#but that's what people are talking about

[bookwyrminspiration]

If it’s not too much trouble, can you explain what’s going on with poc vackers? I’ve seen there being some discourse and i have no idea if it was about people reacting negatively to adding rep, or criticizing how certain types of characters/families are more widely accepted as poc because of stereotypes, or if people were using poc vackers as an excuse not to examine the racism the Shannon messenger has incorporated in both her attempts at diversity and just in the general content of the series.

It's not too much trouble, I can explain. Essentially, one tumblr user--who appears to be new both to the fandom and tumblr as a whole--made a post asking why people often drew Fitz and Biana as poc when they're canonically said to be pale. They included official art and such as sources. (warning: there is some racist rhetoric under the cut)

I, assuming good faith, was the first to reply explaining that it was a way for those of us not represented in the series to see ourselves in the characters, to make the series more inclusive. And that it caused no harm, and didn't have any real impact on canon; if they didn't like the headcanons, they didn't have to engage with them.

They then responded proposing the hypothetical of what if they drew Tam, Linh, Wylie, Maruca, any other characters of color as white people? That they thought the series was already really inclusive, so we didn't need to add more diversity. That they found it offensive when characters' ethnicities are changed when the characters look like them (when they're white, I assume). That was the beginning of more concerning thoughts they shared, as they went on to say poc were a "protected class" and that you weren't allowed to say anything about them without being called racist or homophobic. They claimed white people were being fired so companies could hire for diversity instead of for talent (though they later admitted they could only find one source for that, and it was a very biased, opinionated, and emotional-language heavy one). When I shared a statistic about what percentage of authors are white (75-90% depending on the source) to further my point about how media is catered to white people (because they'd said it wasn't) they asked why that mattered, and suggested maybe black people just don't write as much, and that's why there are more white authors.

After I talked with them in the replies where they said all that, other people also found the post and starting chiming in, hence why talk of it has spread to some places. Anyone referencing recent poc vacker discourse is most likely talking about this person and these views they shared. I hesitate to share the original post because I have no interest in call-outs or drama, but I also do not want you to just take me at my word. So please be responsible about this, anyone looking further. But here's the post in question so you can verify on your own and see exactly what they said (it's all in the replies) if you want to.

I hope that helps explain it! I think I covered pretty much everything, but i may have missed a detail or two.

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[ered]

Here’s my take on the whole audio books vs. reading:

Oral tradition of storytelling predates written ones by millennias, and honestly, which one you like is just a personal preference.

The actual difference is

when listening, you have no idea how to write characters’ names

when reading, you have no idea how to pronounce characters’ names

hope this helps!

[cassianandfenrysaremyboyos]

Goncharov coming third in tumblr's top 100 movies of 2023 is so damn funny. Imagine being a film studio exec who spent millions making some of the other 97 movies listed below it only to be beaten by a film that cost exactly zero dollars to make and doesn't exist

[sunbloomdew]

do you ever see a person and you are overcome with incredible fondness? and you just think "oh." but not in a romantic or sexual way you are just filled with warmth and it makes you happy, it just does. and you think "i'm so happy you exist. i'm happy you are somewhere out there in the world, doing your thing". it's love but also not entirely

like people are lovely and i feel it in my entire chest like a burning candle that smells like roses and a sunny day

[captainjonnitkessler]

You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[hell0mega]

people are drawing Steamboat Willie Mickey doing all this crazy shit and whatnot, but you could always do that. you can do that now, with current Mickey, just fine. it's fanart and it's legally protected. hell you could take Disney-drawn Mickey and put a caption about unions or whatever on it and it would still be protected under free speech and sometimes even parody law.

what is special about public domain is that you can SELL him. you could take a screenshot and sell it on a tshirt. you can use him to advertise your plumbing business. people have already uploaded and monetized the original film.

you could always have Mickey say what you want, but now you can profit off it.

[heytherecentaurs]

Brennan’s talked before about how as a poor young adult he lived in New York and struggled with food security. He tells a story of going to frozen yogurt places for free samples and a cheap dumpling spot because it was a lot of food.

His opinions on food and his described behaviours around food make a lot of sense in that context. He may be successful now and can be assured he can eat again when he’s hungry, but it appears he has legitimate trauma around his experiences with poverty because what he’s humorously describing is a trauma response. His mind hasn’t gotten rid of the anxiety of “I’m eating now so I better make it count because I don’t know when I will again.”

Because he’s a comedian he manages to frame it as a joke, but there’s certainly an underlying sadness. It also informs Evan Kelmp’s characterization. Capitalism is the root issue here and poverty is state-sanctioned economic abuse.

Anyway, I hope he’s doing well and taking care of himself.

[pangur-and-grim]

[akanemnon]

I don't like this place. It's turning everyone edgy and sad.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Vanessa’s thoughts when meeting Abby..

[owlbelly]

so. i understand where the sentiment "listening to an audiobook is the same thing as reading the book" is coming from - i mean, yes, the bottom line is you are taking in the same words in what is possibly a more accessible (or maybe just more enjoyable) format for you! and i'm 100% in agreement that "book snobs" who say "no you didn't really read it" if you listened to the audiobook are full of shit. ofc you should engage with stories in whatever way works for you, there is no moral or intellectual superiority to reading words off a page vs. listening to them

but it also is different? an audiobook is a performance. choices a narrator makes about line readings can drastically influence the meaning of the lines. even just different voices, accents, etc. - there are creative choices being made by the person delivering the words to you, and that affects your experience of the story in a different way than if you were making those choices in your own head. it might even change the way you visualize what's going on!

this isn't a bad thing it's just An Actual Thing & i think it's worth talking about. it rubs me the wrong way when people act like accommodations (and for many people audiobooks are an accommodation) always result in a completely identical experience, or even that they should, & if you suggest that people accessing media in different ways are having different experiences it's somehow ableist

anyway on rare occasions i really enjoy audiobooks but mostly they are much less accessible to me than words on a page (i need to be able to reread, flip back and forth, go at my own pace) & i also just really strongly prefer to encounter a text on my own before hearing someone else's performance of it, if possible! again i don't think it's "better" to read a physical book i just think it is a Distinct form of experiencing a story & acting like the two things are entirely the same is sort of doing a disservice to both

[notbrucewayne48]

"aphobia doesn't exist"

bitch literally not that long ago an aroace youtuber animator was insulted by almost half of its community for being it

[danlous]

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw or a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently