#i’ve seen so many documentaries. read so many articles

[shatteredsnail]

i’m so normal about monsanto

[kwisatzworld]

List of Valentino Rossi books and documentaries:

inspired by @pgaslys list of marc’s docs

📚 Books

What If I Had Never Tried It [English/Italian/Spanish/German/Japanese/Chinese, etc.]: Vale’s only autobiography to date, translated into a lot of languages (so many that it’s hard to keep count). The English edition is notoriously rough - think spelling mistakes and some lost-in-translation moments. Despite this, yellow fans absolutely shouldn’t miss out on this gem. Published in 2006, during Vale’s zenith with five consecutive championships under his belt, the book radiates his happiness and confidence. The narrative is casual, with chapters loosely connected, but you will still find pleasure in reading this book.

MotoGenius: the Valentino Rossi biography by Mat Oxley: Oxley remains my all-time favorite Rossi author! Initially published years ago, the latest edition is available on Kindle. It’s a treasure trove of Vale anecdotes and Oxley’s unique insights, offering a glimpse into how Vale captivated his generation.

The Valentino Rossi Files: Everything I’ve ever written about VR by Mat Oxley: Available on Kindle, this collection (in two parts) encapsulates all the articles Oxley wrote about Vale for magazines and newspapers before joining Motor Sport Magazine.

Valentino Rossi: The Definitive Biography by Stuart Barker: A comprehensive biography of Vale, chronologically organized.

Valentino Rossi: Il Dio del Motociclismo by Fabio Fagnani [Italian]: Not recommended as the author’s fan-like admiration making it read more like a love letter than a biography. The only saving grace is the interview with Aldo Drudi.

Valentino Rossi: All His Races by Mat Oxley [English/German/Japanese/Serbian]: Chronicles every race of Vale’s career, enriched with exclusive interviews.

🎥 Documentaries

When asked about a movie about himself, Vale said, “If it’s a bad movie, I’d rather it didn’t exist.” He holds a similarly cautious stance towards documentaries, and has never personally produced a documentary about himself, though perhaps that might change at some point in the future.

Faster (2003) : Premiered at the Festival de Cannes during MotoGP’s golden era, this documentary intriguingly portrays the rivalry between Vale and Max Biaggi.

The Doctor, the Tornado, and the Kentucky Kid (2006) : Focuses on the 2005 season, especially the US Grand Prix, you can see the beautiful yellow livery of Yamaha’s 50th anniversary.

Fastest (2011) : A sequel to Faster.

Hitting the Apex (2015) : Arguably the best MotoGP documentary out there. Vale and Marco riding into the sunset to ‘Wish you were here’ is a poignant moment.

Valentino Rossi: The Doctor (2016) : Produced by Monster Energy, primarily illustrating how Vale expanded his empire step by step.

Racing Together (2017): MotoGP history isn’t complete without its greatest icon, Vale features for about 15 minutes.

Valentino’s Secret Room: Inside the Doctor’s Hidden Archive (2020) : Produced by Dainese, revealing Vale’s personal collection.

Ruta 46 – Ruta 93: El camino de dos mitos (2021) : Produced by DAZN España, unfortunately I haven’t seen it yet – if you have, let me know how it tells the tale.

Tales of Valentino (2021) : A nine-episode documentary series produced by Dorna, showcasing different aspects of Vale’s career through nine significant races.

RiVale | Valentino Rossi as Told by His Rivals (2021) : Produced by DAZN Italia featuring Vale’s main rivals (except Marc), sharing their stories with him.

Rossi | BT Sport Documentary on the Career of MotoGP Icon, Valentino Rossi (2022) : Produced by BT Sport following Vale’s retirement, highlighted by Suzi Perry’s captivating hosting style.

MotoGP Unlimited (2022) : No need for a lengthy introduction – it’s probably already been watched by everyone by now.

[thehours2002]

I haven't seen this documentary because I can't seem to find it listed in any libraries and it doesn't seem to be on the Brontë museum's online shop anymore.

Excerpts from the article:

Claire O’Callaghan (C.O.): In A Regular Black, the contemporary novelist, Caryl Philips, author of The Lost Child (2015), another contemporary novel that takes on Heathcliff’s legacy, argues that the date of Mr Earnshaw’s walk to Liverpool in the summer of 1771 makes it apparent that Earnshaw visits the city to participate in ‘some kind of business’ and that business must have been the slave trade.1 Do you agree with Philips’ assertion?

Michael Stewart (M.S.): Well, I think A Regular Black is a very interesting film, but I think that that point slightly over-states its case.

C.O.: Do you have any thoughts on how the suggestion that Earnshaw was participating in the slave-trading business impacts his character’s dynamic? It seems to me that the idea makes him a far less likeable figure than if we read him solely as a philanthropist for bringing a young orphan home?

M.S.: Yes, I think there’s a great dark side to Mr Earnshaw. He goes to Liverpool in the middle of summer as a gentleman farmer. There’s no business for farmers in Liverpool; it is a port, not a market town. He bypasses Bradford, Keighley, Leeds, all of the places where farmers would have had business. He travels on foot. I’ve done that journey myself to research Ill Will and it is a fair old way. He did it in three days there and back. It took me three days to get there, and I’m not a slow walker, I wasn’t shirking. So, he goes on foot in the middle of summer, but he’s got horses in the stable, as Joseph mentions, and there’s a coach from Keighley to Liverpool. That begs the question: why is he covert in his movements?

C.O.: The purpose of his visit is never fully explained, but I also wonder why he walks when he can take a horse. After all, he tells us it is ‘sixty miles each way’ and that ‘that is a long spell!’.[2]

M.S.: I made it more than that, I tracked closer to 70 miles. He comes back with what I think are joke presents, really: a fiddle and a whip. Very symbolic, actually.

C.O.: Why do you think they are joke presents? They are problematic objects in relation to the history of institutional slavery.

M.S.: What I mean is that they are actual objects that are also verbs. You can ‘fiddle’, as in, play around. And you can ‘whip’, as in, wind somebody up. That’s representative of the children’s respective characters. Anyway, he also brings back an orphan boy that Mrs Earnshaw takes an instant dislike to. I mean, Caryl Philips says that he sees Mr Earnshaw in the tradition of John Newton, the English Anglican clergyman and later abolitionist, who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’.[3] I think you have to leap forward to put those things together. There’s no evidence for any of that. But certainly, what was interesting for me was the mystery of Mr Earnshaw going to Liverpool. He goes there and back in three days, so he has no time to hang around to see The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. He goes for a specific purpose. He has two or three hours when he gets there and then he’ll have to walk back again. So, he is there for a specific purpose and he’s already pre-arranged something. He’s not just mulling about. So yes, absolutely, there is a dark side to Mr Earnshaw. I mean, why does he call him Heathcliff after his dead son? Why does he favour him?[4] There are so many unexplained things there.

[...]

C.O.: Importantly, black characters are not wholly new to Brontë fiction. The character ‘Quashia’ appears in their juvenilia, he is ‘the only indigenous African in Glass Town’.[10] However, on the point of potential historical sources for Heathcliff and the questions surrounding his racial origins, although Heathcliff is named after Mr Earnshaw’s deceased son, Emily also draws attention to the fact that his name ‘served him’ both as a ���Christian and surname’ (WH, p. 40). It is noted in the documentary that the single moniker was also used for enslaved people.[11] What are your thoughts on this?

M.S.: I think Caryl Philips nails this. And he also rightly points out the use of ‘it’ to refer to a child and the phrase ‘his owner’. I like his phrase ‘an act of unexplained intimacy’ to refer to Mr Earnshaw’s naming Heathcliff.[12]

C.O.: Yes, on the topic of language, the documentary notes that in chapter four of Wuthering Heights, the scene where Mr Earnshaw returns from Liverpool, the word ‘it’ appears prominently. I counted Emily’s usage and it appears seventeen times here with reference to Heathcliff.[13] Emily’s phrasing, as Caryl Philips says, decidedly evokes the language of slavery and property, themes that the novel is concerned with more widely. What are your thoughts on Emily’s deliberate use of language in this pivotal scene?

M.S.: Yes, Emily’s such a clever writer in that sense. ‘It’ and ‘its owner’ are even more telling in that respect (WH, p. 39). But she never explicitly addresses the issue really, so all of these things are food for thought. The ethnicity of Heathcliff is another thing that she refuses to come down on – the idea that he could be a ‘gypsy’, a ‘lascar’, this or that, or as an ‘American or Spanish castaway’ (WH, p. 54). You know, the idea of a lascar in itself is ethnically very ambiguous. The term refers to a ship worker, but they could be from North Africa, India, Arabia, China. She doesn’t want to close any doors, really, and it is absolutely open.

C.O.: Nelly complicates things by encouraging Heathcliff to ‘frame high notions’ of himself when she says, ‘Who knows, but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week’s income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together’ (WH, p. 61). This seems open to me. And yet, the documentary is adamant that the imagery is certain and explicit; the historian Iain McCalman claims that Victorian readers were ‘likely to have known’ that Emily was referring to a ‘West Indian mulatto’.[14] How do you respond to the idea that Emily’s use of the term ‘it’ gives power and possibility for a whole range of identities and/or non-white subjects, rather than only black people as asserted in the documentary?

M.S.: Certainly, Heathcliff is described as ‘dark almost as if it came from the devil’ (WH, p. 39). He is also described as a ‘black villain’ (WH, p. 119) and as having a ‘black countenance’ (WH, p. 190), and reference is also made to his ‘black father’ (WH, p. 187) and the ‘blackness [visible] through his features’ (WH, p. 194). And some people say well, you know, that’s a moral judgement, rather than an ethnic idea. It could mean that he’s not black or that he is black. ‘A regular black’ is another very telling phrase (WH, p. 61). And it is very interesting the way it is used there in the book, isn’t it? Nelly says, ‘if you were a regular’, but she doesn’t fully finish the sentence (WH, p. 61). It’s just left there for the reader to think about.

C.O.: Yes, the key word there is ‘if’ (WH, p. 61). To me, ‘if you were a regular black’ implies that Heathcliff is not a ‘regular black’, whereas in Low’s documentary, the quotation is being used with a different emphasis and omitting the ‘if’ to qualify a perceived textual certainty about Heathcliff, asserting that it is clear on the page that he is referred to as ‘a regular black’, so he must have been ‘a regular black’ (WH, p. 61). At the same time, it is also interesting that Heathcliff’s voice is described as ‘deep’ and ‘foreign in tone’ (WH, p. 99).

M.S.: I think he’s bi-racial. I mean, that’s just the way that I interpret that. Of course, other people interpret it in different ways. Terry Eagleton is absolutely adamant that he’s Irish, for instance. And you can make a compelling case for that too.[15] One of the interesting things about Eagleton’s point is that the language used to racially stereotype the Irish pejoratively in the nineteenth century overlaps with derogatory images and words used against black people.[16] And Elsie Michie says, ‘direct references to the Irish are difficult to identify [in Victorian literature] because they are screened by references to China, India, Turkey and the West Indies’.[17] In some ways, those reminders leave open the possibility of reading Heathcliff as black, bi-racial, Irish, or, of course, as someone who is physically unclean, as he is when he first appears in the text. And cleanliness is an important context for how others perceive Heathcliff. On his arrival at Wuthering Heights, of course, he is described as ‘dirty’, and Mr Earnshaw instructs Nelly to ‘wash it and give it clean things’ (WH, p. 39). Later, when Catherine returns from Thrushcross Grange, she and Heathcliff have a heated exchange about his cleanliness. She tells him ‘If you wash your face, and brush your hair, it will be all right. But you are so dirty’ (WH, p. 59). But interestingly he responds quite defiantly, telling her ‘You needn’t have touched me! […] I shall be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty’ (WH, p. 58). So, there is not only a wider class connotation to her statement about being degraded if she married Heathcliff, but potentially something that is intersectional, rather than a binary either/or class or racial comment.

[...]

C.O.: Yes, and to circle back to this point, in the documentary, Caryl Philips says that when Hindley takes over the Heights after Mr Earnshaw’s death, Heathcliff’s life is analogous to that of a slave: he isn’t living in the main house, he is beaten, he is given the worst domestic tasks to do, and he is treated as inferior to others around him.[20] Heathcliff, of course, also later says, ‘The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him, they crush those beneath them’ (WH, p. 120). So, with that information about Liverpool in mind and Philips’ comments, to what extent do you read the different behaviours and happenings in the house in relation to slavery?

M.S.: I think one of the most interesting aspects of A Regular Black is that it exposes the practice of farmers using slaves in their farms in and around Yorkshire. I don’t think that is common knowledge. But Emily may have been aware of this. We can’t say for certain, but it’s plausible. And knowing this, we can read the characters from that point of view. To come back to the notion of the whip, for example, read in that way, this takes on a further symbolic meaning.

[...]

M.S.: Yeah, the Reverend Patrick Brontë was an abolitionist. The siblings were home educated, and they would have had these kinds of conversations with Patrick, which ordinarily they wouldn’t have had at school. And he lost his wife in 1821 so, in a way, they were playing a surrogate figure for him, and it is entirely plausible that they would have those kinds of conversations together. I believe Wilberforce was his mentor at St John’s College in Cambridge and funded him to be there. So yes, absolutely, why wouldn’t Patrick have had conversations about abolition with his children if there were, in fact, slaves working on farms around Haworth? Of course, they’d discuss those things. They were interested in justice on all levels, whether that was for women’s rights, the abolitionist movement, workers’ rights. Patrick was very vocal about that. So all of those conversations would have been things they were talking about.

C.O.: At the end of the documentary, Caryl Philips makes the point that during Heathcliff’s three years of absence, the only possibility for Heathcliff to have made money during his three-year absence would have been by participating in the slave trade. Philips says categorically that that’s the only thing that both accounts for Heathcliff’s rapid wealth and what made him ‘unhinged’.[23] I know that your novel, Ill Will, offers some thoughts on that, but, when reading Emily’s novel, what are your thoughts on Heathcliff’s absence?

M.S.: Heathcliff is missing for three years. He runs away in the summer of 1780 and returns in the summer of 1783. He could have made his money through any form of criminality – as I imagine he does in my book. There’s absolutely nothing in Emily’s novel to suggest that Heathcliff is involved in the slave-trading business. Caryl Philips is very certain about the savagery that Heathcliff returns with is through the slave trade. They are abused and then they become abusers. I sort of get that. But it does feel to me to be about many other possibilities other than him entering the slave trade. Of course, that is one way to make money, but there were lots of other ways to make money too. Not all of them legal, but why would he have cared about that anyway? My book is about him going back to Liverpool to get revenge on the people that he blames. His mother is a slave. He discovers this in returning to Liverpool and he wants retribution for his mother’s enslavement and imprisonment. You know, it’s compelling, isn’t it? Liverpool as a centre of the slave trade, but also, as the largest black community in Europe at that time, all of these things really make sense. Seeing it in that light and the advertisement from the Liverpool Gazetteer, the local paper, they call it in the film, you know, before I saw this film, I came across that in the archives of the public records of Liverpool Library. I also came across the bill notices of the slave auctions and I just cut and pasted one of the those into the book.[24] And when Heathcliff goes to Liverpool, in my book, he sees a list of people who are being sold that morning. I guess again, I hadn’t given it that much thought – that it was so open, not just open, but on the streets, in people’s faces, slavery wasn’t hidden in some sort of auction room somewhere, it was an outside arena.

---

[2] Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights [1847] (London: Penguin English Library, 2012), p. 39. Hereafter in-text as WH.

[3] Philips, A Regular Black, 05.14 minutes.

[4] The suggestion that Heathcliff was treated favourably by Mr Earnshaw is established, as Nelly says, ‘from the beginning’ on the night that Earnshaw brings him home (WH, p. 40). Brontë writes that Mr Earnshaw ‘took to Heathcliff strangely [,] petting him up far above Cathy’, and that this ‘bred bad feeling in the house’ (WH, p. 40).

[10] The Brontës, Tales of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal: Selected Writings, ed. by Christine Alexander (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. xxvii

[11] See Cassandra Pybus, A Regular Black, 06.22 minutes. Corinne Fowler also makes this point in her article ‘Was Emily Brontë’s Heathcliff black?’ See The Conversation, 25 October 2017 < http://theconversation.com/was-emily-bront-s-heathcliff-black-85341> (accessed 25 April 2019).

[12] Philips, A Regular Black, 05.46 minutes.

[13] Such references appear close together across pp. 39–40 in chapter four.

[14] Iain McCalman, A Regular Black, 07.50 minutes.

[15] See Terry Eagleton, Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish Culture (London and New York: Verso, 1995).

[16] Several images from nineteenth-century periodicals used the same dehumanising stereotypes for both Irish and black people, portraying them as ape-like to suggest racial difference and inferiority. With respect to the Irish, see, for example, John Leech’s ‘The British Lion and The Irish Monkey’ (1848), or ‘Mr G-O’Rilla, I presume?’ (1861). For more detail on this topic see L. Perry Curtis Jr., Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature (Smithsonian Books: Washington, 1997) and Sheridan Gilley, ‘English Attitudes to the Irish in England, 1780-1900’, in Immigrants and Minorities in British Society, ed. by Colin Holmes (London, 1978), pp. 81–110.

[17] Elsie Michie, ‘From Simianized Irish to Oriental Despots: Heathcliff, Rochester and Racial Difference’, Novel: A Forum on Fiction 25:2 (1992), 125–40, p. 125. Of course, there were Irish subjects in Liverpool too. For more on the connection between the description of Heathcliff’s arrival at Wuthering Heights and Victorian representations of Irish children in Britain as a result of the potato famine, see Winifred Gérin, Emily Brontë: A Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).

[20] Philips, A Regular Black, 07.00 minutes.

[23] Philips, A Regular Black, 13:56 minutes.

[24] See Michael Stewart, Ill Will: The Untold Story of Heathcliff (New York: HarperCollins, 2018), p. 182.

[ghooostbaby]

I keep seeing (and have seen in previous years) this wringing of hands about  the forest fires as ~vaguely~ ohhh, climate change!! in this way that makes the fires so huge, complicated, and impenetrable that it’s just sort of out of our control, nothing we can do but continue on consuming, working, and living in the same ways, and push the stress of not being able to breathe properly to the back of our minds... BUT, something I have also seen repeatedly over the years of forestry experts saying that the cause is NOT primarily climate change, but forestry mismanagement.

every summer for the last 10 years in Canada the western parts of the country (as well at the U.S.) has had escalating severe wildfires, people from the west coast talk about how the summers have become months of constant haze and bad air quality from the smoke drifting over from the forest fires. For the first year its actually on the east coast, where I live, and I’m experiencing that haze for the first time. I’m not an expert, but honestly I’ve read so many times there are specific, evidence-based steps that can be taken to prevent wildfires.

from my bit of reading, many indigenous peoples in these areas had practices of controlled, low-intensity burns to manage build up of material that will catch fire quickly - the colonizing governments banned those practices. hmmm. then there’s also the way so much of canadian old growth forest is cut down for logging and then replanted - BUT the forests they replant are not the diverse ecosystem of old growth forest, its usually mostly monocultures of trees. one documentary i watched talked about how because different types of wood burn differently, natural forests with a lot of diversity are better at keeping fire spread down.

anyway it bothers me to see this vague climate change dread translate into inaction and apathy, and this blaming of some impenetrable thing outside of us, when it is literally capitalism and colonialism. the fault lying with “climate change” is like there’s nothing we can do until all the vast interlocking mechanism of climate change are fixed, and there’s no way we can even understand where to begin with that, so we can only turn away. but! there are clear and simple choices we could make to make things better and we just ... persist in not making them? and if i, someone with no special knowledge of anything forest-related can learn about this from publicly available articles and documentaries then what the fuck is the government doing?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-indigenous-fire-forests-1.6194999

The paradox, said Prof. Lori Daniels, who specializes in wildfire and forest ecology at the University of British Columbia, is that we've been so good at putting out every fire possible that it has led to overly dense forests and a buildup of burnable material like branches and dry vegetation.

If sparked in the summer heat, these "ladder fuels" piggyback the flames up tree trunks and engulf the crown, resulting in high-intensity fires like those in Western Canada this year.

But overdrive isn't fire's only speed. In fact, when burning in a lower gear, the environmental benefits of fires in forested areas can be bountiful.

[rachelarobinson]

Reading and Response #2

GIFs haven’t been something that I’ve taken into consideration or looked into more as them being a form of art but have rather seen GIFs as a prominent expression of pop cultural memes or as a visual aspect but have never seen the use of GIFs through the work of artists. It’s interesting for me to learn more about net art specifically since I’m very oblivious to digital art and how it works so to read about net art and how it reflects on the relationship between virtual and space and addresses the themes of privacy, community, and the understanding of self with a provocative and intelligent approach to new technologies and how affects modern society is fascinating (“Agents of Change: The Internet. Net Art and How The World Wide Web Has Created A New Medium”). I’ve always known digital art was a thing and never tended to question it since art is simply the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination which could count in digital works aside from simply paintings and sculptures as commonly seen throughout history (“The Digital Canvas: The Odd and Fascinating History of Internet Art”). But thinking about digital art, especially GIFs does seem to align with pop culture since the mass communication of ideas is through media and through the internet and that creates a more efficient way of sharing artwork when it’s created digitally and accessible to be viewed by many people throughout the world at any time. And in relation to GIFs, many people already view them without taking into consideration how they’re also seen as art with how much goes into them, such as Jaime Martinez and his work taking his own photography and transforming these images into GIFs (“GIFs As Digital Art”). It was also just interesting reading through the other articles as a whole and learning more about the history of web art and how it came to be where it is now and how artists have used it for their art aside from popular culture memes, etc. and how there was even a documentary on it. As mentioned previously, this was all very new information to me so I wasn’t even aware of the history behind digital art and how influential it is in society today, and the impact it has on pop culture to this day. Some of my favorite GIFs, as seen below, are from any Studio Ghibli movie because the animations have always been so stunning and unreal to me and all the movies have the same look to them with stunning graphics that also enforce a very peaceful and calming sensation when viewed and are movies that genuinely make me so happy to always watch. Whenever I make my profile on the Discord app, I always use Studio Ghibli GIFs as my profile picture and banner so these are the GIFs I see and view the most and save versus other GIFs I may see on social media. Since these are also some of my favorite comfort movies, I love seeing the videos GIFs from some of the most iconic or beautiful scenes from the movies.

[thetoxicgamer]

Minecraft meets Blue Planet in Attenborough style documentary

The Minecraft universe is gorgeous. There's something about Minecraft's art design that just clicks, despite the fact that we've seen it everywhere for the past twelve years since it originally took over to become the best-selling game ever. Developer Mojang is creating a series of mini-documentaries in the style of David Attenborough to highlight the beauty of the sandbox game as a way to commemorate the release of Minecraft 1.20, the Trails and Tales update. In this second instalment of Minecraft: The Great Wild, we explore the depths of the Minecraft Oceans, a place that many players are probably slightly less familiar with. I know it’s by far the Minecraft biome I’ve explored least – I just feel more content with my feet on (mostly) solid ground, y’know? So it’s good to get some more perspective on it and, honestly, the whole tone and framing of the series is just delightful. The video, which you can see below, perfectly captures the spirit of Attenborough for those of you who’ve enjoyed his nature documentaries such as Planet Earth, Frozen Planet (which was imitated in the first episode, covering Minecraft’s colder zones), and of course, Blue Planet, which we see here. We’re introduced to a family of turtles – the baby coming in at “a height of 0.0032 or 0.12 blocks,” making it one of the smallest Minecraft mobs, but also a potential snack for any nearby cats. Will the poor critter manage to elude its claws? You’ll just have to watch and find out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRBGEdXAkvU We also see a school of dolphins defending one another as they cross the ocean waters, before delving into one of Minecraft’s more fantastical, and dangerous, underwater creatures. Although honestly if you told me someone had discovered such a terror lurking in the murky depths of the Earth’s own oceans I would not be at all surprised. Of course, with Minecraft available to PC Game Pass subscribers – in both Bedrock and Java iterations – you’ll be able to explore the oceans for yourself after watching if the mood takes you. Discover some wondrous locales of your own by visiting some of the best Minecraft seeds, or add even more beauty and depth to the world with the best Minecraft mods. We’ve even picked out a great list of the best Minecraft skins you won’t want to miss in 2023. Read the full article

[bitcoinprophets]

“This is, as I’ve often said, one of the worst medical scandals the world’s ever seen,”

“I’ve heard from countless parents, from Christian and non-Christian alike, from all over the political spectrum,” he said. “This is a very important story, not only because it’s a medical scandal, but because of the social breakdown that it is causing.” Full Article HERE “It’s about how gender ideology irretrievably fractures families,” Showalter said. “It ruptures family bonds. It pits parents against their own children who start identifying as trans and then go headlong down a pathway of virtually unchecked, medicalized treatment — if you can even call it medicalization.” Showalter, who has been a frequent critic of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries, likened these elements to a “mass medical experiment” being pushed on society. What makes “Dead Name” so unique, he said, is the documentary’s focus on familial relationships and the ruptures that unfold when a child identifies as transgender. The impact on grandparents, marriages, siblings, and other bonds is profound. This is something the documentary tackles head-on through interviews with and profiles of three separate families. “This is, as I’ve often said, one of the worst medical scandals the world’s ever seen,” he added. A Suppression of Thought Showalter believes stories like those shown in “Dead Name” are deeply important, as many likely have no idea how many families struggle with these issues — and with society’s full embrace of the movement. “ suppression of thought and the suppression of analysis of very real stories, where parents I know have begged places like The New York Times and other more mainstream outlets to cover their concerns,” he said, noting The Times has just recently covered the story. Showalter said the issue transcends political parties and ideological persuasions, which is why he has given voice to a diverse set of individuals and families in his Christian Post interviews and content.   Read the full article

[j0kers-light]

Get To Know Me Tag Game!! ✨

Many thanks to @megamindsecretlair for tagging me! I too am a private person but there’s no harm in sharing a lil bit ya know.. it gets the people going 🖤✨

Were you named after anyone?

Yes I am! My government name holds meaning with origins in both Hebrew and Yiddish. I’m very proud of it. I share a name with a celebrity and a family friend.

When was the last time you cried?

Last year on my birthday when my fur baby passed away.

Do you have any kids?

Haha, I wish! No one wants to go in half with me. Plus I have high standards. My child can’t be out here looking any type of way. I cannot deny, baby fever recently been punching me in the ovaries and I get weak in the knees. Ya girl be folding fast. I just love kids!

What sports do you play/ have you played?

None. I’m way too clumsy and I have medical issues that won’t allow me to.

Do you use sarcasm?

What a dumb question. Do humans need oxygen to survive? There isn’t a day that I don’t.

What is the first thing you notice about people?

The eyes, Chico, they never lie. I am huge on eye contact so if your eyes aren’t engaged, I will literally walk away from the conversation. Next would be hands… 👀 I have a big hand kink and no I’m not seeking any help on it. I ain’t got no shame about it. Third thing would be a person’s voice. I fold so fast if a person has all three on point.

What is your eye color?

Dark brown but I have a defect where the color appears to ‘bleed out my iris’ hence the nickname I have, ‘honeypot’ so light and dark brown.

Scary movies or happy endings?

Give me a scary movie any day! I love laughing at them especially the classics. Maybe this is why I like dark humor and are attracted to villains…. 🤔I can stomach all the gore and ‘jump scares’. The only body part I haven’t seen in real life is the brain. I’m patiently waiting though. My time will come.

Any talents?

Uhhh, depends on what’s considered talent. I’m trilingual, I’m a certified nail tech, a great singer. I have more but I’m too shy to add them.

Where were you born?

I was born by the river!!!! I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. But yeah I rep the South, USA of course. The accent only comes out when I’m under stress 🥴

What are your hobbies?

I love history, so learning random things, cooking, reading, obviously writing… 🥴 but I can’t go a day without music. I basically keep my headphones on and only take them off to shower and sleep. Wait. I sleep with my EarPods sometimes so yeah... I’m addicted to music

Do you have any pets?

Not anymore. J was my one and only.

How tall are you?

On a good day, 5’2, but I be talking trash like I’m 6’0.

Favorite subject in high school?

Hands down history. I read/watch daily documentaries or articles about random historical events (all fact checked thank you) just because I like to. I got all types of subscriptions and I follow historians on social media. Yesterday, I brushed up on my knowledge on The Battle of Agincourt and the significance of the English longbow during it. I haven’t decided what today’s lesson is yet. I’ve been so busy.

Dream Job?

I wanted to be a curator 😭

That’s all I got. There’s a ton more but all in good time you will learn more lol 🖤✨

No pressure tags:

anyone can join in! I rarely tag people 🤧

Get To Know Me Tag Game

Thank you for the tag @nerdieforpedro 😚 for anyone who cares, here's a bit about me! 🥹

General rule: I may overshare in dms and authors notes sometimes but Im generally a private person 🤣 to the point Ive lost friends over it. ive been working with my coworkers for 3 years and they dont know shit about me 🤣 I juss really love yall and feel safe with yall so here we go!

1. Were you named after anyone?

No. My mom didnt want our names to announce who we were on applications so we all got regular smegular names. My name is of Irish origin so my yt folks customer service voice got ppl thinkin I have red hair. I mean....technically yes but its buried under my braids 🤣

2. When was the last time you cried?

At the end of The Marvels. The first end credit had me in real, actual tears. On a more serious note, I last cried before my grandma died. Yall, its fn hard being a caretaker. I was not built Ford Tuff.

3. Do you have kids?

*ahem* 🗣🗣 fuck no! 🤣🤣🤣 I dont even have nieces or nephews. Kids make me nervous and Im pretty sure they can smell the fear on me. 🤣

4. What sports do you play/ have you played?

I played basketball and softball in HS. I love and miss softball all the time even though my big behind HATES running.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Sarcasm is one of my love languages. I put that shit on everything 🤣 Physical Touch is my main one since we sharing.

6. What is the first thing you notice about people?

Ooof, tough. Depends. Some quirk like glasses, lisp, moles. How they walk/talk, the way they laugh. I am a lurker by trade. Overly shy kid and writer by nature will do that to ya.

7. What is your eye color?

Dark brown. When that sun hits 🫠🫠🫦

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

I am a HUGE scaredy cat. I dont do scary movies nothin! Happy endings over here! 🤸🏽‍♀️ I will enjoy a thriller but only behind my hands and mostly starring Matthew Lillard.

9. Any talents?

.....no? I have a bunch of useless knowledge or trivia that no one asked for but ya gonna get 🤣 . Juss realized writing is considered a talent 😭 so that too 🤣

10. Where were you born?

US, West Coast baybeee

11. What are your hobbies?

Obvs, writing. Reading, sewing, cons, tarot, tv, listening to music, video games (xbox, switch, PC girlie) , Marvel. Marvel is a hobby. I will talk your ear off. That is both a threat and a promise 😚

12. Do you have any pets?

I have two gorgeous Boston Terriers who run me into the ground every day. Idk why my mom thought two was okay 🫠🫠 my Black ass tide 🥲 👏🏽

13. How tall are you?

Fun sized 5'3 and a half 👏🏽👏🏽🤣 pear shaped. I got ass for days but in the itty bitty titty committee. 😭😭😭😭😭

14. Favorite subject in high school?

Definitely English. My English teacher was so fine 🥲🥲 thats not WHY it was my fave but can ya blame me 😩 I loved reading the books but I hated the themes they shoved down our throats. What if that wasnt MY interpretation of the book??? Hmmm? Some faves include: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Teacake 🥵🥵🥵), Brave New World, Bright Lights Big City (probably where my love of second person is from) , Bronx Masquerade, and The Outsiders. And FUCK the Great Gatsby. If I hear about that damn green light one 👏🏽 mo 👏🏽 fn 👏🏽 time 👏🏽😩😡 and FUCK Of Mice and Men, he aint have to do all that in the end. And DOUBLE FUCK I Know Why the Caged Bird sings. Turned my stomach when she described the SA. Lemme stop 🥴

15. Dream Job?

Writer. I will publish, I will be successful, and I will live the life I want. I claim it 😩 on my Octavia Butler, NK Jemisin, Danielle Allen shit 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Whew! That was fun 😭🤣

No pressure tags: @mybonafidefeelings @bratzmaraj @braverthanthenewworld @multiversefanfics @chaos-4baby @westside-rot @saturn-rings-writes @notapradagurl7 @wide-nose-and-wonderful @blowmymbackout @blackerthings @harmshake @targaryenvampireslayer and who wants to do one. I love learning bout my moots.

[purplespaceace]

very few characters actually have adhd in media, and when they do, what people mean by that is just that they fidget a lot, not that they have adhd. the only character with adhd I can think of where I’ve watched/read it and I’ve gone, “oh, this character actually has adhd” is Jake peralta from Brooklyn 99. so, here’s my take on how to write adhd, with examples from Brooklyn 99.

I’ll do the best I can to separate them into three categories; the three things people look for in adults with ADHD, which are rejection sensitivity dysphoria, an interest-based nervous system, and emotional hyperarousal.

I’ll also randomly bold and italicize bits so people with ADHD can actually read it.

Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, or RSD

Rejection sensitivity dysphoria makes people with ADHD overly sensitive to criticism, even if they perceive a rejection and there actually isn’t one. Their emotions are also very strong generally. Because of RSD, people with ADHD become people-pleasers and can develop anxiety because they’re so eager to please.

For me, RSD makes me cry an embarrassing amount for any little reason. in your writing, make your characters overdramatic, criers, and/or people-pleasers. They’ll have trouble saying no. They may also be over competitive, as their perceived rejection may include losing.

how does Jake show this in b99? When Jake comes up with a catchphrase and Rosa says it’s terrible, jake is far more hurt than he should be. He hates losing, and he gets overly upset whenever someone says they don’t like him or don’t trust him, etc. he’s also a people pleaser who has trouble saying no.

An interest-based nervous system

An interest-based nervous system includes hyperfocuses and an inability to pay attention. It stems from the fact that we can’t make as much dopamine as neurotypicals. This means that while neurotypicals get dopamine after completing a task, people with ADHD don’t. That means that people with ADHD don’t have any reason to do tasks, especially those they don’t like. This leads to executive dysfunction—people with ADHD will know they have to or want to do something, but they can’t seem to do it. people with ADHD hyperfocus on things that bring them dopamine. I was obsessed with warrior cats for three years. But hyperfocuses can also last a short amount of time—I’ll have a drawing idea in the middle of class and won’t be able to concentrate on anything else before I finish it. this is where our impulsiveness comes from. we can leap into things we think will give us dopamine without thinking, which can lead to injury. We also tend to tell people personal things they don’t want to hear because of this, and don’t have very good boundaries. We sometimes say whatever comes into our head, which can also result in us being rude on accident. Our voices can also get very loud or we can interrupt people frequently because we’re so impulsive. When people with ADHD hyperfocus, they can forget about anything else. I’ll forget to eat if I’m busy reading a Wikipedia article about feminism in the 1850s, and won’t go to the bathroom or drink water either. It’s also important to note that taking away distractions doesn’t help, because we can do things like pick at our skin and daydream—something that people with ADHD do a lot of. Because of executive dysfunction, people can call people with ADHD lazy or irresponsible.

people with ADHD can also be extremely indecisive because ADHD affects our executive functioning, and making decisions requires planning and prioritizing, and task initiation, which are both executive functions!

people with ADHD also have poor memory for important things, but tend to remember random bits of trivia. Poor memory leads to object permanence problems, which means people with ADHD can forget to call a friend back for weeks, forget that they need to read library books in a closed cabinet, or forget that the vegetables they got will go bad. People can sometimes say that people with ADHD don’t care about anything because of this.

people with ADHD can also be prone to depression because of under or overstimulation. Boredom feels painful for people with ADHD. If we’re overstimulated, we can experience sensory overload—if things are too bright or too loud, if too many things are touching us at once—often it’s not because the thing is too intense, but because too many things are happening at once.

We also have something some people call dolphin brain, where we jump from one thing to another. From the outside, it looks really random, but I find that when I’m talking to another neurodivergent communication is generally easier. For instance, someone with ADHD might see a bee at a baseball field and tell their team about the time they saw whales at seaworld because their little brother was also stung by a wasp there. people will see no connection on the outside, but it makes perfect sense to the person with ADHD.

people with ADHD can also be overachievers, either because they hyperfocus on schoolwork or their RSD makes it so that failing at something isn’t an option. people with ADHD can also be very controlling and stubborn, probably because we hyperfocus on something and cant handle it being any different, and any change to our plans can be seen as rejection.

we can also have a hard time ordering our thoughts or doing stuff like math in our head. a lot of the time I number my thoughts like, 1. this reason, 2. this reason, etc. even if theres only two or sometimes I just need the 1. as a transition for my brain. when I don’t write it down or organize it like that it feels like I’m trying to grasp ropes that have been covered in oil (it’s not going to happen) and then my brain gets all jumbled and I have to restart at the beginning. this is probably just me, but it feels the same way when I’m reading long paragraphs of something uninteresting, or even short bits of historical documents because the way they phrase things is really pompous and hard to process.

also, stuff like caffeine calms us down and helps us focus. people who don’t take medication (me) often drink coffee or caffeinated sodas to focus.

another random tip, but if your character with ADHD also is genderfluid or genderflux, they might have a hard time figuring out their gender sometimes, because we can be known to have a hard time putting our feelings into words or our brains will just go, “nope, not thinking about that right now” and move on, which can be pretty frustrating.

people with adhd also have a trait called time blindness, where we have no idea how long something takes and therefore can’t manage our time very well. this often results in us being late or just sitting around the house because we got ready way too early.

we also have something called consequence blindness—we do things and are completely unaware of the consequences. if I don’t brush my teeth, I get cavities. but I don’t think about that when I’m deciding I’m too tired to brush my teeth.

in b99, jake regularly stays up all night solving cases and watches documentaries on random topics. He’s also very distractible—when they’re trying to find the person who sent Captain Holt death threats in the train yard, Jake says he and captain holt should take a train trip together sometime. Jake says that he’ll forget Amy if they don't work together because he’s like a goldfish.

Emotional hyperarousal

This is the only thing people tend to include when writing characters: the fidgeting. People with ADHD tend to need more stimulation than others, so we’ll do things like draw during class and chew on pens.

people with ADHD can also have apd, or auditory processing disorder. we tend to watch shows with subtitles on and may take a second to process what you’re saying, or hear it wrong. The subtitles thing may be partially do to creating just the right amount of stimulation, but if I don’t have subtitles, me and my other friends with ADHD will watch tv with the volume turned up very high. People with ADHD also can have a hard time interpreting other people‘s tone and have a hard time controlling their own. They can be bad at social cues and have poor manners because we don’t pick up on that stuff.

people with ADHD also tend to observe everything or nothing at any given time, mostly based on the amount of stimulation they have—if they dont have a lot in their main task, they’ll need to take in something else at the same time. Likewise, if I’m hyperfocusing on something I often don’t notice anything else, like if someone asks me a question.

in b99, Jake fidgets with things a lot. In the intro, he’s picking up and examining a figurine on his desk, likely because he was bored with paperwork or some other task.

[dmsden]

A Little Bit of History Repeating - Using history to build your world

Hullo, Gentle Readers. As I write this, I’ve just returned from 7 days in Central & Eastern Europe. I got to visit Budapest, Bratislava, and Vienna, sailing on the Danube between cities. Traveling through these old world cities was an incredible experience, and travel is something I hope everyone will take a chance to do in their lives. I’ve been super-fortunate to have lots of opportunities to travel outside the U.S., but, even if you just travel to another state, you can get new experiences and perspectives that you might not have gained in your own backyard.

The reason I’m writing all this is because, as you can guess, being so immersed in these different cultures and hearing about the histories of the places filled me with a ton of inspiration. Without particularly meaning to, it gave me ideas that I will certainly incorporate into my campaign world. While travel is certainly a great way to do this, just learning about other places and histories is sure to get your imagination going, even if it’s just through watching a documentary or reading some articles about it.

For example, during my travels, I saw a place called Devin Castle, which stood sprawling over a high hilltop on the Danube. There was a huge rock cliff with what was almost certainly the original castle on it, and then more walls and towers sloped down over the declining hillside next to it. I loved the idea of this castle, how it must’ve grown over time, and how the first builder must’ve seen that rock over the river and thought, “This is the perfect site.” It makes me want to add a few of those riverside castles to some of the great rivers in my own campaign world.

Just sailing on the Danube and observing how people still use the river to this day inspired me. It was clear that the river wasn’t just an obstacle to them - it was a means of travel, commerce, fishing, and defense. My world has a number of rivers similar to the Danube, and it’s made me think a lot about how important they must be to the people who live along the banks. Many of the great cities of the old world use riverports over seaports, and that’s something I’ll be pondering in the days ahead.

In a way, I got to actually visit a place from my campaign world. The Gellert Baths in Budapest are a sprawling complex of indoor and outdoor swimming pools and thermal baths in an ornate setting. I have been aware of them for years, and one of the landmarks in the city of Estwald in my campaign is the Palace of a Thousand Pools, which was directly inspired by the Gellert Baths. Now, I’ve visited the Gellert Baths, and it was absolutely wonderful. I also visited the Rudas Baths, a Turkish Bath almost 500 years old. While not as ornate as the Gellert, Rudas really felt like I’d stepped back in time. I’ll certainly use elements from it somewhere in my world.

Hearing the history of these countries and places also greatly inspired me, and not always the good parts. History is full of dark things, and some of these dark things will no doubt find their way into my campaign. Even as my own campaign comes right up to the moment when our heroes will challenge the Worldbreaker Tarrasque, I’m already looking ahead to how this event will change the world afterwards. Just because this story ends doesn’t mean I won’t use this campaign world to tell my next story. Various forces are surrounding the Worldbreaker, and the end of it might end up inspired by a lot of discussions about what happened at the end of World War I, because that still informs history in Europe to this day.

Now obviously, I recommend traveling if you have the chance. Not everyone has the chance to jump on a plane, though, but that shouldn’t stop you from seeing new things. Where I live in MA allows me to jump in my car and be in 5 or 6 different states with an hour or two of driving. But you don’t need to do that to see something you haven’t seen before. Do a little research about your own area, and find out about local historical sites. Go check them out, take a few photos, grab all the promo materials they offer, and sit down and see what inspires you. Maybe there are local sites you can adapt into something new for your campaign world. For example, I live fairly close to a couple of odd little mysteries like Norumbega Tower, Dighton Rock, and “America’s Stonehenge”. The idea of ancient, missing cultures lurked into my world as the “Old Ones”, a group of mysterious entities whose identity has been revealed only fairly recently in the campaign.

I hope this has inspired you to look around you at our world, and find ways to use it to inspire the world you create. Until we meet again, may your eyries receive you at the journey’s end.

[writingwithcolor]

I'm writing an AU of a movie that takes place in the 1880s USA, where a travelling white character and a Jewish character are waylaid by Native Americans, who they befriend. Probably because it was written by and about PoC (Jews) the scene actually avoids the stuff on your Native American Masterpost, but I'd still like to do better than a movie made in the 1980's, and I feel weird cutting them from the plot entirely. I have a Jewish woman reading it for that, but are there any things you (1/1)

2/2 1880s western movie ask--are there things you'd LIKE to see in a movie where a white man and a Jewish man run into Native Americans in the 1880s? I do plan to base them on a real tribe (Ute, probably) and have proper housing/clothes and so forth, but right now I'm just trying to avoid or subvert awful cowboy movie tropes. Any ideas?

White and Jewish Men, Native American interactions in 1880s

I am vaguely concerned with how you only cite one of our posts about Native Americans, that was not written by a Native person, and do not cite any of the posts relating to this time period, or any posts relating to representation in media. 

Sidenote: if you want us to give accurate reflections of the media you’re discussing, please tell us the NAME. I cannot go look up this movie based off this description to give you an idea of what my issues are with this scene, and must instead trust that the representation is good based off your judgement. I cannot make my own judgement. This is a problem. Especially since your whole question boils down to “this scene is good but not great and I want it to be great. How can I do that?”

Your baseline for “good” could very well be my baseline for “terrible hack job”. I can’t give you the proper education required for you to be able to accurately evaluate the media you’re watching for racist stereotypes if you don’t tell me what you’re even working with.

When you’re writing fanfic where the media is directly relevant to the question, please tell us the name of the media. We will not judge your tastes. We need this information in order to properly help you.

Moving on.

I bring up my concern for you citing that one—exceptionally old—post because it is lacking in many of the tropes that don’t exist in the media critique field but exist in the real world. This is an issue I have run into countless times on WWC (hence further concern you did not cite any other posts) and have spoken about at length. 

People look at the media critique world exclusively, assume it is a complete evaluation of how Native Americans are seen in society, and as a result end up ignoring some really toxic stereotypes and then come to the inbox with “these characters aren’t abc trope, so they’re fine, but I want to rubber stamp them anyway. Anything wrong here?”. The answer is pretty much always yes. 

Issue one: “Waylaid” by Native Americans

This wording is extremely loaded for one reason: Native American people are seen as tricksters, liars, and predators. This is the #1 trope that shows up in the real world that does not show up in media critique. It’s also the trope I have talked about the most when it comes to media representation, so you not knowing the trope is a sign you haven’t read the entirety of the Native tag—which is in the FAQ as something we would really prefer you did before coming at us to answer questions. It avoids us having to re-explain ourselves.

Now, hostility is honestly to be expected for the time period the movie is set in. This is in the beginnings (or ramping up) of residential schools in America* and Canada, we have generations upon generations of stolen or killed children, reserves being allocated perhaps hundreds of miles from sacred sites, and various wars with Plains and Southwest peoples are in full force (Wounded Knee would have happened in 1890, in December, and the Dakoa’s mass execution would have been in 1862. Those are just the big-name wars. There absolutely were others). 

*America covers up its residential schools abuse extremely thoroughly, so if you try to research them in the American context you will come up empty. Please research Canada’s schools and apply the same abuse to America, as Canada has had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission about residential schools and therefore is more (but not completely) transparent about the abuse that happened. Please note that America’s history with residential schools is longer than Canada’s history. There is an extremely large trigger warning for mass child death when you do this research.

But just because the hostility is expected does not mean that this hostility would be treated well in the movie. Especially when you consider the sheer amount of tension between any Native actors and white actors, for how Sacheen Littlefeather had just been nearly beaten up by white actors at the 1973 Academy Awards for mentioning Wounded Knee, and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act had only been passed two years prior in 1978. 

These Native actors would not have had the ability to truly consent to how they were shown, and this power dynamic has to be in your mind when you watch this scene over. I don’t care that the writers were from a discriminated-against background. This does not always result in being respectful, and I’ve also spoken about this power imbalance at length (primarily in the cowboy tag).

Documentaries and history specials made in the 2010s (with some degree of academic muster) will still fall into wording that harkens Indigenous people to wolves and settlers as frightened prey animals getting picked off by the mean animalistic Natives. This is not neutral, or good. This is perpetuating the myth that the settlers were helpless, just doing their own thing completely unobtrusively, and then the evil territorial Native Americans didn’t want to share.

To paraphrase Batman: if I had a week I couldn’t explain all the reasons that’s wrong.

How were these characters waylaid by the Native population? Because that answer—which I cannot get because you did not name the media—will determine how good the framing is. But based on the time period this movie was made alone, I do not trust it was done respectfully.

Issue 2: “Befriending”

I mentioned this was in an intense period of residential schools and land wars all in that area. The Ute themselves had just been massacred by Mormons in the Grass Valley Massacre in 1865, with ten men and an unknown number of women and children killed thanks to a case of assumed association with a war chief (Antonga Black Hawk) currently at war with Utah. The Paiute had been massacred in 1866. Over 100 Timpanogo men had been killed, with an unknown number of women and children enslaved by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City in 1850, with many of the enslaved people dying in captivity (those numbers were not tracked, but I would assume at least two hundred were enslaved— that’s simply assuming one woman/wife and one child for every man, and the numbers could have very well been higher if any war-widows and their children were in the group, not to mention families with multiple children). This is after an unknown group of Indigenous people had been killed by Governor Brigham Young the year prior, to “permanently stop cattle theft” from settlers. 

The number of Native Americans killed in Utah in the 1800s—just the number of dead counted (since women and children weren’t counted)—in massacres not tied to war (because there was at least one war) is over 130. The actual number of random murders is much higher; between the uncounted deaths and how the Governor had issued orders to “deal with” the problem of cattle theft permanently. I doubt you would have been tried or convicted if you murdered Indigenous peoples on “your” land. This is why it’s called state sanctioned genocide.

This is not counting the Black Hawk War in Utah (1865-1872), which the Ute were absolutely a part of (the wiki articles I read were contradictory if Antonga Black Hawk was Ute or Timpanogo, but the Ute were part of it). The first official massacre tied to the war—the Bear River Massacre, ordered by the US Military—places the death count of just that singular massacre at over five hundred Shoshone, including elders, women, and children. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the number of Indigenous people killed in Utah from 1850, onward, is over a thousand, perhaps two or three.

Pardon me for not reading beyond that point to list more massacres and simply ballparking a number; the source will be linked for you to get an accurate number of dead.

So how did they befriend the Native population? Let alone see them as fully human considering the racism of the time period? Natives were absolutely not seen as fully human so long as they were tied to their culture, and assimilation equalling some sliver of respect was already a stick being waved around as a threat. This lack of humanity continues to the present day.

I’m not saying friendship is impossible. I am saying the sheer levels of mistrust that would exist between random wandering groups of white/pale men and Indigenous communities wouldn’t exactly make that friendship easy. Having the scene end be a genuine friendship feels ignorant and hollow and flattening of ongoing genocide, because settlers lied about their intentions and then lined you up for slauther (that’s how the Timpanogo were killed and enslaved).

Utah had already done most of its mass killing by this point. The era of trusting them was over. There was an active open hunting season, and the acceptable targets were the Indigenous populations of Utah.

(sources for the numbers: 

List of Indian Massacres in North America Black Hawk War (1865-1872))

Issue 3: “Proper housing/clothes and so forth”

Do you mean Western style settlements and jeans? If yes, congratulations you have written a reservation which means the land-ripped-away wounds are going to be fresh, painful, and sore.

You do not codify what you mean by “proper”, and proper is another one of those deeply loaded colonial words that can mean “like a white man” or “appropriate for their tribe.” For the time period, it would be the former. Without specifying which direction you’re going for, I have no idea what you’re imagining. And without the name of the media, I don’t know what the basis of this is.

The reservation history of this time period seems to maybe have some wiggle room; there were two reservations allocated for the Ute at this time, one made in 1861 and another made in 1882 (they were combined into the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in 1886). This is all at the surface level of a google and wikipedia search, so I have no idea how many lived in the bush and how many lived on the reserve. 

There were certainly land defenders trying to tell Utah the land did not belong to them, so holdouts that avoided getting rounded up were certainly possible. But these holdouts would be far, far more hostile to anyone non-Native.

The Ute seemed to be some degree of lucky in that the reserve is on some of their ancestral territory, but any loss of land that large is going to leave huge scars. 

It should be noted that reserves would mean the traditional clothing and housing would likely be forbidden, because assimilation logic was in full force and absolutely vicious at this time. 

It’s a large reserve, so the possibility exists they could have accidentally ended up within the borders of it. I’m not sure how hostile the state government was for rounding up all the Ute, so I don’t know if there would have been pockets of them hiding out. In present day, half of the Ute tribe lives on the reserve, but this wasn’t necessarily true historically—it could have been a much higher percentage in either direction.

It’s up to you if you want to make them be reservation-bound or not. Regardless, the above mentioned genocide would have been pretty fresh, the land theft in negotiations or already having happened, and generally, the Ute would be well on their way to every assimilation attempt made from either residential schools, missionaries, and/or the forced settlement and pre-fab homes.

To Answer Your Question

I don’t want another flattened, sanitized portrayal of genocide.

Look at the number of dead above, the amount of land lost above, the amount of executive orders above. And try to tell me that these people would be anything less than completely and totally devastated. Beyond traumatized. Beyond broken hearted. Absolutely grief stricken with almost no soul left.

Their religion would have been illegal. Their children would have been stolen. Their land was taken away. A saying about post-apocalyptic fiction is how settler-based it is, because Indigenous people have already lived through their own apocalypse.

It would have all just happened at the time period this story is set in. All of the grief you feel now at the environment changing so drastically that you aren’t sure how you’ll survive? Take that, magnify it by an exponential amount because it happened, and you have the mindset of these Native characters.

This is not a topic to tread lightly. This is not a topic to read one masterpost and treat it as a golden rule when there is too much history buried in unmarked, overfull graves of school grounds and cities and battlefields. I doubt the movie you’re using is good representation if it doesn’t even hint at the amount of trauma these Native characters would have been through in thirty years.

A single generation, and the life that they had spent millennia living was gone. Despite massive losses of life trying to fight to preserve their culture and land.

Learn some history. That’s all I can tell you. Learn it, process it, and look outside of checklists. Look outside of media. 

And let us have our grief.

~ Mod Lesya

On Question Framing

Please allow me the opportunity to comment on “are there things you'd LIKE to see in a movie where a white man and a Jewish man run into Native Americans in the 1880s?” That strikes me as the same type of question as asking what color food I’d like for lunch. I don’t see how the cultural backgrounds of characters I have literally no other information about is supposed to make me want anything in particular about them. I don’t know anything about their personalities or if they have anything in common.

Compare the following questions:

“Are there things you’d like to see in a movie where two American women, one from a Nordic background and one Jewish, are interacting?” I struggle to see how our backgrounds are going to yield any further inspiration. It certainly doesn’t tell you that we’re both queer and cling to each other’s support in a scary world; it doesn’t tell you that we uplift each other through mental illness; it doesn’t go into our 30 years of endless bizarre inside jokes related to everything from mustelids to bad subtitles.

Because: “white”, “Jewish”, and “Native American” aren’t personality words. You can ask me what kind of interaction I’d like to see from a high-strung overachieving woman and a happy-go-lucky Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and I’ll tell you I’d want fluffy f/f romance. Someone else might want conflict ultimately resolving in friendship. A third person might want them slowly getting on each other’s nerves more and more until one becomes a supervillain and the other must thwart her. But the same question about a cultural demographic? That told me nothing about the people involved.

Also, the first time I meet a new person from a very different culture, it might take weeks before discussion of our specific cultural differences comes up. As a consequence, my first deep conversations with a Costa Rican American gentile friend were not about Costa Rica or my Jewishness but about things we had in common: classical music and coping with breakups--which are obviously conversations I could have had if we were both Jewish, both Costa Rican gentiles, or both something else. So in other words, I’m having trouble seeing how knowing so little about these characters is supposed to give me something to want to see on the page.

Thank you for understanding.

(And yes, I agree with Lesya, what’s with this trend of people trying to explain their fandom in a roundabout way instead of mentioning it by name? It makes it harder to give meaningful help….)

--Shira

[scarfacemarston]

What are your favorite books or historically accurate resources on the wild west? What about on working girls from that era? Thanks!

Documentaries are a good place to start for those who don’t like to read. Ken Burns has a good one. There is an old US history show called “Wild West Tech”. Some of the episodes are on youtube. It’s not just tech, though. I’ve read over 80 books and articles so I’ll just do a few of the books. There are “two types” - Popular history is history written for a wide audience in mind. They assume that readers have some understanding of history. They are mostly good books to read. but make sur e to read reviews carefully since they are not peer reviewed. Academic books are books that are usually published my university presses. They can more difficult to read, but not always.  Just be prepared for the information to be almost overwhelming at times, have more advanced language and complex grammar. (Which is not always a good thing. Trust me, many of us hate these type of books.) So it just depends on the book again! I’ll order it from easy to harder reads. Academic articles are a bitch to read so I won’t include it unless requested.

Boudoirs to Brothels: The Intimate World of Wild West Women by Michael Rutter - This is probably the easiest and least intimidating read. 

Upstairs Girls: Prostitution in the American West by Michael Rutter - more Academic minded, but still an easy approachable style

Getting more academic minded - but still easy. Wanton West: Madams, Money, Murder, and the Wild Women of Montana's Frontier by Lael Morgan. Each chapter is like a story. It can be hard to keep track of everyone and I did struggle to verify a few of her sources. Still a good read. She doesn’t pull any punches. All of the books talk about the dark side of prostitution, but this one seriously dives into it.

Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West (Women of the West) By Anne Seagraves. Very respected book considered one of the most important reads for those interested in Sex work history. I find the book dry. 

Brothels, Bordellos, and Bad Girls: Prostitution in Colorado, 1860-1930 by Jan MacKell  These next few are some of the most imporant books. Jan MacKell is THE brothel histoian and no one has written more than her. This is probably the easiest book to read of her series. She has books about other states, too. I used this one in my paper a lot. My recommendation is to start here.

Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West, 1865-90 by Anne M. Buttler Another respected book that I used heavily. Focuses on the second sex work “Boom” when sex workers were still so prevelant. Not intimidating, but some may struggle with it. This is Grimshaw, John’s mother  and later Abigail’s era. Some could describe it as dry, but I like it.

The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900-1918 by Ruth Rosen. This book focuses upon the end of sex work in the United States due to “Morality” Temperance Movement minded laws.  A little tougher read, but lots of good info about the end of sex work as the “wild west” knew it. This is seen in RDR 1.

Historical Sex Work: New Contributions from History and Archaeology by Kristen R. Fellows, Angela J. Smith, Anna M. Munns I LOVE this book. Archaeology is where we get a lot of our info about the sex workers themselves because there aren’t a lot of records about them from their p.o.v. Love Love Love this book.Very expensive, but can be read online for free, especially if you have a university library account. (Local universities will usually allow you to check books out too.) I learned so much from this book and I hope I can do something similar. Literally writes about everything you could think of from how children were treated, the girl’s beauty or medical products, what they ate, etc.

The Archaeology of Prostitution and Clandestine Pursuits by  Rebecca Yamin and Donna J. Seifert. Also a good book but a more challenging read. It focuses on sex work and gambling around the U.S. through its long history. Also expensive so either check the book out at a library or find it online to read.

Red Light Women of the Rocky Mountains by Jan MacKell. Again, the top historian of sex work. This would be seen more on tons of kindle versions or at used book shop. The largest book in this list, but if you have any questions ever - this book will probably answer it. Very good academic read.

Uneasy Virtue: The Politics of Prostitution and the American Reform Tradition by Barbara Meil Hobson. Not an easy read. I had to work to concentrate, but they talk a lot about court cases and religion and how the two basically ended sex work. The girls are painted as someone to be repulsed by, but also needing “rescuing”. This is not the author’s opinion - but she explains the mind set. Lots of good data. 

[crispy-ghee]

Hello! Firstly I just wanna say I love your work, both your own personal drawings and stories, as well as the collaboration pieces with Isei. I was just wondering what your process was for your building of your Yautja clans?? I wanted to try my hand at making my own, so I was wondering what pointers you may have.

Hi! Thanks so much for the kind words, it actually makes me really happy that anyone is enjoying the stuff I enjoy making. Worldbuilding can be a lot of fun, and awesome that you're gonna try your hand at it!

I have a lot of thoughts on worldbuilding, and to be honest my approach varies here and there depending on what I'm making or writing, but I'll see if I can't gather my general thoughts into something more succinct instead of going off on a long ramble haha

STARTING INFO

When you're worldbuilding for a pre-existing IP, it's good to keep in mind the stuff you already know about the race/species. This seems really obvious, and imo you can mess around in and out of canon if you want bc it's your clan and you should have fun first and foremost, but it's something to consider.

(But also keep in mind that this isn't something you necessarily have to think about right away, it can come later in your process, but I'm just mentioning it here.)

With Yautja, there's the physical aspects that make them distinct (mandibles, crest, reptilian/mammalian, tendrils, claws, tall on average, tend towards warmer climates, strong, etc) and what we've seen of them culturally (glory/trophy hunters, honor code, matriarchal, etc etc). The cool thing though is that when you're coming up with a hook for your clan, you can either choose to follow these rules, or you could find something interesting in subverting them.

What if it's a clan of smaller yautja? What if these live in the cold? What if their clan doesn't give a shit about hunting? etc etc

Speaking about Hooks...

The Hook is just sort of a jumping off point where you can start building your clan out of. It doesn't necessarily have to be a hook for the audience, and it might even change or be discarded as you go along writing, but it's always good to have a place to start.

Hooks can honestly be anything and inspired from anywhere. I'm going to be honest that most of the time I don't really go searching for hooks, they're moments of inspiration that kickstart stuff. They're usually what causes the worldbuilding.

A lot of that (and a lot of worldbuilding, actually) is actually input. Being curious and learning things, consuming things, etc etc. Expanding your visual/mental library. It's not something that i do purposefully, necessarily. It comes from stuff I've read about, movies and documentaries I've watched, some tweet I saw, a picture on my dashboard, a wikipedia article I stumbled into somehow, a story a friend told, so on and so forth.

That being said, you can totally find a hook if you just ask yourself the right questions.

But the things that can be hooks, like I said, can vary greatly. It could be an idea you had out of nowhere, a novel question, a theme you want to explore, a cool image you saw, a costume you wanna try out, anything! For example:

Maybe you already have a character that you designed that you want to build the clan around. The character can totally be the hook. What are things about the character that might hint at what society they grew up in? Do they have a specific attitude? Quirk? Is there something about their appearance? The clothes they wear, the way their tendrils look, their coloration?

Maybe you saw a location that was really neat! What if Yautja lived in a place like that?

This clan is stealthy!

This clan likes animals!

This clan makes art that looks like _______.

This clan engages in a lot of warfare.

I liked this idea touched upon in a predator comic I read, can i expand on that?

What if a Yautja did Basejumping?

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

Brainstorming! Ask lots of Questions!

I ask a lot of "why" and "how" after I figure out my hook (or hookS). It's an easy way to get stuff kickstarted.

How do they do that? Why do they do that? Is it ritual? Is it something else? Is it based on their history? On their environment? On their Lore? On their social structure?

And then just keep asking why after you answer that question, and then you'll have a pretty good foundation that you can maybe mess with or discard or change completely or use for an even better idea.

Like...lemme use the "Yautja Basejumper" as an example.

Why would this Yautja base-jump? Is it for a practical reason, like it helps them hunt a specific animal? Is it for a ritual reason? Is it for the thrill? Is it to prove themselves?

How do they do it? Do they use high tech to do it, or is it low tech? If it's low tech, what materials do they make their parachutes or gliders out of? In human base-jumping, what tools do they use, and how can I translate that into Yautja maybe? Or is it a completely different approach?

Do they basejump off of mountains? Is it something they do because they live in the mountains? Or is it maybe something they have to travel to a specific place to go do? What is this place? Why do they go there? Is it for a spiritual reason? Coming of age? Is the place itself significant? Does this have something to do with their history, or a legend that they have?

If base jumping is important, how does this affect what they find attractive or cool? Do they like really tenacious yautja? Is being more aerodynamic a boon? Would the wear anything specific for the act, bits of decoration? Is there an animal they want to look like?

So let's say just going through those questions, and asking myself why and how and other questions from that intial hook and then the answers I gave. Here's a (very very very rough) potential initial thought:

This Yautja clan base-jumps as a coming-of-age ritual. They live at the foot of a tall mountain, and young hunters climb to the top to prove their courage and tenacity. Part of the ritual is making your own glider--and if your glider doesn't hold up because you rushed it, then you get really hurt or die, and that's your own fucking fault. They're doing it to mimic large flying animals that once-upon-a-time roosted on that mountain but don't exist anymore, which had cultural/mythical significance to them. Maybe their ancestors used to ride them. This clan are able to fight in flight, unlike many other Yautja.

And then you can build off of that or change it, do research and look stuff up related to it to see if you can add more stuff, keep asking more questions about the things you decided on, etc.

Forever and ever and ever.............

Anyway, that's my worldbuilding approach, haha. It's basically "learn a lot of stuff, ask a lot of questions."

I don't know if that was helpful at all, but there ya go!

[ackerfics]

hi, rory! <3 what majors would the sc veterans take if they were in the modern world?

hi, anon !! thank you so much for this ask, this is heaven in disguise from all my schoolwork. tbh, the whole time i was working for a lab report, my mind will go back to this ask bc i wanted to have the association as accurate as possible hhhajshw

i asked one of my friends for help and thank God for them bc my single brain cell really said 'it's time for you to rest' after staring at one backlog. without further ado, here are the veterans' majors if they're studying in university:

first off, hange zoe, because if you ask me this question in real life, they would be the only one i can answer. every damn time i would think of them in a college setting, being a biology major is really hange's forte. at this point, this is what everyone would associate them with.

hange is all about experimenting and doing brilliant breakthroughs in any field of science but knowing that they have this unparalleled fascination with the unusual and unexpected life-forms (ahem titans ahem), the biology lab would be the surest place where you could find hange. i feel like biology is too broad so i will add that microbiology or bacteriology are just some of the specializations they will be taking in their time in college.

imagine, being lab partners with hange and immediately knowing that you will have one of the highest grades in the class because they're that well-versed in a specific lab report. and if you're partners with them for the rest of the academic year, you might as well have a shot at an immaculate grade. i'm not saying that you should depend on them too much though hHHHH, hange is still a member of the majority of the student body who relies heavily on caffeine to keep them invigorated. who isn't at this point?

so far, some of the biology majors that i encountered (well, more like chatted behind a screen — online classes suck), they have this energy that could drain my social battery too quickly and hange fits that description. (note that this doesn't apply to any college bc i observed this in mine soooo 🤭) they're the type to always go on a tangent on a certain science article or coerce you into joining this org thing. i can imagine levi just looking at hange like they're the one sucking his brain cells out whenever they speak about a documentary in bbc they watched the night before.

and if you're stuck on anything biology-related, hange will be the best person to ask help from. they're the first ray of sunlight you get while waking up. they're that approachable.

okay, so erwin smith.

don't come at me but he just radiates this ceo vibes and with that, one of his probably majors is business administration. i know this is so stereotypical of me but let's face it, erwin is a smooth talker through and through and if he doesn't take up marketing, business is one way to spend his college years. knowing his personality in attack on titan of establishing deals easily with a determined resolve, he fits the broadest description of being a business administration major. (again, don't come at me because my consultant for this statement is google and nobody comes after google sometimes hhhhh)

just for the benefit of myself, i will add what google says about this major, "[they] learn the mechanics of business through classes in fundamentals, such as finance, accounting and marketing ... students find ways to solve problems using data and they develop communication and managerial skills." and i thank you.

he's also probably the most well-spoken and most professional when conversing with others among his friends (and i'm not saying this to drag the other characters but this is what i pick up on) and that is exactly the qualities his major specializes. it is expected for them to strike deals and be a people person and who better character for the job than our very own erwin smith 🤩

now i mentioned 'one of the probable majors' and yes, aside from business administration, philosophy just exudes erwin smith. ngl, when i imagined erwin in a college setting, this major will always come first. his mind is just so sexy to me??? and i hope you guys think the same, too, because i don't want to be the only one who thinks that 👀 kidding aside, erwin is one of the smartest people in attack on titan and every time he speaks in one episode, my brain will instantly go mush, and that's what i feel when i hear philosophy majors talk.

philosophy majors (according to any other youtuber who does lookbooks for various majors hhhhhh) challenge what is unanswerable and analyze questions with no right answer. i feel like erwin, like hange, will talk all night to explain a theory. just imagine a date with him and you just listen to him rant about a topic that they should be making a report on. just listen to this man, okay?? it's adorable when he lets his guard down to include you in his little bubble of philosophies. he would also mention random things that he learned in classes, sometimes finding joy in knowing the philosophies of other people, or even deciphering levi's dream of an apocalyptic world. (it pisses levi off but he just leave him be.)

if you want a man who can do both of these majors, erwin smith is the answer 😉

sigh, mike zacharias.

this man holds so many talents and will forever amaze me.

i assume all of us here watched the movie perfume. and no, i'm not saying that mike is going to be a murderer but just like the main character of that film, making perfumes will be his forte with that sense of smell of his. and here, i conclude that mike will definitely take up chemical engineering.

he gives me the vibes that if it covers the one thing he does best, he will love his major. (mr. zacharias, can you please spare me that quality because i really need that now 😩) being in the labs while experimenting mundane things that can be found in the environment to create different scents is also a likely situation you can find him in, again, very much like hange. he's the type of student who really puts so much effort in staying afloat the honors list, even to the point of topping midterms in his major, for the sake of his dream. there will never be a moment where you will catch him complain about his major and professors.

he's that type of friend in college who agrees to any rant you say but in reality, he's got his life easy 😭

i headcanon mike owning a perfume shop after college just like how levi always dreamed of having a tea shop.

okay, imagine this little scenario if you're dating mike where he creates this unique perfumes as random gifts for you. they're not the typical perfumes that can seep through the room and can make you gag for no reason, they're subtle scents that will stay for the duration of the day. because again, he's got a sensitive nose, so making perfumes according to what his sense of smell dictates will always result in a revolutionary experiment. if you're randomly blurting out that you want a fusion of flowers and fruits as your perfume, say no more, he's your man.

now, the veteran who i find the hardest to associate a major with — levi ackerman.

after much deliberation and a break from plant physiology, i see him taking up law or criminology.

(i asked some of this from my mom because she attended law school :>>>)

levi is so organized and detailed in the things that he do and he fits in either of these majors since they require tedious memorizations and analysis of laws and crime scenes while being assertive enough to defend someone. he's the typical person who blurts out the true situation of a crime scene when watching film adaptations. yeah, he's that person, the one who sucks the enthusiasm out of you while watching a movie because he just had to correct some of the scenes. nevertheless, he means well though, he just wanted you to understand the reality unlike how films portray gruesome murders. movie nights always end up with levi ranting about half-assed mystery clichés.

levi's binder of readings are always too bright for everyone's good. his notes are full of highlighters and scribbles that it can blind someone. for one, he's always up all night studying his readings and cases for a practice court so by choosing neon highlighters, it's a way for him to wake up. there isn't one book in his possession that he doesn't highlight like it's a fricking coloring book. hange once jokingly said that his binder now acts like his bible and for once, he agrees because he was never seen without one. hange had a field day since levi never agrees with them.

when doing practice courts though, his go-to resting bitch face always come in handy when carrying out his role as one of the lawyers. he's just so sexy with his hands in the pockets of his slacks as he tries to justify his supposed client. the way he questions the accused definitely isn't hot because he's like one of the panelists in your thesis defense, the one who just comes up with questions that have you melting on the spot. he's dangerous i tell you. it also doesn't help if you accidentally hurt one of his friends or just landed randomly in his blacklist for being annoying as hell. relax though, he doesn't mean harm other than the fact that he's ready to throw some hands from all the pent-up rage he gathered in his body.

of course, i couldn't forget how he dresses up like a typical dark academia fanatic so look out for eye-candy.

if you want someone who can recite articles from the constitution, this man is perfect for you 😌

i had so much fun doing this !! again, i'm not generalizing every major i've talked about in these little headcanons, this is all for fun and based on the people i encountered in college. if you want more of this, don't hesitate to ask !! 😚

[enter-the-phantom]

TW: true crime

I’m sure this is the post that will finally get me cancelled, but I’m gonna make it anyway because I’ve seen way too much of this and someone’s gotta say something. It’s been weighing really heavily on me and I don’t feel right staying quiet about it.

Please stop pushing the “Eddie Munson is based off Damien Echols, a real-life teen who was falsely accused of murder due to the Satanic Panic!” myth.

I don’t know if the Duffer brothers based Eddie off of Echols or not. I’m not disputing that part of this new posting fad—the truth is that a lot of people during the 80’s and early 90’s were accused of a lot of things they did not do, and Eddie could be based on any one of them. What I am disputing is this particular comparison to this particular crime.

I’m not going to start debating people on the WM3 because I know how social media debates usually go, and this case always brings out the really passionate defenders. But please, for the love of god, don’t start spreading irresponsible half-truths and recommending highly biased documentaries about a real-life tragedy because it makes you feel soft about a fictional character. I am seeing way too many people online posting about the WM3 case because of Eddie Munson, when they haven’t done the tiniest bit of actual research into the case against the Three and Echols in particular. There is already so much misinformation and court of public opinion lies out there about this case, we don’t need more being spread by people who read a Buzzfeed article or watched Paradise Lost once and now consider themselves experts.

Please don’t compare Eddie Munson, a sweet and gentle soul, to Damien Echols, a real person who routinely stalked and terrorised teenage girls, had multiple stalking and assault charges against him, and mocked the parents of three mutilated 8-year old boys in the courtroom while he was on trial for their murder. Eddie Munson is not Damien Echols.

As someone who’s been studying the Satanic Panic and the 1980’s social climate in general for years, I’m excited to see interest in the topic being popularised. The Satanic Panic (and the McMartin Scandal in particular—rest in power, Bernard Baran) has a lot of relevance nowadays and it’s important that we study it, but it’s also important that we not spread misinformation about people who are still profiting off of heinous crimes just because we like a character they’re tangentially related to.

Just in general, stop posting about things you haven’t done actual research on just because someone on the internet said “this character is based off of this real person”. Please do your research (actual good research, using primary sources!), and if you don’t want to do that, don’t post about it.

Off my soapbox now.

[rockyp77mk3]

The new James Bond movie is about to come out and I am reading a lot of negativity about the character. So many articles are written about how offensive Bond is. How anti woman and intolerant he is. Some are saying it is time to retire the franchise.

Thank you for the question.

I've seen some of that myself. There seems to be a pop culture bias against strong male leads right now. Not just in the JB franchise but in a lot of what passes for entertainment these days, SyFy channel, Disney, Amazon, etc all tend shy away from strong male characters.

Movie tradecraft aside because face it, James Bond films are not documentaries on real espionage any more than the "A-Team" is a training film on small unit tactics, James Bond is an apex mid-century man. He is capable, employed, has mad skills some of which are firearm based. He is patriotic and has a sense of duty and a sense of humor. Bond is confident, cool under fire and has a definite attraction for the opposite sex. He has distinctive taste in clothing, food and drink. In short he enjoys his life and does not seek the permission or acceptance of others to do so. All of these listed qualities are either missing or suppressed in the ideal modern male as dictated by the pernicious PC crowd.

I don't think that the Bond character is particularly intolerant. I do think that he has limits to that tolerance or perhaps boundaries that none may cross. You are not rude to a waitress, you do not plant a bomb in SIS HQ, you don't try to destroy Western civilization. Really he seems pretty flexible otherwise.

Oh, and I am reasonably certain that the Bond character does not dislike women in the least. I think pop culture's main objection to Bond is that if he really existed they would not be able to control him and bend him to their will.

I think that if the Bond franchise ends it will be because the filmmakers will have the character stray too far away from that mid-century apex model toward the soy side, and if they do that it should end.