#rather than a fictional character representing a real person who doesn't want to show their face online

[teapetal44]

TW: ABUSE, CHILD ABUSE

“He wants to air this dirty laundry to the world does he…? Dabi, you fiend…you’ve been waiting for this moment…when they couldn’t prevent mass destruction…and faith in heroes is wavering.” - chapter 292

I truly, wholeheartedly, believe that MHA as a story upholds the myth of the perfect victim. I do not want to discuss if Horikoshi did that on purpose, or subconsciously because of inner bias – I find no meaning in doing so. For me the execution of an idea, in the grand scheme of the narrative, holds more value than the intention of the author. I’ve also had my fair share of people infantilizing Asian authors in the anime community for their poor writing decisions for one lifetime. It’s patronizing to both the author and the people reading it. Whether or not Horikoshi intended for his themes of abuse to paint the picture they did does not matter, because that’s how it reads as.

MHA puts victims of abuse in narrow boxes and softly dictates what’s an acceptable reaction to said abuse. Victims are continuously walking a tightrope between being deserving of compassion and sympathy and being unredeemable monsters who are too far gone and are only good for martyrdom after being put down.  

Eri fits the clean cut depiction of abuse victims that media usually gears towards. She is untouched by the cruelty around her - she preserves her innocence and kindness. She isn't assertive, but rather meek and passive. She doesn't fight back with force. And when offered help, she is receptive to it. That is not to say that Eri's depiction doesn't have a place in fiction, or that her portrayal can't be representative of the experiences of some - as we all deal with trauma and the inhumanity people throw at us differently. We see the same thing in the portrayal of Fuyumi, who shares many of the qualities discussed above. The same thing applies to her - i personally love the idea of all the siblings having different reaction to their childhood trauma and abuse. It shows that victims are not some type of monolith.

But the narrative treats the "forgiving" or "receptive to help/support" victims of abuse with more grace and with much more kindness. if you are willing to forgive, or the very least be quietly tolerant, the story grants you a happy ending. Forgiveness isn't a bad thing, it is an individual choice - but an abuse victim shouldn't have to do it for them to have a happy ending.

In a vacuum Eri and Fuyumi's character arcs and depictions of abuse are good but it becomes a problem when that's the only experience and type of victim we ever hold in high value or recognize as valid and deserving of compassion. Which the story reinforces.

Touya and Tenko's backstories aren't pretty nor comfortable or easy to sit through. Their responses to abuse aren't either. Reactive abuse is very much real.

[acourtofthought]

Had Sarah proven to me on page why Elain and Lucien did not work, I would be fine with it. It's easy (for me personally) not to ship a ship where the author shows me how two people aren't right for one another but it's not as easy to do that when she gives two characters a super special mating bond, the thing that all fae hold in the highest regard, and just tells readers "Oh, but Elain said she doesn't want her mate regardless of never spending any real time with him and regardless of the fact that he is undeniably a really decent and hot guy who is set up to be a super powerful High Lord and treats her with nothing but respect".

What established readers is going to buy that unless it's found in fanfiction?

Sarah is not afraid to have the FMC explore the wrong guy before getting with the right one. She did it with Feyre. She did it with Aelin (twice). Hell, she even went back and wrote the TOG novellas showing Celaena and Sam's love though we knew it was doomed. So it's logical to wonder why, if she were going to write a rejected mates story, would she not show us valid reasons for the rejection? Why not give us the angst of Elain and Lucien sharing something only to have them walk away because it just wasn't meant to be? Anti's can step off with the misogynistic BS of "because Elain said she wasn't interested" which is NOT a valid argument when it comes to books and I think they know it. There is meant to be drama in fiction and characters are meant to change and grow as the story progresses. Sarah creating the Elucien mating bond only to never have them explore it before deciding whether they want to reject it would be a pointless storyline and she's a seasoned author who I should think would realize that. If she takes out pages and pages of banter (something she loves so much) because it doesn't add anything to the story, then there would be zero reason for her to keep in a mating bond that she never planned on doing anything with. If she wanted E/riel as endgame then she could have kept Graysen as Az and Elain's biggest obstacle (a fiance she loved and wanted to be with is plenty reason for E/riel to build a story on - it would have represented the difference between Elain's past life and the new life she was struggling to embrace). She could have taken Graysen out of the equation entirely, given Elain a mating bond with Lucien and had Elain getting to know Lucien in books 3 / 3.5 / 4 while simultaneously showing us how Lucien wasn't what Elain needed all while Az stood patiently in the wings being the one to support her every time Lucien let her down.

But that's not what Sarah did. Instead she has shown us how every other guy has failed Elain (Graysen, Az), while she refuses to get the know the one guy who has done nothing but what is best for her ever since their mating bond snapped despite her refusal to get to know him.

After reading so many romance / romantasy books, the setup is fairly easy to recognize and it's made even easier knowing Sarah's preferred tropes and style of writing. When it comes to romance, she is not a "tell" rather than show author, she does not shy away from a character falling in love with the wrong guy only for us to eventually understand who the right one always was. So no, it's really not enough for me to have to "take Elain's word for it" when it comes to her not wanting to ever get to know her mate. It's not enough for Sarah to give two characters what is considered a blessing in their world, only for it to be so easily discarded with absolutely no real exploration.

[velvetvexations]

As the person who was responded to about omegaverse, I want to clarify that I am not pro censorship at all and I think omegaverse has a right to exist unhindered. However, it is similar to any other media in that it is still important to analyse how media reflects cultural biases. Like, for example, it is true that a lot of commercial lesbian porn is created specifically with the male gaze in mind (as in the genuine analysis tool) rather than being targeted towards lesbians themselves, for example, and how that shows that there is a genuine social issue where the concept of heterosexual men is prioritized and women are considered objects for men's consumption. but that does not mean porn is bad or this kind of porn should just inherently not exist, it just represents an aspect of misogyny and lesbophobia in society and how institutions will value the concept of what heterosexual men want over lesbian realities. It is a way to analyse how society conducts itself sexually and what is normalized by groups.

And I'm not talking about pwp or anything either. I'm talking primarily about long form narrative that has a whole, quite common trope of, effectively, correctively raping transmasculinised subjects and treating it as a net positive for the character. But i would never call for it to be banned or restricted. I only know this shit because I read it. I can only say that I know certain trends cause I've read hundreds of thousands of words of omegaverse that ranges from pwp to long dramatic stories that explore gender and society to bodice rippers. Omegaverse deserves to exist and can be a fun and compelling genre even when it has underlying messages that are not positive

But that does not mean that it cannot reflect real societal biases.

Its the same as any art that has problematic elements. Whether the author means to say "there is a specific role that men who can bear children play in society and any deviation from that is self denial or lying and needs to be addressed sexually by a more dominant man who can put that person in their place and they will be happier once they accept their role as homemaker/submissive/broodmare" or not, that is the message that a lot of omegaverse has. Transandrophobic tropes don't make a genre toxic or bad or even a specific work bad or wrong, but they still exist. They still reflect the pervasive idea of putting the transmasculinised subject in their place. I enjoy "girl dressed as a boy to do x thing only men can do and she has a wacky adventure before settling down and being gender confirming and heterosexual" as much as the next person, but that doesn't make it not a transandrophobic narrative device.

And for omegaverse specifically? It might not register to an average cis reader that they are reading something with an inherently transphobic message (biology is the be all end all of what you are) because cis people don't think about those things, and it's never framed as a trans issue because it isn't in the boundaries of the verse. Unless you think about it. And people don't think enough about their passive media consumption in my personal opinion. Which isn't a sin or anything, but I think most people would benefit from noticing how much bigoted background noise there is in literally everything.

It's not dissimilar, in my eyes, to misgendering or detransition kink or any other kink that deals directly with social issues such as race play, etc: it should not be censored and can be an important aspect of people's lives, mental health, or just plain fun, but people who are not directly impacted by biases (and even those who are) can and will use it as an excuse to harm marginalised people or as confirmation that that harmful beliefs are justified. I am into CNC and the kind of kinks people scaremonger about. I enjoy and consume fiction with genuinely concerning topics the kind I don't even wanna mention on anon. But I also promote and participate in kink education events and know how important it is to engage mindfully with things. Which doesn't mean banning it. It means bringing attention to the implications and providing background and encouraging introspection. Education alongside.

Like how people should get their sex ed from reputable sources rather than assuming porn will be accurate to real life, or else they're likely to end up in trouble. Critique of how the genre reflects social norms around sexism, misogyny, and transandrophobia can and must coexist with the fun

Media is social messaging. That is why advertising works and how people end up with insecurities from the fact that television only shows conventionally attractive people as good people if non conventionally attractive people exist at all etc. I am a strong proponent of fiction is not one to one reality. But same as how video games don't cause violence, but the kind of social spaces around them are radicalising for the far right because of the culture and how many games shifting to being "us military killing civilians in the middle east" themed post 9/11, there can be nuance beyond "this thing is bad and directly causes social issues and must be banned". Omegaverse is not the cause of transandrophobia, but a lot of it shows the symptoms

Anyway I'll get off my "omegaverse reader who also thinks we should maybe think critically about how common tropes that would be recognised as what they are if they weren't centered around an au" soapbox.

(and none of this even touches on how omegaverse, like f*ta stuff as was compared before, directly feeds interpersonal and social intersexism by conflating fictional bigenetialia with intersex bodies and encouraging fetushization)

Omegaverse Anon again, just saying a thank you miss velvet for allowing us to have this discussion in your ask box because I don't vibe with using my own account to have this kind of discussion lest I find myself accosted by shit I don't want to deal with (and this isn't against the person who responded who I don't think would be shitty about it in the slightest, this is just I have seen people get doxed because they've had milquetoast opinions on fiction and I simply do not have the energy for that in my life)

<3

[ladyloveandjustice]

I've seen people say this is proof that Marcille's not a lesbian, but this is definitely a character (or based on a character) from the romance novel she obsesses over. There is nothing more lesbian than obsessing over a fictional man and being like "yeah i'm down" but not being attracted to any real men. Only fictional men appeal to us because they don't feel the same as real men. This is very much a fictional ideal that Marcille had created for herself. It's her blorbo from her shows. The male character the lesbians claim as their own and relate to is a well known phenom.

(I also want to note this person is incredibly feminine looking even by elf standards)

We'll also see later that succubi don't exclusively operate as romantic fantasies. For Marcille, this person also represents her fantasy of being in this romance novel, which was something she really connected to because of [spoiler] reasons. It was her first experience of seeing herself in a story and feeling accepted as a result.

I don't think Falin is her fantasy ideal type, and she's never been. Marcille's expressed several times she thinks Falin is really cute and pretty, and we've also been shown that she considered Laios's appearance kind of gross because it was more masculine that Falin's and she expected him to look like her which...i mean... gay

But Falin was not someone she expected to fall for, and I think she fell for her based on who she is rather than her it being a specific type she has. It doesn't mean she doesn't love her. Anymore than Chilchuck's actual wife not appearing (based on their daughters she was probably not blonde) means he didn't love her.

(And I will also acknowledge you could read Marcille as bi, she's just one of those characters I relate so much to as a lesbian I just see her that way)

[eros-thanatos89]

meta/thoughts on BCS

Oh, man. I've never posted meta, or just thoughts on shows before, but I'm trying to give myself permission to be as cringe as I want and to ramble on the internet about the fictional things that I think way too much about. So here goes, my first meta post!

I just rewatched BCS S5E3 "The Guy For This" (let's be real: mostly for thirsty reasons, because I wanted to see Lalo and Nacho looking pretty in the garage scene with Saul) and Goddamn, it just smacked me in the face and reminded me what a pivotal episode it is in so many ways.

One of the many recurring themes that I love to see explored so well in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is the many ways that people deal with (or don't) the consequences of their actions, and this episode is just chock full of that, as well as setting up the first steps down the "bad choice road" or the road ahead for so many characters.

In that garage, Saul really steps into Saul as we know him in Breaking Bad. By taking Lalo's money (even if under duress) he's taking the first step into leaving Jimmy behind and becoming the *criminal lawyer* we all love/love to hate. Jimmy's pattern of avoiding the consequences of his actions or uncomfortable emotions like the guilt over Chuck's disgrace and death is running away: by escaping into his scams, and by literally running away from himself, choosing a new identity--he's not Jimmy anymore; he's Saul, so he doesn't have to lug around Jimmy's baggage. And even though he tries to backtrack from this first step onto the bad choice road leading to him becoming "un amigo del cartel", when he tries to suggest that Lalo find another lawyer, it's too late. As Nacho tells him, "When you're in, you're in."

And Nacho would know! Speaking of running away, Nacho has been trying to evade or escape his problems for so long: first by setting up Tuco to avoid having his side hustle with Pryce discovered, and in this episode, trying to convince his Papa to run away with him to Canada. The scene where Manuel confronts Nacho at his house never fails to break my heart. Nacho is so desperate for Manuel to escape with him to a new, safe life, and Manuel is so adamant that Nacho face up to the consequences of his choices. Which ultimately, he has no choice but to do. He has to confront what he's done and give himself up to save his Papa's life, just like Manuel encouraged him to do so long ago. But by giving up his life rather than turning himself in to the police. It's so damn tragic.

And then there's Kim. She's always running away from the poverty and instability of her past by so doggedly pursuing success as a lawyer. I love how this episode highlights her increasing dissatisfaction with Mesa Verde and her yearning to pursue more meaningful pro-bono work so she can use the law to help people like the little, powerless girl she used to be. The confrontation between her and Mr. Acker is stellar. Kim has this rare moment of vulnerability, letting down her walls to share a story of her childhood struggles with Mr. Acker in a genuine attempt to connect with him, only to have him scoff at her and accuse her of making it up to manipulate him. You can tell his tirade about her being ultimately a selfish person who tries to comfort herself with acts of charity really rankles her because it goes so strongly against her sense of self and represents everything it seems she's afraid of becoming, and so much of what she resents about Howard: the entitlement, the sense of ease and privilege, the self-congratulatory charity acts (don't get me wrong, I really like Howard, pompous as he can sometimes be, but I think this is how Kim views him). By the end of the episode, when she escalates Saul toying with a beer bottle on the balcony into throwing them into the parking lot, you can already see her pivoting and taking those first steps down the road that ultimately leads to the plot against Howard, which she justifies to herself in the name of using the Sandpiper money to fund her pro-bono work. And then in the end of the series, she both runs away AND atones for her actions by moving to Florida and living a life literally leeched of all color and joy, and is just doing penance by living a muted, mediocre life.

Domingo's arc in this episode is so crucial, too! Lalo and Nacho recruit Saul to feed him the information to undermine Fring, but when he meets Hank and Steve Gomez in prison, it starts him on the road to transforming from Domingo/Ocho Loco to Krazy 8. Ultimately leaving the cartel (I like to think because of the loss of his friend Nacho) and setting himself up as an independent dealer and even snitching on his own cousin, Emilio; which then leads to his collision with Walt and Jesse.

And the scene with Mike in the bar! The way he's barely holding it together as he tries (not very successfully) to drink away the pain and guilt caused by killing Werner just a few episodes before (S4E9) and is so triggered by the postcard that reminds him of their conversation is so powerful. I just love how he encounters the group of guys who try to intimidate and rob him and he defends himself in this episode, but we later see him intentionally return and seek them out in S5E5 "Dedicado a Max" in an act of self-loathing and roundabout self-harm via taking a beating and not even trying to defend himself.

I'm rambling, but these shows make me litcherally mentally unwell with how fantastically nuanced and textured the writing, acting, visual storytelling, music, everything is! I'm just going to be ruminating on all these many facets of accepting consequences, atoning, and/or running away affects these characters and the arc of both shows and the world they inhabit for the next long while....

[houliburns]

some additional thoughts on my most recent reblog, which i didn't put in the tags bc i didn't wanna derail from the base message... as frank exists in canon, he's an irredeemable laughable caricature. he's also a fantastic character who, while not particularly multi-dimensional, is given just enough depth for us to know why he is the way he is. and that backstory is sad. that backstory makes you feel bad for him. it's meant to. i saw another post about how frank is a scared child who became a cruel adult. fear breeds reactivity. narratively, he's a mocking personification of the values he upholds. he's representative of how dangerous ideology typically comes from the most absolutely batshit insane, beyond parody types of humans. there's another post about how frank's an absolute cartoon of a man and simultaneously someone we've all met. truly, people like him are just like that. bizarrely, he's an accurate depiction. down to a callous, oppressive, hateful childhood ruining a perfectly innocent child. and these people continue to exist. some of frank's more deluded beliefs are things i've heard modern conservatives say unironically fifty years later. as a one-off character says at the beginning of season two, 'his kind is indestructible.' so what do you do when you just have to live with these people? when you have to tolerate them because you don't have a choice? you laugh at them. you take the piss out of them. you treat them as the joke that they are. and the cool thing with frank, as opposed to real world people like him, is that it ends up paying off. frank's flanderization and downward spiral can be attributed to a lot of things, but within the show, frank's a lot more competent in season 1. he's more confident, he's a 'fair' surgeon rather than a terrible one, he's less dependent on margaret, he's less whiny and more decisive. by season 5, he's a mess. at least some of this is because hawkeye, trapper, and bj completely wear him down with their antics. entitlement dries up fast when no one takes you seriously. he loses his confidence and his only ally and he spirals. he is, effectively, defeated. fortunately he didn't take anyone down with him. that's satisfying, narratively. he's never redeemed because he can't be, because of what he represents within mash as a satirical media.

so with all that being said, how do you get someone like me who actually likes frank? how do i justify that? and i've been thinking about it, after seeing some discourse, and i guess it boils down to the fact that morals personally don't factor into my interest in a character. for me, i can think a character is an awful person who i'd never want to encounter irl and who got the unhappy ending they deserved, because they're representative of horrible real-world things, and still consider them my favorite. i can have strong personal values pertaining to real issues, and not feel as strongly about the same issues within media. i guess that gets into the fiction vs reality debate, but i think it's just how different people are wired, because personally, fictional characters being a certain way simply doesn't inspire the same gut-feeling reactions as their real-world equivalents do. i think that differs from person to person. to me, a real person is a threat; a character is a narrative device to be studied, if the themes pertinent to them are remotely interesting. and sometimes unsavory things are interesting! being fascinated by how something works isn't an endorsement of it. it's an academic interest. and sometimes you get attached to your test subjects. that's really the crux of it. some people have a knee-jerk reaction to frank and deem him unworthy of analyzing deeply whatsoever, and that's fair, but to me, he's an idiot on a screen that i like picking apart. my favorite characters in shows are almost always the ones who give me the most to think about, who are a challenge to dissect. frank's so fucked up that when i watch mash, i go "wtf is wrong w this freak", and that, for me, is often what leads me to deem a character my favorite. and his shitty beliefs are part of that. it's not that i think other aspects of him are enough to erase his politics and make him redeemable; it's that he's a bizarre bundle of neuroses and shittiness all packed into a fucking. rubber ball band of a man and that compels me. that's all there is to it. i think when people criticize liking frank it's bc they think we're going "this character is a fascist BUT he's also queer and ND so i like him and can excuse the fascism 🥺". in reality it's "this is a character who is a mess of contradictory qualities and reprehensible behaviors that imply a deep-set pervasive but unconscious self-loathing and internal confusion and that's immensely interesting as a character trope". i think that people think favorite characters have to be people you'd want to know irl but most of my favs are mfs i wouldn't touch with a twenty foot poll. i have a room full of specimen jars that i do inhumane experiments to recreationally and i wouldnt want it any other way <3

[anonil88]

Epidode 7 was probably my favorite episode of Under the Bridge. Felt like we finally got to the thick center of this chowder before I start to skim the fat.

The fat: I get the sympathy "look at how these two characters relate and reflect" angle but the writers have shoved so many different dates and non irl instances into the same day it feels like time isn't passing the way it was before. Certain scenes i felt like someone was yelling out "okay and then next." Those and the odd likely time constraint fictional case changes aside i did enjoy a lot about this episode.

The stock; Its hard challenging your sense of justice in our society when you're not used to it and that is possibly easier when real life people are made fictional characters or more increasingly divorced from their real counterparts. It is difficult to rewire a brain that has already been wired via religion or socialization for crime = all good all bad human. But, thank God life is not so simple there's a lot of gray. As we the viewers reach closer and closer to the finale and trial more has been changed from the real reena virk case. Writers made certain changes in the beginning that now when any of the kids on trial say "we didn't know anything about her" it asks the viewer to think back to the first 4 episodes**. Does anyone here really know who Reena is? They know she was murdered, they are finding out how, but what about this girl. She is a vehicle for their ambitions, guilt, and anger but beyond that who really has found out about Reena or hell any of these kids. Cam? Us the audience? Rebecca? Very clearly not Rebecca (character) even though she has so much in common with Reena as well as Warren. But, she can identify herself with the boy because of their mistakes and race. Becca cannot see why Cam doesn't relate to Warren* despite their similarities because she doesn't understand why Cam doesn't sympathize with her.

That quote about Reena being seen as an animal and weaker than Warren sits in my head a little. Based on another tumblr users post this may have actually been said in court not to Rebecca directly, which was a good change for tv imo. But, it made me think of Warren in his drunken angry state went to his "primal human urge" to hurt something weaker or ignore rather than help. As did every other kid who was a bystander that night but they aren't seen as animals in the same way Reena was up until people saw she was in fact dead. Even now in death she is dehumanized and animalized on the internet because of one bad school picture day. A day we all have tried and failed to get the perfect photo. Still, the most animalistic rabid like behavior is coddled because of privilege. One thing the writers have not held back on us how much they personally do not like Kelly Ellard and offer her 0 remorse that she was given as a child. I dont feel bad for character or real life Kelly but I firmly believe she was failed because of her privilege long before she killed Reena Virk.

One thing i loved about this episode is that I felt Rebecca Godfrey (the writer) all over this episode and in Riley's portrayl. Especially when the character says "I will make sure they know your heart." I think that's what she set out to do with her book and by extension allowing this show, she wanted people to know who these humans are at their very human center. Complicit and redeemable? Complicit and capable? And she felt bad about what tragically happened. I hope wherever she is, if she believed in that sort of thing, that she is proud of her story.

* I think and that moment of his verdict in court shows Cam does care about Warren, Rebecca, and extension all of these kids. This is her home, no matter how small these writers have shrunk its vastness. She sees these kids as versions of her, Gabe, and Rebecca but she is a cop and she does have some standard to uphold. Even though her career and who it represents, her dad & brother her family, is starting to show themselves to be harder to stick by. Similar to Josephine and that false sense of family with CMC disintegrating. Will Cam even go ahead to Vancouver for her job by the end of this?

** Which is quite different from the real life accounts where genuinely it seems those kids and the main group imvolved did not know Reena outside from her extreme antics, the lesser teen cruelty one, and her face.

[writergamermom]

I think that discussions of censorship on Tumblr tend to have a rather singular focus on fan fiction and basically comes down to I want to read/write some perhaps fucked up shit and that upsets people. I think this does a disservice to the power of media including fan fiction and how ideas impact our actions.

Media of any form can have an impact on the audience and society at large. The black and white film Birth of A Nation is a great example. It was the first film screened at the White House. People who saw this film thought it was representing history. That this was what happened during the Civil War and Reconstruction Period. It had a direct impact on violence on Black people, belief by White people that Black people were raping monsters, and a huge enrollment in the KKK. In fact this film help legitimatize the clan and gave it a lot of the community support it needed to thrive.

Here is the thing, people protested. They tried to get the film canceled. Some cities demanded edits and others banded it all together.

But banning an idea doesn't make it go away. Birth of a Nation is still taught in film school. Wilson still watched in the White House and gave it a positive review. See Birth of Nation did not start racism, it didn't start hated against Black people, it didn't start the Klan. Those ideas already existed. Today film professors are trying to right a wrong. Many don't show the film and if they show clips it is with the full understanding of the hate and harm this film perpetrated. It is not a caveat, a cliff note, or something from long ago that can be ignored. It is baked into every cell of the film.

And this is not something that only happened 100 years ago. There are lots of articles about the power of Copaganda and our (especially white middle and upper class American) understanding of police. This had a real impact on how White America view police violence. I remember thinking when Micheal Brown was shot that it didn't matter he was unarmed because an unarmed person can take your weapon away (something that I was taught most of my life to discourage me from carrying a weapon). That police can shoot someone for fleeing a scene (after all all the cop shows had police with their guns drawn running through traffic and busy streets). My only interactions with police was for speeding tickets (that I often got out of) and cops I had met in my day to day life. My world was small and what I didn't know from my own lived experience or second hand from family or friends, I learned from media. Law and Order had a lot more impact on my understanding of the criminal justice system than all my years of education. Again banning Law and Order is not the answer.

OP asked about the importance of representation. Media doesn't care if the idea is about love or hate or accepting the status quo. It tells stories to spread ideas.

Back in the 90's there was a family drama called life goes on about nuclear family and the son had Downs Syndrome. This was the first show to feature a character with Downs Syndrome and dealt with a lot of challenges with love and respect. Second or third season they add a character named Jesse who had HIV. Again very sympathetic character who starts dating the female lead. First HIV+ on TV. This had impact on people. My mom loved this show. She also partly believed or least considered that HIV was God's punishment and came from Black people having sex with monkeys and you can see that because look at how people in Brazil dance and I am not making this up, people actually believed this shit. So in walks Jesse, a sweet, handsome, shy boy, we learn has HIV from unprotected sex with his ex-girlfriend. Church groups are calling for ABC to drop this show. There is letter writing campaigns, people were upset. My mom was upset. But she kept watching. It started to change the way she thought about HIV.

Media spreads ideas, good ones, bad ones, and just plain boring ones. Censorship does not stop the idea. What does is talking about. After Suicide Squad came out, my kid was obsessed with The Joker and Harley. They were true love. I didn't ban my kid from the movie or from Joker and Harley. Instead I broke down their relationship from Batman the Animated Series to present day and explained in detail how this was an abusive relationship and the only happiness Harley will every have comes from her liberation from the Joker.

When my son watches problematic YouTubers, I don't ban them. I sit and explain to him why making fun of people with disables or watching little kids fight and commenting on it is terrible.

If something is putting bad thoughts or feelings in your head disengage. Manny Patinkin left Criminal Minds because he didn't like what the show was doing to him.

If people are not tagging something, ask them to tag it. That could be using racist tropes, justifying rape, or condoning abuse.

If your worried media is leading people to accept a hateful or harmful idea, break it down. Explain how JK Rowling uses anti-trans tropes in her works. Help people to hear the dog whistle and ruin it.

TL:DR Media spreads ideas, good and bad, and those ideas impact actions people take. Censorship does not help. The only thing that has power over those ideas is new ideas.

references

So I'm slowly starting to come to understand that we shouldn't censor things but also I'm still a little uncomfortable with the site allowing things like pedophilia to be written in a way that's romanticized. I get it. Avoid it since I don't like it but at what point do we say, 'hmm this isn't okay.' I mean I get it, fiction doesn't hurt people but if that were truly the case then why are we lobbying for rep/realism/etc in media? Fiction, at some point, has to have some effect on real life.

Hello darling! I got your second ask too, please don’t worry, you’re definitely not coming across as unkind.

And you’re definitely not the only one to have similar thoughts or concerns.

But my answer’s going to be the same.

There is no such thing as a little censorship, and opening that particular can of pringles is not going to end happily for anyone. It’s better to not open it at all. And yes, that means people will create deeply fucked up things. But they should have the ability to do so, just like you should have the ability to avoid the hell out of it.

(Which, for AO3, is where I start in on my tag your shit appropriately/read the fucking tags!!! Rants. Learned the hard way a million years ago when I *thought* I was reading something very very different than I was, so when I got to ‘Character has sex with a dog’ I lost my mind, then realized I fucked up and hadn’t read the tags. If I had, I would have noped out of that fic immediately. So. That entire encounter was on me.)

“At what point is this not okay?” Well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Who would be in charge of deciding where the line goes? Who gets to decide what goes on which side of the line?

The last anon seemed to think writing was the same as doing, and thus writing shouldn’t be allowed at all.

And then got annoyed when I pointed out how often those unsavory themes happen in movies or TV without any warning at all, and generally, people move right past it.

Fiction doesn’t hurt people. People hurt people.

My favorite comparison is still my kitchen curtains, because my curtains are still weird: fairies, trees. Very witchy. I’ve seen people do literal double takes over my curtains. I can tell by the way they squint they can’t stand them or don’t understand why I would want something so *non-traditional* in such a public part of my house. They keep their damned mouths shut though, because they know its rude to tell me to change my curtains to fit their idea of a kitchen. (And also because I’d toss them out after laughing my ass off but that’s not relevant)

Person A has an idea of what ‘acceptable’ levels are, but that’s much much less than person B. Who wins? No one.

And no one should have the power to just decide things like that.

It’s stupid o’clock at night where I am, so I’m not about to go digging for studies, but I know we’ve got pretty solid proof that media doesn’t cause behaviors spontaneously. At the risk of sounding old, but this same argument once was applied to music, too. The weird compromise was slapping content warnings for language/sex/violence on CD’s. (Y’know. A significantly less useful form of tagging?) It didn’t… really do shit for anyone. Other than make those CD’s more attractive to teens, tbh. But. The argument at the time was rap and rock were violent and would make kids go insane and violent just by listening.

It… didn’t. It still doesn’t.

Reading dark fic isn’t going to cause someone to do something out of the blue.

Someone who’s debating doing the thing might seek out media about whatever their obsession is, yes. But their obsession was already there. Fic, music, movies, they’re not going to create it. I’d wager those girls who murdered their friend and blamed ‘slenderman’ had signs long before they went that far.

Part of the problem with this entire thought is that it’s thought policing. Folks assume the thought equals the sin. And as someone with pretty wonky intrusive thoughts and a long family history of mental issues— no. I have weird ass thoughts all the time. ‘Huh, I’m up high, I should jump, maybe I’ll float.’ I’m not gonna act on them. I know they’re weird thoughts. I’m not gonna float, I’d just die. Your brain just… says things sometimes. Some of us more than others. Therapy’s helpful for folks who struggle with that.

Fiction’s got nothing to do with it, though. Fiction just represents someone else working through their lives.

Melissa Etheridge wrote a song (scarecrow) about Matthew Sheppard’s murder. She didn’t cause anyone else to go torture another lonely gay boy to death. She was working through her grief at losing another one of us. And we worked through our grief when she sang.

Art is made for the making of it. Fiction—even the kind that squicks you— is still art.

As for the other part of your ask, the representation? I’m not sure I see the connection you’re trying to make. When people talk about rep, they’re talking about making the characters more authentic, more reflective of the beautiful range of humanity at large. Not seven brown haired white guys and one bitchy white woman and the unnamed not-white side character used for shit jokes. There should be a rainbow of humans in media, because little black girls deserve to know they’re strong and smart and beautiful. Because queer kids of all sizes and shapes deserve to know they’re loved. Because boys should get to be princesses. Because people with chronic illnesses, disabilities, they should get to be part of the stories. Because white folk need to see the rest of the world as human. Folks want to see themselves in the heroes, the happiness, the successes.

Too many kids never get to see themselves on the screen or read about people who look like them.

I loved belle as a kid because she looked like me and she loved reading. I loved Ariel because she wanted to be free. I cried over encanto because I know what it’s like to be excluded, what it’s like to be the big sister. I cried over reading red white and royal blue because the gays get to live and they’re happy. Everyone should have some way to connect.

The realism bit,though, I don’t think is the consumers as a whole. Yeah, some folks prefer it, but from what I’ve seen over the last 20 years, it’s more like the people who control most popular media have decided that’s what they wanna make. I don’t care for it, tbh. Media doesn’t need to be an exact copy of the real world.

Stories are meant as a place of solace, or at least a place that is different, than your day to day.

I like stories that have soft, happy ever afters. We’ve worked through the Big Bad Thing and come out stronger for it and now we get our well deserved rest. The real world doesn’t give me those things. Other people look at the state of the world, read seriously fucked up shit, and then go, well, at least my life isn’t that. It could be worse! And this is their happy place.

So. I’m not sure I’m much help here, but tl;dr: remember the tenets of fandom:

1) kinktomato: your kink is not my kink and that is okay. (You like this, I do not, I’m gonna leave it alone, the end.)

2) DLDR: Don’t like? Don’t read. Filtering and blocking are your besties.

3) ship and let ship (or sit down) — don’t press your dislike onto the people who do like. Let ‘em alone, go find what you do like.

4) tag appropriately, read the damn tags.

5) curate your own spaces. You alone are responsible for your online existence/experiences

6) have fun. Enjoy it. Be weird. Be silly. Be fucked up. Be unrepentantly yourself. Don’t let anyone else take that away from you.

[technoxenoholic]

anyway if you know that the otherkin community exists and you still choose to ""kin for fun"", that does indeed make you an asshole.

you can literally just call a character your favorite, comfort character, muse, blorbo, or anything else. you literally don't have to steal our word and misuse it. you don't have to do that.

[marzipanandminutiae]

I think the line between representing gnc women in the past and interpreting the NLOG trope as applying to any gnc woman in fiction is difficult to chart—I don’t deny that authors do this, but the thing is that real historical women did feel like this for very legitimate reasons, even if they come off as condescending today (I’d be pissed too if I was told I Had to wear skirts and corsets, and I am someone who personally really enjoys wearing skirts and corsets). Representing women who did not conform to gender norms on various different ways is important, and I don’t think Cox’s critique of any of her chosen movies/shows is particularly convincing in part because she does not acknowledge this at all—and while not every YouTube video essay has to be all things to all people, this is a touchy topic and some effort on her part would’ve been really appreciated, because it very much comes off as “gnc women make me uncomfortable” more than anything else.

See, I really don't get where the whole "she doesn't talk about real GNC women!!" thing comes from

because I am literally watching the video right now and, direct quote, "while rejecting traditional gender norms of their era happened, that doesn't mean it can only be expressed in the rejection of distinctly feminine articles of clothing..."

"And while I'm not saying there's anything wrong with breaking gender norms in historical dramas...Gentleman Jack is a good example of this...I'm frustrated with the reliance on 'Girly Bad! Boy Good!' clothing defaults...without what seems to be a second thought on how problematic it can actually be."

"The idea of creating the bloomers and the trousers could have come from this very genuine place of like 'I want...to be able to run...without having to deal with all these skirts around my legs.' And that is fair..."

and the big part, prefacing AN ENTIRE SECTION OF THE VIDEO: "Now, all that being said, I want to acknowledge the historic reality of women who did dress in masculine clothing." She actually goes further than I would in using they/them pronouns for George Sand (I have a "pronouns they used in life" policy, personally), and discusses in detail some examples of women who presented masculine at various times, for various reasons. She also gets in-depth about Gentleman Jack, and why the show was more authentic to Anne Lister's life (as a distinctly butch woman in the 1830s) for showing her having to bend slightly to accepted feminine modes of dress rather than just...sticking her in anachronistic pants all the time.

I don't think the video is perfect- it's clear what presentation Abby herself prefers, and thus she can sometimes muddy her own message. For example, to me it's clear that she's not saying it would be BAD for a suffragist character to be GNC, but it would be UNREALISTIC due to the emphasis the actual suffrage movement had to place on conventionally feminine attire to avoid distracting the press from their own message. But I can see how it might come off as "feminine suffragist character good, masc suffragist character bad" to someone with less baseline knowledge of the speaker's general views.

(It could also be hard to get that she's not decrying the rejection of feminine attire wholesale in criticizing Anne W*th an E, but rather saying that it's unfaithful to the character as originally written. Also she could have been clearer that the issue with Miss Stacy is that she would be INSTA-FIRED if, as a small-town teacher in the 1890s, she showed up to a town hall meeting in trousers. Like. I cannot overstate how fired she would get from any position overseeing children's education, as an outsider and not even an "accepted local eccentric," in a backwater like Avonlea.)

In short, while it has its issues, I don't really see that it's as horrible and prescriptivist a video as everyone makes it out to be. But you're entitled to your opinions, just as I am to mine.

[rainbowsky]

Hi!!! While I'm really happy with the successful completion of season 5 of SDC, but I came across the clips of 🐢 and 🏍️ fighting with each other & there were staffs removing the red lights from the crowd which kinda made me upset. I know that it's completely fair for the staffs to promote wyb & his team in a show where bjyx related stuff is irrelevant. Anyway I know I should stay away from Twitter it's just bloodbath out there.

A lot of people have written me about this incident, and @accio-victuuri did a post about it as well, which you can find here. I just have a few things to add on this topic.

The question that keeps coming up is, "Should BXG be showing up at GG and DD's events with BXG banners and fan materials?"

To me the question isn't, "Should BXG be there?" the question is, "How should we conduct ourselves in public?"

We have every right to go wherever we want, online or off. We have the right to show our support for GG and DD. What I don't think we have the right to do is make a big spectacle of ourselves, or escalate tense situations in public places or in online spaces.

Here's the thing that I think we always need to keep in mind: we are the fringe group. We are the group that is going to be targeted for bullying and hate. In the eyes of the world at large, we are pervs who ship together real people using crazy theories and tinfoil hat clues. The myths about who we are and what we are about are far more widespread than the realities.

It is the fact that GG and DD are real people that makes our fandom fall under greater scrutiny, and it is why we have to be extra careful about how we behave. These aren't a couple of fictional characters. Everything that we say and do reflects on and has a potential to impact two very real people.

And if we believe they are in a real relationship, that makes it doubly important that we conduct ourselves with extra caution.

Going to an event - even an event that only one of them is present at - with turtle light banners and cute little dolls is totally fine, what isn't fine in my view is to cross over into behavior that might be disruptive. I have said it a thousand times, we should always stay in our own lane.

Solos are going to attack, bully and harass us. It's just the way things are. You've heard me say this a lot in the past - we don't have any control over what other people say, do or think. The only thing we have any control over is how we respond to what other people say, do or think. And if we care about GGDD and the turtle fandom we should always be choosing the response that will lead to peace.

When solos attack us, it is better to take the high road and do what we can to de-escalate the situation. This goes for online or offline.

The friendlier someone is to somebody who is being cruel to them, the nastier the cruel person looks. But as soon as we start behaving nasty back, we start looking just as nasty as the person attacking us.

And let me guarantee you, this is one area where appearances do matter. As I stated before, we are a fringe group. We are going to be targeted. If we look like we are asking for it, we're only making matters worse for ourselves. We are only jeopardizing our own existence as turtles.

If our behavior escalates rather than de-escalates fan wars, then we are generating fan wars that can harm GG and DD, and can jeopardize the turtle fandom.

It's likely that some solos are fully aware of that, and try to actively bait us. Be well aware and simply block and ignore.

As for the claims being made about what happened, and who said what and who did what, and which light banners were removed and which were not - and why, none of it matters. What matters is putting a stop to the fan wars. Or, at the very least, putting a stop to our contribution to the fan wars.

It doesn't matter whether turtles or solos, they were all there representing DD and they embarrassed him, at an event that he was not even supposed to be the focus of. They should all be ashamed of themselves.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that both solos and turtles made a negative spectacle of themselves. No one here comes away with a clean face.

Everybody from both fandoms should be deeply ashamed and humbled right now, not trying to justify themselves.

I see a lot of hand-wringing from people about what so-and-so said or did, or what so-and-so posted on Twitter. We shouldn't be fooling ourselves. Anything posted on Twitter is going to have a high chance of generating conflict. Conflict is a core feature of the culture of Twitter.

Nothing posted about GGDD or about turtles, no matter how benign or even positive, ever fails to draw solo hate and personal attacks toward BXG. Anyone who thinks that kind of BS can be avoided is fooling themselves.

I've been on Twitter, I see the kind of things that solos flock to and attack. They are just as likely to freak out over a cute piece of fan art as they are to freak out over a video showing fans arguing.

As I said before, it doesn't matter what solos do, what matters is how we respond to what they do. We should be blocking, ignoring, and reporting where appropriate.

Their behavior is their own responsibility. Our only focus should be on our own behavior.

I will never understand why people freak out over the fact that solos are saying hateful things about us on Twitter. Their opinions simply don't matter.

Edit: Follow-up post here.

[fastrainbowdas]

Adding onto your recent meta about the Pregames, one line stuck out to me. Where you said for the pregames that are supposed to be 'real people' they sure feel a lot more like caricatures. I'm really glad you brought up this point, especially considering the Pregames are supposed to represent the Danganronpa fandom, which is us. I feel like the understand the Pregames better, you need to world-build a little bit as to what their 'outside world' is like. It's heavily dubious what Tsumugi said about the outside world being peaceful and non-violet. With how people people were willing to sign away their lives so easily, the pregames feel more like su//c//dal teens that need a fuck ton of therapy. Many people in the 'real' DR fandom (at least from whom I met) have many personal issues that cripple their mental health and make them turn to fiction as a escape from their harsh life. I mean.........who hasn't thought "I wish I could live in that fictional world?" before?

The Pregames are really supposed to represent us, the Danganronpa fandom. So it actually makes me greatly concerned that people would 'self-project' the 'accepted fanon' of Pregame Shuichi being a sadistic yandere, Pregame Kaede being a nihilistic bully, Pregame Kokichi being a uwu femboy cinnamon bun, etc. It really does come to show that people would put shipping characters into a trope rather than using these pregames as their self-projection canvases

And while everyone in the Danganronpa fandom isn't the same, no version of the pregames have to be either. There's many pregame stories on Ao3, which has probably influenced and encouraged the misconceptualizing of the pregames. I understand that none of them have a canon personality, and since Ingame Saimatsu and Saiouma can never happen canonically, people will turn to the pregame AU to make it happen the way they want it. Then again, it is totally okay to write whatever an author wants, but it does take away good character discussion when the Pregames are boiled down to *insert name's* love intersted

Anyways, sorry for rambling. But yeah, here is my two cents about your essay. Great thoughts and I appreciated reading that very much as a pregame V3 enthusiast

I'm so sorry but you sent this to the wrong person SNGJFDNSZFDJVFGNJDNVJS

@hello-kitty-shuichi-saihara This is for you

But ya I do agree that the pregame characters are supposed to represent us. And deciding the characters' personalities based on tropes and shipping only is really funny when you can just Go Replay The Prologue and see the character is Nothing Like That Trope

Like, in the prologue Kokichi asks reasonable questions very clearly which is very different from uwu stuttering "pwease dont huwt me" fanon pregame Kokichi (Who probably would've been silent tbh). Kaede has a bit of a temper (and so does ingame Kaede) but is still nice to people around her (Shuichi is the obvious one) which. Y'know, if she was the popular bully girl like in fanon she probably would've insulted absolutely everyone without hesitation right? But she doesn't. Yandere Shuichi (Like, unironically) straight up squicks me? Because the way I see it, people decided he's like that because of his audition tape. Like, good job guys, you took a guy ranting about his kinda fucked up interest and decided he's a homicidal maniac who obsesses over Danganronpa and his uwu soft boyfwiend who needs pwotection at all costs. I'm flabbergasted that people don't realize what picture they're painting of themselves, since they're also Danganronpa fans, but aside from that... As someone who also rants abt their interests like that it just. I hate it DJKSANKJDSNFANFDJS

These characters are a lot more similar to their ingame selves than people give them credit for haha

[makiruz]

So I watched the first 3 episodes of Andor and what I have to say is that the tone is weird; not bad, weird

Something doesn't feel right about this whole thing and I suspect that it's that it doesn't really feel like Star Wars. It's hard to explain what it is, my brother says is that it has the tone of cyberpunk, and that might be it, Andor feels too realistic. What I mean is that Star Wars is in reality fantasy, but Andor feels like science fiction, feels too down to earth, too much like an extrapolation of the real world, rather than a fantastical world.

This isn't to say the show is bad, it's good actually; I can see why people like it, it's more serious, which is what Star Wars fans want, but I don't think it's really Star Wars. There are aliens, despite what I'd been led to believe, but so far they have been extras, no significant character has been an alien; and there's no spirituality, which you might think is silly but spirituality is an integral part of Star Wars.

Also some story choices are weird, first off Andor's background; he comes from a tribal non-industrialized culture, but he's human; in Star Wars this kind of tribal people tend to be aliens, while humans represent the West, no everyone is the same of course, but a human group that doesn't speak basic? How did that happen? How did that people get there? In Star Wars lore there's the implication that in the past Humans expanded from their unknown homeplanet (sometimes believed to be Coruscant) into the rest of the Galaxy and with time evolved into different cultures; I suppose Kenari might have been isolated for a long time and that's why they developed their own unique tribal culture, but that just feels weird in this universe, again, this sort of people are usually aliens.

Second I don't get why would that guy would travel all the way to Ferrix to recruit Andor into the Rebellion; what's so special about Andor? He doesn't have the Force, he's not a former Imperial officer, he doesn't have a special McGuffin, he's a completely ordinary person, there's nothing about him worthy of the special attention. And if you want to say, "that's how the Rebellion operates" no it isn't; we've seen how the Rebellion recruits people: they're unhappy with the Empire, something push them off the edge, some Rebels are there, they join them; sending someone to pick up someone else needs a reason: they have specialized skills, they want to join the Rebellion but they can't leave their current location on their own, they have information; the Rebels don't go after random normal people in a different planet who don't want to join the Rebellion in the first place; when they're insistent is when the reluctant person is there, next to them and often partially involved in the Rebellion already. This scenario feels all wrong

Next the first two episodes are too long, it should've been only one episode leading to the confrontation in Ferrix

But I will say that I really like the cops; those guys are absolute clowns, they're all acting like they're going to war to protect the Universe when they're only going to pick up some guy. That part IS very Star Wars, I love it (uniforms could've been better though)

Final verdict of the first 3 episodes: This feels like a cool sci fi show, but not Star Wars; the problems I have (besides pacing) wouldn't exist if the show was original and was creating new rules; within Star Wars it feels weird and wrong

[wenellyb]

Can I ask your opinion on the what if... series? I'm really hating the Captain Carter trailers. I feel like it's disrespectful to Sam's character who has only just taken up the mantle of Captain America and the shield. I get that this is an alternate timeline series but from the sounds of things they plan on launching these alternates into the main MCU via the multiverse. If rumours are true and Peggy appears in Doctor Strange 2, then that means Captain Carter will appear on the big screen as a supersoldier shield-weilding Cap before Sam appears. And that doesn't sit right with me. Not to mention the merchandise that's already everywhere. Feels like Sam's getting sidelined again before he's even had the chance to shine on his own. Anyway, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on it, if you've seen it. (Also, less related, the uniform being the British flag just reeks of WW2 British imperialism which is also just ugh. And I'm an Australian, our flag literally includes the British one! I just do not like any of this.)

Hi Anon!!! Thanks for the ask it's a very interesting question.

I haven't thought about it a lot because I have seen the trailers and I liked it, it looks like a very cool show and I llike Peggy Carter's character.

They have announced the What If... series since a long time ago and one of the scenario announced was indeed what if Peggy was "Captain America", so this isn't exactly a surprise.

I have seem some posts about the fact that there is much promotion and much more merchandise is done for Captain Cartet than for Captain America. And that are disappointed that Sam's character is sidelined and maybe it's too spon and I will changer my mind, but I personally don't feel that way for now.

I guess I would have more of a problem if:

-it weren't an animated series and there was a real show with Captain Carter. I didn't know about Peggy appearing in Doctor Strange 2, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what is the screntime, if she appears as Captain Carter or not. But for now, I personally don't see Captain Carter as a problem or as Sam's character being sidelined.

- if they brought back Chris Evans' Captain America on a different project, like those rumors said some ago. It would annoy me to no end if they used the excuse of the multiverse to bring back another version of Steve Rogers as Captain America, or as

Honestly, for me, there is a problem with Sam's character and how him being Captain America is handled, but it has nothing to do with the What if series. I think it's important to put the blame where it should be.

The problem isn't that there is more promotion or more merch available for the What If series or Captain Carter, because the show is about to air, so it's normal that it would get promoted, that's how it works.

To me, the problem is that we had a TV show with Sam as Captain America, and then... nothing???

The problem is that we had an announcement for a Cap 4 movie but with no realease date nothing? Not even a TBA date in 2024 or whatever? With all these MCU moves already lined up there should be at least an official announcement, even a vague date.

And I'm thinking maybe we'll get to Sam Wilson in other movies, before the Cap 4 movie, but it's not a certainty, and also what about the official dates for his own movie? Not even something like "confirmed" or "announced" with the Captain America logo.

That's what doesn't sit right with me, because for now it looks to me that Disney has no plan to follow up on Captain Sam Wilson... Just from the looks of it, I don't know what they will or will not do.

Am I the only one who remembers that we were supposed to have a Cyrborg solo movie in the DCEU? It was announced and it never happened? So that's what's really making worried regarding Captain America.

From where I'm standing, Disney wants the diversity points without putting in more work than necessary.

Another issue is that historically the fandom never stands up for the Black Superheroes and the Balck actors.

It happened woth Ray Fisher, it happened with John Boyega, and I think John's case it's even more disgustimg because the behavior of the fandom eventually led to his role beong reduced in the Saga...wtf. They preferred to run an incoherent story and make a mediocre movie rather than pay Fonn his due!

Just an example of what I mean when I say that the fandom doesn't support Black Actors: You see all what is happening with Scarlett Johansson right? The lawsuit etcetera.... I have seen dozens and dozens of posts supporting her and her lawsuit.... And this isn't coming from her fans... It's even coming from people who dislike her but understand the importance of what she's doing. I understand the importance of what she's doing... But I can't help and compare it to he support Ray Fisher had in the fandom, when he was calling out the abuse he received from Joss Whedon and from some Executives. Since the story with Scarlett started every 10th post on my dash is about it. And yes, it's still fresh, so it's normal people are talking about it. But when the whole story started with Ray Fisher, the reaction was just not the same.... People were amkong posts that wouldn't get more that a 100 notes, and for me it was easier supporting from Twitter because at least I could retweet Ray's tweets.... but let me tell you that he was bassically fight alone. ALONE.

I have seen so many posts saying.... "I hate Scarjo but..." "I can't stand Scarjo but..." So from where I'm sitting a problematic White actress will get more support than an unproblematic Black actor denouncing abuse. And just to be clear... I do think that the fandom should support Scarjo's lawsuit because Disney is never held accountable for the sh*t they do, I'm just making a comparison and saying they both deserved support but only one of them got it.

That's why I have absolutely no fate that the MCU fandom will stand up for Anthony Mackie or Sam Wilson if it's ever necessary seeing how they turned their back on Anthony Mackie the moment they thought he was against "Sambucky". They will turn their back on him and his character the minute a minor inconvience happen. And Disney/Marvel will love that because they will have a justification as to why they will not follow through with Sam Cap (His characyer is unpopular.... or whatever excuse they will find).

And about the interview thing, I guess I could understand if and only if they had a problem with some of the things he had said... But the fandom made it clear that they only cared about what they thought he said about Sambucky, not the rest, proving once again that the fandom is untrustworthy. Because they were ready to condemn hom for something as trivial as a fictional ship.

If push comes to shove, and for instance they brought back another Steve Rogers from another universe, I'm sure they would be quick to support THAT character instead of Sam.

To me the problem is Disney & Marvel Execs and also the fandom of course... Because the Execs go where the money is... If the fandom is hyping up anybody BUT Sam Wilson... the execs will do the same... because they will promote characters who are the most popular.

It's important to reward reprensation, and hype up movies and shows with reprensentation, but to me it is as important (if not more important) not to reward lack of representation.

That's why I have absolutely no intention to pay for a MCU movie other than Shang Chi, and Black Panther and also Cap 4 whenever it comes out! But other than that... I'm staying away from the movies with always the same group being represented.

TL:DR; in my opinion, there is indeed a problem but the problem isn't the What if series, far from it.

[flufffysocks]

let's talk about andi mack's worldbuilding

sorry this took forever to make! i've been pretty busy with school stuff and i kind of lost my inspiration for a bit, but i ultimately really enjoyed writing it! i wish i could've included more pics (tumblr has a max of 10 per post), and it kinda turned from less of a mini analysis to more of an extremely long rant... but i hope it's still a fun read!

i've been rewatching the show over the past few weeks (thanks again to @disneymack for the link!), and i’ve been noticing a lot that i never did the first time around. this is really the first time i’ve watched the show from start to finish since it aired, and it honestly feels so different this time - probably a combination of the fact that i’m not as focused on plot and can appreciate the show as a whole, and also that the fandom is much, much smaller now, so there’s a lot less noise. so the way i’m consuming this show feels super different than it did the first time, but the show itself doesn’t - it’s just as warm and comforting to me as it was the first time around, if not more so.

i think a lot of that can be attributed to andi mack’s “worldbuilding”. i’m not quite sure that this is the right word in this context, to be honest, because i mostly see it used in reference to fantasy and sci-fi universes, but it just sort of feels right to me for andi mack, because you can really tell how much love and care went into constructing this universe. for clarity, worldbuilding is “the process of creating an imaginary world” in its simplest sense. there’s two main types: hard worldbuilding, which involves inventing entire universes, languages, people, cultures, places, foods, etc. from scratch (think “lord of the rings” or “dune”), and soft worldbuilding, in which the creators don’t explicitly state or explain much about the fictional universe, but rather let it’s nature reveal itself as the story progresses (think studio ghibli films). andi mack to me falls in the soft worldbuilding category. even though it takes place in a realistic fiction universe, there’s a lot of aspects to it that are inexplicably novel in really subtle ways.

so watching the show now, i’ve noticed that the worldbuilding comes primarily from two things - setting and props, and oftentimes the both of them in tandem (because a big part of setting in filmmaking does depend on the props placed in it!).

one of the most obvious examples is the spoon. it really is a sort of quintessential, tropic setting in that it's the main gang's "spot", which automatically gives it a warm and homey feel to it. and its set design only amplifies this:

the choice to make it a very traditional 50s-style diner creates a very nostalgic, retro feel to it, which is something that's really consistent throughout the show, as you'll see. from the round stools at the bar, to the booths, to the staff uniforms, this is very obvious. the thing that i found especially interesting about it though is the choice of color. the typical 50s diner is outfitted with metallic surfaces and red accented furnishings, but the spoon is very distinctly not this.

instead, it's dressed in vibrant teal and orange, giving it a very fresh and modern take on a classic look. so it still maintains that feeling of being funky and retro, but that doesn't retract from the fact that the show is set distinctly in modern times.

of course, this could just be a one-off quirky set piece, but this idea of modernizing and novelizing "retro" things is a really common motif throughout the show. take red rooster records. i mean, it's a record shop - need i say more? it's obviously a very prominent store in shadyside, at least for the main characters, but there's no apparent reason why it is (until season 2 when bowie starts working there, and jonah starts performing there). a lot of the time, though, it functions solely as a record shop. vinyl obviously isn't the most practical or convenient way of listening to music, but it's had its resurgence in pop culture even in the real world, mostly due to its aesthetic value, so it's safe to say that it serves the same purpose in the andi mack universe.

the fringe seems to be nostalgic of a different era, specifically the Y2K/early 2000s period (because it's meant to be bex's territory and symbolic of who she used to be, and its later transformation into cloud 10 is representative of her character arc, but that's beside the point). to be honest, exactly what this store was supposed to be always confused me. it was kind of a combination party store/clothing store/makeup store/beauty parlor? i think that's sort of the point of it though, it's supposed to feel very grunge-y and chaotic (within the confines of a relatively mellow-toned show, of course), and it's supposed to act as a sort of treasure chest of little curios that both make the place interesting and allow the characters to interact with it.

and, of course, there's andi shack. this is really the cherry on top of all of andi mack's sets, just because it's so distinctly andi. it serves such amazing narrative purpose for her (ex. the storyline where cece and ham were going to move - i really loved this because it highlights its place in the andi mack universe so well, and i'm a sucker for the paper cranes shot + i'm still salty that sadie's cranes didn't make it into the finale) and it's the perfect reflection of andi's character development because of how dynamic it is (the crafts and art supplies can get moved around or switched out, and there's always new creations visible).

going back to the nostalgia motif though, the "shack" aspect of it always struck me as very treehouse-like. personally, whenever i think of treehouses, there's this very golden sheen of childhood about it, if that makes sense. i've always seen treehouses in media as a sort of shelter for characters' youthful innocence and idealistic memories. for example, the episode "up a tree" from good luck charlie, the episode "treehouse" from modern family, and "to all the boys 2" all use a treehouse setting as a device to explore the character's desire to hold onto their perfect image of their childhood (side note: this exact theme is actually explored in andi mack in the episode "perfect day 2.0"!). andi shack is no exception to this, but it harnesses this childhood idealism in the same way that it captures the nostalgia of the 50s in the spoon, or the early 2000s in the fringe. it's not some image of a distant past being reflected through that setting; it's very present, and very alive, because it reflects andi as she is in the given moment.

some honorable mentions of more one-off settings include the ferris wheel (from "the snorpion"), the alley art gallery (from "a walker to remember"), SAVA, the color factory (from "it's a dilemna"), and my personal favorite, the cake shop (from "that syncing feeling").

[every time i watch this episode i want to eat those cakes so bad]

these settings have less of a distinctly nostalgic feel (especially the color factory, which is a very late 2010s, instagram era setting), but they all definitely have an aura of perfection about them. andi mack is all about bright, colorful visuals, and these settings really play to that, making the andi mack universe seem really fun and inviting, and frankly very instagrammable (literally so, when it comes to the color factory!).

props, on the other hand, are probably a much less obvious tool of worldbuilding. they definitely take up less space in the frame and are generally not as noticeable (i'm sure i'll have missed a bunch that will be great examples, but i'm kind of coming up with all of this off the top of my head), but they really tie everything together.

for example, bex's box, bex's polaroid, and the old tv at the mack apartment (the tv is usually only visible in the periphery of some shots, so you might not catch it at first glance) all complement that very retro aesthetic established through the settings (especially the polaroid and the tv, because there's really no good reason that the characters would otherwise be using these).

besides this, andi's artistic nature provides the perfect excuse for plenty of colorful, crafty props to amplify the visuals and the tone. obviously, as i discussed before, andi shack is the best example of this because it's filled with interesting props. but you also see bits of andi's (and other people's) crafts popping up throughout the show (ex. the tape on the fridge in the mack apartment, andi's and libby's headbands in "the new girls", walker's shoes, andi's phone case, and of course, the bracelet). not only does doing this really solidify this talent as an essential tenet of andi's character, but it also just makes the entirety of shadyside feel like an extension of andi shack. the whole town is a canvas for her crafts (or art, depending on how you want to look at it. i say it's both), and it immensely adds to shadyside's idealism. because who wouldn't want to live in a world made of andi mack's creations?

and, while it's not exactly a prop, the characters' wardrobe is undoubtedly a major influence on the show's worldbuilding. true to it's nature as a disney channel show, all of the characters are always dressed in exceptionally curated outfits of whatever the current trends are, making the show that much more visually appealing. i won't elaborate too much on this, because i could honestly write a whole other analysis on andi mack's fashion (my favorites are andi's and bex's outfits! and kudos to the costume designer(s) for creating such wonderful and in-character wardrobes!). but, i think it's a really really important aspect of how the show's universe is perceived, so it had to be touched upon.

[^ some of my favorite outfits from the show! i am so obsessed with andi's jacket in the finale, and i aspire to be at bex's level of being a leather jacket bisexual]

and lastly, phones. this is a bit of an interesting case (pun intended), because the way they're used fluctuates a bit throughout the show, but i definitely noticed that at least in the first season terri minsky tried to avoid using them altogether. these efforts at distancing from modern tech really grounds the show in it's idealist, nostalgia-heavy roots, so even when the characters start using their phones more later in the show, they don't alter the viewer's impression of the andi mack universe very much.

so, what does all of this have to do with worldbuilding? in andi mack's case, because it's set in a realistic universe and not a fantasy one, a lot of what sets it apart from the real world comes down to tone. because, as much as this world is based on our own, it really does feel separate from it, like an alternate reality that's just slightly more perfect than ours, which makes all the difference. it's the idealism in color and composition in andi mack's settings that makes it so unmistakably andi mack. even the weather is always sunny and perfect (which is incredibly ironic because the town is called shadyside - yes, i am very proud of that observation).

the andi mack universe resides somewhere in this perfect medium that makes it feel like a small town in the middle of nowhere (almost like hill valley in 1955 from "back to the future"), but at the same time like an enclave within a big city (because of its proximity to so many modern, unique, and honestly very classy looking establishments). it is, essentially, an unattainable dream land that tricks you into believing it is attainable because it's just real enough.

all this to say, andi mack does an amazing job of creating of polished, perfect world for its characters. this is pretty common among disney channel and nickelodeon shows, but because most other shows tend to be filmed in a studio with three-wall sets, andi mack is really set apart from them in that it automatically feels more real and tangible. it has its quintessential recurring locations, but it has far more of them (most disney/nick shows usually only have 3-4 recurring settings), and it has a lot more one-off locations. it's also a lot more considerate when it comes to its props, so rather than the show just looking garish and aggressively trendy, it has a distinctive style that's actually appropriate to the characters and the story. overall this creates the effect of expanding the universe, making shadyside feel like it really is a part of a wider world, rather than an artificial bubble. it's idealism is, first and foremost, grounded in reality, and that provides a basis for its brilliant, creative, and relatable storytelling.

tl;dr: andi mack's sets and props give it a very retro and nostalgic tone which makes its whole universe seem super perfect and i want to live there so bad!!

[itsclydebitches]

(Not "Tai's Joke Anon" but on that topic) I agree with you on pretty much everything: Yang being very obviously a victim in her situation and not responsible for what Adam did doesn't mean Yang is no longer reckless. Ruby growing increasingly irresponsibly reckless in V6-onward doesn't mean Yang is no longer reckless. Ruby and Blake having made strategical blunders doesn't mean Yang is no longer reckless. Weiss's "accidental magic" emotional semblance use doesn't mean Yang is no longer reckless. It feels silly to act like Yang can't have flaws just because she was a victim and others also have flaws. I think you're right about all this.

That said, I do have to agree with the other anon that I think Tai's 'joke' was horrific. I was shocked and angry when I first heard it, and not even writing Yang to laugh made me feel any better about it. I recognize that humor is a valid way for people to cope, but imo, it should be up to the victim to decide when joking is appropriate (like in Yang and Nora's arm-wrestling match) and not the able-bodied person currently yelling at her about not being ready for the world. Plus, even if it was okay for him to joke about her situation, the joke itself seemed heartless. He not only is using humor to speak over her and tell her what she is and isn't capable of, but he throws in a jab at her intelligence, too.

I like Tai. I really do. He's probably my favorite RWBY parent. And I liked Yang's recovery arc, outside of that line. And I have a lot of respect for you (and this hasn't made me lose any or anything, jsyk) and I agree with basically everything else you've said. But I'm sorry, I think that joke was crossing a line, and while I agree that it isn't entirely fair to judge 4-5 by 6-8 standards, I do think that the recent pattern of blatant, admitted ableism in the Penny and Ironwood arcs, with the added bonus line of Yang telling the audience that humanity stops at flesh and everything else is 'just extra,' makes the joke seem even less like an unfortunate blunder on RT's part, and more like the first sign in what would eventually develop into a long history of ableist writing that, at this point, can no longer be denied.

Aww thanks, anon! 💜 Yeah, as said, it’s a very contentious choice and it looks less and less like a positive the more RWBY goes on. Back in Volume 4 it was a (mostly) isolated moment that some fans enjoyed and others absolutely did not. However, four years later, it’s now a part of a pattern. For some that moment, if it was ever okay, will retroactively be made worse by what comes later (particularly Yang’s “extra” line). For some, if it was ever okay, it will be an example of when RWBY was writing disability better, further proof of how far the show has fallen. For some, if it was never okay, Volumes 5-8 just made it a thousand times worse. Congratulations, RWBY. You took what we thought was a one-off misstep and turned it into a whole philosophy. Nice work!

For me, I’m.. all the camps at once? lol. I enjoy nuance in media and that moment, for me, does have nuance. In that yes, we’re supposed to believe it has crossed a line. There’s a reason why the scene gives us shocked expressions. Not just Yang’s but Port and Oobleck’s too. Omg, how could you say that? 

And then we get our answer. The answer is not, as we assume in this moment, that Tai is a horrible person who insults his daughter without cause, but rather because Tai knows his daughter. He’s making a point here. Yang is arguing that she’s an adult now, ready for the real world, and Tai is arguing that this doesn’t mean she’s ready to run off on her own. If she honestly believes that, she’s lost those braincells along with the arm. He isn’t telling her she isn’t capable, he’s telling her (as my previous posts have argued) that she’s thinking recklessly right now. The implication is that of course she’s smarter than that. Smart is what he expects of her. So stop for a moment and consider whether what you’re saying is, in fact, smart. And provides that reminder in a way that normalizes her arm. After this will be the first time Yang has really talked about it, after it became something to joke about, not just tiptoe around. 

Things have been escalating, they’re yelling, Tai makes his point via an insult... and with a smile to lessen the sting.  

And then Yang smiles too. 

(Though I also think there’s a case to be made that neither really meant their “argument.” It feels very posturing to me, the chance to just go at each other for the fun of it, not because they actually feel that strongly about either position. It’s a form of play between them.) 

I agree wholeheartedly that the victim should be in control of the humor and that’s perhaps my biggest criticism here. The scene is meant to show how well Tai knows his daughter, he’s so sure this will cut the tension... but what if he’s wrong? This could have indeed backfired spectacularly and then yeah, Tai would need to apologize for that and not repeat such behavior in the future. In a perfect world no one would ever make that kind of misstep, but people (and characters) aren’t perfect. I like that Tai is shown to take a risk with humor. That he’s not some generic Good Father Figure who only approaches trauma with the Certified Approved Approaches. This risk makes him feel human and, notably, it paid off. He chose his intimate knowledge of Yang’s personality over the generalized advice, “Treat someone with that trauma with the upmost respect and care.” That works for me personally  — emphasis on personally  — because I’m like Yang. I have friends and family who say things that sound so unimaginably insulting to outsiders about the most sensitive subjects in my life... but that’s because they know me and know I’m cool with it. That, in a weird and human way, it helps me to process the horrible things going on. Tai knows Yang and knows she’d be cool with it too. And she is! Not to attribute agency to fictional character written by, as we’ve seen, authors with a very iffy handle on disability, but I think it’s important to let Yang speak for herself. The scene is written to show that she enjoys this, that it’s what she needs, and it’s always felt weird to me to go, “No, it’s horrible and never should have happened” when clearly Yang draws a benefit and gives it her stamp of approval. The nuance is that sometimes people cope in ways that don’t work for others, are insulting to others, may even seem harmful to others... but if it works for Yang, as a disabled woman, who are we to say, “No, you’re doing disability wrong”?  

But of course, that’s all in that context of our incredibly flawed writers who, as far as I know, are not disabled themselves. So I 1000% understand why others are not at all comfortable with this scene. And certainly no one needs to be. I do want to be clear, in such a meta-filled blog, that my own love of analyzing this show is by no means meant as a, “This is the right interpretation.” I don’t think the “right” interpretation exists, let alone for a moment as charged as this one, trying to represent huge swaths of people at once. I think a scene can cross a line and be a powerful choice simultaneously, depending on who is watching it and what that person needs. Like the question of whether Ruby is endangering people or heroically saving them, whether Ironwood had a phenomenal downfall or was slammed into OOC territory, whether RWBY’s “rule of cool” creates an inconsistent mess or a fun and thrilling adventure not burdened by what it put down before... so much of how we experience media is a result of not the media itself, but us. Our experiences, our normality, our needs, whether we’re choosing to read a scene on its own or in the context of a whole series. Since no two people are the same and, even if they were, they might be coming at this with different intentions, a single scene can read radically differently to them both. 

That and my own enjoyment of the moment aside though, yeeeeeeah, the more RWBY messes up its disability rep the more it reflects badly on... well, everything. At this point, the blatant problems are a blight on the current volumes, the past volumes, the previously good rep, previously bad rep, previously debatable rep, and everything in between.