#without all of the little things that aren't writing choices or even necessarily directing choices

[trans-yllz]

wei wuxian is just such a delightfully human character like there is a lot to appreciate and analyze and be insane about in retrospect but actively watching the show and seeing all of his little mannerisms and the way he talks and how fleshed out and thoughtful all of his actions are just fills me w affection. truly the guy of all time

[words-and-threads]

I want to say better writing but that's obviously a half-assed response at best. But I do have some ideas.

Relatability: nv's world is the future of ours so it's a little easier for it to feel real and familiar. That alone wouldn't be enough but I bet it helps.

Motivation: people do things for reasons that make consistent sense. Ceasar isn't just eeeevil muahaha. He's arrogant but scared, justifying his actions as necessary brutality to keep order. His soldiers are convincingly brainwashed. The ncr are desperate, beset on all sides and getting more paranoid and controlling as their task becomes more obviously impossible. The dialogue options the game gives you are necessarily limites, so the writers did a good job of thinking through what a player might want to say, not just what gets the dialogue the wanted to write. I rarely found myself wanting to say something but blocked by the dialogue options, except when it was a matter of skill (e.g. you don't know enough about medicine to make this guess.) This happens in skyrim regularly (and also baldurs gate 3 but annnnyway).

Coherence: you can spend most of skyrim giving 0 shits about the civil war or the dragons. People talk about them, they show up as set dressing, but the draugr and the vampires and the thieves' guild are just going about their day. Conversely, the conflict between the NCR and Legion impacts you constantly. They both hire you for quests all around the map. You struggle across the desert to a town only to find it destroyed. Hope you didn't want supplies. If you go looking for them in the town hall, the Legion's dogs attack you. Quests point you to new vegas, benny, and the lucky 38. Having Veronica with you pulls you toward the Brotherhood which might put you in conflict with the NCR and directs you to meet the boomers who are being courted by both sides. Everything links up to everything else and the major plot constantly affects your choices no matter what you're doing.

Emotional weight: skyrim hits you with a couple of grisly executions and nearly your own. Excellent, I'm in. Buuut then it's about freedom from the empire and saving the world, both very abstract. Very big and epic and impersonal. Doc Holiday saves your life. Will you betray him to the powder gang for power? Benny promises big things if you work with him, then betrays you. When things in nv aren't happening specifically to you, they're often related by struggling, traumatized survivors of horrible violence. And the game gets fucking DARK. The writers of nv knew that in a game that's 70 percent grisly homicide, murder gets a bit...weak. So they raised the stakes, confronting you with violence and exploitation way beyond your own, things even a desensitized gamer will likely find horrifying. Murder is one thing but what kind of monster kills somebody's dog? It's mostly just murder, theft, and property destruction in skyrim and it is very likely the player also does all those things.

Practical weight: pissing off the legion or ncr will make your life VERY difficult. The NCR is entrenched in half the settlements in the Mojave and the legion will send death squads after you. Having the platinum chip gives you options, bargaining power. You can't carry your guns into the new vegas casinos without a specific skill so if you're looking to start shit I hope you're ready to suffer. Joining the thieves guild...gets you some jobs. You can pay off any guard in any city. Very few decisions make things more difficult unless you let them. Again, the stakes are just always a lot lower.

Voice acting: the voice acting in new vegas is just better.

Flexibility and agency: this isn't a new take but nv allows players to kill anyone, take anything, go anywhere. There are consequences, you might die, but you're rarely just blocked. Fewer artificial boundaries makes the game feel more real.

I don't know if anyone actually wanted this explanation but uh. Well here it is.

what is it about Fallout New Vegas that makes it feel like an immersive world full of real folks while Skyrim feels like 3 guys larping and putting on accents

[gallavictorious]

I really wish people would stop excusing their favorite character's actions with convoluted theories instead of just accepting that their faves aren't perfect. Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop. Especially not to Mickey's face, when Mickey is in the middle of trying to deal with the complicated feelings he has about the father that raped him by proxy and tried to actually murder him. It's ok to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here" and not make it into a shitty father competition.

And I really wish people would refrain from making groundless assumptions and recognize that trying to understand a character's motivation for doing something does not equal taking a stance on whether or not the action discussed is morally sound but alas, nonnie, we live in an imperfect world.

For those just turning in, this ask was received in response to my addition to this post.

Now, nonnie, if I understand you correctly, you disapprove of what I wrote because you see it as 1, an attempt to excuse Ian's behavior because 2, he's my favourite character and 3, therefore I can't stand to have him do something wrong. You also think that, no matter his motivations, Ian shouldn't be comparing Frank to Terry. Below, I'll quickly refutate points 2 and 3, as well as detail the difference between explanations and excuses and – hopefully – demonstrate why you can't with any sort of certainty claim that the offending post is an example of the latter. I will not really engage with the question of whether or not Ian was wrong for saying what he did, because (as we shall return to forthwith) that was not the issue originally discussed, it doesn't actually interest me, and as you do not offer any sort of reasoning for your moral judgment there really isn't anything for me to work with there anyway.

Strap in, kids; it's another long one.

Let's start with your claim that Ian is my favourite. I'm not actually going to spell it out there, but instead direct you to paragraphs 3-7 of this post. A little lazy, perhaps, but I'm sure you can appreciate why I have limited time to point out the same basic flaws twice in a fairly short period of time. (Should I pin a pic of me holding up a little sign reading ”Actually, Mickey is my favourite, even though I love Ian too” to the top of my blog? Would that be helpful?)

Moving on to point 3, I do agree with the general notion that it's fine to accept that the characters we love (no matter who that character is) are flawed and make mistakes! If you had taken the time to familiarize yourself with my thoughts on Ian and Mickey ��� or if you had, you know, just asked – instead of jumping to completely unsubstantiated conclusions based on a single post, you might even have realized that them being fucked up and making fucked up choices from time to time is one of the things I find most compelling about them. They are messy and complicated and human, and I love that. I neither think nor want either of them to perfect, because perfection is unrealistic is static is boring.

With that out of the way, let's get to excuses versus explanations. If one confuses the two, any attempt to discuss or explain a persons behavior will be construed as an attempt to excuse it, but to understand something and to condone it are actually two different things.

For instance, I can explain and understand why Mickey acted the way he did in 3x09, but still think kicking Ian in the face was wrong. I can explain and understand why Ian called Mickey a coward and a pussy in 4x11 but still think he was wrong for doing so. Do you see? Understanding – or trying to understand – why someone did something is not the same as saying that what they did was okay. Understanding the reasons for someone's actions might lessen the severity of our condemnation (for instance, stealing is generally considered wrong, but most of use would agree that stealing bread to feed your kid is less wrong than stealing bread because you're too stingy to pay for it) or might remove condemnation entirely (hitting someone because you are angry with them is wrong, hitting someone as part of consensual BDSM sex is fine), but understanding an action does not automatically lead to declaring said action morally correct. In short, ”why did X do Y” and ”was X right or wrong do to Y” are two different questions, and the fact that our answer to the second question often is at least partly dependent on our understanding of the first does not change that.

So explanations and excuses are not the same. And yet, sometimes the reasons for doing something (or failing to do something) are offered up as an excuse; as a reason why someone should not be held responsible for their actions, or why they were correct in performing/not performing them in the first place. That neatly leads us to the question of whether or not that's what's actually happening in the post you took exception to. And the answer to that is... you can't know. What boys-night and I discuss in the post is what Ian is actually doing (is he trying to compare trauma och convince Mickey he had it worse) and why he is doing it; that is, we are trying to understand and explain his behavior. Neither of us make any sort of statement on whether or not he was right or wrong for saying or doing what he did: that's just not the topic of conversation. Now, maybe I do think his motivations means that he's morally justified in what he said; maybe I don't. My point is that you can't know that just from what you've read in the post. You might draw some tentative conclusions, and they may be correct, but you don't know, and the reasonable and responsible way to go from there is to seek clarification by asking (polite) questions, not aggressively throwing around accusations about others grasping for straws in a despertae attempt to exonerate their favorites from wrongdoing.

(And just to remind you, even if I were making excuses for Ian, it wouldn't be because he's my favourite or becuase I can't bear to have him do wrong.)

You are perfectly free to disagree with any of the points made in the post, by the way, but you need to recognize that what we're disagreeing on then is motivation, not morality.

And, oh, of course it would have been okay to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here", but that's not what Ian did. Now, if you are happy to go ”ah, Ian fucked up, he's not perfect” and move on, that's fine. You do you, nonnie, and if analysis and discussion of character motivations isn't your jam then it isn't and I'm sure no one is going to force you to engage in it. (And if they try to, you can simply say ”I don't care” and walk away.) However, to be perfectly honest I am a bit perplexed that you should be so indignant over other fans trying to make sense of his actions. Do you still feel that way now that you – hopefully – understand that trying to explain a characters' behavior doesn't necessarily mean trying to excuse it? I mean, surely you are aware of the fact that people usually have reasons for acting the way they do, even if the way they act is shitty or misguided? (Note that I'm not saying that Ian's actions were shitty and misguided. That is not the discussion we're having.) I am rather curious, actually, as to what you think Ian's motivations were? Do you imagine he was deliberatedly diminishing Mickey's trauma? Why, if so? Do you perhaps think that he is obsessed with being The Most Victim and thus takes every opportunity to list all the ways Frank sucked? Or maybe that his mouth just moves without any thought or reason and the words just randomly happened?

To be fair, it seems that Ian's motivations is not something you consider relevant: you write that ”Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop.” And that's absolutely a moral stance you can take, albeit certainly not the only one. Maybe Ian shouldn't have said what he said Had you given any reasons for this verdict, I might even have agreed with you because I can think of several reasons why it might be better if Ian refrained from comparing Terry and Frank, no matter his motivations. (And I might not, because I can also think of several reasons why such a comparision might be justified, even though Terry is clearly the more evil of the two.) However, we shall never know, because you fail to back up your claim. I guess that's because you deem it self-evident? It is not, and until you provide any sort of reasoning for your grand proclamation, I won't engage with the question. Not going to shadow-box with you, nonnie, or do your work for you; if you want a discussion, make your case properly. Though maybe make it elsewhere – as previously noted, passing judgement on the characters is not my primary interest when discussing them. I am much more intrigued by trying to understand why characters do and say what they do and say.

Phew. Okay, that's me done, I think. I realize that you might not be very impressed with this answer, nonnie, but I hope it may to some degree reassure you that no sneaky attempt to excuse my favourite character's actions with convoluted theories was made by this humble blogger. Not this time, at least.

[bigskydreaming]

Continuing on that observation because I forgot to add this part, as a gen z I'm glad you understand that we or young people don't invent new ways to be evil, but it's not completely true. You aren't seeing new forms of online abuse in every platform, I doubt second hand information is going into details as well. Also the fact that you are a white man, there are things being said and done to poc in various online communities that I don't expect you to be privy to. Harassing fans of color and poc media has become a lot more common and normalized which parts of the fandom at large will never see. I don't know if anon did all of the thinking before saying "gen z bad" but they're not completely wrong looking at the kind of mass bullying behavior literal kids are exhibiting. They are learning from or being encouraged by older people but that shouldn't take the focus away from them to blame only the older people.

And my ask regarding Barbara, you assumed I hadn't thought about if my disdain for the character could have come from ableism. I had tho, granted you couldn't have known that and it was surely a possibility, so I'm not saying I'm mad about it, I was at that time a little bit. But you could perhaps give your anons a little more credit sometimes. Sometimes people know what they're talking about, you don't need to explain other possibilities to them each time.

Once again, sorry if this came off as very rude I just needed to share that observation and among many other instances these two were really highlights and kept bothering me. My issue with Barbara goes in a different direction than anything to do with her appearance and I've personally faced online abuse from people younger than me in ways that technologically, even politically, wasn't possible or as easy a few years ago, so you can maybe see why...

Please keep in mind that whatever context you have for yourself or your ask when you come into my inbox on anon......I have none of that. You have an awareness of yourself relative to whatever you asked me. I literally only know an anon by the words they put into my inbox and nothing else.

Also please keep in mind that every anon I answer, I do so in the larger context of my own interactions with tumblr overall. I have a lot of precedent with things I say being taken out of context, misrepresented or even just me not conveying myself as well as I like.

So the combination of those two things is that a) I literally just don't KNOW what any anon does or doesn't know and b) If I'm going to answer an anon, I tend to want to answer as fully and clearly as possible.

I can understand it coming across as being talked down to, so I'll work on that, but I would ask people to remember the above and keep that in context too when weighing my responses.....am I actually being condescending in every case, or does it simply feel that way because I'm including stuff you already know in my response? And if its the latter, is THAT something I COULD know about you without knowing who you are or you as a person and not just a paragraph sent in anonymously?

I'd rather be safe than sorry, and so from my POV since there's no harm in somebody seeing someone cover information they already know as PART of their overall answer or response, like, there's no reason for me not to include whatever I think is relevant and just expect readers to decide for themselves what about my response, if anything, is helpful, and like....just ignore the rest, y'know?

Also, just for the record, I am ADHD and I save my medication for when I'm working or writing or have stuff I absolutely need to get done, which doesn't include my usual blogging. So I'm usually posting while not on my ADHD meds at all, hence the rambling tendencies and the length. Another aspect of ADHD that doesn't get talked about much ime is we tend to over-explain, part out of just excitement/interest in whatever it is that has our attention, and also in part because we're used to people not necessarily following the leaps our minds take when jumping around rather than proceeding in an orderly thought pattern.....so, part of why I break things down so incrementally is I literally just don't know where my way of looking at things diverges from the way neurotypical thinking views things, so I want to draw as detailed a map as possible in order to ensure the most people possible can follow my thought process, just in case.

(And again see, this is something you might already know, and hell, you could have ADHD yourself, I just literally have no way of knowing that so rather than just mention it and be like "oh and also I have ADHD and so that's something to keep in mind" I'd rather explain WHY I feel that's particularly relevant to your question, since I'm kinda like, why not answer as fully as I have the spoons for? People can stop reading at any time if I go on too long. Its fine).

As for the specific asks you're referencing - my response to the gen z anon was not meant to convey that the sort of things you're describing don't occur among gen z, so sorry for giving that impression. Its actually the opposite of my point, which was simply that I don't think its a generational thing, or that anything is gained by treating it as a generational thing. This kind of behavior exists in gen z, yes, but it also existed before gen z. Its not gen z SPECIFIC, or limited to just that generation. That's all.

And the other ask, the one you made about Barbara - to be honest, I don't have anyway of knowing for sure which one you meant, and there are a couple it could have been, but if its the one I THINK you're referencing, I believe you asked how to stop people from assuming you dislike Barbara for reasons rooted in ableism when its because of other things? If that's the one, then I mean, the thing is....I DID answer your question, in as much as anyone could. I addressed the perceptions other people might have of your stance there, but basically - there IS no way to ever ensure people take you at your word or any kind of guarantee you can present your POV in a way that won't be misrepresented or misunderstood. So ultimately, I just had no real useful advice for that?

And so I expanded into the only thing I think anyone CAN control, aka their own thoughts and words, and suggested that you just double check to be sure of your own possible biases that others might read into your words without you being aware you were putting them in there. That wasn't meant as an insult or to suggest you hadn't already examined yourself for possible ableism - it was simply saying it never hurts to check again, y'know? We don't always catch everything every time we do a self-review, and internal biases are inherently tricky to pick up on ourselves. And it just loops back into the fact that I really had no way to know what you had and hadn't already considered, you're essentially a blank cipher to me....and in my experience, a lot of people are a lot more ableist than they realize.

And this isn't an insult either! It applies to me and I'M physically disabled! I'm constantly to this day unpacking new realizations about how I still have more ableist views and opinions than even I realize, even after about five years of living with chronic pain, vertigo, nerve issues and associated problems stemming from only half a working mouth lol. I'm not trying to insult people by asking them to just do what I do every day and just like....make sure I'm not the problem when other people have a problem with me. Because sometimes, even after reflecting as fully and genuinely as I can, I think they're still wrong! I don't have to agree with their conclusions! But that doesn't mean that they're never right.

And for the record, I do think its still worth examining on your end, because I don't love that you said your issues with Barbara have nothing to do with her appearance, when we're talking about ableism specifically. It very well could be just a poor word choice on your part and not a reflection of your actual views, but it could also be a suggestion that you tend to think of physical disability as something that's limited to there being a visual sign of, and there's a lot of invisible symptoms and changes to the ways a disabled person interacts with society and society with them that don't alter a disabled person's appearance in anyway...and many of these things are the exact stuff a lot of unacknowledged ableism revolves around.

So I'd like to give you and other anons more credit and the benefit of the doubt and assume you know what you're talking about and don't need things broken down as much as I tend to break them down to - but keep in mind I don't OWE you that, and its a lot to ask someone to take you on faith when you've already made the conscious choice to present yourself to them anonymously, and deliberately limit how much a person even CAN know about you before answering, when you have an equal opportunity to present yourself by name, allowing someone the full context afforded by your blog, that they can use to familiarize themselves with you and what you likely do or don't know before answering. I don't think its entirely reasonable to anonymize YOURSELF and then expect people to still give you the benefit of the doubt.

Especially when not giving you the benefit of the doubt only really results in me over-explaining something you don't think you need explained in certain ways or in as much depth. Its not hurting anyone, and you're not going to be the only one reading this response and maybe that over-explanation ISN'T something other people know and it could still be of use to someone else, y'know?

But lastly, please keep in mind that you came to me, and I just answered in the way that made the most sense to me. If that didn't work for you or wasn't what you're looking for, that's fine, but like. You knew way more about me going into this interaction than I could possibly know about you, and assuming good faith of you and your interest in my response and giving you as much of a response as I did in the first place, let alone now, IS giving you the benefit of the doubt in the sense that I'm assuming you can find some way in which these responses are of use to you.

And if not, like....just don't send me more asks? LOL. I kinda feel like you just didn't expect the answer you got, and that's sitting weirdly with you. Which I get, to be honest, but I don't particularly think that's a me problem, because that has nothing to do with anything I can control.

I can only give the answer that occurs to me when I read and think about an ask. I can't guarantee it'll ever be the answer the asker actually WANTS.

[longgae]

11 celebrities who've been called out for homophobic comments

This is gonna be interesting...

1. In 2020, Twitter users accused J.K. Rowling of transphobia after comments she made on Twitter. Rowling tweeted, "'People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?" Fans on social media quickly told the writer she was not being inclusive to the transgender community. Rowling backed up her statement by tweeting, "I respect every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I'd march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it's hateful to say so." She also said, "I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman – and, as I've said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth."

2. Kevin Hart stepped down from hosting the Academy Awards after his old homophobic comments surfaced, saying, "I am evolving and want to continue to do so."

Between 2009 and 2010, Kevin Hart made insensitive jokes on Twitter and in his standup specials. For example, in one tweet, the comedian said he would break a dollhouse over his son's head if it turned out he was gay. In his 2010 special, "Seriously Funny," he reiterated the point that he would act abusively if his son was gay. "I wouldn't tell that joke today, because when I said it, the times weren't as sensitive as they are now," Hart later told Rolling Stone. "I think we love to make big deals out of things that aren't necessarily big deals, because we can. These things become public spectacles. So why set yourself up for failure?" When it was announced that Hart was going to be the host of the Oscars in 2018, his past jokes resurfaced. After backlash from the public, Hart stepped down as host. "I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year's Oscar's....this is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists," he wrote in a tweet. "I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past … I am evolving and want to continue to do so. My goal is to bring people together not tear us apart."

3. After Paris Hilton was caught criticizing the gay community in an audio recording, she apologized, saying, "Gay people are the strongest and most inspiring people I know." In 2012, an audio recording of Paris Hilton in a taxi cab was leaked. According to reports, she was in the car with a gay man who was showing her the gay dating app, Grindr. In the audio, you can hear Hilton say, "Gay guys are the horniest people in the world. They're disgusting. Dude, most of them probably have AIDS. ... I would be so scared if I were a gay guy. You'll like, die of AIDS." Her publicist confirmed that the recording was in fact Hilton but emphasized the socialite was not homophobic. (Are they sure about this? God...) In an apology statement, Hilton said, "I am so sorry and so upset that I caused pain to my gay friends, fans, and their families. Gay people are the strongest and most inspiring people I know."

4. After a member of the audience called out Tracy Morgan for his homophobic remarks during a standup set, the comedian apologized. In 2011, a man chronicled Tracy Morgan's standup set in Nashville on Facebook. In the post, the man said Morgan said being gay is a choice because "God makes no mistakes." The comedian also allegedly said he would stab his son if he came out as gay. (Kevin Hart, you here?) After backlash and a half-hearted apology on "Late Show with David Letterman," Morgan issued an official apology. "I want to apologize to my fans and the gay & lesbian community for my choice of words at my recent stand-up act in Nashville," he said. "I'm not a hateful person and don't condone any kind of violence against others. While I am an equal opportunity jokester, and my friends know what is in my heart, even in a comedy club this clearly went too far and was not funny in any context." (Good sir. There is more to LGBTQ+ then just gays and lesbians)

5. Sarah Silverman used a gay slur in a 2010 tweet. When asked about it in 2018, she said, "I'm certainly creative enough to think of other words besides that that don't hurt people." In 2010, Sarah Silverman tweeted, "I don't mean this in a hateful way but the new bachelorette's a f-----." Although the tweet went relatively unnoticed at the time, it picked up momentum again in 2018 when people pointed out that it was unfair for Kevin Hart to step down from hosting the Oscars for doing something similar. "Yea, I'm done with that," Silverman told TMZ when she was asked about it in 2018. "I think I can find other ways to be funny. I used to say 'gay' all the time like, 'That's so gay!' Because we're from Boston. We'd go, 'That's what you say in Boston. I have gay friends. I just say gay.' Then I heard myself, and I realized I was like the guy who'd say, 'What? I say colored. I have colored friends.' I realized it's stupid, and I'm certainly creative enough to think of other words besides that that don't hurt people. But I fuck up all the time."

6. Eminem has been criticized for using gay slurs in his songs, but he insists he isn't homophobic. In 2018, Eminem released his album, "Kamikaze." In one song titled "The Fall," he focuses on fellow rapper Tyler, The Creator. In the song, Eminem raps," "Tyler create nothin', I see why you called yourself a f----t, bitch." This wasn't the first time rapper had been criticized for using a gay slut. Throughout his career, he has used similar words in his songs and received a lot of criticism for it. Eminem, however, insists he is not homophobic. "The honest-to-God truth is that none of that matters to me: I have no issue with someone's sexuality, religion, race, none of that," the rapper told Vulture. "Anyone who's followed my music knows I'm against bullies — that's why I hate that f---ing bully Trump — and I hate the idea that a kid who's gay might get s--- for it."

7. Mel Gibson mocked how gay men act in the early '90s. While doing an interview in 2001 for Spanish newspaper El Pais, Gibson said, "With this look, who's going to think I'm gay? I don't lend myself to that type of confusion. Do I look like a homosexual? Do I talk like them? Do I move like them?" Throughout the '90s, GLAAD protested Gibson's films, but the actor refused to apologize. "I'll apologize when hell freeze over," he said. "They can f--- off."

8. Alec Baldwin went on a homophobic Twitter rant against a reporter he did not agree with. He later said his remarks were "in no way was the result of homophobia." In 2013, Daily Mail reporter George Stark wrote a story accusing Alec Baldwin's wife, Hilaria, of tweeting at James Gandolfini's funeral. Baldwin took to Twitter to express his anger at Stark, calling the reporter a "toxic little queen," among other comments. In an interview with the Gothamist after the incident, Baldwin stood by his decision to call the reporter a "queen." "The idea of me calling this guy a 'queen' and that being something that people thought is homophobic … a queen to me has a different meaning. It's somebody who's just above," he told the publication. "It doesn't have any necessarily sexual connotations," Baldwin said. "To me a queen ... I know women that act queeny, I know men that are straight that act queeny, and I know gay men that act queeny. It doesn't have to be a definite sexual connotation or a homophobic connotation." He later issued an official apology, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "My anger was directed at Mr. Stark for blatantly lying and disseminating libelous information about my wife and her conduct at our friend's funeral service. As someone who fights against homophobia, I apologize," Baldwin said. "I would not advocate violence against someone for being gay, and I hope that my friends at GLAAD and the gay community understand that my attack on Mr. Stark in no way was the result of homophobia."

9. Chris Brown also used homophobic language (no shockers there) when talking about another rapper, but he later said, "I love all my gay fans." In 2010, rapper Raz provoked Chris Brown when he tweeted about Brown's past assault on Rihanna. Brown responded by attacking Raz on Twitter, referencing the fact that Raz was molested by another man as a child and calling him a "#homothug." "I'm not homophobic! He's just disrespectful," Brown tweeted later. "BTW…I love all my gay fans and this immature act is not targeted at you!!!! Love."

10. Azealia Banks has a long history of problematic comments, but she has since said she will no longer use gay slurs. In 2015, singer Azealia Banks was caught on camera yelling at a flight attendant after getting into a fight with a fellow passenger. In the video, you can hear Banks call the flight attendant a gay slur, according to HuffPost.She later tweeted about the incident, writing, "I don't care. I've said it before and I'll say it again."Banks' history with the word doesn't stop there. In 2016, she used the word to attack fellow singer Zayn Malik on Twitter, leading to the deactivation of her account. She has also called the LGBTQ community "the gay white KKK. Get some pink hoods and unicorns and rally down rodeo drive."In 2016, however, she announced she is never using the gay slur again. "The amount of people that get hurt when I use the word vs. the amount of people I've said it to are just not worth it," she wrote on Facebook. "Honestly... This isn't a cop-out, it's just me realizing that words hurt. and while I may be immune to every word and be thicker skinned than most, it doesn't mean that I get to go around treating people with the same toughness that made my skin so thick."

11. Drake Bell received backlash after posting a transphobic tweet. He later called the remarks "thoughtless." When Caitlin Jenner came out as transgender in 2015, Nickelodeon actor and singer Drake Bell tweeted, "Sorry...still calling you Bruce." After receiving backlash, he deleted the tweet and then posted another, misgendering Jenner. "I'm not dissing him! I just don't want to forget his legacy! He is the greatest athlete of all time," Bell tweeted. "Chill out!" After that, he tweeted out an apology. "I sincerely apologize for my thoughtless insensitive remarks," Bell wrote. "I in no way meant to hurt or demean those going through a similar journey. Although my comments were made in innocence, I deeply regret the negative effect they've had on so many."

Here are some tweets that were mentioned earlier (I couldn't find all of them)

So... yeah

[mania-sama]

This is also something that I've noticed a lot in IwaOi fanfics, headcanons, skits, and what have you. Particularly when it's too heavy in a fanfic, I really do start to get bothered. Because, what you said is true and exactly what I think: being that dependent on another person makes for an incredibly toxic relationship and a horrible imbalance of power. Even though I am a sucker for these two being horribly, sickly in love with each other no matter what happens, I would prefer it if it was a little more realistic. What ends up happening when it's not realistic is an unintentional toxic relationship that's never addressed as such, which leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

(Not that it's necessarily that serious, but I tend to think a whole lot about things that are never that serious and end up developing deep opinions on the matter).

So, yes, I agree with you on this matter. Iwaizumi should be shown more to have his own life and feelings outside of his relationship/feelings towards Oikawa. I made it a point in both of my own Iwaizumi POV fics to touch on the fact that he does have both a successful career and friends, and he does so without Oikawa's direct help. Having him drop his entire life suddenly to go to Argentina is a little frustrating, especially when he does it with little consideration.

... However.

Canon IwaOi is... so hard to write in fanfic because they have these two different lives. For two best friends that grew up with each other, that have loved each other through a thousand different mood swings, phases, and obsessions, being long distance for the rest of their lives while deeply in love is kind of like severing their limbs. It just doesn't work very well, so it tends to be that if they are meant to be together and stay together in the fic, one of them has to move to be with the other. And when it comes down to this, Iwaizumi is always going to be the first choice, and I cannot fault anyone for this.

Why? Well, this is something that I've thought a lot about. It mainly comes down to this: Iwaizumi is not tied to Japan like Oikawa is to Argentina, and Oikawa is not tied to Iwaizumi's character like Iwaizumi's character is tied to Oikawa. Oikawa is a more fleshed-out character than Iwaizumi is in canon, and that's perfectly fine. Iwaizumi is a side character, while Oikawa is a main antagonist (who even has a... sort-of redemption arc, I suppose, if you want to count the Brazil reunion as a redemption, which I would considering that this is a sports shonen and not a high-stakes shonen). Iwaizumi isn't meant to be as fleshed out.

So, when it comes down to it, it's much easier and also slightly more canon to write Iwaizumi as the one to leave for Oikawa, because that's most of who he was in canon. He doesn't have an internal monologue about how he came to volleyball on his own. Almost all of his scenes are with Oikawa, and when they aren't, he still shows much of the same dynamic as he does when he's with Oikawa; he remains a firm and reliable force to everyone around him, just like he does with Oikawa. He's a supporting character. That's literally the whole point of his being in the narrative aside from being a formidable opponent in volleyball. Even during the time skip, he is brought back with a flash-back to his promise with Oikawa. His character is, quite literally, inextricably tied with Oikawa's. That's why he's the constant victim to being moved in this relationship. He's... meant to be that way, more or less.

For Oikawa, it's the exact opposite. He has his motivations. He has that internal monologue, that drive, those deep and complex relationships with our main characters that Iwaizumi notably doesn't have. He is one of the main antagonists; a character that is fleshed out, meant to stand on his own, to provide a solid and complete narrative to balance out with the main character's. And he does that very well. For that reason, he is not tied to Iwaizumi, even though, again, most of his scenes are with Iwaizumi. Oikawa does not have to stand with him to be worth putting on the screen, in a narrative sense. His character arc is not tied with Iwaizumi. It's tied with two other characters: Kageyama and Ushijima, his main source of conflict, and also the exact reason why he is usually never the one being moved back to Japan to be with Iwaizumi in these fics.

Here we come to my main point, after describing these characters: Iwaizumi does not have a narrative tie to Japan. Oikawa does, to both Japan and Argentina. He left Japan because Japan had nothing left for him. If he wanted to succeed as an athlete (which he did - that is his entire character, that visceral need to succeed), he had to go somewhere far from his competition. He had to escape the two people he kept comparing himself to, and he did it. He left to go chase after his idol in Argentina.

That's why he has to stay.

In the two time-skip fics I've written for Haikyuu (and both of which have Oikawa stuck in Japan), I've had this internal debate with myself. When I'm writing, it's like I can feel Oikawa shaking his head at me. He doesn't want to be in Japan. In both fics, he had an external force keeping him in Japan. His character does not want to be there, and that's because it goes against everything Furudate has written for him. Oikawa is in Argentina because that is who he is - he is someone who has fought and scraped every step of the way to climb to the top of the volleyball world, to stand at the same level as his competitors on the Olympic stage and smile. Bringing him back to Japan, making him move there to be with Iwaizumi... he doesn't want to, no matter how badly I want to make it work.

Like I said, Iwaizumi doesn't have this same narrative connection. His job doesn't actually even require him to be in Japan. He both received a diploma and completed in internship in the United States. Medicine is one of the few jobs that is communicable throughout the world with little boundary. Career-wise, if he really wanted to, Iwaizumi could uproot himself from Japan and plot himself in Argentina instead. Not that it would be easy, but it would certainly be easier than the dreams Oikawa wants to keep achieving - dreams that can't be found in Japan.

This is, really, just a long-winded way of saying that IwaOi is just a victim of being a side pairing that has a severe imbalance of importance to the narrative between the characters.

I still stand by the original point: Iwaizumi has his own life. If you want to write him moving to Argentina, give him a reason. Convince me that he's willing to risk everything to be with Oikawa. When an author has done that, I can't really complain. Iwaizumi's character wants to be with Oikawa, and that's the simple truth of it.

i fucking hate it so much when people write iwaoi fics where oikawa is like the center of the universe and iwaizumi just follows him everywhere like a dog like no that’s not what a good relationship is built on what if he doesn’t WANT to move to argentina. what if he doesn’t want to drop his entire life for the resolution of their fanfic. what if he is a person and not a fucking accessory to oikawa’s being

like i think that yeah, the earth orbits the sun, but the sun is also not the center of the universe

anyway. it ticks me off so bad i guess i am going to write it because YEAH maybe he’ll return in the end because they love each other and nothing could keep them apart but that is not because one of them is a person and the other just follows him everywhere it’s not fair and it also is not a healthy relationship at all and how can they be an otp if their relationship is toxic and also sucks

[mandibierly]

Why vampires aren't as sexy in the age of #MeToo

Nina Dobrev as Elena and Ian Somerhalder as Damon on The Vampire Diaries. (Photo: Everett Collection)

The Vampire Diaries and Dawson’s Creek producer Julie Plec on the storylines you’d have to think twice about today, the inspiring Marjory Stoneman Douglas students, and the Roswell reboot.

This March marks a year since The Vampire Diaries signed off the air after eight seasons on The CW, and as showrunner Julie Plec thinks back to its beginnings, there’s no question what her biggest takeaway is. “There was a sensuality and a seduction to the vampire genre that now, [nearly] 10 years later, isn’t necessarily as sexy, right?” she says, alluding to the fact that vampires can compel or glamour humans (depending on whether you’re watching TVD or True Blood) and have overpowering strength and speed.

“And you could look at it back through the lens of say the #MeToo movement and object to what may be a little bit of a glorification of a rape culture, but what we were working with at the time was a gothic romance with a fine line — a very fine line — separating it,” she says, with a laugh. “And I used to get in arguments about it being a gothic romance and not wanting to censor the sexuality of the characters, even if it felt a little questionable at times, like specifically Damon and Caroline in the first couple of episodes [when he used her as a plaything and drank from her against her will]. Because that’s what vampires represented, and that’s what vampires were. And the culture has just shifted enough that you’d have to think twice before you dove in that boldly now, I think.”

Another storyline that doesn’t feel “of the time” today is the classic bad boy trope, which, Plec admits, she’s had great success exploring on TVD and its spinoff, The Originals (which returns April 20 for its fifth and final season). “It brings to light a lot of questions about women’s self-worth and passivity in that male/female dynamic, and so that’s shifting as well,” she says. “It’ll be [interesting] to see how you can create great romance and tension in a romantic relationship without being able to rely on those old tropes of the guy picking up the girl and throwing her over his shoulder and saving the day, you know.”

As someone who also worked on close friend Kevin Williamson’s series Dawson’s Creek for a time, Plec can, too, admit that 20 years later, a plot point like Pacey having sex with his teacher hasn’t aged well. “There was something kind of sexy and dirty and naughty and wish fulfillment about that back then that leaves a really nasty taste in my mouth right now,” she says.

Still, there are some Dawson’s arcs that more than hold up. She thinks back to Jack (Kerr Smith) coming out in Season 2 — and in Season 3, experiencing the first passionate kiss between two men on TV (thanks to then showrunner Greg Berlanti being willing to walk away from the series if the network wouldn’t air it). “Essentially that scene where the father rejects Jack and leaves him in a puddle crying was a fictionalized version of Greg’s actual experience, which he’s talked very freely about in his own interviews,” Plec says. “The beauty of that storyline is the idea that as a young adult, [Greg] had an experience that he had to keep a secret for a while, and then when he revealed his secret, it didn’t go well, and then for him to be able to exorcise that demon through writing — to actually show the story to an audience and show them all the beautiful things about that story that he himself had never gotten to see as a viewer.”

That’s also an illustration of why Plec has always been drawn to the teen genre. “What’s most inspirational about writing for that age is that everyone at that age is either living their biggest truth or their biggest secret, and sometimes both. And they communicate in a very straight-forward way. They tend to sort of say what they mean, and express their feelings without filters in a way that you just don’t do as much as an adult,” she says. “And so as a writer, it makes it a particularly honest experience — I don’t have to think, I can just put my thoughts on the page as I would have wanted to when I was 17.”

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students Emma Gonzalez, left, David Hogg, and Cameron Kasky raising their voices. (Photos: Getty/AP)

Last month, when she was watching the teen survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting speak on TV, she thought again about Dawson’s Creek.

“Kevin made a very specific and unique style choice in that he purposefully wrote those teens to have almost hyperbolic language and communication skills,” Plec says, “and I would say, probably the biggest lesson you can take from his choice was that when you’re writing for teenagers, you don’t treat them like children. You treat them, and you present them, as adults. And that was actually passing through my head when I was listening to all the Parkland students on CNN giving their press conference. I said, ‘My god, they are so magnificently articulate.’ And the idea that there used to exist this sense in that particular youth genre that you had to write down or limit their vocabulary or narrow their point of view seems so ridiculous in the post-Dawson’s Creek era, because you look at the reality of how teenagers communicate at their best.”

Katherine Langford as Hannah Baker in 13 Reasons Why. (Photo: Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection)

The conversation those students, and fearless shows like 13 Reasons Why, are creating in the country give her hope. “If you’re looking at all of these kids talking about being shot up in their school, then you’re applauding a show like 13 Reasons Why for creating an environment for people to talk openly about their feelings, about their mental illness, about their sadness, about the things that make them feel dark. If talking about mental health is the norm and not the aberration, then I think we solve a lot of the world’s problems just by definition of that.”

Because again, when done well, these shows can make a difference. For her next project, Plec will direct the pilot for The CW’s Roswell reboot, written by Originals alum Carina Adly MacKenzie and based on the Roswell High book series. This time, the story centers on the daughter (Jeanine Mason) of undocumented immigrants who returns to her hometown of Roswell, New Mexico, for her 10-year high school reunion and discovers that her teenage crush (Nathan Parsons), who is now a police officer, has been hiding the fact that he’s an alien with unearthly abilities. When a violent attack and long-standing government cover-up point to a greater alien presence on Earth, the politics of fear and hatred threaten to expose him and destroy their deepening romance.

“Carina was raised in the Muslim faith by an Egyptian mother, although she is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed young woman, and after 9/11, the next day everyone in her school was exhibiting blatant Islamophobia, and she had to sort of stand up and say, ‘Hey, wait a second, guys. Watch yourselves.’ And so to be able to tell that story through this lens is really important to her because it is something that she went through as a teenager.”

And it’s an experience that today’s teens can still relate to. “Anything that you’re making for that particular audience, you know deep down that you’re in some way, in success, laying the foundation for important things like tolerance and inclusion, and openness to issues like mental health or self-esteem,” she says. “You’re touching people at the right time, where your message can actually make positive change if your message is well-executed — and there’s something really uplifting and powerful about that.”

Read more “Why Teen TV Matters” from Yahoo Entertainment:

Show creator looks back at 4 decades of ‘Degrassi,’ from abortion to Drake

Joss Whedon on Parkland students: ‘I’ve been writing about kids like these for a long while. I thought I was writing fantasy.’

‘My So-Called Life’ and ‘Parenthood’ creators on Parkland teens ‘changing the conversation’ on TV and in real life

Why social media is the biggest issue teen TV should tackle

[yakuniku]

Hello! I'm a grad student with adhd who is studying writing and grammar. If you don't mind, I'd like to speak a bit on this since while it is most definitely something that more often affects kids/adults with adhd, it's also representative of a systemic problem within the education system and academia as a whole.

See, the initial confusion comes from the fact that teachers enforce a particular style without actually knowing why it's done that way, what language to use to describe it, or when it's okay, or even better, to break away from it. Teachers are using the phrase "run-on sentence" to represent a vast array of concepts, for both grammar and style. The thing is, when introducing a new concept, there's no reason to combine it so completely with another. Rather, it can be harmful to a student's learning since they would have to re-learn these concepts in the future. I work at a writing center, and students at all levels will come in asking for help with grammar, specifically run-ons a lot of the time, because their teacher told them to. They're often surprised to find that there aren't that many actual grammatical errors, but rather, their teacher was merely confused by the wordiness of the sentence. Using the term "run-on sentence" to refer to both the grammatical concept and wordiness causes this confusion and anxiety in writers. Combining these concepts ultimately does very little to help young writers beyond reducing the amount of terminology they initially have to learn. If teachers took the time to thoroughly teach students about the grammatical rule then moved on the stylistic concept of concision, particularly the reason concision is preferred in a lot of business or scientific writing, students would be a lot more adept at applying it. Moreover, teaching concision as if it is the rule perpetuates the idea that this is the only way to write, when variation in sentence length makes papers read a lot smoother. It is also frustrating in that it ignores situations where what we consider run-on sentences do not necessarily need a comma before the conjunction because clarity is not impeded either way.

As young writers continue to be taught to equate grammar and style, we reinforce the exclusionary nature of academia. This issue can be seen in other concepts that are taught as rules, despite being stylistic choices or grammarian inventions to keep writing exclusionary. For example, the use of active voice over passive voice neglects situational differences and comes into direct conflict with the insistence of third person in certain disciplines. Or, the idea that sentences cannot begin with a conjunction or end in a preposition is an example of these rules recently invented for the sole purpose of preventing those not privy to this unspoken knowledge (i.e. the lower class, women, and people of color) from being involved in the the discourse of their area of study. Continuing to simplify these concepts and use them interchangeably also furthers the mindset that grammar is above all the most important factor in successful writing, which means that students who consistently make grammatical mistakes will be treated as less intelligent than those who do not. My words are no more or less intelligent than anyone else's just because I am using correct grammar, but it may be treated as such whether or not another person's ideas are stronger or more effective. Now, I know we can't expect public school teachers to be experts in the immense complexities of grammar, particularly English grammar and its many conflicting rules, but I think a shift needs to be made in how we educate young writers, and how we educate those teaching them. Differentiating between grammar and style early on will give writers the ability to develop their own style long before university, where they often have to catch up in order to meet professors' expectations, which are based in the assumption that college students already have this knowledge despite the overwhelming spread of misinformation in schools. It will also give them the knowledge and language to break these rules and challenge these accepted practices.

tl;dr, This confusion comes from educators conflating grammar and style without ever explaining the difference before thrusting students into university where they are expected to already understand it. And clarifying this difference early on will allow a smoother transition to academic writing, while also providing writers with the ability to call these practices into question.

in 4th grade i was introduced to the concept of “run-on sentences” by my teacher and i immediately raised my hand and pointed out that none of the sentences being used as examples were actually grammatically wrong at all and were just longer than most people can comfortably write/read and she made me sit in the corner and i feel like that shows a lot in my typing style on this hellsite