#i was gonna say needs to be studied but it’s racism

[starlooove]

All that to say while it’s not tagged so whatever the inclusion of tam in fics to react to anything tim does or happens to him where she’s a glorified assistant bc y’all are just socially aware enough to realize how including her just for that would come across is. Something.

[dontmindme2600]

Bro all this discourse about the casting in the new Lilo and Stitch remake is. Something. Listen I know people all have different stages of media literacy and subtext doesn’t come easy to a lot of people, but I literally understood more about how Nani’s identity as a native Hawaiian impacts the plot as a 7 year old than some people do AS GROWN ASS ADULTS

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Alright, so there's been a lot of chatter about some of the most common racist takes in the fandom lately, and I know most people aren't engaging in good faith but I'm gonna spell some things out anyway. Here's a handy-dandy White Fan's Intro to Racist Fanon 101

Why is it racist to depict Ed as uncontrollably violent?

Because he's not actually depicted that way in the show. OFMD goes out of its way to depict Ed's relationship with violence as complex and intensely traumatic for him. Because he has so many hangups around violence, Ed is one of the least violent characters in a show full of violent characters. He is always shown giving people many chances before they're able to push him into reacting with violence.

Even if you think you're just doing a character study on a guy who is really very complex and nuanced, please take the time to consider if you're assigning more weight to Ed's violent actions than those of other characters or assuming he's worse than he actually is (for example, Ed never physically hurt the crew during his kraken spiral, just Izzy. His crime was being a shitty boss, not going on mindlessly violent rampages).

What do other common fanon depictions of Ed that are racist look like?

The biggest ones are depicting Ed as untidy/messy, as illiterate, and as needing a white man (most often Izzy) to clean up after him. I hope I shouldn't have to spell out why these are racist, but please keep an eye out for them in the fanon you consume so you can be critical of how you respond when they pop up.

Are you saying that all Izzy fans are racist?

Liking a character is morally neutral. Insisting that the viewpoint of an antagonistic character is the lens through which the show should be understood, though, especially when that antagonistic character's whole deal in the first season of the show was trying to control the behavior of the brown lead so he could gain power for himself, however...

Just please consider - why do you find Izzy's tears more deserving of sympathy and compassion than Ed's?

But my hot take/fic/meta doesn't say anything about Ed's skin color!

It doesn't have to. Most of the racist takes/fic/meta out there don't mention Ed's skin color explicitly. Racism doesn't just look like saying "this character is a brown man so he's bad." Everyone who grows up in a racist society (that's everyone on the planet, btw, you included) has biases to unlearn, and those biases impact how you interact with the world around you, including with the media you consume.

The thing is, OFMD isn't a subtle show. It's very consistent with telling us who Ed is, how he responds to situations, and why he behaves the way he does. If you find it easier to throw all that aside in favor of believing what a white antagonistic character tells you about him, then you should really take a bit to examine that.

And here's the most important thing to keep in mind:

This is not about you.

Trust me, it has to be pretty damn bad for fans of color to call out racism in fandom. Every time we do, we know we're gonna harrassment and just some truly awful shit in our inboxes. But you, random white fan who Did A Racism? No one is out to get you. No one thinks you're an awful person for including a racist trope in your stuff, we just wish you'd examine it so we can make this fandom a better place for everyone.

I have had amazing discussions with white fans who saw my posts on fandom racism and wanted a sensitivity read or a check so they could fix an instance where they uncritically included a racist trope. But most people who make similar mistakes will just double down and insist they didn't do anything wrong, and that makes fandom a worse place for all of us.

Fans of color deserve to feel safe and included in this fandom, and we're just tired of feeling like we have to beg to get some circles to see poc as people. You can do your part by being critical of these tropes and your reactions to them when they pop up.

[ch3rryb0mb3rr]

Tldr; please put warnings on smut and have it below the cut and stop sexualizing minors in media. Especially if they just came out of middle school thats weird. Write what you want but tag and put warnings when needed.

--

I get so pissed when im going to read something about my favorite character, and it's smut WITH ZERO WARNING.

No 18+, no NSFW, no MDNI and it isnt even in the fucking tags. I dont wanna read that shit. Put the damned warnings there for the love of all that is green on this earth it takes two seconds. maybe a bit more, but if you could pump out 3.4k words of pure porn, I think you can handle a couple of tags and warnings

I am a minor, and i use those warnings, so I dont read straight-up porn!! I also dont need to read about incest accidentally because there was NO warning, and it was NOT in the tags!!

(And for those of you who do put warnings, i thank you and wish the best in life!)

(I am also well aware that a lot of people dont listen to dnis like that, but it's helpful for the people trying to avoid reading stuff like that)

Also, while im on the subject, let's not sexualize minors in media. Yeah their hot, i can see that. But i dont want to see the start of an NSFW alphabet for a 15/16 year old. Aged up my ass. Just put the beginning below the cut?? And not after the first four letters??

I do NOT need to know a fav characters preferred body part is the tits thank you very much. I definitely do not need to accidentally read that they wanna suck on it like a damned bottle.

--

'This character as your friend is soo perverted he wants to steal ur panties hehehe' NO HE DOESNT. HE'S A TEENAGER AND LIKES CATS. TF?? theres adults in the majority of the show that are reasonably attractive. Write that shit about them.

'Oh, they have this list of kinks,' and its shit only someone who has read hardcore smut would have. They are 16 and most probably haven't had sex because the creator cant give them a fucking break from trauma.

'He would be soooo toxic and blahblahblah [insert romanticised assault and abuse and trauma]' NO. that boy is my age and is a nerd. Motherfucker wants to study at princeton and has absolutely no flirting ability. You're only saying that because he's black, most of that shit reeks of racism.

--

These characters are kids, CHILDREN, and you as an adult (if you are one) should not be writing smut about them, aged up or not. You should not be thirsting over a sophmore when theres PLENTY of good looking adults that you can be.

Theres a difference in growing up liking a character and having a crush on them and growing out of it when you're an adult. And being an adult thirsting over a teenage boy. It's not cute. it's not 'oh, it's fine because he/she's not real'.

Its really fucking gross actually.

--

At the end of the day just tag your stuff correctly. That way its easier for everyone else to find EXACTLY what they wanna read. Because at this point im just gonna start reporting fics with no warnings at the beginning.

Someome younger than me with no parents looking through their devices could stumble on that, and not know what it means, read it, and be scarred for life.

I was reading that stuff way way way too earlier and its fucked up my mental state a bit so if we collectively start putting in the effort to help prevent this from happening to another 11 year old or younger than we should do so.

--

Start gatekeeping fandoms like creepypasta from young kids, start tagging shit correctly

Another child does not need to end up somewhat hypersexul with very violent intrusive thoughts by the time they hit high school because their parents wouldn't look out for them, and the fandom did NOTHING to try to prevent it.

Its not your job to parent the kid, and to look over their should. Thats not what im saying.

It IS your job to, again, tag shit correctly, put warnings for gore, bluring violent images, saying outright that a certain game/book/story/etc your recommending is NOT for kids due to its violent nature/sexual content/etc. Reporting accounts of children under the age limit for social media (i.e., a 10 year old with discord or instagram) (it is breaking the T.O.S)

Act like that one lgbtq+ chat room website I was on for a couple weeks where all the adults kinda looked out for me a bit. And supported me figuring out who I was and collectively riped a guy to shreds after I blasted him at a failed attempt to groom me. (And told me I had done exactly the right thing in this situation. Also, hi, if you know who I am from there!!!) (Story time if ya'll want I look back and think its the funniest thing ever how I dealt with him 💀)

[ghostlysleuth]

Do you have any tips for when designing poc characters?? Like what not or to do, etc.

this is massively edited down to just keep the essentials. this isn't going to be as explicit as you were maybe wanting but saying "don't draw black characters this way, don't draw asian characters that way" isn't something i wanna do because it's not a good feeling to review a list of offensive design practices from a trauma standpoint and likely wouldn't be for any other people of color reading.

study from real photos.

really, any set of photos of people of color work but if you want a resource where people are not models nor actors that have been plucked up for their marketableness, here's a good site: Humanae — Angélica Dass (angelicadass.com) it's a photography collection associated with pantone to showcase diversity in shades of skin.

study faces within a group.

no two ppl look the same and character design is about showcasing this through certain features.

from these, study how much differently color works for melanated/non-white skin.

again, it's different for everyone even within groups. admittedly this is only something you'd need if you have a more in-depth or painterly style, but still. avoid grayish base skin tones. the aforementioned site is actually great for this.

LOOK INTO RACIST CARICATURES.

literally, people wouldn't find themselves "accidentally" slipping into racist designs if they just KNEW, explicitly knew, and internally acknowledged what people of color find offensive or what has been used against them in depictions of themselves.

yes, this includes looking at the old offensive cartoons, illustrations, etc. it's painful and uncomfortable and rough but it must be understood how these caricatures were a means of dehumanization and are mistakes to be learned from.

again, i'm not gonna list out exactly how not to depict a black person, an asian person, jewish person, latine, middle eastern, etc. etc. etc., because i feel these things should just be known, but if it's not, literally just be aware (or get aware) of the racial stigma faced by the group of people you are attempting to represent. put care into how you are depicting them.

BUT ALSO KEEP IN MIND: you shouldn't jump to default to white eurocentric features simply to "avoid" the any sort of backlash or offense that may be taken. because if you do so, a) in attempting to not be offensive, you're still perpetuating the upholding and favoring of white eurocentric features, and b) well, you're just stifling yourself.

designing characters of color REQUIRES acknowledgement of non-eurocentric features; hell, in the best cases, it's a celebration of these features.

as you would in replicating a style of architecture, a technique of painting, a depiction of a culture, you have to observe and become knowledgeable.

addendum: obviously, i'm not white, so i don't know the depths of how pervasive racism and white supremacy can be in a white person's personal life and upbringing; but i do know that racism and white supremacy are pervasive even (ESPECIALLY) in art, a much more tangible and permanent thing than a state of being, and knowing this, i do reserve a small margin of patience for white folks that are wanting to try to be in the know on this topic, especially younger people who have yet to unlearn certain things. if anyone reads this and thinks "well, it's not their responsibility or any person of color's to teach you these things," you're correct, but yknow. the effort's there, and trying's all we can do.

[yasmeensh]

Book rant? Anthropology, apes, and racism discussion.

I started reading a book titled "Bonobo Handshake" by Vanessa Woods. I picked it up because a) I want to learn more about bonobos since my knowledge of them is minimal. b) the author had interacted with bonobos in person so it's an interesting perspective to read. c) the book had positive reviews.

I was not expecting the author to start off telling us about the 'discovery' of bonobos in this way.

W-what do you mean, in Belgium? The author makes it clear that bonobos live in Congo and she gives us a few examples of local bonobo lore. Meaning, people in Congo know the bonobos very well. Way to go to give a colonizer the credit??? wtf. In this perspective, she is letting us know THAT was the moment when Bonobos entered western science, which is true. But I was really hoping the author would give it a more holistic view than this, but it seems she really believes in this??? And let me tell you, from what I am picking up between the lines, she ONLY accepts western science. Here is an example:

This is the page that confuses me immensely. I don't know if she is trying to come off as sarcastic or not. She sets out for us that Takayoshi Kano is the star of Bonobo research, but in the next paragraph says there is no one studying Bonobos. "there was never a Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey for bonobos." UHM NO? YOU JUST SAID THERE WAS???

[highlighting and writing over a picture of the page (32) since it's a library book and I can't write on it.]

She says Japanese researchers are responsible for all we know on Bonobos, but then starts talking about de Waal's zoo discoveries in detail, and they seem pretty minor compared to Kano's work with wild bonobos. She did point out that scientists don't take de waal's observations seriously because it's from a zoo, but she doesn't remedy that by telling us if it can be supported by Kano's work or not when compared. Kano is ignored. He does have one book available in English, so it's not like we can't ever learn about what he observed. you said western mainstream media don't want to listen to a man who only spoke Japanese??? UHM. You are too??? Why did you jump to de waal? If it's a book about bonobos, then please give Kano a little spotlight and tell about his research. (I actually want to read Kano's book now but I can't find a borrowable copy of it. It's a complicated long loop to get one. But it's possible T-T!!!!)

I very much dislike her tone in 'oh it's the Japanese that tell us about bonobo'. It is as if no one is actually researching them at all. They are 'foreign' so it doesn't count. Meanwhile, if it's a white person's discovery, it is humanity's. But if it's someone else theeennnn well we are not sure if it's actually real :/ Not until a white person observes this can we really put this into humanity's archive of knowledge. Otherwise, whatever they learnt is not very important or worth talking about.

I'm not gonna drop the book, because it does get me thinking about stuff and that's what I read books for. I guess it reminds me of University days, of how irritated I get when we are assigned a problematic reading to pick apart and present to class. I hope I'm not picking this apart too much 😭 I'm not sure if I'm enraged and reading too much into it. I might be totally wrong. idk... I think I need to join an anthropology book club to have people to talk with about this. Only way for now is to share on the internet and maybe a discussion starts. Want to see what others think of this (especially if they read the book).

[whiskrs]

Despite this being a VERY long post, I’m not really gonna add much of value to the conversation regarding Imane Khelif that hasn’t already been said. This is more…a case study on intersectionality based on tumblr posts and news articles.

If you have trouble conceptualizing or accepting the concept of intersectionality and why it’s incredibly important, just read through the “imane khelif” tag here while paying attention to what exactly the op is defending/arguing. You’ll see mostly 3 things:

First, Imane Khelif is a WOC. In addition to the white western world seeing non-white features as masculine, she is forced to endure an increased level of scrutiny before the starting bell even rings (exacerbated by the fact her opponent was white and cried.) This is the power of white woman tears. This is an issue of racism.

Second, Imane Khelif is collateral in an ongoing war against trans people. All the usual suspects have come out of the woodwork to galvanize an increasingly violent reactionary right wing group into escalating restrictions and hatred against trans people under the guise of protecting women. This is an issue of transphobia.

Third. Imane Khelif is assigned female at birth, but maybe* has higher levels of testosterone and is rumored* to have xy chromosomes. Whether or not this is true, she is being discriminated against for her perceived DSD. This is an intersex issue.

*based on the findings of an unsubstantiated corrupt test that honestly shouldn’t have been given in the first place

The thing is all three of these are true. Fully and completely true. However any truth here taken by itself will miss some of the picture. You need to put it all together for the full story. I’m a white trans woman in the US, so I’ll look at it through that lens, but you can honestly fit these pieces together in another order, that’s just my life experience so I can speak on it.

This would make the whole story:

Imane Khelif is a woman who won an Olympic boxing match. She is from Algeria, which means that; as far as the US white republican is concerned, she’s black. And due to centuries of institutional racism, black is seen as inherently masculine and violent. But they aren’t self reflective enough to realize that they’re being racist or even that that’s a racist belief. “Racism is bad and I’m not bad!” Why does everything have to be about race??” They’ll say. (Note: this is VERY SPECIFICALLY about the subconscious perception of black bodies as violent that like. My dad holds. Your aunt. White people who don’t understand their racism and don’t ACTIVELY and CONSCIOUSLY act on it)

Unsurprisingly, the same kind of person who has ingrained racist body standards are also violently anti-trans, and for now it’s still “ok” to hate transgender people. There is no “transphobia is bad and I’m not bad” here. In the states, republicans (and too many centrists and liberals) are in full on “these things are degenerate and need to be gone” mode. It’s in vogue, it’s what they’re reading about on twitter, it’s what their fave influencer is rage baiting about.

So they see a black woman, perceive her to be violent and masculine, THEN they hear that she may be intersex or she has high testosterone. Which means nothing to my dad or your aunt, but it sounds like what they’ve been mad about! My dad is more likely to think intersex is a new gender than know what Swyres Syndrome is. So this, in their racist perception, violent and masculine person is pretending to be a woman! Trans ideology woke mind virus save the women etc.

They’re using racism as an underlying force, aimed with intersex allegations, to attack trans people.

Or just as easily from a perspective I can’t speak on:

They’re using trans hatred as an underlying force, supported by intersex allegations, to attack WOC.

And:

Intersex identities are being used as a tool for hatred while being whole sale ignored in a discussion that directly affects them.

So where does that leave us? Well personally I think the intersection between these groups/identities/people is easy to see when scrolling through her tag. When one person is talking about race and the next post doesn’t even mention where she’s from, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

If we can’t take all of these points into consideration, and instead (like I’ve see in more than a few posts) claim one groups oppression to be “what’s actually happening” then you miss the whole picture of what’s happening to YOU. Without intersectional thinking, I missed the component of racism that is fueling this fire, and the intersex component that was the starter. How am I meant to put out a fire if I can’t even figure out if it’s grease or electrical? Im too busy burning to wonder how it’s gotten this far

[whatudottu]

All this new Earthspark content (i say with a sigh, not liking what i see), just makes me think more about it? Season 1, so good I didn’t need to think about… give or take Shockwave and the rushed end. Season 2? God- and I’m hearing the bloody ‘Decepticon Dome’ is still around for I guess this is season 3 instead of 2b??

I feel like I wanna share my notes for a season 2 rewrite or at least some concepts for one (with some Shockwave edits from season 1) that I had written on… *looks at the date* 28th July just before I started my shift-

Let’s see what happens then :P

First of all, Shockwave.

What do you mean the fucking unethical science guy has issues with what he immediately labels as cybrids? TFP Father-of-Predacons guy? IDW Literally-Becomes-Onyx-Prime guy?

So you’d think my first idea is to turn him not-racist right? Make him curious about the terrans like (using my main Shockwave experience) his Prime’s equivalent interest in predacons, right?

But what if I didn’t, what if he still has that speciesism but… reflavoured it into something more fitting? Say the ‘medical exploitation’ variant of racism that TFES Shockwave can openly claim that ‘I know I’m doing all these unethical experiments to one specific group, but I would do the same for any cybertronus’ to use Mandroid’s scientific name, but really he doesn’t actually desire to experiment on others he might consider the ‘default’. The kind of racism that treats others as scientific wonders in need of full study.

Heh, TFP Shockwave got off lucky, his obsession was predacons and he only knew they were sapient after reviving one from the dead AND discovering it he could transform; something about archeology vs graverobbing :P

Shockwave in the season 1 finale thus has more willingness to work with people who he considers in some way to be lesser, at least different; what’s a good test for a species’ intelligence than watching them problem solve against a corrupt government organisation?

Now onto the actual fucking season 2 notes then shall we?

With GHOST and Mandroid gone we are lacking threats that aren’t the fucking Decepticons again. The Quintessons of course take Mandroid’s role of the active antagonist, the one or ones that act their own agenda divorced from a wider perspective, but who fills GHOST’s role as the passive background threat? Well, as GHOST was the only company/organisation that had extended their hand to establish a proper post-war cybertronian-human alliance, and they seemed to be pretty tied in to either the government or with heavy media scrutiny, in its place could be filled by the actual American government now labelling any and all cybertronian (and terran) presence as criminal behaviour and thus officially rendering them as illegal literal aliens.

I’m not saying this is what the show should’ve done because that is a fucking stretch, but if I’m gonna rewrite Earthspark that’s who I’d want to fill the slot, fanfiction (maybe bayverse) kinda stuff. Maybe for a ‘kid friendly’ ‘not-so-anti-american’ way to make it just a special task force that’s still paramilitary enough to not get conservatives to freak; but let it be known the original idea :P

Back to Mandroid, considering the type (and aesthetic) of his final cybernetics - as well as his sharkticon guards (?) that he from what I remembered freed from somewhere (like a fucking shark pit???) - what if he had in fact made contact with the quintessons and, learning that he was from Earth, they had assumed that humanity and the Malto children were the children of Quintus, they were in fact assumed kin by His abandonment. When Mo ends up waking the executioner, it is still however her cybersleeve that draws it’s attention, yet it is also the terrans that draw its ire as they seem kin to the cybertronians Quintus oh so favoured over them, but also because they are filled with Quintus’ energy and ‘getting in the affairs’ or ‘robbing the power’ of humanity by their disturbance.

It’s not particularly too far off of the actual canon motivations to coming to Earth, as they already view humanity as fellow creations of Quintus even if literally untrue and prefer them to cybertronians and specifically to the maltos, but just imagine them being more anti-cybertronian rather than ‘pick me’ over Quintus’ chosen (one of the better things about 2b/3, the Judge actually acknowledged that the human Maltos were another set of child soldiers chosen for a destiny beyond their years, heh even Prowl agrees).

In a way, with this, both the human government and the quintessons can come to the idea that (for their own reasons and information provided) cybertronian affairs disrupt the human way of life and need to - in one way or another - be punished for their ‘chaos’.

Regardless though, the Emberstone is still shattered, and it’s not coming back (though the characters don’t know that… yet).

What doesn’t happen between it shattering and it’s… let’s say ‘pieces’ for now… is that the Decepticons don’t ‘do what they do best’.

Without GHOST in the way to arrest any Decepticon by virtue of them losing the war, the Autobots can actually begin to offer a genuine chance at armistice. Maybe not full on peace, their existence is a little too criminalised at the moment to immediately settle give or take a millennia worth of war in one sitting, but it is so much easier to prove to the Decepticons that they do in fact have a chance of rest against vorns of war and years of imprisonment and - as much as saying so word for word may begrudge the mecha - can ‘prove’ that they are worth as much freedom as the Autobots so prattle on about if neither of them have power over them in the ways GHOST provided.

What are their current goals? 1) do not get captured by government agents; there’s only so many cybertronians left even with a large concentration in Witwicky, and who knows if GHOST sent their technology back to their military. 2) do not let the government know of the terrans’ existence; with what Mandroid was invested in and what GHOST had intended to learn from him, neither faction nor any of the Maltos want to let the terrans become fugitives or pet projects (the craziest scientist they’ll even begin to consider studying the terrans would be Shockwave but even then they’d prefer even bloody Tarantulas more than him). And 3) gather the Emberstone shards before the government does; if Mandroid literally killed every cybertronian and terran on Earth with one blast of the full thing, what is the strength of one fragment actually measured by?

Given that apparently a shard with just a little bit of water is enough to make an entire spark (or at least, depending on what we learnt from 2a or the designs in 2b/3) act in replacement to a spark, probably decently powerful enough-

But to quote Brennan Lee Mulligan in his quite popular Game Changer, on a planet with 70% water coverage, weather patterns of a few sorts that scatter H2O in its many states to its surface, and all the time in the world between the Emberstone shattering and scattering, it is a “…statistical wonder…” that there were TWO (count them, 2) ‘’’’’’’’’Chaos’’’’’’’’’ terrans throughout - I’ll give it this - the entirety yet exclusively of the Americas.

First of all, FUCK THE TERM ‘CHAOS’ TERRAN! Let’s describe them as shard-spark for now, continuing to use Mandroid’s scientific terms we do not know if there’s a particular biomechanical difference beyond the Emberstone shard to sever the terrans AKA cybertronus terran from their new shattered siblings… or perhaps only cousins.

Second of all, shard-spark terrans are NOT born evil, just troubled in whatever relevant ways their circumstances cause them to be. Most often however without the conflict between the factions, a lot them if they do not happen upon a body of water in a location of dry weather conditions or even unluckily get stuck in a glass display would end up probably already being terrans by the time Autobots, Decepticons and 3rd or 4th party lock onto their signal to track them down from interesting community reports.

You know what was funny? Seeing everyone fall in love with Breakdown projecting a father-son relationship onto Aftermath who conversely didn’t give a shit, because y’all would just see Breakdown imposing that as just the cutest thing ever when he literally didn’t earn the right to think that way about a stranger that happened to be a child.

No, if Breakdown wants his ‘being a parent’ moment, he needs to put his back into it and make an effort to at least fucking try to be a parent? Hell, he can fucking suck at it and maybe even fall into a similar situation where he imposes the parent-child relationship onto a bad relationship, the main caveat being that it isn't supposed to be funny that Aftermath doesn't get it.

Breakdown can be the first contact with a shard-spark terran, maybe a few others or maybe alone, maybe he and Bumblebee took it upon themselves to race towards a shard only to discover a lost child. Instead of the fucking gang recruitment way 2a attempts to explain Aftermath going along with Breakdown, both the racers are mildly freaking out that there's a solitary kid who may or may not be a little fucking pissy right, just in the very spot both their scanners are saying IS the Emberstone shard they've been tracking. It takes a harsher more Decepticon standard demand to get Aftermath to follow either of them over a softer weaker Autobot plea; a force of habit for both of them, even if Breakdown starts actively avoiding Bee's responding glare.

Something about Breakdown associating harsh orders, reprimands and mutual hostility says more about him and his relationship to 'family' than it does on Aftermath sneering at squishy feelings that make him feel weird and preferring the worse treatment since it's the one thing he's got experience in. Something about how in fandom spaces every group of people is immediately turned into found family or just straight up family? Well- considering that Breakdown joined the Decepticons because the Stunticons also had done so (and changing Breakdown's association of Decepticons as family down to Stunticons as family), considering that most iterations of the characters 4 mentally ill soldiers and an abusive leader that actively preys on his team's weaknesses then... heh.

Breakdown finding the bickering and the fighting and the unspoken assumptions of that meaning family... it DOES mean more for Breakdown than it does for Aftermath doesn't it? :P

I don't think I got a good order with this but :P With GHOST gone the Autobots don't have a main base anymore, and by don't I fucking MEAN IT they don't go back to GHOST headquarters after all is said and done; it would be the first place to look for cybertronian activity after the government finds out the closest thing humanity had for bot sympathisers went belly up after all. Between them and the newly freed Decepticons, there is only one neutral ground between them on the Malto farm, but it would be Starscream to bring up stink over it (if even in his mischaracterisation in 2a he labels Autobots as oppressors) siting that the Malto's are functionally civilian and shouldn't - whether or not they could at all in the first place - be responsible for the housing of all these soliders; it's a farm, not a warbase, there is no need to bring more children into their squabble especially with the likelihood of crossfaction shared quarters he'd say.

There is one fortification left to stand against potential government hunting, even if it means to repair defense systems and cloaking devices, even signal scramblers just to hopefully allow rest to those tired of running. None of the Autobots would be happy about it - the Decepticons might disagree seeing it as potentially a little bit funny and as a little bit of petty revenge - but that base may or may not happen to be quite purple in it's paintjob, Decepticon base. To offer the curtsy that none of the 'Cons were given however, the Autobots in addition to the betrayer Megatron would be allowed free reign of the base, give or take a few zones off-limits even to lower ranked Decepticon forces. It's not like the Autobots would have left the base unraided in their time under GHOST's thumb, so there's no doomsday weapons to be wary of anyone activating.

Actual base life doesn't feel horrible for the Decepticons who, thanks in all due part to Megatron's aggressive leadership and hostile work environment, are already particularly used to being near permanently on guard even at rest; if the Autobots still had a base of their own in the local area the Decepticons would've made an easy transition even if still incredibly tense. It takes an extremely disciplined trigger for the Autobots not to snap under the tension, everyone save for Megatron who is used to being on edge, unfortunately for him the Decepticons give him shit constantly and tends to skew towards aggravating him than any of the 'Bots.

However, at the very least the remaining scientists have access to Shockwave's lab, which he might be more willing to share if it helps Wheeljack and Tarantulas to agree to run some tests on the terrans and actually begin to study them to get the full picture, at least as full as they can without dissection which is one of the compromises Shockwave would have to contend with especially if Nightshade wants to be science team buddies with at least the other 2. Either way, probably the least hostile section in the crosshabitation Decepticon base? Mostly because of the fact they're all agreeing to science together rather than punch each other.

But not everyone actually remains in the base, some take off to find better opportunities or because they find the base environment more stiffling than usual real free spirit types, AKA Breakdown. And also why I don't think I ordered this the right way- but I suppose from Emberstone to 'chaos' terran to Aftermath to Breakdown may break if I went no GHOST to no Autobot base to 'don't hide warriors in civilian homes' to Decepticon base to Breakdown to Aftermath... actually no... because then I can go to 'chaos' terran again and bring up Spitfire and others.

So, speaking of...

Shard-spark terrans, while not guaranteed to be trouble-kids so to speak, they are more predisposed to such given the circumstances of their creation in addition to the presence of the shard they are aptly named after. Aftermath is of course a bit of a destruction lover, it feels so good to break things it's often quite the shame that to have a broken thing, you must destroy something that may or may not have a use when it is unbroken. Breaking trees, breaking roads, breaking armour (even if it's a little baby dent to a soldier who's dealt with worse from a kid who didn't even exist up until a week ago), all the same to Aftermath who loves the thrill of it and hates things that make that thrill go away.

Can't even make a dent in that annoying Jawbreaker's armour! Ugh, he'll just have to teach JB to break something for him to make these gross feelings stop AKA JB discovers 'breaking things' stim and (with a bonus quick rewrite of his altmode episode where HE'S the one wreaking havoc on town because 'STOP BABYING HIM' 'WHY WON'T YOU LIKE ME' 'I HAVE AN ALTMODE NOW WHY DON'T YOU PAY ATTENTION TO ME' feelings) feels like really bad about it when he wants to break more things and scream :P good thing his mum's a veteran she can probably get him to do a war cry!

Spitfire kinda immediately did a gifted kid speedrun I think instead, Twitch 2.0 with a better drone model with better and more capabilities and the speed to out fly the out-mode, only up until it is Twitch who is preferred for her softer attitude and willingness to give up all that lets her win for someone else. Look Megatron, if you introduce a 'non-deadly' version of the Polyhex Protocol, maybe make fucking sure there is literally no fucking way for someone to be in immense 'death by falling' danger? Look look look look look- you put a newborn into her first race (btw, created while falling and thus having first hand experience that falling isn't deadly), say it's not to the death, and expect her not to assume that the giant cliff beneath the flying fox was also safe?? And that you had initially planned the Malto CHILDREN to run the course also and yet failed to create a proper safety net, literally or not you have a flight mode you could've played spotter!

Is Spitfire without fault? No, but what do you expect a newborn storm child to know about safety especially with a competitive streak like the one she's fast to develop! You all told her how she has the better altmode and 'better than this' why are you all looking at her like she'd suddenly BROKEN!?

And all these fuckers think they can all hug it out while she stands out in the rain biting and gnawing for attention?! Gross!

:P AKA Spitfire is like 12 (minutes) old and already fallen from grace, no wonder she gets a kick out of mutual 'want to bite people' sibling Aftermath :P

I think these thoughts are spiraling though to be fair my notes are also at this point spiraling-

Spitfire and Aftermath love to brawl with each other, it's too wild to be called sparring but it's not particularly deadly enough to call a battle, though it does get out of hand in ways that Breakdown - if he's still trying for parenthood - isn't even prepared to deal with (bumblebee voice: first time?). During one such brawl, Breakdown alternating between chasing the pair and backing off as they throw in more hits on each other, the kids accidentally run into Skullcruncher and - instead of backing down like someone more in the know - end up dragging him out of his listless reverie when Spitfire dodges Aftermath's double hammerfist after he threw her into the Decepticon.

Now why am I bringing up Skullcruncher is he secretly my favourite character? No, no he really isn't. But considering he's been used as a tool to not only display Mandroid's mind control technology as well as the visible consequences of that technology being used by GHOST, I feel as though he'd been left in the dust to kinda... regress? To disappear into his head? Some fucked up torture coping really, just in a literal brainwashing sense since :P GHOST wanted a pet project test subject. The aforementioned science team, with the help of everyone that was mind controlled and able to tell of it, have been trying to work through the brainfog it seems to have left Skullcruncher with. Regardless of the actual care they have for him specifically, they want to know if there's any actual lingering corruption on a mecha's processor all in due part because of it, to see if it would affect them physically as it had done mentally.

Between Shockwave's calculated response only providing his own experience in cold logic, Hashtag's experience (Shockers listing her under 'confounding variable' because of her status as a terran) having been used to connect her to Starscream when it counted the most whether or not she was good at playing therapist as a child full of fears and no wisdom, and Megatron nearly gunning down a kid he believed to be the hope of all cybertronian kind (all of the science team is reminded of how he has changed, how he now feels guilt over the future he could've failed instead of snuffing it out himself without mind), there may be a few networks rewired via the cybertronian equivalent of neuroplasticity... but the results so far are inconclusive and it's looking more and more likely to just be biopsychological placebo and coping mechanism Skullcruncher invariably got himself stuck in.

But getting dragged into the antics of laughing yet snarling children, going around beating each other around base not out of malice but out of pure enjoyment and glee, being chased around by someone who has the time and freedom - if not, the ability to be panicked about something so relatively small - to try and deal with the situation? Sure, the first strike is always surprising, and maybe he panicked with something violent in response. But the shard-spark siblings were already in the ebb and flow of their fight, if they got caught or grazed by jaws, if they got hit or dodged a sweep of claws, they'll fight like they always enjoyed. Skullcruncher may not be fully present, may not ever be, but hey... maybe those kids can help fight away the monotony and get him out of his head, out of the past the same faces of over a million years couldn't get to sooner.

Something like that?

And to give more love to other side characters that don't even get voices, why not some more Insecticon content- hell, why not a shard-spark terran who becomes an Insecticon, or at least has a bug altmode that caters to their personality. The 'sit alone inside the tube of a playground set all recess' type, the 'uses thoughts to give themselves company' type, the 'weird loner' type who's non-verbal and asocial? A very patient praying mantis, who takes the bugs outside when they're in and wants to show others the cool little creatures? To BE a bug?

Breakdown, who's willingly tied himself down to who he immediately claimed as his kid... his kids now? He... let's Spitfire decide for herself if she wants to be that but... Aftermath calls him 'old man', that's... that's what humans call their 'dad' right? They both make his spark ache and he's growing more and more confused at why he doesn't just run, take to the streets and drive away where his spark can be free again. But the idea sends his systems into a stronger more whole-body version of the feeling, shooting through his chest down through his arms and legs, in ways that feel familiar but... warmer than with any of the Stunticons.

Bumblebee, who was more or less stuck with the Maltobots as Optimus changed his mission, having gotten to actually learn from them as they learnt from him; he knows the feeling, he knows it strongly. And if they get to hang out more now that they aren't actively fighting each other - though I guess it's still a mutual 'hiding from the government' thing isn't it - they might get to talking about it.

"Yeah, that's just classic worry for you." "Bee, I KNOW what worry feels like, we've been at war for Primus knows how long!" He hated the way it sounded like Bumblebee was brushing him off, emphasised with waving of his hand like he was dusting his plating. If his 'cool' slipped well, the 'Bot didn't press him on it. "Always worrying about dying, worrying about energon. Pit! Worried about shrapnel to the wheels, can't keep beating you in races if my tires blow." Maybe not the best thing to bring up considering... "This is different." It has to be, because he knows he worried about the Stunticons, and they were his family. But... "Breakdown," When did he look away? Breakdown turned back to face Bee, "it's worry FOR them. It's... it's a worry because you care? I care about the Maltos, for the humans AND the terrans, and... I feel worried about them?" He can't help it, Breakdown laughs. A quiet chuckle really, turned snickers as Bumblebee's expressions twist. "HEY! What's so funny about that!?" Just in time to feel a fist beat against his shoulder - right on that afformentioned wheel, hah - even though his optics are narrowed and dentae bared, Bee vents out a laugh he tried and failed to hide. "Mr Never-Settle-Down hiding some wisdom I missed?" He squints at the name but doesn't let that stop his smirk. "Hah, come on Bee, you said it like you were such an expert before! But look who's confused now, right? Because 'classic worry' is so hard to explain." Bumblebee shoves against Breakdown's chassis, venting out another huff. "Okay sure, I'm not perfect at explaining it but!" "You care about them, these new... shard-spark terrans?" Aftermath, Spitfire, almost instantly that burst of 'classic worry' runs his systems wild. "I'm not an expert, so don't quote me on anything but..." He offered up his hand, beckoning for Breakdown to take it in one bold move. "I can help with what I do know, yeah? You've got one handful of kids don't you." With another pulse of his spark, the 'classic worry' - that 'worry FOR them' emotion - shivers down his wires and back up to his chest. Wordlessly, Breakdown takes up the offer with a small quick nod of acknowledgement, and feels the residual tingle simmer. It's not the same feeling with the Stunticons, this kind of worry but... maybe that's a good thing. "Good talk, Feelings-Expert, now why don't I the Winning-Expert take you up on that race?"

Can you tell I hate the first episode of season 2b/3?

Get prepared for a mood shift, we'll be talking about GHOST again!

Obviously because GHOST going defunct and maybe so suddenly it's hard for anyone to corral it under control of the next in rank, it IS an entire organisation after all, there would be quite a few lingering resources within the building itself that the government may be interested in let alone the mecha that would be at a disadvantage to those who would access such resources. Mind control technology and research (definitely don't want the government having that), anti-cybertronian weapons and restraining tools, the fucking GHOST harddrives that were placed in the fucking public recycle centre A YEAR AFTER GHOST FUCKED OFF AND DIED!? Yep that's all getting scavenged, at least as best as they can be while the government is extracting as much resources they can without needing to be sneaky about it.

Hah, considering the lows GHOST is willing to go, one such section - another where the cybertronians can't seem to access one way or another - ends up leading to a morgue of cybertronians, Autobot AND Decepticon. Some of course were known casualties, others are now confirmed dead rather than missing, but missing is an apt term. Missing limbs, missing parts, missing heads. Open chests, open sparks, open processors. Cybertronians were only machines to GHOST, only machines to Mandroid, only machines to manipulate and not even mind control... reprogram would be the term more accurate.

With a well of supply for how cybertronian brains may work, of course someone could eventually slap a remote control onto them and pilot them like a puppet on strings, and it's something something pretty horrific yada yada robot corpse desecration is like nothing on human TV screens.

Hmm... as I said I did like that Prowl acknowledge that hey maybe kids shouldn't get involved with war (even if it might've been framed as 'are we sure children are capable of doing adult responsibilities), so I wonder if I should continue with what my July 28th notes say about him or not... hmm...

Okay! MAYBE! I think it could work?

ANYWAY! Villain Prowl who is a stickler for the rules, villainous only in the way a lawmaker is (read: maker) and collaborating with the government to work cybertronians into the system so that they may be apart of the judicial system, which uh fittingly reflects the quintesson motivation and probably would be really cool to parallel the two. Prowl finds out about human war crimes and goes 'hoo boy some if not a whole fucking many of these laws have been violated by the cybertronian war' and resolves to fix it, but under American government cannot do anything official nor fair while the law only considers humanity. Something something 'cybertronians shouldn't be held to human standard law' yada yada 'so you think yourself above it!?'

Maybe not VILLAIN Prowl per say, more antagonist Prowl who wants to atone for the crimes committed on Earth's surface and give back justice to the people but doing so in the only way he knows how, like a cop. Or at least like a second in command/high ranking Autobot commander and advisor, doing his 'due diligence' to make sure that justice is served and that crimes are punished, which I mean ACAB and all he's still a bastard about it by doing it AS FUCKING SOON as GHOST collapses or at least working actively after the fact but :P

Hah and yeah, Prowl would be stiff lipped about children engaging in conflict. For all the bastard cops that oh so value the punishment part of crime fighting, there are laws in other areas (especially around war) that are to the benefit of the innocent. It's just that war crimes seem to really be listed down after the war has official come to an end and the cybertronian war is still in armistice as of now, in due part because Prowl has committed to atoning NOW of all times :P

This was a bit of a mess, I hope you derive some enjoyment out of this

[docholligay]

When you hear an accent/dialect/we're not going to get into that debate here that sounds 'odd' to your ear, think about that! Not even in a "Wow, I hate that" way, or a "I need to examine my classism/racism/etc way I am a bad person way, but in a secret third way called, "curiosity and openness to experience"

I was EXTREMELY EXTREMELY FORTUNATE to have a required class in college called "History of the English Language" which was one of the 'weeder classes' for the English majors at my school. It was very very difficult, but the man who taught it had an INSANE passion for English. He LOVED IT, he would talk about it all goddamn day, and it taught me so much about how and why things get changed and said the way they do, and it made me so CURIOUS about why something is unusual or fun for my brain to listen to.

So now, anytime I hear someone pronounce something or verbalize something in a way I think of as "odd" I get so excited and curious*. What is it I haven't heard before? Sometimes my tongue will move around my mouth trying to figure out how they make that sound (I am REAL bad at this. Accents are in no no no way my forte, which is annoying because I'm very good at HEARING them and hearing the differences between them, I just can't DO it) because it is so interesting and cool all the different ways one fucking language has been DONE over so many years.

Anyway I so far off track I am no longer a train, but looking at dialects as you might look at an interesting bug instead of like a pop song on the radio or a sign font is a really good way to start opening your mind to language as something other than a value marker. And that doesn't HAVE to be another way of whipping yourself for being a piece of shit--I assume you have plenty of reasons--but a way of going, "Oh, something unexpected!"

*Also not to attempt to introduce nuance on the 'no nuance we die like men' website, but I think there is a big difference between loving teasing and mockery/cruelty. I don't actually mind if friends, especially ones with VASTLY different ways of speaking, imitate my accent I think it's fuckin funny as hell! Jetty has the WORST rural western accent on the planet, and I love to make fun of whatever the fuck she's got going on there, but it is FUN and there is a sense of LOVE that comes with it. And it's not even a "well yeah, Holligay, when you've known someone for a long time" No no, I once sat in a shitty pub on the east end, now closed (rip) and me and my mom ending up striking up a conversation with two old-school cockney guys, and as soon as he tried to say "Montana" the way I did, the race was ON, and it was FUNNY, and we all laughed and had a good time, it is about attitude.

And I know I'm gonna get something about "well how do you KNOW and that is why i turned off reblogs but come on y'all, 9 times out of 10 you can tell when something is done with deep affection or camaraderie or because even just something feels cool in your mouth it's fun to try. I can't do 87% of the linguistic features I think FUCK SEVERELY (intrusive R, the way a word that genuinely does not start with the letter h has a different sound than a word when the h is uptaken (this has a fucking word and I cannot find it it's making me nuts)) but I LOVE them.

Quick quiz to help though: Are you affecting this accent to in some way sound stupid/ridiculous? We can go back and forth about that a little: one of my buddies says "well shiiiiit" exactly the way I do, for funsies, but it just...feels neat. What I'm saying is you have to use some discernment here and I know we are all allergic to that but give it a shot/go/whatever the hell Australians say for this.

Post script: All of this reminds me also about how I studied the phonemes and linguistics of English with intense fervor in college, and got REAL COCKY, and then in the Orkneys had my very first ever, in life, "We are both speaking English but damn" moment. Normally I am The One for this. I am unruffled. My wife gets confused by the word takeaway (she is smart I swear) but I'm rock-solid. Until. Hubris.

This guy is rollin on up in his van, which is the 'bus system' on Rapness, and it's cute as hell as a system, but I ask him something stupid about the timetable, and he answers me in what I can only describe as a Nordic-flavored Scottish accent. It is actually really remarkable and I went on a weird deep dive of the Orkneys afterward because I had never heard anything like it but I digress. I DID NOT GET A FUCKING WORD. And so, because I panic, I do what I always do when I feel flustered or emotional or angry: I sound like Yosemite fucking Sam. So now he can't understand what I am asking him!

Good news is, we both give a little bit of a laugh, I go, 'Let's try that again" and I do manage to exchange that this van picks up outside of the Pierowall hotel in time for the ferry.

[eowynstwin]

if we're gonna be talking about myka again, I just need everyone who hardcore harrased Madi over this to know: you guys fell for someone lying about military service and when she faced the slightest bit of criticism over a very real pattern in the fandom, she pretended to kill herself. You went on a witch hunt in the name of someone who was lying to you from day fucking one. Go outside and touch grass.

I’d rather if we didn’t—I need to, because the few times I talked about it directly did not really solve how I feel about it. I feel a bit like people forgot that she did this specifically to me, because I criticized her. Yes, it affected many, many other people, and their feelings about the situation are valid and they deserve to express them, but I was her target, first and foremost. Sheheal made dozens of posts specifically going after me. Bunny and Ikea led a witch hunt after me.*

Because here’s the thing—I’m aware of at least one blog who has been dragging the Myka scheme around even all these months later. They’ve namedropped my old url (soapskneebrace) and referenced what happened to me several times now. But they have never, not once, contacted me directly about any of the shit Myka did following her initial suicide fakeout. In fact, the only time I can remember that blog speaking directly to me at all was to berate me for the post I made that started the clusterfuck in the first place.

That’s only a case study, but it’s exemplary of how it all played out. A lot of people talked about what happened, at the time and after, both to criticize and support me. And for the people who supported me, I am so grateful, don’t get me wrong. Early, Ceil, Lev, Lexi, Dee, and everyone else gave a voice to what I was feeling but was not safe to say aloud.

But at the time I had no voice. I couldn’t speak to what I felt myself. I spent a week watching everything happen, unable to say anything, because adding my voice to the discourse would have only encouraged my own harassment. I could only wonder if I would EVER have a safe place in the fandom again. I wasn’t sure I would, so I decided to leave.

And then, when I decided to come back, it seemed like everyone wanted to move on, and I still couldn’t say anything. Everyone else was done with it, but I had barely figured out how to process it even a month later. Everyone else got to talk about it. I didn’t. I couldn’t explore what the hell I felt after being gaslit by an entire community over something that didn’t even fucking happen, because negativity is the death of engagement, and I wanted to be here, back among people who supported me.

So, to your sentiment—yes, you’re right. What she did was fucking crazy, and the mobbing that followed beggars belief. And I’m not trying to attack you either, anon, I appreciate your sentiments very much.

I just want to be clear—I am not trying to stir the pot, or start up the discourse again. I just need to talk about it because I never really did, and it’s been eating me up for months.

*Not at all to say that racism didn’t play a huge part in the situation. But I believe it had more to do with my breaking white conformity to point out a fellow white person’s bad behavior, rather than Myka’s desire to escape accountability. After all, she trolled later on about Gaz, using various sock puppets, to court the exact same attention.

[https-immotmari]

❝ I had really sweet dreams yesterday ❞ ─── rules!

RULES!

this blog will be only for fluff, angst with comfort/happy ending, maybe a bit of yandere and for fun since, for me, I don't want to mix up the two sides of ying and yang. or those who wants the opposite of it, I've already made a side blog, although, it needs some final touches.

please mention/say the gender of the reader in your request, either female or gender neutral! (apologies to those who wanted a male!reader, I'm still not yet ready, hopefully in the future I will)

I can only take up to 3-4 characters per request, there's honestly a lot of characters in the fandoms.

please don't request anything lewd, I'm still a minor.

with your request, you guys can detail it as much as you want since sometimes my brain just needs a head start to come up with a scenario/story.

please be respectful and patient with me, and anymore writers, since I also have a personal life out of social media.

your request can be either romantic or platonic.

also, don't forget to mention if you want headcannons, short scenarios, etc, etc. I don't write/tolerate anything disgusting or uncomfortable like incest, pedophilia, racism, etc.

If I may feel uncomfortable with any request, which is gonna be rare, I can always decline it.

FANDOMS!

fandoms that mari is in and writes for:

reminder: that the names with the color purple on it are indicating that they are strictly platonic

study group - gamin yoon, hanwool phi, minhwan ma, jiwoo lee, heewon choi, sehyun kim, jun lee, hankyeon lee, geonyeob park, minhee jang, siwon cheon, sunchul kim, hyeonu lee, (may possibly add more)

blood of the butterfly - maehwa baek, jaeyon shing, sara lopez, hajin seo, (may possibly add more)

akuneko (devil butler with [a] black cat) - all of the devil butlers + muu, (may probably add more)

i became the male lead's adopted daughter - phileo, leonia, (may possibly add more)

zomgan - mirae on, (may possibly add more)

becoming the dark hero's daughter - lea/leticia, jade de lewelton, duke kallen de lewelton, marianne de lewelton, (might add more)

project sekai - vivid bad squad, wonderlands x showtime, (may add more since I've still have to read the other bands stories)

twisted wonderland - possibly all + grim and ortho (except for the adults and event characters)

surviving as a maid in a horror game - adrian caiser von der paltzgraf, hilda (might add more)

[hihellogoodbyebruh]

WIP THURSDAY

Hi hi! I've never done one of these before, but I'm trying to be back in my writer bag so I wanted to just let everyone know what I have in the queue. Full disclosure, I did have a death in the family last week so I haven't written at all lately, BUT I do have a couple almost finished fics that I wanted to let ya'll know to be on the lookout for and I can know what you're most excited for.

Plus, I owe y'all a sneak peek too right? :)

Untitled - Tony Stark x Past Black!OC (Melanie Houghton), Tony x Black!Daughter (Nia)

Tony's daughter gets in trouble at school. Fluff piece mostly. warnings: microagressions/racism in school

Seduce - Angel Reyes x Black!Reader

Just a smutty drabble based on the Russ song of the same name. warnings: choking kink

Fall Slowly - Kane Hamilton x Black!Reader

Kane and Reader in a toxic ass relationship. Drabble based on the Joyner Lucas song of the same name. warnings: domestic violence

What's it Gonna Be? - Franklin Saint x Black!Plus Size Reader (nicknamed 'Cookie')

AU-Season 3, A tale as old as time. Girl likes boy. Other girl also likes boy. Boy likes one girl more than the other. Which girl is which? warnings: fatphobia, childhood bullying, canon violence (none of these are featured in the sneak peek)

Below the break is the aforementioned sneak peek. Thanks as always for the support. xo

Franklin just watched as you tried blowing the piece of hair out of your eyesight. He traced your forehead, down your nose, your juicy lips, and chin with his eyes. He could stare at you all day.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?”

You squinted at him, trying to gauge where he was coming from. “Don’t play with me, Frankie.”

“I’m not playing. You do know that, right?”

His eyes stayed on you and you tried maintaining eye contact as well but you soon felt overwhelmed so you looked away at the people skating.

Franklin wouldn’t let you hide so he gripped your chin to bring your attention back to him. “Right?”

You bit your lip before replying, “Of course I know that. Why are you saying it?”

“Cause I don’t think I’ve ever told you, and it needed to be said.” He answered, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

To him, it was.

Once again, he left you speechless. Your head tilted to the side as you studied him suspiciously “Well thanks, I think.”

“You think?” His eyebrow rose. Now he was the one confused by what you said.

You pursed your lips for a second before broaching the subject. “How’s Mel?”

“She’s aight I guess.” He shrugged, breaking eye contact with you and looking off to the side. His body language completely changed. “She’s leaving soon.”

“Hm. Pity.” You deadpanned, smacking his hand down so he wasn’t touching your face anymore.

“Cookie-” Franklin began but you cut him off.

“Save it.” You stood up to walk away when you were stopped by a warm hand on your stomach.

“Wait a second…” Franklin insisted, standing up the same moment you did. His fingers flexed on your stomach to keep you in place.

You both stood there quietly for a moment before your eyes went from his hand to his face. Your heads were close together with an inch of space between them. You wanted to kiss him. Declare your love for him. But all you could do was stare.

“Franklin?” A voice called out and you looked over his shoulder to see Mel standing there with skates in her hands. “I’m on my break.”

You smirked at Franklin and nodded your head towards Mel. “There go yo lil friend.” You raised an eyebrow at him challengingly.

[ca-suffit]

There's a Brazilian book called "O Pacto da Branquitude" (The Narcissistic Pact of Whiteness, on a free translation or "Le pacte de la blanchité" in the french edition) that describes that unspoken pact of white supremacy of always having each other's backs and segregating PoC. I'm white and this was a great reading that should be mandatory in every academic space. it's from 2022 but became a Brazilian classic since it's publication. I think every black person (and other PoC too) that talks about racism have been recommending it, at least the ones I follow!

The reason I'm bringing this up is because I can see everything Cida Bento describes in the book happening in real time in this fandom. It's crazy because she studied a lot of anti blackness in work places, but this fandom proves that anti blackness and racism are always there, every fucking where.

And now with that white person being hired for the show this became even more appropriate. That's why I felt the need of sending this ask. I strongly recommend this reading, especially for us white people who think we are doing so much just by not using slurs, not using force towards PoC or "voting for the right person" and that basic stuff. spoilers: we are not.

Side note: thanks for the opportunity to send this anonymously because then they don't have the excuse of me seeking for attention or whatever. (But of course, please feel free to call me out if I said something wrong)

Thank u for this info!!

Ya, and one of the things fandom pushes a lot as their response to racism (or any other related issue of oppressing whatever group) is that fandom isn't "real life" and it's supposed to be "fun." But fandom is made up of ppl who come from all parts of the world that promote these ideals and so these issues don't just magically skip over fandom. We hear all day how serious fandom is to white queer identies and whatever, but everything else is fake ig, lol??? All the lies people yell in my inbox about the only thing that matters to the show noticing you is "hard work" and not things like skin color and marketability. Ppl will have access to more popularity when they're approved and promoted by racist fandom. It's proven here all the time.

Lincodega barely focused on Louis' blackness or even the topic of race at all in anything they wrote of the show, then was bragging how much they can talk about sexual topics with cast and crew that again are excluding any characters of color in a meaningful way. Tbh it's kind of bizarre and red flaggy how they got hired and influenced so easily to take that job, but white ppl are used to this treatment so they literally think it's something rly professional and different they did somewhere when I saw no evidence of that anywhere. It's not rly that impressive how they were hired tbh, it's just someone who obviously was gonna say yes and wasn't gonna talk about race either, AMC's favorite kind of person!!

Anyway, I'm rambling but tysm again.

[antimony-medusa]

Hi! I don't know if you've followed the debate on twitter these last few days (if you haven't, feel free to ignore this ask, I don't want to drag you into stuff) about whether themes of slavery can be depicted in fictional settings. I'd be curious to have your opinion because you have very based takes on the topic of fanfiction

Boy. I have been at a wedding so I have NOT been following, but a friend dug that one up for me, and boy. Isn't that something.

Okay, do I think that slavery can be depicted in fictional settings?

I'm gonna start this with a caveat of saying that I'm white, and as far as I know my family tree doesn't include any enslaved people. So slavery is an atrocity, but not a personal one for me any more than I feel personally about all atrocities, and your opinion on this subject might be different based on your experience, and that's completely fair. This is just the opinion of someone who thinks about content warnings and representation and exchange rules sometimes, and honestly if you want to take my answer as me saying "i'm white, anything I say after this doesn't really matter" that's a fair read of the situation. End post.

But further, the siren song of being asked a question:

My general stance is that there are very few things that can't be depicted in fictional settions, but there are a lot of things that should be depicted with care and research. And I consider major archive warnings to be one of these things. (I'm on the team that says that in an ideal world we would have a major archive warning for racism or slavery.) I don't think that there are any topics that are inherently off-limits for fiction.

If you're interested in writing professionally, there's a workshop called Writing The Other that does intros into writing topics that you don't share experiences with, and they do a really good job of breaking down the ways that you can analyze your work for cliches and stereotypes and other weaknesses, and ways that you can research to avoid them. It's an excellent workshop and I really recommend it— they even do scholarships, which is how I got to join! I consider them the industry standard of the question of "can I write about this", and as I remember it their basic answer is that the more outside of your experience a thing is, the more research you have to do to make sure you don't mess it up, and the more central to your story a thing is, the more you want to make sure that you don't mess it up. So sometimes you do hit topics and you go "am I the right person to tell this story, should I leave this topic to someone who knows it more personally, who's studied this". But that doesn't mean that you can't tell the story, it just means that to do it well, you have to put the work in. And that no one is obliged to trust you on the surface of things to have put the work in. I am probably going to trust an author who I know is disabled to have written disability well, for example, more than an ablebodied author. But there are authors out there that I know do their research and I pretty much trust them to deal with any topic carefully, if they want to take it on. A lot of the time, the more sensative a topic you are touching, the more you need a relationship of trust between author and reader, and sometimes you have to earn that trust carefully.

And boy is there fiction out there that deals with sensitive topics in ways that does not earn that trust. I have read things that I find highly distasteful. I have read published work that chooses to deal with real life atrocities in ways that I find wildly uncomfortable and I do not tend to recommend those books or authors.

I have also read nuanced and insightful explorations of horrific things, including slavery, including domestic violence, including racism, in ways that I felt enriched my understanding of the world and the people around me. I've read books that carefully touched on things like childhood sexual abuse and police violence and involuntary commitment, and that didn't make the story not a life-affirming and joyful experience, because the stories were able to take these things and make healing and catharsis out of them. Simply hearing that a story deals with a topic does not tell you if it's a story to recommend to others. We all live lives that sometimes touch on terrible things, and I think that trying to police who can tell stories about bad things leads into bad things like making people prove that they've suffered enough to write or shit like "are you black enough for this story", and I don't want that in my writing community. I have literally seen the bad end for going down that road, check out "helicopter discourse," and I'm against that.

I'm against that enough that I'm willing to endure people who do not share an experience writing badly about terrible things as the price we have to pay to allow people who have personal stake in the situation to be able to explore sensitive topics without harassment. Especially with fanfiction, we're dealing with amateur writers, so unfortunately most of the time when you have a subject come up the default assumption is going to be that it's dealt with badly. But I personally fall on the side that it's worth five people writing it badly to allow the one person who's personally impacted to write about it as much or as little as they want. My personal bugbear is terminal illness in children, that's my trauma, but I would personally rather have people write horrible tearjerker fic about aging down their characters and killing them off and it's so sad, even though I don't want that, rather than to say that that topic is off-limits to people.

On the topic specifically of slavery, this fandom, as many fandoms do, has a habit of including slavery and human trafficing as themes in their writing. A lot of the time this is not done well. We have a lot of baby writers who are deliberately writing the saddest thing they can think of or writing unjust societies for their guys to rebel against. This is not what I would say is a strength of the writing in the fandom, taken as a whole. And some people do their research and do it well! I've read great fics that pull from history in an informed way and do interesting things with it! But not everybody, good lord.

But saying that because a lot of people deal badly with slavery nobody should deal with slavery is not a path forward that I'm personally in support of. Do I think it should be tagged? Absolutely. Nobody should hit that unawares. But a lot of societies through human history practiced slavery of one kind or another! If you are drawing from roman history for your gladiator au, most of those guys were not there of their own free will. Tropes like fae folklore includes themes of posession and ownership, because that was the background radiation to the lives of the people who told these stories in the first place. There are a lot of tropes where these topics are going to arise, and I don't think that's inherently bad (though I personally would certainly feel a lot more comfortable with pulling on classical and medieval history for these stories rather than 1800s America, for example). And like, you can absolutely try your best to steer around these topics! That's an option! But honestly if you're doing something historic or historic-inspired, I'm not sure if it's more respectful to write a fantasy past in which greek history did not include slavery. That's whitewashing of history by definition. So if you want to avoid that, you're left with most of human history off-limits to write about, because of the atrocities? And I don't think that's ideal.

And like, I think with fanfiction you kind of just have to accept as background radiation that there are going to be a lot of people dealing with topics that they are not equipped to deal with. That's just how it goes. These are people writing with minimal research, experience, and editing, cause we're all here for fun, not professional development. You're gonna have people mishandle things. And that's why I think tagging is really really important, so that you can see the tags on a fic and go "oh I do not trust them with that topic" and navigate away, or filter the topic entirely. I have my touchpoints that I steer away from, and I have 100% clicked away from stories in horror going "oh no no no no no that's not good." But I don't think people should all be banned from writing about these things because some people do it badly.

Note: that doesn't mean that like, we shouldn't have conversations about how maybe if you put the minecraft men in your story where hybrid trafficing is a metaphor for the underground railroad, you should do that Carefully. We can still strive to do better. I have Seen Things and there is room to improve. There's room for discussion about people using slavery for cheap angst, in the same way that I've talked about the treatment of disability used for angst, and I've seen people talk about the agency allowed female characters, and the list goes on.

And that doesn't mean that I'm not going to 100% respect it if I get a DNW in an exchange where someone has said they don't want slavery or hybrid racism. People should be able to opt out of these topics (entirely! even if they're dealt with well!) and nobody has to read things they don't want to.

So in essense, when it comes to writing sensitive topics like slavery I'm going to do my best to think about what I'm doing and do my research— and I have written slavery and human-trafficing-type-deals before, I like gladiator aus and classical-inspired fantasy— and I'm going to tag so that anyone who doesn't trust me— and nobody has to trust me— can navigate away. But when it comes to policing what other people are writing, I don't think it does anyone any good to post callouts on twitter. At most I'm going to warn a friend that a certain fic deals with a topic badly. That's my viewpoint.

[iatrophilosophos]

Socialized medicine in the US is a partial solution to the myriad of problems with western medicine at best.

Western medicine is theoretically speaking the application of the scientific method to the human body, right? So it seeks to isolate "variables" in the name of "objectivity". Another word for variables here is context. And you just can't in a real way separate context from an individual's state of health; something medical professionals are VERY MUCH AWARE OF (see: shit life syndrome for one example) that exists in tension with both the current regiment of distributing healthcare and with the foundational mythos of western medical knowledge formation.

Western medicine is also beholden to the rest of the world. In places in the US where medicaid is actually relatively accessible, for example, you still have shit like racism and sexism and transphobia and ableism impacting care people get. And I understand that like, when people talk about their ideal socialist utopia, there's mechanisms in place that deal with social oppression; but I want you to think about just how big a project uniform care actually existing would be.

So in our current world, another obstacle to Making Medicine That Works is legality, especially re: the drug war. Very useful, known, well-studied substances have documented properties making them extremely useful or potentially useful for a variety of medical treatments (examples: THC for everything from gut stuff to emotional support; LSD for crohns and potentially diabetes; good old opiates and opiate-related-chemicals for chronic pain, some cases of depression and a subset of the experiences often diagnosed as schizophrenia and/or ADHD): but prohibition prevents application or further study (even for chemicals like THC that are legal in some states, if any program that receives federal funding is involved, can't use it! Fun right?). But sure, we can waive that one aside to and say that universal healthcare will also mean a total end to prohibition. That'd be cool!

So now that we've magicked away these problems, we have uniformly available healthcare that's getting better every day because all the social, legal and financial limits on medical exploration have been taken away. What do we have?

Well aside from a system that's gonna die with the rest of industry any time from next year to a few decades from now, still heavily dependent on plastics and factories and worldwide shipping and coerced labor in other countries, we still have a hierarchical structure where prescriptive knowledge is generated by centralized institutions who's abilities and members are dictated by governmental legislation and that inherently cannot see or account for the context of various people's bodies and lives and thus still limits the ability of disabled and mad people to explore/access unapproved/not-yet-approved treatments. But no, we can magic this one away too, obviously in the ideal socialized healthcare, everyone's needs will be accounted for so we'll have decentralized community medical exploration! And we'll use existing holistic healthcare tools and make more to account for individual people's context! And nobody will be subjected to coerced labor or nonconsensual treatment! And we'll find ways of creating medicine that are locally feasible, don't require global industry, and are resilient against climate collapse!

...so we no longer have contemporary western medicine (or civ, for that matter). Cheers!

But wait! There's more! You can live in this brave new world RIGHT NOW! what do you do with ur time, huh? You play video games? I bet you've put a lot of time and effort and skill-building and resource accumulation into it! Maybe you're poor as shit like me and have figured out emulators and pirating or talk to other people who share your interests about how to access them or you're into indie games! That is cool and meaningful! Maybe you like music! Maybe you like fiction! I bet you know a lot of lore/specifics/techniques/etc related to SOMETHING! maybe it's birds! Idk you but I am absolutely positive that there is SOMETHING you know a lot about that you have figured out how to know in a way that's accessible to you and applicable to your life. Maybe it felt easy, maybe it was really hard, maybe you did it because you want to, maybe you did it because you had to, maybe it's a really big topic, maybe it's a small one, maybe you can think of it right this second and maybe you'd have to ask some friends to point it out to you. Whatever it is, whoever you are, YOU HAVE BUILT A KNOWLEDGE SET AND YOU CAN BUILD ANOTHER ONE! You can start learning about the medicine that is applicable to your life right now. Go read the Wikipedia page for some medications you have around! Or for some ingredient in a food nearby you don't know what is! Or one you do know what is! Figure out a question about it! Google that question! Keep googling! Read some studies that come up and then search all the words you don't know and keep looking until you understand them! Look at you you're doing it! Keep going! This is how it starts!

Medicine exists in the same world we do and we can take it for ourselves and make it better!

[starlooove]

I was gonna say the rate at which Duke and Damian aged vs tim needs to be studied but it’s just racism