#AND EXCEPTING THE. RACIST BITS.

[drumlincountry]

Us "adopts the speech pattern of the whatever we're reading" girlies really take our lives into our own hands reading Jeeves & Wooster

[cringefaecompilation]

been thinking about how essek is only ever said to be a person of color (using the forgotten realms drow lore that cr retconned explicitly because of its violent racism) by white fans as a gotcha whenever anybody complains about him getting fandom preferential treatment and how he gets defended from literally any criticism. like he is a white man. you see him as a white man nine times out of ten.

and i know it's only for a gotcha because i've seen how the fandom treats actual poc. how gilmore is mocked for being part of "yaoi" with vax and said to not actually contribute to the narrative outside gay shipping. how beau was and in some cases still is put down to prop up caleb. how people violently bash veth and widobrave. how dorian is whitewashed into being a generic Fantasy British prince because people only recall the silken squall through a game of telephone from fanfic. how fy'ra, opal, and nydas are completely ignored by fandom. how laerynn is treated as the most evil and irredeemable member of the ring of brass. how people accuse deanna of being emotionally abusive to an actual GOD. how people see bor'dor as pure manipulative evil from day one (when previously they saw him as an "innocent golden retriever boyfriend" before the reveal) and conveniently forget that prism, laudna and orym pitied him and wished things were different.

hell i think a lot of people even contribute to dorian's whitewashing by treating d/orym as shado/wgast 2. but it's worse when he's expected to be the caretaker and emotional support for every single white character the authors like (magical indian stereotype much?) as opposed to essek who's either treated as a person on the same level as caleb or elevated.

[zazagundam]

CAN ANYONE HELP ME FIND OUT WHICH ZETA-ERA GUNDAM THIS IS?????????? CAN YOU GET ME HER NUMBER?????? CAN YOU TELL HER I WANNA FUCK HER????

[lovinnelily]

Y'all do know you can't make Jason be NOT white without changing his whole character, right?

For other characters, yes, because their physical appearance are not that influential in their story, on how they are viewed by people, on their personality formation — you can have a black/asian/indigenous/arab/brown/latino/etc Nico and yes, the hate he gets will have a undertone of racism but at the same time nothing significant on his story, motivation or personality will need to change. This is also true for other characters: Clarisse risks repeating the "aggressive WoC" stereotype but the character itself doesn't change.

This isn't true for Jason, whose main character trait is how he is perceived by others and how he showcases himself to others based on that perception. (specially with how little effort Riordan put on him besides making him perfect-er Percy who's somehow also weaker and less important than him).

Let's not pretend a black, Arab, indigenous, Asian, Latin man, etc, in the USA would ever be treated with the universal reverence Jason gets from New Roma, you can't have the illusion of perfection and most of all, of invincibility they have about him when you see him suffering racism or xenophobia in the middle of a mission. In theory, nothing in his life has ever gone wrong, that's his image, destined to be king, he is supposed to have no weakness on his peers eyes.

He is not trying to prove people wrong, he is trying to prove them right; he isn't worthy despite their prejudice, on the contrary, he only tried to make himself worthy to fulfill their expectations. He can't be a woman or an immigrant or have a visible disability or any other thing that strays him from a perfect ideal by western society standards, and be that same character.

[nomsfaultau]

Reverse Fault Au for April 1st

Basically, what if SBI + Tubbo were humans working for the SCP Foundation, as well as anomalifying villain ocs at the end (which is where most of the tws come into play) 

Tommy: Thomas. A Threat Assessor, like Dr Blake. He has an uncanny knack for driving even the most docile objects to bloodlust, which is useful in ascertaining exactly how much resources must be allocated to containing that SCP. No one is quite sure how he does it, only that a simple conversation can send objects into rages that somehow never touch the man. Thomas simply wears a delighted grin as devastation unfolds. Why does he do it? Why, the love of chaos of course. He’s only bringing out their innate evil, after all. The anomaly wanted to do it, he just gave it the push to act upon its violent nature. 

Philza: Dr. A. Gon. Is an ancient decrepit old man from The War. He picks up little favorites among the anomalies and is super kind to them. Basically acts as a father figure for them, offering advice, giving little treats, limiting punishments, and helping them cope with the trauma of the Foundation…up until the moment he grows bored. After that it’s experiment after experiment trying to squeeze any last drop of interest out of the object before he discards them and moves onto the next. Anomalies tend to be completely psychologically and physically wrecked by the time he’s done with them. Likes to trap anomalies in complex promises that the Foundation can exploit easily. His cane is actually a sword stick, and the cape he has (to mimic wings) can act as a weighted net. 

The Blade: Agent Boore. An MTF captain who leads a squad that somehow literally never manages to fail to recapture an anomaly thanks to his leadership. A lot of anomalies are terrified of him, as he tends to handle the containment breach punishments after catching them. Anomalies don’t tend to try to escape ever again after encountering Agent Boore. He armed to the teeth with near batman levels of gear. Tactics include pumping adrenaline into his veins, filling a room with toxic gas (immune bc of his gas mask (he wears it even while sleeping)) and the humble bazooka. Definitely on steroids. Agent Boore sees a containment breach as a challenge. He likes proving humanity (but mostly himself) stronger than monsters. Is insanely paranoid and tends to be the straight man who is secretly more insane than everyone else. Met Dr. A. Gon in WWII but got Captain America’d, and is actually now trying to sue marvel for using his life story. He does the job in order to protect the poor orphans of the world (evil)

Tubbo: Security Camera B. Is a security officer. Not a single thing goes unnoticed in the entire Foundation. The second an anomaly is out of line they’re reported and appropriately punished. Their personalities are represented in reverse fault by their favorite monitors. Jasmine has a picture of a dinosaur as her screen saver, Rhodes is a picture of an apple tree and technically it’s the oldest of the new computers but they run a mean legal complaint software that really saves the Foundation’s hide. Rosalind is a pic of someone meditating in a field of flowers and Sec Cam B secretly uses that computer to play games to distress. Sec Cam B also works as a recruitment officer given how much conviction about the Foundation they have. ‘It’s the moral thing to do, you have to join. Don’t you want to save humanity?’ They’re insufferably righteous in moral conviction. Lawful evil. 

Wilbur: A. Void. Initial contact researcher, as he has a sharp eye (the other lost to an anomaly years ago) and an even sharper tongue that tends to not only save his life but also weasel out information from the object that would otherwise not have been gotten. His prejudices are flipped from Fault Au. Now, he thinks it unfair that anomalies have more power than humans, and that such a dominance would only lead to subjugation if given time. After all, the powerful always abuse such might don’t they? He believes everything he does is necessary for his own survival. He thinks his punishments are fair, which they could almost be considered to be compared to actual sadists like Agent Boore or Dr. A. Gon. 

———————————————————————

And on to the villain SCPs!

Webb: A humanoid SCP with eight eyes, six arms, mandibles. Webb has incorrectly healed surgical scars on its throat from an encounter with Dr. A. Gon’s scalpel. An anomaly that can shoot out tendrils of spiderweb that, when making contact, suppress heightened emotions. Effect is strongest while webbing is attached to both object and target, though loses effect about ten minutes after creation, so it is sometimes used to capture other anomalies. While not strong, it is important that Webb doesn’t escape because any urge to recontain it will be suppressed. At most extreme, it can shut down a person till they’re paralyzed, which on a few occasions was enough to stop a human heart because continuing to beat was simply too much effort. 

Dr. Blake: The Scimitar Smile. It is a set of 32 humanoid teeth with a crack through the upper right incisor due to an encounter with Agent Boore. The teeth can move somehow, and tend to hunt in a pack. On their own, a person within their aura will be acutely aware of their own flaws. Often persons with disabilities such as PTSD or anxiety will be triggered by its presence. Exposure to this object leads to strong self loathing and occasional suicides.

It’s when it gets a Host that the Scimitar Smile is at its most dangerous. Once a Host is selected, the teeth will crawl up them and burrow like ticks into the flesh of their cheeks in the arrangement of an external smile. The Scimitar Smile prefers to keep Hosts for a while, but will inevitably abandon it, and during escapes will take many Hosts in rapid succession. Old Hosts tend to scream when they hear their own names, have very little agency, and are incredibly compliant to orders.

Once assimilated, both the Host and the Scimitar Smile’s mouths will begin to speak, saying different things. When recorded and replayed, it sounds like chattering nonsense. Despite being unaware of its contents, the noise is regarded as a cognitohazard as it tends to drive people insane. Only a few reports of what individuals hear in person exist, as those that survive are left in psychological annihilation and refuse to talk about what they heard and did as a result. What we can piece together is this: Past being aware of their flaws, a listener is manipulated into acting on them in the most self destructive way possible.

The Scimitar Smile brings out the worst in people.

[13eyond13]

one of the lesser talked about fun things about intentionally reading more books is finding new stuff to be a bit of a hater about tbh

[everymeloneveryday]

I fucked up and let q run out ill refill it soon I prommy

[silverskye13]

I'm reading The Ruins right now and realizing I watched approximately 10 minutes of the movie based on this book. This serves to make the current plot both really, unbearably slow and kind of stupid--

[pronouncingitwang]

throwing up. btw.

[timeisacephalopod]

Love atheist communities that hate Christianity but reproduce every single issue Christianity has right down to the racism, wild misogyny, and of all fuckin things evangelizing atheism by sending religious people rude ass 'gotcha' type reactionary content to like idk, recruit people to atheism the way Certian Brands of Christian recruit literally anyone to their religion.

Like yes this atheism is what I see a lot of white men participating in, but like how dense do you have to be to only ditch the GOD part of religion and nothing else while claiming you're intellectually superior to religious folks like a great many incredibly talented and smart people in various sciences weren't religious?

[jackkal]

old people have this tendency to tilt their heads deeply when telling you either a story or a truth. ive wondered a lot if thats a generational idiosyncrasy or if theres some aspect or feeling of admission, which in turn makes me wonder how many times theyve said those things. is this the first time theyve told this story and theyre sort of rolling over, or is it the hundredth and youre practically drunk on the memory? or maybe its different for everybody and its just a common mannerism in story telling

[insomniac-dormouse]

I love my wacky found family but it really bothers me that they don’t think police brutality is real in the UK-

[odinsblog]

“I had a Zionist grandmother who grew up, she grew up in Poland, she was supposed to go to Israel to study. Her father had paid for her for the first year of tuition. And then in 1939, when she was in her last year of high school, Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland.

She ended up for a couple of years in the Soviet-occupied part of Poland, which was how she ended up in Moscow. And by the time Germany occupied all of Poland. So then she spent the rest of her life living in Moscow.

And 45 years after the end of the war, dreaming of being able to go to Israel, but not being able to because she was now stuck in the Soviet Union. And so I think I was very infected by, infected in a non-derogatory sense, by my grandmother's dream of Israel. And I had my own dream of Israel growing up as a, as a Jewish kid who was bullied and beaten up and teased.

I just wanted to live in a country that, that was majority Jewish. I could not understand why my parents would want to go to the United States and live in another country where Jews are in the minority. My parents on the other hand just didn't want to be Jewish.

Like their only experience of being Jewish was being systematically discriminated against. They were both born during the Second World War, so they were second generation, utterly non-religious and separated from any Jewish tradition, except the tradition of being a targeted minority. So they just, they just wanted to go somewhere where they wouldn't be Jewish.

And so when I was 15, a year after we moved to the United States, I actually went to Israel planning to stay there and didn't. For a variety of reasons, but one of them was being confronted with, with what I found at the age of 15, a shockingly racist society.

So the first time I went to Israel was when I was 15, it was 1982. And then there was like an 18, 17 or 18 year gap.

And I started traveling to Israel regularly from 1999, 2000. And the first time I went back was to actually complete the research on the book about my grandmother's. So it's been a good 25 years that I've been coming back.

And I think Israel has undergone a lot of changes in that time. But no, I don't think that like the kind of Ashkenazi Sephardic racism that shocked me in 1982 has found subtler expressions. But politics of settlement have only been exacerbated.

And I still find them extremely painful to observe, especially because some of my beloved relatives are settlers.

I did visit them this last time I was in Israel, because I really wanted to see what it looked like for them.

I was compelled to go visit them because of a Facebook post that my cousin made. And just to give you an idea, I really hold these people very, very dear. But for years, I would go to Israel, Palestine and not tell them that I was there, because I kind of couldn't face them.

So it's been a number of years since I last saw them, a number of years since I went to that settlement. But my cousin had posted something on Facebook. It was a picture of her son playing the violin.

And she wrote, in one of the houses where they stayed in Gaza, there was a violin. He played for his soldiers and then put the violin back. And I found that post-heart-rending and eye-opening, the picture of him playing the violin was not from Gaza.

It was from earlier, but he had apparently told her about playing the violin in Gaza. And obviously she was worried about her son serving in Gaza and so she's posting about it. And she wants to assert that he is a good boy.

But also, entirely missing from that post and from her world view is that somebody lived in that house in Gaza. That violin belonged to somebody. Like, it was such an extraordinary example of the blindness that we were talking about a little bit earlier that I wanted to go visit them and kind of engage with that blindness more.

And I got a really good dose of blindness to the point where, and we had this incredible moment when we went walking around the settlement after Shabbat lunch. And we sort of got to this hilltop where there's a swing and there's a little free library.

And we're looking out on a Palestinian village. And I said, what are we looking at, to my cousin? And she was trying to get her bearings.

And she said, where are we looking? And she named another settlement, which was kind of, which was not on our line of sight. It was like this literal example of looking at an actual Palestinian village that she drives past every day.

And before the village was sealed off after October 7th, she used to get gas there. And she knows it exists. But somehow she, also it also doesn't enter her geography.

It is nameless.”

—Masha Gessen, the descendant of Holocaust survivors, discusses the dehumanization of Palestinians (part 2 of 3)

[ultralaser]

# [me from former socialist Yugoslavia: bro do you really thing communism is the only answer anyone can accept?] # I don't hate american communists in theory # it's in the 'family' of political stances where I can mostly assume people have good intentions # but some of them... do not want to address historical horrors caused by that system

companies really have got to be okay with stagnant profits. what is wrong with earning the same amount every year? why does it always have to be more? it’s not sustainable. there are only so many people on the planet you can profit from 😭

[doctorcrusher]

I do not think someone not enjoying rap makes them racist or is even notable evidence that they are racist. when someone says they don't like rap except eminem I am almost certain they are at least a bit racist

[butchvamp]

okay i've played a bit more and i have a lot of thoughts about Taash and the way gender is being handled overall in this game...

first i will say the positives which is that i do really appreciate the attempt at incorporating trans characters both in the world as companions and allowing us to make those options in the cc. and as someone who also writes dark fantasy stories with trans characters i do understand how difficult it can be to incorporate these identities into a world that doesn't necessarily have the same language as we do; but overall the way they've approached this feels very... i've seen some people call it unpolished but i actually feel the opposite. it's almost clinical (therapy-speak in general has been a main criticism of this game) and it's way too polished, in my opinion, which is what makes it so jarring to see.

there has been a trans character established in game previously, there is already a precedent for these identities to exist in this world, and they have never used this language before. the way Iron Bull talked about Krem felt far more realistic and integrated into the world of Thedas comparatively. was it perfect? no, of course not, but i chafe at the idea that it needs to be perfect, anyways. this is another problem the game has; past characters have had their flaws completely ironed out (Isabela is now a paragon of friendship and returns cultural artifacts instead of looting them, Dorian has multiple codex entries wallowing about how he used to defend slavery, the Crows have suddenly become a big found family-- on and on and on) and while i have my criticisms of some of these flaws (Dorian's pro-slavery rant in inqusition still makes my eyes roll) i dislike the way they're handling these changes and just expecting us to ignore all of the lore and worldbuilding from previous games. and all of this "political correctness" only for the game to still be so racist.

which brings me back to Taash.... Taash is very strange character, lacking agency around both their gender and their culture. they are simply a mouthpiece for the writer. while yes, it should always be made undeniable that your character is trans or gay or xyz, Taash really does only exist to be nonbinary. and to be clear, a nonbinary character like them could be very interesting, if their writing wasnt so... white. we know that the Qun has different ideas about gender than Rivain (and elsewhere) and this could have been a very interesting exploration of that; however, it is obvious that the Qun (and Taash's mother) are meant to be depicted negatively, and ultimately it ends with the player (not Taash) choosing between their two cultures. their gender is clearly far more important to the writer and the only facet of their identity they seemed willing to explore, which makes me question why even make this character qunari to begin with...

Neve and Rook are also the two that spur Taash into exploring their gender. this, on the surface, is not a problem for me. i'm playing as a trans Rook and while the dialogue was again very overpolished and clunky i found it kind of endearing. but the way Neve is used as this "foil" for Taash really rubbed me the wrong way. this assumption that Neve has no complicated feelings about her gender or being a woman (which i highly doubt considering the world she lives in & how misogynistic it is) and the implication from Taash that she only dresses the way she does for her mother/other people (which Neve doesn't even get to challenge) is extremely narrow-minded. Taash is the Only character that acknowledges gender; so far, even when flirting with other characters, it's only been Taash that i've been allowed to specify with that my rook is trans, despite Taash already knowing that from our previous conversation (i hope that this changes once i lock in with a specific character so feel free to correct me if it does).

but no one else really seems to have an opinion except that Neve drags Taash around to meet Maevaris, and we get the very goofy note that's just a list of modern gender identities and their definitions. i do partly sympathize with the writers here; again i've had to find a way to incorporate lgbt identities in my own writing and it can be difficult depending on your audience. i understand wanting to be very clear and concise. but this is... just goofy. and this desperation to be so correct around gender while simultaneously writing such an offensively racist narrative is really frustrating.

there's also an inconsistency that comes from this with Taash's character-- they are portrayed as this rough but awkward character that is bossed around by their mother, they are bashful with flirting early on and are almost child-like in comparison to the other characters. and then suddenly you get a scene with them where they very directly ask if you want to have sex and suddenly pin you against the wall. this scene was so jarring to me i referred to it as a jumpscare because WHERE has this character been this entire time? i want to see more of this, more of this character who takes what they want and knows exactly who they are (which they even say multiple times when you first meet them... but then need Neve and Rook to hold their hand about it?)

i do really like Taash, i like the idea of them, of this very self-assured and almost cocky character who is also a little silly, this person who is so sure of who they are but has to deal with their mother undermining them while also navigating a culture they feel disconnected from, and i also like that the player can help them through it... but the execution is awful, shallow, and racist. the idea that someone can only choose One culture is so offensive and also a laughable conclusion when compared to their coming out as nonbinary. the writer clearly understands that people don't exist within these little boxes when it comes to gender, but can't wrap their head around it when it comes to someone's culture-- which is also a very important part of a person's identity and often contributes directly to their gender and how they feel about it. all of these different characters have different experiences, come from different places, Davrin and Bellara are Dalish and even have differing opinions on what that means for themselves, but the game doesn't touch on any of it. all we get is a lecture from the writer that is completely removed from the world it's presented in.

i wish i could understand what it was this character was meant to convey. i stand by saying that it doesn't need to be perfect; i know there are people that had problems with Krem in inquisition, but at least Krem was his own person. Taash doesn't even get that here... i harp a lot about character agency when i give writing advice on my other blog but it really is so so so important for marginalized characters-- both gay, trans, and especially characters of color-- to have their own agency around their identities that is completely separate from the player & player choice, that allows them to exist as their own person within the world you've created, and i think Taash's character and story is an unfortunate example of exactly what not to do.