#but often people have an issue because of racism or because they somehow ignore how m/f ships get ignored when they’re interracial

[laniidae-passerine]

I’m one of those people who will double down on an m/f pairing when I realise that the female character is being ignored or degraded by the fandom because she’s ‘in the way’ for a gay ship involving a white boy (especially when she’s black or brown) and I think I’d just like that on the record

[theotterpenguin]

I really like the nuanced take about Zutara and why it makes some people uncomfortable and I can see both sides of it. I ship Zutara now but at first I didn’t and it made me really uncomfortable but I think it was just because of certain fan content I was coming across. Some people do portray Zutara in an extremely fetishized & creepy Stockholm syndrome way that makes Katara come off like some helpless damsel stereotype. It made me feel really gross thinking about as a young WOC but rewatching the show and seeing the true dynamic of these characters made me fall in love with them again. So I guess my feeling is that in canon i really love the dynamic but I hate the way *certain fans* twist it and refuse to acknowledge the racism & misogyny in what they’re doing

this is a complicated topic with many layers to it but first - i am sorry if you have ever felt unwelcome in the zutara fandom due to experiences with racism/misogyny.

it would be ignorant to claim that the zutara fandom is somehow uniquely unaffected by systemic racism or sexism, but it would also be disingenuous to claim that these issues only exist in certain parts of the atla fandom. racism, sexism, and general bigotry exist in every fandom due to institutionalized inequality in social structures. and to make it clear, i'm not directing this criticism towards you, anon, you are entitled to your own personal experiences, but i have seen a broader trend of people attempting to use fandom racism to moralize their position in ship wars, which is diminishing from the actual problem - the focus should be on acknowledging the existence of fandom racism/sexism, combatting implicit biases, and creating spaces that can uplift marginalized voices, rather than focusing only on optics in an attempt to gain moral high ground in a silly *fictional* ship war.

however, given all this, the reason that i am still in the zutara fandom is because i appreciate how many people in the fandom are dedicated to unpacking issues of racism and sexism and cultural insensitivity in atla's source material, which i personally haven't seen in many other sides of the fandom (that often sanitize what actually happened in the text to avoid acknowledging these issues in their favorite show). of course this is a broad generalization, but that's generally why i stick with the non-canon shipping side of the fandom because fans that are willing to stray away from canon are often less afraid to engage in critical analysis.

i also do think the zutara fandom has come a long way from the early 2000s when the show first aired. for example, when i first joined the fandom i had mixed feelings on fire lady katara, but i have since read some fanfics that have done an excellent job deconstructing some of the problematic ways that this trope could be interpreted and balancing respect for katara's cultural heritage and autonomy with the political and personal difficulties of being involved with an imperialist/colonialist nation. the fire lady katara trope, capture!fic, and other complicated topics/tropes are almost never inherently racist/sexist, but rather, their execution is what matters. and all this is not to say that issues of systemic racism/sexism do not still exist in this fandom, but it personally has not significantly negatively impacted my experience in the zutara fandom due to the wonderful content that so many other fantastic people produce, though everyone's mileage may differ with what they are comfortable with. anon, i hope that you are able to find a place in the zutara fandom for you! but i also know many people that have stepped back from other fandoms due to experiences with racism/misogyny, so i understand that decision as well.

on a final note, i think it's important to acknowledge that fandom doesn't exist in a vacuum and broader issues of racism and sexism are rooted in the media, the entertainment industry, and mainstream societal norms. while i do sometimes focus on fandom dynamics/discourse in my criticisms, i think it is equally as important to acknowledge how issues of prejudice and inequality are perpetuated through larger social structures, which is why it frustrates me when the atla fandom refuses to acknowledge the flaws of the original show, which has far more influence and social power over the general public than discourse over fandom tropes ever will. personally, i don't understand the phenomenon of holding fan-made material to a higher standard than mainstream media.

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/756204827274625025/ive-had-to-deal-with-people-in-a-couple-of-my?source=share

the person who compared this situation to an abuser threatening suicide might be being ridiculous, but there is a similarity in terms of that you can't use your psychological issues to just treat people like crap. and i've seen so many communities go through this, and i think people tempted to make excuses for this sort of thing need to look up that essay about the "missing stair."

your mental health issues are not your fault but they are your responsibility, and they are not the responsibility of a bunch of people in a discord chat. and if you have particular situations that tend to trip your triggers, it is on you to try to avoid those, rather than demand that people can't, say, disagree or debate with you in the POLITICS chat even when you say factually inaccurate shit because disagreement "triggers" you. if I were that way, I would not go into a politics chat. (this is a real example and this person ignored repeated suggestions that she stop going into debatey channels if it triggered her. the mods eventually had to ban her from the politics channel.)

as others have said in the replies too, I also think people ignore how this stuff is often deliberately manipulative, even with people who are legitimately troubled, where they still learn that claiming "triggered" is a great way to shut down conversations and make yourself into the victim. i've seen people repeatedly deliberately stir the pot and then cry "triggers" when it had the expected result. i've seen people use it as a get-out-of-jail-free card for racist or misogynistic behavior or microaggressions - now i can declare that this poc getting mad at me for racism or woman getting mad at me for misogyny is actually a mean ableist for yelling at me when I'm triggered! reverse card! now i get to be the victim now!

but overall, there's a difference between "expecting everyone in your chat get therapy before they can join" like someone tried to suggest in reblogs, vs. "telling people to stop using random internet strangers to replace therapy / making their mental health issues other people's problem / taking zero responsibility for their own internet experience in a way that makes everyone else miserable." most of the spaces i've been in like this are full of people with mental illnesses and neurodivergences, like you said in your initial response. (there's also a convo here about the weird way the internet seems to think only "bawww cry" responses are neurodivergent but "angry and defensive" are not, never mind that being a lot more stereotypical for say autistic people. i think especially in heavily afab spaces, it often dovetails with misogyny, an inherent distrust of women who react in more stereotypically "masculine" ways.) none require that nobody have issues or ask for support. but there's a difference between that and expecting the server to be your therapist. as well as just like, expecting people to somehow read your mind and recognize which otherwise innocuous behaviors will trigger you!

--

[nightcolorz]

it's so crazy that people are out here making literal terf arguments over a fictional gay couple

also it was taking me out how that reply was literally citing examples of Louis' textual racial oppression as evidence of him being a subtextual woman like is that really what we're doing now?? Lestat owns the Azalea on paper because Louis can't own it as a black man during Jim Crow not because Lestat is equally invested in running the business as The Man like it's 1000% Louis' thing, and ignoring the strategic ways he operates his business black man just bc you're uncomfortable with the moral nature of that business is so blatantly insulting to Louis character and agency it's ridiculous. Like if Louis is a woman the majority of these people are being unironically sexist towards her because they like the boring self-insert wattpad version of her they created in their heads rather than the actual character.

sorry for the rant you can feel free to ignore it but that was driving me crazy

don’t apologize for the rant I’m so happy u sent me the rant bcus now I feel like I’m not crazy 😭😭. I didn’t actually read that one reply bcus the weird font changes gave me a migraine, but I skimmed enough to know what their thesis was 💀.

the terf shit is genuinely insane. I think a lot of this interpretation comes down to cis women with internalized sexism and transphobia (and racism cough cough) choosing to interpret Louis and lestats relationship in a way that aligns with their heteronormative narrow minded view of relationships (especially abusive ones) bcus they r unable to interpret a story about a gay black man being domestically abused by a flamboyant white man in a way that doesn’t revolve around the oppression of cis women bcus they believe that cis women are the central and only victims of oppression and domestic violence.

even tho it is explicitly shown to us that Lestat is able to abuse louis bcus louis is socially oppressed as a black man and lestat has societal power over him, ppl feel the need to put this “he’s also a metaphor for women” angle on it bcus they don’t want to confront the reality that men, especially men who are oppressed bcus of race or queerness or disability or any number of things, can be abused by their partners, and often are. I’ve noticed a lot of cis women have a problem with acknowledging that men can and do experience oppression that is “for women”. Domestic violence is often leveraged against women, but men are also victimized by it too, and stories about men who r abused deserve to be told without being “secretly about women”. This is especially weird since Louis is a black man, and I think a lot of this interpretation is happening bcus a lot of ppl subconsciously believe that black men can’t be victims of abuse or violence without being somehow women. Which is fucked up, obviously. It also undermines the actual story being told about a black man trying to navigate abuse and power structures by suggesting it’s actually about misogyny, bcus the implication is that misogyny is more important or legitimate then a black man’s experience and therefore he is just a mouth piece for a “real issue”

this is also why I think ppl argue lestat can’t be feminine bcus he abused Louis. They think that a feminine person can’t be an abuser, so they think that when I say lestat is feminine, im actually invaliding that he’s an abuser and suggesting he’s actually not abusive (bcus he’s fem). Believe it or not, u can be feminine and flamboyant or be a woman and at the same time be domestically violent against ur partner. Lestat’s feminine self expression and behavior is completely irrelevant to him being abusive, and he can be abusive and leverage his privilege over Louis while still being a feminine person. I think cis women have a problem with this bcus they are frightened to admit that they are capable of being instigators of violence despite being women/feminine . So friendly reminder, femininity is not the same as being morally good or pure, and femininity and victimhood are not the same. Trying to paint lestat as this embodiment of masculine and patriarchal ideals when he is very much a feminine queer man just bcus u insist that abuse has to fit into ur narrow minded view of what an abuser and a victim looks like is well, ignorant.

so Ppl who r socially oppressed are often victimized, and women are often victimized bcus they are socially oppressed, but Louis is socially oppressed and and that does not make him a women. Got it? 💀

It’s also important to acknowledge that Louis is a pimp who uses the victimization of women to gain social status and money for himself. Equating his suffering with the suffering of women is just not accurate when the show explicitly demonstrates to us that Louis is able to use the victimization of women to his advantage. Louis still operates within the patriarchy as a man, and him being abused by another man doesn’t make him less of a man, doesn’t make him akin to a woman thematically, and doesn’t mean he experiences misogyny the way women do in the narrative

(also, just a disclaimer, I’m not talking about ppl who headcanon Louis as trans or gnc or feminine, that is all awesome and a great way to express urself and how u relate to him. What I’m talking about is ppl who say that iwtv is thematically about domestic abuse against women bcus Louis is presented as the woman in the relationship since he’s abused by lestat )

[creativestalkerrs]

american psycho: in the lens of a queer woman and the relevancy today

I posted this on my Substack blog as well, subscribe to that for more content. Apart of creativestalkerr’s book reviews.

TW: talks of violence, homophobia, racism, mental health issue, sexism, SA,  (all is to a less extreme then in the book), slight spoilers to American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. 

what american psycho means in my own world view and why i think it’s relevant today: a book review.

At face value, American Psycho, written by Bret Easton Ellis, and eventually adapted into a film, directed by Mary Harron and starring a young Christian Bale, might just appear to be a serial killer slasher with barely any meaning to it, however, there is much more to go into than just that. It’s a satire on the materialistic lifestyles of the upper class and a commentary on a capitalistic society. Ideas of homophobia, misogyny (including violence against women), racism, and these types of men being awful. The conversation about both the book and the movie have been mostly of men (from what I have seen) and I wanted to give my thoughts on the story through the lens of a queer woman and how it has more impact in today's society than we might see.

American Psycho is from the perspective of a charismatic investment banker, Patrick Bateman who lives a life of wealth in Manhattan. Every day is the same for our character, watches the same television programs, goes to work, listens to his music, kills a few people, goes to lunch with the same group of people, and gets drinks at a new restaurant. The same thing, over and over again. And yes, I said killing people is in this routine, often women. Ellis paints a picture of someone who is stuck in the same routine, that no matter how handsome or wealthy you are, it often feels the same, that murder, or for Batemen at least, is the only thing that makes him feel anything, that he’ll somehow have an impact in this world for the crimes he commits, to have someone, anyone truly cares.

In the video essay created by the content creator, Moon and his video titled “American Psycho: A Warning For Men”, although it focuses on the movie but still holds true with the novel, he states that an important reason why American Psycho taps in the mind of men all around the world is that with today’s world where conveniences and pleasures are at your fingertips, men often feel bored and numb as even the things that brought them happiness no longer satisfy them. This remains true in the story as we see Patrick Bateman, who is wealthy and has modern-day pleasures, become bored and numb to these parts that the only thing to satisfy him is bloodlust. More men in today’s society deal with mental health issues, especially depression and there is no doubt about it that Patrick Bateman is a visual representation of what most men might feel because, in the conversation of mental health, men can often be ignored.

Moon goes on and states how due to this factor, men feel like they lack purpose. I found this interesting in the realm of American Psycho as Patrick Bateman has expressed how he ‘wants to fit in’ and how much people mistake him for others, that he doesn’t have a purpose, and by the crimes he has committed, whether he did them or not, it’s a cry for help but it’s mostly a cry for someone to fucking care about who he is, that someone takes notice of him.

Thus the character of, Detective Donald Kimball. The character and his connection with Bateman I found to be important. He is one of the first people to take an interest in Patrick and his potential crimes and we can see in his monolog on how Patrick feels about this, that he is willing to help Kimball with the disappearance of Paul Owen (Paul Allen in the 2000’s adaption). Despite him being cool and calm, Kimball does notice him to be nervous and Batemen states that “the air seems fake, recycled,” (page 271) This particular chapter shows how Kimball takes interest in him and because of that, we see the mask that Bateman has put on to crack.

How does this connect to the lens of a queer woman and why does it matter now? I already touched on why it’s relevant today, on how the mental health of men has increased, and how Patrick Bateman is a visual representation of how all these men might feel, despite them ignoring the commentary and the satire that Ellis has stated, they believe that the story of American Psycho is for them. It’s not. In fact, I could argue that it’s for no one but as a reference point of how men can and have been, how mental health and lack of purpose is the true enemy in all this. Not women, not LGBT people, not minorities but their own self. Within a capitalistic society, as more people have more convince in the palm of their hand, the more the mask slip.

As a queer woman, I see the treatment of both women and gay people in the novel, using slurs in casual conversation and degrading women and stripping them down to only objects. Viewing WLW relationships as a sexual fantasy solely for men's enjoyment and we see the violence of these women at the end. Now although this was set in the late 1980s, it still holds up today as the sexualization of lesbians and bi women is still an issue we see today, as a threat to women and overall LGBTQ people. This type of language in the book is a byproduct of Bateman’s colleagues and surroundings, what he talks about, and what he views, due to the fact there are no personal connections between him and the people around him, including the relationships that are supposed to be personal. The only way to connect with these people is to “fit in”.

Now, although we see in the book and even in the movie of Patrick talking about social justice, these are just words he says, as he’ll continuously use slurs, treat people, mostly homeless people like shit, sexually assault women, and of course, kill people, you often wonder why he says the things he does about social justice. Is it an act? If so is it for himself or the people around him? Especially when another scene with the same people he turns a hand and talks about how women are just to have sex with, that they don’t have personalities. It makes me, personally, question why Bateman does this.

Although I could go into every small detail and relate it back to today’s society, I won’t, as I believe that American Psycho can be such a universal story that anyone can have their own ideas on and I encourage people to read the novel and dissect their own ideas on it, how they see Ellis’ writing in their own lens. We can all agree, however, that capitalism can lead to the destruction of the mind and even a generation of not only men but the groups that are often targeted by Bateman’s crimes. That no matter how much you make, you will often feel purposeless and unnoticed in today’s society especially now that everything is becoming more and more instant.

The last thing I want to say is; don’t idolize Patrick Bateman.

A word from the author: Sorry I’ve been gone, new writing lessons and other writing content in the New Year. I have been reading a lot more and want to do mini essays like this. Hope you enjoy and I hope you have an awesome 2023!

[uselessheretic]

i feel like i see the thing relatively often where someone will say that ed's not actually that mentally ill, fans are just racist and also somehow this is izzy's fault because the only time he shows symptoms of mental illness is through izzy supposedly. even though in episode four alone we see him talk about suicide ideation, how discontent he is in life, and how burnt out he is.

but when people urge others to add an antiracist lens to their analysis and point out the historical racism within the psychiatric system it seems like?? they think that the only explanation is for ed to just be a lil depressed and that poc who are otherwise perfectly fine are constantly being slapped with extreme diagnoses. which, that is a thing that happens btw. people will call the cops on and forcefully institutionalize black folks who they have disagreements with and weaponize psychiatry against them.

that said, when talking about something like the uneven diagnosis distribution between poc and white people of schizophrenia (since that's something that's been researched) it's not that doctors are talking people who are otherwise perfectly mentally healthy and attributing their behavior to mental illness (although again it does happen.) usually though what people are referring to is how doctors are quick to diagnose poc with schizophrenia before doing their proper diligence and going over the other possibilities including histories of depression, trauma, and abuse. certain traits they exhibit are overemphasized and others minimized or ignored. a black person and white person may show the same exact symptoms, but the doctor will first have the white person tested for PTSD or BPD and try alternative treatment plans, while marking the black person off before considering other possibilities.

it's dangerous and disturbing where poc will be put through a series of medications that do not help, receive no treatment for the actual root of the problem, and then in the process often be criminalized as well since there is a much greater social stigma and forced state control over people diagnosed with schizophrenia.

i just feel like if you're gonna talk about ed and misdiagnosis through a racial lens, it'd be more accurate for him to immediately get diagnosed with something like schizophrenia without the doctor doing anything more to look into him. ignoring things like his history of child abuse and how trauma can cause certain responses. or for something he said metaphorically to be taken as literal where he might describe himself when angry as "the kraken" and the doctor marks that down as a sign of delusions. overemphasizing verbal expressions of angers as signs of violence. hearing ed say "it feels like my boss is out to get me" where he means that the boss keeps picking on him and it feels racially motivated, and the doctor puts on the record that he suffers from paranoia.

also just saying but there is actually a LOT out there you can read about māori mental health and the issues surrounding NZ's system. about 1 in 3 māori adults meet criteria for a mental disorder and this is a result of a racist health system, poverty, and, very importantly, colonialism. but like? i promise you don't need to create your own theories on how ed's identity interacts with mental health as if you're the first person to considered that. kaupapa māori mental health services are literal resources in place to address māori mental health needs within a cultural context. like! it's very cool actually for these things to be made available through hard community work that rejects colonialist psychiatric systems and instead utilizes a holistic and indigenous approach to wellness.

idk it's just so much more complicated than ignoring ed's very real mental illness and writing it off as no biggie. tbh it feels very um american centric as well to make assertions about relationships to mental health and race without ever acknowledging the specific community history here and that this isn't a new conversation. if you want to say you're examining ed through an anticolonialist framework then it would help if you did literally any work to find out what that looks like currently.

[secretsofthewilde]

About your post about misogyny in fandoms and shipping spaces, I do 100% agree how a lot of female fans do have internalized misogyny based on how they navigate fandom spaces. It doesn’t have to be extreme like hating all women, but people do have biases where they tend to gravitate to more male-dominated shows or would justify why they hate m/f or f/f bcuz it’s uncomfortable for them to write about the female body due to personal reasons. Which i used to be as a teenager but overtime i learned to come to terms with my own version of feminitity and became more comfortable with writing m/f ships. Sometimes when i see that brought up, im like “okay dont u see there is a problem there? like u discomfort of the female body has some ties to misogyny and u cant just write it off as an excuse for the majority of female fans.” Even the defense of the lack of female characters is also flawed due to the fact that some ppl would desperately two male characters together even tho one character was in two scene for less than 2 minutes yet completely ignore the other female ccharacter that has more interactions with the male lead. You could also throw in racism as this is also always used for WOC and justified as “oh not everything has to be about shipping” when those the same ppl that ship anything and everything in other fandoms

Yes, you are so very right!! And thank you for giving me an excuse to continue to talk about this. (Post anon is referring to is here x)

I tried not to generalise too much in the initial post bc I think there's different reasons and I guess flavours of internal misogyny which contribute to individual fans dismissal of f/f. Your example isn't exactly relatable to my personal experience, but it is one that makes sense to me and is something I assume is the case for many others too (including one of my best friends actually!). For me personally, I knew I was queer around the same time I got into fandom (so quite young), but despite being aware of this I still found myself feeling uncomfortable or even guilty for looking for anything f/f. I think that this was bc there was this ingrained fear that by engaging with female characters in any way I was sexualising them*. Which is ridiculous in retrospect, considering there's no sense of guilt for so many of us to engage with male characters in ways that are actually sexualising them.

Bc of the patriarchal society we live in we tend to see male characters as "neutral" ones (the same way whiteness is considered "neutral"**). By engaging with male characters repeatedly and normalising both the general celebration of them but also the sexualisation or queering of them, we ended up somehow creating an environment where male characters being queerified in fandom is seemingly more neutral than doing so with female characters - by which I mean that we expect to see people in fandom creating and celebrating m/m or m/f ships of male characters in any given fandom regardless of who they are canonically, whereas to do so with female characters is often considered to be unconventional or strange. I mentioned briefly in the post about the projecting of self onto male characters, and I think that's because they offer us a "neutral" character to explore queerness but also just multifaceted characters in general. There's so much more fanworks exploring things like the nature of morality or mental health issues using male characters than there are with female ones. That's because our engagement with female characters is kind of stuck in this area where we can't be neutral with them.

With the way that fandom discourse works nowadays we often analyse our characters as being figures of representation***. This means that even though we are now getting more media with female characters at the front of it, we often view them through the overly critical lens of "how is this representing us?". Even something as shallow as a joke about the character enjoying retail therapy then becomes something that is used as an excuse to tear the character apart, because we don't want to be seeing what we have been taught to view as negative female traits on our screens. Women can be bitchy, they can be jealous, and even evil. We need to learn to recognise that our discomfort in seeing them portrayed as such on our screens isn't always due to being upset about the representation of all women, but rather our discomfort in seeing these traits within ourselves.

*There's something particularly difficult about combating internalised homophobia when you're young and also learning about feminist ideologies where we want women to not be viewed as sex objects. I think this may also be a huge contributing factor for queer fangirls' tendencies to subconsciously project themselves onto male characters.

**'The Matter of Whiteness' by Richard Dyer explains this theory really well and is an academic essay that I highly recommend everyone read. I also think it's a pretty good starting point if you're not familiar with reading academic texts and are interested in intersectionality, racial bias, media analysis etc

***I'm borrowing from Dyer's theory here, which essentially argues that a black character's existence will always be viewed (and judged) as a representation of all black people. In comparison we will watch white characters and view them as their own individual character. To apply this to my above points; we don't question whether it's bad representation for our male lead to enjoy watching action films because we just view that as a character trait of his, whereas we will be critical of the female lead who enjoys watching chick flicks because we will then view her as a shallow representation of women.

[jesse-pinko]

Okay I am going to try and word this very carefully for the benefit of the internet strawman that lives in my head that is already playing telephone with what I’m trying to say butttt as an animal caretaker I’m not loving the way y’all talk about animal welfare. Don’t get me wrong (please) drawing comparisons between how white people treat people of color and how they treat animals is a totally valid way to illustrate how white people often view and treat people of color as subhuman, but lately I kind of feel like this sentiment is being reiterated over and over again without being expanded on in terms of either human rights or animal welfare. I think it’s valuable and even critical to examine the historical context behind white supremacy’s investment in animal welfare, but that it’s a mistake to view the two as inextricably linked. White supremacists will also claim to have a vested interest in children’s rights, which couldn’t be further from the truth if you take even a cursory look at their policies and practices, but the reason they pretend to give a shit about children and animals without bothering to extend this same courtesy to people of color, queer people, etc is because children and animals cannot advocate for themselves, which leaves room for racists to hawk their own agenda under the guise of charity. They are not interested in advocating on behalf of anyone they cannot completely control. Animals aren’t treated well, which I believe was the initial reasoning behind the comparison to racism; that white people abuse people of color even more fervently than they do animals. But that’s a call to end systemic injustice towards people of color, not to forego animal advocacy altogether. We should all care about animals! We should all be working toward educating ourselves about the literal millions of other living beings we share a planet with, whose habitats we are destroying without impunity, who are entirely at our mercy, who are disposed of and exploited and treated more as objects to facilitate human existence than living creatures in their own right, even when they fall into the very exclusive category of beloved. It’s imperative for safety reasons to educate ourselves about animal behavior, not to mention fundamental to indigenous activism to work toward the preservation of their habitats and continued existence on this planet. Also, I fully reject the fundamentally Christian idea that animals don’t have souls, that they don’t have feelings, that they were put on this earth to prop up humanity, that their behaviors and physiologies are all virtually the same because they all fall into the very broad category of Not Human. I agree that saying their mistreatment is somehow worse than racism is misleading, wildly ignorant and offensive, not because animals don’t deserve our protection, but because it demonstrates such little understanding of and willingness to understand the consequences of racism, and because these are really different issues altogether. Animals don’t want or need human rights; they’re not human. They prioritize differently, even the expectation of being eaten is just a normative experience for them, as ghoulish as that sounds. But not being human, or anything akin to human, doesn’t make them automatons, doesn’t mean they can’t feel pain or should be treated unfairly. They are an integral part of all of our lives even if you don’t consider yourself an animal person, and we should try and extend understanding and empathy towards them for no other reason than that they are alive.

[writingway-in-writinghell]

I just want to say, I appreciate your highlighting of the way people of colour expressing discomfort with how Nate and Shandy have been handled is often being ignored by this fandom. It may not be intentional, but all these written interactions are so charged, and excluding Nate, one of the most important characters in the show, from half the episodes of the season while at the same time bringing the character that made his life so unpleasant to the forefront, has so not been sitting well with me. Having him have to “earn” the right to be treated like a person is gross. And Shandy…the offloading of all the problems associated with her hiring onto her, rather than acknowledging Keeley’s failures; the treatment of her as a joke; the way Keeley makes more of an active effort to connect with Jack than she has all season with the “underlings”…it feels like an intersection of racism and classism, and I am just not feeling it at all. Anyway, sorry for the ramble, I just wanted to say, I appreciate you emphasizing the need to believe us when we call out things about this story.

Thank you for your message, anon, and the added nuance to this topic. It’s something I can’t word quite as well, surely due to my own bias as a white European, and the credit for bringing it to my attention lies solely with good folks like you who point this stuff out. <3

See, I didn’t even think of Jamie’s and Colin’s arcs in relation to Nate’s here. I think Jamie’s is a very important story to tell, to show audiences how toxic men were once boys suffering under violent fathers, and how hard it is to break that cycle; and I also love the young queer/queer elder friendship we’re getting. But I also have to… kinda ignore at what cost we’re getting both if I want to take this direction in as it is.

It is jarring to think back on the Richmond team walking out of that tunnel and glaring at Nate like that. There is no compassion. No reflection on what they did to HIM. Only the expectation that he should be thankful that they… stopped bullying him??? That’s fucked up.

And look, I am STILL holding out hope that they’ll somehow address this, that they’ll give Nate the chance to heal from the *Richmond* trauma. He lashed out against Ted in an attempt to get back at Richmond as a whole, I think, and no wonder! How many years has he suffered the abuse coming from Jamie and Colin before Ted came along? How long have the others just watched? Is this a result of Rupert’s management, the toxic coach they had before? Why not address that?!

I think the focus is just way off this season. I wanted to see how Nate deals with the aftermath, and the first few episodes delved right in, even adding Shandy as a mirror to Nate’s arc!

Only to drop it in favor for a narrative that serves us white queer folks, on of which was Nate’s bully. And like. God. I am so conflicted because the AIDS epidemic wasn’t even that long ago! Gay men are still very much struggling. Queer people are still ostracized. There’s a genocide on trans people on its way. I’m queer myself and love what they did in the last episode.

But shouldn’t there be room for ALL of us? Especially, you know, people of color who are also very much still dying at the hands of other white people? What stopped them from doing Keeley/Shandy, for example? Why must it be her white skinny rich boss? (I mean. We know why, right.) There’s so much room for more, and in light of the things they DO get down SO WELL, it’s especially frustrating because the writers seem like they should be aware of these societal issues.

Well. You see me rambling as well now, anon. Goes to show how hard it is to discuss this all in a nuanced manner, especially since I’m lacking so much context myself.

But yeah, this is why we can’t just pick people of color for the roles we write and then change nothing about their arcs. Intersectionality and CRT needs to be mandatory at writing schools if you ask me.

[haloguyfttp]

This is a long ramble about my personal thoughts on Hoyo and skin color.

Just scroll past. I don't really want to talk about this but just wanna get some stuff out of my head and onto paper, or in this case digital paper. If you choose to read have... fun? I don't want to get any further into this if you plan on replying or something btw.

Now that I think about it, on the "everyone in Hoyo is white" thing, I think the biggest issue is how confidently they boast about taking inspirations from all over the place.

Obviously I want more diversity either way, but I don't think people would care half as much if Hoyo didn't run around bragging about their cultural diversity and the research they do on these cultures, then turn around and have the only dark characters be enemies or at best NPCs.

On a personal note, I grew up in Singapore. South East Asia. Japan's a few hours flight away. Majority population Chinese. Even with the majority Chinese, my classroom in school at any point in my studies had more diversity than all the Hoyo playable casts combined.

Also this isn't even to do with race? I had a Chinese friend back then who did sailing on the weekends. That's a lot of time in the sun. His skin tone on Mondays specifically would often be as dark as mine. Roll up his sleeves? White. It was a frequent joke among us friends. I've been a NEET for a few years so I get like 0 time in the sun. My skin is about the same color as most of the Natlan cast, such as Xilonen.

Hoyo has the means if the NPCs and enemies are anything to go by. They aren't ignorant just look at the amount of details and shit they research and put in. They know what they're doing. It isn't a non issue, it isn't just ignorance. It's an active choice. I don't know why exactly they do this. Some say racism, but we fundamentally do not have access to their internal meetings or whatever, so I hesitate to make such a claim. Hell Kaeya is still one of the most popular male characters, so it's not like skin tone somehow affects popularity.

And for those who are like "we should focus less on skin color" as some sorta reverse racism gotcha, I don't care what your skin color is. But pretending that everyone is either white or slightly tanned white isn't gonna help anyone. The fact I celebrate if I see a gacha character have skin that isn't white fills me with a certain sadness I cannot express. It isn't about getting rid of white characters, it's just wanting more diversity. It's just more interesting that way, and it doesn't hurt anyone. Why do you insist on fighting that?

That was a long ramble. I don't want to post about this anymore, because ultimately it doesn't matter. This happened with Sumeru, this has happened again with Natlan, and nothing's changed. Across what 4 games now, Hoyo still has barely any diversity in skin color. This even stretches into body types as everyone is the same extremely slim with only minor variations, but I'm not even gonna bother with that one. I still love HSR and the other games are also fun, but I can like something and still be critical of it.

[writingwithcolor]

(1800s Western) non-racist White characters interacting with Black and Native people

Anonymous asked: 

My story has two white main characters who live on the western frontier in the late 1800s (specifically 1877) and will of course have to interact with both natives and Black people at some point. When they do interact with them, I don’t want these characters to seem like they’re all knowing on the interworkings of racism and how it affects people, but I don’t want them to seem racist either. How could I show that they’re ignorant on some stuff without having them be straight up racist?

Writing a fluffier piece 

Lesya will come from a more historically accurate and detailed perspective. I will answer this as if your piece learns more towards escapism, in which you aren’t trying to perfectly replicate true race relations, but more of a “softened” version of history while not explicitly erasing the history.

The white characters don’t need (and should not) be seen or portrayed as heroes or saviors and not “bumbling idiots” either. They can walk somewhere in the middle. They can treat BIPOC with respect and like humans, so normally, as they would their fellow white characters.

Get the racism out of the way (off screen)

Do not make the people they meet in the story the first Black or Native people they’ve ever met. If they truly were more ignorant in the past, which I would assume they were, let’s just assume they got most of that ignorance out of their system off screen some time ago; previous bias shattered and corrected for the most part by actually meeting BIPOC. I would highly doubt they’re perfect and unbiased completely, but just better than before and not actively looking to harm People of Color in the story.

Micro aggressions or larger scale incidents

Including small incidents of racism or prejudice (micro aggressions) would be realistic. After it occurs, it should be corrected or acknowledged in some way, you as the author noting somehow that the racism is wrong (For example, you might show others’ reactions, the character being confronted, acknowledging and feeling shame from their words or actions, etc)

You could also include singular larger incidents of racism or racially charged-events or tragedies in the storyline, for realism, and have the characters affected or comment on the incident(s).

Now, to Lesya for a deeper historical analysis, with a focus on Native American interactions.

~Mod Colette

Writing a more historically accurate piece

As I outlined in White and Jewish Men, Native American Interaction in 1880s, stories set in this time period are on the cutting edge of genocide. One particularly salient source is going to be List of Indian Massacres in North America, which will be able to give you some idea of some levels of non-war deaths by state per year. You can also check out stuff like Magical Person in History, Not Intervening on Human Rights Issues that gives more genocides of that time period, which are often not outlined in sources like lists of massacres, because wars are counted separately.

What this means is: the level of racism from your average white person at the time is going to be way, way higher than your modern white person, and making them “just ignorant” by our standards is going to make them radically progressive for the standards of the time.

This is the era of the Inconvenient Native, where Native people were “in the way” of American manifest destiny. Pick a newly-founded state and you have found a war with the Native population happening. Residential schools are starting to kick up. Reserves/Reservations are starting to force settlement.

Just seeing Native people as deserving to live on the land beside white people would’ve been a pretty radical opinion at the time. Like… really, really radical opinion. You can spot a handful of isolated incidents where like… one town in an area never broke a treaty, but there are maybe a dozen of those across America? It’s really not many, at all.

For context, one of the most progressive American anthropologists around this time period was Franz Boas; he actually founded the American school of anthropology based around his methods of writing down every detail of culture he could find about these Indigenous groups. He was writing it all down because he was under the impression that assimilation would be inevitable and soon all of these cultures would disappear under the heel of colonialism, so best to preserve the old ways before they vanished forever.

And this guy was a dedicated anti-racist who actually saw value in Indigenous communities. He did things like tried to debunk skull shape equating to intelligence in order to get Eastern European immigrants treated better and Black people treated better. 

Like. That’s progressive. Finding the cultures worth recording. Finding reservations worth allocating. And under that progressive thought pattern was still the belief that cultural death and removal of all Indigenous peoples was inevitable. 

I’ve seen an analysis of Huckleberry Finn that says its racism and its denouncing of racism with all of the slurs involved is actually a really progressive take for the time, especially considering it was written within a generation of emancipation happening.

You’re… going to be dealing with characters who are a lot more racist than we are in the modern day. That’s just kind of the bottom line.

Now this isn’t to say that you can or should toss in a bunch of slurs to show that things were different back then. This will, after all, still be read in the modern world, where those slurs are much trickier to handle. 

But you’re going to need to decide a couple of things:

1- where, exactly, it is

I know “the western front” is a catchall and has a collection of tropes akin to Fantasy World 29, but if you want to have some grounding in history, pick a state whose history you feel you can work with and do research roughly in that geographic area. 

This will determine stuff like:

What tribe you’re discussing

What the state policies of genocide at the time were (they will exist, it’s just how severe)

If there are any areas where Indigenous/white relations are good/okay (this will be a needle in a haystack but good luck!)

What are the competing resources (cows vs bison, water-hogging crops in a desert, etc)

Determine what wars were happening which will influence the anti-Native attitudes of the time 

This’ll also help you determine how many cowboys are Black or Mexican (considering Mexico would have owned quite a lot of the West Coast and southern plains all of 20 years prior), which will help you flesh out the demographics of this “Western” area.

2- What your own comfort levels are

Look. Even anti-racist people of the time would be considered racist by today’s standards. See: Huckleberry Finn and Franz Boas above. Huck Finn was really shockingly progressive for having a white character renounce his faith and his family to say slavery is bad and Black people are equal. It uses slurs left and right because that was the language of the time. 

White people then were working with a much different toolkit than what we have now. They were in the middle of debating whether or not Native and Black people were fully human. There were laws in place that said only the first Christians to inhabit the land were the ones who owned it, and no “heathens” could lay claim to it (the Marshall Trilogy of cases, which, btw, are still in effect today). 

If you’re looking for any sort of grounding in historical reality, you’re dealing with that climate. There is absolutely, positively, no way around it. There is no way to make modern anti-racism and modern levels of ignorance fit in anything grounded historically.

And the thing is, the people who would go to settle the West would have been pro Marshall Trilogy. They would have agreed that the first Christians to walk the land were claiming it; why else would they bother moving? A lot of Western expansion in North America was based off attitudes that lead to the Marshall Trilogy going the way it did. 

Are you comfortable with that? Are you comfortable with a white character’s level of ignorance being, at best, “oh you’re not quite human, you should be happy we’ve given you any land at all because we’re such good people to save a slice of our land for you, but I’ll invite you over for a classic American dinner and give you good American clothes”? 

It’s okay if you’re not. But if you aren’t, then you’re going to need to start looking at essentially creating a historical AU where the racism at the time was a lot less, which means colonialism at the time would be a lot less, which means “The Western Front” is going to look a lot different. I cover colonialism in the western genre heavily in the cowboy tag.

But for reference, you can still have people move around if the Marshall trilogy went differently, and people were just exploring for exploration’s sake. It’s perfectly valid to have them explore just for exploration’s sake, but I’d be cautious to paint them as brave explorers just wandering for the sake of wandering in a historically grounded work. That’s veering into historical revisionism, and ignores manifest destiny attitudes. 

But historically, these missions towards the wild west were federal government sponsored specifically to get more land for white America. You start looking at the early settlers and they would have been doing it specifically to gain access to the West Coast because of a belief that they deserved it. Or you have religious extremists or white supremacists founding their own states to write their own history, like those who settled in Oregon and the Mormons in Utah.

It honestly wouldn’t even take much work to establish a different history, since a lot of the laws that made things so toxic were so new at the time. Something as simple as thanking the Natives whose land they’re using, learning how to grow food from the Natives of the region (even a simple line like “the newer settlers hadn’t quite gotten a handle on [insert Indigenous practice here], but the landowners said if they don’t, we’ll struggle to get food in a few years”), and mixing Western structures with traditional structures of the area is plenty to show that Natives (including Black Natives) are equal. 

Other ways to show equality are:

Having the white people be nomadic or semi-nomadic alongside a tribe, should you pick an area where that’s necessary

Western lines for clothing, Indigenous materials; Indigenous materials, Western lines

Food being a hybrid of what actually works well in the region from other regions and stuff local to the region

The bad guys trying to oust Indigenous people from their lands and the white people fighting back along with the Natives

Mixed relationships on equal footing (Black/Native, Black/white, Native/white)

Political marriages between groups

If you’d rather just write fluffy escapism…

Colette’s tips are great! Make Black and Native people equal for literally no reason other than you want the story to be safe for those groups to read. Pick a rough geographic area just to give your Indigenous peoples around this Western Front town a culture (or three, because the Western front is full of nomadic groups), and you’ll be fine.

But it will be historical fantasy, and should really be treated as such. There’s just way too much racism that happened, casually, in the 1800s for anyone to just so happen to be “an average racist person” by modern standards.

If you want to do something historically based…

Then you’re gonna need to resubmit with our Motivations PSA in mind and say what you’re trying to accomplish with this story; the advice will change based off if you’re trying to show history as it was, critique a certain aspect of the genre, or shedding light on where so much racism comes from in modern day.

Cause “not racist” and “the 1800s” don’t compute, sorry. As we have outlined over and over again, the 1800s is a period of pure unadulterated racism with hundreds of colonial teeth and thousands of mass graves.

Trying to shoehorn modern race politics in that period without consciously modifying history and making it obvious you’re modifying history is, in the end, just historical revisionism so white people can feel better about where their wealth and land comes from.

~Mod Lesya

Published Oct 2021

[esther-dot]

There are some BNFs who hate Rhaegar, Viserys and Aerys and some deranged Targs, think that Martells especially Elia and her children deserves better but go ahead and stan Dany. They think Dany is a hero. Because apparently Dany is nothing like her deranged family and breaking traditions of Targ legacy. Dany hero-worship her brother after knowing his deeds and refused to acknowledge her father tyranny would somehow is better than her family. Plus the way they excuse the racism in her story.

I mean, they have a point. If people choose to just stand there and burn, that’s their fault. Dany is a hero and the smallfolk really should consider the consequences of their actions (making Dany, a hero, look bad) when they opt to die.

(I feel compelled to say that I am not being serious there!)

I recently unfollowed a blog I like because they had a little spiral into the “Dany can be the hero even after she mass murders the people of KL” cesspool, and I understand how having so many morally grey characters can make us ignore red flags, but Martin already indicated what he thinks about this issue.

Stannis’s choice to continue on his path of burning people alive will result in him burning his own daughter alive.

Let’s think about that.

The point is that these steps the characters take mean something. They’re being led down a path to their own destruction. These characters aren’t purposing to do evil, they do evil because they convince themselves it’s ok when done in service of their greater good.

Dany kills masters because slavery is wrong but then uses unpaid labor, she profits off of slavery, not because she thinks those things are right, and she certainly isn’t doing them because they’re evil, she just decided it’s worth it to get her throne.

Stannis and Dany are both doing this. It’s an incremental descent, and denying the descent might make fans feel better, but there’s a clear destination. Stannis allows kinslaying to get his crown and will end up killing his daughter. Dany burned a woman alive to get her dragons and will end up burning countless people to get her throne. How can we all recognize the horror of Shireen’s death and deny the horror of Dany burning KL just because many of her victims will be unknown to us? Burning KL is an atrocity and Dany’s point of ultimate corruption, just as burning Shireen will be Stannis’s.

It makes no sense to insist that all the steps leading these characters to such acts don’t matter, or that Dany will be a hero even after she does that. Isn’t that the moment the audience realizes, “oh shit, this is what her choices/experiences made her.” I understand that other than Sansa stans few people will admit this, but I think that’s clearly what we’re meant to do. See and think about the descent of these characters, not pretend that actually what they’re doing is fine and things will be ok for them in the end because they’re a hero, dammit! The group think around Dany and the weird “she’s a girl, we can’t judge her” is bizarre because these are often the same people who think it’s imperative Sansa prove she is no longer shallow by ending up in a romantic relationship with a grown man who assaulted her. If they’re finding fault with Sansa, I’m not sure why they can’t be critical of AGOT Dany pouring oil on Mirri’s head and burning her alive. Actually, it’s weird that a lot of the BNFs are S@ns@ns or adopt a lot of their interpretation, love the Hound, a burn victim, feel immense sympathy for him even to the extent of denying his actions, and still stan a woman who burns people alive. Idk, his wounds sound pretty horrific to me, his trauma pretty severe, if they can extend their sympathy to him, why aren’t they thinking of all the people who haven’t ever murdered a child who Dany is about to burn? All the children she will murder?

Also, Dany specifically says some crappy things about Elia because she can’t imagine blaming Rhaegar for ya know, publicly humiliating his wife and paying what may (or may not) have been unwanted attentions to a teenager. Like, how do you hear that story and think, “Elia made him do it.” How do you read Dany thinking that, and not wonder, “huh, maybe not recognizing that Rhaegar caused this mess is a bad omen for Dany’s ability to understand what her family did to Westeros/how she will be viewed.”

Rhaegar is a real mystery to me because he totally changed who he was to save the world and either threw that aside because he fell in love with Lyanna or he was willing to kidnap/rape her to get his prophecy baby. I really don’t know how Martin will depict it because it seems like both interpretations involve some contradictions to how he is presented elsewhere. Either way, I still hate him because to me, his choices are what led to the death of Elia and her children, and I will never forget little Rhaenys hiding under his bed (it may be the most upsetting line in the series to me). But, even so, his desire was to save the realm, Dany’s is to conquer it. Dany is setting out to cause a war.

That’s Dany’s intention. 

How is Dany the aberration from the Targaryen legacy when she is setting out to conquer and reinstate Targaryen rule? How is that breaking traditions? It’s more of the same. Actually, her whole story is very enmeshed with Targ proclivities and some similarities to Rhaegar specifically. Rhaegar wanted three heads of the dragon which led to Lyanna’s death, and a woman dies in the funeral pyre from which Dany got her three dragons. We don’t know exactly what happened with R/L, and Rhaegar wasn’t there when his family died, but the idea of human life paying for Rhaegar and Dany’s ambition, for their dreams being born in death…let’s not ignore this stuff.

Actually, it’s interesting that Rhaegar’s father was mad and Viserys reads similarly, and we know Aerys was worried about plots and Viserys was showing the same kind of paranoia, and we read them as villains (they are), but their feelings weren’t unfounded. Rhaegar was planning to depose his father (or by another name, usurp him), and Dany effectively did usurp Viserys. Obviously he was abusive and threatening her life so we don’t care, but Dany determined he was no dragon before he threatened her child. Again, I don’t mind, but Dany is planning to take Westeros a la Aegon, she has some ties to Rhaegar’s story beyond just romanticizing him and imaging herself to be him. She’s already burned someone alive and even BNFs admit she will burn KL, so uh, there’s a connection to Aerys. Just because we know her (and some love her), doesn’t mean we can pretend the author isn’t writing this stuff into her story.

I mean, think about what their saying. They’re pretending there is no correlation between Dany burning KL and her father wanting to. How is wanting to do it evidence of Aerys being a monster, but Dany actually doing it doesn’t alter her hero status? How is thinking to do it worse than actually doing it?

If it was right to kill Aerys to prevent it (a universal sentiment in the fandom), then uh, it’s right for Dany to die for doing it.

I do think some people are reacting to our anti Targ sentiment because they’re thinking we are holding people responsible for their parents and that’s unfair, or saying Dany is doomed by her blood. But, that’s why Aegon matters. Bringing Aegon into the story is fun because he and Jon are what allow shades of grey rather than making this a screed against Targaryen blood. The Martells will support a Targ (Aegon) and also fight (Dany) a Targ. The Starks have Jon so they will support and also fight a Targ (Dany). It’s possible for Rhaegar’s sons to have the blood of Targaryens but not actually be Targaryen in the way that means death because ultimately, it’s your choices that damn you, not your blood. But Dany, Dany is a Targaryen in the worst way.

I wrote this sometime after the show ended in 2019 when a Dany stan was accusing us of sexism for saying Dany was a villain:

Even though that’s what I think, let’s say you guys are right though. Maybe the books will be kinder to Dany. Maybe book Dany is a hero, maybe she’ll have a grand romance with Jon before she dies a hero's death saving humanity. But if our heroes run around leaving the corpses of countless children in their wake as the cost of their ambition, I'm not sure that we should want them to be successful. I'm not sure that we should want them to survive.

If our heroes aren’t thrust into war but pursue it, choose to wage it because they want power, if they choose to paint their road to victory with the blood of innocents, well, with heroes like those, who needs villains? (Link)

This is why I call both incarnations of Dany villain. Book Dany is far more nuanced, I get that, but if this was anyone else we all would recognize her for what she is, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise. I guess if I cared about the opinion of the ASOIAF fandom beyond our little circle, wanted to be popular or make money off of them, I’d deny the obvious too. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[rainbowloliofjustice]

I hate how so many people just... lack any kind of critical media literacy across so many different genres and how just about every genre and common tropes, issues, etc. within them just get boiled down to "Oh this is bad because ableism/racism/homophobia" even though the tropes largely have nothing to do with that. It's like they have such a surface-level understanding of something and then proceeds to read into said surface-level understanding in a contest to see who can come up with the most disingenuous, bad faith, uncharitable and just all-around god an awful interpretation of it.

"Characters having prosthetics as an allegory for losing their humanity is ablest because it is saying that if you got into an accident you are a monster." No, you absolute peanut. Robotic parts specifically are an allegory for the loss of humanity in characters that just get rid of their human body because they were being reckless, stupid, thought that it was not perfect enough, too weak, etc. Oftentimes, this is juxtaposed with a character that is a robot but is more human than the cyborg or person that just gets another piece of them replaced with a machine.

Ironwood getting increasingly mechanical parts as he is making increasingly inhumane choices in regards to himself and others is not saying he's a monster because he had an oops boo boo and had to replace his arm. ESPECIALLY when his character is juxtaposed by a character who has a robotic arm (Yang) and a character who is a created robot (Penny). The reason why Yang said that her robotic arm (and even taking pride in it at that) is "just extra" because it is just an extra asset to who she is as a person, but not her whole person. In terms of Penny, she is entirely made of machines but has what amounts to a human heart and compassion because she makes a choice to be kind to people. The allegory here (that y'all failed to understand) is that it is not whether or not someone has prosthetic or robotic parts that determine their humanity, but rather their choices and how they treat others.

It is often also the same in stories where it has characters who have robotic parts such as Alita Battle Angel or anything that genuinely comes from cyberpunk dystopia. Alita (Who is completely robot mind you) is often more kind, compassionate, etc. than characters who are fully human. Hugo and his crew regularly steal parts from cyborgs who've done nothing to him and this is juxtaposed by characters like Grewishka and Zipan who are mechanical and monstrous but not because of their parts but because of their choices. Which is a strong contrast to Alita who is fully kindhearted and has a strong sense of justice and doing what is right regardless of whether there is a price tag on it.

In more dystopian stories wherein no short words, the corrupt government controls technology and spies on its people using it, it can be a question of how much of your humanity (in this instance, privacy and agency over oneself) you're willing to sacrifice for comfort or just because you had to. But of course, rather than looking at these stories as a potential warning that we should make laws that would prevent the government from using technology against its people under the guise of safety, convenience, etc. Or even having people question wtf do they do should the government get so corrupt that it can just hijack someone's arm or even just stop someone's pacemaker because lol why not.

Yeah I get it, it's uncomfortable but unfortunately, the people who need it the most are going to be the people most at risk to a corrupt government which is like... kinda the point.

But anyways moving on

The same can go for when stories use animals as a means of telling stories revolving around discrimination. But ofc people can only see it as a surface-level "racism" and then do their damnest to force characters into being black/poc or white (and for some reason, only those two races) while failing to realize that the reason it was done is that discrimination has more than one axis. I swear this logic is what has convinced me all the talk of intersectionality in activism is just a joke they say to get other people to just shut up and let them speak over them and ignore problems/issues they don't want to focus on. It's like the only thing they can understand is racism and even that racism is only if it is hatred and black people vs white people. And somehow even that is on its most basic level.

The reason stories like Zootopia and Beastars work when it comes to discrimination because it doesn't solely focus on the narrative of race and allows it to explore the implicit and explicit biases of every character that doesn't exclusively revolve around racism. It allows characters to be on the axis of sexism, racism, class, etc. and explore various -isms that are not always "negative" in the sense that it is just hatred, racial slurs, etc. and that it can be the "positive" racism like saying "you're one of the good ones" or that "they're a token to xyz for not being as bad as everyone else."

It allows characters to fall on multiple axes without people arguing whether they have it "too good to complain" because of just one axis of discrimination that they give more weight to than others for some arbitrary reason.

Even when it comes to things like nudity being a symbol of being true to oneself or purity (such as Sailor Moon or Kill La Kill) people manage to, unironically boil it down to just the writers feeling horny and therefore ignore any other kind of lore, storytelling, etc. that revolves around it. They took one thing, scrubbed, bleached, and then nuked it of any kind of context/meta just to say lol writers horny this bad it literally means nothing else even though there are whole ass plot lines revolving around it. Like do you just pick and choose what kind of plot or storytelling is Valid (TM)?

And this extends to things beyond that and I just don't understand how people can lack such media literacy when you can literally go and read anything you want online. Is it because of people being willfully ignorant? Just lacking media literacy for some reason? Only consuming and understanding media that has to have every meaning shoved down their throat like the tentacle down an anime girl's throat in a hentai??? Like there are so many questions as to how people can come up with so many dumbass takes.

[goopgirlie813]

True. I think we can just drop the lgbt discussion for now.

Providing knowledge is hardly "forcing" anything on anyone. For students its no different than being required to take any other class. For parents the issue is that they are being denied control over their child's worldview, something that I don't think they should ever have had in the first place. Censorship has no place in a free society, much less one were the general population has the power to make political decisions. That is how you end up with fascists creating and exploiting ignorance to gain power. An educated population keeps politicians in check. Banning access to certain information or giving parents the power to do so to their children has no place in a society like ours.

Yeah, I would bet conservatives do come off as more tolerant from a certain perspective. Progressives are often openly intolerant while conservatives often try to conceal their intolerance with politeness and plausible deniability. Wanna know the typical progressive philosphy regarding tolerance? "The paradox of intolerance" by Philosopher Karl Popper and, often, the idea of a social contract of mutual tolerance. Perhaps you have seen these quotes going around here on tumblr:

Most progressives refuse to tolerate any intolerance of things like people's relationship choices (being homosexual, being polyamorous, not wanting a relationship), sexual choices (participating in kink, making or watching porn, recreational sex, not wanting sex at all), reproductive choices (IVF, abortion, contraception), gender expression (wearing clothing that doesn't match your sex, using pronouns that don't match your sex, defying gender roles), gender transition (HRT, gender affirming surgeries, name changes), religious or spiritual beliefs (being non-christian, being atheist), disabilities (physical dependance on others, having a stutter, not being able to act due to executive dysfunction, being unable to work), body types (being fat, being intersex), hobbies (playing D&D, playing video games, dressing in a fursuit and making furry art), and more. Every single thing in those parentheses and more has been subject to intolerance from conservatives claiming to be protecting (conserving) "tradition" and the "natural order." But somehow whenever the topic of tolerance comes up the only part people care about is how progressives are intolerant of conservative beliefs. No mention of how those conservative beliefs are intolerant of progressive existance.

I should have defined what I meant by racism. Idk where the hell you got that "marxist" definition but chances are if you tried to pass that off as progressive you'd be flamed to hell and back for it. It is extremely rare for someone to genuinely believe that being white makes you inherently racist. Conservatives claim that progressives believe that far more than progressives actually believe it, to the point where acting like you believe it will likely get you accused of being a conservative psyop.

So what I meant by conservative definition was exactly what you said, "being prejudiced (or hateful) against people because of their race." This is indeed racism, but to the progressive perspective it isn't the whole picture. The summary that I have found best summarizes the progressive definition of racism, and the one that I typically use if I talk about the topic, is "racism is an ideology that states that race is a determining factor in how someone should exist in society, justified by claims that different races have inherent differences in physical ability, psychology, mental ability and behavior with little to no exception. Any attitude, belief, or behavior that stems from or relies on the assumptions of a racist philosophy are also considered racist, even if the person expressing them does not conciously agree with a racist philosphy."

Or in shorter terms, the conservative definition tends to treat racism as a negative sentiment that an individual holds within themselves, while the progressive definition treats racism as an ideological system. The conservative definition tends to focus on intention and whats in a person's heart, allowing people to dodge accusations of racism by showing goodwill toward a person of color to "prove" they aren't hateful. The progressive definition focuses on external effect and function and by extension those who operate on it won't accept "but I have a black friend!" As proof that a person isn't racist after doing a racist thing.

Hope that clarifies some things.

With the conservative definition there is enough plausible deniability to argue that Trump isn't racist. With the progressive definition there is no getting around the fact that he has displayed a pattern or racist behaviors and refused to correct them. Meaning that in all ways that matter, he is a racist.

Anyway, I'm tired of spending all my free time on this conversation. I work two jobs and only get a couple hours a day to myself and I have other things I want to do with those hours than write these responses. I will no longer be responding to you.

I hope you and your boyfriend have a happy life.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

MIXED-RACE FAMILIES PSA

So for months now I’ve been wanting to write this whole thing about how mixed-raced families have their experiences constantly disregarded and belittled and how people expect mixed-race kids to ‘side’ with an ethnicity over another, or to value one more, and how non-mixed family members can just as often be completely pushed out of the discussion, but frankly I don’t want to deal with the amount of bullshit this site will throw my way if I do.

Briefly though, to expect mixed families to have the same outlook on race as one group of people or another is to deny their unique perspective. To discount any of their loving family members as unimportant or ignorant is to forget that these people are parents, siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts to each other before anything else. To make everything about American systemic racism is to forget that there are, in fact, many equally troubled countries that nonetheless have very different racial issues. To dismiss mixed families’ insight on race relations and to tell them that their outlook is utopic or downright offensive, when some of them live a dream that many people suffered or died to see come true, is to ignore what a beautiful source of joy, hope and wonder these families can be.

So with that, have some of the funniest, most wholesome moments that can come from having a mixed family, because not all of them are constantly struggling or having identity crises:

swapping outfits, wearing each other's traditional clothes, feeling all happy and warm about it

everybody wishing they could have each other's hair

learning to do each other’s hair

the teenage boys teaching each other to do all the different accents and switching between them for comedic purposes

comparing skin care/hair care products, trying all of them out

adapting recipes to each other's ingredients

"what are you EATING?!" frequently, from all parties

the first generation immigrant dad somehow knowing all of the region's secret recipes because he's managed to get himself adopted by all the elders

the white three year old girl going around her kindergarten telling everybody that she's 'part African' because her uncle is black and she doesn't get that she's not actually related to him

the six year old wishing she was mixed because her cousins are the prettiest girls ever

keeping a tally of all the times a cashier or an old lady has assumed one of the kids was related to someone they weren't

joking about 'looking like the adopted one'

a third of the family unit not being related to anyone by blood *or* by marriage, but at this point who's counting. 

more people showing up

the cousins' cousins showing up too

getting introduced to family members by oblivious people, repeatedly

well-meaning member of 'their' ethnicity, or even other mixed people: "This is how [your family members] do things, in case you didn't know" *deadpan look, secretly dying* "Thanks”

woke people making a big deal out of the ‘diversity of the family’ and how it reminds them of [a place nobody in the family is from], the teenagers dying trying to keep the laughter in

people casually discussing the hardcore stuff they did ‘back there,’ said stuff somehow including that time their small boat got capsized by a giant manta ray after they went beyond the coral reef, or watching headless chickens run around (yes it’s a real thing) after killing them for lunch + the people who lived in cities their entire lives staring dumbly

the mixed and non-mixed kids introducing themselves as cousins and getting to enjoy the funniest reactions

“We’re cousins.” (”On est cousines.”)

*blinking* "... But, hmm... How is that?" (”Mais, heu... Comment ça se fait?”)

[evanescentjasmine]

I’m going to talk about a little pet peeve of mine with regard to portrayal of poc in fic, TMA specifically since that’s what I mostly read and write for. 

I suppose I should first start by saying that, of course, poc are not a monolith, and I’m certain there are other poc who have many different views on this issue. And also this post is in no way meant to demonise, shame, or otherwise discourage people from writing poc in fic if they’re doing something differently. This is just a thing I’ve been noodling on for a while and have had several interesting conversations with friends about, and now that I think I’ve figured out why I have this pet peeve, I figured I’d gather my thoughts into a post.

As a result of the fact we have no canonical racial, ethnic, or religious backgrounds for our main TMA cast, we’ve ended up with many diverse headcanons, and it’s absolutely lovely to see. I’m all for more diversity and I’m always delighted to see people’s headcanons. 

However, what often happens is I’ll be reading a fic and plodding along in a character’s PoV and get mention of their skin colour. And nothing else. I find this, personally, extremely jarring. In a short one-shot it makes sense, because you’re usually touching on one scenario and then dipping out. Likewise if the fic is in a different setting, is cracky, or is told from someone else’s PoV, that’s all fine. But if I’m reading a serious long-fic close in the poc’s head and...nothing? That’s just bizarre to me.

Your heritage, culture, religion, and background, all of those affect how you view the world, and how the world views you in return. How people treat you, how you carry yourself, what you’re conscious of, all of that shifts. And the weird thing is that many writers are aware of this when it comes to characters being ace or trans or neurodivergent—and I’m genuinely pleased by that, don’t get me wrong. Nothing has made my ace self happier than the casual aceness in TMA fics that often resonates so well with my experience. But just as gender, orientation, and neurodivergence change how a character interacts with their world, so do race, ethnicity, and religion. 

As a child, I spent a couple of years in England while my mother was getting her degree. Though I started using Arabic less and less, my mother still spoke to me almost exclusively in Arabic at home. We still ate romy cheese and molokhia and the right kind of rice, though we missed out on other things. She managed to get an Egyptian channel on TV somehow, which means I still grew up with different cultural touchstones and make pop-culture references that I can’t share with my non-Arabic-speaking friends. She also became friends with just about every Egyptian in her university, so for those years I had a bevy of unrelated Uncles and Aunties from cities all over Egypt, banding together to go on outings or celebrate our holidays.

As an adult who sometimes travels abroad solo, and as a fair-skinned Arab who’s fluent in English, usually in a Western country the most I’ll get is puzzled people trying to parse my accent and convinced someone in my family came from somewhere. When they hear my name, though, that shifts. I get things like surprise, passive-aggressive digs at my home region, weird questions, insistence I don’t look Egyptian (which, what does that even mean?) or the ever-popular, ever-irritating: Oh, your English is so good!

At airports, with my Egyptian passport, it’s less benign. I am very commonly taken aside for extra security, all of which I expect and am prepared for, and which always confuses foreign friends who insisted beforehand that surely they wouldn’t pull me aside. Unspoken is the fact I, y’know, don’t look like what they imagine a terrorist would. But I’m Arab and that’s how it goes, despite my, er, more “Western” leaning presentation. 

This would be an entirely different story if I were hijabi, or had darker skin, or a more pronounced accent. I am aware I’m absolutely awash with privilege. Likewise, it would be different if I had a non-Arab name and passport. 

So it’s slightly baffling to me as to why a Jon who is Pakistani or Indian or Arab and/or Black British would go through life the exact same way a white British character would. 

Now, I understand that race and ethnicity can be very fraught, and that many writers don’t want to step on toes or get things wrong or feel it isn’t their place to explore these things, and certainly I don’t think it’s a person’s place to explore The Struggles of X Background unless they also share said background. I’m not saying a fic should portray racism and microaggressions either (and if they do, please take care and tag them appropriately), but that past experiences of them would affect a character. A fic doesn’t have to be about the Arab Experience With Racism (™) to mention that, say, an Arab Jon headed to the airport in S3 for his world tour would have been very conscious to be as put together as he could, given the circumstances, and have all his things in order. 

And there’s so much more to us besides. What stories did your character grow up with? What language was spoken at home? Do they also speak it? If not, how do they feel about that? What are their comfort foods? Their family traditions? The things they do without thinking? The obscure pop-culture opinions they can’t even begin to explain? (Ask me about the crossover between Egyptian political comedy and cosmic horror sometime…)

I’m not saying you’ll always get it right. Hell, I’m not saying I always get it right either. I’m sure someone can read one of my fics and be like, “nope, this isn’t true to me!” And that’s okay. The important thing, for me, is trying.

Because here’s the thing. 

I want you to imagine reading a fic where I, a born and raised Egyptian, wrote white characters in, say, a suburb in the US as though they shared my personal experiences. It’s a multi-generational household, people of the same gender greet with a kiss on each cheek, lunch is the main meal, adults only move out when they get married, every older person they meet is Auntie or Uncle, every bathroom has a bidet, there’s a backdrop of Muslim assumptions and views of morality, and the characters discuss their Eid plans because, well, everyone celebrates Eid, obviously.

Weird, right? 

So why is this normal the other way around? 

Have you ever stopped to wonder why white (and often, especially American) experiences are considered the default? The universal inoffensive base on which the rest is built? 

Yes, I understand that writers are trying to be inoffensive and respectful of other backgrounds. But actually, I find the usual method of having the only difference be their skin colour or features pretty reductive. We’re more than just a paint job or a sprinkle of flavour to add on top of the default. Many of us have fundamentally different life experiences and ignoring this contributes to that assumption of your experience being universal. 

Yes, fic is supposed to be for fun and maybe you don’t want to have to think about all this, and I get that completely. I have all the respect in the world for writers who tag their TMA fics as an American AU, or who don’t mention anyone’s races. I get it. But when you have characters without a canonical race and you give them one, you’re making a decision, and I want you to think about it. 

Yes, this is a lot of research, but the internet is full of people talking about themselves and their experiences. Read their articles, read their blogs, read their twitter threads, watch their videos, see what they have to say and use it as a jumping-off point. I’m really fond of the Writing With Color blog, so if you’re not sure where to start I’d recommend giving them a look. 

Because writers outside of the Anglosphere already do this research in order to write in most fandoms. Writers of colour already put themselves in your shoes to write white characters. And frankly, given the amount of care that many white writers put into researching Britishisms, I don’t see why this can’t extend to other cultural differences as well.