As I have said before on here, I personally support people of all colors, genders and non-genders cosplaying as any Night Vale characters they want. We may not agree with this, and that is absolutely okay; it doesn’t change my opinion whatsoever. That said, I am getting really sick of people trying to claim that “natural hair” is a description used by and for white people. Are you high?
ARE
YOU
HIGH?
The only time the word “natural” comes into context when white people refer to their hair is when talking about the color, and in those cases they say “That is my natural hair color”, or “Her color is natural”. You may not see the difference between those combination of words compared with “natural hair”, but let me tell you something; language is important, and it is an absolute identifier for what demographic of people are being referred to. I spent a big chunk of my life unfortunately wishing that I was white, and in those years of my life, when I gave my hair a little break from the life-sucking straightening processes I subjected it to, people would ask about my curls and I would say “it is naturally curly”. The operative word here being CURLY. Black people do not refer to their hair as curly in such a way, probably because the majority of black people have textured curls when their hair has been left to battle the elements on it’s on; black people saying their hair is curly is not a signifier because pretty much all black people have curly hair. Once I left Alabama and realized that being black wasn’t a curse in other parts of the country, I constructed a better understanding of myself, one filled with pride for who I was and regret for not having recognized it earlier, and with this came a change in language; I no longer had “naturally curly hair”, but rather, I had “natural hair”. To further prove my point, my mother, a white woman, was a cosmetologist when I was growing up, known well in some circles for her ability to do white hair and black hair with equal skill. Never, EVER, did she or any white people who’s hair she serviced refer to themselves as having “natural hair”.
Still don’t believe me? GOOGLE “natural hair” and tell me what you see. You are gonna see hundred of photos of women with curls, braids, short hair, long hair, twists, kinks, locks, and the like. All of those women will be black. All of them.
If you are white, you should be able to cosplay POC characters from WTNV just as POC people should be able to cosplay any goddamn character that they want even if the character is not specified as POC, and all of you should be able to do that without judgement or vitriol or criticism from anyone else.
BUT.
If you are white and are cosplaying as Dana, you better recognize her origin! Recognize her power as a woman of color! Be thankful that such a wonderful character was written and be thankful that she is brown and be thankful you get to be her for a little while! Be honored to have the chance to play such a great brown female hero! Don’t try and erase what she looks like to make yourself feel less guilty about playing her; PRAISE HER. SEE HER. Don’t do that shit in blackface. But ELEVATE HER! Let the world know, I am playing this awesome character who is a woman of color, and while I am not a woman of color, I still think I can portray all the other awesome parts of her while continuing to honor the parts of her that are not like me! Write that shit down on a HELLO MY NAME IS sticker and carry it with you if you want- whatever it takes to get as much enjoyment from embodying this great character for a few hours while not erasing the miracle that she is. Don’t you see?? This is one of the reasons that Dana is so amazing- cause there are not many heroines like her!
And thus concludes my “Stop Acting Like The Phrase Natural Hair Is Coined By White People- Y’all Can’t Just Turn Facts Around To Make Them Suit Your Needs, What Is Wrong With You? Jesus!”
Tag: welcome to night vale
A POC ended up in the hospital for WTNV? What happened?
Tumblr user Internleland is now hospitalized because an entire blog was dedicated to threatening them, and they’d continually get death threats on their own personal blog. From what I’ve gathered this caused a nervous meltdown, they became suicidal, and had to go and get help. They voluntarily submitted themselves and are hopefully getting better.*
Internleland is a queer POC, and White Vale decided it was their job to “stop them”. From what exactly? Internleland was vocal and called out racist BS, and tried to advocate racial diversity and critical thought over the overall whiteness of Cecil. I suppose White Vale couldn’t let that happen…
*Is what I’ve heard, please correct me if I’m wrong.
Here’s some more info on the subject.
But here’s the deal, if you’re in Night Vale you should try and point out racist BS too. Talk about it as openly as you can.
Night Vale should be a safe place, and it’s obvious it isn’t. Everyone has to do their part to help. Someone is hospitalized because we didn’t do our job as a community to dissuade racists from getting comfortable in this fandom. We’ve failed Internleland, we’re failing others, too.
Talk about it. Mention it. Don’t be silent anymore.
Just to clarify a few things: He went to the ER based on his already existing health issues to do with his severe anxiety although he was even recieving death threats before that. He did briefly mention before a huge bulk of them happened that he was feeling suicidal and then had flushed his medication away.
A lot of what has happened to him has been a constant build up, and other queer fans of colour have also been outspoken about the constant racism in the fandom only to be ignored entirely or to be sent threats and other racist messages. Opia-apito, a disabled native american, has also been harassed off of this site from the fandom with people being extremely racist towards them. This has been something that has been continually happening and the majority of the fandom has just willfully ignored it or has told the people of colour who are rightfully outraged about the treatment they have recieved that they should “shut up” or they should be “nicer” and have even been told they are apparently Just As Bad as the White Supremecists that have been trolling the #pocecil tag on and off for the past six months, a tag that was created by a person of colour and to be a safe space for fans of colour.
Internleland however was recently the victim of a very direct attack against him. He’s been on the recieving end of vicious messages whenever he would speak out about the racism in the fandom, but a huge portion of what happened in the fandom recently was to do with an incident involving theaceofhearts36 as mentioned in Cecilos’ post above. There is a lot of stuff that went down before the main bulk of death threats but someone has managed to put all of what happened in a nutshell here. When the original #wtnv revolution was created, internleland noticed theaceofhearts36 reblogged the initial post and so brought it up that we did not feel safe sharing a space with someone who has actively disregarded his safety and endorsed a blog created by someone who wished death upon him. A lot of people became agitated about his post and that was when the death messages started (tw very graphic description of suicide). When fans of colour were appalled at the treatment internleland was recieving, people from the tag continued to dismiss and disrespect them, to the point where even one of the original creators of the tag made it clear that they dont care for the safety of fans of colour by saying “rants” about racism were did not belong there. Said “rants” were queer fans of colour legitimately concerned about their own safety and the harm being caused to internleland, tagging in what was SUPPOSEDLY meant to be a “safe space”.
Not long after this, internleland made a public post about a relapse in his mental health. After he admitted himself to the ER, he checked his tubmlr and saw 13+ death threats in his inbox. That was when he left tumblr.
He has since then wrote up this post after all that had happened. Since a lot of us have finally started being very vocal about this subject, the maintags have been flooded with people trying to talk about as if this is to do with “headcanon shaming”. We’re talking about the health, safety and well being of REAL fans of colour and so far the response from people has been insulting people for speaking up and constant derailment from white fans.
We should not stop talking about this, and it is up to all of us, especially the white fans, to help support those who are discriminated against, to make this fandom a much safer place. To stop derailing the conversation by saying “cecil could be [inhuman characteristic]/my headcanon is okay/hate breeds hate both sides are as bad as each other” as to avoid taking responsibility. We do need to take responsibility and call out those who refuse to understand the real importance of tackling racism if we want this to be a better place. We can do so much better than this, we all deserve a much better fandom than this.
Untitled
BELIEVE IN A SMILING GOD
I modified my Kevin outfit a little bit. Headcannon: He plays ukulele because it’s the happiest instrument on the planet. He also wears an apron now because I freaking like aprons.Â
This guy. This guy is now my head!Kevin.
Untitled
He should be out of surgery in half an hour or so, and…I’m sure he will live. I’m sure he will float again at a fixed point exactly four feet up in the mens’ bathroom of our community radio station.Â
Untitled
Guys, you really need to warn poor Carlos about things like Bottomless Void Tuesday.
(transparent plummeting dorks are my favorite sort of dorks)
[squeaks] I love these character designs. ^_^
Untitled
I like how the creators of Night Vale detest Lovecraft for the eldritch themes and racist elements and how the fandoms most worshiped Cecil is a stereotypical Aryan guy culturally appropriating south eastern elements and being a tentacled god with cosmic powers. Like that’s pretty much the embodiment of what Joseph Fink dislikes???
“Joseph: This is going to put off some of our fans, but I actually hate Lovecraft, both personally and for his writing.  I don’t think anyone can deny that he was a shitty person.  His whole “cosmic horror” thing mainly came out of his intense racism.  And I think that, on a prose level, he was also a deeply shitty writer.  I mean his stuff is almost unreadable for me.”Â
"Night Vale is often called Lovecraftian, but we never consciously chose to make it that way. I just think Lovecraft, awful writer that he was, has had such an impact on modern horror and science fiction that it’s impossible to work in that field without using some of the ideas he generated.  Which kind of annoys me, but I respect the old racist bastard all the same.”
[x]
Untitled
The smile that enchanted Cecil Baldwin!
My friend mariareadsalot, who is a big fan of scifi/fantasy literature and Welcome to Night Vale, said she imagined Carlos as an Afro-Latino babe, which is cute because she is herself an Afro-Latina babe. I’m gonna try to draw her Cecil, too, because it’s way cute.
!!!
Untitled
I said I wouldn’t do any Night Vale fanart. Let’s be honest, we all knew that was a big fat ol’ lie. It’s been so long since I drew anything I felt proud of — hey, I’ll take it.
I love every interpretation of our host Cecil Baldwin and the other Night Vale regulars that I’ve seen so far, and more than that, I love that the invitation to interpret is totally open. I love that they’re all a little (or wildly) different. I love that, with no prompting, the fandom has given Cecil a third eye and sentient tattoos. I love how unapologetically weird the whole thing is.
I saw someone’s fancast for Cecil was Danny Pudi, and it felt so right. What’s he drinking? You know it ain’t coffee.
I didn’t watermark this, so please be cool and don’t post this without credit. I appreciate it!
Danny Pudi as Cecil would be amazing. Sheesh.
I love this because his body language and facial expression totally match the serenity with which Cecil delivers the news every episode.