#humbling yes

[wistfulcynic]

Harsh-Sounding and Potentially Unpopular Opinion Incoming. (lots of them, actually, brace yourselves.)

here it is: On the whole, people do not consider or relate to the experiences of others unless they are forced to. 

Now i am not saying that this makes any of us terrible people. Just that there is a natural inclination to assume that your way of doing things or of thinking about them is The Way and unless it is actively brought to your attention that this isn’t true, you just hang out in your own little solipsism forever. 

i think about this a LOT whenever i see discourse about, let’s say, just to choose a topic at random, racism in fandom. i think about it every time i see a white person say “bUt noT eVEryTHiNg iS aBouT RaCe.” Because they’re right. Not everything is about race. For them. 

It’s that “for them” that trips us up every time. 

(disclaimer: i am a white person raised in the USA. When i say white people/Black people/POC i’m talking about Americans.)

We white folks love to say that we don’t think about race. For us, that’s a kind of virtue signalling. “I’m so enlightened I don’t even think about race!” Give me plaudits now for i am a Good Person. But what we fail to understand is that Not Thinking About Race is only possible for us because white supremacy makes it so. Not Thinking About Race is a privilege we have because our race doesn’t inform every aspect of our lives. It doesn’t prevent us from getting jobs or educations, it doesn’t lead to us being followed around in stores or accused of crimes or shot just for existing in public. This isn’t virtue, it’s obliviousness. We don’t think about race because we don’t have to, because being white doesn’t affect our day-to-day lives and, ahem, on the whole people do not consider or relate to the experiences of others unless they are forced to. 

POC are forced to. (i’m basing this on what i’ve learned from POC talking about their experiences, please call me out if i get anything wrong). POC have to think about race all the time because it’s constantly shoved in their faces, by the lack of diverse representation in media, by the constant stream of news stories about Black people being killed for no reason at all, by their own daily experiences of microaggressions and injustices and downright tragedies. POC think about race because they don’t have the privilege of Not Thinking About It. 

All of this, when brought into the fandom environment, leads to a fundamental failure of communication and understanding. When a POC says “this thing is racist” and a white person immediately replies “but i wasn't even thinking about race!” both those things are true. Both those things are true but they are not. both. equally. valid. 

The POC spots the racism in the thing because they a) think about race by necessity and as a matter of course and b) have direct experiences of racism on which to draw. Whereas white people all too often spend their whole lives surrounded by other white people without any diverse viewpoints or experiences to force them to consider how others might see things. This leads to a whole lot of well-meaning white people who do and say racist things, not out of active racist intent but just by living as a privileged person in a racist society full of racist institutions and never actually thinking about whether their experiences of that society and those institutions are universal or not, or considering how it might feel to be deliberately oppressed, excluded, and unserved by that same society and those institutions. 

Again, this doesn’t mean that we are inherently bad people. It does mean that we are humans with human flaws that we need to be aware of in order to behave in ways that don’t cause harm to others. This is not easy. When you are raised to think in certain ways and do certain things and you know that there’s no malicious intent in any of it, it is harsh and jarring to hear someone tell you that those things are racist. It’s natural to want to defend yourself. It’s not, unfortunately, natural to think “actually maybe they have a point. Maybe they know something i don't. Maybe it’s something i need to understand if i’m going to have a fully informed opinion on this topic.” 

It’s not natural to think that but it is essential. We need to learn how to listen without defensiveness and how to decouple our actions from our beliefs about our character. It’s possible to do and say racist things without being a bad person, so long as when we are told that those things are racist we stop doing and saying them. Believe people when they tell you that what you’re doing harms them, and then don’t fucking do it anymore.

You think POC talk too much about racism? You want them to stop? This is how that gets done. It’s the only way that gets done. Arguing with them, trying to invalidate or silence them—that just takes your racism from “unintentional” to “actively fucking harmful.” That’s where it stops being an unintended consequence of your privilege and starts being a choice.

Listen to POC. Listen to them and do better and then maybe they won’t have so much racism to talk about. Then maybe we can all go back to enjoying our gay pirates in peace. 

Then. But not before.

[demaparbat-hp]

She will (and he'll let her)

[thepictoblr]

Woke up last night, barely remember writing this, went straight back to sleep

[tbgkaru-woh]

The new generation leaders

[xxplastic-cubexx]

i would like to draw him more i think..

[ummmmandy]

[hercynianforest]

Friendly reminder of just how much Soren has grown.:')

S2E7/S6E8

[pharawee]

Every decision has its binary choices. Which choice should I take?

[stumblingalonglife]

comes as a set, please don't separate!!

twt & ig <3

[queenoftheantz]

I'm doing some comic commissions for my dad, and it's pretty fun to let the style I'm currently mimicking bleed over into my own doodles!

[shiroganeryo]

Dazatsu Week, day 7: Free Day

I've always wanted to draw genderbent dazatsu + something for the afterwork gatherings hcs I have, so why not both? 💞 The neon kisses is a version I made for fun that ended up liking a lot, so posting it as well!

I'm a sucker for lipstick kiss stains... 🥰

Extra because while I don't think they would casually wear lipstick as men, if it were to happen, that would be 100% Dazai Shenanigan™'s fault.

This was the idea that made me want to draw the gb version 😂

[mequa]

Companion piece for the last one

[magician-under-the-m00nlight]

aptx!kaito au in which Shinichi doesn't know aptx exists and feels insane that his leading theory is "a six year old is the mastermind behind Kaitou Kid"

[chanbig]

bonus chanbig!

[allastoredeer]

"Lucifer fell first, Alastor fell harder." I fully commit to the theory that RadioApple took off officially the moment Alastor saw Lucifer's full demon form.

From: (⊙‿⊙)

To: (◉‿◉)

And not for the reason anyone might think looking at him.

Angel: Damn, power really that attractive to him?

Husk: In that Alastor has never wanted to eat someone more than he does right now? Yes.

Lucifer went from snack-size to full-course meal, and well, the way to Alastor's heart is through his stomach. The other feelings got sorted out later. XD

I am 100% on board with Alastor being attracted to power. Like, yeah, Lucifer's cute. Once you get past all the annoying bits, he's not TOO bad to be around. His apple still isn't as cool as a microphone, but it's okay. At least he's an appreciator of canes.

And then DEMON MODE and Alastor just

I actually haven't really gotten into the headcanon/fandom trope of Alastor wanting to eat and/or drink Lucifer's blood. But as an ace with the closest thing they've ever felt to attraction being full body armor/outfits (think the Mandalorian, the Black Panther suit (both T'Challa's and Shuri's), Death from Good Omen, etc...<- I'm not even making that up, if there's anything I've felt that I'd classify as attractive, it's people covered head-to-toe with not a piece of their body showing, usually with a modulated voice), this is me projecting onto Alastor, but in the form of ultimate demon power.

Alastor: I would never have sex with Lucifer.

Lucifer: *goes demon mode*

Alastor:

[ineffable-romantics]

Me @ me when Michael Sheen and/or David Tennant