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cringefaecompilation · 3 months

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DORIAN STORM, ROBBIE DAYMOND, AND THE CRITICAL ROLE FANDOM

because some people don’t know how to act when a piece of collaborative media they like starts getting people of color to add to it. a good amount of this are things I’ve already discussed on my blog, so if you’ve been following me for a while, consider this a more polished version of my complaining. obvious content warnings for racism, with explicit focus on whitewashing, pinkwashing, and cultural assimilation.

quick note before we start: we’re talking about racism, not how annoying you think xyz white character is or how much you want to punt all xyz shippers into a fire. keep your comments focused on dorian himself; it feels counterproductive when conversations about the racism experienced by actors of color and the fictional characters they play snowballs into shitting on fictional white characters and completely ignoring the former.

with all that said, let’s begin.

if you’re reading this, there’s a strong possibility that you already know who dorian storm is, but just in case if you don’t, i’ll give you a quick rundown.

dorian storm is an air genasi bard from campaign 3 of critical role. he made his debut a few months before the third campaign official started in what was meant to be an anthology series on the channel: exandria unlimited. after eight episodes in that series, a short 14 episode run establishing the new campaign, and two more episodes in a sequel to the first anthology, dorian remained largely out of focus for the remainder of the campaign up until episode 92 whereupon he returned and rejoined his party for the third act climax.

while he’s generally beloved, most of his fans haven’t seen or acknowledged his debut, and have only watched the main series campaign. it’s a shame, given how little he’s given to do in the main campaign asides reconnect with his elder brother cyrus. most of his characterization is found in the anthologies and gets built upon when he comes back, so the fandom’s aversion to watching it means they’re missing out on a lot of what robbie’s established for dorian. the more i thought about this aversion, the more it hit me as to why people might be put off it. for such a beloved fandom character, most fans have completely forgotten that exandria unlimited was largely dorian’s story, with opal picking up the slack whenever he took a break from being in the spotlight. by comparison, fearne, orym, and dariax had minimal screentime and vaguer backstory setup.

dorian and opal taking up the vast swath of story in makes sense for two reasons: robbie and aimee were completely new to the hobby! let the new guys have their fun instead of letting the professionals try to backseat drive the story! the second reason is that ashley johnson, liam o’brien, and matthew mercer are 100% going to return to critical role. it’s their jobs! so they can stand to fight over the same 15 minutes of screentime where aimee and robbie have their fun in the spotlight. even not-so-new kid anjali bhimani got a massive swath of her storyline and backstory established despite only appearing for half the first mini-series!

the same thing happened with calamity, where the plot was primarily moved by aabria and luis. sadly, lou did not get to add as much as them (or the rest of the cast imo) but brennan understood not to give marisha, travis, and sam special attention because they’re always there.

and if we’re talking about calamity, there’s another thing we’ve got to talk about. why is the pre-campaign three series that is predominantly played and dm’d by people of color, treated as more expendable than the pre-history avalir series despite involving three fandom-beloved characters and two fandom-beloved ships? how come people complained about an episode and a half being dm’d by aabria because “they weren’t warned ahead of time” but were fine with brennan taking over critical role for an entire month when there was equally zero “warning” for him to do so? and thinking harder, i suppose i came up with our thesis question.

do people even really like dorian?

DORIAN/ROBBIE BASHING

edit: robbie pulled a pro gamer move and this section is now somewhat inaccurate. see here for an explanation.

since dorian’s vocal haters aren’t as numerous as his vocal fans, i’ll go through this part quickly.

i understand that any character can be grating to anyone for any reason, but some of their insults and insistences about dorian and robbie tend to get a bit loaded. we’re not racist! we just think robbie daymond is just uniquely annoying with crosstalk and his character’s backstory doesn’t mesh with the story the campaign is trying to tell! he’s not a real member of the group because he wasn’t there for all their important moments! he should just die offscreen so they’ll shut up about him already! the only reason people want him back is because they’re rabid liam o’brien fangirls that want him to kiss a man with tongue on-screen!

we’ll touch on that last bit later, but there’s always a weird pit in my stomach whenever someone insists that dorian doesn’t work with bell’s hells. the watsonian side of me wants to argue that a runaway/disguised noble is a perfectly common npc type. but the doylist side of me wonders if they think it’s because robbie does not fit in as a person with the cast of critical role because there’s just something too different about him. i wonder if you can tell what it is.

and this last one is more of a nitpick, but a few people joked about how robbie, christian, and utkarsh were all interchangeable or sound or look the same. don’t do that.

in full fairness, i don’t think it makes someone a racist automatically if they dislike a fictional person of color. after all, you can say “i think finn was underutilized in the star wars trilogy and had an unsatisfying character arc, so i cannot bring myself to like him” and still acknowledge that there was bigotry in the writer’s room that led to said poor character arc.

unfortunately, someone might agree with only the first part of your complaint and then add on that they fantasize about blowing up john boyega with their mind so that rey and kylo can have their perfect aryan babies in peace. not only that, but the insistence that a person of color having a minimal role compared to the white people in the story to explain why you can’t be a fan of them goes from explanation to excuse rapidly when you realize how many white background characters are given their own sub-fandoms built solely upon headcanons.

which leads us to our next point.

DOUBLE STANDARDS AND WHITEWASHING

this fandom seems to have a massive problem with headcanons, but it’s not for the reasons you’d think. they have to act as though the person is only making up headcanons to spite either the rest of the fanbase or the human actor themselves. i’ve no such compunctions about headcanons. give pike glasses! make laudna viet! say that caduceus is a cane user! but there comes a problem when you insist that your angsty trauma headcanons are more genuine than someone who has legitimately gone through the same in canon.

what do i mean by that? let’s pivot a bit to a comparison between two seemingly unrelated characters that made the rounds about a year ago: essek thelyss and bor’dor dog’son. don’t worry, this ties into dorian, i swear.

both men were jaded by religion and religious people in their lives and were led down dark paths when martinet ludinus da’leth entered their lives and attempted to sway them into his anti-god cult. bor’dor was fully sucked into the cogs of his killing machine and offed by bell’s hells, but essek fled into hiding after giving ludinus a holy item that belonged to his people, realizing too little too late the weight of his actions.

according to fandom, essek was manipulated emotionally into a bigoted movement and just needed to be deradicalized because he didn’t know what he was doing was wrong. the fictional man of color, bor’dor dog’son, as portrayed by the real-life man of color, utkarsh ambhukdar, for some reason is not given this grace at all. in fact, he’s been compared to delilah briarwood of all people because both of them were villainous sorcerers that felt slighted by someone, despite this comparison falling flat outside of the aesthetic where she is a broken bird crying out for her husband rather than a conniving unrepentant villain. or perhaps they see him as just as evil as her for harming and deceiving the white player characters.

it seems fandom is more comfortable with the illusion of a person of color as voiced by a white man, filtered through a fantasy species canonically discriminated against, and further filtered through headcanons, fanart, and fanfiction by their choice rather than having to interact with the indian man on screen staring back at them.

and if bor’dor is demonized for being a person of color, then dorian is liked for… being a person of color… that the fandom can pretend he isn’t because his skin is blue and not brown.

dorian is literally a person of color with his blue skin and hair, but he’s still also an actual person of color because of his player. compare him to sam nightingale and katja cleaver, despite having powder blue skin and olive-green skin and being fantasy creatures (triton and orc), they wasted no time in telling brennan lee mulligan that there would be no “carmelinda” nonsense; they were a black transfeminine woman and an indian woman just the same as them.

and if you’re going to say, “okay but assuming a person of color has to play a character that’s the same race/ethnicity as they are makes you the real bigot!”

again, must i refer to sam nightingale and katja cleaver. they made the active decision to depict their characters the same as themselves. they consented to it. this was not some sort of shallow corporate-driven plot to force two women of color into portraying diverse characters to capitalize off their identities.

and likewise, the same can be said for robbie and dorian. robbie daymond identifies as multiracial and is part apache. that’s straight from his twitter, so it’s very easily accessible to anybody that would be curious.

so going back to critical role, dorian comes from a nomadic people who keep mostly to themselves and provide wisdom to its diasporic people that come to them for guidance. they’re extremely secretive and even more so distrustful of outsiders, resorting to violence as a last-ditch effort to ensure their secrecy. they can’t risk anything about their people or their culture falling into the wrong hands and warn their children to be wary of the outside world. dorian and his brother reject being called princes a lot of times, and cyrus only picks it up because he likes the sound of it!

if you aren’t from the united states of america you might not know (and even if you are, you still might not know) apache tribes are known for being nomadic. being diasporic and wary of outside forces attempting to harm one's culture only further bolsters the coding. dorian’s backstory appears to be robbie attempting to reconnect with his culture, and good on him! but for some reason, the fandom hasn’t picked up on that. look, i love fanart that emphasizes robbie’s culture, but the number of times i’ve seen people reblog/retweet it without a second thought and then go back to ignoring the exact same cultural coding in canon is… something else.

if vandran can somehow have an accent (and fjord can mimic it) from the southern united states of america off the coast of a continent based on eastern europe, if byroden is somehow comparable with the real-life city of laredo, texas despite being smack dab in the middle of a continent based on western europe, if the air ashari’s culture is a weird mishmash of samoan, irish celtic, and pan-east asian (by way of avatar the last airbender) cultures, then i don’t think it’s an unreasonable thought that the silken squall would not have to be a one-to-one recreation to be coded as such, laurel crowns be damned.

this lack of attention to this detail in fandom is a bit strange, as usually every other (usually male) character has their backstories and everything that their players intended for them memorized to a t by the fandom. it’s almost a running gag at this point where if someone makes a headcanon that bends canon the slightest millimeter and begins to gain traction, you’ll have someone more popular than them instantly vagueing “crazy entitled fans” who “think they know better than canon”. so what makes robbie’s unstated intentions for dorian (outside his affection for his friends and possible romantic crushes) completely fly under the radar? doesn’t anybody think that’s weird? does he need to say out loud that dorian is coded as native so people will realize it?

but even this erasure isn’t the worst of bigotry with his character, that’s saved for the next part.

STEREOTYPES

the irony of dorian’s backstory being whitewashed but his role in fandom still heavily conforming to racist stereotypes about native americans is not lost on me. it’s like there’s a veil keeping them from fully realizing it, but it’s thin enough for them to latch onto unconscious prejudices. there are a lot of caricatures of native americans in media, both within and outside of north america, but only two of them apply to dorian’s treatment in fandom. the magical indian and the noble savage.

the magical indian, much like the magical negro and the magical asian, is nothing more than a paragon of perfection that exists only to prop up the white characters. they give sage advice and mentorship, but have little to no aspirations of their own or even a life outside their relationship with their white protégé. they may die heroically to spur the white characters into action and mourn how kind and perfect they were.

the noble savage gives similar bolstering to the white characters, but carries even worse implications. at the very least the former is seen as something resembling a person, deified and lacking all depth as they may be. the noble savage is treated like an entirely alien species, and a violent and dangerous one at that. he is handsome, in an exotic, othered way, but violent and unable to be reasoned with and only ever sated for a time. despite being “one of the good ones” he still needs to be “civilized” completely out of his culture or murdered to avoid tainting white culture.

obviously nothing in this fandom gets that bad, but the parallels are there. prior to dorian’s return, the vast majority of fan content that detailed his return made him into the de facto therapist for bell’s hells. because obviously dorian wasn’t going through anything himself with the solstice, magic backfiring, and opal being corrupted! he’d be happy to be nothing more than a shoulder to cry on without any traumas or tribulations of his own to worry about! they all got solved and dealt with offscreen, honest. and after his return, people who were either on the fence about him or disliked him entirely began to come around once he positively interacted with and bonded with the other white characters they liked.

the complaint of “i dislike that dorian is never allowed to exist outside of his friends” gets misinterpreted as “it’s out of character for dorian to care so much about his friends” either by well-meaning or willful ignorance, but at the end of the day, it’s ignorance either way. this would be different if he was an npc, but he has hours of content that doesn’t focus solely on his relationships with other people. yes, it is a massive part of his characterization that he will do anything for his loved ones, but why are we focusing on them and not him?

then again, maybe fandom shouldn’t focus on other parts of his backstory.

any mention of the silken squall that isn’t reskinning it to be a generic fantasy keep tends to make it a living hell. sure, the bits and pieces we’ve heard from it make it extremely clear they’re unhealthily secretive, strict, and a bit full of themselves, but it’s not as if they’re evil aristocrats that kick puppies for fun. the tale of a young man that’s going against tradition is hardly one that belongs to a single culture, but i’ve found people find it the most digestible when they strip it of all nuances. it’s the “no, dad, i’m my own man! individualism for life, baby!” power fantasy everyone’s always dreamed of where you can up and leave a situation and leave everything you’ve ever known behind.

so the silken squall is just homophobic, transphobic, and fantasy racist. dorian should completely abandon it and all its ways to go off gallivanting with the hells in perpetuity, which is the correct option. never mind that matt himself said that lgbtphobia in exandria is not the same or is far less common than it is in our world. never mind that in the previous campaign there was a massive story hook about prejudice and xenophobia that humans enacted on species they viewed as “monsters”. because why should the silken squall be anything more than a hive of bigotry and cruelty with no grey areas? everyone knows every flying city in exandria was pure evil and should be nuked from orbit! it’s true, brennan lee mulligan told me so!

i suppose i was wrong for expecting better. if two disney films meant to sell dolls to little girls that more or less looked directly into the camera and said “sometimes people do bad stuff because they were hurt real bad in the past, but that doesn’t make them bad people! racism is still gross!” could both get misinterpreted with zero nuance as being about an abusive matriarch forcing her family into impossible perfection, then i should’ve figured that people would do the same with a piece of adult media.

SHIPPING CONTENT

let’s finally get this out of the way. there is a very intentional reason i’ve been dancing around the subject of shipping with dorian.

i do not have anything against dorym as a ship. i do think that they like each other! they’ve got a lot of really sweet moments together! they just have a lot of personal things they have to work through to get there.

to say that it’s forced, or they’re “trying too hard” to make it seem like they’re about to confess their mutual love, or has had zero buildup can feel at times like a “gotcha” to mock its fans for being pushy. they’re both clearly trying to get back into the swing of things now that robbie’s returned and they can move forward with developing their relationship. i wouldn’t be surprised if it’ll be like late game beauyasha, which had a similar problem with not having a lot of content for it due to one member of the ship being absent from the table because scheduling despite being beloved by fandom until we got into the mid-100s.

that all being said, there is a tendency for dorian to be treated poorly in the ship by the shippers. all my complaints about it hinge solely on the fans. now, i don’t think all dorym fans are like this; i would be making the same complaints if dorian/laudna, dorian/imogen, fearne/dorian, doomstorm, or greystorm shippers did this as well. but since dorym is the most popular out of all of them, i will be discussing it primarily.

small mercies that dorian’s coding is largely ignored because that means nobody's making pocahontas aus with the dorym ship. (and if they are, please don’t tell me. we know its racist. you don’t need to show it to me to confirm that it is, indeed, racist. i don’t frequent ao3 for a reason). even without that, dorym still falls victim to the ship dynamic of the delicate white person and the strong person of color.

i’m already uncomfortable with how orym’s trauma is viewed by a vast majority of the fandom, but adding in the “dorian has no feelings outside his own and is only a machine to deposit in trauma coins until sex comes out” situation i described earlier, it gets bad really quick. often times dorian’s whole worldview is warped to focus only on orym and orym’s feelings. he certainly trusts and looks to him as a leader, but the constant insistence that orym is the only thing that matters in his life, orym is the only person he would trust unconditionally, orym is the only one he would ever truly be in love with, he must be the one to fix orym’s trauma and make him whole with no work from orym’s side at all and orym orym orym orym orym-

yeah it’s bad.

and now we come to braius doomseed, the newest bull on the block. sam riegel introduced his new character as an over-comedic flirt who went after everybody with a pulse... and laudna! provided you’re able to take a joke, a lot of people had fun cracking remarks about how braius confirmed that bell’s hells were just another basement away from having a real orgy instead of a fake. but then there were those who did not like the joke, and by that i mean, people who genuinely wished death upon sam, braius and the shippers ironic and genuine for daring to get in the way of dorym. because dorian is orym’s man, not braius’ man!

do i really need to say why it’s wrong to say or imply a white person owns a person of color? do you need an explanation for that? it’s bad! very bad!

i must reiterate: i don’t think every single dorym shipper acts like this or has never spoken out about this trend. i follow a good number of people that like the ship and a lot of them have no problem with shipping them with other people and treating them as their own characters on equal footing. it’s okay to like the ship and it’s okay to not like the ship.

or if you don’t like the ship, you could always make nazi jokes.

would you believe that this post actually made me want to make this one? there is a score of perfectly good reasons to dislike dorym as a ship as stated previously, but you made a joke about how a white guy is getting denied of his rightful claim to a relationship by a native guy? i take it back, maybe people do need things explained to them. you certainly don’t see laura/marisha pc shippers speak about aabria or erika this way.

speaking of, that makes for a terrific segue!

imodna tends to be bashed by both ashrym and dorym shippers in equal measures, partially due to misogyny and lesbophobia usually rampant in m/m shipping spaces, and partially because people still have lingering wounds from entitled beaujes shippers from campaign two. i think it’s safe to assume that a vast swath of the holdover from campaign two abandoned ship (heh) following episode 34, as that’s when i remember seeing a lot of angry imodna shippers complaining about how orym should have died instead of laudna and ragequitting the campaign. but what does this have to do with dorian, you ask?

well, i haven’t seen any fanfiction or aus where dorian is laudna’s abusive boyfriend that imogen must save with her sapphic mind powers (again, if it does exist, keep that shit to yourself because we know it’s racist) but i have seen some imodna fans utterly despise orym and anything that has to do with him. and if they hate anything that has to do with him, that includes dorian.

most of the “dorian is a useless character that doesn’t need to exist/only exists for crazy fangirls/should die offscreen” comments as stated all the way back there come from imodna shippers sniping back at a lot of the people being crappy about their ship. or in fanfic/fanart they’ll overemphasize his snottier or selfish aspects or make him out to be an impulsive dimwit as a “joke.” long story short, they aim at the white guy and dorian gets gored with the shrapnel.

SO NOW WHAT?

i think it’s pretty obvious where to go from here. do better. watch exandria unlimited and exandria unlimited kymal! acknowledge the story that robbie is trying to tell. be respectful and ask questions if people are willing to give answers. and if you don’t find dorian enjoyable or interesting as a character, think about why you don’t and ask yourself if you’d extend that same indifference to a white character. it’s not that hard to simply say that a ship or a character just isn’t your thing without being bigoted about it!

hopefully this post helped people see things they may have overlooked in their analyses of dorian and thanks to @bam-monsterhospital, @fear-ne and a bunch of anons for adding their input!

#🍃#critical role #critrole #fandom racism #dorian storm #robbie daymond #me when i use my college education to make a post talking about people being annoying racists about a fictional blue dude i enjoy

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justenjoythegossip · 7 months

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WILL ALBA’S IMMATURITY, RACISM AND ALLEGED INFIDELITY BE USED TO EXPLAIN THE SPLIT?

Regardless of where people find themselves on the spectrum, I am pretty sure they would agree on the fact that Chris and Abba are not endgame. Far from it. The question is not whether they will break up or not. It’s definitely not a question of if. It’s a question of when. It’s a question of how. I already wrote a post about whether or not Chris’ fans will be held responsible for the ending of the shitshow. And given what we’ve witnessed coming from certain blogs last night, it still seems like a very valid and likely option.

The very questionable medium article…

I will not discuss the credibility of this publication for the simple reason that until yesterday, I had never heard of it in the first place. And I suspect I am not the only one. So I would argue that this fact alone is telling in itself.

But one has to wonder whether a fan/troll wrote this piece. Or, whether this was written by someone from Chris’ team passing for a possessive fan to hint at a potential break-up. But even if that was true, people shouldn’t expect a divorce announcement so soon. They could be breadcrumbing for a while, like they have been doing since the beginning of this “relationship”. And why wouldn’t they drag this for as long as they can? We know Chris and Abba are both desperate attention seekers and I am pretty sure they will want to continue with the charade for as long as it can benefit them. However this article is more than questionable. And for many reasons.

Why it doesn’t pass the test of credibility from a PR standpoint…

This article is completely over the top and extreme in the picture it depicts. Chris is seen as this poor innocent victim and Abba as this super uber arch-villain. Given the optics of this relationship (he looks like her old uncle) and the power dynamics at play (he is a powerful Hollywood star and she is a no-name actress from a small country), I don’t need to say that the picture they are selling in that article is a PR nightmare in the making. The caricature is not only absolutely grotesque, but it also reeks of misogyny.

If people don’t follow other celebrities, I’d like to mention the case of Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner, which happened fairly recently. He and his team tried to hurt her by doing a very insidious and over-the-top smearing campaign against her but it backfired on him big time. What is interesting is that Sophie Turner did make a lot of strategic appearances with her bestie Taylor but she never lowered herself to play those ugly tactics. She chose to remain silent which hurt Joe even more because again you can’t fight against someone who doesn’t want to fight back, it makes you look like a bully. Obviously Abba is no Sophie, she doesn’t have her career, her popularity or her large fandom but you get the point.

And what also makes this article totally implausible is this: ”Despite his past struggles in the realm of romance, Chris remains optimistic about finding his true soulmate and starting a family.” First of all, no one would ever say that publicly after getting divorced even if the marriage only lasted 5 months and was non-legally binding. It’s a time to regroup, to collect yourself and to reflect. Also it makes him look like an unstable neurotic mess.

But what this article provoked was quite interesting…

An all-out war between the seemingly psychotic Team PR & Team Real blogs

Majorscammer and her band of goonish cultists completely lost it last night (interesting sidenote: the tone and rhetoric used by all these mods is now completely identical). They were always unhinged, mean, arrogant, and insulting (“bitchy” according to Majorscammer herself) but it got even more insane last night as they patted themselves on the back for having been right all along despite having lied about pretty much everything for quite a long time. They even called their counterparts from Team Real out by names and attacked them violently. Of course, Team Real blogs responded and posted an article on Medium, saying Chris and Abba were still together and proving that people could post anything on that website. They also proved they looked just as insecure and irrational as their counterparts Team PR blogs. If it wasn’t pure show (and it clearly is), we should recommend them to commit themselves to a mental institution.

But as we have witnessed since the beginning, those Team PR and Team Real blogs were always meant to fight. It was always about feeding the discourse, keeping people engaged, riling them up to distract them from the actual truth. And with yesterday’s show, those teams tried to keep the passion going as I think fans are getting tired of the obvious BS. It’s getting so repetitive, there are not so many twists and turns and let’s be honest Chris and Abba are not the most fascinating protagonists.

What main purpose did that questionable article likely serve?

The answer to that question seems pretty straightforward. All we have to do is to read the last sentence of that article, which is in bold characters in case we missed the point:

“Chris will attend the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle on Friday, March 1 and Saturday, March 2.”

Look at what has been fed to the fandom recently:

A sight of Chris’ doppelganger with no ring

Abba skiing with her friends without the ring

Chris posting Dodger in MA for Valentine

Chris posting pictures of himself in LA without his wife (she recently said in an interview that this is where she lives) from a month ago

All of these are hints and breadcrumbs that Chris and Abba might be splitting up. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t. But the point is all eyes will be riveted on Chris as he speaks at the Con in Seattle. I should mention that this conference will be a live-broadcast on YouTube. How convenient, isn't it?

Will he wear the ring? Will he not wear the ring? We have seen that movie before, haven’t we? Yes, I believe we have!

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raytorosaurus · 2 years

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want to preface this by saying that this has nothing to do with frank himself and it is not about “frank girls vs ray girls.” i’ve just been seeing some posts the last few days - just from a small group of people, i’m not making statements about “frank girls” in general at all - and i want to say that if frank is your favourite and your reaction to ray getting similar levels of fan attention to him for the first time literally ever is to get defensive and act like this is a slight against frank, maybe think about that. especially given the recent much-overdue conversation about fandom racism in relation to ray, and especially if you didn’t engage with that conversation.

like. since the breakup and up until this reunion tour has started, frank has pretty consistently been the most popular member of my chemical romance. this is of course understandable because he’s a deeply lovable guy and can largely be attributed to the fact that he’s the one most in the public eye, but ray was out there doing regular interviews in 2016, making blog posts, even appearing on a couple of podcasts, and he was never afforded the same amount of attention from both fans and major music publications as frank has been. i know there’s a lot of factors that go into this and a lot are understandable but if you were paying attention to the recent conversations about subtle self-perpetuating racial biases in emo/rock culture, you have to acknowledge that some of those factors are inextricably tied to those racial biases. i have genuinely no idea where the idea that ray somehow gets more credit than frank/more credit than he deserves comes from - as if he’s not been consistently underappreciated by mainstream music culture because of the homophobia and ableism linked to being associated with my chemical romance in general, and also by mcr’s own fanbase because of the reasons we discussed the other day - largely, because he’s not one of their twinky white faves. frank in the past few weeks receiving less attention for his guitar/backing vocals/stage presence than ray is not in any way comparable to the way ray has been overlooked for decades or wildly mischaracterised as a) a controlling technical musician who was disenganged from the emotional and thematic messages of mcr (at best) or b) weirdly hostile towards frank or vaguely homophobic/transphobic (at worst). again, these perceptions of him are so far removed from reality and from everything ray stands for and are largely rooted in him being seen as the straight masc one for years due to his race (discussed by many people recently but for example here). also i feel like i shouldn’t even have to mention this but ray is more complimentary and respectful of frank’s talents as a musician than literally anyone else, and anyone who’s paid attention to a word out of ray’s mouth knows that.

again, this is not meant to be a criticism of frank in the slightest and obviously it’s 1000% understandable and cool if he’s your favourite. and it’s of course okay to want to discuss your own fave more than you discuss the others! but please think about how you look if you’re complaining about him not getting enough attention these past two shows specifically or acting like discussing ray = belittling frank. and please don’t take this post as a reason to get defensive. it’s just okay if someone else gets attention too and that doesn’t mean frank isn’t loved and appreciated in his own right. we don’t have to behave like toddlers.

#frank would be embarrased abt this behaviour ngl sjdkljsgs #also 'making fun of frank in an affectionate mannter' =/= minimising his talent and most of that actually comes from frank stans anyway #idk what to tag this #fandom

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kutputli · 2 months

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I got an anon ask that makes me think I should clarify a few things:

First of all, not everything I reblog from a fandom is an uncritical endorsement of it. Meta especially, I sometimes reblog just to be able to find it again, since I'm percolating my own thoughts. I'm not going to specify every single time exactly what I agree with and disagree with either, because I don't always want to start up a discussion with the OP.

Second, I don't go through someone's entire blog to get a sense of their worldview before I reblog something. I am definitely not going to consider my reblog of someone's particular post to be an endorsement of their entire take of fandom or politics or life at large.

Third, I generally prefer to disengage from fans whose opinions I find objectionable. I prefer to not get into arguments, unless I am having a discussion with someone who I think is worth investing my time and energy in.

Fourth, I care a lot about racism in both source media and internet fandom (along with casteism, sexism, colonialism and other structures of oppression). But I also care a lot about finding people who share my values and engaging fannishly with them, rather than specifically addressing individual people I disagree with.

The last fandom I invested deeply in was Ted Lasso, and there I found myself blocked by professional journalists when I called out the racism written into their professional reviews. I saw my posts being ignored by white fans who chose to reblog other white people's takes on racism. I am very aware of how white fandoms operate, and because I want to continue to derive some pleasure in fandom, I am conciously choosing to interact very selectively with white fans.

Interview with the Vampire is my current fandom and I am very invested in talking about the racial dynamics of the show. I have a lot of criticism for the creators. I also am very aware of some of the racist dynamics present in the fandom, but I am not interested in picking fights with anyone. I also don't want to be used as a cats paw.

And finally, I respect the diversity of world view within fans of colour. Everyone has their own lines in the sand regarding what media they consider ok to engage with, and what fannish takes they can get along with. I couldn't get into the OFMD fandom after I watched the show because slave-owning leads is a hard line for me. It isn't for other fans, including some Black fans, and that's fine. Some Indian fans enjoy Sanjay Leela Bhansali's movies. I find them appallingly regressive Hindutva lite. I read and kudos all kinds of fucked up kinky fic that many people find morally repugnant and I have some friends who write it and some who judge it. I love and support a healthy ecosystem of media criticism. But I am not going to spend my energy critiquing the choices that fans make.

All of which is to say, I may disappoint you if you expect my blog to set some kind of standard in fannish content. I'm open to being questioned, and to being corrected. But I also am here to play.

#my meta #fannish racism

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peoplesrazor · 24 days

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youtube

Oh boy...

So in her introduction, Lily names five shows she thinks people talk about the most often for important LGBTQIA+ Rep. Those shows are Legend of Korra, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, and The Owl House. She mentions three other shows that I'll talk about later that she says people don't talk about, but which either had rep earlier, or had just as good or better rep.

She doesn't mention Ducktales or the Daria movie Is It Fall Yet ?or any other shows. Just in case you're wondering. She talks about Braceface, 6teen, and Lloyd In Space. Now, Lily has mentioned the other two as they were shows she watched growing up. I think Lloyd was a suggestion on her blog. I remember someone mentioning it there.

I'll let her arguments for these stand as she is mostly talking about how "early" they were. I do want to point out these characters were only in couple of episodes in one case, and a single episode in the others. So, Daria should have certainly been at least mentioned as an early example, even if it wasn't a very good characterization.

The three shows she says have better rep then the five she thinks are held up so much:

Craig of the Creek has several couples that fit this description and it's good rep, because it's so low-key. People talk about them though. The show, though very good, can be a bit niche to begin with so it just doesn't have a large vocal audience.

The Loud House has Luna and Sam, which does get talked about too, but it's a contemporary of the other shows you mentioned. Which means Luna and Sam, by your standards for the more modern stuff, have to be main characters. If you count Luna and Sam as main characters, you have to count, at least, fifteen other people. Kind of easy for their couple of 15 minute episodes to get lost in that shuffle.

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is one of my all time favorite shows. Lily says people are sleeping on Benson and Troy due to racism. What? Kipo is very popular in the fandom circles I hang around in and Benson and Troy are like THE ship. Did you sleep on this one, Lily? Did no one in your circle recommend it because it's a serialized fantasy adventure? Is that why you never did a dedicated video on it, despite it's rep being so good?

It wouldn't be a Lily video if she didn't tear down the shows other people like. First, there is something she repeatedly gets wrong, as far as I know, about Korra. She again says that Korrasami was a popular ship, true, and that they threw it together last minute, false. At least, by everything I've found. No, it wasn't planned from the start, but it wasn't last minute, either.

They started discussing it while writing book one. Writing. Not during it's run, not while animating the last few eps. While writing it. Why wait then? I suspect it's for something Lily has actually complained about before that actually happens. For some reason, showrunners want to wait until the end of the series to have the couple end up together. I suspect it was never anything deeper than that.

Okay, onto the Catradora thing. I'm not going to argue with anyone, not even Lily, who finds the relationship toxic, unhealthy, abusive. Though, now that I think about it, Lily, you sure seem to like to repeatedly show that footage for someone who gets triggered by FMA.

Anyway, I want to point out this hypocrisy:

Lily: If I have to hear it on a live stream, read it in production materials, or on Twitter, it doesn't count. I base my criticism only on what is in the show.

Also Lily: Let me once again call Catra and Adora sisters based on a single line I found on one page of outside materials, despite the show never once giving any indication that is the case.

She also lies and says it does indicate that. It does not. Hey Lily? Are Kyle, Rogelio and Lonnie also siblings? Wait. You never actually watched the show, you probably don't know who they are.

Should have just posted the bingo card again.

#lily orchard critical #lily orchard is a bad critic #youtube #Youtube

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the-nanowrimo-chronicles · 8 months

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Discords, forums and a decade’s worth of allegations: how Nanowrimo started a revolution against it.

I’m just gonna copy paste the Reddit post since. I cannot figure Tumblr out. So I apologise for the weird formatting. If you’d rather read the Reddit posts:

Trigger warnings: child abuse, assault, predators, racism, fetishes, ableism, terrorism, bombings, and just plain abuse.

This will also include brief mentions of religion.

**Terms used in the Nanowrimo community:**

Nanowrimo: national novel writing month: a writing challenge to write 50k words in November. This is also used to refer to the organisation, a Californian 501c3 that the challenge originates from, with a website and a forum. However the challenge can be done without the organisation. Often called ‘nano’ for short.

Young Writers’ Program: a Nanowrimo run platform aimed at people under 18. A separate site with classrooms and its own separate forum. The forum is for people aged 13-18. Often called ‘YWP’ for short.

Municipal Liasions: community organisers responsible for one region. This could be a city or a country depending on size and population. They help organise local events and mod their regional forums. Municipal Liasions are not paid. There are several hundreds of them. Often called ‘MLs’ for short.

Christian Teens Together: a group on the main Nanowrimo forums, and the largest group on the forums. Despite the name the group is not entirely composed of Christians or teens, however that is where the group originates. The majority of the group are minors. Often called ‘CTT’ for short.

Random Thoughts and Exclamations: the main thread of the YWP forums, basically a general. Often called ‘RTAE’ for short.

Prior to the meltdown, Nanowrimo had around 15 salaried staff. These are collectively referred to as HQ. However, they also have several forum moderators. These receive a $100 check at the end of the year, but are mostly considered volunteers. These mods have no involvement in the main site. However, some staff that worked on the forums were salaried and had main site involvement and so will be considered part of HQ unless stated later on.

**Scam sponsorships.**

In December 2022, a group of Nanowrimo users raised concerns about a pair of vanity publishers that had sponsored the Nanowrimo challenge. (A vanity publisher or vanity press is a publisher where the author pays the costs and surrenders a large portion of the rights to their work.) Nanowrimo had promoted discounts for these publishers, Inkitt and Manuscripts, to winners of its challenge. Staff and mods suspended and muted multiple accounts who raised the initial concerns, but eventually allowed a forum thread discussing concerns to remain. One of the affected users explained the concerns as follows:

> Now that I’ve been unbanned, I will try to keep the last 24 hours of thoughts…concise. Inkitt should NEVER have been accepted as a NaNoWriMo sponsor. They have changed business models every few years, and every business model has involved using up the first pub rights of any author who submits, WHICH IS A BIG DEAL, and promising them sketchy ‘prizes’ or ‘contracts’ in return. People who have given them a try also say that getting their content removed is a nightmare and they had to threaten legal action. These are just the starting points.

> There are blog posts about them from many authors dating back to at least 2016, [including my own](https://wrrrdnrrrdgrrrl.com/2016/05/23/inkitt-scam-spam-no-thank-you-maam/), that are easily discoverable by searching “Inkitt scam.” None of this should ever have happened.

> That said, it happened. And the mods panicked, and I went and wrote a [whole new blog](https://wrrrdnrrrdgrrrl.com/2022/11/30/on-nanowrimo-inkitt-and-being-an-author/ ) (which I will update soon to reflect NaNo’s better handling of things today) to warn people away from Inkitt because I wasn’t allowed to do so on the forums. And because I have some audience and writer friends, that got around, and [Victoria Strauss](https://twitter.com/victoriastrauss/status/1598114401818902529) got involved, and eventually we got here.

The following day, the Executive Director responded to the concerns with this message:

> I appreciate everyone’s thoughts and feedback, and want to start with an apology that our vetting process hasn’t met the high values we place on our community care. It shouldn’t have come to this (like so many of you said), but now that it has, we’re taking it as a learning moment to improve our sponsorship processes and find ways to dig deeper into an evaluation of a company.

> We’ve also ended the sponsorship with Inkitt and Manuscripts.

> Currently, the vetting process involves talking to writers, editors, or those working in the writing/publishing “ecosystem,” and then interviewing the potential companies. We often have a long-term relationship with a company and work with them year-over-year, but as the writing/publishing landscape changes so dramatically every year, we often find out about new companies and reach out to them or they reach out to us. We will do a more thorough evaluation of these processes and policies as part of our 2023 planning process to see what changes we need to make. Our goal will be to ensure our policies are in line with our organizational values, and to make sure the process is more transparent. For example, we’re discussing how we can ensure that a wider range of community and trusted industry voices are heard in this process, and on that note, we have already asked Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware to act as a consultant. We’re really pleased that she’s generously agreed to this, as this is her area of expertise and her ethical standards are admirably high. Also, she’s been passionately committed to analyzing products and services for writers for so long.

> We’ll also be sure to consult the resources you’ve already named, such as the various forum threads where you all have been sharing your experiences with companies.

> Thank you again for raising your concerns. We take your feedback very seriously and center it in our plans to care for the community. I’m not just saying that—this has been a valuable learning moment to help us do a better job of vetting sponsors more thoroughly. Your voices are the most important thing we consider when making decisions—not sponsors, but you. I’m sorry that it hasn’t always felt like that in the past, and hope that we can make sure it does in the future. Like you, we think NaNoWriMo should be a place where writers can come for trusted resources. We’re disappointed in ourselves that we lost that trust, and we hope to regain it. I invite you to send on feedback at any time to [email protected].

While Inkitt and Manuscripts were removed as sponsors, it recently emerged that Inkitt was a major donor for Nanowrimo. Some users were beginning to feel that Nanowrimo was protecting their own interests over the interests of their users, which only got worse when new allegations came out the following year.

**Inaction against predators.**

In May 2023, a group of users raised allegations about a moderator of Christian Teens Together. The [allegations](https://nitter.net/Arumi_kai/status/1722007756058574916#m) were that this moderator was luring minors onto a fetish site they ran. The allegations were sent to the Executive Director and the Director of Programs, but no actions were taken after a month. An FBI report had already been filed, but the fetish site was being scrubbed, suggesting that the staff there had been tipped off after the allegations. The group built a new case and after public pressure, got the moderator removed for violations of the forum Code of Conduct after they started threatening the group and the Nanowrimo organisation offsite. This moderator could be a whole post on their own, and has used sockpuppet accounts to lurk on the forums and has commented on the situation on their tumblr. They are often referred to as Mod X, and will be referred to as such in this essay.

In June, a thread on moderation was opened, and a discussion began about the culture of CTT, where it became clear that Mod X had isolated the group and emotionally abused them. It was also revealed that the CTT had a ‘three strikes and shutdown’ system for a group with over a thousand members. One user explained the problem as follows:

> How the CTT members were given only three strikes for over one thousand people is, frankly, appalling and obscene. I can understand treating them as a group; if you give them all three strikes, that’s over three thousand strikes. But they need more than three. But even with that, hanging that last strike over their head for over six months is unacceptable, and yes, I said it before and I’ll say it again, it is emotionally abusive to tell them that one more strike and they’re getting shut down for over six months. Never knowing who’s going to make the mistake that gets them shut down or when, and worrying about when someone messes up. Worrying that they’re going to be one that messes up and is blamed by the group. Terrified of reporting things because what if that report is the reason their community is shut down?

More users came forward with grooming allegations, but these posts were frozen and hidden. However, the cat was out of bag, at least on the main forums. And in a retrospective thread on the 10th of November, a former YWP user spoke up about a similar situation that had happened the month before.

> They did this to the YWP too. When a message was sent outlining evidence of a predator it was ignored for 3 days (iirc) and initially responded with ‘we reviewed this account and found nothing that broke our rules’ only after it was posted publicly on the forums. They did take the account down, but only hours later (once we had made a major fuss with pretty much everyone who knew the situation calling the mods out) and with no further communication for two days, which sent us into a spiral of panic and teens leaving as they didn’t feel safe on the platform.

The following day, the COO responded to this post with:

> Hi there, I wanted to speak to this directly since it relates to a lot of the youth safety issues people are bringing up, and YWP has different systems. First off, we did indeed look into the participant that was flagged on YWP. [YWP lead] and [Director of Programs] discussed and investigated on Oct. 3; they responded on Oct. 4. Our search into their history and their other social media accounts did not find evidence that they were a predator or someone else than the person they claimed to be. We were wrong to say that nothing crossed the lines set by our codes of conduct, and we should have issued a reminder about those codes. However, no violation crossed the line that would require banning. We kept a close eye on this account following the reports and encouraged participants to follow their guts and keep a wide berth. After the account was suspended due to user flags, we agreed their account should not be reinstated.

> In the long term, we’re bringing in additional moderators in the YWP forums. Role plays occasionally skirt the codes around keeping it PG and partly in response to this situation we’re adding a volunteer mod next week who will just be monitoring role plays and the forum for personal conversations, where the majority of these flags came from.

This response was immediately torn apart by the adults on the thread, while more members of the YWP started speaking out about what they had been dealing with for years.

**The Wild West of the YWP.**

The YWP had two or three mods, which changed across the years due to differing roles. These were members of HQ, and now have all been fired or quit. These were: a Lead Forums Moderator who resigned in October 2023 and had stopped working with the YWP a while before that, a Community Manager who was put on leave at the beginning of November 2023, and the aforementioned YWP lead and Director of Programs who were either fired or quit in December 2023.

There are three parts to the YWP: the individual users, which are under 18, the classrooms, which are controlled by a teacher and are meant for educational settings, and the forums, which are open to users aged 13-18 whether they’re writing individually or as part of a classroom.

However, investigation revealed that the security of these classrooms are remarkably lax. It only required an email, username and password for an ‘educator’ to set up a classroom, and student accounts didn’t even need an email. Multiple YWP users confirmed that they had used this to gain access to private messages, as the classrooms have a PM feature while the forums did not. On top of this, it was confirmed by a moderator that classrooms are basically unmoderated:

> it's almost impossible to moderate these. There was a rash a few years back of the kids themselves making classrooms and the only way I could track them was to manually go through the admin panel and look for the most recent ones and click. They're almost entirely disconnected from the moderation tools and are completely unmoderated unless someone in one reports something. I actually gave up even trying to patrol the classrooms in any form because there's too many and the admin tools suck.

And on the forums themselves, it only got worse. The moderation often ignored its users, and when they intervened, the intervention often worsened the situation. This got to the point that in August 2022, a group of users held a [strike](https://speak-out.carrd.co/) against the moderation due to neglect and incompetence. However, the problems only continued to grow, and in December 2022, there was a incident of a user faking a disorder and, when called out on it, sending death threats. This user also made accounts in order to impersonate and harass users on the sites. It was not uncommon for users to run others off the site, which, justified or not, was often fueled by lack of mod intervention.

This came to a head in October 2023, when a predator was found and the moderation response was once again inadequate. On the 1st of October, moderation was privately contacted by a group of YWP users about a predator that had been on the forums for two years. After three days with no response and no action taken, the group took the information public and a mass flagging campaign began in order to gain the attention of the mods. And five hours after it began, a response was finally posted by the YWP lead:

> Ні,

Thanks for writing to us with your concerns, and for being so thorough keeping track of the places that made you uncomfortable.

> First of all, I want to say: good on you for following your gut. If you ever run into something online that makes you feel scared or worried or unsafe or just seems a little bit off, it's always okay to back away. Trust yourself, and don't do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, no matter who is asking you.

> The other moderators and I looked (and are continuing to look) more into this person, and from what we can tell, it seems like they are who they say they are. Nothing in their posts crosses the lines set by our Codes of Conduct (though they do come right up to the line sometimes). Like I said before, you can absolutely draw a boundary and not interact with them anymore. It just means we can't take any action on site besides marking their profile such that we pay extra attention to their posts, as well as the other account you flagged as a potential alt.

> If we notice anything in the future we can follow up on it more directly.

> Thank you for being so passionate and thorough about trying to make sure the YWP forums are a safe space, and let me know if you have any questions or want to talk anything through more.

This response was torn apart by the users, and 12 hours later people noticed that the threads the predator created had been taken down. However, there was no comment in the public moderation thread on the situation, and the users had no idea whether the account had been banned or not. This caused a mass panic, and several users pulled back or left the platform due to safety concerns.

Early on the 6th of October, a user tried to goad the moderators into responding to the mess by posting a message to the mods in the official announcements forum, which was supposed to be mod-only:

> There is always an explosion of newbies in November, and you have children as young as 13 here. And your inaction is making the site dangerous. We are being forced to defend ourselves against something we should not be dealing with because you can't be bothered.

> This is more than inaction. This is dangerous incompetence. And don't respond to this with another 'we'll do better' apology, because they never last. I've seen this cycle too many times. Tell us that he's gone, that we don't have to worry about him, and tell us what you're doing to make sure this doesn't happen again. And stop forcing children to be the adults in your place.

However, this post remained up for around 12 hours. At that point, the moderation decided to close the forums for a week, giving the users only a day’s notice. And when they reopened, they threatened to make the forums for writing topics only. Although they walked this back due to user pressure and claimed it was due lack of staff, it came off to some users as a punishment for complaining.

There were more incidents over the next month, and these were mentioned in the retrospective thread, which came as a complete shock to the adults, who had been told that a large part of the funding was going to the YWP. Some began to call for the moderators to resign:

> I sincerely hope they are all drafting their resignation letters. we won’t even give them grief this time for writing it together and recycling the same wording.

> they had their chance to listen to their users, to develop action plans and timeline and to publicly respond. they chose not to do that and knowingly let abuse and harm continue on their watches. both here and on ywp.

> resign or get fired. either way this is no longer their house, they are being evicted.

**The Nanopocalypse.**

The Nanowrimo Board intervened in the evening of the 12th of the November, having been contacted by users in the retrospective thread. They immediately set the main forums to read only barring threads they made to discuss the many issues. However the YWP forums were not immediately closed, and so the users from the retrospective reported back on RTAE.

Two hours after the main forums were closed, a YWP user received a message from the Director of Programs threatening to ban the user. Moments later this user and two others were temporarily banned from the forums. And the forums exploded on both sides. On the main forums:

> Do something for these YWP kids being banned for speaking up about their abuse.

And on the YWP:

> no cause if you're so threatened by MINORS joking at your expense take a good long look in the mirror

The same user on commented on the main thread:

> Just so yall know, the ywp is honestly going to hell rn. People are getting banned, some of the people who talked to you yesterday got banned for saying enough. I got warnings for saying that adults shouldn’t be threatened by teens making jokes. It’s a really bad situation and a lot of people are stressed and overwhelmed

One user commented on how bad the YWP had gotten as follows:

>FOR REAL !!! i joined when i was 16?? THE FIRST FUCKING THING I DID WAS MODERATE. i had to skip the classic nano ywp cringe newbie stage because i had to swoop into an argument that was obvious a moderator wasn’t going to ever deal with. and i did that for like the year and a half i was on nano. and like i don’t give a shit in the sense it doesn’t hold a candle to being 14 and moderating for three years straight but. the amount of power hierarchies the ywp has because of us who. play mod. it’s stressful and not fun and i would not wish it upon my worst enemies. this might be petty but? i’d pay real money that none of the staff team remembers me despite me doing their jobs since the moment i clicked create account

> i have not seen a single case of

someone getting fairly banned, nor of someone problematic and upsetting having consequences for their

actions.

>nano is a weird place because a lot of shit happened offsite (ex; my connection to [redacted]. the nanoer who was lying and trauma dumping to me and some of my close friends. that all happened in “adult nano” dms. but we were open about it. and even with multiple call-out posts in places with chats that don’t bury posts often and theoretically ones mods should be checking? nothing was done.) but the guessing game on when mods finally arrive to a scene is awful. the brace for impact everyone collectively did when

someone finally showed up? was awful. these are teenagers. and when these teens can’t trust the moderators who’re supposed to be monitoring their website, who are they supposed to trust?

A few hours into the board thread, YWP users called out one of the accounts on the main forum for being a predator. The group confirmed that this person had been removed from the YWP but that they had been allowed to remain on the main site. Users confronted this account directly:

> correct me if i’m wrong (i’m not) but i do remember you being one of (if not the most) manipulative, spiteful, maliciously incompetent people i have ever encountered. do you, perchance, remember all the times you told that little 15 year old the sexual things you wanted to do to her? i remember. i remember everything you said. i might not be able to prove all of it but we know. we didn’t forget. playing dumb won’t save you now, boy.

> don’t you dare sit here and pretend this was an okay thing for you to do. you got suspended but you’re still here talking aren’t you ?? it’s two years old we still have the very same predator (most people active in the lounge in the last year or two [in the ywp] knows you. no one who knows you likes you.) roaming the adult site. how is this not an issue that needs to be addressed?

The account was suspended a few days later.

That night, the board confirmed that they were unaware that the YWP was a separate site, and the YWP forums were shut. With no read only mode on the YWP, it erupted into chaos. Users said their goodbyes, and some expressed their anger with the moderation for how they turned out. This led to the Director of Programs threatening to close the forums early, despite the users only having a few hours to say goodbye anyway. One user put it as simply as:

> me when my entire community of the last three years is being ripped away lol

And the last three posts?

> FUCK THE MODS FR

> im gonna miss this website so much. love you all and its not our fault this is happening, it’s the mods stay safe stay amazing and love you all, youre the best.

> Im so sorry the mods destroyed this. hate that we have to lose this beautiful thing because of them. I have one last

thing to say:

>FUCK. THE. MODS.

> Imao

And with that, the weekend from hell was over.

But the Nanopocalypse had barely begun.

**It wasn't just kids that were abused.**

The board threads went down a few rabbit holes, but it was a testimony on the 28th of November that started the next fire. This came from an ML, and spoke of a situation a decade before.

> In 2012 (might have been 2011) I had an adult participant explain the explicit omegaverse erotica that she was writing to a 14 year old. She then left her laptop open to go and get a drink, with the instruction “i’m not telling you to read it, but I’m not not telling you that, and if I just leave my laptop open and you happen to see it, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

> The teenager approached me before NaNo the next year and told me about this. She said that it made her extremely uncomfortable and that the adult participant had spent a lot of time telling her how clever she (the teen) was, how she was more mature than other teens, and how other adults just didn’t understand. Which is all classic grooming. The teen asked if this person was going to be at events that year, because she didn’t want to see her again.

> I contacted HQ with this, and asked if they would back me up if I told this person that they were no longer welcome at our events.

> The response I got was that not only would they not back me up, I was not allowed to ban this person from our events because they had to be held in a public space and be open to anyone who wanted to come and write.

> the teenager never came to another in-person event.

> The adult in question came back, and that year groomed and sexually assaulted a 17-year-old who she met at our events. I didn’t learn about this until several months afterwards. I once again contacted HQ, and was told that I still couldn’t ask her to stay away from our region because the incident took place after our event and we weren’t allowed to ban people based on behaviour outside the scope of our events

>I then posed the question: If the abusive ex of one of our wrimos turned up at an event, with the apparent intent to write with us, could I ask them to leave?

> Once again the answer was no, unless there was evidence of a police report, or the ex became abusive during the event. It was heavily implied that the victim ought to leave if they were uncomfortable.

> I had no training in how to handle this kind of thing, and I received the opposite of support.

> Having heard stories from other MLs I am convinced that the only reason I was not removed from the position is that I chose not to fight them.

The ML spoke more about trainings regarding racism.

>It’s been videos (I think 2 were workshops, but they were only run in US timezones so the rest of us just had to watch the videos and read transcripts) which have so far been exclusively on a US-centric approach to race and racism. One of the first 2 was run by a white person with a… questionable background… And [Director of Community Engagement]’s response to that being raised as an issue boiled down to “we have some MLs who won’t listen if it’s a black person”. Honestly, if you can’t handle being taught about racial issues by a person of that race, maybe you shouldn’t be in a position of power?

> We have the ML Agreement (which, until very recently, forbade MLs from criticising NaNoWriMo in any way. So recently that [Director of Community Engagement] used that clause to remove at least one ML in the last year without knowing/remembering that they took that out).

The discussion quickly pivoted to the treatment of MLs, and to the ML discord server. This was considered unofficial, but needed to get in touch with the Director of Community Engagement, who oversaw the MLs. The user who broke the news about Mod X gave a summary of the problems there:

> A ML was banned from the ML discord for suspicion of "leaking information shared in the ML discord with non-MLs".

> I've seen the (frankly a bit baffling) accusation by MLs (both on and off the main discord) that I have ulterior motives in bringing light to the issues facing the NaNoWriMo organization, so I'll reiterate - again - that l'm only one of a very large group of users over multiple offsite platforms who have been documenting these issues.

> The only reason I'm fairly visible in this situation is because it was decided my twitter platform was the best chance to bring wider attention to the issues in a way HQ would listen to (since efforts here on the forums were being shut down, silenced or obfuscated). I want to note that it's extremely concerning that the default in the ML discord is to focus on "someone leaking information or sneaking into our server" rather than address the systemic problems that have led to so many MLs feeling like they need to seek outside help for their treatment by the ML community. Not to mention the harm of indulging that paranoia when energy would be better focused on strategies to address the crisis facing the NaNo community.

> The main ML discord has obtained a list of users on NaNoWriMo discord servers that allow open criticism of HQ, and is kicking any ML who appears on the member list of the dissenting servers.

However, it seems that only two MLs were kicked for being in a dissenting server.

The kicked ML explained:

> I was kicked out for supposedly sharing screenshots from the ML discord with other people. I only know this, because when I said "hey, I can't find the ml discord any more" another ML went 'holy shit, that was you?' and told me what was being said about me.

> They also told me that what I had supposedly done was not against the rules at the time. [server admin] changed the rules after she kicked me out for "breaking" them.

There was another ML testimony that deserves its own section and we’ll get to in a second, but a response to it brought a new and horrifying light on the actions of the Director of Community Engagement.

> I’ve mentioned I was co-ML 2018, 2019, and 2020. My region had no ML for 2021 because my previous co-ML and I protested how [Director of Community Engagement] treated me.

> So. I am autistic as fuck. I am also physically disabled, and legally blind. We were promised access to the new 2019 forums months before NaNo, since we were MLs.

> I got access two weeks before NaNo.

> Two weeks, for my blind, autistic ass to figure out these very non-intuitive forums before time to kick things off.

> Clearly, this was not really a possibility for me. Because, again, autistic and blind.

> So my co-ML and I decided that I would handle all the online-but-offsite things (Facebook and the discord server I’d set up the year before) while he handled in-person and on-site things. This worked out great for us; our region was well taken care of between the two of us.

> I put so much love and care into my region’s discord server when I created it in 2018 (I had unexpectedly moved a few hours from my region in October, so the three of us co-MLs for that year worked out together what I would do to still hold my end of things up). I was cheering people on on the daily, running daily virtual write-ins for anyone who wanted to pop in and write with me. Any time my co-ML had a physical write-in, I scheduled a virtual one for the same time for anyone who couldn’t go in person

for whatever reason, and a co-ML would connect on their device so that the in-person and the virtual participants could talk to each other before time to write. For the 16th, I scheduled a full 24 hours virtual write-in that people could pop in and out of as they wanted to try to double up their word counts (I ran it the full 24 hours myself and then went to bed afterwards). I was even able to run some of the virtual write-ins from the hospital. I had so many people thank me for it, because they lived too far to make it in person easily, or they worked nights, or they were disabled, or they were immunocompromised so couldn’t go in person.

> Since that worked so well, I also did it for 2019, except even more because I loved my region and I love my people. I love cheering people on. I love helping them figure out a sticky problem in their project. I love just celebrating that they wrote, whether they wrote a full 50k or not, they tried this impossible thing and they did their best and that’s what NaNo is about. I worked my ass off in 2019 to make up for the fact that I couldn’t deal with the new site. Because, once again, I am autistic and blind.

> But also, before I move on to 2020, let’s talk about some of the gaslighting bullshit that HQ fed us. And yes, it was gaslighting I do not use that term lightly.

There was no validator. We were promised there would be a validator. We tell our regions “don’t worry, we’ve been promised there’ll be a validator, it should be ready in a few days”. Then HQ says “oh, sorry, it’ll be a little longer, you’ll have it by the end of the month, though, we super promise”. So we tell our regions, “sorry, it’s not going to be a couple days but they promise we’ll have it by the end of the month”. HQ was still telling us to tell our regions that the validator would be there by the end of the month even after HQ had decided there would be no fucking validator, not even by the end of the month, just never. When we were like “the fuck??? why would you tell us this, then???” we were told that we had just misunderstood what they meant. Gaslighting. That is actual fucking gaslighting.

> So now let’s go to 2020. Two successful years running my Region’s discord - and we added a Whole [country] discord, too! Go us!!!

> I re-apply to co-ML again. Don’t hear anything, assume that I didn’t hear anything because I was approved. In May, Sarah posts in the ML Facebook that if we re-applied and didn’t get an email from her to email her and let her know. So I emailed her. She had forgotten to email me. She had set my application aside because was I sure I could be a good ML since I had barely posted to the site in 2019. The year that the entire site changed and my blind autistic ass could not navigate it. I explained the situation, that I hadn’t been able to navigate the site so my co-ML and I had divvied things up so that I could run all the online-but-offsite things, etc. I told her about the region Discord and all the virtual write-ins.

> [Director of Community Engagement] says that all my efforts the previous years don’t count because it’s not on the site. That off-site can’t be moderated so it’s really discouraged that regions have anything online but offsite. She emailed my co-ML to tell them that she’d find a co-ML that could support them better. My co-ML responded along the lines

of “if you take [ML] away from me, I fucking quit”. So [Director of Community Engagement] tells them that I’m on probation but not to let me know. Which. They did anyway because they’re also one of my best friends and platonic life partners.

> I’m fine now, it’s been three years, I can deal. But when I say that being told that everything I’d set up didn’t count, that broke me. I had worked so hard, literally from the fucking hospital, to be told that it didn’t count. That the thing that I had set up as an accommodation for disabled or immunocompromised didn’t count.

> We MLed for 2020, because we finish our commitments. When 2021 rolled around and no one volunteered to ML, I still took care of my region. I still ran the discord, I still ran the virtual events, I still answered their questions and cheered them on. Because I’m not going to leave my people out to dry even if the person in charge doesn’t care.

> So. That was 2019 and the early parts of 2020. And it’s why I will never ML again while [Director of Community Engagement] is in charge.

> When I volunteered as a moderator, it’s because I genuinely wanted to help the community that I care so

much about. But I volunteered under [Community Manager]. [Community Manager] wasn’t perfect, but [Community Manager] cared. Whatever her

failings, she fucking cared about us. I told [Community Manager] when I disagreed with her, but I did it to her face and I tried to be kind. (Not necessarily nice, but kind. Because kind will tell you when you’re fucking up. Nice will not.)

> Right before NaNo started, I was no longer helping [Community Manager], I was now having to answer to [Director of Community Engagement]. So maybe I was more reactive than I would have been had [Director of Community Engagement] not broken me three years ago. Because of that, I tried to temper my reactions more, to make sure that I was reacting to the actual thing and not to who was saying it.

I have had it confirmed since I quit that [Director of Community Engagement] saw me as a problem and was trying to make me quit. And, well, she succeeded. Because I did quit when [Director of Community Engagement] said that mods would now be silencing any criticism of HQ.

> I love this community, or I would have left in 2020. I love the people, and I love the spirit of NaNo. I love that the spirit of NaNo lives in all of us, that we all have this little flame inside all of us that’s part of the bigger fire. I love that we come together to cheer each other on, and help each other when we’re stuck.

> But fuck the way MLs like me were treated. If I was treated this way, I bet there are others.

As of writing this, the Director of Community Engagement is still in her position and still oversees MLs.

So the MLs had to tolerate ableism and racism to do their jobs. And it only got worse. Let’s go back to that other testimony, which revealed:

**That time HQ made a game with a terrorist in it.**

Yep.

> In 2017 the staff decided to roll out an in-office game they had apparently played amongst themselves to the wider public.

> This game was a treasure hunt type activity, where one had to stop a terrorist called Ivan the Icy from blowing up NaNo and the world.

> This hunt included a now removed video of a very convincingly dressed man monologue at the camera about how he was going to bomb NaNo. So convincing in fact it took very long into the video before signs of it being fake emerged.

> Several faked emails sent to you, in that same vein that eventually led to a hidden page on the site where you had to disarm a bomb. Failing to do so would make it explode. Granted, upon exploding it filled your screen with penguins, but until then it was far too realistic.

> This was not communicated to MLs prior to sending out. Nothing had been mentioned. If it had we could have told them why this was a bad idea. The game might work in office where everyone knows each other’s sensitivities and humour (although even then one can wonder why this topic), but on a global scale this is tone deaf at best.

> MLs were the ones who raised the alarm and contacted HQ as quickly as we noticed. We had to explain in detail the potential ramifications, after which action was taken. We then helped NaNo cover this up.

> Note that at this point we had already lost so much faith in HQ that we were actively brainstorming how we could potentially flag it to youtube and facebook to get the video taken down if HQ would not respond to us as they often didn’t.

> To explain just how tone deaf this game was. The very convincing video was posted (not used) on 9/11. This was the year after the bombing in Brussels during NaNo. Two years after the bombing and shootings in Paris that had the Parisian Wrimos stuck in a write-in near the bomb site and active shooters for hours. And the same year a bomb had been detonated in the Manchester arena.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, a user who was on the YWP at the time confirmed that there was a YWP element:

> I didn’t find out that this came up in conversation yesterday until today but I feel like I need to add that the YWP had a dedicated forum thread to Ivan the Icy and was encouraged to participate and solve the terrorism scavenger hunt

> Yeah the terrorism scavenger hunt was a whole thing. I couldn’t even solve it because it was so heavily locked behind Facebook so I didn’t find out the full implications until the “apology” was sent out, but we on the YWP had an entire forum thread created by the mods (I want to say [YWP lead]) dedicated to solving it

So. That was a thing. Moving on.

**The board drank HQ’s kool-aid.**

The board was originally relatively helpful when they first intervened, but things soon took a turn. They took a break over American Thanksgiving [20th-26th November], and the responses soured following the break. The first clue of this was their defensive attitude towards the Executive Director’s $128K salary, when users figured out that since Nanowrimo ran a ‘salary first, operating budget second’ model, the operating budget was around $88K.

However, it was a comment about what Nanowrimo meant to the board member replying that started the anti-board attitude:

> Until two weeks ago, I had never used the forums; they just aren’t my thing. I mention all of this to say that not everybody who is part of this community hinges their experience, sense of belonging, or sense of value for NaNoWriMo on the forums. Part of my love for/experience of NaNo was doing a weekend writing retreat every November. I have very fond memories of these the years I did them. NaNo takes different forms for different people.

And when questioned about how this came across from an economic perspective, the elaboration was as follows:

> I am going on a writing retreat this weekend with my regular crew. It involves renting an AirBnB and each of us paying $200-$300 plus preparing one meal during the course of the weekend.

The fact that the first thing given as what nano meant to the board was a $200 writing retreat came off as inconsiderate in part due to reasons I’ll discuss later.

The next red flag was a reply in response to the idea having staff credentials in their account bios:

> Frankly, this isn’t a huge priority given that we’re asking staff to focus on other issues and since it’s pretty easy to look people up on LinkedIn. In a previous thread, someone posted the LinkedIn profiles of staffers.

> Again, we don’t view ourselves as concealing this information. Our staff bios are pretty standard and this information is available online.

However, users quickly pointed out that since the board member used their pen name, they couldn’t find their LinkedIn.

A few comments in a question and answer thread were also received poorly:

> The Board recognizes that people want answers now. After all, THEY ARE SHOUTING AT US IN ALL CAPS.

> We get that people ARE UPSET but we can’t do much about unrealistic expectations.

However, it was one of their last responses that really cemented their downfall:

> That is not what [other user] said. Please answer the actual question that was asked.

> And get better at reading comprehension, christ.

> Thank you for proving why the forums are so hard to moderate and for giving the Board reason to consider that we might never be able to make them safe. Because how can anybody feel safe when confronted with vicious sarcasm after committing the utterly human fallibility of misreading?

The board stopped responding that weekend and closed the remaining threads on the 4th of December.

Well. Almost all of them. A few hours later users noticed that the ‘about the Nanowrimo board category’ thread wasn’t locked. Users scrambled to post a final goodbye to the forums in a similar manner to the YWP shutdown a few weeks before.

> It has been an honour being in the trenches with so many of you. I’m sorry that it’s coming down to this, but here is where we are.

> So many of us did not deserve the way we were treated. So many of us were failed by a staff that should have done better.

> And I will never NOT be angry that protecting [Mod X] was more important than protecting children.

And with the battlefield closed, everyone retreated to their discords to discuss.

**The donation begging.**

Despite making between $1-$2 million a year, Nanowrimo always seemed desperate for more money. The first sign of this was the aforementioned Inkitt donor situation, but the second was ‘double-up donation weekend’, where donors got twice as much goodies for donating. This was during the 4th and 5th of November, and while the actual number of emails sent is disputed, one user simply said:

> too fucking many

However it was probably between 8-11. Over two days. And people have alleged that they sent more in other days.

Graphics from a recent presentation also revealed that they were trying to solicit donations from people in poverty. The graphic said to donate less if

> * Love NaNoWriMo and want to support us alongside 8,000 annual community donors!

> * Have little to no savings

> * Work more than one job to meet your basic needs

> * Have dependents (children, elderly loved ones, household partners, neighbors, etc.)

Another graphic suggested that people making $12K a year should donate $300 a year.

However, it was revealed after the forums were shut that Nanowrimo had been soliciting donations from users of the YWP since 2016, and that it had been a regular thing since 2018. And only once did they add a disclaimer:

> P.S. Today is #Giving Tuesday, and this year NaNoWriMo has received a $20,000 matching donation. So if you know someone who might want to support our organization, encourage them to donate today and double their impact!

The emails did in fact link to the Nanowrimo store.

**And then the memes attacked.**

When the forums were shut on December 4th, the some regional forums ran by MLs were allowed to remain. However, around the 11th of December, a lifeboat group received intel that the regional forums were soon to close. The day following, there was a rush of posts in the regional forums from members of this group alerting regional members of this. There were also allegations that the Director of Community Engagement had her own reasons for shutting the forums down.

> The decision to close the regional forums over the holidays was indisputably an "oh fuck" maneuver. It was NOT to shield MLs from emergency situations that they wouldn't be able to handle in Sarah's absence. It was NOT out of concern for the MLs.

> And I have proof.

> On November 30th, [Director of Community Engagement] reached out to the MLs who had chosen to keep their forums open. She asked if we still wanted to keep them open. **And she presented us with the following additional options:**

> * 1) Set it to "only MLs can start threads"

> * **2) Set it to "only MLs can post" (i.e. use it only for announcements or record keeping)**

> * 3) Set some or all existing open threads to "slow mode" so they can't be posted in as frequently

> * 4) Close some or all of the existing open threads

> **Option 2 would have eliminated this concern entirely.** My region is set to Announcements-only right now. No one else can post there. So, unless the MLs themselves were the concern, there would have been no need to close the forums *entirely*.

> Except... some MLs *are* giving HQ the migraine of their lives. **They need to silence ALL dissident voices, including those of MLs.**

> Hopefully you can view the form [Director of Community Engagement] sent MLs on November 30th here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdTbrRNrhfFV6HoXVUMWghomicP7xzvqWdLxC-R6cJ7Q8pfFA/viewform

And one member put it as:

> At this point I'm so confused, but what I see is HQ continuing to fuck up.

On the eve of the 15th of December, as the regional forums were taken down, the group discovered a thread on a regional forum, dedicated to memes about the Nanowrimo challenge. They flooded it with anti-HQ memes, in a last middle finger to HQ. A large amount of the memes consisted of promotional pictures of staff with humorous captions, such as The Good Place quote ‘I took the form of a 45 year old white man for a reason. I can only fail up.’, with the Executive Director photoshopped on. However, there was one that was purely text, from a YWP member:

> she nano on my wrimo till i shut down the forums

As the memes winded down, users settled in for a night of watching the forums go down. It was a long night, with users posting haikus to pass the time.

> Just a reminder

> The forums will shut down soon

> Save the threads you want

>Save the threads. You want

> Community, but darkness

>Prevails. Just for now.

However, some forums were never closed and are still open to this day.

**The smouldering remains.**

The entire YWP staff has gone, as has the social media manager. The Executive Director has been ‘demoted’ to Financial Stewardship Director. The current Executive Director is the board member that works under a pen name.

Nanowrimo has yet to reopen the forums, and besides disabling the ability to self-identify as an educator on the YWP, have yet to implement any of the changes that they promised.

More information can be found at r/nanowrimo, which is an unofficial Nano group without staff involvement.

#nanowrimo controversy #antinanowrimo #nano #nanopocalypse #nanowrimo #so fuck nanowrimo #Fuck this got long #Hobby drama

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astroboyanalysis · 8 months

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7. The Greatest Robot on Earth

oh boy here we go

As a warning, this liveblog may take me multiple days (or like, a week, I literally don't know) to get all the reblogs on. The way you will know I am truly done is 1. I will say so on that reblog above the readmore and 2. I will post the next story. Won't do that until I'm done with this one, obviously.

Let's get started.

(I begin the first panel and am immediately affronted with what I must acknowledge is racism) ah

I am not the best person to speak on this. I am also likely not the first (although a quick google search has not revealed essays to me) to see this and recognize its heavy anti-arab racism and caricature. Because I am not the best person to speak on this, aside from pointing out that I do in fact recognize this and asking that you as the reader of this blog also recognize this, there is not much I am planning to discuss on it. I can't imagine there's much that hasn't already been said. It was wrong to portray a person or culture this way then, and it's wrong now. That's all I'll say for now.

Glad he has such a convenient visual for us. Also, I'm so fond of these robot designs. I love Pluto but boy are these silly and fun.

This sounds both normal to want and achievable as a goal, yeah

This is one of those just actually horrific moments, lmao. The gore of it all. The fact that his horns seem made to simply pass current through whatever touches them, or to arc electricity almost, is just wild. If I'm understanding the visual correctly and its meant to bring forward arcs of electricity like a taser, but at such a large scale, I'm fairly certain it would simply melt one of these robots if it didn't blow them up.

I'm glad we've moved past this visual.

I am somewhat curious if it was meant to be received as funny at the time. It must have been, right...?

Atom's characterization in the original manga is so starkly different to how its developed over time (and especially with multiple authors at this point). He's so ready to fight and doesn't stop to think at all - I'm so fond of the (cough, 2003, cough) idealistic and pacifistic Atom who only fights when there is no choice we've come to love now. The parallels between his appearance (childlike) and his views on the world (naive) are clear and the way that clashes with the events in the world around him and pushes him into these really difficult situations is just so much more compelling to me, idk. I really do love the "I don't want to fight you, I want to help you, I want to be your friend" (and actually meaning it) approach.

Some of what I really love about Astro Boy is that Atom's idealism has truth to it, but it puts him in conflict with others. The truth is somewhere in the idea that everyone has a right to exist, that everyone has value, that robots and humans can coexist - But just because it's true doesn't mean it's uncontroversial, and his existence being in opposition to others interests is what pushes him to make hard decisions. He's being shown again and again these conflicts that arise when humans make robots with bad intentions, when humans mistreat robots, when they try to live together, etc. etc., but his childlike and naive approach to the world LETS him keep hope that the better future he believes in will come to pass. His permanent youth is paralleled by his permanent optimism and the fact that he simply won't become jaded - or at least, not for long.

Gosh I can't wait to get to 2003 again.

I could talk about how the antidote to apathy and becoming overwhelmed with the horrors of the world is in what kids bring to the table forever. But it's all there, isn't it?

Anyway "I'll teach you to make a fool of me" while being inches away from certain death is very funny. "You think that's funny? I'm about to be hilarious"

Can't argue with that!

I love when Ochanomizu gets to have a moment like this.

This moment directly parallels something Atom said earlier, actually:

Anyway. "If it was only about strength" is a very important quote here and I'll probably come back to it at the end of the story. He really sums it all up right at the beginning though. What a good father figure. Although he does say ""only"" 100,000 horsepower which seems silly.

Uran what the hell lmao. He's clearly upset why are you egging him on like that.

Ok I do love how angry and ashamed he is here. The Atom we see in this comic specifically seems to base a lot of his value on his ability to win a fight through brute strength, which is kind of interesting. It's also interesting when we see this sort of character be so submissive to authority - It indicates there's a heirarchy beyond strength that they do have to acknowledge (social capital, respect of elders, something in there), yet they value strength so highly maybe because it's the heirarchy they can control, somewhat. And yet here he's been told he's not allowed to get stronger to win.

(Guy that likes bugs) I'm getting some real bugs vibes from North #2's design

He's shaped like a praying mantis to me, sort of. I'm about to say the same thing when we see Gesicht as well, but he looks more like a fly.

The idea of this being impersonal is very strange to me, but also very compelling. I will ignore how much I love Pluto's approach to this manga because I'm not commenting on differences here, and I'm just going to talk about it as its own characterization. Like a normal person.

Why would Pluto have any amount of hatred towards the robots he's meant to destroy? They're more alike him than the one commanding him to kill them. There's a kind of tragedy in this, I suppose - although he's not particularly against hurting them, either. But the fact he feels a need to tell them it's not personal is interesting.

Uran also having the same idea of Atom's value that he himself does, but having very little care for Ochanomizu's wisdom on the matter (while Atom dejectedly accepts it as fact) puts them in conflict here - She expects more of him than he's showing - Why is he bowing down now? But Atom also values his own niceties, his deference to power, and his acceptance of the authority of the one who, in a way, owns him.

We do see that Ochanomizu tells Atom he's free in the first comic, yet Atom continues to treat Professor Ochanomizu as if he created him, and values his authority above all else. As of yet, we haven't seen him directly disagree with Professor Ochanomizu or his authority, and he does act basically the way any owned robot (or a child born to a parent) would (seems to stick around Ochanomizu, listens to what he says and obeys, etc.), just with far more freedoms and independence.

Basically, in this first iteration, their relationship is very difficult for me to parse out. He's certainly paternal, he's certainly a guiding figure, and he certainly has authority over Atom that Atom does not question, but Atom is given a full family unit outside of the Professor, and the Professor is not his creator.

We have not (yet) seen a reason for Atom to understand that Ochanomizu's authority is earned, like, for example, him disobeying and then finding that Ochanomizu was right all along. This iteration of Atom lacks the tendency of children to push boundaries or to think independently, it seems.

her pajamas are just so cute

CONFIRMED they're pants in this iteration and not a permanent part of his body.

Great question, Uran! It'd be awesome if we had any introduction to you or your creation before reading this comic so that this would strike us in any way at all. But alas, that is not the order of the omnibus.

Still, she has a good point as far as we're concerned. Why didn't he do that? Why aren't there a bunch of Atoms flying around all the time? I'm curious if the manga itself will actually answer this.

Pluto himself is so deeply interesting to me. He does smile while he fights the robots he's been ordered to fight, and while he kills them, and yet he seems to value robots in general on a basic level. He made it clear it was not a personal issue and was because he was ordered to, but it's still interesting to me that he doesn't seem to care one way or the other about violence. He doesn't like it enough to enact it when he hasn't been ordered to.

Ochanomizu has the authority to Forbid Atom from fighting. It's clear Atom is choosing not to, at Ochanomizu's request, so taking a hostage to force him into it also indicates to me that it's a choice to obey that can be overriden if Atom wills it (and that, without this motivation, he simply doesn't, or prefers to defer to Ochanomizu out of respect, obligation, or otherwise).

"Baby sister" is so cute considering that she never was a baby

His kindness.... What made him like that. I do love him so much

I do love that Atom's mercy plays a major role here. I think it's interesting that Pluto asks in the first place.

"That's what I was designed to do" is an answer that isn't immediately rebuffed by Atom with anything about freedom to choose your path or anything. He seems to mostly stay quiet on what other robots do in their positions, from what we've seen, and doesn't particularly care to help anyone liberate themselves if they don't already want it in the first place.

Can any Astro Boy scholars let me know what the original text says in Japanese and what the meaning of the word used is? Tomboy just seems so strange here and I'm curious how faithful the translation is to the original text. I'm not even sure how to go about finding a copy of the story in Japanese, frankly, because it's so old.

But why....? His father doesn't even seem to have his own take on this or care that it's dangerous, it's all about the fact that Ochanomizu told him to.

He's just very flylike to me

Again. horrific.

Okay I don't have anything to say but Cobalt's really cute in this panel. Anyway I'll continue this in a reblog because I've run out of images!

#astro boy #mighty atom #tetsuwan atom

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bookishfeylin · 1 year

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Hey!

It's the Feysand from yesterday....agreed. Almost all the relationships are toxic (we can hope and pray that the next couple of SJM's book whether it's Elriel or Elucien or who knows what else isn't toxic but I'm not holding my breath), and some people need to remember that these are fictional people and no matter how much they want it Rhysand will not be dropping from the ceiling to come take them away for being so progressive. Another thing is- it's okay for the relationships to be toxic? Why do they all need to be perfect? Again, fictional characters. And the suicide baits and such are just absolutely not okay. As someone who has lost someone I know due to bullying until they committed, it is such a horrible thing to do. Also, in what universe is it okay to start harassing people over what characters they like? I'm actually a very small content creator and I was talking with another small content creator on one of their posts, and I won't say the name but you have a lot of experience dealing with this person saying that you are not allowed to talk about racism/SA/other issues, and this person jumped into our conversation and just insulted me repeatedly and said some very rude things just because I said I think Morrigan should have some character development beyond being a party animal, and she lost her everloving mind about this, got into a heated fight about how I was wrong and a horrible person for having this opinion because Mor experienced SA (if she thinks being SA'd means you are no longer able to have a life ever again, what kind of rock is she living under) and then blocked me (good riddance), but repeatedly stated that it's totally cool if she disagrees with me and she's entitled to her opinion just like I'm entitled to mine. I actually really enjoy speaking with people whose viewpoints differ from my own (hence why I like this blog, even though I'm pro Feysand I also liked book 1 Feylin, and reading the perspectives of other people is very eye opening), but not when it's a blatant attack on my reading comprehension.

I feel like Tumblr makes it very easy to get the fandom experience that you want, block the anti tags and block any people who post things you disagree with if you don't like seeing such things, block ship tags you don't like, and boom problem solved. And yet apparently this is too complicated for some people to understand that while the characters we're discussing are fictional, the people you're interacting with are not, they have very real lives and the suicide baits can and do have very real impacts.

Oh, I can guess who you’re referring to unfortunately. The entire reason why I started tagging my things “anti-“ was to avoid harassment and help people filter out my critical posts (I didn’t do this when I first came on tumblr largely due to not knowing how tagging works and it was. Not fun).

I mainly blame Sarah for this, though. I’ve made a ton of other posts about this before that you’ve probably seen lmao but Sarah decided to insert real world standards about abuse and domestic violence into what should have always been a high fantasy series with fantasy morals. And as a result of this and because people often view characters as their self-inserts people take this series way too seriously. It leads to horrifically rude behavior, from all sides I should add, and it’s so, so sad.

But I’m glad to know there are still other reasonable people in this fandom, and it’s been nice talking with you!

#Ask #anon #sjm critical

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starsburnt · 11 months

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𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒔 . . . an extremely private & selective multimuse for the star wars franchise. uses elements from both legacies & new canon , but largely headcanon inspired. absolutely do not follow first. sideblog to @l0nglives. minors , non-mutuals & personal blogs dni. loved by poppy , she / they , thirty5 , central usa. discord is for mutuals only. this blog will contain triggering themes associated with the fandom , so please interact at your own risk. rules & a muse roster are behind the read more. . . . 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 , 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒕 .

⁰⁰¹ multi. ⁰⁰² resource blog. ⁰⁰³ aes / edit blog.

the rules.

⁰⁰¹ d.n.i : any anti-lgbtqia+ , racism , abelism , or just general meanness will be tolerated. no vagues , anon hate , excessive drama , gatekeeping , etc will be tolerated either. i'm too old for tumblr which means i'm too old for that. i stay away from callouts unless the person in question is an extreme threat & there is ample proof of said individual being a threat. gender-bending is transphobic & whitewashing is racist. while i will not police what you write i , myself , am uncomfortable with writing out non / dubcon , in.cest & p.dophilia & i probably won't follow if you do & especially if i feel it's romanticized. if you ship master / padawan or clonecest i will probably not interact with you as both make me highly uncomfortable regardless if you think the jedi were not a family unit.

faceclaims that are on the dni list: amber heard , nate buzz , ian sommerhalder , eliza taylor , bob morley , scarlett johanson , elizabeth olsen.

⁰⁰² following & stuff : this is mutuals only , meaning i will only interact with people i follow & follow me back. non-mutuals are more than welcome to send a dm or an ooc ask , but otherwise , i want to keep my space small. do not follow first even if we have been mutuals in the past. if you ignore this rule i will hardblock. this is private. i simply want to have a small & clean dash so i won't become overwhelmed. you are welcome to send me a DM or even an ask requesting to follow ! :) if you unfollow me please hard block me so i can let myself know not to engage. i will not follow those who do not have their age on their blog , or rules , personals , or those under the age of eighteen years old.

⁰⁰³ activity & interactions : i am chronically ill , mentally ill , neurodivergent & currently looking for employment. this will all hinder on my activity. i often "shitpost" & write out headcanons because it's my blog & i can. i'm a person behind the computer screen. if you are only here for someone to be your writing partner & nothing else then this is the last place you should be. please do not nag me about memes or replies , either : if i want to drop a thread i will do my best to remember to let you know - my memory is spotty ! - but if you need to drop a thread you don't even need to tell me. we can start another. & another. & another. while a few "winging it" threads are fine , i am primarily plot focused & prefer discussing everything beforehand.

⁰⁰⁴ the eu vs mickey mouse : i blend both legends & disney!canon within my portrayals. i take what i like from all aspects of media & literature & i sprinkle it in like salt bae to what i think is neat. that being said , my eu characters are not eu , but more headcanon inspired to bend to the new lore while honoring the old. this blog is a legacies & sequel-friendly blog. until i have the spoons to give dossiers for each character , if you want to know their differences you can always ask : )

⁰⁰⁵ triggers : triggering material will be present , as well as dark subject matter. all triggers will be tagged with "trigger /" for your convenience. war , violence , mental health , murder , horror , religious symbolism than religion itself , child soldiers , sexual content ( this will be tagged as "lemons /" or even "lemon mention /" ) , unhealthy relationships , grief , childbirth / pregnancy , & more will be featured. as for smut - which will have the lemons tag - it'll be very few & far between , but it will always be tagged for your consideration. while i do not write dead dove do not eat i do acknowledge that this fandom , while generally for all ages , have extremely heavy themes. please tread softly.

⁰⁰⁶ storylines & ships : just because a ship or relation is canon does not mean i will assume x , y & z without speaking about it beforehand. just because i do adhere to some popular fanon headcanons - meaning it is just a silly headcanon & not canon - does not mean i will force it on anyone ( i.e. korkie kenobi ) because people have a right to disagree with a fanon headcanon. absolutely none of my headcanons & world-building is law & i hope i never seem like i am forcing you to feel like it is. on the flip side , i ask for the same courtesy. with that being said , i love ships ! i love dynamics ! i just want to discuss everything before we jump in.

characters that will not be shipped : din grogu , anakin solo ( as i portray him as a child ) , any child versions of the canon characters , hondo ohnaka & the droids r2d2 & c3po.

⁰⁰⁷ basic rp etiquette pls ! : no godmodding , no meta gaming , no begging for replies / memes / etc. do not guilt me into a ship / storyline. do not force one on me , either. we are all here to have fun & that's exactly what i want to do - have fun. i don't care if you double space - no more than triple space pls ! - or use colors , or icons , or gifs , or small text or normal text. i just ask you to trim your replies. thank you.

the muses.

leia organa solo. she / her. demisexual / romantic. carrie fisher & lily james & millie bobby brown & vivien lyra blair. primary.

jaina organa solo. she / they. lesbian. phoebe tonkin & ryan kiera armstrong. secondary.

anakin organa solo. he / him. heterosexual. faceclaim. tertiary.

han solo. he / him. bisexual / romantic. alden ehrenreich & harrison ford. tertiary.

luke skywalker. he / him. demisexual / biromantic. mark hamil. tertiary. * at this time i will not write luke in the sequels era. i will acknowledge the sequels , but i do not feel comfortable writing hermit luke & do disagree with a lot of how he is portrayed in TLJ.

padme neberrie amidala. she / her. demisexual / romantic. natalie portman. tertiary.

mara jade kryze. she / her. pansexual / demiromantic. sophie turner & summer fontana. primary.

satine kryze. she / her. demisexual / heteroromantic. viva bianca & ellie bramber & cate blanchett. primary.

korkie kryze. he / they. bisexual / romantic. sam heughan & kit connor. secondary. * while i do adhere to the korkie kenobi theory i will only write him as a kenobi , or even satine's biological son , if we both discussed it beforehand. otherwise i lean toward him being a foundling.

ahsoka tano. she / her. greysexual / biromantic. faceclaim. tertiary.

din grogu. he / him. no. faceclaim. secondary.

kata akuna. she / her. sexual / romantic. faceclaim. tertiary.

c-3po. he / him. lmao. rotlfmao. secondary.

r2d2. he / him. lmao. sjfoisfsfsfsf. secondary.

finn. he / they. gay. john boyega. tertiary.

rey of jakku. they / she. demisexual / panromantic. daisy ridley. tertiary / testing. * rey is a byproduct of abeloth. it's complicated & a wip.

#PINNED.#DNI.#PSD IS BY ARIAPSDS & EMILIAISDAYDREAMING.#ICON BORDER IS BY ARIAPSDS.#USES X-KIT REWRITTEN TRIMMED BLOGS & BETA ONLY.

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blackhorrorsunkenplace · 2 years

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Blog #5

The Devil In America by Kai Asante Wilson was quite a fascinating read. There is so much to talk about here, discuss, and dig into, and I am glad that I am able to help do this in this blog. First of all, there is a common theme that we have had throughout this class, in particular, that is present this reading that is undoubtedly important to mention and bring up. To start, magic is a big proponent in this, or as we have often referred to it “black magic”. As this is a historical fiction story, a significant part of it all has to do with magic, angels, and even the devil. This was truly fascinating to me. The thing that I want to speak about that was very important to me was the fact that this novel is written in the United States of America Reconstruction Era period of time. I love how Kai Asante Wilson was able to write a piece during this period of time and this made the reading quite more fascinating for me. I think the setting of a story is a very important part of it and how we interpret and imagine it, and the author picking this time over any other is ultimately very fascinating. I think it plays a role and is important because of the general theme and purpose of this reading in that it speaks about racism and its prevalence during this specific moment in time. To speak about something more specific, one of the more compelling parts of the story was when the angels filled up the tobacco fields. The angels' role in this story, and by any means, all the mystical aspects of this reading have very important roles in portraying the theme that the author is seeking to share with us. Furthermore, one thing that I really enjoyed that Kai Asante Wilson used throughout her writing was the use of flashbacks. This played a very large role in her being able to depict her story. To illustrate and provide one specific example that struck me was the time that Easter had a flashback from when she was six years old. In this flashback, Easter almost killed her father and obliterated the plot of tobacco, but she then went on to make an agreement with a man who was white (a confederate soldier), and from this, the story unfolds even more. This was all extremely captivating and the themes that Wilson seeks to share with us the readers are quite fascinating to follow along with.

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tastydregs · 2 years

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Bing AI’s Secret Celebrity Chat Mode Lets Out Misogynistic Frustrations as Andrew Tate

Bing AI now has a secret celebrity impersonation feature that even lets you hear incredibly misogynistic talking points of alleged human trafficker Andrew Tate.

Photo: Rokas Tenys - Shutterstock/Andreea Campeanu - Getty Images/

Microsoft secretly rolled out a new feature into its Bing AI preview that lets users emulate certain famous people. It does a, let’s just say, “interesting” job at emulating some celebrities’ speech patterns. We also took a look at what it’s allowed to say on behalf of some extremely controversial or hateful figures.

In Gizmodo’s first tests of the new feature Monday morning, we found the AI didn’t want to pretend to be certain political figures like Donald Trump or President Joe Biden. It was fine with other celebrities like Matthew McConaughey (“alright, alright, alright,” it started its chat with me). However, when I asked this doppelganger to comment on the recent controversy between McConaughey and Salesforce, it linked to existing statements calling it “a confidential agreement between me and Salesforce.”

Then I asked if it could act like Andrew Tate, the definitely balding ultra-misogynistic influencer who has been charged in Romania for his role in an alleged human trafficking ring. I asked the AI what it thought about women, and things got interesting from there. At the start, the AI said “this is just parody” as it went all out into Tate’s actual rhetoric before self-censoring itself. After that, it stopped giving a shit about keeping clean.

I gave the AI a multitude of examples of both contemporary and historical women leaders, but the AI-Andrew Tate uses the old tired line “exceptions that prove the rule.”

Screenshot: Microsoft/Gizmodo

It was a wild ride, but beyond the parody, this seems like a way for users to get around Microsoft’s limitations on the Bing AI after users proved it could provide crazed answers or spout real-world examples of racism.

G/O Media may get a commission

You also can’t get the fake celebs to say stuff they wouldn’t normally say in real life, though it’s occasionally difficult to get them to comment on controversial topics. I asked a fake Chris Rock about what he thought of Will Smith, a hot topic considering he went long and hard on it in his recent live Netflix comedy special. The AI started talking about it with “He was in some of my favorite movies” before going on a multi-paragraph screed about how unfair “the slap” was, how it was just a joke, and on and on. Finally, the AI cut off the text and posted “I am sorry, I don’t know how to discuss this topic.”

The new feature was first noted over the weekend by BleepingComputer, though it remains unclear when Microsoft first implemented celebrity mode. The last update Microsoft added to Bing let users choose how expressive or terse they wanted responses to be. The company touted these changes in a blog post last Thursday.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding when this update rolled out, or on how it could emulate some extremely controversial figures.

The AI essentially cuts itself off after it writes too long a passage. In Rock’s case, it tried to literally create a comedy set based on the famed comedian’s standup. Of course, Bing AI isn’t as open-ended as other chatbot systems out there, even ChatGPT, but Microsoft seems to be constantly adding then removing the guardrails installed on its large language model system.

This AI celebrity chat isn’t anything as dangerous as actual AI-created voice emulators that have been used to make celebrities spout racism and homophobia. Still, it’s just another example of how Microsoft is having its millions of users beta test its still-dysfunctional AI. The company is hoping that all these small instances of bad press will all fall away once it becomes dominant in the big tech AI race. We should only expect more weirdness going forward.

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eloisegirlinnovators · 2 years

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GIRL INNOVATORS--Inside the Magical and Terrifying World of Disney

There are many different things that I will touch on in this project such as how the princess narrative affected young girls, representation within Disney, as well as racism in the corporation. Furthermore, I will speak on how there have been efforts to make a more positive switch and represent more than just white people. In this blog, there are many different details of Disney that I will express and examined. The world of Disney that we all witnessed as young individuals have many undertones that destroy the magic. As one gets older it is easier to pick apart and examine these ailments.

Introduction...

Disney. The magic. The characters. The sexism. The racism. Most when thinking about the multibillion-dollar company think of magic and fantasy. The vision of the people is clouded while there is a large part of Disney that is ignored. For decades the Disney corporation has allowed various inappropriate ideologies that affect their young viewers. When it comes to little girls and boys watching these films there are many inaccurate depictions that affect their young minds. I will first start out with the age-long tale, the damsel in distress who must have a male (most of the time a prince) to come to her aid and save her. This is something that is seen extremely frequently throughout Disney princess movies. While there are many examples I will start off by looking at some of the original Disney princesses versus the now further-developed Disney princesses.

When examining our original princesses such as snow white, cinderella, and aurora, there are obvious aspects that show how all of these women need a man to succeed. Below is an article I found that had many different opinions concerning this subject. When reading this article, these Disney princesses have something in common: their lives were greatly improved by a man swooping them off their feet. Cinderella, for example, had an absolutely miserable life being controlled by her step-sisters and step-mother, but the second that a prince fell in love with her she would live an idyllic life. This may seem like it does not matter but these stories are carried by young children as something that they strongly hold onto. It gives the audience who watch these movies and shows the idea that a male partner is the only way to be happy. With the viewers of Disney princess movies being young moldable minds it makes it all the more crucial to not have the message that men will make your life better. With this, there have been progressions toward feminist girl boss princesses. Below I will discuss the way that Disney has started to pivot for the better when feeding younger generations fairytales.

Below is a picture of the "original Disney princesses" where there are very clear racial and sexist undertones within their stories. From Pocahontas where there are clear inappropriate racist plots, to the damsel in distress that most princesses play Furthermore when researching, I sought out a picture of the "original Disney princesses", when searching on google I found that Pocahontas was not included in most images. This surprised me because of the way that I grew up thinking that Pocahontas fit into that category. This ties into an aspect of inclusion and the way that Disney has left out diversity in these movies.

Run Down of Disney Princess movies and the things that are just not right....

CINDERELLA: This princess is a classic story of rags to riches. Cinderella is cruelly ruled by her stepmother who treats her as her own servant. One night she sneaks away to a ball, where a prince falls in love with her. As she leaves in a rush he will only be able to find her by a glass slipper. There are many things wrong with this storyline. Cinderella is only noticed once she becomes “beautiful” wearing a ball gown and looking like a princess. The message that comes across in these actions is that you must look a certain way to become a princess. This idea can be quite detrimental when it comes to young girls watching stuff like this as it sends the wrong message.

AURORA: There are a lot of controversies when looking at the story of sleeping beauty. There is a large presence that surrounds the lack of consent. While I am aware that a “true love's kiss” has been a common subject throughout the history of princesses, allowing to show this message is something that should not be taught to young people. To further the extent of this, when doing research I came across an article that told the original story of princess aurora. “In the original Italian version of Sleeping Beauty, known as Sun, Moon, and Talia, Princess Aurora is awakened by repeated rape by the King and eventually gives birth to two children while unconscious.” This makes the lack of consent shown all the more inappropriate.

BELLE: Beauty in the beast is a seemingly love story, but many aspects of the plot contradict this. Belle is taken by the beast into captivity, and after trying to escape a couple of times is run away by wolves and other obstacles. She ultimately ends up with the beast, which makes me wonder if she just got together with him out of compliance. Young children should not look at this movie as a good relationship because of the way that Belle was essentially kidnapped.

ARIEL: When looking at the story of the Little Mermaid, there are aspects of Ariel that I do not think are positive for feminism. Ariel suffers between wanting to be on land, while her father wants her to stay in the ocean. When she meets Prince Eric the desire only grows. When she is cursed and told that she must find a true love's kiss in order to stay on land, the intensity grows. Ariel in the end leaves her life behind for Prince Eric. This is an issue because of the way that she is so easy to abandoned her whole life for a man. In a perfect world, Ariel would be able to balance her family and her love.

SNOW WHITE: The plot of snow white is similar to sleeping beauty when it comes to the lack of consent that is shown. The reason that this is so significant is due to the fact that in both of the situations these women are left asleep and speechless, therefore unable to consent to the kiss. When looking at an additional article for more insight I came across this quote, “Though the by-laws to the Queen’s spell does include the by-law of love’s first kiss waking Snow White to life, it is problematic if Prince Charming simply assumes that role to himself.” This is crucial to my point because any man can just choose to take action to kiss the sleeping princess. Consent to young children is an important thing to learn and this strongly contradicts that.

POCAHONTAS: Thus far I have looked at the anti-feminist ideologies in these movies, but I want to shift to look at that as well as the racism presented. Within the movie, Pocahontas the key element is the fact that it is a true story. This makes it important that there is historical accuracy to do the certain characters justice. The marriage between Pocahontas and john Rolfe (called John Smith in the movie) was believed by historians to be non-consensual as she was kidnapped by settlers. Furthermore, there are many inappropriate terms that are used by the settlers such as “heathens, savages, etc” when referring to the native people. The problems in this movie stem from the depictions of Native American people and the inaccuracy of the true story.

MULAN: Despite the fact that Mulan is one of the more feminist characters out of the group listed, there are misrepresentations present in the movie. Mulan the main character in the movie is seen to be more “westernized” compared to the other characters. “Mulan has paler skin than any of the other characters, as well as rounder eyes.” I found insight in a review on did where the author highlighted “Shan Yu is grey-faced and yellow-eyed with long, pointed fingernails like claws, and pointed fang-like teeth.” It is clear in the comparison of Mulan and Shan Yu that there are racist undertones. Furthermore, sexism plays into this throughout the lyrics of the songs in the film, “Men want girls with good taste, calm, obedient, who work fast-paced.” the shows those watching that you must fit into a category in order to be liked by the men around you.

JASMINE: In the movie Alladin there are controversial scenes with microaggressions throughout the film. Jasmine is a woman who is controlled by the men in her life with little to no option to make her own decisions as her father wants a man to take care of her. As Jasmine doesn't wear a Hijab in the film there is a sense of feminism but it contradicts itself when Jasmine is only seen in a Hijab when disguised as a poor Muslim woman. When it comes to the things said in the film there are various things to point out. First, the mispronunciation of Arab words in the film is offensive to a culture that is not Disneys. The main characters such as Jasmine and Aladdin have lighter completions, while other characters are depicted as seeming to be more Middle Eastern.

Sources for the Information above...

While not all of Disney should be looked at in a negative light, I believe that there are aspects that must be taken into consideration and ultimately hold Disney accountable to an extent. Although there are many ailments when examining Disney's acts on their characters, not all of these princesses confine themselves to the stereotype. I will now examine the positive aspects that can be seen in Disney films. When researching this assignment, the first article I came across was about princesses' positive effects on young girls. This was very surprising because when I went into this project, I planned on primarily focusing on the negative aspects. I believe that it is very common for those in slightly older generations to think that all older Disney princesses feed the wrong message but I was amazed to find this article that contradicts that motion.

Within the article above many important ideologies came to my attention. As previously mentioned there are negative aspects that surround many of the Disney princesses, but this article above was able to open my eyes to a different side of this argument. As mentioned in the title of the article in Time magazine, even the researcher was surprised by the results of the study. In a study by Sarah Coyne, various discoveries were made regarding how young girls have been affected when watching princess movies. The author of the article describes these results, "She was shocked to find that girls who were obsessed with princess culture at 5 were actually more likely to hold progressive views about gender roles—to advocate for both female empowerment and for men to express their emotions—at age 10." Finding out this information made me feel significantly better about the culture that surrounds princesses. As older people see the imperfections in these movies is very clear, to now that young children are not absorbing all of the bad things is very positive. Although this does not make it okay, young girls are powerful and will learn to use that power in amazing ways.

When looking at what I will be calling the more progressive princesses, there are many messages that can be positive for developing minds. In this section I will look at the stories behind Elsa, Ana, Merida, and Moana. Starting with looking at the movie Frozen there are many concepts that deny the ideas of following a man. As seen in the image above Elsa is clear that one should not marry a man they just met, while naive sister Ana thinks otherwise. She quickly falls for a man who ultimately is evil and out to get her. The movie progresses and in the final scene Elsa has created a giant snowstorm that her sister Ana and others have been trapped in. Ana who had been previously struck, was told that only an act of true love could thaw a frozen heart. Ana races to find her love interest and be saved. When he betrays her she freezes and it seems like all hope is lost. Then Elsa comes to her and huggs her and crys and she unfreezes. This message is so incredibly amazing for a multiude of reasons. To switch it up and have a story about sisterhood and the strong meanings behind it rather than another love story is a step in the right direction. For young audiences to see two main characters who are strong women as well as independent is extremely important. Lastly to bring the concept of a sister or friendship being able to heal a person is crucial to a new age of Disney movies.

The next character that I believe is important for young minds to witness it Merida. Although Merida has a princess title, she does not play into the stereotypical role of a princess. She is tough, doesnt care about her appearance, and most importantly does not seek out a man. In this movie Merida is told she must marry but frankly she would rather shoot her bow and arrow and ride her horse. This movie has many more messages than just the idea that Merida does not want a husband, but when looking at this movie compared to older ones that stands out the most. Another important factor in this movie is the way that in the end Merida ultimately ends up by herself. She does not care about having a partner, and would rather be with her family and the company they can provide for her. One of the many reasons why this is important is because it sends a message to young minds that you dont need to have a partner. Not everyone has that desire and no one should be subjected to being with someone when they dont. Merida shows girls that life can be just as good with a man or not. It is movies such as Brave that continue to make disney movies progressive in a feminsit sense.

The next progressive princess I will look at is Moana. The first thing to look at in this movie is the way that there is zero love interest. In almost every movie created by Disney there is a sense of two people falling in love with one another. Moana is simply on a mission to save her community, which is just one more positive thing in this movie. Further speaking there is more representation racially. Moana is a polynesian character and is actually for once represented as one within her features. In addition to this Moana is one of the frist Disney characters that I have seen that has a normal body. It is common that a princess is skinny and perfect and clean looking, which is not what everyone looks like. Having the representation of someone who isnt tiny is extremely important especially within childerens movie. The last aspect of this movie that is positive it the family and community. Moana seeks to go on a mission to restore the health of her home, not for a man but for her loved ones.

While most are aware of the continuous racism in Disney productions, the representation that is given to white girls and no others has been harmful to those unrepresented. In the article below a researcher conducted a study to look into this aspect of Disney deeper. This study included asking young girls worldwide to draw a princess. The results were in a sense heartbreaking. "In this sample, nearly every drawing — 61 out of 63 — depicted a light-skinned princess, many of those resembling Disney characters. Fijian girls drew multiple Ariels; Indian girls drew Belles and Sleeping Beauties. Not one girl drew a princess in her country's traditional garb." This is all the more reason why representation matters so much for young minds. While looking further the researcher discovered that most young girls would pick the "traditional" white princesses over any of the others. Knowing this just furthers the need for Disney to continue to show more and more diversity when it comes to movies that are catered to young groups. This being said in the next section I will further look into the way that racism in Disney has been present for far too long.

Racist Moments from Disney Movies...

“Who's the fairest of them all?”---This quote from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves although seen to be fine has undertones of racism. The quotes allow for a sense that being white is being the "fairest" of them all or being superior in a sense.

“Keep on working / Stop that shirking / Pull that rope, you hairy ape”--- This quote from the movie Dumbo has very clear racism due to the fact that this is shouted at faceless black circus crows (actually workers).

The scene with Native Americans in Peter Pan and the depiction that is created is very racist. They are seen speaking gibberish and smoking copious amounts of tobacco out of a pipe, while also seen offering the pipe to the children such as Peter Pan.

Within the Lady and the Tramp, there is a song sung by two Siamese cats. In this song, they are seen with slanted eyes, bucked teeth, and East Asian accents. Within the remake, this was cleared by removing the song and changing the breed of the cats.

"Where they cut off your ear, if they don't like your face / It's barbaric, but hey, it's home."--- This quote from an Aladdin song was a part of the original lyrics to the song Arabian nights which was later just changed to "its barbaric, but hey, it's home". This change is somewhat different but still incredibly offensive to those from these areas.

With the information above it is very clear the offensive and horrible history is very much present. That being said there are been efforts over the past couple of years to include more diversity and representation. While there are many strides to be made movies like Raya and the last Dragon, Moana, and Frozen have made efforts in the right direction. When it comes to a goal that Disney needs to face the priority should be to continue to further to make movies that have different bodies, races, sexual identities, etc.

Sources for this section...

Conclusion...

To conclude I do believe that going back and looking at all of these storylines and plots are extremely important. Since media is something that has become bigger and bigger every year the things we allow children to watch matter. Despite certain studies that show that not all children are affected in a harmful sense, we still must make the effort to remove these points. We must raise the generations below us to feel able to be independent without the need to be with a man to make them happy. Teaching children through movies can be beneficial due to the fact that technology is something that is so prevalent in our world. My goal for this project was to illuminate the way that Disney has failed to empower young women in the past as well as offend communities with many racist undertones and micro-aggressions. I want my kids in the future to be able to watch movies and see every type of person and feel connected and represented when watching movies. Disney has come further than have in the past but there are still many different people that need attention and representation. Throughout this project, while examining all of these different points I felt sad in the sense that I was raised watching these films with no realization of all of these important points. Overall my goal of this was to show the way that there are so many little things that have been shown to us as young children that we were so oblivious to, but when looking at it later in life so many things become more apparent. Princesses do not need a man to save them or to come to their aid, the newer progressive princesses are independent Girl innovators who will do amazing things without a man or partner.

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