#also reverse racism exists too

[inkskinned]

they don't see it, because it is around them like air. to them, it would have to be through movies, through magazines. they think it happens outside of life, like it must be selected to be interacted with.

but you discovered in the fifth grade that you couldn't wear shirts with words on them, it was an excuse for someone to look at your chest. you were catcalled before you were in middle school. sometimes you look at that memory and deny it - surely that can't be right, you were young. but you were in a skirt, so maybe that was a natural byproduct. it was a skirt from that place "justice by limited too" - a store literally for kids. it was popular around then. you wore that skirt twice and then never again.

you can't wear headphones, because what if a man wants to talk to you? there's a guy on the internet who complains that women shut themselves off from being approached. at night, you often keep the headphones positioned but with the sound off, just in case you need to hear something behind you.

you learned at 12 that you can't make eye contact, don't acknowledge the aggression. just walk faster and hope he picks on somebody else. don't wear your hair like that. do not park next to that kind of car, park an entire cityblock away if you must.

you can't go to the museum, you're sitting and tying your shoe when he approaches you and mentions that nobody understands art anymore. that in the whole world, it's just you-two. you have no recourse for eating a meal (it's rabbit food if it's salad, and someone will roll their eyes, eat a sandwich. it's pick-me behavior if it's a burger, we get it you're a cool girl). if you like mushrooms you are cottagecore, which is cheesy. if you like video games you're an egirl (similar to a pick-me). boys do not get categories, but if you point out the categories are sexist, you are told okay but these girls really exist.

it is somehow developing, a little undercurrent that you've been uncomfortable with. the nickname "karen" went from being "a white woman that uses her whiteness as a weapon, particularly against people of color," to now mean "any woman raising her voice or being even a little upset." the reappropriation of a term used specifically to call out white women for their racism has set your skin on edge. now it is just another version of "bitch," one that can be said on television. recently you saw a woman get called a karen because a drunk driver sideswiped her, and she screamed when it happened. the comments on the dashcam video all say "why do women always scream about everything." "when has the world ever been bettered by women screaming." "this fucking karen. she deserved to get hit."

in the sitcom, it's a joke that the wife is furious; slamming her hands down into the sink. i do everything around here, might as well do this too. in your house, your father is always in-his-office. before you know better, your first boyfriend is the type to say it's just easier for you. you used to beg him to take you on dates. he used to make a big deal about it, about the sacrifice of effort, even if you were the one who did most of the planning.

someone on the internet makes a "POV: the most boring person you've ever met" where he puts a towel on his head and just talks like a normal person. his impression of a boring woman is just a woman that is talking about her pretty-average life without exaggeration.

you are sometimes actually sad in the reverse, because actually you did used to struggle to pay attention in conversations. you were also easily bored of normal things, your adhd pinging off of every radio tower in the vacinity. it took time and therapy and patience, and now you delight in the small things about your friends. you like having them show you their organizational systems and talk about their taylor swift tickets. you are entertained by them because you learned to be, even though your brain is structured to only be excited by novelty. you kind of hate the idea that the reason your father will never actually pay attention to you is that you're no longer interesting. eventually the shine wore off, and you were just a person, not a spaceship. he never learned how to just, like, form an actual intimate friendship. it was always at a distance, this sense - emotional closeness was too much. (and yes. he's homophobic).

you're already tired of whatever the fuck is happening with the words "divine feminine", a rancid take that is basically just a rebranding of the patriarchy in action. what the fuck do they mean "being small and delicate and needing protection" is feminine. the words they are looking for are that they want a partner, not that their desire for equivalent support is relegated to gender. the human desire for community is not actually gendered at all. also, what fucking wolves are these "divine masculine" men even battling. fuckken taxes? shouldn't their "desire to protect" also mean "protect you from emotional neglect", or are all emotions off-limits (and how sad would that be. that's a horrible bar to set.)

and they tell you it's really not bad actually, because it's just there. they suggest you get off the internet or you stop reading that book or you stop thinking so hard about the movie or you stop just-being-a-feminist because honestly it's a killjoy sort of thing and then you tilt your head to the side and there's that little siren in the back of your head. if things were actually fine, being a feminist wouldn't put a stop to anything, it would go completely unnoticed, because you wouldn't have any comment to make about any of this

but you are ruining your own life, they tell you. also, girls don't sit like that. also, all girls are catty. also, all girls are bad drivers. also, all girls just need a cute bracelet and an iced coffee.

you do like iced coffee, is the thing. when you close your eyes, the world around you has this strange note to it. and once you hear it, it never stops ringing.

#writeblr #this is far too long #sjw bullshit #idk i MEANT to write about somethng else completely and if i have time i will #about like . how if ur gay this is even more obvious #bc they like. hi ur 3 now where is ur boyfriend #and ur like. :) good news mother i have activated the lasers in my plush dog and he is dancing in the guts of my barbie

[wilwheaton]

”Why do racists always invoke MLK…?”

This is a comment from Reddit. I swear to god, it’s like the redditor who wrote this transcribed all the shit my racist, entitled, privileged, Boomer parents said my entire childhood. Like, word for word.

”Why do racists always invoke MLK…?”

First, you gotta understand their position, which is “Racism doesn’t exist anymore”.  Because black people aren’t lynched, because there are wealthy rappers and basketball players, and because there was a black president, racism doesn’t exist in the US anymore.  And this is especially important; when black people get upset about their lot in life, it is because they are lazy and want a handout rather than earning their way like white people do.  When a black guy is killed by cops, he was a criminal and deserved his fate.  When a black woman loses her access to food stamps, it is because she was taking advantage of the system.  When black people get into college, it is because they are given special privilege they didn’t earn.  And when black folks talk about reparations, it is because they want to punish innocent people so they can be handed their success rather than earn it.  

Because there is no racism, and anytime some white person is called a racist it is likely because they don’t support simply handing success and money over to people who haven’t earned it, and not at all because they act racist in any way.  And the term “racist” has become toxic in the US lately; people lose their jobs after being called racists unfairly.  Heck, one could suggest minorities call white folks “racist” in retaliation, knowing there will be social consequences which are completely unearned.  So to combat this unfair and, in their view inaccurate, narrative they employ a couple tactics;

1) “I’m not racist, you are for even suggesting it”.  Since racism is defacto non-existent, playing the race-card is introducing a factor that doesn’t belong.  When a black person calls a white person racist, they are not only lying, but specifically targeting someone based on their race and falsely labeling them something socially toxic with intent to cause harm.  And the white person is defacto innocent because they would see anyone as insert accusation here, not just black/brown/gay/muslim/female/handicapped/immigrant people.

2) “Black people don’t know how good they have it”.  Classic myopic delusion that assumes the complete lack of racism in the US also means any ongoing hurdles faced by black/brown/gay/women/etc people are their own fault.  The fears behind CRT are great examples of the struggle to maintain this delusion, and not have people delve too deeply into history and see how cause/effect resulted in the current socio-economic imbalance.  And since there are successes in the black community, that is proof that racism is over.  Black folks had a black president, now shut up and stop making waves.  There is an attempt to show that any calls of racism are not only unfounded, but examples of success in the black community disprove systemic racism; wouldn’t MLK be proud?  And not only proud of the success, but would side with the white folks who are now experiencing reverse-racism as the lazy black folks ask for more.  Racism, they think, is simply targeting another race purposefully, and has nothing to do with power imbalance.

3) “I earned my success, so black folks need to earn theirs”.  And this is the crux of it all; white folks today don’t believe they are in a position of privilege because they work hard and their success was difficult.  Many of them come from poor families, struggled to pay for college, don’t have a family history of slaver ownership.  They see any minorities complaining as trying to get privilege unearned.  They assume that, because there is no more racism, there is balance and parity among the races.  Illegal immigrants are trying to circumvent the law, reparations and affirmative-action programs are unearned handouts, and special months/parades celebrating a particular group/race is promoting racism by giving them special attention they don’t deserve.  Many white people see themselves as victims because they don’t receive any overt benefits from being white, meanwhile minorities are showered with unearned benefits all the time.  The Great Replacement Theory is constantly being reenforced for them as they watch society take the side of minorities anytime someone attempts to call out this apparent imbalance in their favor.

But underneath all of this is the undeniable knowledge that they are, indeed, racist.  Whether it is a jealousy, or a fear of socio-economic parity, or ethnocentricity, they know that society isn’t accepting overt racism anymore.  And because of this, they have to hold back, watch what they say, watch how they treat people.  “Make America Great Again” was a call to return to a time when casual racism was fun, and didn’t mean anything, and people weren’t so thin-skinned.  Being “Woke” is forcing people to take difficult looks at the fact racism still exists, which is uncomfortable and threatens to challenge the current socio-economic stability, so terms like “woke” are being dismantled, misused, redirected into something that seems illegitimate.  There is an active, desperate avoidance of acknowledging racism still exists, because admitting otherwise means admitting their world-view is wrong.   invoking MLK isn’t done out of malicious intent, but out of desperate denial of a world that doesn’t fit their assumptions.  Many, perhaps most, white folks in the US have no consciously ill will towards minorities, and would recoil in distaste at the notion of being considered racist.  And they will spend all day explaining why they are perfectly justified in accepting a racist position on a topic and how that doesn’t make them racist because the minorities in question are to blame.  Deflection.  Denial.  Dismissal.  And then vote to prevent change.

(Source)

#racists #racism #uspol

[chaifootsteps]

A lot of privileged white (or non black) series creators are in LOVE with the idea of an evil, "reverse racist" oppressed minority member who personally victimizes & unfairly "victimizes" the poor oppressor class and even sets their babies on fire because that's how bigoted and "reverse racist" he is.

Yes, I'm talking about the way Striker is written. This horse has probably been beaten to death but I still cannot believe that the first (and only) chatacter to be called a 'bigot' and a 'supremacist' has been Striker, an imp, a canonical member of a species that is1 apparently treated like slaves. Vivzie really really wanna hammer down that "both sides are bad and mean to each other! Reverse racism exists guys!" point, huh.

The biggest red flag to look out for in series created by privileged people that feature oppression, is if the most violent 'racist' antagonist of the show, is a member of the oppressed class - or if they address the "reverse racism" of the evil minority who hates the oppressors (they are evil because they hate even the good innocent ones!!11) before they actually address or even mention the actual oppression that lead to the hatred of the oppressed to begin with.

Anyway, that's my rant. I know this horse has probably been beaten to death but this is literally one of the biggest criticisms I have of the show. The "evil minority who is reverse racist and sets innocent pregnant women on fire just because they are part of the oppressor class even tho they good" troupe is way too overused even though we are 2023 and what is worse, is that it's written off as progressive because often it's so sneaky and manipulative & a lot of white folk see it and eat it up.

Also Fizz telling Blitzo "are you sure you don't hate him just because he's a goetia? >: (" yeah I do lmao suck my cock you ugly ahh clown

It's a horse that's always worth beating just a little bit more. The stuff with Striker is infuriating and smacks of Vivzie's lack of empathy for anyone less privileged than herself.

#Anonymous #helluva boss critical #striker #actual blog post

[corollaburner]

(hxh) PHANTOM TROUPE // KURTA CLAN theory

...debunking PT did it

So let me preface this by saying this was 100% inspired by a tiktok comment in a hxh phantom troupe's religious symbolism video back in 2021 (:/). The person who commented made such an impact I screenshotted their comments which unfortunately are not in correct order and messaged them this year (i just know they think im weird) but they never responded. I'd give their @ but its their government name (I take it) so msg me for deets. All credit goes to them as I'm just polishing and tidying these thoughts.

First op talks about Meteor City, a junkyard city inhabited by outcasts. People who live there do not exist on any official records and are treated horribly from the outside, people are taken from Meteor City for crimes, prostitution, slavery and no one's doing a thing to stop it. People go outside and face racism, like the one guy accused of a crime he didnt commit and when the truth is shown no one does anything (think op meant The Bum Incident, vol 11, Chapter 102). These people get no justice, they're just used and this is where the duality of Chrollo comes in, he is a demon to the outside world because he is challenging the gods but also a Jesus figure for the underprivileged Meteor City. Even his reverse St Peters Cross on his jacket means that he feels unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as Jesus. Thats his way of saying he doesnt see himself as worthy of savior. His priority is the Troupe so they can together be seen to the outside world, they are literally a troupe of phantoms, trying to be recognized. This is why when he asks Neon if she believes in ghosts and she says no, she is the oppressor that doesn't understand the one hurt.

If you read the story w this idea in mind you start to observe that the Troupe only attacks people hazardous for the City (mafia, ants) or when they want revenge for one of them killed so its weird they are presented in a positive almost heroic light. Only exception that sticks out to the story? Kurta massacre.

The og commenter wondered why it was that the Troupe was always presented in a positive light. We've known the Phantom Troupe does acts of good alongside the bad but we also haven't seen anything entirely "evil" commited by any of them yet. Most of the legends surrounding them are hearsay. And though they could have easily killed Gon and Killua, they don't, twice. Also, Uvogin when taken by mafia/Kurapika says if freed, they wouldn't hurt them as they are not the target.

Op comments on how narrative should be filtered as its being commented via Gon- a non objective source, they claim that the 1st arc feels like a kid show whereas chimera arc feels dark, thats not to say it is actually like that but as Gon's perspective changes so does the narration. At first when innocent people die, he doesnt really care but in chimera we need a narrator to explain as Gon is too biased at that point. Regarding the massacre we only have Kurapika's word but what we are being told/shown about the Troupe is different. The characters talk about the Kurta massacre, how horrible and brutal it was but the narrative is keen and favors the Troupe, it paints them in a favorable light and why should the narrative do that, they don't become better people like the Ants after all.

From the moment they appear on screen, the narrative wants us to see them as underprivileged, both in York New and in the ship, even when they're fighting in Meteor City, they're fighting for injustice or when somebody hurts them. Then why justify their actions everytime they appear on screen if they massacred the Kurta Clan? If they are responsible for this why make them the underprivileged representation? Both Kurta and Troupe says the op are ostracized by the outside and seen less from people.

Say they did it. 3 ideas were proposed as to why.

1. for the eyes (Chrollo likes the eyes, like Hisoka said but Hisoka is a liar and also Chrollo has never shown interest in the show for them. For someone who steals things he likes, why make an exception and murder here?)

2. for money (that's not correct, we are told multiple times they don't care about it, neither money nor fame, they want to be recognized by the world but how would that work by killing a clan that's been hidden for 100 years, they dont get anything out of it.)

3. for revenge: Revenge for what? Kurta are a peaceful clan that hide for years. We know the Troupe left a note that is the motto of Meteor City (I'm adding here what op referred to: "we reject no one so take nothing from us"). Op says note means they serve justice to their city, when someone takes things away from them so what did Kurta take? From the thematic and narrative point they are not set up to have done it, op thinks thats 100% intentional.

Like said above, BOTH have the thematic of oppression from the outside world, they are a commodity for the rich and powerful (gods) but why is Phantom Troupe put in the light of both, the oppressor and the oppressed? Why would an oppressed group oppress another one for NO good reason? The Troupe doesn't kill innocent people if not necessary, they do NOT care about money or fame and the revenge aspect doesnt work because the Kurta were isolated from the outside.

If we look back at the York New Arc they never state the massacre, they simply suggest it and of course from a Kurapika POV they are guilty but if you look again you have to ask..are they really?

☆

this took ages for me to coherently formulate and ik it goes back and forth but bless op's heart because it changed my perspective completely (more than any yt analysis found online) !

#hxh #chrollo lucilfer #phantom troupe #kurapika #kurapika kurta #kurta clan theory #hxh chrollo #hxh 2011 #hxh kurapika #hxh hisoka #hxh manga #hxh spoilers #hunter x hunter #corolla/rants

[yellowloid]

you knew this was coming. buckle up because this is going to be long and boy oh boy do i have things to say. i actually have so many things to say i don’t even know where to start. jesus.

this fandom’s ability to take drama and turn it into discourse that makes absolutely zero sense and involves people that have nothing to do with the original drama never fails to amaze me. the fact that people here are now taking the whole louise drama from a couple of days ago and dragging miles into it by overthinking their way through possible (see: made up) scenarios about people we know absolutely nothing about is astounding. people blaming her for defending herself against haters and saying she’s basically spoiling the end of the tour for us and the band, people being scared that the recent drama will influence miles and alex’s interactions in ireland (which – again – doesn’t make any sense considering their friendship has nothing to do with random people hating on louise on ig and her responding to that hate), which feels exactly like people making up conspiracies about the whole paparazzi drama back in august when i had to read with my own two eyes of people being scared that she staged the whole thing just to “boycott” or steal away the attention from the release of one man band, since it was only a matter of days before it’d come out. which is absolutely insane. (edit: i BET some people will drag miles into the new paparazzi thing. i just know it. mark my words someone’s going to do it)

now don’t get me wrong, you are absolutely entitled to your opinion on louise as a person and as alex’s girlfriend. i don’t really like her myself. she’s a human being and some kind of “celebrity” or rather public figure, so it’s only normal people either like or dislike her. that’s okay. but going from innocuously disliking her to actively villainizing her for everything she does, claiming she’s basically the worst of all girlfriends and basically saying her existence and involvement with alex is ruining everything about the band itself (to the point that you wish they’d do something as drastic as disbanding), alex’s relationship with miles and/or your experience as an am/alex fan is just… odd. it reeks of misogyny. and mind you, i’m absolutely not saying she’s faultless, because she very much isn’t; i can’t stand the way amtwt goes about idolizing her, putting her on a pedestal and acting like she’s an angel (very much like amanda and matt do on a daily basis), because no one is. she did some problematic stuff in the past, not to mention the start of her relationship with alex was ambiguous as fuck, their whole relationship is a big, frustrating question mark and yes, maybe she could handle the hate in a different way than the one she usually goes for. but that doesn’t mean she’s the fucking devil. it doesn’t mean she’s an absolute evil mastermind who brainwashed alex and everyone else in his social circle while also trying to boycott miles and milex in her free time simply by existing in alex’s orbit.

first of all, if we really want to compare her to other girlfriends, let’s at least get the facts right. she’s far from being the first girlfriend who responds to “trolls” or however you want to call them. back when she was with alex, taylor was out there calling people cunts, telling them they didn’t have a life because they spent their time on the internet running fanpages about her boyfriend’s band. she called fans delusional, went off at milex shippers; she called herself ari*n, basically said reverse racism was a thing, and refused to acknowledge she was in the wrong when confronted about it, instead calling people ignorant and basically just going on block sprees. now of course louise has done some shitty stuff too – the rape/racism jokes were disgusting and she also goes around blocking people, but the biggest insult she’s thrown at people is “ignorant” or something along the lines of “get a life”. she hasn’t really beefed with fans to the extent that taylor did – this woman literally called her boyfriend’s fans cunts without a social life because they had fanpages about him and probably left some kind of hate comments on her because they didn’t like her, and she very comfortably forgot that the very people who ran those fanpages were the ones paying for her boyfriend’s bills and her luxurious LA lifestyle. far be it from me to defend louise – because she’s just living that same life in a different font – but if you think she’s toxic, horrible, bitchy, you name it, then i’m sorry to break it to you but you wouldn’t have survived taylor fucking bagley.

with the recent drama, she defended herself much better than taylor would’ve ever done, because she’s not as aggressive. she addressed it and said something that some people aren’t ready to accept – that she’s a human being that has every right to be with him, like all the other girlfriends did. and whether we like it or not, that’s true. she might not be anyone’s favourite (definitely not mine lmao) but 1) just because she’s dating him now, in the present, doesn’t mean it suddenly makes everything his previous girlfriends did (notably taylor) absolutely innocuous, while she’s the wicked witch of the story just because she’s here now – please stop idealizing the past and start being rational about the present; and 2) this should go without saying, but i’ll say it anyway: she still doesn’t deserve to be publicly and constantly harassed on her socials just for living the y/n life she was lucky enough to create for herself thanks to the right connections and whatnot. you can gossip all you want in private, in your group chat with your friends, on twitter, tumblr, whatever space you want – provided it’s a fandom space. created by fans for fans. where none of these people will ever set foot, and if they do, then it’s on them. but not under her own posts or comments on ig, where everyone included her can see. that’s just nasty, and i don’t particularly like to say it but i’m on her side on this. she has every right to defend herself and no matter what you think of her, no matter what she did in the past, she still doesn’t deserve the constant public harassment people put her through. people on ig really need to learn how to be fucking decent human beings.

also about her controversies. the fact that she apologized for liking those “””jokes””” on ig years ago is meagre comfort, yes, but 1) what she did is still “”“less””” problematic than what taylor did, because taylor said all those things herself, louise “””only””” liked posts made by others. obviously i’m not saying that makes it okay, because it certainly doesn’t, but at the very least she apologized for it, while taylor never did – or i mean, she did once she was out of the spotlight, made irrelevant by alex dumping her and finally in her “new me” healing hippie era. we all have every right not to accept either of their apologies, but the idea that celebrities that did some ""“minor”"" problematic stuff in the past don’t even get a chance to genuinely regret their actions and apologize for them and at least try to better themselves is a direct consequence of cancel culture (which is utter bullshit) and in this case – you guessed it! – the result of pure misogyny. because we accept an apology from a man like miles (who, like it or not, did make those inappropriate comments to that interviewer and we can’t pretend he didn’t) but we refuse to accept it from them. and mind you, i’m not saying we shouldn’t accept miles’ apology – i’m his fan too and i do genuinely believe he regretted doing that. i’m also not saying we should accept their apologies just because they’re women. i’m just saying the double standards are through the roof, and that’s really interesting food for thought.

speaking of men. i’m a fan of alex, the band, miles, all of them. i love them. i also know they’re not only human beings, but also celebrities and rich white men. just like we don’t know their girlfriends, exes or whatever, we also don’t know *them*. we can have an idea of what they might be like, but we’ll never know how they really are backstage. like every public figure, their stage/celebrity personas are not a direct reflection of what they really are in private, because to an extent, the way they present themselves to us is part of the business. we are not entitled to their private life, and all we can do is speculate. that being said, the fandom’s tendency to idolize, idealize, and either sanctify or villainize them as well as their social circle is just so… ugh. especially when we go from general am discourse into milex waters, where the fandom theories and fanfiction influence seem to blurry the line between fiction and reality. are we all aware that theories are just… theories, right? that no matter how much they make sense we have no way of knowing if they’re true, and actually we might all be very much delusional? we all know that and don’t actually take those theories as 100% truth that’s set in stone… right? because some people seem to not be aware of that. with the milex theories as well as the ones about the way alex’s relationship with louise started (which, again, is all about double standards but i’ll get to that in a minute).

i do believe there was something between miles and alex; i also believe (unrelated) that alex cheated on taylor with louise and that’s how their relationship started. i don’t believe she’s a beard like some people are so adamant on saying (about that, there’s also some very thinly-veiled biphobia in some of those beard statements but i’m not going to talk about that now). i also believe louise wasn’t the only one alex cheated with - because if we believe that him and miles were romantic back in 2015-2016, then he was definitely cheating. no way taylor would’ve allowed that. she literally hated milex shippers and the idea of what their existence might have been implying. however, some people’s tendency to only see things as radical black or white/good or bad is concerning. people villainize and basically slut-shame louise for “stealing” alex from taylor, or miles, or even alexa despite the fact that they broke up an eternity ago; but fail to hold alex accountable for the fact that he was ultimately the one cheating. she was in the wrong for pursuing someone in a relationship, sure; but he was the one who fell for it and actively did the cheating on his at the time girlfriend. and yet people either ignore that, or just take out all the blame on louise for “manipulating” him into cheating. if (and again, this is just speculation) he really cheated (which probably wasn’t the first time with taylor as well as probably other girlfriends lmao) they were both nasty for it, but he was worse than her. taylor was annoying and rude to fans, but one thing’s for sure – she really loved him and she didn’t deserve the way he ended up treating her. obviously we don’t know how things really went, but my guy here definitely isn’t innocent, yet people throw all the blame on louise for what happened (hence the double standards i was talking about), like he wasn’t a grown ass man who could’ve just kept his dick in his pants but instead decided to be an asshole to the woman he was with.

with milex, roles are reversed. a lot of people here seem to be 100% convinced that theories are 100% real, that what you read in fics is exactly what happened between them, and that by default things can be very roughly simplified as alex = evil bitch who broke miles’ heart and miles = perfect little angel ray of sunshine who never did anything wrong and does nothing but suffer for said bitch who doesn’t deserve him – basically villainizing one and sanctifying the other. like alex is just a depressed and repressed whiny baby while miles is his boyfriend against all odds uwu or alternatively his emotional punching ball. the tendency this fandom has to woobify them in different ways is definitely something. and i’m not talking about fanfiction, because you can characterize them and their story however you want there (it’s fiction for a reason), but here it’s about real life. if you’re going to drag the real miles into the recent drama involving the real alex and the real louise, when – again – he has absolutely nothing to do with it, then at the very least treat all of them like the actual people they are, not some extreme caricatures of what their fanfiction personas are. because those are real people we’re talking about, and it’s essential to differentiate between fiction/theories and reality. regardless of you “shipping” alex with miles, taylor, alexa or anyone else. those are real people. none of them are angels, none of them are to be put on a pedestal. all of them are human and they probably fucked up more than a couple of times in their lives. hell, it would be weird if they hadn’t! their experiences are nuanced because they’re – guess what! - real life experiences, and not being able to recognize that nuance and analyze it at such, instead reducing everything they do or say to either black or white, good or bad, angel or devil behavior is… incredibly naïve to say the least.

Having said that, and regarding the recent drama (but also the paparazzi thing), trying to “protect” the real miles from controversies that don’t regard him by babifying him and spitting out his name in discourse where his name has never even been taken into consideration (because, for the millionth time, that drama has nothing to do with him) ultimately ends up having the opposite effect. by putting his name where it doesn’t belong (that kind of fandom discourse) you’re dragging him into it without even having a concrete reason to do so. by trying to “make sure he doesn’t get involved” you’re dragging him into things that aren’t about him when no one was even saying they were about him to begin with. and then people like the ones you find on amtwt that hate him/milex see those posts, and they use it as ammunition to hate on him and milex even more. you claim louise and amanda are feeding the trolls while you’re literally doing the same - feeding miles, milex and yourself as a shipper to the amtwt trolls lurking here who idolize louise and are just eagerly waiting to find a “crazy milex shipper” post to screenshot and bitch about on twt, jumping on the train of you making miles’ name so that they can talk shit about him, milex and milex shippers. it’s like serving it to them on a silver platter. you end up doing the very thing you were trying to prevent.

we can admit that celebrities make mistakes because they’re human beings like everyone else, while also believing they can genuinely change for the better and learn from said mistakes. you can also like/dislike someone without idolizing/villainizing them to the extreme. once again, it’s real people we’re talking about, and real people as well as real life experiences are all about nuance. we can gossip all we want, but we’re never going to know the truth about them, what they do and why they do it. most importantly, they’re never going to be perfect - and holding them to such an unrealistic standard is guaranteed to set you up for disappointment.

#i'm sorry if this is long and rambling but i can't just shut up about this and move on. i know it's just stupid discourse but jesus #i swear i can't with this site sometimes #if you're THAT affected by louise's existence to the point of wishing miles would stop hanging out with alex or alex's friends or even > #> wishing the band would disband altogether then i'm sorry to break it to you but the problem is not them #similarly if you're so fed up and done with alex/am then don't be shy. the door is right there <3 #ramblings

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

For those who are not aware, I have decided to run the gauntlet of @bengiyo’s Queer Cinema Syllabus and have officially started Unit 2: Race, Disability, and Class. The films in Unit 2 are: The Way He Looks (2014), Being 17 (2016), Naz and Maalik (2015), The Obituary of Tunde Johnson (2019), Margarita With a Straw (2014), My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Brother to Brother (2004), and Beautiful Thing (1996)

Today I will be writing about

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) dir. Stephen Frears

[Run Time: 1:37, Available- Amazon, Hulu, Language: English]

Summary: “An ambitious Pakistani Briton and his white boyfriend strive for success and hope when they open a glamorous laundromat.” (from IMDB)

Cast: * Daniel Day-Lewis as Johnny * Gordon Warnecke as Omar

___

Hmm. Okay so, before I get too far in to this, I feel like this film was the hardest one for me to follow from a plot standpoint (so far). There were a lot of little things happening that took a bit for me to really understand, and that caused some challenges in how I engaged with this film. I will admit at this point that this was a movie I probably need more historical context for (ie some of the political commentary in the film, the state of Britain at the point in which this film was made, etc.) but my brain is fried from life stuff, and I do not have the energy to do that research right now. 

gif by @itsmyfriendisaac

Fundamentally, I do think there is something extremely interesting in the role reversals here of the Pakistani immigrant family being the richer, more successful characters, compared to the white people in the film. And this makes sense because what I was able to get through the movie is the racism that came out of Pakistani immigrants moving to Britain, establishing lives, and then becoming the scapegoats for the suffering of poor white people (when obviously they are not the actual problem). 

Omar comes alive at the thought of getting to make something out of his life, rather than just be a caretaker for his father. A father who has become a victim to the racism and vitriol he has witnessed in Britain. A man who gave compassion, advice, care to young white boys only to see them march against him when they grew up. 

I loved the visual commentary about how women can be forgotten, every time that Nasser’s wife walked by a room, quiet, unnoticed, and soaking in all this information about Omar, Tania, and Nasser’s affair. 

I did love the visual commentary around ever looming danger. This standstill that Johnny’s old crew came to with Johnny, Omar, and the laundrette. A show of numbers, a threat of violence, that never triggered because there was no reason to do so. Johnny still had power and influence over his white friends, and that kept them quiet. But they loom. They are an ever present danger that Omar just ignores. Omar and Johnny continue to live their lives, build out the laundrette, try to achieve success despite the ever present danger. Which is as strong as a visual metaphor you can get towards existing as a part of one or more oppressed groups. 

I like that fundamentally, Omar did all of this to show his Dad that he could be successful. Because he wanted to show his father that everything he’d heard said about him by the white boys he went to school with, and by Britain were wrong. That he was successful, and he had white people working for him. And how that is only revealed when Omar and Johnny have done the work of selling coke, refurbishing the entire place, and then opening it. I like that Omar’s father does not consider his son opening this laundrette as a success, because he wants Omar to be educated. Because he understands the importance of education, and how a lack of education makes people susceptible to propaganda. I also appreciate that Omar was spared from hearing that. 

I love that Omar and Johnny’s feelings for eachother are never really disguised. Like, if you are queer, you can see from the second they are reunited that those two have almost certainly fucked before. But that good old fashioned heteronormativity is what really seems to shield them from suspicion by most people (besides Tania it seems). 

And for as brutal of a beating as it was, I did genuinely enjoy the scene both for the commentary around how no one really is ever safe. That once your former in-group decides you are now part of the out-group, you are no longer safe. And further, that Omar very adamantly, casually, and happily took care of Johnny and treated his wounds and did not let him leave because he does love Johnny. I love that the film ends with the two of them in the laundrette, with Omar kissing the back of Johnny’s neck, in front of a couple shattered windows. Why? Because for me, it speaks volumes about how Omar views his relationship to Johnny and the world. He treats Johnny rather than worrying about his laundrette, because he loves Johnny, and Johnny is hurt. The windows can be replaced. 

gif by @oscarskirt

For/By/About 

By and About 

The writer of the film is bisexual, and the main characters are queer, which puts it in a By and About Queers category. I am on the fence about the For Queer people, because again, with most of the films in Unit 2, I feel like the Race, Disability, and Class aspects of the film are more of the central voice. For My Beautiful Laundrette, the race and class aspects seem like the heavier hitters, but the reason I’m on the fence is because there are some aspects of Johnny and Omar’s relationship that aren’t verbalized that I feel like may only be picked up on (easily) by a queer audience. 

Favorite Scene 

gif by @eriklehnsherryes

I really loved the scene where Johnny and Omar are fucking in the back room while Nessan and Rachel are dancing inside the laundrette. I appreciated that it felt like it was used to highlight the legitimacy of both of their relationships/love for one another. And that both fucking (and spitting champagne in to Omar’s mouth) could be presented in a way that felt romantic because it was paralleled to a couple dancing lovingly together. 

Favorite Quote

“We must all have knowledge if we are to see what is being done to whom in this country” 

A quote said by Omar’s dad to Johnny. I like it because it addresses what I think is the core of this film. And it shows in very few words, why he ended up this way, why he wants Omar to go to college, and where his ideology and life experience lies. 

Score

8/10 

I think this film falls to the classic blunder of trying to say too many things in too short of a time. As a result, we only get glimpses in to characters, and it is harder for me to see and understand their motivations.

#queer cinema syllabus #bengiyo queer cinema syllabus #my beautiful laundrette #my beautiful laundrette (1985)

[utilitycaster]

I agree that the introduction of homophobia in Exandria in fanon is a nonsensical way to add drama. However I understand the compulsion to do it for Candela in particular since it's so close to the real world victorian era period and it does feels slightly odd to have explicitly out queer people in a world that is essentially the 19th century with monsters.

At the risk of being a bit too glib, if you can imagine a turn of the century world with monsters but have trouble imagining it having legalized gay marriage and gender transition? Skill issue.

More seriously, and the post I linked in my post yesterday covers it (and was in conversation with this post which I'd reblogged at the time which also covers the same topic, and in general I would recommend trying to get a sense of that line of conversation before sending anon asks defending behavior for, to be blunt, literally no reason) the problem isn't that people assume the world is homophobic. It's that they assume it's homophobic so that Marion and Sean (in this case) are afraid to confess their love for each other, but do not consider any other ramifications thereof. The homophobia exists to serve as a barrier, but no one seems to be perpetuating it; it just is some miasma. It's like reverse sex pollen. And once it's served its use, the characters do get together and everyone is happy because the homophobia vanished now that it's not needed to explain any character behaviors.

Even more seriously, no one seems to re-insert racism into the narrative, and they rarely insert misogyny, even though Rowan Hall talking about her queer PC in another game explicitly talks about educational access on the basis of gender. No one blinks at Charlotte being a successful businesswoman with ties to a criminal underworld that is distinctly not segregated and who seems to receive no special attention from the authorities. Howard and Jean are both highly educated and well-off and entirely respected despite being visibly nonwhite; I advise you look up statistics for Native American professors or female surgeons (let alone nonwhite female surgeons) in 1907 in the real world. No one ever seems to suggest that the barrier for Sean and Marion could be interracial, despite the US in this era having quite a number of anti-miscegenation laws. And in the context of another, longstanding point regarding fandoms centering a very white queer experience, often to the point of dismissing nonwhite characters' canon experiences and rewriting them as queer rather than (or at least in addition to) racialized (of which Jester, Dorian, and Fjord are all examples within Exandria) or even class-based (explicitly a theme in Candela), that is extremely telling.

This is, at least in Candela right now, something of a moot point in that after episode 2 this line was mostly dropped, both as character relationships developed and because a married same-gender couple was shown onscreen; but it pops up in Exandria pretty regularly as new fans come in, and if chapter 3 of Candela Obscura gets new viewers and there's a popular queer ship I expect to see it again. I in fact expect to see that fan-led insertion of queerphobia and no similar fan-made insertion of (period-typical) racism or misogyny.

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag #candela tag

[wc-confessions]

i think i've seen someone say it here once before, but i wanted to say louixie's story makes me super uncomfortable. the "white character shunned for not being black by black characters" motif just feels really off-putting. i think the newest amv where crowsong gets picked on/beat up further confirms that.

from what i've seen, crowsong's story more heavily revolves around the fact that crowsong was ostracized for being born albino. i havent rlly followed the story too much but the most i know is that the clan has a rlly strict genetic selection and has a history of exiling even brown, orange, and lighter grey cats, with crowsong only getting caught in the mix bc the clan had never seen an albino cat before

i can see where youre coming from w this bc i felt put off by it at first too but i dont think that was the intention at all nor do i think there was a real motif put behind it. but if anyone else has any thoughts id love to hear them! i just dont know enough abt the story to rlly have any strong opinions on it

-mod ashensky

I actually made a post abt this on my personal blog, and thank goodness I'm a black person because I can talk abt this directly. No Crowsong's family are definitely not supposed to be black people LOL.

Black coding does not mean the character is literally black, you can have a non-human character that isn't black be black coded and vice versa. Crowsong is very clearly from the same "racial" group as the people she's directly related to I have no idea where this is coming from because this takes place within a clan.

You can tell because their fur is straight as hell (joking) but really the closest I can compare to Crowsong's experience isn't racism but colorism and/or that time in history when everyone hated redheads or when europe decided that left handed people have to be "fixed". There's a ton of other forms of discrimination that are more akin to Crowsong's story than racism.

I feel like people get really hung up of skin/fur color but you need to remember that cats don't have a concept of race, Crowsong is directly related to everyone who is bullying her, albinism is a real thing that people can have, black people are still seen black when they have albinism in the real world, colorism exists in every place in the world regardless of race and discrimination against people with albinism also exists, it's called ableism!

So with all that considered Crowsong's story isn't "reverse racism" or whatever, it's a story abt ableism and/or colorism. That's the real thing ya'll should be analyzing/critiquing because one could say that there's some bad tropes in that story still. - Admin Cloudnettle

#confession #mod talks #warriors #wc #warrior cats

[catgirlforeskin]

Hey, I just saw the "(Trans) Men are oppressed for being men. Its just that the most visible men in society usually aren't." post and I'm kinda confused by your response - can you elaborate?

My first impulse was to agree w the post and then I crashed into your reply at the end and wondered if I'd missed something important along the way

Yeah, my main issue with it is that it’s willfully misinterpreting how oppression happens so it can write misogyny out of existence.

No man is oppressed for being a man. Trans men are oppressed for being trans, gay men for being gay, disabled men for their disability, and so on and so forth.

Do gay men sometimes experience homophobia in a different way than lesbians? Absolutely. But the reason lesbophobia is a term is because homophobia and misogyny are intersecting forms of oppression that lesbians face, and that isn’t the case for gay men. They’re oppressed for being gay, not for being gay and for being men.

The same goes for misogynoir or transmisogyny. Black men experience racism differently than black women, but black women face racism and misogyny and those intersect and compound each other.

We live under patriarchy, men are an oppressor class and women are an oppressed class. We also live under white supremacy and in a systemically homophobic and transphobic society, so the same applies there, with white people, straight people, and cis people being members of an oppressor class.

The reason intersectionality is important is so we can understand how these systems interact with each other. Gay men and disabled men are still men and benefit from that, while gay women and disabled women don’t benefit from being women. But being white or able-bodied does give you benefits.

I assumed this was all like, basic stuff for activism, but a lot trans men on this site hate the idea of intersectionality because they benefit materially from patriarchy in ways that trans women don’t, and they don’t like admitting it, or admitting that they’re capable of being misogynist.

It’s the driving force behind all “men are oppressed too” “reverse racism against white people is real” type shit. It’s people who want the benefits of being an oppressor class but don’t want to admit they’re part of it or that it exists.

#transmisogyny #this got longer than planned lol

[a-faggot-with-opinions]

whats up with radfem ideology/radfems? are they any good? are they bad? (in relation to transmasc-ness/nonbinary stuff specifically. does radfem hurt transmascs?)

Radical feminism, also commonly referred to as TERFism, is an ideology that used to be a lot more common in the past, but is still around. Even though "TIRFism" exists, TIRFs don't really identify themselves as such, and TERFism is more common.

Radical feminism is basically feminism that states:

There is no greater oppression in the world than misogyny, and misogyny is the root of all oppression. (This is an anti-intersectional talking point and is used by cishet women to obscure their relationship to homophobia and white women to excuse their racism.)

There are innate differences between the brains of men and women, and men, either by their nature or by "socialization," are more dangerous and aggressive than women. (This is intersexist and transmisogynistic.)

The patriarchy must be done away with by creating a reverse-patriarchy, or a matriarchy, where women have power over men, becuase women's brains are simply better suited to be in power. (This is another evasion of responsibility for homophobia and racism, because they're claiming that when women oppress someone more marginalized, it's less bad than when a man does it. This has also been used as an excuse for some lesbians to be biphobic, such as with political lesbianism.)

Porn, sex work, and kink are bad, because men are usually involved in those things, and since male sexuality is inherently evil and aggressive, no woman can consent to doing any of those things with a man. (There's so much to unpack here. Not only the homophobia in saying that male sexuality is inherently evil, but also the infantilization of women who disagree with them.)

The big difference between trans-exclusionary radfems and trans-inclusionary radfems, is that trans-exclusionary radfems believe that trans women are evil oppressive men, while trans-inclusionary radfems believe that trans women are women and since trans men are men we don't experience misogyny. Both are very bad and transphobic. Though it isn't an obvious part of their ideology, TERFs also believe that young trans men are confused autistic girls (ableism and transphobia) and older trans men are preying on the younger trans men as well as women or gay men, take your pick depending on the trans man's sexuality.

TERFism is transphobic more than it is cisfeminist, too. TERFs have found themselves allying with misogynists (see: TEHMs) and literal nazis if they can agree that trans people deserve to die.

Radical feminism is bad no matter which flavor you go with, but TERFism is significantly worse than TIRFism even if TIRFism is still bad.

#asks #terfs fuck off #fuck terfs

[reasoncourt]

the problem with a lot of shiv takes imo is that barely anybody has actually read any lit on intersectionalism and so they're committed to the idea that the patriarchy is a system wherein women are, by definition, dominated by men, irrespective of the other social categories they belong to. people see sexism and are unable to parse it into benevolent sexism versus hostile sexism and theyre committed to the idea that "reverse sexism" doesn't exist (true to an extent) but can't acknowledge that racism can be gendered and while calling that "sexism" is reductive, removing gender entirely and just calling it "racism" is also reductive. like i think too many people think they know things about the patriarchy, misogyny, etc. despite having never actually read any lit about it or challenged their intuitions with empirical evidence. i could elaborate because im being a bit vague here but it's a deeply complex topic and it feels a bit like shouting into the void

#dl

[elumish]

You saying to avoid “'this white girl’s relationship with this white boy is forbidden because society hates love' forbidden love because it’s a bit played out" needlessly isolates a race of people. I know it's popular to make fun of white people as a perceived table-flip, but it's uncomfortable like it would be to point out any other race. You could say a standard 'nothing obviously wrong' relationship has no need to be dramatic, without putting a spotlight on a type of people for no reason.

Good morning (or whatever time zone you're in)!

I'm going to assume this is in good faith and you're not a troll, so I hope you take this with all due respect when I say, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how race is talked about and presented in media.

I'm getting a whiff of "reverse racism" in this comment, and so first things first, bringing up the existence of whiteness isn't making fun of white people. (Also I think you're using the term table-flip wrong, but that's neither here nor there.) Acknowledging that white people are white*, and acknowledging that white people are treated differently in media than People of Color, isn't racist or making fun of white people or needlessly isolating a race of people.

Avoiding talking about race, and avoiding talking about the privileging of certain identities, is how we as a society get away with continuing to pretend that racism doesn't exist and the way that People of Color are treated in society is disconnected from the color of their skin or their cultural or ethnic background. We as a society talk about white people differently!

There's nothing inherently uncomfortable about talking about that--and if there is, well, maybe that's a discomfort you should sit with. Maybe you should consider why you're so uncomfortable with the idea of talking about race and about whiteness.

And now to the actual topic you were referencing.

I'm a writing advice blog. I give writing advice. And one of those pieces of advice is, when tropes become old and stale and irrelevant, let's stop writing about them.

Now, I will acknowledge that there are a lot of reasons why a white girl and a white guy might be forbidden from being in a relationship--a mismatch in socioeconomic status, a difference in religion, etc.

But what writers often do in stories where the idea is that it's forbidden because Society Hates LoveTM is they replace the very real struggles faced by same-sex or same-gender couples and interracial couples (as well as interfaith couples) and place them on a white girl and a white guy who are the same in class, religion, culture, and everything else that tends to actually cause this forbidden love.

It's generally cishet white people taking other people's real trauma and making it palatable to white people by removing the queerness and removing the mention of race. We get nice, neat stories where we get to pretend that sometimes love is just Forbidden because Society Is Mean, and it has nothing to do with things like homophobia or racism. It lets white people tell other people's stories without having to think about those other people too hard, because they're good with those white cishet people being together, but they might not actually be so okay with it if those people were both men or both women or if one of them wasn't white.

*the concept of whiteness is extremely complicated and situation-specific, but that's a topic for a different essay

#representation

[little-miss-dilf-lover]

GENERAL RULES FOR MY BLOG.

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☆ I write for:

— bucky barnes — matt murdock — moonboys — miguel o’hara (not so much anymore) — peter quill (not so much anymore) — pietro maximoff — spencer reid — tangerine

☆ here are some do’s and don’ts :

— please do not copy, rewrite or translate any of my work on any platforms. even though it may not seem like it, I spend many hours on piece alone

— mdni as a majority of my content is 18+ and the characters I write about are adults

— be sure to read the warnings in each post. I have tagged it carefully, but im not responsible for your media intake

— I write for fem!readers only unless stated/ asked otherwise, but some of my fluff fics can be considered GN

— I don’t use y/n or appearance details unless requested so

— although im sensitive, im open to constructive criticism and feedback, but if you don’t like something, please be nice about it

— please don’t send me an ask that you have already sent to another writer

— please don’t spam me with the same request as I’ll be less likely to write it

— sending in a request doesn’t guarantee I’ll be able to write it, I appreciate you sending them in, but im just not able to complete every request I receive. and if I don’t connect with the request, I’ll be less inclined to write it

☆ some guildelines for what to request :

— when sending in an ask, please try to be as specific as you can. ‘fluff’ or ‘smut’ isn’t a request, id like to know exactly what it is you’d like

— im nsfw friendly, so I take smutty requests

— for smut requests, female readers only

☆ I will write :

fluff, smut, angst, comfort, reverse comfort

18+ only. im good with most things & kinks, some examples- light bondage, choking, climax control, dom/ sub (preferably male dom) praise, degradation, age gap (nothing too wild though) public stuff, food play || basically anything along those lines

☆ I won’t write :

real people, dubcon/ noncon or cnc, heavy bdsm, anal (includes eating) pegging, anything toilet related, daddy kinks/ ddlg, raceplay/ racism, sexual abuse/ assault || basically anything extreme, i personally prefer soft sweet, lovey dovey sex, so I don’t like writing anything on the contrast

but if there’s anything unsure of, please message, I promise im not mean :)

☆ few more things :

— in my smut fics, I often don’t mention any contraception- to me, as it’s fiction, pregnancies and sti’s etc, don’t exist, so it feels pointless to write/ describe it. like it takes up space that’s not necessary needed. if you were wondering, no, I don’t have a breeding kink that I worm into my writing lmao. I just feel it’s pointless to mention- unless it’s specified/ asked for in a request etc

— just know that it may take a little while, im not ignoring you- it also depends on how many requests are in my inbox. unfortunately im not able to write every request I get. also please don’t be offended if I don’t write yours, or if I write requests out of order from when I receive them, sometimes I feel more like writing some asks more than others

— if you have any ideas or requests, I would be happy to write them for you- assuming you like my writing. feel free to send in requests (preferably drabbles, blurbs, HCs) for any mcu male character - but if there’s one im not comfortable writing, I’ll nicely say so in response :)

most often I write for: tangerine, matt murdock, steven grant, pietro maximoff, peter quill, miguel o’hara but im open to new characters

— also be sure to enable mature on your content filters (ofc if you want to) just so you can see things that may be blocked by community labels

#read rules before interacting #navigation #request rules