#roys been mischaracterized so much | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hood-ex · 3 years

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Do you think people get weird about acknowledging that Dick died because they've reduced the characters into tropes and it's important to them that Jason was the Robin who died? If that's what makes him special, then he's not so special anymore if they've all died. So now it's important that he died the *most* because that's his role. Maybe it's okay that Damian and Steph have died, because Damian is just a kid and Steph is an afterthought, so now they can write fic about Jason and Damian bonding over it and either ignore Steph as a past Robin or have her bond with Jason too. Dick is a problem though. Because a big part of Jason being special is that he has had it worse than Dick. Tim is on thin ice, depending on whether we buy into the decision to ignore all previous canon and suddenly make him Jason's favorite, but Dick is a nonstarter. He cannot have his suffering acknowledged. He is the happy golden boy favorite popular perfect one, the cheerleader to Jason's underappreciated bad boy--whose trauma is *very* important to his appeal to some people, so much so that they cling to the merest hint of it in his past and make it central to his fanon character. In a better world, maybe canon would have shown Jason try to commiserate with Dick over the experience of realizing you were being murdered and feeling your life slip away, or at least he'd think to himself how much he hated that he was too mad to do that. Instead we got Jason trying to joke with Tim about how good it must have felt to punch Dick in the face? I was disgusted. Even worse, canon never saw this as a problem, because Dick's death was just about shuffling pieces around and moving to the next story. Part of why it's so easy for fans to argue that Dick didn't really did is because canon acted as if he didn't really die. The man got nothing. Every time this topic comes up I think about that funeral issue that was scrapped and how impactful it would have been.

Ohhh for sure. I think that just like how some iterations of Jason see Dick as his competition, some of Jason’s stans also see Dick as Jason’s competition. Like when the Titans trailer came out and Dick said, “Fuck Batman!” everyone started freaking out saying, “Dick would never say that! That’s something Jason would say! Why are they giving Dick Jason’s personality?” And it’s like LOL I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but Jason is gonna have to wait in line behind Dick and all the other people who would say, “Fuck Batman.”

I think some stans start to get a little twitchy when they start to make connections like:

Jason: “I died.”

Dick: “Me too.”

Jason: “I was buried underground. I had to dig my way out.”

Dick: “Did you go up? I dug sideways.”

Jason: “I use guns!”

Dick: “I have before. Not in the same way.”

Jason: “I’ve killed people.”

Dick: “I wish I hadn’t but I have.”

Jason: “I have issues with Bruce.”

Dick: “Who doesn’t?”

Jason: “Bruce replaced me.”

Dick: “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

Jason: “Bruce didn’t kill the Joker for me.”

Dick: “No, but I did.”

Jason: “The system failed me.”

Dick: “I went to juvie instead of the foster care system.”

Jason: “I lived in a shitty house.”

Dick: “I lived in a trailer with my parents and a performer named Tombo.”

Jason: “Roy and Kory are my best friends.”

Dick: “Ditto.”

Jason: “I ran away from home.”

Dick: “Yup. Been there, done that.”

Jason: “I cuss a lot.”

Dick: “Yesterday Alfred told me I had to put more money in the swear jar.”

Jason: “...I wear leather jackets.”

Dick: “I ripped my favorite one while trying to get away from Slade.”

And instead of people using all this shit to have Dick and Jason relate to each other, they try to mischaracterize Dick or brush him off in order to make Jason seem more special or superior. Tis annoying.

#Dick Grayson #Jason Todd #anon

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stxleslyds · 3 years

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Robin Jason, a friend and ally of the Titans.

PART 2.

Hi! Welcome to Part 2 of this post, as I said in the last one, I will be talking about Robin Jason’s moments and not reviewing the issues from a story point of view but I think I will have to give a little more context in this one because honestly I am a little lost with this particular storyline, there is too much going on and Jason isn't part of many pages so yeah, I hope this post isn't too boring or bad though.

I will link part 1 Here!

Let’s begin!

· NTT (1884) #26-28

In my last post I talked about how Jason would be called by Donna to help the Titans save Dick and Raven from Brother Blood’s people. We start #26 with Mother Mayhem giving a public speech on television. What you have to get from this is that this cult is using the image of the two Titans/Heroes (Nightwing and Raven) that they captured as propaganda for their intentions, their intentions being resurrecting Brother Blood and making the world believe that they are good people. Obviously, Dick and Raven are not there because they are supportive of their cause, they were both brainwashed.

In this issue the Titans team that had fallen apart in issue #19 is back, so we find Donna, Beast boy, Cyborg, Joey and Wally together once more and they are trying to figure out what to do because they have two problems, on one hand Beast Boy’s father is killing people and captured Garth and on the other a whole ass cult is doing cult-y shit and captured Dick and Raven. In the end they choose to go save Dick and Raven first but they do it because Beast Boy says this “I…don’t know. I can’t say what we should do. We need Dick here…he’s a tactician. We need him as out leader”. Never in my life would I have thought that I would agree with beast boy but yeah…hard agree.

Donna understands that even though the team is (mostly) back on its feet they still need more firepower and that’s why she calls Jason. While it was kinda rude of Cyborg to say that Jason is not all that (in terms of firepower) any kind of tension is quicky gone because Starfire comes back (talk about firepower).

We have various moments of Beast Boy being a perv towards Kory (thanks a lot Marv) but that’s not important, what’s important is that now the Titans have to tell Kory that Dick has been captured and they are on their way to save him.

They all leave to Zandia (where Brother Blood’s Church is located) and a fight ensues as soon as they arrive, they fight but their goal is to get to the Church as fast as possible. Jason doesn’t say anything in these panels but he is fighting alongside the others. When things get a bit more complicated Jason starts to feel that maybe he isn’t that capable of handling himself but he doesn’t have to do anything by himself because this time he has a team that can back him up. Kory gives him a lift as soon as Jason is surrounded, he is of course thankful and a little bit pervy (thanks a lot Marv).

Kory is shot just after she gets him out of trouble and Jason as the adorable kid that he is becomes worried for her well-being. After Beast Boy is also injured in the fight the Titans decide to leave back to camp. Thankfully both Kory and BB are okay but they are all still worried about how they will get to the Church. We see here once more Donna being a bit overwhelmed with leading the Titans and beating herself up over what happened in Switzerland (#20 and #21) but Jason reassures her instantly that she did a good job and she doesn’t need to be so hard on herself.

This interaction here is particularly nice because Jason reassures Donna without her asking for it. In my last post Donna looked for reassurance in Robin several times but she didn’t do it because she actually wanted Jason to give his thoughts, she did it because she was hoping Jason would act like Dick and eventually take over the team’s leadership. Here that isn’t the case, Jason just tells her what he thinks.

After Donna talks about her doubts Kory says that she is impatient and worried about Dick but also expresses being unsure because the last time that she saw Dick they kinda left things off on “bad terms”. I say this because just like it happened with Jason and Roy, Jason and Kory also have differences, she is a grown and experienced woman that is going through adult problems and Jason is a kid that is just happy that he was called to join them on another adventure.

If we back a few panels to when Jason said that Kory “was a sight for sore eyes” Kory responds saying “first Changeling, now you. It’s got to be puberty”, she is obviously not pleased about Jason making that comment about her and it’s also made clear that he is just a teenager.

This is where I rant about how different what we see here is from what we get later in New 52. Just like Roy (in New 52) Kory is also seemingly very close or the same age as Jason and she is the one that is written as wanting to take Jason to bed or, at the very least, attracted to him. Kory being an adult in comparison with Jason is taken away from her and she is just transformed into something to fit Jason’s new beginning as the Red Hood. Lobdell didn’t do Kory any favours, he annihilated her character and made her out to be just eye candy that can come off as stupid and way too reckless just to prop Jason up, believe it or not Jason sometimes was the voice of reason to both Roy and Kory’s antics.

It’s even worse when you consider the fact that in this issue Kory is feeling better and more confident because she finally understands what she wants and has accepted Earth as her real home, all of that is gone in New 52, Kory is lost, insecure, she even depends on Jason a bit too much at the start (because she “didn’t remember” her time on earth or Dick) and goes back to killing. All in all, Lobdell’s version of Kory was very damaging and a disservice to her past history.

Back to the issue, as Donna and the others are going to start coming up with a plan (with only two days until resurrection day) we move scenes and find ourselves in a meeting where people are complaining about the Titans messing up their plans, but that is not what matters, apparently the people in that meeting wanted to “summon the Brotherhood” and here is where we are introduced to the person who will make the Titans’ lives a little more complicated…Twister. She is one of the people that were victims to Brother Blood’s brainwashing and experiments.

In the next page we see the Titans resting but Cyborg is awake so thanks to that he hears someone coming straight to them, here Kory takes the lead and she says once more that she will not kill whoever that is, that she can’t and won’t do that anymore…I wonder if Lobdell ever read these issues, maybe not.

The attacker was Twister and in seconds she twists the Titans’ reality and leaves them all incapacitated. She then goes to look for and recruit the Brotherhood of Evil. While she did that though the Titans slowly made their way back to the city and are now getting ready to attack. Donnas plans as we soon find out don’t include Jason as one of their front line fighters, in fact he has to be left behind as back up.

Jason is not very happy about this; he is the boy wonder! But because it’s the plan and the Titans are experienced, he decided to stay put (at least for now). Its funny to me that even Beast Boy calls Jason a kid. What is sad from these panels is obviously the last thing that Jason says “I can’t wait until I am sixteen!”. I mean, this issue came out exactly two years before Jason’s death, there was no way they could have seen that coming but yeah, it’s just sad. Jason really was in a better and happier place around this time, little did he know everything would turn upside down after a while.

The rest of the Titans fight, Donna starts to feel like she is finally in control and that she is doing a great job at keeping the Titans together, Kory is having her inner turmoil about Dick but she is doing her job and when she decides to go help Cyborg and Joey they come across the Brotherhood of Evil. This is where #26 ends.

Issue #27 starts with a very difficult fight for Kory, Cyborg and Joey, it ends with Kory injured, Joey captured and with Cyborg thrown off a window. The only one of them that Donna, Beast Boy and Jason are able to save is Kory.

The Titans that re left have to retreat and find a place to recover, Jason is very silent all the time but Donna and Kory are the ones that are having interesting talks, they have to find out where the Brotherhood has Joey and Cyborg and their time to save Dick and Raven is running out but if they don’t save the others they might die. It’s a complicated situation and they are both impatient but Donna tells Kory this “Dick would be the first to tell you to plan first, attack later”, I bring this up because nowadays its very common for fanon and current writers to think of Dick as someone that doesn’t plan, that doesn’t think before jumping. Even Beast boy called him a tactician, I know this is a Jason post but its also a post about how characterizations are also kinda destroyed. Dick has suffered a lot from mischaracterization so its nice to go back to these stories and see that what we think Dick should be now isn’t something that we once imagined but something that mas modified or taken away from him either by fanon or current writers.

After the Titans decide to wait for the storm to pass to go looking for Joey and Cyborg, we actually see that Cyborg is in the city looking for shelter, he is injured and as he falls unconscious we meet a couple that decides to save him. Back to the Titans once more we have Jason say that the storm that is forming look “like something out of Ghostbusters” its then that the Brotherhood makes itself known, they are taunting them and they have roped Joey to the top of the capitol building and they are asking the Titans to surrender or Joey dies.

Its here where Donna takes full control of the Titans and even though she and Kory have different ideas of what to do she says that she is the leader now and what she says gets done. Donna will be in charge of saving Joey while the others will make their way towards the Brother Blood Church to help Dick and Raven.

Before they go their separate ways Jason says this about Donna “Wow! I wouldn’t wanna be in her shoes for all the garbage pail kid stickers in the world.” I am going to be honest, I had to look those stickers up and all I have to say is what the hell. But I am not here to talk about stickers I am here to talk about how funny its that Jason is being so uninterested about leading a team. Now, don’t get me wrong, Jason has the ability to lead, yes, but he is better at leading himself or an operation, we have all read UtRH, we know how well the Red Hood can handle himself and his plans but a team of heroes? Controversial opinion but I think that Jason should have never been given a team and I am talking about Kory and Roy as well as Artemis and Bizarro. Was Rebirth better than New 52? Absolutely. But I just don’t see Jason as a leader of a team of heroes and it’s also incredibly repetitive, just because he was Robin doesn’t mean that he needs his own team. I know that Robin Jason and Red Hood Jason aren’t the same person and that they might think differently but if Lobdell had never come into Red Hood/Jason Todd’s life when he did we might have never seen Jason lead his own team and that to me is proof enough that it should have never happened. I quite enjoyed the Prince of Gotham storyline in Red Hood: Outlaw, he didn’t have a team but he had an operation going on and people working FOR him not WITH him. In my opinion that’s better for Jason (if you would like to see me review that storyline let me know).

There is a lot happening story wise and I am finding it more and more difficult to continue talking about Jason’s moments here without giving context so I am going to resume what happened between Donna leaving to save Joey and Jason’s next appearance in this issue. Here we go, Brain tells Monsieur Mallah that he decided to “help” Twister take down the Titans because he wants to use Brother Blood’s Blood Pool because he is dying, Twister goes back to her family’s home and we get to see how brainwashed she is, her family is shocked to see her and they are also the ones that took care of Cyborg while he was unconscious, Cyborg leaves to find the Titans but Twister sees where he left to, she tells the Brotherhood where he might have gone to but protects her family by not telling them that they were the ones that protected Cyborg in the first place and Donna was able to save Joey. I think that was everything.

We see Jason again when he is just outside Brother Blood’s Church with Kory (who is giving him a lift) and Beast Boy. But because life can’t be easy for them the Brotherhood of Evil teleports there and a fight ensues. Kory takes the lead and Jason gets to work.

Kory praises Jason for his work here not because she can’t do anything but because she is seeing that a kid is doing an excellent job. Make no mistake, she is the one with experience but she is nice and gives credit when its due.

Cyborg arrives and the fight continues. We see Beast Boy warning Jason about some of the villains’ powers and Jason being the excellent Robin that he is pays attention and escapes Plasmus’ touch.

I might not think that Red Hood is a team player but Robin Jason absolutely is, and the Titans are nice and care for his safety.

While all of this was happening, Cyborg had made his way to the Church and there he gathers all kinds of information including the location of Brother Bloods main Church in the US. He also makes the alarms sound so everyone leaves because he set up the Church to blow up. Somewhere else Monsieur Mallah is threatening to kill Brain after the later insults him again. And there is where this issue ends.

In issue #28 Jason and the rest of the Titans appear after several pages of Mother Mayhem being a creep, Azrael the angel rising and trying to resurrect Brother Blood through the power of prayers, people watching the live broadcasting of the event and Dick trying to break free from his own head but as soon as he does it Mother Mayhem brainwashes him right away.

The Titans are back in their tower where we see Wally again but that is not all, Frances Kane and Robotman come in too. After all the people who are willing to fight get together the Titans make their way to Brother Bloods Church.

It’s in the jet with Wally that we see Jason and this time he gets to talk too! Jason is talking about how much braver the Titans are compared to him but Wally calms him down by saying that even though he has been doing this for a while he is also scared.

The fact that Jason joined the Titans on another adventure without mentioning it to Bruce is funny to me, he was probably so happy that Donna called him again! Maybe Jason was more bored of being with the Bat than he let on and maybe he didn’t feel appreciated enough or heard. I also like to think that Donna got Jason’s number through Dick, like do you remember that Dick gave Jason his number if he ever wanted to talk shit about the Bat with him? What if they did talk and then Dick put Jason’s number on the Titans’ data base? That would be cool and really sweet!

Jason continues to be a team player and being useful during the fights, he has the Titans’ back as much as the Titans have his.

They fight their way in Brother Blood’s Church and once there they find a dude called the Confessor with Arella (Raven’s mother) but he tells the Titans that she is dead. Somewhere else though is where the real trouble is at, between Azrael and Raven, Brother Blood has finally been resurrected.

It’s in the last page where Brother Blood is looking all mighty and powerful that Dick seems to have broken free from his brainwashing once more.

That’s the end of that issue and this part of the post. This one was super difficult to write and it’s even longer than part one, I hope I didn’t make it super difficult to read. At some points I felt like I was explaining too much and in others too little. I guess it’s very difficult to show how one character participates in a story without giving context but I just didn’t want this post to be too plot heavy.

These issues had some cool Jason moments but the ones in issues #29 to #31 are even better!

#jason todd #teen titans #titans #new teen titans #starfire #kory #donna troy #dick grayson #nightwing #brother blood #dc comics #robin jason todd #wally west #red hood

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danny-chase · 3 years

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Comics I’ve read, so I can actually keep track of things, don’t assume it’s good if it’s on here - aka this isn’t a list of recommendations, but do feel free to ask about any of the titles on here

Edit: A lot of these need warnings before you read if you don’t want to be surprised by racism, sexism, rape, child abuse, suicidal ideation, etc., etc. before reading, i didn’t include specific warnings in this, because it’s been a while since i read many of them, please ask before reading things you’re unsure about 💀, i’ll start adding warnings from what i remember

Team Books:

- JLA/Titans (1998)

- New Teen Titans (1980)

----pedophilia (not addressed as such), Gar sexually harasses woman sm, Terry Long - my detested (prof dating a student), racism and so much more

- The New Titans (1984) (until Dick left the team)

----rape (which isn’t addressed as such) and slut shaming, to avoid skip over issues with mirage, multiple major character deaths, there’s also bad dad Bruce kicking Dick out a few times, Terry Long - my detested

- Young Justice (1998)

----the writing around Anita is racist

- The Titans (1999)

---- a weird arc where they thought a character was autistic but turns out there was a man in her head idk what to even tag that as

- JLA: The Obsidian Age (2002)

----been too long for me to remember but i think someone said it’s racist

- Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day (2003)

---- major character deaths

- Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files (2003)

- Teen Titans: Year One (2008)

- Outsiders (2003)

- The Return of Donna Troy

---- brainwashed mentors hitting their sidekicks

- Titans (2008) (until Dick left the team)

- Young Justice (2011) - have also watched the show (all 3 seasons)

- Red Hood and the Outlaws (2011)

---- Roy and Kory’s characterizations are obliterated by new 52

- Convergence: The Titans (2015)

- Convergence: The New Teen Titans (2015)

- Titans Hunt New 52 (2015)

----ugly as heck art

- Titans Rebirth (2016)

- Batman & The Outsiders (2018)

- Titans: Titans Together (2020)

- Titans: Titans United (2021) (ongoing)

Nightwing Titles:

- Nightwing (1995)

- Nightwing (1996)

----rape (again not being addressed as such) to avoid skip over issues with Tarantula and Liu, and copoganda (Dixon’s run it’s been a while but prolly has more bad takes), Bruce hits Dick in the Officer Down crossover, also uh Devin destroys Dick’s life, mischaracterizes Babs, and his entire city is nuked (i’m literally not exaggerating), passive suicide attempt, Bruce’s F- parenting

- Nightwing: The Target (2001)

- Nightwing (2011)

----domestic abuse (Bruce to Dick), skip Nightwing #30

- Grayson (2014)

----old lady being a creeper, Dick being examined naked, girls thirsting after him, Bruce’s F+ parenting (leaves Dick stranded in the middle of the mission), sibling on sibling violence

- Nightwing (2016) (up to Ric sorry i can’t do it guys, i do check in on tt stuff to rag on it)

Robin Titles:

----warnings for Dixon’s weird beliefs of how the world works (Steph’s pregnancy arc, Tim yells at an alcoholic roommate an he’s cured, ‘boys will look’, girls kissing Tim without permission is fine apparently), major character death, sexism everywhere, Tim's personality taking a 180 after the one year later event

- Robin (1991) Volumes I and II

- Robin (1993)

- Robin: Year One (2000)

----Neglectful Bruce, enabler Alfred RIP Dick Grayson’s childhood

- Batman and Robin (2009)

----obliterates Talia’s characterization

- Red Robin (ongoing)

----I've read the first four issues ngl it kinda sucks imo

- Batman and Robin (2011)

----Bruce is literally a terrible parent for the first part of the run, regresses Damian’s character development from the 2009 run, sibling on sibling violence

- Batman & Robin Eternal (2015)

----obliterates Cass's character

- Super Sons (2017)

Batgirl Titles:

- Batgirl (2000)

----disability is magically cured, Bruce is a shotgun dad, gets Cass high to fight him to “talk to her in a way she can understand” i classify it as abuse, but absolutely a must-read despite this, made me love Cass

- Batgirl (2009)

----pushes Cass out of the role for *checks note* absolutely no reason, but is enjoyable all the same and made me really like Steph

- Batgirls (2021)

----I read the first issue and will not be continuing because it sucks ass

Birds of Prey

- Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey (1995) #1

- Birds of Prey: Revolution (1997) #1

- Birds of Prey: Wolves (1997) #1

- Birds of Prey: Batgirl (1997) #1

- Birds of Prey: The Ravens (1998) #1

- Birds of Prey (1998) - ongoing

Batman Titles:

- Birds of Prey: Batgirl (1997) #1

- Birds of Prey: Ravens (1998) #1

- Batman: A Death in the Family (1988)

----major character death

- Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying (1989)

- The Long Halloween (1996)

- Dark Victory (2011)

- Batman: Legacy (1996)

- Bruce Wayne Murderer/Fugitive (2002)

----Bruce Wayne C+ parenting, physical fight between Bruce and Dick

- Batman: War Games (2004)

----major character death, sexism

- All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder (2005)

----terrible, child abuse, r-word used, don’t read

- Batman: Battle for the Cowl (2009)

----Jason as a villain idk skip if you don't like him being an antagonist, sibling on sibling violence

- Batman: Streets of Gotham (2009) (up to #12)

- Batman: Batman & Son (2010)

----probably also obliterates Talia (haven't read it in forever), siblings on sibling violence

- The Black Mirror (2010)

- Batman: Gates of Gotham (2011)

- Batman (1940) #687-707 (aka Dick!bats era)

- Batman (2011) #1-17

----Bruce punches Dick in the face in one of the first issues

- Batman Eternal (2014)

----Barbara x Jason, i hate that pairing (idk for sure it's been a while)

- Detective Comics Rebirth (2016) #934-981 (plus Night of the Monster Men crossover) and #983-987

- All-Star Batman Rebirth (2016)

- Batman & The Signal (2018)

Assorted:

- Joker’s Last Laugh (2001)

----hee hee major character death but it’s a good thing <3

- Heroes in Crisis (2018)

----tries to de-stigmatize mental health by making a depressed person a killer, basically don’t read this it was horrid, i hate it, it’s stupid and bad

- Impulse (1995) - literally just the first 3 issues but it’s great

- Tempest (1996)

----sad, made me sad, but also you should read it because Garth <3

- Future State: Wonder Woman (2021) - just the first issue so far

- Harley Quinn: The Animated Series - The Eat. Bang. Kill Tour (2021) - just the first issue, have watched the show

- Some Dark Nights Metal stuff that i don’t really understand what was happening uh Bat is door 👍 very cool 👍

- Scooby-Doo Team-Up (ongoing)

- Huntress: Cry for Blood

#if you got recs let me know i'll work on it but there's like 3 other things i'm trying to get through *sobs*#i may have a pattern of setting down a comic when i know something i don't like is coming up and moving to another run...#it uhhh has been a while since i read a lot of these and i don't remember everything so if you wanna talk about one i may need to reread #so it might take some time XD #and fanon has warped my perception of characters as well so if i say something wrong call me out #LMAO If you look at something and go WHY TF WOULD YOU READ IT - it's because i don't usually look for recommendations before reading #and wasn't really part of fanon until after i read some stuff #so uh. whoops.#and yes before anyone asks i am in fact obsessed with reading Dick Grayson content and i will put down a book if he leaves #i'm working on it OKAY #aghhhh i need to get back to impulse but my desire to read all things batfam is too strong

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thequiver · 3 years

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Regarding the tags on that "stop mischaracterizing Ollie" meme, what is wrong with Winnick's? /Gen

So my biggest issue is that his GA run is racist as hell. I'm going to point you in the direction of a character known by the name of Joanna Pierce. After reading Winnick's run you'd never know that Ollie and Jefferson were friends, or that Ollie had been the one to nominate Jefferson for membership to the JLA- and also uh.....creating a black character just to kill them by hanging because you're angry about not getting to work on Black Lightning is uh.... yeah.

But beyond all this. He makes Mia and Connor kiss (in the same run that they're referred to as being seen as siblings). The idea of Ollie running for mayor is laughably ooc. He turned Ollie and Dinah's playful and mutual banter into something abusive where Ollie called Dinah a slut and she'd hit him and it was just all around bad.

But he also kept shoving the goddamn Bats in our faces. And while I'm the first to admit that I think there could be some really fun things to play with in the Mia and Jason parallels and I'm actually working on a fic about that, it just came completely out of left field.

He also retconned what happed in Snowbirds which has just caused so much Ollie bashing by people who have seen ONE PANEL of Snowbirds and assume that they know the whole story. And he did this retcon, of Ollie kicking Roy out, where Ollie is having a conversation with Batman, known child abuser who has actually in canon kicked Dick out twice.

There's more, but it's just SO APPARENT that Winnick didn't do any research into Green Arrow before he started writing, that he was angry about being snubbed from Black Ligtning and used his creative control of Green Arrow to do something about it. All in all a disgusting run. I like some of his Mia content, but the whole run is just incredibly tainted for me. Cannot stand the man.

#judd winnick #anti-judd winnick #meta #i guess?

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carlyraegrayson · 3 years

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okay listen im pmsing super bad im in SUCH a mood but i was relistening to tallahassee just now and it is so. wild? upsetting? to me that people think no children is a roy harper song like im genuinely so deeply upset abt it bc in order to think that you literally.... have to mischaracterize his entire character and miss the point so completely. in the immortal words of hallie @kalelraejepsen "it is actually very important to roys character that yes children", but its also just... roys story is ABOUT trying to get better against all odds, BECAUSE you have ppl you love and care abt, and it is CENTRAL to roys character that he never gives up and survives against all odds and has endless reserves of resourcefulness. and ALSO like. i GET that ppl are mostly familiar with roy thru outlaws but the thing is that outlaws aside (and honestly? even within outlaws if you contextualize it within the rest of his characterization), despite the fact that roy has abandonment issues because he has been abandoned many times, often through very traumatic events, hes also ALWAYS at the last second helped--not saved but helped--by other people who love him. he never gives up on loving people and thats what gives him the strength to keep going and keep living!!! and that is SO important to me personally, and when people make no children "i hope it stays dark forever i hope the worst isnt over i hope you blink before i do and i hope i never get sober" / "and i hope you die i hope we both die" you REALLY... have to ignore all of that. and idk if ppl are making the other party in the song jason? and thats how theyre interpreting it? but like again i take issue w that bc in order for outlaws to make SENSE, both roy and korys EXTENSIVE history and their extremely complex plotlines and all the conmections theyve made throughout their lives have to be essentially erased so the story can, for the most part, focus on jason (rewriting roys entire addiction plotline/giving kory amnesia abt much of her life prior to earth) and thats just. man idk. or like. are yall trying to make that song abt jade and roy? bc that doesnt work either literally no matter what jade does and even when roy has (oh my god you guys my cat is asleep on my bed and she is SUCH a baby) even when roy HAS to stop jade because she is doing terrible things that he IDEALOGICALLY doesnt agree with, he will do everything in his power to protect her and prevent her from dying bc he has an immense love for her BECAUSE she is the mother of his child, and he literally tries as much as he can to make sure that jade can safely be a part of lians life!!! and its even MORE insulting bc john darnielle, mr mountaingoats, is LITERALLY an ex-cocaine addict from the 1980s who DID recover AND has written ENTIRE ALBUMS about this, tallahassee being ONE of them, if you want songs off tallahassee that work for roy, old college try is RIGHT there. even if u want a song that works for roy and jasons dynamic. see america right and international small arms traffic blues are RIGHT there. and to be fair ive only read a handful of issues of outlaws so far (and i HAVE enjoyed what ive read for the most part! its fun!) but i do know and talk to ppl who HAVE read all of it or most of it (and ALSO enjoyed it more than i have) and ive talked w them abt this in depth and they agree w me and backed me up and like. not to seem like im swinging a bat at a hornets nest! bc i know its not that deep! but also im right!

#txt #like. roys resilience and love for those around him and his refusal to give up are all very meaningful to me #and the things ive gone thru #and erasing that shit so outlaws can be edgy.... im Not A Fan

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didanawisgi · 4 years

Link

Top executives are departing amidst reports of racial and sexual harassment.

by ROBBY SOAVE (2019)

“Controversy has struck the Southern Poverty Law Center, the formidable progressive law firm best known for tracking hate groups in the U.S. Co-founder Morris Dees, President Richard Cohen, and other top executives are exiting the organization amidst a staff uprising over alleged sexual and racial harassment in the work place.

The leadership shakeup, fueled by allegations that black staffers were shut out of key positions and that Dees personally harassed female staffers, has brought the SPLC considerable media scrutiny, and it's about time. Regardless of whether these specific accusations have merit, the SPLC should face a reckoning over its extremely shoddy work, which has mistakenly promoted the idea that fringe hate groups are a rising threat.

Peddling this false narrative has long been the SPLC's business model, and the Trump years have been especially profitable, since the group was almost perfectly positioned to capitalize on growing liberals fears about hate crimes, resurgent white nationalism, and the alt-right. Over the course of the Trump campaign and presidency, the SPLC has added dozens of staffers, saw its social media following rise dramatically, ramped up its fundraising, and built a $200 million endowment. Its role has been to provide intellectual support for a central narrative of the #Resistance: Hate, broadly defined, is surging across America, and Trump is to blame.

But the SPLC's hate tally is incredibly suspect, as leftist writer Nathan Robinson explained in a terrific article for Current Affairs. According to the SPLC's hate map, there were more than 1,000 hate groups in the U.S. in 2018—nearly twice as many as existed in 2000. The number has increased every year since 2014.

The map is littered with dots that provide more information on each specific group, and this is where the SPLC gives away the game. Consider a random state—Oklahoma, for example, is home to nine distinct hate groups, by the SPLC's count. Five of them, though, are black nationalist groups: the Nation of Islam, Israel United in Christ, etc. The SPLC counts each chapter of these groups separately, so the Nation of Islam counts as two separate hate groups within Oklahoma (its various chapters in other states are also tallied separately). The map makes no attempt to contextualize all of this—no information is given on the relative size or influence of each group.

In his piece, Robinson describes the map as an "outright fraud," and it's hard to argue with him:

In fact, when you actually look at the hate map, you find something interesting: Many of these "groups" barely seem to exist at all. A "Holocaust denial" group in Kerrville, Texas called "carolynyeager.net" appears to just be a woman called Carolyn Yeager. A "male supremacy" group called Return of Kings is apparently just a blog published by pick-up artist Roosh V and a couple of his friends, and the most recent post is an announcement from six months ago that the project was on indefinite hiatus. Tony Alamo, the abusive cult leader of "Tony Alamo Christian Ministries," died in prison in 2017. (Though his ministry's website still promotes "Tony Alamo's Unreleased Beatles Album.") A "black nationalist" group in Atlanta called "Luxor Couture" appears to be an African fashion boutique. "Sharkhunters International" is one guy who really likes U-boats and takes small groups of sad Nazis on tours to see ruins and relics. And good luck finding out much about the "Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology," which—if it is currently operative at all—is a tiny anti-Catholic cult based in Shawano, Wisconsin.

Sloppily tallying hate in service of a greater narrative is par for the course at the SPLC. The group's report on Trump-inspired schoolyard bullying is similarly flawed: Its survey was unscientific, and based on anecdotes reported by members of the SPLC's mailing list.

When it comes to misleading hate crime data, the SPLC is far from the only offender. Many in the media have exaggerated a finding by the Anti-Defamation League that anti-Semitic hate has increased 57 percent under Trump. (Bomb threats made by an Israeli teenager were largely responsible for the perceived increase: anti-Semitic assaults actually decreased substantially.) The FBI's hate crime data has also been widely mischaracterized.

Still, the SPLC stands out. It previously characterized Maajid Nawaz as an anti-Muslim extremist—but Nawaz is a progressive whose work is aimed at de-radicalizing Muslim extremists. To this day, the SPLC lists Charles Murray's ideology as "white nationalist."

Over at National Review, David French urges the SPLC to "rediscover its roots." The organization used to do much more work aligned with its name: representing impoverished death row inmates, for example, and battling the KKK in court. It has plenty of money, and could hire an army of lawyers to really make a difference in the lives of criminal defendants. But first, the organization needs to give up on the project of inflating the threat posed by fringe nutcases.”

#hate crimes #southern poverty law center #SPLC #politics #ideology #ideological left #ideological possession #controversy #debate #debate 2020 #proud boys #antifa

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rcyharper · 5 years

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it’s honestly just really upsetting how much Roy’s fanbase has died down over the years. Like honestly idk, I’ve just been looking at comments online and it’s really just disheartening how he’s kind of sweeped under the rug by most fans. He always seems to be the odd one out, that one that’s okay to be sacrificed.

and like, I even get that sometimes because that’s what I’ve always talked about: how the New 52 basically just kind of damaged his reputation, people see him as annoying which I understand because that’s what New 52 Roy is, but it’s really demoralizing because they choose to accept that as the default version of the character rather than a big mischaracterization, and because it’s spread around so much, that just changes people’s opinions about the character so much. i just really wish he still had respect as a character among fans, but that’s just been ultimately damaged and it’s not something that’ll be easy to build back up, especially when you consider the lack of trying.

#fandom wank /#like idk i saw a tweet asking people to get rid of 1 of 4 characters and it had roy on there #and most of the replies were saying roy which i expected but like #it's really upsetting when most of the replies are something like 'easily roy' or 'roy no question' roy any day'#and some justifying it because that's annoying #like i see a few comments about how it's a hard choice but most comments were about how easy it is to pick roy #and this is from over 100 replies #between that and people just accepting his hic death it's just... idk #like honestly i think if wally and ivy weren't also dead hic wouldn't be getting that much attention #most people would just say death always happens some characters need to die tc etc #like i just really.... hate how this is now his reputation among fans #he's not a character that's taken seriously anymore #negativity /

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agallimaufryofoddments · 5 years

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diaryofdreamsb replied to your photo

“So Ch 20 of the manga is out. The Gandors only show up in the...”

Can someone tell me which chapter should I read? I have only finished the anime

Hey @diaryofdreamsb--I can help you out.

First thing to understand is that Baccano! is a light novel series written by Ryohgo Narita and illustrated by Enami Katsumi. The first novel, The Rolling Bootlegs, was published in 2003; there are 22 volumes and counting.

The post you replied to was about Chapter 20 of the 2015-2017 manga adaptation, as drawn by Shinta Fujimoto. That manga is three volumes long and 22 chapters total. Volume 1 introduces an entirely new mini-arc (1927 arc/San Gennaro arc), while Volumes 2-3 adapt The Rolling Bootlegs. I’d say this manga is a more faithful adaptation of The Rolling Bootlegs than the anime is.

(There is also a 2006 manga adaptation worth knowing about, but I’ll keep things simple. Basically, you need to check out the light novels for the original, full story.)

I recommend starting with Volume 1: The Rolling Bootlegs rather than trying to jump in at, say, the fifth light novel volume. The anime adapts less than a fifth of the ongoing story.

Here are what the timelines in the anime correspond to:

Nov 1930: Volume 1 (Firo’s promotion party; Szilard Quates vs Maiza; etc)

Dec 30-31, 1931: Volumes 2-3 (Flying Pussyfoot incident)

Dec 1931-Jan 1932: Volume 4 (Runoratas-Genoards-Gandors). NOTE: The anime severely deviates from Volume 4′s contents.

January 1932/Eps 14-16: The three OVAs are linked to the first gaiden novel which accompanied the first audio drama’s boxset. That gaiden novel would eventually be turned into Volume 14 of the light novel series.

The reason I recommend you start from Volume 1 is that the anime makes some not-insignificant changes to the source material it adapts. It cuts out scenes and characters from all three main timelines, changes other scenes, and loses a lot of the internal monologues/thoughts that give you better insight into some of the characters. (I’d say Firo, Luck, and Eve undergo some mischaracterization i.e. misrepresentation of their characters in the anime).

Like I said, the anime severely deviates from the actual contents of Volume 4. It makes the Finding Dallas B-Plot the A-Plot (completely shafting Roy and Edith’s plot-line) and decides to have Beriam & the Runoratas looking for Dallas (instead of the bag of drugs c.f. the novels), whereas Eve is the only person looking for Dallas in the volume.

Meanwhile, the anime also condensed the chronology of Volume 1 (Nov 1930) from two days and one night to one day and one night, which shuffles/changes some things up as a consequence. FPF timeline has quite a bit of scenes cut in the anime, and other scenes are changed because several characters were cut from the train.

So: You should pick up the light novels if you want to get into Baccano!, with me strongly encouraging you to start with Volume 1. There are various other things worth knowing about, such as: the two manga adaptations; the two audio dramas; the NDS game; and Ronny’s origin story, but I wouldn’t worry about all that until you’re caught up with the novels.

(I do suggest reading the transcription of the NDS game’s third ending after you read Volume 14, though.)

I said there are currently 22 volumes and counting earlier--note that Volume 23 was postponed due to Narita’s health, so we’re still waiting on that for the time being. For the majority of Baccano!’s printing time, the only way Anglophone readers could read the light novels was through the fan-translations--myself included. All existing novels have been fan-translated...

...However, in 2015 Yen Press announced it had licensed the Baccano! light novels (AND the 2015 manga), much to our collective shock, and has been publishing the volumes since 2016. They have officially translated the first ten volumes so far (Volume 10 they published last month), with Volume 11 scheduled for this August.

If you are financially able, I strongly encourage you to monetarily support the official release. This is the YP website’s address for the Baccano! series--the page is a bit of a mess, since it’s mixing together the light novel volumes, manga volumes, and the individual manga chapters, but still might be helpful for you.

Here is a FAQ I wrote for the /r/Baccano subreddit, which I suggest reading as a sort of starting place. I am also available to answer questions as needed.

#diaryofdreamsb #Baccano!#Asked and Answered #even if it's not an Ask it was a question asked as a reply to one of my posts so...#I'm counting it

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cameoamalthea · 6 years

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I'm surprised you aren't more supportive of Roy Moore, seeing as you're pretty much a pedophilia apologist

I’m a survivor of CSA. I couldn’t consummate my marriage on my wedding night because I needed to have surgery first to repair some internal damage. I spent a year, beginning in summer 2016, in physical therapy, pelvic floor therapy, because even after the surgery the physical scar tissue and phycological scars (subconscious discomfort means I could never relax those muscles, not even to wear a tampon or have exams that I needed to have because I have PCOS). I blogged about it. It’s under my recovery tag. I’m in therapy, and DBT.

And I’m learning to manage my triggers, but being called a “pedophile apologist” or insinuating I support child abuse is still a trigger and I really really really wish people like you would not insinuate that I wanted what happened to me.

How dare you.

And you’re mocking my posts about the need to stop sexual exploitation of teenagers and the culture that enables it, because I’m pro-books, anti-censorship and tired of people tearing down works by queer creators?

“Call Me By Your Name” is an award winning novel, which won the 20th Lambda Literary Awards for gay fiction.

Reviewing Call Me By Your Name for The New York Times, Stacey D'Erasmo called the novel “an exceptionally beautiful book”.[1]Writing in The New Yorker, Cynthia Zarin said, “Aciman’s first novel shows him to be an acute grammarian of desire”.[2] In The Washington Post, Charles Kaiser said, “If you have ever been the willing victim of obsessive love—a force greater than yourself that pulls you inextricably toward the object of your desire—you will recognize every nuance of André Aciman’s superb new novel, ‘Call Me by Your Name.’

The novel is by a Jewish POC author (he was born in Egypt, fled to Italy, and is now an American and a Proust scholar - so it’s fair to say he knows queer lit).

The book has been adapted into a Film by Italian director Luca Guadagnino and written by James Ivory who are both gay men.

So this is a film written and directed by gay men, telling a gay love story about a Jewish gay boy, based on a book by a Jewish POC author.

Call Me by Your Name was selected by the National Board of Review and American Film Institute as one of the top 10 films of the year.[122][123] It received eight nominations at Critics’ Choice Awards, including Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography.[124] It led the Independent Spirit Awards with most nomination, garnering six, among them Best Feature, Best Director, Best Male Lead, Best Supporting Male, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing.[125] At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, it was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for Chalamet, and Best Supporting Actor for Hammer.[126]Call Me by Your Name won the Grand Prize at the Chéries-Chéris Festival.[127]Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival awarded the film NOS Audience Award,[128] and Chalamet received Best Actor award at New York Film Critics Circle.[129]Gotham Independent Film Awardsand Hollywood Film Awards both awarded Chalamet, with their Breakout Actor Awards.

The story is about a 17 year old who falls in love with a 24 year old student over a summer. It is not, as mischaracterized by @socialisttexan, a story that ‘normalizes grown men preying on teenagers’

A 17 year old character becomes friends with a 24 year old student and has a crush on him. The 17 year old brags about having sex with his girlfriend to see how the 24 year old will react. He sneaks into the student’s room while he’s not there and does creepy sexual things in Oliver’s bed while touching Oliver’s clothes without his knowledge or consent (you can read the summary yourself, it’s on wikipedia). He tells the 24 year old he has feelings for him, and the 24 year old tells him no. The 17 year old later kisses the 24 year old without his consent, the 24 year old stops him and says they can’t do more. They stop being friends, but after a few days of distance, the 24 year old admits that he likes his friend too and they sleep together.

This is not an older man who sought out a younger man in order to use his youth or inexperience to coerce him into sex. This is a man who became friends with a younger guy while staying at the guy’s parents house, working for his dad, and was pursued by the younger guy.

Rape is sex when there’s not consent. Preying on someone is manipulating or coercing someone to do something they do not want to do.

This novel features sex between a 17 year old and a 24 year old that is consensual, and the only one who did anything wrong was the 17 year old (who acted creepy, and didn’t take no for an answer).

In comparison, Roy Moore is a real a person who hurt real teenagers. He sexually harassed them. He was in his 30s at the time, not a peer or a friend. He met one victim after her mother asked him to watch her while she went into Court to testify, thinking she could trust her daughter with the assistant DA (the lawyer in charge of prosecuting criminals). Roy Moore explicitly used his position of power to force himself on his victims.

“You’re just a child, I’m the district attorney; if you tell anyone about this no one will ever believe you.”

[23]

[24]

Roy Moore is a sexual predator and a rapist.

If you don’t see any difference between defending a novel and film depicting a consensual relationship with a age gap and a rapist forcing himself on teenage girls, then you don’t understand why rape wrong.

As a rape survivor, lawyer and advocate, let me give you a hint: IT’S BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT THEM TO TOUCH YOU.

Because you’re too young to ever understand what they’re doing. Because you don’t want to be touched like that and they’re hurting you. And you want it to stop, but you can’t stop it. And you blame yourself for not stopping it and still wonder ‘maybe I did something wrong?’

And look at old pictures of you as a child, posing for pictures, and wondering if maybe you acted too sexy, maybe you did something wrong. Because maybe that’s less scary than the truth that there was nothing you could have done to prevent it. Because the worst feeling in the world is to be helpless.

And then you deal with people telling you that you support child molestation and rape and that voice that says ‘your fault’ is there again.

I like books about people falling in love and wanting sex, because I could never have that when I was 17 - I’m too damaged, but I like seeing sex presented as something that can be good, and consensual and not about hurting you.

And I like books in general. I have an English degree with a specialty in Fiction Writing. And I’m anti-censorship in general, I was vice-President of my law school’s ACLU chapter. And I don’t believe that books can only exist as moral guidelines and examples of healthy good behavior. Fiction isn’t instructional, you want the non-fiction section for that. Fiction tells stories.

And you don’t have to like every book or read every book or see every movie, but maybe stop attacking gay works and holding them to this standard of only 100% morally right, especially since so much of the gay rights movement has been a fight for the right for gay media to be just as sexual and amoral as straight media.

Because it’s hard enough for gay works to get published and get adapted into movies. Publishers don’t like gambling, and it’s already seen as a gamble because it’s ‘gay’ - if making it gay means a higher chance of backlash, then that’s not incentive to publish gay works.

#Anonymous #cmbyn #call me by your name #discourse #CSA trigger warning

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legowerewolf · 3 years

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I posted 16,160 times in 2021

15 posts created (0%)

16145 posts reblogged (100%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 1076.3 posts.

I added 44 tags in 2021

#all for the game - 6 posts

#andrew minyard - 6 posts

#voltron - 5 posts

#neil josten - 5 posts

#klance - 4 posts

#fence - 4 posts

#q*bert - 4 posts

#aftg - 4 posts

#keith - 3 posts

#awesome art - 3 posts

Longest Tag: 123 characters

#anyway it has been many years since i read either of these novels so it's entirely possible i've mischaracterized something

My Top Posts in 2021

Musings on FMA

So, like, I understand the explanation for why the cool alchemists only have to clap to do transmutations: you still need a circle to run the energy through, and forming that circle with your body is a valid option.

But how come I've never seen anything in canon or fanon about making a circle with a finger and thumb? Even if it's limited in the amount of energy that can circulate, you could still do small transmutations (although Roy, Armstrong, and Kimblee's circles on their hands were only slightly larger, and still were put to impressive use).

14 notes • Posted 2021-07-05 18:49:31 GMT

Murderbot Diaries AU idea

Everything's the exact same, except Murderbot edits its logs to point out that Gurathin licks rocks.

“The practice is disgusting, it’s horrible, it’s slavery. This is no more a machine than Gurathin, who licks rocks, is—”

I could hear them in the room and on the security feed, so I switched to just visual on the camera. Mensah had held up a hand for quiet. She said, “Rock-licker, what’s wrong?”

I said, “One of them is an augmented human, a systems engineer. He can make it launch. Check the data you got from our HubSystem. It’s Surveyor Dr. Gurathin, who licks rocks.”

there's so much comedy potential here

i'd kill to see the crew's reactions

24 notes • Posted 2021-07-16 01:21:36 GMT

so I've been playing a lot of Control lately. Finished the main story, a number of side quests, and both the DLC stories (and a number of their side quests).

I have yet to discover anyone who got caught with their pants literally down by the Hiss. I don't even recall seeing any Hiss agents in bathrooms in general, pantsed or not.

I find that improbable, to say the least.

Where's the mod that adds some poor schmuck floating and chanting above a toilet with his pants around his ankles?

27 notes • Posted 2021-07-01 17:42:54 GMT

hey *tap tap* y'all still alive in the parapines fandom?

32 notes • Posted 2021-02-02 21:04:43 GMT

I am so here for every fanfic author who wants to make homophobic, racist authors spin in their graves. Hook 'em up to turbines, let's power the world from pure fucking spite.

49 notes • Posted 2021-01-12 07:46:24 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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olko71 · 3 years

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New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on http://yaroreviews.info/2021/09/facebook-to-halt-work-on-instagram-kids-version

Facebook to Halt Work on Instagram Kids Version

Facebook Inc. FB 0.18% said it would suspend plans for a version of its Instagram app tailored to children, a concession after lawmakers and others voiced concerns about the photo-sharing platform’s effects on young people’s mental health.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri said Monday that the social-media service is pausing its work so that it can listen to concerns and do more to demonstrate the value of the kids version, which was to be ad-free and allow parents to monitor children’s activity.

“I still firmly believe that it’s a good thing to build a version of Instagram that’s safe for tweens, but we want to take the time to talk to parents and researchers and safety experts and get to more consensus about how to move forward,” Mr. Mosseri said on NBC’s “Today” show.

Facebook’s move follows an article this month in The Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files series showing that the company’s internal research found Instagram is harmful for a sizable percentage of young users, particularly teenage girls with body-image concerns. The article prompted a Senate hearing on the subject scheduled for later this week.

“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from a 2019 internal presentation, summarizing research about teen girls who experience the issues.

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Separately on Monday, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis directed his secretary of state to investigate Facebook in relation to another article in the Journal’s series. That article exposed a company system known as “cross check” that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of Facebook’s rules for behavior on its platforms. Mr. DeSantis said the probe would examine whether the exemptions violate Florida election laws.

Asked for comment, a Facebook spokesman reiterated that the cross check system was designed to help the company accurately enforce policies on content potentially requiring more understanding. He said Facebook has been working to address the issues with the program to improve how it operates.

The Journal’s Instagram article added to concerns about the platform’s effects on young people. Facebook’s plan for a children’s version of the app, which Mr. Mosseri said was intended for 10-to-12-year-olds, has drawn criticism this year from federal lawmakers and state officials over its impact on young people’s mental health. Instagram bars children younger than 13 from its platform but acknowledges that many join anyway.

In May, attorneys general from 44 states and territories urged Facebook to abandon plans for a children’s Instagram platform, arguing that children aren’t equipped to use social media and that there are better ways for them to connect with friends and family. Members of Congress from both parties have also expressed concerns about the plan.

“Facebook is heeding our calls to stop plowing ahead with plans to launch a version of Instagram for kids,” Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) said on Twitter Monday. “But a ‘pause’ is insufficient. Facebook must completely abandon this project.” Rep. Ken Buck (R., Colo.) also called on Instagram to “abolish the program completely.”

In an interview Monday, two of the state officials who criticized Instagram’s plan in the spring, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, also called on Instagram to fully abandon the project.

Facebook executives say that because children already find ways to skirt the app’s age restrictions, it would be better for them to use a version with stronger safety controls. Mr. Mosseri noted Monday that other big internet platforms such as YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance Ltd., have versions designed for children under 13.

The company believes the children’s version “is the right thing to do,” Mr. Mosseri said in a statement. “Critics of ‘Instagram Kids’ will see this as an acknowledgment that the project is a bad idea. That’s not the case.”

Mr. Mosseri and Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg have said that social media can help children form connections.

Instagram also plans to offer more parental controls to families with older children, Mr. Mosseri said. The controls would be optional and would allow parents to monitor and shape their teenagers’ experience with the platform. Instagram had been developing some of those tools for the now-paused kids’ platform, he said.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has said that social media can help children form connections.

Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

“Parents of kids of all ages are looking for more ways to supervise and control their kids’ experiences online,” Mr. Mosseri said. The controls could give parents the ability to approve whom their teenage children can message and follow, he added.

The Journal’s Sept. 14 article about Facebook’s internal research on Instagram was part of a series showing that Facebook knows its platforms are riddled with a variety of flaws that cause harm. In addition to the Instagram research, the Facebook Files articles—based on a review of internal documents and interviews with current and former employees—also reported on problems with Facebook’s content-moderation policy for high-profile accounts, its efforts to tame angry content and its programs to bar criminals such as human traffickers and drug cartels.

Josh Golin, executive director of a group called Fairplay that advocates reducing companies’ interactions with children, praised Instagram’s decision and said it was evidence of rising concerns about the platform’s harms.

“What you saw here was a really well-organized outcry from so many different circles: experts, advocates, states’ attorneys general, parents,” Mr. Golin said. “That, combined with the really disturbing revelations in The Wall Street Journal, created so much pressure on Facebook that they understood that they really risked drawing the ire of lawmakers and doing long-term damage to their brand.”

Leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee’s consumer-protection subcommittee said last week they would hold a hearing this Thursday to question a senior Facebook executive about its platforms’ effects on young people’s mental health.

On Monday, Facebook said it would make public the internal Instagram research that was the subject of the Journal’s reporting.

“Of course people should judge for themselves, so we’re just making sure that all the Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted so that we can release it both to Congress and then to the public in the next few days,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, said at a conference hosted by the Atlantic magazine.

Facebook’s head of research, Pratiti Raychoudhury, said in a blog post Sunday, 12 days after the Journal’s article ran, that the Journal’s reporting mischaracterized the company’s findings about Instagram and teens. Ms. Raychoudhury said that body image was the only area, out of a dozen, where the company found teen girls who reported struggling with the issue said that Instagram made it worse. Facebook’s research shows many teens “feel that using Instagram helps them when they are struggling with the kinds of hard moments and issues teenagers have always faced,” she said.

A Journal spokesman said, “We stand behind The Facebook Files. None of the company’s defenses have cited a single factual error—and in keeping with our standards, we gave Facebook ample time and space to comment before publication.”

The Journal’s article noted that for most teenagers, Instagram’s effects can be manageable and at times positive but highlighted those areas where the company’s own researchers flagged negative effects on at-risk users.

The Facebook Files

Write to Matt Grossman at [email protected]

#PAID

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glittergummicandypeach · 4 years

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State Director of Christian Right Legislative Group, ‘Project Blitz,’ Calls for Lynching of Rep. Ilhan Omar (Updated) | Religion Dispatches

UPDATE, July 27, 2020: Rev. Dale Witherington recently returned to the scene of his Facebook crime and wrote that he would be taking time away from Facebook and deleting his app. This was three days after the political blog Bluestem Prarie first reported on Witherington’s Facebook call for the lynching of a “parade” of people including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and one day after RD advanced and took the story national.

It did not go well, with one commenter objecting:

Witherington was back on Facebook on July 13th, offering a classic non-apology apology. This also did not go well, and he responded neither to his friends or his critics.

Witherington apologized to no one in particular about nothing in particular. He has been silent on Facebook since then.

He could have first apologized to Rep. Omar and stated unequivocally that he does not think she or anyone else should be lynched and that American Muslims like her are fit and welcome to run for and hold public office. But he didn’t. He might have publicly called on the Facebook friend with whom he was agreeing about that lynching to also recant and apologize. But he didn’t. He might have further repented his call for this profoundly immoral and arguably criminal action. But he didn’t. Finally, he might also apologize to the Minnesota State Legislative Prayer Caucus, the state action arm of Project Blitz, of which he is State Director and how his words and actions reflect on these legislators.

He has done none of these things, but he could.

This began as a story about a Christian Right leader who joined in calling for a Member of Congress and others to be hanged for treason. And then it got interesting.

Screenshot of screenshot, courtesy of Bluestem Prairie.

In a recent Facebook post (since taken down) Rev. Dale Witherington, the State Director of the Minnesota action arm of the Christian Right state legislative campaign, Project Blitz, agreed with a commenter (and Facebook friend) that U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “needs to be Hung.” He added, “I can think of other treasonous persons who can join that parade.” [See image left.]

The political blog Bluestem Prairie which broke the story, posted a screenshot of the inflammatory comments. The comments were scrubbed the next day, soon after they were tweeted by religion scholar André Gagné of Concordia University in Montreal. A few hours later, the entire post was taken down along with all of the 47 other comments.

We had no idea we were racing Witherington’s apparent growing awareness that his agreement with a call for the lynching of a Member of Congress and others might catch up with him—and that he’d have to scramble to cover his tracks.

“I have not called on anyone to be hanged,” Witherington protested when he was called out by another commenter in the thread. But he had no response when confronted with a screenshot of his words. (RD copied this quote into this story just before everything was deleted.)

Witherington also wrote in the now-deleted post, (sans evidence) about the “likelihood” that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) holds to views incompatible with the U.S. Constitution, and suggested, much like the infamous Judge Roy Moore of Alabama, that Muslims should be barred from holding public office. Rep. Omar, originally a refugee immigrant from Somalia, is the first woman of color to hold federal elective office from Minnesota and one of the first Muslim women in Congress. The threat against Rep. Omar was particularly ill-considered in that she represents the 5th Congressional District, which includes the city of Minneapolis, the epicenter of the protests arising from the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police.

Since her election in 2018, she’s been the target of death threats. And threats like those of Witherington and his Facebook friend are far from the first threats against her life, which makes it all the more remarkable that they would join this rhetorical Republican lynch mob. According to Wikipedia,

“Two Republican candidates for congressional office have called for her to be executed.[173] In November 2019, Danielle Stella, Omar’s Republican opponent for Congress, was banned from Twitter for suggesting that Omar be hanged for treason.[168] In December 2019, George Buck, another Republican running for Congress, also suggested that Omar be hanged for treason.”

Witherington wrote,

“…it is so difficult, if not impossible, for a person with an Islamic ideology to hold office of any kind in the United States. Geopolitical Islam is completely at odds with supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States. The two supporting ideologies are so opposed to one another, they cannot be reconciled. Our systems of government clash. There is no middle ground.”

In another of his now-deleted comments, he said he was relying on his interpretation of a 14th century book on Sharia Law, to explain how Omar’s use of the expression “inshallah”—which most understand to mean “God willing” in the same sense as in Jewish and Christian traditions, as somehow evidence of devotion to an ancient notion of harsh Islamic theocracy.

Of course, this may have been a projection on Witherington’s part, because Rep. Omar from her earliest days as a freshman Member of Congress in 2019 has an unambiguous record of commitment to religious freedom, pluralism and separation of church and state—while Witherington subscribes, as RD reported last year, to the neo-Pentecostal theology of 7 Mountains Dominionism. For Witherington, there may be no long-term accommodation with any religious view outside of a certain circumscribed version of theocratic Christianity, to which religious equality under the law is a permanent obstacle.

Dismantling systems of oppression

The current controversy stems from comments Omar made recently in which she called for dismantling systems of oppression in the U.S. This caused conservatives from Donald Trump to Don Jr. to Breitbart and beyond to wage an aggressive election year series of mischaracterizations of Omar’s statements.

Some claimed that she wanted to dismantle the entire economic and political system of the U.S. and even “America’s Foundation.” A short video produced by the rightwing Western Journal to which Witherington’s Facebook post was responding, claimed that Omar had called for the “complete dismantling of the American way of life.” This false characterization was taken as fact by Witherington who then claimed it was also representative of Islam and incompatible with the Constitution.

Omar’s actual quote read (and is even to be heard in The Western Journal’s video clip):

“As long as our economy and political systems prioritize profit without considering who is profiting, who is being shut out, we will perpetuate this inequality. So we cannot stop at criminal justice system. We must begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression, wherever we find it.”

She also said, although it was not included in the clip:

“We are not merely fighting to tear down the systems of oppression in the criminal justice system; we are fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment [and] in the air we breathe.”

Far from calling for tearing down the system, she was calling for reform by eliminating oppressions within various sectors, as well as the system as a whole.

Among the oppressions that Omar did not mention but we might add, are religious bigotry inflamed by racism aimed at everyone who gets in the way or deviates from the theocratic objectives of the Christian Right.

This content was originally published here.

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