#Roma Publications

[garadinervi]

Marc Nagtzaam: 'Regular Features', Design by Marc Nagtzaam and Roger Willems, Roma Publication 356, Roma Publications, Amsterdam, 2019 [BOOKS at, Amsterdam. © Marc Nagtzaam]

[grrl-beetle]

Karel Martens - Full Color

[marigabicb]

Socorro!

Escojo este titular un tanto provocativo para ilustrar la entrada de hoy. Es también el titulo del libro de Lucy Raven, recién publicado por Mack, un libro fantástico hecho de radiografías (shadowgrams), hechas con una enorme caja negra construida expresamente para la ocasión. Copias únicas de gelatina de plata sacadas en un lugar de ensayos atómicos en Nuevo México. Ese lugar, llamado Socorro,…

[redotter]

🔊 Searching for beta readers

Genre: coming-of-age lesbian romance (16+)

Setting: late 2000s Baia Mare, Romania

Summary: Leo and Suzana meet in unusual circumstances, and they quickly develop a very strong friendship and eventually romantic relationship. Together, they navigate their last high school year with the very standard challenges it comes with: escaping arranged marriages, processing abuse trauma, preparing for university, getting diagnosed with mental illness, planning to move to another country, dodging racist and homophobic comments, breaking into the public pool, and coming to terms with their identities.

Excerpt: "Suzana was well aware that she loved Leo, the way she knew there was pollen deep behind the layered petals of a peony. But until that moment, she had never looked beyond the pretty puffy feeling to examine its core."

Word count: 75k

Expected time frame: mid September to end of November 2024

Focus: language (I'm not an English native), pacing, consistency, sensitivity, general opinion/reaction to various scenes.

Requirement: previous experience in beta reading, writing or critical text analysis. HUGE BONUS if you are roma, romanian, queer, bipolar or autistic.

[deyaviews]

Some real Thermae Romae-ass vibes in here (affectionate)

You know we only ever really "learn" how to bathe in our youth as it is taught to us by our parents and from then on most people kinda just bathe the same way right. And like barring actively deciding to do it the only way most people change their bathing habits is if they bathe with a loved one and get convinced to do somethi g different in the bath bc its cleaner/faster/whatever bc of them. Ok heres the thesis statement. The lack of communal bathing in society is holding us back from discovering The Ultimate Bathing

[laivinduroriginal]

Viața Cotidiană în Imperiul Roman: Pax Romana

Imperiul Roman timpuriu (27 î.Hr.–284 d.Hr.) a marcat o epocă de pace relativă, prosperitate economică și înflorire culturală, cunoscută adesea sub numele de Pax Romana. Pentru cetățeanul roman obișnuit, viața de zi cu zi era profund influențată de clasa socială, ocupație și locație, fie că trăia în orașele aglomerate, fie în mediul rural. Cu toate acestea, teme comune precum centralitatea…

[scarlet--wiccan]

On related note, a few years ago, the Entomological Society of America officially discontinued the use of "gypsy moth" and "gyspy ant" as common names for Lymantria dispar and Aphaenogaster araneoides. L. Dispar is now known as the "spongy moth," so named for the appearance of their eggs, but I don't think a new common name has caught on for the ant species yet.

These changes we brought about, in large part, by the advocacy of Romani people in academia. You might not think that bug names are a very serious issue, but I believe that language matters. These species became known as "gypsies" because their attributes were likened to certain stereotypes and negative perceptions of actual Roma, so the continued use of those names reaffirmed those negative associations in the public consciousness. Slurs and pejoratives can never be truly decontexualized.

In my mind, one of the biggest obstacles that Romani people face when we are trying to advocate for ourselves is a lack of recognition as a marginalized group that deserves the necessary consideration. Even for seemingly trivial matters, like bugs or comic book characters, the way that people talk about us-- and talk down to us, when we get involved-- is telling. So, I always think that changes like this are a win, because it means that people are willing to learn and grant us the dignity we deserve. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to effect change in your own field, even arts and science.

[a-s-fischer]

Rather than rewrite everything I did last time, I'll just link:

The entire philosophical Nazi framework was centered around Jew-hate. It is not reductionism to point this out. The only minority other than the Jews that the Nazis targeted for systematic murder were the Roma. Their murder wasn't as philisophically central to Nazism, but once you have a murder machine up and running...

But anyway, I want to ask, why do people who know nothing about how Nazism actually worked keep trying to explain it?

I am literally begging Queer people on this site to realize the Holocaust was not about them

Yes gay and trans people were also targeted, we're not denying that, but it was because homosexuality and transgenderism was seen as something caused by the Jews

The holocaust was about the Jews. Please stop pretending like it wasn't

[garadinervi]

From: Marc Nagtzaam: 'Regular Features', Design by Marc Nagtzaam and Roger Willems, Roma Publication 356, Roma Publications, Amsterdam, 2019 [BOOKS at, Amsterdam. © Marc Nagtzaam]

[kneedeepincynade]

I swear to god I will become a terrorist if they don't fix the fucking infrastructures in Rome,its not possible that for a trip that required 30 minutes of car I have to do 2 hours between metro and autobus!

[songs-of-the-east]

AeternaNova Northern Macedonian ethnographic project

"AeternaNova" (in Latin "aeterna"- ancient and "nova"-new) is an exhibition of photographs, folk costumes, and an ethnographic film, curated by Filip Petkovski Ph.D., UNESCO-certified heritage expert. It aims to represent the cultural heritage of Macedonians, Albanians, Turks, Roma, and Vlachs living in North Macedonia, and to feature recorded personal narratives of the models on the photos who are leaders in their professions (actors, musicians, athletes, public figures), about their views and experiences with diversity and inclusion.

The project incorporates new media, ethnography, and visual anthropology to contextualise the topic, while each photograph serves as a visual narrative aimed to illustrate the dynamic evolution of cultural identity in the region. We are led by the idea that cultural heritage must be reinterpreted and modernised to be largely disseminated, especially amongst the younger population, who might mystify and reject the topic of cultural heritage. The exhibition will take place at the Youth Cultural Centre in Skopje, while the results of the project will be published as a research paper in the journal "Macedonian Folklore" in which we will explore diversity, inclusion, and peaceful coexistence.

The project aims to emphasise the similarities in the cultures of all of the communities that live in North Macedonia and encourages the audience to engage in a process of mutual learning and enrichment of knowledge related to cultural heritage."

[peggyao3]

Kaleidoscope

PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Unnamed Ambiguous FMC

SUMMARY: In a fight for freedom or death against the na-Baron Feyd-Rautha, his woman figures out how she feels about him, her poor devil wrapped in the skin of a beast.

WORD COUNT: 2,750

TAGS: Third person POV, AFAB she/her FMC, explicit sexual content,  rough sex, PiV, Switch!Feyd, Switch!FMC, but mostly Dom!Feyd, Feyd-Rautha's black cum, blood and injury, pain kink, blood kink, extremely dubious consent, gory nasty smut, blood for lube, mutilation, very public sex, and they lived happily ever after

A/N: Happy FEYDUARY! 🖤 Pulling this one out of the archive (specifically the ao3) for the occasion.

I've been obsessed with trying to decode the Harkonnen language (even though there's just a snippet of it in the fic) and I've found this reddit post and especially this one extremely interesting. The user @/tharpi9145 on YouTube commented under this video that the Harkonnen arena chanting was translated in Chinese theaters and provided the translation, so here's where that's coming from in the fic.

The theme and some of the descriptions in this oneshot are heavily inspired by the RP I'm writing with my sweetest friend.

Reposted from Ao3 💕| Masterlist

Divider by @/saradika-graphics

"Ek te stroeng ge e deser xhakhing grul klaxhkseda de haun dau ek se en-Barun Feyd-Rautha!" ~ Our glorious, black sun welcomes you to these special festivities of our beloved na-Baron Feyd-Rautha's holy birthday! ~

The booming echo of boos and whistling from the crowd passes through her heart and soul as she stands poised at the center of the arena, a brutalist behemoth chiseled of coal-black concrete. With her hand wrapped around the chalky hilt of her double-ended spear, she lets the vibrations pass through her in waves, taking deep lungfuls of Giedi Prime's putrid air that gathers in the pit of the arena like a thick bog.

When the crowd begins to chant in Harkunnin, guided by the announcer's guttural timbre, she perceives the world as if through a filter.

sacrifice to House Harkonnen her mortal blood   (give up her blood!) dedicate to House Harkonnen her faithful flesh   (give up her flesh!) leave to herself the deadly fear   (leave the fear!) leave to the mortals the endless fear   (beckon to death!)

The halves of the oval doorway slide open, like a birth canal giving way to its hellish spawn, and Feyd-Rautha marches confidently into the triangular colossus. From the highest stand he is no bigger than a mote on the lens of the binoculars, yet his presence fills the entire arena, more god than man to the one million spectating fanatics.

What is she thinking, challenging their god of blood and rot? Everyone craves to see her fail, no one wishes for her to earn her freedom. No one understands how she could reject their idol who has chosen her - unworthy, unwilling thing - as his concubine.

A putrid breeze catches the fabric of Feyd's tunic as he saunters in a wide half-circle, like a snake drawing closer and closer, hypnotizing its prey with slow movements made of liquid. This is how the gladiators in the Empire of Roma on Old-Earth must have felt, she thinks, thrown into the ring with a beast to fight for life and death. Freedom or death, in her case. Feyd is the beast and she is the human. The only human, going by the fanatic crescendo of Harkonnen chanting.

"May my spear skewer you dead," she greets Feyd-Rautha when he stands before her, a smooth pillar of black and white, unfazed by the chanting and the radiation. The corner of his mouth twitches.

"And mine you." Feyd grins at the brief flicker of confusion as she glances at the weapons he holds so carefully. Blades, not spears.

The crescendo peaks, a beehive of frenetic anticipation, all eyes on who will launch the first attack.

She was never meant to win, she realizes the moment she lunges, soft sand shifting underfoot. The sand in the training pit is harder, more gravelly. Her balance feels off and Feyd knows it.

He playfully parries her attack, then the next and the next. The humor in his eyes is the worst thing, and the condescending gleam. 

Months of hoping and training for her freedom are reduced to nothing and less than nothing within minutes. This is not the fair chance he promised her. All of their training together was a slight. The sweat, blood and tears she shed into the gravelly sand, those times when she scraped him bloody with her spear and made him laugh, made him praise her like he was truly impressed.

"You dishonorable dog!" She screams against the thick smog and the wailing background noise of the crowd. "You promised me a fair fight, you promised!"

Feyd's expression darkens momentarily, pouty lips turned downwards, a storm brewing in his eyes. A telltale muscle in his jaw twitches.

Yes, she's made him angry, good! Perfect!

Feyd's blades smack against her spear, a quick succession of tack, tack, tack. Then a thump as he aims for her fingers with the handle to shatter her bones. She dips backwards, thrusting the spear forwards at the same time. Feyd's shield prickles angrily, repelling her thrust.

Back into defense, quick, tack, thump, sksshhh!

The longer of the kukris scrapes unpleasantly against the spear shaft. She gyrates in a tight circle, piercing Feyd's shield with the lower end of the shaft pressed against his neck. She ushers him with her in a circular orbit until he ducks under the spear and aims for her thighs, slowing his attack just in time to penetrate the shield. Her trousers tear and blood hotly soaks the fabric. It's a shallow cut. He could have sliced her femoral artery.

"Why are you holding back, you motherless bastard? Kill me now!" 

Disbelief slackens Feyd-Rautha's features as he takes a step back, blades dangling from his hands. He looks surreal in the glaring light, stripped of color, stripped of the soft hues that only show themselves in the artificial light of the glow orbs in her room. She is mad for provoking him.

The unbeaten gladiator roars - the birthday boy - he lunges and slams down, not with the blades but with the handles. With brutal force and precision, they hit the center of the spear's shaft, accomplishing the impossible.

A hairline fracture springs over the shaft, Sardaukar craftsmanship damaged by the ferocity of one apoplectic Harkonnen who laughs boyishly at her expression. Abusing her surprise (has her weapon been sabotaged?!), he tackles her to the ground.

Dust puffs up, momentarily obscuring her vision. Instinctively, she yanks up the spear, pressing it through Feyd's shield, shaft against his throat.

He sits on her thighs, blades sinking through her shield to kiss her sternum, tickling without killing. The pressure against his throat draws terrible grunting and choking noises from the na-Baron who laughs open-mouthed, spit dribbling off his teeth, an inky rivulet that penetrates her shield and slips wetly over her bare clavicles. She fights to shove him off with the full force of two hands.

The hairline fracture in the spear begins to branch out, crack by tiny crack. She stares awestruck and with horror as Feyd-Rautha's face turns grey, teeth bared grotesquely as he groans and salivates and laughs like a boy.

Aaaaaa-ooooohh!

The crowd bellows as the spear splinters right in the middle and Feyd's throat bursts through, marred by a fat bruise that stretches black and ugly just below his Adam's apple. His voice is hoarse and barely recognizable when his body pushes into her shield, chests coming flush, and his drooling mouth finds her neck, sucking a bruise as his breath rattles in his throat. His blade-wielding fists push harmlessly into the sand.

"Anything you'd like to feed the dishonorable dog?"

"I want you to choke on sand and die! I want you to- Ahhh!"

Feyd wrenches the spear halves out of her hands and throws them away. She screams into his laughing visage as he pins her to the sand, hikes up her tunic and tears off her shield generator, then slashes through the front of her pants.

When he reaches down to unclasp the armor plate that shields his crotch, she lunges and punches him in the guts, punches him again, only waiting for the crotch plate to come off so she can punch him there, but Feyd slices her hand with a flash of white metal. The lacerating pain momentarily knocks the breath out of her lungs and she falls back, clutching the hand to her chest, howling.

Gazing up, she is looking into a kaleidoscope of madness, a writhing mass of Harkonnens all around, an ensemble for a nightmare and she is the involuntary harlequin.

The heat of the black sun brings a second pulse against the inside of her eyeballs and she feebly lifts her lacerated hand, surprised to see that all of her fingers are still attached, though her middle and index finger stand unnaturally far apart, separated by a glistening, weeping gash diagonally through her palm.

A pale, writhing shape behind her hand catches her attention and Feyd-Rautha's disfigured voice penetrates her brain fog. "You thought you could ever make it off my planet, whore?" His eyes gleam with mania, bleached by the black sun. "Out of my palace, out of my arms, unless I allowed it?!"

His shield is gone, his blades lie next to him in the sand. This is his victor's feast. The crotch plate is gone too and he cuts through more of her trousers and underwear. Groaning, she feels for the spears or knives, hissing when sand grates against her injury.

The wailing crowd convulses like one entity, a parasitic hive mind that undulates back and forth, a sea of black and white.

  (give up her flesh!)   (give up her flesh!)   (give up her flesh!)

She screams when Feyd's hand wraps around her thigh where he cut her earlier, squeezing and prodding until it comes away coated in blood. The hot liquid touches between her thighs, spread over her cunt by calloused fingers that even find the mercy in them to sink into her once, twice, lubricating her walls with her own blood.

Compared to the searing pain in her cut flesh, the ache of his blunt cock sinking into her is dull, almost comforting in its familiarity. How many times has he fucked her by now? It must have been hundreds. Humiliated in front of a million Harkonnens, this still isn't the worst way he's ever fucked her.

The thought makes her giggle and Feyd looks smitten when he crawls over her, fucking her with long, hard strokes. His eyes keep drifting to her lacerated palm, biting his lip at the sight of blood shed on his holy birthday. He supports his weight on his forearms, fingertips tickling her neck.

"Feyd…" she slurs and Feyd feels compelled to lean further down, anticipation on his features and a noticeable swell of his chest.

"I hate you."

Feyd's jaws twitch, serpent eyes becoming pinpricks while his hips roughly slam into her cunt. His hand wraps around her throat, but then he howls, open mouth turned to the sun, cursing, panting, eyes squinted. His own knife in her hand has slashed through his bicep, deep, deep, deep.

Feyd is unbalanced and she knocks him over. He hits his tailbone on the ground, dust billowing all over them. His cock is still buried in her cunt which has begun to warm up to him, offering slick to ease the glide of the thickly veined, velvety flesh.

She will give the Harkonnens something to boo at.

"Stay back!" Feyd laughs at the prowling picadors.

He is paralyzed by arousal, hips bucking on their own accord as she pins his arm down by the crook of the elbow and hacks the blade into the cut. Pieces of blood and gore splatter over his pale flesh and the armor plate covering his shoulder. His free hand clutches her hip, mind split between pleasure and agony, gripping her flesh to rut into her hard and fast, so he doesn't throw up into the sand.

There is a nauseating crack, hack, cchhrrkkk and Feyd bawls until her bloody hands come up to cover his mouth, knife victoriously planted into the sand. How is she covering his mouth with both hands when she's still holding down his arm? Feyd glances to the side and sees his severed arm being snatched away by a picador's hook.

The horned man-creature sprints away quickly, slipping into the bowels of the arena colossus. If the nerves are preserved, the arm  can be reattached later.

"Will you be a good boy now and let me go?" She growls, drawing the attention of black and white glassy eyes back to her. Her pelvis rolls greedily against his. Scratchy sand is trapped between their bloody, sweaty bodies.

Feyd laughs through the pain, laughs and laughs and laughs to mask the raging insanity because his woman still hasn't understood that she will die on Giedi Prime one day and nowhere else. His arm stump twitches against the ground.

"I'm, haha, never a good boy, hnnng-hah!"

"Hah! Yes, that I know!" She blurts out, voice high-pitched. The tears in her eyes may be from laughter as well. She gives a half-assed punch to Feyd's chest. "Fine, then I'll have to make do with a filthy mutt."

Feyd nods, yes, yes, he will be her filthy mutt and it doesn't matter if she wants him or not, if she hates him or not, it is not important, no, it is not important.

"Release me or I'll kill you!" She reaches for the blade again, but Feyd's knee jerks up, slamming into her ribs so she is knocked to the side. Feyd scrambles, crawling on top of her. They're only connected by his plump cock head that is still squished by her wet hole. Feyd's vision prickles with black dots and he sways, trying to catch his weight on the phantom arm that he swears is still there.

He falls down on the stump, howling, howling, like a beast in a bear trap, fighting against unconsciousness. He is the unbeaten gladiator - unbeaten! The ghost of a caring touch prickles against his ribs, stabilizing him.

With his intact forearm pressed against her throat, he throttles her like she did to him with her spear earlier, except that his veined forearm will never shatter, unless she cuts it off too.

She regrets not accepting the contacts that would protect her eyes from radiation. She had been scared of getting sand all over them, but now she wants nothing more than for the burn to stop and the throb-throb-throb behind her eyeballs that somehow matches the drag of Feyd's cock against her walls and the pulse in her slashed hand.

"Why don't you close your eyes, my darling, pretend we're in our bedroom?"

She does close her eyes and the cacophony of chanting voices turns into a warped melody, like wind tearing on leaves and whistling through porous rocks.

Humm, hummm, hummmm.

In this waking nightmare, the vision of her home world is swallowed by the black sun, a ravenous maw in the good universe. She lightly gasps when she feels hot lips against her neck and hot blood dripping on her chest. 

She wraps her arms around his neck, fingers tearing on the shoulder plate over the stump until it comes off. Softly, she caresses his shoulder while the rutting of his hips is anything but soft. Her legs wrap around his waist because at least he is familiar, an island in the sea of faceless, chanting monsters.

This is what happens when one listens to the voice of the devil. It crawls into the soul and rots you from the inside.

And suddenly the beast you've pitted yourself against is no longer a beast but a man and you're friends with the devil. The thought strikes her and she begins to laugh while tears track down her cheeks. Her poor devil has a severe bruise on his neck and she mustn't think about the arm — Oh, her poor devil!

Her laughter drives Feyd over the edge, pain, pleasure and humiliation, and he spills his rot inside her. Thick, lazy pulses of his cock that she finds oddly comforting. Her toes curl inside her boots and her pelvis happily grinds against Feyd's while the warmth of his seed sinks into her core.

Feyd's breath is heavy and strained when he shuffles away from her and stands, gritting his teeth. He is imposing even though a part of him is missing. The glaring light curls around his soft cheeks and full lips and touches his anemic eyes.

She wants to lie here just a little while longer, the sand is so nice and warm, but Feyd's hand cruelly wraps around her biceps and he drags her across the sand. She calls his name but he keeps marching, fueled by the mad cacophony of chanting and stomping. The hive mind salutes. Sand whirls up under his boots and dusts her face. Her shoulder joint screams in agony.

This was never a battle for death or freedom, it was death or rot.

   (Flesh!)   (Flesh!)   (Flesh!)

They probably don't care whose flesh was given.

Feyd-Rautha maintains his posture for show, internally trembling from blood loss, but the people only see the inhuman strength of their idol, virile and unfaltering despite sacrificing an arm. Still unbeaten. 

A black trail of seed and blood stains the white sand where the na-Baron walks and pulls his spoils of battle through the oval door, back into the womb of the concrete behemoth.

FEYD TAG LIST:

@nostalgichoya, @forgedfromthestars, @sweetiee-o, @missbingu, @minedofmoria

@sebastianswallows, @charmingballoon, @flower-frog, @welliah, @aoi-targaryen

@coastalcowgirl35, @esolean, @szapizzapanda, @tatertooted, @sunny747

@ughdontbeboring, @meetmeatyourworst, @gravesdiggergirl

[sickofthis666]

That's fine, I speak french.

Thank you!

They don't mention anywhere he's romani, so maybe the journalists didn’t know. However I found a report from a National Assembly session where a deputy mentions his story as an example of police brutality, and how he's a member of a community a former deputy said "it didn’t want to integrate in our country."

The special favors cops get in this country to use violence is insane, and any attempt to call them out on it is instantly shut down by the Minister of the interior.

this is how the British police is handling kids. 5 children were taken away from their parents, Romani people are now rioting and the media are twisting it into "a criminal minority is causing unrest" while leftist and antiracist activists are turning a blind eye because they are always ready to tackle racism and classism unless it's for Roma

[gloomygloworm]

I open Dragon Age: The Veilguard

I play the game, and I think to myself ‘weird I thought this was a choices and politics game ft metaphors from real history like slavery’ 

My friends go “you’re right that’s what it’s supposed to be but this game is lacking those things”

I go “oh bummer that sucks, I like moral quandaries.”

I see a post that publicly wonders why people are upset that one of the main metaphors (slavery) is missing from the game.

I respond saying yeah its weird that people are complaining that a Big Metaphor is missing from the Big Metaphor Game

I get asked what part of the game matches the Main Metaphor, and I respond with “well, the elves are second class citizens.” I am doing research specifically on the elves. I read in the wiki, with sources, that yeah, no, I’m right, the Church said “if you kiss an elf that’s basically the same thing as kissing a dog.” Elves don’t have rights in most of the countries that the other games are in. One of these places in the North is the Big Metaphor Place where they looooove the Big Metaphor and using the Big Metaphor, but I get called weird for wondering why it’s mostly absent from the game.

I open my blinds and find out that National Holocaust Remembrance Day is no longer a federal holiday. I also find out that my government is trying to "deport" the native citizens of said country. I go back online and find a thread from 2009 where one of the writers explicitly states “Yeah the Dalish started as a metaphor for the Roma but evolved into more like the Native Americans, and the Andrastean Elves are like the Jewish during Nazi Occupied Germany.”

I say “oh okay so Tevinter is like Nazi Occupied Germany. Yeah it’s weird that they’ve kind of sanitized this place and I can’t find the evidence of this anywhere.”

Someone calls me weird again and tells me to read the Codex. Someone else mentions the very beginning of the game, where you see shackles on the ground and there is mention of an elf who is freeing slaves, none of which I witness. I wonder if the slaves are in the room with me. 

Someone else mentions that this is the first time we see Tevinter without any biases, mentioning two characters, Dorian and Fenris.

My friends, horrified, tell me Fenris is an ex-slave (who can be given BACK to his slave owner) and Dorian’s family are Slave Owners. I think to myself huh that’s kind of a weird thing to say considering the biases are “I was a slave” and “Yeah my family owns slaves but that’s kinda bad huh” cause that’s the same exact concept. 

I say “well elves don’t have rights, that sucks, but I wish we got to see more of their day to day. I hear about these alienages that in other games we’ve been able to see, it’s weird there isn’t one in the very poor part of the Capital of the Big Metaphor Place, where there would be a high number of these people.”

Someone says “why do you want to see them suffering? That’s weird.”

I say “yeah but there’s beauty in adversity and I didn’t write the game, I want to see this big tree the alienages supposedly have as a sort of last hope for the city elves to cling to their lost culture.” 

Someone calls me weird.

I open my blinds and politicians and big public figures are giving Nazi salutes in public rallies. 

I boot up Veilguard.

I boot up Origins and get called a slur within the first five minutes of the game. 

I picked a circle elven mage, but I use youtube to look up the city elf origin and go “oh holy fuck wow they just put it right out there huh? That’s the world state, now I know.”

Someone tells me that I should play the game because I would enjoy being sexually assaulted and violated.

I literally don’t have a response to that in any comprehensive way because that is a wild thing to say to a stranger. It is, in fact, two subjects I have intimate knowledge of as a victim of both domestic abuse and sexual assault. 

Someone tells me to just read the Codex.

Someone tells me to just read the Diary of Anne Frank.

I buy the art book for Veilguard and see that some of the major players they nixed were ex-slaves. I look at Reva and I say “oh hey cool concept” 

Someone calls me an idiot online and I laugh while closing my blinds, because purity culture is once more making a comeback and if I licked a single rock in Arlathan all I’d taste was bleach.

[ayeforscotland]

what do you think of the reveal that nicola sturgeon deleted all her covid whatsapp messages?

I honestly don’t care, and not for the reason you think.

I’m exhausted. I saw this on twitter two days ago and I quote tweeted it.

My utilities bill is higher than ever, my weekly shop is more expensive than ever, I have no savings after giving it all to my boiler and even then I had to ask people for help.

I do not give a fuck about covid what’s app messages, which aren’t important anyway because What’s App wasn’t used as an official communication channel throughout the pandemic.

I do not give a shit when the worst people in Scottish politics try to hype up a scandal.

‘Dame’ thick-as-shit Jackie Baillie who lied to elderly voters about their pensions during the independence referendum.

Misogynist Alex Cole-Hamilton who still ducks media scrutiny over everything the former Scottish LibDem CEO, Emma Walker, has came public with.

And racist little cunt Douglas Ross who’s ‘if he was prime minister for the day’ fantasy was harsh restrictions on the Gypsy, Roma, Traveller community.

I do not care what these pile of arseholes think is a huge scandal when me and all my friends are struggling with basic needs. Friends who were managing fine a few months ago and are now aggressively budgeting to make ends meet.

[anxietycheesecake]

I'm sorry that you're being attacked and blocked for having valid criticisms. It's really weird to be new to this fandom and watch it go from a fairly positive space to fans being as nasty to each other as Star Wars fans in such a short period of time, especially when the crumbs people are cobbling together and calling a canonized ship is what we scrape for in other fandoms with ships we know will never be canon and we KNOW we're stretching the material we're given. I love my queerplatonic ships, found families, and platonic soulmates. I can absolutely enjoy Nandermo through that lens, but the gaslighting and mental gymnastics here is raising such a fucking eyebrow and you don't deserve to feel like you've done something wrong for recognizing it.

Being allosexual or alloromantic is as valid as being asexual or aromatic and it's actually so fucking unchill to conflate being gay or pan with being ace or aro just because they are all under the queer umbrella.

Ace =/= celibate, but half this fandom thinks Guillermo is a virgin and I can't help but think that's being bundled into the hot takes that are coming out right now when it's canon that he's uncomfortable due to being in the closet and his Catholic upbringing. Yes, he could be ace, but that means at best were batting 1/4 for aroace Nandermo.

Nandor has sex with Gail onscreen and is very clearly not ace. The vampires would have MINIMALLY mentioned Guillermo being a virgin and wouldn't have eagerly asked about his sex life in Atlantic City if they thought he was one and they practically have radar for it. He was panicking over Jeremy being a virgin and having brought him into the house and the only thing that saved the guy was losing his virginity. Nandor and Guillermo are both romantic in romantic relationships, and both are expressive about it and tell others they love them.

When you speedrun the entire series and the notable interviews with fresh eyes and not over a stretch of years the leap between 'My Nan- Master' vs. best friends, cuddling a Nandor puppet at night, the I'll make you a vampire speech vs. the vibe in the warrior speech is SO visible and it fits perfectly with Simms' public discomfort with fans shipping Nandor and Guillermo. He is openly uncomfortable with them being in a romantic relationship or having sex with each other and uses every homophobic gaslighting tactic in the playback when speaking about it.

“No, I do think there’s a small subset of very vocal people on Twitter who are like ‘We want to see Nandor and Guillermo hook up,’ and we’re always like, I think their love is bigger and more profound than that,” Simms said. “And also do you really want to see that? Do you?”

This is literally how straight people talk when they're uncomfortable with queer shit. What haven't we seen in this show other than that? Is Nadja and Laszlo's love lesser for it?

“Times that we’ve talked about it and explored it, the power dynamics seem so problematic,” Simms continued. “I mean, that’s his boss.”

In a show where the main couple started with nonconsensual sex (it's still noncon if it turns out that they could have had sex without hypnosis) and Laszlo fucks Colin Robinson after raising him for a gag. Sure, keep telling yourselves that the power dynamic is what makes Simms uncomfortable.

"I mean, it's a nice thought, for some...I don't know about these guys" Kayvan says as he nods toward Simms.

I've seen the Harvey interviews and talking heads from earlier seasons on the subject of Nandermo. The 2024 panel couldn't have been more different, and Harvey seemed completely subdued when the others were discussing Nandermo fanart and them being a ship.

This isn't a person who deserves applause for queer representation and it seems toxic af that Harvey has been stuck in a workplace where he has to hear this drivel when he's openly gay. Yes, I am side eyeing the fuck out of this and it's not because I'm crying over wanting my blorbos to smooch.

You can actually have a romantic pair not kiss or fuck or say I love you without pulling a very clear 'no homo.' That would have been totally fine, but they didn't do that. Copy and paste that scene into anything starring Andy Samberg, or literally anything bro centric and tell me it's a romantic love confession. Or rather, try taking it off tumblr and see if anybody thinks it isn't deep platonic male friendship.

It's okay for people to be upset when they've been hoodwinked. It's okay to separate fanon from canon and still enjoy your ships. But ffs stop gaslighting each other and saying non-romance is romance or that non-romance has more worth than romance and that people are shallow for not valuing it when that's not the problem people have with this, and when that isn't the bill of good audiences we're sold in earlier seasons.

The call is coming from inside the house it shouldn't be.

(Also SO sorry for how long this was).

Never apologize for articulating this better than I ever could. I'm too lazy to look for all the recipes I know are out there, so most of the shit I say is like "source: trust me bro"; I'm glad someone else did it.

The aspec thing makes me so mad because, as a writer, I'm always going out of my way to properly and respectfully represent aspec folks. Like, I've got two novels starring an ace woman and an aromantic man. Do I deserve a medal for that? Of course not! It should be normal. But it's kind of infuriating that people are willing to give aspec rep credit to a show just because it made two male characters stay platonic after teasing their relationship for years and call me aphobic for pointing out that's not the case.