#and disrespect the character (especially nonwhite characters)

[tofixtheshadows]

As someone who cries very easily and feels things very deeply, I can feel absolutely gutted by a tragic plot twist or character death, but I still experience catharsis from a well-crafted story. Too often I come across people absolutely in tatters over a character death in some kind of media, and it’s not because of the sympathetic bond of human experience but because their special little meow meow died, and they’re too entitled to take anything from it but betrayal and have infantilized the craft of storytelling so much that they think only a hack writer would kill off a character or leave them with a miserable/ambiguous end instead of letting everyone live happily ever after with sunshine and rainbows. And it’s so fucking annoying.

[genericpuff]

I think praising someone (Mongie) considering her incredibly racist comments and disrespectful behavior towards nonwhite fans, simply because she isn’t Rachel, is a bit gross

? I mean, yeah I agree with you, she's acted very immaturely and cruel towards her nonwhite fans. I'm assuming this has to do with my post talking about mongie's announcements at NYCC with her getting an anime? (if not please link me to the specific post for context). I don't really see any of that as 'praising her', more so just acknowledging the fact that she at least had the balls to step away from WT when she knew it wasn't working for her anymore, and the fact that she's managed to succeed separate from WT thus proving that it is, in fact, possible to succeed in this industry without relying on one single platform. The comparison to Rachel was more so just to prove a point that LO is in development hell lmao

I was more so just trying to praise the action in and of itself, not praising mongie for being a good person. I'm very aware of and have talked about her issues involving her racist opinions (the Vicky incident especially), I don't think her not being Rachel makes her a good person or good creator by default and that's not the point I was trying to get across. I'm not interested in continuing to read her work (like with LO I used to be a huge fan of Let's Play until it fell tf off in S3, then I found out about all the racism) but I can acknowledge the fact that she found a way to break out of the mould of Webtoons because I think that's something that should be talked about so that others can see it is possible to survive outside of Webtoons (not just for the aspiring creators, but also for the Originals creators who have spoken up about feeling 'stuck' with Webtoons because they don't feel like they can succeed without WT). It's just a shame it was, y'know, the person who has treated her fanbase like shit and acted out over very valid criticisms of her depictions of nonwhite characters. That's pretty much all I was trying to get across, it's not much more complicated than that lmao Weird analogy but it's like when you smell something cooking that smells really good and then you find out that it involves ingredients you can't stand LOL

But hey, you do raise a good point that highlighting the success of someone who's shitty towards their readers and how they write nonwhite characters is just giving them more press and recognition, so let's use this opportunity to highlight a not problematic creator who also found success in this industry while never once being an Originals creator - Alice Oseman! Heartstopper is wonderful and beautifully written especially in its characterizations and depictions of queer relationships and identities, the Netflix adaption is very warm and comforting to watch, and Alice herself seems like someone who I'd love to have coffee with if I ever had the chance. Go read/watch Heartstopper y'all , and remember to include non-Originals creators in your search for good comics to read <3 I'll probably make an actual post about Heartstopper sometime because I still need to watch the second season of the show and I'm sure I'll have plenty to gush about after I watch it just like I did with the first :' )

[crypt1dcorv1dae]

i think that reading the doom patrol run that gar originated in is INTEGRAL to understanding him as a character... like, to me THAT is my baseline, and plenty of versions AFTER that fuck up a lot of characterization (notably the NTT era) that was established back then, but tbh when things contradict/retcon the baseline for me? where the writers clearly misunderstood the character? often i just... overlook those parts. or try to find a way to fit it into the character that makes SENSE, at least, bc sometimes ignoring them does more harm than good

like, i dont ignore the fact that in the ntt era he was written as super misogynistic... but i can also explain that by the fact hes been forced to spend FAR too much time with steve dayton, NOTED MISOGYNIST, as a young and impressionable teenager, and those behaviors can rub off on people...

BUT in his original run, he showed NO signs of that, actually seemed pretty chill and respectful of women, especially considering he hadnt had a good female role model since he was probably, what? 6? at most? when his mother died, so i think that... at his core, he isnt disrespectful like that, and it could be explained as being a negative influence by his adopted father.

BUT anyway, point is, i much prefer when canon introduces things that ADD to a character or story rather than CONTRADICT it, though sometimes contradicting previous canon can be a good thing when it adds more depth and IMPROVES the character/story, adding layers that werent there previously (i feel that, for instance, making gar nonwhite would/does add a lot of layers to his character and how his life and trauma has shaped him, why he acts the way he does, why he has this persona he hides behind, how he is SO ANGRY at everyone who has hurt him but he cant let that SHOW, he cant BE angry openly like others can, bc people would see him as "just an animal" whether he was green or NOT)

i cant remember where i was going with this, im just rambling tbh, i just... feel a lot of feelings about gar and almost everything i love about him was ESTABLISHED in that doom patrol run...

[cosmics-beings]

Just wanted to say your additions to the TF racism post were so succinct and spot one, I have had SO Many discussions with my friends about all the different micro and macroaggressions in both humanization designs and unsavory stereotypical character portrayals in TFs. it feels good to see more people (especially fellow POC) talking about it because theres NO reason ppl should have such awful reading comp and thought processes as 'we GOTTA portray the Decepticons as BIPOC bc they were oppressed in some continuities' while just. Ignoring how utterly awful that is or 'Im gonna hypersexualize this character and Also theyre darkskinned with prominent nonwhite features Its Fine :)' like HELLO?? Its not just a TF thing sadly, but because of how malleable robots are, it can be so blatant

Thank you so much and I'm so happy that you resonated with it! Ive actually been afraid to have these discussions (especially tag them) so when I saw one it made me happy. And knowing that we all relate and understand makes me feel so much better.

It's like, at first i didn't mind that much when i saw poc decepticons, but the reasons and the portrayals are just so bad. like, it's as if people don't understand their own biasis against poc - especially dark skinned poc and black folks - and it shows in their writing. so many artist just lean on streotypes and fetishizations and it's super SUPER prominent in fan art. especially with characters like megatron and starscream.

i totally agree - it's not just a tf thing, but i always felt for how 'progress' this fandom is, especially regarding queerness, they'd be less racist. but i suppose that isn't quite the case. and ever time i see a nonblack author draw black megatron and do it in such a disrespectful and harmful way i am INSTANTLY reminded. i wish there could be more room to talk about it in a more positive light, but i feel that whenever poc speak up, we get branded as wanting to start fandom drama, and that's just not the case.

and it's surprising because most racist depictions of the transformers are in queer transformers spaces

Thank you so much tho for sending this <3!

[bao3bei4]

white eyes and chinese looks: the observation effect in fandom racism

this essay originally looked a lot different. it was originally just about whitewashing in the mo xiang tong xiu fandom. however i’m uncomfortable writing that essay. and not because i’m scared people will be mean to me, or because i don’t know what to say.

the problem is that in mxtx fandom, public incidents of racism are consistently mined for entertainment. and whether or not the white people who enjoy drama sleuthing intend it, turning racism into a spectacle creates a chilling effect on people of color’s ability to talk about racism. 

i’m going to talk about this in three parts: first, a case study in racism as entertainment; second, my personal reflections on that event; third, the broader historical-cultural context for talking about china, suffering, and entertainment.

1. 

so let’s rewind to the inciting incident for this essay, which was uh. over a month ago now. 

it began when my friend xtine messaged our group chat. he’d been looking for a fic he’d read a while back, but he just couldn’t find it. after some looking, it became apparent that it had been deleted. after even more looking, we learned that it had actually been republished as original fiction. we had been curious about it because the premise had sounded funny and, of course, xtine had liked it.

we began to read this new version of it. but things seemed, on the face, odd. 

to start with, lan sizhui, the main character, had been given a decidedly irish name. it was at this point that my friend le wrote a couple tweets venting about their frustration with this. it was not that deep. no disrespect to le but they tweet about every meal they eat. 

but le’s thread received an unexpected amount of attention, most of it begging for a name that they did not want to give. as the thread began to blow up, they reached out to the author privately, who refused to read their criticism and eventually blocked them. le ultimately deleted their thread.

there were two separate reactions that i found troubling. the first was that of the author: they defended themself by saying that they were also a person of color and that they chose to use their own culture instead of one they knew less about. they then asserted that people who were criticizing them had not read their book.

i’m going to address this first, because it’s relatively simple to do so and involves ground i’ve covered elsewhere in my essays. 

let’s get this out of the way: i have read their book in its entirety, and that is why i feel comfortable saying this: it is understandable that not knowing much about chinese culture is a reason not to write a book about it. but the problem is that this lack of knowledge means that much chinese culture still exists in their book: it is instead called aracial. 

this is what we mean when we talk about whitewashing and, i think, how it mostly manifests in this fandom. it is not so simple as to say “whitewashing is when you say a nonwhite character is white.” that is trivially true, but implicates relatively few people. 

rather, mo xiang tong xiu fandom has an ongoing problem with treating chinese culture and identity as an aesthetic, rather than something intrinsic to our selves and our stories. it is especially frustrating when it’s treated as disposable when people want to create their “real” work.

when we treat xianxia as just chinese wizards, we end up with awkward situations. in this novel, for instance, there are no golden cores; there are magic glands. there are no musical cultivators with guqin; there are bards with guitars and violins. do you understand what i’m trying to say? much of the taoism infused hallmarks of chinese fantasy remain, they have just been renamed. 

the same can be said of the characters: the motifs, the backstories, the dynamics remained intact, but the characters themselves were renamed. this is, i think, why plagiarism accusations began to fly around. people recognized these characters, and it wasn't because they were timeless archetypes, but rather culturally specific instances bound to the worlds mo xiang tong xiu had created. 

so, more productively, this is my question to writers: do you know what mo xiang tong xiu invented? do you know what she didn’t? do you know which of those things were inspired by the genre, which were inspired by general chinese literary tropes, and which were inspired by history and religion? and do you know what’s just... her talking and making up stuff? (if it can be so easily disentangled. but chinese people do just say stuff randomly too) 

it’s okay if you don’t know all the answers. i don’t think any one person could answer all of them definitively. and it’s okay if her writing is the first encounter you’ve had with the genre. but this is all the more reason to tread carefully as you begin to form your own thoughts on and transformations of her work. 

——————– 

2. 

now. i have been careful to be vague here; you will note that i have not mentioned anyone’s username. i also have not mentioned any character names, or fic titles, or posted any screenshots. it makes this a bit awkward. you have to take on faith i am fairly representing things here. i have tried to, if that makes you feel better. 

there is a reason that everything i have just said is not the essay in its entirety. there is a reason that the “fuller” version of the essay will never be written. this is because the second reaction i found troubling was that of the people who engaged with le’s tweet. 

there was the typical white defensiveness, sure. but actually, a lot of people were sympathetic--both white people and people of color. and maybe even... too sympathetic. 

many people, including people with followings much larger than le’s, boosted the tweet solely to ask their followers who the author was. people posted links to le’s tweet on other social media sites, to see if people there knew who they were talking about. and some people were even angry at le themself for tweeting about it, arguing that le was “protecting” the author and actually colluding in whitewashing by not naming the author and the fic. 

take a minute to revel in the sheer absurdity of this: le, a vietnamese person, was accused of being racist for... bringing up the racism in the first place. 

i think le felt, at the time, much the same way i do now, writing this. 

i am frustrated. i am hurt. i want to make visible exactly how and why whitewashing can manifest even from a well-meaning author of color. but i can’t in good faith write that essay knowing that the author would be dogpiled online. and that a large number of the people doing it would either write or consume whitewashed fanfiction themselves. 

no one took le’s point about whitewashing seriously, even after they added tweets stating explicitly that they were trying to talk about how common this is within the fandom, not call out a specific person. none of it provoked broader reflection about the entitlement white people feel with regard to chinese identity.

moreover, at no point did any of these people express concern for le. do you realize that racism can hurt people’s feelings? that when we are angry, when we are frustrated, that that comes from pain? 

i think it will come as a surprise to no one that people of color speaking about racism will receive pushback. but where black people in fandom have received more out and out harassment for critiquing their nonblack peers, i have been lucky enough to never face that level of hostility. and because i haven’t had to contend with that, i think that in some ways, this helps illuminate this response that we all receive--that of white audiences assimilating antiracist critiques of media consumption by making them media to consume in themselves. 

so that is what this essay is about: how, in fandom, people of color talking about racism becomes a dehumanizing spectacle for white people to consume as entertainment, and how that both blunts our antiracist critiques and deters us from talking about it in the future.

this is how even the “good” white people, who consider themselves allies, because they boost the right posts, block the right people, know the right catchphrases, and read--voraciously!--about racism in their communities, make it harder to just... be. 

this series of events served as a powerful articulation of something i’ve seen happen too many times in fandom. there is a feeling of incredible dehumanization being in pain, and realizing that even then, your suffering isn’t entertaining or beautiful enough for your audience. 

and even now i find myself preoccupied by it. am i turning my desire to be understood into “content creation,” becoming complicit in some godawful drama industrial complex? 

i mean, frankly speaking, i don’t care. i want to take the risk that i will be understood, but i am fully aware of the voyeuristic impulse that will motivate the majority of clickthroughs. and all i can do is name it, and talk to it directly: i’m watching you back, and i’m writing about you.

——————– 

3. 

we can connect the idea of “interpersonal harm as entertainment” to the larger drama culture which exists, and which fandom slapfights have certainly proved fertile fodder for. we can talk about how gossip is fun, and how that real human impulse drives the need-to-know bug. we can talk about how the memeification of everything means that high profile incidents of fandom racism get turned into little punchlines that stick around forever—”jewish lans,” or “mdzs isn’t set in china,” or whatever. 

but rather than somewhat trivially connect one fandom phenomenon to another fandom phenomenon, i’d like to take the racialization of these incidents as their most important feature, and the use of “china” as rhetorical device as the basis of this discussion. 

there is a long intellectual history of white observers arguing that chinese people have a special relationship to cruelty and pain. and there is also a long intellectual history of those same white observers using chinese people and chinese suffering as hypothetical examples to make points about universal humanity--or lack thereof. here, i am trying to complicate the latter: i am using white observation to make a point about chinese suffering, which remains my central preoccupation. 

but at any rate, these two histories are united in eric hayot’s the hypothetical mandarin: sympathy, modernity, and chinese pain, which traces the lineage of this uneasy fixation and what it might say about the nature of modernity itself. its earliest appearances include authors like adam smith, who used the hypothetical complete destruction of china by earthquake--and the inevitable european indifference to it--as a rhetorical device. 

but… why china? historians agree he was actually inspired by the 1755 lisbon earthquake. something about it, i suppose, felt comfortably foreign. and he was not alone in this sort of belief. eventually, a mass of references to china as a hypothetical faraway land concreted into a single question that became crucial to modern european philosophy, which hayot puts this way: “what is the relative worth to you of harm done to a chinese stranger?” and in the process, harm to chinese people itself was implicitly minimized. 

this intellectual preoccupation came to its most profitable fruition when capital found it useful to create a convenient stabilizing myth for the american import of chinese labor via the figure of the “coolie” and his indifference to pain, boredom, and exhaustion. this is an important commonality that chinese people share with other people of color; chinese people are certainly not the only race whose pain is diminished in relation to white people, in service of justifying the exploitation of their labor. 

not only that, but there was a flip side to this perceived tendency. chinese people were imagined as not only insensible to their own pain, but to the pain of others as well. via writers like bertrand russell, we see accounts of immense chinese cruelty as a national trait. as russell once authoritatively relayed in a 1922 letter: 

If a dog is run over by an automobile and seriously hurt, nine out of ten passers-by will stop to laugh at the poor brute’s howls. The spectacle of suffering does not of itself rouse any sympathetic pain in the average Chinaman; in fact, he seems to find it mildly agreeable.

other expats would breathlessly relay accounts of the chinese penal code, the punishments of which captivated polite european society and eventually became a central fixation of such eminent later thinkers as georges bataille, for instance. 

but the victims of this imagined cruelty were not only other chinese people or local fauna. hayot recounts how in late nineteenth century america, a new scifi microgenre flourished--one in which a chinese army invaded america’s borders and launched a military takeover. these stories united both the assertion of the supremacy of american values and bodies (even as they were overrun by the faceless yellow hordes) as well as an imagined victimhood because of that superiority.

so suffering was a fact of life to chinese people in this account, and it was something that they could tolerate better in themselves and others. this became a fact that built america.

there are some weaknesses to centering this history in my analysis, of course. i am cautious of allowing pain its primacy, which relies on culturally specific appeals to pain as a unit of humanity. but beyond that, even the greatest cheerleaders of pain-as-foundation find its most immutable characteristic its resistance to language. pain, they argue, can’t be shared or proven. that’s why it’s so important. all we have is a sort of helpless identification with it, in which we say “that pain seems to be the same as mine.” we have no choice not to, and we cannot say anything stronger.

but the fact of the matter is that despite all this--i do feel it, and i feel compelled to evoke it. maybe it’s some sort of petulant resistance to theory/via theory. i cannot prove to you anything i say about my own experience of pain; i talk around the shape of the pain and the places we have warped around it. 

anyway. these were not myths that gained currency while chinese people passively looked on. we can find the prototypical response to it in lu xun’s preface to his iconic short story collection, call to arms. in it, lu xun explains why he left the medical school he was studying at in tokyo. he had been studying there during the russo-japanese war. the school played his class a patriotic video of a chinese spy for the russian army being executed. the japanese students around him cheered. and in the background of the video itself, unrelated chinese people were present simply out of macabre desire to watch the execution. lu xun concluded that:

The people of a weak and backward country, however strong and healthy they may be, can only serve to be made examples of, or to witness such futile spectacles; and it doesn’t really matter how many of them die of illness. The most important thing, therefore, was to change their spirit, and since at the time I felt that literature was the best means to this end, I determined to promote a literary movement.

so first: i do find this description of chinese enjoyment of suffering as spectacle qualitatively different than russell’s description of the struck dog. in his treatment of this passage, hayot draws upon lydia liu’s reading, in which she argues that lu xun’s project is allowing chinese people to “emerge as subject and agent of their own history,” rather than simply a breathless reiteration of racist stereotypes. 

hayot goes as far as to characterize lu xun’s narration as “self-consciously modernizing.” this is both not inaccurate and not atypical for lu xun. lu xun and his writer cohort tended to be preoccupied with what a chinese modernity would look like, educated as they were in the tradition of writers like russell. they struggled to eke out representations of themselves, believing that the possibility of chinese modernity at all was at stake. 

lu xun’s vision of modernity was self-consciously formed in the milieu of these heavily trafficked images of cruelty-pain-spectacle and west-japan-china relations, and this became his self-mythologized entrance into these relations, in which he deliberately casts himself as observer first and foremost.

——————–

END. 

afong moy was the first chinese woman in america. she was imported to the us in the same way that the carne brothers, who brought her there, imported chinese goods. they hoped that demand for one would improve demand for the other. she sat in a room, made up with those decorative goods. she herself was layered with fine silk and decorations, and sat very still in a chair, while white gawkers paid to watch “the chinese lady,” first under the auspices of the carne brothers and later under pt barnum. 

she was a museum piece, anne anlin cheng argues, one whose appeal lay in “her decorative (and projected ontological) sameness to the silk, damask, mahogany, and ceramics alongside which she sits.” she is the example by which cheng begins, early on in ornamentalism, to argue that asian femininity had emerged by the process of pure aestheticization, in which a person-object is constituted by a decorative grammar primarily. 

in this line of thinking, the asian woman is pure appearance, pure spectacle, in its most technical sense. one could even argue that afong moy’s time as art piece anticipates debord. 

now, with that sort of turn, i wish i could pull this all together here with pleasing parallels. in my ideal essay, there would be a cheeky bit of detournement of the original fic, the final reversal of the disparate scenes i have turned over and over here. take my word for it: you would find it very clever.

i like doing close readings. i like working with texts. but i can’t! not responsibly, at least. it would be disingenuous of me to pretend i don’t know what the response would be. it would cause harassment and perhaps even more importantly (sorry) it would be ultimately unproductive. it would solve nothing. we might get a new punchline to go with the other racism you’ve all memefied. what a treat. 

on this blog, i find myself falling into patterns. i write about history because i can’t write about the present. this is perhaps another downfall to my preoccupation with pain that forms a motif in this essay. i can only write about people i can’t hurt; i can only write about people who already are no longer human, who have already become a symbol of something else. 

so i can’t say anything satisfying here to conclude. i find myself (i’m not so arrogant about my writing that i’ll say ‘like lu xun,’ i’ll just leave it implied) already caught in one gaze, even as i’m finally able to articulate what my own perspective might be. all i can do is try not to become entertainment in the process.

——————– 

thank you to bree for reading this over and to xtine and le for your co-sign. all mistakes are still my own though <3

[ectonurites]

Every time I think about Batgirl getting shelved I become more frustrated and annoyed. It just has so many layers to it that make it worse; Batgirl being shelved when it’s nearly completed but the Flash movie still being released despite its lead being on the run from the police? One of the first CBM wore a trans supporting character with a nonwhite lead and non white directors? Zaslav wants big theatrical releases but nobody is gonna be interested in them if their universe is bland and especially with this fiasco, I can see directors being less likely to want to work on a DC film if Batgirl is any indication on how it will be treated. I just feel horrible for the crew, they’ve been done incredibly dirty and it’s frankly disrespectful for Zaslav to do this to them

YEAH!! Honestly that’s all like… exactly my thoughts on all of this.

[howelljenkins]

hey so i know non white percy is a pretty popular headcanon but i was wondering if it was still considered bad to hc him as a poc with green eyes as i know there has been a heap of people calling rick's depiction of other poc with coloured eyes as disrespectful (re: piper and hazel). i dont wanna hurt anyone by accidentally playing into a racist stereotype y'know? ^ Not my ask. Saw other people discussing it on a different blog. Thoughts?

I think that to answer this question one has to look at the context and intent behind the features of each character.

Hazel and Piper are young Black and indigenous women (and in this case, the fact that they are women shouldn’t be overlooked). There is a history of providing woc with otherworldly/white features in order to “exotify” them and make them more desirable/magical/etc, and this goes doubly for black women. If you consider the actual colors Riordan ascribes to their features, it’s not hard to see how their characters play into this pattern.

Piper’s eye color is literally impossible to have. I’ve seen people try to excuse Riordan by saying that she has hazel eyes (I’m not sure why they even try to excuse it since they obviously understand it’s wrong. Take note of how far people go to preserve the “unique” eye colors of nonwhite characters) but he very explicitly compares them to a “kaleidoscope”, constantly changing colors from brown to green to blue, etc.

This has given people the excuse to draw her with bright pink eyes. Before people became more vocal about how harmful her features are, you’d be hard-pressed to find a dark-eyed drawing of Piper. However, take one peek into her tag and you’d find droves of blue, green, and even pink-eyed Pipers. I’m not here to unfold the entire history of how brown eyes are viewed, but I trust you to use common sense and make your own conclusions about what might influence people to be so subconsciously averse to drawing her with brown eyes, especially when they are one of her canonical eye colors.

To my knowledge, none of the other children of Aphrodite are described this way. One could argue Silena, but we all know that Riordan just didn’t keep her character’s appearance consistent. Ask yourself why he would go out of his way to give an Indigenous woman those eyes. He does it to prove she’s the daughter of Aphrodite, the daughter of beauty. Ask yourself why her brown eyes aren’t enough for him, especially since he has never given any other character this feature.

Hazel, the daughter of a Black woman with no explicitly “exotic” features, is given orange hair and eyes. For Hazel, even the excuse of “she got them from her godly parent” (which is fundamentally flawed) doesn’t work as Hades is literally described as having dark eyes. Add this on to the fact that none of the other children of Hades have any of these features (the di Angelo’s have regular Italian features) and it makes you question why Hazel was specifically chosen to be the one to be described with coloring that is literally inhuman (when was the last time you saw someone with bright orange hair and eyes?). At best, her description is inconsistent with the rest of his writing. At worst, it is dehumanizing and plays into the fetishization of black women.

Now I ask you to look at the situation with a wider lens and realize that the only characters given these inhuman “magical” features are Piper and Hazel. The closest thing I can think of for comparison is Annabeth’s grey eyes, which are both realistic AND given to most (if not all) children of Athena, rather than singling out one child to show how “special” they are.

Now, take all of this and try to see if it applies to Percy. The biggest difference is that green eyes are a completely normal feature for humans to have. They may not be common for white people and POC, but they certainly aren’t unheard of. I can name 10 POC with green eyes that I know off the top of my head right now.

Also, we can’t overlook the role gender plays in this. The history behind the exotification of WOC is infinitely more damning than that of men. While this does often apply to male characters, it’s the unfortunate truth that it’s much more common with female characters.

Most importantly, I think we can’t look past the reason why we are so vehemently against giving Piper and Hazel these features. Intent plays a huge factor in this. As mentioned before, it’s clear both through Riordan’s writing and literary history that the intent behind features such as Hazel’s and Piper’s are to exotify them and show how “magical” they are. By doing so, there is a heavy implication that their natural features are not enough. There is no such intent with Percy. Since his race is never explicitly mentioned, we can conclude that Rick originally viewed Percy as white (who are unfortunately seen as the default). Add that onto the fact that green eyes aren’t unheard of in POC and you see that the implications behind Hazel’s and Piper’s features don’t apply to Percy’s. Also, his eyes don’t come out of nowhere (and they aren’t explained away with a cop-out “it comes from his godly parent”) as Sally herself is described as having sea-blue eyes.

While I see where the concern comes from, I personally think it’s unfounded. Of course, one could argue against me and their view could be just as valid as mine, but when I look at the history behind each character’s features (both Riordan’s personal history and the history of nonwhite characters in general), I find myself concluding that the two situations really aren’t that similar.

[mandaloriangf]

The fact that there are legit people out there that so vigorously defend the Disney trilogy is so WILD to me... like, unlike the OT, PT, and literally any other SW property, the DT constantly contradicted itself and was an absolute failure when it came to having a cohesive story or end game. It treated its characters, especially its nonwhite characters and anyone from the OT, with severe disrespect. And the movies were WILDLY racist. Like, on tumblr, at the very least, among general people who never even watched Star Wars, the general, correct consensus is that these movies are racist for what they did to John Boyega. So wht in the WORLD do people want to defend this dumb trilogy so bad???

like there are definitely people out there who insist the pt was actually a secret masterpiece which is a lie, they’re still not actually good movies but it’s different than the st, you know? the pt still had an actual storyline that was planned from start to finish, it was commentary on the bush era of politics, and actually just. made sense. 

the st was made primarily for money. they never intended on it being a trilogy of movies that existed to tell a story worth telling. they were made to get our asses in the theaters and give them money. and in the process of doing that, they took the first ever black lead of star wars and tossed him aside because they thought that would make them more money. and it gets defended! people are still like “you can acknowledge what happened to john and still enjoy it” no you cant! you literally cant!

[itonje]

anyways. maybe I'm beating a literal dead horse here because people older and smarter than me have said this in better and more eloquent ways but this has to be said because i'm so tired of the lack of sympathy towards nonwhites and jewish people who try to talk about this issue (including myself, who was deleted cos the hetalians reported me for spam) you can say that it isn't racist and antisemetic, that it's meant to be a satire or critism of the politics of world war 2 from a european angle but there a moral event horizon that's not to be crossed with satire because more than mocking and obviously pointing out the faults in these fascist states hetalia personifies them, make them out as less than they are. not to mention it was made by a japanese man-the violent imperialism and nationalism within japan is ignored and dismissed especially by japan itself, and thinking that because the creator is a poc makes him less likely to be a racist and antisemetic proves how little you know about race politics. after interacting with the hetalians for a night, and past hetalian fans and conversations with friends i have finally put into words how wrong these people have an understanding of history and violence and satire. its not..appropriate. it's not socially appropriate to make genocides and violence and decade long conflicts into uwu funny characters to ship i can understand how this phenomena of dissonance between fans of hetalia and the violent history behind their show are caused-there's a strange way to how america, predominantly white and gentile america approaches the topic of world war 2, or really any conflict involving themselves. but america isn't particularly the problem. all history, no matter where its taught or who its taught to has the potential to create a distance between the student and itself. its easy to slip into the thought that this isnt real, it doesnt matter, and the dehumanization and lack of sympathy for those touched by violence is definitively contributed to by this. i'm not saying hetalia fans are all inherently evil-one of my good friends used like it when he was very young. but a message for all of them-learn to consume your media critically. get educated on your history. keep an open mind. and above all, please god, please try to respect the descendants and family of those that are victims of horrible crimes and horrible violence that are disrespected and minimized in the show you love so much. i would like this to be reblogged.

[longsightmyth]

do you have any recs for books (ya or adult) with strong female characters that aren’t mary sues and are like. well developed? idk but the lack of female characters that aren’t like alien (bitchy=strong) frustrates me sometimes and i want to read about strong females characters without those misused tropes and overall just blatantly incorrect? not sure exactly how to describe it but

WELP I had a post but tumblr mobile is the pits. Lemme try again.

Tamora Pierce! Always a good place to start for YA ladies being super cool in all sorts of ways. Your mileage may vary on a couple of aspects, but be assured that Tamora Pierce is a decent human being who, when she messes up, apologizes, promises to do better, and does so (The Song of the Lioness, much as I love it, does have some early installment weirdness, partly from being originally planned and written as one long adult fantasy novel)

Seanan McGuire is another author that works hard and it shows. I especially like October Daye, which suffers from Ongoing Story Syndrome occasionally but significantly less than other urban fantasy series. Be aware that October Daye is written for an adult audience, even if it handles sex and violence much more gracefully than some YA books I could mention.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin. Nonlinear narrative with Lady Revenge and a whole host of different societies. Hardcore examination of colonialism throughout the trilogy, even if I like the first best. Ignore the weird god sex scene, most of us do. Adult. I’ve heard the criticisms and acknowledge that they exist. It’s still one of my favorite books of all time.

All of the main characters in Anne Leckie’s Ancillary Justice and sequels use she/her pronouns due to language and society worldbuilding. Breq doesn’t seem to care either way except to figure out whether the planet she’s landing on uses the same conventions or others. Adult sci-fi the way sci-fi was supposed to be. Lots of moral questions and pondering of humanity. Examination of colonialism. Full disclosure: Ancillary Justice is another one of my favorite books of all time. As with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, criticism is understood but not comprehended.

The Winner’s Trilogy by Marie Rutkoski. Say what you will about the trilogy (and there is plenty that you can and should say) but Kestrel is still a badass guile heroine who takes the lumps she deserves with (mostly) good grace. Also, this series ruined what was left of my goodwill for YA ‘politics’ and ‘war’ because it showed me that Tamora Pierce didn’t have to be an outlier and YA COULD have intelligent politics and war commentary, some authors just choose not to do it. Naming no names or anything.

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C Wrede. While very white (I cannot off the top of my head think of any nonwhite characters? Ugh) it has lots of common-sensical women approaching fantasy tropes with a genre-savvy but not obnoxious eye. You melt magicians with soapy water and a dash of lemon juice. The witch doesn’t melt because she keeps her house spotlessly clean. Dragons choose their gender when they mature. Dragon King and Queen are two different jobs, and gender is irrelevant. Mendenbar approaches women with a jaundiced eye but Cimorene points out that he never actually has conversations with them, and it’s not like he’s disrespectful, he just wants to get his job done in peace and would appreciate it if his steward would stop presenting him with eligible ladies while he’s trying to do it. (it’s not without it’s flaws, obviously, but it retains its charm)(often they save the world by being polite and respectful)

The first two books of His Fair Assassin by Robin LeFevers. Be aware that though it’s YA the second book especially has lots of trigger warnings, but I personally thought everything handled pretty well. I do not suggest the third book.

I really love the Withlands series by Susan Dennard, who is another hardworking author who, when she messes up, apologizes and works to make it better. Also she gave me a queer princess whose angst does not lie with her queerness. YA and not finished yet.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but I hope I helped!

[drifgrim]

I can agree that what the writers did to Wanda and Pietro was gross and disrespectful as hell and it pisses me off too that they stripped them of their Jewish and Romani heritage, like I 100% agree with that

But what pisses me off as well is that people are literally trying to define MCU’s Wanda as nothing but a Nazi and that’s all she is and that’s it, she’s irredeemable and you’re a bad person for liking her

Like... Yeah, they fucked her origin story, I’m not denying that, but people still really like her and I mean as shitty as it is, this is the best we’re gonna get when it comes to wanting to see our favorite character scarlet Witch in the avengers movies

And despite them stripping her of heritage and putting crosses in her room, Wanda Maximoff is still widely known for being a Jewish character. Just because that isn’t stated and is basically refuted in the movies, a lot of Jewish people still want to identify with her as being Jewish because, again, this is the closest we’re gonna get when we ask for Scarlet Witch in the avengers

It’s shitty that it’s that way, I wish they had included her culture and not whitewashed her, I wish they hadn’t put her in HYDRA

But- people still like the character and can see that there’s more to her than just her damn origin story which a lot of people can see past given her situation and background. That’s why it’s so annoying and just gross for people to go around saying she’s nothing but a Nazi and that’s all she is.

It ESPECIALLY makes me mad because they’re also like “well she wanted to hurt the avengers!!! So she’s always evil!!!” Like... Bucky was brainwashed and worked for HYDRA, not of his own will, no, but still, he did horrible things for HYDRA. Tony did horrible things completely of his own free will, he made mass weapons that caused tons and tons of death and destruction. All the avengers have done BAD things. Nat worked for HYDRA and was an assassin when she was young too- why aren’t people screaming that she’s a Nazi?

How come I only see this label being used for the two characters who are predominantly nonwhite and Jewish in most representations? I understand they are not presented this way in the movies, but a good deal of people still know them to be Jewish. So why is Nazi and other horrible labels only used around the two known to be and widely considered (maybe not canon, but a good deal of people and a good deal of the fandom considers them to be) Jewish characters? How come Tony and Nat get free passes? Because they’re predominantly featured as white, likely Christian characters.

It’s disrespectful- and that’s a nice way of putting it. That’s what pisses me off. You don’t have to like Wanda or Pietro, but a lot of Jewish people do like them and do consider them Jewish- and saying “they’re horrible Nazis who can never be redeemed!!!!” is just not okay. It is widely known that these two are widely debated by the Jewish community in regards to their religion and their whole story- and they just happened to be the ones who are called Nazis, despite quite a few other characters having background in HYDRA who are not called Nazis. Is it just me or is that not a coincidence?

That’s my last rant on this for now but yeah these are my thoughts 👌🏻

(and FYI I’m not saying you should call buck or nat or tony nazis- I’m just saying that if you’re gonna call these two Nazis for previous HYDRA affiliation, you should call them all Nazis, not just the two Jewish ones)

[worldevoured]

GUIDELINES

BEFORE INTERACTING

About the writer: Marianne, she/her, 27, EST. I’ll answer to Ani or Mari, as well. Full-time grad student, working two jobs. My time is limited and this is for fun!

This is a private and selective MULTIMUSE blog for characters from the Dragon Age series, as well as a few crossover characters based in the Dragon Age universe. This blog will feature triggering material, including plot-appropriate violence, sex, drug/alcohol use, discussion of abuse, and other potentially triggering content. I will tag all common triggers, and anything I am asked to tag. Please take care if you follow!

Please tag cancer, sexual violence of any kind (including ‘dubious consent’ and somnophilia), and images of spiders.

ON INTERACTING & FOLLOWING

This blog is mutuals only. If I follow you, I want to write with you! OCs, multimuses, and crossovers are always, always welcome!

I reserve the right to not follow, unfollow, or block users as I see fit, including for the following reasons:

You are under 18, or have no mention of your age/age range on your blog. All minors who follow this blog will be softblocked.

You are inactive for more than six weeks. (If you come back to your blog, please message me so I can refollow!)

You repeatedly ignore my rules.

You don’t seem interested in writing with me, and have a pattern of not responding to my attempts to interact (repeatedly ignoring starters, memes, etc.)

You romanticize Nazis in any way, shape, or form.

You write “dark themes” such as abuse in a disrespectful manner. It’s possible to write on a “dark theme” without romanticizing or fetishizing it.

You engage in racist, sexist, cissexist, homophobic, ableist, or otherwise harmful behavior.

You guilt and/or manipulate me or any of your followers.

I feel distress or unease writing with you, engaging with you, or seeing you on my dashboard.

Regarding cisswapped characters: I will not follow or interact with cisswapped characters written by cis writers. (I’m cis; it’s not my place to tell anyone who isn’t how to approach gender.)

Regarding “overpowered” characters: I don’t enjoy writing with characters that are completely devoid of flaws, vulnerabilities, or weaknesses – it’s just not fun for me when there aren’t any real stakes, and the rules of whichever universe we’re playing in don’t apply to one of the characters involved.

Feel free to write greeters, send memes, turn memes into threads, and message me to plot! Please don’t write me unsolicited starters otherwise.

I don’t require reblog karma, though I don’t like being used as a meme source if we never interact.

Regarding duplicates: please come write with me! I don’t experience duplicate (character or face claim) anxiety or insecurity and would love to bond over a character we both clearly adore.

ON CANON & FANDOMS

Any character-specific canon divergence will be noted on individual bios. Some blogwide canon divergence:

Re: Cailan and Anora – Cailan divorcing Anora to marry Celene doesn’t make sense to me — it would be a long and difficult process to divorce someone and marry the regent of another sovereign nation, and would cause a lot of ill will with the people — and while I’m perfectly comfortable with including references to such rumors, it’s not something I recognize as canon overall, without extensive plotting.

Re: the Dark Ritual – Because Loghain has to be persuaded or ordered to participate in the Dark Ritual, and thus cannot fully consent, I will not acknowledge Loghain as having completed the Dark Ritual, without extensive plotting to explain why he would consent without persuasion or orders coming into the mix. I also will not write threads that involve in any way Alistair completing the Ritual due to persuasion or coercion. There are ways for Alistair to agree to the Ritual without the “persuade” option being chosen. This is a matter of my own comfort.

I do not interact with whitewashed characters. I recognize Fiona as Alistair’s mother, and Fiona as a woman of color. Tabris’ mother is a dark-skinned woman of color, likely intended by the mods to be Black. ( Source one / two / three ). Their biological children should reflect this. Merrill, Isabela, Dorian, Zevran, Fenris, and Sebastian are all nonwhite. I won’t interact with any portrayals that engage in whitewashing, or ignoring canonically established races for characters.

There are only a handful of fandoms I will not interact with, due to my own comfort. I may interact with the characters in AUs if I am comfortable with the writer. Find the list here.

ON RELATIONSHIPS

I love shipping, and am always interested in exploring new dynamics. With that said, I reserve the right to limit or refuse any plot that makes me uncomfortable. I won’t write incest (relationships between third or greater cousins is fine, but nothing closer than that), and while I am very comfortable writing complicated relationships, I won’t romanticize abuse or toxicity, or write explicit abuse scenes.

Please read this post if you’re interested in shipping !!

ON CONTENT

Please understand that the source material I draw from deals with potentially triggering material, including (but not limited to) violence, sex, drug/alcohol use, and abuse. All of these topics will be dealt with on this blog. With that said, I do reserve the right to refuse to write anything for any reason, especially my own comfort.

I am a legal adult and am comfortable writing legal adults having consensual sex. I will not write smut with or about anyone under the age of eighteen. I am perfectly comfortable with and willing to write scenes fading to black or time jumps. I will not use visual aids of any kind in replies involving graphic sex and ask that you do the same. All NSFW images and text will be tagged as #nsfw;

My formatting is minimal – typically small text and 100x100 icons. English is weird, in spelling and grammar. I don’t super care if you get it right all the time. If I need clarification, I’ll ask!

The dash updates were great for me, as a person with limited visibility. I won’t follow anyone sacrificing accessibility for aesthetics, including with photoshop replies, impossible-to-see icons, and purple prose excessive to the point of being incomprehensible.

If you are uncomfortable with anything you see here, please let me know. I am not perfect and I am sure I’ll make mistakes; if that happens, and you’re comfortable, tell me, and I’ll make every effort to fix it and to be better in the future, in the case of me doing something harmful.

CREDIT

Found here.

EXCLUSIVITY

Notes – If I am exclusive with a particular portrayal, please do not approach me to write with other versions of these characters on this blog. Please also know that I’m unlikely to drop exclusivity for any reason besides extensive (two or more months) inactivity, or breaking mutuals. Threads which ignore or disrespect my exclusivity will be dropped.

Exclusives:

Draco Malfoy – potterstillstinks

Jace Herondale – createdivine

[traumatizedosomatsu]

@gendervoidperidot JVKHKFIGSYGJFHFJFIDYFFU ok for real you cant be kin with ppl outside of your race (E S P E C I A L L Y if youre white) because you cant truly understand the culture or discrimination they face, ever, if you are not from that culture. ever. therefore its extremely culturally insensitive to claim you are or were someone nonwhite when you are white. keep that shit to yourself if you believe in it so strongly, bc ppl will rightfully call you ignorant and racist. (i cant speak about people of color having kintypes outside of their race because i am white.) otherkin takes a lot of different forms and spirituality is PART of how otherkin identities can manifest. otherkin people take a lot of different forms, your definition of it isn't the only one. let's not police other people about how they can or can't label identity issues, spirituality, or both. otherkin is a useful label, especially for people who are both, and they may not experience it the same way that you do. that doesn't mean they're using the label wrong because your experience or spiritual beliefs don't line up with theirs. i cant choose my kintypes either, my friend. but i can still know that certain kintypes ive picked up in the past were disrespectful, and tried my best to forget about and overcome it, because i was told and accepted the fact that i could not understand that kintype's experiences due to me being white. white people being kin with characters of color takes the character away from actual people of said character's race -- white ppl arent the only mentally ill or spiritual people on the planet also even if youre nonwhite, im regurgitating things that poc have been discussing and saying to me. the opinions of poc on people's interactions with characters of color matter more than white peoples' ever will also the post was specifically directed at otherkin delusional people and yes it was worded poorly but whatever i may very well have been a poc in a past life, but that doesnt mean that the person that is living right now can completely comprehend things that happened essentially to someone who is a different person in a different culture. and by extension, claim that i am still from that culture. even if we have the same soul or something. i've been surrounded by other otherkin people for years now -- i think i have a pretty good grasp on what it means to me.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

Firefly or Star Wars?

Ask me what five things I'd change about a piece of media

Firefly (I'm rusty on my Firefly)

Biracial Tam siblings of Chinese descent. I know much if the fandom agrees the Tam siblings should be Chinese, but I personally would love biracial. Biracial doesn't even necessarily mean "a white parent", I just desperately need biracial Tams. I've written briefly in the past why I feel Simon's character arc in particular speaks to me as a biracial person and why I'd love biracial Tams

On that note, rework the whole setting to be less appropriative.

Either no Malnara romance at all, or if there is one, this antagonistic, insults as flirting, slut shaming business that's part of it is GONE.

Nandi lives.

Less framing of the Browncoats as paragons and wholly good, more nuanced framing of the Core as not the same as the Alliance and has having its own good virtues, admirable values, and heroic people. Generally, less emphasis on Browncoats as indisputable good and more nuanced expression of the 'Verse, most notably the Core. I'm a Core gal at heart, and they're not evil.

Star Wars, generally speaking

Nonwhite women, nonwhite women, nonwhite women. And also more nonwhite men.

Conlangs that aren't ripping non-English languages and their sounds, but especially whole non-English phrases, out of context or syntax and marring them until they sound alien. Generally, the whole disrespect to non-English languages in the constructed of the franchise's conlangs in especially the films is not a thing anymore.

General cultural appropriation in character design stops. It's helped somewhat with the more nonwhite persons, but we really don't need to be drawing on nonwhite designs and fabric associations to create a sense of ~~otherness~~ in character design. We really don't.

More exploration of Force traditions outside the Jedi and Sith, especially giving names to these traditions and their concepts, and NOT villainizing ALL of them or making them ALL inherently evil. Aka, do more of what Rebels brought up with the Lasat and the Bendu.

Sensible military structure and numbers in the Grand Army, Republic Fleet, Imperial Army, Rebel Alliance, Resistance, First Order Army, literally any armed force? Their ranking system, structure, and numbers make zero logical sense.

[we-arnold-lockshin-blog]

Dictatorship USA – A Plundering and Predatory Nation  — 2018 (153)

Факты, которые подконтрольные ЦРУ СМ»И»  в России скрывают...

Here's the real reason Trump and his lackeys are trying to keep you from voting

Salon, Nov. 15, 2018

Donald Trump, movement conservatives and the Republican Party exist in their own distorted reality. As such, they have twisted an exhortation to democracy into a modus operandi where democracy is snuffed out and voting rights are denied to anyone who dares to disagree with them.

The 2018 midterm elections were and are replete with such examples.

In Georgia, Texas, Florida and elsewhere, Republican officials purged hundreds of thousands of voters from registration lists, reduced the number of polling places in black and brown and poor communities, refused to count mail-in and absentee ballots and sent out false information designed to confuse voters about how and when to vote. They are using the courts to suppress the vote and have engaged in tricks reminiscent of the Jim Crow South to deny nonwhites the opportunity to vote -- and to ensure that when they do actually vote, their votes are not properly counted.

In another example of his unprecedented norm-breaking and sullying of the presidency, both before, during and after the 2018 midterms Donald Trump has attempted to intimidate Americans with threats of prison for the almost nonexistent crime of "voter fraud."

Trump supporters around the country have picked up this cudgel as a tool for limiting democracy through a logic and strategy wherein the only "real votes" are those made by white people, especially white conservatives. Here, the votes of nonwhites are always suspect.

Donald Trump and his enablers believe that voting and elections do not count unless he and his right-wing agenda are victorious. In this authoritarian vision of America, Donald Trump is to be immune from criticism or accountability by anyone. The media and the public are to pay fealty and to be loyal; he is the American king, god or emperor. The truth is what Donald Trump and his news media and supplicants say it is; empirical reality does not apply in Trump and his movement's fantasy world.

Trump has utter disrespect for the moral leadership role and other responsibilities of the presidency. He has no respect for the Constitution or the rule of law. He channels and encourages the worst aspects of America's national character. He diminishes the standing of the United States around the world. He has elevated white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other hate-mongers into the mainstream of society, and yes, the highest levels of government including the White House. He feels no responsibility to the American people as a whole, but only to the most enthusiastic members of his political cult and his plutocratic class.

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Перед нами сейчас -  коварный и опасный мошенник, расист, лжец и фашист Дональд Трамп, порочный Конгресс, нацистские ФБР - ЦРУ,  кровавые милитаристы США и НАТО >>> а также и лживые, вредоносные американские СМ»И».

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Правительство США жестоко нарушало мои права человека при проведении кампании террора, которая заставила меня покинуть свою родину и получить политическое убежище в СССР. См. книгу «Безмолвный террор — История политических гонений на семью в США» - "Silent Terror: One family's history of political persecution in the United States» - http://arnoldlockshin.wordpress.com

Правительство США еще нарушает мои права, в течении 14 лет отказывается от выплаты причитающейся мне пенсии по старости.  Властители США воруют пенсию!!  

ФСБ - Федеральная служба «безопасности» России - вслед за позорным, предавшим страну предшественником КГБ, мерзко выполняет приказы секретного, кровавого хозяина (boss) - американского ЦРУ (CIA). Среди таких «задач» -  мне запретить выступать в СМИ и не пропускать большинства отправленных мне комментариев.   А это далеко не всё...

Арнольд Локшин, политэмигрант из США

BANNED – ЗАПРЕЩЕНО!!

ЦРУ - ФСБ забанили все мои посты и комментарии в Вконтакте!

… и в Макспарке!