bajramajs.

jenny. 30ish. multifandom / shipping / mess. 99% of this blog is queued.

[fidget-sinner]

En Anglais, on ne dit pas “quatre vingt dix neuf”, on dit “ninety nine” qu'on pourrait traduire comme “Hurr durr, regardez mois, j'ai un système de numérotation fonctionnel” et je crois que c'est magnifique.

[aimeegbbs]

2020: the wilds calendar (insp.)

[dua-daily]

Dua Lipa photographed by Markus Pritzi for Warner Music

[everygayisablessing]

does Maca own a whole shirt? sources say no.

[afronerdism]

The conversation surrounding cultural appropriation has been so severely mutilated by white “allies” that the original intention behind that conversation has become almost unrecognizable in most social contexts.

[afronerdism]

To explain what I mean, the conversation around cultural appropriation was started by black and native people to discuss the frustrations we feel at being punished socially and financially for partaking in our cultural heritage while white people could take, I.e. appropriate, aspects of our culture that we are actively shamed for and be heralded as innovators. It was about the frustrations we feel when the same white people who shamed us would take our culture and wear it as if they were the ones who created it while still actively shaming us for doing the same.

The original push behind naming cultural appropriation and having these conversations were so that we as a society could evaluate why we were punished for our heritage while white People were not. It was supposed to be about seeking solutions. The idea was to create a society where we could celebrate our cultures with impunity. It was never about telling white people that they “weren’t allowed” to do certain things. We did ask that white People stop doing certain things because they weren’t doing them respectfully and were not invited to do them, but the primary reason we asked them to desist was to reclaim the things they had stolen and to reassign them culturally back where they belonged.

White “allies” saw these conversations happening and instead of trying to aplify our own voices or even try to learn about the complexities behind why we were saying what we were saying, they instead began screaming over us and creating a narrative that was hardly even the bones of what we originally set out to say. It was like they took the conversation we were trying to have, completely decontextualized it, and stripped it of all it’s nuance in order to gain social currency by seeming progressive.

So the conversation around cultural appropriation went from “This aspect of our heritage belongs to us and we find it egregious that we are shamed for it. What steps can we take to address the racism that’s creating this situation as well as rehome the things that have been stolen” to “you’re not allowed to do that because if you do that you’re racist, we don’t really understand why that’s racist but you’re not allowed to do that and if you do that you’re a klansman no exceptions. So you’re not allowed because because”

At the end of the day, did I like the fact that sally was wearing dreads? No. But my primary concern was not that sally was wearing dreads but rather that sally could wear dreads and I couldn’t. THAT was the intended focus of those conversations. It was about addressing the inequality. It was about us. Now the conversation is just about sally and were completely forgotten.

White People are always asking me what they can do to help. You want to know? Stop talking. Aplify our voices and shut the fuck up because you all have pretty much derailed this conversation and many more like it to the point that we no longer are trying to make steps to understand and dismantle the racism around cultural appropriation and instead are just using it as social shaming tactics.

[pocketgalaxies]

You’ve never been in love?

[leaderirene]

queen of being startled ( @lovethewonder​​​ asked: confused vs startled irene)

[atarnishedcompass]

Friend: Wanna hang out tomorrow?

Me: I actually performed an Activity yesterday. Please wait the three day recovery period to submit another inquiry

[earpwave]

[livs-cooke]

I don’t want to like anyone. So you’ve been just totally fucking inconvenient.

Black Mirror: San Junipero (2016), dir. Owen Harris

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

Okay this is a very half-formed thought and I’m not sure where I’m going with it yet, but the fact that the teen girls we’re meant to root for in so many Teen Girl Stories are the ones who are bad at or uncomfortable with performing femininity probably isn’t a coincidence. And it’s mostly not because the people who create media about teen girls want to shatter gender roles; it’s more likely because even though femininity is the prescribed way for female-identified people to behave it’s also seen as something largely unpleasant.

Um. I’m going somewhere with this, maybe after I finish my homework. But I want to hang onto this thought.

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

ex: the proof of Regina George’s redemption is giving up her hyper-femininity in favor of aggressive, masculine-coded sports

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

ex 2: in High School Musical Gabriella and Taylor have a bonding moment over their nail beds being “history”, contrasting themselves with the more conventionally feminine cheerleaders. Gabriella is hardly butch but her femininity is portrayed in a more soft, natural way to contrast with Sharpay’s louder, more eye-catching and implicitly unpleasant outfits. Sharpay is not the bad guy because she’s girly, but she’s maybe more girly because she’s the bad guy.

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

Because caring about your appearance is BAD, that’s a character trait that we associate with Bad Characters, and most especially Bad Women Characters. Sharpay and Regina care so much about their looks because they’re shallow, and that means they’ve unpleasant.

All teenage girls are told, one way or another, that they should care about their looks and put effort into being attractive. But in the stories about teen girls, the only ones visibly caring about their looks are the bitches.

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

If a Nice Girl ™ wants to make an effort to look good she better have an excuse, like prom or a date or finding out she’s a princess.

Princess Diaries makes such a good point about this, actually. Mia is supposed to be attractive, because she’s the protagonist, but she also can’t do it herself, because that will make her look like just another Vapid Teen Girl. So she gets a makeover handed to her. Pretty is something that Just Happens to nice girls, because if you work at it you’re a bitch.

(Not to mention pretty isn’t compatible with frizzy hair or glasses.)

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

God, fucking Harry Potter isn’t exempt from this. Hermione gets contrasted with Lavender and it’s so obvious that Lavender is Wrong, because she’s goofy and sentimental and clingy and girly girly girly, in sharp contrast with Hermione “I only do my hair for the Yule Ball, I’ve got shit to do” Granger over here. And that’s not shitting on Hermione! It’s just clear that there’s a very particular sort of teenage girl we’re supposed to like in HP and she doesn’t care about Girl Things.

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

Even Sky High, the greatest teen movie of all time, falls into this. The women on the good guys’ side are Layla - soft femme, a little tomboyish, has strong opinions - and Magenta - vaguely punkish, v snarky - neither of whom do feminity “right”.

On the bad side there’s Penny, who’s a LITERAL evil cheerleader hivemind, and Gwen, who’s both the most popular girl in school and the actual super villain behind everything. These things are not coincidences.

[hope-mikaelson]

 - The Sun is Also a Star

[ethersmoon]

[bithcassidy]

[ethanhunt-deactivated20230911]

Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday (1953) dir. William Wyler

[michaun]

Sophia Taylor Ali as Fatin Jadmani in The Wilds

[transvampirerights]

[robinsghost]

[cephalopede]

Wait this versions better