Love Me&U

lol YES

like that joke was 1000% written for the asians in the audience and watching at home to sympathy-laugh at. but emma just had to step in and be like “hey u know what? i really did goof i feel so bad wow look at me get ally points” as if she didn’t have a million other platforms and opportunities to apologize for it in the last- wait for it- FOUR YEARS that didn’t involve her speaking over a woc, and don’t even get me started on her taking the role in the first place.

if she actually felt bad about it, she would do more than ignore it until she gets called out publicly on it twice a year and treat it flippantly at that. there is so much pain rooted in whitewashing that she can’t even begin to understand but she thinks interrupting sandra oh in the middle of her monologue on one of the biggest hollywood nights of the year on national television will make the booboo all better right?

Ben Lockwood is a villain. They kind of trust that you know the guy is bad already. 

What was truly chilling about the episode–what the ep was actually saying–is the fact that “Agent Liberty” was an actual person that you could see yourself living next door to, and that the people doing these things are people. They’re your neighbors. They’re your family. They’re your classmates. They could be you. It’s not “portraying them as sympathetic”, it’s (imo) the banality of evil.

And they’re also pointing something out–Part of the reason why white nationalists have been successful is because they realized they needed to “rebrand”–recruiting people like Ben Lockwood to be their public face. He’s charming. That is literally why Mercy and Otis recruited him. What I’ve heard people saying in criticism amounts to, “Supergirl should’ve portrayed these people as evil irredeemable monsters who kick puppies”, and just. That misses the point. Ben Lockwood is a monster, and he’s a monster because he does monstrous things. It doesn’t matter what “reason” he had.

I can see why this would be lost on the “fiction=reality” side of tumblr, though, because they seem perfectly comfortable with monstrous things if they’re done for the “right cause”.

He’s also being used by people (Mercy and Otis) who ultimately view people like himself and Jensen as expendable tools to achieve their ends (which is also true of a lot of people in Lockwood’s position irl–they’re being used to move someone else’s agenda forward). Lockwood is being used to make their message charming and relatable. “Agent” Jensen is manipulated for a one-time use and then Mercy and Otis are ready to dispose of him. Lockwood is in way over his head, and he doesn’t understand that yet.

“State the idea you wish to express as clearly as possible, and in terms preschoolers can understand.” Example: It is dangerous to play in the street. ​​​​​​

“Rephrase in a positive manner,” as in It is good to play where it is safe.

“Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet make subtle distinctions and need to be redirected to authorities they trust.” As in, “Ask your parents where it is safe to play.”

“Rephrase your idea to eliminate all elements that could be considered prescriptive, directive, or instructive.” In the example, that’d mean getting rid of “ask”: Your parents will tell you where it is safe to play.

“Rephrase any element that suggests certainty.” That’d be “will”: Your parents can tell you where it is safe to play.

“Rephrase your idea to eliminate any element that may not apply to all children.” Not all children know their parents, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play.

“Add a simple motivational idea that gives preschoolers a reason to follow your advice.” Perhaps: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is good to listen to them.

“Rephrase your new statement, repeating the first step.” “Good” represents a value judgment, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them.

“Rephrase your idea a final time, relating it to some phase of development a preschooler can understand.” Maybe: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.

They are not “a little lady’s man.”

Don’t excuse him picking on a girl as him having a crush. Correct the behavior and stop treating it like it’s cute and normal.

Also stop insisting little boys have crushes on significantly older women. It’s gross.

In other words: why you should maybe step away from the internet for a hot sec sweetie, because fandom isn’t supposed to be a mind control cult where we all have to worship the very ground an author walks on. People are allowed to disagree with the author! It’s a free world!

@creatorofwords uh oh, thanks for playing but try again next time!! I came with the fucking receipts for this. 

Racist

1). The Nagini Thing. Making an Asian woman a slit-eyed animal is not at all good, even worse when that animal is a literal object owned by magical Hitler and used as a vessel for his soul. I don’t care what you think it is possible to have people of colour represented without racist storylines. Lots of people are talkng about this from all kinds of angles, it’s fucking bad.

2). The representation of Cho Chang. For a start, her name is actually two Korean surnames for a Chinese character so that tells you all you need to know about JK’s respect for other cultures. You should watch this video all about how hurtful the way Cho is written is for Asian girls. 

3). How many characters are in Harry Potter? About five maybe are people of colour? That’s terrible!!

4). “she literally wrote a book against racism” have you considered that talking over people of colour who try to have a conversation about your white feminism and deciding you know better than them about their own experiences isn’t actually a good thing to do. 

5). In the lore around how magic works, she shows that wand magic is superior to other forms. She also writes on Pottermore that white people had to show Native Americans how to use wands. This just screams of colonialist bullshit about educating the poor savages for their own good. Fuck that.

6). The treatment of the Patil twins, more side characters who are mostly forgotten except when our white heroes want to take them to the Yule Ball and then ignore them the whole time while they moon over white women. Classy.

Homophobic

1). She straight up didn’t write any gay characters then instead of acknowledging that mistake, she retroactively claims Dumbledore is gay like we should all be grateful. But newsflash, that doesn’t count as representation!! And she doesn’t deserve woke ally points. 

2). This has then got worse recently because the next Fantastic Beasts film is supposed to build on Dumbledore and Grindelwald when Grindelwald is coming to power. We know that supposedly Dumbledore was in love with Grindelwald as a kid and that’s why it takes him so long to bring Grindelwald down. So its massively relevant to this film’s plot then right?? And she’s already said he’s gay so it will be made canon now right?? Wrong. She’s stated she’s not doing anything to do with it at all. Because she loves getting fake ally points but hates actually doing anything. 

3). Everytime queer fans tried to bring this up, even very politely, she blocks them and accuses them of bullying. Is that really anyway to treat lifelong fans just because they raise an issue they’re worried about? Especially when its her books that helped teach a lot of us to speak up when we see something wrong.

4). The queerbaiting in Cursed Child. Now she didn’t write this one so she’s not directly involved I guess. I haven’t read Cursed Child so I can’t talk on it much but if you just google queerbaiting in Cursed Child you should be able to find out more.

5). She recently stated that the werewolves are a metaphor for the AIDs crisis. Now a). personally, I think there are certain narratives that belong to the people they happened to and the AIDs crisis would be one of them so she needs to get her dirty straight fingers the hell off of that. b). besides Lupin one of the main werewolves is Fenrir, a guy who literally just goes around biting children to turn them. That sounds massively like the stereotype from that era that gay men were just predators and paedophiles and were out to infect your kids.

Transphobic

1). She liked a bunch of tweets where terfs were saying vile things about trans women. She claims this was an accident but you tell me how easy it is to like multiple tweets on the same topic by accident (especially when they shouldn’t even come up on your feed unless you followed people with those views or searched for them). So yeah make of that one what you will but I’m adding transphobia to the list.

Culturally Appropriative 

1). She uses Native American mythology within her works, things that Native American groups have specifically asked her not to use because it is still an active part of their culture and it’s therefore offensive to portray it as “part of fantasy.”

Abuse Apologism

1). Despite including messages in the HP series about the seriousness of abuse she continues to support having Depp in her films and goes so far as to speak up for him despite the fact he beat his wife. She dares to call herself a feminist despite this.

2). Has the house-elves as stand ins for slaves but it’s okay because they like being slaves! They’re happy! Let’s laugh at Hermione for helping them!

JK Rowling is very much the kind of rich white lady who might have been progressive back in the 90s but then got comfortable and never bothered to learn or grow. Now she’s actively harming minority groups with her constant additions to the story and it’s bullshit. 

I’m not saying you can’t love Harry Potter (I love Harry Potter!). But stop sending these kind of messages to people who don’t love JK, it’s honestly pathetic. You have a brain, think for yourself and stop believing that she can do no wrong. it’s kind of weird… no human being is perfect. 

If you love a series so much that you have to insult people who disagree with the author despite all of the incredibly valid reasons they disagree with the author, then you really need to get a new hobby. it’s not healthy for you, it really isn’t. If you’re genuinely bothered or upset by people criticising an author, you need to take a step back. 

By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.

You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.

The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.

And at first you are, you’ve learned how to dodge. You’ve learned where their territories are. You know how to defend yourself.

But then one night you are sleeping in your shelter. You’re in a tree covered temperate part of earth. It seems benign. There are been no sightings of the dreaded “hippos” around. Not even any bears. But there is a slight rustle of the undergrowth. You try and ignore it telling yourself it is just the wind.

Then you hear the rustle again. closer this time.

You peer out into the darkness but see nothing amongst the trees.

The rustle again and now you realise you can smell something. It’s musky and slightly foul. It’s the smell of an omen, a warning. But what of? Where is this smell coming from.

You sit up, but it’s too late. The foul smelling creature is on you. You are hit with 17kg of coarse fur and vicious bites. Long dark claws tear in to you and you are pinned down white the striped creature tries to bite your throat.

It takes some doing but you manage to wrestle free. Blood drips from your wounds and already they itch with the sign of infection. The creature has a bloodied snout, rust rad, mingling with the black and white hairs. It lets out a terrifying growl from the back of its throat and looks to attack again. It’s between you and your knife, so your only choice is to back away.

Eventually the creature gives up and snuffles off in to the undergrowth, down a hole near your shelter you hadn’t noticed before.

When you make it back to your base you once again consult the captive human.

BAMrumblerumblethumpcrash!!!

You lost Jaxurn to a plant. Not even a mobile or carnivorous plant, just one that caused a vicious allergic reaction on contact that killed him in less than a rai'kor. Commander Vura'ko died to an insect bite, a tiny local pest that sucked a tiny bit of her blood and apparently replaced it with a bit of its last meal, which was full of disease. Backwash. She died to bug backwash. And yet you honestly envy them after that… thing you encountered…

When you got back to base the quarantine officer refused to let you inside. They had to roll a containment tank outside to put you in, because you all knew there would be no chance of eliminating the smell if it got into the ship’s air ducts. Smell. You wonder if your nasal slit will ever recover from this stench.

And the smell would. Not. Leave. After incinerating your gear the Q.O. had you use every cleansing agent they could think of, including a few janitorial ones, and still everyone fled the stench if they were downwind of your tank. Desperate to protect everyone’s nasal slits from the smell the quarantine officer interrogated the humans. From them, a glimmer of hope: there was a cure. Somehow the juice of a certain fruit on this mudball was the only thing that could break up the chemicals in the little horror’s spray. Immediately the Q.O. sent a team to recover buckets of the stuff and made you bathe in it. That was hours ago and it didn’t seem to be working, though. All it was doing was turning your blue skin an interesting shade of purple.

Sighing in frustration you wave the med-assist on duty over, who only approaches after checking the wind direction. Annoyed, you flip on the tank`s vox speaker.

It came for someone almost every night. 

Any soldier alone was a viable target for this native monster that moved unseen by any but the security viewers, usually only spotted in hindsight.  They were taken as silently as this earth-monster moved.  Sometimes they’d find the remains in the morning taken up a tree and hung there, mostly eaten, as if it were a grisly reminder that the monster was still there, waiting unseen, to strike again. 

What little they saw of the monster on the vidfeed showed true horror.  Yellow eyes that shone with all the light it could gather.  It had fangs as long as his grasping digits.  Claws half that size formed curved hooks that allowed it to climb up their fortifications with impunity.  And in the underbrush, its spots made it almost impossible to see clearly in the undergrowth, if it could be seen at all.

Even the native sentients, the humans, had a healthy respect and fear for it. 

The earth natives called the monster a leopard.  

It was a constant fear that muddied the senses, and let the monster hunt even more effectively as the soldiers were always on edge.  Sleep deprived with fear, it made them even better targets for the monster. 

But rumor was that there was worse on this planet.  Rumors of a monster like a leopard but larger, and bigger in every imaginable sense. Stripped instead of spotted, which leaped from the underbrush with a sound.

The troops were not-quite-looking at her in the way troops do when they don’t want to be seen to contradict a ranking officer, but can’t quite muster a correct Expression of Enthusiastic Assent.  “The name of this species,” she pointed out, “is synonymous with dullness and slowness in the language of the Earth barbarians.”  Well, one language out of several thousand—these creatures needed Imperial guidance more than any other world on record—but there was no point in confusing the rank and file.

“I would warn you not to fuck with us, mate.” Their forced guide, a prisioner, had warned with a chilling grin upon capture. “If you think a moose is bad, wait until you tango with a red back.” To this day Tar'van fears the creature known as the red back, and what horrors it would bring.

The prisioner turned out to be of little help,the stubboness of his people causing them to refuse the danger that the captured human warned of. Tar'van recalls a moment when one of his squad members approached a creature know as a dingo, insistent they had seen these creatures before and they were tame. They barely escaped with 5 of the original 7 members of his squad.

Another moment Tar'van recalls was the brutal mauling they witnessed by the hands of a creature called an ‘Emu’

“Don’t feel too bad,” the prisioner mocked. “We lost a war to the Emu’s as well.”

Now with only 4 members of their squad left, including themself, Tar'van had learned to listen to the prisoner, to be wary of the simplest of creatures. This human was of the sub-species of ‘Zookeeper’ after all.

The ‘Zookeeper’ looks off to the distance, where the creature is.

“It’s a kangaroo, leave it be and you’ll be fine.” Tar'van nods, a human signal of acknowledgement if they are correct. The human smiles a bit.

“That creature cannot possibly harm us.” Tar'van’s squadleader protests. “It is so docile. I will aproach it and bring back it’s head to show this human is a fearmongering liar.”

The human reels back, a look of disgust crosses their face and anger passes through their eyes.

“Fucking do it mate, I dare ya.” The human hisses. The squad leader puffs up their hoinn gland, a sign of pride to their species, and aproached the so called ‘Kangaroo’.

“This will be unpleasant.” A squadmate mutters as they watch their leader raise their fist and bring it down on the creature. The ‘Kangaroo’ looks a little stunned by the impact, before it raises itself upon its strong tail and uses its powerful heind legs to launch their squadleader backwards through the air.

Their squadleader lands upon the ground, unmoving with black blooded oozeing from them. It appears Tar'van is the squads leader now.

“I don’t know what they expected.” the human says, smugness filling their tone. “Kangaroos are fucking shreaded. 8-pack and all.”

Tar'van steps forward to the human, whom inches back in a sign of fear as Tar'van pulls their blade from its holster, and in their first act as leader, frees the human of the bonds around their hands.

They had faced Emu’s. They had lost one in the battle but had experienced them. But this was no emu.

Looking to their guide, they all stare in horror as his face changes from calculating to fear. Pure, heart consuming horror as he stares at the large bird. “Cassowary…” They mimic him in fear. Squawking the horrific name as another joins the first in the mad run towards them.

“Excuse me,” the native Terran guide speaks up in a tired tone, and the squad’s cheers die on their lips. “This is Japan. You haven’t seen what–”

“Silence, worm! No sting can penetrate this plating!”

The guide tries to warn them once again, merely earning a blow that throws them to their knees. The troops set out, morale high, certain in their ability to brave the wildlife now and thirsting for vengeance against the non-sentient native species. One soldier thumps his fist against a tree. A hollow sound follows.

In an instant, the soldier is the centre of a storm of the striped insects. At first, no one pays it any mind. Their little stings cannot penetrate the new plating, after all.

But then the soldier falls to his knees, and the squad stares in horror as the insects enclose him in layer upon layer of their own bodies, all moving. The squad’s medic yells a warning at everyone to stay back, watching the readouts of the unfortunate soldier’s armour on their diagnostic screen with undisguised horror. The insects aren’t even stinging. They simply keep moving, one atop the other, and the soldier’s body temperature is slowly rising until he drops to the ground, quite literally cooked alive. The insect swarm takes off, unharmed save for the ones that were crushed when the trooper fell.

The human bares its teeth. A smile, they call it. Something humans do when they are happy. Yet you can’t help but think of all the creatures with the their large fangs and sharp teeth. (What kind of species uses a threat signal as a sign of happiness?)

“Persistence and ingenuity.” The human answers, still smiling. 

“Is that a miniature tiger?”

“Why does this human own a small pack of wolves?”

The aliens ask their human captive why small wolves live with them. 

“Oh, you mean dogs? Yeah, they’re the only animals that can keep up with us.”

The aliens look at each other in fear. “What do you mean?”

“Oh well that’s why you guys ‘won’ is because humans aren’t super fast or strong. I think my middle school biology teacher called us pursuit predators? It means we evolved to hunt things by following them at walking pace until they had to stop to sleep and then catching up to them then. Dogs are the only animals that can keep up with us. Did you know one time a pack of wolves tailed a herd of caribou for three days straight?”

“Uh… okay, what about these small round things with big teeth?”

“Omg dude no if you give a hamster enought time that little fucker can chew through concrete :)”

The aliens aren’t expecting any difficulties with their underwater expeditions. Of course, that’s when four of the life signs on the central screen simply vanish, like they’d never been there. 

Alpha turns on the direct communication lines to the remaining submersion pods, and the only thing they hear through the tinny speakers is screaming. 

Alpha resists the urge to turn and stare at the shackled human standing behind them, but Beta, Gamma and Theta have no such compunctions. 

The human shrugs. “I mean, we’ve never really been down there so we’re not entire sure, but we’ve heard stories of giant squids and stuff. No smoke without fire, and all that.” 

“There can be neither smoke nor fire underwater, human, cease your prattling.” 

The human snorts. “It’s a phrase. A metaphor? Man, I don’t know, I studied marine biology, not literature.” 

The human is unable to tell them anything useful about what might have happened to the submersion pods, but retrieved footage later shows tentacled behemoths snaking out of the depths of disturbed silt and cold water, and crushing the submersion pods effortlessly, in full view of the outer-hull cameras. The monsters have giant beaks which rip through the organic alloy sheets, and into the bodies of the pod pilots within. 

The outer-hull cameras register the blue of fresh spilled blood and gore, at the same time the on-board cameras register screaming and the red glow of critical power failure. 

The last thing the aliens can see on the retrieved footage is thin, long, snakelike creatures appearing out of the darkness and gloom, creating their own light and descending upon the remains of their brethren. They are accompanied by creatures that look like plastic bags, but which feed upon the toxic remains of the organic alloy of which the pods were made.

2) Earth has Poison Dart Frogs, we’re clearly a Death World.