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The Toxic Romance of Fizz/Ozzie

I have gotten an ask in regards to depictions of abuse in Helluva Boss and there is obviously much to say on the topic. Many others have gone over and criticized the show for its poor examples of abuse, however I believe a greater problem exists on the flip side of that topic. Hand in hand with abusive relationships, the show has crafted romantic ones that are just as damaging to the young adult audience this show appeals to. Just as some say that poor representation of abuse and abusers puts people at risk of becoming victims, so too does the poor representation of love and romance turn into a quagmire of unhealthy codependency that sets unrealistic standards for relationships and people that are inevitably going to become toxic when removed from fantasy.

It is one of the few reasons why I insist that Helluva Boss is not a show targeting adults, as it does not appeal to mature individuals with any true life experience. Overwhelmingly striking a chord with the stunted, socially disabled adult minority, or the emotionally volatile demographic of early twenty-something teenagers who have yet had the experience in life to identify harmful relationships or the biological maturity of their brains to reason outside their emotions, who make up the majority. It feeds off the sense of victimization that both of these groups harbor towards reality and requires a fantastical disconnection of such to engage with authentically.

That is not to say this is an attack on that group. As seen before with the meteoric rise of damaging media like “50 Shades of Grey”, it is not fair to claim no one can authentically interact and enjoy the material at presentation. Identically it is not proper to claim that individuals who enjoy this sort of media for what it is are somehow of subpar intellect. However, it is more fair to recognize that many who did see “50 Shades” as a romantic tale often ended up in abusive relationships when seeking out that “ideal” they believed the book portrayed. Many individuals who wandered into the kink scene looking for their own Christian Grey found exactly that as they were manipulated, controlled and taken advantage of by unsavory individuals. As such, this is not to say that media of this sort should not exist or be banned, but that coherent and concise criticism is necessary for these topics to keep people from reenacting unhealthy and toxic relationships.

In the words of Youtuber Swoop, “It’s not drama, it’s dangerous.” I feel it rings true here and for artistic media in general. It’s not just fiction, and it can have a real world impact on people, relationships and lives.

I covered over some of the issues with Stolitz in a previous post found *HERE*, but for this breakdown of harmful depictions of relationship dynamics, I’m going to be focusing on FizzaRolli and Asmodeus. The reason being, this is a textbook codependent relationship that is portrayed as an ideal through the narrative, and it is rather alarming to witness the way the fandom fawns over it. As I previously pointed out in *THIS* post, the issue with the Fizz/Ozzie relationship in the special episode is that the story conflict is FizzaRolli’s codependent nature on Mammon not being corrected, but rather redirected to being purely codependent on Asmodeus. I have legitimately seen it argued that because the characters are happy in their relationship, then the codependency is just love, which is why this essay is being written in the first place. This is direct evidence of a harmful and unhealthy dynamic being sold to an impressionable and immature audience to their own detriment.

According to PsycheCentral, codependent traits can be broken up into cognitive (how you think), emotional (how you feel), and behavioral (how you act).

Cognitive traits of Codependency are that the individual has difficulty identifying their own opinions from another person’s, primarily the target of the codependency. This means the individual will often conform themselves implicitly to the beliefs of their target. They lack a stable sense of self and attach to their target in a way to ground them psychologically. Additionally, they struggle to identify or express their needs because of this lack of identity. And it should be made clear that the lack of identity does not mean that they see themselves as an extension of the other person, but are highly changeable and lack any core sense of who they are or what they believe in. Their self image is so volatile that the act of codependency is a maladaptive coping skill to find some form of stability in another person. This also extends into a form of mirroring; taking on the desires of those around you as your own.

The episode makes it very obvious how FizzaRolli is codependent on Mammon because it is seen in the negative lens it is expected to be. FizzaRolli’s opinions and beliefs are mirrored images of Mammon’s greedy philosophy. Being the best with all the money and fame is what Mammon has instilled in Fizz’s core, and from the jump Fizzarolli expresses these values as his own. FizzaRolli doesn’t communicate with Mammon out of a sense of fear and often shelves his own feelings and desires to accommodate the King of Greed. These are obvious and I am sure everyone can easily identify them in the dynamic.

However, these are identical to FizzaRolli’s dynamic with Asmodeus. At the end of the episode when Ozzie and Fizz have their minute in the greenroom, Fizz consistently fails to communicate with Ozzie about his needs or desires. In context of the episode’s opening, FizzaRolli is able to easily lie to Asmodeus as to why he is participating in the pageant. It is never established that Fizzarolli is expected to participate, additionally his job with Ozzie would make his need to be hired by Mammon obsolete, let alone their relationship. So it appears to be solely Fizz’s choice as to why this episode occurred in the first place. It is obvious that Fizz feels out of control and overwhelmed about this situation, but he believes Ozzie would want him to participate because he would “lose him” otherwise.

Which means FizzaRolli believes his participation in the pageant is also what Ozzie actually wants, seen when he says “You’re with me because of who I am at my best!” And FizzaRolli is so entrenched in that belief that he imposes it on his partner despite Asmodeus clearly stating he would wish Fizz wouldn’t go. FizzaRolli’s decisions and thoughts are just as entirely embedded in the thoughts, opinions and desires of Ozzie, if not more, than Mammon. Just because Asmodeus’ cognitive priority is Fizz does not change the toxic codependency that this cycle is rooted in. It could be argued that because Ozzie rejecting FizzaRolli’s belief at the end of the episode allows Fizz the freedom to quit, it is only because of Fizz’s belief that Ozzie wanted him in the pageant, not Mammon, is why he ever forced himself to go in the first place.

Emotional traits of Codependency can be broken down into a single feeling: Fear. The difficulty of saying “no” due to a fear of rejection or abandonment. A fear of not being accepted, loved or supported. Feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem are all intrinsically tied to a codependent dynamic. This results in the individual giving of themselves beyond their own boundaries in order to appease their target and maintain a sense of value to that person.

Again, this is clear in FizzaRolli’s dynamic with Mammon. He never asserts himself in any way regardless of how uncomfortable he feels while simultaneously pushing the limits of his own mental and emotional health to the point of resentment. He attributes everything he is and has to Mammon, highlighting his utter lack of self-esteem. Additionally, the episode goes out of its way to show Fizz feeling inadequate in direct contrast to the competition.

This inadequacy goes deeper still, however, when presented with the Fizz/Ozzie dynamic because FizzaRolli believes he is unworthy of his relationship with Ozzie as a fundamental basis. He says, “I’m barely worthy of working with a King of Sin … Without all this, I’m just nothing.” And it isn’t FizzaRolli who finds value in himself. He spills himself out to Asmodeus, leaving himself vulnerable and empty, and instead of seeing his own value, it is Ozzie who fills him up. He originally places his value in his work. His fame and abilities are what his entire sense of self-worth is hinged on, which gets replaced by another external source that FizzaRolli arguably has less impact on One could argue that while unhealthy, FizzaRolli has a direct input in his work and thus feeds his self-esteem through his own merit. The solution to that problem is to give up all control and ownership of his emotional state for it to be regulated and maintained entirely by Ozzie. One could reasonably say that the solution to this episode’s conflict was for Fizz to actually become less of a whole person to find happiness.

And then there are the behavioral traits. Keeping in mind the emotional motivation behind all behavior is fear, the individual may take on more responsibility than they can handle or are not even their responsibility in the first place; pressuring themselves to support their target, getting caught up in the other person’s matters, or even “rescuing” them from their hardships. They tend to overshare, lack boundaries and are constantly seeking external validation and approval.

For this one, I’m skipping the Mammon comparison entirely because I feel the situation is self-evident. Instead I am going to pivot slightly to add onto this thought:

In the PsycheCentral article, licensed marriage therapist Kate Engler says, “All codependent people are people pleasers, but not all people pleasers are codependent.” She proceeds to expand this point by explaining how Codependency is a more extreme form of people-pleasing due to its mutual nature. When two people are in a true codependent dynamic, neither party can function without the other one.

That is to say, Asmodeus is also codependent on FizzaRolli.

Ozzie does not express his codependency in such a way that feels so textbook in comparison due to his social superiority, however, we see in Oops how codependent Asmodeus is on FizzaRolli to regulate and maintain his own emotional state. Ozzie is so incapable of functioning without Fizz that, if not for Stolas, he would have immediately signed away all his factories and even resulted in the death of his partner. He doesn’t make decisions based on his own values, but denies Stolas a crystal due to his partner’s wants and desires. Asmodeus’ proud announcement of doing so, as well, shows a degree of approval seeking. Being so pleased with himself on the belief that he did what his partner would have wanted him to do, and openly seeking validation for that decision as well. He lacks any sense of self outside of elevating FizzaRolli and Fizz lacks any sense of self outside of Ozzie’s approval.

The sole reason this relationship even seems to be healthy is because of the fact that Ozzie has no character outside of being in love with FizzaRolli. The unrealistic nature of a whole other human having no will, desire, or purpose outside of being in love with you is unrealistic and unhealthy. It is predicated on a belief that another person will make one "complete", placing the responsibility of your existence as a person on another and believing that is love. It is handing someone a gun to aim at your head, but its okay because they will never pull the trigger. If Asmodeus had any sense of his own identity, he would inevitably cause immense emotional and psychological harm to Fizz, and the only saving grace is that he is poorly written.

The result is that FizzaRolli and Asmodeus depict a fundamentally toxic dynamic being depicted as mutual support and love. It is a demented ideal of what a healthy relationship should look like that is actively poisoning the concept of relationships for an entire demographic of young people. It reaffirms anxious attachment styles that a concerning majority of the fandom embody, fundamentally dooming a percentage of those individuals to replicate this rotten cycle in their own reality. Regardless of how few people ended up abused following their romanticization of 50 Shades of Grey, the fact that even a single person ended up in that position due to a piece of media is too many. As such, I feel it is beyond necessary to denounce the “most wholesome” relationship of Helluva Boss for the dysfunction it actually is.

Important ideas to consider when creating characters who are black and indigenous people of color. (x)

brieuc talks comics

The Fall of X, or the legacy of Krakoa

Hellfire Gala 2023, Phil Noto Krakoa has been a fascinating thing to watch play out. I got into comics proper shortly after the new mutant n

We will kill the most diverse X-Men team this era has ever seen, but don’t worry, self-described genetic absolutist White Queen will avenge their deaths. The character whose first scene in this project was announcing her intention to act as the capitalist colonial arm of the mutant nation is never criticised or analysed properly for this, and in fact is rewarded with being the revolutionary leader, organising what needs to be done in the fight against the terrorist Orchis. We will show any critics of Krakoa to be nothing more than racist Nazi scum who die horrifying and darkly comedic deaths, to canonise our great and beautiful paradise ethnostate as the dream we all shared, that was ripped apart from us by jealous fools. Both powerful enough to pull off that feat, but not powerful enough to stop Kitty-now-Kate Pryde from going through a goddamn door. Simultaneously strong enough to defeat mutantkind at their strongest and proudest, and weak enough that they grovel for forgiveness the moment they’re defeated. These depictions are not unique to superhero comics–but ethnostates are. Using these tricks when you’re writing an era that’s opening moment sets up the direct comparison to Israel is, bluntly, disgusting, and shameful. It is disgusting if it is intentional, and it is still disgusting if it is accidental. The promise of an interesting story with a harrowing fallout is gone, and all that remains are the lies of fascists put in the mouths of characters whose revenge we are supposed to root for.

Wrote an essay discussing my feelings on the fallout and legacy of Krakoa. I also have a substack ver if wordpress doesn't work for everyone.

why aren't you an avengers hater?

Hi anon!

I do like the Avengers; specifically, the version I got to know in the initial few comics, & their development until the 70s & 80s, and hell, i even appreciate some of what was going on in the 90s. part of this is because i simply have to; most of my favourite characters are majorly affiliated with the avengers, like scarlet witch, the vision, hank pym, wonder man, wasp, hercules etc, so if i didn't like them or didn't learn to appreciate them i'd probably struggle. you'd be hard pressed to find a hardcore fan of wanda, for example, and not have them at the very least tolerate the team, otherwise you'd be missing out on the crucial moments of her development, and this goes for other characters.

so why do i like them specifically? i guess because they offer an interesting place in marvel, in that their dynamics are... weird. like, the x-men have a very clear common cause in that they're all mutants & none of them want to get, you know, murdered, and simultaneously (in the leekirby era) want to keep mutant extremeists contained so they don't take their anger out on a defenceless human innocent. the fantastic four, while heroes, don't have that as their primary job; they're a family of explorers. the avengers are different in that they neither have a common thread really connecting them, except for the fact that they all in some way want to help other people, and recognise that this would be easier achieved with other people supporting them.

there's less strings attached, at least initially. they're a group of weird misfits that have a common cause, but a lot of the time, really find each other intolerable because they all have conflicting personalities & ways of heroing. this is different from the x-men of the era, because they all have broadly similar ways due to being taught by xavier. the fantastic four, while conflicting, balance each other out because of their defined archetypes. the avengers try to do this, but there are complications that make them interesting, and part of the intrigue for me is reading & watching how different writers grapple with trying to have different archetypes met by changing around different aspects. they are a team constantly reshuffling & remodelling, which is sort of frustrating today when a new team means a new volume, but is funner to read for me personally when things just continued as they were.

examples; when thor leaves the team, hank & janet return to the team, and hank becomes permanently stuck at 10 feet tall, because the team needed a new muscular character to act as the tank. around the time when hercules joins the team, hank becomes able to be normal sized again. we see this again when clint barton becomes goliath for some reason; the team needs a tank. janet, intitally a fun-loving, flirty character, matures as writers begin to focus on her marital problems with hank, and so beast arrives and takes on that roll. when he leaves, its not long until starfox joins the team, and similarly plays the role of flirty hedonist that beast did. this continues on & on, and its an interesting source of conflict for me between writer & team. in some ways, they're more free to reinvent & introduce characters more than the fantastic four or x-men of the same era. in other ways, they're more restricted by the very clear rules set up in what makes a superhero team work & what archetypes you need.

this is very well shown in hank pym; writers would constantly change him, his powers & identities, to justify him being there when more powerful characters inevitably came along to do what he did better, because he was only a regular human being. but they kept him around because he was psychologically interesting, which obviously resulted in the trail of yellowjacket arc. an innocuous change to make him seem more interesting had such a strange knock on effect and its interesting!

yes, you get that in other comics, but because they're not as tied together as the ff or the x-men, writers constantly have to justify why is the character there. what are they contributing. for wanda & pietro, it's because they represent a potential safe space, a way to realise their heroism that didn't exactly get much light with magneto, an opportunity to discover their potential. for janet, it's initially a way to get away from the mundanity of being a wealthy heiress, because she's developed a taste for the adrenaline of superheroics with hank, and as she grows it is because she feels a genuine responsibility for others & knows she can make more radical change there than she would as a fashion designer. for t'challa, it's initially because he wants to protect his home from them, and then because they're facing a lot of threats that could harm wakanda, and does develop a genuine appreciation & closeness for the team but his nation always comes first. and so on.

i realise i've gone on a bit and to be honest i don't think i articulated myself well, but those are the reasons i come to; they offer a clearly defined other purpose in the 616 universe, they serve interesting dilemmas for characters in a way that very naturally comes, at least in the 60s thru 80s, while for other teams like the ff it could sometimes feel a bit forced.

now, this isn't to say there aren't flaws, and i'll try to be brief when i say these; they are the team worst impacted by 9/11 and the changes it had on american politics. the change from a mostly indepentant team that actively rebelled against the government & agents put in charge of them to essentially a government puppet hurt them so much. the avengers are supposed to actively fight corruption; vision, beast, and i'm pretty sure sam wilson all try to deck gyrich in the face at least once, but after 9/11 they all listen & argue his arguments.

the change from one or two main titles to multiple also hurts the team. it makes sense; there's so many avengers characters, but having so many has made contemporary writers lose sight of what makes the avengers the avengers. what makes them matter, what makes them work. the first main reshuffle of the team brought three different villains into the team to become heroes. they shouldn't be attacking & arresting superpowered people at random, who've committed very mild crimes. they offer a place for redemption, and that has gotten lost in recent times.

anyway, sorry for rambling, but tldr; avengers mostly good, their characterisation post 9/11 is deeply unfair & needs to be actively looked at by writers if they want to move past it, and i think that most comic readers, especially a certain facet of x-men fans, should read through their earlier stuff to avoid making generalisations mostly based off contemporary event comics, because that isn't the avengers i am thinking of when i talk about them, & i think people should know those avengers before making overarcing statements abt how they're all cops or something lol

I think, from my opinion at least, what differentiates Earthspark from other Transformers shows (more specifically recent installations is) that it took risks and even though its messages may not have been conveyed across to its fullest potential, the intention and direction are still fairly evident and less harmful in comparison to other Transformers media

Earthspark manages to balance darker themes fairly well, whilst not forgetting its primary audience are children. There are both subtle and blatant dark themes throughout the show, there is a lot of exploration regarding one's identity which is more notable (but not exclusive) to the Terran Nightshade

It makes an honest attempt to be inclusive and while it may feel a bit stunted and awkward at times, it achieved its purpose despite what may be awkward handling— I find it odd how beloved Knockout is, despite the fact that he is an offensive gay stereotype (and not really handled well as a character in general) but the scene of Nightshade, an explicit non-binary character, saving Sam in ‘Home’ is apparently too awkward and regarded viewed as good but not enough in terms of representation?

EarthSpark has Black Filipino protagonists! There is casual representation with Mo's hair bonnet and the Filipino cuisine they eat; Alex speaks tagalog at times (although I think I do recall someone on here pointing out that the dialect he used isn't accurate to his geographic hometown in the Philippines?) and there is a whole episode where he teaches Bumblebee his culture as they hunt for the WakWak! I love when Transformers and humans teach each other about their culture, it both humanizes the Transformers reiterating that they are not emotionless robots AND it gives minorities a platform to be represented in a popular franchise

Despite the fact that the Malto children seem to be almost forcibly matured by the narrative and struggling to cope with the fear and anxiety of having their family torn apart, something that BIPOC people are at a higher likelihood of experience in the real world, it doesn't forget that at the end of the day they're all children. I quite enjoy Mo as a character and her emotional maturity, she offers her older brother wisdom and emotional comfort constantly; and when her safety is at risk her younger Terran siblings ensure that they take on a protector role due to the ultimate difference that poses threat to that of a human child and a Transformer child— because the Terrans are CHILDREN!

PTSD and trauma are touched on in EarthSpark, Hashtag's autonomy is violated by Dr Meridian and uses her body to cause harm towards her siblings and damage her environment; he used her body to prove his point that Transformers are dangerous and cannot integrate with society and Hashtag suffers from flashbacks of the experience. Despite the fact that the situation between the two is not expanded on, it is clear that Megatron has hurt Starscream in the past— Hashtag (even though she has no reason to believe Starscream because Megatron IS her mom's friend and kind towards her, "therefore he can't possible have done that") immediately believes Starscream when she confronts the latter's poor treatment towards others. She opens up about her own traumatic experience with Dr Meridian and while the situation may not be the same, she was trying to establish a common ground in the fact that they're both victims

Grimlock from his time at the bot brawls and also from having been mind-controlled by Dr Meridian blatantly suffers PTSD and is triggered several times throughout the respective episode and ineffectively copes by pushing it down. It is a dangerous thing for a Transformer to be mind-controlled, let alone a fire-breathing dinobot; fortunately Jawbreaker realising that he pushed Grimlock too far steps in and manages to calm the panicked dinobot down, assuring him that he is more than just a rampaging dinobot and there is more to Grimlock than meets the eye

EarthSpark gives us a lot in terms of themes and season one was incredibly ambitious, frankly I don't think many of the other previous Transformers shows could've handled it better than EarthSpark. I don't think that EarthSpark is without fault, on the contrary I have a few grievances with it but my issue is that people (perhaps without even realising it) are showing clear bias when they critique EarthSpark. Honestly, I do think that if the protagonists were a white family that people wouldn't mind that they're so central to the story— to be honest, that aggravates me a lot because the point of EarthSpark is that the humans have a central part in the story, it's literally about Earth born Transformers who are created a pair of siblings and adopted into their family. Criticising it centering around family and the respective human family members goes against the entire point of the show...

One of the more common critiques I have seen and I do agree to an extent, is EarthSpark's pacing. However, I absolutely think that its pacing though rushed still manages to deliver a great story that went out of its way to include difficult topics to portray— as opposed to Transformers: Prime and Transformers: Cyberverse. There is no amount of analysis and meta posts that I could read that would convince me that the pacing of those two shows were better than EarthSpark thus far, OR effectively and satisfactorily wrapped up the themes, character arcs and plotlines

It just seems that EarthSpark is taking a lot more criticism at a way earlier stage compared to other previous Transformers shows and that makes me sad because people are treating it as though its shortcomings are genuinely harmful but dismiss the previous harmful depictions in the Transformers franchise... I admire the risks and narrative choices that EarthSpark has undertaken so far and I hope it only improves from here on out, to give it that opportunity the show must continue and be given a chance to fulfil its vision

Woah, woah, woah, I agree with many of the things you bring up here, but if you're going to send me a ginormous essay, could you post it on your own blog, please? Plenty of your points are well thought-out and could stand to be there own posts, and I know I've answered long asks before, but this is way too long for me to respond to everything easily. Two or three of these points would be enough for one ask, so that's all I'm going to comment on:

-The criticism about Alex Malto defining a word wrong is definitely something that should be brought up, and I'm glad people have. I think the issue isn't necessarily the language he speaks, but that he defines "lolo" as a Tagalog word when he'd probably say it's a Bisaya word since he grew up in Bohol? I do wonder if there could be something more to his history that may explain this, especially since given his background he's probably had to switch to Tagalog and English a lot, or if there's something about his family we don't know yet. I don't have the knowledge or background to speak on this though. Also, part of me is a little glad discussing the language politics is even on the table at all for this franchise after like... how TFA handled South Asian representation, which it sounds like you were thinking as well lol

-I'm not sure if you're quoting somebody, but Hashtag (and the rest of the Maltos) ABSOLUTELY had reason to believe Megatron was abusive! Did they not go to that war memorial and hear him talking about how he's done horrible things? Don't the Malto parents often mention how he's been trying to change—the kids all know he's done harm! And Starscream even pointed out how hypocritical it is to think Megatron wouldn't leave people behind when he's locking up his former followers—even kids could get that point! Plus, the show is almost certainly trying to make the point that people who say they've been hurt should be believed and the first impulse shouldn't be to try to convince them it's not true. That's a good message for kids!

Hello my friend, my name is Jaafar from North Gaza, I am 24 years old, and finally after waiting for a whole year of killing, displacement, hunger, massacres and genocide against us, the time for a ceasefire has come, thank God we are still alive after all the exhaustion, and during the next week we will return to our homes in North Gaza, which was completely destroyed, unfortunately our area was completely and brutally destroyed and we have nothing left, neither a home, nor property, nor furniture, nor clothes, nor any other clothes, I know that returning to the north will be very painful and difficult due to the lack of the necessities of life, and we will start building our lives from scratch, but we are happy for the war to end.

Please 🙏, donate to my campaign to save my family, even a small amount will help us stabilize ourselves a little, and buy some supplies 🥹, I hope that God will protect your family and friends, thank you 🥰🩵

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #299 )✅️

Chuffed

Help Jaafar Support His Family

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Barnes and I am a US citizen organizing this fundraiser on behalf of my friend Jaafar, who is fundraising to suppor

I can't lie, I find it very odd that posts cautioning people against donating to individual* campaigns and promoting the idea of supporting mutual aid efforts and community kitchens in Gaza can rack up 10k+ notes--while a post promoting a community kitchen (that I can personally vouch for) struggles to get 1k notes, and has barely pulled in a couple hundred dollars over the past week.

I actively try to avoid using guilting tactics in fundraising, but this is weird to me. It's like people are using these posts as an excuse not to do things they already didn't want to do anyway, rather than actually taking their recommendations on board...

*In my experience, these campaigns often support large extended families + their neighbours

Chuffed

Mawasi Al-Qarara Mutual Aid Project

This campaign is a mutual aid initiative involving myself, my friends Mohammad Abu-Alwan and his two brothers in Palestine, and Shakhya Scri

MAQMAP is a community kitchen aiming to support families in the Mawasi Al-Qarara area.

So the Jews went from being victims of genocide to commiters of it? Weird how the circle of power goes.

okay no, this is not the way it is. jewish people =/= israel. not all jewish people condone israel’s actions, and a significant number actively oppose it.

and jewish people continue to face antisemitism today, so saying something like “Jewish people went from victims to committers” as a general statement is really gross.

(also a lot of jewish people have expressed discomfort with the word “Jews” and prefer “Jewish” btw)

How your disabled character's allies react to their disability can make or break the representation in your story: Writing Disability Quick Tips

[ID: An image with “Writing Disability quick tips: How your character's allies react to their disability matters” written in chalk the colour of the disability pride flag, from left to right, red, yellow, white, blue and green. Beside the text are 2 poorly drawn people icons in green, one is standing with their hand up to the face of the other, who is in a wheelchair. /End ID]

Something I brought up in my big post about Toph Beifong was how the other characters reacted to Toph pointing out that things were not accessible to her and setting boundaries regarding her disability, which were ignored. I had more to say about it than I thought I did, as it turns out (when isn't that the case lol) but I feel like this is an important aspect of disability representation that is all too often over looked.

You can write the best, most accurate portrayal of a specific disability ever put to screen or page, but it won't mean much if all the other characters, specifically those we're supposed to like and empathise with, treat your character terribly for being disabled and having needs relating to said disability, especially if the story justifies their behaviour.

You see this most often with autistic characters and especially autistic-coded characters. The character in question will be given a bunch of autistic traits, most often traits relating to not understanding certain social dynamics or sarcasm, and when they get it wrong, the other characters we are supposed to like jump down their throat, tease them or outright abandon them. Autism isn't the only disability that gets treated this way, but it is one of the more common ones that get this treatment. It doesn't matter if you do everything else right when creating an autistic character if the other "good guys" constantly call them annoying, get angry at them or laugh at them for the very traits that make them autistic, or for advocating for their needs.

Likewise, if you have a leg amputee character who is otherwise done well, but is constantly being criticised by their allies for needing to rest their legs or taking too long to get their prosthetics on, it undermines a lot of the other work you've done. Same goes for having a wheelchair user who is accused of being a bore or a stick in the mud because they point out the places their friends want to go to on a group holiday have no wheelchair access, or a deaf character who is accused of being entitled for wanting their family to learn to sign, or anything else.

This isn't to say you can never have moments like these in your stories, but its important to remember that a) people with the same disability as your character will be in your audience. If you spend a whole season of your TV show shaming your autistic character for real traits that real autistic people have, they're not exactly going to feel welcome and may not want to hang around. b) it's going to very, very heavily impact people's perceptions of your "heros" who do this, especially in they eyes of your audience members who share the character's disability or who have had similar experiences. This isn't like calling someone a mean name or being a bit of a dick when you're sleepy, it's going to take a lot to regain audience appeal for the offending character, and depending on exactly what they do and how frequently they do it, they may not even be able to come back from it at all. And finally, c) there should be a point to it outside of just shaming this character and saying the other guy is an asshole. Like I said before, you're character is criticising real people's real disabilities and the traits or problems that come with them, things that they often have no control over, it shouldn't be used as a cheap, quick way to establish a quirky enemies to lovers dynamic or show that one guy is kind of an ass before his redemption arc. If you really must have your characters do this, be mindful of when and how you use it.

Israel and Palestine, History, Politics, Confirmation Bias and the Hypocritical Racist Saviourism of the Western Left

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Confirmation bias

"im doing a paper on antisemitism and it so difficult to find sources that aren't pro-isreal. They're all going on about how saying that Israel shouldn't exist is antisemitic. no how is thinking something should not exist if genocide is a part of its creation antisemitic? The Israeli state itself is antisemitic and has continuously failed to support its population of Holocaust victims.

any help on finding decent sources would be much appreciated."

When all of your references are telling you that your starting external point of reference is Antisemitic, that is because it is... You can't unpack your biases and unlearn them by searching for references that confirm your biases. Learn that your assumptions are likely bigoted and you need to learn what you don't know instead of seeking validation of what you believe.

To specifically address "saying that Israel shouldn't exist is Antisemitic", Israel DOES exist and more than 40% of all Jews live there, and no matter your opinion of its founding or the conduct of its government.... unless you intend to conquer Israel by force, and believe me it's been tried, it will not cease to exist by political pressure. So the expression that Israel shouldn't exist is tacit war mongering. There is more to be said on the topic, but that will come later.

More below the cut, very long

But Israel is an "Ethno-State" and that's bad! Isn't it?

First, at least this canard recognises Jews as an ethnic group, but the accusation of Israel as an "Ethno-State", is a deeply uncomfortable canard levelled against a Parliamentary Democracy where the third largest national political party is an Arab Party and 10 Arabs currently hold office in the Knesset. Arabs hold office, serve as judges, they Serve in the IDF as General's and Major's and make up 21% of Citizenship.

SAR-EL - Volunteers for Israel

Israel’s Highest Ranking Muslim Soldier Speaks Out - SAR-EL - Volunteers for Israel

Last week I was privileged to be at a Manchester  ((UK) Zionist Council meeting where two IDF Officers

Where Do Israeli Jews Come From, aren't they western colonisers?

No Israeli citizen and certainly not the vast majority of Jews around the world would want Jews to be a stateless people again. Particularly not the Majority of Israelis who are refugees from the Genocides, Pogroms and Expulsions against the Jewish people across the Middle East and North Africa, their children and grandchildren.

We are painfully aware that after the last century of genocides and expulsions in South West Asia Jews stand on the edge of extinction on the continent of our origin. My family had to flee the Libyan Pogroms and Partition in Pakistan under threat of forced conversion or death... Today there are no Jews in either country, you either fled or you died. Many Jewish communities and traditions that have endured for millennia would be extinct today if not for the safe haven provided by Israel.

the Guardian

The tragedy of the Yemeni Jews | Lyn Julius

Lyn Julius: The government has stood by and let jihadist gangs drive Jews out of Yemen. Now their community is on the brink of extinction

[The above article states that approximately 400 Yemenite Jews remain in Yemen, at time of writing only one remains as a Houthi prisoner.]

Importantly Jews can't colonise our own indigenous homeland, and comments on the skin colour of light skinned Jews is colourist and Antisemitic.

What do you mean Jews are indigenous people?

Jewish civilisation has conservatively at least 3000 years of archeological history in the city of Jerusalem alone, a people can't colonise their own indigenous homeland. That DOESN'T mean the people who came after us have to leave at all... Palestinian culture has been developing in the region for at least 1400 years. The promise of a Jewish state was the promise of self determination of Jews as Indigenous people displaced from our home by the colonising Roman Empire in the First century, arriving in Europe as slaves to build great works like the Coliseum and monuments to our own dispossession like the Arch of Titus.

After 2000 years confined to the ghetto, 2000 years of always waiting for the shoe to drop, we needed to come home.

The colonisation of the Jewish people and our homeland also isn't a one note affair. The Sassanians, and the Crusaders, the British Empire, The Ottoman Empire, The Mamluks, and pivotal to the current discussion The Arabs... Arab Colonisation of MENA/SWANA is uncontroversially the historical record... They are the majority population across MENA because of their centuries of privileged social and economic placement in society even among Muslims. Pan-Arabism is Arab Supremacism.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Early Muslim conquests - Wikipedia

Morrocco speaks Arabic because of Arab Colonisation, Ctesiphon was renamed Baghdad by Arab Colonisers, the subjugation of pre-colonial religion and culture such as Jews, Zoroastrians, Shabaks, Assyrians, the continuing collusion between ME states to deny the Kurdish people a state.

Recognising Arabs as colonisers doesn't mean demanding they be expelled, nor does it make anti-arab violence acceptable... But it is necessary if you intend to understand the historic social power dynamics of MENA social issues.

If Jews are indigenous and Arabs are colonisers... What does that make Palestinians?

People, it makes them human people who are seeking a state of their own and should have one post haste. Most people agree on this, I hope we agree on this..

Didn't Israel kill lots of people to be established?

People often have a habit of using their intuition rather than research to learn about current and historical circumstances. This leads to the exaggeration or minimisation of events by those who don't understand.

This isn't to say that violence wasn't present in the founding of the State of Israel, because it was, but in all of the wars Israel has ever been involved in, the combined death toll has never even come close to one million let alone the millions, even the Nakba which was a human tragedy worthy of recognition forever had a Death toll of 15,000...

It is worth remembering that the Nakba took place against the backdrop of invasion by the Arab league (including Palestinian Arabs) of the newly declared State of Israel within these borders as defined by the United Nations...

On the day of the expiry of the British mandate for Palestine the forces of the Arab League (Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Palestinian Holy War Army) invaded, and the Israelis/IDF counter attacked... And somehow even without any allies were not only successful in defence but the victor. This was the second refusal to accept an Arab majority state, this time that rejection came as war.

But Palestinians still deserve a state!

Palestinians absolutely deserve a state, historical rejection of the peace option at one time or another by any party in a conflict is no reason not to establish peace now. This is something we can hopefully agree on, the endless cycle of violence and retribution is neither desirable nor sustainable... and to that end in 1994 the Palestinian National Authority was Established as a Part of the Oslo Accords, which is a multi stage state building project agreed between the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the State of Israel, which immediately formalised the recognition internationally as an institution in principle of the Palestinian State as declared by The Palestinian Liberation Organisation in 1988.

The eventual state borders of the Palestinian State would be the Territories of the West Bank and Gaza which came under Israeli Administration during the 1967 6 Day War, and which the kingdom of Jordan and Egypt refused to accept return of due to the expense of security in the region.

Regions of Palestinian National Authority Civil and Military Administration were established in the West Bank during stage 1. (Areas the Palestinian National Authority were supposed to be expanded each decade assuming the continuing stability of the PA) During stage 2 in 2005 those areas were expanded and the Palestinian National Authority assumed Civil Administration over most of the remaining West Bank except for Israeli majority settlements. Also as Part of Stage 2 Israel forcibly repatriated all Israelis living in Gaza and passed Civil and Military Administration to the Palestinian National Authority.

en.m.wikipedia.org

West Bank areas in the Oslo II Accord - Wikipedia

Unfortunately 2 years later Hamas seceded Gaza in its entirety in a coup and suspended democracy to establish an Islamist Autocracy in opposition to the Fatah dominated Palestinian National Authority and all attempts at reintegration have failed stalling the Palestinian Nation Building project.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Battle of Gaza (2007) - Wikipedia

Throwing a wrench in the "is able to preserve stability and territorial integrity" thing.

Ok, that's interesting, but wasn't the country already Palestine before?

At no point in history until the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority has there been self government of Palestinians by Palestinians. Even the name "Filistin" was a colloquial one in the Ottoman period. Under Ottoman rule the area of Israel and Palestine was made up of many feudal estates with a non-palestinian aristocracy.

Once again, this doesn't mean that Palestinians shouldn't have a self governing state now, today. But Jews should also have self government because.... we are indigenous to the Region, and second we have seen ourselves be betrayed by our neighbours too many times to not hold our defence in our own hands. In Europe, Africa, and Asia we have seen the repeated attempts to destroy us completely.

If you deduct the population of Israel the combined Jewish population of all three continents is less than 2 million, because you killed us.

The territory people are referring to as historically Palestine right now is the British Mandate for Palestine, which included the area East of the Jordan River where the Kingdom of Jordan was established by British Partition.

What is being done to advance Palestinian National Liberation?

The Palestinian Liberation Organisation have made multiple attempts at political normalisation with Hamas, as have the Israeli government... In the hope of reuniting the Palestinian National Authority administered territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Unfortunately with both authorities, Hamas and their affiliates like Palestinian Islamic Jihad use talks as an opportunity to re-arm, regroup, and relocate personnel and equipment. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation were in the closing stages of political normalisation talks, and Israel were in the midst of a (permanent) ceasefire and disarmament discussions at the time of the Simchat Torah Pogrom (Oct 7)

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We are in the present day from here on.... Things get complicated and messy-er from here, say goodbye to neat sections.

The attack on October 7 was a betrayal of West Bank Palestinians as well, and attacks by Hamas affiliates like Palestinian Islamic Jihad in areas of the West Bank where Israel is treaty obligated to act as security guarantor has been spun by people in the west who don't understand the treaty arrangements as an invasion of Palestinian Territories.

timesofisrael.com

Palestinian, Arab officials urge Hamas to disarm before it is destroyed – report

Terror group said warned by various figures of influence that it will not survive the Israeli offensive, and should prevent further destruct

Continued in reblog