the notes are broken 😂

Reblogging partly for awesome computer shortcuts, and partly because I wish to once again take part in a Post That Broke The Notes. 

WAH

How???

Seeing people talk about Tommy and Buck but making a parenthesis beforehand to clarify that they still ship Buddie it's kind of upsetting me ngl. People, you can simply say you enjoy Buck and Tommy without feeling guilty or like you're betraying another ship. Also, multi shipping is a thing, you can root for both, prefer them in a different order, not care which one is endgame, there's nothing wrong with that.

But also. When did it start to be okay to attack people because of a ship? When was it normalized that anything other than Buddie was wrong? Why is it controversial to say that you're enjoying what's happening in the show? What's wrong with liking a character's journey?

You don't need to clarify anything about buddie when you're talking about bucktommy, because it's not about them. People making you feel like you should is actually repulsive, people being mean to you because you dared to have an opinion different to their own is wild and way too common.

Enjoy what you want without justifying it. More than ever when it's about shipping.

Today we lost the iconic artist Faith Ringgold whose quilt work beautifully presented black, and especially black female, life and culture. Rest in power sister <3

i watched this in slow motion ten times

ATHENA's cruise outfits in

🇮🇷 In less than 24 hours since the Iranian retaliation against Israel, Western leaders and much of mainstream media has already twisted the narrative to frame this as an unprecedented attack.

We now have two jobs:

☝️ To push back and make sure people know this was a retaliation — otherwise Israel can portray itself as a victim to garner sympathy

✌️ Not get distracted away from Gaza. Gaza is the priority

this seems self-centered you know “stereotypical American bs” but I’m curious

Oh shit missed this. It was yesterday. They're here RIGHT NOW. Someone stop Brent Spiner from running over Patrick Stewart!

sid spite goal. he said fuck your goaltender interference

When the refs are making shit calls but you're still up 3-1

Buck and Tommy's first date 7.05

6.04 Animal Instincts | 7.05 You Don't Know Me

[Image Description: 4 gifs of Evan Buckley from 9-1-1. The first two gifts are from season 6 episode 4 Animal Instincts. The last two are from season 7 episode 5 You Don't Know Me. Gif 1: Buck sits at his kitchen table with Kameron and Connor to discuss him being their sperm donor. He tells them, "I have no idea what I want. But it's clear to me that you know what you want." Gif 2: Buck continues, "And one thing I do know is that I want to help you have that." Gif 3: Buck sits at a coffee shop with Tommy. Buck says, "The truth is I don't know what I'm ready for. But I am ready for something." Gif 4: Buck continues, "And I think maybe that something could be with you." /end ID.]

Elia and Pia, beheading the Mountain in a recreation of Judith slaying Holofernes

I will render it later

The way I’ll cry happy fucking tears and never shut up if they actually give us demi Eddie Diaz. Like that man is so demisexual and it would be so fucking nice to get that representation on this show. And to watch him like uncover this about himself and give these repressed thoughts and feelings an actual term. Like I’m getting emotional just thinking about the possibility 🥹

Anyway this Twitter thread by NK Jemisin is all I care about

[id: a twitter thread by N. K. Jemisin @ nkjemisin.

“A late-afternoon revision-mode thought. People ask me sometimes why I’m so *blatant* re racism and other bigotries, in my fiction. Wouldn’t a more subtle approach work?

Answer: No. A more subtle approach wouldn’t work.

SFF does subtle coverage of bigotry all the time, actually. Allegories all over the place, especially in secondary worlds. And probably because of that, readers who are fluent in SFF are used to separating real-world bigotry from its fantastic (or futuristic) counterpart.

Which is precisely how we ended up with a genre that, for most of my life, thought of itself as anti-racist. Look at all the allegories! Meanwhile no black characters. Few writers, editors, etc, of color. Open bigots everywhere.

Allegory does not reinforce reality. It obscures it.

That is, allegory allows readers who are uncomfortable with a topic to engage with that topic in a more comfortable space – away from reality. Scared of black people? Maybe you’ll empathize with these green people on Mars. Freaked out by the mentally ill? Make ‘em psychic.

And as a first step in desensitization, for people who’ve developed a pathological level of discomfort – which our racist, classist, sexist etc society encourages – that’s great! Except… most people stop there. Pat themselves on the back for coming so far. Go no farther.

Like, it’s awesome that you also think Dragon Age 2, a game about a penniless refugee who beomces a heroine, is the best game writing out there! Me, too! But you voted Trump or Brexit because fuck refugees/immigrants?

[A photo of a cat staring at the camera intensely]

But because it was the Done Thing for so long, allegorical engagement became standard in the genre… obscuring the reality that SFF had become nearly as old, white and male as a GOP convention, and just as defensive re its privilege. Overt engagement was, is, treated as gauche.

This isn’t just a genre thing. American society *loves* to pull this shit. Cf. Our media’s endless list of words to use instead of racism – racial tension, race-based bias, etc. Can’t say racism! That’s too far. How uncivil.

Reminder: calls for civility reinforce the status quo. They are a way of saying “Mm yeah you can mention X, but don’t you dare press for actual change!” Which *is* what anyone who mentions (say) the existence of racism, in a racist society, is doing. Naming it helps shame it.

Writing prominent characters who are members of marginalized groups, describing realistic examples of bigotry, and *calling* it bigotry when it appears, all can serve the same purpose, in fiction. But it’s going to feel uncivilized to some readers.

(This is apart from the matter of how to do it *well*. When just mentioning a topic, or a group, feels like a slap in the face to some readers – which it will, bc civility – then how do you slap gracefully? A little backhand, just a twist of the wrist? Practice your swing.)

Sometimes you gotta be uncivilized, when you live and write within a civilization built on bigotry. If it helps, remember that *you* weren’t the one who created this civilization… but you can help fix it.

So include green people…but also include black people. Make your character a refugee, and give them an indigenous Mexican name. Flex pronouns for your NB characters. When your characters are bigots, have somebody or the narrative *call* them bigots.

You cannot trust your audience to just figure that ish out. Some of them will, because they’ve lived it or learned better. Many will not, because they have been trained, by life and by fiction, to see only the “polite” obscuration, and to regard realism as separate and vulgar.

Nothing can fix that except us writers. Only way to move the Overton Window on what feels normal in fiction is to set your feet and shove. Rudely, if you must.

end id]

Also, another HUGE problem with allegorical depictions of bigotry is that they frequently, in the name of telling an interesting, complex story, actually JUSTIFY the bigotry.

Are the X-Men an allegory for racism?  Yeah, sure, but they’re a bad one because mutants overwhelmingly actually are inherently more dangerous than other people.  They only work as a metaphor if you assume Black people are actually inherently more dangerous than white people.

Any werewolf story used as a metaphor for homosexuality fails because, unlike gay people, werewolves can and do lose control and bite people’s heads off.  In addition to passing along the “disease”.

The magic users oppressed by the church will never be a good metaphor for discrimination against women, because real life women don’t spontaneously incinerate a barn.

By giving “both sides” reasons for their conflict, by giving the oppressors reasons to oppress that are factually correct, the writer is actually legitimizing oppression.  Even if a writer ultimately comes down on the side that racism/prejudice against mutants is wrong, they’ve said that’s true IN SPITE of how dangerous mutants/black people are.  Instead of actually challenging the underlying assumption that black people are dangerous, they confirmed it.

It’s not just that allegories and metaphors don’t go far enough.  It’s that often, too often, THEY ARE JUST BAD and confirm all the biases and prejudices they pretend to address.