[ SECRET POST #2472 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2472 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[Whitechapel]


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03.
[Hannibal]


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04.
[Bartender]


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05.
[WTNV]


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06.
[Agents of SHIELD]


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07.
[Agents of SHIELD]


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08.
[kill la kill]


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09.
[Gravity]


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10.
[Revenge]


















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 023 secrets from Secret Submission Post #353.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but just for the sake of clarity, a lot of social justice is oriented in social theory, and a lot of *that* tends to ignore intent. You're making an intent argument; it's true there is no conspiracy theory where everyone consciously decided "fuck it all, white Cecil only!"

But institutionalized -isms are also just patterns, not necessarily the product of good or bad intentions. So when fans ask, you know, why is it that (even unintentionally!!) a character who can be any race or color at all is consistently coded as white, they aren't necessarily accusing others of bad intentions. They're pointing out that this fits a pattern of "white" as default/neutral.

There is nothing inherently wrong, individually, with Cecil as a white character. There is something troubling about a trend where an otherwise nondescript character is drawn as white by default, and where problematizing this results in backlash.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

Also, I realize I'm probably either going to come across as either a SJW/SJW-defender or as some "rational" exception to the SJW rule. Whatever. I recognize that a lot of Tumblr users go way overboard and don't actually understand the whole "institutionalization vs. intention" argument I'm making beyond it being a bumper sticker slogan. But it's worth pointing out, just in case you want to have a good faith conversation about an -ism in the future.

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair, I think the certain white with third eye Cecil mostly became popular from a popular artist's headcanon and spiraled from there. It became so popular a lot of people started doing. it I'm not saying that white-default thing isn't involved at all, but I believe that is the only origin of the trend.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Yeah, I think that is fair, and admittedly my argument really just came from one angle (because it is a serious pet peeve of mine when people assume that -ism arguments are always rooted in good/bad intentions). It's just ~interesting~ that the popular and heavily perpetuated headcanon is the white one.

[(Anonymous)]

"they aren't necessarily accusing others of bad intentions"

Ahahaha. You have never been on Tumblr. Though, I guess calling people racist fuckwads while telling them to drink bleach isn't really accusing someone of bad intentions.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

"necessarily" was supposed to modify that. I know there are a lot of people on Tumblr who only half understand this stuff and either DO go for the intention argument or make it a lot uglier.

I was mostly just getting at the idea that calling out the trend of default-white-Cecil as "problematic" (ohgodthatword) or calling out the backlash against this commentary for being some weird defensive racist behavior are not total asspulls or (always) looking for stuff to be mad/act superior about, and that re-orienting the conversation to be about "does this fit a pattern?" might be helpful.

Upon rereading, I really only got halfway to that point, though, and I feel like I'm just circling around it still, lol.

[(Anonymous)]

da

I see what you're saying here and I don't think it's a bad thing when people talk about characters defaulting to white, including Cecil. And sure if people are insisting that he is white (though I haven't seen that specifically) or that it doesn't matter they're missing the point. Defaulting to white is a thing that people should discuss.

But now I'm practically afraid to reblog a picture where Cecil is white, even though I reblog plenty where he isn't. Because it might look like I'm making some kind of statement that he's white or I prefer him to be white even though I honestly don't.

(yeah, yeah, this isn't about my feelings...)

[badass_tiger]

Yeah okay, but if anything, I've seen an equal number of white Cecils and PoC Cecils. I always just thought that when imagining characters and all, people are going to be imagining the people they see the most. Besides, the character is a completely blank slate. Sure if everybody drew Cecil as white, there might be a problem, but that's definitely not what's happening right now.

Thing is

[insanenoodlyguy]

I've never seen a single person in the fandom who ever used this and didn't carry it over to an accusation of bad intent.

This is not an exaggeration. Now granted, I'm not omniscient and have not seen all aspects of the fandom. But the parts I have? NEVER.

Re: Thing is

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Weird. I'm not in the fandom, but a lot of the people I follow are, and I haven't seen any personal attacks or assumptions of intent around my parts. It's mostly either ignoring it or just "hey, this is sort of weird because he could also probably be any other race, too" followed by really defensive backlash. :\

Re: Thing is

[forgottenjester]

I have but they're super rare. Like super, super rare. Like, if you find one you should go and congratulate yourself with a cookie because you deserve it.

Re: Thing is

[(Anonymous)]

My experience was that it started out as "hey, guys, this is an unprecedented opportunity to make a canon more inclusive!", then very quickly went to the "if you don't visualize Cecil as a POC you're a whitewashing bigot" place and turned the fandom at large into the self-righteous circlejerk we all now know and love.

Re: Thing is

[cbrachyrhynchos]

You mean, as opposed to yourself just now?

Re: Thing is

[insanenoodlyguy]

I'm not using it as an argument though. I'm just acknowledging the argument is there.

[(Anonymous)]

i'm only tangentially familiar with this fandom but isn't the actor who voices cecil a white guy with blond hair? so it's not like people are just making him white for the sake of making him white, i've heard a lot of people say their headcanon is that he looks kind of like the guy who voices him and i thought there was a decent amount of fanart that reflected this as well.

[(Anonymous)]

the guy who voices him is bald

and imo the general fandom consensus for what cecil looks like is nothing like the voice actor

[kamino_neko]

What hair Cecil-Baldwin-The-Actor has is dark. But, yeah, he is a white guy.

[erinptah]

In addition to what the two comments above me have said, Cecil is supposed to have a visual doppelganger of Kevin, and Kevin is voiced by a black guy. (Who is also bald.) So there's that.

[(Anonymous)]

Bald Cecil explains why he's so enamored with Carlos' hair.

[(Anonymous)]

Additionally additionally, the popular White-Dude-With-Third-Eye Cecil looks a lot more like Egon Spengler from The Real Ghostbusters than actual Real Life Cecil Baldwin. Probably not intentional, but it always crosses my mind.

[rosehiptea]

I knew he reminded me of somebody!

[kamino_neko]

... Huh. Now that you mention it, he kind of does.

[croik]

It makes me think of Wheatley, personally. That was another speckled blond designed for a voice-only character, though they were drawing from the actor that time around.

[(Anonymous)]

And many characters from Avatar were voiced by white people.

Point?

[miarrow]

Woo sanity!