#**if the cc has already been told about the whitewashing

[solojihyo]

i really think we need to start holding ccs and blogs that whitewash/colorwash idols accountable. people will always be like "whitewashing is so bad i never do it on purpose! i will not reblog those sets!" but there have been SO many instances in which i've run into a cc whitewashing and the gifset is reblogged by every one of their mutuals. like kpopblr has such an obsession with mutuals to the point where it's like people can't even recognize when their own mutual has whitewashed a set. like guys. use your brains. it's not that hard. sometimes ccs make mistakes and that is okay, both when it comes to creating the set and reblogging from a mutual. people usually tend to automatically trust a mutual so they may not be as careful when reblogging (which i am also definitely guilty of). but if the same cc is whitewashing sets, and the same mutuals are reblogging them, despite all of the people involved saying that they absolutely condemn whitewashing.... then i don't even know what to say. if you're really as against whitewashing/colorwashing as you say you are, hold your own mutuals accountable.

[mariaiscrafting]

What if I’m Latino and want to draw sapnap as Latino as well? Is neurodivegent headcanons for the dream team okay but this isn’t?

I’ll admit, the lines are blurred with Dream SMP characters because they are both characters and representative of real people. If you want, I can talk about the various levels of Problematic™ that are involved in this question, and since I’m bored and procrastinating, let’s get into it:

First off, there is, actually a history of Tumblr fanartists in particular drawing traditionally white characters as POC and getting backlash for it, so honestly, I’m not totally agains the practice. Frankly, drawing classic characters as POC when they haven’t really been confirmed as any race - just assumed to be the default of white - isn’t a bad thing. One such example is Hermione, who many fanartists have depicted as black, with curly hair or an afro. Because Hermione’s character and story are not intrinsically tied to any particular cultural or explicit details that would make it logically flawed to hc her as non-white, there’s really nothing wrong with this.

This is different from the opposite because it is a way for non-white audiencemembers to drive home the point that non-white Americans/Europeans are, in many ways, just like their white counterparts. That is to say, whether Hermione is black or white doesn’t change who she is; she can be a white English lady or a black English lady, but being black doesn’t necessarily mean she would act any differently or be a totally different person. It is a means to combat the assumption that any American/European character whose culture isn’t explictly brought up by the creator of a work is white.

This isn’t the same as the opposite - portraying POC characters as white - because the latter is a form of whitewashing. When you portray assumed-white characters as POC, you are not erasing anything from that character, while portraying POC characters as white erases their culture, the visibility of that ethnic group/race, and any details the creator of the content might have included in their story about that character. That’s why films are criticized for casting white actors to play POC characters, and artists are criticized for lightening character’s skin tones or erasing physical features of theirs that can be attributed to their ethnic/racial identity.

Now the question with portraying Sapnap as Latino is, is this wrong, exactly? I’d like to preface by saying that everything I’ve said about portraying Sapnap as Latino has been purely my opinion. At the end of the day, I’m not an expert on racial theory or art; I’m just a poli sci major who’s taken a couple courses on racism and has talked and learned a bit about POC in media. You can come to whatever conclusions you like, at the end of the day, and portray him however you like, love.

As I see it, there are several reasons portraying Sapnap as Latino is Problematic™. First off, Sapnap and other white members of the Dream SMP already have problems with recognizing POC and the implications of POC within the SMP. Sapnap has actually answered a donation before by saying that he’s not 100% white because he’s part-Greek, completely unironically and without recognizing why him saying that was wrong. Imo, this indicates a lack of understanding for what it really means to be a POC in Western countries that so many white people exhibit. Being a person of color in Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, etc., means functioning within a society where you have to battle with yourself everyday your own, multiple, and seemingly contradictory identities. It means functioning within a society where you have to navigate the crossroads of oppression within you must survive. White people who falsely claim that they aren’t white like this simply don’t understand or are even aware of exactly what it means to be shaped by the oppression of being a person of color. They believe that being a person of color, beyond occassionally experiencing explicit racism, is just a label and a tie to one’s ancestry, when it’s much more beyond that. And the thing is, Sapnap can’t claim that label because he simply hasn’t gone through the lived experience of a POC in the United States. And that’s fine. It’s fine to be white, and to just be a little ignorant to your whiteness. I’m not attacking Sapnap by pointing this all out, I’m just stating facts.

Secondly, this would mean that a 100% white person is essentially playing the role of a Latino character, which is already a far-too common practice in film and TV showmaking. Then again, I will admit that a counter-argument can be made here, in that, headcanons are not actually canon to the Dream SMP plot. For example, Ranboo has told his audience he’s fine with viewers headcanon’ing his character as nonbinary, even though Ranboo himself is cisgender. This is an ambiguous aspect of his character that can be manipulated however the viewers like since there has been nothing within the canon to refute it, so far. However, it would be a different matter entirely if Ranboo, a cisgender man, attempted to write his character as a nonbinary person and then act out that nonbinary character himself. That would actually be unjust and kinda fucked. Now, along a similar vein, one could argue that audiencemembers headcanon’ing Sapnap as Latino isn’t really a bad thing since it isn’t Sapnap himself trying to portray what he believes a Latino character would be like. So I get the potential counter-argument there.

Thirdly, my main problem with this whole drawing Sapnap as Latino ordeal is the hypocrisy of it all. Far too often within this fandom, I see fanartists and writers erase Quackity’s ethnic identity, whitewashing him in their art or completely disregarding his race in their work. And while one could argue that the lack of focus in this fandom on Skeppy can be explained by his infrequent streams and departure from the SMP lore, Ponk is rarely drawn or written about, and he streams regularly and always has something going on with his character, in side plots or otherwise. I just find it lowkey absurd that this fandom thirsts for a Latino character so bad that it has to portray Sapnap, who is played by a white actor, as Latino, when there are other POC whose identities are either disregarded or the characters as a whole ignored.

Fourth, my main question, at the end of the day, is, why are we not advocating for more POC in the SMP? Why headcanon characters as POC, when they could literally just make an effort to uplift more POC CCs, who are highly marginalized within the streamer and Youtube communities? I’m Latinx too, mate, and I’d fucking love more POC characters to fall in love with, but Sapnap isn’t the one to fill that hole.

Regarding other sorts of headcanons and how those relate to headcanon’ing characters as different races: my thoughts on this are way too complicated, at the moment. But to sum it up as concisely as possible: a) I am not neurodivergent, as far as I know, so I cannot do the subject nearly as much justice as a neurodivergent person could; b) my thoughts still kinda align with the same thought process as race - that it’s useful to hc characters as neurodivergent because it helps to break stigmas that ND people are so vastly different from neurotypical people that traditionally-assumed neurotypical people couldn’t possibly actually be ND; c) I would still advocate for more ND representation in the SMP, rather than try to warp the neurotypical people’s characters to fit into that yearn for representation that I so desire; d) there actually are ND people on the SMP - a couple of people with ADHD, as far as I know - who do exhibit ND characteristics in their characters/lore, as well, so frankly, why not give those characters ND hc’s?

Anyways, this was so much longer than I wanted it to be and I still don’t know if I fully articulated my take on the subject properly. It’s really just too complicated a subject to be applied to Dream SMP fanart, so my conclusion is: Imma diss people for drawing Sapnap as Latino when Quackity is RIGHT THERE, and you can draw him however the hell you like. At the end of the day, we’re both just people obsessing over block men, and there’s no significant harm  that will come from either of our opinions or your artwork. I hope this was a satisfying answer, and seriously, thank you for getting me to write this all out because it actually made me realize that I’m not as fully against the idea as I thought I was <3

[shooshopath]

Finished MEA

THE GOOD THE CC. yeah yeah there’ve been like 5000000 complaints about it and like 60% of them are valid but also I can actually make an East Asian Ryder. Like it took 6 games but bioware finally got there LET ME HAVE THIS BEFORE DA4 TAKES IT AWAY BECAUSE APPARENTLY EAST ASIAN PEOPLE DONT EXIST IN THEDAS. VETRA. light of my life. My moon and stars. So tall. So kind. She’s just-so good. Like she keeps a literal crate of cereal in her room how was I supposed to not romance her. Honestly I really liked almost all of the tempest crew, barring Cora who…I don’t dislike, I just wish she’d talk about something besides asari. But I really think her story of self doubt has a lot of potential if it’s done correctly. GAMEPLAY. Fighting in this game is so fun! I’m not a fan of the profile set up but combat in general is so much more fluid and dynamic without being too frustrating. I do wish the guns did more damage but I was also admittedly playing on hardcore. Yes that was a humblebrag let me have this. In general my melee weapon did a lot more damage than any of my firearms which I guess is fine, though it did get a little boring constantly going pull-charge-melee on everything. THE SIDEQUESTS. I made it a point to only do the ones that sounded interesting but honestly they’re so much better than DAI’s. KADARA was probably the best part of the game for me. Fun plot line, interesting lore, not having to crawl inside the nomad every five minutes so I don’t die. THE BEST. THE NOMAD is so much better than the mako. I feel regret for every time I ever insulted the nomad on Eos because I can actually turn with it and that’s a feeling I never thought I’d get to experience with a vehicle in mass effect. THE ANIMATION. yeah yeah it’s weirdly jerky and a lot of the faces are cringey but after the patch it still looks better than any of the other mass effect games sorry not sorry THE FINAL QUEST. Actually really enjoyed the final charge. It kind of feels like what me3 should have been, in that all the allies you made throughout the game actually show up to help you and be your meatshields in combat. Also twin angst feels. LOYALTY MISSIONS. good shit.

THE MEH LIAM is not meh. Liam is an angel. But I feel like the people who wrote his loyalty mission/convos with ryder and the people who wrote his banter with other squadmates were on two completely different pages. It feels like he’s presented as friendly, open, and willing to break the rules to do what’s right, but then I’m in the nomad and half the convos between him and other squadmates have him with a stick up his ass and acting like a by the book cop. Which we were told that he quit BECAUSE he wasn’t like that. But whatever. THE ANGARA are ok. Though the game keeps on telling me they’re open with their emotions and I…did not see that. Like crying because you found out your mortal enemy is a zombified version of your race or being angry that a bunch of aliens are suddenly all up in your grill seem pretty reasonable to me. I enjoyed the moshae, it’s nice having a character who is firmly confident in her beliefs. VANGUARD. is so broken. 90% of the time I loved the combat and I’m either at full barriers all the time ripping turrets apart with my sword or I’m dead because the kett two feet in front of me is apparently an Invalid Target and I can’t charge them. Unrelated but I feel like vanguard mains are equivalent to dog owners in that we can’t and won’t shut up about how vanguard is the best class even if you’re talking about any other class. It’s Me. I’m guilty of this. ASARI FACES are all the same and a lot of people have complained about this but it’s actually true for all the of the original games as well, they just hid it better through lots of variations in makeup, skin tone and facial markings. It seems like a combination of the graphics being so much better and way less variation in terms of makeup/tattoos just made it incredibly blatant. SAM is…SAM’s ok, they just seem way too overpowered and I still don’t really understand what about them specifically makes them able to control the remnant besides Alec Ryder being Just That Good Of A Programmer. I like that SAM grows along with Ryder and you can see that as the game progresses (especially that Convo with your sibling near the end, that was Good), they just need to set some limitations on what they’re capable of because right now 80% of the quests are just “wave SAM at the thing to do the thing.” REYES VS SLOANE. Out of context I really enjoyed this plot line and Kadara, but…man, pitting the only prominent black woman in the game against one of only two mlm romance options and forcing you to choose between them is. Not great. Also, it feels like they were definitely pushing for the player to go with reyes-you get more chances to know and interact with him, and the game’s a lot more blatant about how evil sloane is compared to him when in actuality they’re both very morally grey. Also, if you’re playing a gay Ryder and you’re uncomfortable with letting sloane die you’re fucked either way since it’s either let that happen or not have the chance to finish the romance path of one of only two options (and if you’re not interested in the baby plot, really the only option). Also I loved Reyes he is a great character but please for the love of god hire someone who is actually latino to voice him because right now all I hear is default white mhawke trying and failing to do a sexy accent to impress his LI.

THE NONSENSE THE ORB BOSS KETT THINGS are stupid. HAINLY ABRHAMS aka we fucked up writing a trans character so we’ve just decided to remove any reference of her being trans at all to make up for it. Bioware, progressive bastion of the video game industry. JILL is exactly as bad as you would expect and I hope to god they just remove her from the game completely. FANDOM. yes yes it’s unrelated to the game but I’ve already seen like five posts whitewashing Reyes and another five turning him into a goddamn stereotype and I. I am so tired. THE KETT are so boring. I’m sorry they just. They just are. Also the Archon talks about genetic perfection yet his head is literally??? A horn circle??? There’s literally no plausible reason I can think of for why a species obsessed with being the strongest would use its resources and considerable scientific knowledge to grow a kett who has the equivalent of a Christmas ornament hanger on his head, in fact I’d argue it’s actually a detriment, like every time I see it I just want to yank. Also how would that even grow?? I’m assuming it acts similar to how horn growth occurs in mammals so how do the two horns eventually converge into one, and why would you want them to converge when having horns is already way more useful than a stupid halo that’s just begging for someone to loop a rope through and use him as a door knocker. Like the only feasible reason for why it exists is for target practice? Like some Kett hazing ritual, haha shoot through the horncle for 50 points it’ll be fine I swear come on man oh no oh fuck oh shit run. It’s so useless and serves absolutely no purpose yet some important kett scientist knowingly made this aesthetic choice. None of the other Kett leaders have it so why???! Does it exist????? I can’t take him seriously every time I see him and his deep ominous voice and his baby face I just can’t get past the horncle it destroys the tension why did whoever was in charge of character design let this happen goddamnit

[bucket-fucker]

I finished the MEA trial and I have some thoughts.

Spoilers under the cut.

1) The second Scott’s pod was damaged I think my eyes rolled back in my head so far that they did a full rotation. After 7 hours of gameplay he still hasn’t woken up, even though Lexi insisted he was fine and just needed to wake up naturally, now he’s “in a coma” we’re all worried about him. Like, Bioware, why are you incapable of just making our sibling a squadmate and leaving it at that? What was the benefit of taking Scott out of the running right away? I literally don’t understand. The first planet mission would have been SO MUCH MORE interesting with him there.

2) Alec Ryder’s death was the least surprising thing you could have done. You told us straight up that Alec is the pathfinder, but you started like every trailer saying that Ryder is the pathfinder. So like. I knew he was gonna die and it wasn’t as dramatic or sad as it should have been, and it should have been super emotional because his death was actually sweet.

3) GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON CORA WOULD TRAIN WITH ASARI COMMANDOS FOR YEARS AND STILL COME OUT STRAIGHT I’M SORRY THAT WOMAN SHOULD HAVE BEEN A GAY

4) Gil is the cutest motherfucker I’ve ever seen and I may just have to play Scott so I can smooch him

5) I AM SO GAY FOR VETRA WHAT THE FUCK. i’ve never been into turians but fuck me she’s so great

6) I love Liam as much as I thought I would but at the same time he’s SO typically Bioware straight male. He is exactly like every other endearing straight male love interest Bioware has made before and while I’ve always fallen for them before you can only romance the same character so many times before it stops exciting you. And I’m mad about that because Liam deserved so much better, but this is Bioware we’re talking about.

7) Peebee is coming across as fucking space Sera. When will Bioware stop trying to give me manic pixie dream girls. I’ve only seen a small amount of her, in her defense, but I’m already disinterested.

8) The CC is super limited, presumably because they wanted Papa Ryder to have the same preset as your Ryder, but it is still possible to make very cute and attractive Ryders (in my opinion, the POC Ryders look really good in the graphics engine and the white Ryders look like weird pasty playdoh monsters). The CC UI is a fucking disaster to use, and the eyes are SUPER flat and dead unless you go super dark. I’m really angry that females only get one natural hairstyle while men have like 3. The scars look literally so bad I cannot describe how bad they look, they look like pink paint Ryder smeared on their face trying to look cool and failing miserably. They look like Ryder drew on their face with lipstick.

Also with the CC you have to pick a preset look for your Ryder and then their facial features are based on what preset you chose. So that can be a little disheartening. But the presets actually look really good? They managed to pull off a lot of genuine racial diversity, without whitewashing the POC presets by virtue of bad graphics and laziness.

9) THE NOMAD IS A GIFT AND A BLESSING

10) All of the crewmates on the Tempest are so cute and they’re genuinely friends. Gil calls Suvi and Vetra “his girls” and the crewmates talk to each other in notes on a whiteboard in the cabin. V cute.

11) The facial animations REALLY don’t look that bad, oh my god. Once you’re in the game and playing it, it’s NOT that bad. Seeing them out of context looks AWFUL, tru, but a lot of the game is actually quite pretty.

12) Planet scanning is a goddamn vertigo nightmare and I’m not 100% sure it’s worth it

13) MELEEING IS SO MUCH FUN FUCK

14) Drack is incredible.

15) The trial cuts you off at a certain point in the storyline but you are able to complete several sidequests, and one of them has a genuinely morally gray decision. I didn’t feel good about the choice I made, but the other choice wasn’t great either, and I’ve been waiting a LONNNNNG ASS TIME for Bioware to figure that shit out. 

And that’s all I got for now. If anyone else has played and has thoughts they wanna share, I’d love to hear them! Or if anyone wants to ask questions so that they know what to expect and can craft their Ryder around that, I’m happy to talk shop!!