#also hes just... incredibly racist

[fivespicepowder]

some of the tweets I'm seeing....how are people arriving at these baffling conclusions???

[fursasaida]

This article is from 2022, but it came up in the context of Palestine:

Here are some striking passages, relevant to all colonial aftermaths but certainly also to the forms we see Zionist reaction taking at the moment:

Over the decade I lived in South Africa, I became fascinated by this white minority [i.e. the whole white population post-apartheid as a minority in the country], particularly its members who considered themselves progressive. They reminded me of my liberal peers in America, who had an apparently self-assured enthusiasm about the coming of a so-called majority-minority nation. As with white South Africans who had celebrated the end of apartheid, their enthusiasm often belied, just beneath the surface, a striking degree of fear, bewilderment, disillusionment, and dread.

[...]

Yet these progressives’ response to the end of apartheid was ambivalent. Contemplating South Africa after apartheid, an Economist correspondent observed that “the lives of many whites exude sadness.” The phenomenon perplexed him. In so many ways, white life remained more or less untouched, or had even improved. Despite apartheid’s horrors—and the regime’s violence against those who worked to dismantle it—the ANC encouraged an attitude of forgiveness. It left statues of Afrikaner heroes standing and helped institute the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which granted amnesty to some perpetrators of apartheid-era political crimes.

But as time wore on, even wealthy white South Africans began to radiate a degree of fear and frustration that did not match any simple economic analysis of their situation. A startling number of formerly anti-apartheid white people began to voice bitter criticisms of post-apartheid society. An Afrikaner poet who did prison time under apartheid for aiding the Black-liberation cause wrote an essay denouncing the new Black-led country as “a sewer of betrayed expectations and thievery, fear and unbridled greed.”

What accounted for this disillusionment? Many white South Africans told me that Black forgiveness felt like a slap on the face. By not acting toward you as you acted toward us, we’re showing you up, white South Africans seemed to hear. You’ll owe us a debt of gratitude forever.

The article goes on to discuss:

"Mau Mau anxiety," or the fear among whites of violent repercussions, and how this shows up in reported vs confirmed crime stats - possibly to the point of false memories of home invasion

A sense of irrelevance and alienation among this white population, leading to another anxiety: "do we still belong here?"

The sublimation of this anxiety into self-identification as a marginalized minority group, featuring such incredible statements as "I wanted to fight for Afrikaners, but I came to think of myself as a ‘liberal internationalist,’ not a white racist...I found such inspiration from the struggles of the Catalonians and the Basques. Even Tibet" and "[Martin Luther] King [Jr.] also fought for a people without much political representation … That’s why I consider him one of my most important forebears and heroes,” from a self-declared liberal environmentalist who also thinks Afrikaaners should take back government control because they are "naturally good" at governance

Some discussion of the dynamics underlying these reactions, particularly the fact that "admitting past sins seem[ed] to become harder even as they receded into history," and US parallels

And finally, in closing:

The Afrikaner journalist Rian Malan, who opposed apartheid, has written that, by most measures, its aftermath went better than almost any white person could have imagined. But, as with most white progressives, his experience of post-1994 South Africa has been complicated. [...]

He just couldn’t forgive Black people for forgiving him. Paradoxically, being left undisturbed served as an ever-present reminder of his guilt, of how wrongly he had treated his maid and other Black people under apartheid. “The Bible was right about a thing or two,” he wrote. “It is infinitely worse to receive than to give, especially if … the gift is mercy.”

[secretaryofdarkness]

Something that I fear will get lost in all this that I cannot in good conscience let people ignore is that James Somerton is also just incredibly racist?

Between his willingness to rip off the works of asian writers, his total *unwillingness* to fact-check any of his own claims about laws and customs in asian countries (specifically China, I'll note), his enthusiastic citing of information from right-wing cracks who openly conspiracy theorize about China, and his gleeful theory crafting of whole new conspiracy bullshit about China in his attempt to frame all media discussions through his overly clouded lens, I think it's fair to say James Somerton is just racist. There's no sugarcoating it just because he doesn't espouse direct hate or use slurs. The passive liberal brand racism is still racism. Like, someone doesn't invent fake claims about Chinese box office coverups and help spread myths about censorship laws in Japanese television code out of nowhere. These are not the ideas of a man who has healthy or well adjusted views about Asia, these are pure and simple orientalism.

[andivmg]

My experience with Luke (Punz)

CW: toxic relationship, racism, dubious consent

I know in the past i said that i would no longer speak about him publicly, and when talking about my experiences with abuse and emotional mistreatment i begged to keep it anonymous but after reflecting on this for a week and seeing so many incredibly smart and strong women tell their stories. they have given me the strength to say his name.

this is really scary to talk about because of the copious levels of harassment i have received from his fans in the past so if this spreads or gets out of hand i will simply log off.

If you read my last post, i nicknamed him 1.

So aside from everything i said there, there were a lot of things i didn’t include because they would’ve made it obvious that it was him and it could potentially backfire on me so, i’m very afraid to post this. but i’m going to do it scared anyway, because it’s not fair that he gets to just go and live his life worry-free as if he didn’t practically ruin mine.

Because I already made a very lengthy post about him, i won’t include everything i said last time to avoid being redundant but if i repeat myself, please bear with me.

In our year long relationship i had to endure emotional neglect, gaslighting, verbal abuse, one instance where there was dubious consent, and much more.

Starting off at the beginning of our relationship, that’s when i was getting copious amounts of hate and harassment from his fan base (warranted or not), he decided that our relationship must be kept private. he said it was to “protect” me from his fanbase when in reality it was to protect himself. it was so he wouldn’t get all the backlash i was getting. this is funny because one of the things i got called out for was saying the B slur (derogatory term used against mexicans/latinos). I won’t get into the nuances of if i could say it or not as a puertorican because that’s discourse that does not pertain to this specific situation. But you know who definitely can’t say it? A white boy from Massachusetts. When i was getting cancelled for this and getting thousands of tweets calling me names, he decided that was the perfect time to say “I mean you are a b***** aren’t you? my little b*****.” Now, he said this completely unprompted. I was in the process of writing my apology and he just said that. I tell you this because i immediately shut him down and told him that there was no universe in which it was okay for him to say that word and especially not one where he could just call me that. While i was reprimanding him, he was smiling and laughing. he apparently found it amusing to call me a slur. regardless, he gave me a half-assed apology and said he wouldn’t do it again. and he didn’t. but this wasn’t the only time he was weirdly racist to me. this was my first time being in an interracial relationship so i was led to believe that this was normal by all the white people around me at the time. But, sometimes my spanish accent would come out and he would make fun of me and the way i pronounced some words. He also refused to visit me in Puerto Rico when i lived there or come meet my family when i really wanted him to because he “didn’t like the heat” or “it’s dangerous there isn’t it?”. Once, while we were watching season 2 of Bridgerton, he implied that the Sharma sisters were “too dark” for him to be attracted to them. This hurt me because they are brown skinned girls. I am a brown skinned girl. Then this, combined with the fact that he told me once he wasn’t attracted to me made me feel like my skin color was unattractive. These are only a few examples i can think of at the moment, but i’m sure there were more. Our relationship ended in 2022 so some of my memory is a bit hazy. But, I do remember feeling inferior to him throughout the relationship because he was white and I was not. I chalk that up to all the micro aggressions i had to deal with because i had never felt that way around white people before.

Another thing i had to endure was him constantly making me feel like he was embarrassed to be with me. Because i was cancelled, he didn’t want to associate with me too much. He did defend me on multiple occasions, I’ll give him that. But, he only did it because his name was getting dragged in the mud along with mine. Excusing my actions made him look better for being around me. In reality he didn’t really care. Because he was such a big content creator and someone i looked up to professionally, I took his advice as law. He told me to tone down my personality, to keep a low profile, to change things about myself to be more palatable to his audience. The same audience that spoke about me like “The pussy can’t be that good punz please stop defending her”. So i changed a lot of things about myself and my content to better suit what his audience liked. He made me feel like if his audience liked me, he would be public about our relationship and stop hiding it. He told me the reason why he wanted to keep our relationship a secret was because he didn’t want to get hate for it. But this wasn’t true. On my 20th birthday he went to Las Vegas for a twitch rivals event. That night i asked to facetime him to say goodnight and he refused because he was at a hotel room with his friends and he didn’t want them to know that we were together. It was as if my mere presence or the utterance of my name was a source of embarrassment for him. And he didn’t let me forget it. It wasn’t just a public thing at that point. He didn’t want people to know we were together, period. This was devastating to me because I would talk to all my friends about him. I was so proud to be with him and I was just one more problem to him. He made me feel so small and insignificant just because his fans didn’t like me.

He would berate me a lot. Not just due to getting heat online, although he did do that a lot. But in general whenever we would get into an argument or a disagreement he would always call me names like annoying or weird or stupid. He would raise his voice at me if i did something he didn’t like and call me an idiot. And that really hurt, i felt like i couldn’t bring up anything or do anything without getting insulted. If I hadn’t seen him in a few days because he was too busy streaming and i asked to hang out he would call me needy, clingy, and annoying. Granted, he might not have been wrong, but that is not something you say to someone you claim to love. He also insulted me when i was in depressive episodes. I have BPD and at the time i was not being treated properly for it. So, I was all over the place emotionally and he was what i clung to for validation, reassurance, and love. I talked to him when we first started dating about my disorder and told him that if it seemed like something he couldn’t handle that he could opt out of the relationship. I guess he didn’t think it was that bad or something idk because whenever i had really bad depressive episodes, he would tell me I was too sad to hang out with. He said that my sadness was a burden to him. Which would be fair. But, once my mother had a conversation with him about me. She told him that i am someone who needs a lot of love and caring. She said that if he wasn’t willing to put in that kind of effort into a relationship to just leave me alone. He reassured her that he would be there for me no matter what. He told my mother that he would protect me and my heart. He did not. He took all the warnings I gave him and ignored them and then made me feel like I was the problem. And even worse, he would say that i was pretending to be sad to get his attention when he would neglect for days at a time.

There were also some smaller things like the fact that he made me feel really guilty whenever he would spend money on me. Also, he would be really mean about my eating habits. For context, i used to suffer from an eating disorder. I was anorexic and had a really unhealthy relationship with food during high school and my first year of uni. This relationship began when i was recovering from my ED. For me, eating was really hard. So i had certain comfort foods that, while sometimes unhealthy, at least it was something to eat when i didn’t feel like eating anything. He knew this. Yet, whenever i would crave some of these foods he would call me fat. Constantly told me I’d gain weight from eating all that junk food. Saying that to someone with an eating disorder is crazy. Other smaller things were that whenever I would post tiktoks where i was lip syncing or just looking good he would yell at me and say i was looking for attention. Same with Instagram or Twitter whenever i would post photos where I looked hot. He never planned out a single date for us. I would beg him to get me flowers and he did maybe once but i’ll get into that in a bit. He would make fun of me in front of his friends to make himself look better. He let his friends say really degrading things about me in his presence. For example, once when i was showering, i overheard him on a discord call with George and Sapnap and i heard George say “if you don’t go in the shower and have sex with Andi, i will”. Once, when i was really struggling with my legs (for those of you who don’t know, i have arthritis and it’s very painful. at the time i wasn’t diagnosed but i was in a lot of pain) I literally could not walk. I had to beg him to take me to the ER because i didn’t know what was wrong with me. He didn’t want to take me but eventually i convinced him, and while we were there all he did was complain about how long it was taking and that he would have rather been at home streaming. Whenever I would talk about my interests that i was excited about like shows or books he would be incredibly uninterested and say that those things were stupid and he didn’t want to hear about them. I know all of these seem very silly or superficial but cumulatively it was awful.

Now for arguably the most serious thing i’m going to talk about. I want to preface this by saying i am just telling my side of what happened. You can come to your own conclusions about this.

On April 25, 2022 it was our one year anniversary, and i had made a dinner reservation for us. I expected him to plan something throughout the day for us to do. He told me he was going to spend the whole day playing Valorant so I got upset and cancelled the reservation. After a very heated argument, we calmed down and i asked him to come over. He came over about an hour later with flowers and drinks (I was 20 at the time so I couldn’t buy the drinks myself). He brought Smirnoffs and Trulys. For context, I am a lightweight. I always have been. I literally get tipsy on half a cocktail. And that day, I hadn’t eaten anything because i was in distress over our argument. So we get to talking and drinking. I blacked out after my second Smirnoff. Apparently I drank 3 but I genuinely cannot remember anything after finishing the second one. The next morning i woke up naked in my bed. I woke him up and asked him “Luke, why am I naked?” and he said “Because you didn’t want to put your clothes back on.” When I clarified to him that that was not what I meant, he got defensive and said that he didn’t realize how drunk I was. He proceeded to tell me that I initiated sex with him and that i was very enthusiastic about it. He said he didn’t know i could black out on three smirnoffs. He made fun of me for being a lightweight and continued to make light of the situation. Then he mentioned that i fell off the bed at some point in the night and that it was funny how drunk I was. I then questioned him. Because if he thought that me tripping and falling off the bed because i was so drunk was funny, how did he not know that i was too drunk? He responded by saying that i fell off the bed only after we were done. That day I broke up with him. I’m still really confused about what happened that night. I don’t remember anything and all I have to go on is what he said to me. We were in a relationship at the time and he says he didn’t know how drunk I was so I’m not sure what to call what happened. A while after that day, his friend that hmu while we were broken up and I started talking again and i confided in him about that night. He told me to be careful saying things like that because they could get me into trouble. I spoke to some of our other friends about it and they told me it was no big deal and that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know how drunk I really was. Because I don’t remember, I have been led to believe that this is not a serious matter. You can think what you want, come to whatever conclusions you want. That is just my side of the story.

I want to add that I’m not proud of how I acted after the relationship ended. I felt really angry at all the shit he put me through and I guess a part of me wanted him to hurt even a quarter of how I did. So I started talking to his friend and got involved with him. This backfired on me because his friend ended up really hurting me too so ig i got my karma. But the thing that hurt the most is that because of what I did, some of our friends took his side in the break up. I was told that I did something terrible by getting involved with his friend that he was already insecure about and that he didn’t deserve that. These are the same friends who were witness to the dumpster fire of a relationship we had and all the things he did to me. They turned their backs on me because of this one thing I did. But stood by and watched as he treated me like garbage for over a year.

I will conclude this by saying that while this relationship has been “over and done with” for almost two years now, I carry a lot of trauma from it still. I still talk about him in therapy and have had to put in a lot of work to heal from what he did and i still cannot say that i am okay. I am very blessed to now have a patient and understanding partner who has helped me heal from that trauma and i just want to quickly thank him for that. Nobody deserves to go through what I did. While yes, it was a toxic relationship, and I had a part in that, it does not excuse all the awful things he said and did to me. This is my truth, thank you for taking the time to read it.

[wonderjanga]

What if... (and I'm going with the Ra's Al Ghul that is an eco-terrorist who is immortal because he doesn't trust humans not to fuck up, not the racist 'Ra's Al Ghul is evil and obsessed with the white good pure men because he's evil and Arabic and afraid of death because evil people are like that' that some DC writers sadly use)

Ra's knew a previous Champion, they were very good friends, but in Ra's natural lifetime that Champion died. And a new Champion came very fast, fast enough for Ra's to get to know them (and they remembered Ra's through the previous Champion's memories) and they became friends again and one of the reasons he became immortal is because his dumb friend will die and be 'reborn' again and he can't leave them alone, what if they get lonely?

When Teth-Adam goes crazy he doesn't get to see his friend for a long time which sucks, but then hes back! And he's very pure and kind and somehow also incredibly unhinged? But he remembers Ra's and hugs him and is like 'hi friend! :D' so Ra's has his friend back and they hang out (it confuses Talia sometimes, but whatever, it makes her father happy)

They just cause trouble and confuse others and they're just happy and they love eachother (platonically) (aroace Marvel) (also aroace Ra's?) (the silliest of qprs; and old man and the emotional support teenager who is simultaneously much younger but also so very much older and wiser than the old man)

It really confuses and worries other heroes. "What if he manipulates Marvel into killing someone!?" Marvel with his government issued license to kill: "..."

Marvel and Ra’s: *sipping tea together in Fawcett*

Marvel: “It’s so nice to see you again Ra’s!”

Ra’s: “I agree, Thavma.” *sips his tea*

Marvel: “So what have you been up to? Fighting with Mr Batman Sir still?”

Ra’s: “Of course. Though, recently I run into the fellow with the bow.”

Marvel: “The bow…?”

Ra’s: “The one in green with the bow? I don’t know his name.”

Marvel: “Ooooh Green Arrow.” *sips tea.* “Wait, why—”

Black Adam: *smashes into the room* “CHAMPION! SHOW YOURSE— Ra’s?”

*silence*

Ra’s: *looking between the two of them in confusion* “I’m sorry, are there two champions now?”

Marvel: “No? Yes? Sort of. Adam’s kind of a champion? He was one, and is technically still one because he’s powered by the Egyptian gods.”

Ra’s: “Huh.”

Later…

Marvel and Ra’s: *chatting*

Black Adam: *sipping tea, glaring at Billy*

Marvel: *glaring back*

Talia: *was only gone for thirty minutes, confused as to who the new addition is*

Billy and Adam struck up a truce that made it so that whenever they hang out with Ra’s, they won’t fight each other.

[fairuzfan]

This post is for the anon who sent me that video asking me to debunk it's claims so they can be better equipped against accusations of antisemitism.

Sorry, I won't post the video since I refuse to have that man on my blog but I can give you common Zionist talking points and the illogicality behind it.

To preface: most of the questions Zionists will ask you are a trap, and will make you fall into a "rabbit hole" (as I was once told when I was younger), as we try to apply their reasoning. My advice is to ALWAYS center the humanity of Palestinians. For example, when a Zionist says:

"Don't Jews deserve a homeland to be safe?"

It fundamentally ignores the core issue: Palestinians are being raped, murdered, and expelled from their homes so that the establishment of this so called "homeland" may exist. When people ask this to you, I personally advise saying something like:

Why must Palestinians suffer for the establishment of this homeland?

Always recenter to the issue at hand—the inhumane removal and treatment of Palestinians.

"Palestine belongs to the Jews and Not Muslims"

The whole premise of this claim is flawed—there is a weird tendency to equate Arab/Palestinian=Muslim when it just is like. Completely untrue. There are Palestinian Christians, Bethlehem is famously a Christian city, who have been there for centuries. There are Palestinian Jews, who have been there for centuries. There are Palestinian Muslims, who have been there for centuries. My grandpa told me stories of how he would turn on lamps for his Jewish neighbors in Al-Khalil (or Hebron) during Shabbat.

To claim that Palestine is EITHER Islamic or Jewish doesn't make any sense and completely neglects the fact that dissemination of culture has occurred for centuries, as well as the intermingling of people throughout generations. To somehow assert that for some reason, Jews and Muslims did not have ANYTHING to do with each other—did not create together, did not build families together, did not build culture together, all while being PALESTINIAN—is incredibly racist and nonsensical. "Palestinian" is not a religious identity—it's a cultural and ethnic one.

Also, it does not negate the core issue—Palestinians are being killed, removed, and tortured so that others can live on that land.

"Well what about [something about partitioning land]?"

Honestly like, who cares about the partitioning throughout the 1900 and early 2000s. Sorry, I'm not going to list the whole "partitioning" history nonsense. The whole reason "Israel" exists is because of a Mass Exodus, murder, and rape of Palestinians. Everything after that is rendered obsolete.

"Well, I heard Palestinians allied with Hitler"

I don't know how to tell you this but Palestine was under British Control. No they didn't.

"Israel withdrew from the Gaza and left them to themselves and they put Hammas in charge"

Oh yeah, Israel totally left Gaza, that's why Gazans' water, electricity, internet, and food is completely controlled by Israel (this is sarcasm, Israel still controls basic life in Gaza).

Go back to centering the idea that no human deserves to be shoved into an open-air prison, starved, and controlled. Did you know that the Zionist Entity controls the amount of water Gazans receive, as well as counting their calories to ensure they don't have enough energy on a day to day basis?

"I heard Israel asked Arabs to stay"

Show them these papers and videos when they say this:

If you can't show them these videos, check in the next point what to say.

"Well the Palestinians left of their own will in 1948"

Palestinians in 1948 didn't "leave." They had heard of how the Zionist Entity was slaughtering Palestinians en masse. Women especially heard stories of rape and sexual violence. They fled from *violence*. Again, from an earlier post, that this was a calculated effort on the Zionist Entity's part to try and get them to "leave" on their own and "abandon" their houses so that they can come in and say "hey, they left on their own so, we can come in and take their houses now."

Anyways, the idea that once you leave your house you can't ever come back to it is incredibly odd to me as an argument on Zionists' part. Like if you leave your house right now to go to the grocery store and you come back and see someone in your house and they're like "sorry dude, this is my house now, you left so that means you can't come back," you'd be like, "what the hell!" It would be even weirder if everyone agreed with the guy who took your house, which is what happened to Palestinians.

In Al-Khalil, or Hebron, Palestinians always have to have someone stay in their house or else a Settler will come in and take it from them. So it still goes on today as well.

This is not a point, but when that one person in the video said "Arabs lived under Israeli rule" and showed a clip of a bustling city with mountains, I'm pretty sure that was Amman, Jordan, not Palestine lol. Those buildings in the mountains look like how downtown Amman builds the residential areas. Could be wrong tho.

"There are no Jews living under Palestinian rule in Palestine"

What is this, some sort of gotcha argument? What are they trying to prove, the racist (obviously false) notion that Palestinians hate Jews as a whole? How do they know no Palestinian Jew lives in Gaza? Also, Settlers in Palestinian Territory exist??? I had never heard this claim before, its incredibly stupid lol. You're automatically a citizen of "Israel" if you're Jewish, whether or not you live in or outside of Palestinian Territories. So of course technically they don't live under Palestinian rule, they're granted full rights as an "Israeli" citizen automatically!

Go back to talking about the inhumane treatment of Palestinians, I wouldn't bring up the above counterpoint unless they really won't let it go since the main point is mistreatment.

"Why are Christians supporting Israel then, if it's a secular issue rather than a religious one?"

Well actually for a couple reasons:

Oil interests and regional control of goods (White People Supporting White People).

Weird fundamentalist ideology where they want to enact the second coming of Christ.

And finally because they are racist and don't think Arab Christians deserve to live. They literally bombed a 1500+ year church the other day. Why would (White) Christians cosign that.

Anyways, its a stupid argument again, because it forgets the core issue of Palestinians dying and being displaced.

In summary, always go back to the point of centering the Palestinians being displaced, tortured, and murdered, no matter the argument a Zionist gives you.

[mandatory-blog-stop-asking]

I like how Star Trek DS9 got to tell a story of a compelling and complex villain like Dukat, an incredibly nuanced and flawed and interesting character that had you hating him at times and sympathizing with him from how much he loses and suffers at others, but parallel to all of that it also looked at the audience in the eye and went "and he was so racist, the devils from the people he hates took notice and offered him a job."

that's one of the wildest turns for any villain I've ever seen and I really appreciate how excited the show was to drown Dukat under an ocean of his own flaws and all the consequences of his actions, even after they flirted with making him sympathetic before. It would have been so easy to just make him the best of evils, the devil you know, and be against the pah-wraiths' plans since they'd also destroy Cardassia. But nah. Burn in space hell, space Nazi dipshit.

[rcehb-art]

“Change”

I am so much more than what you made me. — Astarion

Long post in coming…

Initially started this with the feeling of spite because some fools on Twitter said he can’t be romantic and proceeded to dog pile on someone’s harmless headcanon of Astarion giving Tav a bouquet, saying that it’s better suited for Wyll.

But along the way, I started processing my own feelings and why I fell for Astarion in the first place. He was relatable for me as a survivor and as such, it’s incredibly limiting to be labeled as “you can’t be this or that”. We are capable of being romantic. We can also be mean and sarcastic and sassy. But we are all also capable of growth and change.

And Wyll is a fantastic character. If Astarion gives you a bouquet, Wyll Ravengard will take you to a field of flowers on top of a hill while serenading you. There’s no need to pit them against each other by shoving one trait to another. It’s not an erasure of Wyll’s charms and personality and neither is it racist (bc they’re accusing others of putting a black guy’s trait to a white guy like,,, that’s too much of a reach but ok)

And the real Wyll Ravengard wouldn’t even hesitate to help Astarion buy a bouquet for Tav. He’d be so excited and he’d give tips and tricks to Astarion about setting up romantic dates. He’s just that much of a nice guy and I’d love to see more of their friendship.

[mythalism]

blah blah thinking about the popular rebuttal to complaints about veilguard's politics being "bioware was never leftist so you shouldnt have expected veilguard to be" which is... interesting.

true, of course. the expectation part i disagree with but thats not what ive been thinking about. im thinking about what made it feel so different to the very similar centrism of da:i. and maybe someone who didnt black out the entirety of veilguard as a cognitive protective mechanism can speak to the specifics but i think ive settled on it being that da:i is undoubtedly neoliberal and centrist just like da:o and da2 before it but despite their clear framing and limitations there was always the encouragement to think and the freedom to do things that the game might condemn narratively as "too radical" but you could at least do them. or say them.

this erodes by the time you get to da:i but in veilguard its absent completely. like making leliana divine or putting briala on the throne, for example. the game presents these options in a very neoliberal and centrist way. the un-softened leliana divine epilogue slide features much of the "radical violence bad!!!!! bad choice!!!!" connotation that all of veilguard has. but you can still do it. briala has incredibly limited power as gaspard's puppetmaster and her epilogue slide similarly slaps the player on the wrist for behaving so radically by putting *gasp* an elf in power resulting in Bad Disruptive Uprisings throughout orlais. but you can do it. hawke can spare anders and let him go. again, the game slaps you on the wrist via character disapproval and the fact he becomes a wandering hermit or whatever the fuck but. you can still let him go. in origins you can make shianni bann and the consequences are disgusting and horrible and writing it that way is literally sickening, but the game lets you do it. origins lets you do a lot of buck wild shit, some decisions less real-world politically coded than others, but you get to DO IT. even if the game and its writers scold you afterwords for getting too disruptive. YOU CAN STILL DO IT.

and this goes the other way too. there is a reason people like greg ellis had a home with dragon age for so many years and his beliefs were able to go under the radar for so long. there is a reason transphobic gamerbros love origins. there is a reason there was backlash to da2's rampant bisexuality. because dragon age let you be leftist about as much as it let you be a racist misogynistic asshole. you can do horrible things in these games. you can quite literally sell people into slavery. templar aligned hawke lets the kirkwall circle get annulled and becomes viscount as a reward for their loyalty. the inquisitor can just execute literally everyone they judge. now, i'll be the first to say that a lot of those options are not nearly narratively condemned enough. bioware has fumbled many a topic in their misunderstood pursuit of "grey morality" that leads them to feel the need to morally equalize situations of clear, unambiguous injustice (cough mage templar war cough). in fact, decisions like sparing anders are often far more clearly narratively punished than things like giving fenris back to danarius, (which kind of just blows over after some approval loss???) and in my opinion that is a writing flaw. i do think RPG games should have choice, and allow players to be evil, but i also think that writers have a responsibility for the message their writing sends to the world. some decisions in dragon age are well-handled. many others recreate and reflect real life racism or misogyny or islamophobia, and reveal the writer's bias against real-life groups of people or political movements. this is the risk of writing stories like these.

but veilguard does not let you do anything. in either direction. ive been calling it a "thought-terminating fantasy cliche" because... it really is thought-terminating. you are not supposed to think about alternatives that may be too radical in the writer's eyes (what if i let anders go instead of face the justice [haha] the game clearly thinks he deserves? what if i install an elvhen puppetmaster on the orlesian throne despite all of my advisors recommendations? what if i support the murder-pope in reforming the chantry through violence and bloodshed?). veilguard has..... what if i save this city over that one? the only one i can think of is saving isseya. are there any others? genuine question. theres nothing to decide and therefore there is nothing to think about. you dont get to think of possibilities past the narrow centrist path presented to you. you dont get to think about an end for solas that doesnt end in jail. you dont get to think about who becomes tevinter's archon and what policies you might like to see them have. you dont make choices between major factions based on ideological and/or practical differences like recruiting mages vs templars. you barely even get to decide anything for the characters, half of the choices are purely cosmetic.

like i feel like theres something to be said for having the choice even if the overall narrative still condemns it. the writer's bias leaks in to the world's reactions to your decisions but you are still allowed to make them. i always intentionally leave leliana hardened because i think radical insane murder-pope who diversifies the church through ASSASSINATION is based. i dont give a fuck if david g/aider thinks its too crazy and tells me so in a thinly veiled epilogue slide reprimand about "the consequences of my actions". idgaf! 1. its a video game and 2. idc what he thinks.

and yes, nothing ever actually changes. dragon age has never allowed you to make radical change within its world even with the decisions that brush up on the possibility. but you can still be someone who believes in the possibility. you can play a mahariel who hates humans and poisons the ashes of their prophet because why should they care when they stole everything from the elves first? you can play a blood-mage circle-abolitionist anders-apologist hawke doing their best to survive in a city where survival and self-preservation sometimes forces them to act against their values. you can play a lavellan inquisitor who refuses to believe in andraste or the maker, advocates for elvhen liberation, and installs an elf on the orlesian thrown despite being forced into the role of figurehead for a religious empire. sure, you cant really actually do anything for the elves, but you can be someone who believes that change should happen. its not perfect. its certainly not some radical revolutionary fantasy nor does literally anyone expect it to be and when people say that its always in bad faith.

bioware has always been canadian liberal centrists and so have their games. but they used to let you get a little fun and crazy and then just reprimand you via epilogue slides or retcons in later games that we all just got to complain about online. but veilguard forces you to roleplay someone else's ideology; a boring centrist status quo loving fantasy with no opportunity to do something different. elven rooks cannot question dorian on tevinter slavery like elven inquisitors could. rook cannot ask lucanis about the child recruitment practices of the crows the way the warden could to zevran. rook cannot ask davrin about the warden's pressure into conscription, joinging and eventual calling the way the warden could alistair or hawke can to anders in legacy. you cannot ask about alternatives or question a single authority or character of any kind. you cannot voice dissent. the dialogue option does not exist. what was once a slap on the wrist in previous titles has become reactionary and preemptive. you wont get slapped on the wrist in the first place because you're stuck in a boring, empty room for after-school detention, railroaded into "good" behavior and confined to one path so you cant get into any trouble on your own. thought-terminating fantasy cliche. it didnt need to be some insane groundbreaking revolutionary work of marxism or whatever the fuck hyperbolic nonsense people are trying to straw-man the criticism into to disprove it as unreasonable. it needed to not advertise itself as an RPG and then force me to roleplay white canadian millenial neoliberal afraid of getting canceled on twitter simulator 4.0 because if i knew thats what i was signing up for i would have respectfully declined and saved my $70 on something that doesnt condescend to me for enjoying bald war criminals and stories about revolution

[starlit1daydream]

several consecutive rent-lowering gunshots since we are in a dire dire fucking state right now

Damara Megido did nothing wrong, and is a direct victim of a misogynistic cowardly cheater and an abuser who manipulated her position of privilege to make Damara's life hell for no coherent reason; everything she did was justified and directed solely at the architects of her own mental ruination.

Rufioh Nitram is a misogynistic cowardly cheater and a spineless bastard whose problems are consistently all his fucking fault. He repeatedly slings shit in the direction of the girlfriend whose life he ruined, and then proceeds to try and prey upon her younger descendant because he objectifies her in his mind.

Mituna Captor is a grown-ass adult man, he is fully capable of giving consent and very proudly has sex, very often and is in a genuinely happy and supportive relationship. He is not a child, his disability does not make him a child, and Cronus is textually his sexual and emotional abuser.

Kankri Vantas is a pathetic, ideologically incomprehensible bootlicker with no genuine principles beyond fellating the upper caste and supporting his own inflated ego; he is also a textual misogynist and Latula's stalker, and explicitly ableist when he tag teams with Cronus to bully Mituna.

Meulin Leijon is not upset about her deafness. To take a character with genuine pride in her disability and a love for her way of interacting with the world and turn it into a tragedy is outright ableism. She is also textually being emotionally manipulated by Kurloz.

Porrim Maryam is more than her sex life, she outright says that she is more than her sex life and boiling her whole characterisation down to her being a slut is literally just misogyny and goes against everything she stands for. She is 19, she is not your hentai MILF, for fuck's sake.

Latula Pyrope is not a gnarly coolkid and you have fallen for her facade if you think so. She is textually struggling with a lot of self-worth issues, mental health problems she can't confront and puts on a mask purely to cover up these things. She is more than the stereotype she claims to be. Fucking Knight of Mind, people!

Aranea Serket did not turn into a conniving villainess overnight, her desperate quest for relevance was the result of milennia of being ignored and overlooked by the people she was meant to call her friends, compounded with sweeps of isolation pushing her to a mental nadir.

Horuss Zahhak is textually, actually, genuinely real-world racist and belittles Damara to her face by calling her Japanese a pathetic peasant tongue and barely even humanises her in their interactions. He is also deliberately ignoring Rufioh's pleas to end their relationship - he is no saint in this arrangement.

Kurloz Makara is not your soft boy for your wholesome yaois and his relationships with everyone have an inherent power imbalance. Kurloz is a noted manipulator, and is literally attempting to bring about the fucking apocalypse by conspiring with the main antagonist. He is not a good partner.

Cronus Ampora is a horrible, horrible man who is written on purpose to be a horrible man and has no redeeming qualities by intention of the text. To have this misogynistic, abusive, eugenicist pedophile even glance in the direction of redemption is to defy the character his purpose.

Meenah Peixes is not hypermasculine, and she is not butch. Meenah is incredibly girly, and proud of it, and the masculinisation of her character by the fanbase is a direct byproduct of the racism they display when confronted with a black-coded character who displays even the slightest hint of aggression. Let her be her hyperfeminine self.

[grandwitchbird]

Dragon Age has been doing a really clever thing with its protagonists and the heroic power fantasy that only fully comes together when you look at the series as a whole, so let’s do another ramble. Under a cut to save your dash.

Origins is a traditional RPG power fantasy. It likes to tell you that it’s not by gesturing at Loghain and alluding to unreliable narratives, but what it shows is the power fantasy. No matter what your warden does, they’re the hero. Are you a casual genocide enthusiast? No problem you can still ride off into the sunset looking for a cure. Also hey you have a critical weakness/flaw (the calling) that kind of dooms you or gives you cause to vaguely ride of into the sunset. Very heroic indeed. There’s a layer of textual interest added by the presence of unreliable narratives, but ultimately it’s the hero’s choices that shape and determine the world and story, right down to very gamified relationships. The origins system itself, the fact that your warden could have been anyone, is the actual textual proof that this isn’t all that’s going on. It just only really gets paid off by later games, and that’s pretty important given where this franchise ended up.

—

Enter DA2. Hawke is a champion, not a hero. Hawke fights for those who can’t fight themselves. Hawke can’t save the world. They can’t even save their family or city. It’s a battle of attrition that sees them somehow worse off no matter what. The still-gamified but now more nuanced and challenging relationships become the focus because they’re really all Hawke has. Now the power fantasy is still lurking around the edges. It’s just challenged at every turn. You can free Kirkwall, but Anders is always going to blow up a church.

—

Which brings us to Inquisition. Somehow, you’re both as much of a nobody as Hawke and you’re responsible for more than the Warden. And it’s miserable. The power fantasy is constantly undermined. No matter who your inquisitor was, by the end of the game they’ve been completely subsumed by their role: turns out power has teeth.

In a move that delivers on the unreliable narrative throughline that Origins established and DA2 strengthened, the Inquisitor must play the hero and save the world. It doesn’t matter if your Inquisitor is a kind person doing their best or a racist power-hungry asshole, and that is now a systemic issue within the world itself. The erosion of your character’s personhood is explicit within the text as characters struggle to see you as more than your role and you’re asked to shape the faith of an entire world even if you don’t share that faith. The cost of this erosion is made incredibly literal with Ameridan’s story and then in Trespasser, where the anchor, both cause and symbol of the Inquisitor’s role and power, is killing them. Relationships become somewhat less gamified but more importantly, you’re given an explicit textual mirror in Solas. He’s there to reflect your behavior but also your loss of personhood to a role. It’s essential that he’s the one to save your life at the end of Trespasser. Even if you’ve never shown him a moment’s grace, here is your mirror to see you as a person one last time.

—

And then there’s Rook. Now we play a mirror to Solas, a character who has been the hero, Mythal’s champion, and a man subsumed by his role/s. He’s really the narrative gift that keeps giving.

We walk the dreadwolf’s path this time, and the dreadwolf is a classic tragic hero. He’s stuck in a story where he must save the world and where a critical flaw will always be his downfall. We’re Varric’s second who must step up to champion his cause after the events of the introduction. And we’re barely keeping ourselves together under the burden of leadership. And here is where Veilguard finally delivers everything this franchise ever promised. Because under all that we’re truly just some guy. Just like Solas is just a guy who got stuck in situations he never wanted. His response was to become the hero or play the villain (depending on the story) because that’s easier. But if Rook can truly choose the ���hard truth’ that the world is never going to “stay fixed” (oh hi Inquisitor… and Hawke… and Warden) and that other people can have better ideas and make hard calls and their own choices? If we don’t have to ‘win’? Rook can reconcile the inevitable tragedies of this kind of story with their very human needs and escape the story altogether. The cost, of course, is the power fantasy.

[c-rowlesdraws]

okay, one more politics post for the night:

tonight, Trump is doing a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. I'm watching clips of it thanks to this brave man on twitter posting through it; I call this man brave because for me, watching a Trump rally live and unfiltered feels like looking directly at a solar eclipse, if a solar eclipse was also kind of like a racist, demented relative making a toast at Thanksgiving. And there's Some Stuff coming out of Trump's face tonight. He's talking about deporting "gang members" (read: latinos) by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the same Act that Roosevelt invoked to force Japanese-Americans and others into internment camps during WWII. He's saying that "[America] couldn't have an act like that now, because now everything's woke". He goes on to call out "woke generals" Mark Milley, a Catholic, highly-decorated army general and Trump's former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and General Jim "Mad Dog" or "Chaos" Mattis, a career Marine and Trump's former Secretary of Defense. He also added a fun local detour to his stump speech sure to make the fine folks of Latrobe smile: an anecdote about Arnold Palmer impressing all the other golf pros in the showers with his incredible, absolutely enormous penis. Trump wants this audience to know Arnold Palmer's thang was Swangin'. "This is a guy that was all man."

and I had to pause while writing this post and come back, so he probably said a bunch more wild stuff after that that I don't even know about yet!

The point is. My point is. This guy cannot be allowed to be president again. Ideally, he can eventually be pushed as far away from any sort of power as possible; but first, we have to vote to stop him from becoming the president again. And by "we", I don't just mean registered Democrats (hello)-- I mean everyone, of any political persuasion, who is eligible to vote. The folks in Trump's audience tonight applauding as he praises Arnold Palmer's huge hog on live television are beyond help, so it's up to the rest of us.

[sunshine-tattoo]

some stuff about Alastor:

he was in his early 30s when he died in 1933

putting his birth year around 1900 or so

because of his age, there's a very good chance he fought in the WW1 trenches

hes black but had a mixed background and could potentially pass in white social circles

which was very useful since Louisiana is incredibly racist and segregation was very powerful then

he grew up speaking a mixture of English and French in New Orleans

gave himself a trans Atlantic accent at some point so he would be taken seriously

he had a very popular radio show host in New Orleans from the mid 20s to early 30s

also he was a serial killer

we don't know who he targeted as his victims (or why) but he did often eat them

my guess is rich white men who were paying slave wages during the Depression but that's just a theory

he was killed accidentally by a hunter who saw him in the swamp and thought he was a deer

which is why he has deer attributes in Hell

thought that the stock market crash in 1929 was really funny

probably because a lot of stupid rich white men lost everything

loves to cook and learned how from his mother

aro ace

Rosie the Cannibal Overlord is his very best friend

was a voodoo king when he was alive and brought those same skills and powers to Hell when he died

he is one of Viv's oldest characters, having first conceived of him during her high school days in the early 2010s

a lot of his aesthetic is based on Doctor Facilier from The Princess and the Frog

which is kinda funny that his voice actor (Keith David) now plays Husk on the show

[wisteria-lodge]

(new anon). It's too bad JKR has such dislike for Malfoy and his fans. I was raised by racist parents and really identify with him and his struggle because of that. It took going away to college for me to fully snap out of the brainwashing. Sirius seems to be the only character raised with that kind of ideology who never gets sucked into it. And I guess maybe that's possible for some people but it's hardly realistic for everyone. Especially since he wouldn't have been exposed to opposing views until going away to school but he seems to already just despise his family and their ideology when it's all he's ever known.

JKR seems to be under the impression that people who like Draco only like him because they're into the fantasy of "fixing" him, and I don't think that's fair. Realizing that you don't 100% agree with your parents - and especially realizing that you don't agree with your parents' politics - that's just an incredibly relatable coming-of-age experience.

I do think that we're supposed to interpret Sirius as "correct" for being eleven and already questioning his family:

“Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?” James asked the boy lounging on the seats opposite him, and with a jolt, Harry realized that it was Sirius. Sirius did not smile. “My whole family have been in Slytherin,” he said. “Blimey,” said James, “and I thought you seemed all right!” Sirius grinned. “Maybe I’ll break the tradition. Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?”

But I think this just adds to the impression that Sirius has a spectacularly bad home life, same as Harry (who also shows up to Hogwarts at eleven thinking that the Dursleys are wrong about everything.) There are also parallels to to the way Lily sort of pulls Severus in the direction of Gryffindor ("sometimes I think we sort too soon") and the way James is pulling Sirius towards Gryffindor here.

But unlike Severus and Sirius, Draco... does not have a bad home life. It's a plot point in Book 6 that his family is really tight knit. Which of course just makes questioning his parents messier, harder, and realer.

Whenever I write fic (or read fic) about Harry and Sirius, I like it when they still have a little leftover gunk from their upbringings that they need to examine and unpack. It doesn't work like an on/off light switch: you realize that your parents are wrong and then magically throw off all the thought patterns and norms they taught you. Like for Sirius - of course he doesn't believe in all those pureblood, blood supremacy talking points. But I bet he still kinda thinks rules are for other people, and that it's sort of his job to protect disenfranchised people like Remus (who are inherently less capable than him...) That's when something like the Prank actually starts to make sense.

[djarinsyndulla]

hate it when people point out the general bigotry throughout andor, but certain people still feel the need to defend it and say "oh well the writing is still good and all." actually, it's not. racism, antiblackness, and misogyny among other things are all indicators of bad writing. the entire show is based around the idea of rebellion and fighting back against your oppressors but how do you execute that if your entire political themed drama is riddled with racism and misogyny while all the white (especially male) characters get put on a pedestal and made the true heroes? the racism is bad writing. cinta barely speaking, only existing for vel's angst and to later be killed off for more of vel's angst is bad writing. every black character (who wasn't in rogue one) dying without a second glance or thought while the deaths of white characters actually having impact is also bad writing. having a woman break up with her boyfriend so he will be motivated to join the rebellion while she just goes back to a planet she got sexually assaulted on to have her boyfriend's baby so his legacy can live on, IS BAD WRITING.

people listened to those lengthy ass monologues and overly done dialogue (which were just mediocre essays written by gilroy) and immediately hailed it as incredible writing because good actors were reciting them. it doesn't even bring any new ideas to star wars. everything preached to us in this show has been SHOWN to us in all the other projects.

don't get me wrong, the other projects have had problematic moments too, but like i mentioned before andor's entire premise is based on taking a deep dive into the oppressed fighting back, and because the show is full of these racist and misogynist moments, it ultimately fails to execute what it was trying to do.

[fantastic-nonsense]

So what are the best Nightwing runs to read?

*sigh* this is a very loaded question.

Three things to keep in mind before we continue:

Dick's best writing historically happens in books that are not the Nightwing solo.

The tenures of Nightwing solo writers are usually pretty long, so despite Dick having a solo comic for nearly 30 continuous years, there's a limited number of writers who have actually written Nightwing.

The direction of Dick's solo book has been at times driven largely by the whims of editorial edicts rather than creative team desires, particularly the fallout from War Games and Infinite Crisis pre-reboot and Dan Didio's personal hatred of the character post-reboot. So most Nightwing runs already come with a huge asterisk beside them labelled "*Note: worse than it would have been without editorial interference."

For ease of answering the question, I'm not including Dick solo books that happened when he was Robin or Batman on this list. Since there's only 14 total Nightwing/Grayson writers to choose from (Dixon, Grayson, Jones, Wolfman, Tomasi, Higgins, Seeley and King, Seeley, Humphries, Percy, Lobdell, Jurgens, Taylor, Watters), your options are already limited. Of those:

Devin Grayson's run, Marv Wolfman's run, Tim Seeley and Tom King's Grayson run, Ben Percy's filler arc, and Scott Lobdell's Ric arc are all objectively bad, for various reasons. All have redeeming features, but I would rarely actually recommend them to anyone.

Bruce Jones' One Year later filler arc wins the prize for "had potential, ruined by the most utterly bizarre creative decisions of all time" (aka, everything about Cheyenne Freemont and Tentacle Monster!Jason).

Dan Jurgens' run is…fine. Unfortunately, because it's short and focused on cleaning up Joker War and the Ric arc, there's not a lot of redeeming plot features.

Tim Seeley's solo run and Tom Taylor's run are aggressively mid. They're both readable, and they both have some solid arcs and character development; they also have creative approaches, characterizations, and/or plotlines that are just. very bad.

tbh, my opinions on Taylor's run written prior to the sister reveal vs. post-reveal are funny because it's just a complete 180. my pre-reveal opinion was like "oh this is a fun lighthearted palette cleanser run after the nonsense of the last 5 years. I have issues with it, especially with the ableism and general treatment of Babs, but the run itself is probably needed to re-establish an actual status quo" and my opinion of the post-reveal part of the run is like "this run is dead to me."

So this ultimately leaves us with a Top 5 of Chuck Dixon (his og run, not including Nightwing: Year One, which I personally dislike), Peter Tomasi, Kyle Higgins, Sam Humphries, and Dan Watters' current run.

I'm still not sure where I'd rank these Top 5, since they all have really great elements and not great elements. Dixon's run is foundational but is more focused on worldbuilding than it is on plot progression; it's a great starting place as long as you don't expect consistent quality from all 70 issues. Tomasi's run had fantastic characterization, but his plots aren't great and are frankly racist in hindsight. I really enjoyed Higgins' run, but it was clearly held back by all of the New 52 era editorial edicts and Batfam history/relationship erasure. Humphries' run was imo great but ultimately too short to consider a 'top run.' And Watters' run has been incredible so far, but he's literally only 5 issues in and I can't guarantee he'll stick the landing or stay this good.

So. Probably Tomasi>Dixon>Higgins>Humphries, with the current run by Watters tentatively somewhere on the list as well?