#idk i'm just shouting into the void

[catsolas]

i can't take it anymore,

if you are not going to put any amount of effort into researching the experiences of actual mixed race people, please do not write about your white half-elf dnd/bg3 character as an oppressed minority

"not accepted by elves or humans" is such a vague statement, it's basically meaningless!!

even if you don't have a backstory fully formed in your head, your character does not live in a vacuum. "not accepted" by WHICH elves? WHICH humans? especially if they live in a sword coast city -- why would those elves and humans they pass on the street have any care in the world about their existence as a half elf??

is the character going in to elven grocery stores, speaking in elvish only for the proprietor to give them a weird look or a hard time about their accent? are random humans doing double takes before asking, well where are they really from?

(actual advice below (from a biracial person if that needs to be said))

half elves are really, really not that uncommon. even if they're a rarity in their individual community, that alone isn't a reason for them to be discriminated against. elves aren't a marginalized group in most generic dnd settings or Forgotten Realms! Not human =/= oppressed!

instead, think about what the character's upbringing would have been like and what cultures they were exposed to rather than shaping them on basis of race. a biracial character isn't just someone who doesn't "fit" within a binary system, there are a hundred other factors at play, too.

let's say their elf and human heritages are opposite sides of a riverbank. if they grew up on one side primarily (raised by the elf OR human parent), did they ever get a glimpse of the other side -- whether that was sun, moon, wood elf cultures, or any number of human cultures? what did it look like? did they care about it enough to learn more on their own, or were they content to turn their back to it and stay on the side they were at? maybe they never had an opportunity to learn more!

plenty of people irl have no connection to parts of their heritage. it's up to you to decide whether that is a source of grief, shame, anxiety, etc., for your character. there's no wrong answer, but it's important to explore.

if the character grew up separated from one "side," did they ever get a chance to cross that river? how? was it on a makeshift raft, undertaken at their own peril? did they have regularly scheduled ferry trips, wherein crossing that gulf was a pleasurable or hopeful experience? why did they seek to return or visit in the first place -- was it out of curiosity or filial duty?

if they're seeking a "home" to return to because they've felt out of place in other parts of the world, do they find that there? what about these cultures resonates with them, especially if they were not exposed to it as much from a young age?

can they even speak the language of their predecessors?

diaspora creates so many different environments for people irl -- some kids of immigrants never visit their parents' homeland, while others have the wealth and resources to return regularly. different amounts of grief and obligation are felt by everyone involved in both situations. many of those who leave the community are expected to send back money, clothes, supplies, etc., if they left for a "better life"; and despite their best efforts to maintain their ties to the community, they often end up estranged from their own culture and language over time as they assimilate into their new home. it's a devastating situation especially with the history of colonialism across the globe.

but with regards to fantasy cultures of elves and humans, the possible scenarios are just as endless! a half elf character could have easily been raised by a happy couple who made an effort to share their culture, languages, and histories with their child. conversely, they could have been raised by an elven parent who, still mired in grief at the loss of their short-lived lover, raises their child with resentment borne from that grief, or an overbearing, overprotective nature to keep this "living memory" of their love alive.

maybe the character was raised by a human parent who knows nothing about the elven culture their partner came from -- maybe they feel guilty they can't share it with their child, and maybe they don't. an inherent talent for magic from fae ancestry etc. could be at play here as well, which the parent might or might not be familiar with. something else to consider is that the human parent may only live for a fraction of their child's life even if they die of old age. (this is true in real life as well, obviously, but of slightly different significance here)

tl;dr you can play a half elf like they're a human but with darkvision, it's fine. but if you're wanting to explore how their mixed heritage would shape them, especially for backstory trauma reasons, consider in what ways they're an outsider -- and to whom.

[katzenklavierr]

"Adding a 'see results/click button' option for a poll with a targeted demographic ruins the sampling" I agree but also if the button is not there people will click on one of the other options regardless of how well it applies simply bc they want to participate. People will also lie on them for fun or to intentionally skew certain options. You should not be relying on Tumblr polls for anything but satisfying casual curiosities and you should take their results with a heaping spoonful of salt.

[byanyan]

can i just like. lie here on the floor in the middle of the night and cry a little just bc i'm so grateful that i can log in here and yell and sob about this weird little sparkly freak child who lives in my brain and y'all actually?? read that shit??? and like it???? and encourage & enable me to continue doing so??????

[marshmellowtea]

tbh i feel like it can be a little hard to get a grasp on certain characters in this fandom because of how differently they're portrayed in the play that goes wrong vs the specials vs the shows. like there's enough there that it's obviously the same character but there's also enough differences in personality traits and their relationships to other characters that sometimes it feels a bit hard to come up with a concrete idea of who they are ykwim

[pastelaspirations]

So, u h.

H O W. HOW, I ASK. ALL I DO IS POST ART ONCE IN A BLUE MOON AND MAKE REALLY CURSED REBLOGS. LIKE, I'M SO VERY GLAD YOU'RE HERE, BUT I CAN'T UNDERSTAND HOW OR WHY YOU'RE HERE-

I also like. Make really angsty, ungodly long fanfics that I do absolutely nothing to promote on this dumpster fire of a blog, but that's besides the point- ANYWAY. HAVE SOME REALLY SKETCHY DOODLES THAT I DID TO THANK YA MAD LADS ;_;

Thank ya, thank ya, you absolute mad lads. I will uh... continue to do what I do. Thank you for joining the ride, even though it's less of a ride and more that I found an abandoned theme park ride and decided to ride it as a prolonged death wish and you inexplicably strapped yourself in next to me with the moldy seatbelt-

[izzy-b-hands]

Was doing okay holding back all of the fear re: the potential election outcome until literally this second what the fuck to my brain lmao

[ananxiousgenz]

.

[florallylly]

concept: card shark steve harrington, heir to a chain of casinos

[juliamccartney]

i know i post about this every other week at this point but i'm genuinely so worried about my mental and physical health as climate change gets worse and worse

[aparticularbandit]

Sometimes, I feel like it should have been me, instead of Mom.

But God, in His infinite wisdom, decided to take her instead.

This isn't, like, a death wish or anything. I don't want to die. Terrified of the idea.

But I think she would have been doing much more good in the local community we are in and involved with so many more people and been allowed that than what I've been doing and continue to do.

Mom fits here in a way that I don't.

So sometimes I think, well. Maybe it should have been me.

[justagaycryptid]

Hannibal AU but Randall Tier is an online fursuit maker/furry gore artist

[bigmeansweatydyke]

me when the amount of alcohol i would normally and easily drink a month ago made me puke like twice

[sketchy-tour]

A silly thing to randomly say maybe but I was thinking about it again. Yall are always free to take silly inspiration from my artstyle/the way I draw. I feel like trying to imitate cool things you see others do in art is a big part of the process in learning how you like to create and do things. So ye, if you ever feel bad for taking some light inspo off of my art aesthetics, don't! As long as you're not outright tracing or reposting, I really don't mind!

[giantkillerjack]

Your stance on the Dunmeshi queerbait stuff is a bit selfish. Wanting this one manga to go exactly the way you want is a dangerous path - the way you phrase it is so entitled, making it clear it's not about consuming media about lesbians, but making one specific work suit exactly what you want. So many yuri mangas are written by sapphic women. It's a shame your stance is how it is.

And bastardizing the term queerbaiting does no good, either. Neither does the japanese manga market. You should research more before making such hurtful posts.

Hope you have a great day anyway.

[Anon is referring to this post, I believe.]

I mean, one of us certainly IS acting very entitled and weird about the media they like, and it ain't me. Like, I think you just have associated this piece of media with your own identity in an unhealthy way that makes you react to criticism of it with intense defensiveness. You don't own Dungeon Meshi. You aren't Marcille. Dungeon Meshi is NOT a yuri manga; it's a beautiful manga with either sapphic queerbait or a woefully underdeveloped queer relationship at its center.

Maybe if you had an argument besides "it does no good" to criticize it, but you don't. So.

Smh, it's a "dangerous path" - I'm screenshotting that bc I know it'll make my wife laugh. Like, friendo, wanting a piece of media to be better isn't dangerous. But calling someone selfish and hurtful for criticizing media while offering no clarifications as to who I've hurt or how (any fellow sapphics bleeding out in here? Or is it just me with my bonkers-heavy period??)... it's overstepping a social boundary in a bizarre way.

Like, I'm sorry that I'm better at media analysis than you (not actually sorry - I am being petty! :D), but I actually have studied queerbaiting!! I am willing to bet I have done more research than you! (Are you from twitter? You have that vibe. - Again, pettiness.)

... and I spend every day with my wife (the best writer I know; I'm so honored to share stories with her), talking of nothing but our shared special interest all day - i.e. media analysis. (I honestly don't know what neurotypical couples talk about lol)

And I've done enough research to know that one of the side effects of queerbaiting is that fans are often in denial about it and then get REAL MAD when someone points it out. I was there for the Sherlock/Supernatural fandom. Shit was crazy. (Not saying Super-who-lock bc my man Russell Davies was like MAKE THOSE BOYS SMOOCH! 😎)

Also like, my apologies to Ryoko Kui - I really do love Dungeon Meshi - but like, I'm just better at writing and illustrating queer rep than she is. I make real gay protagonists who do gay shit and are gay, and I will never queerbait my audience. Womp womp.

Also, honestly, even if I turn out to be wrong about the queerbaiting by the end of the series, this message was still rude and entitled and weird. We have a lot of issues facing our queer community that endanger real people; someone calling a story queerbaiting mistakenly is not one of them.

[mothmvn]

i wish i could feel like ukrainian language was truly something mine i wanted to reclaim. it'll never be 100% authentic or genuine; i'm a grown enough man to admit that i dont feel a drive to speak ukrainian over russian, i rather feel embarrassed to even bring up speaking russian in front of "proper" ukrainians who do feel this Ukrainian Desire to speak ukrainian or whatever, which is a hell of a way to feel about the place you grew up and the language you grew up speaking in that place. even though russian is just a fucking language, and has been passed from parent to child in my family for 3+ generations, NOT first and foremost from State to Servant. if i spit at russian the language, it doesn't land on russia, it lands on my grandparents, my parents, my aunties and uncles, my friends. and the rhetoric around adopting ukrainian is often abandoning russian, often with a lot of hatred and anger (duh), and i dont want my parents or grandparents to feel that im giving up the vessel they've only ever used to love me. i DON'T want to walk away from the tools they've always used to love me — i wish it were only bullies or putin and I could make it out to be a foreign aggressor language to me, but it's the fabric of my family and I'll never not love it in my mum's voice or in my grandma's letters. there's no closer language for me.

maybe ill switch at a time when it feels different, less high-stakes (especially because my family and non-family aunties and uncles to me — who are generally russian speakers — keep fucking dying lately). I recognise this is a me problem to therapise away. for now it just feels like a sad truth that i won't feel fully comfortable in UA until this gets resolved inside, because i dont want to stop speaking russian to start speaking ukrainian, but that's kinda how it shakes out, innit, if everyone (except me who is broken) discovers an innate Ukrainian Desire to switch to ukrainian.

I'll never be a truly native speaker in my home country again. that's a thought

[ehyyh]

having jay chou be super good at racing because he has to drive tofu up a mountain without spilling a single drop is actually peak writing