#In an effort not to be accidentally racist

[dorkery]

Ahhhh lads

Sometimes, sometimes, you have to remember not to accidentally be racist when calling someone an idiot

#Tldr making fun of a non-Asean author for wanting to write an Indian as an Asean #Could have been a typo and wanted South Asian instead of ASEAN #But Indians are marginalized in Asean #So maybe sometimes #You can consider ignoring a stupid person on the internet #In an effort not to be accidentally racist #And then when you get corrected #Being passive aggressive about someone speaking up for a marginalized group #Is NOT a good look

[ghostlysleuth]

Do you have any tips for when designing poc characters?? Like what not or to do, etc.

this is massively edited down to just keep the essentials. this isn't going to be as explicit as you were maybe wanting but saying "don't draw black characters this way, don't draw asian characters that way" isn't something i wanna do because it's not a good feeling to review a list of offensive design practices from a trauma standpoint and likely wouldn't be for any other people of color reading.

study from real photos.

really, any set of photos of people of color work but if you want a resource where people are not models nor actors that have been plucked up for their marketableness, here's a good site: Humanae — Angélica Dass (angelicadass.com) it's a photography collection associated with pantone to showcase diversity in shades of skin.

study faces within a group.

no two ppl look the same and character design is about showcasing this through certain features.

from these, study how much differently color works for melanated/non-white skin.

again, it's different for everyone even within groups. admittedly this is only something you'd need if you have a more in-depth or painterly style, but still. avoid grayish base skin tones. the aforementioned site is actually great for this.

LOOK INTO RACIST CARICATURES.

literally, people wouldn't find themselves "accidentally" slipping into racist designs if they just KNEW, explicitly knew, and internally acknowledged what people of color find offensive or what has been used against them in depictions of themselves.

yes, this includes looking at the old offensive cartoons, illustrations, etc. it's painful and uncomfortable and rough but it must be understood how these caricatures were a means of dehumanization and are mistakes to be learned from.

again, i'm not gonna list out exactly how not to depict a black person, an asian person, jewish person, latine, middle eastern, etc. etc. etc., because i feel these things should just be known, but if it's not, literally just be aware (or get aware) of the racial stigma faced by the group of people you are attempting to represent. put care into how you are depicting them.

BUT ALSO KEEP IN MIND: you shouldn't jump to default to white eurocentric features simply to "avoid" the any sort of backlash or offense that may be taken. because if you do so, a) in attempting to not be offensive, you're still perpetuating the upholding and favoring of white eurocentric features, and b) well, you're just stifling yourself.

designing characters of color REQUIRES acknowledgement of non-eurocentric features; hell, in the best cases, it's a celebration of these features.

as you would in replicating a style of architecture, a technique of painting, a depiction of a culture, you have to observe and become knowledgeable.

addendum: obviously, i'm not white, so i don't know the depths of how pervasive racism and white supremacy can be in a white person's personal life and upbringing; but i do know that racism and white supremacy are pervasive even (ESPECIALLY) in art, a much more tangible and permanent thing than a state of being, and knowing this, i do reserve a small margin of patience for white folks that are wanting to try to be in the know on this topic, especially younger people who have yet to unlearn certain things. if anyone reads this and thinks "well, it's not their responsibility or any person of color's to teach you these things," you're correct, but yknow. the effort's there, and trying's all we can do.

#asks #talkies #i removed this example so this is out of context but fuck robert crumb #anyway lol

[mewwfr]

Oh my god, staff.....

This auraboa issue with the lore being (most likely) unintentionally racist is especially maddening to me, because the concept they seem to want to portray (based purely on the encyclopedia entry) is very similar to an OC I have, and so I can say with experience, it's incredibly difficult to convey! ESPECIALLY when you try to portray it inside a short story where you're cutting lines for word count (their forum reply mentioned they left out some lines to keep it short)

Instead of getting across the concept the encyclopedia entry seems to allude to, the short story just accidentally walks into like 10 racism rakes in a row and its truly agonizing for me to watch, knowing what i assume the actual lore's intent is.

encyclopedia quote: "Older generations of Auraboa existed in a constant state of communion with their fellows. They refer to this connection as The Loop. In this persistent state they perceive time and memory in a non-linear manner; their intertwined considerations for past and present events are such that it became difficult for a dragon outside The Loop to grasp the intentions of these ancient wyrms."

what seems to be the intention is that the auraboa are a hivemind that doesn't experience time the same way other dragons do- they experience past, present, and future all at once and thus cannot communicate well NOT because they have a different language, but because they aren't experiencing TIME ITSELF in the same fashion as the dragons! However, in practice, in the story, the auraboa seem to speak with words in the proper order, just haltingly, since otherwise the story itself couldn't work at all.

another encyclopedia bit: "The newest generation of Auraboa is not linked to The Loop in their waking hours. While they move through the world, they are less directly accessible and read as "silent" to Auraboa who are within the communal state. This disconnection has allowed the young Auraboa to experience time in a linear fashion, and with this new understanding they have begun to form connections with other species of dragon that have never before been possible."

The encyclopedia seems more clear about the Linear Time thing, and that being why they can actually communicate sensibly, but in the act of having a story where the older ones DO communicate with the outside dragons and get a point across, they've kind of not shown the reason why dragons and auraboa COULDNT communicate before! which is! a big thing!

If they'd implemented the auraboa speaking with everything in the wrong order instead of halting single words at a time, i feel like the intention would get across better. As it is, it just smacks them directly into the 'simple native' stereotype with a truly awful tripping into the 'having our kids be taught by outsiders' which is. a really wretched parallel, as many native people have spoken of the unimaginable violence of residential schools.

I feel like the encyclopedia entry Alone isn't nearly as awful (still not great, but not as bad) as the extremely poorly implemented story that managed to ddr dance onto a bunch of horrible tropes.

they were literally so bad at conveying the fact that the auraboa are a hivemind that is unmoored from time, that i see people misinterpreting the lore as auraboa having their own weird language that other dragons can't understand! there was not enough effort put into conveying the ideas they tried to convey, and what WAS put forward was literally chock full of the most unfortunate parallels physically possible.

#flight rising #auraboa #fr auraboa #fr #fr lore #flight rising lore #tl;dr i dont think the lore itself is actually that bad purely based on the encyclopedia #but they sure as hell need to better explain it #because the story was THE WORST EXAMPLE POSSIBLE AND SOOO UNINTENTIONALLY RACIST IT HURTS

[end-otw-racism]

The OTW Board Elections are over, and with that wraps up our second End OTW Racism action! Thank you to everyone who has participated over the last few months, whether by voting, attending the July 2 OTW Board Meeting, submitting questions for the candidates, sharing our posts, writing to the OTW Board, providing us critique and feedback, and more. 

Now that we’ve completed two End OTW Racism actions, we wanted to take a breath and tell you a little about how we started. We began as a team of five people in May who felt spurred by renewed conversations we’d seen on twitter about racism within the OTW and wanted to do something about it. As we’ve shared in our FAQ, the core organizers are all fans and users of AO3, including both people of color and white folks, who have been in fandom for decades. We’ve added new core organizers since May, but also some organizers have rolled off, so we remain a small and diverse team.

Since the beginning, we’ve had four specific demands for the OTW:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Committee to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

This may be surprising, but we only began planning our first action in May five days before we announced it! And we’ve been working really hard since then on top of our other individual life obligations. We also rolled straight from our first action into our second because of the timing of the OTW Board Elections, which made things even busier.

We’re very proud of all we’ve accomplished and everything that has happened since then - not only the work we’ve done and the progress we’ve made on our specific goals, but also the way that a larger conversation has opened up publicly about many other forms of racism and dysfunction within the organization. These conversations have, of course, been going on for years, both inside and outside the OTW, and more recent efforts have built on the work of fans of color calling out racism in fandom for decades, particularly Black fans. The discussions that have happened since May included thousands of people in fandom and have become wide-ranging, and we’re thankful to everyone who has been part of them. Organizing and running this campaign has also been a learning process, and we've grown so much from the feedback we've received. We look forward to being even better as we continue on with our specific anti-racist lens.

We couldn’t have done any of this without all of you, the community that has fostered and spurred these conversations and put them into action. We’re also really excited to see that other campaigns are coming up to address aspects of racism in fandom that are outside our narrow scope. We hope our example of what you can do as a small team can be an inspiration to anyone else who wants to start their own parallel antiracist efforts too.

Since it’s been an exhausting (but thrilling!) few months, our core team is going to be taking a pause for a few months to reflect and regroup before planning another action focused on our specific goals. We also want to figure out how to engage more of the community in our planning for future actions, since we know there are lots of people who are excited about this work, and we weren’t able to do that in the quick turnaround between the first and second actions.

In the meantime, we’re excited to announce that two partner projects will be launching next month! These will not be led by our core organizers, but by other fans who have volunteered to take them on. 

Anti-Racist Fanlore Project: An effort to update Fanlore, the fandom history wiki run by the OTW, with articles that flesh out the history of racism and anti-racism in fandom. This will be a collaborative project run through a new Discord server, and we welcome people of all levels of experience with Fanlore editing, including people who have never done it before! We’ll need people for a wide range of tasks: project management, research, drafting, reviewing, and posting to Fanlore.

Anti-Harassment Street Team: A group aimed at supporting people who are harassed for talking about racism in fandom, including developing de-escalation practices, creating resources on curating your own space, correcting misinformation, and more. This project will also be collaborative and run through a new Discord server.

You can sign up for these projects on our Volunteer Sign-Up Form. If you already signed up for either of these projects at any time in the last few months, you will receive an email with more information when each project kicks off. 

Apart from those projects, we’ll see you again for our next action in a few months. If you need to get hold of us in the meantime, you can email us at endotwracism [at] gmail [dot] com, though we may take a little while to get back to you. Thank you again for your passion and support in fighting racism in the OTW!

- The Fandom Against Racism Team

#end otw racism #vote to end otw racim #eotwr #ao3 #archive of our own #organization for transformative works #about us

[qtboni]

#.QTBONI‘S — RULES & MASTERLIST !

the curated collection of my written works, organized by fandom and characters. these stories feature mature adult themes and content, and every character depicted in the works is written as an 18+ individual.

「 this is a multi, n/sfw content blog <3 minors & ageless blogs dni! 」 + please read all tags and content warnings before reading!

SERIES

1000 followers event

FICS

⋆៹ SIMON RILEY ᵎᵎ

love language ꒰ despite his difficulty in expressing his emotions, he still finds ways to show his love for you ꒱

melting into your arms ꒰ him melting into your arms after a rough day at work ꒱

shattered hopes ꒰ he lashes out on you and was very dismissive over your efforts for him ꒱

rebuilding hopes ꒰ after an argument with you, he feels a deep sense of remorse for the pain he caused ꒱

loved imperfections ꒰ he reassures your insecurities with loving words ꒱

sweet dreams, my love ꒰ he woke up to you sleeping far away from him in the bed so he pulls you back to him ꒱

a lil' vampire you are ꒰ you bite him with your canine teeth and he gets feral for it ꒱

wild cowboy ꒰ he indulges you in your pretty lil fantasies of him being a cowboy ꒱

shying away ꒰ he encourages and guides you on what he wants to do to you ꒱

atrapada ꒰ kidnapped and tortured in front of him, he has to endure all of it until he gets his hands on your captor ꒱

⋆៹ KÖNIG ᵎᵎ

rest well, mein liebe ꒰ he lets you rest on his shoulder, and him also resting on top of your head ꒱

love in the emergency room ꒰ you were brought into the emergency room and he was your emergency contact ꒱

bloodstained love ꒰ yandere slasher au, he comes home to you after killing someone and asks you if you're proud of him ꒱

⋆៹ CAPTAIN PRICE ᵎᵎ

cocoa kisses ꒰ he craves warmth and safety, which he finds whenever he comes to you, the person he loves ꒱

what'd u call me? ꒰ fatherfigure au, where you accidentally calls him dad ꒱

⋆៹ VARIOUS ᵎᵎ

hug me close ꒰ having cold hands for cuddles ꒱

our journey begins ꒰ their reaction to the news of your pregnancy ꒱

💬 | hi bb !! i love sharing my thoughts and hearing from you . so , please feel free to reblog and engage with my content as much as you like ! ur interactions are always appreciated . thank you <3 alsk please read the rules thoroughly b4 you interact or send in a reqs . extra note , my prev username was @tsunagi | person in pfp is not me , it is @/yuprntae on ig .

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#ily all #(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠) — [bonnie’s navi] #👾 — [bonnie’s wk] #💌 — [bonnie’s convos] #(⁠ʃ⁠ƪ⁠＾⁠3⁠＾) — [bonnie’s favs] #call of duty

[olderthannetfic]

One of the things I've seen people who support End OTW Racism talk about is wanting to make sure only people who should reclaim slurs use them in their work. This raises a lot of questions to me, such as 1. how are you going to determine who gets to reclaim a slur 2. how are you going to determine that an individual is in the group you've decided should be allowed to once you figure out the answer to point 1, and 3. how are you going to deal with the fact that sometimes, a word is a slur in one language or one region of the world and not the rest? A lot of people I know in the United States only found out what the slur is for Pakistani people when a YouTuber from the UK (who is black, not Pakistani himself) got heat for saying it, for instance. If someone accidentally uses it as an abbreviation, not knowing it's a slur in the UK, then how is the moderation team supposed to handle that?

I like the idea of having more moderators who can review instances of harassment and racism, but I feel that some of these proposed ideas are not practical or realistic to implement online in large-scale on a site as big as AO3. I hate that anyone who asks these questions is being framed as being "pro-racism". Of course I'm anti-racist, I'm not white and I've experienced it in fandom, but having been in fandom for this long, I'm aware that it's a big space. It seems to me to be an impossible task to check that every single person using a slur is someone you've decided should be allowed to do so for every single instance of it being used in every story on the entire archive. My main fandom alone is half a million works. It would take an astounding amount of volunteers to look through that.

Also, though... people lie. People lie about their race a lot online. I have caught out many, many people in the act of lying when they claim to be Afghani because, as a mixed black/Pashtun person myself, I know enough about the region to ask them things like what language their parents speak or what part of the country they're from, etc., and people haven't put in enough effort to read up on the thing they're pretending to be, so they say something so incorrect it's readily apparent. But there are a lot of Afghani-Americans with very little knowledge of the country, too, as a result of generational trauma. Even I have sometimes found myself going, "Is this a lie, or is this someone who's just disconnected from their roots?" So how are volunteers on AO3 supposed to know if someone is or isn't the race they say they are? Even BIPOC can misidentify someone as a liar or believe someone who is actually lying if the liar in question put in a lot of work into their grift.

And that's without getting into the obvious fact that people are assholes who will lie about authors and forge evidence against them to try to convince the mods so-and-so is lying about being black so they shouldn't be allowed to use the word 'colored' in their historical fandom set in the 1890's. You know people would do that to each other, it's fandom. Fandom has always had toxic people in it.

A lot of people who back End OTW Racism keep saying, "we're just holding AO3 to it's promise back in 2020" but don't seem to have thought through their suggestions on how AO3 does that. I really want to be onboard here, but these ideas were not well thought-out. Even disregarding how many people it'd take to moderate a site this big, the flaw baked into this and many other proposals is that it falls into asking the moderators to make personal judgments and assessments of sensitive matters and situations where they don't have all the information they'd need to make that judgment call.

Honestly I think before calling for action, they should've had a list of actionable ideas for what AO3 do that are not so obviously rife with flaws and room for abuse by bad-faith actors.

--

There really doesn't seem to be a lot of willingness to deal with the reality of both racefakers and POC getting harassed for doing their own identities "wrong".

Frankly, I'd rather have lots of questionable works than one instance of demanding some hapless minority teenager prove their identity because they ~don't sound authentic~.

How much must that fuck a person up, especially if they're young? Especially, especially if they're some kind of diaspora, quite possibly displaced for unpleasant reasons.

I frankly think people massively overestimate any "harm" from some crappy fic a person refused to click back on and massively underestimate this other kind of harm.

[jaydencoolguy]

Okay, I need to be annoying for a bit since I'm Asian and it's AAPI Month. PLEASE start having more Asian characters or Asian headcanons. I almost never see them unless it's to push a stereotype, and it's absolutely infuriating. Yes, you absolutely can have a smart or nerdy character be Asian but they should NOT be the only Asian character in the cast. It's weird! I almost never see people make, for example, big and strong characters Asian. It's always the pathetic, nerdy, and scrawny characters. Or it's just one Asian character in a large cast. The only time I don't see this issue is when the person is Asian themselves.

Out of all POC, Asians seem to be one of the the least prevalent when it comes to Western media. This is extremely upsetting, especially when Asia is one of, if not THE largest and most diverse continent in the world. Also, you have to remember that there are way more than just East Asians (China, Japan, Korea, etc.); there's Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Central Asia, etc. I'm Chinese and I love seeing Chinese HCs, but show some love to all the other Asians too!! They're just as deprived of representation as I am.

I almost never see anyone talk about this issue because almost no one ever thinks about Asians when it comes to interpreting or making characters unless the person themself is Asian, seemingly because people only think of East Asians, who are not "POC enough". This is why I'm "annoying" about my Asian HCs or characters because I almost never see them. I want to see more good Asian representation in Western media. If you're not Asian and worried about accidental stereotyping or offensiveness, RESEARCH. ASK ASIANS QUESTIONS. LISTEN TO US. It's so easy. I understand the fear of accidentally being offensive, but you won't be if you actually put the effort in. Just don't make a character a literal racist caricature. Also almost no one listens to us when we talk about racism against Asians, which needs to be changed. I really want non-Asians to make Asian characters and representation too. Everyone, please start making more characters Asian. Thank you.

#aapi #aapi heritage month #aapi month #rant #long post #jayden speaks #jaydens postings

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

https://www.tumblr.com/allnewalldifferentwildspider/748862622231838720/the-reason-im-so-vulgar-in-regards-to-aangs

What a bunch of bullshit.

"He makes no effort to get to know or understand her" they're literally traveling the whole world together - and their original reason for doing that was because he wanted to help her go to the North Pole to learn waterbending, something which means a lot to her. Just because the writers didn't think the audience was stupid and needed a scene of them sitting down and telling each other a list of their flaws, qualities and motivations, doesn't mean their relationship was shallow.

"We get the MALE GAZE from him" Wow, he thinks a pretty girl is pretty. What a crime.

"He doesn't try to find out what happened to her mom" he didn't have to, she fucking told him basically right away. Complaining about that is like complaining he never asked if Sokka was her brother, even though one of the first things Sokka ever said to Aang was "And this is Katara, my flying sister"

"He always gets surprised when she's mad about something" Aang, the naturally cheery person, is pretty much ALWAYS surprised whenever ANYONE is angry, because that's not an emotionl he usually experiences much. Doesn't mean he doesn't get her - and I say this as a very grumpy person.

And ya know who else gets surprised at Katara's anger all the time? Zuko. The guy that sent an assassin after her group because Katara had to bring Aang back to life after Azula killed him - which only happened because Zuko helped her when Aang and Katara had her cornered.

Funny how things are only bad when Aang does it, but totally okay when Zuko does them in VERY different contexts that obviously paint him in a negative light for good reason.

"He hates the food and culture that she loves so much" Disliking a culture's food is not the same as hating said culture. We only see him talk shit about the Water Tribe's hunting culture once: in the Bato episode, in his friends are accidentally shutting him out of the conversation because they're too excited about being reunited with someone that is basically family. A 12-year-old throwing a tantrum is not the same as him being openly racist. Ya know what IS racist though? Zuko supporting his nation's attempt to genocide the water tribes.

"He doesn't respect her boundaries and kisses her twice without her consent" ONE poorly timed kiss is not the same as him forcefully holding her in place and kissing her, or even asking first then going for it anyway after she said an explicit no. And Katara visibly enjoyed the kiss during the eclipse episode, and was basically cuddlying with him on Appa afterwards.

"He keeps trying to talk for her when she's angry" You mean literally the same thing Zuko did in Southern Raiders?

"He expects her to do the work for their relationship... but he also makes wild assumptions about them being an item already... but he also wanted to talk things out with her to make sure he got it right..." I don't even need to tear these apart, the OP did it for me by making their arguments contradict each other. How kind of them.

"Aang wants the beautiful image of Katara. He wants that pretty face, those big blue eyes, that body, those long legs, those hips, the chest, and the hair that is just so manageable" While Aang is attracted to her, he NEVER mentioned a single one of those things, ever. The hair thing was literally MENG being insecure about her own hair. If you wanna simp for Katara, go ahead and do it, there's nothing wrong with it, but don't act like Aang only sees her a piece of meat.

"He has no interest in the complex, strong, hurt, angry, and caring person that Katara actually is" Ah yes, that's why he doesn't cheer her on when she's fighting Pakku, or helps her with the Painted Lady thing because he admires her compassion, or tells her she gives him hope, or calls her sifu, or accepts that she won't kill Yon Rah but also won't forgive... oh wait, he did do all those things.

"I'm calling it like I see it" Too bad you need glasses and refuse to wear them.

"Aang doesn't actually like Katara; he's just really horny for her" Considering your random description of why she's so hot in a post that has nothing to do it, all while ignoring her agency that used to choose Aang, I'd say that's more likely to be an accurate description of YOU than of our protagonist. Sorry, just calling it like I see it.

#anti zutara #pro kataang #pro aang

[saltminerising]

seeing the drama go down about the auraboa lore has made me super anxious. as a writer and also an autistic person, it can be hard to fully know and prepare for every single issue ahead of time, and it worries me that i’ll accidentally write something problematic into my own lore on flight rising without realizing it. (also i don’t have the funds to personally hire a sensitivity reader for all my flight rising lore.) it makes me wonder if one day i’ll write something and get cancelled and called racist for something i didn’t intend for it to come across that way at all, despite my best efforts to be cognizant of such things.

i’m not saying people shouldn’t call out these things. as a writer, there’s a lot of pressure to perform, but also the responsibility to get things right, to not spread misinformation or perpetuate harmful stereotypes. but i really think some compassion should be extended to the other side too, that people are human and they do make mistakes, unintentionally causing hurt. should flight rising hire sensitivity readers? absolutely. should they fix and change the issues present within the lore? absolutely. but i also don’t think they intended to belittle or dehumanize a group of people with their recent lore, either.

i know i’ve certainly taken the time to rewrite entire chunks of my own lore when something just felt… off to me for whatever reason. and i think that’s something that no author should be afraid to do. but the sheer hostility that comes from some people can be really daunting and anxiety-inducing. discouraging, even. to some extent, it makes me personally wonder if i should even try to tell stories when people try to find as much fault as possible in them, and aggressively tear them down rather than offering constructive criticism. it creates an environment of hostility rather than a learning space where we can all be better people.

i’m not talking about the folks who have valid criticisms, and voiced those things politely and with respect, who have brought up real concerns. that should by all means get discussed and acknowledged. i’m talking about the ones who are going overboard and getting angry at staff and just straight up calling them extremely racist. not that i’m defending racism. of course not. just that i think being that as accusatory as possible doesn’t get us anywhere other than high tension and mob mentality.

i also think there are definitely people who are being dismissive of these concerns as well, and those folks need to back down too. (especially that individual who posted a baby image as a reply to what an individual stated. that’s such a childish thing to do. please be better than that.) i’m just sad to see some people can’t remain civil about these topics, i guess. i feel like, we’re all people here, we all bleed the same, we all make mistakes. perhaps a little bit of empathy would go a long way from both sides of the equation.

on another note. for the folks who are being equally dismissive of the phobias that genes like medusa and scuttle trigger: people are people, and what bothers one person might not upset another. expecting everyone to feel the same way, and to not have a certain trigger because it doesn’t personally bother you is a very narrow-minded way of thinking. let people exist in the way that they do without making them feel unheard and unseen, as though they are ridiculous or foolish. they’re not.

i love these genes myself, but i can understand if someone else was unnerved by them, because the world is a larger place than my own narrow perception of it. again, compassion and empathy go a long way. please don’t be unkind to the folks who may be dealing with things you are not. wouldn’t you appreciate it if someone was as understanding about the things that upset you?

anyways. sorry for rambling. i’m sure most of you will think this is too much to read, and that’s fine too. i can understand that. regardless of whether you did or not, i hope you all have a good week. rest, hydrate, and take care of yourselves.

#submission #long post #ancient mystery #racism tw #ableism tw

[undobutton]

I agree with you totally and to add something, Im white and it is extremely easy to be respectful? Like you dont have to be too smart to know that because you are white that doesnt mean everyone else reading is, and the people that are like “im just not used to it/ idk how to not write white reader/ being inclusive is too difficult" and else are really self-centered and probably kind of racist people, not only to black people but to any POC. If you are going to describe the reader as white, dont even call it an "x reader"🙄

this! this! i gotta say:

WHITE IS NOT THE DEFAULT.

STRAIGHT IS NOT THE DEFAULT.

FEMALE IS NOT THE DEFAULT.

CIS IS NOT THE DEFAULT.

ABLE-BODIED IS NOT THE DEFAULT.

i feel like some people need to hear that. there is no default besides being human. and hate to burst anyone's bubble but we're all fucking humans. You and your experiences are not universal.

not everyone blushes visibly, or has hair that fingers can be ran through, or can go straight to cuddling someone as soon as they get through the door.

sometimes our skin is too dark, or our hair is too thick, or getting free of our outside clothes is the most important thing to do when getting home. and thats okay.

adding a little "written with white reader mind" or "written with straight reader in mind" or "written with able-bodied reader in mind" helps so much. like let. us. know. please.

cause it hurts to be knee deep in a fic and then have to recalibrate and ask yourself if this character would like you if you're not white. and feeling like the answer is no? that shit SUCKS ASS.

and if you feel called out by this? That's fine. you don't deserve death or a curse on your whole bloodline. just make the effort to acknowledge this and add those warnings in the future. adjust the tags you use in your fics! I'll do it too!

If I make a mistake tell me! don't tell me to die bc i forgot a warning. be humane.

the problem is when people act like they are above adding these warnings. or acknowledging that they accidentally considered their fic inclusive when it wasn't.

im not writing all this to make people feel bad. I'm just passionate and like making bold words and using all caps. If you realize that you've been doing some of these things just make your future works more inclusive or add those warnings.

if you "don't know how to write a non-white reader" or something. the xreader tag is for everyone, sure. but you can tag your fic as xreader and xwhite!reader or xfem!reader. it's not hard, really.

i also don't want to take away from anon's original statements. so i just want to ask anyone reading this to maybe reread what they said. since i drifted away from that topic and i think they said it very well!

also wanna add that xwhite!reader isn't even really a tag? like it didn't pop up as i typed it so.. maybe we can make that a thing?

-button 🌺

#x reader #atsv x reader #hobie x reader #miguel x reader #haikyuu x reader #mcu x reader #x black reader #x white reader #xwhite!reader #x black!reader

[electrificata]

here are my house observations, im in season 3

some of the shit house says to foreman is genuinely unforgivable

foreman as a character i generally like. omar epps is giving a good performance of an even-keeled-but-not-without-effort kind of guy, i do like the plotline of a guy who came to learn from an expert whos the worst guy in the world and trying to figure out how to do the same thing without being the worst guy in the world. i also think they way they keep him out of hospital love triangles is racist, foreman is not currently hot but could be with 15% more attention from the writers room.

really sexist as a general rule. i have not encountered the idea of "jailbait" this much in literal years.

hipster racism. its the 2000s. funny to talk abt this because "hipsters" were younger at this point and the character of house is, im assuming, in his mid 40s at the start of the show, but thats the general logic that seems to be on display. "well you know that he's a good guy so its ironic and funny that he's threatening to use the n word as a joke."

a) stupid logic to begin with, doing something ironically is also just doing it, b) doesnt even work on its own terms here because house is widely acknowledged to be an awful person in the context. the entire show is built around the question "how much deliberately annoying, dangerous bullshit will we endure from this dickhead to maintain access to his unique skillset"

i still dont "get" house/wilson. like i do see it, like i can see that theyre a little obsessed with each other and they have a fun mutually manipulative dynamic, and they make sense as foils (guy who's self-consciously awful and often ends up doing noble things accidentally/guy who's self-consciously noble and often deliberately does awful things). but i cannot feel myself going insane about it. if anything i like him better with cuddy

cuddy really really hot. really really really hot. cuddy.

so like yeah i see house/wilson im just not going insane about it the way i thought i might. altho tbh it took a global pandemic and a extended, byzantine renaissance of tumblrina supernatural scholarship to make me have a destiel spiral. i need infrastructure for these things.

cameron's character is such an old school token girl character. i hate how they treat her "niceness" almost as much as i hate how they treat her crush on house.

a better show (written by me) would have some more cuddy and foreman "managing" house plotlines (foreman being a protege allows focus on the legacy of house's medicine, how to replicate it, how to contain damage), probably give him some of the cuddy and wilson time. the three of them together would be good i could do that.

cuddy/foreman. hm. in the remake.

like, i do get how this happened. house is troubled in a durable, interesting way. the writing is good enough to support his layers, the way his snap-judgement psychoanalysis of everyone he meets curls back around to shine a light on his own issues. good balance of competence and patheticness. laurie is giving a masterclass in the niche field of "british comedian comes to us tv drama, grows some stubble, becomes a sex symbol." i read an old review that referred to his "sourpuss charisma" i really like that turn of phrase.

(i was also into josh on the west wing when i watched that last year, i have a type i love antagonism. no im not dating anyone right now, who wants to take me for a candlelit dinner and tell me i smell good and my voice is sexy) (you cant just compliment me, ill be bored or uncomfortable, you have to bury it in a disagreement and make it clear youre kind of mad that youre into me)

that said i think the show kind of misunderstands house's sex appeal. it feels very written-by-men. women characters throw themselves at house in a porny kind of take-me-now way. in my observations guys who are arent traditionally hot but attractive in this antagonistic, talky was dont really get that kind of treatment, but they do get the main cast wilson/cuddy/cameron "i hate this guy but im obsessed with him and i will never make a move or i will and itll go badly" kind of stuff. my phantom house reboot does have cameron and house hook up and its a really mean and destructive fwb thing with like 4 false endings. does this make sense.

right now im in the middle of the plotline where leighton meester plays a 17 yr old girl stalking house because shes so in love. like thats not the vibe. at least from what ive seen. im not omniscient.

lol it turns out she has a spore makign her hypersexual lolllll i literally have this on in the background rn ok i take some of this back.

whenever i mention to someone im watching house theyll recount to me the plot of the one episode they can remember and it always sounds insane and its never made up.

"the one with the intersex teen model who fucks her dad to manipulate him and has testicular cancer" like yeah. yeah thats real. if you talked to me 3 weeks ago thatd be the one i recounted to you.

yes house does leer at her in that episode and its treated as logical and normal for a 45 year old man.

i hate chase, he's awful but boring.

im curious how long im gonna keep watching this, i know the later seasons get kind of soapy plotwise and i dont know if thats what i want out of this

#god this got long.

[hopelesslyromanticshark]

Hey can u try to be more inclusive within your fics not all of us are blonde white and blue eyed (at least for the pics u use)

so…i got this ask a few days and i took some time to think about it and talked to some friends of mine as to best approach this situation. i want to answer this is poise and the delicacy that this requires.

bc inclusivity is EXTREMELY important, especially within fandoms. (a wonderful example is the pjo show and all the ‘controversy’ with the casting (which was just disguised racism but whatever))

but i don’t think i’m the girl for the job. and ill explain why.

first and foremost, i do not feel comfortable just deciding one day to write from the perspective of race xyz and then doing another race another day. (unless explicitly stated in the request and even then i tread lightly bc it feels a little wrong to me to be writing from a perspective i haven’t personally lived. bc stereotypes ARE harmful even in a space as silly as fanfic writing)

secondly, i feel the need to point out that this felt a tad…passive aggressive. the tone of this message, as perceived by me, felt jabbing and left me shaking for the rest of the night as i felt i had done something completely disrespectful and completely morally wrong. i never want someone to feel excluded and that was never my intention when selecting pictures off of pinterest.

(while i’m white passing, i grew up in a hispanic household and i do not have blonde hair, or blue eyes either. and the thought of, even accidentally, excluding my little cousins, my beautiful nieces and nephews has me sick to my stomach. EVERYONE deserves to be seen, ya know??)

as far as the pics go, that is something i’d be willing to give a shot in trying to adjust, but it also goes back to my first point. it’ll feel even more, dare i say racist, to just switch around races constantly when it comes to different fics. but idk idk. maybe im reading too much into the situation??

(the ap gov kid in me is screaming for yall to look into the case of shaw v reno bc the whole problem with that case was OVERCORRECTING. due to previous racist precedent, those who redistricted the state made an overly conscious effort to enforce a few largely africans american districts which would later be deemed unconstitutional. it was seen as overcorrecting of past issues which would just cause more issues) (my ap teacher would be proud lmao)

anyways, if anyone has anything they’d like to say, please don’t be shy in the comments, but do be kind. this is a serious conversation i want to have and if we start throwing anger around, we’re gonna get nowhere fast.

if yall really want this, i could make it happen with some research and your help, but i dont want to just start doing this unprompted, ya know???

i guess i hope you have a good day and that this was a productive conversation and that you are able to see my side of the story?? if not, i’m sorry.

actually, either way, i’m sorry.

#ive been holding onto this for a few days bc im scared that im gonna sound like mean or racist or something but i promise im not trying to!! #i feel like a piece of shit 🙃 #and i don’t even know what a i did tbh #god i’m not gonna sleep tonight #FUCK #anyways #all my love ౨ৎ #return to sender ౨ৎ #𐙚๋࣭ ⭑ how covey got her phd in yapping

[academicdisasterfic]

The Laws of Fandom Protect Whiteness.

Disclaimer: I do think that fandom only works if people stick to the Three Laws of Fandom, i.e. SALS, DL;DR, and YKINMK. I am anti-anti and I believe that writing problematic things does not make you problematic in real life. Basically: I'm on your side, fellow fic writers.

But there is a caveat. We have to remember why the Three Laws exist. They are there so that fandom is a safe space for everyone. So it can be a place we all come to and feel respected and heard. But this undoubtedly privileges White people.

The Three Laws of Fandom will inherently protect White people's safety because we don't have to worry about unconscious bias or racist conditioning towards our race or ethnicity. The Three Laws of Fandom do not inherently protect People of Colour because White people in fandom will have forms of racist bias that we have to unlearn. Therefore, the Laws only work if White people choose to be actively anti-racist and listen to POC in the fandom.

Let's expand on this.

This is not saying that writing racism, or writing racially-charged themes, should be censored or off-limits to White people. But when we do write them, we need to remember that the Laws also only work because fandom operates on a comprehensive tagging system. We are able to enforce DL;DR because we have tags showing us exactly what is in the fic. Therefore - don't like age difference? Don't like non-con? Don't like violence? You can opt out!

But if you write racially-charged themes and don't give appropriate content warnings, then you aren't giving POC the chance to opt out. In fact, you are endangering their mental and emotional safety by pulling them into subject matter that has real-world implications for them. And yes, entering fiction always carries a risk of reading something that you don't like - but is far more dangerous for POC than for White people.

It is one thing to accidentally read a fic that depicts a kink you don't like, it is another for a POC to read their own experiences being depicted in a way that makes them out to be no big deal, and not even a big enough deal to be appropriately tagged.

It is also important to note that a POC alerting you to racist themes or passages in your work and asking you to appropriately tag or consider the way you wrote them isn't the same as them flaming you. In fact, it shows care. This person thinks that you are worth their time and effort to try and have a conversation with. If you shut that down and prioritise your right to write anything you want above someone's safety, that is a racist act.

This type of racism results in people like Stitch's Media Mix taking a hard line against the Laws altogether, as they are so regularly used as excuses by White people to justify racism. While I disagree with Stitch's ultimate conclusion, can I blame her for how they got there? The Laws have certainly never been leveraged against me to dismiss my lived experience or concerns, and have only contributed to fandom being a safer space for me. But Stitch is Black and speaks about antiblackness and racism in fandom - and gets barrages of death threats and hate mail for doing so, from fans participating in these spaces.

How are we supposed to tell POC that the Laws keep their spaces safe when they so clearly do not?

On a related note, I think the prioritisation of ✨positivity✨ over any sort of critique or conversation is another mechanism to protect Whiteness. It's important to remember that particularly in slash fandoms, the majority of fans tend to be white queer AFABs or genderqueer people, so the normal structures of patriarchy and heteronormativity that we navigate in our regular lives don't enter into fandom as pervasively. Whiteness, however, is the oppressive structure that tends to persist in slash fandoms, and therefore we need to be cognisant of how this can marginalise and isolate POC fans.

If you avoid difficult, race-based conversations because you only spread "positivity", then you do not actually care about everyone in fandom having a positive experience.

Paraphrasing from 'Conflict is Not Abuse' by Sarah Schulman, conflict isn't inherently bad. It's productive. It shows care. It's growth.

The Laws of Fandom can and should work for everyone. But we are the actual enforcers. We have to recognise the potential ways people can abuse the Laws to marginalise, threaten and isolate POC fans.

People of Colour deserve a seat at the table of fandom. They deserve a safe space. They deserve to feel wanted and seen and respected.

I don't have all the solutions for this - I'm White and recognise that everything I'm saying here I only learned from POC and have probably not said it as well or as eloquently as they have been doing (but no one's listening). I welcome any additions, critiques or insights from POC to this post.

The type of fandom I want to cultivate is safe and inclusive for everyone, and we need to start thinking about what that actually means.

#fandom #hp fandom #drarry #laws of fandom #sals #dl;dr #ykinmk #anti anti #antiracism

[discoelysiumconfessions]

My first time playing through DE I accidentally became racist and had to put considerable effort into unlearning my racism

---

#confessions #disco elysium #people becoming harry #<--- new tag

[quenthel]

also... this might not be my place to make this criticism and i bet a lot of gaming fans of color made similar points but this tendency in rpgs lately to include black companions without actually like... giving them the same amount of love/attention from the writing team is so shit lol. Like Wyll is a good example but also Idira from rouge trader... both of them have interesting personalities and the setup of their characters/character arcs is very good but then around the midway point of the game they get dropped or the resolution feels very tacked on like the writers themselves lost interest. and like on one hand ok rpg writing is a group effort but also many times a single writer is forced to make stories for multiple companions/party of the story etc so its a very large workload my main issue is that it seems to always always be the black characters who get the short end of the stick while (usually white men in the story) get a lot more attention bc the ppl working on them clearly had more fun and felt more inspiration. and again for any creative work inspiration and what ideas stick in your head are very important and can be fickle but like once again.. why is it ALWAYS like this. like are rpg writers just less confident about writing black characters? do they simply lose interest faster? like we cant ignore racist bias here and like ok there is an attempt but imo its not much of an attempt lol. like the other excuse i can think of is these (mostly white) writers being scared to write flawed characters of color bc they are afraid of being called racist for accidentally stepping into some stereotypes but like that just feels a bit... idk cowardly. like on some level i get it but if its your job at least do research and treat these characters the same you would treat white ones... like black characters not allowed moral complexity either is connected to this problem lol... like perhaps this reflects upon some greater social structural issues... and how most white people cant empathize or connect w black characters as much...

#quenthel special #bg3 #rouge trader #once again pillars of eternity gets a crown #eventho pallegina's characterisation is not quite as strong in deadfire... #but that can be said of all returning cast...

[kustas]

I was looking at your dungmeshi tag and I was wondering what do you mean by not liking the fandom takes on Kabru?

I have a lot of beef with fandom's tendency to woobify characters as well as put shipping as their top priority and the Kabru tag on this site is a masterclass in both at once. As with the rest of the DM cast, he's a flawed character both in morals and being kind of pathetic because that's how everyone is written in manga, and it owns. For Kabru, it's being a masterful manipulator who even with good intentions is still an expert in lying his way in life - that's the morally dubious part. His manipulation works so well it bites him back - that's the funny part.

The posts who populate his tag ignore both to use him as shipping fuel with Laios and Mithrun and while usually I just cringe at ship stuff and move on both pairings here rub me the wrong way. Laios is the least offensive - and in the text, Kabru hates him for his tendency to accidentally bring up topics that are traumatizing to him without realizing. Mithrun is even worst because not only does he not care about Kabru in the slightest, he's also much older than him in both actual age and human equivalent, Kabru being barely an adult and Mithrun middle aged man. Mithrun is also racist towards men and looks down on them, and his relationship with Kabru, in which he serves him, I've seen eroticized a lot by fanartists despite nothing of sorts being in the text and the obvious reason of please think twice before doing this to one of the only brown guys in the full manga holy SHIT

That last point isn't brought up in the story itself (DM tends to not focus on character ethnicity which is another can of worms and not inherently negative) but the rest is. It's explicitly in the text as fuel for plot elements and a lot of jokes, but fans ignore all of this because it'd go in the way of their yaoi doll game...

There's very little appreciation for the character outsides of this, despite most of his time in the story not being dedicated to his (lack of, lol) romantic relationships. His personality and schemes are very important and imo a key to even liking the character but they're ignored. I do not doubt many fans do appreciate them but they're not the people filling the Tumblr tag.

DM writes excellent characters who are complex, flawed and funny and Kabru is a shining example of good character traits being tossed asides because people only care for him as the other side to ships who themselves are very uncomfortable

I've talked about it with fans on a Discord before, who had character centric channels. His was only filled with low effort ship jokes. I once raised the question of why people didn't make shipping content with the sole character who's hinted at having feelings for him, his childhood bestie, and people immediately told me "it's gross! The guide says he likes her in a brotherly way!" but I want to assume it's mostly because she's not a white boy. These people did not beat an eye at the maid jokes btw 👍

#Dungeon Meshi #kabru #ask