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astrayan · 3 years ago

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i made some tags but i want to talk more about some "red flag" books. sorry for any typos or if my english is incorrect at any point, it's not my first language.

i added the following tags:

let's start by saying i happen to LOVE haruki murakami and i think his philosophical takes on his books are marvelous. like i said in the tags, you HAVE to be older to understand some things that are not explicit when you're younger or on a first read-through (for example, fight club doesnt pack the same punch [haha punch] when you read it a second time, then you see the signals pointing to the end were there all along but you didn't pick up the information). that's what i mean by saying picking up undertones when you're older, you have more information to contextualize (or re-contextualize) a book.

like, imagine you're 14 and you read american psycho. you probably don't even know what a yuppie is. and by missing that you're missing why bateman acts the way he does. and it does the same thing fight club does, which is to present us with unreliable narrators. but again you may not pick that up until you're older and can understand the themes of toxic masculinity (fight club) or the objectification of women, critic to the capitalism model and mental health issues (american psycho).

i love sylvia plath but admittedly, you do have to be a certain age to read the bell jar because of its themes of mental health, depression and suicide, but those are not red flags, those are triggers. why are these people keeping away a beautifully written story about mental health issues saying it's a red flag to read this book? this makes no sense to me. and tbh i HAVE to laugh at the sticker on gone girl. "if shes reading this she probably watched jennifer's body at least once". this cracked me up. i am aware of its flaws but i love jennifer's body (and it's a fuck you to men everywhere despite the ending), and that comment is so correct. gone girl also says fuck you to men, and it should not be considered a red flag. like... grow up maybe.

now, about the thing that will probably haunt my dreams this night. HOW IS FRANKENSTEIN ON A RED FLAG SHELF?! sure it's philosophical af but i read it at a young age and as i grew up i reread it a lot (i do have this problem, instead of buying new books, i reread mine because having dynamic reading means i end them REALLY fast and i end up with the same books to read lol), understanding more and more with more age. HOW in the world is this book a red flag? i honestly can't see it. yeah it is horror and a bit sci-fi but i was reading stephen king by age 9 and i turned out (mostly) fine. this one pisses me off to no end.

anyway i don't even know if anyone will read this but i already typed everything so. i'm ending these here. if i misexplained or mansplained anything pls let me know (i'm a trans man so please fell free). and if you wanna know more about the books that i mentioned both in the tags and this post, i can try and give a trigger warning or a spoilers-free synopsis of the ones I've already read.

#bookblr #fight club #frankenstein #the bell jar #gone girl #american psycho #crime and punishment #norwegian wood #more like EVERYTHING from:#haruki murakami #wtf america #calaboca miguel #my opinion #red flag books #long post

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benevolentbirdgal · 4 years ago

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Purim: a Jewish holiday and wild ride from start to finish

So let me tell you about the absolute soap opera that is the Jewish holiday of Purim. The scene is set in ancient (appx. 4th century B.C.E.) Persia during the first Jewish Diaspora, in the city of Shushan (typically identified in secular sources as Susa, a now-abandoned ancient city in what is now Iran). I’m telling you, as a work of literature (even beyond theological implications for Jewish people), this book has everything: love, drama, royalty, intrigue, ego, plots, irony, mystery, and a strong female lead.

[some non-slur swearing below]

Ahasuerus, party-loving king of Persia executed or exiled (translations argue) his wife Vashti, and had to find a new queen. Why did he do this, you ask? Well, it really starts with an 180-day party across his kingdom for all his subjects to celebrate the third year of his reign. After that absolute rager, party-bro KA has another one immediately after for a week, this time just for the capital city of Shushan. Vashti was having a woman’s party in her quarters, presumably living her best life, when party-bro sends his top seven yes-men to deliver a message to Vashti. This sleaze-ball wants her to appear at his party in front of everyone, wearing her crown, with the clear implication being only her crown. Vashti more or less tells him to pound sand (I mean, not the literal translation, but that’s the sentiment).

KA’s advisors convince him that this is not only an offense against the king but also against all the men in the country (ah, the joys of ancient patriarchy and toxic af masculinity). KA writes a degree that women must respect their husbands so he has an official reason to get rid of Vashti. Vashti is soon thereafter out of the picture and the king is short a queen. Whether she was a Wise Lady With A Point Who Got Screwed Over or a Vicious Jew-Hating Adulteress Who Had It Coming has been a matter of furious debate for over two millennia (the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud vociferously disagree on her). In any case, KA regrets it pretty quick and wants a new queen.

At the behest of his advisors (you know, since their last advice worked out soooooo well), KA had a big contest/forcible gathering of young women from around his kingdom and a Jewish woman, Hadassah, was the winner. Hadassah was an orphan raised by her cousin Mordechai in the city of Shushan. Hadassah is more commonly known as Esther, because she changed her name to hide her identity as a Jew (at the behest of Mordechai). In any case, KA decided he liked Esther best and she became queen (it’s specifically mentioned both that he loved her most and that the palace staff liked her because she was nice to them-it’s unclear how much of an influence the latter was).

Concurrently, a wicked man named Haman was the top advisor to the king and the king would basically rubber-stamp whatever Haman wanted. Haman was a raging Jew-hater-this will be relevant later.

Some time into Esther’s reign as queen, Mordechai, who has taken to hanging around the gates of the palace to keep in touch with Esther, overhears a plot by two guards, Bigthan and Teresh, to kill the king. Mordechai alerts his cousin, and she tells the king. It’s recorded in the book of deeds and life keeps moving.

Some time later, Haman decides (after a promotion to head lackey) that he wants all to bow to him as he passes. Mordechai refused to bow to Haman every single day (citing that as a Jew he bowed to no man), and that did not sit well with Haman. So despite being prime minister and presumably having more important things to do, “genocide the Jews” made it to the top of to-do list. He didn’t like them before, and Mordechai refusing to treat him like a special snowflake was something he took really, really personally (totally can’t think of any modern politicians like that, nope). He told KA, who frankly doesn’t seem to ask enough questions, that there was a people disrespecting the king and his laws throughout the land, and could he pretty-please exterminate them. As a bonus, Haman would “donate” 10,000 silver kikar to the royal treasury (modern conversion vary, but all agree this an absurd amount on money).

KA handed him the royal seal to do so. Haman was feeling lucky I guess so he decided the best course of action was to draw lots to pick the day for the massacre. [Purim is lots in Hebrew, so that’s where the name of the holiday came from]. The message went out to all the provinces that on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, that they citizens and leaders should murder all of the Jews, young and old, man, woman, and child, rich and poor and take their possessions as spoils.

As this wasn’t exactly a state secret, the Jews knew and were quite distressed. The planned slaughter was like a year out, but what the actual fuck were they supposed to do? If you lived in Persia at that point that, the empire was functionally your entire world, unless you were fabulously/ridiculously wealthy and well-connected. Having several months notice the other locals and your rules were going to slaughter you and take your stuff isn’t particularly useful when there’s really nowhere to go.

In Shushan, Mordechai (who, although not explicitly in text, is in oral/Talmudic tradition a leader of the Jewish community) goes into mourning. He dresses in sackcloth and ashes, he weeps, and he fasts at the gates of the palace, as Jews throughout shushan and the kingdom are doing. Esther hears of her cousin’s mourning behavior and tries to send along nice clothes through a messenger, which he refuses. It is then that she learns of the decree. Mordechai (through the messenger) implores her to go ask the king if the Jews not getting murdered could be a thing. Esther explains that she could be killed for approaching the king unsummoned. Mordechai stresses the severity of the situation. Esther agrees to ask the king and tells Mordechai to have the Shushan Jewish community fast day and night (as opposed to just day as prior) for three days, and she and her handmaidens will fast too (no word on what the handmaidens thought of this).

On the third day, Esther bravely approached the king, asked him if she could request something. He said anything, up to half his kingdom (which implies to me that homedude, for all his flaws, was actually into her). Esther invited him to a party, where he and Haman would be the only guests. At the party she asks if she can another request. KA is open to it and she invites him to another party the next night. Party-bro king is obviously down and Haman is tickled to death at this second invitation.

He goes home to brag to his wife, Zeresh, about the invite and also to bitch about how angsty he is Mordechai is still alive (this angst reignited by passing him on the way home). Zeresh suggests he have fifty-foot gallows built to make Mordechai an example on, with the king’s permission, ASAP. Haman orders the building of the gallows, feeling secure in the knowledge that his bestie the king will execute Mordechai on them.

Back at the castle KA can’t sleep. He demands a bedtime story from the his records, because those will presumably put him to sleep. The story that gets read, ~coincidentally~, is of Mordechai saving KA’s life. Haman had sidled on up to the castle to speak to the king about killing Mordechai, and the king called him in. KA asks Haman, if he were to honor someone, what should he do? Haman is thinking “this is obvi about me” and tells the king that the honoree should be donned in royal clothing, and ride through the streets on a fancy horse with people someone shouting how great he is. KA is like great, love it, perf, go do that for Mordechai. Haman is not a happy camper but does the thing. After that, he goes home and tells Zeresh about it, who warns him that this is a very bad sign.

Finally, that night is the night of Esther’s second soiree. Haman and KA attend. The latter offers to Esther anything she wants, up to half of his kingdom. Esther asks that her life, and the life of her people be spared. KA is like “whomst” and Esther revealed it was Haman. At this point Ahasuerus.exe stops working and he takes a walk to the gardens. He comes back to see Haman begging Esther for his life, and KA thinks Haman is assaulting her. Haman was seized by nearby guards.

One of the chamberlains is then like, hey, KA, coincidentally there’s these super high gallows Haman just had built. Why not take care of the problem that way? (The fact that the random nearby chamberlain was like yup, that dude, hang ‘em in the morning, probably says a lot about how Haman treated most people around him, even more than forcing all to bow to him). KA orders it be done.

Not that Haman was around to be sad about it, but what happened next would have massively pissed him off, as his old job then went to Mordechai. Esther then implored of the king that the degree to allow the massacre of the Jews be reversed. The king couldn’t Cntrl+Z the order to murder-all-the-Jews, but he could issue an order that they could fight back. The proclamation was sent throughout the land, and the Jews were able to prepare. Since the royal decree had been amended, the governments (princes, governors, satraps) largely reformulated their plans accordingly, but plenty of Jew-haters still wanted to use the opportunity. The ability to self-defend meant that the communities weren’t massacred. In most of the kingdom, the Jews were now safe. Outside of Shushan, the fourteenth of Adar became a feast day.

Shushan was still not safe though. Antisemites were still out and mad (and apparently had not learned from the previous day), so Esther asked the Jews of Shushan to be allowed to defend themselves once more. Her wish was granted, and the Shushan Jews were able to defend themselves once more (so Purim is celebrated a day later in walled cities).

The story ends with the decision to write it down, and although there some debate on authorship, it is traditionally attributed to Esther herself cowriting with Mordechai.

Nowhere in the book is God mentioned. Nowhere is there divine intervention (at least not explicitly). Just Jews sticking up for themselves, being brave in the face of mortal peril, and a metric fucktown of chutzpah.

#jumblr #purim #purim story #jewish soap opera for real though #purim 2021 #purim 5781 #what is purim #purim explained #jewblr

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christinaroseandrews · 3 years ago

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Zuri Davis, wedding planner extraordinaire, has a bit of a problem. The last wedding she planned? Yeah. It didn't go so well. Think cheating bridegrooms and burning wedding dresses. Worse, the bridegroom was cheating on his fiancee with her. She should have known something was off when the groom skipped all of the pre-wedding planning sessions. Now with her reputation in shreds, she's trying to get her mojo back in the town of Ever After, Missouri and Fairy Godmothers, Inc. The town is magical. Perfect for fairy tale weddings. Too bad Zuri doesn't believe in Happily Ever After.

Philip Charming, prince-turned-Bed and Breakfast owner, has a bit of a problem. By day, he's a frog. A fly-chomping, wart-having literal frog. Only the kiss from his one True Love (note the capitalization there) will lift the curse. A curse he well and truly earned some three hundred years ago. But he's changed. Made amends. But he's still never managed to find his one true person. At least, not until Zuri.

Philip is convinced Zuri is the one for him. Zuri is convinced that all men are frogs. Which one is right?

This is an adorable magical modern-day fairy tale retelling of the Princess and the Frog between a woman with a broken heart and a man under a curse. It's a story about healing and discovery. And it's a lot of fun.

A good portion of the fun is due to the town and the side characters. The town of Ever After is like someone shook up a volume of Grimm's fairy tales and shook it out into the mountains of Missouri. The Seven Dwarfs run a bar, there's a bridal boutique called Cinderella and Fella that makes real glass slippers, and of course there are three Fairy Godmothers. I personally loved the Evil Queen, Ravenna, and the Beast, Hunter, the most. They were so fun and such great characters.

Zuri was an interesting heroine. Kind, smart, funny. She's coded as Black (references to Hot combs, hair curling/frizzing when wet, other little things) but it isn't explicitly stated. which I wish it was, but at the same time I did like the little touches. She's a professional who knows her business and is good at organizing. I also liked how she stood up for herself and for her own happiness. She was a good egg.

Philip... oh Philip... He's the Prince Charming that every woman deserves. At least now that he's gotten over himself -- look the curse helped, okay? -- and is trying to be a better man. He's still got failings and foibles but that doesn't make him any less charming (see what I did there?). This guy constantly kept subverting my expectations but in the best possible ways. He's like the Anti-toxic masculinity. I loved him lotsly. And I loved his character arc. Seriously, I loved it so much.

I even found Alec, who is arguably the main human antagonist, to be a good character. In so many other romance novels, he'd be the hero. Seriously. He does all of the typical romance novel hero things - the grovel, a grand romantic gesture, even his infidelity isn’t a deal breaker (Points at the literal ton of romances with Rakes, Playboys, and Rogues) Here, Alex wasn't the hero. And the things he did that would be romantic in other novels were shown to be toxic and manipulative. Frankly, it was super refreshing and eye opening. I want to delve super deeply into all of the tropes that he hit, but they would be super spoilery. But let's just say I loved where his story arc went too. It’s honestly so refreshing. But I suspect that, like the Rakess, that some readers aren’t going to get this meta aspect to the story. But for me, this subversiveness really elevated the book in my opinion.

The book is definitely steamy and sexy and is unafraid of using adult language. For me, I loved that. Some readers, may not. The consent was absolutely stellar. Loved it. It was sexy but explicit and it shows that writing consent in romance isn't impossible.

The book isn’t perfect though. The beginning is a little clunky and there’s too much time spent on giving us updates about the characters from the previous book. Characters who don’t actually show up in this book. Additionally, the sex scenes themselves were not as good as the actual consent. They sort of skimmed a line between open and closed door, literary and explicit. Not my favorite thing about the book.

Ultimately the book was fun and funny... a true romantic comedy. I found myself laughing in several places. There were so many good lines. My Ebook was highlighted all over the place.

Frankly I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait to read Ravenna's story and Hunter & Zeva's as well.

Five stars.

If this is your jam, you can get it here.

If you like these kind of honest reviews, please consider supporting us here!

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley

#Romance review #fantasy romance #interracial romance #fairy tale retelling #the frog prince #the princess and the frog #Black Heroine #saranna dewylde #five stars #Rose and Lark review books

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lejacquelope · 4 years ago

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I noticed something interesting about Raya And The Last Dragon that I also saw in the new Lost in Space series and the last Star Wars trilogy.

Now there have been female villains throughout entertainment history but as of late, there has been a sub-current of storytelling in which you have women who serve as the rah rah girl power hero... and normally in these plotlines you have the man as the total fuckup. Woman good man bad, or so the trope goes. But noep... not in these cases. Now you're seeing rah rah girl power and oh my God woman you're a facepalm-level fuckup in the same storyline. Then there's the men in the middle who prove to be competent.

This is important to watch because there is a certain widely-believed "fact" of male versus female development in real life. Basically in reality men are perceived as being the best and worst in terms of competence. I'm talking about the male variance hypothesis. Men dominate the genius and dumbass ends of the intelligence spectrum. When you translate this theory to story telling, you often see men as the most heroic and competent and also the most pathetic characters. Women lie in the middle.

As of late, however, an equally valid and provably true reality has begun to find its way into story telling: there are also Apex women and Nadir women as well: the really competent and heroic women and the really pathetic villainous female losers, often clashing with each other. With male characters stuck in the middle. This also happens in real life.

It is interesting to see this in story lines, and I'm seeing it more often as of late. Welcome to the 21st century, folks. We don't have flying cars but we have a sea change in how writers portray men and women, and the winds are shifting toward balance.

The last three Star Wars movies were a disaster, let's get that out of the way. Kathleen Kennedy screwed that pooch with no condom or lube and not even a fucking reacharound and left the franchise tyrannosaurus wrecked on the train tracks like a Ford Pinto that butted heads with a freight train. That said... as we know, the top hero was a woman, Rey. But the worst most pathetic character in the show, the loser who stood apart in the ninth level of character development hell, was also a woman... Captain Phasma. Even as a villain she flew like a lead balloon, a total fuckup. Poe hung around the middle to top in terms of competence while former sanitation worker Finn was in the middle and actually he also had some heroic moments. Neither of them sank anywhere close to Phasma's level of fail.

In Lost in Space the top doers in the show were the women. Little Will Robinson was mid tier (in my opinion, your opinion may differ) but often fell behind Maureen and Judy (again my opinion) in prominence, except he had the Robot backing him up, which pushed him closer to top tier (of course he was supposed to rise to top tier in the future but the series isn't going to get there). But who's the absolute most pathetic? Smith... this time a woman. And I mean she really scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Not that she's poorly written, far from it! ... but... damn.

Raya follows this pattern but quite outstandingly. Raya is the heroine, titular character and the savior of the world, and the dragon who saves the world with her is also a woman. Go girl power, right? Not so fast. Without going into details let's just say Raya's Mary Sue card went up in flames from the word go. Then her female rival goes and fucks up on a level so bad that it's just plain shocking to behold. This same dumbass woman then comes back later and capitalizes on her fuckups and almost causes game over for everyone. This villain is a perfect translation of everything you see in toxic masculinity tropes into female form. Then there is one top tier male that is pulled from the story early on, and then one male who does a heel-face turn and rises to the level of a competent sidekick and another young male who is kinda okay. No male in the entire story are as pathetic as the (as I count it) three true villains who are all female.

It is quite interesting to see the variance effect genderflipped like this. Once is a coincidence... but three is a pattern. In my opinion? Writers are doing this unintentionally in a push to be edgy and unique. And it is worthy of being noticed.

#raya #raya the last dragon #raya and the last dragon #variance hypothesis #genderflip

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ingek73 · 4 years ago

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Prince Harry, The Press, and Men's Mental Health

On mental health awareness week, why are the press attacking Harry for speaking out about his mental health?

Eliz Mizon

1 hr ago

Credit: Raph_PH

It’s Mental Health Awareness Week, and the British tabloids have decided to spend it attacking a man who is speaking out about how they damaged his mental health.

You’d think as professional communicators they’d have the PR nouse to know this was a bad look but, so powerful is Harry’s condemnation of them, they can’t help but go full death throe.

Harry’s May 13 appearance on actor Dax Shepherd’s podcast Armchair Expert has been framed by tabloids as “blasting the royals”, “bitter”, and “low”.

The usual suspects (Sun/Mail/Express) have put their familiar rabidity to work defining Harry’s speaking out about his life as a royal, in particular its effects on his mental health, as ‘manipulation by Meghan’ or the apparent crime of ‘insulting/breaching the trust of the royal family’ (something the tabloids would never do, and are definitely not doing literally right now).

[Twitter avatar for @Jasamgurlie

BLACKLIVESMATTER

@Jasamgurlie

Yep, Meghan, The Duchess Of Sussex made him say it all. 😂

The way I can keep pulling out these clips… Image

May 14th 2021

119 Retweets464 Likes]

Simply, Harry has called out the tabloids more publicly and clearly than ever. As an insider of key areas of British imperial nationhood — the royal family, celebrity, the army, the public school system etc. — Harry has powerful insights into how UK power works, and he’s saying them out loud, often. As media critic Mic Wright said in his newsletter this morning:

“In the most privileged professional wrestling ever, Prince Harry has broken kayfabe.”

The reason the tabloids are so desperate to push a narrative of Harry as ‘royal family-blasting’ is because he is actually tabloid-blasting in defence of his family.

Listen to the podcast and you’ll hear him discussing the way the royals’ relationship with the tabloids, among other traditions, has harmed them. His family has long been part of a “business model”:

“It’s the job, right? Grin and bear it. Get on with it. I was in my early twenties and I was thinking, ‘I don’t want this job. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be doing this. Look what it did to my mum. How am I ever going to settle down and have a wife and family, when I know it’s going to happen again?’ I’ve seen behind the curtain, I’ve seen the business model, and seen how this whole thing works and I don’t want to be a part of this.”

Harry speaks eloquently, confidently, and convincingly about the toxicity of the tabloid machine, not only where he is concerned but for countless private and public citizens. And this is not limited to the damage of the initial coverage (coverage being a respectable euphemism for lying, hounding, invasions of privacy, doxxing, etc.) but also in its subsequent silencing effect:

“I used to be fearful of it. Now, it’s almost like the same groups of people that come at it so negatively or try to turn it against you or weaponise it, and therefore prevent so many millions of people from doing so, actually encourages me to speak out more… I’m going to be vulnerable, if I get attacked for it, let’s see who’s actually attacking me and what’s their story? What’s their agenda? Who do they work for?”

The tabloid press thrives on battering and demeaning people. As the cynicism of the below cartoon shows, as soon as somebody takes control of their own coverage and narrative, they are further battered for doing so:

(If you want to see Piers’s tweet click on the link below)

[Twitter avatar for @piersmorgan

Piers Morgan

@piersmorgan

Nailed it ⁦@BrookesTimes⁩ 👍 Image

May 15th 2021

1,023 Retweets8,839 Likes]

Ultimately, in speaking out about press abuse, Harry is doing important work. But in speaking out about men’s mental health, he’s doing desperately necessary, urgent and crucial work that’s likely life-saving.

This week I rewatched The Work, one of the most remarkable documentaries I have ever seen (and I don’t say that lightly.) There is plenty to say about the skill of putting such a film together without disrupting The Work itself, but that’s another article. What I felt particularly keenly this week was how clearly the film demonstrates masculinity in crisis and how it is beginning to be healed - so many men, from the life-serving gang member, to the frat bro, to the meek guy whose Dad didn’t let him help out on the car when he was a kid, have been pummelled into emotional detachment and isolation.

It breeds rage and damage. Damage that, as one of the facilitators says in the film, comes out “sideways” in all areas of life, particularly at the people in your life, spreading exponentially.

As a primary body of communication, the press has a huge impact on public health—mental and physical—and this same emotional detachment, particularly in tabloid reporting, is crystal clear. (Papers are run by people, after all.)

Occasionally, when they do show some semblance of empathy, it’s to pull on heart strings in order to sell more papers, rather than an attempt to actually examine a situation responsibly and with heart.

This fakery is exemplified by the Express’ approach yesterday: create a cover that appears to empathise…

Image

…but also run numerous meritless stories that slam Harry (and Meghan, of course) personally. They also wrote a handful of pieces that appeared positive, but these equally reactionary pieces were buried among countless negative takes.

Articles tagged with ‘Prince Harry’ on the Express’ website today.

It’s celebrity gossip, pure and simple.

Harry is a harbinger for change like many others—he just happens to be a very unique one, given his rogue use of fame and power. Not only change in how the press works (and potentially, though he has not been a proponent of this, the capitalism system that has molded it) but also of our national view of the status of the monarchy, both in their public and private lives. And crucially, of the role of societal structures in producing mental health effects and a certain type of ‘correct’ (toxic) masculinity.

People are working to create healthier structures in place of these, and right-wing reactionaries are flipping out. Those who deride these changes as ‘woke’ etc. have something—money, power, their identity—to protect. Those of us who seek these changes are building a healthier more equitable society for even those reactionaries to better understand who they are.

#prince harry #duke of sussex #brf #royals #eliz mizon #tabloids

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autumnblogs · 4 years ago

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Day 3: Vendetta against Bro

Welcome back to more Homestuck Liveblogging. Picking up with Nannasprite as she prepares to give John the Dirt.

https://homestuck.com/story/421

Sburb’s opening move is to take John’s Dad away from him. If @mmmmalo‘s theory about psychological storytelling is to be believed, Sburb provokes fear and then manifests it in the form of a character’s antagonists. If you wonder why I bring them up so much, it’s probably because I’ve been reading their blog lately. I am almost always game for more Homestuck theorization, and would love to be able to reference more people and engage with their thoughts in my theoryposts and liveblogging, so if you know somebody with good takes, please pass them along my way.

The Incipisphere, like John’s name, was invoked into existence by player/character action, but paradoxically, has always been that way. By engaging with Sburb, John authenticates its retroactive existence, like a mailman taking a signature of receipt for a package.

When we engage with the fixtures of our cultures and material realities, we too, authenticate them. This can be good or bad - when we communicate with each other, recognize each other, we authenticate each other too. Observing and being observed is a mutual act of validation for everyone involved. I see you seeing me seeing you.

I’m full of horseshit again. Read some more horseshit after the break.

Content Warning for this one: Pedophilia Mentions.

https://homestuck.com/story/422

There’s a lot to unpack in this sequence of pages, and I’m almost certainly going to miss a lot of it, but I’ll come back to stuff that I miss as it comes back up in later pages.

As a Crucible of Unlimited Potential, Skaia can become absolutely anything, and the shape that it will take on will be influenced by the actions of the players. But it isn’t anything yet.

This is the second time in two pages that Nanna has brought up the light-darkness dichotomy of the forces at play in the Medium, and after just talking about the act of mutual authentication through mutual observation, my brain is screaming the words Hegelian Lens at me. Might go somewhere with that too.

I also wanna call attention to the name of the Medium. As a story about stories, it only makes sense that the name of Homestuck’s main otherworld should evoke the field used to propagate mass communication.

https://homestuck.com/story/423

I’ve always thought that it’s interesting that of the two forces in the Medium, the players have natural allies in the form of Prospit. The choice here is not to act on behalf of one or the other, the choice is between Action and Inaction. Not doing something is itself, doing something.

https://homestuck.com/story/427

You Can (Not) Redo.

Sburb relentlessly drives its players forward. If you attempt to go back, or stay where you are, you will be punished. No getting your parents back, no getting your planet back.

What’ll it be John? Advance or Advance?

https://homestuck.com/story/431

John is extremely resistant to being made to do things that he doesn’t want to do anyway, even by Narrators.

More thoughts about Cake and Baked Goods in Homestuck and in relation to John. The other main characters baking is associated with in Homestuck are all women - The Condesce, Meenah, Jane, Nanna - and baking in general is pretty strongly associated with women, moms, etc. I’ve always thought it was a little out of place amongst Dad’s other character traits, which are definitively masculine. Maybe it’s for exactly that reason - baking is culturally feminine.

Maybe John’s resistance to baked goods is because he’s uncomfortable receiving feminine affection (especially, but not only from his Dad). It’s like getting kisses from your Mom in public or other public displays of affection between men and the women in their lives, or even men and other men in their lives. John is certainly pretty clueless about affection from women when he receives it later in the story. On the other hand, he responds very well to masculine displays of affection, like the aloof but ebullient cards he gets from his Dad, or the one-upsmanship between him and Dave.

(I’ll have to think some more about the capitalism thing from my other post.)

https://homestuck.com/story/433

More of Rose seeing enemies in every shadow. Then again, could it be Jasper’s fault that they’re in this mess?

https://homestuck.com/story/442

I think the fact that we jump to this point in the past suggests that Rose is probably reminiscing about this spot, going along with my theory that when the Narration is focusing on a character, it’s also giving us that character’s stream of consciousness - we’re experience what Rose is experiencing.

That probably goes a long way to excusing the kind of puzzling, irritating experience we have of our first minutes with John. Due to his tendency to get distracted by things and forget how things work, we have to suffer through his own inability to navigate his disorderly environment exactly the same way he does.

Oh, so that’s why this story gets compared to Ulysses.

It is Jaspers’ fault that they’re in this mess. My hypothesis gathers more data.

https://homestuck.com/story/444

The third of the prose poems. Drat. Got to Dave’s Poem before I even had the chance to write about Rose’s Poem. Guess we’ll come back to this one later later.

https://homestuck.com/story/445

I’ve almost certainly missed a few of these gags by now but “Left him hanging long enough” is one of the jokes that Homestuck reproduces over and over again. Homestuck reproduces itself frequently, like variations on a theme. Its self-referential nature could be called incestuous, as it turns one-off gags into recurring gags.

https://homestuck.com/story/448

While Bro and Dirk are both definitely irony ninjas where Dave is just performing irony to get his Bro’s approval, I think all the irony is an effort to distance themselves from the fact that they really do sincerely enjoy the things they’re “ironically” into. That too, is probably ironic.

Unfortunately, the actual subject matter of Bro’s interests, while innocuous in a vacuum, are still extremely inappropriate to leave out where a thirteen year old can have access to them. Bro probably isn’t a pedophile, but between the martial education, and the uncomfortable degree to which he involves Dave in his sex life, his relationship with Dave recalls pederasty which is one of many, many links between Dirk, Bro, and the Classical Hellenes, and Monastic Shudo, a similar practice historically attested from their beloved Japan. (The term Platonic Relationship is called that because Plato is one of the first Greek Philosophers to argue that maybe it would be better for students’ education if they weren’t also sexually involved with their mentors? Or so the story goes.)

I may have a bit of a vendetta against Bro Strider, which probably has at least a little to do with the fact that, when I first read Homestuck, I got fooled into thinking he was kind of awesome, and it wasn’t until I was able to deal with my own childhood abuse and the fact that I had been indoctrinated with a lot of the very same toxic ideas bro inculcated in Dave that I was able to realize that Bro Strider is kind of a horrible guardian, so I have a sort of special ire directed at this character. Maybe I’m afraid in another life, I could have grown up to be that kind of creep. I’m glad I didn’t.

https://homestuck.com/story/449

All throughout this section, the narration suggests that Dave is both subconsciously aware that his Bro’s pasttimes make him uncomfortable, but trying to soothe himself by affirming them. So, in spite of my sharing some youthful confusion with Dave, the Narrative at least communicates to us from the very beginning that something is off about Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/452

To interrupt my dark and brooding reverie, please enjoy some Skate 3 Glitches.

I guess here’s a good place to note that I am going to be using the #personal stuff hashtag to denote when a post contains me alluding to my own dark and troubled past.

https://homestuck.com/story/457

The password is six letters long, and based on the fact that it’s the most awesome thing that it could be, I have no doubt that it’s Strider.

https://homestuck.com/story/465

Yup.

https://homestuck.com/story/466

It warms the cockles of me heart that Dave’s first inclination when he starts to flip the fuck out is to reach out to John Egbert.

https://homestuck.com/story/484

8^y

https://homestuck.com/story/485

Remember that one-upsmanship I was talking about? Any chance Dave and John get around each other, they talk each other down. I’m not sure if Andrew was saying anything about Toxic Masculinity at the time. I expect, like a lot of us, he didn’t have those words on his mind in 2009, but that’s textbook toxic masculinity, and I think when viewed as a complete work, Dave and John’s growth out of it is a sign of healthy maturation. Build each other up, boys, don’t tear each other down. In this life, we’re all we’ve got, and you owe it to each other.

https://homestuck.com/story/503

Leveling up is one of those weird things about Roleplaying Games that I didn’t realize until some point in the last two years is kind of an integral fixture of them. Overcoming hardships permanently makes you stronger in games that have an experience-level feature in them, and once you’re strong enough to beat a challenge once, you’re almost always strong enough to overcome that challenge in the future.

It’s a kind of storytelling that on closer examination is weirdly propagandistic, but it’s actually all over media. It’s pretty rare for a story to say “When you overcome a challenge, good job. You will have to overcome that same challenge again and again - maybe every day of your life.” The interesting thing, and I might come back to this, is that I think Homestuck actually takes this latter approach. Exactly the same emotional struggles they begin the story with are the ones they spend all 8000 pages of Homestuck agonizing over, and these characters will probably spend their entire lives wrestling with the baggage of their youth.

Suffering and toil is the fate of humankind, I suppose.

https://homestuck.com/story/518

Surrounded by Idiots.

https://homestuck.com/story/538

Saw is a story about a serial killer who subjects his victims to gruelling trials catered to make them face their own fatal flaws and emerge changed into better people, which is a lot like authorial scorn, which Andrew describes thusly in the commentary for Vriska’s introduction: “It's not as ill-willed as it might sound, but more of a universal principle of storytelling that for things to be interesting, harsh outcomes must befall those you create, in response to which they may thrive or fail. Which to the casual observer may read as hate.“. Lord English and Caliborn bear visual similarity to Jigsaw’s creepy puppet avatars, and serve as instruments of Andrew’s Authorial Scorn. Bro reproduces the same kind of creator’s hatred that Lord English bears toward all of Paradox Space, and reproduces it for the dubious benefit of his ward - Dave is to overcome the challenges thrust upon him in order to become strong.

https://homestuck.com/story/571

Dave does not care for being watched.

https://homestuck.com/story/588

If Dave’s first instinct for when he’s uncomfortable is to go talk to his friends, his second instinct is to attack.

https://homestuck.com/story/625

I don’t remember where I read it originally, it’s too far away in the past, but each of the items in the Rocket Pack is representative of one of John’s friends. The Cinderblock Dave, the Flower Pot Jade, the Violin Rose. John’s friends, his connections and bonds (Blood) tie him down and prevent him from indulging his most impulsive behaviors (Breath).

https://homestuck.com/story/631

In addition to Mad Science (or perhaps as an aspect thereof) John demonstrates remarkable lateral thinking.

https://homestuck.com/story/635

Alchemy has helped me get my thoughts in gear on a subject I glossed over the other day - the way the characters’ personality traits and objects fill the background radiation of the comic. In a way, the same thing is going on when the characters produce all kinds of neat shit from the odds and ends around their house as is going on when Sburb populates itself with symbols from the characters domestic lives.

Clowns become a threatening symbol throughout all of Homestuck, basically because there are a bunch in John’s house from a Doylist perspective. From a Watsonian perspective, Sburb seems, through the vehicle of destiny, to deliberately latch onto things from the players’ lives that will help them to contend with their anxiety and trauma. John has bad dreams about clowns, and seems to conceptualize himself as a clown in his self-critical estimation of himself. Maybe even as a Dark Mirror of his aspirations to be an entertainer? Is a Circus Clown a funhouse mirror version of a stage magician? I don’t have a follow up to that question, but it makes me think. If you checked out the essay from Malo I linked earlier, you might recognize some other things that John is afraid of which characterize his session, like his alleged fear of heights, and his anxiety about confronting his Dad.

I think that’s all for this evening. Another 200 pages down.

Cam signing off, alive and not alone.

#homestuck #liveblogging #commentary #authentication #validation #irony #personal stuff #authorial scorn

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kanralovesu · 4 years ago

Text

How Does Persona 4 Uses Liberal Arguments to Come to Conservative Conclusions?

After playing Persona 4 Golden on PC recently it’s quickly become one of my favorite RPGs, but from my experience even die hard fans admit their are some problematic elements namely in terms of LGBT representation. However, when I got to the Naoto’s dungeon, I initially was pleasantly surprised. Naoto was struggling with his identity in a profession dominated by toxic masculinity, constantly trying to live up to his and the world’s perception of who he should be. I had beaten the boss and we were being given a speech on how Naoto should just be himself and all that jazz. But then Yukiko just chimes in “Yeah, you don’t really want to be a man do you?” and then Naoto is just like “Yeah I guess you’re right.” The tonal whiplash blew me intro the stratosphere. For my money we had just spent an entire arc reaffirming the fact that Naoto’s transgender status was valid, but in one line of dialogue the game threw all of that our the window. The weirdest part was, when I went back and looked at the rest of the game, the same pattern was repeated over and over again. How does Persona 4 use a liberal argument to come to a conservative conclusion?

Well because we all know about the problems with Naoto and Kanji I’ll leave them out of this for the rest of the post and instead prove that this is a reoccurring problem by quickly focusing on some other social links. Yukiko initially rejects tradition when she rejects the idea that she will inherit her family’s inn. She’s confident and self-assured that she can make it on her own, taking you shopping so she can learn how to cook, etc. But then a few evil tv crews come to her front door and she makes a 180, determined to “give back after all they had done for her”. Yumi (drama girl) is angry with her father because he was a deadbeat dad and now is determined to come back into her life. But then she quickly makes a 180 and goes so far as to quit drama club to try and find out “why her parents gave birth to her”. Rise quits her life as an idol to escape the horrors of show biz. But then she returns after remembering she helped some fan about bullying. While becoming an idol again isn’t very conservative, its still this idea that she’s going back to her roots rather than trying to change.

Now admitted I didn’t max all my social links on my first playthrough, but among the ones I did this trend held true for about 50% of them. For fairness I’ll just bring up that both Kanji’s and the Devil’s Social Links seemed pretty openly Liberal to me with Kanji fighting both against toxic masculinity and the police and the Devil fighting against work culture. After you deal with Kanji’s shadow form of every problematic stereotype of gay men, his character feels very close to positive representation.

Back to the matter at hand, even outside of social links this dichotomy holds true. The game is pretty obviously anti-consumer culture and therefore can be read as anti-capitalist. However, this ignores that fact that the old shopping district is seen as an unequivocally good even when the encroaching Junes is not. For some reason we come to the conclusion that some capitalism is good even after we criticize elements of capitalism. When we find out that Adachi, a police officer, is the villain and he begin to explain how he “just wanted to own a gun” and how he tampered with evidence constantly, one might think the game is making a statement. However, when we compare Adachi to your surrogate father Dojima we start to realize that Adachi is constantly portrayed as slacking off and not being good at his job. Dojima and Naoto are real cops who are just getting spoiled by a single bad apple and even Chie wants to be a cop when she’s older!

Okay that’s enough of the what, how about some of the why? Well after compiling my previous post about the core themes of Persona 4, it hit me: the central theme of this game is “finding the truth”. This theme does not have a political leaning. Both liberals and conservatives would say they are the “truth”! Naoto’s story and every character’s story was about finding his true self. To a liberal this means accepting that you are transgender and you’re not mentally ill, harmful or alien and to a conservative this means no, you are not transgender you are your biological gender. The same is true for every other aspect of the story that initially seems liberal. In reality when I looked back all they were stating was that we need to search for “the truth” and as a liberal I projected my own interpretation of what the truth is onto that argument. Then the game, a largely conservative one, finally reveals its master plan after taking steps it understood where in service of this conservative conclusion, but which I never thought of that way.

Now this is actually kind of great on the games part. If the game openly dog whistled to conservative ideas and was constantly making openly conservative arguments, I bet most of us wouldn’t be able to find much enjoyment in it. However, seeking the “truth” is such a universal concept that anyone could enjoy a story about! Even though I was very often blindsided by just how conservative this small-town loving game is, I never found myself so insulted that I had to put the game down. Most of the game was 100% universal to the human experience so there was always something I could connect to!

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miggydiaz · 4 years ago

Note

for the salty ask: 3, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 27 for spn

I had to do this one today because I have a LOT of Supernatural feelings and so a lot of these are even longer than my CK one. But thanks for the ask @wonderwolfballoon!

UNPOPULAR SUPERNATURAL OPINIONS AHOY: INCLUDES ANTI-DESTIEL SENTIMENTS AND OTHER UNSAVORY ELEMENTS

3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? 100000000% I have unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion in the SPN fandom. SPN was the fandom that taught me to make JUDICIOUS use of the blocking feature tumblr offers in order to curate my experience. I would actually encourage anyone and everyone to use the blocking feature if they disagree with people. Honestly, we don’t owe anyone our time or energy, especially on the internet! It is much healthier than sending or responding to hate, IMO. 7. Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?* This is actually a hard one for me to answer, so let me start by saying -- I have not seen a SINGLE episode since 9x05? I think? Whichever episode was the Dr. Deanlittle one where he talks to animals. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the first 5 seasons, and they are all I watch anymore and I pretend nothing else exists after that (except The French Mistake because that episode is hilarious). But uh... I guess the simple answer is when I was originally watching it, I really loved Dean. He was brash, snarky, rough around the edges... but kind of soft in a I’m too toxically masculine to deal with my softness sort of way that I love seeing characters grow out of as they mature. But when I go back and rewatch now, much older than I was in 2006 when I first started watching, I see how awful a lot of his older behavior truly was. I still love Dean, and I will be a Dean girl until I die probably, but sometimes you gotta remind yourself that your faves have been problematic in the past so you don’t put them up on fandom constructed pedestals.

10. Most disliked arc? Why? AND AS A BONUS, MY ANSWER to 11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? I could write a literal essay about all of the problems I have with the later seasons (the ones I watched, which encompasses 6, 7, 8, and a few episodes of 9). But by far and away, the thing I hated most, was the Men of Letters.

Okay, this is where I am going to recognize my love of certain characters is at FUNDAMENTAL ODDS with how that character develops later and what history and background we get later on them. I RECOGNIZE this character is problematic, and I would NEVER STAND for his shit IRL, but fiction is complicated and nuanced, and fantastic circumstances do not make for normal behaviors. That being said, with all warnings I could possibly give, and with the full understanding that what I am about to say is basically fandom blasphemy of the highest order...

I like John Winchester’s character.

I know, I know. If you wanna stop reading and block me now, you are free to do that. I will not hold it against you. I am not about to apologize for anything he has done. I just need to contextualize why I have such an issue with the MOL storyline and it starts with the simple fact that I liked John Winchester as he was originally presented.

To me, and with the full understanding that I am answering this from the perspective of someone who DOES NOT regard anything past season 5 as personal canon, John Winchester is the perfect example of a truly complicated character. Here’s a parent who, if we take the pilot and the original s2 Djinn episodes at face value, could have been a great parent, who then got shoved into a fantastically impossible situation and made terrible choices that he thought were necessary in order to keep himself and his sons safe. That does not EXCUSE the heaps of abuse that he piled onto Dean in any way. We know John and Mary didn’t have a great marriage. But we also know from the pilot that John was at least a caring and present father, mostly, for the 4 years he got to parent in a normal world, and that if Mary had lived, John would’ve been a softball playing dad who raised his kids and had a loving marriage with his wife. (Again, I need to reiterate, I did not watch anything past the early episodes of s9. If there is later canon that negates this, I do not know about it, nor do I want to because I don’t think of anything past 5 as canon) This is all important to me because these things emphasize that John was “NORMAL”. He was a mechanic, from a family of mechanics, whose father didn’t bail on him (a man in the episode where Dean is transported back in time to Lawrence tells John to ‘say hi to your old man for me’ or something to that effect). He was just a midwestern dude. Giving John Winchester a fantastical background through this Men of Letters bullshit made me SO MAD. First of all, I hate when later canon negates previous canon. I cannon TELL you how much I hate it. And the later seasons of Supernatural are riddled with stuff that doesn’t make any damn sense in the context of original, Kripke written canon, which is exactly why I stopped watching. That’s not ~Evolution of the show.~ That’s conveniently forgetting stuff that made your show and its premise so successful to begin with in order to keep filming episodes so you can keep making money. It’s the sacrifice of art for capitalism and yes I know this is a stupid TV show but as a writer myself it PISSES ME OFF.

/rant

ALSO, the idea that this toxically masculine family was set on this path by Heaven, and inherited this curse that put them on this path from their mother was such a good plot twist in its heyday. We spent four seasons thinking of Mary Winchester as a victim of circumstance, whose fate could not have been avoided because she was the mother to Sam, who is effectively cursed. And then, we learn that its BECAUSE of Mary that this ball even got rolling in the first place. IDK if you were around for that time in the fandom but at least in my circle, this was a big fucking deal. There had been so much (rightful) discourse about John before this, and what kind of parent he was, that Mary became almost deified in the same way Dean deifies her. And then we find out that this whole story gets set in motion by a decision she made because this was the life she found herself in. This was great. It was interesting. And even though the MOL doesn’t negate any of this, it does give John this weirdly fantastical that isn’t necessary. Let this guy be just some Joe Schmoe who fell in love with a kick ass hunter and had no idea any of this even existed. Let Mary and her want to be ‘normal’ be a complicated moral choice that fundamentally altered the paths of her husband and sons. It’s good tv!

Also, I fucking hate the bunker. The best episodes are Dean and Sam having moments in the car, or while in motel rooms on their cases, or whatever. I don’t mind them having a home base. I’m fine with that. But if a building could ever be a Mary Sue character, the bunker is it. I hate all of the MOL storyline, starting with this place.

I may not even tag this as Supernatural, I don’t need angry later season stans in my inbox.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

There’s nothing good about anything that happened after season 6. It’s all a bunch of retconning bullshit. Season 6 had its moments where it was interesting, so I cut it a little bit of slack, but as far as I’m concerned, the show ended in season 5. I’m not sure that’s necessarily unpopular, but it does feel that way on tumblr, so.

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

Aside from ending it in season 5?

Oooh, I’m about to blaspheme again. I am definitely not tagging this as Supernatural.

I would never have introduced Castiel, and I would’ve given that entire storyline to Anna. Or, alternatively, I would’ve flipped their story lines.

Look, for whatever it’s worth... I agree with the idea that Dean Winchester is a repressed bisexual. His Dr. Sexy love, the entire storyline with Benny in season 8, etc. I just don’t think he feels romantically about Castiel. And like, that’s okay! Just because you’re not into someone who is into you doesn’t mean you owe them a relationship or anything, no matter what the fandom thinks.

But I also think Dean has a big problem when it comes to women. Again, obviously later on in the series, Dean shifts and Charlie happens and Claire Novak and I know all of these things from gifs okay, context is not applicable here because I have none. But early on, Dean struggles A LOT with thinking of women as A) capable and B) trustworthy. He exists in a perpetual state of identifying women along the Madonna/Whore binary. Even Jo, however you feel about her, and to be clear, I loved Jo, but he doesn’t stop thinking of her really as a kid until they’re about to shoot the devil. Up until then, he’s genuinely surprised Ellen lets her out of the damn house.

Giving him a strong, capable woman who rebels against Heaven for HIM would have fundamentally altered Dean’s perceptions of women much earlier on than we get and would have forced him to examine some of that misogyny head on.

Dean has no problems trusting men. This is why the entire Gordon fiasco happens, right? It was less work for him to trust Castiel because Castiel is the inverse of Ruby. Angel to her Demon. Angels and demons don’t really have genders, but for the sake of presentation of vessels, man to her woman. Not even getting me started on the problematic parts of having significant demons mostly symbolized by women (Meg, Ruby, Lilith) and having significant angels mostly represented by Men (Castiel, Michael, Lucifer, Zachariah, Gabriel, Raphael), and how that ties into the idea of Original Sin and yada yada, but just like it’s interesting to have Mary and her decisions be the catalyst for the story, it’s interesting to have this badass warrior angel in Anna who marches down to Hell to yank Dean out, and through her interactions with him, decide to rebel against the ultimate patriarchy, while Dean gets an equally strong female counterpart to Sam’s Ruby, a woman for all intents and purposes that he respects as a soldier and an ally and not just a potential piece of ass.

Also, Castiel fans being literally unbearable is why I left the fandom. Nothing against Misha or anything, and not even anything against Cas as a character (who I very much enjoyed in seasons 4 and 5), but his fans have always been the worst and they try to insert him into everything.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

Castiel/Destiel fans, which even though I also hated the direction the show was going, drove me out of the fandom. Not like, personally or directly, but just the sheer mental hoops they had to jump through in order to make their ship work and I just got tired of seeing all of the contrived meta on my dash. Oh, and the rampant misogyny that came out of those early Castiel fans. I didn’t appreciate it from the Wincest corner, and I definitely didn’t appreciate it from the fans of the new guy. Gross.

22. Popular character you hate?

Oof. I don’t know. I don’t really hate Castiel, because again, I liked him a lot in seasons 4 and 5. Even 6 was interesting, even if I don’t regard it as my own personal show canon. I don’t think there was a popular character in those first five seasons I ever really hated. I didn’t fundamentally hate a character at all until the MOL stuff came around. Um. Yeah, I don’t really have an answer for this.

23. Unpopular character you love?

Pretty much every female character ever. Jo, Ellen, Ruby, Meg... although Meg became more popular as the series went on, Anna. Um. OH, BELA. Bela ESPECIALLY, I recently rewatched season 3 and I cannot emphasize how MUCH I love Bela. She was the best purely human foil ever. Bela is hands down the character I love most that the fandom had frothing at the mouth hatred for. It doesn’t help that I legitimately think Lauren Cohan is one of the most beautiful women on the planet. But seriously, Bela. Hands down.

24. Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not?

I have! Many of times, and ALWAYS WITH THE CAVEAT to stop at the end of season 5. Not a single one of them has listened to me and almost all of them came to me at the end of the finale and were like WHY DID I WASTE SO MUCH TIME, and I don’t want to say I told them so, but like, I explicitly in neon colored text once told them so, so like, idk what to tell them. But yes! I think if someone is interested in some classic mystery television that has an overarching theme of family and forgiveness and striking out against the boxes that life tries to put us all into, SPN is a great show. But only the first 5 seasons. Also, be prepared for some thematically problematic parts of the show because there’s a lot of cishet toxic masculinity in those early seasons, and we should examine our media critically. There’s also a lot of good though too, and IMO, the good outweighs the bad.

25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

I would’ve ended it at season 5. I would’ve had Sam escape the pit and seen him standing under the street lamp, but then I would’ve had him walking away to leave Dean with Lisa (btw, side note, I DIDN’T like Lisa because I don’t think Dean would ever be truly happy with someone completely outside the life). Not because Sam doesn’t love his brother, but because he *does* love his brother, and because he would want Dean to be happy, even though Dean and Sam’s ideas of what makes the other happy have always been a little bit screwed up.. but that’s a different story.

27. Least shippable character?

Probably Zachariah. God, could you imagine? And... maybe Alastair, but I’m sure there are fics out there that I do not want to think about.

#wonderwolfballoon #I cannot for the sake of my own sanity tag this #I don't need angry SPN fans coming at me #I hope the bold text at the top helps people to understand what's behind the cut

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mswyrr · 5 years ago

Link

I emerged from the Sundance Film Festival with offers to act in projects I would never have been allowed to read for a week prior. Most of those roles were still girlfriend, mistress, mother. But there was a new character on offer to me as well, one that survived the story.

Enter, stage right: the Strong Female Lead.

She’s an assassin, a spy, a soldier, a superhero, a C.E.O. She can make a wound compress out of a maxi pad while on the lam. She’s got MacGyver’s resourcefulness but looks better in a tank top.

Acting the part of the Strong Female Lead changed both who I was and what I thought I was capable of. Training to do my own stunt work made me feel formidable and respected on set. Playing scenes where I was the boss firing men tasted like empowerment. And it will always feel better to be holding the gun in the scene than to be pleading for your life at the other end of the barrel.

It would be hard to deny that there is nutrition to be drawn from any narrative that gives women agency and voice in a world where they are most often without both. But the more I acted the Strong Female Lead, the more I became aware of the narrow specificity of the characters’ strengths — physical prowess, linear ambition, focused rationality. Masculine modalities of power.

I thought back to the films I watched and stories I read burrowed deep in the stacks of the library. I began to see something deeper and more insidious behind all those images of dead and dying women.

When we kill women in our stories, we aren’t just annihilating female gendered bodies. We are annihilating the feminine as a force wherever it resides — in women, in men, of the natural world. Because what we really mean when we say we want strong female leads is: “Give me a man but in the body of a woman I still want to see naked.”

It’s difficult for us to imagine femininity itself — empathy, vulnerability, listening — as strong. When I look at the world our stories have helped us envision and then erect, these are the very qualities that have been vanquished in favor of an overwrought masculinity.

I’ve played the Strong Female Lead in real life, too — as an analyst at an investment bank before coming to Hollywood. I wore suits, drank Scotch neat and talked about the women and the men I was sleeping with like commodities on an open market. I buried my feminine intelligence alive in order to survive. I excelled at my linear task of making more money from a lot of money regardless of the long-term consequences for others and the environment.

The lone female V.P. on my floor and my mentor at the time gave me the following advice when she left to partner at a hedge fund: Once a week, open the door to your office when they finally give you one, and place a phone call where you shout a string of expletives in a threatening voice.

She added that there doesn’t actually need to be someone on the other end of the line.

I don’t believe the feminine is sublime and the masculine is horrifying. I believe both are valuable, essential, powerful. But we have maligned one, venerated the other, and fallen into exaggerated performances of both that cause harm to all. How do we restore balance? Or how do we evolve beyond the limitations that binaries like feminine/masculine present in the first place?

In 2014 I went back to the library and encountered Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” a sci-fi novel written in 1993 imagining a 2020 where society has largely collapsed from climate change and growing wealth inequality. Butler’s heroine, the 17 year-old Lauren, has “hyperempathy” — she feels, quite literally, other people’s pain. This feminine gift and curse uniquely prepares her to survive the violent attack on her community in Los Angeles and successfully encourage a small tribe north to begin again from seeds she has saved from her family’s garden.

Butler felt to me like a lighthouse blinking from an island of understanding way out at sea. I had no idea how to get there, but I knew she had found something life saving. She had found a form of resistance.

Butler and other writers like Ursula Le Guin, Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood did not employ speculative fiction to colonize other planets, enslave new life-forms, or extract alien minerals for capital gains only to have them taken at gunpoint by A.I. robots. These women used the tenets of genre to reveal the injustices of the present and imagine our evolution.

With these ideas in mind, Zal Batmanglij and I wrote and created “The OA,” a Netflix series about Prairie, a blind girl who is kidnapped and returns seven years later to the community she grew up in with her sight restored. She opens up to a group of lost teenage boys in her neighborhood, telling them about her captivity and the inter-dimensional travel she discovered to survive it. It turns out these boys need to hear Prairie’s story as much as she needs to tell it. For the boys face their own kind of captivity: growing up inside the increasingly toxic obligations of American manhood.

As time has passed, I’ve come to understand what deep influence shaping a narrative has. Stories inspire our actions. They frame for us existences that are and are not possible, delineate tracks we can or cannot travel. They choose who we can find empathy for and who we cannot. What we have fellow feeling for, we protect. What we objectify and commodify, we eventually destroy.

I don’t want to be the dead girl, or Dave’s wife. But I don’t want to be a strong female lead either, if my power is defined largely by violence and domination, conquest and colonization.

Sometimes I get a feeling of what she could be like. A truly free woman. But when I try to fit her into the hero’s journey she recedes from the picture like a mirage. She says to me: Brit, the hero’s journey is centuries of narrative precedent written by men to mythologize men. Its pattern is inciting incident, rising tension, explosive climax and denouement. What does that remind you of?

And I say, a male orgasm.

And she says: Correct. I love the arc of male pleasure. But how could you bring me into being if I must satisfy the choreography of his desire only?

And I say: Good on you. But then how do I bring you into being?

Then I hear only silence.

But even in the silence I dream of answers. I imagine new structures and mythologies born from the choreography of female bodies, non-gendered bodies, bodies of color, disabled bodies. I imagine excavating my own desires, wants and needs, which I have buried so deeply to meet the desires, wants and needs of men around me that I’m not yet sure how my own desire would power the protagonist of a narrative.

These are not yet solutions. But they are places to dig.

Excavating, teaching and celebrating the feminine through stories is, inside our climate emergency, a matter of human survival. The moment we start imagining a new world and sharing it with one another through story is the moment that new world may actually come.

#media criticism #purity culture #brit marling

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confessionsofaloudmouth · 5 years ago

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Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard; a blog post by Chelbey Trump

Happy Sunday, everyone! I’m generally going to be posting on Sundays because it gives me all of the weekend to write them. Also, you’ll catch on to the structures of these posts as we go.

This week, I am going to be discussing the novel Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. Published in 2015v by Simon and Schuster, the novel was on the New York Time’s Bestsellers list. (In the future, I would like to write a blog post about that particular achievement because, let’s face it, almost every book has been on it.)

Characters:

Mare Barrow; A 17 year-old pitpocketer, living in the slummiest part of a country, with a younger sibling who has potential for their life, parents who are loyal to-said country even though they’re given the short end of the stick, and a male best friend who is, undoubtedly, in love with her. Come on down, Katniss Everdeen! Oh, sorry, I meant Beatrice Prior. America Singer? Oh, right this novel is uniquely science-fiction, even though it follows all of the rules of a dystopian-fiction series. Ehem: I hate this character. Her arch, though not necessary to the forward motion of the story, was lost completely by a million different subplots and, even, the main plot. I like the idea that, in the midst of becoming the face of the rebellion, she became less of an individual person and more of a loyal person to her people. That being said, she was incredibly selfish, with her pity-part-for-one attitude simply because she was born into the Stilts. She took for granted her sister’s opportunity to provide for their family by dragging into a scheme which destroyed her life. Did she save her by acting the part of princess? Yes, but, c’mon: It was either marry Maven or be killed. I hope that she loses this attitude within the next couple books because;

Cal Tiberias; What a hunk! Charming, self-less, sensible, and a future-king? Cal was a strong character, although it could be said that he was weak due to his loyalty to his father which was conditioned inside his brain from a young age. He turned his back on the lower part of his people to stay true to the upper, wealthy, ‘better’ half. He deserved better than this, after showing traits that he was, well, better than this! I understand it worked for the plot line, but how juicy would it have been to see Cal stand up to his father? I loved how passionate he was, though. Mare thought he didn’t care about the divide, but he was noble in saying he didn’t want violence to be what closed said-divide. He was willing to put his men on the same level as the Red soldiers, including himself, to fight the war. That’s hot. In the end, when he defended Mare even though she had offended him, I fell more in love with his character. He had stayed true to himself- or who he was meant to be- instead of a stupid girl, but when they turned their backs on him, he was ready to die with honor alongside that dumb female (synonyms!) If Cal was still the general, then I’d say:

Maven Tiberias; If Cal is a hunk, Maven is that nerdy, attractive guy. He was charming from start to finish even though he was, ya know, the ‘bad’ guy. It was hard to believe him even as the bad guy, however, because he only 17 and played Mare like a game of Chess. It’s understandable that he had, like Cal, been conditioned to love his mother and her cause for all of his life, that the king and Cal were enemies, that Mare could never possibly love him. But, Aveyard literally threw us twenty pages from the end of the novel. It felt rushed, uncomfortable and, well, forced. Overall, I still love his character and I’m excited to see him as a king in the next three books.

Queen Elara and King Tiberias; The. Best. Female. Character. What a literal queen! She didn’t care about anyone’s feeling, had powers which made her stronger than pretty much everyone, and waited so long to let her husband’s head roll so she and her son could rule. That’s amazing! I loved her smug attitude which was revolutionary because she was still a lady. She chided Mare for not acting like a said-lady and did so herself while still manipulating everyone and anyone. We dont see enough strong female characters who are still very much feminine, and we deserve to. Now, for the king: Off with his head! I’m so glad he’s dead because I dont think I could have stood another second of his toxic masculinity. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Ruth, Gisa, and Daniel Marrow; I wish we could have a family which is matriarchal. Too many books rely on normal societorial standards fo household and I’m slightly over it. I understand that in a normal kingdom, men, like Daniel, were the war hero’s, honorably discharged, wise, older, and the most-looked up to in the family. But, c’mon, Mare could literally manipulate electricity and her father couldn’t have made dinner? Her mother was too sweet and quiet and her father too quiet and judgmental. It was too basic and boring. However, I feel awful for Gisa: She absolutely deserved so much more than what she was given by Mare’s horrible decisions.

Honorable Mentions; Kilorn was just so annoying, trying to be masculine yet show his affection to Mare. Get over her, bud, she’s fighting a revolution! Evangeline was annoying, yet so, so satisfying to read about. She was exactly like Queen Elara with all the overwhelming traits of King Tiberias. Lucas, I felt, could have been used a lot more sufficiently than he was. Julian, too, was lost in the fast-paced motion of the novel. Overall, the relationships everyone formed with one another were not illustrated well through the novel. I refuse to believe Mare was falling for Maven, or Cal for Mare, or that Julian truly cared about Mare as much as he said he did because I saw no build up of that love.

Settings:

What Aveyard lacks in characters, she makes up for in description. Although sometimes it felt like she was going overboard with her language usage, fo rate majority of the time, I could see exactly what she was discussing. Her most creative ideas for setting were the forest which was able to prevent pollution from Gray Town, the usage of The Capital River running through the entire kingdom, and the bridge separating Archean and the Silver residencies.

Plot Lines:

Reds vs. Silvers; I hate and love the idea of the high-class citizens having silver-flushed skin and literally silver blood. It took the first half of the book for my mind to comprehend the distinction because I was too focused on hating Mare Barrow (just kidding!) I loved the moment when Evangeline dug her nails into Mare’s arm in order to draw red blood so that her identity would be revealed. But, I hated that there was no explanation as to why there was separation between the two classes.

The Love Triangle (Quartet?); How grossed out would you be if your brother was engaged to the girl you just kissed and made-out with her on a regular basis? Well, put yourself into Cal’s shoes and see you feel. I knew from the moment Cal pretended to be a Red citizen that he was the love interest for Mare- not that she didn’t end up having two others. The personification of his body heat connected to the feelings Mare would have for him, and that was interesting to read about. However, Maven had to be thrown into the mix because he was engaged to her for literal marketing reasons. I shipped Maven and Mare so hard, but Maven apparently did not. I wouldn’t call it a love quartet because we all know Evangeline didn’t actually love Cal.

Brother vs. Brother; The idea of Cal and his father vs. Maven and his mother reminded me of Reign and the relationship between Francis, Queen Elizabeth, Henry and Sebastian. As a fan of that show, I loved this power struggle. The idea of Cal being the OG son and Maven his half-brother showed that his blood did run deep with the Tiberias’. It allowed for him to feel disconnected and to want to follow his mother’s lead to power.

Symbolism and Themes; Let’s be honest here: There were none. Besides the fact that the division between the Reds and Silvers could stand for racism in any and all societies, the novel itself lacked depth. You shouldn’t look to this novel for guidance or meaning. Rather, it is a quick, cute read. Mare’s earrings stood fo her brothers, and eventually Kiloran, but that was literally given to us within the first five chapters. Most of the themes lied along the man vs. nature due to the issue of biological desterminism, and man vs. man for the revolution.

Dream Cast:

Jaz Sinclair as Mare Barrow

Charles Melton as Cal Tiberias

Tati Gabrielle as Evangeline

Jaeden Martell as Maven Calore

Melora Hardin as Queen Elara

I know, I know, this is not everyone. But, these are the only characters I truly felt needed to be played by specific people. And, yes, some are highly debatable, such as Melora because of her comedic timing, but I think these actors could play these characters well.

Quote Corner:

“The truth is what I make it. I could set this world on fire and call it rain.”

“Flame and shadow. One cannot exist without the other.”

“Words can lie. See beyond them.”

(Victoria Aveyard is a wordsmith. What she lacks in character and book depth she makes up for in language and description.)

Overall Rating: 3.75/5

I know I bashed the book a lot, but it was a pretty easy and cute read. I am going to read the sequel because I am very invested in Maven as character and would like to see what else Aveyard has in store. She took ideas from dystopian novels which were all familiar with and put her own unique twist on them, and I admire that.

Thank you for reading this week’s blog post. Next Sunday I will be discussing, “The Half of It.” Please like, follow, and reblog my posts to help get me out there. Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

#book and literature #literature #analysis #character analysis #red queen #victoria aveyard #mare barrow #maven calore #king maven #book review #book analysis #science fiction #dystopian #the hunger games #writer #free write #blogger #blog post

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rapeculturerealities · 5 years ago

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I moved to Los Angeles to become an actress at 24. These are character descriptions of roles I have read for: “thin, attractive, Dave’s wife”; “robot girl, a remarkable feat of engineering”; “her breasts are large and she’s wearing a red sweater.”

I stuffed my bra for that last one. I still did not get the part.

After a while it was hard to tell what was the greater source of my depression: that I could not book a part in a horror film where I had three lines and died on Page 4, or that I was even auditioning to play these roles at all. After dozens of auditions and zero callbacks, my mom suggested I get breast implants. From her perspective, I had walked away from a coveted job at Goldman Sachs and chosen a profession of self-commodification. She wanted to help me sell better.

But I wasn’t drawn to acting because I wanted to be desired. I was drawn to acting because I felt it would allow me to become the whole, embodied person I remembered being in childhood — one that could imagine freely, listen deeply and feel wholeheartedly.

I continued to audition and continued to fail. My depression deepened. My self-esteem plummeted. My boyfriend would get drunk and punch holes in the wall next to my head. I let him. He spat in my face. I let him. He dissolved into tears in my arms. I let him. And then I sifted through the ashes of his anger and his father’s anger before him to help him uncover the forgiveness he needed to move on. I was auditioning to be “Dave’s wife.” I was “robot girl, a remarkable feat of engineering.”

After a day of running from men with chain saws in audition rooms and a night of running from the man I shared a bed with, I decided I was done auditioning. I felt I had to write my way out of these roles or I wouldn’t find my way in the real world, either. I could not be what I could not see onscreen.

So I went to the library in downtown Los Angeles and started reading books and watching films about how to write dramas for the screen. I clung to Jodie Foster in Jonathan Demme’s “Silence of the Lambs,” to Holly Hunter in Jane Campion’s “The Piano.”

But aside from a handful of exceptions, I was overwhelmed by the number of dramatic narratives that murdered their female characters.

In “The Big Heat” she has a pot of boiling coffee thrown in her face and is then shot in the back. In “Chinatown” the bullet tears through her brain and out her eye. And in case this seems like a trend of the past, consider the more recent noir “Blade Runner 2049,” where the holographic femme fatale is deleted and the remaining women are stabbed, drowned and gutted like a fish.

Even the spirited Antigone, the brave Joan of Arc and the unfettered Thelma and Louise meet tragic ends in large part because they are spirited, brave and unfettered. They can defy kings, refuse beauty and defend themselves against violence. But it’s challenging for a writer to imagine a world in which such free women can exist without brutal consequences.

We live in a world that is a direct reflection of these stories we’ve been telling. Close to four women a day are murdered in America at the hands of their partners or former partners. One out of every four women in America has been the victim of a rape.

I am one of those one out of four. Our narratives tell us that women are objects and objects are disposable, so we are always objectified and often disposed of.

There are centuries of trial and error inside the “hero’s journey,” in which a young man is called to adventure, challenged by trials, faces a climactic battle and emerges victorious, changed and a hero. And while there are narrative patterns for the adventures of girls — “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Wizard of Oz” — those are few and far between, and for adult women, even less so.

Even when I found myself writing stories about women rebelling against the patriarchy, it still felt like what I largely ended up describing was the confines of patriarchy. The more fettered I felt inside the real world, the more I turned toward science fiction, speculative fiction and lo-fi fantasy.

I eventually co-wrote, produced and starred in two microbudget films, “Another Earth” and “Sound of My Voice.” Both stories left reality just far enough behind to give me the mental freedom to imagine female characters behaving in ways not often seen onscreen.

Enter, stage right: the Strong Female Lead.

She’s an assassin, a spy, a soldier, a superhero, a C.E.O. She can make a wound compress out of a maxi pad while on the lam. She’s got MacGyver’s resourcefulness but looks better in a tank top.

She added that there doesn’t actually need to be someone on the other end of the line.

I don’t want to be the dead girl, or Dave’s wife. But I don’t want to be a strong female lead either, if my power is defined largely by violence and domination, conquest and colonization.

And I say, a male orgasm.

And she says: Correct. I love the arc of male pleasure. But how could you bring me into being if I must satisfy the choreography of his desire only?

And I say: Good on you. But then how do I bring you into being?

Then I hear only silence.

These are not yet solutions. But they are places to dig.

#sexism #misogyny #entertainment #workplace #strong female leads #voices

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keiyokoi · 4 years ago

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Reflection “Essay” #2

Hey everyone! I just wanted to take some time this week and talk about something that I think is extremely important, so buckle up, because this piece is kind of long.

Activism is something we encounter in our everyday lives, whether it be in social media, the news, or something ordinary like laptop stickers. Most recently, Black Lives Matter was under the spotlight (as it should) in the wake of America’s track record of police brutality and George Floyd’s death. Unfortunately, the movement that was fueled by public outcry and outstanding shows of allyship in the early summer months has largely vanished.

The voices of many celebrities and influencers on platforms Instagram and Twitter have gone silent, moving on as the news turned away from BLM protests despite the thousands of people that continued to rally around the country and the world. As we wrap up election season and move into December, what the US is focused on now is the soon-to-be former POTUS and other political news. (My point is that the world of media has largely deemed BLM “no longer relevant” despite the ongoing struggle BIPOC folxs continue to face even after thousands of protests nation AND worldwide.)

To all the people who posted black squares with the hashtags #BlackoutTuesday and #BlackLivesMatter, where are you now? Where is the support, the public outcry that had been so loud in June? Why do civil rights only matter when they’re relevant in the media, when you can score easy clout from it?

I’m sure most of them had their hearts in the right place, but the fact remains true that they fell victim to ‘ally theater’, a term that Anderson and Accomando credit Princess Harmony Rodrigez for coining. The two authors go on to say, “The concern here is about activists who focus on performing an identity for an audience of disadvantaged folk rather than doing the hard and often unseen work of social change.” (P 713) and “To get out of the surface-level ally theater loop, white people need to challenge other whites about racism—even when no one else is watching.” (P 714) in their article The Pitfalls of Ally Performance.

That’s where many people fail the first step of being an ally; they mistakenly believe that for a month of sparse posts concerning awareness, they gain the privilege of being an ally. They forget that allyship is a title that needs to be earned. It’s not enough to play activist for a month and then move on with your life—to be an ally, you must continue to be an activist, even if that’s something as simple as shopping at BIPOC small-owned businesses instead of Amazon. (Here’s a little help for those of you who don’t know where to start: 42 Black-owned beauty brands to shop at instead of Sephora, and 108 Black-owned businesses you can check out.) You have to acknowledge the hard work of POC the exact same way you praise white celebrities and influencers for being ‘woke’. A fantastic example is Harry Styles.

For the 2019 Met Gala, Styles showed up to the red carpet in heels and a sheer black Gucci blouse. This made fans go nuts; they praised him for being a camp icon but glossed over equally stunning outfits like Billy Porter’s golden, winged ensemble (who was carried in on a litter!!! by SIX MEN!!!) or Lena Waithe’s suit. This year fans ran to social media again, this time to gush over the photo spread of him in a dress, thanking Styles for ending toxic masculinity (yes this was a Tweet I read with my own two eyes), congratulating him on defying gender norms, and completely forgetting about others who did it before him.

Male and AMAB (assigned male at birth) non-binary stars like Billy Porter, Jared Leto, Ezra Miller, and JVN are only a handful who’ve appeared in public in dresses and/or skirts before, making it unfair for people to heap gratuitous praise onto Styles’s photoshoot. I’m not trying to bash him or anything and I think that cover was gorgeous, but you can’t be an ally while you idolize Harry Styles for wearing a dress but ignore POC/queer folx who did too.

Now, the second topic I wanted to address: a second helping of fake allyship, this time in the corporate realm.

I love June, but it’s also a mentally exhausting month queer individuals who are sick and tired of fake allyship. Cisgenderists crawl out of the woodwork to whine about ‘straight pride’ as if they don’t have enough of it, influencers capitalize on Pride’s popularity to promote their brand, and large corporations break out the rainbow merch to make a pretty penny off the same people marginalize the other eleven months of the year.

June is for people like me to celebrate our identities together, whether it be at a public Pride event or in the privacy of our own homes. It is not for big businesses to slap rainbows on their merchandise and boast false claims of LGBTQ+ support when corporations like Walmart and Starbucks have done nothing at all to support the message or the mission of Pride.

Building an Abolitionist and Trans Queer Movement With Everything We’ve Got by Bassichis, Lee, and Spade writes “transgender and gender-non-conforming people are repeatedly abandoned and marginalized in the agendas and priorities of our “lead” organizations” (P743) and I couldn’t agree more. The fact of the matter is that under this capitalist regime, queer individuals are just another tool for the privledged elite to take advantage of.

Mega corporations claim to be on our side for a month, playing at queer allyship with rainbow beer cans and happy ads that feature more rainbows and scripted proclamations of LGBTQ+ support, but disappear just as quickly come July.

Certain celebrities tweet during Pride, garnering the applause of the public and cause people across social media to ‘stan’ celebrities that post “Happy Pride!” just for the shallow allyship it grants them. And it’s so normalized for public figures to post all month long about Pride, and suddenly stop in July that we don’t question it.

Donald Trump occasionally preaches about his support of the queer community (which we all know is a joke) and how he’s “the first president to openly support the LGBT community” despite the fact that he gutted LGBTQ+ legislation and his terrible track record concerning queer folx. If he really was a queer ally then why, as Bassichis, Lee, and Spade say, is there “ no inheritance, no health benefits from employers, no legal immigration status, and no state protection of our relationship to our children.”?

That’s why I want to put the spotlight on a game called The Last of Us: Part II. It’s a post-apocalyptic survival horror game so it’s the last place you’d expect to find LGBTQ+ representation, but the main character is a lesbian who has a (Jewish) girlfriend and has an Asian (not white!!) transman, along with another character I strongly believe is aromantic and/or asexual. Their character arcs tie into the story well despite many fans calling out the game developers for pandering to the queer community, and the exhilaration I felt when I saw myself (mostly) represented in a character (who was voiced by an Asian transman!) is unparalleled.

They didn’t have to include any LGBTQ+ content or accurate representation, could have left the main character’s sexuality presumably heterosexual, but they went where most bestselling games don’t, because they’re genuine allies. They brought in voice actors who were Black, Asian, and Latinx to voice characters who were Black, Asian, and Latinx.

That’s what we need more of, not trendsetting celebrities and people who say trans rights just to feel better about themselves.

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