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writingwithcolor · 10 months

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Running Commentary: What is “ok to do” in Mixed-Culture Supernatural Fiction?

Dear readers:

Today we are trying something new. To give you some insight into our process in the Japanese moderator section, we are presenting our response in the form of running commentary to show you how we dissect and answer long asks. We hope this makes clear what points are useful and not useful when sending us a query. As always, this is for learning purposes, not callouts. Be prepared: this is a long one.

To summarize: the asker is looking to create a comic drawn in Japanese manga style, and has provided a long summary of the story and worldbuilding which involves a mix of “reimagined” Japanese yokai mythos and cultural symbols from many other sources. They have questions with respect to cultural appropriation, coding etiquette, and “what is and isn’t ok.”

Opening Comments

I know a common advice when it comes to the thing I am about to ask is to talk to people involved in __, but I struggle with opening up to strangers for reasons I'm uncomfortable explaining.

Marika (M): This is already a red flag. If you want to engage with another culture without talking to people from that culture, then research is going to be very challenging. You won’t have members of that culture to guide you towards sources and perspectives they feel most accurately represents public opinion. If I were in your shoes, I might start with tackling my discomfort when engaging with other people, if only to improve my work. If you aren’t ready to engage with a culture and its people directly, then I think you should wait until you are.

I should note, reaching out to the Japanese mod team at WWC does count as engagement, but WWC should not and cannot be the only point of contact because there is no single, legitimate cultural perspective.

Rina (R): Also, you don’t need to “open up” to strangers or talk to them in person to get perspectives. Asking specific research questions anonymously to a forum or on social media requires very little vulnerability. You managed to do it here on WWC. So give it a try!

Anyway, my question basically amounts to the what is and isn't ok [sic] in terms of depicting fantasy creatures and concepts outside of their respective culture.

R: So, the reason why we turn away rubber stamp questions by that ask “is XYZ okay?” is because “okay” & “not okay” 1) is vague and 2) creates a dichotomy where there isn’t one.

When we say something is “not okay,” do we mean:

It’s offensive to the general majority of XYZ group?

It’s contentious among people who ID in the group?

It has a potential to be interpreted in a certain negative way, but may not be a red flag to everyone?

Insetad try asking:

What are the reasons this subject is offensive?

What makes cultural appropriation bad?

When might it be “okay” to intentionally discuss a difficult or controversial topic?

What is your reason for including something that may be interpreted as offensive and can it be sufficiently justified?

What stereotypes or tropes might it be consistently identified as or associated with, and why?

When might it be justified to bring up these tropes?

With That In Mind...

Let’s get into the rest of the ask below.

…a story I've been working on in recent times is largely inspired off the Japanese yokai, and the setting is basically Earth in the far future, as far as when the next supercontinent may form. These yokai, although portrayed differently here, do retain their main characteristics [...] Included in this world are two goddesses of my own creation, primarily representing the sun and the moon. [...] There will be thirteen nations, named and based after the Chinese Zodiac, and the life force found in the living things in this world, called qi, comes in two forms that are always opposing each other but can never fully overpower the other, this being based off yin and yang. They're even directly named this; yin qi and yang qi.

M: This reads more like using Japanese and Chinese culture for the “aesthetics”, not the cultures themselves, which I personally feel falls under cultural appropriation. From a world-building/ coding standpoint, the actual use of concepts is workable, and, dare I say, typical, given how Chinese cosmology influences Japanese culture. However, naming a concept “yin qi” or “yang qi” is the equivalent of naming something “- charge” or “+ charge”, respectively. That you don’t seem aware of this tells me you are pretty early in your research phase. In that vein, we’ve covered translating terms and names from foreign languages in fantasy before. See the following article linked here for our recommendation against using RL terms outright but instead encouraging people to create their own conlangs.

R: Worldbuilding-wise, I think you would have to figure out the chicken-or-egg of the zodiac nations. Did the nations come first, and the zodiac later as an origin folk story (which you would have to rewrite to serve the nation-building narrative)? Did the zodiac come first, and the nations named (most likely re-named) by a political entity? What is the justification? Otherwise, again, it’s a shoehorning of aesthetics.

There is also a third, lesser known god based off of fox spirits and trickery and I imagined he's the patron deity of a family that honors and worships him, but his influence on them has transformed them into Kitsune-tsuki, which I depict as fox-like anthros.

M: Not related to this ask directly, but I have jokingly ranted about how often non-Japanese people prefer using imagery related to kitsune-tsuki in Japanese coded world-building (link). This makes me feel the same level of petty irritation. See my troll answer below for a similar experience.

R: Same. It’s boring tbh.

M: Troll Answer: I get that kitsune-tsuki are very sexy furries, but Japanese folklore has other sexy furries too! These underrepresented demographics also deserve recognition and appreciation!!

The plot of the story is this; modernization has left the goddesses neglected of their worship and forgotten, something that is necessary in this world to stop them from fighting each other. The Moon Goddess awakens first, punishing the humans by unleashing the yokai. Then the Sun Goddess wakes up to fight in humanity's defense…

M: This could feel rather like Shinto-like coding (Ex. the myth of Amaterasu and the Cave, or Tsukuyomi slaying Ukemochi), but something about this scenario feels a bit too binary in terms of themes of good v. evil, light v. dark to be Shinto. The plot also feels more Gaelic/ Nordic in influence for me as a person raised in a Japanese Buddhist and Hindu household. I imagine this dissonance could have been fixed with better guided research.

…but their fighting has caused a perma-eclipse and this world is in danger of ending. The yokai have run rampant; some are loyal to the Moon Goddess, and some aren't, and it lies to the main characters to bring balance back to Midgard. Yeah... the name of this future Earth is Midgard. I debate changing it since it and some other things I will mention sorta feel out of place.

R: Marika, looks like you were right on the Gaelic/Nordic influence /j

Also, worldbuilding question: if the Earth is in the far geologic future, how long has it been since modernization (19th-20th century)? Centuries? Millennia? How long has this fighting gone on for? What triggered the perma-eclipse, and why now? Why is this time depth necessary?

One of the main characters in question is a humanoid woman with wolf features named Ling, and she is a descendant of the dynasty that had first ruled the one of the nations, particularly the one based off the dragon zodiac. She accidentally summons the other main character to this world as she's praying at a shrine, a humanoid with dragon features--I call them drakon--named Angelynn.

[on the names of characters] is it appropriating by not having the world entirely based on [Chinese, Japanese, and Indian] influence? it's a little weird to me how worldwide the creatures are referred to as yokai, implying a strong Japanese influence not unlike how it is today with Western culture being so dominant, yet there are still names like Keith and Kiara.

M: I will give you credit for recognizing you have unconsciously veered towards white-washing/ race-bending: either presenting European cultural influences (drakons, Angelynn, Keith, Kiara, Midgard) as default or utilizing general E. Asian cultural influences and aesthetics for a Western-style story (Ling, qi, Chinese zodiac, yokai). I agree with you that this creates a sense of cultural dissonance. At this point, I’d say you have a clear choice: write a Western-style high fantasy using a background with which you have more familiarity, or get some better guidance on research with East Asian cultures so you can code the story more effectively.

The focus of this story is centered around meeting all these yokai and showing that there's more nuance to them than Ling believes, all while saving the world. But I worry if I'm appropriating these concepts and creatures by 1, drawing from more than one culture--I initially imagined that there would be a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Indian influence because according to a website I am getting the info on yokai from, the yokai in question already draw inspiration from or have been based on something in Chinese mythology or Hinduism [...]

R: Sure, some yokai have Chinese or Hindu parallels as that tends to happen with folk tales. But not all–some are unique to Japan, and some are more modern. Sometimes it’s very political–some people consider the Ainu Korpokkur as being a “Yokai of Japan” despite it belonging to the indigenous culture. It’s up to you to research, untangle, and understand these influences.

The fact that you bring up that the Asian continent has seen a lot of cultural exchange is not a sufficient reason to randomly combine influences for the sake of visual appeal or “coolness.” That is appropriation. These influences must be understood in their historical context so that you know how/why certain things combined or morphed into another, and what makes sense to combine/morph.

M: This also indicates that the character views the yokai as evil/inherently bad, which I would argue is not a typical stance for much Japanese folklore. Again, this shows a deficit in research.

2, reimagining these yokai in a new context even though I have done the research on them, because one thing I kept seeing in regards to cultural appropriation is that it's bad to do that […]

R: Refer above to my note on “okay” and “not okay.” The thing with folklore and fairy tales is that every–and I mean every–folk tale is reinterpreted with every new iteration of it. Reimagining in a new context is what people do every time they pass on a story or tell a story with the same plot or characters. Do not think of folklore as an “original” that is altered and rebooted, but rather a living document that gets added to. Reimagining is not the inherent issue. HOW you reimagine something matters.

So I suppose my question is...if someone were to do research upon the creature they want to use, given they are allowed to use it, and gained an understanding of what the creature or concept stood for, are they allowed to pick it apart and reimagine it? Alternatively, is it ok if it's explicitly pointed out that it is derivative of the original?

It has actually become my biggest fear that I may have internalized something that could both continue to do harm long after the fact and attract the wrong people to me work. I don't wanna let people down!

M: As Rina has noted several times, I think the problem is in trying to ID a set of specific variables and circumstances that make a thing “okay” or “not okay.” I want to recommend that you read my joking response about writing in secret rooms while wearing a disguise (Linked here). Who can you hurt if no one knows what you are doing? There’s a difference between creating for oneself and creating to share.

You have internalized a message incorrectly, but not the one you cite. The goal of many recommendations against cultural appropriation is to avoid causing direct harm to people who have seen their cultures demeaned, discredited and devalued, especially in shared spaces. Assessing cultural engagement, whether we are talking about appropriation, appreciation or exchange is not a measure of personal virtue or a collection of commandment style do’s and don’t’s. Rather, I believe engaging with other cultures is the state of mind of acknowledging that when using these cultures’ in one’s own work, there is value in consulting members of that culture and giving credit where credit is due. This will be challenging if you are only comfortable engaging with all of these cultures in a distanced, minimal capacity.

FWIW, I’ve written stories that probably will offend people from other cultures and backgrounds, but I don’t show them off. I don’t think writing these makes me a bad person, but I also don’t see the need to give unnecessary offense, so those stories are just for me, to be written and read in my own secret room. However, I’m not ashamed of having written them, and I’m also comfortable to “let people down” provided that my own shared work reflects my personal principles of what I consider to be sufficient research and engagement with other cultures, As a creator, my work wouldn’t be mine if I didn’t first please myself. I think the trick to the creator role is deciding what to keep private, what to share and what constitutes sufficient engagement.

P.S.

We’ve referenced the need for research multiple times in this ask, and in some of the other asks that have gone up this week, so we thought this would be a good place to plug a beginner’s guide to academic research created by the mod team.. Look for it soon under WWC’s pinned posts!

#japanese #chinese #fantasy #cultural appropriation #coding #worldbuilding #names #mythology #folklore #fairy tales #asks #running commentary #writeblr

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emblazonet · 1 month

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DRAGONSDAWN REVIEW

This is a heckin weird book and I started off enjoying it until I Was Not Enjoying it.

The intro seemed interesting enough: we’ve got people who are escaping a variety of circumstances (including retired war veterans). They’re looking to colonize an uninhabited planet, which neatly sidesteps major issues in other colonial literatures, since, well, there’s no one sentient to object!

Personally, the sciencey stuff seems fine... I’m nota science person to begin with, and I was mildly interested by their tech and how it was described. Nothing stood out as weird. Maybe funny, when they refer to film or tapes, since we’ve established this is in our future and the colonists are often from actual places: Ireland, etc.

I did find it weird that they name a bunch of places after places on Earth. Why bother? Why not just make names that actually communicate something about the landscape they’re in? This is somethig that obviously colonists did here to North America—every city I’ve lived in has roads that are named ‘Hillside’ or ‘Pinevale’ or something (even if there are no hills or pines). In my hometown, Beacon Hill was a region my high school was in (and I’m not sure there was ever a beacon or a hill); in my current city, Beacon Hill is a park. It’s stupid and I hate it. Name things organically, or else it feels WEIRD. (In books. Obviously IRL just use the indigenous names and maybe please do a land back, like with Haida Gwaii!)

I know, I’m yelling about colonial problems at an author who has a weird obsession with bloodlines. And who killed off all the black characters in the first Threadfall. Uh huh. Moving on.

There are too many characters in this book, by the way. There are too many AND they are kinda bland. They run together. I don’t know why I should care about any of them. It’s weird that it’s supposed to be multicultural or whatever but it never feels like it. The way other cultures are represented is kinda uncomfortable. Spoilers and stuff upcoming.

Paul and Emily seem like they should have Main Character Energy, but neither does. They’re important people or something but the narrative never makes you feel it. There’s a whole bunch of names that keep coming up but I can never rememeber who they are or what they do... Pol, Bay etc. Idk.

Sorka and Sean are obviously telegraphed as some of the first dragonriders, they’re the sort of Adam and Eve first kids of Pern, and they’re boring and I grew to kinda dislike them by the end of the book because they’re just like Generic Hetero Couple and it was very yawn.

I liked Kenjo, I though he was going to be The First Dragonrider because the book goes on and on about his flying ability, the way he can conserve fuel, all that. But actually he dies halfway through and I hate that actually, because it feels like any build up with this character never went anywhere. His death was pointless but the story didn’t even make it about the pointlessness, so like... why?

Sallah’s seduction of Tarvi, a pretty man, was awkward as fuck. She drugs him and they fuck and then later she’s like ‘why doesn’t he seem to love me?’ BECAUSE YOU DRUGGED HIM? OH MY GOD????? At least Dragon Sex Pollen gives you an out! There’s no excuse to for this nonsense! And then when she dies, Tarvi—changing his name to her last name, Telgar—has this ‘oh I DID love her after all’ grief thing but it comes across as super contrived.

Look, I stand by actually liking Lessa/F’lar, but I’ve pretty much hated every single other romantic relationship in this series (except for Moreta/Alessan ... Moreta is the best book).

Speaking of Sallah’s tragic death aboard the orbiting, fuelless colony ship—her murderer is the Obviously A Villain Avril Bitra. Who is a mean gold-digger lady who is also a slut, and Anne, did you need to work something out with this one? Avril is set up as a villain but instead of being a threat to anything, she basically does a stupid and dies, but manages to take Sallah down with her. But her inexplicably meanness with Sallah has a weird sexual undertone to it? I’d be into it if I didn’t hate it. Like. The scene where Sallah is cut up and Avril is tormenting her is SO CHARGED and it could’ve been so good except it’s... it’s just not. It feels incredibly out of place! It’s the climax of the book in terms of intensity, but it’s in the middle and we haven’t even gotten to the dragons yet!

Thread, by contrast, wasn’t even that dramatic. Oh noo, there’s Thread.

And the dragons feel sort of rushed into the end of the book. There’s something weird about the biologist and her granddaughter. They’re Chinese, and everyone loves the grandmother, but apparently the granddaughter is an unpleasant bitch and there’s no explanation offered at all. I have no idea why the characterizations are so weird and awkward, but they really are.

How many times can I say ‘weird and awkward’ in one review???

Also, why does that one MAGA-style asshole, Ted Tubberman, try to bioenginner felines? What even was that? There’s literally nothing relevant about it? WHY WAS IT INCLUDED? Why wasn’t it cut?? It doesn’t do anything for the plot or characters except, I guess, kill off a loose end? Who was already exiled?

By the way, the glee with which everyone exiles this dude is so weird. ‘We didn’t kill him! We just ostracized him forever!’ Wow. Just. Wow. I don’t even know what to say.

In sum, basically, this book is a structural mess with bad characters. It had a fun dragonfighting sequence three pages from the end, and that was probably my favourite part.

I don’t know how a book with so much stuff happening crammed into it could be so boring, but here we are. Like, this wasn’t Nerilka-level bad: it didn’t do any character assassinations because it wasn’t a sequel to anything that came before. But it was a slog, and it didn’t even have the grace to have a lot of dragon-related screen time to offset it.

3/10, a structural disaster.

#dragonriders of pern #amber reads pern #dragonsdawn #I miss moreta #moreta was actually good

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ask-serendipity-sky · 9 months

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*different anon*

we all see what we want to see, we all shippers are the same

not really

in most groups of people there are the more deranged ones (toxic, delusional), but that’s NOT the whole group, usually it’s the minority.

with tkkrs, it’s their majority (damn near their entire group…)

we may make fun of tkkrs, but we shouldn't blame them for celebrating their ship moments. because if that was jkk, we'd be celebrating too.

yes, people are happy when people they like interact, that’s normal

i like when bts interact with eo bc i’m an army, i like when my bts bias line interact bc they’re my biases, and at times i’m happy when jkk interact bc i support them as a potential romantic couple

but jkk is not the pairing/duo i look forward to

and when they interact it’s not that big of a deal to me (unless they’re doing something crazy… gfct, hickey, shirtless live or photo)

i just happen to think they’re romantically involved/dating, but it’s not bc they’re my favorite duo (not that there is an issue if jkk are your favorite, as long as you like them as a duo bc of their bond and not just bc you think their dating!)

a problem a lot of tkkrs have is they either bias tk or tk is their favorite duo, so that is why they "feel" like they should ship them, even if they don't see anything romantic between tk

the amount of 'non jkk' biased (ex: ym biased or rap line biased jkkrs) jkkrs i've seen get questioned on why they don't ship their biases...

and no if the moments are based off mistranslations or stalker content, i don’t “celebrate” that, also bc i don't see it as "winning"

all shippers tend to give excuses to the other ship moments and try to reduce their ship value, but secretly we all wish it was our ship who did it, like tkkrs with jk's thirst birthday wish, they kept making it a friendly thing between bros, yet they were waiting and hoping for jk to do something similar for tae.

tkkrs are insecure losers, ofc they want other moments that others have (mostly jkk) bc they can see tk are not like that

i don’t care about other duos, and honestly if tkkrs left jm and jk alone, i wouldn’t have to even interact with them as much

bc most of the time, it's me protecting jm and jk AS PEOPLE, NOT BC OF SHIPPING BS

and pointing out non significant things isn't just something we do to tkkrs or vice versa, we do it to ourselves (jkkrs to jkkrs). bc we're aware of bts' culture, language, and jkk's history/bond

everyday, a different ship win and other lose, sometimes it's a good day for jkkrs, other days for vminers. and the members know that, that's why they keep feeding those moments.

the members having normal interactions is not the problem, it’s fans not being able to differentiate between a cute friendship and actual romantic relationships

using skinship or basic normal friendly interactions as a basis for romance, explains the whole they're all fcking/dating eo/poly jokes or only excepting queer members if it's bts as a whole group together or certain 'fan approved' ships (tk...)

but it's not something you should really be doing

and sometimes, even if another ship didn't get a moment, it's our ship that don't behave as we anticipated.

jkk don’t behave like we want bc they are potentially actually dating

it’s why so many fans find it hard to self insert and feel like they're third wheeling, and feel uncomfortable/don’t want to see that

what i'm trying to say, is that we are all the same. we all get hurt by other ships or we wish for more moments for our ship, and it's normal because we have no certainty we're right.

you only get hurt if you are basing a potential romantic relationship off of others and their interactions, and not just the two people you think might be involved romantically

i did not care that th didn’t post for jk’s birthday, and the only reason i would care is bc jk is my bias and i like when his ANY of members interact with him and are nice to him (especially for his birthday)

my basis of jkk being real is bc of jm and jk, not any one else

maybe it's different for you because you have evidence, but for the rest of us, we're just sailing not knowing where the ship will land and it can get sad and frustrated sometimes.

if an idea of a relationship being real or not is enough to affect your emotions negatively, then you need to detach anon, before you project those feelings on to jm and/or jk

you need to learn to love jm and jk as individuals and their bond as it is, not just the idea of them being romantic

Hi anon,

I agree with your answers.

For tkkrs, the absence of proof is proof that Jk and Tae are together. There are no maybes for tkkrs. And then they wrap everything up with hate.

We really should learn to not expect particular behavior from the members or jikook. They are real people who sometimes decide to share stuff with us. When they do, we appreciate it and when they don't, we appreciate that as well and move on.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

#skyasks #jikook

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granulesofsand · 11 months

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Alters Identifying Outside the Body

Do we all know that alters use the brain and body differently? I’ve seen at least two people saying that alters cannot have disorders the body doesn’t, which is blatantly not true.

Disorders

Alters cannot have a disorder in the body that the body is incapable of; no permanent neurodivergencies or other changes that don’t relate to the physiology shifts in switching. If an alter presents that way, it’s likely to be the brain’s emulation of the disorder.

However. There are disorders that can be alter specific. Some alters can have PTSD while others don’t operate that way— it’s a shift in brain function as well as structure, so while the brain scans will be similar to a singlet with PTSD, different alters can operate around it.

Eyesight, blood pressure, personality disorders. All of those can be functionally achieved so that some alters have the disorder and others don’t. The changes in brain and body can be acquired, and alters can operate on different timelines. It’s about the way their map affects their externalities.

Cultural Identity

That’s part of the reason I’m okay with alters being trans in a way their body isn’t. My view of gender in the brain focuses on cultural adaptions, some of which are vaguely biological. I can’t find a reason why an alter can’t have the experience of being trans, except for the possibility of not living that way externally. And not all trans singlets do either?

Same for alters who appear as Deaf. They can have the same kind of psychogenic hearing loss as a singlet plus a variety of abnormalities in their brain and ears that only effect that alter. I’m not upset when systems who are hearing have alters who are deaf or hard of hearing, and I think that they should have access to Deaf spaces if they’re affected like Deaf singlets.

Special Considerations

Not every system is going to have alters who keep their internal differences while out in the body. Not every system has alters who only have experiences as themselves. I can see how that would change which terms those alters can use.

But I still want to meet alters who consider those features part of their identity, and I don’t like blanket statements about what is appropriate for them. We are trans, we are HOH. I want to meet people like me, even if their body isn’t lined up with that.

Ethnicity

One of our grandparents is mixed Asian, but we’re so white-passing our family didn’t know. We were raised with a culture we had no blood relation to, and our side of the family grew up bullied for features we couldn’t explain. We are more Indonesian than Irish, which is the closest thing to safe culture we had.

The alters in our system vary even further because of what they were forced to be. We don’t want to claim aspects of identity we don’t qualify for, but it’s not been a simple puzzle to find which we can. Many of us do want healthy ancestral ties and traditions, and so far we’re coming up empty.

Ground-Up

Some of us still struggle to find a place in communities our body undeniably belongs to, let alone any gray area. It’s hard to start over after leaving a high control group, and we had no connections outside of it.

We don’t want other people to have to fight for community the way we have, and I’d rather provide shelter to those who don’t need it than turn away someone who does. Of course it still matters how other people feel about it, but we don’t want to set the standard as “no”.

TL;DR: There are complexities to identity. If you are uncomfortable, communicate that and negotiate boundaries. We are okay with alters who identify independent of their system’s body.

#did osdd #dissociative identity disorder #traumagenic system #did system #ramcoa #tw ramcoa #osddid #did #hc did #polyfragmented system

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fizzigigsimmer · 11 months

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@mania-mono I had to move my reply so I can give this my best shot at an answer without worrying about a word limit. So here I go, and pardon any pre-coffee typos.

I don’t speak for every Billy fan, because I can’t, nor do I speak for every POC because I can’t do that either. Blanket statements, generalities, and opinions grounded in the belief that what you see in front of you - which can only ever be a sample size - is everything, leads to closed mindedness. We are all vulnerable to these things. I think it is human nature to accept what we see and what we are told, in order to make friendly in our groups. So that we feel accepted as well as acceptable and to never think beyond that.

So I understand where opinions like “People only care about Billy because Dacre is attractive [and white]” come from. Within those opinions I can hear the faint echos of social discourse that I as a woman of color have had to bring to the table at one time or another, and I recognize that there is a merit of thought there, that I am 100% sure some fans need to reckon with.

I will never be the person sitting out here trying to disprove that the general fandom is suddenly unproblematic and completely free of the persuasion of whiteness combined with attractiveness and a preference for men.

This black girl will certainly never tell you that she hasn’t run into Billy friendly hot takes and writing that did have whiffs of white washing and erasure that made her uncomfortable and irritated at times. I have no reason to be afraid or to hide from that fact because it’s my lived reality. Every day in every fandom, in every ship. It’s my reality. It sucks. And I am confident and grounded enough in my own thinking to say something when I feel it needs to be said, or to just move on and find something better to read for my own peace of mind.

Yes, some Billy fans are problematic. But that is not my whole experience nor even half of it, and that matters.

Because I will also tell you that in my year or more of engaging in Harringrove fandom I have experienced that type of blindness and bias less than I have in other fandom spaces I have taken part in.That’s why I am here. I do not subject myself to being in places that make me consistently uncomfortable.

My empathy for the character brought me, and I stay because it’s a lovely place to explore my thoughts & feelings and make friends. For the most part I have found this pocket of fandom to be filled with nice people who actually do think through the characters flaws and have conversations about culture and social issues as often as any other fandom space. We bond, we have fun, and occasionally I might get into a debate with someone who I disagree with or disagrees with me about how we perceive the character’s flaws and their cultural impact.

I will tell you that I avoid many other subsections of Stranger Things fandom because my experience was that the balance is not the same in other tags. Because I felt consistently attacked, provoked, and silenced. Not just where it comes to discussions about race, but also disability, fat phobia, and my experiences of trauma and surviving abuse.

The problem I see a lot in fandom is that people are very good at manipulating others. There are whole communities that thrive on the basis of taking popular progressive opinions and using it to bully others for their entertainment or to control their behavior, or both. They rely on the public memory of the valuable work other people have done within culture and use those talking points to invoke fear and shame in their peers for their own selfish reasons. To feel good in the moment. For more reblogs. To feel like they’re part of the winning “team”. To feel like they’re meeting requirements of acceptable behavior. And for many more reasons I’m sure.

Whatever their reason, these folks know when they type out, “people only like Billy because Dacre is attractive”, that most people will instantly remember every discussion they ever sat through on the topic of bias and think ‘I don’t want to be that guy’. Because that’s natural and good and without those natural and good instincts we couldn’t be manipulated into a fear response. But the reality is even just a little bit of critical thinking would make it obvious how biased and unreasonable this take is.

When I hear “People only...” no mater what follows, a little yellow warning light goes off in the back of my mind. Because yes we can joke about certain things and make dumb memes for the fun, but when it comes to making a serious judgment, “People only” is a dangerous place to start. More people need to remember that.

Because I don’t think anyone actually needs to spend a great deal of time talking to Billy fans or researching much of anything at all to debunk this theory. If you replace Billy’s name with any aspect of his character that a person might relate to it falls apart. Because they are there to be related to. And if they are there to be related to, you’d have to be carrying some deep seeded rage and wearing some thick ass blinders to stick to the argument that you truly believe that nothing but white male attractiveness matters to anyone.

“People only care about that teenager because his actor is good looking.”

“People only care about that child, whose mother left, because his actor is good looking.”

“People only care about that blue collar boy because his actor is good looking.”

“People only care about that child of divorce...”

“People only care about that boy who was forced to move towns right in the middle of high school because...”

“People only care about that kid whose dad was abusing him because...”

“People only care about that kid who was dragged into the dark by a monster one night and violated because....”

I think the ridiculousness as well as the danger of this thought process speaks for itself.

I think that if someone finds it easy to believe a blanket statement like “People only care about Billy because Dacre is hot,” and can’t think up a single other reason someone else might relate to the character and talk about it honestly while defending their opinion, that’s their problem and not mine or yours. Either this is someone who doesn’t think much for themselves and is just parroting others, or someone who knows what they are saying probably isn’t actually true, but doesn’t care because the aim is to hurt some and manipulate others.

#Just my opinion #thoughts #on me liking Billy just because he's hot #tw: fandom discource #tw: fandom wank #Billy Hargrove #thanks for asking and I hope this was clear #I am not a morning person lol

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jankwritten · 6 months

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Ooooo I’m seething.

One of my coworkers yesterday was joking that I should “say that [you’re] racist to get out of jury duty”, which, fine, it’s an extreme and someone who’s older (like she is) would maybe find that acceptable.

Well today, we somehow got on the topic of them taking down old confederate (racist) statues, and she starts up about how we’re “erasing history” and all that. And then she pulls out the bomb: “I wouldn’t ever wear a BLM shirt in public, because that’s racist! If I wore a white lives matter shirt, I’d be on the news!”

…okay. Tell me you don’t understand the cultural and social impact racism has had on the overall “view” of black lives without telling me. Tell me you don’t understand nuance or subtlety without so many words.

“I mean, they’re basically saying all other lives don’t matter.”

No, they’re saying HISTORICALLY black lives have been treated as lesser, and therefore the movement is to shed light on that uncomfortable truth, and force us to reconsider our view of black lives. Force us to approach our biases, conscious or unconscious.

If the phrase Black Lives Matter makes you so uncomfortable and defensive, you’re the one who has something to work on. If you think it implies that all other lives matter less, if you think it’s saying ONLY Black Lives Matter, or Black Lives Matter More, then you have some biases you need to address.

It’s a simple phrase. Black lives do matter. Just like all lives matter. But all lives don’t have centuries long history of abuse, of neglect and mistreatment and vile, awful shit that is inexcusable and will never be made up for, that still continues on to this day. And that’s why it’s important to emphasize that, yes, while all lives matter, Black lives have historically been treated as lesser than, and that’s fucked up. So Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter just as much.

Fuck you, coworker. You’re a coward for not even looking me in the eye when I explained how your view was wrong. You’re a coward for bringing this up and then immediately changing the subject when you realized you wouldn’t get away with it.

Anyway does anyone know where I can buy a BLM hoodie that directly supports the movement so I can wear it around the office.

#tw racism #she’s an older country lady but that doesn’t excuse it #she’s also a lesbian and made a big deal earlier in the summer about how one of the other housekeepers kept making vaguely homophobic commen #she was like ‘we get shot in the streets we don’t feel safe! yet she’s making these comments #AND THEN SHE HAD THE GALL TO LOOK AT ME #**A TRANS PERSON**#AND TRY TO EXPLAIN HOW ROUGH TRANS PEOPLE HAVE IT #LIKE HELLO????#anyway. this lady has clearly got some biases and I’m. not strong enough to argue with her about it #UGH.#if it ever comes up again I’m going to be so argumentative.

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knowlesian · 2 years

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just thinking a lot this morning about the double-bind of being poc and dealing with mental illness.

because these are both my lanes! and i’m honestly much more comfortable talking about the second label for a million reasons, including because i did my time in treatment hell aka middle of nowhere utah kid jail and can talk about the mental health system in the us and our cultural baggage around these issues with a lot of confidence.

(for example, that they’ve done studies that show even clinicians can be easily blinded by their assumptions. there was a group of grad students who got themselves committed to a temporary hold by expressing outsized behaviors that indicated an array of different disorders. once they were in the ward, they all dropped the faked symptoms of debilitating mental illness and started to journal their treatment course and if it changed.

many of them were written up the same exact way and said to be still exhibiting obvious signs of instability, by the actual doctors on staff. one notation? “writing behavior.” i’m not kidding— an actual mental health professional looked at somebody writing in a journal and went well obviously they’re crazy, so they must be crazy writing.)

anyway, i also know that when you are mentally ill and you are not white, there’s another whole ugly host of assumptions that get stapled to your face. there is an underlying assumption that pocs are more volatile/less reasonable/etc into forever than white patients, so every horrible thing that also happens when you’re white and dealing with whatever flavor of the mental illness rainbow gets turned up to eleven, and drags your racial identity into the mix whether it’s explicit or not.

(there are also other dangers that occur, but that’s another really fucked up and horrifying talk about how mentally ill and or disabled pocs face violence at a rate that makes you want to go blow something up when you think about it.)

so if you need help or accommodations at all— that’s not a moral flaw, it’s not a personal failing. i myself need some of these things in my life, i would hardly argue against that idea.

but when you need those things and you’re not white, it suddenly becomes this much more fraught and complicated discussion that takes place in assumptions and subtext as well.

and then it gets even more complicated!!! because the flipside of the illogical racism coin is that needing assistance while poc often gets turned into a weird racist thing, the idea that we are just stronger and closer to being a beast of burden than white people means that when you swing the pendulum the other way, you end up with the idea that pocs are somehow intrinsically hardier and meant to care for others.

it truly is a goddamned bitch of an unsatisfactory situation. if you need help, somebody is gonna look at you and go: knew it. Those People are weak (and thus need us to handle their lives!)

if you don’t need help, somebody is gonna look at you and go: knew it. Those People are hardier than others (and thus meant to do our work!!!)

this is part of why these talks are so hard to have— it’s not baseline racist to say a poc needs extra help, and it’s not baseline racist to say they don’t. racism enters the conversation through subtext and assumption and implicit biases and who is talking and how they talk about it.

it would be so, so much easier if there was a plug and play simple answer on this one. alas! there is not. the only way to deal with this stuff is to get into the weeds and be willing to have difficult discussions, and part of what really gets at me about ofmd is how willing they are to wade into thematic waters that require a lot of thought and care and living in the uncomfortable grey areas where actual life takes place, since our lived experiences are always more complicated and nuanced than the boilerplate on this would like people to believe.

#ofmd being willing to get messy and make us look at our own lines and assumptions #i love it i really do

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meetveronicablack · 2 years

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It’s the aftermath that truly shakes people. The sudden realization that things got bleaker, darker, and more fucked than ever before. There are times where I’m truly at a loss for words. But today, I’m filled with them. Every woman in America— accept the unsurprisingly few— are going through a lot of emotional turmoil. Many will be trigged by the events of yesterday. Dystopia has arrived. It’s like the all Sci-Fi books you’ve read, not a completely replica but a close copy. What is a choice if it’s not our own? A choice is made by an individual ALONE. That is their right. Their right to choose whatever decision is necessary for them. It’s NOT anyone’s business to butt in. People are allowed to voice an opinion and solicit unwarranted advice. It doesn’t mean the people have to follow it. Abortion is a choice made by women and women alone. The fact that women give life and are still disregarded as such— goes to show that women don’t exist to live a life of their own. Banning abortion has absolutely nothing to do with the protection of life. What this ban is blatantly stating is that life SHOULD and ALWAYS be controlled by those in power. Specifically men. Specifically white old men. They’re doing this to appeal a vast majority who believe dangerous rhetoric to only secure votes for the future. To secure financial gains for future campaigns. They’re just making you believe that they heard the conservative outcry. They’re NOT doing this for YOU. They’re grooming you to believe that this movement was made for you so that you can trust them. And by trusting these corrupt official.. you therefore trust a corrupt govt … so when the times comes and they make the most evil and terrible decisions… you go along with it because that’s what govt told you was the truth. Its to fall in line. If this doesn’t scream Big Brother — then you clearly choose to ignore the state of things. Why? Because it doesn’t affect you in the slightest. Because it’s the rich, the high class, the conservative bunch, the ignorant, the intolerant, the insufferable, the racist, fascist, totalitarian pigs who benefit from all of this. But you still believe that all lives matter and they’re better ways to help the rest of the world. Yeah ok. All you do is disrupt lives in different nations and thinking you doing good when all you do is make matters worse. You profit from the cultural gifts else where. You steal idea and say these proceeds help people when it goes to your pocket. All you do is make a big show that you volunteered and that you helped. And when the going gets tough.. it’s like it all never existed. You cry and bitch about your rights being taken away because masks are uncomfortable. You whine because you don’t want vaccines because for some ungodly reason you believe that is the only part the govt lies to you about. Completely ignoring the fact the world has lived in a pandemic for about 2 years now! I mean.. do you even understand a human right? You don’t step or speak up with police officer brutally killing young black men. You have no shame being racists towards Black Communities. You don’t say shit when people vandalized or target Muslim communities because you assume all of them are terrorists. You don’t aid Asian communities when they’re violently attacked by racist assholes. You have the nerve to yell at very Latinx community to speak English and yet you vacation in all their countries and move in their lands —displacing numerous lower income communities. You literally made Indigenous communities not existen and don’t even bat an eye in regards to them. You have the nerve to yell and attack people in LBTQA+ communities because of the way they love. And now, you found a way to control the human body, specially women’s body. “On average, there are 463,634 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year in the United States.1” According to RAINN- which is the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network. Tell me how this doesn’t concern you. Tell me how this isn’t a reason for why the need of abortion is necessary.

#abortion #womens rights #bipoc #human rights

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hamsteriffic · 1 year

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I love Miraculous for its ability to present certain issues in a subtle way.

The episode I am thinking about is when Marinette’s mum runs into the ticket inspector on the bus. That resonated with me. Sabine’s treatment on the bus is not something new. And I applaud that something like that can be represented in a children’s program.

As a POC who lived in France for some time, as well as growing up in a predominantly white community as a child to first generation migrants, race is something that is uncomfortable because no one wants to think they’re a racist but the unfortunate reality is that it exists.

Then there are the things that are not deliberately hurtful, but they are. These everyday actions that are seemingly innocuous are called Micro-aggressions and giving them a name recently has somehow enriched my vocabulary in expressing my feelings and it is validating.

As I started writing more and getting reacquainted with using language in a creative way, I appreciate how wonderful words are because it gives everything context and meaning.

When I was doing an emotional coaching course, one of the things that stuck with me was when the instructor said that the words you use to name your emotions can help you deal with them.

Words are important- for example, the day before I couldn’t define why I don’t want to be known only as so-and-so’s Asian friend as I have been known my whole life, or when this friend called me “Tiger Mum” (which I assure you I am not). So when I discussed why I am hurt by people identifying me based on my race, she said it was out of respect and being Asian to her was a “standard to live up to”, I said even in a positive light it is not cool. As a white woman she said she didn’t understand it, but then I flipped it around and asked her if she calls her homosexual friends by “affectionately” derogatory terms. And she didn’t.

The other day I read this brilliant response from someone on Quora about writing transgender characters and a trans POC responded on saying that they just want to be represented like any person.

Because they don’t want their otherness to define them.

As an aside, I also love the relationship Marinette has with her mum’s culture and it is so much like my own kid and my own understanding of Chinese culture. Because we grew up in a different country that is removed from our backgrounds, so why are we any different?

Marinette doesn’t even speak Chinese and she’s only been to Shanghai once. The show doesn’t focus or fetishise her ethnicity. Her friends think she’s kind, clumsy, smart, feisty and creative. None of these qualities are attributed to her race and it’s from people who have taken the time to know her as a person. She doesn’t like nicknames, and she said she prefers people calling her by her full name. At school no one calls her the halfie or Happa or Chinese girl.

I think this is exactly what we should be teaching our kids.

I will stand on my soapbox and say it out loud! (Quietly presses post - into the abyss - and scurries away).

#miraculous ladybug #why I love the show #soapbox

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itsjustsun · 2 years

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Hey,

So wassup. This conversation idk if it’s because of summer or what, but the conversational piece I’m gonna share my perspective on dating especially young and why I feel it’s different when you’re older. I’ve been listening to so many ppl experiences and I don’t share mine often very private about my love life not hiding just I keep that shit to myself I’m not too flashy with anything. This is the thing we are young right…like hella young and why the hell do we make life so much harder for ourselves. Push through life really traumatizing ourselves by our own mindsets abs the way we choose to live our life especially out of commitment. Learning I’m a hermit by nature and that’s what brings me peace allowed me to see how we psychologically communicate our bound which is loneliness becoming a natural attention seekers. Seeking for a warped reality of what being one is and that is

Love. Being young right you’re so curious about everything including yourself right. A lot of us haven’t got the experience of being young especially culturally because if you’re culturally different than what American culture was bread to be then you’re level of awareness & experience in life differs…right which means far more advanced because you’ve experience duality like rich to poor when in reality some ppl never experience having to be economically worried due to having a fall back. Leaves them weak. All of these things we experience becomes categorized by race, gender, ethnicity, preferences, then politics and a long dragged out list of things. So what I learned is a lot of us in reality been adults since like 13 a lot of coming of age shedding of innocence, crying even more if the child lacked protection right. So a lot of us by 18/19 was living lives like our 25 year old peers taking care of ourselves. So yes by the time a young in reach their 20s, they’re working, they’re growing in life, etc just because of the investments. Then at an early age they’ve become the bachelor or the bachelorette. Attracts a lot of attention lowkey everyone wants them and no one too much can have them or let alone get them for longer than a day. I mean everyone is throwing themselves at them. Some of the most learning experiences is through the relationships you have through life and that young person may want to see what’s something about even for a little & wander at times until life settles down in a way. Life settles the fuck down and then they do lol. That’s why I feel it’s dumb to be out here tripping and calling it love because it’s the crushing stage and you become obsessive. Connections have a level of sacredness to it that we must sometimes cater to the sacredness. No matter what the connection is you’re supposed to be feel safe right. There’s a level off effort that goes into that and how can you fall in love with a guy who didn’t put in any effort. And it takes a second sometimes to identify if it’s sacred or not that makes it a bond you know. You don’t just stop living. So what does the bachelor/ette do until they find their match they experience life? Understanding that building together is still building even when separate but you got so the work on your own too just learn and discern. Learn and discern. Understand the bachelor gone do what the bachelor gone do & so is the bachelorette, but when that not gets tied it’s tied. So just let dudes be dudes and women be women & kinda you’re kinda the reason he only wanna 🍆and leave, it’s not rolanda’s fault for the fact your a man child or a lil slutty can’t keep ya 🍆 in your pants and it’s not Jamal fault you took care of his ass now you going through it even if he flat out showed you & told you multiple times I don’t want you. It takes me one time to not feel wanted or uncomfortable to be out. There’s a certain way you gotta learn to treat yourself your self I’m not expecting someone to come in my life and live up to this standard no when you’re dealing with me I have standards, but at the end of the day I owe myself the respect and to be honest & integral when your having dealings with anything in life work, love, family just life you know. Move with integrity put down the mask. You’re really schooling a mf man you better learn to put ‘em in a classroom remember you stepping into my territory this is how we move around here sit down let me teach you something play with that ass keep enticed, but then start giving out the assignments and it’s cute ones too simple start real small you it’s a certain a person likes to be treated right it’s a certain way don’t give it all up, give a tad and vice versa. Like let’s check this off and then check this off okay i wanna do this let’s see if they pass.

Little by little. Damn throw all the fun you can have away by boom it’s all just out there right away. It creates a false bond you know because it’s based off an perspective that doesn’t see complexity yet. A bond is built by uncovering you know you gotta allow things to just unfold 1st. It’s about the treatment. Trust my dad and I are kinda estranged, but one thing for sure he always made sure I knew my worth in a way just by how he spoke to me and handled me and my mother too so I know how I should be handled then from my own experiences I know what I want don’t gotta look for it it just comes to you. if you know me fr fr you know I don’t play with nobody. I give you a chance and once you fucked me over I’ve learned my lesson to one not expect the worse, but be open to all possibilities until it’s shown. I’m just sayin know your worth, know what’s worth your time and know that you deserve a good time. That homebody shit cute, but you deserve to see beautiful shit too and experience beautiful shit and go out to brunch the homies or yourself, go on. God ain’t give you life not to be one with the animals & nature, Cute walk or picnic get some fruit, a good book, and fucking frisbee or football ooooo okay a game of fucking football bro sounds lovely I haven’t played in soooooo long. So we all our lives to get it together be fucking prudes, but have fun. Bro. Go out view museums . I really wanna view the scad museum. I may schedule to do that or try to. Anybody wanna come hmu. Road-trips hella road-trips . You deserve it

All I’m all when it comes to life having fun man. Don’t let that shit break you and grow a backbone so every time you get some truth you don’t cry. You know. It’s okay to feel, but it’s too weird choosing to be sad when you can choose to be happy. I know that’s what I do and what I spend my life on. How many people go through it and you’ll never know because they never live in that you gotta stop living in your sorrow. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and if you take action on everything you want and love life will fall in to place. I understanding wanting to feel love and only knowing how to express it in one way because it’s sad to not know how to say I need to feel this or want to orrrr just general I don’t know no other way because your messed up rn. Unavailable as hell and at the end of the day you can’t be mad at an unavailable person anymore. Why are you so available? Go through life experience what you have to experience establish yourself learn what loving looks like by loving you right and have fun with the opportunity of building friendships, relationships, business partners you never know. Don’t read into too much or you’ll get your feelings hurt because of being generally naive. You know until there’s a firm groundwork of communication that goes on before you get into anything right so just allowing yourself to vibe. know what you want. Don’t settle. Keep that aura bright.

You know just focus on yourself, drink that water, be your young beautiful vibrant self, have fun stay unproblematic, mind the business that pays you and know stay focused.Purify yourself. So let your peers purify themselves with the shenanigans they get into. We all come from the same fuck shit excuse my language , but no fr so we no what toxic mindsets & habits we gotta stop overindulging in & I come into your life to help Lmaoo jk. No fr though I know what I’m supposed to be doing. Try to stay grounded and safe don’t get caught up in the hype be weary of your surroundings. remember the end goal my guy remember that shit. Stability, happiness, and peace. Be cool about because honestly I’m a coo dude I don’t even trip Lmaoo I just peep what I gotta peep then gracefully bounce out. Don’t gotta cause so much noise. Etc. just do you. Set some goals for yourself. 🥀

-Sun. I’m out stop letting these dudes stressing you out bro it’s so peaceful when you just fall back just wait for god to just drop a person off like here ya go!!! Lol it comes outta nowhere. I’ve been hearing ppls stories and that’s why I feel I’m blessed with hermit stories of the very few times I have gave men or women had a few experiences lol access to me. Not many ppl can say they had me or that they even know me because truth is only a few really know who I am and even them didn’t really get to know me fr. we got life shit to stress about foundations to build let that shit go. Understand that your actions shape your life you still have a life outside of marriage it’s called your own. So ttyl.

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missmentelle · 3 years

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Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things

If you’ve been paying attention for the last couple of years, you might have noticed that the world has a bit of a misinformation problem.

The problem isn’t just with the recent election conspiracies, either. The last couple of years has brought us the rise (and occasionally fall) of misinformation-based movements like:

Sandy Hook conspiracies

Gamergate

Pizzagate

The MRA/incel/MGTOW movements

anti-vaxxers

flat-earthers

the birther movement

the Illuminati

climate change denial

Spygate

Holocaust denial

COVID-19 denial

5G panic

QAnon

But why do people believe this stuff?

It would be easy - too easy - to say that people fall for this stuff because they’re stupid. We all want to believe that smart people like us are immune from being taken in by deranged conspiracies. But it’s just not that simple. People from all walks of life are going down these rabbit holes - people with degrees and professional careers and rich lives have fallen for these theories, leaving their loved ones baffled. Decades-long relationships have splintered this year, as the number of people flocking to these conspiracies out of nowhere reaches a fever pitch.

So why do smart people start believing some incredibly stupid things? It’s because:

Our brains are built to identify patterns.

Our brains fucking love puzzles and patterns. This is a well-known phenomenon called apophenia, and at one point, it was probably helpful for our survival - the prehistoric human who noticed patterns in things like animal migration, plant life cycles and the movement of the stars was probably a lot more likely to survive than the human who couldn’t figure out how to use natural clues to navigate or find food.

The problem, though, is that we can’t really turn this off. Even when we’re presented with completely random data, we’ll see patterns. We see patterns in everything, even when there’s no pattern there. This is why people see Jesus in a burnt piece of toast or get superstitious about hockey playoffs or insist on always playing at a certain slot machine - our brains look for patterns in the constant barrage of random information in our daily lives, and insist that those patterns are really there, even when they’re completely imagined.

A lot of conspiracy theories have their roots in people making connections between things that aren’t really connected. The belief that “vaccines cause autism” was bolstered by the fact that the first recognizable symptoms of autism happen to appear at roughly the same time that children receive one of their rounds of childhood immunizations - the two things are completely unconnected, but our brains have a hard time letting go of the pattern they see there. Likewise, many people were quick to latch on to the fact that early maps of COVID infections were extremely similar to maps of 5G coverage - the fact that there’s a reasonable explanation for this (major cities are more likely to have both high COVID cases AND 5G networks) doesn’t change the fact that our brains just really, really want to see a connection there.

Our brains love proportionality.

Specifically, our brains like effects to be directly proportional to their causes - in other words, we like it when big events have big causes, and small causes only lead to small events. It’s uncomfortable for us when the reverse is true. And so anytime we feel like a “big” event (celebrity death, global pandemic, your precious child is diagnosed with autism) has a small or unsatisfying cause (car accident, pandemics just sort of happen every few decades, people just get autism sometimes), we sometimes feel the need to start looking around for the bigger, more sinister, “true” cause of that event.

Consider, for instance, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot four times by a Turkish member of a known Italian paramilitary secret society who’d recently escaped from prison - on the surface, it seems like the sort of thing conspiracy theorists salivate over, seeing how it was an actual multinational conspiracy. But they never had much interest in the assassination attempt. Why? Because the Pope didn’t die. He recovered from his injuries and went right back to Pope-ing. The event didn’t have a serious outcome, and so people are content with the idea that one extremist carried it out. The death of Princess Diana, however, has been fertile ground for conspiracy theories; even though a woman dying in a car accident is less weird than a man being shot four times by a paid political assassin, her death has attracted more conspiracy theories because it had a bigger outcome. A princess dying in a car accident doesn’t feel big enough. It’s unsatisfying. We want such a monumentous moment in history to have a bigger, more interesting cause.

These theories prey on pre-existing fear and anger.

Are you a terrified new parent who wants the best for their child and feels anxious about having them injected with a substance you don’t totally understand? Congrats, you’re a prime target for the anti-vaccine movement. Are you a young white male who doesn’t like seeing more and more games aimed at women and minorities, and is worried that “your” gaming culture is being stolen from you? You might have been very interested in something called Gamergate. Are you a right-wing white person who worries that “your” country and way of life is being stolen by immigrants, non-Christians and coastal liberals? You’re going to love the “all left-wingers are Satantic pedo baby-eaters” messaging of QAnon.

Misinformation and conspiracy theories are often aimed strategically at the anxieties and fears that people are already experiencing. No one likes being told that their fears are insane or irrational; it’s not hard to see why people gravitate towards communities that say “yes, you were right all along, and everyone who told you that you were nuts to be worried about this is just a dumb sheep. We believe you, and we have evidence that you were right along, right here.” Fear is a powerful motivator, and you can make people believe and do some pretty extreme things if you just keep telling them “yes, that thing you’re afraid of is true, but also it’s way worse than you could have ever imagined.”

Real information is often complicated, hard to understand, and inherently unsatisfying.

The information that comes from the scientific community is often very frustrating for a layperson; we want science to have hard-and-fast answers, but it doesn’t. The closest you get to a straight answer is often “it depends” or “we don’t know, but we think X might be likely”. Understanding the results of a scientific study with any confidence requires knowing about sampling practices, error types, effect sizes, confidence intervals and publishing biases. Even asking a simple question like “is X bad for my child” will usually get you a complicated, uncertain answer - in most cases, it really just depends. Not understanding complex topics makes people afraid - it makes it hard to trust that they’re being given the right information, and that they’re making the right choices.

Conspiracy theories and misinformation, on the other hand, are often simple, and they are certain. Vaccines bad. Natural things good. 5G bad. Organic food good. The reason girls won’t date you isn’t a complex combination of your social skills, hygiene, appearance, projected values, personal circumstances, degree of extroversion, luck and life phase - girls won’t date you because feminism is bad, and if we got rid of feminism you’d have a girlfriend. The reason Donald Trump was an unpopular president wasn’t a complex combination of his public bigotry, lack of decorum, lack of qualifications, open incompetence, nepotism, corruption, loss of soft power, refusal to uphold the basic responsibilities of his position or his constant lying - they hated him because he was fighting a secret sex cult and they’re all in it.

Instead of making you feel stupid because you’re overwhelmed with complex information, expert opinions and uncertain advice, conspiracy theories make you feel smart - smarter, in fact, than everyone who doesn’t believe in them. And that’s a powerful thing for people living in a credential-heavy world.

Many conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable.

It is very difficult to prove a negative. If I tell you, for instance, that there’s no such thing as a purple swan, it would be very difficult for me to actually prove that to you - I could spend the rest of my life photographing swans and looking for swans and talking to people who know a lot about swans, and yet the slim possibility would still exist that there was a purple swan out there somewhere that I just hadn’t found yet. That’s why, in most circumstances, the burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim - if you tell me that purple swans exist, we should continue to assume that they don’t until you actually produce a purple swan.

Conspiracy theories, however, are built so that it’s nearly impossible to “prove” them wrong. Is there any proof that the world’s top-ranking politicians and celebrities are all in a giant child sex trafficking cult? No. But can you prove that they aren’t in a child sex-trafficking cult? No, not really. Even if I, again, spent the rest of my life investigating celebrities and following celebrities and talking to people who know celebrities, I still couldn’t definitely prove that this cult doesn’t exist - there’s always a chance that the specific celebrities I’ve investigated just aren’t in the cult (but other ones are!) or that they’re hiding evidence of the cult even better than we think. Lack of evidence for a conspiracy theory is always treated as more evidence for the theory - we can’t find anything because this goes even higher up than we think! They’re even more sophisticated at hiding this than we thought! People deeply entrenched in these theories don’t even realize that they are stuck in a circular loop where everything seems to prove their theory right - they just see a mountain of “evidence” for their side.

Our brains are very attached to information that we “learned” by ourselves.

Learning accurate information is not a particularly interactive or exciting experience. An expert or reliable source just presents the information to you in its entirety, you read or watch the information, and that’s the end of it. You can look for more information or look for clarification of something, but it’s a one-way street - the information is just laid out for you, you take what you need, end of story.

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, almost never show their hand all at once. They drop little breadcrumbs of information that slowly lead you where they want you to go. This is why conspiracy theorists are forever telling you to “do your research” - they know that if they tell you everything at once, you won’t believe them. Instead, they want you to indoctrinate yourself slowly over time, by taking the little hints they give you and running off to find or invent evidence that matches that clue. If I tell you that celebrities often wear symbols that identify them as part of a cult and that you should “do your research” about it, you can absolutely find evidence that substantiates my claim - there are literally millions of photos of celebrities out there, and anyone who looks hard enough is guaranteed to find common shapes, poses and themes that might just mean something (they don’t - eyes and triangles are incredibly common design elements, and if I took enough pictures of you, I could also “prove” that you also clearly display symbols that signal you’re in the cult).

The fact that you “found” the evidence on your own, however, makes it more meaningful to you. We trust ourselves, and we trust that the patterns we uncover by ourselves are true. It doesn’t feel like you’re being fed misinformation - it feels like you’ve discovered an important truth that “they” didn’t want you to find, and you’ll hang onto that for dear life.

Older people have not learned to be media-literate in a digital world.

Fifty years ago, not just anyone could access popular media. All of this stuff had a huge barrier to entry - if you wanted to be on TV or be in the papers or have a radio show, you had to be a professional affiliated with a major media brand. Consumers didn’t have easy access to niche communities or alternative information - your sources of information were basically your local paper, the nightly news, and your morning radio show, and they all more or less agreed on the same set of facts. For decades, if it looked official and it appeared in print, you could probably trust that it was true.

Of course, we live in a very different world today - today, any asshole can accumulate an audience of millions, even if they have no credentials and nothing they say is actually true (like “The Food Babe”, a blogger with no credentials in medicine, nutrition, health sciences, biology or chemistry who peddles health misinformation to the 3 million people who visit her blog every month). It’s very tough for older people (and some younger people) to get their heads around the fact that it’s very easy to create an “official-looking” news source, and that they can’t necessarily trust everything they find on the internet. When you combine that with a tendency toward “clickbait headlines” that often misrepresent the information in the article, you have a generation struggling to determine who they can trust in a media landscape that doesn’t at all resemble the media landscape they once knew.

These beliefs become a part of someone’s identity.

A person doesn’t tell you that they believe in anti-vaxx information - they tell you that they ARE an anti-vaxxer. Likewise, people will tell you that they ARE a flat-earther, a birther, or a Gamergater. By design, these beliefs are not meant to be something you have a casual relationship with, like your opinion of pizza toppings or how much you trust local weather forecasts - they are meant to form a core part of your identity.

And once something becomes a core part of your identity, trying to make you stop believing it becomes almost impossible. Once we’ve formed an initial impression of something, facts just don’t change our minds. If you identify as an antivaxxer and I present evidence that disproves your beliefs, in your mind, I’m not correcting inaccurate information - I am launching a very personal attack against a core part of who you are. In fact, the more evidence I present, the more you will burrow down into your antivaxx beliefs, more confident than ever that you are right. Admitting that you are wrong about something that is important to you is painful, and your brain would prefer to simply deflect conflicting information rather than subject you to that pain.

We can see this at work with something called the confirmation bias. Simply put, once we believe something, our brains hold on to all evidence that that belief is true, and ignore evidence that it’s false. If I show you 100 articles that disprove your pet theory and 3 articles that confirm it, you’ll cling to those 3 articles and forget about the rest. Even if I show you nothing but articles that disprove your theory, you’ll likely go through them and pick out any ambiguous or conflicting information as evidence for “your side”, even if the conclusion of the article shows that you are wrong - our brains simply care about feeling right more than they care about what is actually true.

There is a strong community aspect to these theories.

There is no one quite as supportive or as understanding as a conspiracy theorist - provided, of course, that you believe in the same conspiracy theories that they do. People who start looking into these conspiracy theories are told that they aren’t crazy, and that their fears are totally valid. They’re told that the people in their lives who doubted them were just brainwashed sheep, but that they’ve finally found a community of people who get where they’re coming from. Whenever they report back to the group with the “evidence” they’ve found or the new elaborations on the conspiracy theory that they’ve been thinking of (“what if it’s even worse than we thought??”), they are given praise for their valuable contributions. These conspiracy groups often become important parts of people’s social networks - they can spend hours every day talking with like-minded people from these communities and sharing their ideas.

Of course, the flipside of this is that anyone who starts to doubt or move away from the conspiracy immediately loses that community and social support. People who have broken away from antivaxx and QAnon often say that the hardest part of leaving was losing the community and friendships they’d built - not necessarily giving up on the theory itself. Many people are rejected by their real-life friends and family once they start to get entrenched in conspiracy theories; the friendships they build online in the course of researching these theories often become the only social supports they have left, and losing those supports means having no one to turn to at all. This is by design - the threat of losing your community has kept people trapped in abusive religious sects and cults for as long as those things have existed.

#missmentelle #askmissmentelle #conspiracy theories #cults #psychology #science #neuroscience

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mishafletcher · 4 years

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Are you a Gold Star lesbian? (Just in case you don't know what it means, a Gold Star lesbian is a lesbian that has never had the sex with a guy and would never have any intentions of ever doing so)

So I got this ask a while ago, and I've been lowkey thinking about it ever since.

First: No. I am a queer, cranky dyke who is too old for this sort of bullshit gatekeeping.

Second: What an unbelievable question to ask someone you don't even know! What an incomprehensibly rude thing to ask, as if you're somehow owed information about my sexual history. You're not! No one—and I can't reiterate this enough, but no one—owes you the details of their sex lives, of their trauma, or of anything about themselves that they don't feel like sharing with you.

The clickbait mills of the internet and the purity police of social media would like nothing more than to convince everyone that you owe these things to everyone. They would like you to believe that you have to prove that you're traumatized enough to identify with this character, that you can't sell this article about campus rape without relating it to your own sexual assault, that you can't talk about queer issues without offering up a comprehensive history of your own experiences, and none of those things are true. You owe people, and especially random strangers on the internet, nothing, least of all citations to somehow prove to them that you have the right to talk about your own life.

This makes some people uncomfortable, and to be clear, I think that that's good: people who feel entitled to demand this information should be uncomfortable. Refusing to justify yourself takes power away from people who would very much like to have it, people who would like to gatekeep and dictate who is permitted to speak about what topics or like what things. You don't have to justify yourself. You don't have to explain that you like this ship because this one character reminds you a bit of yourself because you were traumatized in a vaguely similar way and now— You don't have to justify your queerness by telling people about the best friend you had when you were twelve, and how you kissed, and she laughed and said it was good practice for when she would kiss boys and your stomach twisted and your mouth tasted like bile and she was the first and last girl you kissed, but—

You don't owe anyone these pieces of yourself. They're yours, and you can share them or not, but if someone demands that you share, they're probably not someone you should trust.

Third: The idea of gold star lesbians is a profoundly bi- and trans- phobic idea, often reducing gender to genitals and the long, shared history of queer women of all identities to a stark, artificial divide where some identities are seen as purer or more valuable than others. This is bullshit on all counts.

There's a weird and largely artificial division between bisexuals and lesbians that seems to be intensifying on tumblr, and I have to say: I hate it. Bisexual women aren't failed lesbians. They're not somehow less good or less valid because they're attracted to [checks notes] people. Do you think that having sex with a man somehow changes them? What are you so worried about it for? I've checked, and having sex with a man does not, in fact, make your vagina grow teeth or tentacles. Does that make you feel better? Why is what other people are doing so threatening to you?

Discussions of gold star lesbians are often filled with tittering about hehe penises, which is unfortunate, since I know a fair few lesbians who have penises, and even more lesbians who've had sex with people, men and women alike, who have penises. I'm sorry to report that "I'm disgusted by a standard-issue human body part" is neither a personality nor anything to be proud of. I'm a dyke and I don't especially like men, but dicks are just dicks. You don't have to be interested in them, but a lot of people have them, and it doesn't make you less of a lesbian to have sex with someone who has a dick.

There's so much garbage happening in the world—maybe you haven't noticed, but things are kind of Not Great in a lot of places, and there's a whole pandemic thing that's been sort of a major buzzkill? How is this something that you're worried about? Make a tea, remind yourself that other people's genitalia and sexual history are none of your business, maybe go watch a video about a cute animal or something.

Fourth: The idea of gold star lesbians is a shitty premise that argues that sexuality is better if it's always been clear-cut and straightforward—but it rarely is. We live in a very, very heterosexist culture. I didn’t have a word for lesbian until many years after I knew that I was one. How can you say that you are something when your mouth can’t even make the shape of it? The person you are at 24 is different to the person you are at 14, and 34, and 74. You change. You get braver. The world gets wider. You learn to see possibilities in the shadows you used to overlook. Of course people learn more about themselves as they age.

Also, many of us, especially those of us who grew up in smaller towns, or who are over the age of, say, 25, grew up in times and places where our sexuality was literally criminal.

Shortly after I graduated high school, a gay man in my state was sentenced to six months in jail. Why? Well, he’d hit on someone, and it was a misdemeanor to "solicit homosexual or lesbian activity", which included expressing romantic or sexual interest in someone who didn’t reciprocate. You might think, then, that I am in fact quite old, but you would be mistaken. The conviction was in 1999; it was overturned in 2002.

I grew up knowing this: the wrong thing said to the wrong person would be sufficient reason to charge me with a crime.

In the United States, the Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996, clarifying that according to the federal government, marriage could only ever be between one man and one woman. It also promised that even if a state were to legalize same-sex unions, other states wouldn't have to recognize them if they didn't want to. And wow, they super did not want to, because between 1998 and 2012, a whopping thirty states had approved some sort of amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Every queer person who's older than about 25 watched this, knowing that this was aimed at people like them. Knowing that these votes were cast by their friends and their families and their teachers and their employers.

Some states were worse than others. Ohio passed their bill in 2004 with 62% approval. Mississippi passed theirs the same year with 86% approval. Imagine sitting in a classroom, or at work, or in a church, or at a family dinner, and knowing that statistically, at least two out of every three people in that room felt you shouldn't be allowed to marry someone you loved.

Matthew Shepard was tortured to death in October of 1998. For being gay, for (maybe) hitting on one of the men who had planned to merely rob him. Instead, he was tortured and left to die, tied to a barbed wire fence. His murderers were both sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. This was controversial, because a nonzero number of people felt that Shepard had brought it upon himself.

Many of us sat at dinner tables and listened to this discussion, one that told us, over and over, that we were fundamentally wrong, fundamentally undeserving of love or sympathy or of life itself.

This is a tiny, tiny sliver of history—a staggeringly incomplete overview of what happened in the US over about ten years. Even if this tiny sliver is all that there were, looking at this, how could you blame someone for wanting to try being not Like This? How can you fault someone who had sex, maybe even had a bunch of sex, hoping desperately that maybe they could be normal enough to be loved if they just tried harder? How can you say that someone who found themself an uninteresting but inoffensive boyfriend and went on dates and had sex and said that it was fine is somehow less valuable or less queer or less of a lesbian for doing so? For many people, even now, passing as straight, as problematic as that term is, is a survival skill. How dare you imply that the things that someone did to protect themself make them worth less? They survived, and that's worth literally everything.

Fifth, finally: What is a gold star, anyhow? You've capitalized it, like it's Weighty and Important, but it's not. Gold stars were what your most generous grade school teacher put on spelling tests that you did really well on. But ultimately, gold stars are just shiny scraps of paper. They don't have any inherent value: I can buy a thousand of them for five bucks and have them at my door tomorrow. They have only the meaning that we give them, only the importance that we give them. We’re not children desperately scrabbling for a teacher’s approval anymore, though. We understand that good and bad are more of a spectrum than a binary, and that a gold star is a simplification. We understand that no number of gold stars will make us feel like we’re special enough or good enough or important enough, or fix the broken places we can still feel inside ourselves. Only we can do that.

The stars are only shiny scraps of paper. They offer us nothing; we don’t need them. I hope that someday, you see that, too.

#queer stuff #lgbtq #gold star lesbians #long post #sorry #Anonymous

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writingwithcolor · 3 years

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Desexualized Mammy & Strong Black Woman, too busy for “frivolous love”

“Alyse” (Anon Submission) asked:

My science fiction story includes a black woman (Talia) who raises two children that aren’t her own and takes on two young adults as apprentices. One of the children she is raises has Arabic background and was taken into her home upon his father’s death (his mother’s whereabouts are unknown). She was a close friend of his father and the closest thing he had to a relative. The second child has mixed French-Latinx background and was taken in after becoming shipwrecked with no means by which to contact her people. Talia was the first non-hostile individual she encountered and one of the few who would so openly embrace a stranger. Since Talia is Master Medic (the highest medical authority in her community) she is training two apprentices (think residency) and eventually mentors the second child as well. She was once married and passionately in love but lost her husband to illness. In this setting, some technology we take for granted is inaccessible and violence against their people is commonplace. Most have experienced sudden loss. This particular loss was the catalyst that drove Talia into medicine- a desire to protect her loved ones and prevent others from experiencing similar tragedy. She is usually kind (though businesslike) but sometimes succumbs to a frigid, furious depression when, despite all her knowledge and determination, she can’t save someone.

I worry that her maternal association with the two children (one of whom is an outsider) mires her in the mammy trope. On top of that, she hasn’t pursued romance since the death of her husband. I’ve considered giving her a romantic subplot but there are already so many characters to keep track of. Furthermore, I just can’t see her engaging in the frivolous pursuits of new love when she’s dealing with kids, students, and an extremely taxing career.

In terms of race and culture in this story, practically every character can trace their ancestry back to populations displaced through war. Even Talia’s second child was shipwrecked during a botched evacuation from a military science lab. The people who live here have been isolated for generations and no longer have a real concept of their ancestry. Cultures have blended, new religions have formed, and many of our familiar racial/ethnic issues are forgotten. However, new and different but equally toxic ones have replaced them. In this way, Talia’s blackness doesn’t carry the same associations in her world as it would in ours. However, readers may still make these associations. Do you see any issues with her character that I could amend?

So! You have:

A highly educated Black-coded woman (the highest medical authority in the community)

She raises two kids alone

She also looks after two apprentices

She is widowed (not sure the race of the husband, was he Black?)

Having experienced heartbreaking love, Talia's drive to look after, protect and save people through medicine is a great motivation for the way she is. Her experiencing depression and taking losses seriously is also very human and is dynamic characterization.

However, such characterization with Black women is prone to brush across several tropes. You have a Black woman who gives and protects, but what does she get in return? Who cares for her?

Prioritize your Black character’s happiness

"I’ve considered giving her a romantic subplot but there are already so many characters to keep track of. Furthermore, I just can’t see her engaging in the frivolous pursuits of new love when she’s dealing with kids, students, and an extremely taxing career."

Priorities, priorities. Is love a frivolous pursuit in her eyes, or yours? Because I strongly disagree. You probably don't mean to but you, as the author, having an excuse to NOT give the Black woman romance is showing that you do not think she's worth being loved. TV viewers and stans who are uncomfortable when Black women characters have relationships find similar excuses to explain away not wanting BW in relationships.

"She's too strong and independent for a man/relationship"

"I liked her better alone."

"It'll take away from her character."

“A romance doesn’t feel right for her”

These sorts of statements above are grounded in racialized misogyny.

Relationships do not lessen the woman.

Relationships does not lessen Black women.

Love

Whether that love is romantic, familial, or friendship, it can come in many forms. Give Talia love. Because Black women characters deserve it! Either one or all!

Let her have a loyal best friend, a cat, and a girlfriend. Because why not? And not to downplay the love of children to parents, but please provide her love beyond what she gets on a maternal level from the children she looks after.

The stories that Black women are in today severely lack love for us, so why add to the narrative of Black women being all work and no play, and too [insert excuse here] to be loved?

Of course, you didn't provide all the details from your story, but I'm not seeing much of a balance from the struggle. She is a caretaker, teacher, doctor (or doctor-like figure).

Her position and background in itself is okay. It's the Strong Black Woman being presented with seemingly no commentary that strikes me.

Where is her team to help balance the weight of the world?

Who takes care of her when she's depressed from another loss?

What does she get in return from taking an emotional and physical toll to heal her community?

Do those around her recognize all she does for them and offer their friendship?

When does she get to relax and turn off the need to be everything for everybody?

Fitting love into a book with many characters

There are many books with several characters to keep track of. People tend to manage. Also, I'm sure some of those characters are in and/or out of relationships. Even stories that couldn’t be classified as romances have relationships of some sort. It’s unrealistic to have a ton of characters and none of them be in relationship(s) of some sort. Not when there’s so many forms of it and many sexualities.

Friends, frenemies, enemies, romance, affairs.. Relationships make stories (and life) interesting. By no means do I think adding these dynamics harm your tale. And what’s one more for a hard-working Black woman who sacrifices a lot and clearly deserves a shoulder to lean on? And, if you use an existing character to be that friend, family, or lover, then you won’t need to pencil in another character.

For romance specifically - I think a misconception when it comes to including romance in stories is that they have to somehow take over the story. Romance does not have to bombard the plot nor be described in lavish detail. Not every story is a romance and those sort of details aren’t everyone’s style or things they’re comfortable with. A sentence or two establishing relationships does not take away from the story.And how those relationships look and affections expressed will vary based on the characters, sexuality, etc.

Not every character needs to have a deep level of detail.

“Katie and Lisa, a newly engaged couple, walked into the meeting.”

“Jack and Jamie are a married couple in their 40s.”

“The two met in college. After two months of blissful courtship, they eloped, eager to start their happily ever afters. Twenty years together, they were still blissfully in love and never too far from one another.”

Sentences like the above are enough for some characters. You don’t always need to put in paragraphs worth of relationship-establishing details or plot.

When it comes to the characters whose love you would like to highlight, at least a bit, you still don’t have to go over the top.

Use subtle details.

“As soon as Talia’s back was turned, he gave her a longing look before shaking his head and getting back to the patient.”

“He squeezed her hand before taking hold of the stethoscope.”

“She kissed her wife goodbye before racing out the door.”

“You mean the world to me.” he had said, holding her face. Those words stayed with her all day, making her heavy load light as a sack of feathers.

“She soaked his shirt with her tears and he just held her tight, saying nothing, silently holding her together.”

As for Talia specifically…

Talia having the mindset you described, as love being frivolous and not a priority, is understandable knowing her background (I just don't agree with you as the creator using this as a means to keep her alone. Whether she’s romantically alone or without close friendships). She has lost so much, and continues to experience loss with patients. This can be extremely traumatizing. I gave some examples of being subtle, so perhaps that will help with the burden of feeling a thick subplot of romance doesn’t fit in your story.

And as Talia doesn’t strike me as someone who would go looking for companionship, what if she stumbles upon it without trying? Is there someone on the medical team that can offer her friendship? Someone who admires her and feels the urge to care for her that she feels the same for, or has pushed feelings down for? What happens when she can’t hold those feelings down anymore?

Takeaway

Talia deserves healthy love, even if she doesn’t believe it or feel she has time for it. That love can come in any and many forms, not necessarily romantically required, although it is a plus. A struggle-ridden novel is balanced by love, support and rest for characters that hold the weight of the world. If you do not, evaluate why you want to write Black characters in these struggle roles without at least a social commentary.

~Mod Colette

#Black women #Strong Black Woman #Mammy #relationships #romance #asks

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female-malice · 3 years

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Radblr constantly talks about how woman should raise boys right and teach them to respect women.

Radblr also talks constantly about how women should support and work with other women.

But I never see radblr talking about how women should uplift, encourage, and support girls 🤔

Girls are the most vulnerable group of people on earth, and also the most powerful force of social change.

Millenial girls grew up to embrace liberal choice feminism and spread it through pop culture. Where was radical feminism during 1995-2010 when millenial women were just girls? What were radical feminists doing when we were all playing with bratz dolls and watching totally spies? I’ll always have nostalgia about the 00s pop culture I grew up with. But, that culture was the breeding ground for the choice feminism self exploitation hell we live in now. Spice Girls, Cheetah Girls, Destiny’s Child, Pussycat Dolls and Britney Spears were all marketed to millennial girls age 6-10. How is there any doubt about why millenial women are teaching gen-z girls to exploit themselves? It’s tempting to think of libfems as malicious narcissists or shallow idiots, but they aren’t. They were girls groomed for ‘sex positivity’ through 00s pop culture. They were girls radical feminists failed.

Radical feminism is always defined and organized around the root of subjugation women face–sex and reproduction.

Why not organize radical feminism around the root of female future, power, and success–girls?

Feminism is called a women’s movement. Occasionally, it’s referred to as a movement for women and girls. I think prioritizing women over girls in our concept of feminism is one of the greatest mistakes feminists ever made.

Feminism should be a movement for girls, supported by women.

If you are 20+, you are no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, a girl. I know girlhood is hell. I know it leaves us scarred and wounded. I know we feel the universe cheated us out of a girlhood brimming with carefree adventure and exploration. But it wasn’t the universe cheating us. It was adult women failing us. Adult women who were too focused on the damage their own girlhood did to them. This cycle of girlhood trauma has left women’s movements chasing their own tails for a century.

Patriarchy is passed through generations by men socializing boys and women socializing girls. If men are initiating boys into the fraternity of sexual subjugators, women are initiating girls into the sorority of victimhood. Radical feminism was built within that sorority, and it shows.

All feminist writing I’ve read delineates women’s historical trauma and ties it to the subjugation of women in contemporary society. Through feminism, we find other women and discuss our shared past traumas with each other. In the internet age, we do this on a personal level through blogs and forums, or on a societal level through hashtags like #metoo and #yesallwomen. Feminist discourse builds up to a model of women’s universal suffering. And through that we identify males as the bastards behind it all. Radical feminism calls class recognition through shared trauma ‘consciousness raising’. They cite consciousness raising and solidarity between women as the greatest sources of female power. In other words, radical feminism elevates the sorority of victimhood as the key to female liberation.

But the more I piece this out, the more it looks like a damn crab trap. The shared trauma, the model of women’s universal suffering, it only leads us to perpetuate our subjugation. There’s comfort in thinking what happened to you happened because you’re a woman. There’s comfort in seeing traumatic events as predestined. But predestination is the oldest crab trap in the book. Through predestination, we see victimhood as a right of passage and a key to wisdom. We overlook naive girls until they’ve been victimized enough to trauma bond with women.

I’m not saying we should throw out radical feminism and start from scratch. Women coming to terms with trauma is a step towards female liberation, but it’s a step that will take a lifetime. That, unfortunately, is the nature of trauma and PTSD. There is no way to resolve past trauma. You can read all the feminist discourse ever written, and you may find some comfort in it, but the trauma will not heal.

I know a lot of us take comfort in that catchphrase about women not being responsible for our own oppression. We need to start recognizing this as a thought terminating cliche and blackpill feminist idea. Saying we have no hand in our own oppression means women’s liberation depends entirely on men. This, of course, renders women’s liberation impossible.

If we’re looking for more than comfort, we’re going to need more than radical feminism is currently offering. If we’re looking for liberation, we must do the most uncomfortable thing possible. We must dismantle the victimhood sorority. We need to stop saying our trauma happened because we are women. We need to stop being complicit in patriarchy by holding up victimhood as a right of passage to womanhood.

Women do not have to suffer. Women do not have to be victimized. Girlhood does not have to be characterized by neglect. If we use all the power of women’s class solidarity to protect and celebrate girls, we will escape the cycle we are in. We need to stop prioritizing the lives of women over the lives of girls. We need to make girls’ liberation the primary goal of feminism, even if we have to sacrifice personal freedoms to do so. That is the true right of passage. Being an adult doesn’t mean perpetuating the past into the present. It means passing up on your needs in the present to secure a better future for the next generation.

Your inner girl will never heal until you become the woman that should’ve been there protecting you as a girl. So, become that women, and do everything in your power to lift up girls. Do everything in your power to give them the carefree adventurous girlhood you were denied. Don’t do it because they’re your daughters or surrogate daughters. Do it because they’re the future, and they are more important than we are.

#i'm not discussing men here because they're irrelevant #too much of feminism tries to solve the problems of men #if we let go of the problems of today's women to focus entirely on the problems facing today's girls #those girls will grow up to be more powerful than we could ever hope to be #i thought about editing this down but... no lol it all needs to be said #radfem #radblr #radical feminist #radical feminism

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years

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Anakin and the Jedi Babies: Where There’s a Whill, There’s a Windu

Context: original post, chrono

(Summary of the AU: Disaster lineage got tossed back in time. Anakin stayed 21-ish, but Obi-Wan and Ahsoka got deaged, took new names for time-travel reasons (Ylliben and Sokanth, or Ben and Soka) and have been officially adopted by Anakin.)

----------------------

“You’re attached.”

“You’re just now noticing?”

Master Windu eyes him for a few long moments, and then joins him on the ground. Anakin can’t help but smirk. There’s something gratifying about having respect from the man, in this life.

“The other members of the council are concerned.”

“And you aren’t?”

“I am, but for other reasons,” Windu says.

Anakin doesn’t meet his eyes, doesn’t even respond for a long minute. He just looks out over the Room of a Thousand Fountains, spread out below them like hundreds of jungles pieced together in a jigsaw of flora. It’s been his favorite room in the Temple since he was a child, and it’s always overwhelming.

“Most of them have accepted that you adopted them because of Mandalorian customs, and that you stayed where you were due to the will of the Force,” Windu continues. “But they are… uncomfortable with how blatantly your attachments show.”

“Mandalorians are loud and refuse shame. It rubbed off.”

“You said you would kill for these children.”

“I’m their father. That’s kind of expected.”

Windu’s expression is tired. A little tired of stress, but mostly tired of Anakin’s shit. “You know what I’m trying to get at.”

“Do I?”

“Skywalker.”

“No, I’m serious. I need you to spell this out. I’ve had a million slightly-contradicting lectures on this topic, and I’ve been told pretty clearly that I misinterpreted a solid half of them. If you want a constructive conversation, you can’t be vague. I’m thirty-three years old and a father of two, Master Windu, so yes, I’m attached. What you mean by that word is going to change where this conversation goes.”

It’s gratifying to see the Master actually think it over.

“Ylliben’s tattoos have been causing the most recent stir,” Windu finally says. “They nearly all relate to family, whether new or old, and the symbolism is concerning to those who are already upset about the Mandalorian upbringing. They worry that he’ll remain too tied to people he grew up with, and unable to maintain neutrality in future diplomatic ventures, or at risk of a fall if one of the people he’s seen fit to memorialize is injured or killed. The assume a similar state of mind may be applicable to your daughter and yourself, especially given the off-color jokes about how possessive your children are about each other.”

“They’re worried about emotional immaturity,” Anakin summarizes. He offers a wan, unimpressed grin. “They do realize he’s fourteen, right? Nobody’s emotionally stable at fourteen. The hormones are out of whack.”

“I’m aware,” Windu grinds out. “And I’m aware that your histories, of war and all such things, make your ties much stronger, but you can see why the Council worries, especially those who are wary of the memories your children carry but won’t explain. I’m the only one you’ve told, Skywalker.”

“Plo and Depa know.”

“Plo and Depa aren’t on the council.”

“Yet.”

“Skywalker.”

He relents. “It’s not about Mandalore, Master Windu. It’s about Tatooine.”

Windu lets that sit for a few moments, and then sighs. “I don’t know enough about Tatooine to parse that.”

“Shmi and I are former slaves,” Anakin says, as bluntly as he can. “I was freed at nine, she at eleven, and for all that we are free, we’re not freeborn. We were born slaves, and raised slaves, and we were freed too late to forget that life. The way we think is always going to be affected by the way we grew up. That applies to all sentients, more or less, but it’s… the slave mentality is completely at odds with Jedi teachings, because Jedi teachings can only be taught in a safe environment.”

Windu nods slowly, and says, “That does make sense, but it’s… forgive me, but that’s why we don’t normally take children older than four.”

“From the perspective of teaching cultural values, that makes sense,” Anakin allows. “Teaching a Jedi child that’s cared for with communal resources that they do not need material things to be happy is fine; trying to convince a slave child of the same, someone who grew up being told they do not deserve material things, and that their owner can take anything at any time, including family? I lived that life, trying to adjust to ascetic Jedi values that coincided poorly with slave rules. I know exactly how poorly that transition can go when the person caring for the child doesn’t know how to handle the points of conflict.”

“Do you regret joining the Jedi?” Windu asks.

Anakin shakes his head. “My Jedi master, bless him, cared, and tried very hard, but he wasn’t ready to handle a kid like me and in hindsight, I know that. He needed grief counseling, and I needed therapy, and neither of us was getting it. I don’t… I don’t believe anyone in the Temple would have known how to handle a kid like me.”

“But you don’t regret it.”

“I was meant to be a Jedi,” Anakin says, as firmly as he can without getting unnecessarily bitchy about it. “My struggles with the Code aside, I was meant to be here. But the Temple doesn’t have any resources for children who come older, and I think… I think you do need that.”

“You just outlined why a child can’t follow the Code if they come from a different enough background,” Windu says.

Anakin shakes his head. “No, that’s not—I think a kid like me can learn to be a Jedi, if a little unconventional, if they’re taught correctly. The desperation to cling to anyone and anything you have can be unlearned. It takes time and effort, but it’s possible. Soka and Ben are good at balancing Tatooine care with Jedi control. If you talk to Ben, you get an entire philosophical breakdown about it, but I’m more concerned with the child psychology, because that’s what could have broken me.”

Windu frowns. “You’re building up to something.”

“I think the Jedi need programs for children found older who can’t become full Jedi,” Anakin asserts. “Even those who cannot reconcile what they absorbed growing up with the Code and Jedi tradition… they, we, need guidance. The Council tried to reject me for being too old, and now that I’m grown I understand why, but… Master Windu, what do you think would have happened to me if I hadn’t had my Master to fight for me, and had been turned away?”

“We’d have looked into placing you back with your mother and, upon finding out that she was still enslaved, secured her freedom,” Master Windu says. “Qui-Gon Jinn had taken responsibility for you, and thus you were a ward of the Temple until such a time as you were safe again. It would have been cruel to keep you from your mother if we were not to raise you a Jedi, and crueler still to allow you to return to slavery.”

“And you think I’d have been safe with her?” Anakin asks. He needs Master Windu to understand this. “You think that would have ended well?”

“You don’t?”

“Ventress,” Anakin says. “Maul. Aurra Sing, even.”

Windu considers that. He looks across the grand, green room of the garden, and finally speaks. “You think you’d have been found and corrupted by a Sith.”

“I’d already helped Naboo win a battle. I was a powerful child with no support system in this respect, eager to please,” Anakin says. “Ventress and Maul both got twisted into Sith Apprentices. Aurra Sing was just a bounty hunter, but… even if the Jedi had never found me, and the Sith remained unaware, do you think I’d have ended up better than Sing? Or would the pressures of slavery have led to my Fall anyway, eventually slaughtering my owner, the Hutts, the entire system of Tatooine’s hells?”

Windu rubs a hand over his forehead. “I understand what you’re getting at.”

“It’s not just me,” Anakin says, as carefully as he can. “Even without the Sith, there are plenty of Force-Sensitive children in terrible situations that are liable to Fall just because of how power is wielded by those at the bottom. Refusing to take on students who are already at risk… the Jedi are meant to monitor Force users to prevent Sith and other dark-aligned people from harming the galaxy. It’s one of our primary duties. If the Jedi are allowing darksiders to rise just because of an age limit…”

“I get it,” Windu says, just a little aggressive. “I understand. Give me a minute.”

Anakin tries to wait. He’s older now, he can do that. He can be patient.

He tries to convince himself that it’s true.

“You have a point,” Master Windu finally allows. “And with the knowledge that the Sith are out there, still, it’s a more salient point than most would think. The EduCorps already has a subdivision for teaching meditative techniques to low-level force users who need to learn shielding but aren’t sensitive enough to be Jedi, or are just too old, but I see your point about encouraging a program for powerful Force-Sensitives that aren’t discovered early enough to integrate into the community in full.”

“And a more comprehensive Search pattern for the Outer Rim?” Anakin suggests. He shrugs at the look he gets. “What? You’ve seen my midicount. I was on Tatooine for almost a decade, and the only reason anyone found me was that Qui-Gon had to crash a ship in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure the Force led him to me, given all the coincidences, but that’s still a solid nine years that nobody did, despite how I apparently ‘shine like the sun’ or whatever.”

“Humble.”

“The last time I took a midichlorian test on a portable counter, it literally broke the device. That’s not arrogance, that’s just absurd.”

Windu looks exhausted by the comment. Anakin can’t bring himself to feel too bad about it.

“What about Jedha?” Anakin suggests instead. “Jedi find the kids, but if they’re too old to be Jedi, we could coordinate with one of the temples at Jedha to see about having them raised in the traditions of the Whills? They’re a little less orthodox, aren’t they?”

“In some respects,” Master Windu says. “More constrained in others, but… it’s a possibility. Most of the overlooked children, yourself included, are from parts of the Outer Rim that aren’t part of the Republic, Skywalker.”

Anakin shrugs. “And many of them would have been happy to be found and collected by a Jedi, even if they couldn’t become Jedi. Not the Dathomiri, since they’ve got their own thing going on, but… from what I know about Ventress, she actually did have a Jedi Master before the situation on Rattatak became… what’s the word… untenable? He died and she was left alone, and she’d been a slave already and it just… did not end well for her. But that was a planet overrun by pirates and warlords, and would have been approved as a planet the Jedi could help without it being a weird colonialism thing… if the Senate weren’t made up of cheapskates, at least.”

“Skywalker.”

“My name isn’t actually a reprimand, you know.”

“You’re not supposed to just say that,” Windu groans, running a hand over his face. “The Senate’s choice in funding is not optimal, but insulting them in that way, even in private—”

“They’re assholes,” Anakin says, and doesn’t let his humor show. “Except my late wife, but she’s not part of the Senate in this time, so I feel no shame in accusing the entire shitshow of being cheapskates.”

Windu looks about ready to push him off the ledge.

“You’re never allowed to go on diplomatic missions, are you?” Windu mutters.

“Unless it’s to Mandalore,” Anakin clarifies. “Also, never send me to Tatooine. Ever. Please. I kriffing hate that planet.”

“I’m going to assume you have plans to kill a Hutt if we ever send you to—”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Windu sighs. “I’ll discuss this with the Council, see how they feel about reaching out to Jedha for your suggestion regarding the Whills.”

“And you’ll tell them not to worry about my kids?”

“Skywalker, they are never going to stop worrying about your family,” Windu tells him.

“That’s fair.”

#Anakin Skywalker #Mace Windu #Obi Wan Kenobi #time travel #de aging #Jedha #Jedi #Phoenix Posts #Anakin and the Jedi Babies

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