#she is mixed with her mom being what would be asian on planet earth and her dad is mixed black and something secret

[wikagirl]

I finished the less important side characters. Just wanted to draw them so I had a visual ref for when I write them.

From left to right we have:

Nicolle, Gabriellas aunt and thus her fathers younger sister. She's the middle child and as you might be able to tell from her outfit, a professional ice skater. The glitter on her dress is supposed to represent a rising phoenix, a metaphor for being "reborn" after having to drop out of skating for a while due to overexhaustion and burn out and coming back better than ever. Her career is her life, she will not talk about anything else ever. Her sister does her hair for her.

In the middle we have Alexandra, the youngest sister to Nicolle and Gabriellas father. She does heavy wheight lifting, owns a sports clothing brand and organizes sports programms to teach people that sport can be fun without needing to be competitive or for wheightloss purposes. Also graphic eyeliner is a must and her outfit is inspired by 4-time olympic gold winner Serena Williams' adorable poofy tennis outfits. Sports wear can be cute and practical. For her physique I references Emily Campbell, britains first ever medal winning womens olympic wheightlifting candidate

And last we have Waylen. Waylen is an adrenaline junkie and a member of the Hale pharma private military. He has a whole arsenal of prosthetics for different pruposes and yes those are mantis blades from cyberpunk and the prosthetic legs are inspired by that one lady from the first kingsman. He went through so many body modificatiosn that the constant switching out of parts, medications post surgeries and his overall very low self preservation instincts took a bit of a toll on his body so now he has to permanently wear the bottom part of his airfilter mask or else he will literally suffocate. All the foods he consumes must be liquid and snorkeled in through a straw and a little hatch at the front of his mask. Thanks to the previously mentioned issues he has a almost non existant feeling of hunger, meaning that he often only realizes he should eat when it's allready to late and he tips over sideways. Depending on how much coffee he has in his system he can be a representaion of every song in the misery/cpr/reeses puffs mix. The only reason for why he hasn't been kicked out of the military and sent to early retirement yet is because he's good for the morale and knows what he's doing as long as he's in a team, on his own he suddenly looses all those braincells and turns into a "stealth is optional? nice *explosions*" type bingus.

#myart #ocs #I used to hate sports growing up because in school everything was competitive #and outside of school everything seemed to be with the sole purpose of loosing wheight #in fact you can be quite active in sports and still not loose a pound simply because muscle is heavier than fat #and also because diet plays more into wheightloss than training #so to everyone who keeps calling people who don't look “normal” (notice the “”) lazy and unhealthy: plz shut the fuck up and die <3 #you know absolutely nothing about the people you're looking at. their body their choice and now do me the favour and fall off a cliff #I'm really sick and tired of people trying to police other peoples bodies AND FEELINGS ABOUT THEIR BODIES under the guise of care #as you might be able to tell I didn't put as much work into these as the others since they are only side characters #that will only pop up once or twice #also since gigi is as ashy and pasty as the rind of a parmesan cheese and her aunties are significantly darker you can probably guess #she is mixed with her mom being what would be asian on planet earth and her dad is mixed black and something secret #and with something secret I mean this is still a work in progress #he'll be the bestest of best dads none of that toxic father figure bs in my house #he is inspired by christopher judge who was literally one of my childhood heroes in his role as teal'c in stargate btw #visually and personality wise I mean #a strong but still kind and caring for those he holds dear. maybe a bit odd to outsiders :3 #tw eating issues #tw ed #kinda #bc of waylens digestive situation? #side characters

[dgblueknight20]

If you know I gave Simmons two oc daughters, then you’ll know I haven’t really said much about how or where he got them.

Lulani and Kiya lived on a tropical planet that was invested by a zombie like virus.

Lulani somehow ended up being biologically related to Simmons as I developed her because of the detail of her not liking Simmons at first.

So perhaps that’s one of the reasons why he ended up on that planet?

She was living with one of his aunts and uncles when it happened.

Before I ever write this fic one day. One of the things I need is what to call the planet and the name of Kiya’s mother.

Her mother was a sex worker before she became pregnant with Kiya and the virus broke out. She then became one of the leading scientists trying to find a cure or vaccine to prevent anyone else getting infected.

She is a POC woman but I struggle with what region of earth her grandparents originate from. I was going to go with Black Muslim but would that be stereotyping somehow? The fact I’m asking this is probably yes…

Kiya herself is half black. That parts not going to change.

Neither Kiya, her mom, nor her bio dad (whose not important and is likely dead due to the zombies) is white in any way.

So I want to ask for ideas and (maybe get some site references for culture and stuff since I’m a biracial Asian (Caucasian/ Filipina) that’s light skin, use to be pale as a ghost, and is American (you know how well education is around here)- man, there’s a lot of () here.) a place that can help give accurate translations, because why would settlers forgo the heritage they want to preserve including language?

Now I have no idea what current slang, and newly developed customs would be integrated in RVBs current timeline/ history, so I will have to stick with current era (it’s 2024 of posting) way of speaking.

I’m very lacking when it comes to details and is generally confused at default.

Lulani is a bit easier I feel. Might not be true, but one can hope.

Whelp, I hope to gain insight from someone that knows world building since I only have base ideas I don’t feel confident in implementing at the moment.

The tropical planet itself has a wide variety of ocean life and is split into three seas. The land is a mix between natural uh “earth?” “Dirt?” Whatever and man made structures/ land masses.

The people who live on the planet don’t want it to turn into a massive tourist trap or get hurt because of the people in authority or corporate groups trying to get a piece.

The original settlers had negotiated for a representative to sit in government meetings, a representative in each department and level actually, and that they will only accept an inhabitant as the official president and vice president- honestly who would let an outsider that isn’t going to stay on the planet or be a person of the planet be in charge?

Procedures for residences and such were one of the first things they worked on.

Blugh I’m tired.

I’ll think about this later.

#red vs blue #rvb simmons #oc children #oc #Simmons daughter #rvb oc

[writingwithcolor]

Avoiding ambiguous brown without cultural coding

@ahivemindoftwelvecati​ asked:

How should I, a white person, avoid making characters fall into the vaguely brown stereotype in my fantasy books? I’m against coding cultures into this book, as I’m really trying to create a unique world (ironically by studying a lot of different cultures). By doing this though, am I doomed to remove characters from cultural context, or leave people wandering in vague color shades? Especially since some of my characters would fall into various indigenous ethnicities, but share nothing cultural

In an interesting way, I think the Star Wars novels kind of do an okay job about it (of course, others might differ, in which case I defer to them, but in my opinion they pull off something similar). For context, it all takes place in a galaxy where absolutely none of Earth’s cultures are present, but there are still human beings that are Latine-coded, Black-coded, etc, and they accomplish this through very simple descriptions of character appearances. For example, there was a Black-coded woman and her description ran something along the lines of “She had dark, rich brown skin and her hair was curled tightly, pulled back into a bun. She hated the moist heat of the swamp planet, but she had to admit her hair never looked better.” Through that, the audience understands that she’s most likely Black-coded (dark skin+tight curls), but they avoid cultural points (also the little detail of humid heat being great for curls is just a cute lil extra IMO, that’s something I hear people with 3- or 4-type hair saying a lot).

The pitfall here is that, since there’s no cultures analogous to what we have here in our world, each reader will have different interpretations of what each character might identify as ethnically. Who someone might headcanon as Korean, another might headcanon as Chinese, etc. That’s something you have to figure out for yourself if you’re okay with having--just that vague sense of ‘ah, this person must be from this vague region of the world’--or if you want to be more explicit.

--Sophia

So… to expand on the point Sophia put out that it’s up to the reader to determine what race somebody “really” is and how that’s a problem.

One of my best friends is mixed Japanese/white. Thanks to genetic roulette, they get approached by various Indigenous peoples asking what nation they’re from, because they look really Indigenous.

I’m mixed Mohawk/Mi’kmaq/white. Thanks to genetic roulette, nobody can tell where I’m from and I’ve gotten everything from West Asian, North Indian, and Great Lakes Native (basically, anywhere that golden-tanned skin + dark hair + no monolid is considered normative, I could pass for there)

My mom, meanwhile, looks very, very Mexican, despite being the same mixes as me at a higher percentage Native; she tans more pink/red and tans darker than I do. She also has a totally different face shape than I do. 

Aka, there are dozens upon dozens of groups that look interchangeable, and the only thing that separates us is our culture.

When you’re dealing with more “obvious” features like type 4 hair, monolids, very dark skin, very pale skin, and those stereotypical things, yeah, you can usually peg down a general region. You’re basically only going to have Black people with kinky, delicate hair (but, are they African, Australian Indigenous, or Black Native? Because Australian Aboriginals are also very dark skinned and have a similar hair texture; Black Natives sometimes inherit the level 4 hair texture). You’re basically only going to have Northern settled peoples with white skin (barring albinism/vitiligo) but are they Norwegian or Sami? 

What happens to all the people who are ambiguous in real life?

The trope has a basis in reality. Humans would like to think that a certain set of features = obviously from this place, but as soon as you expand your sample size beyond models, movie stars, and idealized art, you find that people look really different and you absolutely cannot rely on this logic. 

It’s even a known fact among the modelling industry that anyone vaguely not-white who looks like they could maybe belong to any other group of brown people is put in for casting calls for that group, even if they’re not part of that group. It’s messed up, but it happens all the time. A Latine person could be put in as Arab, and an Ojibwe person can be put in as Filipino.

Culture is the thing that separates these people in real life. So as soon as you take that culture away, you’ve essentially lost any representation you could get. You’ll get diversity, yes, but it will not be representation.

Sure, you perhaps gain some representation as people look at parts of their culture that might be incorporated (maybe by accident, maybe on purpose) and say “hey, that’s us!”

But you’ve also strewn infighting by having perhaps multiple groups be able to say the same thing, and these multiple groups could very well share a lot of phenotypic traits, so suddenly you’ve represented nobody because you haven’t put anything solid that would sway the needle one way or the other.

If you start to assume too much that features = obviously this person is from x part of the world, then you really ignore a whole lot of human migration, diffusion, and people who just lived in really similar biomes so their physical features, skin tone, and hair type ended up being the same just purely because that had the best chance of surviving the region, or had no reason to change.

Diversity exists because of the environment. Skin tone, hair type, jaw shape, etc exist because of the food available, how it was grown/gathered (horticulture and “hunter-gathering” vs agriculture), the way food was eaten, the amount of sunlight, and the vitamins available in diet. This happened over tens of thousands of years.

But also, certain environments produced very similar coping strategies. There are only so many ways to survive a very hot desert, so unless you’ve really messed with the natural world in fantasy, you’re going to end up pulling from earth’s coping strategies for the very hot desert. Which means you could end up being kinda hurtful towards desert peoples who see their clothing and food growing ways used, with people who look like them because skin tone is environmental, but hardly anything else about their culture was taken.

Especially for Indigenous peoples, culture and land protection is what makes us Indigenous. How are you going to show us in your work unless you dig into our cultural principles (land protection) at the very least? Nothing about our facial features or skin tone are particularly unique to us, and assuming they are is how you get caricatures. There are Black Natives* to white Natives to mixed cultures with European and Indigenous practices (Metis) and everything in between. And that’s just North America’s range.

This isn’t even counting how there are Indigenous people everywhere, so when you say “Indigenous” do you mean the Mohawk? The San? Mbororo? Ainu? Sami? Samoan? There are literally thousands of groups that are primarily separated from the dominant group because of their way of life and maybe some subtle phenotyping. But primarily, they are separated by their culture.

I would suggest, at the very least, to have some degree of basic cultural beliefs to help differentiate groups of brown people who would otherwise be interchangeable. Land stewardship and using every part of the natural world for Indigenous groups, for example. You can’t really find Indigenous groups without that, so if it was missing I would raise an eyebrow. 

Distinct foodstuffs and diets are another way to differentiate and code; you know that this group that uses chickpeas, sorghum, barley, and wheat is probably from West Asia, and that group that eats rice at every meal is probably somewhere from East Asia. Food is a very fast way to differentiate between groups, because even far-reaching staples are fairly different across cultures.

You don’t have to 1 to 1 code a culture. But for actually differentiating between people, you’re going to need more than one point of reference beyond looks. Food, nomad status (as in, settled vs nomadic vs hybrid), basic religious practices (monotheist vs pantheist), and broad-reaching cultural attitudes (collectivism vs individualism, who you’re expected to be collectivist with) are all points that help break apart these groups and let them know you see them.

It’s important to note that even if you do fantasy, it’s read in the real world. It’s read by humans, who are pattern recognizing machines. We will see patterns. Niki points out ways to try and avoid this patterning below, but it’s going to happen regardless. 

It’s up to you what you actually want, out of not overtly coding anyone.

~ Mod Lesya

*Black Natives and cultural practice is a fraught topic (mostly because of slave-owning tribes) that is mostly summed up as: Black Natives are often barred from tribal participation because anti-Blackness is rife within North American Indigenous communities, but they have been tending the land just as much as if not more than their former enslavers; as such, they are members of the cultures/nations and should be recognized. They have been part of the land as North American Indigenous peoples for centuries, at this point, and the fact there is still enough anti-Blackness in Native communities that Reservation Dogs used nothing but Black caricature is… a problem to say the least.

This isn’t counting mixed Black/Natives who had their Native parent/grandparent cast out for marrying someone Black, who were raised in cultural practices without community ties because of anti-Blackness, who should also be recognized. If it’s valid to mix white culture with North American practices, it’s valid to mix Black culture (Black American and/or African Indigenous) with North American practices.

Do you want diversity or do you want representation?

Lesya raises a very important point that I encourage you to really think about. Why do you want to have diversity in your fantasy worldbuilding? Is it because you want your readers to feel seen and represented? Or is it because you want your fantasy world to feel well-rounded and realistic? These are two different motivations, which will require different approaches.

If you want representation, then go back and reread Lesya’s answer. Representation that’s only skin-deep isn’t really representation, and won’t help your readers feel seen. If, however, you want diversity for diversity’s sake--because diversity is realistic, and because it’s simply good writing to include it--then I have some more thoughts to offer.

In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with creating a fantasy world that has fictional diversity that doesn’t directly parallel real-life groups and cultures, as long as you’re aware that that’s what you’re doing. This is arguably very common in high fantasy, though the effectiveness with which it’s executed varies wildly from author to author. N. K. Jemisin describes what she did for the Broken Earth trilogy in this blog post.

Unless you’re working with a very small subsection of the world (and even then--everything’s connected), diversity is natural, because people will be living in different geographical areas that each have their own climate, fauna and flora, which will shape both their physical appearance and their way of life. Thinking about the physical environment is a good starting point for figuring out what your population groups will look like and how they’ll behave.

But as Lesya pointed out, it’s very easy, when doing this, to inadvertently re-create elements of coding that will remind your readers of real-world groups, even if that wasn’t your intent. If that happens, you’ll have two options:

1) Very deliberately alter the coding to make it clear that you’re not trying to represent a certain real-world group (in the post I linked above, Jemisin talks about what she did to avoid appropriating Maori culture), or

2) Embrace it and go the representation route after all, which will entail a lot of research and care to make sure your coding makes sense, is respectful, and doesn’t reinforce harmful stereotypes.

Assuming you’re going with option 1, there are still more issues to be mindful of. We said before that representation that doesn’t include culture isn’t really representation. Here’s the thing: This is also true of fictional diversity. Even if your fantasy cultures are entirely created from scratch, they still need to exist, and be distinct and thoughtfully portrayed, in order for your world to feel well-rounded and realistic.

Diversity is more than physical appearance

As Lesya demonstrated, physical appearance alone isn’t enough to make groups of people distinct from another. In order to avoid the “ambiguous brown” trope you’re worried about, you will need to give your different groups of people distinct cultures.

There might be some cases where it would make sense for an entire fantasy world to have a single, homogenous culture, within which people of various ethnic backgrounds exist, resulting in a variety of physical appearances but everyone sharing the same culture. But if you’re planning to do this, you need to give a lot of thought to why things came to be this way. If an entire world is made up of a single culture, that usually indicates something very traumatic happened on a large scale. Maybe an apocalypse, or massive amounts of forced assimiliation or genocide. I don’t recommend going that route unless you’re willing to grapple with all the trauma that entails, and all the potentially problematic implications. You’re much better off populating your world with a diversity of cultures. They don’t need to be coded based on real-world cultures, but they need to exist.

In my opinion, the main issue with “ambiguous brown” characters is that it makes it seem we’re all interchangeable. In real life, we're not. Make sure that's the case in your fantasy world, too. Craft your population groups so they're distinct, each with their own history, culture, language, and traditions. Your worldbuilding needs to be deep enough to counteract the absence of parallels to real-life cultures. We need to be able to look at it and say, "okay, this is not representing me specifically, but it's also not lumping me in with everyone else that vaguely looks like me."

And don't make the mistake of thinking one skin tone = one group. That's not true in real life, and it shouldn't be in fantasy either. Using skin color and a handful of stereotypical features as shorthand for ethnicity or culture is not only shallow worldbuilding, it also feeds into the racist pseudoscience that sorts people into four or five neat color-coded boxes and collapses the world's diversity into a handful of supposedly biologically determined races. If you're creating cultures from scratch, this is your chance to challenge those ideas and populate your cultures with people who don't all look the same. Within a single group, you can have characters with a variety of skin tones, hair texture, eye color, height and build, etc. Because this is what happens in the real world. Some groups include a lot more diversity than others, but variation exists everywhere.

This will partly depend on how interconnected your world is, and how much interaction exists between your various groups. More interaction and exchange tends to lead to a wider range of physical characteristics within each group, and it also results in similar features being found in multiple groups. Think about how that might play out in your fantasy world, and make sure you're being as specific as possible with your fictional cultures so that you don't have to rely on physical appearance alone to distinguish your population groups from one another.

- Mod Niki

#diversity #representation #ambiguously brown #tropes #fantasy #worldbuilding #coding #culture #cultures #race coding #ethnic coding #asks

[itsclydebitches]

ngl voyager gets a whole lot of very disproportional hate from the fandom and i'd hazard a guess that a lot of that is just garden-variety misogyny (and probably racism mixed in, considering how many of the most prominent characters are women, poc, or both). like, is voyager perfect? absolutely not. and no spoilers but there was a lot of executive meddling that wound up leading to the finale/conclusion being lacking and there's a lot of reasonable dissatisfaction with that--but again that was largely thanks to the execs fucking the show over and i recommend looking into that if you can once you've finished the show. but overall? voyager is trek right to its very core--it has heart, it's about family, and it never loses sight of that imo, even if some episodes are weaker or just duds (but, like, would it be a trek series without some episodes that just kinda suck but are still fun to watch???)

anyway, i absolutely love that you're getting into voyager, it is my all-time favorite trek series to this day for a lot of reasons, and i hope that ppl like that anon dont put you off bc i'd love to continue to see your thoughts as you watch the series!

Oh, it would take a whole lot more than some anons being salty that others enjoy things to turn me off :D 

Thus far (I lost internet last night so I’m still only on Episode 7 of Season 2), Voyager is the Trekiest Trek I’ve watched. Which is a weird sentence, but I mean it in the way you said it’s “trek right to its very core.” What is Star Trek, if we strip the intent of the story down to its basics? It’s about exploration, discovery, that “wagon train to the stars,” wrapped up in the argument that life is fundamentally good. We have problems, but we can work past them. We have differences, but they strengthen us. Diversity is the lifeblood of the universe and the future will continue to improve so long as we embrace that. 

Voyager is (again, from what I’ve seen so far!) basically a love song to that premise. I didn’t do too deep a dive because I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but I did look at a couple threads discussing why Voyager is so hated. Again and again I saw the same reason pop up: wasted potential. Now, a lot of fans left it at that (as if the answer to what potential Voyager apparently missed out on is self-evident. It’s not), but those who did expand on the idea consistently claimed that the show needed to be darker than it was, even if they rarely said it like that. Why aren’t the Federation and the Marquis at each other’s throats? Why isn’t the crew going crazy under these circumstances? Why aren’t characters getting killed off left and right in hostile space? “Anything could have happened out there and they played it safe!” but the “anything” here is always... awful. There’s this very pervasive idea that the world is inherently cruel, people are inherently divisive, that when pushed to the brink everything will fall apart... and that (while making for one kind of great story) is very much not Star Trek. 

See, Voyager created an unimaginable scenario--lost in space, 75 years from home, forced to live indefinitely with strangers--and their answer to the question of “What happens?” is “People make it work.” They learn to respect one another, they uphold their ideals, they maintain a love of life and discovery, and they create a family. And that’s fucking fantastic. That’s Star Trek! I’m not going to pretend there aren’t problems with the show, with plenty more to come, I’m sure, but I don’t think this is one of them. Why do so many viewers think that hatred, horror, death, and growing jaded is the only potential here? Why would they expect that in a Star Trek show whose premise is the very antithesis of those things? 

“But they don’t do enough with those things, even if they have happy outcomes.” They do plenty, they just do it in an episodic rather than serialized nature. I can point to multiple episodes where the replicator rations or Maquis differences are driving the characters’ actions. “But without that horror there’s no conflict.” There’s plenty of conflict. Hostile aliens aside, I just watched an episode where Tuvok and Chakotay are pissed as hell at one another because they fundamentally disagree over how to handle problems, but--because they’re adults with a well-tested respect for one another--they apologize and work through it. “But the characters don’t develop at all.” You mean they don’t grow harder. That’s not the same thing as no development. Tuvok is figuring out how to be more flexible, Chakotay is becoming more willing to accept cultures he doesn’t agree with, Harry is growing more confident now that he’s far from home, the Doctor is learning to see himself as a person, Paris is grabbing his second chance with both hands by making strong ties, and Janeway is learning to command and care for her crew simultaneously. I honestly believe that a lot of people think of “character development” as the character becoming a fundamentally different person, unrecognizable from where they started out. But  characters can also grow into the people they wanted to be in the first place. “We’re far from home, in hostile territory, tempted to do horrific things to survive... but no. Right now at least, we’re holding onto who we are. We’re scientists, so we’re going to explore and learn. We’re peaceful, so we’re going to make friends with as many species as we can. We’re members of a society that teaches acceptance, so we’re going to form a family on this spaceship.” That’s incredible!! Did fans miss why Seska was an antagonist in the episode she was unmasked? Because she was trying to convince them to give up everything they believe in in the name of survival, an ends justify the means argument. And the crew said no, we will not give up what we believe in just to make it through. I legit saw a ton of fans saying some version of, “I can’t believe they were that far from home and actually followed Starfleet’s rulebook.” It’s because those rules don’t exist for the hell of it. Overlooking their practical function, they’re a philosophy that the characters believe in, and they’re figuring out how important that part of their identity is to them under these circumstances. Am I willing to steal a specie’s technology if it gets us home? Am I willing to die to help another uphold their own philosophy? (Chakotay in “Imitations”). What regulations should we bend or change to accommodate our new situation? The first two things Janeway does are a) giving the guy who just came out of a penal colony a rank and b) deciding that she needs to be more familiar with her crew than is normally encouraged for a captain because she’s essentially their mom now. Developing doesn’t have to mean characters do a 180 on their initial personality, or characters getting killed off when stuff gets “boring” so that others can do edgy things in response. 

Voyager upholds Trek’s premise and runs it to its logical conclusion: 

Voyager has the most literal trek--a trek back home. 

Voyager has the most diverse crew--a woman Captain, Native American First officer, black Vulcan, Asian-American communications officer, and a White Dude pilot that realizes he wants to be soft and kind towards those who took a chance on him because Toxic Masculinity who? 

Voyager has the most literal family--not just a 5+ year mission, but a crew who expects to raise the next generation. They have no choice but to work together, so they indeed come together rather than pulling apart

Except they do, of course, have a choice. In “The 37′s” the crew is allowed to stay on the Earth-like planet with a city of other humans and Janeway is convinced that a sizable number will choose that. After all, they may never get home and this is a safer, kinder future for them. In fact, the real question is whether so many will stay that they can no longer run the ship... but Janeway would never dictate her crew’s choices in that manner. So she swallows her worry down, opens the door... 

... and finds that not a single person decided to stay behind. And the show has ensured we understand that this is not just because they all have some unshakable belief that they’ll get home (many don’t), but because this is their family now. This is home. 

And fans want to toss that out for a generic, gritty, sci-fi adventure where hope is scarce, the universe is cruel, and people need to be pushed to the limit just to admit that they maybe, sort of, like each other?? Obviously like what you like, but that’s a hard pass for me. I’ll take the bridge crew comforting each other in “Twisted,” thanks. Besides, we already have shows like that. And we already have DS9 which grapples with many of those dark, pessimistic themes. Voyager feels like a breath of fresh air, even within the breath of fresh air that is Star Trek as a franchise. It’s a show that says, “Yes, when everything goes wrong people will come together. They will love each other. They will make it through.” 

What’s more Star Trek than that? 

#star trek #ST #mymetas #Anonymous

[listen-to-miracles-again]

For people that hate stereotypes: If you think people should just shut up and stop, put this on your profile. I'm SKINNY, so I MUST be anorexic. I'm EMO, so I MUST cut my wrists. I'm a NEGRO so I MUST carry a gun. I'm BLONDE, so I MUST be a ditz I'm JAMAICAN so I MUST smoke weed. I'm HAITIAN so I MUST eat cat. I'm ASIAN, so I MUST be sexy. I'm JEWISH, so I MUST be greedy. I'm GAY, so I MUST have AIDS. I'm a LESBIAN, so I MUST have a sex-tape. I'm ARAB, so I MUST be a terrorist. I SPEAK MY MIND, so I MUST be a bitch. I'm a GAY RIGHTS SUPPORTER, so I WILL go to hell. I'm a CHRISTAN, so I MUST think gay people should go to hell. I'm RELIGIOUS, so I MUST shove my beliefs down your throat. I'm ATHEIST so I MUST hate the world. I don't have a RELIGION, so I MUST be evil and have no morals I'm REPUBLICAN, so I MUST not care about poor people. I'm DEMOCRAT, so I MUST not believe in being responsible. I am LIBERAL, so I MUST be gay. I'm SOUTHERN, so I MUST be white trash. I TAKE ANTI-DEPRESSANTS, so I MUST be crazy I'm a GUY, so I MUST only want to get into your pants. I'm IRISH, so I MUST have a bad drinking problem. I'm INDIAN, so I MUST own a convenient store. I'm NATIVE AMERICAN, so I MUST dance around a fire screaming like a savage. I'm a CHEERLEADER, so I MUST be a whore... I have Big BOOBS, so I MUST be a hoe. I'm a DANCER, So I must be stupid, stuck up, and a whore I wear SKIRTS a lot, so I MUST be a slut. I'm a PUNK, so I MUST do drugs. I'm RICH, so I MUST be a conceited snob. I WEAR BLACK, so I MUST be a goth or emo. I'm a WHITE GIRL, so I MUST be a nagging, steal-your-money kind of girlfriend. I'm CUBAN, so I MUST spend my spare time rolling cigars. I'm NOT A VIRGIN, so I MUST be easy. I FELL IN LOVE WITH A MARRIED MAN, so I MUST be a home-wrecking whore. I'm a TEENAGE MOM, so I MUST be an irresponsible slut. I'm POLISH, so I MUST wear my socks with my sandals I'm ITALIAN, so I must have a "big one". I'm EGYPTIAN, so I must be a TERRORIST! I'm PRETTY, so I MUST not be a virgin. I HAVE STRAIGHT A'S, so I MUST have no social life. I DYE MY HAIR CRAZY COLORS, so I MUST be looking for attention. I DRESS IN UNUSUAL WAYS so I MUST be looking for attention. I'm INTO THEATER & ART, so I MUST be a homosexual. I'm a VEGETARIAN, so I MUST be a crazy political activist. I HAVE A BUNCH OF GUY FRIENDS, so I MUST be fucking them all. I HAVE A BUNCH OF GIRLS WHO ARE FRIENDS, so I MUST be a player. I'm COLOMBIAN, so I MUST be a drug dealer. I WEAR WHAT I WANT, so I MUST be a poser. I'm RUSSIAN, so I MUST be cool and that’s how Russians roll. I'm GERMAN, so I must be a Nazi. I hang out with GAYS, so I must be GAY TOO I'm BRAZILIAN, so I MUST have a BIG BUTT. I'm PUERTO RICAN, so I MUST look good and be conceited I'm SALVADORIAN, so I MUST be in MS 13 I'm POLISH, so I MUST be greedy I'm HAWAIIAN so I MUST be lazy I'm PERUVIAN, so I MUST like llamas I'm a STONER so I MUST be going in the wrong direction I'm a VIRGIN so I MUST be prude I'm STRAIGHT EDGE so I must be violent. I'm a FEMALE GAMER, so I MUST be ugly.. or crazy. I'm BLACK so I MUST love fried chicken and kool-aid. I'm a GIRL who actually EATS LUNCH, so I MUST be fat. I'm SINGLE so I MUST be ugly. I'm a SKATER so I must do weed and steal stuff I'm a PUNK so I must only wear black and date only other punks I'm ASIAN so I must be a NERD that does HOMEWORK 24/7 I'm CHRISTIAN so I MUST hate homosexuals. I'm MIXED so I must be screwed up. I'm MUSLIM so I MUST be a terrorist. I'm in BAND, so I MUST be a dork. I'm BLACK so I MUST believe JESUS WUZ A BROTHA I'm MORMON so I MUST be perfect I'm WHITE and have black friends so I MUST think I'm black I'm GOTH so I MUST worship the devil I'm HISPANIC, so I MUST be dirty. I'm NOT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, so I MUST be a loser. I'm OVERWEIGHT, so I MUST have a problem with self-control. I'm PREPPY, so I MUST shun those who don't wear Abercrombie & Hollister. I'm on a DANCE team, so I must be stupid, stuck up, and a whore. I'm YOUNG, so I MUST be naive. I'm RICH, so I MUST be a conceited snob I'm MEXICAN, so I MUST have hopped the border. I GOT A CAR FOR MY BIRTHDAY, so I MUST be a spoiled brat. I'm BLACK, so I MUST love watermelon I'm BI, so I MUST think every person I see is hot. I'm an ASIAN GUY, so I MUST have a small penis. I'm a GUY CHEERLEADER, so I MUST be gay. I'm a PREP, so I MUST be rich. I don't like the SUN so I MUST be an albino. I have a lot of FRIENDS, so I MUST love to drink and party. I wear tight PANTS and I'm a guy, so I MUST be emo. I couldn't hurt a FLY, So I MUST be a pussy. I support GAY RIGHTS, so I MUST fit in with everyone. I hang out with teenage drinkers and smokers, so I MUST smoke and drink too. I have ARTISTIC TALENT, so I MUST think little of those who don't. I don't like to be in a BIG GROUP, so I MUST be anti-social. I have a DIFFERENT sense of HUMOR, so I MUST be crazy. I tell people OFF, so I MUST be an over controlling bitch. My hair gets GREASY a lot, so I MUST have no hygiene skills. I'm DEFENSIVE, so I MUST be over controlling and a bitch. I'm a NUDIST, so I MUST want everyone to see my boobs. I read Comics, so I MUST be a loser. I hang out with a FORMER PROSTITUTE… So I MUST be a whore myself. I'm TEXAN so I MUST ride a horse I’m a GOTH, so I MUST be a Satanist I’m a CROSSDRESSER, so I must be homosexual. I draw ANIME so I MUST be a freak. I am a FANGIRL so I MUST be a crazy, obsessed stalker. I WATCH PORN so I MUST be perverted. I'm an ONLY CHILD so I MUST be spoiled. I'm INTELLIGENT so I MUST be weak. I am AMERICAN so I MUST be obese, loud-mouthed and arrogant. I'm WELSH so I MUST love sheep I’m a YOUNG WRITER, so I MUST be emo. I’m CANADIAN, so I MUST talk with a funny accent. I’m QUIET if I don’t know you so I MUST be emo or anti-social. I'm a GUY, so I MUST ditch my pregnant girlfriend. I'm CANADIAN, so I MUST love hockey and beavers. I'm DISABLED, so I MUST be on Welfare. I'm a FEMINIST, so I MUST have a problem with sexuality and I want to castrate every man on the earth. I'm a TEENAGER, so I MUST have a STEREOTYPE. I WEAR A BIG SUNHAT when I go outside, so I MUST be stupid. I like BLOOD, so I must be a VAMPIRE. I'm an ALBINO, so I MUST be an evil person with mental abilities and is A MURDERER! I'm ENGLISH, so I MUST speak with either a cockney or a posh accent, love tea and cricket, and have bad teeth. I’m WHITE, so I MUST be responsible for everything going wrong on the planet: past, present, and future. I don't like YAOI or YURI, so I must be a HOMOPHOBE I’m not the most POPULAR person in school, so I MUST be a loser I care about the ENVIRONMENT...I MUST be a tree hugging hippy I have a FAN CHARACTER, so I MUST be an annoying Mary-sue. I CHAT, I MUST be having cyber sex. I'm PAGAN so I MUST sacrifice babies and drink the blood of virgins I'm PAGAN so I MUST worship Satan I'm CONSERVATIVE, so I MUST be against Abortion I'm SWEDISH so I MUST be a tall blond blue-eyed lesbian. I'm a LESBIAN so I MUST want to get with every single girl that I see. I like CARTOONS, so I MUST be IRRESPONSIBLE. I like READING, so I MUST be a LONER. I have my OWN spiritual ideology; therefore I MUST be WRONG or MISGUIDED. I am WICCAN, so I MUST be a SATANIST. I DISAGREE with my government, so I MUST be a TERRORIST. I am a WITCH, so I MUST be and OLD HAG and fly on a broomstick. I love YAOI, so I MUST be GAY. I'm a PERSON, so I MUST be LABELED I DON'T CURSE, so I MUST be an outcast I like GAMES, ANIME and COMICS, so I MUST be childish I'm SWEDISH, therefore I MUST be WHITE. I SPOT GRAMMATICAL ERRORS, so I MUST be a pedantic bastard. I'm GOTHIC, so I MUST be mean. I’m STRONG so I MUST be stupid. I'm Australian so I MUST hunt crocodiles and talk to kangaroo’s I go to RENFAIRES, so I MUST talk weird, be a loser, and not be up with the time I don’t want a BOYFRIEND so I MUST be Lesbian. I'm NOT CHRISTIAN so I MUST just need converting. I love marching band, so I MUST be a friendless freak. I DRINK and SMOKE, so I MUST have no life. I am friends with a CUTTER, so I MUST be a CUTTER too. I cry easily, so I MUST be a wimp. I can't help pointing out mistakes so I MUST be an over-controlling perfectionist I'm a PERFECTIONIST so I MUST check everything ten times, them burst into tears at one mistake I’m GAY so I’m after EVERY straight guy around. I CURSE A LOT so I MUST be a bad kid and have problems I DON'T LIKE to talk about my personal life so I MUST be having problems PLEASE READ WHAT'S UNDER THIS!! I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian. I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman. I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights. We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time. I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room. I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me. I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again. I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear. We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men. I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me. I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman. I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman. I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male. I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men. I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that. I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual. I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I did not have to always deal with society hating me. I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind. I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love. I am the person who is afraid of telling his loving Christian parentshe loves another male. Re-post this if you believe homophobia is wrong. Please do your part to end it Sorry for the long post. I just think this is important. I got this from Ivory’Lee Lambskank on m.fanfiction.net

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1149

Monday, January 30, 2017

 It's the Chinese Year of the Rooster folks and there's a cock in the White House. We are living in interesting times indeed. I am trying my best not to get riled up by the d-bag but it's difficult. The empathy I feel for others means I cannot ignore the affect the changes have on everybody. I just hope we all get through these difficult times relatively unscathed.

 I'm going to have a fun Sunday on February 5. I'll be at the Walkley Arena for the Capital Trade Show where my partner Chris and I will be flogging old comic books. Then it's Super Bowl 51 with two gun slinging quarterbacks. I am cheering for a high scoring affair.

 Civil War II: The Oath #1 - Nick Spencer (writer) Rod Reis, Raffaele Ienco, Szymon Kudranski & Dono Sanchez-Almara (art) VC's Chris Eliopoulos (letters). Didn't see that coming. While it makes sense to appoint Captain America as the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. (again) the surprise is that I don't think it's Steve Rogers under the mask. I don't particularly like the new political landscape that the Marvel U is headed towards but it does make for some easy enemies for the good guys to fight with. Nick put in a lot of rah, rah patriotism in this book so it was a tough slog trying to get through it but the payoff at the end is worth it.

 Kamandi Challenge #1 - Part One: Dan Didio (writer) Keith Giffen (pencils) Scott Koblish (inks) Hi-Fi (colours) Clem Robins (letters) Part Two: Dan Abnett (writer) Dale Eaglesham (art) Hi-Fi (colours) Clem Robins (letters). He's the last boy on Earth and he's going on a wild adventure to find his parents. One of Jack Kirby's creations is getting a round robin of comic book creators to excite fans like never before. Each part of the story will be done by a different team that will end with a cliffhanger that the next team must find a way to resolve. I have a nagging feeling that this stunt has been done before but I can't remember when so I'm going to tag along to see who does what. I'm not a fan of Kamandi but I want to see who all are going to be involved on the creative side.

 Loose Ends #1 - Jason Latour (writer) Chris Brunner (art) Rico Renzi (colours). The cover says that this 4-issue mini is a southern crime romance. They got that right. We're looking at a trailer dwelling war vet whose friend gets him mixed up in running drugs. You can expect that the vet and the friend get into a heap of trouble and they do. I like how Sonny and Rej each wind up where they do at the end of this first issue so you bet I'm going to keep reading. Not much romance so far but I'm sure Jason will get to that.

 Star Wars #27 - Jason Aaron (writer) Salvador Larroca (art) Edgar Delgado (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Yay Yoda. Root for him I will.

 Batgirl #7 - Hope Larson (writer) Chris Wildgoose (art) Mat Lopes (colours) Deron Bennett (letters). Part 1 of "Son of Penguin" introduces Ethan Cobblepot and I don't care if there is no reference to him anywhere else in the DCU because he's going to be a great adversary for Barbara Gordon. I like how Chris draws her older than Rafael Albuquerque did. This is going to be fun.

 Briggs Land #6 - Brian Wood (writer) Mack Chater (art) Lee Loughridge & Jeremy Colwell (colours) Nate Piekos (letters). I really like Grace Briggs. The risks that she is taking will hopefully keep her people safe. Brian has crafted a story fit for cable TV.

 Totally Awesome Hulk #15 - Greg Pak (writer) Mahmud Asrar (art) Nolan Woodward (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Greg continues to feature heroes of the Asian persuasion in this story about Amadeus hanging out with Jake Oh, Kamala Khan, Cindy Moon, Shang-Chi, and Jimmy Woo. It does play on some stereotypes but I think it's okay because they're true for these guys.

 Odyssey of the Amazons #1 - Kevin Grevioux (writer) Ryan Benjamin (pencils) Richard Friend (inks) Tony Washington & Tony Avina (colours) Saida Temofonte (letters). This 6-issue mini has a lot of women but not a wonder one in sight. Kevin features Diana's sister Amazons in a tale worthy of Homer. If you like classic sword and sorcery, you'll like this.

 Dead Inside #2 - John Arcudi (writer) Tony Fejzula (art) Andre May (colours) Joe Sabino (letters). The plot thickens like congealed blood and murder suspects start to emerge. Linda has plenty to deal with inside the prison but she's surprised when she gets home after work by a sight I did not expect to see. This mystery is crazy good.

 Inhumans vs. X-Men #3 - Charles Soule & Jeff Lemire (writer) Javier Garron (art) Andres Mossa & Jay David Ramos (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). There are three more issue to this mini but it seems to me that Charles and Jeff have already come up with a solution to the Terrigen cloud that would end the war. The mutant Forge has built a machine that can collect the Terrigen gas and compress it into a solid in this issue. Wouldn't that solve the problem of the gas killing the mutants? Works for me.

 Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #6 - Joshua Williamson (writer) Howard Porter (art) Alex Sinclair (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). All is well that ends well. Both teams join forces to defeat Eclipso and Max Lord is at the mercy of Amanda Waller. Batman sees the light and gathers another team together to fight evil forces. Get ready for a new Justice League of America #1 hitting the racks on February 22. DC is sure spreading Bats pretty thin these days.

 Skybourne #3 - Frank Cho (writer & artist) Marcio Menyz (colours) Ed Dukeshire (letters). The identity of the bad guy was a nice surprise. I like Frank's comic books because they're simple stories about good versus evil that are beautifully drawn.

 Hulk #2 - Mariko Tamaki (writer) Nico Leon & Dalibor Talajic (art) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Waiting for Jennifer to Hulk out is one of the things I like about the new book. She has a lot more self control than I have. The scary thing about the eventuality of her losing control is that this new Hulk will be an uncontrollable creature of rage but we'll have to wait and see what happens. Until then I'm enjoying Jen's life so far.

 Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #13 - Robert Venditti (writer) V Ken Marion (pencils) Paul Neary & Dexter Vines (inks) Alex Sollazzo (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). Now that the planet Xudar has been saved, what now? It's time for a bedtime story that's what. This is a nice interlude issue before we launch into the next story. I've been enjoying this team book now that my loyalty to the Avengers has waned. We'll see if Robert can keep me hooked with his next adventure.

 Saga #42 - Brian K. Vaughn (writer) Fiona Staples (art) Fonografiks (letters). And fade to black. No, really. It's hiatus time again but this issue didn't leaving me screaming profanities about the long wait until the next issue hits the racks. There is a new character introduced who I will be very interested to find out more about.

 Doctor Strange #16 - Jason Aaron (writer) Chris Bachalo with Cory Smith (art) Al Vey, John Livesay, Victor Olazaba, &  Tim Townsend (inks) Antonio Fabela & Java Tartaglia with Chris Bachalo (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Dormammu is finally going to get his chance to kill Doctor Strange after he has been weakened by his fight with the Empirikul. Jason does find a neat way to save Stephen however. The next bit of nastiness involves someone close to the Doc. Oboy.

 Wonder Woman #15 - Greg Rucka (writer) Liam Sharp (art) Laura Martin (colours) Jodi Wynne (letters). Part 1 of "The Truth" finds Diana in a mental hospital. How she got there has yet to be explained but I'm sure I can handle it.

 Punisher #8 - Becky Cloonan (writer) Laura Braga with Iolanda Zanfardino (art) Frank Martin (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). That little old lady toting the double barrelled shotgun from last issue is named Ethel. She looks scary but she's not what you think. The change in art took some getting used to but it isn't bad enough to make me bench this book. I do have a couple of complaints though. If you're going to call a motorcycle a Harley, don't show what looks like a BMW logo on the gas tank. Also, draw the bad guy from the chest up when Frank says that he opened up his guts, not a full body shot that clearly shows an abdomen without any wounds at all. I don't know if the art had to be rushed after Steve Dillon passed away unexpectedly but that's just shoddy editing.

 Action Comics #972 - Dan Jurgens (writer) Stephen Segovia (pencils) Art Thibert (inks) Ulises Arreola (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Trust Dan to come up with a non-violent way to stop Lex from being executed by the bad guys. It also served to show what possible futures are in store for this new Superman. DC has managed to revive my interest in this iconic character.

 Daredevil #16 - Charles Soule (writer) Goran Sudzuka (art) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). We find out why Daredevil put out a hit on himself to lure out Bullseye. There's some soul searching this issue which leads into the next storyline. I liked how Charles sets it up.

 Detective Comics #949 - James Tynion IV & Marguerite Bennett (writers) Ben Oliver & Szymon Kudranski (art) Ben Oliver, Gabe Eltaeb & Hi-Fi (colours) Marilyn Patrizio (letters). The finale of "Batwoman Begins" is a very good prelude to Batwoman's solo book which hits the racks on February 15. It looks like James and Marguerite are going to have a Raymond Reddington and Agent Keen thing going on between Kate and her dad. That's got me interested.

 Infamous Iron Man #4 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Alex Maleev (art) Matt Hollingsworth (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Brian must have a thing for mother and son stories. He did it in International Iron Man where he introduced Tony's biological mother. Now he's showing us Victor's mom. I really do believe that Doom has reformed and I hope he stays a good guy.

 Spider-Man/Deadpool: Monsters Unleashed - Joshua Corin (writer) Tigh Walker (art) Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). The boys save Toronto eh.

 Thanos #3 - Jeff Lemire (writer) Mike Deodato (art) Frank Martin (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). It's the Imperial Guard of the Shi'ar versus Thanos. A perfect opportunity to give a history lesson on the life of the Mad Titan.

 Spider-Woman #15 - Dennis Hopeless (writer) Veronica Fish (art) Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). Jessica subdues the new Porcupine and finds out who put the hit out on her friend Roger. Now she's gunning for the Hobgoblin but he's protected by an army of super villains. I hope little Gerry doesn't become an orphan.