#it’s the inherent sexism in this industry for one part

[manicdragondreamgirl]

Nothing can make a bitch more hateful than a SINGLE hour —the FIRST HOUR OF A DAY—at a job where everyone pretends they can do her job better than she’s been doing it because they read something in the news recently

[neurotypicalabusesurvivor]

ASPD is a prefect example how psychology and mental health industry is bullshit.

One of the main criteria for ASPD is a consent disregard for the rights of others. But what is a right? Who gets to decide what a right is? A right is just something someone feel entitled to. Men right activist, father rights, private property rights are things used to oppress people that claim to be rights. A "right" is just something people feel entitled to which may or may not be helpful to society. Even rights which are for the most part good, like freedom of speach can be used to advocate for genocide. The freedom of Assocation can be used by queerphobic parents to disown their queer children. Private property (liberal definition) rights can be used to justify artificial poverty. In other words people with ASPD do not buy into the entitlements of others.

under this logic all men have ASPD because of the patarachy. All white people have ASPD because of white supremacy. All ableist (both neurotypical and neurodivergent) have ASPD. So why are these groups of people who have a history of civil right violations not label as ASPD. Because they do so in a socially acceptable way. Sexism and Racism is still social acceptable to a degree even after many decades of social justice activism.

the basing morality in and of it self is inherently problematic as you are being dependent on a biological function to decide who is moral and admoral. there are many reasons why someone might not feel guilt or remorse. The chief amongst these is dehumanization, racism, sexism, queerphobia, ableism, ageism, classism is all rooted in dehumanization. as a result, a lot of abusers engage in similar behaviors as cluster Bs. This comparison is only on surface level. Abusers get away with abuse because their behavior are protected by society, the verry same society that condition them to be abusers. Are jails are filled with narcissist and sociopaths because they do not have neuronormative privilege. When they act "abusive" they do so in ways that are not socially acceptable. meanwhile rapist, child molesters, killer cops, imperalist soldier get away with their brutality.``

The status Quo doesn't want to admit that the patarachy exist, so when a man become a serial killers they claim they have ASPD refusing to admit that people with ASPD are not immune to the patarachy. If the patarachy did not influence people to become serial killer a equal amount of men and women would be a serial killer and they would kill for the same reasons. Tough ASPD may influence why the serial killer's behavior the ASPD is not the root cause. The role of the medical model of disability as will all forms of oppression is deradicalizations. Just as the ruling class and the privilege class redirected attention away by blaming the jews, immigrants or othger margalized people the medical model redirect attention away by blaming "mentally ill people"

This brings me to my next point neurotypes are social constructs. They are the interpation of human biology that involves the brain. These interpations is done so for the neruonormative gaze. We decide them by comparing neurodivergent people to a standard of health that is also socially constructed. Alot of time people are deemed "disabled" or "mentally ill" because they are not compatible with the status qou, as status qou that is also socially constructed, but also socially constructed for the benefit of the ruling class at the expense of everyone else.

but.... but.... alot of these people are neurodivergent. Neurodivergent people can benefit from the oppression of other neurodivergents who is not the same support level as them and neurotype as them. Being neurodivergent is not a magical pill that make you anti ableist. A neurotypical is just the highest possible amount of neuronormative privilege possible. Alot of neuronormative privilege is required to get a college degree and to become a psychologist or a neuroscientist so even if the mental health professional is neurodivergent they still have a respectable degree of neuronormative privilege.

What is to be done, You may ask? neurodivergents must seize control of the psych industry away from those who want to benefit from neuronormative privilege and weaponize it against those who want to benefit from neuronormative privilege. People who do not accept neurodivergent trait will be pathologized. We will subject them to the same trauma that neurodivergent was violently subjected to. where therapy was weaponized against neurodivergents and used as a excuse to maintain the status Quo. we will seize control of this industry and use it to oppress ableist. Instead of expecting neurodivergent to mask ableist will be expected to learn coping skills, cognitive behavior skills to reduce distressed cause by ableism. Gone will be the days in which ableist infantilize themselves by hiding behind a therapist and psych meds.

What if this system destroys the mental health of an ableist. If you're in a self defense saturation do you care if you defending yourself result in grave bodily injury of your attacker. Do slaves during a slave revolt care about the mental health of their master family or employees. Do feminist care about the mental health of there rapist. Oppressors forfeit there right by violating the justified rights of others. There has not been a single major civil right earned that did not involve violence and trauma. The peaceful protest of the liberal is a lie. When people with neuronormative privilege rape disabled women like it goes out of style, sit by and do nothing as killer cop gun disabled people down in streets, though certian neurotype in jail, the bourgeoise drive disabled people into extreme poverty, imperialist engage in wars that destory the mental health of the global south and homelessness how dare you care about the mental health of ableist. How dare you expect mentally ill people to care about the mental health of their oppressors.

[dailyanarchistposts]

B.1.4 Why do racism, sexism and homophobia exist?

Since racism, sexism and homophobia (hatred/fear of homosexuals) are institutionalised throughout society, sexual, racial and gay oppression are commonplace. The primary cause of these three evil attitudes is the need for ideologies that justify domination and exploitation, which are inherent in hierarchy — in other words, “theories” that “justify” and “explain” oppression and injustice. As Tacitus said, “We hate those whom we injure.” Those who oppress others always find reasons to regard their victims as “inferior” and hence deserving of their fate. Elites need some way to justify their superior social and economic positions. Since the social system is obviously unfair and elitist, attention must be distracted to other, less inconvenient, “facts,” such as alleged superiority based on biology or “nature.” Therefore, doctrines of sexual, racial, and ethnic superiority are inevitable in hierarchical, class-stratified societies.

We will take each form of bigotry in turn.

From an economic standpoint, racism is associated with the exploitation of cheap labour at home and imperialism abroad. Indeed, early capitalist development in both America and Europe was strengthened by the bondage of people, particularly those of African descent. In the Americas, Australia and other parts of the world the slaughter of the original inhabitants and the expropriation of their land was also a key aspect in the growth of capitalism. As the subordination of foreign nations proceeds by force, it appears to the dominant nation that it owes its mastery to its special natural qualities, in other words to its “racial” characteristics. Thus imperialists have frequently appealed to the Darwinian doctrine of “Survival of the Fittest” to give their racism a basis in “nature.”

In Europe, one of the first theories of racial superiority was proposed by Gobineau in the 1850s to establish the natural right of the aristocracy to rule over France. He argued that the French aristocracy was originally of Germanic origin while the “masses” were Gallic or Celtic, and that since the Germanic race was “superior”, the aristocracy had a natural right to rule. Although the French “masses” didn’t find this theory particularly persuasive, it was later taken up by proponents of German expansion and became the origin of German racial ideology, used to justify Nazi oppression of Jews and other “non-Aryan” types. Notions of the “white man’s burden” and “Manifest Destiny” developed at about the same time in England and to a lesser extent in America, and were used to rationalise Anglo-Saxon conquest and world domination on a “humanitarian” basis.

Racism and authoritarianism at home and abroad has gone hand in hand. As Rudolf Rocker argued, ”[a]ll advocates of the race doctrine have been and are the associates and defenders of every political and social reaction, advocates of the power principle in its most brutal form … He who thinks that he sees in all political and social antagonisms merely blood-determined manifestations of race, denies all conciliatory influence of ideas, all community of ethical feeling, and must at every crisis take refuge in brute force. In fact, race theory is only the cult of power.” Racism aids the consolidation of elite power for by attacking “all the achievements … in the direction of personal freedom” and the idea of equality ”[n]o better moral justification could be produced for the industrial bondage which our holders of industrial power keep before them as a picture of the future.” [Nationalism and Culture, pp. 337–8]

The idea of racial superiority was also found to have great domestic utility. As Paul Sweezy points out, ”[t]he intensification of social conflict within the advanced capitalist countries… has to be directed as far as possible into innocuous channels — innocuous, that is to say, from the standpoint of capitalist class rule. The stirring up of antagonisms along racial lines is a convenient method of directing attention away from class struggle,” which of course is dangerous to ruling-class interests. [Theory of Capitalist Development, p. 311] Indeed, employers have often deliberately fostered divisions among workers on racial lines as part of a strategy of “divide and rule” (in other contexts, like Northern Ireland or Scotland, the employers have used religion in the same way instead).

Employers and politicians have often deliberately fostered divisions among workers on racial lines as part of a strategy of “divide and rule.” In other contexts, like Tzarist Russia, Northern Ireland or Scotland, the employers have used religion in the same way. In others, immigrants and native born is the dividing line. The net effect is the same, social oppressions which range from the extreme violence anarchists like Emma Goldman denounced in the American South (“the atrocities rampant in the South, of negroes lynched, tortured and burned by infuriated crowds without a hand being raised or a word said for their protection” [Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, vol. 1, p. 386]) or the pogroms against Jews in Tsarist Russia to discrimination in where people can live, what jobs people can get, less pay and so on.

For those in power, this makes perfect sense as racism (like other forms of bigotry) can be used to split and divide the working class by getting people to blame others of their class for the conditions they all suffer. In this way, the anger people feel about the problems they face are turned away from their real causes onto scapegoats. Thus white workers are subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) encouraged, for example, to blame unemployment, poverty and crime on blacks or Hispanics instead of capitalism and the (white, male) elites who run it and who directly benefit from low wages and high profits. Discrimination against racial minorities and women makes sense for capitalism, for in this way profits are enlarged directly and indirectly. As jobs and investment opportunities are denied to the disadvantaged groups, their wages can be depressed below prevailing levels and profits, correspondingly, increased. Indirectly, discrimination adds capitalist profits and power by increasing unemployment and setting workers against each other. Such factors ensure that capitalism will never “compete” discrimination way as some free-market capitalist economists argue.

In other words, capitalism has benefited and will continue to benefit from its racist heritage. Racism has provided pools of cheap labour for capitalists to draw upon and permitted a section of the population to be subjected to worse treatment, so increasing profits by reducing working conditions and other non-pay related costs. In America, blacks still get paid less than whites for the same work (around 10% less than white workers with the same education, work experience, occupation and other relevent demographic variables). This is transferred into wealth inequalities. In 1998, black incomes were 54% of white incomes while black net worth (including residential) was 12% and nonresidential net worth just 3% of white. For Hispanics, the picture was similar with incomes just 62% of whites, net worth, 4% and nonresidential net worth 0%. While just under 15% of white households had zero or negative net worth, 27% of black households and 36% Hispanic were in the same situation. Even at similar levels of income, black households were significantly less wealthy than white ones. [Doug Henwood, After the New Economy, p. 99 and pp. 125–6]

All this means that racial minorities are “subjected to oppression and exploitation on the dual grounds of race and class, and thus have to fight the extra battles against racism and discrimination.” [Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, Anarchism and the Black Revolution, p. 126]

Sexism only required a “justification” once women started to act for themselves and demand equal rights. Before that point, sexual oppression did not need to be “justified” — it was “natural” (saying that, of course, equality between the sexes was stronger before the rise of Christianity as a state religion and capitalism so the “place” of women in society has fallen over the last few hundred years before rising again thanks to the women’s movement).

The nature of sexual oppression can be seen from marriage. Emma Goldman pointed out that marriage “stands for the sovereignty of the man over the women,” with her “complete submission” to the husbands “whims and commands.” [Red Emma Speaks, p. 164] As Carole Pateman notes, until “the late nineteenth century the legal and civil position of a wife resembled that of a slave… A slave had no independent legal existence apart from his master, and husband and wife became ‘one person,’ the person of the husband.” Indeed, the law “was based on the assumption that a wife was (like) property” and only the marriage contract “includes the explicit commitment to obey.” [The Sexual Contract, p. 119, p. 122 and p. 181]

However, when women started to question the assumptions of male domination, numerous theories were developed to explain why women’s oppression and domination by men was “natural.” Because men enforced their rule over women by force, men’s “superiority” was argued to be a “natural” product of their gender, which is associated with greater physical strength (on the premise that “might makes right”). In the 17th century, it was argued that women were more like animals than men, thus “proving” that women had as much right to equality with men as sheep did. More recently, elites have embraced socio-biology in response to the growing women’s movement. By “explaining” women’s oppression on biological grounds, a social system run by men and for men could be ignored.

Women’s subservient role also has economic value for capitalism (we should note that Goldman considered capitalism to be another “paternal arrangement” like marriage, both of which robbed people of their “birthright,” “stunts” their growth, “poisons” their bodies and keeps people in “ignorance, in poverty and dependence.” [Op. Cit., p. 210]). Women often provide necessary (and unpaid) labour which keeps the (usually) male worker in good condition; and it is primarily women who raise the next generation of wage-slaves (again without pay) for capitalist owners to exploit. Moreover, women’s subordination gives working-class men someone to look down upon and, sometimes, a convenient target on whom they can take out their frustrations (instead of stirring up trouble at work). As Lucy Parsons pointed out, a working class woman is “a slave to a slave.”

Sexism, like all forms of bigotry, is reflected in relative incomes and wealth levels. In the US women, on average, were being paid 57% the amount men were in 2001 (an improvement than the 39% 20 years earlier). Part of this is due to fewer women working than men, but for those who do work outside the home their incomes were 66% than of men’s (up from 47% in 1980 and 38% in 1970). Those who work full time, their incomes 76% of men’s, up from the 60% average through most of the 1970s. However, as with the black-white gap, this is due in part to the stagnant income of male workers (in 1998 men’s real incomes were just 1% above 1989 levels while women’s were 14% above). So rather than the increase in income being purely the result of women entering high-paying and largely male occupations and them closing the gender gap, it has also been the result of the intense attacks on the working class since the 1980s which has de-unionised and de-industrialised America. This has resulted in a lot of high-paying male jobs have been lost and more and more women have entered the job market to make sure their families make ends. [Henwood, Op. Cit., p. 91–2]

Turning away from averages, we discover that sexism results in women being paid about 12% less than men during the same job, with the same relative variables (like work experience, education and so forth). Needless to say, as with racism, such “relevant variables” are themselves shaped by discrimination. Women, like blacks, are less likely to get job interviews and jobs. Sexism even affects types of jobs, for example, “caring” professions pay less than non-caring ones because they are seen as feminine and involve the kinds of tasks which women do at home without pay. In general, female dominated industries pay less. In 1998, occupations that were over 90% male had a median wage almost 10% above average while those over 90% female, almost 25% below. One study found that a 30% increase in women in an occupation translated into a 10% decline in average pay. Needless to say, having children is bad economic news for most women (women with children earn 10 to 15% less than women without children while for men the opposite is the case). Having maternity level, incidentally, have a far smaller motherhood penalty. [Henwood, Op. Cit., p. 95–7]

The oppression of lesbians, gays and bisexuals is inextricably linked with sexism. A patriarchal, capitalist society cannot see homosexual practices as the normal human variations they are because they blur that society’s rigid gender roles and sexist stereotypes. Most young gay people keep their sexuality to themselves for fear of being kicked out of home and all gays have the fear that some “straights” will try to kick their sexuality out of them if they express their sexuality freely. As with those subject to other forms of bigotry, gays are also discriminated against economically (gay men earning about 4–7% less than the average straight man [Henwood, Op. Cit., p. 100]). Thus the social oppression which result in having an alternative sexuality are experienced on many different levels, from extreme violence to less pay for doing the same work.

Gays are not oppressed on a whim but because of the specific need of capitalism for the nuclear family. The nuclear family, as the primary — and inexpensive — creator of submissive people (growing up within the authoritarian family gets children used to, and “respectful” of, hierarchy and subordination — see section B.1.5) as well as provider and carer for the workforce fulfils an important need for capitalism. Alternative sexualities represent a threat to the family model because they provide a different role model for people. This means that gays are going to be in the front line of attack whenever capitalism wants to reinforce “family values” (i.e. submission to authority, “tradition”, “morality” and so on). The introduction of Clause 28 in Britain is a good example of this, with the government making it illegal for public bodies to promote gay sexuality (i.e. to present it as anything other than a perversion). In American, the right is also seeking to demonise homosexuality as part of their campaign to reinforce the values of the patriarchal family unit and submission to “traditional” authority. Therefore, the oppression of people based on their sexuality is unlikely to end until sexism is eliminated.

This is not all. As well as adversely affecting those subject to them, sexism, racism and homophobia are harmful to those who practice them (and in some way benefit from them) within the working class itself. Why this should be the case is obvious, once you think about it. All three divide the working class, which means that whites, males and heterosexuals hurt themselves by maintaining a pool of low-paid competing labour, ensuring low wages for their own wives, daughters, mothers, relatives and friends. Such divisions create inferior conditions and wages for all as capitalists gain a competitive advantage using this pool of cheap labour, forcing all capitalists to cut conditions and wages to survive in the market (in addition, such social hierarchies, by undermining solidarity against the employer on the job and the state possibly create a group of excluded workers who could become scabs during strikes). Also, “privileged” sections of the working class lose out because their wages and conditions are less than those which unity could have won them. Only the boss really wins.

This can be seen from research into this subject. The researcher Al Szymanski sought to systematically and scientifically test the proposition that white workers gain from racism [“Racial Discrimination and White Gain”, in American Sociological Review, vol. 41, no. 3, June 1976, pp. 403–414]. He compared the situation of “white” and “non-white” (i.e. black, Native American, Asian and Hispanic) workers in United States and found several key things:

(1) The narrower the gap between white and black wages in an American state, the higher white earnings were relative to white earnings elsewhere. This means that “whites do not benefit economically by economic discrimination. White workers especially appear to benefit economically from the absence of economic discrimination... both in the absolute level of their earnings and in relative equality among whites.” [p. 413] In other words, the less wage discrimination there was against black workers, the better were the wages that white workers received.

(2) The more “non-white” people in the population of a given American State, the more inequality there was between whites. In other words, the existence of a poor, oppressed group of workers reduced the wages of white workers, although it did not affect the earnings of non-working class whites very much (“the greater the discrimination against [non-white] people, the greater the inequality among whites” [p. 410]). So white workers clearly lost economically from this discrimination.

(3) He also found that “the more intense racial discrimination is, the lower are the white earnings because of ... [its effect on] working-class solidarity.” [p. 412] In other words, racism economically disadvantages white workers because it undermines the solidarity between black and white workers and weakens trade union organisation.

So overall, these white workers receive some apparent privileges from racism, but are in fact screwed by it. Thus racism and other forms of hierarchy actually works against the interests of those working class people who practice it — and, by weakening workplace and social unity, benefits the ruling class:

“As long as discrimination exists and racial or ethnic minorities are oppressed, the entire working class is weakened. This is so because the Capitalist class is able to use racism to drive down the wages of individual segments of the working class by inciting racial antagonism and forcing a fight for jobs and services. This division is a development that ultimately undercuts the living standards of all workers. Moreover, by pitting Whites against Blacks and other oppressed nationalities, the Capitalist class is able to prevent workers from uniting against their common enemy. As long as workers are fighting each other, the Capitalist class is secure.” [Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, Op. Cit., pp. 12–3]

In addition, a wealth of alternative viewpoints, insights, experiences, cultures, thoughts and so on are denied the racist, sexist or homophobe. Their minds are trapped in a cage, stagnating within a mono-culture — and stagnation is death for the personality. Such forms of oppression are dehumanising for those who practice them, for the oppressor lives as a role, not as a person, and so are restricted by it and cannot express their individuality freely (and so do so in very limited ways). This warps the personality of the oppressor and impoverishes their own life and personality. Homophobia and sexism also limits the flexibility of all people, gay or straight, to choose the sexual expressions and relationships that are right for them. The sexual repression of the sexist and homophobe will hardly be good for their mental health, their relationships or general development.

From the anarchist standpoint, oppression based on race, sex or sexuality will remain forever intractable under capitalism or, indeed, under any economic or political system based on domination and exploitation. While individual members of “minorities” may prosper, racism as a justification for inequality is too useful a tool for elites to discard. By using the results of racism (e.g. poverty) as a justification for racist ideology, criticism of the status quo can, yet again, be replaced by nonsense about “nature” and “biology.” Similarly with sexism or discrimination against gays.

The long-term solution is obvious: dismantle capitalism and the hierarchical, economically class-stratified society with which it is bound up. By getting rid of capitalist oppression and exploitation and its consequent imperialism and poverty, we will also eliminate the need for ideologies of racial or sexual superiority used to justify the oppression of one group by another or to divide and weaken the working class. However, struggles against bigotry cannot be left until after a revolution. If they were two things are likely: one, such a revolution would be unlikely to happen and, two, if it were then these problems would more than likely remain in the new society created by it. Therefore the negative impacts of inequality can and must be fought in the here and now, like any form of hierarchy. Indeed, as we discuss in more detail section B.1.6 by doing so we make life a bit better in the here and now as well as bringing the time when such inequalities are finally ended nearer. Only this can ensure that we can all live as free and equal individuals in a world without the blights of sexism, racism, homophobia or religious hatred.

Needless to say, anarchists totally reject the kind of “equality” that accepts other kinds of hierarchy, that accepts the dominant priorities of capitalism and the state and accedes to the devaluation of relationships and individuality in name of power and wealth. There is a kind of “equality” in having “equal opportunities,” in having black, gay or women bosses and politicians, but one that misses the point. Saying “Me too!” instead of “What a mess!” does not suggest real liberation, just different bosses and new forms of oppression. We need to look at the way society is organised, not at the sex, colour, nationality or sexuality of who is giving the orders!

[scuderiakarts]

So in other words, as any reasonable person already knew, there was obviously a disclosure process before appointing someone to an incredibly high profile job.

And obviously, the FOM took appropriate mitigating steps because they were aware of the conflict of interest and knew it was part of their role to keep it from becoming problematic (because secondary interests are not inherently problematic, they occur every. single. day in most industries).

And obviously the FOM, a massive organisation with high-powered lawyers on payroll know how to set up a COI policy properly.

And obviously, this entire investigation/internal review was fuelled by the “reporting” of one man known for writing sexist and borderline libellous hit-pieces on women in motorsports.

And obviously, the FIA gave into that public pressure because a) sexism and b) lack-of-spine-usitis

But of course we had to spend a majority of this week dragging one of the most successful women in motorsports through the mud because there was just no way of telling if this was a merited investigation on its face. But hey, at least it serves as a reminder to anyone up-and-coming in the motorsports world that your presence in it as a woman is always going to be doubted, maybe we were starting to forget that!

[genderisareligion]

How long do you think this trans nonsense is going to last? Do you think people, especially women, will eventually realise how sexist, homophobic and racist trans ideology is? Or do you think society is just going to keep regressing? I had a discussion - not even an argument - with a girl recently about it all, she has a brother that calls himself a woman, and she cried when I said that I thought we should be abolishing gender stereotypes. I thought I was pretty moderate, I said that I think people should be able to dress and act however they like, but it just doesn't mean that men can claim and appropriate womanhood. She cried and called me a transphobe, and then stormed out when I said that it's inherently misogynistic. Most of my friends, both men and women, agree with me, but said that I shouldn't have brought it up. Which I think is just shit - so women are just meant to lie back and accept the erosion of our rights? This issue is occupying so much real estate in my mind, I'm constantly thinking about how absurd it is and I'm constantly angry. How long do you think I'm gonna have to be angry for?

I can’t say for certain how much longer it will be, but I can recall what ten years ago was like, so maybe things will have changed that drastically in another ten.

2012 Tumblr was peak what’s good about liberal feminism. It’s not all garbage it is still feminism after all. Consent was a huge conversation, used to see posts about male rape culture in the tens of thousands of notes, it was cool and on trend to call out “I’m not like other girls I don’t need feminism,” sexism in the workplace was being addressed. My in progress tag #notes is in part meant to capture what female solidarity used to look like on the site

because it’s taken a massive fucking nose dive and I’m trying to figure out where we went wrong. Going through archives of radblr blogs around 2015-16 is when I start noticing more of the trans/TERF conversion happening, although it always was just on a much smaller scale using different words. “Lesbians who don’t like dick” and sex industry critical women have always been attacked for one reason or another iirc they just used to call us “radscum” and other nondescript shit before landing on these handy -ERF acronyms

The thing is 2012 Tumblr was also peak Superwholock Fujoshi time and “supporting the gays” (voyeuristically living vicariously through them) was more on trend than liberal feminism. The two were seemingly in unison at the time but were going to be at odds inevitably. Mostly straight and male-pref bi women (with a sprinkle of closeted lesbians) coping with IRL men’s increasingly sadistic view of women by fantasizing about safe love between fictional men on an obsessive level. Fandoms and thus show creators going out of their way to avoid F/F slash and instead feeding the monster that is M/M until Tumblrinas felt like just “supporting” them wasn’t enough and they had to skinwalk lol and shame one type of SSA while worshipping another

Iirc by 2016 gay marriage in the US (where most of these people live) had been “won” and queer MOGAI was the shiniest newest trend thanks to a number of influences (Caitlyn Jenner and LaVerne Cox come to mind but it was definitely more than just them). Liberal feminism is capitalistic at the end of the day and the powers that be saw “queering gender” for the cash cow it’s ended up being and the powers were probably terrified that in the early 2010s under popular lib feminism hundreds of thousands of girls and women were openly in agreement online that male violence was the problem. Now it’s “gendered violence” and you can never tell who’s a male and no one can call a spade in a dress a spade

It’s inconceivable to me to cry about the idea of gender abolition like your friend did anon…..makes me like sad how convicted so many women are about this. But I’m also not surprised and don’t blame them all because anti feminist males will stop at nothing. The TERF wars are so fundamentally ridiculous like the topic is a distraction about something that’s not even real yet they’ve made it seem so real and threatening by using their male privilege to instill fear and angry infighting.

I would advise you to not let this shit take up too much real estate in your mind. As someone who sort of watched it all start or at least get this bad I try to remember when I wasn’t censoring my language this much and when misandry was a fun meme on here. Also try to keep in mind how many times the queer theorists change their mind on what language is appropriate for who and when. I will never forget how quickly writing trans* with an asterisk or transwoman with no space became crimes when before you’d get lynched for not doing it. Imo things that change that often have no foundation or could change into something unrecognizable someday. Hopefully whatever follows gender is better than this shit. Hang in there 🖤

[larrydoinglaundry]

Twitter and some people here are focusing on the male part of que quote and I can see why. It’s interesting how they did the radio thing, but it’s a bit insulting to the female fans when we were the one who got Louis to the number 1. But in overall it was a good interview! but she should have expressed that better…

oh i agree that the male audience part was very distasteful and inherently just reeks of sexism. it definitely gives "in need of male validation" vibes and implies that female audience alone is not worth taking seriously.

correct me if i'm wrong though but i think the interview is from a magazine that is not really directed at fans or gp but others who work in music industry. kind of from professionals to professionals, and therefore the tone of the interview is her pretty much boasting and showing off their strategy to the others who work in the industry. don't get me wrong, it definitely doesn't make the bad points any better, but it gives it a bit more context on why it's written the way it is.

[sirensoftheweb]

010101 Spells ‘Systemic Issues’ : "A Feature, Not a Bug"

By: Harmonia ✨

The article “A Feature, Not a Bug” dismantles the myth of Silicon Valley as a meritocratic haven and delves into the pervasive discrimination rooted in gender, race, and class within the computing industry. It exposes how, far from being neutral, technologies often reflect and perpetuate existing power dynamics: “Technologies designed to reorient the ways we live, work, and think more often than not are created to model or enhance older forms of power and prestige.” Sexist values that originated in the early 20th century continue to plague tech industries today, where women are still predominantly seen as secondary workers. Despite initially being favoured for early computing jobs, women faced marginalization as the prestige of computing work rose, leading to their replacement by inexperienced men. This systemic discrimination persisted, with women excluded from professionalization benefits in the 1960s, resulting in their labelling as “Excluded Grades” and contributing significantly to the decline of the British computing industry in the 1970s. These discriminatory practices not only created social problems but also hindered innovation and efficiency within the high-tech labour market, exacerbating shortages of skilled workers and operational inefficiencies.

The article draws upon Margot Lee Shetterly’s acclaimed work, "Hidden Figures," to shed light on the pervasive gender-based discrimination in the UK government's computing sector and the impact of racism on technological advancements in the US space sector. Shetterly's book underscores “the importance of attending to the intersection of race, gender, class, and nationality,” compelling readers to confront the inherent racism ingrained in our technological ideals. Contrary to the oversimplified belief that the US "won" the Space Race by landing a man on the moon first, the reality is far more complex. Early setbacks for the US, including the USSR's pioneering achievements, such as launching the first satellite, Sputnik, and sending the first person into orbit, challenge this narrative. Shetterly's narrative underscores the critical significance of acknowledging race, gender, class, and nationality in the context of technological achievements. Figures like Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan faced systemic barriers due to societal marginalization based on race and gender despite their remarkable talents and contributions. While the US's post-WWII success can be attributed in part to the devastation of its rivals' infrastructure and economies, systemic sexism and racism within technological institutions hindered the full utilization of diverse talents. The failure to address online abuse, misogyny, and racism has allowed major computing platforms to be exploited by groups seeking to undermine political stability, highlighting how technological systems often perpetuate existing systems of privilege and discrimination rather than embodying true meritocracy. Technology serves as one more surface for the blinding and oppressive light of systemic discrimination to reflect off of, “yet, we struggle to see that this discrimination was, and still is, an integral, foundational part of most of the computing systems we think of as successful—and even essential—today.”

“A Feature, Not a Bug” emphasizes the importance of understanding the often obscured computing world and argues that the prevalence of these systemic issues within the tech industry are not glitches “but in fact designed to leverage and heighten existing discrimination.” Software development is often viewed as magic and black-boxed, creating a sense of separation and helplessness for users. Although the digital world is visited daily by most in Western society, users often do not understand how the technology works, making it impossible to decode the systemic issues that live in zeros and ones. 

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

i was being snarky but i got people who are genuinely confused in the comments and BOY do i love to infodump literary devices!! so here we go

"Fridging" is defined by TVTropes as "When a loved one is hurt, killed, maimed, assaulted, or otherwise traumatized in order to motivate another character or move their plot forward." Thing is, that could apply to a lot of things– for death, for instance, as Overly Sarcastic Productions put it, "While fridging is intended solely to upset another character, well-written character deaths almost always upset the other characters too. And since the character themself is usually too dead to care, most of the lingering ramifications of their death only affect the other characters." It is specifically a bad trope because it decides that any potential in their character is worth less than a shallow scene of Character A being sad, which they will forget about by the next arc.

Fridging is given as a trope solely to characters whose deaths/assaults/etc are:

ONLY added to provide motivation for Character A

This is the ONLY narrative role this incident plays. There is no exploration of how this impacts the fridged character or the world around them

"Fridging" was named by Gail Simone after a storyline in Green Lantern: A New Dawn, where Kyle Rayner's girlfriend is killed and stuffed in the refrigerator. She dies only to further this plotline and make the villain seem more evil, and then is practically forgotten about. Overly Sarcastic used the example of Gamora in the MCU, being killed just to make Thanos and Quill feel bad for a bit, and then she gets replaced by a version of her with zero of the character development everyone liked from her. As you can tell, this trope is almost always applied to women due to a lot of inherent sexism in the writing industry. This doesn't mean it can't apply to men, just that it happens less.

And it's not just death, of course– while Barbara Gordon was retroactively given a nice character arc and identity following her attack in The Killing Joke, the original intention for Barbara's paralysis was solely to upset her dad and Batman. How this affected her was an afterthought that had to be explored later, by different writers who actually cared.

"Death by Origin Story," meanwhile, is related but distinctly different. It's a character that dies in order to motivate another character, yeah, but their death is meant to kickstart the entire plot/character arc. See Uncle Ben in Spider-Man– while most adaptations/universes don't bring him up much after he's dead, his death is the reason Peter does everything he does. Batman's parents as well– they may not matter as people, but take them out of the story and you lose Bruce Wayne's entire emotional motivation. They don't die for shock value, and their deaths impact the characters throughout the entire story, not just a short arc.

The thing when looking at a story is that, once again as Overly Sarcastic put it, a lot of characters are supposed to be just plot elements. Because fictional characters aren't people, they're parts of a story the writer is creating. Now, that's okay– but when a character is fridged, the problem is it feels useless in-story. It takes a character who doesn't matter, kills them in a way that shows they don't matter, and only focuses on how sad another character feels about it before moving on. OSP used the example of Star Wars's Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru for example; they basically only died so that Luke could get motivated to leave Tattooine, and once he did, they're never mentioned again. If Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were replaced by a dog, or a fun new speeder he just got, or just the farm itself, nothing would change. If Peter Parker's Uncle Ben was replaced with a motorbike, everything would change. Peter Parker's motivation relies on the guilt he feels over Ben's death and the feelings of responsibility that Ben imparted into him as he grew up.

As you can tell, there's a lot of overlap and confusion, but there's a fine line between them. All characters are plot devices, but fridging takes you out of the story and makes you aware of how much the author didn't care about the person they're killing/maiming/etc.

Like, okay, gamer example. Five Nights at Freddy's. The dead kids are absolutely fucking plot devices. They barely get named, let alone any personality. Charlie's only personality is from her robotic duplicate in an alternate universe. Crying Child only gets "cries a lot." But they don't feel fridged because their deaths are given narrative weight and drive, like, all of the plot. Just because "Henry feels sad about Charlie dying" or "Michael feels sad about CC and Elizabeth dying" doesn't make them fridged, because it impacts the entire story and explores the tragedy of these kids dying so young. But conversely, let's go back to Charlie's robotic duplicate– while in the novels, Michael would definitely be DbOS (he's a plot device and not a character, but his death impacts literally everyone in the books), I'd argue that The Fourth Closet fridges both Charlie and Elizabeth. Charlie dies just when she finds out she's a robot (so no interesting exploration of what that would mean for her psyche going forward), then dies so that her friends (mostly the male love interest) can feel sad about it. Elizabeth, after spending the entire book focusing only on her dad's goals and getting her dad's attention, dies with her because the writers couldn't think of any other way to get her out of the story. Charlie's fakeout death from the last book didn't feel like fridging because it was built up throughout the story and had narrative significance. The third book's deaths feel cheap and rushed, to the point where Charlie, the main character, never interacts with the main plot of the book, and dies across town from where the climax is happening, while a (male) side character kills off the big bad. The narrative significance of these two interesting girls is shortened to "and then they die so we don't have to deal with them anymore."

And okay, yeah, I'm posting this on my sonic blog cause listen. Maria is a Death by Origin Story, not a Fridging. Is she a plot device rather than a character? Yes. Could she be replaced by a shiny rock? No. Shadow's entire character and motivations rely on his previous relationship with Maria and her hopes for the future and wish to help others. Does her death make the (male) characters around her feel bad and motivate them? Yes. But she's also supposed to be seen as a character, and the tragedy of her death is that she was a child who was murdered and that she didn't get to actually live the way she wanted to. Her death isn't supposed to feel cheap, and despite Sega trying to avoid mentioning it, it's supposed to have narrative weight.

I can get when people say that, say, Molly from Sonic X was fridged, as her episode is a one-off and really only serves to motivate Shadow. While I love that episode more than life itself, I absolutely can agree there. I'd also argue that Sally got fridged a lot in pre-SGW Archie comics. First when she fucking died in the 50th issue because Ken Penders didn't know how to write women, then culminating in "the universe reset right after Mecha Sally happened so we don't need to care about that." Neither of them have the narrative weight of Maria's death, and thus moreso fit the definition of fridging.

where was i going with this. i had a point.

uhhh watch overly sarcastic productions ig

ok girlies do we have to have a talk about the difference between "fridging" and "death by origin story"

[rottenpeach2001]

Things I learned in WRI227 cont.- Lecture 5

Hello again people of Tumblr,

Today I will continue the lessons I learned from my social media and content creation class. Today’s topic will include themes of venture labour, SEZs, Foxconn and hustle culture

Venture labour is essentially allows companies to exploit people, especially women and minorities.

Venture labour refers to unpaid or uncompensated work that individuals often times women and people from marginalized communities, contribute to tech companies and other entrepreneurial endeavours. Such examples can be unpaid internships, volunteer work, equity compensations, and even emotional labour. In an article called “ The Unwanted Labour of Social Media: Women of Colour Call Out Culture as Venture Community Management”, Nakamura states that social media platforms can generate profits from the labour of volunteer community managers from their efforts to moderate hate speech and are often punished for the efforts form the online community. This labour is uncompensated in wages, and often employ other forms of currencies such as like, followers and sometimes praise by the industry. Other examples of venture labour, as I touched upon earlier, is the emotional labour. Communicating to the public and educating people about social justice issues, racism, homophobia and sexism are often overlooked forms of labour and are difficult and often times under appreciated.

2. Foxconn and its exploitation of workers in China.

Did you know that Foxconn is one of the biggest manufacturers of electronic parts and products, which supplies to various tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Sony. It’s well know for assembling products such as IPads, IPhones and other consumer electronics. In 2010, 18 assembly line workers attempted suicide, which was a tragically desperate plea for the improving the working conditions of the factories (Trusolino,2023).Workers of Foxconn face low wages, long working hours and excessive overtime.Reports have cited concerns of labour practices such as the need to make example of somebody for everybody else when a a manager has decided that someone makes a costly mistake. This practice is easy to perpetuate as American manufacturers take advantage of low wages, flexible labour laws and minimal worker rights in countries such as China, SouthEast Asia and Haiti (Trusolino,2023).

3. We do free labour for social platforms which extends to our data being unknowingly sold.

Have you ever gotten an ads that was so specific and something you might have just searched up recently? Welcome to the world of targeted ads. We assume that social media and other websites are free but in returns we pay it with our privacy. Companies like Facebook claim that they give access to user data if companies are Facebook partners, hence it’s not “sharing”. However, the Vice President of Advertising of Facebook claimed that they didn’t sell people’s data or share personal information. While targeted ads are not inherently bad, it can spiral into an algorithm that can push for content towards the user in order to dictate what they can view and consume as media (Trusolino,2023).

4. Growing Globalization leads to Special Economic Zones (SEZs).

Globalization causes people to more interconnected in this era and this means that there is more interest in exploring and exploiting new markets (Trusolino,2023). The proliferation of SEZ is established through the diversification of economies and more . SEZ encourage the diversity by attraction of industries that can go beyond the traditional sectors (Narula and Zhan,2019) . This diversification can then reduce the country’s reliance on a few industries within their homeland and can contribute to the economic stability.

5. Silicon Valley gave rise to hustle culture.

Silicon Valley and hustle culture are closely related in the sphere of the tech and start up companies. Silicon Valley is prominent for it being the hot spot for innovation. Hustle culture refers to the culture of hustling to make an income and balancing multiple gigs (Trusolino,2023). The competitive nature of the tech industry gave rise to constantly working and prioritizing achievement and even promoted high intensity and the fast paced lifestyle. Silicon Valley also has placed an importance in ambitious goals and most importantly yielding success from such goals . This mindset can cultivate a sense of urgency and determination to excel, which often can cause the neglect of other areas of their life. However, the glamorizations of hustle culture fails to mention the magnitude of stress and uncertain futures of the people involved.

Sources:

Narula, R., & Zhan, J. X. (2019). Using special economic zones to facilitate development: Policy implications. Transnational Corporations, 26(2), 1–26.

Trusolino, M (2023). Lecture 5: Political Economy of Social Media: The consumer and Free Labour(Class Slides)

Nakamura, L. (2015). The Unwanted Labour of Social Media: Women of Colour Call out Culture As Venture Community Management. New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, 86(1), 106–112.

‌

[my-mt-heart]

If we leave the gossipy nature of the topic aside, what bothers me is the inherent sexism of the rumor. Classic 'two women fight over a guy' trope. Why is it being framed like that? Who has something to gain from it? Rumors like this are always malicious, so the point of origin is someone with an agenda (even if it's just to throw shit at either woman). If you're not part of the conversation and don't know its context, how do you judge what's going on?

I know it's juicy and we're trying to piece together what happened to the show we were promised, so we're latching onto everything, but it feel like this particular argument is just shifting focus and blame onto another woman. She could feel whatever way about things, but she wasn't on set and she doesn't have a personal relationship with anyone in power at AMC.

The network has had a massive turnover of executives in the past year and I know a lot of people here seem to think that Norman can just roll up and demand things, but unless he's negotiating a new contract, he doesn't have the ability to make the network just give him shiny things because his partner wants them. That's not how it works.

Remember how MT keeps saying personal relationships is the lifeblood of the industry? Changing shooting locations or firing other talent aren't small asks to make and he doesn't have any leverage because he's under contract. It's a big sack of change for AMC to just toss away and it would affect Norman's professional reputation because word would get around.

There's only one person who'd be inclined to be that type of genie in a bottle and he does have his own reasons for wanting to change the spinoff. Occam's razor: with competing theories or explanations, the simpler one (with fewer parameters) is the most likely one.

[Don't know if you want me to leave all this well enough alone because I hear you on the not being a gossip column. The absolute need to find a woman to blame for this mess just bugs me.]

[shinjaeha]

ipytm ep 2 (thoughts + spoilers)

i’ve been trying my hardest to forget about iptym during the week so the countdown to each new ep won’t feel as long, but i don’t think i’ve succeeded. with each new ep i feel more and more nervous and excited bc i know the conflict and angst is only going to keep ramping up as the series goes on (and this ep was a good indication of that...not FULL BLOWN angst yet, but the undercurrent of angst is slowly starting to come to the surface). i’m def more prepared for it than i was during itsay, but that doesn’t make it easy ;;;

the standard ‘this is not a proper analysis’ here...i’m completely aware that this post in particular is really messy, but i just had a lot of mixed feelings and thoughts with this ep. one day i will learn how to condense my thoughts better, but today is not that day so i’m doing this under a read more for once bc it’s embarrassingly long 😂

we start off with teh in acting class where his teacher is explaining how you need to be able to understand yourself before you’re able to understand other people (and therefore put yourself in the shoes of the character you’re playing)...which even before i knew where this ep was going to go felt a lot like foreshadowing for the events that were going to unfold in this ep.

the acting exercises are basically a lot like the ones that we see bkpp (and the rest of the cast) having to do as part of their workshops in the documentary eps, so it’s kind of cool to see them incorporate parts of that into the actual show itself. feels more authentic since, if you’ve watched the documentary eps, you know that this is actually what the actors have to go through when they’re learning to let themselves go and get into character.

so through this montage of all of teh’s classes, we get to see how much he’s enjoying learning more and more about his major. it’s truly his passion, and he’s finally in his element. and it’s great that he’s surrounded by so many seniors that are also as driven and passionate about performing as he is...i find it interesting how teh, even from the start, has always been most attracted to people that have the same sense of ambitiousness as he does. in itsay, his best friend (aside from oh-aew obv) was tarn, who had a very similar mindset as him. so here, it’s not really that much of a surprise that all his uni friends are basically the drama club seniors that he sees as role models. oh-aew is kind of that one outlier bc he doesn’t fit that same mould/personality type that teh tends to surround himself with, which is where you can already start to see the discord between them arising. in itsay, bc oh-aew was working towards the same end goal as teh at the time, it wasn’t as much of a conflict. but in ipytm we can see that their paths are starting to diverge more and more. that being said, oh-aew’s someone that teh truly needs in his life bc he offers a different perspective to most of teh’s other friends, and as we can see later on, teh REALLY needs that.

now THIS was one of the interactions i was really interested in. we already knew from the ep 2 teaser that teh isn’t exactly happy with oh-aew’s new friend group, so i’ve been waiting to see how teh acts when he’s around them. everyone’s at q’s house celebrating plug’s birthday, and honestly?? they’re all really sweet and accommodating of teh (they get him sweet drinks bc teh tells them that he doesn’t drink bc it’s too bitter, and they don’t pressure him when he says he can’t drink bc he’s got morning classes). but then the conversation turns to teh and oh-aew becoming actors and earning lots of money (and how convenient that is), and teh starts to get a little riled up. i don’t think they mean anything by what they’re saying (they’re just playing around), but we know that teh's sensitive to this sort of thing, and i think to him, it’s almost like they’re saying it’s ‘easy’ to become an actor and start making bank. teh, who already knows how hard it is (esp since he’s been watching how difficult it’s been for khim in particular), starts getting defensive about it. the focus being on money hits a nerve with him too bc teh is very clearly majoring in comm arts bc it’s his dream, not bc of the money he could make from it. teh and oh-aew’s gang are just on different wavelengths, and you can really start to see how teh’s having trouble bonding with oh-aew’s gang bc of their differing mindsets.

it makes me slightly sad that you can see how worried oh-aew is about teh and his friends not meshing. it’s like we, the audience, are all feeling what oh-aew is feeling...his nervous glances at teh bc he’s afraid that teh might not like them. and the discomfort on teh’s part too. all of oh-aew friends tend to be a lot more like him, relaxed and happy to go with the flow, but we know that teh can be pretty rigid and intense about the things that he’s passionate about. oh-aew recognises this, which is why he’s as anxious as he is in the first place.

oh-aew’s tea tattoo in honour of teh is actually so sweet 😭 it shows how much teh means to him. he really got a permanent mark on his body to symbolise his love for his boyfriend ;;; but from teh’s perspective, it’s literally that first mark of change. it IS a pretty big decision, so i don’t blame teh for being shocked about it, but teh likely sees this as oh-aew’s friends being a ‘bad’ influence on him (which we know gets brought up again later). not bc of the tattoo itself, but bc of what it represents. it’s like he’s watching oh-aew start to change before his very eyes and he doesn’t know how to deal with that so he brushes it away for now.

the framing of that shot where teh and oh-aew are facing each other and then q comes to walk in between them is A LOT like how they used to frame the both of them in itsay and having bas walk in between them. interesting.

HOW MUCH DO I LOVE THE FACT THAT OH-AEW SPEAKS CHINESE WHEN HE’S DRUNK...that’s just plain adorable :’) it’s like he’s reverting back to when teh was teaching him chinese and they were first falling in love again. teh’s method of getting close to him was always tutoring oh-aew in chinese, so it’s as though oh-aew is trying to feel closer to teh again by speaking chinese to him. sort of like he’s trying to recreate that feeling all over again. i also love that this is basically the opposite of that oppo short film ad bkpp did haha.

we got the “ke yi ma” “ke yi” again ;;;;;;;; i love their little domestic moments. they’re so soft when they’re like this (i know we’re gonna have to weather the angst, but i hope we still have a lot more fluffy moments like this too pls). side note, i really love the lighting in these scenes!!

when oh-aew reads teh’s note about the kimchi jjigae and smiles but then reads the “do not skip class” and his smile fades away...oh, oh-aew, i feel u.

so now we get to see oh-aew in acting class, and the difference between oh-aew’s feelings towards class and teh’s feelings are like night and day. teh’s classes make him feel so fulfilled...this is genuinely something that he wants to do. but oh-aew is struggling. he doesn’t have that same sense of purpose as teh bc he’s starting to realise that this might not be what he really wants...he’s trying but just not enjoying it at all. when teh tells him about the casting call, i feel so much dread for him bc he’s clearly not looking forward to it whatsoever, but he knows how much this means to teh...so he’s willing to ignore his feelings for now if teh’s happy :(

is it just me or was this when oh-aew stopped carrying his ‘heart attack’ bag too??

idk this struggle in particular just feels so personal to me. i really identify with oh-aew when it comes to this bc when i was at uni i changed my major like 3-4 times (and changed unis a bunch of times on top of that) bc i had NO IDEA what i wanted to do. even now, i still have no clue what i’m doing a lot of the time. i’m glad that oh-aew at least managed to find some sort of clarity when he dropped in on his friends’ advertising class and realised that this was something that he enjoyed and was good at :’)

teh’s so excited and focussed on this audition that he can’t even see how worried and reluctant that oh-aew is about this. he wants them to have the same dream so bad that he can’t see that this might not be oh-aew’s dream anymore. but anyway, oh-aew is the sweetest, best boy as always. he’s so, so encouraging with teh. so patient. he really such a great balance to teh’s more volatile nature...but that contrast is also what makes you feel so bad for him when teh lashes out at him without thinking (as he’s prone to doing).

i LOVE khim. i just have so much respect for her. she’s always trying her hardest, and it’s painful to see her give so much of herself yet constantly be knocked down. the resilience that takes. i know that that’s part of the industry she’s in, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch. there’s a lot to be said about how harsh the entertainment industry can be (and the inherent ageism/sexism/homophobia within it), which i don’t have the time to go into here, but having to hear criticism like that...purely based on your looks (you don’t look smart enough, young enough, manly enough, etc.) is so incredibly disheartening. teh commenting on how harsh it is, and khim saying that it’s super common and telling the both of them how they’re gonna have to go through all of that the more casting calls they go to...OF COURSE oh-aew is only going to feel even more dispirited about this when he’s already realising that this might not be his thing anymore.

being able to take rejection and criticism is really fucking difficult (i know i could never do it)...and seeing oh-aew being told that he’s not ‘manly’ enough/too ‘girly’ in acting class and again at the casting call is yet another knock at his confidence. the way you physically see oh-aew get more flustered and anxious as the audition goes on, when he sees the crew shaking their heads at him :((( i feel all the nervousness, anxiety and embarrassment that he’s feeling right down to my very bones. then to walk out from that audition to khim talking about how damn hard it is to keep doing this time and time again only to be continually rejected?? my poor boy :( what’s fascinating to me is how differently the both of them interpret khim’s speech. teh latches on to her words and sees them as motivation to keep going...to keep trying and persevering. like a challenge. but to oh-aew, he just sees the difficulty and rejection. the instability of this career path, and how hard this could potentially be on his family as well. they’re both hearing completely different things.

teh being so happy about his audition even though he didn’t get the part and the way he turns around to face oh-aew directly when oh-aew tells him they said he was “too girly” and how he couldn’t change his personality to be what they wanted :((( pls. i just want to hug him so bad. teh’s “i like you the way you are now” and reassurance that so many other people do too  😭i know he kind of makes a mess of himself later on, but i’m still so glad that oh-aew got to hear that from him at least.

this show is the best at making you feel all that nervousness and anxiety when any of the characters are about to drop some big news. i was waiting with bated breath when oh-aew told teh he wanted to transfer majors. it makes me sad though that oh-aew has to constantly feel like he’s walking on eggshells when it comes to teh...he’s always most worried about teh’s reaction, and that’s prob the main reason why he didn’t opt out of comm arts even earlier. but oh-aew has all these mounting doubts about his major, and there’s only so long he can stick it out for teh’s sake, and the casting call (and khim’s words) really solidified that for him.

teh’s "you haven’t given it your all”/”you haven’t done your best” rubs me the wrong way bc it’s easy to think that way when you’re set on something and know that that’s what you want to do...but when you’re doubting/not sure about something, it just isn’t the same thing. we all have different thresholds when it comes to what we can endure and how much we can put into something. teh’s a hard worker, we’ve seen how dedicated he can be when he really wants something, but not everyone works like this. not everyone can be a teh or a khim. and esp not when they’re having to give their all to something that doesn’t feel right for them. and oh-aew’s right...sometimes once is enough to know that something’s not a fit for you.

when oh-aew mentions that he sat in on advertising class and thinks he might be into it, it’s like a parallel of that scene when they’re kids and oh-aew told teh that he wanted to become an actor like him. only now it’s the opposite. teh’s had this plan in his head that he and oh-aew are going to reach their dream of becoming actors and the lead protagonists in a movie/series together for so long now that it’s hard for him to reconcile that oh-aew might no longer want this as much as he does anymore. it’s like he can see this ultimate goal of his crumbling. so just hearing that it’s bc of q and the rest of the gang’s ‘influence’ that oh-aew sat in on their advertising class in the first place (and this triggered his interest in advertising) is like strike two for teh vs. oh-aew’s friends.

i’ve def mentioned this before, but oh-aew has always been the more pragmatic of the two, whilst teh is more idealistic, so i understand why he would gravitate towards something that was more stable of a career for him. more of a guarantee. he knows that advertising/marketing suits him better (not to mention that he’s always had the resort as his safety to fall back on too), and it’s something that he’s discovering he actually enjoys more in general too.

when i first watched this, i was like “oh wow teh’s matured so much!!” bc he didn’t blow up at oh-aew during this scene...that kind of ended up backfiring on me towards the end, but at the same time, i do think there’s a certain level of growth there since he does end up trying to reassure oh-aew (even if the blow up still occurs later on). it’s a process though...and even baby steps are progress.

8 months later and teh’s walking past that same place he and oh-aew walked by during his first night in bangkok...only now the poster is no longer the same red one. it’s blue... as though it’s signifying that this is just teh’s dream alone now, and teh clearly still hasn’t come to terms with that yet.

i’m really happy seeing oh-aew in a much better place now!! it’s so good to see him happy and actually involved in uni with his friends. but watching teh struggle going through casting calls and rejections makes my heart ache. hearing khim’s experience with auditions, and actually having to experience it irl, are two entirely different things. it’s like the reality of the situation is starting to hit in for teh. and that, on top of oh-aew not being there to support him in the same way bc their goals in life aren’t similarly aligned anymore, is starting to take its toll.

god, when teh lined oh-aew and was waiting for his response i was like nooooo don’t do it DON’T DO IT only for him to open ig to check oh-aew’s story 😭(though it IS cute that they have couple pfps). but we’re regressing. and now that they have different social circles it’s even harder to connect than before. teh feels like oh-aew’s being pulled away from him, into another friend group that doesn’t include him...and his insecurities are bubbling to the surface again. teh’s always needed that reassurance that he’s ‘special’ to oh-aew. clearly, we know that he is...but even now that they’re dating, it’s still something that he questions. and esp now that oh-aew is starting to feel like he’s fading further and further away out of reach.

i love seeing all of teh’s friends encourage him. they all understand how tough it is, and to see them all pull together to lift his spirits again is so lovely. but then his mood completely changes again when oh-aew comes to join them for dinner :( teh’s doing that thing again where he says everything’s fine when everything’s not fine (cue that “they ask you how you are and you just have to say you’re fine when you’re not really fine” meme). the flash to teh’s face when top says that he didn’t pass the exam to get into anantasart, and you know he’s just thinking about how he gave up his spot for oh-aew initially, and now that oh-aew’s transferred, it’s kind of like he’s turned it down twice. oof.

when teh tells them all that oh-aew’s transferred to advertising, it’s as though this is his way of trying to separate both his worlds. like oh-aew doesn’t belong here with his drama club friends, and it’s that pettiness that we got from teh in itsay is back in full force all over again. it reminds me so much of that time oh-aew told the itsay gang that he was a virgin, and so teh told his friends at school that he was a virgin too. or when oh-aew sent him that picture of his and bas’ legs touching, so teh retaliated by putting that pic of tarn on his story and leaning in to kiss her. it’s like he always needs to one up oh-aew. he doesn’t want oh-aew to feel the same bond with his drama club friends that teh has (esp when he sees that oh-aew is so close to his uni friends). where oh-aew was anxious about teh and his uni friends not getting on, teh is anxious that oh-aew and his drama club friends will get on too well so he has to create this distinction between them. kind of like his petty attempt to be all “i have my own friends too!!”, but it’s also combined with that feeling of inadequacy that he might not fit into oh-aew’s life anymore. he might not be ‘special’. idk if that makes sense but basically i think that teh’s feeling a lot of conflicting things during this scene.

when he starts attacking oh-aew at dinner...that was really hard to watch. you ever feel like you want to reach through the screen and just put your hand over someone’s mouth so they stop talking?? it was rough :/ it’s one thing to fight when it’s just the two of you alone, but it’s another thing to tear your partner down right in front of your friends. i understand teh’s feelings (and i know that they’ve been building up over this time), but my frustration was through the ROOF during this. it’s on brand for him, but still. and then poor khim :( i know oh-aew didn’t mean it in that way but the awkwardness of this entire dinner was just overwhelming.

another thing that’s sad about what teh said about oh-aew is that this is a huge sore spot for oh-aew, and it’s always been one of his biggest insecurities. the reason they stopped being friends when they were kids was bc teh said that he was going to quit eventually, so for teh to talk about how “shilly shally and indecisive” he is/how easily he ‘quits’ at things is a low blow when he already knows how much those words hurt oh-aew.

teh has a habit of jumping to conclusions based on oh-aew’s social media posts instead of actually talking things out with oh-aew so naturally it would make an appearance again here as well. and calling oh-aew’s friends “shitty” bc they’re different to him (aren’t as driven as teh and his drama club gang...therefore a bad influence on oh-aew) makes it really evident that teh still has a lot to learn. he really needs to start taking those acting class lessons to heart so he can see that not everyone is the same, and that other peoples’ experiences and perspectives are valid too.

teh’s long pause and “maybe” to oh-aew’s “and if this is what i really am, you’re not gonna like me anymore, are you?” BIG SIGH. it’s so typical of teh. i know he’s honest to a fault, but he REALLY needs to learn to think before he speaks sometimes bc he always ends up regretting it. i love that impulsivity of his, but it’s also one of the most frustrating things about him.

one thing that i find kind of annoying with the time skip is that we miss so much of teh’s festering feelings that it’s a bit harder to empathise with him when he has his eventual blow up?? i think if we were seeing this more consistently, it would be much easier for us to understand things from his pov better. like if we could slowly see this building up more and more as time went on, rather than just time skipping the 8 months until the blow up.

anyway, now khim and top are graduating ;;; i really hope that we’ll still get to see more of them in the next eps. i also love how the people in teh’s life are always so concerned for him (and how oh-aew’s doing). the message behind the book teh gets for khim’s graduation present is really sweet.

when khim first tells them that she’s going to be a flight attendant and teh blows up, i felt really angry at him initially. but upon reflection and rewatching this ep again...i think i understand where he’s coming from a lot better now. obv i still think he was out of line bc of course what khim’s saying makes sense...she can’t keep going to casting calls and scraping by with minor roles when she has to support herself and her family. in the end, we all need money to survive, and sometimes we have to be realistic about it. i really loved what she said about how we can have multiple dreams at once. but yeah, my heart really went out for her so much here :( it might be difficult for teh to see (or accept) rn, but he’s a lot more privileged than he realises. he still has hoon and his mother to support him financially, but not everyone is in the same position. not everyone gets to be as lucky.

regardless, i still understand why teh gets as torn up about it as he does. khim is someone that he’s looked up to and respected SO much...and his own doubts and insecurities have been steadily increasing. first, oh-aew changes majors, then, he keeps getting rejected at auditions, and now, the senior that he respects the most bc of her hard work and determination, is giving up her dream (at least in his eyes) to become a flight attendant. it’s like the world keeps telling him to give up bc it’s not going to work out for him. and he’s invested EVERYTHING into this dream. it’s all or nothing for him. but it’s like everyone else is slipping away, and it’s getting harder and harder to hold onto.

when teh looks at the tie and is reminded of oh-aew always being there to put it on for him :(((((((( ngl i was hoping that teh would be the first one to approach oh-aew (since their fight was bc of him), but i’m glad he apologised at least. and that they had a good talk about their feelings. but then again, this reflection after their fights is what they’ve always been fairly good at. teh just has to learn to stop internalising things so much that he ends up exploding so they don’t get to this point in the first place. so much has flipped from the first ep where oh-aew was the one feeling lonely and out of place. now it’s teh’s turn to feel all alone as he sees everyone’s dreams and goals (but his) start to change. like everyone is moving on and learning to adjust while he’s being left behind.

when they’re promising each other that their love for one another will never change, it just makes me feel so SAD. seeing them in the moonlight like this compared to the first ep when they were on the beach in phuket and teh was so hopeful and oh-aew was so worried :( everything’s already changed so much. making this promise under the moon like this reminds me of how bkpp kept talking about how the ‘ipytm’ title itself means an impossible promise...the two of them hugging in the moonlight as the score plays just feels so painfully bittersweet somehow ;;; my heart is aching, and i want the next ep, but i can’t deny that my anxiety is slowly building.

anyway, i know the end of this sounds so negative but i’m still banking on our teh/oh-aew endgame!!!!!!! it just needs to get worse to get better, and there’s still so much space for them to grow and learn. so many more experiences in store for them.

[soul-dwelling]

Long response ahead, as I agree with a lot of the remarks in the original post.

But I want to point out also how the Soul Eater anime would not have succeeded in its art style without the "skull face" designs and Ouran High School Host Club--two such wildly different design choices that helped make just about any character in Soul Eater look cute (Maka, Soul, Black Star, Kid, even Excalibur) or look horrific and bloodthirsty (Tsubaki, Patty).

And I want to point to some other examples, both in anime and manga as they stand right now with being way too hesitant to get away from certain visual cliches in making girl characters "cute," and in Ohkubo's inconsistent art style (I count at least five different styles, from B Ichi to the present).

Spoilers for Fire Force and a number of other series (My Hero Academia).

Let me start with my own thoughts before actually responding to specific passages by the original post: 

My own thoughts / rambling

Speaking as a cisgender man, I think there is no winning at this: a girl is drawn one way, and she’s not cute enough; she’s drawn another way, she’s still cute; she’s drawn another way, now some jackass claims she’s not feminine enough; she gets beaten up and scuffed up, that’s still not beaten up and scuffed up enough because now you’re letting her off easy because she’s a girl; she gets eviscerated and beaten and even disabled in combat, now it’s almost misogynistic or a double standard because the boys are not so brutalized. 

Blame it on toxic masculinity as well as the toxicity inherent in systems that refuse to combat the worst parts of patriarchy. I’m really wanting to give credit to Ohkubo and staff at Studio BONES--while at the same time I am excoriating them, mostly Ohkubo, for just some of the most misogynistic shit in his creations--because they managed (in Ohkubo’s case, despite himself) to make an art style in the anime that avoided a lot of the pitfalls already inherent in an anime industry that, as I just said, is within some really toxic economic and cultural systems. 

But given that it is Ohkubo who fucked up on a lot of this, I tend to give more of the credit to the staff at Studio BONES for making Soul Eater successful, because I think without that anime, the manga would have squandered a lot of that good will. 

I don’t know how many times I have said on this blog that Studio BONES was able to make a definitive look to Soul Eater that exceeds any of the many styles Ohkubo tried with the Soul Eater manga and just couldn’t stick to. 

BONES was able to succeed for at least two reasons: the skull faces, and the Ouran High School Host Club influence, whereby this series had the goal of making just about any character have the potential of reaching either pole along the cute-horrific binary. What do I mean by that? The skull faces meant this series could make any character as horrific and frightening as it wanted, and the Ouran influence meant it could make any character as adorable, charming, and huggable as it wanted. 

Soul Eater, as an anime, got to be violent. It was allowed to make its characters frightening--not just a Kishin or a mummy or a werewolf but even sweethearts like Tsubaki, who is ready to murder her brother, or Patty, who can alternate between gleefully childish and crazed homicidal. Some of that owes to how BONES was able to physically wreck all of the characters, regardless of gender, and make them just look awful, whether bleeding, broken, bruised, sliced apart, crying their eyes out, sobbing (like Maka losing it with ugly tears when Crona was stabbed), screaming in utter agony (like when Asura crushed Maka’s ribs in the final). 

As a result, the anime avoided some accusations of sexism or misogyny or privilege (some, not all--you can’t have this series as it was, especially with its fanservice problems, and act like there was zero sexism or misogyny involved). It didn’t matter how adorable Maka was or that she was the protagonist, she also was murderous and in danger at any time, and her physical appearance would not be saved by the story alone. Look at the scraps and bandages she still had after the Kishin Revival or when Black Star knocked her into the trash bin. Granted, maybe that “cute factor” stayed in place ("Maka looks adorable even when bruised and bandaged")--but you could make the same argument that even when Spirit, Soul, Black Star, Kid, and others were bruised and scraped they still looked “cute” while they were recovering.  

And that’s the flipside of all of this: that also meant the artstyle could make just about any character look cute. It is now not just Maka or even other girls who get to look cute, now Spirit, Soul, Black Star, Kid, and so on all get to look adorable and soft and huggable. If Ouran High School Host Club didn’t exist, I’m not sure Studio BONES could have pulled this off with Maka, Soul, and the others, that they all have the potential to be adorable and soft and cuddly until the scene demanded that they now lean into the Lovecraftian / David Lynch / Tim Burton / Henry Selick horror. 

Hell, this series managed to take Excalibur, who in the manga is still rather stiff and oddly proportioned, and make him look cuddly and plushie-like despite his obnoxious personality, thereby making the joke work better: now not only does he look weird and hence not likely to be a legitimate threat, but now he also looks cuddly, so when he says the most obnoxious things they come off as even more hilarious. 

And now, to finally address some points made in the original post: 

Quoting from the original post: “Like you know what I mean - like these weird idol anime with overly glossy eyes and shroedingers "is it supposed to be cute and childish or sexualised* tone (maybe I'm spoiling to much the iceberg and my negative opinion of SE Not...)”: 

Yeah, as I said, the Soul Eater anime benefited from being able to position characters along two poles--the horrific and the cutesy--and shift a character’s design where it needed to be depending on the scene. It’s probably nowhere nearly as subversive as, say, Madoka Magica, where the cute designs are there in order to contrast with how horrific the story will go. 

And as I said, there is no winning with a lot of the content out there right now that is being read within economic and cultural systems that privilege what the patriarchy wants with regard to making girls and women look and act certain ways. Look at My Hero Academia: is Mirko’s body ripped apart because her behavior and appearance aren’t cute enough and the fixation on her muscular body means that she has to have her limbs ripped off, does Toga’s cute design contrasting with her simultaneously horror-inspired design mean she is doomed because she can’t fit into some visual mode (similar to how she can’t fit into society anyway), and is Midnight killed off because of the Madonna-whore binary? 

It’s even a persistent problem in a lot of works, including in anime and manga, that, while I don’t think are sexist and show far more variety in roles for girls and women, still play it too safe with designs for girls and women and keep wanting those designs to be cute or at least not what would be deemed “realistic” or even “ugly.” I’ll give some examples below: 

I saw a manga that was about women in kick-boxing--and you can tell who the main protagonist is because she’s given a very cute design without any cuts or bruises, while her opponents are drawn to be more grotesque. Come on, even Hajime No Ippo gave the main men protagonists some “unattractive” physical features--they are kickboxers, ugly them up a bit! 

I love Akane-banashi and Blue Box, but both series are too same-y in some faces and body types for girls and women. 

I love the girls and women’s facial expressions in Show-ha Shoten and how “ugly” those facial expressions get, and I love how there is variation in body types, including in weight and height--but I think they could have leaned more into such variations among the girls and women given how much more varied the boys and men are in the series. 

For every Buddy Daddies that has some variety in women’s character designs and experiences, there is a Spy x Family that has the attractive designs for the sake of contrasting the characters’ jobs and personalities, or lean way too much into “this person is old and not that attractive, therefore she is a real jerk to our main characters, and that old woman is a real shrew to her husband” (seriously, Spy x Family, a boring and offensive “shrewish nagging wife” archetype?), an overly simplistic conflation that says your outside matches your inside, which is just not as interesting as “hey, this person is not gorgeous but they are a good person and they are loved and have romance in their life in a committed relationship with a partner.” 

Quoting from the original post: "But I dunno, even beyond my own paranoai of if a piece of media is supposed to appeal to a certain "demographic", I just think there is something lost in manga Maka, especially compared to her earlier charachterization and the animes continuation of it."

I look at the two images the original post shares, of Maka’s determination in the anime’s final arc to defy orders and to hunt down Crona and Marie, and of Maka’s blushing and insistence in the manga that she wants to be called angel. I get upset imagining how Studio BONES could have adapted that manga moment into the anime--because we already saw they can make Maka blush and make it look cute while still keeping with their style, with her personality, and with her integrity (when she blushes at the others making fun of her for writing poetry)...

[ID: From the first Soul Eater anime, Episode 31, Maka's face is completely red in embarrassment as she bows her chin down and looks behind her at Liz and Patty, their backs to the viewer. In front of Maka are Black Star, his hand on the back of his head and his arms up, and Soul, his chin up and his hands in his jacket's pockets. All of them are standing in the DWMA hallway during daytime. End of ID]

And that was animation adapted from part of the manga, that had an artstyle at that point not too dissimilar to the moment the original post showed. (Maka blushing about her poetry was before Baba Yaga, Maka blushing about “angel” is post-Baba Yaga, so, not quite the same art style, distinct enough art styles, but one was subsequent to the other, so they are more similar than, say, B Ichi is to Fire Force.) 

Quoting from the original post: "I think the last time where you really saw it in the manga was around the Arachne madness chapter where she confidently just stretched out her arm to Soul. Idk. People will probably think that I mean "wow, you want Maka to be some fearless badass!!?" and nah, I dunno, maybe Im just fighting phantoms, but I dunno I think there is something there, mayb even something my own stupid story failed to capture, but that what made the whole "bravery" thing at the end work."

Maka looked the most Studio BONES “skull face” in the manga at that point when she reached her hand out to Soul--a reason why the Baba Yaga period of the manga is probably my favorite in terms of Ohkubo’s art style. 

And speaking about Ohkubo’s art style: I think we have to talk about how his art style kept shifting so much, and how it makes it hard to get a read on how Maka quote-unquote “should” look in adaptation. And that means also having to talk about his art style into the present, including with Fire Force. 

If I may spoil Fire Force, this is also why the twist at the end of that series doesn’t work: the visual style and character designs in the last chapters of Fire Force are changed to more closely resemble Ohkubo’s style in Soul Eater…except it doesn’t, for two reasons.

First, Ohkubo’s style never stayed the same across Soul Eater and Soul Eater NOT. 

There are at least five different styles in the Soul Eater manga: 

The post-B Ichi style for the three-chapter prologue and the initial chapters. 

The change around the Kishin Revival Arc that lasted to the end of the Baba Yaga Arc, and which is probably the manga art style I most prefer. 

The post-Baba Yaga style that lasts through the Book of Eibon Arc. 

Then his style changed again around Soul Eater NOT, and that style stuck with both Soul Eater and NOT until their conclusions. And that final art style is pretty much how Fire Force looked throughout. 

But then Ohkubo again changed his style, mostly for social media artwork of Maka and company, and covers for the Perfect Edition of Soul Eater. 

So, at least five styles: post-B Ichi, Baba Yaga, post-Baba Yaga, NOT/final arc/Fire Force, and Perfect Edition/social media. 

And when the stuff in Fire Force looks more similar to mid- to late-Soul Eater, that means the prequel joke doesn’t work: Fire Force doesn’t end suddenly looking like the first chapters of Soul Eater, if anything the style at the end of Fire Force is more similar to the post-Baba Yaga style. Little Maka at the end of Fire Force should look like post-B Ichi Maka, with the same more Cabbage Patch Doll babyface proportions--that is the joke, and Ohkubo couldn't even commit to the bit to make this look more like Soul Eater Chapter 0 instead of how he draws Maka and company right now. 

So, that’s the first reason the twist doesn’t work. 

The second reason the twist doesn’t work is the connection between Kid and Shinra. Again, Ohkubo’s art style shifted so much that it wasn’t until he started doing the Perfect Edition covers and more art on social media that Kid and Shinra looked at all similar--and they still don’t look similar to me, no more so than just about any of his characters look similar because that is his style. It’s why the in-story claim that Lord Death based Kid’s face off of Shinra’s doesn’t hold for me: I can’t see that, if only because Ohkubo’s style of drawing has shifted so much that pinning it down to any one style fails to make Kid as he appeared throughout most of Soul Eater to look similar to Shinra throughout most of Fire Force. 

At least when I can joke that Mana, Patty, and Iris all look alike, it’s by associative property: Patty’s cowboy outfit is based on an outfit Mana wore in B Ichi, then Iris kind of looks similar to Patty, so even though Mana and Iris don’t look at all alike, they both look similar to Patty because Patty’s art style shifted so much during Ohkubo’s run. 

So, that’s about all I have to say in response right now.

Anime Maka vs Manga Maka

Is there anything more to say?

But nah, I know I will be accused of cherry picking, and yeah I know there are many manga moments that show Maka being more simmilar to the Anime Gif in demeanor, but I dunno, I think the point still stands:

I think it's another reason where the manga falters in my opinion, people dont often discuss it, but to me it just seems Maka is reduced to this weird "uwu kawaii" thing (lol dont even how to call it without ruffing too many feathers) - and people will try to respond "Well shenis cutesy in the anime too!" , and I think thats the point: cute vs "kawaii" - yeah its a weird way of describing it, but its the best dichothomie I can come up with - the first is not creepy, like seeing your kids find a new bug and excitedly showing it to you like its the biggest discovery in the world, get what I mean?

While "kawaii" is one reason why I dont really consider myselfs an "anime and manga fan" in general (yeah Im full of contradictions dont gotta tell me lol, but maybe thats why its post anime...not...)

Like you know what I mean - like these weird idol anime with overly glossy eyes and shroedingers "is it supposed to be cute and childish or sexualised* tone (maybe I'm spoiling to much the iceberg and my negative opinion of SE Not...)

Like its not even me trying to say "Oh I hate all cutesy stuff", nah I genuinely like the Maka Crona moments for that fact, but ,I atleast I hop,e there are different from the standard anime thing which has those creepy undertones like all these "uwu senpai wants to sleep in the same bed with me??!" like you know these scenes arent written for girls of the depicted ages but for and by 40 year old greassy guys with guilty consiousnesses...

But I dunno, even beyond my own paranoai of if a piece of media is supposed to appeal to a certain "demographic", I just think there is something lost in manga Maka, especially compared to her earlier charachterization and the animes continuation of it.

I think the last time where you really saw it in the manga was around the Arachne madness chapter where she confidently just stretched out her arm to Soul. Idk. People will probably think that I mean "wow, you want Maka to be some fearless badass!!?" and nah, I dunno, maybe Im just fighting phantoms, but I dunno I think there is something there, mayb even something my own stupid story failed to capture, but that what made the whole "bravery" thing at the end work.

But maybe the iceberg will explain it all...

[fairycosmos]

Stoned moment but I honestly think fat is so demonised in society bc women carry fat more easily like biologically speaking, I reckon if it was men who were the ones that did fat wouldn't be neeeearly as vilified. Like I get that men get shit for being fat too which is horrible but the beauty industry is inherently misogynistic n I think fatness is such a big part of it like. Intersectional. U know?

totally totally......fatphobia is a consequence of so many systems of oppression tbh like sexism classism and racist eurocentric beauty standards to name a few. nd it really doesn't escape me that those who bear the brunt of it are often women especially women of colour. it's just another way to police and control our bodies and to vilify our natural selves literally for just existing as we are?? if they can make us hate and fear ourselves like that then they can sell us anything if they promise confidence and thinness in the advertisement. but yeah dw not a stoned moment ur so so right it's very blatant. if mens bodies metabolized and carried fat the way we do im sure it would be seen as a sign of health or strength 🙄

[fourangers]

Hi Fourangers,

First of all, I love your blog so much. It's like going through a history back when Naruto Manga chapters were released weekly and your reviews were so Golden, Hilarious and spot-on. Am a new fan though (especially an SNS fan), I just got into this fandom only this year. I don't know if you'll answer my ask, but I just wanted to try and ask you few questions and I pray that you might answer me....

1. Since you've written in a post that you were active in the eastern part of the fandom, How was chapter 698 received in Japan? Because this is the chapter I inherently realized they both love each other. Yeah, I was too late but somehow whenever they interact with each other in previous chapters I always find them to be 'Weird' for just to be friends. Chapter 698 is just blatantly obvious that they love each other. Considering Homophobia and Shounen genre, I have no idea how it was perceived over there back then in 2014.

2. Which scene made you to ship SNS?

3. As an SNS'er how do you feel about the ending, where everyone was married off when they were just 19 just to make some shitty sequel??? As a new fan, I felt betrayed and It would've been perfect if they had stopped at chapter 699, leaving an open ending.

4. How do you face with the accusation about Naruto and Sasuke as brothers and we, SNS'ers are Incest shippers??? I don't care about that Indra and Ashura thing. But Naruto himself told he considers Sasuke as his Brother couple of times. And in Chapter 699, Sasuke acknowledged, 'He finally understood what it meant'.... It's the only thing that confuses me and I don't even have an answer!!! Plus, Kishi himself gave an interview that he based Sasuke on his Brother... I really wonder how he gave such an interview when he literally made them wear necklaces with each other's faces.

5. How was Naruto and Sasuke's sexuality perceived in the fandom back then??? Man!! Kishimoto just made lot of comic reliefs on their sexuality by making Sasuke on Sai jutsu, Naruto not interested in Icha Icha but making Reverse Harem no Jutsu, Naruto was angry when Konohamaru made Boy on Boy jutsu whereas he had no problem with him doing it. LOL. And all those homoerotic posters. What do you think about their sexuality, personally??

6. Why did Kishi had to develop their bond as Soulmates with some unintentional or intentional romantic undertones, if he was eventually going to pair them up with girls??? He easily could've gave many such romantic tropes to other girls and keep the bond between N and S as purely friendship or brothers. It still would've made sense.

7. Final one, Was Naruto really Nosebleeding when Kurama made a joke about Sasuke's kiss in Chapter 572???? We had a lot of heated discussion with other shippers where they claim that it was just a splotch of snot.

Sorry for the lengthy ask....... I am so eager to know your answers and I don't want to spam your ask box by sending multiple asks.

Thanks 😊😊😊

Hey yo! Welcome new SNS fan! I'm so glad that you joined us and I'll try to answer as best as I can. I'm not very active here on tumblr (except browsing lol) but your ask was such a delight to read.

1. I honestly don't remember. I think I didn't follow the japanese boards until the eventual 699-700 disaster. People were craving for reactions and I was curious about it too lol. And well...it's been years, I doubt I'll be able to find the reactions from that time. Imo, most readers don't care much about pairings, they just wanted to read about power-ups and abilities and the basic Naruto Vs Sasuke. Though there are some backhanded jokes about how gay Naruto is for Sasuke.

2. Hah. It's going to be very anti-climatic but it was when Naruto and Sakura were eating in Ichiraku Ramen. Naruto just used Rasenshuriken against Kakuzu and he busted his arm. Sakura was healing his arm and her attention was focused on Naruto. I used to be a NaruSaku shipper so I thought "Oh hey! This is the moment that Naruto would have a candid romantic moment!" But nope. He talked about Sasuke. And I was already getting suspicious about Sasuke's feelings towards Naruto ya know? And the whole "SASUKE IS MIINEEEEEE" in Orochimaru's lair. It was that moment I thought "you only have Sasuke in your head don't you, Naruto?" and started shipping SNS.

3. Hooo boy was I surprised when it was suddenly revealed that they had the basic heteronormative, boring marriage with bunch of clones of themselves. Everyone thought that it was almost like a bad fanfiction come true and some thought that it was fake. It was a pandemonium lolololol. I also thought that it was too lame to be true and lo and behold, when it came true I was floored. And then whenever Kishimoto threw new material, I got insanely pissed off because S*arada and B*ruto becoming pairing material is ok because they are a girl and a boy, and then they paralleled with Naruto and Sasuke which are only FRIENDS because they are both men. ARGH. Open ending was what Kishimoto planned from the very beginning but wrote a sequel to earn more money.

In that aspect, I made peace with it because of the whole anime/manga industry. I learned that, as a mangaka, you don't earn a lot of money with selling books, but rather with merchandise and profiting with sales right. And that guy have a family to raise, have two kids (which is hilarious about how B*ruto movie is his self-insert story), he needs a steady income. Also, I read reports about how anime studios are so poor and animators don't receive a decent income not to mention they are overstaffed and tired, and B*ruto is a good money cow for them to earn money so they can invest later on other anime they have more passion about it. So even though I hate this story with a strength of thousands suns, they are putting meal on people's tables and making them pay rents. I'm ok.

4. Lemme roll my eyes because in the Last movie they said that Hinata is related to Kaguya and so is the Uzumaki and Uchiha clan so they are all related woo hoo. But in the aspect of brothers because reincarnations bla bla bla, didn't Naruto himself said that he's no longer that brother, he's himself? Hmm...I gotta re-read it. One day. Maybe. lol. But I'm sure that he said "Sasuke is not my brother but I'm sure we'll understand well as friends" so there. Honestly, there are a lot of interviews out there and a lot of them are fake, so I'd always take the interviews with a grain of salt lololol. I do know from artbooks that Kishimoto wanted to create Sasuke as a rival-esque character and that was it. As he was developing Sasuke and Naruto's relationship, since he liked the whole yin-yang concept, whenever he wrote Naruto's story, Sasuke's was developed at the same time as his shadow.

5. I can tell from Naruto Forums (I used to participate back in that day) MOST of the non-shippers thought it was gay as hell, but you know...it was a relic of that time. While they thought it was gay, they didn't put too much thought about you know? Because it was shounen, and we knew that it was a joke that it couldn't be taken seriously. Of course, in the SNS fandom, we did make more analysis and there were a lot of instance when Naruto and Sasuke's sexuality was questioned. Some other non-shippers also thought that Naruto was totes gay for Sasuke (including a IRL friend).

Imo, Naruto is definitely bisexual in my view. Sasuke I think he's asexual or gay. He's attracted to Naruto, but mostly because of his connection to him, not because of his physical attributes, so yeah...asexual. Or Pansexual. Sasuke is more complicated lmao. Imo, Naruto could be pansexual too, come to think about it. Yeah, I guess both being pansexual can be valid.

6. He developed Naruto and Sasuke being soulmates from the very beginning, that was proven in his comments in artbooks and in the manga. He probably created with the intention of making it purely platonic, going beyond physical ties. Then he shot himself on the foot by drawing Naruto thinking about Sasuke on bed, talking about how Sasuke is cool, meanwhile Sasuke waxing poetic about how Naruto saved him. What gives? Lol. Yeah, I think he got too enamored writing their relationship that he didn't have time to write romantic ones. What I noticed that Sakura's popularity never was really high, so I could see some editors putting their fingers all over it and making her less relevant. Also, Kishimoto didn't know how to handle her, so when she got her time to shine was the whole fake confession disaster. Coupled with Kishimoto sexism and, in his words (Kurenai's flashback), women are useful to spout more babies, women was never really relevant in his story, unfortunately. Even Kaguya who was technically the big bad boss, was never really fleshed out in comparison to Madara. So the null het romantic moments it's not because he wanted to elevate SNS moments, it's more about how he's incompetent about it. It's either Hinata slowly elevating to a relevant status because forced interaction (Pain's sacrifice and Neji's death) or Sakura being obligated to be pining over Sasuke because she's a girl. It's even more painful to see that, if we ignore B*ruto, both girls are shown to be just talking with their kids and dusting shelves, basically being housewives, even though thorough the story (especially Sakura) it was implied that both of them have much more potential than being their husband accessories.

7. It was a splotch of snot. I can confirm myself lol. Whenever the chapter is out and fans would scan it to scanlate it, the editor usually would amp up contrast to max. So usually the lines get much more thicker than usual, when you read the official release which gets straight from the source, you can notice how the lines are more delicate.

Oh lol...but then we also have a lot of controversy about translating style. THAT one is a whole new can of worms to open.

Man I had fun answering your questions! Please send more :P

[comrade-meow]

“Me love you long time” is a phrase often used when referring to foreign Asian women and sex. It may or may not be explicitly associated with illicit sex but the clear underlying message is that the Asian woman’s role is to sexually serve the man. She is to be docile, unassuming, exotic, and demure — yet wildly sexual and uninhibited. A woman with “slanted eyes and creamy yellow thighs” (lyrics from “Asian Girlz” song) to be tamed and devoured by the white man.

If you ask anyone younger than 30 where the roots are from the line, “Me love you long time," you’d probably get a blank stare. They may think it’s just broken English from an Asian woman who is truly trying to express genuine affection to someone in English.

The reality is that this phrase, “Me love you long time” is not “I love you” coming out awkwardly in an Asian accent. Instead, it’s a phrase popularized by Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 movie, Full Metal Jacket, where the line itself is taken from the scene where a Vietnamese woman propositions herself to two American GIs.

The movie’s objective was in capturing the essence and impact of the Vietnam War based on the experiences of a U.S Marines Corps platoon. The term has since become a popular part of the American lexicon spoken with limited insight into the past or a desire to ignore the realities of the present.

The scene unfortunately speaks the ugly truth about collateral damage in wars, especially U.S. military occupation overseas in Asian countries. The first major American White sexual imperialism occurred during the Philippine-American War (1899-1902). The Filipinos fought against being colonized by the U.S. but 250,000 lost lives later, they succumbed to the might of America’s military.

While the actual war only lasted three years, there were insurrections and rebellions along the way that kept a large number of American soldiers stationed on the island for more than a decade. Slash-and-burn techniques swept across villages as the country lay in waste. When the soldiers tired of wreaking havoc on the land, this same imperialistic mentality to conquer shifted to the local Filipina women who they referred to as “little brown f**king machines powered by rice.”*

Filipino women were viewed as so subservient and subordinate, not only to White men but also to White women, that U.S. soldiers sexually denigrated them in a way they would never have treated their spouses or other women back home. “Filipina sex workers, for example, frequently report ‘being treated like a toy or a pig by the American [soldiers] and being required to do ‘three holes’ — oral, vaginal and anal sex.” *

It was this American colonialization period during the turn of the 20th century that gave rise to today’s notorious sex entertainment industry in Asia. Sex and prostitution sprang up to cater to the American military amidst the backdrop of political and economic plight, despair, and poverty where a man could have “a girl for the price of a hamburger”.*

A few decades later, during the Vietnam War, this only intensified as the conflict took a long and brutal toll on the U.S. military and the American psyche back home. But on the battlefield, the mind of the fighting soldier must be protected and preserved at all costs, even at the cost of Vietnamese or Thai women and girls. Consequently, several military bases were stationed in Thailand to shelter up to 70,000 American GIs at any given time for “rest and recreation." “With pervasive disregard for human rights, the military grimly accepts and recognizes access to indigenous women’s bodies as a ‘necessity’ for American GIs stationed overseas."*

If the sexual oppression was to end with the conclusion of the Vietnam War, it’d be relegated to an abomination from the past. But today’s flourishing sex tourism industry in Thailand (and other neighboring Asian and SE Asian countries), should be a reminder of the remnants of Western imperialism (American and European) and military presence overseas. It is “far from being a thing of the past, but is a lived experience of many."*

Millions of tourists from Europe and the United States visit Thailand specifically for its sex industry alone (65% were single men in one study).* So while political Western colonization is absent in the Far East, it is still physically rampant in the pants of many Anglos. The desire to sexually possess, conquer, and at times humiliate a subservient Asian woman permeates our culture.

It may start off as an innocuous joke without much introspection or resistance from others; the joke then turns into a more pernicious modern-day imperialistic mentality of sexual conquest witnessed recently by the music video, “Asian Girlz” by the band Day Above Ground.

In their interview with TMZ, the band refused to acknowledge the racism inherent in their lyrics let alone how it could be perceived as such, “We didn’t expect it to be such a backlash.” Its lead singer says, “It comes from a good place” and “I don’t understand” of why this is inappropriate.

Beyond bewilderment, the band members were defensive saying, “We’ve all had close relationships with the Asian community, Asian people. There’s guys in the band with Asian women. It’s just, it’s hard to believe we’re getting this kind of backlash."

Northern California Attorney Sunny Woan and author of the abstract, “White Sexual Imperialism” tells me how this is another example of how covert racism appears in mainstream America, even if it’s under the guise of music or other forms of entertainment. “Here we have the irreverent trinity that is racism, sexism, and imperialism. The question to ask is why did the band decide on Asian women? What does it tell us about the underlying, prevailing politics of white male and Asian female relationships, even today in the 21st century?”

Woan is also the editor of Kartika Review, a national literary arts magazine that publishes Asian Pacific Islander American fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and art. She has heard many people, particularly Asians, tell her not to take a music video too seriously. But she says otherwise. “If we treat it like it’s nothing, then we are being complacent to racism, sexism, and here most pertinently, the repercussions of cultural imperialism.”

The video has since gone viral, receiving more than one million YouTube hits. Woan believes the song went from conception to post-production because no one spoke up against it; a cumulative consequence from men with a Eurocentric and narrow framework of relational dynamics between Asian women and White men. “It probably started with one a-little-bit-offensive-but-not-awful quip one band member made; everyone laughed and said ha-ha that’s funny. Probably no one, least of all the Asian female model involved or the supposed bandmate of Asian descent, spoke up and said, ‘Hey, look, that’s not funny’.”

In one word, she blames this music video on complacency — intellectual complacency from the band members but also complacency in the form of aloofness and indifference from the greater Asian-American community. If Asians truly want a voice in America, then they must learn to use it. Otherwise, complacency will one day lead to normalcy.”

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

The Last Word: Shirley Manson on Fighting the Patriarchy and How Patti Smith Inspires Her

The Garbage singer also talks racial justice, living for now, and why legacy is an inherently masculine concern

Almost as soon as Garbage’s self-titled debut blew up overnight in 1995, their singer, Shirley Manson, became aware of the patriarchy running the music industry. Even though she was the group’s focal point — belting dusky electro-rock songs about making sense of depression (“Only Happy When It Rains”) and taking pride in nonconformity (“Queer”) — she was still a woman fronting a band of men, one of whom, Butch Vig, had produced Nirvana’s Nevermind. Almost immediately, she felt as though her role in the group was being devalued — not by the guys she worked with, but externally.

“There was a lot of stuff written about me in the music press, and that’s when I started to realize how I’m being diminished, how, in some cases, I’m being completely eradicated from the narrative because I’m female and not a man,” she says now. “I was talked over by lawyers; I was ignored by managers. The list goes on. It’s boring and tedious; there’s no point in me moaning about it now, but certainly, that was my awakening.”

That revelation emboldened her to speak out about equality and she quickly became a feminist icon, using her platform to bring attention to human rights, mental health, and the AIDS crisis. All the while, she wrote inclusive hit songs with Garbage about androgyny and reproductive rights (“Sex Is Not the Enemy”). On Garbage’s great new album, No Gods No Masters, she grapples with racial injustice, climate change, the patriarchy, and her own self-worth. But as weighty as the subject matter is, she approaches each song in her own uniquely uplifting way.

“I don’t think really the record is serious, per se,” the singer, 54, says, on an early May phone call. “I think it’s an indignant record. I think in indignance you can still carry humor with you, as well as softness, kindness, and love in your heart. I just felt it would be inauthentic to say anything other than what I was saying in my daily life across the dinner table from my friends and my family. I think as you get older as an artist, the challenge is, ‘How I can be my most authentic self?’ because that’s the most unique story I can tell. In an industry that’s just absolutely jam-packed to the rafters with ideas, opinions, melodies, and so on, you can’t afford to be anything other than your most authentic self. It won’t last.”

Authenticity and being true to herself are the qualities that have made Manson who she is. And those traits seem to guide her answers to Rolling Stone’s questions about philosophy, life lessons, and creature comforts for our Last Word interview.

What are the most important rules that you live by? I’m 54, which is ancient for the contemporary music industry. At this point, I feel like if it’s not fun, then I’m uninterested entirely. If somebody’s treating me poorly, I have to walk away. Life is so fricking short, and I’m three quarters of the way through mine already; I just want to have a good life, full of joy.

Who are your heroes and why? Patti Smith is a huge hero for me for a lot of different reasons. Most importantly, it’s because she’s a woman who has navigated her creative life so beautifully and so artfully, with such integrity and authenticity, and she has proven to me that a woman, an artist, does not have to subscribe to the rules of the contemporary music industry.

It’s very rare for other women to see examples of women actually working still in their seventies. That, to me, is really thrilling and really inspiring, and it fills me with hope. At times when you come up against the ageism, sexism, and misogyny that exists in our culture, I always try and picture Patti in my mind’s eye, and it always brings me back to center, like, “OK, adhere to your own rules. Design your own life. Be your own architect. You can continue to be an artist the rest of your life.” And to me, that’s life. That is a fully lived life.

You’re also a role model yourself. How do you handle that responsibility? I’m a bit speechless if the truth be told. I realize that I’ve now enjoyed a long career in music, and by default, I think people are inspired by that. I think whenever you see an artist, no matter who they are, when someone can endure, I think that’s exciting to everybody else, because it’s a message that says, “You too can get up when you think you’re done. You too can brush yourself off and try again.” By just continuing, you can help other people continue and fulfill themselves in ways that they thought they wouldn’t be able to.

I try to be a decent person. I make mistakes. I fuck people off. I say stupid shit. I’m not all-knowing; I am ignorant in so many ways. But I do try my best. I think that’s really all I can ask of myself.

How others perceive me is absolutely out of my control. There’s always going to be people who think I’m an arsehole, and that’s just part and parcel of being in the public eye. People are just going to hate on you, so I try not to take too much of it in; I don’t let it absorb me too much. I have gotten to that point in my life when I’m able to just go, “You know what? Fuck it. You can’t win them all.”

You once said that the idea of legacy was a masculine construct that you don’t believe in. Do you still feel that way? Yeah. I still very much believe in that. I know a lot of male artists who bang on about their legacy and their importance. Not to knock that if that’s what’s important to you but for me personally, what do I care? I’m going to be dead and gone and totally unconscious of any so-called legacy that I might leave behind. I want fun now. I want to have a good life now. I want to eat good food now and have great sex. It’s absolutely meaningless to me what happens after I’m gone. I want to use my time wisely, and that’s all that I really am concerned with, to be honest.

What is it about legacy that’s inherently masculine? This is armchair psychology, so please forgive me, but I’m sure it has something to do with how women have this uterus that can bear children. I think that’s profound. One of the few gifts that men have not been given is that ability to create with your body, and your blood, and your heat and all these nutrients from your body. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why you don’t hear as many women banging on about the great legacy they’re going to leave behind. I think for women it’s their kids.

You’re Scottish. What is the most Scottish thing about you these days? I’ve got a lot of grit, and it’s served me really well in my career. I think that is a really Scottish trait. The Scottish people are tough, and they also have a good sense of humor. So, grit with humor. I should say “gritted with humor,” in the same way we grit roads.

As you were saying “grit,” it occurred to me that a lot of your songs are about survival and moving forward, going back to “Stupid Girl” or “Only Happy When It Rains.” They’re about perseverance. [Pauses] I think it’s funny you should say that because I’m just sort of like, “Wow, he might be right.” I do think that a huge theme for me is, “How do you overcome? How do we all overcome?” Things can be great for a while; things will not be great forever. And to every single life, these challenges appear. We all have to reconfigure ourselves in order to try to hurl ourselves over obstacles in order to have the kind of life we hope for. So I do think you’ve shocked me a little by discovering a theme for me. Yay, I feel thrilled. I have a theme. It’s exciting.

“Waiting for God” is one of my favorite songs on the album because of the way you address racial justice. How can we, as a society, fight white indifference? You know, that’s a question right there. It’s interesting that you use the words “white indifference,” because one of the things that shocked me so greatly is the ambivalence and the apathy of white people all over the world who are seeing what we’re seeing on our TVs and on the internet, and yet not having the moral courage to speak up. I think the most important thing we can do is pull back the carpet to see the mess on the floor in order for us to actually start cleaning it up.

If we could curtail some of the brutality of police against black people, that would be a good start. I think it’s going to be decades and decades and decades before we can start to really equalize our societies so that everyone is enjoying the spoils of Western wealth over in the developing world. It’s necessary that we try and help these countries that aren’t as powerful or as wealthy. It’s good for the whole world if we start to improve situations for everyone. Nobody will lose anything, and everyone has everything to gain.

But if I had the answers to how we go about fixing it, I would be in politics and not in music. I just know what I believe to be right, and I’m doing my best to use my voice to try and encourage my friends, my little ecosystem, to start with paying attention and supporting black businesses and elevating black voices and black talent.

What’s your favorite book? I have so many. The one that springs to mind would be American Pastoral by Philip Roth. I loved All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. I loved The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje. I loved Winnie the Pooh and Wuthering Heights. I’ve got so many that have really stuck with me that are classics.

My most favorite recent book that I’ve just finished reading is Dancer by Colum McCann about [Russian ballet dancer Rudolf] Nureyev. I was just absolutely mesmerized by it. It was just such a fantastic read, and he’s such a miraculous writer. He brought out Apeirogon last year about the struggle in between Palestine and Israel. He talks about this complicated mess with such clarity, kindness, and generosity. I couldn’t believe Apeirogon didn’t get more fuss made of it last year. Somehow it just seemed to get buried in the morass of other books, and of course the suffering that Covid had brought upon the earth.

What advice do you wish you could give your younger self? “Take up your space.” When I was growing up, to be a girl was to be told to minimize the space you took up: “Close your legs. Don’t be loud. Smile. Be cute. Be attractive. Be pleasing.” I inherently balked against that as a kid. I was a rebellious kid, and I wasn’t going to sit in the corner and be quiet. I’ve never been like that. However, looking back, I still notice some of the patterns of my own compliance. It’s not that I hate myself for it, but I just wish I could turn around and say to my young self, “Take your seat. If there’s not a seat there, drag a seat up to the table and sit down.”

I’m still really aware of the sexism and misogyny that I have had to battle throughout my career. I’m not crying, “Woe is me,” because I’ve obviously flourished in my career, and it obviously didn’t hold me back enough to hamper me in any way. But I feel for all the women who were unlike me, who didn’t have my forcefulness of personality, or my education, or my ability to articulate myself. I want that for all people, though; I want all people to stop trying to please, and accept that some people will like that, and some people won’t, and that’s OK. It’s OK that some people just don’t dig you.

On the topic of gender, I got a kick out of your song “Godhead,” where you ask if people would treat you differently “if I had a dick.” I’m really proud of that song, because I think it’s talking about something really serious, and it’s really fun. It’s about addressing the patriarchy, and how omnipresent it is. When I was young, I was so busy trying to make it, I didn’t see that there was a patriarchy in place. And it’s only as an adult, I start looking back going, “Oh, wow — when that A&R man told me to my face that he wanked over pictures of me, that was really uncool.” But at the time, you kind of laugh it off and just press on.

I was oblivious to it. In this song, I’m talking about how patriarchy bleeds into absolutely everything, specifically under organized religion. The “Godhead” is the male, and we are all under the godhead forever, and that’s unquestioned, and how crazy is that? Because a dude holds a higher position in society, because he’s got a dick and a pair of balls. Often, these balls are smaller than my own [laughs].

It just gets silly after a while, when you watch other men protect other men just for the sake of protecting the patriarchy. So few men are willing to speak up about bro culture and call into question the behavior of the men they are associated with. There’s just a reluctance by men to address this absolutely shocking, terrifying, depressing, pathetic assault by men of other people’s bodies.

In 1996, your bandmate Butch Vig said about you, “So many singers screamed to convey intensity, and she does the opposite. It just blew us away.” How did you come up with that approach? I don’t know. I’ve found that when people speak to me quietly, I feel the most threatened because I’m really comfortable with conflict. I thrive on conflict. It excites me in a funny way. When people are shouting, I don’t feel scared. I like to shout back; that’s just how my family were. We’d just start to shout at each other all the time. I’m not scared of elevated temper. For me, when people get really quiet, that’s when I know they’re really serious, because they’re in control of their rage, and that’s when they’re most deadly.

The last question I have is a shallow one. I love being cheap and superficial.

What’s the most indulgent purchase you’ve ever made? At the height of my success, I hired a person who would shop for me and then send everything in a big box to my hotel room. I would choose what I wanted and return anything else. One day, this beautiful pair of Italian leather boots arrived. I wore a pair very similar in the “Stupid Girl” video, and I thought, “Oh, yeah, these are really me. I’m going to keep these. These are amazing.” It was only when I got back from tour, I found out they cost $5,000. I can’t even laugh about it. It makes me so crazy. I still have these boots. I’d like to get rid of them just so that I never have to look at them again, but there they are every day, warning me of my own greed.