#these are the same people who go ‘racism is bad!!!’ only to call a black person a racist piece of shit

[freshbeeth]

god the 14 year olds on twitter are calling me racist against white people. i love being liberal with the mute button

[cosmogyros]

It is fucking amazing how often I have to unfollow people for bodyshaming others related to their choice to shave or not. And the fascinating thing is that this judginess is ALWAYS aimed at women. Men who don't shave? Fine. Men who do shave? Also fine. It's their body, they can do what they like with it, right?

But as soon as we're talking about women, suddenly it's totally okay to prescribe what they ought to do about their OWN bodies. I never used to see this many "women shouldn't shave" posts here, and the recent uptick is concerning to me.

I understand that it's rooted in a pushback against patriarchal norms that pressure all women to remove their body hair. And I fully support that. But you've gotta understand that if you react to these norms by saying "women should all shave? actually no, women should NOT shave!" ...YOU'RE STILL BEING SEXIST. You're still saying that women "should" do something different with their bodies because YOU think they ought to.

It's absolutely wild to me how often internalized misogyny can be revealed by simply asking oneself "If the genders were switched, would I be saying this (in any context except as a joke)?" And if the answer is no, then... maybe don't say it.

Freedom is always more revolutionary. Letting people make their own choices is always more revolutionary. If you react to someone's attempt to enforce a certain standard by attempting to enforce the opposite standard instead, you are not on the side of freedom.

[creatingblackcharacters]

"Calling Out Racists? Help!"

(shout out to the situation sender who's chosen to remain anonymous!)

NOTE: People of color, if you feel that your efforts would be in vain or cause more pain than it's worth, I fully respect not doing it. I've been there, and tbh I usually don't. But white netizens, I expect boots on the ground. Racism festers when no one does anything about it.

So, it's finally happened! You've come face to face with antiblackness in your fandom space. You never thought it could be this bad! Naturally YOU don't condone this behavior, so you take steps to remove yourself from this person.

However! Your friends and other fans are still happily sharing from someone that you KNOW is capable of this. Would they still be comfortable knowing they're yapping amongst racists? And then you wonder- should I tell everyone about them? I mean, surely everyone should know?

Thus we've come to the decision:

The Callout

In my honest opinion, callouts are morally neutral. When used to reveal consistent harmful beliefs, intentions, and behaviors to other people, usually of marginalized identities, I think they're critical. Our safety and humanity matters far more than someone's internet fame. If I can't stop someone from being a racist, I at least don't want their vitriol on my dash, and I ALSO don't want people thinking I agree! Racism shouldn't be tolerated at all, but unfortunately, many an antiblack racist has a popular following and will not be removed. Anything less overt than a slur like the example above is more often than not, not a dealbreaker for many.

On the other hand, when it is maliciously weaponized to drag someone down on nothing but hearsay and rumor, it can be devastating. It has often been used as retaliation against those very same marginalized peoples to shut down discussions of racism and other forms of bigotry. In my opinion, you should not do these sorts of things when you don't have any solid proof or an actual education on what you're talking about. Period.

I say that all to say, be intentional. Use your discernment and some critical thinking.

How Ice Deals With It

Let's say you see something that concerns you. First, you need to pay attention to if other Black fans have noted this person's behavior. Has it been previously noticed, have they seen dogwhistles you've completely missed? Keep in mind as well, antiblackness does not have to come from a white person. Don't let "I'm brown" fool you.

If you're confident: confront the person on the particular issue you've noticed.

‼️‼️‼️ For the maintenance of your mental health, you CANNOT go into this expecting to change someone's mind and behavior. If you do, 9/10 you will face demoralization. You cannot walk into these thinking they care. Most people don't, and will deny the harm of their behavior. It sucks, but it's the truth. Change your perspective. The only goal you need to have is pointing out the harm done, so that this person loses the excuse to be racist out of "ignorance". Once you've spoken up, ball's now in their court.

Confrontation doesn't have to be negative! It can be as simple as "hey, what you said was not okay, here's why, and I hope that you can learn from this to do better for yourself and for your fans." Simple, to the point.

‼️Keep in mind, from Fans of Color: the private confrontation is a sign that we're trying to give you a chance to do right. Everyone's not going to receive that grace, nor do I expect every fan of color to offer it. It might just be up with you and your racism that day. 🤷🏾‍♀️ I would take the chance if offered.‼️

We're going to go two routes here.

1) It works

If it works, then what should come next is 1) a full acknowledgment of the violence and harm, 2) visible steps to ameliorate that harm, and 3) an apology to those harmed.

It doesn't have to be a complex apology (unless the situation itself was that large). But it has to be genuine and the change needs to be seen.

Very often you'll see apologies for antiblackness... To white fans. You cannot apologize for your actions to people who were not harmed by them, because they are not the ones with the right to accept the apology!!!! It's not a real apology. They've just covered for being exposed, is all. Be willing to hold each other accountable!

2) It doesn't work

This might still happen after the "it works", btw! Some people genuinely just want the appearance of progressiveness.

Here's where it gets gritty and you'll experience the most discomfort, I'm just being honest:

They might fucking suck!

They might suck, they might make it a point to share with their followers that you suck, and those same followers might also suck! You know how they sound? Like those people who fought for rapist Brock Turner because "he had a good future and this shouldn't ruin it". Yeah.

Recognize that this backlash you may experience from strangers is not coming just from their need to be entertained, but from a realization that if their fave is antiblack and they agree, then THEY are being antiblack too.

That acute pain you're feeling from this effort- you're now feeling a part of the chronic pain that is being a Black fan! And if you're white, you just temporarily sacrificed your whiteness to defend what was right, and now you are seeing a piece what that whiteness shields you from. Idk how else to put it.

Now what?

Well first, this shouldn't make you go "oh well there's no point in fighting racism bc they're so mean." Why do you want to identify with the people who just acted like that lmao. Antiracism is hard, but the right thing isn't always easy. Stand up and dust yourself off, soldier.

Take the steps to protect yourself. That might be a break from socials to decompress. Block people as necessary, use the tag blocker thing.

Recognize that you are not in the wrong for wanting this harm to be accounted for. If this person didn't want to be seen as a willful racist, they should have chosen to do better. They didn't want to, they chose to triple down on their racism, which they are now aware of doing! They just don't care. And that's not within your control. They wanna be a racist, let them be treated like one!

"Curate your space" as they say, and recognize that antiblackness is going to have you potentially removing folks you thought were cool left and right. You might see some people close to you show their true colors. It's time to make some tough personal decisions. I can't walk you through that. But I don't want to be around people who treat antiblackness with apathy, because birds of a feather... 👀

I obviously didn't cover every single scenario here. And this is only *my* way of dealing with these things (if I do at all, anymore). Some folks may go about it differently. But yeah, in summary, go in to point the racism out, and don't let the response determine your self value. 👍🏾

[hareofhrair]

While I'm yelling about House MD--

I see in the notes of my House posts sometimes people being like "ooh, maybe I should watch that" and I always kind of wince and want to grab them like, yeah, please do, but also watch out. There's a reason we call it hate crimes md, and it's not just because of the queerbaiting.

So the thing about House is... It began airing in 2004. The 2000's were, for those of you who missed them, an... interesting time for what was then still called "political correctness." And these times were heralded by a certain Type of Guy, with a certain type of Edgy Humor. In pushing back against the admittedly very white liberal language policing of the PC movement, his goal was to be as offensive as possible, to every demographic possible. For those that had thought it through enough to justify this behavior, the claim was an intent to shake things up and force people to confront their unspoken biases and have hard conversations. The catch phrase was "I'm not racist, I hate everybody equally." These were your Jeff Dunhams, your Dane Cooks...

(For my part, I think it was, at it's heart, white guys attempting to parrot the marginalized groups demanding radical acceptance? A gay person saying "yeah I'm a faggot, what's it to you?" A disabled person saying "yeah I'm crippled, fight me about it. Call me a person with special needs again and I'll break your kneecaps with my cane." They picked up on the "we'd rather be called a slur than this avoidant, self righteous, language policing bullshit" and came away with "so I should call everyone slurs, got it.")

Enter House MD.

The tagline of the show is "Everybody Lies," and it's a very consistent theme throughout. The thesis of the show is that our society, with its shame and repression and bias, is incapable of real honesty. And approaching problems with soft, non confrontational language that talks around the issue instead of dealing with it only makes this worse.

So naturally, House is one of Those Guys.

I doubt there is a single episode in which he does not at some point, say a slur. When Foreman (the only black character and, until Kutner and Park, the only non white major character) is in the same scene with House, you can be absolutely certain he is going to say something racist, while staring at Foreman with a shit eating grin, daring him to make a fuss about it so he can monologue about how Affirmative Action is actually condescending to black people.

It would be one thing if this were strictly a character choice, something that was specifically wrong with House the person. Unfortunately, even when House is not involved the show itself is still, just, blindingly racist, all the time. Any time the patient isn't white, it's a horror show. Racist caricatures as far as the eye can see. It's also intermittently sexist, intersexist, nauseatingly fatphobic, and while it generally does better with disability than most any other show of the time, it is still shockingly ableist at times given the main character is, himself, physically disabled, and implied to be autistic as well.

What makes it worse is that they set House up as someone who wants to deflate people's egos and make them confront their biases ect, and then almost never puts him in a position where he's punching up. There's even a specific episode where he's treating a conservative campaign manager who released an insanely racist anti-migrant political ad, and his racism just doesn't get brought up. The ugly truth about himself he's forced to confront is that he's gay, and the man he's in love with and the people he surrounds himself with are, well. Conservatives.

All of this is not to say you shouldn't watch House or that House is a bad show. It's just very much a show from a very specific and unfortunate moment in the recent history of the ongoing battle for equality. The worst part is, its heart is in the right place, it is just doing a real bad job. It wants to be progressive. It just thinks being polite and respectful is weak and lame.

On that note! The show also features a canonically bisexual woman who actually says the word bisexual-- fucking wild for the time, where the best you generally got was vague allusions to "swinging both ways."-- And it shows her in relationships with both women and men. Including, very notably, Foreman. And if I need to tell you how revolutionary it was for them to show a romantic relationship between a black man and a white woman in the 2010's, take a minute and think about how many relationships like that you've seen in TV or movies since then. Or ever.

It centers on a nuanced and compassionate portrayal of an addict, and tackles the realities of that in an incredibly honest way I don't think I've seen anywhere else. Just the simple, consistent reminders that both House and the other addicts featured on the show are using for a reason, and it's often because they have medical needs that have been neglected by bigoted doctors. There's a whole arc where they try to restrict House's use of painkillers by reducing his prescribed dose to basically a handful of ibuprofen, claiming he only thinks he needs such a high dose because he's addicted and he'll "adjust" to a lower dose in time-- IE, get used to just living with the extreme pain. Unsurprisingly, the increased pain makes him awful to be around, worse at his job, and eventually drives him further into addiction. The way the show deals with this is honestly fantastic, especially given, again, this was the 2000's and 2010's. For a somewhat contemporary comparison, take a look at how addicts are portrayed in Breaking Bad, which came out four years after House in 2008. The general attitude towards addicts was not great.

This show has a lot going for it. The relationships and the stories it tells are honestly incredible. But it is also very flawed, and people should be aware of that going in.

If you want to start watching House, awesome! But maybe look up trigger warnings first.

(Also, completely aside from All That^ there's also the genre typical medical gore and body horror, so, you know, also be prepared for that!)

[leikeliscomet]

Im just gonna say it: the exact same argument about series 11 having a woman playing the Doctor but w/ inconsistent politic & fake activism applies to series 14 & a lil of RTD2 in general but in Black. Respectability politics & flimsy anti racism all over the shop

It thinks futuristic racism corrects racism "being a thing of the past" but then actively erases said racism of Britain's past. Twice. Not only that but it glorifies the 60s & regency period. Does "powerful" white supremacy commentary then slaps a regency wig on 15's head 😭

It should go without saying that 1960s & 1800s Britain wasnt some post racial utopia. The show would rather make these periods more progressive than they really were instead of telling the stories of the POC living there or hell, show us history outside of 'the West'

It treats the dehumanisation of Black people as an inevitable part of future society. Fifteen has to be a perfect non violent victim of racism but can fridge the goblin king & the chuldur easy. Racism can/must exist but fighting back or having any reaction to ur oppressor can't.

The gag is RTD understands racial oppression when it affects *him* tho. The oppression of the Welsh is acknowledged in present day Earth bc it's a real part of history. Its addressed again in 2046 bc it's still relevent in the future. & did Ruby save Roger? No she got him gone!

It sanitises its own history. The Doctor has called out racial supremacy, human or not since day. And no they didn't always save *everyone*. Against the establishment to begging it & partying with it too apparently. Rosa has issues but at least it was hopeful...

It treats Fifteen as a white character made Black which has weird implications for a non human being from a "post racial" society. Thirteen wasn't a "human woman" but she still had the agency to call out every misogynist she met. Lawd forbid she cried over Jack Robertson 😭

Despite having a Black Doctor they're written for a white audience. 'It's not about Black people, its about white people' sealed the deal. It treats their Blackness as circumstantial & not something they'll have to deal with regardless of time period playing it safe & palatable

This 1 should be self explanatory. If Donna's seen the Doctor's mind then she knows Fugitive Doctor exists so yes the Doctor comes in a range of different colours 🤪🤪 And again if he's not a human Black man but an alien then why is it a surprise that he can change race? Ugh...

Isaac Newton wasn't that deep bc he's only there for the mavity gag but it opened a fuck ton of racism towards Nathaniel Curtis & antiblackness bc the racists camping the tag thought he was Black. 'Owning the right 🤪' at the expense of POC in the show & fandom. Great job there..

RTD made the point of the Toymaker being racist then keeps him anyway? Takes a jab about cultural appropriation in Pyramids of Mars then based the finale on it anyway w/ Sutekh? Not even entertaining the Black Guardian ting. Like what's the point of any of this? It feels so fake.

Carla's not as egregious as the previous but apart from RTD copying & posting her name from Clyde's mum in SJA, she doesn't get a lot to do outside supporting Ruby's storyline. S14 then ends with Ruby calling her bio mum her "real" mum so her serving role didn't mean much anyway

The Giggle was the 1st flag bc it conflated all political related anger as bad bc it's anger instead of love 😫✊🏻without *single* look at why the current political climate is the way that it is. Pandemic, genocides, climate change & govt corruption yh ppl will be angry Russell 🥴

Series 11 at least gets to gas itself up for having women write for the 1st female Doctor and having Black and South Asian writers for the first time in the show's history (which isn't a great achievement but ah well)

Series 14 doesn't have that to its credit.

Black woman who only exists to boost white characters stories, racism stories that don't give their Black characters full agency & 0 follow up of their experiences only this time w/ no Black writers. Same tings different font. What improvement was made exactly?

Tl;Dr - We have the 1st Black Doctor in the main lineup but this series handles race and racism poorly. There's barely any improvement from how race was handled in RTD1 and his handling of Black characters in Years & Years and It's a Sin hasn't been brought over. 🥴

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

I got to be so real I kind of have mixed feelings about this post, and I'm not as mad rereading it as I was the first time I read it.

On one hand, I kind of agree that doing fucked up things to a fictional character doesn't necessarily mean that you're bad.

If I write a story in which a child is put to death, I'm not suddenly in favor of children dying. The person who wrote "the lottery" isn't in favor of people being stoned to death just because they wrote about it. I write stories all the time where characters are subject to homophobia or racism or general bigotry and I'm obviously not in favor of those things. However, there's a reason some stories that deal with the same subject matter are better received than others. There's a reason that even though "Avatar: the last Airbender" was written by two white men it's not called racist like some other works by white creators that handle POC.

I feel like the idea that how you approach fiction and fictional characters says absolutely nothing about you is insane.

If you watch a piece of media and then you go to write fanfiction about the media and you give all the white characters a good, happy ending but give all of the black characters sad ones where they're beaten to death, I absolutely think that says something about you! If you read/watch media with a fictional child and immediately want to write a story in which that child is raped by one of their parents, I absolutely think that says something about you and your character! The characters might be fictional, but you are not. Your choices do not exist in a vacuum. Why do you want to produce and see media where people of color end up unhappy and/or dead? Why do you want to write a lot of non-con? why do you want to see two siblings fuck?

Even though you didn't do anything to anybody in real life, I have to side eye why you're obsessed with seeing and writing that type of content. If you're writing a rape scene just because you like it (you don't comment on it or anything. In fact, it hardly ever comes up again) then yea, I do think you're probably a bit fucked up.

A white woman who writes all of her black male characters as "big" and "manly" and "dangerous" and "dominant" is absolutely revealing something about herself through her fiction! Maybe the fake black guy isn't being objectified since he's not real, but you can't seriously tell me that the white woman who wrote him has not revealed anything about how she views black men lmao. You can't tell me you'd seriously believe her when she says she's not racist.

I mean this site in particular talks all the time about the way certain groups are portrayed by certain authors. This site will be the first to cancel authors who write marginalized people in an unsavory light. If you think the fiction you consume doesn't matter, then you can never say anything about representation mattering ever again. A black child who only ever sees white characters cannot be influenced by that because fiction doesn't matter, right? You can't cancel an author for being racist. So what if all of their characters of color are portrayed as violent and evil? If what you write doesn't say anything about you, then that author is not racist at all!

I mean, seriously. How many authors have been canceled because they wrote black characters in a way that left the viewers with a bad taste in their mouths? How you choose to treat fictional characters absolutely says something about you!

I understand that fiction is how a lot of people deal with stuff. If something bad happened to you when you were a kid, you might want to see your favorite character go through that and overcome it, but the thing is: I feel like there's a line. I feel like too many of you use past trauma to justify what has honestly just become a paraphilia. Some of you don't read media about SA because you were SA'd and are trying to deal with it; you read it because you have a 'kink' for it. Too many of you hide under "healing" when you genuinely just get off on seeing fucked up things happen to characters. It's no secret that people who have experienced trauma sometimes go on to become abusive and perverse themselves.

The things that you enjoy and dedicate time to absolutely say something about you! Whether you think it says something good or bad doesn't matter, but the idea that it just exists in a vacuum and says absolutely nothing about your character and who you are as a person is quite frankly insane!

Even if you're writing it because you're trying to deal with trauma that happened to you or you're trying to create a safe space for people who have been through fucked up stuff, that says something about your character and who you are as a person. The stories you dedicate your time to reading and writing absolutely reveal who you are. We talk endlessly about the misogyny of male writers in the past and present. If posts like the one linked were true, then it wouldn't matter if a man spent all day writing stories where every single female character of his is treated like shit and assaulted. Media would be entirely unable to be criticized because the fictional characters aren't real and thus how you treat them says nothing. If a man with three daughters wrote a story where a fictional father SA'd all three of his children, that wouldn't be cause for concern at all? It'd say absolutely nothing about him? You wouldn't side eye him? You wouldn't be concerned if a primary school teacher spent all day writing stories where children are molested? You would send your child to a school with a teacher like that and be completely and utterly okay because "the fiction you write and consume says nothing"?

Of course there is nuance, but I don't like the way this post seems to absolve anyone into fucked up fictional stuff of guilt. No, reading and writing fucked up stuff does not *automatically* make you bad, but if you're doing it uncritically and because you get off on it, I'm not gonna pretend that's irrelevant to who you are as a person.

[cherrybomb107]

Guys I just saw something on Twitter that caused such a visceral reaction that I literally got up, went to the kitchen, got some aluminum foil, and folded it so it would somewhat resemble a hat. I’ve got a conspiracy theory. Reminder that the term was created by the government to discredit people, but yeah, using it felt apt.

So, we all know that I’m not a fan of Caitlyn. I liked her just fine, but her actions in season two, her obnoxious and aggressively anti black fan base, and the fact that the narrative never calls her out on her actions have caused me to dislike her now. To elaborate more on what makes her fan base so obnoxious, it’s the goal post moving, whataboutisms, intellectually dishonest hypotheticals, excuses, racism, the way they cheer for the establishment and play dumb when someone doesn’t like Caitlyn, and how they act like there’s something wrong with you if you’re not a fan of the cop dictator who gassed minorities and hit her partner. But it’s that last point that’s got me so riled up.

It is normal to make real world connections with the media you consume. It is normal to dislike characters who do bad things, no matter how “complex” or “nuanced” they are. However Cait stans, by and large, strongly disagree. To them, to hate or even be ambivalent towards Caitlyn means a great number of things. It means you are: lesohobic, hypocritical, have no media literacy, didn’t watch/pay attention to the show, you’re just a hater, you can’t handle complex female characters, you hate Caitlyn cause you’d be just like her, you don’t hate other characters who do bad things, you’re contributing to Caitlyn hate, etc etc ad infinitum. They won’t stop with the excuses. To me though, this reveals something. Arcane season two has introduced the idea of sympathy for the devil, and that’s the heart of the problem.

I’ve said it before, but I resent the concept of forgiveness. Or, to be precise, I resent the way forgiveness has been framed. As if you are obligated to forgive someone, otherwise you’re “bitter” or “holding a grudge”. This framing puts the onus of “moving on” onto the wronged party, and that doesn’t sit right with me. It’s the same problem with “sympathy for the devil”. It’s okay, but only to a point. Trying to see the humanity in someone who has harmed you and/or other people is good! Healthy, even! The problems start when it goes too far. When you’re no longer allowed to criticize this person, even mildly, without taking all their trauma and complexity into account. Yes I understand this person has gone through things no one should ever have to go through. But that does not give them the right to hurt me the way they did. I am not in the wrong for not feeling sorry for them. I shouldn’t be forced to center their feelings when I was the one who they decided to hurt.

This happens all the time irl. You can’t celebrate when some asshole politician or greedy CEO dies because “they had a family”. “They were human too!” “If you’re celebrating their death after they spent decades making the conscious decision to make hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people to suffer, then you’re just as bad as they are!” And so on and so forth. The excuses Cait stans use to defend her are very reminiscent of this. “Oh my God, it’s just a show, it’s not that deep!” “She never killed anyone!” “What about Jinx?!” “If you hate Caitlyn you have no media literacy!” They never stop. They will call your intelligence and your integrity as a fan, as a person, into question for disliking this character. They are trying to convince you of something that you know isn’t true. It is okay to dislike characters who do bad things. It is okay to dislike characters who have shitty fan bases. It always has been, and it always will be. Nothing can convince me otherwise.

Arcane, as brilliant as it is, perhaps did a bit too good of a job in humanizing its characters and giving them depth. Now folks are acting like any amount of nuance will make you any less of a villain. Silco is one of my favorite characters. He is chock full of nuance! He is also still ultimately a villain at the end of the day. But the way Arcane writes its characters allows and actively encourages the audience to believe in the idea of “sympathy for the devil”. The problem with that is, once you stop seeing the devil as who he really is, that’s when you end up in situations you have no business being in. Defending things you have no business defending. Excusing the inexcusable. And that’s not right.

TL;DR Arcane season two has successfully convinced people that “sympathy for the devil” is absolutely paramount to your understanding of the show and your value as a person. So much so that if you refuse to have sympathy for the utterly unsympathetic, you get labeled a “hater” and everything you say is discarded. Which pisses me off BAD🙄🙄🙄

[maxdibert]

Actually yes if you'd call someone a misogynistic slur, even while experiencing trauma, you would be misogynistic. Because that comes from your subconcious. Severus was a victim and the reason he joined the death eaters was due to his social and economic victimization, however he was not a complete mindless idiot who didn't understand anything. He was clearly anti muggle (and although yes his prejudice was influenced by his horrible father and home he still encountered normal muggles so he didn't only have negative experiences with muggles, he could clearly see that some of them are not violent. He was an intelligent man I believe his brain could work this out.) And even when he's a big victim it doesn't mean he is entirely blameless of his words and actions and what they say about his morals. Him calling Lily a mudblood is a clear indication that he doesn't view muggleborns the same way he does other wizards and has clear prejudice. He did not only use that word once but many times - according to Lily. I'm not denying your other claims, you just seem to talk about Severus as if he wasn't an asshole who held bad views, because he was victimized. Do you think he was a good person in a bad situation? Not at all. It is fine to criticize his actions and morals while still taking into consideration that he was a victim and a lot of his decisions were a result of that.

I don't see it that way, but this is a matter of perspective. I might have internalized misogyny or internalized racism, but literally everyone has this, absolutely everyone. It's not the same as, at some point, saying a misogynistic slur to a friend in a moment when I'm about to lose my mind, versus constantly doing it. There's a difference between having a generalized attitude and letting something slip at a specific moment. And if we’re going to start categorizing people or characters based on something they say at a particular moment, then I’m sorry, but we should accuse everyone because there’s no one, absolutely no one in this society, who, even if they are very conscious and deconstructed, hasn’t made problematic comments or used harmful adjectives at some point.

I don’t deny that Severus had prejudices against Muggles, but his prejudices stem from a completely different basis than the prejudices Lucius, for example, might have had. Severus’ prejudices come from his own negative experiences with Muggles, from the fact that the Muggles he’s known were literally awful. Is it wrong for him to have prejudices against an entire population because of that? Yes, but it’s also understandable that he has them. I mean, I spend my life insulting cis-hetero men because they’re the types I have sex-affective relationships with, and I’ve had countless bad experiences with them. Could I be labeled as misandrist? Probably. Am I a bad person? I don’t think so. The problem with these issues is that people tend to see things in black and white, but real life is very diverse. You shouldn’t focus on the tree but on the forest. But well, that’s just my personal opinion.

Deep down, I’m very critical of Snape, even though it might not seem like it. What I don’t like is when people make arguments without considering the context and criminalize him without exploring the reasons for his actions. Was it wrong for him to call Lily a Mudblood? Yes, but we must take into account the context of when he did it, and the fact that it was an isolated incident, not a constant. It’s likely that what he wanted was to hurt her, just like when I call my friend a slut, and sometimes you say things to people because you know it will hurt them, not because you genuinely think that way. Anyway, I would be more critical if it were someone else, but in Lily’s case, it’s hard for me to be completely impartial because she ended up marrying an unpleasant, bullying, abusive person, and honestly, I think Severus fell short. If I had seen my supposed best friend half-smiling at my bully, I would have punched her in the face. I swear, I would have destroyed her and then publicly humiliated her, making her wish she had never been born. But as I’ve said before, I’m a very resentfully aggressive person xD.

[swiss-mrs]

EDDIE MUNSON X SINCLAIR!READER

just me rambling on again about how Eddie loves a black woman from infinity to infinityyyy

there's a 'face claim' under the cut because i said so. you've been warned

okay, listen here.

Ever since your family moved to Hawkins, life has been... different

You just turned 13 when your family uprooted to the small town in Indiana. Lucas was 10, and Erica was only 6.

It was a bit easier for your younger siblings to adjust, but you had to start fresh during your last year of middle school, going into high school. That sucked like a bitch.

Transitioning from a larger city with a decent mix of races to a predominantly white town was about as smooth as it sounded, not at all.

Though racism was not terrible, there were plenty of backhanded compliments, passive aggressiveness, and snarky comments.

You were always so "well-spoken", "well-mannered", "presentable".

You didn't "sound black".

You didn't "act black".

You were "pretty for a black girl."

Whatever the fuck that means.

You knew that begging your parents to move elsewhere was not an option, waste of time, so you always knew that the moment you had the chance, you weren't gonna stick around for too long.

Going into high school at the end of '82, just shy of a year after moving into Hawkins, was how yours and Eddie's paths crossed, just barely.

Since you could practically count on one hand how many black families were in Hawkins's population, not knowing one another by name was near impossible.

You know Jeff by proxy.

Your parents knew each other, and you were the same age, so of course you knew each other.

You wouldn't call him a friend per se, but you were friendly enough to exchange quick greetings in passing.

Jeff was with three older kids when you passed him in the hall.

A chubby, curly haired, white boy, a pale brunette girl, and a slim, lanky kid who looked like he was trying to grow out a bad haircut, all of which were decked out in jean and leather.

The polite smile and wave he gave made the lanky boy to turn and see who Jeff was waving at.

As soon as you caught each other's eyes, his curious expression turned into a lovestruck one.

You didn't pay much attention to it, though.

"Who is that?"

"Oh, no one. She's just the daughter of some friends of my parents."

Since you were in separate grades, you didn't regularly cross paths with any of the people you saw with Jeff often, but you did end up having an elective class with the brunette girl.

It was a couple of weeks in when you were partnered up with her for a project.

"Veronica is my government name. Call me Ronnie."

During lunch, Ronnie mentioned to Jeff how adorable you were.

"You got to meet her?!"

Ronnie would then go on about how you were so nice and polite, but you were also extremely smart and sassy.

She got to witness your wit first hand when you made a sneaky comeback at someone who gave one of those stupid 'for a black girl' comments.

"I think Eddie is going to blow a fuse."

"You got to meet HER?!"

The boy was starstruck every time you would unknowingly pass him in the hall or when he saw you from across the cafeteria.

"Would you just go up and talk to her, numbnuts?" Ronnie would say as she smacked the back of his head when she caught him staring a bit too hard.

"I can't just 'go up' to her!"

"The fuck not?"

He'd reply with silence, not really knowing what answer to give.

You were too good for him? He'd have no chance? You'd dismiss him? Reject him? What would he even say?

"I wouldn't know what to say..."

"Maybe try, 'Hello'."

He spent the next four years pining over you from a distance.

Now, in your senior year, you were more excited than anything to get out of this shit hole.

The cute super super senior with the loud mouth, long hair, and less than stellar reputation had always caught your eye, but you both still had yet to actually say anything to each other. Paths never crossing further than beyond the hallway.

You never bothered to make a move on him.

You were convinced that you weren't his type, or anyone's type for that matter, especially not here.

But you're both seniors now.

Much to Eddie's surprise and delight, you now had classes together.

He never once liked being in high school for longer than necessary, but here he was, oddly thankful for being held back.

Your schedules are almost completely aligned, save for the fact that you had a couple honors classes.

For the first few days of your senior year, Eddie was a ball of anxiety every time you were around.

He sat either behind or beside you in the back of all your shared classes.

It wasn't until one fateful Tuesday, in the second week of that school year, that your pen ran out of ink, and you finally said your first words to him.

"Hey, do you have a pen I can barrow?"

You were turned around in your seat to look at him behind you. He was stuck for a few beats before he blinked away his shock.

"Uh, y-yeah. Here." He handed you the very pen he was using to doodle in his notebook instead of actually taking notes.

The small smile and the gentle brush of your fingers against his nearly made his heart stop on the spot.

He was absolutely gone.

It was in that moment that he realized he'd never properly heard your voice before.

He wanted to hear it again.

You even remembered/bothered to give him his pen back at the end of that class.

He spent every single one of his classes for the remainder of that day coming up with a full ass tactical plan to approach you.

Every day that passed, he for some fucking reason just couldn't find the right moment to put his plan in action.

It wasn't until a few weeks later when you threw his plan through a loop.

You showed up to a Hellfire meet just as they were all leaving out the drama room.

He heard your voice coming from outside once some of the freshman members walked out the door.

"Hey, Baby Bro! How'd it go? Have fun?"

Eddie eyes widened, and he stilled for a second before he dropped what he was doing to rush out the door.

He tried to play off his stumbling by leaning against the wall right outside the door.

"Oh, Hey! You're in this club too?"

"This is Eddie. He leads the club." Your little brother's curly haired friend, Dustin, clarified immediately.

Before Eddie could give Dustin a look to 'shut the fuck up before he ruined his shot', you raised your brows with somewhat of an impressed look on your face.

"Oh, so you're Eddie."

The way his name rolls off your tongue makes him want to melt into the floor.

All the false confidence he once had completely depleted, and he was back at a loss for words. Thank God you didn't leave room for him to make a fool of himself.

"The boys talk so highly of you. Thank you for looking after them for a couple hours after school. See you tomorrow!"

He watched, awestruck, as you walked away with your brother and his friends.

"Y-Yeah, no problem!" He'd finally yell after you a you made it to the exit doors.

You turned to wave bye before fully exiting the building to the mostly vacant parking lot.

Eddie waved back weakly.

"See you tomorrow." He says to himself in the empty hallway, still waving even after you couldn't see him anymore.

A cheesy grin would grow on his face as he went back into the drama room to collect his DM stuff.

"Holy shit. You actually exchanged words!" Jeff would say.

"~See you tomorrow~" Gareth mocks, clasping his hands together, resting them on his cheek and batting his eyelashes.

Eddie glares at the younger drummer. "Shut up, asshole."

Early October is when he finally leaned forward to ask you a question.

"Hey, I don't really understand what's going on. Could you help me?"

There it was.

You accepted, falling right into his hands.

His plan was now officially in motion.

You were smart and nice. Of course, you would help tutor him.

Eddie knew that would work.

You were well aware of his academic status, or rather lack thereof.

You couldn't help but let that little 'I can fix him' part of your teenage brain take over.

You really wanted to help him pass and graduate, ESPECIALLY since he reached out to you for help.

You couldn't say no. wtf

You two had spent all of October studying together.

Even though he was distracted by you most of the time and always going off topic to get to know you, he actually was kind of learning something.

A win-win for him.

"Hey, so, uh, you know, Halloween is right around the corner, and, uh, there's a special rescreening of 'Alien' this weekend. Would you, uh, you know, if you're into it, would you like to go see- watch it, like, with me, I mean?"

The question came at the end of your recent study/tutoring session.

Over the last few weeks, you had shown nothing but kindness towards Eddie. You two even had conversations with one another out in the open, outside of the safe privacy of the library.

He finally had the courage to ask you out.

You hesitated.

"Oh, uh..."

Your apprehension was not for the reason he was thinking, but it was enough for his mind to start caving in on itself.

"I mean, I just want to show you my appreciation, you know, for all your help. There's no- no pressure at all. I get it if you don't wanna be seen with me too much. I won't blame you."

His response takes you aback.

"Hold on. That's not what I was trying to get across at all."

Your firm tone made his chest tighten with anxiety. If that wasn't it, what was it? Did you have plans already? Maybe with a boyfriend? Shit, why didn't Eddie make sure to get your current relationship status out of you before asking.

"It's just that, uh, I'm kind of a... wuss... with scary movies. The sci-fi part of it seems intriguing enough, but I heard that it was pretty scary... The Boys snuck the VHS during one of their movie nights a couple years ago. I just remember Lucas being on edge for weeks after watching it." You chuckled nervously.

Eddie chuckles, relieved by your answer.

"Don't worry about it. I'll be there to protect you from all the monsters." The use of his DM voice at the end goes straight to the pit of your stomach like hot coals.

You hold back a girlish giggle, not wanting to show how much that effected you.

"Okay, fine, but if I fail our test due to a lack of sleep, I'm blaming you."

After you agree to go on a date with him, he fully unleashes his inner flirt.

His surprising change in attitude towards you makes butterflies erupt within you.

His overt flirting brings out your sassy side as you two go back and forth.

That movie-dinner date was the first of many.

Eddie wasn't huge on physical PDA.

He was always super respectful and reserved in public, but he almost always made a show of you.

"There she is! The most beautiful woman to ever exist!"

"Look at her. A goddess among us mortals!"

"Here she comes! Make way for the queen!"

You eventually got used to his over the top antics, going from telling his to "shut up" with a shy grin to just embracing your new 'royalty status' with your head held high and a bright smile.

You'd been dating for months.

Your tutoring actually helped raise Eddie's grades, especially after you told him how much you wanted him to graduate with you this year.

Come spring, Lucas is now unsuccessfully splitting his time between Hellfire and basketball.

When Dustin and Mike bring in the third Sinclair into the drama room, Eddie can't help but cave quickly once she shows off her dnd knowledge.

Erica definitely gets her sass from you, though she's a lot more blunt with it.

Eddie can't help but form a huge soft spot for her, even after the game is over.

While Erica, Dustin, and Mike were waiting in your car to leave, Eddie stopped you.

"So, you know, we've been dating for quite a while now-"

"Five months and counting." You beamed.

Eddie grinned happily. So, you were keeping count.

"Yeah, soon enough it'll be six, then seven, then ten, then 12, then-"

"OK, OK" you giggled. Eddie's smile only got bigger.

"So, I was wondering..." That shy boy who could barely ask you on a first date returns, bringing a soft grin to your face. "Do you... Would do... I... Will you be my... my girlfriend?"

"Of course." You smiled without missing a beat.

"Really?!"

As the news sunk deeper and deeper, it became harder and harder for him to physically contain his excitement.

He jumped up and down, grabbing you by the shoulders to pull you into a hug, bouncing up and down with you in his arms.

Your shared laughter filled the empty parking lot of Hawkins High.

From that moment on, the word 'girlfriend' was used in place of your own name for months.

"I'm convinced you've forgotten my name."

"I could never forget such a thing, girlfriend~"

He introduced you to metal music.

You introduced him to leave in conditioner.

You two were high school sweethearts, ones that would last forever.

🥹🥹🥹

[spottheantisemitism]

"what if the X-men were black?" is a racist, antisemitic and anti-intersectional screed that 2013 tumblr fell in love with

Published in 2013 this made rounds of OG tumblr and made Bobby of Pencilscratchins draw all her Jewish X-men characters as brown.

Erik because he has Romani heritage (which is realistic and based and accurate to some comics).

Anon go kick rocks with your colorism! YOU read holocaust testimonies!

Also fun fact Nazi Germany did not understand black and brown the way Americans do so it was based on ethnicity and not color, a brown Jew and a pale white passing Jew were seen as one and the same to the Nazis

Guess which article she linked

It's this one!

But said Kitty was Latine because "the quintessential X-girl of the 70s shouldn't be white"

Kitty already is a queer woman of color because she's Jewish. Jews are POC. Bobby what the hell? Are you implying she's only coded non-white because she's Jewish or Mutant? what the hell?!

(BTW Bobby left Tumblr around Covid but if you send her hate asks because of this essay you'll end up on spot-the-antisemitism blocklist for harrasment)

Where did she get this "Jews are white and should be race lifted?" stuff? Why from Orion!

Top paragraph is fine!

antisemitism is written the gentile way that supports a racist eugenicist, off to a bad start.

Sexism is not covered? OH explain Storm's arcs of misogynoir or Jean's and Maddy's arc of going insane because she has the power of a god but is forced to be housewife and marry her sweetheart and have kids

Ableism is not explored? I'm sorry what about XAVIER'S ENTIRE ARC OF ABLIEST SELF HATRED AND OVERCOMING IT IN THE PREQUELS? The first class all being rich talented codedly disabled kids going to a prep school for the gifted. Disabled people really liking non human passing characters like Nightcrawler (and hating Xavier since he's too assimilationist to many). I'm sorry why do people fall for such blatant lies? the mentor of the X-men is literally canonically disabled and Orion has the GALL to claim ableism is not explored.

_ Genosha is half fall of south Africa Apartheid and half the establishment of the state of Israel hence why the metaphor is so messy and problematic

_ Yes that number is deliberately "like the holocaust but worse" because Morrison likes their holocaust appopriation

_ Why didn't you mention it's an allegory for Gay conversion therapy torture because Bryan Singer is gay?

_ Yes Legacy Virus is Mutant Aids good job on your media literacy finally kicking in Orion

It's racism AND antisemitism but your "antisemtism doesn't exist in america" ass doesn't get that

I do hate "mutie" as slur and the way Kitty thinks it's comparable to antisemtic and anti-black slurs and USES them to make a point, so yeah something Orion and I agree on.

The sequence used is of Stevie Hunter the human ally character who like Xavier started teaching after she became disabled. She IS used as prop here to say Kitty is right in calling her the n-word (Claremont is racist sometimes).

But Orion can't tell her apart from Storm. Buddy if you can't tell the ONLY two black women in this comic apart, you're the racist.

OK they're both props but it proves you never actually read the comics or you can't tell fictional black women apart neither of which is a good look

(Cole also points out the Kitty and Magneto are not White but Jewish he is dogpiled and called a fake fan for this (see below))

Keep Shyminksy out of your mouth you racist fake fan

OH NO! I hate this!

So you decided to go with the colorist idea that the man is darker and the innocent girl in need of protecting is lighter. Gross colorism worthy of a Hollywood action movie where the black guy dies

"Local black man can't related to white disabled teens facing ableism and makes it about racism so he can relate to it" is giving gamergate chud energy to me

If you can't see why a Russian man is almost killed by a mob of xenophobic red blooded Americans and HAVE to make this about anti-black racism that's on you and your misunderstanding of the way Russians were hated during the cold war.

Oh you are race swapping x-men while shitting on Psylocke who the result of basically the same idea? How hypocritical

Dwayne McDuffe does have a point but your quote does not utilize his point in any way.

Then DON'T raceswap Wolverine if he becomes the angry black man. Think before you can X-men racism and tokenism WORSE with your race-swapping

NO THEY DON'T strawman rejected

Ah yes! Magneto, famously a very white man whose childhood was full of white privilege/ Sarcasm

One of the co-authors of the website has the gall to double down on calling Magneto white:

"as a REAL fan you're fake fan, antisemitism doesn't exist and Holocaust survivor Jews are white" - this racist defending his token black friend's racist screed because some guy called Cole DARED call Orion on his bullshit

*"I didn't like that the X-men were about white passing and invislbe disability so I made about anti black racism" also "judiasm is just a religion" canard

**Again leave Shyminksy and Morrison's good takes alone

***Yeah you get Luke Cage, that's how you get the racism of bad Luke Cage comics. You ain't inventing the racist wheel here

Orion I hate your take, I hate your misunderstanding of antisemitism and ableism that makes the two main factions tick, I hate your self centerness, I hate your racist and antisemitic co-writer making excuses for you and I REALLY hate that this did to the 2013 X-fandom what Lily Orchard did to the 2019 Steven Universe fandom and we can still see people using your bullshit arguments today

Oh and Cole? thank you for your service you're the real hero of this story, hated and feared for daring to call out the establishment

[germygilbert]

it is like. both fascinating and infuriating to me when people downplay Liam's overdose at the end of season four

1.) I don't expect to hold addicts 100% accountable for their behavior while on drugs i think there's some play in culpability. HOWEVER:

2.) I do think that people who completely write this off and excuse this for the benefit of Fiona are pretty racist or at least have the biggest racism blinders on BECAUSE

2a.) like point blank comparing this specific act of neglect to other acts of neglect (which were no doubt terrible and traumatizing) is one thing. acting like they are on the same level or that say, monica's neglect of Carl is somehow worse is literally just racism

2b.) The choice in drug, as my girlfriend pointed out for a white caregiver to expose a black toddler in her care to, is intentional. You are meant to think about the racial dynamic at play here in regards to conversations and behavior around drug use for the last fifty plus years. Liam is a fucking BABY and you still cannot muster pretend imaginary sympathy for him? How racist do you have to be to react to this arc in this way. Has it been over a month since you called a black drug user a cr*ckhead be honest

3.) Lip losing his shit on fiona while this was happening was not an example of him "perpetuating Frank's cycle of abuse omfg

3a.) I'm not going to say Lip's behavior towards Fiona while she was being incarcerated was completely justified of course but that was their little brother who they both love dearly who might die and Lip is justifiably freaking the fuck out. this is categorically not the same thing as an abusive father yelling in order to exercise control

3b.) Your baby brother does not have the power required to exercise an abusive dynamic over you. Of course he can replicate abusive behavior as anyone who was raised by an abusive parent or otherwise can. The line of thinking that Lip is "abusing" Fiona here shows an irresponsible and, in the wrong hands, entirely dangerous misunderstanding of how and when abusive dynamics come to be

3c.) that is not even Frank's brand of abuse. I can count on one hand the amount of times that Frank uses yelling as a tactic. The name of his game is manipulation and he usually exercises it by acting overly kind to the youngest gallaghers in order to get them to participate in his insane schemes. We see him doing this to Carl and Debbie and Liam and we even hear of him doing this to lip when he was younger. He only hits Ian once and we have reason to believe that is the only time he has hit one of his children. textually. He understands he can't control Lip Ian and Fiona by series start and as such he moslty leaves them alone and occasionally even pals around with them. We SEE him discard Debbie and Carl when they begin to question him and argue against his hair brained ethically heinous schemes

4.)the narrative is indeed asking you to engage with the theme of cycles of abuse being replicated by people who mean well. During this specific arc is asking you to do so with FIONA, not Lip, FIONA, who is liam's legal guardian who she is in this moment recklessly endangering. Even if you pretend the race thing isn't there (which is extremely difficult because its place in the narrative is, as I've pointed out, intentional) Fiona still allowed a baby to eat cocaine through her neglect. You are supposed to be thinking about this. You are supposed to be comparing i in your mind to Carl's childhood injuries and Frank using drugs as a sleep sedative for infants. At all times throughout the show you are meant to be examining how many steps away each character is from being "just as bad as frank"

I know fandom is specifically designed to stomp out critical analysis but omfg.

[darth-memes]

I really mean it. Don't trust any review that you see online about anything Star Wars. Specially the Acolyte and the latest series. You would be surprised how many are made in bad faith, and with the Acolyte they have multiplied. Talk to your friends that have actually watched it and talk about it in a reasonable way. It's ok if you don't like the series or decide is not your thing, as someone who has really liked it, I know that it's far from perfect. Don't engage with reviews online unless you really really trust the person, because many are made with bad faith and/or nostalgia-tinted glasses that honestly make people forget how the original trilogy really is. It's the reason I stopped reading or watching ANYTHING resembling a review related to Star Wars because it is surprising how easy it turns into a toxic rant that many times can be boilt down into racism and misoginy.

Honestly, even avoiding all of that, with the Acolyte I almost burnt out of the fandom of how terrible it was. I luckily didn't received any hate myself but I have a friend who posts information and fun facts between other things (doesn't do reviews, or opinions, it's mostly all factual(if you have an instagram follow him in @skynobi_starwars, he is always on top of the latest news and posts frequently but without spaming)) on instagram and he was showing me the amount of comments just spewing hate whenever he posted anything about the series and it was disgusting. He said that there had always been some, but they had basically multiplied.

But that's his situation, mine was in real life. I have a coworker who also loves Star Wars and his mask fell off when on episode 3 the wItches showed up and suddenly all of his critiques were about the amount of black people and lesbians that were there. By the next episode everything was just shit and how they should fire the entire team. Basically screaming and being impossible to talk to. Which honestly made me really sad because he had always been a person with who I could talk to about anything Star Wars related. Worst of all, a younger coworker who was wondering if to watch the series entered into watching "reviews" that were outright lying about what happened in the episodes or of people that straight up didn't watch it. He showed me a few and they were all the same. I had to spend a good while proving to him how the series was review bombed even before starting and just proving almost every lie those people were telling and how most of it. It was exhausting and terrifying, I was also really worried because this coworker is very young and what he showed me bordered some alt-right beliefs that should be near NOBODY. And, holy shit, was this a slide to the far right pipeline.

The only reason I didn't burn out is because I have a trusted group of friends with whom I could comment the episodes and have fun making jokes about it. Curiously, my dad also watched it and enjoyed it. But that's basically that's all I had to reduce my feedback of Star Wars for WEEKS to not burn out with how everything was going both online and real life.

And I know that there's a lot of toxic parts of the Star Wars fandom. My recommendation is not engage with any of the big names in the fandom (you know who I am referring to, specially in Youtube). Again, it's not that you cannot be critical, there is a lot to be critical in Star Wars, there is also much that one may dislike, but there is a line. And a lot of people that called themselves reviewers crossed and are so far away in their delusion of how anything that Disney does becomes an attack against them that they will never be able to enjoy the saga again. But raging like that will just result in another Rise of Skywalker, not another Empire Strikes Back.

Instead, look for friends with who you enjoy talking about Star Wars and have fun watching, playing, reading, etc with the saga. Because at the end of the day that's what we want, to have fun with it and enjoy the journey. Sometimes it may disappoint, but if you are always looking for that like a big part of the fandom that posts online, you are never going to enjoy it again.

And isn't Star Wars better when you focus on what makes you happy about it than on what you didn't like?

(Also, again, watch out for the people who are being racist, mysoginistic, homophobic... I can't emphasize how even I, that I try to curate as much as I can my experience in the fandom, I found them fast this time)

[hellobitchlet]

Actually, I'm going to make this it's own post.

If anyone who has said that they're boycotting stops just because they like Natlan's archon quest, or Capitano becomes playable, or they like a 5 star that gets released, or a 5 star gets a skin you like, or any other reason, I'm going to be so fucking mad. If you still give them money, especially if you claimed that you wouldn't, you are won over too easily and have no critical thinking skills.

And it's especially bullshit if your excuse is "the boycott isn't working, oh well!" Hoyoverse ignoring the boycott is exactly the reason why you shouldn't give them money!

The reason why I keep saying "don't give them money" instead of "boycott them/sign the petition/etc." is because I'm not just talking about convincing them to change a few skin colours in one game. I'm talking about everything that they've done across all of their games that is shamelessly bigoted, and combining them all into a huge folder of reasons why they don't deserve money.

I'm talking about the racism in Natlan and Sumeru, yes, but I'm also talking about Paimon and Traveler being unnecessarily shitty towards Kaeya and Venti, one of whom was the only brown skinned character in the game at the time of that shitty behavior. I'm talking about hilichurls. I'm talking about none of the Chinese or Japanese characters having brown skin either, except for one 4 star in Liyue with a bad kit and a personality centered around a type of music often stereotyped as being 'violent'.

I'm talking about Boothill and Azta, the whitewashed Indigenous American characters from Honkai Star Rai and Houkai Gakuden 2 respectively. I'm talking about Aventurine, the whitewashed Romani character whose backstory includes being a slave and being terrorized by a greedy, violent tribe. I'm talking about Aven's home planet being named a slur against Romani people. I'm talking about Sparkle and Ratio, a pale skinned Japanese and white Greek character who calls him slurs against Romani people on screen. I'm talking about the hsr place based on the Jazz Age in the US not having any playable black characters.

I'm talking about Carole, the only brown skinned playable character in hi3, canonically hating her skin colour. I'm talking about Arlan, the only brown skinned playable character in hsr, acting subservient to a pale skinned character and spending the whole tutorial telling pale skinned characters that they're better than him. I'm talking about the only notable African place in hi3 being a destroyed city a white male antagonist took over. I'm talking about Nanook, the closest we have to a main antagonist in hsr, being the only brown skinned aeon.

But it's not just the racism. I'm also talking about the sexism. I'm talking about the horrifically oversexualized designs that almost every single female character in every one of their games have. I'm talking about Ayaka suddenly not being allowed to have anything to do with politics the moment her older brother was revealed, turning her into a cutie standing around doing nothing in events. I'm talking about the four seperate cases of 5 star male-4 star female duo's where the boy overshadows the girl (Albedo and Sucrose, Itto and Shinobu, Tighnari and Collei, and Lyney and Lynette). I'm talking about the only women in a 'masculine' outfit in Genshin, Arlecchino, still wearing an uncomfortably form fitting, backless vest. I'm talking about the female archons having a focus on having them look cute, with two acting like literal children. I'm talking about Dehya actively defending her male friends who were sexually harassing her into using her body to attract new recruits and bragging about sexyally harassing all other women out of the group.

I'm also talking about the pedophilia. I'm talking about all of the tiny children in Genshin and hsr except for Sigewinne still having sexualized outfits. I'm talking about multiple children in Genshin having the exact same puffy white shorts that look suspiciously similar to underwear. I'm talking about half of them actually being adults.

I'm also talking about the classism, copaganda, and other societal things. I'm talking about Fontaine's... everything. I'm talking about Chevreuse the c*p who has at least 2 high class vision weilders who aren't part of the government to help with her investigations in exchange for letting them get away with illegal stuff, or at least in Chori's case idk I didn't do Emilie's sq. I'm talking about the prison that Paimon claims is amazing but does prison labor, has a questline about saving an innocent child from it, kept another child who defended other kids by killing their traffickers in it, and forces prisoners to work if they want more than ONE meal per day. I'm talking about Furina seemingly making up laws on the spot and getting away with it. I'm talking about the current leader of Fontaine being the guy who didn't wait for the investigation of the crime scene to finish before starting the trial in act 1, then wrongfully imprisoned Childe in act 2 on purpose because a mysterious machine said so.

I'm talking about the leader of Sumeru telling a guy who told her that his life sucks because of the capitalism in her nation to make his tools pretty instead of dealing with the actual problem. I'm talking about the leader of Inazuma being an ex-antagonist who let her puppet self and the rest of her government kill god knows how many, and the mc's being fine with that. I'm talking about the previous leader of Liyue purposefully putting all of his people in danger to prove to himself that he can retire, and the mc's being fine with that. I'm talking about the depiction of Shenhe supposedly living a better life in CR's story quest being that she got a job, instead of her improving on her actual problems.

I'm also talking about the ableism. I'm talking about Chongyun's disability not being acknowledged as a disability because everyone insists that he just needs to let himself overheat bc they like seeing him like that, and Xingqiu 'pranking' him using his disability. I'm talking about Collei and everyone else with elezar getting Magical Disability Cure-d, and elezar almost never being brought up again. I'm talking about hi3 Wendy, a wheelchair user, being an npc who was killed off the chapter after she was introduced, while her fully abled Genshin expy is a popular 5 star.

I'm also taking about the fatphobia. I'm talking about Ganyu being used as a fat joke multiple times, including the only mention of her time in the Archon War being her accidentally choking someone to death with her butt. I'm talking about multiple female characters, especially in Genshin, worrying about gaining weight. I'm talking about Venti insulting someone for being fat in the comics. I'm talking about every playable character in all of their games being so skinny that Genshin and hi3 are even allergic to the weird bodybuilder version of muscles that have no fat on them. By which I mean, they don't have any playable fat characters.

... this got way longer than I expected. Ok I'm done I've proved my point lol

[creatingblackcharacters]

What do you think makes y'all not say anything?

Often if I don't say something, it's because I'm not in that particular fandom and don't want to give any engagement to that person because I find it incredibly distasteful. Either that or it's not the original artist posting the image and I can't find them.

Why do you think your peers are comfortable with what they're doing?

I'm not sure, but usually if it's someone I know or is inside my space I point it out and give constructive feedback. I wonder if it's purposeful ignorance, sort of like how people pretend to be bad at chores to get away with it?

Why is it so safe to be antiblack in these fan spaces?

I think people feel comfortable being anti Black when creators and artists don't shut that shit down.

If it's just ignorance, why is educating oneself not a priority when it is offered?

Probably because people don't want to face the fact their behavior isn't okay. It reminds me of a toddler who doesn't want to admit they broke something so they blame it on the pets.

Does it not bother you?

It bothers me immensely! But I don't often see these things, usually only finding them when scrolling Google images or on Pinterest whenever I'm looking for references. In which case I don't know who the artist is and feel too disappointed in humanity to go searching for them.

What is the boundary to where you feel you would be bothered enough to speak up?

If it's someone within my space, someone I know through mutuals, common friends, or someone I have interacted with prior I would confront them. Based on that interaction I'll either help or give up on them.

I also feel like it depends on the severity, if it's something a little more subtle I'm more likely to privately DM and say "hey, you should probably fix [x]"

But if it's an egregious error such as skin lightening or white-washing features I'm more likely to comment publicly and encourage my friends to speak up as well.

Am I asking the wrong questions?

I think you're asking the right questions, but I think a lot of people also don't want to answer them truthfully. Or with their names attached (I can't help but feel uneasy about my name being attached but I know it's an opportunity for me to grow if my viewpoint is inappropriate or inaccurate)

What questions should I be asking, and what exactly do you think the answers would be to those questions?

I think the question that is missing is, "Why are creators allowing their fans and fan spaces to be anti-Black and not protecting their own fans?"

In my opinion, creators have to protect their minority groups in their fan spaces. If you let one nazi in a bar, it'll become a nazi bar, y'know?

I don't think creators are fully at fault for everything their fan spaces do, but I do think they have a responsibility to shut down shit and point out that they don't stand for that.

If people who have the power and strength speak up and make it cringey and shameful to be anti-Black, then people will follow suit. I think people who white wash are super cringe. Like what are you??? Afraid of melanin? Go get skin cancer, stinky. /Silly

Genuine question- why do you need to be in a fandom to call out racism if you see it there?

What happens when it's the creator who is also racist, especially when they are comfortable with the fan base that is on the same page? What will be the creator's motivation to change if their fan base is okay with their behavior in exchange for their content?

I agree about the creators, yes. More questions to consider: If the creator allows Nazis into their bar, yes it's a Nazi bar. But if the other patrons know Nazis attend this bar uncalled out, and still go to it knowing full well that they're not the ones in danger if they say nothing... What makes them not a participating Nazi? Because they have power too, more than they think, and aren't using it!

Also you shouldn't joke about cancer 😅

[hussyknee]

Just found out that the baby baked in an oven thing Zionists accused Hamas of doing is actually something Zionists themselves did during the Deir Yassin massacre of 1948. And the fetus cut out of the pregnant woman's womb is something that was done in the massacre of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by Lebanese militants in concert with Zionists. We already know that they rape women and children in detention. I think the only other huge fucking lie about Oct 7th was the beheaded babies, and I'm legitimately afraid of learning whether or not that was also just something Zionists themselves did at one point.

I mean it's not even improbable because this type of unfathomable cruelty is par for the course with genociders, that only happen when the dominant group has so much disproportionate power in the region that there is only mindless hatred and perfect impunity. (The Brits used to use native infants as crocodile bait.) The reports of IOF ripping babies from their mothers arms, shooting them dead, throwing them aside and dragging the mothers off in front of witnesses were numerous even before this. I've also heard reports of young parents being dragged off and abandoning their toddlers and infants on the roadsides (saw a video of it and I'm going to be haunted to my grave). So those premature babies being left to die of starvation at the hospital was shocking but only surprising because there were so many eyes on the situation due to the efforts of the aid workers and journalists. We thought that Western governments wouldn't pull this shit with the whole world watching. As it turned out, the only reason the last twenty-odd premature babies at Al Shifa Hospital survived was because the director of the place refused to leave them until they were safely shipped off to Egypt (unaccompanied, God knows if the parents will ever get them back. Egyptian governments refused to let the few critically injured people allowed safe passage by the US to go through without visas and passports so they died in the ambulances). Then the IOF kidnapped the director right afterwards. He's still missing.

The organ harvesting thing is also true btw. We've been talking about it ever since they made off with those dead bodies at Al Shifa Hospital. Whether they were going to use them to stage their own propaganda, harvest their organs and skin, or just did it to deprive their families of giving them a burial. Probably all three.

I'm so tired of you people refusing to pay any attention to the news streaming out of Gaza via their own citizen journalists and Al Jazeera and Quds News and families of activists and then accusing us of spreading conspiracy theories! "There's so much misinformation" just say you don't trust Palestinians to tell the truth about their own genocide with your whole chest. Say that your charges of antisemitism is about how much you fear Black people and Muslims. Say that you don't reblog calls for the Jewish community to interrogate their whiteness and their enmeshing with Zionism over the decades because you feel like "it's not your place" to amplify Black and brown people challenging whiteness. Say that you shut us down and police our language about Zionists because you're philosemites who believe Jews could never be as genocidal and bloodthirsty as every other group on the world given the same power. Say that you still don't think Zionists are "as bad as" Nazis because they haven't murdered enough people yet.

I'll take the Zionists cheering over the deaths of people we're mourning over all the hidden polite lethal racism you're hiding under your white liberal tongues. I can't take this death by a thousand cuts shit anymore. Seriously why are you scrolling past? You think we aren't talking about you?

[sol1loqu1st]

(In case this could be interpreted as judgemental or self-aggrandizing I'm going to just say upfront that I'm a literary criticism guy and these are just my thoughts on the episode + people's reactions to it, not a condemnation lol)

In the discussion of Dot & Bubble I have noticed that a lot of white fans (caveat: I am also white) didn't pick up on the racism until the very end/felt like it was too subtle, but honestly I felt like it was like. WILDLY obvious.

The Doctor being the only black person in a sea of white people, Lindy only listening to Ruby and repeatedly trying to block the Doctor even though they're saying the same things, repeatedly calling the Doctor rude when he's saying the same stuff as Ruby, etc, is like. not! subtle. (I also wonder slightly about the choice to put the Doctor in bright orange--iirc the orange jumpsuit inmates wear is a purely American thing and quite possibly not even something that crossed the costuming dept's mind, but given the themes of the episode and the fact that it's in contrast to all of the colorful, stylized pastels, the choice to put the doctor in Solid Orange and set him against a more muted background strikes me as....intentionally looking like a mugshot? But I'm not sure why, because the point of the episode wasn't to bias the audience against the Doctor, so who knows)

I think the thing about this episode people are misinterpreting (because RTD did a bad job) is that the bubble is meant to represent "phones bad," but I think it's actually commentary on how social media algorithms can quickly lock you into an echo chamber "bubble" of people who think and look just like you, that stops you from seeing outside to anyone else's pov and makes it so you rely completely on social media to tell you what to think and how to behave (and, crucially, how this can lead down a pipeline of unconscious--and eventually conscious--racism that can start with something as "innocent" as "coincidentally all of my friends are white.")

I feel like there's plenty of ground for people to have not caught on because they assumed the racism was not meant to be part of the story and just an exposure of the biases of whoever was in charge of casting the episode. But I think if you missed it entirely and didn't even think about it until it was overt, the episode was talking to you directly. Lower your bubble my dudes or you'll get eaten by slugs I guess

man idk how the slugs are supposed to factor into this argument i think the slugs are there because it's doctor who