#that accidentally perpetuates all of the issues w them that people have been pointing out for years

[whamss]

"Making Rosemary tea drinking lesbians is bad" says Internet User, but not because it strips them of their characterization and turns them into carbon copies of each other, destined to sit in the background while other characters (men) have character arcs around them, but because they aren't Silly Enough. No no, we don't need to flesh them out, we just need to turn them from Wise Lesbian Couple to Comedic Relief. This will fix everything wrong with fandom depictions of them. *Wipes sweat from forehead* Woo! Being a feminist is so tough!

[writingwithcolor]

What Does Our "Motivations” PSA Mean?

@luminalalumini said:

I've been on your blog a lot and it has a lot of really insightful information, but I notice a theme with some of your answers where you ask the writer reaching out what their 'motivation for making a character a certain [race/religion/ethnicity/nationality] is' and it's discouraging to see, because it seems like you're automatically assigning the writer some sort of ulterior motive that must be sniffed out and identified before the writer can get any tips or guidance for their question. Can't the 'motive' simply be having/wanting to have diversity in one's work? Must there be an 'ulterior motive'? I can understand that there's a lot of stigma and stereotypes and bad influence that might lead to someone trynna add marginalized groups into their stories for wrong reasons, but people that have those bad intentions certainly won't be asking for advice on how to write good representation in the first place. Idk its just been something that seemed really discouraging to me to reach out myself, knowing i'll automatically be assigned ulterior motives that i don't have and will probably have to justify why i want to add diversity to my story as if i'm comitting some sort of crime. I don't expect you guys to change your blog or respond to this or even care all that much, I'm probably just ranting into a void. I'm just curious if theres any reason to this that I haven't realized exists I suppose. I don't want y'all to take this the wrong way because I do actually love and enjoy your blog's advice in spite of my dumb griping. Cheers :))

We assume this is in reference to the following PSA:

PSA to all of our users - Motivation Matters: This lack of clarity w/r to intent has been a general issue with many recent questions. Please remember that if you don’t explain your motivations and what you intend to communicate to your audience with your plot choices, character attributes, world-building etc., we cannot effectively advise you beyond the information you provide. We Are Not Mind Readers. If, when drafting these questions, you realize you can’t explain your motivations, that is likely a hint that you need to think more on the rationales for your narrative decisions. My recommendation is to read our archives and articles on similar topics for inspiration while you think. I will be attaching this PSA to all asks with similar issues until the volume of such questions declines. 

We have answered this in three parts.

1. Of Paved Roads and Good Intentions

Allow me to give you a personal story, in solidarity towards your feelings:

When I began writing in South Asia as an outsider, specifically in the Kashmir and Lahore areas, I was doing it out of respect for the cultures I had grown up around. I did kathak dance, I grew up on immigrant-cooked North Indian food, my babysitters were Indian. I loved Mughal society, and every detail of learning about it just made me want more. The minute you told me fantasy could be outside of Europe, I hopped into the Mughal world with two feet. I was 13. I am now 28.

And had you asked me, as a teenager, what my motives were in giving my characters’ love interests blue or green eyes, one of them blond hair, my MC having red-tinted brown hair that was very emphasized, and a whole bunch of paler skinned people, I would have told you my motives were “to represent the diversity of the region.” 

I’m sure readers of the blog will spot the really, really toxic and colourist tropes present in my choices. If you’re new here, then the summary is: giving brown people “unique” coloured eyes and hair that lines up with Eurocentric beauty standards is an orientalist trope that needs to be interrogated in your writing. And favouring pale skinned people is colourist, full stop.

Did that make me a bad person with super sneaky ulterior motives who wanted to write bad representation? No.

It made me an ignorant kid from the mostly-white suburbs who grew up with media that said brown people had to “look unique” (read: look as European as possible) to be considered valuable.

And this is where it is important to remember that motives can be pure as you want, but you were still taught all of the terrible stuff that is present in society. Which means you’re going to perpetuate it unless you stop and actually question what is under your conscious motive, and work to unlearn it. Work that will never be complete.

I know it sounds scary and judgemental (and it’s one of the reasons we allow people to ask to be anonymous, for people who are afraid). Honestly, I would’ve reacted much the same as a younger writer, had you told me I was perpetuating bad things. I was trying to do good and my motives were pure, after all! But after a few years, I realized that I had fallen short, and I had a lot more to learn in order for my motives to match my impact. Part of our job at WWC is to attempt to close that gap.

We aren’t giving judgement, when we ask questions about why you want to do certain things. We are asking you to look at the structural underpinnings of your mind and question why those traits felt natural together, and, more specifically, why those traits felt natural to give to a protagonist or other major character.

I still have blond, blue-eyed characters with sandy coloured skin. I still have green-eyed characters. Because teenage me was right, that is part of the region. But by interrogating my motive, I was able to devalue those traits within the narrative, and I stopped making those traits shorthand for “this is the person you should root for.” 

It opened up room for me to be messier with my characters of colour, even the ones who my teenage self would have deemed “extra special.” Because the European-associated traits (pale hair, not-brown-eyes) stopped being special. After years of questioning, they started lining up with my motive of just being part of the diversity of the region.

Motive is important, both in the conscious and the subconscious. It’s not a judgement and it’s not assumed to be evil. It’s simply assumed to be unquestioned, so we ask that you question it and really examine your own biases.

~Mod Lesya

2. Motivations Aren't Always "Ulterior"

You can have a positive motivation or a neutral one or a negative one. Just wanting to have diversity only means your characters aren't all white and straight and cis and able-bodied -- it doesn't explain why you decided to make this specific character specifically bi and specifically Jewish (it me). Yes, sometimes it might be completely random! But it also might be "well, my crush is Costa Rican, so I gave the love interest the same background", or "I set it in X City where the predominant marginalized ethnicity is Y, so they are Y". Neither of these count as ulterior motives. But let's say for a second that you did accidentally catch yourself doing an "ulterior." Isn't that the point of the blog, to help you find those spots and clean them up?

Try thinking of it as “finding things that need adjusting” rather than “things that are bad” and it might get less scary to realize that we all do them, subconsciously. Representation that could use some work is often the product of subconscious bias, not deliberate misrepresentation, so there's every possibility that someone who wants to improve and do better didn't do it perfectly the first time. 

--Shira

3. Dress-Making as a Metaphor

I want to echo Lesya’s sentiments here but also provide a more logistical perspective. If you check the rubber stamp guide here and the “Motivation matters” PSA above, you’ll notice that concerns with respect to asker motivation are for the purposes of providing the most relevant answer possible.

It is a lot like if someone walks into a dressmaker’s shop and asks for a blue dress/ suit (Back when getting custom-made clothes was more of a thing) . The seamstress/ tailor is likely to ask a wide variety of questions:

What material do you want the outfit to be made of?

Where do you plan to wear it?

What do you want to highlight?

How do you want to feel when you wear it?

Let’s say our theoretical customer is in England during the 1920s. A tartan walking dress/ flannel suit for the winter is not the same as a periwinkle, beaded, organza ensemble/ navy pinstripe for formal dress in the summer. When we ask for motivations, we are often asking for exactly that: the specific reasons for your inquiry so we may pinpoint the most pertinent information.

The consistent problem for many of the askers who receive the PSA is they haven’t even done the level of research necessary to know what they want to ask of us. It would be like if our English customer in the 1920s responded, “IDK, some kind of blue thing.” Even worse,  WWC doesn’t have the luxury of the back-and-forth between a dressmaker and their clientele. If our asker doesn’t communicate all the information they need in mind at the time of submission, we can only say, “Well, I’m not sure if this is right, but here’s something. I hope it works, but if you had told us more, we could have done a more thorough job.”

Answering questions without context is hard, and asking for motivations, by which I mean the narratives, themes, character arcs and other literary devices that you are looking to incorporate, is the best way for us to help you, while also helping you to determine if your understanding of the problem will benefit from outside input. Because these asks are published with the goal of helping individuals with similar questions, the PSA also serves to prompt other users.

I note that asking questions is a skill, and we all start by asking the most basic questions (Not stupid questions, because to quote a dear professor, “There are no stupid questions.”). Unfortunately, WWC is not suited for the most basic questions. To this effect, we have a very helpful FAQ and archive as a starting point. Once you have used our website to answer the more basic questions, you are more ready to approach writing with diversity and decide when we can actually be of service. This is why we are so adamant that people read the FAQ. Yes, it helps us, but it also is there to save you time and spare you the ambiguity of not even knowing where to start.

The anxiety in your ask conveys to me a fear of being judged for asking questions. That fear is not something we can help you with, other than to wholeheartedly reassure you that we do not spend our unpaid, free time answering these questions in order to assume motives we can’t confirm or sit in judgment of our users who, as you say, are just trying to do better.

Yes, I am often frustrated when an asker’s question makes it clear they haven’t read the FAQ or archives. I’ve also been upset when uncivil commenters have indicated that my efforts and contributions are not worth their consideration. However, even the most tactless question has never made me think, “Ooh this person is such a naughty racist. Let me laugh at them for being a naughty racist. Let me shame them for being a naughty racist. Mwahaha.”

What kind of sad person has time for that?*

Racism is structural. It takes time to unlearn, especially if you’re in an environment that doesn’t facilitate that process to begin with. Our first priority is to help while also preserving our own boundaries and well-being. Though I am well aware of the levels of toxic gas-lighting and virtue signaling that can be found in various corners of online writing communities in the name of “progressivism*”, WWC is not that kind of space. This space is for discussions held in good faith: for us to understand each other better, rather than for one of us to “win” and another to “lose.”

Just as we have good faith that you are doing your best, we ask that you have faith that we are trying to do our best by you and the BIPOC communities we represent.

- Marika.

*If you are in any writing or social media circles that feed these anxieties or demonstrate these behaviors, I advise you to curtail your time with them and focus on your own growth. You will find, over time, that it is easier to think clearly when you are worrying less about trying to appease people who set the bar of approval so high just for the enjoyment of watching you jump. “Internet hygiene”, as I like to call it, begins with you and the boundaries you set with those you interact with online.

[endysgirl]

Sailor Mars Birthday Tribute

I am so late on posting this but I just did not have time to edit. For Mars I wanted to talk about her 90s anime version and her much better manga version.

Let me start by laying my bias wide open. I never liked Sailor Mars. As a kid I thought she was unnecessarily mean. She was and still is my least favorite, besides ChibiMoon. She’s beautiful, and her powers and attacks are awesome. As for how she fits into the overall scheme of things, I have major issues with how the anime portrayed her compared to how Naoko intentioned her. Frankly, I can’t help but view 90s anime Rei as an imposter and I’ll explain why...

Ok, first let’s talk about 90’s anime-Rei. We know she’s very hard working, goes to an elite girls’s Catholic school and wants to be an independent career woman when she grows up. Yet, for some reason (*cough*patriarchy) she sees Mamoru in season one and thinks he’s perfect so she’s gotta have him. She embarrasses herself going all boy crazy over him (he literally steps on her head and just walks away) and he seems like a typical clueless dude who doesn’t realize she *likes* him. I relate hardcore to Mamoru here. She’s so thirsty and he is so not. Then fast forward to after Endymion gets taken and Rei slaps Usagi calling her a coward. It’s meant to be some great emotional scene that some fans latch on to. Yet, it’s not Rei’s slap that motivates Usagi. It just hurts her. Go watch it again (epi35); it’s the voice of Mask from her memory, gently and patiently encouraging her, as always, that she is strong and can fight that spurs Moon into action. We’ve seen over and over that Usagi responds to patient encouragement over violence, just like when she does when she faces the baddest villains. Yet, the 90s anime always has Rei cutting her down. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just the patriarchy at work, trying to convince young girls that the boy or girl who’s mean to you really does care about you. It’s toxic and just plain stupid.

Now, am I saying 90s anime Rei doesn’t really care about Usagi? No. Not at all. She’s her Senshi and they share the same heart and the same dream to protect those they love together. Of course she loves Usagi. My issue is how the 90s anime portrays that dynamic. It’s spreading toxicity within female friendships and trying to sell it as genuine. I also understand that Mars’s fiery personality is what a lot of her fans love about her. I’m not saying that’s bad either, even if it’s an inaccurate representation of the character Naoko created. Apparently, it was Ikuhara that wanted the anime to change her cold and aloof personality to “fiery”. To perpetuate the patriarchal tropes I’ve mentioned, the anime tried to paint her as Usagi’s bff of the group, usurping Minako’s place. In the manga, Minako is the Leader of the Senshi and the one closest to Usagi in personality and in her role as the Leader of Serenity’s guards. Yet the anime is constantly trying to make Mars the one that is extra special to Usagi. Case in point, at the end of Stars the first voice we hear address Eternal Moon after she defeats Galaxia is Rei but in the manga, Usagi is drawn hugging Minako first. These little moments bother me, probably a little too much.

Then there’s the love triangle they tried to created with her and Mamoru. Fucking kill me. The love triangle garbage is just typical, patriarchal tropism within the storyline that has no place in the SM story in regards to Mars. Let’s make two friends like the same dude bc that’s drama that people have been conditioned to enjoy. It’s lame as far as I’m concerned. Let’s take a moment to remember the random, stupid and pointless scene in the curry episode where ChibiUsa and Mamoru run into Rei and after a moment of awkwardness they decide to go find Usagi together. Tell me that’s not the patriarchy trying to validate one woman’s place by using another woman as comparison instead of letting her stand on her own. 😒 And they’re trying to backtrack on the whole Rei liking Mamoru episode. This isn’t Rei’s fault obviously, I’m just using this scene to explicate why I don’t like the dynamic the anime created, and why that makes Mars a difficult one for me to get excited about.

There’s no way you can convince me that Mars’s bitchiness wasn’t a direct result of a “male perspective” (as Naoko called it). The idea that female bffs bully each other and cat fight all the time is ludicrous. As a 32yo woman (and lifelong Moonie) with a tight circle of girlfriends, there isn’t a single one of us who would tolerate such toxicity from the other, even at 14yo. It just isn’t realistic, unless it’s a bad relationship. I’ll give the anime credit for getting one thing right - her bravery. In both the manga and the anime, Mars is fearless. She charges into battle and gives it her all. She doesn’t let any doubt get in her way. She does not hesitate or dwell on self-doubt. And that alone is reason enough to love her.

Now, let’s discuss Manga-Rei. Because Adult-Moonie-Me LOVES manga-Mars. She actually appears in Codename Sailor V outside the arcade. She says the atmosphere is “disquieting” and leaves. In the manga, she’s very quiet and reserved. There is no bickering or cat fighting between her and Usagi. She’s also probably the most objectively beautiful of the Inners. She’s suppose to be “slender”, with long black hair and brown eyes which are sometimes seen as purple. When Usagi first sees her on the bus, she thinks she’s soooo beautiful. And another time, when they’re at the beach/pool, guys keep buying Rei drinks but she’s not flirting or giving them any attention, bc she is not boy crazy. Sis is enjoying those drinks tho.

Her awakening in the manga is very similar to the anime with the exception that’s she sees a premonition of Usagi and Jadeite that makes her go find the bus. Like the other Senshi, she is drawn to Usagi.

In her manga profile, her dislikes are television, modern society (the anime has her immersed in pop culture, going so far as to make her write her own songs and dance at the school festival), canned asparagus and men. It’s implied that she doesn’t like men or care for them bc of her father. He never had time for her and she doesn’t have a good relationship with him. Plus in a short story, she has a guy she likes but he chooses to follow her father’s footsteps into politics. So she kisses him and is like, boy, bye. ✌��� She considers men emotionally weak, untrustworthy and is generally disinterested in them, even if they’re buying her drinks and fawning over her. Same, Sis.

She is described as beautiful and “reserved”, but “scary” when she’s angry. She so beautiful that when Mamoru’s underclassman, Asanuma, sees her, he thinks she would be the perfect girlfriend for Mamoru (who Asanuma thinks is perfect) and that she should be Mamoru’s ideal type. He’s really surprised that Usagi is so *ordinary*.

Rei has strong precognition and has an affinity to fire. Ironically, there is nothing in Shintoism about fire reading, so that must just be a shoutout to the Greek influence on the manga. I love her psychic abilities in both the anime and the manga. Random fun fact: Naoko worked at a Shinto temple for a while before or maybe during college.

Mars is one of the only Senshi, like Michiru, who can use an item as an attack in her civilian and Senshi form. Her “ofuda” (Shinto talismans) are powerful enough to disperse evil and make regular people faint (remember anime epi w/Unazuki’s mouth getting sealed and in the manga/crystal she accidentally “purifies” Usagi, causing her to faint). Mikos (shrine maidens) are known to use archery attacks, so civilian Rei was already proficient in archery before awakening as Mars. Also, just like Jupiter’s earrings stay on her when she transforms, Mars is always wearing a pendant and when she transforms, it attaches at the waist to her fuku.

Mars also, uniquely, has her own guardians: the Crows, Phobos and Deimos. In the anime, the crows never take human form as they do in the manga. In the Dead Moon arc, Jupiter and Mercury power up by speaking with their inner consciousness. But Mars powers up by speaking with the human forms of her crows. This is a great moment in the manga bc Phobos and Deimos basically tell Rei that’s it’s ok to not want or desire men and marriage. She is the asexual goddess everyone overlooks and I love this aspect to her personality. The Crows are the ones to give her the Mars Crystal which is her starseed. We also find out here that Mars pledged a vow of Chastity to Serenity in the SilMill. They don’t explain the reasons behind the vow, but considering Rei’s spirituality and serious conservatism, it’s understandable. Also, while Phobos and Deimos are named after the moons on Mars, in the Stars Arc it’s revealed that they’re from the Coronis and were acquainted with Sailor Lead Crow.

For the most part, Rei in the manga seems more boring than Rei in the 90s anime, but personally, I don’t think so. Reading the manga in middle school and seeing a female not *give*a*fuck* about marriage was awesome to me. She’s also kinder and she has far more respect for Usagi. She’s extremely popular at her school and has her own fan club. She carries herself with a certain dignity that reminds me of Michiru. She’s second in command after Venus. And let me end this by saying that Crystal gave Rei justice, and for that I am happy.

Happy Birthday, Mars! 🔥 🌙 ⭐️

P. S. Check out Allison Yarrow’s book “90’s Bitch: Media, Culture and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality” for more detailed analysis on how women in the 90s who wanted to have a home and a career got turned into the bitchy boss, bitchy girlfriend or bitchy best friend to subvert their quest for gender equality. I think Rei is the perfect example of this narrative. Especially when you consider men changed her nature in the anime from what her female creator intended for her. Also, check out the podcast on it https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unladylike/id1333193523?i=1000432317654 (podcast name: Unladylike episode 45. how to free the 90s Bitch)

Thanks for reading all this you wonderful Moonies!!!

[causticsunshine]

sorry yet again i haven’t been here much lately, besides the focus issues limiting my actual productivity and trying to avoid being online all the time although animal crossing isn’t helping my productivity either lmao i’ve been trying to limit my time in spaces that overwhelm me really easily, distract me a lot, and/or don’t always make me feel great? 

a good amount of the bad feelings i get about myself are unintentional, like it’s really difficult for me to process things in a way i think a lot people do so instead of just moving on from something or reading/viewing it how it is, my brain endlessly fixates on the thing - whether it’s notes on a post/reactions on something, or a ‘fave fics/art pieces’ rec list, or even people talking back and forth on a text post or in a server channel, really nothing in particular that should affect me directly at all - and suddenly it morphs into something negative in my head w/o me even intending to process it that way.

and yeah, i do 100% still think sometimes we all have the tendency to be tone deaf to a point - ie by way of the ‘we’re all friends here :)))’ mindset which is... definitely not a good sign from my past experiences (and the more i see it pushed in a group setting the more unsettled i feel and i think we need to stop it and if you wanna know why then DM me and i’ll send you a Dissertation on why), as well as (accidental) exclusivity under the intention of being more inclusive to others (like i very much appreciate being tagged in those ‘tag all your favorite fandom people here to show them they’ve loved!’ posts i know so many people don’t get on them and i don’t want to worsen the issue of feeling excluded just bc i have been mentioned in something for once, esp because i feel out of bounds in this space 90% of the time), and popularity contests under the guise of showing support for creators that feel very pinpointed and clique-y etc. - whether we mean it or not, but i know rn that whether something is accidentally tone deaf, purposely so, or it’s all just me not being able to process things correctly or healthily, i shouldn’t be spending continual time in spaces that perpetuate these things.

i feel like a broken record about a lot of the things that bother me about fandom in general that i feel are ignored overall or that we just kinda go ‘well that’s just how it is’ at, instead of trying to proactively fix the persisting issues, so i’m not talking about those things directly here rn (although on discord or even twitter i just kinda go Off The Rails now because either i get ignored like i do here or people actually want to discuss things in a proactive way, and my reasoning is that i don’t want to feed into any of the compliancy i’ve been involved in anymore over numerous things i take issue with that make fandom feel clique-y and Not Fun and demoralizing) -- here specifically i just mean in regards to how i personally take small mundane things that should have no tie to or bearing on me and somehow always end up twisting them into something negative about myself.

like i don’t want to come online and immediately feel like right shit because of xyz over my art, my writing, etc., because i know we all have our own pace and processes and whatever else bc it’s all valid and creativity is personal and there’s no need to feel embarrassed or ashamed or as negative as i do (or anyone for that matter) about things that no one will give me flack on but me, but for some reason rn that’s all i’m doing and i can’t stop? so i’m just gonna keep giving myself space for my own sanity.

if you got this far though and anyone else is in the same boat or wants to discuss any of this in a larger capacity though pls feel free to DM me or send me an ask? when it’s about more personal stuff like this i’m pretty unabashed to a point but toeing into discourse territory i’m more tired with shit than anything else anymore and i’m feeling a lot less compelled to stay silent about things that actually bother me + others when it comes to something that should be fun and a form of escapism.

[nothingman]

South Park turns 20 years old this summer, meaning that if those foulmouthed, crudely fashioned 8-year-olds that were first introduced on August 13, 1997 followed the rules of linear time, they’d all be adults farting down the barrel of 30. Similarly, there’s now an entire generation of people—spanning high-schoolers to middle-aged people who remember watching its early seasons in college, and who can’t believe they’re reading/writing 20-year retrospectives on it now—who were actually raised on South Park.

The show celebrated this existential crisis-inducing fact last year with a tongue-in-cheek ad, depicting South Park as a sort of benevolent guarantor keeping reliable watch over a girl from infancy until her first trip to college. It was a typically self-effacing joke, but it’s true: Our world is now filled with people for whom South Park has always been there, a cultural influence that, in some cases, is completely foundational to their point of view. The ad doesn’t end with the girl logging onto Twitter to complain that social justice warriors are ruining the world, but otherwise, spot on.

After all, for most of its 20 years, South Park’s own point of view has more or less been this: “Everything and everyone are full of shit—hey, relax, guy.” It’s a scorched-earth, deconstructionist approach steeped in equal-opportunity offensiveness that’s made South Park one of the funniest satires ever produced, and particularly potent in the time in which it debuted. “When we started, [it was] Beavis And Butt-Head, and us, and in some ways The Simpsons, and Married With Children—shit like that,” Matt Stone told Vanity Fair last year, putting the Comedy Central cartoon in the company of other ’90s series that diverged from the “bland… shitty sitcoms that were just so lifeless” Stone and co-creator Trey Parker were reacting against. But South Park has now lived long enough to see the experimental become the conventional. And it’s outlasted all but one of those series not just by subverting formulaic TV, but by feeding directly off current events. As a result, for many of those raised by South Park, the show has functioned as sort of a scatological op-ed—in some cases, maybe the only op-ed they’ve ever been interested in.

To these acolytes, Parker and Stone have spent two decades preaching a philosophy of pragmatic self-reliance, a distrust of elitism, in all its compartmentalized forms, and a virulent dislike of anything that smacks of dogma, be it organized religion, the way society polices itself, or whatever George Clooney is on his high horse about. Theirs can be a tricky ideology to pin down: “I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals,” Stone said once, a quote that has reverberated across the scores of articles, books, and message-board forums spent trying to parse the duo’s politics, arguing over which side can rightfully claim South Park as its own. Nominally, Parker and Stone are libertarians, professing a straight-down-the-middle empathy for the little guy who just wants to be left alone by meddling political and cultural forces. But their only true allegiance is to whatever is funniest; their only tenet is that everything and everyone has the potential to suck equally. More than anything, they’ve taught their most devoted followers that taking anything too seriously is hella lame.

So while they’ve advocated, in their own fucked-up way, for stuff like the right to abortion, drug legalization, and general tolerance for others, they’ve also found their biggest, easiest targets in liberalism’s pet causes, those formerly rebellious ideals that had become safely sitcom-bland over the Bill Clinton years—all of which were steeped in actually, lamely caring about stuff. Taking the piss out of the era’s priggish, speech-policing, Earth Day-brainwashed hippies was the most transgressive—and therefore funniest—thing you could possibly do. And so, South Park joked, global warming is just a dumb myth perpetrated by “super cereal” losers. Prius drivers are smug douches who love the smell of their own farts. Vegetarians end up growing vaginas on their face. “Transgender people” are just mixed-up, surgical abominations. The word “fag” is fine. Casual anti-Semitism is all in good fun. “Hate crimes” are silly. Maybe all you pussies just need a safe space.

“Did South Park accidentally invent the alt-right?” Janan Ganesh asked recently in the Financial Times, articulating a theory that began gaining traction as an entire political movement seemed to crystallize around the show’s “anti-PC chic” and general fuck-your-feelings attitude. Way back in 2001, political blogger Andrew Sullivan had already coined the term “South Park Republican” to describe the supposedly emerging group of young people who, like the show, were moderate on social issues like abortion and gay marriage, but also rejected the stuffy doctrines of diversity and environmentalism. They also believed, as Parker and Stone would soon illustrate in Team America: World Police, that the world needed American dicks to fuck assholes, over the objections of liberal pussies and F.A.G. celebrities. That voting bloc never actually materialized—though to be fair, the show was only four years old at the time. It would take at least another decade of people with Cartman avatars just joshin’ about hating Jews before the South Park generation would truly come of age.

Let’s be real, though. South Park didn’t “invent” the “alt-right,” even accidentally. The “alt-right” is the product of lots of things—disenfranchisement; internet echo chambers; aggrieved Gamergaters; boredom; the same ugly, latent racism that’s coursed beneath civilization’s veneer for millennia; etc. The growing, bipartisan distaste for Wall Street-backed career politicians and the epically bungled machinations of the Democratic Party certainly didn’t help, nor did the frustrating inability of the social justice movement to pick its battles—or its enemies. Furthermore, it’s always dangerous to assign too much influence to pop culture, even something that’s been part of our lives for this long. And as South Park itself derided in “The Tale Of Scrotie McBoogerballs,” you shouldn’t go looking for deep sociopolitical messages in your cartoon dick jokes. (Then again, only three years earlier, it also argued that imaginary characters really can change people’s lives and even “change the way [you] act on Earth,” making them “more realer” than any of us—so you decide.)

Still, it’s not that much of a stretch to see how one might have fed the other, if only through the sort of intangible osmosis that happens whenever an influential artwork spawns imitators, both on screen and off. South Park may not have “invented” the “alt-right,” but at their roots are the same bored, irritated distaste for politically correct wokeness, the same impish thrill at saying the things you’re not supposed to say, the same button-pushing racism and sexism, now scrubbed of all irony.

There’s also the same co-opting of anti-liberal stances as the highest possible form of rebellion: Parker and Stone used to brag that they were “punk rock” for telling their Hollywood friends how much they loved George W. Bush; Parker even told Rolling Stone in 2007, “The only way to be more hardcore than everyone else is to tell the people who think they’re the most hardcore that they’re pussies, to go up to a tattooed, pierced vegan and say, ‘Whatever, you tattooed faggot, you’re a pierced faggot and whatever’”—a quote that may as well have been taken from 4chan’s /pol/ board this morning. “Conservatism is the new punk rock,” echoed a bunch of human cringes a decade later. Whatever, you faggot, a dozen Pepes tweeted a few seconds ago.

But well beyond the “alt-right,” South Park’s influence echoes through every modern manifestation of the kind of hostile apathy—nurtured along by Xbox Live shit-talk and comment-board flame wars and Twitter—that’s mutated in our cultural petri dish to create a rhetorical world where whoever cares, loses. Today, everyone with any kind of grievance probably just has sand in their vagina; expressing it with anything beyond a reaction GIF means you’re “whining”; cry more, your tears are delicious. We live in Generation U Mad Bro, and from its very infancy, South Park has armed it with enough prefab eye-rolling retorts (“ManBearPig!” “I’m a dolphin!” “Gay Fish!” “…’Member?”) to sneeringly shut down discussions on everything from climate change and identity politics to Kanye West and movie reboots. Why not? Everything sucks equally, anyway. Voting is just choosing between some Douche and a Turd Sandwich. Bullying is just a part of life. Suck it up and take it, until it’s your turn to do the bullying. Relax, guy.

Again, it’s a world that South Park didn’t create intentionally, just by setting out to make us laugh, or by Parker and Stone trying to get rich off a bunch of farting construction paper cutouts. But even Parker and Stone seem slightly, if only occasionally uneasy about the overarching life lessons they’ve imparted—often expressing that anxiety in the show itself. In “You’re Getting Old,” South Park’s most moving half-hour, Parker and Stone grappled directly with the cumulative effects of perpetually shitting on things—of allowing a healthy, amused skepticism to ossify into cynicism and self-satisfied superiority, then into nihilism, then into blanket, misanthropic hatred. That dark night of the soul later formed the through-lines of seasons 19 and 20, where South Park wryly, semi-sincerely confronted the series’ place as a “relic from another time” by putting the town under the heavy thumb of PC Principal.

Then—after hooking its red-pilled fans with an extended critique of the emptiness of neoliberalism, epitomized by a sneering, “safe space”-mocking character that was literally named Reality—it tried confronting the audience who had most embraced their ramped-up anti-PC crusades. Last season kicked off with Cartman admitting to Kyle, “We’re two privileged, straight white boys who have their laughs about things we never had to deal with,” a confession rendered only slightly tongue-in-cheek by the fact of who was saying it. And it culminated in Gerald, who’d spent the year gleefully harassing people online, squaring off with the Danish prime minister, a stand-in for every troll the show’s ever nurtured:

I want to stand here and tell you that you and I are different, but it’s not true. All we’ve been doing is making excuses for being horrible people. I don’t know if you tried to teach me a lesson, but you have. I have to stand here and look at you. And all I see is a big fat reflection of myself.

Ultimately, of course, Gerald comes to a familiar conclusion: “Fuck you, what I do is fucking funny, bitch!” he cries, before kicking the prime minister in the balls. Fair enough. South Park is, and always will be, funnier than any of the maladjusted creeps who have spent decades internalizing the show’s many false equivalencies and ironic racism, then lazily regurgitating them in an attempt to mimic its edginess—or worse, by treating them as some sort of scripture for living. And to be certain, there are millions of Poe’s law-defying viewers for whom South Park really is just a comedy, one that satisfies the most basic requirement of saying the things you shouldn’t say, in a far more clever way than you could say them. But regardless of their satirical intent, or the humanity that grounds even their nastiest attacks, it’s clear that even Parker and Stone sometimes question the influence they’ve had on the world, and who is and isn’t in on the joke.

Which brings us (as all 2017 articles must) to Donald Trump, the ultimate troll, and one that Parker sees as a natural outgrowth of South Park’s appeal to a nation bored with politeness. As he recently told the Los Angeles Times:

He’s not intentionally funny but he is intentionally using comedic art to propel himself. The things that we do—being outrageous and taking things to the extreme to get a reaction out of people—he’s using those tools. At his rallies he gets people laughing and whooping. I don’t think he’s good at it. But it obviously sells—it made him president.

Trump’s blithe offensiveness, rampant narcissism, and faith that everyone but him is stupid makes him a natural analog to Eric Cartman. But instead, South Park made him into Mr. Garrison—a decision that makes some logical sense (Mr. Garrison is of constitutional age, hates Mexicans and women, and doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself), though it also felt a bit like dissembling. Nevertheless, as the election wore on, South Park again seemed to acknowledge its role in helping to create a world where someone like Trump could seem like an exciting, entertaining alternative to conventional blandness. And it made a real, concerted effort to stymie any suggestion of support by having Garrison declare repeatedly that he was “a sick, angry little man” who “will fuck this country up beyond repair,” all while openly mocking those who still loved him anyway as nostalgia-drunk idiots.

“Is it just me or has South Park gone full cuck?” wondered fans on Reddit’s The_Donald immediately after that episode aired, and probably not for the first (or last) time. But in the aftermath of Trump/Garrison’s election, those same, vigilant cuck-watchers were back to crowing over how South Park had really stuck it to politically correct types in a scene where Trump/Garrison tells PC Principal, “You helped create me.” That South Park positioned this as less of a triumphant comeuppance than a suicidal backfire didn’t seem to matter. And the show more or less left it there—portraying Trump/Garrison as a dangerously incompetent buffoon, but also as the ultimate “u mad?” to all those liberals they fucking hate.

All of which makes Parker and Stone’s recent declaration to lay off Trump in the coming 21st season a real disappointment at best, cowardice at worst. The duo is, of course, under no obligation to tackle politics—or anything else they don’t want to, for that matter. They’re also right that mocking Trump is both redundant and “boring,” and also that everyone does it. For two dyed-in-the-wool contrarians, Trump comedy feels every bit as bland, lifeless, and sitcom-safe as an episode of, say, Veronica’s Closet. Furthermore, Parker’s complaints of the show just “becoming CNN now” and not wanting to spend every week endlessly restacking the sloppy Jenga pile of Trump-related outrage is completely understandable. Believe me, I get it.

That said: Man, what a cop out. South Park has already spent the past 20 years being CNN for its CNN-hating audience. Meanwhile, Parker and Stone have proudly, loudly thumped for a “fearless” brand of satire that’s willing to mock everyone from George W. Bush to Scientology to Mormonism to Muhammad, even under death threats. To shrug now and say, as Parker did, “I don’t give a shit anymore”—right when, by their own admission, the influence of the show’s worldview has reached all the way to the White House—feels especially disingenuous, and suspiciously like caving to the young, Trump-loving fans with whom they have forged such an uneasy relationship. (“South Park bends the knee on their fake-news-fueled portrayal of President Trump,” one The_Donald post gloated, followed by many, many more.) If they truly believe that those trolls in the mirror are “horrible people” who are helping to “fuck the country up beyond repair,” it would be truly fearless to tell them why, with no hint of ambiguous, everything-sucks irony that can be willfully misinterpreted.

Instead, Parker now says he’s eager to get back to “the bread and butter of South Park: kids being kids and being ridiculous and outrageous.” Which is great! South Park is absolutely at its best when it focuses on that stuff, and I look forward to watching it all on my hurting butt. Still, after 20 years, even they seem to realize that many of those ridiculous, outrageous kids for whom it’s “always been there” have long since grown up—and some of them have gone on to do some real, destructive adult shit. Like their inspirations, South Park’s generation of trolls are tiny but loud, and they’ve had the strange effect of changing the world. It sure would be nice if South Park would grow up as well and take responsibility for them.

Or, you know, maybe I just have sand in my vagina.

via A.V. Club

[thisdaynews]

Trump Pokes Fun at Himself. Why Do Only Some People See It?

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/trump-pokes-fun-at-himself-why-do-only-some-people-see-it/

Trump Pokes Fun at Himself. Why Do Only Some People See It?

There’s a common conception, among foes of Donald Trump, that the 45th president tweets every day in a kind of fevered state: alone by his bedroom TV set, wrapped in a smoking jacket or maybe a satin Snuggie, typing in fits of narcissism, defensiveness and self-aggrandizement. And maybe thatishis mood, much of the time. It certainly has been for most of this past week, as the president took to Twitter to attack the “degenerate Washington Post” and the “Impeachment Hoax”—and to drum up votes for “very loyal” Sean Spicer onDancing With The Stars.

But if you’re paying as much attention to all of his tweets,not just his angry, appalling and self-serving ones, you’ll find some striking moments when Trump isn’t just raging outward, but making fun of himself—even showing a wry acceptance of the caricatures favored by the left. He has challenged his followers to find the secret meaning behind his famed “covfefe” accidental tweet. He’s made light of the notion that he would seek a third term, joking about leaving office “in six years, or maybe 10 or 14 (just kidding).” In August, as he was floating the purchase of a certain Danish territory, he tweeted a picture of a gold-plated Trump hotel photoshopped onto a craggy shore, along with the words, “I promise not to do this to Greenland!”He makes cracks about himself in person, too; at a rally in Louisiana this week, he poked fun at the rambling rhetoric that sometimes gets him into trouble: “I do my best work off script … I also do my worst work off script.”

Story Continued Below

These were genuine, self-aware, sometimes even self-deprecating jokes—if you were in the mindset to receive them. Of course, many Trump opponents aren’t. And given his impeachment-triggering behavior and his penchant for crossing the lines of decency, it’s no surprise that many find Trump to be no laughing matter, or have trouble finding lighthearted spots in an ongoing stream of hyperbole and bile. OneNew York Timescolumn called his “A Presidency Without Humor.” Comedy writer Nell Scovell, who has written jokes for David Letterman and Barack Obama, once declared that if Trump does have a sense of humor, it’s confined to the instances when he “clearly chuckles at the misfortune of others.”

But Trump’s winking stance, jarring and inconsonant though it may be with the rest of liberals’ conception of him, is one of the essential, even primal ways the president keeps his base on board, laughing along. For Trump and his defenders, a little gentle self-mocking does more than just warm up a room. It can neutralize his opponents’ attacks. And it can let Trump off the hook even when he probably isn’t joking, as when Marco Rubio argued last month that Trump was only kidding when he declared that China should investigate Hunter Biden.

But it’s most powerful when it makes his supporters feel that they’re in on Trump’s jokes in a way the establishment isn’t. In a sense, this effect is an extension of the 2016 campaign formulation, likely coined by GOP strategist Brad Todd and popularized by Peter Thiel, that Trump’s supporters “take him seriously, but not literally.” Because Trump’s fans take him seriously, they recognize when heisn’tbeing serious, and laugh when his opponents miss the joke. In the same way “Fox and Friends” can make viewers feel as if they’re part of a knowing club, Trump’s jokes give his supporters a way to feel superior to the elites, to mock what they see as a humorless and predictable political establishment. After Trump’s Greenland tweet, one fan on Twitter captured that feeling: “I can picture President Trump sitting in the OVAL, after a productive day, chuckling as he tweets to trigger the left. BEST POTUS EVER!”

This split-screen reaction to Trump’s jokes—fans seeing a twinkle in his eye, opponents seeing creeping authoritarianism—happens offline, too. At a veterans’ event in Louisville last August, Trump joked about wanting to give himself the Medal of Honor: “I wanted one, but they told me I don’t qualify,” he said of his aides. “I said, ‘Can I give it to myself anyway?’ They said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.” His foes freaked out, and some news outlets covered the crack as if it were a serious statement. But as the Louisville Courier-Journal, the local newspaper, reported from the scene, “Trump was smiling as he said it, and the crowd laughed.”

***

Throughout history,most presidents have displayed moments of wit—it’s part of the charisma required to hold the job—but few have tried as much as Trump to maintain a comic presence. In part, that’s because he holds so many performative, campaign-style rallies, where he revels in the crowd’s reaction. In part, it’s because he communicates so much on Twitter, a platform overloaded with amateur comedians, lobbing their best one-liners into the void.

On Twitter and beyond, Trump is best known for insult comedy, and for his tendency to pick demeaning names for his opponents. (The latest, for obvious reasons, is “Shifty Schiff”—which isn’t as clever as some of his opponents’ nicknames for him, like “Prima Donald” and “Cheetolini.”) Some would say it’s not comedy at all; most would at least agree that’s it’s on the less sophisticated end of the president’s humor attempts.

But even on days when he’s under attack, he often finds ways to slip in notes of self-awareness, sometimes accompanied by a built-in commentary on the political environment. In a recent press conference with the president of FIFA, he joked about wanting to “extend my second term” until the United States hosts the World Cup in 2026, then turned to the press and quipped, “I don’t think any of you would have a problem with that.” On the day of a contentious meeting with congressional Democrats, as the impeachment inquiry accelerated, Trump posted a photo of a frowning Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer, accompanied by one line: “Do you think they like me?”

To be sure, Trump is not the first president to enjoy a little self-parody. But as with all aspects of his messaging, he prefers to do it on his own terms. Obama had an arsenal of dad jokes and good timing at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner; George W. Bush poked fun at his own malapropisms, even calling a White House meeting the “Strategery Meeting” after a “Saturday Night Live” joke. Trump, on the other hand, has griped about SNL impressions and skips the correspondents’ dinner entirely. If anyone pokes fun at Trump, it’s going to be Trump.

Self-mocking humor is riskier and harder to pull off than insult comedy—it requires better timing, more wit and a base of shared information between the teller and the audience. But it has also been a staple of American politics, says Gil Greengross, an evolutionary psychologist at Aberystwyth University in Wales who has studied self-deprecating humor. Greengross’s favorite example comes from Abraham Lincoln, who once, accused of being two-faced, shot back, “I leave it to you: If I had two faces, would I use this one?”

For a politician, self-deprecating humor serves some distinct purposes, says Frank McAndrew, a professor at Knox College in Illinois, who studies the psychology of social situations. Self-mocking is an icebreaker, a way to shrink the distance between a powerful politician and the general public, to give the impression that you’re approachable, despite your exalted address. It’s also a way to offset your foes’ most cutting attacks. McAndrew points to Ronald Reagan’s famous quip, in a 1984 presidential debate against Walter Mondale, in response to a question about his age. Reagan promised to not make a campaign issue out of “my opponent’s youth and inexperience”—a line that at once acknowledged Reagan’s major campaign weakness and neutralized the subject for the night.

With a self-deprecating joke, McAndrew says, “You lead with the thing they were going to trap you with. It takes away their ammunition.” Seen that way, Trump’s joke about the Medal of Honor, told to a room of veterans, was a kind of preemptive strike. A man who had never served in the military was making light of his weakness before an audience of people more deserving—neutralizing a line of critique that someone in the room could have raised.

But the power of self-deprecating humor goes even deeper, Greengross contends: You could actually credit it with helping to perpetuate the species. He points, as explanation, to a peacock. Females are drawn to males with vivid, symmetrical tail feathers, he says, because, on a biological level, a beautiful tail takes a lot of energy to produce. If a peacock with top-notch feathers can be healthy anyway, in spite of trading away some precious physical resources, he’s got to be especially strong; a catch.In the same way, a famous quarterback can afford to mock himself on TV; he has such an abundance of cool that he can afford to give some of it away.

In evolutionary psychology, Greengross says, this idea is known as the “costly signaling theory” or “handicap principle.” If someone with high status is able to thrive in spite of highlighting a weakness, he’s actually displaying strength. According to this principle, a joke from Trump about his political rivals’ hatred of him conveys more than a sense of humor. It also underlines the fact that Trump has become president of the United States while facing down deep hostility—and is now in a strong enough position that he can joke about it.

A decade ago, Greengross conducted a study at the University of New Mexico, where he worked at the time, to test whether self-deprecating humor fit the “costly signaling” framework. Participants listened to audio recordings of people repeating stand-up comedy routines. Some of the joke-tellers were identified as having high status in society; some were described as low-status. Some of the routines were self-deprecating; some were full of put-downs of others. Then, participants were asked to rate the comics on various measures of attractiveness, from intelligence and presumed physical allure to potential as a sexual partner. The study’s subjects consistently ranked the people who used self-deprecating humor as more attractive—but only if they were also described as having high status. If a teller was seen as weak, the act of putting himself down just reminded the audience of his weaknesses.

This is what happens to Trump, it’s clear, when he drops his self-aware jokes on an unwilling audience. In September, for instance, Trump tweeted what seemed like a winking reference to his much-maligned description of himself as a “very stable genius”—followed by a cryptic “Thank you!” It was clear, from the volume of “Mr. Ed” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” memes in the responses, that while some people were laughing with him, a lot were laughingathim.

Evolution might also give a reason, beyond some kind of innate humorlessness or “Trump derangement syndrome,” that Trump’s opponents aren’t inclined to laugh him off. Yes, liberals see Trump as dangerous, which makes them more likely to take his jokes about thwarting democracy at face value. But they also see him as low-status—undeserving of the presidency— so his jokes about himself only confirm their low opinion. He thinks of himself as a peacock; they think of him as a turkey.

In front of a friendly crowd, though, Trump is free to unleash his self-mocking self, knowing he’ll get the reaction he wants—provided the subject is right. It’s notable, after all, that Trump’s moments of self-aware humor tend to stem from subjects where he feels on top: his ability to plop a Trump hotel in any location; his ability to win an improbable election; his ability to grab attention with a single, well-placed tweet. These are areas where he can afford to take himself down a notch, and revel in the roars of his supporters.

So far, he hasn’t made many cracks about impeachment.

Read More

[frosttreatment-blog]

Log 3 - Session 1

I'm already becoming paranoid, and the fact that I can't prove it’s unfounded is only making it worse.

I bought a spy recorder, a recording device in the shape of a picture frame; my goal being to place it in my office to be perpetually waiting for Emma Frost to appear next. Based on our "intake", I can only assume she will continue telepathically intruding in on sessions with my regular patients - talking to me through them for reasons I still don't fully understand. I can see why she’s hiding, certainly, but what treatment can she hope to have under these context?

Fearful that she would catch on if I attempted recording her once again using my cellphone, I left the spy recorder running - and running, and running. Over a week of needlessly recording my patient’s sessions, an act for which I could have my license revoked for. For nothing. I started this week wondering if perhaps I would never hear from her again, or, more paranoid still, what if she knew I bought the device? She’s unable to read my mind, but she could have known what I was up to through the cashier at the electronic’s store. Could she be monitoring me that closely? This descent only picked up momentum as, of course, the following discussion took place on the first day that I did not turn the spy recorder on. It’s one hell of a coincidence, yet Emma’s zero mention of this makes even less sense; especially considering her apparent ignorance to me once again ‘checking the time’ to begin recording her on my phone. Or perhaps her not mentioning my attempts play into her game, making me sweat with anticipation. Or perhaps….I have to stop.

Nevertheless, the following was recorded after the initial disruption of my weekly session with Bradley War-ton, husband and father, who had been seeing me for anger management.

____________________________________________

[Placing my phone down]

DR: -gives us, once again, less than a full session. Assuming you want to take up the entirety of what Brad has left.

FROST: Oh this troglodyte of a man will be lucky if I leave him with his most basic synapses in place.

DR: I don’t appreciate that type of humor, Emma.

FROST: Then isn’t it a good thing that I’m not being humorous. There are so many things you don’t know about little baby Bradley here. Almost every session you have with him is bathed in lies.

DR: Ms. Frost…

FROST: Please, darling, Emma. I’m younger than you, after all.

DR: I don’t believe…—Emma, please. There is a level of this I understand. You’re currently in hiding, a fugitive-

FROST: As if that status hasn’t been mutant-kind’s default-

DR: You can’t see me in person. You can’t trust me, or anyone, to not give you up to Shield. So you need leverage.

[Frost laughs; the feminine sound fluttering from Brad’s barrel chest]

FROST: I come with leverage, dear. This arrangement is merely one of…insurance.

DR: But I can’t have an honest session with you while worrying that you’re going to hurt a patient of mine while you speak to me from inside their central nervous system. And I can’t have an honest session with you while worrying that if I say something you don’t like, you’re going to hurt my family. I…I can’t even breathe when I think about…

[The stress gets to me as I begin to choke up]

FROST: Oh, come off it. As if I would ever harm a lovely mutant family.

DR: I…

FROST: Do you need my word that no harm will come to your husband and daughter? You have it.

[Silence]

DR: ….alright. That’s g-

FROST: In relation to what we discuss in here. I do like a firm hand, after all. Don’t want you pulling any punches, now do we? However, I simply can’t make such a promise in regards to any attempts you may make to undermine me. But I’m sure that will not be an issue, correct? There will be no tricks up your finely tailored sleeves, yes?

DR: …yes. Of course. Complete confidentiality, as I would offer any of my…patients. If that is what you wish to be: A patient of mine.

FROST: ��Yes. And I agree, from one mental health professional to the other: We should have as much trust between us as the situation allows.

DR: Uh…one mental health professional, to the other…?

FROST: I am a licensed sex therapist, you know.

DR: W-what? How? When? Where did you get your degree, The Hellfire Club?

[Emma laughs, this time a booming rawr from Brad’s lungs]

FROST: Oh I knew I picked you for a reason.

DR: Other than not being able to read my mind?

FROST: Well that was your biggest drawback, only made up for by your being homosexual.

DR: My being gay matters to you? More than my being a mutant?

FROST: I’d be equal parts likely to dismiss a male therapist were he human or heterosexual.

[I chuckle]

DR: Thank you, I think.

[Silence]

FROST: …My brother was gay.

DR: Really? I didn’t know that.

FROST: Didn’t you? After what I can only imagine was a very extensive background check on me. It certainly helps one to prepare, I’m sure, when one’s client happens to come from a famously privileged family. …Then again, I would imagine Daddy Dearest has stripped Christian from the record books…

DR: Christian? That’s a lovely name.

[Silence]

DR: Is he….?

[Silence. Emma looks off into the distance]

DR: …I don’t do any, um, background checks on patients. I resist even a google search. I prefer to hear from them what they would like me to know about their past.

FROST: You’re certainly doing yourself a disservice with Big Brad over here, I can tell you that.

DR: I’m sorry?

[Emma stretches out one of Bradley’s arms, looking at his open hand.]

FROST: Would you look at the size of these ghastly paws. They’d make even Henry jealous. Oh the never-ending joys of being a man…

DR: What kind of joys?

FROST: Not any joys you likely know of, dear doctor queer. I’m speaking of the more brutish luxuries, enjoyed by Neanderthals just as this patient of yours…oh to be a man in this world. I would still be considered a hero, I’m sure of it. Not that heroics were ever my goal.

DR: You think a man would get away scot-free with shooting down an airship?

[A loud BANG follows, as Emma pounds Bradley’s fists onto the table in front of them]

FROST: THAT’S NOT—I DID NOT—I WOULD NEVER DO SUCH A THING!!

DR: Emma, please-

FROST: I’ve watched my students die in front of me, in my own arms! I’ve witnessed the GENOCIDE of our people! Why would I…

[Silence; Emma appears confused, which means Bradley is looking confused. For a moment I’m not sure if she’s lost her control on him, or…]

DR: Are you…alright?

[She snaps back, still in control]

FROST: How many civilians are daily casualties of so-called “super hero” battles? You think every building is evacuated in an orderly fashion before Thor throws it at someone?

DR: I’m not-

FROST: Tony Stark was a bloody arms dealer! Logan spent lifetimes hacking off people’s limbs and spent his last few years as a headmaster of a school! By that logic I should be rewarded by own damn island for all the people I’ve killed.

DR: So are you saying you did, or didn’t—

FROST: And for all our sakes, can you consider your word choices?

DR: My…?

[Emma scoffs]

FROST: “scot-free”…

[Silence]

DR: Oh—right. Yes.

[Silence]

FROST: How funny. Looking back, it appears as though he was the only male to not get off “scot-free”; of anything. But then again, he was a mutant. Perhaps he was the one male exception made in exchange for Natasha’s ability to be both an Avenger and an Assasin. Nothing masks a good double standard like an additional one.

DR: …Perhaps one could argue that all “superheroes” get away with murder, to a point.

FROST: Yes, well then tell me who decides that point. Explain to me when it shifts.

DR: I would imagine somewhere between collateral damage and excessive force. Aggressive attack and passive self-defense—    

FROST: We tried passive! Where did it get us!? Building and perpetually rebuilding schools, tucked away in San Francisco, or an a floating island, or in a bloody hell dimension! Fighting extinction again, and again, and again, while the rest of the world watches, slack-jawed. Homo sapiens continue on, posting selfies and live-tweeting sarcasm while our people die in mass numbers. Again. And again. And again. And when we finally fought back, the little boys needed their femme fatale scapegoat. Something to justify our mutual bloodthirst; suddenly transform it some sort of ‘accidental war’. “Oh, we didn’t meeean to feel the outrage of our loved ones and comrades dying all around us - that was all the Evil White Queen’s doing!”

DR: From my understanding, the real issue between the mutant community and the inhuman community was a lack of communication between the two.

FROST: Wrong! It was about war. Tell me how many wars you know of that were solved with ‘communication’. It was about death. It was about survival. And when those topics became too much for their feeble male minds, the boys decided to make it about gender.

DR: Gender?

FROST: Yes, suddenly a plague that was killing and castrating us became an issue of man and woman. About Emma and Scott, about innocent Adam and wicked Eve. Auntie Emma, the evil seductress who lured the golden boy away from the sacred ginger calf, so irredeemable in the face of a “Royal Family” led by a King who murdered his own son. But no one cares about that, do they? No, no one remembers how Abraham was so eager to kill his son Issac in the name of his god, they remember how Eve was the bitch to ate the apple. While Adam remains the eternal patriarch, free to rape and pillage and be forgiven over, and over, and over again.

DR: I’m not going to lie Emma, I’m finding it very hard to follow you right now, this train of thought. We are indeed talking about a war of sorts, and wars are never black and white-

FROST: Yet some things ARE black and white. Bradley over here, for example, hits his wife. Beats on her.

DR: …What?

FROST: Every argument, every “anger management” moment he digresses with you - he leaves out the parts where he slams Virginia’s head against the wall. Or when he drags her by her hair and throws her into the shower, lest that nosey neighbor of theirs sees her and connects the bruises.

DR: …Emma this is completely-

FROST: This is what men do. They serve out the abuse, with the privilege that was handed to them, and then they dictate later what the new reality is. Who was at fault, who has no right to complain, what and who really matter. It’s all black, and white, to them. Do you really see a solution to that in passively looking for the grey?

[Silence]

DR: Emma, our time is about up.

FROST: And what would you like me to do, darling?

DR: I-I’m sorry?

FROST: I’m here, inside this monster’s mind. I can easily make it so that every time he lifts a finger against his wife, the left and right hemispheres of Bradley’s brain do a lovely seizure-inducing dance. Lessons can be taught at a miraculous pace when the learning curve only allows for a few mistakes before mobile functions are lost.  

DR: I will absolutely not-

FROST: If I simply leave him to you, what will you do? Is it fair to call the police, when you have no evidence? You’ll be acting solely on the word of - gasp - the evil Emma Frost, apple of knowledge in hand. I could leave him with the compulsion to be completely honest with you about the argument over the dishes. Even then, however will you know it’s not a false memory I implanted? How very grey all your options are.

[Silence, as I found myself at a complete loss for words]

FROST: I think I’ll take my leave, with that. As you said, we’re out of time, and I’ve had more than enough talk of damned greys to last me several lifetimes. Until next time, dear.

DR: Hold on, y-

[Before I can respond, Emma’s eyes close, and reopen as Bradley Warton, back in control of his mind and body and completely unaware of the time lost]

BW: Ah…damn, where was I? The dishes, right. So I told her, nothing’s clean, and she has the nerve—

____________________________________________

Mr. Warton was confused, and angry, that our session was over so apparently fast. He even accused me of somehow tampering with the clocks in my office to cheat him out of half his session. This was the least of my concerns at the moment, in regards to just how damaging Emma’s presence would be to the rest of my practice.

I was only able to calm Bradley down by offering to make time for him before our next scheduled session, free of charge. Then, partially into my next client’s session, I had to excuse myself; citing the need to check my phone due to a “family emergency”.

I went outside and called the police, reporting my suspicions

of domestic abuse.