#Do Not come at me with racist/colorist bs!

[kazik-bitch-ass-motherfucker]

controversial take apparently, but I, a white eastern european descendant, shouldn't see my own skin tone in Natlanese characters...

[mosscreeper-ao3]

Welcome!

Hi there! I'm Zaki (زكي), a 25 y/o bi trans man (with raging AuDHD) writing the queer romance I want to see in the world. You can find me on AO3 here. I almost exclusively write queer sci-fi fics and here you'll mostly find Mass Effect and Voltron content. You can also call me Moss.

I write canon compliant with occasional minor tweaks which are noted in the tags. For all my works and series, I also try to write all my smut scenes/fics in a way that they can be skipped over without losing too much context from the larger narrative to make them friendly for people who just want the narrative bits. That being said, I also do write the occasional PWP.

I ask that minors do NOT engage with any of my 18+ content, particularly my E rated fics. Any content I feel is raunchy will be tagged as “#for the adults” for the sake of filtering convenience. Anything I’d consider strictly 18+ will be marked mature and thus should not appear to minors and be censored for adults. Additionally, please do not DM me if you are a minor.

Housekeeping and directories are under the cut.

All major life updates, posting schedule announcements, etc is tagged as “#mosscreeper updates”.

Fic requests, character or ship playlist requests, use of my headcanons or fic/art ideas (just tag me), and discussion of my works are all always welcome!

Ask box is always open, but be mindful that the following will either get you blocked or result in me turning off anons.

Any racist, colorist, misogynistic, antisemetic, zionist/pro-Israel, homophobic, transphobic, etc BS.

Unsolicited criticism (I have beta readers, you are not one of them)

A failure to follow don’t like/don’t read etiquette (Yes, that includes any posts about why I don’t like a certain ship/character/media. Don’t like me talking shit? Block me and move on.)

Questions about my anatomy as a trans man

Questions about my IRL sex life

18+ anything from minors, this includes flirtatious comments

Additionally, I do not care what you ship either between adults or between minors. That being said, I will not write incest (including between adopted family) or glorified depictions of abusive relationships.

Fic Directory

Whumptober 2024 Masterlist

Flufftober 2024

Mass effect-Fuse Us Into Unity

My main mshenko series. Currently on semi-hiatus.

Carnivore-provides backstory for John Alan Shepard, M rating, unfinished

Halo-Kaidan and Shepard have sex with each other for the first time, E rating, 2k

Dark on Me-Kaidan recalls falling in love with Shepard, T rating, 2k

Manifest-self-indulgent bondage smut, E rating, 3.6k

Point of No Return-my rendition of the "just a quick drink" scene, E rating, 1.6k

Trials-my rendition of Shepard and Liara swapping memories before the final battle of ME3, T rating, 1.1k

Starlight-my main story mshenko post-canon fic, M rating, unfinished

Voltron-You Can Run Away with Me Anytime You Want

My main Kallurance series. Currently on hiatus.

Not the Desperate Type-post-canon prologue for my kallurance series, unfinished and on temporary hiatus

Voltron-Your Most Obvious Weakness

My main Jaith series

Accompanying playlist here.

Prelude: Terms and Conditions-James realizes Keith isn't coming back, chapters 2-13 are part of Whumptober 2024, M rating, 15k

Act 1: You and I Were Fireworks-Keith returns to Earth and James, M rating, 9.2k

Interlude: Breakfast-fluffy one shot, what it says on the tin, T rating, 1.2k

It Will Come Back-Keith comes down with something and James takes it upon himself to look after his boyfriend, T rating, 1.5k

I also have drabbles for both which are updated every so often here for Voltron and here for Mass Effect. All drabbles are 100-200 words long.

Misc Directory

Fandoms playlists

Voltron Headcanon Masterlist

[reilleclan-blog]

It always makes me laugh seeing how easily ppl forgive someone "famous" ppl are so easily convinced or uhh "easily satisfied" some guy raps about a dude that is lowkey a pedo(Drake) but everyone just forgets how Kendrick supported a rapist(rkelly) and apparently he has a colorist on his album.

I mean sure maybe ppl didn't know but it's just so funny how quick ppl switch sides for celebrity beef bs, at the end of the day we don't know these ppl personally even the most idolized celebrity has their dirty secrets that's all I've learned thru these years.

Including these yters. Back in 2013 ofc I watched youtubers only to find out almost all of them were racist behind the scenes lol. So what did I do? I stopped watching them and anyone associated with them. I don't mind ig u can still support whoever u want but openly picking sides,,, idk it just doesn't look good cause at the end of the day it's all about these ppl's egos nothing more. Kendrick called out drake cause of some ego shit not cause he wanted "weird black men to stop being weird" and genuinely I'm very very tired of ppl talking about it so I will make a post about how TIRED I am of hearing about it lol.

I'm just fucking tired of everything i don't wanna sound like Jaden Smith "can we talk about the economical and political climate" but like that's all I feel like doing that's all that's important to me at the moment and video games and anime I like that's all.

I don't think Kendrick is the first black man to make a "deep ass" album. Like it's just funny to me how ppl put celebrities on a pedestal so much. I stop idolizing ppl so long ago. "No role models" but fr. I mean just something to think about . And most of these black men 90% of the time be 🦝 💀👀

Lol this is coming from someone that listened to Childish gambino. So yeah I'm not saying I'm perfect but there's nothing wrong with seeing the flaws in idolizing these ppl. And idk support at an arms length ig but ppl will do what they want do what u want

[observers-journal]

Oh I guarantee when the new movie on Netflix releases MER will lose her shit again. Because that will be a good time to get more media buzz when a new movie with him is out. Dare I say she may do this with damn near every new movie with him that comes out. That or any time he gets media attention she will be there leeching off of him and her equally racist/colorist supporters will ne chomping at the bit to do the same.

Ughhh I know. I am still hopeful Tenoch will slap a case on her? Like he has to?

But this case really showed me how terrible Mexican "journalism" is. That brings me despair.

We are gonna find out soon. It's kinda quiet because of the writer's strike. Let's see what happens. I swear I have no capacity left for her BS anymore.

[jyndor]

(Imperialism etc anon) Ok I get where you're coming from! Thank you for being understanding. While Zutara is obviously not inherently racist or anything there are zutara interpretations that *are* racist (example: fire lady katara which I can get into) and it does need to be acknowledged that Zuko's status as fire nation royalty does create a power imbalance between him and Katara. Now, this is a conversation that has a lot of nuance to it but it seems like the people harassing you are (1/2)

(2/2) just repeating some genuine critique they saw without understanding what it means just to say that they're right, harassing people in the process. I did not have that context when sending that first ask and I apologize, since anons harassing you and others are clearly doing it out of bad faith. I just didn't like the leveraging of concepts that really matter in real life (colonialism, etc), ykwim? But I get what you were trying to do.

hey anon I’m finally getting to you after 84 years XD

so first off, I want to be careful about how I approach this because I understand that as a white person (even if my ancestors experienced imperialism) in the US I absolutely benefit from imperialism and don’t want to like, idk, whitesplain XD so if anyone gets annoyed with any way I say anything, just lmk and I’ll rework it. and I also do understand that these are real world issues that are far more consequential than messaging in media (although I do think it’s very important that we challenge messages in media because of media’s influence on our thinking and politics).

but before I talk about zuko and his relationship to fire nation imperialism, and then later fire lady katara and why it isn’t INHERENTLY racist but definitely can be, I want to talk about the atla fandom and how we got here. like, why I assume that most anons who come at zutara shippers are asshats acting in bad faith. if you already know fandom history, skip this section.

1. atla and the fandom has always been kind of shitty and racist

so IDK if everyone is familiar with the history of the ship war in atla fandom, but it’s regarded as one of the nastiest ship wars in fandom history which I agree lol. atla’s creators were some of the first to interact with the fandom the way they did - back then it wasn’t all that common for creators to get into twitter feuds with fans and boundaries were respected more than they are now imo. but for better or worse, and it is a mixed bag, bryke interacted with fandom a lot. certainly at cons but also on social media.

but honestly things really got extra mean in fan spaces when bryke made a “joke” atla season 4 slideshow out of fan art (some of which was really sexual in nature and totally inappropriate) that mocked fans’ creations, but especially zutara fanart and zutara itself. it was pretty tasteless especially considering how most zutara fans were teen girls, and featured some art of sokka saying that if you think zuko and katara would be good together, you’re doomed to have failed relationships. that’s where the whole “dark and mysterious” bs came from, which does describe some zutara fic but not even most of it lol. I actually do respect bryke a lot despite my criticism of them, but I don’t think I’ll ever get over that shit. like even if you hate zutara, even if it’s a joke, we were kids. and they were adults, and the whole thing was nasty.

however, the ship war was chaotic and messy, but it does feel worse now. maybe it’s because back then the fandom was MOSTLY teens and kids, and I don’t think that’s true now. we were all trying to prove our ship was best with like, content from the show and theories and all that, and now it’s like... whose ship is ~problematic lol it’s a show by white us americans appropriating from various cultures impacted negatively by us/british imperialism that they then profited off of, of course it’s racist. that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about that, and in fact many poc have been saying this shit for years - that atla is racist and colorist at many times (guru pathik anyone?) and no one really listened.

if fans are complaining only about zutara, then I’m automatically writing them off as being insincere or ignorant. and since most of these people are anonymous, I have no idea if they are having substantive discourse about colorism in avatar or cultural appropriation (even if it is mostly appreciative). if you are on anon, I have no context about what you actually think except for what you give me. and that definitely is how I view anons in general but especially within the atla fandom because for all 13-ish years I’ve been in it, it’s been messy. that’s why zutara fans have isolated ourselves from the rest of fandom, because the rest of fandom has been really nasty to us. like did we give back some nastiness? absolutely.

but I would hazard a guess that most anti-zutara shippers don’t know about the conversations we have had in this community to make it safer for people of color, conversations that centered poc and woc especially. hey, that’s okay - not to compare zutara to r*ylo because eurgh but like, idk what discourse the r*ylos have about their community. no idea, I don’t go looking for it. and I don’t go to the tags and harass r*ylos - even though they harass the fuck out of everyone else.

2. so zuko and his privilege

undoubtedly zuko as fire lord is in a fairly privileged position LMFAO. but during the show zuko is very clearly exiled - he holds very little political power in the fire nation EXCEPT for during the first season when he is in command of a ship that ozai gave him on a punishment quest lol like yeah he does terrible things and he of all people would not excuse his actions even if he was a traumatized kid, that’s the point of his arc - that he got some exposure to the rest of the world and worked to be better. and the only reason he was exiled at all was because he cares about people - he didn’t question fire nation supremacy at 13, but he sure did question the morality of his people being lead to slaughter.

but after zuko and iroh defect from the fire nation and stop hunting aang, he has next to no power, in any kind of way. like the guy is a political refugee. and yes, he goes back to the fire nation for like five minutes before realizing that he hates everything about fire nation hegemony and that he wants to end his father’s reign of terror, like that isn’t exactly someone who is going to be well esteemed by the powerful elites when he returns and takes the throne.

and I disregard the comics because they suck lol but zuko does have power as the fire lord, but he limits his power. like compared to ozai, phoenix asshole? azula? for the rest of the world, zuko is kind of an ideal leader for a former colonizing/imperialistic nation to have - someone who worked to end that tyranny, who is anti-imperialist, who believes in justice and equality, who wants to make things right for the peoples who his family oppressed.

I do think it is important to talk about power dynamics and imbalances in relationships - for instance, one could argue that mai is at a significant disadvantage in her relationship with zuko. sure she is from a powerful family but not as powerful as zuko’s. sokka? hah forget it. he’s just as disadvantaged as katara is politically speaking. toph? well, she’s definitely not as powerful politically as zuko - her family tried to silence her for years because of her disability. and oh, she’s disabled so it might be ableist for zuko to strike up a relationship with her when they’re both adults. forgetting of course that toph and sokka and katara and suki and mai are not going to be shy about their wants and needs, that these relationships are not likely to be coercive by nature of the show they’re in and the characters they involve. this is not bill clinton with monica creepiness. like, you’d have to write the relationship that way.

the only person who arguably has more political power than zuko is aang. I guess zuko can’t ever be in a relationship with anyone other than aang. and zuko’s family massacred aang’s people so I guess we can’t ship zukaang. now I know you’re not saying that, context matters. power dynamics are important. but you can’t take away the agency of characters - katara, who is essentially a princess, has agency and can choose who she wants to be with. strictly speaking, aang is more powerful than anyone in terms of political power - he’s the avatar - and of course the dynamic is different by nature of aang not being from a line of oppressors, but there still is a power imbalance in their relationship. and I don’t know how many k/ataang shippers have discourse~ on that. not that I really feel like they NEED to, um idk what they talk about lol I’m not in those circles.

3. fire lady katara is in the eye of the beholder

so fire lady katara is not inherently bad or racist, it’s essentially like saying michelle obama shouldn’t have been first lady of the us (now I get that like the obamas being in power didn’t mean black people are not marginalized lol). you can have conversations about whether or not individual versions of fire lady katara are fucked up, and I’m superrrr open to that because I’ve seen it be kinda shitty before. i’m just gonna leave this link to @shewhotellsstories and her post on this.

but often times katara as fire lady is very dominant in global/fire nation/water tribe politics, she’s a game changer ambassador (that is probably the most popular headcanon I see), she holds on to her culture (and many fans have designed her being in her wt colors, zuko is respectful af to her, she and zuko spend extended periods in the swt, etc. like... it just depends on the way it’s written.

also leaving this response by @avatarnerdkiller to the idea of katara being a prize figurehead.

anyway, thanks for your patience anon and I am curious to see if you see this or even feel like responding after all this time XD

[dearkyeom]

tl;dr i will slowly be resuming activity on this blog again, but everything will be put on queue with only a few posts a day. my gif making will be on semi-hiatus. lastly i will keep my pinned post on the situation as well as update it if anything else comes up. all of this is until further notice. please feel free to unfollow, soft block, or hard block me as needed. thought dump under the cut. please do not reblog!

hhhhhh. it has. been a long week. this is one of the harder things i’ve had to process in kpop mostly because svt is the only group i have consistently created content for and somehow gained a number of followers for. a part of me felt... feels? complicit if i continue to create content for them, because by doing so im actively promoting them, i suppose. but ive called them out on their shit and will CONTINUE to do so, so i'm... [vague hand gestures]

literally EVERY kpop artist has at one point enacted or been complicit in racism, colorism, sexism, etc. i can name at least one time any and all of my faves have fucked up. i wish that was a hyperbole but it's really not. i went down the list with my friend earlier today as a way to cope lol.

as another dear friend of mine once wisely said tho... the best thing u can do, since media is inevitably going to be awful, is to compartmentalize the good from the bad so you have something you can enjoy... because otherwise there truly would be nothing left.

one of the vlives 97 line did together in 2016, the one where minghao tells mingyu that he looks handsome when dk and mingyu were arguing over who has darker skin (a moment that still makes me want to ram my head through a wall.) dk and mingyu were very much enabling colorist ideology by arguing over who has darker skin and speaking about darker skin as if it's an undesirable trait. hell, even minghao was to a certain extent if the translations are accurate, e.g. "you still look handsome/cool (despite your skin being darker)" as opposed to saying something to the effect of "darker skin is just as beautiful as lighter skin, lighter skin is not any more beautiful than darker skin, etc." i knew about this before i became an active svt blog and still decided to create content for them anyways, bc i eventually compartmentalized it and found a lot of joy in them despite it.

anyways... all of this to say that i will get back into giffing if or when doing so sparks the same joy as it did before. im not quite there yet bc im still really upset with the way everything has been handled and how racist some fans are being, but i think it's safe to say i am in the last stage of grieving which is acceptance lmao... this is how it's been, this is inevitably how it will be, but that won't stop me from calling everyone out on their bs and holding them accountable.

hope that made sense, and as i said earlier please feel free to unfollow, soft block, or hard block me as needed, no hard feelings.

[diazpoems]

FUCK YES. OH MY GOD.

I seem to have gotten a really good spot of luck cause most of the Encanto fan arts I've come across are good, but other ones are so whitewashed and cherrypicked and so blatantly colorist and racist that I'm just. Disgusted as a LatinAm person. (This also happened after Coco came out, and specifically as a Chicano person, that struck a chord with me, so this isn't my first rodeo, nor will it probably be the last). Our features are beautiful. Our skin tones are beautiful. Our families are beautiful and diverse and some of y'all don't get how fucking rare it is to see that represented in popular media. You don't understand how precious it is to us when somebody actually does it right, when they show just how varied our features and cultures are. And it's an absolute slap in the face when fans take that hard work, take that deliberate representation, take that token of understanding that the world has given us to show that we're not completely on the outside, that we can be represented for just how wonderful and varied we are, and completely throw it out the window. Don't give us shit for calling you on your colorist and racist bs. Draw Encanto characters right, or draw them wrong and ask for critique from Latin American people (especially and most advisedly Colombian people), but don't backpedal and get defensive and say "well at least I left *insert cherrypicked physical feature* intact" "at least I represented this thing well, even if I did forego putting any effort into anything else" Just put in some goddamn effort and listen to the people who know damn well more about this than you do

TW: Strong Language

The amount of utter bullshit Latin American people have been getting for calling out artists who are whitewashing and erasing the ethnic features of characters in Encanto is absolutely OUTRAGEOUS

These are 3 different comments on a tiktok video where it appeared that an artist whitewashed Dolores and Camilo in a drawing. Almost everyone in the comments was calling out the artist asking why these afro latino characters appeared incredibly pale. (The artist responded saying it was a filter used on the video and apologized for the confusion, but this isn’t about the artist) What I basically said what that all we’re not trying to “cancel” anyone, all asking is that ethnic features and skin tones be respected. 

You wanna know what some people said in response? This BULLSHIT. How can some of yall claim to be so “woke” or whatever the fuck, and then come at Latin Americans for asking artists to respect their ethnic features?? Some of yall really rather not draw POC at all instead of learning how to draw curly hair, darker skin or other ethnic features. What the FUCK??

You wanna know why Latin Americans are so adamant for being accurately represented in art? You really wanna fucking know? Its because we are so fucking exhausted of non-Latin American people trying to shove us into a single box of what we’re supposed to fucking look like. These aren’t just characters in a Disney movie, these are real fucking people. I know a good handful of Colombians personally, and they all look different. I have a Colombian friend that looks almost exactly like Dolores. I know Colombians who are light skinned with wavy black hair. I know a Colombian who I genuinely thought was white for a hot second because he was pale pale, had wavy light brown hair and blue eyes. But you wanna know something? None of their features make them any less Colombian. 

I’m not Colombian but this is seen in other Latin American countries as well. I’m Costa Rican, my dad’s side of the family are all light skinned and my mom’s side are dark skinned. I have an aunt and an uncle on my dad’s side who have green eyes. My brother looks just like my (deceased) grandfather on my dad’s side. I am the spitting image of my mother. I have tan skin that gets darker in the sun, dark eyes, and dark brown curly hair. The daughters of my uncle on my mom’s side are darker than I am, and one of my aunts has a light skinned daughter and 2 dark skinned sons. And you wanna know what? That doesn’t make us any less Costa Rican. 

This is fucking Latin American culture. Families are diverse. Countries are diverse. Latin American countries have every trait in the book and that doesn’t make us any Latin American. All we want from artists, is that you fucking RESPECT what makes our culture so unique. We are a beautiful mix traits from all across the world, and that doesn’t make anyone less Latin American. We share a language, we share a culture. 

So sorry if Latin Americans just want to be respected in media. Sorry if we call out artists for erasing ethnic features from Latin American characters. Actually? NO. We’re not fucking sorry for wanting to be accurately represented. 

If you can’t be bothered to draw characters/people the way the are, with all of their ethnic features, DON’T DRAW THEM. If you can’t be bothered to learn how to draw curly hair or use digital brushes to make drawing curly hair easier, if you can’t be bothered to learn how to accurately draw ethnic features, DON’T DRAW IT and DON’T CHANGE IT TO MAKE IT “”EASIER”” FOR YOURSELF. Our features shouldn’t be erased just because you think drawing ethnic features is “too hard” or it “doesn’t fit your style”. You draw them the way they are, or not at all. 

Can you learn and practice? Of course!! PLEASE learn and practice! Make your drawing range more inclusive of different features! Just be mindful that you don’t need to post all of your practice trials. Unless you’re posting it for the sole reason of getting feedback from POC on how to make your style more inclusive, then be aware that some people can misinterpret your post and think you’re purposefully misrepresenting/whitewashing POC characters. Just specify and respect critics of POC. 

All of this applies to any and all other ethnicities!!!! Asian cultures, African cultures, Arab cultures, Indigenous cultures, etc… Every ethnic group has their own distinct culture and has their own unique combination of features! Please respect all ethnicities, cultures, and ethnic features! Its a matter of respect is all!

(It is completely 100% okay for white people to reblog this!)

Please excuse the strong language but I’m just so ANGRY and so OVER IT