#and by that i mean being shitty & racist / colorist | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fangrunin · 4 years

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i think as a fandom we need to be more intentional on how we feature characters in our edits/fanart. some of the following that’s pretty prevalent in not just the pjo fandom but in all fandoms: interchanging, whitewashing, colorist portrayals of canon characters of color, and lack of researching when drawing and or identifying fancasts. I want to specifically focus on the pjo fandom and in on fancasts because that’s where I am but it should be pretty applicable anywhere.

Being a content creator myself, we must always hold ourselves accountable on the way we portray content. if we truly care about representation then why do we do so little research on the canon characters of color but spend hours and hours and hours of research on fanon? rr’s canon is pretty shit and there is no arguing that, but we cannot simply be perpetuating the same cycle that rick has pushed upon us. we need to be better in not only portraying the characters visually but in how we talk about them in our headcanons (that’s for another post though lmao).

for example, if you find yourself lowering the saturation/vibrance of a fancast of color for your aesthetic: question why you care more about your aesthetic? why are you so hellbent on making it “match” when brown and black skin are beautiful just the way they are. is it because pastel/grey scale is just one jump away from white? question yourself on the impact of colorism. why do you prefer lighter skinned fancasts? why do you go against canon to use a lighter skinned fancast?

for example, why are unidentified white people used for edits? why is reyna always a random girl with a braid? why is piper always a random girl with two braids? white people are defaulted 24/7! if you can’t visually show that piper is cherokee and reyna is puerto rican (aka proper fancasts) then what is the point? why is your “aesthetic” showcasing only white people?

for example, when you post an edit that interchanges poc: are you implying that they are the same? regional/cultural differences do exist and when you ignore them, you are implying that you believe bipoc are interchangeable, and there is no need to understand the differences.

for example, if you find yourself perpetrating the same stereotypes that rick riordan used in his descriptions: are you educating yourself? why do you need to use a dreamcatcher or feather in piper’s “moodboard”? why do you feel like hazel needs have “cinnamon” hair and gold eyes? why is frank infantilized and skinny? why is leo’s only characteristic based off of, “mamacita”? you have to think critically in the way you consume content, and yes, that means researching and educating yourself. in turn this will help you with portraying your content better visually and artistically.

if you’re a content creator and you’re reading this and you feel called out and feel shitty: this is much more than your guilt. we are not exempt from call out, and just because I’m making this post doesn’t mean I am not either. if you feel like you have done this in the past, grow from it, research, and follow poc!! (if you want a list, lmk)

Specific PJO and General Resources: (if you have more resources send them to me!!)

Fancast Directory

Editing Gifs

Drawing Characters

Drawing Ref

Piper Ref + Why RR’s Canon is Racist

Why RR’s Canon is Bad Masterlist

Hazel Ref

Canon Racist Portrayals

#im just gonna post this #lol #bye #long post #sorry i had a lot to say :-)

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jyndor · 3 years

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(Imperialism etc anon) Ok I get where you're coming from! Thank you for being understanding. While Zutara is obviously not inherently racist or anything there are zutara interpretations that *are* racist (example: fire lady katara which I can get into) and it does need to be acknowledged that Zuko's status as fire nation royalty does create a power imbalance between him and Katara. Now, this is a conversation that has a lot of nuance to it but it seems like the people harassing you are (1/2)

(2/2) just repeating some genuine critique they saw without understanding what it means just to say that they're right, harassing people in the process. I did not have that context when sending that first ask and I apologize, since anons harassing you and others are clearly doing it out of bad faith. I just didn't like the leveraging of concepts that really matter in real life (colonialism, etc), ykwim? But I get what you were trying to do.

hey anon I’m finally getting to you after 84 years XD

so first off, I want to be careful about how I approach this because I understand that as a white person (even if my ancestors experienced imperialism) in the US I absolutely benefit from imperialism and don’t want to like, idk, whitesplain XD so if anyone gets annoyed with any way I say anything, just lmk and I’ll rework it. and I also do understand that these are real world issues that are far more consequential than messaging in media (although I do think it’s very important that we challenge messages in media because of media’s influence on our thinking and politics).

but before I talk about zuko and his relationship to fire nation imperialism, and then later fire lady katara and why it isn’t INHERENTLY racist but definitely can be, I want to talk about the atla fandom and how we got here. like, why I assume that most anons who come at zutara shippers are asshats acting in bad faith. if you already know fandom history, skip this section.

1. atla and the fandom has always been kind of shitty and racist

so IDK if everyone is familiar with the history of the ship war in atla fandom, but it’s regarded as one of the nastiest ship wars in fandom history which I agree lol. atla’s creators were some of the first to interact with the fandom the way they did - back then it wasn’t all that common for creators to get into twitter feuds with fans and boundaries were respected more than they are now imo. but for better or worse, and it is a mixed bag, bryke interacted with fandom a lot. certainly at cons but also on social media.

but honestly things really got extra mean in fan spaces when bryke made a “joke” atla season 4 slideshow out of fan art (some of which was really sexual in nature and totally inappropriate) that mocked fans’ creations, but especially zutara fanart and zutara itself. it was pretty tasteless especially considering how most zutara fans were teen girls, and featured some art of sokka saying that if you think zuko and katara would be good together, you’re doomed to have failed relationships. that’s where the whole “dark and mysterious” bs came from, which does describe some zutara fic but not even most of it lol. I actually do respect bryke a lot despite my criticism of them, but I don’t think I’ll ever get over that shit. like even if you hate zutara, even if it’s a joke, we were kids. and they were adults, and the whole thing was nasty.

however, the ship war was chaotic and messy, but it does feel worse now. maybe it’s because back then the fandom was MOSTLY teens and kids, and I don’t think that’s true now. we were all trying to prove our ship was best with like, content from the show and theories and all that, and now it’s like... whose ship is ~problematic lol it’s a show by white us americans appropriating from various cultures impacted negatively by us/british imperialism that they then profited off of, of course it’s racist. that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about that, and in fact many poc have been saying this shit for years - that atla is racist and colorist at many times (guru pathik anyone?) and no one really listened.

if fans are complaining only about zutara, then I’m automatically writing them off as being insincere or ignorant. and since most of these people are anonymous, I have no idea if they are having substantive discourse about colorism in avatar or cultural appropriation (even if it is mostly appreciative). if you are on anon, I have no context about what you actually think except for what you give me. and that definitely is how I view anons in general but especially within the atla fandom because for all 13-ish years I’ve been in it, it’s been messy. that’s why zutara fans have isolated ourselves from the rest of fandom, because the rest of fandom has been really nasty to us. like did we give back some nastiness? absolutely.

but I would hazard a guess that most anti-zutara shippers don’t know about the conversations we have had in this community to make it safer for people of color, conversations that centered poc and woc especially. hey, that’s okay - not to compare zutara to r*ylo because eurgh but like, idk what discourse the r*ylos have about their community. no idea, I don’t go looking for it. and I don’t go to the tags and harass r*ylos - even though they harass the fuck out of everyone else.

2. so zuko and his privilege

undoubtedly zuko as fire lord is in a fairly privileged position LMFAO. but during the show zuko is very clearly exiled - he holds very little political power in the fire nation EXCEPT for during the first season when he is in command of a ship that ozai gave him on a punishment quest lol like yeah he does terrible things and he of all people would not excuse his actions even if he was a traumatized kid, that’s the point of his arc - that he got some exposure to the rest of the world and worked to be better. and the only reason he was exiled at all was because he cares about people - he didn’t question fire nation supremacy at 13, but he sure did question the morality of his people being lead to slaughter.

but after zuko and iroh defect from the fire nation and stop hunting aang, he has next to no power, in any kind of way. like the guy is a political refugee. and yes, he goes back to the fire nation for like five minutes before realizing that he hates everything about fire nation hegemony and that he wants to end his father’s reign of terror, like that isn’t exactly someone who is going to be well esteemed by the powerful elites when he returns and takes the throne.

and I disregard the comics because they suck lol but zuko does have power as the fire lord, but he limits his power. like compared to ozai, phoenix asshole? azula? for the rest of the world, zuko is kind of an ideal leader for a former colonizing/imperialistic nation to have - someone who worked to end that tyranny, who is anti-imperialist, who believes in justice and equality, who wants to make things right for the peoples who his family oppressed.

I do think it is important to talk about power dynamics and imbalances in relationships - for instance, one could argue that mai is at a significant disadvantage in her relationship with zuko. sure she is from a powerful family but not as powerful as zuko’s. sokka? hah forget it. he’s just as disadvantaged as katara is politically speaking. toph? well, she’s definitely not as powerful politically as zuko - her family tried to silence her for years because of her disability. and oh, she’s disabled so it might be ableist for zuko to strike up a relationship with her when they’re both adults. forgetting of course that toph and sokka and katara and suki and mai are not going to be shy about their wants and needs, that these relationships are not likely to be coercive by nature of the show they’re in and the characters they involve. this is not bill clinton with monica creepiness. like, you’d have to write the relationship that way.

the only person who arguably has more political power than zuko is aang. I guess zuko can’t ever be in a relationship with anyone other than aang. and zuko’s family massacred aang’s people so I guess we can’t ship zukaang. now I know you’re not saying that, context matters. power dynamics are important. but you can’t take away the agency of characters - katara, who is essentially a princess, has agency and can choose who she wants to be with. strictly speaking, aang is more powerful than anyone in terms of political power - he’s the avatar - and of course the dynamic is different by nature of aang not being from a line of oppressors, but there still is a power imbalance in their relationship. and I don’t know how many k/ataang shippers have discourse~ on that. not that I really feel like they NEED to, um idk what they talk about lol I’m not in those circles.

3. fire lady katara is in the eye of the beholder

so fire lady katara is not inherently bad or racist, it’s essentially like saying michelle obama shouldn’t have been first lady of the us (now I get that like the obamas being in power didn’t mean black people are not marginalized lol). you can have conversations about whether or not individual versions of fire lady katara are fucked up, and I’m superrrr open to that because I’ve seen it be kinda shitty before. i’m just gonna leave this link to @shewhotellsstories and her post on this.

but often times katara as fire lady is very dominant in global/fire nation/water tribe politics, she’s a game changer ambassador (that is probably the most popular headcanon I see), she holds on to her culture (and many fans have designed her being in her wt colors, zuko is respectful af to her, she and zuko spend extended periods in the swt, etc. like... it just depends on the way it’s written.

also leaving this response by @avatarnerdkiller to the idea of katara being a prize figurehead.

anyway, thanks for your patience anon and I am curious to see if you see this or even feel like responding after all this time XD

#atla #petty fandom drama #zutara fandom #zutara #fire lady katara #discourse sigh #racism #fandom racism #asks #anonymous

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flamediel · 3 years

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i've just been seeing some asks about bts here on your blog and i'd like to clear some shit up because this isn't sitting right with me.

i'm really gonna be the last person to try to defend someone who's being colorist and racist, but on this case specifically i feel the need to reinforce that yes, bts had done some problematic shit in the past (specially rm) but i can attest that they've learned from their mistakes (again, specially rm). they have addressed so many situations that they didn't even had to because it was so long ago but they did because the fans were upset, they educated themselves and if you actually know the band you will see that it SHOWS.

they literally donated a million dolars to black lives matters last year and army went ahead and raised another million to donate 24 hours after. they apologized for literally every problematic shit they've done (and that doesn't include only the colorist stuff, i mean EVERY single stuff, including shit from the beggining of their careers, and if you don't believe me you can google it) and admitted they didn't know better but that they are learning, educating themselves, and honestly i don't see many people in the industry actually doing that.

in this case, as a poc, i personally forgave them because most of the stuff was a really long time ago and i believe they were being genuine in their apology and in saying they're educating themselves. that doesn't mean you also have to forgive but i think you should do your research better (in both what they did and what they said about it after being called out) instead of spreading false information.

every non-black person has a potential of being racist, most of them were and still are, because racism is something rooted really deep on our society. that is by no means an excuse, but just a way of saying that who your were in the past not always reflect who you are today and that you should try to learn and do better every day of your life. that was supposed to be the point of all that wasn't it? telling people what is wrong about what they're doing so they can maybe see it, and learn, and change, and make the world a better place, and only actually "cancel" them when you see they're not putting an effort in doing better. and i personally believe bts showed MANY times that they're putting an effort in doing better, and you can ask any other black fan and they'll tell you the same.

that said i think cncowners should be the last fandom pointing a finger at bts considering all the shit joel did during the black lives matter protests last year, considering all the times the member got caught saying the n word and culturally appropriating, and instead of owning up to their mistakes all they did was brush it all under the carpet and pretend it never happened.

also this is not an excuse for the fandom lol there are always gonna be shitty people in a fandom (and i think you personally know that very well lol) but in a fandom as big as army there's a lot more shitty people too. just because some army are colorist, racist, koreaboos or whatever does that mean ALL of them are? just because some of y'all were cncotheories does that mean everyone agreed with them?!)? you can't judge an artist by a fandom like that, specially a fandom so big. i'm not saying you have to love army and that everyone is great, because it's not and it can be really toxic, but again just like any other fandom but this time on a much larger scale.

ps: about yoongi using that speech on his song... he literally didn't know the history behind it lol and then people told him and he apologized, said he was ashamed of using it, that he's gonna be more careful with his samples for now on and took that part off the song on every oficial platform.

Ok im not gonna lie I skimmed this but let me ask you something.

Why does my opinion of bts matter to you so much? Like. I am one person on the Internet saying what I think and believe. Girl, why you so pressed.

You can forgive bts for what they did but I PERSONALLY am not gonna. Maybe they deserve to be forgiven, maybe they gave the best apology in the world (and btw, I DID Google it, and cannot find an apology for the antisemitism) but shit still doesn't sit right with me. Im not God, I'm not the High Court of Racism, im allowed not to accept an apology.

Similarly, if someone dislikes cnco bc of their shit then yeah thats fine and up to them, as they should. Different people address different issues in their own way, and if something rubs you the wring way and you don't wanna engage then don't. Go on your blog and say what you want about them all day if you want.

Now let me not go into the second part of your ask about how everyone is antiblack bc I WILL be throwing hands if I do and its just not worth it.

#asks #bts #anti bts

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sortagaysortahigh · 4 years

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so ur saying that if someone finds jj and rafe more attractive than kelce they're racist and colorist? that sounded so harsh and sarcastic and rude i swear i dont mean it like that! i just wanna know

No babe, Im saying when comparing all of them in terms of attractiveness and being hyped up and using the simple excuse of “but kelce barely got any lines” to justify not “seeing the hype behind him” or wondering why other people find him attractive shows that there are RACIAL not RACIST biases and colorism does play into said biases. Especially when you use someone like canon rafe who has a shit lod of negative qualities that people just brush past as if they don’t exist because he’s an attractive white man. And if people are comparing AU Kelce to AU Rafe thats one thing but I feel like that specific person was comparing the romanticized “not shitty” version of Rafe that the fandom has created to a canon character.

Usually these types of racial biases when it comes to “attractiveness” are unconscious because of what we’ve been exposed to in the media and around us in terms of beauty ideals and in most of the world the beauty standard is still being on the lighter side snd having more eurocentric features.

One thing i need to clear up here is having an unconscious racial bias does not make you racist. Unconscious racial biases are a form of prejudice, but in all reality everyone has prejudices regardless of race, its the reason that anyone can be prejudice but not everyone can be racist.

however having conscious racial biases and expressing them in negative manners and being very vocal about said biases does lead into colorism as well as racism. An example of this is the “lightskin v darkskin” argument when talking about black men and the fetishization of them. Oftentimes women fetishize darker skinned men because theyre portrayed as tough, masucline, aggressive, etc while lighter skinned men are seen as more feminine, sensitive, and push-overs.

All-in-all, yes you can find jj or rafe more attractive than kelce because we all have our preferences but your reasoning and arguments/justifactions behind your preferences are what set off red flags about specific racial and colorist biases. Especially when youre comparing white men to black men in a society that oftentimes brushes off black men-especially darker skinned black men. And in a fandom that is rlly full of colorism/racism having certain justifications behind things raise questions and concerns in my head as a biwoc.

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chuulove · 7 years

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its angering because like the whole cupc***e incident was only 4 solo jk stans being stupid and it blew up like that - now this one fake jk stan creating a rumor about him staring at an mcs tits & like not all of jk stans are like this but see already, just by 5 people fucking up, it doesn't only make people generalise jk stans, it makes ppl group armys together, n then generalise all kpop stans as trash and ..tbh twt is a mess. ppl need to get a grip.

lmao i mean obviously not all jk stans are bad, it’s just that recently a lot of his stans, solo or otherwise, have been getting up to some bullshit lately. it’s unavoidable that the worst of them are going to get attention and create an image for all fans bc people love to chase after drama and claim a group/it’s fans are problematic for brownie points. obviously some stans are as shitty as they say, but that goes for just about any community lmao.

this is just another thing that’s going to come along with how much bts are growing. the more fans u have, the more likely it is that some crazies are gonna be added into the mix and they’re almost always the loudest. people will hop on bandwagon hate no matter who it is, even if it’s uncalled for. that’s how the internet’s been for the longest lmao it’s terrible yeah but there’s really nothing anyone can do about it. the kpop community does have a racist/colorist/fetishization streak and it’s important to acknowledge but i know plenty of people, poc mostly, who call it out daily so it’s not like no one is talking about it.

anyways, yeah idk what to tell u rly. big communities come with a lot of bullshit but i’d suggest to find ur own corner of it, find people u enjoy interacting with, and try to ignore the rest? acknowledge when stans are being fucked up ofc but dont let that be all ur concerned about i guess is what im trying to say. also ur right twt is a mess lmao

#Anonymous #replies

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symmetralove · 7 years

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(same anon) its especially annoying how i am a POC but my opinions dont seem to be valid amongst my fellow students, but then another POC, or at least i assume he is, at my sixth of similar tone to me gets away with calling himself black and being a complete dick about it. its frustrating but i do try to ignore it. anyways, i hope you feel better soon. idk about you but if i look at some of my absolute favourite works of art for symmetra everything feels better, it might help :)

Thank you! Yes, that can be a problem. It’s unfortunate but people can be shitty people regardless of their race. I’ve met plenty of fuckboys and dumb uncles that think I’m too young and privileged and stupid to understand the real world. All the while they meanly laugh and discuss vile things with one another. Sexist and colorist and racist and just plain mean things. And they’re of Indian origin just like me! Honestly, they’re a huge part of why I judge people on the content of their character instead of the things they tell me to look out for.

#mod post #asks

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nightcoremoon · 7 years

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one poc in one post: "hey doing X is racist" okay! another poc in another post: "hey doing X isn't racist and to say that it is actually is racist itself" ...okay. yet another poc in yet another post: "hey actually it's racist to say that doing X is okay, and actively avoiding doing X is racist" ...o...kay? some white asshat with 'antisjw bullshit' in their blog description who sympathizes with nazis: "you're all dumb, it's racist to even acknowledge your skin color so shut up you [ethnic slur]!!!" definitely not okay /x/x/x/ so like. are white people allowed to cosplay characters of color, or are we not? because I'm getting some major conflicting signals across the board. I mean I know that doing blackface is always racist, and drawing black characters as white is racist, and lightening the skin tone in art is colorist, and all that shit, but can white people dress as black characters at conventions and stuff without it being racist? I mean, there is the existing logic of "black people can cosplay white characters so it should be fine the other way around", but that directly defies the logic of "race doesn't work the same way both ways because of the nature of white privilege". is it different because cosplay is not a race issue, and simply a celebration of a specific fictional character? I know white people have cosplayed hispanic and asian characters and I haven't seen much discourse about that, but I've also read and seen that hispanic and asian people have privilege over black people so I'm pretty sure that it's different in that regard too. so I don't know what to think anymore. if one black person says it IS racist for whites to cosplay characters of color, but another black person says that it is NOT racist for whites to cosplay characters of color, which one should I listen to? which one is correct? how do I determine which one to pay attention to? do I have to just dig and hunt and try to find which point of view consists of the less problematic people in other non-ethnic minority demographics??? should I just ignore it and let black people correct the slights against black culture, or is that me perpetuating silence is violence and being a Bad Racial Ally™????? am I just a Bad Racial Ally™ in general because I ask this question and have been consistently fucking up in every single interaction of this nature for the last several years no matter how hard I've tried to unlearn the shitty brainwashing instilled in me by my white culture and no matter how hard I've wanted to not be a bigot towards any group of people I still end up accidentally doing so by thoughtlessly committing countless microaggressions??????? am I just thinking way too much about this?????????

#I am tired and confused and in physical pain #I just wanna be a good person #but I don't fucking know how

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jonghyyn · 7 years

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hey has shinee done anything racist? it feels like too many hallyu grps r doing this stuff... i need someone unproblematic to stan

yeah, in the first of jonghyuns inspiration concerts, there was a segment in the young and rich vcr where jonghyun dressed up as an indian person. it was really shitty. it was subsequently cut after people called him out for it and he apologized. i’m sure you could dig up both the vcr itself and his apology. taemin has also worn dreads for a photoshoot before i believe. i think theres been one or two colorist comments over the years as well that i cant necessarily remember off the top of my head.

so in short shinee are definitely not Unproblematic™ lmao. but to be quite honest anon if ur goal is to find a group that is entirely, 100% unproblematic ur not gonna have much luck. because like,,, literally not one person on this entire earth is entirely unproblematic. which isnt a dismissal of the ways shinee have fucked up before im not trying to say “well everybody is bad dont focus on it :)” or anything… just that ur not going to find anyone thats unproblematic. of course and Again, im /not/ saying that ppl ought to handwave every problematic thing off- all of it needs to be addressed and dealt w individually, nor am i saying that there isnt like… some truly problematic shit that cant be forgiven bc theres a spectrum to this ofc. and if the aforementioned stuff is enough for u to not wanna stan thats 100% legitimate and understandable.

b u t searching for a group that u can deem is Unproblematic is just putting people on a pedestal, very human people who will inevitably fuck up. it sets up this dichotomy between ‘pure and unproblematic’ and ‘Evil Worthless Trash’ that just. isnt applicable to real ppl or real life. plus i think it (ironically) leads ppl to be Less critical, bc being critical means u will have to say someone is Problematic™ and underneath this dichotomy, that will put u in the position where u feel like u cant like this person anymore. so instead ppl will go out of their way to avoid engaging with criticism and not confront the fact that someone has indeed done a problematic thing. in a stan way i suppose its amusing to say Unproblematic Fave, but in real life theres no actual unproblematic fave out there.

anyway ive rambled a bit but yeah shinee are not unproblematic and anyone who says they are is putting them up on a pedestal. theyve fucked up before. its up to you if the ways theyve fucked up makes you not want to stan

#but yeah the point of this isnt that #'yes shinee are problematic but Stan Anyway' bc im not trying to say that #just htat In A Broader Sense looking for ppl who are 1000% unproblematic is setting urself up for failure #anon #ask

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