#they called her a racist because he was black and she was white and it????? she’s literally just standing there

[thatlittlefangirl]

Lily is a shitty friend because she refused to be friends with a guy who was a fucken racist to everyone but her? Would you defend a white person who liked one black girl but called every other black person a racial slur? Snape was a shitty character. The only people who can sympathize with him are those that have the same hatred within their hearts and can justify his actions. He was a horrible friend that got his ex best friend and husband killed, and bullied children because he was piece of 💩

Erm actually 🤓☝

Lily is a shitty friend because she refused to be friends with a guy who was a fucken racist to everyone but her?

She actually was a shitty friend because she smiled at her best friend being exposed

But too late; Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James’s face, spattering his robes with blood. James whirled about; a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of graying underpants. Many people in the small crowd watching cheered. Sirius, James, and Wormtail roared with laughter. Lily, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile, said, “Let him down!”

Excused his bullies' behaviour

“I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.” The intensity of his gaze made her blush. “They don’t use Dark Magic, though.” She dropped her voice. “And you’re being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and James Potter saved you from whatever’s down there—”

And ended up with his bully in the end, don't tell me "She didn't owe him anything", anyone who had a friend who was bullied will tell you that they wouldn't date their ex-best friend's bully. She had the right to leave Severus, I am not against it, but she had a part in the breaking up but as always didn't take responsibility of it (she actually does it a lot somehow).

Would you defend a white person who liked one black girl but called every other black person a racial slur?

No, because that's not the case here. Here is a mixed-race boy, who has been put into a white neighbourhood, there the white people are pretty nice to him but will be mean to black people, they tell him to join them. He knows that his best friend is black but since other black people were mean to him (his father and his best friend's sister), he doesn't see anything wrong with it. Know the difference (not that I excuse racism but here is a different case than the one you're pointing out).

The only people who can sympathize with him are those that have the same hatred within their hearts and can justify his actions.

Liking a character doesn't mean you support what he does, I love Bellatrix and Lucius, but I do not support their pureblood supremacy views and think they have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, I like them because I like villains. No one justify his actions, they explain his reasons, is it justifying? No, because it's not right, but why liking a complex character if you don't understand his complexity?

He was a horrible friend that got his ex best friend and husband killed

Actually, their whole friendship was toxic, Lily wasn't an angel, Severus wasn't a demon, they both were human and had their flaws. Stop pointing to Severus and ignore Lily's faults. Do I really have to go back on the "Severus got Jily killed!!1!1!"?? Many other people explained this part already, go see their blogs instead.

and bullied children because he was piece of 💩

He actually bullied children because he wasn't totally right mentally, and he mostly is just blunt with kids because yeah Potions is extra dangerous and if you fuck one single thing up you could blow the whole ass school. Does it make his insults right? No. Does it make his temper more understandable? Yeah.

Thanks for that ask, it was my first snater ask, I'm so happy I'll frame it in my room <3

[killsaki]

i hate how uncool social media has become in the way that everyone is trying to be cool. why do people need to “boycott” perfectly good products that could be donated to people in need—by mass buying them and destroying them on video, or why do we film strangers in public, harassing them and then getting angry and painting them to be a horrible person online for millions of people to see when they just wanted to be left alone. in public. but this also includes the platforms themselves. kinda wish that they would just shut up and make their apps function. make them easier to use, add more settings for how we want to navigate our time on the apps. why does twitter come out with a new “feature” every week? why does instagram and facebook to copy every single other app in existence? why do these people think that fucking pinterest and tiktok are so popular? because they keep the same format, they keep their apps usable, and they don’t add unnecessary shit every 5 seconds.

[tariah23]

This floor mod at my job is trying to get back in the good graces of our bosses because she got chewed out about not pulling her own weight last week by the both of them (hilarious. She’s annoying as shit and never helps anymore. She had completely changed once she got promoted from a simple concierge to Floor Mod and she treats her position like she’s like, the legit boss of the entire place and no one really cares too much for her anymore) but today, I was talking amongst my coworkers about shady things going on at the job and we weren’t being too loud at all and she came in trying to linger around a bit and of course, we stopped talking once she came around (kiss ass type.) but anyway, after our afternoon huddle, (just a simple meeting amongst coworkers and the boss giving us updates about how different departments are doing and them bragging about how much money our company has made and them fake caring about us as employees while getting fake emotional) and so, after the afternoon huddle, my boss was all like “omg, Tariah, could I see you in my office after huddle-“ and I was like “yeah, sure.” And once went into her office, she started asking me about how I’m feeling and that Selena (the annoying floor mod) mentioned something about how someone isn’t being supported/ not stood up for,” and I was a bit confused since I was having a slightly private convo with other coworkers about the shit that’s been going on at the job and I felt as if she’d eavesdropped and wanted to get some “dirt,” on me or to start something since she knows that myself and many of my coworkers don’t particularly care for her and wanted to use this opportunity to look good for the bosses. I really want to confront her about this tomorrow tbh because I felt like it wasn’t really her place to say anything about what I was complaining about with my fellow coworkers who I get along with and like, to the boss at all like it’s weird to me. Like it was none of your business and I don’t really care for you at all like.

[yourknightinshiningplastic]

made a joke the other day in dollar tree and my mom got all. like she does about jokes. basically one of them has pride stuff and my mom was wondering why and I said "maybe they're homophobic idk" and she said "well they can't do that it's discrimination".

[creatingblackcharacters]

"Let's Have a Talk, First"- Stereotypes, pt 1

Come sit down. You and I, before we get into any of the things I'm sure you're impatient to know: we need to have a come to Jesus talk, first.

There are some things that I've been asked and seen that strengthens my belief that we need to have a reframing of the conversation on stereotypes in media away from something as simple as "how do I find the checklist of stereotypes to avoid". Because race- and therefore racial stereotypes- is a complex construct! Stands to reason then, that seeing, understanding, and avoiding it won't be that simple! I'm going to give you a couple pointers to (hopefully) help you rethink your approach to this topic, and therefore how to apply it when you're writing Black characters- and even when thinking about Black people!

Point #1: DEVELOP THE CHARACTER!! WRITE!!

Excuse my crude language, but let me be blunt: Black people- and therefore Black characters- will get angry at things, and occasionally make bad choices in the heat of the moment. Some of us like to fuck real nasty, some might be dominant in the bedroom, they may even be incredibly experienced! Others of us succumb to circumstance and make poor decisions that lead to crime.

None of those things inherently makes any of us angry Black women and threatening Black men, Jezebels and BBC Mandingos, and gangsters and thugs!

Black people are PEOPLE! Write us as such!

If all Black characters ever did was go outside, say "hi neighbor!" and walk back in the house, we'd be as boring as racist fans often accuse.

I say this because I feel I've seen advice that I feel makes people think writing a Black character that… Emotes negatively, or gets hurt by life and circumstance, or really enjoys hard sex, or really any scenario where they might "look bad" is the issue. I can tell many people think "well if I write that, then it's a stereotype" and to avoid the difficulty, they'll probably end up writing a flat Black character or not writing them at all. Or- and I've seen this too- they'll overcompensate in the other direction, which reveals that they 'wrote a different sort of Black person!' and it comes off just as awkwardly because it means you think that the Black people that do these things are 'bad'. And I hate that, because we're capable of depth, nuance, good, evil, adventure, world domination, all of it!

My point is, if you write your character like the human being they are, while taking care to recognize that you as the writer are not buying into stereotypes with your OWN messaging, you're fine. We have emotions, we have motivations and goals, we make decisions, and we make mistakes, just like anybody else. Write that! Develop your character!

POINT #2: YOU CAN'T CONTROL THE READERS!!

Okay. You can write the GREATEST Black character ever, full of depth, love, nuance, emotional range, all those things…. And people are still going to be racist about them. Sorry. There is absolutely nothing you can do to control a reader coming from that place of bias you sought to avoid. If it's not there, TRUST AND BELIEVE, it'll be projected onto them.

That passionate young Black woman who told the MC to get her head out of her ass? Yeah she's an angry Black bitch now, and bully to the sweet white MC. Maybe a lesbian mommy figure if they like her enough to "redeem" her. That Black gay male lead that treats his partner like he worships the ground he walks on? Yeah he's an abusive thug that needs to die now because he disagreed One Time with his white partner. That Black trans woman who happened to be competing against the white MC, in a story where the white MC makes comparable choices? Ohhhh they're gonna be VILE about that poor woman.

It really hurts- most especially as a Black fan and writer- knowing that you have something amazing to offer (as a person and creative) and people are gonna spit on that and call it "preference". That they can project themselves onto white characters no matter what, but if you project your experiences onto black characters, it's "pandering", "self insert", "woke", "annoying", "boring", and other foul things we've all gotten comments of.

But expect that it's gonna happen when you write a Black character, again, especially if you're a Black writer. If you're not Black, it won't hurt as personally, but it will probably come as a shock when you put so much effort in to create a lovely character and people are just ass about them. Unfortunately, that is the climate of fandom we currently exist in.

My favorite example is of Louis De Pointe Du Lac from AMC's Interview With The Vampire. Louis is actually one of the best depictions of the existential horror that is being Black in a racist White world I have ever seen written by mostly nonblack people. It was timeless; I related to every single source of racist pain he experienced.

People were HORRIFIC about Louis.

It didn't matter that he was well written and what he symbolized; many white viewers did NOT LIKE this man. There's a level of empathy and understanding that Black characters in particular don't receive in comparison to white counterparts, and that's due to many of those stereotypes and systemic biases I'm going to talk about.

My point is, recognize that while yes, you as the author have a duty to write a character thoughtfully as you can, it's not going to stop the response of the ignorant. Writing seeking to get everyone to understand what you were trying to do… Sisyphean effort. It's better to focus on knowing that YOU wrote something good, that YOU did not write the stereotype that those people are determined to see.

POINT #3: WHY is something a stereotype?

While there are lists of stereotypes against Black people in media and life that can be found, I would appreciate if people stopped approaching it as just a list of things you can check off to avoid. You can know what the stereotypes are, sure, but if you don't understand WHY they're a problem and how they play into perception of us, you'll either end up writing a flat character trying to avoid that list, or you're going to write other things related to that stereotype because "oh its not item #1"... and it'll still be racist.

For example: if you wrote a "sassy Black woman" that does a z formation neck rotation just because a store manager asked her something… that's probably stereotype. If you thought of a character that needed to be "loudmouthed", "sassy", and "strong" and a dark-skinned black woman was automatically what fit the profile in your mind, ding ding ding! THAT'S where you need to catch your racist biases.

But a dark-skinned Black woman character cursing out a store manager because she's had a really bad, stressful day and their attitude towards her pushed her over the edge may be in the wrong, but she's not an "angry Black woman". She's a Black woman that's angry! And if you wrote the day she had to be as bad as would drive anyone to overstimulation and anxiety, the blow up will make sense! The development and writing behind her led to this logical point (which connects to point #1!)

I'm not going to provide a truly exhaustive list of Black stereotypes in media because that would ACTUALLY be worth a college credited class and I do this for free lmao. But I am going to provide some classic examples that can get y'all started on your own research.

POINT #4: WATCH BLACK NARRATIVES!

As always, I'm gonna push supporting Black creators, because that's the best way to see the range of what you'd like. You want to see Black villains? We got those! Black heroes? Black antiheroes? Assholes, lovers, comedians, depressed, criminals, kings, and more? They exist! You can get inspired by watching those movies and reading those books, see how WE depict us!

I've seen mixed reviews on it, BUT- I personally really enjoyed Swarm, because it was one of the first times I'd ever seen that "unhinged obsessed murderous Black fan girl" concept. Tumblr usually loves that shit lmao. Even the "bites you bites you bites you [thing I love]" thing was there. And she liked girls, too. Just saying. I thought it was a fun idea that I'd love to see more of. Y'all gotta give us a chance to be in these roles, to tell these tales. We can do it too, and you'd enjoy it if you tried to understand it!

POINT#5: You are NOT Black!

This is obvious lmao, but if you're not Black, there's no need to pretend. There's no need to think "oh well I have to get a 100% perfect depiction of the Black person's mind". That's… That's gonna look cringe, at its best. You don't have to do that in order to avoid stereotypes. You're not going to be able to catch every nuance because it's not your lived experience, nor is it the societally enforced culture. Just… Do what you can, and if you feel like it's coming off hokey… Maybe consider if you want to continue this way lol. If you know of any Black beta readers or sensitivity reviewers, that'd be a good time to check in!

For example, if your Black character is talking about "what's good my homie" and there's absolutely no reason for him to be speaking that way other than to indicate that he's Black… 😬 I can't stop you but… Are you sure?

An egregious example of a TERRIBLE way to write a Black character is the "What If: Miles Morales/Thor" comic. I want to emphasize the lack of good Black character design involved in some of these PROFESSIONAL art spaces, because that MARVEL comic PASSED QA!! That comic went past NUMEROUS sets of eyes and was APPROVED!! IT GOT RELEASED!! NO ONE STOPPED IT!!

I'm sorry, it was just so racist-ly bad that it was hilarious. Like you couldn't make that shit up.

Anyway, unfortunately that's how some of y'all sound trying to write AAVE. I promise that we speak the Queen's English too lmao. If you're worried you won't get it right, just use the standard form of English. It's fine! Personally, I'd much rather you do that than try to 'decode AAVE' if you don't know how to use it.

My point is, if you're actively "forcing" yourself to "think Black"… maybe you need to stand down and reconsider your approach lmao. This is why understanding the stereotypes and social environment behind them will help you write better, because you can incorporate that Blackness- without having to verbally "emphasize how Black this is"- into their character, motivations, and actions.

Conclusion

We need to reconsider how we approach the concepts of stereotypes when writing our Black characters. The goal is not to cross off a checklist of things to avoid per se, but to understand WHY we have to develop our Black characters well enough to avoid incorporating them into our writing. Give your Black characters substance- we're human beings! We have motivations and fears and desires! We're not perfect, but we're not inherently flawed because of our race. That's what makes the difference!

And as always, and really in particular for this topic, it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

[odinsblog]

Patrick Braxton became the first Black mayor of Newbern, Alabama, when he was elected in 2020, but since then he has fought with the previous administration to actually serve in office. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)

NEWBERN, Ala. — There’s a power struggle in Newbern, Alabama, and the rural town’s first Black mayor is at war with the previous administration who he says locked him out of Town Hall.

After years of racist harassment and intimidation, Patrick Braxton is fed up, and in a federal civil rights lawsuit he is accusing town officials of conspiring to deny his civil rights and his position because of his race.

“When I first became mayor, [a white woman told me] the town was not ready for a Black mayor,” Braxton recalls.

The town is 85% Black, and 29% of Black people here live below the poverty line.

“What did she mean by the town wasn’t ready for a Black mayor? They, meaning white people?” Capital B asked.

“Yes. No change,” Braxton says.

Decades removed from a seemingly Jim Crow South, white people continue to thwart Black political progress by refusing to allow them to govern themselves or participate in the country’s democracy, several residents told Capital B. While litigation may take months or years to resolve, Braxton and community members are working to organize voter education, registration, and transportation ahead of the 2024 general election.

But the tension has been brewing for years.

Two years ago, Braxton says he was the only volunteer firefighter in his department to respond to a tree fire near a Black person’s home in the town of 275 people. As Braxton, 57, actively worked to put out the fire, he says, one of his white colleagues tried to take the keys to his fire truck to keep him from using it.

In another incident, Braxton, who was off duty at the time, overheard an emergency dispatch call for a Black woman experiencing a heart attack. He drove to the fire station to retrieve the automated external defibrillator, or AED machine, but the locks were changed, so he couldn’t get into the facility. He raced back to his house, grabbed his personal machine, and drove over to the house, but he didn’t make it in time to save her. Braxton wasn’t able to gain access to the building or equipment until the Hale County Emergency Management Agency director intervened, the lawsuit said.

“I have been on several house fires by myself,” Braxton says. “They hear the radio and wouldn’t come. I know they hear it because I called dispatch, and dispatch set the tone call three or four times for Newbern because we got a certain tone.”

This has become the new norm for Braxton ever since he became the first Black mayor of his hometown in 2020. For the past three years, he’s been fighting to serve and hold on to the title of mayor, first reported by Lee Hedgepeth, a freelance journalist based in Alabama.

Incorporated in 1854, Newbern, Alabama, today has a population of 275 people — 85% of whom are Black. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)

Not only has he been locked out of the town hall and fought fires alone, but he’s been followed by a drone and unable to retrieve the town’s mail and financial accounts, he says. Rather than concede, Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, the former white mayor, along with his council members, reappointed themselves to their positions after ordering a special election that no one knew about.

Braxton is suing them, the People’s Bank of Greensboro, and the postmaster at the U.S. Post Office.

For at least 60 years, there’s never been an election in the town. Instead, the mantle has been treated as a “hand me down” by the small percentage of white residents, according to several residents Capital B interviewed. After being the only one to submit qualifying paperwork and statement of economic interests, Braxton became the mayor.

(continue reading)

[feminist-furby-freak]

We need to talk about how men weaponize their marginalized identities to harass and manipulate women.

I recently was talking with a friend (for context she is biracial and black but often white passing) who was being harassed by the guy in the seat next to her on a long train ride. He was trying to get her number and get her to agree to go out with him and she kept refusing. Eventually he asked if it was because he was black and if she was being racist. He told her if he was a white man she would have no problem giving her his number. I’ve experienced pretty similar situations a few times. The first time this happened I was maybe 14 (for context I am white) and came home bawling that I had been racist against some man for turning down his advances. My mom was like, first of all you’re literally a child and second of all someone’s identity doesn’t entitle them to you. Ever. As progressive/left-leaning people who care deeply about issues of racism it can be hard to acknowledge the fact that SOME men of color or men of other marginalized identities knowingly use that fact against women. And to be clear this is not to diminish the history of racism and the ways white women have historically harmed (and still can) black men. But stuff like this needs to be talked about even though it is uncomfortable. Victims shouldn’t be expected to stay quiet because it might hurt marginalized men. Some activists condemned Alice Walker for publishing The Color Purple and writing about (black) male violence because they said it would hurt black men. Many of us know about the unrealistic standard of the “perfect victim” but what about the “perfect perpetrator.” You might have seen the recent case where a woman came forward after being assaulted by a black trans identified man and thousands of people were telling her she shouldn’t have called the police because he’s marginalized and at risk. As if her actual experience as a victim matters less than his potential for being victimized. Obviously other groups of men can do this as well (I know a woman who was coerced into sex by a disabled man who used that to manipulate her) but this is just the example I’ve experienced recently. My post about trans identified men weaponizing their transness to sleep with women has gotten a lot of attention and I just wanted to address other ways male entitlement plays out.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for writing a story where someone from 1944 is the main character, with all that entails?

I (M, white) had an idea for a story as of late. I have not written it yet but I plan to.

Basically, the plot (very summarized) is that a French soldier, J, falls through a weak point in time and space. This weak point connects a WWII battlefield in 1944 and a random meadow in Georgia in 2024, outside of Atlanta. He gets found by the other main character, M, and the story is about him teaching J about what life is like 80 yrs later.

In the story, J is a white cis man, and M is a Black/Korean trans man. Throughout the story, J unlearns biases that were put upon him by ignorance, and that includes racist, homophobic, and transphobic beliefs, among others. The point of this was to show that even a person brought directly from a very uneducated time even WITHOUT all the social movements of the 20th century can make the decision to change their ways. He and M even end up together by the end of it, as J realizes that so much of his self loathing came from internalized homophobia.

Anyway, that's the gist of it. Now for the actual conflict.

I have a friend (F, also white) whom I described the story to to get her thoughts on it. She said she was concerned that I was making my transgender character of color get with a racist, transphobic guy by the end. I tried to explain that it was BECAUSE of M that J gets put on the path to change, and that the man at the end is not the same man from the beginning. It got more heated as I tried harder and harder to explain the nuances of the story. I eventually asked her what ending SHE'D prefer, and she said she "would like it better if M beat the shit out of him, or if J got sent back to his own time and got shot."

I replied that that was a terrible idea, that there was nothing wrong with showing a character growing, and that she sounded super twitterbrained. She called me a nazi apologist and blocked me, and now she's lying to mutual friends and saying that I said that MLK deserved it (????????????). Fortunately none of them believe her after talking to me, so...

I know she's acting insane about the other shit, but it's starting to weigh on me. Should I change J's character so he's from sometime else? Or just scrap the story altogether? WIBTA for continuing it as planned?

[gatorbites-imagines]

Hihi, love your writing. Just sending over a request for a male reader (could be ftm if you'd life) with Hobie Brown? So basically the reader is apart of the organisation too and is a spiderman (could be possibly like a rock and/or punk based spiderman, or something completely opposite it's up to you) and it's how he had met Hobie and how they got close? I can send more details over if you'd like, thanks!

Hobie Brown x Male reader

Headcanons

I couldnt find any gifs of hobie yet, so just have this one.

Spoilers for Across the Spiderverse I guess? Reader is a Juggalo because I like ICP lmao.

You were one of the Spidermen that stood out somewhat amongst every other spiderperson around. You suit was white and black and had Juggalo features painted on the face. You wore a baggy ICP t-shirt and black shorts, maybe even a jacket or battle vest covered in patches. You wore a pair of heavy boots as well, perfect for kicking ass.

Along with that you didn’t respect the machine, aka the people in charge, as much as everyone else. You liked fighting and busting fascist and racist heads, you didn’t get involved with cops, and you were stubborn like a mule. This resulted in Miguel hating you because you were so difficult, but you were one of the best, so he kept you around.

You really liked fighting, which could be seen in the claws you added to your gloves, the brass knuckles worked into your suit, or the hard covering on your knees perfect for kneeing people in the chin. Those were only the visible ones, but you had many other hidden gizmos. This made you a bit of an outcast amongst the spiderpeople, but you didn’t care, you didn’t care about anyone’s approval but your own.

When Hobie joined the organization, it had been for Gwen’s sake in the beginning, since he himself doesn’t care much for large organizations with one leader who makes all the decisions. He puts up with it though, since its his duty to be spiderman.

Color him intrigued when one day he, Gwen and Jessica are called to Miguel’s area. When they arrive, they first see Miguel pacing back and forth rubbing his temples in clear annoyance, and second, they see a spiderman perched on the wall with little respect in his posture, roasting Miguel from head to toe.

Hobie already liked you from just that, but when you jump down to introduce yourself and he sees the anti-capitalism and anti-cop patches on your jacket? He might have fallen in love.

You, Gwen and Hobie were sent on a mission together, and you and Hobie got along like a house on fire. Gwen joked about being a third wheel the entire time, but she was just entertained about how well you two got along.

Outside of missions Hobie and you hang out most of the time, jumping into each other’s dimensions and just spending time at the others place. Hobies place is as punk rock as you can imagine, with all his instruments and an organized mess going on.

Your place is more what you’d imagine from someone who listens to rap, hiphop and ICP. You got a lot of music, casettes, cds, anything you can imagine. Lotsa posters or homemade merch stapled to the wall, etc.

When Hobie and Gwen make their band, you are invited of course, you are the singer. You can rap up a storm and speak so fast its hard for them to keep up some days. Hobie won’t admit it for a while, but hearing you spit bars makes his heart flutter.

Gwen would tease the both of you for having a crush on the other, which you both deny, because you are both cool and having crushes isn’t cool.

Gwen jokes about you two being boyfriends after you accidentally wear each other’s vest after spending the night at Hobies’ place. You both just roll your eyes at her and roast her with no actual heat, just doing it how friends would do it.

You both start dating at some point, neither of you can pinpoint when. One day you two just find yourselves cuddling on your rundown patched up couch without your masks on, cuddling and kissing.

Neither of you ever actually ask if you are boyfriends now or not, because you both know you are. It takes a while for Gwen and Pavitr a while to realize you two are together, since you don’t actually act any different.

Its only when they see you pull up his mask and your own to kiss him before going on a mission that it clicks for the both of them. They both whine that neither of you actually told them you were together.

When the movie happens you peace out the same moment as Hobie, having stolen your own tech so you two can keep visiting each other even if you aren’t part of the organization anymore.

Neither of you were ever big parts of being part of it anyways and only stayed for each other and for your friends, but seeing how Miguel deals with the whole Miles situation, you agree you need to leave.

You work together to make the watch for Gwen so she can save Miles. You two might join her too if needed, especially you, because you will take any chance to knock Miguel on his ass, maybe knock out those cheesy fangs of his.

Like I said, you hate authority. And since Miguel is authority, you hate him. Hobie follows after you because hes whipped and loves you deeply, plus he knows you can get kinda careless at times, so he has to pull you outta trouble if he needs.

You are both so grossly whipped for each other, it makes Gwen and Pavitr gag, though its fake gagging. You share clothes, instruments. You do his eyeliner and paint his nails, he does your Juggalo face paint. He always makes sure to give you a big kiss, which just wipes the paint onto his lips too.

[doberbutts]

Genuine question: What do you think of the argument that very white-passing folks — even if they have black parents, grandparents, etc. — cannot call themselves black?

Personally I think whether or not you're black depends on your actual lived reality. My nephew is white passing. He's from the sister who is about the same tone as me, just a little lighter, and the same racial mixture of Irish and afronative, and his very German father. He's got white skin and blonde hair and blue eyes and genuinely if you didn't know that little boy was technically black you would not guess it.

However. He lives with his visibly black mother, his visibly black sister (same racial mix as him, she just got the darker genes), and their visibly black stepfather and visibly black stepsiblings. He's the odd man out, the lightest of the group, and the one that looks like he doesn't belong. And, when you see him next to his family... suddenly the white skin and blonde hair and blue eyes don't cut it for determining his whiteness, because you start to notice that he shares a whole lot of features with the darker skinned members of his family.

Like me, he's put his foot down about his blackness. If asked at school why he's white but his family is black, he will outright state that he's mixed race and that he is actually black and white just like his sister and mother. He's not wrong. He IS black and white and no small part Native, though I think the complexity of the last part is hard for him to grasp at his elementary school level understanding of race politics.

But what is his reality? Well, when he's with his white father, or my white (passing) mother, he's white. Until he opens his mouth to defend his sister or his mother or a friend of his from racism, at which point said racist's eyes laser-focus on every minute detail of his face to pick out the non-European features covered in pale skin.

This is honestly pretty similar to how a Jewish friend of mine describes her experience, how she is white until she opens her mouth to say something positive about Judiasm or negative about antisemitism, at which point every possible Jewish feature on her face comes under intense scrutiny and her white status is revoked immediately. It's also why I'm always on this "antisemitism 🤝 antiblackness" thing.

I also have a Hungarian friend who is equally peeved at the flattening of racial nuance, as he and his family consider themselves mixed race and Eurasian and not just white, however he has had equal amount of people hurting him for his more blatantly Asian features as he's had people telling him he never experiences racism because he's a white European. Similarly, his reality is that he's white until he says something that doesn't align with white supremacy's rules on white opinion and white behavior, at which point every single Asian feature he has is used as punishment against him.

It's not to say that my nephew, my Jewish friend, or my Hungarian friend don't benefit from their perceived whiteness. They do, in fact! My nephew again is a bit young to have this conversation, but my friends have also discussed with me how they have seen that perception occasionally give them a boost as they move through life. And how, if they would want to keep that boost, they'd have to lean into the concept of whiteness and erase a significant portion of their identities in the process.

This is also spoken about at length by Natives forced to assimilate and intermarry with white people to "breed out the savage", as it were. And I know of lightskinned, though imo not white passing, black people who have discussed the same thing. This even is discussed by people in the Irish, Italian, Greek, and Polish diaspora here in the US- how their current status of "white" came at the cost of not only erasing huge portions of their own culture and history but also practically requires them to lean into white supremacy in order to continue to reap the benefits of white privilege, and how the cost is so much higher than the gain especially when you understand that it doesn't work. You can be One Of The Good Ones all you like and someone dedicated to racism is still going to hate you even once you've gotten rid of all the obvious poc.

To put it simply, these aren't new conversations and I'm never going to be anywhere remotely close to "white-passing" so it's sort of a moot point for me. It's not my reality. But I think listening to those who have lived it is better for gaining a more solid understanding. I don't think that my nephew is wrong to call himself black or mixed black. It's technically true, he came out of a black woman. I also think he is going to have a very different life from his sister, from his mother, from his stepfather and stepsiblings, from his black extended family.

I think rejection from the black community would only hurt him, because he is growing up surrounded by black people in a black family learning black culture, so someone telling him that he shares the same features and DNA but his skin is too light to find community there is just hurtful. Who does it help? Who does it protect? To tell a little kid that he can't call himself part of his own family?

[alice-blogs-things]

One of the earliest warning signs I saw regarding Lindy's racism in this episode was definitely the way she reacted to both Fifteen and Ruby's attempts to get in touch with her. Fifteen is blocked right away, but as rude as she is to Ruby, she still hears her out and answers all of her questions. The fact that she sees a black man trying to talk to her and is so threatened she blocks him on sight, but a blonde, white woman like her does basically the same thing and she just gets a bit of attitude is pretty telling.

Honestly, to act like the message of this episode was just "mobile phones bad" or "kids these days amiright?" is some serious misreading of a message that was very much not subtle. Just because nobody ever came out and called Fifteen a slur doesn't mean the way he was treated by Lindy and the others was any less racist, and the signs of that are all over the episode long before the ending.

[sleepynegress]

*sigh* Featurism...

So, I woke up to this shit on the Twit app and I've only hit on this issue before, but today I'm digging in. Colorism is something that is not addressed often enough, but intersected within that and even more rarely spoken about, is the issue of featurism. The young actress above just got cast as Juliet in the latest big staged prestige production of Romeo and Juliet, opposite Tom Holland. And as usual the blue-checks, everybody else including "black", and even Black regulars are all-in on the cruelty.

...But I want to breakdown a nuance that is too often skipped over when this happens. The two people named with her, give away the featurism game, here; a particularly nasty form of often internalized racism. I guarantee if the young actress looked like this?

She'd definitely still get racist attacks, but the particularly nasty shit I'm seeing attacking her looks wouldn't come. In fact, I could see some people thinking they are defending her with "but she's pretty!" or more specific... "obviously she's mixed" comments. -Something pretty much every Black woman with features that don't align with a narrow perception of blackness hear often (and we'll get to why I specified women in a minute). And don't get it twisted...

These aren't exclusively nor standard white features either (see: the many ethnic features w/in white ethnic groups that also get hit to a lesser and non-racialized degree such as large "hook" and/or Romanesque noses for example, which is definitely about anti-semitism, anti-Romani sentiment, and other disparaged/discriminated against ethnic minorities in Europe) and yes, blue eyes are naturally occurring within non-mixed and dark-skinned Black people due to a mutation called Waardenburg syndrome. But there is a REASON why fetishizing even certain ethnic features within the African continental diaspora has been a thing for a long time...i.e. "the dopest Ethiopian" from the Tribe Called Quest lyric is pictured as this:

and this:

and not this:

...despite them all being Ethiopians of various tribal ethnicities.

A wide-nose, a tighter curl, coil, or zig-zag pattern of hair, fuller lips and often, but not always (because I've given examples above where features "mitigate" skin color) darker skin. Zendaya is grouped with Tracey and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, despite being both lighter in skin color and having a Black parent and a white parent because her nose isn't what has become the standard surgical look...that too many celebs have. This includes the ones who got so-called "ethnic" work or just a slight 'refinement'. No, her nose is born w/it, made for that good African air, as I call it. Nostrils prominent, nose bridge wide:

I went make-up free as well, because even make-up practices these days, go for that narrowing highlight technique i.e. just below it's subtle.

Sza is a an example of it taken to extremes, even with the Hollywood standard "ethnic" refinement she did get.

The thing is... I don't blame or attack her for that. Because you see above that is just a taste of what happens. Lil' Kim was relentlessly bullied by the men in her life for her ethnic features for her whole life...and that is why she is off-limits to this day for me when it comes to all the work she's had done.

...And this is where I explain why I specified men being mostly exempt. It's because "Blackness" including all the physical features associated with it, is by default masculinized. ...Which is why Idris Elba is considered one of the most handsome men in the world, w/o the caveats that even Lupita Nyong'o often gets. Nobody calls Samuel L. Jackson ugly. He is even idolized and fetishized by a specifically white male gaze for how culturally "Black" he is perceived to be for all the wrong reasons, his signature "motherfucka" for example (and I could go off on a whole other tangent here, but digressing). All this to say... Featurism sucks. It's not talked about enough. Blackness in all variations is Beautiful. Tracy Chapman looking as young she does?? Hell, mark it down to both her dark skin (a natural UV protector) and not messing with her given features (and being a lesbian, men will age you. lol -I got jokes-):

P.S. THANK GOODNESS for Tems and her rising prominence as a beauty as well:

P.P.S. Even Jay-Z the billionaire rapper has had the comments over the years about his lips and nose, hence that lyric in Beyonce's Formation.

[saphronethaleph]

Lizard v Wizard

“Long have I waited for my grandchild to come home…” Palpatine said, then the smile fell off his face. “...you are not my grandchild.”

“Yeah, we swapped jobs,” Finn agreed, shrugging off a backpack and letting it drop to the floor. “Rey said she was having visions about her falling to evil and sitting on the throne of the Sith, and I said that I hadn’t had any of those visions.”

“Your arrogance will be your downfall, boy,” Palpatine informed him. “Either I will destroy you or you will turn to the Dark Side.”

Finn paused, frowning.

“...huh,” he said. “You really do call it that? I guess I owe Rey an apology.”

“Explain yourself,” Palpatine snapped. “What are you talking about?”

“The Dark Side,” Finn explained, stressing the word. “Seriously, you use that language and it’s going to make me think the Force is a bit racist.”

Palpatine sat in complete silence for several seconds, as his brain rebooted.

“I mean, if you were black yourself, I’d maybe buy the idea that it’s meant to be a matter of pride,” Finn went on. “Reclaiming the term, and all that. But then again you have this whole white power thing going on with the stormtroopers, so it’s not that.”

He shrugged. “And then there’s the bit where you blow up planets as a hobby, because that just makes it really obvious that you’re not even trying to pretend any more.”

“I am going to do you the courtesy of ignoring your nonsense,” Palpatine said, icily. “Make your choice. Turn to the Dark Side, or die.”

Finn laughed.

“Wow,” he said. “You’re making that sound like it’s a threat that works.”

Palpatine’s eye twitched.

“I escaped from the First Order and I was on a capital ship when it got hyperspace rammed,” Finn said. “Also, I came here to fight you, which I think qualifies as a particularly elaborate suicide anyway.”

He shrugged, walking around in a half circle. “I would like to survive this, don’t get me wrong, but… like… if I don’t, and you don’t, I actually think that’s an absolute win.”

“I’ve made my decision,” Palpatine said, with an almost glassy calm. “I’m going to kill you now.”

He raised his hand, which spat lightning, and the lightning stabbed out at Finn – and vanished, as it passed over his backpack.

Finn picked the backpack up again. “Huh, they work,” he said. “Lando said it would but I had to take it on trust.”

Palpatine looked at his hands, then tried to blast Finn for a second time. Again the lightning vanished, then both men looked around at the sound of running feet.

“Rey, I hope you’re in here!” Ben said, then skidded to a halt. “Aren’t you the traitor?”

“We call ourselves the Resistance,” Finn answered. “What are you doing here?”

“Running away from a dozen very angry ex-followers!” Ben replied. “I’ve turned back to the Light Side.”

“Huh,” Finn replied. “Away from the Evil Side?”

“It’s called the Dark Side,” Ben corrected.

“We already had this discussion before you turned up, I think the term Dark side is racist,” Finn said, then Palpatine tried to electrocute him again.

“STOP IGNORING ME!” Palpatine shouted.

“I never thought of it that way, but I think it’s meant to be the absence of light, as in starlight?” Ben guessed, as the sound of stampeding Knights of Ren came down the corridor.

Something exploded overhead.

“Huh, Rey must be doing well,” Finn said, ignoring Palpatine. “And, yeah, I can buy that.”

He reached into the backpack. “Blaster or lightsaber?”

“I don’t have a lightsaber and I would really like one,” Ben said, then caught the Skywalker Lightsaber as Finn threw it to him. “Thank you so much.”

Finn retrieved a blaster from the bag as well, then did something that went beep.

“Five,” he said, throwing the bag at Palpatine. “Four. Three.”

Palpatine raised his hand to bat the backpack away, and got hit in the face by it.

For his part, Finn dove to the floor, and Ben did so as well just before Finn’s count hit zero, and a thermal detonator went off.

The explosion did unfortunately kill the ysalamir in the bag, but by then Palpatine was a little bit too dead to take advantage.

[whenmemorydies]

Breakdown of a racist microaggression in Ice Chips 3x08

This title is misleading because any scene with Donna in it is likely going to be one gigantic macroaggression of some sort lol but I wanted to talk about this scene in Ice Chips and how subtly but impactfully it was played by all the actors in it:

Recall the beginning of 3x08 Ice Chips. Donna has just done her narcissistic thing in the parking lot of the hospital, ignoring-a-very-pregnant-and-about-to-give-birth Natalie's pleas to "shut the fuck up" and we are now in the hospital room with the two of them.

Donna is continuing to do her narcissistic thing and has begun to regale everyone in the room (which at this point is Natalie and a nurse) with stories about being a mother, asserting herself as an expert on the journey her daughter is about to embark on.

She tells Natalie and the nurse (who happens to be Black) about how badly she wanted to be a mother. She said its because:

I wanted someone to love me the way I had seen.

So yes, alarm bells. Wanting a baby so you can feel loved? Probably not the best reason to bring a whole other person into the world.

Note: Mikey entered the world with so much of Donna's expectations and trauma waiting to receive him like his first swaddle. No wonder he knew from a young age that pursuing a singular passion of his own was not going to happen for him because he had people to look after (recall his discussion with Tina in 3x06 Napkins). Parentified, eldest siblings unite /sob.

But back to Donna, Natalie, the nurse and the hospital room.

Donna then hits us with this curveball - her feelings about the exact parent/child relationships she had seen:

You know, all those smug mothers down at the Jewel, blocking the aisle with their strollers.

Yikes.

Donna is jealous of those mothers. She wants to be one of them. She wants to block the aisle at the Jewel (which a quick google tells me is probably short for Jewel-Osco - a chain of grocery stores in Chicago). She's so resentful of mothers with children, that she calls them "smug" for no other reason than they're probably not yelling at their kids in public (lol, also more yikes). She wants to be smug too. It's almost like Donna doesn't want a child, but what she thinks a child will give her: love she clearly hasn't experienced either as a child herself or as an adult . And also the power to be smug and take her place at the Jewel. Its almost like, to Donna, a child is an object, a means to an end.

But we're not done.

Then Donna says:

Do you know what Gina said to me? Gina fucking said to me - she looked down at my stomach - she says to me,

'You know, Donna, there are lots of good Chinese babies, honey.'

And then Donna turns to the only racialised person in the room, the Black nurse and says:

I mean, can you imagine?

And to her credit, that nurse did not kiss her teeth (she has so much more patience and professionalism than me lmao) but I felt her reaction to my CORE:

The biting of tongue, the looking up for divine intervention to get the person speaking to shut the fuck up, the looking down and pursing of lips when you realise no such help is coming, lmao.

I felt that reaction because I have been in this situation so many times as a racialised person (specifically as a non-Black POC). What is the situation exactly? The situation is a white person making a racist comment or "joke" in front of BIPOC folks in order to feel validated in their racism. The situation is getting BIPOC folks to collude/cosign in racism by doing it in front of them and trying to get them in on the "joke" too. This nurse was not having any of it.

For folks who are unsure about what was racist about Donna's comment: the "Chinese babies" Donna is likely referring to are the wave of Asian-American adoptions (where largely white Americans adopted children from China, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and other East Asian countries) that began during the Cold War. The racism is the exporting of Donna's previously discussed objectification of a child, to the East. If she can't make a baby to fill the emotional vortex of her heart, Donna can buy adopt a "Chinese" one (the use of "Chinese" to refer to a myriad of nations and people is also racist). To be clear: white people treating BIPOC folks as objects to fill their needs and not as humans deserving of dignity and respect, is racist.

And yes, this is Donna recounting what someone named Gina has said to her. Its not technically what Donna has said so she's innocent right? Wrong. Donna is recounting a racist incident in front of a BIPOC person whom she has no relationship with. She's not condemning the racism of her friend so for all we know, she may have the same views as Gina - that Asian babies are fine to be adopted if you're a white woman who's feeling very lonely and just wants a baby really badly. This is deeply uncomfortable. My skin was crawling during this scene.

Natalie, observant woman that she is, clocks the nurse's discomfort right away:

And then Donna says:

The joke was on her. God rest her soul. I was two months gone with Michael at the time.

So we know Donna is not condemning Gina for her racism. She's condemning Gina for assuming Donna couldn't get pregnant on her own. Great. So now we and the nurse have a better sense of Donna's position here (Natalie being Donna's daughter surely already knows her mother's position).

Understandably, the nurse does not take Donna's bait and does not affirm her statements. So Donna doubles down in her condemnation of Gina, trying to get the nurse to affirm her any way, any how.

Natalie can see where this may end up going (when JLC does that upside-down-smile-grimace, even I know this is about to get messy lmao) so, being the well-practised parentified daughter that she is, she intervenes:

Then Donna reassures Natalie and the nurse that she did call Pete and she did leave a message and that everything is good. Still Donna needs affirmation from the nurse (can we talk about white folks needing BIPOC folks, in particular Black women, to affirm and hold their feelings for them? Can we talk about the demands of emotional labour?) so she tries another tactic:

The nurse can see right through Donna's posturing:

But she remains respectful and professional, politely responding: Wow.

(which wasn't as sarcastic in the scene as it might read here lol)

Natalie, like the nurse, can also see that her mother is, in fact, on one:

When the nurse does not give Donna anything more than "wow", she gets visibly pissed off. She pulls a face like "That's it?! Wow? Don't you know how hard it is to walk while being in labour?!" JLC goes FULL upside-down-smile-grimace:

But before Donna can embarrass herself further, she gets interrupted.

By a visibly Asian nurse:

And proceeds to shut the fuck up:

The way I CACKLED at the end of this scene lol.

Anyway, I was rewatching this episode for another meta but as is often the case with this show, something else revealed itself in the rewatch, so here we are.

This scene in Ice Chips is literally only one minute long. But the subtleties of facial expression, the looks thrown, the silences, the script choices were *chef's kiss* for so accurately depicting a racist microaggression and the inherent narcissism of racism itself - above and beyond any other mental health diagnoses that Donna might have. This scene was a perfect example of someone having mental health issues and also doing tone-deaf and racist shit, and how blurry those things may appear when you watch them in action.

As humans, we can have multiple things be true of ourselves at the same time. Donna can be mentally unwell and can say and do racist things. Natalie can love Sydney - an unambigiously Black woman - like a sister and also love her unambiguously offensive (lol) mother Donna. Carmy can love his largely BIPOC staff but then treat them like cogs in a machine at work.

I'm not saying that humans contain multitudes, the end. If some of those multitudes are harmful to BIPOC folks or other groups that face systemic discrimination then it is imperative that we try to change the behaviours we have that are harmful. Donna has work to do, so does Carmy and so does Nat. But I'm also saying this shit is messy and its complex. I just thought I'd point out that 3x08 Ice Chips did a great job of showcasing a bit of that mess and a bit of that complexity.

[starleska]

can we talk about the brilliant execution of Dot and Bubble's big reveal!!!

i am still absolutely gobsmacked by what a well-written episode Dot and Bubble is. startling, disarming, confrontational, and tremendously impactful. and holy shit i really really want to talk about how excellent the 'twist' (which really should've been obvious in retrospect 😭 was done):

as a white person it took me about ten minutes to clock that Lindy's friend group were a nightmare Aryan Tupperware Party collective: all white, all blue-eyed, and even Gothic Paul was dressed in blues and whites, with no black at all. but you know how i responded to that? mentally i went 'oh i'm sure it's nothing!' and shoved it aside. and i think it is exactly that insidious tendency to ignore, normalise, and validate overt and covert racism that the episode does such a tremendous job of tackling! everything in the episode gives us the lore we need to understand Lindy and the people of Finetime are white supremacists. Lindy's disgusted face and immediate blocking of The Doctor versus the amount of time she spends with Ruby. Lindy's shock at the Doctor and Ruby occupying the same room implying segregation on the Homeworld. Lindy calling the Doctor and Ruby 'criminals' not for being in the Bubble, but for breaking segregation. Lindy using Ricky September, a white influencer, to calm herself down not just from the monsters, but from interacting with a Black person. the tradwife aesthetic of the Finetime residents making a comeback in real-life right-wing racist circles. ugh, there's so much and it was all right in our faces!! yet many of us who aren't POC had the privilege of going through the episode baffled and uncomfortable, without being able to put a finger on why until the final bit of the episode. doesn't that tell us how quickly and easily we've all taken to ignoring both micro and macroaggressions? that we needed talk of being 'contaminated', improper use of the word 'voodoo', and Lindy straight up telling the Doctor that face-to-face contact was unacceptable, to understand they're white supremacists? oh my God 😭😭 what a genius play, to make Lindy so detestable from the start. she's an arrogant, vain, self-absorbed, moronic, uncompromising, traitorous bitch...and by layering that abhorrent personality and then giving us the reveal of her white supremacy, there is no argument even the most wishy-washy of people could have re: their awful views. Lindy and her friends are revolting racists who are so wrapped up in their own echo-chamber 'bubble' that they would genuinely rather be devoured alive than challenge their own narrow, bigoted views. i'm still blown away by the power of Ncuti's final scene. the disbelief, the frustration, the sadness and the fury...and yet the Doctor still tries to save them against all odds. i think the most common response to this episode was 'The Doctor should have gone all Time Lord Victorious on them', and you're right - he should have! but doing that would've affirmed the beliefs of the real-life racists viewers. the Doctor responding not with violence or righteous vengeance is a very deliberate writing choice: we are supposed to come away feeling revolted that he needed to behave that way, to almost be supplicant to the white supremacists. because that is the real-life view of so many people who don't even view themselves as racist: Black people need to 'perform' to a higher standard, than white people just to be considered worthy of respect. the more i watch it, the more i'm convinced this is the best episode of the whole season, and one of the best Doctor Who episodes we've ever had. we were taken off-guard by having an episode overtly about racism set in the future rather than the past, because our tendency is to assume equality is a natural consequence of becoming technologically advanced. this clearly isn't the case, and Dot and Bubble is a masterclass in confronting racism head-on rather than dancing around it for the comfort of white viewers. just. aaargh!!!! absolutely amazing 🔥🔥🔥

[nekropsii]

More Reminders:

Karkat is a bootlicker. This is a prominent character trait. He’s rooting for the Alternian empire- yes, even though it’s ruled by a system that wants him personally dead- and really wants to be a part of its military.

Eridan has a “genocide complex” and is able to be roughly described as the troll equivalent of a white supremacist. This is one of the first things we learn about him.

The Beta Trolls are 13. All of them. This includes Equius. This includes Eridan. This includes Vriska. This includes Gamzee.

99% of Gamzee’s character is racial caricature. No, he is not intended to be a Dionysus parallel. He is intended to be a “satirization” of Black people.

Sapphic pairings have always held precedent over MLM pairings. They’ve always been more important to the plot, been handled with much more grace, and had more screen time. This isn’t a bad thing.

Doc Scratch is a child predator. This is an incredibly prominent character trait of his, and you’re way past due for a reread if you’ve forgotten. He has a particular fixation on, as canon puts it, “little girls”, and targets both Rose and Kanaya. Do I even have to bring up what he did to Damara?

Regarding the previous point, Rose and Kanaya both get very traumatized during the course of Homestuck’s story. They’re not well put together sophisticated “mom friends”, they’re 13 year olds just like almost everyone else is, and they’re going through hell. Rose in particular makes the effect all of this trauma has on her very well known. This is what Grimdarkness is.

Cronus is a child predator, too. During the course of the Openbounds and Ministrife, we see him unabashedly predate on three specific kids, and this behavior is made out to be extremely creepy. These three kids are Karkat, Tavros, and, yes, Eridan.

The Exiles were incredibly important to the plot, actually. You guys are just mean.

Almost every relationship in Homestuck is flawed in some capacity, that’s the point of a tragic drama. The main cast is literally nothing but traumatized and/or mentally ill 13-16 year olds. A good chunk of them aren’t even socialized, or grew up in an actively hostile environment. Or both. No shit characters mess up sometimes, or have unhealthy behaviors- it’s just natural in that situation. Some dynamics are substantially more healthy than others, but the main appeal of Homestuck is that everyone is flawed and damaged.

A good majority of Vriscourse was just people leaping at the opportunity to express pure, unabashed misogyny. I don’t think I have to elaborate upon this.

No, Jane is not a fascist, nor is she racist. She’s never been either of these things, that’s something that was invented out of left field by the Post Canon writing team. Being a fascistic racist was never within the scope of Jane’s character. No, it being “a result of her having grown up being fed propaganda by The Condesce” does not explain that plot thread in Post Canon for a single second, because Jane experiencing a major personality shift because of HIC literally already happened in canon with her going Crockertier, and she came out of that a stronger person. Never once has “racism” been on the list of problems she has.

Hemoloyalty is not intended to be a 1:1 metaphor for racism, nor is it intended to be a 1:1 metaphor for classism, or any other type of oppression. It’s not a 1:1 metaphor for literally anything, it’s intended to be flexible and contextual. This is not a bad thing, and is, in fact, a common storytelling method used by a lot of fantasy/sci-fi writers. Condemning Hussie for a lot of things in their writing is valid, but Hemoloyalty not being strictly analogous to only one type of real world oppression is patently not one of them. You do not know how metaphors work.

Official =/= Canon. No one is calling Pesterquest canon. You really shouldn’t be doing the same for Post Canon. The Homestuck Epilogues and Homestuck^2 are Official, but they are definitively not Canon. This is literally the first thing you learn about either of these projects. This doesn’t invalidate anyone’s enjoyment of any of these properties, of course, but it has to be stressed: Official does not automatically mean Canon.