#and disrespect the character (especially nonwhite characters)

[longformeditions]

LE169 Angel Bat Dawid A Modern Cosmic Apocalyptic Sonic Discourse for the Book of Enoch 26.02.2025

Angel Bat Dawid is a Black American Composer, Improviser, Clarinetist, Pianist, Vocalist, Educator and DJ. In 2019 she released her debut album The Oracle with Chicago label International Anthem Recording Co.. Recorded using only her cell phone in various locations, the album received wide-spread critical-acclaim with Pitchfork declaring it, “a vibrant, spiritual, free-jazz document of black life as it stands today”. As an educator, Angel teaches her Great Black Music course at Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center through Old Town School of Folk. She is clarinetist in Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble, and she hosts a monthly music show on NTS Radio (via International Anthem).

Artist notes: This immersive audio experience invites you to engage deeply with one of the most significant and enigmatic texts of antiquity. The Book of Enoch, an ancient Jewish apocalyptic work, has been highly revered and preserved primarily within the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Beta Israel traditions. Attributed to Enoch – the great-grandfather of the biblical Noah – this text explores profound themes of angels, demons, morality, and cosmic judgment, offering a rich and compelling narrative for those interested in spirituality, mysticism, and humanity’s quest for understanding.

However, as we delve into this work, it is imperative to acknowledge the cultural challenges shaped by historical dominance and marginalisation that have often skewed interpretations of ancient texts. There exists a troubling tendency within white culture to dismiss significant literature – especially that which arises from nonwhite traditions – as mere fairy tales or superstitions. This dismissive approach often stems from a prevailing atheism or skepticism that regards ancient narratives not as profound explorations of the human experience but rather as primitive folklore devoid of truth. Such attitudes are, quite frankly, both arrogant and disrespectful to the wisdom of ancient peoples, who conveyed complex understandings of the natural world through stories, music, and writings.

These narratives encapsulate humanity’s efforts to make sense of existence, morality, and the cosmos. It is essential to challenge this superficial perspective and acknowledge that ancient wisdom offers insights often overlooked by contemporary thought. In orchestrating music inspired by the themes of The Book of Enoch, I aim to confront this narrative and reclaim the significance of these stories, emphasising the richness and depth they possess.

Through this sonic discourse, I wish to bridge ancient themes with contemporary musical compositions, utilising sound as a means to evoke and challenge our perceptions of spirituality and art. May these soundscapes resonate with the narratives of The Book of Enoch, celebrating the ancient wisdom embedded within its pages and fostering a more equitable understanding of our shared human heritage.

Instructions for listening and engagement: As you embark on this journey through The Book of Enoch, here is the full text.

I encourage you to listen to this soundscape on repeat nine times as there are 108 chapters and the entire track time is 43:20 allowing the music to deepen your connection to each section of the text. Here are some guidelines to enhance your experience:

Read Aloud: As you listen, take the time to read the text of the Book of Enoch aloud. Engaging with the material vocally will deepen your understanding and connection to the intricate narratives.

Take Notes: Equip yourself with pen and paper to jot down your thoughts and reflections on each passage. Allow your personal interpretations and feelings to emerge as you engage with the text and music.

Interpret the Text in Three Ways: In the Text: Focus on understanding the story itself. Identify characters and cultural storylines by referencing a Bible or The Book of Jasher. Immerse yourself in the narrative.

Behind the Text: Consider the historical context in which this text was written. Research the times of oppression and the apocalyptic literature prevalent during that era. Understanding this backdrop will enrich your interpretation of the text’s themes.

In Front of the Text: Reflect on how cultural elements presented in the text may differ from our contemporary societal norms. Recognise patriarchal dynamics and other social factors inherent to the time of its writing. Explore how these aspects resonate within our current context – drawing parallels to today’s struggles and societal frameworks.

Stay Open-Minded: Keep an open heart and mind as you navigate through the text and sound. Trust your interpretations and feelings; the music serves as a guiding post throughout your exploration.

In closing, I wish you peace and light along this transformative journey. May the intersections of ancient wisdom and contemporary reflection illuminate your path as you engage with The Book of Enoch.

Peace and Light, Angel Bat Dawid

All Music composed, recorded, performed (clarinets, synths, piano, vocals) mixed and mastered in 432hz By Angel Bat Dawid in 2024, except for “Mi Ala Shamayim” composed and arranged by Angel Bat Dawid and Dawid Ben Dawid (my Father), featuring Percy Metcaff: vocals; Vandy Harris(AACM): saxophone; and Chicago Avant Garde Session musicians recorded in 2001.

[imaginarianisms]

n e wayz uh. this is likely a unpopular opinion but i& dont. think the fact that someone making their muse trans, queer in any way, disabled, nonwhite, etc. should be disrespected or undervalued just bc its "a headcanon". you shouldn't rip sb apart for saying a character belongs to marginalized group just bc there's "nothing in the actual canon to prove it". you shouldn't attack and/or harass ppl for "evidence" supporting their claims, you shouldn't feel entitled to knowing their personal reasons for doing so as long as their character's identity handled with dignity & respect, etc. y'all get it. there's nothing that makes "canon" the end all be all of how someone is "allowed" to write, draw, create or otherwise interpret a character, ESPECIALLY not if their interpretation involves that character fitting into one or several marginalized group(s). there is. a FUCKTON of media that directly or indirectly supports the narrative that cishet white characters are the majority or the only ones we should give a shit about so someone operating against that narrative really isn't your fucking business. don't bitch at marginalized people to "create their OWN content if they want representation so bad" & then be hypercritical of them if/when they do. example: i portray the starks & the northerners as turtle island indigenous, there's already a lot of a.ntinative racism against that concept already in the fandom, there are people straight up insisting that the starks & the northerners the free folk the first men house s.trong etc Must be white & fuck any other interpretations as if MANY indigenous people in the asoiaf community don't see them as i.ndigenous specifically Because there's some similarities & i'm saying this as an i.ndigenous / n.ative person, i have seen people dismiss & downplay the concept of i.ndigenous s.tarks because their instagrammable white starks are seen as better. bc whether consciously or subconsciously they think of native people as "primitive" & "uncivilized", as if the northerners & free folk aren't literally called "savages" (for context: this is an antinative slur that was used against natives in c.anada & a.merica in order to assimilate & dehumanize us & to justify our g.enocide), as if the north & dorne aren't treated as other by the rest of the seven kingdoms. like. Please don't fucking do this shit, it's weird & racist & its giving people who've never seen a mixed race family before, people who're really weird about indigenous people, & people who say "pocs". fuck off.

[imperiuswrecked]

He says he is going to 'tear him down to rebuild him' and is going to 'reinvent him'which maybe Im too sensitive but is very YIKES given ol Aaron's trackrecord of nonwhite characters. Why he was given this run to do some weird racist shit (and you know he will) is beyond me @abrahamshipwreck

Jason Aaron is a white male writer who seems to have this fetish about Native people, native/poc coded characters, and that's just the tip of his racist iceberg. Remember the comic he did where he used Matoaka (known as Pocahontas, but her real name is Matoaka) as a sexual native girl in King Conan??? He even apologized for it, and they had to change the name bc he used the REAL LIFE NAME OF A NATIVE GIRL WHO WAS ABUSED/KIDNAPPED IN REAL HISTORY.

Marvel writer Jason Aaron has issued an apology following the controversial naming and depiction of the “Princess Matoaka” character in his latest issue of King Conan. The name was upsetting to many as Matoaka is associated with the Native American historical figure commonly referred to as Pocahontas. Aaron admits that naming a hyper-sexualized indigenous woman after a real human being who was trafficked by European colonizers was “ill-considered” and confirmed that her name and appearance would be changed.

King Conan #3 written by Aaron with art by Mahmud Asrar, introduces Princess Matoaka, whose name is a spelling of one of the birth names associated with Pocahontas as it appears in her only known life portrait. This, as well as the fact that the character has a torrid relationship with an invader from another land, tipped readers off to her being a very direct and disrespectful reference to Pocahontas. It isn’t just the name causing a stir; the character’s costume, consisting of a loincloth, pasties, and a headdress falls squarely into common exoticized depictions of Indigenous women as sex objects. To use that name in conjunction with that imagery struck many as thoughtless, especially Indigenous American readers.

Like I'm not joking when I say he has a Native fetish. Namor is coded as a biracial poc character, so like. I'm already nervous.

I am so glad I am not the only one who is getting Major Ick from Jason Aaron being the writer for the new Namor comic. The art looks AMAZING so far but honestly if its written poorly by a writer who was responsible for some reaaallly bad book runs I am going to give myself wettail and die

I spent like 4 years being terrorized every time Aaron wrote something about Namor in his stupid Avengers book, from 2018-2021-22 ish he's single handedly become the worst Namor writer in existence. I mean that LITERALLY. No one writer has missed the mark so hard on who Namor is as a character than Aaron. Even his new interview he once again shows that he can't even get the most basic facts right about Namor's character. I really. really. despise Jason Aaron's writing.

[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

[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...

[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.

[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.

[22nd]

yo you like doom patrol???woagh! ✨💢

✨:i think what definitely drew me to it at first was the fanart i saw, specifically of larry and cliff. i really enjoy the character designs and story! especially the ongoing theme of ostracized people sticking together(that "i'm making a joke about my appearance to make you more comfortable with the fact i'm different" line fucking changed me) BUT! my favorite characters have to be lucas and terry none. ALSO the milk man in weight of the worlds was fucking...weight of the worlds in general is fucking great man. but yea the entire story resonates with me as an "outsider" or whatever but mostly the art style and creative direction the comics tend to go is brilliant

💢: i really dislike that in the dp show they make jane a woman of color and renamed her "crazy jane".... like that entire gimmick where she's like "WOAAH IM CRAZY I HAVE MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES IM INSANE" is stupid as hell and honestly disrespectful. they could have made any other character nonwhite OR could have stayed respectful of janes DID. also they got rid of her cheeks so😢. but yea i also didn't like how they did danny.. not in the sense of "boo drag queen" but that they gave him a human form rather than him just being a concept of a person if that makes sense. this ones half serious but i don't like that the mcr guy wrote my favorite run of dp as well fuck your weird incest plots

[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!

[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.

[wardensantoineandevka]

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!