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#if you clown on this post i will block you
rogerzsteven · 20 hours
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Okay, I need to get this off my chest and say that some people in this fandom needs a serious reality check.
You're not the savior you think you are. No one is going to give you a gold medal or relieve your consciousness, or pat you on the back. This isn't the way to validate your 'woke'ness or proving you're a good person. This shouldn't be the only accomplishment in your life.
You're lacking empathy and common sense for the sake of getting some brownie points on this stupid site and causing damage, thinking a half ass apology will fix it and go on with your day.
Are you suspecting something? Talk with that person first, then listen and try to understand. Find some solid, undeniable proof. Don't just make a callout post online and block the person or play the victim. Guess what? Sometimes you're in the wrong, or sometimes there is no one in the wrong to begin with, and it's just a difference of opinions (this goes for fandom's different ideas on characters/matters, not discriminatory subjects).
Some of you are going so far to the point of accusing people of color for something you don't even understand or have the right to speak to begin with, bandwagoning on the subject without making sure of it to save your faces, and then backtrack. You look like a clown and your unwillingness to understand cultural differences shows your entitlement.
I'm not saying people of color can't be racist/ableist/discriminatory in general, what I'm saying is know your place. Don't accuse people so easily. Think before you act. This place isn't yours only and you're not as pure as you want to be. The world doesn't revolve around you. Get a fucking grip.
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weaseltotheface · 1 year
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fencesandfrogs · 2 years
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Okay, so one of my posts that circulates a lot has to do w personalities disorders and abuse. So I want to lead with I do not think having a personality disorder (especially cluster B) inherently makes you abusive. If you have NPD, BPD, any other cluster B, or any other personality disorder, I’m sorry for the stigma you face and I do not think you’re abusive. (With that in mind, this post might be triggering for you, because it’s about abusers who have a personality disorder.) I also don’t think it’s okay to armchair diagnose abusers.
Okay, I think that’s all the red tape. (Good red tape. I don’t want to be misconstrued.)
So. I get frustrated sometimes with — now, this is a very Online Only Issue, because it’s not real world applicable, but the fact of the matter is online is a big chunk of a lot of people’s lives, and there are a lot of really good trauma support communities online. So I get that I’m pointing fingers at an online problem, but much like “let men be masculine” isn’t usually relevant IRL, it (a) sometimes is, and (b) is still meaningful commentary on the online communities where we spend a lot of time.
So I get frustrated because…let’s take Christianity. A lot of people were abused by Christians (in such a way that religion was relevant), and they make communities to interact. To support each other. To share stories. We all agree that’s good, I think? And in turn, we expect those survivors to not go into Christian spaces and badmouth Christians, and to preferably try to stay neutral in public.
And this is a charged comparison, I get that. I understand the complex social stigma factors at play here. I get that Christianity is a cultural juggernaut.
But I think like…the fact that people who were abused by people w NPD, in such a way that NPD was relevant, want to connect and share stories is okay.
That would be true for just about anything, right? It’s like — vent groups for spouses of people w various things are allowed to exist. You’re allowed to feel the way you do and allowed to find a community of support for it. That Idea is really important to me.
(Do I have to clarify that I don’t like or support the term narcissist abuse? If I do, I don’t. Actually, I might have to because of that analogy earlier since religious abuse is a Thing. The comparison wasn’t meant to be one to one, but y’know. Internet.)
And there is a really touchy issue of how to name these things. By touchy I mean “there are established communities w shitty names but I think the communities have a right to exist.” (You prob know the subreddits I’m talking about. I don’t know what I Would name them, and I would like to rephrase and make sure the context of “abusive parents with…” was clearer, but I think like. It’s okay that people want to connect w shared experiences.)
So that’s the pretty tangled knot of emotions I feel, and then I see someone whose content I generally like post something from the POV of someone raised by an abusive parent who had a PD. And like. Sometimes there are abusive parents who happened to have a PD. I had an abusive parent who happened to be Christian. But that’s not always true.
And I think seeing someone raving about Christians — someone who had clearly been abused — and saying “not all Christians” would be terrible, right? We agree they have the right to voice their pain?
So…I dunno. This isn’t a statement or anything, it’s just a ramble about the tangled knot of emotions and experiences I have about this.
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monsterqueers · 4 months
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Im just really annoyed about how people just fucking hate it when the kids they were jealous of and hated in school for not also getting bad grades also report being fucking traumatized by the school system.
Yeah sorry school traumatizes everyone, even the 'ex-gifted kids' you fucking hate because god forbid someone wasnt exploited and overworked the same way you were.
Sorry a group of predominately neurodiverse people experiencing burnout and how their upbringing of being only valued for their academic performance totally fucked their ability to function in the real world dare talk about this pain where you can see.
Its not being privileged and ~humblebragging~ to report emotional neglect from your parents centered around you having to get perfect grades to receive any scrap of love.
Wishing violence on them for talking about it and finding each other isn't cute either.
And because these people need it stated extra clear
This post is NOT saying other groups of people 'had it less bad'. This is about a specific phenomenon of vitriol towards a oft neurodiverse group of people commiserating about how they were screwed over by the system under the label 'gifted kid' NOT whatever else you are imagining im saying. <3
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amber-angel · 9 months
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Hmm. Nimona thoughts after going through the tag
Movie good. Movie soooo good
Don't give netflix the credit for the queerness of this story
Ballister is literally Riz Ahmed in cartoon form, he does not look like Pedro Pascal, please shut up
Everyone who voice acted in this movie absolutely killed it
Be excited for queer stories and be angry that netflix has historically been known to cancel them for little to no reason
Nimona is genderfluid and I love her style
It is so exciting that something that began right here on tumblr.com is getting so much attention. And ND Stevenson deserves so much love for creating it
I have rewatched this thing four times already holy shit I love it
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trek-tracks · 2 years
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Star Trek, "The Mark of Gideon."
Airdate: January 17, 1969.
Sigh.
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tumblingxelian · 11 months
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Yang & Ruby's Childhood
Oh how I wish, I wish that people would stop ignoring canon and pretending Yang & Ruby had functional adults who were good parents in their lives after Summer died. 
Because the fact of the matter is that they did not and canon has spelled this out again and again for the audience with increasing clarity every single time.
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In Volume 2, Yang overtly states that Tai shut down following Summer’s to the point where his neglect became so pronounced a 5 and 3 year old who were grieving were left alone for hours and could disappear into a Grimm inhabited island looking for a different parental figure. 
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Its re-established again in volume Five when Yang spells out to Weiss in no uncertain terms that after Summer disappeared, Yang, a five year old, was the one who needed to keep the family together and the trauma this inflicted on her alone is obvious. Let alone Ruby, because she was both being neglected and being raised by someone only two years her senior. Something Ruby fully acknowledges was the cast. 
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There’s a multitude of other things I feel Tai has done wrong as both a teacher and a parent, but these one’s are undeniable, openly stated facets of the household. 
And Qrow doesn’t get an out by being the uncle either, oh no. 
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Ruby makes it expressly clearly despite how much she loves and admires her Uncle she is very much used to him dropping back into her life shit faced drunk and being carted home by a stranger and needing to be taken care of. 
Again, by children! 
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He has his reasons and his problems, but amazingly that doesn’t stop this from being a shitty way to grow up. No matter how much Tai & Qrow might love these two, they were not ‘great parents’, I wouldn’t even call them good. 
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These two adults were negligent and damaging to the children under their care despite how much they may have loved them, and the fact that is ignored really burns me up inside. 
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agrebel18 · 6 months
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HERE'S A RANDOM GUIDE TO SOME (NOT ALL) TONE INDICATORS IF YOU'RE CONFUSED ABOUT THEM
/j is joking or joke
/hj is half joking or half joke
/srs is serious
/s and /sar is sarcasm
/gen is genuine
/lh is light-hearted
/nm is not mad
/nbh is nobody here
/pos is positive
/neg is negative
there's more but i don't remember them all lmao, feel free to add so we can help each other out!
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sapphic-togachako · 3 months
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RWBY and Trauma
So, i want to talk a little bit about RWBY. Specifically, with regards to its thematic storytelling. I think I made a post about this a few days ago but im gonna make a longer one here.
RWBY tackles a lot of themes in its storytelling. Death, grief, fear, trust, etc. to name a few.
One of the bigger themes is "keep moving forward", which was also Monty's motto. It is exemplified through the characters, both heroes and villains, and how they handle trauma and suffering.
The villains have pretty much all suffered. Salem, Cinder, Hazel, Mercury, Emerald, Roman, Neo, even Watts, all suffered. They experienced trauma, and hardship, and it shaped them.
The big difference between them and team RWBY is that they cannot move forward. Where team RWBY learn to grow and change. Salem couldn't accept loss, and grief, and instead turned those emotions to anger, same with Hazel, Adam, Neo, they all refused to move beyond their trauma. Yang put it pretty well in V8 - all this death and destruction because something bad happened to you once upon a time?
Trauma is inevitable. But the difference between the heroes and the villains is how their trauma impacts them going forward. And not just in a "the villains react negatively and the heroes don't" because Ruby reacted poorly, as did Blake, and Weiss in the early volumes. Qrow drinks to deal with it, and Ozpin let the betrayal he experienced define him.
The difference here is that the heroes try to grow and stop making their suffering everyone else's problem. You cannot use your trauma to justify lashing out at the world and other people. I think Kratos in God of War put it quite well - "Do not be sorry. Be better." You can't hurt people because you are traumatised, because all that does is traumatise everyone else. It isn't a justification for lashing out. Salem was traumatised, and she murdered so many people, and traumatised a bunch of other people, who will only continue that cycle.
It is worth noting that some of the antagonists do grow and change and become better. Ilia, Emerald, Hazel, and Neo are the big examples. They were all hurt by the world, and they turned to anger and violence. But Ilia is convinced by Blake that it isn't what she wants, and Blake is right. So Ilia turns away from that path. Hazel and Emerald both change and grow, and whilst Hazel gets the noble sacrifice, Emerald has to make amends for hurting people by being and doing better, and trying to make a positive impact on the world. And Neo had an entire arc culminating in her seeking revenge, and getting it, and realising that it was a hollow victory that left her with nothing but directionless grief and anger. When she had nothing to pursue, she was forced to confront the fact that she was just running from her actual feelings and lashing out. In the end, she chooses to go to the tree willingly, which is essentially willingly giving in to change and growth, because that's what the tree does.
The central conflict of the show is essentially that everyone has suffered, and experienced trauma. But it is the hero's ability and desire to grow beyond it and be better, so that they stop hurting the people around them, that sets them apart from the villains, who refuse to keep moving forward and instead just let their suffering infect everyone else, perpetuating an endless cycle of violence and conflict.
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pbscore · 3 months
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If a person doesn’t have a single post about freeing Palestine or any posts directly from Palestinian people about their own culture/history and/or they refuse to acknowledge or even use the word ‘genocide’ for what’s happening right now…that person is most likely going to be a Zionist.
This ain’t even a joke y’all and this isn’t about ‘witch hunting’ people either. A LOT of Zionists/soft Zionists (people who do the ‘both sides’ bs) have the same theme to them:
They’ll constantly boost posts only about antisemitism (which on the surface, is valid to talk about at any time) but there will be NO posts about aiding Palestinians, no posts from Palestinian bloggers, news outlets, journalists on the ground, videos of the devastation happening, etc. They’ll hyperfocus ONLY on antisemitism, which can range from posting about an armed antisemite walking around outside of a synagogue (clearly bad) to getting mad at anti-Zionists and Palestinian people in general, validly criticizing Israel’s genocidal policies (literally, bare minimum human decency).
Far too many popular ‘liberal/leftie’ blogs here on tumblr have already unmasked themselves as softcore colonialists just because they need to center themselves in a situation that isn’t about them, specifically and are easily giving ammo to white nationalists against Muslims and Arabic people worldwide.
Listen, I know people want to highlight the importance of how dangerous antisemitism and islamophobia are for Jewish and Muslim people right now and it is paramount that more people can clock it when it happens or try to prevent it from happening.
However…A LOT of liberal/leftie Zionists who act like they’re doing that by speaking on behalf of the current peoples being murdered without actively engaging with or sharing ANY media or material created by Palestinian, Lebanese, or any other peoples that Israel is attacking (especially if that media does not portray Israel in a good light) are not actually dedicated to decolonization or anti-imperialist activism. Period.
And one last point I want to make:
Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism. They are not the same thing and Jewish people have a much longer history within anti-Zionist activism than a LOT of liberal/leftie Zionists think. Some of them are fully aware of it and just want to use Judaism as a shield against any criticisms targeting Israel’s inherently colonialist history of the past 70+ years. That isn’t fair to Jewish people who are and have been constantly protesting against Israel’s occupation of Palestine nor is it fair to any of the people in Palestine and Lebanon and Egypt who have been and currently are dealing with the impact of the occupation’s wrath.
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pocketsizedquasar · 3 months
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TPOC-Prioritized writings on anti-transmasculinity / transandrophobia
transandrophobia / anti-transmasculinity are both theories that have been spearheaded primarily by trans poc, particularly Black transmascs and transfemmes.
unfortunately, as with Everything created by queer and trans poc, particularly Black queer ppl, white trans ppl (regardless of gender, and regardless of whether they "believe" in this form of oppression or not) have coopted these theories and dominated these conversations, such that both "sides" of the "discourse" are divorced entirely from the racial connotations in which these theories were created, and the ways in which they were created specifically as an intervention against white feminism, and to highlight the ways multiple marginalizations affect the marginalization of masculinity. these are theories that explicitly interact with and can only be understood in conjunction with transmisogyny, as well as other oppressions like racism and misogynoir.
*"anti-transmasculinity" as a term and theory was coined by Black trans folks (some of whom's writings are linked below), and is specifically a theory within the context of Black transfeminism antiBlackness, and transmisogynoir, and cannot be divorced from that context. i try be very intentional about my use of the terms 'anti-transmasculinity' and 'transandrophobia' in different places here, because i do not want to dilute the former’s very particular context.
anyway, here's a list of miscellaneous writings on the subjects, with a priority for collecting writing from trans poc (not all of the authors are tpoc, but this list was intended to prioritize tpoc voices). the intention of this is not to be a be-all end-all on the subject, nor exalt any one of these individuals or pieces as exclusively ~correct~ or whatever, but to combat the whitewashed nature of these discussions online, and raise awareness to the myriad of people speaking on this subject. (nor do i claim to speak for any of them, or claim that any of them speak for me. i tried to make sure i didn't platform blatant racists, zionists, transmisogynists, or other bigots, but i'm not pretending to be 100% accurate about that.)
they aren't in any particular order (except the first one, which i think is an extremely foundational text for anti-transmasculinity theory as delineated by its creators, within the context of antiblackness and transmisogyny, and necessary reading to understand anti-transmasculinity as a theory). I tried to group all the links from the same authors together.
This is a non-exhaustive list! I will likely come back and add more writings as I find them. please feel free to recommend to me any works to include (including your own! especially if you yourself are a Black trans person or a trans POC).
Now with an Archived Read-more Link!
Racial-Class Paternalism and the Trojan Horse of Anti-transmasculinity by Nsámbu Za Suékama. if you read nothing else from this list, read this.
“But even as TME struggles escape the mainstream imagination, they persist, and are often both fueling and being fueled by the war on trans women and transfeminine people. Nothing makes this clearer than in how a Western binary system triangulates that war with Anti-transmasculinity. This is why I say that Anti-transmasculinity is a Trojan horse for Transmisogyny. Like the wooden horse in the Greek myth, it might not seem like what it is, for its actual contents and character are invisible, but at the heart of it, there is a violent campaign going on that is key to how the West aims to lay seige to its civilizational "enemies." And, like the walls of the city of Troy, materialist transfeminism has fortified the opposition to Western domination, in such a way that to overcome the stronghold requires a new strategy for the Man, one that follows up the open and vicious attacks on TMA people with a different, more hidden form of warfare.”
“today’s gender paternalism frames any manhood and masculine embodiment outside of (western) cisheteronormativity as not just biologically illegitimate but also the result of a barbaric threat to civilization. And who typically figures as the face of that barbarism but the Black trans woman? Materialist transfeminism has to theorize Anti-transmasculinity.”
"Non-Men", maGes, and Black Masculinities by genderfugitive / disrupthehuman
One such argument, which is really a collection of arguments but can be consolidated into one, is that trans men are attempting to take a place alongside cis men in the hierarchy of patriarchy. In other words, while they may not have been so before naming themselves as trans men, they are aspiring to be oppressors. This employs a number of rhetorical devices that I have identified before including the idea that trans men are “betraying” cis womanhood and therefore should be seen as threats unless they act as footsoldiers for transmisogyny. The problem with this is that it treats trans manhoods as embodiments that exist as something which merely aspires to be cis manhood.
"For Those Seeking Fight or Flight: Black Trans*feminist Nihilism" / primer on transmisogynoir by genderfugitive / disrupthehuman (not about anti-transmaculinity specifically (though it does come up), but a very good + important read on Black transfeminism & transmisogynoir, so I'm including it)
anti-transmasculinity needs its own theorizing outside of general "transphobia" by genderfugitive / disrupthehuman
anti-transmasculinity & antiblackness inherently linked (& another) both by genderfugitive / disrupthehuman
There is a hidden epidemic of violence against transmasculine people by Orion Rodriguez
a thread master post linking to multiple threads about anti transmasculinity by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid
a thread on anti-transmasculinity as an epistemic injustice (translated) originally by magicspeedwagon in French; English translation by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid
Not transmasc invisibility, but erasure by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid
Girlboy Boygirl Blues - antitransmasculinity as a denial of individual history & more by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid
"irl we just kiss" - ‘transmasc vs transfem’ discourse & reactionary ‘boys vs girls’ politics in trans spaces by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid
transmascs & being treated as predatory by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid
transmasc mental health statistics by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid
violent anti-transmasculine hate crimes by Salem L. Void / thewarmvoid
thread on examples of systemic anti-transmasculinity by magicspeedwagon
a thread on anti-transmasculinity and its erasure by storyjunkie
anti transmasculinity & transmisogyny and the degendering of Black people by afrodykee
anti transmasculinity & transmisogyny cannot be theorized in opposition to each other by afrodykee
white transfeminism's anti-transmasculinity by afrodykee
Black trans people & erasure of TPOC voices from the trans community by thatspookyagent
transmasculine nonwhite expereince by thatspookyagent
trans men being silenced by thatspookyagent
queer POC being pushed out of conversations by thatspookyagent
cis women's harm to trans men by novascotioducktoller w/ addition about TMOC by thatspookyagent
medical violence in anti transmasculinity by Caleb / sethpuertoluna
example of medical anti transmasculinity by Dominick / transguyenergy
response to inclusion of a trans man in an ad (thread) by Dominick / transguyenergy
anti-transmasculinity around periods by Dominick / transguyenergy
anti-transmasculinity towards pregnant trans men by Dominick / transguyenergy
transitioning as a transmasc of color by gendercriminals
white (cis) women & racist transandrophobia by dead-lavender-society
transandrophobia as an indigenous trans man by petrichorvoices
examples of transandrophobia by transvermin
the “lost lesbian” narrative & antitransmasculinity by vaguefiend
cis women & transandrophobia by vaguefiend
intersectionality & transandrophobia by visible-schizo-spectrum
more transandrophobia from cis women by cock-holliday
tl;dr : there’s LOTS of theory and discussions out there abt anti-transmasculinity, transandrophobia, how these things relate to other forms of transphobia, how it interacts with other marginalizations, most especially race, and the ways in which it affects transmascs. this information is everywhere. it’s out there. y’all (white ppl) are just refusing to engage with it.
#trans#lgbtq#queer#transphobia#transandrophobia#anti transmasculinity#transmisogyny#racism#long post#quasartalks#been compliling this for ages but i think it's finally at a point where i feel comfortable posting it#like i said though it is very much subject to change! i would love to add more things to this#it is extremely shitty that discussions on antitransmasculinity and transandrophobia have been dominated on here by racist yt ppl and their#token trans poc that they so clearly are just using as a shield against when ppl call them out on aforementioned racism.#anyway. dont bother clowning on this post i will just block <3#so much of this 'discourse' boils down to: transmascs and trans men (esp transmascs of color) saying: 'hey i experience this thing'#and other ppl (esp white ppl!) going 'no you don't.' it's so blatant lmao#it's just the complete denial of our Authority to talk about our own experiences. we are not trusted to be authorities on our own lives.#which. where have i heard that before. smells like racism. smells like misogyny.#also bc ppl can't read: none of this means transmascs have it worse than transfemmes; that transfemmes oppress transmascs; or that these#-experiences ONLY happen to transmascs. those are all extremely bad faith readings of these discussions.#AND ALSO to the (especially white) transmascs who also can't read and take these discussions as excuses to be racist & transmisogynist:#we cannot combat transandrophobia & anti transmasculinity without combating transmisogyny. they are linked.#anyway. good night
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essektheylyss · 1 year
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Ludinus Da'leth is not right about killing the gods. Ludinus Da'leth is the equivalent of a hyperrational atheist science bro™ who thinks religion is exclusively for the weak-minded and the foolish because he's never taken a humanities course and equates "mass media Christianity" with all world religion.
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greelin · 1 year
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finding out someone you have blocked has you blocked is so funny for some reason.. something so euphoric about knowing you annoyed some vile creature enough to where they had to make it mutual. dare i say borderline erotic
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torturedpoetemotions · 7 months
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Stephenie was on some wild shit when she said "warmth and sunlight and being yourself effortlessly and caring about what makes you comfortable and homemade gifts that you love" cannot win against "cold and stone and feeling inadequate and having your wishes and boundaries ignored and condescension and expensive gifts that make you uncomfortable."
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kienava · 1 year
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So someone asked me to make a post about Blake’s development so far in order to discuss the question of where Blake’s character can progress at this point in RWBY given that her arc with Adam wrapped up in V6 and she didn’t really carry a plot line in V7-8. I do media and story things for a living, but I’m also an intimate partner abuse survivor - needless to say, Blake’s story is important to me. Hopefully my perspective helps answer concerns about Blake’s story being “over,” because I think it’s very much the opposite.
(Continued below the cut because this turned into an entire essay.)
I want to preface this by saying I understand why it might be difficult to picture what Blake’s story looks like going forward. I largely credit this to the relative dearth of compassionate, healing-oriented narratives about abuse survivors in media. A lot of what we see is either revenge fantasies or stories about facing the abuser and arriving at a point of ultimate catharsis. In some sense, this is a broader fault in the standards of western storytelling, which is oriented around that singular, climactic catharsis, but that’s another essay. In truth, a mostly linear progression towards a pivotal point of recovery isn’t how healing from abuse works. It’s a messy process, and life is rarely as linear as in fiction. I think RWBY incorporates that nonlinearity into Blake’s arc very well.
Speaking of Blake’s arc, let’s look at that.
When we first meet her in volume 1, she’s introduced as an aloof, independent loner who’s very resistant to getting closer to people. Most of her classmates perceive her as mysterious and alluring at best, callous and cold at worst. Once we start to understand more of her history, it’s easier to see her attitude as the defense mechanism it is. She wants to keep people at arm’s length because she doesn’t trust them not to hurt her – but she also believes that she will harm people she gets close to just because of who she is. That whole Beauty and the Beast dichotomy, you know? Adam told her that she ruins things. It doesn’t help that he groomed her into a terrorist organization and thus her surrounding community has also labeled her a threat. She’s got a few overlapping layers of distorted thinking to work through when it comes to her image of herself and others. The way she perceives people is, at first, overwhelmingly informed by her traumatic experiences with Adam and the White Fang.
It’s pretty strongly implied that Blake bent the rules in the forest and intentionally selected Yang as her partner. When we first see Blake dashing around in the shadows, Yang is taking down a Grimm while sassing it to death. Blake talks later about how Adam’s charisma drew her to him initially, so it’s no surprise that when she was choosing her next partner, she gravitated to the same superficial qualities. During the first White Fang arc, after her self-destructive spiral, Blake starts to genuinely trust her teammates for the first time. That trust is tested when Yang fights Mercury. In this moment, Blake is confronted with the possibility that a pattern might be repeating itself: what if she was drawn to Yang for reasons beyond the superficial? What if Yang doesn’t just share Adam’s positive qualities, but his negative ones, too? The impulsiveness, the violence, the abuse – but Blake stops herself. She chooses to trust that Yang isn’t Adam, and she says as much. She’s accepting that Adam is in her past and electing to move forward. How perfectly, neatly linear. 
Then the end of volume 3 happens.
For an abuse survivor, the idea that an abuser you’ve gotten away from might come crashing back into your life is possibly the scariest thing in the entire world. This is exactly what happens when Adam shows up, and Blake’s worst fears come true. He makes a point of hurting someone she cares about simply because he can to prove that he still has power over her. Blake runs because she thinks the only way she can protect the people she cares about is to be away from them. That paradoxical duality of (1) fearing harm will be done to her by others and (2) doing harm to others herself rears its head. 
One specific question I was asked is why Blake talks about Yang so little in volumes 4 and 5. If Blake isn’t talking about the people she left behind, is she even thinking about them? I say, well of course she is. It’s coloring her entire attitude.
When Blake returns to Menagerie, she’s back in the place where she met her abuser. She’s at her parents’ house, a place that has been a symbol of everything she left behind when she ran away the first time. Now she’s run from another home. Menagerie is riddled with traumatic memories for her, both interpersonally and on a structural, systemic level. Everywhere she goes could be a place where Adam said something awful to her, made her obey him in some way, asserted control. She also has to confront him in person again, too.
With Adam around, of course she’s not going to risk mentioning Yang. He got one inkling that Blake cared about someone else and cut their fucking arm off. The one time Blake mentions Yang by name, her voice cracks so obviously it’s like she’s forcing herself to get the word out. Through both of these volumes, Blake has other external goals, but she’s still trying to protect someone she cares about. At this point, she’s constantly struggling with two motivations: hope and fear. She wants to make the world a better place, but she’s terrified of what she’ll have to confront in order to do it because of what she’s already lost. Her choice to reunite with her team and fight shows that ultimately hope wins out.
In Volume 6, Blake and Yang facing Adam is essentially the B plot of the whole volume. He appears in flashes before the major confrontation at the end, but the damage he’s done to both of them is intrinsically tied into Blake and Yang’s relationship throughout.
The end of this volume offers the climactic moment of confronting and overcoming the abuser. Afterwards, Blake collapses and cries. Catharsis! Yay! We’re done now, right? This may be why, to some people, defeating Adam is the obvious “end” of Blake’s character arc. Again, I’d argue that this perception comes from how abuse is often depicted in media, but there’s also a very intense pressure in the real world for survivors not to speak out and share their stories. Even people who are abuse survivors might not publicly claim that label for a multitude of reasons. Namely, it fucking hurts to think about it, and also sometimes people are real weird about it. I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to carry that weight around all the time. We can see some inklings of Blake dealing with this challenge over the course of the show, though they’re subtle. Early on, she explicitly avoids talking about Adam until she absolutely has to, and even when she does start to unpack what he did, she often talks about it with visible shame (averting her eyes, etc). Unfortunately, shame is a very common sentiment for abuse survivors to carry, and addressing it is a major part of Blake’s journey as she starts to heal in volume 6.
Another point of interest posed was to look at Blake’s role in volumes 7 and 8. There’s an argument that she doesn’t really do anything or that her role is as a somewhat generic support figure within the group. I wholeheartedly disagree.
While Blake doesn’t carry a plotline herself during the Atlas arc, she and Yang embody polarized attitudes towards the global conflict the group is facing, and that contrast serves the larger narrative very well. Because she was raised by activists in a context where she was constantly thinking about civil rights, Blake wants to address the broader ideological conflict at play. Yang, whose childhood consisted of raising her younger sister, wants to help people in a practical, immediate way. Blake is an abstract, big-picture thinker, and Yang is more focused on what’s right in front of her. This isn’t a dig at either of them; it’s just a difference in prioritites. At first, Yang worries that these differing priorities will be a source of tension between them, but when she and Blake talk things through they’re able to understand each other without judgment. Blake is learning to reconnect with the idealist she used to be in her early youth, someone who fought for a cause purely because she wanted to make the world a better place. She’s able to embrace that side of herself around Yang even though they have different priorities, and they’re still able to support each other’s goals.
Furthermore, on a purely interpersonal level in V7-8, Blake has interactions with other characters that speak specifically to the healing journey she’s been on. Yes, these are significantly quieter moments than a fight to the death on a bridge over a waterfall, but that doesn’t mean they should be written off. Quiet and peace are part of healing, and that doesn’t have to undermine the story’s integrity. Dramatic tension is still possible amidst this, as we saw in Blake’s talks with Yang where they discuss their team’s split strategic approaches. When Blake talks to Nora about the importance of not losing yourself in someone else, that’s her speaking from experience. She’s lost herself in a relationship before, and she knows how hard it is to come back from that, but she survived. She healed. The asserted importance of self-compassion in relationships has a unique gravity coming from Blake. She has a strongly developed ability to balance interpersonal empathy with community- and global-level stakes, which we’re already seeing glimmers of at the beginning of V9 as she steps up to come up with a plan on the island. 
In summary, Blake’s arc isn’t just about that final showdown with Adam. She faces her abuser, runs away, faces him again, and again, finally evicts him from her life for good - and after that, her story continues.
She goes on to find ways to heal from her past. That process involves renewing compassion for her loved ones, her community, and the world as a whole; learning how to love without fear; and reconnecting with who she was before she was forced to become aloof and detached to protect herself. Although the circumstances of abuse convinced her that she was a coward, she is, and has always been, an incredibly brave character. She’s finally recognizing that at the current point in the story. Ultimately, I think this is the thing connects her to Yang and the rest of team RWBY so strongly: they’re brave enough to love and have hope even when forces of adversity tell them they shouldn’t dare to. Blake is a courageous idealist with a heart full of compassion, and ultimately not even Adam could destroy that about her.
My serious answer to the question of where Blake’s character will go now is that I think she’ll be a sort of de facto leader on the island as Ruby spirals into existential depression. Hopefully that arc resolves in a way that’s consistent with the show’s overall message about hope winning out, and past this volume Blake will still carry that optimistic but grounded revolutionary spirit and continue to be a center of compassion and hope.
My catharsis-oriented answer is this: aside from being trapped on a magical fairy tale island, Blake is free for the first time in a very long time, and she can go wherever the fuck she wants.  
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grimalkinmessor · 11 months
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Hi welcome to my very tired rant
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