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am-i-the-asshole-official · 6 months

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AITA for making my mom’s boyfriend feel bad on purpose?

disclaimer: my parents have an open marriage

so i (20m, northern cheyenne) don’t have a problem with the modern celebration of thanksgiving.

really. i don’t.

the whole “pilgrims and indians” schtick is gross, but i find that generally, outside of elementary schools, nobody thinks about that part very much. people mostly just want to see their families and eat weird food. and i fucks w that.

the problem comes in with my mom’s boyfriend.

my mom (52f) is white, but she’s been married to my dad (53m) who is also northern cheyenne for 26 years. she’s the DEI coordinator for our county’s public school system and she’s one of my favorite most trusted shire people ever. so i never really have to censor myself around her. i can make jokes and complain and vent and etc etc etc. she’ll always listen.

her BOYFRIEND though.

i really do like my mom’s boyfriend (41m). he’s super cool, recommends good books, teaches me about plumbing, all sorts of other Manly Step Dad Shit (/hj).

but he is decidedly extremely caucasian. like so white.

he’s not /racist/ but he’s that in-between that a lot of white people are where they’re never mean, but you gotta watch what you say around them bc they bruise like a two week old apple.

there have been a few instances where i have in fact bruised his sensitive white man apple skin.

1) i was listening to a podcast with my mom about people indigenous to Hawai’i protecting Mauna Kea. we were listening to it out loud in our living room, and her boyfriend came in and listened for a few minutes before asking me to turn it off because it was “depressing”. fair enough. i figured he was having a rough day and i turned it off. (side note, it was All My Relations, “For the Love of the Mauna”.)

2) we were driving somewhere and trading off command of the AUX. i put on a song by Nahko and Medicine for the People, specifically their parody of “My Country Tis of Thee”. he again said he didn’t like it, it was depressing, and could I please turn it off. i did.

3) this is where i’m the asshole. we’re planning for thanksgiving, and i mentioned wanting to do a anticolonial thanksgiving. we’d watch some stuff about the wampanoag tribe (first contact tribe at plymouth rock), i’d make frybread and fried squash blossoms (along w my mom who would make the thanksgiving basics) we’d have a grand old time. her boyfriend asks why we can’t just enjoy thanksgiving without making it too political.

i’m like. that’s not political? it’s cultural?

and he says that to him it feels self flagellating and it would make him feel bad.

and i said honestly? the idea of thanksgiving’s history makes Me feel bad. and not to complain dude, but as an american indian, it’s always about you, and never, ever about me. so truly, i don’t care if you feel bad. we’re not doing a fucking colonized thanksgiving in this house. so if you’re just here for that sham bullshit, go and stay gone.

my mom says she agrees with me that an attempt at a decolonized thanksgiving is a good idea and a good compromise for our mixed family, but that i was way too harsh on her boyfriend and should’ve tried explaining in a kinder way first, since he’s really not educated on this stuff. i see where she’s coming from; i worry i might’ve scared him off of ever learning about cultural decolonization. ik it’s not my responsibility to make him care, but that doesn’t change the fact that plenty of white people are subconsciously looking for a reason not to care about natives, and by being a dick i might’ve just handed him that reason. so not only was i an asshole to him, but an asshole to my community at large by disservicing our reputation.

idk. i think i ruined thanksgiving :/

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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cantsayidont · 5 months

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I think setting STAR TREK: DISCOVERY and STRANGE NEW WORLDS in the TOS era was a questionable idea for a variety of reasons, but one of the more troublesome is their treatment of Spock, which opens some cans of worms I don't think there would have been a good way to handle even if the writers weren't intent on making bad and reactionary creative choices in other areas.

In TOS, most of the Enterprise crew, and really the majority of the Starfleet characters we're shown, are exceedingly racist to Spock with disconcerting regularity. Of the regular cast, I think the only ones who aren't overtly nasty to Spock at least some of the time are probably Uhura and Sulu; they get frustrated with him at certain points, but generally because he's a difficult and inflexible supervisor rather than due to racial animus. A lot of the rest of the crew is openly hostile, and McCoy routinely addresses him with slurs in front of the bridge crew. Kirk tolerates and sometimes participates in this racist abuse, and the only times he seems to take it very seriously are when it threatens to become an operational problem (as in "Balance of Terror"). The main feature that comes to characterize the bond that develops between Kirk and Spock is not that Kirk is significantly more tolerant, but that he will usually (not always) at least listen to Spock's point of view, which the rest of the crew is very reluctant to do (most pointedly in "The Galileo Seven"), and can be persuaded to respect his judgment, which Spock values even though Kirk's attitude and behavior still often make him uncomfortable.

This kind of space-racism toward nonhuman Federation citizens is not necessarily a structural element of STAR TREK (unlike anti-indigenous racism, which definitely is), but it is a structural element of Spock's character. Spock spends a lot of TOS teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown, and it's tempting (though not canonical) to read his decision to pursue Kolinhar in the beginning of STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE as a response to the stress of being on the Enterprise (fleeing to become a monk!). Even where Spock is not enduring racial slurs and constant microaggressions, you can see how that treatment, both in his youth on Vulcan and as an adult in Starfleet, has shaped his personality. Indeed, this is something I think to which fans of Spock have responded strongly over the years, because his alienation and stress are very relatable for LGBT people, people of color, Muslim and Jewish people (despite STAR TREK's canonical antisemitism and Islamophobia), and autistic people. This doesn't mean STAR TREK stories necessarily have to show Spock being tormented, which is often painful to watch, but if Spock had not been tormented in these ways, he would be a very different person than the character viewers know and love.

Making Spock a regular in DISCOVERY and later STRANGE NEW WORLDS thus presents the writers with a problem: Treating Spock the way he's treated in TOS would be uncomfortable, but avoiding it creates a tension with TOS that the newer shows obviously don't know how to resolve.

Prior to ENTERPRISE, the general presumption about the TOS era (which is stated as fact in some of the novels) is that having mixed-species crews is relatively new for Starfleet, and that the problems Spock faces stem from his colleagues never having lived and worked with an "alien" before and not knowing how to not be weird about it. (ENTERPRISE essentially transferred that idea to Archer's era, where T'Pol gets similar treatment.) In DISCO and SNW, however, we see that many Starfleet vessels have mixed crews, including officers (like Saru) who are much more obviously nonhuman than Spock is, and have for a while. So, how are we to read the events of TOS, with which DISCO and SNW still want to (uneasily) coexist? Is Kirk's Enterprise just a lot more racist than Pike's? That's possible, I guess, but how many STAR TREK fans really want to canonize the idea that Kirk and his crew are unusually intolerant by Starfleet standards? Are we to presume that SNW means to soft-retcon the hostility and constant microaggressions Spock experiences in TOS, shifting the entire onus for his twitchy alienation to his upbringing on Vulcan and to Sarek (who DISCO reiterates is a tremendous dick)? That would be sadly consistent with the disdain with which modern STAR TREK media treats Vulcan (and with the antisemitism of the modern shows), but it's a pretty bitter pill for anyone who thinks Vulcans are neat or cool, which used to be an uncontroversial majority opinion among STAR TREK viewers and writers.

The more sensible answer would have been to just dodge the issue entirely by staying further away from TOS and the period in which it takes place. There are other periods of the TREK timeline that are still largely unexplored (like the early 24th century era of the Enterprise-C), and there's always the option of moving further forward in time, as DISCOVERY eventually did. However, CBS seems very insistent on making heavy-handed appeals to nostalgia that require riding the coattails of TOS, even where that just doesn't seem like a good idea creatively.

My sense with DISCOVERY and SNW is that the producers would really like to simply redo TOS in a manner more consistent with their current vision, but that the decidedly mixed reactions to the alternate timeline JJ Abrams movies has made them gunshy about just declaring that openly. So, it seems they're instead trying to back into it with a kind of death-by-a-thousand-retcons approach, seeking to sand off both the uncomfortable aspects of TOS and stuff the producers and/or the network don't like (like Spock's gay-coding — SNW's determination to no-homo him is pronounced, albeit unpersuasive). I think I would find that vexing even if the producers' vision weren't frequently more jingoistic and racist than TOS, which it often is.

#teevee #star trek #star trek tos #star trek discovery #strange new worlds #st:tmp #star trek the motion picture #spock

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ratatattouille · 1 year

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Derry Girls in LOTR:

Orla: Wizard that shouldn’t have been a wizard but somehow is. Somehow gives even less helpful advice than Gandalf, and is twice as weird as Radagast. Radagast is her best friend, but Saruman is her favorite for some strange Orla-reason and she keeps stalking and startling him while he goes about his evil ways. When she gets bored of his tower, she goes on decade-long trips around Middle Earth. She is always amazed by Gandalf’s fireworks but can never replicate them without burning everyone and everything.

Michelle: Is OBVIOUSLY a dwarf! Specifically a Blacklock dwarf, with thick, billowing black hair and an equally thick and unkempt black beard. She is always talking about clubbing the heads off orcs despite having zero battle experience and threatens everyone as a formal greeting. She thinks all elves are racist, and all races that aren’t dwarves are inferior. Despite being very proud of her heritage, she is always getting names, details and dates mixed up to a comical degree. If anyone outside her line criticizes her facts, she verbally abuses them and their entire family. She describes Thorin Oakenshield as a “massive ride.”

Erin: An elf living in Rivendell that believes she’s super sophisticated, cultured and educated, but she’s really just fucking stupid. She says the most delusional things like “I think Elrond wants Legolas as a match for me” to her fellow elves and they feel both like they want to kill themselves and everything is funny when they’re around her. She makes them tired, but she also makes them laugh. They talk shit about her shitty art that isn’t getting better with years of practice for some confounded reason (although she writes good poetry, it’s just that she can’t recite it very well), but they will defend her honor and her life if threatened in a heartbeat because they love her as she loves them.

Clare: A hobbit. She’s a chubby, big-and-hairy-footed girl with the pinkest, roundest cheeks and the sunniest hair. Everyone in The Shire is in love with her idc. She’s of Took descent, and while very chipper and pretty, can also put you in your place so that you never imagine crawling out. People keep asking her when she’s going to accept any of the many proposals that are being dropped into her hobbit hole, but she can’t say that she spends her evenings eating cheese and improving prose and grammar of the letters so they sound more romantic. She dreams of adventure, but doesn’t think she has the guts for it. Until a wizard called Orla breaks into her home….

James: Smeegol.

#derry girls #lotr #im gonna draw this for sure don’t worry #I have to #clare devlin #erin quinn #michelle mallon #orla mccool #james maguire

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samijami · 9 months

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The way republicans talk about women, black people, trans people, gay people, and non-Christian religious groups is sickening.

Whenever a woman does something 'wrong' (in their eyes), like the judge who recently indicted this black guy, they emphasise 'female' when describing her. If they forgot to originally, they go back and restate their entire sentence just to add in 'female'.

And the way these assholes say 'female' just has this..dehumanising tinge to it. And when you hear one of them say the word, you immediately cringe in pain at just how disgusted they sounded, despite how badly they try to hide the tone of voice behind normalcy and mixing it in with the sentence. It just always sticks out.

And for black people..there's a heaping wad ton of shit here, so I'm not going to name it all off. I didn't even name off nearly as much as I should've for the women part.

But let's just say, Steve Bannon, the asshole running that republican TV show..he publicly stated to 'feel proud of being racist', and that 'Martin Luther King would be proud of Trump'.

And when they're 'defending' a black person? They highlight that that person is black, repeatedly. If that person were the victim, they wouldn't mention race, and they haven't plenty before. They're just doing it to look good.

We all know what republicans are doing and has been doing to trans and gay people..there's way too much to that. Main point of this entire thing is: they're actively taking away their rights and passing laws to kill them, hence we being on the edge (actually we're in one) of a trans genocide right now that can lead to a full-on queer genocide.

And then, for non-Christians..why don't the cultists of 'God' slap on a 'cult' label to every other religion? Why not hate Muslims and instantly look at one and think 'oh that's a terrorist'. Say they side with Jews, when in reality, they despise them for not praising 'Jesus'. And some weird other argument for each and every other religion..'they're traitors to our country'.

Well, this isn't your fucking country. This shithole that already fucking sucks has become a living hell with republicans existing. Why not just fucking kill us? Oh wait! YOU'RE ALREADY DOING THAT.

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selfish-solace · 2 months

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i have to say it’s kind of funny seeing people reblog my poorly made fo4 essay after the show came back. welcome back haters. If anyone’s curious about my thoughts on the tv show, it’s not my thing. i don’t really like it. i think the props department and the set people did a fantastic job but i think all the problems ive pointed out about fo4 carry into it heavily. and everything about like. everything. I don’t like the brotherhood as a milita, and it’s. Weird. To see west coast brotherhood portrayed as that.

to be clear, i have not finished the show nor do i plan on finishing it. i got about halfway through and im not going to hold the parts I haven’t seen against it. for the purposes of this rant, pretend that all you’ve seen is 4 episodes. act like this is still cable. and don’t get fucking weird about the fact I decided I wasn’t into it and dropped it. i don’t care if you personally think these issues are fixed by the end of the show.

ive always been an insane fallout conspiracy theorist and i was expecting to at least get super mad about the lore but im just. kind of apathetic. i think personally, that it’s fucking baffling that they decided to make their one main black character . like that. Maximus is like, constantly failing or being incredibly cruel to another person. like, when he put a razor into his only friends shoe for no reason other then social clout. i don’t know if they considered the optics of making the entirety of the brotherhood horrifically abuse the only black character because i genuinely believed for like the first three episodes that there was going to be some kind of “this brotherhood is racist” reveal, but no. I don’t think they thought about that. i don’t think they thought about much, to be honest. it feels like every new bit of information we get has to be delivered to us in the most unsubtle of ways. And that makes it boring to me. i don’t like how there’s essentially nobody normal in the wasteland except Lucy, because like. that’s really never been the case.

yeah, sure, there’s a bit of cruelty in everyone in fallout. that’s how this world works. But this show beats you over the head with the conclusion that everyone must be not trusted and everyone is to be feared and the wasteland really has fallen into complete anarchy. i think the complete destruction of shady sands and the ncr is a direct concequence of that choice. bethesda fallouts are kind of stuck in the old world apocalypse, and i just. think that’s kind of boring. the whole fantasy of fallout is seeing how things can change, and it feels like sometimes Bethesda takes “war never changes” too literally. like yeah. but that’s not what the quote means. it’s about how conflict is always the same, not how the world around it stays the same always. i also just think the fact there’s really nothing new or original to explore here is .. boring.

Quite frankly, im tired of the brotherhood. Im tired of the ncr. Im tired of the “find your family” plot. Im tired of the enclave. there’s nothing to mix up the formula. and im sorry, but i think the characters are boring too. i think that Walton goggins ghoul is not very interesting. I think Lucy’s arc is just. kind of predictable. because she’s literally just doing what people tell her with a kindness twist. fallouts always had these cool ass side characters, like, every dlc character from new Vegas. obviously it’s hard to translate that into a show, but who’s favorite is going to be the weird old lady? who’s honestly going to be interested in the horny farmers plight? does anyone care about that guy maximus was friends with? every character just falls flat for me. and that’s why i dropped it. because the new things it brings are just.. boring. and the things they keep the same are boring too. Genuinely, i had a better time watching the resident evil netflix show. at least that was interesting. I don’t care if you like it. I don’t think you’re a bad person for liking it. I get why. I just didn’t. be respectful in the notes please.

#fallout critical #fallout

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primaviva · 9 months

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my experience with rashad.

tw: racism, use of the n-slur (hard r for context) proceed with these things in mind and also don’t go and bring him attention by going to his page as he should not be on the internet for his own peace and everyone else’s. this is going to be long and have a lot of receipts/descriptions. do not send him shit on my behalf i ain’t move like that.

before i start, i want it to be clear that this is not confirmed. however, he has a history of doing fake anons to himself and to his (ex) moots from what i learned to either start drama, topics, or fw them so he can act as a supporter or victim if he sent the anon to himself. and this is NOT me jumping on the rashad toxic gossip train of tumblr 2023 but this type of behavior is disgusting and inexcusable. i am very convinced that it was him and want to share it to you all while leaving it open to criticism and speculation but PLEASE be careful and pick up the warning signs with these people from everyone coming out with stories about him.

now let’s get tf into it cus it’s a lot…

me snd rashad became moots after he noticed me like a post of his i think. his first inbox to me was him trying to do self promo for a fic of his he was writing which i thought was odd and a little weird so i ignored it but he ended up continuing to inbox me random things (which i don’t generally mind) so we ended up building some mutual association or sum on here.

however, around 9-10 days ago, rashad had got “sent” something in his inbox about afro latinos. this was the ask:

now, i am not going to invalidate afro latinos who have experienced this. as a latino, i have experienced prejudice but that is never comparable to a black latino or a black person in general who is mixed/has another ethnic group of origin. these things are said to people and have been said to me in a different context. however, this ask was directly after he had posted it and on top of that it simply is not something someone would say as an ask. i don’t know how to describe it, but it’s too directed, crafted in a way that it’s wording seems like someone trying to be racist, and so on. we had never talked one on one either so i was confused when i first saw he had tagged me in a post since i hadn’t seen what it was about yet. i don’t know how to describe it but there’s something in the wording and just the context of it all that made this ask so in genuine almost as if it was something he had asked himself on another account.

this was me tagged in it:

i of course reblogged and said my peace and now disgusting and ignorant it was because afro latinos are a minority even in their own community because of generationally taught racism from colonization and just our traditional way of life and teaching stripped from us and our culture. but at the time, i had no idea of his “track record” of doing this type of thing or even the drama he was getting messy with behind what everyone knew of him.

i wanna say this as it’s very important as to what i have to show next. i am not black. i have never stated that and my day one followers and moots know that i have black family and in fact most of my relatives are afro latino but i, myself, am a lightskin latina which is something i feel i have always made known at least in sum damn context clues. i also want to add that this took place september 18th and that’s alway really important to the story.

ok now lemme get into why this is even a post.

shortly after this, i had gotten sick and ended up going on a break from just the internet in general because i needed to rest my ass up before even doin a thing like school and writing n allat. i was gone for around 3-4 days. so this post was long “old” or at least not being seen by anyone. and the thing is my spam posts never get hella reblogs unless i add hashtags or say something that makes everyone and they mama wanna join in on the conversation. so tell me why, exactly three days later, around the day i came back, i receive this in my inbox:

what the fuck is this? like genuinely.

i had not seen this the first day i came back because my inbox was flooded with my actives rambling to me, compliments, requests, etc until yesterday morning when i was taking the time to reply to some stuff and it had come up. i was gagged like this language was so vile, nasty, ignorant, and dumb as fuck. why? for starters, i am not afro latino or black. me and others believe that rashad was under the impression that by the few posts he saw of me talking about the issue that he just assumed i was afro latino as well. i am not and people that follow me from long before all this know that.

and like let’s really read the text and what it says because it’s speaking about black latinos not being latino because they have no “true” spanish or indigenous blood, which is something that this man is always talking about and presents, to me, as an insecurity (a valid one DONT get it twisted) as a afro latino. he, or “anon,” goes on to call me the n word with the hard r multiple times and tells me i should have stayed a slave and then goes on to bring up taino ancestors (my ancestors) which i just found beyond disrespectful and crossing a big ass fucking line. im not sure if im describing this well, but just by the way that these anon asks are worded they seem very “fake” as in not that this couldn’t happen or hasn’t been told to anyone, but it doesn’t feel organic and just feels like forced racist comics to give you content.

he also texted me for the first time in tumblr dms the same day as this post or the day after the ask was sent to me, i believe, so coincidence or not …

i am 85% sure this is rashad.

to me, it feels like he did this as a way to maybe validate how he feels as a afro latino with other mixed latin im him since afro latinos face so much prejudice. however, to seek validation by doing an anon to yourself about your own post to get others to hype you up and validate YOUR ethnicity is completely unhealthy especially in this way. THIS was vile. THIS was uncalled for and beyond einstein level comprehension skills. THIS is inappropriate and a sign you shouldn’t be on tumblr.

rashad has been involved in a lot of drama public and not and has a constant thing to blame it on his “episodes” and such. while i think that self diagnosing is valid because people, especially poc, can’t get proper mental care rn, to state it as a fact is something that self diagnosers do not do and acknowledge it isn’t right. even so, it is not valid to blame bad behavior on your mental health. and even if you did “take accountability,” in your so called apologies rashad, you go from saying you don’t use your mental health as an excuse but at the same time use it in that context for why you shouldn’t get hate and we should all stop criticizing you and your actions because it should all be forgivable in a way where we can just move on with no consequences.

yes, rashad does suffer from mental illnesses or some type/types of mental issues whether they are underlying or not but the problem is that the internet is literally his scapegoat from this and is feeding into his problems which is why he does the anons, the posts putting people on blast, etc. if you have not seen he has taken this drama from tumblr to discord to instagram. but it is clear he does not feel any microscopic ounce of guilt or genuine sorry in this specific situation. he says he’s “acting like the big person” but goes to attack people who tried to talk some sense into him in his petty onika miraj type posts sayin shit about shoving ice dildos into peoples puss puss and sneak dissin mfs who have a right to see what he’s doing when he is continuing to be petty in the heat of this whole thing by talkin abt people.

he’s struggling with so much and the internet is not for him and it shows in the way he handles confrontation, parasocial relations w people online, and how he copes with his issues by running to tumblr or any other social media. he has stated before he is an ex manipulator and so on and a place like this is not where he needs to be. so do not feed into the anons he sends, do not feed into the petty and compulsive posts he puts together, and just don’t interact with him. he needs to find his own inner peace on some preacher to the church type shit like this a tyler perry movie and not effect those around him with his own internal mess.

so don’t take this as me trying to like ride off this situation or just me saying these things just because all my moots or in it and i wanna be involved on some nosy bitch shit. but something like this is very serious and i was gonna be quiet on my suspicion but something as disgusting as this being said to me and not put on some blast by my classy ass just didn’t feel right. do not go to his page like he his “gone” just take this in a way to educate yourself on the typa person he is and as an example of why you shouldn’t get emotionally attacked to the internet or get involved with people like this.

pay attention to how ppl act and the red flags so you can just cut them off and save y’all both the “i survived” trauma. again, this isn’t confirmed (the racism post) because i have no way to prove it but he has a history of it and i just wanted to come out with this because it made me uncomfortable and disgusted.

NOT EVERYTHING IS FOR THE INTERNET !

#🪷 — dalia’s spam #i don’t know what to tag this but just read w an open mind #some people need to stay off the internet for they own benefit #let war be OVER

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quercus-queer · 2 years

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The main theme of Stranger Things is summed up by Eddie: “Forced conformity, that’s what’s killing kids.” The central characters of Stranger Things are outcasts of society. They’re either poor, queer, black, “soft” men, unapologetic women, weird, crazy, or a mix of these undesirable traits.

The Byers and Nancy embody this explicitly enough for the general audience to understand every season. Jonathon and Will are pretty self explanatory. Joyce is always the social pariah of the town and her dynamic with Police Chief Jim Hopper the “Everyman” is draining at times. It’s draining because Joyce is right and we know she’s right but the rules, the laws, and “common sense” which Hopper is meant to represent, say otherwise. And every season Hopper’s resistance is broken down and he works with Joyce. If he doesn’t work WITH Joyce he nearly dies. If he doesn’t believe her at all, bodies start dropping. You have to go “behind the curtain” and accept the weird to survive or make progress as a general narrative rule, the entire show.

With Nancy, her motivations are justice (which the world is not ready for) and rebelling against the perfectly structured boxes society has put in place. These two go hand in hand, she can’t get justice because people don’t want a disruption to their neatly structured lives. Working around the common people is a nuisance for her. She talks often with Jonathon about how she can’t conform to the lifestyle her parents do (implied racist + homophobic without actually having to say/show it explicitly in the show through the support of Regan and Karen’s Thatcher convo) how the cookie cutter lives with reality shuttered out would kill her.

With Lucas in s4, he is trying to save himself from being othered by conforming in the most palatable way he can without sacrificing his own happiness. Him trying to be “better” isn’t framed as bad thing (which is how the audience seems to be taking it for some reason), it’s framed as a hopeless endeavor because it’s never going to be enough. Even if he’s not being targeted at the moment, people he loves are and regardless of what he does it’ll circle back to him eventually.

Eddie is the “worst of society”. He’s a poor good for nothing loud mouthed idiot, obnoxious, disrespectful to authority, crazy drug dealer, and gay (implied). But he’s idolized by Mike + Dustin and the narrative makes him very human and kind. He’s also the only one that gives any relief to Chrissy who is literally cracking under the pressure of acting normal. No one except Eddie and Max notice or says she’s acting weird, no one except Eddie and the counselor try to help her, and Eddie is the only one to make her feel even the slightest bit better. And the reaction to her cracking from her peers is to blame the crazy person instead of admitting she wasn’t perfect which is framed as a ridiculous and violent cult mentality.

This is all to say that every character we are meant to like is a social reject and have a sense of solidarity with other social pariahs… meaning that none of the central characters or “heroes” of Stranger Things are gonna be purposefully or blatantly homophobic or racist. It is the 80s (minorities still existed btw) but it is also a FICTIONAL show. They dropped the ball using a slur towards indigenous people of the arctic, but before that racism and homophobia were punished by the narrative.

Billy was racist. It’s not up for debate. He was racist, among other things, and he was punished dearly for it. The bullies are punished for being racist and homophobic and then never seen or mentioned again. Is that realistic? Nope, but they’re not important after they’ve been punished. The one character we’re meant to like that has been homophobic was immediately beaten up for it and after development has an arc accepting a queer woman.

Steve went from a perfect stereotypical jock and bully unhappy with his life and relationships, to a happy loser working in a video store with a weird kid and a lesbian for best friends. When he gave up trying to fit a mold, he became a better person and his life became infinitely better and he is consistently told how great it is that he’s changed. We don’t ever see his parents reactions or his old friends after he ditches them because their opinions don’t matter. We only see the praise he’s gotten and the fact he’s happier. Is that realistic? No. But it’s the narrative being made.

You know what is realistic though? A tight knit friend group that grew up being ostracized and bullied, witnessing their friend they’re devoted to being bullied for maybe being gay. Even more realistic is that the gay kid is still loved by those friends regardless of whether the bullies had some truth to their taunts. These kids are genuinely hated by most people and only have each other to depend on, every issue they’ve had they’ve gotten over. They apologize to each other ALL the time and they all have a surprising amount of emotional intelligence (yes even Mike, he’s a dick because of trauma + internalized homophobia and he’s aware he’s being a dick and takes responsibility for it when it’s not jeopardizing what he’s feeling is his safety).

In conclusion, none of the characters are going to be homophobic, sorry to ruin your fantasies. It’s unrealistic, out of character, and goes against the core themes of friendship and unconformity set up in the show.

#stranger things #lucas sinclair #nancy wheeler #byler #steve harrington #will byers #mike wheeler #dustin henderson #robin buckley #joyce byers #jim hopper #eddie munson #i wrote this at 3am this morning don’t judge to harshly lmao #long post

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i-need-some-advice-on · 2 months

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Relationship advice?

CW mentions of abuse, SA, eating disorders, illness, disasters

My partner (26m) and I (23nb) have been living together for nearly 3 years. We both have rough pasts, he grew up with abuse, survived a disaster in childhood, moved to this country as a refugee, and struggles with PTSD. He's also struggled with chronic illness since not long after we moved in together. I grew up with abuse, including CSA and animal hoarding, and experienced several instances of SA as a teenager. I also struggle with PTSD, in addition to autism (dx'd in childhood) and chronic illnesses that started when I was a teenager. I use a mobility aid when I'm outside. We are both estranged from our parents, and both moved here as kids so our extended families are overseas. Because it might be relevant, he's Black, I'm white-passing mixed (non-Black).

Since he got sick and hasn't been able to work, I've been financially supporting him on my Disability payment. It's been over 2 years. He has applied for benefits, but he's been denied, and I guess there's not much he can do about that. This isn't really a problem, but it makes the problems more frustrating since I'm making a lot of sacrifices for him. He has had issues with pretty toxic behaviour, like yelling at me, calling me names like "retard", "pathetic", being hypercritical but getting mad at criticism, bringing up my trauma in arguments and downplaying it, downplaying my dx'd health issues, etc.

He has acknowledged that his behaviour in the past was toxic, but he doesn't really take constructive criticism and it feels like he doesn't really think there's anything wrong with his behaviour. I woke up to him the other week yelling things like "go starve yourself and die you fat whore, get bulimia cunt, etc." at the neighbours working in the office upstairs through the ceiling, because he believes they are stomping deliberately because they are racist and ableist and trying to provoke him (possibly true! still a weird reaction), and when I told him that I didn't like waking up to misogynistic shouting, he got mad at me, said he has PTSD and I don't know what it's like, called me thin-skinned, and generally dismissed my concerns. He's aware of my history of eating disorders.

He did say sorry during the day, but in the evening I still wanted to address it. I started by talking about how he's got some big emotions and they seem hard to manage, and he got upset, saying he doesn't have anger issues, he's justified in his anger, etc. I got upset and called him a narcissist, and later a dickhead. I also brought up his past behaviour. He said I have a victim complex, he's the one being victimised, I have "twitter brain" (I deleted twitter over a year ago at his request), that I always bring up the past to make him look bad, I have the same attitude as people who people who complain about protests being disruptive and ask "but do you condemn hamas?", he's objectively more traumatised than me, and I'm only upset by his anger because of my implicit biases. It didn't happen this time, but in the past he's knocked a chunk of plaster out of the ceiling and made his knuckles bleed from banging on the ceiling in response to the noise from upstairs.

Since then he's mostly stuck to playing music at full blast on multiple devices and deliberately setting off the fire alarm to annoy them in "protest", while I wear earplugs, and I guess that's a compromise. He has sort of acknowledged that he was wrong but still feels justified overall. I don't really know what to think. Maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion, maybe I should be more concerned, maybe it's all because of his health and trauma and I should let it slide, maybe there's something I can do to help him, maybe there's nothing I can do. He is sweet most of the time, I love him, but living with him can be so stressful and I don't know how to get him to understand that.

I'm planning on moving home to be closer to family, and he's planning to move after he sorts out his visa. It's also a better country to live in geopolitically and in terms of quality of life than where we live now. I've been hoping to help him get there before addressing all this, since we'll be in a more stable position overall and have more resources, but there's still months before I'll be able to move. What should I do?

#relationship advice #csa mention #abuse mention

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unhelpfulfemme · 9 months

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7 and 17 for the ask game!

7. I'm gonna be honest and say that this happens very rarely to me because if there's one virtue I have (and I have very few of them) it's the capacity to attribute blame correctly. So if fandom is weird about a character I usually start hating the fandom and withdrawing from at least that part of it rather than letting it influence my opinion about the character. Alternately, I'll perhaps review the canon and realize that the fandom is right and I had skipped some key details about the character or how they were presented, which will make me change my opinion about the canon character or the canon's framework overall, but I don't think that's what the question is asking.

BUT there is one notable exception, and that's Dara from the Daevabad trilogy. Which is barely a fandom LOL, like the entire series gets 2 Tumblr posts every six months, but I do love those books and I do get livid about the way the fans treat this particular character to the point that each time I see fanart of him I recoil in disgust.

I put in a cut because this turned out longer and angrier than I expected lol but I guess that is the spirit of the poll?

Basically you know the age-old debate about whether Kylo Ren fans are racist towards Finn and whether Kylo is a better or worse character than Finn and whether people just like him more because he's white etc. etc.? I generally think that's a stupid thing to hoist onto the sequel fans when it's the canon itself that encourages a superficial reading of Kylo as tragic and dramatic and of Finn as a plucky comic relief guy whose emotions shouldn't be taken seriously. But Dara and Ali from Daevabad are the perfect examples of the trend the people who complain about it are trying to highlight and I reeeaaally wish those books were more famous in wider fandom circles because we would be Having so many Discussions about them.

Dara and Ali are basically the two angles of what's a lowkey love triangle with the series' (awesome!) protagonist, Nahri. In my eyes, Dara and Nahri have so little chemistry that I nearly quit the first book 30% in because I thought it would all be about them, but YMMV I guess. Then I saw Nahri and Ali interact once, thought "man, I wish these two were being set up for a grand romance instead" and was then thrilled to discover that actually they were and the author was clearly phoning in the Dara/Nahri parts because they were there to make a point rather than to be romantic or appealing.

Dara is an asshole, but in canon, he's a well-written asshole and there's a point to his characterization. He's an extremely talented Proud Warrior Guy who is really patriotic and cares about his family and his country and about making them proud. He's also arrogant and short-tempered, but so is Ali. The thing is, Dara's superiors send him to commit genocide, and Dara does so to mixed success. Then the people he's tried to genocide come for his own people to exact revenge and brutally kill his family. This all sparks a massive civil war, in the middle of which Dara ends up trapped in a Fate Worse Than Death kind of situation for thousands of years, until he is somehow saved and joins the protagonist. He feels anguished and vengeful about his family dying but is also still chauvinistic AF and never examines his own role in all of this. He still believes that blindly following authority and being loyal to people of his religion and ethnicity is his highest moral duty. This makes him commit even more war crimes, end up in another fate worse than death situation, and only manage to get out of it by sheer luck and through the other characters being kinder towards him than he would have been in their shoes. He also always thinks he knows better than anyone else and routinely overrides Nahri's wishes because he thinks he knows what's good for her.

Now, he also has positive traits, like he's a kind and patient teacher and has a code of honor etc. etc. but his narrative is clearly about radicalization and cycles of revenge and, well, toxic masculinity. There honestly isn't much else to him.

Ali is also stubborn and arrogant, quick to judge people who are different than him, and prone to foot-in-mouth incidents. He's more of a warrior poet type, equally badass but also bookish. BUT he's also Black and a practicing Muslim, which I guess puts some people off of him. The thing is, Ali is a wayyy more complex character than Dara, he has a whole-ass family and his relationship with every one of its members is lovingly and intricately drawn by the author, and he also has nuanced and complex thoughts about his code of ethics, the system of governance of his country, his religion, and many, many other things. He is put into a lot of interesting situations and forced to make many difficult choices and is just overall a more complex and interesting character.

And still! STILL! Like 80% of fanart and fan content for this series is all about Dara, a frankly quite unsympathetic character if you think about it for more than 0.2 seconds and the flattest one of the main three to boot. I would have been content to read Dara's canon story and recognize it for the well-crafted story it is and even empathize with him (he was quite young when all that happened to him) but the amount of passionate insistence by the fans that he is the poorest meow meow and so much hotter and more interesting than Ali makes me have an irrational and visceral negative reaction whenever I see him.

17. Superficial answer?

We need more Padmé Amidala/Asajj Ventress content. For some reason I really like the idea of the two of them together and there are like 4 fics with them on Ao3 of which 3 are orgy fics with 10 different characters. The reason I like the idea of the two of them together is totally not because they represent the two types of women I tend to develop crushes on and I'm just mashing my dolls together.

Deeper answer?

I really really love those posts where people apply whichever discipline they're working in or are passionate about to fandom works? Like that biologist who made up a theory according to which Wookies and Caminoans have a common ancestor?

I can never get enough of that and wish I could see it more often. I want more biologists squinting at the weird plants in the back of scifi series. I want political theorists to try to make sense of the politics in Vorkosigan. I want art historians to try to develop a theory of how art and fashion changed between Hot and GOT.

Make me a bastard child of your fandom special interest and your professional special interest. I will eat it up, I promise.

#the daevabad trilogy #I guess?

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nebulouscoffee · 5 months

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7, 23, 27, and 33 for the Star Trek ask meme?

Thank you for the ask!

7. Who would make up your crew dream team?

You know, this is something I've thought about before (shoutout to @fancy-a-dance-brigadier for always asking the real questions lol) - but I could never quite find an answer I was satisfied with! Because I don't think taking all my favourites and smushing them together works, they just aren't as interesting together as mixups between characters who have bigger ideological differences. Like, he might be my fav captain but I don't want to choose Sisko over Janeway and Picard, I want to see him interact with Janeway and Picard, you know? So here's a sort of half-cooked, this-would-change-every-time-you-asked-me answer:

Captain: Ben Sisko First Officer: Michael Burnham (I wanna see them interact!!) Chief of Operations: Data Chief Xenoanthropologist: Chakotay (I know this is not an actual position in Star Trek but it should be!! The dude who makes sure dealings with alien cultures are being handled with respect, basically) Chief of Security: La'an Singh (trying to mix and match here) Chief Science Officer: Jadzia Dax (ft. Harry Kim always giving her ideas) Counsellor: Deanna Troi (ft. trainee Ezri Tigan) Chief Medical Officer: Julian Bashir (ft. Kes starting graphic and unhinged conversations about autopsies with him) Chief Engineer: Geordi La Forge (ft. B'Elanna on staff. Drama!!!) Helmsman: Ro Laren Communications: Hoshi Sato Also There: Kira Nerys (recurring character who works with them when it's relevant), Guinan (bartender), Admiral Picard (recurring character that makes Sisko do the iconic "Kai Winn is boarding the station" facepalm), Jake Sisko (son), Garak (local menace), and Admiral Janeway (temporal menace)

23. Favorite tropes?

Character's past comes back to haunt them. Character is forced to confront their inner demons in a way that blurs the line between imagination and reality. Member of an alien society seeks asylum. A peek into the world from the "outsider" character's eyes. Two people from opposite sides are forced to spend time together (and the guest character SLAPS). Captain is out of commission and the unlikeliest people are forced to step up. Oh no the holodeck isn't shutting down and the only way we can save everyone's life is to LARP through this thing fully committing to the bit. Here is a spacial anomaly that makes everyone act weird one by one (either revealing important hidden truths about the characters, or just letting the actors have too much fun). ALL of us have to go back in time together for some stupid reason (and it's amazing)

27. What do you wish they had handled differently?

SO many potential answers- but since it's always on my mind, I wish they'd followed through on the thread of Jem'Hadar dissent. In 'The Abandoned' we find out they're genetically engineered to (rapidly) grow very strong, be dependant on drugs, and loyal to the Founders while demanding no individual rights, which frames them as tragic victims. Then we get a Jem'Hadar character who not only broke free of the Dominion's hold on him, not only expresses but also acts on the dream of freeing his fellow soldiers- and a lead character (Julian) risks his career for him! Sisko tries to get through to them in 'Rocks and Shoals'. They're so clearly complex beings with unique thoughts & personalities & feelings & needs, and are constantly fighting this inhumanely imposed programming that tells them they're just killing machines who live to serve their masters. Even in lighthearted episodes like 'One Little Ship' we see conflict between the Gamma and Alpha Quadrant soldiers, for example. We could've had this be relevant to the Dominion War's resolution! We could've had a defector Jem'Hadar as a recurring character! We could've had Julian finally make that breakthrough & help start a Jem'Hadar revolt!! It could've been so much more interesting (and so much less racist)

33. Whose twitter feed would you most want to follow?

My first instinct was Dax, but I'm leaning more towards Jake Sisko- I feel like because he's the son of a Starfleet officer (but not in the service himself) he'd have absolutely zero fear of authority & he'd just post the most savage things about prominent Starfleet officers and blow up incredibly unflattering pics of all the admirals lol

#thanks again for the ask! unfortunately I am terrible at choosing things (notice how many characters I crammed into that first answer :D)#but this was a great brain workout <3 #ask game

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mightyflamethrower · 1 month

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By Lloyd Billingsley, Power Line

On August 2, 2023, Tablet editor David Samuels interviewed David Garrow, author of Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a massive attack on Israel and committed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. In light of those events, and the recent attack on Israel directly from Iran, consider some of Samuels’ own statements during “The Obama Factor” interview:

The sheer amount of political capital and focus Obama put into achieving the JCPOA during his second term, to the near-exclusion of other goals, suggests that the deal was central to his politics. It also carries more than a whiff of the kind of politics in which the American Empire is seen not just as unexceptional, but also, in some ways, as actively evil. It was a politics born out of the confluence of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, which saw a racist war abroad being used to protect a racist power structure at home. That old alliance of civil rights, anti-imperialism, and identity politics made the Democratic Party that Obama positioned himself to lead—college-educated, corporate-controlled—seem cool, allowing it to use post-1960s radical ideology as a language to sell stuff.

In the absence of what was once American journalism, it is hard to know which portrait of Obama’s post-presidency is truer to life: Obama as a celebrity-obsessed would-be billionaire, or as a would-be American Castro, reshaping American society from his basement, in his sweats.

"Touchdown!"

The election of Joe Biden in 2020 gave the Obamas even more reasons to stay in town. The whispers about Biden’s cognitive decline, which began during his bizarre COVID-sheltered basement campaign, were mostly dismissed as partisan attacks on a politician who had always been gaffe-ridden. Yet as President Biden continued to fall off bicycles, misremember basic names and facts, and mix long and increasingly weird passages of Dada-edque nonsense with autobiographical whoppers during his public appearances, it became hard not to wonder how poor the president’s capacities really were and who was actually making decisions in a White House staffed top to bottom with core Obama loyalists. When Obama turned up at the White House, staffers and the press crowded around him, leaving President Biden talking to the drapes—which is not a metaphor but a real thing that happened. (Samuels’ link)

I have heard from more than one source that there are regular meetings at Obama’s house in Kalorama involving top figures in the current White House, with Secret Service and cars outside. I don’t write about it because it’s not my lane. There are over a thousand reporters in Washington, and yet there are zero stakeouts of Obama’s mansion, if only to tell us who is coming and going. But he clearly has his oar in. The easy explanation, of course, is that Joe Biden is not running that part of his administration. Obama is. He doesn’t even have to pick up the phone because all of his people are already inside the White House. They hold the Iran file. Tony Blinken doesn’t.

Rob Malley is just one person. Brett McGurk. Dan Shapiro in Israel. Lisa Monaco in Justice. Susan Rice running domestic policy. It’s turtles all the way down. There are obviously large parts of White House policymaking that belong to Barack Obama because they’re staffed by his people, who worked for him and no doubt report back to him. Personnel is policy, as they say in Washington.

Which to me is a very odd and kind of spooky arrangement. Spooky, because it is happening outside the constitutional framework of the U.S. government, and yet somehow it’s been placed off the list of permitted subjects to report on. Which is a pretty good indicator of the extent to which the information we get, and public reactions to that information, is being successfully controlled. How and by whom remain open questions, the quick answer to which is that the American press has become a subset of partisan comms. What scared me back then was coming to understand that a new milieu had been created consisting of party operatives, the people in the FBI and the CIA who are carrying out White House policy, and the press. It is all one world now. And that’s something people still seem loathe to admit, even to themselves, in part because it puts them in a state of dissonance with this new kind of controlled consensus that the press maintains, which is obviously garbage. But if you question it, you’re some kind of nut.

But historically speaking, Jews are not, or were not, a particularly American obsession, except among some morons and leather fetishists on the right. But they are a major obsession on the periphery of the American empire, where envy and fear of the mythic role that Jews supposedly play in Washington, because of Israel, are defining emotions, regardless of the facts. So how do you talk all this foundation-land, community-organizer shit and then preside over the transformation of the country into a Gilded Age oligarchy? Maybe I just answered my own question: Obama is the Magic Negro of the billionaire industrial complex. And targeting Jews as outsiders and pushing them outside the circle was the way that the Gilded Age oligarchy consolidated itself in America, back then and also now.

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sandgraab · 11 days

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autism moment for a sec and it only makes sense to post on here since 10 years ago my blog was almost exclusively posts about this particular youtube gamer man. that way I can type all of this and then never think about him ever again.

but anyways I just watch drew gooden’s new vid and the whole time he was talking about an auction and I was like is he gonna do a pcrf fundraiser like a lot of his friends are doing and then that’s what it is. which is cool obviously. but it made me remember that mr mark i. plier has yet to do his typical political schtick in regards to palestine. which is almost, ALMOST funny to me because people like to rewrite history and pretend he’s always been this woke dude as if he didn’t release that god awful pulse shooting video where he waffles about without really saying anything substantial. oh and then the RESPECT video about respecting his racist friend who was being racist for his 100 million subscribers. my post about that video is probably still up on the depths of this blog because I was so mad about it lol.

anyways I think mark gets away with it because he’s hot and kinda funny lol. so many other “influencers” have been bombarded by fans for months to say something - rightfully so, mind you - but not him. he’s the only big one I haven’t seen people mention when they talk about normally “outspoken” creators being weirdly silent about Palestine.

and honestly i don’t really care if he has a dumbass movie to ship out and doesn’t want to burn bridges. he likes to pretend that he gives a fuck because he knows that gets him money and a dedicated fanbase, one that will read posts like mine and say “BUH BUH BUH…. HE SAYS TWANS WIGHTS…. GAYE WIGHTS……….. HES KOREAN ALSO!!!!!!” which like. All I have to say to that is Lol. lmao. rofl.

the other possible response I see for a lot of people is the, “why do you expect this random YouTuber/tiktoker/celebrity to comment on a foreign conflict.” Which by the way that line of logic is so fucking stupid when we’re talking about a guy who likes to pride himself on inclusivity and being politically outspoken. which he isn’t. he’s always had some cringe centrist sounding takes. but that doesn’t change that he uses that progressive image for himself. like you wanna tell me the guy who got on twitter after like every major trump decision to voice support for whichever group trump decided to upset, THAT GUY doesn’t want to be vocal about a genocide happening? yeah sure lol. he’s either a zionist bitch or he’s a greedy coward LOL. or I guess the secret third option is that he’s one of those “can’t acknowledge it because that would hurt bidens chance of winning,” which is kinda just a weird mix of the first two.

or wait actually… maybe he just doesn’t want to piss off scott “weirdly absent from dawkos palestine fundraiser” cawthon since they’ve been each other’s money horses since 2014 🤭

#ANYWAYS. like I said if this ends up in any tags sorry but I also don’t care lol #idk what this website uses to put things in searches but it used to put read mores in tags because this website is spaghetti code

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tenta-cute · 2 years

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Billy Lore From 'Runaway Max': Chapter 10

I live... Sorta. Not gonna lie, friends, it's difficult to make myself read this book when I have like thirty tabs of red hot Harringrove romance open on my tablet.

This chapter has quite a bit of stuff. It very briefly touches upon the racism thing. Also, some domestic abuse in this chapter. It's mostly Hawkins with some San Diego flashbacks mixed in.

Spoilers and lore under the cut!

The chapter starts with Max leaving Lucas behind and approaching Billy, who is leaning against his car. We get this scene where Billy grabs Max's wrists and tells her there are people out there that should be avoided.

He wants to know who Max talked with, what Lucas wanted, and also asks if he's causing problems for Max.

Max knows that Neil has many things to say about anyone who is not a white male Lutheran and assumes (emphasis mine) that Billy is the same.

Neil is not "openly" racist. He always claims it's about property value or crime rates or a million other keywords thanks to which he doesn't have to openly state who he is really talking about.

Billy has a history of making fun of Max's friends or interests and insulting her.

What she finds even worse is that sometimes Billy acts as if he and Max were in on some big secret together, as if they understand one another. As if he is actually concerned for her. Max believes he doesn't care for her and only acts that way sometimes to piss her off.

Ever since the Halloween night, the atmosphere in the house is very tense. While they used to be pretty angry at one another back in San Diego, they haven't been as openly hostile there.

Max realizes it's because Billy used to almost never be home back in San Diego, but in Hawkins he has a lot of free time. He started to fill it with parties, girls, and the baseball team, but all girls have curfews and the parties are rare.

Neil acts according to his routine: he leaves house in the morning and returns after 5PM. He ruffles Max's hair and buys Susan flowers. Underneath it all he's clearly ready to explode, though.

Max is hypervigilant around them, because if Billy fights with Neil he will take it out on her.

One morning Billy and Neil have a weird-ass confrontation during breakfast, lol. Billy picks up a carton of orange juice from the table and a moment later Neil reaches for it too. Billy doesn't let go. They end up quietly wrestling over it? And then Neil pulls hard enough that his elbow knocks Susan's sugar bowl to the ground, chipping it in the process.

Max finds this somewhat symbolic. She also mentions that she's been collecting signs of danger for the past seven months.

Max is not afraid of blood. She's played street hockey and tends to be pretty accident-prone with her skateboard, not to mention she loves slasher movies.

The first time she sees Neil assault Billy was in San Diego. Billy was driving in Mission Valley and was pulled over by cops.

Once Neil learns of this he goes all quiet, cold, and calm.

The scene starts with Max, Susan and Billy in the house. Max is cleaning parts of her skateboard. Billy is standing in front of the fridge and drinking milk straight from the carton, which he does because Susan hates it.

Billy is generally rude and disrespectful towards Susan.

Neil arrives, crumples up the ticket, and throws it at Billy, claims Billy is being irresponsible.

Max notes that the atmosphere in the house has been tense since that day Billy offered her a cigarette.

Max is initially shocked when Neil punches Billy.

Susan doesn't give a fuck. When Max looks to her, expecting her to step in, Susan reacts like she didn't see anything and keeps reading her magazine.

Another punch makes Billy stumble and hit a shelf. A mug falls off and shatters on the ground. Susan doesn't even look up.

Max suddenly realizes that Susan is not surprised at all by what's going on. She's horrified by the fact that her mother doesn't consider Neil's physical abuse a reason enough to leave him.

Billy manages to stand up, but he's unsteady on his feet. His lip is bleeding and his face is starting to swell. Neil tells him he's gonna teach him about responsibility and respect.

Susan leaves the room.

Neil beats Billy with a belt. When he does so, his eyes lose focus and it's like he doesn't even see Billy anymore.

Max is horrified and keeps expecting Neil to realize she's there and stop beating Billy up, but Neil doesn't care. He doesn't even seem to register she's there.

Billy is completely resigned to his fate. He doesn't make a sound and doesn't try to avoid the belt. In his eyes anger is mixed with fear and helplessness. He reminds Max of a stray dog she once saw in a dogcatcher's truck.

Right before Neil is about to start, Max tries to intervene and yells at him to stop. Neil just looks at her, smiles, and turns back to Billy to ask if this is how he raised him, to be a loser who needs a little girl to protect him. His tone is so full of disgust that it almost makes Max tear up.

Neil is not in a hurry. As he's beating Billy up, Max feels completely helpless. After he's done, Neil leaves the kitchen without a word.

Billy stays on the ground, kneeling on the floor. He doesn't say anything. After the silence becomes too much to bear, Max kneels down on the floor next to Billy and asks him if he's okay.

Billy seems completely empty when he tells Max to leave him alone. When she offers to bring him some ice, he looks up at her with hatred in his eyes that Max believes is directed at her. He snaps his teeth at her like a dog and snarls at her, once telling her to leave him alone. His voice is horrible, like a wild animals, and this time Max listens to him.

Impressions:

Oh man...

So, right off the bat we have confirmation that Neil is hella racist. Billy being racist is an assumption Max makes based on what kind of person his dad is, as well as the way he reacts to Lucas. Honestly, personally I think internalized bigotry is totally flavor of the month for Billy (alas, this might be a bit of a projection of my own experiences with extremely racist parents). That said, I think this part can definitely also support the popular theory that Billy wanted to keep Lucas away from Max because of Neil's bullshit? It was mentioned in earlier chapters that when it comes to politics and ideology Neil fully demands his household to follow his opinions and does not tolerate differing views. It's pretty clear that Billy is nothing like his father and doesn't want anything to do with him. It doesn't sound unreasonable to assume that his own views might be different than those of his father, even if he still enforces them for the sake of his own safety.

There is no doubt whatsoever about whether or not Max and Susan were aware of the abuse. They both know. Apparently Neil doesn't care about the audience.

This chapter was pretty heartbreaking when it comes to showcasing just how absolutely isolated Billy is in his situation and how strongly conditioned he is to believe that nobody can help him. First there's Susan driving the point home entirely on her own by completely ignoring physical abuse that is happening literally in front of her, but what's even worse is the way Neil instantly uses Max's attempt to help against Billy, in this case by trying to make him feel pathetic and ashamed for being defended by a little girl. Billy is literally taught that people trying to help him are only going to make it worse.

Like... damn, no wonder that kid is messed up. He's sad, he's scared, he's lonely, and he has no hope for things ever getting better. The fact that he didn't get his redemption arc is a crime. I once again reject canon and aggressively embrace fanfiction which gives Billy a happy ending.

#billy hargrove #harringrove #mungrove #harringroveson #keg boys #billy in runaway max #st fanfiction writing resource

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commajade · 2 years

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Im gonna drop a vent to you and I'm sorry for it you can just skip it if you like. I'm korean and a lesbian. I love kpop a lot, especially because some of my favorite idols imo speak to my experience in some of their art or the way they choose to work, you know? But with the new influx of westerners mainly with BTS, I'm starting to see more homophobic comments than usual and its making kpop spaces very uncomfortable for me. An example or two. I have certain opinions on Key and he is one of my favorite idols. But I saw for the first time in a while people saying things like he's not gay, he's korean, you all just think twink korean boys are gay and its because you're gay westerners and put this on them etc. This was from a westerner. Another one is after that now infamous wendy yst interview with twice members. I saw so many people saying things like sana can't be sapphic she's just a queerbaiting kpop idol she's so het so straight she dresses so girly she's trying to bait you for money blah blah blah., you can assume her sexuality because it's offensive to think she's sapphic, no lesbian looks like that, she was only being a friendly gal pal (that was flirting like are people stupid). I'm a femme korean lesbian mind you. I saw it with Moonbyul too after shutdown like I've seen people on twitter say you still can't call her a sapphic because its an assumption when she wrote...that song. I feel like I can't walk through kpop spaces now without some weird almost coloniser rhetoric about us and about how we express queerness, or painting us as always being money grabbing opportunists who are never queer sincerely and like comparing idols like Key to Harry styles as if they are in remotely the same position, and there's just this intersection of how it makes me feel about my race and my sexuality that really hurts. I felt so triggered after that wendy interview seeing the way mostly western people absolutely had to straight zone Sana and ascribe her racially charged characteristics, same thing with key this week with his stages and wearing those clothes. I mean for me I am happy to say I think so and so idol is a sapphic or a gay man but there's this new thing with western people who demonise this and think koreans or asians can't be gay? Sorry I don't understand it that well and my english isn't that good.

hello! yes i've talked about this stuff at length there's a really ugly social media phenomenon that's been building for years and it's really a mix of general homophobia, orientalism, and how people talk about queerness on twitter/sns in general. it's really annoying and it's really ugly and lots and lots of people are out there being simply wrong and racist and homophobic and there's nothing we can do about it. i'm sorry it's making u uncomfortable it makes me p uncomfortable too.

i have said it before on my blog and it is pretty clear for gay korean people when korean celebrities might be gay or not. westerners have a hard time telling what is standard behavior for korean people when it comes to fashion, self-presentation and care, and behaviors with other people. most male idols do not fit standards of western masculinity and do not fit korean standards for masculinity either but it is simply the job of an idol to look youthful and pretty and fashionable and those things are seen as gender noncomforming to many people including many koreans. there is also a clear distinction between queer idols flagging to their fans that they are queer and actual kpop queerbaiting which is when companies have idols pair up and flirt with each other as a marketing scheme or put little nods to the profitable gay audience but don't actually care. and there are also straight korean celebrities that genuinely care about their lgbt fans and want to express that as well. we can discern these things and many westerners can too, many people simply do not try.

it's orientalism that makes people think that korean and asian people generally can't be gay because we live in conservative countries as if the west is not even more violent toward lgbt people in many ways. they have an inability to see asian people as actual human populations with many kinds of people with many experiences, they take the surface level of asian countries that they can consume as the absolute truth and think they know everything about us.

and overall people just say dumb shit constantly and the online environment for kpop fans is becoming so noxious because of things like twitter culture cultivating cruelty and quick shock value statements as the kind of humor that gets popular and how mainstream kpop is becoming.

it's genuinely hurtful esp when people say this stuff about key because he is so careful and caring about flagging and talking about acceptance and confidence in your own identity and key has been facing homophobia his entire career. the people that know what he is communicating to us as lgbt fans can tell very easily. there's a new flood of people being cruel about him and to him, even putting homophobic slurs in his comments and thinking that's not a malicious thing to do. have not personally seen the harry styles comment if anyone said that in front of me in real life i would genuinely consider physical violence. like. excuse me???

anyway i hope this long response helps u at all! i totally understand where ur coming from and u can come vent to me again if u want! it's a really concerning and violent trend on the internet with korean people being so exposed to the global audience now it made me feel kind of crazy that so many people can consume and make queer coded content from and about korean celebrities and claim that i don't exist. i hope u can find a way to enjoy ur hobbies in peace!

#asks #kpop #long post //

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tinker-tanner · 6 months

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Tag Nine People You'd Like to Know Better

Favourite colour: intense, vivid green. I don't know how to describe it properly, but if you imagine the glow of radioactive waste in a cartoon, that's about it. Purple, orange, red, and black also suit me well.

Favourite flavour(s): My palate is unfortunately rather unsophisticated thanks to having almost zero sense of smell until age 27 (thank you estrogen for my life), so my sense of taste hasn't historically had a lot of room for variation. That said, there is nothing in this world quite like top-notch cheesy garlic bread.

Favourite music: indie rock writ broadly. This ranges from folky stuff like The Mountain Goats to metal-adjacent prog like Polyphia to the vast soundscapes of Sigur Rós. Also enjoy quite a bit of rap, electronic music, and folk.

Favourite movie: Attack the Block, always and forever. It's the perfect mix of horror, teenage shenanigans, comedy, and genuine emotion. This is also John Boyega's first starring role. I genuinely cannot believe he pulled off this kind of leading man energy as a teenager: watching this movie in 2012 lets me sincerely say I was into him before it was cool.

Favourite book: Two-way tie for first. Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe might be the smartest book I've ever read. Not that it makes the reader feel smart - I have rarely felt dumber than when I'm trying to understand what Severian is leaving out of a story - but that there's so much going on and every reread enhances how much you can extract from it. The Sisters of Dorley by Alyson Greaves helped give me the courage to finally acknowledge I was a woman and is also just a stupendous psychological drama filled with women who have so, so many things wrong with them. Honorary mention to The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, which is still up there but no longer quite in the top spot.

Favourite series: Revolutionary Girl Utena. I did not know TV could ever be this good. I do not expect any TV show to astound me this much again. Watching Utena, I could feel my brain physically reshape itself. The show is unexpectedly blunt about rape and child abuse considering it's shojo, so watch out for that, but if you can handle it, watch this show.

Last song: "Sun Bleached Flies" by Ethel Cain. The perfect song for a certain mood when you need to reckon with not being Christian anymore. The first time I heard her sing "God loves you, but not enough to save you" was like a revelation.

Last series: Afraid I don't watch enough TV to remember this.

Last movie: The Boy and the Heron. Miyazaki near the peak of his powers, which I never expected to see again. The big screen added a lot to this one. Even by the usual high standards Ghibli sets, it's incredibly gorgeous.

Currently reading: Beowulf (as translated by Maria Dahvana Headley). I'm a sucker for Old English literature. Took two courses on Old English in undergrad and they were some of my favourites of the degree until the person who taught me turned out to be profoundly racist. Headley's take is bizarre and therefore compelling to me: I'm always interested in seeing how weird someone can get with the source material.

Currently watching: Nothing. I weeded and organised my bookshelves for the first time in the 2020s and am taking advantage of this to read my TBR list at a ferocious pace.

Currently working on: Nothing in particular. I'm not all that creatively inclined and what little writing projects I did have were pushed aside by all the real-life nonsense I'm juggling. Tarot reading has been a joy to learn, though; attempting to interpret real-world events through knotty tangles of symbolism is exactly the sort of thing my brain likes. Shoutout to The Tarot Restless by Winslow Dumaine, which dared to ask "What if I made up my own Dark Souls cosmology and put it in a deck of cards?"

Tagged by @tobermoriansass, which I find terribly considerate given how hard it is to drag him away from his elves these days. Tagging @sophibeans @stackslip @licoricefern @deadciv @catgirltoes @loki-zen and whoever else would like to join in!

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