#especially if you yourself are white or not east asian

[tangibletechnomancy]

The (Personal) Is (Political)

~7 hours, Dall-E 3 via Bing Image Creator, generated under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

Or, Dear Microsoft and OpenAI: Your Filters Can't Stop Me From Saying Things: An interactive exercise in why all art is political and game of Spot The Symbols

A rare piece I consider Fully Finished simply as a jpeg, though I may do something physical with it regardless. "Director commentary" below, but I strongly encourage you to go over this and analyze it yourself before clicking through, then see how much your reading aligns with my intent.

Elements I told the model to add and a brief (...or at least inexhaustive) overview of why:

Anime style and character figures - Frequently associated with commercial "low" art and consumer culture, in East Asia and the English-speaking world alike, albeit in different ways - justly or otherwise. There is frequently an element of racism to the denigration of anime styles in the west; nearly any American artist who has taken formal illustration classes can tell you a story of being told that anime style will only hinder them, that no one will hire them if they see anime, or even being graded more harshly and scrutinized for potential anime-esque elements if they like anime or imply that they may like anime - including just by being Asian and young. On the other hand, it is true that there is a commercial strategy of "slap an anime girl on it and it will sell". The passion fans feel for these characters is genuine - and it is very, very exploitable. In fact, this commercialization puts anime styles in particular in a very contentious position when it comes to AI discussions!

Dark-skinned boy with platinum and pink [and blue] hair - Racism and colorism! They're a thing, no matter how much the worst people in the world want you to think they're long over and "critical race theory" is the work of evil anti-American terrorists! I chose his appearance because I knew that unless I was incredibly lucky, I would have to fight with this model for multiple hours to get satisfactory results on this point in particular - and indeed I did. It was an interesting experience - what didn't surprise me was how much work it took me to get a skin color darker than medium-dark tan; what did surprise me was that the hair color was very difficult to get right. In anime art, for dark skin to be matched with light hair and eyes is common enough to be...pretty problematic. Bing Image Creator/Dall-E, on the other hand, swings completely in the opposite direction and struggles with the concept of giving dark-skinned characters any hair color OTHER than black, demanding pretty specific phrasing to get it right even 70% of the time. (I might cynically call this yet another illustration against the pervasive copy-paste myth...) There is also much to say about the hair texture and facial features - while I was pleased to see that more results than I expected gave me textured hair and/or box braids without me asking for it, those were still very much in the minority, and I never saw any deviation from the typical anime facial structures meant to illustrate Asian and white characters. Not even once!

Pink and blue color palette - Our subject is transgender. Bias self-check time: did you make that association as quickly as you would with a light-skinned character, or even Sylveon?

Long hair, cute clothes, lots of accessories - Styling while transmasc is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation, doubly so if you're not white. In many locations, the medical establishment and mainstream attitude demands total conformity to the dominant culture's standard conventional masculinity, or else "revoking your man card" isn't just a joke meant to uphold the idea that men are "better" than women, but a very real threat. In many queer communities, especially online, transmascs are expected to always be cute femboys who love pink (while transfems are frequently degraded and seen as threats for being butch), and being Just Some Guy is viewed as inherently a sign of assimilationism at best and abusiveness at worst. It is an eternal tug-of-war where "cuteness" and ornamentation are both demanded and banned at the same time. Black and brown people are often hypermasculinized and denied the opportunity to even be "cute" in the first place, regardless of gender. Long hair and how gender is read into it is extremely culture-dependent; no matter what it means to you, if anything, the dominant culture wherever you are will read it as it likes.

Trophies and medals - For one, the trans sports Disk Horse has set feminism back by nearly 50 years; I'm barely a Real History-Remembering Adult and yet I clearly remember a time when the feminist claim about gender in sports was predominantly "hey, it's pretty fucked up that sports are segregated by sex rather than weight class or similar measures, especially when women's sports are usually paid much less and given weirdly oversexualized uniforms," but then a few loud living embodiments of turds in the punch bowl realized that might mean treating trans people fairly and now it's super common for self-proclaimed feminists - mostly white ones - to claim that the strongest woman will still never measure up to the weakest man and this is totally a feminist statement because they totally want to PROTECT women (with invasive medical screenings on girls as young as 12 to prove they're Really Women if they perform too well, of course). For two, Black and brown people are stereotyped as being innately more sporty, physically strong, and, again, Masculine(TM) than others, which frequently intersects with item 1...and if you think it only affects trans women, I am sorry my friend but it is so much worse and more extensive than you think.

Hearts - They mean many things. Love. Happiness. Cuteness. Social media engagement?

TikTok - A platform widely known and hated around these parts for its arcane and deeply regressive algorithm; I felt it deserved to be name/layout/logodropped for reasons that, if they're not clear already, should become so in the final paragraph.

Computers, cameras and cell phones - My initial specification was that one of the phones should be on Instagram and another on TikTok, which the model instead chose to interpret as putting a TikTok sticker on the laptop, but sure, okay. They're ubiquitous in the modern day, for better and for worse. For all the debate over whether phones and social media are Good For Us or Bad For Us, the fact of the matter is, they seem to be a net positive-to-neutral, whose impacts depend on the person - but they do still have major drawbacks. The internet is a platform for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience and dangerous hoaxes to spread farther than ever before. Social media culture leaves many people feeling like we're always being watched and every waking moment of our lives must be Perfect - and in some senses, we are always being watched these days. Digital privacy is eroding by the day, already being used to enforce all the most unjust laws on the books, which leads to-

Pigs - I wrote the prompt with the intention that it would just be a sticker on the laptop, but instead it chose to put them everywhere, and given that I wanted to make a somewhat stealthy statement about surveillance, especially of the marginalized...thanks for that, Dall-E! ;)

Alligators - A counter to the pigs; a short-lived antifascist symbol after...this.

Details I did not intend but love anyway:

The blue in the hair - I only prompted for platinum and pink in the hair, but the overall color palette description "bled" over here anyway, completing the trans flag, making it even more blatant, and thus even more effective as a bias self-check.

The Macbook - I only specified a laptop. Hilariously ironic, to me, that a service provided through Bing interpreted "laptop" as "Macbook" nearly every time. In my recent history, 22 out of 24 attempts show, specifically, a Macbook. Microsoft v. OpenAI divorce arc when? ;) But also, let us not forget Apple's role in the ever-worsening sanitization of the internet. A Macbook with a TikTok sticker (or, well, a Tiikok sticker - recognizable enough) - I can think of little more emblematic of one of the main things I was complaining about, and it was a happy accident. Or perhaps an unhappy one, considering what it may imply about Apple's grip on culture and communications.

Which brings me to my process:

Generated over ~7 hours with Dall-E 3 through Bing Image Creator - The most powerful free tool out there for txt2img these days, as well as a nightmare of filters and what may be the most disgustingly, cloyingly impersonal toxic positivity I've ever witnessed from a tool. It wants to be Art(TM), yet it wants to ban Politics(TM); two things which are very much incompatible - and so, I wanted to make A Controversial Statement using only the most unflaggable, innocuous elements imaginable, no matter how long it took.

All art is political. All life is political. All our "defaults" are cultural, and therefore political. Anything whatsoever can be a symbol.

If you want all art to be a substance-free "look at the pretty picture :)" - it doesn't matter how much you filter, buddy, you've got a big storm coming.

[maeaniseyas]

The Star Wars fandom has never gone this hard or been this invested in any Asian or Black character, ESPECIALLY a Black woman. The Star Wars fandom has never been going this hard for an interracial relationship involving no white people. So for me yeah, it is pretty telling that now is the time some people are deciding to declare everyone lacks media literacy because allegedly we can't tell or admit a man is a bad person because people are sooo blindsided by his looks.

It's the same exact way people adore Anakin/Vader, Maul, Kylo, Revan, Shin, etc. But now that a South East Asian man is playing the Sith y'all suddenly have to "suffer" seeing him a lot and people enjoying his character? When I called out the person who made the og post, they said "I didn't mention Qimir and wasn't only talking about him" like k bro....I know you think everyone but yourself is an idiot or something but just know I'm not and that I know there's no coincidence you literally TAGGED that post as "the acolyte". The claim it was only tagged as "The Acolyte" because it's the "most recent example" is total BS. You purposefully tagged The Acolyte, Acolyte Spoilers, Qimir, Osha Aniseya, ALL OF IT because you weren't talking about the fandom with ships and dark side characters as a whole, you were specifically talking about The Acolyte, Qimir and Osha.

And yeah, it definitely does feel racially coded. Everyone knows this show, the creator and the actors have been enduring a MASSIVE racist, misogynist, and homophobic hate campaign against this show for literally over a year before it even aired, and you have people making posts about how UNBEARABLE it is that they're going to have to see the fandom be obsessed with a sith played by a handsome Filipino and be excited over Oshamir, an interracial ship involving no white people but a Black woman and an Asian man, as if Star Wars fans have a good track record of treating characters of color well. It IS adding to the overall negativity of the show and convincing others not to watch it for your petty little reasons when this is without a doubt the best show Star Wars has released yet on Dinsey+ and by far the most diverse. Have any criticisms you want about The Acolyte, it's totally fair, but this "criticism" I'm referring to was just an attack on people enjoying the show, claiming stupid shit like a "lack of media literacy" over something everyone already knows like the fact Qimir isn't a good guy. Here's something that might shock y'all: we know, AND WE DON'T CARE.

Anyway I hope Oshamir, Qimir, and Osha continue to pop up on these peoples timelines and continue to make things unbearable for them. Because if enemies to lovers is all good when it involves someone like Shin and Sabine, but not when it involves Qimir and Osha, then you're a hypocrite and not to be dramatic your life deserves to be unbearable if that's really what does it.

[mikelogan]

Color Reference Guide to Recognize & Avoid Whitewashing by mihareth How to Spot and Stop Whitewashing POC in Edits by augustds Don't Whitewash Me: A Guide to Coloring POC (Pastel & Pale) by mohanas How to Fix Orange-washed Characters by aubrey-plaza How To: Coloring East and Southeast Asian Celebs by blueshelp POC Coloring Tutorials Tag by gifmakerresource

Please share any other resources you might have in the replies or tag @gifmakerresource!

DISCLAIMER: I am white and in no way do I wish to speak for or over people of color. If anything here is offensive, incorrect, or nonsensical, please let me know and I will remove it and do better moving forward.

When I first started making gifs again last year, I didn't really know about whitewashing. It was a concept I'd definitely heard of and I knew what it was, but I didn't think about it in the context of gifmaking. Since becoming part of a couple gifmaking networks and starting my own resource blog, it's something that I am now very conscious of. I will periodically ask for opinions on my coloring when people of color are in the gifs and I've learned so much from doing so! I genuinely cannot recommend networks like PSCentral and LGBTQCreators enough. Everyone is so kind and helpful and being part of them has only served to better my gifmaking.

I have always liked to give people the benefit of the doubt and believe the best of them until I'm proven otherwise. I know not everyone feels this way, but especially since my personal experience was borne out of ignorance rather than malice. When I see colorwashed gifs, I want to believe (or hope) that OP just isn't aware, the same as I was. But ignorance also isn't an excuse. If someone points out to you that your coloring has whitewashed or otherwise colorwashed a person of color, you should take that and adjust your coloring as necessary, removing the original post. The resources listed above have been instrumental in helping me keep skintones realistic and true to life. There are, I'm sure, many more tutorials out there that discuss this topic. It is on you to take the initiative to learn, not on the person educating you. If being told you've white/colorwashed someone makes you angry, I would urge you to ask yourself why.

As always, please be kind to one another.

[phregnancy]

as long as we’re on about dnp racism: it’s always kind of rubbed me the wrong way how dan and phil treat/talk about east asia especially japan. i’m not eastern asian (im white) and i know you aren’t either but i was wondering if you or any of your followers thought the same/had more insight on this?? if i were to put a word on it i would say fetishization but idk if im expressing my feelings correctly !! sorry for the rambling i hope this makes sense? thanks!

this is going to upset some people because some phannies do genuinely fetishize east asian cultures, but i don’t disagree with you - there is a difference between cultural appreciation and cultural fetishization, and the way they’ve talked about japan and aspects of japanese culture comes across as othering to me

a bit of reflection for people who will take this as a personal attack: are you genuinely interested in learning about the culture, or are you merely attracted to an ‘exotic’ appeal? did you make an effort to educate yourself about the culture’s history and significance? are you acknowledging the source of the cultural elements and supporting people of that culture? are you aware of how your actions might be perceived by people of the culture? are you sensitive to issues of appropriation and exploitation?

this is an open discussion so share your thoughts if you have them

[pink-strawberry-kissess]

If my memory serves me right I remember you saying Ada would like sweet food (or has a sweet tooth?). But wouldn't it be the opposite? Given most asians don't really like sweet food, preferring them to be less sweeter. I imagine her taking a bite of chocolate cake and immediately giving it to Leon because she's one bite away from gagging. 😂 And I also think she'd be lactose intolerant too (because she's East Asian, and about 70-100 percent are lactose intolerant) so her eating ice cream would be less likely tbh.

No hate, just giving my thoughts as a fellow asian myself! 😅

i like the idea of ada having a sweet tooth (mostly because i like the symmetry of her having a sweet spot for leon) lol

so even if she does, i kinda think she wouldn't indulge very often. or would do so very rarely.

IM GONNA BE HONEST (about the lactose intolerance thing)

(i have a lot of very strong opinions about this)

i do think there's a lot of nuance with understanding lactose intolerance in asian people and people in general. i do think it's funny that i am also asian (and also have asian friends that are all not lactose intolerant, myself included) while having several white friends that are ALL severely lactose intolerant.

the other thing is that i think it's kinda weird to place this on an asian character, based on the fact that's it's a possibility for asian people. it doesn't really change much for her story other than she "can't have milk" and im like - that's.. weird lol. to attribute that to her for just being asian. (like it feels like one of those not necessarily racist characteristics, but it feels weird to attach this to her JUST BECAUSE she's asian)

also especially since it's not something that's ALWAYS occuring with asian people. sure, it's a higher percentage. but europeans also have a high chance of being lactose intolerant, along with many other people from different parts of the world.)

this also doesn't include the fact that many asian countries along with the west, that have also developed milks that have less lactose and or are lactose free. so it's entirely possible for someone to be lactose intolerant consume a bunch of dairy products and be fine. (or be like my white friends that are lactose intolerant and just shit their brains out later)

another thing that i think would be weird is to write like - a korean character not sweating or smelling because they might have the gene that makes it so that they don't smell. - like that's fucking weird right? to bring up in a fic?

or the chinese alcohol flush thing, which yes, many people have it (myself included.) but it doesn't seem important enough to write in? or maybe just mention a small flush and then move on??

another thing to note is that i do hc that ada spent most of her life in america or an english speaking country. i don't hc that she was in china for most of her life. mostly because it's not typical for asians in asian countries to remain in asia up until their mid teens and to not retain some sort of accent. since ada has no accent imo (even in the remakes,) i've always hc that she lived longer in an english speaking country.

SO that would also mean her diet was westernized at some point. so she would have probably acclimated to the diet.

I DUNNO

i like thinking about these things lol

another thing to note, i think it's more important to write about a character's culture, rather than statistical likelihoods. if i feel like an asian trait doesn't necessarily align with what i hc ada to have, i'm not going to write it. and that's the fun - if you like that, then write it yourself!

when writing stop and smell the roses, which was my first fic to really dabble more with chinese culture and also the language. i focused on things that were moreso in line with traditions and cultures - not just likelihoods of what asian people might have.

i think the only reason why im bringing this up is because it's very easy to box a character into their race when you write this way. and it can easily lead into racial stereotypes when you write in things that aren't necessarily required for a character. if you can work it in a way that doesn't highlight the fact that it's a race thing, then i think that's fine.

but i'm not going to write a character this way - it just seems unnecessary.

[ae-neon]

the Viper Queen and the Meat Market

I wanna mention all the problems I picked up (so far) mind you these are just mental connections I have made from my own knowledge, I am not an expert nor have I gotten the chance to do any serious research

This is not in depth mostly because it would be a hassle getting all sources, texts and pictures together with my current setup (so please look up it up for yourself if you want to understand/know more)

This is not that long I just put a cut for scrolling convenience

First and foremost is the racist Dragon Lady stereotype. Sjm has already used this stereotype for three of her east Asian characters: Amren, Manon and now this Viper Queen

Second is the idea of the Meat Market itself, being this cramped, lawless place. This plays into stereotypes about spaces of certain ethnicities as lawless zones outside of the order and normalcy of the rest of the surrounding area. In particular this reminds me of Chinatowns - places that were intentionally set up and segregated by white people so that they would not have to live and work beside Asian populations. Sjm makes the mention that "even Micah and the angels had no jurisdiction there" 🙄 like please 😒 the racism is actually detrimental to her world building cause now I know all the human rebels have to do to scare the angels is be "foreign"

Second is the introduction to the Meat Market. It's first mentioned early on as a sort of red light district. Harkoning back to real life sex tourism popular among western men and targeted at poc, but especially Asian women. Things like this have its roots in colonialism and the vulnerability of women and children in wartime.

The first glimpse we have of the Meat Market Bryce stops to observe food being delivered and remarks on strange food and feeling sympathy for the seemingly sad crustaceans who are to be eaten. Rich coming from someone who owns a sentient pet she cannot communicate with despite knowing it does speak. This again plays into some orientalism and the discrimination some western people have towards traditional food from other cultures. Eg the stigma against eating things like dogs because they find it cruel but are okay with intelligent animals like pigs and octopi getting eaten. I'm not saying eat dogs but did you stop to learn that the practice started after colonial forces starved the native population? Would it really matter even if it didn't? Why should food be understood by the west to be deemed acceptable?

The general state of the Meat Market being a place of vice also leans into the history of opium dens. Long story short the British wanted to take advantage of the Chinese so they got them addicted to drugs and it was horrible. Please look more into this. No doubt it was a bit of the inspiration for how white America introduced crack into African American communities to tear them apart from the inside.

This is all for now as I basically stopped in the beginning of chapter 18.

[mercyisms]

wld love for u to expand on your thoughts about asian jewish mercymorn?? my beloved hater girl

(:<<<< i was delighted to receive this ask and rolled it around in my brain for days and days, even though the real answer is "i'm silly and i like to have fun." to preamble: very, very generally, i think it can useful to have fun with white characters in works written by white novelists. i think it can be a lot of fun, too, to see a fancreator re-interpret a work into a culture they know a lot about and bring out different textures or tensions. but i also think it’s fun to reconsider specific characters (sometimes especially the ambiguously raced ones) and tease out tensions that might feel interesting or ones that somebody without cultural context may have overlooked. i like resisting the idea that whiteness is the default or a neutral default.

though! on the flip side and despite routinely joking that augustine being canonically blonde is a hate crime against me somehow, i also recognize that, for example, augustine’s whiteness (or presentation towards whiteness) seems intentional and is doing work in the text. (when i joke about john always having one six foot plus blonde around, it’s funny! but it’s also reflecting something the text is engaging with with regards to race.) so, anyway, that man can stay white. but to speak, at last, to our beloved hater girl. i think the first thing that opened the door for me is one of the initial descriptions we get of mercymorn.

The face beneath the icy parti-coloured hood was a prim, virginal oval; much in shape and feature like the shape of a saint’s face in a portrait, or a death mask. The nose and jaw and forehead were all carven and serene, and therefore had the same indifferent dullness of a well-formed statue.

i am fairly certain tamsyn is consciously trying to evoke one of the infinitely funny and also very beautiful medieval paintings or sculptures of the virgin mary (etc.) (divine conception: difficult mode, am I right, lads?). but for me, the refrain of mercy’s oval face is a great example of a descriptor that isn’t exclusive to whiteness. very practically, when i started looking for references to make humble sketches of mercymorn, i first turned to michelle dockery (expressive eyebrows! a face that can be cold and severe but then melts into heartbreaking, childish expression!) and then more and more to (an aged down!) kim seo hyung. (for the record, when i make stabs at augustine, i am usually drawing on a richard ii era fiona shaw, with dashes of young peter capaldi and perennially ancient jeremy irons. recently, my go-to for cytherea has been ophelia-era—of course—helena bonham carter.) but it’s rooted in more than just me dicking around in procreate. the idea of an asian mercymorn became more compelling to me when i considered how that would change the texture of her character. to try and be as brief as possible, there, as you may well be v familiar with yourself, are longstanding stereotypes of (largely east and south, but it all gets homogenized) asian immigrants being depicted as cold and unfeeling robots, as excelling only at rote memorization and lacking critical thinking or social skills, as being dangerous or suspicious or obnoxious over-achievers, and as, depending on the day, being too sexy or utterly sexless. (i am not claiming any of these are unique to the very broad category of ‘asian,’ just setting the table.) and i think mercymorn becomes really compelling reinterpretation and rebuke to expectations if she is asian. because she is so many of those things: overachieving med school graduate; someone who (though she seems to have excelled at the magicky part) gift comes from stubborn, rote memorization; someone deeply repressed; someone who is told and believes herself to be unfeeling and inhuman (”Every time you’ve said that I did not understand the human heart, that I was unfeeling, that I only knew worship without adoration”)—but is also a disaster of emotions, despite it all, and is driven by incredibly messy emotions and whose skills (the memorization, the drive to overachieve, even the repression) come from this vast and terrifying well of emotions that even she can’t really look at head-on. before mercymorn, i don’t know that i had seen these tropes reworked in exactly this way or thought to rethink these stereotypes in this way, and so that’s some of what mercymorn-as-asian does for me. (obviously caveat that i’m very strongly drawing from a north american context and i totally confess to not knowing what stereotypes are present in new zealand! but anecdotally through friends in australia and england, these stereotypes certainly seem present throughout the globe, and i would not be surprised if they were also present in nz. but just recognizing that!) i also, personally, find this a lot more satisfying than just going off tamsyn’s canon sheet and being like, yeah, got it, isaac is the one canonical east asian. that’s nice! that’s lovely! but it doesn’t really do anything for me or the narrative. i’m not upset about it! but the lyctors, those who lived pre-ressurection and lived closest to john and carry some of their biases with them, are people who have been shaped by a society where race is very present. vs. the younger 10,000 years out gen who ostensibly (though of course they are in a text written here and now) live in a “post-racial” society, at least from what we see within the house system. (i mean, i say this, but then i also feel like... have u met east asian christian converts. there is some eighth house energy there is all i will say. so, again, i just like to have fun.) re: the jewish thing, i am a hater girl myself and cannot like catholics have anything not ever (hashtag joking, tbc) and a) would love for a foot in and b) as myself and others have pointed out, mercymorn would love to kvetch, she’d be so good at it, she understands it implicitly and she deserves to have a community to kvetch with and c) as i think the inciting post for this ask pointed out she’d be so good at saying ‘oy vey’ and d) idk i just think it’s even funnier if a lapsed jewish woman and a nun walk into a bar and then kiss. in general, i also feel a vested interest in opening the door for mixed race readings of characters and one’s that, again, reinterpret or add to the texture of that character’s presence in text and are done in a thoughtful, fun, interesting way. i could possibly say more but i think this is enough for right now!! maybe!!! sorry this took me so long!! uhh but that’s a taste into my thought process, anyway, for how i like to interpret and reinterpret les lyctores and specifically best beloved hater mercymorn m. nolastname i love u. it is (obviously!) not the definitive or only interpretation, but is the one that currently speaks deepest to my soul. but i do love to see all kinds of interpretations and reinterpretations of our beloved necro-cast.

[princessnijireiki]

like... the idea that people are getting deeply aroused on some level (sexual, political excitement, what have you) over quite literally fringe radical separatist causes that already are facing criticism for being trans exclusionary and invasively policing the bodies of cis women applicants to "make sure" they're not too "masculine" or "secretly men," regardless of whatever "successes" random twitter user #24601 is claiming on the movement's behalf, is already not fabulous of y'all.

but the fact that thousands of people were willing & eager to believe in this despite literal decades of data on economic impacts on birthrates in east asian nations with regard to brain drain & depopulation from rural areas, increasingly unaffordable suburbs and cities, violently radicalized misogyny being propped up by state & private corporate support feeding into poor mental health outcomes of family dependence and student/worker isolation, and diminished access to healthcare in general is also like. you can't even say you don't know that when y'all make racist one child policy jokes or meme on the japanese PM, and y'all definitely grasp the concept every time a western news page talks about millennials zillennials and gen z not having babies after being very clear to clown us for decades about how, "haha this 1990s bitch can't afford a smoothie," no shit, idiot! minimum wage is like $7! so actually the real answer is you knew, forgot, or never internalized it, and don't give a shit until the statistics can be abused in your favor.

on top of telling me y'all either can't do arithmetic or don't give half a shit about covid to this day, so double fuck y'all & you're not on my survival team at this point lol, but especially its impact on gestational reproduction and what covid means as a consideration for child welfare or health of a pregnancy, because while there was a very real phenomenon of "covid babies" (both re: kids first socialized in comparative isolation and re: kids conceived because families/couples were at home), and ENSUING widely covered news of impacts on childcare WORKERS like teachers, babysitters, nannies, and other domestic labor infection & mortality rates... there were a ton of people who were/are frightened of everything going on and who very deliberately were or are not having kids as a result. so like... where the fuck is the rock YOU'VE been under for 4 or 5 years now? because it sounds nice, must be real quiet down there, you know?

I need some of y'all to stop getting your news from tiktoks of screenshots of tumblr posts of screenshots of tweets of screenshots of tiny snippets of news articles extrapolated wildly out of context and placed next to unrelated screenshots to further an agenda. because all you're doing at this point is announcing yourself as somebody who'd have seen the weekly world news reports at newstands in the '90s and sent some stranger in oregon a blank check for proof that the bat boy who married elvis to the loch ness mobster really existed and had information about bill clinton being replaced by an alien in the white house. grow up!

[eeldritchblast]

please read this post on your mod, as well as the replies and tags. they are important, and shouldn't be dismissed so easily https://www.tumblr.com/moonmothers/727207347176587264

I already apologized for not noticing that she had East Asian features, I never should have called her Eurocentric - I genuinely did not notice this until it was pointed out. All I can do is make revisions about that.

However, I'm not dismissing anyone, I'm simply choosing to stand by the multiple Black folks who have personally messaged me saying hey, it's upsetting that Karlach was originally Black and then she was changed. Like, you can browse through my asks and find a handful of them I've posted yourself if you feel like doing the work. I don't even use the mod myself, I literally made it for them and others who want the original Black Karlach.

And you know what? I've seen enough antiblack racism towards my Karlach mod, ranging from the extreme to the subtle, that I'm suspicious of people who hate on it, tbh. Especially from white folks like the OP of that post.

[moonystoes]

I get that this is frustrating for you that Elisa doesn't share anything about politics, but there are many possible reasons why she doesn't do that.

1. There are nearly no posts that aren't football related on her account. It's her professional account and she seems to want to keep it about football as much as possible. She has like 4 posts a year at most that aren't her playing football.

2. She doesn't have to. It's not her job to inform others or educate others. That's the job of the news, which they do very well here. Everyone here knows what's happening and where I live there have been plenty of demonstrations. However, some Arab medias and especially Iran love to lie and twist what's happening here and produce hate against "the Western world" in general.

3. In France, it is totally normal not to say anything political as an athlete. It is mostly considered unprofessional.

4. She hasn't posted about any conflict. She hasn't posted anything about Ukraine, Sudan/South Sudan, Niger etc. or the elections in France. I know in the US, it's quite common that celebrities talk about who they support in public, but this is not the case in most European countries. Especially because most European countries have a wide range of political parties and you yourself have to decide who to vote for.

5. She's actually not that privileged. She's a masc woman, most likely lesbian and she has a migration background since she's French/Portuguese. France is not necessarily the most open-minded when it comes to celebs/public figures being part of the lgbt community. And while the combination French/Portuguese is not the most uncommon combination in France, I guarantee you that there will be people that do not consider her to be a 'real' French person. Portugal is poorer than France, which is why this combination of dual citizenship is not necessarily so well seen there. Yes, sure, she is most likely on the richer side, lives in or close to Paris (and grew up there) and is most likely catholic. For the US, she's white but that is not necessarily the case here. We don't necessarily put people in this kind of group, it is far more complex than "White, Black, Asian, Arabic". So e.g. Polish people are white, yet they are one of groups that had to endure the most in history. If you look at US history, you'll also notice why Italians and Irish in the US might not consider themselves white since they used to be considered as "not white". So, of course it isn't the exact same as Sakina for example but most people will still know that she's not just French and therefore not necessarily see her as a "fully/actually french". Even if she plays for France, was born and raised in France and as far as I remember never lived in Portugal.

6. The amount of hate she gets. She already gets a lot of hate for her being a masc woman, for her style of play, from the PSG fans and from the France fans on each and every single post that exists of her on Instagram and Tiktok. So, if she doesn't post or say anything, she'll most likely get called ignorant. If she does though, she'll get called performative and having "white savior syndrome".

This is in no way or shape meant to attack you or anyone else. I just wanted to explain her possible reasons since if I remember correctly you live in the US, are Arab, never lived in France or Europe in general and in a younger age group. This is just meant to show why she might not post anything since French/European culture and US culture actually do not have that much in common as many people believe. Again, it is not meant to attack or offend anyone and I'm not trying to start a fight or big discussion, I'm just trying to give possible explanations that Élisa might have.

Hey! Since your ask is a lot. I'd try to add my points and thoughts if I have some.

2. Iran isn't an Arab country, it's Persian but resides in the middle east. (Sorry I had to do it or I'll keep thinking about this all month 😭😭🙈). Secondly, Iran doesn't just make the west bad, they make every other country except their extremist dictatorship look bad. Iran has its own propaganda and disgusting government. But for Arabs (especially as one), it's not hard to 'demonize' the west when we get new news articles about one of us getting shot, harassed or basically disrespected. I wish I was joking but there was an Arab person that was just racially attacked this week in France, and I'm pretty sure Sakina reposted something about it in her story. I agree that some Arabs just follow stereotypes, but it's safer than just going there and becoming one of the victims too.

3. I understand that it isn't her job. But it also wasn't Sakina, kenza, le guilly, aissa's job to post about it either. But they still did. Obviously she doesn't have that big of a platform to actually change scores (THANK YOU KYLIAN MBAPPE AND KOUNDE).

5. I understand that obviously as a masc lesbian, things aren't going to be easy for her. But I think that previous anon was referring the Palestinian genocide, not the right-wing issue. The reason why so many Arabs speak so much about palestine is because our country had been affected somewhat and we feel a connected outside of culture too. For example I'm from yemen and it's in a war currently as I speak, I lived through some of it as a kid and I don't want anyone to experience these things. That's why it's so easy for me to sympathize with Palestinians (i want to clarify that what yemen is going through is NOTHING like palestine!!). Thats what the anon was referring to when she brought up Elisa being privileged. Now speaking about her being Portuguese, I'm not aware of the conditions in Portugal or how French people view them, so I feel like I have no right to speak about her life as a Portuguese/french person. And in no way do I agree that Elisa is 100% privileged, at the end of the day she's a queer woman.

6. I agree with you about her having too much attention right now, but that's exactly why we feel like it's best to use her large platform. But I respect her being private for everything, she rarely posts about anything even a selfie is a rare sight.

At the end of the day, this isn't a major issue. It's just something that bothered me and obviously other people based on the anons. I'm not gonna hate on her or stop my fan account (is this what I am now 🙂����), I just would've been very happy if she did make a comment about it. I mean....at least she didn't post any zionist info, I guess that's something to be happy about 😭.

[jerichogender]

[ID: Comic book art of Adeline Kane holding a gun placed over top of a pink and orange watercolor background. There is white text that reads: “Adeline Kane Reading Guide.” End ID]

Head of international spy agency, Searchers Inc.; mother to Joseph Wilson; and sometimes ally to the Titans, this former army combat instructor wears many hats over the course of her comic book appearances. The following reading guide will walk you through major storylines for the woman who shot Deathstroke’s eye out herself, Adeline Kane! Please note that a few issues listed show Addie briefly or only mention her. Nevertheless, they were included to give the full experience of how she was originally introduced and to present her major arcs in context. Without any further introduction, let’s begin!

New Teen Titans Era

. The New Teen Titans (1980) #34

. Tales of the Teen Titans #42-44*, Annual #3, #50-52, #56

. The New Teen Titans (1984) #6, 10, 11, 22

. Teen Titans Spotlight #3-6

. The New Teen Titans (1984) #25, 26, 39

. The New Teen Titans: Games**

Deathstroke Era

. Deathstroke (1991) #1-6, 7, 12, 27-34, 0, 43, 46-48***

. Deathstroke (1991) Annual #4

Titans Era

. The Titans (1999) #1, 9-12

“No…You love the soon-to-be Mrs. Slade Wilson. She’s soft and caring and full of love. Out there, when I’m Captain Adeline Kane, I’m tougher than you’ll ever be. And don’t you forget that.”

- Deathstroke (1991) Annual #4

* Her best arcs and single-issue appearances (in my humble opinion) are written in bold. That being said, please be aware that Marv Wolfman’s writing tends to heavily feature orientalist tropes, especially when it comes to Southeast Asian female characters and storylines involving the Middle East (Tales of the Teen Titans #50-52, Teen Titans Spotlight on Jericho, and the Deathstroke World Tour arc being major examples of this). I firmly believe that we can and should appreciate comics while also engaging with them critically

** Games takes place in a version of New Teen Titans continuity that diverges from mainline canon at the time of Crisis on Infinite Earths. It’s a fantastic read, but Adeline shows up very briefly. I’d put it in bold as a general comic book recommendation (especially if you’re a NTT fan), just not for this guide

*** #0, 43, and 46-48 of Deathstroke (1991) are ones that I definitely would not recommend. This is based primarily on personal opinions about specific characterization choices and retcons. These issues are plot relevant though, especially for the fourth Deathstroke annual, which I have mixed feelings about. Ultimately, I decided to include them so you have the option to read for yourself and form your own opinions

Please note that this guide is not a full chronology. For instance, the Teen Titans (2003) Blackest Night tie-in is not included as IMO it’s not that relevant to Adeline’s own story. A full list of this character’s New Earth appearances can be found here. The one issue from that list I absolutely think you should avoid is Hawkman (1993) #19 because it very thoughtlessly parallels real-life police brutality against Black teenagers. I truly believe it’s a crossover issue that you can skip without missing anything important at all

As for the New 52 and beyond, Addie’s a recurring character in Deathstroke (2016), but little of the character she was before DC rebooted its continuity comes through. I’ll be perfectly honest, I haven’t read any of New 52 Deathstroke, so I can’t offer any recommendations there either way. This guide is strictly Pre-Reboot, but some day I may make a second guide for her Prime Earth appearances depending on how I feel about Deathstroke Inc. once I go read it. For now, I’d say feel free to read Deathstroke Rebirth if you’re looking for so-bad-it’s-good family drama, keeping in mind that the characters are wildly different from their New Earth counterparts in a way that’s become a common occurrence for DC over the past 10 or so years. Here’s a list of all of her Prime Earth appearances for those interested

If you’ve made it to this part of the guide, thank you for reading this far! My goal in putting this together was to present this character’s story on New Earth from beginning to end so that others can enjoy it like I have. I think it’s important to celebrate complex female characters and Adeline Kane definitely fits the bill. Happy reading!

[opinated-user]

I'm genuinely grateful Lily is too ignorant, too uneducated and too willfully so to know about Central Asians so I don't have to hear her shit takes on my part of the world. The way she talks about East Asians alone is disgusting and the way she talks about black people is undisguised dehumanization. I genuinely wish she wouldn't talk about races other than her own white one because she has such ugly, misinformed, willfully bad-faith takes on other people. It's especially repulsive because she then talks over real people of those races while holding up her black OC as if writing one makes her a great person and makes up for what she's said.

I do have a question I was hoping you could help me with, though. How do we normie, non-YouTubers fight fandom racism? Like, the Lily brand where she won't shut up about white characters, acts like writing a black OC makes you immune from criticism, etc. How do we as normal people amplify black voices (and Southeast and East Asian voices, since she's talked over them) and avoid becoming yet another fan who says they're progressive but don't do anything to help anyone? I want to be part of the solution, not the problem.

fight it when you see it is the very first step. people liking a white character is not a thing that anyone can realistically fight and get any results, but you can pin point the double standard when a POC character is treated harsher, completely ignored or dismissed for no real good reason. i already gave this example, but on the TOH fandom this was exactly what was happening when Camila made Luz promise that the next time she came back she'd stay on the human real. at the time the fandom reacted to this insisting that Camila was a bad mother, borderline abusive even, and Eda (the white woman) was the best and only mother Luz should stay with. LO expecting a black child to get over everything that happened to her and turn into a vengeful violent fighter out of the blue... that's racism, because, and i want to emphasize this, i have never seen her treat any other white protagonist child on the same way. not even steven. she of course hates steven because she thinks he's a sanctimonious perpetual pacifist through which Sugar wants to forgive nazis and abusers, but i don't remember her ever dismissing his emotional responses and keep going at it with the same viciousness she has for Luz. have you noticed too that she never has this same "advice" for Amity regarding her mom, even though she was actually abusive? on the Encanto fandom, when people want to treat the grandma as a monster without a heart and willfully ignore how her actions are based on a trauma response. those are all examples of fandom racism and you need to identify it like it is. if you ask the question "would this people react the same way if this character was white and nothing else changed about them", and the answer is no, then it's necessary to point that out. once you do understand what the issue is and how it perpetuates the same racism in which POC are never enough or have to be extraordinary to receive half of the attention that other characters get, then is when you can pass to other actions which should include: -elevate POC characters and help to their visibility. make fanart for them or share it from other artists, especially POC ones. write for them, have fun with them, enjoy them as the characters they are. -elevate POC voices in fandom. people who write metas about fandom racism already always need new eyes. the biggest mistake of LO about this regard is that she openly admits she stick to only one single black content creator and doesn't look to any other, completely missing the many other POC fans that have been speaking and begging to be listened to for decades, since fandom first was invented. try to diggest what those people are saying and share it, donate to them even if it's possible. -this should be obvious, but just in case... try to inform yourself on regular everyday racism so you're able to call it out when possible. for this, likewise, you'll need to hear and read a lot of different authors. you don't have to agree with all of them right away, but at least try to see what they're sayin and, more importantly, why they're saying it. these are just people. regular and normal people who all want the same dignity, same compassion and same understanding that you or anyone else wants when it comes to talking about something that actually hurt them, not tools to be used or quoted just so you can look "woke" for social clout. respect that experience even if you personally can't understand it. this is also something that LO just tends to forget way too much. -finally... just be kind to yourself while you're learning, because the fact you want to learn does matter and that'll come through.

[mookymilksims]

Woc don't have higher levels of testosterone than white women lol. That woman is just your typical white female leftist who is just as racist and Anti-black as the 'Terfs' she despises.

Also that is straight up race science. Race is a social construct, not a biological one

Hm.

Ok so I still have not been able to find any science that supports that persons claims that WOC are born with higher levels of T than white women. So you do have a point there. Because the study they sent was talking about hormonal levels in post menopausal women and then expanded on post menopausal women with diabetes. Both effect hormonal levels in the human body, but I agree the study is interesting, it just doesn't back up the claim we have more T than white women.

To your next point, I have no idea who that person was, I just saw someone else in the replies ask the same question I had as far as providing any proof that WOC have more T than white women. I did suspect they were maybe not a black woman, at least, when they claimed that white academia wouldn't post about how black women have higher levels of T in fear of being accused of perpetuating the myth that black women are more hyper-masculine than any other race of women.

I did have to remind them that nothing, and I do mean absolutely nothing, has ever stopped white academia from making any kind of disparaging claims about black bodies not historically nor currently. If they did in fact find any kind of evidence to prove that WOC, especially BW, had higher levels of T than white women, I wouldn't have to spend several hours searching for this information, it would be in the first page of google results, it would be in prestigious scholarly works, cosigned by scientists all over the world, and a known fact until someone else proves otherwise.

This has always been the case, like for instance when the entire world thought black people were the closest relatives to apes, and were by then an extension of apes, this was used to justify our dehumanization, put us in zoo's, with like literal apes.

This reality the poster claims where white science wouldn't post this information on WOC and higher levels of T in fear of retaliation is just not the world we live in. So that part did confuse tf out me I'll be honest.

As far as your race science claim goes, I will have to disagree with you there. We do have racial differences, well to be more technical, genetic traits through evolution, migration, culture, mating practices were widely spread, which you can find more commonly in certain groups of people in comparison.

For example, east Asians have a gene that makes their ear wax dry, and also they tend to not have an odor in their armpits as a result of this.

That's a racial difference. Proven by science. It gets even more fascinating than that. Did you know the genetic trait that causes wider pronounced noses is because of how flat and hot the desert terrain is? Noses stretched out across the face to be able to obtain more oxygen in this environment.

On the contrary, people with thinner sharper noses, developed from humans in, for example, the Caucus Mountains, the birthplace of Caucasians. Where the climate was colder, dryer, much higher up in the literal mountains, and so while the nose was originally wider and flatter (early humans migrated out of Africa, trekked across Asia, and settled in these mountains), evolved over time to become thinner and push out in order to be able to obtain oxygen in areas of the world at higher altitudes = less oxygen.

So you see, we shouldn't shy away from our racial differences. They have fascinating details that is a testament to our survival. When you are someone who only cares about the objective facts you quickly gather there is nothing superior/inferior about these differences, they evolved in a rather innocent manner, our nature recognizes us all as one and helped us adapt to our environment.

It's hard for me, someone who is entranced by science (I wanted to be Einstein when I was a kid), to hear "race is a social construct". Racism is a social construct, race is not. It's just a term we used to describe our origin. Mongoloid = Asian. Caucasoid = White/European. Negroid = Black/African. It's your signifier. We even process the same chemicals in our food slightly differently from each other. We have average height, weight, muscle differences. An average toned white man is different from an average toned black man. And wait until you find out that breaks down according to which region of which continent you predominantly hail from.

So yeah, I'll be frank, I don't think I'm going to find any evidence that woc have higher levels of T than white women, this will become ironic but I believe it is the same white supremacy standards that is causing woc's femininity to constantly be in question that lead this person to this belief that woc somehow have higher levels of T. Firstly, they should've attached those studies to their post, secondly the studies they provided did not prove this claim, in basic terms the studies provided a jump in T just after menopause then levels back out then actually dips lower than white women. So if I am using the posters logic, from this angle, technically it would be white women who have higher levels of T than any other race of women -after menopause-.

Which was the missing context the poster kept leaving out? And when I pointed that out, despite how many times the poster claimed to study women's bodies for a living they just ended the exchange on a "well it's not studied very often so let me know what you find :)"

???

You study women's bodies for a living apparently, educate me. I want to read the name and number of the genetic traits that you claim is affecting woc??? I want to see a graph that directly shows higher levels of T throughout those patients lives, I want that study to track the hormonal levels of it's patients from birth???? If you supposedly study women's bodies for a living you should've been able to completely wash my analysis of the study you linked.

But you don't need to be a scientist to read the study. It said post menopausal and diabetes. And the findings actually went against what the poster claimed when you get to the end of it.

So I mean I guess the take away from all of this is don't just trust people because they had a mostly logical approach to the Olympic boxer incident, and then threw in that very strange claim somewhere in the middle. Think for yourself, ask for sources, read it yourself, and ask the next logical questions, this will lead you to my conclusion: those sources don't back up your claims.

-shrug-

[mejomonster]

Now that I have given Sherlock Holmes Chapter One more time to unfold. I really love the writing. Like just cannot get over it tbh. I want to wrap myself in it. I'm having euphoria after the pains of (what moffat did once upon a time) and my villaineve girlies (and the ending after so much solid stuff beforehand).

It feels 1 like i real Sherlock Holmes story (as in written well, flawed growing characters, respectful to source material AND respectful to us the audience) while also feeling fresh (its a prequel so a lot of freedom to show a new young sherlock with flaws turning into someone more recognizable as he heals and grows, cases i dont know the answer of, and a pretty damn grounded childhood trauma emotional pains fucking relatable heart thread through a wilder more dramatic murder cases arc). The only game i can think ti compare it to is the Ryu Ga Gotoku games, specifically Judgement if you took just the detective gameplay. Like? While I think Judgements gameplay is a bit funner, I think Sherlock Holmes Chapter One has more in depth side cases so if you're a mystery lover it balances out (now Judgement's main case appears more in depth a bit, but its a huge fucking game so its to be expected). What I think they both do Right, is make u feel like ur the detective

In SHCO case the moral dillema of how well or sucky u solve a case and the consequences and the fact u CAN be wrong and arrest an innocent party make the stakes feel very high, the fact most suspects are guilty of Some cruel stuff but not always the murder means ur also debating morally what u think is gonna be the best thing to do out of multiple imperfect options even if u feel sure you know who the killer is... i am truly IMPRESSED with how well SHCO handles morally grey suspects and the choices u make about the outcomes, i havent seen it in many games and its made me question myself in Even Less games. The opening tutorial case is a basic example of whats to come: if u dont collect all evidence, u may not be totally sure who killed the victim, and can justify accusing either suspect. Then once u accuse them, u have to justify to Yourself if u are going to advocate they be punished severely or given some leniency. The rest of the cases play with this but go deeper.

Also like Judgement (and all yakuza games), it just does a very good job of building a realistic world (as much as budget allows anyway). Judgement is in Tokyo, so theres OLD people! Kids! Americans! Koreans! Countryside people! Rich, poor, middle class etc. Criminals, police, civilians, politicians, celebrities! illegal immigrants. There's east asian people, white people, black people, south asian people, there's people with mixed heritage, there's people that speak or don't speak various languages. Basically Judgement feels more like how you'd actually expect interacting in a city to feel, compared to a significant chunk of games (especially if u go older) where there is just no thought put into immigration or class or the myriad of real complexities of life for the variety of people that exist in the real world. There's some game simplifications like repeated npc lines, and then side quests and main stories flesh out various characters more (and SHCO uses case notes and info to flesh out in the way RGG game side story cutscenes and mini game plots do). Those are budget and time constraints. But like. SHCO has this grounded sort of game feel where you run across a city that feels like a realistic city of various people, and the social issues affecting people in it, where the characters in cases are a more fleshed out reflection of the people in the city, and where the social situations impacting everyone play out in more detailed ways as part of the case stories. Like fuck, I'm in the case with the painting now and. Its both got a lot to say about 1880s british empire and effects on a myriad of fucking people (and systematic abuses and damaging power structures), and as with much of history its got a lot to say about now. From the way power and social position influences ability to abuse and lack of remorse, immigration, international trade, colonization, racism, patriarchy, the extreme differences in personal background in how everyone involved acts and reacts and considers whats going on. Or the elephant case, where sherlock both in some ways reflects the society he exists in (sexism wise) and is also growing from that (self aware that the daughter is a person with as much decision power or more than him, unlike her own father's view of her, respecting Paul's situation while navigating a society where they both know the norm in comparison, recognizing that he's driven by his own desire to understand his Mom as a person when for so long he's had her on a pedestal and convinced himself of lies to himself about meek/strong Mothers and how it clouded his actual understanding of Violet as a person possibly struggling mentally in many similar ways to how he is). Like the elephant case is so simple in a lot of ways... but how many storiea have i seen where women just wouldnt have been written as equal, or as fleshed out characters, where Violet wouldnt be considered this in depth? Not just set in this time period but any time period tbh (it wasnt until the last maybe 10 years that movies and shows, sometimes, got a lot better with this to the point i could find it easier to avoid media that wrote women like lamps). I remember reading Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and how THRILLED i was to see realistic women in that time setting for a story (phenomenal novel btw). So like, starting SHCO i didnt know how fair the story would be to all inhabitants in it, and so far its wonderfully gone for a realistic grounded approach with characters that feel thoughtful in a world that is fleshed out and feels solid.

[nothingspecialapp]

How's believing\calling Sasuke "sasugay"\gay or shipping sns\hating any heterosexual Sasuke ship, is not offensive to Sasuke? How some pro sasuke not consider sns\any Sasuke gay ships-- fics to be bashing\insulting to Sasuke?

Are many of these ship fics laugh on Sasuke's canon decsions, character, look, etc? Yes

Are many of these ship fics put naruto (and kakashi, itachi, basically every character that antagonized sasuke at some point) in pedestal and used as tool to insult Sasuke in every aspect possible? Yes (One don't need to read fics to get what I mean, a little trip to their profiles is sufficient)

So, Who are u kidding? Why not confess and admit that being "bottom" is literally considered insulting in many fandoms( just...why the hypocrisy? many hated charcters are bottoms in fics, why people lie that gay ships aren't used as bashing/slander? And many hated characters are called twinks or any word that will turn into slurs just like how pretty boy turned into a slur) I mean, there is a reason why NH/naruto, kakashi wankers hate ss ship and like sns, and it's not for the good reason you might think it's.

Cannot you people connect the dots between Sasuke being hated in the western fandom, and him also being shipped in gay pairings? 

What's the difference between A-holes saying "sasugay" and these people\shippers, anyway? Just the pro lgbt make someone entitled? Is that it? As long you are pro Lgbt\anything then you can just practice being an anti as a "joke" and it's just "fun"? (and it gets worse when one knows their standing on real life issues, as many of these people are openly zionist or one of the "it's a complicated situation" crowd, or when they're anti-asians and consider every male mangaka to be a misogynist)

And I'm not talking about the fujoshi here, to be clear, even though these people practice pedophilaia openely and I see none poiniting that out, but I should not excpect things from fandoms, the good thing here is that they're (fujoshi) in thier own spaces(most of the time), and that's a different topic, anyway

It's ridiculous how hypocrite the western(pro queer) fandom is. They talk alot about equality and sexuality, etc,  and how being feminine is not an insult, and then they just go and practice that exactly; what they accuse male incels of:- misandry&misogyny(what's up with whining whenever someone ship Sasuke with karin or ino or any girl? What's up with many clowns here getting pissed that Sasuke fit the "casanova" type, especially in east asia? I mean there's different between dislikng SS for logical reasons -being a real pro sasuke one of them-, and getting pissed that your Yaoi fantasy isn't real?), internlized racism (anyone believing Uchiha to be an incest clan and slander them for this is racist to asians), white supremacy (there's a reason why many western fandom believe naruto to be "manly" and attractive(lol), or they consider any calm-darkhaired-pale(asians) male to be "twink", and any hetersexual women to be less of a woman and insulting to women in general -becuase she's attracted to men,the bad type of men, ya know? Because being attractive to itachi, kakashi, any character but Sasuke is smart and "logical"- so they turn her into some queer hero to, somehow, redeem her -sakuino shippers for instance-)

If you're Sasuke fan(shipper or not) and don't (even at core) admit that, then you're lying to yourself or one of the weird fans who hate thier own favs.  There's a thin line that differentiate someone between being a fan and a hater.

It's ridiculous how little of the so called "Pro" Sasuke don't realize that, but there are so little genuine Sasuke fans out there, and I don't blame the people who hide thier liking to Sasuke, cuz sometimes I believe Sasuke fans aren't really his fans (just remembered a male sasuke fan saying that Sasuke has "meh" abilities\skills, and his post become a hating sasuke playground in reddit, and it's not the first kind of such posts that exists in internet)

I agree, one should be objective as possible even when it comes to one's own favs, but not in this way, not when the fandom is already split-up, not when the hystrical Sasuke haters uses anything against him (they even reached a point where they bully anyone who says they like Sasuke, and "Any girl who likes Sasuke have a bad taste" and "who even likes Sasuke lol")

Fandom discourse, in general is bad because it' all about and filled with with hate, not love. Even their love is about hating another. It's a dangerous, disgusting pendulum.

[mistchievous]

Not the same anon as before, but it's been very disturbing to see a group of white people in fandom dogpile on an artist of Korean descent who lives in Korea, especially when that artist does not speak English and is obviously struggling with expressing their views in a way that might make sense to *us*. The style the artist used, even if they didn't explain it, is a very obvious East Asian style which is very popular in Koren and Japanese cultures. I looked at the artist's blog, and even if they didn't explain it in the DMs—for whatever reason—they *have*, in a subsequent post yesterday, explained their perspective as a Korean person while making this art, and I think it's extremely unfair to exclude that part of the context while talking about this. Like...idk it just feels like you guys didn't like the answer they gave or the way they answered (again! they're not a native speaker and you need to give them more grace!) so everyone has just come to this conclusion that they're a terrible person automatically. And while you personally might not have done this, I have seen other blogs—all white people—act like a bunch of bullies about it and it's super frustrating.

This fandom does have a problem with whitewashing—gifmakers do it all the time while coloring their sets! Or they make the characters of color look super unnatural because they refuse to adjust their PSDs for their skin tones! And yet I have never seen anyone call out any of the gifmakers who've done this in the past, let alone dogpile on them to such an extreme—like y'all are doing on this Korean artist. Idk. I'm Asian too, and it's super disturbing to watch.

Hey, anon. I saw this ask last night in the jungle that is my inbox, but I wanted to wait until I was awake and aware enough to answer it (and didn’t really need to go back to sleep because of work).

The only thing I would push back on here is that it’s just a group of white people dogpiling. It was not all white people speaking. They’re just the voices that ended up on that artist’s blog and got the most attention – that includes my own. Because of that, I can see why it might be perceived that way though. And I pushed people not to interact with them or the art, because that’s how you make a difference. You don’t give something attention. The lack of engagement is a stance in and of itself. The goal was certainly never for this person to be attacked, so if that’s what you’re implying has happened, that’s a problem. And that’s on me for not being more careful.

I’ve had people who appreciated the fact that I spoke up, but there have been others, like yourself, who don’t like what’s happening, and an even wider group who thought that while there was something to be said, they’re not sure I should have said it. The response has been very multi-sided. And I do believe that you and everyone else who thinks I veered too far out of my own lane are very valid in thinking that way. I spent all of yesterday debating about whether or not I made the right decision, and I had friends both white and non-white who weren’t sure either.

It also seems there have been some gross communication failures. I’ll start off by saying that I did not see the culture post. I’m blocked by the artist (fairly), so I had a friend send me screenshots this morning. I wasn’t purposely disregarding that, and you’re right that it’s important to take into consideration.

I do think there’s never going to be agreement with this person regarding Jee’s skin tone. They have the perceptions that they have because of their experience as Korean artist living in Korea, and they see Jee as being lighter than even JLH visually and because of their cultural experiences. I do not believe that's likely to change.

I’m not saying Asian people can’t be light-skinned, but this artist is drawing a character played by two very real little girls, who are not universally perceived as light-skinned, and from our general understanding, are not Korean. Their mother is Chinese, and their father has a traditional Chinese surname which leads us to believe that he is likely Chinese as well. If this is incorrect, please correct me. And when you’re making art of real people, you can’t just use your previous perceptions of a fictional character’s identity to justify coloring them differently. And they’re using gifs to defend those perceptions. Gifs are something that you and I both know aren’t trusted references. They’re colored and altered in a variety of ways.

You’re right that gifmakers whitewash regularly. I will say that people have tried to call this out in the past, but they’ve been general posts from what I remember. Nothing about individual gifmakers. It’s been a huge problem with Eddie and with turning Athena and Karen orange. However, these general callouts don’t really get a lot of traction. And that’s extremely unfair.

I’ll be blunt and say that part of that is the fact that people tend to turn a blind eye to keep the peace, and the people in this fandom who noticed this artist’s work are the ones least likely to do so.

Another issue were the DMs, and it’s been brought to my attention by @karenandhenwillson (who I will respond to after this) and in a post by the artist, that I may have misinterpreted those completely, which is unfair of me (and anyone else who has seen the messages and come to the same conclusion). There wasn’t enough patience with someone who was a non-native English speaker, and that led to some confusion that I’m going to address when I respond to the blog I just mentioned.

The fact of the matter though is that I'm white, and I'm wading into murky waters by continuing to engage on this subject. I've turned off reblogs on my original post, and after my next response about the communication meltdown, I'm going to edit it and make another clarifying that people should read the artist's posts and my previous posts to understand their position and everything that's happened.

I don't think it's fair for me to continue to place myself in a discussion I might not have had the right to be in at all, but I'm not going to leave without publicly acknowledging the communication issue because it matters and telling people not to attack this artist. That's cowardly and not really my style.

Thank you again for this message. I really do welcome people coming to talk to me.