn't want to be a demon?

When you put together these elements, imo reinstating Crowley as an angel seems kind of the inevitable and only conclusion Aziraphale could possibly arrive at.

To be clear I also don't want to ignore those times Crowley teases Aziraphale for the decisions made by God and Heaven, like the Flood, obviously pointing out that Heaven and Hell are truly two sides of the same coin, but I think this is where Aziraphale's cognitive dissonance comes into play in disastrous ways.

I think that, deep down, under all those layers of denial and double thinking Aziraphale deploys to not fall into some sort of crisis of identity/faith and lose his marbles, Aziraphale knows just how hurtful the suggestion of making Crowley an angel again was, just as much as he deep down knows that Heaven is bullshit and that there's really no good guy nor bad guy, here. But to accept those concept, to fully shed the denial and internalize those ideas, well... He's got some work to do, and I truly think his character arc in S3 will very much focus on him finally accepting the 'shades of gray' concept fully, letting go of the good/bad dichotomy and finally free himself of those shackles he's both been forced into and then kept on himself as a coping mechanism.

And I, for one, can't wait to see that happen <3

Do not ever tell me that Aziraphale is being selfish here.

Never. Not once. If you try to even start, shut your fucking mouth.

Do you know how hard it is to admit something like this when you're not even supposed to want anything?

Gabriel was surprised the first time he was given a gift.

Aziraphale is telling Crowley he wants to make things better, but he doesn't think he can do it without Crowley.

He is pouring his heart out right here. He doesn't think he can do enough good without Crowley. He wants to make Heaven better, but he thinks he needs Crowley to make it happen.

This is the one time that Crowley cannot help him, but that doesn't mean that what Aziraphale is doing is wrong.

Me saying that Aziraphale isn't doing anything wrong by going back to Heaven doesn't mean I'm saying Crowley is wrong for the choice he made either. Neither of them is wrong. This is not a black and white situation.

Aziraphale told Crowley he needed him while the Metatron was within hearing distance.

Let me say this as loudly as possible for you, m'kay?

AN ANGEL JUST TOLD A DEMON HE NEEDS HIM.

We all remember how that's a no-no, right?? That's exactly the kind of language Aziraphale always avoided because even ducks have ears. And the one time he used that kind of language was when the Metatron was waiting to take him back to Heaven because the Metatron knows about their history.

The last time Heaven implied that Aziraphale and Crowley were together, Sandalphon punched him in the stomach.

But go off with how Aziraphale is so selfish and only ever thinks about his own wants and needs after he bared his heart to Crowley in front of the fucking Metatron. Go off with how you keep proving you didn't understand the first thing about Aziraphale and Crowley's shades of grey discussion from 1941.

Be mad at Aziraphale if it helps you heal, but don't assassinate his character by turning him into someone he's not just because you're desperate for your villainized version of him to be real.

Crowley wouldn't stand for that shit because he's perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

[bigskydreaming]

Its just never not gonna be a huge pet peeve for me when people make a thing about Robin as Mary’s name for Dick being a retcon. I’m just like, yes, and? What does that actually CHANGE, and also its a thirty-year old retcon. Like, its just...that’s a really long time, you guys, lol, just like the ‘Dick was fired’ retcon is even older, and like......I just don’t see anywhere where “well it wasn’t like this decades ago” is used as an actual invalidating argument for major things pertaining to other characters. *Shrugs* You can find retcons in EVERY character’s stories, but these are the sticking points, apparently.

Thing is.....do people actually adhere to this as a reason not to like the Robin-as-Mary’s-name-for-Dick thing because the fact that it was a retcon actually bothers them? Because if so, that logic would seem to invalidate a TON about the Batfam that people DON’T seem to have a problem with. So rather, it just always comes across as attempting to use the fact that this particular take from canon wasn’t the FIRST take on the subject, as like, an attempt to just invalidate something people don’t like for other reasons.....and the only other reason I’ve ever been able to come up with for why people have such a problem with that origin for Robin, is because it grants Dick a close personal connection with the name that can’t be dismissed as irrelevant or not emotionally significant, and one that other Robins can’t really ‘compete with.’

Except problem there is....none of the other Robins could compete with Dick here anyway, if it WERE a competition, which its not....but like, the part fans of other Robins who don’t like Dick for whatever reason tend to overlook so often is that Jason and Tim are legacy characters....and DICK’S legacy characters in particular. 

I focus on Jason and Tim here because Stephanie wasn’t created to be a legacy character - she became Robin later on after her creation, but she wasn’t created to BE Robin. I’d argue the same is true of Damian, because I think the catalyzing impulse behind creating Damian was to have a biological son for Bruce, or specifically a son of Bruce and Talia’s, and as much as I think Damian being Robin was always an inevitable part of his character trajectory after that point because of the importance of the Robin mantle in the DC mythos and the Batfamily in particular....again, I don’t think he was created to BE Robin, specifically.

But Jason and Tim WERE. They just were. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it. They’ve grown beyond that - or at least they had until DC decided the best way forward for Tim was backwards - but no matter what they became, the catalyzing impulse for creating Jason and Tim was to make a new Robin.

They were created as Dick’s legacy characters. Not just to be partners for Batman, but to be inheritors of the legacy Robin mantle. To step into a role that was made relevant and made popular by Dick’s character.

And I think some fans are bothered by that, but its like....that doesn’t make it less true? Unless you can come up with a compelling argument for how you can look at Jason or Tim’s debut or early character concepts and not see it as ‘they were created to be a Robin’.....they’re Dick’s legacy characters. And I don’t think there’s any reason that has to be limiting, or makes them less than any other character....the vast majority of DC’s character staples ARE legacy characters. They’re still full-fledged characters in their own right, its simply relevant to the how and why of their creation. Like I’m not a Hal Jordan fan at all really, and I’m a huge Kyle Rayner fan. Doesn’t mean I’m not very aware of the fact that Kyle is a legacy character of Hal’s. Kyle does not exist, if Hal didn’t exist. You can’t remove Hal from the equation and be left with much if any substance for Kyle to begin from....no matter what Kyle later became, under his own narrative power, due to his own stories and characterization.

(And yes, I know Hal’s not even the first Green Lantern or the origin of the Green Lantern as a legacy in universe or out of it, but Kyle’s origin and story is directly connected to and stemming from Hal and his story in a way that’s simply not true of Kyle and Alan Scott or John Stewart or Guy Gardner...even while Kyle still has strong ties with each of them. Kyle’s story began out of Emerald Twilight, Hal was the catalyst for his creation, they’re tied in a way Kyle isn’t to various other GLs. Hal may not be the initial GL and Kyle may be a legacy character for MORE than just Hal, but he’s very much Hal’s legacy character at the same time).

So the thing about trying to move away from or steer around the idea that Robin was Mary’s name for Dick.....I don’t see what that accomplishes, even if you do dismiss it as ‘invalid’ whatever that means, because its a retcon? And I see a lot of posts and fics that ACT like it changes something, but....does it? Does it change the fact that Tim and Jason are still Dick’s legacy characters? Does it change the fact that in-universe, Dick’s still the one who made Robin notable enough to warrant having a legacy at all? Does it change the fact that out of universe, Dick’s character is still the reason that Robin was popular enough to warrant having a legacy character made in the first place? Does it change the fact that the Robin mantle in the existing DC universe and our outside perception of it, in all practical senses, would not exist if not for Dick’s character, and Jason and Tim at least and in particular, would not exist either? At least, not in the way that they do now?

It seems to me to just attempt to make an illusion of stripping away a layer of emotional significance between Dick and the mantle that the other boys don’t have.....but even WITHOUT that, Dick and the mantle still have the layer of significance that is - he literally created it and its initial popularity - that no legacy character can ever share with the originator of the legacy they embody. With this being true of all legacy characters and legacy originators, across the board.

But lessening the emotional attachment Dick has to the mantle HE created - for WHATEVER reason - doesn’t actually accomplish anything for the other characters, it doesn’t add anything they didn’t already have.

But flip it the other way around....lean INTO the emotional significance of Robin as Mary’s name for Dick.....I’d argue this is as much to the later Robins’ benefit as it is to Dick’s. Because the more emotional weight you give the mantle for Dick, the more emotional weight you give to Dick’s blessing with regards to the other Robins bearing it later on. And even though Dick didn’t choose to make Jason Robin post-Crisis (but that’s a retcon! He made Jason Robin himself pre-Crisis! Where’s the shouting about that? Where’s the constant pushback against people saying Dick resented Jason for being Robin with “oh that’s just a retcon though, originally, pre-Crisis, Dick gave Robin to Jason himself and they were really tight?” See what I’m getting at?), and even though Dick was initially opposed to there being another Robin at all after Jason.....Dick still did ultimately give both of them his blessing, not just Damian...and when you lean INTO the weight that Robin as his mother’s name for her son gives the mantle for Dick.....you simultaneously boost the impact and weight it has for his brothers, as that then extends to becoming Robin as Dick’s name for his brothers.

And thus rather than it just being a name they all bear at one time or another and have in common....it becomes, and REMAINS....a family name, tying both Dick’s first and second families together, with him and his interpretation of Robin not being more IMPORTANT to just him more than the others, but more RELEVANT to how he acts as the bridge, the connective tissue not just between his first family and his second, but also the bridge and connection to the source of Robin, the inspiration, the reason this name they ALL bear exists....as well as then to the later Robins themselves.

And personally, I think that makes for a stronger emotional connection between Robin and Batkid in regards to ALL of them, not just Dick.

But also, back to the pet peeve note....the Venn diagram that is people shouting “Robin as Mary’s name for Dick is a retcon” and people shouting “lol canon what canon, fuck canon, I don’t know canon” is waaaaaay too often a single circle, and that gets filed under things that make me go hmmm. Cuz isn’t that interesting. 

About as interesting, like I said, just once more with feeling....as the people yelling but retcon though about how Robin isn’t that significant a name for Dick - beyond y’know, him just coining it as his own unique persona why should that matter lolol i digress - while at the same time yelling - i have no objections here, you’re doing great sweetie, more of this, more more more about how Dick definitely resented and hated Jason for being Robin, as he did not make Jason Robin himself, see, that was retconned, that means it no longer counts and only the retcon matters now.

Anywho......

[rotationalsymmetry]

I don’t want to shame anyone or yuck anyone’s yum. But I do want to say my piece. So we’re doing it at a distance.

re: this thing about onions and cores

It probably works better in the context of a speech: people don’t have as much time to really think and peel apart spoken words, and other means of communication like tone of voice and body language convey meaning that doesn’t come across on the page. As written words though this is bad. For one thing it’s condescending (“anyone who has ever worked in a kitchen”) but more to the point the metaphor is bad. There is a reason “core” has the meaning it does in the English language, and that’s because a lot of things do have cores. Wheat germs. Anything that’s good on it’s own but is underneath a whole bunch of crud that you need to clear away, like light fixtures or glasses or gold or a story that you want to tell but the first draft is really really bad.

And people do, in fact, have cores, more authentic selves that get covered up by other people’s expectations. (As a trans person who follows a lot of trans people on this site, I did find pushback on this site against the idea that people can have essential natures that get obscured then found, to be rather jarring.) And I mean I don’t know if you have to backpack through Europe to find it, but when you’re talking about privileged college students, picking grapes in Italy isn’t always about Italy, sometimes it’s about the grapes — about having an excuse to do manual labor (work with your body rather than work with your intelectual and social skills, which can if it’s not too demanding leave space for self-reflection) and about getting away from the social networks who have a particular idea of who you are that they’ll enforce on you unless you can start afresh somewhere, and that doesn’t fundamentally have to be an experience of wealth and privilege, you can get a very similar experience for instance leaving home with no warning and traveling with the Rainbow Gathering for a bit or taking a job as an EMT or a bartender in a city that’s not the one you used to live in, meeting new people starting afresh having no ties and no stakes. And maybe there’s ways to get it if you can’t uproot yourself too, but to make fun of the fundamental young adult need to figure out who you are when you’re not with the people who have known you since you still had your baby teeth, well. I don’t like it.

(Although fuck knows a lot of the time “who you are” and what respectable professional career you should go with are not remotely the same thing.) (but it’s also extremely reasonable for young adults to have cold feet around committing to a profession that takes years of (very expensive) specialized education when you don’t even have that clear an idea of whether you can live with the day to day life of a doctor or lawyer.)

Big choices often do not sort themselves out, actually. We all know people who made big choices that did not sort themselves out.

[a-dragons-explanations]

Hi, sorry to bother you but I’m a bit confused about something! So I have a disorder and trauma that really messes with my self identity and I kin a fictional character to cope with all that. with that information alone I’d consider myself a copinglink, but with the definition I’ve seen, it says that it’s voluntary and you choose who you “kin”. In my case, I didn’t choose my kin type and I genuinely believe I am my kin type. It’s a weird mix of “I am this character” and “I’m pretty sure this is a coping mechanism”. What term should I use to describe myself? (Side note: I’ve only been in the community for a year or so and I’m unaware of the history surrounding it. Thank you if you answer this by the way!)

Tl;dr: You could reasonably get by with either otherkin or copinglink, but it sounds like otherkin probably fits better, since you said it’s definitely not something you chose. People whose nonhumanity comes from unconscious/involuntary coping mechanisms are and always have been part of the otherkin community.

There’s a handful of sections to my full answer to this, so let’s break it down.

1. ‘Linking is voluntary, ‘kin is not. Everything else about the definitions is the same.

There’s this thing people seem to get tripped up on a lot - understandably - which is that the voluntary and consciously chosen part of the “copinglink” definition is far more important than the “coping” part of the word. Otherkin whose identities came about as involuntary/unconscious coping mechanisms have been acknowledged as part of the otherkin community for ages, and still are. The entire point of the word “copinglink” was to say that there was a significant difference because it was voluntarily chosen, which leads to a much bigger difference in experiences. It’s why I don’t really agree with the recent idea of redefining “copinglink” to include involuntary/unconscious coping mechanisms - those are and always have been otherkin. The point of the ‘link terms is to emphasize the choice part, not the coping part (and in fact the original meaning didn’t necessitate that it be a coping mechanism at all, despite the name).

I do want to note something as an addendum to this point: you say “I genuinely believe I am my kintype” as if copinglinkers aren’t - that’s not true. ‘Linkers still identify as their linktypes; they’re not any “less” nonhuman than ‘kin are.

2. How your problem ties into the “kin as a verb” debate.

Unfortunately, I think a big reason that confusion has come about is because of the pushback against the phrase “kin to cope”, as a subset of using “kin” as a verb - the argument being that using “kin” as a verb implies action and choice and leads people to believe that being ‘kin is a choice or something you do instead of something you are.

Full bias disclosure: I agree with that argument and I feel very strongly about the harm that “kinning” language has brought to the community as a whole.

If you say “I kin this character to cope,” you’re inevitably going to get people telling you “that’s not otherkin, that’s copinglink” - because what you’ve told them is that you’re doing something, ie ‘linking, rather than just existing, ie ‘kin. You don’t “kin a character,” you are ‘kin with a character, or that character is your kintype/fictotype, or you are that character, or you identify as that character - whatever phrasing you prefer. But if there’s no active choice and action involved, it makes no sense to use “kin” as a verb, and at risk of sounding blunt, it’s probably going to confuse people and make them think you’re at best a confused ‘linker and at worst a disrespectful outsider who thinks “kin” means “relate to,” whether that’s a fair assessment or not.

That being said, that’s my opinion based on my observations; you’re free to disagree. Just be aware that you’re probably going to constantly be having to clarify that you don’t think ‘kin is a choice/something you do just about every time you use “kinning” language in ‘kin spaces if you don’t want to be misunderstood.

3. Nothing is simple binaries.

Tangent aside, I also understand there’s a gray area, and some people who technically fit into the otherkin community feel that the term copinglink fits them better and they feel more at home in the ‘linking community - that’s totally understandable and fine. Just please don’t feel like you can’t use the word otherkin because there’s some coping mechanism involved in your explanation for your identity. If you didn’t consciously choose to form the identity - and if you’re not sure whether it was voluntary or not, it wasn’t a conscious choice - you at the very least fit into the gray area in between and can reasonably use either word.

That was.... probably more of an answer than you were looking for, but mid-writing I had something of an epiphany about the probable tie between the rise of “but is my involuntary coping mechanism copinglink or otherkin” (a question that on its face seemed almost ridiculous to me at first - of course it’s otherkin - but which has been more and more common lately) and the phrase “stop saying you’re “kin to cope” this isn’t a coping mechanism” (technically true, but oversimplified), so uh. Sorry about that. I get carried away sometimes. Hopefully it was at least sort of enlightening/interesting?

[theteej]

on white performative anxiety on election night

Ok, here we go. I had decided that I would not watch the election results unfold last night because quite frankly--it was clear that it would be a close race, and just like with sports games it takes a particular type of narcissistic imagining to think that constant watching will change the impact of an event simply because you watch it.  Also, this isn't a sports game--it's people's lives.  So I ordered a pizza and worked through three unread X-Men collections (decent, by the way--especially the new take on Marauders).

By 8pm I was getting frequent texts, and despite putting my phone in another room, i heard the buzzing enough to get me off the couch. I logged onto social media to see a flood of white Democrats having a complete meltdown as if the election had been called.  And that same existential dread/despair cataclysmically reverberating across social media in New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia.  I was so confused.  What the actual fuck were people upset about?  He hadn't conceded. Most states hadn't been called.  The responses felt so much like being in high school or college where I'd studied for exams and felt reasonably prepared but then got overwhelmed in the psychic energy of performed anxiety/fear/studying that everyone did around finals.  Hell, in pre-covid times I had to limit my time on campus as a professor in the last week because the palpable miasma of fear/anxiety/performative freaking out was too much for me, even though I WAS JUST GRADING THE FINALS. Honestly, I was baffled.  Why were people like this?  They knew that Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania were not going to count their early voting polls first, and the in person would screw Republican.  WHY WERE THEY FREAKING OUT?

And then it slowly dawned on me.  They really had believed their own lies.  They thought there was going to be a magical, massive blue wave of repudiation of President Trump, after the xenophobia, the racism, the wanton cruelty, the vicious fascism.  They needed to believe that this moment would redeem them, this electoral moment would fix them.  And they were mourning, almost disproportionately, this sense of utter collapse.  They were treating the reality of the closeness of the election as somehow equivalent to the idea of a Trump re-election victory.  What the actual hell.

I started to see a lot of "I can't believe it's even this close" statuses.  I put down my pizza in annoyance and kept reading.  There were so many variations on the time-honoured "this is not who we are" canard so many people tell themselves about America. People were mourning, in real time, the lie they'd told themselves.  There was a fundamental believe that Trumpism, the vile populism and toxic mix of racism and other oppressive elements, was an "aberration" that could be corrected.  There was a willing disbelief that this was not part of the very core of this country, that 'America' as a concept is a bad place--one made entirely possible through enslavement and genocide and one that was absolutely fixable through a simple electoral action.  And it's wild, because that's never been the case.  Not now, not ever.  I remember in 2008, being overwhelmed by white people wanting to celebrate Obama with me, but I was also keenly aware of racism and the fact that my own state had just voted to take away same-sex marriage.  Dr. Jim Barrett, a professor in my graduate program at Illinois, stopped me, a new, black graduate student who he didn't know, and said, "isn't the election great?" and i said, "I'm from California, and I'm more worried also about how easily people can dismiss queer rights."  He paused for a second, and then said, "but we did it this time with Obama!"  Here was a full-grown man with a PhD in American history casually telling a black graduate student (WHOSE NAME HE DID NOT EVEN KNOW) how great it was to be able to absolve oneself of responsibility via an electoral process, and to imagine an America without self-criticism, just redemption.

And that's what was at the heart of this baffling pre-capitulation, one that exceeded even the easy stereotype of the always-losing Democrats.  BIDEN HADN'T EVEN LOST. He had (and as of now still) leads in electoral votes! But everyone was moaning, gnashing teeth, and grieving.  But what they were really grieving was their own innocence.  Their naïve assumption that they could be the heroes in a story, in a history of violence that was expressly built for them, even if they wanted to deny it.  Trumpism sells a fantasy of white revanchism, of recovery, and even those whites who imagine otherwise can't exorcise it via a ballot because the entire system of it is at its core, still violent and racist.  Y'all seriously wanted a parade, a movement repudiating this.  What America do you live in?  Did we not go through the same black summer?  Of course we didn't.  You saw this summer as a moment of profound alliance building and a recapturing of a mythical value of inclusion.  We saw it with surprise--oh white people either just realized that black lives are cheap, or they were sufficiently bothered/bored enough to perform about it.

So much of this is a navel-gazing performance of anxiety.  2016 was traumatizing for people who didn't want to think Trumpism was America, but it IS.  And it's done in your name.  

This morning, I saw even more of this.  A friend and colleague wrote a lengthy status about her anxiety about it all and hope that 'good' would prevail, and bemoaned the lack of a real wave of change.  A friend, family member, or colleague of theirs immediately commented with pro-Trump sloganeering.  And she did nothing.  She kept commenting.  This broke me for a second.  How could she not see what a joke all of this was? What she was?  Here she was bemoaning a lack of some sort of prelapsarian goodness, trying to make some sort of "we'll get through this message," and she couldn't even see what she was doing.  There was no acknowledgment, no censuring, no pushback, no RESPONSE to the Trump sloganeering, because she could not fathom the idea that this was connected to HER.  The disappointment she felt, that so many people expressed on social media? It was performative, it was a mourning one's inability to distance oneself from genocidal, suicidal logics of all of this populist turpitude.  She couldn't even denounce the very Trumpism on her own fucking wall, in response to her comment.  Of course there was no blue wave, of course there was no rebuking.  Why should there be?  There are no consequences.  Just white folk hoping civility will save them, with the same baffling surety as King Canute commanding the waves to cease lapping at the feet of his throne.  The whole event felt like a farce--people attempting to distance themselves from a violence done in their name by refusing to even pushback against he very violence that endangers millions of people, incarcerates children, kills with impunity.

I feel, once again, like I'm the one person who felt confident for an exam during finals week.  Everyone's freaking the fuck out, performing, demonstrating a goodness, trying to foolishly imagine the country as good.  I think back to March, when black voters in South Carolina made very clear what was going to happen.  White people were not coming to save them.  Electoral legerdemain was not going to happen, there was no last minute deus ex machina.  There was the brutal calculus that many people don't see the fascism as bad, and remain so insulated that they don't care if the brute returns, so much as the lesser peoples are put in their place.  Those black voters saw that their best chance was the utter uninspiring, safe, and milquetoast flavour of whiteness, Joe Biden.  And they were right.  We can push that one, perhaps.  Make changes.  But this was always going to be a bitter slog, and at most, a close thing.  America is a bad place. We cannot redeem it through performance, through simply voting.  We don't exorcise our structural violence with selfies and dashes of ink on sealed papers.

Now that we know this, we can actually push back against the attempted voter fraud that IS happening right now, and then hope that this mediocre blue man wins.  And then maybe y'all can join us in doing the hard, daily work that also involves critically acknowledging our own complicity, investment, and inclusion in a violent, illegitimate space.  We have to live in these contradictions, to push and transform it, and remember that there are no cheat codes here.  Just grinding work, and no cookies or congratulation.

Be fucking better, y'all.

[96thdayofrage]

Recognizing the vast economic and racial inequalities his students faced, he chose what some might consider a radical approach for his writing and social-studies classes, weaving in concepts such as racism, classism, oppression, and prejudice. Barrett said it was vital to reject the oft-perpetuated narrative that society is fair and equal to address students’ questions and concerns about their current conditions. And Brighton Elementary’s seventh- and eighth-graders quickly put the lessons to work—confronting the school board over inequitable funding, fighting to install a playground, and creating a classroom library focused on black and Latino authors.

“Students who are told that things are fair implode pretty quickly in middle school as self-doubt hits them,” he said, “and they begin to blame themselves for problems they can’t control.”

Barrett’s personal observation is validated by a newly published study in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development that finds traditionally marginalized youth who grew up believing in the American ideal that hard work and perseverance naturally lead to success show a decline in self-esteem and an increase in risky behaviors during their middle-school years. The research is considered the first evidence linking preteens’ emotional and behavioral outcomes to their belief in meritocracy, the widely held assertion that individual merit is always rewarded.

“If you’re in an advantaged position in society, believing the system is fair and that everyone could just get ahead if they just tried hard enough doesn’t create any conflict for you … [you] can feel good about how [you] made it,” said Erin Godfrey, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of applied psychology at New York University’s Steinhardt School. But for those marginalized by the system—economically, racially, and ethnically—believing the system is fair puts them in conflict with themselves and can have negative consequences.

“If the system is fair, why am I seeing that everybody who has brown skin is in this kind of job? You’re having to think about that … like you’re not as good, or your social group isn’t as good,” Godfrey said. “That’s the piece … that I was trying to really get at [by studying] these kids.”

The findings build upon a body of literature on “system justification”—a social-psychology theory that believes humans tend to defend, bolster, or rationalize the status quo and see overarching social, economic, and political systems as good, fair, and legitimate. System justification is a distinctively American notion, Godfrey said, built on myths used to justify inequities, like “If you just work hard enough you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps … it’s just a matter of motivation and talent and grit.” Yet, as she and her colleagues discovered, these beliefs can be a liability for disadvantaged adolescents once their identity as a member of a marginalized group begins to gel—and once they become keenly aware of how institutional discrimination disadvantages them and their group.

“If you’re [inclined] to believe that ... the system is fair, then you’re maybe going to accept stereotypes about you more easily.”

Researchers measured system-justifying beliefs among 257 students from an urban, public middle school in Arizona. All of the students’ families were identified as low-income, as defined by their eligibility for free or reduced-price lunches. The vast majority of the sample—91 percent—were also students of color: Fifty-five percent Latino, 18 percent black, 11 percent Native American, and 7 percent other nonwhite youth. Additionally, the area, populated by many immigrant families and children, was experiencing social and political unrest due to Senate Bill 1070, a controversial Arizona law that in its original form criminalized undocumented people in the state.

Godfrey asked the sixth-graders to rate their endorsement of the “American Dream” and system-justifying ideas—namely, that America is the land of opportunity where everyone who works hard has an equal chance to succeed. Youth were then asked to rate themselves on various qualities, including their self-esteem, risky behaviors (“stayed out all night without your parent’s permission,” “cheated on school tests,” etc.), and perceived discrimination (for example: “How often have others suspected you of doing something wrong because of your ethnicity?” and “How often have the police hassled you because of your ethnicity?”).

At three points over the course of middle school, the youth rated their self-esteem, behavior, and experience with discrimination. The results revealed an alarming trajectory. In sixth grade, among students who believed the system is fair, self-esteem was high and risky behavior was rare; by the end of seventh grade, these same students reported lower self-esteem and more risky behaviors—with no significant differences based on race, ethnicity, gender, or immigration generation (youth from newly arrived immigrant families and native-born counterparts).

What’s more, for youth who perceived more discrimination from an early age, system-justifying beliefs were associated with less-risky behavior in sixth grade, but with a sharp rise in such behaviors by seventh grade. Godfrey attributes this spike to a “perfect storm” in which marginalized young people are experiencing more discrimination; beginning to understand the systemic and institutionalized nature of that discrimination; and starting to strongly identify as a member of a marginalized group, seeing that group as one that’s being discriminated against. As for why this leads to more risky behavior, Godfrey points to research that suggests people who really believe the system is fair internalize stereotypes—believing and acting out false and negative claims about their group—more readily than those who disavow these views.

And while it’s easy to attribute the increase in risky behavior to developmental changes such as puberty, the fact that the students’ outcomes started high in the sixth grade and then deteriorated suggests that psychosocial phenomena are at play.

“I do think that there’s this element of people think of me this way anyway, so this must be who I am,” Godfrey said, adding that the behaviors—things like stealing and sneaking out—reflect stereotypes perpetuated about youth of color. “If you’re [inclined] to believe that things are the way they should be, and [that] the system is fair, then you’re maybe going to accept stereotypes about you more easily.”

While the sample was relatively small, Godfrey said the findings are informative and mirror prior research. Indeed, previous analyses have found that system-justifying beliefs are associated with lower self-esteem in black adults and lower grade-point averages for Latino college students—though the same beliefs predicted better grades and less distress for “high status” youth.

“I was really interested in trying to think of [early adolescents] as active agents in their world,” Godfrey said, “and as people who can understand and interpret their social world in a way that a lot of research doesn’t recognize.”

“We cannot equivocate when it comes to preparing our children to face injustices.”

David Stovall, professor of educational-policy studies and African American studies at University of Illinois at Chicago, said the paper is a confirmation of decades of analysis on the education of marginalized and isolated youth. It’s a “good preliminary piece” that lays the foundation for more academic study of historically disenfranchised adolescents and their motivations, he said.

“If young folks see themselves being discriminated against, they’ve been told that a system is fair, and they experience things that are unfair, they will begin to reject this particular system and engage in behaviors that will not be to their betterment,” he explained. Stovall said it’s critical to guide young people from “defiant resistance”—defying what they’ve learned to be untrue regarding a just and fair system for all—to “transformative resistance”—developing a critical understanding of the historical context of U.S. society. Educators, he said, play a crucial role in this work.

“We have to ask different questions around school,” he said. “Does [school] contribute further to our [students’] marginalization and oppression? Is it just about order, compliance, and white normative standards that marginalized young folks of color don’t measure up to because the structure never intended for them to measure up?” He also warned educators and youth of color to be prepared for pushback, highlighting the current legal battle over the ethnic-studies ban in Tucson public schools despite its proven academic benefits.

Mildred Boveda, an assistant education professor at Arizona State University, likewise said the findings hold important implications for both teachers and teacher education. “This is of great consequence to … teachers who may think they are protecting children by avoiding conversations about systems of oppressions,” she said, emphasizing that the onus is also on teacher-prep programs to ensure aspiring educators know how to address these controversial topics.

Given her recent experience teaching fifth-graders in Miami-Dade, Florida, Boveda disagrees with the researchers’ notion that sixth-graders lack a full understanding of social hierarchies. Her students on the brink of middle school, she noted, were hyper-aware of social inequalities. Still, she sees valuable insights in the data.

“Unlike the majority of the teaching workforce, I once fit the demographics of the students in this study,” she said, alluding to the fact that more than 80 percent of public-school teachers are white. “I will admit that it sometimes felt risky to tackle these difficult conversations, but this [research] underscores why we cannot equivocate when it comes to preparing our children to face injustices.”

[overtrolled-liveblog]

First thoughts on the Epilogues

It is not always easy to know the difference between a flaw and a creative decision that you dislike. I think I noticed some of each in the Epilogues. Much of the writing in the early part of the story felt clunky, awkwardly worded, or offputting in a more nebulous way, but there are sections where the writing is extremely, fascinatingly good, which makes the parts where the writing is not more baffling. There were parts that made me tear up and feel heights of joy, parts that inspired entertaining anger and apprehension and disgust and relief, but there were other parts which just felt gross, boring, or both. On the other hand, a lot of the things I disliked were things which simply did not appeal to me as a reader, but which it is easy to imagine other people enjoying.

The fact that this story is a derivative of Homestuck is interesting to me as a writer, because it in many ways seems the elements are split between 1) providing closure to Homestuck 2) extending the story of Homestuck 3) using Homestuck as a jumping off point to look at new ideas or ideas that went undeveloped in Homestuck. In a number of places, these goals seem to be in tension, as closure vies with extension and as new directions vie with the continuation of old ideas. On the whole I often wondered if it would have been better if the creative team had simply picked two of these goals to focus on.

The epilogues are more overtly political than Homestuck is, although like most political work for a mainstream audience, its political relevance is dulled by an exploration of fascist politics so extreme that it is easy for readers to feel comfortably alien from it. It’s easy to see Jane Crocker’s Troll Holocaust as fucked up, because we like the trolls, but there is never a serious pushback against the ideology that motivates it, a zero-sum racial worldview similar to the real world fascist myth of white genocide. One could come out of this epilogue thinking Jane was cruel, but not ideologically wrong. That bothers me a little.

The way Gamzee was in the Candy timeline was incredibly uncomfortable for me. I honestly have no idea what they were going for, besides making him the most loathsome possible iteration of himself. I don’t see what it adds, to be frank. I don’t mind being subjected to something repulsive if there is a point to it, if it pays off. But even Gamzee’s death failed to feel remotely meaningful or satisfying. This felt like a misstep to me.

My impressions are generally positive, but the nostalgia goggles aren’t there like they are with Homestuck, and I see a lot of the flaws fairly clearly. It doesn’t help that this kind of metafiction is extremely easy to lose people with. 

Plus, the story kind of hacks away at one of the emotional wells that sustains Homestuck. In one sense, Homestuck is a long journey to unite with the people who love you. When those humans and trolls and cherub stood on that magic lily pad in Act 7, it felt like, they finally did it. they didn’t really do a traditional hero’s journey, but they found each other, and they could live with each other and enjoy their lives together, and that was what we got. So the epilogues being about the decay of those relationships hurts a little more than it might have.