#if you don't reblog this you're racist

[ladyluscinia]

I've mentioned before that I go digging up some of the reactions to Izzy's character arc (especially from the people who hate it lol) to ponder and I'm still doing that, mainly because looking at how people apply lenses I cannot for the life of me understand is fascinating.

Anyway, still deciding if I've got more interesting thoughts to post later, but I do want to share a weird observation from immediately post-2x04 and 2x05 with the class:

So we've all seen "reliable narrator" debates that range from exploring possible meanings of a vague or emotionally loaded statement to just "my headcanon wasn't debunked because he could be lying obvs 🙄". Izzy enjoyers & Izzy haters clashed over this kind of stuff all hiatus - like to the point people were treated as deluded by a problematic blorbo crush if they thought he was honestly representing a conversation he had off screen as his basis for believing Edward intended to kill Stede. If you believed anything out of Izzy's mouth was informed by reality it was inherently suspect.

Which gave me fucking whiplash when - as far as I could tell - the first gut reactions to Stede's flattery suggesting Edward was praising Izzy to the high heavens were "I can't believe the writers fell so far into Izzy fandom that now they want us to believe this too"

Say WHAT

The people who questioned every single thing have apparently been taking the bitter truth so hard they have now switched to fully missing blatant unreliable narrator lines. It's amazing. We saw Stede talking to Edward - Izzy was not coming up (😘 Edward's avoidance) 🤣 and we know Stede was not exactly inquiring after him in S1. It could not be more heavily suggested that Stede is just saying nice, flattering things based on guessing Izzy and Edward have a long history and wanting Izzy to help him pirate better (the actual thing he and Edward just talked about).

I will give credit to at least one person who I saw sticking to their "Izzy was useless" guns in the immediate reaction, but iirc they proceeded to get excited about how Stede was luring Izzy into trust as some kind of ulterior motive (not pirate training, as Izzy sucks) that will surely be revealed soon, so a baffling and strange take but in a different way lol

I think they've successfully turned back around to "we're not supposed to take this literally" over the weekend, but it's truly a new world that they didn't all start there.

[crabussy]

RRARAAAAAAAAAUUAUUAAGHHHHH

[officiallanxichen]

I've been bitching in private channels about the current Pirate Show Poll Discourse but I've finally snapped so here's my take for the day: I think that many people currently fighting on certain sides of this debate are missing a very important distinction between something being groundbreaking and something being important to them personally. I think that there are people arguing that a certain show that I will not name because I don't want this to go into main tags for it is a Huge win for diversity and queer representation because to them it feels really exciting that two men kissed onscreen, and I get that that feels really big! Especially if you've been in spaces where queerness is erased or ignored, and especially if you've been up until now engaging with media that doesn't include queer people in any meaningful way! But I think that taking that feeling and assuming that it's true for everyone is not only silly, but also ignorant of the fact that just having gay people in a show isn't really groundbreaking anymore, especially when it's two gay men. Like, there's media that's really important to me because of how it represents my personal experience, but my experiences aren't the universal experience. Just having representation isn't really what makes shows groundbreaking anymore! It's also important that those shows are engaging thoughtfully with the broader queer experience and aren't just going "haha what if this person were queer now....whoa we've changed the game." This goes especially for younger people engaging in this sort of discourse. I'm saying this as a younger person myself, but if your idea of big groundbreaking queer media is "two guys kissed and there was a nonbinary person also," then I think you ought to go explore the wide range of really quality queer media that's all over the place! And a lot of it isn't perfectly digestible into fandom content! Which doesn't mean it's "bad representation!" Also, people critiquing your favorite special fun media doesn't mean they think it should be burned in a fire. Critique is a normal and healthy way of engaging with media and honestly, if you're reacting like that to critique of something you enjoy then you should probably do some deep thinking about if you're too invested in that media. I know a ton of people have been saying basically this since yesterday but this is just my little two cents on this issue.

TL;DR: representation isn't the end all be all of groundbreaking media anymore, also go watch or read more queer media than just fandom-esque content and you'll Understand

[cognitiveinequality]

TFW a mutual reblogs a post onto your dash that originated on a ‘trad blog’ and you spend the next 90 minutes in the notes blocking and reporting explicitly white supremacist content...

...and start to seriously question culling your followers/following list

[hotdyke-hardstyle]

hi people don't need "a reason" to not include anybody in their attraction. That includes trans people so stfu maybe

idk what this is about lol

[wild-at-mind]

Sometimes just from someone's username you know they would reblog a post that's like omg Trump will do genocide and Harris will do genocide but with emojis and memes!!

And then you see that they did in fact reblog the post and you're like ohhh can we stop pretending this is any kind of leftism.

[anistarrose]

Please don't tune out when you get to the non-partisan section of your ballot this November. First off, where state Supreme Court justices are elected, Republicans are trying their darndest to elect candidates who will destroy reproductive freedom, gut voting rights, and do everything in their power to give "contested" elections to Republicans. Contrast Wisconsin electing a justice in 2023 who helped rule two partisan gerrymanders unconstitutional, versus North Carolina electing a conservative majority in 2022, who upheld a racist voter ID law and a partisan gerrymander that liberal justices had previously struck down both of.

Second, local judicial offices will make infinitely more of an impact on your community than a divided state or federal legislature will. District and circuit courts, especially, are where criminalization of homelessness and poverty play out, and where electing a progressive judge with a commitment to criminal justice reform can make an immediate difference in people's lives.

It's a premier example of buying people time, and doing profound-short-term good, while we work to eventually change the system. You might not think there will be any such progressive justices running in your district, but you won't know unless you do your research. (More on "research" in a moment.)

The candidates you elect to your non-partisan city council will determine whether those laws criminalizing homelessness get passed, how many blank checks the police get to surveil and oppress, and whether lifesaving harm reduction programs, like needle exchanges and even fentanyl test strips, are legal in your municipality. Your non-partisan school board might need your vote to fend off Moms for Liberty candidates and their ilk, who want to ban every book with a queer person or acknowledgement of racism in it.

Of course, this begs the question — if these candidates are non-partisan, and often hyper-local, then how do I research them? There's so much less information and press about them, so how do I make an informed decision?

I'm not an expert, myself. But I do think/hope I have enough tips to consist of a useful conclusion to this post:

Plan ahead. If you vote in person, figure out what's on your ballot before you show up and get jumpscared by names you don't know. Find out what's on your ballot beforehand, and bring notes with you when you vote. Your city website should have a sample ballot, and if they drop the ball, go to Ballotpedia.

Ballotpedia in general, speaking of which. Candidates often answer Ballotpedia's interviews, and if you're lucky, you'll also get all the dirt on who's donating to their campaign.

Check endorsements. Usually candidates are very vocal about these on their websites. If local/state progressive leaders and a couple unions (not counting police unions lol) are endorsing a candidate, then that's not the end of my personal research process per se, but it usually speeds things up.

Check the back of the ballot. That's where non-partisan races usually bleed over to. This is the other reason why notes are helpful, because they can confirm you're not missing anything.

I've seen some misconceptions in the reblogs, so an addendum to my point about bringing notes on the candidates: I strongly suggest making those notes a physical list that you bring polling place with you. Many states do allow phones at the polling place, but several states explicitly don't — Nevada, Maryland, and Texas all ban phones, and that may not be an exhaustive list. There may also be states that allow individual city clerks to set policies.

You should also pause and think before you take a photo of your ballot, because even some states that don't ban phones still ban ballot photographs. But whether it's a photo, or just having your phone in general — in an environment as high-risk for voter suppression as the current one, you don't want even a little bit of ambiguity about your conduct. Physical notes are your friends.

[stuckinapril]

idk if it's only me who noticed this, but what's the point of being like "racism bad!! equality for all!!" when you disbelieve people of color when they tell you about microaggressions they experience on a daily basis? like i've truly noticed this trend where it's lucrative to be anti-racist on paper--to reblog token posts that make it seem you're wholeheartedly behind certain issues--only to turn around and act as if poc are an inconvenience / nuisance / too sensitive for pointing out certain behavior you don't deem problematic or hurtful enough. and to me that's nothing if not a full on erasure of that person's lived experience

[mewglitch]

(black) rap won't fix you until you listen to at least one indigenous song

also sorta unrelated but i still don't understand why "white" (read: light skinned people) aren't allowed to use aave. like maybe it's

the current trend of "tumblr users embarrassing themselves by proudly announcing why they don't listen to any music made by black people" is really astounding.

i cannot help but think this is a direct result of liberal White Guilt and how people have interpreted "anti-racism" as form of cultural self-segregation - the kind of person who thinks trying to cook chicken curry is cultural appropriation, or sends white people anon hate for wearing a kimono (yes, this kind of discourse happened). like, "oh, no, i could never participate in this culture, i'd get my evil white hands all over it! it would be more Progressive if I only did White things."

if you're a poc you've seen this, i'm sure - this deer-in-the-headlights stare you can get from white people when you play music / show art / share a story / anything that is Racially Coded, this total refusal to actually engage with it out of fear that it is in some way Wrong for them to have any opinion on it. because they read somewhere that it's bad to use AAVE but the only lesson they actually learned from that is "gotcha, white people are not allowed to interact with other cultures as punishment for my White Crimes. this helps to fill up the gaping pit of my white guilt and makes me one of the Good People." this transforms their discomfort around non-white cultures (black culture, especially, i should add) into a kind of virtue

anyway if you are white and reading this. go listen to some fucking haliu mergia. ethiopian jazz. will knock your dick right off. go listen to rap or reggae or bollywood and have a genuine reaction to it - like, an actual, from-the-heart reaction. you are allowed to not like some of it. but you will definitely like at least a little. yes, you can compare it to lemon demon (or whatever) if that helps you get into it and that's your only point of reference. maybe don't say that part out loud. but don't, like, separate yourself from it, like you are seeing it in a museum and the only polite thing to do is go "ahh, huh, very interesting, so much culture here."

[interdimensional-chaos]

The Ex-Mormon thing is complicated and if I see any blanket statements about it being a cult I will bring out the block button.

Yes we have a persecution complex.

No it was not JUST about Polygamy its always been a thing even before that got rolled out and we didn't move to Utah so we could "practice Polygamy in peace."

It was also because we advocated for freed slaves. That was the complaint about us in Missouri at least.

We were hunted down multiple times just for existing. Just like so many other groups that exist. Bullies will take any excuse.

LDS history is complicated and messy but don't think for a fucking moment that it's black and white "they're evil." That's the same trap the church has fallen into too

[mwagneto]

hungarian/nomadic magyar tumblr circa 998AD dashboard simulator

🏞️ vándor-ló-979 Follow

not yall still spreading emese's foundation myth??? she literally claims she fucked a bird????? like either she's lying or she cheated and she's trying to cover it up or well. i dont even want to consider the third option

🪺 magánügyek Follow

tengri forbid women do anything???

735 notes

🦅 szél-könnyű-szárnyán-szállj Follow

okay im sick of the discourse let's do this.

8,572 notes

🐎 istván-rovására Follow

that took so long lmao -> !!!!!!!∧◇ᛏ⋈∧

481 notes

🐴 csillagösvény Follow

i'm so serious rn if you support """istván""" in any way just unfollow and block me. we do NOT need him or his dumbass god and what he's been doing to our people to spread his religion is shameful.

🐴 csillagösvény Follow

btw we all know your real name is vajk stop larping as a christian it's EMBARRASSINGGGG

✝️ esztergom-örökké Follow

love seeing my mutuals reblogging this /s anyway op has multiple posts on their blog supporting quartering and human sacrifice. in case you were wondering. anyway stand with István

🐴 csillagösvény Follow

1) we dont even do human sacrifices, are you fucking stupid??? show me ONE post where i talk about that. 2) are you seriously forgetting that your bestie istván LITERALLY QUARTERED HIS UNCLE?????

#sorry to put this dumbass on the dash😭 dont even engage just block them #ur not making it up the tree of life lmao #discourse

3,264 notes

🌅 bolygó-kárpáti Follow

friendly reminder that just because you're white passing doesn't mean you're not a real magyar!! people with mixed parents are just as valid <3

🏇 attila-népe Follow

cranky coz ur ancestors decided to mix with the europeans arent you

🧺 lemezelő Follow

isnt your girlfriend literally frankish????

🏇 attila-népe Follow

you had to have done some serious stalking to find that💀 and first of all i didn't have a choice, my parents picked the tribe, and second of all she's not my "girlfriend" i got her via ritual kidnapping (WITH consent. before anyone gets weird)

🌐 a-kiber-kovács Follow

Couldn't you have kidnapped another magyar woman? Or someone from another mongoloid tribe?

🔅 hadúrsimp Follow

ohh sure so now human pet guy is gonna chime in to advocate for the kidnapping of our women while being lowkey racist. what are you even doing on nomadblr????

🌅 bolygó-kárpáti Follow

what the fuck happened to my post

19,276 notes

🪔 rakabonciás Follow

for the nth time, you're only a true shaman if you were born with teeth OR with extra fingers OR in the sac. the rest of you are faking & we can tell.

🦅szél-könnyű-szárnyán-szállj Follow

okay people keep spreading this but this is literally just wrong?? like congrats on the 6 fingers op im glad u and Little Golden Father have a special connection (genuinely) but like. táltos and sámán and mágus and garabonciás and javas etc are all different things with completely different requirements and life paths which you should definitely know if you're claiming to be one?? especially since your post says shaman but you're listing the criteria for a táltos, and your username looks like a play on garabonciás so. which is it🤔 maybe get your facts in order before trying to gatekeep

anyway don't listen to op!! your connection to the Upper World is yours alone and you're the best judge of what the Fathers and Mothers want your path in life to be!!

646 notes

🛐 mea-culpa Follow

It breaks my heart that the majority of my people still refuse to see the One True God and insist on sticking to their pagan spirits. I fear that when judgement day comes, we will all be wiped out thanks to their foul godless ways.

🐴 csillagösvény Follow

how tf am i godless when i literally have dozens of gods? little mothers and little fathers are in everything all around us & it must suck ass to live in a world where you're not surrounded by the small gods that inhabit everything. manifesting that the fene and the guta tag team beat your ass tonight

🔅 hadúrsimp Follow

hadúr will literally strike op down personally. he told me himself. whispered it to me sweetly even

🐴 csillagösvény Follow

while i agree with you, i feel like you might also have ulterior motives, nomadblr user hadúrsimp

#but live your truth! doubly so on the posts of these freak repressed bible lovers. meanwhile on the #COOL side of magyarhood we walk around butt ass naked!!! op have fun never experiencing joy ever again tho #discourse

198 notes

👑 sanctus-stephanus Follow

posting from an alt so i don't get cancelled but lowkey i'm starting to think koppány was right.... maybe this christianity thing isn't gonna work out after all

👑 sanctus-stephanus Follow

WRONG BLOG

👑 sanctus-stephanus Follow

THIS WAS A JOKE. IGNORE THIS

🪺 magánügyek Follow

ISTVÁN????????????? 💀

[acid-ixx]

do i look like him?

— just another series concept. please note that talia sexually assaulting bruce is retconned in whatever portrayal i have of her. i will not tolerate any racist or sexist remarks towards her character for a mischaracterized version of her, written by some gooner.

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.

i don't know if anybody would be interested in a certain premise i'm planning. taylor's song, "like him" is resonating off of my body, and i've a draft written inspired off of the song featuring yandere batfam x damian's twin! reader x yandere! al ghul family.

wherein instead of being neglected, you're treated like royalty by your own family. your twin is subjected to the cruelty of being raised as an assassin. you're met with scarred hands, nicked back, and calloused skin every time he comes back from your shared room after another particularly harsh training. yet every time you worry for your older twin, he'd silence you with the same bloodied hands that handled bodies like ragdolls, gently like it has never killed, with hushed promises whispered by your ear that "this is necessary for your protection, akhi/akhti."

at first you'd be convinced that this family lifestyle is normal. your mother is doting, she is kind, she is where you learned the word mercy; unlike the fierce image she displays in public. you're often spoiled rotten with her favorite shades of clothes, and her teachings emanate within you a deep sense of loving for animals. you never truly see her cruelty for other humans, as she often makes you sit by her lap upon a seat you call a throne when you were all but a mere five year old, playing with your hair, muttering affirmations and cradling you on her chest every time you ponder too deeply about the word, 'father'.

a word you'd read from those fairytales by the library, a word you craved to know, a word forbidden to be stated by everybody within your castle-like home.

she'll call upon your brother every time your curiosity gets the best of you, and the duo would try their best to sway your attention away with playtime. either it'd be stories, or damian showing you new tricks he'd learn from masters long overthrown by your twin, or it would be as simple as talia dragging both her beloved children to the huge kitchen, demanding the head chefs to bake you and your brother's favorite dessert (a little moment to spoil your brother after a hard-earned day of training, even if damian isn't always fond of sweet confectionaries; your grin would always tempt him to take a bite of your food if it means spending a day being himself).

it seems even damian plays along with the sick fantasy of not acknowledging the possibility of an alive father figure to you. not like you'd be aware of it, too caught up with your grandfather teaching you about rare species' on the verge of extinction, his (rarely) soft gaze fixed on the way your small body would gently pat the face of his wolf companion, or your brother constantly vying for you, his younger twin's, attention, eliminating all possible rivals who could potentially act as your future playmate that only he has the privilege for, or how your mother seeks you, her youngest baby, out, for a day of rest after another mission, doting smooches on your face, her lipstick smearing all over the soft chub of your cheeks, dismissing your pouts

a perfect family, with not much left to desire for your part.

so why is it that talia would often hear damian complain about your sudden fixation about a father figure? you'd mumble, something about one of your servants who mentioned visiting her father for vacation, a man who works as a merchant for his family; you asked them what your father's job was, what his name was, "why isn't he here at the family dinner?"

you asked, with wide, pitiful eyes, a feature long foreign for hardened assassins, but associated only with you. a quality nobody in the league dares to criticize; your gentleness the only thing keeping their leaders sane, keeping most servants alive as you find precious each and every single living being; not exclusive to animals or plants, but to humans too.

you're the league's only hope for reprieve, for softness in the moments of emboldened duties and priorities. you're the fingers that caress on calloused skin and the lips that kiss bloody scars. the hearth that warms even the coldest of hearts.

which was why nobody attempted to answer you, no matter how much it breaks your heart; because nobody wanted to ruin your soft and kind heart, or see the sullen droop in your eyes, or red, sniffling nose.

yet once ra's heard the confession of you being aware of what a father is like through the mouth of your servant, he'd immediately demanded another assassin to eliminate whoever dared mentioned such preposterous concepts to his grandchild.

throughout their rage, throughout damian nuzzling his head on the crown of your, muttering that whatever his baby sibling is sputtering is nonsensical, mere fantasy, arms encasing your entire body. he'd cradle you, run his hands against your hair even with furrowed, always angered brows; all the same questions lingered in the back of their minds:

is your current family not enough? why is it that the more you grow, the more you... wear the same expression of stubbornness, a quality your mother is sure you've adopted from you... father.

she may not be the best mother, taking both you and damian away from the arms of bruce wayne after she had learned about her pregnancy after a night spent together with the man, but she did it for the sake of her children; for your future, too.

bruce wayne will not be a good influence to you. if he tries so much to subject you into becoming another one of his robins, destroying your innocence, your perception of the world into a bleak portrayal of lackluster colors— ra's wouldn't hesitate to destroy the entirety of bruce's home.

and the manor is nothing! nothing, mind you, compared to the castle you call your home. only you deserve the richest of the rich, the shiniest jewels and the best treatment in the world. what more can gotham offer you? what more, if not for broken bones and bruised knees?

and so they settled upon ruining your perception of your father, with no known face to be plastered upon your memory, no known source, or picture— at such an early age.

if you yearn so much for a father, why not paint the image as dark as the cowl he wears?

why don't they feed you lies about him never wanting you and your twin in the first place? you'll be given opportunities to call an empty line, hoping your father would pick up, would respond and tell you that he's coming for you. they'll give you time to write letters, even if it takes your crummy fingers hours to finish a dedicated letter for your father, after years of being unable to meet him; it causes all the more ache in your mother's chest, witnessing her beloved youngest stay up late, whispering whimsical wishes about how excited you are to read your father's reply to you.

all your mother could do was kiss your forehead as she sat by your side, and rub your delicate cheeks with her fingers, mumbling that her baby should sleep now.

your mother never lies to you, no?

at least, not outright in your face.

damian, hates seeing the heartbreak in your eyes, but he's the very same twin who comforts you every damn time you fall to your knees after discovering that the letters you sent to your father's locations were long since unanswered — even if they're all hidden away in a vault of every possession you thought you lost. he'll pick you up with his trained body, and you'll melt even further into his form, shivering at the prospect that you're an unwanted child in the face of your father.

soon.

soon, you'll learn to despise bruce with every being of your soul, and learn to only reserve the association of warmth for your only family. you'll be the spoiled royal of the al ghul, and you'll come to find yourself grateful that you're raised without his presence, deluded into thinking that he abandoned you, that he never truly cared in the first place.

you love your family, you hate bruce wayne.

he is not family.

he is not your father, he lost that status long ago right after you thought he'd ignore all your calls, your messages, letters, gifts, every and any signal sent to the man you once called your father right after learning his name. he made you hope, he left the light flicker once flickering within you now blown away, leaving only an empty husk of your wanting to meet your father.

you hate bruce, you hate him so fucking much, you're ashamed that he's even your father in the first place— even if he's the very same man working tirelessly, day and night, to save you, once he caught news of what his children looks like, and locks eyes with your hopeful ones, a rare sight amongst the imagery of assassin. he plans to retrieve you, to save you, from the castle you call your home; truly what you call your cage.

little did you know that you are more like your father than you are with what you call your family.

— heavily inspired by @anxiousnerdwritings portrayal of twin!reader.

a/n: i honestly don't know half of what i wrote. i'm out of my mind, and i'm honestly not confident with the outcome of this concept. if people do like it (leave comments, or inputs, or whatsoever) i might post a chapter about this (since i do have one written in my drafts a week or two ago). if not, i'm dropping this and leaving it as a concept mostly, a one-time thing at best. so if anybody does like this, please do tell me. i do have a lot in store for this concept, specifically the way manipulation works within this family convincing you the other side is evil; i've been through this once w/ my family actually ngl, so writing this was a bit fun.

[pinkrangerv]

Brown is the color of land that grows. It brings food to eat; trees to shade us; grass to walk on. It is the color of the growing earth, the land that gives us life.

Brown is the color of a land stripped bare of water, burning under the sun, where one wrong turn will let the sun kill you.

Brown is the color of the buck and the rabbit and the bear. Brown is the fur of the animals we share the world with--the animals we kill, the animals we save, the cycle of life and death that all of us eventually return to.

Brown is the color of the mouse with Black Plague, that only wants to share your food and doesn't know that it carries your death.

Brown is the color of my father, and my father's father, and my great-grandmother, and her people in Mexico. Brown is the color of almost every person in the world. Brown is the undertone of even my mother's people from Europe; all our skins began brown and carry it even with a thousand mutations.

Brown is the color of the dried blood the morning after someone forgets their skin is brown, too.

There is no right answer to this. People who say there is a right answer are wrong-adjacent (it is Complicated and it depends on what they mean, but saying one is above all other answers is, imo, wrong).

What color is brown?

Brown is a shade of orange, imo!

[vampiricvenus]

No but seriously if your problem with niqabis is that you "don't know what's underneath that" and that makes you scared while loving all the stuff the op of the post I reblogged on it mentioned (Slipknot, Ghostface masks, Daft Punk, etc) and talk in semi-jest about wishing to not be perceived, your issue with niqabis isn't a universal distaste for people who "hide" themselves (as if that's any of your business regardless of who we're talking about).

Your real problem with niqabis has much more to do with the racialization of Islam making you see a visibly Muslim woman covered up to that extent as inherently suspicious, which is why you don't have a problem with white Western people from culturally Christian backgrounds hiding themselves in similar manners. When they do it it's fun, it's exciting, or just innocuous. When a Muslim woman isn't fully visible to you she's a potential threat and a source of discomfort, because you find Muslims inherently threatening and uncomfortable.

In summary, you're a racist little prick with incredibly delicate sensibilities and you should be put down for your own good if simple pieces of clothing make you that scared.

[styxspawn]

finally quitting my abusive job that underpays me to be sexually harassed by my coworkers and assistant managers in between an influx of racist customers due to the general Climate right now. while I'm onto something better, I'm still having trouble with funds for transportation including staying on top of my credit card bills since my job no longer covers transportation to even get to work without it, and I still need to attend a doctor's appointment between that so I can keep getting treated for my debilitating depression (which has been improving and will keep improving as long as I can afford to keep seeing my doctor. which is my main concern).

any amount at all would help. if you voted, consider reblogging too, and please don't tag this as d*nation or anything of the sort

blue link

green link

[eowynstwin]

This truly is the last thing I want to say on this blog and then I'm done psych I lived bitch, but given how the fucking catastrophe started it's only appropriate this is how I end it—

You have racist bias whether you like it or not. Particularly if you are US American, racism was baked into your worldview no matter what kind of household, liberal or conservative, you grew up in. Racism is quite often far more covert than it is overt. It is not just a voluntary behavior; it is more often the subconscious ways you organize and hierarchize other cultures and people.

In the case of Gaz—sure, you might actively believe that he deserves to be more included. You think he's a good character and people really should think about him more! But you personally headcanon him a certain way, and really it's not a headcanon you're actually all that into, so that's why you don't talk about him as much. It's not because he's black, it's because he doesn't fit the thing you like talking about the most. The fact that he's black is really just a coincidence, you're not excluding him because of that. In fact, you're sure other people like him for exactly the reason you're not all that into him, and you'll just leave it to them to pick up the slack. Or you'll get to him later! In fact, you have some ideas for him. You just haven't gotten around to them yet.

Take that and multiply it by thousands of white women in fandom—not just this fandom, not just Gaz's character, but every fandom and every character of color. It doesn't matter that there's no active malice behind not personally liking black characters and other characters of color. Non-white characters still take a backseat to their white counterparts, because white women in fandom cannot wrap their heads around black, brown, indigenous, and Asian characters as complex, complicated characters worthy of their interest or frankly, their desire.

They cannot wrap their heads around this because they were conditioned not to by decades of racist culture.

Case in point; plenty of white women in this fandom have fallen head over heels for Makarov and Graves. The sins of these out-and-out villains are totally forgiven by virtue of their sex appeal, and because they are portrayed by attractive, charismatic men who put a lot of passion behind their performances.

But can we say the same for Hadir? Can we say the same for Hassan?

The sins of these two Middle Eastern characters do not outweigh those of their villainous white counterparts, yet how many angsty fix-it fics have been written exploring Hadir's complicated relationship with violence and imperialism? How many enemies-to-lovers or even lovers-to-enemies fics have been written about Hassan, the face of whose homeland has been irrevocably marred by US interference?

No one who points out the racism of this trend is accusing these white women of active, militant white supremacy. I'm not saying any of you even have to like Gaz, Hadir, or Hassan. But your preferences have been tuned for you by a culture shaped by slavery, imperialism, and white supremacy. That is not something you can escape merely because you support the BLM movement or reblog vetted Palestinian gofundmes.

The only way you can truly fight your own racism is to be actively anti-racist. It is about far more than who you give money to or what graphics you pin on your instagram. It is an everyday practice of learning how racism has shaped your worldview for you.

This is not work that is done in a week, a month, or a year. Becoming anti-racist takes as much time as it took to make you racist in the first place. For some of you, the work may turn out to be easy. For others, it may be hard. You must do it either way.

Some good places to start:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Ain't I a Woman? by bell hooks

We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks

A Burst of Light by Audre Lorde

The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Being Palestinian edited by Yasir Suleiman