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rivertalesien · 3 years

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what does it matter to you people if Bob and Eliza want to build a school in New Guinea? at least tehy're doing something!

For four years some of us helped support the school Eliza Taylor enthusiastically promoted. She placed herself in photo after photo with those kids. She told us how important this school was to her. She had co-workers join her in public support. She brought a lot of goodwill for the school and herself.

Following her marriage to Morley, things changed. She was less open in supporting the school. Morley never made a visible visit to it. Behind the scenes, Wyndham, the on-site partner, dealing with the day-to-day realities of the school and mountains of problems with the Thai government, still wanted to expand, even getting an American lawyer (Gina Fraterneli) to start Friends of Koh Tao Primary as a non-profit in the US.

In early 2020, as The 100′s run started to wind down, as rumors of Bob Morley’s erratic behavior on set started to spread, as Arryn Zech’s statement on their past relationship made media, as Covid hit the planet and devastated country after country, taking lives and closing businesses and tourism (a huge hit for Thailand), a huge change for KTP was on the horizon. Taylor had wanted FoKTP to have a name change to Little Hearts Learning. Soon, other people none of us know, would become involved.

A woman named Michele Gorman, a Christian Conservative who runs Refuge House, a small foster care charity in Texas, and no one anyone of us had ever heard of before, paid a visit to Thailand in March. Not long after, she was tweeting dubious psychoanalysis about Bob Morley’s ex, Arryn Zech, who accused him of abuse. How did she fit into the picture? How would the Morleys have met someone like her? Not long after, she’s suddenly an official part of LHL as their treasurer (in spite of her own charity, RH, showing a failing score on Charity Navigator and her taking around a quarter of the charity’s earnings for herself). Gina Fraterneli, after issuing caustic tweets critical of at least one new board member for LHL (presumably Gorman), quits.

And it all goes downhill from there.

For a long time fans expressed criticism about things like the infamous “bed selfie” which was supposed to be auctioned off for Jo Garfein’s Cancer Gets Lost Charity (and if you go far enough back, Garfein came under fire for continuing to support Jason Rothenberg, , seemingly abandoning the LGBTQ community in favor of sucking up to celebrities), but the auction was canceled; a year later it showed up, unannounced for another auction and went for thousands of dollars. A photograph. Went. For. Thousands (but that would look like nothing compared to Zoom calls with the Morleys that started last year, for hundreds if not thousands of dollars a pop, again, to supposedly support the school). Jokes that the bed selfie paid for the Morley’s wedding were crass (and likely not at all true), but also showed how easily a joke can become the rumor, can become the norm.

Fans also expressed criticism of the Morleys themselves, for the abuse and cheating allegations mostly, for Morley’s questionable (and frankly Scientologist-like) leanings against traditional mental health (the danger to young, impressionable fans cannot be understated), racist subtext in his tweets and his general hiding behind his new wife who was suddenly doing all the work of talking about and explaining their relationship (in glowing terms), in spite of long rumors of these two not getting along on the set. “Bellarke” fans evolved into “Beliza” stans taking their cultish devotion to Morley (and previous hatred of Eliza) and started weaponizing it in their defense. A head-scratching mess of seemingly disparate personalities.

In other words, a lot of shit was stirring around this couple and it wasn’t leading anywhere good.

By the summer of 2020, with Gina Fraterneli quitting, there was no one left working at Little Hearts Learning who was connected to Claire Wyndham and her school, save Eliza herself. What Claire would describe in a video a few days ago as American corporate charity types, had taken over LHL and the decision was made to cut ties with KTP. The charity LHL had initially been setup to support.

The 100 now ended, and Wyndham suffering huge health problems of her own, financial support for the school was in jeopardy. Fraterneli expressed concern that the money made from the Zoom calls wasn’t being passed on to the school. It looked like maybe the money was being withheld with increasing suggestion (though never a direct statement), that KTP or Claire (one and the same) had messed up accounting that made KTP a liability. Again, NOTHING specific was said, it was all implied via behavior. Tweets from people who were not associated with the school and would have no reason to know anything about its financial status, only its legal one: something not Wyndham’s fault, but more in the hands of the Thai government. FoKTP was setup to help solve those problems. The suggestion was that LHL was protecting itself from the very school it was supposed to help. But why?

I ask again: was Gorman’s visit to Thailand in March just a vacation for her and only a coincidence, or was she doing something else there? How did this person get involved in the first place? From small-time Texas to hanging with young Hollywood celebs is kind of a leap. She literally went from:

To:

Interesting.

So, instead of using FoKTP/LHL to support KTP, instead of using her new board of American professional corporate charity types to help KTP with its problems with licensing and the Thai government, instead of working to save the school both she and Claire called “their lives,” Taylor’s name is removed from anything and everything to do with the school. Claire can’t even mention her by name without legal trouble from LHL’s board. Suddenly, Taylor can’t read, she doesn’t know them.

Why? Why stoop so low to allow your fans to spread rumors of wrong-doing instead of helping your friend and those kids, with what should have been new and stronger resources, right? I mean, take Gorman up there, the advocate and scholar and founder of charities, including one that supposedly supports foster kids, shouldn’t someone like her be all about protecting the kids, putting them first? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If things were so bad in Thailand, if things can get that tough, what will happen if they get tough in, say, Papua New Guinea?

Why did Taylor say NOTHING to stop the spread of rumors, which have likely done a great deal of damage to the reputation of the school (and, thus, harm, to those children)? The twitter timelines of most of these folks from LHL express no involved interest in children’s issues. I mean, if you’re an advocate, wouldn’t you be out there tweeting up a storm about kids in cages at the border or the like? These people only seem interested in “children” as a concept to build a business charity around.

Now LHL is branding itself as a slick little operation that’s going to help bring power to...Papua New Guinea. A place, that, as far as we know, none of the LHL people, including the Morley’s, has a personal connection to. KTP was a personal project for Taylor, once. Setting up a program in PNG (did they ask?), now announced as “an education center”, looks like standard-issue Christian-American White Savior Feel Good Hero BS in the Third World.

It begs questions: what sort of curriculum will this “education center” have? An international one like KTP or will it be...Christian-based? Who will run this education center? Is this with cooperation from the PNG government or some other entity? How did they decide on PNG? What *is* LHL now? Are the Morley’s involved beyond being the celeb faces to promote it? Are they, like Gorman with her RH charity, receiving “compensation” from LHL? There is currently no financial information available, no Charity Navigator score. Nothing for the public to see.

It all drops to the biggest question: why should anyone trust them when they took over Claire Wyndham’s expansion idea, then took over FoKTP, thus abandoning KTP? You can’t paint yourself as Big Philanthropist Types Doing it for the Kids when your first attempt at it was thrown away like it never mattered. Those kids deserve better and the school really is struggling now, with only six children being sponsored and staff being laid off. There won’t be a proper school if they don’t get help.

LHL is currently surrounded by an increasingly Maga-like cult of celebrity toward the Morley’s, something LHL does nothing to dissuade; in fact, the way they run their charity looks a lot like the way we see cult develop: there is an Inner Circle and focus on Positivity (tm), ignoring any and all legit criticism, allowing their followers to “protect” them from outsiders, painting themselves into a corner that is going to be hard to get out of. See, it isn’t just the Morley’s/LHL abandoning KTP that is awful, its the fact that they took so many others with them.

How fickle are these “fans” that they’d drop support without question? Without asking what was going on? “Clexa” fans, or those of us supporting from the beginning, got shit thrown at us for caring, for asking questions, for being critical of the changes. That is an essential difference between a cult and an independent group of thinkers. And right-wing cults are kind of outspoken, right now. There’s a lot going on, and if you’re not paying attention, you’re going to get abandoned, too.

#questions #Koh Tao Primary #Eliza Taylor #Bob Morley

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overclocksaa · 2 years

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anon / how does tony's armory justify his wealth? do you feel that there may be an angle behind marvel putting so much effort into depicting the over-accumulation of wealth as a good and altruistic thing, and how do you address that in your writing?

marvel has a lot of faults, but with regards to tony there never has been an effort to depict the accumulation of wealth as good or great or even a solution to any of tony’s problems. the more money tony has, the problems he has, and his wealth is is no way static, and that’s even ignoring slott and cantwell’s recent bullshit (will i ever stop beating the drum about how much those runs suck and are horribly ooc no i will not). like i don’t know what you’re expecting, there’s plenty of canon examples of tony struggling with both the idea of being that wealthy (because even he’s aware it’s made other people unsympathetic to any troubles he might have like that money can make things magically better), having actually given his entire fortune to the avengers at one point and disappearing to live a normal life (well, as normal as tony’s capable of). rebuilt everything from wholecloth after civil war (and even then there’s a distinct difference between new tony money and old tony money) with resilient. he did the same after sobering up and going in with cly and morley and rhodey on circuits maximus, which became stark enterprises after morley’s death and cly’s defection to aim (and death). the whole purpose of tony’s original creation, according to stan lee, was to make a character the hippies would hate on principle, and make them love him anyway. because he’s a subversion of a lot of ultra rich guy tropes. he doesn’t throw money at things to get out of trouble, he does it because he genuinely wants to do good in the world and his heart is absolutely in the right place. he cares about the things - and genuinely - that we all consciously know rl ceos don’t give a shit about. he’s not bezos or musk (especially musk in a lot of ways, guy wants to be tony stark so bad it makes him look stupid but fails to realize what makes tony so great is that he’s still iron man, money or no, it’s a quality of character, not how much money you throw at something).

anyway, my point here is that when it comes down to it, tony’s money’s incidental in his drive to be iron man. it lets him afford to, sure, but a-day is a good example of how you can take all of that from tony, stick him in the ass end of nowhere living in a trailer with no money to his name except that plot of land he’s got in the desert, and with the right fire lit under his ass he’ll still find a way to make iron man happen (it’s because tony’s asset is not the money, it’s his brain). what we’re not addressing here, what the elephant in the room actually is, when it comes to tony, because people get hung up on the money part, is that the guy could at times buy god ten times over and never feel it, and yet is still suffering with untreated mental illness and displays the ugly sides of it, that no one wants to talk about. what we should be looking at is why is this guy able to afford what most of us can’t, in the way he can, and yet he still refuses because there’s a huge ass stigma about getting help when you need it. of dealing with the shame of knowing you need that help but being afraid of what other people might think of you. his whole time with a secret identity is basically a metaphor for this. to me, that’s the real problematic part of tony and tony’s story, that there’s still so much of a taboo about treatment for mental illness they’ve used it as an insult, to be mentally ill (that’d be everyone’s precious brubaker, by the way).

here’s my thing: if tony had never spent the money to refine the model 1, opened his house to the avengers, used that money to fund their equipment, shit like the avengers finding cap in the ice probably would have never happened. the avengers wouldn’t have had staying power. the list goes on. tony often talks about how the avengers put him in the red, because running a superhero team is expensive, with the gear upgrades, the quinjets, the room and board, and they’re not getting much in the way of outside funding with the exception of licensing deals with the inworld marvel comics and merchandising, which helps offset that cost. it’s not like he’s accumulating money to buy a gold-plated toilet (he even has talked about he doesn’t see the need for fancy bathrooms because he thinks they’re weird), he’s using it to fund all these things he cares so very much about because he is literally driven to do as much good in the world as he possibly can. and sometimes good costs a lot of money. and when it comes down to it, there’s enough canonically for tony, stretching all the way back to 1963, where he addresses this entire thing exactly, that all i really have to do is make note of how he feels about it, compare it to the real world, and move on.

#anon #. ooc asks #// i feel like everyone focuses on the fact that he has this money #// and not what he's actually doing with it #// which is funding care for kids without parents #// to make sure they have what they need to develop healthily #// funding a huge as fuck supergroup #// because he considers them vital and has seen #// what happens when they don't exist in some capacity #// green energy clean energy uplifting the standard of living for everyone #// making educational resources easily or freely available #// medical advancements also easily or freely available #// ethical business practices #// (people like to forget that one)#// but at the same time the meat of his story is #// he's got all this money and he's still miserable #// because there's stigma around his mental illness #// it started with his drinking #// (and i have seen people on this very hellsite act like it's not a real disease)#// (which infuriates me)#// and now his depression and anxiety #// so idk what you want me to tell you anon all of these are basically covered in the canon #// tony's life is not painted as a joyride #// it's pretty shitty tbh

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the--descension · 4 years

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With members of 'The 100' cast unfollowing Bob Morley and Eliza Taylor, and liking/retweeting Arryn Zech's posts, I've seen a lot of the fandom once again go down the rabbit hole that is stanning.

Like seriously, please don't stan celebrities and say things like "they are better than that" and "they would never do something like that".

Don't.

Because we don't know these people, and we have no idea who they are.

Please stop putting celebrities on pedestals. It results in more problems than solutions.

#bob morley #eliza taylor #arryn zech #stan culture #the 100

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bellamysfreckles · 4 years

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I just found out about Bob Morley being an abuser, and I am absolutely devastated.

I started watching the 100 a bit before season two ended, and I automatically connected with Bellamy and his character. I then quickly became a fan of Bob Morley, too. I’ve always had problems with my mental health, and Bob was one of the people who helped me so much during my depressive times. He was someone I could relate to and someone who could always bring a smile to my face, regardless of what trouble I was going through. He was always open about mental health, and he made me feel seen, supported. I can’t even put into words how much he’s helped me over the years, and how much I’ve loved him.

But now, knowing that behind everything, he was verbally and emotionally abusing his girlfriend, it ruins everything he ever did for me. I am a bisexual woman of color, and I cannot keep supporting a man who was consistently biphobic and who used age old stereotypes against his bisexual girlfriend. He cheated on her. He gaslit her. He abused her. That’s all I need to hear to stop supporting him.

I don’t really care about the whole “there are two sides to every story” bullshit. I’ve been in this fandom for years. I know how shitty and toxic it can be. I know how much hate Arryn has gotten over the years, especially from Bob and Eliza’s stans. And I believe her. Because if I were in her shoes, I would be scared shitless to come out with this story when I know there are fans out there who would do anything for the celebrities they support.

If Bob ever does speak up, and if there is ever a point in time where we find out Arryn’s actually lying—fine. I’ll deal with that if it comes. But right now, we have what Arryn said, and I will always support the victim regardless of who the abuser is. Regardless if I loved the abuser for so long. Women are never taken seriously when they speak out on stuff like this, and I am not about to deny support to a woman who has already been through so much. She doesn’t need that. She doesn’t deserve that. I’d rather support the victim and be wrong than ever support the abuser on the off chance that they didn’t actually do it.

Yes, I understand how hard this is. I understand that a lot of fans are now feeling hurt, angry, betrayed. Believe me, I feel all that too. But none of his actions are excusable. And I’m not going to give up my morals just because it’s one of my favorite actors who was the abuser. This is certainly going to be a lesson for me, to never put celebrities on a pedestal, because whether we realize it or not, they are just regular people. And regular people do shit like this. There is no need for them to be glorified and idealized.

In terms of the 100, for now, I will keep watching. But only because it’s the last season, and I’ve spent too many years on it and I want to know what happens. Bellamy Blake is still one of my all time favorite characters, and I know how to separate the character from the actor. If anything, I will be watching for Bellamy.

I might take a break from being here, however. Like I said, I feel disgusted and hurt. And I need some time to deal with that. All I ask is that anyone who is still trying to support Bob and Eliza, to please consider how dangerous that is. Please look at what message you’re sending, to not only Arryn, but to all the women/men who have been abused and are afraid to speak out, because they think no one will believe them.

#im just #tired #i never thought this would happen but like i said hes a normal person #idk im just so. done #i dont even know what else to say im just so fucking sad and disappointed and disgusted #bob morley

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lightcomingthroughthedarkness · 4 years

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What I don't understand is some Bellarkes insisting that there's a point to B/E still existing and JRot didn't write them out of pure spite. I get it they are new in the fandom. But I'm not gonna act like there's a love triangle that blocks Bellarke after S5. It simply isn't a love triangle. Not to mention, JRot tweeted "heh heh heh" everytime B/E interacted on screen, even when the sex scene aired. He purposefully wrote that relationship to spit on Bellarkes and serve to CLs. It's just so clear

I just want to make one thing clear before I answer this. I can dislike Ec.ho while also not belive that everything Jason does is to spite me or the fandom. Just wanted to put it out there, lol

Anyway, lets get to it. This is long.

1. Bellamy is emotionally cheating on Ec.ho yet he yells at Ec.ho for not being emotionally open with him.

2. Bellamy is not being emotionally open with Clarke, yet he yells at Ec.ho for not being emotionally open with him meanwhile he is also staying emotionally unavailable to Clarke too.

3. Clarke is unaware of any romantic feelings that Bellamy might have for her. Simply because Bellamy is not emotionally open with her about said feelings. And when he has done something or been called out for having feelings for Clarke, she has not been there to hear it or see it. Now, we all know Clarke is a fucking legend, but she’s not a damn mind reader.

4. Bellamy has no indication that Clarke has ANY romantic feelings for him at all. Why? Because Clarke took a step back when she saw that Bellamy was with Ec.ho. And then Bellamy continued to CHOOSE Ec.ho over Clarke SEVERAL times. Clarke does not feel like it is her place to say anything to a man that is in a serious and commented relationship. Therefor, even if Bellamy had feelings for Clarke, he doesn’t know if she returns them.

5. Ec.ho is clueless. Girl is void of not only a personality but apperently also of the gift of sight and hearing too. She has no thoughts, no worries, no idea, no opinion, no nothing.

What is absolutely true, nonny is that B/E is DEFINITELY blocking Bellarke for a REASON. If they had kept Bellamy and Ec.ho friends/family then it would have shown us what we’ve all been screaming about being enough; Bellamy becoming the kind of leader that forgives and understands people and still reaches out to “them” in order to make an “us”.

I mean look at all the other relationships on the Ark after the time jump. Harper and Monty were still together. Raven was forever alone, like always. Murphy and Emori were...Murphy and Emori. They still only had storylines with each other mostly. And all of them managed to develop familiar bonds to the members of the group.

The only difference in those 6 years, was Bellamy’s relationship status. By showing Bellamy as part of a family, you had already given Bellamy that development, but we never got to see it (big mistake). So why did we need Bellamy to be in a relationship with Ec.ho at all?

Their names are Octavia Blake and Clarke Griffin.

Those two women are the ONLY reason why Bellamy “had” to be in a relationship with Ec.ho. Octavia hated Ec.ho. Yet Bellamy made her his family AND started dating her. Here’s the thing with the Blakes; you didn’t need Ec.ho to be Bellamy’s girlfriend to kick it to Octavia. Just the simple fact that Bellamy made his own family and chose Ec.ho to be part of that family was the biggest problem for Octavia. That Bellamy had grown as a person to let someone like Ec.ho be part of his family, even though what she had done to Octavia. Bellamy needed to leave Octavia for his new family for Octavia to understand what she was losing. So that was as much of B/E that we needed for that story to be told. Bellamy choosing his family based on love and support and Octavia working through her idea of what family is based on blood or love.

So why did B/E need to stay together after that and why are they still together? Because B/E need to block Bellarke. That is the ENTIRE point of B/E. There’s no love story. There’s no development. Jason refused to have Bellamy and Clarke both single and then not have them act on any feelings. And if you keep Clarke and Bellamy both single and they act on no feelings or the connection they share, then they truly would only be platonic soulmates. There would be no romantic subtext for Bellarke and we’d all get the answer to that question. Jason is clearly not willing to give that answer, so he needs something to block Bellarke. There’s no other way around it. And because Ec.ho’s existence allows Jason to tell SEVERAL stories. (family, found family, The Blakes, Bellarke). That’s the reason TT was made a main cast member. They needed to lock her ass in, so that Jason would be able to tell this story. And it’s important for all of us to understand that Jason WANTS to tell this story. You and I might hate it, we might have wanted another story but this is what he wanted and decided to do.

And what is also true, is that Jason is an ass. He’s a Hollywood writer and he sucks at social media. Yes, he has made comments during B/E scenes and made fun of fans. I assume he does that because fans can be very horrible to him, so he dishes it out too sometimes and acts cheeky with it (although he’s not and he is part of the problem too). And also, Jason knows how unpopular B/E is and again, he thinks he’s funny and makes comments to rile people up. Lol lol lol, indeed.

My PERSONAL opinion is that I just do not trust Jason to follow through on Bellarke or give them an ending I see fit for them. Jason never has to give a direct answer to what Bellarke are. He can still keep doing what he is doing. Ambigiously writing them as soulmates but leaving it up to the audience to decide what that means. B/E is not the hill Bellarke dies on because B/E has a better story or development. Absolutely not. But that doesn’t mean that when the final credits roll, that Bellarke has become what fandom expects. I’ll only believe it when I see it on screen and not a moment sooner.

You can argue that this entire thing is not good storytelling or the development would have been better told if Jason had written other stories. I can agree with that. I still think Bellarke should have been canon in season 4 and I still think season 5 and season 6 lack quality even though I still love Bellarke. It sucks when TV shows choose to do stuff with the story that we don’t agree with. But it doesn’t mean that an entire TV show, a business, a place where a lot of people work on, is written after fandom drama on stan twitter. What Jason IS doing, in order to not answer the Bellarke question, is to make people unsure of the story onscreen. There’s a major gaslighting situation with this show and the fandom and even Bob Morley had an opinion about that. Both things can sadly enough be true. Jason doesn’t write his entire story around fandom drama on stan twitter but he is absolutely gaslighting people too in the name of protecting his creation/story, before he is ready for people to see how it ends.

And here’s the thing, we can all have different interpretations of this. God knows a lot of fandom has given up and don’t believe in Bellarke anymore. And a lot of people have not given up and still trust Jason. And we need to just let everyone do what is best for them. We’re not going to change people minds and we don’t need to fight about it either. It’s not gonna do us any good. We can just see what happens in season 7 and by 7x16, we might get an answer to what Bellarke are.

#bellarke #The 100 #the 100 season 7 #ask answered

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iheartbookbran · 4 years

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So... On the Bob/Eliza mess.

Hey guys, so lately I’ve been really into The 100 fandom and blogging about it every week, so I feel like I cannot simply ignore the allegations against Bob Morley on emotional abuse by his ex girlfriend Arryn Zech, and the role that his now wife Eliza Taylor played in perpetuating it. I didn’t do it earlier because when the allegations first came out it was my birthday and I didn’t want to spend it neck deep in that drama, and the days after I decided it was best for me to think deeply about it before saying anything.

Here’s my statement: I have the firm conviction that it’s best to believe victims. Yes even if we don’t know the full story or the other side of it, we still know how difficult it is to for victims of abuse to come out only to then be doubted at every turn, especially if they’re women.

Some people have been using the case of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard to point out that Arryn could be lying. So could it turn out that she is indeed lying? Sure. But I’m not going to be the person to come out with some contrived explanation as to why she obviously is lying just because I want to continue staning Bob and Eliza in peace, because that’s exactly my point, and it’s not so black and white. While the Depp/Heard situation is terrible and I hope she faces justice, the lesson we can get from that case is not “all those who make an abuse accusation towards famous people are liars” but rather “cancel culture has evolved from a tool to hold people accountable for their actions to a freaking lynching fest where it’s more about ruining a person’s life than actually supporting the victim”.

Attacking Bob and Eliza is not our job, and that’s not true justice at all, let’s not pretend otherwise. I think it’s incredible that anytime someone famous is “cancelled” I have to scroll through like five pages on twitter full of people moaning about how they always knew that person was shitty and pulling out “the receipts” than speaking out for those actually affected by their actions. That doesn’t help anyone and honestly it’s exactly the problem with stan culture on celebrities, because they’re real people, not fictional characters and none of them are perfect, and we have to stop glorifying them and then act shocked and betrayed when it turns out they’re not perfect angels. Also attacking their fans or those who like the fictional characters they portray doesn’t help either.

That’s exactly the reason why I’m not stopping supporting Bellarke of shipping it. Bob and Eliza are not the characters of Bellamy and Clarke and I won’t feel guilty about my investment on their story. This show has always been problematic behind the scenes and it’s not like I’m giving it any of my money, so my continence is clear.

Anyway if y’all really want to be of any help on this situation then listen to Arryn, amplify her voice. Remember this isn’t about y’all. It’s about her. It’s not y’all’s place to go on what in your mind is some kind of righteous justice seeking which hunt against Bob and Eliza. If they have something to say in their defense we’ll hear it, but meanwhile don’t give them the clout.

#yeah so as a future mental health professional i could never go “yes let’s not believe this person coming out with her story of abuse”#that would be super irresponsible on my part #that’s my hot take #bob morley #eliza taylor #arryn zech #the 100 #the 100 cast #fandumb

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blodreina-noumou · 5 years

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mega Clarke stans loooove to point out the fact that Clarke “sacrificed” herself for spacekru...except she didn’t??

Like Bob Morley pointed out at Conageddon2, the nightblood solution worked. Clarke was willing to sacrifice herself, sure.

But she did not die! She’s still alive and running around causing a lot of problems for herself and the people she cares about. Especially the people she used to care about, up to and particularly including the one she called every day for six years.

If your major justification for why the other characters should “leave Clarke alone” and “not yell at her” about all the terrible things she’s done is that sacrifice at the end of s4, you’re really reaching. Clarke was a primary source of significant conflict in s5, and she was in the wrong.

And she didn’t even actually sacrifice herself! She lived! For six whole years she had a pretty damn idyllic existence with Madi in Shallow Valley!

The whole point of s5 and Clarke’s character arc as a whole is how far from her own humanity and morals she had fallen since first touching the ground. It wasn’t a mistake that she turns to Abby for help containing Madi, that she uses Abby’s justifications as proper reasoning for exerting her control over others, that Abby convinces her that shock-collaring Madi is okay, in interest of keeping her safe. Abby is one of the Council, a former Chancellor - she stands for all the things that made the Ark brutal and utilitarian. The parallels drawn between them in s5 were intentional, to show how far Clarke had fallen.

I like Clarke, I think she’s an interesting character. Don’t rob her of her character arc for the sake of preserving your own image of who she was in the first three seasons.

The Clarke we know as of now fits far more in with the people in charge who sacrifice others for themselves, not the people who sacrifice themselves for others. She’s changed, and it’s okay. A good redemption arc can be some of the most compelling storytelling out there.

Let Clarke be gray. Let her see consequences for her actions. Stop pointing out one faux-sacrifice she made, when the consequences of it were her getting to chill in Eden for six years with her daughter, not dying. She didn’t die. And she betrayed spacekru and all of her old friends as soon as their needs didn’t match up with hers.

The Clarke who stayed behind would be ashamed of s5 Clarke, and if you don’t see that, you’re fooling yourself.

#clarke griffin #not tagging this anti some of you need to see this shit #go ahead and unfollow if you have to #the 100 meta #stephspeaks

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skyahqunfollow · 6 years

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WELL. it’s me again. i’m sam ( she / her, 21, est timezone ) and i also play parker! i’ve finally decided to bring in another muse and bob morley also avan jogia is the loml, so he we go! character info under the cut! please message me if you’d like to plot because i would absolutely love that!

FIRST. let’s just. let’s get it out of the way right here and now that this is a sideblog so i will be messing up and posting shit to the wrong accounts sometimes bc i’m dumb. let’s all just. take a moment to laugh abt it now so we don’t have to do it later. k cool we can carry on now

「 AVAN JOGIA, CISMALE, 26, PARAMORE. 」┈ did you read that latest viral gossip issue on SKY ARAO? he is the DRUMMER in BETTER NOW, one of my favorite ALT ROCK groups. they’ve been releasing music for FOUR YEARS now, but viral gossip has only been talking about them for the last TWO YEARS. get this, i think i heard HE’S THE ILLEGITIMATE CHILD OF A WEALTHY PUBLIC FIGURE. they’re known as the CALIGINOUS of the music industry, since they have a rep for being TRENCHANT but SELF - SERVING, but who knows. maybe that will change once they become #1.

born and raised deep in the swamplands of louisiana, sky’s only parent was a single mom who was nowhere near old enough or prepared enough to have a kid, tbh. she did sincerely try to take care of him at first but she had a drug problem that got very out of hand very quickly. sky was barely even five years old when the state stepped in and had him placed into the foster system.

has the slightest of southern accents but if you point it out he will deny it

will occasionally speak a little cajun french though & some tagalog bc we stan a multilingual grump

spent the rest of his childhood without a family or stable home. he was shuffled all over the state — placed in group homes, orphanages, and many different foster homes which were unfortunately very neglectful and unsafe sometimes. by his preteen years he was practically living on the streets of new orleans, survival instincts sharply honed.

he learns fast and had very quickly become an expert thief, pickpocket, and con artist, but that doesn’t mean he never got caught. he did. a lot. like his juvie record is longer than your arm

somehow still found time to experience your typical teenage first love resulting in unbearable heartbreak with a girl who lived on the streets and ran scams just like him. it was a bonnie & clyde together forever type of romance until it wasn’t cause the girl shockingly ditched him while he was in serious trouble in order to save her own skin and he never saw her again

not long after that he turned seventeen AND THEN SOMETHING SUPER IMPORTANT HAPPENED. by that i mean he was sought out by his social worker for once who then proceeded to 1) tell him his mother had died and 2) take him away to california because apparently there was a family out there who wanted to adopt him! and they did!

his new family wasn’t actually new though because the man who adopted him was his biological father. he and sky’s mother were lovers for the brief time wherein sky’s father was visiting louisiana in his late teen years but he left before ever finding out that he was going to have a child. he’d never stopped thinking about sky’s mom, however, so he’d do some digging every few years. of course by the time he finally did find her it was because of an obituary and then he’d heard about sky and just knew that this was his kid.

sky learned about all of this right away upon meeting his father and to say he didn’t take it very well is a MASSIVE UNDERSTATEMENT TBH. he was furious. after all, his father had a whole new family! a wife and kids and a very prestigious job AND OH YEAH MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO HIS NAME BUT HE’D NEVER HELPED SKY EVEN ONCE. it didn’t really help that he was clearly trying to make up for his absence in sky’s life by being present now that he had the opportunity and anyway, it turned out he had ulterior motives for that.

basically, a large part of his dad’s wealth was in fact inherited through the family. they’re all old money posh so finding out that the next family patriarch had an unknown son who was technically his firstborn was terrifying. blood or not, they couldn’t just hand centuries of traditions and carefully cultivated wealth over to a high school dropout who didn’t know how to behave and simply couldn’t be trusted with their unblemished legacy. so, sky’s dad was just keeping him close while he talked to lawyers about whether or not sky had any legitimate claim to anything owned by his family and of course, the sneaky street smart kid he is, sky figured out what was going on pretty quickly and bolted back to where he was most comfortable — the streets.

he was still seventeen at the time and he’s lived in los angeles ever since but hasn’t had any contact with his father or seen a single penny of that family money

so yeah he’s illegitimate, no actual rights to their fortune

lived on the streets in los angeles for a while, but with a little hard work ( and a lot of thievery and conning ) he was eventually able to get himself a little apartment while working various jobs

nothing really stuck until better now, but when he first joined the band he’d literally never played the drums before. ever. not once before in his entire life. did he lie anyway and say that he was a Drumming Expert™ because he’d get paid to play gigs with them and happened to be broke af at the time? why yes he absolutely did

since then they switched lead singers with sweets having joined the band four years ago and they’ve released one album that was lit af! they’re currently in the middle of putting together their second album and since sky’s found out that he actually really likes drumming things have been pretty good for him. he lives in a nice apartment and finally has enough money to get by without conning or stealing. he still doesn’t really know how to deal with being a celebrity but tbh he actually adores the attention? he loves having fans? people in his life who seem to genuinely love and care about him? what is this new and exciting concept he’s confused but happy nonetheless

never ever talks about his dad / family though

as usual i was Extra™ and went off with the backstory stuff, but we can move onto personality now!

by default assumes that literally everyone he meets is going to betray him. is truly on some x files trust no one shit

except he does actually genuinely trust a few people for now i’m going to say just his bandmates since i imagine they’ve been through a lot together at this point but that’s open to expansion

street smart, charming, sometimes flirtatious, witty, perspicacious, determined, tough, mistrustful, surly, reckless, uncouth, self-serving af sometimes

all of sky’s save his own skin above all else stuff? kind of a lie. he’s got a soft spot for people in need of help and though he might do it begrudgingly, sky often will put others before him.

the other personality traits i listed are pretty spot on though

street smart af but book smart? not so much. he picks up on things quickly but he’s still pretty dumb lmao and will in fact say some stupid shit at least 2932589843794836708 times a day

however he’s not always much of a talker. he’s gotta be in the mood bc if he isn’t and you try to have a convo with him he’s gonna be even more standoffish than usual

when he does talk though, sky is often sarcastic, pessimistic, and surly

he’s permanently grumpy

except he also has many soft spots that are very easy to find

stale cinnamon roll, been in this world too long, too cynical w/ a dash of sinnamon roll

legend has it he’s never smiled ever not even once

he’s usually a cute little ray of sunshine around fans though bc they just?? make him so happy?? it makes him so happy to know that people love better now and that they LOVE HIM OK

though if ever called out for smiling he would immediately deny

will absolutely throw hands if he has to

lowkey a total mom friend who thrives on being a total mom friend but acts like he hates it? like he’ll grumble at you to bring your jacket bc it might be cold out and he’ll seem like he’s doing it very begrudgingly but on the inside? HE IS THRIVING IN THAT MOMENT

TL;DR - louisiana born street smart drummer for better now with an accent he denies having and an extremely rich family who wants nothing to do with him but it wasn’t like he ever cared anyway. charming and flirtatious but also can be grumpy and pessimistic. expert pickpocket and con artist. has no idea how to handle being a celebrity but he secretly enjoys the love he gets from fans. never smiles, loves whiskey, probably takes way too many naps on his couch. secret mom friend. has trouble trusting and allowing himself to get close to anyone & everyone.

finally…it’s over. if you actually read this far then i applaud you. i don’t have any specific plots in mind EXCEPT FOR POTENTIALLY HALF SIBLINGS RELATED THROUGH HIS FATHER SO PLEASE MESSAGE ME IF YOU’RE INTERESTED BC Y E S but if you know me then you know i want all the plots so feel free to message me and we can definitely work something out! as usual i’m super excited to write with you folks!

#viral:intro #drugs tw #death tw #here with another Mess™#as always message me if you wanna plot!

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hiddenwashington · 4 years

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Can you suggest me fcs for Dimitri from Anastasia? Thank you!

no problem, angel! for dimitri, i would suggest darren criss, matthew daddario, thomas doherty, brenton thwaites, luke pasqualino, alex fitzalan, aaron tveit, bob morley, chris wood, sebastian stan, avan jogia, maxence danet-fauvel and sean teale but if you’d like any more suggestions, please feel free to ask!

#anastasia rp #fandom rp #multifandom rp #appless rp #mumu rp #Anonymous

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baronvon0 · 5 years

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The Politics of Procreation

Throughout most of history, starting a family was a task that most people either aspired to or dutifully performed. Today, that is increasingly not the case—not only in Europe, Japan, Australia, or North America, but in the world’s most economically dynamic region, East Asia. The trend towards post-familialism, a society in which the family and marriage are no longer central to society, will reshape our politics, economy, and society in the decades ahead.

Since 1960, the percentage of people living alone in the United States—where the percentage of Americans who are mothers is at its lowest in over three decades—has grown from 10 to 30 percent. Similar phenomena can be observed in virtually all wealthy countries; in Scandinavia 40 percent of the population lives alone. In Britain, the number of single parent households was 8 percent in 1970 but has now passed 25 per cent, while the percentage of children born outside marriage has doubled to 40 percent over the past three decades.

Even East Asia is also now seeing the early signs of a breakdown of its once impregnable family structures. In Japan, the harbinger of modern east Asia, the proportion of the population living alone is expected to reach 40 percent by 2040. Nearly 70 percent of China’s adults aged between 18 and 36 are on their own; the country now has 200 million unmarried adults, including 58 million single people between 20 and 40 years of age. The percentage people living alone in China, once virtually nonexistent, has risen to over 15 percent since 1960.

Political Implications

The trend towards post-familialism is already shaping new political divides between two geographies: large cities on one hand, and smaller cities and suburbs on the other. Households living in the central urban cores, notes demographer Wendell Cox, are one third as likely as those in the suburbs and exurbs to have children of school age.

In many big cities, the long dominant bourgeois family model has been increasingly replaced by a preference for single and unattached living. This trend was powerfully influenced by the rise of bohemianism in the twentieth century, which stressed individual empowerment over family obligation. In the United States, more than a quarter of households were single-person households as of 2015. In urban areas like Manhattan, that figure is estimated to be something more like half, the majority of which are headed by women.

Throughout the world, the urban centers that dominate contemporary economy and culture—Beijing, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Sydney, and San Francisco—are becoming “demographic graveyards.” In Beijing and Shanghai, the fertility rate is barely one-third of that needed to replace the current population. Inner London, notes the Office for National Statistics (ONS), has a fertility rate fully one-third lower than the surrounding suburbs. In severely overcrowded Hong Kong, according to one recent survey, two-thirds of women said they did not want an additional or even a first child. The fertility rate in the Chinese territory is now less than half that of 1980.

For progressives, the shift to post-familialism promises almost unlimited power, particularly in urban areas. Democratic pollster Stan Greenberghas noted that the singles, particularly single women, represent the Democratic Party’s largest core constituency, with two-thirds voting for Democrats. As families have fled from the largest cities—particularly their inner cores—the urban electorates have become almost Soviet in their voting patterns, with Democratic majorities upwards of 80 compared to 60 percent as recently as two decades ago. Overall in 2016, 52 percent of married people voted for Trump, while Clinton took 55 percent of the single vote.

Family formation and fertility rates of differing geographies could determine the election in 2020. The 11 states with the lowest fertility rates—including New York, California, and Massachusetts—are all hotbeds of progressivism, and unassailably Democratic. In contrast, all but one of the 25 states with the highest rates of fertility, from South Dakota to Kentucky and Texas, supported Trump and remain dominated by Republicans.

These patterns can be seen in most higher income countries. Brexit, for example, fared poorly in inner London, where fertility rates, particularly among whites, are substantially lower, but was far more popular in the more distant suburbs and smaller cities, where birthrates tend to be higher. Similarly, the growth of the Green Party in Europe, and pro-green sentiment in Australia, has been greatest in the heavily childless core cities, and less marked in the suburbs or smaller towns.

This could change if the next generation demands policies—notably the building of affordable family-friendly housing—that challenge the near-universal progressive embrace by planners of forced densification. As generational researchers Morley Winograd and Mike Hais have pointed out, American millennial attitudes about families and preferred housing types do not differ significantly from those of prior generations, albeit with a greater emphasis on gender equality. A 2012 National Health Statistics Report found that barely six percent of childless American women under 44 were “voluntarily childless.” The vast majority of millennials, meanwhile, want to get married and have children.

The struggle over urban form is already underway in places such as California, where tech- and real estate-backed groups like the YIMBYs (Yes In My Backyard) embrace extending high-density development into the remaining lower density bastions of middle- and working-class families. Fierce opposition from these neighborhoods, particularly in the San Fransisco and throughout the LA area, has slowed densification drives from the state, at least for now.

These conflicts are also seen in places like Sydney, where groups such a “Save our Suburbs” have worked to slow down densification schemes in some of the area’s bucolic neighborhoods. But this is not really, as some suggest, an anti-urban movement, but one that seeks to preserve something of the very family-based—and often diverse—middle-density neighborhoods that amazed Jane Jacobs with their “staying power.” In contrast, the new urban paradigm, dominated by the rich and childless, tends to create the same repetitive apartment streetscape, the same shops, the same kinds of people, the same architecture.

Economic Impacts

Post-familialism will drive many of the biggest economic challenges facing many countries. To be sure, a major reduction in childbearing is a blessing in some impoverished parts of the globe, but declining birthrates, and the consequent drop in the workforce, will sap the growth of the higher income countries they depend upon for trade and finance. Already in the United States, workforce growth has slowed to almost one-third of the level in 1970 and is likely to fall even further.

Over time, falling populations in advanced countries will threaten economic growth, both limiting the size of their labor force and undermining the fiscal viability of their own welfare states. As the employment base shrinks, some countries—notably Japan and Germany—have already raised taxes on the existing labor force to pay for the rising tide of older retirees.

Some countries even face an inexorable depopulation reminiscent of early feudal times. In Russia, for example, between 1991 and 2011, a total of about 13 million more people died than were born. Overall, Europe’s population, notes Futurist Frederic Pearce, is destined to fall from 738 million to roughly 482 million by 2100 when the elderly in a shrunken Germany will outnumber children under 15 by as much as four to one.

The demographic decline in East Asia has been, if anything, even more dramatic. Over the past few decades, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore, have seen their fertility rates fall well below that required to replace their populations. Perhaps the most extreme case is Japan, where this process had started by the 1960s. If the current patterns hold, the island nation’s population, according to Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, will decline from 127 million to under 80 million by 2065.

More important, China’s working age population(those between 15 and 64 years old) peaked in 2011 and is projected to drop by over 200 million by 2050. China will lose 60 million people under 15 years of age by 2050—approximately the population of Italy—while gaining nearly 190 million people 65 and over—approximately the population of Pakistan, the world’s fourth most populous country. By then, China’s ratio of working to retired people is expected to have more than tripled, one of the most rapid transitions in history.

Overall, world population growth could all but end by 2040, suggests Austrian demographer Wolfgang Lutz, and begin to decline as early as 2060. These demographic declines will reshape economic prospects in the twenty-first century. Today, a majority of people live in countries with fertility well below replacement rates. This number will grow to 75 percent by 2050, according to the UN; rapid aging, and a declining workforce, will become increasingly common around the world.

Children and How We Deal with Humanity

Ultimately, the issue facing the high-income world—and increasingly China as well—is how we regard humanity itself. British author Austin Williams describes this question as a conflict between whether humanity represents “the biggest problem on the planet” or the “creators of a better future.”

Like their Medieval predecessors, many environmentalists view climate change as the singular explanation for everything from starvation, wars, and crop failures to hurricanes, floods, or any other unusual weather. As a result, some climate researchers, such as at Sweden’s Lund University, believe population growth, even in the low fertility countries, should be limited. Scientists at Oregon State University have even proposed severe taxes on people who have children, particularly more than one, for their “carbon legacy.” These notions have been embraced by the UK’s influential Guardiannewspaper and such luminaries as Bill McKibben, Paul Ehrlich, and John Holdren, who served as President Obama’s science advisor. If the old clergy attacked sex, the green one focuses on preventing the traditional result from a proverbial roll in the hay.

As the numbers of singles and childless grow, our immediate political future could shift to the left. In Britain, Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrats are losing younger, largely childless voters. But the Greens have almost tripled their support since 2014, which is now almost now equaling the Tories among voters 18 to 24. Nor does family orientation seem a factor in European politics; today many of the leaders, virtually all the leaders of the continent (Germany, France, Netherlands) are childless. France’s President Emmanuel Macron even identified child-bearing with ignorance.

Yet, in the long run, the anti-natalists could face an unexpected turnaround. The heirs of the post-familial city are not reproducing themselves, leaving only a digital legacy. The fact that these centers appear to be “post-Christian” may accelerate the pace. Secularism, with its tendency towards identity politics and hyper-individualism, notes author Eric Kaufmann, undermines itself as it fails to “inspire the commitment to generations past and sacrifices for those yet to come.”

In contrast, the more religious, more family-oriented population, living mostly in the suburbs and smaller cities, will reproduce themselves. Kaufmann explains in his important book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? that those who embrace more traditional religions—which generally favor families—will prevail. The future of Catholicism won’t be shaped by a Pope, whose closest advice comes from liberal bishops in Germany, where the church is now losing nearly 170,000 adherents annually. The new faithful will be those nurtured by the more traditionalist African bishops, who enjoy the fastest church growth.

Ultimately, the believers and families may have the upper hand. By 2050, for example, Islam may constitute a larger faith community in Britain than the Church of England, the state-sanctioned but hardly faith-centered Christian denomination. The family-centric Mormons, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, continues to thrive, while the more “progressive” Protestant faiths lose parishioners. Among Jews, the increasingly strident and politicized Reform movement is demographically stagnant and aging. Today, the Orthodox constitute the majority of Jewish children in the New York metropolitan region, and by 2100, they are projected to become the majority of the Hebraic community in Britain.

“No matter how many communes anybody invents,” the late anthropologist Margaret Meadsuggested, “the family always creeps back.” This will prove to be the case in the decades ahead. Greens, progressives, and feminists may seek to weaken this most precious institution, but in the end, they cannot manufacture future generations. As they have done from primitive times, families create the future, in the only way humanity can remain fundamentally human.

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