#TO BE EXTREMELY CLEAR: NOT in an irl racism way! but in an 'I've decided your entire personality is [misinterpreted quirk]' way

[blujayonthewing]

[guy who lives in lowkey constant fear of being flanderized and infantalized and flattened and misunderstood and not taken seriously as an entire human person with complex thoughts and feelings in real life] yeah I dunno why I feel so strongly and get so defensive about Fantasy Racism and fantasy-race stereotyping it's just a really big sticking point for me for some mysterious reason

[thefloatingstone]

How would you compare Presley's racism vs Ashley's racism. Although now that I type this at least Presley never compared them animals. Hmmm...

Honestly it's all down to "root cause" and "how they express it".

Pressly is a veteran of the first contact war who was shooting at these people less than 30 years ago. His racism has its roots in a perspective forged during wartime and all the baggage THAT drags up. But we get clear and straightforward addressing of Pressly growing out of his racism by his own words, remarking in his log "Reading back on my older entries, what a damn fool I've been."

Ashley on the other hand may have similar baggage, as her grandfather is a disgraced military man and caused her entire family to be blacklisted because of the First Contact War with the aliens, and that would be a similar place to draw her prejudice from and help her grow out of by realising her true feelings of anger and resentment are misplaced. But the way she voices her racism is full of venom and true, deep seeded contempt and hatred. Comparing them to animals is the big one, and ME2 itself mocks her for this comment if she died on Virmire. But it's more than that. Ashley's entire personality is that of "High School Mean Girl". The second Liara steps on board of the Normandy Ashley is GUNNING to bully her. Not just because she's an alien but ALSO for being "one of those lesbian sluts". (reminder, in ME1 Liara is an extremely shy and awkward historian and archaeologist)

When Shepard tells Ashley to NOT bully Liara for being an Asari, Ashley straight up says "No fun, Commander >:("

Also there's this line which some people miss because it requires you to have the discussion with Liara about the Prejudice and racism Asari face galaxy wide and then going directly to Ashley and speaking to her)

(the clip starts at 2:44)

idk if I said it here or if I said so in discord to a friend, but I see kaidan and Ashley as being written as the answers to Bioware's handling of Renegade and Paragon options. Kaidan is more geared to reflect a Paragon playthrough and Ashley is more geared to fit a renegade playthrough. Possibly the thinking was whichever way the person is playing, it would affect who they decide to spare on Virmire.

(also I have a good relationship with my family but Ashley going "WHAT DOES SHE MEAN SHE DOESN'T LIKE HER MOM???? THAT'S STUPID." comment also makes me really fucking angry considering how many irl friends I have who have moms who suck ass)

Pressly's racism is problematic (same as Garrus' racism in the first game) but he outgrows it and openly says "I was wrong."

Garrus has a full on conversation with Tali in ME3 and directly says to her "I'm sorry and I was wrong."

Ashley never apologises or excuses her early comments and behaviour. She just at some point stops doing it so overtly and comments how "no I like Tali a lot" (Everybody likes Tali) as if this somehow undoes everything she said. More than anything, she tries to justify and excuse her past comments and opinions while also saying the most hateful things about the crew.

She's a racist bully from a heavily religious traditional military family who makes no effort to understand people from family structures or upbringing she doesn't understand, alien or otherwise, who immediately started picking on the shy nerd the SECOND she stepped foot on the ship and never apologises for any of her actions, racist or otherwise.

The racism is a symptom of a much nastier whole.

She's a VERY well written character. I just heavily dislike her.

[oldmansaverio]

What are you playing at? Or rather, what is your knowledge of religion. I was raised catholic, but I've been an atheist since I was 16-17. The word Semite, from the teachings I received, was from one of Noah's children, and that covered a lot of ethnic groups in the Middle East that are linked by language and religion. Hence my use. If you want to say that now it is only used for Jews, OK, I can agree and continue the conversation. However, then we are omitting the hatred against Muslims and PoC in the Middle East, which must be addressed in the conversation as well. I would also like to read your explanation on why the Israelis are being oppressed in this situation, because I DO know/understand that Jewish people in general have been targeted, considering that they (the Israelis) are the ones committing the genocide. Also, to further expand this point. I do not know if you can separate the fact that a group of people can be oppressed (through racism, sexism, classism, ableism, etc.), but if one of them commits a crime, or does something shitty, it is correct to point it out and understand that it has nothing to do with their identity. For example, I think we can all agree that Hillary Clinton should be pointed at and be called a shitty politician, a genocide apologist, a war criminal, etc., and not fall in the "oh, God forbid a girl boss does anything!", which is, basically, a [Neo]Liberal position (or Center).

Second, it’s not about horseshoe theory, it’s about how Jews have always served as social scapegoats in times of great upheaval.

But it is about horshoe theory. What do you call this from the post I originally replied to? <yet we have seen every one of these, and countless more variations of them, in an endless stream online and in action in real life from the so-called left. to the point where the rhetoric from one side or another is indistinguishable because the left has fallen for and spread the hate speech of the far right with a gleeful sort of malice.>

Also, I'm pretty sure there have been other communities that have been scapegoats during History, for example, black people, Chinese at one point, and my people right now, which would be why I fucking hate most of the so-called "1st World" and their continued Imperialist strategies.

"If leftists ever decide to do the reading, this wouldn’t continue to happen. Instead, many also want the aesthetics of liberation without the work and discomfort, and so end up parroting the same things as always, just with a different veneer"

I have to wonder what sort of Leftists you refer to, and if they are the same as only talking about the aesthetics... well, I don't know their circumstances. The only thing I can say, is that

Also, what veneer would that be? Equality for everyone? Down with Capitalism? Etc.? If so, the message is correct, but the actions... well, rn, depending where you live, that has a cost. That's why people cheer for the rebels in the movies, but irl, there's a price to pay.

"to the right we are infiltrators who want to genocide the white race" C'mmon. Do you really don't understand why the Right says that about you guys? I mean, if you're testing me, or you really don't know, please, elaborate.

"and to leftists we’re colonizers who want to genocide all brown people" Again, the Israelis ARE doing this. In the original post I marked the different between Zionists and Jews. Did I not explain myself properly? "Third, the excuse that “Israeli propaganda is so good that I just HAD to hate Jews about it” is weak as fuck." I assume the "I" is rhetorical, but where did I write that?

<If people are reacting this way, attacking Jewish establishments, insulting Jews on the street, etc. It's because, unfortunately, the Israeli propaganda has been extremely effective>

Also, I believe I was extremely clear with this: <Also,I'm sorry, but if you compare the genocidal intent of the Nazis to the anger felt by people from the Left (and any other ideological position) towards Zionists, then I don't think you understand what's going on. In other words, we need people to understand that Zionists are Jewish, yes, but not all Jews are Zionists.> And, by the by, I don't think Leftists are punching Jews, or destroying their property, or similar acts. We rarely do it with Nazis, so why would Leftists do it with Jews? Also this contradicts your position about Leftists just caring about the aesthetics and not really taking actions on things. Well, do you agree with these statements? What has happened with Gaza, that Israel has lost the propaganda war, is a great example. The fact that they did everything they could to continue controlling the narrative, as well as killing as many reporters as they could to do that, just confirms this. I certainly hope that people are also becoming educated enough to understand the difference between Zionists and Jews, so they do not blame all of the Jewish community for this. Btw, from what I see, it is the Left that has been doing this job, of distinguishing them and explaining the situation.

"Your last sentence is not only nonsensical, but inaccurate. Zionists are not Jews: there are more Christian Zionists in America than there are Jews in the entire world, regardless of politics. The largest Zionist organization in the United States is explicitly Christian. Of course, undoubtedly, there are Jews who are Zionists. But anything at all that is done by Jewish Zionists - including the government of Israel itself - is only able to be done with the support (material, political, theological, philosophical) of the Christian Zionists who vastly outnumber them."

Completely agree with correctly pointing out that Jewish Zionists are the ones committing the genocide WITH the help of the U.S. Although, the help they get is not necessarily ONLY from Christian Zionists, but of any that consider the creation and maintenance of the Israel state as necessary for socioeconomic and political goals. So yeah, I mean, I don't know if your last paragraph is to absolve the Jewish Zionists of this, considering that you're basically saying "Well yeah, but there's so few of them, compared to the many many Christian Zionists!", but no. It does not absolve them, nor the rest of the people that are supporting all of it. That's why the rest of the world is disgusted with them, the US, and all the other countries (that are mercifully few) that support them. Regarding seeing you after class. No thank you.

This is disgusting. It's 2024 and people are marching through the streets with Nazi flags.

[void-botanist]

I appreciate you taking the time to write that out! I'm probably going to come back to it next time I get on a gender worldbuilding kick. I've already been thinking about it for days, lol, as I gathered my thoughts about my own writing.

In general, the world of TFA/Triad is a sort of what-if. What would societies look like if gender (and bodily sex, and romantic and sexual orientation) weren't used as tools of discrimination? It's not always forefront in the story, because it's one of many what-ifs that take turns as appropriate (and to be honest I mostly think about my writing as "ooo fun android story" and so on), but the way the narrative approaches those things gets to be radically inclusive, which is just a breath of fresh air.

That world is almost entirely made up of gender-equal cultures, with a few partial exceptions (I'll get to that in a sec). I'm mostly not interested in writing about gender inequality in its many forms, but I am extremely interested in the cultural/species construction of gender and the experience of it, especially when racism, sexism, and anti-queerness aren't constraining factors. I still have a lot of culture-specific building to do around how gender is thought of, but on the whole I'm happy to treat gender as unimportant on a structural, societal level. For example, in the real world, I hate the concept of legal gender and/or sex, because at best it's a useless data point and a time waster for trans people and records managers. So it doesn't exist in this world, making more space to explore other legal issues. And I like so-called soft boys (uwu optional) not least because I am one, and I want to write about worlds where feminine guys and masculine women and voids of chaos (I'm really just describing myself) and everyone betwixt can just be. I want my characters to be thinking about more important issues like "does this dress go with that jacket" and "exactly how real are aliens" and "what does it mean to be an android".

The exceptions to this that I mentioned before are intentional and complicated and are tied up in hetero-, amato-, and allonormativity too. An extreme example would be Aza and Seriito's mom, previously an overbearing queen trying to keep a grasp on the monarchy she was raised in via controlling her children. Once it became clear that Seriito is very gay, the queen decided she had a better chance of preserving the bloodline via Aza (who is bi) and focused her efforts on trying to match Aza up with someone. As twins, Seriito and Aza were still slated to inherit the monarchy together unless one of them abdicated, but Aza would still occupy an implicitly higher status because of her hypothetical reproductive ability (bonus points if she actually, you know, reproduced). But at the same time, there is no baked-in gender preference for an heir, and the clothes culture isn't divided along gendered lines (especially not the ones most common in the western world IRL). And no one expects Seriito to un-gay himself, or even considers that a possibility. So I'm kind of commenting on gender inequality and how it intersects with anti-queerness, but that's not really my main goal. (I'm also trying to not make the few major antagonist characters cartoonish reflections of how much anti-queer normativities harm everyone.)

But while gendered expectations don't exist on a societal level, they can exist on a personal level. Kirnus, for example, is a trans guy with complicated feelings about his transition because while he feels better in himself because of said transition, he deeply associates his mom and other women in his life with presence, stability, resourcefulness, and effectiveness, while the men in his life tend to have weaker or different associations. He knows that gender doesn't actually make any difference as to whether he can have those qualities, but on some level it still feels like if he wants to be the best version of himself, he shouldn't have transitioned. So I get to think about things like that, while at the same time being able to explore other trans characters' gender discoveries in terms of "realizing I'm trans is scary because I don't understand myself and it's hard to present a self you don't understand to other people" without "realizing I'm trans is scary because this puts me in actual, possibly mortal, danger and is going to make a lot of things harder for me". It lets me really enjoy the crunchiness of (transed) genders.

I think I ended up kinda sideways to the original topic, but hopefully this has still been interesting and maybe useful. (I actually realized some plot elements I'd never considered before as I was writing this.) I definitely don't have everything figured out about how I want to handle gender in this world, but it's always sort of geared toward inclusivity and vibing with queerness. And re: gender-neutral utopias, I guess it is kind of central to the story for me? But more often in the sense of "I need this to be true for me to write the story I want to write". I also write fairly low-stakes scifantasy slice of life, so make of that what you will.

thinking about gender in fantasy worldbuilding and theres smoke coming out of my ears