#this applies to a lot more than body image and body positivity tbqh but this is the thing i'm familiar with

[valentineish]

Something that I see in a lot of body positivity circles is a lot of well meaning, blind lip service to an "all shapes and sizes" credo, but zero understanding of what that looks like.

I'm thrilled that there is more unabashed love for curves in the world. But it is upsetting that the body appreciation is still mostly an expansion of adoration for white western bodies. Beyond the expectation for light skin and fine hair, there is a universal assumption of height, proportions, muscle mass, fat distribution, etc. This literally isn't just skin deep.

I've been a part of these circles for a long time. It is impossible to ignore how white women in particular will praise each other for Very Eurocentric Traits, but the conversation falters as soon as it's not about white people.

I've caught my own frustration that it's actually not as simple as practicing ~radical self-love~ when speaking to my BIPOC friends about body image. I seen the same white friend proud about not shaving just laugh nervously when a friend with darker body hair excitedly say the same. I know the way my other white friends struggle to even comprehend the shape of my body because my broad shoulders, barrel chest, and unibrow announce that I'm not Western European in the same way they are. Like... very real examples with very real consequences exist far closer to home than the fashion industry.

There isn't a magic bullet to this, and I honestly don't know if I have the space to cover just how deep this runs. Beauty standards are defined by systemic racism, misogyny, cissexism, toxic masculinity, ableism, classism, Eurocentrism, and so much more. All I can say is that you have to accept that learning is an ongoing, active process that you aren't exempt from because you face discrimination – especially if you're white. Narrowing your perspective on body positivity down to the discrimination you personally face not only blinds you to the harm done to others, but it only makes us less effective in addressing the root of the problem.

#this applies to a lot more than body image and body positivity tbqh but this is the thing i'm familiar with #i also realize i made the point 'it's not all just about me!' and then took an example from my own life in the next paragraph #bc i wanted to illustrate the point that racism runs SO deep that white people engage in this weird combination of nationalism and colorism #this is best illustrated by western europeans treating eastern europe as less human and exoticising anybody even NEAR the mediterranean #open mic night #racism #body positivity #body image #fatphobia #sizeism #black lives matter #misogyny #beauty standards #eurocentrism #this is also very much a whıte supremısm thing that i want to tag for but idk what effect that will have on the algorithm or bots/fake user #body neutrality #haes

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 12: Thoughts on 1x11 The Calm

Thoughts on 1x11 The Calm:

S1 Bellarke is the hottest Bellarke fight me.

My boy Jasper doesn’t even appear in this ep and he’s STILL being useful literally making gunpowder like fuck off.

Bellamy is all for just killing everyone and Clarke wants to find some other way. I dunno if I read this as her being influenced by Finn or more like...her mind always whirring, always thinking of better solutions. She’s never content with just the most obvious thing. That said, their positions are reversed a season later: Clarke is all for just blasting the top off Mount Weather and Bellamy wants a more nuanced plan because he sees the people on the inside.

Why wasn’t Murphy + Octavia ever a thing? Also Murphy is smart about cooking meat. Chef!Murphy (head)canon already forming.

“When you’re really pissed off, you always find a project. Something to keep your hands busy so you don’t punch someone in the face.” Finn is annoying but this is good Raven characterization intelligence. Also their conversation is so painfully awkward. She really does just tamp it all down, bottle up those emotions.

Literally nothing is hotter than Bellamy being a leader and giving orders and the delinquents being a competent little group defending and taking care of themselves.

And yet again, Clarke suggested hunting and Bellamy essentially had to sign off on it (not only did he challenge on her and make her explain herself, but tbh if Clarke had told people to pick up spears and go they would have been like yeah right princess)--but it was Bellamy who gave the actual orders, BELLAMY who appears as the leader in the delinquent pov.

I wish there were more young delinquents--really young not Jasper-and-Monty young. Like this loquacious kid who goes hunting with Finn and Clarke. Or even Charlotte, kids that age. ...Really I just wish there were more delinquents. :/

So Raven’s first instinct isn’t to fuck away the pain, it’s to run. Dumb but understandable. She insults Bellamy based on his Ark job (”Aren’t you a janitor?”) which also feeds into my other theory about Ark and class status.

I know I’ve written B/raven stuff and I do ship them in a low-key way, in a ‘they would be interesting together’ way...but I don’t ship them in a canon way, tbqh. In this Bellamy and Raven scene, I see them having a good rapport, but in a way I also see him working her, getting her back on track not just for her own good but for everyone’s good. He has a double agenda and both parts are important.

I wonder how much familiarity everyone on the Ark has with everyone else. That’s not totally clear... people seem to have passing familiarity with others, but not close familiarity. On the other hand, Wick seems pretty comfortable just talking to a Councilor like whatever nbd. On the other, other hand that could be Wick’s personality and/or the circumstances. Most of the ship is probably dead and the rest will die soon so why be formal!

The creepiness of the Ark in this ep should not be understated.I love this aesthetic.

I want to know what the best part of a boar is! Clarke, don’t interrupt. Rude.

Two main characters and a kid you’ve never seen before go hunting in the woods. Which one is going to get speared?

Say what you want about Wick but he and Kane made a good team and I will stand by this opinion too.

In describing their route, Finn said they crossed a road. What road?? When have there ever been roads anywhere in this show?

Kane found a dozen survivors, Jaha has, like, 3....and somehow in Camp Jaha/Arkadia there are like several hundred (?) people. From only two stations like how is that possible? Also didn’t Farm Station have a couple hundred? They must have sent down over a thousand people lol. Kane did not find very many.

Also that Earth Monitoring Station is where the space survivors are living now and it was fucking destroyed in a fire but I guess we’ve just conveniently forgotten about that, huh useless show writers who can’t figure out their own continuity?

Kane has this annoying habit of just being uselessly self-sacrificing all the time. He would be so much more effective if he didn’t do that. He has a lot of hubris, I think. The unforgivable sin: thinking yourself so debased as to be unforgivable. It’s also another way of elevating yourself, of thinking yourself so important that you have sinned more than any other, are worse than any other...it’s still all ‘me me me.’ I think Kane is like that. He’s always looking for ways to sacrifice himself or to be dangerously heroic. I wonder if that matters more to him than, like, actual other people. (Some of this analysis could apply to Jaha at certain parts of his story, though mostly imo in S1. In S2 he starts thinking a little differently.) (ETA it definitely applies to him in this ep, where he wanted to sacrifice himself [and Sinclair] and Kane’s like ‘I’m not a dumbass, we need you smart people to save everyone else, this isn’t a wholly altruistic rescue mission you know.”)

Anya’s idiotic guilt trip re: Tris: “You did this to her.” Yeah I know she’s like 12 and that makes Clarke feel bad because her people don’t use pre-adolescents as soldiers but she should take the attitude she took with L. later. You don’t want me to fuck you up? Don’t attack me first. Would Anya be shedding any tears over the dead, disgusting bodies of the children her chemical attack killed? I doubt it. And they weren’t even soldiers! I mean really the Grounder attacks on the delinquent camp are the equivalent of an attack on a village of civilians, especially initially.

So Monty finds some of the first evidence of Mount Weather (the exodus ship logs showing interference) and Raven’s like ‘neato...give me that for parts.’ He’s much more curious than she is. She’s more...practical? Single-minded? Not that Monty isn’t practical. I dunno. Unrelated but I had this sudden image of modern!Monty listening for signs of alien life, for some reason.

Monty wants to keep the radio because he still believes in the Ark and he wants to see his parents again. “My family is up there.” Makes me even more curious what his relationship with his family is like. (You’d think S3 would have answered that but...not really.) He’s one of the few people who seems to care about those left on the Ark. And he looks so sad when Raven unplugs it... A rare moment when he lives up to his fandom cinnamon roll image. And when Raven leaves he picks up the radio thingy and I wonder if he’s considering putting it back together.

Murphy has a fish.

I gotta love Raven’s confidence: I’m hot and I’ve identified a straight man, if I start undressing, he’ll sleep with me. If I were as hot as her, I’d probably be that confident too, but still.

Bellamy’s “I’m not that guy” speech is actually hilarious when parsed. It’s like the equivalent of “IF I were going to say X, it would sound like this, but since I can’t, I won’t.” Like “If you’re looking for someone to tell you [a list of things in detail], that’s not me.” But you just did dumbass. His ‘bad boy’ persona cracks so easy.

Right before Clarke unpacks the medical tools, there’s a shot of a random $50 bill on the ground. Mmmmm something tells me that our weak U.S. paper isn’t going to survive a century post-apocalypse lol. There’s also a piece of paper. What is that stuff doing there?

Oh never mind. It’s an old bank. There’s paper and cash all over and lots of little drawers. Makes sense, banks would have vaults, and bunkers did have money in them. Maybe they’re in the Treasury’s old bunker. I never noticed that before, but it’s actually quite clever. The set design on this show is A-PLUS.

I’m not into the enemies-to-lovers thing generally but Anya/Clarke should have been a thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.

What an incredibly unsatisfying sexual encounter.

Kane says ‘no more than 1,000 survivors’ and ‘at least 1,500 dead.’ There have to have been at least 1,000 though, because they send them down on 12 ships and assuming they spread themselves about equally (which isn’t necessarily true but would be the smartest thing), that would be about 83 people to a ship. And I’m fairly sure Farm Station had more than 83 people and I’m also semi-sure that Arkadia as of 3x01 had more than 166. I mean it’s really hard to tell, and I can’t remember what sort of casualty numbers they gave for the Mount Weather explosion, but these seem like very low numbers to me. I don’t know. Maybe it does make sense and I’m just missing or mis-remembering something.

Having said all that, they did find another cache of survivors after this dialogue (including Abby), which might explain the discrepancy. (ETA not really because they only find, like, 10.)

Kane’s trip through the vent is a nightmare scenario for me so I’m just gonna...not watch.

Lindsey Morgan is so kickass in this ep, like how she stutters a little bit on “family” when she’s talking to Monty.

I completely forgot about this but the Grounders literally try to steal Clarke away like wtf. First of all, I wouldn’t trust her even as far as I could throw her if I were them. And second...she’s the enemy? But “prove your worth and you’ll be welcome here” I guess. Maybe Anya’s into her. I guess it’s good to poach the best talent from the other side before you destroy them. Also love that Clarke pretends to consider it.

The kill marks are to symbolize kills in combat so, really, Clarke’s 3x01 crack abut not having room on her back for all the deaths she’d caused misses the point...as far as I can remember she’s never actually killed in combat. Killing in self-defense, in group self-defense, or as part of an overall military-type mission isn’t the same as in combat, especially as she mostly acts as a general-type person, giving orders rather than doing deeds. Even pulling the lever, with Bellamy, is an awfully sanitized way of killing.

Going after this guy, getting him talking, taking out his knee and then slashing his throat, is one of Clarke’s best moments. HIGHLY UNDERRATED. Really second only to her escape from Mount Weather in early S2. Also props to Eliza Taylor, I appreciate how her expression afterward is half ‘oh shit I killed a man, this is terrible’ and half like steely resolve and determination.

Can Monty not tell the cardinal directions? (Your other West, Monty.)

A rare moment where Octavia and Raven seem like friends. Actually this is a good Octavia episode. She’s only in 3 scenes, which might explain why...

Also underrated is the tense but quick blnk-and-you’d-miss-it horror movie moment of Monty being taken by the Mountain Men. “What’s that creepy signal?.... Omigod... “ And he was never seen or heard from again.

So...why did the Mountain Men take him? Shits and giggles? To see if they could experiment on him? They seemed to have decided pretty quickly that the Sky People were like them, guests rather than blood resources. I wonder what the thought process was.

The end of this episode was aces. Great set up for the finale. I miss when this show was good.

#the year 2018 #2018: the 100 s1 #2018: fandom thoughts