#but I. Is it okay to do this to ethnic groups or isn't it?

[starboyjuno]

next batch of geese🧡 requests from @interclover and @aricatastrophe !!

I would absolutely love more requests! please don't be shy :3 also feel free to request sillies from other shows, especially ii, as ill eventually do a lineup for them as well! again, headcannons below [absolute yapfest & some character analysis] , and thank you for 300+ on my last two groups!

more: pencil/pen/marker , tree/leafy/grassy

notes:

- sb and icy are cousins! their parents are brothers. they're also icelandic so the naming conventions are super interesting! if ur icelandic feel free to tell me a bunch of stuff about ur culture cuz it's awesome but! from what I researched, names need to be approved by a government agency and surnames are patronymic essentially, whatever your father's first name is, you take that and then add '-sson' for male children and '-dottír' for female children :) awesome to me i love research!!!!

- sb and icy's relationship is a bit rocky. they were really close as kids but I feel like they drifted apart as they grew older.. I feel like as of tpot they make friends again and start to be kind and nice

❄️ . snowball :

- i need to kill him😭😭😭

- umm i think. from my interpretation of him, sb isn't like. a blatant bigot, he's just kind of insecure and projects his insecurities on other people.. he wants to be the 'strongest ever' and anything that he deems 'weak' doesn't deserve to be around him.. I think in like. a human ver. of the show it would likely be that he was degraded for not being 'masculine enough' and fell down a bit of a pipeline unfortunately

- he's not . evil though. I think he's an ally in the sense that he don't gaf a whole lot.. he supports his friends who are queer [pen/eraser/coiny] and would dropkick anyone who disrespected them. I also don't think he's a misogynist, he just a freak and needs a lot of therapy

- so sorry but that's a cishet white man 😞

- his relationship with grassy is very sweet to me.. I think that. by the time tpot comes around, he's still a little messy but he's kind of come to terms with a lot of his issues, and does his best to treat grassy the way he wanted to be treated when he was a kid.. auauggh.. the brothers 😢😢 through caring for grassy and being there for him sb grows as a person and becomes softer.. in my mind..

🧊 . ice cube :

- she's autistic to me.. likes the hat because it helps with noise reduction. and the pressure of it feels nice (projecting)

- mischievous ass lesbian bro.. she uses tricky schemes and plots to get her way/j but I do think her whole "revenge" thing is due to some of her anger issues.. [runs in the family or whatever] of which she has many. I think she also has a complex insecurity thing with her consistent feeling of being excluded and left out (esp in freesmart) (wow okay autism)

- idk if I'll give her albinism or not.. I think it's cool either way and if she did her and book could be lack of melanin buddies😭

- consistently cold... you'll always find her in sweaters and heavier clothes poor thing has circulation issues i fear

📚 . book :

- I AAAUGGGHH BOOOKKKK😢😢😢 AUAGSHDYEGUWGH 😭😭😭 sorry I like her a lot .. everything to me.. miss girl...

- consistently overlooked, undervalued, and tossed aside..even when she makes mistakes and even if it takes a while she always manages to apologize and try to stay positive with it.. possibly also an autistic queen everything to me I hope she wins bfdia..

- LOVER GIRL!!! she is so full of love both platonic and romantic.. I feel like she has an unrequited crush on icy as well as a probably requited thing with price tag.. idk I like those ships they're cutesy... at least once, she's crushed on each member of freesmart [except for ruby]..

- german heritage is a nod to the gutenberg printing press because it's funny to base nationalities/ethnicities on that sometimes

- HER NAME IS STUPID ON PURPOSE ITS FUNNY AS FUCK!!!!! BROOKE PAGE IDC

okay that's enough from me I'll add more later maybe if i think of anything else

[a-dragons-journal]

How exactly is being otherkin any different than being transracial by idea? I���m not pro-transracial, but I can’t really formulate an argument on where the difference is and why one is okay while the other isn’t

The difference, in my opinion at least, basically comes down to the fact that race and ethnicity are things other real people deal with and which have big cultural impact for a lot of people; species is not. You can't hurt theriform wolves by identifying as a wolf because wolves are not people and are not aware of any of this. Dragons may be people depending on the dragon, but they don't exist physically in this world to have an opinion. You can, however, hurt people of color by identifying as transethnicity and approaching it in a disrespectful way.

And I say it that way because if I'm honest, transethnicity is one of those transIDs where I'm... a little torn on it. I can understand the feelings and experiences they're describing, but I struggle to find a way to engage with the idea of being transethnicity that isn't going to wind up being racist in one way or another. And while I haven't exactly spent a ton of time in radqueer/transID spaces, when I've gone into their tags and such to do a little research on them, I have overwhelmingly seen transethnicity people being kind of if not extremely racist about it. The experiences are not inherently harmful, but it's really easy to slide into engaging with those experiences in a way that's harmful.

And yet... in this community we have, for example, fictionkin whose fictotypes are a different race than them all the time, and sometimes that's very important to who their fictotype is and how they view the world. And that works out fine. I think the primary difference is that fictionkin are generally expected to acknowledge that they're not a part of that group in the present and can't speak on the group's issues or experiences as if they were, whereas the minute you put a trans- label onto the word, the expectation is that you should be treating a trans[x] person as if they're [x]. (And if it's not, then... why are you calling it trans- anything to begin with when that's what trans- means in an identity context?)

So, I do genuinely believe that they're having these experiences, but... idk, there has to be a better way to frame and engage with those experiences. I don't know what that is, but it's got to be out there somewhere, though it may not be a one-size-fits-all answer. (And maybe there's a transID community out there that's found it, I don't know.)

Anyway, open invitation for POC to give their thoughts on this, since they've probably got better-constructed ones than me; if I'm honest, I haven't spent all that much time thinking about this issue. I think about it on and off here and there when it comes up and then it gives me a headache so I move on.

[menlove]

hey can you please explain it to us? like how are we supposed to just understand? why would a large ethnic minority vote for an open racist who hates them? this is not intuitive

wasn't trying to imply you're just supposed to understand- sorry, it's just always a lil bit of a uh bitter inducing moment when this topic comes up bc it makes it really obvious that a lot of people just don't engage w the latine community

but basically, most latines are conservative christian. usually catholic (my family isn't catholic, though my grandmother was raised that way). a solid majority of them are one issue voters, usually on the issue of abortion because many catholics & conservative christians are one issue abortion voters.

there's also the immigration issue. a lot of these conservative latines do in fact care about better immigration reform, but a lot of them also have this attitude of "I did it legally, so why can't you?" so they don't even see themselves as a PART of the group being targeted. and if they do and they take issue with it, they tend to go "okay, but the republicans agree with me on everything else and I can't in good moral conscience vote for the other party who disagrees with everything I stand for as a moral christian"

and while many latines have voted blue over immigration in the past, harris leaned pretty heavily right on the immigration issue so it's like. to them. are you choosing the guy who agrees with you on everything but immigration, or the woman who disagrees with you on everything Including immigration?

and then you also have to get into the race of it all because race is beyond complicated in this case. non-black latines sit in a weird in between space with whiteness. to the right, we're white when we're Good. to the left, we're white when it's a Problem. whiteness is conditional. and this is the case for many demographics, but it's especially relevant here. when people sit on that edge of whiteness, they WILL throw each other and other minorities under the bus to earn the protection of whiteness. so you know. behave, vote red, show yourselves to be moral, legal citizens, and MAYBE you'll be granted the protection of being considered white in america. and we aren't. but that doesn't stop people from trying. even taking my dad as an example, I grew up with him talking about how much he hated white people. today, he's out here calling himself a proud white man who voted for trump. it's conditional. and people know whiteness is a protection. naturally, this leads to a lot of antiblackness in the community as well as just racism in general.

it just boils down to latines by and large being conservative christian/catholic and voting based on that rather than viewing themselves a minority race. and being way way more split on the immigration issue than people might imagine, because I've absolutely heard it parroted time and time again that "I got here legally, so can they"

[xclowniex]

why do you only criticize the left on your blog. Aren't nazis and white supremists also bad.

The reason why I criticize the left so much is for two reasons.

1. I am a leftists

2. The left is being very hypocritical about jews

To elaborate on those points, you should always call out those within your own political side. You can't just go "right wing people don't care about minorities" whilst not saying anything about the people on the left don't care about a minority.

It's hypocritical to criticize others when your group does the same thing.

All that does is say one of 3 things about you. That you either think that being bad towards a minority is excused because of your political opinion, the minority at hand and the discrimination they face is not as important as other minorities or isn't bad or that you just don't care about the minority at hand.

Going into how the left is hypocritical about jews, the left frequently is against civilians being held accountable for the actions of their government. Yet Israelis are being held accountable by them for their governments actions. Diaspora jews aka jews outside of Israel also get frequently held responsible for a government which isn't even theirs.

Leftists are against the collective punishment of Gazan citizens yet collectively punish Israeli and Jewish folk socially.

Then you have people talking about how a minority doing a bad thing doesn't take away from the need to respect their identity. Such as how you shouldn't misgender a trans person if they do a bad thing as that's transphobic but as soon as they find out that a Jewish person is a zionist, antisemitism is now okay.

You've got jews currently who have seen the lefts ideas and agreed with them. We agree that collective punishment is bad. We agree that a minority doing something bad doesn't take away from the respect they deserve for their identity. We have supported land back movements for the native folk of whatever country we live in.

Yet none of those actions are happening for us. Instead antisemitic tropes are used to blame us for everything.

I could go on about how the lefts actions in the West further fuel the right wing parties in Israel. How they view it as "see no jews are safe outside of Israel. We need to be more violent to secure Israel's safety for jews internationally.

I could go on about how the lefts actions are forcing jews out of the left and are making jews more likely than before to become right wing.

But none of that matters because what should be in the forefront, is a leftist ideal of discrimination based on religious, ethnicity/race, sexual orientation or gender, is bad.

Yet that completely escapes people when it comes to jews and antisemitsm.

[scaryspears]

Asgardians project on Loki

Asgardians are jealous of Loki. The reason Loki is so belittled and gaslighted is because people like to use him, but also in order to keep gaining favours from him, they need to keep him needy of their praise and blah blah blah. I think a lot of us know how it works, so I won't explain that. On the other hand, Loki has something they don't, which is what makes him 'untrustworthy'. Loki is adaptable, curious and dedicated, as well as other amazing traits.

Loki is "burdened with a glorious purpose". He has a bright star, and people who do not have a bright star as well tend to see that star, and want to dim it. (Yes, I believe there's a spiritual side to it.)

Loki can easily acknowledge (and has) that he's jealous of Thor, but when others call him jealous they are projecting. They especially do this when Loki outwits them. They don't even have to be jealous of Loki, they must've had their ego bruised by him in one way or another.

Sif is close to Thor, but she would never be able to surpass Loki's level of closeness, which sucks, because Loki and Thor barely have any similarities. Why is Thor so insistent on attaching Loki to his side? Thor doesn't need Loki. Thor shouldn't want Loki. Sif and Loki mirror each other. Sif is a warrior lady, most likely with a mission to bring greatness back in the name of female warriors, considering the fiasco of Hela and the Valkyries. Loki is a practisioner of magic, which is seen as feminine, and can battle without magic efficiently, as is expected of a prince. Loki can go both ways, but Sif would never be able to do such a thing.

Hogun is that non-white friend in an all white friend group who's willing to forget and disregard his own ethnic background for those white friends. Excluding the whole Jotun Loki thing, Loki and Thor are both mix-raised, seeing as Frigga is from Vanaheim (according to fandom anyways). Loki clearly inherited a lot of Vanaheimian(?) traits, including the black hair, despite having an Asgardian king for a father. If Loki behaves like a Vanaheimian despite having an Asgardian upbringing, how would Asgardians perceive Hogun? Hogun is threatened by Loki and is determined to drive him out of the friend group. On the other hand of this halfblood envy, Loki makes Hogun feel ashamed. A half Asgardian managed to out-Vanaheim the full blooded Vanaheimian.

Fandral and Volstagg? I don't know, I don't care about them. Maybe Volstagg isn't a very smart person and is jealous of Loki's wit, whereas Fandral is an enabler who's there to be a soft blow. He's a reassurance to Loki's insecurity. He's nice so Loki would think "hey, at least there's one person that's okay with me" and still hangs out with them so that they can benefit from him.

I can imagine Loki has quite the reputation. And when you have a reputation, people talk. Loki is intelligent, diplomatic and pretty much has the significant traits of both Odin and Frigga. Loki is hard working, and tries different things. He's a problem solver, and adapts well to cold weather. I could see Thor views this as Loki outshining him, which is why he could never understand how Loki believed he was in Thor's shadow. Thor thought that Loki was better than him, and suspected that maybe Loki knew it too, and made sure to remind Loki which son was in charge. Which son truly had favour. Which son really mattered. Thor cares for and loves Loki, but is also jealous of how much skill and significance Loki has, even though that skill is a result of Loki's determination, trial and errors. Loki was able to butter people up with his silver tongue, but Thor put people on edge with his loudness and forwardness.

Edit: There are more reasons I can come up with for Thor to be jealous of Loki. First off, Thor felt the only significance he had as the son of Odin was that he was the first born. That's the only relevancy he has. Personality wise, he's the typical Asgardian warrior, with the brashness, light hair and being ready for battle. Loki, on the other hand, has many amazing feats, and stands out. Thor would most likely (or is expected to) become a copy paste of Odin, whereas Loki has an identity of his own. Loki can become whatever he wants, and be whoever he wants outside royalty. Thor's destiny is to be the king and remain stagnant.

What makes it worse is that being a male mage is frowned upon for sexist reasons, but Loki ultimately gets away with it. Being the 2nd prince may play a huge factor, but you'd think that Odin would try to put a stop to that. If he did, he wasn't successful, because Loki's a known seidr practitioner to all of Asgard. I don't think Thor would've been allowed, perhaps heavily discouraged from it.

Frigga is a warbride (according to fandom again), and possibly has stockholm syndrome. I guess she's jealous of Loki's freedom. Loki is technically Odin's servant, and one who can easily gain freedom by leaving the family. Thing is, he's a great employee, and they don't want to lose him. He needs to be convinced that he has no one, and has no other opportunities. She loves Loki, but is willing to have him suffer like she does. She needs someone to be trapped with her. She needs that company. She is unknowingly working as Odin's puppet as she does this, because she herself cannot leave.

Heimdall's all seeing eyes can't spot Loki, and that gets on his nerves. This guy doesn't understand that some people find it creepy to be watched, so he can only assume that Loki is up to something. He must be! Why is he hiding himself before stepping into the shower? Why is he hiding himself as he sleeps?

Odin??? I'm not sure. Every abusive, narcissistic parent is envious of their child about something. Sometimes that envy is over nothing. Odin makes declarations of peace, but Loki is the true embodiment of that (ignoring Thor Ragnarok). Odin looked for trouble, but Loki does anything in his power to make it a last resort.

Odin obviously saw Loki as lesser. To have that lesser become the person Odin claimed to be must be a giant bruise to his ego.

[hailruth]

Hello! I came across this blog while looking at menorahs and wanted to ask why Messianic Judaism/Messianic Jews are disliked. I used to be part of the Messianic Jewish circle but escaped as of a couple of months ago as it didn’t seem to correct preserve history and was using the Bible for fetishizing extreme punishment (like the Hebrew Roots/Hebrew Israelite movements). I understand they wanted to preserve historical traditions but something still felt very off and predatory about it. What are the red flags one should look out for when this group tries to indoctrinate someone?

disclaimer: i'm writing this on mobile so there's a high chance of spelling/grammar mistakes. look back for any future edits or comments with resource or corrections. tumblr kept deleting some very important paragraphs and i'm too frustrated to make this a very polished post.

okay, first things first: messianic judaism never has been and never will be jewish. they are not accepted by any jewish denominations and the christian consensus is that they are christian. institutions such as the u.s. military (where messianic "jewish" chaplains have to wear the insignia of the cross meant for christian chaplains and not the ten commandments for jewish chaplains) and the supreme court of israel agree that they are christian. judaism is not just a religion, it is an ethnicity and a tribe. the majority of messianics have no connection to judaism in the slightest. people who have converted to actual judaism have gone through a lengthy process of assimilation into this ethnicity. their language, calendar (and very conception of time), diet, clothing, body, community, family, etc. is changed forever once they convert. you can't just decide to be jewish, as messianics have done. the fact that some messianic "jews" are ethnically jewish is incidental and means nothing for the jewishness of the religion.

i was so thankful when this post came out about a year ago because it condenses the main points i've been making for a while: "messianic christian red flags" (by jewitches on instagram). it has a list of things to look out for which can help you spot messianic "judaism" masquerading as actual judaism. but i will still explain my arguments in this post. i also recommend jews for judaism.

however, there's still some points i want to outline in this post. most importantly: the goal of messianic "judaism" is not to preserve any kind of history, but to target jews for conversion to christianity. there are claims that it grew out of a movement of jews who converted to christianity but kept onto some jewish practices (which would make them apostates). but this is absolutely not what the movement is, it's very clear that it actually came to be in order to eradicate judaism (by converting all jews to christianity). as the post i linked above points out, two good examples are that the board of missions to the jews became chosen people ministries and the hebrew christian alliance of america became the messianic jewish alliance of america. these were christian orgs whose entire purpose was to target jews for christian conversion, who rebranded to messianic orgs because the function of messianic judaism is to convert jews.

the messianic movement and organizations target jews via extremely deceptive and predatory tactics. the biggest issue that every jew faces when trying to google anything about judaism (which is often the case for jews who already don't know much about their religion and don't have a community with a rabbi to go to) is messianic sources doing their absolute best to look jewish. often times, you have to scour a site providing "information" on jewish holidays, traditions, etc. until you finally encounter something about "yeshua." the post linked above is very helpful for avoiding these sites. this isn't just a digital phenomenon. messianic churches are often disguised as synagogues and mark themselves as such on sites like google maps (i know there have been initiatives to get their labeling changed to that of churches on these sites). there are countless examples of these churches pretending to be synagogues in order to lure in and hopefully convert jews who do not know better.

messianics constantly pretend to be real jews in order to infiltrate jewish communities. i don't have to explain how weird it is to pretend to be of a certain ethnicity in order to force your way into their rituals and lives. this ties into the entire fake synagogue issue from the previous paragraph, but extends far further than that. a few years ago, for example, a jewish politician invited who she thought was a rabbi to pray at an event. this "rabbi" ended up being a messianic. jews across the country were, of course, deeply disturbed by this and it was condemned. messianics aren't stupid, they know what we think and what they are doing, this is an intentional action. there are countless examples of this and it is never anything but vile.

if you want to pretend that judaism is this perfect precursor to jesus whose entire function was to predict his arrival, you're going to have to smash it to unrecognizable bits in order to build anything that'll support such a cause. it's never going to work. many core beliefs of christianity are antithetical to judaism, making the two fundamentally incompatible and different religions. saying otherwise is ahistorical and disrespectful to the thousands of years of separate cultural development of these two religions.

i haven't proofread this and refuse to do so at the moment, but i don't want to keep you waiting on a response. i hope this can help you understand why jews are very much not fans of messianics. if you have any further questions/something isn't clear, feel free to ask whenever.

[ck2k18]

Whitewashing in the ml fandom and why you shouldnt do (or support) it

Disclaimer: Because I am a Black person and the characters I am talking about are Black, this post will specifically address the white washing of Black people and characters.

What is white washing? White washing in the context of fanart is when you take a character of color, usually one with brown/black skin, and either make their skin lighter, give them more Eurocentric features, or both.

Why is it harmful? To explain why this is harmful, I will use one of the first examples of fanart; renaissance paintings of ancient Greek myths. Specifically, artwork featuring Princess Andromeda. Go to your search engine and type in "princess Andromeda". Based on those images, you would never have known that in the original Greek legends, Andromeda was black. So why is she most often depicted as a white woman?

McGrath’s article was definitive in addressing three things: that all the Greek mythographers placed Andromeda as a princess of Ethiopia, that Ovid specifically refers to her dark skin and that artists throughout Western art history frequently omitted to depict her blackness because Andromeda was supposed to be beautiful, and blackness and beauty – for many of them – was dichotomous.

That quote is from this article, and I highly recommend you give it a read. When you whitewash a character, you are perpetuating the idea in the quote above. That this character you like, whether you like them because they're funny or smart or beautiful, cannot be those things and also have black features.

White washing in miraculous ladybug

The show itself is guilty of whitewashing it's own characters. For example, look at these side by sides of Alya and Max alongside their hero alter egos.

Was this done with malicious intent? Hopefully not. But intentional or not, what it says to the people watching is, "These characters cannot have darker skin and also be heroes." And if you think it's not that deep, it is. The show's inconsistencies can't be used as an excuse for whitewashed fanart, because this shit isn't okay either.

Colorism and whitewashing

I'm going to bring up colorism, because even though Max's skin is lighter in that image, he still looks black. However, that doesn't make it okay.

colorism: prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group:

Lighter skinned Black people, while still targets of racism, are closer to whiteness than darker skinned Black people, and in some cases face less discrimination. When Black people first started to appear on TV, it was generally lighter skinned ones because that was more acceptable. This article goes more in depth about colorism.

Misogynoir and whitewashing.

Misogynoir is a word coined to describe the unique hatred that black women face. It is the intersection of racism and misogyny.

People may whitewash a female presenting character but not a male presenting character. In this fandom, you see it with DJWIFI fanart. People will make alyas skin color significantly lighter than Ninos. One trait of misogyny is tying a womans worth to their beauty. When you realize that beauty and blackness were (and still are) seen as antonyms, the issue with this type of whitewashing is made clear.

Texturism and whitewashing

texturism: a form of social injustice, where afro-textured hair or coarse hair types are viewed negatively, often perceived as "unprofessional", "unattractive", or "unclean".

When Black characters were first introduced to media, aspects of them would be changed to heighten their proximity to whiteness and make them more palatable to white audiences. Black women would get perms or silk presses, and Black men would keep their hair cut short and "tidy."

Note: This does not mean that all Black women with silk presses or perms or all Black men with short hair are trying to heighten their proximity to whiteness, or do not love themselves and their hair.

Animation has a history of not representing Black hair. Nowadays, Black hair is more represented, and beautifully so. Just look at movies like Encanto and Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse or TV shows like Moon girl and Devil Dinosaur.

In Miraculous Ladybug, Max is the only character with blatantly afro hair. Nino's hair is always covered and is cut short, and Alya's hair has a looser texture. Therefore, I give fanartists a pass on that one. However, this is a good thing to be aware of anyway.

How can you help?

Don't create, support, or reblog whitewashed art.

(P.S. if anyone wants to come on this post bripnging up blackwashing, read this post of mine)

[cultofcola]

If someone changes race, should they keep that part of their dr to themselves or just not have a blog at all? Because it doesn't seem like it isn't very accepted here and even more confusing because most racial groups have many different ethnicities and their cultures are vast so is ethnicity changing as long as the same race and are biracial and multiethnic allowed to pick one group over the other?

everyone is entitled to have their blog and talk about it, but everyone else is also allowed to say their opinion. everytime i post something i know that people can agree or disagree with me, and that’s okay. if i don’t like something, im not going to interact with them. and i wish others lived by this mindset too. i block people for the dumbest reasons, but on my feed there are shifting posts that i always like. i rarely see anything weird. and listen: for me, you can do whatever you want. i don’t care. not my reality, not my problem. if you then talk about it and i don’t like it, i hit the block button and that’s the end of it. i don’t want to fight with strangers online, and the only reason i started my blog is because i wanted to talk about my drs. that’s it.

i see nothing wrong with 'changing' ethnicities, and others can have their opinions too. (i’m still white in all of my drs because race 'changing' is not something that aligns with me). but all my life here i was 'too albanian' in italy and 'too italian' in albania, so, in my dr, sometimes i decide to be 100% one of the other, and live the cultures that i denied myself because i never knew what the fuck i was. and sometimes i am something else. because i want to experience it all & cultures are too beautiful to not be lived.

if a biracial person wants to explore a certain part of their identity instead of the other in one reality, i see genuinely nothing wrong with it. its already part of them here?

[botaniqueer]

That "First the came for the Communists" poem is fine in itself, but it's also important to note that, even if they never come for you it's still important to protect other people. If you were a white ethnic German, you were safe in Nazi Germany and could live a perfectly comfortable life, but that comfortable life was earned with blood.

Nazi Germany wasn't Mordor; White Germans thrived under Hitler and had genuine gains in their quality of like, especially the poorer ones. Many of them didn't care or engage with the fact that their neighbors were disappearing because they were fine personally, and plus "those people probably did something, unlike us upstanding Germans". This apathy eventually resulted in 6 million of my people being killed, along 5 million more of many other vulnerable peoples, each of those 11 million people being someone else's entire universe and having just as vivid of an internal life as those living "normal" lives, extinguished forever.

Many of those Germans didn't belong to the Nazi party, and didn't have jobs enforcing those policies (at least not directly, since societal interactions are complex and long-winding), but as a Jew, I have about as many positive feelings towards them as I do towards the Nazis themselves and will never ever forgive them.

This long post also isn't to come down on folks who have been sharing that stuff of course, and this is more directed towards the people who have the attitude of apathy towards groups who aren't them, and who pretend nothing is going on.

For those of us living in settler-colonial states like the US and who are settlers, we are the equivalent of those white Germans. Even when the republicans aren't out being fully heinous and things appear to be okay, our standard of livings are built upon the privileging of our lives over Indigenous and Black people, and people in the global south.

In another long form post, I talk about how Americans fantasize about what they would do if they were alive during the Holocaust or Chattel Slavery, and the answer is how they're reacting now to current events. Folks who have been boosting resources and reading about Palestine would have likely been doing the same back then. And like the white Germans I mentioned, folks who pretend like nothing is happening, or who are ignoring the fact that trans folks and many others are scared for their lives right now would have absolutely done nothing then.

It's important we be the people we wished folks back then had been, and not repeat their mistakes. For us settlers in the US that means fighting against settler colonialism and for Land Back even if things are good for us personally. People deserve good living standards, but we have to learn how to do it without exacting a cost on other people.

[the-pessimist-and-his-cat]

People of the Internet.

I have a question!

I haven't played KCD1 much, but I have a question regarding Cumans....

Okay, why do Cumans speak Hungarian? (I noticed that when they were chasing my ass after the sack of Skalitz)

The Cuman language went extinct in 18 century.

Soooo, did they prefer to speak Hungarian in that time or because it's extinct so the game developers didn't want the Cuman NPCs to speak Cuman— because there aren't good enough resources and documents to make it authentic?

But isn't Kumyk (a Turkic language spoken mainly in Dagestan) a good replacement for it? Since they are similar enough?

I'm just asking questions because right now, I'm writing chapter 1 of my fic where Cumans are chasing Henry's hairy ass (a long ass fic that uses several languages), and I like to see people's opinions on it.

Yes, I'm over-thinking as usual :)))

Update: Well, I changed my mind.... these Cuman bitches are gonna be bilingual in my fic.

They speak Hungarian AND Kumyk like a true ethnic group who's living in a country for generations and have mastered its culture and language but haven't forgotten their roots.

Yes people, my degree was in Language and Literature so as usual..... I'm overthinking things :)

[fakenewsfactcheck]

A Quick Rundown of News on Gaza

All right, fair warning: this is a summary of current events, with sources, but it's also rife with my personal opinions. Especially about Trump.

I saw that there was a big U.S. protest against Trump's desire to act like he owns Gaza, kick everyone out, and build casinos or whatever.

I almost never say this about protests - in fact, I'm not sure I HAVE ever said it - but that is a big waste of time.

Trump has zero claim to Gaza. He has zero power to do any of that.

That energy could be going into so many urgent protests about things he's doing right here in the States.

If anyone supported his "plan," maybe he'd have a shot. But literally every single country and group involved is against Trump's fantasy Gaza real estate takeover.

Israel is against it. Palestine is against it. Hamas is against it. Egypt is against it. Jordan is against it. The entire Arab League is against it. The people of Gaza are against it. The people of Israel are against it. The rest of the people of Palestine are against it.

In reaction to Trump's wild claims, the Arab League had an emergency summit over the weekend, at which it agreed on an Egyptian plan that... leaves Hamas in charge of Gaza.

Which, yet again, everyone's against. Especially the people of Gaza, whose opinion of Hamas is eloquently expressed here by activist Hamza Howidy:

But the "everyone" in "everyone's against this" still includes the Arab League.

Because, among other things, the Arab League knows perfectly well that leaving Hamas in charge guarantees that it will continue keeping Palestine functionally divided into two countries, unable to negotiate a two-state solution.

Hamas has explicitly and openly opposed a two-state solution since it was founded in 1987. (And I don't think it's a coincidence that this was happening at almost the exact same time that Palestine was declared independence.) Hamas's mission has always been the violent destruction and takeover of Israel.

The Arab League knows that if Hamas stays in power, it will fulfill its public promise to repeat October 7 "again and again" in an attempt to destroy Israel. Which will result in more wars, more aid, more suffering, more refugees, and more chaos.

So why did the Arab League agree to this plan?

Analyst Dahlia Ziada explains: the emergency summit wasn't focused on Gaza in the first place. It was a panicked response to Trump's "bombshell statement."

(I hate when Twitter link previews refuse to work. Here's the link, so you can watch her video and follow her.)

She says they weren't trying to solve the problem in Gaza.

They were trying to preserve the status quo, in order to stop Trump from getting involved.

The status quo is bad, sure.

But the status quo is also primarily Israel's problem.

If Trump DID ethnically cleanse Gaza, it would mean that not only would other countries have to absorb millions of Gazan civilians, but they would also be absorbing unknown hundreds or thousands of members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, etc.

Those groups have all worked as a coalition for years. And Hamas is the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is based in Egypt, and already took over Egypt's government once.

Egypt has been trying to prevent feeding more resources into the Muslim Brotherhood for years.

That's why, ever since Hamas's violent 2007 coup in the Gaza Strip, Egypt's border with Gaza has been completely closed most of the time. Total blockade.

Occasionally, it's opened up to let specific people through, or (like now) to let people cross once they've been screened for security risk and paid a massive $5k-$12k fee which is absolutely war profiteering.

The absolutely bizarre bit isn't that the Arab League would go, "okay, sure, if you think you can contain the threat in Gaza, we'll back you up by telling Trump we have this covered."

Or that the Trump Administration would go, "well, that's not a plan."

It's that the Trump Administration has been talking directly with Hamas.

I can't even imagine what the idea there is.

My fantasy would be the U.S. lightly, between the lines, threatening Hamas about what the U.S. could do if it doesn't release the rest of the hostages and surrender.

Because that's what the activists in Gaza have been demanding in protest after protest, throughout the war. And the pro-Palestinian movement has utterly silenced this in favor of stanning Hamas.

The current situation is that the first ceasefire phase is over. The second phase was supposed to involve Hamas releasing dozens more hostages, in exchange for Israel pulling out all troops and the war ending.

To give the current administration some credit... which it physically pains me to do....

Israeli officials said Sunday they support a proposal to extend the first phase through Passover and Ramadan — near the end of April — crediting the idea to Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

If that plan gets the green light, Hamas would release half the hostages on the first day and the remaining when a permanent ceasefire agreement is reached.

Israel’s Consul General in New York Ofir Akunis welcomed the report, telling Fox News, "President Trump actually changed the whole idea. Instead of putting Israel under pressure, President Trump is putting Hamas under pressure, and this is the right thing to do."

I'm so fucking mad that they're doing something right.

Update: While I was writing this, Dalia Ziada was apparently tweeting some more:

Trump truly communicates with all the tact and grace of a rabid bull.

[olderthannetfic]

i'm sorry i have to be pedantic but i was looking through old posts and someone who was trying to sound so very smart said something mind boggling stupid that didn't get addressed. they were responding to a post about zionism (and i didn't agree with that post but that's not the point here) claiming korean ethnonationalism was superior to the jewish kind because it was "in response to the violence of japanese imperialism." as though this makes it different. and i'm just like, oh honey. because the GERMAN empire in europe (allied with japan! in the same conflict!) wiping out 2/3 of the jewish population there isn't an example of "the violence of imperialism"? and the ethnonationalists among jews using that as justification for their own state was not in response to the "violence of imperialism"? like, do you really know so little about the history of jewish people to think that "the violence of imperialism" was somehow not a factor in the rise of jewish ethnonationalism in the 19th century? no, I'm sure that couldn't possibly be a factor for a group that has experienced the wrong end of imperialistic violence for basically their entire existence. i'm against zionism and the israeli government because i think ethnonationalism is wrong, period. i think you can advocate for self-determination without believing that that needs to be based along ethnic ties (or religious ones). but if you're going to say that ethnonationalism that arose in response to imperialism is somehow okay, that is just as true for the jewish variety as the korean one (as the arab one as the czech one as the indian one et al). the fact that israeli jews are now the oppressors and occupiers on the plot of land they took doesn't invalidate that previous 2,000 years of history, nor make you look any less stupid for not being aware of it. what it proves is that no group is immune from the capability to oppress when they are put in the position to do so, and that any ideology that tells people that they are superior or have more right to a particular place by deint of ethnicity is dangerous. and that even if it had anti-colonial potential at first (as the 19th century zionism did), it doesn't stay that way once it stops being a minority.

--

[thelunarsystemwrites]

Age regression, a useful coping mechanism.

Long post about agere!

So, it's possible you've seen these things on my blog:

Agere. Petre. Agedre. Petdre. Age regression. Regressor. SFW. All that stuff, but, what does it mean? Well, I'm here to tell you!

So firstly, questions are ALWAYS welcome! Rather in reblogs, comments, or in my ask box, I'm always willing to answer questions about age regression!

Second, if you want JUST the terminology explained, you can find it here!

With that out the way: Age Regression. It's basically mentally reverting back to an eariler age! It's a completely SFW (Safe for work) coping mechanism! Though not all regressors use it as a coping mechanism, some just do it for fun! (Also it's technically a form of dissociation!

Same idea with pet regression, but it's reverting to the mindset of an animal! Kinda like shifts for a therian! (Coming from a therian!)

It's a wonderful thing, though it may not always feel like it. Just like how toddlers for example, might have tantrums, not know how to comprehend big emotions, or feel confused. That can happen in regression too! It can be voluntary or Involuntary. But there's ways to manage that!

Oh, and regression is for EVERYONE! (Any ethnic group, any gender, any identity, nobody is allowed to gatekeep it!)

When you're regressed, it really does feel like you're younger, like things are simple, and such. The levels of how extreme it feels varies from person to person!

But yeah, you mentally become a younger age, can be anything from a baby to a teen!

I do HIGHLY recommend doing it! I highly recommend watching shows you loved as a kid, or kids shows you think you'd enjoy now. I recommend getting in cozy clothes, maybe drinking from a sippy cup/water bottle to feel younger? Colouring, playing games (like minecraft!) Listening to soft music, these things really help me!

I'll admit, it can be scary the first time. But you have to trust your mind, trust that youll be able to become big again (your current mental age) when you need to.

Agere (short for age regression) and petre (short for pet regression) can help you have a childhood you never had, help you process difficult emotions, help heal your inner self and inner child, destress, and lots of other benefits!

And hey, some regressors PREFER to watch shows like Hazbin hotel, like playing games like call of duty, like drawing detailed artwork, like swearing. That's all okay too! You don't even have to use baby/kid stuff or talk/act like a baby/kid to regress! But, I do recommend starting off with that first, as it can help you know what regression feels like! ^^

Another thing, you might be a regressor without even knowing it! Like, have you ever laid in bed, grasping to cuddle anything soft near you—Just wishing you were a kid again, that someone would care for you? Maybe you felt like you were having unreasonable fears, like afraid of growing up, or afraid of the dark. Did the world feel bigger, did you maybe want to have a pacifier, or a stuffy?

That could be Involuntary regression! It's a defense mechanism of the brain, basically trying to process the world by becoming mentally younger to help.

You can learn to help control this, not always, but there's ways to help! Pushing away your regression isn't always a good thing, as often, it comes back stronger.

Instead, I recommend trying to find what makes you feel good or safe while regressed, and finding time to do it once or twice a week! (As long as regression isn't taking over your life/interfering with you as a teen/adult, you can do it a lot more than that! Every day if you want!)

You can watch videos online on how to regress, how to do it in secret if you're not ready/don't want to tell others! (I recommend looking up "Agere" or "How to age regress" or "What's agere?")

Same for pet regression! And another thing, there's something called Agedre (Age dreaming) and Petdre (Pet dreaming)

Again, it's always safe for work! It's basically acting, and wanting to be treated as a certain age/animal. It can help to have someone coddle you, and treat yourself younger, even if you'd rather not regress/can't! It's just as valid as Agere/Petre!

And, the community is huge! Slowly, we're working to normalize this, help spread awareness about mental health, and that regression ISN'T a disorder, it doesn't need to be cured! It's a tool that even some therapist recommended!

And hey, even if it's not for you—Please, don't hurt us who rely on it, or use it for fun. If it makes you uncomfortable? That's fine, even if it's 200% SFW, you're allowed your own safe space and boundaries. But try to understand that, we're not hurting anyone, and we can respect each other without taking away each other's safe spaces.

Thank you for listening, questions are always welcome and encouraged! And I hope this helped! (If you have a question you're afraid to ask, you can ask in my ask box with anon! This is a judgement free space!)

The end! ^^

[xclowniex]

Thoughts on whereserpentswalk? I know they're controversial on jumblr and you seem trustworthy

Tagging them as whilst I will answer, I don't like talking behind peoples backs. I also did reach out to get the okay to post as it does deal with someone's identity. @whereserpentswalk

I'm not sure 100% why they're considered controversial as I have never heard of them before. I'm like 90% sure this is in reference to them being a pagan jew aka ethnically jewish and religiously pagan.

Because Judaism is an ethnoreligion, the topic of being ethnically jewish but not practicing judaism and instead another religion is a complicated and nuanced one. Each jew has their own opinion on this, two jews 3 opinions type deal.

Obviously, if you worship or idolize any deity or similar category, besides Hashem, you are not longer practicing judaism. They do not claim to be practicing judaism, so I and hopefully everyone else should have no issue with that specific bit.

In regards to whether or not they can still call themselves jewish.

Overall, I don't really care? Like there are so many other intracommunity topics which matter more than this in my own opinion.

The only thing which doesn't fall into this are messianic jews, because whilst a lot are lead to believe they are ethnically jewish, most aren't. And the religion wasn't started by jews. Like jews didn't start believing in Jesus and that's how it came about. It was started by non ethnically jewish Christians who decided they were the real jews, which is where the misleading of messianics as a whole being ethnically comes from. I'm sure there are messianics who have jewish blood as nothing is impossible when it comes to types of people believing in a certain religion, but the majority of messiancs do not have jewish blood.

But whereserpantswalk is pagan not messianic so like again, doesn't fall into that.

I'm going to be speaking very general here and not directed at whereserpantswalk.

Like besides messianic jews being the exception, I don't super care.

I myself dabbled in paganism when I was a teen and exploring religion. I don't really talk about it much not because I dislike paganism or think it's bad or anything. I just had religious psychosis surronding it as I am a diagnosed schizo so don't really like to talk about that point of my life online mainly for my safety as some people may use it to try to trigger an episode.

Drawing from my own experiences from that time which I am willing to share, my jewish culture was still important. I grew up orthodox and that doesn't all just go away. Same thing if you grow up reform.

I still participated in secular versions of the Jewish holidays. I still held Jewish values. I still did things certain ways because I was raised jewish, and that doesn't really just go away.

To give like a definitive answer, if someone born Jewish and converts out of Judaism, gets rid of all ties to Jewish culture, including secular Jewish culture. Because Judaism is an ethno religion, I personally don't see any point in continuing to refer to yourself as Jewish. It is a tribe. If you turn your back on the tribe completely and cut all ties, then you are no longer part of the tribe. If you still keep some connection then to me personally I do see a point in calling yourself ethnically jewish as you are still connected to the tribe.

Overall, I don't really care. Like I know I've said this a bazillion times already. The majority of jews are either religious or secular. I see no point in kicking up a fuss about a tiny group of jews.

I believe in inclusive judaism, where people with varying attachment to the tribe are welcome as long as they have some or want a connection to the tribe and convert properly.

This isn't like some hard, set in stone opinion I have. There are more important topics at hand right now like genuine jew fakers than someone with jewish blood who practices paganism.

[bennoni]

Why I Don't Play Humans

It's because they're usually white.

While I think the thesis of this post covers the lion's share of things, I figure I ought to defend it.

So I don't think it needs be explained that for various reasons, most creators, GMs and players in the ttrpg space are white. As a result, much of the social and cultural texture of the space is centered from the white "culture", experience, and mythology. I think @aaronsrpgs put it best their tweet from April of 2019,

"D&D is a Midwestern folk art that accreted around a creative commons, its original curators were cheated of money or never legally acknowledged, and someday I'll be sued out of existence for printing the words "umber hulk," "carrion crawler," and "mind flayer."

This was an cultural art built with certain ideas and cultural contexts from a certain era of history that people like me were not built into as standard, or put more aptly, as protagonists. (I know this is about other things, but shush, quotes can pull double duty, and this is a good one)

As a result, the presumed protagonists of the game were people of european descent in a europe based setting, or at least what the midwestern creators of mixed western and central european descent believed that to be. Which means that anyone who fell out of that were not considered, or worse: were the monsters.

Okay, but if I did play a human, what would happen? Well culture clash for one. Most American ethnic groups live segregated from each other for one reason or another, but more often than not because certain folks don't want to be neighbors with everyone else. So when populations are physically separated, their culture also separates. Up until high school, I went to a majority black and brown school district with people from all different cultures. Meanwhile, most white people don't even have friends who aren't white. And when I started going to PWIs (Primarily White Institutions) starting in high school, I had to change a lot about how I operated in social environments. The words I use, the styles I wear, the interests I shared, it took time. And I had to be the one to bend my back for them, not the other way around. Even now, working in the adult world as an "adult", I have to bend to what the white idea of culture is to survive.

So when I went to college and learned about what D&D and tabletop games were, my first real character was a half-elf, then a tiefling, and there was probably a half-orc in there at some point. I didn't want to be human, it was too "normal", too close to an experience I only knew from the outside and didn't particularly feel similar to what I knew in my life. If I was gonna play based on what I knew, playing characters that were adjacent to, but explicitly kept out of "normal" was it.

Now that was almost 11 years ago now and I think I've matured my opinion, but the feeling still remains the same. I play humans sometimes in fantasy games. tho I regularly declare my characters are Black. Even if it doesn't exactly map to things in the given setting, and the GM is white, and I still walk and talk for the majority white tables I play at, I don't mind because I do it for me, and now I know how to put some black in there even if it isn't acknowledged much or at all. I just want to feel a part of myself in there, even if that means making my character socially a bit of a pariah.

Is that normal? Do any other non-white folks do this? I don't know, this is probably the first time I've concretely put this idea down into text for people to receive and understand. I recognize that if you aren't black, your might not feel like you can easily relate since you're several steps above black people in the western social ladder, but I don't think it's too hard to get.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi, first of all thank you so much for creating this blog. It's very helpful when writing and making art. I wanted to ask a question-

I have thought of a supernatural/eldritch horror story set in 1930s USA. The main character I have is Black, so I was wondering a couple of things. Before that though, basically the plot of it is that there are eldritch beings called beyonders (theyre not demons or devils, more like ancient godlike entities) and people called beyondseekers who can see them. Some Beyondseekers can get corrupted by this power as these beings are extremely powerful. The story follows my mc Lawrence and others who have found themselves in this sort of Academy for Beyondseekers. All the characters have a rough past or were seen as odd due to their abilities. The cast is also made up of a lot of different ethnicities (if that's an important factor) my main concerns are that, I'm nonblack myself, so would it be out of line for me to write a Black man Mc in 1930s? Of course his race isn't the only important thing about him but I feel like it's inevitable to have at least some impact especially in 1930s. My second concern is if having him be part of the Beyondseekers who are affected by the Beyonders would be off putting (I'm still developing the extent of Beyonders powers, but it's more like heightened version of what Beyondseekers can do) . again, there's a cast with Asian, white, etc characters that go through similar things. Also as a side note, the headmaster of the academy and the kids mentor/parental figure is a Black man as well and he guides them

If you are not willing to put in the research to determine how being a Black man in the 1930s would affect his life experience, then no, you shouldn't write him. Even his interactions with the rest of your cast will be affected by the social norms of that time period. Because if everyone in the group has beliefs of that time, and aren't like... Progressive, then yeah, you've got a bunch of characters together that will be suspicious of one another while they work together. (Funny enough, Sinners shows the relationships very well!)

As for your Beyondseekers idea, it would only be offputting if you made it so. As for the headmaster, is that all he's for? Just to be the guidance? Does he have any relevance otherwise? Is everyone he's guiding nonblack?

Please refer to my syllabus for more guidance on how to avoid stereotypes and imagery of violence or corruption that you are concerned about, because I believe being more aware of what the problem is and why (rather than just being told it's okay or not) will help you write your story.