#this is my feeling as a biracial person but it is also very much informed by the fact that i am whitepassing

[unseemingowl]

Saga Anderson, and Nordic rep in Alan Wake 2

Early on in Saga Anderson’s exploration in Alan Wake 2, she runs into Ilmo Koskela. Fiercely proud of his Finnish heritage, Ilmo gregariously makes note of Saga’s Nordic sounding name and the familiar design of her knitted sweater. Perhaps a fellow Finn?

Alas no, Saga’s mom is Swedish she informs him. Immediately Ilmo’s face falls. I’m not sure if it’s actually just the animated character defaulting to his resting face, but either way the timing is too perfect. Cue uproarious laughter from me. People in the Nordics are on friendly terms of course, but we gotta have the tiniest bit of… scornfor each other. All in good fun of course. It’s traditional.

Now, I’m Danish, not Finnish, but still, I feel right at home in the towns of Bright Falls and Watery in Alan Wake 2. All of the little nods to Nordic culture and mindset feel so wonderfully familiar to me. The melancholia, the irreverent sense of humor, the affection for the Finnish and Swedish quirks of the characters. The game feels all the stronger in tone and narrative for Remedy embracing the Finnish roots of the studio.

Which is exactly why it sucks that I almost immediately saw the charm of those narrative decisions weaponised against Saga.

I first watched the scene between Ilmo and Saga on a lets play when I was trying to figure out if I should finally dip my toes into survival horror and buy the game. Delighted by the writing I took a look into the comments to see if people were vibing as hard with it as I was. They were. But I also saw a comment that made me frown.

Paraphrasing, it basically went, come on, like hell a guy like Ilmo would make the assumption that a black woman is Finnish. There are a multitude of reasons why I think that person was wrong, mainly that Nordic people love it when we run into each other in other countries, but it also just made me sad.

Saga being black does not negate her Swedish heritage. Formally, she is American, sure (I assume, not sure how that works in the US), but she’s raised by her single Swedish mom, of course she’s going to identify heavily with that part of her herself. It’s a profound and essential part of who she is.

But hey, I’m a white potato Dane, so I’m not gonna argue that I know much about the experience of being biracial. I’m gonna stick to what I know, which is that Saga is a very moving and beautiful example of something that I’m actually not used to seeing much of - a story about connecting with your Nordic heritage and roots. And it’s part of why I love her so much.

When Nordic people show up in big, international productions, it’s usually as Vikings, and sure, it’s fun to see our wild ancestors, but contemporary questions of Nordic identity and heritage is not something I often see explored. Not even in our own productions.

So much of Saga’s story is about family. Fighting for her current one, Logan and Casey (and sure, David too, lol), and rediscovering her first one. Tor and Odin.

Her discovering her ties to Tor and Odin is profoundly moving and made me teary-eyed several times over. And sure, a lot of those ties are fantastical in nature, but they still feel very much grounded - and what makes us Nordic if not the ties to our myths and legends that Tor and Odin have made themselves the living avatars of.

While Saga’s mom, Freya, had good reasons for leaving the Anderson seer magics behind, seeing them as part of what made her family fucked up, she also cut Saga off from the fullness of her capabilities. It is only through Saga reforming her family, healing its scars and fully embracing the Anderson heritage that she becomes as powerful a parautilitarian as she is at the end of the game. That’s beautiful.

And in fact I think Saga being black only deepens the richness of those themes rather than negate them or make them irrelevant. Because yes, Saga’s story would have been moving if she was a white character too, but I am very well aware that a lot of biracial people of Nordic ancestry can feel alienated from that part of themselves. Not least because questions of who gets to claim a Nordic heritage can get pretty ugly around here. There are most definitely people who share the racist mindset of that commentator. It adds an extra dimension. Which is why seeing Tor and Odin’s eagerness to claim Saga as part of the Anderson heritage is all the more moving. Through her magics, she’s just so obviously an Anderson, and they’re so damn proud to call her theirs and fight alongside her. Because they all got that wild Viking blood in them. They’re part of her and she’s part of them.

Roger Ebert, the film critic once called movies empathy machines. I think games, when they’re at their best, can be an even more intense variation of that. Which is exactly why it baffles me that some people can play through Alan Wake 2 and still think Saga is a stunt-woke character rather than someone fully and beautifully integrated in the narrative. A narrative which, at its most basic level – in my opinion – is about the mystical bonds we form with each other and the rest of the world through art and love and blood and family and heritage. All the great horror doesn’t negate that either, it amplifies it. Kind of like that clicker.

[bigalockwood]

Hey hey, so idk if you wanna answer this as well (and if you somehow did during the last few days and I missed it I'm sorry!) buuuut: what are your 5 favorite things about Wille and Simon? :) <3<3<3

Hey Simon, thanks sooo much for asking (I loved your answer by the way!!!) and sorry for how long it took to answer. <3333

Wille

His determination. If he wants something, he goes for it. Sure, that certainty can waver (especially if his mother emotionally manipulates him and a video of him having sex is leaked), but I just keep thinking back to the beginning of S1 and while he had his moments of confusion, he also just went for it. Yeah, Simon kissed him first, but Wille didn't back down either.

His emotional openness. Wille is so open about his feelings with a lot of people, actually. He talks to Felice about how he feels, to his mother (and the entire court, when Simon is on a date for example lmao), but also Simon, and Boris. And I think that's very admirable, especially for someone who lives life under a magnifying glass.

His willingness to learn and change. Dude is just sixteen and tries to remedy all of his wrongs. Even if his ways aren't always perfect, that's still pretty emotionally mature. And I do think that at the end of the day, the intention is what, in this case, matters.

How affectionate and loving he is with Simon. He just doesn't hold back at all, once he realizes Simon is what he wants.

His bravery. He threw up before he had to do a fucking class presentation and then went ahead and came out to basically the entire nation, because it was what he thought was right. Like, OkAy, dude.

Simon

His ability to forgive (sometimes to a fault). Like, seriously. Where does he store all of the forgiveness? Does he have an external hard-drive? I can't imagine forgiving people for the things he forgives them for.

How caring he is (again: sometimes to a fault). I don't think I need to elaborate on this.

How much he stands up for himself and upholds his boundaries. It would have been so much easier to give into Wille's wishes between S1 and S2 Ep5. But Simon stood his ground and asked for what he thought he deserved. And I love how honest his communication is in these situations too!

How much he tries to stay true to himself, even if faced with an overwhelming amount of negativity for who he is. Going to Hillerska as an openly gay, biracial, poor kid sucks. It would've been so easy to fold under the pressure and pretend to be someone else. But Simon knew that even then, he'd never be truly accepted, and just stuck it out. Which isn't easy.

His bravery. If I had been in his position and someone didn't reciprocate my kiss, I'd be out of there in a millisecond. Very useless information about myself: I'm a fast runner. Like, fast fast. The person couldn't even blink and I'd already be gone, but Simon just stayed. What a brave soul.

Technically just 5 things, I know, but I also love how petty Simon can be. Gremlin Simon is my favorite Simon <3 Unhinged Simon checking Wille out while dancing with Marcus? Gremlin Simon throwing the ball at Wille? Best moments of S2, hands down.

[fearsomeandwretched]

Top 10 Books of the Year

The idiot - I loved this book so much! Beautifully written and the protagonist was v interesting. Loved being inside her head. A real not much happens but the vibes are exquisite book

The girls who went away - I had to put this book down at least once each chapter to sob, but it's such a worthwhile read!! So informative!! The author has personal experience with the material she's writing about and you can really tell with the care and thought she put into telling each of the birth mother's stories. One of my favorite non fiction reads ever honestly

Crying in H mart - Such a good memoir!! The author's love and grief for her mother are palatable when reading and the entire book is a beautiful tribute. The stories she shares are incredibly touching. I found her discussions of how food played such a huge role in her reclaiming her culture as a biracial person esp after her mother's death fascinating.

Olga Dies Dreaming - prob my fave fictional read of the year! I found the characters and plot completely engrossing. I literally couldn't put it down. I devoured it in like a day and I think it's almost 400 pages which is a lot even for me.

Wishful drinking - Fisher is so funny and has such a strong and unique voice!! I loved this book. It's such a short read too

Godshot - very, very dark and honestly hard to read at different points, but also so hopeful and such a beautiful poignant portrayal of girlhood and mothers/daughters

The vanishing half - definitely the best book I read this year. Truly a masterful work

Lapvona - SUCH a disgusting and weird book but like with all of Otessa's books I literally couldn't get the characters out of my head. My only critique is I wish she'd focused more on the female characters I feel like that's her strength tbh

In the dream house - such a compelling book!! A painful, hard read but such a complex accurate portrayal of domestic violence. Also the formatting is ingenious

Disorientation - also couldn't get these characters out of my head. Such a page turner there is so many plot twists in this! And so funny

[rodanseys]

Review: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Genre: Memoir

Rating: 5/5

Synopsis: Michelle Zauner, known more famously as the lead singer behind the band Japanese Breakfast, recounts her relationship with her mother through her adolescence until her early adulthood, when her mom died from cancer.  Being half-Korean on her mom’s side and born in the U.S., her mother’s death also causes Zauner to fight for cultural self-understanding. 

Content warnings: child abuse, death, racism

Review under the cut | More reviews & my 2023 reading list  

If you are looking for a sign to read this book, take this review as that sign!!!

Okay, I get the hype.  This book was piercing, funny, full of love, and full of hope.  I had a grandmother pass away from cancer when I was 10; spending lots of time in the hospital with her, I learned just how much chemotherapy could deplete a person’s body and spirit.  Zauner’s ability to capture that was just as impressive as the bravery I am sure that it took her to write the words down. 

More than anything, I really enjoyed how Zauner didn’t tell all of her story chronologically.  She has a masterful way of alluding to a big dynamic in her life (for example, her relationship with her dad), then cutting to a specific memory (despite the laws of chronology) to prove how that dynamic came to be, then going back into her chronological retelling.  It allowed everything to come to the surface at the perfect time for the reader to need the information without loosing the artistic craft of writing.  And, god, does Zauner have artistic craft with writing!  It wasn’t a memoir written by someone who wants to just put themselves at the center of a story, but someone who knows how to write to make a reader empathize without needing to know the face behind the memoir.  I felt so distinctly with her.  I feel like I can draw a picture of her family house’s kitchen.  Everything about the book, from the honesty of the story to the intricacy of the prose, asks you to come in closer... and you really don’t have a choice except to oblige. 

I was openly sobbing in the section of the book describing the cancer treatments, both because of my personal experience and her unrelenting writing.  There was so much love everywhere for her mother that it was inescapable.  And so beautiful.  And so relatable. 

The way she approached how her biracial identity impacted her whole life, but was brought to a crux by her mother’s death, also hit home to me.  The desire to turn away from your non-white heritage just to come back running to it when it is too late... I saw this in my father who, while seeing his dad die, was asking him more than ever for Tagalog translations of English words.  There is something so gripping and real and relatable in her struggle.

I can’t wait to reread this when I feel up to it.  For now, I will let it settle into me, feeling very grateful that Zauner was willing to share this story.

[dumbdomb]

"being black is more than being mixed with it" and "phenotypical whiteness" implies that your pov on what it means to be black is reduced to only having dark skin (and possibly other phenotypically "black" traits as well).

"being mixed with black" or being the child of a biracial person "makes you white" is what you have said.

to the best of my understanding, these are the points you are trying to convey. it is a notion that undermines one's self to nothing but physical appearance, which is misleading and literal propaganda of pseudoscience. you are making statements that reject a person's entire culture, their ancestral lineage, their own family, and ignoring the actual U.S. history of racism; whereby a white-passing person, like myself, could have a child with another white person - and that child would still NOT be considered a White Person. racism has never been about a person's appearance... pseudoscience has only used appearance bias as a tool to justify prejudices against people being colonized, stripped of their cultures and languages, and very much literally dehumanized for the benefit of those in power.

by this logic, you see me as white and deem it so. other people have seen me as hispanic/latinx, east asian, native american, and pacific islander... would they, likewise, be correct in their perception of my race? and would it be correct for me to change what i refer to my race as being based on what these other people perceive me as? your first message to me was inquiring about my race, so i understand that my appearance was not white-passing enough for you to be completely sure of my race, either.

regardless, i have no concern what you perceive me as bc your opinion or perception of me is irrelevant to who i am. i do not reject my light skin, but i also embrace my Blackness. if this bothers you, there is no one asking you to remain here except yourself... i owe you no defense or justification for anything about myself (but i do enjoy personal connections and opportunities to learn or share how i'm able).

it is clear you have no intention of engaging in meaningful and genuine conversation with me, as your only points have been rudely phrased and without opening for me to respond - closed statements. it's very likely you haven't read anything about me or my full response to the "orders" you've sent me. i am only posting this to share relevant and useful information about "critical essentialism" and what it looks like.

the following is from the "Racial and Ethnic Misclassification in the United States" wiki page:

Given that race is socially constructed and does not have an underlying biological or genetic origin, a person's race is often determined by their heritage and self-identification as a member of a racial group or groups. The United States census officially recognizes five racial categories: White, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and Two or More Races.

Both race and ethnicity are considered complex and fluid, and one's identification with race/ethnicity may change based on context, life experience, and in response to others. Racial essentialism is a view that race/ethnicity has an "essence" that is inherited, innate, and unchanging. Despite genetic and biological research attesting that there is no biological basis for race or genetic profile that is common to people with the same racial category, racial essentialism is a common lay theory that promotes rigid ideas about social hierarchies.

Although it often feels that humans are accurately experiencing the physical world around them, in reality, perceptions of others are biased by previous experiences and one's own identities. Racially ambiguous people are likely to experience repeated misclassification and moreover, are likely to be misperceived as several different races/ethnicities instead of consistently being misclassified as the same, incorrect race/ethnicity.

There is some research to suggest that ambiguity can lead to more negative social interactions from observers... One situation that racially ambiguous people often encounter is being asked by others to explain their racial background or to answer the question, "where are you from?" (or in this instance, "what is your race?") In cases like these, the observer communicates their uncertainty about the actor's race/ethnicity, that the actor seems different from other people whom they presume belong in the space, or that they do not seem "American."

This information is available here (pinned post).

[escapekissed]

i know some people go on to frozen 2 for the plot twist but i’ve done research into saami culture and there are like. legit documentaries about people not knowing they were saami and then finding out about it.

in a way elsa is a better metaphor for being a biracial person than she is a lesbian narrative, or even a narrative about mental illness. 

elsa has been taught from a very young age to hide something very apparent to everyone despite showing royal elegance and obvious conformity to femininity. lesbian narratives, to me, are like, a ‘i found out i like girls’ in middle/high school/later in life story, unless ur like, actively gender nonconforming. there are little hints all through out ur life, of course. but when ur just a kid and u only hang out with ur sister---how are u gonna know ur gay and not just a random kid that DOESN’T like boys. like ur probably gonna just assume ur a late bloomer? and then later---why would she have to ‘hide’ that she was gay when she doesn’t hang out with literally anyone at all and she isn’t viewed as an elligible bride as much as her younger sister is (at least in the novels, by hans at least)?

of course elsa is obviously gay as hell as both an adult and child BUT. I THINK IT WOULD TAKE SOME TIME IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD FOR HER TO FIGURE THAT OUT FOR HERSELF, and she wouldn’t figure that out by having magical superpowers. she’d have to like. meet a girl or a nice english teacher she really liked u know? lmfao

'conceal don’t feel’ to me INSTEAD represents. a mother who married a boy whose father killed her tribe’s elder. who had to hide who she was, and then gave elsa & anna little hints, little secret signs of love to show them the contents of her heart and the way she learned how to love at all in a way DEFINED BY HER CULTURE-----but who had to hide who she was for her own safety. and then who then passes down that knowledge of how to protect yourself from the outside world to the daughter she views as more vulnerable and in need of help, whose ‘connection’ to their culture (through her magical abilities, as the northhuldans WHOLE THING is about magic) is more visible.

in the books, iduna goes out and learns as much as she can about magic to help elsa. but u also have to imagine that she does that a little bit to help the people she left behind. that part of her wondered---if atohollan could save her daughter, could atohollan also save her people? could elsa be some sort of key in all of this, some meeting of her old life and new, the northuldrans and their love of magic and arendelle and their resources and power?

she knew she raised strong, brave girls, even if she hid them away from the world. she did it out of a kindness and a fear that i feel like every person with parents of color understands in some way, in the same conversations we have with our parents about how to conceal the parts of urself white people find unpalatable and how that LITERALLY makes u feel less magical in the process in elsa’s case.

in frozen 2 elsa’s magic literally becomes such a powerful representation of finding ur own culture and history and heritage, and im KIND OF MAD ONE SONG OFF THE SOUNDTRACK that implies that anna goes to a secret library somewhere trying to figure out their heritage in some draft of the movie and she is denied finding out in a more character-building way about their mother.... but whatever idk this is so rambly and badly written alfjdkslfjdsklfj

anyway long story short. frozen 2 is better than frozen 1. arendelle should have been destroyed. stan anna and elsa and iduna, skinny legends.

[grey-sorcery]

Content warning:

This article contains information that some within the community will feel targeted by. This article will also contain subjects such as: suicide, cults, gaslighting, godphoning, sexual grooming & abuse, and trauma bonding.

What is a personal narrative?

A personal narrative is a story that someone tells themselves in order to make themselves feel happy, important, powerful, hated, or even loved. These narratives are occasionally linked to psychosis and mental illnesses. Personal narratives often exist to help a person feel like the “main character” in their own lives and gives them a sense of purpose and an escape from their realities. 

How can personal narratives affect witchcraft?

Personal narratives and UPG can form a venn diagram, in the center of which lies some of the most toxic of our community. Personal narratives can become an individual’s excuse for appropriating from closed cultures, or for starting a cult. I, personally, have met several individuals who thought they were practicing magic, when in fact they were roleplaying within their own personal narratives and trying to pull other practitioners into it. This can happen through a variety of ways but most often through trauma bonding or shared "past lives".

Personal narratives surrounding the astral plane

After much discussion with other practitioners, I have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of practitioners whose experiences in the astral plane are pure personal narrative. In my experience, as well as several other practitioners whose perspectives I’ve come to trust, the astral plane does not contain much form and is not inhabited by many spirits. It is more of a transitional space. It is similar to the dreamplane, however all constructs must be formed consciously. Any spirits you may come across are likely there as they migrate from one location or spatial dimension to another. I’ve met several people who’ve claimed to be advanced in astral projection, only for them to spin their personal narratives around others in order to have another person to interact with in their astral narrative. There are words to describe this process: cognitive and confirmation bias.

Personal narratives surrounding Otherkin

Most otherkin are well within their spiritual practices and do not necessarily spin or reside within a personal narrative. However, the otherkin community is a hotbed of manipulative and cult-like phenomena that centers around some personal narratives. Specifically those who claim to be incarnations of spirits or deities. These individuals tend to try to pull others into their narratives in order to have a sense of power over others, and if threatened will build their sense of power by trying to threaten or scare those they are trying to manipulate. 

Personal narratives surrounding endogenic systems

Endogenic systems are fictional systems in which an individual consciously decides or pretends to have the symptoms of DID, a very serious mental illness that should not ever be glorified or commodified. ALL endogenic systems exist within personal narratives. If an actual spiritual entity exists within a living person, that is not a system- that is possession, which isn't to be glorified at all unless you practice certain closed traditions that rely on such practices. Endogens are notorious for using their personal narratives to exploit others and use it as an excuse to appropriate from closed cultures. (See Tulpa*mancy & biracial systems). Worse, there are many adults that use the personal narratives in order manipulate and groom young people into performing sexual acts with them. While traumagenic systems often contain younger alters due to the nature of the illness. But it isn’t ever used to prey on others.

Many endogens believe or project that they are incarnations of deities. The people who do this only do so to manipulate others into giving up their freedom of thought and choice. Myself and several practitioners I know have been in a few discord servers where a self-proclaimed god-system was an admin or all of the admins were god-systems. They either used this narrative in order to control how practitioners attempted their magic, thought about ethics, and/or interacted with the server in general. *Tulpa systems are worse, as these people actually consciously decide to try to create thoughtforms often called “headmates” to occupy their minds alongside them. The term is not only appropriated from Taoism and sects of Buddhism, but the act itself is very harmful to those who actually suffer from DID. 

Godphoning 

Godphoning is very common within the endogenic system community and the otherkin community. It is the act of “Channeling the will of a god”. It is amazing if you can have auditory conversations with your deities, but it is another altogether to try and do so for a third party. This act exists entirely as an act of manipulation within the online witchcraft community. There exist several closed cultures that work with godphoning, however the way in which it is approached is very different from those of most online practitioners.  There is a level of respect and reverence that is used in those cultures, not to mention rigorous training. If anyone online ever tries to act as an intermediary for a deity for you, STOP. Nothing good ever comes of it. 

Dangers of fantasy in the witchcraft community

Many of the narratives that are spun in the witchcraft community tend to form around cult-like mentalities. These go well beyond UPG and directly into dangerous narratives used to manipulate others. It is too common for someone to try to pull someone into their narrative. The leading issue with this that trickles out to the rest of the community is misinformation. While UPG has its validity, once it becomes a cult phenomena it tends to seep out into the larger communities. It is so important for each practitioner to be aware of cognitive and confirmation bias when dealing with the mystical and occult.

What to watch out for on witchcraft social media like Discord

All of the dangerous and disrespectful behavior discussed above is most prevalent on Discord. On discord it is easy to isolate a target and “initiate” them. If the cult/cult-like community is already established then there's no need to isolate. The things to watch out for include, but may not be limited to:

An individual or group who claim to be able to communicate with gods.

DM’s from individuals who claim to have met you in a dream or in the astral.

Servers that try to limit your interactions in other servers. 

Individuals who try to obtain your personal information, typically done through the guise of godphoning or divination.

A central leader that everyone obeys/listens to without question.

A server mentality that limits free-thinking.

A server that is built around a central deity or religion.

Individuals who weave you into their stories without your input or consent.

Threats of magic or curses from an individual or group.

A system that contains children in an adult body.

A system that contains multiple racial caricatures. 

A system that is not trauma based.

I have seen members of our community take their own lives as a result of these personal narratives and the aim of this post is to try to prevent that from happening to anyone else.

Some content creators & discord servers that are heavily based in personal narratives:

@malachitelibrary (Astral)

@chicagognosis (A lot)

@astralrealmer (Astral)

@sophieinwonderland (Endo)

@endoaffirmations (Endo)

@dramaticclown (*Tulpas)

@cottagebabie (Godphoning)

DKMU (A lot)

Astral Society (Astral)

Witches Cottage (A lot)

Andromeda Coven (A lot)

If you have any questions, content suggestions, or just want to check out my blog: click here.

[theinkymystery]

Hey so I've been looking at your post about half breeds in the story, I've noticed that it's mostly about half demons and that got me thinking about your average toons (human and animal toons specifically) half breeds.

So firstly I want to ask about Oswald's race. I've personally interpreted him as half rabbit, half mouse but like rabbit passing? (Like how someone can be half black, half white and be white passing so you wouldn't know they are half black unless you asked) since he's often referred as Mickey's half brother in the source material or are you taking the approach that he's adopted and full rabbit?

Further on that thought would Oswald's kids be triracial or just biracial? I know that the kids look very bunny passing now but the artwork from thebbros older versions of the kids has some of the kids tails grow out into a cat's tail. And I think some of them have fangs if I remember correctly.

I also wanted to touch on the possible discrimination around half breeds in IM if you're taking that route. On that, did Oswald and Ortensia ever get any rude or backhanded comments about being a cat-rabbit couple? Also would kids with parents of different races be picked on or discriminated against for it especially the ones who don't pass as one race? Again with my example of Oswald and Ortensia would their kids that develop more cat-like physical traits be discriminated against?

Also since appearance plays quite a big factor on the surface would it be a factor in the way half breeds are discriminated against, like maybe for example some half breeds that are seen as attractive being sexualised and fetishized?

(Sorry for the lengthy ask, I'm just curious on the take IM has on half breeds since it can be seen as an allegory for people of mixed races)

Okay! There’s a lot to answer. First, I’m gonna address Oswald. For IM they are full brothers. I’m not playing the half brother/adopted junk. Oswald already gets so much flack in the Disney company, I am determined he receives all the respect of a fully developed character in my story (I have similar feelings for Fanny Cottontail). 

Though there are some parallels between race and species in Inky Mystery and they share important themes, I wouldn’t say they are interchangeable or a perfect parallel. After some research I had to make some choices and I went with the logical ones. The bunny kids will stay bunnies despite thegreatrouge’s art. The reason for this is because most, if not all, the animal toons’ families are mixed. Donald has some geese as blood relatives. Minnie has a few rat relatives. Mickey has some rabbits. But they are all distinctly those species. If I made the bunny kids half-cat, part-bunny, and part-mouse with physical traits reflecting that, it’d break the continuity of the rest of the cartoon world I’m working with. The one Disney and a number of other studios built up over the decades. Since I’m working from so many sources that have this in common I will go with their information and not the webcomic artist’s because it would break that. If the bunny kids have cat features, why doesn’t Oswald have a mouse tail? Why doesn’t Minnie have rat traits? If it was just Oswald, maybe, but I have too many mixed species characters that don’t reflect that mix physically. That’s where the parallel between race and speices breaks in the story and in cartoons in general. 

That being said there are still similar themes. Wolves and other predators are seen as threatening. Rabbits are seen as cute. Raccoons are seen as untrustworthy. People are unfairly judged for what they are instead of who they are. 

Regardless of toons not reflecting physical traits, I still think there would be people that would take issues of certain couples and families. There would be some that would find Ortensia and Oswald’s relationship as a problem. Same with Holly and Finley or Fanny and Brute (not for the obvious problems there but them being a wolf and a rabbit) and so on and so forth. 

For the halflings and the demiangels and others, they do have those sort of mixed traits. Demon halfings have traits that show. Demiangels too. Half gorgons and so on. Mostly in terms of magic. But the other parent can be a human or a cat or wolf or a bear and they’ll have those physical traits. Like Cala Maria or Demencia or Leila’s wolf nieces and nephews. But not every magical species does that. Dishes at more like animal toons. Either the child is born a dish or they aren’t. 

I hope that clarifies some things. It isn’t perfect and doesn’t reflect the world and it’s issues perfectly, but it’s what I’m working with to tell a story with consistent rules.

[jasper-pagan-witch]

Jasper Reviews: Queer Magic by Tomas Prower

So instead of giving a breakdown of this book like I did with two of Bree's books, I'll just summarize my thoughts and feelings on this book.

Tomas Prower mentions that his background, going into this book, is as an ex-Catholic biracial (white/Mexican, he specifies in one chapter) queer man. This information is scattered through the book, and none of it is located in the About the Author blurb (which instead focuses on his cool past and previous mundane experiences).

This book is THICK. Ignoring the introduction, outro, and bibliography, it's 252 pages of content (minus a few "blank for formatting purposes" ones). This is a hefty little manuscript because it wants to cover nuance, but it's also thinner than it could be because it's trying to cover a lot of different topics.

It's a nice blend of history, religions, modern thinking, and magic - it isn't specifically for witchcraft, it isn't specifically Wiccan or pagan, it isn't a boring history textbook that you doodle dicks in the empty spaces of (or maybe you will, I'm not in charge of what you do with your copy).

Tomas Prower cites sources for his claims, directs you to other places for further reading, and, most importantly of all, takes historical context into account. He doesn't pretend that everything was perfect and beautiful for historical queer people and that Christianity was the sole catalyst in anti-queer rhetoric forming, but makes note that colonization did a lot of harm to queer people in many cultures and religions in the past.

There are prompts for practicing magic at the end of each subchapter. I found these very useful because it approached magic from a specifically queer perspective, but not so much that the magic itself was lost in favor of performative activism (which I've seen in a few books marketed to queer witches).

While it did poke around into many different cultures and religions to bring different ideas to light (and also introduced me to the core concepts behind many of them), it did miss quite a number, as tends to happen in "broad stroke books" like this one.

Tomas Prower doesn't encourage appropriation and instead encourages you to learn about the religions and cultures talked about before you start willy-nilly adding spirits and cultures and deities to your practice. To quote him, "Eclectic spirituality and cosmopolitanism are one thing, but appropriation and lack of cultural reverence are another." He does not advocate for you to work with the beings (deities, historical figures, or whatnot) from these cultures and religions and instead encourages you to see what the point of these groups are and how understanding the key points can help you on a more personal level or on a local community level.

What he does do is bring in guest writers to talk about their experiences as queer practitioners or members of these groups and share their insight.

He does his best to explain terms to a Western-focused audience who may be unfamiliar with what a bodhisattva or orisha is. If you're already familiar with them, you may find his explanations very watered-down.

When talking about third genders, I noticed that these third genders almost exclusively referred to people born as men but living as women. This seems to be a case of "this is what survived that we have" rather than any bias on the author's part, but the theme of "women aren't paid much attention in these historical societies so we don't really know what they were up to" is a pretty common one in this book (as it is in all history books).

I would summarize this book as primarily queer history with a touch of magic in the prompts and takeaways and a little bit of modern queer information. If you like the tone I use (or wish it was a little softer) when I write, you'll enjoy Tomas Prower's "voice" in this book.

This is unrelated to the review, but I started to notice a pattern of medicine-related deities and liminal deities (like psychopomps or afterlife deities) being picked out more as queer for the examples of this book.

Official Jasper Review: 8/10, I found this to be a good book for what it is

[bright-eyes-strawberry-lies]

Rating PJO Ships

I already made the PJO shipping jar meme (not linking because tumblr hates links) but thought I’d write it out anyway. 

***

Solangelo - (5/10) Will is Nico’s unnecessary rebound because Rick couldn’t let someone walk around with a crush on Percy without pairing them off with someone or making them live a life of chastity. The fandom went wild with this ship despite all of their “development” being off the page. Would be better if the building attraction and relationship was given actual page time to develop instead of being rushed. 

Frazel - (10/10) My only complaint is that we didn’t get more of them being the awesome couple they are. The way they went from friends to lovers is perfect. Looks cute but can kick your ass. Very supportive of each other. I am here for biracial power couples. 

Lukercy - (10/10) There are literally dozens of parallels between them and Rick wrote them as soulmates. I love that Luke trained Percy so hard that Percy’s never lost a sword fight except to Luke himself and still hears Luke’s voice in his head guiding him through fights. The subtle ways that Luke constantly gave Percy (and Co) chances to escape from Kronos’ grasp even when he still believed in Kronos was golden. Luke was the only person who was kind to Percy at Camp Half-Blood and trusted Percy to help other demigods when he died? My heart. How Percy now shares all of Luke’s views on the Olympians? Bittersweet irony. I wish that Luke hadn’t died because I’m tired of writing resurrection AUs. 

Percico - (10/10) The most powerful power couple. Nico’s youthful hero worship giving way to love? Sign me up. Percy spending winter looking for Nico to keep him safe and trying to reassure him that he has a place at Camp Half-Blood? Give me more. Making mistakes and forgiving each other for them and their relationship strengthening because of it? Gods, yes. Going to Italy to go gift shopping and flirting? Thank you for this blessing, Rick. If only they had been endgame. 

Thaliabeth - (7/10) Thalia is the only person that Annabeth respects and Thalia has extremely protective feelings toward Annabeth. They would be the nightmare power couple. Murder wives who slay anyone who stands in their way of power and glory. Neither of them would take shit from the other. And honestly, I’m here for it. 

Perachel - (10/10) Mutual respect and open communication are extremely sexy in relationships. Rachel being Percy’s mortal tie and his chance at a normal life; Percy being the one to help Rachel with her powers and clear sight? Please yes. They were really cute and sweet and had so much chemistry. It would have been great if Rick acknowledged that the Oracle isn’t a lifelong job and that Rachel can still date and have sex as long as it isn’t vaginal penetration. 

Percabeth - (0/10) Annabeth hits, pinches, pokes, kicks, ribs, and punches Percy too often for my tastes. She’s got a superiority complex and makes herself feel better by calling him stupid, crazy, and insane. Constantly threatens violence. Annabeth is possessive, jealous, refuses to communicate, and doesn’t respect Percy or allow him to have autonomy. She constantly wants to control what he says and does or doesn’t say/do. She victim blames him multiple times for incidents that were beyond Percy’s control. Percy is scared of her, refuses to argue so that he doesn’t set her off, and thinks Annabeth is going to hurt him every time she so much as looks at him. Percy deserves better. 

Jiper - (5/10) It would have been cool to see them work past the lies and false memories to make a real romantic relationship but I don’t really have a horse in that race. They’re alright. Not bad, not the best. 

Pipeo - (7/10) If the theory that all of Piper’s memories of Jason were actually memories of Leo is true, then I’m here for this. The fact that they were friends before they even knew they were demigods was fantastic. Give me that friends to lovers dynamic and the chaotic trouble they would get into together. They would be unstoppable. 

Caleo - (5/10) Pairing Calypso up with a man boy instead of a man man was a strange choice but Rick likes pairing up teenagers with beings that are over a thousand years old. It’s terribly romantic that Leo kept his promise and came back for Calypso. I like that they decided to leave the demigod life behind to do their own thing. They’ve had enough of the gods! Let them figure themselves out and enjoy each other and life. 

Connabeth - (4/10) The idea is cute if you don’t think about it at all. I think Connor would stand up to Annabeth but she’s been known to wear down three thousand year old centaurs [Chiron] so that he’ll do what she wants...so I’m not sure that Connor actually stands a chance of holding his own against Annabeth. 

Lukethan - (4/10) It would be really cute but they’ve never even spoken to each other in canon. Ethan spoke with Kronos. 

Thaluke - (2/10) Thalia doesn’t like Luke. She withheld a lot of [trivial] information from Luke just because she could and didn’t tell him important info either. She almost definitely knew that Luke would do whatever she wanted him to because she’s got a Look that makes him melt. Thalia is incredibly eager to kill Luke and eventually does. Luke is too dependent and blinded by how much he wanted someone to love him. They’ve got an unhealthy dynamic and I don’t see either of them changing to become better people together. 

Valdangelo - (6/10) They’re both small and cute. That’s all I’ve got. There’s no reason not to ship them. Oh, and Leo warming up a cold Nico with his fire powers is so sweet that I’ve got cavities just thinking about it. 

Jasico - (9/10) Rick was really writing them with romantic troupes during Mark of Athena and House of Hades. When they were paired off with other people, I was actually really surprised. The way that Jason supports Nico’s queerness and the way that Nico can teach Jason that he doesn’t have to live up to stereotypes and other people's expectations...that would have been really good to read. The way that Jason’s death affected Nico really tugged at my heartstrings. I like to think that Nico visits Jason in the Underworld. 

Thalianca - (6/10) The potential of Thalia and Bianca could have been so good and also good for comedy. Imagine Thalia - who missed the past five years - trying to catch Bianca up on the 21st century and being behind on the times. Both of them getting caught up together? Yes. Training together, friendly games and competitions. Midnight rendezvous at Camp Half-Blood. Bianca slowly showing Thalia that not all Hunters of Artemis are bad. Girls supporting each other and growing as people because of their relationship. This is what we could have had. 

[whitepassingpocs]

Hi! I'm trying to educate myself more, sorry in advance if I misuse any terms. Back when I was younger everyone always just called me "half latin half white". My mom is an immigrant from a Latin American country and my dad is a non-Hispanic white person born and raised in the US (possibly w/ some distant Scandinavian ancestry judging by surname?) I know hispanic people can be from lots of races but I was always called only "half white" or "mixed"... "white Latin" is a very new term to me. (1/5)

But I was like "Well, since my mom's side is not Afrolatino or mestizo as far as I know, then I guess it would be 'white latin'?" But idk if they'd be called 'white passing' though, because you can tell the difference between people on my mom's side (medium complexion, black hair, brown eyes, either don't speak English at all or speak it with a noticeably foreign accent) vs. my dad's side (light complexion, blonde hair, blue eyes, general-American-accent native English speakers). (2/5)

Also, if I call myself 'white latin' I feel like it might make people think I mean two latin-ethnicity white parents, but not my dad's non-latin white side, too. Culture-wise, I feel much more connected to my mom's side, grew up with her traditions more, and I'm not in contact with my dad's side anymore (partly because they do not like latins, which is another thing that makes me feel awkward, since people like them sure don't view my mom as 'white' at all). (3/5)

There are probably more details I could include but I realize this ask is already pretty long. Basically, I just wanted to know - what are acceptable ways to describe myself to people who want to know "So what are you?" without giving a super long explanation? The reason this is kind of more urgent now is because I've seen a lot of people say you should mention your race and ethnicity and privileges in your bio, due to certain instances where people without their race or ethnicity listed (4/5)

will cross a line, then say they belong to a group they don't belong to. I wouldn't do anything like that knowingly, but I still understand why it can be more comfortable for people to know the race / ethnicity of someone before choosing to follow them, and I want to do my best to avoid being deceptive and not accidentally make anyone feel uncomfortable interacting with me. Thanks so much if you can take the time to help, and again, sorry if I got any terms wrong since I'm still learning. (5/5)

hello!

okay so first of all i am not latin in any way so please know that any advice i give is in general and as an outsider to your culture. secondly, you are not obligated to disclose any personal information online, especially if you are a minor. the movement of people sharing personal information online was primarily started by transphobes and white supremacists wanting to identify one another. you do not have to share your race, or ethnicity, period. it's not deceptive to not share personal info online. once upon a time it was actually the norm.

as to what to call yourself, from what you've described i don't see anything wrong with saying you're mixed latin/latine, and if people ask you to elaborate then you can elaborate. identities are rarely so simple for anyone that they can be summed up in simple words or phrases. think of it less as trying to find the perfect fit, but finding something that is a convenient indicator for both yourself and others. terms like 'mixed' 'biracial' etc may not be specific, but they exist as indicators and umbrella terms for complex identities. only you can choose what you're most comfortable with.

i'd also invite you to have a scroll through our latine, latin, and latinx tags to see others who have contacted the blog with similar feelings. wishing you all the best, sorry i can't be more of a help!

if any latin followers can help this person and give more specific culturally appropriate advice, pls don't hesitate to reply or contact.

[benandstevesposts]

The Police Department So Bad ––– A Officer Called Black Lives Matter ––– And Complained

A new lawsuit accuses a police department with a history of alleged horrors—KKK magazines left for a Black cop, racist slurs—of firing a policeman who finally blew the whistle.

Over his year of service in the department of Millersville, Tennessee; Black had allegedly been subjected to sexual harassment, including from a female officer who used a racist slur while grabbing his genitals.

The police chief, whom Black suspected of harboring Ku Klux Klan ties, had allegedly made disparaging comments about Black’s biracial son.

The assistant police chief was under investigation for allegedly assaulting his wife during a dispute over an alleged affair with a drug suspect.

Through it all, management allegedly silenced officers’ complaints by instructing them to support the “thin blue line.”

“Nobody would listen to what was going on up there,” Black told The Daily Beast. “Nobody cared.”

So Black made a fake Facebook profile, reached out to Black Lives Matter organizers, and blew the whistle on his department. Days later, he was fired. At least two other officers who allegedly clashed with management departed soon thereafter.

In a new lawsuit, first reported by Nashville’s NewsChannel 5, Black and former Millersville Police sergeant Joshua Barnes describe a culture of harassment and intimidation in their former department. Both men cite a pattern of alleged racist behavior from the department’s leadership—directed at Barnes because he is Black, and at Black because he is white with a biracial son.

The lawsuit’s three defendants are Millersville Police chief Mark Palmer, assistant chief Dustin Carr, and the city of Millersville. Carr did not return The Daily Beast’s request for comment. Palmer stated that, although he would like to address the suit’s allegations, all comments must be directed through the city and its manager. Millersville’s city manager did not return requests for comment.

The case is not the first time Palmer and the city have faced a lawsuit from within their ranks. In 2015, two men who had previously been Millersville’s only Black officers sued Palmer and the city, alleging racial discrimination.

In their lawsuit, which was dismissed with prejudice in 2016, both men claimed Palmer had told each of them that “I don’t like n-----s.” One of the former officers, Anthony Hayes, claimed Palmer took him on an unexplained visit to a former KKK leader’s home, where Hayes “was subjected to an extended conversation in the presence of KKK memorabilia.” Hayes also accused Palmer of placing a copy of a KKK magazine in Hayes’ locker, with a sticky note that read “this was left for you—don’t let your subscription run out.” In their response to the lawsuit, the city denied the allegations against Palmer. (The plaintiffs included in their lawsuit an email from the city manager stating that Palmer would be disciplined in the magazine incident.)

The above photo is a stock photo. It is not intended to suggest any individual is directly involved with this report. Its use depicts the association and the ideology of closed mindedness, police associations are alleged of having when dealing with public groups.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Hayes and the other former officer, Brian McCartherenes, claimed to have been forced out of their posts after they accused the department of racism. Hayes claimed he was “forced to resign” following a punitive shift change. A police memo shows that McCartherenes was fired for alleged racist conduct, because he told a new Black officer that “at the end of the day, remember you are Black.”

“This KKK publication is not something you can go get at the library. You can’t go buy it at the 7/11. These publications are like, homemade...”

McCatherenes claimed he intended the statement as a warning about the risks of being a Black officer in a small town. That new officer was Joshua Barnes, one of the plaintiffs in the latest suit against Millersville’s police brass.

Barnes claims he soon encountered a culture of racism firsthand. Palmer called Black people “n-----s,” “monkeys,” and “animals,” Barnes alleges in his suit, adding that Palmer invoked racial stereotypes about Barnes “always want[ing] to get some fried chicken and watermelon.”

Barnes claims the legacy of Millersville’s previous Black officers lingered over his own employment. Assistant police chief Dustin Carr “informed Sgt. Barnes that Millersville did not want to hire Black people because they may sue the City ‘like Anthony [Hayes] and Brian [McCartherenes] did,’” the lawsuit alleges. Barnes claims the department hired only one other Black person during his tenure: an officer whom Palmer allegedly joked was related to O.J. Simpson. The officer lasted “a few months before he left out of frustration due to Mark Palmer’s racist comments,” the suit reads.

When Robert Black joined the force in June 2019, he had been unaware of its reputation. That changed quickly, he claims, when Palmer learned that Black’s son is biracial. The lawsuit claims Palmer expressed dissatisfaction with Black, telling another officer that “Robert is a little different. He’s not one of us.” When the other officer asked what Palmer meant, the chief allegedly replied “well you know, his kid and all… He’s just not one of us.”

Black told The Daily Beast that Palmer started treating him with hostility around the time of the alleged comments. Other Millersville officers also allegedly turned against Black. A female officer allegedly made repeated unwanted advances toward Black. At one point, according to the lawsuit, the officer allegedly grabbed Black’s genitals through his pants. When Black told the colleague to leave him alone, she allegedly responded “why? Because I’m not a n----r?”

Although Black claims to have reported his colleague, his supervisors allegedly refused to pursue the matter, with Carr allegedly making his own sexualized comments about Black. (Black told The Daily Beast that Carr gave the nickname “Tripod” in the office. “It made me feel very weird,” Black said, adding that other officers picked up on the name before he learned it was an innuendo.)

Carr, meanwhile, was facing other accusations of impropriety after he allegedly began a relationship with a Millersville woman who was charged, but never convicted, on multiple drug counts. Carr was married at the time. In April 2020, according to Barnes and Black’s lawsuit, Carr allegedly assaulted his wife when she accused him of infidelity. Carr began bringing his new partner into the office in May “much to the chagrin” of some officers, the lawsuit alleges.

What Happened When Cops Joined MAGA Hellsite Parler JUST LOOKING AROUND

That month marked another flashpoint for law enforcement. The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer set off nationwide protests, allegedly enraging Palmer. In the lawsuit, Barnes claims to have witnessed Palmer watching a video of a protest in Nashville, during which Palmer allegedly called the demonstrators “n-----s” and “animals.” “Let these motherfuckers come to my house,” the lawsuit claims Palmer said. “I’ll shoot ’em and string those fuckers up in my front yard.”

In August 2020, Nashville’s WSMV reported, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation began investigating Carr for alleged domestic violence. (A TBI spokesperson told The Daily Beast the investigation into Carr “remains active and ongoing.”)

Barnes and Black allege that Carr and other police leadership became convinced that officers were leaking details to investigators. According to the lawsuit, and an October 2020 report by NewsChannel 5, Millersville Police pressured officers not to cooperate with the TBI investigation. “Chief Palmer berated Barnes about the ‘thin blue line,’ and the need to cover for other officers,” the lawsuit alleges.

But while Palmer allegedly warned officers against speaking to TBI officials, Black was ready to go public with a growing dossier of complaints. Following Palmer’s alleged remarks about Black’s son, Black had read up on Hayes’ and McCartherenes’ 2015 lawsuit, particularly Hayes’ account of finding a KKK magazine in his locker.

“This KKK publication is not something you can go get at the library. You can’t go buy it at the 7/11. These publications are like, homemade, produced on someone’s printing press. It’s hate literature,” Black told The Daily Beast.

The rarity of the publication, plus Palmer’s alleged field trip with Hayes to a former KKK house, led Black to suspect the police chief had current or former Klan ties of his own.

“You can’t find this anywhere,” Black said of the magazine. “That’s why I hit up BLM [Black Lives Matter] reps. I was like, ‘hey y’all…’”

“Nobody would listen to what was going on up there. Nobody cared.”

THAT WAS ABOUT TO CHANGE!

Black said that in September 2020, he made a pseudonymous Facebook page and began seeking out Nashville-area Black Lives Matter activists. “I started letting them know: hey guys, maybe you want to look into the police chief up here. It’s a small city and everyone’s so focused on Nashville. This guy was apparently in a KKK lawsuit by a Black cop five years ago.”

Find out how the story concludes. Visit the reports origin - where the author Kelly Weill - introduced the piece. The ending is worth the the click! Besides you have only a short - paragraph or two to go... Go to https://www.thedailybeast.com/author/kelly-weill and read the final paragraphs of this report. It is worth your time and take time to click on social media links so you can follow the story to keep tuned to future updates from Daily Beast concerning this story.

This piece is shared as a service groff-swintMedia.com llc™ galaxy8news.com a gathering of news, information, and unique perspectives from coast to coast, border to border, sea to shining sea, extending your voice, and those of others, into the galaxy. Visit and find your story there today! Galaxy8news.com

[nightwingmyboi]

I'll always remember Devin Grayson as the woman who wrote Nightwing getting raped by a supervillain and then tried to pass it off as "wasn't rape, just nonconsensual"...which is LITERALLY THE DEFINITION OF RAPE, YOU HACK!

MSL: Male rape is a topic rarely touched on in comics. Why is it suited to bring it into Nightwing?

DEVIN GRAYSON: For the record, I’ve never used the word “rape,” I just said it was nonconsensual (I know, aren’t writers frustrating? *smiles*) [x] 

Yeah there is no other word for what happened in Nightwing #93 other than rape...I can’t imagine why she would say otherwise. She did technically apologize, but that was ten or so years later. So she eventually, finally did come out and just admit what everyone already knew, but she was still way too late to actually fix any of the damage she caused with how she completely mishandled things. I also don’t think her little apology begins to cover all the issues I have with her. 

Devin’s characterization of Dick is just so, so freaking twisted to me. Really, I don’t think there is a Nightwing writer I despise more than Devin Grayson. The interviews I’ve read from her give me the creeps:

DG: The way I think about him [Dick], he likes everyone, he’s sort of a contact junkie - just this incredibly physical (and attractive) person who lives wholly in the corporeal plane and responds with - processes things in - his body before his head or heart. I imagine that he can be hypnotized by a touch the way other people can be stopped dead in their tracks by the sight of money or the promise of true love. I think he likes kicking and kissing in almost equal measure - except kissing edges out ahead because you can do it for longer and it leads to nicer things. [x]

Yeah that’s fucking unsettling. This is Devin being gross and projecting her sexual fantasy’s onto Dick. And she very much invented this extreme view of Dick as obsessively physical. Pre-52 Dick was always written as a master strategist, an unparalleled leader, one of the best detectives in the world, outside of Devin’s writing. Her fantasy version of Dick doesn’t mesh with that...Dick wouldn’t be capable leader if he’s “thinking with his body” (whatever that means) all the time. He’s survived this long because he’s intelligent and logical. Frankly, Devin’s take on things doesn’t even make any freaking sense. But it gets worse: 

DDG: I’m writing a novel for WB right now that he’s in and I have one scene where Batman has to stop a fight before it gets out of control, and most of the people he can just yell or glare at, but with Dick, he just stands really close behind him and Dick freezes. That’s not supposed to be a sexual thing (though it is kinda hot! ::laughs::), it’s an understanding on Bruce’s part that his physical proximity will speak just as quickly and loudly to Dick as his voice, maybe even be processed faster.

What the actual fuck. You’ve probably guessed it based on how that little scenario played out. Devin ships Dick with Bruce. 

DG: And now think about being a very physical and naturally gregarious and loving person and growing up with someone like Bruce. Then add in the confusion about his status - a “ward” is something you stop being the minute you turn eighteen. Having already lost his parents and then hurling into adolescence at the speed he did...in my personal version of the story, he develops sexual desire and social anxiety about the future at the same time, and this leads to tremendous confusion, on his part, about his role in Bruce’s life. He can’t be a ward forever, in the back of his head he knows he won’t be Robin forever...what is he to this man who is at once his best friend and personal savior, personal god? “Son” is what they eventually settle on, but I think when Dick was in his late teens, the idea of “lover” must have run through his mind (which means, really, as we’ve already discussed, it ran through his body).

Wild that Dick is usually written as incredibly intelligent and emotionally cognizant (was able to puzzle out Damian’s complex motivations and needs when no one else in Damian’s life could for example) and yet Devin thinks he’s not able to sort out that he’s not supposed to make sexual advances towards his father. And by wild I mean stupid as fuck. And, just fyi, Devin goes with the version of events where Bruce took Dick in when he was eight years old! So he’s pretty fucking young when this is all happening! Just when you thought it couldn’t get more disgusting. 

Eventually, much later, Dick gets distracted by other relationships and is able to ease up enough on Bruce for Bruce to relax into his own comfort-level of kindness and affection again (once the threat of sexuality has been removed) and they carry on more or less unharmed. But the relationship remains incredibly powerful and intense for Dick, who ends up feeling apologetic, rejected, and confused on top of all the other issues we already know exist between the two of them. Dick responds to Bruce - or really I should say Batman, since that’s who his relationship is with - on every single level.

So, according to Devin, Dick views Bruce as his “personal god” and is incredibly submissive to and possessive of him. That’s why Devin’s writing is littered with scenes like this: 

Gotham Knights #17

Where Dick acts incredibly awkward and “apologetic” about dating Barbara, because of how he previously made sexual advances towards Bruce in Devin’s fantasy world. Also with Devin, Dick spends a lot of his time stuttering every time Bruce is in the room, even though he’s usually a smooth talker, very chatty, and that’s because of the supposed “intensity” of Bruce and Dick’s relationship. And then there are scenes like this: 

Gotham Knights #18

Where Dick uncharacteristically and disproportionately loses his cool at the slightest insinuation against Bruce and is reduced to an angry hot head. Dick has been noted to be incredibly level headed; he’s also famous for being a mediator among the hero community...this behavior is a complete departure from the way he would normally act under other writers. Dick’s also been one to level plenty of criticisms towards Bruce himself. This sudden personality change where Dick thinks Bruce can do no wrong, where no one can criticize Bruce in Dick’s presence without him absolutely blowing up, where he suddenly can’t control his emotions over the littlest things...it really exists primarily in Devin’s writing. It’s incredibly OOC behavior and it’s rooted in Devin’s sexual fantasies frankly. 

Devin’s writing is also where Dick, despite being incredibly dedicated and monogamous in all of his previous relationships, suddenly became a womanizer. Literally, everyone was written as wanting to get into Dick’s pants: Rose Wilson was reduced to a giddy teenager because of Dick, random women in the streets would comment on how cute Nightwing was, a mob boss’s daughter who was only 15 years old was obsessed with Dick and made advances, Dick had a one night stand with Huntress because she reminded him of Bruce, Bruce called Dick “Hunk Wonder,” Dick undressed in front of fucking Deathstroke (and there was a newspaper with “Richard Wilson” on it as a sly little wink towards the audience), psycho vigilante Tarantula is obsessed with Dick to the point of raping him, the list goes on. If you want more samplings of how freaking disgusting and sex-obsessed Devin was when it came to Dick, look no further than her gross Inheritance book, where she ships Dick with everyone from Green Arrow to Aquaman (here are some quotes if you’re a masochist). And since Dick “thinks with his body” or whatever, Devin’d write him as receptive (or very oblivious) when it comes to this attention. 

Gotham Knights #10

Nightwing (1996) #107

Another thing that made me extremely uncomfortable is how Devin would always have strangers and villains, especially older men--people who Dick very much did not know and wouldn’t appreciate being in his personal space--be all grabby with him. Please leave him alone. 

Nightwing and Huntress #2

There Dick is, “hypnotized” in place by Huntress’s touch. Kill me. It is also especially messed up that Devin suddenly turned Dick into some sexual, warm-blooded hot head at the same time as she decided to introduce him as Romani. 

Q: How could him being Romani be used to inform his characterization?

It reinforces his “otherness” where Bruce is concerned in what I think is a useful, interesting way...It also presents the opportunity for there to be a slight chip on his shoulder, which maybe speaks to his scrappiness. It also maybe gives him a slightly deeper way to relate to someone like Helena--someone who is white but other--and gives the people who love (or lust after) him a potential cultural excuse for feeling as bewitched as they sometimes do. I also just love the idea of Bruce occasionally calling him “hot blooded” just to mess with him, because Dick would of course deny being so in an extremely hot-blooded manner. [x]

Her feeding into the fetishizing of biracial individuals is just disgusting and wrong. If there’s a racist stereotype available Devin really goes out of her way to make sure she includes it in her writing huh. 

Gotham Knights #20

And Bruce being a racist jerk is not charming Devin, it’s terrible. Barbara used slurs also, and was very dismissive of Dick’s reaction to Bruce’s actions...that was also horrible. It’s awful that Dick’s own family would apparently treat him this way. Obviously, Dick isn’t the only one that Devin would write out of character. 

It’s all just so messed up to me, I can’t stand it. When I first read her comics, even when it wasn’t blatant like above, I would feel something subtly off...and once I read her interviews I can’t help but notice these horrible underlying insinuations in all of her work, in so many seemingly “innocent” scenes. There are a lot of big things she’s known for (her horrible treatment of Dick’s Romani heritage and his rape for example) but all these subtle, insidious little details that people don’t even really register...they are equally frustrating to me. Seeing sects of the fandom pick up these details (like, the idea that Dick doesn’t understand personal boundaries, the idea that he’s a hot head, the idea that he’s a womanizer, etc.) when I know a lot of it stems nearly solely from Devin’s crappy characterization and writing of Dick...it’s hard. 

Q: Further to that, if Dick is gay, what kind of guy is his type?

DG: ...Type isn’t as important as passion and opportunity. Because of his psycho-sexual makeup, the other key factor would be a sense that he means something to that other man, that his “surrender” is making that man happy, allowing him to bring pleasure to someone (as he was never allowed to do for Bruce). There’s also a sense, if I may be so bold, of needing to be “caught” and “held down” - this going back to the trauma of losing his parents...being strong and passionate and heroic and virile and loving with a woman is fantastic, he lives for that. But he lost both parents. There is also a part of him that longs to be pinned down and loved a little bit savagely and hurt just enough to reassure him that he’s alive. Man, I’m totally gonna get fired when this comes out....

Literally makes me want to barf. That is supposed to be a professional, official writer at DC. Could go on forever. 

[nametags]

But her emails...

I aim to be a woman of integrity. I’ve sat on the content I’m about to share for almost 6 years in part because it originally was a private conversation between me and a friend. A friend who happens to be a lead singer of a band, but a friend none the less. However the way people have been speaking about him and what’s been going on in the world lately, I couldn’t let this stay hidden anymore.

I’m tired of people claiming that because Patrick no longer uses social media (and hasn’t for damn near five years at this point) that somehow he doesn’t “care” or isn’t doing anything right now to help the Black Lives Matter movement. I’m also incredibly tired of people ignoring/belittling the fact that Pete Wentz is a biracial/black man in America. You really do not want the social media person in charge of Patrick’s account tweeting things out. It would be hollow and fake.

Below is both a transcript of the conversation I had with Patrick on 12/06/2014, a follow up message he sent to me 08/25/2015, and the accompanying screenshots. Unfortunately I do not have the tweet(s) that prompted me to contact him in the first place nor can I find screenshots of them to provide that context. An image of me and my younger brother Jacob when we met the band at Boys of Zummer will also be attached to demonstrate one of the people I was concerned about in my original email. 

The only redactions made were my personal email address and the name of a friend I referenced. Patrick deleted his email account at some point between late 2016 and early 2017. It’s only left in these screenshots as proof for those who knew the address before to see these were legitimate messages. I hope the content reveals not only where his heart lies not only then but where it is now. 

Allison White: So I caught the insanity way late, but it's a tricky spot to be in with what's going on. For most of my life, I didn't even identify with half of my race. I was raised with my mom's side of the family and it just didn't click for me. It really hasn't been until teen years and onward that I've opened my eyes to it all. And with that, I began to grow wary of authority in a way. Like I still believe that people go into law enforcement for the right reasons. The few times I have dealt with police officers personally I haven't been concerned, but I have noticed in the past few years that when I spot a police car on the road or an officer just out in public somewhere is if I look "white enough" or do I actually look like an adult who belongs in whatever space I am in. I know Trayvon Martin was murdered by a vigilante and not an actual officer of the law, but that was when I first started to fear for my little brothers. I knew both of them were the sort of young men that could get targeted and most likely justice would not be found for them. And then there comes this summer. With both the Mike Brown and Eric Garner cases coming back with no indictment, it makes it feel as if it's just open season for black people to be hunted by cops. Which is hurtful for the cops who are actually in it to protect and serve, and every citizen who now has to wonder if they are next. I hope that your cousin is doing alright. I hope that people aren't making his job harder right now. Just I know for me right now with all that's going on I am definitely on the side of the protesters.

Patrick Stump: Brief for now; I'm sorry in all that you didn't notice that I'm squarely on the side of the protestors too. That's a failure of my wording

PS: The problem is that I so poorly expressed myself, people thought I was balancing the empathy to be spread across the black community and cops. That's a mistake on my part. I'm angry.

I'm angry that Mike Brown's case didn't yield enough evidence to indict. But that case was a very complicated one...Brown had just (allegedly) committed a violent crime and information was murky. As sure as I was that Wilson straight up murdered the Brown, I understood the limitations of the american Justice system given how little evidence there was. That's the unfortunate reality of justice is that it needs to be just. It needs to be 100%. We can't go in with "I know in my heart." And so that case pissed me off, but I understood it. 

With Eric Garner however, this just feels so flagrant. By no accounts was he violent, wasn't he doing anything that could even be misconstrued as life-threatening enough to even imagine defending the usage of deadly force. He was cooperating and they choked him to death on camera. That's fucked up. I'm pissed. I tried to be polite and sit back and not say anything, but I'm pissed.

However, my reason for discussing the side of the police as well is that human beings are complicated. When we boil people down to simplistic stereotypes, when we create a narrative of "Us VS them," we lose sight of the humanity of it all. You can't reason with a "Them." You can only reason with a person and it works better when you remember they're people.

I don't believe in enemies. I'm not religious but I love the way Jesus preached "Love thy enemy." That's hugely influential to me. Hugely important. That's the empathy I mean.

The other night I was holding my son and I thought to myself about a black girl I used to date. And how, we could have had a kid together. Maybe a little boy. And how, that boy could (by no action of his own) be killed just for the color of his skin. Like, I've heard and read words like that before, but to actually connect with it (on as small a scale as that) was horrifying. Gutting. For a little moment I thought, all this joy and all this beauty and somewhere, someone's having a black baby boy, loving him and feeling all the same things I feel for my son. But I wondered if in between their tired diaper changes and their burpings, if they were saying a silent prayer "I hope you don't get killed by a cop." If they say it constantly because they know how possible it is. Or even if he lives to be a 100, what black man won't have an unjust run in with the law? Not to make it exclusively a male issue but seriously, how many black men are in prison right now in America? That's a disgusting thing. The young parent of a young black boy probably considers that and that's maybe the most depressing thing I've ever tried to understood. That's a horrifying thing. There really still is a racial divide in this country, and to not be black is to not say those little prayers. We live in a supposedly free country. What about the pursuit of happiness? Who's defending the right of that little black baby boy born somewhere in America to just be an adorable little baby without any pretense? And when that baby grows up, who's defending his right to walk down a residential sidewalk and not expect to get pulled over and frisked? Maybe worse? 

So I'm angry. Just plain angry. But I didn't want to offend anyone so I expressed my anger in the lightest way I could think of. 

I'm not sorry for having an opinion, I'm sorry I explained it so poorly that you didn't know what it was.

AW: All of this is hard, and there is so much anger. You shouldn't ever be sorry for your opinions, and I am pretty sure you yourself have told people only be sorry for how you express your opinions. I wasn't upset with you or what you said, I just felt compelled to share that for me there's a knee jerk reaction to the image/idea of police and why.  This whole situation has been tough and it's been inspiring watching people across this country let their anger show and demonstrate in the streets against it. It makes me wish I was brave enough to take part in it out in the streets and not just online. 

I hope this collective anger and protest leads to real change. That in 2014 we are able to do the things they were aiming for in 1964. I mean recently the full letter the FBI sent to MLK to urge him into suicide was released and it just highlights the divide between how much has and has not changed. There's a lot of value in what religion is supposed to teach. Love thy enemy, love thy neighbor. True love and care for those around you is a great thing and certainly something I'd hope people identified with. 

The past nearly seven years there has been this push for hope and change. Maybe the country is finally reaching a point to make it happen?

PS: I have a funny feeling this is civil rights part 2. I'm proud of the protests. I'm so grateful our generation is angry about something it should be angry about for a change.

AW: An argument can be made that our generation (or just post baby boomer generations in general) have been taught and fed nonsense to keep us compliant, but that veers into a territory that I am not completely sure or comfortable with. Overall I do think that this is heading a direction that the powers that be are not ready for in the slightest.

PS: Where did I go wrong? What do people think I said? They're so mad at me, and none of the people have said anything I didn't mean. I'm not getting angry right-wing stuff, people are just calling me a racist. What did I say that was racist? What do I think that's racist?

AW: There's a strong immediate reaction right now of if you sound slightly in favor of the officers that did wrong that you are racist. The swift reaction and need to dogpile on is kind of crazy. I think people took the initial comment to mean "not all cops!!!!" In the same vein as "not all men!!!" and that's where the rage is coming from. 

AW: Just to be clear, those who matter know you're not racist. You have shown both in your words and actions where your beliefs lie. I don't know how to calm the masses right now because at least for the time being its not going to get through :(

AW: You could try a blog entry on tumblr?

PS: Nah, I think I've done enough damage for one lifetime. I think I'll keep it to myself but I appreciate your talking it through with me. 

AW: No problem. I am always willing to be a sounding board for that stuff if you need it.

PS: I re-read my stuff; "I support our police," is the worst things said. I meant "I support the idea of police and the need for a police force we can trust on a national level," not "I support the police in NYC who are killing people and attacking protestors." That sucks.

AW: If you wanna try to clarify now you can. At least in your Google alert it only had one mention of he mess and it was a tumblr user supporting/defending you. 

PS: There's no fixing it. The Internet is unforgiving I think and the reality is, I said that. I didn't mean it in the way that it so obviously sounds, but I said that. So I deserve everything I get.

AW: It will most likely go easier if you let it ride out instead of trying to go out and fight it. That just gives the "he doth protest too much" air about it. Hopefully the energy behind letting you know you said something like that will dissipate sooner rather than later. And that it won't get big enough for someone to write a story about it. 

PS: Yeah. It'll sound like back-pedaling and glad-handing. Anyway, thanks for talking it through! 

AW: You're very welcome! Thank you for hearing out my side of it this morning.

PS:  I never would've ignored your side.

AW: Which is very much appreciated

AW: I say that because in the past two weeks I have lost a handful of friends because of all of what's going on and them being unable to understand how and why their words hurt me.

PS: Well that's awful and unfair

AW: It was but they were all from the "when I look at you I don't see black, I just see Ally" camp and then would go on to say things about stereotypes and "thugs"

PS: Yeah. Thug. "Oh that's so ghetto." Bullshit.

AW: When someone says "thug" it's always clear they wanna say the n word

PS: Or even if they're the kind of "Well meaning," person who knows enough not to say that word, they mean the same thing

PS: "Not like you. You're good"

PS: White America just needs to know what it doesn't know

PS: Or rather, understand that there are things they (we) will never understand. Not from a first person perspective.

AW: It always makes me want to scream. The erasure of identity so then the people known to them stay safe. It reminds me of something I witnessed the other day. My friend [REDACTED] from junior high is now an established lawyer. Needless to say he has been keeping up very much with the recent events. He made a post about it and one of his friends commented with "I wish you would go back to being my friend [REDACTED] and not my black friend [REDACTED]." Mind you there's no denying [REDACTED] is a black man. He can't pass in the slightest so the comment shocked and saddened me. Thankfully [REDACTED] handled it with poise and grace. 

PS: If you have to say you have a "black friend," then you probably don't. That's fucked. I guess I just genuinely didn't imagine how pervasive this stuff really is. Like, Pete and Joe and I have been talking a lot today. I was under the misapprehension that we grew up in a decently inclusive area. Just come to find out, nobody used those words around me. The whole time they were heckling kids like Joe and Pete. I thought racism was this thing that doesn't happen here. It's scary how much it's come out post Obama's election. Elected officials sending out mass e-mails of pictures of watermelons. I just didn't get it. Ignorance is bliss.

AW: It knows how to hide in plain sight, which is a lot of the problem. People are taught "don't be racist!!!!" Without being told exactly what racism is. People (myself included at times) aren't aware of words/phrases/ideas have nefarious ties until too late. 

PS: I think we get too caught up on words and not enough on what they imply. "Thug," means a prepackaged idea of a black male. It instantly limits his perceived intelligence, his perceived trustworthiness, his perceived value to society, and his perceived prospects in life. That's so fucked. We expect black men to go to prison. Not be doctors and lawyers. When a black man is a doctor or lawyer, we treat him like such a cool novelty. When a black woman asserts herself, she's so "Sassy." "You go girl." 

These little words and phrases feel harmless. They never were

AW: Those are the positives. Usually assertive black women are angry, mean. It's so fucked all around. 

AW: I really owe Pete for helping me be informed on Ferguson. He tweeted the hashtag the night the protests started in August and it helped me dive in. I am sure tumblr would have got me to it eventually, but seeing it from day one was a definite help. 

PS: You know part of my problem? I'm just not brave enough to say what I think. I'm just scared of offending people. Pete's not. He doesn't care. That's powerful

AW: It takes a lot to just put it out there. I am not sure if I had the amount of eyes on me that you do that I would be so "fuck you I will do/say what I want" as I am. Hell I become such a shadow of myself when at work with how quiet and polite I am. I mean I am still pierced and tatted with short hair so visually I say a lot, but then I watch my speech to make us for it. 

(Follow up on 8/25/2015)

Patrick Stump: That is amazing and I'm very flattered. By the way; Been thinking about our conversation from a year ago a lot. The takeaway is this: Saying "All lives matter," and "Not all cops," while literally true are contextually horrendous. Really awful. In retrospect I feel pretty awful about saying both. Specifically because "All lives matter," can carry a lot of implications. Who's lives? I meant by it that Latinos and Muslims are also unreasonably targeted/mistreated/murdered by cops. But is it as systematic or blatant as it is with darker skinned Americans? Not remotely. Furthermore, as a white man, I just need to remember how fucking easy I have it. It's easy for me to preach peace and unflinching patience when I've NEVER been a victim of the War On Drugs or the aftermath of straight up slavery. So there's a lot to think about in terms of what I, a white guy, have to say and do about the situation. But not a lot I have to say about the way it feels to be oppressed to the point of feeling like less than a citizen of this country. I shouldn't have spoken about it because I don't/can't know. Well-meaning white folks get to talk about policy changes and do everything we can to help, otherwise we should get the fuck out of the way. I'm sorry, really REALLY sorry to the world that I ever said either of those things. It's more than "Fuck the police." It's "Fuck this whole system." And as aware as I'd been, I hadn't realized how complacent in it I was. Anyway, disgusted I said what I said. Sorry to the whole world for being part of the problem

[camerinhell]

[Hazbin Hotel Meta] Alastor’s Ethnicity + An Aside on Human!Alastor

Meta time, lovelies~

(reblogs appreciated! ;w; )

So I've seen Al's ethnicity as a subject of discussion on and off between Twitter and Tumblr, and it’s been coming up more frequently. Being the type of individual that I am, I'd like to chime in with some collected thoughts and theory (of which I hope influences further depictions of Human!Alastor, as currently, he is being whitewashed. I don’t mean this to be explicitly aggressive at all, but I’m being straight up). PLEASE attempt to refrain from knee-jerk reactions or going on the defensive; the latter-most part of this post is meant to raise awareness/start level-headed and respectable discussion. We’re all individuals here fully capable of civil discussion, and with, what I’d like to believe, best intentions at heart :)

ALRIGHT, SO:

To begin, we know for a definitive fact that Al isn't wholly white. VivziePop stated this on 'Vivzie Streem- WHATS IN THE BOX -#7' @ 0:09:48, saying that Alastor is actually mixed (as a mixed ethnicity person myself, I gotta say this was pretty exciting to hear!); this was also listed and cited/sourced via Alastor’s Fandom wiki. Beyond this however, she didn't go into any more detail.

Being that Al was born in New Orleans, and looking at the census data for Louisiana from the very late 1890s through about 1900 or so (imo, the most likely years Al was born. I don’t see him being over 35 years of age), the state was nearly split 50/50 white persons and Black persons (of African descent or otherwise; as the Black ethnic group comprises of more than just people of African ancestry). Urban areas (i.e. New Orleans, his city of birth) leaned more white, but still had a sizable Black population (approx. 1/3 of urban populace from the very late 1890s to ~32% in 1900).

Screenshot below for quick reference [1900], can download and zoom (will include link to full census report via comment).

With this information at hand, it’s easy, entirely reasonable and incredibly likely that Al is half white and half Black. Now, this may very well be the case (and I’d be just as excited if it is), but after a day or so thinking and musing on this theory/likelihood, I came to refine it further. Here, we talk about Alastor having Creole identification.

Now while being Creole (born in Louisiana, which Alastor canonically is) doesn’t inherently denote any certain racial denomination mixed or otherwise, it is not uncommon (to the point of being quite common) to indeed have mixed ethnic  heritage. Creoles commonly hail from European (French and/or Spanish, and then later including Irish, Italian and German) ancestry along with Black (Caribbean and/or African) lineage, though it is not particularly rare either to also/instead have Native American, Dominican, or Cuban blood, as well.

It’s again, reasonably likely, that Alastor is more mixed race than simply biracial, given Louisiana’s lengthy and complex (and sad) history from colonial times throughout the 1900s. However, what I am confident in saying, long as VivziePop aims to be historically accurate and just, Al is almost certainly some mix of Black and European at the very least.

This...makes me smile.  It really does.

The Status of Human!Alastor

As an Afro-Latinx person myself with close European ancestry (great grandfather and great grandmother on my mother’s side hailed from Ireland and Naples, respectively), it’s beyond cool and validating to see mixed PoC representation especially when it comes to peoples’ and regions that had a lot going on colonization/immigration-wise. The stories of mixed-race people are interesting and fraught with their own complex struggles, especially the further back in time you go. This does lead me back to a frustrating point I made earlier though: depictions of Human!Alastor being whitewashed.

With all the white characters and white-passing PoC characters we have in media already...which is most of them, it’s just...disappointing and (to me) well, as I said, frustrating to see folks just straight up ignore non-white-passing skin and/or features...again. I’m mixed and while definitely clockable as such, am not white-passing; and I think for many PoC of any racial/ethnic makeup, it feels good and is beyond appreciated to see yourself represented.

Now, obviously, this doesn’t apply to people who were not aware of Alastor being mixed, but to folks who did know, and decided to further erase PoC as per usual MO for society, that’s an ‘Oof’ feeling moment...

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Again, this isn’t meant to be aggressive at all, I just mean to 1) meta, of course, but also 2) air some grievances/disappointment. I love, like ADORE this community with all my heart and it has been a blessing to my mental health and creativity, but like everyone else, I have thoughts!  And as I’ve happily seen be the case for the most part in this fandom, we can make discussion without getting aggressive or vitriolic ;w;/  (Now if someone comes for you unprovoked and tries to start something off some nonsense, I’m all for being the one to finish it. Don’t ever take any toxic bs from folks, you handle that how you see fit. My 2 cents).

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THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING ALL OF THIS AND I APPRECIATE YOUR TIME! I truly hope you enjoyed it and can walk away with some cool thoughts to chew on and, hopefully, a new way or two to approach how you view/create content for a character/s. I do these write-ups and metas not only to get my creative juices flowing, but to also get myself thinking critically, and to get others thinking more critically, too~ If they can bring anything at all positive to the community or get healthy discussion going, I feel more than fulfilled. Thanks again for stopping by!

[thedreadvampy]

So this was sent to me by @atiredpan weeks ago when the White Jon conversation was very live and I'm posting it (belatedly) with their blessing (they didn't want to put it up publicly and have it seem like an attack which I really very much appreciate but wouldn't have minded) and I percolated for a few days and then got very busy for a few weeks. Response follows.

So I feel weird about how I'm responding to this stuff, I'm launching rapidly into taking about/explaining my own experience in a way I'm worried maybe comes across as a direct comparison. It kind of feels like I'm talking in a way that's like brushing off your experience and saying OK BUT HERE'S WHY I'M RIGHT and that's not what I'm trying to do, it's just that there's not much I can usefully add to what you've said - you know your experience better than I do, and I'm not gonna go around trying to read into it or reexplain it. So I'm going to talk about where I am/have been coming from, but not with the intention of countering your points, all of which I think really resonate.

First off, the post where I was like "Jon is white and if you disagree you're Wrong" was, unreservedly, just a shitty post and I'm not suprised it upset a lot of people. I'm really very sorry about that, it was thoughtlessly written and pretty stupidly posted.

I totally get that my whiteness has fed into how I hced Jon (and as I think I've said before I saw Jon a certain way well before I engaged with any fanworks, just as you did). There's a lot of reasons I imagined Jon as white from pretty early on, a non-negligible one of which was like...That's Jonny. This is a podcast by Jonny, about a character with the same name and mannerisms as Jonny, and Jonny is extremely white. It would have felt weird, when I was listening to TMA as a Friend Podcast, to stick a brown face onto what at least appeared at the time to basically be a self-insert character of my white friend. Now that's a really personal thing informed less by the story and more by the circumstances under which I've interacted with it, but it certainly laid a baseline. I didn't really have a clear mental picture of Jon (or most of the characters) for a looooooong time (for an artist I'm really not a very visual thinker) but I had a few sort of mental sketches (Jon is short white balding and awkward, Martin is tall biracial and scruffy Basira is fat and somali Melanie is my friend from work etc) which I developed a long time before I encountered fanworks.

I saw the alienation you mentioned and I connected it to class and gender, not race, because I’ve met a lot of cis men, white and otherwise, who interpolate trauma, class insecurity, insecurity about their own abilities, and so on into withdrawal, denial and snappiness. So for me I had an interpretation of that element of his personality which was pretty much race-neutral, and then I had these existing cues leading me to assuming he was white (largely that Jonny is white, but also wee stuff in the story that...it’s not like anything substantial enough to remember, let alone justify, but there were certainly interactions that pinged whiteness for me personally)

There are actually iirc a few throwaway references to Jon being promoted above more qualified candidates throughout (or at least I thought I knew that before s5), but the time I decided I thought White Jon was an obvious conclusion was of course the conversation where Sasha expresses frustration about it. and the context of that conclusion (at least as far as I can see) wasn't "people of colour can only exist in subservient positions/defined by oppression" but was informed by two things that were going on with my life around the time that episode aired

I had been having several conversations with friends of mine (and largely friends of Jonny's) who work in London in the museums/archiving sector and who are the only women of colour in whole departments or even whole museums, and who experience so little career mobility compared to their less-qualified white counterparts (we're talking about women graduating top of their class at Oxbridge with anthropology or library science masters and stellar original research, with a decade or more of impeccable work experience and acting up, being left in internship and low-grade positions, while white men who "fit the culture" but have 0 museums experience sail into upper management positions and then stay there until they retire). So I'd come almost directly from these conversations into what to me sounded like exactly the same gripe in TMA.

I'd been at that point working for about a year and a half on co-coordinating the anti-oppression committee in my workplace, which was a very Good Progressive Activist Charity with Good Lefty Principles, and over the course of experience sharing and discussions both with colleagues of colour and along lines of wealth, disability, class etc, I was very much confronted with the realisation of how much 'being adequately qualified' meant different things for middle-class good-university white men vs much more highly skilled and hardworking women of colour or people of different class and wealth backgrounds. Obviously I'd known that before in principle, but not really having been in Salaried Workplaces (as opposed to like. service and retail hourlies) I hadn’t got so up close and personal with it. So that was also very fresh in my mind, this like...big substantial experience of how Good, Well-Meaning, Caring, Thoughtful, Woke white men just........did not need to think about this. at all. and were startled and discomforted to face it. and that this was also true of most white middle-class women. and these conversations were really carved down the middle between white middle-class European women saying ‘this is such a surprise when we have such an equitable hiring policy and diverse staff, that there’s this gender gap’ and women of colour in the room wearily saying ‘yeah, there’s a gender gap, there’s always a gender gap and it is always a racialised gender gap’ so yeah I was definitely thinking about the intersection between being passed over at work because of gender and because of race.

The point about Tim is interesting because I think for me what’s getting lost is that I don’t think Jon is entitled as like...a Character Trait. He’s not like...Toxic Masculinity Man. He is very anxious about boundaries and about his own capacity to do harm. But it has to be pointed out to him where he’s doing harm. He doesn’t notice where he’s been unfairly advantaged, and that’s to me much more reflective of most people’s relationship to white or male entitlement. 

As I say, that exchange with Tim and Sasha cemented the Jon Is White hc in my head specifically because it was so reflective of conversations I had had with women of colour working in similar workplaces, about white men, usually about white men they generally liked or at least didn’t have beef with beyond their unfair advantages. 

It seems odd to me to frame ‘bitching about your boss on your friend’s behalf to make her feel better’ as more similar to white entitlement/white privilege than any of that tbh? That’s just...being friends with someone? 

Anyway I recognise that it’s not white entitlement to accept a job. Obviously it’s not, it’s just sensible under the circumstances, you get lucky and you grab it. For me my sense of Jon as white-because-of-this is not “he took a job he shouldn’t have taken,” it’s more about his obliviousness to the impact he has on others, and also primarily how people react to him. The interaction between Sasha and Tim is saturated with the of course it would be him I mentioned above, but even before that he walks through the world not expecting to have to think about anything but his conscious decisions, and he’s caught aback when people see him as out of place or as having power above his station.

I think it’s impossible to extricate ‘this is where my head was at’ from that interpretation, and also like obviously my own whiteness is a big factor. And not just my own personal whiteness but the place I grew up (which was 98.3% white) and the world which reflects back whiteness. So this is in no way intended as a bolshy This Is The Correct Headcanon the way my Bad Post was bc examining it I’m like...yeah I mean this is about how I personally interpreted this based on where I was at at the time. But I do feel like there’s some communication gap in what it is about this unqualified promotion thing that pinged me - it’s not that All Bosses Must Be White And All Brown People Must Be Downtrod, it’s something quite specific about the tone and tenor of the interactions around the getting-a-job.

But also? Idk. Kind of unrelatedly, and people obviously should feel free to disagree with me on this, it feels kind of off to frame this as defaulting to a white Jon? I sort of think that my idea of Jon as white is very much not ‘white until proven otherwise’ - part of the reason for my original strident tone was that I felt that I was being expected to drop a headcanon I had for specific reasons and default to the fanon version of Jon without actually having any reason other than ‘this is how the community thinks he should look,’ and without really understanding anything about what that means, and while obviously defaulting to a non-white headcanon isn’t like...entrenched in the way that defaulting to a white headcanon is, it does seem to me like this is perhaps part of why white fans slap brown skin onto a character without thinking into what that means or why they’re doing it.

The thing I’m struggling with as regards my personal headcanon here is that I could decide to only ever draw Jon as Fanon Jon, but it wouldn’t be because I had strong reasons to see him that way, it wouldn’t be the same as why you see Jon as brown, or why I see like...Melanie as Indian, it would literally be Default To Standard in a way it isn’t for you. And I don’t feel that I have Defaulted To Whiteness, or where I have it is for reasons specifically to do with Jon (I visualised Jon as white because I visualised him as Jonny, who is white), not because I think every character is White Until Proven Otherwise. Like, my reasons for understanding Jon as white may be bad reasons, but they are reasons, not post-hoc excuses (I can’t like...prove that. but I know it to be true at least on a conscious level). I didn’t go Oh Jon Is White Because Everyone Is Unless I Have Reason To Think They Aren’t, Hooray, Here Is A Post-Hoc Justification For Why It Isn’t Racist To Think That. So while I am totally on board with the idea that it may be shitty, harmful or poorly thought through to hc Jon as white, I’m not sure I can fully see it in myself as being default. But I do understand that that isn’t necessarily what came across in my original short post.

Honestly, the reason I took issue with Fanon Jon and Fanon Martin in such a bolshy way in the first place was that I didn’t get why these characters were universally seen as Asian and white, respectively, and had such strong and consistent fanon images, when none of the other characters did, and when I was seeing people drawing people like Sasha and Melanie and Tim as white way more when in my mind there was no reason to assume they were white. On an emotional level I guess I think either there’s Fanon As Lore, or there’s no fanon (and I prefer the latter) and my discomfort came from the place that the one character I absolutely saw as coded as white in the core cast had this one really specific Ambiguously Brown Fanon Look (which from what I’d seen at the time didn’t seem to be like...backed with anything or coming from any personal interpretation for most of the white fans I was seeing on like Twitter and Tumblr) but white headcanons are everywhere for characters like Melanie or Sasha or Georgie, who seemed to me to be unambiguously people of colour, or characters like Tim or Martin (who could perfectly reasonably be people of colour and who I hc as Rroma and biracial respectively)? I don’t know, it’s difficult to express, but I find it frustrating.