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blackterrae · 8 months

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Ideas for Black!Reader Fic

I am going to try my hand again at writing. And I wanted to share some people and fandoms that I love. If you don’t know these shows/actors/franchises/movies/streamers I’m putting you on! For the following:

Johnny Depp- All his characters

Cameron Monaghan- I know that there are fics out there but it’s only always his Jerome/Jeremiah roles never just him or Cal Kestis

Anthony Carrigan- I loved Anothy as Victor Zsasz

Paul Dano- There are Riddler fics but not as many for his other roles

The Entire Cast of Hawaii Five-0 (2010) - Don’t even get me started on how good this show is! And the cast looks amazing!

Chicago Med/Fire/PD- These shows have so much potential for fanfic storylines!

The Game (2006)- Has great potential for slow burns and fluffs.

Star Wars franchise (1977-present) - I know I said Cal Kestis but there are also other characters like Anakin, Luke, Obi Wan,Boba Fett (etc.)

NCIS franchise- I honestly love this franchise and it’s characters!

Hamilton

Any/All Sports Men- Jude Bellingham,Lewis Hamilton,LaMelo Ball,Allen Iverson(etc.)

Berleezy - He’s handsome and he’s funny!

Coryxkenshin- I literally love him and his videos!

Albert Aretz (Flamingo)- Look … he may be the epitome of mediocre white man but I like what I like!

AMP- Duke Dennis, Kai Cenat, Agent 00, ChrisNxtDoor,Davis, and Fanum ( all I gotta say is love a black man from infinity to infinity🗣️)

Beta Squad- A British YouTube/ streamer group!

SOMEBROS- Berleezy, Rico, ,PG, Joe (etc.)

WWE- come on now, do I even need to explain!!!

Four Brothers- All the cast but Garrett Hedland in particular!

Peacemaker - Don’t get me wrong I love Adrian Chase but I want to see just as much Peacemaker x black!reader fics because 2 words… JOHN CENA

MAWS- New animated Superman show! Love!

Smallville - The entire cast is hot! Tbh I fell hard for Tom Welling when I was younger when he was in Cheaper By The Dozen. Plus they literally whitewashed Vixen. COME ON! Vixen is a black female hero btw. She was also with Jon (Green Lantern) at one point.

Justice League/Justice League Unlimited (2001 and 2004)- I mean I literally can’t find any Jon Stewart x black!reader fics and he was with a BLACK WOMAN!

Warner Bros Franchise (minus the looney tunes & space jam)- There are lots of popular franchises that this company has from Fast & Furious to The Matrix!

Peaky Blinders- Saw a Tommy shelby x arms dealer black!female reader fic on my previous account but even then I couldn’t find it again on that account. So it’s gone with the wind. And the cast (i.e the actors and other characters they’ve portrayed). Example: Cillian Murphy as Johnathan Crane.

The Bear

FBI (All)

Vinnie Hacker

Tiktokers

Blue Bloods

Will Poulter- I haven’t really seen any Adam Warlock fics

Slashers

Stranger Things

Dave Lizewski

Eddie Redmayne

Macgyver (2016)

Fresh Prince of Belair

Guardians of the galaxy- Explanation? Do I really need one?

On My Block

Descendants (characters will be the actors age in real life.duh)- Love Boo-boo Stewart & Mitchell Hope!

Matt Rife

Joey Bragg (Liv &Maddie) - What can I say I love dorks!

The Boys- Haven’t seen that many fics about the characters and a black reader

Once Upon A Time- I love dark fairytales sometimes because they remind me that not every story has a happy ending and you have to learn from them. But this series is good for any theme really.

Walker Texas Ranger (1993)

Top Gun

Magcon: Whether you saw their vines on YouTube or vine, you know who they are

Dolan Twins

Mission Impossible

Euphoria- Entire show has great storylines with the potential of drama in fics

Shameless- Especially Carl Gallagher and Lip Gallagher

Creed- Michael B Jordan need I say more

Keanu Reeves- There are very few fics about Keanu but I’ve seen a few of his John Wick x black!reader fics (chef’s kiss) but never see any of The Matrix Fics!Also Ted (Bill & Ted)

River Phoenix

Batman Beyond

Rider Strong

Danny Gonzalez

Timothée Chalamet

New York Undercover

Past-Present Singers & Rappers/ Groups -Bow Wow, Tupac, Lil Baby, Nelly, Omarion, Prince, Michael Jackson, Jon B,Usher, Central Cee, Måneskin, New Edition, BTS, James Bay(etc.)

Anime(Any kind!)- Would love to see other shows, I know hunterxhunter,aot,one piece (etc.)

Bridgerton- There is very little Bridgerton stories catered around a black reader.

Marvel- Now that’s not to say that there aren’t any in fact there are many but I never see (Tobey Maguire Spider-Man stories and it seems like everyone tends to focus on the famous Marvel characters like The Avengers but not on other aspects like X-men or better yet, heroes that haven’t even gotten their own movie but are just as amazing like Squadron Supreme , it’s equivalent to DCU’s Justice League.

Secret Invasion- Not gonna lie , I’m feening for Gravik.😳

DCEU- Another franchise that pushes its other characters to the side. For example, Hush (Thomas Elliot) is literally the epitome of Bruce Wayne gone bad!

Ross Lynch- There are so many roles that Ross did so well in Like Teen Beach Movie or Sabrina.

Highschool Musical Franchise (2006- present ) I’m not just talking about HSMTS (2019), I mean even further back than that. I don’t see any Troy Bolton x black!reader and that’s crazy. I also can’t find any Zac Efron x black!reader

Interview with a Vampire (1994) and (2022)

Austin Butler- He did well in his role as Elvis!

Vikings - There are a good amount but still!

Transformers

Suits

Saved By The Bell

The Goldbergs

Parks & Recreation

Leverage

The Outsiders

Heart of Stone

New York Undercover (1994)

Addams Family

Victorious

Matpat

ICarly

The Real Bros of Simi Valley (2017)

Think Like A Man (2012)

One on One (2001)

Scorpion (2014)

The King of Queens (1998)

G.I. Joe Franchise

Terminator

Beware the Batman (2013)

Any and all Asian Idols/Actors

Seal Team

Mortal Combat

Bill and Ted

Barbie

Detroit: Become Human

Will Trent

Tokyo Vice

Growing Pains

Graceful Family (Kdrama)[Any Asian Drama shows or movies would be great as well]

The Regime

Batman: The animated series

If anyone needs ideas for these franchises/movies/shows/actors , then holla at me! I got you!

Also add more to the list if anything that you would like to see comes to mind.

Also tag black writers who you want to see this!

@sheabuttahwrites @shinsouscatpisssmell @cocoamoonmalfoy @heathenarmyimagines @cinewhore @cocoamoonmalfoy @stxxllaaa @glitterjuju @lilvampirina @breanime @blackmissfrizzle @afro-hispwriter @stargirlfics @lavenderursa @clydesducktape @pettyprocrastination @theblvckvenus @plantvenuss @punani @n-slayaaaaa @infernalodie @halfofmysoulsblog @iridecsense @tomhardydallasstarsgirl @supremethunda @thekrazykeke @canumoveurseatup-no @hiatuswhore @avintagekiss24 @ohcaptains @iguessweallcrazyithinktho @xsapphirescrollsx @sunflowertuliplily @bakarilennox @batfamily14 @ramp-it-up @blackreaders-assemble @royallyprincesslilly @funnyexel @blackterrae @slashisms @artemisthewh0re @shelbydelrey @toocriticalharlow @v-era-18 @vampsired @queenimmadolla @sinnerlillith @greengoblinswifey @apocalypse-shuffle

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meraki-yao · 4 months

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RWRB: Prince Henry = Princess Diana

If someone were to compare Henry to an irl royalty, many would immediately say Prince Harry. In that Variety interview with Nick, even the interviewer asked Nick if Henry was a gay version of Harry. And the association is understandable, the clearest similarity being falling for an American, and being the spare.

But hear me out.

I think Henry's counterpart is actually Princess Diana.

I went to visit my high school two weeks ago and had a chat with my best friend (a budding actress studying at NYU Tisch) and the principal (a lovely British gentleman who's willing to spend time talking to students, he greets us at the school gate every morning, and I really like and respect him) and we talked a bit about the British monarchy because we were talking about historical fiction and I mentioned the crown

And my principal (who was still living in the UK and presumably a young adult when the whole Diana thing was happening) mentioned that the monarchy used to be really isolated and closed off (granted except for state events which are still not that accessible, and occasional rebels like the Duke of Windsor and Princess Margaret) But when Diana joined the royal family, she brought a lot more public attention to the monarchy. People started paying more attention to the royal family because of her.

And she used that extra attention to shed light on causes that the crown previously didn't touch on, perhaps most notably AIDS by hugging a patient during a time when people were afraid to even approach them.

Diana didn't fit into the pre-existing, and perhaps cold mould of the monarchy. She wasn't a typical bride for the heir. (No queen consort is truly "weak" but Diana was really stubborn especially regarding how to raise her children) And honestly, while personally I think the whole marriage issue is really unfortunate circumstances and there's no singular villain, the royal family could have been a lot kinder to her.

But despite everything, and perhaps partly because she didn't fit in as well, she managed to change things for the better.

Prince William took after his mother's efforts to shed light on marginalized groups or topics that need to be addressed: he's the first royal to appear in a gay magazine, he's currently doing a couple projects tackling homelessness, he and Princess Kate have a couple of projects regarding mental health and anti-bullying, he founded the earth-shot prize etc. And so much of what he (and his wife) does is following Diana's footsteps. The monarchy, at the very least the Wales is more of a public servant than a mere figurehead now.

Now let's look at Henry.

Henry's the odd one out by being gay, but also by not being the traditional figure of masculinity that his monarchy held by: Henry's a writer, a historian, a hapless romantic. It's harsher in the book (and I've written an essay before on the movie's version of Henry's grandfather being genuinely worried about Henry not being accepted by the public and getting hurt as opposed to the Queen in the book who's just a homophobic bitch for the sake of it), but in both, we see how terrible Philip and the Queen's insults to him was. In both, the monarchy was not accepting of his differences, and in the book, they were straight-up cruel. They very deliberately hurt them. (His situation in the books is more black and white than Diana's situation)

He wanted to work with Pez's foundation on LGBT youth shelters long before he came out. His outing, despite being an invasion of privacy, led to the mass pride protests. By officially announcing Alex as his boyfriend/suitor, and later creating/joining LGBT charities, he's giving support and a platform for the LGBT community.

In the movie it's implied that their monarchy is more closed off and like our world's old monarchy (Henry's children's hospital visits are private endeavours, and he mentioned being stuck "doing mindless ribbon-cutting" while Alex is out there changing the world, which implies his jobs is more the ceremonial stuff)

So just like Diana, Henry was not accepted by the monarchy/royal family but eventually used his position to shed light on those in need, using the monarchy's influence for positive change.

There are a couple more parallels:

In the book, Henry has blonde hair and blue eyes and so does Diana

In the movie, Henry was named "the Prince of England's Heart" just as Diana was called "the Queen of People's Hearts"

And I don't know if this was a deliberate design on Nick's part but

(these are the best gifs I can find that demonstrate what I'm trying to show, a better parallel would be the shot of Henry looking at Alex through his eyelashes when Pez was introducing himself to Nora but I can't find a gif of it)

TL DR: Henry will have the same role/position/significance to his world's monarchy as Diana did with our world's royal family

And honestly, I think Diana would have loved him.

tagging @lfg1986-2 because you mentioned you were looking forward to this one, hope you like it!

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #rwrb movie #nicholas galitzine #henry fox mountchristen windsor #henry hanover stuart fox #princess diana #diana spencer #rwrb thoughts #rwrb analysis #meraki essay #I think at some point Casey did mention they really like Princess Diana #Also I have genuine respect for Prince William because he does a lot of work on topics I care about also he just seems like a great guy #these are just my thoughts I didn't do research purposefully for this one please don't come at me #this is also part of the reason I don't want movie Henry to abdicate #yeah anyways

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feminismisstillahatemovement · 4 months

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Hey I was checking your blog and I was wondering if you were the people who asking what they teaching kids in schools about slavery

Well as someone who was part of the American education system. Let me tell you a little secret

Arab, Asian, and ESPECIALLY African slavers are intentionally left out of the education systems

Like remember the women king movie that lionized the Dahomey? Well fun fact for generations my community, the African American community, was told for generations that Africa was that garden of peace until the white devils came and ruined it. In fact I didn’t even know about the Dahomey until people was exposing the atrocities they did after the women king trailer dropped.

I had a near mental breakdown learning that black Americans basically did a equivalent of “Holocaust survivors romanticizing the Nazis” and I’m only 23 so you can just imagine the mental hell for older black Americans when they learn who really sent us to the Americas.

I just wanted to point that out because your British no and I often see non Americans wonder why we constantly make weird ass statements.

Like….black Americans was taught since they were in the fucking womb that slavery was only “white people enslaved black people”

Sorry for this heavy topic, just saying you guys are in a doozy with Americans for awhile

It's true, America is incredibly insular in some ways - perhaps because it is so big - and as a result it sometimes projects its own problems and skewed perceptions onto the rest of the world. And, because it has been the world empire this past century, the rest of the world often falls in line with those views too.

But slavery has always been with us: every race has bought and sold every other race, and Africans were buying, selling, trading and enslaving other Africans for thousands of years before any white-skinned devils bearing gunpowder turned up on their shores.

You'd think that basic and inarguable truth would be the first thing schools would teach impressionable children about this matter, but today they're much more intent on making them want to destroy western civilization for no reason.

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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 8 months

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Hii ik saw me many times but i love your blog so much about hobie and Miguel i have questions have any hc hobie being west African hc of that been there since watched movie i cannot get it out

I AM GOING TO SCREAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM AT THIS BECAUSE YES YES I CAN

(also sorry if this is kinda Yoruba centric!! cause that's the area I know the best - for reference I myself am Bajan/Quechua (West Indies - Barbados / Indigenous Peruvian))

West African!Hobie Headcanons:

And because I'll never get a chance to talk about this again I'm gonna start off with the one I love most and the one people know most about (and that is demonized - literally - the most)

Hobie and Vodou (aka VooDoo):

Yeah, I said it. Hobie can work. He got juju. He rootworks. He conjures. Whatever iteration, whatever title - if Hobie followed any religion it would either be Buddhism, which some argue that some sects can double as a moral philosophy,

-If he'd respect any religion. It'd be a Traditional African one and I'm putting money on Vodou.

[And heads up, I am not an initiate of Vodou, but I do actively practice African Traditional Spirituality (HooDoo/Rootworking) and Ancestral Worship. So take from that what you will.]

First of all - how punk would that be??? A West African religion demonized by the western world for centuries from Africa to Haiti to Louisiana - that praised ancestral worship and community first???

YES PLEASE. Some people might not really understand all of this but:

First things first, yes, he speaks Yoruba and if you call it 'Speaking African' he's going to flay you alive.

Like????? Hobie sweet talking in Yoruba??? I'll throw my self on the floor right now!!

Hobie practicing ancestor worship - and thanking all the oppressed people who gave their lives and suffered daily so he can live his life?

He'd have an altar in his house, a small one he keeps out of sight, even to Gwen.

Leaves offerings and bits of his meal on the altar. Cause he was once food insecure, but now that things are a little better, he can do that

Like even if he practiced a form of HooDoo or another sect that derives from Traditional African Spirituality (that doesn't involve initiation)

He'd want to give back to his ancestors, learn how to use natural herbs and work them, learning how to make powders, doing floor washes, sweeping a certain way

And having all of these routines related to his African spirituality that are so subtle but he thinks about always

Prays to his ancestors to give him strength when he's struggling with being Spiderpunk

BUT IMAGINE IF HE WAS INTITATED THO ????

Hobie in all white during ceremony???????

HOBIE BEING A CHILD OF SHANGO??????????

NAH THEY AINT READY FOR IT

But even so -whatever Orisha got that boy head be putting in WORK.

And you know he keeps his beads on forever and always even under the suit!!!!

And the style!!! Hobie AfroPunk?!!!

I don't know if they have this elsewhere, but in NYC there's a music festival called AfroPunk - and it's full of black artists, and black people come out in these amazing outfits - and the goal is to incorporate as much African influence as possible

HOBIE WOULD EAT THIS UP.

The inside of his vest being lined with African textile!!

He takes it off in front of you and you see that little pop of that of classic orange-gold color

You just know he's wit it!!!

And the BEADS

(He should wear beads he's royalty compared to the raggedys at HQ)

[Cough] red and white shango beads [Cough]

Imagine Hobie giving his girlfriend a coral bead bracelet too AWWW

And telling them the significance??!!

He loves a woman in a headwrap. GELE ESPECIALLY but any type

And if you wear waistbeads UMMMMMMMM

As soon as he sees it peeking from under your shirt - IT'S GAME OVER

He's gonna wanna test if they working how they supposed to IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW.

AND The FOOD!

First of all - Hobie hates that British manners shit.

Was raised eating with his hands and loves it

He hates old white people who wanna stare cause he eats with his hands

He loves goat. Not me projecting he LOVES goat.

He really appreciates rice based dishes because they can fill you up - and you can't just buy them anywhere

Prefers Waakye to Jollof Rice but still loves Jollof

With FUCK UP some Fufu if he can get it

I say he eats standing up so he's just there at his kitchen counter eating Fufu and the most random shit in his fridge???

Like he'll be eating left over KFC with fufu - like what are you doing??? Thats - not a meal bro

He loves Okra (ew nasty ass) and he'll eat it all the time.

Especially fried okra but okra soup is cool too he's fine with that

His fried plantains go INSANE. They go SO HARD. They're to die for

He always picks the sweetest ones and it cooks them till they're all caramelized and shit YUMMMMM

(can you tell I like my plaintains sweet and soft cause I DO)

Extra Headcanons

He was not playing that when Gwen first came over - as soon as she stepped on the houseboat with shoes he was like "Girl-"

The first time Peter B. heard him speaking Yoruba he went "Wow, Hobie, Your Nigerian is great!"

Hobie, who already hates Peter B, looked at him like he was the dumbest mfer on earth like

'Right, and you speak American, right? Fucking bellend. I hate you. 'Nigerian'. It's Yoruba.'

(He's only saying that cause he hates Peter personally and wants him to have a bad day)

Meanwhile Gwen was nice enough to just ask "What language is that?" (The correct way to do it, do not assume language names like Peter)

First time he went over to Peter B.'s place (on Gwen's insistence), Mary-Jane accidentally swept over his feet before setting her purse on the floor

and in the moment he knew he had to leave.

He's a streetkid, but since he's in the neighborhood so much he has like 45 different women he calls auntie - and they make sure he has good food to eat because 'you are so skinny! you need to eat more.'

He does that auntie shit where you're walking with him and you see someone you know and now they're in a long ass conversation

Or when he says 'goodbye' then stands by the door having a conversation and you're standing there in your coat like....'fam are we out or not cause i can sit back down'.

He always goes to meet the elders of whatever house he's in to introduce himself, very respectful of black elders and enjoys helping old the older black folk in his neighborhood.

He enjoys giving them respect and hearing their stories, helping around the house. Plus he gets great food out of it

ANNDD That's all of them I think!! Sorry if any of these were off the mark - a lot of these are from personal things I know about West Africa and things learned through Spirituality. I hope I got everything okay!

Thanks for this by the way I LOVE Hobie and culture you know he'd be SO proud!!

[If you've read this far - maybe take some time out to learn a bit about African religions - they're beautiful practices (open to black people - we're worshipping black ancestors) - but you can still learn about them and understand how modern culture often demonizes these types of religions. If anything, I hope you learned a little from this! Hoodoo, Vodun (VooDoo), and Santeria (Latino witchcraft) are not scary, dark practices!] And because I spoke about spirituality, imma put this here cause DO not be playing yknowwhatimean

🧿

#I love talking about African Spirituality I hope I did it alright and justice #Most Vodou practitioners I know are Haitan so excuse any differences #no proofread as usu #hobie brown #hobie brown headcanons #spider punk #spiderpunk #across the spiderverse #atsv #across the spider verse

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jotun-design-party · 11 months

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on fandom orientalism, ft. a quick visual example:

the example on the right is something i drew solely using references of the top results i saw on pinterest upon searching "jotun loki." please don’t roast my inconsistent handwriting

south asian cultures are often jumbled together for white artists of all kinds (authors, artists, movie directors) to create a sense of mystery and make things look "more foreign."

note: this doesn't touch on the antiblack racism in canon jötun designs; this post is primarily about fandom-sourced fetishization. i heavily encourage people to reblog and add onto this post anything i may have missed or added nuance

cut: links on orientalism, in-media examples, how this manifests in fandom-made content

i'd like to start off by saying that this post is a white person telling other white people how to spot orientalism in relation to fiction. i am by no means an expert on any of this, but my goal here is to start creating a less ignorant space that doesn't push people out of fandom.

i'm just trying to stir up more conversations about this and get other white people to think more critically about how they engage with the content they consume. nerd shit should never come with a sacrifice and it's extremely upsetting to see people of color consistently forced out of fandom communities, especially when modern superhero comics began as a way for jewish people to have a voice.

if this post upsets you, i don't want to hear it. don't tell me, "it's not that deep," or, "keep politics out of comics." it is that deep, and superhero comics have always been political. if you have the urge to leave a comment or send an anon about how you don't think it's a big deal, feel free to block me instead, because i don't care and you'll just get blocked anyway 👍

with that out of the way,

there are countless ways to design a character in a way that makes it clear that they are an alien, or to make them sexy, and there is no excuse to perpetuate stereotype that put real-life people in danger to do so.

"Orientalist paintings and other forms of material culture... depict an 'exotic' and therefore racialized, feminized, and often sexualized culture from a distant land." [¹]

there are so many examples of this in loki fic and art. it's extremely common to see loki depicted as a feminine object of desire. they may have longer hair. clothing that serves more as an accessory than an outfit, that isn't suited to protect them from either the harsh cold of jötunheim or the sunburns one might get when surrounded by reflections of the sun off the snow. draped in jewelry, and in a compromising position.

i'm sure you can imagine how this can get especially out of hand in relation to thorki. i would speak more on thor's presence as both the white aesir prince or the strong barbaric jötun, but as i'm not comfortable consuming thorki content, i don't have enough context to speak on the stereotypes used outside of the art pieces i've seen while searching for jötun loki fanart.

i am, however, confident in saying that orientalism often serves as a device for fan creators to show a contrast between Asgard's white-viking-british-accent-magic-science-elegance. jötunheim, in the comics, is often portrayed as a less intelligent, cutthroat, barbaric, and bloodthirsty culture.

"There was always something unknown and uniquely different about Orients which reinforced the distinction between the European 'us' and Asian 'them.'" [²]

the green link in particular comes with a helpful tool for anyone who might be inexperienced in spotting racist themes in media. if you have trouble being confident that the media in question is orientalism, this link comes with a checklist scale to score how likely it is to be an offensive depiction.

an example that most of you will be familiar with is Disney's Aladdin (1992). the green link goes much more in-depth about the intricacies of Aladdin's orientalism, and i heavily HEAVILY encourage you to read it, as it will help fully grasp the way fetishization and demonization go hand in hand in orientalism.

here, i'd also like to use it as a comparison to show why this loki stuff is honestly... egregious.

by now, even the visuals here should seem very familiar.

the source goes on to use arranged marriage as an example of a common "trope" in orientalist fiction. as previously stated, i don't consume thorki fiction. however, i am EXTREMELY confident in making the guess that it tends to be a common theme when jötun loki is paired with an aesir thor.

i'd also heavily recommended this article and this wikipedia page, both on the negative and stereotypical portrayals of romani people; loki is a magic user, and i suspect that one of the reasons there is such heavy use of these appropriated, exaggerated, and fetishized themes and visuals is because of the demonization of romani people as tricksters, thieves, and witches.

#orientalism #racism #fandom culture #jotun loki #jötun loki #marvel #jötun loki contest #jotun design party

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sleepynegress · 7 months

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On Greta Danesti...

I'm just taking this time to correct a certain anti-Black, (and anti-Romani) sadly typical fandom troll's misogynoir fuckery in the tag and establishing who Greta Danesti is in canon Castlevania animation lore. This is Greta Danesti's official character sheet:

She's the village headwoman of Danesti a few miles away from Alucard's castle. This is what her voice actress, Marsha Thompson looks like:

It's pretty obvious her character design took cues from the actress, who is Afro-British. In show canon, however, her family escaped from the Roman city of Carthage, which today, is located in the African country Tunisia. Alucard correctly speculated where her people are from while conversing with her, here (s4 e5):

Greta then confirms that her people did escape the Romans, but she now fully embraces her "family" in her village who are "from all over" and the responsibility of taking care of them.

This same troll used the g-slur to insist that she is Romani.

She is not. This troll used an early character design here, to make her case.:

And though it does have similarities to Romani clothing... It also looks like it takes cues from Tunisian clothing and likely local and non-local European clothing of the era with "fantasy" elements sprinkled in, as well, which would match the fact of her village's people coming from all over:

There definitely should be more Romani rep in media as it is so often whitewashed, but Greta is not Romani.

FYI, these women actors actually *are* of Romani descent: Fairuza Balk of The Craft, Oona Chaplin who played Robb Stark's wife in GOT (she's also Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter[!]), and Noomi Rapace from the Swedish movie, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo says her father may have been of Romani descent, as well.

And because I can predict it, as people like to find ways of discounting blackness in every way...

Yes, there are plenty of non-Black indigenous POC in North Africa, including within Tunisia. Another fun fact... Africa has more indigenous human genetic variation among its peoples than every other people on the planet has with everyone else on the planet[!]. All this to say non-white POC AND Black people are indigenous to Tunisia.

I feel I have to say that because there is a lot of anti-Black anthropological fetishization of North Africa. Egypt is a major example of that (see: Rami Malek, an indigenous Coptic Egyptian who self-identifies as African man of color and has likely had to clarify that *often* because people keep wanting to mislabel him as an Arab, but I digress...) And sadly, there is a decidedly anti-black movement to totally disconnect certain North African countries' identities from a continental African one, and to largely see it as mainly a part of the MENA world (it is both kiddies, BOTH). Here is an informative article (linked in the image) about that struggle:

So, this got heavy...but between the post insisting that Greta is NOT Black and the one saying she's not bisexual because that same troll is purposefully and maliciously being obtuse about how words go together... I figured clearing some things up and educating folks might be helpful. BTW, the fact of those issues in the article makes her blackness all the more resonant as rep in pop culture. And hey, poly folks have disagreements, just like the het folks do... -Still bi. I'm gonna end here with two images from the linked article of anti-racist Tunisian protesters (MENA and Black):

P.S. I also side-eye those keen to make her muscular... I mean yeah she wields a big-ass hammer and shortsword/dagger, but the tendency to masculinize black woman characters deserves a hardy eye-squint. Especially, given that the show has *no problem* making muscular women look like that and they DIDN'T for Miss Greta.

See: Zamfir and the Berserk-style sword-carrying Vampire warrior, Striga. Both of whom had that flex going on.

#tumblr gonna tumblr #misogynoir #greta danesti #greta x alucard #castlevania #I hate when wrong-ass trolling info is spread in the tumblr fandom tags about black women characters #and sadly it happens A LOT purposefully #if you don't like black women just stick to the characters you like instead...you really gotta put in effort to actively HATE as a hobby #same ole same ole #meta #one kinda hate ALWAYS comes with another #which is why solidarity makes sense #troll is anti-black & biphobic #so this is becoming a thing?#doing my best to make sure the black girl character tags have GOOD info about the characters #first uhura and now greta #sunday wip procrastination blah #block that “gretasworld” troll #btw the producers say she's not a spin-off Grant Dynasty so...that's why he's not mentioned

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siryouarebeingmocked · 1 month

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Carter and Lovecraft, by Jonathan L. Howard (2015)

I really wanted to like this book.

I've read a few Lovecraft novels and stories, and I liked them. So when I saw this on my friend's bookshelf, I borrowed it, and read it.

Tried to.

The first real fly in the ointment? NYPD protag sees his partner take a 9mm retirement in front of him on a creepy case, and becomes a private detective. Mysterious lawyer shows up at his office one day and says there was a bookstore owner in Providence, Rhode Island, who has been missing and just declared dead.

The protag gets the bookshop. He's not sure why.

Protag goes to the bookshop. Owner's niece, Emily, is there. She's been running the shop alone since the owner vanished, and she co-ran it when he was alive. Also, she's biracial. Would be played by Zoe Kravitz in the movie, he thinks.

Her name is Lovecraft.

As in, she's a descendant of ol' Howard Philips.

She notes the irony; a black-ish "mulatto" descendant of an anti-black racist.

"Okay," I think, as I checked the publication date. "You've gotten that token bit out of the way. Now, can we move on?"

Apparently not.

As protag starts looking into the disappearance and other weird stuff, he decides he needs to get his eye in. So he goes to a gun range, where he needs to sign up for the NRA first

and ends the session by "re-engaging the safety" on his Glock.

Fun fact: stock Glocks don't have manual safeties, AFAIK.

In the next chapter, protag thinks about how he used the gun. He hates the NRA and the whole "gun fetish" thing, but he needs the iron, just in case.

Two strikes. Three if you count the safety thing.

Yes, I know an NYPD cop might be a bit bigoted about the issue, especially considering how his partner died. But it really feels like the writer's opinion.

In fact, let me just-

Yep. The writer is British. This sounds awfully familiar.

It was about this time that I realized something. The protagonist has no traits that aren't directly related to being a cop or detective. Absolutely none.

I don't think we know what he does in his off hours. No friends. Nothing but the job.

Heck, Miss Lovecraft has more personality than him, and she takes up a lot less screen time.

Protag decides to give Lovecraft half the business, so he can become a silent partner. People start dying in physically impossible ways - like the dude who drowned in his dry car in a parking lot - our hero looks into it.

He also ends up learning about a local family, the Waites. Rich, keep to themselves on their own land, been around since before the area was officially settled, apparently.

The local who tells him about all this says the younger ones are oddly attractive. The family has distinctive big eyes.

Anyone remotely familiar with HP Lovecraft just went "Oh, right, they're fishmen. Got it." I've seen this trope done better before, like in the comic Shadowgirls.

Hero looks into the archives, finds records of a racist Town Council rant by an early Waite, back when they were still into trading. Including slaves. Specifically, patriarch Newton Waite went to a council meeting and said black people should serve others, and shouldn't have self-determination.

The archivist intern says it's was "a different time", and that's just how people were back then.

Of course, he adds "People who talk like that now - no pass for them."

End scene.

Like this extremely mainstream, boring opinion is some kind of

In the next scene, protag chats about the fit he had near the Waite place. Learns about another mysterious death. When he chats about it with Emily, he suddenly realizes she's hot.

Then the narration tells us that he was a racist bigot in his teens, though he thought he was being sensible at the time. He now knows he was wrong, but he still feels sparks of it when he reads about some black kid doing some stereotypically black thing, which gives certain white people "a hard-on of righteousness".

And, of course, his time spent walking away from "instinctive racism" means his dating pool opened up. Like Emily Lovecraft, for example.

The most stereotypically black thing would probably be crime. Or being a single mom or deadbeat dad.

Sadly, I know of plenty of black people - from my black majority home country - who fall into one of those categories. Or two. Three if you include "poverty", but we're Developing, so that barely even counts.

Also, this basically came out of nowhere. Not Emily being hot - I mean, look at Zoe Kravitz - but his unsolicited thoughts on racism.

All of these issues have also been issues for many concerned black people. For decades. The 'stereotypically black things' might be bad themselves, not because they make racist white people feel smug.

This is precisely where I closed the book for good. I would've put away the bookmarks, but I needed the page so I could write this rant.

Honestly, writing all this made me realize that I should've given up long before I made it halfway through the book. But I just kept hoping it would get better.

Doing the same well-worn cliches in a modern setting doesn't really make them interesting. Neither do the little 'racism is bad, mmmkay?' bits.

#books #personal #lovecraft #long

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swallowerofdharma · 2 months

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Over Casca’s naked body

Part one: A long premise

We can’t escape from our geopolitical context even when we are reading manga. We have internalized a good amount of beliefs, values, practices, even regulations from our lived experiences and various simulacra we have been exposed to, especially those in an audiovisual form.

If you grew up in the US, you know that freedom of speech is a core value there. But, while you can say mostly whatever you want within your own country, the US constitution has given the government the right to regulate what comes in from abroad. [1]

And that power has been used. Idealistically, greater access to common technologies even before the internet should have seen a redistribution of the media-creating capacity to many foreign countries outside of the US, so that people could tell their stories. But that hasn’t always been the case, with some exceptions, especially if we consider the biggest narratives that reached global popularity.

During the Cold War, anything that might be considered “communist propaganda” could be seized by the Post Office and never delivered. Books or even souvenirs from communist countries, for instance. Pamphlets criticizing US foreign policy. (…) Obviously it wasn’t totally like North Korea, plenty of foreign movies and music were allowed into the US. But the media that caught on was either already Americanized, or so plastically exotic that it doesn’t really say anything about the culture where it is from. The Beatles were British, but they got their start covering American rock and roll musicians. When John Lennon stepped out of the line, the American government made sure that he knew it. Movies imported from Japan were mostly samurai flicks, with very few movies set in the modern day. The film Ikiru is widely considered the best Japanese film ever made (…) but this existential drama about a depressed lonely man was only given a limited release in California, and the poster was edited to feature a stripper who is only in the movie for one minute. The narrow stream of European movies that made into the USA came in the form of the French New Wave cinema, movies that were stylistically inspired by American films, but also so stuffy that few audiences would ever want to watch them anyway. This was further stifled by the Hays Code, a set of extremely strict regulations that were in place from 1934 to 1968. (…) Some things that were completely banned from ever being shown in any film included: bad guys winning. All movies must end with the police outwitting the evil criminals, or the criminals causing their own demise. Any nudity. (…) Blood or dead bodies. (…) Interracial couples. White people as slaves. Criticism of religion, or of any other country. Naturally this prevented the more artistically liberal European films from being shown in American cinemas and when they did get a release, they were usually edited (…). At least until the rules were abolished in 1968 and replaced by the age rating system we have today. [1]

Even after several decades of access to the internet and foreign cultures, some attitudes have been internalized and carried on. For example, I had direct experience of the ways my own culture has been perceived and stereotyped or interpreted in terms not dissimilar from the exotic. And the same happens to me probably if I don’t keep in check my own personal beliefs about cultures that have been presented to me in similar ways. And I was surprised to see by how deeply rooted and spread are certain attitudes towards punishment or violent retribution viewed as necessary, the policing and self policing, and the expression of judgments or condemnation, and all this can complicate the understanding of different forms of narratives and the acceptance of different cultural attitudes and norms, without the expression of any opinion about morality or legitimacy.

I am reminding you that this is a long premise because I evidently don’t have the gift of brevity but this article is about Berserk and Casca.

In 1956 Anna Magnani won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her first English-speaking role in the American movie The Rose Tattoo. In 1958 Miyoshi Umeki was the first Asian born actress to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Sayonara, a movie that despite its title was an American drama starring Marlon Brando. It isn’t hard to see in these decisions from the Academy, or the ones that followed in other categories, the willingness to build relationships between the US and specific foreign countries where the American army had a massive presence and that after WWII were ideal places for American investors, considering significant rebuilding necessary after the loss in the war. The movie industry and everything around it had instrumental roles. When it comes to the Academy Award, it is very interesting to notice that the women were the first ones to be nominated, becoming ambassadors and facilitators of the reshaping of the images of Italy and Japan from enemies to new essential strategic allies in the Cold War. And here comes the problem of the exotic, because after several decades I still see similarities in the American perception of those foreign cultures, Italian and Japanese, to those easy and friendly and intentionally constructed imaginaries of that time. Take the press around Anna Magnani or Miyoshi Umeki for example. Terms are so widely used and repeated that they are still in their Wikipedia pages in English today. For what interests me here, I am going to quote or summarize parts of the video essay listed below as [2] but I really recommend watching it entirely. It really helped me understand some of the issues I am talking about here, but it is much more than just this. And there is footage worth the time. [I know that many people here on tumblr really dislike YouTube videos. I understand why, when it comes to manga and anime, written articles have still better quality and content, in my opinion, but there are also many video essayists doing their due diligence on several other topics. And when I am busy cooking I put them on].

In the 1950s one of the problem with the new alliance with Japan was the widespread hate and racism towards Japanese people.

The government stepped in, producing educational films meant to endear Japanese culture to Americans (…) They showed off Japanese industry, introduced Americans to sushi and sumo wrestling, explained the country’s new democratic system et cetera. (…) A lot of [musical] acts that were popular with American soldiers, specifically exoticized Asian girls bands, like the Kim sisters and the Tokyo Happycoats, come over to the US and appear on television as both entertainment and a sort of cultural ambassadors, not only demonstrating America’s cultural power and dominance by performing recognizable American tunes, but also signaling to white Americans that those cultures didn’t pose a threat. (…)

It’s worth looking at this film [Sayonara] as part of a larger theme in a very specific post war moment. Gina Marchetti points out in her book Romance and the yellow peril: «Between June 22, 1947, and December 31, 1952, 10517 American citizens, principally Armed Services Personnel, married Japanese women. Over 75% of the total Americans are Caucasian». Meaning, Japanese war brides and the concept of interracial marriages was very much a conversation. (…) Sayonara must be seen as one of many films which called for a new evaluation of Japan as an enemy nation. (…) Much of the way [Miyoshi Umeki] was discussed is probably exactly how you might expect. The language journalists used to describe her was unambiguously racialized and often condescending. In the aftermath of her Oscar win, for example, Louella Parsons called her «a lovely little bit of Japanese porcelain», adding: «What a cute little thing she was in her native costume». Still, her Japanese identity also seemed to serve as a symbol, an embodiment of the new friendly Japan. In Miyoshi, Americans would find an idealized portrait of reconciliation, a woman who bore no resentment over the war, a woman who brought homesick American troops to tears by singing White Christmas, who adored American pizza, who learned English by listening to American records. She was accepted because she actively appreciated and participated in American culture. [2]

The roles offered to Miyoshi Umeki are significant in many ways. After Sayonara, she was cast to play other Asian characters besides Japanese ones. One recurring theme in those movies in particular is the contrast between modernity and tradition.

William G. Hyland writes, Flower Drum Song is a «clash between the Americanized lifestyle of the young Chinese and the traditions of their parents». (…) Miyoshi Umeki plays Mei Lee, a Chinese stowaway who arrives in the US for an arranged marriage. The more Americanized she becomes the more independent, the more willing she is to strike out on her own. [Chang-Hee] Kim writes: «[Flower Drum Song] flamboyantly shows that Asians in America were ready and willing to cast off their heritage and become real Americans in repudiation of the pre-war racial consideration of Asians as permanent aliens». I mention this not only because it’s one of Miyoshi’s major roles, but also because this theme, a supposed enlightenment via westernization, occurs again and again in her filmography, particularly in her work on television. Han [?] writes «Umeki’s representation on television is in constant oscillation between her status as a subservient Asian woman and her transformation into an assertive, modern female professional who has achieved independence through American cultural influence». [2]

Bear with me for a little longer if you can, because we are at the point where, watching the video, I experienced that sensation better translated visually in a lightbulb being turned on. I am skipping here the presentation of the story and footage from Miyoshi’s first appearance on television in The Donna Reed Show, but I once again invite readers to watch the video, which features high quality original footage. I was really struck by the “sensitive way” the American woman - Donna Reed I presumed - approaches the character played by Miyoshi, as the writers back then were well aware of the sensitive racial implications, and nevertheless a certain mentality pushes thought. Watching still, it is easier to avoid the presumption that in the 1960s “they didn’t know better” or that contemporary attitudes have improved greatly, just because we are more careful about the language we use.

The thesis statement of this episode is not subtle. The rejection of traditional Japanese customs allows her to live more fully in a democracy. Of course it isn’t really much of a choice, is it. Maintaining the customs of your culture or risking alienating your entire community. She changes her clothes, puts on a hat and goes shopping because she is an American now. Obviously these stories are told from the white American perspective, where this rejection of tradition and culture is portrayed as unambiguously positive and relatively tension free. This was not the case in Japan where the relationship between modernity and tradition were richly explored in cinema, particularly in women’s films. [2]

I would like to add that the independence that Donna’s character shows is only possible because of a series of factors, including the fact that her husband secures her a higher level of comforts, in comparison with lower classes or non-white Americans, and that domestic work is presumably done by home electrical appliances or other women, especially when you add child care and looking after the elderly to the equation. The unwillingness to consider those types of labor, traditionally carried on by women, as of equal importance to any other jobs is rarely discussed when it comes to the issue of women’s emancipation. Not to mention how, alongside this idyllic world shown on television, in the same country large numbers of women have to deal with continuous push backs in the name of different traditional values that all the same prevent many of them from achieving true equality. Those types of conversation and conflicts between traditional and modern happens at the same time in many countries and in most cases translates to continuous negotiations and compromises carried by men and women in real contexts and real situations, without necessarily white American women being aware of it or of all the necessary nuances.

Let me add this last element of conclusion about Miyoshi Umeki’s story.

In 2018 her son told Entertainment Weekly that in the 1970s she etched out her name on her Oscar and then threw the trophy away. Although he isn’t sure exactly why she did it he said: «She told me, I know who I am and I know what I did. It was a point of hers to teach me a lesson that the material things are not who she was». What Miyoshi Umeki achieved is pretty remarkable but one can’t help but feel that she could probably have done a lot more if she’d been allowed to move beyond her identity. [2]

Part two: Are we reading the same manga?

After considering all this, and more that I can possibly include in here to avoid this being even lengthier, I can’t help but wonder about the generalizations I have seen repeated vastly about portrayals of women in Japanese media, as well as misunderstanding of cultural attitudes towards nudity or the treatment of sensitive topics like sexuality and rape. There is a diffuse certain sense of entitlement, sometimes you can hear a condescending tone even, and this isn’t limited to the US. But why approach a foreign culture with a patronizing attitude instead of trying to understand the context more deeply? So many manga readers are willing to ask for clarification on translations, but not many ask about the context or the visual aspects involved in manga writing. I like to read analysis about different topics, so I look for them in English too because they are very numerous and easily accessible, but when it comes to the critique about the portrayal of women in too many cases I have to click away because of too many bias or that subtle sense of superiority of judgment. Berserk has become easily accessible and more and more popular but it is so greatly misunderstood at various degrees by a lot of its western readers - me included - and I really wanted to understand what is preventing, in most cases, a textual and contextual analysis.

The Hays Code hasn’t been around since 1968 but the sentiment that the only proper conclusion for every story is the triumph of the good guys and the punishment for the wicked is very much alive and well. There is this conviction that the only clever readers are those able to separate the heroes from the villains, or the good deeds from evil, and root for the right side to achieve retribution and satisfaction. The Hays Code hasn’t been enforced officially but it’s there in essence and every counter narrative has been rendered almost ineffective or judged poorly. As for the treatment of women, I don’t feel like we can honestly and surely compare or scrutinize Japanese media under special lenses. Nudity in comic books seems to me to be very common outside of Japan too, depending on censorship rules. I certainly notice how frequently Casca is shown naked or has been threatened with sexual violence, but I also notice that she isn’t the only one. The exaggeration of Guts’ muscles and the mutilation of his body are largely put on display. Griffith is intentionally shown fully naked, or completely covered by an elaborate armor, and he is subjected to many threats of physical and sexual violence as well. Charlotte is shown naked, but always in her bedroom, in a private environment or with a transparent cloth or a sheet of some kind to make her nudity different from the occasions when Casca’s body is publicly displayed. I am careful with my own thoughts when I read Berserk, I take the time to analyze my reactions and what I am feeling in these situations. I think that this is the reason that certain books or media are intentionally aimed to adults. I don’t feel a necessity to call to censorship or to give guidance of a moral kind but rather to make the necessary reflections. And I can’t imagine how someone can understand the story without taking their time with it. Part three: Casca’s rape

In 1973 the animation studio Mushi Production released a film called Belladonna of Sadness. I haven’t seen it yet but I know a little about it and I am planning to watch it when I feel like I can do it without being affected in a bad way. It is well known that Miura remembered this film when he designed the Eclipse. In 1975 Pier Paolo Pasolini directed the film Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom, which I strongly don’t recommend to the casual viewer or anyone who felt even slightly offended by Berserk. Suffice to say that in a particular political climate and in the context of the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, in the 1970s nudity and sexuality were at the forefront of the debate and human bodies were exhibited in a symbolic way that can be misunderstood today without knowledge of the context. Gender expression was questioned and men grew their hair or refused to wear suits or to follow rigid dress codes regardless of their sexual orientation. Sexual acts were considered political acts in ways that aren’t comparable with today for many reasons. The languages, the words and the visuals we use are ever changing and actual for a moment and gone the next one or misunderstood. Many words used by queer people in the 1970s wouldn’t be received well today, because the context has been transformed. For what I understand, in films like Belladonna of Sadness and Salò rape and cruelty are preeminently used as symbols because rape and cruelty presented in a direct visual form effect greatly any type of audience and can’t go unnoticed. The sociopolitical climate in the 1970s, in the middle of the Cold War, was particularly violent, both in Italy and Japan, and the art of the time can be remarkably bleak. [Go Nagai’s Devilman was published between 1972 and 1973, Osamu Tezuka’s MW was published between 1976 and 1978, Takemiya Keiko’s Kaze to Ki no Uta was also published between 1976 and 1984].

Kentarō Miura was born in 1966, he breathed the air and grew up in that same climate and was influenced and informed by it, especially later, when he finds himself as a young man in the renewed bleakness of the 1990s. It is likely that he saw Belladonna of Sadness when he was old enough, when he started to develop the story of Berserk, and after being greatly influenced by Nagai’s Devilman. The number of sources of inspirations that Miura used for Berserk is vast, varied and multidimensional and includes books and novels and films of various genres (historical, fantasy, horror, sci-fi in particular) manga, foreign comics books, and traditional art. It is often pointed out among fans that he was also a big fan of Star Wars. Pop Culture Detective released a very interesting video essay called Predatory Romance in Harrison Ford Movies [3] that brought to my attention many things that I didn’t notice or thought about when I was seeing those films myself as a young girl [I am more or less a decade younger than Miura fyi]. Analyzing Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Blade Runner with particular attention to the relationship between the male lead, Ford, and women is an interesting exercise and helps to re-contextualize our judgment about the treatment of women across different media with arguably less reach than Star Wars. I am not inviting anyone to make comparisons and ranking which is better, or absolve Miura because he was influenced by the context around him as everyone else, but I am asking to let go of the presumption that Japanese media in particular presents problematic attitudes towards women by default. The problems are much more generalized than we’d probably like. Better analysis or methodologies are needed to make a proper assessment, and we really shouldn’t assume by default that manga (for boys and men) equals bad treatment of women.

I hope that someone is still reading after such a long time. I didn’t know how to make my point on Casca without at least presenting some of these considerations. I must say I have understood myself better, having questioned why I was feeling uncomfortable when reading Casca but not offended. I understood that Miura wanted me to feel that way, uncomfortable, horrified, and I can appreciate Berserk better [in particular as a person that wasn’t permitted to live in a female body without a certain type of violence].

As stated previously, I noticed that Casca is more exposed and shown in all her vulnerability in much extreme situations: to multiple men in very public displays, like on the battlefield or at the center of the circle of Apostles in the Eclipse. She is also shown naked and vulnerable in other moments, especially alone with Guts. Those intimate moments with Guts, during the Golden Age, are instrumental for the readers to see her in all her humanity, without the armor, or the female dress, in order to build an emotional connection with her. In the cave, Casca makes herself emotionally vulnerable in front of Guts for the first time and tells him her story, exposing her past, her goals and her true self. She tells him things about Grittith too, things that are meant to show Guts/the readers Griffith as much naked, vulnerable and human as she is. Let’s pay attention and try to recollect Guts’ reactions to her story: he is listening to her, but he is embarrassed, distracted and attracted by her nudity and he fails to see Griffith as a human being, potentially fallible and not much different from Casca or himself. Guts also fails to take away from the story the original message, something more than Casca’s infatuation with Griffith as part of her being a woman. Comparing Guts’ reactions to Casca’s nakedness, his recollections or focus on the conversation, what he takes from it and what he doesn’t: a big part of the male readership of Berserk is probably in his same situation. It isn’t till later by the waterfall, that we see Casca alone with Guts again in an intimate way. This time he is naked and vulnerable and completely exposed too. This time through the physical connection between the two, within the sexual act, Guts can’t hide himself anymore, can’t deflect from his past and his fears. I assume that that is an important moment for the male readership to start to feel emotionally invested in the connection between Guts and Casca. That emotional connection and the investment in the relationship helps them to see Casca as a human being through the Eclipse and if that didn’t work then they still can see and feel the horror of the rape of Casca through Guts. Because Miura didn’t want anyone to enjoy that scene or to be sexually aroused without at least the horror and the moral objection to it.

Casca is a woman of color, born in a disadvantaged family and community, that ended up in a mercenary group without achieving the things she wanted, never fully belonging and constantly threatened by groups of men on the enemy side with forms of violence specifically targeted and unnecessary cruel. And everything she goes through culminates or goes back to the Eclipse - before and after - and that should be taken as completely symbolic. Like the multiple instances of rape in Pasolini’s Salò, the innocent, poor and exploitable youth is violated by those in power or those who are in charge. Gambino decides that Guts is expendable or due a lesson in humility, he takes the money and coldly facilitates Guts’ rape. Gennon is rich and powerful and pretends to recreate his fantasy, a sick version of Greek ped*philia. And all he does is using money and power to horrifically exploit the youth and Griffith offers himself up and loses a fundamental part of himself in the process. But the most cruel thing in Berserk is Griffith surrendering to the call of power and doing the same thing to Casca, in the absence of lust or desire: the corruption that has been in him - and has reached Guts as well - has spread. Griffith’s surrender to the call of power, and his intolerance for more of his own pain, silences all empathy in him.

In conclusion, nudity has various narrative functions, beside the suggestion of the erotic: through each character’s naked body, male or female, we see their vulnerability and their fundamental humanity [and if I remember correctly in contrast the rapists are always dressed or covered]. And rape has a symbolic meaning, beside the literal one and the psychological exploration of trauma. Violence but in particular sexual violence is one of the most estreme and powerful tools that can be used in stories [especially in visual media], but unfortunately the overuse of it in an edulcorate format, or as a tease, or devoid of any meaning, has ceased to call for disgust and challenge us to think, has perhaps lessen the impact and the gravity around it. In the 1970s Pasolini saw the dark side of the sexual revolution and how the rich and powerful were willing to build economic empires just to have access to the youth and to the most beautiful women. But he wasn’t the only one. We should reconsider Belladonna of Sadness and the original meaning of those themes in films or later in manga like Berserk and think about it deeply and seriously and not approach every piece of art as entertainment.

Videography:

How America got so Stupid [1]

Miyoshi Umeki: The First East Asian Woman to Win an Acting Oscar [2]

Predatory Romance in Harrison Ford Movies [3]

#berserk meta #casca berserk #manga analysis #this is so long is embarrassing #today we have largely divorced the aesthetic from the political and we look at the last century and don’t fully understand it #editing when I catch a mistake or a misspelled word #eri reads berserk

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scarlet--wiccan · 1 month

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What do you think of Charlie Clapham as Doctor Doom?

Well, I'll start by reiterating that I don't like participating in fancasts and I don't usually feel comfortable cosigning them for Romani characters. First of all, we are still boycotting Marvel Studios and Disney, second, I don't want to see characters I like in the M C U. It's never faithful, it's rarely good, and I don't understand how some people haven't realized that yet.

More to the point, I don't like the way that this fandom tokenizes and objectifies Romani actors, and I don't think people understand that bringing these folks to the M C U fandom's attention puts them in a very vulnerable position. I'm only comfortable vocally supporting fancasts if the actor has put themselves forward and is embracing that attention. Charlie Clapham has put his own name in the ring by voicing interest in the role and advocating for Romani inclusion in superhero movies. I respect that and support him 100%.

Do I think that a British actor is the perfect fit? No. But as I said in this post, perfectly matching an actor to the nationality or vitsa of the character is less important to me, personally, than interrogating the reasons why American/British/Western Euro actors, especially actors who may be considered white-presenting, seem to be everybody's first choice for Romani characters who... maybe aren't any of those things.

In a perfect world, with the right script and the right director, a Romani actor like Clapham should be more than capable of bringing life to Roma characters from other communities or regions. But I want to see an overall more inclusive landscape of Romani representation-- we can't have someone like him playing a character like Doom every time.

Alright, now that my serious posting is done-- I think Charlie is literally SO fine and if he wants this job, he can get it. The role, I mean.

#fancast #casting #fancasting #Doctor Doom #victor von doom

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ecoamerica · 23 days

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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hamliet · 7 months

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weird how alice degraded bl and yet their hs has a ton of bl tropes there

I mean, yeah. It's white privilege and ignorance at its finest. I've talked about this at length before, actually.

It's kind of a disservice to Asian BL not only by appropriating its tropes, but also just sheer privileged bliss. People in communities that are not as progressive on LGBT rights are not only less likely to be able to come out, but also less likely to be able to even explore their sexualities and gender identities. It's easier to just conform and to not think of desire and what it means, especially when we think of sexuality as a spectrum.

It also ignores older queer media in the west that has influenced BL, which was influenced by yaoi, which itself emerged as a distinct market/genre in the 1970s. Nothing's as insular as it appears; for example, Queer as Folk (the 2000 US version) is reportedly huge in China today, and I can see that it's influenced Kinnporsche and danmei novels. QaF also was the first US media ever to show sex between two men on TV--in December 2000.

Yeah. We're not even 23 years out from that.

But of course, explicit sex scenes between two men or two women have existed long before that in yaoi, which itself draws from literary and artistic traditions across the world that have existed from ancient times, because gay people have existed from, y'know, ancient times.

I don't want to keep harping on AO, though. I hope they learn, and the posts were from over a year ago, so I'm hopeful they are in the process of doing so. Though I don't really keep up with them. The reason I also can't be too hard on AO was that even 7 or so years ago, I would have agreed with them about yaoi because I didn't know any better. And I was wrong, and I am still learning, and I hope I will continue to learn.

I'll again also reiterate that I do not care at all that Heartstopper has no sex in it; good for them because not all stories need it! Sweet, innocent stories have their place and can be just as powerful and necessary as those that are darker and more explicit. I just think declaring that a story's lack of queer sex is somehow revolutionary is ignorant at best and rewriting history at worst.

I'll leave off with this portion of an interview with the creators of the American QAF, who are themselves a married gay couple who have been together for like... 30? years. I'm bolding the parts I want to emphasize.

COWEN The first time we heard about Queer as Folk was in the Calendar section of the L.A. Times. The whole article was about [how] no one will ever have the g ts to do a show like this in the U.S. People thought [the US version] was going to be a much softer show than Russell’s [original British version], and we knew it had to be outrageous and more sexual. The sex on our show probably was the most political statement we made. Because we all grew up seeing gay people represented on TV — if they were ever represented — [as] eunuchs or clowns. We never saw gay people having a sex life or being complete people. We had a list of subjects that we were determined to write about because we grew up at a very inhospitable time in the U.S. Not just the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but we didn’t have gay marriage here until 10 years after the show ended.

LIPMAN ... We wanted our Queer as Folk to be a celebration of being. We saw movies and TV shows where gay people would hang themselves; they’d walk into the ocean to drown. We didn’t want any of that. We used the sex on the show to be joyous, angry, vindictive, self-destructive …

COWEN … and celebratory. There were so many topics that we needed to address because it was such a politically oppressive, scary time....

DUNN That also was the only representation that I saw: It was suicide or it was Disney villains. That was queer representation for me, and so seeing this show that was just so irreverent, so joyful, so sexual, so free, and it still dealt with the realities of being queer.

Every story is in a sense a product of its time, and it's not bad that Oseman is writing their story to address concerns they have and issues they deal with. It's just not inherently any more revolutionary and definitely not more inherently moral than queer media with sex in it.

#ask hamliet #qaf #kinnporsche #danmei #sexuality

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pastelwitchling · 8 months

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Reposting this here for any Brits who've read Red, White & Royal Blue because I'd love to get your opinions on this.

Keep in mind, RWRB is my absolute FAVORITE romance, I give it 5 stars every time, I'm currently on my 9th reread and thoroughly enjoying myself as always, I've watched the movie every single night since it came out, and twice on the actual day it came out. This is just something I've noticed, so if you can't handle any critique of the book, don't keep reading, but I was wondering...

I certainly don't think the book is flawless, I think it presents an ideal version of the American government (which in a fictional world definitely isn't a bad thing), but I feel like it then uses that to stroke America's ego on accomplishments it hasn't actually made, and then further uses it to kind of like…

I don't know, demean Britain for keeping a monarchy and how the royal family is so useless and does no good for anyone or, to quote the movie, has "any meaningful impact on people's lives" which I wouldn't personally know about, since I don't really follow the royal family that closely. But the book is very much "America deserves the golden throne because (in this fictional setting) we elected a woman and her mixed family into the presidency, and Britain sucks because (in actual reality) it stole this and did that and doesn't do this and doesn't do that."

Basically, it's very much congratulating America for things it hasn't actually done, while simultaneously beating down on the UK for things it has, and… I don't know, oversimplifying things like the monarchy and British contributions and stuff? …I have no idea what I'm getting at, I just feel very much like, "Okay, Casey, we get it, you love America."

For one thing, I feel like the movie (which I'm totally obsessed with, remember) erases all the good Henry did with his charity work and how involved he was, and I feel like the book not only glosses over the "genocidal empire" that America actually is (not that I want them to go into detail about that, not when I'm picking up a romance, but if you're going to talk about the actions of the monarchy, you can't just pretend America has an innocent past or present, you can't just dismiss all the bad it has done, too), but it also diminishes the good that Prince Henry does do.

There's a particular line in an email where Henry tells Alex that he has to go to Germany because "the monarchy has decided we care about sustainable energy, apparently--or at least that we want to appear to." Lines like that very much feel to me like an American taking jabs at the UK (which if written by a Brit, I wouldn't say anything about, but because it's written by an American, it feels a little high-horsey to me), and I'm not saying that "no, you can't say that because they genuinely care and how dare you imply otherwise?!"

But do you see what I mean about stroking America's ego and glossing over its own self-serving actions? When the US does something, it's because they genuinely care and want to help, but when the UK does something, especially the monarchy, it's because they want to "appear to."

This is strange to me considering Henry in the book spends almost all of the time he's mentioned doing some kind of charity work. Is that meant to be for show, too?

I don't know. It just makes me scoff a little bit given everything that's been happening in the country since 2016 (this was released three years later, by the way, and the jabs at 2016 in the book don't go unnoticed) whenever I read about Alex and Henry talk about the US government like it's just so much more well-intentioned and charitable and more accepting and it's like, Yeah, okay, sure.

Again, I want to reiterate how much I love this book and movie, how much I love Alex and Henry. A reason I don't reblog movie gifs or have talked before about the book is because I have the same problem with them that I have with Harry Potter and Tyler Blackburn, which is that I love them too much to talk about them, I cannot find the vocabulary to do my love for them justice, so I just don't say anything. (You know that one Emma quote? "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more"? That's my whole being.) I might share my tabs and annotations at some point because I've started annotating the book for the first time on this reread and I'm having the time of my life. But I did want to know if any UK bookdragons who've read the book, or even just US readers who've read it, have any opinions on this or felt a certain way about it.

#red white and royal blue #rwrb #rwrb spoilers #alex claremont diaz #prince henry rwrb #firstprince

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handweavers · 1 year

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maurice (the book, the movie which is pretty close to the book all things considered, etc) has a lot of problems like fundamentally it's definitely a product of its time and of the man (e.m forster) who wrote it and the state of the british empire and culture in his lifetime, his biases and failings of his ideology are clear when reading his writing.

but there really is something so endlessly fascinating to me about it Because of that, if that makes sense, because it really does capture the mindset of an Edwardian era middle class white British man and all that entails, and how the quintessential version of that man might react when faced with his desire for men and only men, and the ways in which that might very realistically be experienced and expressed.

this is especially notable because he wrote it privately, knowing he couldn't publish it until after he died or until some distant day when british culture could cope with a book like that, and so many of the characters are inspired by himself and the other white British gay men he knew from all walks of life and it's sort of just written for them and so it feels very personal and insightful to that entire mindset and experience of the time. like it functions as such an excellent snapshot of that time and place and group of people and it's simultaneously a work of complete fantasy and the overwhelming whiteness and britishness of it and the very premise (as well as the solution offered by it) is something entirely a product of itself, if that makes sense, like this book only could have been written in these conditions and in this context.

analysing it feels like placing an entire worldview and experience in a fish tank and spinning it around - noticing what it says and what it doesn't, what is left out, how events are framed, the thesis of the story, the entire thing is fascinating no matter what angle you take and it's so self indulgent and confessional it's just the whole thing laid bare in a way that is really rare imo

especially w the emphasis on class in particular as a defining thing in the story, like maurice is fundamentally an exploration of class and forster tries to grapple with these things clumsily and using the only language and approach he knows how to because of the circumstances of his own life, and you can see the limits of his understanding of class dynamics through the book, the fault lines in his thinking and his contradictory opinions on working class people and old money gentry and the middle class and all of that. like it's Not a marxist look at class whatsoever but I always find things like that really fascinating because they're trying to grapple with class consciousness and they're so close and yet so far and in maurice it's wrapped up in anxieties about white male masculinity and british propriety and the specific strange brand of late victoria /edwardian period misogyny and you get the benefits and consequences of empire and british racism laid bare on a kind of deeply insular, commonplace level without ever once mentioning let alone featuring a nonwhite person at all. like the Lack of mention of these things feeds into the fantasy aspect of it and the self indulgence of it.

bc at it's core it's just all so loud and it's an edwardian era white cis gay affluent british mans fantasy of his ideal man and ideal relationship and that fantasy of escaping class society to some """"primitive"""" state where they can just Be but there's no room for that within the british empire and it's so so so so indulgent in that way and so revealing. theres so much to unpack and so much that still feels relevant to the experience of white middle class gay people in the imperial core today and their mindset and anxieties and the whole thing is just endlessly interesting to me in a "I want to study this in a laboratory" way. like it's the kind of book that makes me want to do a marxist analysis of the entire ideology on display here and how it's still relevant to current class anxieties and fantasies of escapism within certain communities - like the cottagecore thing - and pick it apart and examine its innards because it reveals so much at just a rudimentary level and whenever I reread it there's something new I think about and come away with

#its one of the books i always go back to like i know the whole thing nearly by heart at this point #because its just endlessly fascinating to dissect and every time i listen to it/read it i come away with something different #and its a pretty short book so its easy to do #(edited the post to break up the text a bit for readability)

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4uru · 5 months

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Yet To Be Named

Chapter 1: Zimo and the Singing Angels.

Enjoy

Taglist: @thevagabondexpress @faithfromanewperspective @light-wayland @what-ho-christopher-put-in @alastairstom @tleeaves @fangirlghost-19

(comment if u have any story name ideas bc I sure don't.)

It was a cold night. Zimo was breathing through his mouth, his nose was blocked. His lips were cracked and his throat was dry. The cold was making his eyes hurt. At least Hell had central heating.

If you're wondering how he knew, well it's a long story actually.

You see, Zimo's mother was the antichrist. And his grandfather is the devil. You know from The Bible. His antichrist of a mother left him in front of an orphanage as a baby, with just a piece of paper with his name written Ha Zimo and nothing else and somehow passed the mantle of the Antichrist on to Zimo. Which was shitty of her. And she didn't even leave him outside a nice childless couple's house like those movies. No, she left him outside “Singing Angels Orphanage for boys” and boy, wasn’t that ironic as fuck. There are no angels in that godforsaken place.

Zimo, being born with a biblically accurate misfortune, was the punching bag for the other boys until he hit his growth spurt and became taller than the other boys and also learnt how to hold his ground.

Before he learnt how to fight the universe would fight for him, some tree branches would conveniently fall, and sometimes the light wouldn't quite fall on him, helping him melt into the background of the dreary halls of Singing Angels.

He didn't get adopted in the beginning because he was too round, And later because he was too old. They don't pick the older one. Especially not a 6’2” Chinese Giant. Zimo did not fit the white suburban dream family. And no Asian couples wanted him because he was too much of a British orphan, he didn't know the formality that they wanted. He didn't fit any of their moulds.

Zimo learned to make a corner of the orphanage home. From the back room loft in the church, nobody could see him there. But he could see everything. Only the face of one of the angels statues was faced where he would set up camp. It was a nice cozy space just big enough for Zimo to settle in with his comic books that he stole that one time they let the children roam the city.

But don't get your spirits down. Because, one day, a man in a very expensive suit walked through the doors of the orphanage. And adopted our young protagonist. Things were looking up for Zimo. The man was filthy fucking rich. Zimo packed up his 2 t-shirts, 1 jumper, and 3 comic books and sat in the passenger seat of the Ferrari.

The man was nice. Too nice. He had a smile that didn't quite reach his dead dark eyes. But who was Zimo to complain? He was out of that hell hole. He was out of reach of the bullies that roamed the halls of Singing Angel. He would never have to hide in the dingy cupboards and the dark classrooms. He would not have to eat the shitty food with a secret ingredient (hate). Zimo was free. And filthy fucking rich, baby.

So it turns out, the old man had a mansion. Which was cool. But you see, Zimo had a rule, good people didn't live in palaces. He quickly checked his skill set. If this man turns out to be a tosser, Zimo was big and competent enough to fight his way out. He had nothing to lose anyway. He might be 14 but he could easily pass for an adult. The man was alright. For the most part. Zimo ate good food three times a day. They talked and he didn't hit Zimo. It was all fine and dandy. Well…until the portal to hell, Zimo stumbled upon in the library.

It was all going so well before the portal to hell in the library! So yeah. Turns out the mansion is a portal to hell; the man is his grandfather, The devil, From the bible. Judging from Lucifer's big evil monologue he performed in front of Zimo at the library, Zimo was the anti-Christ. And also Merlin, the greatest Warlock to walk the earth. And it's his responsibility to bring Armageddon (how does one even do that?) yada yada yada. Just when Zimo thought he got out of the god-forsaken hellhole. He literally drove into the literal god-forsaken hell in a fucking Ferrari.

Now before you judge Zimo for staying in the mansion that had a portal to the actual hell. The food was good and the mattresses were even better. The devil had good taste… and he was family. Zimo liked the mansion for the most part. But he avoided the library (the blood-curdling screams of the tormented souls brought the vibe down, you know?) It was all good.

Until Lucifer drugged him and brought him to a different mansion that looked the bloody same but had a red ambience (The devil was dramatic)

Lucifer demanded that Zimo learn magic and get ready to well, bring armageddon. Zimo went with it. (Hell also had good food and a good mattress) and there is not much Zimo won't do for a comfortable life. So he learnt magic.

He liked the fear in Lucifer's eyes when his magic would go overboard and give good ol Satan a run for his money.

So turns out, Zimo had an insane amount of Magic. Which he pulled from his surroundings. Hell being Hell, it amplified his magic. Which was…fun. Zimo liked that he felt weightless when the magic flowed through his veins. It tasted amazing. The air smelt like burnt wood. It was intoxicating. The force of it would make him close his eyes. But he would become much more aware of his surroundings. Like he was connected to everything around him. Zimo decided that he liked magic.

Then good old Grandpa Satan busted out the Tome of Evil™, it contained the most powerful spells in all the realms, but it was also a key. Without it, Lucifer wouldn't know how to travel between the realms and would be trapped inside his red mansion. And who could blame Zimo when he took the big Evil™ tome and ran away with it? He is the grandson of the devil. It's on Grandpa Lucy that he didn't see this coming.

If you're asking Why Zimo ran away, well dear readers, it's because Zimo did not have a fucking clue about how to bring on the end of the world. And it was pretty clear that the only reason Lucifer was keeping him alive and around was because he thought Zimo did. And it was only a matter of time before he would realise Zimo wasn't the big bad Antichrist. He was just a British orphan from Singing Angels who liked reading comic books and the genealogy chapter in his biology textbook.

The tome was heavy. And the evil™ book was leaking magical energy. It took Zimo a stupid amount of time to realise that the magical energy could be used for heat.

The night was bearable. He settled under a bridge. It smelt terrible. But beggars can't be choosers. Zimo used his magic to make the boulder he was leaning on softer. He made his jumper warmer, and let sleep take over him.

#original story #Ha Zimo #arthurian mythology #yet to be named

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