#this feels like internalized racism or something

[dr-stxrk]

i have a stupid thing that i'm trying to get over. on tiktok, when i watch a funny video (in english) i go to the comments section and see someone comment in my mother language. and here's the thing. it's usually just a reaction. it's also often something funny don't get me wrong, but i for some reason get mad that it's not in english. the comment i mean. i get mad on the behalf of the poster and i'm not even a native english speaker, it's a second language to me.

i get upset when people make comments in my language on a post that is in english.

a long time ago, i used to play a forum game and used to get spanish comments on my posts, and it made me upset because the app didn't let me copy-paste so i couldn't even use a translator to understand what they were trying to say. i think it made me feel bad because it felt like i learned this world-widely used language all on my own to communicate with people across the globe and then on this platform, on content that's in english, suddenly, it felt like it was for nothing. it doesn't matter that i know a whole second language. i know it's illogical, that the people commenting in a different language probably didn't even think that way, but i guess it kinda felt like it didn't matter at all anyway.

now i want to stop feeling this way because it also feels a bit entitled. i did self learn english, so for a while i thought people who didn't speak english were just lazy, but then i figured i was a fucking idiot to think that way because everyone's learning capacity is different. i used to think that because i didn't go to any language courses, didn't take any private classes, my only source was the internet. yet again same method didn't work for me when i tried to pick up the guitar or to learn how to draw. does that mean i've been lazy? well, maybe, but i just know that if i had spent the same amount of time and effort to learn a third language, i would've gone far further. so yeah. the language barrier is real and it's not something that has a quick fix.

i also want to get rid of this petty feeling because just because someone doesn't know how to say "haha that's funny" in english, it shouldn't mean they can't enjoy the content. but i just can't stop myself from imagining how confused the op must feel when they get a bunch of stuff in random languages. maybe it's because of my drive to know everything that's going around me. i feel the need to know what's happening at all times. i feel lost or worse, left out, missing out, when i can't understand something that's right in front of me.

so yeah. there's that. is there anyone who felt in a similar way? anyone know how to get over this?

[chalkeater]

i have no clue what exploded on this blog but people trying to speak over literal asian history is actually ridiculous and i sincerely hope everyone shuts the fuck up

sincerely one of the many foc tired of you /nay

dont worry it was just me going “hey guys i dont think we should draw the utdr kids yellow anymore bc seeing Frisk be a walking racist asian stereotype is weird” and then people getting mad at me LOL..

But YEAH.. the amount of “ok but”s was giving me a headache. Like.. and i bet most of the people who are upset With me and other asians bringing this up are white. And if theyre not white / Not POC then they are either 1) privileged enough not to understand the depth of asian history and the racism against asians + xenophobia AND/OR havent experienced it in general 2) born and raised in their mother land where being asian is not the minority so they are of course privileged. It’s a privilege to live in your mother land and not experience racism!! Adoy??

[sun-marie]

The men of Pillars of Eternity are so dear to me 😭💗

[doppelnatur]

to a certain degree i don't think there is such a thing as purely internalized and internally directed bias. i don't think directing bias at yourself is morally much better than directing it at others it's just a lot harder to stop. that said, as soon as your self cruelty begins to affect anyone else it's just cruelty. a gay man being homophobic is not any more justifiable than a heterosexual man. then again, maybe this entire way of thinking shows a lack of compassion for myself and is a form of bias.

[dalishious]

About Davrin's little blurb on the official website for Dragon Age: The Veilguard...

"Though he was raised in a Dalish clan, he craved excitement and adventure. He'd rather make history than reflect on it."

There's actually a lot to unpack about these two sentences.

First off, placing the word "though" in front of being "raised in a Dalish clan", gives such a thing a negative connotation. The word "though" is used in a way that sounds like "despite", as in, somehow wanting excitement and adventure must go against being Dalish. This correlates with sentence that follows. "He'd rather make history than reflect on it." The word "rather" is yet again used to separate Davrin from his Dalish origin. All together, this promotional description of Davrin is insisting that he is "not like other Dalish".

Now, obviously the game is not out yet, so we do not have total confirmation on what the nature of Davrin's relationship to his culture is really like. But there is absolutely something to be said about promoting the character this way, regardless of however he actually turns out in game. There is absolutely something to be said about how, as @/the-eldritch-it-gay put in their tags here, why do writers feel the need to make fantasy minorities hate or distance themselves from their culture? As a selling point?

Maybe this is completely misleading bullshit, maybe it isn't. All we have to go by, is what BioWare chose to say here, and their past track record with elves:

Zevran may talk about his mother in a font way, but he still has the line, "Too many of our kind think we deserve pity simply because we have failed to defend ourselves."

Velanna is one of the two elves we've had who is overtly proud of her culture, yet she is treated like she is unreasonable and too angry because of it.

Merrill too, is proud of being an elf, and of being Dalish. The story punishes her left and right for this, treats her like a child, and in the end she is either ostracized from her clan or they end up dead because... she cared too much?

Fenris has pretty much zero engagement with elven cultures, and spends his time ridiculing Merrill for being proud of hers.

Solas complains about the Dalish from the start, and says plainly that he does not see himself as having anything in common with elves of current time. "Oh, you mean elves" he says, when the Inquisitor asks how he feels about his people; the thought does not even occur to him.

Sera is... Sera is a character who could have been a really interesting examination of overcoming internalized racism, if she was written by someone competent with the subject. Instead, she just cringes at everything "too elfy" through the entire main game, and only has a single line in Trespasser that hints that she may have a personal struggle going on. But it's still left unresolved.

That's a lot a lot of negativity. So of course seeing a suggestion that more is to come with Davrin has people wary and tired.

Let us also consider the fact that Davrin is overtly Black as well, and what that means. Acting as if one must disregard history in order to make it, as his description so claims, is bullshit. It sounds too much like promoting gentrification/assimilation in my opinion; the idea that you cannot keep your culture if you want to be successful.

I also think that it goes even deeper, on a meta level - I think that BioWare is afraid people will not be able to like or relate to Davrin, if he is "too ethnic". I think that BioWare is taking this Black character and instead of questioning how he can best represent marginalized fans - particularly Black fans - they are questioning how to make him more relatable to white fans. And the only answer to that is to, of course, make him seem like he is an exception to marginalization through separating him from his people.

I am still holding onto hope that Davrin will overall be an interesting, well-written character. And I sure as hell will still be defending him from the people who are already hating on him or ignoring him completely because of their racialized biases. But that does not exempt BioWare, and specifically his writer, John Dombrow, from any criticism. This is not about Davrin the character, this is about BioWare the company's handling of Davrin the character. And in that regard, they're not off to a great start with this.

[solaireverie]

f1 | i'd be the man

summary: [ drabbles ] you're the formula one driver and he's your wag. (aka the toto wolff-ification of the fast car boys)

warnings: mentions of racism and sexism

author's note: i had so much fun coming up with non-f1 jobs 😂 i'm convinced that most of the boys would still be obsessed with f1. considering doing this for other drivers, drop some suggestions? 👀

→ CHARLES LECLERC

Charles is a fashion designer who works for one of your sponsors. You find his designs slightly... peculiar and aren't afraid to tell him. Determined to prove you wrong about his vision, Charles volunteers to be your primary point of contact for your partnership with the fashion house.

Your meetings are contentious in the beginning, neither of you understanding the other. You leave each consultation with a throbbing migraine and a barely suppressed urge to throw something at Charles. If only he weren't so damned stubborn. (At the same time, you know that his passion for his craft is half of why you even deign to meet with him.)

A grudging respect forms between you after months of friction and endless banter about what exactly you want your sponsorship to look like. If hard-pressed, you might even call it a friendship.

Charles has been a Formula 1 fan since childhood and is secretly a fan of yours. You find out after you meet him for a design meeting after a rough race and he suddenly goes on a rant about how the driver who took you out was being ridiculous and how you deserved better. You're completely charmed and interrupt him by asking him out on a date.

He's the absolute best boyfriend that you could ever ask for, following you to all the European races and supporting you from Monaco when he can't make it. Charles delights in being able to provide a bit of stability for you in your hectic life. He puts up photos of your race wins in his studio and proudly tells all of his clients about his girlfriend and her achievements.

(You still won't listen to his fashion advice, though.)

→ MAX VERSTAPPEN

Max runs the cat shelter that you adopt your cat from. You notice how cute he is the first time you meet him but you're too shy to make a move — besides, Max cherishes his quiet life and you don't know how open he would be to associating with a public figure like a Formula 1 driver. Still, he's funny and kind and you somehow keep talking.

It starts out innocuously, just pictures and updates about your new cat (because Max cares about all of the cats that he's ever taken care of, even the ones that have been adopted into good homes) and occasional behind-the-scenes updates when you find out that Max likes Formula 1.

Without realizing it, Max becomes one of your closest friends. He catsits for you when you're out of the country for races, picks you up from the airport after international races, and cheerfully beats you at sim racing whenever you have the opportunity to game together.

Max realizes that you're basically dating around a year into your friendship. You sleep at his place, in his bed, more often than not. Sassy likes you more than she likes him. You have his coffee order memorized and he knows your parents. (Your mother adores him and constantly encourages you to make a move.)

He's patient, however, and waits for you to realize your own feelings as well. Dating comes as naturally for you as your friendship did. Although Max doesn't always enjoy the media scrutiny that comes with dating a Formula 1 driver, he takes full advantage of the attention to defend you at any given chance.

In fact, you've been asked multiple times by your team principal to get your boyfriend to calm down before he offends another driver, but you wouldn't change Max for the world.

→ LANDO NORRIS

Lando is a Twitch streamer with a decent following who specializes in gaming, especially e-motorsports. He gets the chance to visit your team's garage when he wins a e-sport tournament. He's an unabashed simp fan and immediately makes a fool of himself when he meets you, but you find it adorable.

(Lando swears up and down to anyone who'll listen that he didn't mean to blush and accidentally propose on the spot.)

You cheekily tell him to take you out on a date first and he surprisingly gets his act together and actually follows through. Lando is incredibly kind and clumsily charming despite his awkward exterior. You can tell that he genuinely likes spending time with you and wants to hear what you have to say.

Lando switches to Youtube and vlogging when your relationship stabilizes so he can spend more time with you. His fans — and yours — love catching glimpses of his elusive Formula 1 driver girlfriend in his videos. It's a running joke among his fans that Lando is your sugar baby, which Lando finds extremely funny and shamelessly accepts.

Eventually, both of you realize that you've found the love of your life and you start thinking about marriage. You propose to each other at the same time, on the vacation that you each planned for the other, while your mutual friends who knew about both sides die of laughter from the sidelines.

Lando insists on taking your name as well and declares that he's now officially your trophy husband.

("Get it? You get trophies from your job, which brought us together, so technically I'm a trophy now too?" "Yes, Lando, I understand double entendres perfectly well." "Ooooh French, fancy!")

→ LEWIS HAMILTON

You meet Lewis in your childhood. He karts at the same track as you and you bond over the shared experience of being "other" from the other drivers. No one ever bets on either of you to be fast, to win, so you bet on each other. Lewis supports you with his entire being, even when he chooses to leave racing to chase other dreams. You dreamed of reaching Formula 1 together but Lewis, in this world, is happy cheering from the paddock.

Everyone around you is convinced that you're dating Lewis, who has become a highly successful model and philanthropist. Who else would would take time out of their insanely busy life to follow you around the world? The closeness between you doesn't help either — Lewis acts like your partner more often than not.

Despite appearances, however, Lewis is just your best friend, and it stays that way until a PR disaster with your respective relationships calls for extensive damage control. The best distraction that your media teams can come up with is that you fake-date each other: what better to appease the masses with than the ever-beloved tale of childhood friends to lovers?

The fake relationship changes something in your previously stable friendship. Suddenly, you can't stop seeing Lewis in a different light and you find yourself wishing that the romance was real. You're terrified of losing one of the most important people in your life, so you keep quiet about your true feelings for months as things calm down.

Eventually, your manager gives the all-clear to end the ruse and you end up scrambling for a reason to maintain it. By that time, Lewis has caught on to you. He stops by one night with a bottle of wine and your favorite movie. As the credits play, he leans over and kisses you softly — the first time he's kissed you out of the eye of the public.

You're lost for words and he quietly assures you that no matter what happens if you pursue a real relationship, he'll always be your Lewis.

Ten years later, happily married with a couple of championships under your belt, you couldn't be happier that you had chosen to say "hi" to the boy at the karting track.

likes and reblogs are appreciated!

masterlist | taglist: @scenesofobx @vellicora @boiohboii

[pawberri]

My most hated counterargument to the idea that therapy is useful is:

"Therapy is totally individualistic. If you say that you're scared of climate change or racism they'll tell you to stop being scared and solve it internally."

Because you know... while this CAN and DOES happen... it doesn't encompass all of therapy. You know what my therapist tells me to do if I talk about oppression or systemic issues? Volunteer! Get involved in my community! Actively push back on the isolation and hopelessness I'm feeling by Doing Something About It. Plus, even if I tell my therapist "I'm freaking out about climate change" and she says "take a deep breath and remember that the world is not literally ending at this minute", that isn't more selfish or individualistic than posting on tumblr about how you shouldn't get treatment ever because suffering is inevitable. Especially in times like these, getting the help you need to be able to take action and be a part of your community is not shameful. Severe mental health issues that completely derail your life are also not the only or inevitable reaction to these things happening.

I think it annoys me so much because it assumes there are no leftist therapists, no leftist therapists of color, no leftist therapists of color who experience poverty, etc etc. It assumes that the whole scientific field is disinterested in itself and making itself better. I promise you that whatever question first pops into your head has been presented and debated and expanded upon by people whose entire life revolves around it. I read studies all the time that show how forming community around an oppressed identity and participating in activism helps mental health and hopelessness. Yes, the world is full of systemic suffering, but NO, the only solution is NOT to give up and give in. Therapy can genuinely be what you need to survive and get out there and make change, and it's as valid as any other form of medical care. Don't listen to any stupid disengaged therapist who tells you just not to care and disconnect from the world completely but also don't listen to anyone who discourages you from getting help on that basis. That is not the only kind of therapist that exists.

[nekropsii]

ALPHA TROLLS RANKED BY HOW WRONG THE FANDOM AT LARGE IS ABOUT THEM:

This is a personal challenge, based entirely on my own experience and perspective, and also ranked from Most to Least Correct. I was bored, and thought this might be fun.

Putting this under a cut, because it's long as hell.

MEULIN LEIJON

People get her mostly correct, from what I’ve seen… Most of the time, fan content of Meulin is absolutely recognizable as Meulin, but her pride in her deafness + joy of learning new ways to interact with the world through/due to her disability is always removed, and I do not often see people tackle the Toxic Positivity aspect of her character. That seems less like character assassination, though, and more like a combination of people not actually playing through the Openbounds, people not being able to fathom disabled people (especially those who gained a disability later in life rather than being born disabled) being happy, and general fandom distaste for the idea of touching anything uncomfortable, especially when that uncomfortable topic is highly mundane, normalized, and potentially applicable to them or their loved ones. Meulin’s toxic positivity was, of course, commentary on Tumblr’s ecosystem at the time, so… It was much harder to touch back then.

ARANEA SERKET

People tend to get her general, broad strokes personality right, but unfortunately she gets treated pretty roughly for the crime of Being A Serket. People refuse to understand her motivations, and she often gets demonized for what she was doing around/during [S] Game Over, even though that was something she’d gotten pushed to and also was cool as fuck to watch. God forbid a woman do anything.

DAMARA MEGIDO

People are right about the racism, 100%. It is completely despicable, hard to look at, and extremely blatant. She does, however, have character outside of that. No, it isn’t “whore”, it’s more like “angry, dysfunctional abuse victim”, and she’s genuinely a very interesting and tragic character. But, again, people are right about the racism, so she gets to be placed way up here.

MEENAH PEIXES

She is such a chaotic little bastard. I love her. I really do. Please understand that she genuinely does not understand the concept of consequences. This girl didn’t have a Lusus, she didn’t have parents, it was functionally illegal to tell her “No, you can’t do that.” That would fuck up literally anyone’s moral compass. That’s not me hand waving away all the fucked up and bad shit she’s done, we all know what she did, but people tend to forget this aspect of her character and it pains me deeply, because it is a very genuinely interesting concept that I want to see more of. She’s capable of regret, we’ve seen her feel it, I just don’t think foresight is her forte. No one raised her to consider consequences, or help her experience them in a healthy way, because nobody raised her period.

Also, her ass is not butch, she is the girliest girl in the entire comic. She is about hot pink and glitter and kiss marks and unicorns and cute little puns and you will respect that. She is not masculine. Her ass is not masculine nor is she butch. Let her be her hyper-feminine self.

LATULA PYROPE

Please for the love of god there is more to her character than “Gamer Girl” and “Mituna’s Girlfriend”. You are falling for her fucking ruse. Please. Please. Please recognize that her entire character is about internalized misogyny, and being forced to overcompensate for misogyny in gaming circles as a gamer who happens to be a woman. Please. I’m begging.

KURLOZ MAKARA

His character is not that deep, it’s mostly just a string of events he is mysteriously, inexplicably involved with. The Makaras are extremely Function Over Form- their characters practically do not exist, they're mostly just plot devices that exist to push the story along. I'm sorry to Makara fans. You just invented a guy in your mind and decided he was real. He is also not that soft, though, and his relationships with both Meulin AND Mituna are not healthy. Hard to stop people from ascribing cutesy squishy lovey dynamics to random men who happened to have looked at each other once, though. Some people truly haven't graduated from 2012.

HORUSS ZAHHAK

I am begging people to consider that maybe the biggest issue here is not that he is “Bad Otherkin/Therian Representation” and is in fact maybe the fact that Hussie was actually making fun of Systems when he was writing Horuss. Because Horuss is canonically a system. He uses the word system. He uses the word switching. He uses the word host. He literally talks about his Plurality at length in extremely upfront, plain terms. I don’t know how him being “Bad Otherkin Representation” was and still is the main discourse about him. It makes me insane. That is a commentary that truly writes itself. Talk about having your priorities out of wack, honestly...

PORRIM MARYAM

No, she is not a MRA, she’s just a regular feminist who happens to live on a different planet with different politics and social hierarchies from Our Real World Earth’s USA. Whatever argument you’re about to pull out of your ass to say that she sucks is bad. She already explained what she meant by that, in more detail, very clearly, and she was right. Half the time she’s literally just giving you factual information about what Beforus was like, and literal plot synopses. She isn’t saying anything insane. She’s literally normal. I don’t know why people cannot handle or process this. Porrim has not ever said anything controversial. If you disagree with this you’re either misconstruing her on purpose or you fell for Kankri’s bait, and that’s just fucking sad at that point.

Also, she’s more than a sex object, and her tits are not huge. Honestly, half the shit she was saying was just “I am more than my sex life”, and so many people took that and made her main character trait her sex life. Just pathetic.

RUFIOH NITRAM

This man is a fucking war criminal and I will stop at nothing until he is behind bars for his crimes against Damara. Raging misogynist. Total fucking cunt. Just the worst. If I talk any more about this, this part will be 1,000 paragraphs long. But also, I’m begging people to recognize his relationship with disability, too. He was similar to Meulin in the sense that he didn’t mind his disability, and his biggest gripe with it was the way that Horuss tried to “fix” it… Which is an interesting way to expand upon how Beforus’s culling system is not only very explicitly ableist, but mimicking real world systemic ableism. I also want people to recognize that Hussie is actively having a conversation about the reclamation of slurs with Rufioh’s character, and how not letting people reclaim such language is doing nothing but giving the word power against them while stripping away their own personal agency. Rufioh’s a complicated guy, and he’s interesting and also the worst, and I am really tired of how he gets watered down to nothing but “Pretty Boy Victim Of His Inexplicably Psycho Ex”.

MITUNA CAPTOR

Holy Fucking Shit, You Guys Are Ableist.

KANKRI VANTAS

To this day I see people saying he was just Hussie making fun of SJWs. To this day. To this day people think Hussie was trying to make Every Tumblr Leftist look bad, and that he hates them Because They Are Leftists. When will people recognize him as a bootlicker to the oppressive class and the violently bigoted. When will people recognize that. When will people recognize that this is more of a commentary on the legitimate real flaws of Tumblr’s politics at the time. When. When.

When will people stop portraying him as a lovey-dovey Catholic Whore. I’m going to stab my fucking eyes out and then kill everyone in this building. Me when it's based and cool to ship an aroace character with a sexual predator. I GUESS.

CRONUS AMPORA

I say this with every ounce of sincerity I can possibly muster as a person: What the literal actual fuck.

[kyupidos]

updated 08/02/24: here is a part 2 to this analysis!

i think one of the most disturbing yet funny things about sebek antis is how they manage to twist a well written narration about internalized racism and the struggles of being a mixed person into something relating to “fascism”.

( btw there will be SLIGHTTT b7 spoilers in here but i personally think it’s whatever, no big difference to what we’ve known in the past nothing shocking. )

as his biggest fan AND as an ethnic person i feel as though you HAVE to be brain dead and/or white to not understand any of this. he doesn’t genuinely believe that humans are an inferior race, he has MULTIPLE instances praising human people ( riddle, epel ). and the evidence is in firstly, epel’s school uniform vignette where he praises his apple carving, saying it’s even nice enough to be used as a gift to malleus, and we KNOW how highly he regards him. and not once does he ever say anything like “for a human”, or insult him for “being human”, he appreciates his skill.

then there’s riddle’s ceremonial robes vignette, and while he does look down on him, it’s not really even about being human saying, “i would better be served by weight training than riding with a bunch of amateurs” ( in reference that here we see him initially join the equestrian club ). but once riddle proves his skill, sebek is more than willing to respect him highly.

( a small thing from the harveston event that i’ve been told of from a friend as well, he also holds high respect and love for marja. initially he wasn’t fond of her, but she gave him a squirrel plushie for the plush sled race. because of this he’s basically like, “she’s the only reason i got this far!!” and praises her. i haven’t played the event and this is what my friend says, but i figured to at least include this. )

the most insane part is you don’t even have to scour through every single moment he shows up on screen to know this, it even shows in his WIKI that one of his dislikes/pet peeves is “whining.” to be clear, while admittedly he does make patronizing remarks in regards to humans, it’s never enough to say he has a genuine hatred, and in fact he proves the opposite many times, in both epel and riddle’s case. and, in regards to the personality section, again referencing epel and riddle ( there may be other examples, they just happen to be the ones i found specifically ), he isn’t afraid to acknowledge and respect people for their talent or skills, even if they are human.

and if you’re wondering what i mean by it being ethnically related, fae are canonically ( say it with me now canonically, ) considered to be a minority race. being half human half fae is what makes him mixed, equally canonically so. as far as i’m concerned basically everyone in the fandom knows this but the complexity around this part of his character is just SO undermined that people are willing to call him “openly racist” ( to others, not his internalized racism ) and a FASCIST. are you serious?

we know already that sebek learned a lot of what he thinks now from his grandfather, ( sebek zigvolt wiki, trivia ) considering malleus and lilia commenting that his temper is a trait he gets from him ( scary monsters event story for malleus ), which of course is likely what garners his dislike towards his human aspect and his father for being human, even considering his father outputting, trailing off when noting he is human, while being prideful in his mother who is a fae ( birthday boy vignette ).

and what do we learn about his grandfather? he was in a war against humans, which makes it obvious enough how he would learn this internalized racism and why he would put down that part of his human identity. remember that fae age differently, this war wasn’t even that long ago for them. i think it’s a shame people seem to put so much love into diasomnia but not even recognize its lore that’s rooted so deep yet at the same time is right in front of our face.

but that’s all from me folks. willing to dive deeper into my sebek love and analysis if anyone wants it!

[trans-academia]

On hair and anti-black transmasculinity

I wanted to share a journal entry I wrote a few days ago, just to see if someone could identify with it. Or if I'm sending it into the ether, that's cool too.

I've been thinking about gender today. I always feel so dysphoric whenever I take my hair down. Its so strange because my hair is the most feminine things about me. Its like I carry all of my feminine energy in my hair. Which makes sense concerning hair in Black American culture. But sometimes, I think its wrong to think of myself in that way because I'm transmasculine; almost like I'm betraying myself? I'm sure its internalized enbyphobia (?) (I'm not too sure how I feel about that either), as I'm still examining my relationship with Black womanhood, but also, I can't help but think of it as misogynior as well.

Like, my rejection of my natural fro is in part becasue I still outwardly present as a Black woman. And with that, I know that any masculinity attached to me will signal to people, black and non-black alike, that it is acceptable to treat me as an "ungendered woman-thing," as opposed to an ungendered Black woman.

Interestingly, if I imagine a hypothetical version of myself where I have an outwardly masculine appearance, but a feminine hairstyle (think butterfly locs), I feel an overwhelming sense of euphoria. Contrasting again with where I was yesterday, a feminine appearance with the hair to match left me underwhelmed. Not dysphoric nor euphoric. Partially because I'm used to that version of myself but also, there's a weird kind of pride I feel in being Black and hyperfeminine even when not fully identifying as a woman. By defying the misogynioristic notion that Black women cannot achieve femininity, or womanhood, I feel that I have triumphed over something.

And once more, when I hypothesize myself with an entirely masculine presentation, I feel apprehension, maybe wariness, as is expected of people who are Black and masculine in a white supremacist society.

If I were to make sense of all of these hypotheticals, they're all thought exercises on Black transmasculinity as it relates to Black humanity.

I know that whatever my appearance is, no matter how euphoric or dysphoric, my humanity will always be called into question. No matter the presentation of masculinity nor femininity, in any combination or expression on a Black body, there is not "safe" presentation. Thus is intersectionality. I cannot experience the trauma of gender identity or expression without the trauma of antiblack racism. The ungendering, the degendering of Blackness is intertwined with the ungendering and degendering of my transmasculinity.

Anyways, just some thoughts while I develop my theory of transwomanism.

[jesncin]

I really hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but why did you decide to make Lex Luthor, whose motivation is basically racism and xenophobia from my understanding, a person of color? This isn’t like, a criticism, more just, I really like your JL remix stuff and you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one

I understand the curiosity! But I have to point out that "you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one" made me laugh, haha. Long answer coming because I have a lot of feelings- but the point in the very end is worth it, trust me.

So for one, Lex is Afro-Greek in my version. This comes from the popular headcanon that STAS/DCAU Lex is Black (and his design is based on a Greek man). His character design, skin tone, and Clancy Brown's enigmatic performance became unintentional perceived representation for Black fans (and even DC writers). And now in the Harley Quinn show, that's become canonized! For why they like it, that's not my place to say as a non-Black person- so I listen!

I don't agree that Lex's motivation is "basically racism and xenophobia"- his themes are much broader than that. It's the desire to be the Man of Tomorrow, his jealousy of Superman, the way his intellect alone is a match against Superman's strength. Sometimes that jealousy is expressed through bigotry, but it's all a means to an end for Lex. My approach is: if Lex being Black is something we want to integrate more into his character, what opportunities does that open up narratively? Because there's rich potential for him and the characters connected to him.

When discussing MAWS I talk a lot about how when you're writing a bigoted marginalized character, there needs to be specifity with where that internalized bigotry is coming from. So a change like that for Lex Luthor could, for example; discuss how privileges like wealth can assimilate otherwise marginalized people into the kind of power that harms others in their community.

The ripple affect this has on a character like Superboy/Conner is that we get to see how -even though they're both Luthors- Conner is profiled, othered and further marginalized as a Kryptonian and a Black homeless teen because he doesn't get to benefit from any of Lex's privileges. This is just part of the many reasons why I think Conner would be infinitely more interesting if he didn't look like Kal El despite being a clone. You get to see a new intersection of how the Kryptonian identity intersects with Blackness on Earth. The potential ripple effect for a character like Lena is also really fun! What if she's struggling with her own model minority pressure when she's making up for her brother's crimes? It's all very compelling!

And MOST importantly, in a 3 trillion IQ Lex Luthor-style move-making Lex Luthor Black means that some version of Matt Fraction & Steve Lieber's Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen arc exists in my au. Which famously hinges on the twist that LEX LUTHOR AND JIMMY OLSEN ARE DISTANTLY RELATED. THEREFORE!!! We have now found a convoluted way to have Wacky Renaissance Artist Jimmy Olsen connected to The Manifestation Of Black Excellence Evil Edition Lex Luthor in this au.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi,

I am very much not american so I must admit that my first impulse when seeing all the rap/racism discourse was something like "do I really need to consume more american culture, it's fucking everywhere already". Idk but to me it feels like american/english-speaking culture absolutely dominates a lot of the world, sometimes at the cost of out own cultures and languages, if something is in English it is "good", if it is in own own languages it is "bad". Musicians often start singing in English and more american-like after a while to get bigger. We value American culture and music, they mock our accents (and languages sometimes) and best case scenario see us as funny and silly.

Then I started thinking. Do you think that americans kind of see rap kind of like foreign music still? Like low-brow unexotic foreign music.

I don't know this is a really fresh thought and I'm not sure if I am explaining it very well.

hey first off I just want to say -

you are entirely correct in your reaction that people outside of America/the English-speaking world do not need more American culture thrust upon them! this discussion is extremely centered on Americans, the reception and reaction to rap within America, and excuses that white American use to avoid interacting meaningfully with Black culture, art, and ideas. while anti-Blackness as an issue obviously extends far outside of America, this particular conversation is deeply tied to American culture. I appreciate you pointing that out!

I also think you're point about rap, and by extension other Black artforms, being Othered in American pop culture. certainly in terms of language, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which is utilized by many rappers, is still heavily disputed in its validity as a "real" language, with many dismissing it as a bastardized version of "proper" English and associating it heavily with those who are lower-class and uneducated. in a similar way to many international artists having to work in English to gain wider recognition and validation, many Black Americans are proficient in "code switching," the practice of switching between AAVE that they likely grew up speaking and an English dialect that is considered more "professional."

similarly, I think your use of the term "low-brow" is very apt. Black music has always been met with distrust and disdain by white audiences. there's a reason that so many people feel the need to bring up sex, drugs, and violence when they talk about rap; to many white cultural gatekeepers that was all rap was. (and, like, we should very much talk about why that is in and of itself a bad thing, when white crime is so often glorified in pop culture. why is the Godfather a classic masterpiece but Black men making art about their own experiences with racism, violence, poverty, and survival don't deserve serious consideration?) and that didn't start with rap! in the early 20th century jazz, also a Black creation, was seen as dangerous for promoting promiscuity among nice white teens. no matter what Black people make, white cultural gatekeepers will find a way to start a moral panic about it.

the reverse also happens as well, with Black people being treated as foreigners even in music genres that they helped pioneer. Black Americans were hugely formative in the early days of country, but are met with hostility in the contemporary country scene. Lil Nas X's Old Town Road was one of the biggest songs of the year it was released and undeniably country but was largely snubbed by country music community, and Beyoncé's new country album, Cowboy Carter, is a direct response to her hostile reception at the Country Music Awards in 2016.

the point being, yes, I don't think it's off-base to say that, to many Americans, rap and Black music and art generally are like... very optional and avoidable parts of pop culture in the way that more white-dominated genres are not, similarly to a lot of international and especially non-English art.

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Body Horror and Internalized Misogyny

This post showed up in my "for you" feed, and I commented that 63% of people have internalized misogyny, to which two other people asked how being afraid of getting pregnant was misogynistic, so I thought I would explain.

First, the option that the majority of people voted on was this: Pregnancy "sounds like unreal terrifying body horror". Not just something scary or dangerous, but body horror. So lets talk about that first.

Body horror comes from taking something normal and natural about the body and twisting it. Putting teeth where there should not be teeth. Grafting dozens of arms onto every part of the body. Faces in odd places. Limbs bending the wrong direction. Think Dark Souls et al.

Now, one could try to describe normal bodily processes as horrifying, but I wouldn't call this body horror. Take puberty, and all the crazy things your body goes through during it, or describe exactly how each organ keeps you alive in detail. Or take "Skeletons", by Ray Bradbury. This is a horror story in which a man feels aches in his bones and becomes convinces that his skeleton--all skeletons--are some form of Other, some entity inside people that is trying to get out. He describes seeing his wife's skeleton peering out of her mouth each time she smiles, and seeing the shape of people's bones poking out just below the skin.

The thing about this story is that the skeleton is not actually what is horrifying, but rather the man's phobia of the skeleton. It's one of those stories where the protagonist is clearly not in his right mind. It only veers into body horror once the inhuman doctor that first stoked his fears into a phobia shows up and sucks the skeleton out of the man, leaving a gasping, jelly-like mass with nothing to hold it up.

Body horror inherently comes from something being unnatural, something a body is not supposed to have or be able to do.

If one were to view a racial trait, such as more or less body hair, darker or lighter skin, or the presence or absence of epicanthic folds as horrifying, we would call that person racist. If they viewed their own racial traits as horrifying, we wold call that internalized racism.

So now we can circle back to pregnancy. True, pregnancy can be dangerous and scary, and one's body goes through some pretty crazy changes during and after it, but it's also something that female bodies have evolved to be able to do. The potential to become pregnant--the specific gametes and organs and hormones--is literally what makes a body female, at least for placental mammals like humans. Pregnancy is a normal, natural, uniquely and definitively female biological process.

You don't have to want to get pregnant, and it's totally fine to be scared about being pregnant. But to treat it as something unnatural, or as the original poll said, as "unreal terrifying body horror" is to see the capabilities of the female body as somehow Other and alien and twisted. That is misogyny. When women view our own bodies this way, it's internalized misogyny.

[edenfenixblogs]

Some Excerpts As I Read

Reader Note: I have read The Color Purple and would never dismiss the importance of Alice Walker’s work. However, let’s not pretend that she’s too sacred to critique and treat like any other artist who does something racist. Her work to combat anti-black racism and highlight Black American struggles do not permit or excuse when she engages in other forms of bigotry.

I have never seen someone make a public stink about the extraordinarily racist poem, of which the section quoted above is only the tip of that particular racist iceberg.

In fact, I did not even know that Walker had written this horrible “poem” (if you can call an antisemitic diatribe with weird spacing a poem) —despite being very active in leftist spaces for my whole adult AND adolescent life and being an avid reader or both novels and poetry until 2023.

It was brought to my attention when she caught flak for being a TERF, as an incidental aside to prove that she was actually bigoted in several ways. A trait she ALSO shares with JK Rowling.

Look at these headlines. This is what comes up when I search “Alice walker transphobia.” They clearly label her as a TERF. But they do not make the same claim about her identity as BEING an antisemite. It is removed from her. Antisemitism is clearly not the focus here, which is fine. It is older news. These stories are reporting on her more recent bigotry. Cool.

These are the first results that come up when I search “alice walker antisemitism.”

The first result is from The Times of Israel, which makes sense, because that’s a place where a lot of Jews live and a lot of Jews will be upset by the things she wrote. But it also doesn’t make sense, because Walker is American. Why is the FIRST result about her antisemitism from an international newspaper that happens to have a large Jewish readership?

Why is the NYT headline about how Walker feels about her own bigotry, instead of how her Jewish readers feel?

The New York Magazine Article looked interesting so I clicked it. It was interesting. You should read it. It is an Op-Ed written by a Black, Jewish woman named Nylah Burton. Kudos to her. It was important. And non-Jews need to read it. It was written in 2018.

The Atlantic is next and primarily takes on the work of critiquing a different article in the New Yorker which also minimized the importance and harmful impact of antisemitism.

And then things get interesting. Still, on the first page of results, is this juxtaposition.

Among the many striking things here is the fact that the Jerusalem Post is writing from 2023. Al Jazeera is writing from 2019.

If you’ve read any of the above links or text you will note that yes, Alice Walker’s “offense” is indeed antisemitism. It’s not really debatable. She’s done many, many horrifically antisemitic things.

And yet, Al Jazeera jumps in, unprompted, to defend a known antisemite? Why?????? Oh, because she supports Palestine.

Well…perhaps…just maybe…supporters of Palestine shouldn’t want to leap to the defense of antisemites who spout blatant misinformation about the I/P conflict, demonize the Jews they know personally, and trade in antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Unless of course…they don’t care that they are pushing pro-Palestine Jews out of leftist spaces in the first place.

When did it become acceptable for leftists to excuse someone’s bigotry as long as the bigot agrees with you on other stuff?

[moonyasnow]

Ok ok ok I just had a thought about Sebek and I NEED to share it.

Maybe I'm late to the party and everyone has already caught this same vibe, but if I don't say this I will burst.

I was reading Sebek's Outdoor Wear vignette, and I read this line:

"Well, Malleus IS a great man. Anyone else would certainly pale in comparison…"

And something just physcially hit me.

Sebek, half human half fae man with for sure some complicated issues in regards to internalized racism, is telling on himself. This is exactly how he feels. Like, of course we all know Sebek reveres Malleus, but I think it could be a thing of, Malleus is basically THE fae. While Sebek might also think (and honestly be right about thinking) that most people, Sebek included, pales in comparison to Malleus's abilities, I actually think that in his heart, it's more of a race-related thing than he realizes.

He wants to be more like Malleus, wants to be around him, is so enamoured with him to the point of obsession, for the same reason he calls other humans 'human'; as though to distance himself from the very notion that he, too, could be human at all.

He holds Malleus up as a symbol because to Sebek, that is what he is. The pure essence of 'fae-ness', if there could be such a thing. And so it seems to me like some part of him, conscious or not-- though probably not, I don't see Sebek as the type to want to think deeply about these sorts of things— thinks or feels that if Malleus approves of him, then other fae will, too.

As though Malleus' approval could somehow erase the human blood in his veins that he seems to ashamed of. Or at least make other fae overlook it. Forgive it.

It's a mix of both. He truly does revere Malleus, seeing him as a representation of everything he wishes he could be: fae. Accepted by other fae. And he's going to be the future fae king's #1 supporter so that all fae will know just how fae HE— Sebek Ziegvolt— is.

Like I said, I definitely don't think Sebek himself has really reflected on this at all, but the more I learn about him, the more obvious it seems to me

[awkwardandeccentric]

So I actually like how Blitz’s and Stolas’ prejudices are written. It feels a lot more real and like something they have to work on and overcome.

Too many stories have their protagonists just completely unaffected by the world around them. “Damn, racism is a problem? Well that’s bad! Someone as good as me can’t be racist!”

Which…oh my god. Now that I’m typing it out, does explain so many antis. Literal child shit.

But anyone of a marginalized status can tell you that’s not how it works? Even the bestest best boy will internalize racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, ableism…all the -isms. You can’t “good person” your way out of being affected by your culture.

As an autistic person, I still get annoyed when people don’t make eye contact. Because I’m making the effort to mask, damn it, why aren’t you putting in the effort to hide something shameful like I am? And then I have to take a moment to remind myself that autism isn’t shameful and eye contact (or lack of it) is morally neutral and culturally relevant.

And when media portrays bigotry and prejudice as The Thing Only the Bad People Do and not a series of systems, behaviors, and thoughts that divide people based on arbitrary characteristics, it feels disingenuous. People that may have some unfortunate opinions on things, like “rap music is bad” and “gay people are fine when they’re not being cringey about it” and “men shouldn’t cry” (*coughStellaStanscough*) will never look inside themselves if they think of these systems as “The Good” and “The Bad”