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camgoloud · 2 years ago

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one small detail that stood out to me about this latest episode that i haven’t seen anyone else talking about yet is that when the commentators are calling colin “inspiring” and the “man of the match,” they are celebrating him not for actually scoring the goals himself, but for providing the crucial assists to make both of them happen. and i really love that because for me it’s the absolute perfect wrap to his character arc across all three seasons!

like, we know that colin’s job on this team has never been to score goals. in fact i’m pretty sure we’ve never heard about a single goal that he has scored. colin is and always has been a team player, not a star—and we’ve seen that crop up over and over. notably, we’ve seen the fact that he’s not entirely at peace with that crop up over and over: see the way he was affected by nate’s entire holidy-inn-painting monologue, being benched to make room for zava, etc.—like, this is the thing he’s sensitive about! this is where all of his insecurities come from!

but at the SAME TIME it’s also tied very intimately with all his struggles re: hiding his sexuality— “colin’s a chameleon,” etc. it’s fascinating because there’s SO much tension there between colin 1. feeling bad about the fact that he never stands out on the pitch the way some of his teammates do, because of who he is on the team, and 2. feeling like he CAN’T stand out, ever, because of Who He Is As A Person. etc. it’s like. he’s filling this role in the background. he’s afraid he’s not doing it well enough. he’s afraid that what and who he is isn’t good enough and isn’t worthy of recognition. he wishes he were someone different. trying to be someone different in the locker room is clearly making him so unhappy and stressed out. it is All Connected and my thoughts have been doing laps around it at an ever-increasing rate since i watched episode 2.07 ‘headspace’ if not before!

and all of this is why it’s so incredible to me that in the end, colin’s big moment comes from making assists and not goals! because on the one hand i understand the fandom desire for the colin post-coming out glowup that we all knew was coming—to see him, like, ~prove everybody wrong about him~ and inspire people by suddenly becoming a standout player and scoring goals left and right, even though that never used to be his role on the team before. and don’t get me wrong, i was 100% on board that train, and would have loved it for him if that was how it went down in the end, also. i think he should get to score here and there! as a treat! especially now that richmond are playing total football and there’s been so much emphasis placed on how it’s not just jamie/dani/occasionally sam who are making all the goals anymore!

but i don’t know! especially after the events of the last few episodes, there’s something very special to me about getting to see a colin who, rather than becoming someone entirely new in the moments right after coming out, just feels free to become, and be at peace with, the best version of the same self he’s always been. he’s still a team player first and foremost, but now that he’s not as weighed down by the need to chameleon/hide/pretend to be someone he’s not, he’s so much better at it. and everyone sees this! he gets to be celebrated for his contributions within the role he’s always played! he (and everybody else!) finally recognizes the value that he adds to the team just by being himself—fully himself! it resolves all the tension and insecurity that we’ve seen him struggling with this whole time, on every level. and so this moment was genuinely the perfect ending for his journey in my opinion—i’m so so happy that we were tall enough to join him on the ride here, and so excited to see what he does going forward these last few episodes now that some of that pressure is off him <3

#it's like. he doesn't want to be a spokesperson! he shouldn't have to End Homophobia by becoming zava 2.0! in fact it would not be possible #for him to do this even if he DID come out publicly and then became the best goal-scorer the league has ever seen because the people who are #the problem will ALWAYS manage to find something to attack him for no matter what he does #what's important to me and i think to him as well is that he has the confidence in himself that he needs to perform at his own personal best #and that his teammates recognize this and support him the same way he has always supported them both on and off the pitch #and while a part of me would have liked to see a public coming-out arc i completely get why they're not going there. it would be a lot to #tackle and this season is already getting justified criticism for spreading itself too thin #i think it would have been POSSIBLE to do and do well but. it would place a LOT of constraints on the entire rest of the plot #and i do recognize somewhere in the back of my brain that colin is not ACTUALLY the protagonist of this show for most people #so them choosing to take the character in the ‘i don’t want to be a spokesperson’ direction instead makes sense and was handled very well #anyway. one other reason i’m pleased about all of this is that while most of my recent tl fic is no longer canon-compliant as of this week.#i sure did NAIL the happy ending being an assist and not a scored goal. have been thinking these thoughts for WEEKS and i feel so vindicated #ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #colin hughes

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writerfae · 2 months ago

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I don’t think I ever properly explained why the fair fae exist. I don’t know if it’s needed, but it could make a nice worldbuilding post maybe

#i don’t do that many wb posts anymore #mostly because most of the important and spoiler free stuff is already explained #but also cause people don’t really interact with them anymore #like with the wb post that I made on the royal guard (I think it was one of the newest) barely got recognized I think #writer speaks #writeblr #wip: the knights of the alder

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bigothteddies · 4 months ago

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oh my god re: your recent post... the 'girl dinner' shit. omfg. idc if it's 'not that deep' you're still reinforcing terrible shit!!! and also the like 'boys when they see a stick/cool rock' and 'girls when they time travel vs boys when they time travel' wojaks. the gender-fication of barbie vs. oppenheimer. why the fuck is the recent internet zeitgeist hyper stereotypical cisnormativity. like. i thought we had collectively outgrown this.

exactly. And that’s all just some parts of it too. People pretend they’re so on top of things but it’s just because they don’t want to seem out of touch and offensive. It’s wild watching people barf out gender binaries with new terms and new ways to categorize trans people as not their gender and new ways to reinforce the same gender roles on ourselves but in “good” ways now. It’s just….really frustrating and pretty terrifying at the same time

#asked and answered #anon #I don’t know bad example but like.#feminism when I was growing up was gender equality #getting rid of gender roles and stopping gender based discrimination #and it feels like at some point we lost that track #and went straight from that to Girls Rule Boys Drool arguments wrapped in new language and memes #like. when i was a kid #i remember people saying shit about how its okay if a woman asks for a date first or if a woman proposes instead of a man #and yes those arent the most progressive things in the world and those actions are not the most important thing women need to be allowed to #do. but…thats kind of my point. those arent groundbreaking actions.#and if you tried to spoonfeed a BASIC idea about destroying gender roles like that to the online community today #youd get slammed with people saying no woman should ever stoop to beg a man #or that a guy should always propose because dating a woman is a privilege so men should earn it #or how ‘maybe its just me personally but i could never propose to a man like ew thats cringe my man better have enough balls to do it!’#or ‘me personally i could never let my girl propose id feel like i failed her as a man if she had to do that’#or just. on and on and on and on and on #like. we somehow circled all the way back to the ORIGINAL gender roles we were supposed to have broken by now #and its getting worse snd the social media companies are fueling it #have you SEEN instagram and tik tok comment sections lately???#people are just. insanely obsessed over gender and enforcing how they see each group and constantly posting about it online #go outside smell some fucking flowers and recognize your internal biases #like maybe breaking gender roles like thst iis uncomfortable not because you hate men #but because you have gender roles engrained in your BEING from the moment you could walk and you just wrapped them up with a new progressive #bow while not making any changes #anyways.#rant over

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quietwingsinthesky · 10 months ago

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the amount of time i spend thinking about Even carrying the metacrisis doctor’s fob watch is really quite disproportionate to how much ive fleshed out that part of the story in my head

#i still find myself not caring if the metacrisis doctor couldnt use one. he can because i said so and because donna shouldn’t get amnesiaed #alone.#but anyway. even. its just something about like.#here is your best friend. the man who showed you how big the universe could be. its still him human or not. its still the doctor.#can’t call him that. have to watch your tongue always because no matter how familiar their faces are. these two people do not remember #everything you did together and never can. at least they still love each other. nothing could change that. that’s what matters. you steer #them into each other’s lives so carefully and watch to see if they’re going to get hurt. but they don’t. it’s okay.#and still. and still. you carry your best friend’s life. everything that he is. you can hold it in the palm of your hand. he gave it to you.#he entrusted it to you. well. that’s not entirely true. technically you volunteered. but how else could you say thank you.#you made your world so so small again. for him. larger than you would’ve been used to once but you know what galaxies feel like to fly #across. and now you’re stuck in time and space. this is for love too. this is for the life you hold in your hands.#or wear around your neck on a chain. and because you chose this. you can never see him again. or you see him every day and he doesn’t #recognize all of you.#that would make anyone desperate wouldn’t it? make you do something stupid. make you turn to someone you shouldn’t.#even makes bad choices when they are cornered. i think.#dw oc #the important bit is of course that the only way they can ever get rid of it is by their own choice. which they never would choose to do.#(because tentoo won’t take it back. he’s his own person. impressions of the doctor influencing him. but the part of him that is donna doing #so as well. a whole new person. who does not want her memories back and to be unmade.)#but the point is that the moment even takes it. they will never let it go. they will lose it. on painful occasion. but it always finds its #way back. depending on the context this presence and responsibility is either comforting in its constancy.#or. in a less kind world. a horrifying reminder of how far they have fallen from who they tried to be for him.

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falinscloaca · 2 months ago

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one of the most important aspects to be learnt of being a political thinker online, a passive or active viewer of sociopolitical discourses and marginalization, is that just because you find someone to be “wrong” on a subject, have a bad take on a words definition or have shitty political/strategic takes, or just be fucking annoying to you personally, doesn’t make them stop being from the same marginalized group or group-of-groups as yourself. tragically sometimes a comrade-in-arms also just fucking sucks without it being a cishetero bourgeois psyop or a more-particularly-advantaged-yet-still-marginalized-group punching down. like there can be “self-hating” people from demographics actively trying to oppress said demographics but 9 times out of 10 Kaleb from My Discourses isn’t a Dennis Prager rubbing elbows with literal nazis he’s just that dipshit who thinks Judaism as a social category necessitates matrilineal affiliation (even though the people that actively hate Judaism as a social category don’t conceive of it as such). For example I mean.

this should really go without saying but good fucking god my own time in the ‘strangers with a word or two in common trying to kill each other online’ trenches neeeeded

#yes this is about queer community discourse #(most) about anyway i mean. i literally talked about a judaism thing in the post lol #realizing this has felt like a gigantic fucking burden got lifted off my shoulders. like oh yeah sometimes you can just dislike a line #of rhetoric without it being a fucking calamity that invalidates other peoples places in the broader ‘community’.#the fact i can care IS important to some extent but what still matters more is that The -Archs rarely if ever actually care that much #regaurdless of what a sapphic calls themselves they’d still be lit on fire by the deathsquads for degeneracy as much as the rest of us #just because some dipshit thats personally loathsome on an individual scale takes any criticism of the use of ‘queer’ as a personal attack #doesn’t remove the fact that theyre still just as fucking fallible as the rest of us #like this doesn’t remove how i feel about these subjects. some labels are fucking redundant and shitty and yes-actually-invalidating of #other peoples definitions (most importantly MINE hahaa!) but jesus h fucking christ i haven’t seen a ‘bad actor’ on these subjects in years.#it was only ever the discorse itself really that alerted and enabled people to get noteworthily bad about. like #anything. even setting aside vaguing bi lesbian as a label (sorry) EVERY FUCKING DISCOURSE THAT ISN’T ‘hey this person doxxed someone’ or #or ‘hey these are closed fucking religious practices/stereotypes/slurs’ has been like that!!!#ace discourse was a fucking hellscape and i genuinely just don’t think the problems would have happened there on either side if people #actually fucking treated each other like. human beings????#some of THAT came down to trying to compare opressive forces against even the other acronymal identities is a politically disturbing underta #aking in its own right. we can barely talk fucking humanely about the intersections of transphobia abd homophobia throw amatonormativity on #the mix and expecting 2015 tumblr to be civil is like hand ak-47s to middle schoolers. urk.#so basically i’m the smartest and bestest because i can acknowledge and respect my own biases while still recognizing them AS biases and #try to always keep the broader political climate in mind when considering topics that are ‘hot button’ to myself uwu #i’m basically just like noah from the bible i’m so virtuous i’m going to start a big zoo in a boat now

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fogwitchoftheevermore · 5 months ago

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every once in a while i remember that scott’s life series+empires characters being aro is not actually a hc that has occurred to most people and it really does throw me for a loop. there are very few characters where my personal hcs about their queerness so heavily affect how i analyze them but scott being aro really is a massive contributor to how i see his character and i see takes about him i agree w/ relatively frequently so i. forgot. this is at least partially because i have curated my dash well and rarely go into the tags but that is not the point.

#space rambles #really living up to that tag here #the only other mcyt characters where i think this also applies is like. shrub esmp s1 #in the sense that when i see other people using SOLELY she/her pronouns it feels like misgendering #because he/she shrub is so ingrained in my brain #but like there are a lot of characters (both in mcrp and other content) where like. them being queer is really important to me #and is usually how i choose to approach analyzing/thinking about them #but i entirely recognize and understand how someone else could approach them in a different way from me #scott being aro is simply not one of those ones for some reason #also scott being aro is kinda the outlier of the above because the above includes like.#martyn being in love with ren. impulse being in love with bdubs. etc.#and even if other people don’t personally subscribe to those hcs they’ve probably at least considered it #whether of their own accord while watching the series or while interacting with fan content #most of the responses i’ve received to content i make about scott characters being aro starts with #‘wow i’ve never considered this’#and it’s so crazy to me cause it’s just like. it’s right there. it’s so right there #i am just yapping here but i really do think about aro!scott a lot so

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chewwytwee · 2 months ago

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It’s crazy how much my school stumbles over itself to take the centrist position to everything but stays just clear of taking a side and making it clear they’re in support of their minority students 🙄🙄

#.txt #just got an email about ‘disagreeing better’ some stupid ‘political depolarization’ program #like shut the fuck up why are you going sooooo out of your way to make sure that your shitty conservative students don’t feel bad #oh no don’t be mad at people for holding shitty regressive beliefs that directly impact your life in a negative way if followed through :(((#that makes them feel bad :( and their feelings of security and validity are more important to use than the safety of the people they seek #to harass and target #pisses me off the school doesn’t hang any pride flags anywhere but makes everyone individually choose to #the implication of a ‘safe space’ is that not everywhere is safe #and it’s up to individual professors to choose whether or not they want to make their office a safe space #so you’ll make all of your profs read off a ‘land acknowledgment’ and put it in their syllabus #recognizing that the school is a colonist organization that was engaged in native boarding school efforts #but you won’t make the profs read out any kind of inclusivity statement?#your discrimination policy should be the absolute bare minimum not the only safeguard in place to keep students from being harassed #you can tell they just want to go full conservative but they’re obligated to be progressive because of the administration #there’s absolutely tension within the school about the direction we swag politically #and tbh i don’t know where it comes from but it manifests as this incredibly terse tone #where the school seems petrified to say anything even remotely partisan #they talk like a fucking senator and not a campus administration

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humanransome-note · 5 months ago

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My weekend was very productive!

Got a proper cleaner for the porch, which has black algae and is very much a slipping hazard in the rain, went to Home Depot and got a new hose and some concrete stepping stones. Dropped off 7 boxes of various sizes (all larger than a shoe box) at a charity shop, they’d been sitting in the hallway for a month at that point.

Then today, I moved some furniture and cleared up some space so the pest control guy has room to work on Wednesday.

Tomorrow I need to scrub the floor that was under the furniture, because the furniture was raised, and there have been 5 different cats in this house, so ancient hairballs have been discovered.

Now, the question is. Has this wave of activity been facilitated because the pest guy comes on Wednesday, and the looming deadline tops off my meds with extra adrenaline and I actually need a stronger dose/prescription on the regular?

Or, do I just have so much decision making anxiety that I spend most of my days in a web of long term decision paralysis, because I constantly feel like whatever choice I make in regards to my life will be massive and irreversible, so playing farming/management sims soothes and distracts me. But having clear cut goals with obviously known ends I can handle.

Or both!

Call in now to vote!!!

#wurds #also me and my mom talked a lot #and we have a very Frank relationship in regards to communication #I’ve told her there’s a part of me that resents her for having me #ANS THERE IS!#she had me for selfish reasons. for spite. for love she felt she was denied #but she’s recognized and acknowledged that those reasons were wrong #and she has been doing what she can to ACTUALLY be a good parent #she made mistakes raising me… but those were mistakes made with good intentions so I have chosen to forgive her for them #the damage she did was not so terrible that along with evidence of her wanting to do better. I can forgive her #she’s my mother and she’s human #while moving furniture I hade to move some storage boxes #and as a reformed hoarder my mother insists on going through old boxes to make sure what’s in them is ACTUALLY stuff of use/value #and she actually scoffed at what was in some of the boxes. not being a able to remeber WHY she thought it was important to keep #the strangest things being a gift card envelope of confetti from one of my birthdays and part of a Barbie toy box…#which she said was very strange because even though I had a few dolls they weren’t anywhere near my favorite #she also found some old school uniforms. and waved them around in that way like ‘isnt this cute! let’s save it for your kids!’#I told her I don’t want kids and I don’t see that changing (something she already knew) but I also said #but I added on ‘I’d rather regret NOT having kids. than resent someone for decisions I made that they had no say in’#and she asked how’d I get so mature because at my age she was working at McDonald’s couch surfing and running weed for some extra cash #which I laughed at. because I’m unemployed. not taking classes. and stagnating in such a way she thinks I’m becoming agoraphobic

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trevisos · 1 year ago

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filing these under “lines that make xarrai feel extremely normal” as well.

#this whole conversation is a lot for them. LMAO.#i have actually fully rewritten this one as a dialogue study too bc it’s like. a very important moment for them but #idk man. i wish u could argue with him more in game LOL #this convo makes me and xarrai both batshit insane tho LOL #the inbuilt banite ambition they run from but cannot shake (let him take this power and then take it from him)#vs the love for him they refuse to admit is love (this will ruin him)#they don’t WANT this power and they don’t want him to have it but they can’t shake the part of them that plots out how to get it.#but they have to be better than what made them or none of it was worth it etc etc etc i am rambling. anyway. bye #oc. xarrai #r. hold me like a knife #(for durge!xar they r much more like ‘idk if this is a good idea but i will maybe help u??’)#(canon!xar is (after they get over their knee jerk reaction of Oooh I Want It) is very directly to his face like ‘this is an awful idea.’)#realized these tags r not even about the lines in the screenshots. lol.#the whole ‘what cazador did was only wrong because it happened to *me*’ cuts them like a fucking knife tho LOL #it’s such a flagrant rejection of everything xarrai has said to him by this point. and he doesn’t even recognize it as one LOL #but xar hears that as ‘every bit of genuine emotion you’ve shown me and the trust u put in me with ur past meant nothing :) sowwie’#‘it was only bad bc it happened to me and that means it’s not bad when ppl like cazador do things to ppl like u either :)’#and they Know that’s not what he means. but instead of communicating like an adult they just seethe abt it LOL #okay sorry now i’m done.#lord only knows why i exclusively drop lore in the tags.

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nope-body · 1 year ago

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#I hate flare ups #I can’t do anything and even when it gets less painful over the day my brain doesn’t work any better #and I emailed two of my professors this morning- one about missing class and one about an extension on an assignment due today #I haven’t heard back from either of them and I don’t know what to do #I cannot complete the assignment before midnight tonight. I would have to comprehend a reading (already hard with brain fog) and then #make connections between that reading and a past one and recall is also difficult with brain fog and making connections is just.#so hard. like I will struggle to understand puns and jokes when I have brain fog this bad and I’m being asked to write 1-2 pages doing that?#I emailed my professor at 10 this morning and i just want to know if it’s okay if I turn it in late because her late policy is so confusing #I’m stressed and I don’t know what to do. which is also probably not helping with the flare up #I just am tired. I want to be granted some flexibility without it being a huge struggle every single time #I want the disability office to reply to my email about my ‘absence verification’ accommodation because I have been told nothing #I want to not be terrified of my grade dropping just because I’m disabled and can’t anticipate when I’ll have a flare up #I want to be able to get out of bed and walk around without pain or worrying about falling #I want to not have to fight for my position within the co-op to be recognized as real and important #I want to not have to be worried about the future of my club because I genuinely don’t know if anyone is going to run for any #board positions and I can’t keep going like this #there is a reason that we are designed to have a minimum of 6 board members. and it’s because 2 people cannot do it alone #apparently being an accessibility coordinator at my co-op is seen as a nothing position because no one knows what the actual job entails #and despite it being vitally important no one is trained very well for it at all and so in general people in this position have been useless #I do not know how to explain to people that I know what I am doing. were we actually trained in conflict mediation? no! can I do it? yes!#were we taught about disability? nope! not at all!! do I know about it? yes!! I am disabled!! I run the disability club!!#I am tired of feeling like i have made everyone uncomfortable by bringing up an accessibility issue #(this happened at the accessibility coordinator meeting by the way. I told them their location wasn’t accessible and it was dead silent.)#I just want to be able to do things and I want that to stop being so hard because I’m disabled and because of ableism #and those are two separate issues and people don’t like hearing that

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gilverrwrites · 3 months ago

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I love imaging Dick, Tim, and Damian sneaking around trying to meet Jasons new gf because they just wanna be involved in his life and they know if they they leave it to Jay they wont meet her u til they're married with kids 😭

AND ‘omg us meeting Jason’s siblings when’

AN: Ngl I love this idea too, its so shitty of them but they have the best of intentions.

Damian

A boy no older than 14 with eyes that pierce the soul was not what you'd expected to find on Jason's couch the very first time he'd left you alone there. Jason had to dip out unexpectedly early, and had promised you run of the place until he got back so you'd slept in as long as you could and were on your way to make breakfast when you're greeted by the hell-child.

Once your initial fright wears off you realise you recognize him from a photo Jay had showed you which makes you feel slightly more at ease.

“Good morning? Damian right?” You offer as you pass him, be-lining for the coffee machine, you're gonna need caffeine if you're meeting any member of Jay's family for the first time. “Can I get you anything?”

“Alfred says it's unbecoming to sleep past 9.” Besides the initial glare he'd graced you with as you emerged from the bedroom, he doesn't even look up at you, his eyes glued to the pages of a book. Like brother like brother, you guess.

“Oh, well. Good thing Alfreds not here then.” You add a small laugh, trying to inject some humour to the situation. Damian does not respond in kind. “Is that a no? I think there's some chocolate cereal around here somewhere.”

“What do you do for work that allows you to be in my brother's home in the middle of the day?”

Jeez this kid is no-nonsense. “Or I could make pancakes, I make really good pancakes.”

“And tell me what exactly are your intentions with my baby brother?” Baby?

“I think there's some chocolate chips around here somewhere. Jason says you like chocolate. Chocolate pancakes?”

“Do you always avoid questions?”

“Are you always so intense?”

He slams the book closed and you nearly jump on the spot. He finally looks at you, really looks at you and as you stare back his features begin to soften slightly.

“I’ll have a coffee.”

You're certain from the sly look on his face that he's probably not allowed coffee. He certainly doesn't need any. But screw it, he's not your kid and if it gets him to like a little, you'll take the risk.

So you pour two coffees and join him on the couch. His questions do not cease until Jason returns about an hour later. He couldn't care less about the coffee, but he does care about Damian breaking in to interrogate his partner and immediately kicks Damian out.

Dick

Dick finds out about your existence from one of Damian’s letters, and he's subtle but pushy about meeting you. Not that you're aware. He keeps ‘dropping by’ Jason's apartment ‘just to see his lil brother’, no other reason but is told to get lost or downright ignored anytime you're there, until he decides to cut out the middle man and turn up at your home instead.

“Let me tell you, you are a hard person to get a hold of.” He informs as he invites himself through your front door.

“Um, hello Dick?” As you stare at his lush hair and sculpted abs you wonder what Alfred feeds these boys.

“Yep! I can't stay so I’ve gotta make this quick.” he gestures for you to come closer, speaking in a playful, conspiratorial whisper. “Jay doesn't know I'm here.”

That would be why he can't stay, Jason is due at your door any minute now.

“But you two seem to be getting pretty serious and I think it's important that we all get to know each other. You following?”

You nod, and he gives you the perkiest, most genuine smile. That or he has that exact look practised to a T. From what Jay tells you, either is possible.

“So, Barbara and I, that's my wife” You nod once more, you're aware of Barbara also. “have booked a table at Casa Gotica for Thursday night. We need you to get Jason there without letting on that it's a double date.”

“I don’t know.” you finally give your nodding head a break. “Jay and I don’t lie to each other.”

“Right. I can't begrudge that. Very glad to hear he's picked an honest one.” He takes a moment to straighten his thoughts, but his moment is cut short but the echo of Jason’s combat boots approaching your door. Dick’s eyes rapidly scan the room for a secondary exit before he settles on an open window. “Don't think of it as lying, think of it as omitting the truth. Whatever you have to do just be there for 6.30. Oh, and it's great to meet you!”

“You too.”

“Thursday, 6.30!”

Before you can agree he’s gone, presumably scaling the side of your building as Jay steps inside.

Tim

Tim was actually the first to be aware of you and your relationship with his brother, however, the very real possibility of being gutted by Jason for snooping in his personal life was too high for him to make a move.

But you seeking him out is a different story; or rather, you being the first to say hi when you bump into each other in line at the grocery store is different. It would be rude not to respond to your attempts at initiating a conversation.

“Hello, hi, are you Tim? You don't know me but I’m Jasons partner. Its so great to meet you.”

“I know who you are.” He states rather ominously, eyes darting around behind you. “Is he here?”

“No, but he's picking me up after.” His shoulders visibly ease.

“Cool cool cool.” He’s suddenly much more personable. “So, I hear you're into…”

That chatting doesn't dry or lul at all as the queue dwindles and both buy your groceries. He waits with you until you get confirmation from Jay that he's on his way. He's easily the chillest sibling you've met thus far.

When Jason arrives he gets out of the car to open the boot and passenger door for you as always, but not before he thrusts his phone in your face. “Where is he?”

Displayed on the screen is a selfie of Tim with you in the background, you absolutely do not remember it being taken.

#anon #thanks for the request #/ask #dc #Jason Todd #jason todd/reader #jason todd x reader #red hood/reader #red hood x reader #red hood #batfam x reader #batfam #damian wayne #robin #nightwing #dick grayson #tim drake #red robin

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saucingitup · 5 months ago

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Kraken broadcaster JT Brown shares why Pride is so important to him and why he’ll be celebrating the LGBTQ+ community all month long

June is an exciting month. There’s Stanley Cup final hockey on the TV, the sun is shining down on Seattle, I hit the links on Father’s Day, and it's Pride month—a month dedicated to celebrating the LGBTQ+ community and commemorating the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. In our house, June is a busy month, but nothing gets celebrated harder than Pride.

Earlier this month, I had the honor of playing in the Seattle Pride Classic at the Kraken Community Iceplex. The invitation to share the ice with LGBTQ+ players from all over is an honor I don’t take lightly. Striking up a conversation on the bench between shifts, I turned to the player next to me. “Nice tape job. Canucks fan?” I said, noting the different colors of tape spiraling down the blade. “No, these colors represent one of the queer flags,” they said.

The bad news is I felt like an idiot. The good news is, I’ll always recognize that flag. Trying means stumbling, losing the puck, shooting wide (pick your analogy), but I’ve never been too proud to admit I caused the turnover and apologize. And we both laughed because sometimes falling on your ass is funny.

From ice to asphalt, the Pride celebration continues as my family and I will be at the 50th annual Seattle Pride Parade on June 30. As someone who is known for their flair for flashy game-day suits, it should not come as a surprise that I love an excuse to get dressed up. Throw in good music and free swag and you’ll understand why I don’t miss a pride parade.

And no one does pride quite like Seattle. It’s no wonder the Kraken pull up to the parade every year with a crew so deep I momentarily worry we’re going to hold up the parade. We’re out there flinging Kraken giveaways like someone is keeping score of how many each employee can hand out—I always aim for the high score.

Of course, being an ally isn't just flinging Kraken patches into a crowd or embarrassingly mistaking flag colors for rival team branding. A lot of it is just showing up.

I show up for my queer wife so she knows I support her even if I still don’t understand what “Brat summer” means. I show up for my kids so they know I love their authentic selves no matter what. I show up for my friends so they know they’re safe with me. I show up because there are LGBTQ+ people out there who are being stood up by the ones they love, by policies, by corporations, by strangers.

People always praise me for being an ally, but having been on the receiving end of bigotry, I know how much easier it is to stand on this side. When I fight for BIPOC equality, I am always lifted by the voices and support of the LGBTQ+ community. Every single time, they have supported me in my fight to help end racism in hockey.

They have been incredible teammates to me and so being one to them was never a choice I made, it was just something I did—and will continue to do with whatever platform I’m given. Everyone deserves the safety and support to live their authentic lives. When we lift up those who need us most, we all reap the benefits of a safer and more inclusive space.

This Pride month, I’d like to encourage others to show up—unabashedly loud and proud—for yourself and for others. Have a happy, safe, and fun Pride!

#jt brown #seattle kraken #hockey #nhl #pride #happy pride 🌈#pride month #lgbt #lgbtq

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creatingblackcharacters · 11 days ago

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“The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth” - Violence, Violent Imagery & Black Horror

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of death, violence, blood, hate crimes, antiblackness, police violence, rape

Note! I am going to be speaking from a Black American point of view, as my identity informs my experience. That said, antiblackness itself is international. The idea of my Blackness as a threat, as a source of fear and violence to repress and to destroy, is something every Black person in the world that has ever dealt with white supremacy has experienced.

There are two things, I think, that are important to note as we start this conversation.

One: there is a long history of violence towards Black bodies that is due to our dehumanization. People do not care for the killing of a mouse in the way they care about a human. But if you think the people you are dealing with are not people, but animals- more particularly, pests, something distasteful- then you will be able to rationalize treating them as such.

Two: even though we live in a time period where that overt belief of Blackness as inhuman is less likely, we must recognize that there are centuries of belief behind this concept; centuries of arguments and actions that cement in our minds that a certain amount of violence towards Blackness is normal. That subconscious belief you may hold is steeped in centuries of effort to convince you of it without even questioning it. And because of this very real re-enforcement of desensitization, naturally another place this will manifest itself is in how we tell and comprehend stories.

There are also three points I'm about to make first- not the only three that can ever be made, but the ones that stand out the most to me when we talk about violence with Black characters:

One: Your Black readers may experience that scene you wrote differently than you meant anyone to, just because our history may change our perspective on what’s happening.

Two: The idea that Black characters and people deserve the pain they are experiencing.

Three: The disbelief or dismissal of the pain of Black characters and people.

You Better Start Believing In Ghost Stories- You’re In One

I don’t need to tell Black viewers scary fairytales of sadists, body snatchers and noncoincidental disappearances, cannibals, monsters appearing in the night, and dystopian, unjust systems that bury people alive- real life suffices! We recognize the symbolism because we’ve seen real demons.

Some real examples of familiar, terrifying stories that feel like drama, but are real experiences:

12 Years a Slave: “This is no fiction, no exaggeration. If I have failed in anything, it has been in presenting to the reader too prominently the bright side of the picture. I doubt not hundreds have been as unfortunate as myself; that hundreds of free citizens have been kidnapped and sold into slavery, and are at this moment wearing out their lives on plantations in Texas and Louisiana.” – Solomon Northup

When They See Us: I can’t get myself to watch When They See Us, because I learned about the actual trial of the Central Park Five- now the Exonerated Five- in my undergrad program. Five teen Black and brown boys, subjected to racist and cruel policing and vilification in the media- from Donald Trump calling for their deaths in the newspaper, to being imprisoned under what the Clintons deemed a generation of “superpredators” during a “tough on crime” administration. And as audacious as it is to say, as Solomon Northup explained, they were fortunate. The average Black person funneled into the prison system doesn’t get the opportunity to make it back out redeemed or exonerated, because the system is designed to capture and keep them there regardless of their innocence or guilt. Their lives are irreparably changed; they are forever trapped.

Jasper, Texas: Learning about the vicious, gruesome murder of James Byrd Jr, was horrific- and that was just the movie. No matter how “community comes together” everyone tells that story, the reality is that there are people who will beat you, drag you chained down a gravel road for three miles as your body shreds away until you are decapitated, and leave your mangled body in front of a Black church to send a message… Because you’re Black and they hate you. To date I am scared when I’m walking and I see trucks passing me, and don’t let them have the American or the Confederate flag on them. Even Ahmaud Arbery, all he was doing was jogging in his hometown, and white men from out of town decided he should be murdered for that.

Do you want to know what all of these men and boys, from 1841 to 2020, had in common? What they did to warrant what happened to them? Being outside while Black. Some might call it “wrong place wrong time”, but the reality is that there is no “right place”. Sonya Massey, Breonna Taylor- murdered inside their home. Where else can you be, if the danger has every right to barge inside? There is no “safe”.

It is already Frightening to live while Black- not because being Black is inherently frightening, but because our society has made it horrific to do so. But that leads into my next point:

“They Shouldn’t Have Resisted”

Think of all the videos of assaulted and murdered Black people from police violence. If you can stomach going into the comments- which I don’t, anymore- you’ll see this classic comment of hate in the thousands, twisting your stomach into knots:

“if they obeyed the officer, if they didn’t resist, this wouldn’t have happened”

Another way our punitive society normalizes itself is via the idea of respectability politics; the idea that “if you are Good, if you do what you are Supposed to do, you will not be hurt- I will not have to hurt you”. Therefore, if my people are always suffering violence, it must be because we are Bad. And in a society that is already less gracious to Black people, that is more likely to think we are less human, that we are innately bad and must earn the right to be exceptional… the use of excessive violence towards me must be the natural outcome. “If your people weren’t more likely to be criminals, there wouldn’t be the need to be suspicious of you”- that is the way our society has taught us to frame these interactions, placing the blame for our own victimization on us.

Sidebar: I would highly suggest reading The New Jim Crow, written in 2010 by Michelle Alexander, to see how this mentality helps tie into large scale criminalization and mass incarceration, and how the cycle is purposely perpetuated.

You have to constantly be aware of how you look, walk and talk- and even then, that won’t be enough to save you if the time comes. The turning point for me, personally, was the murder of Sandra Bland. If she could be educated, beautiful, a beacon of her community, be everything a “Good” Black person is supposed to be… and still be murdered via police violence, they can kill any of us. And that’s a very terrifying thought- that anything at any point can be the reason for your death, and it will be validated because someone thinks you shouldn’t have “been that way”. And that way has far less to do with what you did, than it does who you are. Being “that way” is Black.

My point is, if this belief is so normalized in real life about violence on Black bodies- that somehow, we must have done something to deserve this- what makes you think that this belief does not affect how you comprehend Black people suffering in stories?

Hippocratic Oath

Human experimentation? Vivisection? Organ stealing? Begging for medicine? Dramatically bleeding out? Not trusting just anyone to see that you are hurt, because they might take advantage? All very real fears. The idea that pain is normal for Black people is especially rampant in the healthcare field, where ideas like our melanin making our skin thick enough to feel less pain (no), an overblown fear of ‘drug misuse’, and believing we are overexaggerating our pain makes many Black people being unwilling to trust the healthcare system. And it comes down to this thought:

If you think that I feel less pain, you will allow me to suffer long before you believe that I am in pain.

I was psychologically spiraling I was in so much pain after my wisdom teeth removal, and my surgeon was more concerned about “addiction to the medication”. Only because Hot Chocolate’s mom is a nurse, did I get an effective medicine schedule. My mother ended up with jaw rot because her surgeon outright claimed that she didn’t believe that she was in more than the ‘healing’ pain after her wisdom teeth were removed. She also has a gigantic, macabre (and awesome fr) scar on her stomach from a c-section she received after four days of labor attempting to have me… all because she was too poor and too Black to afford better doctors who wouldn’t have dismissed her struggles to push.

As a major example of dismissed Black pain: let’s discuss the mortality rate of Black women during childbirth, as well as the likelihood of our children to die. When we say “they will let you bleed to death”, we mean it.

“Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States — 69.9 per 100,000 live births for 2021, almost three times the rate for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black babies are more likely to die, and also far more likely to be born prematurely, setting the stage for health issues that could follow them through their lives.”

Even gynecology roots in dismissal (and taking brutal advantage of) Black women's pain:

“The history of this particular medical branch … it begins on a slave farm in Alabama,” Owens said. “The advancement of obstetrics and gynecology had such an intimate relationship with slavery, and was literally built on the wounds of Black women.” Reproductive surgeries that were experimental at the time, like cesarean sections, were commonly performed on enslaved Black women. Physicians like the once-heralded J. Marion Sims, an Alabama doctor many call the “father of gynecology,” performed torturous surgical experiments on enslaved Black women in the 1840s without anesthesia. And well after the abolition of slavery, hospitals performed unnecessary hysterectomies on Black women, and eugenics programs sterilized them.”

If you think Black characters are not in pain, or that they’re overexaggerating, you’re more likely to be okay with them suffering more in comparison to those whose pain you take more seriously- to those you believe.

What’s My Point?

My point is that whatever terrifying scene you think you’re writing, whatever violent whump scenario you think you’re about to put your Black characters through, there’s a chance it has probably happened and was treated as nonimportant (damn shame, right?) And when those terrifying scenes are both written and read, the way their suffering will be felt depends on how much you as a reader care, how much you believe they are suffering.

There’s a joke amongst readers of color that many dystopian tales are tales of “what happened if white people experienced things that the rest of us have already been put through?” Think concepts like alien invasion and mass eradication of the existing population- you may think of that as an action flick, meanwhile peoples globally have suffered colonization for centuries. The Handmaid’s Tale- forced birthing and raising of “someone else’s” children, always subject to sexual harassment by the Master while subject to hate from the Mistress- that’s just being a Mammy.

There’s nothing wrong with having Black characters be violent or deal with violence, especially in a story where every character is going through shit. That is not the problem! What I am trying to tell you, though, is to be aware that certain violent imagery is going to evoke familiarity in Black viewers. And if I as a Black viewer see my very real traumas treated as entertainment fodder- or worse, dismissed- by the narrative and other viewers, I will probably not want to consume that piece of media anymore. I will also question the intentions and the beliefs of the people who treat said traumas so callously. Now, if that’s not something you care about, that’s on you! But for people who do care, it is something we need to make sure we are catching before we do it.

“So I just can’t write anything?!”

Stop that. There are plenty of examples of stories containing horror and violence with Black characters. There’s an entire genre of us telling our own stories, using the same violence as symbolism. I’m not telling you “no” (least not always). I’m telling you to take some consideration when you write the things that you do. There’s nothing wrong about writing your Black characters being violent or experiencing violence. But there is a difference between making it narratively relevant, and thoughtlessly using them as a “spook”, a stereotypical scary Black person, or a punching bag, especially in a way that may invoke certain trauma.

The Black Guy Dies First

The joke is that we never survive these horror movies because we either wouldn’t be there to begin with, or because we would make better decisions and the narrative can’t have that. But the reality is just that a lot of writers find Black characters- Black people- expendable in comparison to their white counterparts, and it shows. More of a “here, damn” sort of character, not worth investment and easy to shrug off. The book itself I haven’t read, just because it’s pretty new, but I’m looking forward to doing so. But from the summaries, it goes into horror media history and how Black characters have fared in these stories, as well as how that connects to the society those characters were written in. I.e., a thorough version of this lesson.

Instead, I wrote an entire list of questions you could possibly ask yourself involving violence or villainy involving a Black character. Feel free to print it and put it on your wall where you write if you have to! I cannot stress enough that asking yourself questions like these are good both for your creation and just… being less antiblack in general when you consume media.

Black Horror/Black Thriller

We, too, have turned our violent experiences into stories. I continue to highly suggest watching our films and reading our stories to see how we convey our fear, our terror, our violence and our pain. There are plenty of stories that work- Get Out, The Angry Black Girl and her Monster, Candyman, Lovecraft Country (the show) and Nanny are some examples. There’s even a blog by the co-writer of The Black Guy Dies First who runs BlackHorrorMovies where he reviews horror movies from throughout the decades.

Desiree Evans has a great essay, We Need Black Horror More Than Ever, that gets into why this genre is so creative and effective, that I think says what I have to say better than I could.

“Even before Peele, Black horror had a rich literary lineage going back to the folklore of Africa and its Diaspora. Stories of haints, witches, curses, and magic of all kinds can be found in the folktales collected by author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston and in the folktales retold by acclaimed children’s book author Virginia Hamilton. One of my earliest childhood literary memories is being entranced by Hamilton’s The House of Dies Drear and Patricia McKissack’s children’s book classic The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural, both examples of the ways Black authors have tapped into Black history along with our rich ghostlore.” “Black horror can be clever and subversive, allowing Black writers to move against racist tropes, to reconfigure who stands at the center of a story, and to shift the focus from the dominant narrative to that which is hidden, submerged. To ask: what happens when the group that was Othered, gets to tell their side of the story?”

For on the nose simplicity, I’m going to use hood classic Tales From The Hood (1994) as an example of how violence can be integrated into Black horror tales. Tales From The Hood is like… The Twilight Zone by Black people. Messages discussing issues in our community, done through a mystical twist. Free on Tubi! If you want to stop here before some spoilers, it’s an hour and a half. A great time!

In the first story, a Black political activist is murdered by the cops. The scene is reflective of the real-world efforts to discredit and even murder activists speaking out against police violence, as well as the types of things done to criminalize Black citizens for capture. The song Strange Fruit plays in the background, to drive the point home that this is a lynching.

The second story deals with a Black little boy experiencing abuse in the home, drawing a green monster to show his teacher why he’s covered in wounds and is lashing out at school.

The fourth story is about a gangbanger who undergoes “behavioral modification” to be released from prison early. Think of the classic scene from A Clockwork Orange. He must watch as imagery of the Klan and of happy whites lynching Black bodies (real-life pictures and video, mind you!) play into his mind alongside gang violence.

Isn’t Violence Stereotypical or antiblack?

That last story from Tales From The Hood leads into a good point. It can be! But it does not have to be! Violence is a human experience. By suggesting we don’t experience it or commit it, you would be denying everything I’ve just spoken about. We don’t have to be racist to write our Black characters in violent situations. We also don’t have to comprehend those situations through a racist lens.

Even experiences that seem “stereotypical” do not have to be comprehended that way. I get a LOT of questions about if something is stereotypical, and my response is always that it depends on the writing!!! You could give me a harmless prompt and it becomes the most racist story ever once you leave my inbox. But you could give me a “stereotypical” prompt and it be genuine writing.

Let’s take the movie Juice for example. Juice in my honest to God opinion becomes a thriller about halfway in. On its surface, Juice looks like bad Black boys shooting and cursing and doing things they aren’t supposed to be doing! Incredibly stereotypical- violent young thugs. You might think, “you shouldn’t write something like this- you’re telling everyone this is what your community is like”. First- there’s that respectability politics again! Just because something is not a “respectable” story does not mean it doesn’t need to be told!

But if we’re actually paying attention, what we’re looking at is four young boys dealing with their environment in different ways. All four of them originally stick together to feel power amongst their brotherhood as they all act tough and discover their own identities. They are not perfect, but they are still kids. In this environment, to be tough, to be strong, you do the things that they are doing. You run from cops, you steal from stores, you mess with all the girls and talk shit and wave weapons. That’s what makes you “big”. That’s what gives you the “juice”- and the “juice” can make you untouchable.

I want to focus particularly on Bishop, yes, played by Tupac. Bishop, the antagonist of Juice, is particularly powerless, angry, and scared of the world around him. He puts on a big front of bravado, yelling, cursing, and talking big because he’s tired of being afraid, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it otherwise. So when he gets access to a gun- to power- he quickly spirals out of control. His response to his fear is to wave around a tool that makes him feel stronger, that stops the things that scare him from scaring him.

Now, that is not a unique tale! That is a tale that any race could write about, particularly young white men with gun violence! If you ever cared for Fairuza Balk’s character in The Craft, it is a similar fall from grace. But because it is on a young, Black man in the hood, audiences are less likely to empathize with Bishop. And granted, Bishop is unhinged! But many a white character has been, and is not shoved into a stereotype that white people cannot escape from!

Now would I be comfortable if a nonblack person attempted to write a narrative like Juice? Yes, because I’d worry about the tendency to lose the messaging and just fall into stereotype outright. But it can be done! The story can be told!

“But if Black violence bad, why rap?”

The short answer:

“In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political, I must listen to the birds, and in order to hear the birds, the warplanes must be silent.”

Marwhan Makhoul, Palestinian Poet

First, rap is not “only violence and misogyny”. Step your understanding of the genre up; there are plenty of options outside of the mainstream that don’t discuss those things. Second, every genre of music has mainstream popular songs about vice and sin. The idea that Black rappers have to be held to a higher standard is yet another example of how we are seen as inherently bad and must prove ourselves good. We could speak about nothing but drugs and alcohol and 1) there would still be white artists who do the very same and 2) we would still deserve to be treated like humans.

That said, many- not all- rappers rap about violence for the same reason Billy Joel wrote We Didn’t Start the Fire, the same reason Homer first spoke The Iliad- because they have something to say about it! They stand in a long tradition of people using poetry and rhythm to tell stories. Rap is an art of storytelling!

Rap is often used as an expression of frustration and righteous anger against a system built to keep us trapped within it. I’m not allowed to be angry? Why wouldn’t I be angry? Anger is a protective emotion, often when one feels helpless. Young Black people also began to reclaim and glorify the violence they lived in within their music, to take pride in their survival and in their success in a world that otherwise wanted them to fail. If I think the world fights against me no matter what I do, I’d rather live in pride than in shame with a bent head. Is it right? Maybe, maybe not. But if you don’t want them to rap about violence, why not alleviate the things leading to the violence in their environment?

Whether you choose to listen to their words, because the delivery scares you- and trust, angry Black men scared the music industry and society- doesn’t make the story any less valid!

Conclusion

I am going to drop a classic by Slick Rick called Children’s Story. I think listening to it- and I mean genuinely listening- summarizes what I’ve said here about how Black creators can tell stories, even violent ones, and how even the delivery through Blackness can change how you perceive them. Please take the time to listen before continuing.

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I’ve been alive for 28 years and have known this song my whole life, and it just hit me tonight: not once is the kid in this story identified as Black! My perception of this story was completely altered by my own experiences, who told the story, and how it was told.

That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You can tell stories of violence that involve Black characters. I love and adore a good hurt/comfort myself! But you need to be cognizant of your audience and how they’ll perceive the story you’re telling, and that includes the types of imagery you include. It’s not effective catharsis via hurt/comfort for the audience if your Black readers are being completely left out of the comfort. “I wrote this for myself” that’s cool, but… if you wrote racism for yourself, and you’re willing to admit that to yourself, that’s on you. I’d like to think that’s not your intention! You can write these stories of woe and pain without mistreating your Black characters- but that requires knowing and acknowledging when and how you’re doing that!

@afropiscesism makes a solid point in this post: our horror stories are not just fairytales full of amorphous boogiemen meant to teach lessons. Racial violence is very real, very alive, and we cannot act like the things we write can be dismissed outright as “oh well it’s not real”. Sure, those characters aren’t real. But the way you feel about Black bodies and violence is, and often it can slip into your writing as a pattern without you even realizing it. Be willing to get uncomfortable and check yourself on this as you write, as well as noticing it in other works!

If you’re constantly thinking “I would never do this”, you’ll never stop yourself when you inevitably do! If you know what violent imagery can be evoked, you can utilize it or avoid it altogether- but only if you’re willing to get honest about it. You might not intend to do any of this, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t change the pattern, because as always, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

#creatingblackcharacters #long post #writing #writing black characters #black character design #black history #media history

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