and i really don’t want to sound like im on some moral high ground bc yes, we all make mistakes (obv i do, too), but i just absolutely cannot understand how (some of) you consistently fail to recognize when a visibly brown character is drawn or edited to look lighter (sometimes to the point where they are made to look JUST as light skin as the actually light skin characters) or when a non-white character has their features whitewashed/replaced with eurocentric features.

and i mean this primarily for the people who reblog posts like this time and time again, while at the same time reblogging accurate depictions of the same characters. like... HOW can you not notice the difference when on one post you have katara, and the next is of her white counterpart, katherine??? is it that you just don’t care? im thinking that’s the case.

studies show our perception about asian americans, and their perceptions of themselves are impacted by media.

there are harmful psychological effects on native americans thanks to sports mascots. 

stereotypes of latino/latina/latines in media have - you guessed it - harmful effects - including political ones 

how about how inaccurate race and poverty images in the news effect our views on welfare?

positive images of disability effect disabled people positively, where as negative images effect them negatively 

the availability of GLB roles on TV positively impacts the gay community

and i honestly i could go on and on and on and on 

i know i know water is wet, all these studies to tell you what common sense could. but like … there is very real research out there that shows fiction has a very real harmful impact on minority communities. and that positive representation has a positive effect on these communities. 

I'm so tired of every single act of love and affection and care between two characters being taken as romantic like please I am Begging you let friends exist. this mindset seeps into the real actual world n has a negative affect in the real actual world n has yall shipping real life people because you don't understand how friends work and think that two people liking each other and having fun together must mean they're In Love

n I've talked about this before but romanticizing and sexualizing all expressions of love and affection also results in fictional sibling relationships being stripped of their intimacy. no one can portray siblings cuddling or kissing each other on the cheek or sleeping in the same bed because it will Automatically be perceived as romantic or sexual. this also has a negative affect on the real actual world, as proven by the dozens and dozens of people on my last post about this saying that seeing this being done to fictional siblings made them uncomfortable expressing affection and sharing intamacy w their siblings in Real Life which is honestly one of the most heart breaking things I've ever heard

Second, Breeze and Allrianne. Allrianne Cett is not a child. Her age is never stated but I highly doubt Brandon would make her under the age of eighteen. The crew aren’t really heavily judging Breeze because he’s with a child, they’re teasing him and laughing that he’s a stuffy old fart with this cute young woman. There’s a really good response to this idea that this relationship is pedophilic. I will quote this: “A pedophile is sexually attracted to children who are pre-pubescent. Allrianne may be a “child” in the sense that she is not a fully mature adult who has grown weary of the world, but she is not literally a child. Her age isn’t stated, but she is clearly not pre-pubescent, and is well past the age when it was acceptable to marry in a medieval society. At most, the relationship is a bit creepy because of the age difference, but it is certainly not pedophilic.”

Your comments on the female characters are still very confusing to me. What does “girly” mean? Do you mean that they are described as traditionally feminine? They were dresses, makeup, etc? Because that’s the style of the time for noble women both Mistborn and The Way of Kings. Or Althei women in The Way of Kings. I don’t recall the book saying that other traditionally “girly” females were the enemy. Shan, I guess. But Allrianne isn’t Vin’s enemy. Vin doesn’t trust her but in Hero of Ages they seem to be on good terms.

Second, Breeze and Allrianne. Allrianne Cett is not a child. Her age is never stated but I highly doubt Brandon would make her under the age of eighteen. The crew aren’t really heavily judging Breeze because he’s with a child, they’re teasing him and laughing that he’s a stuffy old fart with this cute young woman. There’s a really good response to this idea that this relationship is pedophilic. I will quote this: “A pedophile is sexually attracted to children who are pre-pubescent. Allrianne may be a “child” in the sense that she is not a fully mature adult who has grown weary of the world, but she is not literally a child. Her age isn’t stated, but she is clearly not pre-pubescent, and is well past the age when it was acceptable to marry in a medieval society. At most, the relationship is a bit creepy because of the age difference, but it is certainly not pedophilic.”

Your comments on the female characters are still very confusing to me. What does “girly” mean? Do you mean that they are described as traditionally feminine? They were dresses, makeup, etc? Because that’s the style of the time for noble women both Mistborn and The Way of Kings. Or Althei women in The Way of Kings. I don’t recall the book saying that other traditionally “girly” females were the enemy. Shan, I guess. But Allrianne isn’t Vin’s enemy. Vin doesn’t trust her but in Hero of Ages they seem to be on good terms.

A pedophile is sexually attracted to children who are pre-pubescent. Allrianne may be a “child” in the sense that she is not a fully mature adult who has grown weary of the world, but she is not literally a child. Her age isn’t stated, but she is clearly not pre-pubescent, and is well past the age when it was acceptable to marry in a medieval society. At most, the relationship is a bit creepy because of the age difference, but it is certainly not pedophilic.

hahahahaha what the fuck?! this reeks of “letter of the law”! this is like saying “a 50-year-old pursuing a 19-year-old is not disgusting”! like legally it may not be “pedophilia” in the sense of the word but morally? it completely and utterly falls under it. if she is not a fully mature adult then why is it seen as okay for a fully mature adult to date her as if she were one?! 

“well past the age when it was acceptable to marry in a medieval society” yeah right. it was ‘acceptable’ but only barely so, just the way that a 70-year-old man marrying a 30-year-old woman is ‘acceptable’ but not well looked upon. also, the man usually wasn’t that much older than the woman (even younger sometimes!). mostly only for a political marriage would the man be so much older.

allrianne is young and a bit foolish, and it’s natural that her attraction can override her common sense. breeze should have known so much better - and he DID appear to at some point before giving in because… “love”? you’re kidding me! allrianne is max 25, and thats me being generous, bc she’s coded to be around 22-23. how can a 25-year-old woman, who as you said is not a “fully mature adult”, know that someone far older is gonna be her perfect life partner?! from the coppermind: 

He has a relationship with Allrianne Cett while he was in the service of Lord Cett, who was attempting to invade Luthadel. He tries to hide this because of the huge age difference between them–

‘huge age difference’. i’m gonna be generous here and set the smallest period as… ten years. so that places breeze at 35 and allrianne at 25. you wanna know why this is still disgusting? at this point in time, allrianne is not mature. she has not had the life experience and understanding that breeze does. breeze, who has a far richer outlook on life and knows a lot more, should know better.

okay. now we’re clear on that, next point – femininity. most women who act stereotypically feminine, obeying societal norms, are portrayed to be vapid and silly, or shallow and backstabbing and power-hungry. ex: all the ladies at parties in MB, shan elariel, allrianne, all of the girls adolin has courted (danlan being a major example). shallan and jasnah, while conforming to femininity, always subvert it, and don’t seem to particularly enjoy being ‘pretty’. we see shallan in particular go from being super uncomfy in trousers to preferring them over dresses (and not that this is wrong! but women who prefer dresses over trousers are never shown, and this is subtly explained to be the ‘right way’.)

And they’re “girly” because they are althei and follow those gender norms. It’s not feminine to want to fight but it is also not masculine to read. 

we are not shown any woman who doesn’t mind conforming to the harmless part of gender norms. shallan slowly overcomes these. lift and jasnah… simply never gave a fuck. it’s not wrong to conform to harmless gender norms if you’re comfortable with them – and we are not shown any woman who doesn’t mind these. true, vin slowly becomes comfy in dresses, but she always prefers her pants. vin and shallan both are very much “not like other girls”. allrianne is shown to be annoying and vapid at first, then cunning and conniving later. she’s still a side character and vin still looks on her with some degree of contempt.

Shan is backstabbing, true. It’s not just the woman at the parties, everyone is out to get everyone in the court. The crew does start a house war so it’s not like it’s the most friendly of times. Allarinne pretends to be vapid but is actually intelligent and does not betray the heroes. Where is stated that the girls who Adolin courts are vapid and backstabbing? Besides Danlan. All of them don’t like Adolin because he flirted with other girls while courting them. And Adolin doesn’t really think ill of them, he’s just confused as to why they’re mad and his father and brother roll their eyes at him for this way. He’s the one with the negative character traits. None of these women are portrayed negatively by the book.

In Oathbringer does Shallan prefer pants over dresses? And we’re not going to get into Veil because that is a whole mess on its own. I remember in Oathbringer she asks Adolin if he can turn the pants she’s wearing into a skirt. Also, one of the biggest signs of feminity in Vorin culture is covering the safe hand. When does Shallan or Jasnah ever reveal their safe hands? When do any of the Vorin women reveal their safe hands at any point besides Navani when it’s sexy time with Dalinar? You can see on the cover of Oathbringer and Rhythm of War that they cover their safe hands. That is a (kind of) harmless gender role that they are not willing to break. I think you’re confusing preferring to wear pants with it’s just far more practical to not wear a ball gown in a fight.

I quoted someone who said she was “not fully mature adult” and I took that as the person meaning that she’s a bit naïve and a bit immature. 

[...]

I am 23 and while it would be weird to date someone who is 33, if we were the same maturity, I don’t see anything wrong with it. However there’s (obviously) a much larger gap in maturity between me and someone who is 13. At a certain point an adult is an adult. Someone who is a year younger than I could have so much more life experience than I and I wouldn’t be mature enough to date them. Someone could be fifty years old and have very little life experience compared to me.

way to go, blame someone else for you parroting their (shitty) opinion. if she is “naive and immature”, as you put it, then why is she with breeze, who is decidedly neither naive nor immature? allrianne does know very well how to play people and use her ‘naivete’ to get what she wants, but that in no way makes her half as mature as breeze, who has so much more life experience than she.

also, if that 33-year-old person has the same maturity as a 23-year-old, then i’m honestly worried about them. they... have not learned anything from their life experience, and that’s just an even bigger pointer as to why the 23-year-old probably should not date them! also, it is literally not possible for a 50-year-old to be less mature or to have less life experience than someone less than half their age. “life experience” means you have to have lived that long and... 50 is a bigger number than 25, last i checked. 

Also, one of the biggest signs of feminity in Vorin culture is covering the safe hand. When does Shallan or Jasnah ever reveal their safe hands? When do any of the Vorin women reveal their safe hands at any point besides Navani when it’s sexy time with Dalinar? You can see on the cover of Oathbringer and Rhythm of War that they cover their safe hands. That is a (kind of) harmless gender role that they are not willing to break.

the safehand thing honestly cracks me up because... exactly as you said, it’s vorin culture, and vorinism is a religion! ergo, safehands are a religious gender norm that is so greatly integrated bc it’s a religious society. jasnah, despite being atheist, follows it because it is a social norm that when violated by someone of her station can cause great backlash against her house. she doesn’t do it because ‘she doesn’t really care/is comfortable in safehand’, she does it because expressing your opinions is one thing. publicly denouncing a centuries-old tradition would just be a threat to her family's power great threat to elhokar’s and the kholin house’s power. taking an example from my own religion: as a woman, would you, a non-hindu (afaik) walk into a hindu temple wearing jeans (which is considered greatly inappropriate)? that’s the equivalent of what you are saying. safehands aren’t a gender norm, they are a religious practice!

Shan is backstabbing, true. It’s not just the woman at the parties, everyone is out to get everyone in the court. The crew does start a house war so it’s not like it’s the most friendly of times. Allarinne pretends to be vapid but is actually intelligent and does not betray the heroes. Where is stated that the girls who Adolin courts are vapid and backstabbing? Besides Danlan. All of them don’t like Adolin because he flirted with other girls while courting them.

that’s exactly the problem. all the women except vin/shallan/jasnah/lift fall into the same stereotype, and the plot does not paint them well. these four characters, while fantastically written, emit a strong “not like other girls” vibe. we don’t have any focal characters who fit the side-character trope, and only a couple of “unfeminine” side-characters (lyn, tyn, palona to an extent. and the latter two are because of cultural differences). yes, the women at court are very much a product of their society, and doing what they can to survive in a cutthroat world, but my problem lies with them not being seen that way. kliss is the only character of that archetype who is shown in even a semi-positive light. shan elariel is painted as a villain for wanting to solidify her standing in a society that would eat her up otherwise!

I don’t like it when people claim that he has poorly written female characters when he doesn’t.

no one claimed his female characters were poorly written. we made the entirely valid statement that he does not have enough well-written women. vin and... fine, allrianne and melaan are 3 female characters who have any plot agency/significant impact. shan is not counted bc she dies (see fridging). so 3 female characters... out of how many men again? i wont sit and count, but its definitely >5. 

It may just be me, I don’t know. But every single time I see this on my dash or on someone’s blog or anywhere else, I kind of just breathe a sigh of relief. That’s one more person who cares. That’s one more person who doesn’t hate me.

Because it means so much, especially when all the media is spewing out is that I’m a terrible person and no one wants people like me near them. It means so much because I’m tired of people who won’t sit next to me in class, or who choose to join the longer line at the grocery store because they don’t want to be beside me and my family. It means so much when I have to lift my head any time someone says the words Islam or Muslim because I’m scared that they’ll say something that’ll hurt, when I have to pay attention to the news because who knows what so and so is saying now, who knows which of my people are being attacked now, who knows what’s going to happen to me now.

It means so much because I’ve been given the idea that the world is against me. And a huge part of it may be, but at least I’ve been reminded that some of it, just a small group of people, acknowledges that I’m a person too. That people like me are just that, people.

Kashmir 

The Islamophobia of the Ruling Party

Delhi Riots: took place in Feb 2020, 53 (officially) dead, more than 2/3rd were Muslim, targeting of muslim communities by right wing Hindutva people

1. Islamophobic WhatsApp Group Behind the Riots (TW: islamophobia, rape threats)

2. Current situation of displaced victims

3. Islamophobic police violence (TW: police brutality)

Ethnic Cleansing In India

CAA/NRC (TW: police violence)

Use of Tablighi Jamat as Scapegoats