#i dont live there any more but its ingrained into my soul

[seducemefanficsandheadcanons]

I want waffle house so. Fucking. Bad.

Also I was researching for the epilogue of my Sam and Aron fic but there's no waffle house in Chicago. It's devastating.

I swear, I will make a multi chapter fic where they all go to Florida to visit family just so I can make the incubi eat waffle house.

[disasterhumans]

ok so here's the thing. i really didn't want nott to be halfling BECAUSE of scanlan. i liked the flip, and i like nott the goblin. but i also don't like the vehement "no races can be largely mean, it always has to be racism/bias" bc to me, THATS boring. i get where its coming from, but i personally think that having a race that's very aggressive or has other qualities other races dont appreciate but are helpful within their own communities is more interesting then "everyone else is an asshole."

I don’t know exactly where to begin on this. I think I understand where you’re coming from. But when I argue for resolving the “always evil” race problem by rewriting your lore so that it has more to do with perception, that does not mean that “everyone else” is automatically “an asshole.” It means that everyone else is just as susceptible to the pitfalls of systemic racism and xenophobia as the people in our own world are.

I’ll give an example of how my DM handled gnolls:

Gnolls in my campaign are a dynamic, nomadic species, comprised of various tribes. Gnolls also have strong cultural and ancestral ties to Orcs in this world. But because Gnolls and Orcs are nomadic, and tend to pass on their traditions and histories orally, they are not well understood by populations in more urban areas of the world. And there are demons and such in this world, so of course sometimes there are individual clans or sects of gnolls and orcs that team up with them and are “evil.” Just like there are often groups, sects, and organizations of humans that do the same. If someone in this world had only ever encountered an “evil” clan of gnolls, and has only ever read books about them written by outsiders, of course they’re going to have a negative and incomplete perception of the race/species as a whole. In point of fact, this character does exist in my game, and despite having a lot of biases to work through, he’s an absolutely lovely person who has become a mentor to my character. He is not an “asshole,” he is someone who has suffered trauma, and let one experience color his entire perception of a whole species.

That’s how racism, xenophobia, and prejudice exist. Racism is not “being an asshole.” It’s a complex system that’s built through a combination of cultural misinterpretation, erasure, violence, and propaganda. A white clerk following me through a store because I’m black and they’re suspicious isn’t being an asshole. They’re playing into a system that has conditioned them to see black bodies in a certain light. That white clerk will certainly piss me the fuck off, but there’s a good chance they’re acting entirely off of subconscious instincts.

To move it away from “racism,” into a more neutral framing of cultural misunderstandings: Almost every culture has very specific beliefs surrounding death, and the caring for a body/soul after a person passes on. These beliefs are generally strongly held--so much so that violating those beliefs or practices is taboo, or constitutes a moral failing. This is how the plot of Antigone comes to be: denying someone burial rites and mourning is such an offense to their soul--and the natural/divine order--that Antigone is willing to risk her life to defy a direct law from the king. Some cultures believe in burying a body, and that leaving a corpse uncovered and to the mercy of the elements, and scavengers is barbaric. In other cultures, sky burials are sacred, and burying a body would be a desecration. If a person from a culture that practices ground burials encounters a culture of people who practice sky burials and views that culture as “evil,” that person is not “an asshole.” That person is someone who is mapping their understanding of the world and morality onto someone else, and drawing a conclusion. It’s may not be nice, or good, but it is an inherently interesting source of conflict, because no one is wrong in either of these situations. For as objective as we can get on the subject of morals, burying someone underground and leaving a body uncovered are of equal moral weight. How do you resolve a conflict between two people or parties that have diametrically opposed views that are of equally “neutral” moral weight?

But differences in culture have absolutely fuck-all to do with differences in temperament, physiology, psychology, etc. When it comes to fantasy settings, the matter of “race,” is a bit more complicated than in our world. Because “race,” as used in fantasy settings is a misnomer. If goblins as a whole can not recreate with halflings as a whole, that is not because they are of different races--it’s because they are two separate species. And, sure, differing species could believably have biologically determined variations on those qualities. But assuming that we’re only talking about sapient species here, that still doesn’t account for any one species having ingrained moralities. Another problem, is that we do use the word "race" when talking about fantasy races, because are conceptualization of fantasy races is tied into our sociological understanding of race in our own world. People take issue with “always evil” races because they imply--sometimes subtly, sometimes loudly--that it is possible for a given “race” to be inherently superior or inferior to another. This is ideology that exists in the real world, it’s not a concept that is confined to a page. Similarly, the idea that a given race is inherently more “aggressive,” than another race--even when that concept is divorced from matters of morality--is also an idea that exists in our world, specifically in anti-black rhetoric. 

So, no, I don’t think it is any more helpful to shift from “some races are inherently evil” to “some races are inherently aggressive/‘stupid’/whatever other negatively-coded trait” in our fantasy races. And I think my original point still hits at what I think you were trying to get at: groups of people with sufficiently differing/”alien” cultures are going to be misunderstood and misinterpreted by outsiders. No race is inherently more aggressive than another, but if orcs have a tendency to be nomadic, that means they are more likely to hunt, fight, and need to ward off threats from various sources. Which means they might appear to be inherently more aggressive to a group of elves who live in a fancy tower in the middle of a city somewhere. Similarly, elves may appear to be inherently more “haughty” than other races as a result to their longer lifespans and (in D&D) connection to the Feywild (thereby having what they view to be a broader spiritual knowledge). And there’s nothing wrong with misunderstanding other cultures. In a role-playing game it opens up opportunities for learning, and narrative and character growth. 

Your seemingly inherent racial/species differences can be rooted in things that are legitimately value-neutral qualities of your fantasy race, but once you get into mapping actually extant racist/xenophobic ideologies onto fantasy races, you’ve just become the boring thing you don’t want everyone to be.

[alilaro]

. reasons im not apart of the twilight “fandom” anymore :

   long post. the rest is under the cut →

this is dumb, but im just kind of realizing i dont have to prove myself to any fandom. im not in some little clique where I have to know everyone and vice versa. I don't have to draw characters I hate to "stay relevant".

Gods, I've spent so long thinking my self-worth was linked to how much I could produce to this hivemind of people. The notes, the likes, the reblogs. But... I dont know any of those people.

I know who my friends are and what matters to me is them and my followers. Not some collection of 3k people that I'm supposed to feel 'unified' with because of one vague common interest -- but they're strangers! I dont know or care about them -- and I dont have to!

I dont mean that negatively I just mean its true! A fandom isnt like a community or a family, its just strangers until you decide to make some of them more than that.

Its just that... my god... I've spent so long worrying about what people think of me, what they say about me behind their backs. All these people I tried to impress, put on a show for and act a certain way to maintain a social status -- but none of it was real! It was always fake. Pretending to smile and collaborating with people I disliked despite the anxiety and self-loathing it made me feel, that I was happy and enjoying myself, and that the fandom was this niche part of the internet where everyone knows eachother and we all are a family--- but it was always some stupid game. I put of a facade to hide the lies and the shame and the gut-wrenching depression, because "no one likes a downer, arin."

What I'm trying to say is that... fandom life is not for me. I have anxiety, being in this fandom makes me paranoid and nauseous---and while some people thrive, I don't. Its toxic for me and my mental health.

I don't want to be apart of the fandom anymore. I don't want to be associated with the series anymore---I hate it. I literally loathe Twilight as a series so much, same as its horrible author. I have multiple histories involving forced catholic religious worship growing up, and later involvement with a cult. It’s too personal and I know the kind of bullshit “holier-than-thou” hypocrisy that Meyer slips into her narrative because I lived it and I fucking hate it. I dont want to reblog content just because I feel pressured to.

I shouldnt have to silence myself and hide my opinions because they're unpopular and I might be hated. Seeing me or my friends being vagued because of something so petty as not liking certain characters. The raw never-ending paranoia of 'what if they dont like me' 'are they going to make others hate me' 'when am I going to get a callout post.' And I realize I spent all this time trying to get people to like me that I realize some of these people would never return the thought, to worry if they were ever good enough for me.

This is not to shit on the fandom. This is a very personal problem. I've been here since 2011 now and I can't keep playing this game.

My art is my art. I love what I've made the Volturi into like they were my own creations -- and so obviously I am not going to stop uploading them. But I think its also important to differentiate that I am not in the fandom, nor am I a fan. I may have been once, but for my own health I'm cutting my ties.

On a more personal level: my dad almost went to hospital last night and it caused me to have a meltdown, and so ive just been awake all last night thinking about things. And I realized something. 

I tried to like the cullens for a long time but it just reminds me of being in the closet and all the fear and guilt and shame I felt at the time. Liking the Volturi for me is escapism. It always has been that way.

I was only 13 and it was like my link to things that were out of the norm and a community of people were different. No one said it out loud but there was always this silent solidarity with fans I knew that we were “different” (ie non cishet) and it was scary. But things like gender and sexuality made sense there. You weren’t yelled at for doing things to spite canon—because there was never enough given to these side characters that it would matter. You could add whatever and project whatever you wanted onto these characters and for the most part it was accepted.

And then having to come back to friends at school and pretend everything was okay was harmful and damning. Twilight was literally my entire puberty, the transition from child to adult, and the similarities linking my interest with the Volturi is locked tight in my soul. I remember even petty things like seeing my straight friends obsessing over Cullen boys and me having to pretend to agree every time wasn't nice.

I know it’s not really that deep, but the Cullens and seeing it on my dash and people forcing it on me, it feels like some kind of metaphor for be being in the closet again. To conform, to change. To me, the Volturi is a personal metaphor for my growth and straying from normality that was being straight and cisgendered.

And its been many years since then but the ideology is so deeply ingrained within me that even at 22 I can’t just unroot that.

And this is all on me. I get that. I know this isn’t the universal experience for everyone that liked Twilight, but it is my experience, and that matters for something.

I just... want to do my own thing. Without people yelling at me about canon or my headcanons being gross or wrong or ugly. Its tiring. I’m tired. I just need a break.

I hope this makes some notion of sense? Im going through a lot of things at the moment and finding out who I am and what I want in the process. And while the fandom has brought me the privilege of meeting and befriending some of the most absolutely wonderful people I've ever met, its also brought me spite and jealousy and rage, and it just feels like im drowning in it.

Its not personal. And you will barely any notice a change in my posts after this, if any.  I will still upload and reblog like usual but now hopefully with more confidence and a scar thats begun healing. 

I just wanted to clear the air and let yall know where I am right now.

Hope yall have a wonderful day. 🌸🌸

[dpomalescreative]

We know where we come from!!!... The Body may Leave...but the Mind Never forgets... The Appreciation of our Culture and Ways ..go way deep!!!... Its in our DNA!!... I tried to escape it as a child.... (as we were the Negros on the block...but they used a harsher word!)... Living a Military Life was not easy... We had to learn English 1st!!... Span8sh came 2nd!!!... My Father was a Marine... we did as we were instructed!!!... Spanish was only spoken behind closed doors!!... #thatslife Now as I have come into adulthood ...I embrace it!!!... The Music...the Food... Our Faith/Beliefs... They were all ingrained into EVERY DAY our LiVeS!!!... My parents made sure of it!!!... We may have had to conform...(to survive/adapt in the military life 70s-80s for me)....but that did not strangle my parents efforts or intentions in any way!!!...to teach us all that it means to be #PuertoRiCaN !!!... 🇵🇷🇺🇸🇵🇷🇺🇸🇵🇷🇺🇸... They are of the same colors... w/emphasis on stars...and stripes... These are the #Colorsibleed !!!!... They are 1 in fact!!... I am a PuertoRiCaN AmeRiCaN ... RiCaN in either case!!!... One 1 is more important than the other... But I see them side by side... So it dont matter if it's on the left or right!!!.. What stands in the middle is me!!.. Bringing both worlds together..as I see fit!!... I wish to Honor BOTH of my flags... Be the best that #godmademetobe !!!... Time has flown by.. Last I stepped foot 9n the island was at the age of 16!!!... The yearning aches...deep in my soul!!!... I Will return to (my) our island 1 day...to pay my respects and give my love!!!... But in the meantime I feel its calling to me...through my Blood... it screams at my SouL!!... You have been GONE TOO LONG!!!.. My conscience tells me I have built who I am as an American 1st and foremost... Now it's time to build and explore that which is the #PuertoRiqueno in me... Ahora es el momento/tiempo de construir lo que es/que es el puertorriqueño en mí!!!...🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷..🎵🎵🎵 DPoMLiVe!!!... #betterlatethannever It's been a long time comiN ...as I now embrace freely...my #taino #puertorican #heritage !!!... Excuse me while I go #lightupastage !!!... NOW (at DPomales Creative Services) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtgvgBUg6YU/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=15yfu6du6udh0

[lokbobpop]

Compare

The dictionary definition of compare (verb) is to view something in relation to another. In math, to compare means to examine the differences between numbers, quantities or values to decide if it is greater than, smaller than or equal to another quantity.

late Middle English: from Old French comparer, from Latin comparare, from compar ‘like, equal’, from com- ‘with’ + par ‘equal’

Compare come pare comp are come pair

Writing the word compare

God ive been walking this for so long this construct of compare i come myself al the time sometimes to a person a regular basis and then others it all depends what it is and who im around but this is driving me mad this construct like its so close my comparison i get the smallest of glimpses like so fast i dont even see them but i know who they are and it a feeling presence but its so fast you just let it go or get very angry that it has come up again I haven’t found the middle ground why? I dont know why ive written it out again and again but it keeps popping up again and again and the more it happens the more frustration comes up 0of im not good enough why because i have solves this what seems relatively small problem why cant i do it comes up why is it so hard why id it so ingrained into me i cant let it go i see that i have a belief im not good enough and think i need ot be better than others but there must be more to this point im missing self confidence self assured self belief anyway i want the construct to end so i can move onto the next thing.

Reading the word compare

Compared to most i am of a fortunate ability to pay my bills ad save but i see within this i have fear of losing what we have and being less fortunate nut after walking the soul of money i see i can compare what happens within business to within my family so it my family is the business and i put all I have within the family so the family works then it wont matter what we have as we are one as one

This is where wanting to be special come in that i wanted to not be common and more than i went into comparing myself to others so not to be the same but better and hoe why mum would compare up to other whether it was i a good way or bad way of who we were and what we should be.

I compared myself to other destinations all the time im so much better know i see my path is different all our paths are different no two will be the same as we are all different knowing this has helped my compare within the groups as i had seen myself as less than other until one would slip up and i would be like wow im better than them but wasn’t because I couldn’t be that self honest with in my process.

I have one person at the moment i have compared a lot to in thinking they are better than me and ive believe its like a game of life tp be better than them and if it happens ive won but what have i really won nothing nobody said winning gets you anything it just a program of thought that you need to be and until i see this totally for what it is it will play on and on.

Saying compare out loud

Compare prices i do lots of this i wont buy anything until ive compared to to at least 5 other places for sale so i get the best price i have mind constructs about being ripped off as it were. So compare compare and compare lol

An ad on tv compared to ther companies our product is the best lol i can here then say

Compare to be the same thats how it should be in life like lets compare what we have if you have less lets make it equal to mine

We all compare ourselves because we are all brainwashed with the tv into believing that we need to be better than what we are and others with out seeing realizing and understanding this is wrong this puts all into the point of separation and we need to stop it will be tough but with dedication we can do this.

How society has us locked into compare and how we live it almost with everything we do and buy to another or others how i see this has been a hard program for me to walk as its so ingrained that im in a race to be better than another to win that i see its hard to get off the gravy train of what ive believed was the best for me but the worst for me.

Choosie a company’s in Australia that say they compare prices for you im not sure it would be better than your own searching because i sure they are paid to get you to look at company’s that are not the best for you in anyway because we live i the world of greed.

Sf

Does this definition support me no the disbelief in myself that i will get over the rat race of comparison this is a big program within us all we are driven by comparison we live comparison so it will take time and dedication to walk and im not to give up on myself within it as ive lived this for million of years here and in the dimensions its like ive never actually lived it for really maybe who knows so not really knowing how to live it because i have no reference of this for myself or others to bace myself on i just have to walk it blindly as it were but know within me it exists and i can live this in my true beingness

Compare come peer

Compare

To compare to get whats best for me and all within the starting point of whats best

To look peer into self and see what ones living

How will you live this word? I will live this word with as in come peer who i am with comparing to another to see and support myself of lifting the vail of illusion of who and what ive believed as real for so very long and see the with strains ive been living under for so many ego of time that now i can really live without comparing my self in any shape or form with another.