#truly it must be problematic somehow instead of something normal like the media just not being for you

[fieryvoid-scout]

oh yes, the fandom bullshit, i forgot that was here

[awed-frog]

Wow thank you for your answer! It was so in-depth and insightful. I also understand better where you were coming from in your post and yes, romance as a genre is suspicious now you say it. I was thinking 'what if there was romance aimed at men? would they relate to women better?' but media solely focused on a romantic relationship tends to be boring and unrealistic so might as well not bother with it for anyone.

Same anon, I am indeed a writer, not of romance tho 'cause I see romance like salt to a story, not a meal in itself. I do read romance fanfics with lots of problematic themes tho, so the 'healthy artist' stuff hit me hard. I def didn't grow up or even now live in a healthy society (post-2008 Greece) so at least I know not to feel too bad for what themes attract me. If I explore them in my writing, I hope to do it in a way that exposes their unhealthiness and nods to better things.  Could it be that a lot of what women write gets labeled as romance if it includes even a hint of romance where a man could get away with including romance in his story without it being labeled as romance, making it look like most of what is aimed at women is romance? (obviously romance is basically only aimed at women but could this be inflating the romance percentage?) 

Hello again! I took a few days to think about all of this, but I’m not sure I have anything useful to say. Like you, I see romance as a good addition to any kind of story, but as I said in the other post, I don’t think making it the absolute focus of a story is some absolute necessity. 

And also, considering that a lot of romance fiction is based on bizarre, if not harmful, stereotypes, I’m not sure ‘romance for men’ would help much. I think maybe - generally speaking - men have more trouble relating to women than viceversa simply because a) they don’t need to and b) they’re not allowed to get close to women the way women can get close to men, and again - romance as a genre doesn’t offer a solution for either.

(What I mean there is that on the one hand, since most societies are still dominated by men, there is less urgency for men to understand how women think or what they’re interested in; and, even more depressingly, men who might want to do that are often made fun of or openly discouraged. For instance, we tell boys from childhood women can’t be understood and how useless it is to try, we frown at them for liking ‘girly stuff’ or seeking the company of girls, we don’t want them reading books written from women’s pov or watch TV and movies targeted at women. Meanwhile, women doing the opposite is - in some cases very grudgingly - accepted, and the result is that girls often have more insight into how men think and behave than boys do with girls.

Of course - caveat one there is that women actively fought for the right to do this, and caveat two is that it’s a bit ridiculous to draw such a sharp distinction between men and women. There should be an asterisk somewhere swapping both words with ‘expected gender norm’ or something.)

Anyway - in my experience, men relate well to women (and viceversa) when they overcome all this shit society throws at them and just - consider women human beings? You’d think this would be the norm, and yet.

As for your second point - I have no problem with ‘problematic’ fiction per se. On the one hand, both writing and reading problematic stuff can be liberating and help us deal with our problems, and on the other, most of us are able to differentiate between what we like (or find arousing) in fiction and what is acceptable (or would like to experience) in real life. What worries me is this new possibility of getting lost in a specific kind of fiction to the point where you don’t realize it normalizes or romanticizes dangerous behaviour. That’s why we should encourage (young) people to give a chance to all sort of stuff instead of fixating on those three tags they already know they like - especially when it comes to romance-based fics, novels, and movies. 

(Because, at the end of the day, that’s the only part of fiction most of us will directly experience in our actual lives? Action movies are fun and all, but how to jump through a window is not exactly a marketable skill. Flirting, on the other hand, not to mention understanding your feelings and someone else’s, declaring your love, communicating with a partner - those are common life events, and that’s why copy-pasting movie stuff can be particularly harmful.)

So, you know - from what you say, I think you’re doing something healthy in seeking out stuff that speaks to you while trying to contextualize it and understand why, exactly, it speaks to you? That sounds a very good way to approach (problematic) fiction.

Concerning the publishing industry, I’m really not an expert, but yeah - we know there’s a problem and we know that books written by women are often categorized and marketed in a different way. I want to be optimistic, but the (published) writers I know tend not to be, so. 

(Sigh.)

Finally, let me just say - I can’t imagine what it must be like for you guys. 

It’s really -

Well.

Greece has been my ‘soul home’ for more than two decades, and the events of the last ten years - I can’t describe what it was like to see that happen, but I know it was nothing compared to what my Greek friends were going through. I will never be able to forgive those responsible, and as I watch the mess unfolding in Europe right now, I have this horrible feeling what happened in Greece will be the ‘Chapter 1: Context and Background’ bit of future textbooks explaining some catastrophe yet to come. I truly hope you and your loved ones are doing well, and that our generation will somehow manage to stop anything worse from happening.

[sigurdjarlson]

We need to talk about Kevin fandom (tw: rape, abuse, pedophilia mentions)

this discourse gets me so pissy so here’s a vent post

(1) "They're coping mechanisms are unhealthy’ it's only unhealthy if it harms them or someone else. Ask any decent mental health professional.

(2) you don't get a say in someone's mental health. Maybe it is unhealthy for them but unless they're causing REAL harm to someone or they ask your opinion it's none of your business. You are not their mental health professional 

(3) using abuse/rape in fic to cope has been proven beneficial for many survivors. It's a way of taking back the power they've had taken away. There's a lot more to it as well.

(4) "you can only do this if it's for coping" how do you plan to enforce this rule? Force every single person to talk about their incredibly private traumatic experiences just so you seem whether or not it's okay for them to do something? I'm sorry that's disgusting. That's absolutely disgusting. 

(5) You do not speak for all survivors even if you are a survivor yourself. Your experience is not universal. Everyone's experience is different and everyone copes and reacts in different ways. I am one and I don't speak for all of us.. 

(6) it makes you uncomfortable? Okay!! That's alright. Totally understandable!! You want to police others because it makes you uncomfortable? No!! Not okay. 

(7) you have the responsibility to take care of yourself. There are steps you can take to avoid this kind of media. Trigger warnings, tags, summaries, blocking systems..those are all there for a reason. Please make use of them.

(8) "think of the children" this could be used for any kind of adult content. "Violent video games cause violence!" First off no they do not and also they come with ratings that blatantly say it's not for children. Its properly rated. It's not the creator of the game's fault if a child gets hold of it. To sum it up: that's the parent's job. I read erotic fic before I was 18 and it's not the author's fault lmao.

(9) "people will act it out" oh my god oh my goddd I can't stand this. No!! They won't. If they do? They already had very severe problems to begin with. It was not caused by this "problematic" piece of fic or art. Do NOT take the blame off the people that actively choose to hurt others by saying ~they read some problematic things so this must have caused it uwu~ you know what caused it? Them choosing to do the act. Most people have a healthy distinction between fiction and reality. 

(10) "this happened to me" I'm sorry you went through something like that. I truly am. But you still don't have the right to tell other people what they can and can't do. Take steps to protect yourself. No one else can do that for you. Your mental health is your responsibility and yours alone. You do not have the right to put that responsibility on complete strangers. It's not their job. The world cannot nor should it have to cater to you..

(11) "this thing makes me uncomfortable so therefore it must be bad and if it's bad the person writing it must be bad" is the logic here and it's incredibly faulty. Once again. Your experiences are not universal. Something that makes you uncomfortable might not make someone else feel uncomfortable. For things that have a tendency to make a lot of people uncomfortable there are these things called trigger warnings and warnings in general.

the person is not bad. They are not supporting or normalizing this behavior just by writing a fanfic. Are they saying "it's okay to rape people everybody should go out and do it"? No? then no they're not.

(12) fanfic, fanart, etc are such small medias that they don't effect or influence society In the way something like say "50 Shades of Grey" would. That's the stuff we should be concerned about and focused on criticizing. It's blatant misinformation.

(13) if half the effort people put into these crusades against ships was used to help actual survivors..there would be a lot of good being done in the world. These are fictional characters. We joke around a lot but you don't have to protect them. They are not real. Real people are more important than fictional ones. So, please if you spend so much time and effort on these things, channel that energy into something good and positive instead of harassing and harming real people on the internet over /fictional things/.

(14) “Fiction effects reality.” You’re right it does. However it does not directly cause these bad things. It’s what people choose to do with fiction that matters. Choices. Choices. Choices. 

(15) Fiction does not have to be pure. Fiction has always been a platform where people can explore the darker things in life. It’s interesting to some people. Personally I like a lot of dark shit because it’s interesting. It’s so incomprehensible to me that people can do these awful things that I find it interesting to explore why these people may have done them through fiction. 

(16) Liking something in fiction does not mean you support it. I’d hate most of the fictional characters I absolutely adore if they were real. 

(17) Some of the kindest people I’ve ever met are part of problematic fandoms and some of the worst are the people who scream that they’re trying to protect the world from that problematic fandom. You see there’s no correlation between what you like in fiction and what kind of person you are in real life. You know what is a great indicator of what kind of person you are? How you treat real, live people and the choices you make.

(18) I get it. These things elicit very strong emotions in people and for very valid reasons but that does not mean it should not be allowed to exist. Like I said it is your responsibility to create your own safe space. Blacklist/block/unfollow do whatever to keep those things out of your space. And...Don’t go looking for these things god damn it? If you see (tw: rape) and then go into the fic anyway and get upset? That’s not the author’s fault. They put the proper warnings in place. You ignored them. 

If there isn’t a proper warning. Perhaps consider kindly asking them to put some up? Maybe they forgot. It happens. People make mistakes.. If they refuse to do so they’re kind of a dick but it’s better to just ignore/unfollow/avoid/block that person and move on. 

(19) Lets make a summary.

You are responsible for your own safe space and taking care of your mental health.

Fiction does not CAUSE bad things to happen. People who choose to do those bad things do.

“This upsets me” does not = “it’s bad and shouldn’t exist and the person making this thing is bad” your logic is faulty m8

If something is properly tagged and has the proper warnings then it’s not the author’s fault if others ignore it and get upset. They did their part.

Fictional characters are not real. You don’t have to protect them. Harming real people over fictional ones is absolutely reprehensible. 

It’s no one’s job to parent other people’s children. No, children shouldn’t be looking at this content but it’s the parents’ job to keep their children away from those things. (proper warnings, tags, etc are important too but that itself is not a guarantee) 

Liking something in fiction does not = supporting it, condoning it, normalizing it. It just means you like something in fiction. Most people have a healthy distinction between fiction and reality. If someone does act on it..they already had very severe issues to begin with. 

Survivors are never obligated to reveal their personal experiences in order to be “allowed” to consume or make certain things. 

A coping mechanism is only unhealthy if it’s hurting the person or others. (it’s not hurting anyone by existing) It might not be healthy for you but that does not mean it’s not healthy for that person. AND it’s not your job or place to decide whether or not something is healthy or unhealthy for a person unless you are their mental health professional. Stay in your lane.

People don’t have to be using it as a coping mechanism! Maybe something really is just their kink. Maybe they find it interesting or whatever. Who cares as long as they’re not out doing it in real life. Who cares as long as they have a healthy distinction between what is okay in fiction and what is okay in real life. Mind your own business honestly.

I think some of these people really do have good intentions. They think they’re helping the world or others somehow. But having good intentions does not mean you are right. Be aware of what you’re doing and how it’s effecting others. Channel all the energy you put into hating things into doing something good in the real world. Or use it to create and enjoy things you do like or enjoy. Why focus on the things you hate?

And some of these people don’t have good intentions. For some it’s just a self righteous circle jerk. It makes them feel better about themselves. It’s a “I’m more morally enlightened than you” contest. These people don’t care about the issues they claim to care about or the people involved. They just want to make themselves feel good by making others feel bad. And that? That’s horrible.

They’re just using serious issues as buzzwords (which takes away the impact that word makes and THAT is a bad thing) Rape, pedophilia, abuse, etc. These are very, very serious issues. 

When people roll their eyes when they see someone claiming “pedophilia’ because there are people on here seriously accusing people of being pedophiles for shipping a 17 year old with an 18 year old or shipping some characters with an age gap? 

(which for the record. Talking about people who are of age and with a partner that’s significantly older than them. it’s untrue that all relationships with an age gap are unhealthy. is there a possibility for it to be unhealthy? certainly but that’s not a guarantee that it is. Your experiences are not universal. Every situation and every person is different.)

There’s a problem because you’re making people take these things less seriously. Have you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf? 

You do that and sadly no one will listen when you actually find something to worry about. Is that right? No. But it’s the truth. No one will take you seriously.

You don’t accuse people of these things willy nilly. You can ruin people’s lives. Are they doing those things in real life and hurting real people? Do you have solid proof that they are? Yes? (Fictional media is not proof unless they admit to doing something) By all means step in and get the authorities involved. That’s absolutely awful.  Is it just fiction? Take a step back, block/unfollow/blacklist and move on. 

What people do in real life matters. That’s it. That’s the key. Stop harassing people over fictional crap because THAT...shows what kind of person you are and it’s not a good one. 

[obsessivedilettante]

Somehow love has been so idealized as positive and healthy form of bond, that the reality which is that lot of romantic relationships are dysfunctional on one level or another is denied. In the case of Kwon Joo and Tae Gu, the romance is impossible: she will never accept him but the attraction is real on his side (the writer pushed it since ep11) and it humanizes him a little bit. So playing with this fantasy makes sense, is not harmful and wouldn't be a first in fiction...

The issue I have is that people assume because there is attraction, it must mean romantic (or sexual). Tae-gu is definitely fascinated by Kwon-joo, but it’s because he views her as an elusive prey. For someone who seems to have had a fairly easy life when it comes to killing people (I mean, when you come right down to it, his father literally buys “unwanted” people for him hunt and kill, just as though they were toys), here is one that is intelligent and fights back. In fact, I think a large part of his giddy glee when he saw her wall of evidence and red string is the discovery that she has also been hunting him. She is no normal prey.

[More after the jump! My apologies to mobile users, and if you’re coming to this on my tumblr page and not your dash, Anon, you’ll probably need to click the post to get the rest of the answer since this theme doesn’t always put a “more” link when I use it on an ask.]

But she is still just that to him – prey. I can’t agree that his attraction to her “humanizes” him because the show has taken great pains to convince us that he’s not really human. He’s been repeatedly called a monster and the devil (and, to be honest, it’s easy to believe he is just that when he has taken such joy in killing anyone that has possibly hurt him or stood in his way).

To him, Kwon-joo is not a person. She is something to be toyed with, to be teased and tormented until he finally sees fit to give the final blow.

I actually think it’s pretty interesting that the show hasn’t placed him in any romantic or sexual light*. Even though he’s a young and handsome chaebol (at least, to those who don’t know about his murderous tendencies), he’s not been shown partying around with a gaggle of women, or even just one woman. When Jin-hyuk looked into his past, there was no record of a scandal, and I presume that includes scandals with women (or men – hey, I’m not gonna judge, but I know Dramaland and its heteronormative default). I very much doubt he often brings dates home, since he seems more interested in bringing dead bodies home instead. 

That’s not to say Tae-gu has no sexual desire, but it’s notable that his idea of power and dominance is through straight-up brutality and not through sex. He’s killed women before, but from what we’ve seen, hasn’t tried to rape them. Instead, he gets his jollies from the hunt and the sensation of crushing their skulls.

Which, again, is why I give a serious, serious side-eye to those who want to ship him with Kwon-joo. She is an amazing woman who’s worked hard to get where she is, even when no one else believed her. She’s careful and smart as she figures out not only how to save those under the Golden Time (okay, maybe not that careful and smart because c’mon stop going to creepy empty hallways without back-up!), but also in accumulating information that gradually lead her to discover that Tae-gu is the killer she’s been searching for all these years. To her, Tae-gu is the monster that we all know he is. He killed her father, he’s killed so many others – he’s ruthless and shameless. He’s evil and he must be brought to justice.

So for someone to go “eeeee, I ship it!” just because both characters have an obsessive determination to hunt the other feels like it trivializes just how much Tae-gu has hurt and damaged her life. Not just that he killed her father, but thanks to the cover-up by his father and Sang-tae, he made her lose her job and respect within the community. She was treated as a laughingstock and something to be scorned. Yes, she is strong and resilient, but he ruined her life. And he plans to ruin it even more, just for kicks. He knew that his visit to her apartment would scare her, and yet he couldn’t hide his laughter. That is what makes him happy – making her fear for her life.

While I don’t know how the final two episodes will play out, at this point in the show, there’s really no way that Tae-gu can be redeemed. There’s no “oh my mother abandoned me when I was a baby boo-hoo” story that can possibly excuse his murderous behavior. At this point, the only truly “honorable” thing he could do is either confess to his crimes and spend a lifetime in prison, or fall on his sword (kettlebell?) and kill himself.

Perhaps if this writer spent more time developing the characters, there could be some hope. But as it stands right now, he has shown himself to be nothing but pure evil. There is no goodness in him. There is no saving him.

It is true, though, that relationships are inherently messy and so many of them are filled with bad decisions. Maybe I would actually like rom-coms more if they didn’t try to convince me that two diametrically opposed people would suddenly fall in love and live happily ever after, just because the writers said so. Maybe I would suffer less from second-lead syndrome if the male leads weren’t persistently written in such a way that I would instinctively label them as abusive (either emotionally or psychologically, and even sometimes physically), and wish the woman would run the hell away and never look back.

Then again, I think “love conquers all” is utter bullshit, especially with romance. I will, however, happily accept more stories of love that is familial and platonic, because, to me, those are the most endearing and sustaining. That’s why I give only a vague side-eye to those who want to ship Kwon-joo with Jin-hyuk. Part of me understands it – they’re the leads, they’re thrown together, they have to learn to trust and rely on each other. It makes sense, since most dramas would probably go there anyway. But I love that there’s been no hint of romance between them, simply because there aren’t enough platonic male-female friendships represented in media, especially in mutual work environments (where platonic friendship actually makes the most sense, since dating in the workplace is incredibly messy and often ends in disaster, although you wouldn’t know it by most of Dramaland’s offerings).

So I’m not saying “kill it with fire” to a Kwon-joo/Jin-hyuk ship because I can see how these two co-workers, thrown together in a multitude of intense situations as they pursue the same goal, could be appealing to someone. Jin-hyuk has learned to respect Kwon-joo, and is not out to sabotage her. He actually supports her and listens to her.

I am saying “kill it with fire” to a Kwon-joo/Tae-gu ship because it pits her with someone who doesn’t see her as human and only sees her as a thing to amuse him until he decides she’s no longer worth his time. It diminishes who she is as a woman or even simply as a person. He is a monster, and I’m repulsed by the unspoken implication that she could “save” him because of the attraction (or supposed “love”) he has for her. Not that’s what everyone thinks when they consider this so-called ship, but it is the standard representation when we see this kind of dynamic in fiction – the “bad boy” that the woman will save through the power of her sparkly “I’m not like the other girls” vagina. (Again, Tae-gu is not some moody, broody chaebol/cursed vampire/hurt momma’s boy. He is an unrepentant psychopath who gets joy out of tormenting the most challenging prey he’s yet encountered.)

I get it, though. I know that it’s somehow so easy to default to crackling chemistry and want to ship all the things, no matter what, no matter how terrible they are. Some of the best (worst?) ships come from this.** The attraction is there, even if it is only sadistically one-sided. And even though I don’t read fanfiction, I know there are enough of the “oh hell no” ships out there that people are gonna ship what they’re gonna ship, no matter the logistics or actual characterizations. Maybe someone’s cooking up a theory that says Tae-gu will eventually realize the error of his ways and spend the rest of his life in prison pining for the one woman who got away. Or maybe someone’s embracing the insanity and is like “this shit is fucked up but damn the sex is hawt.”

In the end, I guess I’m just too fond of Kwon-joo as a character and a woman, and everything she represents in terms of her intelligence and desire to help people even as she longs for justice in her own life, to see her linked romantically to a murdering psychopath – no matter how gorgeous his cheekbones are.

*of course, as we all well know, Kim Jae Wook is hella sexy and I’m not gonna deny I’d probably do some terrible things for a few minutes in heaven with him, but that’s the actor, not the character.

**for example, even though I know, instinctively, that these two are terrible for each other and will forever end in tears, you can tear the LoVe*** from my cold dead hands. They are Epic and will always be Epic.

***Logan/Veronica from Veronica Mars, who I immediately started shipping**** from the first “Annoy, tiny blonde one, annoy like the wind” and still get a little tingly from that first kiss as the camera cranes outward and “Momentary Thing” plays.

****and I suppose someone could argue that “well you ship [problematic thing] so stop being a cry-baby about other people shipping [problematic thing], and besides, it’s just fiction*****, so who cares what other people do with fictional characters?” To which I say “dude this is tumblr I will overthink whatever the hell I want and also women should not be shipped with brutal psychopaths who only see them as a means for their sadistic pleasure, especially when those psychopaths have totally and unrepentantly ruined those women’s lives and will kill them after they’ve had their fun.”******

*****yeah, it’s just fiction, but stories matter and if I can smash one patriarchal belief that a woman can save a broken and screwed up guy just because he lurves her then I think I will have fulfilled a purpose that I didn’t know I had but I will gladly accept.

******is2fg no one tell me there’s a fanfic out there where Tae-gu is revealed to be a necrophiliac bc there’s not enough brain bleach out there to unsee that image even though it would probably make total sense, dammit.

[rockinlibrarian]

This is copied from my actual blog

(What follows was originally posted at Amy's Free Library of Rock, my actual Blog-blog as opposed to a Tumblr that I only usually REblog stuff on, but after @theselfexpress posted something yesterday I thought it might be good to have on Tumblr, too).

I'm kind of wincing at my own title. You know STORY is my favorite thing in the whole world. You know I'm all about the importance of stories and trying to separate the word "myth" from the concept of "falsehood." Story helps us give meaning to our existence. But we also sometimes use it to justify what we WANT to be true, even when it isn't. It's funny that this was a major theme in this season of Sherlock, too. I'd like to share my thoughts on that, sometime before it becomes too far past to be relevant. I'm also working on two different GeekMom articles at once (possibly three. Come Monday, if I don't get any more time to myself to type before then, definitely three). I also have (as usual, but at the same time worse than usual) a complete wreck of a house to deal with, a bunch of Christmas decor to put away, and a whole lot of commitments taking me out of the house, not to mention the day to day commitments of a family that somehow expects I should feed them everyday (even though they don't like much of anything I cook for them). There is SO MUCH I have to work on, and I haven't even mentioned settling back to do the final handsewing on my new butterfly brocade dress while watching the series of Soundbreaking I finally managed to get hold of, because that's pure leisure time. But I digress. (Often). I really want, right here right now, to address current events, yet again. We are at a scary moment of history. And if you disagree, this is probably due to the stories you are telling yourself, not the truth. And if you think the people who disagree ARE fully aware of the truth, you are also telling yourself stories, not seeing the full truth. The sad, frustrating, dangerous, and frankly somewhat traumatizing thing is, forces have transpired to fog the truth up for us. Gah, I know, that's vague. But that's the point. It would be nice to be able to point directly at Putin and blame the rise of totalitarianism on the Russian propaganda machine, but that's just part of it. It's easy to point to the new administration, which is doing it blatantly:

Re Spicer's lies, this is from someone who worked in a past administration. Important read. pic.twitter.com/XrjLJHRAGL

— Anna Rascouët-Paz (@rascouet) January 22, 2017

But again, that's just part of it. If we all called these things as they are, they wouldn't have any power. But the fog isn't coming out of a single sfx machine that we can just unplug. A spun story here, an appeal to People Like Me there, a information miasma without enough librarians, and countless individual stories-we-tell-ourselves being presented as truth in echo chambers among people telling similar stories, and you end up with a GREAT SMOG pouring in from countless directions. I'm super-sensitive to this fog, which is why I said it's somewhat traumatizing. It's traumatizing for ME. I don't like my mind being messed with. It makes me angry. It makes me frustrated. It makes me really really sad. And I feel like Cassandra when I see it happening and I can't get anyone to believe me (who doesn't already see it happening themselves). Let me show you how these things happen, using a tragedy that happened down the street from me this past fall as an example (skip the paragraph if you don't want to read a tragedy). Here is what happened, strict facts. A man who had been abusive and outright threatened to kill his pregnant wife showed back up to torment her and threaten her life again, even though she had a PFA against him. She called the police. Police showed up, too late, he's already shot and killed her and now he turns the gun out the window and shoots two officers, killing one, badly injuring the other. The police shut down the area and go on a manhunt for the rest of the morning, only to find the guy had killed himself right after. 'Kay. That's what happened. Here is one way the story could be presented, and was: the story of the police martyrs cut down in the line of duty by a cop-killer. This angle is still in evidence in our town-- the blue-and-black ribbons are still up all over, the signs that say "We stand with you, Cbg PD!" and "We salute our fallen officers." This angle really resonates with people, which is how my little neighborhood ended up making the national news. Implicit in this coverage is a "Those darn criminals keep killing our fine police officers!" message. And it goes farther, it gets turned into "Why do you keep accusing the police of brutality, can't you see THEY'RE the victims, THEY'RE the ones that keep getting SHOT DOWN because your lies about police brutality make people hate them?!" Whoa, slow down here. The guy shot them because he was a violent maniac and they were coming to arrest him, not because he was part of some cop-killer club or anything, lying in ambush just waiting to pick one off. Officer B truly did die in the line of duty, not out of some political demonstration. Now look at the way the story was NOT presented. I was surprised when the story made the national news because the sad fact is domestic abusers kill their partners ALL THE TIME, and you don't hear it on the national news unless one of them's famous or something really unusual and gruesome happened or, say, a cop got killed. Is this woman, and her unborn child, and all the other victims of domestic abuse, somehow less important than the police officers who were trying to save her? Is her life worth less? Why is her death not a national tragedy? Oh, sure, the police were in a way innocent bystanders, just doing their jobs, and they got shot. But isn't she equally innocent? Isn't it a tragedy that she's had to suffer at his hands and words all this time, that she tried to get help and protection and it ultimately didn't work? With all the black-and-blue ribbons all over town, in just one place do you see a memorial to her-- on the electric signpost of the drug store where she worked. Her coworkers love and miss her. But everywhere else she's forgotten. Now imagine what would have happened to the story the world saw if I change just one detail. You see, this woman was an immigrant from Egypt. Her killer husband was an all-american white boy with freakin' american flags waving off the back of his truck (I used to gawk at it, it was something). WHAT IF their ethnicities had been reversed? What if the killer was a Middle-Eastern immigrant and his wife was *gasp* blonde? If you don't think this would change the way this story was told, you haven't been paying much attention.

Y'all better make this VIRAL since any other media wont do it pic.twitter.com/A668T8CqmF

— ㅤ (@turntsIut) January 21, 2017

We all have our own Normals, based on where we grew up, where we live now, who we were raised by, and who we were raised among. When we see just a snapshot of another Normal, it's easy to jump to conclusions. Because this, people in that Normal must be this other thing. So we get a bit repulsed by the Others and retreat deeper into our own Normals, where everyone tells the same stories about What Normal IS that you do So we automatically frame what we see in terms of what we already consider normal. The story of the tragedy in my neighborhood takes on a different meaning depending on how you feel toward police officers, what your experiences or knowledge of domestic abuse is like, or how much you know about the culture to which any of the interested parties belong. We group people and experiences into "like me" and "not like me" categories in our heads, and when evidence goes contradictory to it, we rewrite our understanding of reality to fit. Sometimes we change our opinions. But other times we hold tighter to what we used to know as true. This is true across the board, but people who are still optimistic about our new president have had it particularly bad, lately. They were so excited to get a GOP president-- "GOP! Anti-Obama and Anti-Hillary! That means he's LIKE US!"-- that they fail to see that he's actually NOT. Oh, he's not a Democrat in disguise either, all right. He's not a normal president, period. But he must be good because he says things about Making America Great Again, and that's exactly what we want to hear, so....

Via @ddale8: Trump fans' favorite things about him are the stuff they made up in their own head pic.twitter.com/Jw6Xp7QClc

— Daniel Radosh (@danielradosh) January 19, 2017

Particularly fascinating are the folks in these pictures who admire his Godliness but wish he'd stop tweeting. I suppose because every tweet makes the UNGodliness stand out instead. It makes it hard for them to keep telling that story to themselves. If he keeps it up they may be forced to change their minds about him, and they'd rather not, so just shut up, Donny, and let them keep their fantasies, okay? Don't run away from reading me here yet, my conservative friends! Don't get complacent, my liberal ones! The Left has their own pretty stories, too. The most problematic one is lumping all President Trumpsterfire's supporters together with the worst of them. They've all made a serious mistake-- yes, you KNOW I think you've made a serious mistake, people who voted for him-- but not for nefarious purposes. Yes, they may kill people by taking away their health care, yes, they may invalidate people's marriages, yes, they may condone the persecution of millions of innocents because of their heritage or genetics, but they DON'T SEE IT THAT WAY. They know different Stories, they either don't HAVE all the facts or they can't make the facts fit into their Stories so they respin them as falsehoods. A few of them--a few-- really ARE hateful, bigoted scum. But when we call the REST hateful bigoted scum, too, it just makes it harder for them to listen to the actual truths you're telling that they need to hear! I've seen too many conservative friends bristling away from the movement toward justice because of this. I found the pictures from the Womens' Marches really inspiring yesterday. Then I saw a tweet from a conservative friend in response to someone who'd said LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL EVERYONE UNITED EVERYONE IS WELCOME! "...not the Pro-Life ones," she replied bitterly. OUCH. I know what she means. I have no doubt that Pro-Life women WOULD have been and WERE welcomed into the marches, but a lot of Pro-Choicers have a problem how they talk about the Pro-Life movement-- they, too, lump people who genuinely believe in the sanctity of life with misogynists who just want to control women's sexuality. This is a particularly frustrating issue for me, because I grew up in a very actively Pro-Life extended family-- I've done the March for Life myself!-- and I thoroughly understand my family members' actual feelings on the matter, and I truly consider myself Pro-Life, even though from a political standpoint I am technically pro-choice.

The sign, read the sign, people!... meaning, mostly, my extended family...! #PROLIFEFORREAL https://t.co/IjEu4zvAg4

— Amy W (@rockinlibrarian) January 22, 2017

I don't think the picture shows up in the quoted tweet, here's the one I was referring to:

An outpouring of people with a lot at stake. #WomensMarch #WomenMobilizeNC pic.twitter.com/8FasRdksR4

— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) January 21, 2017

I've had a real hard time at church since just before the election. Remember I said I hadn't lost my faith in God but was pretty disillusioned with the Church? Our pastor, he's a great guy y'know, but the Sunday before the election he said something like, "Yeah, we have to make a choice, and it looks like we have to make a choice between 'Bad' and 'Worse.' I can't tell you who to vote for, but I will say when you get down to it that the most important thing is protecting the Sanctity of Life, and we have to vote to stop abortion." And I'm just SERIOUSLY HAVE YOU EVEN LOOKED AT THIS GUY, HE IS ANTI-LIFE UNLESS IT'S HIS OWN! The fact that the Pro-Life movement has become SO FOCUSED on overturning Roe vs. Wade that they can no longer see that liberal movements have actually done far far more to REALLY protect the sanctity of life (I can't find the article I read about this last summer that uses facts to support this claim, but here's another article I found while looking for it that at least expresses the idea in more detail) is just... so depressing, really. And if we'd stop being so PARTISAN about it, we could SEE this, and actually WORK TOGETHER to truly protect LIFE. I think the most important thing we need to do is follow Haymitch's advice in Catching Fire, and remember who the real enemies are. I know we find it hard to forgive each other. I know we're angry, we're all so angry. But let's make sure we're focusing the anger in the right place. I saw someone say, "Trump didn't divide America!" -- true, we've already been divided. I've seen others say, "We need to stand together and put faith in the election process and our new administration." Or, the opposite, "We CANNOT play nice anymore. The Nazis weren't defeated because the Allies had a nice discussion and they all shook hands." BUT. A totalitarian government just LOVES when it can pit its citizens against each other. It LOVES to be all "if you're not for us your against us." There are people TRYING to get us to hate each other, pointing at all the worst actions of the "other" side instead of the many many more right actions. WE CANNOT LET THEM DO THIS. Civil war destroys so much. A revolution, on the other hand? If we all, ALL, take a good look around and see who the enemies REALLY are? It's rough when we're still divided over the stories we're getting, but the fact is the majority of people are GOOD PEOPLE. And when we stick together instead of turning on each other, we can beat this. I don't know if this whole quoted tweet will show up, but...

White women need to be the meat shields of this resistance https://t.co/SFyi332Ca1

— Goldeen Ogawa (@GrimbyTweets) January 22, 2017

You see this is the one she was quoting:

You don't think that maybe JUST MAYBE the police treat people differently when large numbers of white women are present?

— Carrie (@PlainJaneFoster) January 22, 2017

That original tweet was a little bitter, about how privileged white women are that they don't have THEIR protests broken up by riot police (when there isn't a riot). But Goldeen takes that and says LET'S USE THIS. You see what we can do when we ALL stand together? We can't let anyone try to divide us any more. We need to speak up even when we aren't the direct victims of an injustice. We need to listen to each other and not just assume that, oh, this is only about THEM, or that, oh, I don't see a problem so obviously there isn't really a problem they're just overreacting. If we open our eyes and hearts and stand together, we can keep the real enemies from their nefarious plans. We can make right mighty, instead of pretending might makes right.

And the fact this was worldwide. It's not just about us. It is about humans and the Earth.

— LibraryElfReads (@LibraryElfReads) January 22, 2017