Poking my brain with a stick till it moves @cazass - Tumblr Blog

Apologies if this question seems out of left field! I was wondering if you had any insight into a specific phenomenon I've noticed while working on writing a WLW visual novel for a school project.

I was analyzing how WLW is portrayed in media to get a better grasp on my writing when I noticed that sapphic couples are largely depicted as WOC x white women. If race isn't explicitly mentioned, then the designs imply a relationship between an ambiguously brown woman and an ambiguously pale woman.

Here are some of my findings:

Princess Bubblegum x Marceline (Adventure Time)

Santana x Brittany (Glee)

Korra x Asami (The Legend of Korra)

Cheryl x Toni (Riverdale)

Rue x Jules (Euphoria)

Catra x Adora (She-Ra And The Princesses of Power)

Deena x Sam (Fear Street)

Luz x Amity (The Owl House)

Ymir x Christa (Attack on Titan)

Villanelle x Eve (Killing Eve)

Caitlyn x Vi (Arcane)

Charlie x Vaggie (Hazbin Hotel)

Maybe I'm just finding a pattern that doesn't necessarily mean anything, but I can't help but feel like I'm missing something. Am I crazy for pointing this out?

You’re not crazy. The pattern that you’re pointing out is racism and also colorism.

Do you notice how almost every brown/POC/darker woman in these pairings is the more aggressive one? The one that does more of the fighting and the physical work? Or perhaps they’re the one that is inhuman or an abnormal species as opposed to their counterpart?

How do these women then interact with their lighter and often times WHITER partners? Do you see a lot of coddling? A lot of doting that isn’t reciprocated? Do these brown women have identities outside of their lighter partners, or even a generally lighter collective?

Which of the two in these pairings do you see having a greater impact on the story? Is that impact positive or negative, are they a villain or are they on the hero’s side? If they were previously a villain, do you feel like their impact and character diminishes AFTER they switch sides?

How do artists/fan artists often depict these character pairings? Which characters do you notice to be generally depicted as more dominant or more submissive? What language and terms do people often use to describe these characters when comparing them to each other in relationships?

Is there variety?

These are the questions I ask myself when I examine these pairings, and probably ones you should ask yourself too. I imagine they’ll help with your project quite a lot.

viewtiful-kim-deactivated202105

Hamlet adaptation where Hamlet is a vlogger and all his soliloquies are breakdowns he uploads to YouTube

animatedamerican

… I am unironically here for this

oldfilmsflicker

this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life

kabesattic

This is - legitimately - my favourite delivery of Shakespeare I have EVER seen (and I have seen some good-ass productions yo, in the Globe Theatre itself even). Like seriously, even though the words are unchanged, he’s stripped away ALL of the archaic pretense and assumed grandeur of ~presenting the bard~ that makes even the most wildly talented of actors and innovative of productions inherently inaccessible to a modern audience. Like, they’re still great, they can still communicate the message and (some) of the nuance, but they’re still always a step removed from being identifiable to any viewer’s lived experience. They’re still always reciting 15th century poetry. But this guy? This guy is like, screw iambic pentameter, to hell with being precious about the material, HOW WOULD AN ACTUAL PERSON SAY THIS SHIT?

Like this. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful to hear a soliloquy I loved so much already, and have it come to life in a way it never, ever, did before. I feel like I grasp his motivations, his twists and turns, no longer on an academic level but on a visceral, instinctive one. Because he’s presenting his mental and emotional journey in a way that speaks honestly, like a real person.

So yeah, this shit post? I love it. Deeply and sincerely.

spicedtealeaves

A post about this went round recently, and I’m delighted to announce she’s since come out as trans and goes by Jasmine 🏳️‍⚧️

Actor and Writer

There’s a whole series of the Hamlet videos on her YouTube, as well as a bunch of other films she’s made

cosmikazie

hey remember when people said we gotta keep talking about this and then two days passed and it just went quiet. anyways

maybemayii

Jacob Anderson talking about the icons that shaped his Louis — Grace Jones & Eartha Kitt (Part ll)

proletarianprincess

Why are you fat?

cause everytime i fuck your dad he makes me a sandwich

sillysayaka

and every time we kiss i swear i could fly

sometiktoksarevalid

ekjohnston

*weeps uncontrollably at 9 o'clock in the morning*

God, I love randos on the internet who just want to be kind.

magicratfingers

creatingblackcharacters

I found the TADC creator's response to the racism from their VAs.

[Start ID: A screenshot of a tweet from Gooseworx. The tweet reads, "Everyone in the cigarette fandom eating good tonight."./. End ID.]

Lmaoooooo and these are the creators whose works y'all will fight to the death over. Gotta love being Black online and seeing this shit over and over. It's so annoying that it takes someone saying or laughing at "nigga" outright for y'all to care about the rest of the antiblackness.

creatingblackcharacters

Again, 2019. This means that for the past 7 years (if that's how long they're working together on this) this has been a work environment where something like that happened and no moves were made- at least that y'all saw- to change it. 🙂 Because it wasn't a deal breaker until it was exposed. Something something Nazi bar-

breadcroww

she's been on my mind...

missstrogen

Tumblr Staff, after making a half hearted apology for mass banning trans women, has just today mass banned trans women a second time

I don't have exact numbers yet, but at least twenty users were terminated at the same exact time, recieving an "internally generated report" refusing to declare reason for the ban. I quote, "Upon review of your account we have determined that it does not align with our terms of service". No reason given, this was clearly a deliberate action by staff as they themselves claim

Tumblr staff is currently mass banning trans women again. Make them know this is unnaceptable

missstrogen

After analysis and study and contacting affected people i can confidently state the following

All people who recieved tumblr premium were affected by the initial mass ban. As this would be near impossible to collate for a normal user (and who would even pay for this?), i can only conclude the following

Tumblr staff has given a month of tumblr premium to all those affected by the banwave

However, on the same day, and according to the evidence obtained,

Tumblr staff used the same means they used in march, the exact same means they apologized about using, terminating all followers of evilprincess-v

All members affected were followers of the same account, and they all recieved a message of termination without reason, and declaring itself internally generated.

Mere days after tumblr apologized, they did the exact same thing again. Do not let this slide

staff

A note from the Tumblr team

A few weeks ago, a small but higher-than-normal number of accounts were mistakenly suspended. The suspensions were quickly reversed, but our response wasn't good enough, and we want to say more.

We're sorry it took us this long to address this. Trust and safety issues are difficult to discuss publicly, and we can’t share details about specific individuals or how our systems work without exposing Tumblr to bad actors. But caution led us to say too little, too late.

We’ve heard from members of the trans community on Tumblr that they were disproportionately impacted, and that deserves a direct response. According to 3rd party researchers, Tumblr’s userbase has the highest proportion of LGBTQIA+ folks on social media, so it makes sense that when something goes wrong, those communities might feel that disproportionate impact.

One thing we want to emphasize is that we do not moderate people's identities. We moderate behavior. We know that identity shows up across a Tumblr profile in many ways, from followed topics to the flags people put in their bios, and more. However, these signals play no role in how our moderation systems make decisions. We monitor those systems for evidence of bias and take corrective action when we find it.

We understand that the communications sent to affected users, and our broader silence to the community, didn't meet the standard people expect from us. That feedback is fair, and we apologize. We've updated the messaging sent to people impacted by these incidents. We are also overhauling our process with a goal of responding to mistaken suspension appeals within 24 hours, and have instituted an ongoing internal review of how suspensions and appeals are handled.

Going forward, we're committed to finding a better balance: being more transparent with our community about issues that matter, even when we can't share everything.

Tumblr belongs to everyone. We take that seriously, and we intend to earn back your trust. We are not afraid to have tough discussions with you or make updates based on your feedback, though on occasion, it might take some time.

To the people whose accounts were affected, and to the members of our trans community who felt targeted: we are truly sorry.

Tumblr Staff

killpeoplewithjoy

A Response From A Tumblr User

This is a lie. you are lying. You didn't hear from the general trans community, you heard from transfeminine community. The system of moderation is discriminatory towards transfeminine people. This also was not limited to a couple weeks ago, this is happening currently. As of yesterday, April 14, 2026, it has been ongoing.

It will not 'expose Tumblr to bad actors' if you explain your moderation policy, because your moderation is -already- being abused by bad actors. you are implying that your system isn't currently being abused, this is a lie. You imply the trade off of transparency wouldn't be worth the increase in labor. Actually, it would allow us to address it on -our end- and take steps to prevent the harassment that stems from the current abuse.

"According to third party researchers", your moderation policies disproportionately affect the trans and queer community. This is a matter of public record. your claim, that it will seem disproportionate but actually isn't, is unsubstantiated. you are lying.

Source: https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/enforcement/2022-settlements.page

(is your Classifier OpenAI? https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/ not relevant this one its just being petty rn.)

You actually don't "moderate behavior", you respond to reports. You have yet to give any reason to take you at your word on the process itself. Transmisogynistic moderation was lied about for months if not years. Users only got confirmation during Matt's public melt down. You know your *policies* fall short. You've stated as such in 2024, when you wiped your hands of responsibility for a staff member stalking and harassing a user.

Source: https://www.tumblr.com/staff/743224389484625920/a-message-from-a-few-of-the-trans-staff-at-tumblr

If you punished behavior, your CEO would not be allowed to have an account on this website.

But this is to deflect the issue raised, which is that transfeminine people are being disproportionately affected -even compared to other trans people- for "BEHAVIORS" that NON transfeminine people aren't. Identity has little, if nothing, to do about it. The moderation system is sexist. it produces misogynistic outcomes, therefore is misogynist. This Is the exact reason people were angry at PhotoMatt.

From: https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-transphobia-matt-mullenweg

Once again, you are missing the point by conflating transfeminine/trans women/"TMA" people, ("those communities" as you call us) with the broader and less discrete LGBTQIA+ community.

Your Auto flagging system, which has been the source of a significant amount of reports and subsequent bans is not addressed at all. This is a lie by omission.

Address the issues raised and not the ones you can think up a clever thing to apologize for. You make more work for yourself when you obscure the issue. It does not matter if you are doing this intentionally.

And the most erogenous part: "Tumblr belongs to everyone. We take that seriously, and we intend to earn back your trust." -Lie, its belongs to Automattic and the investors of such.

Source: https://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/terms-of-service

In Conclusion, "We are not afraid to have tough discussions with you or make updates based on your feedback, though on occasion, it might take some time." -Lie, you do not address the issues and the time it takes to respond is due to backtracking and taking more time on framing this than investigating the substance of reports. To Quote Judge Maya Gamble "You believe everything you say is true, but your beliefs do not make something true, just because you claim to think something is true does not make it true."

karakt

carmahnart

Hey y’all I have an announcement! My web app that I’ve been working on, Afro Index, is now live! It’s a visual reference library of Black hairstyles, for artist, animators, writers, and anyone who wants to learn more about them!

Check it out at afroindex.org! 💛✨

A reference library for Black hairstyles with accurate naming, structured filtering, and curated reference images.

chilewithcarnage

Sinners was extremely fun and had much more depth than your average blockbuster but when you start saying shit like it has to win every Oscar and be everyone's movie of the year or you hate Black art people are gonna start pointing out that the characters aren't as well developed as in One Battle (or Sentimental Value or The Secret Agent) the setting doesn't feel as lived in as it could be and the exposition is a lil clumsy. none of that is even a bad thing for the kind of film it is, I don't think Ryan Coogler shot for heights he didn't reach, I think he made the exact film he meant to and he made it really well. It's a masterpiece in the same way that Jurassic Park and Jaws are masterpieces and I certainly would not have been mad if it won Best Picture but I can understand why it didn't.

I don't have a succinct retort to this if you think thematically Sinners is on the same level as Jurassic fucking Park you are stupid and/or racist

wreathofleon

i despise this little rhetorical trick white people do when they purposely misrepresent our genuine critique of the system (racial biases of the oscars, and the history of black filmmakers getting snubbed) as a highly emotional kneejerk response that's attempting to suffocate dissent ("it has to win every oscar, and if it doesn't, everyone at the oscars is racist. and if you disagree that it should win every oscar, you are racist"). this awfully bad faith interpretation of the current discourse is not only absurd and indicative of white people's myopic colonial worldview of everything being a matter of conquer and dominion over others, but places black people in the position where they have to exonerate themselves of the fictional argument that YOU made up in YOUR OWN head at every turn to advance the shit they're ACTUALLY trying to say. which is:

have you ever considered that if it sounds unbelievable, then it shouldn't be believed? because nobody—and i mean NOBODY—is arguing that sinners is (1) a flawless movie, (2) that you're racist for not liking it, or that you have an obligation to like it, or (3) that it deserved "every oscar" (which it does, but we all know its patently unrealistic and is, again, unbelievable.)

we are still reeling from the stars of this same movie getting called the n word by a white person at another events show, and having the entire internet browbeat us about how we hate disabled people and know nothing about disability because we didn't exhibit the most nuanced, regulated response to racial trauma; all as a massive chess play by BAFTA to deliberately stoke ratings from us.

we're still having racist circlejerks on this website about how the black music tradition is a valid tradition and shouldn't be pigeonholed into the "sex, drugs, money, and gangs" genre by moral nitpickers with double standards or white people with an almost fetishistic, VAMPIRIC attachment to our art and its purposes.

for fucksakes, one of the first articles ever written about this movie on its OPENING WEEKS was variety spitballing about how it "wasn't gonna be a box office hit" because it was an "original genre film" and not the 17th "the conjuring" installation huffing its own ectoplasmic fume and rot. several movies released at around the same time that were original genre films. . . and NONE of them had articles written about how they weren't "pulling their weight."

everything regarding this movie's release and propagation on a systemic level was DESIGNED for it to fail. at every step of the way were you colonial vultures egging this movie on to suffer despite how masterful and attentive its execution was. you have people on this website fangirling over remmicKKK and giving black people their dumb nerdy fandom spiel about how personal gratification is above all even if it's tone-deaf and racist and just artistically god awful.

and all we have to say for this storm of cracker nonsense swarming around maybe what is one of the best films to be made in contemporary is "i can understand why it didn't win?" Can You? Can You Really?

wolfertinger666

my epic Deltarune headcanon is that Noelle is black but she doesn't use AAVE correctly like her sister Dess, and Susie (who is also black) thinks it's funny at first but the more they're around each other, Noelle starts picking it up correctly from Susie and then they kiss cuz they are epic black lesbians send post

wolfertinger666

Kris is there and they are also black and absolutely loves both of those two they are now a polycule I like krusielle send post

wolfertinger666

i got a call from Toby himself...he said this is all true...