Regarding #EndOTWRacism’s summaries of 2023 OTW Board election candidate positions

Before I begin, let me say now that while I am a volunteer with the OTW, my views are personal and should not be taken as any kind of official statement from the org, its leadership, or other volunteers, especially not the candidates in question. My focus here is on the Asian candidates for obvious reasons, but this post is not meant as endorsement or disavowal of any of the candidates, whose bios and platforms can all be read here.

Do not take this as an excuse harass the mods running EOTWR. I cannot make myself clearer.

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I am making this post to express my extreme disappointment with End OTW Racism’s post purporting to summarize the platforms of the candidates for the upcoming Board elections. It is no longer rebloggable, but can be read here.

The way that the candidates with Asian names were spoken of is deeply insulting when compared with how candidates with English-language names were discussed. Asian candidates had their platforms misrepresented, their expertise downplayed, and their lived experiences reduced down to “bringing an international presence” to the board, which was then further caveated with, “diversity alone is not going to solve the issue of racist harassment currently allowed in the OTW’s policies and enforcement practice”. While it is true that diversity alone is not a solution, it’s pretty offensive to essentially have “remember! Just because they aren’t white doesn’t mean you should vote for them!” tacked on to one of the Asian candidates’ platforms. 

End OTW Racism seems more concerned with whether or not candidates used the buzzwords they wanted to hear rather than with how racism is discussed holistically within the statements. While I can appreciate that EOTWR has a specific agenda, to say things like, “[s]he does not mention racism, racist harassment, or hiring a DEI consultant in her platform, so outside the outreach and support she mentions, there is not enough for us to conclude that these would be priorities for her” regarding Zixin Z.’s position, directly following the statement, “[s]he also mentions the need for outreach towards non-English-speaking fans and has a desire to provide support to volunteers from minority groups” is fucking laughable, especially after the initial mistake of stating that Zixin Z. only wanted to do more outreach to Chinese-speaking fans. Again, I understand that people make mistakes and that this mistake has since been corrected, but I hope it prompts some reflection on the sort of biases that would lead to such a mistake in the first place. It may have been completely innocuous, but in charged discussions about racism, please understand that it gives an impression that is difficult to shake. I do thank you for not trying to hide that this happened. 

Why is Anh P.’s lack of discussion on TOS/PAC a point against her, while Zixin Z.’s years of experience on PAC, her role as a mod on Weibo, and her background in nonprofits don’t even warrant a mention? For that matter, why did none of the Asian candidates’ skills or experience warrant mention? Qiao C. and Zixin Z. have both been volunteers with the organization for several years now, and Anh P. has years of moderation and volunteer experience elsewhere prior to her work with the OTW.

It is so fucking frustrating that despite each one of these candidates specifically talking about the need for diverse voices, they had their platforms essentially passed over because they didn’t use the right words, and it is particularly fucking aggravating to see that EOTWR will use Chinese issues as props when trying to press OTW leadership on the racism that occurs within the org, but then completely fail to connect the dots on why these candidates are running because the wrong language was used. Zixin Z. is one of the Weibo mods, for fuck’s sake. 

The entire post feels like an exercise in virtue signalling, from every time it was brought up that a candidate did not provide pronouns in their platform statements, despite every one of them having pronouns provided in their bios (why mention this detail at all? You could have simply used the pronouns), to what felt like willful obliviousness to the anti-racism stances in the Asian candidates’ platforms. It feels like the concern starts and ends with racism in Anglophone terms, on Anglophone terms.

I can respect the driving ideas behind EOTWR, even if I disagree with the way that EOTWR pursues their goals. I do believe that we want the same things in the end, and therefore chose not to interact with the many posts I have seen about the protest. However, I saw the summary post and could not let it pass without speaking.

For a protest group supposedly dedicated to ending racism in the OTW, this felt incredibly hypocritical, conscious bias or not. In my most charitable frame of mind, I can see this as misjudging and overcorrecting to ensure that there was no favoritism shown to the obvious non-white candidates lest EOTWR be accused of tokenizing– again, it is true, that diversity in and of itself is not a solution to racism. 

In my least charitable and most bitter frame of mind, I feel inclined to wonder if EOTWR, much like the OTW itself, is uncomfortable with the lack of influence they could exude over an international candidate. It would be much, much easier to push their agenda forward with more culturally familiar candidates, particularly white ones. Guilt and public scrutiny are powerful weapons and easy to wield against those with perceived privilege in our current atmosphere, often to the detriment of the actual discussion at hand in my experience. I know that’s cynical. It’s hard not to be. (For clarity's sake: I do not know the other candidates' races. This is a hypothetical.)

This isn’t a demand for an apology. I think we fetishize the capital-A Apology to the point where I find them sort of meaningless unless they are given freely. I don’t need EOTWR to agree with me, and I don’t really want to keep talking about it. Rather, I would prefer that EOTWR take action to do better as they continue in their campaign. What that action is is their decision. If they truly mean to stand against racism in the OTW, then I’d like them to demonstrate it.

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DO NOT HARASS EOTWR MODS. I AM FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT THIS.

One thing that's starting to really get to me with the James Somerton stuff is a real strong undercurrent of disdain toward his fans. And yeah, I was one of them. A good scam artist isn't as easy to spot as y'all seem to think. You forget that you have all the information right now. Two days ago most of you had never heard of him and it would have kept going. Anyone can fall for a scam, nobody is immune. I would love to have had whatever resources you guys think we all should magically know about so I could have kept my sad $5 a month I really needed but thought was going to something worthwhile. Some of us can only devote so much energy into things and when you have no idea whatsoever that something is amiss of course you're not going to go digging for sources, why would you when everything is fine as far as you know? I really wish I could have seen the dissenting opinions on him but for many, many reasons that aren't just that the dissenting voices weren't widely circulating at the time all I had was the thought every now and again that "huh that doesn't seem right" and then go on with my day. And I think that happened to a lot of us. So yeah. Say what you gotta say about Somerton, he has more than earned it with the damage he's caused, but maybe don't shit so hard on his former fans because that is going to be you someday with something, it happens to everyone sooner or later.

really not a fan of boston very explicitly saying "I want to be exclusive romantically but not sexually" only to be told "You're lying to yourself. I think you should be alone."

FOREWARNING FOR GROSS-OUT SKIN CLOSEUP SHIT DON'T YELL AT ME FOR SHOWING YOU has anyone else gotten this really weird phenomenon on youtube. I swear every algorithm on every website is actively and purposely worse now. Where you'll be scrolling through vids after searching for something (I was looking at crochet stuff) and SANDWICHED IN THE MIDDLE OF ACTUAL SEARCH RESULTS... YOU KNOW. LIKE THINGS RELEVANT TO THE KEYWORDS I TYPED

are a couple of completely out of left field SHOCK VALUE VIDS. like to intentionally be alarming. drama vids and things you're enticed to click on bc they're upsetting, and deep deep closeups on zits. what the fuck is going on. Sandwiched between videos about GRANNY SQUARES. crack? is it crack we're smoking????

i think the most annoying part of amatonormativity is that not only do you NEED to feel love, and not only is there an order your relationships must follow (romantic/sexual partnership above all, then family, then friends) but the fact that other people HAVE to be your top priority. like even if you feel all kinds of attraction, if you dare put anything else above your relationships they consider you evil. god forbid you enjoy your hobbies more than being around your friends even though how much you care about something is completely outside of your control. it's the worst.

i love how aladarius is closer to being canon than gustholomule

just gonna,, post this here...

the first chapter-kinda/prologue?? I was inspired by multiple prompts, two of which are HERE and HERE .

"Found out" set in kind of a made-up chapter where the girls are in trouble, or something.

qpr jean and neil. that's all i'm gonna say.

do you see my vision?

i'm like n1 lecfosa but i have to say some of the anons i've seen in other people's inboxes because they think that charles could've driven better today or that carlos deserved the win....have not been it. if you have an opinion to say, please just post it on your own blog and put your own name to it rather than going to terrorise and spit on someone who doesn't agree with you while retaining the luxury of hiding behind an anonymous icon. or even better, if you're upset, stick to the blogs that you know share your opinions.

i tried working on a panel for my graphic novel just to see how much time it took and yall i'm desperate! good night!!!

thinking about floyd and riddle spending their first halloween as a couple together... i think floyd absolutely loves how varied and lively all of the different halloween traditions he's learned about since coming to live on land are, and he wants to try out as many of them as he can each year. so when riddle tells him that his mother always made him stay in his room studying on halloween, and that the only halloween activities he's ever done were those that NRC students were required to participate in, floyd decides that the two of them are just going to have to spend the day doing everything they possibly can. riddle tries to say he's far too busy for such things, but floyd will not let it go and honestly riddle is only half-heartedly protesting anyway because he secretly did always dream of doing the things that other kids got to do on halloween, and maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal to take one day off and spend time with his boyfriend.

so, riddle never got to make jack-o-lanterns? floyd decides to "borrow" about half a dozen of the pumpkins jade and azul had bought for mostro lounge and takes them to riddle's dorm room. riddle is terrible at trying to carve them at first and floyd can't help but laugh at him a little, but since he knows it's not riddle's fault he's never gotten to do this before, he says he'll show him how to do it. unfortunately floyd isn't nearly as good as he thinks he is on account of having lived in the ocean for almost his whole life and now riddle gets to laugh right back at him. they probably both get the hang of it right as they're down to their last two pumpkins.

riddle never got to go trick-or-treating with his childhood friends? floyd texts trey and convinces him to get in touch with chenya as well so that they can all go together. when they approach the first house, in the costumes they had prepared for each of their school's halloween events, riddle starts to get nervous and asks if they aren't all a little too old to be doing this. floyd shoves several huge handfuls of candy from that person's bowl into his and riddle's pumpkin-shaped buckets and tells him it's not like there's any rule that says they can't, and besides, riddle is such a cute little goldfish that he practically looks like a kid in his costume anyway! chenya stifles a laugh while trey has to stop riddle from committing murder that night.

riddle's never gone to a haunted house before? floyd and chenya both think it would be hilarious to make him go to one, so they do. riddle absolutely hates it, but it honestly does make him happy to see everyone else enjoying it--even if floyd and chenya both keep trying to egg him and trey on and get them to go down creepy corridors and check around corners by themselves, and even if floyd keeps running off to different parts of the haunted house and then coming back and hugging or even lifting riddle from behind knowing full well that he'll get freaked out by it.

riddle never got to play the apple bobbing game that's traditional in the queendom of roses? turns out there's a place right by the haunted house where they can go to do it! predictably, floyd is great at it while riddle ends up drenched without getting any apples, but just giving it a try is more fun than riddle expected.

riddle's never gotten to make candy apples before? luckily, trey knows an amazing recipe as well as what combinations of toppings work the best, and he's willing to teach them both! riddle gets very confused at imprecise directions such as being told to use "a few" drops of food coloring on the syrup or to drizzle "a little" white chocolate over it, and keeps asking trey exactly how much he should use. floyd thinks this is adorable. he also thinks it's adorable when riddle tries to scold him for ignoring half of trey's directions and just doing whatever he thinks sounds good.

riddle's never done a horror movie marathon before, or even seen any halloween movies in general? floyd insists that they marathon at least 3 movies together. after the experiences he had at the haunted house, riddle doesn't think he'll enjoy horror movies, but he tries to keep his cool throughout the first one anyway... which does not work out, because he really can't handle jumpscares or excessive gore. during the first movie they watch, floyd (who loves slasher films so much that he laughs and cheers every time the monster gets a kill) is happy to let his goldfishie cuddle up to him and grip onto his arm to keep himself from knocking the popcorn bowl onto the floor, but you know that once it's over riddle is getting teased relentlessly about how scared he was. floyd decides to be nice and put on something tamer for their next two movies, and riddle actually ends up really enjoying coraline and especially beetlejuice.

by the end of the night riddle realizes that they've stayed up way too late at night and a small part of him wants to scold floyd for keeping him up so late, insisting on having him do all of these silly activities and eat all of these terribly unhealthy snacks. another part of him wishes he could scold his mother for keeping him from doing any of these things as a kid, with his friends and the other kids in his hometown, the way you're supposed to do it... and another part of him still is just incredibly happy and grateful to floyd for finally giving him the chance.

Reading fanfic instead of sleeping until 5 am just for the last chapters turn out really bad might be my 13 reason

UwU any spoilers for the next chapter,,

I have meant to do this multiple times but keep forgetting so here's an extra long snippet in apology! It's basically the entire start of the next chapter ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Damn. Your indulgent TV stalking of the Wayne’s really doesn’t hit the same once you technically knew them. And you were hiding inside one of their bedrooms, inside one of their clothes, using their TV subscription. It just didn’t feel right. Morally, of course, but that wasn’t what you were talking about. No, you were just pissy your favourite passtime was basically ruined. You shovel another spoonful of cookie dough ice cream into your mouth, glaring through tired eyes at the screen.

There’s an up close shot of Dick Grayson’s abs. The presenter ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ over his physical form, and you have to agree. You wish you had abs like that. Unfortunately you did respond to most unwanted experiences with stress eating. As always with these celebrity figures, you can’t really tell if you want to be Dick or be with Dick. Your butt is nowhere near the level his is at.

While you hadn’t really set out today looking for shirtless pictures of the Waynes, it wasn’t like you were going to say no to them. So, when the gossip channel had switched from the reactions of the Waynes to last night’s fiasco to… this… you’d just kept watching.

You wonder if you should stop doing this. It’s definitely kind of creepy, and now you’d technically once been his… step sister. What a mind fuck. You’ve been crushing on these dudes for a while, and now they were your ex-step siblings. This was like the start of a bad porno, but you knew you were not that lucky. And it wasn’t like you were going to start thinking of him as a brother any time soon. You hadn’t even met the guy. No, he was still firmly in the ‘celebrity crush’ section of your mind. Pretty and untouchable. The way things are supposed to be.

Which was also bad because you would probably have to meet and interact with him at some point. Probably in the near future. God knows you’d absolutely humiliated yourself in front of the fucking Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne,. Twice, in fact. You didn’t even want to think about the display you’d shown for Bruce Wayne or Damian Wayne.

You didn’t really know what to do with your slightly obsessive crushes. And you could see it definitely being a problem in the near future.

…You decide that what you do in your private time is absolutely nobody but yours business, and keep watching. It’s a mix of bitter spite and geniune mental breakdown levels of desperation that leads you to that decision. You feel like you’re a child with their toy being taken away, and it’s making you mad. And sad too. Even if you shouldn’t do this anymore, you still wanted to keep the habit. You’d mentioned before your creature comforts were one of the few things that kept you going. And while you were mostly very good at not being the jealous, heinous creature you really are, you knew you wouldn’t be giving this up.

They’d have to tear your gossip channels from your cold dead palms. You weren’t giving them up, not without a fight at least. Unfortunately for you, the universe seemed determined to wrestle away literally everything you loved.

Guilt’s for tomorrow. Today is for ice cream and purposefully ignoring everything. Speaking of which, you can not remember the last time you had a good Ben & Jerry’s. They were so expensive these days, as all groceries were. You simply couldn’t afford it. The Waynes, of course, had multiple tubs in multiple different options. Alfred had seemed delighted that you’d taken the ice cream, for which reasons you could not perceive.

Oh, yeah! His name was Alfred. Very butler-y. You’d remember it this time, he was a very nice man. And he called you ‘young miss’ which earned him points. He also didn’t seem to hate you on sight, or treat you like a two-headed freak, like some of the other people in this household. Not naming names. Yeah, fuck that noise, Damian Wayne obviously has issues and it’s much less attractive in real life.

The woman drones on, and your eyes flick to your phone. Yup, she’s still yapping. It’s not like you don’t appreciate Dick’s abs or anything, it’s just that you think she might’ve been talking about this one specific photo for over half an hour now. Lady should get a hobby. Wait, wait, this is her job. Maybe you should start a podcast where you rant about the Wayne’s excercise regimes. It seems to be quite a lucrative field.

You shriek when the door slams open, nearly tumbling backwards off the bed. Hands manage to grip the bedcovers before you tip over, not making a complete fool of yourself. As it goes, you lose your spoon to the carpet. Bits of cookie dough spread over the floor in a divine sacrifice. And you lose your sanity to the man standing in the doorway. To be fair, he looks just as confused as you feel.

You blink at the physically perfect form of Dick Grayson, and then turn your head to the TV to look at the other physically perfect form of Dick Grayson.

…You really wish you had a good explanation for this.

He mutters out your name, lips parted. Dick Grayson seems absolutely shocked to find you here. His eyes flick around the room, and eventually land on the TV. Said baby blues widen to the size of saucers when the reporter makes a really, really unneccesary comment.

“And in news that broke the hearts of both ladies and gentlemen everywhere in Bludhaven, Dick Grayson has announced he will be returning to Gotham to assist his family in this difficult time. My cousin in the Blud is probably crying right now. There’s no ass out there quite like his, and there’s no replacement for Bludhaven’s favourite young rich bachelor,” she winks at the camera, and then the shot of his tone stomach phases forward to take up the entire screen.

Well, there’s a lot to say about that. First of all, fuck. Second of all, shit. Third of all, she really couldn’t have said that part about Dick coming back to Gotham sooner? Per chance, before you’d found yourself in this situation?

You said you weren’t that lucky, you meant it.

“But still, ain’t that lucky for us Gothamites? I myself have spent a lot of time on Dick’s Tiktok and Instagram, and his thirst traps have been used in a lot of my personal-”

You snatch the remote from the sheets and pause it right there. The silence is tense.

I think the problem. the problem is that I have always been afraid of not being invited into the inner circle. and am always wanting to be part of the inner circle. inner circle being the circle of love and companionship and communion. of course being a TCK and a bit of a sheltered homeschooled oddball child has nudged this further along over the years. but I didn't realise how STRONG that desire still burned. to actually be wanted.

A reframe from a spirit that’s helping me out today: 

If you go to a burger joint and try to order a pizza, no matter how much you want a pizza, it ain’t gonna happen. 

If you go to a person (or several) who’ve never been empathetic, reasonably selfless, or a good listener, and ask for them to empathize, consider you, and listen - no matter how much you want it, it’s not going to happen. 

Railing about how they won’t give you the love and affection you want is about as silly as trying to get a pizza from a burger joint. 

And if you’ve got no pizza joints nearby, you gotta learn to make your own if you want it that bad. Might not be the same thing but thems the breaks. 

If you can’t get empathy and love from those around you, you gotta get really good at giving it to yourself. Might not feel the same but thems the breaks.