Mostly I'm watching black people I know express distaste with non-black people ignoring the context of what happened, thankfully no one I follow is clowning where I can see it.

But I'm watching arguments about 'toxic masculinity' (can you call defending your wife from someone being a dick to her 'toxic masculinity'???) and 'male violence' (I know PLENTY of black women who would backhand someone talking about them like that) and 'abusive' (fellas is it abuse to defend your wife's honor in a way you likely were taught yourself?) etc etc and they're all ignoring the actual context of what happened.

A black man who knew better made an offensive and ableist joke about a black woman's medical condition that drastically changed her appearance and caused her to sacrifice something culturally important to her, on live TV in front of an audience, and her black husband got on stage and confronted the problem the same way it would have played out if this was not a televised event.

It's wild to me that people aren't connecting the dots. "He shouldn't have used violence" sure and Chris Rock shouldn't have made the joke but he did and he got what he knew he would have gotten if he'd said it anywhere else. He was part of that hair documentary. He KNOWS BETTER. I got popped just like that for a comment about a black woman's hair when I was 8. There are lines and he crossed them. And unlike my 8yo self, he knew where those lines were when he chose to open his mouth.

She was in the audience. She was sitting by Will. Chris looked directly at her and pointed at her before making the joke. He knew what he was doing. He watched Will come up to him agitated. And he didn't press charges even though police encouraged him to do so. He knew exactly what he would have gotten for that in any other place.

I mean, he also knows how much he'd come off as a whiny crybaby who dished out but couldn't take it if he did press charges. At the level of scrutiny both of these guys are at, everything about how they're handling this conflict has to be calculated in terms of public reaction, which has layers and layers of observation and scrutiny from both people with and without context.

as you absolutely already know, obv. but like. yes. Rock's douchery had layers and he knew exactly what kind of nastiness he was pulling, and he was executing that nastiness in a venue where he must have thought he could force Smith to observe without being able to do anything about it: Smith was up for an Oscar himself, he had to attend, Jaida essentially had to attend, Rock is on stage--what the hell is Will Smith going to do to him if he makes that joke? The more humiliating he can make it, the more powerful he feels, and yeah, you are correct and he knew precisely what kind of target he was aiming at, because the more humiliating and painful the joke he can make without retaliation from Will Smith the more he can get off on how much power and control he can exert. Which, you know, totally consistent with Chris Rock's everything.

It's an interesting incident in terms of just how much social context layers onto it to underscore exactly how much of an offensive, nasty, asshole Chris Rock was being there--again--and also in terms of how much weight and context hangs on everything Will Smith chose to do and why. As You Know Jaz the standards that even wealthy and famous and powerful black men are held to are so different from what wealthy and famous and powerful white men are, and especially given the weird dynamics of being minority people in a majoritarian institution--there's so much pressure there to navigate, the stakes are so high!

like, I guarantee to you that the choice to slap Chris Rock rather than punching him was a thing Will Smith made an active decision about based on calculations about the signal that sent: how much aggression vs control does he calculate that both Rock, a generalized black audience, and a generalized white audience will see? how much context does he need to underscore? you can see Chris Rock trying to weasel out and make Will Smith look unreasonable ("I said G. I. Jane!") and Will Smith is just totally unyielding. He's got to make sure he comes off as both angry and principled and also completely controlled and it's just, it's such a great example of a thwarted power play on this enormous stage.

pretty sure I'm lecturing the prof, here, obviously, but just--aaaaugh the whole interaction sincerely feels like something that should be preserved in a museum display so that the layers of context can be unwrapped and understood to appreciate all the pieces, and white people making stupid fucking takes that ignore all of the very specific African-American experience pieces of it (not the least that hair documentary that Chris fucking Rock produced if I recall right) are. vexing.

Good god allllllll of this plus some. Again because like, Chris Rock is known for toeing the line of what he can get away with and so, knowing no one defends disabled people and no one defends black women and certainly no one defends any woman made out to be ugly- because there is an implied message of ugliness there.

The Smiths have had a very public eye on the situation with the cheating and so for Rock to stand on stage and point to her and call her "GI Jane" aka an ugly, mannish, brutish, bald woman knowing that Will is still smarting after the hordes of cuckhold jokes he's been subject to... there's this feeling of 'haha your wife's ugly now, you couldn't keep her when she was pretty do you think she'll stay now that she's ugly, maybe you'll cheat now that she's hideous, lol isn't that so funny' to it knowing their marriage problems are very, very much exposed to the public.

There's also the racial aspect of black women especially with shorter hair being called exactly that: ugly, brutish, mannish for not fitting white femininity. And Rock knows, he fucking KNOWS that, that's a racially charged statement to make and he did it anyway and this is why I'm constantly harping on how black people absolutely can further antiblackness despite being black themselves. Rock was raised by a black woman and he has black women in his life and he KNOWS and he chose to do it anyway because he thought it'd be funny and he'd get away with it because who confronts a comedian on live TV and especially at an awards show?

"he just said GI Jane" "it was just a joke" until you can fully understand the full context of that "joke" you will never understand why a lot of black people who saw that had the reaction of "Smith shouldn't have hit him but Rock was wrong for that one" or "if someone talked about my wife like that they'd get more than a slap".

yeah, I just wandered over to another community of mine and the goddamn pearlclutching over "violence is never the answer" there. (I waded in, because what the fuck, you're the same fucking community that went "YEAH GO THAT DUDE WHO PUNCHED RICHARD SPENCER.") At some point we do have to ask ourselves: what speech can we tolerate without directly responding, and what do you do when the person you are trying to deal with is not operating in good faith.

I am just! How the fuck! people.

there's also the layer in which by pulling that, Smith draws so much more attention to how unacceptable the joke is than he would by simply speaking about it. he is so much more emphatic by saying "not here, not now, not where I see." He gets so many more people talking about what an asshole Chris Rock is being, again, and he can hope that enough people explain the layers to really underscore how much Chris Rock knew what the fuck he was doing to people who aren't members of the African-American community that he and Chris Rock share. Like, how do you respond when someone is deliberately being as vicious as they can to you on a shared wavelength that a bunch of observing people don't have access to?

Disabled Representation Has Come Farther Than You Think

You’ve Just Been Conditioned Not to See It.

I recently got into a huge fight with an abled friend about disabled representation, in which he was completely convinced that the stance he held was that of an ally. He’s a long time friend of mine and I know he really did think he was fighting for us and coming from a place of trying to help us.

And it really got me thinking about the way abled people perceive disabled people. And how that message is internalised and reinforced in so many ways.

My friend was trying to say that characters like Cyborg, Misty knight, Daredevil, Toph, Edward Elric, Bucky, Nebula, etc were not good representation. And he at first refused to listen to me (an actual disabled person) when I was like; no, we like that. we love that. we LOVE seeing badass and competent and sexy disabled people. It’s validating and empowering.

His argument was that it didn’t really count because nobody saw them as disabled and that it would be the same thing as saying Gamora is black representation.

While I understand where he was coming from, both of us also being black, it was hard to get him to understand how it wasn’t the same thing.

Gamora is a black actress painted green to portray a green-skinned alien. She has black features, yes, but within the narrative she very much is not a black woman. She’s an alien.

But a disabled character is always still a disabled character. Regardless of how high tech or SciFi or magical or fantastical the world or universe is; an amputee with a prosthesis is still an amputee. They are still disabled. Yes, even if their prosthesis shoots lasers.

And other characters, like Toph and Daredevil, who are both blind, have superpowers/superhuman abilities that allow them to overcome their disability. That does not make them less disabled.

Their blindness still impacts their everyday lives. They can’t read. They can’t draw. They don’t know what things or people look like, or what color things are. They can’t read someone’s facial expressions during a conversation. They can’t follow a map without assistance.

When I asked my friend for examples of what he considered good disabled representation he said Professor X, Oracle, and the Thinker. And that made me pause and I won’t lie, it upset me. It felt degrading. I got kind of angry at him and it got a little heated.

Because what he was saying is: the smart one in the wheelchair that never actually joins the battle because their body is too frail? Those are the only good disabled characters? The ones who still need to be protected and treated tenderly and are physically weaker?

Do we only exist when you can view us as some subhuman lesser other that you can take pity on?

But it’s not only my friend who thinks this way.

I’ve seen quite a few arguments online about people who don’t think Edward Elric is disabled, despite being an amputee.

Who don’t think Cyborg is disabled, despite the fact that his entire power set is due to a life support and mobility aid device.

And my friend was shocked that I, and many other disabled people, find these depictions of strong and confident and capable disabled people empowering. He fully expected that I would find those depictions offensive.

And that’s when it really hit me.

The issue is not that characters like Bucky or Toph or Daredevil are bad representations of disabled characters.

The issue is that people don’t perceive them as disabled. They’ve internalized this belief that disabled people have to be weak and delicate and fragile and in some way physically inferior.

They’re only considered disabled if they’re tragic and/or weak. Or ugly. People love to project a tragic subhuman otherness onto disabled people who are ugly.

If they’re cool and badass that confuses them. That doesn’t fit with the narrative that’s been built in their heads.

The idea of a competent, confidant, and strong disabled character, especially a cool disabled character is just so completely foreign to them that they don’t even consider it.

Now I’m not saying that depictions of disabled characters like Oracle or professor X are bad or harmful. We need representation of disabled people who aren’t strong and don’t have superpowers and maybe don’t feel particularly empowered. That’s a genuine representation of many disabled people.

It just isn’t the only one.

I think the issue with disabled representation is not that it doesn’t exist (as I’ve seen many abled people online claim in our defense) but that we need to shift the way we think of disabled people so we stop overlooking a lot of the really cool and badass and awesome disabled characters we do already have.

So if you read this far through this essay, please stop for a moment and consider the preconceptions you have about disabled people.

Have you ever overlooked a disabled character because they were strong, powerful, charismatic, or, (God forbid!) SEXY?

And if so, I’d ask you to take some time to examine in yourself why you don’t think of disabled people as being able to be those things.

Mod Izzy

This is a really good, really important read. 

here have 10 pieces of writing advice that have stuck with me over the years

The throuple wedding turned into couple wedding

BTS:

combine your first real fandom with your current one to create a terrible, terrible au

kid Avengers at hogwarts would be fun to watch honestly

warrior cats in middle earth

oh shit

fuuuuuck

what have I done

star wars and zelda

i actually have an au for that

Either “Saijou no Meii and Danny Phantom” or “Noblesse and Danny Phantom”

Both of these are highly entertaining for drastically different reasons.

I already have a Danny Phantom and Eragon crossover. Can’t catch me.

(Unless I make Danny an in-universe Shade… NO BAD IDEA I MUSNT)

Star Trek Ninja turtles? idk that could work

@doctorelleth It does!

By the way, those were my first and current, as well!

Doctor Who with Matt Smith and the Ninja Turtles.

Matt and Donnie are gonna get me in trouble…

Inuyasha and the Ninja Turtles

I can already picture this AU lmao

X-Men and Ninja Turtles. Already wrote a crossover 20 years ago, never finished it, Michelangelo became The Phoenix.

CATS with October Daye.

That’s basically the Cait Sidhe the Musical, awesome.

Tamora Pierce (specifically the Circle books) and Castlevania

so… turns out all of the kids have magic but instead of going to a magical foster home they learn how to kill vampires?

Ayyy I suppose with Wenzhou being immortal, it’s entirely possible for them to live into the 2000s and tag along on an expedition to the Pegasus galaxy.

Interesting question of the day: what exactly would be the outcome if a Wraith tried to feed on a human who is immortal?

Okay, if we go with first actual fandom - like, first media property where I connected with other people interested in the same subject and we geeked out together…

…all I can say is that this Keeping Up Appearances tomb-raiding AU is gonna be one hell of a wild ride.

It would be either Harry Potter + The Untamed AU, which, I know already exists? Haven’t read it though. I should...

Or Harry Potter + Guardian. Ah! Gryffindor ZYL and Ravenclaw SW. Add Slytherin YZ to the mix. Hufflepuf GCC. CSZ and DQ would be Gryffindors too, I guess. Don’t know about ZH though. Hmm... WZ and SZ are Hufflepufs in my opinion. Ah, this has potential!