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doberbutts · 4 months

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I remember reading a post that men are the oppressor class so why would they bother to dismantle systemic patriarchy when they actively benefit from its existence? And as I read it, I thought, Damn, so an entire half of the population can never conceivably help us, and the people who love men in their lives are doomed. It wasn't a helpful post. It basically felt, here's some actual material analysis on feminism and said, That trying to educate and make men be part of feminism is fundamentally a flawed effort, because again, they are the oppressor class, why should they care about uplifting the oppressed?

And it made me think about this very good pamphlet I read, explaining how the white worker remained complacent for so long because at least they weren't a Black slave. And that the author theorized the reason labor movements never truly created exceptional, radical change is because of internal racism (which I find true) and failure to uplift black people. And the author listed common outlooks/approaches to this problem, and one of them was: "We should ignore the white folks entirely and hold solidarity with only other POC, and the countries in the Global South. Who needs those wishy-washy white fragile leftists who don't care about what we think or want?" (roughly paraphrased.)

And the author said, This sounds like the most leftist and radical position, but it's totally flawed because it absolves us of our responsibility to dismantle white supremacy for the sake of our fellow marginalized people, and we are basically ignoring the problem. And that blew me away because this is a position so many activists have, to just ignore the white folks and focus entirely on our own movements. I wish I knew the name of the actual pamphlet, so I could quote entire passages at you.

But I feel this is the same for men. Obviously, we should prioritize and have women-led and women-focused feminism. But saying that men are an oppressor class so they can't reliably be counted upon in feminist activism--it's such a huge oversimplification. And mainly, I'm a Muslim, and I've been treated with plenty of misogyny from Muslim men. And also plenty of misogyny from Muslim women. And I love my male friends, I want men to be part of the movement, and I dunno. Thinking about communities, movements, and the various ways we fail each other and what it means to be truly intersectional keeps me up at night.

I don't know the pamphlet you're talking about but I've read and been taught similar. There's a reason much of my anti-racism is so feminist and most of my feminism is anti-racist. Many people coming at this problem from a truly intersectional angle have seen that there is no freedom to be had without joining hands across the community. Not picking and choosing our allies based off of identity but off of behavior.

As used in a previous example, a white abled moderately wealthy man saying "wow Healthcare sucks in this country, why does this system suck so bad" should be told "hey, this system sucks so bad because it's built off of sexism, racism, classism, and ableism. You want to improve the system? Fix those things and it will be much better in the long run" and not "shut up you're a man. Healthcare is always going to be better for you". The second response doesn't fix that Healthcare is still a problem even if you are at the "top" of the privilege ladder. If we want true change, we have to dismantle the entire system at it's core and build it up without the yuck, otherwise you're gunna get to the top and realize this place sucks too.

Something something if the crabs worked together to hold each other up, they could all get out of the bucket and be free.

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queermania · 4 months

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I don't want to start drama and I don't expect you to respond to this but I think you deserve to know what's being said about you. tumblr. com/transfagbenny/738678589192552448/and-id-appreciate-if-we-stopped-using-the-terms

i actually am going to address this because this person has been lying about what's been going on for months and they've apparently been harassing other people for months if not years, so. it's time to put an end to this.

before i start though i want to make it abundantly clear that if you take this as an opportunity to do anything other than block this person, then you are trash. do not send him messages. do not tag him in things. do not harass him in any way. leave him alone. if you need to block, do so and then move on. hate mail and harassment is disgusting behavior and i don't want to be surrounded by anybody who engages in it. and if you do it on my behalf, i think you are worthless and i want nothing to do with you.

so, this is what happened: back in february of 2023, an anon asked me if i had any opinions that would get me canceled with the dean girlies. i replied, "oh now we’re talking!! hmmmm let’s see. i don’t care about benny at all. deanbenny does nothing for me. deanbenny is dust. it is dust. drowley rights forever" and i did not tag it because i'm not an asshole. bear then sent me a message that at the time i thought was funny/cute because his url reflected that he was obviously a huge benny fan. we had a very cordial exchange. everything was good. we chatted a little bit about how neat it would've been if benny had been played by a black actor and how the racism problem with gordon would've been fixed if gordon had been played by a white actor. not all of our conversation is visible anymore (and i also don't think all of it was on this post anyway) because i've since blocked him so his replies no longer show up on my posts. the point is: everything was fine. it was a good tumblr exchange. he continued to follow me. i did not follow him then or at any point.

the problem is that he kept coming onto my posts and into my inbox to try to make things about benny. that is not okay. i had already said that benny was a character (and deanbenny a ship) that i was not interested in. to me, this is an obvious boundary i've established that he repeatedly crossed. it's not an egregious violation, obviously. more than anything it's annoying. what he should've done, if benny was that important to him, was unfollow me and move on. but he didn't and i indulged him for awhile but at a certain point i thought, "okay maybe if i stop indulging him, he'll take the hint." so i stopped responding. he did not take the hint. he got worse and he even started commenting on things that he couldn't make about benny, just to willfully misinterpret things i said and taking them completely out of context. unfortunately, i don't have receipts for any of this because at the time i didn't know it was going to become an actual problem (however I have since learned that this is an established pattern of behavior he engages in, so you can probably find examples on other people's blogs).

it got so annoying, though, that i very carefully broached the subject in a private server with people i trusted. without naming any names or using any incriminating language (i.e. not specifically referencing benny), i basically said that there was someone being annoying about a specific character on my posts and i wasn't sure what to do about it. immediately, a handful of people replied with some variation of "the benny stan? he's been doing that to me too." i do have receipts of this (and an entire server to back me up) but i hope you can all understand why i'm not going to provide those or name names (or ask anyone to get involved publicly). the point is, it became apparent that i wasn't the only one and this was a pattern of behavior. i also learned during that conversation that bear has a history of harassing people and calling someone racist or a transphobe if they block him.

at that point, i decided not to rock the boat. i would just continue to ignore him and maybe he would get bored and move on. well that obviously didn't happen. he kept doing it and as a fun added bonus, he started to make vague posts about me. the thing is i don't actually care if he vagueblogs about me. it's his blog. he can do whatever he wants. it's none of my business. i mean i personally think he should've just unfollowed but, again, his blog, his choice. it is annoying that every single time he would do it, someone would send me a link or a screenshot of him doing it, but that's not really his fault. so, again, i just ignored it.

this is where we get to the incident in question. after a private discussion among a small group of friends, i posted this obviously joke poll at the insistence of @letterstothedevil, a tumblr user who has given me permission to include her in this.

the original message about the poll:

the permission:

now EYE think it's abundantly clear that the poll was a joke amongst friends, but maybe it wasn't, and i'm not going to fault anyone for not magically knowing that. i am, however, totally willing to fault someone for being a gigantic asshole. bear commented on the post and i, admittedly, gave a somewhat dismissive response because at that point i was so tired of him being willfully obtuse and twisting every little thing i said that i just didn't want to bother. he then went and made a series of not-at-all-vague posts calling me racist and claiming that i simply do not care about the racism in the show and it's obvious because i've never ever discussed it on my blog (which is a hilarious lie given that i'd specifically discussed it on my blog with him). at that point, there was no reason not to block him. he was already doing the thing that i didn't want to deal with. so i did. and i thought that would be the end of it.

again, i was wrong.

i then started to get anon messages daily about benny and deanbenny and how i'm racist for not liking benny, etc. this was harassment that EYE was on the receiving end of. nobody else was a victim of the messages i was being sent. they were sent to me and it is not my job to make sure other people are protected from the harassment that i am experiencing. i'm pointing this out for two reasons: 1. because i did try to protect bear from it for awhile anyway. i knew that people would assume it was him and at the time i was still giving him the benefit of the doubt, if for no other reason than the fact that i didn't think he could send me messages since i blocked him. and 2. because when i did finally start to respond to some of the messages, bear acted like he was somehow the victim in all of this (and continues to act that way to this day).

i don't know if bear had (or currently has) anything to do with any of the messages i get (which, thankfully, have slowed considerably). what i do know is that at no point during any of this happening did he stop looking at my blog and vagueblogging about me.

when i finally did answer a few of the messages, bear had a bit of a meltdown about it. i know this because he used a separate account that i hadn't know existed to message me and because he talked to one of my friends about it. (i'm not going to name that person but if they want to get involved publicly of their own accord, that's up to them lol). i'm also not going to share screenshots of what bear said to me because he explicitly asked me not to (it's also the reason i'm not sharing screenshots of the numerous receipts i have of the things he's said and lied about on his blog but, unless he's deleted any of them, you can go and find the posts yourselves.) what i am going to share is that in the message he sent to me, he flat out lied about his behavior. he told me he hadn't been vague-blogging about me, that he would never ever do that about anyone, and that he would certainly never harass someone (all things that i have receipts of him doing).

it took me awhile to respond to this message because i was still trying to be gracious about the whole situation. i recognize that he is much younger than i am and i think it's important for me, as a full blown adult, to take that into account. i had a private discussion with a few trusted friends about how to handle this because it was important to me to not let him off the hook for his behavior and for lying just because he's young. this is what i ended up saying:

his response was to double-down on his lies (while, hilariously, vague-blogging about me and the whole thing) and then go into victim mode about something so completely unrelated and far-fetched that i decided i simply wanted nothing to do with him ever. (this is when he asked me not to share screenshots, so i won't, but this is me saying that i have ALL of the receipts, bear, so if you continue to lie, you will not like what happens.) i blocked his alternate account and tried to ignore him.

the harassment continued. again, i have no idea if he was actually part of it. the vagueblogging continued. he started to do it to other people he associated with me. many of them blocked him because of his behavior. i continued to answer some of the hate i received, continued to ignore and/or block most of it. it got so bad that i was sent seizure bait on more than one occasion, one time bad enough that i actually ended up going to the ER. there are receipts of all of this, too. you can see on my blog the messages i've been sent. i think at one point i even shared a snapshot of what my inbox looked like. i've shared privately with friends (who can confirm if they want to, but no pressure) screenshots of the kinds of messages i get that i don't respond to. the point is, that for a period of months, i was relentlessly harassed. and at no point during this time did i say anything to or about bear (or anyone else). the most i've done is respond to messages that have been sent to me. i've largely sat quietly while this thing happened to me and bear continued to make posts about me and act like he is somehow a victim in this. he's assumed things about me and my identity. he's violated boundaries i've set. he will not let this go. and i'm not the only one he's doing it to.

i'm so fucking tired of it. leave me alone. leave my blog alone. leave my friends alone. leave any and all of the people who have blocked you for your own inappropriate and obnoxious behavior alone. that's it. that's the end. none of this would be happening if you would just respect other people's boundaries. i don't want you on my blog. i do not want to interact with you. i don't want anything to do with you. that's it. the end.

#replies #anonymous #wank for ts

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tallulah477 · 1 month

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Below the cut contains my thoughts and feelings about certain issues that I've seen recently that I feel like need to be addressed including hate/bullying, the new Neteyam & Lo'ak rp blogs, and the general fandom as a whole.

CW:// Mentions of pedophilia, predators, racism, and homophobia

Over the past several months, and especially over these past several days, it's come to my attention that we as a fandom need to make some things abundantly clear.

I was a silent reader for a long time. I love Avatar and this fandom with my entire heart and I wanted nothing more than to be an active part of it and member of the community, but the thing that stopped me for a long time was seeing how hateful people can be and I wasn't sure if I could handle it. Obviously, I decided that my happiness and sharing my love for Avatar and the characters with other people who love it as much as I do is more important than any nasty messages I might get and I couldn't be happier with my decision. I think I can safely say that most of us here in the fandom can say the same (although I'm sure the feeling of happiness comes with endless ebbs and flows for all of us).

That being said, the amount of sheer bullshit that I've been seeing on here is ridiculous.

The amount of hate messages that I've had to witness my mutuals receive is unacceptable. The amount of hounding as to why someone unfollowed this person, why aren't they interacting with this person anymore, why would someone write something like this, why won't you write this, is crazy to see. I've seen racist comments, I've seen homophobic comments, and I've seen people being called a pedophile wayyyy to often now.

This is Tumblr. We are responsible for our own media consumption. We cultivate our own media experience.

That means authors write what they enjoy regardless of content as long as they are responsible and tag the work correctly. You as the reader are responsible for heeding those warnings.

This means that if two people who used to interact or follow each other all of a sudden don't or someone gets blocked, it is no one's business as to why it happened. They don't owe you an explanation and there's no need to publicize drama. Do not go into their inboxes asking for details because all that does is feed the flames.

This is supposed to be people's happy place. Our safe space. And instead it seems like there's something new happening every single day.

At this point, we've all seen the rp blogs that have popped up. I'm not generally someone who enjoys rp so I didn't interact, but I saw a ton of my mutuals and others having a great time with them. Despite me not liking rp, it was exciting to see at first. A live persona of one of my most beloved characters interacting with fics that I love? Yes, it's definitely exciting to see!

But then it got not so exciting to see. The responses seemed solely sexual and out of character for Neteyam, a lot of them were really dark and borderline violent. I like dark fics, and I love dark Neteyam. But there are warnings to every dark fic and you go into them knowing what to expect. For a blog that's rp-ing a character that's not canonically like that, it was concerning to see.

We've had issues in this fandom in the past with predators. And despite us all being adults here (at least we should all be), you can never be too careful when it comes to the internet. I am NOT saying that the people running these blogs are predators, but certain things I've seen have raised some flags to me. Rp can be really dangerous when people don't know who's behind the character, especially if things are sexual. Since then, both blogs have created 'About Me' sections which I think is good. So that's something I appreciate.

However, we've also had the opposite problem in which minors interact with us and our content. It's a huge problem that we are constantly trying to battle because while seeing/reading sexual content can be harmful for those who are underage, it's can also get us into a lot of trouble for interacting with minors even if we don't know they're underage. When the accusation that the rp accounts were minors came out, they were sent asks to confirm. One responded respectfully and one, in my opinion, responded not so respectfully. If you are ever asked if you are a minor, don't get pissed about it. It's an important question and you should understand and respect its importance. Just clarify.

I'm saying all this not because I don't think people should interact with these blogs if you want to. It's 100% up to you and I know a lot of people were having fun with it. You're all adults, do what you think is best. And I do think it would be really nice to have more guys in the community, whether they rp or not. My issue with them is more about safety than anything else.

Now back to the hate comments. For any issues I might have had with the Neteyam blog (again, no hate, just my own thoughts), I only ever saw the Lo'ak blog being respectful. Yet, I still saw someone on their actual blog, not under anon, telling him "can't you just leave?". Under no circumstances is it okay to say this to another person. Any one who is an active member of this community who posts fics or the like KNOWS what its like to receive hateful comments like this and you think its okay to say something like this to someone else? No way. I'm sure you know what it feels like to get comments like that and you decided to be nasty to another person anyway. You should know better. Anyone who can say something mean to or about another person should be ashamed of themselves.

For as much as I love this fandom, this is insane that I actually have to say this.

Be kind. Be respectful.

And if you can't?

It's called the block button, people. Use it.

#𝑻𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒆 𝑻𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒔 ♡

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olderthannetfic · 5 months

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I do think a lot of the problem and the reason that more people (like the ones who seem to think that "top/bottom as myers-briggs personality types" jokes are exclusively coming from female-centric fandom spaces rather than gay male offline culture - which, btw, ignores that a whole bunch if not most female fanfic writers are themselves queer and there's a similar set of jokes and stereotypes in the lesbian community, but I digress) don't seem to understand what offline queer culture is like on here is that way too many of the people setting the tone for this in The Discourse on Tumblr are very young people who are newly out. In particular, a huge amount of the gay men on here who are telling people how very Problematic this is (when they're getting it from gay men and not circular discourse among other women in fandom who are claiming to speak on gay men's behalf) is coming from young gay men who don't have much of a community offline, and especially young gay trans men who often aren't yet presenting as male outside of the Internet. It's really hard to talk about, because it so easily risks saying those people's identities aren't valid - and like, we've seen TERFs weaponize that discourse to suggest that gay trans men involved in fandom are just straight women who identified too hard with their blorbos or something, as well as the endless use of "passing privilege" to suggest that bi people in F/M relationships are "basically straight" - but I think one thing people need to understand better is the difference between "your identity is valid, your personal experiences with homophobia/transphobia/etc. are valid" and "your judgments about the larger community that your identity makes you a member of are valid." Like, you do actually have to participate in a community to be able to be able to talk about what the consensus in it is, what the cultural norms are. You have to actually look up the history in order to know that history. If you're going to speak on behalf of All Gay Men you probably should know some beyond yourself - including ones who are not Very Online and/or aren't active in fandom - and that goes for both cis and trans gay men. (And the same is true for every subdivision of LGBTQ+, I've seen similarly bizarre takes about "lesbian culture" from 17-yro lesbians who clearly haven't talked to any outside of Tumblr and insular, dramatic Discords.)

Like, to use an analogy here to another kind of oppression: say you have a black person who was adopted by a white family very young and lived in an exclusively white neighborhood and doesn't know any other black people. Obviously, they are still black, and obviously they still experience racism (probably especially because they're an outlier in that community). Obviously, their own understanding of their identity and their experiences with racism are valid. But they aren't necessarily going to have any better of an understanding of the broader black COMMUNITY - cultural traditions, history, etc. - than a non-black person who was similarly not exposed to that community. They can only speak for themselves. And someone who isn't black but grew up near/in black communities (for instance, perhaps another transracial adoptee who was adopted by a black couple? or even just a non-black person who grew up in a heavily black neighborhood) might actually have a better sense of that broader community/culture than they do.

And this isn't a hypothetical. I've heard stuff like that about feeling like outliers in black American culture from everyone from the aforementioned transracial adoptees; to multiracial black people who were raised primarily by their non-black family; to black people who are recent immigrants from Africa rather than descendants of slaves; to black people from Europe or other parts of the Americas, who have some similarities in their culture but it's not completely 1:1. And especially from people who are some combo of the above. They have an understanding of themselves as black and of their relationship to race and racism, of course, but don't really feel like they have a particularly strong understanding of The Black Community or The Black Experience as we understand it in the USA.

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that newly-out queer people are often like that. A lot of other marginalized identities - like being a cis woman (this applies less to trans women unless they've known from early on) or being a POC - are ones where you grow up with an understanding of what that means and often a connection to a broader community that gives you some kind of consciousness of what it means to be A Woman or Black or Asian or whatever. But with queerness, it's usually not something you fully understand about yourself until adolescence or adulthood, and even when you do, you don't necessarily have access to a "community" around that until that age because you're probably being raised by cis straight people. You have to take time to discover that community and learn about it, and the culture and history that goes with, and when you start out you're going to be just as ignorant as a straight cis person who is similarly isolated from queer communities. (And frankly, a straight person with a lot of gay friends might know better than you do at first! As a lesbian with a lot of gay male friends, most of whom couldn't care less about my slash fanfic hobby if they even know about it, that's precisely why I know that these takes on Tumblr are so bizarre)

(Disability is the interesting one because it sometimes overlaps with this, sometimes doesn't - and one of the big divides in the community IME is around people who have lifelong understandings of themselves as "disabled" vs. came to it more recently, whether because the disability itself is a new thing or just their diagnosis of it. A lot of people in the second group can have very similar experiences and act in similar ways to newly-out queer people, and I know because I've lived both myself, lol.)

I think people have taken the idea of "everyone is the best expert on their own experience with oppression and their own identity" and distorted that into some weird essentialism where being gay or bi or trans or whatever gives you automatic understanding of "queer culture" or "queer history" without having to do the actual work of talking to people, participating in that community, studying history, etc. but that's just not true. Anyone can study that history and get to know those people. And yeah, as a queer or trans person you'll have a better opportunity to really deeply know and be part of that community than straight cis people with queer friends ever will, but you still have to like. Actually put yourself out there! You're not going to find it by just discoursing in a vacuum of ignorance.

Sadly, to all the Olds, this is very, very obvious, but there's no way to make it obvious to the people doing it. It's a matter of experience.

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qqueenofhades · 2 years

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Why is there not a huge movement in USA to create a system where the candidate who gets the most votes is the winner, like in a democracy?

Why do you assume there isn't? Reforming or abolishing the Electoral College has been an issue for decades among Democrats, liberals, civil rights activists, etc, especially after both Bush Jr. and Trump lost the popular vote but won the presidency anyway due to the EC. This has never happened in reverse: a Democrat has never lost the popular vote but won the presidency in the EC. It happens with some regularity among Republicans, because the EC was designed as part of the compromises around free and slave states that were preoccupying the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and the question of whether slaves counted as people. So yes, it has been a racist institution from the start, it has functioned to preserve white supremacy, it always benefits Republicans, and we have KNOWN it is a terrible issue for a long time. But because without it, Republicans will probably never win another presidential election in this country, they will fight absolutely tooth and nail to block, obstruct, or shut down any attempt at any reform. They already hate people voting at all, they make endless anti-voting laws, and they hate democracy. They have endless dirty tricks, endless dirty dark money, and endless entrenched political and economic systems backing them up.

I know that America is a shitshow to both domestic and foreign observers, but yet again: we are not all wealthy racist Christofascist white Republicans. Many of us have been fighting for decades to make the system more democratic and to help people deliberately disenfranchised and destroyed by the founding sins of this country (because they refused to solve slavery at the time, the problem of structural racism was literally written into the founding documents and continues to haunt us down the centuries). Obviously, there are a ton of powerful interests preventing any kind of major change to the fair and equitable, because the current system just works too well for the one percent, but that doesn't mean we aren't TRYING.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

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cosmics-beings · 11 months

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So I LOVED ROTB but I have a problem with a lot of the takes from like non-black people. One of the biggest critiques from the right is that 'it's woke nonsense garbage' and one of the critiques from the mostly white / nonblack left is 'how is this woke? just because it has poc it's woke! stop saying that and enjoy. stop saying everything is woke!'

The fact of the matter is that y'all are both wrong and it shows how the word 'woke' has been bastardized and appropriated by the left and the white.

the term woke is a black american term that just references the importance of being educated about police brutality, systametic racism, white supreamcy, etc. The right has made the word a bad word, which now is really just used to negatively describe anything 'black' and well the left also treats it as a bad word and wants so badly for things not to be associated with the term 'woke'.

Mostly that's true. Stuff with POC and rep isn't 'woke'. Ariel wasn't woke, the only reason people called it that is because they saw a black mermaid and again, that is the right using it as a dog whistle to be racist toward black people.

By default, the inclusion of poc doesn't make anything 'woke' if it's not dealing with some important issues unique to black culture.

However , woke isn't a bad word . It is a cultural word that has been appropriated by the left and the right, and that sucks because in some cases - yes things can be considered 'woke', but right and leftists do not actually have the capacity to understand or realize waht that means.

ROTB has themes of police brutality, profling, white supremacy, racism, and microaggressions that visibly black people face and they have to literally overcome in their own ways, which are huge themes of the movie. There are certainly, historically speaking, some instances of the movie that Black activists, fans, etc., would and can consider 'woke' if it stands to call out again racism and white supremacy, which some parts of the movie did. Subtle but it was there and you saw it especially if you've been through it.

The movie isn't a woke movie, that's not the issue. There are some themes of what people would call 'wokeness'. But the point of my post is that, the word has been so heavily bastardized that everyone gets it wrong. No, a movie just having non-black poc primarily isn't going to be woke, but a movie that deals with small instances of police brutality and racism with a director and cast who understands that can certainly fall into themes of wokeness.

the issue at hand too is that a lot of white and nonblack leftists and centrist have really made woke into a bad word. either a word to just be a deragorty code to say 'black' (i.e the right) or just a word that the left doesn't want to be associated with for some reason. and it sucks because centrist have appropriated other words like queer, or whatever and made them into bad things but obviously, queer people reclaimed it. so i hate seeing a word that means so much to black people be negatively squandered by right and leftists and leftists are as uninformed about the word as centrists.

and i see way to many tf fans who aren't black and who dont' know what woke means, seeing a movie that deals with themes that many black people would consider 'woke', and just shit on the term. and again a lot of it is due to centrist appropiating the term but i wish that if people didn't understand the word they just wouldn't comment on it.

#transformers #transformers rise of the beasts #tf rise of the beasts #transformers rotb #fandom racism

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hadeantaiga · 10 months

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What is the Purpose of Mastodon?

I'd say there are 4 main purposes of mastodon (and the rest of the fediverse).

The first purpose is the same purpose as tumblr or twitter etc. It's social media. It's meant for people to find other people, connect with them, and post and share content that matches their interests.

To decentralize social media. This is the big pull of mastodon that makes it very different from twitter, facebook and tumblr. It's also the feature that is most confusing to understand. I'll explain it more below. It also leads into #3 and #4.

To be a place where you can be in control of the rules. Don't want Nazis? You can ban them, or join a server that has strong rules against them.

To get away from commercialized forms of social media so you aren't constantly bombarded by ads, and your data isn't being fed to advertisers, and so you know the platform you are on won't cave to advertisers and do things like ban porn.

1: Social media

This is the easiest to understand: it's social media, we all know what that is. If people think the fediverse is only about #1, they go "ok but the internet is full of places to meet people, I don't need another website to do that on". And they'd be right! But it's the other three purposes that make the fediverse unique.

2: Decentralization

In my opinion this is the key to the fediverse. And it seems really complicated and too difficult to understand but it's really not.

Imagine you could download tumblr's code, then upload it to your own website, and run your own copy of tumblr. As a bonus, you could still follow anyone over on the main tumblr website and they could follow you. It would be exactly like using Main Tumblr; the experience would be seamless.

But there would be advantages too. Like if Main Tumblr decided to cave to advertisers and ban porn, for example. YOU wouldn't have to stop posting porn, because you're not on Main Tumblr, you're using your copy of Tumblr on your site, and your rules say porn is A-OK. So you could keep posting all the porn you wanted, and anyone who followed you could see it, and no one could stop you (as long as you're following the laws of the country your server is set in obviously).

And what if Main Tumblr decided to shut down? Not a problem for you - you're not using their site, so all your data is safe! If Discord goes down, every single Discord server also dies with it.

Twitter is dying; every single Twitter community and everyone's followings they've built are all dying with it because there's only one Twitter. A lot of artists and other people who depend on Twitter due to the followings and the communities/brands they've built on there are literally losing their livelihoods because Twitter is dying, and there's only one Twitter.

But if they'd been on a mastodon server that was dying, they could just move to a different server and all of their followers go with them - they wouldn't lose their audience and they wouldn't have to rebuilt it. Or, even better, they could just host their own server for their own brand and never have to worry about it going down on them, ever.

Now yes, hosting a website does cost money. And if you don't have money, that's ok! There are a bunch of servers out there already that are running and funded and accept users for free, and most of them have a set rule that if, for some reason, they have to close the server, you will get a 3 month warning to pick somewhere else to go.

All you have to do is read their rules and see if it's a community you jive with. Then after you join, you can follow anyone anywhere. It's that open, and that easy.

3 Rules and moderation

Another huge advantage of the fediverse is that every server can have its own rules, just like Discord servers can have their own rules. Many servers have extremely strict rules against nazis, racism, homophobia, spam, etc.

And the best part is, these server admins can actually enforce these rules because most of the servers are small. This means there's not that many people to deal with and moderation is actually a feasible task.

4 Commercialization

You might have heard "on facebook, you are the product" and it's true. Your data (and your identity) is the product being sold to the advertisers on those platforms. With no ads, there's no one trying to buy your data. The server your are on is the product, one you can choose to donate to if you wish.

#fediverse #mastodon #calckey

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bedlamsbard · 1 year

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ooo tea on your no-go tropes if ur comfortable sharing

oh sure they're nothing so weird or specific that it's going to call out one specific fic writer, since it's all stuff that I've seen multiple people write and/or talk and/or speculate about. (and some are holdovers from the comics; comics are hardly immune from me not liking things in them.)

Steve getting de-serumed. This one is a huge absolute no for me, and I'm not sure what about it makes me so uncomfortable, but it just does. It makes me so uncomfortable that I don't want to poke at it to figure out why. I know there was a lot of speculation about this circa CACW, around when the title was released but before there were any details of the movie known (when it was assumed it would be closer to the comics counterpart), and then it came again around IW and Endgame both, something about the idea of like..."both the audience and the in-universe characters need to know that Steve isn't Captain America just because he has the serum!" something about the "he needs to be physically depowered in order to Prove Himself" just rubs me absolutely the wrong way. (I think this is another factor in why the Captain Carter What If timeline bothers me so much, but like. there are multiple factors there. I think I talked once about how I have set points in canon and Steve getting the serum is one of them.) (there is one fic I like where the Avengers got deaged and Steve got shrunk back to pre-serum size, but not de-serumed, that one's fine.)

post-Ragnarok (usually IW/Endgame AUs) fics that have Loki on the Raft -- no-go, makes me super uncomfortable, don't want to read it -- I've read enough of it to know that I don't want to read more and it's just not my thing. fine if people like it, just not for me; not something I want to read, not something I'm ever going to write.

anything that characterizes Loki's adoption as baby-stealing (again, What If is not immune) -- I go on fairly regular rants about this, but I (somewhat unusually) have the background of someone who's done a not-insignificant amount of academic work on infant abandonment in the pre-modern world, so it's something I know a lot about on a legal/cultural level. I sometimes say only semi-facetiously that I got into this fandom because as someone who actually knows about this stuff I have a moral responsibility to write about it in a historically-accurate-inspired manner, except as we all know I have not actually posted the chapter that deals really extensively with it. But it makes me really frustrated that people don't seem to realize this was a historical reality and something that had a lot of laws associated with it, instead of being a freak occurrence that is Obviously Bad.

there are a lot of common tropes about Asgard that just make me insane. a brief survey: feudalism, primogeniture, sexism/misogyny -- like, the standard-issue high fantasy stuff that just gets transferred over without any critical thought. which, if that's what you want to write, fine, I hate it, but that's my problem, not yours, no one's forcing me to read it. people putting racism in Valhalla, hate that one, so much.

anything that uses comics!Natasha's backstory for MCU!Natasha. I realize that ten years ago this seemed a lot more reasonable (Natasha having a version of the super soldier serum, being extremely long-lived, etc.), but really from TWS onwards it should have been obvious that that was not the backstory that the MCU was using, and if you are still using that as a writer in 2022 I am judging you. like, I try not to judge people too much in terms of like. ignoring canon, but I literally can't read anything that still uses 2012 base assumptions. (this is hypocritical for me on several levels, though it's also one of the reasons I had to get out of Star Wars, but hey, brains aren't rational. it's one of the casualties of me coming back into the fandom late. it probably would not be a problem for me if I'd stuck around. I'd probably have the same problem I have in Star Wars.)

on a related note, one of my MCU NOTPs is BuckyNat and part of that is because so much of it depends on transferring comics!Natasha's backstory over to MCU!Natasha. they have only interacted twice in canon and both times they were trying to kill each other. every other time they have been in the same scene one or the other of them was interacting with Steve, not each other. like, the heart wants what it wants, shipping is shipping, but treating it as canon-established (which many, many people do in and out of fic fandom, I'm in non-fic fandom circles and people talk about it there as if it's something onscreen) is absurd to me and I'm just ????? to the extent that now I hate it. but no one is forcing me to read it, the heart wants the heart wants, I obviously ship something else so I'm not objective there -- it's just another no-go for me.

comics transference in general. this is going to sound weird, because obviously the MCU is an adaptation of the comic books, but at fourteen years in it should be obvious that you cannot uncritically transfer things over wholesale, especially when it comes to established characters, especially if it outright contradicts canon. I can't read comics!Clint characterization in MCU fic. that ship sailed in 2015 -- honestly, it sailed in 2012, but whatever; we have established that people saw a different movie in 2012 than the one that's on the screen. by the way, the actual MCU is not immune to this; it is at its absolute weakest when it just transfers things over from the comics and expects them to work. they don't. because the MCU ain't the comics. (the worst offender is the Loki ep "Journey Into Mystery" but it is not alone.)

just various characterization tendencies that I see in fandom -- characterization is actually the number one reason I don't usually read fic in my writing fandoms, because we all see characters differently and it's one of the very few things that will make me start doubting my own writing. or just making me angry. (I actually have a very short temper, I hate so many things, I just don't talk about them on main.) I know my characterization does not fly for a lot of people (though unlike in Star Wars, MCU readers don't tell me about it, but I know it has to be true because I've been in fandom for two decades), so again, it is what it is. I know how to click a back button.

there are so many ships I either outright hate or just dislike, but I tend to OTP pretty hardcore once I get there and no one is forcing me to read them. it just gets frustrating sometimes when the ships I dislike are the most common ships for the characters I also write and/or ship with other people. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but then I also can't really read fic for my own ships because uuuuuuuhhhhhhh the characterization is Wrong. not wrong, just Wrong for me personally. which is why I by and large don't read in my writing fandoms.

Steve Rogers is all hard edges. stop softening him. what the fuck.

#unfortunately (or fortunately if that's what you wanted) you set me off #these are all things I have seen multiple people do! this is not a callout of anyone specific!#I would not do that on main #I do that like the gods intended: in a private groupchat with close friends #hello I hate so many things!#which is why I write my own fanfic catered for my own tastes #except for the bits I cut out because I'm worried about getting harassed about them #maybe I'll put the stevenat back into yonder one of these days #siarrawrites #bedlam replies #bedlam watches the mcu

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myfandomrambles · 10 months

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Not to be an asshole but like just because David Tennant/Tenth Doctor had the best viewing numbers of NuWho doesn't actually mean he's sooo uber special better than the others.

Like every doctor before and after he actually matters. Some of those doctors are beloved by like a lot of people.

It somehow just feels icky to me to pick up with David Tennant and Davies and like what? Fuck 11, war, 12 and 13?

Chibnall was bad enough about kind of feeling like he was snubbing 11 & 12's eras.

Like obviously you had misogyny and racism problems under Moffat. And we must, must speak up about that and make sure the show does better. And no he didn't stick the landing every time, The Wedding of River Song sucks. But like there were a shit ton of people involved in those years who like fucking put their heart and soul into that.

Matt Smith & Peter Capaldi along with all the companion actors (plus Gomez) deserve some goddamn respect. I do have just some big emotional attachment to 11 & 12 yes. I also however do not think every story under them was bad. They had extremely good stories! Like season 10 might not be popular but fuck does it kick me in the feels.

But like it's not like all the Tennant hype only affects Moffat's writing if you happen to hate him. This does feel insulting to Ecelston as well. I know he hates the BBC so like I get he wouldn't come back to the main show (his audios rock btw).

This whole thing also feels sketch because you're sticking him in between your first female doctor and your first main doctor to be played by a person of colour. Like do you just not trust that Ncuti Gatwa will be good enough to make people watch? Do you not trust your own writers (even your own writing) to be compelling unless you bring David Tennant back and give him a whole other marketing number (and the numbers, while sort of ridiculous at this if you look through canon, do have meaning to the fans)? Not to mention a new costume (No I don't mean he has to wear the exact same clothes if they don't fit but you can sew a copy of the same design again) and a whole big announcement about him getting a new Sonic. The costumes and sonics are HUGE signs for fans. Like people collect the fucking sonics you have the old ones referenced in the show, it's a whole part of 12's identity crises with the shades and the new sonic after re-accepting the doctor after losing Clara. The TARDIS can make these for The Doctor or The Doctor makes their own. It's a whole thing!

Also, do they have to also fuck with Donna's ending? Really? I get some people do the whole "Donna deserved better" shtick but her ending is heartbreaking, well-written, well-acted and done just so well. Sad can be okay! I'm with Ashildir on this one, It was sad and beautiful. (Yes she's not referring to Donna but the principle stands)

Also like, The Doctor fucks people's lives up. Donna wasn't the first up Companions to have shit destroyed by The Doctor!

In the words of Martha Jones:

You need to be careful, because you know the Doctor's wonderful and he's brilliant, but he's like fire. Stand too close and people get burned (TV: Sonatarn Strategem)

Like Journeys End aired in 2008! Could we just let the story stand on it's merits?

I realise the culture of like the media in the 2010s & 2020s is just fuck with shit that should have been left alone. I mean I guess if we're doing a distribution w/ Disney we might as well follow their storytelling formula.

I mean remember the whole Time Lord victouris project? Like I'm obsessed w/ Doctor Who and have been into the EU for a long time I didn't even try and keep up with it. It was like the high republic franchise in Star Wars so hard to keep up w/ the story when you have to get so many disparate pieces of media. And again it's all Ten focused.

Honestly, I have always loved Ten. minus all this fuckery he is fantastic. And i will go to the bat i don't think he's a fuck boy. but I also like am perpetually gonna be annoyed at him.

Being a money maker does not actually define the quality of the story in every case.

#topic:#rant #critcism #fandom #type:#txt #fandom:#dw #other:#doctor who

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iriswestallenn · 1 year

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The final season of Ted Lasso wasn't good

Long Post Warning

In my opinion of course, it was just wasn't very good and the finale was bad.

They didn't know what to do with Keeley. Her friend, Shandy, didn't add anything. Her relationship with Jack was stupid. Jack fucking with Keeley's business didn't matter because it was resolved in one episode thanks to Rebecca. Then they decided to make the love triangle a thing again. We'll come back to that later.

Nate lmao you can forgive people. They don't need to bend the knee or buy you flowers for you to forgive them or to prove they are worthy of forgiveness. All they need to do is show they've changed, grown, and learned from their mistakes. The problem with Nate is not that they ALL forgave his slimy ass. The problem is we never see the change. He cries to his dad, he gets a gf, he realizes Rupert is an asshole. We spend no time with Nate being worthy of forgiveness to THE RICHMOND TEAM. He gets the girl and he's cured of his asshole-ness. The girl in question btw? Bland. No personality, we don't know why they like each other. The end.

Sam and Zava. Nonsense. Colin's storyline was cool. I like that he didn't want to be an out player because he didn't want to be the spokesperson for that or for that to be his main identity. A good amount of time was spent on that story and I liked it (see I can like things) but the same can't be said for Sam and Zava. They gave Sam a racism storyline which resulted in his restaurant getting vandalized and the end. No, wait, I'm sorry! Sam is gonna keep shattered glass in the restaurant as a reminder of the criminal act because... believe??? Never mind that could injure the guests, we're an inspirational show people we gotta keep inspiring! All Zava did was get Jamie to want to be better. That's it. So much of Zava should have been cut, oh my god.

Ted. Who? Barely in the final season. Apparently has had panic attacks since his father passed away and his mom knew and just ignored them? Episode 3 (I think) Ted reached for alcohol and we just skated past that. I have no idea how Ted is doing lmao if he's "obviously" doing well, I couldn't tell you how he got there. We got so many fucking shots of his therapist during the finale. More than we did the entirety of season 3. Oh well I guess hope he's happier back home

Maybe I'm being dramatic but Beard and his gfs relationship came off super toxic but they're married now so who cares I guess

Rebecca spent the whole show obsessed with Rupert and when we finally got away from that, surprise! She wants kids. Okay... sure. It's not easy to get over a man you loved who treated you like shit and who you felt robbed you of so many years. I'm not saying she should have gotten over it quicker. I just feel disappointed this was her whole story. There could have been so much more for Rebecca but instead all we got was her getting back at her ex and finding a new man on a boat and kids and blah blah blah

Roy and Jamie. My favorite part of the season. Jamie's arc was excellent and the actor did a fantastic job. Brett Goldstein is also great and has been at this acting/writing thing since 2005! I am so happy he finally got this huge show. Roy is such a cool fucking character. Too bad they went to shit in ONE EPISODE. Okay, I'm being a bit dramatic, I'm glad Roy went to therapy in the end there but that bar scene irritated me. - Actually we fucked last month. - Well that video was sent to me! What the fuck??? Gross gross gross. They put Keeley back in the love triangle and then gave no real resolution? She chose herself? Okay. Can we get a scene of her realizing both these dudes need to work on themselves and she doesn't want either of them ever again or? No? We're just gonna shut the door? Oh okay.

Overall, I'm just disappointed. I know no one will read this but Ted Lasso was a comfort show for me at one point. It premiered in 2020 when we all needed something wholesome and funny. Shame it couldn't stick the landing for me.

#ted lasso tv #ted lasso season 3 #ted lasso #long post #ted lasso spoilers

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aizenat · 7 months

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linda sarsour is a huge antisemite and hamas is exploiting indigenous solidarity with US groups to make their cause more sympathetic to western lefties. nice mask off moment, we know yall hate jews :)

Come off anon with some sources if you really believe that, bitch ass coward. I’ve seen she’s anti Israel (which does not automatically make one an antisemite and implying it does is disgusting, imperialistic, and gleefully genocidal) and has worked with Jewish and Jewish American organizations that are also anti Zionist. So if you have receipts I obviously don’t have, present them.

Otherwise, I will not be engaging with gray faced idiots who when seeing someone they believe to be misinformed would rather say it’s a “mask off” moment than actually having a dialogue. How helpful do you think sending this is? You give me no information other than “you’re wrong” and what would come next? I would get on my knees and apologize? Run scared because someone is accusing me of being an antisemite because I’m pro Palestine? Well you and half the people in this country, bud, so get in line.

Or is it not about actually having a discussion but rather attacking some random person online with no real power or influence so you can feel good about what a useless, uneducated bitch you are? I’m sick and tired of having to be victim to the bullshit way ppl talk about issues online. If I truly said or posted something you think is a problem, my asks are open for that DISCUSSION. But what I absolutely will NOT tolerate is quick misalignments and snarky write offs and accusations to pretend I’m some horrible person without actually having a conversation with me about the issue. It’s cowardly behavior and I am done, ABSOLUTELY DONE, with this behavior by fake pretend online “activists.”

YOU are the reason we can’t have real conversations about policies and changes. YOU are the reason every issue just gets reduced to finger pointing and grandstanding instead of real action that could help people. YOU are the reason politicians both domestically and internationally don’t do SHIT to help their people and others because they know someone is going to hate them for anything they do and vilify them no matter what the cause and so they just don’t do shit all. It’s because of idiots and bad faith actors like YOU who reduce people to caricatures of evil Voldemort esque villains who must be taken down by…gray faced anon messages on tumblr that the rise of fascism and racism and antisemitism and hate worldwide is growing. YOU are part of the problem. Congratulations you played yourself.

When you’re ready to have a real and adult conversation about whatever the fuck I posted that got your way too small little kid undies in a bunch up your ass, and you’re ready to put some big kid panties on instead, I’ll be here with anons turned off.

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transmutationisms · 1 year

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no but it truly is amazing how many people assume that being queer immediately precludes one from potentially being racist and sexist. It's seems especially prevalent amongst queers that proudly refer to themselves as liberal because they think that that, coupled with the there marginalised status as a queer person, means that they simply cannot be even passively racist or sexist and when confronted about it, they simply wave around their queer card and refuse to examine themselves (or their favourite characters which, shockingly, are often queer (coded) white people just like them)

ok just to be clear that post was about fictional characters and the way people read gayness onscreen, and i try to be clear when i'm moving from talking media to talking actual politics bc i don't think real life operates on the same rules as fiction or textual analysis lol

but yes i do agree this is a huge problem in actual real life settings. white lgbt people are no less capable of racism than any other white people, and although i do think an actually liberatory leftist lgbt politics would by definition be anti-racist, that's not the same as assuming that simply identifying with an lgbt label automatically makes one a better person or a non-racist one.

obviously i would argue that liberalism is inherently racist lol in that it has always been formulated with a rhetorical sleight-of-hand that makes lofty liberatory promises to a select few whilst relying on others to toil away on behalf of those with social and political power. but white leftists too are fully capable of being racist and quite frequently are; professed political beliefs and lgbt identities don't negate that.

i do think there's a persistent belief that being marginalised makes a person more socially enlightened by default, which is part of what makes a lot of current 'identity politics' (for lack of a better phrase) so fucking rancid. at best this is an attempt to sympathise with other forms of marginalisation, using one's own as a starting point; at worst it's outright trying to dodge any feelings of guilt or responsibility to help others by reassuring yourself you, like, have already 'done the work' by virtue of existing and interpreting your life through an lgbt label. it sucks so bad lol

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dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram · 1 year

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Hi! You've mentioned a few times that Harry mocked the haka years ago. Do you have any links to that, or could you summarise what you're referring to? Thanks. Also, how and why do you think Wellington was clearly pivotal in 1D's lives?

I'll answer the second question first - and then go into the first. Basically whatever happened in that mediocre bar opposite a parking lot in the early morning of the 23rd of April - the video about it certainly had an impact on their careers - it was the first massive peak in interest about 'Larry' (check out google trends). Both public and fans being aware of the idea of Larry Stylinson had a huge impact on Harry and Louis' life.

One Direction visited New Zealand twice once in 2012 and once in 2013. Both times they only interacted with Māori culture on Pākehā (white New Zealanders terms). On both occasions they were asked both in interviews and in twitter questions to imitate Māori culture. They didn’t know the basics of Māori culture or language and they individually and collectively imitated Māori culture badly for Pākehā entertainment. This is racist, colonising behaviour, which reinforces Māori oppression.

During twitter questions they were often asked to do the Haka. They all attempted it in response to a twitter question in Auckland in 2012 (but not Wellington, because that was a magic perfect night). In Christchurch in 2013, they did it during twitter questions, but not in response to a twitter question - it appears to be because they wanted to. (Harry says that he wants to learn the Haka - but not enough to actually do the learning before performing publicly - and Niall is so enthusiastic that he does it by himself first before the whole arena does it with them). And in their show Auckland they again did it in response to a twitter question. (Niall also did it on a radio interview in response to a question, but that video is no longer on line).

This is a mocking way of engaging in Māori culture and the more you watch the specific examples the more you see how bad it is - they make up gibberish words, as soon as they get past the two lines they remember from TV. They treated Māori culture as something to make fun of - and chose only to engage with Māori culture on Pākehā terms.

For those who struggle to understand why this was mocking - helpfully Ant and Dec put together that demonstrates it quite nicely. In 2013, 1D were interviewed for a pretend New Zealand television show for Ant and Dec's prank show and were asked to pronounce Māori words (something that also happened in New Zealand interviews, although I can't find any of them online any more). It neatly illustrates the underlying racist dynamic.

Now one point to make about all this is that this is a Pākehā New Zealand problem at its root. And obviously I could talk about the ways that Pākehā New Zealanders engage with Māori culture quite a bit. But you don't have to participate in every bit or racism that other people ask you too.

And to sort of set-up what I want to say about Harry - what's really noticeably different this time is that alongside the political action of waving a Tino Rangatiratanga flag - Harry engaged with Māori culture on Māori terms. And that treating Māori culture not as a play thing for Pākehā, but belonging to people who he can meet and talk with - was an important precursor to taking political action.

#I have thought a lot #about the fact that this racism is never ever talked about in the fandom #even though some of the videos are reasonably well known

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sarahreadstoomanycomics · 2 years

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I have a theory on why WFA comic is so well written and has so much care put behind it and canonical mainline comics are… like that.

Basically I think mainline comics are full of cutthroat, nepotistic, misogynistic white manbabies who have been there since the 70s and refuse to leave. They only hire their enabler friends who, it turns out, are also incredibly shitty, misogynistic people/writers and who either kiss their ass or share their opinions on things upfront. Since people’s position in mainline comic writing is pretty much guaranteed due to the whole my-best-friend-hired-me sort of thing, they don’t feel the need to reread things or do even the most bare minimum research and instead just write fan fiction of whatever they want the characters to do/be. So TLDR mainline comics is just full of a bunch of inflated egos and narcissistic writers.

HOWEVER I think the reason WFA has escaped this curse is because the most toxic of DC personalities simply didn’t think it mattered that much and so it escaped their radar/endless editorial meddling or what have you.

Idk this was just some random thoughts I had lol. Sorry to bother!

Funnily enough the two people in charge of DC right now are not white men. Jim Lee is a Korean American and Marie Javins is obviously a woman. Dan Didio the previous co-editor in chief, someone I made more than one negative post about was and destroyed so many things during his tenure in charge. Barbara Gordon definitely being a character ruined by his decisions. Making her Batgirl again in new 52 was a terrible decision not just for her but for other characters around her. Since he not only completely and utterly disrespected her disability by making her Batgirl again, he erased the two characters who should be Batgirl from existence to because he had extreme hatred for them for some reason.

Now the fact that he's gone and she's still being written like this is a huge problem. DC writers seem to have this weird nostalgia for the way things used to be that they can't let go of. They also make her act and seem like way younger than she should be. Same with a lot of their female characters. But yes Tom Taylor should be blamed for her state currently too since he's writing Nightwing and ignores all fan complaints, and blames it all on DickKory shippers of all things. Still can't believe he blamed fans complaining about racism, and ableism on "angry Dickkory fans who were targeting him"

I think DC as a company needs to get their priorities straight. It's like they start to push Barbara to the front of Batgirls since the book isn't selling. When the book sold well at first and then fell down in sales once people saw how bad Stephanie and Cass were being written. Pushing an ableist verion of Barbara to the front instead of listening to fans and trying to write the characters properly to boost sales is just like a lot of the shit they've been doing lately. Especially since Barbara can very easily co-exist with the two of them and not be a detriment to their character, all of post crisis era comics showed us this. Yet DC keeps writing her in a way that's disrespectful not to just her but to Stephanie and Cassandra as well.

Also did you know DC doesn't have character bibles right now? And that the archivist never had any previous library experience before being put in charge of this. I think that's a huge part of why characters are being written so horribly OOC right now. I also know people usually hate executive meddling but I think the Editors need to do their jobs properly. They need to be more of top of writers, and fix mistakes in the comics. It's just every recent interview I hear it's pretty much, yeah they said I could do what I wanted essentially. Which no sometimes writers should very much not be able to do what they want.

Also yes DC definitely needs to hire more female writers. The comic industry is dominated by male writers and it so clearly shows. I can think of maybe 5 ongoing series that have a female writer right now. But with the Webtoon it actually has nothing to do with who DC as a company hires. Since the Webtoon is a licensed property, and the company hired their own creators to work on it. Think of like the equivalent of some shoe company licensing Batman and making Batman slippers, who can then make the slippers look how they want and will use their own facilities to do so, not like DC movies which are all connected through the same parent companies. Which is entirely my point in the first place people who don't even work for DC are doing a better job with her currently than the people who actually do.

#long post

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olderthannetfic · 1 year

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Me, an aroace person: You know Miraculous Ladybug, which has used the actual words "ace" and "aro" about characters, has been accused of queerbaiting?

I admit that that confirmation about Max and Alix was on the showrunner's Twitter, and that Western children's animation is much more prone to cancellation at too big an onscreen hint that there's queer characters than a Netflix show being adapted from the book by one of the same people who wrote the book. You might have a fraction of a point about using the actual words onscreen here.

But you understand why I am not convinced that you'll think anything is aro and/or ace rep unless it's set in the present-day English-speaking featuring characters who would freely use those specific words about themselves.

And you understand that, while I would indeed like more media that meets that very narrow description, I would also like much more media with ace and/or aro rep where the characters wouldn't use those words about themselves. Either because outing themself is dangerous, or because they don't speak English so they don't have those words, or, you know, they're six thousand years older than those words are, and they have been a bit busy preventing the apocalypse to update their self-description.

I just want people to understand the sheer degree to which "They're like an old married couple!" and "It's a love story!" is said about absolutely every piece of buddy media ever, including by queerphobes who adore this media and have no problem with the type of love they see depicted.

GO does nothing outside of the buddy cop show mold, and that includes the heart eyes (which I agree are intense).

This is literally the same level as Starsky & Hutch in the 1970s.

That's why I'm skeptical about it as significant representation in a broader sense. (Obviously, it feels personally meaningful to lots of individual people.)

When I talk about "representation", I'm talking about something that is blatantly, objectively, and intentionally in the canon, not something that can be read in if fans choose to—Not even something the creators maybe sort of meant as one possible set of subtext among various.

It's the difference between having a black lead and making a show about an alien played by a white actor whose problems with oppression can be read as a metaphor for racism.

GO isn't a case of a character in a historical drama describing their attraction in historical terms or not having language to describe it but canon's writer(s) clearly knowing what kind of attraction the character experiences: this is a story about non-human characters that side-steps the whole question of sexuality for them and presents itself in a very standard buddy story way that a huge swath of the audience will likely read as cishet by default even as they pay lip service to angels and demons technically not having gender, sex drives, etc.

This type of love story is everywhere. It's every epic friendship stretching back through most media traditions into the time before the invention(s) of writing.

If one sees oneself in a piece of media nobody actually can invalidate that. It's a feeling. It's personal.

But I wouldn't give GO's creators any particular credit.

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