#coding =/= stereotyping or profiling.....

[pcktknife]

the way some white people don't understand terms that people have been using for ages can be so so infuriating

#coding =/= stereotyping or profiling..... #blackface =/= a black or brown person interpreting a traditionally pale character w darker skin #the bastardizing of the term whitewashing #its so dumb and annoying #just loud about words you have no idea how to use #the blackface one always gets me because how could u be so far off #especially when google is free!!!! #kae.txt #i say ages but i mean terms that are like not super recent if i needed to clarify

[project-sekai-facts]

idk if this has its own comprehensive post on here or not but can you explain in depth how rui is gay coded

yeah okay

i think what you'll see people bring up most often is the fact that he has his right ear pierced (see above). incredibly brief queer history lesson for anyone who is unaware: back in the 70s & 80s when it still illegal or otherwise heavily looked down on to be gay, wearing a single earring in your right ear became a non-verbal identifier amongst gay men in America. As far as I'm aware, identifiers did actually vary between areas, but it became far more publicly known that the right ear was the gay ear and the left ear was the straight ear. Even today when the stigma has worn away a decent amount, you still hear people bring up the term "gay ear" and the fact that the right ear is the gay ear is fairly common knowledge. This is also a known thing outside america, i'm not sure how far the spread is outside america and other english-speaking countries but it is definitely known in a fair amount of places (also it should be noted that a right ear piercing can have different meanings in different cultures that predate this meaning, and nowadays people are more likely to get whatever ear pierced they want regardless of sexuality).

obviously anyone can have any ear pierced that they want but things work a bit differently with character design. the only other MCs who regularly wear earrings are An (left ear) and Akito (both). For both of them, this is definitely done to make them seem more cool, which makes sense given they're in the street music scene and following the fashions. As for NPCs there's Nagi (left), Arata, Ken, Tatsuya, Iori, Saku, and Yuuka (all both), which again is probably just to fit the fashion of those characters. Okay, Yuuka just has regular old earrings but as for the others you've got street and punk rock styles which both incorporate piercings as a big part of the style (especially with Saku's punk look).

so all that considered, Rui's earring just sticks out, I guess? it's not really a fashion thing, it's pretty plain and just kinda there, and very conveniently happens to exactly match up with an old way of signaling in the gay community instead of being in his left ear which is the far more common ear for guys to get pierced if they only have one earring. also he almost always only has the one piercing in his right ear in trained cards, the only exceptions being his cheer squad (earrings in both ears) and his canary card (three piercings but still in his right ear).

like i said though, it doesn't have to mean anything but talking from the perspective of character design, sometimes if you want to communicate something about a character then you put it in there.

building off of that, very stereotype-y but his choreo is notably quite.. flamboyant, should I say, compared to the other characters, even shizuku and haruka's more elegant styles. honestly just watch the clip this is so hard to explain. anyway in the process of writing this i found out that his mocap artist lists in his professional profile that one of his specialities is dancing for both masculine and feminine roles, so I get the feeling that there was a reason they cast this person specifically instead of one of the other male artists at the company, and then there was the decision to even have him dance like that in the first place. this doesn't have to mean anything at all and as i said leans very far on stereotypes which is something that i'm not a huge fan of but you do still sometimes have to consider things like this even when talking about modern media.

this one again is more of a matter of perspective. Rui has a few interactions with Tsukasa that could very definitely be read as flirting. it's kinda ambiguous though, which does make sense given the type of game this is; they never really make anything clear so that people who are fans of a pairing can enjoy the teasing and people who don't like it can simply move on. first thing that comes to mind would be the part where he invites Tsukasa to his house in wonder halloween (above), mainly because his L2D uses his smile expression that has a blush with it and that was a choice that someone on the L2D team had to make but didn't have to - they could've easily just kept his usual teasing expression he had at the start of the interaction there was no need to change it.

There's a couple other interactions but this is probably the most obvious outside of the incredibly shameless shiptease of Rui volunteering himself to play Juliet so Tsukasa could rehearse the proposal scene of his R&J adaptation despite the fact that Nene was in the room in Kamikou Festival!.

(TL by pjsekai eng)

there's also that 1koma that I posted about a while ago. you know, the one where he asks for people to call him the "modern day Hiraga Gennai"? Hiraga Gennai as in the 18th century Japanese inventor who was also gay and wrote multiple works about it. The whole joke of the 1koma is that Rui wants to be known as the modern equivalent of a gay scientist and Tsukasa questions if he really wants to be called that.

The 1komas are played for jokes though, and especially the original ones are quite hard to call canon due to some of the scenarios and character interactions not making sense. But then again, someone on the writing team decided to write a gay joke around Rui for whatever reason that may be and it got passed by higher ups and put in the game (or, 3 versions of the game. the joke didn't make it to EN due to Gennai not being very known amongst the audience).

the only other thing i can think of (and arguably like, the biggest bit of evidence for this theory (?)) is that he doesn't really show any interest in women.

First off, the Valentine's Day 2021 vlive. Quick note that in Japan, Valentine's is traditionally a holiday for girls to give chocolates to boys (while white day is the reverse). You can give platonic valentines too, which is what happens in-game... for the most part.

Those chocolates Rui got could easily just be platonic chocolates from other students, but then you have a few factors to filter in. 1) this is very early into the game, back when his only friends were WxS and Mizuki and 2) Those chocolates aren't from WxS, since Emu and Nene give the boys sweets offscreen after the vlive, and Tsukasa is on the receiving end for this holiday. Of course, one box could be friend chocolates from Mizuki, but that leaves more chocolate boxes than friends to give him chocolates.

Immediately after this, Tsukasa gets jealous that Rui got chocolates and tries to brag that he got some too, before saying too much and revealing he got friendzoned by multiple girls, basically confirming that Rui's chocolates were given with romantic intent. I guess you could say that these were chocolates given out to everyone in 2-B, but then why would they leave it anonymously in his locker? Tsukasa's classmates just gave them out to everyone in-person. The only reason I could think of is that people don't want to associate with him, which is canon, but if that's the case then why even bother. I dunno. This is almost word-for-word from that post I made about the in-universe attractiveness of every character so sorry I made you sit through that again.

Getting back on track, Rui seems very neutral about the fact he got given multiple boxes of what was likely confession chocolate. He just briefly mentions that he forgot the holiday was even happening until he found chocolates and then never brings this up again. I think it's worth comparing his reactions to Tsukasa, who seems to care very much about his abilities (or, lack thereof) to attract women. Obviously Tsukasa is the big reactions/brag about a lot of things guy, but Rui does not really seem to care about the fact that multiple women find him attractive.

Second sub-point: Shizuku. Shizuku can be considered as the most attractive character in-universe given the sheer amount of characters that have been shown to be attracted to her or at least comment on her looks (currently at least 8 MCs and a few named side characters). Admittedly none of those MCs are male, but it isn't like it's impossible for people to be attracted to the opposite gender in this game, like we just established that Tsukasa says he's interested in women, so the point still stands.

(TL from Tsukasa's #3 fan on YT)

Specifically I would like to point out a scene in A Once-In-A-Lifetime Pandemonium, when the 2-B trio first meet the Miyajo 2nd years. The three of them immediately recognise Shizuku and Airi and then Ibuki describes Mafuyu as "a beauty". Shizuku gives them her idol smile which in their POV has the same sparkles that often show up when characters are attracted to another character (like how Haruka has this effect on Minori and Kohane, and An has this effect on Kohane). Like it's very, very obvious that Rui's friends are attracted to Shizuku and the other girls and they're pretty surprised that he's hanging around with them.

But Rui never acts like this around Shizuku at all, nor does he ever even address the fact that she's good looking. He doesn't even bring it up in their earlier interactions, when a lot of other characters (e.g: Emu, Ena, and Mizuki) commented on her looks almost immediately after meeting her (they did first meet in a pretty stressful situation if you want to argue that, but it still stands that he's never been attracted to her).

at the end of the day i think you could definitely make a case for it. like it's harder to make a solid argument in comparison to say, Kohane, An, or Minori who are outright attracted to other girls, but there's definitely some more subtle hints and stuff to work with still and it was actually quite fun to compile them (i took the in-depth part to heart as always sorry anon).

#this isn't meant to invalidate anyone's ships or HCs or whatnot like do whatever you want #do whatever you want with this post it's just for fun. #asks #theory #? i guess?? #rui kamishiro

[whiteraven90]

Notable classes of beings of the nameless world home to Tetra, in order of their appearance.

I. FREE GODS

Characterized by stereotypical dragon behaviors, the free gods are boundlessly aggressive, lazy, and greedy titans. They've never created anything, own nothing, and typically they are senselessly hostile and don't negotiate. They have no need for food, but the stronger god devours the weaker one anyway. They usually tear into and start eating each other the moment they get close enough.

II. GODS

Tetra got its name from the fact that everything on it is owned by and was made of its four gods: ELI the dreamer, SOL the judge, ORM the sculptor, and ARK the warden. These are not names but three-letter codes assigned to them. They are referred to as "the gods", or as Tetran gods.

III. SPIRITS

Spirits were created by the gods as blueprints for species - flora and fauna both. Their primary objective as such was to preserve themselves. They were given a high level of sentience and godlike control over their own selves to this end, although that initial objective has been obsolete for a while.

They are incorporeal beings who can temporarily create themselves in corporeal space. They have no lifespan, no single default form, no sex, no orientation, no physical needs. By default, they communicate via telepathy, although they don't typically communicate at all.

IV. MORTALS

All mortal species have been created out of chosen spirits by the gods. Not really a "class of being", a companion - often called spirit-master - is a mortal with whom a spirit has some kind of bond and/or frequent, willing interactions.

The nature of these relationships varies wildly, but every spirit has the same ulterior motive, as all of them are in the same boat. As of now, spirits are perplexed and unsettled by the sudden and unprecedented silence of the gods, and the simultaneous appearance of people.

The most involved companions are Pegasus's master Holly, and Phoenix's son Ryan; whereas the three highest-profile, busiest spirits are Phoenix, Griffin, and Pegasus.

------------------

I like to focus on the little stories of spirit-human relationships, instead of the big questions. I'm mainly working on a comic about how Holly got Pegasus to be her spirit. In the meantime, there will be the usual disjointed sketches and illustrations.

#whiteraven90 #Tetra #LORE POST #wrote a longer one but i realized i don't want to spoil everything #worldbuilding

[littlebabytimmybird]

gonna be an unpopular opinion but the way fans treat tim is really indicative of how society views autistic people. tim is HIGHLY autistic coded, from his extreme interests to his social awkwardness.

in early comics with him in them, tim is actually a pretty good representation of autism. he is shown to have a strong interest in batman and robin/nightwing, he doesn't realize when he's upsetting people, and he often goes about things in a blunt, clumsy way. even the way he speaks fluctuates between being incredibly articulate to incredibly childlike. he seems simultaneously innocent and all-knowing, childish and an old soul. all of this is common in level 1 autism spectrum disorder. tim is clearly gifted but he isn't a super-genius, he's just a talented and dedicated kid. although he didn't have to work the hardest of all the robins in general by any means, he did have to work the hardest to become a robin, as he lacked any training before that and came from a privileged background where he had been somewhat coddled by his families wealth. even jason had fighting experience, tim did not.

another aspect of tim's character that is a good representation is his empathy. there is a theory of empathy that says there are 3 types, emotional empathy, "I feel as you feel", cognitive empathy, "I understand how you feel", and compassion, "i want you to feel better" like many autistic people, tim is somewhat lacking in the second category but has an abundance in the third. he talks openly about the death of jason in front of bruce dick and alfred without realizing it could upset them and is shocked when they react with anger. he often gets himself in trouble by saying things that come across as rude or blunt without meaning to. however, he is incredibly compassionate and deeply cares for the people around him, showing that he is very capable of empathy.

a major autistic trait tim embodies is what psychiatry calls an "uneven profile". uneven profiles are when someone is very skilled in some areas but behind in others. tim is a clear example of an uneven profile because he is highly intelligent and learns practical skills like fighting quickly, but he is lacking in non-practical skills. he has a black-and-white way of thinking about good and evil that is more commonly seen in young children than in teenagers. he idolizes batman and nightwing and it takes him years to learn that they have flaws like any human. a large part of tim's journey is learning to overcome this style of thinking but it is still a clear developmental delay in the beginning.

overall, tim is a compassionate, warm, and intelligent, yet flawed character. he is a sweet and clever kid with a big heart (sometimes too big).

so why is it that in fanon, tim is portrayed as a cold, calculating, all-intelligent super genius with no autonomy? disregarding the fact that it is an insult to his character, it is also an insult to autistic people in general, especially when people claim they headcanon him as autistic but use the fanon version of him.

there are 3 main ways that autistic people are viewed in fandoms:

The Artificial Intelligence. the artificial intelligence autistic stereotype pins us as robots, capable of great feats of intelligence but incapable of emotion. this is the most neutral of the stereotypes, as we are not seen as human and therefore not stigmatized as humans.

The Man Child. despite its name, the man-child autistic stereotype can apply to any age or gender. the man-child autistic's primary trait is being annoying. they are likely savants, but they use their skills to be obnoxiously pedantic. they are unreasonable and demand everything be to their specifications at all times. sheldon cooper from the big bang theory fits into this category.

The Woobie. these woobified autistic characters will always be found wearing oversized clothes and having shutdowns but NEVER meltdowns. they cry often and need to be held and comforted by friends and family who serve as caretakers to the 'helpless baby autistic.'

and when the people who claim to like him write about him, tim is never held responsible for his actions, he never takes others into account, he is a tech genius and he has questionable morals, or doesn't seem to have a moral code at all. he has a troubling coffee addiction and lacks sleep at all times but, like any good supercomputer, he can go out and patrol just fine despite it. he is a machine, running on air and spite.

it is mostly tim's haters who portray him in the second way. that's when you get a tim who is selfish and snobbish, mostly towards poor innocent damian wayne who has never done anything wrong in his life.

sometimes, tim is written so he can't take care of himself. when he does have emotions, they're all sad ones. he cries himself to sleep, and dick or bruce or even jason for some reason have to come and comfort him. they force him to stop drinking so much coffee and to go to bed at a reasonable hour even as an adult.

now, don't get me wrong. there are some autistic people, quite a few actually, who do need to be taken care of as adults. hell, I'll probably be one of them to some degree. but even with someone who will never be able to live alone, autonomy is the most important thing to remember. people should always be allowed to make their own decisions as much as they are capable of. and tim in fanon has almost no autonomy. it is, plainly speaking, a huge fucking insult to the disabled community.

When the first and third stereotypes are mixed, you get a cruel mockery of an uneven profile. similar to the manchild trope, this is a tim who needs everything his way, but this time it's all given in to by those around him.

so, in conclusion: in early comics tim was an excellent accidental portrayal of low support needs ASD, but fanon took away all his positive autistic traits and turned him into a shallow stereotype of an autistic person and a mockery of all his actual autistic traits. even the seemingly harmless coffee-lover headcanon feeds into the horrific stereotypical treatment of his character.

#tim drake #batfam #autistic batfam #autistic tim drake #tim drake robin #tim drake rant #rant #autism headcanons

[magxit]

Just dropped: https://twitter.com/rollingstone/status/1663660316817780745?s=46&t=Jv7EvC8oVb-dKk_gHc29yQ

I haven’t read the full thing. But kinda sad when the media gets it more so than her own fans…

We Wouldn’t Be Having This Conversation If Taylor Swift Was a Man

Publicity stunt or not, Swift can have a sleazeball summer if she damn well pleases.

ON THE FINAL night of Taylor Swift’s MetLife shows this weekend, 80,000 Swifties screamed in the swamps of New Jersey for over three hours. They wore outfits from every era — tinsel fringe dresses, serpent arm cuffs, and heart-shaped sunglasses. I saw countless faces in cowboy hats similar to the emoji — only these cowboys were sobbing uncontrollably while eating foot-long hotdogs. And the bracelets! They were all wearing beaded bracelets coded in Swiftian lyrics, trading them in the parking lot like Deadheads swapping grilled cheeses. (Take my advice: do not try to pay for the bracelets. They will look at you like you’re from outer space.) 

It’s hard to believe that while this magical Eras tour is happening — and while Swift is somehow reaching previously-unimaginable heights of popularity, surpassing even the ludicrous highs of 2015 — she is also experiencing a backlash from some corners of the Swiftie community over her supposed new boyfriend, the 1975’s Matt Healy. 

Their sentiments were best summed up in an open letter on Twitter using the hashtag #SpeakUpNow (named after Swift’s upcoming re-recording of her 2010 album), which states that Healy’s many controversies “deeply trouble” them. “From engaging in racist remarks, making offensive jokes, and admitting to watching degrading pornography in which people of color are being humiliated and assaulted, his actions contribute to the perpetuation of hate, stereotypes, and objectification, which targets and hurts some people from the Jewish, Black, Chinese, Hawaiian, Inuit, LGBTQ+ communities, as well as women.”

The statement refers to the derogatory comments Healy made about the rapper Ice Spice on The Adam Friedland Show podcast in February and the questionable apology he delivered onstage last month. Fans raised eyebrows when Swift recruited the rapper for her “Karma” remix last week, and on Monday, Healy finally addressed the controversy in a New Yorker profile that only exacerbated the issue. He explained that the whole thing “doesn’t actually matter” and that the backlash he received was merely virtue signaling: “It’s just people going, ‘Oh, there’s a bad thing over there, let me get as close to it as possible so you can see how good I am,’” he said. “And I kind of want them to do that, because they’re demonstrating something so base level.”

If you didn’t catch this quote aggregated on the internet about 137 times (you probably had better things to do than scroll Twitter and hustle children for their handmade bracelets), you aren’t missing much. This is all part of Healy’s artistry: an intricate, tangled web of bits intended to rile you up and piss you off. This is the guy who eats raw meat onstage, gives Nazi salutes, and delivers intelligent observations like, “I’m obsessed with my dick for some reason.” Stupid Shit is his brand. Are we really supposed to take anything he says seriously? 

I’m not here to answer that, but I am here to tell you that none of it is Taylor’s problem. For the last 17 years, we’ve held this woman responsible for the actions of men she chooses to spend time with, and it’s time to stop. It would be fair to criticize her for walking out of Electric Lady with the ghost of Pol Pot or wondering why her dad and Matt Lauer are grooving out to her performance of “22.” But this is just a hot sleazeball who wants Oasis back together (I don’t know about you, but I’ve dated a lot of guys who fit that description), and it’s up to Taylor to spend her time as she pleases.

[davekat-sucks]

i just want to have an honest conversation, could someone please give me one reason as to why seeing gamzee&meenah as "black-coded" isn't promoting deeply offensive negative stereotypes or racial profiling. to quote posts on this site alone with proof of their alleged coding: messy hair, simple braids, hostility, drug abuse, money obsession, absent father, etc

its crazy to me how americans link these traits to black people and tell you youre racist for not wanting to accept it. i genuinely dont get it, how could any of these be indicative of ethnicity or race? take substance abuse or having an absentee father for example, those happen to anyone everywhere. violent j and shaggy 2 dope are both white, both had absent fathers and drug abuse issues, that's why gamzee shares the same traits too, because his character is parodying them, juggalos.

and before anyone says anything about how gamzee and meenah format their dialog, rufioh uses the same vernacular too, and thats because dante himself speaks and writes the same way. ICP too. so isnt that proof that their lexicon isnt used solely by black people irl? to me the concept of a "black accent" seems like segregation, i feel like stating the obvious that black people just like everyone else can have any regional accent depending on where they live... do asian americans or hispanic americans have an equivalent too? and why even make the distinction of a "non-white" english dialect when no other language does this? what do americans consider white vernacular or slang then? standard english? why are they assigning human ethnicities to an alien society that didn't develop the same way?

again, i just want to understand.

Same, I want to understand too. I wanna hear it from anyone. I even see legitimate black people claim that Gamzee and Meenah are racist. Like how?!!!!!! Please, someone reblog with a response on why you think this!

#Homestuck #Homestuck fandom #HOM3STUCK #Gamzee Makara #Meenah Peixes

[horizon-verizon]

Isn’t aesthetizising the suffering, victimhood and submission under patriarchy and its rules secretly providing a front for glorifying submitting to it under the guise of being appalled by it ? Sansa’s and Alicent’s fans in reality love upholding the patriarchal context, because only that same patriarchy can provide them the glamorized victim identities they self-insert to, and to sell it to others as desirable, palatable playground.

Funny that you say that, anon, bc there are people that say that due to the frequent victimization of the female MCs or important characters, GRRM romanticizes or glorifies gender based violence. And they have some validity when it's critiquing how GRRM doesn't provide as critical or focused a lens on gender based sexual violence apart from a military/war context...but here's is a lot to be said about Sansa and Alicent stans seeing their rape as giving them moral license to be cruel to the point here they characterize sexual violence and subordination of women as an important ingredient to developing her character/creating a righteous profile. (Show!Sansa & Alicent btw, thought there are those orig!Sansa stan who hates either version of Dany precisely bc Dany troubles gender identity even as she is obviously still very femme-coded in her favorite things, mannerism, usual dress, etc.....Dany is woman-powerful because she is defying all the stereotypes of a "lady", and thus constructs a sort of power made exclusive to women when culturally "strength" in the abstract is masculinized. Both in ASoIaF and real life...I mean, just her mistaking herself as Rhaegar in one of her visions, her relationship with Daario Naharis, etc. all are examples of that narrative troubling.)

Sansa and Alicent are "good" leaders because these fans think they know what "true suffering" is...as they denigrate Dany fans by saying we only like Dany because she was raped, sold, etc. and became a leader "because" of that. No, sister, we love her because she has learned to use her understanding of how men work to dismantle systems of oppression despite what is done to her.

Not to say that Sansa isn't coming into her own and not the way her stans think. But they mischaracterize her and her arc.

The problem with GoT making Sansa a rape vicitm and then convey an idea that she was somehow "better" for it is to do two things:

presume that through extreme suffering or oppression, a person grows into a better person or a stronger person....when scientifically and just logically, a person actually becomes less patient, more stressed out, etc., as we see with war veterans [PTSD]

removes or reduces accountability or proof of fault from the person/abuser/rapist, even makes them the "granter" of the "strength" to the victim; thus redefines the rape, abuse, etc. as a good thing

#asoiaf asks to me #daenerys stormborn #daenerys targaryen #character comparison #sansa stark's characterization #sansa stark #alicent hightower #alicent's characterization #agot characterization #hotd characterization #fire and blood characters #sansa stans #alicent stans

[daily-rare-pairs]

Post explaining minor rules, there's no obligation to read.

Welcome to Daily Rarepairs! There are two admins for this account, who both use he/him. Admin 2 is more infrequent, but still very appreciated. Remember your daily clicks for Palestine We will post most ships; excluding proships and darkships. Ex; we will not post minor x adult, but will post Fatui ships. Keep in mind none of our posts about such ships are intended to romanticize them. If you'd like to submit a platonic ship, please clarify that it is platonic within the submission. We will not post romantic ships with Dori, Nahida, and Sayu, due to their unclear ages. Diona, Yaoyao, Qiqi, and Klee are children. Bennett, Fischl, Freminet, Collei, Xingqiu, Xiangling, Barbara, Noelle, Chongyun, Kirara, Mika, and Razor are teenagers. Please keep this in mind when submitting ships. Do not send us asks asking why we interpret a character as being a minor. On the same breath as this, Genshin Impact has many queer-coded characters. We ask that you respect these, We'll even provide a list of them below Implied lesbians: Yae Miko, Raiden Ei, Ningguang, Beidou, Keqing, the Tsaritsa Implied sapphic characters: Dehya, Candace, Navia Implied achillean characters: Alhaitham, Kaveh, Cyno, Tighnari Implied bisexual characters: Clorinde, Albedo, Heizou, Venti, Lyney, Ayaka, Kaeya, Childe, Kokomi, Yanfei, Xinyun Implied genderqueer characters: Furina, Raiden Ei, Makoto, Focalors, Zhongli, Nahida, Rukkhadevata, Venti, Murata, the Tsaritsa As well as this, please be aware of stereotypes that you imply while discussing characters. The sexualization of Kaeya, in particular, is a racial stereotype. Always be mindful of the way you speak about all characters within the game. Each ship posted is tagged with the character's names; if you're worried about your ship having been posted, type #name into the search bar on our profile to check.

Thank you for reading, enjoy the ships!

#introduction #pinned info #not a ship #important #rules #last updated 4/4/2024

[malikismindful]

Peace and Love, Black Family! Over the past few months, I’ve sacrificed a few comforts in exchange for growth. For those who don’t embody the same “Race First” ideology as myself, this may not seem like growth. But this post or my profile may not be for you anyway!——In my view, blame is a heavy burden that should not be placed on the shoulders of children, who have no say in the circumstances of their birth. The child of an interracial relationship is a product of choices made by adults, and to hold them accountable for those choices would be unfair. The question of the preservation of the Black family is a separate issue and should be discussed in its own context. Adults who make the decision to enter into interracial relationships ought to fully consider the implications for their community and their family. Many Blacks involved in interracial unions will defend their choices as love, when it’s actually self-hate expressed as fetishism. From a any standpoint, fetishism can only perpetuate harmful stereotypes and objectification of individuals based on their race or other marginalized identities. It contributes to the dehumanization and exoticization of Black people, whether they identify themselves as a phenotypical African or not. Interracial fetishizing only reinforces power imbalances and reinforces the idea that our worth is solely based on racial assimilation. Fetishization in many cases leads to fetishistic violence, exploitation, and discrimination against Black people, further losing ourselves in this society. It is crucial to recognize and challenge these harmful dynamics to promote Self-love, solidarity, and independence amongst likeminded Black people. GET ON CODE. STAY ON CODE. 🩸💣🔫✊🏾 BLACK POWER! #blackpower #blacklove #blackman #blackwoman #blackempowerment #blackrevolution #blackrevolutionary #revolution #truth #knowledge #blackconsciousness #blackkingsandqueens #blackpower #blackqueen #blackunity #blacksunite #blacksunited #blacknationalism #african #panafrican #blackpeople #blackowned #malikismindful

#african #panafrican #knowledge #truth #race and politics #malikismindful

[inthestarsme]

Astro Observations pt. 1

Disclaimer:

‼️Don't repost my Observations without consent and mentioning my page‼️

I very much respect non-binary or trans people. If i'm talking about man or woman, i'm talking about cis-men or woman i know, because often, due to societal coding/standards, there can be differences depending on the gender. But it could very much apply to you if you are non-binary or trans. Just take what resonates and leave what doesn't, as spiritual people like to say.🫶🏻

If you don't agree with my observations, please don't send any hate. It's just personal observations that i'm posting just for fun. Don't take anything you read too seriously. It's not a science, just pop-astrology.

Virgo Sun woman: I know two who have an instagram but don't post anything and have it on private. but every now an then they change their profile picture. and they still only let people follow them who they know. 📱

Leo sun men: I know two who just love sex. Both have told me exactly that💀 and both have very specific kinks. 🤭

Virgo sun men: I know two who have stalked and emotionaly traumatised people through phone. They are not brave enough to actually do something in real life, but they see their opportunity in the online-distance and take it to let out any rage/ anger/ bad emotion they have towards you. Or they think because it is online, it will not have the same concequences. It's very well thought through and very cruel. 😶

Libra sun woman: We really like art or creative stuff, even if we don't actualy paint or draw. We just like anything that's artsy, art museums, dressing in a creative way, etc. ✨

Aquarius Rising: I just know too many who are tall af, including myself. Not necessarily skinny/slender, but just tall. 🤩

Taurus Moon: I only know one Taurus moon (myself) but i can confirm the stereotype that we just really like eating, chilling and just enjoying the good side of life, which can also make us lazy. But it doesn't mean we don't get shit done. These things just make us feel emotionaly satisfied. Maybe it could also lead to weight gain, but it very much depends. 💅🏻

Pisces Rising: They may have specific body parts be bigger/ smaller than usual, but i've noticed that they are emotional eaters. So they might lose/gain weight depending on their emotional/ mental state. So you can pretty much tell if they are emotionaly/ mentaly stable depending on their outer appearance. 🧠

Please like, comment or reposte to show some love 🫶🏻

#astrology #astroblr #astro observations #taurus #virgowomen #virgomen #leo sun #libra sun #aquarius rising #taurus moon

[cyeayt]

Ambivalence OC Profiles

ive been tagging some posts as my ocs and i want to talk about them so here are the three main characters of my ambivalence oc set.

Ambivalence lore (very cliche but this story is more for me to process religious thoughts and weird relationships): its basically an incredibly stereotypical urban fantasy setting where there are realms/planes where magic is more distilled, there's a heaven and a hell analogue and like, werewolves, etc. There are a gods/demons that sometimes organize stuff and might try to end the world but eh. there's a group who tries to stop that happening but its centered around one specific god and gets v culty, they are referred to as "the knights" from here out. Ben spent his childhood as a 'chosen one' figure (he's half demon), and got really fed up with the whole bit. Alice was his friend and brief girlfriend when they were younger. During the last arc of their childhood and after the last big battle, their ragtag hero group gets absorbed into the knights who have been gaining numbers and legitimacy. Ben runs away and Alice takes it hard. The main story takes place a few years later when they reunite.

I've made them each in these three picrews to properly capture the vibe.

Ben:

Reuben (Ben), 24, he/him. Ben lives alone in a house he inherited from his maternal grandfather. He likes to live simply and peacefully, and works as a carpenter. His hobbies include pottery, gardening, and collage making. He is badger coded and capable of great violence, but is very calm most of the time. Since cutting ties with his old life, he has simultaneously mellowed out and repressed a lot of shit. He is trained to fight with a broadsword, although he turned his old one into a garden sculpture. He has a lot of scars and pain from old injuries. He is generally very stoic but is pretty emotional if you can read his understated facial expressions. He values the happiness and safety of himself and the people he loves, and dislikes liars. He can often be hypocritical and selfish.

Alice:

Alice P. Morrison, 23, she/her. Alice lives on a remote knight compound researching and developing ways to protect the balance of the planes. It is a very high stress environment and she's honestly pretty miserable. She likes caffeine and graph paper, her hobbies include sleeping and eating. Sometimes she goes hiking in the surrounding woods. Since Ben left, she has lost connections with old friends and mentors and become increasingly reliant on an unhealthy relationship with the director of the knight organization. She is trained to fight with only magic and can maybe use a spear. When she eventually gets out she will enjoy live music, painting, and reading nonfiction books. She's 'dog that you might think is a large rat or sick cat at first' coded. She shows her emotions pretty strongly and gets embarrassed easily. She cannot read facial expressions she just knows Ben really well. She values values knowledge and approval and dislikes apathy. She can be petty and stubborn.

Max:

Maximilian Hadley, 24, he/they. He certainly is here. Ben meets Max after leaving the knights and as Ben makes a new life he and Max build a relationship that Ben is hesitant to define, although Max would like to. They are outgoing and very socially adept, he likes fashion, history, and forming connections with people. his hobbies are a lot of what people around him want to do, but he personally enjoys horseback riding. Their family is very rich and owns a lot of animals. He knows little to nothing about magic, although his moms got up to their fair share of bullshit before he was born. He is not trained to fight but he would try to bite if it came to it. He is fancy cat coded and expresses his emotions carefully. They value connection, loyalty, and finesse. They dislike cruelty. He often struggles with boundaries and can be pushy or jealous.

Other Characters:

John: Ben and Alice's mentor figure, was not very good at the actual raising children part of it, was injured in the final battle and died as the knights were taking over.

Archer: Another mentor figure, they were closer to Ben and ended up faking their own death after he left. Was involved with John's sister.

John's sister: So very dead real narrative haunting gal she was prophetic and very mentally unstable about it.

Mason: Stereotypical fighter guy, was very close to Alice and Val, is still essentially loyal to the knights but doesn't talk to Alice anymore.

Val: Mason's partner and also fighter gal, was always quick to put herself at risk for the others and it caught up to her. She's been in a coma since the final battle.

#remind me to make posts for some of my other sets someday #oc #ocs #original character #my characters #ambivalence ocs #note to self learn to spell ambivilance #oc ben #oc alice #oc max #writing #creative writing

[hypnag0g]

Do you have examples of your web/graphic design-ish art on hand? I've caught glimpses and it's some REALLY excellent stuff

howdy! thank you so much for this wonderful ask, i very rarely get the chance to talk about my web/graphic design stuff, so seize any chance i can get! you'll have to forgive me for how scattered this everything is, my graphic design stuff normally ends up as a smaller part of illustrations, so a lot of it is gonna be cropped, haha.

my hypnagog header is probably the thing i'm most proud of, it was the first custom font i ever made that felt like i captured what i saw in my head. kind of a clunky way to put it but before this i'd change my header logo and general "branding" like once every three months, yet this one has stuck around for like 2ish years!! here it is in my classic colorway and my new green/orange one.

here are a couple of my older logos for a bunch of random projects (a comic about evil horses, a defunct community project, a bunch of little glyphs for hypnagog before i settled on my current aesthetic, and one for story about evil clones)

here are three posters i did for a couple of classes, they're more illustrative than graphic design but there's still elements that feel close enough to gd for me to post lol (a pitch poster for ANOTHER comic i was working on, an editorial piece about the recent HPAI surge, and a quick zine about my experiences with internet horror)

and FINALLY. here's my web design stuff. full disclaimer, i learned how to code on neopets, and i've never been able to break free of it's pull, so p much everything i've ever done for web design has all been on neopets, or on clone sites that emulate it pre-2007.

i'd love to link you these two but they're unfortunately behind a login screen on my current petsim of choice, so i hope the screenshots will do! these two are pet lookups coded from the ground up to look like social media profile pages (fun sidenote: Butch has a normal profile, Ransom is a silly hacker stereotype, and he had no choice but to "customize" his profile when faced with the insanely unsecured back-end of LUNET.)

aside from that, my other most recent web project was developing a really sleek character directory for my toyhou.se. i made all the graphics on this page and i'm super proud of it, haha.

oh i almost forgot. i also have a bunch of really dumb banners that my friends and i use in discord in tandem with a bot that posts them on command - most of them are intentionally designed to look bad, but some of em (especially the data "webba" banner) were made with a lot of care, haha.

i think i might be forgetting some things, but that's pretty much it! my next big project is building out my neocities - i'll definitely post about it when its finished because i wanna use it as a secondary posting location for all my stuff :o]

thank you again!!!!

#my art #artists on tumblr #askagog #graphic design and web design are like. the only form of art that i do that feels like a hobby to me #everything else is super intense work stuff #but building a silly little webpage? always fun. always exciting #i hope tumblr doesn't eat the quality on these

[nedxnancy]

Barbie (2023) and Nancy Drew (1959)

I have to put this under a read-more because it's gonna talk about the way Barbie (2023) ends.

I went to see the movie today, and I couldn't help thinking about Ned and Ken.

There are a lot of similarities between Nancy Drew and Barbie (in fact, if somehow that ever actually happened, a Barbie modeled on Nancy Drew instead of just general Detective Barbie or Spy Barbie, I would lose it. Lose. It. A friend made me some vintage-inspired-Nancy-Drew Barbie outfits and I LOVE THEM.) - Barbie is allowed agency and high-profile careers and all the importance, although, as the film points out, Stereotypical Barbie exists only to be pretty and blank.

(I also didn't realize until drafting this post that the Nancy Drew revisions, removing racial stereotypes and streamlining/shortening the plots from the 1932-1958 books, which began in 1959, started the same year Barbie was introduced.)

My Barbies were always involved in crime plots. Evil Barbie was blackmailing people and trying to steal their boyfriends. It was like a reality show in my Barbie townhouse. My Kens (who were outnumbered by a significant ratio) were pretty much always just accessories, either literal or figurative.

Nancy Drew is on the cusp of adulthood and has no stated money-earning career, much like Stereotypical Barbie. She loves mysteries and is an amateur detective, but it's very clear that she is not professional, is not paid for her work, and would be unable to operate as an amateur detective were her father unable to bankroll her activities.

Ned, like Ken, exists without Nancy—but also has no job. Ken does "beach," but performs no function there. (The film aside that Ken's domestic sphere, the Mojo Dojo Casa House, sells like hotcakes, is fascinating: masculine-coded toys seem to have castles or Batcaves for "homes," and are heroes or rescuers or doers in some sense; Ken is allowed to just be a horse enthusiast who also loves full-length fur coats. Ken doesn't sit in the Pink [White] House being absolute ruler all day.) Ned is a college student who plays sports but also isn't employed beyond temporary summer jobs. To the viewer/reader, Ned does functionally disappear without the context of Nancy. Nancy defines Ned's life.

a yellowed-paper heart imagines Ned without Nancy, much like Ken, but in the story Ned recognizes that Nancy has been made to never return his affections; he has agency, where she is bound by the decisions of her creator. Ned seeks meaning in reality but it's to escape the pain of knowing his love won't and can't be requited. He gets to be his own main character for a while, but recognizes that the lack remains.

Ned can't return. But Ken does. Ken comes off as kind of incel in the last part of the film, but he also freely admits early on that even if he did "stay over" at Barbie's house, he's not sure what that would actually mean. He's hurt that his feelings aren't returned, not that Barbie is denying him (functionally impossible) sex.

I think it's very easy to read Nancy Drew, especially original Mystery Stories, 1932-1979, Nancy Drew, as asexual. She can't return Ned's feelings because she hasn't been given the capacity. She does feel warmly toward him, he is her favorite escort, but her priority is always her mysteries, and for the most part Ned has no interest in interfering with that, because the excitement of her mysteries is part of what he loves about her.

I think it's really interesting to read Barbie as asexual too, although the film makes the point that Barbie lacks functional genitalia (until the end, anyway). Becoming a "real woman" doesn't make Barbie attracted to Ken. Stereotypical Barbie can't be married Barbie because that isn't a universal goal.

You can argue that Nancy Drew is niche; she's not stereotypical Barbie. But Nancy Drew also breaks gender norms in a few different ways while reinforcing others, and just like Stereotypical Barbie, Nancy calls the shots in her relationship.

Ned doesn't exist only for Nancy's gaze, even though he very obviously hints that he wants to marry her eventually. Ken wants to make a home with Barbie partially because Kens just don't have homes in Barbieland. Ned, were he to change his mind and seek another partner, is presented as a very attractive guy.

In the movie, the ways the Kens perform a lot for and with each other was fascinating. The Barbies interact with each other; Kens are temporary distractions from the work. Nancy and her friends interact with each other; Ned and his friends are around to serve as muscle in dangerous situations, crew sailboats, and call the cops before returning to their summer jobs. In that way, Ned does have a role, where Ken is shut out.

(This is also ignoring the Kens who clearly DID have careers, or at least the wardrobe to imply them. Those Kens always seemed niche, though. Doctor Ken was a thing. Otherwise, Ken comes dressed appropriately to accompany the corresponding Barbie on an adventure.)

Nancy Drew can't end. Barbie can't end. They were written to survive and be and read ourselves into. Marriage/relationships aren't the goal we all have - and even if they were, we aren't all straight - so the characters can't have that, but that doesn't mean that they, that Barbie, can't be people, adults, complete.

It's just interesting to think about.

#nancy drew #barbie 2023 #asexual #film #ned nickerson #and ken

[mariacallous]

Nicki Minaj wanted to delete the internet—and with good reason. In July, a deepfake video of her went viral on Twitter. “What in the AI shapeshifting cloning conspiracy theory is this?!?!!” she tweeted after a fan brought the clip to her attention. A Billboard-charting rapper known for her sometimes extreme outspokenness online, Minaj had not given consent to use her likeness and responded with a characteristic blend of fury and farce. “I hereby abolish the internet. Effective @ 0900 military time tomorrow morning,” she continued. “BON VOYAGE BITCH.”

The clip in question was from an episode of Deep Fake Neighbour Wars, an eccentric mockumentary-style show that broadcasts on ITV in the UK and lampoons celebrity culture. In the video, Nicki and Tom (as in actor Tom Holland) are depicted as a working-class couple who return from their honeymoon to find their next-door neighbor, Mark Zuckerberg, asleep on their sofa. The sheer ridiculousness of the video was not lost on Minaj—hence, “I hope the whole internet get[s] deleted!!!”—but its release does pinpoint an unsettling trend taking hold online. The video belongs to an emerging genre of AI-generated media that capitalizes on the disfigurement of race and gender.

Of the many issues at stake amid the AI gold rush, from ethical concerns to ownership rights, perhaps the most terrifying is the purposeful distortion of our very selves. Some experts in generative AI anticipate that the majority of internet content may be “synthetically generated” by 2026. ​​One industry where this shift will have major implications is in Hollywood, where actors and writers are currently striking to ensure AI can’t have too heavy a hand in the visual entertainment the town exports.

In this time of fixed spectacle, the marvel and mystery of visual media are inherent. Our eyes chase awe. We sometimes greedily seek it. Its thrills and intoxications. We obsess over the possibility of what we might see in the reflection of our digital screens. We obsess over what gateways might open inside of us. That AI could further warp our understanding of race by slowly scraping the fundamental soul from our visual identities, onscreen and online, especially in social domains where the mutation of identity has gotten easier, is no small matter.

This moment is primed for bot-driven cultural theft, says Zari Taylor, a doctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who specializes in digital studies. “Ownership of one’s image is something that has been tremendously lost as internet media and celebrity culture has grown,” she says. “We have become so accustomed to accessing the likeness and image of celebrities and socialites in traditional media and online, that we don’t blink twice when we trade our own data for ‘free’ access to social media platforms. Giving away ownership of our image, and taking the image of others, is not questionable but quotidian.”

The business of cultural theft was, and remains, a lucrative pastime. Minstrel shows were once the most popular form of entertainment in the United States, and although they fell out of public favor more than a century ago, their grotesque codes and customs have endured in other ways, in large part, because of the monetary appeal. “Blackfishing raised their profile as influencers, to the detriment of actual Black women,” University of Alabama professor Robin M. Boylorn wrote in 2020 of the Kardashian-Jenner family, who today are worth a combined $2 billion. In America, the commodification of Black identity is all in a day's work.

Left unchecked, the visual culture of entertainment is headed into a phase of post-authenticity, a period where artificial media will have an even more damaging impact on how culture is made, represented, and sold. Like the video of Minaj and Holland, these skewed and skewering visuals, as they grow in intensity through advertising campaigns and marketing efficiency, are a reminder that the present is the future: a constant, ferocious collapse of the real into the unreal, an ungovernable reality where the remixing of stereotypes is not only accepted but big business.

To make a product viable in the marketplace, one must first test it, and that is where the world currently sits: The borderless commercialization of AI is in full swing. The thing is, as generative AI tools continue to adapt and scale, the commercialization of them will find root in a culture already poisoned by racial division and gender imbalance. “If everything is mediated on screens anyway, who can tell what is actual truth?” Taylor says. “The technology that we create will never be neutral.” 

Still, Lori McCreary tells me she is cautiously hopeful about what’s unfolding in the AI space. A former computer scientist, McCreary founded Revelations Entertainment with the mission of fusing “artistic integrity with technological innovation.” Since 1996, and alongside her cofounder Morgan Freeman, she has produced a slate of movies and TV projects that includes everything from Invictus to The Story of God and the Emmy-nominated miniseries Through the Wormhole. She views generative AI as just another tool, but one with drawbacks.

“The main strength of generative AI is ironically also its biggest weakness,” McCreary says, “namely, that it is heavily based on pre-learning an existing data set, and most data sets—including the entertainment industry’s history of films and content—are inherently biased.” In her formulation, “bias has ‘inertia,’ and through [AI’s] tendency to learn and emulate previous examples, its systems tend to propagate that bias forward into the future, despite our best efforts to avoid this built-in phenomenon.”

She shares one example: “If you ask a generative AI system to give you some Academy Award-worthy plotlines, it will go through millions of pieces of data and find trends—from Hollywood’s movie history—of mostly white leading actors in mostly white-centric stories. So the AI will then amalgamate what it observes has been ‘award-winning’ content in the past.” This, she says, “can easily propagate past biases well into the future, creating yet further inertia in that direction.”

What this momentum engenders is a dangerous disparity in how and whose stories get green-lit. That’s not to say that imbalance doesn’t already exist—Hollywood’s earliest pictures were riddled with prejudice, and the industry still suffers from racial conservatism—but what the commercialization of generative AI portends is something deeply uncontrollable. Already we are witnessing the poisonous churn of racial and gendered masking across TikTok and Twitter, where bigotry is rewarded with virality. On YouTube, celebrities are rendered in a brutish hue of exaggeration for shits and giggles. All around, cultural distortions amplify in whispers and roars.

Look. I get it. I grew up on the internet. I welcome its penchant for parody, its love of the uncanny. I have always understood it as a playground for unlimited imagination, where the random and unexplained luxuriate in meme form. What I fear, however, is that our playfulness in matters of difference will evolve into IMAX-ready deceit. I fear that our laughter will bend toward manipulation and into something much uglier, only to be turned against us. The full-scale politicization of generative AI is already here.

At its most menacing, the mass adoption of AI tools is a mass adoption of the biases they absorb and perpetuate. In doing so, we grant the wrong dogmas credibility. We arm them. We deepen our unhealed wounds of division and otherness. Without safeguards, this new minstrelsy will produce the inverse effect of the post-racial fallacy peddled during the Obama years. Race and gender inequities will not vanish so much as infect the visual vernacular of everything we watch, share, and learn from. This new minstrelsy will color all that we accept as real and dare us to challenge it.

Consider the context. Generative AI is taking hold at a time that has lent itself to comic artificiality. This is happening as Black TV execs are exiting top studio positions despite corporate promises for more inclusion, as the US Supreme Court believes race has no bearing on one’s social rank, as women, in several states and countries, do not have the right to their bodies, as queerness is outlawed and retrograde whiteness wears the mask of victimhood. To expect no cultural repercussions of the AI boom to unfold in soil so perfectly fit for its sly manipulations would be lying to yourself.

Minstrel shows were profoundly harmful to the fabric and development of Black life—but they were also, first and foremost, a business. AI has the potential to enable the same evils on a much larger scale, and everyone will play a role in legitimizing its reach. “The conversation around generative AI and robbing people of ownership of their image is really a money conversation,” Taylor says. “The Nicki Minaj and Tom Holland clip is clearly fake, but used because they are celebrities. Would they both be OK with it if it came with a check?”

[davekat-sucks]

Isn't like any of the cultural takes on the dancesters a mute point because canonically they are all just cultural appropriating a culture they saw as cool and aestheticy?

Like Meenah isn't black coded because she's meant to be black coded, she's black coded because thing is if anything she was one of those rich white girls who wanted to "go ghetto" because it was trending.

Like it's literally canonical the dancestors are culturally appropriating the cultural motifs in their design and it's all artificial.

With that logic, wouldn't it be worse that they are people are insisting they are x culture or race because gods forbid they be canonically problematic?

Like Damara isn't canonically "troll Asian" she's canonically a weeb girl who uses troll Google translate all for an aesthetic, and given she also extremely lewd she clearly took a singular look at a hentai and decided this is my new personality.

Technically its worse and if anything more racist fans actively stereotype them this way because they're clearly ashamed of their younger selves having probably done shit like that.

Like profile the druggie character who's aggressive as shit when he's sober as black? You sure that's a good look guys??? In my personal experience I know more white drug addicted guys than black ones- in fact everyone who I've known who's done drugs was white.

And if people bring up Meenah has braids that is only exclusive to black girls, they forget other girls of different nationalities and skin can have them too. It's the fandom that implemented the stereotype. But yeah, it is the fandom that makes them unintentionally racist by assuming they are a certain stereotype.

#dancestors #homestuck #HOM3STUCK #Homestuck fandom

[bastart13]

Hi, just weighing in on the Jewish characters being witches thing! Obligatory disclaimer that I'm just one person and other Jews may have other opinions, but imo Jewish witches as made by non-Jewish creators are always sorta dicey territory? Like it's not impossible to be Jewish and A Witch, but it's a very nuanced discussion with a lot of historical baggage behind it so there's probably more details one would have to hash out than is like. Reasonable to expect of someone with no background in Judaism? In other words probably best left to Jewish creators, IMO.

Mostly the reason it's problematic is that pop culture/ media tropes about witches are largely connected to antisemitic stereotypes that go way back to things like blood libel, the idea that Jews are heathens for not worshipping the Christian G-d, a Whole lot of witch hunting in the 17th and 18th centuries just involving the profiling of Jewish women's features as "signs" that someone was a witch, etc etc. Plus, Judaism already has its own occult practices and beliefs, so I've seen a fair amount of people on the internet attaching a Jewish character to a way of practicing witchcraft that's tied to a different religion, which just winds up stripping them Of their Jewishness/ downplaying its importance to the character in favour of some form of paganism.

Basically, TLDR, I think the big things to keep in mind are 1) Jewish witchcraft can be an interesting topic to explore if you want to get really deep into it and either have the background to deal with the nuances of the subject or are intending to very thoroughly research it, but 2) if it's not going to be a longer project, like if this is just about a small project or only subject matter you're exploring in a visual form anything like that, IMO, it's best to just not touch it. I hope that's helpful at all!

Thank you so much for all this detail, I really appreciate it. I'm definitely not planning to go into creating Jewish witch characters because you're very right in that being a dicey topic when you're as uneducated as I am.

For context, I was thinking about drawing a Halloween costume style thing with a Jewish coded character. I know you're meant to avoid green skin, horns, and similar "devil" or "heathen" imagery, but I was wondering about the general pointy hats and broom aesthetic.

#not art #tw antisemitism