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hussyknee · 1 year

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do u really not see the difference btwn writing fanfic on the internet and buying a game whose storyline is actively being written by white supremacists and having the money go directly into the pocket of the most vocal & influential terf in the UK? that's not even touching all of the other racist and offensive bs in her series inc her antisemitism, appropriating first nations cultures, her asian racism, etc? i guess thats why you dont have 'antisemitics dni' on your blog

First, let me be clear – I do not give one single shit about Harry Potter. They are the best memories of my extremely shitty adolescence, I still read fanfic from time to time, but other than that, if I never hear the word "Harry Potter" again it will be too soon. I care about the fact that you clowns are

encouraging bullies and endangering mentally ill marginalized fans

leeching the air from leftist and queer discourse

fuelling a Western culture war that distracts from combating systemic transphobia

making suffering Black and brown communities, who mostly see white and Western trans people, think that trans people don't have any real problems beyond video games

Now, on to your ask:

I said never said not buying the game was the same as writing fanfic on the internet. I said that the furor over buying the game is leading to everyone who had anything to do with Harry Potter, including just writing fanfic, being bullied. I've had to unfollow so many people for reblogging posts attacking people for being in the *fandom*.

Asking people to refrain from doing something to prove that they care, especially demanding that they don't, has never in the history of activism worked. Black people have been speaking out against copaganda shows forever and STILL get harrassed. Indigenous people have been asking people to boycott Avatar and gotten nothing. Some people comply, but more do the thing simply out of contrarianism, and the entire issue becomes a culture war divided along political affiliation. People on the right go out of their way to do the thing, the people on the center and center-left won't really care, and people who identify as leftist divorce themselves even more from the rest of the left as being no better than the right, which eventually devastating results when it comes to actual elections and agitating for political change.

What works a lot better is harm reduction. Pirating is harm reduction, asking the HP fandom to offset JKR's fuckery by making their own merch, promoting indie games and donating to trans healthcare funds is harm reduction. People won't stand for being policed, but they like giving and also not paying for stuff with a clear conscience. You would have raised so much fucking money and promoted so many different things in all this time you've spent giving the game negative engagement clicks and keeping it trending on social media so long after its release.

You keep insisting that people shouldn't be fans because JKR equals her fandom with her own influence. This is called buying into the right-wing narrative. The woman is delusional (I can't think of a non-ableist word atm, and I honestly think that she's not all stable) and you're enabling her and her terf cult. We created the online HP fandom ourselves back in the aughts, before there was any merch, before movie rights were ever sold to WB, a full decade before her advertising machine ever woke up to the fact that an internet fandom existed. JKR has lost relevance for HP fans a long time ago; imagine the slap in the face for her if the fandom starts countering her bigotry by very prominently engaging in trans activism? The JKR terf cult in the HP fandom are a minority, like TERFs themselves (they're only so loud because the right-wing promotes the shit out of them). The vast majority of fans are just the kind of vaguely well-meaning cis people who don't agree with transphobes but are pretty ignorant about trans issues. And I do mean the vast majority, because literally a billion people grew up on her books and only a bare fraction is on social media at all, and even fewer even see the leftist drive to boycott the franchise.

Let's talk demographics. Because of the aforementioned vastness of consumers, the majority of HP fans are cis het, abled, neurotypical Millennials. Because of the way internet penetration works, the majority of HP fans online and even in fandom are white or Western. Leftist spaces mostly attract young and marginalized people, and transformative fandom is full of neurodivergent women and queer people. Which means the majority of people you're reaching are young queer neurodivergent people who have limited economic power themselves. And the people most vulnerable to and impacted by policing and harrassment are trans, Black and brown, Jewish, mentally ill, poor. Do you see the problem? You're policing the very bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder on the off-chance of maybe influencing a privileged few who might give a damn.

This is literally why we say that boycotts, especially over social media, don't fucking work. Firstly because they penalize the most disenfranchised consumers, it's hard to reach enough people to even explain why they matter, it's hard to keep up with the constant discourse and changing information, and it relies entirely on performance. Someone can stay quiet or nod along furiously to whatever you're saying and then just...go out and buy the thing. Social censure doesn't work when you have the option of not having to face the consequences. Contrary to hellsite opinion, the Fantastic Beasts franchise died because it sucked, and Harry Potter is dying because it's fading from relevance and JKR is being an embarrassment. The wider market doesn't even know y'all exist.

As for the game being racist and antisemitic...you come on my blog, a South Asian who has been in fandom for twenty years, and try to tell me about racism in media???? NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF ALL MEDIA IS RACIST AND ANTISEMITIC YOU ABSOLUTE CLOWN. I'm from South Asia, our children grow up on books written by colonizers! LORD OF THE RINGS is white supremacy! NARNIA is white supremacy! Disney and Marvel is one of the biggest figures in US military industrial complex that razed the Middle East to the ground. It's so ubiquitous that we have to accept the racism and white supremacy as a matter of course to engage with any Western media! And even then fandom is so racist it's hard to even exist in it! We get run out of it when we try to talk about it. You suck on white supremacy every single day you live like it's your Mum's teat! Do you know what it's like to hear whiteys ranting that people who consume this one game they hate are being antisemitic and racist??? While still fawning??? Over cop shows???? And Disney???? And sending Black people??? Death threats??? Over a game???

I don't say "anti-Semites DNI" for the same reason I don't say "racists DNI". Nobody identifies as a racist or antisemite, that's not how systemic oppression works. Radfem and Zionist and Communist are political identities. Radical feminism is underpinned by transphobia and racism, Zionism is currently entrenched in Palestine occupation, Western communists refuse to acknowledge USSR and Global South genocides. See how that works?

Bitch, you didn't just come at me about JKR's indigenous cultural appropriation when I was among the few who were trying to discourage people from supporting Fantastic Beasts back in 2016 and literally got flamed for it. You people did not give a single shit about Natives back then, and you don't give one now. Just like you don't actually care about Jews and never did. I literally never heard about why and how openly alt-right people keep getting this kind of power and position in the gaming industry. Conversations about antisemitism in gaming and antisemitic tropes in entertainment haven't gotten this much traction. No wider revelations about how entertainment media directly funding and promoting social harms. But sure, it's about antisemitism and racism and has absolutely nothing to do with a mess of white queers realizing they can weaponize it like a cudgel against anyone they believe are against them. We know you whites. You care about excuses to take the moral high ground without having to do any self-interrogation or cost to yourself.

Finally, to give y'all one example of where the current discourse around this stupid shit is at:

Fuck you.

#harry potter #fuck jkr #transphobia #antisemitism #racism #fantastic beasts #western leftists #white privilege #white people #imperialism #knee of huss

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alexissara · 1 year

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Private Consumption

When we talk about media we don't want to support, often it is said to just go pirate it, buy it second hand, borrow it, buy then return it, to engage it. It removes the money from companies and maybe makes them a little mad, plus we still get to engage media we were excited about. It feels like it's a total win, to not give money to something and get to enjoy it despite it's whatever the reason you wanted to boycott it. However, I want to talk about some of the ways us consuming something for free still can end up supporting these pieces of art we don't want to end up supporting.

This feels particular important in the wake of bird apps every day cis person says they should be valorized for wanting to buy the game and loved by trans and Jewish people. Instead of engaging that discourse [quickly, you are a bad person if you play it, I'll block you].

Sharing

The first way simply playing a game supports it is sharing. When you share content you create a sense of community between other players which increases the likelihood of the art becoming more important to you and these people. This is only furthered by the fact that it is free marketing for these companies. Every time you post something, someone with no context into why you may be against something might see the screen shot, the panel, the little thing on your discord that says what your playing, the clip, the game, and think "Ohhh this looks cool and this person looks cool and seems to be enjoying".

Even reviewing something critically at least says "this is something worthy of conversation." So many pieces of art come out with basically no review, no press, nothing. Instead the art is treated as worthy of discussion, worthy of engagement. Even a "I have to see how bad this game is myself" can push people to enage art.

Fandom

In this modern era, companies are in the business of IP, they are in the business of attention. A bunch of people buying something second hand, pirating it might mean it's a perfect time to make a show, make a webseries, a podcast, etc. It says "This IP is still relevant". The success of art is not based purely on the money but fanfictions created, merch sold, advertisers they could sell to and sponsors. It's you attention, your fan art, you and I's passion that they want. They want us to see a little scarf of the IP and go "It's like when i was a kid or like my friends have" or whatever the fuck and spend money. The most valuable thing for them is the brand staying alive. They can tank a loss on a movie or a game or a comic. They can tank a few of them. So long as they think there is juice in the thing they are making the funko pop deals, the posters, the stuff won't stop.

Toxic

There is value in shared hate of something vile. Making something toxic for people, brands, etc to engage with means it will hurt the above fandom stuff. If you make it when anyone engages the IP they have to turn off comments or whatever then you lessened the desirability of the IP. Subway isn't going to do a deal with the IP if they know they'll get way more hate mail and people boycotting over it. Successfully making something seen as not worth the effort crashes the IP's ability to make money and market.

Time

I saved the most important part for last and that is that your time, yes your time, is the most important thing you have. You get 24 hours a day, of those hours you likely only get so precious few that aren't split between food, work, taking care of your body, and sleep. There is no way to regain time, every second you spend is spent forever.

This matter a lot in this context because the time you spend engaging in art could be spent on other art. If you are boycotting something for being antisemitic then you can go engage art from Jewish people instead. This can go for whatever reason your boycotting, like if you don't like the DLC practice of a video game, you could play an indie game that doesn't have that practice.

It's is/almost is 2023 now and the reality is every day there is so many movies, so many games, so many comics, so many mangas, so many tv shows and more all coming out every single day. It is simply impossible to engage a fraction of a fraction of new "content" coming out. With our global connection we have access to art from every piece of the world with works getting translated to every language, with the collective power of the human artistic drive we have a overwhelming amount of entrainment on our hands.

Why then spend it playing, reading, watching, something you hate? Something that offends your senses, hurts others, funds something terrible, why spend that time doing it? Your time matters, you matter, why not expand your horizons, dive into the deep sea of artistic possibility and find glorious new art that matters to you and speaks to you.

#Art #Indie Art #Boycotts #Media Consumption

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kenobihater · 1 year

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Hello! Sorry if this isn't a topic you want to speak on (so feel free to ignore this) but I have two questions regarding different arguments I've seen about the Hogwarts Legacy bullshit, as there were mixed views from both trans and Jewish people when I went on a blocking spree earlier:

1. I saw a couple of the fans that paid actual money for the game defend their choice with "but Im trans" or "but Im Jewish" or both. Thoughts on that?

2. There have been claims that pirating the game is alright as long as you don't talk about it online, whereas others posed that engaging with the game through piracy is in itself harmful - maybe not to the wider society as a whole, but to Jewish, trans, and other marginalized individuals in that persons life. What is your stance on the matter?

I have some ideas about these myself but seeing as I am neither trans nor Jewish I think it'd be best to ask first and only follow up with a dialogue if that is wanted of me. I know that outsiders can sometimes have more nuanced/better positions than insiders (like with the whole truscum and transmedicalism rot going on about in some trans circles) but. Yeah. Asking predominantly out of curiosity but also because you tend to be aggressively clear and honest about the shit going on with HP and I like that.

I'm fine with answering this, though I will add that I'm not Jewish and so I'm not qualified to speak in depth on the antisemitism present within the game other than to acknowledge that it is very blatant and wrong.

From the perspective of a trans person, I think that even trans people can hold harmful and transphobic stances when it comes to this game bc they're letting their nostalgia blind them. Being a minority does not inherently free you from being wrong and bigoted, even against a group you yourself are part of. Sidenote - considering how this game actually has a trans person in it and to my admittedly limited knowledge it doesn't engage in transphobic rhetoric or tropes like it does with the antisemitism, I'd find it VERY sketch if a trans gentile claimed they could play the game bc they were trans. Like, hello! The antisemitism isn't negated by your transness!!

Onto your second question: I've thought about this myself and I think I've finally decided on my stance, though it's quite rambly. Imho if someone is absolutely 100% going to play the game, I'd prefer that they pirate it, do so behind closed doors, and not speak of it bc there's no such thing as bad publicity. But like... they're knowingly engaging with a game that is steeped in antisemitism and monetarily benefits a transphobe. The simple decision to play that game, even if it doesn't impact their worldview in any way, even if they aren't lining joann's pockets, even if they give it no publicity... they're still making a decision to put their own pleasure and enjoyment over the pleas of Jewish and trans people. That's selfish in my book. Like, if someone hasn't dropped HP I doubt anything I can say will change that, but I just find it sad and exhausting that people will call themselves allies and then refuse to do anything that could possibly challenge or inconvenience them. They post infographs about the rise of antisemitic hatecrimes and reblog "fuck terfs!", but will they actually show up to rallies? Call their legislators to complain about bigoted legislature? Educate themselves? Make room for Jewish and trans voices and be silent when necessary? Consistantly reflect on their own biases and bigoted behaviors and grow as a person? Something tells me that if they can't even refrain from playing a blatantly antisemitic wizard game just bc it reminds them of a book written by a terf they read when they were 12, that that's not very likely.

#thank you for asking my opinion! i kind of needed to rant abt this to someone other than my mom lol #len answers #idiots get blocked! so don't even bother rbing this if you wanna add bigoted shit!#transphobia tw #antisemitism tw

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thestingerblog · 5 months

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Does OFMD Need a Season Three?

Read on Our Site!

A year and a half after Our Flag Means Death’s cliffhanger ending left fans yearning for more, Season 2 has finally arrived. While it was highly anticipated, its reception wasn’t met with as much praise and attention as its debut season – this could partially be blamed on the then-ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike that prevented the cast from promoting the show, but there’s another explanation for the lack of cultural impact: the season just wasn’t very good. We at The Stinger are massive fans of the first season of OFMD, and we do think that the show has helped push boundaries of diversity and representation in television, but that doesn’t mean we can’t see the glaring flaws scattered throughout this show’s second season. Furthermore, our opinions on individual personnel involved in the show don’t inform our opinions on the show expressed in this article.

One thing the show so great in its first season but has since abandoned for its second, is good and consistent pacing. The second season’s stories move at hyperspeed, leaving audiences little time to take any of it in before jumping to the next one. This is made even worse by the aforementioned rollout schedule. Two episodes that move at breakneck speeds every week is just not a sustainable way to maintain an engaged audience. To make things even worse, the characterizations of everyone on this show also fall victim to the atrocious pacing; no one had any actual room to grow and develop further, leaving the crew less like an ensemble of characters and more like cardboard cutouts of the characters that they used to be, often giving these ensemble characters lines that could easily be interchangeable between all of them.

In addition to the pacing, the individual character development was confusing and inconsistent. For example, what the hell was going on with Oluwande and Jim? Jim’s new love interest, Archie, is underdeveloped and barely introduced, and the dynamic between these two characters that drew audiences in during the first season just somehow disappeared. To make matters worse, fan favorites such as Roach and Frenchie are nowhere as fleshed out as they were in the first season. For a show that claims to be ensemble-led, it sure seems like most of the crew members are mere cardboard cutouts of themselves – they feel like stand-ins for the characters that viewers had come to know and love in the first season, and not much development occurs with them. Sure, Frenchie becomes Ed’s second in command, but even that wasn’t treated with much fanfare. The only character that seems to get a full character development throughout the season is, surprisingly, Izzy, and even he dies in the end. So much of the experience of watching television is watching beloved characters adapt to situations and grow from them, and it was so frustrating not to have any of that this season.

Here’s the point in the piece where everyone’s going to boo and throw tomatoes: we don’t think there needs to be a season 3. Season 2 left off on a pretty solid note, with all the storylines wrapped up, and getting the pirate crew back together for nostalgia and another season would feel superficial. Famously, shows that involve the central crew breaking apart and then deciding to make more seasons and thus scrambling to reconnect all these characters never perform well. Think about the last season of Parks and Recreation or season 3 of Mythic Quest.

Also, we would be amiss if we didn’t address the Izzy Hands situation. Personally, we’re not the biggest fans of Izzy Hands as we see the centering of his storyline in attempts to appease fans as a pandering to white favoritism in a show that supposedly centers around queer and trans characters of color. His death in season 2 marks an important end to a storyline in the show, one that includes a resolution for Ed’s conflicts with his identity, and considering how intense fans can be about Izzy Hands, making a season 3 without him would piss a certain demographic of fans off. However, even if Izzy returns in flashbacks or visions or whatnot, it’d mostly be nostalgia-bait and feel inauthentic.

All this is to say that if there will be season 3, David Jenkins better knock it out of the park after fumbling season 2 to the point of us writing this article about a show we used to like.

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2

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symphonicspecter · 1 year

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idk if anyone ever looked at my tags list but I realized I haven’t update in a while. So I went to add some fandoms and realized…

ICK. HP was still on there from back before I knew how shit the creator is. I have removed that from my tag list.

I want to make it clear that I do NOT support HP or JKR. And no, I’m not even pirating. I am entirely done with them and very, very opposed. I will be doing a quick sweep to check for any old posts reblogged and delete them. I doubt anyone would look that far back but still, I want no traces.

I want all my followers to know that while some years ago I was a slight fan, I have since learned more about JKR and the antisemitism in the franchise and have entirely stopped engaging with it.

If you’re following me or thinking about following me and you still support or engage with HP, get out of here. You’re not welcome. If you don’t know why HP/JKR is such an issue, please do some research. I don’t know that I can articulate as well as many others already have, so please look for how other people explain the harm done by this franchise. In short, HP pushes blatant antisemitism and JKR is very anti trans and a TERF. And please, listen to and lift the voices of Jewish and trans folks who speak on the matter.

I believe that those of you unaware can learn why this is a problem. Not knowing is okay, but it’s not alright to ignore and choose not to educate yourself. If you understand the hatred expressed by JKR and still want to support her or her work, fuck you, don’t even look my way.

I want to be clear that any other franchise or person I show enjoyment of on this blog that is actually hateful and discriminatory, I do not know is that way. Please educate me. I don’t want to support or advocate harmful ideas.

#evps

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shego1142 · 2 years

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Hmmm…. Can I make a post that’s probably going to upset people?

I’m not fakeclaiming (because I hate that so much)

But there are a lot of people who are using their autism diagnosis to bring down the autistic community and silence the voices of other autistic people

And you’d think we’d be fucking past that in the year 2022

But I keep seeing a lot of people saying things along the lines of

“If you like xyz then you’re a bad person! Even if you’re autistic and it’s your special interest! I’m autistic and when I have a problematic special interest I simply stop having that interest! UwU”

And then completely ignoring all the countless autistic people who explain that it doesn’t work that way for them.

I have “problematic” special interests that will not go away. They won’t stop, sometimes even if I am being harmed by them or by certain controversies surrounding them.

To stop having that special interest would stop me from being myself. Without my special interest and my ability to talk about and engage with said special interest, I am in both emotional and physical pain that drains me of my energy and general wellbeing.

Autism is a spectrum in that different aspects of it affect different people differently and whatever aspect special interests are, it affects me greatly.

And the same goes for thousands of other autistic peeps.

For many many people, that means we can not “get rid of” a special interest. It’s there. Sometimes for a little while, sometimes for life.

That’s why I am so so so over “cringe culture.”

That’s why I’m unfollowing people who say “if you still like Harry Potter then you’re a bad person” or “read a better book”

There is not an interest an autistic person could have that would actually cause serious harm to others.

Interests are not actions you take. Interests are neutral, they can’t be inherently good or bad.

Autistic people who still like Harry Potter aren’t evil anti Semitic transphobic assholes, we’re fucking stuck with JKRoldemort breathing down our backs like some menacing monster.

We’re just as fucking pissed off, just as hurt, just as ostracised by her as everyone else (she’s super ableist too if everyone has just forgotten)

I’m trans. I have Jewish family members who also love HP like I do and many of them also have it as a special interest. I’m disabled both physically and neurodivergently.

I recognise that she is a shitty person and that her books aren’t always great. But it’s still a special interest of mine. I still love the fics and the fandom. I still love to watch the movies or reread my copies of the book.

And this isn’t just about HP, this is about literally any and every special interest ever.

Sure there are ways to reduce certain forms of harm that could potentially be done, you know, like pirating Disney shows, or not buying any officially licensed merch, etc.

All my books are bought from secondhand shops (in particularly one that supports my local library!) and when I have the $ to do so if I’m going to buy merch it will only ever be from individual small businesses ran by fans.

Like sure, watch where your money goes, yea that could be a good idea.

But honestly? Even that’s still exhausting and very fucking performative.

You’re not some holier than thou paragon of goodness just because you refused to read a book or a fic.

You’re not some amazing martyr because you’ve forced yourself to become smaller and are advocating for others to do the same.

Stop acting like you are.

And listen to people when we tell you we can’t do something or that it would cause us harm.

And if you’re sitting there, reading this and thinking “oh well my autism doesn’t affect me this way”

Then listen to me, because mine absolutely does affect me that way.

Either accept it and move on or block me and move on

but do not dare and try and tell me that I am not trying hard enough to be good enough to live up to the bullshit standards you’ve set for yourself.

I get that from neurotypical able body people enough as is and I am so sick of it.

I tried to make myself smaller, to tear myself down and hide my “upsetting” “problematic” “cringy” interests.

And I lost so much of myself in the process. I hurt myself because people on tumblr told me it was “what was right”

Fuck off.

I am not a bad person.

#actually autistic #harry potter #I may have watched turning red #and I may be deciding to embrace my red panda #embrace the cringe #bring back the cringe #I love it #yes this is about shipping #yes this is about Harry Potter #yes it’s about pewdiepie if you want it to be #it’s literally about any and every interest ever #if you have been told to minimise yourself or whatever you don’t have to do so #like yea okay if someone says hey your actions are harmful maybe analyse those actions and see if they actually are #that’s chill #that’s possible and easy to do #but like there is no ethical consumption under capitalism #it’s like all those don’t buy from chik fil a now that’s McDonald’s has a good chicken sandwich or you’re homophobic #like my brother in Christ you do know McDonald’s is also shitty right #stop tearing one another down #please focus on actions and intentions

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mortalkombat4 · 3 years

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you reblogged that post about dropping harry potter, so i was wondering: why is that different for you and voltron? i'm not trying to attack you

oh my god. alright

the writers/creators of vld suck fucking ass. lauren montgomery and joaquim dos santos could choke to death at this moment and i would laugh. HOWEVER, despite how shitty and stupid their decisions were during the show, there are a few reasons they are not the same as jk rowling.

number one, they made homophobic and racist decisions while creating their content. what they didn’t do is release a transphobic manifesto to their millions of fans. that’s like...vastly different

number two, voltron does not have even REMOTELY the same influence that harry potter does. at all. at ALL.

number three, LM and JDS are making no money off of me. i know that this was part of that post i reblogged, saying that even if you are pirating the content you’re still supporting it. the reasoning for that there, as far as i can tell, is that you are actively engaging in (and therefore encouraging the engagement of others who may or may not monetarily support) a series made by someone whose violently transphobic rhetoric is literally being cited in legislation that works to punish trans people. that’s not...the case, though, with voltron. even if my engagement with voltron inspires someone else to watch the show or god forbid, buy the toys they made, it doesn’t have the same destructive power of normalization that engaging with harry potter does.

number four, i am not participating in death of the author like the people that post is targeted at. every part of my engagement with voltron is based around criticism or fanon interpretation that clashes with canon. i am not making excuses for or just putting aside that LM and JDS did fucking horrible things.

that post was targeted specifically at harry potter for a reason: HP is WIDESPREAD throughout the entire WORLD. it has a massive influence, and by association, so does jkr. voltron doesn’t, and never will. they just are not on the same level in any reality

#i feel like i explained this shitty but i've not slept much in the past 2 days so i'm sorry i hope it makes sense #ren could probs explain better than me as per usual but anyways #juno.txt #Anonymous

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concerthopperblog · 3 years

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Concert Hopper Chris' Favorite Metal Albums of 2020

With most of 2020 lost to fans of live music, we have had to make do with new album releases to get our fix. To that end, Concert Hopper's three resident metalheads (Editor in Chief Xerxes Tzolis, Album Review Editor Chris Griffy, and Metal Prophet Richard Davenport) have each compiled their list of favorite releases, which will be released over the next few days. The lists show just how diverse the “metal” umbrella is, with each bringing a different sub-genre preference to their list. Chris’ list leans heavily into his love of progressive, power, and symphonic metal.

Ad Infinitum- Chapter I- Monarchy When we released our mid-year list of favorites, this album was #5, the last on my list. 6 months later it has been the album I've found myself returning to more than any other. This is as strong a debut as I've seen in years, led by the pure power of vocalist Melissa Bonny, who can hit symphonic high notes as well as Simone Simons and growl like Angela Gossow. I hope the “Chapter 1” in the album's title means there is a Chapter 2 coming in 2021, because I need more of what Ad Infinitum is serving up.

Demons & Wizards- III It's been a decade since Demons & Wizards released game-changing power metal album Touched by the Crimson King. Since then, the band's two founders, Hansi Kursch and Jon Schaffer, have focused on their primary bands, Blind Guardian and Iced Earth, but never completely forgot about Demons & Wizards. Lucky us. While not the generational album Crimson King was, their new release III will tick every box their fans want. There is a brutality on III beyond either of their other albums, with Schaffer finally going full-force on the guitar and Kursch matching him with the vocal power that's made him one of the best in the business.

Nightwish- Human:II:Nature For their second studio album with vocalist Floor Jansen (the best female vocalist in metal today and arguably ever), Nightwish continues the themes explored on 2015's Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Band leader and primary songwriter Tuomas Halopainen's exploration of the balance (or more accurately imbalance) between nature and technology, best exemplified in “Noise”, which highlights how the fake reality of social media taints our reality.

Conception- State of Deception Damn, is it nice to hear Roy Khan back in the metal saddle. After leaving Kamelot in 2011, he retired from music until 2017 when he reformed his pre-Kamelot band Conception, which released their first full-length album State of Deception this year. Any worries that a half decade of retirement might have dulled Khan's soaring vocals is banished from the first note.

Archon Angel- Fallen 2020 must be the year of the return because, unless you have been lucky enough to get the “East” version of Trans-Siberian Orchestra in your city, former Savatage and CircleIICircle vocalist Zak Stevens has been missing from the music world. That changed in 2020 when he formed Archon Angel with Secret Sphere guitarist Aldo Lonobile. Unfortunately, they picked a bad time to form a new band, playing exactly one concert (on the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise) before COVID-19 shut down touring. But if Fallen is any indication, when the concert world finally returns, Archon Angel is a band you should be willing to travel to see. Khemmis- Doomed Heavy Metal Colorado doom metal revivalists Khemmis are as fearless as a band gets, and that fearlessness is on display with their new EP Doomed Heavy Metal. A mix of covers and live cuts, Khemmis gives a Black Sabbath-esque makeover to a bluegrass standard (“A Conversation With Death”) and manages to make the usually bad idea of trying to cover metal god Ronnie James Dio work with a cover of “Rainbow in the Dark” that retains their style but shows a respect to the source material that was not present in the hipster “ironic” idiocy that was Killswitch Engage's “Holy Diver.”

Ensiferum- Thalassic One of the things I most love about folk metal is the ability to learn the lore and stories of other countries while I rock out to great music. Ensiferum brings me that ability on Thalassic with songs like “The Defence of the Sampo” while utilizing the addition of clean vocalist/keyboardist Pekka Montin to delve into a less silly than Alestorm but no less fun bit of pirate metal with songs like “Run From the Crushing Tide.” Even the goofiness of “Rum, Women, Victory” is mitigated by crushing riffs and thundering double bass drums.

Unleash the Archers- Abyss While they tend to be lumped into the “power metal” camp because of their lyrical content, at their heart Canada's Unleash the Archers are as pure an old school NWOBHM band in the vein of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden as has come along in decades. Driven by the insane vocal range of Brittany Slayes, Abyss continues the concept storyline begun on their last album Apex. It's a fun sci-fi/fantasy story for those who want to read up on it, but you can walk in with no knowledge of or interest in the story and just revel in the unabashed homage to true heavy metal that is Unleash the Archers.

Live Albums:

Dee Snider- For the Love of Metal Live If you only know Dee Snider from the cartoonish MTV video for Twisted Sister's “We're Not Gonna Take It”, you are missing out on one of the best kept secrets in metal. Twisted Sister (and all of Dee's subsequent bands and solo projects) approach thrash in their intensity. His influence can be seen on his 2018 release For the Love of Metal, which featured everyone from Jamey Jasta to Alissa White-Gluz. But Dee is best appreciated in a live environment, where his boundless energy is on full display. For the Love of Metal Live is taken from a Bloodstock performance and mixes new songs with Twisted Sister classics and even one song (“Ready to Fall”) from his tragically underrated post-Twisted Sister band with Savatage's Al Pitrelli, Widowmaker (the inclusion of which alone would make it my favorite live album of the year). Kamelot- I Am the Empire Live I mentioned earlier how nice it was to see Roy Khan back in the music world, but that doesn't mean his former band Kamelot is dead. Current vocalist Tommy Karevik has perfectly walked the “replacement vocalist” tightrope of respecting the original material while leaving his mark on the band's new albums. Proof is in the band's I Am the Empire Live, which may be the most perfectly produced live album I've ever heard. Every note is crystal clear and highlights not only the vocals of Karevik but also those of guests Charlotte Wessels (Delain), Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy), Lauren Hart (Once Human), and frequent Kamelot collaborator Elize Ryd (Amaranthe). Right now, Kamelot is as consistently great as any band on the power metal scene and I Am the Empire Live shows why.

#ad infinitum #kamelot #nightwish #dee snider #khemmis #best of 2020 #concerthopper #heavy metal #metal #music

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trashbinbackyard · 4 years

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any armed asshats one and docs

I’m going with helvi and kai bc i cant stop myself now this train is on one way track

What was their first impression of each other?

Kai was Helvi’s friend’s cute older brother. Kai knew Helvi was good friends with Kat but he had his own friends so he didnt pay that much attention to her when they were younger

Enrique knew Juno was feisty and very smart and professional. Juno probably had some doubts about him herself because he never really hid his past

What is their ship name?

Oh no my sister/friend disappeared and doesn’t want to be found, what do

Docs

Describe their relationship dynamic.

Kai is a very talented hunter, Helvi is a shaman, she always blesses his hunts and safe return. They also still lowkey look for Kat even though they know if she wanted to be found she’d show herself

Two highly intelligent people toss their brains out every now and then to be snarky and loving to each other

What was their relationship like before they got together?

Kai is few years older than Helvi, Helvi being few years older than Kat. They got along when they were kids and even in their teens weren’t that interested in the other. When Kat took off, Kai hasn’t seen her since, Helvi did see her when she brought Sacran to be healed but then disappeared again. Now they’re very worried about Kat Together

Professional, they were coworkers and Enrique knew Juno was engaged and he respected that

How would they describe each other?

Helvi is sweet and free-spirited, cares a ton, great singing voice too. Kai is strong and reliable, quiet but very empathetic, leader type, if things get dicey

Juno is simply amazing. She’s smart, temperamental, sassy, determined, beautiful, he could go on and on. To her he’d be respectful, rowdy but in the good way, not too much trouble, attentive, intelligent, fun, not a bad looker either

What do they love about each other?

man sometimes these questions, do i just interpret these wrong lol. For both of them what i just said ^

What do they have in common?

They’re both from the same village, are well known and loved and respected by its people. Both are very close to nature, both love taking care of people in their own ways

Both are smart and reliable, they have similar sense of humor and both can get pretty sassy, they like taking care of themselves and having fun when work allows them to

What are some differences between them?

Helvi is very nurturing and people person, Kai is more aloof

Juno is very serious at work, Enrique sometimes takes the piss on his patients but all in good humor. Also he used to be sketchy and Juno is prim and proper doctor

What made them realize they were in love?

When they first started looking for Kat, they didnt say it but they both felt it “I dont want to loose you too”

When Juno had her engagement annulled and Enrique was shoulder to cry on, they’ve been good buddies for a while and they worked together so well

What are their love languages?

Acts, Helvi makes sure Kai is extra blessed before venturing out to the forest. Kai brings her bones and trinkets she might need, he also cuts her the best pieces of meat from his catch

Touch and words pretty equally, they’re kind of horndogs both of them, but cuddling and just standing right next to each other is sooo good. Words but not your usual petname shit, in that house they make open mockery of both of them in very endearing way

Do they get married? Who proposes and how?

In the future, maybe, Kai probably because his dad wanted him to, he really needed that nudge (Kory the dad, the chief the wingman)

They do get married, but i can’t remember if who proposes has been established (i searched thru out blogs and cant find anything), I’d wage Juno because Enrique knew she had been engaged before and it went Bad, so he wouldn’t want to push it

What would happen if they never met?

Helvi would still be a shaman, in a nother village if she wasn’t born in the same one as Kai, she would probably find herself a cute gf or bf to love. Kai would still be a hunter, though his love life would a be drifting tumbleweed

Juno would still be a doctor, just going through her breakup less elegantly. Enrique would still stop being a pirate and find a clinic to take him in, if not that one in the citadel then maybe on outer rim

Are there any love rivals?

Kai honestly was that typical “cool older guy with tons of potential love interests” trope type but he had his friends and the rest of the orbiters he was too shy to get to know, Helvi was safe enough. I bet there are still some lads and lasses who’ve had their eyes on Kai

Well at first Ross, but Enrique knew his place and he didn’t really Try to get Juno, it happened organically i swear

Describe your favorite moment of that ship!

Too new to have Moments yet

Anything to do with Bob tbh, their angel and demon halloween part where they end up switching costumes by the end of the night was fun too lmao

What do other characters think about this relationship?

They think they’re sweet together. Also Kory wants to retire as a chief and maybe Kai getting a wife would give him a confidence boost to take up the keys

Most of the time the clinic approves, no one was a big fan of Ross. But sometimes,,, oh dear, not again in the supply closet

Describe or write a really angsty scene!

When Kai finds out Helvi has seen Kat since she disappeared. He’s upset she didn’t follow her or talk to her more but Helvi tries to convince Kai that she is doing ok

Enrique confesses he did consider suicide way back when his old crew died and his illness began to act up more

Talk about a headcanon you’ve never talked about before.

Literally anything at this point lool. Helvi is trans, that’s right, siblings Kat and Kai said trans rights

Enrique probably has given a pocket knife for Juno for good safety measure, also showed how to use it, just in case, you are small and divine, please be safe

What does a typical date look like for them?

Going out to the forest, Kai helps Helvi collect herbs, sit down and eat some berries and talk about animals and plants

Out for couple drinks, dancing, having fun, dinner, long walk

What’s a really significant moment in their relationship?

Eventually when they (maybe) get married

Them getting together after crushing on each other for a while

#the priests in ivira's temple provide 'fuck this gender i want to be something else' potions #cant you tell i cant fucking stop myself #not that much story for kai and helvi like the pirate trio but im getting somewhere #and listening to heilung #armed asshats #space shitstorm #the docs are fun and rowdy but also reliable and professional #juno has timer but enrique has a metronome

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larstenobar · 4 years

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Okay so I mentioned it in the tags but I kinda wanna talk about my experiences with So/uth Pa/rk. I say this as a cis, gay, non-Jewish man. I also say this as someone who used to actually engage with the forums on the main site. I also say this as someone who played. both the two major video game RPGs. So I am speaking not from reaction to other people’s reactions but from my own personal knowledge. This post is incredibly long so it’s under a read more. In it I provide what I believe are the actual effects of South Park on its viewership but I need to stress that I think it’s the wrong energy to blame parents for letting their children watch the show.

Don’t blame the parents, blame the show.

That show is genuinely horrible. I’ve seen a lot of people questioning how anyone could let children watch it - and to that I say you’re not adding anything to the conversation by shaming parents for letting their children watch that show.

My own parents weren’t even out of their twenties when I watched the show, and many other parents grew up with the show as a non-issue. Young parents make mistakes.

At the time it came out and its early years only extremely vigilant parents realized how problematic the show was and the news was hard to spread without social media. At best you could inform your parent friends and hope they listened.

The show’s main characters are children, many parents found/find it hard to believe that a show with children as the main characters could be bad for those children. If the show were exactly the same but the children were college-aged then it would be another raunchy show they could easily see is not meant for their kids.

There’s a good portion of children who watched the show that weren’t actually allowed to watch it because their parents weren’t as tech savvy as them and therefore didn’t know about pirating/streaming until it was mainstream. We who grew up with YouTube knew you could put in [show] episode 1 part 1 and start watching. (this is gonna be another point later btw)

I know that it’s hard for you guys to even know all the reasons it’s problematic because you all barely scratch the surface of it’s problems. But before we even get into the meat of its problems (Science Denial, Homophobia, Transphobia, Ableism, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, etc.) we have to look at the very premise of the show.

The main characters begin in fourth grade. Fourth Grade. There’s a phenomena in our culture where we believe that children saying stupid stuff is harmless, and we forget that when children hear children speak - even animated children - they are hearing their peers. And peers learn from each other. This is why the show is so insidious, because it makes it easier for children to digest the messages.

Another thing that’s very important to note is that - while it’s labelled satire, every single joke is played straight, and the straight man character (usually either S or Ky) are ridiculed by the culture they’re surrounded in. Don’t believe me? Think I’m over-exaggerating? Think about the election episode, where they had to pick between a literal piece of shit or a douche. Our Straightmen were constantly saying how ridiculous the situation was, but everyone around them was telling them they were the ones who were stupid for not particpating in the election until they eventually break and submit to the absurdity. This is a light example, but it’s the typical formula. If they aren’t actively participating in the absurdity around them, they’re ridiculed until they break. What this tells the audience isn’t that the people who were particpating were stupid, but that they were right.

Now that we’ve looked at the show premise, let’s get into the details. A note: This is just what I remember from approximately age 5-18, the latter years I’d been turned off from it slowly so I wasn’t as engaged but it was not any better then. Since this is just what I can remember without looking through episodes or looking up articles, this is going to be a small sampling of things that stuck with me. Be assured, there was much, much, much more.

Science Denial and its effects on the viewers.

This is the lightest thing I can recall, and probably going to be the smallest section as it’s mostly centered around their stand-in for global warming, a cryptid figure called M/an/Be/ar/P/ig. Al G/ore was painted as a desperate, raving lunatic for believing in the phenomena, and was even implied to be making it up by having him dress up as the cryptid. I don’t have to explain why this is wrong, but we need to look at the effect this had.

On the one hand it made fans think that Global Warming (as it’s something A.G. believed in) was a hoax. Furthermore, it made them believe that anyone who believed in it was telling lies, which was overwhelmingly the most progressive people. A direct effect of these jokes (which they apologized for but never stopped propagating btw, MBP was still a joke when I stopped watching) was that progressives were seen as over-dramatic and stupid.

Now, I am not saying people watched these shows and immediately thought “oh wow, how fucking stupid of A.G. I don’t believe in climate change anymore.” It’s more like this: “Oh haha, S thinks A.G. is annoying, I like S so I agree, A.G. is annoying. You know, A.G. is kinda annoying with all that global warming, maybe there’s something to him being over-dramatic? Gosh why can’t these progressives see that it’s not that big of a deal. If they trust A.G. then they MUST be blowing other things out of proportion.” That’s the thought processes it trains its viewers to have.

LGBT+ Characters

Okay so there’s actually a lot of things that go into the Homophobia of S/P. And it goes back to the very beginning of the show, and is both explicit and implicit. There is a huge problem with these, but the main problem isn’t so much that they exist, but the show’s attitude towards their own ‘jokes’ and the ways in which fans suck up that thought process.

Before I get into this, there were some things that I need to say in favor of the show - not because I think the show deserve praise, but because there were some things that I latched onto and showed a surprising nuance. There’s like one thing, really but it is, of course, attached to something that’s a much larger issue within the show, so while it is a small glimmer, it’s in no way outshining any of the problems in the show.

For a while, the teacher underwent gender reassignment when he (the teacher currently identifies as male from my last interaction with the show) got breast implants and presumably bottom surgery (I vaguely remember a surgery but honestly that could be an invention) he was in a gay relationship. His then boyfriend had a very heartfelt and difficult conversation about how he still cared about him and how he’ll never hate him for being the woman that he wanted to be, but there was no way that he could pursue a relationship with him. I thought that this was a very mature depiction of a very difficult situation that is never really talked about. However, as I implied earlier, this is attached to a larger issue. Before any of you start having second thoughts about your ideas about S/P’s portrayal of gay and trans people, immediately after getting broken up with the teacher became violently homophobic as a backlash, I vaguely recall a group being formed.

Our main examples of LGBT individuals in the show are these big four (five?):

The afforementioned teacher

The teacher’s boyfriend, who wears leather gear at school and can’t stop talking kink even in front of the child characters

A character called B/ig G/ay A/l who is just as stereotypical as his name implies.

T/weak and C/raig, who are classmates of the focal characters. There’s a lot of reasons this is problematic, none of them being the age of those involved in the relationship - but the portrayal of them is hugely problematic.

Since I’ve already touched on the teacher, we’ll get into them first. When he was introduced, he was a sort of ambiguously gay character who was very bitchy and spoke with a slight lisp that eventually became a canon gay character with his relationship with the Kink Character. He was violently hateful towards his class, verbally abusing them all the time and often particpating in bullying children. Furthermore he’s seen as incompetent. This is problematic not because he’s a gay man doing this (though it’s not great either) but because this taught children that teachers don’t care about them and that they shouldn’t listen to them because they don’t know what they’re talking about anyways. This goes into their anti-intellectual stance mentioned earlier. It enforces the idea that education systems are useless, not because of the institutional problems they have with racism, but because of the incompetence of the system.

Going back to the point of this, still with the same character, let’s further explore the problems they had when the teacher had an arc as a trans woman. Honestly, I didn’t pay much attention to it, but the show made a point to let you know that the other characters were uncomfortable when Mr. G became Ms. G. The most damning thing about this, however, is the fact that Mr. G detransitioned bc he realized he wasn’t a straight woman, just a gay man. I think this is problematic because it frames transitioning as a sexual strategy. I don’t think I have to go into detail on why that’s problematic. And while this isn’t actually a tie into how horrible their handling of this character is, it should be noted that he’s the character that went on to be their T/rump stand-in.

The next character is the Kink Man.

God, the character’s personality isn’t actually all that bad. He’s loving and caring and empathetic and actually usually on the right side of topics, but. He doesn’t separate his kink from his personal life. He’s always strutting around in leather-daddy gear and has a lisp. His name is literally Mr. S/lave. There was an episode where he shoved a hamster in his ass. To viewers, he represents the dirty gays that keep shoving their sex-life down their throats - and this view is never, ever, ever subverted, so since the show never makes fun of people for having that view it reinforces that idea in their minds.

Honestly the least problematic character of the LGBT characters that I mentioned was BGA. He’s still a stereotype, yeah, he has a gay dog and is super flamboyant and constantly talks about how proud he is but honestly that’s not really all that bad. I can’t directly recall anything bad about him except that he’s incredibly flamboyant, speaks with a lisp, and loves to call things he owns “BGA’s Big Gay [noun].” Relatable. That doesn’t mean there was nothing problematic, it just doesn’t immediately come to me.

Now, for the next most problematic “representation” in the show. First, T&C showed no signs of actually being gay before. I do recall them both being my favorite characters before they became a couple, however. T is a coffee addict which has some suspect aspects we’ll get into later, and C used to flip everyone off. This was why they were my favorites. They became gay literally when fangirls started shipping them in the show. I’m sure there was an actual fandom movement, but their getting together was incredibly forced - that was part of the joke btw, that gay shipping is always forced. What’s horrible about this is that this was in an episode about ya/oi.

Now, let’s try to dissect this issue. First off, what this tells viewers is that being gay was not a natural part of who they were, but was an active choice (if you’re being kind) or something society forced on them (if you’re not.) The two were actively fighting with the narrative that they were gay and in a relationship. I think their actual agreement for being boyfriends was more of a mutual public display than an actual relationship, but it’s a fuzzy memory because that whole episode felt like a fever dream.

What’s worse about this, is that the show actually displayed ya/oi depictions of these children within the show. Nothing NSFW, but clearly sexually charged situations were definitely shown. At the time, they were 5th graders. 9/10 year olds for those not in the states. This emboldened actual CT shippers “If the show could do it, then so can I” was the general mentality on the forums I was on. So we can talk on pedophilia to reasons why this show is awful.

And those are just the named recurring characters. Another commonly recurring character is a prostitute with a deep voice who is very sloppy looking that, from my recollection, is implied to be a transwoman. This might have just been a conclusion I drew when I was young however - but even that is reason to be critical of the character, that such a conclusion could even be drawn means it might have played a factor in the character’s inception.

They also “Solved Overpopulation” with a gay orgy. I don’t have the language to define why this sat so wrong with me, but I remember being very deeply hurt by it. I think it has something to do with the idea that homosexuality is a choice and that it should only be accepted because of the potential benefits it has for population control.

Islamophobia and Racism

Okay so I’m just gonna come out the gate by saying that they fought hard to depict the prophet Mohammad. Like, hard. And they did it twice - one time went almost unnoticed but the second had a huge backlash from the Islamic people. For those who aren’t aware, it’s sacrilege to depict Mohammad. It’s like desecrating a church, maybe worse - I really have no frame of reference for how bad it’s viewed, but however bad it is, it still boils down to being a strict taboo that S/P broke not once, but twice.

Now, as I keep reminding, my memory gets hazy for many things, especially things I wasn’t aware of being insensitive early on. I have vague memories of terrorists being depicted in traditional Sikh garb, and similar instances of directly relating Islam with terrorism. I don’t recall the show ever making fun of anyone for relating Muslims with terrorism, for all those fans out there saying they make fun of everyone.

There was an episode where the characters wore blackface. There’s a black character literally named t/oken b/lack. Sure, that could be satire and maybe even be defended if they subverted the trope, however it should be noted he’s not the only black character in the show! There was an episode where there was a child adopted from Africa whose name escapes me - he was emaciated and devoured food at an alarming rate and generally was a nuisance if I remember correctly.

There was an instance where one of the main character’s father was on Wheel of Fortune. The category was people who annoy you. the letters on the board were ‘N_ggers.’ You know where this is going, the father said the N-word. The word was really naggers, but the rest of the episode was a sympathetic journey with him dealing with being ostracized. He became known as an ‘n-word guy’ which was treated as a worse term within the universe. I say this because a law was passed where the phrase was outlawed and they said you had to have a space of at least 5 words between ‘n-word’ and ‘guy’. Also, the n-word was said multiple times by a number of white characters. Now, I know the argument people make about this episode. They say that we were supposed to find the scanario ridiculous, but the issue I take with it is more that we’re led to feel sympathetic to racists who’ve had their lives ruined for being racist. That’s the issue with South Park’s brand of ‘satire’. It satirizes one issue, but doesn’t touch on the problematic things used to support that satire.

Almost every single Mexican character is a stereotype of some sort. Either a laborer who can barely speak English, a gangbanger, or some other stereotype. There was an episode where they had C’s hand become a famous Latina popstar by singing about Mexican Food themed songs, like the actual songs ‘T/aco F/lavored K/isses’ and ‘T/aco B/urrito’. The hand’s name was Jennifer Lopez, I don’t know of these songs are direct parodies bc I’ve only heard Jenny From the Block.

And while S/P tends to stay away from very direct anti-black jokes, they don’t shy away from other races. There’s an asian character whose business is called ‘c/ity wok’, but he always pronounces it ‘shitty’ because the joke here is ‘oh haha asians have funny accents’ and literally nothing else. I honestly believe that asians receive the WORST treatment on S/P when it comes to facing racism, but I’m not qualified to make that claim. Other examples of anti-asian racism: There was an pokemon episode where they said that Japan was using anime to indoctrinate youth, they literally had the kids operate fighter jets to make an attack on the U.S. What’s worse about this, is that whenever the Japanese execs were questioned about this, every time, they dropped their pants to show how small their penises were and how they should be pitied for it. Another instance, I very strongly remember a depiction of asian characters as being lemon yellow with eyes like this: \ /. There was an episode where they had Asians violently murder whales with glee. They lean into anti-asian racism so much harder than any other form of racism - the only thing they’re worse about is their antisemitism, which will get its own section later.

Antisemitism

God there’s so much. Jew Gold, nazi imagery, the entirety of c/a/r/t/m/a/n as a character and there are so many posts on this website by people much more qualified than me to delve into what exactly is wrong with this and the depictions of it, so I’m mostly just going to catalog what comes to mind and then speak about the actual factual instances of S/P inspired antisemitism I’ve witnessed and been party to.

There was an episode devoted to Jewish people having a secret bit of gold around their necks. This was proven true in the universe when Ky gave up his ‘J*w Gold’ to C.

Ky’s mom is such an overbearing harpy who bulldozes over everyone, this was later explained as her having Jersey-Blood (yes this was a Jersey Shore joke) but before that it was completely because she was a proud Jewish woman.

Ky’s father is depicted as weak-willed and piddling. He always wears a yarmulke no matter the situation.

Ky is often depicted as being whiny and non-commital

OF ALL THE CHARACTERS, KY IS THE ONE WHO IS DEPICTED AS A HYPOCRITE THE MOST

Ky’s cousin with the same name is depicted as in poor health, complains about everything, whines about things not being fair bc they don’t go his way, and has caricatured Jewish features

As mentioned above, there are hosts of Nazi imagery associated with C

C has said every Jewish slur I have ever heard. In fact he introduced me to the concept of antisemitism

Ky, in a Christmas episode, is depicted as wishing he could celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah is depicted as a sort of consolation prize that’s Not As Good.

Ky’s father was an internet troll, and the trolls were. literal trolls. with certain features that are not great.

The following image is the Prophet Moses:

And there’s more and more and more. I will not accept anyone saying that this is just jokes because I know firsthand how insidious their treatment of Jewish people is because this show literally made me think it was okay to engage in Antisemitism. I made greedy jokes, like saying a got J**ed when i was screwed over, or that someone who was being greedy was being a J*w. I am not proud of this, and I think I grew out of it relatively quickly as I dropped that language in middle school.

But not everyone did. Even some of my closest friends were still saying they got J**ed when we were graduating high school. There were no Jewish people at my school, so there was no humanizing face for the Jewish people for us. Thank god for the Nanny or who knows what kind of person I’d be now. There were people even worse than me, I should mention. There was one person in my school who literally used J*w as a stand-in for loser because of this show. This show was the only interaction with the Jewish faith that most of my classmates ever had, and the same is true of many rural towns in America who have only Protestant populations.

Fatphobia

All the most unlikeable characters are fat. C. Ky’s mom. The gun-toting republican. And there are other specific episodes where they equate fatness to not being healthy. In their episode partnered with WoW (don’t forget that happened, y’all) the main antagonist was depicted as a no-life having loser and he was, surprise, fat. This show draws a very direct line between being fat and being unlikeable.

Sexism

God, the portrayal of women is so horrible, literally my only entry here is going to be one single link:

youtube

Note all the other isms depicted in this btw.

Substance Abuse

The prostitute mentioned in the LGBT section would wander into scenes screaming about how she wanted crack. There was an episode where they created a league of basketball players who were comprised entirely of ‘crack babies.’ I’m being generous by not putting that in the racism section because most of the babies were BIPOC which says something about the kind of people that M/att and T/rey think are addicts.

The character T/owelie is supposed to show an addict, but his addiction is literally just weed which means they’re claiming weed is addictive.

I can’t even begin to describe the show’s relationship to alcohol. As a child of an alcoholic, I can say that it’s not fucking cute that they made S’s dad a violent drunk. It’s genuinely scary to see your parent fly into a rage because of their alcoholism and them reducing it to a joke was, I think, one of the points where the ‘it’s just a joke’ mentality started to break for me personally.

While we’re on the subject of parents, C’s mom was literally a crack addict who was also a full service sex worker. The correlation is not sympathetic in the slightest. And even worse was Ke’s parents. They were depicted as abusive, neglectful, drug-addicted rednecks. This was sometimes played to make you sympathize with Ke, and it worked because even now I can hardly think of how Ke himself was problematic rather than the situations he was in. (He’s the one who gets gruesomely murdered every episode) I don’t know if this is because of selective memory, if he was genuinely just the least problematic in the show, or if I’m waxing nostalgic for the show. Regardless, as I said, his situation was mostly played for sympathy. However, it was also played for jokes almost as often.

Pedophilia

The children are put in sexual situations a nonzero amount of times, they make priest molestation jokes, and they made jokes about MJ.

Slurs

Yeah they said them a lot. There was the aforementioned N-Word Guy episode, but there was also an episode that thinly mirrored immigrants coming to America for work and the people (time-travelers) were called ‘Goobacks’. I think the word ch*nk was used a nonzero amount of times, C used every slur for Jewish people in the book. None of these were censored by the show, any censoring was done by networks.

Why make this post?

Because I know people know this show is garbage, but I think it’s important that people know why it’s garbage with specific and nonspecific instances of why the show was problematic.

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aroacepositivityplace · 7 years

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Hey, do you have any LGBT books/movies/music to recommend? Thank you!

Hi! I do have some things that I can recommend that I’ve enjoyed. I’ll provide a brief synopses and content warnings (although it’s been a while since I’ve read/seen a lot of this so please don’t consider my lists of content warnings to be complete).

Books

-Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. I love this book a lot. It takes place in the 80′s if I’m remember correctly and is about two high school aged boys who navigate cultural identity, family mystery, and their own mental health and relationships. I’m not a YA fan for the most part, but I make an exception for this book. Content warnings for mentions of homophobic violence, mentions of transphobic violence.

-Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. This was required reading for me, but it’s an interesting and partly autobiographical story. I think it takes place in the seventies or so and is about an adopted girl navigating her extremely religious upbringing as she comes to terms with being a lesbian. Content warnings for homophobia.

-No. 6. This is a manga (and anime) about a boy (Shion) who grows up in what is considered to be the perfect city. Then one night, an injured boy (Rat) shows up at his door, a fugitive from the city. When it is discovered that Shion harbored a fugitive, all of his special privileges in the city are stripped away. Years later, people begin to mysteriously die and when the deaths are pinned on Shion. Rat rescues him and smuggles him out of the city, whereupon Shion begins to learn just what the city he grew up in is really like and what they’re planning. The manga makes a lot more sense than the anime to me, but they both the one dystopian story that I’ve continued to enjoy. The main characters are both mlm and another character isn’t cis. Content warnings for violence, attempted sexual assault.

-The Captive Prince Series. So tumblr really loves to drag the living hell out of these books, but I love them to death. They do deal with some really sensitive subjects, although not in a way that ever minimizes or ignores the issues. In Damen’s kingdom, there’s a coup and he’s sent to a rival kingdom as a slave under an assumed name. More specifically, he’s sent to Prince Laurent, whose brother he killed years earlier. Damen quickly realizes that if he ever wants to return to his home, he’ll have to join forces with Laurent, who is locked in a power struggle with his uncle, the regent. There are next to no straight characters in this series. Content warnings for mentions of sexual assault, mentions of pedophilia, attempted sexual assault, violence.

-Maurice. This is probably one of my favorite books. It takes place in the early 1900′s where Maurice realizes that he isn’t straight and falls in love. Content warnings for internalized homophobia, homophobia.

-The Jughead Comics (Zkarsky). This is a modern Jughead centric Archie comic. They’re just the wacky adventures of a hungry highschool kid with a big imagination. The main character is aro ace and another prominant character is gay. No major content warnings.

-The Picture of Dorian Gray. This is a classic that I love. I’d recommend reading the original first and then reading the uncensored if you like it because the uncensored cuts out one of the original plotlines. Dorian Gray is a beautiful young man in the late 19th century. After realizing that all other people tend to value in him is his beauty, he desires for an elaborate portrait that was painted of him to age instead of him. His wish comes true, except that along with aging, his portrait also shows every vile act that he commits. All the main men in this story are mlm. Content warnings for suicide mentions, violence.

-Angels in America. This one is a play that has a pretty awesome HBO adaptation. It takes place in the 80′s and deals heavily with the AIDS crisis as different characters navigate their interconnecting lives. One of the main characters has AIDS and has an angel sent to him to tell him that he’s a new prophet, his boyfriend can’t manage taking care of him and leaves, another character is a closeted Mormon who begins to have his first same sex relationship, his significant other is failing to manage her mental illness, Roy Cohn, a real person, is a character. Content warnings for homophobia, internalized homophobia, serophobia, drug abuse.

-A Court of Thorns and Roses series. These books do a fascinating bait and switch with everything that you think might be happening. If I have to point to a feminist romance series, it’s this one. One of the main characters in this book is bi, but it isn’t explicitly talked about until the third and final book. The plot is about a fantasy setting where fae and humans are at an uneasy truce after a long and bloody conflict. After a young woman kills a fae wolf, it is demanded that she give up her life in exchange for her crime. She goes to live in the fae realm, where she begins to learn about the unrest in the fae realm that can easily destroy both the fae and humans. Content warnings for violence, abuse, sexual assault mentions.

-Star Wars: Aftermath series. If you like star wars but want a more diverse case, this is the book series for you. It takes place after episode 6 but before the force awakens and follows almost entirely new characters, one of which is gay. There are also a lot of casual mentions of queer people, including a nonbinary pirate. Plotwise, it’s about how a rebel pilot, an imperial defector, a bounty hunter, the pilot’s son, a reprogrammed battle droid, and an elite soldier form a crack team that hunts down imperial war criminals, one of which is trying to reform the empire. Content warnings for violence.

Movies

-Maurice. This is based on the book mentioned above and has the same plot and content warnings.

-The Birdcage. The title relates to the drag club that the two main characters own and operate. So a Robin William’s character’s son wants to introduce his girlfriend and her parents to his dad. She’s fine with everything, but the issue is that her parents are straight laced repub/////licans. Williams ends up asking his boyfriend to sit out the dinner that they’re having with the girlfriend’s parents. The issue is, he ends up showing up in drag so he can be there. Content warnings for homophobia.

-The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Both the original and the Laverne Cox versions are wonderful, but the Cox version cuts out a lot of the issues with the original that a lot of people today are uncomfortable with. This is a spoof of every horror movie ever and the music is awesome. Janet and Brad are a newly engaged couple. They’re driving to meet with their old high school teacher when their car breaks down. Searching for help, they come across a castle, where inside Dr. Frankenfurter is working on their creation, the perfect man. Content warnings for some outdated language relating to trans people, dubious consent in the original, violence.

-Carol. I saw a highly edited version of this on a plane and it was still lovely. The main character works in a department store in the 50′s. A wealthy woman leaves her gloves in the store and the main character returns them to her, whereupon they begin to grow close and fall in love. Content warnings for homophobia.

-I Love You, Phillip Morris. This is actually based on a true story. Jim Carrey’s character that after accepting that he’s gay becomes a con man to fund an opulent lifestyle. He is arrested and in prison meets Morris. They fall in love and after the two of them are both released from prison, Carry goes back to his deceptions. Despite my description, it’s a pretty lighthearted movie. Content warnings for homophobic language, violence.

-Brokeback Mountain. This one is a classic, although not a happy story. Enis and Jack are assigned to tend sheep together one summer and grow close. One night, after drinking, the two have sex and afterwords are unable to deny what’s between them. The two meet up when they can as they start to life lives that grow further apart with each passing year. Content warnings for homophobia, homophobic violence.

-Pride. This was a good enough movie and based on a true story. A local lgbt group realizes that if they want to make serious change, their best chance is by allying with striking miners. Content warnings for homophobia, homophobic violence.

Music

Unfortunately, I can’t name any lgbtqiap+ music. :(

#ask #anonymous ask

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