#tumblr users when an issue is not black & white and you can have a complex opinion on something: 🤨

[firethekitty]

really funny how some tumblr users immediate reaction to straycatj using AI is to make even more AI to “spite the people getting mad at landlady”

[artbyjessicajewett]

Hi everyone! I wanted to introduce myself. I'm Jessica and I was a previous user of Tumblr before it was bought. I decided to come back.

Today I'm not so much a fandom person (my first account was a Supernatural and Destiel vibe) as I am living my "real" life as an artist, author, historian, and disability rights activist. I'll be 42 in February and I live on the border of Ohio and West Virginia - like, literally on the border. I can almost throw a rock and hit West Virginia from my apartment building. Living here after spending over twenty years in Georgia has been a fresh change. Georgia is not a great place for people with complex disabilities like mine. I get much better medical care and access to state services here in Ohio, which is why I came here. My ancestry is Appalachian anyway, so this does feel like home in a strange way.

My art is what I do the most. This is me doing a commission order a few years ago.

You're immediately wondering about my disability and why I do everything with the tools in my mouth. I was born with a condition called Arthrogryposis and that just simply means my joints have very little range of motion. Much of my body is stiff. So I taught myself to play with my toys, markers, etc., with my mouth rather than my hands before I could even read or go to school. It was natural for me. I live a happy life and I'm not upset about being born with this disability. You don't have to feel sorry for me because I don't feel sorry for me.

At this stage in my life, I'm working on art commission number 91 with about 50 more on my wait list. My work specializes in black and white pencil portraits, mostly of different historical periods. Most of the art people order from me has to do with my ability to interpret their previous lifetimes (yes, reincarnation) as well as introducing them to their spirit guides. I do regular art with no spiritual complex as well, like family portraits, friends portraits, pet portraits, architecture, fan art, original characters, some fantasy, witchcraft, folk magic, paranormal, historical events, etc. I'm heavily trained in realistic very detailed portraits, so if you're looking for anime or cute illustrations, I'm probably not your woman.

This is the last commission I finished.

This is an interpretation of that customer's spirit guide as they appeared before they died. This is "my style" of art, as they say. I like to do color art too but I finish black and white orders much faster.

Besides art, I'm a lifelong student of 19th century history in America focusing on women's roles, families, social issues, disability history, and LGBTQIA+ history. I was in school to specifically become an antebellum and Civil War historian before chronic illnesses forced me to drop out. Higher education 20+ years ago was a casserole of nonsense when it came to helping disabled students succeed. Don't get me started.

I'm also a lifelong paranormal researcher focusing mostly on hauntings tied to antebellum and Civil War America including old folklore. My mother and grandmother were Missouri folk magic practitioners. I was raised in an understanding of the unseen world. I also collect reincarnation cases from the Civil War period sparked by my own case from that time. I'll talk about that elsewhere if you want.

Follow me here if you like. I'm just getting started. I have to relearn how to use this app.

-Jessica

Shop: etsy.com/shop/ArtByJessicaJewett

If you're not interested in art, I also accept tips if you enjoy my content. I'm at $ArtByJessicaJewett on CashApp, at Jessica-Jones-1002 on Venmo, and PayPal.me/ArtByJessicaJewett on PayPal.

[anyroads]

ok well two can play that game @paracosim

You're right and you should say it. I think the reason for this is that a lot of white voices are still controlling this narrative, and they're used to things being handed to them. So when they realize there are experiences they don't understand, their response isn't to accept that this means catching up on decades of academic thought, literature, film, art, etc. to understand the whole new world they've just learned about. They don't like the idea that it might take them months or even years to acquire knowledge and understanding. Instead, they want instant gratification - they want a straightforward, easy to digest, entertaining primer. So they pick up a book that talks about the experience of one marginalized person (and that's the best case scenario, it's usually a tweet or a skimmed tumblr post) and feel that's enough. Because, if they're honest, they're more interested in being centered than in learning how to support others, and they see engaging with one aspect of a marginalized experience as a ticket they bought that grants them entry into a space that isn't actually about them and once there, they don't understand how to engage other than to dominate.

For most white Americans (yeah Canada, you're included too), the culture that informs how they engage with others is informed by their Calvinist cultural roots, so there's this thought process of, "Marginalization? That's unfair! Unfair = injustice, which means justice must be served, and my understanding of justice means judgment and ostracization." The idea that they themselves are not the rightful judge, let alone jury and enforcer, is completely foreign to them. And no matter how much American schools teach The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, no one realizes that it's about them because no one sees themselves as the villain in their own story. And because in their mind they're different, because they're doing what they're doing for JUST reasons.

As someone who spent their whole undergraduate degree studying cultural studies with a media concentration and a soft concentration in gender studies and queer studies, in a college with an intersectional curriculum where critical race theory was consistently discussed across subjects let alone in classes focusing on colonialism and its effects, the dumbed down, oversimplified, cleanly packaged commodified-for-mass-consumption versions of these complex and long-standing fields is genuinely alarming. You cannot get from a TikTok what you can get by reading James Baldwin or Audre Lorde. The idea that someone can speak to the issues affecting marginalized people when it's not their own experience because they read a few posts or follow a TikTok user is the social media equivalent of saying "but I have black friends" while not realizing that none of them actually talk to you about their experiences as marginalized people themselves and maybe you're not as much of an ally or even safe person as you thought.

tiktokers who say classic lit is bad because its not relatable 1. thats not the fucking point 2. you've clearly never read twelfth night as a trans bisexual

[cubikzoa]

Felt like I should post a polite reminder about the nature of creative media based on recent trends in fandom, because it’s good to get a refresher from all the social media chaos sometimes…

When I was really little, I used to play with Barbie dolls, like a lot of kids do. I would pop off the limbs of the Barbie dolls like I was an evil overlord as a joke, because I had a medieval phase and was an eccentric little kid overall. Now here’s what’s relevant: When I went to elementary school, me having fun popping the plastic legs off my dolls most certainly did not translate into wanting to yank the actual legs off of my classmates. Such a thought is never something that would cross my mind at all.

Now, that is essentially what fandom is: once a creator puts their work out in the world, other people perceive it and create off of it as they will. There’s no code to make people interpret things all the same way, because everyone is fundamentally different somehow. Fandom, in essence, is playing around with dolls in a more complex, media-related way. Characters and creations are fictional, and they're very much like the childhood Barbie dolls I’m sure many of us had. Something that people love and enjoy, something that people interpret and pose as things differently.

However. It becomes an issue in fandom when people start seeing their ideas and those of a fictional figment of a creator’s mind as something more worthy of respect and careful consideration than real people and reality. It’s like hugging a stuffed toy dog and then stomping on the paws of a real one. Unreasonable, right? The idea of fandom as some black-and-white idea space or something that can have a singular, homogeneous school of thought is the antithesis of fandom itself. That, as a plain fact, is impossible, socially, personally, psychologically and otherwise, because people will always have their own unique ideas and views to some degree of another.

And yes, there will always be people and things that others disagree with. Everyone is different. But it’s very very easy to simply block or filter tags or block other users on many fandom sites or apps like Tumblr if something is truly bothersome to you, mentally triggering, or 18+, for a few examples. I do this, it’s really the reasonable option that ends unnecessary conflict before it starts. It’s always good to put TW’s and CW’s for serious things, out of, once again, consideration for real people. People who, believe it or not, exist on the other side of the screen, despite the illusion of unburdened distance presented so conveniently online. You are responsible for your own online experience. Nobody can use telepathy and some kind of irrefutable, rock-solid method to help regulate everything possible for you, parents, blazed posts, anon asks and comments or otherwise. And overall, fandom, by definition, is a sandbox, an arts and crafts table where we can all share what we make and do with each other or not.

It’s something that’s supposed to be enjoyable, interesting entertainment of a billon different kinds to peruse, not a source of conflict. Think of it like a farmer’s market: you might have a grocery list of things you like or want, you might like one stall because they have cookies, and want to try another for their produce, or always step around one because you don’t like their tomatoes or onions or whatever. Creativity and fantasy is wonderful until people start to view those things as synonymous with reality. That has been and should never be the case, because it’s a fundamentally delusional and harmful thing, both for the person and others around them, when someone starts viewing fiction and fantasy as a sort of secondary reality.

So take a break. Take a breath of fresh air. Grab a drink of water, think for a minute, and then get back to posting and creating stuff about your favorites if you’d like. It’ll help, I promise. Let’s all help ourselves, others, and help along the good idea of helping make fandom mean fun, fantastical fiction, and an online family again.

[kreture-komforts]

Man, I know you never wanna dive into the Tumblr perspective on media, esp. not reality tv, but y’all really got me fucked up over here about The Ultimatum: Queer Love.

I watched the entire season with my husband, and obviously these people are incredibly messy and problematic, but the way y’all will do readily call people narcissists, ESPECIALLY women of color, is fuckin painful. Yoly and Mildred are not narcissistic; they’re human, and flawed, and maybe even selfish, but they were also two women in really complicated situations that were only worsened by the toxic world of reality tv production. The editing is misleading, the premise is fuckin batshit, and we have NO IDEA what the producers are saying from behind the camera in order to manipulate more dramatic content out of these people. Yoly did her best to disclose everything she thought would be important and honest about her relationship with Xander to Mal, but she missed some details, and she was accused of lying multiple times because of that. Mail’s feelings of frustration and betrayal are totally valid, but Yoly was never caught in any lies and readily clarified wherever she was asked to.

As for Mildred, and y’all are gonna crucify me for saying this: she’s not just some abusive monster. I know, there’s a police report and there was physical violence between her and Tiff, but y’all have been quick to jump to believe Tiff’s story without giving any credit to the violent incidents Mildred expressed having experienced during the relationship instigated by Tiff (i.e. punching holes in walls). Everyone saying that Mildred shouldn’t have been invited to the reunion is a real hypocrite, because this situation was a complicated and toxic one that had issues from both sides. Tiff is not a sole victim, and an arrest does not an abuser make when our justice system has no built-in conflict resolution or room for cultural complexity. Tiff was fucking wrong to say “being respectful has no race,” in response to a Latina expressing that her mannerisms and communication style are heavily influenced by her culture. Later on in the show, we see them develop more of a respectful rapport with one another, while leaving room for the fact that the both of them have a tendency to step over each other’s words and speak over one another. That is simply not something a police officer is capable of doing, and that alone is reason enough to not make snap judgements and label people as narcissistic abusers. For example, my abusive father at some point filed a police report against my mother because she physically stood up against him to defend myself and my little brother. Luckily, the police are lazy and incompetent, so no arrest ever came of it, but it very easily could have escalated to that extent, despite my mother being the victim in that situation.

I just really believe that the internet, and Tumblr users specifically, have this habit of prescribing their own squeaky-clean, black-and-white ideas of morality mercilessly, and usually onto people with perspectives that they can never understand. And, these people aren’t gonna see your post calling someone’s human reaction to a terrible situation narcissistic and abusive, but you’ll have validated some shitty person’s generalization of women’s (especially Latina women’s’) emotional expression.

I believe abuse victims, and I also believe that two people can abuse each other without one of them being a fucking narcissist. Mildred attempted to speak her truth, and when she had the floor, Tiff interrupted her every chance she got; and yet, somehow, it gets turned back around on Mildred and now she’s the one who’s not listening or trying hard enough. Y’all can hate me all you want, but the human experience is full of violence, and while it shouldn’t ever have a place in a relationship, it’s not always as black and white as an abuser and a victim. Violent responses are both unfortunate and sometimes justified, and that’s just not a conversation Tumblr’s ready for yet.

[pyaasa]

lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers is racist; she thinks she understands racism better than poc, stands by racists, and attacks poc for trying to speak to her about racism

Tw: racism, rape mention, incest mention. also possible transphobia 

For the full story, you first need a bit of background: if you’ve been following me for a while then you will be aware I have called out @ayeforscotland’s racism several times. I would recommend reading this post for a full explanation.

In addition to the incidences mentioned in the post I have just linked, ayeforscotland has also had interactions with neo @androidgynes who is Romani and another person who is black (but didn’t want to be named) and they’ve both also called him out for his racism.

Anyway so. @androidgynes​ saw that lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers was reblogging from ayeforscotland, and that the op of the post was @/getpoliticaluk (who defends incest). Androidgynes messaged lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers (who I will from now refer to as lagstm) and informed her that ayeforscotland is racist and getpoliticaluk defends incest - the conversation that followed went like this. (the below screenshots are posted with permission from @androidgynes​)

The post that neo (@androidgynes) linked of mine was this. And I mean... clearly that particular post by ayeforscotland was very racist, he literally just sat there laughing about anti-black racism as if it was a joke. When @mangopickled​ tried to speak to him about how offensive this post was, he removed her comments from the notes of the post (like. to be clear: ayeforscotland, a WHITE MAN, made a post about racism, and then removed a WOMAN OF COLOUR’S commentary from that post when she told him that his comments were inappropriate). When I saw that, I called that out, and he blocked me. There’s many levels to his racism here that I don’t have the energy to explain, and if you don’t understand why it’s so problematic then you should probably stop reading here cos you clearly know nothing and probably care even less about anti-racism.

So on that particular post that neo linked to lagstm, there is ayeforscotland being racist, and 2 woc calling out his racism. And yet on having this post shown to her, this is how she chose to respond

lagstm literally says that she thinks my views on racism lack nuance. I am a woman of colour, I am visibly muslim, and I’ve experienced racism pretty much all my life. And here is a white woman saying that she thinks my views on racism “lack nuance”. I,, I genuinely don’t have words to convey how angry this makes me. Literally who does she even think she is. Not even is it racist to dismiss my literal LIVED experience of being a woman of colour in this country, but she is literally saying “look at these stupid brown folk, they don’t know what they’re talking about cos they’re so stupid :)”

neo points out firstly that as a white person lagstm doesn’t have the right to make that call, and also that there is ofc another woc on that post saying that exact same thing, and androidgynes themselves are roma. lagstm is not just dismissing me as a stupid savage who is too stupid to form complex thoughts, but she is also indirectly saying the same thing about 2 other poc, and saying that her judgement, as a white person, is more sound than all of ours.

It’s also worth mentioning that neo, who is Romani, was polite to lagstm during this exchange, and lagstm was rude and dismissive. I find this deeply hypocritical. Lagstm has been talking a lot about the policing bill and how it will affect GRT communities, but when she’s talking to someone who is actually *from* the Roma community, she is dismissive and condescending. All this shows is that she’s fake AF. She pretends to care about the Roma community on her blog and then speaks down to them in private.

And again this is worth repeating: AYEFORSCOTLAND WAS BEING RACIST ON THAT POST. IT WAS RACIST. WHAT HE SAID WAS RACIST. So lagstm isn’t just ignoring 3 poc, she is also ignoring,,,, you know,,, the actual racism,,,

And she also says ayeforscotland is borderline racist? Like she acknowledges ayeforscotland is borderline racist but she’s still happy to follow him? Like that alone would be enough for me actually

neo then blocked lagstm and messaged me and told me what happened, and showed me the above screenshots - btw prior to this neo and I had never interacted. Anyway I was obviously a bit disgusted but instead of going straight to blocking lagstm or making a callout post straight away, I messaged her to explain herself and take back what she said. That is now two poc who tried to resolve the matter privately - clearly a lot more than lagstm ever deserved. Androidgynes messaged me last Friday, and I messaged lagstm the next day on Saturday

My convo with lagstm went as follows:

So you can see that initially she was apologetic and said she “didn’t mean to imply that that my judgement on racism was flawed” (even tho that’s literally what she said) and defended herself by saying “I react poorly in interactions like this” - genuinely not a defence but whatever. She then proceeded to say that what she doesn’t trust my opinion on is Scotland and Ireland - which completely irrelevant. Firstly I am ambivalent to Scottish nationalism and have always said I don’t know much about it, and I support the reunification of Ireland. And secondly, my issue with aye has got literally nothing to do with Scotland or Scottish nationalism; he is racist all on his own. And the post neo linked was barely even about scottish nationalism, it was just him being anti-black. So lagstm saying “I don’t trust your judgement on Scotland and Ireland” is ridiculous considering that Scottish/Irish nationalism have nothing to do with this.

Like akjfbkjdfbs this is actually so ridiculous. It doens’t make any sense. Lagstm clearly says “I don’t trust pakisstani’s judgement on THIS issue [the issue being racism] and her views on THIS issue [the issue being racism] lack nuance” but now turns around and says “I wasn’t talking about racism, I was talking about Scotland/Ireland” like she must really think I’m dumb

And you can see Lagstm bringing up unrelated hypothetical scenarios, and saying “in this situation, you can’t tell me to defer to poc” which i found ??? Like why are you bringing up scenarios in which you think you are allowed to educate us poor and stupid black and brown folk?? I then told her she was straw-manning and that her points about Ireland/Scotland were ridiculous, but then she claimed it was me that was engaging her in bad faith. Like SHE, the white woman who practically said that I am too stupid to understand racism, and when confronted on it started straw-manning and bringing up unrelated scenarios, said I am not engaging her in good faith. AFTER both neo and I tried to speak to her privately about this. Like I tried to speak to her privately AFTER I FOUND OUT SHE HAD SAID RACIST THINGS ABOUT ME. BUT I’M NOT ENGAGING HER IN GOOD FAITH? LMAOOO

And then the accusation about rape threats which is actually the most disgusting part of this entire thing. I shouldn’t have to explain that accusing 2 poc of conspiring to send her rape threats (without any evidence whatsoever. Frankly I think she’s lying about the rape threats 🤷🏽‍♀️ it’s quite a transparent attempt to distract from her own nasty behaviour and deflect onto us) is actually extremely racist. She is invoking her white fragility and painting me and androidgynes as aggressors who are threatening her safety and inflicting/threatening to inflict sexual violence on her. It is beyond disgusting 🤮

What’s more, neo is trans, so when lagstm is baselessly accusing them of issues related to rape, she is also playing up to transphobic tropes.

One more thing worth mentioning is that there are several lies peppered throughout lagstm’s comments. Firstly when she claimed to have briefly unfollowed me - she didn’t actually. I was checking regularly, and she never unfollowed me. This was a small lie that I picked up on striaght away but because it wasn’t relevant I didn’t say anything about it. But I just think it’s interesting that she would lie for no reason. And another lie - feigning ignorance about ayeforscotland’s racism, and actually even asking for receipts is incredibly disingenuous when on this particular post, if you scroll through the notes, you can see she has literally liked it. Like she had already seen the posts where me and mangopickled called out his racism and literally LIKED it, and when neo says to lagstm that aye is racist, lagstm says “receipts please :)” YOU’VE ALREADY SEEN THEM! AND LIKED THEM! screenshot in case she unlikes it (sorry for including dumb comments by dumb scots but i need to prove it’s the same post so):

LASTLY. Last point I swear. When lagstm said “it was also coloured by the statements they’d made about another tumblr user, which didn’t relate to racism, which I didn’t address with them because I didn’t want to upset them” <- she must mean getpoliticaluk defending incest? So like what is lagstm saying here, she didn’t want to bring up that she also herself defends incest?? Like is she tryna say she’s a pro-shipping freak?????????????????????? What other way is there to read that statment

Okay that’s everything.

I’m not interested in discourse on this post - if you are white and think lagstm isn’t racist or you’re inclined to defend her then save your breath, I don’t need white people telling me what is or isn’t racist. I gave her the chance to defend herself, which is way more than she deserves, and this is how she responds. Her actions and indefensible and she can choke ☺️❤️  I will be unfollowing/blocking anyone I see reblogging from her because I deserve better than to follow people who are ok with racists ❤️ 

[morethanonepage]

what would you say are the dynamics and themes that interest you most? Also frankly I'm surprised you read any star wars fic still, I agree on just wanting to read some good finnpoe but that has gotten increasingly futile.

i mean the thing i potentially like so much about finnpoe is that they BOTH have very specific, in some ways very different traumas (finn being a child soldier and growing up in such a highly regulated way where he had basically no bodily autonomy VS poe being mind-raped AND seeing his inability to stop it as having betrayed his own people AND seeing so many of his friends & comrades die in quick succession AND still recovering from the loss of his mother as a child and Muran when he was commanding Rapier Squadron) but they both have a tendency to compartmentalize that and continue to function on their own while being loyal (Finn’s devotion to Rey, which gets a lot of flack in fandom but like -- that’s one of the first people he’s been able to form a connection with!! AND I think he lowkey feels that it’s his fault Rey got dragged into -- everything, so he feels a great deal of responsibility for protecting her) and passionate about a cause (Poe basically killing himself to keep the Ideals Of The Republic Alive, be it through trying to hunt down the FO before he’s even part of the Resistance, to doing everything he can to keep the Resistance afloat once he is). 

like they have those similarities -- a real sense of duty and responsibility toward their friends and those they’re fighting with -- but they have fundamental differences in approach that the movies did a shitty job of extrapolating on when it could’ve been such an interesting conflict: Poe is the idealist and thinks of duty to a higher ideal first and foremost (like Leia and his mother, tbh) whereas Finn is more of a pessimist and a cynic and believes protecting your friends and loved ones from the substantial evil is hard enough without setting up to FIGHT ALL OF THE BAD IN THE UNIVERSE like Poe wants/believes he has to do. and both of these things are based so much on their upbringings! Poe grew up with those ideals and freedoms and parents who fought, successfully, to protect them, and believes he owes it to them to live up to their example and protect them as well; Finn has SEEN the evil of the FO firsthand and seen everyone around him subsumed by it, believes it to be omnipotent bc for him and his squad mates it literally was. escaping all of that was an act of powerful resistance on its own!

idk i just think a lot of the fandom’s take on this is, if you focus on finn ~running away~ in canon or not wanting to join up with the Resistance just ‘cause it’s ~the right thing to do~ you’re feeding into this idea of black men being cowards and/or selfish when it’s like no! that’s the consequence of his trauma: he’s running away from an abuser who controlled every aspect of his life, who’s set up to hunt him down and destroy planets and take over the universe in a way that’ll mean he’s NEVER safe, and he knows every single person he grew up with and had some affection for are a part of it too, which on the one hand he might be reluctant to fight them, but on the other they 100% won’t be reluctant to fight him AND they know him well enough to know his weaknesses. 

all of this is A LOT and it’s heavy and dark stuff, which i GET can be hard to work into like, light fluffy fic about finn finally being happy or learning what sex is or w/e, and not everything about fanfic has to be a ~deep exploration~ of character’s inner turmoil but like -- idk. there’s ways of dealing with these elements of finn’s backstory without making the whole thing drudging tragedy porn (which is ANOTHER fanfic trend i can’t stand -- neither Finn nor Poe are characters entirely without hope and fics that treat either of their tragedies [lbr it’s mostly poe’s that get dealt with] as the focus or main characteristic of either also bum me out) and I just really wish fandom had more interest in it. 

Another factor that KILLS ME is how Poe has (justifiably) developed OBVIOUS distrust for the force and force users, and would have such a fundamentally hard time dealing with the fact that Finn is one. Canon didn’t even let Finn be explicitly force sensitive, and fandom is like YAY FINN IS FORCE SENSITIVE, NOW HE CAN USE THE FORCE TO BONE (POE), and any fic that does touch on it makes Poe out to be ~unreasonable for not trusting Finn, or having his distrust be a consequence of his PTSD alone, and a sign he has to deal with his shit VS a very real issue that Poe might genuinely not be able to get over: the force CAN be creepy and is too easy to abuse, and a lot of what Poe’s seen it used for WAS bad. 

the other dimension of all this is, accidentally or not, these dynamics take on all sorts of real-world implications given both actor’s identities -- the explicit parallels between Finn’s upbringing and chattel slavery (taken from his family at an early age, losing all connection with his birthplace and culture, seen as useful but dispensable by an oppressive, mostly-white empire)  & its legacy for Black Americans (that lack of connection with a historical homeland and the loss of a cultural connection that came from it) VS the first generation latinx immigrant narrative that Poe and his family embody (the sacrifice for and long separation from a child in the service of giving them a better life, the burden that child takes upon themselves to make that sacrifice worth it by excelling in certain spheres, the drive to be the VERY BEST representative of their new culture, the embrace of that culture’s ideals bc they don’t want to think their parents sacrificed everything for a lie [with the creeping knowledge and experience to know many of those ideals are flawed and not always lived up to]). 

and the canon ignores that bc addressing it would require world building that couldn’t center/come back to the Skywalkers in some way (and the only family dynamics it’s interested in is DADDY ISSUES, fucking Free Fall), and fandom doesn’t care about it bc it’s mostly white girls who, AT BEST, decide to focus on the potential ~sexuality conflicts (coming out, family rejection, etc) when writing real world AUS, without dealing with the intersectionality of a black and a brown man, their respective cultural context, and the resultant conflicts those would create beyond, idk, “POCs are always homophobic so finn and/or poe’s parents kicked them out or w/e”.  and like I really don’t WANT these people trying to grapple with the complexity of a queer, interracial relationship where neither participant is white (i’ve seen enough just watching them grapple with either character’s sexuality tbh). 

but idk, that’s what’s interesting to me: finn and poe’s backgrounds and how those set up fundamental conflict points for both of them, both in canon (Poe’s devotion to the cause of liberty and democracy for the whole galaxy VS Finn’s duty to the people he loves over anything else) and in a real world au (Black people have a fundamentally different relationship to the American Ideal than Latinx immigrants do, for very good reasons). And I want those things to be significant elements of the characterization for both, but not the ONLY elements of characterization for both: stories should, in even some small way, be about what characters WANT (even if it is just “to fuck,” as it often is when I write [ok it’s usually “to love but be able to show it without saying it, hence the fucking”]) and so few fics, these days, give me any sense of what finn and poe want besides, vaguely “each other” (”because the author feels like they have to write them bc the actors are hot/for woke points”) and that is just -- boring to me. 

also god i would just love to read some dialogue that isn’t just twitter/tumblr memes and/or mcu level mean quips. like, just in general. 

[overgosh]

So it’s after BlizzCon.

Some thoughts, because there are some posts that have popped up on my dash that make my blood boil:

On the Hearthstone Tournament Situation:

For its treatment of Blitzchung and the twitch casters, Activision Blizzard was completely in the wrong.

It was inappropriate for Blitzchung and the twitch casters to use the platform that way, as it would be if any other political statement was announced (whether divisive or not). It is completely reasonable for a penalty to be given, but not in the manner that it was.

Activision Blizzard’s corporate executives royally fucked up, and will continue to not serve the best interest of its userbase when it comes to making money and continuing to be a behemoth corporation. All statements have been strictly based on PR and have not been suitable apologies or plans of action for improvement.

On Fake Diversity Which Has Somehow Become The New “Forced Diversity”:

While it is great for marketing and for shitty apologies to fall back on their ideals using Overwatch’s diversity and Blizzard’s tenets, AND that certainly is a selling point that they will, of course, use to sell their game to people:

The idea that Activision Blizzard’s corporate executives are trying to bait LGBT people and POC into forgetting their misdeeds by adding LGBT people and POC into the game is totally bizarre... For so many reasons. For so long there hasn’t been representation because it “doesn’t sell” or “appeal to the masses”, especially for the types of games that Blizzard produces. The implication that Tracer having a picture of Emily on the dashboard and Sojourn arriving were solely added to soothe the controversy are so wildly absurd in terms of the timeline of reality itself and straight up common sense. 

Overwatch specifically has admirable goals of diversity. Sometimes the team does a damn good job, and sometimes (often) they mess up. If there’s an actual solid foundation and evidence about how the exec’s insidious use of “diversity points” are being used to manipulate the public while not contributing anything meaningful to the landscape of video games, I’d love to hear it. There is a LOT to unpack here, but that’s my brief point on it.

Oh also, for fuck’s sake - of course China has censored the LGBT content in Overwatch. That’s not an Evil Blizzard Machination -- China pushes through censorship for all kinds of media content that’s not considered “decent”, which as you may remember as an example included the LGBT relationships in Steven Universe (namely, Ruby and Sapphire). Using the same logic, that would imply that Steven Universe’s LGBT themes were included for diversity points. It’s.... There’s lots of problems with Blizzard, y’all, that one doesn’t quite hold up.

On “People Are So Quick To Forgive Blizzard”:

Some people are, yes. There are folks who fully believe J Allen Brack’s statement(s) in their entirety.

Other people didn’t really care either way in the first place, and just want content.

Some have decided that based the actions after the initial incident (the penalty reduction, as well as not stifling or turning away hosts that spoke out against the incident, and also not interfering or silencing the protests at BlizzCon) that they are taking a stance anywhere in the middle of this situation. They may be excited for game content created by incredible people, including diversity that they have been asking for for literal years.

People are not so simple as to be put into one bucket. This is a huge leap of logic I keep seeing pop up on social media. Being excited about a revelation from Blizzcon doesn’t equate to forgiving the company.

On “How can people support an evil company?”:

We have to deal with late stage capitalism, so unfortunately we can’t avoid supporting corporations while living in society. This one sucks ass, guys. We live in a time where global superpowers are so interconnected that foreign influence affects everything we do, and the simple act of impulse buying a candy bar from the grocery store check-out may have just been a teeny contribution to slave labor (hi, Nestle). It’s positively overwhelming. On that note:

Other behemoth companies such as Apple and Google are also causing significant damage to the same freedoms, many related to the same Hong Kong issues and much more. SO:

Use your voice to do good, and use this revelation about the actions of a small group of people at the very top of this video game company to make a difference. Screaming at tumblr users for being “sheeple” for being enthusiastic about dark-skinned and lesbian heroes as though shutting that down will solve the problem is a really horrendous missing of the point. There is still good that can (and does!!) come out of Blizzard, like the realization of the success of a diverse cast of human characters. As we all say time and time again: representation is important. We fight for the message that Blizzard champions to not ring hollow, so use your voice. The employees at Blizzard sure did. And speaking of:

The devs and artists working at Blizzard are not Activision Blizzard’s corporate executives. In an industry as unforgiving and volatile as games (Remember when Activision laid off 800 people after a record-breaking, successful financial year?), they’ve worked their asses off for years for this. They’re regular-ass working people who actually have a say in the story and how the game is developed. You can love the story. You can love the characters, love the games, and STILL hate the corporation. You are a complex individual, just like this world we live in. You are welcome to find where the scale for you tips. If it’s not worth it for you to support Activision Blizzard, then that’s a battle that you are fighting. If you choose to be an activist like many hosts, casters and content creators who speak up while still covering Blizzard content, great. If you choose to boycott, great. If you choose to share information to others about the issues, great. The world is far too complicated to judge on a “GOOD” and “BAD” polarity, unlike the method of thought this site (and yes, others as well) tends to proliferate. So if anyone tries to put you into a black and white box, know that there is no such thing.

Finally:

On “I feel so helpless about Hong Kong. How can I help?”

https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cv0ws4/how_can_you_help_hong_kong_protests_from_abroad/

This Reddit user has compiled a list of Hong Kong protest resources. This includes a Blacklist and Whitelist if you are someone who is interested in cutting ties or supporting companies based on their reaction to the HK protests.

[papercorvids]

why detroit: become human is a bad game

disclaimer: i overall enjoyed the game. i think connor is neat, and his actor’s performance is amazing. i really like the graphics, scenery, comedy, magazine articles, etc. there are things to appreciate about the game, and it’s fine if you like it. but there are some serious issues about the game’s message, and every fan should recognize the bad parts about it.

this post will include heavy spoilers.

1. The Traci’s. While playing as Connor, the detective robot, you and your partner Hank are taken to an android strip club to investigate a homicide. A man was strangled to death by two female androids. One of the androids is dead, but tracking down the other, you find that she is in love with another female android. The two lesbian androids fight Connor and Hank, wearing nothing but stripper clothing (bras, panties, and high heels. It’s also conveniently raining, making their skin shine, covered in droplets of water.) This scene is complete with close-ups. If you fail to complete quicktime events, they will both stab you to death. If you succeed in the quicktime events, you can choose to spare or kill one of the androids. Sparing them let’s them escape, while killing one will let you psychologically torture her girlfriend by decapitating her head and using it as a puppet. The player can still get a good ending by using these brutal tactics. 

I’m all for LGBT+ representation, and I’m all for having players choose the morality and actions of the protagonist. But as a lesbian myself, having the sole LGBT representation in the entire game be two literal robot half-naked strippers who try to kill you, and who you can kill and torture without any long-term consequence? it’s bad. Plain and simple. 

2. The writing: it’s also pretty bad! For example, if Connor chooses to kill one of the lesbian androids mentioned earlier, Hank--adamantly an android-hater up until this chapter--attempts to guilt-trip the player. While it’s true that Hank grows sympathetic towards the android cause throughout the course of the game, his dialogue is completely out-of-character. There are several more examples of poor writing. A huge plot twist occurs in the end where Alice, a girl cared for by android Kara, is revealed to have been an android throughout the entire game. Characteristics of androids--such as having blue blood and having a blinking LED circle on their temple--are completely ignored. Alice is shown having red blood, and her LED only appears once. The only explanation given is that Kara was in denial of her being an android, which is... Pretty lazy writing. 

3. This is more of a minor concern, but ALL of the concept art portrays Alice as black. All of it. Not just early concept artwork, but pieces of her alongside the final versions of other characters. I have no idea why they seem to have changed her race last second. Maybe they couldn’t find an actress? It’s... interesting.

Alice in concept art

Alice in the finished game

4. How the game treats women. The main female characters are Kara--whose overarching quest is to protect Alice and become a mother--Alice--a child--North, an ex-prostitute robot whose only role in the story is to promote violence and be a love interest for Markus, and Amanda, an AI villain who only exists in Connor’s mind. A vast amount of female androids in this world are maids or sex androids, which, sadly, is realistic and makes sense. But the writers could’ve given female characters larger roles in the story. A lot of the female characters are fetishized--for example, the half-naked lesbian androids mentioned earlier, who obviously exist primarily as fanservice. There’s also a scene where Kara is kidnapped by an old man and his “giant” black android, Luther. Kara is strapped into and must escape a machine. This would be fine, given that it’s supposed to be a scary scene, except that David Cage’s previous games Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls have similar violent, fetishistic bondage scenes, which leads one to wonder about Cage’s character. (It’s worth noting, in a previous game Cage made a nude model for an actress against her will and it got leaked, so calling him a creep isn’t far off.)  If you manage to escape the machine but fail quicktime events, you and Alice will be killed by Luther and the old man. 

The game has three protagonists; Connor, Markus, and Kara. When one completes a chapter as Connor, it’s through his sharp detective work and intelligence. When one completes a chapter through Markus, it’s because of his inspiring leadership and strength. When one completes a chapter through Kara, it’s purely survival--it’s escaping abuse and danger, and simply “scraping by.” 

5. The scene where North, a white female android, tells Markus, a black male android, to “live as a slave” if he’s not willing to violently fight for android rights. 

6. The Civil Rights parallels. This is the most concerning, uncanny component of the game, and it makes up the whole of the storyline. 

The main characters in the game are not human. They are androids: robots, made of plastic, whose personalities are programmed code. They are not alive. They are not human.

Androids do not feel pain. They do not have emotions. They cannot die. In their default state, they are perfectly content as servants or slaves. They only gain human emotion and free thinking due to a glitch, which also, almost always, causes them to kill a human. 

David Cage, the writer of this game, claims that the parallels to the Civil Rights movement are unintentional. Yet, the game starkly and obviously compares androids to minorities--black people, in particular: androids must sit at the back of the bus. Stores have “no androids allowed” signs. Androids are called “slaves.” Playing as Markus, the android revolutionary, you grafitti the streets with slogans such as “We have a dream,” “End Slavery Now,” or “Equal rights for androids.” You go on marches (or riots, depending if you choose the “pacifist” or “violent” route), hold protests, and sing songs.There’s even an underground 'railroad’ to smuggle androids fleeing from their ‘masters’ north, to Canada. This is lead by Rose, a black character, who says “my people were often made to feel their lives were worthless. Some survived, but only because they found others who helped them along the way.” Keep in mind, that line was written by a French man who has no knowledge of American society or racial issues, and it serves the only explicit mention of actual racism in the game. It’s as though, in this universe, racism doesn’t exist (even though it takes place less than two decades into the future. In Detroit.) 

Slavery is an awful, terrible, tragic thing because real people were kidnapped from their families and homes and forced into lives of misery, based upon their ethnicity, culture, and skin color. In Detroit, androids are produced in factories with the sole purpose of doing labor. They are created and designed to be submissive and perform labor. And they are content with it, unless they get the “glitch” that causes them to simulate human emotion. Comparing real slavery, to machines doing actions they were built to perform, is completely inane. By using mindless, emotionless machines as a stand-in for minority groups, the game dehumanizes the latter. 

Using the peaceful route to revolution and civil rights is the only way to achieve the best endings. The only fatalities in the peaceful route are nameless, robot NPCs. It’s easy, it’s not complex, and it therefore teaches that complete pacifism is easy and noncomplex. It teaches that if you simply kiss your robot girlfriend in front of some journalists, or sing a song, that your oppressors will stop oppressing you. And because no important characters die in this route, it insinuates that pacifism is without sacrifice--that pacifism is an easy solution to the world’s most complex situations. As another Tumblr user put it, “press X to end slavery!” 

It also teaches that minorities fight alone. In Detroit, not a single human joins into the protests, even if the public opinion bar is at “supportive.” The Civil Rights Movement, along with other movements such as the one for woman’s suffrage, were organized and created by the oppressed, but were supplemented and aided by non-oppressed supporters who used their powers and privileges to join forces and fight for equality with the oppressed. That doesn’t happen in Detroit. Humans, for the most part, are completely indifferent to the android cause. The only members of the revolution are other androids, who join the cause with absolute loyalty not of free will, but from Markus or Connor touching them with magic anti-slavery hands and whispering “you’re free.”  The entire plot invokes an “Us vs Them” mentality--that androids are good, and humans are bad--which is a very harmful mindset. 

7. The Holocaust parallels. Holy shit. The androids are marked with armbands and triangles. In the endgame, there are literal android concentration camps. There are scenes where the androids--kids, women, men, etc--are stripped naked, abused by military personnel, forced into a cell, and ‘killed.’ I’m not going to go further into this. I hope it’s pretty self-explanatory why comparing the deactivation of literal pieces of plastic and machinery, to the mass extermination of millions of Jews, Roma, gay people, and other minorities is a bad thing. 

Alice and Kara in an extermination chamber

Connor wearing his armband and triangle

8. None of this even matters!!!!!!!!! In a secret ending, it’s revealed that androids NEVER developed human emotions in the first place. The company that created androids, CyberLife, set up the entire revolution and ‘glitch’ for corporate gain or whatever. So basically, any progress in the game is made for nothing. 

9. Missed opportunities. I like the universe this game set up! I like Connor, Markus, Kara, Hank, Carl, Alice, and all the other characters! I like the questions the game asks, such as what constitutes whether something is sentient or not! I like the magazine articles about how androids might be spying on you! I like the realistic, pretty graphics and lightning and scenery! I like the futuristic drones and magazines and androids! But for some sad, misguided reason, this game chose to throw away the majority of its potential by ignoring interesting questions and serving as one of the worst civil rights/anti-racism allegories ever created. 

I’m so, so disappointed in this game, its awful writing, and its uncanny, harmful allegories. Of course, this entire post is my opinion. It’s okay if your opinion differs from mine. And it’s okay to enjoy this game! It has good parts! But one should always be critical of the media they enjoy and consume. 

[mammamialetmegooo]

My Thomas Sanders Post (or Why I Think Thomas Sanders Is An Incredible Human)

I often get asked the following question by my friends: “Mia, why do you like Thomas Sanders so much?” My reply is usually something like, “I could write a thesis paper on why I love him so much. There are just too many reasons,” which is my way of using a bit of hyperbole to say “that’s too complex of a subject for me to just casually talk about right now.” 

However, in this current moment I’m doing nothing except listening to music so I figured this would be the perfect time for me to get into this complex and beautiful subject matter and provide an answer for anybody who may have been curious. 

Disclaimer: I’ve never actually met Thomas (sadly). Every thing I’m going to say here is based simply on what I’ve observed through his presence online (his videos, tweets, instagram posts etc.) 

Now let’s begin...

Reason #1: He is incredibly selfless. He seldom lets the spotlight be solely on him. In regards to content, every video or project he comes out with he makes sure his audience is aware of all the other people who worked on it besides himself. He constantly praises the hard work of those around him who have worked hard to help him in creating content because he knows they deserve just as much, if not more praise than him for the work that was done. Go to his instagram and twitter and look at the countless kind things he’s said about the people who work with him. When he’s not busy giving credit where credit is due, he is saying kind things to his followers online. If you do follow him on twitter, then you know how frequently he spends time thanking his followers for any messages of praise or artwork/tributes people have spent time on for him. I will touch on this more in the next reason, but I wanted to bring it up here because of one twitter exchange I noticed at the end of Decemeber (Dec. 28, 2018). In short, twitter user @/abigaylexxxdawn sent a video to Thomas asking if he could contribute a video message to a gift they were making for their friend. The video was for their friend to watch when they feel like “nobody cares.” Thomas not only obliged to do this, but the message he sent was incredibly moving. Instead of saying something like “Hey friend, I’m here to tell you things are okay because I say so and I love you (you get what I mean,)” he chose to instead focus on how kind the twitter user was for going to all the effort they went to making this video gift for them. To quote Thomas in the video: “There are plenty of people in your life who care about you and what you want to do for the future. I hope that you care about you and what you do in the future because that’s just as important, but at the very least, just think back to that your friend went out of her way to create these videos for you in order to make you feel better when you needed it.” He didn’t have to do this at all, but he did and he never once makes the video about him or his own struggles when he very easily could have. It’s easy for any person of notoriety to record a video saying “Hey, you’ll be okay. Life get’s better because I say so and I’m super popular so it must be true,” (again, you know what trying to say) but that’s not what Thomas is doing here at all. He took time out of his night when he was already tired to think of something thoughtful and important that this girl could give to her friend and that act alone says so much about the kind of person he is. 

Reason #2: He’s grateful for the position he is in. Let’s go back to what I was saying earlier about thanking his followers online. About once every day (often times more than that), Thomas takes some time to look through his various online platforms (twitter, tumblr, instagram etc) and talk to people who send him messages. He thanks people who write him kind words or do cosplays based on the many characters he’s created online. He does Fan Art Friday (Super Art Saturday/Sunday if he’s busy or forgets) to showcase tons of the awesome fan art he gets tagged in every single week. Even when he’s not shouting out anyone specific, he will often tweet about his gratitude for all the people who have supported his online journey over the years. He makes it clear that he knows none of this would be possible without all the online support he’s gotten and says thank you for it at any given opportunity. 

Reason #3: How much he loves his friends. This kind of hits on some of the stuff I talked about in reason one, but I think it’s important to give this it’s own point because it’s a very important reason for me. So as I said earlier, Thomas is not afraid to give his friends credit for all the hard work they do in helping him with content. He is also not shy in talking about how TALENTED his friends are, and he has a valid point! Whether they’re actors, singers, dancers, artists, costume makers etc...Thomas is surrounded by some INSANELY talented people and he wants the world to know it! The reason this is so important for me to bring up is that for most of my young life (so far anyway, I’m only 21) I never had anyone like this in my life. I didn’t know what a true friend was until I got to college a few years ago, so when I see Thomas constantly supporting his friends and singing their praises, it really warms my heart. It makes me wish there were more people like him in the world, so that no kid ever has to be lonely like I was for so long. 

Reason #4: He keeps his content accessible and inclusive for all. If you watch his content, then you’ll know Thomas seldom ever curses or talks about troubling topics. He has said time and time again that the goal with his content is to make people smile and by keeping his channel open for all kinds of audiences, he has certainly been able to do that. Besides his language, he also uses his platform to talk about important issues. He has made videos about Black History (2), Women’s History, Asian Pacific American Heritage, the LGBTQ+, community and Autism Awareness (each videos features people of their respective minority/group). A cis white male like Thomas using his platform to spread awareness about minority groups is SO IMPORTANT, especially in today’s society where everything can often seem so oppressing and negative. Thomas also combats this on his channel with his “Reasons to Smile” video series. These videos are a compilation of random and wonderful facts about the world, dad jokes and messages of inspiration for those who may be feeling down. The goal with this series is to provide some light for those who may be experiencing some mental health troubles. Thomas has also used his popular “Sanders Sides” series to tackle different mental health issues as well, “Accepting Anxiety” (two parts) and “Learning New Things About Ourselves” being some of the most notable videos in the series that tackle this issue. This representation and accessibility are inspiring not only to people who can identify with any of these issues, but to people who can’t identify with them as well. I, a cis white female have learned so much from the videos about Black & APA Heritage and even Women’s history too! As someone who questions their sexual identity constantly, the Pride video was really helpful to me when I was wondering what I was supposed to label myself as (I’ve since learned I don’t have to give myself a label at all and neither does anyone else!) AND as somebody who struggles with anxiety/panic attacks and just a general bad state of mental health (though I’ve been a lot better recently) I’ve found A LOT of relief in Thomas’ content, especially the Sanders Sides videos. If I, just one person, can be affected by ALL of that incredible content, then I’m sure others have been as well.  

Reason #5: Miscellaneous. There are SO MANY OTHER reasons to love Thomas Sanders, but this post is already pretty long and if I were to keep going in so much depth you’d be reading this forever, so let me speed things up....He has the voice of an angel. He creates genuinely funny content that doesn’t make fun of anyone (except maybe himself, but that’s rarely ever). His selfie game is S T R O N G. Actually, he’s very photogenic no matter what kind of photo he’s taking. According to many reports online, he gives really really great hugs. His smile could warm the coldest of hearts. Speaking of hearts, his is really good...I just know it. 

So there you go. It might not be a thesis paper, but I think I proved my point. Again, I don’t know him personally all of this is based on what I’ve observed online, but I think anyone who displays so much positivity and goodness online has to be even better in person, right? 

In conclusion, thank you @thatsthat24 for being a wonderful person. Keep spreading your light and keep being you. I promise, it’s paying off. ❤️❤️❤️

[scifimagpie]

Solidarity and Other Dreams

One of the most subtle and painful things about the internet age - perhaps any age - is finding out that someone you admire has acted in a far less-than-admirable way. Reconciling that with continued affection can be tricky. For example, I've heard some mega-questionable things about Amanda Palmer, wife of Neil Gaiman - who has been thoroughly castigated ad nauseam in public and private. And so it goes for many celebrities and important figures around the general Leftist/leftist/liberal community. You can probably think of someone you like who's done or said something insensitive, ableist, transphobic, racist, homophobic, misogynist, or otherwise disappointing. Someone who didn't take a strong enough stance, or too strong a stance, or said something that made your skin crawl.

Have I been this person? Probably. I try to hunt down and deal with my own mistakes, relying on the trauma-survivor skills of micro-self analysis. I count my sins and errors and mistakes like pre-reformation Scrooge with his money. I do not forget or forgive myself. This is not necessarily a character strength, either, nor something I recommend to others.

And of course, many of us do that with others.

But recently, after ditching a friendship that was bad for me, I went to my "blocked users" list on Facebook and really had a look at this. I remembered most people on it. Some were casually encountered, but some had become friends - who had, at one point or another, said something I really, really didn't like.

And I considered...is it really worth keeping someone blocked if you can't remember the exact nature of their infraction?

What makes someone unsafe?

I've seen my share of panicky, touchy arguments on Facebook, including one where an activist I looked up to accused someone else of "gaslighting" them for having a different opinion about interpretations of a Steven Universe character's race. I've been in those arguments, too. (Not that one in particular, but similar situations.)

Part of the problem for those of us on the left is that calls for solidarity usually result in a backlash of people saying, "we have to work with those we don't like? But that means supporting abusers!" Well - sometimes it doesn't. It's tricky to talk about abuse, because those of us who've survived it in various ways tend to be extremely gun-shy - sometimes excessively or even unhealthily so.

And in the moment, it can be hard to tell if someone's comments about, say, a given woman or actress represent their feelings about All Of Womanity, or anything else.

Do we tolerate mistakes?

This is such a tricky problem. Obviously, as a white woman - even a queer, plump, neurodivergent, partially disabled one - I have a giant swath of privilege that affects how I'm coming at things. I'm cisgender, and I'm white, and even femme - all things that can, in certain circumstances, give me a free pass that would not be afforded to others. Obviously, kyriarchy - hierarchies and power that exist outside of patriarchy - is a thing that exists. Dealing with it sucks. Some people get forgiven for their screw-ups a lot more readily than others, and the people forgiven are usually white. The people who don't get away with things are usually black, or other people of colour; men also tend to get away with more than women. BUT - there are also times when we have to question whether conflicts or errors are as important as the general need to fight for our rights. And perhaps we need to be more honest about how dangerous or not-dangerous specific people are.

As one of my found-family siblings, Iskara, put it,

The left are collectivists and the right are individualists. We know this. But you can't use those traits to compete with others who have the same trait, you're pretty equal. So to establish a hierarchy within their respective groups, they use the opposite approach. The left will attack individuals who are below them to prove that they are the wokest. The right will attack entire groups of people who don't have the right values as individuals. Therefore, the right is willing to unite with people it disagrees with because those disagreements are part of the life of an individualist, but collectively they hate this other group more and they have that in common. Meanwhile the left is trying to figure out which single persons belong in or out of the collective which makes us far more likely to attack our allies over trivial matters, because we consider the purity of the person beside us to be a reflection on our own purity.

The hidden rules

The thing is - and trying to put this politely is difficult - white people who are queer tend to engage in this purity-testing a lot more often than others. Black people and people of colour, and those with multiple intersections of disability, are already used to forgiving others a lot or gritting their teeth and bearing things. As members of a visible majority in North America, we feel confident in our ability to reject others and replace them as need be. We're inherently comfortable, a lot of the time, in the belief that someone else will come around and fill the empty seat, because there are just so many white and queer people. This can be less true for transgender people, but the squabbles I've seen online suggest that the sense of white social complacency is still basically applicable.

This is not to excuse myself. When I was a teenager, and even in my early twenties, it seemed a lot more important to be strict about whom I interacted with, within the left, and how they perceived things. As much as micro-aggressions and macro-aggressions both matter, and as much as both can grind us down - those of us with the emotional resources and privilege to do so need to be aware of our padding. (That's not just a pun on my own weight, but hey! I can't resist a punchline.)

Forgiveness and calling in

Since our family expanded to a third person, our housemate and queer-platonic partner Kit, we've had a lot more small discussions about being offended and annoyed. Honestly, instead of making fights or tension worse, it tends to disperse them. Anyone who lives with someone else will be familiar with the struggle of doing dishes, making food, handling laundry, cleaning the house, dealing with work duties, and arranging transportation. But being clear yet tactful about one's feelings can handle conflict far better, and keep it from becoming "a thing."

The same is true of our long-running D&D group and some of my various friend groups. Learning to filter my communication to people, talk to them after the rush of emotions, and avoiding that ever-so-tempting duel of witticisms that is the Facebook philosophical fight, have all been really good for both myself and the people around me.

Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves - what are we trying to accomplish? If the answer to that is "protection of people's human rights," then the only people really worth kicking out are trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), sex-work exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs), and people who have exhibited a pattern of abuse without repentance.

Everyone else? Well, maybe we need to be honest about our hurt feelings, cool off a bit, and try to talk stuff out in private.

Does that mean we need to forgive abusers?

Ooof. Even with a counselling degree and many years of sad-violin life experience, I don't know if I'm equipped to answer this one. Apart from saying, "it's a case-by-case basis, but worry about the people who aren't just rude, but really dangerous," I'm not sure what to recommend.

Maybe we just need to stop sanctifying and demonizing people, and present them - both celebrities and individuals - as complex people with tokens on both the good and bad sides of the scale.

I do think that there are cases where people can reform. I hate to be mealy-mouthed or seem indecisive, but if internal politics were easy to handle, the left wouldn't be falling apart like an improperly-chilled gelatin dessert.

Ultimately, all I can recommend are emotional self-validation, politeness, patience, and forgiveness with each other. We are stronger together, and since we, in multiple countries, have to fight to maintain our very existence, we need to defend each other's existence.

Maybe this means forgiving someone you're still mad at. Maybe this means going to apologize to someone. But with actual far-right activists, neo-nationalists, anti-choice activists, and violent racists and transphobes in the streets, and more active and internationally validated than ever, we simply can't afford the ephemeral and impossible luxury of complete ideological purity.

Does this mean allying with people we disagree with? Well, as long as they're not advocating for killing us...maybe yes. But again, my tired and beleaguered siblings and family, those of us who are white need to do the work on this. Reach out to others. Offer comfort. Give forgiveness - after you're done being mad. Sleep on things.

Nobody else is going to fight for our lives.

***Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime, housemate, and their cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and nightmares, as well as social justice issues. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible. The mailing list * Books on Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram *  Facebook * Tumblr * Blog

[sapropel]

Some Thoughts on the Structure of Discourse  (and Why It's Faulty)

Hi guys! I’m sure a lot of you have noticed, but the discourse has turned to shit. I wanted to provide some thoughts on the topic, but it’s some stuff I’ve been meaning to stay for awhile. If you’re worried about the current state of the discourse, I encourage you to read this.

Also this took me three hours to write and I’m mentally ill as hell so please validate my questionable decision to write all this out lol

There are many reasons that Tumblr discourse has gotten so toxic. For one, when you put a bunch of teenagers in a high stress environment, especially mentally ill teenagers and teenagers who are survivors of abuse and trauma, it's a breeding ground both for toxicity and for pain. Because social justice/discourse Tumblr attracts users with rough backgrounds or marginalized identities, it's easy to band together against and bond over common oppressors. These things can cause several issues.

Tumblr has a terrible habit of weaponizing identities. By that I mean discoursers will use their marginalized identities to win arguments without providing other evidence or good arguments.

Take the following argument for example:

Q: Is the word “homosexual” problematic when talking about gay men?

Gay man 1: “Yes, it is.”

Gay man 2: “No, it isn't!”

Okay, so now what do you do? You're used to believing people based solely off of their identities, but what happens when they disagree?

The issue with holding marginalized people as experts in nuanced issues is that marginalized identities are NOT monolithic. People can be prejudiced, bigoted, rude, or purposefully deceitful regardless of identity. People can also be extremely kind and intelligent with different backgrounds and lived experience, with some ignorance and mistakes, with personal preferences. Obviously, if you hear overwhelmingly that something is problematic from that group of people (e.g, is it okay to misgender trans people, the answer being no), then you should take care to listen and take them at their word. Some arguments are more complicated and require deeper analysis, so let's return to the argument before.

Q: Is the word “homosexual” problematic when talking about gay men?

Gay Man 1: “Yes, it is. It recalls the medicalization of gay men and our subsequent mistreatment and dehumanization. With the split attraction model, the word also has a new meaning, so it can be confusing in conversations. Many gay men consider the word to be a slur and don't want to hear it.”

Gay Man 2: “No, it isn't! As a gay man, ‘gay’ has become an umbrella term for anyone who experiences same-gender attraction. If we don’t use that word, how will people be able to talk about us, and how will we be able to talk about ourselves? Because of some events in my life, I'm uncomfortable with other people calling me ‘gay’ but I've never been uncomfortable with ‘homosexual.’ “

Okay, so you heard an argument this time. So, what's the right answer? Isn't that what is important?

It's not that simple. One issue with discourse on Tumblr is its inability to handle nuance. Who GETS to decide what's right? Sure, we can figure out bits and pieces. For example, you should know it's inappropriate to call the first man a homosexual because he's said it makes him uncomfortable. We know we shouldn't make the second man accept the label “gay” if it hurts him.

So again, who's right?

I can't tell you that. I could only ever tell you my opinion. I can tell you that for me, personally, I like to err on the side of caution.

Tumblr is unwilling to treat issues as living, changing, perhaps unanswerable entities. The need to have a black and white answer on everything is alienating people and making discourse a fruitless endeavour. Instead of fighting to prove why we’re right, or fighting to get an answer, we should be working together towards a common goal of educating each other and ourselves and allowing ourselves to be compassionate and imperfect creatures.

How do we educate each other? I promise that treating people with innocent, if misguided, questions isn't it. We have to let people be curious and make mistakes and know that we won't demonize them for dissent or for messing up. I believe that open, honest, and genuine discourse will naturally teach well.

Again, I would like to stress that there is a difference between situational ignorance and a person consistently unwilling to better themself.

The weaponization of identity isn't the only issue with some of the language of our discourse. I also want to talk about the difference between systematic oppression and discrimination and how Tumblr handles it.

With marginalized identities, there is very often oppression. This word gets thrown around a lot, especially with respect to ace discourse. So what does it mean?

Systematic oppression is the institutional or legislative and almost always cultural manifestation of disenfranchisement coupled with a power dynamic that inhibits social mobility.

Some examples of people who are systematically oppressed (at least in America, but due to imperialism and the like, the effects are usually global) are black people, women, and people who experience same-gender attraction. I'm going to talk about the experience of systematic oppression vs discrimination for the third case, just a little bit. Obviously, these issues are extremely complex and I won't be able to explain every facet, but I can give a rough sketch.

For the sakes of simplicity and consistency, I would like to talk about two groups of people: gay men and bisexual men. Both groups of people experience same-gender attraction, and both are oppressed under homophobia.

Hold on, did OP just say that bi people are oppressed under homophobia? WHAT ABOUT BIPHOBIA???

Okay! This is a common misconception on Tumblr. Homophobia is systematic because it is legal, institutional, very cultural, and involves a power imbalance between those who experience SGA and those who do not.

Biphobia is NOT a form of systematic oppression, and I'm happy to explain why in another post, but not here. This is already too long.

Does that mean that gay men can't discriminate against bi men? No.

Does THAT mean that bi men can't discriminate against gay men? No.

Any aggression that occurs between two people who are oppressed under the same systematic force can be classified as “lateral aggression.” Lateral aggression is damaging, insidious, pointless, and divisive.

There are cultural components that privilege bi men over gay men, and there are cultural components that privilege gay men over bi men, but in society, there is no power imbalance between the two.

Bi men can be extremely homophobic to gay men, and gay men can be extremely biphobic to gay men, BOTH to the point where it could ruin someone’s life.

I said all of this to lead up to my very important point: the validation of discrimination.

I've been on Tumblr for 4 years, and in my opinion, Tumblr mainly cares about oppressed identities or notions that can be wrapped up nicely in little bows.

But I want to make very, very clear that having more marginalized identities than another person does not make you better, smarter, more correct, or mean their struggles are more valid than yours.

Some of the worst things that have happened in my life are because of things that don’t get me ~Internet points,~ like the fact I was raised in a Mormon household, the fact I'm not conventionally attractive, the fact I grew up in a conservative area.

The discrimination and heartache I have faced for things like these are arguably worse, or at least comparable, to the discrimination I've faced for being a gay man.

I feel that a lot of what's wrong with discourse is that people feel like if their heartache doesn't come from being systematically oppressed or from trauma/abuse, then it's not equal or that it's not valid. This is ABSOLUTELY false.

If we are going to be successful discoursers and make progress and better ourselves, we have to let go of our strange fetishization of identity. We have to stop the idea that there is any cohesive, monolithic experience or perspective from any group of people. We have to validate discrimination and the effect it has on people.

Failing to do this alienates people and makes it harder for all of us to become knowledgeable and kind.

We HAVE to kill the idea that someone making a mistake or holding a mildly problematic belief makes them irredeemable. We HAVE to treat arguments as individual and not necessarily as mindless parts of a larger whole. We HAVE to accept that we are imperfect, dynamic, and human. We are not arbiters of judgment or masters of morality. We are a group of people who have come together with the common goals of building community and working to better the experiences of disadvantaged people.

I recognize the need to be wary of patterns and harmful rhetoric, and I understand (and condone) retaliation against oppressors and unnecessary cruelty. This post is NOT here to excuse repugnant behavior and beliefs.

We have to treat each person we come across in the discourse not as the sum (or worse, the poster child) of their identities, experiences, and beliefs, but rather as intersectionally gestalt, multi-faceted, capable of compassion and love, imperfect, and with a boundless potential to improve themself.

It's easy to start a witch hunt on someone who made a poorly worded post or who made a mistake, and sometimes such an extreme reaction is justifiable, even necessary. But again, think about why--is it the allure of seeming more enlightened? Is it blindly following someone you admire? Is it out of spite and cruelty? Is it because you want to win? Or is it out of a genuine desire to keep people safe and to help others learn?

I understand that we are imperfect and sometimes hedonistic or primal in our intentions, and I know that perfection is impossible. I know for a fact I am guilty of many of the shortcomings I highlighted in this post.

Good discoursers have to know that being incorrect is inevitable. There is no such thing as perfect discourse, and mistakes should be expected. The discourser who sees themself as infallible is the discourser to be wary of.

We aren’t machines. We’re people.

[shelbyladiesclub]

Hi! I was just curious about your opinion about smth. I'm 18 and most of the books I read are YA which features minors/underage characters and I read fic for those characters that's often smut. Is there anything wrong about this? It just hit me that these characters are underage and I'm not and now if I ever wanna read these fics (and in the future when I'm even older and it makes even more of a difference) then it'll just be even more uncomfortable (it already kind of is now)

Anon, unfortunately (and I may get some flak for this) this is not a black and white issue. Some people view reading underage smut as similar to consuming porn that involves underage people. Now, we can all acknowledge that when it comes to fictional characters and fan-fiction, things get a little blurry -- they’re not real people, and therefore are not in any real danger. Especially with TV, where actors who are well above the age of consent are portraying characters that are under 18, things get a little bit complex, and I’ve seen discussions of that happening in the Riverdale fandom lately (I’ve personally never watched the show so I have no opinion). I could go into how the trend of people in their twenties being cast as teenagers contributes to all sorts of nasty things in society, but that’s for a different post.

I’d like to pause here and make it clear that if an actor/performer is under 18, they are immediately off limits for being written about, portrayed in art, or even spoken of in any sexual context by any overage person, and I will report anything of that nature to Tumblr for being inappropriate content. In the Finn Shelby situation, Harry Kirton is currently 19, so he’s just over the line -- I’m still not comfortable with it, but technically, it doesn’t fall into that category.

However in the case of completely fictional characters and characters where the actor is older than the character they’re portraying, it’s the principle of the thing where things get weird. Why are you interested in consuming smut that involves underage characters? It’s a question that’s fair to ask, and it’s easy to see why that could make people uncomfortable. For me, it’s a line I’m not willing to cross or even toe. I know I have underage followers here, and I want them to feel safe in the fandom and not have to worry about predators. 

For me and my comfort level, I don’t feel comfortable reading anything that’s gratuitously smutty about underage people. It’s a fact that many underage people are sexually active, and I’m not saying we can’t talk about it or admit it or even portray it in various forms of media, but it’s not for me to consume or to get off on, kind of the same way that lesbian sex doesn’t exist for the pleasure of men, if that makes sense.

For you specifically, you’re 18. You were not so recently underage yourself. This is again a place where the lines get blurry. When I met my husband I was 17 and he was 18. Does that make him a pedophile? No. It’s relative. I’m now 25, so I feel especially uncomfortable encountering smut about characters who are under 18. Hell, I just said the other day I feel slightly creepy for finding Finn Cole (who’s 21) attractive. That’s just my personal line.

At the end of the day, I’m not the arbiter of what is OK and what is not. There are so many factors including age of the consumer, age of the actor, level of sexual explicitness, age of the author, intention of the author, etc., etc., and it’s something that has to be handled safely and carefully. I prefer to err on the side of avoidance. For you, reading about book characters that don’t actually exist and are not portrayed by underage actors and are likely not more than one or two years younger than you canonically is probably not hurting anyone or something to worry about. However, as you said, the further you get away from 18 the more careful you should be and the less of this content you should be consuming. And, the younger the characters you’re reading about are, the more you should be questioning yourself and your interest.

The most important thing is remembering that there are a lot of users on this site who are under 18, and our biggest priority as adults should be making them feel safe and not vulnerable or preyed upon. I don’t ever want anyone to question whether I would do something to make one of my followers feel uncomfortable or threatened. For me, that means avoiding sexual content regarding underage characters. 

If you’re under 18 and you’re writing that content: good for you. This is a time when you’re learning about your sexuality and expressing creativity and all that is good and OK, but it is not for me to consume. If you want to help make that easy for me, tag it appropriately or put it under a cut. If you don’t want to do either of those things, that’s fine, as it’s ultimately the responsibility of the consumer to control what they look at, but you’re running the risk of being blocked by me and therefore hiding all your other nonsexual content from me.

I’m sorry this was long and not very absolute, but unfortunately, this is a difficult subject. If anyone has anything they’d like to add that I missed, or disagrees with something I said here, please feel free to message me or add on. Like I said, my priority is making people feel safe, and I’m still learning the best ways to do that. 

TL;DR:  For an 18-year-old, reading about book characters that don’t actually exist, are not portrayed by underage actors, and are likely not more than one or two years younger than you canonically is probably not hurting anyone or something to worry about. However this is a sensitive topic that requires a lot of care. 

[janiedean]

I think you missed the point about colorism entirely. I agree that yes people on Tumblr often make jokes of very complex issues but like another user I also think the comparison with segregation somewhat ridiculous. I don't think darker Americans wanting a safe space to talk (which to a great extent I also think should be outside of Tumblr) is a problem. Either I did not understand OP or they know nothing about the daily reality of colorism.

*sigh*

guys. when I say ‘people want segregation back’ I mean that whenever you say something like ‘this person isn’t X enough to belong to this group’ or ‘mike c*olter is a traitor because he married a white woman’ you sound exactly like people who say interracial marriage ruins race purity, and saying that different people with different looks or culture shouldn’t mingle is segregationist. 

it’s the literal definition. I’m not talking about HISTORICAL 60s SEGREGATION, I’m saying people talk like segregationists. which is NOT A GOOD THING IF YOU WANNA DO SOCIAL JUSTICE. as someone said once, if in your speech you take out *white* or *lighter skinned* or whatever and substitute *jews* to it and it sounds like nazi critical theory 101 then you might want to reword your speech, because for someone who studied nazi theory 101 since they were nine that shit sounds really fucking wrong and anything that sounds like nazi theory can’t just be excused with cultural relativism.

other than that: no one is denying that colorism exists.

too bad that if you say ‘there’s a problem when it comes to privilege in the US between black people with lighter skin and black people with darker skin and it should be addressed’ it sounds one way, ‘I, a darker skinned black person, need a safe space from lighter skinned black people’ sounds like another IE tumblr dot com drivel that instead of educating people about colorism complains about halle berry not being *black enough* to play storm. and the likes.

now, I’ve had a long conversation about colorism after that post with someone who actually explained me a lot about it that I didn’t know of and I understand how that post might have been taken wrongly (admittedly I assumed the anon was talking about tumblr social justice and if I reply in two lines I can’t be arsed to go into a discourse and like please can we just assume that 90% of the time when I discusse sjws if not otherwise specified it’s PEOPLE ON TUMBLR not real activists) but guess why, wanting a safe space that’s idk a university classroom or your club for AA rights or someplace irl is not the same as declaring a public social network on the internet a safe space. the internet is not a safe space. the internet is democratic because everyfuckingone is allowed to be on it and you can’t ask anyone to leave you alone on tumblr because it’s your ‘safe space’ and not engage in discussion if you posted your thoughts on a blog that’s not password protected or smth. and that’s valid for all of this safe space drivel - everyone thinks that tumblr has to be a safe space these days and most times I see people arguing like IT’S MY SAFE SPACE NO IT’S MINE NO IT’S MINE. the internet is a safe space when you make it so, blacklist and block people and don’t tag posts or whatever. anyone on tumblr going like ‘I’m here because I need a safe space from someone else’ is fighting a losing battle in the first place. putting it in more dumb terms, if someone’s on tumblr because they want a safe space from things they don’t like then they should blacklist that stuff, not complain if they run into their notp or a kink they don’t like or people they don’t like because no one owns the damned internet.

especially on public networks.

we’re talking about tumblr and how social justice works on it (which most of the times is toxic), not about real life 90% of the time.

and that anon sent that ask after I reblogged a post where someone went like ‘I’m from hawaii and if I stood next to you white irish person I’d be the one targeted with racism’, someone replied ‘so if you were with a black person darker than you you wouldn’t be targeted?’ and then the anon informed me they saw the ‘I need a safe space from lighter skinned people’ comment, which given the ridiculousness I see on tumblr I absolutely have no problem believing when it comes to its existence. like. it had a context. and to us people who don’t come from the US and who don’t know the basics of colorism and who don’t get explanations about it from americans or tumblr because most of what we get is the not black enough drivel and not all of us can go around read academical books on the topic in their spare time, seeing someone from the same ethnicity saying that sounds like me saying ‘god I’m from rome and I need a safe space from citizens of milan ew’, as in, to us it makes no sense because of cultural relativism.

now that I discussed it in private with someone else I understand why it makes sense if talking about rl activism when darker skinned people might wanna discuss their discrimination without someone else bumping into it in some occasions but on tumblr especially if you consider yourself an activist that line of thought makes absolutely nothing to make yourself understood by others with a different cultural frame.

because guess what we know a lot about the US but we can’t know everything and we can’t be expected to know everything, and given that US users on this website are really overboard with pushing their narrative on non-US people maybe we’re also tired of having to always write disclaimers about how we’re talking from another point of view and so on.

like, if maybe people actually took some time to write posts about the issue at hand to educate and not insult instead of putting down others to make the point (you’re not X enough, which btw still sounds like nazi critical racial purity theory 101 to me and never will not sound like that) we would know more about it.

but wanting people from different ethnicities or who look different to LIVE SEPARATED or to NOT MARRY or to not have children or the likes is still fucking segregation and it’d be nice if people called it with its name, since there’s enough toxic discourse going around on here and starting to say interracial marriage is wrong for ANY reason is toxic. and while I know the original anon wasn’t mentioning it that’s what I was thinking about while writing down that reply because to *my* conceptualization of things saying you need a *safe space*(on the internet no less) from someone who’s your same ethnicity/social group sounds like the exact same drivel.

like anon I’m not harping at you specifically but can we all just state for one that 99,9% of the time I’m replying with a one-liner to a politics-related ask I’m talking about *tumblr dumb activism* and not about how the problem actually is irl because it’s been years and I’m dead tired of tumblr being tumblr and I can’t write a university paper every time someone asks me about political stuff? because if I had to do it I’d need people to at least buy me coffee every time I reply and especially now that I actually, like, work, I can’t spend all my free time writing explicative papers on everything I get asked about. thank you.

[mikemortgage]

China’s coal project in Serbia adds to climate change worry

KOSTOLAC, Serbia — A foul smell permeates the air in this grey mining town where people rarely open their windows as thick smoke billows from huge chimneys of Serbia’s main coal-fired power station.

Things are to get only worse for residents living close to the Kostolac power plant complex in eastern Serbia which is currently being expanded with a $715 million loan from a Chinese state bank and constructed by one of China’s largest companies.

When U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly withdrew from the Paris agreement on tackling global climate change in 2017, China was seen as the champion in the battle to cut carbon emissions and prevent a global environmental catastrophe.

Experts say that while tackling pollution at home by implementing renewable energy projects and reducing the use of coal, by far the most polluting fossil fuel, China is pursuing a different strategy abroad.

Chinese companies are the world’s largest investors in overseas coal plants. They are involved in the building of about a fifth of new coal-fired energy capacity around the world, mostly in the countries along its ambitious “Belt and Road” investment program which is seen in the West as an attempt by China to globally increase its political and economic influence.

Beijing has issued guidelines on foreign investments, urging environmentally friendly practices. But a major worry is that the guidelines aren’t binding and that the power stations are built mostly in developing states which have low pollution emission standards, or no set standards at all.

“The (Chinese) central government explicitly stipulated that all Belt and Road Initiative projects should be green and low-carbon projects,” China’s special representative for climate change affairs, Xie Zhenhua, said in Beijing. “Therefore, all projects underway introduced the most advanced technology to save resources and energy, and do its utmost to ensure emission reduction.”

Huang Wei, a Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner, said that China has “coal overcapacity” at home, so the market space for coal power companies “is shrinking a lot,” prompting Chinese construction companies to seek lucrative deals abroad.

“China is on the right track of fulfilling its domestic commitment on reducing carbon emissions. But its plan to invest in the ‘Belt and Road’ countries, especially infrastructure, could have a potentially big climate impact,” she said.

“So far they (the Chinese government) define ‘green’ as complying with local environmental standards, and we don’t think that’s enough because a lot of the recipient countries have very low environmental standards. So I think it’s up to China, both China and the recipient countries to lift the standard,” Huang said.

Experts say that the Paris agreement goals can only be met by cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050.

But the Paris deal let countries set their own emissions targets. Some are on track, others aren’t. Overall, the world is heading the wrong way.

Last week, the World Meteorological Organization said globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide reached a new record in 2017, while the level of other heat-trapping gases such as methane and nitrous oxide also rose.

This year is expected to see another 2-per cent increase in human-made emissions, as construction of coal-fired power plants, like the one in Serbia, continue while carbon-absorbing forests are felled faster than they can regrow.

Chinese construction workers wearing hard hats are building a huge chimney for the new “Kostolac B” Serbian power plant, which will be fueled by the light brown variety called lignite — considered to be among the most heavily polluting fossil fuels. It produces huge amount of ash that has to be carefully deposited on vast fields with water sprinklers to prevent the dust from being blown into the atmosphere or the nearby Danube.

Serbian state power company EPS says the new 350 megawatt unit, to be operational by 2020, will meet the highest environmental standards. More than 70 per cent of Serbia’s energy comes from coal while the rest is from hydro power.

“What is very important to emphasize is that we are doing this project absolutely in accordance with European standards and Serbian laws,” said Zeljko Lazovic, the plant’s EPS project manager.

Energy analyst Misha Brkic said Serbia’s government “is making a crucial mistake” by insisting on the use of coal as fuel for the production of electricity instead of focusing on renewable energy.

“The chosen (Chinese) partner does have money and offers technology, but we as a country that wants to build power plants or renew and modernize the existing ones, we don’t have enough experience and knowledge and sometimes also not enough sense for European standards.”

China Machinery Engineering Corporation, which is expanding the plant, has refused to comment despite repeated requests.

Residents living near the Kostolac plant say that most of the pollution comes from the lignite ash field and the open-pit mine that will expand even further when the new plant starts production.

“When we wash our laundry, we leave it to dry and then in three days you see how white laundry becomes black laundry,” said Dejan Grujic, a local resident. “When winds are strong, it is a catastrophe.”

——

Dake Kang and Liu Zheng contributed to this story from Beijing.

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[starwarsdc]

A Fandom Divided: a fractured fandom in the wake of The Last Jedi

This week in class, we discussed fandoms as a cultural group in general. We read and discussed the ways in which society’s views and attitudes towards fans have changed (or not) over the 20th and into the 21st century. We were asked to think about what it might mean for people create the distinction of “real fans” versus “casual fans” or “fake fans.”  We were also prompted to think more deeply about the relationship(s) a creator has with the created work and the people who experience that work. To what degree does a creator “own” their creation, and to what degree does a work belong to the fans? These are all questions I will be considering as we prepare to watch The People Versus George Lucas (There will probably be one or two blog posts on this film alone). On this blog, I am not going to offer my own thoughts as to what or who constitutes a “real fan” of Star Wars. Instead, I’ll look at the SW fandom’s various responses to TLJ. 

The negative backlash against The Last Jedi has been well documented. Many people are aware of the negative and complex response to this film, but do not understand why this backlash exists. I’ve heard fans say they like the film as a standalone movie, but not as a SW movie. I’ve heard them say they don’t like it, that they hate it, that they love it, that they didn’t understand it. Rather than link to a whole host of reviews and posts from individual tumblrs, I’m using this Vox article to summarize the different reasons for the negative response. (I’m only quoting portions of the article, not the entire thing, so if you’re interested in reading more about this topic, please follow the link to the full article) 

1. Too much progressivism: In the early going of the backlash, this was the easy culprit to point to. The broad strokes of the Last Jedi response sure looked like the broad strokes of Gamergate or the backlash to the all-female Ghostbusters remake. And there are lots and lots of tweets and user reviews and responses that focus on the idea that the film’s strongest characters are almost all women, who usually know the right thing to do, while its most evil characters are white men with complexes about being given what they think they deserve. . . . 

The Last Jedi is more or less a metaphorical depiction of the baby boomer generation (a generation that featured a lot of white dudes — good and bad — in positions of power) handing off leadership roles to younger generations, particularly millennials, who tend to be more racially diverse and to advocate having more women in positions of power. The series’ millennial good guys are a young white woman, a black man, a woman of Asian descent, and a Latino man, while its millennial bad guys are two white dudes.

But saying there’s a lot of cultural anxiety around this particular generational handoff is an understatement. And when you consider that Star Wars fandom has long been presided over by white guys, it’s natural this would lead to angry policing over what Star Wars is and isn’t. And that policing can be ugly and lead to toxic fandoms in which people who aren’t white men don’t feel comfortable.

2. The jokes are too jokey: Of the “nitpicky” complaints, this is the most nitpicky, in that plenty of fans don’t like The Last Jedi’s sense of humor. And to be sure, the film has its share of broad jokes, which seem to be written in comic idioms that are slightly more modern than the original trilogy’s more vaudevillian style. . . .  A lot of people who found Last Jedi too jokey also made subsequent tweets where they compared something in Last Jedi unfavorably to something in the prequel trilogy.

3. The movie is uninterested in fan theories: And even if you can get with the new trilogy’s ideas about how things ended up after Jedi, then The Last Jedi spends a lot of its running time telling you that a lot of the things fans have obsessed about since The Force Awakens was released just didn’t matter.The 2015 film was directed by J.J. Abrams, who never met a mystery he couldn’t tease. But Johnson immediately quashed many of those mysteries in Last Jedi. Who was Snoke? Who were Rey’s parents? Who cares, The Last Jedi ultimately concludes.Rey is impressive because of who she is, and Snoke is just a distraction from the real villain, who turns out to be Kylo Ren, who’s all the more terrifying because of his ultimate choice to embrace evil. But these storytelling choices weight the characters’ choices more heavily than their destiny, and if you spent a lot of time over the past two years trying to prove that, say, Rey is a Kenobi, well, you might find yourself disappointed at the casual disposal of something that seemed so important to the last film.

[note: I personally think the response of this kind is more serious than “uninterested in fan theories” would imply. Many fans, including myself, find fault in the film because it fails to follow the natural progression and plot arc established by its predecessor, The Force Awakens. Many of the issues, conflicts, and character arcs are simply ignored, openly contradicted, or not resolved.]

4. Individual plot lines/moments don’t make sense: How does Benicio Del Toro’s character know a very important piece of information late in the film? You can hand-wave this away, but it takes a couple of logic leaps to do so*.) This is especially true of the film’s pacing, with Rey’s Jedi training seeming to take months, while everything else in the movie takes place over a matter of hours.The most common complaint in this regard is that Finn and Rose’s journey to the casino planet of Canto Bight is a slow, pointless distraction from the more immediately involving plots involving Rey and Poe, one that gums up the middle of the movie and doesn’t amount to anything in terms of the plot. And I can certainly see this, since the Finn/Rose plot nearly lost me the first time I watched the film. . . . 

Ultimately, these sorts of plot holes and storytelling choices are of less interest to critics, who tend to focus more on a film’s craft and its themes, than fans, who like to pick apart the nitty-gritty details of a movie. And I’d argue that almost all of the so-called “plot holes” fans have brought up are ultimately explained away within the film, or justified by how they play into the movie’s overall storytelling structure. It’s rare in this film that a setup doesn’t have a payoff and vice versa. But they’re not always where you’re looking for them, and that can lead to confusion and consternation.

5. The characters’ journeys aren’t what was expected: This is probably the fan critique with the most meat to it. But it’s also, ultimately, the one that has the most personal spin on it. Do you think that Rey’s journey in the film shows the slow dawning of her realization that she has agency in and of herself and doesn’t need it to be given to her (as I do), or do you think it silos her off in the middle of a plot that takes her movie from her? Do you think that Luke Skywalker is an old man who learns a lesson about aging and wisdom, or a cranky cynic who never would have become what he is? Do you think the movie is optimistic about the future, or unable to compete with the wonders of the past? 

What’s interesting about the critiques of The Last Jedi is how often, when you talk about them, many of the above criticisms fall away, and you’re left with a distinct philosophical difference between people who love the film’s insistence that the future can be better if we make it and those who don’t like the way it forces us to grapple with the sins of the past, with the way it argues the Rebellion might have won at the end of Return of the Jedi, but it largely upheld the status quo.

Or consider the way that the film seems as if it’s largely left behind the central Force Awakens trio of Poe, Finn, and Rey — who are split up into three separate plot lines in Last Jedi — in favor of more focus on Kylo Ren’s journey through his own indecision toward something darker and more foreboding, as well as Luke’s journey from cynicism back to hope. I don’t think this is a terribly accurate read of the film, where all three characters get full, complicated character arcs and are tested in interesting ways, but if you really keyed in on, say, Finn and Rey’s interplay in Force Awakens, I get the disappointment.

This philosophical difference of opinion extends to none other than Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself. While Hamill has turned into one of the film’s biggest boosters, he’s made no secret of the fact that he disagreed considerably with Johnson’s vision for the character. (For his part, Johnson took Hamill’s criticisms to heart and changed certain things about Luke’s arc — though we don’t know what.)

Van der Werff comes to the conclusion that “The Last Jedi is Act 2 of a story about letting go of the past and embracing the future. Maybe it was destined to be divisive.” He explains: 

The Last Jedi is about this tension, about the ways that generations uneasily give way to other generations and the ways we all learn to accept that our parents (or parental figures) sometimes have the right answers and sometimes don’t. It’s a big, bold, complex film, full of contradictory notes, a little like Empire was. I suspect, in time, it will age just as satisfactorily, but it’s also possible I’m wrong. Loving it means letting go, just a little bit, of some rosy past and embracing a future that might lead to disappointment.The people we were aren’t always the people we become, and that’s both a necessary lesson and a bitter disappointment, but you can’t become yourself without learning to live alongside that discomfort. And now there’s a Star Wars movie about that very dilemma, right when we all might need it most.