#I've been sitting on this headcanon for *years*. it's rather nice to have an excuse to spill it

[druidx]

It's not much of a paper, so please be kind with your grading.

In the Fighting Fantasy World of Titan, coffee is grown by the dwarves of Fangthane in specially constructed greenhouses on the mountain's upper slopes.

Now, coffee traditionally needs a warm climate, which is not ideal at the latitudes we find Fanthane at. However, the elevation and inclination of the mountain's slopes are such that early settlers to the mount were able to discover thin scrubby versions of the coffee plant.

Over the years, the coffee plant (named after Dunagur Kavee, clan Hemlig) has been cultivated in giant greenhouses, warmed by steam from the forges, which artificially reproduce the correct temperatures for growing the plants.

After it's grown and roasted, the beans are compressed into "blocs" and stored in air-tight containers. In this form, it not only keeps for a long time but is also very stable for travel. When serving, one takes a knife and trims a sliver off the bloc, allowing it to dissolve in slowly boiling water. The water is then strained for particulate matter and served. Sometimes specialized apparatus is used for this, sometimes all one has is a pot and a cheesecloth.

Culturally, the dwarves treat coffee as an extension of their famed beer; namely, they take it strong. As such, it's advised that non-dwarven visitors to Fangthane ask for it at beardling strength, else not partake at all.

Dwarven Bloc is rare outside Fangthane and fetches a high price if one can find a distributor. As such, it's usually the preserve of the rich, being served only in private homes. The sole exception to this is the Wizard's tower in Toreguard, on the Pagan Planes, where the Archmagus has a deal with Fangthane's dwarven delegation to supply the staff and students with the "black gold".

Fuck that post going around saying "you can have coffee in your story without justifying it :) you don't need to explain everything :)" I want, no, I DEMAND a fully researched ethnobotanical paper on every single food item in your work, if you don't explain to me where did potatoes come from in your fantasy setting or don't explain how the industry of coffee works over interstellar distances with full detail you are doing things wrong and I personally hate you and I hate your stupid story, fuck you

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/718540890786922496

The crucial difference, to me, is that fandom is for fun and guilting people into changing what they do for fun generally does not work.

I've been in a fandom situation like anon describes. In a book fandom some years ago there was a lot of discourse over the appearance and ethnicity of characters with very sparse book descriptions in fanart and the way racialized stereotypes feed into those choices. I agreed with a lot of the points - though not always how they were made; there was a lot of that early Tumblr "we're not obliged to be nice to our oppressors" rhetoric used as an excuse to harass people. I didn't receive such harassment myself, and I actually liked a lot of the POC-centric headcanons that some of the fans were promoting and adopted some of them for my own. I started making fanart where one or more of the characters were POC.

But ultimately l stopped making content for that fandom around that time. The feeling of scrutiny and having to self-censor and second-guess myself before choices as inconsequential - in the grand scheme of things - as how dark I make the skin of a fictional character I draw for my own fun and for an audience of like ten people - took the fun out of fandom. I don't have a lot of self-discipline, I can't just sit down and make things. If I make art, it's because I got a random bout of passion to create something in my head and I carried it through before the excitement ran out. Putting any brakes and checks and "but what will people think of this?" in there means the art never sees the light of day.

And maybe that was good for the POC artists in the fandom - one less white artist drawing two characters of unspecified ethnicity as white. I'm sure some people reading this would be like "good riddance". But if the goal is to drive away white artists so POC artists receive more attention, then that's a little harder to make sound appealing, isn't it? I mean, I wouldn't even take issue with it if that were the goal, fair's fair and all that. But then don't present it as "oh we just want our POC ships and characters to stop being snubbed!"

(In an ironic twist, the book has since received a visual adaptation with white leads and the substantial diversity that was previously found in fanart even pre-discourse disappeared basically overnight. Which just goes to show how silly it is to act like individual random-ass fanartists have much impact. )

...The other crucial difference is that online settings are inherently anonymized in a way a real-life engineering workplace or whatever isn't. Most people don't know the demographics and ethnicity of most other people they interact with, unless it specifically comes up. Even on places like Twitter this continues to hold true, and it drastically changes what it means when POC fans' content and opinions are ignored, and how to fix that. I don't have a point here except to say that a lot of this discussion seems to assume racist bias is targeted when it very much isn't, and act like "just stop being racist and ignoring fans of color on purpose, you dicks!" is a viable solution.

At the end of the day, the problem I see here is people with actual institutional power (in this case, people making design choices of big-budget media) need to make more and better POC characters, and then the fandom will follow - rather than expecting fans as an amorphous collective to pick up the slack where the mainstream dropped it. Those are the people you need to be putting pressure on. Funnily enough, the people I virtually never see accused of racism is the people who were actually in charge of the aforementioned visual adaptation...

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[hypmic-writings]

YOOOOO THIS BLOG IS A BLESSING I'VE WAITED 84 YEARS--//HIT if it's okay, can i request for a Ramuda/Reader scenario where Ramuda's jealous over someone hitting on her? (saw that headcanon post from before and i found this one pretty interesting hHHH) Thank you very much in advance and again bless you for this blog aaaa

Ahahaha, awww thank you so much, love! I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog ^^ Under the cut cause it turned out to be like 1,000+ words lol

You let out a small giggle as you took a long sip of yourdrink. Ramuda was seated beside you, his arm linked in your own and was smilingup at you, laughing at his own joke.

“Ramuda, stop,” you pleaded as the pink haired boy grinnedwidely and continued to pull on your arm.

“You’re having fun though, right Y/N-chan?” he asked, excitedly.You nodded and shot him a smile, picking up your drink and swirling it around.

“Ah! It’s empty!” Ramuda exclaimed, pouting as he grabbedthe glass from your hands and hopped off the chair. “I’ll be right back, okay?”he added, skipping back over to the bar.

You watched him go and felt a sense of warmth fill you. Alight smile reached your lips as you thought about how long you and Ramuda hadbeen together. You were lost in your thoughts when you realized someone wasback standing next to you.

“Ramuda, I was just thinking…” you trailed off as you turnedonly to find someone else standing and blocking the chair.

It was a rather large man with black spikey hair and darkeyes that you hadn’t seen in the bar before and you tilted your head at himever so slightly. He was turned towards you with a hand on the back of yourchair, leaning against the table. You furrowed your brow as he looked down at youwith a greasy smirk.

“Hey there, beautiful,” he said, leaning forward a bit sothat he could be closer to you. “You here all alone?” he asked, winking. Youfrowned and shook your head immediately, pointing towards the bar.

“No, I’m actually here with my boyfriend. He’s just gone toget me a drink,” you explained, trying not to be rude. But that was provingmore and more difficult as the man in front of you refused to respect yourpersonal space. The man briefly looked over his shoulder and then turned backtowards you.

“Aw come on, babe,” the man said, moving closer towards youas you scowled and leaned back as far as possible in your chair. “Anyone stupidenough to leave you alone all the way over here doesn’t deserve the pleasure ofyour – ” you were about to push the man backwards when a voice suddenly interrupted.

“Excuse me,” a cheerful voice exclaimed. “That’s actually myseat.”

You and the man both turned to face Ramuda. At first youwere nervous, hoping that Ramuda didn’t think anything was happening betweenyou and then man. But then you were grateful. Now that your boyfriend was here,surly the man would leave.

“What?” the man asked, bluntly. “Can’t you see we’re havinga conversation? Scram, kid,” the man said, waving Ramuda away as he turned backtowards you.

The man shot you a smirk and was about to start talking whenhe was once again inturrpted. This time, it was by Ramuda’s laugh. You turnedto your boyfriend once more, as did the man, and you felt your heart rate speedup, anxious at what the situation was about to become. Ramuda simply smiled atthe two of you and placed the drinks down onto the table with a hop.

“I’m sorry, maybe you didn’t understand me,” Ramuda chirped,happily, skipping over to the man.

He reached up and grabbed the man by the collar, pulling himdown to equal eye view. You felt your breath get caught as you watched Ramuda. Hissmile immediately dropped and his bright blue eyes turned dark, holding a lookthat sent shivers down your spine.

“That’s my girlfriend, you ignorant, disgusting piece ofshit,” Ramuda slowly stated to the man.

His voice was low and held a certain bite to it, completelychanged from the usual upbeat and happiness you saw in him. He seemed to bepiercing the man with his gaze and held his collar tightly making eye-contact for a few moments.

Then suddenly, his face broke into a grin and he let the mango, dragging his hands off of the man’s collar, causing him to fall down to theground.

“So it’s okay if I sit here, right?” Ramuda exclaimed,turning to you and grabbing onto your arm, pulling on it lovingly. “Cause she’smine so nobody else can have her,” he whined, pouting. Then he looked up at youand shot you a grin with a small giggle.

Your anxiety was soothed in a moment by his presence and younodded slowly down towards him. The man, who was still on the floor hastily gotup and took a few steps back.

“You…just who the fuckare you! You’re crazy!” he cried, shuffling his way through the crowd by thebar and heading towards the entrance.

You watched him leave and let out a small sigh. Ramudalooked up at you, worry etched into his eyes.

“Y/N-chan, I’m sorry! I left for too long,” he explained,sitting back down into the seat beside you and taking your hand into his own. “Thatman didn’t do anything to you, did he?” Ramuda asked, his eyes getting big. Youimmediately shook your hands in front of you.

“Ah, no, no, nothing like that! He was just some sleazy guy,that’s all,”you stated, reaching over to give him a small peck on the cheek. “Thankyou for coming in and taking care of it,” you added.

Your heart rate had finally gone down to a normal state andyou were grateful that you could count on your boyfriend when in need. Althoughyou had never seen him be that scary before, it was nice to know that he wouldn’tlet anything happen to you.

As if hearing your thoughts, Ramuda let out a happy cheerand grinned up at you.

“Yay! If I protect Y/N-chan, you’ll give me more kisses,right?” he asked, greedily looking up at you. You laughed lightly and nodded,taking the drink he had brought you and sipping it.

“Of course!”