#You can also racebend some of them

[fionapplespiano]

I think the first MCU X-Men team should be the O7 + Storm

[damnfandomproblems]

Posting a compilation of responses to Fandom Problem #6020.

Anon:

If you want representation, create your own story Fandom is not activism

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Anon:

Except you people almost never racebend white characters. You racebend other minorities. You racebend anime characters with Japanese names who live in Japan and speak Japanese and have their whole family live in Japan with Japanese names and speak Japanese and claim that the original character was "white." You take characters who are half-black, half-white and say they "aren't black enough" and make them completely black, racebending the white parent ONLY for the sake of racebending their kid. You racebend half-black, half-Asian characters for the same reason, they "aren't black enough." The overwhelming majority of people who complain about racebending don't care about a character's race, they're pointing out YOU'RE ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY DOING THIS TO CHARACTERS WHO ARE OTHER MINORITIES, WHO DESERVE REPRESENTATION TOO, WHILE SLAPPING IRL PEOPLE WHO MATCH THE DESCRIPTION OF THE ORIGINAL CHARACTER IN THE FACE!!!!!!!!!

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Anon:

I am pretty sure that modern fandom was not created specifically by POC. It was created by majorly women who were really into Star Track, completely unrelated to any skin colour any of them might have had

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Anon:

“BLACKWASHING IS DONE WITH RESPECT AND LOVE FOR A CHARACTER AND THEIR FANDOM.” No, it’s done out of hatred of white people. If you really loved this character, you’d love him or her as a white person. If you can’t love a white character, you are racist.

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Anon:

Re: every single moronic anon screaming "BlAcKwAsHiNg IsN't ReAl YoU'rE jUsT rAcIsT, aNyOnE wHo SaYs AnYtHiNg BaD aBoUt RaCeSwApS oF bLaCk ChArAcTeRs Is RaCiSt! RaCiSt!! RaCiSt!!!": On twitter right now people are throwing a fit over official splatoon art of Marina having a slightly lighter shade of brown than normal. Again. AGAIN. AGAIN!! Miss me with this fucking bullshit! You clowns have said this for a decade now and EVERYONE can see right through you! Every time some artist draws a brown character one hexcode lighter because GOD FORBID ANY OF YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT LIGHTING EXISTS OR THAT MAYBE PEOPLE WANT TO EXPERIMENT WITH DIFFERENT SHADES, there's a goddamn TIDAL WAVE of THE STUPIDEST, MOST HATEFUL PEOPLE YOU'LL EVER MEET screaming MUH RACISM at the top of their lungs. Harassing artists minding their own goddamn business (ESPECIALLY if they're from Japan!). Smugly taking the art and darkening with that utterly insufferable "Heh, I fixed it :)))" passive-aggressive attitude. Don't you sit there and fucking lie to me, you little shit. I've been on this hellsite since 2012. I've seen every single one of these """whitewashing""" controversies you neanderthals start and every single one of them has accomplished nothing except drive people away, piss them off, or inspired them to make ACTUAL Whitewashed art to show you what Whitewashing actually looks like and also to MOCK YOU. This is not pissing on my leg and telling me it's rain, this is grabbing ten of your buddies, telling them chug a gallon of water, circle around me, whip out your cocks, shower me in gold and then casually mock me for not taking an umbrella because "oh man it's so stormy out :)" Also Japanese twitter has had enough of your shit and they're criticizing you for acting this way and then shamelessly redrawing their characters as being black and acting like that's how they're """supposed""" to be because Asians just aren't """POC""" enough for you. Don't ever call anyone a "Colonizer" again, because that kind of shit is GENUINE Colonizer mindset because you self-righteous shitheads disrespect other cultures and can't leave people the fuck alone. THAT is why people get mad at you. It's not racism. It's NEVER been racism; it's because you're all insufferable twits who harass everyone around you over NOTHING and then have the GALL to be FLAGRANT HYPOCRITES ABOUT IT with an obvious double standard! Build a bridge and get the FUCK over yourselves!

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(Mod note: I'm unsure if this was intended as an independent submission or a response to the same problem, I'm assuming it's a response due to the timing and am posting as such.)

Anon:

One thing I find EXTREMELY odd about a fandom I am in surrounding an anime I like is the racewashing/blackwashing art, now I'm not gonna get into my opinions on racewashing because wether you support it or not you have to admit what I'm about to say seems really dodgy In this anime there are multiple main characters of mixed race, majority of them being half european half japanese, I'm not sure how much representation of mixed people there are in anime but I can only really think of 3 anime where there are main mixed race characters, most of them only having 1 or 2 mixed race characters, but the anime I am talking about has about 4 mixed race main characters For some reason this fandom absolutely loves to racewash these mixed race characters and barely does it to any other characters. They always make them fully black (not even blasian) and they say they do it to add "more black representation" to the anime Now there are many reasons I find this dodgy, 1 being that of course they only ever do this with the mixed race characters, (or at the very least these are the most popular characters to do this to) not the fully asian characters, not the fully white characters, not to any character of any other race/ethnicity, not even the non human characters who don't have a canonical race/ethnicity, only the mixed race characters Apparently a lot of other fanbases with half white half japanese main characters have these problems too, and a lot of real life mixed people say that the people who only ever racewash mixed characters imply that these characters are "too white for them", which is of course a very racist thing to say about mixed race people who are half white Another reason I find this odd is that, A. A lot of the anime is set in Japan, so of course a lot of the characters will be Japanese or half Japanese, and I'm not saying that there aren't black people in Japan, but obviously majority of the people who live in Japan are Japanese B. There are black characters in the anime! Main characters too, now I can't speak on how good the representation is as I'm not black, but from what I can tell a lot of black people love this anime and the black characters (not to mention a lot of the people I see who racewash the mixed characters are not black, most I see are white people) so I don't see the need to add more representation to the anime by racewashing non black characters, let alone racewashing the mixed race characters who also seem to have a small amount of representation in anime. Like at the very least if someone wanted to race swap a character they'd do it with one of the many white characters and not the mixed race characters, or at the very very least they'd make the mixed race characters blasian and not fully black, or draw the non human characters who don't have canonical races as humans and make them black or any race they want, like I don't get why they're so obsessed with making mixed half white half asian people fully black In conclusion: this whole thing just confuses me and gives off extremely dodgy and racist vibes

[clotpolesonly]

okay so i've been seeing some love for the show's latino!Gansey and i just gotta say, i can't relate aldfkjgh

no shade, i get that we're all desperate for minority rep, and it's really nice to get a latino character that breaks so many stereotypes (wealthy, universally respected, an academic, beloved by literally everyone but without being unduly sexualized, etc etc)

HOWEVER

i feel like people think Gansey as he's written in the books is a blank slate that they can project onto and racebending him won't/shouldn't/didn't change anything about him, but honestly i think that's a bit of lowkey racist take in and of itself? in a way?? in the sense that it plays into the white supremacist idea of whiteness being the default (aka nothing) instead of being its own something with identifiable characteristics.

book!Gansey does have a cultural identity and very strong cultural influences that play a crucial role in his characterization, and that cultural identity is WASP

(the irony is not lost on me alkdfjgh)

White Anglo Saxon Protestants, essentially the "ruling class" of the US for centuries, The Establishment™, etc. they're known primarily for being wealthy, snobbish, and repressed. they're the kind of people who like to think they're Good People but are soooo concerned with image and reputation that they'd rather perpetuate harm than admit they were ever responsible for it.

Mrs Gansey guilt tripping her son for missing her fundraiser instead of, ya know, being worried that he's not responding to any of her texts?

Gansey literally fleeing the country as a PRETEEN because his ptsd made him messy and embarrassing for the family?

his very first thought upon being fatally stung by hundreds of hornets being that he was going to interrupt and ruin the party?

that entire family luncheon where Gansey is constantly on red alert, searching for passive aggression in every single comment (and finding it), reading into every word for What They're Actually Saying Without Really Saying?

that is so WASP it should be in the dictionary next to the term!!! being presentable is more important than communicating directly, at all times, and the protestant roots mean that Suffering In Silence is a VIRTUE. it's a sin to need things and a double sin to ask for them. god forbid you impose upon another person, it's contractually required that you suffer quietly for a respectable amount of time while you drop the subtlest of hints in the direction of whoever you want help from in the hopes that they will do the good respectable charitable christian thing and offer you that help out of the goodness of their hearts, and if they don't, then you suffer some more and also nurse a lifelong grudge against them in the most passive aggressive unspoken festering way possible.

being raised in that culture informs everything about Gansey's personality and how he interacts with other people and forms relationships.

and it also informs Gansey's relationship with his wealth and his position!! Gansey's class guilt is like half of his character arc!!! and we can't pretend that class and race aren't tied together, okay, we can't get away with pretending that race doesn't play a part in people's place in society. for the Ganseys to be old money like they are, and old virginian money at that, to make them anything other than white introduces a whole HOST of complications that, frankly, the show is not engaging with.

the showrunners have made so much noise about diversifying the cast since the books were so white, and they're reeeeaaally patting themselves on the back for this, but it doesn't feel like they put any THOUGHT into how this change would actually affect the characterization!!!!

do they think that a latino in the upper echelons of the (white) (republican) virginian old money social scene wouldn't have a different experience? a different relationship with their money, and with their own heritage, and with other pocs?? that it wouldn't affect and complicate Gansey's relationship with Blue, especially with how much stronger they've leaned into Blue's connection with her cultural heritage and her political activism and how vocal she's been about intersectionality as a poor non-christian mixed race Black woman in appalachia.

Gansey is a latino man who can't speak spanish living in a mansion on a former slave plantation and Blue doesn't have anything to say about that?? Gansey doesn't have any extra layer of guilt or shame about his disconnect from his own culture?? Gansey is so full of guilt and insecurity about so many things, but there's been NO indication so far of how his race intersects with that.

for them to make this kind of huge change, i would've needed to see them really commit to it and show me that they understand the sociological implications of this decision. and they haven't done that. i know we've only gotten season 1, and hey, maybe i'm wrong and there'll be an arc about it somewhere in season 2, but so far i'm wholly disappointed. it really feels like they slipped it in there just to say that they had and then functionally ignored it aside from that one spanish-speaking scene.

what was the POINT except to pat themselves on the back??

[fanhackers]

Platforms and Fan Experiences

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about platforms and the way in which they influence fan experiences. As a consistent lurker, I have been on Tumblr for more than a decade, and more recently on Twitter for the past few months, and have been reflecting on my experiences of fandom on both platforms.

In a roundtable discussion published in a tumblr book: platform and cultures, speakers Flourish Klink, Rukmini Pande, Zina Hutton, Lori Morimoto and Allison McCracken discuss the ways in which Tumblr is a very visual platform:

Klink: Tumblr fandoms tend to be much more visual than other fandoms. I often find that this  is the most difficult part of Tumblr for people who are not familiar with it. The visual languages in play on Tumblr are as meaningful and complex as any slang or textual interactions on Twitter… Klink, Flourish, Rukmini Pande, Zina Hutton, Lori Morimoto, and Allison McCracken. “A Roundtable Discussion about the Cultures of Fandom on Tumblr.” In A Tumblr Book: Platform and Cultures, edited by Allison McCracken, Alexander Cho, Louisa Stein, and Indira Neill Hoch, 167–80. University of Michigan Press, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.11537055.23.

I find this particularly interesting—and also ironic, in some ways—given that to me, as both a lurker, and a Fandom Old, the draw of Tumblr is that, while it may be a visual platform, it is not necessarily a visible platform, particularly in comparison to Twitter. There’s little chance of the celebrity you’re writing RPF about coming across your racy post or interacting with you directly.

In the same discussion, they go on to talk about the ways in which Tumblr’s visual culture has often led to progressive politics and practices, like race/genderbending.

Hutton: …One of my favorite things about being on Tumblr is seeing the way that members of the fandoms I’ve been in— primarily the DC and Marvel fandoms—reimagine their favorite characters as characters of color and give them queer and gender identities that match theirs. You can see photosets reimagining the Batman family group as more visibly diverse, and fancasts ( fans re-casting roles with actors of their choosing) of Marvel superheroes where they’re portrayed as women of color. And these fancasts generally push back against the idea of whiteness as a perpetual default. Klink, Flourish, Rukmini Pande, Zina Hutton, Lori Morimoto, and Allison McCracken. “A Roundtable Discussion about the Cultures of Fandom on Tumblr.” In A Tumblr Book: Platform and Cultures, edited by Allison McCracken, Alexander Cho, Louisa Stein, and Indira Neill Hoch, 167–80. University of Michigan Press, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.11537055.23.

While Hutton also points out the ways in which a lot of it can turn into clickbait activism, later on in the discussion, without truly engaging with what it means to racebend a character beyond simply making a visual edit, it’s Pande’s comment about interacting with white fans that echoes my own experience:

Pande: When I first came on Tumblr for instance, I mainly followed people I knew from LiveJournal and “Big Name Fans” whose writing I had followed in previous fandoms. This resulted in my Dashboard being filled with almost exclusively white-dude content. In retrospect this is not surprising, but the visual-ness of Tumblr made it particularly apparent, especially post-Racefail at a moment in fandom in 2009–10, when POC fans had started becoming more vocal about this whiteness. Klink, Flourish, Rukmini Pande, Zina Hutton, Lori Morimoto, and Allison McCracken. “A Roundtable Discussion about the Cultures of Fandom on Tumblr.” In A Tumblr Book: Platform and Cultures, edited by Allison McCracken, Alexander Cho, Louisa Stein, and Indira Neill Hoch, 167–80. University of Michigan Press, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.11537055.23.

As a PoC fan myself from the Global South, particularly one that does more lurking than posting, I often find that Tumblr does not always have the kind of linguistic inclusivity or even fandom inclusivity I am looking for. Perhaps it’s that I am a lurker, or perhaps I am not looking in the right spaces. Whatever the reason, I find Twitter has more of that inclusivity; whether I am looking for a fellow Hindi-soap opera fan, or a Supernatural fan, I can find both. And depending on which platform I choose, the content I make/consume differs—not just in form, but also in language and meaning.

What do you think? How has your platform shaped your fandom experience?

[olderthannetfic]

Seeing some of the End OTW Racism supporters fall for the "racebending is racist, you should make new characters, not make canon ones non-white!" shit that I hear spewed out all over the internet is exhausting. Telling other POC in fandom that the things they're writing are bad when they're just trying to write stories they want to see with people in them who look like them is gross. Telling people, "No, you don't get to be Tony Stark or Batman. You can be a new hero but you can't be one with lore and love interests and big grand storylines." is not progressive.

Two things can be true. We can write OCs who aren't white and also racebend characters to be something other than White Hollywood Chris #59. We can write ourselves into old stories and also write new ones. Batman can be black, Tony Stark can be Vietnamese, I can write an Nepali heroine, someone else can write a First Nations hero. This isn't a case where one group is 'doing it wrong' and needs to be stopped or corrected.

Nobody wants to hear this but ending racism in fandom means not coming down hard on POC over doing something you personally don't think is the best option. We get enough shit from racists as it is in fandom spaces. We should be supporting one another. Let that kid go write his fave as [fill in the blank] like him. He's not hurting anyone. He's not doing anything wrong. You don't have to read it or like it but you should really ask yourself what purpose being rude to him serves.

I really think we need to stop eating our own. It's 2023. Shit is hard enough without punching sideways. Punch up.

--

One really has to roll one's eyes at the idea that omega Tony Stark is more plausible than black Tony Stark. Has no one heard of an AU?!

The main trouble with "punching up" is that people want to do it within their own fandom spaces, and nobody nearby is 1. identifiable enough or 2. powerful enough to be sure you're actually doing that.

[clonerightsagenda]

L&Co Ep 2!

The psychic mindspace thing is new but I suppose it's hard to visually translate a superpower that is basically just vibes reading.

Also, making Annie Ward a redhead after amping up Norrie's emotional role in her past and making her a redhead… I see what you did there.

Hospitals must be tough on people with psychic sensitivity to death. No wonder they tend to avoid going as much as possible.

They're making ghost-induced comas a much bigger deal in the show; I think I remember one case in the books. Maybe TV doesn't want to show children dying/tiny corpses and this was their workaround? Given the stunt Marissa pulled, if anyone does wake up from the coma ward I hope they ask a lot of identity verification questions before letting them out.

Is George's actor playing him as autistic? If so I approve. I also approve that they have him cooking Persian dishes - a lot of times racebending still leaves the character entirely culturally white/Western. I certainly don't mind the loss of the fatphobic jokes but it's a shame they couldn't have cast a fat actor and just….. not been fatphobic.

All that being said I imagine brown!George walked into some white academics' house chock full of ~exotic~ artifacts and thought well this can go a few ways.

Why on Earth was she in the tub. Doesn't she know George has ghosts to bathe with

I believe in you carrying out your tragic homoerotic best friendship via audiotapes mailed to her mom, Lucy. Never give up never surrender. Even if she dies that might not slow you down all that much.

I know George sleeping with a small arsenal is played for laughs but is he gonna get got in his sleep? No he is not.

George watching his coworker get semi-possessed: No this is interesting let's see where she's going with it.

He took out a mortgage on the house for startup costs… that makes sense tbh. Iirc in the books it's paid off entirely. While it's still a bit much for a 20 year old to have a rivalry with a kid I can understand Kipps resenting a 14 year old for being a homeowner with no mortgage. I would too. That being said he got it the hard way.

Adding a new plot with DEPRAC actually caring about Lucy's certification... On one hand amusing that the TV version is making a halfhearted attempt to act like they care about kids' safety (like the 13 year minimum, when in the books Lucy got hired at 8) but on the other hand if Lockwood hired people with proper credentials maybe his last assistant wouldn't have panicked and run off a roof. Rip to that kid that no one cares about

Lockwood: I don't see how I fucked up by giving a girl attention. Everyone loves attention George (autistic): Attention is the devil and we are all better off outside its scalding embrace

Wow we're really speedrunning her #if it sucks hit the bricks era

Oh great now they're both suicidal. George remains our beacon of mental stability despite putting ghosts in the microwave

Book!Lucy would say a bunch of horrible internalized misogynistic stuff about show!Lucy wearing winged eyeliner and show!Lucy would cry

[ca-suffit]

Maybe I'm wrong and it's just a perception,and also I'm not trying to absolve the fandom from racism, but how do you explain that Armand is totally accepted (I mean I'm happy for him) but I noticed recently that he's a big fan favorite despite having had his race changed.

I don't see him being stereotyped by the fandom because of his race.

So if the fandom is so racist why is Assad so loved ? They changed their beloved ginger and I've never seen anyone cry about it,just love.

Once again I don't wish him to receive racist treatment i have just noticed.

I even think he Overtaken Lestat (for the now in s2 because I think his fans are just asleep waiting for Lestat season)

Sorry if my ask seems like an hater i'm just trying to make some logical.I know fandom can be ugly for POC especially after racebending but if I'm not wrong Armand is a big fan favorite in the books and his show version too his ethnicity didn't change anything.I'm not saying Claudia and Louis deserve their treatment inside fandom,just sometimes i'm wondering if they had been white wouldn't it be the same ?

There's layers to what's going on with Armand. I just answered this ask ahead of this one, which says the opposite of this, but both of u are technically "correct" in what ur seeing.

Also, before I get too deep into this, just to mention that when the Armand reveal happened in S1, the racism was off the fucking CHARTS here.

Anyway, Armand *is* treated differently from book to show but it's not in the same way that the characters who are black are treated. Taken from this ask

"armand has his own history and is a brown man, but he’s a man who does have privilege in ways over louis and is shown abusing him with it too. it doesn’t mean his history is erased. but the fandom will defend (white) lestat first, then (brown) armand second, and….never really defend louis (or claudia)…..despite them being the only ones we’ve seen abused on screen so far. so it’s not rly about pitting anyone against each other as it is acknowledging who has the privilege across all these spaces and knowing why that is too."

Essentially what ur seeing is more acceptance for a non black person of color but who still isn't receiving the same treatment that the white character is getting when it comes to exploring his motivations and his backstory. Like I said in the first linked ask, ppl "accept" Armand and say "we love our evil gremlin" but Lestat is the one getting deep metas over God knows what, shit ppl just make up at this point. Armand isn't getting the same treatment for the show version.

I'm not saying Claudia and Louis deserve their treatment inside fandom,just sometimes i'm wondering if they had been white wouldn't it be the same ?

I think this is saying if Louis and Claudia were white in the show, wouldn't the fan reactions be the same? And the answer is no, not at all. They're *drastically* different and it's solely bcuz they're black now. For example, Louis' anger was never treated as "a problem" until he was black. Claudia was never called "manipulative" or "too old" until she was black. The actress who played her in the Lestat play was 19 or something too. That plot follows the series p closely for Claudia's involvement with the coven as well, but nobody ever spoke negatively about that actress or character for any reason. They were rly never judged for anything when it was all white ppl (except for Louis being sad and whiny a lot).

[blurrymango]

"All art is political" is the creativity killer. Don't let that bitch trick you into thinking you have to have a statement in your art or writing. Art and writing and music =/= inherently political. Thinking that every piece is, is very dumb.

Eminem and Lil Darkie making songs about politics and drugs is different from Freddie Dredd making songs about killing people is different from Tool making songs about addiction and trauma is different from $uicideBoy$ making songs about addiction and suicide is different from Haken making songs about. Whatever the ffuck their songs are about. Is different from Crywank making songs about being depressed is different from Gorillaz making songs about society and/ whatever the ffuck Captain Chicken is about.

Ok. So. I listen to music about violence a lot. Huh. Anyway.

Porn art is not political. Hentai is not political.

I Hate Fairyland is a comic with cartoon gore satire about childish fairytale tropes and also a story about longing to grow up. Black Butler is a gothic dark manga about a child being thrust into a world of crime and choosing to commit down that path. They're both different in tone and execution and they both ROCK.

American Psycho is a satire on yuppie stock market men and vanity in 90s as well as a story about a mentally unstable man killing people and becoming more mentally unstable the more he tries to be normal. That is. Political. But it's moreso a commentary on society, rather than an overt political message.

Like there's a difference between drawing a character who is punk and drawing a character who is "punk" in the way hardcore leftists think of it as. There's a difference between art of girls kissing to "make misogynists mad" or whatever and making art of girls kissing because you like to draw girls kissing. There's a difference between racebending a character to "fix" them or "make racists mad" and racebending a character to see how they'd look as a different race.

"All art is political" is stupid, because someone drawing gore art of anime girls or someone drawing a shota getting his ass pounded is not in fact political.

You don't have to have characters saying "SCREW TRUMP" or "VOTE DEMOCRAT" you can just have them saying "man I want some dick" or "this weed sucks you gave me bad weed I'm not even slightly high I need to kill you." You don't have to have characters saying "TRANS RIGHTS" but you do need to have them saying "kill TERFs, every single transphobe and radfem needs to die."

Draw shota porn. Draw anime girl gore. Draw dudes with top surgery scars and tdicks. Draw girls with big tits and even bigger dicks. But don't claim it's activism. Because it's not. It's ok. You can draw trans characters without making it a statement.

Can art be political? Yes. Should all art be viewed from a political or ideological lens? No, and ffuck off with that shit.

[laylainalaska]

I watched Foundation S1-2 this week and really enjoyed it, for certain values of enjoyed, copying over my write-up from DW, now with corrected character names since I've looked them up rather than spelling them from vague osmosis from the show.

(Blacklist the Foundation tag if you don't want to be spoiled from gifs, as I plan to promptly go seek out the least hinged gifs from this entirely unhinged show and bombard everyone with them.)

This show is a bonkers SF soap opera with gorgeous production values, Lee Pace hamming it up in crop tops, and a series of increasingly off the rails holographic versions of a dead chessmaster mathematician deploying his 9999-step plan to save the galaxy. I've literally seen nothing about this at all in my social circles, to the extent that I didn't even really know about it until the spouse started watching it. I was kind of halfway glancing at the screen now and then, if I happened to be in the room, for the first half of season one (and have only the vaguest idea what happened in the first few episodes, based on later events), then got invested and eventually completely hooked in season two, which also picks up after a 100-year timeskip so the cast has changed a lot anyway. Although between stasis pods, cloning, and holograms, it's mostly the same actors. (We have a running joke that by season 3 the cast will be at least 50% Cleons and Hari Seldons by volume.)

Anyway, so it is good? Hard to say! It's sort of like if Expanse and Game of Thrones had a (somewhat more optimistic) baby, in which the budgets are huge, the planets are beautiful, the spaceships are shiny, and lots of Big Feelings happen. The Evil Empire is run by an endless series of clone emperors played by Lee Pace in Romanesque armor and capes with massive amounts of scenery-chewing and an immortal robot bodyguard he occasionally has sex with. They have All The Clones in storage, so if he gets killed, they'll just transfer his memories and activate another one! Meanwhile the rebellion is being orchestrated as a 4000-step multi-century Xanatos gambit by a guy who started by having himself killed and activating a digital copy. Interestingly though, there is so much going on, and it's taking so much time for his plan to come to fruition, that it never really feels like the two of them directly pitted against each other (at least not that much), it's more like all of the stuff that happens along the way, the planets and the pretty spaceships and the people we meet who struggle and fight and save each other along the way.

I have to say that while I'm occasionally reminded by certain plot points and tropes that this is a series based on books from the 1970s, they did a good enough job with racebending, presumable genderbending, and so forth that it rarely feels like it. (Also, though I only know the books from general osmosis, I'm fairly confident the plot has gone way off-book anyway.) In season two there are no less than four young female characters of color in major plot-defining roles, there's a central gay couple whose loyalty to each other in the face of the Empire is a major plot point, and in general it's just a pretty, pretty show full of pretty people and pretty planets (and occasionally some really dazzling space-operatic SF stuff). It is definitely the most OTT and operatic thing I've watched since probably the MCU, and I'm really enjoying it.

Under the cut, out-of-order and largely out-of-context comments on various things I had a reaction to (mostly season 2 since that's where I got invested).

This show is an emotional roller coaster of the highest order. How many different instances of presumed dead and identity-switching can we pack into a single episode?

CONSTANT MY BELOVED. Season 2 in general gives great female characters, I already loved Salvo (;__;) and I also really enjoyed the ladies from the Cloud Dominion, but Constant!! She's just so funny and fun and so absolutely deadpan about everything from conning randos on some backwater alien planet to kidnapping a guy. I was so glad she lived through all of the half-dozen times she almost certainly should have died.

I was surprisingly upset about formerly-trapped-in-the-Radiant half-crazy Hari's death, "surprisingly" because, well, Hari being Hari, and also, it wasn't like this leaves us entirely without Hari Seldons, there's still Creepy Monolith Hari and who knows how many other copies out there. But that one had been through enough with Gaal and Salvor that he really felt like a different person. He's still a manipulative sack of dicks but I liked him! I was sad, but at least hoping he was backed up somewhere! And then two episodes later the most excellent reveal that he and Gaal faked the whole thing! I thoroughly loved all of that. Gaal hugging him! <333

"Don't trust the planet of the creepy utopian space psychics!" Orion and I were chanting at the screen, while they proceeded to not listen to us and it was, predictably, a bad idea. Seriously, when in all of sci-fi was trusting the creepy psychic utopia a good idea?

I had guessed/hoped that the guy with the whispership (can't remember his name) was going to warp into the plaza and save Constant from execution, but I really wasn't sure, and even with an inkling it was going to happen, that was an AMAZING entrance, A+++, no notes. Especially after Constant gave her speech and everything seemed to be setting her up to be a martyr to the Foundation, I was less and less hopeful she was going to get out of it alive somehow. Excellent rescue, very pleased.

I really enjoyed the entire subplot with the Evil Empire Honorable Space Admiral (can't remember anyone's names here either) and the scene in which he justifies his continued loyalty to the Empire is really a good scene. I mean, it's awful. But you can see his reasoning. He can't overthrow the Empire, if he refuses orders it won't change anything, he and everyone he loves will die, and someone else will be put in his place and follow the orders anyway. But then the whole thing with Constant's rescue points out that it may not be possible to change the entire Evil Empire, but you can make a lot of difference for just one person.

But I still wanted him to make better or at least different choices on the blowing up the planet sequence! I guess it all worked out according to Hari's 9999-step plan (my death is only the beginning! the death of my planet is only the beginning!) but that hurted.

Between Honorable Space Admiral and his fighter pilot husband, I was absolutely *not* expecting the husband to be the one of the two of them that survived. However, Honorable Space Admiral and whispership guy got a dynamite final episode (the fistfight with Cleon! never has a man deserved so much punching! the airlock switch!) and they both got to go out in an excellent death scene.

The entire thing with Terminus getting blown up! And then Deus Ex Monolith! And Constant's dads and Space Admiral's Space Husband are alive after the whole exploding planet fell on them! (I was SO happy Constant's family got reunited, I was so afraid she and Space Dads were going to go down each thinking the other one had died.) I think this episode gave me emotional whiplash.

SALVOR NO. WHAT WAS THAT EVEN. She just randomly died at the end there?? Come onnnnn. We already got like 12 death fake-outs in the last couple of episodes! Why'd that one have to be real?!

If time passes differently in the monolith, does that mean the entire rescued Terminus population are still going to be around after the second 150-year timeskip? I have questions!

Speaking of time passing differently in the monolith, best dialogue: Whispership guy: Whoa, it's dark. How long was I in there, anyway? Constant: Three years. Paulie: More like three hours. Constant: We agreed we weren't going to tell him! I love them. <3333

That sure was A Lot with the Cleons. And now I guess there's an entire Cleon/Cloud Dominion dynasty out there somewhere just waiting to cause trouble.

So yeah, I'm really enjoying my bombastic sci-fi soap opera! Season 3 when pls.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

God Of War Ragnarok spoilers

God Of War Ragnarok: Mimir doesn't know what "olives" are, because he wouldn't encounter them in Nordic or Celtic realms, geographically speaking. GOWR: Also, Thor is fat because he has a big appetite in the myths. GOWR: Also, here's a minor character who's the legendary first king of Denmark.

Someone: Are you going to explain why Angrboda is a black girl with a black granny in a Norse tale, when she's a redheaded white lady in the myths?

GOWR: No.

I wrote this post because some idiot in Youtube comments said Angrboda in GOWR makes sense because the Greeks didn't have any concept of race. Which is a stupid argument. Especially when the ancient Greeks and Romans *did* have a concept of "us" and "barbarians" (everything else). Pretty much any modern person would look at the description of those categories and go "oh, yeah, that's race". Xenophobia is usually treated as identical to racism. 

Or at least it lives next door, and frequently comes over to borrow racism's power tools. This idiot also completely failed to discuss the Norse side of the equation. I'm pretty sure Norse knew what race was.

Then again, the person may have been trying to imply why Kratos wouldn't reject Angrboda because she was black. Which would still be a stupid argument, because the idiot did that by making a race-based generalization about Ancient Greeks to imply race isn't real, instead of talking about Kratos. 

Kratos has traveled from mythological Greece to mythological Nordic lands. He married a local, and calls a Celtic deity his best friend, along with two dwarves as regular friends. Kratos, personally, does not care about race. He cares about the content of people's character. And when he meets Angie, she's already risked her own life and safety to help save the day. From a character design standpoint, I think they wanted to make Angrboda a contrast to Thrud Thorsdottir, Thor's daughter, and Loki's other love interest. Thrud seems more mature, mentally and physically.

 She's a much more dramatic and attention-getting presence, down to her hair. Her weapons are a giant cleaver and a club. She also lives in the heart of Asgard, a populated city, while Angie lives alone in a hidden realm.

And she has red hair. Like her dad.

 There's other contrasts, but I've already talked too much. There's also a fan theory that Loki and Angie's daughter Hela was half-white, half-dark in the myths, so you could (really) stretch that to "half-African". Even though she's widely described as "half blue". As in, "the color of dead flesh". There's a theory that Angie is descended from "foreign" gods, just like Atreus, but I don't think the game confirms it. /actual black guy PS: I also happened to find a 1996 Usenet argument when someone asked why Tuvok from Star Trek Voyager is black. And the people responding sounded exactly like modern racebending-defenders, including the same "well, race isn't even scientifically REAL!" smuggery*. https://groups.google.com/g/alt.tv.star-trek.voyager/c/LVTQMd25J1U?pli=1 Which is ironic when these same people act like anyone who asks or complains about racebending is racist. How can racism exist if race isn't real? * There was also the ol' "you must be a troll (because your opinion made me upset)". Except that one was posted in 2018. I'd mock that person for responding to a 22-year old thread, but I'm making a post about it, and putting more effort into these few lines than they did.

[gemsofgreece]

The part of the video about Hades game where the creator himself said that "the Greek gods were called that way because they worshipped by ancient Greeks, but they were not ethnically Greek"....

Wow the disrespect again and how it doesn't make any sense. The Greek gods not only were worshipped by our ancestors (some still do) but they were called that way because they were ethnically Greek too. The same goes to the Egyptian, Norse, Japanese gods and every other mythologies. They are called that way because they were worshipped by the people ot that country.

But it's still frustrating people (especially USians) feeling the need to erase the roots of something that not only it's not theirs, but want to claim it as well. Seriously i thought the game was okay at first, but after that έπεσαν λίγο στα μάτια μου αυτοί :/

This has become the mantra of all people who have baptised Greek mythology a fandom. Newsflash for them: Any god technically has no ethnicity as the god reigns over the world and everyone can be moved by the religion’s philosophy and decide to be initiated in it. This does not just apply conveniently to the Greek religion but to all known religions where deities have power across the universe.

It would be a good moment for some to admit that "racebending" the Greek Gods has nothing to do with whether these Gods have a Greek or other or no ethnic descent or can shapeshift, but it is exclusively a feeling of misplaced right to its abuse for being perceived as a "white religion", "popular with the colonialist West" or even worse "a religion of people who have had colonies at some point a gazillion years back in time", which gives this abuse an element of deserved retribution. These people are in truth well aware of the unethical aspects of it, which is why they consider it racist if done for "POC-originated" religions but almost ferociously exciting when done for the "evil white-originated" one. Furthermore, the potential remnants of ethical concerns that some of these people might have are often overcome by Greece's place on earth, in the Mediterranean Sea, where one can conveniently claim the looks of people are more "open to interpretation" than looks in, say, Scandinavia are. Of course, the concept of considering a person's looks open to interpretation is hugely problematic in itself but this is another can of worms. Besides, it is also very enticing to attempt to argue that this religion / mythology wouldn't be as fascinating if the people's looks weren't open for interpretation (because as we all know in the Tumblr Law, all white people without exception have no indigenous lands or cultures, they landed from another planet just to inflict suffering on others).

Producers, woke creators and obtrusive fans are also equally hypocritical in not admitting that using Greek mythology while trying to modify it to fit in their own reality or a contemporary reality anyway is nothing more than just them liking what the #Western_trends like, coming up with their own little story and trying to project it through the mythology that currently SELLS the most. Trying to change an admittedly famous mythology and squeeze yourself into it instead of finding the one that truly expresses you is a "mimicking the strong one" syndrome accompanied with denial issues. And you know what? It might even be internalised racism for some. Hopefully they will realise it one day as they grow up. This for the “woke”. The producers and businessmen are using the Greek brand and the diversity brand very knowingly to maximise their profit, as they know this is the safest way to attract the trending woke wallets. Idealism, inclusivity or accuracy have absolutely nothing to do with their true intent.

Last but not least, I rarely talk about this and I honestly don’t care as much about it as most people here. Even if a portrayal gets out of typical ethnic Greek look range, towards either the lighter or the darker, I can usually live with it. Some artwork is so beautifully done that I don’t have the heart to be the party pooper. But it’s the self entitlement that gets me and the greediness, the “ I can fix Greek mythology” stance (no dear, you can't, it's a mythology not a car) even though they are AVID readers of it and the “no you don’t know it well, Ancient Greece was like modern USA” no it wasn’t, you just come up with things to prove the validity of your entitlement. And unfortunately when a project is based on so questionable foundations, the creative result is rarely good. It can be, but rarely.

I think I speak on behalf of all Greeks when I say that we don't ask for anything except for the Ancient Greek mythology to be appreciated for what it is. Take it or leave it. For whatever issue in which you personally find the Greek mythology to be lacking, find another one that isn't and also appreciate it for what it is. It's that simple, really.

[teaforthotxxx]

They’ll never do it but if I was rebooting HP i would literally start off in the Marauders’ first year and have a degrassi-style graduating cohort every year so we can see the entire transition from each year and each headppl. Then, I would change the plot by literally making every ship gay to give the AO3 readers what they want. Cause i mean the faithful adaptations’ already been done. Like literally I would make Dorcas/Marlene canon. Wolfstar is definitely canon. Jily is a thing for the first 2 seasons but I would literally create a fan poll to see if the mob wants jegulus, jily or jegulily.

I wouldn’t go fully into Order of the Pheonix. I’d hint abt the first war but it’d be through whispers and rumours to keep Hogwarts the main focus. Then, I would unkill everyone. I might still have Peter betray them or maybe I won’t- Maybe, he almost breaks but in this reality the marauders are good friends and they manage to save him somehow.

Then if my Max series somehow doesn’t get cancelled, I’d do Golden Trio era but like mostly focused on the weasleys and what they got up to. The trio can still be a thing but we’ve already seen their story. Like we’ll get an in depth character analysis of Ginny and her rs with Tom Riddle. Then, we are gonna have dramoine surprise get tgt. Because in this ver., Harry is a little bit more mentally stable (assuming his parents are still around or like trapped in a mirror or idk how it wld work but MAGIC). Maybe, Harry can explore his bisexuality and hook up with Cedric or Cho or Oliver Wood. We can see what everyone’s been up to. Maybe, do the grindeldore flashbacks some justice (have someone finally see their entire love story). We can see more of Luna’s future beau or Luna can be with Harry (we all know mentally stable Harry wld be more of a whore). I’d still talk about the wizarding war and Voldy will still be a thing but his story will be more fleshed out through Ginny and maybe Draco. Then, it’d end with the grand finale where they have an epic-ish battle. Maybe some ppl can die or maybe not. I wld still kill some ppl for PLOT but Dobby can keep his sock.

Then, once everything is over and all the ships are messed up. I will do some mental gymnastics and plot acrobatics to somehow make next gen hp characters a thing so I can fully showcase Teddy Lupin (yes blue hair teddy. Idk maybe Nymphadora was a surrogate or they had a thing but wolfstar would still be alive and endgame). Then, we can have Victorie Weasley, other Weasleys etc. Eventually, we’ll hit cursed child era but instead of the nonsense we got, I’ll stop milking the dead dick of Voldy and come up with a brand new facist villain. Maybe it’ll be the ministry or like the Elf enslavers? Deep dive into Kreacher? Politician!Dobby? More “dark creatures” at the sch? Possibilities are endless!!

HBO MAX pls hire me. Also, im not straight or white so you best believe we are going to add real diversity and not just racebend or genderbend for the sake of diversity.

Anyways just my thoughts on the reboot. Im prepared for disappointment esp w the recent hp discourse but oh well.

[damnfandomproblems]

Response to #3831. I do agree with submitter of this post. One thing I also remember when talking about racebending. It's annoying how when we say we dislike seeing Asian characters being racebent and get told "just let us have fun. Black people do not have enough representation in anime." But those same people then get mad if you racebend Black characters. It's like in their heads it is okay for them to them as long as the character isn't black. Racebending of any kind should not be okay.

It also sucks that we would be called racist if we say we feel uncomfortable for seeing an Asian character being blackwashed. Apparently we aren't allowed to feel uncomfortable with that even though black people can be uncomfortable if a black character is race swapped.

Some people are just so entitled.

I agree with this sentiment.

[inversionimpulse]

an inability to understand ethnicity and culture except through the povertuous lens of skin colour is a clownish shortcoming that will betray you

(or, in other words, I saw someone racebend Ainu characters to "increase diversity." They're already indigenous you ignorant fffffuck!)

(Although I guess that it can also be about people who try to increase diversity by changing skin colours but leave them all culturally whatever they originally were, which is more visually diverse but not meaningfully more representative.)

(or people who get mad about mixed-race characters being white-passing, as if this somehow is the same thing as being white)

(and people who let slip through their judgements on diversity that they don't think that adopted people are really part of their adopted culture)

(or just, like, not every ethnic minority has dark skin? Sometimes it feels like some otherwise progressive people have been so poisoned by colourism that they've inverted [dark skin in a predominantly light skinned society, therefore likely (but not necessarily) an ethnic minority] into [minority, therefore necessarily dark skinned]. There's a long and terrible history of whitewashing darker skin colours, but this is an overcorrection and an erasure in its own right!)

(or... well. suffice to say any occasion where people conflate ethnicity and skin colour. Especially when working with fucking cartoons that may be white-passing in that particular abstracted art-style but would certainly not be in a more realistic one!)

(Ethnicities are primarily a shared history, not a skin colour!)

[dracwife]

i feel so outta the loop with whats going on with that art tracer, they're also a race bender too?

okay so the art tracer has gone by many names over time. i used to be mutuals with them (i feel very stupid about it now for not recognizing them!) but they used to go by (in reverse order, from most recent to oldest):

- marco / red, who traced art back then as well (you can check my "mutuals.marco" tag for more of their art. i tried to give benefit of the doubt back then, but it is very clear their understanding of anatomy and other things does not quite line up with their physical "skill." look at the semi decent grasp of anatomical elements and proportions but entire lack of detail and messy linework on things like fingers and hair. ive noticed these things as ive gotten better also at art. they were into genshin, the quarry, and "apocalyptic" media. their card visually is the same, with the same strange typing quirks, tagging system, and carrd details as 'aray' (ie: the three emojis at the bottom of a small text box, with the key leading to i believe platonic or familial f/os i cant remember which.) marcos main f/o was buck from 911, which carried over to the 'aray' blog. theyve since deleted this f/o from their list. dina and ellie were on marcos list towards the end of that blog. that has since carried over. they also strangely had dragon ball blacklisted, as they do on their current blog, which is very likely because of the issues they have had with keke/@galedinner the past who, at the time of their old blogs deactivaton and new blogs creation, was fixated on his dragon ball f/os, and had some fairly popular posts regarding them.

- kayle, the shipper who also racefaked (at first to being wholly poc, then mixed, then 'part' native i believe because their...stepdad? was native? hello?they also faked did, and e-begged for money after causing a three-car pileup via distracted driving. they were into DC with bruce wayne always being their 'main' f/o,' and genshin. (this is where keke very bravely called out their shit, which is where their issues with him started i believe.)

- ana/anastasia, a shipper who also used to trace art, specifically DC comic art. they shipped with bruce wayne and jason todd.

- a few other blogs whom i never checked, but if you remember that "deactivation speedrun" thing that happened round a year ago on my blog, that was them also, also going by ana again. i called them out on clearly trying to weasel their way back into the community, and they immediately deactivated.

just to name a few. they didnt racebend, they falsely claimed to be poc more than once. they claimed i believe to be at points: latinx, native, and black mixed? i have talked to more than one person who has known them throughout all these blog changes/at different points throughout, as well as adding my own experience, in case youre curious as to where im getting some of these details.

this is how they drew their selfinserts (character on the right) btw, at least when they were going by marco:

i have added an image of my own arm and colorpicked directly from it, which is the the darker two colors -- mind you, i am polish and irish. im about as white as it gets ethnically, though i admit im not as pale as i could be for it. i picked from my natural tone and even from the lightest part i could see just to really try to throw a bone, and they still drew their s/is very consistently paler than me. and then claimed to be poc. (also, look at the hair. the clothes folds. the hands. its very clearly traced. no way someone is so good at facial anatomy and proportions and then...draws a hand like that. im sorry.)

its a clear pattern, and quite easy to follow through time via their interests and other small details about their blog/typing/tagging system/etc.

theyre not a great person, and im quite upset i didnt pick up on the kayle -> marco switch when it happened, but i try to give people benefit of the doubt. i have known them for years, though rarely interacted directly with them until they went by marco, though i dont know if they know i have known them so long, as i myself have gone through a few name/url changes since then (but it is all present on my blog. i have never remade attempting to 'be' someone else. i just think theyre not that smart to realize.) others im sure have more dealings with them, and feel free to add on.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/738129963878875136/some-people-really-are-doing-their-darndest-to

Even if we pretend as if 'more stories by and about poc should be adapted rather than just relying on racebending white characters from majority white casts' was the point you were originally making (and, to be clear, it isn't; if that's what you wanted to say at the start, you really need to get better at communicating ideas), that doesn't change the fact that this relies on Hollywood being remarkably less racist than it is right now.

Because, you see, while some strides have been made, overwhelmingly the stories that are chosen for adaptations--especially big budget movies and television--are ones from white creators and/or with all- or majority-white casts. Bridgerton. Shadow and Bone. Percy Jackson. The MCU and DCEU and other Marvel and DC properties. Good Omens. Sandman. Rings of Power and other LoTR adaptations. Wheel of Time. Etc etc etc.

It would be great if Hollywood just miraculously got less racist overnight and started choosing poc created/driven stories to adapt for the big and small screens in anywhere close to equal numbers. But that's just not the reality of the world we live in. And the reality is that if you insist on only ever allowing characters of color on screen if the source material being adapted depicted them as such, then mass media is going to be even more overwhelmingly white than it is.

It's actually great to look at stories where skin color does not actually matter (like in The Witcher or Percy Jackson) and think 'hm, why do these characters have to be white when we can provide opportunities to actors of color to play these roles?', while also thinking 'it'd be great to get more spotlight on stories that are by and/or heavily feature poc so that we move away from "white as the default"'.

These two ideas can coexist--and, in fact, they must in order for any real progress to be made. So people are probably going to continue to assume that you're racist if you bitch about the inclusion of poc in The Witcher, a story where absolutely zero part of it requires that the entire cast be white. Especially if you start in with that 'it's based in polish folklore!!!!' bullshit line despite not caring one whit about all the non-polish white people that are also in the cast.

--

Yup.

Actually, I have seen Witcher complaints that just focused on the Polish aspect, and I think they make an interesting point. This adaptation could have kept that more visible. But that's irrelevant to having some nonwhite characters or not.