#like... the misogyny & racism &ableism were Strong

[theophagie-remade]

English translation of Questo mondo non mi renderà cattivo/This world can't tear me down's opening song:

Seafarers who go

Wherever they want, but not here¹

To steal my job in this jungle

And crushing my dream, which was to

open a bangla²

A bangla

It's fine if you remain here

But come on, stop talking to me about dignity

We bury waste where flowers grow³

(You're paid) €1.50 an hour and then you die⁴

But (do it) outside

Go die out there, 'cause here you're

You're in a wonderful country

This is a wonderful country

Wonderful

Wonderful

Seafarers who go

Wherever they want, but not here

To steal my job in this jungle

And crushing my dream of opening a bangla

A bangla

It's fine if you remain here

If you're running from a war, sure, but it must be a truly major one⁵

Nobody gives a damn about your shitty degree

It's just that your skin tone's a little too dark⁶

Dark for this place, for you're

You're in a wonderful country

This is a wonderful country

Wonderful

Bridges collapse⁷, ships sink⁸

But come on, it's all wonderful, as long as it doesn't happen to you

Students die, ministers speak⁹

This flavour of evil, can't you taste it too?¹⁰

This flavour of evil, can't you taste it too?

Factories explode¹¹, houses collapse¹²

But come on, it's all wonderful, as long as it doesn't happen to you

Rights die, ministers applaud¹³

This flavour of evil, can't you taste it too?

This flavour of evil, can't you taste it too?

Can't you taste it too?

1: Reference to Umberto Tozzi and Raf's 1987 song Gente di Mare ("Seafarers"). Most "illegal" immigrants reach Italy by sea through boats or rafts

2: Slang term for a mini-market owned by south asian immigrants. Also, "they steal our jobs", opposition to immigration 101 all across the board

3: Illegal waste burial is a really common practice in Italy

4: Exploitation of immigrants and their labour

5: Although anti-refugees sentiment is still strong, undeniably ukrainian refugees are more easily "accepted" than others due to both racism and to how close the russo-ukranian war is to Italy itself

6: Although this happened too recently for it to have been the inspiration for this line (which nevertheless expresses a commonly held belief), it should be known that just last May three ghanaian collaborators of Lesley Lokko who were supposed to be with her for the Venice Biennale cultural exhibition were denied entry into Itay. While details weren't made public, Lokko was allegedly accused of trying to bring "non-essential young men" into the country

7: Reference to the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in 2018. 43 people lost their lives

8: Reference to the Costa Concordia disaster of 2012. 33 people lost their lives

9: Suicides are becoming ever more common for a number of reasons, especially among university students. Giuseppe Valditara, the current Minister of Education, maintains that humiliation is a "factor for growth"

10: Likely a reference to Gino Paoli's 1956 song Sapore di sale ("Flavour of salt / Salty flavour")

11: Possibly a reference to the explosion of the Thyssenkrupp steel mill in Turin, 2007. It may be a broader allusion to workplace accidents and death. 2022 alone saw 1090 victims

12: Illegal construction is extremely common. Just last November 12 people died in Ischia due to a landslide. Hydrogeological instability is overall high in all of Italy

13: Amongst its objectives, the draft bill Ddl Zan aimed to criminalise hate crimes specifically motivated by homotransphobia, misogyny, and ableism. The Senate "killed" it on 27/10/2021, with the cheering and clapping of its detractors

[autolenaphilia]

Misandry is not real: Part 4 (i think, whatever)

The analysis on the transunity blog is absolutely nonsensical. And them unironically believing in misandry is a major part of it. Well I have to give them props for being honest and outright saying the word "misandry". Other misandry truthers like genderkoolaid use cutesy neologisms like "anti-masculism". This text is still awful though, and very mealy-mouthed and confused about what it actually claims.

The reason transunity using the word "misandry" is remarkable is because the term originated among the antifeminist men's rights movement which denied patriarchy was real and argued instead men were systematically oppressed by society, which they called misandry.

Of course transunity is trying to spread this term among progressive tumblr folks, so they soften the term. they only describe "the experiences of men affected by a disdain for, or hatred of men." Of course this is how the blog and much of tumblr understands oppression in general, as individual acts of aggression. There is no systemic understanding of oppression, how it creates an underclass out of an marginalized group of people. So this softening of the term actually places misandry on an equal plane with actual oppression.

The posts add the caveat that "In cis society, misandry isn’t systemic." Yet this caveat is dubious in itself, as it reveals a weak understanding of systemic oppression. And it of course starts to be undermined in the following sentences.

"But it is common nonetheless. Misandry becomes more damaging if someone is marginalised alongside being a man." I'm tempted to add that everything before the but is a lie. The article starts treating "misandry" as if it's some intersecting oppression alongside other oppressions. One that apparently even non-marginalised men can experience, by implication.

The two examples the post gives are "the defecit (sic) in mental health support or DV shelters for men." The lack of mental health care being a male specific problem is laughable. They may have a point about domestic violence shelters for men, but that's a very old MRA/anti-feminist talking point.. The MRAs never build them and instead starts relativizing domestic violence by arguing the violence shows a "gender symmetry".

And while the article claims it's not systemic in "cis society", it's apparently part of transphobia. It's one of the three tools of transphobia, so it's apparently an integral part. "when misandry is mentioned on this blog it has a strong trans context attached to it. Applying this to cis dynamics doesn’t work" the writer agues.

Yet this relies on a separation between cis society and trans people that doesn't make sense at all. We trans people live in a cis-dominated and cisnormative society, that's the problem. Trans people might make trans subcultures, "trans contexts", but those are always trapped in cis dynamics. That's why transphobia exists, and it's systemic. So no, you can't claim misandry isn't systemic in cis society and yet claim it's an integral part of the systemic oppression of transphobia, it's a contradictionary position. Any analysis of transphobia can't be separated from cis society. Either transphobia isn't systemic (which it obviously is) or misandry isn't, which is also obviously true.

Now men can be oppressed, but it's never for being men. Men can be affected by racism, ableism, class, homophobia and transphobia and so on. But it isn't made worse by them being men (in fact being male is a privilege), which any comparison between men and women prove. It can often take different forms from the same oppression aimed at women, but that's the absence of misogyny, not the presence of any mythical misandry. (as another person's tumblr post more or less put it but which i can't find now because tumblr's search system is garbage).

Of course, what really got me going here is the vile suggestion that the rote cause of transfem's oppression is misandry, which this article engages in. "For trans women, terfs may apply misandry in a way which misgenders them and uses trans women’s agab against them." Actually fuck you, this is transmisogyny. Calling trans women men is textbook transmisogyny, not misandry. It's the most shallow form of analysis, to go "that terf called a trans woman a man, that means this is actually misandry, i'm so smart." It's looking at the rhetoric transmisogynists uses, and not analyzing the underlying systemic causes.

"midandry (sic) is based on how the transphobes perceive trans people. Not how the trans people actually identify." Actually you are just perpetuating that misgendering, fuck you.

In reality, transmisogyny is a systemic oppression that makes transfems into an underclass, an oppression that men benefit from. For the misandry analysis of our oppression to make sense, it would mean men are part of that underclasss, which they aren't. Misgendering us as men is part of transmisogyny, but our oppression is far broader than misgendering rhetoric.

Sure they call us "men", but it's just hurtful rhetoric. If they actually treated us as men, our position would be a lot different. They may talk about transfems being violent and male, but it's not rooted in any kind of hatred towards men and their violence. In fact it's to justify male violence towards us. In terf rhetoric a trans woman using a woman's bathroom is "male violence", a male cop using violence against her is not.

Transunity says that misandry is "punishment for proximity to masculinity." And tries to understand transmisogyny through that lens. But in fact, transmisogyny is if anything the opposite. Being transfem usually entails rejecting manhood and/or masculinity and embracing womanhood and/or femininity. This is not universal, butch women may not reject masculinity and embrace femininity, NB transfems may not embrace womanhood. But this is how transfemininity is seen.

And in a society that hates women and what's associated with them, that's the ultimate sin. Trans women being assigned male at birth and rejecting in favour of being women challenges the misogyny of patriarchal ideology.

Calling transfems men is a form of violently reassigning us to the gender we have rejected. It's that rejection of maleness that inspires the misgendering, the repeated insistence on a supposed objective reality of our maleness. It's punishment for rejecting masculinity and maleness, rather than the opposite.

The stated purpose of the transunity blog is to promote as the name implies, unity among trans people. A noble-sounding goal. The problem is that it's terrible at doing that. You are not going to get many trans women in your unity movement by trying to rehabilitate anti-feminist concept of misandry. And you are not going to do that by misgendering transfems by taking transmisogynist rhetoric at face value, and attributing to misandry what is actually transmisogyny.

[weebsinstash]

"If you're so successful and happy why do you feel the need to do this"

I'll throw you a bone bestie

Because it's genuinely hilarious and cathartic

I don't feel the "need" to do it, I just think it's funny to dunk on people who suck in various ways. Like yourself. Like ngl when I stumbled across your blog at first, seeing how horrible and loserish of a person you were simultaneously disgusted me so much and made me laugh so much. If someone is a loser but a good person, you feel bad for them and want to leave them alone or even help them. If someone is a bad person but isn't a loser, you have nothing to cringe at or look down on them for since they're doing better than you. But being a loser AND a bad person is like, you're the funniest person ever to get a rise out of and also you set off a disgust response that makes people want to give you shit. People don't pity you for your loserish life because you're an asshole, so we view you as undeserving of pity. That's why people like you, i.e. loser + a bad person, get shit online. Look at boogie2988, Chris Chan, Yandere Dev etc. for other examples of people like you. You'd get along with Yandere dev btw he's also a creep who likes rape porn :)

You've given me SO many laughs over the past year after I was stressed from studying for a tough exam, a busy week at work or other things in my life. This whole experience has been nothing but positive for me tbh. Sounds weird but my life and mental health have actually gotten a lot better. I can be resilient now for people who need me to be strong for them without getting stressed myself and people appreciate that. I've helped people through tough times because my stress level is lower and I can be zen about things I normally wouldn't be

All of this is literally just entertaining. I'm not trying to do anything or fight for a cause. It's just funny and cathartic to me. Seeing everyone in your degenerate rape porn community get bent out of shape over ridiculous and hilarious spam like "bitch lasagna" and shitty photoshopped porn. Maybe I have a weird sense of humor or something but whoever told you people only troll others if they have miserable unsuccessful lonely lives lied to you to make you feel better. It's genuinely just fun especially for people like you who give big dramatic reactions to things most of the time. Like this whole calling the police thing over me "going to your house" and being so goddamned confident I'm about to get arrested 😂 this type of shit is why I continue and you constantly insulting me makes me want to do it more and also not feel bad about it because you deserve it. I can troll people who suck and it's guilt-free fun. Like trolling a child predator, you don't feel bad about it yknow, it's just funny. It's just for kicks.

You know whats actually so embarrassing

When I initially said the whole karma works in reverse for you, I was talking about being ditched by your family, and your hysterical ass thought I was talking about your assault. You misinterpreted what I even said and used it as your excuse to act like a histrionic freak for almost a full year

You have literally done nothing but prove my point that you are an objectively shit person, and anyone who would be friends with you is probably a subhuman enabler and also a compulsive liar much like yourself. You use your alleged assault to cry victim and use it to harass other people. You cry victim blaming but then spout blatant ableism, misogyny, transphobia, and racism more than once. You have typical White Woman Feminism, screaming and whining that you aren't a slut but calling everyone else whores for having kinks you don't like

You're sitting here further incriminating yourself, writing so many paragraphs I'm not even reading them all, spending hours and hours and hours. I'm at work making a living supporting my family and you're at home, on your phone, for hours. When do you even sleep lmao. Homie you literally lied pretending to be a teenager, you could lie about anything. Does writing fanfiction about having a partner help heal the wounds from knowing you did something stupid and got thrown away like a used tissue

It was something with a dog, wasn't it? I know your types. You need attention from literally wherever you can get it. That's why you don't even care if everyone is screaming at you, you just need acknowledgment. This is such stereotypical neglected child behavior and you're so bitter and angry you're barely even coherent

Go dye your hair blue and attend a republican rally since you share their politics. I'll at least have the peace knowing I've never been so obsessed with a complete stranger I have to obsessively keep checking if they've replied to me. That's shit MIDDLE SCHOOLERS DO, but oh no, you're allegedly so successful and intelligent 😂 so successful and intelligent you're acting like a QAnon 4channer for entertainment on Christmas. Hey guys the person who spent literally hours and hours on both Chrisrmas Eve and Christmas wants us to believe they have a partner. Who wants to call cap?

[keytoyourhearts]

Review of Novice Dragoneer by E.E. Knight (2019), 1st book of the Dragoneer Academy series, sequel spin-off of the Age of Fire series

SYNOPSIS:

Ileth, an orphan girl with a stutter, dreams of becoming a dragoneer after a chance meeting with one as a child.  At fourteen, she leaves her orphan’s home to join the ranks of the Serpentine as a novice dragoneer, to climb the ranks of the “academy” to even have a chance at working with the dragons she so idolizes.  She faces many challenges, but ultimately, hard work and an incredible amount of luck lifts her into the saddle.

See my full review and rating below the cut!

RATING: 1/5 STARS

MY THOUGHTS:

The Novice Dragoneer is your average dragon-riding academy novel (minus the dragons and the classes) rife with misogyny, ableism, and choppy prose.  Unfortunately, it is unlikely that I will continue this series, nor will I be compelled to pick up another book by E.E. Knight any time soon, but to each their own.  If you are interested in this one, read the Goodreads synopsis instead, it covers about 75% of the plot.

TAGS: fantasy, young adult, dragons, dragon-riding academy, coming of age

CW: misogyny, sexism, ableism, racism, mentions of SA, dubious consent, slut-shaming, fatphobia

RECOMMENDATION: While this is not my cup of tea, and you may need more determination than Ileth to make it through, I would recommend this series to anyone who would enjoy reading about a girl who overcomes literally all odds (her disability; her gender; the circumstances of her birth; the demonization of sex work- I mean, dragon dancing; etc.) to achieve her dreams.

THE GOOD:

Ileth was a strong, female character, who was interesting enough to fail time and time again and keep pushing through.  If she were in literally any other book, I bet she would become a favorite of mine.

The story was fine enough to keep me entertained, and most of the conflicts were resolved by the end.  The ending had a twist I did not see coming, but I have not read the original series, nor was I aware it existed at the time.  Overall, it satisfied an itch for something familiar, as long as you can look past some of the gross, sexist bits.

THE BAD:

As soon as I started reading, the prose stuttered my reading to crawl.  It was choppy, with too many commas and/or short sentences.  It took a few chapters to get acquainted with it, but I stopped noticing it eventually.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again: the misogyny in this novel is heavy-handed and completely over the top.  Ileth’s character faces so many conflicts that knock her down that using a systemic one to force her down over and over felt unnecessary, cliché, and really antiquated.  This is a world where dragons exist, why is it so unbelievable that sexism does not need to?  Even the dragons themselves are sexist!  Also, if this society hates women so much, why did they let them into the dragoneer academy in the first place?

The villains of the story were so easy to pick out, as they were the most ableist, misogynistic, and predatory.  At one point, another country is introduced only to be MORE misogynistic just to prove that the original is not that bad.

At one point, Ileth was nearly taken advantage of by an older novice and is punished for it by being reassigned to a job where she was told that she was more likely to be taken advantage of by even older men.  I did not quite understand the thought process here.  (Also, the purity culture is nasty and outdated too.)

I think the humor was lost on me, and I am worried that I am growing out of the Young Adult genre.  Was that whole page explanation about maintaining regular bowel movements supposed to be funny?

Finally, where were the dragons??  For being a book about a dragon riding academy, there is barely any training or dragon riding.  Sometimes, classes are mentioned, but Ileth never seems to have time for them.  She’s too busy working or doing chores or accidentally ending up in another mess that was not her fault or, worst of all, being preyed upon by just about any male character that happens to show up at the time.  Why did they all have to be so creepy?

Also, did anyone happen to read the author’s afterword?  Lol.

[skullergeist]

hi. i’m also another user from the ywp site. my name is moth. i have been using the site actively since i was 13.

in my time on the site, i have encountered horrific racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, misogyny and ableism, among other issues. i have been bullied by other users to the point of attempting to take my own life MULTIPLE times and ultimately landed myself in a children’s psychiatric hospital. i have tried so, so hard to get justice for myself and for other victims and the mods have done almost NOTHING.

when i was 15 i experienced cruelty at the hands of another group of users like nothing i have ever before. it was genuinely one of the worst times of my life, and i have been through a lot of bad things. i went to the mods in hopes that i would be protected, and they waved me off. i brought them evidence and told them my story, and i got no help. the only reason i didn’t leave the site entirely was because other users rallied to my cause and forced the people who hurt me off the site.

in another instance, i got in an argument with another user over racism faced by indigenous americans (of which i am one). Rob (who is not indigenous) came in and told me that i was wrong for speaking up for myself and he told me that the racism i was facing could be solved by sitting down with my abusers and hearing them out. this happened many times to not only me, but other kids.

i have so many horror stories i could share. literally just this morning we dealt with a user telling another YWP member that they hoped they would be fucking bombed and the mods didn’t do jack shit until it was too late. AND then they removed posts by the victim that were informational and relevant to the topic. and they didn’t punish the aggressor in any way. fucking disgusting. they don’t care about us, and they never will. me and other older YWPers have devoted hours of our time to try and do their job for them. did you ever hear about the strike we organized? the speak out campaign we ran? that happened. i headed those operations. we still have the website we created.

i am known on the YWP as a sort of guardian angel. this isn’t a title i have given myself; it is one bestowed on me by the other users. i fight tooth and nail for them. i have stayed up well into the early hours of the morning comforting children who were hurt and then ignored by the mods, tracking down emergency services for kids who hurt themselves out of frustration from the abuse, researching anything i could to try and fix the issue. do you know how many of those kids i’ve had to talk down from killing themselves? how many panic attacks they’ve had? how many of them have had to take it upon themselves to fight back against the very institution meant to protect them?

nano has been a great comfort for me for a very long time. but it is also one of the things that has hurt me most. i will never forgive the YWP mods for the abuse they have allowed to occur on their watch and the blame they have routinely shifted from themselves onto the userbase

Hello,

I’ve been a participant of NaNoWriMo for six years now, and a forums participant on the Young Writer’s Program for three years.

You might be wondering what’s happening on the forums, either on the YWP or the main NaNo site.

As far as I’m aware and have been involved, we brought up some concerns about neglectful moderation behavior on the adult site. Several adults supported us, and came out with their own allegations about neglectful or abusive moderation (for example, a moderator luring teens to a fetish website, who was fired but not banned, another one posting openly about porn who is still a moderator, and similar concerns.) On the YWP, our moderators, Rob Diaz and Marya Brennan have allowed open bullying and instead tone-policed those who fought back. They have allowed predator behavior on the site in several circumstances under the statement of “it does not explicitly violate our Codes” (despite it being open predatory behavior), and Rob Diaz has said racist things to another user in response to a Thanksgiving PSA.

The Board of Directors has now said that they did not know there was a separate YWP forum in the first place.

On the YWP side of things, the forums are being shut down indefinitely, and we are awaiting another response from the Board of Directors.

Please do not donate to NaNoWriMo.

Contact local schools and make them aware of the situation, and discourage advertising the YWP to kids.

I will reblog other posts from my fellow YWP users that h give more specific details.

[edwardsvirginity]

a short(er) twilight-themed guide to my dissertation on memes

for anyone who wants to know why and how i wrote 8k words of academic theory on memes, but doesn’t actually want to read 8k words of academic theory on memes

so to begin with, a meme is really hard to define. this part is pretty boring if you don’t care about linguistics, so just take my word for it. i ask a lot of questions like “is a meme still a meme if” (no one shares it, no one makes different versions of it, there’s no standard format for it) and the answer is “sometimes! but we can’t tell you when!” and i also ask “how do you know when you’re looking at a meme?” to which the answer is “you just do! except when you don’t. that happens too.”

so basically, memes are like porn, you know them when you see them

then i talk about why it’s hard to study memes. this is fairly obvious if you think about it. imagine trying to find out the source of a random meme. and then every iteration of that meme anyone has ever made. then how popular each iteration got. how one iteration inspired another. how many times each iteration is reposted by someone else without credit. THEN, attempt to do that for every meme in existence. actually, just try and get a definitive count of how many memes exist. then, realizing that’s impossible, attempt to choose a “random” selection of memes to study not influenced by your personal online world. attempt to study memes that you don’t even know exist bc they don’t exist within your highly-customized online world. basically, memes are a rabbit hole and i don’t even pretend to do any sort of formal semi-comprehensive study, because i do not hate myself.

ok, moving on. i’m actually trying to write this post based on what I remember from my dissertation, which i haven’t reread in... a while. but i like to think i have a fairly good grasp of it bc i wrote it.

so basically the most important part about memes is that they function on at least 2 levels. let’s say there’s an active level and a passive level. the active level is the conversation you THINK you’re having when engaging with a meme. the clearly stated point/idea of the meme. the passive level is all the assumptions a meme is making in the background that, if you are not actively challenging, you are endorsing.

let’s see some examples.

this is a meme *i* made, so i’m gonna put myself on blast here

So the active level of this meme is the text/the point i’m trying to make, which is basically that bella is horny. but like, so horny that she’s willing to throw everything else in her life under the bus for some sexual satisfaction. i feel like this is fairly clear and most people interacting with the meme would consider that what the meme is about. we’re having a conversation about bella’s insatiable thirst for sparkling penis when we engage with this meme. 

sort of an in-between level that provides us with further information about the point i’m trying to make is context for the meme/meme format. this meme format is about someone choosing between a good thing and a bad thing. they’ve got the good thing, but they’re tempted by/indulging in the bad thing anyway. it’s fairly reasonable to come to the conclusion that i’m judging bella, when you combine the meme context with the actual text. i’m not only interpreting bella’s behavior here (she eschews her loved ones for sexual gratification), i’m also giving it moral value, labeling yeeting herself onto that dick = bad, building/maintaining relationships with friends and family = good. however, if you’re not familiar with this meme and it’s format, the fact that i’m throwing shade at bella is less clear, even if you understand how i’m interpreting her behavior. 

now on to the passive level of the meme. this meme makes some ASSUMPTIONS, and in engaging with the meme you’re validating those assumptions as “how this thing is/how the world works”. so here are a FEW of the assumptions this meme makes: 1. this is a man with his girlfriend checking out another girl. 2. the girlfriend is angry/jealous of her boyfriend expressing interest in another woman 3. everyone in this photo is heterosexual 4. men are always checking out other women/otherwise unfaithful, and this is normal/funny 5. this “couple” is monogamous 6. the “boyfriend” is relatable and we understand and condone his actions 7. maintaining a relationship with the “girlfriend” is a good decision and pursuing the girl in red would be a bad one

these assumptions might seem fairly clear, obvious, and straightforward, but they are ultimately, assumptions. we know NOTHING about the people in this photo and are projecting relationships on them. and clearly, we’re projecting some pretty intense gender and relationship roles on to them. and it’s necessary to accept those gender and relationship roles as “truth” long enough to understand the meme, because otherwise the meme wouldn’t make any sense, because the person who made it (me) made it with the understanding that you would be operating with the same set of assumptions about these people and their relationships as I am. understanding of what i’m trying to say with this meme is dependent on understanding and accepting the assumptions i’m handing you with it. 

and again, these ARE assumptions. take away the text, and there could be plenty of things going on in this photo. it’s possible none of these people are in romantic relationships, and this is a guy with his friend/family member, and they like to hold hands. this guy could be whistling at a dog he sees on the sidewalk because he wants to pet it, and the girl in blue is mad because they’re in a hurry. the girl in red could be his ACTUAL girlfriend, whose self esteem he’s boosting, and the girl in blue could be some random girl who wants his attention. this could be a couple in an open relationship, but the girlfriend is in the middle of an argument with this guy about something else. the guy could have shoulder checked the girl in red and is looking back to say sorry, and the girl in blue is mad bc shoulder checking this poor girl was a rude af thing to do. 

the reason why we don’t think any of those things ^^ upon seeing this meme is bc we live in the patriarchy. however, unfortunately, by sharing this meme uncritically, we’re also reinforcing the passive ideas within it, that men are unfaithful and it’s no big deal, that women are always competing with each other, that heterosexuality and monogamy are standard and correct. 

let’s look at another meme.

i didn’t make this one, i found it on a really cringy list of (old) twilight memes

active level of this meme: kristen stewart never smiles

in-between context level: this is the “most interesting man in the world” meme, where, bc he’s so interesting, he rarely has time to do normal things, and when he does them, he does them in a weird way. so according to this meme, kristen rarely smiles, and when she does, she does it in a weird way

passive level: kristen stewart SHOULD smile, and the fact that she doesn’t is weird/bad. WHY she doesn’t smile, and WHY she should, is left to viewer interpretation, but the implication is she’s doing something wrong. this meme wants you to fill in the blanks with the idea that kristen stewart is a bad actress because she doesn’t smile. it also reinforces the idea that women are SUPPOSED to smile and not be serious all the time. you could even go so far as to assume this meme is condemning bella’s character as a whole for being overdramatic and not smiling, playing into the narrative that women are hysterical and get upset about things that aren’t a big deal, and we shouldn’t take them seriously. personally, i think kristen’s acting in twilight was spot-on and super nuanced, and it was true to bella’s character that she didn’t smile often. i also think that kristen as a person smiles a reasonable amount and is only criticized for not smiling bc ppl so heavily associate her with bella. but if i were to share this meme uncritically, i wouldn’t just be reaffirming the (false) idea that kristen stewart doesn’t smile, i would also be reinforcing the idea that women SHOULD smile all the time, kristen is a bad actress, and bella is a bad character. i could go further into the sexism of all that but this is already long. 

HOW DID I GET AWAY WITH WRITING ABOUT THIS FOR MY MASTERS DEGREE?? 

basically, while you think you’re engaging in a conversation on one level with memes, you’re actually engaging in a lot of conversations. when it comes to political memes, often the “passive” levels of the memes come with a lot of ideas about how the world is or should work, which you reinforce when engaging with those memes. these passive assumptions shape the conversations we’re having, and the kind of policies we’re willing to support. memes come encoded with opinions on gender, relationships, race, sexuality, class, etc, and and make declarations about how these things DO or SHOULD work, shaping our own personal understanding of them. a meme that makes donald trump look stupid is advocating for different policies/political decisions than one that makes him look dangerous. and if all of our memes about trump focus on him looking stupid, we put more political effort into addressing that problem than the problem that he’s dangerous. memes can be used to challenge norms/question widely accepted ideas (here’s an example i literally just made):

but they can also be used to help people internalize ideas/messages that they wouldn’t be willing to accept uncritically if those ideas were presented in a different format. sometimes this is good, if you use memes to help people internalize good messages, like self-love. however, unfortunately in recent years this has mostly been used to radicalize lonely men, who internalize increasingly more hateful assumptions in memes and don’t realize that they’re doing it, because those messages are not explicit. just look at how pepe became a hate symbol. if you laugh at enough memes that operate on the assumption that women are sluts, you’re gonna start believing women are sluts, and are gonna be more likely to laugh at memes that imply that women are bad because they’re slutty, then that since they’re bad they don’t deserve rights, etc. 

basically, memes shape our understanding of how the world works because they make assumptions about how the world works that we have to agree with in order to understand the meme. when these assumptions involve identities or politics, they affect how we understand those things, and what conversations we have about them.

and that’s basically my dissertation on memes, minus a lot of other discussions about pop culture, humor, and group formation. 

any questions??

[letteredlettered]

Hello! This is a broad question so it's fine you don't feel like answering. Do you ever get tired of fandom and its culture? I feel like sometimes there's nothing but discourse and arguments and just... it can be quite draining. Just wondered I'd ask you since you've been in a number of fandoms for a long time! I'm sure you've seen it all. Thank you for your time!!!

I think the last time I got tired of fandom was over 12 years ago. At that time, two things were true: 1) I was having some personal problems that meant I didn’t have a job, didn’t feel good about it, and didn’t have a lot of friends that could talk about things I wanted to talk about. 2) Fandom felt a lot more centered; it was easy to build communities and become a part of them. As a result, at that time, fandom was my main support network. Therefore, when certain aspects of fandom became unpleasant, I felt I had very few places to turn to. I eventually got a job, a lot more stable relationships, and several types of community. Fandom also dispersed onto many platforms, making it very hard to rely on fandom for social interaction. I still do get annoyed by some things in fandom, but when that happens, it’s very easy to dip into another corner of fandom that isn’t toxic or to walk away completely.

I will say that having participated in fandom for a long time has also given me a different perspective. Conversations about social justice--racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism--as well as conversations about porn--what gets written, with which characters, what age and sex those characters are, how they’re treated, how this porn is posted and consumed--are conversations that have cycled through fandom since long before I was in it. I’ve learned a lot from these conversations, but after participating in them for years and listening to them for even longer, there’s not much more I can learn from random people on the internet. The same is true for issues with less of a social justice vibe--feedback culture, ship wars, fest etiquette, anonymous behavior, etc--I’ve seen it all before, and while I think these can be worthwhile conversations, I no longer feel a strong urge to participate all the time. Generally I feel like arguing on the internet has a smaller value for someone like me than listening, having compassion, modifying my behavior when necessary, and doing what I can irl and with my friends.

I have more to say about fandom cliques.

The other aspect of fandom that can grow wearisome, besides the cyclical debates, is the cliquish nature of fandom communities, and the way typical group behavior is exacerbated by the very fact of being online. Who is popular, who they like, what they say, who likes whom, who did what to whom, how everyone reacted to it--all of this can feel super important online in a way it doesn’t to me irl. I’d like to pretend I’m very classy and stay above all this, but that would be a lie. I have often wanted, in my fandom life, to be someone who has hordes of fandom friends, who leaves comments on everything they read, someone who recs with abandon, someone who runs fests, someone who replies to everyone and makes new people feel welcome and develops starter kits and makes memes everyone loves and invents all the fanon everyone uses etc etc.

Alas, my own social reticence prevents me from being that fan. I have tremendous problems with routine or anything that needs to be done regularly. This includes but is not limited to communicating with friends or people that interest me or people whose work I like. Basically, all the people who love me are people who are willing to keep reaching out to me even when I don’t always respond. I try to warn people about this and communicate clearly that it’s something I really struggle with, but it is not conducive to making friends.

Additionally, I have found that I struggle to feel a part of communities--partly because maintaining your status in a community means regularly being a part of it, but partly I have trouble identifying with most people. Fannish people share more of my interests than most people in the world, but even among fans, I often feel left out and excluded, an extra thumb on a hand that does beautiful things without me. These social difficulties isolate me, but they do have the benefit of insulating me. The one time I was almost in the middle of a fight about who wanted to be my fandom friend, I had the fortune to be so far out of the loop that I didn’t really know what the fuck was going on.

Anyways, the result of my personality is such that I mostly tend to look at fandom on the outside. I get pretty sad about this from time to time, but the times I have gotten deep into fandom have not gone particularly well for me. Either I’ve felt that feeling of exclusion I’ve mentioned before, or I noticed that others were being excluded--ie, I was for some reason included in The Popular Clique. This makes me intensely uncomfortable, and I’ve extricated myself in situations where I’ve felt that way. Unfortunately, fandom spaces that allow for cliques are also the places where you really get to know people and build community. As such, I really don’t make fandom friends easily. The few I do have are pretty much lifelong friends that I share a lot with besides fandom. My best friend is from fandom. My girlfriend is from fandom. Most of the friends I go to when I need to talk irl are from fandom. My original novel-writing partner is from fandom. These are the people I tend to talk to when I need to talk about fandom, though it can feel very lonely when I have a new fandom and no friends fall into it with me.

This is a long answer to say--fandom is exhausting if you’re really participating to the hilt, but given that I really mostly just write fics and answer asks, most of the time it’s chill. When I get deep into something I might join a discord or do a twitter, but I burn out of that pretty fast--though I sometimes do make friends that I keep forever after.

[mediaevalmusereads]

The Devil All the Time. By Donald Ray Pollock. Doubleday, 2011.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Genre: Southern Gothic

Part of a Series? No

Summary: Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log.” There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial kill­ers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: violence, blood, animal cruelty, racism, misogyny, sexual content (including statutory rape), homophobia, ableism, fatphobia, suicide

Overview: This isn’t my usual type of book, so I can’t say for sure why I decided to pick it up. Maybe I was curious. Maybe I was vaguely aware that there’s a Netflix adaptation. Whatever the case, I read this book in 2 days and I’m still not sure how to rate it. It’s not what I would call a pleasant read, but then again, I’m aware that my own biases and reading preferences are going to influence the way I interpret the novel. Thus, I’m settling on 3 stars, in part because the author clearly has strong literary skills and is writing well within his genre, even if I’m personally not sure how I feel.

Writing: Pollock’s prose is well-crafted and feels appropriate for the genre. There’s a pretty good balance of showing and telling, and the prose feels literary in a way that feels both descriptive and detached at the same time. It’s hard to explain, but I think it worked out well. I didn’t feel like I was too deep in the characters’ heads, and though I felt like I was observing their lives from the outside, it felt personal and intimate enough where I didn’t get the impression that I was being kept at arm’s length.

I also want to give Pollock credit for crafting vivid, visceral imagery. While I don’t think Pollock goes all the way into shock value or misery porn, I do think he balances allusion and graphic imagery to create environments and scenes that will elicit reactions from a reader. I liked that he never described graphic acts of sexual assault or violence, but he did include everything around that violence, if that makes sense. In a way, I think it made the horrifying parts of this book all the more upsetting, and even if I didn’t personally enjoy it, I can recognize the skill it took to accomplish this.

Plot: The plot of this book more or less follows a cast of characters as they live their lives in and around several counties between Ohio and West Virginia. There’s no overarching narrative, per se, in that there’s not a goal we’re heading toward. Rather, this book feels like a composite novel or a series of vignettes where characters move in and out of each others’ lives.

What I admired about this plot is the deliberateness and effort it took to make each character’s thread feel distinct before it became interwoven again with others’ threads towards the end. While there were times when I wondered why we were following a particular character, by the time I reached the end, I respected the way Pollock structured his novel. 

I also appreciated the pace of this book; it never felt like a scene or chapter was moving too fast or too slow, and though this book takes place over the course of a few decades, I never felt as though time were skipping and I was left to fend for myself (as a reader). Moreover, I think Pollock crafted his “plot” in a way that effectively showed characters acting out of desperation, whether because they were trapped in poverty or because they had goals that they were striving for but could never reach.

However, as I mentioned in the introduction, this book is not necessarily pleasant to read. Because I don’t think the author set out to create a “pleasant” book, I can hardly fault him for that, but I think it’s best to go into this book with the knowledge that this isn’t a thriller or a story that pulls out a feel-good message at the end. It’s dark and grim, and I think some people might find it cathartic that way. Personally, though, I’m on the fence.

Characters: Because there are so many characters, I’m going to talk about them as a whole instead of turning to them individually, as I usually do in my reviews. Pollock crafts a cast of characters that feel distinct from one other, but all are united by their experience living in small, impoverished towns. I liked that each character had their own struggles and acted in ways that felt outrageous yet believable, and I credit Pollock for making each character interesting, even if I found a number of them reprehensible.

That being said, there were a lot of things I could do without. There was a lot of racism, homophobia, sexism, you name it. On some level, I understand why it’s all in there; this book is set in small, majority-white towns in post-war America, so it’s not unexpected that there are some blatant prejudices on display. But even so, it was a little much, and some of it definitely didn’t have to be there.

TL;DR: The Devil All the Time is a grim yet well-crafted novel about poverty, desperation, and depravity in small-town, post-war America. Though the author is skilled at creating visceral imagery, complex characters, and a narrative that feels like a tapestry of inter-woven vignettes, the gloominess of this Southern Gothic tale might be a bit much for some readers.

[brehaaorgana]

Ugh yeah.

for me personally, I have another additional layer of kneejerk hatred for "spicy." Because spicy isn't a compliment, and is inextricably linked to racist misogyny for me. The "spicy Latina" stereotype is horrendous, hyper-sexualizing/exoticizing, racist bullshit.

I do love spicy food, and I'm not a doormat, but it's a full body cringe if someone were to call me spicy. Most people assume in general that I'm white, but when they know I'm half Chicana there suddenly becomes a chance that they're going to think it "makes so much sense!" that I'm fiery, or spicy~*~ if I hold my own in a debate or idk, have passion about anything. Some people might like being a "spicy Latina" or whatever, and maybe among just other latinas I would be okay with thinking of myself like that (in the sense of like "hell yeah I come from a long line of stubborn, strong women with opinions!! We're awesome!!" Kind of way?).

But — in general, I have an aversion to being thought of as ~spicy~ ESPECIALLY because of my neurodivergence combined with like, the various ways in which I fail to meet social (gendered) expectations that compound how people think of me as scary/intimidating/bitchy/bossy even when I'm a friendly, smiling person.

It's just like the absolute worst thing. I don't want to be called that. Spicy is bad. Spicy is when I know things will be hard for me because of other people's ideas of what I am like, without trying to get to know me. Triple combo racism, misogyny, ableism vibes lol. DNW.

The first meeting of my workplaces “NeuroSpicy” ERG is this week and I plan to go to be like “umm why are we using a cutesy euphemism to talk about a genuine workplace challenges?” and I feel like going to a social Justice oriented university and being on tumblr during Peak Discourse Years has trained me for this moment lol

I do feel bad because the guy starting it clearly is excited and must have vibed with this name. But like… come on. Not only are we adults in a workplace setting, we’re accountants for the government.

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

It wouldnt surprise me if just about every -phobia, etc (like idk if this makes sense agh, but like fatphobia Transphobia, homophobia, ableism, etc) is racist, I hope this doesnt sound rude though? Shudhdjdk /gen /soft tone

I hope this makes sense, I'm saying I wouldnt be surprised if just about everything is rooted from racism because I mean, that's kinda the root of the nation (sorry I feel like I sound like an idiot agh, if I said anything that was off or rude lmk)

Also I'm sorry I bring all my thoughts on racism here its just this blog is so safe space vibes to me 🥺🥺💗🌺

Aaaand I cant word things right, brain very foggy rn

Oh my god. You just like ten of my posts ranting about words not working. Don't you think if there's one person in the world that gets it, it'd be me? Stop apologizing.

Plus you sounded ten times more intelligent than I do with a migraine. You don't need to apologize for sounding stupid unless the only words you can think of are "hair go poof". Because apparently that's infantilizing. (Kidding. I'm just petty and all of the validation on that has actually made me more mad that people got upset with me over it.)

But yeah. It's all rooted in white supremacy. Fatphobia exists because the the ideal body type was modeled after a white body.

And abelism is used to excuse fatphobia.

They dehumanized Black people to explain why Black women were "strong" enough to work but white women weren't. A lot of sexism in the Black communities have to do with Black men separating themselves from Black women in reaction to that.

Most indigenous cultures were largely supportive of gay and trans identities, and colonizers used that to dehumanize them.

Transphobia is just a knock-off of homophobia which is a knock-off of sexism. I mean look at it. Why is being gay an insult? Because gay is stereotyped as feminine. "Gay" isn't an insult Because it's gay. Gay is an insult because it's feminine.

But slave owners had no problem sexually assaulting slave men. That wasn't seen as "gay".

Even classism is rooted in racism.

I'm glad you picked up on that. That's what I've been trying to hint at when I complain about white supremacy in my posts about misogyny.

Every form of bigotry can be related back to white supremacy. (Seriously you can test me on this. I will find articles and everything.)

It's just such a long thing that there's no way I can write it out with sources in one post. So... I'm just really throwing all the pieces out there and hoping people figure it out.

I have to say the ONLY thing I have to correct is it's white supremacy, not racist. Racism is simply a vessel to promote white supremacy.

-fae

[zuzuslastbraincell]

Send me a ship and I'll give you my (brutally) honest opinion on it: ZUKKA

OH i have some opinions on this. warning: this reply will be a mile long.

essentially: i do really like zukka and have a soft spot for it, i used to absolutely love it (it was my fave ship back when i first watched atla in 2016), but the revival of atla has complicated my feelings towards it & has made me realise how much fan discussion and culture shapes out understanding of television. I largely think it is very overrated now and the fandom frustrates me a lot even if it's still kind of dear to me?

like at core, i think one should approach zukka not like it was 'meant to be' or highly signalled by the narrative (it was not and never was, lol, let's be honest) but rather just an extrapolation & continuation of the great teamwork dynamic and friendship that zuko and sokka presented during the boiling rock episode. they set out with some of the most awkward small talk and struggled to communicate or bond (i.e. that's rough buddy) but in the midst of the action, affirmed, supported, and trusted each other repeatedly, and this culminated in how well they fought together against azula imo? by the time they left they were so much closer. tbh i think zuko is important to sokka, as zuko affirms sokka and doesn't see him like dead weight or unnecessary in the slightest and believes in him, but also zuko is emotionally forthright in a way that challenges sokka, who hides his insecurities and buries emotions deep with a bleak outlook, sarcastic humour and a focus on the plan, to be more forthright as well. i think sokka helps direct zuko from bad impulsive decisions without trying to stifle him either and clearly appreciates some of his more hare-brained creative solutions (e.g. breath of fire in the cooler) and doesn't dismiss him entirely as an idiot either. like their dynamic - friendship or romance - is very good imo from only that one episode

ideal zukka content is set in this liminal space between boiling rock and sozin's comet where it's about the two of them continuing to lean on and trust each other, open up about shared fears and experiences (both older brothers with chips on their shoulders and prodigy sisters who looked up to their very very different fathers) but also just be goofy boys together, who do stupid or impulsive things and just *act their age* as that is something neither sokka nor zuko, who both shoulder responsibilities and tasks beyond their years, get to do much. like something light, maybe a little fleeting, but means so much in that space, very much the sort of meaningful summer romance you might have as a teenager.

all that said:

for various reasons i'm now sure how it'd pan out long term? a lot of fandom content depicts them as meant-to-be and each other's whole world when like, there's clearly so many other priorities they have - both have a strong sense of duty by the end of the show and i really dislike it when sokka is depicted neglecting that to spend all his time hanging around zuko? like racism r.e. sokka also comes into play as people will devalue his friendships and family in the tribe for the sake of a romantic relationship (with the fire lord, of all people! the boy-king of the imperialist nation that once raided the water tribe so much that it was barely hanging by a thread!). like i don't mind reading fic that actually takes the time to explore that conflict of interest and those different goals and how to navigate having different priorities as an adult and the legacy of colonialism without totally handwaving it or dismissing it but a lot of content just ignores it for the sake of 'oh gay husbands' and it really does a disservice to the characters? realistically i think it would have to be long distance and even then i'm not sure if that's what either needs - and so I instinctively just don’t care for anything that ignores the real difficulties they’d face.

there's also issues with racism in how sokka is mischaracterised as stupid (he's not) or the more emotional one (really, did we watch the same show) or how he thinks zuko is just a million times out of his league (especially when this trope talks about zuko's silky hair or pale skin i absolutely want to scream), as well as fetishising art where he's often more nude that really can make some zukka circles really really uncomfortable? like imo some fans definitely treat zukka like the red boy/blue boy ship from v*ltron and either grossly simplify or flat out ignore characterisation for them to fit certain stock m/m fandom archetypes, and a lot of this is tied up with racist fetishisation of visibly brown characters and fandom racism too. and yeah there's some visual similarity there but zuko and sokka are a thousand times more fleshed out? please don't reduce them to that bullshit. very much feels like the rise of zukka is a product of how fandom culture nowadays prioritises m/m far more than it did 10 years ago but has not at all attempted to address racism, misogyny, ableism, any kind of structural power dynamics that shape modern american/western culture and fan discussions

also? quite honestly i'm of the opinion that people should *not* be writing explicit sexual content about aged-up teenagers in community spaces where there's *tonnes* of minors and yet there is a plethora of explicit zukka fic in this revival and it leads to people just casually remarking about sexual roles of teenage characters around fucking. 15 year old kids. and the total lack of responsibility or even willingness to question whether this is appropriate by adults in this community drives me up the fucking wall. (zukka isn’t unique in this regard btw other ships do this too but it's been a reason for my growing discomfort). obvs teenagers do talk about sex themselves but they should do that amongst themselves and not with adult strangers in the figurative room? ffs.

i think on a more minor note now there's almost an over-saturation of content in the atla fandom to the extent that its drowning out other, more meaningful discussions about the characters or their equally/more important platonic dynamics, and that's frustrating to engage with.

like in theory, done well, with a delicate hand that respects the strength of their characters and dynamic, it's an A+ ship, but the content the fandom produces is sometimes really horrible. In fairness to zukka fans there have been attempts at accountability in at leas the circles i travel in, but there's way more to do in this regard.

(and also as a primarily f/f writer i do resent it a teeny tiny bit because of how much reception it receives for a pairing with little textual basis, and how that dwarfs femslash at the end of the day since a lot of the focus on m/m is fetishising or the readers just don't consider the autonomy or interiority of women as interesting).

anyway.

i feel like i have more to say but that is largely it r.e. zukka. very much taught me a ship is often as good as its fandom, but also taught me that i can read two works labelled zukka and they can have absolutely nothing in common beyond that because how good a ship in fic is reliant on what the author has done with it. i’ve read a lot zukka content i adore but i’ve also read a fair amount of zukka content that makes me deeply uneasy/uncomfortable. I still love it but i have a love-hate relationship with it to some extent.

[skopostheorie]

mario and luigi: dream team game review

the thing is. the gender binary is SO tied to heterosexuality as well. so much of the “male” identity as perceived by cishet society is about marrying a woman, and so much about that of the “female” is about marrying a man. misogyny plays a major part, because so much more of “being a woman” is to serve the man they end up marrying, and to serve men in general, than vice versa for “being a man”. something something the patriarchy. this is not news to anyone.

the idea that gender identity and being trans, especially being nonbinary and lesbian or gay or aligned bisexual, doesn’t have any place in the so called “LGB” is so weird. because by not being heterosexual, you’re already rejecting the gender binary in the strictest sense. like the gender binary was just the easiest way to categorise people by how they would reproduce right. if it were Just About the body parts then we’d also have “roles” for shit like eye colour. (of course there’s racism and ableism etc but that’s a whole other discussion)

that’s of course not to say that you Have to consider yourself non-binary if you’re not straight. like that’s dumb. people have been bending “gender roles” as it were since the beginning of time and a good deal of those people haven’t necessarily felt some kind of dysphoria and are happy identifying within their binary gender.

but like. that’s just the thing right? gender is just an interpretation. literally EVERYTHING we perceive on this planet is an interpretation. “wednesday” may mean the same DAY and moment in space-time but when i hear “wednesday” it means something different between you and me. to me wednesday might be take away dinner night or something. and that means nothing to you but that doesn’t mean i have the wrong understanding of “wednesday”.

“be a man” is a sentence that can trigger all sorts of emotions and even trauma for people but it’s always meant something different to everyone. even between two hypermasculine cis guys, their understanding of “man” is different. if they’re transphobic they might think “a man is someone with a dick” but they have parts of their personality that hinge on their being a man, too. for some, to be a man is to, like, be chivalrous or “gentlemanly” or whatever. for others it’s about being Strong As Fuck or. liking cars or something. even though they both have the same basic idea, no one hears the word “male” or “female” and thinks the exact same thing, when you really get down to it.

but. at least in my opinion, maybe, i feel a lot of the Widely Accepted gender binary and its associated roles stem from heterosexuality, or rather heteronormativity. so much of the roles is that “a man is what a woman is not, and a woman does what a man does not”. so when someone isn’t straight, at least in my eyes, they’re already rejecting that oppressive binary.

again, doesn’t mean they’re nb. but i also think it’s why nb lesbians and gay guys, or nb aligned bisexual people, makes so much sense to me? cuz even though i feel a certain level of comfort and self-recognition in being a man and considering myself one - even though i know it’s stupid, like a television show you know is objectively bad but you watch the shit out of anyways - i also feel a resentment towards it. the definition of “man”, at least the way i’ve inferred it from having ideals of masculinity presented to me since birth, has a lot to do with being with women, and so when i go and date another man, am i not already.... not a man?

rejecting that binary entirely and navigating one’s sexuality and gender on one’s own terms makes a whole lot of sense to me. i mean, no one’s gender is a political statement, unless they want it to be, i guess. so i’m not going to stand here and pretend that every nb lesbian or gay guy or align bisexual person is making some Revolutionary Statement by just existing. 

but rather, it’s proof of how everyone has interpreted, and re-interpreted, what gender means in different ways. and it’s also proof, besides the whole history of trans women being so pivotal to the history of same-gender attracted people, of how you literally can’t untangle the connections between being gay/bi/lesbian and being trans. cuz in both instances, it’s about rejecting the way gender has been presented to us (whether it’s that gender is tied to heterosexuality, or that gender is tied to biological sex) and existing as ourselves; outside of how society planned it.

anyway.

[theboost]

Here are most of my thoughts on Gotham

Gotham Pros

-Holy shit the casting. DC shows generally have some hit or miss casting and in the arrowverse at large I can think of maybe three people I think fit their roles perfectly. Gotham consistently knocked it out of the park from season 1 with baby Bruce and Selina and Edward and Oswald and Harvey and Alfred and I could go on to the later seasons with Ra's and Talia

-Manlet king Jim Gordon. I swear every love interest he had was taller than him. Also the fact that everyone in the city of Gotham was in love with Jim was great

-I really liked the costuming they killed it too

-season 2 as a whole was pretty strong and I really enjoyed it

-all the weird shit and overacting they put into it. It was way over the top but that's Gotham baby

-baby Bruce! David Mazouz killed it and his evolution to Batman or at the very least proto Batman was great. I love him I hope he gets to be Batman again one day

-fish mooney end of statement

Gotham Cons

-the homophobia and the queerbaiting with the nygma/penguin situation and the biphobia with *waves hand at Barbara*

-the misogyny female characters had like no agency

-I can't remember any specific racism moments but I know they were there and existed

-Definitely copaganda

-the last two seasons could be borderline unwatchable

-Jim Gordon never got canonically pegged even though I know Sofia Falcone at least was packing that strap

-all the weird shit and overacting

-sometimes it seemed like the writers would just throw a dart at a board to see what the next plot point would be

Edit: -also ableism like crazy man it was fucking rife with it

Gotham ?????

-so many musical numbers and not a single musical episode

-lee and edward fucking? Bad. Edward bragging about it to Jim? Hilarious

-not a day goes by when I don't think about professor pyg performing his own rendition of cell block tango

-I wish Alfred would be my father figure :(

[jewish-privilege]

In October 2015, I found myself in a frightening situation: My name and face on a Neo-Nazi website identifying me as a Jew along with several hundred other Jews in politics, civics, and philanthropy. The website, which I will not name, warned its readers that Jews were too influential in American life; that we were a corruptive influence on America. While it didn’t advocate actually killing me, I was marked as a person to be silenced.

“How likely are these people to actually kill me?” I asked the expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-hate group that researches white supremacist groups. I had called them seeking answers. My husband was sitting beside me, his face full of fear. I felt a tiny kick, a flutter inside me, my hands dropping to my belly. “I should probably mention that I am 8 months pregnant.”

There was a pause at the end of the line. “It’s very rare for these threats to escalate offline,” the nice man began. “They want to scare you. They want to scare you so much you decide that you never want to write again. That’s their goal. What you decide to do next is a personal decision.”

You can see that I decided to keep writing. But thinking back on the advice he gave me, it almost seems quaint: In the four years since those threats, especially since the 2016 election, white supremacists spewing anti-Semitic hatred have marched in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us,” shot up synagogues in Pittsburgh and California, and murdered gay Jewish student Blaze Bernstein. Anti-Semitic assaults are up 105% since 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit on American anti-Semitism. More Jews have been killed in anti-Semitic violence around the world in 2018 than in the last several decades, according to the Kantor Center, based out of Tel Aviv University, which researches and analyzes global anti-Semitism. In New York City, a major center of Jewish culture and life, the NYPD has reported an 82% spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2019. In fact, Jews are reporting the highest number of religion-based hate crimes — this is particularly troubling given that Jews are only approximately 2.2% of the U.S. adult population.

And while the majority of incidents and assaults are committed by white supremacists on the right, there has been a concerning spike in incidents and rhetoric from the left wing, too...

As a child growing up in Boston, I knew anti-Semitism existed. I even experienced it from time to time — including when my childhood synagogue was defaced with a swastika. But overall I felt safe in America... I was grateful for a country that had provided Jews with peace and prosperity. America was a rare safe place for us.

Today, that’s different. The baby I was pregnant with is now a thriving, rambunctious toddler. But when we tour Jewish preschools, my first question isn’t about education philosophy, recess or student teacher ratios — it’s always about security. In just a few short years we’ve gone from history to fear.

To understand what can be done, first we need to understand what it is: Anti-Semitism is the hatred of Jews as a distinct people, as opposed to anti-Judaism that targets our religious beliefs and practices. Anti-semitism is a conspiracy theory. It depicts Jews as a cabal secretly controlling the world for evil ends, hurting innocent people to further greedy, cruel agendas. How those agendas manifest changes based on your worldview. If you are far left, it may be that Jews are imperialists who start wars to enrich themselves. If you’re a white nationalist, it’s that Jews are the ringleaders of the White Genocide. If you’re Minister Louis Farrakhan, it’s that Jews were the secret orchestrators of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Anti-Semitism is an ancient, chameleonic monster. It adapts to circumstances and seemingly new excuses for age-old prejudices to take hold. This is especially true in periods of political and economic insecurity.

...It doesn't help that we are also living in an era when conspiracy theories can so easily spread (from anti-Obama birtherism to Pizzagate to QAnon). President Trump and his cohorts on the far right capitalize and promote them, fomenting hatred and division through fake news and an assault on the truth. They accuse prominent Jews like George Soros of treacherous crimes, while consorting with and justifying white supremacists and their actions (“very fine people” Trump called them.). They act shocked and appalled when fear mongering, the mainstream legitimization of white nationalists, and dangerously lax gun control leave them with blood on their hands (as it did at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue).

And yet while I fear anti-Semitism on the right will lead to more violence, I fear anti-Semitism on the left will cause that violence and hate to go unchallenged. As American Jews face rising hate crimes and domestic terrorism, progressives have grappled with a string of unsettling scandals. At first, it was the way left wing groups downplayed anti-Semitism. In the wake of the 2016 election, for example, the Women’s March conspicuously left anti-Semitism off its unity principles, while left wing groups erased it as a core issue in Charlottesville, and were silent during hundreds of JCC bomb threats. Then it got worse. The anti-Semitism scandal surrounding Women’s March leadership unfolded over several tense months, during which they publicly associated with anti-Semitic Farrakhan and engaged in anti-Semitic dog whistling and bullying.

This controversy was followed by statements by freshman Representative Ilhan Omar, in which she fell into anti-Semitic tropes referencing dual loyalty, foreign allegiance, and Jewish money in her criticisms of Israel. Omar had many defenders who dismissed the charges because Omar herself faces Islamophobia and racism. But such tropes do feed the beast. As Ilhan Omar struggled to contain criticism and put forth multiple apologies for her comments, David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the KKK, came to her defense dubbing her the “Most Important Member of Congress.” It’s not to say that Omar should be held accountable for the words of David Duke. But it does indicate the way anti-Semitism — be it from the left or the right — can connect to amplify the threat.

While the Women’s March has taken positive steps to mend fences, like expanding Jewish leadership in the organization and including Jewish women in their Unity Principles, and Omar and the New York Times have apologized, the situations have led to increased division as anti-Semitism continues to spread, and becomes a political wedge issue, all of which creates increased danger for the Jewish community. In a time of increased concern about Jewish security, these scandals have had a devastating emotional impact on the Jewish community. We were taught by our grandmothers to watch for signs of danger — hateful words from across the political spectrum is one of them.

Over the past three years, I have seen anti-Semitism break and undermine strong community relationships and budding movements for justice. This what anti-Semitism does: It attacks democracy and transparency, giving authoritarian actors scapegoats for national problems. It endangers women, people of color, and immigrants as it strengthens and animates white nationalism, xenophobia, and extremist movements.

American Jews know this intrinsically and are frightened. The jump from hate speech to exterminatory violence has been a short one in the history of global Jewry. Many of us were taught about the dangers of anti-Semitism and how quickly it could rise against us from very young ages, especially for those of us who had family who were Holocaust survivors or who endured violence against Jews in the Middle East or Soviet Union. We need Americans to listen to our fear and take a stand.

The first step is to call it out when we see it in our houses of worship, living rooms, libraries, college campuses and kindergartens. This doesn’t mean we dismiss or “cancel” our friends, families, colleagues, and community leaders who engage in anti-Semitism. It means we tell them they are wrong. We educate. Jewish history is over 5,000 years old, and learning what narratives have been used to oppress Jews can be lifesaving. And then, let’s build relationships between communities that are under attack and frightened.

...This is what we need to do for each other: Come together to fight not just anti-Semitism but racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. If we learn each other’s histories, warning signs and dangers and fight for each other, we can make the monsters afraid of us. 

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

What’s your take on the latest drama?????

Everyone needs to take several seats and stop interracting. Like, if someone is indirecting you, call them petty in a group chat and move on with your life, feeling happy that you have managed to irritate and stress them out enough that they HAVE to try and start drama with you.

Quite frankly, everyone has overreacted. I’m more on one side than the other but y’all are making this into a bigger deal. Harry is a dick. I don’t care if he’s grown - he’s done some awful things that cannot be excused and, if they can be forgiven, cannot be forgotten. I can think that and also think William has done literally nothing to help tackle racism and he should put his big boy pants on and man the fuck up.

I also feel like I can’t get involved with the coversation around whether POC can be anti-black. I’m sure they can. Like I’m equally sure that disliking Meghan doesn’t make someone racist. I was stalking some wild tinhat blog the other day and an anon had said Meghan doesn’t deal with racism and they came back at them with “yes, she does. If you try to deny something that is obviously happening, no one will believe you when you have an actual point”. That goes both ways. I remember way back when M & H first got engaged and @claireofluxembourg said something like “I miss Meghan’s tailored clothes” and everyone went “RACIST”. That is possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen this fandom do and I was here that night everyone just assumed Philip had died and started making in memorial posts for him.

ALSO the Sussex statement was so fucking petty. Like, it is beyond clear that Harry doesn’t understand the role of royalty in Britain. I don’t care if you think it’s a good or a bad thing but stop being like “the Sussexes are being so mature about this” when they literally were like “THE QUEEN DOESNT OWN THE WORD ROYAL” (no one said she did but go off, I guess)

ALSO ALSO Harry and William are jealous of each other. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand. Harry literally said that he knows George is more important than him and, imo, he said that in a very negative way. I’m sure they all love each other and Harry has no ill will towards his nephew but to be like “Harry’s literally never said that” when he has is nonsense. I remember when he gave that interview and, to borrow @duchessbusybody‘s name, everyone was like poor santi henri, he suffers because he feels less important than his nephew, royalty is evil, and now THE SAME PEOPLE are like harry is a strong man and he has never been jealous of anyone in his life so check and mate...

LONG STORY SHORT: everyone needs to grow up, put on their big girl pants, and stop indirecting each other like this is a school playground. Call out racism, call out misogyny, call out the rampant ableism in this fandom, but block each other and move on with your lives and don’t block me because I am living for this drama at the moment

[amandaearl]

notes towards living

in early June I’m having surgery to have a polyp removed from my uterine wall. it is a routine surgery, one that many women of my age go through. I almost died in 2009 from full body sepsis and a toxic mega colon. forgive me if my thoughts turn to the possibility of death. My husband went through (and is still going through) a difficult health crisis. It’s been a year combining bleakness and joy, in more extremes than usual. It seems like the right time to write this. I think most readers at this stage might have an inkling about me, my beliefs, who and what I cherish and how I live, but here is a note about such, for posteriority perhaps or just for kicks.

I believe in not wasting time on bullshit. Life is short and precious. Sometimes it’s necessary to make a major change, even when it’s scary. I did so in my late thirties, found a friend, lover and confidante to share my life with, my husband, Charles. We have been together now for 19 years. Not only do we share a loving and creative life together, but we also share our lives with others, as friends and lovers. We both took a leap of faith and found each other. Love isn’t finite or scarce. The more you love, the more love you receive in return.

I’m a writer. I always wrote but it wasn’t until the major change in my life that I felt confident enough to write full time and publish others. Many people will sacrifice everything in order to be published. I realized fairly early on that I could not do so if I was going to sleep at night and look people in the eye. I will not kiss ass, work with jerks or manipulative people. I will support fellow writers, editors and publishers with integrity. Life is too short to waste on egomaniacs, manipulators and creeps.

I believe in altruism as the main driving force necessary to live in the world. Give to others, money if you have it, time if you don’t. An ear, a shoulder. Listen, be empathetic and caring as much as you can. Happiness comes from giving more than receiving. Find something that someone needs that you can offer. You will feel satisfied.

Finally there are times when it is necessary to fight. Naively, I believed at the end of the 20th century that we were making progress, that we could achieve equality for all in my lifetime. This was indeed naïve and has been proven wrong severely with the current ultra right regimes in North America and elsewhere. The self-centred and mean-spirited are coming for our rights and they’d like to usurp them, and destroy the lives of the powerless. We can’t stand for that. I am a worker of words. I am not able to physically fight in any successful way, but I will stand on the side of humanity against tyranny and selfishness.

In my little literary world, I will support marginalized writers, and publishers and editors who prioritize those who have been ignored or discriminated against. I will not condone or support misogyny, racism, transphobia, homophobia, fat phobia or ableism in my professional or personal relationships.

When I get the chance to be in nature, I am happy. For your peace of mind, I highly recommend spending time in the outdoors. I live in the city and this is where I prefer to live. There is plenty of nature in the city. There are secret gardens, benches to sit and watch passersby. Café patios, numerous trees. I am lucky to live in Ottawa where green space is still a priority.

What I want for you is this: I want you to be able to have a roof over your head, enough food and drink to keep you healthy, an ability to do what you love and give to others. A way of coping through the bad times, a sense of humour to deal with the hard times ahead and the strength to help others. I want you to have a good imagination, a strong sense of empathy for others and an altruistic and loving heart. This is the secret to a good life: love and generosity of spirit.

When I die, I would like to be remembered as someone who cared passionately for the well-being of others and fought to make life better for them. I don’t give a rat’s ass about property or vehicles or any kind of material good. I am rich with love and friendship and for that I am grateful. If you are close to me or even if you just occasionally keep in touch, or casually keep me in mind, please remember I care for you.

Life is good because we exist and we breathe and we love and we give. There’s nothing better.