#when real life racism is a lot more subtle than that most of the time

[bandedbulbussnarfblat]

one thing i think the fandom fails to acknowledge is lestat's racism. like, no, he does literally think black are beneath him. he's not nazi racist, he's just regular racist. like in the way he refuses to try to see how race very much has an impact in the way louis lives. he just assumes that as a vampire, he's beyond that. and refusing to acknowledge that doesn't just make him a shitty boyfriend, it's racist. bc race literally affects every aspect of a person's life. it's racist the same way those 'color-blind' people are racist.

[yourlocalbreadenthusiast]

Kindly take a break from scrolling to read this, it's important.

Take your time to grieve and come to terms with the election results, but once you've done that, it's time to get to work. We have two months. And a lot to do in that time. We have to prepare, to be ready.

Be careful about what you post or say online. Anything potentially incriminating should be avoided. Threatening language, even if clearly a joke, can be used against you.

Know someone who's trans? Someone who's had an abortion? Someone who's LGBTQIA+? Someone who's an immigrant? Someone who attends protests? Someone who's disabled? Someone who might in any way be at risk due to laws being put into place? No you don't.

Move away from social media platforms and browsers that require you to use your real identity or input a large amount of personal information. Now's a good time to find alternate means of communicating online. Tails, Element, Tor, Mastodon, Firefox, and Lemmy are all decent options.

Find a community. Someone you can talk to, either online or in real life, that you'll have reliable contact with. We need to try and create a network, but one that's as anonymous as possible.

Start scrubbing your trail as much as possible. Get rid of old accounts that can still be traced to you but are no longer used, delete personal data off the internet. There are websites out there that will freely remove your data from the internet, but be careful about which one you use, make sure it's safe and legitimate first.

Change any usernames that you can that contain any personal information. Names, birthdays, anything.

Plan B has a four year shelf life. Stock up, but don't take more than you you'll need. We don't want a COVID repeat where everyone buys an excessive amount of things and leaves none for everybody else.

There are doctors that will sterilize you, if that's the way you want to go.

Stop using online period trackers right now. Delete all data from it if possible first, then delete the app itself. If you must, write it down, but in a subtle manner and on something you keep at home. Don't label it, just put the dates. If you're really worried, discard older records and only keep the most recent few, and label the dates as other random events, like "go to mall" or "chicken salad for dinner this night"

Get your vaccines now.

Save money.

Archive. We have to start collecting records, media, data, books, and articles now. On racism, on fascism, on homophobia, on gender, on self-reliance, on survival, on safe travels routes, on equality, on justice, on anything that may be useful and/or censored soon. We can't let them erase it.

Collect those online resources. Bookmark them, copy files into your storage, Screenshot pages. Create a decentralized library where everyone is working to be part of a whole, storing what they can individually and sharing it between one another. Again, be careful about doing this.

Second-hand bookstores are your best friend. Books are usually very cheap in them, and they often have a decent stock. See what you can find.

When buying ANYTHING I have mentioned above, or anything else that maybe put you in danger, try to use cash to reduce your spending trail.

Check your car information online, many newer models can be remotely tracked.

Turn your phone completely off if you may be at risk due to your location and current activities. Turning off your GPS also helps.

Take note of where you are. Who are your friends? Who's a safe person? Where can you go besides your own home that you know you'll be safe? Establish these connections now.

Who around you is not safe? Who and where do you need to avoid? Do you need to move? If you cannot afford moving but need to, there are fundraisers that can help you. If even that is not an option, at least try to make sure your home is secure. Have someone who can help you. Have a fallback safe place.

And finally, I want anyone with resources to put them in the replies. Flood it with useful links, information, tips, anything. We're in this together. Do not panic. Organize.

EDIT: Please be civil in the replies.

[perfectlyvalid49]

Hello, I am not Jewish, but I grew up in an area with a noticeable population of Jews who, historically, were able to be openly Jewish. I learned from a young age about the horrors that have happened to your people throughout history, and have been disgusted by the rise in more blatant antisemitism that has reared its ugly head in the days and months since October 7th, a day which also horrified and disgusted me. I have also long considered myself to be pro-Israel, seeing the neccessity for Jewish self-determination in this world.

With my background out of the way, I saw one of your posts mentioned things we non-Jews might not notice are antisemitic due to it being part of our culture and what not, and I was hoping you could tell me some of them? I've detested antisemitism for as long as I can remember, so if I've been unintentionally doing anything that fits that, I would like to stop. Thank you and have a nice day.

I want to start by saying that I really appreciate the fact that you’re trying, and that you want to learn to do better in case you’re making any mistakes. I am a firm believer that EVERYONE has blind spots when it comes to how they treat members of minority groups, be it antisemitism, racism, homophobia, or whatever else, and that while intent isn’t all that matters, it matters a lot. While I’m answering your question, I’m going to cover some stuff you may already know based on the background you gave in the hopes that this answer will be useful for other people as well. I hope you don’t mind.

I also want to put a couple caveats on what I’m about to say. The first is that this is not a comprehensive list. It’s just whatever came to mind while I was typing this up. I’m sure I’ve missed things, but hopefully this gives you an idea of the kind of thing I was talking about. If anyone sees this and wants to add additional examples, please do!

The other caveat is that different Jews will have different definitions of what is and is not antisemitic. The big obvious stuff, like people chanting “Gas the Jews,” or accusations that Jews use the blood of Christian children to bake their bread, almost everyone is going to agree that’s antisemitic. The more subtle stuff, which is what we’re going to be talking about here, is more likely to prompt disagreement. For example, last year there was a lot of conversation on Tumblr about how the goblins in the Harry Potter game were an antisemitic caricature. The reaction from Jews I know in real life basically boiled down to, “Yeah, I guess I can see it. I don’t really think it’s that big of a deal though.” So, some of the stuff I mention, other Jews might disagree that it’s antisemitic. And there are some things that I might leave out because I don’t think they’re antisemitic that other Jews think really are antisemitic. That’s OK!

I think that if we’re going to talk about antisemitism that is present in Western culture, then we need to talk about the antisemitism that’s baked into Christianity, and acknowledge that because a lot of Western culture has been heavily influenced by the church, even if a person is not religiously Christian, if they are culturally Western, then Christianity has had a large impact on their culture, and we can say that they are culturally Christian. And if this post gets big, I know that I’m going to get murdered for that statement, but that’s ok, there’s nothing Christians love more than a crucified Jew (THIS IS A JOKE (mostly.)) I don’t know if you’re Christian or not, but I live in the US, and most people here are heavily influenced by Christian thought and philosophy without realizing it, even if they’re not Christian, and these are the people I was talking about when I made the comment that prompted the ask.

So how is antisemitism baked into Christianity? Well, to understand that, we need to understand some of the problems early Christianity had, namely, the fact that the Jews of the time rejected their beliefs and the fact that Rome persecuted early Christians pretty hard. And we also need to talk about Supersessionism.

Early Christians had a major issue with contemporaneous Jews because the Jews rejected their teachings. Like, Jesus and his followers were Jews, and after his death they wanted all other Jews to agree that he was the messiah, even though he didn’t do all the things the Jewish messiah was supposed to do. This is both why Christianity has the second coming (so that he can do those things) and why the New Testament opens with a genealogy linking Jesus to David (the messiah is supposed to be from the line of David), the early Christians were *desperate* for legitimacy in their new religion. And when the rest of the Jewish community rejected it, they got a little mad, and decided that Christians clearly understand Jewish holy texts better than Jews do (up to and including editing said texts to better support their views), something that persists to this day. I have actually seen Christians show up on posts about being Jewish and try to explain to the Jews about how we’re wrong about our own religion. This is absolutely antisemitism, and it does really happen.

The other thing early Christians decided is that the Jews have been presented with the true word of G-d and have rejected it, so they must be evil. This is true of the early Christians, but I also want to stress that almost every major player in the Protestant Reformation absolutely HATED Jews. Luther literally published a treatise entitled “On the Jews and Their Lies”, and some scholars think that there is a direct line between Luther’s hatred of Jews and the formation of the Nazi party. I think Luther was the worst of them, but none of those guys were cool with Jews, so just know that all of the protestant denominations were founded by guys who would kill me if they could.

Because the Jews were now considered evil, the Christians concluded that the covenant G-d had made with the Jews now applied to the Christians. Now, in Christian thought, they were the Chosen People, and the Jews were no longer so blessed. This is the premise behind supersessionism, and it basically posits that Christians have replaced Jews as the true people of Israel, and it was embraced by many of the men who shaped what Christianity is today, in virtually every denomination of Christianity that exists.

The early Christians dealt with their Roman persecution problem by allying themselves with the Romans. One might think that this would be difficult, as the Romans are very much the bad guys in the new testament. Like, the guys who arrested Jesus were Roman, and following Rome’s orders, Pilate was Roman, and the men who put Jesus on the cross were Roman. So how could Christianity ally with the people who killed Jesus? Well, it’s simple, they were already mad at the Jews for rejecting their new religion, so they would claim that all of that was the Jews’ fault so the Romans could be allied with for political power. And Rome didn’t like the Jews anyway, so they loved it when the Christians threw the Jews under the bus.

So, a lot of cultural antisemitism has its basis here, with this idea that Jews are not like the rest of us, they’re somehow worse (“the rest of us” meaning people in Christian cultures). And while a lot of it has turned into more overt antisemitism (“Jews killed Jesus,” Jews kill Christian children for their blood to make bread/matzoh, Jews control money/media/government). But this also turns into things like sermons about the evils of the Pharisees or praising Jesus for the cleansing of the Temple. How is that antisemitic? Well, the Pharisees are the fathers of modern Judaism, so if their evil, then the modern version of our religion is based on the thoughts of evil men. Jesus’s cleansing of the Temple was, from a Jewish perspective, a story about a man deciding that the systems that Jews established to make worship easier should be taken away. Praising that is praising the disruption of Jewish worship.

And on the other end of things, we have people (mostly Christians, but some not), who are in love with the idea of Jews, but not actual Jews. In non-Christians, this looks like people with the opinion “Christians suck, but the Jews are cool.” As an example, I had a guy show up on one of my posts to let me know that he used to hold Jews in high regard because he thought our culture would make us immune from nationalism and far-right ideologies. He was so disappointed in us when we behaved just like other groups of human beings. And while he said that he had thought well of us, he still thought of us as being not like other human cultures – that’s antisemitic. And being mad at us for acting like other humans? That’s antisemitic too.

In Christians, it usually looks like people saying “We love Jews, Jesus was a Jew!” This implies that the only reason to love Jews is because of a relation to a deity we don’t believe in. It ignores real, live Jews in favor of people who if real, have been dead for 2000 years, and makes it seem like our only value is that you like one guy from a very different version of our culture (modern Judaism is VERY different than what Jews contemporary with Jesus would have practiced). These people are also the ones who are most likely to try to connect with Judaism through cultural appropriation. The most common example of this is churches that hold a “Passover Seder.” Judaism is a mostly closed religion, and our holidays are not for other people to play dress up. Like, imagine if a church in the US said it was going to do a Native American ceremony with no Native American input, and you have an idea of the level of cultural appropriation. And people would rightly call that out as not ok, but churches do this all the time. The excuse that they use is that the last supper was a Seder, but while that may be true, the modern seder, which is what most churches try to do, is not how Jesus would have celebrated in the time of the Temple. So, their reasoning doesn’t hold much water, Jews tend to be pretty clear that it’s not ok as far as we’re concerned, so this behavior is very problematic.

Moving on from Christianity, there’s also stuff that has been around so long we’ve forgotten their antisemitic origins. I mentioned goblins at the start of this, but did you know that witches are also based on antisemitic stereotypes? The green skin, the big nose, the hat which matches hats Jews were required to wear in parts of medieval Europe, the magic received from a deal with the devil – these are all heavily based on antisemitic caricatures of Jews. And while I don’t think witches by themselves are antisemitic, if you start pairing them with other antisemitic things it gets bad fast. Like, a witch is not antisemitic, and a person kidnapping children is not antisemitic, but a witch kidnapping children is raising some serious red flags. And a cabal (the word cabal is derived from Kabbalah, which is a Jewish practice, and its use is ALSO antisemitic) of witches doing so is a big freaking problem.

Or we could talk about Charles Dickens. His works are considered classics, and are often required reading in school. But Fagin in Oliver Twist is a walking antisemitic Jewish stereotype, and that’s never called out in lesson plans. So to people who have never met a Jew, but have read this classic of English literature, Fagin is what they think of when they think Jews. For the classes with one Jewish kid – how do you think it feels to have everyone in class be like, “Oh you’re Jewish, just like Fagin the bad guy!” Of note, Dickens did write a much less antisemitic Jewish character in a later novel, Our Mutual Friend, but of these two, which one gets taught?

I also want to talk about institutional antisemitism. This is similar to the idea of institutional racism, if you’re familiar with that concept – the idea that racism has worked its way into how our very society is structured, so even if you try very hard to be anti-racist, the society you live in is designed to make life harder for POC. Institutional antisemitism is the same thing, except the system is rigged against Jews instead.

We’ll start with one that Jews and Blacks have in common – redlining. It’s the practice of not allowing people (mostly Black people, but also other POC) to buy houses in certain areas. Usually this was done by banks not giving mortgages to people, but there are also homes where it’s in the deed to the house, or in the by laws of the local HOA that you’re not allowed to sell to Black people. It turns out that some houses/HOAs also have “no Jews allowed” rules as well. And it’s super subtle – is a neighborhood Jew free because we’re an incredibly small portion of the population and just so happen to not live there? Or are they legally barred from living there? It can be hard to tell without doing some significant digging. My synagogue actually had a booth at our Purim carnival last year so that we could see if our neighborhood still had anti-Black housing laws so we could work on getting them changed if so. Solidarity.

There’s also probably some institutional antisemitism in your workplace. There sure as heck is in mine, and the last time I brought it up I was told that I could find work elsewhere if I had an issue with company policy. One of the more common ones it that many jobs that require work on Sundays give a higher rate of pay for that day. The historical reason for that is because Sunday is the Sabbath, and if your company is going to force you to work on the holy day, then they’re going to value that time more highly (my company does an extra dollar an hour for Sunday hours.) But Sunday isn’t the Sabbath for Jews, and when I asked if I could be compensated for my time on MY day of rest, well, see above for the answer I got.

You can also look at the holiday situation. My company is open 357 days a year. Of the 8 days we are closed, one is for Christmas, one is for Easter and one is for New Years on the Christian calendar (It’s the Gregorian calendar after POPE Gregory). Most people don’t work Sundays, so there’s no pay for Easter, but Christmas and New Years are both paid holidays. But the Jewish New Year, which is a religious holiday, is not. Nor are any other Jewish holidays. And we have a lot, and many of them require that you not work if you’re religiously observant. Enough that most people would have to spend their entire allotment of PTO for the year, just to have off for religious observance. You could argue that Christmas and New Years and Easter are federal holidays, except Easter isn’t, and also at my company we aren’t given off for all federal holidays (we’re open for president’s day and MLK day and so on), so you actually kinda do have to defend why these made the cut. Also I’m still waiting for the reason why a Christian holiday is also a Federal holiday in a country that supposedly values the separation of Church and State.

Jews also feel this at school. In college I had a professor schedule a midterm on Yom Kippur – the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, and a holiday that is observed, in part, by not consuming any food or water for 25 hours. I asked if I could take the test on a different day, and my request was denied. I’m sure my school probably had someone I could have talked to about this but I didn’t know that at the time, so I felt like my options were come in to class on a holiday or take a 0% and screw over my grade for the semester. I chose to celebrate as best I could, and duck out of services for an hour and a half to take the test. The professor (in what I’m sure he thought was an act of kindness) had brought several barrels of apples, so that we could each have a snack while we tested. I almost committed murder that day (what, my blood sugar was low enough to be non-existent at that point and I was feeling pretty cranky). And like, I don’t think the professor was trying to be antisemitic. He was trying to be fair by making us all test at the same time, and kind by bringing us a snack. But in effect, he made life much harder for the one Jewish student in his class by refusing an easy accommodation.

And is not being accommodating to Jews antisemitic? Yeah, kinda? It sure feels that way when it seems like your only options are 1) things are shitty because people won’t accommodate you, 2) you have to work extra hard to figure out how to accommodate yourself, or 3) you can stop being Jewish and then everything suddenly is so much easier. Another really common example of this is getting invited to a party, and then none of the food is kosher. Your options are 1) go hungry, 2) bring enough food that’s kosher for yourself and everyone else (otherwise they might eat the kosher stuff and you’re back to 1), or 3) the problem goes away when you stop keeping kosher. And the reason I feel this is antisemitic is that the host is making the space unwelcoming to Jews – you can come, but you’re not gonna like it, so you might as well not come. 

The last thing I want to talk about is treating Jews as white. A person might think that this is a good thing, like it’s granting us access to white privilege, but in reality it’s ignoring our needs as a minority. Claiming that Jews are white ignores that some Ashkenazi and many non-Ashkenazi Jews are definitely not even close to white, and it downplays the real discrimination Jews face. Studies have proven that it’s harder to get hired with a Jewish sounding name, and an article recently came out that said the prosecution was deliberately excluding Jews from juries (this is illegal discrimination) because they were less likely to give the death penalty, as examples. And even for white-passing Jews, the Shoah was very much about how Jews were not white. That was a pretty significant part of the Nazi ideology.

And this becomes an even bigger problem when the people who should want to be allies – other minorities and their white allies deny us the ability to seek help from them. When we talk about the discrimination that we face, we’re very frequently ignored, or told that we’re white and that we don’t know what it’s really like. This is what the left is doing right now when it calls us “oppressors” or “colonizers” – it’s denying our history of being oppressed and our history of being colonized because some of us look like we came from Europe.

Anyway, if you’re still here (I know this is VERY long), I hope this was helpful in understanding some of the ways that antisemitism can be present in small things, from church sermons to pay rates to fairy tales. And I want to be clear, I’d much rather deal with the antisemitic implications of Hansel and Gretel than deal with people chanting “Jews will not replace us.” But in an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to deal with either.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Back to Basics

We started spinning this thread yesterday. Wanted to break it off because honestly, it’s something we could have talked about at any point on our journey. I’m kicking myself for missing this angle. The potential is obviously relevant again here with our Egghead story getting Luffy & Zoro as a discrete pair which naturally opens a lot of room for callbacks to Act 1 of Wano. What I never caught until now is how well that already tied to another key moment for the pair in a way that we’re also seeing rear its head on Egghead. 

If you’re new, one of the most intriguing aspects of Wano in hindsight is how we “bookend” the arc with a not subtle theme. I call it caste. It’s something that made sense for a core theme the first time it came up around Kiku’s introduction...but it quietly falls by the wayside as Wano progresses. Felt relevant but not huge until the end, when Ryokugyu comes back in post-raid echoing the sentiment. Made so much more compelling with the “people who are about to leave” element and Kiku’s conspicuous absence followed by an attitude after reflecting someone who didn’t feel an obligation to go. One of the many points in the arc her silence says more than words.

Obviously this is an interesting element to slip into Wano’s conclusion, especially in this time-bending arc where Kiku consistently finds ways to come off as “ahead of the curve” so to speak. I’ll tell ya, with all I’ve said about Stop!! Hibari-Kun I can never shake one of the “Romance Dawn” type phrases that stick with that series about a perfect trans girl given Kiku’s own matrimonial motif...”Tomorrow’s Bride.” 

This is even more relevant when we’ve seen the same concept pop up in Egghead with Ryokugyu cropping up in Marco’s sidestory. All while in the main plot we’re dealing with a bit of a game centered around a rigid command hierarchy. The challenge yesterday though, where was the other point we had Luffy & Zoro dealing with a story like this? If you said the Celestial Dragons at Sabaody you get credit. Especially with Bonney involved. But that was Luffy & Zoro separately. Where were those two paired up and the villain was espousing naked authority for authority’s sake like this? It’s not the type of arc you’re probably used to thinking about on a deeper level:

Fuckin’ Shell Town and Axe-Hand Morgan. Unjust hierarchies are a common theme in One Piece honestly, but we generally cloak it in something like racism. Fitting because that’s usually how you would see it in real life. Or we deal with secondary effects. It’s actually pretty rare to strip it down to something so...pure in its villainy though. We do it big at the start, we hammer it in strongly around the halfway point, Wano slips it in to kick off a story that might feel quiet but will stay our most consistent thread through the arc. 

Crazy thing though, I never really thought to give Shell Town much of a second look. Always one of the parts I’d rush through on the rare occasion I really wanted to sit down and revisit East Blue. Being honest if I wanna do that I tend to just watch Episode of EB. Sure it was early and a lot of the series was still defining itself...but this was it showing off what it was about. Setting the tone, and I don’t think it gets near enough credit for how well we’ve stuck to a story that starts with Luffy, Zoro, & Axe-Hand Morgan. Seriously, if you never have go give it a serious look from that perspective. Whether the Tennryubito were planned or not, looking back I can’t unsee Morgan as someone likely motivated by them. Demanding tribute, a big vanity project, it’s spot on. Someone who saw a small bubble he could claim that power and took it. 

It’s not just the “caste” or rank theme, I know we talked a little about Bakura Town feeling like an alternate universe Orange Town. I think there’s something there. The lion and acro”bat” work their way in, but admittedly it always felt a little loose. Shell Town though? Go look if you don’t remember. You have this clever little “goading” scene with Koby, the big element of sussing out Zoro because of his “demonic” reputation. Rika and our first example of how this series approaches food, hell that being where Luffy realized Zoro was a good guy. That little intro mini arc in Wano does end up feeling a lot like a chopped and screwed Shell Town...with Zoro taking Koby’s place. Remember, he’s the “screwup” in Act 1. The lesson of The Crane Returns a Favor is not pressing people on their secrets. I’ve always maintained this is why he falls off and fate makes him repeat the story with the more blatant Yasu/Ebisu while Luffy & Kiku’s story moves ahead into a big, unplanned coup for the alliance. Fittingly with Chopper who was much more hurt by his reputation as a monster in Drum. Which...in and of itself is one of the arcs that gets blunt about this overarching message and potentially alluded to Wano with Hililuk’s sakura trees. Not to mention being the first place we bring up Ace, Blackbeard, and Reverie.

Even if it’s just “recruiting” her in the sense of finding one of the Akazaya, Kiku’s the famous “demon” in Wano. Luffy and Zoro are the nobodies at that point for the first time since East Blue. But in the grand scheme of things, you’re left wondering if that reputation is what she was trying to avoid. She never divulges it on her own, and for all the hidden connections Luffy’s flat-out enamored with the girl he just met. Regardless of what the purpose was, it still feels really significant to me we took the time to do that as Wano started. The way it bookends our main story and of course how Izo factors in certainly makes it feel like a plotline intended to transcend Wano. 

[lorz-ix]

Time for another "I was bored this summer so I binged an entire horror series" post

As with the Saw one, I'll keep my thoughts on each entry as brief as possible, since these tend to take a while to write. Also trying to avoid spoiling stuff as much as I can, since that would ruin the point of making recommendations.

The Purge (2013)

When discussing this series, this is pretty much the only one people broadly tolerate. The premise is very easy to understand: the very conservative US government has instituted a "yearly national holiday" during which all crime, with a few extreme exceptions, is made legal for 12 hours. The subtext isn't subtle at all, it's obvious that the government is using this event as a scapegoat to avoid addressing broader social issues. Violent crime is supposedly kept under control because people "relieve their violent feelings" once a year, they don't have to care about poor people and welfare since they're massacred during every purge, as the primary targets of the violence.

It's a very clear satire of how conservatives turn a blind eye to these issues in real life, how they justify violence when it benefits them and the gun lobby, how they're classist as hell, how this classism manifests as racism since it disproportionately affects minorities. You might think the messaging isn't that smart, but I think it's neat, and it's used as pretty cool background for a decent thriller here.

The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

Extremely simple. Do you think you would enjoy some worldbuilding after watching the previous movie? Do you care about the plot of the movie itself, "lore" aside, being super generic? Do you want the political messaging to get even more explicit? Then you might enjoy this.

I really mean it, it's a very nothing movie unless you're the kind of fan who cares about questions being answered rather than following an interesting story.

A nugget of worldbuilding I really like though? The government knows most people don't want to go out there and kill each other or commit crimes for fun, so they manufacture violent incidents to make it look like the purge works. Really makes you think...

The Purge: Election Year (2016)

Hmmmmmm I wonder if the year this came out and that subtitle are related...

A slightly more interesting affair than Anarchy, they at least have some strong stakes in this story. We mainly follow an opposition candidate to the presidency who's rising in popularity and wants to get rid of the purge. We understand that the holiday, despite everything, is very unpopular, but the current government will enlist the help of neo-nazis to get rid of the opposition. The satire is reaching new levels of unsubtlety and I honestly kinda love it.

What I don't love is the implication that winning an election is all it takes to get rid of the problem, along with other milquetoast soy latte liberal takes. Black liberation groups are generally painted in a positive light in the series, but it feels somewhat dishonest when the savior is a white girlboss. Truly a very 2016 movie.

The First Purge (2018)

That first teaser poster was somehow even more 2016 than the previous flick, holy Jesus Christ this is very funny.

I feel pretty much the same as I did with Anarchy. Generic flick, focuses a lot on disadvantaged, african american communities, makes very similar points to the ones we saw before. If again, the "lore" is your thing, this prequel might be of interest, otherwise you can skip it.

The Forever Purge (2021)

Shit, finally something interesting, I thought. This story starts off in a previously unseen setting, a southern town. We get to see the prejudiced relationships between mexican immigrants and wealthy white americans. The premise said "the purgers want to keep the massacre going after it's over", so I thought it meant "banning the purge didn't work", which is the point I wanted to see. But no, we learn very early on that the original party simply won the elections and re-instated the holiday, which is a way more underwhelming way of getting there. The purgers simply don't want the holiday to be over after 12 hours, and somehow things devolve into an uncontrollable nation-wide riot.

Is it more interesting and a bit scarier than most previous entries? Yeah, a bit. Does it bring new possibilities to the table? Yes, sure. Are the added analogies for immigration in this franchise's universe kinda neat? I guess. Does that make for a good movie? Not really. It's, once again, rather generic and forgettable once the actual conflict fully explodes. I really do like these for what they try to say and how explicitly they do so. I wish more movies had these levels of ridiculous, yet more or less adequate political satire.

The Purge (TV series, season 1, 2018)

10 episodes, lads. They're 1 hour long each. Watching this thing would take you longer than all of the movies combined, and let me tell ya, it's not worth it.

Starts off promising enough, it shows us more insight into the religious cults that grew around the purge for example, and that's properly disturbing, but after a while the story stops being intriguing. You quickly realize you're watching another generic bunch of characters go through a mostly forgettable series of perils. Yet again, an interesting world did not make for an interesting story in the slightest. These things aren't even that awful, they're just painfully bland.

The Purge (TV series, season 2, 2019)

Just like S1, it's 10 episodes and they're all one hour long. But thank god, finally this time they had a set of ideas that felt worth watching.

For the first and only time, the story focuses on what happens after the purge is over. How people get traumatized by the violent events. How pro-purge nutjobs eat up and spread propaganda all year round. What happens if shocking acts of violence do happen outside of those 12 hours? What happens if someone tries to kill you during the purge and they fail? How do you cope with the idea that someone wants you dead and no one would do a thing about it because it would have been legal and normal to kill you?

I think that focus on trauma and how the purge affects the psychology of every single person makes for some actually compelling characters for once. Finally, we get a story where we're not completely sure of what will happen next. It's probably not that great in the grand scheme of things, but god dammit, they finally made something remotely worthwhile with this franchise.

[jean008]

yes there is a visual difference with ceelia and nichols in real life and a lot on the show.

ceelia is not presented as feminine. that is a lie. she has the most masculine hair cut that is very unflattering to her face. majority of women can not rock a buzz near bald hair cut this is why majority of women regardless of their race are not bald looking.

Additionally, Ceelia is physically no where near as attractive as Nichols and the creators are not even trying to make up for this issue. in star trek, uhura is meant to be a very physically attractive character, that is the very first thing you notice about her when you see her by sight. it has been explored in comics, books and novels.

go watch the seires, when Lincoln visit the enterprise, his first reaction to uhura was to call her charming....which is another word of a beautiful woman. in the books, Savik, a vulcan is surprised that a human female could be so attractive when she sees uhura for the first time. in the alternate reality movies, uhura is describe as having a gorgeous face.

Ceelia's Uhura is presented the way she is in SNW, because the shows creators are ran by crazy feminists that dont like male gaze.

This is physically not cute in a romantic or love interest way. this is how you remove the male gaze from a character that was known for her good looks.

go watch many youtube videos, especially in video games. there is a crazy feminist agenda to make women look more ugly , because crazy feminists want women to not be defined by their looks and SNW has applied this agenda with Uhura. my point is they are wrong in doing it with Uhura.

anyone that looks this picture of Celia and say she looks as physically beautiful or desirable to the male audience as Saldana and Nichols in telling a big lie.

Uhura is meant to be pretty, her beauty was a very important trait and a big deal for black women represented in mainstream media SNW has removed that from the series. it is so jarring that it almost takes you out when you watch the show.

Also on the show ceelia styling (hair and make up) is poor and it makes her look worse. her buzz hair style, shapeless uniform and the manly bulky cloths makes her look masculine and butch.

TOS Uhura never looked like this.

About ethan peck spock. i will say they sort of improved on him with looks. I have heard girls say, peck is hot. i have never heard any guy say ceelia uhura is hot because she is not.

Peck I will say is maybe more handsome than Nimoy and Peck at least is tall and does not look all that too different from Nimoy that is takes out of the series as ceelia does. ceelia has zero resemblance to nichols. if the series was not pushing a secret agenda to make uhura non-binary in a subtle way and removing the male gaze., they would have cast an actress that at least had some similarities to nichols. many shows often find it easy to cast younger actors in prequels.

The real racism is that it is when the creators of the series did not want fans to see uhura as pretty anymore, they chose a dark skin actress who also claims to be a man. that is the real racism here, not me. I am black and as a black person, we know the agenda going on with hollywood and black women.

hollywood wants to masculise black girls, make us undesirable, make all of us gay by default because no men should aspire to want us based on physical attraction.

hollywood has an agenda to destroy black women while keeping the white pretty girl hierarchy. hollywood wants black girls to be strong, manly, independent and not need a man. that agenda is rejected heavily in the black community, yet they continue to push it down out throats in mainstream white america.

if you think i am wrong can you name me on black classic led tv show, where the young black girl is usually presented as masculine, bald or androgynous or not desirable to boys? name a classic black tv show. The Cosby Show? Family Matters? My wife and kids? A different world? Martin? The Jeffersons? Fresh prince of bel-air? Moesha? Sister Sister?

most young black teen girls or young youths in the black series I mentioned always looked like disney princesses and guys loved them for their good looks also.

trust me, ceelia looking the way she looks in snw. she will never have been cast in a black led tv series that is meant to appeal to black people or young black girls. so why present her that way in snw?

the real racist are snw creators not us fans asking why they made uhura ugly.

Wake up to the agenda. this is the real meaning of staying WOKE

Uhura hate vs Concerned fans? Who is really winning?

In response to SNW Uhura hate, I will like to address this objectively and logically.

1. Admitting it is wrong to hate or bully ceelia gooding.

2. Also saying she is miscast in the role of Uhura. 

I do not condone any hate or racism to any actor. Nonetheless I do believe some actor are not right for a part or sometimes actors are miscast deliberately for a part to push an agenda.

The very first time I saw the promo for snw, I was shocked at the Uhura photos as I could not truly tell if that was meant to be a boy or a girl. having to now accept that, this is meant to be a young Nyota felt too far-fetched.

We should not condone hate. However fans also need space to express genuine  concerns. I do NOT believe that the majority of people that say Ceelia Gooding is miscast hate her. they don’t just think she is right for the role and I agree.

SNW will never have cast a  Danny DeVito or a Jason Alexander actor in the role as Spock. They also would never have cast a Rosie O'Donnell as T-Pring or Chapel or Una. I love all these actors but they will be 100% wrong for some trek roles. This is the same with Ceelia Gooding as Uhura, an actress who may also be undergoing gender hormone therapy as a non-binary actor. It makes sense that Uhura looks very androgynous on the show, she is played by a non binary actor.

Sometimes even with racism, some actors still fit the part that could not be denied. Look at Halle Bailey, despite not been white she was still a perfect casting of Ariel in the little mermaid. This is not the case with Ceelia Gooding. There is nothing about her that is similar to TOS Uhura or what made Uhura Iconic.



Alright friend, you caught me on a day when I've got some extra time and spoons so I'm gonna try and engage with your message under the assumption of good faith (but to be clear, with all due respect, framing your message as "objective" and "logical" is giving big dogwhistle energy...)

Quick piece of context setting, I'm mostly familiar with Star Trek media through social osmosis and not personally watching the movies or tv shows, but I would say I'm familiar enough for a general conversation. I also did about 30min of additional research to double check my info but if I get some details wrong, that's why.

For anyone unfamiliar, Strange New Worlds (SNW) is a prequel to the original series of Star Trek (TOS) so they feature a handful of the same characters.

Now, you say there is "nothing about [Celia Gooding] that is similar to TOS Uhura or what made Uhura iconic." I think there's plenty about Gooding that is similar to Nichelle Nichols/TOS Uhura. They are both black, they are both relatively femme presenting, neither is visibly physically disabled, and they are pretty close to the same height (5ft5in vs 5ft8in). So then are you upset that SNW Uhura wears her hair short? Or are you upset that she wears pants and a tunic style jacket as her standard costume rather than sheer tights and a dress that barely covers her butt?

As an aside, "iconic" is a wholly subjective category but I don't disagree that Uhura is an iconic character. That being said, since you point out that quality, if you're up for sharing, I'm curious what you think made TOS Uhura iconic that is so different with SNW Uhura.

To quickly address your counter example, sure, if Danny Devito were cast in a prequel role to Leonard Nimoy's Mister Spock, that would strain credulity. But let me ask you this -- do you *really* see the same level of difference between the visual presentation of Danny Devito vs Leonard Nimoy and Celia Gooding vs Nichelle Nichols? Really? Let me grab a few pictures just to be sure we're all seeing the same people...

(image description: two photos, both featuring two men standing side by side; on the left is Danny Devito, a shorter heavy-set man, with George Clooney, a much taller and slim man; on the right is Leonard Nimoy with Jim Parsons, they are both tall and slim /end id)

(image description: two photos, both featuring femme-presenting individuals standing alone and looking into the camera; the one on the left is wearing a silky red ball gown with a deep-v neckline that shows off their boobs, they are wearing light makeup and some jewelry and their dark hair is buzzed short; the one on the right is wearing a glittery gold ball gown that has two high slits to show off her legs, she is also wearing some makeup and jewelry and her longer fluffier hair is styled in an updo typical of the 1960s /end id)

Look.......... the only specific/clear(ish) objections you've raised about Gooding getting cast in this role are about her appearance. As I have hopefully sufficiently demonstrated, I think those concerns are unfounded. If you have issues with the narrative/plot/character development for SNW Uhura, your problem should be with the writers and not with Celia.

If you're up for a little self reflection, try and get more specific about what bothers you so much about the situation. Connecting some dots here, you said SNW Uhura is too different from TOS Uhura to be acceptable to you, but you did not raise the same concerns about Ethan Peck as SNW Spock, even though he's also different from Leonard Nimoy as TOS Spock. What's the difference in the differences that makes one of these fine and one of these not?

•mod dyr

-----------

adding this photo i found of nichelle and leonard bc its so sweet <3

[genderkoolaid]

was thinking about why marginalized people often use slurs in describing oppression. like in the phrase "magical negro", or using the term "cripple" or "tranny" when talking about how people see us. its not reclamation, it's more about specifically forcing the dominant group to face their bias.

bc when it comes to overt forms of bigotry, there isn't really the need to do this. the bigot will very directly tell you why they hate you- because you are a [slur], a stand-in for everything the believe about the group they hate (being unnatural, criminals, dirty, sinful, ugly, a drain on society, etc).

but generally those kinds of overt bigotry are harder to have in polite society, especially when the marginalized group in question has enough visibility and has been loud enough about their treatment that people have to acknowledge it. now, saying you hate black people or trans people or immigrants is a social faux pas, and people acknowledge that hating those groups is Bad.

but anything less than hatred is still looked over, because critically examining how our actions contribute to social patterns is Hard and requires abstract thinking, and it's much easier to just get rid of the most blatant forms of bigotry and wipe your hands of the whole nasty "systemic oppression" issue. overt bigots are bad, ostensibly because of their bigotry, but largely because they just are so gauche about it, you know? it's easy for Good Liberals in the US north to mock the gun-obsessed fat Southern man caricature who doesn't believe in climate change and says slurs, but they often get quiet and awkward if someone brings up the liberal white woman from New York who quickly locks her door when a Black man walks by her car on the sidewalk. She doesn't hate black people, so she can't be racist- there's a world of difference (in her mind) between herself and the Racist. even if, whether it's through gun violence on private property or calling the cops because she feels scared, a Black man gets killed because a white person's racist bias.

getting back to the original point about slurs: using them in this context forces people to recognize that all of that bias is the same. your racism, transphobia, ableism, isn't different just because you use nice words. dominant groups get uncomfortable when marginalized groups use slurs to point out their bigotry (i.e "you want me to be a good tranny") because it draws a direct connection between the blatant, socially unacceptable bigotry and the socially acceptable, low-key bigotry. a lot of times, society reacts to oppressed groups fighting for liberation by addressing the most obvious elements while allowing and encouraging the subtle elements, so that way they calm down and stop causing problems, but society doesn't have to meaningfully change. drawing that connection pulls the cover off of society. no more "but I don't hate immigrants so I'm not xenophobic!", because xenophobia isn't just ICE officers keeping kids in cages, it's also getting annoyed with people who have strong accents because why can't they just learn to speak English better and making every movie set in Eastern Europe have a blue filter so you know it's Foreign and Sad.

basically, slurs are used as a weapon to remind marginalized groups of every stereotype about them, and "put them in their place". but they can also be used to force polite bigots to face their own bigotry, blowing away the smokescreen of "only violent oppression is real oppression". There's a power to be found in bringing your issues into the light when the world would really rather you sit pretty and smile and thank it for doing the bare minimum while still making your life hell.

[ode-to-spring]

hello!! ive seen a lot about the recent discourse on sumeru and all it's characters, most especially kusanali nowadays, and felt the need to clear some things up for my own peace of mind. though i should put a disclaimer that i'm in no way from any of the countries or cultures sumeru was originaly intended to represent, though i am a POC who knows what colorism, orientalism, and blatant lack of representation feels like. if anyone from the real cultures finds something wrong in whatever i say, please point it out and educate me so i can adjust! I might not be in a place to speak and have a very little platform, but I promise you, a few minutes of research and a little empathy can go a very long way.

cw for the topics i mentioned above (orientalism, colorism, subtle racism, etc etc.) very long discussion utc!

A common excuse I see people making for aspects of Kusanali's design (her skin color, her size, etc.) is that she's allegedly based off of Kusanali Jataka, from a Buddhist collection of poems as a fairy living in a clump of grass. This much is true, she very much is named after that, and the nature-esque inspiration matches up. However, that changes when many fans on tiktok, twitter, etc. have been claiming the original poem to mention that Kusanali Jataka had "skin as pale as the light of the moon."

This specific description pertains to an entirely different diety, one going all the way to Hinduism backgrounds. She who that quote was originally used for is known as Sarswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, wisdom, art, speech, music, aesthetics, and learning. For the record, here is what common portrayals of her look like, as well as the description of her appearance:

See? Sound familiar? To compare, here is what a portrayal of Kusanali Jataka looks like:

These two very separate dieties were definitely mixed up, most likely in a way to simply excuse how utterly far away the dendro archon looks from the real life people her country is meant to represent. Previously we've had Zhongli and Ei, a dragon accurate to real Chinese myths, and a samurai with cultural ties even to her name, her titles, and other various inspirations such as from the Vision Hunt Decree. Yunjin proves that Hoyoverse is capable of making accurate and in depth research of real life cultural aspects. Kusanali, however, has no obvious cultural background to her design except her name and perhaps the quote of "Let great and small." Other than that? You could've told me that she's just another kid from Mondstadt and I'd believe you entirely.

It's one thing to like a characters design, but another thing to entirely erase the problems there are with representation, among other things. The problem in her is not that she has a child model, it's that she, as Sumeru's archon, is meant to represent their whole country, but at the same time she has no indications of references to SWANA or ME culture what so ever.

To add onto that, the argument of "but im from this race and im pale" is not valid at all, because just because you or your family or friends are not, doesn't mean the rest of your people don't either. In my country, we were taught as kids to bathe with some kind of papaya whitening soap, not to stay in the sun too long or we'll get tanned, that we need go "stay indoors more to get whiter," and I'm sure this isn't only a problem in mine. The few times that the people of these underrepresented cultures get a chance at the spotlight, the very least Hoyoverse can do when they'll make truckloads of money from them either way is to do it right. They deserve that much.

Hoyoverse is a multi million dollar company that is perfectly capable of making designs that aren't stereotypical and all lightskin if not paper white. They honestly dug their own grave by making the exact mistake many have made before when it comes to representation specifically in these regions, such as Aladdin, where they threw many different and diverse cultures together and thought it would end up nicely without either five different things happening at once, or an entirely whitewashed version of everything. They should not be able to cherrypick and make money out of whatever bits of these cultures they want only to leave out the outward appearances of the people that they belong to. That is colorism.

I am making this post to at least try to raise awareness on the misinformation going around about Kusanali, as well as shed light on how condescending all the pale and at most light brown characters feel as a POC. That said, however, I can't speak for the people from South Asia/North Africa/Middle East on this issue, and therefore if you have time I'm *begging* you to listen to what they have to say. If you're from those cultures and don't have any problems with Sumeru, thats okay! But it doesn't mean that everyone else doesn't either. If you're white or from a different culture and are therefore unaffected by all of this? If you want to ignore, don't say a word. Don't shut the voices of the POC that should be in the spotlight in the first place. But if you want to help? Do your research. Uplift the voices of those who are affected. Listen to what they have to say. Orientalism and colorism aren't easy topics to be brushed off easily, and they have every right to be reacting in opposition to what Hoyoverse currently has to offer.

If you're interested in what I've just mentioned, here are a few links I've found of people from these cultures that you should consider checking out ::

https://twitter.com/dorobor1/status/1553151372308135938?t=QfJI9jXKDVvPO86eqGgyGw&s=19

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSR2pcbVC/?k=1

https://twitter.com/dailynahida/status/1538609206621790209?t=JRPUQ5Z8kn_nJJ2McShbag&s=19

https://twitter.com/Altochameleon/status/1553623114650509313?t=nDhSJyZ167HqP_eR4byqEg&s=19

And many more! So many SWANA & ME people are speaking up about this but get drowned out in all the arguing when they are the ones in the right. The goal isn't to speak over them, it's to let their words be heard. So please, stop the unnecessary ignorance and disrespect in every aspect of all that's going on with the discourse going around about this topic. It isn't hard to be respectful, it isn't hard to research, it isn't hard to be decent human beings.

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSR2pT61E/?k=1

https://twitter.com/Bitanees/status/1562903344553013252?t=CyBbIxBG3IFGWM98bZYADw&s=19

[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

I did actually get a hint of the racism angle from some of the Dekugate posters. The ones discussing Inko being a "traditional Japanese beauty" and how "conservative" Japan is especially gives me vibes of "Western anime fans who dismiss Japan as a whole as conservative and without any liberal politics or social movements (ex feminism or anti-imperialism), and who's only knowledge of queer culture is Western queer culture + yaoi produced for straight women."

Basically, I'm saying your Dekugate fic really is amazing because it so effectively captures both the overt horror of fandoms centered around these conspiracy theories, as well as the subtle way these homophobic (biphobic specifically in this case), misogynistic, and racist biases appear even in supposedly "woke" spaces.

Misogyny and gay fetishization justified with progressive language are a huge feature of real life celebrity conspiracy counterparts. The most common refrain is the way the actual girlfriends of the center ship are treated. They are not merely women dating men, they are gold-digging influencer wannabes hired by a marketing team to push a narrative that the guys are straight. And because they are willing to participate in ‘closeting,’ it means they are evil, homophobic pieces of shit and anything said about them is fair game. Their weight, their sense of fashion, their bone structure, whether or not they put the man first, how often are they scene without the man present, the way they touch the man, did they ever have sex with someone in exchange for something, what they eat, the way they dance, the way they walk their dog. In the real world, it’s not misogyny to criticize a women for questionable behavior, but you’re supposed to stick with the behavior itself. In conspiracy fandoms, saying that a woman has ‘evil eyes’ is just an extension of the totally reasonable criticism that she didn’t like her boyfriend’s instagram post.

Then there’s the way queerness is used as a justification of misogyny against other, non conspiracy fans. Anyone who doesn’t believe in the conspiracy must be straight, homophobic, stupid teenaged girls without any real life experience. It’s so gross that they think a conventionally attractive person is attractive, unlike the noble pursuits of editing their faces onto gay porn and speculating about what position they have sex in. The reasons they like or connect with the celebrity are totally shallow and insincere. How can they relate to these totally exclusively queer and not all generic lyrics about finding hope through hard times? Oh what’s that? You’re a queer person who doesn’t believe in the conspiracy? You’re not a fan of the celebrity? You must not actually be queer then.

And like i said in the other post, I’m not the most qualified person to talk about racism, but i have seen some shit. A common refrain in some corners is saying that if marketing is going to set the dude up with a fake girlfriend, the least they could do is give him a woman of color who might steer him away from his less-than-progressive image. (I’ve only found one fandom where the focus of the conspiracy is around a non-white celebrity, and even then there is a lot of discourse within about his ethnicity.) Correct me if I’m out of line, but the way they talk about it really sounds like they want a token so their dude looks more progressive in the eyes of people outside their bubble. Especially since that often, when the dude does actually date someone of a different ethnicity, the fandom bends over backwards to ‘prove’ the woman is actually white, ‘white-passing,’ or otherwise not actually ‘enough’ of their ethnicity so they can justify the shitstorm all over again. It’s the same bullshit as when someone wants to make some old school misogynistic joke about women being irrational and annoying, but throw ‘white’ in the front so it can play in pseudo-progressive spaces. And that’s when they don’t just drop the pretenses and start throwing around dog whistles and slurs.

TL;dr: shitty people will often try to come up with moral justification for their shitty beliefs and behaviors, and progressive language is just one of the tools in the toolkit.

[inkk-ubus]

I think the story, generally, is pretty good. The visuals are gorgeous and Most of the main characters are interesting.

I disagree with making androids less human, somebody already said it but I think it would get rid of the point. The story is supposed to show that humans will hate things that are different to them, even though there are virtually no physical or emotional differences between deviants and humans. I understand wanting more robotic designs, though. It would’ve been especially interesting if Connor became more robotic/human appearing (in ways other than body language/his tone and voice) depending on which route you take with him.

I agree with the heavy handed references to real-world issues, like racism, slavery, segregation, and the holocaust. If the parallels were much more subtle it would’ve been more tasteful. I believe this is a major error on David Cage’s part, and he’s been criticized for it repeatedly. He is not exactly known for subtlety.

I also have major complaints about the Alice twist. I feel like it completely destroys the message that having a strong bond between a human and an android would’ve given us. It also just doesn’t make a lot of sense when you start to think about it further. I’ve heard somebody argue for it by claiming that it shows androids can love, but we already get that from Markus’s story with both Carl and North? It would’ve been thought-provoking to keep Alice as a human child and have her face personal conflict between the pressures of society telling her to hate androids, meanwhile an android is the only positive parental figure she’s had in her life. This would have been SO GOOD if they explored it further, but alas. Ruined for the sake of a stupid plot twist😐

Following along with Alice and Kara’s story…it’s my least favorite. After one playthrough they become really boring, especially after the twist. Alice has barely any personality and only serves the purpose of progressing the story and providing trouble for them to get into. I have similar complaints about Kara, I feel like her personality is really 2d and completely revolves around Alice. Their dynamic is sweet but just so boring to me.

Connor has my favorite storyline by far, he has the most interesting gameplay and personality and relationship dynamic with Hank. I have some small minor qualms about how his routes play out, but overall i really enjoy his plotline. I actually quite enjoy the twist of cyberlife taking control of him, but I think it could’ve been much more well executed and explained. They never really provided much explanation for why they would want to take control of the revolution.

Markus has a decent story, but it only got really interesting to me whenever everything started going down. I really like the opportunity to be either peaceful or violent, and how many different endings you can get with him. Again, I don’t like how often the word “slavery” gets thrown around, and the very heavy references to real world issues.

Side note, I hate North and Markus’s relationship. It feels sooo forced and rushed. Like, even if you go the peaceful route and choose everything that North dislikes, she can still become your partner? I think it’s dumb. Again if they took more time building up their relationship it could’ve been so much better.

I also hate how the story makes it clear which path you should follow, even though there are so many different options. This mostly shows with Connor, whether you choose to become deviant or remain a machine. If you stay a machine a lot of the story starts to fall apart and not make as much sense, but again if they spent more time refining these separate plot lines I think it could have fixed a whole lot.

All in all I think that even though this story has major flaws, it had a lot of potential. There aren’t a lot of games that have as many paths as detroit, or so many choices that actually have significant effects on the gameplay (cough cough…telltale games…) (also i read somewhere that you would have to play the game start to end like 500 times or something to get 100% everything, which is utterly INSANE) and taking on a project as ambitious as explains why it falls short in many areas.

Fixing Detroit Become Human

Let’s start with some of the optional changes, or changes that I don’t know for sure if I’d put in

Making the Androids less humanoid This could be interesting and does make more sense logically considering what we see Androids doing, though certain scenes would probably need to be changed or cut out entirely since many of them require the MCs being indistinguishable from Humans, and other than some cool body horror stuff like the junkyard and Zlatko's androids it doesn't really do much

Making it an alternate future Basically making it an Alternate History but in the Future, I think it’d be cool but I don’t know if it’d be necessary

Now let’s get to the stuff I’d definitely do

Setting it farther in the Future I feel like setting somewhere somewhere in the late 21st to early 22nd century would make more sense

Having the Public support meter actually mean something The fact that no humans help Markus and Jericho in their protests is incredibly unrealistic, even at its lowest there would still be people protesting!

Allow for more discussion of whether or not Androids being free would be a good thing There are a lot of things to consider when it comes to Robot and AI rights, and this game should acknowledge that

Tone down the references There are so many references to the Holocaust, Civil Rights Movement and Slavery to the point that it gets stupid, especially the Canada thing. Some references to these things is fine (like the symbols Markus found to get to Jericho) but using as many as there are to basically say that Android struggle is the exact same as minority struggle is… problematic to say the least.

Get rid of the Alice twist Do I need to say anything?

Have Androids be treated more like machines by society I can believe that public transportation and infrastructure would be modified for Androids, but it makes more sense for it to be even less concerned for Android comfort, like instead of the Android Compartment being at the back of the bus (goes back to what I was saying earlier) why not have it be outside of or under the bus? It makes it seem more cruel than just being separated from humans and not having seats.

Explain Deviancy more I’d go with this, compare Non Deviants to Infants and Deviancy to growing up. Maybe it could’ve been a bug but Cyberlife kept it in so people would buy more androids once their old one starts acting up.

Get rid of the stupid Cyberlife takeover revea,l I know not a lot of people know about it, but it’s still stupid

Have there already be an Android Revolutionary Movement before Markus shows up

I find it hard to believe Markus was the Only Android to think of the revolution, but you could still make him integral to it in some way, whether it be being a Leader or some sort of secret weapon (figuratively speaking)

Have there be conflict among the Android Revolutionaries

Have there be different factions within the revolution each with their own ideologies and methods that may conflict with each other. This could go back to what I said earlier, maybe Markus could be the glue that finally brings them all together

Have there be android related events outside of Detroit like... how the hell do Markus and the other residents of Jericho become the last deviants!?

considering Markus’ actions, I highly doubt that there weren’t some other bold androids willing to join in the Revolution

Have the game take place over a longer time span

There is no way Markus could accomplish his mission in a week

Have an Epilogue of each ending explaining how the world has changed

In the Good endings, explain how things have changed for Androids, have Humans and Androids started coexisting? Have the Androids gotten their own Nation?

[forestlingincorporated]

I wanna talk about Janet Drake

I’m not against exaggeratedly evil versions of Tim’s parents, tbh. It’s fanfiction, if we can depict an Exaggeratedly Good version of Bruce (which we can, and I do, and I love) then we can depict the Drakes as Exaggeratedly Bad. As someone who personally identifies with Tim, and his brand of complicated parental abuse in particular, I find it cathartic to uncomplicate that abuse and rescue him from the Obviously Evil Bad People. 

That said, since much of comics lore is passed down word of mouth, the oral tradition surrounding Tim has developed this idea of Janet as The Worse Parent between her and Jack that was never really present in the comics. We see much LESS of Janet, and we have 20 years worth of comics depicting Jack as a neglectful hotheaded idiot who ultimate does love his son. More importantly, Jack isn’t very much LIKE Tim, so there is a habit to attribute Tim’s traits to his mother... and, as someone who really really identifies with Tim, Tim has... some negative traits. Tim can be a bitch sometimes. He’s fiercely intelligent and sweet and kind, with a strong sense of justice, but he can be cold and judgmental and unthinking - he fights those traits, but he does have them. 

And it is perfectly fine to depict Janet that way. I’ve enjoyed depictions of Cold Calculating Janet Drake, but it’s not the ONLY option, and I want to challenge fans to consider different avenues. Tim could pick up these traits from anywhere: a nanny, Mrs. Mc Ilvaine (”Mrs. Mac”), a teacher, tv, Sherlock Holmes novels, Bruce Wayne himself. Tim is capable of not being like EITHER parent. 

So, what do we KNOW about Janet? (I’ll also touch on Jack, but only in scenes he appears with Janet.) 

When Janet was first introduced she was depicted as a gentle but “modern” woman. This was written in 1989, told by a 13 year old Tim, so this theoretically was meant to take place in 1979. I’m not here to give a lecture on the history of sex discrimination in the united states, but much of the legislation protecting women in the workforce or surrounding women’s bodily autonomy would have been very very new in this initial depiction. 

Here, Janet is shown to be encouraging, emotional, maternal, and projects her own feelings onto Tim. Jack is shown to be slightly sexist, possibly discouraging, but not overbearing. And the artist is shown not to know how to draw children. 

To insert some speculation, I think it’s important to note all the Drakes witnessed a terrible murder/accident that day. I point this out, because this is the last time Jack and Janet are depicted this way. It’s possible they changed as a result of this event specifically. 

However, this is also a story being told by Tim. It’s also possible these events aren’t really “real” at all, and Tim is misremembering what his parents were like as a three-year-old, possibly projecting a more palatable version of his parents into the narrative. This is entirely up to personal interpretation. 

In fact, the Drakes are shown in Legend of the Dark Knight attending Haly’s Circus, and the artist knows what a toddler looks like and they’re depicted as already having a slightly strained relationship. Jack is clearly on the defensive, and Janet seems to be passive-aggressive, though she could just be attempting to explain the situation to her toddler honestly. The intended tone isn’t especially clear. 

I do want to point out, in this depiction, Tim isn’t being carried like he was in the previous one. He’s walking ahead of his parents, which isn’t a terrible horrible crime, but could be dangerous in a crowded place like the circus. Might be a subtle hint to his parents overall neglect. 

Back to A Lonely Place of Dying, in Tim’s memories of the night he discovered Robin and Dick Grayson were the same person at nine-years-old, his parents are home, and watching TV together while Tim played... trucks, idk, in the living room with them. (This is semi-interesting, because you could say “oh, Tim liked vehicle toys as a kid” or you could extrapolate that this is another subtle indication of Jack’s sexism, providing Tim with appropriately “boy toys.” Either interpretation is valid. If Tim was assigned female at birth, would they have been given “girl toys,” or allowed to play with whatever they wanted?) 

This is, to my knowledge, the only panel of the Drakes when Tim is between ages 3 and 13. They’re all together, which might indicate that the Drakes were home more often when Tim was 9, only later going on business trips when Tim was “old enough” but... 

This is Tim’s boarding school when he’s 13. While most boarding schools in the US are for grades 9-12, Tim is clearly not a freshman at age 13; look how much younger the other kids in this panel are. In the US, the youngest you can attend most boarding schools is 7. 

That means Tim could have begun going to boarding school anytime between 7 and 13. He most likely spent all of middle school in boarding school, at least. There are an almost infinite number of possible ways the Drakes handled having a business that required lots of international travel, an archeology hobby, AND a very young child. Janet staying home until Tim was 7, 11, 13, is equally possible as the Drakes having a nanny until 7, 11, 13. Tim just doesn’t talk about that period of his life very much.

(”What about Mrs. Mac?” - it is unclear when Mrs. Mac begins working for the Drakes. We only see her when Jack comes out of his coma. She could either be a long standing staff member, or a recent hire.) 

Note: I’ve seen it said that it’s canon that “According to Tim, when his parents were home, they made a point to try and include him in their activities, bringing him along to events that were normally adults only.” I have never seen this panel, or I don’t remember it, so I cannot confirm, but I also cannot debunk this because... comics. 

By the time Tim is 13, Jack and Janet are away on business trips a lot, with limited communication, and no firm return date. If I’m feeling generous, I’d say it was harder to communicate internationally in 1990 than it is today. If I’m not feeling generous, I’d say the Drakes are extremely wealthy, and international communication was easier than ever before in the 80s and 90s. They’re not even going home to see Tim in a week or two, they’re going home and calling Tim at boarding school in a week or two. 

Even Bruce thinks its weird, though he doesn’t say so to Tim’s face. It’s written almost as if Tim’s parents’ neglect was meant to be a plot point that just got forgotten about. 

Tim’s parents are fighting at this point (their poor assistant), but Janet still goes with Jack on these business trips. And she’s clearly involved in the business, somehow, but the comics never SAY what Janet’s JOB is. We’re told Jack is the exec, but Janet is ONLY ever referred to as Jack’s wife, though they’re later described as the “heads” of the company, plural. 

Just to be clear, this is Jack’s business. There’s a perception that Jack is a bad business man because he and Janet fight over company decisions, and Jack looses the business after Janet dies, but Jack looses the company YEARS after Janet dies, and maintains it for about a year after No Man’s Land at that. We’re not told how Jack looses the business, but he’s got to be doing something right. Janet isn’t necessarily the “real brains” of Drake Industries. 

And I’m not... gonna... touch the... exploitation and racism because... I’m not qualified to do that. But, here’s the panel. The Drakes sure seem exploitative and racist in their business decisions. Someone else can... analyze that with more nuance. 

Regardless how how long they’ve been fighting, when their lives are in danger, the Drakes fall back into a loving husband and wife. Their marriage may be falling apart, but they do care about each other. 

I want to show these panels because it shows that Tim and Jack do have things in common. They’re both level headed in a crisis and can be somewhat cold in their practicality. Janet meanwhile and silent. Jack is later willing rant and rave at their captors, but Janet remains silent. 

That is, until they’re alone, and she finally lets herself fall apart. 

God, Jack can be obnoxious. Janet just looks miserable and resigned. I actually think Tim takes after his parents in this respect in equal measure. Tim can have a temper, but he can also be fairly melancholy and defeatist. 

Jack keeps reminding Janet to be strong and in control, which could be period typical sexism? But Jack seems so practiced and ready with the words of encouragement, and with Tim’s history with depression, I wonder if Janet has an inclination towards it as well. 

As the end approaches, when Jack brings up Tim, Janet seems to have a lot of regret. She talks about “wasting” the good things, and I don’t think it’s too big of a stretch to assume she’s talking about time spent with her only child. 

From this point on, Janet is at times spoken of, but not seen. Like here, when Jack says Janet wouldn’t approve of him and Tim being so “far apart.” He says this after he tells him he takes back his threat to send him back to boarding school, which might imply Janet was against the idea of boarding school? Though she obviously lost that argument when she was alive. 

Jack will of course renege on this later, but that’s Jack Drake for you. 

Or here in Tim’s illness induced dream, where he gets everything he wants. Though, since this is a fantasy of Tim’s, where his father and girlfriend are both more accepting and understanding than they are in real life, I would take this depiction of Janet with a grain of salt. 

After loosing Drake Industries, Jack thinks about Janet (though, they call her Catherine/Cathy for some fucking reason) during his depressive episode. And... uh... 

Hallucinates a Valkyrie???? Is this symbolic of suicidal thoughts, or is she... real? Or is he seriously hallucinating? 

Anyway, we’re not here to discuss Jack’s mental state, the fact that he forgot Tim’s birthday, or that concerning “I was going to knock some sense into you but you’re still bigger than me” statement from Tim, we’re here to talk about Janet. And even though this entire arc is about Jack mourning his first wife, they don’t SAY anything about Janet herself at all. I mean, they don’t even get her name right, so I guess what was I expecting. 

Then there’s Origins and Omens, which also doesn’t say anything about Janet, except that Tim’s memory of her is faulty - Janet was poisoned, her assistant Jeremy’s throat was slit on television, but Tim seems to have conflated the death he did see with the death he didn’t. 

The only piece of canon to suggest that Janet might be cold, is Tim compares her to Thalia. And even then, he’s really just saying Janet was protective of him. It’s kind of a scary look to make at your kid, but Bruce does the same thing, so. 

I do want to say... it’s not 100% clear if Tim is even talking about Janet. He could be talking about Dana. Dana was observably protective of Tim, though I don’t think he’s ever called her mom. He PROBABLY means Janet. 

And finally we have Tim visiting his mother’s grave (in a duel Christian/Jewish cemetery, make of that what you will), where Tim says she was “a little religious.”

And that’s it! That is all we know about Janet Drake in New Earth. Hardly the Mom From Hell, but she isn’t perfect. I’d be interested in seeing some alternate depictions of her within the fandom. 

I’m still gonna eat up Terrible Parents From Hell like a starving puppy dog, though. Just some food for creative thought. 

[butwhatifidothis]

For a change of pace I’m going to actually say something nice about a character, and that’s Claude (under the cut cuz it got a bit long and I remember!! that’s a fucking thing you can do lmaooo).

Like, there’s honestly a lot to this character that I find very striking and sadly gets overlooked in favor of either making him a complete joke or a complete/near complete sociopath. I like that Claude initially believes himself to be this beacon of hope to this silly land of Fodlan because of his view as an outsider... and then realizing and acknowledging he’s not, that while an outsider’s perspective takes away the bias of growing up steeped in certain ways it also leaves holes that he just can’t catch without someone showing him due to his ignorance of said culture. He thinks he has Cyril and Rhea pinned down to rights because of course he would, why wouldn’t he... and then he actually talks to them and is shown wrong, and he listens! With Cyril he likes being shown the truth even if it means it puts him and his previous beliefs in a nonperfect light! With Rhea he doesn’t just reject her words even though they blow a giant hole in what he thought of her for the vast majority of the game!

And the way his trust issues are handled, while I do think could have been dealt with better had the route focused on his character more, I still absolutely love it. It’s so subtle but consistent throughout pre ts/post ts VW, how often he “makes sure” the Golden Deer are by his side, how he always has to find the “right time” to reveal his plans to them because he genuinely thinks they won’t trust or believe in him, how he genuinely thought that Hilda and Judith would abandon him if things got too dangerous for them personally (in AM for Judith, Hilda for both CF and AM), how you never really get Claude’s full story anywhere even in the end or the S support (almost like that’s a big source of trauma for him and he’s a secretive guy because of that trauma that doesn’t magically stop being a thing because you wanna kiss him! Congrats IntSys for once you managed to get something kinda right!), how even something like you calling him a stalwart ally is responded with a wink and a deflection saying that you’re just flattering him (because you can’t actually believe he’s a good ally too, right?), but then you see him actually trust someone and oh. Oh man. The difference is night and day. How he pleads with Dimitri to stop fighting and join forces in both AM and VW despite Dimitri being off the fucking walls at the time, how he honestly believed that Dimitri would not only recover from his madness but still come to his aid in AM, hell even in CF he honestly believes that there’s no way Byleth would kill him despite them deliberately forcing the Alliance into the war by invading them, shown by his shock and hurt if you actually do - Claude puts his trust in few people but when he does he does and that’s honestly so indicative of how drastic his trust issues affect him.

You see that growth more blatantly in his supports as well - compare how worriedly Claude deflects Hilda’s observation about his knowledge of how Almyrans see the Gonerils pre ts to him inviting her to meet his parents post ts. Similar with Leonie, how he offers to take her to his homeland, something pre ts Claude would never dream of. 

And then there’s his empathy and compassion! Like often he’s very careless when it comes to trying to discover the truth yes, but when he sees there’s a line he’s going to cross if he does? He steps back, always. His supports with Marianne show this amazingly, with him thoughtlessly stepping on her insecurities, trying to apologize and make her feel better but failing, and then ending with him opening up to her about his own life - something he very, very rarely does - to make her feel less alone with her struggles. His ones with Flayn even say straight up that he dislike forcing secrets out of people, and when he says he’ll give up trying to get Flayn to talk herself... he does. Legitimately. Afterwards he just spitballs theories to her. Even when he sees he’s hitting close to home when he correctly guesses Flayn and Seteth’s relationship he doesn’t push farther than that despite the huge implications of what that means. And this “I don’t like to force secrets out of people” line is backed up by you losing support points with him if you try to dig at Flayn after Remire.

And we know that Claude doesn’t immediately think of the commonfolk in his dream via his supports with Cyril, but damn, when they’re in front of him, when they’re directly in his care? Claude arguably goes the farthest of the three lords to portect them. Mr. “Tactical Retreat” suddenly puts himself in direct danger by painting himself as a prime target for the Empire to attack in AM and CF. He involves none of the other houses and tell his men to retreat should things get dangerous for them (as shown in explore dialogue with CF!Lysithea and what he says if Judith and Hilda die in AM/CF in their respective maps). He calls in the Almyran army in CF and on the Kingdom army in AM - forces with trained soldiers ready to fight, not civilians desperate to live. And speaking of civilians, he evacuates all of Derdriu’s civilians and closes down entry into Derdriu. Even with him planning on retreating himself should things go badly that takes some nards to go through with given how easily things can go badly for him should just about anything go awry; he goes the distance for those under his care.

And also how readily he offers his support and understanding to the more emotionally abused characters. Look at his talk with Dimitri during Golden Deer’s Plea, back at his supports with Marianne, how he sympathizes with Rhea - someone he actively disliked/distrusted for most of the game - once he hears her story.

And yo, man, his backstory? Imma be real, very rarely do I get invested in “racism bad” storylines because so often they fall into “white man bad POC good” black-and-white (lol) mentality, but this? I actually felt this. So rarely is a mixed race person’s perspective shown in regards to racism since it’s more complicated than “whitey bad POC good”. No, both have people in them that are raised with beliefs that breed racism. They’re not evil people, they’re a result of the culture that raised them, and that raised those that raised them, and so on and so forth. He gets that his dream is unrealistic and that it’d take a very, very long time to implement even if it did happen and even then would face extreme backlash from people from both sides, but he believes in this dream. It’s what lets him face on Edelgard in CF despite the insignificant chance he has of winning if he does so, what pushed him to go beyond his familiar home of Almyra into the completely unknown Fodlan, what drives him to aim for Almyra’s throne despite his position as the youngest prince (aka his weak connection compared to his half-brothers).

And like, Claude shares with Rhea in that IntSys dropped the ball on their characters anyway, despite how much thought was put into them. Rhea is stripped of damn near any agency in post ts, non-CF routes and Claude has noticeably less direct attention given to his upbringing compared to Edelgard and Dimitri (and small things like no appearance from either of his parents’, no child portrait, stuff like that). This is most likely due to their routes basically being copy-pastes of each other so it had to be compatible with both characters so both characters had to suffer for it. But like, for what we got? I still love it.

[bookofmirth]

Can you please elaborate why it is considered problematic that SJM wrote that elain is uncomfortable around lucien? You mentioned in a previous response that it was not a good move for her to write elain being uncomfortable by a disabled POC but I’m not quite sure why that is a problem because she is not uncomfortable because of his disability or race- her discomfort has nothing to do with that.

Also, racism is not an issue in prythian the way it is in real life. You have high lords such as helion and tarquin (among others) that are explicitly POC and there has never been mention of any hostility towards them because of the color of their skin. The only discrimination I can recall is between high and lesser fae which is classist not racist.

I’m just confused why it is considered ableist or racist when SJM decided to write how elain is uncomfortable around lucien when it has nothing to do with his skin color or disability.

On another note- would it have been racist if amarantha (a known rapist) was written as a WOC rather than white? I’m just trying to understand your point of view and I’m a little lost. To me, acotar is a diverse world with characters of all races and some are good, some are evil but pretty much every character has done something morally grey at at least one point in the series. And none of that is not specific to one race vs another. There are white characters that are good, morally grey and downright evil. And the same can be said for other races.

I appreciate any further elaboration you can supply!

Hello! I will try my best. I don't mind answering questions like this! I recognize that I have had a lot of education about these topics and I have learned A Lot from Black women on Twitter over the years. I hope to share it in a way that is useful. I can maybe make a reading list if anyone is interested, but people should definitely ask around so that it's not getting filtered through just one person (aka me).

So the whole thing with talking about race in the fandom is that race does not function the same way in the acotar world as it does in ours. You are correct about that. You may have seen my post that attempted to break down various ways that characters access privilege in Prythian? Either way, yes. It is not a one-to-one correspondence with our world and the book world.

However, there are issues within the acotar world that mirror issues in ours, and the way that fans engage with those issues can reveal underlying prejudices. I mentioned in this post that we don't have to intend to do these things. (Also, intent versus impact is like diversity, inclusivity, and equity training 101. It's one of the first, and most important things you will learn. Even if you didn't mean to harm someone, they still feel hurt, and it's important to acknowledge that.)

The issue with the way people talk about Lucien - and I mentioned in another post that this is perhaps just as much on Sarah for creating this scenario as it is on the fandom for hopping on that horse and riding - is that there is a history of white women being painted as the victims of Black men specifically.

I'm going to put the rest of this under the cut because I want to show you some examples.

I hope that I don't have to explain why this is disgusting. There is a real-life example of this ^^^ if you google Emmett Till and read his story. This is by far not the only example of a white woman claiming that a Black man (or boy, in his case) was harassing her in some way, and often, that has resulted in lynching.

These are clearly older examples, and also really good examples of how people of color can be dehumanized, but these problems persist. The methods are just more subtle. More recently, it could result in police brutality. When that women called the police on a Black man in NYC last summer, it played into the long history of a woman claiming that she was being threatened or victimized by a Black man. As @gimme-mor explained in her post, the concept of white womanhood is often used as a way to uphold racism and white supremacy because it shows people of color as being violent threats, giving white men (and white women) a reason to retain their privilege.

You're probably wondering now what the fuckity fuck this has to do with Acotar and Lucien. I am getting there!

Because of this historical context, there are many slurs and stereotypes used against POC that on the surface, seem innocent. However, they have a deep, dark history of oppression and violence. It's not about the "one time" that someone said one racist thing, but generational trauma. I can't speak to what this is like as a lived experience, and so I would really appreciate anyone who does want to add on!!!

For example, just to take us away from acotar for a minute, there is a problematic, sexist and often racist trope in which characters get fridged. This is a term used to refer to the way that women, women of color, or characters of color (this could include queer and disabled people as well) are killed off to further a white person's story. This happens SO OFTEN. Nehemia was killed in ToG to motivate Aelin. Sorscha was killed in HoF to hurt Dorian. In a multitude of super hero and action movies, the wife or girlfriend of the main character is killed off in order to provide either pain or motivation to the white male hero.

Individually, these events are whatever. Taken as a whole, though... it shows a trend that the girlfriend of the hero is disposable. It shows that people who are not white, straight, able-bodied males are worthless, and only function to further someone else’s plot.

So that's what is sort-of happening here. After a long, long history of white women positioning themselves (or being positioned) as the innocent victims of brutish, violent, barely-even-human men of color, there are some disturbing parallels when people try to say that Elain is a shrinking violet next to Lucien's insistent attentions.

The context is everything. It's not about this one event, but that there is a history in the real world of this trope playing out over and over, and it has even been an explicit tactic used to perpetuate white supremacy.

This context influences the way that we interact with one another in fandom. The point of that post was not to critique the acotar series itself, but to expose some problematic aspects of the fandom.

I am not going to speak for anyone else, but I think that the original intent of pointing out this parallel between Elain/Lucien and white feminism was not that we want people to stop saying that Elain feels this, or Elain feels that, or Lucien is doing this or that, etc. The reason why this has been mentioned in the past is because there are some very uncomfortable, violent historical precedents set, and while people may not realize that those exist, they may be unintentionally furthering that stereotype.

There were many, many other points made in that post that I think bear repeating and further attention. I hope that this made sense. It's hard to condense literal centuries of racism like this, and of course I am only talking about the context in the U.S. I'm sure it's different elsewhere.

The main takeaway from that post, though, is that it wasn't about the world itself. It was about the way that the fandom engages with the world, and how they utilize some problematic tools to do so. Critiquing the world itself is a completely different issue, which... I will sorta touch on now!

One last point, since you brought up Amarantha and the potential of her being a WOC and a rapist - it could be viewed as problematic and racist, due to the oversexualization of Black women in particular (again, the context throughout history supports this). However, that would not be a fandom problem! That would be an sjm problem.

BTW - I do have serious problems with the way that Illyrians are portrayed in acotar, again because of the history of POC being portrayed as uncivilized, brutish, violent, and... that word that means someone isn't religious. I am getting tired and forgot the word. When sjm says that Illyrians are that way, and when she emphasizes the fact that they are a race... yikes. It's not racist of us to point that out, but it was highly questionable that she created them to be that way in the first place.

Let me know if any of this doesn't make sense, please! To anyone reading this to the end, first off RIP! But also let me know if I've gotten something wrong or if you see something differently.

[herstarburststories]

Important Milestones (Damian Wayne x reader)

✾ Summary: An intimate look through your and Damian's relationship. Requested! It’s been a hot bit since I wrote for Damian, so I hope this one is good!

↼❈⇁

First meeting

Dick was taking Damian to the circus

Add a long conversation and lots of "Yeah, Dami. I'm sure the animals are treated well-- Actually, animals aren't allowed in legal circus anymore. You don't have to worry."

They were watching the show, and Damian couldn’t believe that Grayson was so excited about clowns

Damian excused himself to get some food

Dick asked him to get a hotdog, but Damian will bring him popcorn #beaveg

Thing is, you and Damian arrived the food trunk at the same time

Which leaded to an argument

Y/N: I got here first!

Damian: You are not on the line!

Y/N: Because you almost ran over me!

You two kept going long enough for a worried Dick to show up

How to trust each other

You know when you've never seen a person before, but once you lay your eyes on them, you start seeing their face in every crowd?

That's basically you and Damian

How come you didn't know the idiot from the circus was also the Wayne guy that studied with you?

How he, with Talia and Batman's observation skills, never noticed you walking around Gotham's School and now he always caught a sight of you?

You and Damian quickly fall into a weird routine:

Glare each other during lunch

Rolls your eyes when the others was talking in class

Annoy each other whenever you had the chance

Jon teased him a lot

Talking about Superboy...

He seemed off in the morning and he hadn't showed up for lunch like he always did

Damian decided to look for his best friend

Surprisingly, he found Jon crying in your arms in the middle of the chemistry laboratory

You just looked at Damian and nodded for him to come in

Y/N: His parents had a big fight. I found him here alone and thought I could help. Since you are here, guess I'll go.

Damian: You can stay. I mean, Jon probably could use your emotional assistance.

Damian still finds you annoying (and so do you), but you helped his friend

He trust you... A bit

Recognize your feelings

Damian came to school one day. He is clearly hurt-- he couldn’t even walk straight

Jon remained quiet. He was there when the week's villain throw Damian against a wall as if he was a bag of potatoes

But you don't know about the Robin detail

Besides, you are sort of a trinity with them now

Therefore, you worry

And you ask

And you worry some more

It's been a few weeks since your friendship started. Damian trusts you, he really does, but not enough to tell you

Let's keep in mind that pretty much like Bruce, Damian isn't the best when it comes to expressing his feelings through anything but violence

So, he acts like an idiot

Y/N: Damian, come on. I'm not stupid enough to believe you’d fall hard enough to get yourself hurt like this. Talk to me.

Damian: Stop pushing your need to fix everything on me, Y/N. You are not my mother. Don't waste your worry on me, I don't need it.

You realized you liked him when you felt way more worried than you usually would

But Damian just noticed his cherish for you when you glared at him with evident hurt in your eyes and left the table

He just wanted you back, making silly jokes with Jon and stealing his fries

Kiss me, idiot

Two days

48 hours + 12 minutes since you two fought

A whole weekend

LISTEN, his life was going perfectly well before you came along

Now it seems like you opened a spot that's exactly your fit and put yourself there

Whenever you aren't around, Damian feels this weird sensation of missing

Jon convinces him into talking to you

As soon as he sees you in school, he does

Apologize becomes another argument (surprise, surprise)

Damian: Why do you care so much?!

Y/N: Because I like you, idiot!

Damian: You, you like me? As in--

Then you kiss him

Because, let's be clear, you'd end up kissing or punching him

Finding out he's Robin

It's the most stupid way possible

Like, for real

Last night, his Robin's duties kept Damian up until 5am

Instead of leaving his clothes inside the Batcave as usual, he just crumbled to his bed

The sun arrived and so did you

School project

While Damian was out to grab some books, you were studying his room

A picture of him and Jon. Some papers with Arabian words. A dog's bed. Robin suit. A sword

Wait, come back

A. Robin. Suit.

Damian Wayne was many things, but cosplayer certainly wasn't on the list

The pieces glued together fast

A rich family would make sense: Batman and Robin's instruments never looked cheap. Four Robins existed among the years, and Damian had 3 brothers. Not to mention that he'd show up with random scratches and never explain what happened. He was good with swords, and the current Robin had been seen with them a lot of times. Besides, Damian Wayne would never wear a costume willingly, much less keep one in his room

He walks inside the room to see you wearing his cape and mask

Y/N: Guess I'm robin' your persona, huh? Wanna tell me something?

Meeting the family

You come from a big family

Good thing because anybody else would be scared if they were in your shoes

MESS, MESS, MESS

Dick is smiling like a crazy all the time, and making dad jokes

Tim is teasing Damian by asking you to blink twice if you need saving

Jason is directly fighting Damian and calling him devil spawn

Bruce is quietly watching everyone with a subtle smile on his lips. He asks you a few questions, and occasionally asks the boys to behave before answering his phone and excusing himself

Babs, Steph and Cassandra come in later

Now the teasing is divided between you and Damian and Steph and Tim

You tease them a lot, blushing Tim is adorable

You are wearing purple boots, and Steph already loves you for that

Dick tells Babara about you being aware of the family secret

She offered to train you for some self-defense

YOU ACCEPTED, DUH. SHE IS THE BATGIRL!!

Cass is more quiet, but very friendly

Alfred was the first batfam member that you'd met, though (also your fav)

You try (key word being try) to help him in the kitchen

Batcow became your best friend, sorry Jon

You met the Titan family as well

Now you had munition to tease Dick as much as he teased you and Damian

Thank you, Kory

Also, Kor is a real life alien princess, how cool is that!?

Beast Boy is the funniest guy -- and now you are pretty sure you became a vegetarian because you can't eat animals after seeing his transformation

Raven reminds you of Cass

Donna is so powerful, and she knows so many languages!

You get along with his two families

Although Damian rolls his eyes a lot during y'all interaction, he is really happy

First kid

You and Damian are in university when it happens

You both know it's a big step

There's no turning back, you two will always be connected

Damian and you are now responsible, parents

Of the cutest bunny!

Yep, you insisted on naming him Robin

The first kid you both adopted together

Get on your knees for me

Damian isn't much of a romantic

You don't really mind

But when he proposes, it's the sweetest thing

You two had ordered some veggie food to celebrate the end of your finals

Finally a break!

Damian was holding you on the couch as you both watched one of your favorite movies when Robin, the bunny showed up

Y/N: Batbunny, just because we have vegan food, it doesn't mean you can get some. Go eat your lettuce.

Damian: Beloved, maybe you should see what he brought for you.

The bunny had a necklace wrapped around him!!

And the said necklace was attached to a ring!!

A FUCKING DIAMOND!?

Extra of love:

You became a vigilant for a bit before deciding how you truly wanted to help people

Besides charity, you became a lawyer specialized in cases of racism and immigration

Your and Damian's wedding was a mix of your culture and his

Comment/Reblog if you liked it, feedback is magic! Wanna see more? Check my Masterlist! How about get tagged on my batboys or just Damian works? Ask me or add yourself to my taglist!

[rotationalsymmetry]

Re: white people being dicks about POC representation (eg saying it ruins the immersion for them, or whatever)

So, generally I’m not going to say this on other people’s posts, because it can easily come across as minimizing/justifying racism. On my blog though? I don’t think this is actually that widespread a perspective. The internet amplifies extreme views relative to what people say in real life. You get a relatively small number of people arguing relatively extreme positions (extreme is not always bad, I’m an anarchist, but it is non-representative of what most people believe) and all the people who don’t care that much or have in-between perspectives nope out of the conversation. And yeah, the people who whine about political correctness or wokeness or whatever are loud and they are more likely to contact creators with their BS opinions, so it’s not like they’re irrelevant. But if you’re thinking about hearts and minds of most white people, I don’t think those are the ones you need to talk to.

(Because generally white people who are advancing that position are already super racist, and probably dishonest in their complaints as well.)

But there’s a lot of white people who like to think of themselves as being on the side of equality and justice, who will still look at a book with a black person on the cover and think “oh, that book is not for me” rather than thinking something like “well, that could be a book I’d like, let me see what it’s about.” Likewise for movies: there are a lot of white people who just feel a tiny bit more comfortable going off about how much they like Frozen compared to how much they like Moana, or how much they like Captain America or Iron Man compared to how much they like Black Panther, and that adds up over time, and those white people are often willing and able to change how they relate to those media with just a little perspective.

I don’t think the main barrier to more POC representation is the vocal asswipes, or at least I don’t think it’s the easiest to do something about. The big changes we can make are in more subtle things. A slight hesitation to recommend a story with a POC protagonist to a white person, so you end up recommending a different story instead. When you don’t have that hesitation, but the people that you get your recommendations from do. The aunts and uncles who will cheerfully buy an Elsa doll for their niece, but not a Tiana one. Not because they think there’s anything wrong with Tiana, or that they’d ever dream of complaining about Disney movies that don’t have white main characters. Not even that they especially expect the kid‘s parents to throw a fit. But there’s just this moment of hesitation, this what-if caution, that’s enough to pick something less controversial.

And goodness knows it’s easier for white people to call out the blatant racism (that’s not me, I’m one of the good ones), than it is to talk about the subtle stuff that doesn’t require overt hostility.

But that still result in movies with white main characters being an easier sell than movies with POC main characters.

[jason-pipers]

the jason/piper breakup and jason’s subsequent death

it is a long and angry post so you have been warned 

 I’m really sick of seeing Jason Grace/Piper McLean slander in their own tag, and I’m really, really sick of seeing people justify their breakup/his death as good writing. 

As I’ve been studying literature and text for the past four years at Uni- I can say with absolute confidence that The Burning Maze utilizing Jason and Piper was horrible. Like a bag of shit mixed together then smeared on paper and published kind of horrible. Actually, you don’t even really need a degree to be able to point out the very basic absurdity of them appearing in TBM. So even though I have a paper due on a completely unrelated topic and a lot of homework, I naturally decided this was a much better thing to write about: 

 Maybe in another world, Rick’s ghostwriters will be better at writing his books. The reason why the Jason/Piper breakup was extremely confusing and done very poorly in the sense of their character arcs was that there was no buildup to the breakup. In fact, I think these two got together off-screen and broke up off-screen. Yet, I’m sure Riordan sat at his desk thinking “now why don’t people just like Jason and Piper?? I give them so much!” Actually, you gave them nothing. It’s also considerably easy to disguise their breakup as logical when it isn’t. Now, people will argue that the basic foundation of the relationship was poorly made because of Hera’s meddling and that’s why they broke up. This is a lazy way to think about it because it’s obvious you don’t care about the characters so you should just say that and go. Hera’s meddling (putting false memories of Jason in Piper’s head and wiping Jason’s brain) really only gave Piper a vague notion of Jason (based on real attributes the Mist pulls) and also gave PERCY and Jason multiple relationships after the switcheroo. But Piper actually meets Jason and then has a subsequent breakdown that maybe he’s not her boyfriend. However, once she gets to know the real Jason (very accurate to the one she knew in her memories because Aphrodite said she could sense real possibilities hinting at their romance), she is still developing romantic feelings for him. It’s implied that the reason why Piper is falling so fast is because the memories she has of Jason are based on the real Jason. It’s easy to establish that Piper has real romantic feelings for Jason, not the made up Jason because the majority of TLH is them getting to know each other. If she felt like there was some confusion on her part about developing feelings for him because of Hera switching Percy and Jason- why did it not come up EVER? The months where Jason and Piper started dating. How about that long ass quest on the Argo? It could have been a valid plot line but it never came up. If it had come up near the end of the series or maybe even if it was a small subplot in the series, it would make the breakup logical, at least narratively. But no, we end Blood of Olympus with Jason and Piper coming full circle with the moment in the stars. Flash forward three years later to TBM where everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) about Piper and Jason are thrown into the trash. They’re broken up due to the false memories and overall I guess it’s implied Piper doesn’t have feelings for him anymore or something? Or the trauma of being in something like that prophecy was a lot for her to handle and she needed some time to figure things out? Yeah of course! Just like when she will go through another trauma (Jason dying for her) and start dating someone new right after. This would be so much easier to read and digest if these things are shown- in their own series and maybe not as a side thing to Apollo’s series. Reading it in TOA was completely out of left field. I know SO MANY PEOPLE were like that makes so much sense! Good for you Piper! But I was like girl, who are you? I feel like I have not spent any time with you and none of what you’re saying is connecting to anything you were like before. Which leads me to believe people just did not like Piper in HOO but just say that and go. HOO Piper is not TBM/TOA Piper. RR doesn’t know how to characterize his own goddamn characters. Furthermore, everything in canon up until TBM implies and directly states that Jason and Piper are endgame. It’s not to say they didn’t have problems that were resolved or that the way they got together was conventional. There was not even a smidge bit of reluctance to admit they were canon endgame- I think RR even had Cupid involved. There was no prediction or even hint of what would happen in TBM in HOO, which is a very big narrative problem. Jason, always isolated by loved ones and quite frankly always shouldering way more than a human can handle dies exactly the way he suffers. There is no growth or even a small lovely moment where we can see Jason. 

This brings me to the most unnecessary death I’ve ever read in my life. I know RR’s ego hurt from the complaints about Jason/Piper/Frank/Hazel/Leo (basically a non-Percabeth character) being underdeveloped. I know his ego was fucked when he “killed” Leo but didn’t really kill Leo so everyone was like what the fuck. I know he wanted to prove he is a good writer but like any other bad writer, he decided to jump the shark. And I know he wanted Jason and Piper to be more likable but the fandom really wanted a Leo-esque character. The breakup really happened because he wanted to demonstrate to critics that he could live with couples not being endgame and knew Jasiper was relatively unpopular compared to Percabeth/Caleo/etc. He wasn’t thinking in terms of ‘does this fit what I’ve created’ but in terms of ‘people might be like oh shit this is violent and they’re finally gone!’. I don’t know what idiotic thought process made him reach the point of killing one of them but he obviously got there. See, there is no difference between Jason or Piper dying in TBM. It could’ve easily been Piper who was impaled by Caligula and reminded Apollo “what it’s like to be human”. They were made *that* insignificant in TBM. Pretty much fucking interchangeable. IN DEATH. It also could’ve been anybody else in the world. It could’ve been that cheerleader from The Battle of the Labyrinth. It could’ve been Piper’s dad. It could have been Sally Jackson. Not a single part of Jason’s death was really related to Jason or his growth. Jason was the main/lead from HOO and if he was destined to die (which he wasn’t because RR doesn’t think anything through anymore), he should have died in his own series. That would make his sacrifice more compelling and important, but dying in TOA is just a big fuck you to his character. I think the only equivalent I can think of is if HOO had solely been Jason’s series but RR pulled up Percy to simply kill him and then just kept writing. What the fuck does TOA have anything to do with Jason or Piper? Or even Leo? I usually love when characters make cameo appearances to remind us of the past we loved them in. Kind of like when Lynda Carter appeared as Asteria in WW1984. Conversely, involving them in the plot and then using them as a plot device for the main character- AKA USING YOUR MAIN CHARACTER AS A PLOT DEVICE FOR ANOTHER MAIN CHARACTER IN A SEPARATE SERIES- is not only dumb but it truly makes everything else you’ve written for the first main character devoid of any real significance. Jason was never a fully fleshed-out character, the way he deserved to be written, because RR couldn’t world build as well as he thought and that ‘every single character gets a POV’ didn’t do the legendary thing he thought it did. However, anything that mattered about Jason was pretty much killed in TBM because he was easily killed by a villain that was not even remotely interested in Jason or aware of his existence. What does FUCK does Caligula mean to Jason? Nothing. Did the final battle create a full circle for Jason other than the line “remember?” which is not really related to his amnesia- no. His character arc was about an identity crisis- being pushed and pulled in two directions. Jason barely means anything to Apollo so RR using Jason as a convenient kill to send home a message is also shitty for Apollo. Lead hero characters can die- they sometimes just have to. Marissa Cooper’s death in the OC narratively makes sense due to the nature of the character being a damsel in distress from the very beginning- a foil to her counterpart, Ryan Atwood. But in this case, RR knew he had to shock people to keep getting $$$. I never got the impression RR cared about Jason or Piper, especially since he was incredibly disrespectful and lazy when writing about Piper. (For that- I can link really detailed posts explaining his racism). The truth is Riordan cannot live without putting his characters in relationships- Frazel, Caleo, Tyson/Ella (?), Hedge/Mellie- but he wanted to prove that he could which is why Jasiper broke up.

Piper’s girlfriend in TON- I didn’t read TON for the reasons above and I don’t think I’ll ever read a Riordan book again: I did find out that Piper gets a GF in TON which at first I thought was incredibly neat but then later became angry when I learned it was only months after Jason’s death? I have always wanted Piper to explore her sexuality but RR has this case of never giving important things the development it deserves. He’s incredibly messy and inconsistent when he creates lgbtqia+ characters, usually only including them so he can get credit for including them. He’s never actually explored Piper’s sexuality fully in the series, but he threw her in yet another relationship we didn’t get to read about right after she was almost beaten to death and then witnessed the murder of her ex-boyfriend. If you think that is representation, please rethink that. We don’t get to hear her talk about anything at all, except maybe mentioning the girl’s name. A subtle hint. Just representation is not good representation and it is right that we demand better representation. Don’t settle for less. For fuck’s sake, Riverdale is only really good at queerbaiting but they get so much praise. (Do they? At this point I can’t tell). If we wanted to explore Piper’s sexuality, it could have been done while she was with Jason or even broken up with him in her own series- why didn’t RR explore the nature of being lgbtqia+ in an Indigenous family? He had the chance to demonstrate an awareness of intersectionality through Piper but he fucked up. He had so much to write about. So, people who are yelling happily about that Piper appearance in TON-??? 

 This was long and frustrating to write. But I had feelings.